Separation From a Narcissist – What Remains Are Scars…(SCARY!!)
Separation from a narcissist brings with it many unpleasant consequences. At first, you may feel empty and feel that nothing can fill this void, even though you know that breaking up was the right thing to do. You may feel lost and after the initial shock is over, you will most likely feel exposed to various problems. These problems can be emotional, mental, and psychological, and they are extremely unpleasant.
Often there is no way around therapeutic help, and healing is a process that needs your full attention. But you will succeed in detaching yourself from your past. You’ve already completed the first and most important step, namely the separation from a narcissist.
In this article we’ll discuss the post-separation feelings which can accompany you under certain circumstances, and how to best deal with them.
1. Self-Doubt
In a relationship with a narcissist, various manipulation techniques are used by the narcissist to make you doubt yourself. These methods often cause you to second guess your own thinking and even feel responsible for your narcissistic partner's behavior in the relationship.
Accusations such as, "You're crazy," or, "You're just imagining it," will continue to circle around in your head for a long time. Thoughts like, "Maybe he was right after all," will permanently accompany you after a breakup. In addition, you will question everything you do after a breakup.
Everything is directed outwardly. But your real hurt is on the inside. Often you internalize the thought that you did something that caused the whole thing in the first place—especially if you were separated from a love in an abrupt and hurtful way. Self-doubt keeps you in a seemingly endless loop of self-analysis.
This is what cripples your ability to take action in the future, and prevents you from simply being yourself.
2. Revenge
After a breakup with a narcissist, you may feel the need to tell everyone about your ex-partner's machinations in order to get back at him. So it could happen that you rant about your ex-partner in the presence of others and even pillory him on the Internet, so that every woman is warned about him and everyone sees what he did to you. This behavior is understandable, because you were deeply hurt.
However, you should try to deal with it in a confident way, because if you have a proper distance from your relationship, you may look back and realize that this was just an unnecessary reaction.
3. Jealousy
Feeling jealous is perfectly normal when you have been replaced by, or are compared to another person. You focus on criticizing the other person to somehow make yourself feel a little better. Probably your focus is only on the negative qualities, but you can't really accomplish much in this process because you don't know that person.
And constantly comparing yourself to make yourself feel better than the other person does not resolve your inner deep feelings of rejection and inadequacy. It’s better to focus on yourself so that you can solve the very problems that actually need resolution.
4. Worthlessness
At the beginning of a partnership, a narcissist showers you with love. So you might base your self-worth on your partner's flattery. However, this is merely a ploy by the narcissist to win you over. As your relationship progresses, he begins to belittle your strengths and inflate your deepest fears.
If this relationship ends, especially if it is ended by the narcissist, you sometimes come to a point where you believe that no one could ever love you again the way the narcissist did. You may feel worthless and at the same time have become dependent on outside validation. Such outside validation supposedly makes you feel better. In reaction, you may decide to prove your own worth to yourself and take on perfectionistic traits.
If handled in a reasonable way, there is nothing wrong with this. Nevertheless, try to look at the circumstances that led to your injured concept of self-worth from an objective perspective. In particular, consider that even though the relationship may have had its good moments, they were mostly dishonest, and simply served the narcissist's purposes in using you.
5. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Victims of narcissistic abuse quite often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a complex disorder caused by chronic humiliation and control. Symptoms can include persistent sadness, helplessness, shame, guilt, as well as isolation, numbness, or tension.
You could simply say that in post-traumatic stress disorder, the body refuses to let go of the past. In such cases, it often takes years of therapy to get you out of the endless loop. Be sure to consult a specialist or therapist at the first sign of post-traumatic stress disorder. That's it for today.