To start, narcissistic abuse could happen from a parent to a child, sibling to sibling, friend a friend, or romantic partner to romantic partner. Narcissistic abuse means that one person holds power. The other person feels helpless, inferior, and invalid. Additionally, if you are a victim or survivor of narcissistic abuse, you may now have post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. Additionally, survivors of narcissistic abuse may have low self-worth, low self-esteem, doubt themselves, and be very critical of themselves. This is because they had a highly critical person in their lives telling them that they were worth nothing. Wisdom Within Counseling in Connecticut helps you in healing narcissistic abuse in therapy.
How can healing narcissistic abuse in therapy help with the root of self-esteem issues?
You may have had an ex partner who told you you were meaningless to them or cheated on you. As well, you may have had a parent who was emotionally immature, lied to you, or played games with your head. Having a parent who was emotionally immature, suffering from alcoholism, and was narcissistic, leads to low self worth. Growing up in a chaotic environment where your parents were always drunk and abusing alcohol, taught you that you didn’t deserve healthy parents. Essentially, counseling and help you rebuild your self-worth and your self-esteem.
Let’s learn worry about narcissistic abuse and how counseling can help in this article.
What are types of narcissistic abuse?
For example, someone who is narcissistic and abusive will give you a gift. Then, they will want loads and loads of verbal appreciation. Just because they gave you a gift, they will make it feel like you owe them something. They might even call you ungrateful after they gave you a gift. And, their gift always has strings attached. Just because they gave you a gift, doesn’t mean it was a genuine offering of love. It means that they might want you to lend the money, or that you have to do something for them as an obligation in return for this gift. As well, in an abusive and narcissistic relationship, gifts are used to justify bad behavior.
Your ex partner may have cheated on you or screamed at you while drunk, and then bought you a gift.
This is called love bombing. As well, love bombing can create feelings of fear, helplessness, and lack of safety and a victim. Additionally, you might be afraid to accept a gift because gifts used to mean that you were about to be abused or that abuse had just finished. Essentially, your past memories of receiving a gift are surrounded by guilt, fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and worry that more abuse would be coming.
Childhood narcissistic abuse
Having a parent who is emotionally immature, narcissistic, and abusive can change your life forever. As a child, you may not have realized that you were living with a narcissistic parent. Children think their world is everyone else’s world. Only in adulthood, when we get to talk about our life experiences with others, do we realize that our childhood was different than others. If you had a narcissistic parent or an emotionally abusive parent, they probably had alcoholism. Having a parent with alcoholism or a drug addiction leads to an unstable living environment.
Parents with drug addiction and alcoholism are abusive
Furthermore, growing up, your parent may have had drunken alcoholic episodes, was verbally abusive you, or even invited strange, abusive people into your home. Essentially, your parent’s alcoholism and drug use negatively impacted your childhood. You had to be the parent and the caretaker for your adult parent. Essentially, as a child, you always had to walk on eggshells.
And, growing up, you lived in a very chaotic and stressful environment.
There was yelling constantly and no one resolved things calmly. Now, in your adult years, you are still suffering from the trauma of your childhood. Your parents may still be abusive a narcissistic, and you need help setting boundaries with them. Therapy can help you heal from having a narcissistic parent and learn how to have a healthy relationship with them. So, healing narcissistic abuse in therapy helps you rebuild self-worth tools.
In a relationship with a narcissistic person, you are never able to express your emotions. You are often criticized for your feelings and blamed for a narcissist’s problems.
Who can be narcissistic and abusive?
Healing narcissistic abuse from parents in therapy
Parents who are narcissistic and abusive are self-centered. Every action they take is to fulfill their own pleasure. Also, a parent who is sexually abusive has narcissistic traits. As well, a parent who is a pathological liar or very dysfunctional has narcissistic traits. If you had a narcissistic mother, she was jealous of you as her child. As a child, if you received any praise, your mother always took credit. As well, if you had a narcissistic mother, they were probably emotionally unstable in many ways. They were jealous of your accomplishments and could never give you the praise you deserved. And, any when people gave you attention, your mother saw that as a threat to her attention.
Narcissistic people in romantic relationships
In a romantic relationship, a narcissist will threaten to explode, threaten to hit you, and threaten to take away things that are important to you. For instance, if you share a feeling that the narcissist deems as an attack, they might physically hit you, slap you, or smash your phone. As well, if you were in a relationship with a narcissist, they are unable to empathize with your emotional pain or hurt. Even if they made a mistake, they will never be able to apologize and will always blame you. For example, if a narcissist hits you or slap you across the face, which is physical abuse, they will tell you that you said something that made them do that. Now, never believe that it is your fault for someone physically or emotionally abusing you.
Often times, narcissists isolate their victims in romantic relationships.
A narcissist will separate you from your friends, tell your friends don’t care about you, and that you should rely on them solely. As well, narcissist in a romantic relationship will belittle you, criticize you, tell you that you look ugly, and lower your self-worth slowly over time. Unfortunately, it is really common that victims do not recognize they are in a trauma bond or a narcissistic relationship. Complete isolation from friends and family is part of narcissism. Working with a counselor can help with overcoming narcissistic abuse. Overall, healing narcissistic abuse in therapy rebuilds self-esteem.
Narcissistic abuse in general creates PTS
Why is it important to heal narcissistic abuse in therapy?
Now, healing narcissistic abuse in therapy is very important. if you had an emotionally immature, narcissistic parent growing up, it means you are more likely to attract an abusive spouse. From childhood patterns, you learned how to take care of everyone else except yourself. To survive with a narcissistic parent, you played small, didn’t speak up, and never cried. You knew that if you drew attention away from your parent, abuse would come. So, because you have low self-esteem and childhood, you are more likely to attract a spouse who is narcissistic or abusive. You know how to people please very well from childhood grooming. Essentially, your parent taught you not how to be a child, but how to be a slave to care for other peoples emotions.
So, healing from narcissistic abuse in counseling allows you to care for yourself first and foremost.
You can recognize red flags of emotionally and physically abusive relationships from counseling. Additionally, attending counseling in Connecticut can help you overcome post traumatic stress disorder symptoms. You might be living in a state of high anxiety, depression, or worry. Sometimes, survivors of emotional and physical abuse also have problems with digestion, troubles concentrating, trouble sleeping, and body pain. Additionally, survivors of emotional and physical abuse may need help setting boundaries and understanding red flags in romantic relationships. Counseling can be a safe place for you to reflect on how to create a life that supports you and nurture is you. Wisdom Within Counseling in Connecticut offers mind-body PTSD therapy.
Post-traumatic stress disorder and healing narcissistic abuse in therapy in Connecticut
To note, a narcissistic person will always want you to get into a fight with them. Essentially, they feed off of seeing you distraught, upset, crying, and weak. So, counseling in Connecticut can help you recognize signs of narcissistic abuse and learn to disengage. Fighting back verbally or physically is only going to make the situation worse and escalate the anger.
Also, as a survivor of narcissistic abuse, you may experience anxiety, low self-esteem, low self-worth, nightmares, insomnia, and difficulty focusing.
Working with a therapist can help give you tools to overcome PTSD symptoms. You can learn how to self regulate, self sooth, and reconnect with your mind and body. Essentially, working with a holistic therapist at wisdom Within Counseling in Connecticut helps you love and accept yourself just the way you are. And, you can recognize and be proud that you are a survivor.
As well, if you are a survivor of narcissistic abuse from a parent or a romantic partner, you may have fears of abandonment.
A narcissistic parent or spouse may have threatened to leave you multiple times, creating a fear of abandonment. As a result, you may be very good at people pleasing and putting everyone else before yourself. Working with a therapist who specializes in healing from family dysfunction in narcissistic abuse can help you develop confidence. The team at Wisdom Within Counseling in Connecticut specializes with survivors of trauma.
What are trauma triggers that are part of healing narcissistic abuse in therapy in Connecticut?
Living on high alert means that you always feel like you are walking on eggshells. Growing up with a narcissistic parent means that you never knew what the truth was. One moment, your parent may have been telling the truth and the next moment they may have been lying to your face. Right now, you might feel like you are always waiting for the other shoe to drop. You are waiting for the next abusive episode to occur and living with a high level of anxiety. Counseling for PTSD can teach you relaxation tools. From holistic mind-body therapies, you can relax your parasympathetic nervous system and calm your poly vagal tone.
Learning about your parasympathetic nervous system is a big part of healing from trauma.
For instance, singing out loud, humming, or dancing in your living room are ways to incorporate your mind and body to live in the present moment. However, having a narcissistic parent, you were not allowed to sing. They were always criticizing you if you were singing. They made fun of you for singing, expressing and dancing. Re-learning how to express your emotions in a healthy way is part of trauma therapy at Wisdom Within counseling in Connecticut.
How can Wisdom Within help with healing narcissistic abuse in therapy?
A narcissistic person, whether a parent or romantic fouse, will never trust you. As well, they will deny things that they have done, especially mistakes they’ve made that have hurt you. You will always be blamed as the victim, even if it was their mistake. Working with a therapist who specializes in PTSD, trauma, and narcissistic abuse can help you develop self confidence. And, if you have felt isolated from friends and family, or that your boundaries have been disrespected, counseling for trauma could really help you. From holistic trauma counseling, you can start to recognize red flags and narcissistic abuse before being stuck in it.
Furthermore, you can have a safe place to talk about your story and finally feel emotionally validated by your therapist.
Your therapist can be a role model for creating healthy relationships in your life, with no strings attached. Overall, healing narcissistic abuse in therapy in Connecticut is possible at Wisdom Within.
Wisdom Within Counseling helps you in healing narcissistic abuse in therapy.
