Hey guys, welcome back thanks for joining me for another video if you are new to my channel, my name is Stephanie
I am a life and relationship coach if you are a subscriber, welcome back. Thank you
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This video is long overdue
and I'm hoping I'm hoping and praying that I can relay this information in very
normal terms because when we start reading about
Post-traumatic stress disorder borderline personality disorder when we start getting into like psychology stuff
Sometimes it can be a little overwhelming and we don't really understand the information. So my thing is I've always tried to
Be relatable and make sure that this information kind of makes sense because I know when I was going through all of my journey
basically
and I was learning about all of these things as I would read things or articles or watch videos or listen to
Podcasts it would it would just be too much
I just want to like the layman's terms right for everything for me to kind of like understand things
So here's hoping I can deliver today. Um
post-traumatic stress disorder after
narcissistic abuse
Something that I really want to go over because a lot of people experience it
Mostly everyone who is in a long-term relationship with someone who's narcissistic is going to experience it
Some of this stuff is going to be black and white
This just is in terms of psychology and some of it is going to be my own opinions
Coming from my own experiences
so I
look at post-traumatic stress as
and I'm sure if we've all heard of that term before we think of someone who has been at war and
Has been in very extreme
Situations, you know where they're you know fighting for their life or just very dangerous dangerous situations where their life was at
risk, and it caused
themselves to almost be paranoid then coming back to reality and maybe struggling with their day-to-day lives because
They're going through post-traumatic stress, right? They're going through living through something
That was very traumatic and now not in that traumatic environment
But still experiencing symptoms of being in that traumatic environment
So typically what we do think of post-traumatic stress, we of course think of someone who has been through traumatic event
911 definitely a traumatic event and since we are approaching that anniversary
It can trigger up a lot of you know
Post-traumatic stress and it can trigger a lot of things within ourselves. A lot of people were scared of flying after that event
So it wasn't even that they experienced the event themselves. They weren't in the towers, but
Watching the news over and over again you and because most people have a lot of empathy
We we felt what it could have been like to be in those shoes
And so maybe some people became nervous and anxious when they began flying
maybe we began to look at certain types of people as a threat to ourselves because
We we see this traumatic event and we want to link things. So let's get into this in terms of narcissistic abuse
So one of the symptoms that I really hear often when I'm dealing with clients who are either coming out of this
relationship one that was maybe emotionally abusive or a
Narcissistically abusive relationship is the intrusive thoughts the reliving the experience. So this is what we're having flashbacks
This is when we're going back and remembering that argument that we had with that person
This is when we begin having nightmares where this person is just or maybe not nightmares
But maybe this person is constantly in our dreams so all of those things
The reliving of experiences is a symptom of post-traumatic stress. The next thing is
Avoiding. So this is where if it was a specific event
like for example 9/11 where people are
Avoiding flying or getting on planes or we got robbed at this corner in the city
And now we want to avoid that where we were in a terrible relationship and we are linking pain
To being in a relationship because that was what happened in my past
and so we're going to avoid getting into relationships again and we're gonna stay single for
Maybe the rest of our lives our extended period of time
It's where we want to avoid putting ourselves in possibly the same shoes that we were when we experienced the pain that we experienced
so this is where if you are, perhaps a veteran and
You hear a loud bang, right?
Maybe that might startle you because maybe you were in a situation at war
Where a bomb went off or a gun was fired or something like that and you were scared for your life
so those are all signs of
emotional numbness right where we start to almost want to
Be jumpy and jittery in certain environments or we just want to avoid them altogether. The other thing is we're
Because we're reliving these experiences because we're still living in that space. We have trouble sleeping. We have trouble concentrating
We have we have trouble just really enjoying normal activities of life because that event is constantly in our minds
It's something that we're talking about. All the time is something that we're reliving all the time
And it's just it's taking over our day-to-day life where it almost becomes an obsessive thought or an obsessive way of living where we're paranoid
Constantly, we could be paranoid that we might run into our ex. That's something that definitely is a thing
we might get very
jittery and
Uncomfortable when we know that we could possibly see them or that we are going to see them and we get very anxious and nervous
at the thought of having to talk to this person again or interact with them in any way or
Go to court and have to get divorced and have to go toe-to-toe with this person
We tend to get a little I don't want to say skittish but you know
We're not as confident in ourselves because we know we're about to go toe-to-toe with the lion
so all of those types of things are definitely signs of fear and post-traumatic stress of
Something that you had gone through with this person that still lives inside of you
It's basically a wound that needs to be tended to that. You're not tending to and it's manifesting in all of these different ways
So under these three categories
Where we're talking about almost like emotional numbness where we become jittery
we can't concentrate we can't sleep where we
Want to avoid places where we've become anxious at the thought of running into someone reliving, you know
Past experiences and things over and over again. Those are like the three main categories and underneath those categories
You can have different symptoms within each one
So for example, a lot of people will blame themselves
So they kinda are almost picking up the disease that that narcissist has left on them all of that
Damage to that person's self is still in that person. They haven't healed from it
they're gonna make excuses for the behavior of the other person or
They're gonna blame themselves. Like I said, so a lot of that is not
Recognizing. I don't want to say who is that fault?
Because I don't want to look at it that way but it's someone that hasn't been able to take a step back and still
emotionally detach from
The damage that that person has done
It's it's someone who hasn't worked on themselves enough to start to regain their sense of self again
So a lot of people that come out of narcissistically abusive relationships going to therapy. They hire a life coach
they have to get back to
not who they were but a healthier version of who they were so
we can list all day long all of the different symptoms of post-traumatic stress and when you are in a narcissistically abusive relationship
but what I really want to
Help you to do is to heal that part of yourself as you are experiencing these symptoms
so one of the biggest things is
Getting anxious and nervous at the thought of possibly running into this person
I hear that's so so often from clients
Another one is constantly reliving those experiences reliving that relationship over and over again
What went wrong trying to figure out this person asking yourself questions that you're never gonna have an answer to?
Blaming yourself for possibly what may have went wrong in the relationship
And it's fine to own certain parts of yourself and say look this was a part of myself during that relationship
That wasn't healthy and I wish I could have done this better
Right, but when we know better we do better and we don't blame ourselves that we did something wrong
necessarily, but that were human and that
to me
It's almost that manipulation that the narcissist had over you to make you feel
As if you are the problem and that they weren't the problem
It had nothing to do with them and always have to do with you and you didn't do this right and you didn't say this
Right you were now young or you weren't the perfect person or whatever it is
Whatever garbage that they fed you from time to time that made you devalue yourself so bad where you became so low
Possibly before you got discarded or possibly be before you got some kind of you know
knowing inside of yourself or strength inside of yourself too and that show, you know, one of the biggest things is
Understanding where post-traumatic stress kind of lives and how it works. And I think that this is absolutely huge
Understanding the aspects of your brain and where events are stored I think is is interesting
but again
It doesn't really like
help you in terms of healing but I want you to understand this so you really get how this works and why um,
The post-traumatic stress kind of lives inside of you
So when an event happens to you?
It gets stored in a part of your brain called the amygdala now when something traumatic
Happens to you and it gets stored in that part of your brain that part of your brain then communicate with your adrenal glands
so it sends a message down to your adrenal glands that are on top of your kidneys and it says danger danger danger and that's
Why we experience things like anxiety so anxiety and I saw this from the very beginning
Anxiety is just your body's way of telling you something is wrong
It's telling you that you're in danger now is the danger real or is the danger something that you're making up in your head?
So it's believing that anxiety is your body's way of reacting right on
To something that you're thinking
Now what you're thinking you get to choose whether or not this is real whether or not this is not real whether this is something
I really need to be scared of right now in this moment or whether this is just a
Worry or stress or a fear that I'm having?
About the future or about the past and I'm fixated on it right now that it's causing my body to give off a reaction
Which is anxiety, which is a panic attack
Which is sweaty palms which is all of these things now the thoughts that you're thinking the obsessive thoughts that you're thinking
throughout the day if you're not mindful of it it will cause you to have
The subconscious kind of wound where you begin dreaming about this person all the time
So I always say if you're dreaming about someone like an axe that you know
You might have a little wound with or someone that maybe hurt you or something and you keep having these dreams about this person
That's because there's something inside of you that you're not tending to a thought that you've been thinking perhaps it's on
Obsessive thought perhaps it's what did I do wrong?
Why did this person love me?
Like all of those kind of thoughts that you're not tending to
Consciously throughout the day and it's manifesting and it's coming into your dreams
So our dreams hold our worries our fears everything and they manifest
So if it's something that you're really really stressed about and it's something that you're thinking about over and over again
Then and maybe even perhaps blaming yourself for all the reasons why you're never gonna find new one again
And this person was right and all the damage that they put on you if you're not aware of
The abuse that that person was giving you and you internalize it then you're going to become obsessive
So when those glands get that message of Danger Danger Danger
They're going to set off adrenaline and that's going to trigger your fight-or-flight response
And that's where the anxiety comes into play
so that fight-or-flight is in your limbic system and
Then your limbic system controls your nervous system and wallah communicates with your nervous system
And that's why you react with anxiety or sweaty palms or nervousness or anything like that
So it's so important the thoughts that we think now, why do we have these symptoms?
After being in this relationship, the reason why we have these symptoms the obsessive thoughts the nightmares the anxiety
But possibly seeing this person like all of these different things that we experience
The biggest one also is not wanting to get into relationships, you know linking
relationships to danger and
When that happens, that's because we have gone through something traumatic and we have to be aware of that
So knowing, okay, what are my symptoms of post-traumatic stress that I tend to have over and over again for me?
It was obsessive thinking it was trying to figure out this person
I was asking all these questions that I was never gonna get answers to
A lot of it also has to do with you were the target of abuse you were put in situation's or you were in situations
Where you were damaged?
Emotionally you didn't know any of this stuff. You didn't know what emotional abuse was
You probably didn't know what narcissistic abuse was you lived in fear, you lived in codependency you lived in such lack that
You allowed this person to control over you in some way shape or form and that's just the reality
Doesn't mean that we blame ourselves. It doesn't mean that we're so upset that this happened
It means that this relationship was a learning opportunity that you had or have to learn about
post-traumatic stress abuse what a healthy relationship should look like when I am dating and my codependent and my needy am I
Projecting what I want this person to be and they're not capable of being that person
So learning about self development and relationships and all these things is so important
So when you are experiencing any of these symptoms
I always say welcome pain if you can welcome your pain and your
uncomfortable thoughts for some reason we've just been programmed to want to suppress everything that we're thinking but if you welcome it and say
Okay, I'm having obsessive thoughts about my ex right now. Why am I doing this? And you start asking yourself the question so you can
parent yourself
So you can't coach yourself so you can get to what really is the underlining issue here of this symptom that I'm having, okay
I'm having this symptom because of something that I went through I get that but how do I begin healing?
That part of myself and that's what I teach at my practice every single day is learning how to have that
Healthy dialogue with yourself and I don't mean just positive self-talk
Anyone can have positive self-talk everyone can suppress you know?
What it is that they're really feeling what they're really thinking
But being able to be your own
Therapist be your own life coach be your own support system and have healthy inner
Dialogue with yourself in order for you to work through the things that really scare you and make you nervous
That is mental health that is being
Emotionally healthy and mentally healthy and that's what we were supposed to learn growing up
But unfortunately, even our parents probably still don't know how to do this
So, I hope that this has helped you understand a little bit about post-traumatic stress
I know I didn't go into like all of the symptoms and everything like that
But you can google that list yourself and definitely get that information
I'm more so wanted to give you the tips and tools that you can do on a day to day basis to be
Mindful as to when this symptom comes and how to handle it within yourself
So if you do have any questions or if you interested in private coaching
I always link that information down below and if you would like to follow me on social media
I will link that down below as well
And I will see you in my next video