5 Less Obvious Signs of Narcissistic Abuse (And Why You Might Be Abandoning Yourself)
By Chloë Bean, LMFT · Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist on trauma, narcissistic abuse recovery, and somatic healing. Last updated: September 2026.
Somatic trauma therapist Chloë Bean, LMFT, a narcissistic abuse recovery specialist in Los Angeles, explains the less obvious signs of narcissistic abuse and how self-abandonment becomes the trap that keeps you stuck.
The most dangerous sign of narcissistic abuse is what can feel like love…but there's something inside you trying to get your attention. Something feels off. You're not listening to that signal because if you did, you'd start questioning the relationship, you'd see the red flags. But there's a part of you that's not wanting to see the red flags and so you learn to ignore your body's signals. This can lead to gradual self abandonment and over time it leads to a feeling of not knowing who you are anymore. You don't recognize your own voice and saying no feels like something only another person does. By the time you recognize narcissistic abuse, you're already so good at disappearing and hiding parts of yourself, to protect yourself from rejection, abandonment, or pain.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Narcissistic abuse tends to start off with what seem like innocent requests that gradually escalate into isolation, control, and manipulation
Self-abandonment is both a symptom AND a tactic narcissists exploit. You stop trusting yourself before you see the abuse which makes you more susceptible to more gaslighting
Your body registers the threat long before your mind catches up. Jaw tension, grinding teeth, chest tightness, digestive issues, hyper-vigilance, chronic pain, these aren't random symptoms
Fawning, people-pleasing, dissociating, and shrinking yourself are nervous system survival strategies when you’ve been exposed to toxic and narcissistic dynamics
Recognizing subtle abuse requires learning to trust your body again: staying with the discomfort in your body, the hollowness, a pit in the stomach, the sense that something is wrong even when you can't name it
Table of Contents
What Narcissistic Abuse Actually Looks Like (When It Doesn't Look Like Abuse)
Definition: Narcissistic Abuse Isn't Always Loud
Most people imagine abuse as being loud and overt with yelling, criticism, and physical infliction and control. But narcissistic abuse is usually the opposite. It's subtle. It's wrapped in moments of “kind manipulation”. It looks like love from the outside which can make the victim feel “crazy”.
Narcissistic abuse happens when someone tricks and mistreats you to gain control and feed their ego. But the manipulation is so skillful that you end up blaming yourself. The control is so disguised as care that you think you're the cause of their behavior.
The cycle typically follows a pattern: love-bombing (excessive affection and attention), devaluation (subtle criticism and withdrawal), and gaslighting (making you question your reality). But what makes it narcissistic isn't the specific tactic alone, it's that the entire dynamic is designed to keep you feeling small, doubting, and dependent on them.
And here's what most people miss: By the time the abuse becomes obvious, you've already stopped trusting in yourself.
What It Looks Like in Real Time
Narcissistic abuse initially can start with what feels genuine and maybe even vulnerable.
"I'm not happy and you’re making everything about you”, when you’re sharing good news about your day. At first that can feel like ‘wow, they’re being honest and they’re having a hard time’.
But over time, the small requests become put downs and projections onto you. "Do you really think she wants the best for you?" about your friend. "Your parents are boring. I don't want to see them, I need you to cancel if you love me." Gradually, your world shrinks, you’re guilt tripped. The people who used to remind you of who you are get cut out. You're left with only the narcissist to turn to.
This is what researchers call “escalating control”. Seemingly innocent requests like checking in on your loyalty, questioning your relationships—are actually strategic moves designed to isolate you and shift the power dynamic. As one analysis of relational manipulation patterns shows, "what appears to be a small behavior can reflect deeper patterns of control, emotional disregard, and power imbalance." Each small concession trains your nervous system to accept the next one.
Then the gaslighting gets worse. They recreate the narrative of your experience with so much certainty that you start to question yourself. "That didn't happen." "You're remembering it wrong." "You're too sensitive." "You're crazy."
And the worst part of it all is that you believe them. Because they're so convincing and because they've made you doubt your own memory, your own perceptions, your own sanity.
Why It’s So Hard to See
By the time you recognize what's happening, you've already abandoned yourself.
Your nervous system learned early on in your childhood that staying attuned to other’s moods, managing their emotions and needs, and keeping others happy kept you safer than if you didn’t. So you started molding to what other’s expected and took on this role in other relationships. It became part of your relationships to be the one who is “easy going”. You learned to read the room before you read yourself. You didn’t learn how to say no or set a boundary in a safe relationship.
And the narcissist needs this. They need you to abandon yourself. They want you to lose your sense of self because that is what keeps them in control. Your doubt is what keeps you questioning whether you should leave. Your self-blame is what keeps you staying.
This is why leaving is so hard. It's not just that you love them. It's that you've lost yourself so completely that you don't know how to exist without them.
The Self-Abandonment Trap — Why You Stop Trusting Yourself First
How Your Nervous System Learned to Prioritize Them Over Yourself
Your nervous system is built to scan for safety. Neuroscientist Stephen Porges's Polyvagal Theory shows us that your body is literally designed to monitor the people around you and adjust accordingly. When you're with someone, your nervous system is reading their face, their tone, their energy, and looking for signs that you're safe or in danger.
For a lot of people, especially those who grew up with unpredictable caregivers or emotional intensity, your system learned something specific: staying attuned to someone else's emotional state is the safest strategy.
Maybe your parent was volatile and you learned to read their moods to avoid their anger. Maybe you were the emotional caretaker and learned that your worth came from managing everyone else's feelings. Maybe you learned early that conflict was dangerous, so you adapted by becoming the peacekeeper.
Whatever the origin, by the time you enter an adult relationship, your nervous system has already wired the message: Your safety depends on keeping them happy.
In a narcissistic relationship, this nervous system adaptation becomes a trap.
Because a narcissist doesn't just appreciate your attunement, they exploit it. They need someone who will abandon their own reality to match theirs. They need someone who will prioritize the narcissist’s emotions, needs, and version of what happened. They need you to be so focused on them that you forget to check in with yourself.
As I've explained in media features, this constant attunement leaves you physically exhausted. Your nervous system stays in a low-grade state of activation, always monitoring, managing, and scanning for danger. Over time, you might find yourself numbing out through endless scrolling, shopping, or shutdown behaviors, that’s your body looking for any place that feels like an escape from being around them.
The Narcissist Exploits This
A healthy partner would eventually notice your self-abandonment and invite you back into yourself. They'd say, "You feel far away lately and I miss you. What do you need?"
A narcissist does the opposite. They reinforce it. They reward your self-abandonment with just enough attention and affection to keep you hooked. This is also known as bread-crumbing. They make your shrinking feel necessary and they make your people-pleasing feel like an act of love and loyalty.
And when you start to question this dynamic—when some small part of you starts to remember what it felt like before you met them, they gaslight you. They remind you that you're too sensitive, too much, too needy, or ungrateful. They make you feel guilty for even asking for your own needs to matter.
By abandoning yourself, you're keeping them safe. And that becomes your job.
By the Time You See the Pattern, You've Already Disappeared
Self-abandonment doesn't happen all at once. It happens so gradually that you don't notice you're doing it.
First, you stop expressing small preferences. It's easier to go along than to say what you actually want and deal with the manipulation tactics.
Then you stop sharing your real thoughts and feelings. It's safer to keep things hidden than to risk more heartbreak or anger.
Then you stop remembering what your preferences even are. You've spent so long adapting to someone else that your own desires have become invisible to you.
By the time you realize you're in an abusive relationship, you've already become a ghost in your own life. You look fine from the outside. You're functioning. You're managing. But inside, it feels like no one is home.
And that's the most dangerous part of narcissistic abuse. It doesn't just hurt you in the moment. It teaches you not to trust yourself. It dismantles the one relationship that matters most: your relationship with yourself.
Five Less Obvious Signs You Might Be in a Narcissistic Relationship
Sign 1: You Can't Remember the Last Time You Disagreed With Them
What this looks like:
You go along with their plans no matter what and their preferences become your preferences. Their version of what happened becomes your version too. When they say something happened a certain way, you don't argue. When they want to go somewhere, you agree. When they believe something, you believe it too.
Not because you're weak. But because disagreeing feels dangerous.
Why this matters:
Disagreement requires self-trust. It requires believing that your perspective matters, that your reality is valid, that it's okay to want something different. In a narcissistic relationship, you've learned that disagreement leads to anger, withdrawal, or gaslighting. So you stopped disagreeing and submitted to their reality. You learned that going along keeps the peace.
But peace that requires you to disappear isn't peace. It's deleting you.
Therapist insight:
I see this pattern in almost every client who's been in a narcissistic relationship of any kind. They come in and say, "I don't even know what I think anymore. I just agree with them." What's happening is their nervous system has learned that their own thoughts are unreal or a threat to their safety. So you have incongruence: their thoughts are questioning the dynamic while their mouth agrees to keep the peace.
The goal of therapy isn't to make you argumentative. It's to help you trust that your reality matters, that your perspective is valid even when someone else disagrees, and that you can hold your truth without it destroying the relationship.
Sign 2: Your Body Is Always Braced
What this looks like:
You notice you're holding tension somewhere: your jaw is clenched, you have chronic TMJ, your shoulders are raised, your chest feels tight, or you feel frozen. You just can't relax. Even when things seem fine, even when they're being nice, you can't fully let your guard down because some part of you is waiting for Mr. Hyde to return.
You startle easily. You're hypervigilant. You're always monitoring the room, reading their face, listening for shifts in their tone. You've become an expert at detecting danger before it arrives.
Your sleep is disrupted. Your digestion is off. You might have chronic pain, migraines, inflammation, or a tight feeling in your throat that doctors say is “just stress”. Your body is telling you something is wrong even when your mind is still trying to convince you everything is fine.
Why this matters:
Your nervous system registers threat before your conscious mind does. When you've spent months or years in an environment where you have to stay hypervigilant to stay safe, your body learns to stay activated. It's like your nervous system never gets the signal that the threat has passed.
Long exposure to relational manipulation leaves the body on edge, always revved up. Chronic interpersonal trauma is linked to sleep issues, digestion problems, and chronic hypervigilance. Your nervous system is carrying the weight of never feeling safe, and it's storing that in your body as pain and tension.
This is what I see with many of my clients who experienced corporal punishment or emotional intensity in childhood. The hypervigilance carries forward into adulthood. Your body learned early to brace for impact, and it never fully learned to relax.
When you add narcissistic abuse on top of that — a relationship where you have to stay attuned to someone else's moods to stay safe — your nervous system goes into overdrive. You're managing their emotional state while simultaneously trying to stay safe from their unpredictability. Your body becomes a constant guardian, and it never gets to rest.
Therapist insight:
Your body is not overreacting. It's accurately perceiving the environment as unsafe, it’s RIGHT. The chronic tension, the jaw clenching, digestive issues, the inability to sleep—these aren't signs of anxiety or weakness. They're signs that your nervous system is working hard to protect you.
Healing requires more than just understanding what's happening. It requires teaching your nervous system that safety is possible. That you can relax without something bad happening. That you can let your guard down without being hurt. This is where somatic work becomes essential, because your body needs to experience new safety, not just think about what it would be like.
Sign 3: You're the One Who Always Apologizes First
What this looks like:
After a conflict, you find yourself apologizing even when you know they were wrong. You take responsibility for their anger. You explain yourself over and over, hoping that if you just explain it right, they'll finally understand and stop being mad at you.
You apologize for things that aren't your fault. You apologize for their reaction to what you said. You apologize for existing in a way that upset them. You’re taking responsibility for them, which weighs on you.
And when they do something hurtful, they rarely apologize back. Or when they do, the apology doesn't feel real. It feels like a tactic to get you to stop being upset.
Why this matters:
Blame-shifting is a core tactic of narcissistic abuse. They do something harmful, and somehow you end up feeling responsible for it. This is called DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. They deny what happened, attack you for bringing it up, and reverse the dynamic so they're the victim and you're the perpetrator.
When you're the one always apologizing, you're not just being nice. You're being trained. Your nervous system is learning that conflict is your fault. That you're “the problem”. That you need to fix things by taking responsibility for their behavior.
This teaches you not to trust your own reality. If you're always apologizing, you start to believe you're always wrong. You stop asserting your perspective. You lose faith in your own judgment.
Therapist insight:
Many people who struggle with narcissistic relationships have a strong inner critic. They've learned to blame themselves before anyone else can. They apologize preemptively to avoid conflict. But what's really happening is their nervous system is trying to regain control by taking responsibility even if it isn’t. The logic is: if it's your fault, then you can fix it, and if you fix it, you can prevent the next explosion. You can gain control.
But you can't fix narcissistic abuse by being “better” or more apologetic. You can't change someone else's behavior no matter how hard you try. And the more you apologize, the more you reinforce the belief that you're the problem. They will not change unless they want to, which is the hard pill to swallow. You didn’t make them this way, and you are not the one who can “fix” them.
True healing involves learning to trust your own reality again. To distinguish between genuine mistakes that warrant apology and situations where you're being manipulated into taking blame for someone else's behavior.
Sign 4: You've Stopped Telling Your Friends About the Hard Parts
What this looks like:
You used to share so much with your friends, and it felt supportive and fun. But at some point you stopped. Now when they ask how things are going, you say "fine" or "good" even when you're struggling inside. You protect the relationship by not letting anyone see what's really happening.
Maybe you're afraid they'll judge your partner. Maybe you're ashamed of how you're being treated. Maybe you're worried they'll tell you to leave and you're not ready to hear that. Maybe they will distance from you if you don’t take their advice…So you keep the hard parts hidden.
The result is that you're increasingly isolated. You're carrying the weight of the relationship alone. Your friends think everything is going well. And without their outside perspective, without anyone reflecting back what they’re hearing, it becomes easier to believe the narrative the narcissist is telling you about yourself.
Why this matters:
Isolation is one of the most dangerous aspects of narcissistic abuse. When you're isolated from people who know you, you lose perspective. You lose your reality check. You lose the people who would remind you that you matter, that you deserve better, that this isn't okay.
Isolation also serves another purpose: it makes leaving harder. When all your emotional energy is going into the relationship, when you don't have friends or family to lean on, when you're completely dependent on your partner for emotional support, leaving feels impossible.
Connection is how we heal. Seeing ourselves through the eyes of people who love us, hearing their perspective on what's happening, and feeling supported, this is how we remember our own worth. When you're isolated, you lose access to all of that.
Sign 5: You Feel Crazy, But You Can't Point to One Specific Thing
What this looks like:
Something feels off. You can't relax. You're anxious or depressed or both. You don't feel like yourself. But when you try to explain it to someone, you can't point to one specific incident. Nothing is “obviously” wrong. They can be nice sometimes. There are good days mixed in with the bad ones.
So you start questioning yourself. Maybe I am crazy. Maybe I am too sensitive. Maybe I’ve been the problem all along in all these relationships and this person is finally telling me. After all, if something was truly wrong with them, wouldn't it be more obvious?
This is gaslighting at its most effective state. And it's the most destabilizing form of abuse because it makes you doubt your own sanity and your personal history.
Why this matters:
Gaslighting works by making you question your reality so consistently that you stop trusting your own perceptions. They deny things even happened. They twist your words around. They make you feel like you're remembering things wrong. And over time, you lose faith in your own mind.
This is why you feel crazy. Not because you are crazy, but because your reality is being systematically invalidated everyday. Your nervous system is registering the threat (which is why you feel anxious), but your mind is being told that nothing is wrong. The disconnect between what your body knows and what your mind is being told to believe creates cognitive dissonance. That's what causes the feeling of “going crazy”.
And here's the clinical reality: your nervous system is right. Your body is accurately perceiving that something is wrong. It's your mind that's been manipulated into doubting the body's signal.
Therapist insight:
One of the most important things I tell clients is this: if you feel like something is wrong, something probably is. Your nervous system doesn't lie. It might not be able to articulate exactly what's wrong, but if your body is sending distress signals, it's detecting a real issue.
Rebuilding self-trust means learning to believe your body again. To trust the discomfort and allow it to be present even when you can't explain it logically. Your somatic signals are important.
Why Your Body Knows Before Your Mind Does
The Nervous System Registers Threat First
Here's the neuroscience: Your nervous system processes threat detection before your conscious mind does. Your amygdala—your alarm system—lights up milliseconds before your prefrontal cortex, the reasoning part of your brain, even has a chance to process what's happening.
This is a survival mechanism. In genuine physical danger, like a fire or a tiger chasing you, you wouldn’t to sit and think about it. You want your body to act and get into high gear (fight or flight). You want to take action before your conscious mind is even aware there's a problem, because it would be too late and you may not survive. So the body is smart and taking care of you with when your instincts take over.
But in narcissistic relationships, this very mechanism becomes the liability. Your nervous system is registering threat accurately but your mind is being told nothing is wrong from the person and/or you. Your body is trying to protect you. Your mind is being gaslit into believing you're safe. And the resulting conflict between these two systems is what creates the feeling of going crazy and often looks like a freeze or shutdown.
This is also why you can't think your way out of people-pleasing. Even if logically you know you should say no, even if you've read a hundred books and articles about boundaries, when you're in the grip of that nervous system activation—the fear of disappointing someone, the shame, the panic—your prefrontal cortex goes offline. Your body takes over.
This is why willpower alone doesn't work. You can't white-knuckle your way out of a nervous system survival response. Your nervous system doesn't respond to logic. It responds to safety.
What This Feels Like
In your body, narcissistic abuse feels like this:
Your throat closes, your neck and shoulders tense up. You start breathing more quickly and less deeply. There's a heaviness in your chest, like something is sitting on it and won't move. Sometimes it feels hollow inside—a scooped-out sensation in your belly. Sometimes it's nausea or disgust. Sometimes it’s numbness, emptiness, or dissociation. Sometimes it's a complete inability to sleep because your nervous system won't let your guard down.
You might have chronic pain—back pain, neck pain, migraines—that doctors can't find a physical cause for. That's because the cause is relational. Your body is holding the burden of an unsafe relationship.
You might find yourself spacing out, not remembering conversations, feeling like you're watching your life from outside your body. This is your nervous system's way of protecting you from the overwhelming activation happening daily.
You might be hypervigilant and startle easily. You're always monitoring yourself and others. Even in moments that should feel calm, you can't fully relax.
All of these are signs that your nervous system has learned that your environment isn't safe. And your body is expecting and awaiting danger.
Your Body Is Telling You the Truth
This is important: Your body is not overreacting. Your body is not lying to you. Your body is not the problem.
Your body is accurately perceiving that something in this relationship is wrong. This isn’t anxiety, or neediness, or “too much”. That's your body’s wisdom.
Healing requires you to believe the tension in your chest when it tells you something isn't right, even if you can't explain why. To trust the feeling of disgust in your stomach when it tells you this isn't okay. To listen to your body before you listen to the story someone else is telling you.
This is where somatic trauma therapy becomes essential, because your body needs to be heard.
How Narcissistic Abuse and People-Pleasing Feed Each Other
You're Not Just Being Thoughtful… You're Managing Their Emotional State
Here's what I see in my practice: Many people-pleasers end up in relationships with narcissists because the skills that made them "good" people-pleasers are exactly what narcissists need to exploit.
When you're absorbing someone else's emotions as your full-time job, you're not being supportive. You're being used. Your emotional labor is being extracted. And over time, this leaves you exhausted.
I've written about this in media features: when you're constantly tracking and managing the feelings of people around you, your nervous system stays in a low-grade state of activation. You're always reading, always anticipating their next move, and always trying to keep the peace. This kind of exhaustion is a sign of over-functioning and unmet needs for rest, support, and healthy connection.
But in a narcissistic relationship, this exhaustion becomes the narcissist’s whole point. They need you to be exhausted and disconnected from yourself and things that made you feel alive and aligned. Depleted people don't leave. Exhausted people don't think clearly. Exhausted people become more dependent, more grateful for scraps of kindness, more willing to accept whatever the narcissist is willing to provide.
The Fawn Response: A Nervous System Survival Strategy
Psychologist Pete Walker identified four responses to trauma: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. Most people know about the first three. But fawning—people-pleasing, appeasement, abandoning your own needs to pacify someone else—is a nervous system survival strategy just as valid as fighting or fleeing.
Fawning develops when you learn early that:
Conflict is dangerous
Other people's emotions are your responsibility
Staying small and agreeable keeps you safe
Your needs don't matter as much as keeping the peace
Maybe you learned this in childhood. Maybe your parents were volatile, and you learned that relationships are supposed to look like that. Maybe you were the emotional support for a parent who should have been supporting you. Maybe conflict felt dangerous, so you adapted by becoming the person who never rocks the boat.
Maybe this was reinforced it in previous relationships. Maybe people have always rewarded your people-pleasing with attention and affection. Maybe shrinking yourself became your way of not being left behind.
Whatever the origin, by the time you enter a narcissistic relationship, your nervous system is primed and ready to fawn. You're an expert at letting the other be center stage. You're skilled at managing other people's emotions. You can read a room and adjust yourself accordingly.
And a narcissist? They can smell this from a mile away. They know you'll prioritize their needs over your own. They know you'll take responsibility for their feelings. They know you'll abandon yourself to keep them happy. They know you have their narcissistic supply.
How This Keeps You Trapped
Here's the cycle:
You shrink. You stop asserting your needs, your preferences, your perspective. You become smaller, quieter, less threatening.
They need you to stay small. Your self-abandonment is what keeps them in control. Your doubt is what keeps you from leaving. Your people-pleasing is what keeps you showing up even when you're exhausted.
You disappear more. The more you prioritize their needs, the more you lose track of your own. The more you manage their emotions, the less capacity you have for your own. You become a shell of yourself—functional on the outside, empty inside.
They reward the disappearing. Sometimes, just enough to keep you hooked. A kind word after weeks of coldness. Affection after weeks of withdrawal. These intermittent rewards are the most powerful reinforcer. Your brain becomes addicted to them, always waiting for the next one, always hoping that if you just disappear a little more and behave how they want, you'll get more of that validation.
And you're stuck. Because leaving means admitting you haven’t gotten what you needed. Leaving means accepting that all the self-erasure was for nothing. Leaving means feeling grief, anger, even rage.
This is what I see with many clients who grew up as youngest siblings or as emotional support for their families. They learned to over-function, to stay low-maintenance, to keep themselves small and stuff down anger and frustration. These patterns served them in some contexts. But in a narcissistic relationship, these same patterns become the trap that makes it hard to see reality.
What Somatic Therapy Can Do
Rebuilding Self-Trust Isn't About Forcing Yourself to Leave
Here's what doesn't work: willpower. Logical arguments. Reading more articles about why you should leave. Having a therapist tell you to that you should leave your partner.
You already know these things. And knowing them hasn't changed anything because the problem isn't intellectual. The problem is nervous system-based.
Your nervous system has learned to stay in a relationship that's unsafe because staying feels more familiar than leaving. Your body has learned to abandon itself because that's what's kept you alive this far. Your mind has learned not to trust itself because someone has systematically taught you not to.
You can't think your way out of that.
Real healing requires something different: teaching your nervous system that it's safe to trust yourself again. That it's safe to assert your needs. That it's safe to leave, if that's what you choose. That it's safe to come home to yourself.
This is what somatic therapy does. It works from the bottom up. It helps your nervous system experience new safety, which your brain registers faster than any verbal reassurance alone.
How Somatic Experiencing Works
Somatic Experiencing is a body-based therapy that helps your nervous system process trauma stored and stuck in the body. Trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk's work shows us that trauma doesn't just live in the mind, it lives in the body. It's stored as tension, as hypervigilance, as a nervous system that never got the signal that the threat has passed.
Somatic Experiencing helps your nervous system complete the protective responses that were interrupted during the trauma. It helps you track the sensations in your body—the tightness, the heaviness, the alarm—and move through them in a way that allows your nervous system to integrate the experience and register that you're safe now.
This is why it works for narcissistic abuse. Because the abuse isn't just psychological—it's physiological. Your body has been on high alert. Your nervous system has been dysregulated. Somatic work helps your body find regulation again.
EMDR for Processing the Abuse
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing helps your brain process traumatic memories at a deeper level. When trauma happens, the memory gets stored differently than regular memories. It stays activated. It keeps triggering you.
If you'd like to understand more about why gaslighting makes you doubt your sanity, EMDR helps your brain reprocess these memories so they lose their charge. It helps you update the core beliefs that formed during the abuse—the belief that you're unworthy, that you're crazy, that you can't trust yourself.
After EMDR, the memory is still there (to protect you). But it doesn't have the same power over you. Your relationship to the experience has changed, and it's part of your history, not your present.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) for Integrating the Parts of You That Survived
IFS helps you relate to the protective parts of yourself—the people-pleaser, the overachiever, the critic, the guilter, the one who stays small—with compassion instead of judgment.
These parts developed for a reason. They kept you safe. They helped you survive. But they're also what's keeping you stuck.
IFS helps you recognize these parts, thank them for protecting you, and gradually help them understand that you don't need those strategies anymore. That you're safe enough now to come home to yourself.
One powerful practice is to start gathering evidence of your own worthiness right now. Notice what you appreciate about yourself—how you show up, the way you move through the world, how you treat others. This isn't vanity; it's nervous system re-education. When you consistently interrupt the harsh inner critic with real evidence of who you are, you begin rewiring the self-doubt that abuse installed. Research shows that this kind of reflective self-appreciation interrupts stress loops and helps high-achieving women move away from "I'm not doing enough" toward genuine confidence. It sounds simple because it is—but it's also profound.
Nervous System Regulation as Foundation
Before you can process the deeper trauma, your nervous system needs to develop greater capacity to tolerate the feelings that come with that processing. This is where grounding tools, breathing practices, resourcing, and somatic awareness come in.
The goal is to expand your window of tolerance—the zone where you can feel and process emotions without becoming overwhelmed. Small, consistent practices build this capacity more effectively than big interventions. A few minutes of somatic awareness each day goes a long way in building your tool kit and increasing your connection with your body.A
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How Do I Know If I'm Being Abused or Just Overreacting?
If your nervous system is registering threat, get curious and make room for it.
You might not be able to point to one specific incident. The abuse might be so subtle that it doesn't look wrong from the outside. But if you feel anxious, if you're second-guessing yourself, if you feel like you're going crazy—these are signs that something in the relationship could be destabilizing.
This is why I always say: trust your body before you trust the story someone else is telling you. If your body is sending distress signals, they're there for a reason. If you find yourself constantly doubting whether you're being abused or overreacting, gaslighting may be at play.
Q: Can Someone Be a Narcissist and Still Love Me?
Love requires seeing another person. Really seeing them. Understanding their needs and respecting them. Being willing to be vulnerable and repair when you've caused harm.
Narcissistic abuse is incompatible with these requirements. Someone can be nice to you sometimes and still be abusive. Someone can say they love you and still be exploiting you. Someone can provide financial support and emotional crumbs while systematically dismantling your self-trust.
What you're experiencing might feel like love. But it's not. It's a cycle of intermittent reinforcement designed to keep you hooked.
Q: Am I the Problem?
No.
But I understand why you're asking. Because after months or years of being told you're too sensitive, too needy, too much, too dramatic—you've started to believe it. Gaslighting is so effective because it plants seeds of doubt that grow over time.
Here's what I know: If you're asking this question, you're probably someone with a strong conscience who takes responsibility seriously. That's also not why the relationship is failing.
The relationship is failing because someone is systematically dismantling your self-trust. Sometimes this dismantling happens so gradually that everything looks fine on the outside while your nervous system is frozen inside.
And you can't fix that by being better or more understanding. You can only take care of YOU by learning to trust yourself again.
Is It Safe to Stay and Try to Fix the Relationship?
If your partner is willing to acknowledge the harm they're causing and commit to real change—therapy, accountability, genuine effort to understand how their behavior has affected you—there's a possibility.
But here's the reality: most people with narcissistic traits don't seek therapy for narcissism. They seek therapy for depression or anxiety or relationship problems, and they use therapy as another tool to manipulate. They also know how to appear to a therapist to make it look like everything is “fine”.
You cannot fix a narcissistic relationship by being a better partner. You cannot heal narcissistic abuse by loving harder. You cannot change someone who doesn't believe they need to change.
What you can do is decide what you need in order to feel safe. And if your partner can't provide that, you have choices.
What Do I Do If They Won't Go to Therapy?
Then you have your answer. They're not willing to do the work. And you can't do it for both of you, you’ve been doing that already and it’s not working.
This is where you get to choose yourself. And that's terrifying because you've spent so long choosing them.
How Long Does Recovery Actually Take?
Recovery isn't linear. You will get to a point where the abuse doesn't define you and you’re not thinking about them or the situation everyday. You will start to trust yourself again. You can look back at what happened and feel grief and maybe some relief, but not shame.
For most people, this takes time. Months of therapy. Practices with your nervous system, gradually rebuilding self-trust. And patience with yourself as you learn to come home to yourself.
How to Get Support
Working with a Trauma-Informed Therapist
If you're questioning whether your relationship is abusive, working with a trauma-informed therapist who understands narcissistic abuse is essential. Not all therapists understand these dynamics. Some will suggest couples therapy, which can actually be harmful in abusive relationships because it gives the abuser more tools to manipulate you.
Look for someone who:
Specializes in trauma and narcissistic abuse
Understands that the abuse isn't about communication skills
Can help your nervous system find safety, not just your mind understand the situation
Won't pressure you to leave or stay, but will support you in trusting yourself
Learn more about how somatic therapy vs talk therapy works and why body-based approaches are essential for narcissistic abuse recovery.
If You're in Immediate Danger
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 (24/7, confidential) Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741 International resources :https://www.hotpeachpages.net/
Somatic Intensives for Accelerated Healing
If you're ready to do deeper work, I offer a 3-part virtual intensive package:
50-minute intake and goal-setting session
3-hour somatic intensive combining EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, and parts work (Fridays virtual only)
50-minute integration session
Personalized follow-up recommendations
Investment: $2,125
This format allows for more concentrated work in a shorter timeframe, which can accelerate nervous system regulation and processing.
Free Consultation
If you're ready to explore whether working together is a fit, I offer a free consultation. We can discuss what you're experiencing, what you're looking for, and whether my approach aligns with what you need.
You're welcome to request a free consultation. I'll reach out when space opens in my practice.
→ [Request a free consultation]
FEATURED MEDIA & RESOURCES
Related Articles I've Been Featured In:
Why Online Shopping Can Be a Trauma Response — Oprah Daily, July 20, 2026
Women Are Talking About "Competence Fatigue" — Scary Mommy, July 13, 2026
Why Other People's Emotions Leave You Feeling So Exhausted — Scary Mommy, June 3, 2026
Everything You Need To Know About Gaslighting — Scope Weekly
17 Phrases To Use When Someone Is Gaslighting You — Scary Mommy
Why Time Together Is the Biggest Relationship Battlefield — Toronto Sun, June 28, 2026
Related Articles on Narcissistic Abuse Recovery & Trauma
If you're recognizing these patterns in your own relationships, these articles go deeper:
Understanding Narcissistic Abuse:
Why Smart, High-Functioning Women Still Get Gaslit in Relationships
Why It's So Hard to Move On from a Toxic Relationship: Trauma Bonds, Attachment, and the Nervous System
Attachment & Vulnerability Patterns:
Breaking Free from Codependency: Why These Patterns Form and How Healing Begins
Am I a People Pleaser? How Trauma, Anxiety, and Perfectionism Shape This Pattern
Somatic & Nervous System Healing:
The Somatic Cost of People-Pleasing: How Chronic "Niceness" Impacts Your Body and Relationships
Functional Freeze: When Everything Looks Fine But Your Nervous System Is Not
When the Body Remembers Trauma: How Somatic Experiencing Helps the Nervous System Heal
How Trauma Shows Up in Romantic Relationships and Repeating Patterns
Podcasts:
Work with Me
Sources
Arnsten, A. F. T. (2009). Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 410–422.
Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W.W. Norton & Company.
Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.
Levine, P. A. (2015). Trauma and Memory: Brain and Body in a Quest to Overcome the Unchangeable. North Atlantic Books.
Shapiro, F., & Forrest, M. S. (2016). EMDR: The Breakthrough Therapy for Overcoming Anxiety, Stress, and Trauma. Bantam.
Schwartz, R. C. (2021). No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model. Sounds True.
Walker, P. (2013). Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. Azure Coyote Publishing.
Chloë Bean, LMFT — Somatic Trauma Therapist in Los Angeles
About the Author
Chloë Bean, LMFT is a licensed marriage and family therapist and somatic trauma therapist in Los Angeles. She works with high-achieving women on anxiety, burnout, perfectionism, people-pleasing, narcissistic abuse, toxic relationship recovery, and the nervous system patterns underneath chronic overthinking. Her approach integrates Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) — body-based work that reaches what talk alone can miss. She sees clients virtually throughout California and in person in West Los Angeles, and her practice is currently full with a waitlist. Her insight has been featured in Real Simple, Greater Good Magazine, Forbes, SELF, HuffPost, and Bustle.
→ Learn more about working together
Find Chloë Bean, LMFT on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and Psychology Today.