Transcription
One of the biggest reasons that people stay in a narcissistic relationship is this extreme cognitive dissonance that people experience in these relationships. So cognitive dissonance is this phenomena where you have two or more completely opposing ideas in mind that you can't reconcile, that you can't bring together.
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So in a narcissistic relationship, there's the amazing love-bombing version that you met in the beginning, and it shows up intermittently throughout the relationship. And then there's the monster that they turn into. These two different images of the same person are so extreme and so unnatural that your brain cannot reconcile that this is the same person. And it puts you in this almost permanent freeze state, or state of dissociation, where you can't think your way out of it. Because: are they good? Are they bad? Are they this person, or are they this person? Are they the monster that I see behind closed doors, or the person that's sometimes so lovely and gentle and generous and kind? Or the person that shows up outside the house, in front of people? Do they love me? Do they hate me?
This phenomena is so confusing and, again, so unnatural that it keeps people stuck in these relationships because they cannot think their way out of it. Remember, confusion doesn't bring clarity. And when you're trauma-bonded to someone and you are so desperate to get that good version of them back, or keep that good version around—and every now and then you get it—narcissists give you just enough hope to hold on to. Nothing as that recently viral quote goes.
So one of the most important things as you're trying to exit or stay out of a narcissistic relationship is to recognize the cognitive dissonance and break it. Because the other thing that happens is that, because these two images are so oppositional and this one is so painful, our brain, as a trauma response, goes to hyperfocus on the good version, goes to hyperfocus on the good times and suppress the bad times. And that's where betrayal blindness comes in, which is where your brain is actively, subconsciously suppressing the reality of the relationship and the reality of the person that you're dealing with.
And so one of the most basic and most important tools that you can use to break that cognitive dissonance is writing that list of all of the bad things that the narcissist has ever done and rereading it daily—sometimes a few times a day if you need to—and remembering that a bad person can pretend to be good, but a good person can't and won't ever pretend to be bad. So when you see how horrifically this person behaves, understand that that—that is who they really are. And what you're going to do with the list and the rereading of it is start to rewire your neural pathways, to ground yourself in reality, to cut through the confusion and kill that cognitive dissonance.