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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.

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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.

Find real healing

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

Loving a Sociopath: Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

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Loving a sociopath is
a surreal world of confusion.
A fall down the rabbit hole into hell.
There’s the Mad Hatter, the Red Queen,
and seemingly, no way out.

Loving a sociopath says a lot about what great people we are because, sociopaths, con artists target amazing people. They have to because after all, they need us to survive. They need our high-octane goodness to hold up their lives. Loving a sociopath or a narcissist is an illusion in hell.

Antisocial psychopaths, narcissistic users, and predators are parasites. Parasites, in general, are living things, that live off of others. In order to do this, they do need a strong host. An amazing human, like you.

Sociopath, Psychopath and Call Them a Narcissist

Call them narcissists if you want to, or call them dirt-bags, that’s even better.

Whatever you call them, they’re still jackals, snake-like predators who hunt, seek, and ensnare beautiful-normal commitment-minded men and women who bring a lot to the table.

“Narcs” or “narcissists” are in fact – sociopaths behaviorally and as we experience them within these entrapments.

If you feel confused, sense that you’re being lied to, feel like you aren’t sure what’s happening, and sometimes wonder where they are…Think of them as sociopaths, pathological parasitic predator.

Go beyond the idea
that they want to control you…
There’s more to it than this – and surprisingly, much less.
Be free.

Guided recovery; take back your life

Leeches, Roaches, Jackals, and Rats

Predators are roaches, flies, mosquitoes, ticks, lice, rats, jackals, vulture, scavengers and bloodsuckers who hide and sneak and who can’t function, exist or survive without us to eat off of. We’re the strong ones. There’s nothing wrong with us. There’s everything right with you. And, everything wrong with them.

A sociopath needs us to prop up and propel their fake and sickening, weak lives forward. They need good people who will stand by them and defend them when their past hits the fan, as it always, always does.

Congratulations!! Be proud of yourself! – Not everyone comes out the other side. When our hearts, our minds, our souls entangle with a sociopath and survive, coming out of the fire, we’re warriors of life who deserve gold medals, accolades, ticker tape parades in our honor, marching bands and choirs of angels. – We’re the best of the best. The cream of the crop. And now we know so much more about life – not another monster can exist in our presence.

How Do Sociopaths Choose Their Prey?

We’re our own heroes. We’re our own angels. Loving a sociopath or what you might call a narcissist is a crash-and-burn expedition into hell. Only if we’re brave enough it’s a rise-again course in human nature and the nature of evil.

After recovery life can be a bowl of cherries again. Really. It takes time. The same thing that ensnares us sets us free: our great goodness.

We’ve been scouted by a ruthless-being-of-deception-and-cruelty. We’ve been scooped up in a net-of-many. We’re used for our stellar human qualities.

We’re absolutely amazing women and men. The thing is we’re wired to be trusting, kind, generous, faithful, and to feel and to care.

There’s little difference between a narcissist, a sociopath, and a psychopath. And if we think we love one, we’re in for trauma, loss, grief, and worse.

Loving a Sociopath Means We’re Awesome Humans: Sociopaths Need Strong People to Survive

The very nature of our Super-Hero-Awesome is aligned with what a sociopath needs. He wants us because we’re so together, loving, and loyal. Sociopaths look for prey who have hyper-empathy, invest in relationships, and have high levels of trust and loyalty.

Remember, when we come in contact with a predatory person and find them appealing, or are attracted to them – the trajectory of harm is set. That’s why it’s our job to know what a sociopath is. To side-step them, to disarm their love-bombing ways, stay who we are, and spread the word.

The bottom line is, these gorgeous aspects within us are what sociopath needs to survive, and they’re the very same traits that we use to recover. We are our own Super Heroes. We truly are our own Angels. Be sure to take our own empathy and compassion and turn these towards ourselves. Embrace our own amazing lives just as we are!