Healing From Narcissistic Abuse: Why Telling Your Story Matters
by Jessica Anne Pressler, LCSW
If you have lived through narcissistic abuse, you may know a very particular kind of loneliness. It is the loneliness of sitting in the middle of your own life and not being sure you can trust what you see, what you remember, or what you feel.
This kind of abuse is not limited to romantic partners. It can happen with a parent or a sibling, a boss or a colleague, a close friend. The setting changes, but the effect is often the same. Over time, you are taught to doubt yourself. That is what gaslighting does. It slowly convinces you that your perceptions are wrong, your memory is unreliable, and the problem must be you.
Living inside that confusion requires something called cognitive dissonance, the exhausting work of holding two truths that cannot both be true. “This person says they love me” and “This person keeps hurting me.” To make it bearable, the mind minimizes, explains away, and blames itself. That is the fog. And I want you to know that the fog is not a weakness. It is how you survived.
Why the story stays hidden
Whether you are still in the relationship or have recently left, staying silent keeps the story in the shape the other person gave it. An untold story leaves the fog in place. It also keeps the confusion in place, because a story that only lives in your head can be revised, softened, and second-guessed endlessly.
Speaking up may have felt dangerous, protective, or shameful. Please be gentle with yourself about that. Silence kept you feeling safe, and you did what you needed to do to get through.
Begin with the truth, when it is safe
When you begin to come out of the fog, even a little, that is the moment to start putting the truth into words. Safety comes first. If you are still in the relationship, keep your writing somewhere private and protected, such as a password-locked app, a trusted friend’s home, or a counselor’s office.
Then write. Write what happened, in your own words, without editing or defending it. Write what was said, how it felt in your body, and what you knew at the time before someone talked you out of it. Even if it is a journal that no one will ever read, this matters. Writing the truth down gives you something the fog never allowed: a record that belongs to you and cannot be rewritten.
How telling your story helps you heal
When your write your experience on the page, you can see things more objective and more clearly. You can step back and see it the way you would see a friend’s situation. This is often the moment people begin to realize, “I wasn’t crazy. This really happened.”
Telling your story loosens the grip of shame and self-blame. It takes the power away and begins to empower you. It helps you reconnect with your own instincts and your own voice. And when doubt returns, as it often does, you can read your own words and remember the truth. Healing is rarely a straight line, but the page will hold the truth for you on the days you cannot.
When you tell it to someone else
Sharing your story with a safe person, whether a therapist, a support group, or a trusted friend, adds another layer of healing. Shame grows in secrecy. It softens when we are heard and met with compassion instead of judgment. When you tell your story, someone else hears it and thinks, “Me too.” They realize they are not alone, that it was not their fault, and that they are not losing their mind. Your voice may help another begin to heal.
Why I chose to write a novel
One of the reasons why I wrote Traitor Within as fiction, was so readers who may recognize themselves in Cassandra’s journey will know they are not alone.
So many people in narcissistic relationships believe they are the only ones going through it. They think they are going crazy. They feel it is their fault. Social media has helped, giving us more language and more voices than we once had, but the private experience is still deeply isolating. A story offers something different: a little distance. Sometimes it is easier to recognize what is happening when we see it on the page, from a more objective place, than when we are living inside it.
Without going into my own story, I will tell you that I am still learning the truth about what happened in some of my own relationships many years later. Please have patience and self-compassion. Truth arrives in layers, and that is okay. So, if you are ready, and when it is safe, begin with one word, then one sentence and so on. You were not crazy, and you are not alone.
About the Author
Jessica Anne Pressler, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker who has been a psychotherapist for nearly 40 years. She developed the "Traitor Within" framework to help people name and understand the repetitive self-sabotage that shows up in their adult lives. She is the host of the podcast Your Traitor Within, author of Your Traitor Within: A Year of Journaling Prompts for Healing and Empowerment, and author of her debut novel, Traitor Within — How Her Fear of Abandonment Led Her to Abandon Herself.
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