You might also feel confused over what caused the person you thought was a perfect match for you to change so suddenly into a nightmare partner. It can be hard to find joy, and the future looks bleak. You also feel helpless and even hopeless. That kind of treatment results in chronic stress and persistent worry. After long-term emotional, and perhaps physical abuse, you’ve had your sense of self-worth nearly destroyed. It’s common for someone who has narcissistic victim syndrome to suffer from anxiety and depression. It can take time to rebuild your self-esteem and self-worth to regain an understanding of your value and why your boundaries should be respected. You might not even know what your boundaries are anymore.Īfter years of destroying your sense of self for their own narcissistic needs, you may not have a strong enough sense of self to know where your limits are. Narcissists don’t respect boundaries, and if you’ve been exposed to years of narcissistic abuse, you may have difficulty setting boundaries even if you’re no longer around the narcissist. Look to your support group for that safety and access resources like yoga, meditation and therapy to heal. It’s going to take time for you to unlearn your responses and to release this now subconscious tension from your body. You simply might not know how to relax anymore, and it will certainly feel unsafe to let your guard down. Even after you leave them, that tension stays with you. You’re really just trying to numb the emotional pain behind the physical manifestation.īecause a narcissist is so unpredictable in their behavior and emotional state, you can’t fully relax when you’re around them. All of these are common symptoms, and it’s not uncommon for people experiencing this kind of pain to turn to substances like alcohol or drugs to numb it. You might notice that you have experienced changes in your appetite, nausea or an upset stomach, gastrointestinal distress, muscular aches and pains, fatigue, and insomnia. In other words, you will experience real physical pain as a result of your emotional pain. These feelings can actually lead to somatization of your distress. Years of emotional abuse can leave you feeling anxious and nervous. This barrage of blame is designed to make you feel as though you need the narcissist to help you act responsibility, and this is something you will carry with you long after your relationship has ended. It’s good to be self-reflective and take responsibility for your own actions, but not everything is your fault. That makes you look inward first before blaming someone else. Narcissists have difficulty taking responsibility for anything, and if you’ve been blamed for everything for years, you begin to feel as though it is your fault. Even when you’re finally free from the abuse, you will continue to see yourself as someone who can’t make good decisions. They might say something like, “I don’t know how you would get by without me.”Īfter being subjected to these insults for many years, you start believing them, and they become part of how you see yourself. Your narcissistic abuser might even have called you stupid or ignorant, and they may even have done this is a falsely affectionate tone. Part of what the narcissist does is cause you to question everything you do, and that fills you with self-doubt. It also prevents you from truly experiencing your emotions.Īfter years of being subjected to constant criticism and devaluation, you might have very little self-confidence in your ability to make decisions. This has a beneficial effect in that it helps you stifle the pain you’re experiencing, it doesn’t really help you to actually escape the danger.Īfter being conditioned to freeze up for years by a narcissistic abuser, you may find yourself freezing anytime you feel even mildly distressed. Frequently, this happens because you have dissociated, a term that refers to emotionally distancing yourself from the traumatic incident.ĭissociation will help you numb yourself to the pain you’re experiencing, whether that pain is emotional or physical. When you feel helpless in an abusive situation, a common response is to freeze up. Here are several problems you might encounter whether or not you’ve distanced yourself from the narcissist. There are several signs that you’ve been subjected to long-term narcissistic abuse.
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