It's true. You are going to be ok even if right now you don't believe it. After everything you have been through, perhaps the idea of a life where you are not living in constant fear, anxiety, doubt, and fighting feelings of worthlessness and despair must seem like a fantasy.

It will take time, but you will get there. These negative thoughts, feelings and emotions are not who you are—they do not define you. They were buried there by your narcissist, poisonous seeds meant to control you and keep you paralysed in doubt while they shredded your goodness, empathy, generosity, and kind heart.

The good news is you have the power to purge the poison they have left in you. Below are simple, yet extremely effective strategies you can use to work through the harm they have done to you, to uproot the toxic weeds of their hate, and burn away the lies that choke your mind and contaminate your thoughts. These are strategies I use myself. A word of warning: It's a journey. Your healing won't happen overnight, but so long as you persist in your recovery, identify the lies as theirs, and not your truths, you will overcome.

It's important to recognise your recovery will be a day by day battle, one that will be hard in the beginning but will get easier over time. Never forget you are fighting against them, their voice, and their programming which still lingers inside you, an ugly legacy. Only you can make this stop, but you have an arsenal of weapons ready and waiting for you to aid you in your fight. You are not alone, and you are stronger than you think.

Hanlon's razor

In an earlier chapter we talked about building trust and how the most critical key in gaining the ability to trust others again is to build trust in yourself. One of the key components to building trust in yourself is opening yourself up to a subtle shift in thinking, in how you frame situations and behaviours beyond your control while still missing critical information.

This powerful tool is called Hanlon's razor. It's a simple thing, which offers a double benefit: it alleviates an enormous amount of stress plus helps you develop a more positive mindset. It's one of my most favourite methods to stop myself from spiralling into anxiety and experiencing deeply unpleasant emotions whenever ambiguity in the actions of others is present. Done often enough, this practice becomes second nature and leads to a calmer state of mind.

Hanlon's razor is a way of reasoning through unclear scenarios which helps you narrow down the most likely explanation for something to which you would otherwise assume malice. Here it is again:

Don't attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by anything else.

In the majority of cases people are not out to get us, intentionally hurt us, or make our life worse. The trouble is for those of us either in or recovering from a narcissist's abuse, our experience with them has taught us over and over that in fact, everything they did or do to us is attributable to malice. This means we lose the ability to differentiate between their treatment and that of others. Eventually we only see malice in the intentions, words, and behaviour of others in every ambiguous situation. It becomes our go-to reaction and causes us an exponential amount of distress. We are trapped in a vortex of suspicion, fear, defensiveness, and self-fulfilling prophecies. We feel we have no choice but to push people away because we believe we cannot trust them.

The trouble is when we assume bad intentions two things happen right away: We immediately suffer a tsunami of unpleasant emotions like anger, resentment, bitterness, maybe even revenge—all of them ugly things, and we reinforce the programming the narcissist planted into us. Neither of these things contribute to your healing, instead they set you back. Way back. So this is battle number one in reclaiming yourself. Don't let the narcissist's malice make everyone else malicious.

With Hanlon's razor you gain the power of choice. Let's say you have arranged to meet a friend for lunch and they don't turn up nor do they call even after a wait of a half an hour. When you try to get hold of them, their phone is off. At this point you have two options. You can assume they are an awful, selfish person who doesn't care about you at all, and simmer in those negative feelings for the rest of the day, or you could ask yourself a question: Could there be any other reason besides malice which could have caused them not to turn up or be contactable for your lunch date?

If you take this step back in ambiguous situations and refuse to allow the narcissist's programming to control your thinking, you are already on your way to regaining your power over them. Perhaps you decide there are many non-malicious reasons your friend did not arrive as planned. You order your lunch, leave and get on with your day, knowing at some point you will find out the truth, all without having put yourself through the painful experience of assuming malicious intent.

Later on that evening your friend calls, and tells you why they did not make it, an emergency with their family member, a serious one. They are crying and struggling to make sense of what's happened. After you come off the call, you realise you could have chosen to be angry with them all day, but instead you did not assume they had the same negative intentions towards you as your narcissist and gave them the benefit of the doubt. You did not suffer bad feelings, and even more importantly you did not accuse an innocent person of cruelty. This is a huge step to make in building trust in both yourself and in others. Hanlon's razor is powerful, and more often than not, you will discover it is also right.

Beliefs. Thoughts. Feelings. Behaviour.

One of the most critical tools you possess to rewire your mind from the lies you have been fed is to understand how your beliefs have a powerful influence over your thoughts and behaviour. Before you met your narcissist you likely had a far different set of internalised beliefs about yourself than you do now.

Much of our unhappiness and our feelings of worthlessness and doubt in ourselves stem directly from the narrative our narcissist hammered into us. We were taught to believe their version of reality, which ensured we accepted we were the monster and they, the victim. Over time, as we internalise these lies, our truths and beliefs shrink and their narrative—their beliefs and lies about us—become our own.

What we believe informs every aspect of how we see ourselves, how we feel about ourselves, and how we act and react. If we believe we are worthless (their narrative), our behaviour will adapt accordingly to accept others treating us as if we are worthless. And so as we are treated with disrespect, our false belief in our inherent worthlessness deepens and the negative belief cycle continues to spiral ever downward, a self-perpetrating lie.

To escape this trap of false beliefs, we need to understand whatever we choose to believe about ourselves must and will become our reality, and what we believe sets the boundaries for our experiences. This means we decide what we choose to believe about ourselves. It's a choice. And if we choose to believe the lies of the narcissist, we will continue to live in that reality. We will continue to think, feel and act in ways that align with these false beliefs.

There is only one way to stop this negative cycle, to rewrite the narrative, and shift our beliefs from their limiting, destructive lies back to the empowering and powerful truths that are rightfully ours.

The easiest way to begin is with your thoughts. These determine your reactions to all situations. They affect how you interpret an event, and drive your emotions and subconscious behaviour. If you have been told you are ugly you will choose to dress in a way to make yourself invisible, your posture will change, and you will avoid attracting attention to yourself at all costs. Or, if your narcissist convinced you that you are fat, you might restrict your diet to the point of starvation. Anorexics suffer from this false belief, sometimes to the point of death. Beliefs are powerful. They can destroy you—or you can use them as the ultimate weapon to regain your Self.

How to begin? First. Be ruthless about changing all inputs in your life from negative to positive ones. That means social media, the news, entertainment, and anything else that can reinforce the lies, paranoia, doubt, and anxiety that was your sustenance for years on end. I couldn't give up social media because of my author platform so I tried a little trick: I started liking only cat videos and cat photos and following cat pages on Instagram. Eventually my feed was packed with adorable videos and photos of cats and kittens. I just kept liking them. And now, my feed is a happy place filled with good things that make me smile. Sometimes I just walk around the house and talk about how much I love cats. I know my phone is listening so it can 'tailor' my feed to my interests, so it amuses me to know it is going to give me more photos of cats. Try it. Pick something you really like. Cupcakes, puppies, flowers, trees, gardens, whales, whatever makes you happy and will bring a smile to your lips and then go nuts liking that, following, and searching for it. Talk about what you love where your phone can hear. I promise you, you can trick the algorithm and make your social media feed a happy place if you want to.

The best part is, if you are looking at something you like, (such as kittens) which makes you feel good, you are not thinking about negative things! It turns out our mind can only give its full attention to one thought at a time so it's our choice if it's going to be kittens—or our false feelings of worthlessness. We have the power to allow what goes into our head to be positive or negative. And remember: what we consume, who we surround ourselves with, and are influenced by, inform our beliefs, feelings and actions. It's that powerful. You really are what you think.

So, let's assume you have successfully switched out negative social media and news feeds to things that make you feel good. Except, it's not going to be enough just to look at cupcakes and kittens all the time, unfortunately. You will face an inevitable vacuum of time from the negativity that is rampant (and eats up half our lives) on social media and the news.

One of the best ways to fill that extra time is to turn to learning and self-improvement or hobbies you enjoy. YouTube is crammed with everything you could ever ask for when it comes to self improvement and learning. There is going to be something you are curious about. Look it up. It doesn't matter how random it is, if it adds value to your life, it's good. Recently I saw a course for hoop dancing. It looked terribly fun. You get a hula hoop and learn to do moves while using the hoop, nothing fancy, just fun and a lot of smiling. Seriously, anything you want, no matter how niche, you are going to find it online. Maybe it's a new recipe, or maybe it's just trying an easy yoga class, or maybe you want to take up creative writing, or photography (if it's of kittens, let me know, I'll follow your feed). Believe in yourself. You have a gift inside you and now is the time to explore it. No more negativity. Only good things for you from now on.

Now, if you are really not sure what your gift is, or don't know what you want to try or are interested in because you have been so ground down by your narcissist, that's OK. There's an easy way to divert your thoughts that costs nothing and can eat up more time than you might imagine. Google Maps. Just start zooming in to various places in the world you are curious about and virtually visit their streets. In the beginning when I was a total wreck, I lost hours exploring remote parts of the world. You can totally immerse yourself in these places with Streetview. Plus you enjoy the added bonus of escaping to another world and leaving the confines of your own. It's refreshing, distracting, and even a little stimulating. Exploring is fun. And when you are exploring and wondering what that town on the beach in Costa Rica looks like from the street you are not thinking negative things, you are thinking about new things, learning new things. You are rewiring your mind.

Win.

Rewiring your mind by defending it from negative input and feeding it with positive inputs helps you gain new perspective, alters old thought patterns, gives you the motivation to try new things, opens new doors to experiences and relationships, sparks new ideas, promotes creativity and transforms your limiting thoughts into empowering ones. Rewiring your thoughts creates new neural pathways in the brain which creates new habits

Finally, try to stay present. Keep a gratitude journal, or at the very least take a minute in the morning when you wake to think about what you are grateful for. When I was at my lowest, all I could get was: I am grateful for my bed because it's really comfortable. Even if it's just one thing, it's enough. Just cultivate gratitude any way you can. It does gets easier as you shift your thought patterns, and interpret the world around you from a negative light into a positive one. Be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself. It's a healing journey, after all. It takes time.

Breathe your way out of crisis, anxiety, and negativity in less than a minute

4-7-8 breathing is a brilliant crisis management technique I discovered on YouTube. It's a breathing exercise developed by Dr. Andrew Weil and is based on an ancient yogic technique called pranayama. At the time, I didn't really think it could work, but I was wrong.

If you are in a place of deep crisis, try this. It won't make the crisis go away, but it will make you much calmer and grant you access to the resources you need to face it.

Begin by placing the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth, just behind your teeth. Keep your tongue in place throughout the practice. If it helps, you can purse your lips a bit until you get used to it.

The following cycle counts as one breath:

1. Part your lips and exhale all the air in your lungs through your mouth.

2. Close your lips and inhale through your nose as you count to four.

3. Hold that breath for the count of seven.

4. Exhale from your mouth for the count of eight.

When you inhale again, you initiate a new cycle of breath. Practice this pattern for four full breaths.

Get professional help if you have symptoms of C-PTSD

According to Wikipedia, if you have endured under the tyranny of a narcissist for a long period of time, you may suffer from the symptoms of Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD; also known as complex trauma disorder). This is a psychological disorder that can develop in response to prolonged, repeated experience of interpersonal trauma where one has little or no chance of escape. Situations that involve captivity/entrapment, or a situation lacking a viable escape route for the victim or a perception of such can lead to C-PTSD-like symptoms, which can include prolonged feelings of terror, worthlessness, helplessness, and deformation of one's identity and sense of self.

Victims of narcissistic abuse have many of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including but not limited to, the following: (Below you will find two lists. The first is a brief list for those who might be affected by C-PTSD followed by an in-depth list of recognised symptoms of C-PTSD).

Brief list:

- Triggers that may cause flashbacks. Recurring nightmares.

- Hyper vigilance and hyper arousal of the senses. Anxiety. Racing thoughts. Obsessive, circular thinking.

- Easily startled.

- Feeling detached from one's emotions or body. Living with numbness or a sense of unreality.

- Avoidance behaviour.

- Avoiding intimate relationships. No ability to trust.

- A deep sense of guilt or shame. Belief you are different/less than other people and not worthy.

- Unhealthy coping strategies - self-harm, eating issues, alcohol, drug, prescription meds abuse.

- Overwhelming emotions which hit without warning

In-depth list from Wikipedia, (edited for clarity and ease of reading):

- Changes in emotional regulation, including experiences such as persistent dysphoria, chronic suicidal preoccupation, self-injury, explosive and/or extremely inhibited anger, and compulsive and/or extremely inhibited sexuality.

- Variations in consciousness, such as amnesia or improved recall for traumatic events, episodes of dissociation, depersonalisation/derealisation, and reliving experiences.

- Changes in self-perception, such as a sense of helplessness or paralysis of initiative, shame, guilt and self-blame, a sense of defilement or stigma, and a sense of being completely different from other human beings (may include a sense of specialness, utter aloneness, a belief that no other person can understand, or a feeling of nonhuman identity).

- Different perceptions of the perpetrators, such as a preoccupation with the relationship with a perpetrator (including a preoccupation with revenge), an unrealistic attribution of total power to a perpetrator, idealisation or paradoxical gratitude, and acceptance of a perpetrator's belief system or rationalisations.

- Alterations in relations with others, such as isolation and withdrawal, disruption in intimate relationships, a repeated search for a rescuer (may alternate with isolation and withdrawal), persistent distrust, and repeated failures of self-protection.

- Changes in systems of meaning, such as a loss of sustaining faith and a sense of hopelessness and despair.

Treatment for C-PTSD

Talk therapy is often not the best course of treatment for C-PTSD, because the trauma is embedded deep into the autonomic system and needs to be processed from there. Therefore, alternative therapies are often best for addressing the trauma from the 'bottom up' instead of CBT analysis and talking therapies which are 'top down' methods. Some alternative therapies that can help process deep trauma are:

EMDR - eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing can help process traumatic memories. EMDR therapy involves attention to three time periods: the past, present, and future. Focus is given to past disturbing memories and related events, and current situations that cause distress, and to developing the skills and attitudes needed for positive future actions.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy - assumes trauma can manifest as somatic symptoms, and that working with these symptoms can aid the therapeutic outcome.

Somatic Experiencing - aimed at relieving the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder by focusing on the client's perceived body sensations.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy - effective for the improvement of general emotional and mental well-being and to improve symptoms of trauma, phobia, panic, generalized anxiety, depression, and certain physical ailments.

Yoga & Meditation - practises have been known to help manage symptoms of both trauma and C-PTSD.

Powerful Mantras to help you heal

I am not defined by the narcissist, their feelings, moods, opinions, and behaviour.

I am worthy.

My needs, feelings, and dreams matter just as much as everyone else's.

I can trust my senses. What I see, hear, and feel is real and true.

I did what I needed to do to survive. Now I am committed to my healing journey.

I vow to be kind to myself.

My love and my heart are of incredible value and are a precious gift I will protect.

I am loved. I deserve love.