Welcome to the relationship recovery podcast, hosted by Jessica Knight, a certified life coach who specializes in narcissistic and emotional abuse. This podcast is intended to help you identify manipulative and abusive behavior, set boundaries with yourself and others and heal the relationship with your.

So you can learn to love in a healthy way.

Thank you for being here today. Today. I wanna touch on the cycle of narcissistic abuse. I just recorded about five minutes of this podcast. And at one point I said, And people come to me and say, I feel like I'm stuck in the cycle of narcissistic abuse. And when I stopped it and rerecorded, I just thought like that is not at all.

What anybody says, they say, why do I keep doing this to myself later on, they're working with me. They say that they say that they're stuck in that cycle, but right now, or right on the onset, not at all. So I like had caught myself and I was like, I it's almost like I know where, like, I know where the work goes, but we have to stay in the.

like what that cycle is. Cause what I hear people say often is why did I stay so long? Why didn't I see the signs? People come to me and they're really hard on themselves. But the reason that I say, you know, that it's a cycle and I kind of educate people on the cycle is.  narcissistic abuse occurs in a very predictable cycle.

And it's very similar to the cycle of emotional abuse that I talked about a few episodes ago, and I wanna work through what that cycle looks like. So the first step of that, of the narcissistic abuse cycle is that things are good, that Narcis says things and behaves in a way that has you convinced that you have met like the most perfect person, your soulmate and your body experiences.

A lot of those good hormones. Dopamine oxytocin, serotonin all of the, the hormones that it like wants to feel the chemicals it wants to be in touch with. And then things are usually calm, especially at the beginning. They recognize you're wounding, but they make you feel good. They make you feel lovable.

They may even talk to you about your wounding in your past and say things like I wonder, you know, I wonder what you'd be like if you, this didn't happen. They may also paint their past as a pretty picture. At times it's usually either a very beautiful picture with a white picket fence, or it's a very.

Abusive and tough. And Blamy picture, regardless at the beginning of the relationship, you're not thinking about that. You're thinking about this great person that you met and how you're connecting. You feel validated and you are hooked on that. And then usually it happens and it happens pretty quickly that you push back on something or do something that would be defined as wrong in their eyes.

And if you were in front of me, you'd see me do air quotes for the word, wrong, do something wrong. And the tension starts to build, and this is very, very triggering to them as you're no longer this little beacon of confidence for them, you're not feeding their supply. You're not sitting there thinking of their every move and like, you know, praising them.

You've found a flaw and you're bringing it to light even if it's small. And so they start to look for other ways to get that supply from you. Narcissistic supply means like, There, the narcissist will use people as their source of confidence, whether it's good or bad, so it can come from them receiving praise from you.

It also can come from them, putting you down and feeling that sense of control. And so once they have that, that's usually when an incident occurs and that would be the next step. They try to devalue you guess like you criticize you.  and they're pretty good at it. They probably have this worked out to a science and even sometimes you will believe what they say about you.

And most often you will believe what they say about you at the beginning. Usually it takes people really working through their stuff to begin to unravel that and over time, especially because you are the narcissistic supply, that tension doesn't last, I've seen a lot of people beg to have that person.

As in you are begging the narcissist to have them back, but in the case of them apologizing, they try and make it up to you. They say the best things they promise they're going to work on things. You feel good. The trauma bond now is deepening because you're so used to this. And then it starts back over again.

And you find yourself back to the calm, which will then go back to the. And it continues. And when I talked about this on the emotional abuse cycle podcast, what I said was that what you get addicted to is the reconciliation. And I really believe that I don't think you're addicted to the calm. I think you're addicted to that time.

Exactly. After reconciliation, where you can release and take a deep breath. The column actually sometimes can be quite tense, cuz you're probably wondering like, oh, things are good right now. When is it gonna blow up? I think people get addicted to that time when things are reconciled, when this person is promising you, that they're going to show up differently.

And when you're in this relationship or when you're in a relationship with a narcissist, the trauma bond starts to work like an addiction. And I did a much longer episode on this. It's about 40 minutes long. I think it's episode limber like five or six about why it's an addiction. You start to crave these feelings and these interactions and the reconciliation, and you will stick through the relationship with a narcissist just to get back to feeling good.

Again, most people that are leaving a narcissistic relationship have no self-esteem they do not feel good. Everything feels like how do I be a person again? And that is because you got so wrapped up in the cycle. And so every time that that cycle. That trauma bond begins to strengthen. So when I have somebody come to me and say, I don't know why I stayed so long, why did I not see it?

What is wrong with me? I must have messed up somewhere. I want to, I tell them all the time that it was not your fault, that you didn't leave sooner. It's not your fault. You didn't see it. This is what the cycle is created. Whether or not, you know who you are in the cycle you do now. And that's really the first step of breaking the trauma bond is having the awareness around it.

And it is possible to break free of the cycle. It does take time and it does take digging into the roots. It does take kindness. It does take. And that is part of the work that I do with people is I help them begin to see where they are in that cycle and how to Institute found. To separate where you are, where you want to be.

And at the very least begin to see what is happening to you so that you're not so caught by it. And you're not so jarred by it. You're not so taken by it. It's a really beautiful thing when you're able to see yourself existing within the cycle and not act on it. And so if you feel like you are stuck in that cycle, please do reach out to me.

Even if I can't help you right now, or if you don't have the resources, I always do try my best to answer your questions. Um, send you a resource and help as much as I can. You also can schedule a clarity call with me in August on the, my Julys booked right now, by going to my website, Jessica coaching.com.

But you are a hundred percent not alone. And I have that exactly where you are. So if you need support, please don't ever hesitate to reach out.