(PA) - E090 - Why Loneliness Is Killing You But It Feels Impossible To Reach Out After Narcissistic Heartbreak

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[00:00:00] In this episode, you will understand why you feel so alone and desperate for somebody who gets it. Yet at the same time, it feels almost impossible to reach out to friends and family after narcissistic heartbreak

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Speaker: welcome to Heartbreak to Wholeness, the podcast helping you heal from the mindfuck of narcissistic relationships and move towards the secure, peaceful woman you want to become. I am your host, Bre Wolta, Relationship Clarity Coach and EFT Certified Practitioner. Let's dive in.

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If you are drowning in loneliness, but too embarrassed to reach out if your friends are done because you sound like a broken record. And if I can just do, this alone has become your mantra. This episode is for you. In this episode, you are going to finally discover how narcissistic relationships push you into a dark pit of isolation.

Why you do it alone, even though you so desperately just want somebody to understand and the price that you're paying for protecting yourself from [00:01:00] everyone.

We are going to get into all of this and more to help meet you exactly where you are in this loneliness and confusion that you're in. And be sure to stick around to the end of the episode where I will pull an Oracle card to offer you a specific message that you can use and hold onto this week to stay more conscious in your healing.

Oh, okay. So let's just name that

you are here listening to this podcast because likely you have been through some sort of mind fuck of a situationship or relationship, and you are feeling really alone in this experience. It is so damn hard To be in a relationship that feels so painful at times yet is something that you keep going back to.

And people who haven't been through these types of relationships don't understand that back and forth. They don't understand how you can call them up, bawling your eyes out one day and then follow up with them a day or a couple days later with everything's fine.

Everything's really good. [00:02:00] We, we create these confusing justifications and we ignore red flags so easily in these types of narcissistic relationships. And to the outside person who's never been through that experience, that's really confusing and really frustrating for them. The longer and longer that they watch somebody that they love go through something really painful, yet, keep going back to that experience.

So it's hard for you as a person in that confusing relationship to feel held and seen by people who don't have that direct experience on top of the fact that the word narcissist is something that's thrown around so much these days. And so people have either the wrong understanding of what a narcissist is and are just like anybody who's self-centered, they call a narcissist.

Or maybe you're using the term and they're like, oh, there's no way he's a narcissist. He's so charming and wonderful and treats you so well, and they're seeing the, the facade they're seeing, the, the veneer that he's putting on. And so [00:03:00] both of those things can be really confusing and feel dismissive to us, right?

You and me as the people who have been through these relationships, all we want is for somebody to understand.

This reminds me of a client that I had who was super social before her narcissistic relationship. She had a really close group of girlfriends and she would go to them over and over again throughout the relationship and tell them about. You know, the fucked up things that were happening asking for support, and it would get the girlfriends all riled up of, oh my God, he's so terrible, and why are you with him?

And, and then a day later when they would call to check in to with her, she would have an excuse. For why the situation wasn't that bad or why she overreacted. Um, oftentimes after a big fight, he would like plan a trip for them. And so she's like, I'm really excited. He's, you know, so sorry for what he did.

We're gonna go to Mexico next week and just have some time for us to reconnect. And eventually her [00:04:00] friends stopped trying to support her, stopped trying to be that open ear, that safe space, because she always had an excuse for him. They got really frustrated and she, my client, felt herself really get taken farther and farther away from the women who knew her best because of the things that she was using to shield her partner's image.

And what happened is that she started believing that she had to handle everything on her own. She had to keep everything in and try to make sense of what was happening, and she couldn't go back to them.

She couldn't go back to asking for that support because they were just so over it. And it was almost like the the boy who cried wolf, right? Like she had cried wolf so many times that now when the relationship started getting really bad and she started having less justifications for it. She felt trapped.

She felt like she didn't have that outlet, that safe, that safe group of people that could believe her.

And I felt this [00:05:00] too, in my experience in trying to make sense of a narcissistic relationship. It's like you have so much shame and embarrassment and because you can't really articulate what's happening and you can't make sense of what's happening because in your mind it's swirling like a thousand miles an hour.

Your world folds in on itself. And it shrinks down to just you and the chaos of the relationship, and that's all that's swirling around in your mind. It's like ping ponging back and forth and swirling around and just feeling like this, this madness all around you. And there's no outlet. You're left ruminating and anxiously trying to make sense of it all, and you can't, you, you feel crazier by the day.

Have you had that experience? Maybe you relate to this feeling of feeling exhausted from carrying everything all alone. Maybe your girlfriends and your family have distanced your themselves and you don't even know where to start.

You don't even know [00:06:00] how to pick that connection back up, or you're tired of the, why did you go back? Question or judgment from people who are trying to hold space, but really are coming across as not safe people because of the amount of judgment that they're passing on you.

It's like the loneliness is eating you alive, but you won't let the walls come down

because it's just easier somewhere in our brain. It's just easier to be alone with it than try to deal with the confusion, the judgment, the embarrassment that comes with sharing with another person who doesn't quite understand. And maybe you're even a mom and you, you have kids who are learning that what strength means is to never need anybody.

They're really watching you suffer alone in silence, pretending that everything is okay.

You've learned to withdraw as a protection measure. You've learned to protect yourself so well that you really locked yourself inside of the pain.

[00:07:00] I get it. I did the same exact thing. And the image that comes to mind for me with this is something that originated with Brene Brown where is like you are slowly being lowered further and further into a dark hole. Where you are alone and it's cold, and you're desperate for somebody who is walking by over the top of the hole to just come down and comfort you, but you can't make yourself yell up to them.

You want them to climb down with you into the hole without having to explain it all, and there's shame and embarrassment around that, explaining which is what is keeping you hiding alone.

I thought the same exact thing. No one understands, no one's gonna be able to, to understand this with me. It's, it's safer to be alone.

But here is what's true. This isolation, this dark hole is not protecting you. It's prolonging your pain. And I know you know that on some level that humans are not meant to heal in [00:08:00] isolation. We can't. We need to be witnessed in the healing. We are social creatures. We need that connection. We need that support.

And Brene Brown has a famous quote about shame and disconnection. If you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three things to grow exponentially, secrecy, silence, and judgment. So what happens when we are stuck down in the hole all by ourselves is that we are stewing in secrecy, silence and judgment.

Judgment of ourselves and fear of judgment from other people. So what's happening? Our shame is increasing so high. That's what's building the walls around us with other people. That's what's deepening the pit. There's so many metaphors for this, but it's keeping you stuck.

And what I'm gonna say next feels like a hard truth, but I know that you are strong enough to hear this. He wins when you let his manipulation steal, your ability to connect it when you let it rob you of your [00:09:00] safe place with people who love you.

The further away that you are isolated, the more he's getting what he wants, the more control he's getting over you, the more shame that's building within you, which decreases your self-confidence and your sense of self and keeps you under his grasp

Even though it feels safer in this dark place where you don't have to show people who what is really happening and feel that embarrassment and that shame, true safety isn't found down there. It's not found in isolation, it's found in connection.

It's found when you are witnessed and held by a safe person who isn't judging what you did or didn't do, how many times you went back to this person, how many times you gave them the benefit of the doubt

And the more non-judgmental space that is held for you, the more that you're able to actually access compassion for yourself.

And compassion is needed to start to rebuild that self trust. Which is going to help you actually find the freedom that you're looking for. The freedom from [00:10:00] him, and the healing, right? The freedom from the whole experience.

So if your pit is so deep that you can barely see the light above you, if the loneliness is killing you, but connection feels impossible. And you're tired of carrying everything alone,

and what you so desperately want is to let go of this person to heal, to make sense of it, to not feel alone in this healing and this confusing journey that looks way too complicated. That's out in front of you. That is exactly why I created my becoming program. It's a safe community of women who understand exactly where you are because they are you.

It's so beautiful to see when women share in the group spaces, there are so many head nods and me toos and. and parallel tears that happen when someone else is processing, because we're healing with them, we see ourselves in them, and it helps us access a level of understanding, that is hard to get by ourselves. Just the other day, in one of our group sessions, a woman [00:11:00] was in tears and she thanked the other woman who was processing outwardly because she felt like that woman had healed something for her

that hearing this woman's share had unlocked something and just bearing witness to the pain that felt so familiar in her body, helped her to release something. So you don't have to do this alone,

and in fact, I believe that you cannot do this alone making sense of the mind. Fuck is at least a two person job because you are getting out of a really confusing reality that he has trapped you in. You need someone to reflect back to you that you're not crazy and that you're not making it up.

I can almost feel you nodding along with this, and I know that this is the message that I needed to hear when I was exactly in your shoes. So if you are nodding along and you are maybe even feeling more seen in this episode than you have in months, please go to the show notes, click through,

book an intro call with me and.

Let's start the conversation about where you are and how I can help support you to end this pain that you're in, to help you reclaim some energy [00:12:00] from the exhaustion that you feel. The rumination, the obsession, the, the mind spiraling, all of that can stop.

You can let go of this pain. I'm a walking testament to moving through this and coming out more whole, more confident, more feeling of worthy, more feeling lovable on the other side.

And before we go for today's episode, I'm going to pull this Oracle card just asking the deck, what is the message that you need to hear today? Whoop. And there it is.

The card is called Weirdo, and here is the message. Weirdo is here to let you know that it is time to let your freak flag fly. Unapologetically you are perfect and unique. Stop apologizing and agonizing over not fitting in. Embrace your inner and outer weirdo. The world needs your point of view, your expression, your gifts, and your novel ideas.

Weirdo demands that you live fully in your truth, from your soul's place of deep confidence, and knowing that you came into this world perfectly and wholly as you were meant to. No more [00:13:00] hiding, no more worrying that your unique way of being in the world isn't enough. It's time to live fully as your beautiful, self confident, expressive, open, and loving, and all of those things are possible.

I couldn't have said it better myself. You will feel confident, expressive, open, and loving. You will be trusting. You will know yourself better inside and out. So I'm here for you and I cannot wait to meet you until then, know that you are not alone, and I will see you in the next episode.