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Dealing with Feelings of Rejection After a Narcissist Discard
A narcissist will condition you to believe their lies through various insidious manipulative techniques. The whole cycle of abuse is more of a game where they begin by validating your character making you confide in them and trust them.
You then attach your worth and adequacy to what they say about you. They idealize you so that you can take their word and really believe that all they are doing and saying is the ‘truth.’ They will also shower you will all kinds of word of affection which make you feel good about yourself. They elevate you worth and put you on a pedestal, and you even throw away your boundaries.
Once they get you hooked, they start throwing light jabs that seem credible but at the core they are making you question your worth. This can be something like, “You use to dress nicely, what’s happening nowadays?”, or “Your job was so crucial for you. You must feel really worthless after being laid off.”
These comments may look innocent at first but they are also planting seed of self-doubt deep within you. You begin to question and even think something is wrong with you. You’ve also been conditioned to believe that the narcissist’s truth is the only truth during the course of the relationship.
You get to the point where you begin to trust them more than you trust yourself or you trust what they say than what you visibly see. You attached your worth to the narcissist and their actions in the beginning of the relationship and that in itself means that you will also attach your worth to what they do during the devaluation phase. They ‘built’ your worth but as the relationship progresses, they’re now destroying your worth. They do this through silent treatment, gaslighting, blame-shifting and various form of hidden abuse.
So, the relationship was filled with tiny bouts of the narcissist accepting you (mostly in the early stages) and then mostly with stings of rejection. As a victim, you will spend most of your time in the relationship trying to get them to accept you so that you can feel worthy again. But the main thing is they’ve manipulated you to believe their ‘truths’ and their lies more than the actual reality.
You’ve internalized their actions and behaviors as a portrayal of your adequacy. That’s why when they discard you or leave you, you feel so bad about yourself. You feel so inadequate and unworthy. This feeling of unworthiness will go deeper because they jump into a new relationship immediately after leaving you (or even when they’re with you).
Since you’ve based your worth on the narcissist’s actions, you may even ‘secretly’ hope that they call you back or just talk to you so that you can feel worthy. You know they’re not good for you but when they abandon you, it hurts more because all those feelings of deep unworthiness have been brought to the surface.
Also, when you’re rejected by the narcissist who you once ‘loved’, it will trigger some of your unaddressed abandonment wounds. You may have been rejected and invalidated by your caregivers when you were a kid. All these negative feelings will be so overwhelming and it will add more fuel to just ‘wanting the narcissist’ back.
To deal with these feelings of rejection, it’s important to first understand that your worth as a person has nothing to do with the actions of another person (narcissist or not). You’re born worthy and adequate but hurt people have distorted your perspective of reality.
It will take huge commitment from you to rebuild and deeply understand your worth. Do not wait for your abusive ex (or just ex…. or even your partner) to validate and accept you so that you can feel worthy. It’s your responsibility to work on yourself to the point where you don’t attach your worth to what other people say or do.
That’s what inner freedom is, it’s deeply knowing you’re worthy. So, use your past relationship as a catalyst for your own personal growth and not as a frame of reference of why you’re feeling stuck/hurt in life.
Note from the Author
If you’re ready and you’d like my help with healing, finding peace in life and breaking free from these toxic patterns, then you can book a FREE BREAKTHROUGH CALL with me HERE. Happy healing 💙💙. Feel free to share and comment! Use this information with caution, it comes from my own thoughts & bias, experiences and research😊.