Self-Care Recovery after a Narcissistic Relationship

Listen, kale smoothies and meditating over crystals are going to take a back seat to psychological survival. There is no crystal big enough to make this go away. Let's talk a little bit about the challenge of wellness. For people who are going through or frankly survivors of narcissistic relationships or grew up in narcissistic relationships. I recently have had in the last several months the experience of listening and being exposed to a lot of wellness stuff and it happened in a short period of time. This wellness rhetoric isn't really my cup of tea. Listen, I'm very clear. I need to sleep more, I need to exercise more and all of us need to, you know, we can eat better. It's not rocket science, right? And I also know that this is a problem I have and the way my life is set up, my own present and current psychological demons. As I listened to hour and hour after lots of wellness talkie talkie, I recognized that the knowing these things, sleep, eat well, all that, that wasn't the issue. For a lot of people, I recognize the structural and it's practical. For me, it was old voices inside of me and I know that's not just me. And yet not one of the wellness gurus took this on. They assumed that we could all eat a big old pot of beans for breakfast. Now the basic structure of any narcissistic relationship is this, right? If you want to do something for yourself, for your wellbeing, or if you ask for something for yourself or you make a need known or you openly disagree with a narcissistic person, you're going to be told that you're a problem, right? You're typically going to be called selfish or greedy or demanding or out of line or ungrateful or how dare you or what's your problem? And then there's all that unspoken stuff that happens, right? The silent treatment, the contempt, the unspoken disapproval. These relationships are a process of indoctrination. This doesn't happen just once. It becomes sort of the unspoken and at times even spoken contract of the narcissistic relationship. And the unspoken contract here is, well, for this relationship to keep going, I guess I have to become a person who has no demands, no needs, no wants, no you, separate from them and then everything will be just fine. That this whole relationship can keep going as long as you don't become too you. That means that if you, for example, have a narcissistic or have a narcissistic parent, you learned at a very early age that this wasn't about attachment and safety and the importance of you as the child, it was your role to mirror them, to be in their shadow, to be big only if they want you to, and to be small when they need you to, and that you should be able to mind read and figure that out. Right? And as a kid, you don't have much of a choice but to go along with the program for all the reasons of safety and all that, and if you're going to remain attached to that narcissistic parent, what options do you have? In an intimate relationship though, when you're in adulthood, you may go along to get along. You have invested time into this. There's enough normal or good stuff that you think like, I don't need to think about this. I can compromise, and you keep hearing though that you are too demanding, and that may play on existing wounds you carry from earlier in your life. And what happens to many of these people in these relationships is you become smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller to fit into the relationship, but you aren't aware that you're shrinking yourself, and it's the same with friendships, and it's the same with any narcissistic relationship. That means that people in narcissistic relationships were typically always doing, doing, doing, or always making themselves smaller, smaller, sort of scrunching themselves down. You're always doing, right? Keeping the trains running on time, the household running well, the workplace running well. You anticipate people's needs. You do stuff you don't want to do all the time. You again, the scrunching is you making yourself smaller and smaller and smaller. You don't stay stuck. You hold back. You don't share stuff, and yes, I know that a lot of this is survival. You ain't got options. But if you don't have other places to take the stuff that is you, that matters to you, your cares, your needs, your wants, your aspirations, then you do get shrunken, and the damned relationship, or narcissistic relationship, or relationships, they really are like a full-time job with no time for you. Now let's go back to wellness, because where exactly in this schedule does wellness stuff, would wellness stuff ever fit in in the first place? Listen, it takes time to cook in this whole longevity wellness way, or to eat like this, to have your garden, to sleep in such an optimized way, to exercise at the optimized time, to go to the farmer's market, to do all these things in the ideal way for your body, to meditate, to let go of toxicity. It was not lost on me that over the past few years, and I'm a good sport, and I show up like the good student, and I listen to these many, many hours of wellness talks, not one, not one, not one of these people ever talked about the greatest toxicity that does the most damage. They were talking about additives, and this, and that. That ain't your problem. The greatest toxicity is this antagonistic stuff, antagonistic people, because when you think about it, if you were to take that time for your early morning workout, requiring the cooperation of your partner with the kids, or the exercise class, or the time for meditation, or the bedtime routine, or the preparation of the optimized longevity breakfast, can you imagine making this need known in a narcissistic relationship? I need 20 minutes to make my longevity smoothie. They shut you down. You would be hit with every accusation of your selfishness, your vanity, your narcissism, your greed, your lack of gratitude that you don't care about the kids, and that you are a bad person. Who can sustain that? You're like, to make this person stop yelling at me, I'm just going to go back to having a Diet Coke for breakfast. The ringer was how many wellness influencers talk about relationships as a driver of good health, but give absolutely no credence or voice to the harm that has been done to people by toxic relationships, and how hard it can be to get into a relationship again, to trust again. Do not get me started, though I think I'm started. That's what this video is about. Can you imagine, in a narcissistic family, saying that, hey, how about we eat this certain way for our longevity, or a certain food, or let's spend more money on organic fresh foods. You would be shut down immediately and called selfish. Many people in narcissistic relationships will say that a major impediment to healthy sleep, which is often put out there as a pillar of health and wellness, is rumination. Folks, this is not about your sleep chronotype. This is about mentally grinding over the gaslighting and betrayal you experience on many days in these relationships, and no, you cannot mantra or meditate this ---- away. It sticks in your mind, and it keeps you up at night. Being in a narcissistic relationship is not good for your health, full stop. I've seen people die younger than they should have, develop all kinds of health issues. The stress and the corresponding endocrine and nervous system response, the disruption to healthy habits, the difficulty in being able to institute healthy habits, and the chaos created by these relationships, as well as that chronic sense of self-devaluation that leads people to believe that maybe, that I don't deserve all this, I'm being selfish if I do all this wellness stuff, who am I to do this? A lot of it is just the simple lack of time too. It takes a lot of time to deal with all the angry messages and the demanding messages from manipulative ex-partner, co-parents, or the guilt-laden messages from narcissistic family members, the unrealistic and oppressive demands of a narcissistic boss or colleague or workplace. Listen, kale smoothies and meditating over crystals are going to take a back seat to psychological survival. There's no crystal big enough to make this go away. Now, all of this concerns me, because I am seeing real and hard evidence that it seems like the narcissistic people, they kind of got this longevity thing figured out, because they do seem to live longer. I actually think selfishness may be the most profound longevity tool there is. And the narcissistic person's willingness to put their needs, their wants, their emotions, their preferences ahead of others, ahead of everyone, and having little or no regard for other people's needs or struggles, that's a pretty damn streamlined way to live. And in many ways, that level of selfishness, I have to believe that that may outweigh how you eat, sleep, move, and breathe. Now, I'm not saying go out and be selfish, because that's not good for everyone else. Other people are supply for narcissistic folks. They're not time sucks and not invalidators, though some would argue narcissistic people do live in this chronic, unprocessed tension of shame, which may be taking a toll on their systems, maybe, but remember, narcissistic people are willing to do whatever they need to do to regulate their emotions whenever they want by taking them out on other people. Whereas most other people carry those negative emotions internally, which does ultimately carrying all of that does take a greater toll. Can there be what I would call antagonism informed wellness? There's something I could get into, perhaps, because don't get me wrong. I don't think that these wellness gurus are wrong. They're not wrong at all with what they're saying. How we eat, how we move, how we sleep, how we breathe, it matters, meaning purpose matters, but it's much, much, much, much harder for folks who have been through the relational trauma of narcissistic relationships and continue to be blamed and shamed for everything, including taking any time for themselves. And sadly, the vast, vast, vast majority of wellness experts don't begin to understand this and sure as hell don't try to hold any space for the experience who are shut down by other people. And as an aside, one thing I hear, and I believe it to be completely inaccurate, is that people who can't put their wellness and health first, despite being psychologically invalidated and hammered in an emotionally abusive narcissistic relationship, are somehow codependent or not motivated. That's a crock of ----. There is only so many times that people can lie about going to the gym or make two dinners so that they can eat their healthier dinner. And the crap about setting boundaries is just that. It's crap. It doesn't work in these relationships. So people who are in narcissistic relationships, the best they can hope for is stealth wellness. But I don't want to leave this hopeless. What can you do? You're in one of these relationships. How do you stay well? Right? Start small. You aren't going to magically grow your own vegetables and find a big friend group that you make big healthy dinners with and laugh with after meditating all morning. That is not happening. Then, oh, and we can throw in there that y'all take a walk in nature and do isometric exercises and then get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. None of this is going to be a thing for you. Okay? Do something small. Take the stairs. Park in the farthest parking spot so you've got to walk a little ways. Eat some fruits and vegetables as a snack. Keep them in the car. Keep them in your bag. Be kind to yourself and recognize that on some days, on the most toxic days, the most triggered days for you and the most difficult days, you will lapse back into comfort foods. You will feel sluggish and know you're not going to want to take the walk and you're going to want to take the elevator. The best wellness strategy is how you manage yourself and talk to yourself on those difficult days. Another bit of wellness advice, don't share any of your health things with any of the antagonistic or narcissistic people in your life. Don't let them know anything you're doing. Don't let them know you're going to the gym. Don't let them know you're working with a trainer once a week. Don't let them know you're meditating. Don't let them know you're going to be more careful about your sleep routine now. You don't want to let them know you're a chronotype because they'll try to mess with it. I would say hide all your books, your wellness or self-help books, and don't share with them that you're thinking about your health and well-being. The narcissistic person will either critique you or they will undermine you or they'll tell you you're doing it wrong, but they'll undermine you by doing things like fighting with you right before bedtime or tell you that you will never be able to keep eating healthy or telling you, shaming you for not eating healthy enough or that your little walk is nothing compared to their three hours of CrossFit weight training, yoga, triathlon training. Keep an interior world of wellness that is yours. If you are navigating narcissistic relationships, and again, don't listen to a lot of the usual wellness folks who are not antagonism informed, who don't understand how these relationships undermine our ability to give this kind of time to our health. For most survivors, such self-focus feels beyond reach for a long time, even if the relationship is out of your life. For those of you who are still actively navigating these relationships, this is tough, trust me, I know, it's tough, but even if you are out of the relationship, those voices, those choices and that sense that we are being somehow bad, if we care for ourselves, can take a while to turn the volume down on. I have said it before and I'll say it again, all of this wellness stuff is often about, to me personally, I think the wellness stuff should be about breaking out of toxic lifestyles and habits, but not about just about additives and things like that. I would say, frankly, compared to the toxicity of an antagonistic relationship, a little bit of processed food, a few potato chips and a few cans of soda, some sedentary binge watching and even skipping the exercise from time to time, that's nothing. And perhaps the greatest wellness strategy of all is to disengage from as many of these manipulative relationships as possible, kale and meditation optional. So let's look at this issue. Why aren't you taking care of your health and why is that so common in narcissistic abuse? The slow drag of narcissistic relationships and narcissistic abuse in your life means that the way that you take care of yourself, for most survivors, slowly starts to erode over time. It happens in a million small ways. And over time, these shifts in how you take care of you can actually be really bad for your health. In fact, that's worth commenting on. Did any of you see that your own health and your own self-care suffered because you were in a narcissistic relationship? Now in one of the primary areas we really see this suffer is in self-care around your health. I don't mean this as the spa self-care, getting a massage self-care, I mean the day-to-day behavior that's actually essential to your health. So let me sort of talk about this in terms of some examples. Here are some examples of what could happen. A person who is so distracted by the egocentric demands of an unpleasable partner that she keeps postponing preventative health visits and then finds out that a cancer that could have been detected earlier if she'd kept up on those preventative health care appointments has now spread. A person who is often fatigued because they cannot sleep, because they spend so much time ruminating about a narcissistic relationship or a narcissistic family member or a toxic boss and is so tired at the end of the day or the end of the evening that they forget to take the medications that they're supposed to take every night. They're so distracted. Or a person who is in a long-standing narcissistic relationship and who cannot see a way out of it and is very isolated. They sort of feel like it isn't worth bothering putting on sunscreen, putting on a seatbelt, taking care of themselves in those basic ways or just other simple daily interventions that all of us should do to stay safe because she sees no point in doing it. Or a person who is overwhelmed by the anxiety and the rumination and the confusion of all the gaslighting, of all the narcissistic abuse and really has gone down the rabbit hole of why bother? They stop exercising. They find themselves to be very apathetic. They make poor dietary choices. They're gaining weight in a way that exacerbates maybe hypertension or places them at risk for diabetes or other illnesses or other chronic conditions or just the other impacts that come from not being active or eating well. Or a person who is trying to juggle being a good parent despite being in a volatile narcissistic relationship and a family who doesn't seem to get what they're going through and is stretched thin and is trying to keep it all together and is extremely stressed and is just getting sick more than usual and because of that, because that person keeps getting sick, it throws the family into even more chaos than it's already in. Or the person who experiences the unending validation and emotional abuse of a narcissistic relationship and is also stuck on top of all of that having to spend time with equally toxic in-laws feels like they have no release or place to talk about it. So when they can get a little stolen minute to themselves, they'll smoke and drink to relieve the tension. They know that smoking and drinking at the level they're doing it isn't healthy but they feel they cannot change their circumstances and the little bit of a buzz and the uplift of the cigarette just feels like a quick fix. Health self-care actually takes in a lot of territory. There's things like preventative health care, like getting annual physical check-ups and annual check-ups for other kinds of health issues. Getting your prescriptions refilled and actually picking them up. Getting regular dental care, eye care if you need it, gynecologic care, cancer screens like mammograms, cardiac care, whatever it is a person needs their screening on. Then there's medication adherence like taking your prescribed medications or supplements as they're prescribed and how you're supposed to take them each day. Daily preventative behaviors like the things we do, we're supposed to do every day like putting on sunscreen, wearing a seatbelt, lifestyle daily kinds of behaviors like eating a healthy balanced diet, exercising or moving your body regularly, staying hydrated in a healthy way, stress management kinds of stuff like getting enough sleep, daily practices such as mindfulness or meditation, just giving your mind a second just avoiding unhealthy behaviors like smoking, drinking or substance use. All of this, self-care in many cases, the majority of cases, goes out the window for many people who are experiencing narcissistic abuse, frankly sometimes with tragic consequences. Putting off preventative health care screens means that, for example, cancers can go undetected or that an uptick in blood sugar doesn't get assessed or blood work doesn't get done in a timely way, which then means that you might miss other underlying conditions or the chance to get in there and do early intervention. Narcissistic abuse results in so much self-devaluation that you can see how it easily extends to all this health-related self-care. You start to believe that your health isn't worth addressing. You start living in the I'm not enough that you came up in your relationship, but now I say I'm not even enough to take care of my own health. And while the more tragic consequences like a missed cancer diagnosis or a late cancer diagnosis or a late diagnosis of other disease, those are much more obvious. Years of eating poorly, not exercising, or not taking medications as prescribed also take their toll and can negatively impact quality of life and overall health. The narcissistic partner, and specifically in this case the narcissistic partner, is typically so egocentric, so self-centered, so unempathic, so entitled, so self-centered that they actually do not notice the need for someone else to get health care. Ironically, I've found this in my own research, many narcissists take impeccable care of their own health, but will not, for example, let their reminder, so they'll get their reminder of their annual physical exam and they'll make their appointment, but they'll never think to say, oh, hey, hon, did you make sure to make your annual exam? They'll never do that. It's all about them. And many times, especially in longer term narcissistic close relationships, the narcissist may actually seem kind of inconvenienced if you decide that you need to engage in some of your own health self-care behavior, especially if it really inconveniences them. For example, they may not want to drive you to a preventative health care appointment or colonoscopy. They may not want to watch the children while you exercise to get some of that activity. Waiting for a narcissist or narcissistic person in your life to get on board with your self-care is honestly like waiting for the sun to rise in the west. It ain't going to happen, and a lot of people have their hearts broken thinking, no, they'll help me with my health, and that never happens. There is also wasted hope. Hope that when it comes to health, health of all things, life or death in some cases, that the narcissistic partner or family member or even boss will have your back. There is that fantasy, for example, that as you grow old together, they will mellow, and then as you both get older, our health becomes more frail. They'll care about your health. No, your health. No, they're not going to care. They'll care deeply about their own health and staying young forever. They're not going to be so interested in yours. Your health care provider is not going to assess whether or not you are in a toxic relationship. They should, but they don't. They'll ask you if you smoke and if you drink and a bunch of other stuff, but they won't ask you about the toxic relationships. In fact, I remain convinced that a toxic relationship is as harmful to your health as other unhealthy behaviors or exposures, but the medical profession tends not to be willing to veer there and your primary care provider may take more of the stance of calling you out for not doing what you're supposed to do for your own health than to really take the time, especially these days when health care providers are so stretched thin, than to really do the deep dive into the deeper sort of barriers of your ability to sort of do your own health self-care and ultimately despite the many, many barriers in front of you, it is your responsibility to have your own back around your health. The fantasy that they would have your back can actually be lethal if it keeps you from taking responsibility for your own health. So what are you supposed to do given that not engaging in health self-care is such an issue in narcissistic abuse? If you are stuck in this kind of a relationship, you have to find the workarounds. Whether those workarounds are reminder alarms for medications, using telehealth or setting up rides in advance for health care if you're not able to get to those appointments on your own. And one way to think of it is this, and sadly this analogy may resonate with you. You wouldn't want to put off an oil change for your car. Why? Because it's a pain in the neck if your car breaks down and it's expensive to replace the car. Why can't you view your health care in the same way? It's sad that many, many people are treating their cars or treat their cars better than you treat yourself. But think of you at least as your car. Put the reminders in the calendar just like you do for the oil changes. Work around the narcissist's schedule in some way and fit in some kind of exercise. It may even be yoga at home using a video. It may be that you walk to an errand that you might ordinarily drive to or park in the far part of the parking lot. Make your health part of a routine. The usual tricks that we give clients for medication adherence, for example, put your medications next to your toothbrush. Use alarms to remind you. Find seamless ways to build healthier foods into your diet. The usual health and wellness feedback, the easier it is, the more likely it is that you are to do it. Even when you're under the big mountain of distraction and mental fatigue of narcissistic abuse. It's also important that you find a supportive network. Listen, if you can't find group therapy or an actually organized support group, there are even social media groups out there of other people who are going through narcissistic abuse. Find those networks and perhaps maybe set a health challenge amongst a group of you who are going through this similar experience. Acknowledging that being in these difficult relationships makes health-related self-care even more difficult. People who aren't going through narcissistic abuse may not get the challenges you're going through. Yep, I'm going to tell you as I always tell you, therapy. You know, in therapy, this becomes an area that becomes important to talk about this kind of health self-care. In therapy, you just don't talk about how I'm going to build a walk into my schedule or I'm going to eat more vegetables or any of that. In therapy is the place where you look at the deeper roots of what blocks you and how beliefs and rumination and fatigue are impeding you. This may even be enhanced by health coaching or some other person who can help you achieve this and get through these really tough barriers. Ideally, a health coach who understands narcissism. Unlike a car and those oil changes, you only get one shot at a body. My advice is for all of us is to talk to someone older than you who wishes they'd had taken better care of their bodies when their bodies were a little bit more hardy. Health is cumulative. Waking up at 65 and deciding to train for a marathon, I think it's great but taking care of your 25, 35 and 45 year old self is like putting money into an investment account. It's a long game and health is a long game. The stress of a narcissistic relationship is already taking a tremendous toll on your health. It's negatively impacting your immune functioning. It's contributing to all kinds of tension and stress related pain, headaches, muscle aches, back pain, all kinds of issues like that. At least through the health related self-care, you can shore your body up for the good fight and if you are able to distance yourself from this relationship or get out of it altogether and set boundaries, use that shift in your life as a wake-up call to take your health back. Have any of you ever said okay I can't leave this narcissistic relationship but damn I need a break. I wish I could just get a break. We're going to talk about that today. That idea of the kind of break you could use from a narcissistic relationship and sometimes when we're talking about other people in tough circumstances it's called respite care. So let's talk about respite care as it might apply to people experiencing narcissistic abuse. Now one thing about narcissistic abuse is that it is a where the people around the person with this unhealthy pattern actually basically with narcissism actually experience more harm than the narcissist themselves. So the people experiencing the narcissistic abuse experience more harm. Now with most mental health issues we do tend to focus on the person experiencing the issues, depression, anxiety, whatever it may be. But narcissism is a different beast. It's a personality style and the bulk of the harm comes to those who are near the narcissist and again generally not the narcissistic person themselves who tends to often just be living the life of Riley never having to take responsibility for anything. Now I was talking to folks the other day about managing the stress of taking care of themselves when they were taking care of somebody else. For example of somebody who's taking care of somebody who is I don't know living with serious medical problems or immense pretty serious mental illness or dementia or some other needs that require heavy caregiving. Now we know there's an existing literature that really goes into depth on caregiver burden and it looks at people who may be caring for a living someone like I said with dementia or a physical illness or someone who may be caring for someone who may be differently abled or someone who may have a substance use disorder. What we know about that is that people in these situations where they're having to do heavy caregiving are often quite tired and may feel a and they have to deal with all kinds of systems such as insurance and health care providers. They may also have their own paid jobs and have to be taking care of kids or something like that and just the heavy lifting of taking care of another person is a lot. Now interestingly in some situations people who are experiencing caregiver burden may sometimes receive something called respite care. It's often in the form of someone who comes in and gives that caregiver a few hours or even more of a break so that the person can get out and maybe get a night out or a day of errands or even something like a weekend away. It's meant to replenish the caregiver so they can come back and take on the challenges a little bit more refreshed and clear-headed. It's usually granted when someone is caring for someone who has medical or something like memory care needs and it might be paid for provided by an agency or some other entity designed to support folks so their family member can be taken care of at home. Now when I thought about that was having this conversation about respite care it left me wondering what would respite care look like for someone in a narcissistic relationship? What would that mean? Because I know that in most cases when a person's in a narcissistic relationship they may not be taking care of them but because folks with narcissistic personalities require so much reassurance, so much validation, so much supply, so much for things to be their way even to the detriment of others that anyone who has to live with them or has to put up with them may actually feel as though they are engaging in some form of caregiving. Well having to haul all that heavy validation into the room even when you're exhausted is no different than feeling as though you are having to haul someone up the stairs or carry laundry all over the house. I would actually say that actually hauling laundry and trash is much easier than having to constantly deliver validation to a narcissist. But let's face it folks there is no such thing being provided as respite care for narcissistic abuse obviously. There is no agency I can think of that provides this. But what if we were to design it? What would respite care for folks experiencing narcissistic abuse look like? Because it may be something that we need to do for ourselves. Now as I see it, it would be a place or time where a person is not minimized, where they're not gaslighted, and where they're supported. In fact where they are validated and their reality is supported. Where they are encouraged to try new things and laugh out loud and their courage is built up. Where the conversation is actually about them for a minute and they aren't interrupted. A place where they can trust people and not worry about being lied to every minute. Where they can eat what they want without it being criticized and go to sleep when they want without someone starting an argument at bedtime or first thing in the morning. And I got to tell you if I ever win the lottery I think I'm going to create a narcissistic abuse respite center. And all of these things would happen for survivors so I'll keep buying those lottery tickets. But alas such a place right now does not exist. However you maybe you could try and craft your own version. A day or a weekend with friends who do these things for you. And where you might feel comfortable asking for these things ahead of time. Like hey can I talk without interruption? Maybe it would just be time alone. Even a night in a local hotel where you get to call the shots on your life for one night. Even calling the shots means eating cheesecake in bed while watching bad reality tv and then sleeping in. Perhaps it's a long drive where you are in charge of the music player or can listen to the podcast you love without it being criticized and then take yourself for lunch at the place that serves the food that the narcissistic person in your life never wants to eat. Maybe it's an extra day you quietly tack onto a business trip just to get a break. You just tell them the trip is lasting a day longer and then take advantage of already being gone right. Now if you have someone in your life you're supporting a survivor of narcissistic abuse maybe you can create a sort of mini respite care for them. Either make it possible for them to get away for a day by watching their kids or their pet or taking them someplace and ensuring that you listen to them and let them set the plan for the weekend or the day. Now you may be dealing with or know someone who might be dealing with familial narcissistic abuse where the person may not live with their family of origin but any time spent with their parents takes a toll on them. So then you could offer to accompany them to soften the stress or you can offer to sit with the most difficult family members so that the person you know who's in that family can manage the other issues in the family system. I've had people do that for me and it's really helpful. The struggle with this is of course that after any respite care of any kind the person does have to return to their original responsibilities. In the case of caregiving that's going to happen or have to return back to the narcissistic situation. But these moments of respite care aren't a cure they are meant to replete and restore just a little bandwidth so a person can strengthen themselves and maybe be a little more resolute in the face of what is happening to them. Respite care isn't a one-off it is something that has to be done on a somewhat regular basis even if it's just every couple of months. When I think about what anyone needs when they are feeling broken down by a difficult caregiving situation I recognize that this is something a person in a narcissistic relationship would also need. By thinking of it as respite care it can help a person think of it as an essential restoration to stay strong and hopefully with that strength get a little better at boundaries and slowly disengage from the manipulative landscape that is a narcissistic relationship. If you have any other ideas on what respite care could look like drop them in the comments and for no other reason that other people can read about it. But like I said when it comes to other mental health situations or physical health situations we're so invested in helping caregivers anywhere we can in any way we can. But we don't think about that with survivors of narcissistic abuse we often just paint it as oh that's just a tough relationship. It's a lot more than that and people in these relationships especially when they can't get out of them which is a lot of folks every so often you just need a break. Thanks again.