If you have been in an abusive relationship, for any period of time, then you know firsthand the roller coaster of emotions you experienced with your abusive partner. Some days you hate them, other days you love them, some days you want to stay together, and other days you can’t wait until they are out of your life forever. Each of the emotions you are feeling are valid. There is good mixed in with the bad, but the abuser can’t keep it together long enough for things to always be good and they quickly revert to their abusive ways even after being nice to you.
You are angry with your partner for how they act, and angry with yourself for staying and putting yourself in this position again and again. Anger is a prominent emotion when you are with an abusive partner. One type of abuser that keeps you on this roller coaster ride of emotions is the narcissist.
The narcissist love bombs to pull you in when you are pulling away, and then belittles, name calls, rages, and gives you the silent treatment when they no longer need you close. The narcissist thinks only of themselves and what benefits them, with no consideration for how something affects you.
When you are with a narcissist, you hope each day that they will develop empathy and see how they are hurting you. And every day is a disappointment and constant letdown.
The day comes, though, when the narcissist is finally no longer around. This can be because of the discard, which was made by the narcissist, or because you were finally able to step away from the relationship and no longer be with the narcissist. Regardless of how you got there, you find that you are finally free of the narcissist. The problem is, the narcissist is gone but your anger is still present. You were angry when you were with the narcissist, and still angry when you are without the narcissist. How do you let go of anger after the narcissist?
First, remember that just because the narcissist is no longer in your life, it doesn’t mean that your mind returns to the “pre-narcissist” way of thinking and you can immediately live abuse free again. Your mind and body remember the abuse and remember everything you experienced. It is normal to still react as if you are in that same abusive environment. If you experience anger, accept it for what it is and don’t try to push it away. This is a normal part of healing and with time the anger will move away completely.
What happens when you push anger away, is it will still return, but even stronger than before. Imagine your anger is on a swing that is coming at you. You push it away because you don’t want to deal with it right now. However, it will still come back for you. Pushing the anger away is a temporary solution. And the more you push it away, the greater momentum it gains, growing stronger and stronger. If anger comes into your life, accept it, and do something more productive such as distraction.
Distraction is a coping strategy. It is how you move your thoughts away from what is upsetting you and onto something more productive. While it might sound similar to the avoidance I just discussed, distraction is more effective and doesn’t strengthen the anger you are experiencing. With avoidance, you are living your life and then pushing the anger away as it comes at you. You continue to do what you are doing and keep batting at the anger to keep it at bay. With distraction, you turn your focus to something else to get your mind away from the anger thoughts. Distraction is a healthy coping technique whereas avoidance is unhealthy. Examples of distractions could be taking a walk, doing a crossword, or taking a bath. The distraction is meant to get you past this moment of focus on the negative thought and mood so that it can move away on its own. With avoidance there is active pushing away of the anger and with distraction, you don’t push the anger away. Rather, you let it move along on its own because it is no longer something you are focused on.
And the last thing I will discuss today regarding letting go of anger after the narcissist is to not play the “what if?” game. This is where you come up with a variety of questions to ask yourself about you, the relationship, and what you could have done differently. For example, you think “what if I stayed with them, would they have eventually changed?”, “what if I would have left sooner, would I still be this angry?”, or “What if I never got with them, would I even be in this situation now?”. For each of those questions, you will never have an answer because that would require you to turn back time and make different decisions. When you ask the “what if” questions, you get stuck in a cycle of more and more questions for which you will never get answers to. If you find yourself asking “what if”, this is another great place to use a distraction.
Over the course of the abusive relationship with the narcissist, you couldn’t wait to be rid of them. Now that they are finally out of your life, let go of the anger. That feeling is all too familiar, and you don’t want to bring it into your post-narcissist life. When you overfocus on the narcissist after the break-up, this is them still controlling you. They are still in your head and influencing how you feel and act. Don’t let them continue to control you. Yes, it is understandable that you will still experience anger as you process what happened during the relationship. Let that process happen but time limits the anger you are experiencing and find the strength to focus on you and add back into your life the things you stopped doing because of the narcissist.