Thrive After Abuse

Every manipulator has a different level of self-awareness and intention. Some manipulate in order to get their way because that's the only way they know how, and some manipulate in order to destroy others. Your life will start to change when you start focusing more on what is allowable in your life and less on if they know what they are doing. Making this shift can make a person feel selfish, but it's not. Focusing on your deal breakers, standards, and boundaries is a necessary part of self-care.

 If you are looking for support, I have two support groups (both are free). The first one is on my website: www.thriveafterabuse.com/forum and the second one is on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/HealingAfterNarcissisticAbuse (it is a closed group, but please make sure to read the group rules before you post so that you can change any privacy settings you may need to in order to stay safe). 

Looking for daily motivation, inspiration, or more information about narcissism in general?  You can find me (Dana Morningstar) at:

 Facebook/ThriveAfterAbuse

YouTube/ThriveAfterAbuse

Instagram/ThriveAfterAbuse

ThriveAfterAbuse.com 

Finding yourself again after narcissistic abuse can be a challenge as emotional and psychological abuse can leave a person so ground down and disoriented that they don't even know who they are. A great way to go about finding yourself again can be by getting in tune with your emotional scale and how things resonate with you. Getting clear on where people, places, things, and experiences rank with you can help to give you much of the clarity you need. ...In short, spend more time around what nourishes you and less time around things and people that drain you--and be compassionate with yourself in the process.

The live streams happen every Wednesday at 8:30pm EST over on my YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/thriveafterabuse and they run for about 3 hours.

 If you are looking for support, I have two support groups (both are free). The first one is on my website: www.thriveafterabuse.com/forum and the second one is on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/HealingAfterNarcissisticAbuse (it is a closed group, but please make sure to read the group rules before you post so that you can change any privacy settings you may need to in order to stay safe). 

Looking for daily motivation, inspiration, or more information about narcissism in general?  You can find me (Dana Morningstar) at:

 Facebook/ThriveAfterAbuse

YouTube/ThriveAfterAbuse

Instagram/ThriveAfterAbuse

ThriveAfterAbuse.com 

It's very normal to feel emotionally blown apart after a relationship with a narcissist, and to struggle with days, or even moments, where you feel fine and then you feel incredibly low. One of the things that has helped me has been to realize that we are not our emotions, that emotions come and go, and that we can learn to become more of observers of our emotions instead of letting them drag us around. At the same time, it can help to realize that our emotions are there for a reason--that they have a message for us. And the stronger the emotion, the stronger the message. If we are feeling pain, that emotion, even though unpleasant, is our friend. It's there because it's a signal for us to avoid people that cause us pain. If we can reframe our understanding of that pain, and realize that it's trying to get a very important point across to us, then it can help to make that pain more tolerable.

Do you have a narcissist, sociopath, or psychopath in your life, or think that you might? Are you in (or recently out of) of a relationship that you can only describe as crazy making, toxic, or like a lifetime TV movie? Then you are in the right place.

The live streams are a time where we "meet" every Wednesday at 8:30pm EST to ask questions, and give answers and support. I give my two cents, as do many of the other people in the chat. If you can't make it to the live stream, you can email me your question at: [email protected] I get a lot of questions, but I do my best to bring up and answer as many of them as I can each week. :)

To get support: www.ThriveAfterAbuse.com/forum

Angie Atkinson and I will be doing weekly one-hour live streams every Tuesday at 1:30pm EST. If you'd like to join us, please subscribe to our YouTube channels (ThriveAfterAbuse and AngieAtkinson) to get notified of when we are live!

Angie's Websites:

Queenbeeing.com

NarcissisticAbuseRecovery.online

BooksAngieWrote.com

YouTube: www.youtube.com/AngieAtkinson

FB: Coach Angie Atkinson

Twitter: Angie Atkinson

You can find me (Dana Morningstar) at:

Facebook/ThriveAfterAbuse

YouTube/ThriveAfterAbuse

Instagram/ThriveAfterAbuse

ThriveAfterAbuse.com

It's normal, appropriate, and above all else, healthy, to not immediately trust someone you don't know. You may feel broken because you don't seem to readily trust others like you once did. Taking a total stranger at face value, letting them set the pace, and getting emotionally invested in them right out of the gate (or before you've even met them) is a crap shoot at best, and, at worst, a really dangerous way to go about meeting new people. It's okay and healthy to have a reasonable degree of skepticism and to move at a pace you feel comfortable with. Turn inward and listen to your emotions. If you are feeling anxious, unhinged, and your stomach is in knots about someone or their behavior, these are all important signals for you to slow things down--because something that they are doing is registering as "off." And odds are this isn't just your PTSD going off, it's that you are now much more in tune with your internal alarms. 

Trust is something that is earned over time, and we don't even begin to scratch the surface of knowing someone until around the 90 day point. Everything before then is them being on their best behavior. (And if what you are seeing before then is really problematic, then this is a big problem, and their behavior will get worse the more settled in they get.) 

Trust your gut. It's there for a reason. 

Oftentimes our attraction to abusive people isn't necessarily because we are attracted to "bad boys" (or girls) or jerks, but more so because we are either attracted to the intensity that tends to accompany narcissists or because we are misreading some of the beginning stages of a relationship as healthy (or even ideal) when they aren't. This is especially the case with love bombing, rushing intimacy, and whirlwind romances. The solution for this is for us to see professions of love early on, them (or us) wanting to spend all our time with them, and moving quickly as the problematic signs that they are. There is no shortcut to you learning to set the pace in all of your interactions with others, and to make sure that you have built up a life that you enjoy so that you aren't looking to someone else to "complete" you. 

The live streams happen every Wednesday at 8:30pm EST over on my YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/thriveafterabuse and they run for about 3 hours.

 If you are looking for support, I have two support groups (both are free). The first one is on my website: www.thriveafterabuse.com/forum and the second one is on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/HealingAfterNarcissisticAbuse (it is a closed group, but please make sure to read the group rules before you post so that you can change any privacy settings you may need to in order to stay safe). 

Looking for daily motivation, inspiration, or more information about narcissism in general?  You can find me (Dana Morningstar) at:

 Facebook/ThriveAfterAbuse

YouTube/ThriveAfterAbuse

Instagram/ThriveAfterAbuse

ThriveAfterAbuse.com 

The live streams happen every Wednesday at 8:30pm EST over on my YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/thriveafterabuse and they run for about 3 hours.

 If you are looking for support, I have two support groups (both are free). The first one is on my website: www.thriveafterabuse.com/forum and the second one is on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/HealingAfterNarcissisticAbuse (it is a closed group, but please make sure to read the group rules before you post so that you can change any privacy settings you may need to in order to stay safe). 

Looking for daily motivation, inspiration, or more information about narcissism in general?  You can find me (Dana Morningstar) at:

 Facebook/ThriveAfterAbuse

YouTube/ThriveAfterAbuse

Instagram/ThriveAfterAbuse

ThriveAfterAbuse.com 

In this episode, we discuss why narcissists attack their target to begin with as well as why they continue to attack the target after the relationship (manipulationship) is over.

Do you have a narcissist, sociopath, or psychopath in your life, or think that you might? Are you in (or recently out of) of a relationship that you can only describe as crazy making, toxic, or like a lifetime TV movie? Then you are in the right place.

The live streams are a time where we "meet" every Wednesday at 8:30pm EST to ask questions, and give answers and support. I give my two cents, as do many of the other people in the chat. If you can't make it to the live stream, you can email me your question at: [email protected] I get a lot of questions, but I do my best to bring up and answer as many of them as I can each week. :)

To get support: www.ThriveAfterAbuse.com/forum

* This is an "open" group, meaning that anyone can see what you are posting, however, you can choose your own screen name and have total privacy that way.

Support Group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/HealingAfterNarcissisticAbuse

*This is a "closed" group, meaning that your Facebook friends can see that you are in the group, but they CAN'T see what you are posting (although it looks like they can, as you can see the chat on your timeline--but they really can't so don't panic.)

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ThriveAfterAbuse

Instagram: /ThriveAfterAbuse

Have a question you'd like answered in a future podcast episode or YouTube video? If so, send me an email me at: [email protected]  (make sure to use a name that you feel comfortable with me putting on the air).  

The live streams happen every Wednesday at 8:30pm EST over on my YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/thriveafterabuse and they run for about 3 hours.

 If you are looking for support, I have two support groups (both are free). The first one is on my website: www.thriveafterabuse.com/forum and the second one is on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/HealingAfterNarcissisticAbuse (it is a closed group, but please make sure to read the group rules before you post so that you can change any privacy settings you may need to in order to stay safe). 

Looking for daily motivation, inspiration, or more information about narcissism in general?  You can find me (Dana Morningstar) at:

 Facebook/ThriveAfterAbuse

YouTube/ThriveAfterAbuse

Instagram/ThriveAfterAbuse

ThriveAfterAbuse.com