Welcome to the narcissistic abuse and trauma recovery podcast. I'm Caroline Strawson and I'll be sharing with you, awareness, understanding and education about the devastating effects of narcissistic abuse. I've been exactly where you are right now. And this podcast is a beacon of hope

for you to know that you are believed, you are seen, you are heard and you are not alone. And my hope

for listening to the podcast is it will help you move from post-traumatic stress to post-traumatic growth after the trauma of narcissistic abuse

because it is possible. You are enough and you deserve to thrive.

Hey my friends, a massive warm welcome to the narcissistic abuse and trauma recovery podcast.

As always, it's my pleasure to have your company during this podcast in the hope that it will bring you some education,

inspiration, and maybe a little bit of humour sprinkled into it on the way too. And I always feel

like when I say, it's great to have you here, I'm so glad you're listening

to this. I almost feel like you must in your mind sometimes think, well, I wish I wasn't here,

but I really need to listen to it. So I do understand it's under these circumstances.

But you know what? I want you to know that the narcissist is really actually like an alarm clock for you.

The narcissist isn't the reason why you feel the way that you do. What the narcissist is doing

is shining on a spotlight on all your wounds that were already there, even prior to the

narcissist. Now, that might seem really strange, but hear me out. When we talk about trauma,

trauma isn't about a person or an event as such. They're the catalyst to wounds within and your

nervous system's inability and capacity to cope. And it's very often all to do with the beliefs

that you have about yourself. So for instance,

the narcissist wasn't my trauma. He was the abuser. My trauma was my interpretation of the

narcissist's abuse was, I deserved it. It was a reflection of me. I'm not good enough. That's why I was feeling so dysregulated,

because my core belief, my core wound of, I'm not good enough. That was like a lion was

chasing me out in the wild. That was my version of danger. So of course, for me, I would have parts

of me come up, like people pleasing, perfectionism. Because surely if I was

...