Hi and welcome to the Toxic Relationship Detox with me, dr Amonkul, and today we're going to be diving into the deep world of narcissistic personality disorder and the impact it has not just on our emotions but on our brain and our sense of self. We'll explore the seven triggers of narcissistic mortifications. Explore the seven triggers of narcissistic mortifications. These are those moments where reality breaks through the narcissist's delusion and self-image and we'll look at the impact that that has on them. But here's the twist we also want to acknowledge that the more we focus on them, the more they maintain control. So, even after they've gone, so at the end of the episode, I really want to share with you some science-backed strategies to help you heal, to help you break free, reclaim your life and start healing from those toxic cycles of narcissistic abuse, because you deserve so much more than focusing on the narcissist. Yes, we need to understand them to some degree, but the most important thing is that we heal. So let's understand what really breaks down a narcissist, and the most important thing to look at here is understanding narcissistic mortification. That also helps us understand why they're doing what they're doing at the core, what the problem is and why they are behaving in that way and why you truly cannot help them. So the key to understanding narcissistic personality disorder is recognizing their entire sense of self is built on a lie, a false self. So imagine narcissists. The story where it actually originates from he's fallen in love with his image of himself in the water. So what is that telling us? It's basically he has fallen in love with his reflection. That is the false self. That's not really who he is. It's not a person, is it? It's just an image. No one can truly fall in love with an image. It's an illusion. So this is like a hyper idealized image and it's there to protect them from the painful reality of who they really are, of their own inadequacies. So let me give you an example. Have you ever got ready and you look absolutely amazing. You look beautiful, or really stunning or handsome, and you're looking in the mirror and you feel incredible. It's like you've taken on a new identity. And what they are trying to do is they've created like a mirror image of themselves and they want everybody to love that image and not see the real person behind that. So what happens in terms of narcissistic mortification is that reality creeps in and it shatters the illusion that, okay, this isn't real. This is just a mirror image or an image I'm creating, but there's not a person. It's not real. It's just like you're looking in the mirror. You can't love a reflection. There's nothing to love. It's just a reflection, it's just an idea, it's not real. And that's where, when we try and show them, or when something happens where the narcissist starts to realize that no, this is an image, the real, you is over here, that's when they have an internal meltdown, where the narcissist is forced to confront their delusion. They don't want to see the reality of the situation, they want to see the image of the situation, they want to see the image.
Speaker 1:So let's look at some of the triggers that can cause narcissistic mortification. One is when we challenge their superiority, and it can be done in such subtle and small ways. So say, if the narcissist is thinking of themselves as this magnetic, all-powerful being which most of them do think they are. When you stop feeding that illusion, just from something really simple you're busy, you can't pick up their call To them. Wow, how dare you? It's like how could you do that? Because you're not acknowledging them as this all-powerful, incredible person in their head, this illusion they've created of themselves. You're breaking down that illusion of who they really are. So to them it's basically really are so. To them it's basically you're making them feel like a normal human being, where you're busy and you don't need to take the calls. It's like for them it's like if the PM or the president was calling you, you'd pick up the call because you'd go oh my gosh, this is such an important phone call. They want you to feel like that about them every single time they call. Or it could be that you just stop chasing after them or you might find that they're not funny anymore. You've heard the same jokes over and over again, but to them it shakes their world. It's like you're challenging who they really are, their world. It's like you're challenging who they really are. For us it seems crazy, because every day we can't be picking up the phone calls and doing everything around them, but to them, they need someone to be feeding that image that they've created.
Speaker 1:Another way of triggering this is if you act outside of their fixed view of you. The narcissists are actually quite simple. They're not that clever. In a lot of ways they don't see you as an individual who's unique, who's different, who's complex. In your own way. We're all human beings.
Speaker 1:At the end of the day, they see you as in a set way, and the moment you step out of this rigid role and doing something they don't expect, it creates that mortification for them. So, for instance, they might have an idea in their head as far as they're concerned, if you're not focusing on them, then you're acting outside of their view of you. If you do something, even small, they can accuse you of all sorts of things, as if you're such a bad human being. And then you've stepped outside of their rigid role because everything is black and white for them and that creates mortification. It's like, well, you're not fulfilling your image of what I need you to be, to fulfill my image of who I believe I am. So imagine it like this, like they're living in this fairy tale and so for them, if they are the prince, they need Cinderella. So if you then start acting different to their view of Cinderella, well then, how can they be the prince? Then You're breaking or messing up that image, that fairy tale, which is all an illusion. It's not real. And, again, we can't love something that's not real. We're living in a real world and that's why we can't love an illusion or live like this in an illusion. It's exhausting.
Speaker 1:The other thing that causes narcissistic mortification is turning the tables. Is turning the tables, the narcissist's ultimate goal is to devalue you and discard you over and over again. And when you reverse this and you devalue or discard them instead, it's like pulling the rug out from under their feet. They've carefully constructed false self. They can't believe that you would ever do that because they're selling themselves to you all the time. They're probably even selling them, like this idea of how you're going to become a millionaire or I don't know. Whatever it is that you've wanted in your life, anything that you've ever wanted. They will use that to hook you in, and then they think that you're going to always be there and never see through the illusion. So when you devalue and discard them, it's really tough. Their image is being broken down. They're having to face the reality of who they are.
Speaker 1:Number four and this is a big, big one, and I'm sure you've already thought of this is when we're exposing their mistakes. We're basically saying you're not that illusion, that mirror image that you're trying to portray. This person is the real person. That is just an image that you're trying to create. That is a big narcissistic mortification. They are thriving on this illusion of perfection and when you point out their errors in a non-confrontational way, it hits them hard and it hurts them hard. And it can be the smallest, tiniest, minuscule thing, but to them it's huge because you're making them see that they are not the image that they're creating.
Speaker 1:And the last thing that I really want to look at is when you withhold emotional supply. This is one of the most powerful strategies. When you disengage emotionally and you disengage in every way, you're reducing the attention you give them is important. It's not just about disengaging emotionally. It's really deeply about letting go and not focusing on them. What you're doing is you're rendering them insignificant. That they cannot bear, because they need people to look at the image rather than the real self to survive. It's like you focusing on this image that they're creating is the way they can feel superior and get that supply. How does this all impact us in terms of our brain when we're around someone that has created us an illusion of themselves and they want us to relate to an illusion of themselves as well. And if we don't relate to that illusion, then they react in ways that dysregulate our nervous system and our emotional system as well. So we're not able to emotionally regulate and our nervous system can't regulate because we're always on tender hooks. I mean it's hard to live and have a relationship with an image.
Speaker 1:The most important person in this whole thing is you, because the thing is here, when we're constantly engaging or even thinking about the narcissist, it's not just emotionally draining or taking up your time in terms of thinking about them, it's actually biologically harmful. This is scientifically proven because prolonged exposure to narcissistic abuse triggers the brain's stress responses. You've released so much cortisol and adrenaline and over time you've been in chronic stress. You live in a certain nervous system mode, certain nervous system mode, a state where your hippocampus shrinks. That's the area responsible for learning and memory and your amygdala becomes bigger. So it's basically, if we really look at this in a practical, everyday life scenario, normally what happens in life is things happen.
Speaker 1:It goes through the brain, all the different areas of the brain. It goes through the amygdala. We embody the emotional piece of it. We pass it over to the hippocampus. The hippocampus learns from anything that's emotionally painful and then it connects up to the rest of the brain and makes sense of it all. So we integrate all our experiences. But when we are in a toxic relationship, what happens is there's so much stress that there's so much emotional pain that things go into the amygdala. We switch off from what's going on emotionally because we have to, and you disassociate from your emotions just to survive. So then nothing moves over to the hippocampus. So in a way, we don't need the hippocampus as much, but we need more space for the amygdala to store more emotional pain and trauma over time. So what happens is our amygdala gets bigger. You need more storage space which governs fear and emotional reactions. So there's all this fear, emotional reactions is getting more and more. We're storing it in there, but we can't pass it over to the hippocampus to learn from it, because we need to process and feel the emotions when we're safe. But we're never safe when we're in this toxic relationship. So when we're out of the relationship and here's the paradox While the narcissist is no longer in your life, you might find you're still thinking about them and going over everything.
Speaker 1:This is because the brain has been conditioned to focus on the source of pain as a survival mechanism, and this is called rumination. You replay the words, the actions, you might see the images, you might see the pain they've caused. You might, but it's every time you're doing that, your brain and your body are still releasing cortisol and it's still releasing stress hormones and adrenaline, so you're still reliving the trauma and you're not able to feel safe enough to process the emotional pain and anxiety and that cycle stays alive. So the most important thing here is for us to break free of the cycle. We have to first realize there's a cycle and that takes a lot of time and a lot of courage. I'm not going to lie, it does take a lot of courage because it's easier to stay in this cycle where we never look at that pain, that emotional pain. We just stay in our head and do a lot of thinking to try and fix things.
Speaker 1:And a lot of the people that have been in toxic relationships are excellent problem solvers because they have had to think and fix and really think about everything, because they're not able to connect to the rest of the brain, if you like, the emotional part, the amygdala. They've had to just switch off from it because you don't have space and time to look at that just yet. The only way to survive is just try to analyze, analyze, analyze and think and go over things over and over again. So how do we break free? The answer does lie in shifting the focus from the narcissist to you to really thinking about my healing, your healing, your growth, your life. Where are you now? Where do you want to get to? And it's not about following and doing certain things to fix things there's practical aspects to everything but it's like imagine you're going on holiday.
Speaker 1:Sometimes people think just by going on holiday you can relax and you can enjoy yourself and you can fix things. But actually the most important holiday you could have for the rest of your life would be not to take this baggage with you everywhere you go in life. I remember when I was healing I thought there's no point in I don't mean wasting my money on holidays, but it was like I know I'm going to say the same baggage with me wherever I go. Yeah, I'll have a nice beach holiday, but my mind, my emotional pain, my anxiety, my fear, I'm just not the same person. Wouldn't it be better for me to actually create a holiday and space and peace within my own mind forever by healing this once and for all? That would be the best investment that I can make. That's true holiday for me.
Speaker 1:I imagine it like you're taking all this baggage, like you're literally putting all this pain that you're carrying in the amygdala. You've got your amygdala bag, you've got your little hippocampus bag. I thought, no, I need to release this. So how do we do this? Here's some science back strategies to help. You need to interrupt the thought pattern and you've got to stop replaying the memories of the narcissist, constantly redirect your thoughts, and this could be through grounding exercises, journaling or engaging in positive activities.
Speaker 1:This is really really tough because a lot of the time, the reason why you're having those thought patterns is because your emotions have been triggered. So in order to really clean this up, you have to process the pain Instead of avoiding the emotional pain or thinking emotions are weak. You have to get to a space where you're safe enough to actually face and process what's in the amygdala, and that means trauma therapy. Nothing else is going to really do it and fix it. You've really got to process the trauma and in order to do the trauma therapy, you really need to feel safe enough to move through that pain and be with somebody who understands narcissistic trauma. So there's more compassion, there's more love, there's more understanding, so you feel safe enough to process the pain, the guilt, the shame that comes associated with being in a toxic relationship.
Speaker 1:This is the other thing. Sometimes we're so disconnected from our emotions we don't realize that the main way that toxic people control us is through shame and guilt, and during the actual relationship they have increased our shame and guilt. The other thing is we've got to build emotional resilience. We've got to rewire our brain to focus on experiences that bring us joy, connection, fulfillment, happiness, joy. We've got to train our brain habitually to recognize positive emotions and less power to the pain that it holds. And in order to do that, you need to create new habits in the brain. You can't just do a little bit of therapy here, a little bit of therapy there. It's got to be systematic and it's got to be where you can create new habits.
Speaker 1:Lastly, you've got to reclaim your power. Remember, the narcissist thrives on being center of attention of your world. They are the center of your world. They are the center of your world. So take deliberate steps to shift that focus inward. Every religion that I've studied, they all talk about the kingdom of heaven is within. Every single religion is pointing inward where, if you could look inward on your goals, where? If you could look inward on your goals, on your dreams, on the person you truly want to become, on who you really are, the truth of who you are, the goodness within you, the kindness within you, the love within you, that is all ways of reclaiming your power. Breaking free from narcissistic relationships isn't just about going no contact. That's a start, but it's really about rewiring your brain and reclaiming your life again.
Speaker 1:If this resonates with you and you're ready to take the next step, I invite you to look at the resources and book in some time with me I don't know how long I'm going to be offering this one-to-one, free one-to-ones to look at what kind of therapy you need to be able to move forward, but it is for those people that are really looking. They know where they are in the journey and they want to move to the next step and they know what that step is and they want something to bridge that gap and they know they can't do it by themselves, so I can then help you look at, okay, what kind of therapy would that be If you want to learn more and you want to start your journey and you want 2025 to be completely different. Please do book in, because I would love to help you do that. There's nothing more I love than helping people change their lives.
Speaker 1:Look, thank you so much for joining me on this episode. If you have found this helpful, please share it with someone who needs to hear it as well, because this is a community and it means so much to me to be able to do this work. It's much more than just work for me. It's something really personal. I understand what you've been through. I never want anyone to go through this pain. I don't want anyone to live in trauma. I don't want anyone to think that you can just heal it just by doing a few affirmations, because it's unrealistic expectations on you. We need to heal the brain. We need to get rid of the trauma. So, if you are finding these useful, I'd really appreciate it as well if you could do any type of testimonial, and I appreciate all the people that have done that. Until next time, please remember, healing is possible and the best chapters of your life are still ahead of you. Sending you so much love no-transcript.