- Make your happiness dependent on his approval. You’ll be happy when he reaches the top of the personality transplant list/sees the light/ says – and means – the words he’s never going to say and mean.
- You put your life on hold. Well, you can’t have a life until the relationship changes, can you? Even though that’s not going to happen any time in the foreseeable future.
- You give yourself a bad time. How many times a day do you tell yourself what’s wrong with you? Are you aware that what you’re doing is seriously damaging your mental and emotional health? It’s actually the psychological equivalent of downing at least 3 supersize MacDonald’s meals a day, every day for months – or years – on end.
- You compare and contrast yourself with Other People. More precisely, you compare and contrast their perceived strengths and qualities with your perceived faults and weaknesses. How does that leave you feeling?
- Your time is spent living in fear of what might – or might not – happen. The beauty of all this worry is this: if it does happen then all the worry hasn’t prepared you to deal with it effectively; and if it doesn’t, then you’ve wasted your time anyway.
- You don’t see who you truly are. You’re so busy telling yourself what you’re not that the positive feedback you get never gets through. You never hear it. So, you always start from the premise that you have to work twice as hard as everyone else to be half as good. It’s not true. But you live as if it were.
- You’re underachieving. You can’t achieve your potential when most of your energy goes into reliving the conflict and the trauma your abusive partner put you through. So, the chances are you may well struggle to establish yourself in your working life, because of what you’ve experienced in your personal life. The two areas are not separate. Chances are, you bring your lack of confidence to the workplace. When you heal your confidence issues, you will be much more likely to achieve far more success in the workplace.
- You see the world as hostile, and yourself as powerless. This really doesn’t help you to create a better future for yourself. There are hostile people and supportive people. You need to be able to tell the difference, and know you can keep yourself safe, no matter what.
- You shut down your own possibilities. If you’re always telling yourself what you can’t do – or can’t do nearly as well as other people – how could you not shut down your possibilities? Imagine how different things would be if you could trust and believe in yourself? What more would be possible for you?
- You don’t focus on – or invest in – creating your happy future. Negativity is actually an investment in future unhappiness. Sure, it’s not intended that way. But your mind-set is the most important indicator of your quality of life. It’s only when you upgrade your mind-set that everything changes for the better. If your life feels like you are constantly wading through molasses, you can try to wade harder, and longer, until you get to the other side – wherever that may be. Or else, you can change your mind-set; at which point the molasses will simply disappear.
Annie Kaszina, international Emotional Abuse Recovery specialist and award-winning author of 3 books designed to help women recognise and heal from toxic relationships so that they can build healthy, lasting relationships with the perfect partner for them, blogs about all aspects of abuse, understanding Narcissists and how to avoid them and building strong self-worth. To receive Annie’s blog direct to your Inbox just leave your details here.
The 5 Simple Steps to Healing from Narcissistic Abuse
Over the next 5 days, I'll send you some lessons and tips that I've found have really helped women to heal from narcissistic abuse. Starting with the basics.
