Narcissistic abuse is so painful that it completely crushes your faith in humanity.
How do you risk opening your heart again after being so soul-betrayed by someone you loved and trusted?
As humans, we are built to connect, but that carries the risk of being hurt again. So instead, we may choose to remain alone – because at least it is ‘safe’.
In today’s Thriver TV episode I explain how we CAN be free of fear and find beautiful people to share our lives.
Please be sure to watch or read to the end, as I’d also love for you to join me in my upcoming Quantum Dating Bootcamp. Even if you feel like dating is a distant dream, this bootcamp is all about partnering your own soul, so that you are able to have successful, healthy relationships in all areas of your life. And if you are ready to put yourself out there, you will learn my fearless empowered dating process, so that you can date with confidence!
Video Transcript
Welcome Dear Thriver to TTV. Today I want to talk about the relationship conundrum we can have after narcissistic abuse.
Not just intimate partner relationships – all relationships.
Do you withdraw from life, because you have been so betrayed and traumatised? Or do you try to keep connecting up with humans and take the risk of being abused again?
Or is there a third option?
Before we explore these subjects, if you have not yet subscribed to my YouTube channel, please do so. And please remember to share my work with others who need to know it is not just possible to survive narcissistic abuse, you truly can thrive after it.
Okay let’s dive in.
Shattered Beliefs About Humanity After Abuse
Whoever has narcissistically abused you, your belief in the good of humanity is severely compromised. It’s soul shattering to realise that people can act so loving, caring and kind – or should behave in this way in the case of a family member – but are actually sinister: capable of lying straight to your face, exploiting you for their own agenda, treating you like a mere object to mine, and then discarding you like yesterday’s trash when you are no longer needed.
This was not just some mere person to you – it was someone you loved. This person was significant – a lover, spouse, family member, friend, even your own child.
This is no simple “Okay we disagreed and I just have to get over it.” It is much more like a soul violation, rocking the very foundation of your existence.
After this you may choose to spend a great deal of time alone. Maybe you can barely get out of bed, let alone face other people. You may know you have to retreat because you can’t try to be normal around people. You feel depressed and lifeless. You can feel misunderstood and suffer so much shame because other people tell you to “just get over it” and are stunned that you can’t.
At first your alone time may be because you can’t do much else. For me, like so many of us, that was the case.
Before knowing how to self-partner and heal, I frantically researched narcissists, smoked lots, drank excessive coffee, shared my war stories in abuse forums, and of course obsessed constantly.
I wasn’t healing and I wasn’t getting better.
Much of my obsession was that he seemed happy and was having a fabulous time – dating younger women, buying flashy cars and living in the house that I had bought.
I, on the other hand was renting, broke and could barely face anything or anyone.
I surmised, like many of us do, that I should try to meet someone else to take the pain way – because that would constitute “getting on with my life”. Society had me believing that this was the solution, so I tried to date. I either met people who were clearly awful (terrifying me even further); or people who made me feel like I missed him even more; or nice people who liked me – who I hurt because there was no way I was in any position to commit to anyone.
My heart goes out to you if you are either in that place of feeling devastatingly alone or are trying to get back out in life to get better, but keep getting retraumatised.
Thank goodness, there is another way! Lets investigate what this looks like.
Healthy Aloneness
I am so grateful I found a way to heal that did work – it was self-partnering and turning inwards to heal for real.
This turned out to be the most special time of my life coming home to me, in the most loving, self-devoted way I ever had. I knew I had to. I knew my picker for choosing other people was broken. I knew I did not trust myself and I wanted to be at peace with me, trust my own intuition and learn how to feel safe as myself in the world.
I also wanted to know how to be happy to be in my body, in this life, on this planet without needing something outside of me to feel whole. I wanted to break free from the pain and from this matrix that we think is normal, but which certainly isn’t natural. Surely there had to be a better way to feel durably ‘whole’?
At first, before understanding this Quantum journey, I had always spent my life trying to avoid me: the true me – the inner me. Things like excessive compulsive ‘all or nothing’ behaviour – workaholism, addictions, and of course trying to make the wrong people love me – because I had never learned how to be present with, partner and love myself.
Channelling, formulating the Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program (affectionately known as NARP) and following those healings was what allowed me to turn inwards, love the journey, and enjoy the rewards.
If you are alone right now, a good question to ask yourself may be, “Am I purposely healing through this, or am I hoping to just get through it?”
Trying to ‘just get through it’ is usual. I see this a lot, and I did it myself initially – but it takes years, if it happens at all. It isn’t a path of healing because sadly time does not heal narcissistic abuse, any more than staying in the self-tormenting obsessions does.
I liken this time of healthy aloneness to the metaphor of a bird with broken wings going into the bird hospital. The bird can’t fly properly, is in pain and is susceptible to predators. There is a need to pull out of life, go into the bird hospital and mend these wings, so that the bird can re-emerge powerfully and safely to not just fly, but to soar.
I fully committed to that for myself, and my life is now soaring in a way that could not have happened if I hadn’t gone into that bird hospital. I wouldn’t be able to ‘be’ the relationships I have with myself, life and others, so I wouldn’t be able to manifest healthy relationships or identify, accept or maintain them.
Plus, I adored being in the bird hospital! It’s where we find the relationship we have wanted all our life, and the joy and love of being integrated with ourselves and our own Higher Power.
That is real love – from where all other real love can emanate.
I’m sharing this with you so that I can inspire you. I know that many of you Thrivers are living this life too now, and many more Thrivers-to-be will as well – it’s how we are supposed to live. No matter what trauma you are still experiencing, this true relationship is waiting for you, if you choose to move towards it.
From Loneliness To Healthy Connections
As most of us know, narcissists exist in any walk of life. They could be bosses, friends, neighbours – anyone at all. It is certainly not just about love relationships. Also, you may have pulled back away from your family to heal. How do you begin reconnecting back to life safely and healthily?
This may seem like a HUGE jump and just not possible – yet it is.
Let me take you through a rundown of what that can look like.
It looks like taking your healing, development and focus further, to be able to be YOU, safely – no matter what other people are or aren’t doing – to create healthy relationships with people who can be healthy for you.
It’s no longer being needy enough to make excuses for people who aren’t healthy. Rather, you identify them easily, you know you are worth more than whatever they are offering, and so you do not select them to be in your relationship circle.
But how do we not get tricked?
This is all about knowing how to make choices that are a “yes” to your chosen life and “no” to people who aren’t. It is knowing how to align with your values; trust your intuition; show up truthfully without fear; ascertain people over time; and lay great healthy boundaries that narcissists can’t fake their way past. And I promise you, they won’t even bother trying, because narcissists are opportunistic and target people who are easier to dupe and who don’t have boundaries.
You may say “Melanie, that is too simple!”
It really is crazy how we are not taught the simple things! In fact, we haven’t been taught these interpersonal skills at all, and because we didn’t know it, our children don’t know it, just like our parents didn’t know it… and so on and on it goes.
One thing is for certain: if we don’t know how to ‘be’, ‘set up’ and ‘do’ healthy relationships, then we don’t have them. People like you and I, especially after what we have been through, don’t fluke them. They don’t drop in our laps – and most of us wouldn’t know what a healthy relationship looked like even if did show up!
Developing ourselves Quantumly – meaning from the inside out – in ways that create healthy relationships, means that after narcissistic abuse we don’t have to settle for either being lonely or taking the risk of future abuse.
Learning and applying this stuff changed my life beyond description. I went from feeling territorised and traumatised to being able to ascertain people at all levels of my life. Then every part of my interpersonal relationships shifted away from bad people to good people, including an intimate love partner.
This wasn’t luck. It was because I had changed.
In Conclusion
I want to give you hope that Quantum Healing and alignment works. What is wonderful about it is that it’s inspirational! It’s exciting and expansive, it’s fascinating and you start seeing results very quickly. It brings joy, confidence, and a deeper trust and greater love for yourself.
I can help you experience this too.
If you want to be able to connect to humans in a healthy way, I‘d love to help you in my upcoming Dating Bootcamp global on-line training group.
We get together live, twice a week for six weeks.
Don’t let the name Dating Bootcamp mislead you! This 6-week course is about you mating your own soul. It is a training after abuse to help you ‘inner-stand’ (so much more powerful than ‘understanding’) all the following:
- How to know and stand in your values and truth
- How to positively identify someone’s character and understand what level of relationship they are capable of
- How to manifest A grade relationships in every area of your life
- How to explore relationships safely without ever putting yourself at risk
- How to end relationships easily and call in higher vibrational ones without fear and feelings of loss.
These skills will help you connect to yourself, your life and other humans again after abuse in confident, gracious, empowered and spiritually intelligent ways.
And if you are ready to meet your intimate other, during this 6 week journey we will set you up for high-level soul mate dating and the knowing of how to call in that unique special someone who is the lid for your pot – that ONE person who at a higher vibrational level is seeking you as much as you are seeking them.
No matter what level of relationship interaction you wish to heal, your relationship capacity will skyrocket and you will get back into life and whichever relationships you are ready to create in safe, healthy and fulfilling ways.
Also with the Bootcamp Membership I have an early bird FREE bonus event! This powerful limited-number Quanta Freedom Healing Soul Mate Activation Ceremony rakes place on the 9th April.
It is designed to open you up cellularly and Quantumly to recognise, create and maintain 5th Dimensional Higher Vibrational relationships – meaning a reuniting with your Soul Tribe.
Please know that if you can’t get to any sessions live, you will receive all of your recordings for life as a Dating Bootcamp member.
You can find out all about the Quantum Dating Bootcamp by clicking here.
I hope today has granted you the understanding that you don’t have to be alone and you don’t have to live in fear of people. Instead, I hope that you are feeling in your soul that you can call in beautiful people to share life with.
From my heart to yours – I assure you this is true for you.
Until next time, keep smiling, keep healing and keep Thriving – because there is nothing else to do.
Dear Melanie!
I’ve not been certain if the years that I spent in recovery and therapy from some horrifying sexual abuse and the resultant trauma I experienced in my youth, the emotional pain I experienced over the unexpected and sudden loss of my beloved brother, the loss of my children or the often frightening and terrifying experience of marrying and living with a narcissist which, as I went through each “episode”, was the most difficult for me….
However, I think I know now….
BEFORE I realized that I was living in an abusive and subsequently, a narcissistic relationship, I, thankfully, found multiple avenues and modalities and people that were able to help me and guide me to at least a place within that had a semblance of acceptance and understanding.
BUT, with, what I was experiencing during my marriage to a narcissist, there was nothing that seemed to help me at all.
That WAS until NARP miraculously showed up as I was searching for help one lonely cold winter morning.
Since that time, I’ve learned how to manage my life in a much better and consistently healthier way than I was even remotely capable of several years ago.
Each day I am grateful for that….😌
However, I am still painfully lonely… I understand what you’ve mentioned in this article, but I have not been able to overcome the sadness and loneliness and fear, and everything that I’m going through most every day.
At this point, I am deathly fearful of another relationship even though I know I can NOW spot a narcissist from a mile away….
As you mentioned, I have lost a great deal of faith in humanity and confidence, essentially, in the human race!
However, being alone, now, most of the time, I’ve had time for reflection and opportunities to do some inner work, or “work on myself” that would NOT been possible if I were still living with the narcissist….
I am also experiencing the very special joy and “wonderfulness” of being a member of NARP…. that wouldn’t have been even remotely possible if the narcissist were around all the time….
Some days I think how nice it would be to have a friend and partner to share “life” with but when I think about that it frightens me that all the bad things might happen all over again….
I know you teach resilience and you’ve described your own remarkable journey to recovery as you now have a new relationship and so much to look forward to every day, but for some of us that dream seems like, just that, a dream….
(Prior to experiencing the ramifications of narcissistic abuse, I was often full of hope and dreams even after the trauma I mentioned above…)
Nothing seemed to completely knock me down or prevent me from exploring, and trying something new but now, I am so afraid.
I need to overcome this deep, seeded fear because it’s messing too much of my life up….
Maybe it’s time to participate in your Boot Camp! I don’t know for sure! It is a little frightening….. I don’t know why…..
Otherwise, I’ll be here as often as I can, and participate in NARP as often as I can, Melanie!
I love your teachings and I love NARP!
❤️🦋❤️
Hi Peter, I just wanted to leave a reply to you in case it is of some comfort to you to know that someone understands. I feel the same as you do. I had the childhood sexual abuse and I had trauma and betrayed trust because of that. I had great strength and resilience that never really went away until the narc ex of mine. It knocked me down and made me too weary to be able to draw my resilience back up much. I like to stay safe in my home for the most part. Then the pandemic came. Three years of working from home and living alone has been just great. Not. I lost seven friends or relatives in the past three years and now I too wish sometimes that I didnt have to do everything alone. I used to not mind or even enjoy it. Now after all the isolation from the pandemic and me hiding from the narc ex I am lonely too at times. And at times the sadness permeates. I know you do narp and I do too. I thank God for Melanie. Be kind to yourself. There is no right or wrong to feelings. You are doing your best in this life and that is admirable and all we can ask from ourselves. Hang in there. The world is not at is best at the moment for peace loving people. That doesn’t help things. But you will not feel this way forever. My game plan is to keep working through Melanie’s modules as much as I have to and to keep praying and trying my best to move towards joy. I wish you the best always.
Hi Rebecca!
Thank you for sharing so much in your letter! You are very much an inspiration to me and others here….💥
I hope that you get to go to Boot Camp! 🙏
Your story really resonated with me and I am so thankful to have the opportunity to share that with you. 😌
Your plan, as you laid it out, is inspirational! It’s a good reminder for me and others in NARP!
And, I wish the best for you too! 💞
Hi Peter and also the lovely Rebecca,
I promise you both with all of my heart that Bootcamp will help you sooo much in your ability to define and very safely get back into life again.
Plus it truly is so much fun.
Myself and every member in there would love to have you both support you and grow with us all.
It is THE course for overcoming loneliness and isolation – plus you get to hang out with your Triibe with all of us
I can’t tell you how awesome our sessions are together, you will have a BLAST (as well as heal HEAPS more!)
Lots of love
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Hi Melanie,
Thank you so much for your very sweet response ❤️. I will investigate your Bootcamp right now!😀
Hi Rebecca honey,
you are so welcome!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Dear Melanie!
Thank you so much for your kind response, and most encouraging comments as always they are and sooo much appreciated!
As far as the Boot Camp is concerned, as much as I would love to be there, my financial situation will not allow me to participate!
I hope that everything goes well for you and everyone else in Boot Camp!
Sending so much love to you, and so much gratitude for everything that you have helped me with over the past years!
Thank you for everything!
❤️🦋❤️
It’s my pleasure Peter!
And I love how you contribute so incredibly and thoughtfully to this blog.
Most grateful!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Dear Melanie,
It is a process, I feel deeply your analogy of the injured bird. For some reason the attachment style also comes to mind. I’ve transitioned from « I can fix this » to accepting that the « need to be needed » is fake love, to my current state of « I want to help if you want to help yourself ». I can tell that the next stage is « I am there for myself, always » and that only then will a romantic relationship be in the picture. Maybe friendships are the indicator of where you are at. Some have dissolved, some are now painful and some have evolved into a deep connection. Friendships are not as scary right now, they show the way?
With love and gratitude ❤️
Hi Pauline,
it is very true that friendships are wonderful training and not as scary as intimate relationships.
They are, however, the same truth and premise in regard to how we can manifest and experience them!
Much Love
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Dear Peter: I am touched deeply by all you write into this wonderful blog. After narc-abuse by both my decades-long partner (homeownership — no longer!, a beautiful son — estranged from me by narc-y lies!) who left me multi-dimensionally bereft in every sense, and then, shockingly-again, family members when I could have really benefited from their support. (My family and some members of it being covert narcs — who would NEVER BE such a thing! — is the root of it for me, of course — though I didn’t discover this and better understand it until quite late in life). So, I, too, feel as though “I have lost a great deal of faith in humanity and confidence, essentially, in the human race!” That seems a common thread resulting from narc-betrayal.
I know it is essentially impossible, I know it isn’t really “right,” as it would be like “two halves of a donut trying to make a whole donut.” Each of us who suffers this plight needs to “make ourselves into a whole donut” (fully, first and foremost) before it makes sense for us to “put ourselves out there,” whether as a friend or partner. But while I can’t realistically offer you my friendship (as much as I wish to, though knowing it isn’t “quite right”), I offer you the warmth from a “man of kindred spirit,” another who has walked through the fire we have both experienced. Maybe that is not enough, maybe it does not quell your fear(s), but I mean for it to be “something” so that you can continue to rekindle and burn brightly your sense of the goodness in other human beings.
I have carefully knit together some friendships which are outside my outrageous family (a decade ago I would never say that, now I “see things clearly”) and outside the connections to the primary narc ex-partner of mine who would have destroyed me. (My physician of three decades, when I presented to him with all sorts of maladies easily trace-able to the abuse and told him what happened to me, said “it sounds like she tried to kill you” and I popped my eyes open and said “Yes, nobody ever said anything like that to me, but you’re right.”) These friendships are with kind, good people, who may not fully understand my pain and horrors, but offer me compassion and the WILLINGNESS to understand, not the usual reactions I get from others (primarily in my family) who want to turn away from the horror with denial as they attempt to gaslight me, themselves and reality itself right out of existence.
Please, while I cannot be “your friend,” I wish for you to recognize that there are others of us who are kindred spirits who share love, compassion and understanding with you. And maybe — for today at least — that can be enough for you to continue and eventually thrive.
Hi MFC!
As usually is the case, I am awed and hunbled by your eloquence! 😔 it is always a joy to read your comments here…🌟
I so appreciate how you share with uncanny insight into many of the issues that so many of us are confronted with every day as we live our lives on this earth, that are, unfortunately, now, lives that are impacted by narcissists, that seem to be everywhere, roaming the surface of this planet earth.
We are fortunate to be, as you stated, “kindred spirits”, who have met each other through these marvelous teachings of Melanie.
Please continue to do what you were doing here. You are helping many of us.
Thanks so much!
Yes, the bootcamp is the coolest thing happening, amazing and truly fun and the recordings you get to keep continue to be light and powerful to help bring laser focus to the healing you need the most. So many positive relationships now abound but I am glad to keep all on a friendship level for now. Lots of rich connections but people who I thought were my inner trusted people could not continue with me as I embraced honesty and clarity. Not so much painful drama, just calm clarity and gratitude for seeing these relationships now as if my own higher being created them so I could discover my own fullness. If you just commit to and be still with the healings, bring focus back to the words and inner feelings, you will definitely experience the organic process as the ego gets out of the way. Things happen on their own, amazing things. You don’t have to do anything but be who you are. It’s like magic that you can totally trust in. Mel certainly has created some very powerful tools that work.
Hello everyone and thank you for the wonderful conversation above which has really warmed my heart and brightened my day ❤️
I resonate a lot with what’s being said now. However, even after my divorce, I was long in denial of how coercive/controlling my ex had been, how passive aggressive/sabotaging and dishonest and, finally, even that he’d tried to kill me by suffocation when he felt he was losing that control. I still believed naively, blindly, in the “goodness of other people”, which has its origins I think in desperately needing to believe my parents were ok and loved me.
It wasn’t until a decade post divorce when my ex came after me again with another legal action that the penny finally dropped. I nearly ended it all as my eyes opened fully and I truly saw how, through my wilful ‘naivety’ I had self-abandoned so completely to awful people throughout my life. I think MFC you hit nail on head: it is about being able to see clearly, perhaps for the first time, no matter how devastatingly painful that is. It is so hard, but we can only start to rebuild once we can see clearly. There’s a reason, I guess, why it’s called ROCK bottom- you need to build from a solid foundation of truth and clarity, not the shifting sand of ‘hopium’ and illusion that narcs love to trade with us.
I lost almost all my faith in humans, and isolated/withdrew to feel safe and to try to heal. Thankfully, by that time I had found Melanie and NARP, and I felt like she really got it, as did all the NaARPERS. I wasn’t losing my mind, I’d found my tribe, and direction of healing. It’s helped me feel a bit less alone NARP sustained me sufficiently to win that court battle too, btw!
I’m in slow recovery, learning to self-partner, some days good some not, but feel like an improbable dandelion pushing up through a crack in the concrete. Hope springs eternal, right?
I love how you all contribute to discussions on a regular basis, it’s great to see familiar names come up, feels like family, real proper family. Your experiences and honesty really help me too. Thank you all, I’m sending you much love on your/our journey together.
Hi Joanne,
thank you for your thoughtful and beautiful post!
Im so thrilled that you were able to win your court case after everything that you have been through .. and that you are a part of our wonderful family!
So much love to you
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Oh my goodness Peter, it’s as if you wrote my story. I feel exactly the same.
Frozen in fear!
I subscribed to MTE newsletter years ago after realizing I was in a narcissistic abusive relationship. I tried to end it so many times but he always hunted me down and lured me back with those earnest (looking) eyes and all the right words. Of course, he was continually cheating on me and always ended up gaslighting me and turning everything I did into a huge betrayal, his delusions and lies knew no bounds. It has been a back and forth, leave him for weeks only to go back, hot and cold chaotic mess for so long I hardly know who I am without the drama. My daughter and my friends (the new ones, I lost most of my old ones in the course of this) are tired of it and I am so, so SO very tired of it. Last Wed we had a knock-down-drag-out in public and he was so horrific, after promises of “a new me, a new approach to us” days earlier. I blocked his #, took back his key to my house, and deleted all texts and his number. I am currently deep in the sad bereft phase, however, and am in a pretty dark place. Reading these comments helps and I want to do the boot camp. Any suggestions on how to fill your time when everything you do and everywhere you go reminds you of your narc?? I’m working a lot but in my down time … I would love to hear your thoughts. Much love and Hope….. Katie in kansas city
Hi Katherine,
the only suggestion is to heal – on the inside. So needed after being n-abused and you really have been through it!
Then you will be free of the trauma and won’t go through what you are now.
Have you thought of NARP http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp ?
That is my strongest suggestion as your healing starting point.
I hope that this helps.
Much Love
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Dear Mel,
What a beautiful article and metaphor of the bird and the bird hospital. I have been very much alone leaving and saying no to unhealthy acquaintances and relationships, healing, learning to self-partner, listening to my inner child and learning to open up for source to come in. It´s never easy at the beginning, but so rewarding! I am not flying yet but I definitely feel like I´m getting closer 🙂
Thank you so much for all the support and guidance!
Nury
Hi Nury,
I’m so happy for you sweet lady that you are healing!
You are doing an amazing job.
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Melanie,
Will you be doing the dating boot camp again soon? It is June 20, 2023 and I just heard about the one you did in April. I’m very interested. I hope you will be offering this course again.
Thank you,
Gail