Toxic Relationships : Top 3 Signs You Are Healing From Narcissistic Abuse

Embark on a transformative exploration into the journey of mending the soul after the ravages of toxic relationships. As we navigate the labyrinth of healing, we uncover the profound shifts that signify recovery—moving beyond the pain to a place of joy and resolved purpose. Together, we'll unearth the tactics to co-parent with peace amidst the chaos of a difficult ex and learn how to reclaim our identities from the shadows of former abusers. The power of community shines bright as a beacon of hope, guiding us through the remnants of our trauma into a future where our scars become marks of strength.

The silent war of understanding narcissistic abuse can feel like an unwinnable detective case—a haunting search for logic in the illogical. This episode peels back the layers of confusion that can entangle the mind, focusing on practical steps to redirect our energy away from former abusers and towards self-healing. We dissect the manipulation, the love bombing, and the emotional triggers that keep us bound, encouraging a shift to document and recognize these patterns, not to dwell, but to liberate ourselves from their grasp.

Finally, our conversation takes a deep breath, focusing on the emergence of authenticity through the ashes of past trauma. We underscore the importance of acknowledging and treating our emotional wounds with the same care we would a physical injury. Resources like a masterclass and specialized programs are highlighted, offering pathways to self-love and self-worth. It's a promise of a life lived authentically—a firm step towards a future where our thoughts and actions align with the very essence of who we are, unshackled from the chains of toxic ties. Join us in planting the seeds of healing and watch as they bloom into a life rich with confidence and self-respect.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

and each week we will bring you an important message as we explore how to detox toxic relationships. The aim of this podcast is for you to unlock your own inner knowing, your own inner greatness, so you can know how to heal from the impact of a toxic relationship, so you can get your life back on track and live your best life. After all, we are all worthy of loving our life. You ever felt lost in a fog of thoughts of someone else's deceit or found yourself piecing together a reality that never actually was? You're not alone, nile. Narcissistic abuse, or after you've been in a toxic relationship, or when you've been through a lot of trauma. It leaves even the strongest minds questioning reality. How do we know when we're actually healing? Let me tell you what I personally think when it comes to when I'm talking to clients. But before I go into that, I just want to reiterate that when we're in a toxic relationship or we've been in a toxic relationship, the trauma is horrendous and sometimes people don't understand what we've been through. So in order to heal, we need to create a community. We need to actually help one another. You subscribing or doing a review for this podcast, if you have actually found it helpful is actually going to help us grow and reach more people in the community that want to heal. It takes a whole community to heal, so please, let's start helping each other, and if you can do that, I really, really appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 1:52

I want to cover a couple of points today from there's two beautiful listeners that actually have asked me a couple of questions that I want to address today. How do you heal when you're co-parenting with somebody who is toxic, who is potentially a narcissist, and how do you explain to someone what has happened to you so that you can get the support that you need? These two questions are so important, but actually, when I was doing this podcast, I realized that they actually cover both questions and I want to break this down and then we're going to piece it all up together again at the end to actually answer these two questions. So bear with me on this one. Before we can actually answer these, we have to look at how you know. How do we know if we're healing, first and foremost, you know, or that we have actually healed. You know what are the signs of actually healing? I really want to cover this because I don't think I've covered this already One of the biggest indicators that I look for when I'm looking at where is somebody in the healing process is how are they avoiding getting triggered? And then maybe, maybe, they're actually not going out as much. They've got an overall level of anxiety and depression and fear, levels where they're not doing as well as you would have expected, given who they were before they met the narcissist or the toxic person or the abuse that they've been through. If they hadn't been in a relationship, what would they be like and what are they like at the moment?

Speaker 1: 3:45

Narcissism, the best way I can describe it, and this is some a way that maybe you can explain to other people. Narcissism is very much like being in a prison. It really is. You're in this prison and it's not your average prison. You're not just physically imprisoned and isolated from people. You're not actually allowed to express or process your emotions like you used to. You're not allowed to express your thoughts like you used to, and sometimes you don't know who you are anymore. You don't even know what you want anymore. You can't make decisions anymore. You're not allowed to make decisions. You're not allowed to be yourself. That is it. You are not allowed to be yourself, and it gets to a point where you don't know who you are anymore.

Speaker 1: 4:43

If you want to be able to explain to somebody what it's like to be in a toxic relationship, one way would be to describe that it's like being in prison, and a lot of people that are some of the greats that have described what it's like being in a prison. They always talk about that, no matter what anybody does. They can't take away what you think. Unfortunately, when it comes to being in a toxic relationship, they are trying to control what you think and when you are now in a position to actually go into the world, you might now be afraid to go into the world where you don't know if you can cope in the real world anymore. So imagine you have been in prison for a period of time. It's normal to feel anxiety about going back into the real world because you don't know. But there's going to be an element of will I be able to get a job? How will people view me? There's all these things that actually happen and it's understandable and it depends on the extent of the impact that they've had on you and the amount of time that you've been in the relationship, on how you feel about yourself, where you might have your whole identity taken away from you. It could be that your whole life is changed because of this, just like if you did go to prison, your whole life would change. Afterwards You'd have to start over. It really is the same thing.

Speaker 1: 6:20

Another way I personally know another quick way of really knowing whether somebody is healing is Do they still tell their story? And it's really important to look at this, like, are they telling their story over and over again or have they stopped telling the story? This is when you know whether someone is healing or is ready to heal as well. So are they focusing on the other person still, or what they have done, what they haven't done? Because it's only then we can start to live our life and then start looking at how do I achieve more and start over again and do things that actually bring me joy, so I feel freedom.

Speaker 1: 7:12

So if you're co-parenting with someone that this is really difficult, because normally what they are doing is using the children to trigger you now I mean it's the worst possible thing anyone could do. It's, but just let's go back a step Is that when you've been in a toxic relationship, the brain is very traumatized, and the reason why it's traumatized is because there's an emotional and psychological abuse that's happening in these type of toxic relationships and what they are doing is triggering you over and over and over again every single day. When you've been in a relationship with someone that's very egoic, very egocentric like narcissistic personality disorder or just some narcissistic traits we cannot even sit here and tell you or tell somebody else what the reason is behind what they did. And that is the biggest issue that most people have is it's nonsensical, it doesn't make sense, it's bewildering, it causes cognitive dissonance, because the truth of the matter is the whole situation is completely unbelievable and no one will believe it because it makes no sense. Then they will gaslight you further over and over again. So hence, in a lot of ways, one of the places that we need to get to is not so much talking about the details of what they did, but more explain from a generic perspective of what these people have done to you, so that you can enable other people to understand, using metaphors or maybe even what the person has gone through in their life to explain, like how you weren't allowed to really truly be or authentic self.

Speaker 1: 9:25

The worst part of this abuse is that it really does trigger and what it is, is they create wounds or they look for your wounds in the first place, your core wounds. They actually in the love bombing phase. A lot of the reasons why the love bombing phase is so important to note is that if they are trying to get an understanding of all your vulnerabilities, it's really important to note that they could be using that against you at a later stage. So they wanna find where your core trauma is, where are your triggers, where are your wounds? And then what they do is they say, huh, we're gonna trigger those particular wounds where you, the person that is experiencing it, will go into instant confusion, because it sets off this painful scenario where you're triggered and the pain is so intense and emotional that your psychological thinking is taken over by why, why, why, why did I react this way? And why, why, why, why did they do this to me? Why, why, why, why and how could they have done this? Because it's so painful. And that's where you'll start to question and go into a loop where you're going round and round in your head and in your thinking. Could they not see the impact that this had on me? It hurt me so much. Could they not see the impact that that had on the children? Why did they do this?

Speaker 1: 11:15

The impact of this is and then, when you go into the thinking part and you become this analyst, you then become a keeper of, like, all these files, these records, and you become a detective and you're investigating and you're trying to understand what's going on and your whole focus, before you know it, is on this person. This person, your whole awareness, your whole focus, your whole consciousness. It shifts to them, to what they're doing, how they've made you feel what's going through your head and imagine, all of this is in your head and you're trying to make connections every day and you just can't let it go. And it's like you've have you seen you must have seen some of those detective stories where you see a detective or some sort of police story and they've got this board and they're trying to make connections and they're mapping everything out and they've got dots everywhere and they're making connections where connections can't be made and they're trying to piece it all together. That's what you're trying to do in your head all the time, and if you can't put it down on paper, it's even harder because you're carrying all of this in your head all the time and you're trying to log everything and look at everything that is going on.

Speaker 1: 12:46

Now, one thing I would say on this point while we're here is that if you are in a toxic relationship and you have actually you have thought, ah, I need to log everything. You know, that is the first sign that this is all happening. Yeah, that you're having to log it and see what's going on so that you can create sanity for yourself. I would say it's an important step to log things, to see things outside of you, to get it out of your head and onto paper, because then you can actually look at how to heal the triggers and what the key triggers and the key trauma is. What are they doing and how do they do it. Then you can see what they've got in their toolbox and what they're likely to do.

Speaker 1: 13:39

A lot of toxic people have certain methods that they use. They all kind of have the same toolbox, but tools. They're more like weapons. To be honest, they're not a toolbox, but they all use these certain weapons and what they're trying to do is trigger you as much as they can, moving forward so that you might not find yourself ever. But if you heal yourself. If you heal the trauma, you can find yourself again, and what happens is when you get healed is then you can see them clearly. You're not in pain, trying to heal your wound and hurting and in pain and feeling confused and everything else. You're actually able, because you're not getting triggered, to actually look at them and see them for who they are, without getting drawn into the pain of it. Yeah, so it's slightly different. It's like then you can see them as a three year old throwing a tantrum and you don't take it seriously anymore because you've healed your trauma, you can switch off.

Speaker 1: 14:56

So, just going back to the detective, have you seen some of those episodes of detectives that it just takes over their life and they take it home with them and they have this map going on at home because it's literally like a problem they wanna solve. It's like or like if you can't think of a word, it just bothers you. It's because our brain wants to complete, our brain is wired up to complete things, so it's something that we can't deal with until we get to a space of completion and you can't complete with what the narcissist is doing because none of it actually makes any sense. So the problem is then is that there's no peace in your mind, that you don't get any peace. You don't get any time off to just switch off. There's no peace now, and all you really want, when your brain is going round and round and round, is peace.

Speaker 1: 16:00

And the reason why you're busy doing the looking for patterns, even where there are no patterns, is you're trying to explain that it's not your fault Because, remember, the narcissist is always blaming you. The ego is always saying it's your fault rather than my fault. It's always us against them. There's no unity, there's no togetherness, and it's those triggers that trigger your trauma, where you might have subconscious thoughts now and belief systems now, where you feel like I'm not good enough, and that then drives us and compels us to prove, explain, defend, and then we think about it and go round it in the story, explaining it and having this conversation in our own head. Well, they did this and then I did this, and so you're explaining, you're proving, you're getting validation in your own head, in your own conversation, going round and round and round and round.

Speaker 1: 17:06

But unfortunately it doesn't actually heal the trauma and that's why there's still a need to keep talking about it and going over it in our heads and to continue going through it all and going through the records and making sense of it all. Now I would say to you please do keep the list, please do keep records, please do keep dates, files, emails, messages, screenshots, whatever it is that you need to do. But no, then none of it is gonna make sense, and that is what you want to prove. If you are having to go to court, yeah, but you don't need to prove that to a friend or to a parent or to anybody else. You really don't need to. You just want to keep it high level, explain it on a high level, but you don't want to go into the story, because the reason why it's so toxic and the reason why it's so difficult is because we get addicted and drawn into the story, because it's not one thing they did to you.

Speaker 1: 18:14

It's the daily, small, ongoing, small things, over and over and over and over and over again. It's relentless, and then it's the gaslighting. And this is all from somebody who's supposed to love you. It is so tough and people don't understand, and the key here is that they are supposed to love you. That's the pain, see ongoing pain that hurts. They're supposed to love. They're supposed to love that child. That's where the pain is. They're pretending they don't love. It's not real. See, narcissism.

Speaker 1: 18:58

At the root cause of it all is a lack of self-love. We have a lack of self-worth in this relationship after this relationship, even before we got into the relationship, and you have to heal that, to heal narcissistic trauma. You can't get around it any other way. You're going to be going round and round and round your head analysing, and you'll be experiencing the effects of post-traumatic stress, which is memory loss. Your brain isn't functioning the way it used to, your body is shutting down and it's a huge amount of stress. You are not built to deal with that. I know you're strong, but nobody no human being, is built to deal with this ongoing stress and the ongoing quarter though that is being pumped around you, where you're walking on eggshells. You are not meant to deal with this. On top of that, the memory loss. You can't remember who said what to who, and then you have to just know that there is no winning with this person. There is no explaining, there is no reasoning. They will twist everything psychologically where everything is your fault and it will happen over and over again. There's no point in talking to this person and explaining.

Speaker 1: 20:29

A sign that somebody is really overcoming narcissistic abuse is that they stop telling that story when they come out of the narcissistic, abusive relationship. They're not talking about it, they're not trying to find a solution in the story and make sense of it or trying to complete the story. Then, of course, once you've done the work and you realise there's no solution, then you're ready to actually deal with the problem that you've got in front of you, because part of the problem that we have is that we're expecting them to be logical or be in reality and behave in a way that is reasonable. There's nothing there. There's nothing real there. It's like a three-year-old coming to you and telling you a fantasy story and it can change moment to moment. It's just a story. It was all an illusion. They are an illusion.

Speaker 1: 21:36

Imagine that a child has created an illusion and they're just telling you a story, a fantasy that makes no sense. This I mean. Sometimes three-year-olds make more sense, you know. But this person who is dependent on an illusion, they can't be real because it's about their survival. He's picking through and there's no point in looking at what's here, what's there.

Speaker 1: 22:15

What we have to do is look at where are the triggers and then allow your mind and your emotions to say, okay, I'm going to deal with the triggers so there's no more emotional pain and psychological pain. Because when there is no more emotional and psychological pain, I can then deal with this better. I can deal with this illusion better than I could if I was getting dragged into it and getting triggered. Because you have to realize there is so much emotional pain and you have been trained to ignore your emotional pain as if it is not there. You're numb, probably. Or if you are feeling the emotions, they're probably emotionally overwhelming and then you feel numb, sometimes emotional overwhelming, and then you feel numb sometimes.

Speaker 1: 23:10

Many people with trauma because they don't know or they've never been allowed to process their emotions. You have no choice but to avoid these emotions being triggered because you don't know how to deal with and deal and feel and process your emotions. So, even though they can't keep up with their lives, there's no way you can keep up with their lives and illusions. So another sign is that you're on your way to healing is the emotional intensity around what's happening to you and the impact it's having on you and your body. If you're finding that you've got anxiety or you're a migtela the part in the brain that gets activated when you're in a state of fight, fight, freeze, fawn that is because you're trying to run away from a threat. That means that you're seeing them as a threat. That means all of the emotion that's associated with the story that's been going round and round in your head it's been heightened.

Speaker 1: 24:20

And even though, even if you're not talking about it, if you're getting really emotional, it might be that you're compartmentalizing everything so that you can't really you're okay in certain areas, but you're blocking and numbing it and then it's overwhelming. It's so emotional because you haven't been able to calm your nervous system down and actually process the emotions, process the trauma. So when we start healing, we are not so emotionally invested in what they are doing, because we know it's nonsense, even when you have a clearer head, to say, okay, how do I deal with this? And you might even laugh. I know it might sound crazy, but rather than getting emotionally angry and stuff, you kind of just laugh about it because it seems silly, because you kind of see it in a different perspective. You calmer, you have more clarity so that you know what you want to do next and this is the key part you know what you want and you do know how you can get to that and what your next best step is. And that's a sign of recovery, where the emotions gone down and instead of it, there's a peaceful acceptance of who they are, of the situation that you've been in. So then you can move forward.

Speaker 1: 25:49

So, unfortunately, it doesn't happen just by saying things like I forgive them, I accept them. This isn't something that you can just use your logical thinking mind for. You actually literally have to heal and let go of the triggers. You have to heal and let go of the story that you've been repeating and there's a sort of common difference going on here that you have to give up, you have to let go, you have to let them be who they are, and that has to take place. And you have to give up on the illusion, then, of this shared fantasy that they care about their children, that they're going to be a good parent. It's so painful, but they won't. They're the same with everyone. Unfortunately, they lack empathy. That is what they are about. They only think about supply. So you have to give up on what was and you have to get into reality, because what was was an illusion, it was a story. It was an illusion. The person is an illusion.

Speaker 1: 26:59

So when we are in a situation, no matter what situation, first we have to give up on the illusion of how they treated you and how you wanted them to treat you, yeah, of how you wanted them to be with you. That's the illusion, that's the hope, that's where the hope is. When we feel hopelessness, it's because we are holding onto the illusion to some degree and we just don't know how to get that back, get that illusion to the reality that we want. Helplessness and hopelessness comes from where we're still holding onto the illusion to some degree. We have to give up on the illusion of what we wanted for our child to have as a parent and actually accept they have you as a parent. And that is where the element of healing will begin, because then you will need to acknowledge the trauma and the stories and heal the triggers so you can let go of the trauma and the stories, so you can become free of them.

Speaker 1: 28:13

And when you become free of them emotionally and from the stories that you tell in your own head, you can deal with the illusion that they're creating because you know it is a story, it is an illusion. You don't get emotionally invested in it, and then you're in a better position to help your children navigate what's happening. Then you can get support, then you can put all the things that you've learned, the logs, the information you've gathered, to actually show the illusion, show that they don't do what they say they're doing, and you don't have to explain, defend, prove. You don't need, no matter how strong you are, no matter how strong you think you are, that you should be able to deal with all this stress and stuff. That's just conditioning from the narcissist, by the way, that they're creating this illusion of you should be some super person that nothing should ever get to you, because that means they can continue to abuse you and you should be strong enough to deal with it. That's what it is. So if you feel that you're supposed to just be able to bounce back without healing, it's because somewhere you've taken on board that belief system that it doesn't matter how much you've been abused. You should just be able to just miraculously just get over it.

Speaker 1: 29:42

Finding out the person that was supposed to love you didn't love you is painful and ultimately there's a deficiency in self love because of it, because then, deep down, really deep, we think we didn't deserve to be loved. That's not true. That's not true. You are worthy of love. The hardest part is thinking that your child will have this belief. Also, do you think your child is unworthy of love because of what the narcissist is doing? Be honest with me. If you don't have a child, just imagine, just think of a child is not worthy of love because of what the narcissist's issues are. Why should this be any different for you? Until you can feel the pain, acknowledge the pain, release the pain, accept a deeper reality, accept the reality at the deep core, there is this pain. Until you can deal with it and let yourself get closer to the reality that you are deserving, you are deserving of love. You are so worthy of love. Until you can get to that reality, you're living in an illusion as well that maybe you didn't deserve love.

Speaker 1: 31:04

You know, remember, where there's a narcissist or a toxic person, there's so much drama. Why? Why is there so much drama? Just for a moment? Why? Why do you think there is so many fights? It's to distract you, to keep you looking away from the person that they are the illusion they're trying to get you to feel so much pain, so much hurt, so you never find out how empty they are, that they don't feel connected to another human being. They don't have the empathy that you have. They never did. They never did. They never did. You don't know who they are or what they're saying. None of it is true.

Speaker 1: 31:48

All they're looking for is supply and, unfortunately, where there's an ego, a high level of ego, there is no connection to the authentic self. There's the spirit of life, everything that uplifts you, the real stuff, and part of this experience is that you need to feel the sadness and to know what it feels like to be around someone that has a big ego, the lax authenticity, so that you can connect back to yourself. That's the lesson here. So you can connect back to joy, love, peace, happiness, your spirit, to reconnect to your true self, to that which you really realise, who you truly are. That's the value in this journey. That's the value, and if you can go through that journey, your children will see you smile and laugh and have joy, and then you will be the role model to show them how to do this. You have to role model it. You have to do it.

Speaker 1: 33:04

Each of us has an opportunity to get to our authentic self, the real you, the real reality you, not this illusion. Another sign of a person overcoming narcissistic trauma is you will laugh more. Everything is a struggle. When you're in a toxic relationship, everything's difficult. We lose our joy, we lose everything fun, and sometimes children around us can sense it. People around us sense it because we're dealing with such so many issues, so much struggle, because of the trauma that's being triggered over and over again.

Speaker 1: 33:44

In simple terms, when we get triggered like this, we will keep getting more triggered, quicker and quicker, because the trauma is like a wound. Right, it's just an invisible wound. If someone keeps triggering you over and over again, that wound's got bigger, so it's easier for somebody to come and hurt you. Just to keep it simple, and what we have is we've got to get to a capacity. We've got to get to a space where we're now healing ourselves enough, where we don't feel like we can't get out of our comfort zone. The truth of the matter is we hold ourselves back in life because we're dealing with stuff that's traumatic all the time, so we don't have the capacity to do anything else that puts us out of our comfort zone, we can't take anything else. So if you weren't triggered all the time, you wouldn't feel as much procrastination, fear. You'd actually move your life forward and transform your life quicker.

Speaker 1: 34:53

If you're finding that you're not doing the things that you used to do, it's because we need to actually realize that we become more hypervigilant, we become more hyper-sensitive and we need to heal those triggers, heal that pain in between each of the triggers. So, for instance, you need to create space. So imagine it is like a real wound, right? So you need to then make sure, instead of allowing your wound to be invisible for everybody, you need to take some time to heal it. If you had a real gash in your leg, wouldn't you actually go to the hospital and get some stitches done? You take the time out to get the right support to heal it. So then, that way, if someone comes along and pokes it, while it's a big wound, it's not going to hurt you as much. Right now, we need to get to a point where we're being honest about where we are. If we are hurting, we need to heal it. If we are having these thoughts, we need to heal it, just like you would if you had a huge wound, you take the time out to actually heal it. That way, as your wound starts to heal, they haven't got much to poke at and then you can actually feel authentically you and actually look at things in a different way, where you start speaking the truth about who you are.

Speaker 1: 36:26

You need to break out of the prison. Basically, you don't have to prove that there's nothing wrong with you. You don't need to do any of that. What you need is to get some help to actually break out the prison. And to break out the prison, sometimes we just need to go.

Speaker 1: 36:45

You know what? At the moment I'm not thinking the thoughts that I want to think. I'm not feeling the feelings that I want to feel. It feels like this person is in control with what I feel and what I think and right now you might not be living the life that you want to. That's authentically you. So you need to break free and heal yourself. And if that's you, then please do look into the resources section and look at the masterclass and download that and we can then see if you're ready for the heal to thrive program. I only have limited slots available every month, but if it is something that we align with, then we can look at how to heal together so you can get to a space of self love, so you can get to a space of self worth and actually live the life that you are deserving of.