Healing after narcissistic abuse

Understanding what happened and returning to yourself

Those who find themselves in a relationship with a narcissist are rarely experiencing this dynamic for the first time. The intimate relationship simply makes it more visible and more painful, but the pattern began much earlier, in your childhood.

Where codependency takes root, healthy attachment was missing. Not necessarily through physical violence or shouting, but often through the absence of emotional safety, space for your feelings, or love that felt conditional.

A parent or caregiver who ignored your boundaries, dismissed your emotions, or made you feel you had to adapt in order to be seen. That is where love became confused with survival.

Narcissism was already present in your life.

Codependency is born in childhood, where attachment was never secure and love was dependent on your behaviour. You learned to stay loyal to those who did not truly see you, and in doing so, you never learned what safe love really is.

If this is how you grew up, your system learned to carry tension as if it were normal. Your body became familiar with danger, not consciously, but through a deeply embedded survival mechanism.

And that is why you stayed. Not because you were foolish. Not because you were naïve. But because you could not see the truth through the fog of codependency, a fog rooted in a deep wound of longing, loyalty, and unmet need.

After narcissistic abuse, nothing feels safe

You know it wasn’t good for you. And yet you feel empty, confused, or even guilty since breaking contact. You long for peace, but your body remains in overdrive. Your mind keeps searching for clarity. Your heart still clings to something that was never truly safe.

Healing from narcissistic abuse requires more than creating distance. It requires deeper recovery, of your nervous system, your self-image, your emotions, and your energy. Only then can you truly break free from the dynamic.

Why it feels so confusing after narcissistic abuse

Many people recognise this:

• You think about your ex constantly, even though you know it wasn't a healthy relationship.
• You doubt yourself: ‘Was I too sensitive? Did I overreact?’
• You feel empty, anxious or exhausted, even months after breaking off contact.

These are not weaknesses. These are trauma symptoms. A narcissistic relationship disrupts your nervous system, makes you dependent on external validation, and blurs your inner compass. You lose yourself in the cycle of rejection, idealisation, silence, and confusion.

The nervous system and trauma bonding

Narcissistic abuse is not a normal argument or breakup. It is a pattern of disruption and confusion. The alternation between loving attention (love bombing) and rejection (silence, anger, criticism) creates a form of addiction in the nervous system:

• You become attached to moments of attention and approval.

• You start pleasing to avoid rejection.

• Your body associates unrest with ‘love’.

Even when contact is broken, your body stays on high alert. You keep looking for explanations, hoping it was different, trying to make sense of what happened.

Cognitive dissonance – the brain searches for answers but finds none

Narcissistic abuse operates on contradictory messages. Love is alternated with humiliation. Promises are broken without explanation. Your feelings are denied or minimised.

This creates internal conflict:

• Your mind tries to make sense of what is illogical.

• Your heart wants to believe it was once good.

• Your body feels: this isn’t right, but you can’t let go.

This internal battle is called cognitive dissonance. Your brain searches for answers but gets lost in what can’t be explained. It circles endlessly around “why” questions, but no real answer comes.

Why insight is not enough

Perhaps you have already read books, watched videos or undergone therapy. And yet you still feel restless or numb. Why?

Because insight alone is not enough. Healing requires more than understanding. It requires regulation, self-connection, grief and reprogramming of your entire system. It requires returning to your body, to your truth, to your boundaries.

What truly works – safety, grief, and reconnection

Real recovery begins with:

• Restoring safety – feeling in your body that you are safe now. Not just mentally, but physically. Your nervous system needs calm.

• Rebuilding self-connection – feeling again what is yours: your emotions, your thoughts, your needs. After years of adapting, this is essential.

• Allowing grief – not only for the relationship, but for what you never truly had. For your childhood, your missing boundaries, your lost energy.

• Reprogramming – releasing old beliefs such as “I have to work hard for love” or “I’m too much”, and replacing them with truth, strength, and self-compassion.

• Energetic release – not just ending contact, but cutting every tie that still holds you.

Recovery is returning to who you really are

You don't have to do it perfectly. You don't have to understand it all at once. But you can acknowledge yourself. You can return to your body, to your strength and to your life.

Recovering from narcissistic abuse may be the hardest path you will ever walk. But it is also the most liberating. It is not a weakness that you were stuck. It is strength that now allows you to see it.

This is the way back to you.

Would you like support on this path?

Discover my 16-week Codependency Recovery Programme. You don't have to do this alone.