After Leaving, Excessively Talking About The Trauma Is Normal
Narcissistic abuse can cause a lot of strange behavior in its victims. This is a common one.
It’s a phenomenon that almost every narcissistic abuse survivor goes through.
Once we finally begin talking about it, we can’t stop.
All of the dirty little secrets we have been keeping begin pouring out at warp speed and we can’t bottle it back up anymore.
We verbal vomit and trauma dump all over anyone who will listen. It’s like we are exorcising the demon that terrorized us for so long.
It must come out!
Why Does This Happen?
To remain in a long-term narcissistic relationship, it is essential to maintain the rationale that the person you are attached to is good. (or at least that they mean well)
It doesn’t matter if this is with a narcissistic romantic partner, sibling, friend, parent, or institution (like a business, cult, or movement).
The rationale is needed because we have an image to maintain as much as the narcissist does. It’s the image that everything is OK. It is the image that we are in a normal relationship.
If we can’t convince ourselves first, how can we hope to achieve this goal of ever attaining the healthy/functional relationship we wish we had?
To convince ourselves of this… we lie. The first lie is the biggest. We lie to ourselves. After we have hoodwinked our brains into accepting this lie, we begin to lie to others.
We may not know we are lying to others and ourselves, but our bodies do. Our bodies have their own brain = The Gut.
The Gut Knows We Are Full Of Crap
Gut feelings
Gut reactions
Gut instincts
Intuition
Knowing
Perceptions
Hunches
There are a lot of ways we describe what our gut is telling us.
It will turn on you if you don’t listen. Indigestion, hormone imbalances, food intolerance, cortisol, glucose sensitivity, infertility, ED, fibromyalgia, allergies, adrenal fatigue, autoimmune disorders, leaky bowels, IBS, etc…
It is unpleasant when you turn off your ability to listen to your gut.
It isn’t normal to shut down parts of yourself. There is a reason we have multiple brains that run our bodies. It is a checks and balances system. When one goes offline, we are self-limiting our ability to make well-rounded decisions. This can keep us stuck in a narrow lane, unable to recognize what is happening around us.
It Bubbles Up And Flows Out When It’s Safe
All of that intuition and those thoughts and reactions from the past are still there after you leave the abusive relationship AND IT WANTS TO BE RELEASED! It’s dying to be let out.
When you were inside of the relationship it was not safe to release them. Now that you have left, it needs to come out.
Like an overflowing river, the dam breaks and you can’t stop it from happening.
It’s a sign you are safe enough to let it out. That’s a good thing.
Cycles Need To Finish
The abuse that was stored for so long was part of a process. Trauma needs healing. If you have weeks/months/years of trauma stored inside of you… That is a lot of partially completed events.
Talking about the trauma is one way to kickstart healing. All of that backed-up trauma wants to finish what it started.
When you have trained yourself to stop feeling and compartmentalize the pain, it will take time to re-train yourself to let it ride out.
The Memories Need To Sort Themselves
When we can finally give a name to what happened and call it what it was (abuse/trauma), we then have the task of cataloging historical events.
There is a need to make it make sense.
This is why our thoughts seem to be in an ever-looping circle and we act in ways that make us seem crazy. Before, when we called our abuser wonderful and amazing, we were attaching that label to them. Now that we define it as abuse, that label has to be placed on the feelings and memories associated with them.
It takes time to do that.
Imagine if you had to go through an attic full of old junk, take each piece out, remove the old label, and stick on a new one. It’s a full project.
That is what happens when trauma is recognized. The boxes we had housed those memories in have exploded and we have to do something about it now. Your brain is scrambling to apply reasoning to unreasonable situations.
How do you sort chaos?
The best you can. That’s how. Give yourself a break if you don’t do it perfectly. Who could?
People Will Get Sick Of It And So Will You
You’ll get angry and annoyed at your inability to control the stream of negative energy coming out of you toward your abuser. You’re friends and family will listen for a while, but eventually they will tire of it as well.
It takes however long it takes, and at some point, you will exhaust yourself. The trick is to recognize when that point is and then make the switch from complaining to → action.
Not taking action will leave you stranded in Victim Land. Everything sucks there.
The next actions will be centered on yourself and your growth. Typically, the first task is reclaiming the looping thoughts that were focused on your abuser and turning them into thoughts about you and your goals.
This is where growth can thrive. This comes after your body has cleared the junk from your system to find good earth to plant on.
If you need to complain a bit longer, go for it. Let the cycle complete. You’ll get there.
