 The narcissist will destroy your identity. You are an individual and you are meant to be a separate person from other people. You are meant to have a distinguished character and personality. You are meant to have your own qualities and beliefs. But narcissists have a weak sense of self. They have no inner sense of value so they get their value from other people. By stealing your energy from you, without reciprocating anything back to you, until it's like they become you and you become them. They act calm and composed and full of life while you suddenly become out of control. You lose yourself to them because that's exactly what they want. They want to be you and they want you to not be yourself. Which is why they will push you to live life outside the boundaries of who you are, outside of what you would normally tolerate or accept, until you no longer act in harmony with your authentic self. You become less and less of who you actually are because they mold you into whoever they want you to be, into whatever will make them feel more comfortable and secure, whatever will sustain their false reality, which is why once you've spent enough time around them, you will lose touch with your feelings, you won't even know what your feelings are, you will feel disconnected or you will feel stuck in a state of fear, anger, guilt or shame, as though there is no other way for you to feel, because your dealing with someone who is highly narcissistic, so it's not safe for you to have emotions. You're not allowed to be happy because if you're happy they get mad, so they have to level the score by getting one over on you and taking your happiness away and even if you're angry, you're not allowed to feel that emotion as well, so they will invalidate how you feel, as though it's not normal for you to feel that way. When emotions are perfectly normal and natural, but they train you to think that emotions are not safe, they condition you to become disconnected to your own feelings, they dictate to you what you're feeling, as if they know you better than you know yourself, they get you to filter everything through them, because they want you to become them, so that they can be you. Your brain has to take specific neural pathways so that you can feel certain emotions, neural pathways that your brain would not normally take, in order for you to feel emotions that you would not normally feel, and the narcissist trains you to see different pathways as dangerous, as a result of the pain you're feeling from the abuse, so your brain rewires and no longer travels those pathways anymore, those pathways become weak, so you no longer feel those feelings, you feel erased, you feel like you've become a shell of who you used to be, you feel like you're not being you, you feel like you're living in a way that is not in accordance or agreement with who you are, because you've lost touch with your authentic self, who you are right now is very different to who you used to be, it's like two separate people, because you haven't been allowed to be you for a long time, and it's not because you didn't want to be you, it's because any time you tried to be yourself you were met with punishment, because they were molding you into who they wanted you to be, which means that you had to give up authentic pieces of yourself, so that you could revolve around the narcissist and do think or feel whatever the narcissist needed in that moment, whatever served them, so when you're having to endure that sort of treatment for a long period of time, those personality traits and character traits that you had declined in effectiveness due to underuse and neglect, but that doesn't mean they're gone forever, they've just weakened like a muscle, but that muscle is still there, when you're a rounding narcissist you will feel like you've lost control of your life, your body is still there, but you feel like you've lost control of it, as though it's being operated by another person, because now your nervous system is running your life, your body's command center is controlling your movements, thoughts and automatic responses, so your objectives or desired results feel like a magical story, like something you can see, but you don't feel like you could ever attain them, you feel detached from anything that reminds you of the person that you used to be, because the narcissist has to make you question yourself and doubt yourself so that they can control you, so that they can tell you who you are and justify the abuse, every abuser needs to have an excuse in order to dodge the accountability and shame, but you can never even have a normal conversation with them because there's actually nothing wrong with you, everything you are and that you've become is simply a result of what they've been doing to you, you've just been involved with the wrong people, people who are destructive and no good for you, because they're playing on your weaknesses to break you and preventing you from strengthening or empowering yourself, so that you're at the whim of whatever they want you to think or believe, because they will push your buttons to turn you into the type of person they want you to be, so that they can feel comfortable and sane around you, which is why you need to think about the things that you are once passionate about, the things that brought you joy and meant something to you, because if you look at your life right now, it looks like there's no place for any of that right now, it's like you left everything that you once enjoyed, and even though it may seem logical and sensible for you to engage in those things again, there's a lot of resistance in your body, as though you're in opposition to it or you don't want to be affected by it, this is refusal to accept all this version to it, a lack of desire, enthusiasm and motivation to where you feel like you don't even want to do those things, because the narcissist has rewired your brain, they've caused you to let go of things that you were once passionate about, until you gave up things that you once loved, and you no longer have the desire to re-engage in them, because you feel stuck, you're so used to just doing what you have to do to survive, you haven't been able to recreate yourself and your life in the way that you want, which is a typical result and effect of narcissistic abuse, because narcissistic abuse is all about molding you and rewiring you from the inside out, so it seems like you made those changes on your own, and you chose to become that type of person, it's because narcissistic abuse creates negative neuroplasticity to where it weakens certain neural pathways in your brain, and you get stuck in negative emotional states and an extreme and intense negative thinking, you develop limiting beliefs, beliefs about yourself that restrict you in some way, thought patterns that keep the past alive, and intense negative emotions that are attached to your past, which will not change until you recondition and rewire your brain with positive neuroplasticity, which involves training your brain to have more positive beneficial experiences, which improves your well-being, because the brain can change, it changed negatively because of the abuse, so it can change positively if you do the inner work to your brain, because when you're around the narcissist you can't be yourself, it's so damaging and painful to be around them that your brain creates a character to protect yourself, a character which has many coping skills which were meant to protect you, but it also prevents you from being your authentic self, because who you are is who you choose to be, it's not who you need to be to protect yourself, so when you're out of the narcissist grip it can still be difficult for you to form healthy relationships, when you're operating from a state of self-defense, when you're healing and recovering, you will be able to break through this protective self, and then you will be able to become your authentic self, and by that point you will decide to not be around anyone who is toxic, but before that you must process and release these traumas and emotions that are stuck inside of your body, which can be challenging and it will require a lot of self-love, so that you can repair your brain and get your authentic self back, because the only other alternative is that narcissistic abuse broke you, and then you have to stay broken, which of course is not something that you would want, and it's why you must do the internal work, you must avoid the narcissist and distance yourself from them, by recognizing that they are damaging and destructive people, and you will become aware of that, by seeing the change in yourself since you've been around them, because you have changed, and it has had a negative effect on you, but many of them already know that they are toxic and dysfunctional, and they actually enjoy laying in their own filth, it brings them pleasure to turn a strong confident person into a shelf who they used to be, it makes them feel powerful, it makes them feel like their false character exists and is real, it's why they have to disempower you, and try to prevent you from engaging in any activities that promote and encourage your authentic self, because they need to be an extension of them, rather than your own separate person, they want someone who they can mold into being who they need them to be, so that they can feel comfortable and secure around you, they don't want you to become the best version of yourself, which is why if they see that they will come back just to destroy it, and anything that is associated with it, because they want a desperate fool, someone who will do anything for them, someone who is at their beck and call, they don't want you to stand in your own power, because they're very weak and fragile people, which is why they would rather if you would just follow their lead, and if you believed in anything they say, instead of you trusting yourself, because they want your devotion so that they can control you, even if they know that it's destroying you, because all they care about is themselves and what benefits them, they have an inability to connect to you and understand your feelings or situation, all they see is themselves and you become an extension of them, when they see that you have something that could benefit them, which is why they will stick around and try to leech off you, to use that power and energy to benefit them, because they have a weak sense of self, which is why they're at the whim of everyone else, so they don't want you to be your own separate person, they want an enmeshment, they want themselves to be you and you to be them, thank you for watching, if you found this video helpful please give it a thumbs up, share your thoughts in the comment section, hit the subscribe button to receive the notifications, if you would like to support the channel, you can donate at paypal.me slash narcsurvivor, you can book a one-on-one with me on my website, it's narcsurvivor.co.uk, thank you for watching and I'll talk to you soon.