Anglivette posted this article on Narcissist Victims syndrome survivers blog. Couldnt stop sharing as these points really give me strength.

Emotional Detachment:

Found this article on the Physical and Emotional Abuse board and figured I would bring it over here. I've only been on Dailystrength for a few months so maybe this was posted before but I figured it would be helpful to some because it made a lot of sense to me.


Emotionally detaching from an abusive relationship can be extremely difficult. Many believe they still love their abusive exes. Therefore, developing indifference and detaching from their abuserseven when theyre a consistent source of painseems antithetical.

Nevertheless, learning to detach is vital if you ever hope to regain your health, happiness, sanity and sense of Self. This also applies to people who have divorced or broken up with their abusive spouse, girlfriend or boyfriend, but have to maintain some degree of contact because of shared children, working for the same company or attending the same school.

Emotionally detaching requires that you change many of your attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. Detaching is not about enabling your abuser; its about disarming your abuser by eradicating her or his ability to hurt you. Its not about changing your behavior so that you dont trigger your boyfriend or husband or wife or girlfriend. In fact, if you successfully detach it will probably provoke your them to become even more nasty and controlling for awhile.

When your he or she takes an ugly turn into consistent abuse and other controlling behaviors, attaching your self-worth to how they treat you and placing all your effort into them and the relationship guarantees exploitation and self-destruction. For your psychological survival in this kind of relationship, you need to develop and feel indifference and emotional detachment. Before you can begin to detach, you need to accept the following:

Love does not conquer all. What youre experiencing in your relationship probably isnt love; its a distorted, twisted version of it.
You cant fix or rescue someone from being abusive, sick, dysfunctional and lost in their own highly distorted reality. In fact, trying to rescue an abuserparticularly if they are a borderline, a narcissist, a histrionic or a sociopathis akin to trying to rescue to drowning person whos crying for help and then holds you under water until you begin to drown. The more you try to rescue her, the more shell drag you under.
You give your abusive spouse or partner the power to hurt you.
You can survive and thrive without your abusive relationship. You dont need her or him. You had a life before this person and eventually youll have a much better life post Ms. or Mr. Crazypants.
Youre not responsible for your spouses, partners or exs happiness, failures, shortcomings or bad behaviors.
The person who you want your spouse or partner to be is in conflict with the person she or he is in reality.
Continuing to hope for the best from someone who consistently gives you the worst is a set-up for more pain and disillusionment.
You are not helpless, powerless and incompetent. The relationship with your abusive spouse or partner causes you to feel that way, which is why its often so difficult to take care of yourself and break free.
Theres no shame in admitting that you need to walk away from a relationship thats destructive and toxic. Its vital that you begin to develop a rational perspective and distance yourself from an ongoing hurtful relationship that you can neither control nor change. Many people remain in abusive relationships well beyond a point of personal pain and devastation that defies reason. You need to come back to your senses and see your partner for who he/she is and your part in it.

Here are some detachment techniques:

1. Make yourself solely responsible for your own well-being and happiness. Catch yourself when you begin to utter, If only he/she could . . . If only he/she would . . . and knock it off. Coulda, woulda, shoulda is the language of regret and pipe dreams. Keeping you in a beaten down and depressive state makes it easier for an abuser to control you. Predators dont target the swiftest and strongest impala in the herd; the one with the limp usually becomes lions lunch. Take back the control you gave him/her over your feelings, happiness and well-being and start meeting your own needs by making different choices and acting on them.

2. Accept that you cant fix, change, rescue, save, make someone else happy or love someone enough to make them be nice to you. Dont just pay lip service to this. Really wrap your brain around the fact that no matter what you do, it will never be good enough. Understand that no matter how much you do for him/her; they'll always expect and demand more. Acknowledge that the more you appease, compromise and forgo your own needs; the more entitled, demanding and ungrateful he/shell be. He's/Shes like the Iraqi War; youre throwing good energy after bad with no victory or end in sight.

3. Eliminate the hooks of your abuser. A hook is typically an emotional, psychological or physical stake that you have in the other person and the relationship. For example, GUILT is a big hook that keeps many in abusive relationships with destructive narcissistic, borderline and histrionic partners.

I dont how he'd/shed take care of themself. What would he/she do without me? Id feel guilty if I left because of the kids. The flip side of guilt is EGO. If you leave an abusive partner, I hate to break it to you, but theyll do just fine without you. Theyll probably try to suck you dry financially while lining up her next target to control and abuse. Its not personalespecially if your partner is BPD, NPD, HPD and/or APD. These personalities view others as objects to be used. Theyll simply replace you with another object and do the same damn thing to the next guy/girl. Guilt is a control device he/she uses to keep you in line.

Other hooks include shame (e.g., of failing or not being strong enough), loss of status (e.g., being perceived as a nice or good guy/girl), loss of material assets or access to children, perfectionism and your own need to control others, situations and outcomes.

4. Learn to control your body language. Your body language and facial expressions can betray what youre feeling and thinking on the inside without you saying a word. Since your partners covert and overt attacks are designed to elicit a reaction, you need to learn how not to give him/her the reaction he/shes seeking. It doesnt matter if you dont yell back. Seeing the pain flicker in your eyes, your face wince and your shoulders slump in dejection is often reward enough.

Stand in front of a mirror and think of some of the nastiest and most hurtful things your partner has said or done to you. Maintain eye contact and practice a calm, blank facial expression or a knowing, slightly amused smile. Practice slow, steady and relaxed breathing. Lower the tone of your voice (higher pitched voices reveal anxiety and agitation). Your shoulders, arms and hands should hang loose. Keep practicing relaxed and detached body language until you actually feel indifferent and unruffled by his/her barbs, jabs and eye rolls. In other words, fake it til you make it.

5. Lower your expectations. Ordinarily, I encourage people to expect the best from others to create a positive self-fulfilling prophecy. However, expecting the best from an abusive man/woman will result in you feeling broadsided, perpetually disappointed and hurt most of the time.

For all their crocodile tears and hyper-sensitivity, abusive narcissistic, borderline, histrionic and sociopathic men/women are emotional predators and bullies. If you stay in the relationship, the best you can expect is more of the same. You may achieve some periods of peace if you can learn how not to trigger him/her (remember, he's shes not responsible for his/her behavior; youre responsible for their behavior and your behavior and all the other problems in the universe), how not to take his/her attacks personally (even though theyre extremely personal in nature) and how to maintain your boundaries through implementing behavioral consequences.

Happiness reflects the difference between what you expect versus what you actually get in lifeso if you keep expecting good things to happen, but they never do or take a turn for the worse, you will suffer constant unhappiness. Your partner is abusive. He/She probably has significant characterological pathology and is unlikely to change. Therefore, keep your expectations for him/her behavior low, but continue to believe that you will be okay once you remove yourself from the situation and/or stop giving him/her the power to hurt you.

6. Do something that removes you from the abuse and centers you. Meditate or whatever your version of meditation isreading, walking, woodworking, painting, musicanything thats restorative. Find pockets of sanity and safety with friends and family or physical spaces like your office, the gym, the pub or social/professional organizations. Find activities that will take you out of the line of fire and minimize your exposure to him/her and the abuse. Find a hobby or activity that makes you feel good about your self and restores your confidence and esteem. Ignore him/her when he/she becomes jealous or puts down these new activities and friendships. He/She does so because he/she sees them as threats to his/her control.

7. See the big picture and dont get distracted by his/her minutiae. The ultimate goal is to not let is/her abusive behavior effect you anymore and to end the relationship. Expect him/her to hit even harderemotionally and/or physicallywhen you stop reacting to him/her tried and true button pushing. It seems counter-intuitive, but if he/she becomes nastier in response to you setting boundaries and detaching, it means your new behavioral strategies are working because he's/shes fighting harder to retain her control. By detaching, youre taking back the power that you ceded to him/her.

These new behaviors will take time for you to learn and perfect. It takes a while to develop indifference. It runs counter to our fundamental beliefs about love and relationships. However, if youre in a relationship with someone who verbally and/or physically attacks you, devalues you, makes you feel less than and who raises themself up at your expense, you must learn how to make yourself less vulnerable and eventually immune to them. Abusive personalities have no soul and they will destroy your soul if you let them.

by Dr Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD