I realized the other day that my blogs, so far, have focused on narcissists, flying monkeys, and smear campaigns through the lens of my personal experience.
What does not appear as readily in my blogs is my personal healing journey. Believe it or not, while I spend much of my free time writing blogs about my five-year relationship with my narcissist and managing my social media pages on narcissistic abuse, I spend little to no time ruminating about my narcissist. I live a full, rich life, narcissist-free, and my mind is at liberty to focus on the things I care about - my children, my partner, my friends, my small town, my home, and my i am Ekho online community filled with wonderful people at various stages of healing from narcissistic abuse.
However, having a clear head that can focus on the things I care about rather than ruminate on the past is rather recent. I have finally gotten to a point where I feel nothing (not fear, not anger, not confusion - nothing) when I run into my narcissistic ex from time to time or when his name pops up in conversation. This was not the case fifteen months ago when I first left the relationship. Often, I would wake up in a cold sweat thinking about how cruel he was to me or try to avoid him at all costs, even changing my own plans if I thought he would be somewhere I wanted to go.
So how did I get from fretting and ruminating about my narcissist constantly to feeling totally indifferent towards him?
Dr. Ramani was and continues to be one of my go-to sources for understanding narcissistic abuse and healing from it. And recently I watched her video “DO THIS to stop ruminating about the narcissist.”
She starts her video by describing an article she read on how people can stop ruminating on a relationship gone south but points out that most of these types of articles are not geared towards survivors of narcissistic abuse.
The rules for how one gets over a normal relationship breakup do not apply to narcissistic relationship breakups (or as I like to call them, escapes).
Narcissistic abuse survivors are not making a mountain out of a molehill. Instead, the mountain is real and it is a huge stumbling block towards moving on, healing, and living our best lives. After the relationship ends, whether that means being discarded by the narcissist or breaking it off and going no contact, survivors are left to ruminate over what the heck happened and to experience profound grief over all the things the narcissist took from them, most notably their time, their sense of safety and security, and their trust. We are left feeling confused, fearful, suspicious, uncertain, unstable, and unable to parse out what is real and what is a lie. It is not like the rug is pulled out from under us, rather, it is like the Earth disintegrated beneath our feet, and we are floating in a cosmic void with no firm ground in sight.
Because of the unique condition that narcissistic abuse survivors are left to deal with, conventional break-up wisdom does not really apply. Things like keeping busy, setting a 20-minute worry timer, and getting off social media, are largely ineffective at helping someone who has been gaslit, manipulated, lied to, betrayed, deceived, smeared, and abused in every way possible to ‘get over’ their trauma.
So what does Dr. Ramani suggest instead? She says “ruminate away.”
Talk about it to anyone who will listen and support you. Journal/ write about your experience. Join support groups for survivors of narcissistic abuse and share your experience if you feel safe doing so. Ruminate, ruminate, ruminate away - and through this rumination process, you heal. She makes the analogy of eating bad food. What does your body do? It purges the tainted food from your body in not-so-pleasant ways, but through this purging process, healing takes place.
I think that is exactly what I have done over the course of the past six months since I started i am Ekho. I have written about my experience so much and created so many memes, watched so many videos, and talked to so many narcissistic abuse survivors that nearly all the tainted food has been expelled from my body and I am truly healing.
Everyone’s healing journey is going to look different. What works for one person might not work for another. And there is no one-size-fits-all method for dealing with all the pain, heartache, confusion, and downright fear caused by a narcissist. But one suggestion I do have is to get it all out of your system - talk about it (with safe people), write about it (you don’t have to publish it - but you can), share your story (in a safe environment), and purge yourself of any power the narcissist still has over you.
As always, I wish each and every one of my readers healing, safety, security, and peace. We are all in this together, and, through sharing our stories, I know that we are helping each other to heal and feel supported. Just know that you are not alone. Millions of people have gone through narcissistic abuse and come out the other side to live a rich and meaningful life. Together, we can create a community of care and support. - Ekho
