So you've got no contact with your narcissist and now you're starting to doubt yourself.
Sometimes it feels like maybe it was the wrong idea or maybe you know it was right logically,
but something in you keeps dragging you back.
What is it? Why does it happen and how do you get through it? That's what we're talking about today at Queenbeeing.com.
So, let's get started (Closed captioning provided by
Athena Moberg and CPTSDfoundation.org. My name is Angie Atkinson and on this channel,
i offer free daily video coaching to help you discover, understand and overcome
Narcissistic abuse and toxic relationships. I like to call it toxic relationship rehab.
So if that sounds good to you hit that Subscribe button and let's get going. Alright, so earlier today
I had a question in the comments from a viewer who said; hey
I just broke no contact and I feel terrible about it.
It ended up not working out and now here I am, just back to square one feeling absolutely miserable.
I talked about this in the live chat with Dana this morning,
And I'm going to share with you a clip from that.
But I'm also going to share a few extra tips right after that. Ideas to help you get back on track.
So take a look at this;
Dana what are your thoughts about that? You know I think going no-contact is,
It's a lot like kind of falling forward and it's easy to slide back into, sometimes
we don't even want to, like we might have to talk to them for some sort of reason and then they just won't...
they just keep pushing contact or a lot of people fall for the the false promises of change or they
you know, nostalgia or hope kind of set back in and then they then like nope! then you know,
Things were great for a week and then the abuse started up again and then they get really down on
themselves and I think this is just one of those experiences in life that we just have to really
triple up our level of self compassion and
we just... Sometimes we just have to go around that mountain a few times to really make sure that yep!
this is indeed painful, that I don't want to be here,
I can't be here. If I'm gonna give you advice on how to move on from here,
Mhmm, I would say first of all, stop beating yourself up about it, right?
I mean, yeah,
we've all done it at different levels. When you go through something like this, when you go through a toxic relationship; you're being abused regular
mentally, especially
psychologically, otherwise.
I think what people miss is that, they don't always see that there's this chemical addiction or this chemical in connection with these people.
So it's the same area of the brain that is affected by drug addiction and alcohol addiction.
It's the same kind of... It's that behavioral
shaping, that modification of like intermittent reinforcement.
And it really is like you would use the analogy a while back about... it's like quitting a heroin addiction.
Yes, and it very much is like that. Yeah, so it's normal for you to want to go back,
It's normal for you to feel the urge, even though logically
you're like I don't want to be with this person because they abused me, this other part of you...
First of all,
we have abuse amnesia, the longer roadway, that
the less we remember about the bad stuff and the more we remember about the good stuff.
This kind of stuff actually is true with childbirth as well. Yes, you know and that's probably why we keep going as sapecies,
because if we remembered every second of all of that... might not be so popular.
With that being said, I think after you forgive yourself, then you just have to get back on the horse, on the wagon,
whatever you want to call it. You have to just start again. We never really fail in my opinion and in my
weight loss attempts are evidence of this. We never really fail in my opinion until we stop starting.
Okay, because we mess up sometimes, whether we're talking about eating or exercising or no contact people or
drug addiction or alcohol addiction, whatever it is that we're struggling with, food addiction. We can overcome it,
but sometimes we have to start and start and start and start and that's okay.
I mean give yourself a break, but at the same time don't give yourself so much of a break.
You're like well, I'll just go back for a couple of years and it'll be cool because that's not a case
Like you were saying there's no sense in us you know, beating ourselves up about it.
I think there's if we can replace that judgement that we feel about our behavior and replace it with curiosity,
whether it's... I mean, girl I'm with with you on the whole weight loss thing like, with weight loss, whatever it is, right?
You know, weight loss, a toxic relationship,
you know, what have you.
When we go around that mountain
I think it is helpful to take a step back and while we're being compassionate with ourselves,
to be curious about; OKay, hey! why did I go back? Like
what happened here? Like what was the pull? What could I do differently? Um, how can I set myself up for success
next time?. Yeah, and it's just that process of
moving forward in all of this and
I think with moving forward it does help. You know, I just really feel like it's...
It's really helpful to have
other things... because when we're addicted to something, it's that rush of dopamine that were addicted to, that's what feels good,
that's why you know junky food tastes good. That's why it feels good in the moment.
That's why going back to toxic people feels good in the moment.
It's that rush or you know, it's that rush of dopamine and if we can get that dopamine and other
more
like, healthy? Yeah, healthy ways then it's gonna decrease our dependency on just getting it from them.
So I think it's like,
exercise, having a sense of a
support system,
getting out there, having fun or at least being around other, like empowering, nourishing people. It's really difficult.
I think we're hardwired
for a consistency and it's really difficult, change is difficult anyhow, but it's especially difficult if
and we're social creatures, even if we're introverts, we're still kind of
Biologically hardwired to seek out other people and if this abusive person is our only other person in our life
Or like 90% of our life. It's really difficult for a person to walk away from that.
You know meetup.com, I'm a big fan of that website;
Getting together with different people, around things that are actually enjoyable to you and
building up that support system. This is something a person can do even before they leave,
it just makes it so much easier to have kind of a plan in place for getting those needs met, your support needs met.
Yeah, and simple things like gratitude practice; If you practice gratitude daily,
it makes a huge difference because, here's the thing dopamine is the feel-good thing,
you can do things that you know will make you feel good...
In addition to everything that Dana said which is entirely accurate, if you can think about things that make you feel good, like even just
laughing at a movie or a TV show that you love or
being grateful, because if you can feel gratitude to the point that it gives you that little tingle right here, you know,
like I'm so happy and grateful that I have my cats,
I'm so happy and grateful that I have this or whatever, you know.
Whatever it is that makes you smile and laugh.
Think about those things or think about things that make you feel happy and strong and secure and whatever.
Those things can help to kind of increase that production as well. You're trying to rewire,
basically
your brain sort of, just to stop wanting to stop at the narcissists turnoff, you know
let it go on past that too happy, you know what I mean?
Yeah, I agree quick. And the other thing about gratitude that I absolutely love is, it's a really great antidote to fear
yes, and
If we're fearful about finances, about what the future may hold, about finding love again, about any of these things,
being grateful for the little things really does help to just bring a person into the moment and
I'm just such a huge fan of that,
it's amazing what that can do and that's something that doesn't take a lot of time, doesn't cost any money and it just
makes when... when we flood our system with like, appreciation
It's all of those feel-good chemicals and just the realization of there's still so much that is right with your life right now.
Absolutely. Yeah, so, okay
so here's the flip side of this, a lot of survivors that have been out for a while and they've healed to a certain degree,
they're like come on over, the water's fine.
I think there's this space in leaving that people don't often talk about I see some people in the chat that are struggling with this
right now, like I'm having nightmares.
This abuse amnesia, like I'm really struggling right now,
I thought leaving
would end all of this and I'm still struggling like and this is... a lot of survivors or like come on over
you know, the water is fine and you know life is gonna be so much better when you leave this person and
that is often time... That's true in the long run,
but there's a short term, you know a real difficult part,
especially if a person doesn't have some sort of degree of support system there.
It can really just be kind of this like long dark road that a person has to walk and I don't think that that's talked
about enough.
I think that when we say you must go no contact, a lot of people feel almost threatened by that, because of this...
They can maybe see this or they've done this before,
where they go through that right? Where they get to the other side and they're like, It's not that great over here.
But I would say one of the things I found when I did it, when I went no contact the first time and the second
time. Mm-hmm... First time with my ex, the second time with my
narcissistic parent. I found that while the first few weeks were a little bit torturous,
it got better with intentional vibration management or
the healing process.
You know as it went, it got better; And one of the things I think all the time,
that I messed up on a little bit when I first went through this myself
was, instead of shoving down the emotions in me like, okay
I have to be happy now, a lot of people forget and I forgot it. first
to feel the emotions and let them out and let the crying happen and let the screaming and whatever you need to go through
happen once you get out of that relationship,
and I thought... I
think that going through that and then finally allowing the emotions to come out and wash over you and then work through them, I think
that's a big piece of the healing even though it sucks.
It's a big piece of a healing because it opens your mind and your thoughts to the
possibilities, because when you're in the relationship you end up not
being allowed to feel all that stuff. Do you know what I mean? Yeah
I didn't feel like my feelings were valid because I didn't even know what had happened
and
so this derailed me for years and I
have always been kind of more Buddhist in my beliefs and I really got involved in Buddhism and
so all of these emotions that I wasn't dealing with
ended up kind of... I was hiding, not knowing... these was not a conscious thing at all
but those emotions were hiding behind a lot of more of like,
my beliefs about kind of non-attachment
and
basically being wantless and needless
kind of with Buddhism and
so I wasn't dealing with any of these emotions because I just didn't know what was going on or
anything. I just wasn't validated at all and didn't even realize that I needed validation, right?
And I think I was in a similar boat, because even when I went no contact with my narcissist parent,
I had just barely started to scratch the surface of understanding
NPD and what it was and so I hadn't really... I
didn't know the term; no contact. I just did it
instinctively you know and then as time went on I realized and there was...
There were a lot of emotions in both of those cases. Alright,
so now that you've heard that let me share a few more ideas with you.
So breaking no contact with the narcissist is hell. If you have to be in contact with a narcissist
I'm gonna give you a few tips on that and then I'm gonna share with you a couple of more ideas on
going and staying no contact.
Let's start with; What do you do if you have to be in contact with a
narcissist because you're going through a divorce
Or a child custody thing or whatever it is that you're dealing with,
you have to deal with them for some business reason, whatever. How do you deal with them? Well start here;
So obviously you want to be incredibly careful in this case and you have to understand that it might take a little while to feel
strong in this situation, but if you follow these few rules, it will help. First of all, number one;
You have to make sure that you never act sincere to the narcissist,
that doesn't mean that you have to be totally be fake all the time. Like oh my God... it means
that you have to
keverything on a very surface level,
be polite like you would be if you were in a customer service position and you had a rude customer, speak to them calmly
without emotion and without serious
connection, be superficial and insincere. It will feel weird to you, but it will be worth the effort
I promise. The next thing you want to do is, again be polite, be I wouldn't say friendly, I would say
polite and
make sure the conversation doesn't get too deep and it doesn't deviate from whatever your purpose is with that person.
Also never mention your feelings to them about anything. They don't get to know that anymore.
The next thing you want to do is appear to be completely thrilled and awesome in life,
don't give them any details about your life, but also don't seem miserable or unhappy because just like a vampire can smell blood, a
narcissist can smell misery and they'll just want to hurt you more,
they'll want to poke the wound as it were. Don't give them that opportunity. Don't mention the past and don't do anything
that's unethical on your part. So what I'm saying is enforce your boundaries and don't try to scam the narcissist,
It's not worth your energy or your time and it's bad karma anyway.
So why do we break no contact when we mean to stay no contact. Logically, we understand it's a bad idea,
but what causes us to break it?
Well
we kind of touched on it a little bit in the segment with Dana, but what it comes down to is that,
breaking no contact is very similar to
sort of a relapse of a drug addiction or an alcohol addiction.
It's very difficult to create any serious change in your life, and this is no different.
I'm not gonna go into all the brain chemistry right now, but if you take a look at the video
I'm gonna leave for you right here, you can dig into that a little bit deeper.
The thing is that, we have a serious emotional attachment to this person whether we like it or not and so going through a no-contact
situation can make it feel very
painful, can make it feel like somebody's ripping our face off,
but in reality if we get through the pain,
we will find our lives being 100% better in the long run. Like Dana and I talked about it's not always so easy,
but it's real and it's something that when you can get through it,
You can recognize you don't want to go back to it. So the viewer who just broke no contact, I'll say this;
The way you feel in this moment, I want you to sit down and I want you to write it down, paragraph by paragraph.
Write down every feeling you have about it, how you wish you didn't do it and how you feel about yourself in this moment.
I want you to forgive yourself,
but I want you to take that piece of paper and I want you to put it somewhere that you don't lose it and then
If you ever feel tempted again, I want you to pull it out and remind yourself why you don't want to do this.
Remember that narcissists don't create meaningful change in their lives,
sometimes they may appear to change in order to get something they want or to have something that
you have or to get something out of you. It's almost always about getting something for their change,
but their change is always temporary and it's always superficial, so don't expect that
somehow some miracle is going to happen and your narcissist is going to be different than the rest and actually create positive change.
You deserve better than that,
remember that.
This brings me to the question of the day,
and the question of the day is; Have you gone no contact with a narcissist?
Did you break no contact and if you did break no contact, how did you get back on the wagon?
And what did you do? If you didn't break no contact or you haven't yet broken no contact,
what are your thoughts about all of this?
Share your thoughts, share your ideas, share your experiences in the comments section below and let's talk about it.
This is kind of an important deal you know,
so make sure that you if you have a minute, share your experiences because another survivor
might be able to read something that you wrote and it could really change their life today and I think that's good
Karma, if we're talking about Karma. I just want to say a big thank you and offer a shout out to my channel members,
Deborah my newest member, Angela Falsetto my very first member, Susan Marion and Roxanne Antal.
Thank you so much for your support and your love and your kindness. I appreciate you and thank you for being part of my SPANily.
Alright, that's all I've got for you right now.
As always thank you so much for being a part of my day and a part of my life and hey!
thanks for letting me be a part of yours,
It really does mean a lot to me. Now before I go make sure you take a look at the videos
I'm leaving for you right here and right here and while you're here, hit that Subscribe button right there
so we can stay connected and continue on this healing journey together. Now don't forget you're never alone. You've always got your SPANily
I'll see you soon.