The narcissist abscondes with your identity, steals your essence, implants in your mind a self-despairaging, harshly critical voice.
You find yourself laboring under a regime of internal slavery. You feel as if there is no way back to yourself, as if you have become someone else, you feel estranged, disoriented.
Is there a way back? Is there a formula for regaining yourself, for resurrecting?
This is the topic of today's video. The nine principal path to resurrection after narcissistic abuse.
My name is Sam Vaknin. I'm the author of the first book ever about narcissistic abuse, Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited. A professor of clinical psychology.
Nine principles to resurrection.
And yes, the prognosis is good. You will recover. You will fully heal.
Do not confuse change with healing. You will be a changed person. We are all changed and transformed by our experiences, positive and beneficial, as well as adverse.
And so, you will have changed, but you will be fully recovered, utterly and totally functional, happy again, or at the very least content.
You can go back mentally, emotionally, psychologically, cognitively, you can go back to the point before you have met the narcissist.
You will of course carry with you forever, the traumatic memories and the pain, the pain of having been objectified, having been commodified and commoditized, having been rendered an insignificant other, that is a pain that will never go away. It's a form of grief and mourning, which is prolonged.
But all the rest can be reconstructed.
You can renovate yourself using these nine principles.
And they are divided into three groups.
The body, the mind, and functionality.
Let's start with the body.
You need your body. You need your body as a collaborator in your process of healing.
And there are three principles attendant or pertinent to your body.
Attention, regulation and protection.
Let's review these principles one by one.
Attention.
Pay attention to your body. Be aware, monitor your breathing, your pulse, your perspiration, your exertions, your muscles, be attuned to your body.
Gradually develop a friendship and intimacy with every fiber and every tissue that comprise this magnificent receptacle that is your body. It's a form of self-empathy coupled with self-soothing and self- comforting.
Make your body your ally by getting to know it to perfection.
Number two, regulation.
Control.
Control your bodily processes.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Regulate to the best of your ability, your pulse and your breathing. Think positive thoughts if need be. Fantasize and daydream if necessary.
But focus on maintaining a strict regime of self-control and self-regulation.
Become your body's master, not your body's slave.
It is a relationship of a parent and a child. There's a lot of love. There's a lot of recognition. There's a lot of intimate knowledge of each other.
But you're still the parental figure in this relationship.
Pay attention to your body, every message it is sending you, every signal it is conveying, every information it is trying to share with you directly and indirectly.
But at the same time, put limits, place boundaries, maintain mastery over the processes, the physiological and physical processes that make up your daily behavior.
And finally, protection. Protect your body. Protect your body. It is in need of protection. It has been assailed and assaulted by the narcissist.
Narcissistic abuse causes multiple physiological, medical and biological disruptions, some of which last very long.
Your body needs a friend, your body needs a friend, your body needs a doctor, a medical doctor in-house. Your doctor needs your presence to protect it.
Eat well, exercise, do not overexert yourself, do not punish yourself. Do not be self-destructive. Do not hate your body. Reject it and loathe it. Do not blame your body for anything. It is doing its best under the circumstances.
Remember, your mind is in charge. Your mind is in charge. Your mind is in charge. Your body is merely a reflection of psychological processes in your mind.
So place your mind above your body. And together, the mind-body complex, make it work for you.
Think of it as raising a child. You have a plan, you have principles, you have boundaries, you have rules. Apply them, apply them rigorously, but with a lot of love, compassionately, affectionately.
At the end of the day, your body is all you have and your mind resides in it. It's not much good to have a healthy mind in an unhealthy body, as the Romans knew.
So this is the first module. The three principles of your body.
Attention, regulation, protection.
Let's move on to your mind.
Your mind is compromised. Your mind is infected.
Narcissism, pathological narcissism, is contagious. There's a contagion. There's a vector of transmission between the narcissist and you.
Your mind has been invaded by a Trojan force. It is full with the narcissist's voice, the narcissist's intermittent reinforcement, the narcissist's fears and phobias attendant upon the narcissist's presence in your life and his misbehavior.
Your mind has been co-opted by the narcissist and he turned it against you.
For very long stretches of time, you felt that both your mind and your body have betrayed you.
And you began to be angry at them, even aggressive.
You didn't recognize yourself anymore. You were terrified by the rapid dwindling of who you used to be and the emergence of a chimera, the emergence of some monster that you felt no affinity with and yet was still you.
And so it's time to regain your mind and retake it.
It's been subject to a hostile takeover. It's time to reverse the process.
And there are three principles here as well.
Authenticity, positivity, mindfulness.
Let's review this principle one by one.
Authenticity.
Whenever you listen to your inner voices, or whenever you are conducting a dialogue with yourself, or whenever you're listening to a television show, reading something on the internet or a book, whenever you're exposed to content, whether generated internally or generated externally, stop.
Stop. Do not absorb the content until you have asked yourself, is this me? Does this reflect who I am? Or even does this reflect who I should be, who I want to be?
And then if the answer is maybe, reject the content.
If the answer is no, of course, delete, erase the content, as if it has never existed.
If the answer is yes, tread carefully.
Messaging from the inside, your internal voices, and from the outside, things people say to you, even good friends, even family, are suspect.
A suspect.
Remember, you are the world's leading expert on yourself. No one knows you better than you do.
Even if you think that you're not self-aware, even if you think that you're not very good at recognizing yourself and not very good at being your own best friend and having your back, even if you mistrust and distrust yourself, because the experience of life has proven that you're not your best friend, perhaps you're your own worst enemy, even then there is a degree of intimacy and acquaintance and knowledge that no one else possesses.
So ask yourself time and again, is this me? Is this voice inside my head that's telling me what to do, criticizing me, negating me? Is this my voice? Is this person who is saying these things to me, is he representative of who I am? Does it resonate with me in the appropriate manner?
Gradually, as you begin to be a lot more discriminating about internally generated content and externally generated content, you will reemerge. You will reemerge from the sludge of narcissistic abuse.
Suddenly, your contours will be visible again. Day in and day out, you will feel more of you, more like you.
Suddenly, snippets of recognition memories will emerge and you'll be able to put them together in a coherent and cohesive framework which will amount ultimately to your core identity rediscovered.
The authenticity filtering, the requirement, the principle of asking all the time, is this me? Is this really me? Or is it what society expects of me? Is it the voice of my father, the voice of my mother? Is this harshly critical, negating, vitiating voice? Mine, or the narcissists?
What my friends are telling me, my family, cajole me, are these voices I should listen to? Do they resonate with my quiddity, with my essence? Or are they perceived as alien, somehow artificial or superficial? Even supercilious. Are these voices motivating or are these voices depressive? Do these voices put me down or let me sore and thrive?
Here's a simple principle. Here's a simple rule of thumb, actually, heuristic.
How can you tell if a bit of information, an internal voice, an external voice, are authentic or not, how can you tell if you should embrace the content of the information that you're exposed to?
If it is loving, if it treats you with compassion and consideration, if it is not self-rejecting and not self-loathing and not harshly self-critical and not sadistic, it's a voice that is probably authentic.
If the voice you're exposed to internally or externally seeks to drag you down, to put you down, to reduce you, to diminish you, to degrade you, to humiliate you, to shame you, to guilt trip you, that's not an authentic voice.
What do you do with non-authentic voices?
You shut them off. You shut them out. You do not listen to them.
Actively, not listening is an active predisposition or disposition exactly like listening you should put an effort into not listening to these voices negating them if necessary verbalize this say aloud i am not listening to you you're not my friend you do not seek my well-being you do not want me to thrive and flourish you do not want me to be happy and so go away
You know in the Middle Ages in rites of exorcism the priest would say, go away Satan, go away demon. It's the same, essentially. Essentially, it's the same.
Verbalize this rejection. Verbalize it. Do not listen to these voices.
Gradually, as you fend them off and shut them out, these voices will recede and ultimately will be no more.
And what will be left behind are the authentic messages and signals and information and data and knowledge that comprise who you are, your true essence, your authentic self.
So this is principle number one, authenticity.
Number two, positivity.
Positivity is not naivety. Positivity is not naivety. Positivity is not gullibility. Positivity is not stupidity. Positivity doesn't mean that you have to be a sucker. Positivity doesn't mean that you have to lie to yourself, deceive yourself into optimism. That's not positivity, that's stupidity. That's being dumb.
Positivity means that you accept and realize that everything and everyone in life, in reality, in the universe, has a positive aspect and a negative aspect.
No one is all good. No one is all bad. Nothing is all right. Nothing is all wrong. No situation or circumstance or environment are all good and none of them are all evil.
This is splitting. It's an infantile primitive, misleading defense mechanism. Don't do that.
When I say positivity, I mean seek out the positive aspects and dimensions and elements and ingredients and components of everything and everyone around you.
Don't ignore the negativity. Don't lie to yourself. Don't deceive yourself. That's not the aim here. Don't become polyanna-ish.
But do not on the other hand regard the world cynically, negatively, hatefully. Do not convince yourself that the world is a hostile, dangerous, hateful place.
Acquire or reacquire some balance, or at least semblance of balance.
Whenever you're down, whenever you're depressed, ask have I overlooked have I ignored some positive aspects or elements of my situation whenever you come across someone and the interaction the interpersonal interaction is less than pleasant, discomfiting, maybe even threatening, ask yourself, have I overlooked or ignored some positive aspects in that person?
You could spread positivity, and by spreading positivity, you're likely to get it back tenfold. Spreading positivity is just being civil, it's just about being civil, being kind without being self-sacrificial, being compassionate without being self-sacrificial, being compassionate, without being self-harming, it's possible to do this.
This balance is attainable. And when you become more attuned to the interplay between positivity and negativity in the universe, the Yin and Yang, when you begin to accept the grey zones and nuances and subtleties of existence, you will have self-medicated in a way you will have healed yourself.
The ability to realize that nothing is totally negative, nothing is absolutely evil, nothing is irredeemable, no one is beyond absolution and redemption and recovery. This realization makes the world more habitable, makes life more tolerable, makes existence less burdensome, more bearable.
Again, this is not naivety.
Psychopaths and narcissists are mostly evil, or at least act in ways which are mostly evil.
There's no point in pretending otherwise.
There are some people who are mostly evil, but there are many people who are mostly good.
Actually, the vast majority of people are mostly good.
Inject positivity into your life as an exercise, as an assignment, as a task.
Whenever you find yourself gravitating towards a splitting mechanism, dichotomous thinking, black and white thinking, stop, go back, observe yourself and say, I'm watching the world through the wrong tinted glasses, glasses that distort reality, provide me the wrong information.
I'm going to now reacquaint myself with the world, explore it, discover it, in a way that is far more balanced.
The third element is mindfulness.
If you're stuck in the past or if you're stuck in the future you're doomed, you're doomed.
Because the past is full of regrets and mistakes and remorse and negative affectivity, negative affects such as sadness and so the past will drag you down.
When we recall the past we tend to naturally gravitate towards nostalgia and depression and so past orientation is debilitating, paralyzing.
Similarly if you're a habitual fantasist if you reside in fantasy and daydreaming, daydreaming involves planning, so it's more healthy, but fantasy, then you're divorced from reality.
The future you inhabit has its roots in your actions in the present.
If you're stuck in the future and you're ignoring the present, you will never get there. You will never get into the future.
So both past orientation and future orientation are not good for you. They are dysfunctional.
Focus on the present.
Remember the three principles of the body?
These three principles ground you in the present.
If you have to listen to your breathing, if you have to be aware of the pulse of blood coursing through your entire body, if you regulate your body functions, then you are grounded in the here and now, you are grounded in the present.
Mindfulness is about being grounded in the present. In your present body, in your present mind, in your present circumstances, with the people who are present in your life.
And it is from this, from this groundedness, from this immersion in present tense, that you can then launch yourself into the future and even revisit the past.
But the present is your foundation, it's your anchor in the stormy sea of your life. It is a present that keeps you tethered to this globe and to yourself, more importantly.
Do not allow yourself to drift or to float away. Remain grounded.
So, a brief recap.
The three principles of the body, attention, regulation and protection, the three principles of the mind, authenticity, positivity and mindfulness.
And there are three functions. So this is the nine principle puff, the nine principle puff, three body functions, three mind functions, and three systemic functions, body and mind.
And the three functions are these.
Vigilant observer, shielding sensor, reality sentinel.
Let's review them one by one.
Vigilant observer.
Always observe. Observe yourself, observe others, observe reality and do it vigilantly, not hypervigilantly.
Do not be a paranoid. Do not be suspicious. Don't not be cynical, but vigilant in the sense that be ready for surprises, be prepared for transformations.
Observe not passively but proactively. Observe via curiosity and investigation.
It's another way of saying be the scientist of your life. Regard your life as a research topic and you are the scientists, creating theories, testing them, and then creating better theories according to the outcomes.
Observe, investigate, explore, discover, be an active participant in your own life.
Do not let your life slide by as a kind of background noise or someone else's theatre production or movie.
Do not enter anyone's fantasy, anyone's reality. Stick to yourself, stand your ground, mindfulness, and then observe and observe with alertness, intelligence, acumen, astuteness.
Don't be a passive receptacle or recipient or container of data. Process it, make sense of it, and then investigate further. The scientific method.
The shielding sensor, you need to filter out the kinds of inputs from the inside and from the outside that are harmful to you.
Certain voices inside you are your enemies. They don't want you to be happy, these voices, they don't want you to thrive. They are not interested in your well-being. They want to take you down. They want to punish you.
These are known collectively as the internalized bad object.
Censorship, do not allow them to express themselves. Definitely not freely.
Certain voices from the outside, people masquerading as true friends, betrayal, don't let any of this get to you.
Do not attribute a truth value and do not give power, do not empower any such voices, any such input, any such feedback, any such information.
Censorship, internal and external. The shielding sensor.
Your censor should have your best interest in mind. Your sensors should seek to maximize your well-being. Your senses should be able to provide an environment that is free of censoriousness, free of harsh criticism, free of sadistic put-downs, free of self-loathing, free of self-rejection, free of self-trashing, free of self-arm, free of self-defeat, definitely free of self-destructiveness.
These are the roles of the censor. The sensor is like a firewall, internal and external.
And the aim of the sensor is to shield you, not to shield you from life itself, not to shield you from reality, to shield you from the pollutants and the contamination and the effluence of those who wish you ill, those who consider you target for their frustration, aggression, envy, hatred, anger.
The censor simply keeps out a kind of benevolent confirmation bias. The sensor does not allow entry to anything that could degrade your internal environment and your mind.
And finally the reality sentinel.
It is very easy for the victim of narcissistic abuse to drift away from reality.
If you ended up being a victim of narcissistic abuse, it means you're prone to fantasy. You're amenable to the chance of fantasy. You find fantasy irresistible, and you find reality less than tolerable, undesirable, boring.
And so you need a reality sentinel. You need a guardian, a custodian, an internal voice who would tell you, you're drifting away, you're floating, you're again fantasizing, you're again being, I don't know, grandiose, on the very contrary, self-degrading, you're not grounded. You're not grounded. Your reality testing is getting impaired.
Stop. Stop. Observe. Absorb the information and process it.
Reality is there.
The reality sentinel, the reality guardian, the role of this function is to maintain your reality testing. At all times to remind you that you cannot fully trust your grasp of reality, that you do need to reestablish the bridge to reality and the bridge to the world and the bridge to your own life. You need to rebuild these bridges day in and day out. You need to maintain them and you need to cross them to visit the realms, the territories that they connect to.
You need to visit reality. You need to visit life. You need to visit the universe and you need to visit your internal landscape. You need to be grounded in reality and you need an advisor, a consultant, an inner voice in charge of your reality testing. And you need to listen to this voice.
It's easy to accomplish, actually. It sounds as if it is easier said than done, but it's possible to do this. It's a common you can accomplish this you can attain can create this reality sentinel.
Initially you may need to obtain feedback from, for example, mental health practitioners and professionals or very good friends who you trust or family members who love you. Their feedback, their input would gradually help you to construct and design and put together the reality sentinel.
But at some stage some point you can do this on your own.
Whenever you feel that there is some conflict, whenever you feel uneasy between the way you think, the way you imagine, the way you emote internal processes and reality whenever you feel there's a discrepancy there's a this daylight between reality and what's going on inside your mind, trust reality. Your mind should be subordinate to input which is objective or input from reality.
Whenever reality contradicts your mind, whenever reality conflicts with your mind, whenever reality undermines challenges even sabotages your mind, you should opt for reality.
Remember, reality is always a composite, always an agglomeration of positive and negative.
If you are getting information from the outside, which is wholly negative, completely negative, it's not real. It's a fantasy. If you're getting information from the outside that is completely positive, it's not real. It's a rose-tinted glass fantasy.
Reject information, reject data, reject signals, reject talk, speech acts, reject anything that's coming from the outside and anything that's coming from the inside, which is wholly negative or wholly positive.
What's left is reality.
And then if what's left conflicts or contradicts or undermines or challenges, any element of your mind, your mind is wrong. Because reality is always right.
Sticking to reality, being grounded in the presence, filtering out information that is fantastic. These are the building blocks of mental health.
So the three functions are a vigilant observer, a shielding sensor, and a reality sentinel.
Let me summarize everything for you.
It's the nine principle path, the three body principles, attention, regulation, protection.
The three mind principles, authenticity, positivity and mindfulness, and the three systemic functions, vigilant observer, shielding sensor and reality sentinel.
Good luck. I hope someone takes this video and converts it into a course or a book or something with much more elaborate manner.
Take care.