Healing from emotional abuse can be a long and challenging journey. But what makes narcissistic abuse particularly difficult to overcome? It's not just the emotional toll it takes, but the spiritual damage it inflicts.

Unlike a mugging or a car accident, narcissistic abuse is a deliberate and prolonged attack. It targets the core of who you are – your very essence. A narcissist doesn't just hurt you; they aim to make you feel worthless and convince you that no one cares about you.

Here's what sets narcissistic abuse apart:

It's a calculated assault: Imagine a laser focused on a single point, meticulously chipping away at your self-worth. A narcissist uses your hopes, dreams, fears, and vulnerabilities against you, turning them into weapons to weaken your spirit and control you.

It exploits your strengths: Your forgiving nature becomes a tool for the narcissist. They repeatedly exploit your fear of abandonment to trap you in a cycle of dependence and misery.

It crushes your spirit: Unlike other traumatic events that leave you devastated but ultimately strengthen your resilience, narcissistic abuse is soul-crushing. It leaves you feeling utterly helpless and hopeless.

The road to healing requires a clean break from the source of this abuse. Many therapists fall into the trap of trying to "fix" the narcissist, inadvertently fueling the epidemic and inflicting further suffering on victims and their loved ones.

Here's the truth:

Narcissists are not wounded individuals: While they may have had a difficult childhood, that doesn't excuse their cruelty. They're adults with a significant lack of emotional maturity that is needed for healthy attachment capabilities.

Focus on healing, not the narcissist: Don't waste your energy on trying to understand or fix the narcissist. Focus on rebuilding your spirit and healing the chaos they brought into your life.

By understanding the unique nature of narcissistic abuse and prioritizing your own healing, you can rise above the ashes and reclaim your strength.

Narcissistic abuse by a close family member can leave a deep and lasting wound on the soul. This wound often manifests as shame, making healing a complex process.

The first hurdle is the HARSH REALIZATION that someone who you loved unconditionally, did not love you unconditionally. Even worse, they didn't even hate you, a twisted form of love. They simply didn't see you as an individual, but as a tool or resource.

Our response to this realization:

This discovery triggers an acute natural grieving reaction that feels scary and dark. This is a healthy reaction that shouldn't be stifled. Suppressing these emotions prevents natural healing to take place.

How to get through this safely:

To get through this moment safely, trust that this is a short-term emotional event, requiring no action from yourself, other than waiting it out.

With experience, you develop healthy tools to get through these feelings of overwhelm. Perhaps this overwhelm manifests itself in feeling like a small grain of sand on an ocean floor, powerless. That’s daunting; however, understanding that the universe overall does not harm us, is reassuring. We differentiate between the abusers who don't have our back, and the universe itself, which does have our back.

The second hurdle is the CRIPPLING SHAME that settles into your essence.

This shame stems from being constantly humilated for the abusers' entertainment, SHAMED for simply existing, and then being SHAMED for your reaction to the abuse, instead of how you were treated in the first place.

Finally, the SHAME we experience within ourselves, for getting trapped into this cycle of manipulation, for believing in this alternate reality, where you are labeled as an embarrassment, a shameful embarrassment.

In summary, when we are treated in a traumatic way by an immediate family member or a group of people, we experience 2 types of trauma: trauma from the event itself, and trauma from the cruel reaction from family and community.

How shame works differently than other emotions:

Emotions are experiences that we can understand and explain. They can be formalized in our brains as ideas, from which we can analyze them. We can ask ourselves whether they are rational or not? What can we do to change them if we do not like them? What can we do to hold onto them if we do like them? Shame as an idea is “self-loathing”. We can try to rationalize our self-loathing, but never completely get rid of our shame. That is because, unlike other emotions, shame also knits itself into our soul, both psychologically and spiritually. That’s complicated!

How does shame imprint into our nervous system?

This shame isn't just a psychological burden, it's a physical one. The chronic abuse creates a "trauma-induced stress disorder," where the trauma is compounded by the reactions of those who were supposed to be supportive. This emotional and societal blaming leaves an imprint on the nervous system, a scar on the soul.

Narcissistic abuse is not a one-off event, but a chronic, daily, system of events that gets knitted into your nervous system, day-by-day, year-by-year. As each traumatic event happened to you, some of the trauma was released by acute emotions at the time; however, much still remains. These emotional scars can also be knit into physical scars attained during the traumatic event. The trauma that remains is imprinted in our nervous system. It is a scar on our essence, which is another way to define shame.

How do we heal this shame that has imprinted into our nervous system and soul?

The good news is that healing is possible, but it takes time and patience. Healing shame cannot be forced. It's akin to natural growth processes. We start by planting a seed (our intentions). We provide proper soil (supportive environment) and then let nature take its course.

Sharing experiences within a supportive community can be a powerful tool, as different pieces of advice resonate with different people. The next blog in this series provides my own experience of the supernatural forces in my own healing. This very successful journey happened decades ago.

The journey to heal from narcissistic abuse is a personal one. By understanding the impact of shame, you can begin to mend the scars and reclaim your true essence.