The Big Picture Of Abuse — This Realization Helps You Breakthrough

It takes place when the victim or survivor shifts their perspective from looking at the individual moments, experiences, and conversations to looking at the overall pattern.

 

 

Seeing the Big Picture helps you to stop desperately grasping onto specific incidents, trying to analyze them, make sense of them, or decipher the extent of the abuse.

 

The obsession is a big part of the particular kind of PTSD/C-PTSD that results from being a victim of narcissistic abusive. The survivor is often obsessed about the abuser and what happened. They’ll be thinking about it constantly, wanting to talk about it all the time, attempting to rationalize every little thing because haven’t seen the big picture yet. This can go on for months or years after leaving the abuser because so many things were left unresolved. 

 

 

If you’re still at the point where you’re rationalizing moments and pouring so much mental energy over the memories, trying to make sense of it all or trying to desperately get justice for the hurtful things that happened, take a step back and look at the Big Picture. Look at the patterns. If you’re still questioning if it was abuse, it becomes so clear when you realize these are the patterns. It’s a “thing.” This realization starts to bring lucidity into the confusion. It’s such a relief when you realize that you don’t have to assign so much weight to each memory any more, that you can let go of them, accepting the Big Picture and labeling it for what it was — it was abuse.

 

I highly recommend reading Psychopath Free by Jackson MacKenzie. In my opinion, it’s the best book out there about these patterns of narcissistic abuse, and it’s written from a practical, real life perspective of what it looks like in your relationship. When I recommend this book to people, they often report that it was like reading about their exact relationship. The book will help you see the Big Picture patterns. It was a huge wake up call for me, a sanity-saver. Check out this video review of the book I made.

 

The flashbacks in the form of memories of the abuse come in the aftermath. It can be paralyzing when that happens. When you see the Big Picture and notice the patterns, it’s so much easier to let go of the emotional charge connected to those incidents and memories. You have the opportunity to notice it wasn’t just about that specific thing and you don’t have to keep rationalizing that thing. You don’t have to hang onto that to remember that was an abusive relationship, to remember that you don’t want to go back for more abuse from that person again or accept that same pattern from another person you meet in the future.

 

I can’t emphasize enough how much of a relief it is to realize this. It’s the moment when you get your sanity back. That person tried to make you think you’re crazy. You’re not crazy. It happens to everyone who is a victim of narcissistic abuse. That’s why it’s called crazy-making. It’s so invisible you can’t put your finger on it and it’s a moving target. They know you can’t pinpoint what’s wrong... Until that day you realize that it’s textbook patterns of narcissistic abuse and you breakthrough to set yourself free.  

 

 

Meredith Miller is a holistic integration coach helping people self-heal and move forward after narcissistic abuse. Check out her free educational videos on YouTube. Learn more about her products and coaching services via Skype at Inner Integration.