4 Ways To Recover From An Abusive Narcissist

Hi there, my name is Steve Pomeroy and thank you so much for joining me for this month's podcast and following me and believe in big change, appreciate you happy new years and happy February, we're already in February of 2020. Hope things are off to a good start for you. If not, there's plenty of time and go easy on yourself. This month's topic is about recovery, recovering from abusive toxic relationships. Many people that are toxic, that have entered our lives and inflicted a lot of damage, created a lot of wreckage. We like to label things and name things many of us call them narcissist, some people will, even throughout the term narcissistic personality disorder, we like to name it, we like to label it, we like to blame. I want to talk about how we can heal and what I've been doing for quite a while now and it's working and I'm attracting people into my life that value me that care about steve and I care about them. At first my universe felt like it shrank quite a bit, but there's nothing smaller of a universe than being an alcoholic. I felt praying in the grips of addiction to alcohol. I'm a recovering alcoholic and what I'm going to share with you today four ways to recover from an abusive toxic narcissistic person. This stuff hurts, it creates a lot of pain and suffering. It's very difficult to move through this. The demons, The voices haunted me for a long time and I couldn't figure out for a long time, why I kept attracting these people into my life thinking I thought I was a good judge of character? Why do I keep attracting these types of people, whether it was in life, you know, personal life or business or both, it happened and it hurts and I didn't know how to handle it. So I'm not saying you're gonna become an alcoholic like I did and I don't blame anybody. I own this and that's empowerment. I'm in recovery today and I want to share with you some key components in my recovery. And there's four specific ways that you can move through this without passing judgment on these people and without passing judgment on yourself. That is key, without passing judgment on yourself. I didn't even think until I got involved and active participation in my own program of recovery. That self forgiveness was even in the realm of possibility. It is and it's so critical because that can be so damn hard on myself. I've been out visiting chat forums on the internet. This is a big topic. It gets thrown around a lot. I'm not here to diagnose anymore. I'm not here to tell you that these people will come back to my hope is after you listen to this and you start to work on yourself. And yes, it's an inside job. Yes, it's gonna feel like you're taking contrary action, but it's time to change the game, to change your life and to take your power back? So the questions that people ask, why do they lie? Do they ever regret their actions? Can they change? Does the love bombing return? That's a lot of hurt pain and suffering that I'm hearing and I can relate and I'm gonna share with you in my journey of self discovery why I thought I became an easy target and why the cycle kept repeating itself and it's exhausting. I went into alcoholism, I'm in recovery now and life is so much better. I'm gonna read to you first off something that I made a copy of. I'm back at U. C. L. A. I'm in school again and I'm working to obtain the certificate and substance abuse counselor. And one of the instructors brought into a class a worksheet that they use in the prison system in dealing with. There's a lot of narcissistic people that go to jail, they're very abusive. They do unspeakably horrible things to people. Some of them make the effort to reform and some of them have the capacity to start being honest me. I had to have the capacity to start being honest that I had a problem with alcohol and then I carried a lot of shame with me in my life and that carry that brought with it a lot of resentments and the biggest one was towards myself against self forgiveness is key. Let me read this to you. Number one, I don't put up with anyone criticizing me telling lies doesn't make me a liar. Number three, I can size up anyone four. I know what's best for those around me. I deserve respect, but I don't need to give any. I can always find a shortcut. I'm slick enough to fool others. The world should suit me, not me. Suit the world. Sound familiar. Yeah. Sounds very familiar. It might even make your skin crawl and the hair on the back of your neck stand up and I can relate. So yes, they lack empathy. They are very insecure, immature and spiritually bankrupt individuals. I was pretty bankrupt myself until I made a conscious choice to start the healing process and go down this path of recovery. I always like to try to relate and identify. It doesn't mean I'm like these types of people that we're talking about. It's always I think important in my recovery to identify with others when when possible look for the similarities, not the difference, differences. It saves us from a thing called hypocrisy. Yes, they're jealous and resentful at others. Why? My personal opinion is they live and operate from a place of almost 100% fear based. We want to come from a place of love. We want to heal. We wanna be in that healthy intimate relationship with our friends, our family and with a significant other. They carry a lot of shame with them and they just don't have the capacity to be honest. The ones that make the choice, as I said earlier to start to heal from there, whatever you call it, A condition, a disorder. Again, I'm not a therapist, I'm not a psychiatrist. You know, I suffered from severe alcohol use disorder. Had to make a choice. I had to start getting honest about my shit, I was gonna die. That's the bottom line. So if you're wondering if they can get better, I believe they can if they have the capacity to start being honest, to start to start somewhere, if that answers any questions that you might have. So they hate rejection, resistance and they do not like recovering people, they will stay away from us. You don't want to attract them. Go down this journey of recovery and I'm going to talk about that in a moment. Why do they hate this stuff? Because they're afraid of it? And at the end of the day they project the flak and reject. They'll reject you before you're gonna reject them again. They live in fear. They're coming from a place of a definition of fear that I have remembered from years ago is frustration, ego, anxiety and resent they come from fear. You want to come from a place of love again. They reject deflect and project everything. It's you not them, it's me not them. That's their m o So I wanted to cover that for you as we move along here. Why do I think I became a target? I wasn't taught to be self aware. Self conscious. Yes. So that's number one lack of self awareness made it difficult for me to be able to identify my unmet need others opinion. Other people's opinions started to matter more to me than my own. So I sought comfort in others and external validation. And I can tell you when you start searching for external validation more than the internal validation, it's never enough. So that leads to number two, a lack of self acceptance and that forgiveness that we all need. We've got to forgive ourselves first searching for that external validation, it was never enough. I started to resent myself, It started to infiltrate. How was I possibly going to be in a position to do number three. And so therefore I lacked healthy boundaries. I made efforts, but I always thought it was dishing out punishment. And at the end of the day, the only person I was punishing because I couldn't stand firm behind my belief system and my values was me. So I lived in a lot of fear from confrontation, fear of conflict and I couldn't let go of this stuff. I couldn't let go. So I drank and I drank some more. So I started to believe I wasn't enough. There wasn't enough self love until I decided to do something about it and get some help. And number four, shame, I became very toxic and I was frozen. I was frozen in the grips of addiction to alcohol and just didn't have the ability to change at that point in time. So now let's talk about taking our power back because it's time. So I've got four things I want to share with you number one and this is where it starts self love. What does that mean steve? I mentioned self awareness. This is where it's got to start. It's an inside job when I went to seek the truth about things. I turning inward and start asking questions about what's coming up for steve and mainly it revolves around what are my fears? What am I afraid of? Am I afraid of losing somebody and I'm afraid of not getting what I want. Am I afraid of not being enough? Those shame voices? There's a way to work through that you ever had your friends say to you, slow down, take a deep breath when I want to even out. I focus on my breathing, their shallow breathing that can fill us up with a lot of anxiety, anxiety, Excuse me. So I choose to meditate some people don't like it. I look at it this way, we know how to worry. Therefore, you know how to do the opposite. That's meditation. It's the opposite of worrying. You can sit there lay their focus on your breath and start to fill your head with positive thoughts and positive affirmation. Like I'm good enough, I got this today. My efforts will be enough today, I am loved today, I am lovable practice a few minutes a day. It works incorporating gratitude into that practice. Living in gratitude, a way of being. It's the healthiest emotion. It's not gonna hurt you. Gratitude is not gonna hurt you in your road to recovery from this abuse. It's the healthiest of emotions. Shame is at the other end of the spectrum man and it's a killer and it was eating my soul away one drink at a time. Self care, the gym, relax, go for a walk, laugh, connect with people, be gentle with yourself, celebrate your winds. Put your mind at ease before you hit the pillow at night, you lay your head down, celebrate those winds. Hey, I ate healthier today I went for a walk. I called an old friend, I complimented somebody I was of service today can fill your head with the positive stuff or the negative stuff. Either way, it's listening, your head, your soul. The universe is listening. That will lead to the ability to start to forgive yourself. It's okay. I'm sorry. It's okay. You didn't know what you didn't know many of us have been there. You are not alone. It's okay to forgive yourself. It's so healing and it's okay to be grateful for what you have in your life this leads and put ourselves in position to self acceptance. This all falls under Number one self love without this. We are powerless against these types of people, We can run away from them, but they seem to keep coming back into our life. Number two self control, you can do this. We stop depending on external validation. We depend on ourselves. I've been there where I think I'm not enough and where I think I'm alone and I don't have anybody in my life. It's not sure people are, they're asking for help is a strength, not a weakness. You don't need to suffer anymore. Watch out for depending on too much external validation. It's never start, depending on you. First. I choose to have a higher power in my life. You know, that's my choice. Just the thought, stop dwelling on those past mistakes. Be gentle. Yesterday's yesterday. It's done. Today's a new day, a new day, stop tripping out and future tripping. Do your part today If you feel stuck and even feel like you're a little paralyzed, just do something, get up, go for a walk, take out the trash. How about that one? Take out the trash. That's what we're doing here, pet your animal, walk the dog, do something healthy positive. Listen to watch something funny. Do you know, do something, just do the next thing, try to stay active. I've been in these periods where I felt stagnant and I felt dropped by people. It wants to come back in stuff that I thought was trivial became survival for me early on and put me in position to thrive. Watched those expectations in doing this day by day, expectations, they get too high. It's a setup. It's a resentment lying in the weeds. Watch out and I'm gonna say this again, be gentle. Self forgiveness is key here. Number three. Oh, we talk about this one and I lacked them boundaries without one and two. We're not gonna be in a good position to set healthy boundary and honor it. And I can tell you when I've honored and stood by my boundaries in the last couple of years. I have not regretted it one bit. Does it temporarily feel like my universes shrank? Yeah, it does. But that's kind of a an illusion because those people were unhealthy. Now I'm attracting healthier people in my life. So in doing that, a couple of things here with boundaries. I'm gonna keep it simple for this as we're wrapping up here. Number one, listen and honor your physical reaction when you're around that person and you're starting to feel something, but you're not able to really name it yet. But something's coming up for you. I've been flushed in my face. I felt tired. I felt bloated. I've even trembled a little bit when there's something about this other person and your gut is telling you something, Honor it, Listen to it and honor it and you can simply do that by pausing taking a time out and moving the hell away from it. Get out of there and you get back to these people, even if you want to, you may not want to on your timetable. You can do this when you're meeting new people and you have some concerns and things are coming up that make you feel a little funny inside actively participate in the conversation, ask questions, be brave, be a little bold. They don't have to be mean. It's called as Bernie Brown says politely speak the truth to bullshit. Ask questions like when they say I get you, I get you steve, I really get you and you're like, I don't even know this person. I so relate to you. I think I can help you. I think I can help you solve your problem. It's like I don't even know this person ask questions like why really how? So we're just getting to know each other. Test the waters early. You feel statements like I'm concerned or I've noticed or every time you seem to get upset, I've noticed you start talking bad about other people negative gossip and I thought those people were your friends, I'm a little concerned what you're gonna say about me when you get upset at me, test those waters, see how they react and if you don't hear from them again, you probably say if you saved yourself a lot of aggravation, frustration, pain and suffering. The pain happens to all of us. As inevitable as they say, the suffering is optional and of course last but not least just say no, just say no, no, I'm not up for that. No, I'm not interested in that. Don't play games when I say test it, I don't mean just try to challenge them and test their mettle just for the heck of it. Again, you want to come from a place of love here, so just a few things on boundaries and again you can pause and move away and give yourself time to respond on your timetable. You got the game when you're coming from a place of love versus fear, you got this hang in there and the last thing that I'm gonna share with you that is so important and I've seen this happen, I did it for a while, I don't do it anymore because I know it's a killer for me and my recovery do not play the victim. You ever notice that the narcissist with all their abuse and all their tactics, their smear campaigns that at the end of the day they come back and play the victim card. It's like, it's unbelievable. That's what they're looking for. Remember, like attracts like that's the law of attraction, you play the victim, you're putting a bull's eye on your chest, you don't need to be the victim anymore. You don't need to suffer, it's optional. Don't play the victim card. So that's it for today for this month, it's good to be with you as always, thank you for following me again. It believe in big change hanging in with this one. It's gonna feel contrary. It's gonna take a little time. But you can do this stuff, you can do it today. Celebrate the little winds. Be gentle with yourself and forgiveness is well within the realm of possibility for you. You do matter. You are enough. Your efforts matter and you are loved. Good luck with this. I hope to hear from you and God bless you.