A conditioned nervous system
A nervous system that has been shaped over decades can’t be reprogrammed overnight. So much of it runs unconsciously and completely automatically.
Recognizing which behaviors were instilled in us, trained into us or manipulated into us – and which simply developed through our life experiences – is the first step.
Learning to recognize triggers as triggers, when the body has long since started reacting with strong emotions or physical responses, takes a while. For me, it begins with being able to reflect honestly on myself – and with a mental stop as soon as certain feelings come up.
Like an addiction
It can feel almost like an addiction. A trigger can bring up not only negative but also very positive feelings. Every person has their own repertoire of reactions to certain triggers.
The nervous system looks for relief. Nobody wants to suffer voluntarily. So at first you follow the path you know.
In toxic relationships, for example, the head may have long known that something is harming us – while the body, as if by remote control, rushes straight toward it to finally feel relief.
In the narcissistic dynamics I have experienced, it could be this incredible charm a person radiates – and, in the one being triggered, the deep longing for love and recognition. These very basic needs can be touched incredibly strongly, at least for a time.
Then the nervous system jumps into the cold water again and again. You accept the loving and promising invitations once more, because the other person assures you yet again, very convincingly, that this time it’s different and the love is truly real.
If you come from a traumatic childhood in which abuse and imbalances of power were part of everyday life, the urge to follow your deepest wish for love, closeness and emotional safety can be incredibly strong. While everyone around you shakes their heads and notes that you’ve fallen into the same pattern yet again.
At some point you know it yourself. And still, for a long time, the pull can be stronger than the knowing.
40 years of conditioning
At some point neither therapists nor desperate friends can make the decision for you. For me it had to happen countless times, until I was so worn out that I had no choice but to finally draw the line for good. It really did feel a little like withdrawal, because suddenly something was gone that had taken up a huge part of my days and my thoughts.
The being afraid. The worrying. The hoping and dreading. Weighing every word, afraid of bringing about the next break. You try to avoid every supposed mistake – even though these mistakes often don’t exist at all. At some point I had to understand: I can’t prevent the next disaster just by being even more careful. Because this dynamic doesn’t come from my behavior alone – but from the patterns on both sides and my own deep self-doubt.
In the narcissistic dynamics I have experienced, I kept feeling that I was becoming a means of quieting, for a while, the other person’s sense of not being enough. As soon as real closeness and depth developed, I often experienced distance again – to me it seemed as if safety had to be restored by pushing the other person away.
There are countless books about narcissism, and psychology has long been concerned with narcissistic personality structures. I myself have experienced very different forms of it. When such patterns were already normal in your own family, it is incredibly hard to even recognize them as problematic later on. The more subtle they are, the harder they are to grasp. And the conditioning that comes from them runs deep.
It took over 40 years to recognize much of this. My patterns go back to early childhood, and that is probably also why I kept ending up in similar dynamics and in chaos. Not because victims automatically attract perpetrators – but because what is familiar sometimes feels frighteningly normal, even when it harms us. For me, this ran through my life for a long time.
Breaking out
Breaking out of it is a big achievement for me. Cutting off contact with people I was emotionally dependent on. Men and women alike – each in their own way. It doesn’t take a romantic relationship for toxic or narcissistic dependencies to develop.
I don’t even always consciously blame the others. Many of them probably don’t know any better themselves and have become who they are through their own history. And not every person with narcissistic traits is ill or evil because of it. To a certain degree, narcissistic parts belong to us as human beings. But that doesn’t make it any easier for the person who keeps putting themselves below others. Because one thing I have learned: I can’t change other people.
At some point there was no other option for me than to leave the people I was stuck with in these toxic attachment patterns. Only then could my nervous system come to rest at all. And only then could I learn that I can go on living without these extreme highs, without the constant excitement and without this kind of attention.
Looking back, it frightens me how emotionally dependent I was on a whole number of people. For me, the origin of many of these behaviors and unconscious compulsions lies in what I experienced in my childhood.
Five steps back
But precisely because I know this today, I want to learn from it. As soon as I notice certain feelings coming up, I don’t take just one step back, but five. I take my time until my pulse and breathing calm down again, and then I look more closely: What am I actually feeling?
By now I often recognize fairly quickly when it was an old trigger that threw my nervous system into turmoil. Then I consciously bring my head back in – and today I make completely different decisions than I did just a year ago.
After 42 years, I think that’s an accomplishment 🙏🏼 – and I’m allowed to acknowledge it. One year. And so much has changed.
Today people can come around the corner for whom, a year ago, I would probably have blindly thrown much of what I had learned overboard again – just to give them the umpteenth chance. Today I simply say: Thanks, but no. By now I recognize this brief burst of excessive emotion more for what it is, and keep looking ahead.
I wish everyone the courage to look – honestly, self-critically and without being ashamed of it in front of themselves or anyone else.
For me, insight is the first step toward change. And maybe also, a little, toward healing 😊
Addendum
The wish for love and affection hasn’t disappeared because of this. I have been alone for a long time. And being with someone doesn’t automatically make up for the loneliness deep in your heart, either.
Recently someone asked me whether I could still love at all. Of course I can. Love has so many forms: the love for friends, above all the love for my children, the love for past moments and for places.
And for over 20 years I have loved a man who means an incredible amount to me. A person for whom I would do a great deal – and with a clear conscience. Because after all these years I know that he would never force anything from me or simply expect it as a given. Because with him I can be who I am. Because despite all my mistakes he has let me back into his life again and again and has become a loyal companion I can rely on and trust 100%. One of the few people in my life who shows affection and appreciation above all through one thing: constancy.
Even though he loves differently than I do, I am grateful for this realization. Grateful that I can feel real feelings that aren’t just a trigger or an old pattern. And grateful that I was allowed to learn that love doesn’t always have to mean getting every one of my own basic needs met – and that I can still be happy and content.
Of course I’m sometimes sad, low or melancholy. But I don’t see that as a step backward. After all, we humans aren’t made to be alone … at least I don’t think so.
But today I say: I’d rather stay alone than rely on false friends or be trapped in toxic systems again. And so I am grateful for my friendships, my children – and the one.