Early Recovery from a toxic Narcissist and the cycle when NC is broken

Targeted treatment for you is key at this acute phase to treat and alleviate your symptoms. Waiting too long and allowing this to become chronic, delays the process and becomes more difficult to treat. Research has shown that those who avoid treatment often are still in cognitive dissonance and rumination often months and in some cases years out.

In response to a question regarding early or untreated recovery:

What you are describing is typical of early recovery. The physical toll the roller coaster ride with a Narcissist takes on our bodies is not often evident until we try to end the cycle. This is when we often see just how much damage has been done to our psyche. This damage includes our minds, bodies, and souls, ultimately adversely affecting our ability to reconnect with ourselves.

Whenever we attempt to change a toxic cycle patterns, we go through withdrawal symptoms. This is similar to the drug addict tying to detox from toxic subsistence. Regardless to how damaging this has been to you and to your body, it is still a familiar cycle and the body has grown accustomed to the "fuel" which you have been providing it for survival. When you are operating in survival mode, fight or flight, for months and in many cases years, you are sending signals to your body that this is the norm for you. Your body has no choice but to accept and try to operate on what is provided for nourishment and survival.

IF, we are providing for our bodies AND OR receiving as subsistence, confusion, instability, negativity, indecisiveness, pain, extreme highs and lows, we are left in survival mode, even when we try to remove the toxic substance regardless to whether it is being provided for us internally or externally and for our purposes here, it is generally both by the time we decide to change the script.

In early recovery we are trying to sort out what is our's verses what is their's and some of the damage has in fact stemmed from not only their abuse towards us, but our abuse towards ourselves by allowing to this to continue, due to denial, fantasy thinking, wishful thinking, and so on.

We are left trying to process internal and external grief and confusion all at once. This encompasses PTSD symptoms, biological symptoms due to severe prolonged internal stress, cognitive dissonance type of thinking, and in many cases a loss of spiritual connectedness and values, as we struggled to maintain and continue to function in a basically no win environment. A no nurture invalidating environment.

The first thing to go is generally one's ability to remain fully conscious. I often say, it is impossible to remain in a relationship with a narcissist and remain fully conscious. It cannot be done, simply because the words and the actions do not line up. So either they change and suddenly mean what they say and say and do what they mean, which is not going to happen, or YOU begin to pretend or ignore what you see and what you feel (your instincts and your higher self) and become unconscious in listening to yourself. You change yourself in order to fit into their bullshit world. Someone has to change in order to attempt to make it work and it's not going to be them, so you either LEAVE the relationship or you begin the process of making accommodations within yourself to try to make it work.

The next thing which happens with a narcissist as they see you fluctuating between trying to understand, perhaps becoming confused and asking questions, or wanting more, is for them to begin the process of tearing you down so that you will comply. Conditioning you to take the hits. This includes leading you to believe that the problems are your fault, that somehow you are basically flawed as a human being and this is WHY you did not understand what they said or meant, or why the relationship has gone from honeymoon stage to confusion for you. Why you are not getting your needs met. Certainly NOT because of them, more because you are now the problem. The narcissist is not confused, they know exactly what they are doing, it is you who becomes confused at this point.

Now not only are you semi conscious, you are now blaming yourself for the problems. You continue to try frantically to fix and repair all of this damage and just when you think you can try no more, you get the D&D, degrade and devalue on a level which surpasses anything you could ever imagine coming from your beloved.

He walks out and or says you need a stronger punishment in order to get with the program. Which of course means seeing it his way or the highway.

By now, you are a mess. You have given up major parts of yourself to make this thing work and STILL, it is not getting better and now he is gone.

WTF, you say to yourself, what more to I have to give?

This is just a snippet of the cycle, yet, trying to understand, what you are left with is not only understanding what happened, you are also left with trying to pick up the pieces of your life and get back to the you which has now become compromised at every turn.

Of course you are going to feel like crap and of course you are going to struggle and of course your body is going to feel like it has been betrayed, because it has.

This is exactly what we unravel, sort out, and fix in group. Group will be starting within a week or so, and I will give you the exact tools you need in order to feel better and return safely and soundly to yourself.

We have what we need to heal and recover completely from this ordeal within ourselves, we have simply lost our internal compasses, and need a helping hand in returning back to a place of safety and empowerment. I will be helping you to find your own north again.

The first thing you can do is to believe in yourself again, even if just a bit to begin. The first step is the declaration statement.

I WILL make it through this, I will find my way, myself again, and I will do whatever it takes to make this happen.

I want me back. I want my own thoughts back. I do not wish or choose to share my mind and thoughts with a toxic negative energy draining substance.

Giving our power to external sources IS the very nature of addiction.

I want my own will back, my freedom of choice. My own thoughts. My serenity and peace of mind. I want to believe what I see again and SEE (receive) what I believe.

I no longer want to live in fear of not getting what I want and what I deserve.

Change IS an action step. The first step to changing our circumstances is to want it and to declare it!!

Shout it from the tallest building: I want my life back. I want me back. I want to feel good about myself. I want my power to make the right choices for myself back.

This is the beginning to feeling better MsT. The rest will follow, I promise you this.

The final step to affirming the healing is to state your declarations in the affirmative, only after you have stated them from the feeling, true authentic self level.

We cannot skip steps in our recovery and healing or generally it does not work. Many try to go directly to the affirmative without doing the work and wonder why months out they still feel badly or in many cases go back to the narcissist.

This is because trying to go directly to go without processing, exploring, and releasing, your internal cognitive dissonance and pain is like putting a bandage over an infected wound and just hoping it will somehow heal itself.

It does not appear to work this way, if it did we would not be here, we would be all better and all set once we decided to reclaim ourselves.

Ultimately you will be saying you are free from the bondage of others controlling your peace of mind and actions.

You have taken the first valuable step to healing, you have joined the group, you are getting out how difficult this process is for you here, and the rest will come.

Try to be gentle and patient with yourself. You are receiving targeted treatment and it will work, it will just take time.

Trying to meditate when you are in cognitive dissonance is like trying to run the marathon when you have been confined to your bed for a few years.

I would never suggest that one of my clients in full blown cognitive dissonance try to mediate. What I do suggest is to begin to incorporate your declarations statements into your daily routine and as the dust begins to settle and you begin to feel more at ease, then we will take about meditation. There is also an active form of mediation know as kundalini, this is much better for those in obsession mode. This involves moving the body at a rapid pace in order to allow the bodies fatigue to take over the mind's temporary strong hold over you.

You can do this at home, order a CD specifically designed to do this or do it yourself. Turn on some music that you love which has a fast paced beat and slowly allow your body to move in a natural way, release the tensions and allow your body to move as it feel it wants to, try to let go of your forcing your body movements and just let it flow and as your movements become faster and faster you will eventually reach fatigue and allow yourself to drop into a chair or a bed and feel the energy flowing through your body, let your thoughts flow naturally and let out whatever wants to come out, during the process as well as after in the cool down period. If you feel like you want to cry, cry, if you feel angry just let the sound out. it may come out as a whimper or a whisper at first and turn into a full fledged yell or it may turn to tears, there is no right or wrong in this exercise, it is about YOU getting back into your own thoughts and body through body expression and fatigue.

Often we need to begin to awaken a different part of our body in order to allow the head to release and our bodies to reconnect.

Getting back to what I was talking about earlier, as we disconnect from our conscience selves, we are also disconnecting from our bodies. The bodies way of avoiding pain and grieve is to go into the head, thus obsessive and obtrusive thoughts which is our bodies way of protecting you from feeling too much at once. It's a form of self protection which serves you temporarily until you are ready to begin to take off that bandage covering your grieve.

These are just a couple of exercises you may try in early recovery to get you back into feeling and releasing your authentic feelings. Go slowly, this is a process, not a race..you will get there.

We look at this and so much more in group. I am thrilled at the opportunity to help you to sort this out and work it through.

Much love,
Together and Healing,
Goldie

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