We do not begin by trying to diagnose someone who is not in the room.
We begin with you.
What happened?
What did the relationship feel like from the inside?
What patterns repeated?
Where did you stop trusting yourself?
What became difficult to say?
What did you learn to tolerate?
What did you give up?
What still pulls you back?
What do you miss?
What are you angry about?
What are you grieving?
What belongs to you?
What never did?
And eventually:
Who are you when your attention is no longer organized around them?
That may be the deepest work of narcissistic abuse recovery.
Not defeating the narcissist.
Not finally making someone understand.
Not proving the relationship to everyone else.
Not becoming impossible to hurt.
But slowly relocating yourself back inside your own life.
Your perceptions.
Your body.
Your boundaries.
Your anger.
Your tenderness.
Your sexuality.
Your friendships.
Your judgment.
Your desires.
Your future.
Your ability to trust.
Your ability to love.
The goal is not to become less openhearted.
It is to become openhearted without abandoning yourself.
Perhaps one day you notice that the questions have changed.
You are thinking less about:
What do they think?
What did they mean?
Will they ever understand?
Do they miss me?
Will they change?
And more about:
What do I want?
What feels peaceful?
Who do I want around me?
What kind of love feels good to receive?
What do I want to build now?
Your attention has begun to come home.
That is recovery.
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