Chronic sadness after narcissistic abuse

[harmony83]

Does anyone suffer from this? I feel like I have a constant, background sadness. It's like it's on a repeat cycle. I've name changed by the way, long time poster on stately homes thread.
I started coming out of the fog almost 4 years ago. I am NC with my entire family and am in the process of leaving my emotionally abusive partner.
I do have friends, and lovely children who I know love and adore me.
But sometimes I just want a hug from a mum or a husband. When I've had a bad day I just want someone to pick me up and tell me it's all ok.
But if you're the scapegoat in a narcissistic family or an empath in an abusive relationship no one does that. I've never had it, so I don't even know what I'm missing.
What do others do when the aching pain of not having a loving family or partner gets too much?
I am a big believer in just keep going, I work hard on myself. I've had more therapy than you can shake a stick at. I run. I try to be kind to myself. I fill my life with healthy hobbies and avoid toxic people as much as I can. I try to remain positive and practice an attitude of gratitude for what I have.
But I need a fucking hug. It's been years since I've had any sort of affection from anyone other than my children. I cried in a yoga class recently as we had to pair up and a complete stranger had to touch me in a supportive way and it was just so foreign to me.
What else can I do?

Cut yourself some slack. It sounds like you are doing very well in most respects and it comes across how hard you have worked to improve your life. It’s not your fault that you feel sad sometimes. Maybe if you start to accept some of that sadness it will have less power over you, over time.

@vincettenoir thanks for your response. I do try to cut myself slack, way more than I used to. I just can't bear the sadness. I've got little children that I want to set a good example to. I think I do a good job of not letting them see how much pain I'm in but I do think they will pick up on it.

OP I really understand this feeling. I’m two years out of a relationship with a narcissist and feel like I’ve moved on well in the most part, but occasionally the memories surge up and the realisation that I wasted years on what was essentially all a massive lie hits me again out of the blue. It physically hurts sometimes, other times it just feels like an emptiness or coldness I can’t quite describe. I don’t have a partner and while I have loving family they’re not nearby so I do understand that urge for a hug and someone to tell you they understand and are there.

You say you have friends - do any of them know, really know and understand what you’ve been through? Have you done the Freedom Programme? I did it after recommendations from MN users and it helped me so much. I know you’ve had therapy but I found the FP different as it introduced me to a circle of people who truly got what I was going through as they were doing the same. You might even find some other course mates local to you.

Other than that, all I can really say is keep going. Four years is quite a while but you’ve made a huge, brave life change and are going through another one. It’s going to feel shit for a while unfortunately but once you’re free of your partner for good, you can truly start to heal. Sending you much strength and positivity (and hugs!)

@Tafelberg thank you for your response. Sorry to hear you have been in a similar relationship, good for you for getting out. Did you feel an overwhelming relief when you left?
I think I'm more overwhelmed by the not having a family to support me during the separation. My friends are great, they are supportive but I've never been a hugger with them ( I find female comfort very uncomfortable I'm guessing due to the relationship with my mum ) so I don't think any of them would fill that void if you know what I mean.
I haven't done the freedom program. I don't know much about it but will take a look now. I've always felt as if I'm over reacting a bit to my situation and I've no place in a group with people that have been abused. I think I've always just refused to be or feel like a victim. I just keep trying different things to try to heal and get over it. Problem is nothing seems to be working.

I don't know either battered. In my case it's a great deal of familiar loss from young, but the sadness is like a never-lifted iron block on my back.

You learn ways to live with it, but I'm very far from the person I would have been with a stable loving background.

familial*

@harmony83 @batteredsoul name change fail.
Otherwise, you sound very self aware and you know why you are sad. Your can't immediately change that. Who knows, maybe in the future you will find a huggy supportive friend or partner. I'm the meantime your reaction to the yoga makes me wonder if there's some therapy available that involves touching. I have no idea but if there isn't, it's a gap in the market!

When I've had a bad day I just want someone to pick me up and tell me it's all ok

This is a child's need for a parent. This is the child that you were, who was never picked up and told it was all ok. When we grow up, we replicate for ourselves the care that we received from our parents. That's what you're doing. You are providing yourself with emotional neglect.

Adults are emotionally independent. They don't need a parent figure to look after them, because they can look after themselves. The person you so desperately need to hold you and love you is you. The gap that you feel in your life isn't about the lack of another person, it's about a lack of self support.

I try to remain positive

Stop trying to feel things. If you have to try to feel positive, you're not feeling positive. Have a look at how you're really feeling, and respond to that. That's the first step of self love and self respect.

I work hard on myself

Accept that you don't need work. Accept that you, just like the rest of us, are flawed, and deserve full on love anyway. You don't need to change yourself. The only thing that's wrong is the self view that something is wrong with you. There are 2 people in all of us. 1 is the thoughts, and one is the emotions. Currently, you feel things, and then your head comes in with 'You shouldn't feel that. You need therapy for that.' Think about your emotional self in that relationship. Being told by the mental self 'You are faulty, you need fixing, you need to do things differently, you're doing everything wrong.' How do you think your emotional self is going to respond to that? She's going to want some love and support. And that's where you are right now, feeling desperate for some support. So desperate that even a hug from a stranger can trigger you. But the support can't come from outside; it needs to come from you, by stopping that mental process of criticising yourself for feeling how you feel.

Let yourself be. If you're not getting beaten up by yourself on the inside, your need for support from others will drastically diminish.

Similar...I hug a pillow or have one behind me. You can hug yourself in bed too .Sometimes life is rubbish, Sometimes the only person you can rely on is yourself...or a pillow.

Adults are emotionally independent

A great post generally TheFoundations, but I'd like to gently challenge this statement.

Adults are much much more independent than children, but not wholly. People marry (in the west) for emotional connection and for physical because humans need it.

At the most profound level of ourselves, we are social creatures. People need People. Every single person, child or adult, needs to feel they belong - that's an emotional need.

It's true that the overwhelming intensity of childhood need fades, if all goes well. But a healthy human is never entirely self-contained. There's a flow between people.

I challenge the sentiment that full adults are emotionally independent because firstly it's not entirely accurate and secondly because if someone hasn't had the appropriate love in childhood and is still needy, putting Complete Emotional Independence up as the ideal can put considerable pressure on someone.

for physical touch* sigh. damn my proofreading.

@ljsbear

You are absolutely right.

@harmony83

Please take ljsbear's post into account as well as mine. They have a very good point.

agreed with the rest of your post, TheFoundations. Especially about not criticising yourself harshly. It only makes things worse. Comes from a place of never having being accepted as you are, really. "if only I did this better, you'd love me". Sadly it's an impossible treadmill.

Sadly it's an impossible treadmill

I like this analogy as it contains within it the image that you don't have to keep on running. The trick isn't to get to 'get there', it's to realise you don't need to be on the treadmill in the first place.

yup, it's the only solution - step off the damn thing.

Even if you could miraculously achieve the goal and please your parents / whoever, it'd be a false victory because you still know to your core that you are only acceptable if you do this / that / the other and not for you being you. Long way down to fall, if they suddenly decide you're not good enough after all.

@Ijsbear and @TheFoundations thank you both for your posts. And the others that for some reason won't allow me to tag...
I feel a bit stuck now though. If I need to stop trying to get better, I feel ill get worse. When I say I'm trying I mean I get out for runs, I stay off the wine during the week, I cook my kids their dinner from scratch, I work hard, I'm studying to keep my head occupied, I keep on top of stuff as in tidy house, paying bills, not getting into debt...
When what I actually feel like doing half the time is sinking a bottle of red, eating shit and watching reality TV all day crying into my chips that life isn't fair and no one loves me. But I don't, as I know it won't help. But "helping" myself by consciously staying well doesn't seem to get rid of the pain either.
I kind of accept that maybe one day a future partner may love me, so I can remain hopeful of that potential. But I'll never have the love of a mother. And for that I feel cheated and heartbroken. And it sucks.

But "helping" myself by consciously staying well doesn't seem to get rid of the pain either

I know what you mean. All too well. You are not alone ... though nothing takes away that hole where a mother's love should be, and isn't.

I feel a bit stuck now though. If I need to stop trying to get better, I feel ill get worse. When I say I'm trying I mean I get out for runs, I stay off the wine during the week, I cook my kids their dinner from scratch, I work hard, I'm studying to keep my head occupied, I keep on top of stuff as in tidy house, paying bills, not getting into debt...
When what I actually feel like doing half the time is sinking a bottle of red, eating shit and watching reality TV all day crying into my chips that life isn't fair and no one loves me

I can relate to that! Your list of things you do to 'try' doesn't involve any love for you. It's all about keeping yourself healthy, looking after your kids well, and that's all great.

But if somebody really really loved you and cared about you and wanted you to be smiling and feeling cherished, what would you like them to do for you? Take you out for dinner? Book you in for a massage? Reserve a place at the local meditation group for you? Take you to the seaside so that you could swim in the sea and go on the slot machines? What would they do for you? Make a list. As long as your arm. The '@batteredsoul's is loved' list. Keep thinking of things to add to it, over days and weeks, over the rest of your life.

When you start doing these things for you, your life will change. You will be somebody who has somebody that does lovely things for them. And you will start to love that person, for making small acts that make your life nice. That's the birth of self respect, and self respect is what you're missing.

Even if you can't do any of the things at the moment, the making of the list in itself helps. The focusing on what you love, what you need, what you want. Even if it's 'Flying in a helicopter over the statue of liberty', write it down, despite not having a helicopter, or a babysitter. One day you will do it, and knowing that is step one.

You are far from stuck. You are just stuck in your efforts to 'try'. It's time to make efforts to 'enjoy', and 'relish' and 'savour'. Make your days precious.

@batteredsoul I am sorry for what you are going through. I do not have any wise advise for you, I am afraid, but other posters did a fine job, I think. I would just add that what you need is healing. Once you get rid of your nasty husband and focus on yourself and your needs, the healing will start. If I were you I would not look for a man for a while but rather work on taking care and loving yourself. I do agree with others that this may be what you need/should work on. It is so sad how much time and energy we spend taking care of others but tend to totally ignore our own needs.

@freeatlast2021 thanks for your reply. I am definitely not looking for a new man, I'm fantasising about living on my own with my children. What I was getting at is, to make life seem a little less shit I do hope that in future I may meet someone who loves me so I get to experience it in some form other than the love I get from my children. It's like a light at the end of the tunnel. Hope.
But what I will never experience is maternal love. Not the receiving end of it anyway! I experience the giving of maternal love which is unlike anything else.

I understand and feel for you. When this feeling happened to me and I just couldn't shake it I booked into get a massage. The sadness and loneliness I felt at the time as no one was supporting me physically and emotionally was overwhelming. For me, the massage worked wonders. It was the first 'care' I had from another human being for a very long time. Even though I didn't know her, she used lavender in her practise and just having human touch for an hour felt so wonderful. I came back home and fell asleep for hours, I started then just to take care of myself.
I stopped being there for everyone when they weren't there for me, I started only thinking about myself and what I wanted or needed to make me feel better then I slowly recovered. I hope you can get through this difficult time, you will and will reflect back as I have done.

If I need to stop trying to get better, I feel ill get worse

You are doing all of the behavioural stuff to keep your head above water - these are healthy choices and are an important part of recovery.

But - you could do with some self compassion. To acknowledge that you have been badly neglected and abused over a long time which has left you with a significant emotional deficit and wound.

Tend to that.

Allow yourself to look at it and quantify and qualify it. Are you afraid that standing still and allowing any emotions to arise will over whelm you? Seems like you might need a big loud snotty cry, or scream or quite sob. What would happen if you sat with the discomfort of your emotions?

Are you scared you would lose control? Maybe they would rise and fall and pass through - like a storm or the weather. It might be a relief. Tears are a release.

Maybe you need to allow yourself to express and process your sorrow. Feel it to heal it? So that you can then soothe and comfort yourself.

Often it’s just little things - paying close attention to how we really feel and respecting that which provides an incremental emotional shift which over time brings healing.

@litterbird

I understand and feel for you. When this feeling happened to me and I just couldn't shake it I booked into get a massage. The sadness and loneliness I felt at the time as no one was supporting me physically and emotionally was overwhelming. For me, the massage worked wonders. It was the first 'care' I had from another human being for a very long time. Even though I didn't know her, she used lavender in her practise and just having human touch for an hour felt so wonderful. I came back home and fell asleep for hours, I started then just to take care of myself. I stopped being there for everyone when they weren't there for me, I started only thinking about myself and what I wanted or needed to make me feel better then I slowly recovered. I hope you can get through this difficult time, you will and will reflect back as I have done.

I agree that massage is really powerful - especially if you allow yourself to become fully immersed. Self care follows self compassion.

@litterbird thank you so much for your advice, I have just booked myself a massage. What a great idea.
@DFOD I do think I'm " feeling the feels " but I'm worried I feel them too often. I cry daily. I am normal level headed mum, then once the kids are dropped at school the emotional pain kicks in and I will have a good cry. This continues intermittently throughout the day, stopping when I answer the phone to clients or have to go to the shops/ see people. If my brain isn't occupied with work or children the pain is there. Even when I go for a run or yoga and try to flood my head with all of the positive things in the world and my life, of which there are many, the tears still seem to come.
It's a never ending grief.

Its really tough - I didn’t realise that you are still living in the abusive relationship. You are doing the best you can in the worst possible circumstances. Your resilience and focus shines through and I suspect that once you exit the relationship and this 24/7 burden is gone you will be able to harness this strength to find peace and calm.

It is a living grief to come to terms with the mother / FOO we should have had and sometimes that huge loss can come in waves of sorrow. It’s also likely that the child in you is continuing to pine to belong and feels lonely for something that isn’t good for her - thats also v normal. It’s almost a wishful thinking. I don’t know if you have tried gratitude journaling

• just identify 3 little things about your day that are good. And also identify who in your life makes you feel warm, emotionally nourished and accepted - and try to spend a little more time in each of their company. It seems you are running on empty and some social connection (nothing necessarily deep or heavy unless that’s what you need) little and often with radiant friends will keep you topped up to get through another day on route to your goal.

What’s your timeframe for physically getting away from your abusive partner?