Victims of narcissistic abuse have been reported to experience symptoms similar to PTSD, known informally as narcissistic abuse syndrome. Symptoms include intrusive, invasive, or unwanted thoughts, flashbacks, avoidance, feelings of loneliness, isolation, and feeling extremely alert.
Narcissistic abuse can have long-lasting effects. Being involved with a narcissist erodes your sense of self, lowers self-esteem, and causes crippling self-doubt. These impacts can show up in a number of ways for people, and often take several years (and a lot of therapy) to recover from.
The aftermath of narcissistic abuse can include depression, anxiety, hypervigilance, a pervasive sense of toxic shame, emotional flashbacks that regress the victim back to the abusive incidents, and overwhelming feelings of helplessness and worthlessness.
After going through a traumatic event such as narcissistic abuse, it's common to suffer sudden mood swings accompanied by irritability. Or, you may find yourself feeling emotionless and like a robot. You might experience depersonalization where it feels as if everything around you is not accurate.
Chronic abuse can lead to symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), especially in victims who experienced other traumas. The result of narcissistic abuse can also include a pervasive sense of shame, overwhelming feelings of helplessness, and emotional flashbacks.
Recovering from narcissistic abuse takes time, so you will have to remain patient. This process could take months or even years, but it's worth all of the hard work and effort. You can and will move on to find healthier and happier connections with others.
The functions of the amygdala, hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex that are affected by emotional trauma can also be reversed. The brain is ever-changing and recovery is possible.
While people with narcissism aren't devoid of emotions, their motivations may be self-focused. They can know they're hurting your feelings, but as long as it elevates their status, they may not care. Someone living with narcissism does cry. They can feel regret, remorse, and sadness.
They're often introverted, sensitive, and prone to experiencing anxiety and shame. They may also struggle to maintain close friendships as they focus heavily on themselves, require attention, and are hyper-sensitive to perceived criticism.
Narcissists don't fail to notice your suffering, they take joy in it. Natalie Frank, Ph. D. While narcissists can be annoying due to their total self-absorption and tendency to seek attention and admiration from others, some possess a darker side.
There are four distinct phases that these types of relationships typically go through: idealization, devaluation, discard, and hoover. And at times, it may feel like you are on a not-so-merry-go-round going round-and-round through these phases many times over.
Is it possible to fully recover from narcissistic abuse? It can take years to fully recover from the damage that was done because of the psychological manipulation that you have endured. That being said, moving past the abuse and achieving full recovery is entirely possible with professional help.
Narcissistic personalities tend to be formed by emotional injury as a result of overwhelming shame, loss or deprivation during childhood. The irony is that despite showing an outwardly strong personality, deep down these individuals suffer from profound alienation, emptiness and lack of meaning.
Nightmares, flashbacks, and intrusive thoughts. Hyper-awareness, vigilance, anger, and irritability. Misplaced sense of blame, low self-worth. Avoidance of certain situations or people or a sense of detachment.
When children suffer at the hands of a narcissistic abuser, some crucial brain regions are affected, including damage to the hippocampus and amygdala. These changes lead to devastating effects on the lives of these children.
After the break-up, people will experience an obsessive longing for their abusive partner (drug), debilitating emotional pain, and often engage in self-destructive behavior. This emotional response is why some people feel incapacitated by the hurt and obsess about hooking up with an ex-partner for more abuse.
NPD Brains Work Differently
According to research, people with narcissistic personality disorder have reduced gray matter volume in areas of the brain related to empathy and increased activity on baseline images in brain regions associated with self-directed and self-absorbed thinking.
Narcissists and psychopaths dissociate (erase memories) a lot (are amnesiac) because their contact with the world and with others is via a fictitious construct: The false self. Narcissists never experience reality directly but through a distorting lens darkly.
Life with a narcissist can be extremely stressful, leading to depression or anxiety. It can also make you physically sick. You may feel it in the pit of your stomach. This isn't surprising, as stress and dismay are often coupled with a gut disturbance.