Are you feeling stuck in a cycle of pain and hurt, always repeating the same damaging behaviours and feeling powerless to escape them? If so, you may be struggling with Repetitive Compulsion Disorder.
This self-destructive barrier keeps you from letting go and moving on.
It can stem from narcissistic abuse or how we were invalidated, distrusted, humiliated, belittled, or abandoned as children, causing feelings of low self-worth and shame.
Luckily, there is a way to break the cycle of distress and de-evolution and start healing. To become free from Repetitive Compulsion Disorder, we must grow in consciousness. Our true growth comes from going within and healing the unfinished business of our childhood traumas.
This article will help you learn how to recognize the patterns that keep you stuck, and show you how to start self-partnering by going within.
Read on if you want to start your self-healing journey today and discover how to take your soul and life back from Repetitive Compulsion Disorder.
Video Transcript
Welcome, dear Thriver, to Thriver TV and our wonderful community where you can heal for real from narcissistic abuse and toxic relationships. If you have not yet subscribed to my YouTube channel, please do so, and I’d love for you to share my work with others who need it.
Today, I want to talk about a hot topic, which is Repetitive Compulsion Disorder. A lot of people are talking about this right now. In conventional psychological terms, Repetitive Compulsion Disorder is the unconscious repetition of painful behaviours to cope with unhealed traumas.
Examples can be things like excessive cleaning or hand washing.
Today, I want to talk about Repetitive Compulsion Disorder regarding toxic relationship abuse, what it is, how it plays out, and how to heal it.
The Inner Fractures of Repetitive Abuse
Let’s start by investigating the inner fractures of repetitive abuse. This is when you’re experiencing things such as the repeat triggers of the abuse. You’re constantly ruminating about the abuse. You could have nightmares or flashbacks and find yourself checking up on somebody who’s abused you or breaking no contact.
That’s all a part of the psychological disorder called Repetitive Compulsion Disorder. It’s a cycle of continuing the pain and hurt, and feeling powerless to step out of it. This disorder is a self-destructive barrier and sabotage to letting go and moving on, and it actually got set up inside of us when we were very young and powerless. I’m going to talk about that soon.
If you feel like you can’t stop thinking about somebody or keep away from somebody who’s repeatedly hurting you, then you are suffering from Repetitive Compulsion Disorder.
The past roots of this came from primary caregivers and us wanting to bond to receive safety, trust and care. But instead you were invalidated, distrusted, humiliated, belittled or even abandoned. You hoped for acceptance, love, empathy and to be valued, yet you couldn’t durably receive it.
This reinforced deep inner feelings of low self-worth and shame, which is at the root of Repetitive Compulsion Disorder. It commonly occurs in people who’ve had complex trauma in their childhood.
These behavioural patterns continue to play out in adulthood, and they’re strongly triggered and reactivated by narcissistic individuals, which I will explain to you soon.
Rats and Repetitive Compulsion Disorder
Before I do, let’s talk about rats and Repetitive Compulsion Disorders. There have been studies done with rats to investigate the obsessive compulsions. They’re put in a cage, and they’ve got a button to push for their feeder to dispense pellets. The button is programmed to require a certain number of nose-pushes to get a feed of pellets. No matter what number of nose pushes is required, the rats work it out quickly, push the button, get the pellets, eat them, and are happy.
But when the button turns to ‘random’, something bizarre happens. The rats start manically pushing the button repetitively and cannot stop, even when there are pellets scattered all over the bottom of the cage.
If the button is then programmed back to a set number, the rats calm down again and go back to their normal behaviour – only pushing the button when they need a feed.
The more often the button is disrupted to ‘random’ and then set back to ‘normal’ the longer it takes for the rats to recover.
In regards to us as humans, narcissistic individuals are unpredictable. One moment, they seem believable, reliable, and even ‘safe’, so that you believe you’ve reached a resolution and understanding with them. Then the next day they say or do something that is not the reality of the situation.
They act defensively to avoid being accountable. They make excuses and project blame, and it seems like any previous sane conversation that was based on integrity never took place. It’s like the conversation never happened.
This is the proverbial rug being pulled out from under you. Of course, as you know from experiencing a narcissistic individual, this is only a small snapshot of the deception, the unknown territory and the rampant distrust you suffer from being in a relationship with a narcissistic individual.
To break these chains of distrust, de-evolution, and continual breakdown, growth in consciousness is required to stop the repeat behaviours of ‘going in for more’ that continue to hurt us and don’t allow us to let go and move on.
How Empaths and Narcissists Display Repetitive Compulsion Disorder Differently
Most humans, we would agree, want to have predictability and safety in their external environment, just as the rats did.
After a traumatic event, you would usually want to make sense of it and might battle it ‘out there’ to try to make things sane and safe again. Most empaths seek to understand. They go towards people to try to understand what’s going on with that person and they want to try to sort matters out.
Empaths also express how they feel to try to make the other person understand what is truly happening inside of them. Empaths do that to try to connect.
Narcissists don’t have the compulsion as empaths do to go towards others to get reason and safety. Safety to a narcissist is not what it is for an empath – it does not involve vulnerability, honesty and transparent collaboration. Rather, it’s avoiding these things so that the false self – the ego – can be held separated in superiority to others and maintained.
To do this, narcissists decide their version of the truth. They don’t have partnerships with others. They’re not interested in what’s going on inside of you. They’re only interested in their version of things, a narrative necessary to preserve the false self.
You will experience this whenever you’re in discord or disagreement with a narcissist. He or she will refuse to have a candid conversation about what happened and resist you looking to them for accountability, safety, honesty, and empathy.
The more you try, the more they will disconnect and defend the false self with alternative realities, excuses, non-relevant information, projections, tit-for-tat, and other defence mechanisms.
The narcissist’s Repetitive Compulsion Disorders – meaning unconscious repeat behaviours stemming from unhealed traumas – are the defences that come with their broken, disowned Inner Identity being guarded determinedly by the False Self – the ego.
You’ll notice when a narcissist comes back into your life after a separation that they’re not interested in the nitty-gritty discussion about what happened, how it happened, the accountability for it and what is necessary for understanding, healing and putting the steps in place for it not to happen again.
They don’t want to work that out or look at that deeply. This inability to lean into you is also an inability to face that inner truth about themselves. Without personal development, they don’t change and neither does their relationship capacity.
The Growth To Heal From Repetitive Compulsion Disorder
Let’s talk about the growth necessary to heal from Repetitive Compulsion Disorder. What’s so important is that like all addictions, repeat behaviours are a symptom of a core issue. At the core, we have feelings of defectiveness, shame and rejection that have caused us to try to make somebody love and value us and treat us with care, honesty and empathy.
The problem is that we can’t change anyone else. We can only change and heal ourselves. Otherwise, we continue the patterns with other people who have neither the capacity nor the desire to meet us in a whole, healthy, loving way.
The real truth is that we need to become whole and self-loving people, whom healthy others can meet at a real level of connection, teamwork, intimacy, vulnerability, and integrity. And we need to believe we’re worthy of this.
As children, we felt helpless and hopeless regarding our painful beliefs, and we couldn’t heal ourselves beyond these feelings, but as adults we can. This requires turning within, self-partnering, and finally meeting and healing this unfinished business.
You may feel like this repetitive compulsion has only come on as an adult, yet it was set up when we were young.
The real question to yourself is deeper than “Why do I have Repetitive Compulsion Disorder?” It is really “What unhealed traumas from the past, where my needs weren’t met safely, are causing me to play out the same traumas again?” And “How can I meet and heal these traumas, and heal myself from the inside out beyond them?”
I’d love to invite you to take a pen and paper and start turning inwards to what’s really going on here. I want you to write out this question. “When I keep thinking about the person who hurt me and keep going toward them, how do I really feel about myself?”
Breathe deeply. Open your body and check inside of you. You may have feelings such as “I feel unworthy of love, defective, not good enough, unlovable, unheard, unmet, or not valued”. Those are all really common feelings, and you may have more.
Then ask yourself what needs are not being met by staying connected to this person.
You may have feelings such as recognition, honesty, safety, support, care, kindness, healthy communication, resolution, love, and truth.
Then write out this question. “When, before this time, have I had these same feelings?” Open your body, breathe and trust what answers arise from within. It’s important not to try to work it out logically. Take your attention inside of yourself because that’s where your somatic, inner, emotional self can arise to give you your answer.
After getting the answer, you can imagine seeing your young, small self within your inner being. Imagine conversing with this little self and saying, “Sweetheart, I know you didn’t receive these things in your past and you’re still trying to get them from people who match the same old pattern. I now know that only I can turn inwards to you, love you, and devote myself to you enough to help you heal from this.” Then you can imagine holding him or her and pouring love from your heart into your inner child.
Keep breathing, keep your body relaxed and open, and tell your inner child that you love him or her unconditionally and will never leave again.
This is the beginning of you starting to come home to yourself to heal. Self-partnering and self-healing are a devotion to moving out of the pain and into wholeness.
At first, it can seem really foreign to do that – or even a waste of time – because we haven’t been shown or taught how to do this as a life skill. But I promise you, you can do this. It starts with changing your self-talk and your decisions regarding treating yourself.
Another great question to ask yourself is “How you would treat yourself if you were somebody else whom you adored and cared for?”
Would you drink, smoke, eat junk, or chase after emotionally unavailable people and tell yourself how terrible and weak you are? No. Would you keep lying to yourself with false promises? Would you keep repeating the actions that hurt you and let yourself down?
Or would you dedicate yourself to your growth and healing and become healthier, happier, and have higher self-worth and self-value? Ideally, you would.
In Conclusion
I’d love to take you on a journey to understand this further – how you can heal from within and take your soul and your life back from Repetitive Compulsion Disorder and the people who represent the unsafety, unpredictability and unloving behaviour that goes with it.
Please go to my page on Quanta Freedom Healing™ which is a powerful tool to work directly on your subconscious states that formed in childhood, regarding any negative belief or pattern, to raise you up from old painful repeat patterns.
I created the Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program (NARP), which is a 10-step process to achieve this. It’s the most powerful way I’ve discovered to take back our humanity and our souls.
As always, I look forward to reading your comments and questions about this episode. I hope it made sense, I hope it helps to explain why you’ve been doing this and gives you hope that you can heal out of it.
Until the next episode, keep smiling, keep healing, and keep thriving because there is nothing else to do. Lots of love. Bye-bye.
Hi Mel ☺️
Would like to offer that the pulling of the rug out by narcs and abusers, that unpredictability in an intimate partner, is so deeply damaging. That unpredictability plus gas lighting is spectacularly damaging. I think I have worked harder to heal that. Still a work in progress to build trust and new relationships in healthy ways. Recently became aware there is still some trauma around the idea of living with a room mate 🙄 . Next shift…
d
Hi Valerie,
I agree it’s so damaging!
It’s fabulous that you are growing and expanding!
Much love to your lovely lady
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Hello Mel,
It’s Lynn from LHW and the boat (formerly).This presentation and words you convey have made such a great impact on me to today as this coincides with filing for divorce, he is doing it because I’m not enabling the verbal abuse anymore and I simply had to pack up and leave the boat with the few drops of self-esteem and self-love I had left. Very hard to do with Cinderella programming running over the nascant self-love that I plan to focus on. Finally. Thank you for the brilliant insights and in preparation I’ve been doing Module 6 first thing in the morning. This is the greatest transition of my adult life and although I am afraid of the unknown, as I could always count on his abuse, that strange form of imagined security I derived from the certainty of being his “whipping post” it is now time to move into healing and loving my wounded traumatized inner child. A dream I had about three weeks ago foretold what is going on now as a metaphor.
“We were at anchor in the Bahamas in the Sea of Abaco, a tornado blew in over the boat and the boat began to spin counterclockwise at a highly rapid rate, so violently it pulled the anchor from the sand. I screamed Bobby! Bobby! in a panic and there was no response. Panicked, the boat was swept into a strong current and cast up on shore, directly in front of the big door of a fire station.I was able to get safely onto land, but I could not find my husband. Nobody home. Things have been de-evolving and leveling ever since then. My dream was a direct warning of what to expect. It’s all come true with sadly the irretrievable Narcissist left behind and me getting off the boat to rescue myself and be on dry and solid land.
God Bless You Lynn! Wishing that everyone you meet on your new journey offers you only friendly, courteous, and kind.
I felt such relief when my ex finally left, and thought I was doing really well. 6 years later i suddenly feel so lonely, triggered by meeting someone else (briefly but it didn’t work out) and don’t know how to continue healing?
This is so amazing. I so much identify with you, with your perception of reality, of what we’ve been through with the narcissist —a woman pastor in my case. People in churches are victimized all the time in the name of God—. I’m so much on the same page with you about our thought processes, emotional reactions, and I definitely understand you so well and identify with your sensitivity to people, situations, and how we view them and ourselves.
Thanks so much for being such a precious pearl in the ocean of this world.
Kisses and a deep heartfelt acknowledgment of you, your care and work. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
Dear Melanie!
Thank you so much for another wonderful article! 🌻
You seem to present certain issues in these blogs and much needed help with the problems that we are all going through, especially me, with your amazing perspicacity, at the most appropriate times…
Today, once again, is another “ blue ribbon“ article that helps me so much. 💥
For many years I was, and now still am being humiliated, belittled, criticized, badgered by a ruthless narcissist.
The belittling, criticizing and badgering, etc., I’ve learned how to manage fairly well. My self-esteem has grown since I’ve been in NARP and no matter how much she tries to destroy my self-esteem with overt stuff she can’t.
However, I really have difficulty with the humiliation. Not that she has no problem humiliating me publicly and privately I am doing it to myself now!
On a good day, I might only call myself stupid, worthless, etc. just a few times. On a bad day these awful feelings of worthlessness permeate my “emotional atmosphere“ most of the time.
It might be possible that a lot of this horrible self talk is lingering more persistently right now, because of my “getting unmarried papers“ were signed very recently. I just don’t know!
As I read through your article, I did the breathing exercise that you suggested. It helped so much! I tried to visualize your voice, guiding us through the exercise. That really helped a lot.
Your voice has been a source of reassurance for so long now, Melanie…❤️ I am so thankful…..
Now I long for the day, when my inner voice has the same power to calm me and guide me as yours….👨👦
I know that day will come! When it does, I will never forget or will not forget all the help that you have given me along “the way”, The Way of a Narper!
I don’t know what else I can say, except, thank you so much, Melanie! Thank you for everything that you are doing and have done for so many of us on this planet earth, and beyond!
Much love! Much gratitude!
❤️🦋❤️
“To take your soul back” Wow!!! This simple statement has brought out in me a whole new revelation. I’ve had my eyes opened to a whole new dimension of my relationship with my own soul. All my life I’ve live unaware of the fact that my soul didn’t feel to me like something I owed but something I was using being someone else’s property. I felt anybody could come and go as they pleased, use it at their will and I had no say in it, at all, or else.
Wow! You are telling me I am THE RIGHTFUL OWNER of my soul. This is BIG NEWS to me! I have the right to my soul, to establish a strict surveillance that can keep all my goods unharmed and not mishandled or wasted. AMAZING!
MY SOUL BELONGS TO ME. This is my takeaway just from the first lines of introduction.
Thank you for all the exquisite gleaning from your field. I hope one day I’ll be able to do the same. THANK YOU.
hi there
thanks Melanie , a very good article once again and very touching and emotional, as i have come to realise ( strange really not consciously, until recently that is ) having always prided myself quietly for innate deep empathy, and deep emotional insights kindness, consideration compassion and tolerance and timidity sensitivity and vulnerability , for all their good and in my mind valuable and admirable qualities , i can see now from a young age , iam now 68 , i have followed my mothers ( who i adored and who herself had a very difficult and even traumatic life, my father when young left her more or less homeless with six young children, three of whom were to die on her lives journey, ages 12, 42 and 53 , which was heart-breaking to experience, having passed away a few years ago having suffered from dementia for three years, living with myself on our own where she died at home ) behaviours in a lot of respects , although i could in no way claim to be half the person she was. one of the most beautiful , gentlest, kindest, humble , forgiving tolerant souls you would ever wish ! i did inherit a lot of her qualities, for good or bad. which i was always very proud of because i always regarded them as very beautiful qualities or characteristics (up until my truthful realisation) in that one of my main sources of pleasure and comfort has always been to act on the very same qualities and sadly to live with the very same levels of response or reaction( usually greed , neglect, cruelty, ( and sometimes brutal) selfishness or even abandonment or just being used or abused etc which ironically i always strangely felt made them that much more admirable, ( the power of empathy compassion inoffensiveness tolerance and forgiveness etc ) Silly silly me ! so your brilliant last article on Repetitive Compulsion Disorder , which was very true touching and emotional, really struck a cord with me ( so thank you very much) that said the irony of it all is, I/WE read the signs, recognise others for who they really are, feel for them, give our selves to them, physically, emotionally and sometimes financially in the naïve belief that deep down we are all the same ( same values , insights, consciences etc) when the reality is they pretend to love you when you doing the giving, mopping up their pain etc but in reality other than that they haven absolutely little or no interest in you as a fellow human being, not that my behaviour was based on that premise, seeking out genuine friendship, deeper honest emotional connections yes!
So with your help hopefully painful lessons have been learnt and am now distancing myself from people ( without guilt orb fear that is) who i always mistakenly took to be real friends or even family . I guess its very very sad in a lot of respects, not so much for myself , because after a lifetime at the hands of such people , which has nearly killed me on more than one occasion ( as it did my mam, brother and sister), i am hopefully a lot wiser and stronger and will now have more respect for “myself” and am more than capable of going it alone, i dont, never did need the comfort of the “herd” or have the need to be recognised or valued for superficial reasons ( loved ??? now that’s a very very rare different kettle of fish) etc etc but more for those that will never get to realise, feel or experience the benefits, pleasures , comforts and accompanying beauty , in the qualities i have mentioned , that i still firmly believe are the true source of a deeper meaningful loving existence ( pain included) ! From my experience very sadly its the opposite , they go onto to live sad unfulfilled empty emotional lives and in a lot of cases very sadly destroy themselves !
So a great article , very emotional but the truth! a truth from which there is no escape! no matter who the person is or how they act!
So sorry for the moans, but a big big thank you and hopefully i can pass on what i have learned to someone who will hopefully genuinely value , appreciate and benefit form it !!!!
I have the narc program and find it wonderful. It is 7 months now since I was discarded and shoved into a wall. M 18 yo has a ways to go to go as well. Everyday I get better when I do the work, I feel positive, when I think of him it’s a bad day for me. I am journaling now and doing the 66 day program again to get rid of stuff that doesn’t serve me. This time next year, I will be happy I started my healing journey a few months ago. Thank you Melanie, what a treasure you are.
Hi, Thriver community-
I am here because I am needing support from this community. I feel it is the only place where you all understand completely what I have been through with my 27 year relationship with my ex narc.
I did the work through Melanie and finally realized the power within my self, I believe that is God
and I took my own hand gave myself back the power to work through some things from my childhood and teenage years with my ex.
I am now 47 and I have been divorced for 1.5 years. I finally got out!
I know in my soul this is better… I am no longer in that absolute false life where I learned to just completely lose my voice in order to stay safe and soooo many other reasons why I know this is better.
But…. to get to why I am here. I am struggling. I am now handing power over to the narc once again and I just can’t seem to shake it this time.
One of the biggest ways the narc punished me when we were married was being an absolute lump on a log. I was always kind to him because I had to be and would say we don’t need to spend a lot of money but I want to make memories. Weekends and holidays would pass and he would never want to do anything. I desperately wanted to form memories with our four young and now adult children as a family and he would never want to do anything. He ignored me, never wanted to talk to me and would numb on marijuana from the time he woke up until he went to bed.
Now 1.5 years later he is married… he found a girl who is a match for him… they have a lot of money. The girl he ended up with he started dating 1 month after I said I wanted a divorce and while we were still living together.
Now they are taking my adult kids and going jet skiing every weekend, planning trips, buying new and exciting things…and that is all I ever wanted. I am not able to afford to do such grand adventures and he seems to be on his best behavior when they are all making memories together.
I am absolutely distraught over this. I am here trying to pay for things by myself… so strapped financially… I now don’t even have the time to do anything with my kids and they are all off forming a new family together…(she has adult kids my kids ages) I am so sad and I want this too.
I know deep down I made the right decision but this feels like an evil trick being played against me.
Any help advice would be so appreciated. I feel so angry and sad.
Hi Julie I understand exactly, also had a long difficult marriage and have 4 adult children. My ex remarried very quickly, to his friend’s wife, which was traumatic for all of us. Now he manipulates the children by favouring the eldest son and either ignoring or insulting the others. I share your bewilderment that an evil trick is being played against me, as I feel increasingly lonely whereas my ex appears to be living a life of luxury with a devoted new wife. I guess we both need to stop and think that what we see is superficial and that we would definitely not be happy if we were still with them. I am sorry to hear of the pain you feel observing the “new family” but I suspect all is not as it seems and that your children will see his true character in time, and once the novelty of the situation wears off life will settle down again.
Hi, Katy-
I appreciate your thoughtfulness in reading about my current situation and giving me some helpful advice.
It is so true that if we were still together we would not be happy and the kids would be miserable too just like we all used to be.
I made the decision to be happy that my kids are happy. They always wanted to do fun things with their dad and now they are getting to do that.
I have to continue to do what I can do with them like home dinners, movie nights, coffee dates, walks…that sort of stuff. Also, deep down I know I will never be replaced by her.
I also thought of one thing Melanie said and that is that my ex will eventually find a way to punish his new supply in a way that is the perfect recipe for her. My ex new I wanted to plan trips all the time so he became a nothing. Hers will look different but it will happen.
This new supply for both of our ex’s is doing exactly what we did many years ago…a soul dance with the devil.
I guess that’s the new “supplies” journeys …they are both on their own path hopefully they won’t be taken down with them.
I’m so glad we made it out!!
Thank you again for the support!
Hi Julie, what a lovely and positive response, thank you. Life can seem so dark and unfair sometimes and it’s wonderful to know that there are other people out there who understand and that we can encourage each other. I admire so much your decision to be happy that your kids are happy. My ex just seems determined to punish me forever! He tells people I have poisoned the children against him when in fact his own behaviour has done so. 3 of them don’t see him at all and the other one, craving a father figure, does so but it causes tensions. Thank you again and well done xx
I have recently been called to account by a friend on my lack of transparency with my family about certain decisions I have made in my life which I have good reason to believe my family would not approve of. Due to my current circumstances I am sharing living space with them and my friend believes that I “owe” my family transparency about my life because of that “because no one likes to be lied to”. My position is that if I was honest I would both be punished and attacked and my NARP recovery would backslide right at the point when I am putting all my intention into rebuilding my life and getting some new traction. If my family were people I felt like I could talk to, I would have told them, but they aren’t. The truth is I feel very vulnerable and potentially compromised at present, while I walk the line between not rocking the boat with them and protecting my own dreams while I work to realise them. There are significant mental health and substance abuse issues at play as well and this complicates matters. It is very difficult for me to open up and trust because of how that trust has been abused and my boundaries violated by people close to me. Narcissism, substance abuse and severe mental illness are a truly toxic combination and I’ve had the brunt of it in various combinations in my life from family friends and intimate partners. I have been left feeling very uncomfortable by these current dynamics and wondering what I am truly accountable for in this situation. I don’t like feeling like it’s not safe for me to be open and transparent. The best I feel able to do at this point is be honest with myself about what I am doing and why, and put energy and intention into changing those circumstances rather than defending myself against the onslaughts of those who have very limited capacity to empathise or to accept me as I really am.
I have just realised I’ve commented on the wrong blog post. I’m not sure how I did it but I meant for this to go under the blog post about accountability and how the lack of it destroys relationships. I don’t think it’s possible to take down or edit posts, or I would move it.