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PTSD is a Thing After a “Narcissist”

PTSD is most definitely a thing.
After narcissistic abuse, we ride through post trauma.
Our friends don’t understand.
Maybe we don’t understand.
Rest assured, we’re not really broken.

PTSD stands for post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD isn’t permanent. It might surprise some of us that the range of swinging emotions, and thoughts we’re going through is PTSD.

It may surprise our family or friends to realize that the pain, the terror, all the weeping is post-traumatic stress. We’re swinging through a jungle of cognitive dissonance, shock, and more shock.

We’re hard at work grabbing at answers, trying to make sense of what happened, though, for all they can see, we’ve given up to this loser as we sit slumped in a corner in tears or staring into space. We’re thinking and feeling so much we feel like we could die. Many of us feel broken. Rest assured, you are not.

What Is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?

PTSD is a thing after a sociopath or after what sooooo many people call a “narcissist” or a narcissistic abuser. What we’re feeling in the end after these creatures is normal. It wouldn’t be normal to not feel this way. It’s the residual and the aftermath of being spellbound under coercive control. It’s unavoidable, and it is not permanent. There is hope, and healing.

We Can Heal. We Win.

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Everything We Feel Is Normal: We Are Not Broken Forever

The awareness of feeling broken came as a quiet whisper. I remember after he was gone, early in restoring my life, one day, I looked up from washing my hands and into my bathroom mirror. On gazing at my own face, now so changed, the word “broken” floated into my mind. Broken. I’m broken, is what I said in my head. I’d never been broken before. Never knew that this was a way that people could feel. But there it was.

When you consider it, this was a raid, a home invasion, a breaking-and-entering through our hearts. This wasn’t a relationship, it was a crime. Please, keep in mind: No one robs an empty house. We are awesome.

We feel broken… This is distinctly different from thinking we are broken. Feeling broken is unfortunately a normal sensation after coercive control… perhaps during it because any time spent under the spell of a sociopath is traumatic. So, after they leave, we go through feelings that are more than uncomfortable. These feelings and thoughts are our body attempting to heal, feeling broken is not the new us.

These intense and so often conflicting thoughts, emotions, and despair are the beginning of healing – the key is to find the way to use these for healing rather than be seen as a pile of disorders. This is not the end of our life as it used to be before we met them.

Breaking Up With Evil

Breaking Up with Evil: Escaping Coercive Control on Amazon

Five women’s true stories of being ensnared, hauled through the confusion, lies, fear and pain and to breaking away.

True crime. Told in their own words with nothing unsaid. Find validation, and see new glimpses of truth as these five women share their stories… Stories that could be any of ours.

Schedule your unique guided recovery here

The Podcast!

Narcissistic Abuse Unwound

We’re Really Okay: PTSD is Not Permanent

People around us are saying things like move on or get over it. And oh my gosh, we really wish we could! None of us are trying to be a mess. Not a single one of us wants to feel this hell! But somehow, we can’t sleep, we lose weight and feel like we’ll never trust again, we’re terrified and have health issues to boot.

Unexpected things go on with our health, things we might not realize are happening, such as high blood pressure. Some of us develop migraines, fall into nightmares, and grab onto coping habits we’d rather not keep… like wine and prescriptions maybe. And nobody wants weight gain, but it’s there, after the rapid “effortless” weight loss.

Post Trauma is Normal and the Way to Recovery

Post-trauma is normal. What you’re feeling is the normal human reaction to this particular trauma. It’s the bodies and minds and hearts response to the sustained influence and entrapment by person of antisocial personality disorder.

The idea that we played “a part” in the suffering we endured is erroneous. These are crimes, not relationships. We owe it to ourselves to give this idea some thought before swallowing it whole.

We couldn’t be expected to have any other response. In fact, this response is where healing begins. It’s a cluster of simultaneous feelings and physical reactions and responses from the body, mind and heart. If you think of it in the way that the flu is a cluster of symptoms you can see this isn’t the new “us”, but a passing situation. We’re still there.

The determination to pull our real self back through this fog, and the time and insight into how to tame these post trauma reactions and emotions, to understand them, to manage them and heal them are all we need. For whatever reason, I did this instinctively and now I help others do it.

PTSD is the Beginning of Healing From Trauma

We’ll feel some or all of the following things in PTSD after this ride in hell: profound fear, self-doubt, lowered trust, suspect people and situations, weepiness, physical weakness, apathy, confusion, indecision, depression.

Also an inability to concentrate on daily things like laundry or food, our minds will be flooded with replays of conversations and things that went on. This is all normal. The replays wind down, the confusion abates, the indecision clears as we get real answers. – If the answers you’re finding aren’t helping; keep looking

PTSD is a Cluster, a Package of Feelings, Signs and Symptoms

The aftermath of trauma affects our body and mind. Post-trauma can include fear of going out of our home. The terrorizing recall of scenarios with them. Confusion, indecision, and doubt, even doubting our doubt.

There can be an emphatic impulse to leave, to move, to change jobs, or make a drastic change. We might miss them so much or feel like we could die. We feel broken. – As heavy and numb and broken as you feel, none of this is permanent.

Physically there are signs and symptoms of trauma, such as a loss of appetite and extreme sudden weight loss. Hypertension. Serious illnesses or chronic conditions can develop including STIs. The inability to “move”; physically to become heavy and dull, numb.

Sleep patterns are all over the place in varied forms of insomnia. We might sleep in the day and can’t sleep at night, some of us wake in the early morning and can’t fall back to sleep. Maybe you can’t sleep at all or sleep all the time. You might be having nightmares.

There’s nothing about us that makes this happen.

Trauma is… “Anything less than nurturing. An event or experience that changes your vision of yourself and your place in the world.”

Judy Crane

We Decide to Recover: We Chose How Fully We Recover

The thing is, any time spent with a “narcissist”, the pathological parasitic predatory con man – a sociopath – is traumatic. We can’t help but experience prolonged trauma. Then we go through post-trauma – the natural next phase after a trauma. This is unavoidable. We decide what’s next. Post-trauma isn’t the new us.

It’s up to us, to gather our courage, and to step around the answers that leave us without real answers. We decide to take on the task of learning how to manage the post-trauma. It’s our own decision to come out whole, healed, and with every answer to what happened. We decide what winning is for our life in the aftermath, and post-trauma. You can do it. And, the good news is, the answers are here.

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Post Trauma Feelings Can Become False Thoughts, and Beliefs

The emotional soup in the midst of the post-trauma takes many of us to a conclusion or belief about what happened and about ourselves. Many of us conclude it was our fault. This is not so.

There are atmospheric rivers of false beliefs in post trauma, and indeed throughout the suspended traumatic “event” of being “with” them. Things like “I’ll never be the same”, “I can’t trust anyone ever again”, and “I”m codependent” are examples of such false beliefs inspired by post trauma combined with a mistaken understanding of what happened.

Though we aren’t sure exactly what just happened for most of us, our natural first thoughts are related to taking responsibility for what happened. When you consider it, this was a raid, a home invasion, a breaking-and-entering through our hearts. This wasn’t a relationship, it was a crime. Please, keep in mind: No one robs an empty house. We are awesome. – Let me show you how to redirect those “hellish mirage” emotions inspired by the trauma and resolve the loss and grief.

Find real healing

The Memories we Replay are Where Recovery is Found

No matter how much we want to “move on”, we’re hounded daily, well, hourly by memories of this creep that just won’t stop. We can’t stop thinking of the things they did, replays circle in our minds and end with the same confusion and questions and circle around again. We’re so worn out thinking about this loser, yet we can’t not think about this loser. – Guess what, gorgeous-one? This is normal.

Not only is this constant replay normal, the memories, these replays are our ticket out of this hell. Really. The thing is replaying them endlessly is exhausting, the key is in learning to translate the memories, one by one into the reality they represent. Translating them to truth is the key element to restoring your life.

I guide people to unwind and find the truth, and all the answers…because we need answers to what the heck happened and these memories are the gateway. Once we translate one memory it stops. Then the next one, then the next until there are no more. And with each resolved memory we recover further and further, taking back our lives in this way. Email me and ask me about guided recovery sessions; it’s like nothing else out there: jennifer@truelovescam.com

Healing Takes Time and Unsettling Discoveries

Recovering our lives, taking back our selves is for the courageous. Once we begin to shift from some of the conflicting and misconstrued ideas behind the word “narcissist” and take the leap to sociopath… there is more. Taking on the word “sociopath” is only the beginning. That’s when recovery can begin.

After the trauma of this whole event, which we could think of as a hijacking, our emotions and thoughts are all over the place. We’re spinning and floating and feeling almost out of body because the trauma deregulates our nervous system. If we’re willing, we can take in effective methods of re-regulating our nervous system and other specific insights, and fully recover.

Post trauma is an emotional soup and confusion. It isn’t who we are, but how we feel. It’s the body’s natural next step after a traumatic event and is the beginning of into healing.

Healing Comes in Stages: Time is On Our Side

As annoying and frustrating as it is, this takes time. Lots of time. recovering is going to take more time than you want it to.

What you’re experiencing is the only way a person can feel after a collision and entanglement with a conman, a sociopath. We’ve experienced a profound clash with our emotional and normal way of life. That’s traumatic and is what they call cognitive dissonance.

Patience and self-love are necessary. Spending time only with those who truly love us and don’t judge us is a part of the cure. Establishing and keeping no contact with the con artist who hijacked our lives is essential. There is without a doubt hope after a sociopath or a “narcissist”.

It Really Isn’t Us: It Really Is Them

Many definitions out there regarding this phenomenon will try to tell us it happened because we’re codependent or that we need to look at our “part in it”. The idea that we played “a part” in the suffering we endured is erroneous. We owe it to ourselves to give this idea and others such as “this happened because we’re codependent” some thought before swallowing them whole.

When you consider it, this was a raid, a home invasion, a breaking and entering through our hearts. In this situation the predator knows what’s happening we as prey do not.

We’ve been defrauded, deceived by a pathological parasitic predator. This wasn’t a relationship. It was the dynamic of predator and prey. These are crimes. While we carry on as wonderful loving people believing and behaving as if we’re in a relationship we’re robbed blind. Please, keep in mind: No one robs an empty house. You are awesome.

Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!

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As a certified coach, upholding industry standards I strive to inform, educate, invite thought and dialogue, to co-plan, co-strategize, advise, consult, refer, recommend, train, teach, guide and coach people in guided recovery and discovery specific to these crimes, and from hell and broken in the aftermath to whole again, and more. You decide what winning is.

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True Love Scam Recovery, Narcissistic Abuse Unwound, Jennifer Smith, truelovescam.com, and narcissisticabuseunwound.com, and its agents are not professionally licensed as attorneys, medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, or therapists. All social media, presentations, publications, podcasts, public speaking, audio appearances, writings, and coaching are carried out under the pseudonym “Jennifer Smith”. See the entire and full True Love Scam Recovery et al Privacy Policy and Legal Agreement and Disclaimer here. Thank you. Founded 2014 © All Rights Reserved.

2015_08_22 > 2020_09_22 2025_12_13

Sociopaths, Users, and No Contact

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No contact is the pathological users’ Achilles heel.
When we don’t respond it scares them to pieces.
That’s why they rage.

In a sociopath’s perfect world, there would be no such thing as no contact. Without contact, they have nothing. The thing is, for a narcissistic predator, their agenda is only possible with contact. The more consistent and deep the contact, the more harm we’re in for.

Pathological predators, that is a sociopath, or what you might be calling a narcissist, depend on keeping contact for their success. Their success is measured, by them in what they get, what they can take and what they can do and how little we oppose them.

Contact Keeps the Hunt Going

They must keep contact in order to get what they want and when we’re in contact, we’re balls of emotions. We’re in confusion and off balance which means there’s an open door for them straight into our lives. The success of their mind-bending effect on us is only possible through contact.

No contact is our freedom. Safety and freedom from a narcissistic user, a sociopath depends on establishing and keeping no contact. – Let’s look at the effect of contact from the first hello, to the day we go no contact.

How far will you take your recovery?

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The First Contact is What We Call “Love Bombing”

In the early moments we meet them for the first time, they bombard us, overwhelm us, spin us off the ground, and into “love” with them. This is a quick process. Once they hook us, they need to keep yapping whenever they notice that the hook is slipping.

We take their words at face value. This is normal. Normal and natural for us, as fully functioning limbic-brained humans. In other words, it’s normal for us to believe what people say, to trust, bond, care, and feel connected.

The unfortunate thing we don’t know at this point is that the meaning of the words of this pathological predator is not found in the words themselves. Their words don’t have a normal meaning or a normal subtext. This is because their intention and their goal and purpose for being in our lives are far, far from normal… And love has nothing to do with it.

Their intention in our lives is not represented by the nice things they say… Nor by the mean things they say. Underneath it, all is a desire and purpose we can’t even imagine… And they need it this way.

They don’t want us to understand their actual meaning. In this effort they make sure, as best they can, to fake their intent and meaning. And they do their best to keep others from tipping us off. So, they separate us from family and friends. They keep us away from people who aren’t under their spell and see that they aren’t what they’re pretending to be.

They Separate Us from Others Who See Through Them

Everything they say is in hopes of their very simplistic and unwavering needs and wants. This is instinctive, it’s literally how their brains are wired, while a lot of other normal human things are missing from their brains. One of the qualities of their limited brains is limited language skills.

Even if they learn some big words and can string a long sentence together it’s nonsense. They usually use very short sentences. Even three-word sentences to nail us in place. Understanding the effect of their words on our emotions and thoughts is essential. They can’t have anyone interfering with the effect of their words upon us. This is a reason they separate us from our family, our friends, and others.

Please put aside the common interpretation that this isolation or separation is done out of their jealousy. It’s that they can’t have others alerting us to how full of hot air, and how creepy and weird they are. This is why the sociopath immediately creates an “us and them” existence.

The Subtle Separation

One such example… My sister lives three miles down the road for me. At the root of things, we’re very close. Really tight. We grew up almost as twins, yet we’re very different in relational dynamics. I’m open and smiling and laugh easily and talk to people everywhere I go. She’s more reserved, can seem stern, and isn’t as warm. She also doesn’t reach out the way that I do… So:

The fraudulent lying dirtbag I married used to say, your sister doesn’t love you. She didn’t even call you back. Pinging on the fact that, indeed, it is me who keeps my sister and I connected. It takes me calling or texting her three times or so before she calls me back.

And, he wasn’t exactly wrong… I could count on fewer fingers than I have on one hand the number of times in my life that my sister has called me spontaneously.

Because of their uncanny quality that causes us to have an exaggerated experience of normal emotions, this comment tapped hard at a raw little place inside me. If a normal human had said this, I’d have said, my sister loves me, she’s different than I am in how she shows it, but she’d kill for me... And that would have been the end of it.

Instead – because he’s a sociopath – this sideways comment led me to quickly and inefficiently sort through my mind asking myself: does she love me? doesn‘t she love me…? she doesn’t…or..? In this way, here I was suddenly teetering on the brink of stepping into the mush of bottomless ruinous quicksand of believing him. – this is how our world changes because of what they are.

And for all the hate they have for us, because they need us, the narcissistic-user-sociopath will hold on as long as possible.

The sore spot of truth inside my life that this comment hit metaphorically knocked me to my knees in a deep psyche kind of way. When we’re under their spell, sociopaths can tap our core with a single comment due to their natural malevolent influence. This strike shocks us and leaves us breathless and vulnerable, self-doubting and confused.

In the case of my sister and I, she’s also brutally direct. I imagine he sensed she’d blow him down and break him into pieces. As it turns out she said to me when I kicked him out, I knew it! – She never liked him for one second and saw him as bad news. Naturally, he could read this. – Consequently, he drove in a separation.

Contact with us, and severing contact with our families and friends is how they drive the wedge in. They keep yammering to us at high velocity, they keep in contact via texts, Snapchat, and the like, even when they live with us! That’s as deep as they get. It’s only that. It’s how they keep inside our heads, hearts, and bank accounts; it comes down to one practical material thing: contact.

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No Contact Ends the Game

Throughout our “relationship” (the one we think we’re in together) their attention comes in cycles related to what they perceive as how deeply or loosely we’re bound-in to them. They spike attention to reel us back in from time to time. Routinely they do an all-points-bare-minimum in maintenance.

When they sense we’re seeing through the smokescreen, they either pour on the nice in charm and promises or get mean becoming nasty, grumpy, and mad. Both nice and mean require contact and are bait to hook us in place.

As the sociopath’s weirdness, deception and betrayal come into focus, we want an end. We, as their prey, want out of the nightmare.

If it’s nice they offer something, make a promise…Or even are simply neutral. Our naturally good-hearted nature and the effects of their mesmerizing venom does the work. We interpret and imbue their off-handed glances, and bare-bones contact with deep and positive meaning, full of love and commitment and, so we stay in it. No such thing as genuine nice is happening, but thinking that it is, is normal.

If it’s mean they pick up as the tool, they use anger and scream out, we naturally react in fear and then stay out of this fear. Not to mention our sense of guilt, shame, and our confusion. This is normal. We all give them the benefit of the doubt and stay. Or we stay out of fear. This is the way it goes until that one moment when the spell finally breaks.

Every bit of any contact a sociopath makes is to take and use and keep taking… It’s bait, from the “love bombing”, the common term for the contact, that reels us in, to the lies and devastating gossip in the smear campaign. As well as during hat time in between, in the middle of the arc of the fraud… When they aren’t around, they disappear, they don’t answer or texts and we’re in unbelievable pain trying to make sense of it all through our normal human view of life.

Breaking Up With Evil

Breaking Up with Evil: Escaping Coercive Control on Amazon

Five women’s true stories of being ensnared hauled through the confusion, lies, fear, and pain, and breaking away.

Told in their own words, they leave nothing unsaid. Find validation and see new glimpses of the truth as they share their stories… Stories that could be any of ours.

FInd your unique guided recovery coaching

No Contact Isn’t Normal or Easy for Normal People

One thing about these predators we can’t forget: they can’t not be like this. And they do what they do 24/7. They’re on the prowl constantly. Out of our being normal humans, we give credit to their scanty presence, oh, he’s been so busy, and he called me finally, he must care! And, he left flowers at the door last night! He really does love me! – This is normal. – We’re under their spell.

And, alternately, fear of them freezes us right where we are, so we “stay in it”. This too is normal. It’s the natural normal effect of this type of predator upon us as normal humans, their prey.

We don’t understand why we believe their lies, and then we tend to blame ourselves long after for staying so long. Please don’t. There’s nothing about you that made this happen. You ge to be who you are… And you get to establish no contact because even one more millisecond of contact and access to rampage and ransack our lives is a millisecond too many.

Contact Means They Can Get Back In: Contact Is How Any and All of it Happens

When we want out, a sociopath’s drive to keep us in their grasp intensifies. Just as they smell fresh prey, they can sense it when we’re beginning to see through them to the point that things are going to end.

They know when we’ve caught a glimpse behind the veil of lies and they go to work to regain our trust, to keep us locked in place. Mean or nice…everything, all the things they do, is an attempt to keep things going and require: contact. They fear losing prey. They become enraged when we slip free.

Their Concern is Survival and Nothing Else

Out of the simple need for survival, antisocial psychopaths despise losing their bagged targets. And for all the hate they have for us – they need us – and the narcissistic-user-sociopath will hold on as long as possible.

It’s the things, the status, and the opportunities we provide that compel them to hang on with just enough contact. Thye swing back-and-forth, hot-and-cold, nice-and-mean, to keep us in place by our own emotional responses to them combined with our misunderstanding of what is actually happening.

Manipulation, Bait, and Tricks Ramp Up in the Fear of Losing Contact

Eventually, that day comes for us when the “magic” is gone, and so when they whip out their standard bait: make coffee for us or put air in the tires or murmur — again — without eye contact, you’re special to me. — This time, our emotional response is flat or numb. We can see them more clearly as the snake they are.

Stand up and protect our lives, even in this overwhelming disaster, don’t give in to defeat. Instead, only continue to build treasures of the heart.

There’s a moment for each of us when their signature weak and familiar gesture, is measured up against all the odd, the confusion, and just plain sad and it just isn’t enough. Suddenly, we are done.

As the sociopath’s weirdness, deception, and betrayal come into focus, we want an end. We, as their prey, want out of the nightmare. Once we say: I’m leaving or, you have to go, we’re treated to Mr. Hyde and narcissistic rage. — The big-bad-monster will not really leave our lives until we establish no contact.

Sociopaths and Narcissistic Users Fear No Contact

What do sociopaths fear losing when the jig is up? After “the well” has truly run dry, they fear losing their physical freedom and their “good reputation”. This deluded idea that they have a “good reputation” is something they think they need to keep intact so they can continue using others.

So, to keep tabs on what we say to others, they continue to hang on even if they “break-up” with us. As we’re breaking away and after contact is really important to them for three reasons.

We call this after “break-up” contact, Hoovering. It lands as texts, emails, and phone calls; it may be messages or notes on our car or on the door, and it’s scary. There are plenty of reasons that this is scary. It’s normal to be in fear of the narcissistic user after the “break up”. This is all a part of PTSD.

Breaking Away Means to the Sociopath We’ve Gone Rogue

Once we’ve stepped away from the pathologically narcissistic user isn’t sure if they’re safe anymore, We’re an unknown factor. – We’ve gone rogue.

Not only have they lost their entertainment, or your car keys, cell phone bill payments, their arm candy, or entree into a particular social group: they don’t know what we’re going to do about what they’ve done to us.

This is where “hoovering” comes in. For your safety, if they use actual words in person or by phone, at that moment go ahead and verbally apologize. Soothe them by saying one plain sentence like, I know…it’s all my fault…Not because this is true. But because it’s wisdom; it’s for your safety.

This simple utterance stops hoovering in many cases, as the nutter then believes you aren’t a threat. They are enraged that you broke away, but they believe they can now go freely about their gruesome ways.

This isn’t “enabling” them. They are what they are with or without you.

Don’t worry, you’re lying… but they’ll believe you. This isn’t because this is true. It’s because sociopaths aka narcissists believe anything we say and act on it as if it is true.

They only need to feel like they’re getting away with all the lies and scamming. Never give this kind of impression or apology in writing, only in spoken words. Let them think they can go freely. Let them feel at ease in exiting. They don’t want us, or their kids – and we don’t want them.

Be Sociopath or Psychopath and Narcissist Free Forever

Really, get the skinny on what’s happening, in your specific circumstances. There’s more to this than an article can convey.

For a clearer and faster pathway back to restoring your life, step into recognizing how amazing you are. This makes the dust settle faster, and the debris and damage fall at their feet where it belongs rather than at yours.

Stand up and protect your life, even in this overwhelming disaster, don’t give in to defeat. Instead, only continue to build treasures of the heart.