The Number One tip for Healing after Narcissistic Abuse

5 min readMay 19, 2023

When you first make the realisation about narcissistic abuse, it can be both a relief and terrifying.

It was never you.

So, whilst this is a consoling realisation, it doesn’t distract from the ways in which your world has been turned upside down.

Everything that you thought you knew about yourself and your family, isn’t true.

It’s a shock.

It takes time to process it all.

After seven years of no contact, I have made many, many realisations. Each one, at the right time for me, has resulted in more and more healing from the awful effects of narcissistic abuse.

It’s a process of self-validation, grieving, and coming to terms with what I experienced. And with each stage, my parents’ power over me diminishes and my own self-confidence and empowerment increases.

The longest struggles have been the times when I have fallen into long-established patterns. These patterns were the ways that I thought things had to be.

When triggered I would suffer, not just from the trigger itself, but from the aftereffects sometimes for months. After months, I would find myself at the bottom of my own personal pit of suffering and have to claw my way up again.

It was exhausting. And demoralising because it would happen over and over again.

I probably spent more of the first two years of no contact in that pit than anywhere else.

I was used to suffering.

It might sound crazy but I thought that was the way that life was, I deserved it and it was normal.

Suffering became my pattern.

I don’t mean that I enjoyed it, I certainly didn’t, but it was a pattern begun in early childhood.

A pattern that I had established, encouraged and nurtured by my father, he relished it. It was the way that I had always done things and I didn’t know that there were other ways.

So, whilst the root of the issue might have been my father, I wasn’t aware of it. I never said to myself, I’m going to suffer to please my father. But it did please him. As his scapegoat, he was as happy as he was ever going to be when I was suffering.

Often, these things that you do, you think are you.

But they’re not.

They are from conditioning, from other people’s beliefs about you, from patterns long established. Other people putting their crap onto you, to make themselves feel better.

Things changed for me when I started asking myself questions about my behaviour.

It was a challenge, but I didn’t judge myself about how I behaved, I just took a look at it. With curiosity and taking all emotion out of it.

The more you just go with things, the more you just react, the more you fall into patterns that don’t serve you.

Recognising these patterns is essential to the healing process.

As is understanding that YOU DON’T HAVE TO SUFFER.

In fact, not only do you not have to suffer: you don’t deserve to suffer.

As the scapegoat, you take on the scapegoat role so deeply that you scapegoat yourself. That makes it even harder to shake these patterns because you think it’s you.

If you knew it was your parent that was the root cause of this, it would be easier to heal from.

At first you could change these patterns because you don’t want your parent to have this power over you. Maybe you do it to spite them at the beginning. Or a way to vent some of your anger.

But when it goes so deep, that you fall into these harmful patterns without even realising it’s from someone who wishes only harm for you, it’s difficult to break free from.

However, it is possible.

All it takes is the willingness to ask yourself some questions, whenever you feel bad.

Or even better, ask yourself questions about times when you’ve felt bad. Take a look at these times and see what happened.

Did you fall into that pit of misery?

What started it?

The more you can see the cause of it, what started it, the more you can heal.

Once you’ve healed that trigger, it will never be a trigger again. And therefore, the less chance of tumbling into that familiar pit of misery.

Pain is a part of life.

Just as joy is inevitable too, if you can allow it.

But suffering, tumbling into that pit, when it becomes about following an old pattern can be a choice.

Sure, no-one chooses to suffer, to be depressed, hopeless and in despair. But it is possible to get to the edge of that pit, take a look and choose not to fall into it.

It’s about being aware of that pattern, seeing how it has not served you in the past. Understanding the starting point, and not allowing yourself to be dragged down that familiar pathway.

The more you can take a look at your behaviours, whilst being kind and patient with yourself, the more you can heal.

I remember the first time I took a look down the pit. I knew what was down there, and I knew it could be months before I would surface again.

It wasn’t comfortable doing something different. It felt very, very strange, wrong even. But once I realised that I could choose not to tumble down there, and it felt better, I knew I wouldn’t go back.

Now, I pray that you can see the pattern for yourself.

The next time it happens, take a look into your pit and step back from the edge.

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