Reprogramming Yourself After Narcissist Abuse: Narcissist abuse is deep seated and ends up infiltrating every aspect of your mind and emotions. The toxicity gets into areas of our being that we don't have access to and that we aren't even totally aware of, our subconscious mind and the emotions and thoughts that exist there. That toxicity can be likened to a flood where nearly raw sewage stays in a house for weeks and then when the flood waters recede there is damage that goes far beyond what is visible and some of that damage may take months and years to fully become evident. So the homeowner is left with two decisions: 1 try to rebuild the house that we have an emotional attachment to, tearfully discarding all of our precious memories such as family photos and keepsakes that we have cherished over the years and that are no longer salvageable or, 2 making the very difficult decision that NOTHING is salvageable and literally starting from scratch. Yes that home that you lived in for years, maybe decades, possibly most of your life, seemed very comfortable and it contains many fond memories, but the unfortunate reality is that that home is no longer inhabitable, it is filled with toxicity, mold that if inhaled for long enough will result in your death. So you are now forced to walk away, renew, rebuild. That is the dilemma the narcissist abuse victim has, the difficult decision of either rebuilding or walking away and that decision is different for every individual since the reality is that no two individuals and no two combinations of individuals are ever the same. It isn't always a clear cut decision, but for most of us that have gazed into the abyss of evil that is at the core of a pathological narcissist, the decision is sharply defined and obvious, but we still hesitate debating the pros and cons of rebuilding. Yes, an outsider sees the obvious, that sewer washed home with rotting beams and a destroyed foundation gutted of its moldy drywall is never going to be inhabitable again and yet we victims can't and won't see the obvious. Why? Well it goes back to our subconscious thoughts and emotions. That fantasy world the narc created, the one you lived in for so long is still very much alive in the areas of your heart and mind, emotions and thoughts that aren't consciously accessible and you simply aren't aware of that fact. So the victim can't make a clear decision at all because that inner being of theirs' that they aren't aware of is clouding their judgment. Add to all of that the incredible resentment that some victims have to deal with due to incredible physical and mental cruelty and it becomes clear why some people can take years and decades making very little progress. Yes, getting rid of that resentment and walking away from that beloved house, the mind palace that was either a dilapidated shack or a house of horrors is absolutely essential. Yes walking away is the hardest thing but in a relationship with no bonds of marriage or children we need to face that reality and consider ourselves fortunate. Nothing in that now destroyed dwelling ever had any real value and was never really meant to last. Every one of those cherished mementos in the environment you once considered home and even the home itself was toxic, fake and phony through and through. Do you understand the absurdity of actually debating the pros and cons of rebuilding or walking away? The answer is very obvious. Walk away! So how do we get out of this cycle, this endless cycle of debating whether to jump back into that toxic cesspool or not? We need to consciously take control of our lives and we need to understand that the subconscious part of us, the part that has all of the insight and is far more intelligent than we are consciously, has been corrupted with a virus. Yes, theoretically you could probably change everything about yourself and alter even the core of your being, your belief system, everything that you hold near and dear and totally reprogram yourself, but that is not what the goal is here. We want to retain the core of our being, our beliefs, all that is good about us and makes us who we are and simply eliminate that toxic virus. To do this a second metaphor will be useful, that of a computer effected by a virus. When faced with a virus that has infiltrated our computer unfortunately sometimes the operating system has to be backed up and every file and folder and program that was present before that computer crash occurred has to be carefully preserved, or maybe if you had a backup, restore that computer to an earlier time, a time before the virus, the narcissist, was downloaded. Yes there may have been some corrupted files and viruses before the narcissist and maybe we want to eliminate some of those as well, but we really don't want to over-complicate things. Remember, we are avoiding doing a fresh install of the operating system and wiping everything clean. We want to retain as much of the useful data as is possible. So yes you know the day, date, and hour that you first encountered that virus and that is where the search will begin. Bear in mind we are using two metaphors here. We have already decided that that sewer infested home with all that was in it is not salvageable. We have made a firm commitment to walk away. The computer analogy is simply the process of beginning the rebuilding process of a new dwelling. Back to the computer. It is up to us to build a firm reliable foundation for the rest of our existence, so now is the time to eliminate that virus and not allow it to infect the new or renewed computer. So we carefully transfer every safe file, folder and program, every one of them that was good and solid, verifiably genuine and uncorrupted and transfer them to the new computer. We jettison all of the files that may have contained that virus no matter how useful they were. If we are really in need of that program, such as a video making program, we isolate that program until we are sure it is safe. We carefully rebuild and back up each successful configuration of that computer of ours, gradually getting back all of the functionality previous to the narcissist. Yes, along the way we may decide that some previous programs that we had are best not reloaded onto the new computer, but that is not essential. The important thing is to purge the narcissistic virus once and for all. So what does all of the above mean in the real world, the world of the victim? Well the victim has to isolate all of the toxicity in their life and realize that much of that toxicity exists in the inaccessible portion of their mind. So what is the victim to do? There are numerous ways to reprogram the subconscious, but I will give you the Christian version, those who want to take the secular approach are welcome to do so. Those secular approaches include meditation, subliminal messages, creating metaphors to try and define the situation you are in, music, changing your brain's alpha waves, visualization, repetition, using a peak positive occurrence in your life as an anchor event, etc. I will not be interested in any of these methods, I consider them potentially dangerous and will not recommend them. So let's approach this situation from a Christian perspective and keep things very simple. 1. Learn to pray to God Get on your knees and humble yourself and begin a daily prayer time for yourself. That is the quickest way to start reprogramming your way of thinking by reinforcing the fact that God, not you are in control. James MacDonald of Walk in the Word gave a comprehensive series of sermons on how to pray. We should realize the importance of prayer and using that prayer as a way of understanding God's purpose for our lives not giving God commands. 2. Yes we want to eat right, get adequate sleep, and certainly rekindle our connection to the Creator, Almighty God not just in prayer, but as an integral part of our daily existence. 3. We need to isolate the resentment and need for vengeance and again remember that God will do a much better job of repaying that narcissist than we could ever do. God commands us to stay out of His way, make room for Him so that the narcissist can get the proper reward for their treachery and evil. Make no mistake at all the narcissist will pay for every ounce of what they did to you with one exception, if they give the huge debt they owe to Jesus and He will relieve them of their debt. But that requires the narcissist to genuinely submit to God. The chances of that are slim to none, but again that is not our problem. We just want that narcissist, every last vestige of them out of our lives. When thoughts of vengeance, anger, hostility arise we continually have to affirm to ourselves, “vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord”. Eventually that thinking will override the subconscious need for settling the score or getting even. 4. We have to break that false notion that the narcissist ingrained into us that we had a lifetime partner that would be there for us forever. That person we loved and that we still subconsciously want back in our lives NEVER existed. So every time we have those feelings of nostalgia we need to remember the true nature of narcissism and the reality of what was going on in their minds. Just to cover some of the highlights lets go down a brief list. The narcissist never loved and never cared about you. The person you loved was a false persona, a mask with no substance below the surface. 5. We have to realize that the bright future together that you visualized in your mind and somehow were always frustrated by the narcissist from achieving, was nothing more than future faking. The narc purposely made it seem like that paradise was just over the horizon then surreptitiously threw up roadblocks to achieving that paradise. Yes the narc blamed you for the roadblocks, but let's be clear the narc is without a doubt the one that placed them there. So you need to continually tell yourself that that endorphin producing thought process of being in bliss by thinking of your life with that narcissist is nothing more than crack cocaine. It warps your thinking and is literally a dysfunctional addiction. Keep on telling yourself that you are not dealing with reality when those flights of fancy occur in your mind. 6. We have to analyze our time with the narcissist and reinterpret all of what occurred in that relationship but more specifically we have to stop blaming ourselves. Yes, the narc left and on top of all of that they made you feel like you were the one to blame. Think about the reality. The narcissist accused you of being fake and disloyal while they are the ones that were in a new relationship and left you behind without a single opportunity to understand or defend yourself and with no explanation. The narcissist lies through their teeth and then accuses you of being a liar. The list goes on. Bottom line once you see clearly what was going on in that relationship you can clearly see who the perpetrator and who the victim was. So every time your subconscious brings up that you should blame yourself, keep on reminding it of the reality. Use facts, don't give in to those wrong thoughts. 7. We have to take the narcissist off of the high horse, the pedestal that we put them on. No the narcissist was NOT a paragon of virtue. No they weren't ever faithful or loyal, and yes they lied about you being the only true love of their life. Not only were you NOT the only true love of their life in fact the narc NEVER loved you at all. The narc never had honorable intentions towards you, the narc never cared, the narc was not good for you, the narc never really made you feel good about yourself, the narc never built you up, they were constantly tearing you down, the narc was your great misfortune not your fortune. 8. We have to stop wondering about what the narc is doing and projecting our genuine love, loyalty, and concern onto the narcissist. We have to come to grips with the harsh reality that the narc stopped thinking about us long before they formally left the relationship. We have to come to grips with the reality that the narc could care less about what we are doing. They don't think about us at all, they have tired of the relationship since they now have someone new, and that is the narc's entire focus. The narc we loved is dead, they have transformed themselves into someone new as they mirror the new person in their lives. We are a waste of the narcissist's time, they wouldn't even give us a cup of water if we were stranded in a desert and it could save our lives. Remember it is hard for an em path to comprehend this, but the narc is literally only concerned about themselves and themselves alone. So let's summarize. Again all of the above things become obvious over time, if we do the work to try and understand, or are immediately obvious to us consciously, but we need to repeat then to ourselves again and again so that our subconscious finally understands. Yes we need to reprogram that subconscious of ours. Although that subconscious mind is much more intelligent than our conscious mind, it is quite naive. It is up to us to continually correct that subconscious mind until it finally realizes the error of it's ways. How will you know if you have begun the reprogramming process? That is easy enough. When your subconscious stops telling you what a wonderful environment that unsalvageable, flood ravaged home is. When your subconscious stops telling you how wonderful that narcissist and your life together was and would one day be. When you see that narcissist not as a beautiful or handsome angel, but you see then for what they really are, a hideous beast that you have to turn your gaze away from. When those thoughts of vengeance, anger, and rage dissipate as you give them to God each and every time. When you start thinking clearly and there is positivity in your life and your attitude once again. When joy returns and you have gotten yourself back. When you are whole inside and you feel your own presence and hopefully also the presence of the Holy Spirit, God in your life. So the bottom line is this. You can tell what is going on in your subconscious mind very easily since it is the source of all of the dysfunctional thinking that still binds you to that unsalvageable relationship with the narcissist. We reprogram that subconscious by gently, carefully and continually showing it the error of its ways. Success is achieved when the subconscious finally agrees with what any outsider can clearly see. Whether it be a house beyond repair or a narcissist, an outsider can clearly smell the sewage, can clearly see the ugly results of flood damage and clearly sees that the victim has to move on. If you can't see that yet in your life that is not your fault, but it is my sincerest hope that you gently remind your subconscious that it is not thinking rationally and hopefully you will begin the process of healing yourself. Remember, it wasn't your fault what happened to you, you were taken off of the path of life and were led to a dead end. It is now time to renew your relationship with God and humbly admit that you are lost and rely on God's guidance to return you to the world of light. You made a mistake, it wasn't all your fault. In fact very little, if any of that nightmare was your fault. Some of us may not have done things God's way but we had honorable intentions, we were sincere and we made a lifetime commitment to that narcissist. The narcissist broke that trust and misrepresented themselves and their intentions. Not you. The narcissist never loved you, the narcissist was never loyal to you no matter how many times they told you of their loyalty. The narc was in it for the thrill and they told you anything that you needed to hear, made any promise necessary to gain your confidence. Became anything they needed to become to convince you they were your soul mate. The narc got bored when they achieved their goal and bagged yet another victim. In the end it was simply a game for the narcissist. A game that was deadly serious for the victim, but the narcissist never cared and was never serious. The narcissist only cares about one person, that creature that stares at them in the mirror every morning. So yes think about it. That narcissist has to look at themselves and lie to themselves every single day, they have to deny reality 24 7 and they have to live in that hollow shell of theirs. An environment devoid of love, empathy, compassion, forgiveness, creativity, peace, contentment. A barren lifeless environment with chaotic eddies of turmoil, rage, resentment, envy, duplicity, debauchery, fear, treachery, and unbridled lust to get whatever meets there eye as soon as possible with no delay. The narc has to expend enormous amounts of energy to convince themselves and others of all of the lies they are maintaining. Quite an expenditure of energy to obtain negative results. Do you really want to still believe that sewage dump was a paradise? Your subconscious may cling to that notion but you can see the truth very clearly. Thank you for watching. Comments are welcomed. Peace be with you.