Grief

Understanding Grief in Recovery

Grief is the natural emotional response to loss. After narcissistic abuse, grief is inevitable—but it’s also complicated, confusing, and often misunderstood. You’re mourning not just the end of a relationship but multiple, layered losses that are hard to articulate.

This grief can feel illegitimate: “Why am I mourning someone who hurt me?” But grief doesn’t require the lost thing to have been good—it requires attachment and loss, both of which are present.

What Survivors Grieve

The Person They Thought They Knew

• The loving partner who never really existed
• The mask, the performance, the false self
• Who they seemed to be at the beginning
• The potential you believed they had

The Relationship

• The partnership you thought you had
• Shared memories (even if tainted)
• Routines and familiarity
• The role of being in a relationship
• Plans and dreams together

The Future

• Dreams of what could have been
• Plans you made together
• The life you envisioned
• Hopes for change that never came
• The future you sacrificed present for

Time and Energy

• Years given to the relationship
• Opportunities missed
• Energy spent managing them
• The life you might have lived
• Choices made based on false information

Your Former Self

• Who you were before the abuse
• Confidence that was eroded
• Trust that was damaged
• Innocence about relationships
• Your undamaged self

Your Sense of Reality

• Belief in your own perceptions
• Trust in your judgment
• Confidence in reading people
• Faith in love and relationships
• Your worldview

If the Narcissist Was a Parent

• The parent you deserved but didn’t have
• The childhood you should have had
• The unconditional love you needed
• The foundation you missed
• The family you wanted

Why This Grief is Complicated

Mourning What Never Was

The most disorienting aspect: you grieve something that simultaneously existed and didn’t. The loving partner was real to you—you experienced them, felt with them, built a life with them. But they were a performance.

How do you mourn a ghost?

Conflicting Emotions

In this grief, opposites coexist:

• Love and hate
• Missing them and relief they’re gone
• Anger and attachment
• Wanting closure and wanting nothing to do with them
• Grieving the loss and celebrating escape

Illegitimate Grief

Others may not understand:

• “Why are you sad about an abuser?”
• “You should be happy it’s over”
• “Just move on”

Your grief may feel illegitimate. It’s not. Grief doesn’t require the relationship to have been healthy—it requires loss, and you’ve lost.

Grief Without Resolution

Normal grief eventually integrates the loss into a new reality. Narcissistic abuse grief includes ongoing discoveries:

• New realizations about what was done
• Finding out about additional betrayals
• Understanding deepening over time
• Grief renewed by new understanding

The Relief/Grief Paradox

You may feel guilty about grief because you’re also relieved:

• Glad to be free
• But sad about what you’re free from
• Happy it’s over
• But mourning what it meant

Both are valid. Relief and grief coexist.

The Grief Process

Not Linear Stages

While traditional grief stages exist, this grief is messy:

• Denial → Anger → Bargaining → Depression → Acceptance
• These don’t happen in order
• You cycle through repeatedly
• Progress isn’t steady
• Grief resurfaces unexpectedly

Unique Aspects

Realization Stage: Understanding what actually happened—that the relationship wasn’t what you thought. This may take time and therapy.

Anger at Deception: Grief includes rage at being fooled, manipulated, and having your love exploited.

Grieving the Illusion: Mourning the relationship you believed you had, the person you thought you knew.

Grieving Your Lost Self: Mourning who you were before, the years you can’t reclaim, the innocence you lost.

Accepting Changed Reality: Integrating a new understanding of relationships, people, and yourself.

Allowing Grief

Give Yourself Permission

• You’re allowed to grieve an abusive relationship
• You’re allowed to miss someone who hurt you
• You’re allowed to feel confused by conflicting emotions
• You’re allowed to take time
• Your grief is valid

Honor the Grief

• Let yourself feel sad
• Cry when you need to
• Acknowledge the losses
• Don’t rush yourself
• Don’t judge your feelings

Create Space

• Journal about your losses
• Talk to supportive people
• Consider therapy
• Allow rituals of mourning
• Make time for the process

Be Patient

• Grief has no deadline
• It diminishes but may never fully disappear
• Anniversaries may trigger it
• Discoveries may renew it
• Progress isn’t constant

Common Experiences

Missing Them

Missing your abuser is normal:

• Trauma bonds are powerful
• Good memories exist
• Habit and familiarity matter
• Attachment doesn’t disappear
• This doesn’t mean you should return

Waves of Grief

Grief comes in waves:

• Sometimes overwhelming
• Sometimes manageable
• Triggered unexpectedly
• Varying in intensity
• Gradually less frequent

Grief and Anger Together

Grief and anger interweave:

• Sad about what was lost
• Angry about what was taken
• Mourning and raging simultaneously
• Both need expression
• Both are valid

Questioning Your Grief

You may wonder:

• “Should I be over this by now?”
• “Why do I still miss them?”
• “Is this grief or trauma bonding?”
• “Will I ever fully heal?”

All of this is normal. Be gentle with your questioning.

Moving Through Grief

What Helps

• Acknowledging all the losses
• Allowing rather than suppressing feelings
• Support from those who understand
• Therapy, especially trauma-informed
• Time and patience
• Self-compassion
• Eventual acceptance

What Doesn’t Help

• Suppressing grief
• Judging yourself for feelings
• Rushing the process
• Comparing to others’ timelines
• Forced positivity
• Returning to the abuser to end the grief

Signs of Healing

• Grief becomes less constant
• You can remember without being flooded
• Anger diminishes
• You develop new understanding
• Life moves forward
• You begin to rebuild

For Survivors

If you’re grieving:

• Your grief is valid, no matter how complicated
• Missing them doesn’t mean you made the wrong choice
• Conflicting emotions are normal
• There’s no timeline you should follow
• It gets easier, though the path isn’t straight

What you lost was real to you—the feelings, the hopes, the dreams, the investment. Grieve all of it. Grieve the relationship that wasn’t what you thought. Grieve the person who didn’t exist as you knew them. Grieve your time and your trust and your former self.

The grief is hard precisely because the abuse was hard. It’s part of the price of having loved, having hoped, having stayed human even in inhuman circumstances. Let yourself mourn. The grief, eventually, makes way for healing. But first, it asks to be felt.