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Surviving the Holidays After Narcissistic Induced Trauma
Recovery is difficult and holidays can make everything so much harder (2024 edition)
I was in the hospital having hernia surgery 6 days ago. There was something about being sliced open then drugged and cognitively disoriented that resembles a relationship with a narcissist or narcopath (narcissistic psychopath). I purposefully planned to recover during the holidays so I’d be ready to jump back into my AP Language and Composition classroom the first week of January and hit the ground running.
Now, after 6 days of Oxycontin and muscle relaxers and a pernicious pain that won’t got away, I realize there may be no jumping back in or hitting the ground running. Like trauma recovery, sometimes all you can do is limp along, hoping to survive the next hour of agony, determined to regain a life without suffering at some undetermined point in the future. We are truly Troopers in that sense, I suppose.
The holiday season comes with a million landmines and maladies all mixed in with the joys of jingly bells and twinkly sparkling lights.Even those with no extreme grief and anxiety to conquer experience of what I call the “stress of excess” — too much food, too much drink, too much spending, too much family drama, too much travel, too much to handle. Often…
