Have you ever asked yourself why it feels like you are addicted to the narcissist?
Why it feels like your very being has been hijacked as if a psychic virus has invaded you?
I remember not being able to stop myself from breaking No Contact – repeatedly. I kept going back no matter how badly I was treated and how hard I tried to break free.
The narcissists in my life knew just how to identify and trigger my most potent primal traumas, and I just could not stop myself from obsessing and feeling I had to clear up our unfinished business.
If you find yourself stuck in addiction to a narcissist, clinging to them and trying to transform this person into being your saviour instead of walking away to save yourself, then watch my latest Thriver TV episode.
I’ll explain to you what this addiction is all about and why it has such a strong hold on you.
Video Transcript
In today’s episode, I’m going to explain to you what addiction really is and how it hijacks your being, why narcissistic abuse is more addictive than all synthetic drugs, why the narcissist is a symptom of the addiction and how to truly heal from the addiction to a narcissist.
Just before we get started, remember to hit the subscribe button, if you haven’t already, and like this video, if you find it helpful. Let’s get started.
What Addiction Really Is And How It Hijacks Your Being
What is addiction and how does it hijack your being?
Let’s just get very, very clear about what an addiction to a narcissist will look like for you. It’s when you can’t stop breaking No Contact, it’s when you feel like you need closure and you feel like you just can’t go on without it.
You feel like you’re obsessing and you’re coming up with every reason and excuse to get back in contact with the narcissist, because you’re thinking, “I just need to know that,” or “I need to hear this,” or “I need to …” It feels like unfinished business.
Even if you have been able to go No Contact and you can stop yourself from contacting, even for years, it can feel like the narcissist is still living on inside of you like an entity, like a terrible psychic virus.
All of this means that you are still addicted. What it is, is a peptide addiction. I want to explain to you what this physiological cellular thing is and how it works.
It means that you’ve been receiving, and your body is used to big hits of, a chemical that your hypothalamus in your brain has created in relation to your perception of events, which brings a big emotional somatic body rush.
So things like – betrayal, things like heartbreak, things like devastation, things like feeling like you’re going to be annihilated or you can’t live without this person. Those are big emotional rushes and the cells of your body literally get hooked on those things.
What happens is your brain is forced into thinking the thoughts that are then going to signal – with an electrical signal that goes to your brain that makes your hypothalamus create that drug ¬– that peptide again that the cells of your body receive and that fulfills the addiction.
Now, the source of the addiction, the drug, is actually the narcissist. So, when you think about the narcissist, what happens is … you go back to the narcissist or you break no contact. This is the addiction.
When you go and get your drug, what happens is your hypothalamus creates that peptide, your bodies get that hit and initially it’ll feel like relief. It’s almost like if you’re walking around with rocks in your shoes and then you take them out, it feels like relief, but what would happen if the rocks in your shoes keep filling up again.
This is what happens to us when we’re cellularly addicted to something – your cells will need more and more and more to get relief.
More thoughts about the narcissist, more obsessing, more going back over, more breaking No Contact … initial relief and then it builds up again. Because what is happening to your cells is as they split and multiply, the receptor docking points to receive the particular peptide that you’re hooked on such as betrayal, heartbreak, devastation, those receptor points keep doubling your cells need more to get the fulfillment.
Narcissistic Abuse Is More Addictive Than All Synthetic Drugs
Narcissistic abuse is more addictive than all synthetic drugs.
This is about a triggered trauma within, that somebody’s trying to numb out with the addiction. Then what happens is the addiction ultimately adds to the problem.
Let’s say that we’re not feeling good enough or we’re not feeling lovable or we’re not feeling worthy. Then if we were to go and have a cigarette or get drunk or have sex for the sake of sex without intimacy, without love or we would hook back onto somebody hurting us or go and gamble and lose our entire wage for the week or whatever it is, then the addiction is going to bring more on of feeling unlovable, unworthy, defective, hopeless, helpless. It’s an additional breakdown.
This is the thing. Then the breakdown makes the cycle increase. There’s the breakdown, which is the anxiety, the insecurity, the trauma, which then goes for the self-medication of the addiction, which then brings more breakdown. It’s a horrible self-fulfilling prophecy of disintegration.
When we have a narcissist and we have narcissistic abuse, what is the trigger? What is the trauma? What is the anxiety? Narcissists know how to identify and trigger our most potent primal traumas. These are the literal terrors of not being loved, not being accepted, not being able to secure our own security or even our own survival. These are also the terrors of being ourselves. The terrors that if we show up as ourselves, we might be criticized. We could be rejected. We could be abandoned. We could be punished, which could actually lead to our annihilation.
These are deep primal human terrors and that’s what narcissists trigger off within us. These are massive anxieties. Then when we’re stuck in addiction to a narcissist – we cling, we try to transform this person into being the saviour of these terrors. Ironically, the very person who is triggering them is bringing them up in huge technicolor.
We try to bring this person back, the person that they pretended to be at the start, the person who was going to fix these things for us, because that’s what narcissist did at the start. They hooked you in with the promise of – I will love you, I will approve of you, I will grant you survival, I will grant you security and all of those things.
If this is a parent or a family member, that person was supposed to help you grow up into wholeness on those topics, those things in your life. So, I don’t know about you, but I was shocked at the intensity of the addictive pulls that I had to a narcissist, to actually both.
If you’re still going through this now – this incredible, ridiculous intensity of the addictive pull to a narcissist – heroin addicts have told me it’s 10 times worse than it was to heroin. So if you’re still going through this now and you relate to what I’m saying, please pause the video and I want you to share what this addiction feels like for you, below.
The Narcissist Is A Symptom Of The Addiction
Now, I really want to take you to a deeper understanding of this that is so, so vital for you to heal off the addiction. The narcissist is actually a symptom. They’re a symptom of the addiction.
The narcissist is the way that you’re trying to self-medicate something deeper that’s going on within you. Here’s the thing, trying to combat the symptom – the narcissist – doesn’t work, because when you’re focused on the narcissist trying to force them to love and approve of you and give you survival and security, that’s not where the problem is really going on.
Where it is going on is in your body. We’re going to talk about it, how to truly heal from the addiction to a narcissist. As I said, it’s in your body. It’s in your being. That’s what needs to be addressed. It is completely powerless and helpless to try to change them, to change you.
How To Truly Heal From The Addiction To a Narcissist
So, what needs to happen is the turning inwards and addressing the anxiety and trauma that is fueling the addiction – that is the causation of the addiction. Heal where that is really coming from. How do we do that?
We detach from the narcissist and who they are and learning all about them and trying to force them and make them accountable and change them into parenting our unhealed young broken parts, which have been set up long before the narcissist, or if the narcissist is your parent, that’s been the dynamic. So, how we change this is letting go of that person and what they’re doing and turning inwards to self-partner and heal these emotional fractures within.
I want to take you through a little exercise where we’re going to say a mantra together to actually start connecting to this inner part of you that is screaming out for you – not the narcissist. Those parts are waiting for you as the only person who can heal these back to wholeness as a child, yes, 100% you had role models who were supposed to help you bring those to wholeness, but these people won’t hold themselves and they had people who were parenting them who wouldn’t hold themselves. So, now we’ve got to change the cycle. As an adult, this is between you and you and your creator.
So, let’s say this mantra together, and I want you to just breathe and close your eyes and open up your body and just relax and say to yourself, repeat after me.
“My sweet darling Inner Being, I feel your pain and fear.
I am now turning inward to love you, hold you and heal you into wholeness, so that together we walk this earth making the choices that bring more health and wholeness.
And so it is.”
I just want you to breathe that in and feel those statements in your body. That mantra is written for you on the blog. It’s a great one to remind yourself of and to tell yourself. I really hope that this is helping.
So, if you now feel hope that you can get off the deadly addiction hooked to a narcissist, that deadly hook that can take you fully into your demise as it nearly did myself – if you’re feeling hope now, I want you to pause this video and write below, “I have the power to set myself free,” and I want you to really stand in that and declare that and write it below. Declarations are powerful.
Conclusion
I really hope that this has helped bring clarity to you regarding what it means to be addicted to a narcissist, what that really is and how if you stop focusing on the narcissist being the addiction and understand he or her is only a symptom, you can turn inwards to truly heal yourself powerfully at the causation level.
I would love to help you start getting that process started by offering you my Free 16-day Course, which grants you two powerful comprehensive free eBooks as well as a ton of other resources to start bringing you relief and answers and give you your power back.
You can connect to this free course by clicking the link at the top right of this video. As always, I look forward to answering your comments and your questions below.
I need further help..went to get my.things met his young new independent gf..me in the beginning all says stop giving him your time but
He has all my things learned its va law he can keep it and he just laughs screams deuces and that I’m in uptown my eyeballs in Bill’s as I scream YOUR Bill’s the house all that’s in ut ..he laughs screenshots delinquency and brags how good he is..me and my daughter finally got an apt..for 2 months before pandemic assistancr..ends..I woke up dreaming he was ontop of me trying to kiss me and say sorry..how sick is that..hes not caring..or helping..or giving a shit about me or his baby..where and how do you keep going…
Hi Jennifer,
Please hun, come into my free webinar http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar where the information and Healing in it can start to give you some answers, clarity and relief. http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar
Sending you strength, love and healing
Mel 🙏💕💚
Hi Mel weii it’s been a little over a year now and I thought I was pretty well healed with the no contact and everything I was doing, then I ran into her and my ex best friend and confronted them and got a little emotional, said some things out of anger thought I needed to get some stuff out, well it backfired on me been a wreck ever since! Guess I need more work!
Hi Steven,
all is well, it is just showing you a trigger to heal that once met and released will raise you up even higher.
Blessings to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
II DECLARE “ I HAVE THE POWER TO SET MYSELF FREE” .
Beautiful declaration Thanveer!
Bless you!
Mel 🙏💕💚
I have the power to set myself free!!!
And so it IS Lisa!
Much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
I have the power to set myself free but right now I just want to cry
Hi Sharron,
honey sometimes that is the best thing to do.
Love you through it and please feel a big cyber hug from myself and this wonderful Community
Much Love
Mel 🙏💕💚
I feel your pain Sharron. I want to cry too, in fact I’ve spent much of the last few weeks crying. This is so awful. I would love someone to talk to about this, who has actually experienced this abuse. Most people don’t understand. I wish you every success in this and send lots of love xx
I have the power to set myself feee. I am free. And so it is.
Beautiful Joy!
Bless you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Mel, I really love your videos and information and clarification on what i’ve been going through in my 3.5 year relationship (which I ended one month ago now) has been so helpful – so thank you.
However, what I’m difficult is this looking inwards to my inner child that is supposedly broken.
I didn’t have any childhood trauma and was very loved and cared for by my parents and by my large extender family aswell. So i’m really struggling to understand why I put up with and kept going back to the relationship I was in.
I genuinely feel stronger this time in my decision and believe I have given as many chances as I could possibly give someone to change their behaviour.
I have struggled with no-contact, but more so to try and get an apology or accountability (which I now know that I’ll never get).
He would always say that i’m causing the drama due to being insecure distrusting and jealous etc but in all honesty I wasn’t like that before him and he created those feelings by behaving the way he did (messaging women, ignoring my calls/texts/ blocking me/ turning off phone completely/ not being transparent about his whereabouts). I apologised many times and even went to a therapist like he suggested about being insecure but i realised that anyone wouldn’t like or be ok with his behaviour and I wasn’t “over-reacting”, like he’d tell me.
So I guess my question to you Mel is; Does there have of been something that happened in my childhood?! I have even asked parents if they can think of anything and they can’t.
Please help me with this question.
Many thanks!
Laura your comment so echoes my story. X
I have the power to set myself free
Hi Laura,
You are very welcome and I am so pleased they have helped.
Please know that trauma can be generational … or/and we are on a soul journey to evolve certain parts of ourselves.
It doesn’t have to be logical – all we really need to acknowledge is that there are inner parts to heal to evolve beyond painful abuse patterns. This can be about beliefs. If we were brought up to believe in justice and accountability, then it can be incredibly difficult to let go of the requirement and shift into a higher vibrational state of – “if I never receive it from an abuser (which we don’t), that I can STILL heal myself.”
This doesn’t even have to be about ‘trauma’ Laura, it can be about unlearning human paradigms we were taught, such as … something needs to change on the outside to change on the inside (being the BIGGEST false premise of them all) and learning a new Quantum way that will set you free.
My total suggestion to you is to stop trying to make this “logical” (which I totally understand is the normal way we believed we should look at things!) and be open to a healing way that doesn’t even need any “reasons” to be able to apply it, and have it work for you.
NARP is the tool to get you out of your mind and into your body to heal, with NO necessity whatsoever to connect any dots. All you have to do is follow the process in each healing that you are instructed to do.
Literally, that is all you need to do http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp – with of course the incredible NARP Community’s guidance to help you heal.
http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp
When you start engaging in the process, you will know exactly what I mean and start to experience the real-life empowerment and relief results!
Much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Thank you so much for your reply Mel, so appreciated! 🙏🏼 X
I have been going through something very similar. Most people who haven’t been with a narcissist don’t truly understand. I was only with my ex for 1.5 years and it took me about 6 months of living with him for it to gradually come out and the lies to be exposed. Still, he gaslighted and tried to make me think I had borderline personality disorder and when I confronted him in lies, he would become angry and turn it on me saying I was causing drama. He was a pathological liar and I’ve seen more of it since we’ve broken up and I’ve removed myself from the situation. I still am hurting some days because I truly loved him. But I just have to tell myself that love doesn’t leave you trauamatized. Whatever that was, wasn’t love. And I think taking each day at a time slowly gets us to be where we need to be. But I’ve had difficulty remaining no contact as well. But I have distanced myself physically because I moved back home 1000 miles away.
This presentation is brilliant. I have listened to hours and hours of Melanie especially back in 2018 when I was trying to understand what I had lived through. During the last 2 years of a 17 year marriage I became addicted to alcohol. My drinking made matters 1000x worse because I just became a shell of a person. I’m now 2.5 years sober and divorced. Early on in my sobriety I suspected I was somehow chemically addicted to my ex-narc (he was like alcohol – I couldn’t get enough even knowing it was bad for me). The abusive cycles got shorter and shorter to where I would have these great highs when he was nice and these incredible lows when he was cruel and I drank like a fish through it all. How could I have possibly kept on staying with and returning to someone who abused me mentally and physically? Anyone in their right mind would have left this person years ago but I didn’t. At the end, I was so miserable but I couldn’t stop being with him just like I ultimately could not stop drinking. Both were lethal. Lethal. It is all so unbelievable to me now but I remember the horror of it all (I receive EMDR so I don’t “feel” much anymore – no anxiety, I can sleep, etc.). Being with a narc makes for a very sick relationship. I’m not sure if I was sick at the beginning of the relationship because it was all pretty slow to come into being but at some point I was very sick to have stayed with him. Very sick. I so appreciate Melanie and her work and dedication. For sure, she has been a part of my recovery. Thank you Melanie!!! XO!!
Hi Kimberly,
Thank you for your kind words!
I’m so pleased you are doing so well sweetheart.
Many blessings to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Hi Melanie
Thanks for AL the advise. I realize that for 29years I was abuse. When I couldn’t make him a man, a business I didn’t received any love and assurance of his love. Only use me for fixer of stuff and benefits financially
You are very welcome Estelle,
I so hope that I can help
Much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Hi mel..your words touched me above and i actually cried. Im ready to do this self help course
Awww Natalie,
I am so pleased hun that this touched your soul, and that you are ready.
The greatest darkness happens before the dawn, and your dawn is coming now.
So much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Hi Mel. Struggling to keep up “no contact” after 6 weeks. Your articles and videos have been immensely helpful, especially the addiction one’s. Thank you. C
Hi Cheryl,
I hear you – it is very difficult, such a compelling and powerful addiction.
I really urge you to look deeper into my tools to help you, other than just information.
Please come into my free webinar http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar to experience a Quanta Freedom Healing which can quickly help you shed the literal chemical composition of the addiction.
I can’t recommend that path enough.
http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar
Sending you strength, hope and healing
Mel 🙏💕💚
When I first left my narcissistic boyfriend, I was shocked to see that each day I would experience that rush of anxiety that I would feel when he would insult, criticize, belittle me or try to make me jealous. Even though he wasn’t in my life anymore I was still getting that rush of adrenaline or cortisol and it made me realize I was probably experiencing some kind of PTSD due to the trauma I encountered throughout our 11 month relationship. I hated that feeling of anxiety and that hormonal rush when he would hurt me, I didn’t like that feeling at all. But each time I would go spend time with him I would ask myself why am I still spending time with him when he makes me feel terrible. Your lesson today is showing me why. I was addicted to that Rush that was very uncomfortable but it must have been doing some thing that I wanted to go back for. I knew all along he was not healthy for me. It’s been two months since we’ve broken up and I finally blocked his calls and text messages because surely he tried every day to coerce me back into his life. I no longer feel that unhealthy rush of anxiety and I am back to peace and contentment all by myself.
Hi Dawn,
I am so pleased this granted you clarity. Even though you had really great self-awareness, understanding the chemical reasons is very helpful.
Well done for letting go of the possibility of contact and honouring you.
Power and love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Thank you Melanie
Your videos are extremely helpful. Especially this one about the narcissist addiction. Listening to you explained a lot. I’ve been trying to break from narcissist abuse and it’s been very hard for me to remain strong and no contact after 14 years. I’ve been cheated on, treaded many times disrespectfully even replaced with other women he would be treating much better than me and I still couldn’t break the addiction . Keeping in contact with him and being blocked right after that many times. But when ever he would reach out to me I would always answer and be there for him. In this time he has been staying overseas during the pandemic and he has called me and text me many times how much he misses me even thought he has moved in to his apt another girl for the second time. Never told me. Always had to find out on my own. Same girl as first time. She also blocked me on his phone after I found out about her. It seams insane what kind of power this man has over me . I finally find your channel and your videos are getting me stronger every day . I’m learning how to love myself and I hope I will be able to break through from this narcissistic abuse
Thank you Melanie
It’s my pleasure Regina,
Hun, these cycles are so painful and traumatising, and my heart goes out to you. I have been in them too.
Please Regina, I would love you to experience Quanta Freedom Healing in my free webinar to discover how you can directly address this hook, in your inner being, and get released from it.
I promise you that when you do, the freedom and relief is indescribable.
You can join in here: http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar
So much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Thank you Mel for your respond 🙏 I signed up to join your healing workshop :)💕
It’s my pleasure Regina,
Bless you!
Mel 🙏💕💚
Thanks so much for this Melanie. This has deeply affected me. I’m so grateful.
I have the power to set myself free.
Xx Beth
Hi Beth,
you are more than welcome.
I’m so glad this could help.
Much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
I HAVE THE POWER TO SET MYSELF FREE!
Absolutely Irene!
Blessings and love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Their behavior represents something within me I don’t or didn’t have a clue about, to be able to isolate and resolve myself. That must be the weakness they can spot. When I can feel my own weakness, I can feel them spotting it. The personal issue in me often stretches back to when society began looking like the land of the narcissistic abuser and the home of the abused. The demand was continually overwhelming and my failure with it made helplessness my navigating tool and the body-imbedded feelings were dramatic enough to believe in and even hang onto, as well as get subtly, progressively and cumulatively traumatized. I see now this was a subconscious processwith the continual suppression of the un-discharged threat-arousal. Even identifying with the psychological frozenness of it. It was, somewhat comfortingly, in many ways modeled and sanctioned politically, economically, culturally. I settled for becoming skilled at maintining a workable homeostasis of cognitive dissonance within which I later tried to distinguish a non-traumatized or “healthy” state. (Is it comforting that “we’re all in [fear] together”?). And then there was the forgiveably dented but welcome hope given in hundreds of superficial self-help seminars and books. But it is true — nothing has topped the abusive narcissist’s promise in the flesh. So well modeled and encompassing and precisely persistent that I’ve mistaken the suction of my soul for being the magnetic pull of destiny and renewed hope. I can feel in my body the contours of toxic aural mixes — the emotional chemicals and frequencies of object-need . . . my own bereft-ness or non-contact of self-resource. Parts of it are still there, waiting to be dealt with as self-originated once accepted even as I tantrummed. Indeed, as you say, now the narcissistic abusers are the way itself, with which I’ve been so lovingly trying to self-medicate the accumulated trauma that came long before them. And, from them as a fact of life in this and probably other worlds like this. So, we probably simply must learn this. To know and be ABLE to know deception, before and even by a deeply and widely gained power of discernment and rightly rooted self-knowing. To, by a broad and deep unearthing of contrast, arrive at knowing enough of the truth of myself — who, what I am, have been, etc. Because, I, we so thought (to their glee) that we were like them, so that I could only blame myself — which I also got help in learning to do. I know now Ican love a narcissistic abuser deeply. With Melanie’s and many others’ work, together with mine, I know better who and what they are. And, insofar as I can get the truth in irony, it’s fairly clear that I’ve deserved and needed all of them. Otherwise i would still just have my old defense mechanisms. But then I ask, what am I — if not like them? Also: Will the truth of my self even know the “what for” of this? Well, either for the joy in the freedom to reincarnate as my favorite jungle animal or, or to be able to arrive where it must be essential to KNOW how to let a much (much) greater measure of sanity have the upper hand. For me, the real incentive is that the enormously hard-earned luck for it does pay off more of less immediately. But with new evaluations, how I invest has to become wiser. Thank you, Melanie, for the forum.
Hi Michman,
I love how you have said ” how to let a much much greater measure of sanity have the upper hand.”
This is where I believe our greatest strength is to not accept narratives that feel confusing, off or wrong. To question, to seek answers and even demand them if not forthcoming.
Then we get our answers from False Selves. They will attack your questioning of their narrative with cruel dismissiveness or even brutality (why if there is nothing to hide?) and of course turn it all back on you (to get you to question yourself).
Or simply reply with more untruths.
Again the feeling “off” continues and requires investigation.
Truth and transparency is wholesome, anything other is not. False selves cannot and do not operate that way, and we must detach at any of the above checkpoints if we are demonstrating self-honour.
The truth sets you free.
You are very welcome Michman and much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Thank you, Mel. That means a Melot to me.
It’s my pleasure Michman!
Mel 🙏💕💚
I have the power to set myself free and so it id
Totally Lorraine,
Bless you!
Mel 🙏💕💚
Lorraine,
“…and so it id”
Is this a typo that should have read “…and so I did”, or “and so it [your id] did” ?
Whatever you intended, I get that this is better than I can even take, and yet I so want to.
Because “id” is German for the pre-verbal, instinctual identity, independent of the “ego’s” disect-ive cognition, yet they are interactive. So I am I getting that your free id, having released unconscious traumata (whether or not these freaky words are what you set out to do), then lovingly turned to your ego and helped it to let go, too?
I just plan to meditatively enjoy the thought and feel of that for a good while.
How did it feel? It was the most horrid physical and emotional pain I have ever experienced in my entire life. My doctors, specialists – a full range of practices- thought it would be the end of me, that I would not live.
Hi Alexis,
It really is unfathomable how bad it feels. No one could imagine it unless they have been through it.
I’m so pleased you are still with us, and myself and this community are sending you hope, breakthroughs and healing.
Mel 🙏💕💚
I have hope I love what you said and the mantra was very helpful. I keep struggling with what if I am making the wrong choice by divorcing him… thinking that this will be the time….
Hi Laura,
stay strong!
And I really urge you to take my free webinar http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar so that you can learn how to get the support needed through this tough period coming up.
I hope this helps
Sending you love and healing
Mel 🙏💕💚
I HAVE THE POWER TO SET MYSELF FREE !! <3
And so it is Raquel!
Power to you!
Mel 🙏💕💚
I have the power to set myself free!!
Love you Melanie for always caring and sharing.
Awww Peggy,
love you too for your beautiful words!
Blessings to you always
Mel 🙏💕💚
Excellent way to describe it all. It took me years and I am still working on bits and pieces of it and regaining “me”. I have dealt with a Narcissist/Alcoholic/Drug Addict combo person for over 40 years in varying degrees. There was a point in our marriage early on when I stayed so upset that I had ulcers and lost lots and lots of weight. At one point my doctor said if you lose any more weight I am putting you in the hospital. I finally took the approach that it wasn’t me – but him.
This was long before I knew what a Narcissist was all about. That came about 20 years ago! His 2nd wife clued me in on what was going on (she didn’t stick around long either!). But because I had children with him I was still somewhat in the line of fire.
I took the approach that each time he acted up I would cut him out of a part of our lives. For example – he was a perfect ass and drama queen when we went on family vacations. He was no longer included. He caused all kinds of problems over the holidays – end result – no longer included.
Little by little he has taken up less and less of my time, energy, financial resources and head space. He earned it.
No Name,
I am so pleased for you that you are taking your soul and life back.
Sending you healing and power
Mel 🙏💕💚
Once again this information and video content are so right on and timely in my own journey to self partnering and liberation from oppression of abusive relationships.
Here is a bit of my personal experience recovering. Maybe someone will see it and relate.
Initially the dynamics with the narcissistic behaving ex was the pain relief I sought. The love bombing felt as satisfying as did once wine. It was equally seductive until just like the narcissist eventually red flags started popping up that something was slowly beginning to be hit and miss between normal use and abuse.
Intermittent reinforcement of abuse peppered with false nice periods kept me returning to my abuser for relief. I learned how to be addicted in childhood through trauma bonding which reinforces the addiction to the abusers.
Throughout my life I felt tossed inside like a salad through cognitive dissonance. Codepedent traits combined with being a highly sensitive empathic and compassionate person along with insecurity and my need for external validation and feeling self-loathing caused disordered individuals to be drawn to me like a magnet and me to them. Once I was sufficiently hooked then began their withdrawal of affection. It was intermittent with periods of behavior that made me feel hopeful that maybe this time something would be different.
It is like trying to drink normally when your body has a marked toxic reaction to alcohol. It’s the built-in-forgetter thst used to send me back to the false illusion that I had control over my cellular reaction to a poisonous substance for individuals who develop an allergy. There is no going back to “how it used to be” which was self medicating deep emotional pain using a substance that numbed and distances me from myself and my higher power ( whom I call God, creator, source ). It’s not uncommon for someone to turn to the very thing that made the sick to try and ease the symptoms of withdrawal ( thank goodness I never made it to that place but it could have if I didn’t listen and go no contact with alcohol ). Every now and then I could manage two glasses of wine without getting into self abuse because I simply was powerless over this substance’s toxic effect on my brain and body. The dopamine rush of the initial high makes the brain scream out for more out of survival.
I compare my relationship with the ex narc exactly like my relationship was with wine.
I used wine to medicate symptoms of complex ptsd. It worked for a while until its effects added more trauma and unleashed the repressed trauma I was trying to suppress.
Thus it was with my relationship with the narc, Fantasy bond kept me stuck in toxic hope. The key was to focus on the reality and not how I wished it one day might be. I hung onto an illusion and projection of my own light onto the narc. They are like chameleons able to take in the characteristics of their immediate surroundings morphing into what I said I needed and wanted in order to siphon my energy and light. They can pretend for a little while that they are really normal and surely the distress we feel is over-reaction on our part.
However, a hangover is not an over reaction but a normal response to a toxic substance. My symptoms after dealing with the narc were the same type of reaction to a toxic individual.
I had to learn after countless failed attempts at both wine and the narc that once the truth of the reality strikes its impossible to go back and not get sick much quicker and to have it be increasingly debilitating.
I lapsed with the narc during the pandemic as I did with periodic wine for an evening. Both are connected too. One went with the other most of the time because both were addictions.
I didn’t panic. I beefed up my relationship with self by doing the deep emotional work releasing the toxins on a cellular level through various means along with initially using this program as a tool and guide. The theory is right on. But just like occasionally one needs more than one twelve step program for an addiction the same applies with my recovery from trauma. It has taken this program initially to give me tools when I lacked them. Twelve step programs especially for codependency provided me with a local in-person community of others seeking to heal and recover self.
I gradually learned the real love from the false through developing a healthier relationship with myself by applying what I learned through psychology coupled with prayer and meditation.
The old adage is true especially for me; it takes a village to raise a child. It took a lot because my defense mechanisms that helped me survive made it difficult to accept help from those who actually had something to offer. My brain was wired to turn to the wrong sources out of familiarity.
But the effort is one of learning self love is learning to fall in love with self. Instead of seeking the fictitious knight in shining armor outside myself I learned the white knight in shining armor lives inside of me once buried in layers of scars and old trauma which only attracted me to and drew to me more of the same trauma until I released every layer one by one. Was it quick? No. It was slow and time consuming. But my relationship with the toxic was long practiced since birth. It was all I knew and it was reinforced so much I had to keep throwing the antidote at it countless times in repetition. The truth is the antidote to the lies narcs tell us and those we tell ourselves to stay in the situation.
The last lapse was a part of my recovery. It helped me to see how I needed the poison to lead me to the source of the original exposure. It was a perfect energetic match for my childhood dynamics that at the time meant survival.
Now releasing it all means survival and is a way to thriving. I am creating a new story and reality free from abuse on any level. I can show up fully myself risking to lose anyone rather than to lose myself again.
I am not the worse for my lapse. It actually propelled me deeper into recovery.
Through good self care and self partnering I finally know real love, true love free from drama and trauma and abuse with myself through my higher power instead of through anything or anyone outside of that. Self sourcing is the key. Know myself and being true to myself showing up authentically is the gift I have to offer this world.
My need for the narc just like my need for intermittently attempting to see if now that I have abstained from wine for a while maybe this time the situation will be healthy is false. I don’t need either. All I needed was me.
My “minnie me” and I needed to connect and to continue on the spiritual journey interrupted by countless incidences of trauma compounding the ptsd symptoms. My adult relationship patterns were identical to those of my childhood. I clung to the toxic for relief from withdrawal from it.
I didn’t want to let go because I feared the sense of annihilation that ensued at the thought of never having the ex narc in my life just like I can never consider drinking safely again. The reaction will come quicker and be more damaging just as it was with the ex narc. Each time getting together the cycle was much faster from false sense of relief from endorphins leaving me feeling less than after each encounter. I was left anxiously longing to connect and lost trying to cling to something that was a big empty void trying to suck my life force.
I had to learn how real love feels by connecting to source within me so no matter whether someone views me positively or negatively it won’t touch the fact that I am unconditionally loved and acceptable just as I am. I don’t need to prove anything to anyone to be worthy of their acceptance and love. I am unconditionally accepted and loved just as I am.
As I provide that for myself narcissists and alcohol become aversive to me just at the thought of going back “one more time” because maybe after abstaining first a while things have changed. It doesn’t. It gets progressively worse taking one further down the spiral and whirlpool until hopelessly feeling lost and in bondage to the false illusions of both alcohol and the narc. Once both of these toxins have had their poisonous effects on the mind and body there is no return to what once provided temporary relief.
I replace toxicity and the lie of the false illusion with light, love and truth and staying out of the fantasy and in reality. I pour the light of the spirit into places where I once held onto the darkness projected into me that because of lack of healthy boundary function I absorbed like a cellulose sponge.
My boundaries are being healthily reinforced through recovery of self. It keep me intact and keeps out what doesn’t belong to me.
All is well and just where it’s supposed to be for today. It’s a journey taken just one day at a time and sometimes a minute at a time.
I can both feel and see the progress and growth. I am learning that my normal state is that of peace, joy and love instead of trauma and abuse with anxious longing for connection in any of its manifestations.
I am connected to my own light. That’s who I have been searching for all along.
Keep healing. Do whatever it takes. We are all worth the loving effort and the attention. It’s the best investment that can ever be make. The world heals one person at a time, and it begins with me. I ask to be part of the solution and not the problem.
I am. Even if it’s not perfect. I just show up the highest version I can be learning from the mistakes which are only lessons still left to learn. I keep telling the truth with love to myself and to those around me. That is it. That’s all I have to do. It feels good being me! I used to despise myself. Now I love myself and am filled with gratitude for every part of my life’s journey. It led me to this place.
Hi Dorothy,
thank you for your powerful, self-aware, self-honest and inspirational post.
It is one that everyone on this blog should read!
I love how you understood and actualised that there are no backward steps, just opportunities to propel yourself deeper into healing and self-liberation.
Thank you for being a Thriver Angel
Much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
I have the power to SET MYSELF FREE. My situation is with 2 adult kids who act exactly like my parents who I tried to get love from and couldn’t. Also married my first husband, same situation. I was able to let go of that exhusband and married a good man of 28 years today. Now I need to let go of these adult kids which are my flesh and blood but nevertheless IT IS WHAT IT IS and I need to be free. Cant change these adult kids no more than I could change the narcisstic family or their narcissistic Dad, my exhusband. It has been hard to accept they are this way but necessary. How did this happen? They were not around them much, must be genetic. All I know is it is painful, too much self centeredness.
I am also having this issue with my adult son who is exactly like my ex husband who I divorced. But how can you “divorce “ your own flesh and blood. I have been emotionally abused all HIS life. I have now had No Contact for nearly 6 months, but that yearning to see him and to maybe fix this is getting to me. I have that thing in my head that I as the adult and parent must make this right. But I am scared as I heard in this video that things would be ok for a while, and it will go back as before. A matter of time. In my heart I know it. So I am going to say again, “I have the power to set myself free”.
Hi Elaine,
my heart goes out to you.
Stay strong and sending you much love from all of us
Mel 🙏💕💚
Both of my adult kids are alcoholic and their Dad was also. I go to Alanon, learned I cant fix anyone, just take care of myself and be happy in spite of it. There is a lot going right in my life but I got such tunnel vision and obsessed with these kids at one point I could not see anything good. It is what it is and I can’t be miserable the rest of my life.
Hi Brenda,
it truly is the only way, and sometimes the most incredible shifts do happen, by letting go and healing and taking care of self.
That was when Zac and I, my son, reunited peacefully and lovingly.
Sending you love, healing and hope.
Mel 🙏💕💚
I’ve gone no contact fir some time now
Never answered any Hoover’s … I feel like
There’s a ghost following me around
& the ruminating is just unbearable
I’ve escaped now I have to power thru
This somehow
Hi Lori,
the ruminating is horrific, absolutely.
Please come into my free webinar, where you can receive a Quanta Freedom Healing and start to get some relief from this http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar
Sending you love and healing
Mel 🙏💕💚
I have the power to set myself free :o)
I have the power to set myself free.
I have the power to set myself free. Hallelujah!
So true Cathie!
Bless you!
Mel 🙏💕💚
I have the power to set myself free!
I HAVE THE POWER TO SET MYSELF FREE!….thank you melanie you have given me knowledge and courage to step out of this web for twenty plus yrs I”ve been in this relationship since 1997 the day my father pass I was distraught not thinking about anything but the loss of my father thee only parent that I knew! and the only man that I knew loved me that day everything changed for me I was not myself, before my self esteem was through the roof I never had a problem with my character I was confident had everything going for myself until I came in contact with this beast who saw an opportunity to take advantage of my situation by being nice and showing sympathy at a time of my loss which I was very sadden, well I guess you can say that did”nt last long after three months or so he became abusive at first I did”nt understand what was going on so I thought maybe it”s me but then as time went on he started abusing me I stayed with him still and still he continue to abuse me I brought him into my home after he lost his job and got evicted out of his place because again he made it my fault and time went on he started mentally,emotionally.physically abusing me,, he started stealing from me wreck my car and said it was”nt his fault everything that happen in the relationship was my fault as time went on I tried my best to be the best I can be but instead every chance he got he broke me down friends and family tried to warn me but I just knew that if I could get him to see me as a person maybe things would get better but OH HELL NO! the mask fell off in 2016 I began to see the monster he is I was so afraid I didn’t have a clue of what I was dealing with, until one day at work I happen to look up what make a person so mean and nasty in a relationship and to my surprise NARCISSIT came up and that’s when I got knowledge on what I was dealing with…lord of mercy I read and kept on reading once I caught on to this beast game was over everyday I was getting knowledge yes I went through some stuff believe me I thought I was loosing my mind I was afraid to talk with anyone about it because he push everyone away from me so I had no friends or family to talk about my ordeal I prayed very hard and ask GOD please don’t let me loose my mind..after going NO CONTACT for seven months I decided I needed answers but the only thing I got was fuck you…that did it fro me I realize this person has a problem not me he had been projecting everything that happen to him in his childhood on me I also realize that hurt people hurt others and I no longer wanted to be apart of that garbage I walk away 5/5/2020 and I haven’t look back I feel a hellava lot better since I left i’m glowing smiling and back to myself again I never felt better but I still keep my gaurds up at all times i’m not looking for a relationship now I just wanna get to know myself again and heal from this awful drama I got myself in it feels good to be me again,,,,thanks again melanie you have been such a great help in my life.
Hi Loretta,
I’m so pleased I could help and that you have got clarity and strength.
Sending you love, power and continued healing
Mel 🙏💕💚
I have the power to set mysef FREE ! And so it is…!
Thank you dear dear Melanie,
Much love to you
Goldheart <3
Martina … Goldheart,
Much love to you too sweetheart
Mel 🙏💕💚
Dear Melanie, I just joined NARP and you are awesome! Am truly grateful that, thanks to your wisdom and insights, I am now finally claiming my right to dignity and self-respect, self-love, and self-care. Am so very happy that I found you (or you found me), for you are surely Heaven sent. God Bless!
Hi Ivette,
thank you for your lovely words!
Awww I am so thrilled that you are now NARPing and a member of our beautiful community
Many continued blessings to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
‘I have the power to set myself free’…….thank you Melanie. Your insights are very helpful in understanding narcissistic abuse. I’m taking my life back after 30 years day by day and look forward to living life with genuine love, happiness and peace. Getting off this emotional roller coaster and being free and healed is my goal now!
God Bless you.
Angela Christina
Hi Angela,
it’s my pleasure.
I’m so happy for you!
Sending you love and healing
Mel 🙏💕💚
I have the power to set myself free. To be the best healthiest version of myself for not only me but my beautiful son.
Awww Carlee,
I love this!
Mel 🙏💕💚
I HAVE THE POWER TO SET MYSELF FREE.
I AM WORTH MORE AND I DESERVE BETTER. I AM COMPLETE AND WHOLE. BODY, MIND & SOUL.
Awesome declarations John,
Power to you!
Mel 🙏💕💚
I have the power to set myself free. 💪💪💪
Thank you Melanie for this wonderful insight ….I hadn’t realised that we get addicted to these people…I was married to a covid Narc for 39 years…42 together! I have been free now for 18 months. I have been struggling lately with why he still occupies so much of my thoughts…and why it feels like I miss him! I keep imaging that he will come back as a ‘normal’ person…when I know that this is impossible and that I don’t want him back. But now after listening to your video I see how you can get addicted. But I know that I have a very long way to go still….I have been trying to ‘feel’ again and it is an on going process..but I am getting there little by little. The most interesting part for me so far is how much we who live with these people can shut off in ourselves and not even know that we have done it….and think that we are going around as perfectly adjusted beings. And also how friends and family don’t see what is going on…and the reason I think that people don’t see is because we cover up so much…well I did…I did this in the beginning but as I grew in strength I saw how he could keep himself looking ‘normal’ around others but as soon as the door was closed all hell broke lose. I have also had trouble explaining to people why I ended my marriage…all my friends were like…we thought you 2 were soul mates!! Most of them were shocked and bewildered. Of course he plays the victim…Melanie thank you so much for this that you are doing ..offering some where for abused people like me can feel that we are understood and it has taken 18 months to find you but thank god I have..
Hi Sandy,
It’s my pleasure.
I’m so pleased that this has helped, and I really encourage you Sandy to come into one of my free webinars http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar as soon as you can. Because this will show you how you can move through your healing very quickly to get to the other side.
I am so not a fan of having to suffer for any longer than we need to!
I hope that this helps Dear Lady and much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Hi!! I need a further clarification on this, what if narcissist using an unhealthy coping mechanisms like drinking, smoking etc and blaming us for all their activities!!
Hi Keethu,
we have no power over what other people do.
Only power over ourselves, our choices and whether or not we want to be around people like this!
Mel 🙏💕💚
I have the power to set myself free!
In Jesus name, amen <3
I too felt like i was dying inside everytime he left i felt nervous and had anxiety through the roof
I have the power to set myself free!!
Thank you Melanie for your honesty and insight 😊
It’s my pleasure Kim.
Much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
It’s what happens when a relationship, marriage or partnership abruptly ends as a result of cruel and abusive sexual behavior that is beyond “normal” cheating or dissolution, so it feels mutilating on many levels. Therapists should be better by now at having emergency 3 month care packages for anyone who goes through the brutal cessation of intimate relationships that are criminal but difficult to prove. Talk therapy, physical touch, body work, anti anxiety meds short term and a sexual surrogate to help you retain your human rights and health and sanity. Those types of endings can have profound toxic impacts on not just the targeted victim and can easily be remedied. I’d advocate for this to be a normal health care practice that completely disempowers any abuser trying to get away with harming people like that.
It is truly an addiction. I’ve been a heroin addict, i’m currently quitting smoking, I know addiction well. Back during the 2 years when I was constantly breaking up with him and then getting involved again I would even explain it to my friends as being like smoking – that I knew it was bad for me but i just kept buying one more packet. Now we’ve been apart for 18 months. And it was my call and I’ve rejected his advances since. The no contact part is hard because it’s a small town and he’s part of my social network and I can’t avoid knowing what (who) he’s doing and somehow i still can’t avoid caring. It sucks. I know he’s beneath me, but it’s still where my brain goes when i wake up and it’s with me all day even when I tell myself that I’m attached to a ghost and I chose to leave him because I don’t want the kind of relationship he has to offer and the woman he’s involved with doesn’t have it any better than I did. The hurt and the desire for some kind of resolution won’t leave. And it stops me connecting with other men because I never want this to happen again.
I HAVE THE POWER TO SET MYSELF FREE!!!
Thank you for this new insight. I have been struggling my entire life, never feeling good enough, never knowing why. I’ve realised 2 years ago that my mother is a narcissist. I am her only daughter and her scapegoat. You are right, we cannot fix them, nor can I save my siblings from what they are not ready to see about our mother. I will turn 40 next year and the greatest gift that I could ever give to myself would be to finally get this right and break free from her n stop the addiction. Please show me how.
Hi Melanie,
It’s my pleasure.
This inner work is the durable real way for you to heal.
http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp and http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/thrive are my most powerful suggestions for you.
I hope that this helps.
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Melanie,
this is wonderful stuff! I was “addicted” to a narcissist many years ago in my teens and early 20’s. He is now dead, but it took me a long time to heal from the trauma of his abuse.
What I learned is that I needed to love myself more. My abusive family and general environment had set me up to accept abuse, so I fell into bad situations with bad people.
When I finally healed from the addiction to that evil person, I was relieved. I don’t hate him anymore…I’m indifferent now. That chapter of my life is over.
My husband, however, is still somewhat “addicted” to an ex-girlfriend he had in high school 35 years ago.
He feels that he never got closure after she broke up with him. It makes me sad…not only for myself, because no wife wants to come second to another woman, but also because I know that he is still hurting in some way. I think there is a part of him that is unhealed and traumatized by her, and possibly childhood issues that keep him “stuck” in this toxic loop of not being able to get over her.
I want to be supportive of him if he will do the work to heal. But I’m not sure that he wants to. He wants closure (or perhaps more than that) from a person who broke his heart decades ago, and never looked back.
I’ve tried to tell him that closure is an inside job. After 35 years, he is allowing thoughts/memories of this woman to affect him, and it is now an issue for me because he is feeling nostalgic about her.
He seems to feel a sense of loss, although frankly it was HER loss.
From what his mother told me, this girl hurt him deeply…yet he still wants to reconnect with her as part of some unfinished business.
I also want to add that I don’t know why he is still fixated on her.
Maybe because it was his first love as a young boy? Not sure.
I’m now trying to have empathy for him because although it hurts me that he still misses her, I felt the same with a boy I loved many years ago, who also broke my heart. The difference is that I wanted to heal…I’m not sure that my husband does.
I don’t know what he hopes to achieve by wanting closure from her.
As I told him, seeing her or talking to her will only reopen wounds that have not healed with time.
What does he expect her to say after over 30 years of no contact? As you said above, it’s like trying to heal in the same place you got sick.
With the abusive ex-boyfriend I had, I continued to return to him, hoping to win his love, hoping he would see my worth.
And I continued to be destroyed by his verbal and emotional abuse, but it was all I knew.
I had to learn to walk away and to never lower myself again for ANYONE.
This is what I need my husband to understand about his unrequited love for the ex-girlfriend. His heart still wants to know “why”?
But what he doesn’t see is that her rejection of him had nothing to do with him.
She was a girl who wanted to explore life outside of their small town. Their relationship might have been great while it lasted, but him wanting to revisit the source of pain is only hurting him more.
Freedom comes with understanding that the narcissist is not who we thought they were.
Once we stop idealizing them and see them for what they are, we can finally move forward.
Once we don’t expect anything from them, we can heal. We can turn that pain into power. We don’t have to remain “stuck” or still holding onto false hope. We don’t have to prove anything to that person.
Also, what Bec said above reminds me of my husband! She stated that “the hurt and the desire for resolution won’t leave”.
I think my poor husband can relate to what she’s feeling. It takes a LOT of work and self-care (and self-reflection) to overcome that feeling. I thought I would never bounce back from how that ex-boyfriend treated me, but I finally did it.
My wish for my husband is that he can truly heal from this. He will never be at peace until he accepts that it was a part of his past that shaped him. It wasn’t meant to be a life sentence, and he can take back his power.
I have the power to set myself free. I had a parent narcissist and a longstanding partner narcissist. I wondered all the time what is wrong with me. I was foist upon the most unsuitable people imaginable as a child. I have memories from the age of 6 my father telling me he disowned me as his child, he used to regularly beat me, call me a toe rag and a guttersnipe. He singled me out from my brothers and older sister (who he adored because she was born on his dead brothers birthday). My mother told me to suck it up basically and that pride was a luxury I could not afford. I recreated my parents life with a very abusive callous partner who also beat me, deserted me, or charmed me until I took him back for 37 years (to long).My eyes are now open, I love myself, I will not go back.
I am still living with the narcissist after 30 years. I have tried to leave several times. My brain morphs reality into a fairy tale and makes me believe I am in the marriage of the century. He is getting older and sicker, and I tell myself I can’t leave because of this. My fear of abandonment can create sheer terror whenever I make a move away from the situation. Fortunately my search for freedom has taken me on an incredible journey of self-understanding. I am learning how to make my recovery my first priority, and find a path toward freedom. And, like a wily fox, I am finding more and more solutions to my problem.
I HAVE THE POWER TO SET MYSELF FREE.