Nora OMalley

Narcists (N) do not feel bad for what they did. They don’t want to change unless it is to become better Narcists. They don’t want what’s best for you.
They are hoping they did such a good job of destroying your foundation of who you are, that you stay stuck. They hope you come crumbling down like a building whose foundation has been destroyed. They destroy Your foundation of your image; they destroy your belief system. They have been doing this since
day one. N does not look up to you as others do in a new relationship.

They need to one up with you, they have been chipping at your self esteem for a very long time. Nothing makes an Narcists happier than if
their target is now out of the relationship and stays in a disempowered state.

In the beginning of the relationship, they slowly stole the things that were you. They either took them on as their own personality or they stamped them out in you by creating such chaos around the things you love to do.

Who you were at the end of the relationship is not who you were at the beginning if this was a significant other. If you say I’m not the real me now. You know who you were and who you became. Who they were before the N and who they were after. If the Narcists was a parent, you don’t have that sense
of before and after. You have the sense you never have been allowed to be you.
When the relationship ends, if you start to become empowered, living in alignment with more empowering beliefs, like I am worthy, I am enough, I am lovable, I am amazing. Instead of the beliefs they put in you. Which were I am not enough, I am unworthy, I am unlovable, I don’t deserve, all
negative things.

That’s a huge blow to their way of seeing themselves because if you thrive that means that they are powerless over you. Nothing makes them happier than destroying you while in the relationship and then watching you continue the job of destroying self by staying in those disempowered beliefs. They don’t want you to move on. They don’t want you to get or be happy.
They want you to get stuck living the way they live. Malignant Narcists live life through a false core. They are not authentic beings. They are not living in a place of authenticity. They have a false self and when they want to impress people instead of becoming a good person, they polish their false self and they live life through that false self. They know their targets have the potential to be authentic human beings. Sometimes the target doesn’t realize they have that potential, but the Narcissist knows. There is nothing they would like more than to make you live in a false self, the way they live in a false self.

One of the ways they go about this is by slowly removing your freewill. The right to be yourself, your right to have your own feelings, your own thoughts. They go about this by every time you have your own perspective, or you disagree because you are two separate people, and you see things differently.
They shame you or use scripture verses out of context to make you see things their way. Your nervous system no longer feels safe being you. You don’t feel safe giving your perspective, or showing people who you really are. You lose touch with that sense of inner safety. As a result, when we don’t feel safe
inside, we stop being ourselves. We stop living in the realm of authenticity and we begin living life as a false self. It is different from the Narcissist; it is not a mirage. We are pretending in a way, but it is a false core that is really what is called a protective self. Instead of living in an authentic self we are living in a
protective self. The Narcissist doesn’t have an authentic self, they live in a false self.

Our protective self is a false self, it is not who we really are. The protective things we do when we are stuck in our fight, flight, freeze? We think they are personality traits, they are not they are trauma responses.

They tend to happen over a long period of time, so we begin to identify with that as that is who we are. “I am a people pleaser”, you may be acting like a people pleaser but it is coming from a trauma response not
feeling safe being me. I’m going to stop being me to be someone else that makes you happy so I can feel safe. It goes back to no longer living in authenticity but living in a protective self.

Narcissists would love to keep you living in a false self. A protective self rather than who you are. If they cannot be authentic, why should you be.

Narcissist would love for you to waste time to prove to everyone who the real abuser is. They are expert manipulators. They have been laying the foundation, longer than you realize, for people to believe that you are the problem, and they are the victim of you. When you finally wake up and they discard you or
you leave the toxic relationship, they have already spent a long time laying the groundwork to view you as the problem. Now you are going to try to prove your truth. They love it when you do this. They know you cannot stand up against them in a manipulation battle. You are an honest person, a real person and
they are an expert manipulator. They twist and turn things.

The reason they would love for you to do this after the relationship is over, is because it continues to distract you from your life. Guess who you’re
focusing on, whether it is negative or positive, it is still supply to the Narcissist when you are focused on them. When your energy is being given out because of them, to them, or for them. You are not focusing
on you, you are focusing on the Narcissist. You are focusing on trying to prove to people who do not believe you most of the time, because you were set up. This keeps you from living your life and further invalidates you. It further gas lights you, further confuses you and makes you isolated and alone. They
would love for that to happen.

What do you do to avoid all that. Your foundation does not get fixed overnight, it takes time. As a physical injury would take time to heal. Our soul, inner self, authentic self, was distorted because of the gaslighting and manipulation. Just removing the toxic person, while it is helpful, not to have people in your life that are trying to destroy you, if that’s all you do and let time go on. You will always feel that distinction of who you were before the relationship and who you became after. Just like a physical injury you need a Dr. or life coach, to be healed. Our inner self needs attention. Time is not going to heal the trauma wound.

The wounds that are in the brain that have affected the subconscious. Those wounds need help. They do not go away with time. You need to be willing to do the inner work. When you deconstruct the false self that is the CPTSD work. It is not just about learning. We can know what we should or should not do after
Narcissist abuse, how we should see things and what the correct mindset is. We can have all that logic and yet feel unable to implement it. The protective self does the work for the Narcissist. Our own body keeps us from doing that consciously we would love to do. Since our authentic self was met with such
shame, abandonment, and insult, our own body starts freaking out when we go to do things that we were formally shamed and abandoned for. It freaks out in the we start to get discomfort in the body. We call it procrastination when it is our body saying I don’t feel safe to do that. We stay stuck in that protective self until we do the inner work.

Deconstructing the protective self takes time. It is not a watch a video and tomorrow the protective self is gone. It is a gradual shrinking of the trauma wounds, and a gradual increasing of your own inner agency that takes place. People give up too fast or they get help for
one symptom then they stop giving attention to themselves. Then they stay stuck or in another relationship that only reveals those wounds are still there. because they didn’t do all the inner work that is needed. When you find a program, stay with it long enough that it penetrates your subconscious. So, the shifts you’re doing last. When it comes to the smear campaign, trying to prove your truth, the reality, the secret the Narcissist doesn’t want you to realize is that you don’t have to prove anything to anyone. Your belief in you is way more powerful than fifty people believing in you. When those fifty people are gone, your validation is dependent on how they see you. The second they are gone you are going to feel that insecurity again. What are people thinking? do they think this of me? Am I the abuser?

What is going on? How are people seeing me? Once you learn it is like to feel the strength of your own inner validation, it won’t matter. If people believe you, it will be like the icing on the cake. If they do not believe you, it won’t touch you because you believe you. Part of the recovery is learning how to trust
yourself again. That is the rewiring part we have to do with our nervous system and with our belief system. The one thing the Narcissist wants from you after the discard is they want you to stay stuck. By you getting you back, it is the most empowering thing you can do for yourself.