Why Narcissistic Abuse Survivors Resist Inner Transformation
Overcoming fears with embodying personal authority and power
There is a trend I’ve come to recognize as a trauma informed clinician who treats survivors of narcissistic abuse. Specifically, although survivors excavate the minutiae of narcissistic abuse with gusto and zeal, when it comes to turning the focus on one’s own psychological composition and dispositions, resistance kicks in. Truth be told, I personally grappled with this propensity in my own process of complex trauma recovery, particularly when it came to transmuting my instinctual aggression into healthy expressions of power and authority.
Understandably, after extensive destabilizing and debilitating abuse calculated to heighten sympathetic arousal and catapult the victim into PTSD symptoms of flooding and dissociation, examining how one’s long-held beliefs and cognitive biases about the human condition may have factored into becoming malleable supply, can feel like harmful self incrimination.
Undeniably, the weight of extensive smear campaigns, incessant lies and the narcissist’s recruitment of friends, family and colleagues to conquer and divide, takes its toll on victims. With this in mind, in the aftermath of having one’s character torn to shreds, feeling increasingly untethered…
