[breadcrumb]

 

It is shocking for so many people, how long the trauma of narcissistic abuse plagues them.

Trying to recovery from narcissistic abuse can be one of the most frustrating and devastating journeys we could ever take.

It can feel like one step forward and two (or more) back!

Why is this the case? Why, even when we leave a narcissist and get out of the war zone, does the anxiety and deep depression continue?

It is all to do with how we understand and deal with emotional pain.

As well as learning and embracing what the trauma is really for and how to transmute it … in ways that not just liberate us from it, but also release us quickly and powerfully into freedom and joy.

In this Thriver Tv episode I explain to you EXACTLY why your recovery is being delayed, and then steer you into HOW to change that into a direct recovery …

 

If you have been struggling with narcissistic abuse recovery, it is my deepest wish that this Thriver TV episode will be a complete game-changer for you.

Because you deserve to heal!

If you have any questions or comments about this Thriver TV episode please post them in the comments below.

 

Join My FREE 16-Day Recovery Course to Begin
Healing from Narcissistic Abuse

Related blog post

Thriver Talks Special: Healing Financial Prosperity After Abuse

Read More

Repetitive Compulsion Disorder and Abuse

Read More

Commments (50) + Leave a comments

50 thoughts on “Narcissistic Abuse Recovery – How Long Will It Take?

  1. Hello Melanie. I have followed you for several years now. I am wondering if your tv episodes will also be transposed into written articles. Thank you.

  2. Hi Melanie,
    I have watched so many of your videos and listened to everything I can that you have generously shared, but this one has really impacted me the most. It really helped me to understand the whole picture of healing from narcissistic abuse, and it has given me so much more inspiration and motivation to continue my healing journey with more dedication and enthusiasm. I suffer a very strong paralysis as part of my depression, and doing things can be very challenging. This video has helped me more than I can express. Thank you so very much Melanie, you are truly amazing.
    With much love
    Vicki

  3. I’m not sure if anyone can help with this. I used to see what I thought was a narcissist. I haven’t seen him in a year. He wants to see me again. I’m not sure if he is ok now or if this is what they mean by being a source that is being brought back. Does anyone know about this.

    1. Hi Michelle,
      I’m absolutely not an expert, but I hope I can help a little.
      This is “hovering” for sure. You’re intuition is, no doubt, telling you that his sudden interest is strange and suspicious, or you wouldn’t have seeked advice. Trust it. No Contact and/or Grey Rock may be your most attractive options right now.
      Sign up for NARP! It has a module that’s perfect for trusting your intuition and accepting the unexplainable “vibes” you get from certain people.
      I wish you the best and good luck! You got this.

    2. Hi Michelle,

      ultimately it is about healing ourselves so that we can put our best foot forward and show up as ourselves in our power – then we flush out people who are not real and healthy.

      When he does see you – does he show up healthily?

      If he doesn’t are you able to say “Not good enough?”

      When we have a great relationship with ourselves – and can be a solid source of love, approval, security and survival to ourselves then we can EASILY not go there …

      That is the key.

      Mel xo

  4. I have just finished with my narcissists after having a complete blow out about what I thought of him – it left me exhausted because it was like all the emotions came to ahead! I now know that all I am left with is me and myself and healing and loving me back to health again. I feel free already but I hope I will recover.

  5. Hi Mel,
    I was just wondering if you could do a video or blog entry on telling the difference between a trauma/inner wound and a healthy rational fear/intuition. I’ve been having a lot difficulty differentiating them and it’s almost put me back at square one!
    Thanks so much!

    1. Also,
      I shave just begun your program and the relief felt is absolutely phenomenal, but going in and feeling the pain, even if just for a moment before it’s shifted, leaves me utterly exhausted. It’s eerily similar to a trauma-pain-peptide fix and this is very concerning. Is this healthy? Am I not shifting the trauma properly? Thank you so much for your advice!

      1. Max,

        regarding shifting 100% it is necessary to be with the wound and fully self-partner (feel it) to load it up and shift it to. Relief would not be happening if you weren’t doing that!

        We cannot heal what we are not prepared to feel, and this is so different from regurgitation in peptide fix / hit – in stark contrast you are leading up to release.

        YES 100% keep doing what you are doing …

        And shift any beliefs you may have regarding that NOT being the way to go …

        Because I promise you with all my heart it is!

        I hope this helps …

        Mel xo

  6. Hi Melanie,

    My dear friend — I listened and watched this video with rapt attention and full focus TWICE, just to hear you say that it took you a decade or decades before you saw an actual dissipation of your traumatic pain. And I thought, “Geeeeez, that long? Right about now, suicide sounds a helluva lot easier than living another year, let alone 10 years with this pain.” I must confess that I’m not a 24/7 user of the QFH Modules because the emotional outpouring exhausts me. Just when I feel wonderfully refreshed after a shift, out comes another wound from deep within, sometimes worse than the one just newly up-levelled. So I offer myself forgiveness for wanting a coffee break every so often from the Modules. It is never-ending, isn’t it Mel? It may take the rest of my life to be free, right? I’m 66 years old. Is it normal for me to feel so defeated already? Thanks for the wonderful video!

  7. Mel, are these video lessons from you available on text and hard copies? I wish I could have them as part of my healing workbooks – these are documents that I can highlight and go back to for reference on a repeated basis. Thank you!

    1. Hi Jeannie,

      please know it was decades BEFORE Quanta Freedom Healing – not afterwards.

      Before QFH I was trying to manage my trauma and never releasing and reprogramming it. Once i found that key .. life just got better and better and better.

      Yes initially I had tons of wounds to release and had to work very hard to do that – but every time one went THAT space got filled with wellbeing … bringing a better higher state of me and my life each and every time I shifted.

      It really is Jeannie about clearing the beliefs that you have regarding “the emotional outpour exhausts you” … there will be beliefs underpinning recovery that are keeping the trauma locked inside you rather than releasing it.

      Such as “I can’t heal” “I will never heal” “I don’t deserve to heal” (or something like those). I would target the blocks you have in regard to healing – you can target them with Mod 1 or Goal Setting Module in NARP, and clear those … that should help significantly.

      And yes with some wounds it is about digging down into the next BIG level rather than turning away … sometimes we need to keep turning toward to dig it all out.

      Many of my wounds were like that – but it is about changing your beliefs about “this is never-ending” … and any others blocking you.

      I promise you sweetheart that once you heal the beliefs underpinning you will be able to go forward.

      Are you in the NARP Forum getting help and coaching with this? https://www.melanietoniaevans.com/member

      That would be my highest suggestion.

      Bless and wishing you exceptional healing breakthroughs.

      Mel xo

  8. I’ve been working on this for sometime now. Almost 3 years coming to the trueness of narcissistic abuse, from family of origin. I believe they are all in my family of origin. My mother attracted a man on the spectrum, and my father attracted a covert narc and she in turn created malignant narcs in her daughters and so on, and so on. The last days of my dad’s life I was so cruelly treated from these women and now has flowed beyond the passing, funeral, burial of my father. I’m quite sure I will be given nothing of my father’s possessions to hold on to. Only now do I truly understand darkness, vindictive, hateful minds. My father was coerced, manipulated into believing his words and actions were just. His children deserved better. Shame on these women, and anyone else who behaves this way! Such cruelty should be punishable beyond karma! How do I resolve and heal?

    1. Hi Lyn,

      our resolution and healing truly comes from releasing the trauma and wounds from our Inner Being – and then there is organically no pain and nothing left to forgive.

      We just break free.

      The NARP Program is the answer to create that.

      Mel xo

  9. Dear Jeannie Mahoney,

    it seems to me very wise and shurely a sign of healing, that you allow yourself cofee/breaks in healing-sessions or from them: not only, because everyone has his or her own pace to move.. – but rather, because it is s o precious, esp. in recovery and healing, to notice a joy, and dare to trust it to really feel it too. Not only the suffering self – but become familiar with the one, that does not suffer..:) And really does not hold on to suffering.. :))
    Personally I couldn’t do that work all alone, so I also work with a therapist to move beyond or rather: out the projective identifications that are so difficult to distinguish from our real self, into a natural relaxed joyful state of being, before the whole Narc-actions started…
    So, I would welcome your need and joy of breaks and not become a machine of shiftings… Because, that is what I learned in healing from cancer: the cells have to know which is the direction of joy, which way to take, because how could they do it otherwise? Allow them to taste the right direction. Deepen the joy, and then work on. That is how I do it. :)))) Use all support and joy whenever available, and taste it fully:)) Don’t use healingpeogramm as another way to be hard on yourself..:))

  10. Hello all, I’m wondering if in the very beginning of “true healing”, would it serve me to take a hiatus away from my environment?
    I am currently still living with my boyfriend of 23 years.
    There is no danger of physical abuse. Any advise on this will be so welcome! I’m still in a state of horror, over finally recognizing what I have allowed for years. And as of yet, have not shared this with him. Not that I even remotely feel the need to say anything him. He, for the most part, doesn’t “see” me, so avoiding him is a breeze.
    Love to all, Tery

  11. I’ve suffered at the hands of a Narc for 5 years, last sept he bacame physical and since then it’s been a yoyo of hoovering and emotional blackmail. However, due to a number of reasons I was being strong with not letting him back in(we have a son together and no contact isn’t possible but I did my best). We were in court over child visitation last tues, he didn’t show in fear of being exposed , then on Wednesday night he tried to take his own life, he wrote a suicide note on fb and a few people contacted the police out of concern, which ultimately saved his life and he is very lucky to be alive. When he was found unconscious and fighting for his life, I stupidly ran to his bedside while he was in intensive care and lived through the emotional of guilt. However, a week has past and some of his comments to me started to make me question his motives behind the suicide attempt but he still awaiting to see a specialist 9 days after, so I just put them down to him processing and coming to terms with what he had just done. I went to visit him in hospital on Friday evening and the devaluing started, then Saturday morning the discard came in yet more nasty abusive allegations and insults. At which I didn’t reply but told his mum I would be no longer visiting him in hospital. A few hours later he wrote an ‘update’ on his fb page – omg I cannot believe th Lies his has written, yet within a few hours he had over 60comments and he’s lapping up the female attention on how brave he is etc. He gave out his mobile number on the post and even mentioned about being back out ready to be a notch on someone’s bedpost? I’m now back to feeling completely rejected and stupid for falling for this act and now angry I’m left feeling like I’m the crazy one while he’s receiving oodles of sympathy and encouragement. I was doing so well before this stunt and now feel right back at square one, any advice would be gratefully received.

    1. Hi Jayne,

      I am so sorry that you have been going through this …

      It is such a part of the cycle, where we feel responsible, compassion and want to help and then get hurt all over again.

      Jayne, for all of us the true solution was the deep inner meeting of our wounds and healing them – so that no longer do we have the trauma embedded inside us, but also so we don’t have the negative programming that we picked up in our life from ancestors / childhood that makes us susceptible to the N’s antics.

      I cannot recommend my free resources https://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freestarterpackage and the NARP Program enough to get that inner work done https://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp

      Mel xo

  12. Dear Melanie,
    I am so grateful for you and your wonderful resources! I have just started working the NARP program. I was wondering if you have ever written anything on how to help our children who have been deemed “the golden child” and “the scapegoat” by the narc? Some of my most difficult triggers are around my children so I am working very hard to empower myself and work the modules.
    Thank you so much..you saved me truly.

    1. Hi Jan,

      I actually haven’t but it would be a great topic to write about – and I’d love to!

      That is so wonderful that you are working NARP diligently and are onto the triggers.

      Keep up the great work …

      Mel xo

  13. Thank you Melanie,

    This episode could have been written just for me. I have recently been dealing with a trigger from N (MC – shared child) which seemed so “little” in the big scheme of all the things that I have worked through so far that that I almost felt silly at times for feeling so strongly about it. And yet it got to me, every time. I now realise, with the help of our lovely NARP moderators that it was just another layer coming up for healing so towards it I must go.

    Lots of love to you too.
    TGW xo

  14. AMAZING video Melanie, thank you so much for your wisdom and insight!! I have understood the concepts that you talk about in this video and worked on taking the steps described in it in order to heal, but it wasn’t until watching this video that I truly GET IT and UNDERSTAND!! It’s like a light bulb went off and I actually GET IT now … I feel in the depths of my being how true this video is for me and what I need and want to do for myself in order to finally heal. I have been saying “when will this pain end and when will I ever feel normal and have the life I truly desire?” for about 30 years, most of that time in therapy, reading self-help books or seeking the answers outside of my self … none of which has moved me any closer to healing that big gaping hole in my gut!! THANK YOU!! I have been running from my trauma and wounds my entire life (I am now 51), literally creating and living in a fantasy world and running, running, running away from my wounds in order to keep myself “safe” when in actuality that has done the exact opposite and I have remained a prisoner to my trauma and created a very empty, isolating and lonely life. I want to finally break free … and your amazing work is helping me finally do this!! Thank YOU so much!! xo

    Mary
    Ontario, Canada

    1. Hi Mary,

      I am so pleased this really clicked home for you!

      How wonderful now that you can see the key is about moving toward and into the trauma to deal with it (load it up and release it) directly.

      This is the turning point! 🙂

      Mel xo

  15. Hi Mel,

    Another great video! I am eternally grateful for all your resources dedication. It would be great if these videos could be transcribed into writing. Some topics, such as this, is so information “dense” that it is difficult to take in through the video format. Even when replaying certain sections, it’s difficult to digest the material, as subsequent concepts are “missed” as my mind is trying to play catch up.

    Thanks for your consideration of this request. And a big thank you for your service to this community. Quite frankly, I’ll take the information you provide any way I can get it 😉

  16. Hi Melanie,

    Thank you so much for your insights. I have just come out of a relationship with a narcissist/sociopath that lasted just a few months. I followed my gut and got out when things started feeling wrong but nonetheless it has shaken me to my core. I am 30yo and we discussed starting a family etc, I thought we were in love, and I am still struggling to believe what felt so so right has ended up leaving me broken, police involved etc. I really feel for the people on this blog who are struggling with long term narcissistic abuse and have the deepest admiration for their determination and strength to overcome it!

    I am usually a happy, outgoing, intelligent and successful person, and have a strong network of friends and family. This has shaken me like nothing I have experienced in my life. My initial reaction to the trauma from the break up was to educate myself about narcissism and talking to trusted friends and family about my experience. I was getting nowhere with this approach, for all the reasons you’ve shared in previous blog posts. My focus was firmly on him. I am finally getting somewhere by focussing inwards and using your writings as a guidance.

    Throughout the process I have maintained no contact, however now I am back in the same city, and we share the similar neighbourhoods. Do you have any advice on what to do if I encounter him in person e.g. at the gym? I feel sick thinking about running into him at present but would like to get past that, and it may be a way to heal to see him and get it out of the way? I would really like to know your thoughts. My thoughts were to just go ‘grey rock’ and after a few times it may get easier. Can you share any advice on how to control the noise and nerves that I will be feeling inside when I do see him?

    Once again, thank you so much for so generously sharing your insights. The depth and detail of what you share makes perfect and logical sense and your approach is unique to many others – it is so much more powerful, positive and productive to focus on what we actually do have control over (i.e. ourselves) not what we don’t.

    Thank you again xxx

    1. Hi Emma,

      My heart goes out to you – and yes N’abuse does shake us to our core.

      It is wonderful that you have pulled out – and now, the truth is, there are two ways you can go with this … mere “survival” of it – or true “Thriving” from it.

      The latter path comes as a result of inner dedication and healing.

      The key being detach from him and turn inwards into you … your recovery truly has got nothing to do with any closure or even breaking way from him – it is all about how effectively you heal and up-level the original traumas and belief systems that you can heal … to break truly free and evolve yourself beyond the level you have been at – until this opportunity came to you now.

      That is the ONLY way to control the noise inside Emma, find the wounds and heal what we need to inside us that the “noise” is coming from.

      He was merely and magnificently a catalyst showing you what there is to heal – as the N’s were for all of us.

      I hope this helps, and it will be wonderful if – unlike so many of us – you do the work now …rather than have to wait till your 40’s, 50’s, 60’s or even 70’s (and more narcissists) to do it.

      Truly Emma when you turn inwards and make it all about you – he will become totally irrelevant … because the truth is he is.

      It is always between us and ourselves.

      Mel xo

      1. Thank you, wow yes this makes complete sense. Just changing my mindset to as you suggest turning inwards, makes him seem far less significant almost immediately, even if I was to bump into him in the street. Thank you so much again.

  17. Melanie,

    Your Thriver TV episodes, which have always been very helpful and informative, are becoming more increasingly powerful, concise, dynamic, super intelligent, compassionate and transformative by the minute.

    This Thriver episode touched me very deeply. It has made me feel more compassionate towards myself for not being perfect, and for not instantly healing all of my inner emotional wounds, and for not being instantly able to overcome a habit of drinking alcohol to comfort myself from excruciating, incapacitating anxiety and fear.

    Thanks to you and NARP, I overcame the trauma of N abuse, and I’m starting to experience kind, loving, giving, supportive people in my life. But when reading about other people’s lives completely transforming amazingly almost overnight I’ve felt badly comparing myself to them when I’m still struggling to overcome gripping fear and anxiety from an (unintentionally) emotionally abusive childhood that incapicitates me from achieving as much as I feel I want to and should be able to.

    This video has made me realize I am doing the best that I can, facing the pain and all of the insecurities and fears, and knowing now exactly where they all came from.

    But it has also made me rededicate myself to not just doing the GSM and short Mod One when the anxiety becomes unbearable but to do it daily whenever the anxiety comes up. And I have made a commitment to myself that if I’m not able to overcome alcohol immediately I will do the shifts to a zero before drinking anything.

    In the Empowered Self Course you used the phrase, “Little by little, slowly but surely” our outer life will conform to the inner vibrational shift.

    1. Hi Deborah,

      thank you for your lovely, kind comments!

      I am so pleased this episode resonated with you … and I love that it has helped you connect to and create an even more loving relationship with yourself.

      That is wonderful that NARP has already helped you so much, and I love that you are now dedicating to apply the healings at the times of the triggers …

      You are so your way dear Lady!

      Mel xo

  18. Hi Melanie,

    I have done a lot of personal work and have become a significantly less co-dependent, emotionally whole person. The only thing that I still struggle with is just overwhelming sadness for this person. It’s not rooted in guilt… I don’t feel the guilt anymore for doing what was best for me and I fully understand that what this person did is very wrong… but I still can’t shake feeling bad that this person is essentially doomed to live a very sad and loveless life, knowing that it comes from wounds that they have not been able to heal. I know that he is suffering and I still can’t shake the sadness. When I went no contact, I did it very abruptly and didn’t expound on why I was done with him. I know that he would not have received the information that I had finally put together about him and that most likely, it would have been turned back onto me or somehow been my fault. But there is still somewhere inside of my that wishes, for his own sake, that he could find healing and it does still affect me. Is this a sign that there is still more work to be done internally or is this just compassion? I’m trying to find where this comes from inside of me and I’m just not sure if this is still an untended wound or if it’s just lingering compassion/empathy.

    Thank you so much for your work. It has helped me tremendously put words around so many things I felt and couldn’t understand. It has made a huge difference in my life and I am thankful.

    1. Hi Meg,

      Please know that wound and sadness is rooted in deep early trauma … because when we shift up and out of that we reach the higher wisdom – that everyone’s journey is blessed no matter how it looks.

      If you were to track that charge through your body and uplevel it – I promise you it would be cleared out.

      Most of us, to varying degrees, had the same trauma going on – and felt the same feelings … yours truly included!

      Module 6 in NARP – is specific to healing that EXACT trauma.

      You are so welcome regarding my work, and I am so pleased I am able to help and guide you.

      Mel xo

  19. So here’s where I’m stuck: I keep thinking he’s going to change for her – the woman he had an affair width, which he denies completely, even though he was caught multiple times red handed and is now living with her. The thought isn’t that I wish he would change because I miss him, or want to be with him, because I recognize how sick our relationship was. But it’s the thought that he’s going to change for HER but wouldn’t change for me because I wasn’t _____ that she is. I can’t stop the cycle.

    1. Hi Nic,

      This is about healing that trauma within you – then the thoughts that are being generated from the trauma simply won’t happen … because there will be nothing to generate them.

      The deeper roots of this are – as you are pointing to … “Other people are more loveable / worthy of love than me.”

      “I am not enough to be loved .. etc.”

      Where in your history were these beliefs formed? Is this how you felt when you were little?

      Those are the original wounds in repeat that are now coming to your attention so that you can finally free yourself of that trauma.

      Then … truly you wan’t even think about him or her … and you will no longer be susceptible to relationships where you will live in “repeat” of the as yet unhealed original trauma.

      I hope this helps you realise the inner work that is so necessary.

      Mel xo

  20. I’m stuck the same as Nic. The new supply is 24 years younger, very pretty and bubbly and he is taking up with her friends so mixing with much younger couples. He is over the moon: new life and he is ignoring me more and more all at the same time as not acknowledging what he is doing, just keeping out of my way as I’m such an awful person (he says). I helped to nurse my mother for many years and am now living with bereavement and having to sort out her belongings as well as mine to thin out and tidy up. I feel so emotional and lonely but he refuses to touch or hug me. “Get over it, she was old” is all he said. I feel broken, overwhelmingly sad and jealous. The latter emotion has not been one I’ve had to cope with as I always secretly bless people and know they are on a similar journey to me. It all works out. Yet this was all done behind my back and I realise the new supply can’t be a nice person to do this to me to get him! I’m shocked at how she can do this to a so-called couple of nearly 3 decades. Trouble is she is a colleague so we will need to muddle through somehow. I absolutely dread being sidelined and knowing our friends will be seeing them as a couple. He has been saying for years that our friends don’t like me, that they know I’m mad (“they’re sick of your craziness”) and lately they have all been ignoring messages inviting them over to dinner, etc so they must know what I’m not supposed to know. He suddenly goes out with them and tells me on the day saying I’m not invited or I’m working or they don’t want me there. I don’t know how to handle this as it will surely look needy to contact them separately.

  21. Dear Mel,
    I have just recently found you and your resources. I have been through several years of therapy, and even got my master’s in counseling to try to figure out life—and I am still in agony. Your resources give me hope! It makes sense to me how the world mirrors things back to us. But now I find myself afraid to be assertive—if I complain, do I bring complaining in to my life? If I tell a rude person that she is rude, does that bring confrontation into my life?
    Two examples from yesterday: a Facebook friend posted an article on narcissism, and I respond. She got offended and called me “preachy” and “holier-than-thou”. It stung–to the point that I saw that I have done this to others, and I had a moment of grief that I had caused this pain in other’s lives. I was nice to her, and even apologized for offending her—-BUT I DIDN’T WANT TO BE NICE. I want to tell her off, like she did to me!!!! Or at least, point out her rudeness, as she was insistent that I need to change, and she is fine—–but I took the high road and let it be. It doesn’t feel good. But I want the toxicity out of my life!! My question is, how much can I say and still not damage my life?
    Example 2: I went and got a facial yesterday. It was probably the worst facial I’ve ever had, despite multiple requests to apply the product on my entire face, not just the outlines. I now have an email requesting my feedback. If I am honest, does that invite criticism into my life?

    1. Hi Kelly,

      I can so relate Dear Lady, that often decades of self-work came to lots of intellectual understanding yet the trauma still remains and plays out inside us, no matter what we “know”.

      Awww gosh I understand this dilemma because I went through all of that too! But please know Kelly that is still trying to work it out cognitive. The true healing journey (as myself and so many others discovered) is a deeper one, and a much SIMPLER one, it is about going within and releasing our trauma – then there is nothing to work out. We just start showing up as and generating “healthy.”

      Ok as per your example – there is the trauma of being persecuted within you, it started way back – before the N’s as an adult. And this is why it still happens, because that trauma still lives on.

      Re the feedback that you provide regrading the facial, the trauma you are feeling is the trauma of being criticised when you are real and truthful and saying things when trying to honour you. Again this is showing you unhealed trauma from childhood, and / or epigenetically (generational) within that you can find, target and heal.

      When that shifts the entire experiences that you are fearing will shift.

      Can you see what this leading to? There is only ONE place to focus and do the work – inside. Then everything changes.

      Come into my free webinar Kelly, because truly then once you experience what I am saying you will know deeply how to solve this.

      https://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar

      I hope this helps.

      Mel xo

      It is about fidinga nd releasing that truama nd then it wont show up in your life and you wont be showing up in ways that are uncosnciously co-genrating it either.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.