It today’s article I want to share with you the 6 steps I took to regain my health after narcissistic abuse, and how to apply them in your life in order for you to achieve a full Thriver Recovery too.
Please note these steps are applicable after we have created No Contact (or strict Modified Contact). Because the truth is: if you are still in contact and can’t break away, or at the very least powerfully detach in order to focus on yourself and heal, then you are continually being abused and violated. All the energy you will be expending trying to survive (or obsessing about what is happened) is draining your life-force, meaning it is not available to love and heal yourself back to wholeness.
Okay so let’s get into these steps to heal … and I’m going to start off with the First Step that actually underpins every step. In fact, this step is so crucial, that without embracing it and applying yourself to it, your recovery, in my opinion, is not going to happen. Rather your life is forever trying to manage your still in existence inner traumas.
Meaning … there is no room or energy for the good stuff to start flowing through you and taking hold.
Sooo … the Number 1 Step in order to regain your health after narcissistic abuse is:
1. Releasing The Trauma From Within
We all know the feelings of anxiety, depression, powerlessness and constant obsessions that are sucking us dry and barely giving us the energy to function, let alone Thrive and create a great life. These feelings when we are mired in them, can feel unbearable and often near impossible to escape.
The truth is this: These strong painful emotions are our inner unhealed traumas screaming ‘Come to me and help me!’
If we don’t shift this toxic, dense energy out of our inner being, then at best all we can do is attempt to manage it – try to numb it out, or distract ourselves from it. Yet when we have suffered narcissistic abuse, generally these strategies don’t work anymore. The trauma inside us is too activated and intense, and it is exhausting and takes virtually (in many cases) everything we have to try to get out of bed and face our life (let alone get well) – it’s so big!
Many of us who are into self and personal development will try things like meditation, constant affirmations, journalling, yoga and all sorts of wonderful spiritual work, to try to overcome how we are feeling … yet we discover this self-work has to be constantly engaged in, often for hours a day, and as soon as we aren’t doing it the terrible trauma comes screaming up to the surface again.
The amount of effort required to try to feel good often becomes unsustainable – and we discover it just doesn’t durably ‘hold’.
Because of the level of soul rape we experienced via narcissistic abuse and the terrible trauma that isn’t getting better over time, we may decide that medication is the answer. Yet even though we may get some relief from the all-consuming feelings, we still don’t feel extended, truly happy, confident or free. We still feel diminished, frail and unworthy and incapable of claiming the life and love that we truly want to live.
It may not be until we ‘Go Quantum’ that we finally understand what is really going on here – that there is a grand design to this inner trauma NOT going away. Finally, finally (when we awaken) we realise that this was always about us turning inwards to meet, love and heal (release) ourselves back to wholeness.
Of course, we have all been taught to avoid our trauma and not meet it – yet we can’t heal what we are not prepared to feel. Meeting and healing our trauma is the ONLY way to be free of it.
I promise you if I hadn’t done this, I know I would not be alive today, and I wouldn’t be as healthy, radiant and able to Thrive as I am, as well as help so many other people achieve what I have.
So, that is my highest and most important message that I could ever share with you: meeting and releasing your trauma to go free of it is the most important self-mission you will ever engage in to get well. For all of us, when we did this with full self-dedication, we realise how true this is, and WHY nothing else was working.
Once we realise how vital this is, as the foundation for our very healing, this then leads on to Step Number 2.
2. Emotions First… Always!
This I promise you …
You cannot THINK your way out of severe emotional trauma.
Why not?
Because your thinking is always triggered into the exact thoughts that are a match for the traumatic wounds inside you. The traumatic wounds have high-jacked a huge 95% of your entire system, and the weeny 5% logical brain power you have just gets swept into this painful abyss.
Hence why no matter how much you try to think differently in ways that help you feel better and honour you – you simply can’t help but default back to the terrible ‘stinking thinking’ that makes the emotional inner wounds feel even worse.
So what’s the answer?
Stop trying to think about how you feel and rather meet your emotions directly in your body, and do the work on them there.
This may sound really weird, if you have never understood this concept before and never tried it. And I don’t blame you, because after all we were all taught that whatever is going on is taking place in our head!
(I promise you it’s not!)
If you don’t improve your emotions, then you aren’t signalling Life to do it any differently for you. This is the absolute 100% truth – the Quantum System of Life is totally unconditional. It responds to your Beingness … which means your emotional state.
If your emotional state is trauma, depression, hopelessness, helplessness and victimhood, then the Quantum Mechanics of Life say this: ‘I love you so much that I will grant you MORE of whoever you are being.’ Which means you are simply creating in the hologram that we know as ‘life’ more trauma, depression, hopelessness, helplessness and victimhood … which means the right characters have to show up to grant MORE of these states. This manifests as things like: crummy lawyers, friends who don’t support you, family members who attack you, horrible bosses, legions of minions … random events that just make life harder and harder and of course your ongoing connection to narcissists who treat your cruelly and with utter contempt.
We need to understand that none of that will stop regardless of what you ‘do’ to try to stop it … if you are not changing your emotions FIRST. Because, until you do, you are trying to stop the power of an avalanche (all of Life backing your Beingness) with the power of an ant.
Attending to – inside of yourself – ‘Emotions First’ is the total 100% goal as the absolute foundation of creating a True Life the only way it has ever worked which is from the inside out. This is where Law of Attraction, in its most basic form, falls over badly – the system of ‘ignore the bad feelings and just push on into visualising and feeling the good stuff.’
HELLO! With severe trauma we can’t JUST do that!
It is not possible when we are clogged up with trauma because there is no “room” to anchor in good thoughts and feelings, our insides are too sick for that.
When we understand the REAL bigger picture truth, this we know … all of this happened so that we could go inside, self-partner and become our own truest loving source to FINALLY stop trying to get love from all the wrong places. Does ignoring our Inner Being screaming in pain achieve that soul evolutionary goal?
That is what this journey is all about, and please know a vastly improved, safer, more empowered version of ourselves isn’t possible when we are carrying the wounds or our childhoods and ancestors inside us. This is why we need to turn inwards and attend to ‘Emotion First’.
This is now my 100% Life choice, because I know if I am triggered and don’t go inside to heal it, I don’t have the improved consciousness to show up healthily and powerfully and authentically. Rather, because I am acting out of my wounds, instead of a more evolved self, I will say or do something with only compounds the message (the pain) of the wounds that I am self-avoiding by not going inwards. And of course, I hand my power away by making life and others responsible for how I feel rather than being the powerful generator of my own life.
This equals ‘how to lose’ for all concerned!
Now that we have covered over the Quantum necessities (Step 1 and 2) that flip your life around powerfully when they become your way of life, I want to also address supplements that I feel are incredibly powerful to help support your recovery.
3. Regaining your Physical Health After Narcissistic Abuse
Our emotional, mental, spiritual and physical bodies are all deeply connected. For a true Thriver Recovery to take place we need to get very serious about DE-TOXING our bodies from all energy and substances that are causing dis-ease within us.
Especially when you’re re-wiring your subconscious with Quanta Freedom Healing and letting go of toxic trauma, in rapid and powerful ways, the healthier you become the easier your healing journey will be.
I am a big fan of seeing a Functional Medicine (Holistic) Doctor, who can do extensive blood tests to examine your blood levels and how your internal systems are functioning. Be prepared to invest in yourself (if financially possible) with changes in diet, minerals and supplements. These can all make an enormous difference to your healing journey. If you can’t afford to see a Functional Medicine Doctor, then I really urge you to start doing your own research regarding health and nutrition. We are all now in an information age that we don’t need to just accept what our standard doctor tells us.
I promise you this – if I had accepted my GP doctor’s advice I would not be alive today. (Please know there are wonderful doctors – just explore your options!) We now have so much information and resources at our fingertips that we can educate and empower ourselves with what feels right and resonates with us – regarding diet and health. If you think your diet and health is not impactful on your emotional state, then I urge you to think again. Clean food and water sources are a big part of the puzzle and the sooner you start addressing this the better your recovery will go.
What is wonderful about Quanta Freedom Healing, is if you are suffering resistance to changing food habits, such as for example if you suffer from a sugar addiction – you can shift out the trauma from your body with NARP Modules, and then you will find it so much easier to adopt better health habits – emotionally and practically.
Truly when we have trauma inside we create more of ‘that’ – we choose junk! Yet when we target and release it, our craving for junk dissolves away.
When we feel better – we do better.
4. Declutter Your Life
This is also about letting go of even more toxicity and stale energy that no longer serves you, in order to make the space for a New Self and New Life. This feels so freeing and healing when we do this!
This includes de-cluttering your home environment. What do you no longer use or have a use for? What can you donate or sell? What do you own that keeps you anchored in a painful past or is keeping you stuck and not able to let go and move forward?
This includes emails and messages and documents.
De-cluttering is also about making a list of and letting go of habits and people which you are addicted to and/or which are not healthy. Who and what no longer serves you and is not aligned with your New Self and New Life. Who and what can you let go of in order to make space for your New Life to start showing up?
I know this can be so hard to do, but please know if you are doing the inner work and the shifting, you can powerfully blast through and release unhealthy stuck attachments to help free yourself. Remember ‘Emotion First’ is the most powerful way to change on the inside so that you start generating a completely different life on the outside!
5. Moving Your Body Is Powerful
I believe it is important to move our bodies as we heal.
As Thrivers, our goal is to have space in our cells and freedom within, because that is the true foundation of our entire life. Movement is so helpful for this. I love things like dance, yoga, Pilates and walking. Breathing as we walk in nature is so powerful to open up and release stale stuck energy and create room for wellbeing and good feelings.
Naturally, if you are shifting out trauma as it arises as your self-dedicated lifestyle, you will discover that your body will organically heal. Old complains and dis-ease melt away, and you become healthier, more active, and more eager to move and engage in life.
We also find that our stubborn fat and toxic deposits start to melt away as we reset to our True Self.
I do believe, initially when you are in terrible shock and trauma, you may need to stay indoors on your couch wailing out the wounds. However, when you start to get some space inside, try to connect to gentle exercise, being in nature and finding a regular practice that works for you.
I love to move my body every day, in some way even if it is for only 15 minutes.
6. Evolving Your Habits
If we wish to become highly actualised human beings, surviving and then Thriving after narcissistic abuse, we need to get very serious about how we spend our spare time.
Yes, downtime and relaxation are important. Yet, it is healthy when it’s in balance and not used as a way to self-abandon and self-avoid the essential work we need to do on ourselves.
My highest suggestions regarding changing how we spend our time are to replace TV, researching narcissists, negative Abuse Forums and Facebooking with self-healings, positive information and sources that feed your soul, spirit and spiritual development. Spend healthy time in life with things that nourish you, like getting a massage, art classes, nature trips, taking yourself out to lunch, or reading and journaling in cafes etc.
Okay … so I really hope this helps you understand the steps and the self-dedication I took to heal and Thrive, so that you can too, no matter where you are on the journey or how bad it has been for you.
It is our soul’s urge for us to GET WELL. We are all being called towards our True Selves, and the wonderful thing is that here in this Community there absolutely is the tools, spirit, and support for you to achieve it.
As always, I look forward to your comments and questions.
I’m struggling with knowing what my traumas are in order to meet and heal them. I’ve been modified contact for a little over a year and it still feels like just yesterday in some cases. I’m very easily triggered by a lot of things and I want to show up as my true self. Help! I am part of the NARP program and I listen to the modules often. What am I doing wrong?
Hi Shana,
What will help you a lot is coming into the NARP Forum where myself and the Moderators can coach you on how to connect and shift, and help you find the blocks that are preventing that.
Here is the link to come into the members forum https://www.melanietoniaevans.com/member
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Mel as always your messages come at the right time and affirm the importance of me continuing with NARP and not self-avoiding, particularly with TV. Sometimes I feel like there is so much to shift that there isn’t enough time for me to do this, however as I look back over the last two months I can see I have already come so far. I listen to my positive affirmations in the morning on the way to work, do some EFT tapping when I have the time, and then atleast 5 evenings I dedicate 1-1.5 hours to NARP. I know I am feeling more centered and alive, I feel a connection to myself that I haven’t experienced before, on the bad days this keeps me going. Thank you eternally xxx
Hi Marjory,
I am so pleased this reaffirmed for you, and how wonderful that you have been diligently applying to you and creating wonderful breakthroughs!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Thank you.
I am now onto day 4 of my new life after 38 years of marriage and I think I will be alright.
You were right when you said that you need help to leave. I didn’t think I would every be
able to leave I thought I would be trapped forever because no one knew what my husband
was like but a person came into our live a couple of years ago and because he was with
us everyday saw the creature that my husband was and through that I had help in seeing
what I needed to do. One month ago I ran for the third time to a camping area in a
tent. Now a month later of going back to work with my husband and fighting everyday and
going back to my tent he has finally decided to go to our daughter who is 1,200 kilometers
away. He is still under the assumption that I will follow him but I will not.
Which now brings me to day 4 as he left 4 days ago.
I am healing, I don’t wish to see anybody but on saying this I have no money so I must continue
on and get a job, hold my head up high as he has said the most horrible things about me
with people believing him as no one knows what he is really like.
Wish me luck.
From Dawn
Hi Dawn,
That is so great you have clarity now.
Please know you are very welcome and sending your strength and healing and power for your New Life ahead.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Dear Dawn, I read your comment and think you have incredible courage. I’m so happy you found Mel to help you. I’m probably about your age; I was married for 31 years, until I filed for divorce 3 years ago. The divorce was finalized last week, and I am officially free! Like you , I thought I’d be trapped in the relationship for the rest of my life . My new life is better than I thought possible; now I can create my own life. He abused me in every way , and I ended up having to assume a big debt which was the result of him refusing to work for two years. So even with financial devastation you can reclaim your life. I hope knowing that others who’ve lived the same hell youre going thorough now and are thriving will help give you strength to heal. Good luck and Love, Joni
Hi Joni,
How wonderful you have broken through to this level and thank you for your beautiful encouragement to Dawn.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Right! Best advice ever. True and edifying.
Thank you Sharon,
Bless!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
This is the best article yet; thank you. So much is finally making sense for me now.
That’s great Katie!
You are so welcome.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Thank you very much for these suggestions—cheers! I just want to clarify something Melanie. You said in one of the links in this post that you take 100% responsibility for your inner wounds. To me, we’re not responsible for the initial wounds (e.g., they could have resulted from childhood events/trauma, bullying/mobbing in one’s workplace, epigenetic or ancestral trauma, etc.), but we are indeed responsible for doing the inner work to heal the wounds and shift trauma out. To me it’s important to make this distinction, so that self blame/negative self talk doesn’t take over. Thanks again for the great post.
Hi Kari,
Yes absolutely blame has nothing to do with it.
Responsibility in this sense does not mean ‘caused’! In fact everyone’s wounds are never ‘who they are’ and they always come from someone else’s wounds – which is the human experience!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Thank you for taking time to answer my question and to clarify Melanie—very much appreciated.
Heading out to participate in an activity that feeds and nourishes my soul—yoga.
Thanks again Melanie. In gratitude.
I think that thriving after narcistic abuse is the very important thing to do.
My problem is, that I am german and o hope I understand everything but I fear to speak.
Because of understanding.
The orher point of view is, that you are the only person who speaks of healing by emotions through your body.It is that what I know deep in my body.
Make sport and exercises. The main thing is the spirit to change the feelings around ang go inside and trust yourself.
Thank you for all issues you speak about.
Thanks, so wonderful and beautiful you are.
Beate
Hi Beate,
Thank you for you post and it is so true that our healing can only come through the emotional body.
So pleased this resonates with you!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Hi Mel,
I for last 6 years have done exactly what you wrote about when you highlighted ‘back in the day’ and I thought that if I felt emotion and just held myself crying by self-soothing that way and using all those ways you mentioned I would some how get better. What I noticed was after visiting a holistic kinesiologist is that the healing would last up to maybe 5 days and I would be back in my survival state of body-mind again. The same with taking long walks on the beach, swimming 20 laps, writing in my journal and trying to meditate with no success as my racing thoughts and trauma would take me over and leave me in my mind trying to manage it by trying to think better. What a bloody mess I have managed to get myself in and now life has stopped, time has stopped and I am stuck in the middle of no where land literally living with a sibling who is in need of my care. Life seems to have kicked me or maybe my trauma has come to a stand still because I just can’t do life anymore.
Great article makes so much sense and I want to know how do you meet your trauma because my mind tells me that is impossible? Even as I type I have this big ball of contractions in my stomach kind of looks like I am expecting a small child but I can feel it kicking at me with anxiety and my mind in depression. I hope I have made some people laugh…….but I am losing it.
Awww gosh Shelia,
You do relate!
I’d love you to connect to my free transformational resources https://www.melsnietoniaevans.com/freecourse
In it you will receive an invitation to my free workshop where I take you through meeting and releasing your trauma.
I hope this helps and please know there is hope!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Hi Mel
Love your work.
There is a spelling mistake in the link, with an s instead of an a in melanie ;).
Here is the correct one: https://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freecourse
Thank you Carol for picking that up!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Hi Mel,
This is such a brilliant article. Love it.
If possible could you please help me with a little clarification on one of the suggestions mentioned,
It says, “My highest suggestions regarding changing how we spend our time are to replace TV, researching narcissists, negative Abuse Forums and Facebooking with self-healings, positive information and sources that feed your soul, spirit and spiritual development. Spend healthy time in life with things that nourish you, like getting a massage, art classes, nature trips, taking yourself out to lunch, or reading and journaling in cafes etc.”
is *Facebooking with self-healings, positive information and sources that feed your soul, spirit and spiritual development* to be avoided or is ok to do?
Thank you very Much!
RV
Hi RV,
Yes absolutely it is!
Good to clarify!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
I think there is a slight confusion in Resurrection’s comment. As I read Mel’s article, the recommendation is to:
– stop watching TV
– stop doing so much research into narcissists and narcissism
– stop reading / visiting negative abuse forums
– stop accessing Facebook
Instead, spend time:
– healing your self
– looking for/ absorbing positive information, from sources that
— feed you soul
— feed /nourish your spirit
— contribute to your spiritual development
Richard
thank you so much for going through my comment and further clearing the confusion. Deeply appreciate it.
Hi Mel,
This is such a brilliant article. Love it.
If possible could you please help me with a little clarification on one of the suggestions mentioned,
It says, “My highest suggestions regarding changing how we spend our time are to replace TV, researching narcissists, negative Abuse Forums and Facebooking with self-healings, positive information and sources that feed your soul, spirit and spiritual development. Spend healthy time in life with things that nourish you, like getting a massage, art classes, nature trips, taking yourself out to lunch, or reading and journaling in cafes etc.”
is *Facebooking with self-healings, positive information and sources that feed your soul, spirit and spiritual development* to be avoided or is ok to do?
Thank you very Much!
RV
6 Steps To Regaining Your Health After Narcissistic Abuse
Thank you Melanie for these strategic plans towards healing from narcassistic abuse. It would be great to get a one line for each of the 6 points to put on my mirror for everyday affirmations.
I would like to share the strategy that worked for me to finallly have silence from a somatic, obessessive, narcassistic stalker, who clearly has an personality disorder. He was obsessive about sending me messages, (sometimes up to 70/day ), though when he felt I was pulling away, he turned on an evil dark side that was highly abusive. He would be manipulative, and reverse the scenerio and say he found a ‘good girl’ and I should not contact him and would tell others I was harassing him!
So one day I called the bluff, and told him to not flatter himself, I am seeing someone. ( even though I wasn’t). Everything went quite for about a day, then he messaged. ” that is good” and no more emails, or drive by honking by his proxys (which was happening for 6 months).
Other suggestions of effective corrospondence with narcassists would be great to hear. Especially from those that cut through thier bullshit early in the game. Could save many a long road of hardship!
Stripping him of his emotional control, and suggesting I had another male to protect me, is what it took.
Hi Mary,
That is great that worked!
And I will note your suggestion for another possible article or video!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Thank you! Just exactly what I really needed to read today on my 40th birthday. Am on a travelling soul retreat after the major portion of disentanglement was finally completed. Modified contact soon to be replaced with little or none. I found you online at Christmas as a ‘homeless’ shattered shell of a person in crisis from the abuse. Six to ten months ago this retreat never seemed possible. Independence Day for an independent woman and happy inner child!
Thank you for saving my ass, Mel. There’s just no other way to put it.
Keep smiling keep healing and keep thriving!!! 🙂
How wonderful Cat!
I love that you are smiling and thriving!!
So many continued blessings to you!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
THANK YOU MEL AND OTHER CONTRIBUTORS FOR ALL YOUR HELP….IM A 66YO. GRANDMA..RETIRED NAVY NURSE..I HAD A SON AT 40. HES NARCISS. AND BIPOLAR..HE ALSO HAS SEIZURES ..HE IS IN JAIL FOR THE 12 TH TIME..AFTER 6 OD ATTEMPTS…I HAVE TO FINANCIALLY SUPPORT HIM. ….HELP WHAT CAN I DO ??? I M DROWNING IN TIRED OF IT . STRESS. BROKE. HHHHEEELLLPPP.
Hi Joyce — Your first obligation is to support yourself. There are social welfare agencies that can provide stop-gap assistance so you don’t have to do it alone. You need to do the hard work of searching out the many state and federal bureaucracies that have the financial assistance you need. Good luck.
Hi Mel….you are a life saver to so many across the world… as I mentioned earlier, your inspriing posts and programs have turned my life around, and more importantly, through me, my son’s….. you are a God Send.. Lord’s antidote to the Narcs of the world
Hi Stronger,
Thank you for your beautiful note and I just feel humbled and blessed that I can help.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
This past weekend I cleaned out my closet and posted an ad for my TV. Along with getting rid of clothes I looked around at my things and thought “Do I need that? If the answer was no, I added it to the pile for the Salvation Army. A month ago I changed my diet and started taking supplements. Last night I went to a meditation group that I had wanted to go to for over a year but fear was stopping me. Everything that I had feared (feeling like I didn’t belong, being rejected) had been unfounded.
With all these changes there has been a part of me that has stepped back in awe wondering how this inner shift occurred. For the past year I have been very quiet and as painful feelings have come up I have allowed them. I think this in turn has given me the space to take care of myself. To really care about my well being. In a way it feels like I’m getting acquainted with a new friend who I like a lot but am unfamiliar with.
However this came to be, it feels great! I feel like my world has expanded. I also am accepting that this is only the beginning and there are still more tears to shed. I welcome my tears now instead of fearing them.
Hi Colleen,
What a beautiful shift you are in!!
It is enormous when we chose to be with ourselves fully and lovingly without running away.
Well done!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Hi Joyce — Your first obligation is to support yourself. There are social welfare agencies that can provide stop-gap assistance so you don’t have to do it alone. You need to do the hard work of searching out the many state and federal bureaucracies that have the financial assistance you need. Good luck.
In addition to NARP, I work with a homeopathic physician and use the LIFE Biofeedback Process and go into the Emotional Transformation Timeline Program. I also on the LIFE machine: flower essences, chakra balancing and brain function balancing. One of the most important supplements for me is Causticum 200CH which is taken to address feelings of injustice. Also, tooth sensitivity is often greater due to high levels of salivary cortisol, (I know a 30 year old who lost all her teeth). I take Staphysagria MK for that. These 2 homeopathic remedies are a godsend for me.
Melanie this is exactly the affirmation of path to take I needed to hear. Thank you so much. Peace and healing to all the courageous souls here! ❤️
It’s my pleasure MarySue,
And thank you for your love to all.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
It has been 6 years since I left, divorced 2 and I have recently taken a step backwards as my children are now a bit older and feeling the effects of his ways and he now has moved onto someone else. I thought I would be elated and relieved with this new relationship but I guess old traumas are resurfacing. I feel dreadful some days I guess I need to do the whole process again. Thank you for your support always!!
Hi Sue,
It is so normal to be feeling what you are. Just another level of healing required Dear Lady … you will break through!
You’re very welcome and bless.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
This may not go over well, but I’d like to offer my side of things as a narcissist (by nature) who is going into healing (by choice). This is me speaking as to my personal experience, and not on behalf of all narcissists. My lived experience began at a neutral, default state regarding other people: I had no interest in friendship or closeness with either peers or family, but I was pretty benevolent or benign. There are many people who are born sadistic (my ex was one of them, according to both him and his mother) and so I’m not attempting to say that all narcissists/’paths’ are at their core neutral or benign people. Just me.
However, I can say that this did, in my case, evolve into malevolence as the MANY unwanted advances of society were heaped on me. The truth is, projecting one’s desires, needs, and wants onto others who do not reciprocate not only opens one up for malevolent behavior from malignant narcissists, it is also my belief that it can create them/us. There is a danger in assuming that all human beings need or want the same things, and that those who do not hold to those expectations are in some way inhuman. Generally speaking, I do not need or want the same things as other people, and this holds true for a lot of people who are “differently abled” in terms of their cognition — autistic people, for example, often seem to share this issue.
While I understand that the purpose of this site is to aid ailing people who are not and have never been narcissists, and I have no interest in ever saying anything that would undermine their personal safety, I do think that as a member of society I would fail both myself and others if I did not at least put in a light request to consider how society generally stacks people in the direction of assuming shared desire or intent, and that there is in fact a valid form of trauma done in early childhood TO narcissists or other low-empathy people: the repeated forcing of unwanted affection or inclusion, which often gets worse the more it’s resisted. I am sure that some people will bristle at this, but this is the root of my examining myself, my memories, and my inner needs.
Only one answer keeps coming up: I need to be left alone. I need to be given space. I need to be respected as whole, no matter how much or little I want to bond with other people. I need to be understood as a being who is equal, without being the same. Had I not had people force their presence on me, even in ways which are benign or welcome to normal people, I would never have developed the bitterness and loathing for humanity which became overtly malevolent and hateful behavior. When people force things on you, and tell you that you MUST want them, and that every human being wants them (implying that you are inhuman if you don’t) it hurts you. That is normal. When there is no support, that creates malevolence and bitterness.
I’d like to reiterate that I’m not touching on the experience of being fundamentally malevolent or sadistic, because that is not my experience. I have always been apathetic unless provoked. Still, despite never enduring childhood sexual abuse (and I have seriously and deeply meditated on if I may have repressed it — definitely did not) I share many symptoms of childhood sex abuse survivors purely to how often I was smothered and invalidated by rote as part of the process of being socialized or parented, and then punished for “being a bit off” and assumed to be much worse than I was. Assigned the role of evil, and given incentive to play it out.
This probably sounds like an autism thing, but I’m pretty sure I’m not autistic, just low empathy and a bit of a loner by nature. Plus, I check most of the boxes for symptoms of NPD, except for my strong preference for peaceful and nonviolent existence. And really, even if I was autistic, like I said, I’m pretty sure the way people treated and handled me when I didn’t give them what they wanted or expected IS what lead me to develop in the direction of malignant behavior (until I made the choice to “starve myself off” of malignant supply or ANY human contact and go inward, which is just an opposite-angle version of what you’re saying here)
Anyway, my point is, I’m seeing a lot of phrasing and assumptions on this website which revisit the messages that damaged me in childhood and set up a wholly unpleasant dynamic for both myself and normal people. I have done the spiritual, quantum, Soul healing thing for years now, and I must absolutely insist that loving myself as a low-empathy narcissist who REALLY just needs to be left alone by most people, and who cannot and will not love others purely due to being expected to (especially not a woman, the way this overlaps with assumed heterosexuality and compulsory relationships with women is heinous and really compounds the issue lol) is very important to me, and is meaningful in pursuing true healing.
What I’m getting at here is, there may in fact be some wider mechanisms at play in the creation of narcissists than a simple debate of good/evil, broken/whole, soulvoid/soulhealed. We are not all simply empty people in denial of ourselves. Some of us have been tormented by roles we were assigned and forced through, and have developed a great deal of malice towards humanity as a result. I think you’re on the money when it comes to inherited ancestor trauma as a possible factor in the creation of these situations, but I think the root point of what I’m trying to say here is, it’s probably best not to assign everybody black and white narratives with one broad brush. But, I may be wrong. I just know that trying to read self-help advice both to work on myself and to heal from a downright evil ex is a minefield of re-traumatization and there has to be a better way. I can’t be the only one.
(For the record, I am not accusing you of homophobia, at all. But I am definitely saying that, as an attractive and charismatic male, the number of women who have assumed I was straight and interested and then proceeded to assign romantic intent to me has been alarmingly high, and I get the sense that a fair number of narcissistic relationships begin because someone assumes romantic receptiveness is on the table where it isn’t, and to someone who does not desire that but who is willing to engage in exploitative behavior, that opens the door to nightmares. All connections must be tested before they are acted on. I have noticed you say that, but really, like I said, I think a lot of detail is being overlooked here because it’s simply not worth it to either most victims or most narcissists to consider)
I will not be responding to discussion. I do not want to open myself up to be either scolded for what other people’s narcissists have done, get my psychological makeup or word choices picked apart for whatever reason, or praised for attempting to heal. I don’t want or enjoy any of those things. I am here only to give my side of things and then leave. Whether people choose to take what I said under advisement or not is their business and theirs only.