let's talk about rumination and what it has to do with narcissistic abuse recovery it's a common
problem for survivors of narcissistic abuse and it happens when you can't seem to stop the repeating
thoughts in your head which tend to be sad or dark and usually involve worrying that you could have
done something different or better to fix things or in some cases focusing on how much you miss
or care about the narcissist this habit can be dangerous to your mental physical and spiritual
health because it prolongs and or intensifies your depression and your struggle to think
and process emotions correctly what do you do when you can't stop thinking about the narcissist
one study says that it takes about 18 months to get over a divorce another study says it takes
anywhere from three months to 18 months to get over a regular breakup either way you might find
yourself thinking about your ex a little more than you want to a lot of times these are addictive
thoughts here's the thing there's science to this there's an actual scientific reason that
this happens this leaves us feeling obsessed with figuring out the details and the implications
of our toxic relationships we find ourselves ruminating and stuck and spinning as a result
of not getting the closure of course it leaves a lot of us feeling the need to either find
our own closure or spend years trying in vain to emotionally heal after these toxic relationships
we feel like we can't move forward and we're not understanding exactly why that is let's get there
i really think that the hardest most painful part is emotional invalidation which sounds innocent
right but it's what happens when someone rejects or ignores or judges everything you say everything
you think everything you feel something you should know about narcissists is that even if they're not
diagnosed with npd they often have this ability to really ramp up romance and make it feel like
something amazing they kind of make you feel like you're the star of your own personal movie
don't they but they have this habit of kind of cutting you off the knees for very little reason
if any reason at all the thing is narcissists are not capable of being good at relationships
not really they don't give you much of a chance very often they mess with your head so what it
ends up happening is you don't get closure from a narcissist and when the relationship ends it kind
of feels like you're still in the middle of it so you're left just where you are right now kind
of spinning going what am i supposed to do now so redirect your thoughts have you ever heard about
the elephant in the corner and how you can't stop thinking about the elephant in the corner because
it's right there in front of you like that's right the elephant in the corner analogy when you
attempt to force yourself not to think about the elephant in the corner what are you thinking about
it's the elephant in the corner right instead of focusing on the fact that you feel just obsessed
and you can't stop thinking about them try flowing with your thoughts don't try to stop them just let
them flow and then imagine yourself letting go of that person another thing i like to do is i like
to go i don't want to think about x y or z right so let's say i start thinking about x y and z
and then i go no i now cancel that thought and i replace it with this affirmation of my true
divine desire so i decide to myself i'm not going to allow myself to continue to think about that
thing and instead i'm going to focus on what i do want which is usually unrelated to that thing
even in healthy relationships when you first fall in love you might find yourself kind of feeling
very ecstatic and excited and hyped up right it's a lot like taking a drug isn't it when you first
start drinking alcohol you get that elated feeling of like where has this been all my life well the
same kind of thing happens in a relationship and at the beginning whether it's healthy or
not you will find yourself feeling just like that then what happens is that as the thrill of
the newness wears off you start to think you need the other person just to breathe just to survive
it becomes a psychological dependence we can literally become addicted to a person just like we
can become addicted to food alcohol or drugs what it all boils down to is that it's sort of a way of
letting go of our personal responsibility for our own feelings it's almost a way that we kind of
abandon ourselves a little bit as individuals how is it that addiction changes your brain
because that's what happens here so take a look so how exactly does addiction change our brain
well our human brains are very complicated and they're wired in such a way that we are rewarded
when we do something that feels good whether we exercise or we eat something that tastes good or
we do other pleasurable types of things that are directly linked to our health and our survival
trigger when those things happen our brain releases a neurotransmitter that's called dopamine
this not only makes us feel great but it kind of helps us keep going forward and doing what we're
doing so it teaches us to keep doing that behavior now here's the bad part of this whole deal
drugs alcohol toxic relationships they trigger that same part of the brain the reward system but
they do it to a more extreme extent which causes our brains to almost literally be
rewired in some really negative ways if you take a drug well then your brain is going to
release a lot of dopamine a lot more than would be released otherwise if you did a workout or
some other natural pleasurable type behavior your brain's gonna then overreact it's going to
reduce the dopamine production in order to sort of normalize these big sky-high jumps that the drugs
have created and this my friend is exactly how the cycle of addiction begins so essentially all
of this happens and you kind of lose your self a lot of different little things are going to happen
like for example you might not feel normal unless you're with your partner i wrote a book called
your love is my drug and there was a scientific basis for that maybe that person's love is your
drug maybe you're not doing your daily things that you need to do like laundry pay your bills take
care of all the things because you're so busy being in love with this person or missing this
person maybe you only feel alive when this person is around or maybe you don't get anything done
at work because this person is always on your mind maybe you feel like your life just has no meaning
unless that person's around does any of this ring true for you well there's a really good reason
for it so take a look studies tell us that using drugs regularly can really limit your ability to
feel any pleasure and we know the same is true for being in a relationship with a narcissist
or another type of toxic person so over time the drug use and or the toxic person and their abuse
will lead us to produce much smaller releases of that feel-good chemical dopamine well of course
that means that our reward center in our brain becomes far less receptive to feeling anything
good any kind of pleasure enjoyment anything whether from drugs or from love or any other
everyday source such as various activities that you used to enjoy or other relationships things
like that so once your brain has been altered by this abuse whether it's a physical or emotional or
drug abuse it requires more and more of any sort of stimulation whether it's drug stimulation or
more ups and downs in the relationship in order to function at even a baseline level well that
leads us on to feeling withdrawal because when we become physically addicted physically dependent
on a substance or a relationship well if we stop dealing with that person or we stop taking that
substance because we can no longer stand at the abuse or because we're no longer having access
to the drug or the person we find ourselves in withdrawal and in some cases when you go
into withdrawal in general you feel horrible you feel sad depressed out of it sick even so how does
your brain manage that your brain being addicted to anything or anyone causes changes in your
behavior so there are physical measurable areas of your brain that are really critical to
judgment learning memory decision making and even behavior control now in various studies scientists
have said that these changes literally alter the way your brain works and this could explain
why you are compulsively destructively drawn to this person so this relationship is changing
the way your brain works it's changing the way your life works it's taking away your ability to
feel true pleasure if you're struggling with this a really good way to manage it is by
using pattern interrupt where you do something to distract yourself from your thoughts and then you
focus on something you do want in your life rather than something you don't another tip you can put a
rubber band on your wrist and every time you think about them snap snap snap and i know it sounds
silly but a lot of people find that to be highly effective don't forget it's okay if you need to
take some time to mourn this person you can cry if you need to cry you can scream and break and
throw things if you need to give yourself a little bit of time to do that if necessary
don't just pretend it didn't happen let the emotions out when you are in a relationship
with a narcissist very often your emotions are cut right off you're not allowed to experience them or
feel them so try letting them out and then moving forward that can be incredibly helpful for you
i've gone through a thing when you're getting over a narcissist where you can't seem to stop
thinking about them you get all these kind of intrusive repeating thoughts in your head
we call that rumination this habit can be really dangerous to your mental physical spiritual
health it prolongs your depression your anxiety and makes it really hard for you to process your
emotion you can't think straight so what are you supposed to do to get over this let's see what
dr robin breiman has to say about it shall we you just got out of a relationship with a narcissist
and all you keep doing is ruminating here are some ideas to help you first of all be kind to yourself
know that the longer the relationship that you had the longer that this can take own it it's part of
the healing process understand you've been through this because of all the cognitive dissonance from
the gas lighting that you went through third of all break up the date stay at each hour
take 10 minutes and just think of the narcissist the rest of the time focus on the present another
thing you can do is simply go around where you live go around your stuff your office your home
and take all pictures and memories of this person out it can help you to move forward emotionally
and mentally your visual cues of that person any smells of that person anything like that removing
those can help you to sort of let go a little faster this brings me to the question of the day
and the question of the day is can you see how the narcissist and their source of supply can serve as
both the drug and the addict in the situation share your thoughts share your ideas share your
experiences in the comments section below and let's talk about it 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 going
to leave for you right there and right there and while you're here hit that subscribe button right
over there so we can stay connected and continue on this healing journey together i'll see you soon