When a romantic relationship with a narcissistic partner comes to an end, it is incredibly devastating because, during the love bombing phase, they skillfully manipulate your attachment system and tap into your reward pathways.
They exploit your fundamental need for love, connection, and validation, effectively deepening your emotional bond and investment in them. This typically leads to you becoming psychologically and chemically addicted to them.
I’m explaining the painful process of detoxing from a narcissist, specifically in the context of romantic relationships.
If you’ve recently gotten out of this type of relationship, you are likely having major negative psychological effects. You might feel like your entire world is crashing down. You’ll probably have episodes of feeling angry, sad, used, abused, blindsided, betrayed, inadequate, and hopelessly lost, and then, at other times, you might go back to feeling hopeful and nostalgic. Overall, your mind and your emotions are all over the place. When a toxic relationship ends, it’s common to go through these seven stages.
Stage one is disbelief.
Immediately after the end of a relationship with a narcissist, there is usually a period of relief because you’re finally getting a break from all the drama, conflict, and chaos. You can breathe easily, like the weight of the world just came off your shoulders. Now, maybe you don’t believe that the relationship is truly over. This is especially true if you’ve gone through multiple breakups. But after a few days or a few weeks, your feelings of relief will turn to disbelief. How did something that started so great end so badly?
How come we couldn’t work it out? Mentally, you feel confused and disoriented. Your thoughts are racing; you can’t think straight or make decisions. Emotionally, you feel abandoned, betrayed, rejected, anxious, and depressed. Physically, you’re completely drained, exhausted, unproductive, and unmotivated. Maybe you can’t eat or sleep, but generally, you feel anxious and awful. Instead of feeling better as time goes on, you’re feeling like you’re losing your sanity, and all you want to do is reach out and do whatever it takes to fix it because this is the worst you’ve ever felt in your entire life.
There’s an emptiness inside of you that only your ex can fill. Part of you just wants to take them back or beg for another chance, promising to do better and be better, try hard. But the deeper part of you knows that there is no way to salvage this relationship, at least not in the long term.
During this phase, you’ll reach out to friends and family and to anyone who will listen, seeking validation and advice, trying to understand. And as you search for these answers, you will realize that most people don’t have a clue. They don’t understand the extent of your experience, and most will just tell you what you want to hear. They might reassure you; they might label your ex as crazy.
Some might question whether it was that bad, clearly having no idea how toxic your relationship was or what a narcissist is capable of. Nevertheless, they don’t have the answers you’re seeking, and even if they did, it wouldn’t provide the psychological relief that you so desperately need.
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Stage two is replaying.
No matter how hard you try to get your ex out of your mind, you can’t seem to stop spinning thoughts of them. It becomes a mental obsession where you’re constantly replaying aspects of the relationship, especially everything that led to the end. Even when you’re out and about with other people or working on other things, it’s still looping in the background of your mind.
You may start to focus on the negative aspects of the relationship and how they hurt you, disrespected you, and demeaned you. Maybe this gives you some temporary relief while you’re mulling over all the hurtful things that they said and did to you. However, this reprieve is very fleeting because the next thing you know, you see something that reminds you of a sweet thing they did for you.
Maybe you think of some magical moments you shared or se*xual experiences that were intense. Suddenly, you’re reminded of how alive you felt when you were with them, especially in the beginning. And maybe you’re fantasizing now about the good times or about the future you’d envision together. This might lead you to look at old photos, reread texts and emails, and fantasize about them se*xually.
There’s just so much cognitive dissonance as your mind is stuck in this repetitive loop, replaying scenarios over and over in your mind like a broken record.
Stage three is self-doubt.
As you replay these scenes in your mind on a continuous loop, you start to question whether the breakdown of the relationship was all your fault. You question your actions and wonder if there was something you could have done differently to change the course of the relationship and the outcome.
Your doubts start to consume you, and it just intensifies the internal struggles because you’re incessantly analyzing your role in the relationship, internalizing the blame, and ruminating on any mistakes you made. And of course, you did make some mistakes; you’re human.
Plus, a narcissistic partner will make sure to provoke negative emotional responses and behavior so that you know you’re essentially set up to behave badly so that you do not feel guilty for the breakdown of the relationship. So this self-doubt consumes you throughout the day, hindering your productivity, and making it hard for you to focus or get any work done. And you start neglecting all self-care because you’re so caught up in this relentless cycle of self-doubt and confusion, leading you to isolate yourself as you get deeper and deeper into this internal battle.
Essentially, you start living in your mind and disengaging from the outside world, partly because you can’t function and partly because you just don’t want anyone to see how you went from a confident, self-assured person to being mentally broken down and emotionally destroyed.
Stage four is anger.
At this stage, you’ve come to realize that the relationship is over. This awareness stems either from having enough understanding and self-respect to recognize that returning to the same destructive cycle would be detrimental to your well-being or because your ex has moved on with someone else and is so much happier without you.
Maybe they’re showcasing their newfound happiness on social media, acting like they never even existed. Or maybe it’s just that you’re done, just done, done, done. You can’t tolerate the abusive behavior one minute longer. Regardless, you’re at this point, you’re hurting, you’re angry, and the reality of everything you experienced is hitting you hard.
Stage five is the research stage.
The popular saying “Time heals all wounds” may not hold when it comes to recovering from narcissistic abuse. You might find yourself feeling worse and more confused as time goes on. The absence of answers and closure becomes this constant source of distress in your life.
In your search for understanding, you turn to online research, and you might be shocked at what you uncover. Finally, you have an explanation for what you’ve experienced. The information provides so many missing pieces of your puzzle. You get some comfort and relief knowing that there was nothing that you could have said or done to change the outcome.
But your life starts revolving around researching narcissistic personality disorder, spending countless hours on YouTube and Google, and getting obsessed with learning more and more and more about narcissists and narcissistic relationships. This pattern of excessive research can go on endlessly, as this information gives you a sense of relief.
The research phase is an important step, but it’s also important to recognize when you have learned enough because the act of researching itself can become an addiction. It can also cause you to become hyperaware of the narcissistic traits in everyone you encounter, making everyone appear dangerous. And the worst part is that all this research can keep you indirectly attached to your narcissistic ex.
Every time you read something about narcissism, it reminds you of your ex’s behavior, what they said, and what they did, and causes you to relive these traumatic aspects of the relationship over and over. So once you’ve gotten the confirmations and answers that you need and you find that you’re reading and hearing the same things over and over again, then it’s time to stop researching.
Stage six is acceptance.
As you step away from the constant rumination and excessive research, your emotional state will begin to stabilize. Gradually, you will realize that your thoughts are not constantly revolving around your ex every second of the day. You have a deeper understanding of NPD and maybe even a bit of empathy for those afflicted with this serious disorder, including some empathy for your ex (maybe not).
But at this stage, you will likely start to re-engage with activities and reconnect with your social network. And while you may look in the mirror and still see a shell of the person that you used to be, you might also see an opportunity to reinvent yourself. Perhaps you go out and buy some new clothes, you get in shape, you start dating again. At this point, it might seem unsatisfying, a facade of sorts to camouflage the emptiness that you’re still feeling.
If you’re lucky, your narcissistic ex will never come back around. But as you pick yourself up and get stronger, there is a good chance that they will attempt to come back to you, especially if their sources of supply are drying up. They may text you out of the blue, letting you know that they’re thinking of you. And if you respond, they might tell you everything you want to hear how time apart has made them see the light, now they can see how amazing you are, what mistakes they made, and on and on.
Hopefully, by this time, you’ve developed enough understanding and acceptance to realize that if you go back to this relationship, the same destructive pattern would quickly start to play out, and you’d be facing the same problems, wondering why I got back into this, feeling suffocated, and again looking for a way out, or maybe being discarded again. And then you are back to square one.
Assuming that you don’t fall into any more traps and you don’t go back, then you can move into the next stage, which involves healing and moving on with your life.
Stage seven is the healing stage.
Undoubtedly, this experience has profoundly reshaped your understanding of relationships, causing you to be extremely cautious and hesitant about opening up and trusting someone again. And if you do decide to start dating, you might see minor things as major warning signs, or you might struggle to connect with someone because that new person doesn’t give you the intense highs that you experience with your narcissistic ex.
You may even compare them to your ex in your mind, making you wonder if you’ll ever feel the same emotional intensity with another partner. This can make healthy relationships seem boring or unexciting like something is missing. And there will be something missing, and that’s the constant drama, chaos, and stress.
So if you feel the need for these extreme highs and lows in your relationships, especially if this has been a pattern for you, then there’s something inside of you that needs attention. If this is you, consider my toxic relationship recovery program, which will help you get to the root of your recurrent relationship problems.
It’s only when you accept that this relationship is truly over and you firmly decide to never let your narcissistic ex back into your life that’s when you can start the healing. While this experience can lead to post-traumatic stress, it can also be an incredible opportunity for post-traumatic growth.
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