14 Weird Stress Symptoms Of Narcissistic Abuse Survivors

Stress is silent. It doesn’t let you know when it’s coming, you only know it’s there when you feel like you’re losing control of yourself.

And you’ll always get events or times in life where stress can spike, but with narcissists, that stress is constant.

Stress doesn’t always look like shouting or feeling angry, it can project through many forms.

I want to talk about those today in the hope you might notice that your stress symptoms are more common and consistent than you thought they might be.

Here are 14 of them.

#1 Constant apologies

What do we tend to do when we are stressed? We apologise. We think an apology will turn down the dial of stress and create a more harmonious atmosphere.

We assume saying sorry means the end of whatever conflict or drama is occurring, and victims take that to a whole other level.

Their apology is a surrender to who is right or wrong, and digs deep into, “I’ll take one for them team if it means we get to live peacefully.”

It’s a response to stress that doesn’t really resolve what’s going on, it just puts a lid on what has been wrong in order to bring back much-needed balance.

#2 Sudden mood swings

One minute you feel okay, the next you feel like you’re losing it.

Why?

Because all it takes is one little thing to shift your focus or perspective, and you go right back to feeling stressed again.

It’s no joke, nor is it a picnic. These mood swings remind you of what life was like with your narcissistic abuser, which in itself is a huge trigger for anybody trying to heal and move on with their life.

#3  Brain fog

When gaslighting has been a main bone of contention in your life for a long time, it’s understandable that brain fog will leave you feeling confused, forgetful, and slightly under par.

You want to be able to be sharp as a tack, but instead, you feel shrouded by a fog so dense that it leaves you uncertain.

This is no coincidence at all, it’s just a sheer stress response. You aren’t sure what to think or how to act, and so it’s easier to let it all fog up and be left.

#4 Hair loss/thinning

Your body knows when you are under a high level of stress, and it will react in all manner of ways.

Hair loss or thinning is proven to be a response to stress that you’ve had to handle in your life, and can also coincide with chronic fatigue.

Essentially, your body has shut down. It’s running on the essentials alone, and your hair isn’t one of them.

#5 Sensitivity to either light or noise

Too much of anything is enough to set off those stress responders, and it’s no surprise to guess that this comes from narcissists who create a lot of chaos.

When all you want is peace, you will never get it in their company. You became sensitive to more and more, and eventually that will include light and noise.

#6 Memory issues

You cannot remember what is right and wrong, and even if you think you do, you will probably talk yourself out of that truth because that’s what you’ve been used to doing or hearing from the narcissist.

The brain also tries to shut out trauma, only remembering the way your body and mind reacted rather than the trauma itself, and so memories of certain events can become cloudy and unresolved.

#7 Feeling drained after anything sociable

You put all your energy into whatever you need to do, so that when it comes to being able to breathe and relax, you actually feel more drained than anything.

It shouldn’t be that way, though. Being drained is like you’re running on empty and you have no way of coming back from it.

Being sociable normally means you have to paint on some kind of smile and pretend everything is okay, and if you’re a narcissistic abuse survivor, you will know how incredibly difficult that is to do when you aren’t okay underneath.

#8 Feeling detached or even numb

Stress can build so much that ultimately you just wind up feeling so detached from reality that it leaves you feeling numb.

You want to even just feel enraged by it all, but your stressors have shut down and left you in this black hole of nothing.

This is a stress response; that choice you have to shut down the next thing the narcissist is yelling at you for and just using the numbness as a way to cope.

#9 Sudden bursts of crying

YOu don’t know where it comes from, all you know is that crying releases so much pain and anger you have got built up inside you.

This dysregulation can come from being mad to cry, even when you’re trying your best to be happy in a situation that is less than ideal.

Abusers have a toxic way of making their victims feel like shit even as they’re having a great day.

That unpredictability leads to equal levels of uncertainty long after you’ve separated.

#10 Weight fluctuation

Cortisol levels will hit you like a ton of bricks when you are under a lot of stress, and it’s that hormone that will grab hold of your weight and refuse to let it go.

That coupled with the fact that you may well experience emotional eating, where food feels like the only thing you enjoy and can trust to make you feel better, it’s no wonder your weight may bob up and down.

#11 Dizziness

Dizziness can come from several factors, including not knowing which way to turn, feeling inner chaos, or just the fatigue of life getting to you.

You think about your past and it’s enough to send you into a flummux, and now you are more susceptible to the dizziness of your triggers and trauma.

#12 Restlessness

When you spend a lot of time around a narcissist, you will sadly realize that a great deal of it involves pacing around.

That’s because you had no idea what was going to come net, what mood they were in, and what the outcome would be.

That restlessness is due to the fact that your body doesn’t know when it’s safe to just breathe and let your muscles just melt away into your bed or the couch.

You feel like you’ve got to be on guard for something, and that is all down to stress.

#13 Living in a constant state of hypervigilance

What was that noise? Who is knocking at the door? Why is my phone ringing at this hour?

Hypervigilance is no joke, and of course, it all stems from having to predict the narcissist’s moods every single day you were together.

Coming from that to being alone, this stress response won’t just disappear.

It can stay with a person for a long time, and it feels weird to be so tense when you are simply sitting down watching TV in the evening.

There’s nothing wrong with you, it’s what the narcissist did to you in order for them to have that control over you.