Coping With the‘Aftershocks’ During Narcissism Recovery

The aftershock of narcissistic abuse, once pulling away from a narcissistic relationship is a phenomenon that is very little understood. The logical consensus, when leaving a narcissistic partner, is because the abuse has finished, an individual should start recovering.

This belief is in fact highly inaccurate. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Complicated Stress Disorder occurs when the immediate danger is over, the individual is out of survival mode and has the time to feel and realise the extent of the narcissistic abuse that has taken place. When leaving a narcissistic relationship, this is the most precarious of all times, and the time when support and strategies are required the most.

Narcissistic relationships create intense chemical addictions to pain. The individual has been used to suffering great trauma at the hands of the narcissist, and also as a result of trying to hang on to gain sensibility, safety and accountability from the narcissist, which is a fruitless task. The harder an individual stays attached and ‘goes in’ trying to get the narcissist to behave like a normal human being, the greater the damage will be.

Inevitably, in order to savethemself the victim will need to eventually pull away and stay away from the narcissist in order to recover – and this becomes a horrifying and painful task if adequate healing and support is not committed to. The overwhelming feelings will be shock, addictive pulls, trauma, mind-bending obsessions, agoraphobia, anxiety, severely decreased functioning capacity and maybe even the loss of the will to live.

The treatment system that does work, is firstly the victim gains an understanding of what narcissistic abuse is, so that they can comprehend what has occurred. Then from that point forward it is essential that the person recovering from narcissistic abuse understands and claims the reason they endured what they did was so they could reclaim and heal their unfinished childhood and personal wounds.

When self-healing is committed to as an opportunity to liberate self and grow, and the focus goes into fully healing oneself, then the aftershock period is manageable and starts progressing forward to self-empowerment and a narcissistic free life.

The fastest most solid and powerful recoveries from the aftershock period, take place for individuals who make the experience a personal growth experience in order to heal, to become a more whole, complete individual, rather than remain a victim to the narcissistic abuse and losses they experienced.