Sally A CurtisContent Monetization and Legacy Content Strategist

My Personal Journey through the Trauma of Narcissism

5 Dec 2023 · 2 min

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1:42

In this interview excerpt, Speaker B outlines a forgiveness and healing process for survivors of narcissistic trauma, drawing parallels to Elisabeth Kübler‑Ross’s five stages of grief—anger, denial, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They emphasize that moving beyond harmful behaviors requires grieving the loss of one’s former self. Speaker B introduces a metaphor of narcissistic traits as "pixie dust," suggesting that once recognized, these traits can be transformed into a gentle, illuminating force that validates the survivor’s pain and can be shared to help others give themselves compassion. The dialogue underscores the importance of acknowledging and validating one’s suffering as a crucial step toward genuine forgiveness and personal growth.

From a forgiveness perspective, so we've sort of, we've talked about the, you know, the trauma. Is there a process of forgiveness, or is there some commonalities that you see people go through when they're going through their forgiveness journey?
There is some commonalities. It's kind of like 5 stages of grief. You know, we get angry, we are in denial, we point fingers. All of these behaviors that we do, I think, is typical of the patterns that we go through when we're on our healing journey. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was actually— it was her definition of grief that she came up with the 5 stages of grief, which I do write about it in the book.
But
I think any behavior that we have, that once we realize it, even if we understand that it's not a great one and that we want to shift all of that, you're still having to let go of part of who you were.
Mm.
You have to grieve that. It's easy for me to say now, but it wasn't so easy going through it. You know, it's like you mentioned that we kind of had all of this dusting of narcissism a little bit. Well, I kind of like to look at it now that it's kind of like pixie dust.
Yes, yes.
It kind of can twinkle, and gee, I didn't know, I wasn't aware of that. And so how can I take that, the pixie dust, and you know, spread it across to people that I work with to give themselves a break and not, um, discount it and, and make— say, well, the, the pain that you went through isn't valid, because it certainly is.
You
know, you go through crap and, and you're valid to feel the way you are.