When a narcissist mistreats you, it can play havoc with your mind.
Am I imagining this? Did I do something wrong? Am I to blame? Why am I so unlovable?
Over time, those thoughts cling to the body in the most unhealthy ways.
Your body becomes this stress map that you can’t even find your way home in, but this entire rewiring becomes your struggle to survive.
THIS is what narcissistic abuse does to your body.
#1 What you didn’t initially see
Don’t punish yourself for not knowing you were getting involved with and falling for a narcissist.
If you don’t know how to spot the signs, they can easily be missed. Sometimes even people who claim to be experts will still miss the signs.
What you didn’t initially see are all the little signs that point to a toxic person taking an interest in you.
You just knew that being around them made you feel good, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.
You clung to the positive. You melted into their smile. You believed everything they told you.
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They gave you no reason not to.
#2 How the narcissist hooked you in
Love-bombing can be seen as overwhelming authentic love and affection. If you have lacked that in your life, it will feel like you’ve won the lottery.
You are taken out, treated like royalty, paid a lot of attention. You’re complimented, listened to, and agreed with.
You feel as though you’ve found The One.
A narcissist will hook you in without you even realizing you’re their catch of the day. The last thing on your mind will be, “When will the abuse start, and how will it affect me?”
Soon enough, everything changes, and one day you realize that you feel and look different.
#3 When hypervigilance is normalized
You may not realize it, but your hypervigilance comes from the fact that you have suffered narcissistic abuse.
You don’t listen out for the key in the lock, feeling your heart racing as the door opens because you’re happy for them to be home.
You listen because you want to prepare for the mood that accompanies the narcissist.
You learn to predict by being constantly on edge for every sound, tone and shift in the air.
When that becomes normal, you know your body is stuck in fight-or-flight mode.
#4 The hormones: let’s get serious
Cortisol and adrenaline are killers for all the good hormones that you should be feeling in your body.
From serotonin to endorphins, expect much less of the positive, and much more of the hormones that react to stressful situations or danger.
The problem is, if you are registering your partner’s silent treatment as a form of danger or stress, then something isn’t right.
That can have long-term implications for your body, which is fighting hard to maintain a level of balance inside of it.
Your body will recognize narcissistic abuse, and it will not like it. Yet you’d be surprised how normal that becomes on a day to day basis. Stress suddenly seems like something you manage, rather than question.
And sometimes, you don’t even manage it. It can overwhelm and swamp you, and that’s the danger of living with a toxic person. They won’t care that they’re causing all this turmoil.
As far as they’re concerned, it’s business as usual.
#5 Physical reactions
From palpitations to the tension you carry in your shoulders, narcissist abuse will leave you feeling frozen, meaning your body gets stuck in the cycle and patterns of toxicity that exhaust it.
When I speak to people about how narcissistic abuse affected them, they always tell me about how their body just tensed up the moment they heard that key in the lock.
The heart started to race, they felt that knot in their stomach, and they knew they were in for more drama the moment the narcissist walked through the door.
Reacting to the narcissist merely being in the same house as you means something is definitely not right.
It’s impossible to react to nothing, and the body never forgets. Keeping score like that will tell you that abuse is a pattern you get used to over time, which leads to…
#6 Your body learning patterns
The body will know how to cope with certain things if you go through it enough. Even if the way it responds is unhealthy or sends your nervous system in overdrive.
If you see the narcissist in a mood, you will worry. That way sends messages all over your body.
Prepare to fight.
What are you going to do?
Get ready for battle!
The time has come!
Only, you’re not in a war. You’re not fighting for your life. The narcissist has entered the room you’re in, and they aren’t in a good mood.
Only, your body doesn’t know the difference between those things, it just reacts how you’ve taught it to react to danger in general.
These patterns over a timeframe will show you that you are not in a safe place.
#7 Reaching for the food
We don’t talk about it enough, but the general running down of a person, the way they’re abused and left isolated, the lowering of their self-worth and self-esteem; it has to lead somewhere.
Unfortunately, for victims, commonly that’s seen as emotional eating.
When you’re craving the highs that don’t come via the person you’re hoping they will come from, it’s possible that reaching for certain foods with a quick sugar high will offer that same dopamine hit.
And that’s exactly what happens.
The body changes to that over time if a person isn’t more mindful, and weight gain can occur.
More importantly though, it’s what those crashes and hits do to your body, your insulin resistance, even down to headaches or cravings.
Food is not a replacement for love or loneliness.
#8 When you make the mistake of assuming this ‘is just your life’
When you think, “This is just how much life is,” you‘re mistaking what is, for what could be.
You’re teaching your body that everything you’re putting it through is permanent.
You’re saying, “It doesn’t matter how bad things get, this is simply how my life is and my body should adjust to that.”
It’s a huge error to make, and one that will cost you health you’ll never see again unless you cut ties and leave.
Easy for me to say when you are in the midst of this life-altering hot and cold display of what you think is love, but in actual fact, it isn’t love.
Abuse is not love.
I cannot say that enough.
#9 Healing: when the answer isn’t easy
There’s nothing easy about healing, and there’s nothing easy about staying, either.
The difference is, at least if you are healing, you’re moving on.
Complicated as it might be, you’re making the right move in what’s best for your body in the long term, and it will thank you for it.
Stating only heightens all the problems your body will face if you remain in an abusive dynamic.
The choice is yours, but make sure you make the right one.
