After you leave a narcissist you may notice you will have feelings of missing them. And when these feelings come up some thoughts that may arise are, ” Am I crazy?” “Is there something wrong with me?” Or ” Was the narcissist really that bad if I’m missing them?” or even ” Where the even a narcissist?” This will cause you to gaslight yourself and your own memory. This is because you are having cognitive dissonance where you are missing them but know they’re horrible and so you don’t know why you’re getting these feelings or thoughts. So you will think that means you want to see them. This is pretty common when you have dealt with a narcissist but you may wonder why? Why would anyone miss a self-centered arrogant abuser? Let’s go more in-depth.
Over the years you have been around them they have ingrained in your brain that you need them. They would do this by saying no one care for you the way they did or they would do it subliminally where they would say things to instill distrust in yourself. They would instill this distrust by making you question your own reality. If you don’t trust yourself or your reality, you will feel like you need your abuser to tell you how to live. So now when you do things, you feel like you can’t do it without them. You may feel like you need their help or their guidance. Or you may even have their voice in your head reminding you that you can’t live without them or you won’t do better without them. Now they have become a need in your mind.
Trauma bonds usually start with a child, parent relationship but generally they form from any type of abusive relationship. This is an attachment bond created through repeated abuse and love bombing. So it is abuse followed by an inconsistent reward. This is called intermittent reinforcement. How this works is that every time you do the desired behavior you are then inconsistently rewarded. For instance, if you make your mom breakfast and she praises you and then the next day you do the same thing but she slaps you, you will still want to do that action again because you crave her approval and affection. This then becomes a learned behavior and it becomes addicting. You crave that next release of dopamine and serotonin.
You as a victim associate that feeling with love and then crave it. Since it is a learned behavior, it is hard to stop. It can feel like a security blanket is being ripped off of you when you try to leave your abuser. You feel your love will be taken away and you will never receive that love again. it is similar to being addicted to drugs. You then take this into your next relationships and associate abuse with love and then miss them.
When you are with a narcissist it is a constant roller coaster. You experience devaluing, gaslighting, tension building, inconsistency, explosions, love bombing, discarding. It is up and down constantly. But you will notice yourself craving them. When you get a release of oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine from the high and then a low happens where they’re abusive, you will want that high again. You can be very addicted to wondering when you will feel the love from them again. So they will be on your mind. Also when people treat us badly we internalize it and crave their approval and love. It is an addiction.
After you break up with a narcissist you will notice a lot more time on your hands. Before you spent a lot of your time thinking about them, their needs, or how they will react to things. You put a lot of work into them and time. Now you are unsure what to do with your time and free time means time for your mind to wonder which leads to thoughts that you miss them.
It is very common after some period of time to forget the bad people do to us. Over time those thoughts are replaced with good memories. So you forget how horrible your experiences were with them or how they made you feel. You mainly are thinking about the love bombing times and the times you had fun or they seemed normal. This is when the gaslighting starts where you question yourself and your memory.
You get stuck on the fantasy and what it could have been. You get stuck on the fantasy that they sold you or who they could have been. Lies were sold to you of what it could have been. You think maybe they will become the person they had said they would. So you remember all the things they said and wonder if it could be.
When you get an urge to reach out to them get out your journal and list all the times they have hurt you or the negative things they have done and said. It will bring back the memories of how horrible it was and you will most likely not have an urge to reach out anymore. Another thing is that every time you gaslight yourself, recognize and remind yourself you remember exactly what happened. Don’t reaffirm the narcissist’s negative voice in your head. Reaffirm your own voice. The last thing you can do is list the positives of leaving them. You can now have freedom, you don’t have to walk on eggshells anymore, you don’t have to fear for your safety, you can finally just focus on yourself!
What do you guys think? Leave it all in the comments below!
