“why can’t I just move on?” How many times do you ask this question after you’ve left the narcissist? Did you realize that narcissistic abuse and PTSD go hand in hand. When we leave the narcissist the memories and nightmares stay with us.
Narcissistic abuse and PTSD go hand in hand. The manipulation and devaluation suffered by narcissistic abuse can lead to PTSD. Waking up with nightmares, a sudden flash of a memory in the middle of the day becomes common.
When you survive narcissistic abuse you have changes that occur in your brain with symptoms that need healing. Learning the symptoms and the tools to heal them will speed up your healing journey by leaps and bounds.
What Is PTSD and How Does It Relate to Narcissistic Abuse?
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD is the way the body responds causing and responding to a trauma, nightmares, flashbacks, panic attacks.
CPTSD is Compounded PTSD, where it may not be a single major traumatic event or experience but a pattern of small traumas that make a large trauma
Abuse does not always have to be physical. A narcissist feels they are smart enough not to get caught for abuse because they don’t leave bruises in some cases.
The emotional, mental, financial, and verbal abuse can cause a mental trauma resulting in PTSD or CPTSD. This is a long term effect of their phycological abuse.
Common PTSD symptoms seen in survivors of narcissistic abuse:
- Hypervigilance – After leaving the narcissistic abuse you feel a heightened sense of awareness, from walking on eggshells the entire relationship, you honestly can’t let your guard down even if you try.
- Flashbacks – You will have flashbacks of times in the narcissistic abuse that pop up in your mind seemingly out of nowhere. Journal it, and let your feelings process, for some reason this memory is stuck, process it, and try to keep it away.
- Emotional numbness – After the narcissistic abuse your emotions are exhausted. There will be times you think damn I should be happy or sad and you feel nothing. I recently started taking 48 hours for emotions to process, I might be numb now, but give me a minute.
- Difficulty trusting – You survived narcissistic abuse, you are not going to be trusting right away, if you are learning more about narcissism, you will see a narc in anyone. Take time for this one you need to heal to trust yourself, and you can’t trust others until then.
- Insomnia – I always keep a good book next to my bed and a notebook with a pen. Insomnia can be helped with setting routines or medical help, but it takes time to get through and the exhaustion makes dealing with things even harder.
Nightmares are different, you can not control them. I have them regularly of my ex coming and taking my truck, the last thing I have. I wake up crying and shaking at least once a week, but I remind myself it’s a dream and try to get some more rest.
PTSD and CPTSD do not have to come from one event, they can be 1000 small jabs that cause emotional and mental damage. The symptoms can be controlled and will stop but it does take time and you need to be patient with yourself. You are not broken, just shorted out in your nervous system by a narc.
How Narcissistic Abuse Rewires the Brain
1. The Role of Chronic Emotional Trauma
Your nervous system survived narcissistic abuse and PTSD is the part that you heal from the manipulation and gaslighting that damaged your nervous system. All the feelings of walking on eggshells do not just leave you when you leave the narc.
So no you are not a dope feen but if you have left narcissistic abuse and PTSD has kicked in, you are detoxing from cortisol and adrenaline. Your body was used to these hormones surging with the constant ups and downs emotionally, now it’s having withdrawal.
Cortisol is the stress hormone – Adrenaline is the rush hormone. Add these two together and this is what you’ve had surging through you and now it’s stopped. Your body is confused but will recover better than it ever was before.
2. Key Brain Regions Affected
When your amygdala is overactive constantly in narcissistic abuse and PTSD starts setting in, the amygdala just stays in the overactive status, causing us as victims to be always anxious and not able to find emotional stability or regularity.
With all that is going on your hippocampus struggles with memory encoding and emotional regulation because the amygdala can’t provide a clear emotion, so how can the hippocampus say yes this is a happy memory, or no this is a sad one, they all go by default into the fear folder.
Now with narcissistic abuse and PTSD keeping you constantly fearful, all memories are being remembered that way and now your prefrontal cortex has to make a decision on what feeling they should have and make decisions at the same time and trust those decisions.
3. Trauma Bonding and Learned Helplessness
When you are on the constant yo-yo of idealization and devaluation the brain begins to anticipate rapid shifts, so when it sounds like something is even about to go wrong, you automatically jump into your panic/protection mode, and nothing may actually be wrong.
Unfortunately, the aftermath of narcissistic abuse and PTSD symptoms mimic patterns of addiction. We’ve been so programmed physically and emotionally to this being the norm, we actually crave chaos because it feels normal, like an addict craves their choice addiction to feel their fix.
Signs You May Be Experiencing PTSD From Narcissistic Abuse
You feel on edge around others, even in safe situations –This is normal your body and emotions are programmed to respond this way, It will dissipate over time, but be patient with yourself and use your soothing techniques to ease in.
You obsess over the abuser’s words or behaviors – during our abuse we were trained that our narcissist was the ultimate authority and all knowing. You can’t expect this to just leave your mind. It would be like forgetting the alphabet, only this one you can forget it just takes time.
You doubt your memory or perceptions – The narcissist has manipulated so many aspects of your life while they were in it. Things are not going to make complete sense, and you will think they were right and you are wrong. Trust yourself, you are not manipulating the truth, they are.
You isolate due to shame or mistrust – The person you thought you could trust with anything and everything has manipulated and hurt you. Again it takes time and you will trust again, but you will always be guarded, and that’s kind of good to keep you from chasing another narcissist.
You freeze under conflict or confrontation – You are still learning how to have a normal non manipulated confrontation or conflict. With a narc you were always looking for manipulation so when you argue with the next person, this is again a trained behavior that will dissipate.
Quick tip: If you feel like you’re still fighting battles that ended months or even years ago, you may be experiencing trauma responses and may want to discuss further with a therapist for deeper guidance”
The Overlap Between CPTSD and Narcissistic Abuse
Compound PTSD (CPTSD) is when you have 1000 tiny cuts that still make the same size injury as a one-time noticeable stab. You were receiving 1,000’s of tiny cuts behind closed doors to your mental and emotional well being, it still does the same damage as a 1 time event.
Additional symptoms:
- Emotional flashbacks – sometimes you will just get a twinge of fear, like the narc is watching you again, this is a flashback that you need to take a minute and think about why that happened, see if something triggers your memory of them.
- Difficulty maintaining relationships – Every relationship you enter into when you first escape, you expect to be like the narcissist one. As you heal and meet new people you will start to see not everyone is a narc, and you can build something real.
- Loss of self-identity – You were brainwashed into thinking you liked and disliked everything the narc did, because that was part of the control, it’s now time for you to find YOU!, what do you like, what do you hate, it’s ok to have an opinion.
When you endure long term narcissist abuse and PTSD/CPTSD follows it is actually common, using the 1000 cuts theory, now imagine that this number is one estimate, we may have been through a billion cuts to our mental and emotional spaces.
How to Begin Healing and Rewire Your Brain
1. Professional Support
Finding trauma-informed therapy like EMDR, CBT or somatic therapy. This isn’t a normal family councilor case, some do have knowledge on narcissistic abuse and PTSD, but it is a specialized field that is still expanding. These therapies do help in healing.
The therapist you choose should also specialize in narcissistic abuse and PTSD, not just PTSD. PTSD can come from multiple sources and each source has a different root cause. You want someone who is going to get to the root of your problem, not just clean the surface.
2. Nervous System Regulation
Your nervous system has been tied in knots and untied that it is not going to just return to normal when you walk away, look to mediation, gratitude, affirmations, breathwork, yoga, and grounding exercises. Try everything and use what works for you.
Whether you want to write it or say it. Remind yourself that you are ok, you are not in the same space, and give yourself time to heal, but use the tools in the moment, use the reflection as a way to analyze and reprogram what isn’t working for you.
3. Rebuilding Self-Worth and Identity
This is the new you after you heal from narcissistic abuse and PTSD, it helps to have routines, and establishing new routines is a way of separating yourself from what you went through, I used to have coffee every morning, now I have an energy drink.
I know it sounds small, but small changes are a starting point. You don’t have to make big changes, even small routine changes can change your mind set and thought processes.
When you are ready and only when you are ready, take time and analyze people from your past and their behavior, reconnecting with safe people is healthy, but watch out for the flying monkeys. If it feels funky, it probably is funky. Better safe than sorry. Cut and run when needed.
You are all you got and all you need. Practice self-compassion. You handled the abuse alone and can handle the healing alone, yes, it is nice to have other people’s compassion, but some nights it’s not available. So love yourself and take care of yourself.
4. Go No Contact or Low Contact
Limiting and/or ending contact with a narc is crucial to heal from narcissistic abuse and PTSD. Remember the 1000 cut theory, if you heal the cuts why do you want to get cut again if you can avoid it. Your neurological and emotional space need to heal from the cuts.
Helpful Box: “Healing doesn’t mean you forget your past, it just means your past no longer controls your present.”
How Long Does It Take to Heal?
Healing from narcissistic abuse and PTSD takes time, and not one of us will heal at the same pace, because not one of us shares the exact same story. We do have similarities though that we can use to help each other through the healing process.
I would love to tell everyone that on day 387 in your healing journey you will wake up healed. There is no timeline in healing from narcissist abuse and PTSD, with CPTSD you timeline may be completely different as well.
Just because you are not healed fully on day 387 keep working on yourself and show yourself patience. This is an entirely new thing that we have never done before. We will make mistakes and it will take time to heal and we don’t know how long until it happens.
You’re not “crazy” your brain is responding to trauma and when you are healing from narcissistic abuse and PTSD, the narcissist has already programmed you to jump to the crazy card, but you’re not, you are healing from abuse.
Recovery and a full healing are possible, but it takes time, work and self love. You are rewiring your brain for peace and stability, something you haven’t had in a long time, so this is a whole new skill to learn. Be patient.
If you’re noticing signs of narcissistic abuse or you feel stuck in a narcissistic relationship, you’re not alone — and it’s not your fault. What you’re experiencing is real, and healing is possible.
For more support, visit https://www.themarymcconnell.com for free educational resources, recovery tools, and guidance to help you recognize toxic patterns, rebuild your self-trust, and move forward safely.
If you need immediate help, support is available 24/7: National Domestic Violence Hotline https://www.thehotline.org/ (1-800-799-7233), Crisis Text Line (Text HOME to 741741), and 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline).
Have you dealt with a narcissist or recovered from narcissistic abuse? If you feel safe, share your experience in the comments — your story might be the moment someone else realizes they’re not “crazy,” they’re being harmed.
Looking for more guidance on narcissism and recovery? Explore the related articles below on boundaries, gaslighting, love bombing, and healing after narcissistic abuse to keep building your path to emotional freedom.
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