The human psychological for the breaking point is when someone has reached a point where they perceive themselves to have so many problems, situations, or difficulties when they feel like they have his crisis point and feel like they can no longer cope like they are about to collapse and give in or give up. When your endurance, self-control and emotions give way under stress.
We all face those breaking points in life, and each and every one of us has different levels of how much we can take before we reach that breaking point.
During a narcissistic relationship of any kind, you can hit so many breaking points that fundamentally change who you are, and not usually for the better, from your reactions to their abusive ways to losing your self-respect, self-trust, self-worth, confidence and even your sanity, often left a shell of your former self, with anxiety, depression and CPTSD. The silent treatments can cause breaking points, the anxiety caused due to the fact you never know which person they will be on any given day can cause breaking points, the multitude of lies can cause breaking points, the confusion within your mind from all the gaslighting, the reality you live. The reality they are telling you can cause breaking Points, the affairs, or just knowing they are having one can create breaking points, being the scapegoat of a narcissistic parent and feel like you can just not measure up, or being the golden child and under constant pressure to perform and meet your parent’s experience, or the forgotten child and feeling like you just never existed, never learning who you indeed are. Most often, people put up with a narcissist as their mind finds it easier to cope with these breaking points by giving up on themselves and doing their personal best to help the narcissist and making the relationship work, as the narcissist offers that intermittent reinforcement of playing nice, and when your parents or partner, treat you right it makes you believe it was something you did. You forever live your life to please them and meet their needs, continually being invalidated by them, your thoughts, your feelings, how you look, what you do, that you’re not good enough, always trying to get that validation from others. When you keep hitting those breaking points, you are gaslighted by the narcissist and left feeling like you are the one with the problem, not realising your true problem is your around a toxic, narcissistic person.
You are good enough. You are worthy. You can create who you are and learn to love yourself, discover your boundaries and stop people-pleasing, no wrong way or right way to live your life, with good intentions only your way.
If it’s your parents, the fear of walking away from those who raised you can keep you in communication even though this harms you.
If it’s your boss, you might stay stuck in a job way longer than you should, for fear of changing jobs or career, even though you are waking up full of dread about going to work.
If it’s a partner, the fear of being alone, the fear of what might happen to you, can keep you in that relationship.
There’s a whole load of reasons why when people hit breaking points within circumstances they feel are out of their control, stay within those circumstances.
Jobs, finances, illnesses, and relationships can all cause breaking points.
Yet most often, people hit That breaking point when they know they need to change one thing, to change everything for them, and it’s far from easy. Most realise they need to get away from the toxic person to change their life for the better. This can take years if it is your parents. It can also take years if it’s a partner.
When we don’t master the breaking points, we can become stuck in places we were never meant to be.
When breaking points hit, we can fight, or we can fawn, most often; in a narcissistic relationship, we fawn, slowly losing who we are to avoid breaking points, not realising it is driving us straight back into them, or we can stand up for ourselves and fight back, also not realising this is harming us.
When things become too complicated, too stressful or too emotional, our minds can fool us into backing out of what we genuinely need to do and staying stuck in those very situations that are causing us the stress, as it seems like the easier option.
When breaking points hit, narcissists can isolate you. It’s far easier for them to achieve this when you are at a point, like most people when they hit breaking point, isolate themselves.
Each and every breaking point you’ve been through with the narcissist, and you’ve turned back to them for help, is actually preparing you for the breaking point when you say no more, and you finally breakthrough and break free.
Then one moment, after years of mental or physical abuse, we take flight and get out.
That breaking point can be the start of a catalyst knock-on change of events, circumstances and who you are, which can lead onto a breaking point after the breaking point, and each and everyone you will make it through. It makes you that little bit stronger and that little bit more resilient for the next breaking point.
When we finally break free from toxic people, this can lead us straight into another breaking point, the stress starting from scratch, sorting finances, walking away from parents, starting new jobs, finding a home, becoming a single parent, smear campaigns, court situations, child arrangements, finances or divorce, opinions from others, judgment, pride and ego. All massive life-changing events, learning new things, so we can gain momentum and hit the ground running, getting through each and everyone using our pain to drive us through, to push us through each moment as it hits, we can hit moments throughout yet merely shifting our focus into achieving the goal of breaking free, getting that divorce, finding new jobs, creating new routines. Not dealing with the pain as we pull through it, for six months, two years or five years or more than wham, it all hits, and it hits hard. The realisations of everything you’ve been through or made it through, or you can hit and deal with the breaking point each step of the way. Each moment is normal, depending on who you are. Each moment, however, can hit hard, emotionally and physically and can be extremely exhausting and draining. We might also question why? When we take steps forward, and things are finally working out, to take a knockback, why are we feeling like this now? We are doing so well.
Life has a way of knocking us off our feet, to teach us something new, to get back up a little wiser and a little stronger and go again.
Depending on the cause of the breaking point, if it’s something you are working on for you or outside situations, they can still hit, and they do hit hard.
Most moments in our lives shape us. The experience we have through life and around others shapes who we are, our values, our beliefs, things we will and will not accept, how we feel about ourselves and how we feel about others.
Breaking points can shape us. They can also define us. Most importantly, it can define who we are about to become. Those breaking points are not easy, yet if used correctly and worked through, we can redefine our values, our beliefs, and the core to who we indeed are. We can finally discover who we truly are. Learning to love ourselves and finding things about ourselves, what our true passions are and our true potential.
Even the most successful people in the world that you might look at and think, well they have it all, they’ve never had the troubles I have, have had their breaking points, some major some minor, we are all individuals with different strengths and different weaknesses, some hit breaking points sooner, some take longer, some of us pull out fast, some of us take a little longer, just like some escape narcissistic parents fast, some take their time, some break free from narcissistic relationships quick, some take a while, some get up and running fast, some take a while, there is no wrong or right way only each individual person’s way. Some let it build up then explode, others avoid then all of a sudden everything hits them at once, one person’s breaking point can seem trivial to someone else’s, whatever people’s problems are are their problems and unique to them, even if experiencing similar traumatic experiences to others, everyone handles it differently, especially just how much they can take.
With courage to face fears, strength to pull through, finding the right coping strategies to suit you, knowing your why and knowing your outcome, breaking points can be turned into the most incredible life-defining moments for the better.
Breaking points can and will either make us or break us. Even when they break us and we hit rock bottom, you have to remember at the bottom of a mountain is a great climb to brighter views and different perspectives. Everything and everyone starts from something. A seed gets planted in the ground, in the darkness, if watered right and with the right sunlight, it grows to flower. Trees lose their leaves in autumn, ready to grow again in spring. A guitar is a guitar. Then when someone takes the time to practice, it can make the most beautiful sounds. In all areas of life, you might be able to look back at something you really worked hard for. When it became too hard, you quit and tried something new, things like learning to play an instrument, learning a new sport, starting a new job, there will also be times when you’ve reached breaking point, yet you focused, pulled through it and achieved the end goal you desired and deserved because you worked hard for it, sometimes it comes easy, sometimes it does not. Sometimes you do need to isolate just make it brief, then find those who will help you. Genuine people will help you.
Some breaking points come to teach you that it’s time to let go, give it up and move on, thinking if I keep doing what I’m doing now will I be happy in five years?
Some breaking points are here to teach us to change our approach towards others or what we are doing, thinking, do I genuinely want the outcome? And keep going.
Some breaking Points arrive for us to look inwards, to take hold of our beliefs and values and see what we want to change within ourselves.
Most people feel like they are cracking up when situations and stress levels become unbearable. When so much pressure hits, life can become unbalanced to the point we break down and feel like we will never get back up again.
A breaking point is when we face the most strain, we feel so much pressure. Under so much stress, we just want to give up, when one thing just hits after another, left I dealt with, or when everything just hits us at once, it can be a build-up over years when we build momentum to keep going, then all of a sudden wham everything hits, or it can be a build-up In one day.
Breaking points are actually the most critical time to remain calm, which can be far from easy. Some people try to stay busy. Some people try to relax, others just have to cut human interaction as they know they are going to go. We all need to work through and pull ourselves out.
When stressful things happen, the stress hormone release natural chemicals which can throw you more out of balance.
Stage one, you can become aware you’re under pressure, or something just isn’t feeling right, yet still feel grounded and ok.
Stage two, stress starts to build. Your judgment starts to become clouded. You have to make a conscious effort not to lose it, not to give in to anger, anxiety, or becoming impatient.
Stage three, when you just can not cope, and you explode, often afterwards feeling embarrassed or guilty.
The breaking point requires you to restructure, to find new ideas or activities, to either work on a situation until you breakthrough or break out of the situation before you break down.
When every time life drives you to a breaking point, and you feel like it’s just too hard, too stressful, far too emotional and now too draining, you might quit, back up, run away, and it’s ok to feel like this, yet if you do you’ll not master the breaking points, and they’ll keep coming back stronger than the last.
Life is a teacher, the breaking points are part of the lessons, and you are the master of your own mindset.
Dealing with stress is the three R’s
Recognise how you are feeling.
Reverse engineering seeks to support or finds ways to undo stress.
Resilience, each time you build more resilience, each time it hits, it gets easier.
First acknowledge it, if at all possible in stage one whilst you’re still centred, most of us have hit stage three before and if you’ve hit that now, remember you pulled through last time, and you will pull through again.
We have times when we feel like life is happening to us and walking all over us, especially with hideous smear campaigns and court situations, what feels like never-ending games from narcissistic people, or even when you’ve kept yourself going throughout all of those things, reached the other side, then out of nowhere stage one hit.
We can get our thoughts and feelings taken over by outside circumstances beyond our control, and it can knock us down. Once we learn, we do have the power and choice within ourselves to choose how we are going to respond to outside circumstances.
Learning to read the warning signs. We can all get caught up in life. Our minds and bodies can become drained easily when we have enormous amounts of tension, sadness, fear, anger, resentment, frustration when you feel it building. Try to make sleep a priority, cut down on caffeine late in the day, try going to bed 5 minutes early each night, and if you’re struggling to fall asleep, try getting up 5 minutes earlier each morning, try to get organised the night before if you’re always rushing in the morning. Take naps if you can, not too late in the day. Otherwise, it might affect your sleep and night, avoiding bright or stimulating things for at least 30 mins before bed, calming music instead.
Writing down on paper all the things that you’re worried about, then an easy action step next to each one. Know why you need to change something about a situation, know what the outcome is that you want, then even if you don’t know how right now, focusing on the why and the outcome, you will find a way, just start with those small steps first.
Taking walks, or getting some exercise, meditation or yoga, releasing dopamine to pick you up and also helps you rest easier.
Stop and take a break if you feel pressure brewing. It is ok to stop for five and breathe. Really think and focus on your breathing.
See if you can cut some things from your daily chores, just temporarily, until you’re feeling better within.
Don’t beat yourself up; we all have a breaking point; you’re not alone.
Reach out for help and support, sometimes talking it all out with those that understand can help.
Changing your state of mind, taking care of how you look, also helps how you feel, however you want to look is for you and you only, finding something to laugh about, remembering a time in your life you were really happy and focus on it.
Limit contact with negative people.
See if you can change your situation. If you can not change the situation, changing your attitude or your reactions.
Take time to recharge yourself, like a mobile phone it charges faster from 50% to 100% than from 0%
If you have hit rock bottom, feel the pain and use the pain, use it to create motivation to build yourself back up, the best revenge is a success, and once you gain the momentum and lose the pain, you’ll change the reason why use the pain as a must to find the things that bring you joy.
Rock bottom is the chance to learn from the past, create who you indeed are and climb back up. Never give up on yourself, rock bottom or not. Don’t doubt yourself. You can, and you will get back up. Walt Disney had an abusive father, went bankrupt, got turned down, and had mental breakdowns. He got up to go again and achieved massive success.
J.K Rowling “rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
She was a single parent and has herself admitted to being severely depressed when she was sat on a train and started writing Harry Potter. Twelve publishers turned her down before getting her first break.
When you are at rock bottom, you have nothing to lose, so now it’s your chance to get back up and go again, learning new things, becoming wiser and stronger than before, creating new dreams and going no matter what the knockback until you achieve them.
Being grateful for anything you do have left, and for any achievements along the way, know where you want to go, yet don’t look at how far you’ve got to go look at how far you’ve come, to start looking at the fact you’ve got out of a toxic situation. You’re going again no matter what it takes.
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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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