drerinwatson
Are you languishing in life?
Not to be that person that reminds you of the existential horror of the pandemic but…remember that? Remember when you were sitting at home, lonely (even if not alone) wondering where your spark went? Wondering what happened to take your life so off course, to make you feel that even if you could “function”, you weren’t really existing…
The pandemic gave us a lot of time to think and reflect and for many of us the reminders of what life could have been were inescapable. We had to face the reality of our pain, our relationships, our family, our self-confidence, our energy, our sadness, our crippling loneliness and burnout, and our overwhelming grief. The pandemic paused time and in that time the stitches holding our trauma trenchcoat together started falling out and the the masks started falling off; We were left only with the full knowingness of our truth.
The pandemic was hard for humanity, and it was excruciating for those living with the tendrils of toxicity and trauma. When trauma erects a wall between you and the feelings of genuine joy, wholeness, and connection the last thing you want is an extended amount of time with your thoughts.
The pandemic forced us to face the nagging voice whispering in our ears saying, “This isn’t how it was meant to be. You deserved so much more.”
And now that voice is screaming and you don’t know what to do about it
Are You Languishing?
For those whose trauma is rooted in the betrayals, injustice, hypocrisy and devastation of Narcissistic System Abuse (NAS) and Scapegoating, it can feel like you will never be able to put yourself back together even when the rest of the world has.
Not because you aren’t smart and capable, but because the very things that enabled the world to “repair” are not things that feel accessible to you: Communities of care, the emotional energy to pull yourself out of the funk, structures of familial and relational support, oh…and that thing where people believe what you went through.
People agree that the pandemic happened and caused destruction. But how many people believe the truth of your destruction and are willing to stand up for you, and with you?
When you have to convince people of your truth, you use up all the energy needed to get through the devastation.
Many people who experienced NSA and scapegoating during the pandemic (and before) report that it feels like the pandemic never ended for them; That even when life went back to its “new normal”, they couldn’t shake the feelings of despair and desolation that had a chokehold on their life.
Some survivors have said they don’t feel like they are capable anymore of recovering mentally and emotionally, despite their near constant and all-consuming efforts at recovery. They say they feel trapped in an alternate reality in which time both stands still and they feel they get nowhere, and time moves extra fast and passes them by. They feel their life is happening, but they are no longer in it.
This is called Languishing. It is a fog that envelops you and obscures your hope and resilience.
The term “languishing” was brought into our cultural vernacular during the pandemic by author Adam Grant to describe the absence of wellbeing. It’s not depression or mental illness, per se, but rather a state where, despite your best efforts in life, you can’t seem to feel alive, aligned, or connected.
Here are some signs of languishing:
- Unable to find motivation
- Difficulty experiencing joy
- Feelings of purposelessness, even if remaining productive
- Struggling to find meaning in existence
- Detachment from life and relationships, even when you’re “technically” connected to people
- A pervasive feeling of depletion that isn’t just stress or burnout, but stems from somewhere deeper like existence or spirituality itself
Languishing is different than depression, which is often characterized by deep feelings of sadness and an inability to function. People who are languishing may actually be functioning well, but feel completely checked out in terms of the purpose or hope of it all.
In terms of recovery from NSA, languishing perfectly describes that experience of showing up to therapy, talking about the abuse, reading all the books, watching the IG reels and YouTube videos and journalling about how stagnant you feel in recovery…but never really feeling like you’re getting anywhere or moving forward. It feels like a lot of effort but you are somehow detached from receiving the benefits of it. It may as well be called quiet desperation because the desperate disquiet of life makes you ask whether you are slowly dying inside, even though you are swimming towards the lifeboat harder and faster than you ever have before.
Have you become numb?
Has grief, anxiety, and depression gone so deep that you have burrowed a tunnel through your feelings into complete emotional apathy?
Are you going through the motions in life, checking all the boxes, doing all the right things and feeling nothing? No relief, no spark?
Do you wonder if it is even possible to feel genuine joy, wholeness, and connection again?
Do people say you seem to be doing well and you wonder how no one sees that the light has left your eyes?
Languishing and Narcissistic Abuse
People with NSA struggle more with languishing for a few reasons: For one, we were deprived of important relational mirrors that teach us our worth. Secondly, because we were denied an independent identity to anchor us. Instead of being allowed to develop a secure sense of self, we were tied to a life serving other people’s needs and feelings. And finally, because the social and logistical support that enables resilience and psycho-social-relational well-being was withheld from us.
As such, we find ourselves hoping that we can recover by osmosis…
Hoping that reading the book will be enough to change the life and make it all better. Because you are so very tired by now.
At this point, there is nothing left in you to make any change in life or have any belief that things can and will get better. It all feels like too much. Healing feels too big.
We reach languishing when we desperately need to escape our anguish from what was done to us, but we question whether anything better could possibly exist. So we stay stagnant.
Author Corey Keyes wrote a book on Languishing based on his own experience of it. He suggests that happiness that isn’t tethered to meaning in life is like food that has no nutritional value. Survivors of NSA speak about having limited options for meaning or purpose in life; They serve the needs of the Narcissist (to survive) and when they stop playing that role, they work to survive the destruction caused by the narcissist. Their one “purpose” seems to be survival itself. It doesn’t leave much room for things like dreams and hopes for a more fulfilling future.
It can be hard to find genuine meaning in life when you are caught between the choice to survive the Narc Machine or to survive your trauma once you escape the Machine. It can feel like your very purpose or essence is tied to serving and suffering for other people’s benefit.
When you are in survival mode like this, even if you are consuming “happiness” activities, it may feel like any pleasure simply passes right through you. When you don’t get those needed boosts, it can make you feel even more exhausted and apathetic. So you stop seeking the boosts. In order to stop feeling the pain, you dim the light switch on all your feelings. You start living on auto-pilot. It’s a vicious cycle.
Flourishing: Life Beyond Trauma
Dr. Keyes believes that there is an antidote to languishing which he calls “flourishing”. Flourishing is a state of wellness and aliveness above and beyond functioning. I believe it is the state of actually liking yourself, your life, and those around you. Imagine that! Understandably, it can be hard for survivors of NSA to buy into a belief system whereby they are worthy, deserving, and capable of accessing/achieving this state of flourishing.
But that does not mean it isn’t real or possible.
“Life throws many indignities at us”, says Keyes, who himself knows the anguish of not having loving and supportive family.
Ruptured attachment is arguably a precursor to languishing in later life if other protective factors aren’t available along the way. The problem is, Narcissistic System Abuse is isolating and insular; meaning it happens in such a way that no other protective factors would ever be available to you to mitigate against languishing. For one, since you are never exposed to alternative and healthy systems, you naturally believe that the way you are being raised/treated is healthy and normal. So you don’t question it. Secondly, the toxicity is odourless: It seeps into you silently and happens so covertly and pervasively that anything that isn’t NSA feels odd/off/dangerous. Imagine breathing in fumes your whole life, then suddenly being exposed to oxygen. It wouldn’t feel “right” even if it was lifesaving.
For those who suffered NSA, by the time you do realize what has happened to you or you start to question the system, it feels too little too late. You have breathed in the fumes. You are gasping for air. It feels hopeless: afterall, you are well past your major developmental and attachment-based milestones. Languishing has fully settled in, put on a pot of tea, and made itself comfortable.
If this feels like you, let me remind you that you aren’t alone or doing anything wrong: Many of us find ourselves in our middle years doing the reparenting tasks that move us through attachment-based developmental milestones that ought to have happened in childhood.
It’s unfair and it’s tiring. I get it.
What should have happened in childhood to make adult life easier (receiving love, care, support, validation, and being celebrated and delighted in), instead was robbed from you. Now, adult life is 10x harder than it needs to be. No wonder you are struggling to find meaning: you have to go to work, pay bills, nurture relationships, stay healthy, keep up aging bodies, possibly raise your own kids, deal with your trauma, make all your appointments, budget, do your taxes, fix the car, fold the laundry and make a meal, try to hit the gym, motivate yourself to eat something green, oh and…raise yourself all over again from the ground up.
Cool. Easy Peasy.
From Trauma To Triumph
Luckily, recognizing what has happened and why you are struggling is a really good first step. With the right language to bring understanding and clarity to your experience, you can take action in life that is effective and aligned with your recovery goals without exhausting yourself even more.
It’s hard to flourish when you are super duper tired!
It’s hard to flourish when we don’t acknowledge how languishing is built into the structure of NSA and helps make NSA stronger and more robust (afterall, if you are exhausted and complacent and completely denied meaning and purpose in life then you will be much more likely to serve the Narc Machine and remain in a state of survival based servitude).
It’s hard to flourish if you’ve never experienced what flourishing means and feels like because you were denied access to a life beyond the Narc Machine.
It’s hard to flourish when doing so means you will face immense backlash from the narcissistic system. It’s hard to risk living fully when it means loss, including the potential loss of family, partner, job, friends, social support, financial support, credibility, reputation and more.
It’s hard to flourish when you have no blueprint to seek it, achieve it, and sustain it
It’s hard! But it’s not impossible. And that blueprint can be built.
The even better news is you can start right now, no matter where you are, what you’re going through, or what toxic fumes surround you.
Rebuilding Your Life and Joy In 5 Steps
Several weeks back I talked about creating huge transformations by taking SMALL steps. Your Recovery Blueprint is made up of these small actions toward immense change.
Small steps enable you to build self-trust, which is the foundation of inner safety, which then creates the fertile ground for identity growth and alignment in life.
There are 5 things that you can do right now that Dr. Keye’s research has shown to decrease languishing and increase flourishing. I’ve expanded on them to directly relate to the experience of recovering from Narcissistic System Abuse and Scapegoating.
- Help Others: People who hurt others can’t flourish. It’s science. So remember that when you think your family/partner/boss is getting away with it. They aren’t. Maybe they aren’t being held accountable, but that does not mean they are living fully, joyfully or healthily.
One of the first key ways you can bring your life back online is by contributing positively to others and the world around you. It doesn’t have to be big. And you can do it no matter how isolated and alone you feel. Bonus? Volunteering or contributing to a cause you believe in can help you meet like-minded people. Or simply smiling at people as you hold open a door or offer them a cup of tea can boost connection building chemicals in the body that reduce stress immediately.
- Embrace Learning: Those who hurt you did so because they were unable and unwilling to self-reflect and grow. They chose not to learn different ways to cope with their pain and instead made you responsible for it. They will forever be stuck in their agony while you rise above it and get to experience the fullness of life.
Recovery is all about learning. For example, learning what Narcissistic System Abuse is and how it affects you, why it happens and what you can do to recover has enabled you to grow exponentially compared to when you felt confused and in the dark about what was happening to you. And it hopefully didn’t take too much effort (though I appreciate my articles are longgggg). Learning is the catalyst for all important change. Learning is what enables you to be a cycle breaker and a better person, not to mention it actually changes your brain for the better. To increase flourishing in your life, seek to learn something new that interests and inspires you and helps you grow as a person.
- Explore Your Spiritual Side: Spirituality doesn’t mean adhering to any specific religion or practice. It simply refers to being open and curious about the grander meaning, magic, mystery and purpose of life. Narcissistic Systems dictate that you — and your world — stay small. You are told to worship the Narcissist and to distrust any curiosity about what lies beyond the system. You may grieve the loss of friends, siblings, and coworkers who all choose to keep their heads in the sand while they feed the Narc Machine fuel. But it must be a lonely and arduous existence for them day in and day out keeping the machine running and never knowing life beyond it. Remember you are free.
What does freedom mean to you? In what ways has escaping the cage enabled you to grow your spiritual self — the self that knows at its core how worthy, loveable and deserving it is? How can you work to stay curious, open and expansive in your recovery?
- Play! When was the last time anyone in the Narc Machine got to play? And I don’t mean play the rigged game that is set up to perpetually disadvantage anyone but the Narcissist and their army. I mean really, joyfully, let loose and explore the fullness of their heart. There is no room for play — for fun, joy, or genuine connection — in Narcissistic Systems. Because Narcissistic Systems need you to always be on your toes, watching your back and policing each other to survive and fight for scraps of love, affection and attention.
if you want to start flourishing in your recovery, you can’t forget to play. Recovery isn’t about work work work, it is, at its core, about living each day in a way that feels like ease and alignment. If all you do is expend energy trying to “fix” yourself, then you will run out of steam before you get to feel joy. If joy isn’t part of your recovery regimen, then how is it going to magically become part of your recovery outcome? Your recovery efforts need to look exactly like the outcome you are hoping to achieve. And if you want true happiness and health, play better be at the forefront. Your inner child is begging for it. Play is the earliest form of self-love. And it is the greatest Recovery Rebel move of all. Take that Narcissistic abuse! You can’t steal my joy afterall!
- Connect with others: If your friends, siblings, or coworkers choose to stay in the Narcissistic Machine, let them! There is no genuine connection in a Narcissistic System, only survival and rivalry. Narcissistic systems are based on scarcity; Everyone is fighting for scraps of love, care, and affection. As such, people make alliances…not real connections. You may feel trauma bonded to the Machine and feel fear now that you are outside of it. That’s normal. Remember, connection creates wholeness inside of you. Alliance and allegiance (born out of fear) increase the voids within you and the chasms between people.
One of the greatest ways to recover is to be able to see yourself through the eyes of other loving people. Learning that people see you, like you, trust you, honour you, accept you, delight in you, and celebrate you can help undo a lot of the lies told to you about your worth and value. Connections help create resilience for emotionally tough times and can serve as support systems for the day-to-day stuff. But if you are isolated, it doesn’t mean you are doomed! Connection is about feeling like you matter, and there are many ways to learn that you do — whether in person or online. Connection isn’t about how social you are, it is about how genuine the moment is between you and another person. Nothing in a narcissistic system is a genuine connection. So to heal, having genuine connections hold immense power. Even if it’s a few seconds with a stranger at the bus stop. Don’t worry about what they are thinking, just lean into what it feels like to open your heart again to the world and let (healthy) people in.
You can do each of these 5 things every day when you keep the tasks small. And by doing each of these things every day, in small fragments, you are already doing way more than anyone in the Narcissistic Machine ever has. Good for you.
Creating Meaningful Connections
Small steps are especially important for survivors of NSA who may not have anyone else (yet!) to accompany them in their journey of recovery. As we know, NSA dismantles your credibility, and reputation, and uses character assassination, smear campaigns, gaslighting and manipulation to ensure that your friends, family members, colleagues and more don’t believe you, turn against you, or participate in the harm against you. If you are left alone as a result of choosing recovery, then well, actually, you’re not alone! You’ve just joined a different community of people on the same path as you, with similar questions and a tonne of ideas and wisdom that could help you. Want in?
It isn’t too late to get on the waitlist for my Survivor’s Sanctuary. A drama-free, genuinely welcoming and empowering space for survivors who want to move beyond the injustices, pain, betrayals, and lingering anger and grief caused by NSA. I’ve created this space specifically to feel more like family than family ever did. It’s unlike any recovery group you’ve been a part of — and includes a tonne of resources and support from me!
If you’re not yet on the waitlist, you can click HERE.
