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Trauma & Narcissism Redefined

Narcissistic Abuse and Overwhelming Fatigue

Trauma & Narcissism Redefined

Caroline Strawson

Narcissisticabuse, Health & Fitness, Narcissist, Self-improvement, Education, Recovery, Mental Health, Trauma

4.8 • 701 Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2020

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Many times people are saying to me ‘Caroline, I just struggle getting out of bed in the morning, and I know I should be doing x, y, and z but I just haven't got any energy, and I feel weak and ashamed.’ In this episode, I want to help you try and lift some of that guilt and shame off yourself.

What You Will Learn In This Episode:

  • How our body and our nervous system works
  • The Polyvagal Theory and the ladder analogy
  • The roles of the ventral vagus and dorsal vagus
  • Freeze trauma response and the root of your overwhelming fatigue
  • How limbic system therapies like Brainspotting or EMDR can help you

So if you're feeling tired all the time, really take a look. Is that a trauma response? Because if you're healing from narcissistic abuse, know that it's not you being lazy or weak. It's just your normal natural nervous system response, it’s your body trying to protect you.

Resources:

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to the narcissistic abuse recovery podcast. I'm Caroline Stawson and I'll be sharing with you

0:09.2

awareness, understanding and education about the devastating effects of narcissistic abuse to help you thrive.

0:16.8

I want you to know that I've been exactly where you are now and I believe you.

0:21.4

And this show is all about taking you from trauma to transformation.

0:30.2

So I wanted to share something with you today in this episode about something that I get so many people saying to me, but Caroline, I haven't got any

0:42.2

energy. I just struggle getting out of bed in the morning. I just can't seem to motivate myself.

0:50.3

I know I should be doing X, Y, and Z, but I just can't. And I feel weak and I feel ashamed.

0:58.1

And I feel like I should be doing more. I should be further down the track. And I get this so many

1:05.4

times in messages and emails to me. And in this episode, I really want to help you try and lift some of that guilt

1:13.9

and shame on yourself that you feel like you should be doing more, being more, being more,

1:20.1

being more active in your healing. Now, don't get me wrong. This isn't an episode to say,

1:25.7

yay, stay where you are, don't heal and give you all the excuses

1:29.3

in the world, because ultimately, I want you to heal from the trauma of narcissistic abuse,

1:34.6

but what I want to help you understand is how your body and your nervous system works.

1:40.7

And if you are suffering with overwhelmed fatigue, even on the brink of things like

1:47.3

ME, chronic fatigue syndrome, I want to give you a different way maybe of thinking about why

1:53.4

you feel like that. I know certainly for me, when I was healing from the trauma of narcissistic

1:59.7

abuse, that I would wake up in the morning.

2:03.0

I'd immediately have pins and needles in my fingers. My heart rate would be racing because that

2:08.1

anxiety had kicked in. And the last thing I felt like doing was getting out of bed.

2:13.3

In fact, what I really wanted to do is pull that duvet over my head and not see or speak to anybody

2:19.9

and literally almost getting one leg out of the bed felt like I was going to have to climb Mount Everest.

...

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