Hey guys, welcome back thanks for joining me for another video if you're new to my channel, my name is Stephanie
I am a life and relationship coach if you are a subscriber
Welcome back. Thank you for joining me for another video this week. I want to dive into
symptoms of being in a narcissistically abusive relationship
So if you are in a relationship that you might think is unhealthy abusive in any way
Shape or form or if you have been in a narcissistically abusive relationship or an emotionally abusive relationship
These are definitely symptoms that you have experienced at one time or another
So the first symptom is you lose yourself and most people will
recognize this after the fact when the relationship ends but a lot of family and friends while you're in the relationship might say
You know, you've been acting differently you seem differently
you're not the same person that used to be you're not as happy and light as you once were and so this is definitely the
First symptom of being in an abusive relationship and when you lose yourself essentially what it means is you are suppressing
What you think how you feel? You're trying to be someone that you're not you begin possibly having symptoms of anxiety
possibly even panic attacks
You might even feel actually depressed being in this relationship because you are not authentic ly being yourself
You're trying to play a character in order to?
fit a mold of what you think this person wants to see now the next symptom of abuse is walking on eggshells, and if
You have ever been in a relationship with someone who is abusive whether it's physical verbal
Sexual any kind of an abuse narcissistic abuse where maybe there is gaslighting or you know verbal bashing whatever
withholding of love and affection you
Oftentimes you're gonna feel like you are walking on eggshells because you don't want to provoke the situation
So I don't wanna I don't want to say something and I want to say how I feel
I don't want to say what I think I'm nervous to set a boundary
I'm
really scared to enforce the boundary and most likely you don't even know how to enforce a boundary when you're dealing with this person because
you don't want the abuse to happen and
When you're dealing with someone who's not Cystic, if you don't know the signs of emotional abuse then
Most often you aren't even yourself, right which goes back to you know symptom number one
You're not really yourself and so you're constantly feeling anxious about just being who you are
So perhaps you begin to form a little bit of people pleaser where I just want to please this person
I don't want to set them off. I don't want to get them upset. I don't want to get into an argument about this
It's just not worth it you tend to kind of say those things rather than being someone who's self loving and being able to
You know not fear
Confrontation and knowing that someone is being abusive with me and how to handle those situations
If you don't know how to handle abuse like this, then you are gonna constantly
Number one lose yourself and number two always feel like you're walking on eggshells with this person because this person has power over you
now because this person has power over you in some sense because
You come from such lack because you don't have confidence in yourself
because you know you're on the hamster wheel like I say all the time and you're going around and around in this relationship where you're
Going from honeymoon phase to abuse to gaslighting and it's just going here we go
The cycle continues and continues you are going to experience
Disassociation and this is where you are not believing what you're seeing and perhaps you don't even know what you're seeing
So again, if you don't know signs of emotional abuse if you don't know
What's healthy versus unhealthy in a relationship?
And this is all you've ever known and you're just used to the hamster wheel
whether it's dealing with your parents or dealing with your mom or dealing with your dad or dealing with a sister someone else that possibly
Has abused you in the past then when you are dating and you're in relationships and abuse happens
Even though logically, you know that this isn't okay that there's something wrong here and you might feel it intuitively
you don't know how to get off the wheel because like I said
It's all you've ever known and so when that happens and when you've given your power over to someone else you're gonna experience disassociation
which means in the beginning of the relationship or at times I see person a and person a
Amazing and they seem healthy and they're saying all the right things
And they're promising me the world and they're doing all the right things and all of that is just a game
It's just a ploy. It's just a hook to get you hooked into the relationship. So the cycle continues and the abuse starts
so you're seeing person a who's amazing and then at time most of the time you're seeing person B who is
abusive and says these things and does these things and lies and and whatever and
There's a conflict in your mind between who am I actually dealing with? Who is this person?
I want to believe it's person a and because you want to believe and you're projecting what you want in this relationship
You're projecting what you know the fantasy onto this person and because they're showing you little bits of fantasy
you're gonna just ride the wave and I'm gonna believe I'm always dealing with person a and when I see person B, who is
Abusive and does these things and says these things that are extremely hurtful
I don't want to believe that that's the person I'm dealing with. I don't want to believe that I'm in this unhealthy relationship
I just want to live in a fantasy that I'm not that this person is
Exactly this little character that they pretend to be every now and then and so that is dissociation
Now the next symptom not just narcissistic abuse
But any kind of abuse is you are going to experience in the relationship and after the relationship
post-traumatic stress that is just a symptom of being
psychologically or mentally or emotionally or spiritually or physically or sexually
Abused now there are many
symptoms of post-traumatic stress
And I'm gonna list them out
briefly and I'm not gonna go into too much detail because I do want to make a video about post-traumatic stress and go into
A lot of detail on what it looks like that way, you know when you're going about your day. Okay, here we go
I'm starting to experience some symptoms of you know, post-traumatic stress right now and how to cope with that
So for this video, I'm going to be very brief on symptoms of post-traumatic stress
so when we experience post-traumatic stress
Essentially what's happening is we're having mental health issues where perhaps we have a lack of confidence
Perhaps we have lost ourselves
Perhaps we used to be a happy person a positive person and we're just not that person anymore
We could have anxiety we could have panic attacks. We could have depression
so a combination of all those things in combination with those things we could also be
very easily
startled so we could just be very
Hypersensitive to certain things and we could be very irritable at times. We could have difficulty concentrating
We could definitely
struggle with our sleep
So either we're constantly having nightmares or dreams about this person or the situation that we were in
We don't sleep
Well, we could be very light sleepers and it's not that's not necessarily a sign of having post-traumatic stress
But it definitely is a symptom of it. You could feel very detached and isolated at times
This is when we begin to have negative thoughts either about ourselves
Either about the other person either about the world or situations that we've been in we are constantly
Having flashbacks and flashbacks don't need to necessarily be because of a dangerous situation
It could just be an obsessive way that your mind is trying to cope with the situation that you were in
So if you tend to have obsessive thoughts they don't have to always be negative thoughts, you know, like really scary thoughts
They can just be obsessive thoughts about your ex. Where is she? What is she doing? You know is he happy?
Did he move on all of that are symptoms of post-traumatic stress? The next thing is when I say that you lost yourself
Another symptom of not just losing who you used to be where maybe you're not that happy carefree person
You don't have the smile on your face. You just have lost an interest in life
And this could mean depression this could mean isolation or this could just mean that I don't I'm not the same person
I once was in the sense that I don't embrace life in the same way, so maybe I don't
Go on as many trips. Maybe I don't put myself out there. You just have lost
What used to make you you so your zest for life is completely gone
This is where the tape of I'm not good enough
Where you tend to kind of blame yourself for what happened in the relationship because all of this abuse all of this
Neglect all of this garbage has been put on you it completely and utterly
Emotionally drains you so because you are emotionally exhausted on many different levels because of what you've been through
You know, it takes a huge amount of effort to get up in the morning
It takes a huge amount of effort to remember
Why life is so unbelievably amazing you kind of have lost that part of yourself
and again
This is such a broad topic right because we can have post-traumatic stress and maybe we only experience flashbacks
Maybe the only experience, you know, obsessive thoughts. Maybe we haven't lost our zest for life
Maybe we can get out of bed in the morning and we're not like severely depressed
But at times you might experience a few of these things or perhaps you might be experiencing all of these things
one of the last symptoms of abuse is
Especially if you are in the relationship you make excuses for the abuser. So there's always a reason why
this of this person is
Abusing you right maybe I was being too sensitive. Maybe I didn't listen to them
Maybe you know, maybe they're right. Maybe I am nagging maybe I am negative
Maybe I am, you know, not the life of the party
Maybe I do need to change how I am because you've been told all these stories time and time again
And you don't have a good sense of self. You don't know who you are
You're trying to fit a mold with maybe everyone in your life on who they want you to be
maybe you haven't fully accepted who you are and really love yourself for everything that you bring to the table and
because of that
someone has been able to dictate who you are and
when you are not living up to that person's expectations of who they want you to be you're going to
Constantly take the blame for everything that goes wrong for everything that is happening in the relationship
And you're gonna make excuses for why someone was able to verbally bash you or abuse you in any way
one of the most important things that comes out of
You being in an abusive relationship and it doesn't have to necessarily be a romantic relationship
It can be a family member. It can be a friendship. It can be any relationship as long as you can
understand what happened as long as you're educating yourself and if you're watching these videos and if you're on YouTube
and if you're trying to read articles and trying to understand this person and this just never seemed
Normal this relationship and I was definitely an abusive relationship
Again abuse is not black-and-white in the sense that an abuser is always gonna use these tactics, right?
There are gonna be people that maybe they just like to gas late. Maybe they're just conversational narcissus. Maybe they just are
emotionally unavailable
one of the
benefits to being in an abusive situation
Whether that's a relationship
that you had with your mother or that you do have with your mother or your father your sister your brother or
even a romantic relationship
This doesn't have to be about just romance any
relationship that you're in can be abusive and the benefit that comes of being in these relationships is
Things like these videos and articles that are written to educate yourself on what abuse actually looks like what is healthy. What is unhealthy and
Learning about this type of stuff. So the first thing is understanding. Oh, wow. I think I'm actually in an abusive relationship
the second thing is
really learning how to love yourself how to
Have a good sense of self, which means I Know Who I am
I know the good and in me
I know the things that at times aren't the best qualities and I know those qualities come from a lot of
emotional wounds that are going on inside of me, but I'm gonna take responsibility for that you learning how to
really love yourself and that means
validating yourself motivating yourself
Complimenting yourself giving yourself good healthy positive self-talk
Doing affirmations, really just learning how to be your own best friend how to just be nice to yourself
You know, let's just go with the basics here of self-love. Just being nice to yourself
Validating yourself knowing what you think and how you feel and being able to stand up to people and not be intimidated by
Confrontation or any bully that you come across no matter what their personality is when you get to that place
You'll never be in abusive relationships and when you start to see abuse starting to form in a relationship
You'll immediately be able to spot it detect it take care of yourself and walk away from a situation
So a lot of the good that comes of abusive relationships is you finally learn how to love yourself
how to be good to yourself how to be nice to yourself how to validate yourself how to say oh my god
I was in this relationship and this was completely unhealthy and I'm not gonna just blame the person and bash them
I'm also gonna take responsibility for myself and that perhaps I was codependent perhaps I was a people pleaser
Perhaps I was looking for validation
for someone to just love me and give me all the things that I've never known how to give myself and
Practicing how to start giving yourself those things so you can be that healthy person that you want to be and be that happy person
And start attracting good people into your life
So I hope that this video has helped you if you have liked it
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