How narcissistic people can destroy your physical health.
Being in a relationship with a narcissist, be it an intimate partner, a family member, a boss or a work colleague. It is a highly stressful and a hideous experience psychologically and physically. They are toxic and with their continued games leaving us uncertain of our own thoughts, actions and feelings from their Silent Treatment, Gaslighting, Idealisation, Future Faking. Mirroring, Devaluation and then the Discard, mental and possibly physical violence from some, not only does it impact massively on our mental health, but it takes its toll on our physical health also, even when it’s only psychological abuse.
As humans, one of the worst stresses we can experience is that in an interpersonal relationship with a manipulative narcissist. Mental abuse is one of the most painful experiences anyone can go through emotional. Mental abuse is hard to see and overcome, leaving deeply hidden scars. We didn’t even know about to Heal and overcome.
A long term relationship with a narcissist locks you into a path of confusion and loss of self. The narcissist is like a virus that infects every part of you. They are a parasite that comes to feed off your willingness to help and support them, stealing your money, your home, your self-love, self-worth, self-trust and your own reality, your mental health, even your physical health, plus so much more.
The narcissist wants to extract maximum energy from you, which places you into the Fight, Flight, Freeze or Fawn. Most people in abusive relationships experiences all four, fight especially in the beginning when it all starts to fall apart. As you’ve fallen in love, you believe they love you. You don’t see they are your enemy and out to hurt you. So you might stand your ground, still, go out, still do the things you enjoy doing, speaking back, standing up for yourself and saying no. These things you do are counteracted by the very person who you believe cares about you, who is just using you and breaking down all your Boundaries. So much more, the silent treatment is psychological abuse to control, punish, test boundaries, avoid taking responsibility, make you feel guilty. When they initiate the silent treatment, it’s to cause us so much psychological pain that we start to question within our own minds what we did, start to blame ourselves, look for what we did wrong. The silent treatments make us slowly lose our self-worth and our reality, often then doing all we can to make it up to them to avoid the pain. ( genuine people who are genuinely hurt by someone might not have the words and fall silent. It’s not used to punish others. Narcissists use it time and time again to punish and control.) We then, during the course of the relationship, might freeze. If we know by doing something that is a normal thing to do, such as seeing friends, applying for jobs, it might cause the silent treatment, we freeze and start to question all the what if? Or we fawn completely giving up on ourselves and giving in to the narcissist’s demands, then flight when we realise something isn’t right when we know we go.
Gaslighting Is psychology manipulation to distort our reality, beliefs and values into the narcissists. At first, we might fight those thoughts and their reality. As time passes, our natural defence mechanisms find it easier to fawn and give in. Hence, it’s less confusing in our minds when, in reality, this works against us over a prolonged period of time. At some point, something in us sees a lightbulb moments happen. We take flight, go no contact and start little by little putting our realities back together, highs and lows along the way, yet we make it through to brighter days.
Arguments or whether the narcissist is just in the mood for an argument, whether they are trying to stop you from doing something, if you have caught them out on something, or just not getting their own way, there are lots of reasons narcissistic people just love drama and to argue. At first, you might fight back. Sometimes we freeze, especially when their Eyes go that spin chilling narcissist stare. We might then fawn and Walking On Eggshells around them, tiptoeing around them watching all we say and do, fearing their actions towards us so do all we can to please them and less and less to take care of ourselves, and most of us then give up, then one day something happens, and we take flight.
Narcissists provoke us so that they get a Reaction, so we fight back. When we do, they can blame it all on us. Living in this mind state leaves us with Anxieties, fears and always under emotional stress, never knowing who they will be that day or what might go wrong. We start living in a negative environment. It starts to rub off on us playing heavily in our hearts, minds and physical health.
Being under constant fear and stress, as you are constantly worrying about what the narcissist might do next, looking for ways to counteract it. Then they offer that intermittent nice narcissist to you, so we again start to question our own minds as they are treating us so right again, only for them to treat us so wrong again. The cycle leaves our minds, hearts and souls conflicted and in emotional turmoil.
Your body produces so many chemicals when in a relationship with a narcissist, long term, physical or psychological stress, even perceived stress, causing that trauma bonding, difficulties in sleeping, digestive problems, depression, anxiety, adrenal fatigue, being more vulnerable to illness, complications with illnesses and taking longer to recover from illnesses. You might end up with many health complications.
You become so physically and psychologically out of touch, starting to lose reality with the help of the narcissists gaslighting, which is further psychological abuse to distort our reality, get us questioning our own instincts, our thoughts and our feelings, leaving us with Brain fog, confusion, that Cognitive Dissonance, where our beliefs clash with evidence yet the narcissist then distorts the evidence, so it clashes with our realities, leaving Us with extreme mental discomfort, slowly you lose touch of reality. Leaving us trapped and looking towards the narcissist for reality checks, as we’ve most often been isolated. Mostly we blame ourselves as we cut ourselves off to avoid and reactions from the narcissist. In reality, we were manipulated into cutting our loved ones out. Hence, the narcissist has further control of our realities. When our minds become drained and lacking in the energy, our bodies take a massive hit as it’s our mind that subconsciously controls our bodies. If we want to walk, our mind is programmed subconsciously to tell us to do it. Our mind works on a subconscious level to do all those simple days to day tasks, yet when it’s being reprogrammed on a subconscious level in negative, devastating ways, we can not even see it happening when so much more is happening within our minds. It becomes increasingly harder to do those day to day things that used to be so natural. Our minds are heavily weighted down, and so are our bodies.
The narcissist will use this against you, constantly putting you down, Invalidating you. “You’re not capable.” You’re so lazy.” Or “Why don’t you just make an effort.” When you are trying your absolute best to in a situation and difficult circumstances, you just can not see clearly enough to see what’s truly happening to you.
When we have so much going off within our minds, we start to lose touch with things as it’s being overloaded And heavily weighted down, making it increasingly hard to do the things we need to do. Removing narcissistic people from our lives, working on us and letting it all go, each step we take our mind to become a little clearer, a little lighter, making it a little easier to take the next step, until we achieve massive success and let the past go, usually there is a dark cloud from time to time, us this to remind you of just how far you have come and how grateful you are that you’re no longer in the negative, destructive place, life does get hard at times, we have to learn to grow through it find the lessons and leave the mistakes.
As you go to them for a reality check, and your minds have been programmed to think a certain way, it makes it very difficult to see what’s truly happening and to leave.
As you are sympathetic and have empathy towards others, you become stuck in the cycle of changing yourself time and time again, trying your best to help them. While they are slowly destroying us, they devalue and discard you, then love bomb you again to devalue and discard you, leaving you to believe it’s your fault, Trauma Bonded and willing to take them back when they come for the Hoover. The one day we wake to realise we were never in a relationship, we are in a hostage situation of mental and sometimes physical warfare, that we need to change our direction and fast away from the narcissist and start looking onwards and freeing ourselves from them, so we can begin to heal ourselves.
You may have been diagnosed with all sorts of illnesses and be taking all sorts of medications, becoming ill for overtime, getting hit with one thing after another. The narcissist can be determined that you are depressed, and it takes you to the doctors so many times to go on antidepressants, slowly, over time sinking you, setting you up for their smear campaigns against you. A narcissist will poison your mind against yourself.
Be aware some of your health problems may well be down to the relationship you’re in or those people you’re around.
Once you get out safely, you can take steps to overcome these and move forward to a much happier, healthier life.
The first is getting out. You’re allowed to grieve, it’s normal. Writing out the truths to help put reality back in. Then looking for things you enjoy, what do you genuinely enjoy, then make that a hobby, work to master your abilities in it, something that makes you want to get out of bed and start living, find something anything for you to focus on while you heal, your mind will become clearer, most health problems will heal, tell yourself you can and then show yourself you will, if you’re still in anger and resentment then use any anger towards your ex to kick start you off, the best revenge is living well, once you start achieving more and more for you, clearing your mind of all the baggage focusing on the why? Dreaming up the future in your mind, then take those steps to help you find away if you have your way, and your dreams, you will become more driven to do, set back, mistakes and failures along the way are allowed it’s what makes us human, just learn and go again. You can, and you will recover.
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Elizabeth Shaw is not a Doctor or a therapist. She is a mother of five, a blogger, a survivor of narcissistic abuse, and a life coach, She always recommends you get the support you feel comfortable and happy with. Finding the right support for you. Elizabeth has partnered with BetterHelp (Sponsored.) where you will be matched with a licensed councillor, who specialises in recovery from this kind of abuse.
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Fight, flight, freeze or fawn.
