What I’ve learned from my own experience of being in a relationship with a narcissist for two years is that after it’s all over, you feel lost, broken, and completely unrecognizable.
You fail to recognize the cheerful and lively person you used to be.
The narcissist has twisted every weakness in you and created a change in your personality.
Related: 11 Ways To Protect Yourself From Falling In Love With A Narcissist
A person who used to trust others has become a person who can no longer trust the intentions of another human being, a person who has lost confidence in himself and in the world.
In a matter of months, a narcissist can turn your life upside down, leaving you behind searching for answers.
The mistake most of us make here is getting the narcissist to provide you with closure.
Remember that the narcissist was never romantically involved with you in the first place.
All they sought was someone who could selflessly sacrifice their innate needs and prioritize the narcissist’s need to fulfill them.
Once you do, you will turn into a useless mass of flesh that must be disposed of.
To begin with, if you are in recovery after narcissistic abuse, just wait, and you will finally find answers to your questions—not with the narcissist, but with yourself.
Once you regain full self-control, your resilience is worthy of praise.
The memories of the narcissist have been so ingrained in you that you find it almost impossible to function independently without this person.
It is normal for it to return to their memories or appear in their thoughts.
Sometimes this is unavoidable, especially after how much you have emotionally, psychologically, and physically invested in them.
You and I both know that it is often emotionally devastating to continue to long for the person who completely destroyed you, from time to time.
However, it is actually one of the inevitable stages of surviving narcissistic abuse.
Love bombing is a noticeable behavior exhibited by a narcissist while initiating a romantic relationship.
It is a common pattern of relational interaction by the narcissist to lay the foundation for future outbreaks of abuse.
It serves as the foundation upon which the trauma bond is built.
The act of “love bombing” literally describes how the narcissist “bombs” their partner with excessive communication, love, affection, protection, and everything positive at the beginning of the relationship to establish and secure control and power. On the other person’s life.
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At this stage of the relationship, the narcissist has a high tendency to dramatically increase the amount of communication via social media, text messages, emails, and phone calls.
This overwhelming amount of attention, flattery, and praise can be overwhelming or even debilitating at times for your significant other.
This includes the idealization phase of the toxic cycle that the narcissist has already put you into.
Love bombing has the greatest impact on you, because it ensures that your basic needs are met – the need for approval, the need for love, and belonging, as well as the need to feel exclusive in the eyes of your partner.
This always creates the illusion of the “perfect partner.”
For you, your partner becomes the best possible person on earth, the perfect match for you, “the one you have been waiting for all your life.”
This “image” that you create of your partner does not depend on his “true self”, but rather on the “disguised self” that he portrays in front of you.
The narcissist ultimately “manufactures positive evaluations” of himself in you, hoping to get them back in return, in the form of praise.
Love bombs act as a mirror of your deepest desires to be accepted, wanted, and to be seen.
This is exactly what the narcissist in your life offers you at the beginning of a romantic relationship.
Once the idealization phase is over, the devaluation phase begins easily and with immediate effect, once their praise is returned and completed.
But what you stumble upon is the amount of “positive experiences” they put you through.
The narcissist’s trap becomes even more obnoxious when you are left wondering why this person who showered you with the utmost love and affection, made time for you, went out of his way to make you feel special, complimented you and complimented you, and made you feel perfect, has suddenly turned into an individual who criticizes, complains, and blames you. And he belittles you.
Intermittent reinforcement from the abuser will keep you attached to the narcissist, searching for periodic scraps of positive behavior that fuel the victim.
It’s normal to desperately wish your partner would return to the honeymoon phase of the relationship.
This is the precise juncture where you slowly feel like you are losing your grip on yourself.
Related: How To Prevent Raising A Narcissist?
You will likely view your positive experience in an amplified way compared to the period of sporadic neglect and abuse.
Your only option now is to stoop down, beg, negotiate, and lose your self-respect just to get a glimpse of that “perfect partner” you once witnessed.
No doubt all your enthusiastic requests will be left unheard.
They will either continue to treat you in an increasingly neglectful manner or will cut off contact completely after they have succeeded in breaking your self-confidence and tarnishing your self-image.
Once a relationship ends, grief must occur.
It is normal for wounds caused by a narcissist to be difficult to heal.
Not only for you, but it is also difficult for anyone to erase the “good memories” all at once and forget about the narcissist.
