How Do We Heal The Broken Parts Of Us That Attracted Us To The Abuser To Begin With?

By Dr. Betsy Usher

I’m going to go with an approach that may not fit everyone, or not everyone may be aware that this is relatable, or it may not be them. However, what I’m about to say I believe is the primary root of reoccurrence of being re-victimized by a narcissist and steps to achieve freedom from intimate partner abuse from a narcissist. I’m going to explain the set up of how most of us got here, how there was a recreation of these same family dynamics, and steps to prevent the same story repeating over and over and over again so you and your children can be narcissist and abuse free.

Let me start by saying although we can look at ourselves and take some responsibility, this was not now nor ever your fault. Now that your eyes are open and you are more conscious it becomes our responsibility through education, healing, empowerment, and loving support to make new conscious decisions. Now you can have the choice! But we must take the steps to get all the way there.

Now, the odds are high that you suffered from narcissistic abuse as a child. I mean really high. It may be hard to see if it was covert (hidden) and it may be difficult to admit especially if you feel you have a close relationship with your parents or caregivers at this time in your life. One of both or your parents does not necessarily they have true narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) in order to come from what we call a narcissistic family, however, that is most likely what you endured as a child to begin with. You were set up, groomed, and primed for this dynamic to happen again without evening knowing it happened to you to begin with.

Overtly narcissistic families are the typical dysfunctional family. These families usually have alcohol or drug use, physical violence, sexual abuse, and are profoundly neglectful. Covertly narcissistic families can be so difficult to detect. The family looks normal from the outside, good even, and even okay from the inside. However, these children were not taught about their feelings, emotions, identity, and self-worth. There was covert aggression that was confusing and the focus was always covertly on the parents needs. Statements like “You’re too sensitive” “You aren’t going to wear that lipstick are you?” “You need help,” “I’m sick mom” Mom says “I’m not feeling good too.” Mom telling you all the secrets and being depressed, never being good enough for dad or couldn’t get his attention.The message was you aren’t very competent, we don’t trust you, see you, or hear you.

The child experiencing these overt or covert traumas develops a survival strategy or a defensive style. There are four types Fight (narcissistic defense), Flight (OCD) , Freeze (Dissociative) and what Pete Walker calls a Fawn (Co-dependent).

Feelings were just not talked about in these families; there was no room for you to be a whole person. There was criticism, scapegoating, and not being allowed to take up space. A child cannot bear to think of their parents as bad, they are dependent on them and that is too scary.

Therefore, the child believes instead that they are bad. They take on the burden of badness. They develop a deep internal critic that becomes their main voice to guide them through life.

At the core of both of these experiences were a feeling of abandonment, a deep desire to be seen, understood, heard, and a feeling of being unlovable. This is where toxic shame comes into place and this all leads to complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

What happens is then unknowingly, you re-enter into a similar dynamic with a new narcissist in adulthood called a reenactment. This is the dynamic you know, you are used to, have a high threshold for, and goes unnoticed for what it is, abuse. We are unaware of red flags (Read How to Spot a Dangerous Man), or we ignore them. Narcissists pick up on our trauma and target us, we tolerate actions because our threshold is high for them and we feel unlovable and have such low self-worth we think we just need them to love us, and we struggle with boundaries because we were never taught them in our families. We want to be rescued and we think we can save them too! We see the good moments as confirmation they can be good and if we could just change them then we would be that lovable, special, and have worth.

If we don’t realize our childhood traumas, our defensive style, boundaries, and build true self worth and love a new narcissist will find us. We will not realize this again and wake up a decade later in the same spot. We need to become unattractive to the narcissist by loving ourselves, seeing the red flags, and having healthy boundaries.

So……what do we do to stop the cycle?

1) Get into therapy that deals with trauma and tell your story, understand family dynamics, find your truth, cry and feel emotions that you are allowed to have and learn about them. Figure out who you are then and now and learn and understand boundaries. (Check out Brene Brown for this, she taught me everything).

2) Get educated on every book you can about Narcissistic abuse, C-PTSD, Narcissistic and toxic families, ect. That will become your fuel to empowerment. I made a list below of recommended readings.

3) Practice what you have learned in therapy with one person that loves you. You need to be around non-toxic people. People who show you love, respect, and compassion. Just ONE person can be incredibly healing. Even getting a dog or cat that loves you is healing, you need lots and lots of love. Odds are you have a lot of toxic people in your life that abuse your misunderstanding of boundaries and use you. They all need to go.

4) Stay single for a little or a long while so you can focus on you. Time is your friend for healing. Anyone who would want to date you after abuse is a predator. Period. You should not be desirable if you are broken and lost (that is okay and normal) and if they like that watch out, they are a predator who wants to recuse and abuse you too.

5) Get into group therapy or meet up group with other survivors. This is incredibly helpful to normalize your trauma, to feel love and support, to be with your tribe! They will be people like you and it’s fantastic!

Doing inner child work, biofeedback, EMDR, massage, relational therapy, radical acceptance therapy, some cognitive work, mindfulness, ect are all helpful. Know what type of therapy your therapist does and make sure they know how to work with trauma survivors or it won’t be a good fit and then you may decide therapy isn’t for you and it was just the wrong therapist!

The key is to find your self worth, to know your self worth, to be able to put up boundaries, and know when to trust your amazing intuition that has been ignored when something is wrong. The vehicle to get there warriors is COMPASSION. Be kind to yourself. It is the main road to talk to get where you are going.

BOOKS or Audiobooks in your car!

1) Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving (Pete Walker) MUST READ

2) The Narcissistic Family (Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman)

3) How to Spot a Dangerous Man (Rina Mcnally) MUST READ

4) You’re Not Crazy-It’s Your Mother (Danu Morrigan)

5) Becoming the Narcissist Nightmare (Shahida Arabi)

6) Why Does He Do That (Lundy Bancroft)

7) Safe People (Henry Cloud)

8) Co-Dependent No More (Robert Burney)

9) The Power Of Vulnerability (Brene Brown) Must READ