It's Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People

by Ramani Durvasula

The grief of narcissistic abuse is consistent with something called disenfranchised grief,[2] which is grief that is not acknowledged by others or socially sanctioned and supported as a loss or grief experience. Imagine that someone close to you dies and the people around you deny that the person is dead and say there is no need for you to be upset. It would be unsettling to say the least. But that approximates the experience of a person who is enduring narcissistic abuse or the end of a narcissistic relationship. People may deny that you are experiencing a loss, especially if you do not end up leaving the relationship. The ambiguity and the marginalization of your grief experience or hearing that you are simply having “relationship problems” only magnifies the experiences of shame, grief, guilt, and self-blame. Because the people around you may not recognize what you are experiencing as “grief,” you may feel completely alone.