Are you feeling exhausted and fatigued in recovery? You’re far from alone.
When you are in a narcissistic relationship, if that was a family member, friend, boss or partner due to all the manipulation, gaslighting, blame-shifting, silent treatment, triangulation, projection, mental and possibly physical abuse, life is extremely draining both mentally and physically. You slowly stop taking care of your own needs, your own wants, your own dreams, and your own mind to take care of all the narcissist’s needs and wants, often leaving you walking on eggshells and with lots of unexplained illnesses, anxiety and depression.
If you get the help you need, use the methods that work for you, you can, and you will overcome this.
Feeling lethargic, exhaustion, inability to get on with day to day chores, inability to lose weight, feeling foggy, crazy and confused, these are all normal feelings when you start your journey of recovery into the rediscovery of a new, improved, confident, happier self.
Adrenal Fatigue.
You will have most likely started with adrenal fatigue while around the narcissist, and the symptoms can be masked with others, Making it even harder to see what’s truly happening to you. Possibly getting told by professionals you are stressed and need to take time out, the narcissist telling you that you are crazy, losing your mind. Adrenal fatigue is a condition with lots of different causes. Some people can rest and get better, yet if you have been in an abusive relationship, you will not get better with just resting alone, so if you’re still in the relationship, you need to get out safely, as adrenal fatigue most often is caused by your state of mind.
You can have other issues with adrenal fatigue, from cholesterol problems, insomnia, blood pressure issues, you can sleep too much, depression, anxiety, for women, your periods may change and go all over, men it might affect your sex drive, or abilities to have sex. Headaches, migraines. Lots of health conditions and side effects.
There can also be added financial stress, from all the financial abuse, stress from smear campaigns if you’ve broken free and physical stress, as a narcissistic relationship puts you under considerable strain in all areas of your life, slowly your body may stop fighting, trying to get you to rest, so it doesn’t shut down, it’s your minds way of protecting you, from outside influences, you just don’t know it at the time.
It affects individuals differently in the extent of the symptoms that you might have.
Being in a narcissistic relationship is one of the top causes of adrenal fatigue.
Symptoms don’t go the second you walk free, or adrenaline might kick in, and you’re up and running, then adrenal fatigue comes back out of nowhere because you’ve been doing too much, so just take recovery at a pace you are comfortable with. You have to allow yourself the space, time and abilities to heal, as your body and mind are powerful things. It has the coping mechanisms to help you heal in itself.
When you’re feeling tired, rest, just don’t forget why you started.
The studies have been done that finding the positives in situations, focusing on the positive, helps you to heal, keep going, you can find the positives. You will. Then you need to make a conscious effort to keep telling yourself these, if you can not switch your thoughts, then write down five things you are grateful for, no matter how hard you have to search find them, as you progress through recovery, if you take a step back and start finding negatives, stop and write down ten things you’re grateful for, as you move through recovery, you will be able to find more.
Drink plenty of water to decrease the symptoms, try to eat good food, don’t totally switch diets all at once, your body needs time to adjust, everything in moderation, when you do it step by step, it’s a lot easier to stick with it and create new routines. So just taking one unhealthy thing out of your diet and adding one healthy thing in, every day doing another or every other day, every week, whatever suits you best.
Time out for self-care, self-love and self-reflection, try new things and find what you’re passionate about, exercise, meditation, yoga, music. I know I speak a lot about these in my post. They are vital things to help with recovery.
Control what you can control in your life, leave what you can not, ask yourself what you can do to make today better, then find a way to do it.
You might go through anger, hurt and resentment, but you need to process them, let them out and then move past them.
It is not easy to do to start with, but as you keep going, it gets easier.
It will most often feel uncomfortable at first. As you slowly reprogram your mindset, it will become second nature to you. Life will become a lot happier and easier.
Just keep going until you find what works for you.
Even after you’ve recovered, you might have some days where you find yourself feeling drained. Sometimes your adrenaline can kick in, pushing yourself into recovery, then suddenly you crash and burn, don’t worry, you’ve not lost all you’ve learned and gained. You just need to take a step back to reflect, relax and recharge. Then, you will be ready to go again.
Just like our phones, if you charge overnight and wake up to 100%. Then slowly, as the day passes by, it slowly loses its charge, unless you plug it back in. Just as phone batteries turn red to warn they need a charge, so does your body and mind. You just need to listen carefully to them.
Believe it or not, exercise is not only one of the best methods for mental and physical health, keeping you busy in your recovery journey and helping with the release of those endorphins. When you exercise, it also releases serotonin, which sends well being and happiness messages to your nervous system,
The hardest part of the exercise is the build-up to doing it. It’ll all about finding what you enjoy, be it long walks, running, going to the gym, playing a sport, tennis, football, hockey, it’s about finding one you enjoy. At any stage in your journey, exercise is an excellent coping method, even if that means popping some music on and having a dance around. If you are someone that hates doing household chores and haven’t done so before, try it with your favourite music and dance as you go.
Find your sense of humour and laughter in any given situation, do the things you love to do for yourself wherever you are.
Society today has placed us all into these conform boxes, so when an adult does something as simple as skip In public, some people label and judge, thinking what’s wrong with them? Making ourselves fear that judgment, fear being seen, fear being daft and not fitting in, there is no wrong way or right way to live your life, with good intentions there is only your way, you might just make someone laugh with you, or they might tell someone else what you did and make them laugh too, smiles and laughter are infectious, do what’s right for you, judgment from others isn’t for you, those who judge have the problem, not you.
The reality is we have freedom. If it’s not harming another, what’s wrong with someone laughing and skipping around the supermarket? It’s a great feel-good power play for yourselves and so simple, so whatever your thing is, don’t worry so long as it’s harming no one. You’re happy. That’s all that matters.
Meditation can do for the mind what the gym does for the body. If you don’t already give it a try, it’s all about finding exactly what works for you.
Take time out to rest, relax and recover, even if it’s just catching five minutes here or there.
Connecting with others. In-person is the best method. Yet even if your only way to do that is via social media. Connecting with others who are genuine can recharge your internal battery.
As long as your intentions are good, there is no wrong way and no right way, only your way.
Learning to take back control of your own mind and not feel judged by others will set you free.
Keep going. You will get through this.
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All about the narcissist Online course.
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The narcissists counter-parenting.
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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