Truth be told, recovering from a relationship with a narcissist is easier than being in a relationship with a narcissist. Most people who live or are in a relationship with a narcissist think that it is extremely difficult for them to walk out and it would be absolutely impossible to recover from the relationship. Such thoughts exist and such is the bent of mind because the narcissists they were in a relationship with have made them believe that they are inferior, they do not deserve much in life and that they should be treated in the manner that they are being treated.
The biggest challenge in a relationship with a narcissist is to accept that the relationship is not healthy, that the narcissist would always remain who he or she is and to walk out of the relationship. Thereon, things are only going to get easier, albeit with some conscious effort from the victim.
The First Lesson
Recovering from a relationship with a narcissist will not happen overnight. It is easy but it is certainly not immediate. There are many stages of recovery. Regardless of what happens to you, how the world looks at you, where you are and who you are, what kind of lifestyle you have and what you wish to become; the very first step you would have to take is work on your conscious mind, your psyche, to begin the recovery process. That is the first lesson. The recovery will not happen in the world outside, it will happen in your mind. Once you are psychologically recovered, emotional and physical recovery would happen in no time. It is the dominance of the mind or psyche over everything else.
The Key Steps
There are a few beliefs that you have to begin to trust, again. There is always a phase in one’s life when one is brimming with confidence or thinks fairly well about one’s abilities. Then, when one is in a relationship with a narcissist, all such beliefs go for a toss. A person is made to believe that he or she is nothing and doesn’t even deserve the narcissist. This and much more compels a person to lose faith in oneself, to lack confidence and to become a loner, incapable of doing much. The first key step is to find oneself valuable.
The moment you begin to value your-self, start to think of your abilities, strengths and all the potential that you have, in whichever way; you will begin to love yourself. One of the tragedies of being in a relationship with a narcissist is that one stops loving oneself. That should never be done. One should always love oneself, may be as much as one loves the other person, but never less. In normal cases, loving someone more than oneself may be looked at as noble or a good thing but doing so with a narcissist is the last thing you should consider. Once you start to love yourself, you will begin recovering from a relationship with a narcissist.
You can fall in love with yourself by rediscovering your potential, by focusing on what you need, by opening yourself up to the world and then exploring each passing day with renewed optimism. A narcissist always makes the other person feel pessimistic and that takes away all the positivity and confidence. Focusing on yourself will rejuvenate those essentials of living a healthy life.
The next key step is to stop judging yourself from the perspective of the narcissist. You need to forget everything that has been ever said to you and done to you. It is necessary that you do this because a narcissist will always leave traces in your memory that will continue to haunt your psyche and it would have direct ramifications in your life. Not only should you forget the bad things said and done to you by the narcissist but you should also forget the good things said and done to you. If you don’t forget the good, you will not be able to let go off the bad and vice versa.
Once you have a fresh and new perspective towards life and more importantly towards yourself, you will find things changing for you. If you are in a time warp or you continue to live in the past with all its debris then you will not be able to move on, let aside recovering from a relationship with a narcissist.
On a parting note, you will need friends and family when you are recovering from a relationship with a narcissist. You need support and that should be unadulterated and truly caring. You don’t need people who might want something in return and you certainly don’t need another narcissist. Choose the people around you wisely and you would be better off.