Not never!
In a recent interview, Dr Ramani Durvasula, a narcissistic abuse survivor and author of It’s Not You, said ‘When a person has gone through a narcissistic relationship for long enough, the voice never goes away.’
She said, ‘I will never believe what I do is good enough,’ – explaining that it drives her achievements – and added ‘I’ve said in my own therapy, I’m never gonna get there.’
Yikes.
I usually find Dr Durvasula’s advice spot on and have quoted her in my memoir, The Damage of Words, because she gave me an enormous “a-ha”. But to say never and to suggest that other victims will neverlose their harsh inner voice feels like a projection.
I no longer hear the harsh voice that told me how unworthy – and a whole host of other nastiness – I was. The voice that held me back for 4 decades. My overdeveloped ego, that protected me as a child and caged me as an adult.
It’s not never. Difficult? Yes. Impossible? No. Never? Most definitely not.
But your subconscious believes what you tell it. So, if you tell yourself that you will never lose the inner critic, you won’t.
I wrote my memoir above to show readers that you can go from self-hatred, insecurity, not feeling good enough, etc. (amplified by the harsh inner dialogue) to a place of self-compassion, self-love and oodles of self-belief. Because if I can do it, anyone can.
Addressing this belief: “gone through a narcissistic relationship for long enough”.
I have survived an emotionally and physically abusive narcissistic mother, a violent narc ex-boyfriend, at least two narc bosses, a narc ex-flatmate, a few narc ex-friends and more, which is definitely ‘long enough’.
Yet, I believe with every fibre in my being that I am good enough.
My body proved that my trauma commenced at 3. By the time I left at 21, I was repeating my mother’s damaging words on a loop in my head. It only stopped when I fell into healing at 40.
Initially, I believed that I would never even like myself. Yet, I love who I am. The voice in my head that repeatedly told me how unworthy, incapable, and worse, I was, piped down and it stays in check.
I even switched from ‘It’s so unfair that my mother sees only the worst in me‘ to ‘I am fabulous! Look what she misses out on.’ It happened when I started actively creating a new inner dialogue early on in the self-work, which included healing my core wound and giving my inner child everything I needed as an unprotected child.
As you will read in my memoir, children of trauma commonly have overdeveloped egos – that nasty inner critic/voice – created as a way to find relative safety as a child. But it ensnared me as an adult and played wonderful games to keep me “safe”, even from healing.
Ego really will try to talk you out of seeking the very thing you need to heal!
I wonder if Dr Durvasula’s inner critic is talking her out of healing this because it fears she will lose her drive. But it is also, in my lived experience, creating a false belief that it never goes away.
What if like me, it’s not never?