Understanding how to overcome fear is an important part of recovering from narcissistic abuse.

As you wander the world away from the narcissist’s chains, you may feel, well, off.

You may find yourself in a second-guessing mode with every decision you make. You may have noticed that your behavior is more impulsive than you remember.

It’s normal.

Why?

Narcissistic abuse – especially long-term abuse – rewires vital areas of the brain. You live in a fight-or-flight situation during the abuse. Now, the threat is gone but your brain has been programmed to live in fear as its base state.

Here’s what’s going on in your head and how to heal.

Narcissistic abuse causes long-term trauma that leads to post-traumatic stress disorder
You are probably aware of the link between emotional abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder. Emotional and verbal abuse can have devastating psychological consequences such as one-off violent events.

When you survive a terrorist attack or a car crash, it is easy to identify the incident as a one-time traumatic event. Sure, recovering and dealing with the fallout isn’t easy — but you’ve clearly been through trauma.

Narcissistic trauma is different.

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It is not a one time event. In fact, narcissistic trauma creeps in very slowly and can happen over several months, years, or even decades.

At first, you might think it’s just a cute whim that your partner gets sad when you spend so much time with your friends. Then, you might get annoyed when they want you to check in with them every ten minutes. Until finally, they ask to go through your phone every night and ask you for every innocuous, Facebook-like message, comment.

Before you know it, controlling, manipulative, and abusive behavior has become normal.

But it’s not normal and your brain knows that – even if you can’t consciously acknowledge it. As a result, your brain rewires itself to survive this state of chronic trauma and fear.

This is why it is important to understand how to overcome fear in your quest to heal from narcissistic abuse.

How narcissistic abuse rewires the brain

You may not realize it, but you’ve been living in a constant state of fear.

You worry about how the narcissist will react and respond to everything you say and do. This creates a highly stressful environment that produces major changes in the brain.

For starters, experiencing stress causes your cortisol levels to rise. Over time, high levels of cortisol can lead to weight gain, acne, slow wound healing, muscle weakness, and a wide range of other physical symptoms.

Chronic exposure to cortisol can also shrink the hippocampus: the part of the brain responsible for short-term memory processing and storage. Researchers from the University of New Orleans and Stanford University note that people with the highest cortisol levels and PTSD symptoms have the smallest hippocampal population.

The cognitive dissonance, confusion, and amnesia you experienced during your narcissistic abuse was no accident—your brain has adapted to chronic fear and stress.

Are you addicted to shock?
When you consume a drug, like opium, for example, your brain gets used to receiving dopamine and stops producing the chemical on its own.

Believe it or not, you can become “addicted” to harmful hormones like cortisol, too.

Over time, your brain gets used to the influx of cortisol, adrenaline, and other stress hormones you receive from the trauma. As a result, your brain begins to believe that this is normal, and you literally become addicted to the shock itself to get these hormones.

This is why narcissistic abuse is so hard to let go: the narcissist gets his ego fix from insulting you and your brain gets its fix from cortisol and adrenaline from the constant fight-or-flight environment.

How does narcissism hijack the amygdala?
Once you finally let go of the chronic trauma of narcissistic abuse, it’s only natural to beat yourself up.

How can you let this go on for so long?

How could you not see how toxic and rotten the situation was?

Don’t be so hard on yourself, it’s not your fault. After months or years of chronic abuse, your brain and body have adapted to this constant state of fight or flight—it just felt natural to you. Perhaps you are beginning to believe that this is how relationships work, whether they are family, romantic partners, or co-workers.

The truth is, narcissistic abuse hijacks the amygdala. This is the part of the brain responsible for regulating basic functions — such as breathing and heart rate, as well as primal emotions. This is your impulsive “crawling brain” that tells you when you feel anger, fear, love, lust, and hate.

If other parts of your brain aren’t working smoothly and keeping the amygdala in check, people will act like animals.

But the amygdala has another important job: It regulates your fight-or-flight response.

As a victim of narcissistic abuse, you have been constantly living in this state of fear. You are constantly responding to abuse and trauma. Because your hippocampus is shrinking in size and not functioning properly, you cannot respond to external pressures constructively.

It’s a vicious cycle that keeps you trapped for a long time.

You have been living in constant fear for a long time – which is why it is so important for you to understand how to finally overcome this fear.

What do the effects look like?

It is very difficult to identify symptoms when you are in the throes of narcissistic abuse because you will do anything to justify your situation as normal because of the addiction you developed. Also, the symptoms look different depending on whether you are still experiencing the trauma or trying to move on with your life.

While suffering from abuse, symptoms may include:

Denial: Making excuses and believing that your toxic relationship is normal.

Division: Pushing the abuse aside and focusing on the elusive “good times.”
Projection: imagining the narcissist has positive qualities that you yourself possess.
Once you’re out on your own, and you know how to overcome fear, you may notice symptoms appearing at unexpected times:

Defensively respond to people’s questions
Acting irrationally or impulsively
Excessive apology
Paranoia and the feeling that everyone is watching your every move
Feeling depressed, lost, or aimless

These feelings are very standard. You are going through exactly what many other survivors of narcissistic abuse have gone through. The narcissist has controlled you for so long, and you need to give yourself time to truly heal from your physical and mental trauma.

How to overcome the fear of narcissistic psychological abuse
Healing from the psychological damage caused by a narcissist takes a lot of time and dedication. You may still experience some symptoms years later when people, places and things trigger memories of trauma and abuse.

The good news is that you will become stronger than before, and have the ability to spot narcissistic traits before someone else rushes into your life.

To truly heal yourself from narcissistic abuse, you need to understand how to overcome fear and develop some coping tools and tactics:

Meditation: According to research from Harvard University, eight weeks of mindfulness meditation can rewire the brain to encourage empathy, resilience to stress, improve memory, and a sense of self.
Therapy: Group or individual therapy can help provide you with a new, third-party perspective. This is something you desperately need after years of narcissistic abuse distorting your view of yourself and the world around you. Just be sure to find someone who is familiar with emotional abuse and trauma.
Support: If your friends have good relationships with the narcissist, they will not be able to provide you with the support you need. These are relationships that must be severed. It’s best to count on friends who will validate your feelings and not blame you for any of the abuse you’ve suffered. Support groups are also a great idea if you can find any in your area. However, you should be aware that local Meetup groups may not be the best route for many times, they feature people masquerading as therapists when they are really narcissistic to take advantage of you.

Generosity: Helping someone is a great way to bring yourself outside and develop a new, realistic perspective on your place in the world. This could be something as big as volunteering for a charity organization on the weekends to help your mum or dad around the house.

Gratitude: addicts in recovery are always encouraged to identify the things they are grateful for on a daily basis. Focus on the positive aspects of your life now that the narcissist has prevented you from experiencing in the past, such as basic privacy and relationships with others. What do you love most about your newfound freedom today?

Keep a Journal: You don’t need to record every moment of every day – but when something about your rule bothers you, write it down. This will help you notice stimulus patterns and areas you can work on.
Self-care: This sounds pretty basic but in reality, it’s anything but. You’ve spent too long giving your entire life and identity to narcissists – it’s time to make time for yourself. Do something the narcissist has always said you can’t do!