The phenomena of cognitive dissonance can be one of the biggest obstacles in a person’s healing journey. It can be the biggest reason why you stay stuck in a narcissistic relationship or why you fail to progress in your healing journey if you have already left.
The reason why it happens is not that your head is messed up or you have gone crazy, or you have lost it all. The idea behind it is strangely profound and very different.
Hi. I am Danish Bashir, a Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Professional. In this article, I will be talking about the phenomena of Cognitive Dissonance in Narcissistic Relationships, why it happens, and how you can overcome it.
Cognitive dissonance is known by other terms, such as brain fog, double-think, double mind, or simply, it’s known as confusion.
The confusion is so chronic that it distorts the perception of the abuser. Meaning you’re not able to differentiate between who the person is and who he is not, you’re not able to distinguish between the reality and non-reality components of his personality.
It’s like, there is a conflict between two contrary beliefs, which can be, for example, he’s a good person, and he’s a bad person or he abuses me, yet he is the one who apologizes.
Your mind tries to find more and more distorted pieces of evidence for the less painful belief, which in most cases, is, “he is a good person, and he’s abusive because I did something wrong or he was stressed.”
As the dissonance becomes more prominent in terms of the confusion, the abuse is suppressed more. It is either normalized or minimized in extreme cases.
In my observation and personal experience, cognitive dissonance is dominant more when you are experiencing emotional pain or when the reality tries to unfold itself in a way that you see the truth as it is. You see the abuser as an abuser, but when you are shocked by its existence, you cognitively dissonate.
When the psychological pain becomes intense or when you are emotionally vulnerable, cognitive dissonance is created by your mind as a defense mechanism, not as a malfunction, but as a defense mechanism to help you survive, to protect you from the unbearable pain.
The next time you’re confused about the reality of the abuser, you will observe that you may be in a heightened emotional state. Your sympathetic nervous system may be dominant, and you may be in a flight, fight, or freeze mode, and this is when your subconscious mind does everything to save you from a perceived threat to your life. Your subconscious mind creates this confusion so that the pain lessens.
You may have also noticed when you are not in bad shape emotionally or when you are stable, it easier for you to see the real face of the abuser.
Therefore, the real cause behind Cognitive Dissonance is not a messed up mind, but a very protective and survival mode that aims at helping you to survive.
So, what is the way out? How can you dissolve the confusion so that you can see the abuser as they are?
It is not to take a page and then write good things and the bad things about the abuser, which might give you a temporary understanding and help you use logic.
The real solution is to heal the core pain within that causes you to deny the truth about the abuser. It is going inside, sitting with it, and then letting your inner healer heal it.
Most of us, as survivors, either don’t know how to do that, or we are afraid to face it. That is why external support in the form of an experienced therapist is needed.
So again, I would like to emphasize on the point that the solution to resolving this confusion isn’t covering the wound. It is going inside and healing the wound completely. The less your pain is, the lesser will be the Cognitive Dissonance.
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