Are you struggling to get over a narcissist or any sort of toxic person in your life?
Have you just left or you're thinking of leaving someone and you're not sure how you're ever gonna let go? Have you struggled with
thinking about that person even when you don't want to and feeling like you miss them, feeling like you can't live without them?
Well, there might be one really important thing that you're missing in your recovery and that is called
Detachment and my friend detaching from a narcissist, it's an art form.
So that's exactly what we're going to talk about today at QueenBeeing.com,
exactly what detachment is, how you can implement it and why it's so important that you do so when you're going through recovery
from a toxic relationship.
So let's get started. (Closed captioning provided by Athena Moberg and CPTSDfoundation.org)
I'm Angie Atkinson and this is toxic relationship rehab, where I help you discover,understand and overcome
narcissistic abuse and toxic relationships.
So if you want to take back your life,take back your power and evolve to become the best possible version of yourself,
hit that subscribe button,stick with me and let's get going.
If you've ever dealt with a narcissist or any sort of toxic person in a relationship,
there's one really important thing that you might be missing as you're going through recovery.
Before I begin today, I just want to remind you that no contact is always the best option when you're dealing with a narcissist,
but you and I both know that no contact isn't always possible whether that's because we are in a business
relationship with that person or because they're in our extended family and we're not able to go no contact for some reason or because we're
co-parenting with this person.
So when you're dealing with someone that you have no choice, but to continue to deal with, this can be helpful as well,
but it can also be helpful as a general part of recovery, because I think this is something that many people just
miss when they're trying to get through the hard parts of recovery, so let's talk about.
Detachment and the art of detachment. What exactly does that mean?
Detachment is an intentional choice that you make when you're trying to pull yourself away from a toxic person.
You have to make the choice to decide
logically, I'm no longer going to be a part of this relationship. That doesn't mean that right then at that moment
you're going to feel completely detached,
that's just where it all begins.
You have to begin to consciously not allow yourself to get sucked back into the narcissist's games.
It's really difficult,
you have to decide that you're no longer gonna fall for the narcissist
manipulation tactics, not gas lighting,not projection,not belittling, you can't fall for any of it,
you have to decide that you will no longer accept nonsense answers and made-up stories as truth.
You have to decide that you will stand up for yourself or you will walk away
when you're dealing with a narcissist who's engaging in these games and
even though you know that some of these things worked on you in the past, you have to decide it's not going to work anymore.
So the first step to detachment is
deciding to do it in order to actually be
detached, where you really feel like you're no longer connected to that person.
You have to sort of fake it till you make it and I know that phrase is not really loved in our community,
but it's kind of true.
What I mean is you have to kind of go through the motions before you really get what you're doing, you feel me?
So in order to sort of protect yourself emotionally, you focus on the logic of it.
All you focus on the facts, you use your cognitive abilities to stay
logical and for the time being,
keep your emotion out of it.
Now, you will get to a point in recovery when you will want to connect your emotions to your logic of course,
but right now we're just trying to keep you protected so that you can detach from that narcissist.
Remember, we feel addicted to narcissists and toxic people who we've loved very much like you would feel addicted to a drug,
it affects the same part of your brain that drug addiction does. You're going to be
emotionally crushed,you're gonna feel a great deal of stress and you're going to feel really confused by everything your partner or
family member has done. Now, in many cases, you're going to want to start practicing this detachment
even before you leave the narcissist, so if you haven't left yet,
this is still something you can and should do, it sort of helps
you well,
detach, mentally and emotionally from this person so that you can start to imagine your life new, you can start to imagine your life different.
The hardest part of this is that you're going to have to start ignoring the
signals that your brain is naturally sending you, these are like
emotional triggers that come from things that the narcissist is doing or not doing in your life.
A lot of people tell me they want to check the narcissists social media every 5 minutes or
they want to text them and check in with them or they want to track him on their phones.
If you're already separated, you might be thinking about wondering who that person's been dating or you might just want to give him a call,
just to get some closure, you probably find yourself talking about the narcissist in different support groups or on forums online and
that's really a big part of why we stay stuck, because we feel like we can't really resist those urges,
they feel almost primal to us. Those types of messages are coming from that part of our self
that is primal,that part that doesn't really understand the logic of it all. This is why we have to really step up our
thinking game when we're trying to recover from narcissists. Our emotions won't allow us to overcome this type of abuse ourselves.
We need to bring in the logic, because the logic is the part that looks at the facts and the things that are actually happening
in the moment,
but you're gonna need a little bit of help with letting go of a narcissist
and the first thing is going to be the willingness to change your mind,
the willingness to have the intention and try to stick to it.
You have to be willing to let go,you have to be willing to tell yourself
no
when you want to look at their social media or
make a phone call or send a text or stalk them in some other way and the next thing you have to do is you
have to educate yourself on what a narcissist is...
So... Of course we know what a narcissist is,
but in case you don't, take some time,watch some videos,read some articles,find out exactly
what it is that you're dealing with if you haven't already and then use that information and that knowledge,
learn about the manipulation tactics,learn about the psychology of a narcissist,
learn about the spectrum of narcissism,the whole cluster B spectrum,take some time,figure out the narcissist and
how their
brain works and how they work and once you've done that, not only does it get a little easier to deal with the narcissist because
they are exhibiting
identifiable behaviors that are seen in all narcissists, this will help you
disconnect emotionally a little bit by itself once you've educated yourself about narcissism.
You're gonna also want to educate yourself about yourself and the reasons that you've found yourself in this position in the first place.
Another good reason to educate yourself is that it's not really fair or safe to assume that
every guy or girl is like the one you were just with. Narcissism and all of the cluster B
disorders can be very extreme and while the narcissist in your life probably made you feel crazy or
not good enough or controlling or whatever,
it's really important that you sort of overcome those false beliefs about yourself. You have to understand narcissists
can't take responsibility, so they're gonna do anything they can to avoid it,
of
course that includes blaming you or anyone else who's near them. By figuring out exactly how a
narcissist works, you can logically move through things, even if you are still in emotional pain, does that make sense?
So you use the information that you gather as a way to sort of
turn in the way that you're thinking,a way to sort of change lanes
so to speak, you stop thinking of you and the narcissist as us and you start seeing yourself as an individual,
you start worrying about your own safety your own well-being your own freakin sanity
and you start looking toward your own future. It's sort of like you're going no contact with them just
emotionally, on an emotional
iternal level and they'll notice it,
I promise you, but if you stick it out
you'll be able to detach fully when it's time, when and if you're ready, by protecting yourself with your understanding of the logic of the
psychology of all of these parts of the narcissistic
personality you're protecting yourself with your understanding of the situation.
You can put your emotions to the side as you
figure out the psychology of it and in my experience
I found that knowing the psychology helped me to identify those behaviors, helped me to go
okay, that's gaslighting, okay, that's projection,
whatever it was when I could see it in that way and I could identify and label the behaviors. It took the sting out of me,
I almost started to feel sorry for the narcissist when I could see how
textbook their manipulations were, almost. A few quick tips for detachment;
remember that you don't want to ever expect the narcissist to change and demanding that the narcissist will change is just an exercise in frustration,
so don't waste your energy or your time.
Understand, the narcissist
could change, sure,
but unless the narcissist chooses to change of his or her own volition,
it's not going to happen and in my experience and in the experience of many other people
I've interviewed and worked with, they don't change because they never think anything is wrong
and I know that's painful, but it's true.
The next thing you need to do is make sure you don't try to play the narcissist, play games with the narcissist.
Certainly,
it could be satisfying to take the narcissist and twist them around a little bit and give them a taste of their own medicine,
right?
but doing that, it's just going to cause you a great deal of stress and it is in many cases going to have the narcissist
rising up against you, it's just not worth it, it's like talking to a brick wall,
you can't expect it to hear you or change,
but you can certainly bang your head against it and wind up with injuries of your own.
Remember that there's nothing wrong with you,
you shouldn't have any shame or doubt about yourself because you do need to walk away from this person.
You're in a relationship that's toxic and it's destructive to your life and yourself,
not only do these types of relationships affect us mentally, but also physically. It's really important that you try to develop a really rational
perspective of the situation and that you don't stay focused on those things that are out of your control.
Like I said, even if you can't leave, you can still sort of distance yourself emotionally,
but don't doubt who you're dealing with,don't question yourself,make sure that you take responsibility
for your own happiness,your own peace,your own well-being,your own fulfillment,
the narcissist cannot and will not do that for you,
in fact
no one will, the narcissist wants you to stay depressed and sad and beaten down because that makes it easier to control you,
but now you can take back that control even if you can't leave yet,
you can take back the control and make it your own again.
You gave them control over your feelings,your thoughts,your behaviors,your happiness,your well-being,all of those things
certainly without realizing it, but on some level, you gave them that control,
maybe you were manipulated into it,
chances are that you were, but it's time that you start meeting your own needs and you do that by making different choices,
different behaviors,a new perspective and by acting from that new perspective
of empowerment, know thi, you cannot change,
fix,save,rescue or love
anyone enough to force them to love you or to be nice to you. The narcissist is a limited person,
they don't have the ability to see you for the amazing person that you are and unfortunately
those
narcissistic glasses they're wearing won't let them see you that way,
it's really their loss, even though it doesn't feel like that just yet. You have to remember that no matter what happens,
the narcissist will never think you're good enough, long-term,
certainly the love bombing will come here and there,certainly you might get put up on a pedestal now and then, but no matter how
much you do for them is never going to be enough and they're always going to ask for more.
You can compromise forever, you can give up everything you want and never take care of any of your needs,
you can bend over backwards for them, it won't matter.
The more you do those things,the more ungrateful,the more entitled,the more demanding,the more pushy
they will become. Essentially, you're going to waste your energy on a person like this if you keep doing it,
so think about stopping,think about taking back your power and not letting them have it anymore.
Make sure you don't have high expectations when it comes to the narcissist,
I want to tell you to raise your expectations, but recognize that the narcissist will never rise to the occasion.
So keep your expectations low when it comes to dealing with one,understand that there are limited people,
they don't have the ability to empathize with you or even really care about you, especially when they're angry at you,
they lack object constancy, which means that they can't love you and be angry at you in the same moment.
So in those moments when they are angry at you,
they really dislike you or sometimes even hate you as a result of whatever they're feeling, no matter how much a guilt or
crocodile tears or extreme
hypersensitivity they seem to throw your way, don't fall for it. Just remember
this is a pathological person who is going to continue to hurt you if you will allow them to.
It's time for you to take back your mind,your emotions,yourself.
When you can, spend as much time away from the narcissist as possible, if you haven't already left and
find a support group that will help you, maybe this involves
friends or family members or even a local support group that you find through Meetup.com or
maybe you get involved with the support group online, such as the spanily,which you can learn more about that at QueenBeeing.com/span,
it's free and very supportive.
Our coaches and our admin team are also survivors and they do everything they can to keep the group safe for you every day.
We have admins from around the world to make sure that we're covered most of every single day and night.
Ultimately, what you're trying to do when you're detaching from a narcissist is to try to stop letting them hurt you,
stop letting them affect you and to end the relationship
whether in reality or in your mind. Know that when you stop reacting,
they will start pushing harder many times, that's the narcissistic world response
we talk about.
Like I mentioned in a recent video, when you see them
beginning to kind of rile up and act pushier and more entitled and more ungrateful,
scream,yell,whatever, that kind of shows that what you're doing is working, because it's them reacting to not getting what they want,
it's them reacting to a lack of narcissistic supply
which ultimately is what you must deprive them of if you're ever going to get free.
By using the art of detachment in your favor, you can actually take back your power
one moment at a time, every time you don't react you get a little more powerful, it feels pretty good,
it's not gonna happen overnight,
it's gonna take time for you to learn how to do this and make it exactly what it needs to be.
Detachment is essentially indifference, that's really difficult for people like us, for empaths it sort of runs
against those beliefs that we've always
fundamentally carried within ourselves about love and relationships,
but remember you're in a relationship with someone who is emotionally verbally or otherwise abusing you,someone who attacks you,devalues you,
discards you over and over again,someone who makes you feel like you don't matter,
someone who stands on your head in order to raise up their own insecurities,
someone who's willing to beat you down emotionally and take from you everything that you have
literally or otherwise, some people would say that a narcissist has no soul. Psychologists will tell you that a narcissist has no empathy,
either way, the perspective from which a narcissist operates is damaging for anyone who gets close to them.
It's time for you to stop letting a narcissist destroy you,to detach yourself
mentally and emotionally and to start to move on so that you can heal,
take back your life and take back your power and become the person you truly want to be, you deserve that my friend,
you know that right, please, don't forget.
Alright, now this brings me to the question of the day
and the question of the day is do you understand the art of detachment from a narcissist? Have you used this yourself?
What tips and what ideas would you offer to someone who might be where you've been and what are you struggling with if you are going through this.
Share your thoughts, share your ideas, share your experiences in the comments section below and let's talk about it.
Just a heads up, World Narcissistic Abuse Awareness Day is coming soon.
It's happening on June 1st and I'll be one of the future speakers there. Here is a quick preview of part of my interview
...But so often people are like I had no idea, because what do we think of you know,
when we think of narcissism, think of somebody who looks in the mirror too much or
somebody who thinks they're too sexy or whatever, but in reality
you know, you and I both know there are so many people out there that you would never suspect,
like the minister or the you know, the Girl Scout leader or your husband or your wife or you know,
because there are so many different types of toxic narcissists. Before I go, I'd like to say a really fast
thank you to everyone who subscribes to my channel watches,my videos, likes my videos,shares my videos,comments on my videos,
you helped me by doing that because you helped me to spread the message just a little bit further to survivors who need to hear
it and
to my channel members, those people who support me through the YouTube membership program, thank you so much,
it means the world to me, as I always tell you it is literally my mission in life to do what I'm doing here and
with your support I can do more of it, so thank you again and
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. I'll see you soon.