Do you feel like a weirdo, don't fit in, not normal. You are a trauma survivor. It's normal!

After decades of abuse from narcissistic people, from those who were supposed to love you, you can end up feeling like a complete weirdo. You don't fit in. In fact when you first start your recovery path everyone alive looks like a narcissist. Your protection mode kicks in and you don't know anymore what is fake and what is true. So in an effort to protect yourself you isolate. There is nothing wrong with isolating but everyone around you will tell you you should get out. So there you go with your first 'your a weirdo' experience.

You have just come away from an experience that is completely crazy making and everyone thinks you should get back on the saddle. It is as if you are not expected to have any time of mourning because no one understands that you are experiencing loss. You are grieving and yes we do grieve even the worst people in our lives. It is normal. The problem is that others around you may not think it is. After all aren't you glad you escaped your abusers. End of, finished. But it isn't is it. It carries on.

You now experience cogitive dissonance because you are trying to work out what happened in your mind. Was it you? Was it them? What went wrong. You are in shock and deeply wounded but expected to get better so that those around you can feel better too. The real truth is that you need to focus on yourself and your needs. Where once you focused on other's needs to the detriment of your health. Now you have to stop people pleasing and please yourself. That means change and those who are used to you being a certain way may not like that.

The thing is that once you wake up from narcissistic abuse you can't go back to sleep, you can try, but the genie is out of the lamp now. Nothing is ever the same again and that is a good thing. You start to question everything. All your beliefs and all those who surround you are looked at in a different way. You need support now. If you need to isolate for a time you do it because being with yourself helps you to clearly see how bad the situation was that you were in. You can only do that at a distance from your abusers, only do it when around supportive people.

This is a new experience so it feels weird. If you have a day when you feel normal you question if it is because you forgot what that was. If you feel happy you question, is this it or is it fake. Nothing is known anymore. While with a narcissistic abuser whether partner, family, friends or work mates you are living in their reality and not your own. So in order to start to become independant again and to have independant thoughts and wants is an alien thing. You don't even know what you want.

The truth is that although it sounds like a plaitude it won't always be like this. It won't happen overnight but you will get a sense of self back. It comes and goes and some days you will feel you have gone backwards. But then the good days start to become more and you get used to that. You say goodbye to your past and begin again.

If you don't believe me try this, it is something I did to get a reality check. Every day on a calendar make a mark whether you felt good or bad that day or in the middle or neither good or bad just balanced. You will be surprised through time that you had any good days at all. It's ok to have a bad day. You don't have to be happy every day. In fact it would be strange if you did. Learning to accept good and bad days as part of life helps because if you are rejecting unhappiness and only desiring happiness it will in turn make you unhappy.

You are not a weird you are unique. A survivor who has come through so much. Accept who you are. Stop people pleasing and be wisely selfish in caring for yourself. If you were capable of loving a narcissist then you are capable of loving yourself. So start right now.