It takes us completely by surprise …
The feelings of losing our mind, being out of control … and trying to STOP ourselves wanting to go back …
Even when we know better!
We understand that things don’t change.
We KNOW that every time we return, within a short amount of time all the dread, pain and horrible feelings came back again.
And we were still walking on broken glass waiting for the next inevitable bomb to go off – which of course did.
I call this period, after breaking up with a narcissist, ‘aftershock”.
If you think that the feelings and trauma we experienced in abuse was bad – it truly does go to a whole new level when you leave a narcissist or are discarded by one – because now you are dealing with (I believe) one of the most (if not the most) deadly and powerful addictions on the planet …
Being addicted to a toxic person.
Breaking free from this addiction is an excruciating and gruelling thing to go through because the intensity of the pulls and hooks to go back to the narcissist for SOMETHING, or ANY excuse, is beyond mere mortal understanding.
Until ….
Knowing WHAT this addiction really is, how to break its deadly grip and the ways we can FINALLY get free from it.
Because not only do we stop the pining, obsessing and powerlessness, that was all we knew in contemporary attempts at recovery, we also get to dissolve and live completely free of our abuse symptoms as well.
Video Transcript
Today, I want to help you get really clear what an addiction to a narcissist is, why it happens and how to finally and completely break free from it.
This is vital information if you are hooked to a narcissist because truly this addiction is life-sucking and life-threatening.
Most of us thought that if we could finally get away and stay away from a narcissist that we might feel better, but were shocked to discover that we certainly didn’t.
I’ve talked about it before, ‘aftershock’, which is what I termed it as. And really the withdrawal symptoms we have to narcissists it like the shock of an earthquake after an earthquake because it can take us totally by surprise.
Narcissistic Addiction – The Most Powerful Addiction of All?
I’ve had ex-heroin addicts tell me that withdrawal from a narcissist is ten times worse than getting off heroin. I’ve never been a heroin addict, but I can understand what they mean because I know so many of you, like me, were horrified about how we kept going back even though everything within us was screaming not to.
Yet, we felt truly powerless to stop ourselves doing this. And we screamed at ourselves so many times,” I’m intelligent, I am strong with everything else in my life, so yet why can’t I give this person up even though he or she is so terrible to me? Why CAN’T I let go?”
We might think it is because we love this person so much, clearly more than we love ourselves, and for many people that feels really real. Others purport they are so enmeshed and connected because of sharing children with this person or having joint properties or businesses.
Yet, I can tell you, categorically, that there are so many people who are hooked beyond reason on a narcissist who say “I don’t even love this person. I don’t even have any children or ties with them. There is no logical reason why I would want them in my life when all they do is cause me grief and pain … but I can’t let go … Why??”
So, what on earth is going on here? It’s not logical. Logic, in fact, has nothing to do with it, just as it doesn’t for any addictions.
How Do We Get Addicted to the Narcissist?
Addictions are emotional, physiological and chemical.
It’s so interesting that we all know, with even the slightest bit of research, that narcissists are addicted to narcissistic supply as their drug of choice.
But what does this mean? It means that they are self-medicating some unhealed parts of the inside with attention and significance. Narcissists are empty and dead on the inside, therefore energy gleaned from outside of themselves makes them feel alive, and as if they exist.
But, why are we addicted to them? People may tell you its because they sucked your soul dry and they now have it, like the dementors in Harry Potter. It would seem like that and it truly does feel like that. But this belief and focus only keeps us addicted and trapped to narcissists trying to force them to make amends, in other words metaphorically give us our soul back by doing the right thing.
In this state we ‘need’ them to apologise, show remorse, atone for their wrongdoing and put right what they have broken, taken or destroyed.
Is this going to happen? No! Of course it isn’t and if we are orientated this way, it’s Wrong Town because the more we try to change and control a narcissist to do the right thing, the more we get changed and controlled by them and end up emptied out all the way to our demise.
In the Quantum World, there is a much deeper truth – we must become the change want to see. This means there is only one place to focus, take our power back and change our life … by focusing deeply and intently within ourselves.
And that is what this episode is all about: understanding exactly what constitutes addiction to a narcissist or in fact anything in our life (because I promise you the healing process is identical) and then addressing what it is within ourselves to no longer be suffering the addiction in question.
This includes all toxic relationships, substances and pastimes.
I want to share with you, point-blank now, what the emotional component of an addiction to a narcissist really is.
It’s this: You emotionally believed that this person was going to grant you love, approval, security or survival … and you didn’t as yet have these established within yourself.
That’s okay. Trust me, most of us didn’t!
As a small child you didn’t have these things shored up within yourself, so you looked to the outside through your caretaker/role models to receive these things.
If you didn’t receive them, and instead had abuse, or neglect, or conditional love, even if you now as an adult don’t feel ‘clingy’ to that parent or family member, there may be a deep part of you still trying to get approval and love and care from this person (and of course other people).
There are feelings of unworthiness, not being loveable, not being seen, heard of, or valued. And this can be our normal because it’s all that we have ever known.
We may still be having toxic enmeshments with a narcissistic family member, and/or we go on to our adult relationships with the wounds of either a narcissistic parent, or a co-dependent one who handed power away and didn’t bring us up with the awareness of being our own true power source, and therefore we are prone to having relationships with narcissists as an adult.
This was our problem: we feel powerless with narcissists. We didn’t know how to have our own established values, rights, voice or power and we were still unconsciously seeking a parent to provide us with the love, approval, security and survival to feel whole on the inside, that we didn’t establish when we were younger.
Self-Medicating With Addictions
If we don’t feel whole on the inside, then we organically have low to high-level anxiety and depression as our constant and this can be ‘normal’ for us because it’s all we have ever known.
And, until we know how to go inside and clean up our emotional fractures to establish self-love, approval, security and survival (and please know these fractures preventing this are from collective humanity traumas, past life traumas, epigenetic family traumas, and childhood traumas) then our only option is look outside of ourselves to get relief.
Alan Carr was on the money in regard to addictions with his book, ‘The Easy Way To Stop Smoking’ where he said being a smoker is like walking around with a pebble in your shoe, always feeling anxious. Then you have a cigarette and the relief is massive for a moment, like taking the pebble out of your shoe. However then without a cigarette, the pebble in the shoe feeling builds again and there you are having to have a cigarette to fix the feeling again. He also described it like picking a scab that just keeps growing back bigger and bigger.
The same is true with our unresolved, unhealed anxieties and depression, because we are not whole, we always have the ‘pebble in our shoe’ trying to resolve the feeling with something outside of ourselves, which will grant momentary relief, but then the destructive choice of self-medication is only growing larger to make the problem bigger.
Meaning bringing MORE anxiety and depression.
Think about this, when we have terrible feelings about ourselves such as feeling unlovable, unworthy and not good enough what do we do?
The answer is simple, we choose ‘junk”, bad food, alcohol, cigarettes, mindless social media, addictive expensive habits that create financial stress, porn, destructive sex and toxic relationships.
Likewise, we cling to and choose narcissists over and over again despite them hurting us so much. We know they are TERRIBLE just like the block of chocolate, greasy burger, cigarette, the bottle of spirits, or the horrible gossiping we do with friends about other people, yet we do it because somehow, we keep going back to this person, hoping they will grant us the salvation and relief that we turn to the other things for also.
And, it’s a big hope because if this person is a family member we hold onto the notion ‘they should love us and treat us with kindness’, or if they are a love partner we hold fast that they have to return to the person they entered our life appearing to be ‘finally someone who I connect to who sees me and understands me, and cares for me’ (the narcissist was very good at identifying what was missing in your life and then appearing as this person) … and if the narcissist is tied up with a vocation or a business deal, you may have all sorts of survival and financial hopes pinned on this person, even though the real-life evidence isn’t good.
Our mind can be a very powerful tool trying to convince us of faux realities that our body, the true gauge of things, is totally in opposition to.
But this is only a part of the addiction puzzle …
The Physiological Cellular Addiction
Trauma bonding creates enormous reasons why we get hooked in and even feel like we will die without the narcissist even if we know we are dying as a result of staying.
I really want you to check this video of mine out regarding the 5 types of trauma-bonding. This will help you get why the addiction to a narcissist can be so strong and how horrifying it is when we are hooked to someone and keep turning towards them, even when they are hurting us the most. This used to be so confusing and devastating for me as I know it will have been or is, for you too.
However, this is the thing that you really need to understand to get free of your addiction to a narcissist, when we boil it all down. The biggest reason I believe for the addiction is physiological.
It is the peptide addiction.
To put it simply, the hypothalamus in our brain, regarding our interpretation of events (the brain signal) creates an emotional cocktail known as a peptide. There is a different peptide for every emotional state, such as joy, lust, anger, fear … and they can even be more specific such as heartbreak, powerlessness, victimisation etc.
Science with lab rats has found that when peptides are dispensed to rats, they are more addictive than any synthetic narcotic and that rats will forgo all food, self-care and even water in favour of getting their hit of a peptide they are addicted to. Good peptide or bad it makes no difference.
How it works with humans is this: the emotional cocktail that our brain produces and spreads throughout our entire body is then accepted by specific receptors (specific to every particular peptide) in every cell in our body.
The bigger the emotional intensity of any event means the more peptides on that topic have been created. The more that peptide hits our cells the more the cells of our body takes in and get hooked on that peptide. As our cells continually split and multiply, the receptor docking point to receive the peptide that is commonly absorbed doubles. This means that we literally get addicted and hardwired to any emotional states that we are receiving large emotional doses throughout our cellular network.
We become a hardened drug addict to states like anger, victimisation, powerlessness, resentment, heartbreak, and betrayal, all biggies that are synonymous with narcissistic abuse.
Negative peptides, like junk and toxins, are extremely damaging, they strip cells of oxygen and nutrients and break down their integrity. This causes a snowball of more of these terrible emotional states, and the more we produce them the more we receive them and the more we get hooked on them.
And the more they provide the VERY states that we are trying to self-medicate ourselves away from.
Yep … that’s the deal.
How Your Cells Crave For More
The terrifying thing is when you start detoxing, meaning trying to stay away from the narcissist, if your cells have not received their peptide of choice for a while, the cell will hold back some of the peptides then secrete it out into your bloodstream, and it then hits your brain which then is forced to think about the narcissist again, and before long you are easily back in the stinking thinking (obsession) about the painful things that happened, so that your hypothalamus receives more of these signals.
The peptide is then manufactured in your hypothalamus again and dispensed, and your cells heave a sigh of relief as a result of having their hardcore addiction fulfilled.
This is why when you get on Abuse Forums and vent or break No Contact, initially you may feel better, but then because of having taken the action that is cementing you in more of the state that you are attempting to break free from, it all comes back even harder again.
Addictions are serious, absolutely. They are like a runaway train gathering speed with no way off until we heal from them. Narcissistic abuse and its common addiction to the narcissist, is incredibly serious, because so much is at stake, including everyone and everything that is dear to us, and … our soul.
I hope you understand that leaving and getting off and away from the narcissist habit is like detoxing from the hardest drug you could imagine.
It is physiological, chemical and emotional. As we all found out, it can’t just be addressed within your mind. Your brain in trauma and addiction this severe can only give you every thought and reason to keep stuck in the trauma and go back to the source of the trauma (the narcissist), truly.
The Shift Out of Addiction
What is needed is a cellular shift, which is a consciousness shift (consciousness is cellular, it’s not directed by your head, it takes place in your body).
The following is how myself and so many people beat the addiction to the narcissist, in record time without the white knuckling coming down off a chemical drug experience that happens contemporarily. We accessed how to cellularly be in our bodies, load the trauma up and release it and replace where that was with our Higher Superconscious Self which has the power to heal what we can’t.
This literally smashes the peptide deadly loop. The cells are no longer holding the trauma they were previously hooked on, and the brain which has now had a synapse reforming onto different pathways (the brain follows the body always), is no longer wired into thinking about the trauma.
Hence, when we do the inner work, the Thriver Way, over time the triggers dissolve away and there is no more negative peptide manufacture.
Gloriously and powerfully what starts replacing all of this deadly loop is the good stuff, feelings and thoughts of health, wellbeing, fullness, love, empowerment, safety, confidence and the like.
We literally have hardwired ourselves beyond the Old Self into the True Self.
Does this make sense?
I promise you this process works for any hard-core addiction you have to any person, substance or pastime. The healing, as I said before, is identical.
If you start connecting to my inner transformational resources, you’ll get to experience this level of freedom without the withdrawal agony. That is the Thriver Way. So many people in this community not just beat the coming off a narcissist, they have applied my healing methods to all sorts of addictions, every one of them that you could imagine.
And it works!
As always, I look forward to answering your comments and questions about this very important and fascinating subject.
Truly one of your best videos! Just amazing and so POWERFUL!
♥️♥️🦋🦋♥️
Awww Miss Pernilla,
I’m so pleased you loved it!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
LOVE this. I needed to hear it tonight. I have been smoking for the last few months…and tonight I feel the courage to take the next step to break it. I want to stop so badly. Thank you for your support, love Rose
Hi Rose,
That’s great this was timely for you.
Power to you Rose, you can do this!
Love and blessings.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
I bless the day I started listening to your videos and then hooked up with NARP !!! What a Godsend !!! Through working the beginnings of NARP I have come to understand what a fullblown Blessing it was when my last Nar ghosted me….. Never thought I would ever see the day I would actually think or believe that…… You are absolutely spot on with everything in this video ~ I am also a Recovering alcoholic and addict, and nothing ever brought me to my knees or so low as the aftermath of Nar abuse…. I was totally a basket case for well over a year after they disappeared….. I hadn’t found this stuff yet at that point and wish I had found it years ago!!!! Things happen when they’re supposed to I guess….. Bless you Melanie for literally everything !!! I’ve begun to change in positive ways that I never dreamed I could….. You ate just AWESOME!!!!!! Thank you beyond what I can express and never stop sharing ~ You are literally changing the world for the better !!!! Bless you Forever……
Awww Mary,
I am so so happy for you that you have broken through to this level.
I can tell from your post how much inner work you have done.
You are truly Thriving Dear Lady and you deserve every bit of it.
So many continued blessings and breakthroughs to you.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
WOW!! I think I finally may be starting to understand what is so wrong with me and why I can’t break the ties that bind me and my love to all the past romantic relationship in my life and why when’s i think I am ready to move onto another relationship I end up falling for (unbeknownst to me) another type of narcissist only to have my heart broke all over again and then past ones pop right back into my life wanting to reconnect with me!! Thank you, Melanie. I believe something may have finally just clicked lol !!
Hi Tamara,
How wonderful that you’ve had this epiphany!
It’s all up from here …truly!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Thank you melanie for this video. I needed to hear this I was wavering slightly about a Christmas visit to my mother. I know how a visit always ends …devastating …I have been doing limited contact since last Christmas ..even limited contact leaves me upset and obsessing. .so i am sticking with no contact now just cards and pressies sent at the due time. I know all about addiction ..there’s another sad story …I suppose my story speaks for itself as I am no longer addicted to drugs…and fell into a relationship with a narcissitic. … a new addiction I had no idea what narcissim was until I happened across a pin ..that was the beginning and led me to you. Honestly after this realisation I thought oh my goodness I am surrounded by them mother sister ex a long time friend …having the knowledge has helped me understand so much more ..I know I am an intelligent woman yet I would be baffled as to why I would return to a partner who was using and abusing me..why did I chain smoke when I knew how ill it made me feel why could I not stop binge eating and eating chocolate until I passed out…I knew about healthy nutrition and I would torment myself ..I felt such a failure. I see now I was bouncing between mother and ex like a ping pong ball. In the meantime my health has suffered greatly I now have some serious health issues including the big C. I know the stress I have been under for years has contributed to the serious condition..in fact I had a deep brain scan because I kept banging Into walls I was in formed after being asked about my life my problems were all stress related so I have c.ptsd. Anyway enough of all that. .I know now and as you say the truth sets you free …your videos are so spot on they hit home and I just soak up the understanding validation and knowing you impart. You really are an earth angel melanie thank you …and your news is fantastic…being on TV gets the message across to more people ..I believe God has his hand on you and your message for the healing of us and this world. Love and blessings X
Hi Lorraine,
You are very welcome and thank you for your lovely words.
Awww Lorraine I am so sorry you have been going through such a hard time.
Please know sweet lady that releasing trauma is so key to our wellbeing and healing on every level.
Maybe it really is for you ‘enough is enough’ and time to take the journey to inner transformational to do that work?
Sending you love, healing and breakthrough.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Hi Melanie,
Thank you so much for this very insigjtful video ans it seems like I can feel the peptides rushing through my body sometimes.
Is it possible to make this cellulair change when you are not yet at no contact?
I notice with NARP that the thinking, feeling of the trauma’s changed and that I’m not triggered so much anymore.
I will be living in the same street as the narc after the divorce because of the business we had together. I’m telling mySelf that I will become that strong by schifting out trauma that I will not mind anymore seeing him or so or is this not realistic?
Thank you! Blessings!
Hi Nath,
You are very welcome!
It can be more challenging, yet it is possible. There are many people in the community who have achieved deep inner shifts whilst still connected at some level.
Having said that the detachment from the N and inner focus is everything, in order for this to be successful.
It can be done!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Merry Christmas Melanie,
This video came at such a perfect time for me. I have such a over whelming feeling of out of control right now which has made me look up more information on narcissist, and bring up feelings of Christmas’s past….more how I made it feel and thought it was. Not how it truly was.
I’ve been taking college classes to get a preschool teaching degree and we learned about peptides and the brain. How a young child is treated effects the rest of their lives. It was very interesting to mea and it makes so much sense considering I pretty much grew up with my ex. I feel I know what he did though out the years and what I did to make it work. Acceptance of who he really is has been hard and unbelievable at times, but I see it all clearly now. However seeing and feeling are two very different things.
I haven’t reached out to you in months, embarrassed that I haven’t made time to do the modules. I felt I was on the right path on my own and your Thriver videos are enough. It’s been 3 years since he walked out saying “I love you and I’ll be back” after being together for 34 years, 27 married. I’ve done all the right things. Divorced him (which I was blamed for even though he discarded me), work full-time at an elementary school pre-k, going to college (at 52) and just bought a new home which I’m moving into right after Christmas. My 18yr old son is moving out and out of state to play college football. I’m exhausted and sad. I’m eating terrible, which has made me gain 30lbs. Weight I had lost and kept off for 16 years. I have no energy. Which makes all the good I’m doing to help myself make me feel worse. I think about my ex all the time and am constantly looking up info on narcs and missing him. Missing a person that didn’t exist and that treated me terrible. I have no one to talk to, other than a therapist every other month, because no one understands the true hurt and acceptance that is involved. I know everyone means well when they say: “Move on. You deserve so much better. He is and always has been an A**!” They see a happy person on the outside but don’t realize I’m falling apart on the inside. I could cry at just the right trigger.
I don’t know how to fit the modules in because I’m so tired. I’m not feeling sorry for myself, but more out of control and knowing I could be so much worse off and have so much to be thankful for. Which, sadly, makes me feel worse. I feel a need for a hug from my ex and tell me its ok. Even though I know I would NEVER do that! What he said and would say was a lie. I really don’t have a someone I want to share anything with. I don’t want to be around people after work. I am a strong person, but don’t feel like I am right now. I don’t want my kids to see me fall apart (18yrs and 23yrs). I’ve come to far.
I guess I just need help and I know what I need to do but don’t know how to fit it in, re-group and be proud of all I have done. Holidays are hard and add more hurt and sadness of feeling alone.
Thank you Melanie for all you help. The brain and understanding who I am is the key. This I know…..am I afraid to dive in? I just don’t know.
Old friend online, Connie
Thank you Connie and Mwrry Christmas to you too!
That is so true Connie ‘seeing’ and ‘feeling’ are too completely different things, hence why the work in our emotional body to get the visceral shift in our bodies is everything.
Connie truly sweetheart what else is there to do other than start the Modules and get trauma out of your body so that you can heal?
Truly hun when you have had enough of the pain you will.
Please know Dear Lady we are there for you in the NARP Forum.
Your tribe awaits Connie, the most inspirational and loving people you could imagine.
People who know how to make true recovery happen and help you every step of the way.
It’s time!
http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/member
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Hi Connie, I’m not Melanie and I hope you don’t mind me also replying to you …..gosh you’ve been through so much and been so powerful for so long…yet it feels from reading your post it’s possible you might be experiencing some depression now? For me, one of the most powerful videos Melanie has created is “ The Key to Healing from Depression” you can find it on UTube. It’s about 15 minutes so less daunting than the modules and it’s among my most treasured resources.i watch it whenever I need to. Might you watch it and see? You know Connie sometimes when we feel that loneliness, disconnection, wanting a hug and him to tell us everything is ok …the deepest need is for us to give that to ourselves…it’s letting us know how much we need our own love, acceptance, validation / security . Melanie’ videos and blogs on “ Self Partnering” were transformative for me. I had no sense of self let alone self partnering… Maybe these videos / blogs will comfort and inspire you now. Then when you are ready to do the modules you will. Don’t berate or judge yourself for not feeling up to it just now? All is well. You are safe. Thank you for sharing, may blessings be with you Connie xx💐
Thank you – again! Without knowing, you have become my trusted cyber friend who has got me through many ‘Valleys of dark times’ smiling.
You have made me aware that though mimimal parallel parenting is working well, I often still get hooked with the false accusation emails.
I caught myself in a ‘zone’ where unable to attend to my daughter, work or do anything else before replying to set the record straight! That is addiction.
Am working on setting times to reply.
I love your work and what you are doing. It has got me through circus after circus. Thank you. XXE
Hi ENPB,
I’m so pleased this is making sense and helping support you.
Many blessings and power to you.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
NB I could have said ‘crisis after crisis’ but from much work (research and self work) see the offender’s behaviour as his own circus that I can watch with firm boundaries now. (New boundaries always to learn) X
There are so many it seems like all I’ve ever known has been narcs and toxic abusive people. I guess these people feel familiar and I bypass healthy people. My ex husband just died and it feels like what it was like with him and what he did to me is now. So I’m having cptsd symptoms again. I know I must be gentle with myself and move forward. But I’m really scared to do a module right now
Awww Autumn,
Big hugs, please be kind to you sweetheart.
I am so sorry you are going through this and please know the NARP Community is all here for you.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Thank you so much for showing there is still hope for Joy in my life. I appreciate your sharing this knowledge with love and kindness. It has come at a time when I was totally being taken advantagd of and didn’t know how to stop this. I am working on getting narcissist number two out of my house and life and your work has empowered me. Thank you thank you thank you!!!
Hi Cat,
Please know how welcome you are and I’m so pleased I can help.
Sending you love, strength and power for what you are going through.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Excellent best yet ….I have been doing narp programme for year and I am just beginning to understand myself after 50 years of abusive relationship excellent Mel Thank you x
Hi Catherine,
I’m so pleased this resonated with you!
Many blessings to you.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Dear Melanie
Thank you so much for this deep, deep information. I had to listen 3 times to it to get the Petide addiction information as it was hard to take in as its obviously for me key.
Its unbelievable that my experience of my narcissistic mother is an addiction but thats what it is and when I look back at my previous 10 year relationship to a narcissistic man thats what that was and I wasn’t bound to him through marriage, children, property or money and from the first moment I knew he was coming for me I couldn’t stop it even though i asked a friend to help me get away from him, which he couldn’t.
Your information is accurate and true and I am grateful for your programme of NARP as I see the effects of the healing even though I cant comprehend it but thats because I have come from having to use my head to steer me for survival from a very young child.
This shift to my body for me feels like a young animal like a foal wobbling around on its legs trying to walk thats where I feel I am on this journey of healing.
Thank you Melanie for being so brave and courageous and giving me this journey to finally heal.
With love Reena xxx
Hi Reena,
How wonderful you are in your body now coming home to you!
You are doing such an amazing job.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Melanie, thank you for this video.
Its been 16 months since the brutal discard from my husband of 12 years. Altruistic narcissist has been a blessing for me in the ending of everything. I’ve got to buy the house from him for much less than it is worth because he likes to do the right thing. He’s also bought a house and him and his new supply (which he left me for) are all cosy’d up there, less than 12 miles away. Last Monday for me was like being transported back 12 months, the need to hear from him, the need to see him, the need to be seen by him, it was all too much. I couldn’t understand what was happening to me because i’ve been mostly good. I’ve spent the last few days suffering because of what i’ve let me mind do to me, but now I realise it was the peptides. I need to recognise the addiction when it comes up and I need to fight it off by being really really here for myself.
I’m so grateful that I did all the modules. I listened to your podcast nearly every day as I ran to the gym and then did my workout and ran back to work. Your words helped me so much. Peptide addiction….so I’m not going crazy! I’m not losing the plot! I’m not losing all the self love I’ve gained over the last 16 months.
The love he gave me was addictive beyond measure, as was the pain of his infidelities throughout the 12 years hence huge trauma bonding – he was the only one who could heal me once he had hurt me.
He’s not my reality and in my most knowing moments I know I’ve won the lottery because he decided to discard me. I could never have left. Life is happening for me and not to me, that fact is acutely evident to me.
Peptide addiction……thank you Mel xx
Hi Kate,
I’m so pleased that this helped give you clarity.
Please know, even after all this time trauma can surface that we can free ourselves from in order to go to our next growth and evolution spurt.
You truly can uplevel this one with Module work, and that peptide loop will be gone.
You’ve got this!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
You are so right. It definitely is an addiction on the cellular level. Awareness is the first step. If it wasn’t for the internet, I may never have become aware. It was only because of doing a lot of research and finding people on the internet who have also been through similar abusive experiences did I find the understanding I now have. Otherwise, I’d still be stuck in the same loop/pattern of abuse. Becoming aware I think was the biggest hurdle to overcome. Realizing there is abuse and that there is an addiction to it and understanding that addiction’s nature is crucial to healing.
Hi Michael,
The truth can and does start to set us free.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Yes, and it is truly such a solitary experience- I can’t describe to people what exactly is happening- why I would even consider returning to abuse and horrid treatment. And, the stories repeated over and over are re-traumatizing- so, it’s just slowing down and going inside- my own insides- and sitting with them, like no one else can. It’s exciting, liberating and somewhat scary all at the same time. Thank you all for your posts of hope and transformations. I see parts of my struggle in yours and it gives me strength.
Thank you so much Melanie for all of your resources- free and otherwise, and generosity of time and energy. I am so grateful I stumbled upon your work.
Hi McS,
Please know you’re very welcome. I’m just so pleased I can help.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
I am so glad to have seen this Title. Those are the exact words I used in describing how I felt. I had gone off of a prescribed drug,years ago; and the crazy things my mind and body went through were so similar to this very thing. Scary to be honest. Total lack of control. I cannot begin to make sense of what his friends and daughters have related to me about his TRUE LOVE for me! Yeah, I married him based on trusting that ” love”. I do not believe it for a minute. He is very cunning and deceptive.Besides that; his mommy issues are too much to handle. Thank you again for leading me to your article on going to court with a narcissist. Be blessed as you help others on their journey to recovery,Rachel
Excellent article. Weirdly enough I have been watching a lot of talks by Joe Dispenza and reading his book Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself and it totally ties into what you are saying and how we are addicted to the stresses and traumas in our lives and we have to heal ourselves at the quantum level by reprogramming our brains. Very synchronistic finding this while reading this book. I am recovering from 13 year narc relationship, I left a year ago and he just waltzed into another relationship and I second guessed that he was a narcissist 3 times and broke no contact 3 times to just find myself sinking back into a hole after talking to him and finally clued in that he really is a narcissist and that just being around him depletes my energy completely and drags me back through hell. This would be the peptide addiction. Thank you, your blog is excellent.
Hi Marlyn,
I love Dr Joe’s work. He is right on it! As is Bruce Lipton and the late Candace Pert.
I’m so pleased my work resonates with you>
Mel 🙏💕💛
Hi Mel,
Excellent article. Wow you’re grasp on this whole narcissistic addiction thing is astounding along with your ability to explain it to others. I’ve been out of a relationship with a narcissist for five years now, and was with him for the previous five. Some kind of way, I still think of him daily, even if only for a few minutes and it’s usually at night when I’m alone in bed. I hate that. I still feel sorry for him as he has multiple addictions that he is suffering from. Drug abuse being the most debilitating for him. I heard from mutual long-term friends that I don’t see or talk to often (we live in different cities) that he has also had some health challenges recently, he’s been sick (he’s also a heavy smoker and drinker). I feel bad from the distance for him, his elderly father and his children, but also don’t want him in my life anymore. He and I have spoken possibly once a year or every year and half since I ended things. I can relate to what you are describing in that I felt horrific after the breakup for a long time. It was a like some type of chemical withdrawal. That’s no longer the case thank goodness. It took a couple of years for that “terrible” feeling after the break up to go away. And yet, I still think about the sex with him all these years later which I know isn’t healthy. I’ve only had sex twice in the last five years, with another ex-boyfriend (not a narcissist). It’s something that I steer away from now when dating and am really apprehensive about with anyone new. I don’t feel that I will fall for another narcissist but am concerned that the last one still “rents” space in my head.
Totally brilliant Melanie I learn something new every time. Thank you
I’m so glad that you enjoyed this Robyne,
Much love to you dear lady.
Mel 🙏💕💛
I don’t know who needs to hear this
but accusations from a narcissist are confessions.