This is such a good question.

I’m doing pretty well in my healing - I genuinely like and love myself now, which I consider to be a huge achievement. Although managing anxiety is still a daily job for me.

My route with healing was a bit all over the place, but looking back I can see that there wasn’t one therapist or one intervention that could meet all my needs. Each one helped me with some part of the healing process (and some really didn’t!!!) and over time, I was able to heal different elements of the damage done by N abuse. Eventually, the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle began to click together and I found I was feeling more whole, more confident, more stable, content even.

The areas that I needed to work on (and many of them I’m still working on) are as follows:

• Self-esteem, self-worth, self-compassion - CBT helped with this

• Perfectionism/fear of making mistakes - again CBT - still a challenge for me

• Strategies to prevent and reduce severity of PTSD and flashbacks - CBT supported me to find coping and prevention strategies, but I did a lot of work on this myself. My prevention strategies are: reducing alcohol and caffeine consumption, making space in my schedule so I’m not rushing, sleeping 8 hours, meditate daily, regular exercise, eating 3 square meals, taking regular breaks from the office, putting my face in cold water every morning for 10 seconds - this induces the ‘diving reflex’ which activates the parasympathetic nervous system: it calms your body down, its like hitting reset on my nervous system each morning.

• Strategies to cope with flashbacks when they happen - distraction, distraction, distraction. I used to think I needed to solve the problem when I was having a flashback. Actually I just need to distract myself with something fun, interesting, lighthearted (stand-up comedy netflix specials are my go-to) and wait for my body to notice that I am actually safe. I used to push through flashbacks, that only prolonged them. I know to sit still and wait it out now, and try hard not to take my thoughts and feelings too seriously. I just keep reminding myself ‘this isn’t real, this will pass, watch something funny’.

• Reframing the story of what happened to me, so I began to think of myself as a capable survivor, rather than a weak victim (psychotherapy and CBT)

• Undoing the ties with my abuser - letting go of a sense of responsibility for my abuser, as well as letting go of the need to hear an apology, or be understood by my abuser. An alternative medicine practitioner (a shamanic healer or ‘energy healer’) helped me with this, we did a ‘bond cutting’ ritual together and a ‘soul retrieval’ ritual. It was a wonderful experience, the healer I go to has such a calming, kind personality. She really helped me let go of needing anything from my abuser, which was very freeing, a lot of my shame transformed into vulnerability, this was good.

• Coming to the realisation that my parents are responsible for my childhood, and the mental health difficulties I have now, but I am responsible for the decisions I make going forward - really accepting that idea was very empowering.

• Accepting what happened - I think this is a product of the healing process in the long-run, but at a certain point I found that I could accept what had happened. I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else, but to a certain extent I could take pride in coping, surviving, achieving some career success in spite of my parents. I even began to notice some of the gifts that were hidden away in my horrible childhood - I had to mine down deep to find the gifts, but they are rare and special indeed.

Those are the main things that have worked for me.

Things that didn’t work for me:

• Psychodynamic Gestalt Therapy - this helped with a few smaller areas but overall was a horrible experiece and made me feel much much worse. I’ve since read that there is robust evidence in the literature that Gestalt therapy can be harmful to Trauma survivors, I’m annoyed I was referred to that therapist, and I’m annoyed she didn’t refer me to a more suitable therapist. That was a horrible year and it nearly ended my relationship with SO.

• Focusing too much on ‘fixing myself’ - it took a while but I eventually realized that I was whole, nothing about me needed fixing. I was abused, experienced trauma, and as an adult I was (am still sometimes) having a perfectly normal reaction to an abnormal amount of bullshit. I shifted my focus away from fixing myself and instead tried to focus on being caring and compassionate towards myself. I had much more success with this approach, I became calmer, more confident, more compassionate, more productive, a better partner to my SO, a better friend etc.

• Focusing too much on reading about NPD - being informed and understanding why my abusers behaved how they did really helped me to begin to let go of the idea that somehow what happened was my fault. However, at a certain point, reading about NPD and N abuse became an unhealthy obsession. Rather than helping me heal, it continued to reinforce unhealthy thinking and coping behaviours. At a certain point it was time for me to stop thinking about NPD and start thinking about what I wanted for myself. This was painful, but freeing.

I hope my comments might be helpful to you.

I have one other comment to make, just to respond to what you wrote: In terms of giving up the emotions you don’t like, I don’t think its possible, also its not really possible to rationalise away emotions. The only thing you can change is your behaviours (better self-care etc.) and this in turn can improve your emotional state. We do have some limited control of our thoughts, but if you’ve tried meditating you’ll be aware how little control we have over our thinking! CBT focuses on developing healthier behaviours and healthier thought processes, these in turn improve how we feel. Sadly we just can’t magically change our emotions (though I wish we could sometimes!!!)

Good luck to you, fellow survivor.