How to Heal After Narcissistic Abuse
Recovering from narcissistic abuse from a partner or parent can feel overwhelming, but healing is absolutely possible.
At its core, recovery means slowly reconnecting with your sense of self, rebuilding trust in your own emotions, and learning how to establish boundaries that honor your needs. Even if you were conditioned into a role that left you feeling small, ashamed, or hyper-attuned to others, you can heal. With the right support, you can release the weight of old patterns, reprocess painful memories, and learn to feel safe in your own body again.
What Are the Effects of Narcissistic Abuse?
Many survivors of narcissistic abuse carry wounds that aren’t immediately visible. You may find yourself navigating patterns that once helped you survive but now hold you back. Common experiences include:
A constant fear of making mistakes
Difficulty trusting your emotions or perceptions
Prioritizing others’ needs above your own
Feeling responsible for others’ reactions
Struggling to set or maintain boundaries
These patterns are not character flaws—they are deeply learned responses to a relationship where your emotional reality was minimized or dismissed.
How Trauma Gets Stored in the Body
Narcissistic abuse affects more than your thoughts. It can shape your nervous system, leaving you in a state of vigilance, tension, or emotional shutdown. Somatic symptoms may include:
Muscle tightness or chronic tension
Numbness, heaviness, or disconnection from your body
Difficulty resting or fully relaxing
Freezing or shutting down when confronted
Understanding how the body holds these traumatic experiences is a key part of healing.
Therapeutic Approaches for Narcissistic Abuse
Healing from narcissistic abuse often requires a therapeutic approach that addresses both the emotional and physical imprint of trauma. That’s why EMDR and somatic therapy are often integrated together as each supports different parts of you, but they work best when combined.
Using EMDR therapy, you can safely reprocess memories that still carry emotional weight. This helps your brain release old survival patterns and reduces the intensity of experiences that once felt overwhelming. At the same time, somatic techniques help you tune into your body, notice where tension or bracing lives, and gently restore a sense of safety to your nervous system.
Together, these approaches allow you to:
Reduce the emotional charge of painful memories
Break free from automatic trauma responses
Strengthen new, supportive beliefs about yourself
Reconnect with your body’s signals and needs
Build internal cues of safety and grounding
This combined approach supports healing from the inside out, helping both your mind and body move toward balance.
Reclaiming Your Sense of Self
As you heal, you begin reclaiming parts of yourself that were minimized or silenced. You learn what safety feels like. You discover how to listen to your own inner cues and honor your limits without guilt. You practice boundaries not as acts of conflict, but as acts of self-respect.
You Don’t Have to Heal Alone
I provide compassion, knowledge, and unconditional acceptance of who you are and where you are in your journey. You do not have to walk this path alone. Together, we can work in the present to create a future rooted in clarity, confidence, and emotional freedom.
