LynnS
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Phases, Guidelines, & Timelines for Healing
Phases, Guidelines, & Timelines For Healing
By Echo4
I am not an expert, I am someone just like the rest of you who has suffered the abuse of a narcissistic relationship; however I feel that I have almost completely healed and looking back where I was about 10 months ago it seems like a miracle to me.
I have now have the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge of what worked for me and what didn’t. I put together these guidelines, a road map to healing if you will.
Some of you may be interested and some you may not be and would prefer to do it your own way in your own time and that is fine: But I thought I would share what worked for me based on a lot of reading and experience.
PHASE 1
You have been devalued and discarded by the N or you have built up the courage to leave because you feel it is hopeless or because you think he will “see the light” when you leave and beg your forgiveness and change for the better.
While some will feel elated and empowered initially, many sink into the depths of grief, despair and depression. We feel rejected and our self esteem is badly damaged because we do not yet understand this disorder. We tend to idealize the N during this time period because “he must be pretty powerful and awesome” to make you feel so empty and devastated. We tend to miss the N at this point and feel that he is the only one who can alleviate the pain, anger, shock and disbelief we are suffering. But at this point the N is most probably ignoring us and refusing to respond in anyway.
GUIDELINES:
 Enact immediate and total NC. Change your phone number and block your E-mail. Do not contact him no matter how angry or hurt you are. By doing this several things happen; you start to think more clearly, you cancel out all of the obsession wondering if he is going to call or text or E-mail—because he can’t. Also your silence says more to him than any words could ever express.
Read everything you can on NPD, internalize and digest everything you read. You will not be able to completely accept it yet but this information is going to help you tremendously in the next phase.
Join a support group and vent you feelings.
This may be a time to consider therapy or antidepressant medication, depending the severity of your symptoms.
Start a daily journal to write your feelings down; this helps get the obsessive thoughts out of your head.
Self care is extremely important in this phase, it gives you the strength to reclaim your personal power and reconnect with you.
Even if you do not yet believe it you must tell yourself that you are blameless and that there was NOTHING you could do to produce a different outcome.
We must also recognize that this is not a normal breakup and that there has been a an erosion of self and your soul.
TIMELINE: Everyone is different and this will depend on the length of the relationship as well as your own personal issues that you may have not identified yet.
For me this phase lasted for 3 months and was without a doubt the hardest part of this process.
PHASE 2
You are still hurting but are now having good days and bad days. You have probably broken NC at least once by now and are doing a lot of N-dipping. You feel miserable and ashamed and maybe even made a complete fool of yourself or feel as though you did. You may still be blaming yourself but in this phase it is more likely that you are blaming the N or the OW.
This is the “rollercoaster” period where emotions can range widely from day to day. You are not out of the fog yet but it is starting to clear. You are starting to have light bulb moments and are really beginning to see the eerie similarities in what you have read and learned about the N and what you experienced firsthand. It occurs to you that he is almost a text book case or the author of the book you read could have been writing your N’s biography.
You try to accept the notion that it was all an illusion and that the N really never existed as a substantive person with emotions or feelings. Deep inside on some level you know it is true that he never loved you and all you were to him was supply and an object--- but you just can’t quite grasp this concept yet, instead you think this may be true of other Ns but surely not the N you were with because he was after all your soul mate and at one time was madly and passionately in love with you.
Magical thinking may ensue here. You probably suspect that every wrong number or missed call was the N trying to contact you (even if you have changed your number) or every car that drives by that looks like his has him in it! You are starting to let go a little bit and as you feel yourself moving away from the N emotionally you unconsciously pull him back into the forefront by idealizing your memories of him and pretending the illusion was a reality. In my opinion this is the most difficult phase of all because you are struggling very hard between truth and fallacy and fantasy and reality. You are exhausted and confused but this is the time when the rainbow of truth gradually begins to show itself in all of its vivid glory as a watery Sun shines upon it and the last bit of N fog dissipates.
GUIDELINES:
In this phase it is very important to keep your thoughts reality based. You must not allow yourself to entertain pleasant memories about the N. Don’t worry those memories will never go away they are yours, you may recollect them in the future BUT NOT now. This is a time to focus on the here and now.
Complete and total NC must continue (if you have children with N limit communication to E-mail only)
Continue with medications, therapy support groups and learning about NPD.
Continue with your daily journal entries.
Put yourself in “self protection” mode; avoid mutual friends who may innocently give you toxic information about the N. Spend time with friends and family that you feel safe with at least once per week—if you don’t feel like it, FORCE yourself.
Start a creative project such as redecorating a room, painting a picture, making a vision board, writing poetry, making jewelry something NEW and different.
Continue with self care which remains extremely important but at this phase add a bit of glamour, get a new hairdo or hair color. Buy fashion magazines and Mix up your wardrobe. Create new look for yourself for the new you who is about to be born.
Buy and read a self help book---not about narcissism but about codependency or surviving an abusive relationship.
TIMELINE: This phase will last the longest because it is within this phase when you will slowly come to the realization and awful truth of who and what you were dealing with. You will realize that everything you believed to be true was false—but this will not happen overnight and is where the rollercoaster feelings come in. The rollercoaster is simply your own mind struggling from day to day or sometimes hour by hour to separate fact from fiction. This is the most difficult phase because it is when the brain begins to trump the heart.
For me this phase lasted for 5 months.
(Cont.)
---
"The best way out is always through."--Robert Frost
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Apr/20/2009, 3:43 pm
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LynnS
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Re: Phases, Guidelines, & Timelines for Healing
PHASE 3
This is the phase where the real healing starts to begin and progress is really made. You are more angry than sad right now, but this is a positive sign because you are reclaiming your personal power with self righteous indignation You now REALLY accept who and what the N was and have internalized and processed this knowledge and whole heartedly believe it, it is no longer something that is unbelievable. You no longer need to convince yourself of the truth —no more second guessing yourself you feel the real truth now.
You no longer take what happened as personally as you did in the last two phases because you have come to understand that to the N you were not a person. To him you were a target not a treasure.
You also know that what happened had little or nothing to do with you. You no longer waste your days feeling your dreams have been shattered and you stop living as a GHOST from his past. There will still be brief fleeting feelings of missing the N and the desire to deny the truth you now accept, but you realize in your new found N-free rational and logical mind that it is not the narcissist that you miss.
What you miss are the dreams and hopes you had for the relationship which never came to fruition. You also miss the part of you that invested such a tremendous amount of energy in the relationship and the huge part of you that you had to leave behind in order to survive. In a sense you realize that you are mourning the loss of yourself and this is where we realize that a part of our soul is still missing.
Instead of existing on false hope for his recovery you are now focusing on your own recovery.
This is the phase when all the pieces of this horrific jigsaw puzzle are finally assembled and the picture that the puzzle reveals is not a pleasant one. BUT it is the true picture, that is going to transcend you into Phase 4 and that is the final act.
GUIDELINES:
Complete and total NC and if you have reached this phase you have not broken NC or N-dipped for at least 60-90 days.
Your first waking thought in the morning and your last before you go to sleep at night must be a positive affirmation about yourself.
Cancel and reject any negative thoughts that may enter your mind during the day---not just N thoughts—any thoughts that are put downs to you, because they are lies.
Omit the words “CAN’T” and “HATE” from your vocabulary.
Have a ceremony to burn or dispose of his pictures or sell or toss anything he ever gave you (Make sure you are very comfortable in doing this before hand.)
Continue to socialize with people you feel safe with.
Continue with self care and hobbies or creative projects that you developed in phase 2.
Continue with therapy, medications, daily journal and support groups.
Continue to read self help books that promote YOUR healing and growth and start to limit books on narcissism (this is not your problem anymore).
Set an realistic achievable non N-related goal for yourself and MAKE it happen.
TIMELINE: 1-2 months
---
"The best way out is always through."--Robert Frost
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Apr/20/2009, 3:44 pm
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yogatchr
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Registered: 02-2009
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Re: Phases, Guidelines, & Timelines for Healing
Wow...Thank you Echo..Lynn. Very encouraging.
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Apr/20/2009, 4:30 pm
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