Now, we can’t go back in time. We cannot be 30 years younger. And maybe some of the stuff that gave us joy is not available to us anymore, right? We can’t be younger. We can’t erase our brains of what happened.
For example, the things that once gave us joy—some of these places might be gone. We may not be able to do physical activities in the same way. But that idea of joy never goes away.
Maybe you pick up a hobby again in some form. Maybe you reach back out to friends. You paint the wall the color you want. You watch the movies or shows that make you laugh. You eat breakfast for dinner. You take a walk around the neighborhood and pay attention, and see things you didn’t see before.
If the narcissistic person is still around and is still part of your life, then you’re going to have to do this using the usual rules of disengagement that are so essential to healing: keep your joy to yourself. [Snorts.] You don’t tell them. You don’t share it with them. You don’t include them in it.
This can become a very personal space of healing—for you to take it back.
Third: it’s essential that you lean into those small moments of joy. The bird out the window. The full moon. The daffodil. And you keep it yours.
Maybe you can write about it. Maybe take a picture of it. But you keep it as yours.
Experiencing joy is an act of defiance when you are in an emotionally abusive, narcissistic relationship. The joy apparatus in you still works. You have whatever that joy moment is, and you make the deliberate choice to keep it as yours—and not try to draw the narcissistic person into it.
The tragedy—truly, I’ve seen this firsthand so many times—is that so many survivors come from such a loving place that they’re trying to draw the narcissistic person into the beautiful moment and give them the experience of joy.
They’ll turn to the narcissistic person and say, “Oh my gosh, look—look how beautiful this sunset is.” And, “Look how wonderful this rain feels on your face.”
And they’ll often get feedback like, “Who gives—this is the sun; it’s going to happen again tomorrow.”
You’re trying to share the joy, but that narcissistic person may not have that apparatus, and you can’t build it for them. And so you abandon that joy-experiencing part of yourself. Maybe you even feel guilty. Maybe you’re told your joy is foolish.
It’s not.
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