Recovery from Narcissistic Abuse
Rae Starkey is passionate about helping people understand, navigate, and recover from narcissistic abuse.
Rae's statement:
"As a fully qualified and practicing Psychologist, I ended up in a relationship with a person who showed Narcissitic personality traits. I was completely unaware that what I was experiencing was narcissistic abuse, and although I knew about Narcissistic Personality Disorder from my studies, I had no idea what it looked like to the victim of such behaviour, and so I did not have a good understanding of what was going on.
My friend put the label 'narcissistic abuse' on what I was experiencing, and then I could see the cycle of abuse and coercive control, including the stages of idealisation (including love bombing), devaluation, discard, and hoovering, having been repeated over and over again.
Incredibly, despite then being aware of what was gong on it was still so hard to permanently leave the relationship due to the trauma bond that I had developed. When I finally did break free from the relationship I experienced post separation abuse also. I now know, and having worked with so many victims of narcissistic abuse that this is incredibly formulaic, and that the same patterns of abusive behaviours happen to everyone who ends up in a relationships with a person with narcissistic traits.
If you are currently experiencing, or have experienced Narcissitic abuse, I really understand how incredibly hard it is, and also how it can be difficult for people in your social support network to understand why you don't leave, or why you keep going back.
I want you to know that anyone, including a fully registered Clinical Psychologist, can end up in a relationship with someone who exhibits narcissistic traits, and that the trauma bond makes it so difficult to leave the relationship permanently, even after you know what is going on.
And for those who have a family member who exhibits narcissistic traits it can be so incredibly difficult as they are often not a person that can be removed from your life.
If you would like support to understand what is going on in your relationship, and to have help to navigate it, or heal post separation, I would absolutely love to help you, please get in touch."
