Overcoming Self Doubt From Narcissistic Relationships

I’ve shared a story here before how I’d written down a few years ago in a Passion Planner in Bali and the ‘realisation moment I had recently that all those things had come true. I also shared that major shift for me was not doing those things, but overcoming the low self worth and self doubt that I’d reinforced during a very controlling covert narcissistic relationship that I felt really trapped in. I had little to no self confidence that I go and do the things I dreamed of because of this.

Thankfully that time is over and through much self development and training in psychotherapeutic approaches with Dr Gabor Mate, I’ve come to learn a lot about what happened in that relationship and why it had happened to me.

When this relationship started I had just come out of a divorce and my investment banking job in London. To be honest I was a bit lost, but happily lost. This is when this person came into my life. He offered me so much in the beginning, but later would use this as a constant guilt trip any time I tried to leave - saying things like “I’ve done so much for, you’ll be nothing without me”. Having grown up with an emotionally abusive father I was use to be spoken to in this way and a part of me was so desperate to receive his love and attention I stay. You see when this person met me he love bombed me - it felt like the sun was shining directly at me all day - I had all of his love and attention and he completely doted on me.

For the first month we were together everyday and wildly in love - it was everything my little girl had always wanted and never received and it felt so good - I was hooked. About a month later things started to shift. He got picky about who I hung out with and how I conducted myself. He started strongly criticising me and threatening to leave if I didn’t do things his way. He knew me pretty well by then, he knew my weak spots, my wounds where he could dig in to always draw me back. My inner child so desperate for the initial love he showed me stayed, she so badly wanted to believe his promises that I would “be his queen” and the other things we said to lure me back in.

When the relationship finally ended and I learnt about covert narcism it all dawned on me and made sense. I was angry and confused. I went strongly into victim mode. He did this to me….

As hard as it was to admit, and as much as I wanted to stay in victim mode, my healing and moving on happened because I took ownership of my part. This was a HUGE jump in my process, and took time. But I eventually saw the role that I had played in this. I took ownership and compassion over my past self for not loving her self and being so desperate for someone to love her. What would hating that version of me do? What we resist persists. She was doing her best at the time, already wounded from a recent divorce and all the other stuff that had happened to her and all the times she’d been let down. 

Having compassion for our past selves is a game changer. I could see that from one POV this person did me wrong and manipulated me and took advantage of my low self worth. But you know what - it takes two to tango, he could only do it because I allowed it. 

And unless I decided to do some inner healing I would only ever attract more people like this - they learn which people they can use and which ones won’t play, they can smell the self doubt a mile off.

This realisation allowed me to do the work, to remember to trust myself and love myself and strengthen and fortify my BS detector of people trying to take advantage of me. This took time, working with people where I felt safe and held to rebuild my sense of worth and sense of agency.

This is the work that made all the dreams I wrote down come true in the manifestation that I mentioned at the beginning of this post. It wasn’t building website or writing to people for opportunities but having the self worth to follow my inner dreams and desires rather then listening to someone else. 

The real work is always within, and it’s why I’ve done all the training I’ve done so I can also help others empower themselves. To truly believe we can only help others as deeply as we’ve gone ourselves. I hope you find this story inspiring and it gives you more of an insight to the path I’ve walked and the “life training” I’ve had on top of all my certificates that allows me to really be there for others.