I often get asked this type of question by people who have recently gotten out of an abusive relationship with a narcissist. They say:

My ex treated me like crap. By the time he dumped me, I was in a terrible state. I had lost my self-esteem and most of my confidence. It took me weeks to stop crying. I’m in therapy now and I’m finally able to function again. Obviously, I know I’m better off without the relationship, but I still picture my ex every day and wish we could be together. Why can’t I just forget about this person and move on?

One way to understand what’s going on here is to realize that our minds and hearts sometimes travel on separate tracks. The key to healing is to get them to communicate with each other.

This back-and-forth dialogue can go on for a long time without resolution. These are two very different perspectives on the same situation. One perspective focuses on how happy you were when things were going well, while the other focuses on how things actually went. You don’t have to passively wait for something to happen to break the deadlock. There are things you can do to speed up the healing process and end this emotionally destructive push/pull.

Note: I use the terms “narcissist” and “narcissist” in this article as shorthand for a much longer phrase: someone who has narcissistically adapted to a childhood situation and who now exhibits a pattern of responses commonly called Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Exercise 1-Challenge Your False Beliefs

Here is a 4-part exercise that can speed up the healing process:

Part 1- Write down all of the beliefs you have about your relationship with your narcissistic ex that are preventing you from moving on and finding someone new to love.

Related : How Do I Heal from Narcissistic Abuse?

Here is my client Laura’s list:

It was my fault that he treated me this badly.

There was something I could have done that would have made the situation work.

He treats his next love better than me because the new person is better than me.

I will never find anyone else who makes me feel as good and special again.

The list above is “heart-based.” The emotional side of Laura longs for what she once was with her ex when things were at their most beautiful. This side of Laura doesn’t want to face the pain of admitting her current reality—that she will never have eternal love and a perfect future with this man. The idea that absolutely nothing can be salvaged from this relationship except wisdom is too painful for Laura to face head-on. Instead, she tries to convince her more logical self that there is still a way to make this relationship work if she is given the chance to do it again.

“Wait,” her heart tells her, “you can still get your ex back and this time you can make it work.” Unfortunately, this is also the heart of someone who takes more than their share of the blame for a failed relationship.

Part 2 – Who encouraged you as a child to take all the blame?

Most of my clients who tend to take more than their share of the blame for their breakup had a parent who inappropriately blamed them. It can help to realize that part of what’s preventing you from seeing the current breakup situation realistically is that it’s a repetition of a childhood situation. Ask yourself: Who in my childhood always blamed me when something went wrong?

Example – My client Laura was raised by a narcissistic mother who constantly blamed her for almost everything. If the milk in the fridge went bad, she was told: You must have left it out. When her mother got angry and yelled at Laura on the street, she heard: It’s your fault I lost my temper! If you weren’t so disrespectful, I wouldn’t have had to yell at you in public.

Part Three – What Do You Get From Protecting Your Abusive Ex and Blaming Yourself Instead?

We blame ourselves not only out of habit and history but also because it serves a hidden psychological purpose. To move forward, it helps to realize what you get from protecting your ex and putting all the blame on yourself.

This was a difficult question for Laura to answer. She finally said:

If it’s my fault, I can fix it. I loved the way he made me feel in the beginning. He kept telling me how special I was and how beautiful I was! It’s hard for me to let that go. No other man has ever made me feel that way. If I accept that he’s a narcissist and nothing I do will solve his problems, I should never give up on trying to get him back to the way he was before. I realized that when I think about him, I only picture him as he was in the beginning, not when he was abusing me.

Part Four – Write a true statement next to each belief in Part One. Make sure it’s what your mind tells you is true (even if your heart doesn’t want to believe it).

Here’sLaura’s New List:

It’s not my fault he was abusive. He has a history of mistreating women.

There was nothing I could have done to change the outcome.

He only treats women well at the beginning of the relationship when he wants to close the deal.

He’ll mistreat the new woman eventually, too.

There are plenty of men who will find me attractive and special in a way that’s natural and doesn’t change for the opposite.

Related : How Can I Explain the Impact of Narcissistic Abuse on Me?

Whenever you find yourself missing your ex or blaming yourself, reread Part Four.

The bottom line: It can be so hard to recover from narcissistic abuse because we tend to focus only on the good parts. We tell ourselves we could have done something different and imagine that our ex will give someone new the perfect, lasting love we crave. It takes repeated doses of cold reality to counteract our fantasy that we’ve lost something wonderful and irreplaceable.