Recurring Abandonment Nightmares: Anyone Else?

[DistanceNotDefense]

I've had a string of nightmares recently and only just noticed there is a pattern.

Ive been in therapy and doing a lot of work exploring boundaries and recognizing narcissism in the people I meet, the people I attract, and the people I choose to "let in"...I've come to realize that some of my behaviors have actually *encouraged* people to be narcissistic with me (even people who don't act narcissistic with others. I don't think they're PDs at all). I actively choose them to come closer in turn, almost encouraging them in this behavior without knowing. That's been something to wrap my head around.

I've felt a strong urge to go inward and mostly be in solitude, not in a depressed or sad way, but to find myself. Explore hobbies, work, interests. What I like. Unexcited about most social stuff. Feeling zero FOMO. It feels really, really good in a way. I keep in touch with some friends and am seeing some in a new light. Some I think are going to fall away. Some, I realize, I have "trained" or encouraged them to be narcissistic with me. Quite a few actually. Many fellow female friends I hastily made after going NC with FOO, in my franticness to build a FOC, were made while I still had these codependent patterns. A male friend of mine falls into this category too.

So, I'm not trying to look them up or compromise my time/schedule/energy/other things just to have them in my life often (I usually do all the work to make this happen, organizing events, making the trips to them, initiating contact, etc.) I'm putting the onus on them to do the work now. They can make the trip, they can reach out, they can organize. Some people in my life step up, and I reciprocate with them. But some are going quiet - just like my PD FOO (covert narcissism, NPD, and some psychopathy/sociopathy) did when I went NC.

During the day, I feel shakily confident about this change happening in me and the "turnover" - my therapist says I'm on the right track. That even though I think it feels mean and unnatural, it's listening to my body's boundaries and it's not unreasonable, and that I have a lot of guilt de-programming to do. Healthy people do this (or they don't get tangled in these relationships to begin with)

Then, I'll have occasional emotional nightmares. In each I feel torturingly, painfully abandoned in some way, or filled with shame and guilt that I'm completely on the wrong track. In one, I was left atop a mountain in the nighttime to see the lights of cities below in the dark, looking at them and feeling like I'd never be part of them, or a community in general. In others, the narcissistic people - friends falling away, and family members I'm NC with as well - are taunting me, guilt-tripping me, forcing contact (even physical) with me, flaunting or parading themselves in front of me to communicate that I'm making a mistake. Some decisively show off in front of me that they are even trying to be good friends with my toxic family, just to make me feel bad for no longer being the completely open book or doormat I used to be.

One person, who I haven't been friends with for years and years (who is very, very narcissistic) even showed up and was telling me, in a rage, "how dare you move on and have a wonderful, beautiful life without me? I see pictures of your life and I want to be sick seeing how happy you are, and that I'm not a part of it." It was so over the top!

It's obvious what these dreams signify and how ridiculous they kind of are when I write them out - or when I think about them later in the day, that they are the taunting of internal fears of being alone vs. being in narcissistic relationships. I feel much better later when I get on with my day. However, they have woken me up more than once on a few occasions in the middle of the night, and I'm terrified that everything I'm doing is wrong, and all the people in the dream are right.... Not to mention the sleep issues....

....has anyone else had this kind of experience recovering from severe codependency? Especially nightmares? Or extreme shame, guilt, confusion as you de-program, even if a therapist is telling you that it's healthy? It will really feel like after the nightmare, I need to contact all these people RIGHT NOW or I will be alone forever! (Which is so ridiculous but I actually believe it). It's definitely some sort of PTSD abandonment flashback, and it feels so real. At some point in my childhood there must have been a point where I realized, I need to make sure these people raising me like me no matter what, or I won't survive... though it's not a memory I can recall with my 5 senses

I wonder if anyone has experienced similar? Thank you in advance....

[athene1399]

Change can be scary and it sounds like that is being expressed in your nightmares as well. Our FOOs can get us used to unhealthy dynamics and when we try to make changes it can feel alien and uncomfortable. Healthy boundaries feel wrong because we were programmed to have unhealthy relationships feel right. It also sounds in the dreams that maybe you are feeling a little guilty for enforcing boundaries. Once you get used to the discomfort of boundaries it will eventually feel natural. Try to be patient with yourself as you ease into the changes. I also like that you are working on learning about your likes and hobbies. That is a great place to start too!

[DistanceNotDefense]

Thank you Athene1399. It is scary - a part of me is brave and resolute, but it is clear a part of my subconscious/inner child is still terrified of abandonment and it will take a while to soothe and assure that the change will be OK. Part of me doesn't feel OK with it yet.

This comes after yet another nightmare episode last night - a woman I know was emotionally torturing me. It turned out I was myself the woman in the end, torturing myself. I woke up completely ill. The inner critic gets buried quite deep. I'm convinced the doubt/dream figures is my inner critic, the voices that echo my FOO (especially my mother) that I don't deserve to be angry, to dislike someone, to stand up for myself. I was told I was mean, unlikeable, cutting, sensitive, etc. whenever I did so as a child.

I get angrier and more obstinate now more than I ever have in order to keep boundaries. Still some part of me feels sick with how wrong I might be, that I am just maybe bitter and resentful and will end up alone.

But thank you for the reassuring words, I will try to be more patient. I hope the pain and uncertainty end. And yes I'm getting a lot out of delving into my interests, it feels good.

[notrightinthehead]

When I encounter a part of me that is bitter, resentful, fearful and seems to work against ME, I try to sit with it. I try to talk to it, validate it, listen exactly to what this part wants or is afraid of.  I put myself in a meditative state, but I have also done it as a chair exercise - with this part of me being the chair and us having a conversation. I try to be open and understanding for this 'negative' part, let it vent without taking it personally, and find out what it needs. There is often a great sadness underneath a very angry voice in my head.
It might sound crazy for you but it has helped me greatly to get to know myself better and to integrate such parts into my whole self. Of course you could do that with your therapist.

It might be possible that the fearful dreams stem from a part of you that helped you survive all those years of abuse and now is frightened for you and wants to shock you back into your former self.   It is time to find another, better use for such a powerful part of you in the process of your healing. For that you could embrace this source of your nightmares and know that it is only trying to help.

[1footouttadefog]

I think being isolated on a mountain in the dark while people in a city below are not reachable by you and are separate, is precisely what a high percentage of Narcs do to their non partners.  They isolate them and destroy their connections with the society around them.

They often do this by wanting to move for work or such tlas well cutting the nons off from friends and family. 

I think it is normal to have nightmares when one has become more disconnected from abusers.  The sub conscious finally feels safe to work through things. 

[DistanceNotDefense]

When I encounter a part of me that is bitter, resentful, fearful and seems to work against ME, I try to sit with it. I try to talk to it, validate it, listen exactly to what this part wants or is afraid of.  I put myself in a meditative state, but I have also done it as a chair exercise - with this part of me being the chair and us having a conversation. I try to be open and understanding for this 'negative' part, let it vent without taking it personally, and find out what it needs. There is often a great sadness underneath a very angry voice in my head.
It might sound crazy for you but it has helped me greatly to get to know myself better and to integrate such parts into my whole self. Of course you could do that with your therapist.

It might be possible that the fearful dreams stem from a part of you that helped you survive all those years of abuse and now is frightened for you and wants to shock you back into your former self.   It is time to find another, better use for such a powerful part of you in the process of your healing. For that you could embrace this source of your nightmares and know that it is only trying to help.

Thank you NRITH. This super resonated with me. It actually reminded me of a trauma dream I had late last year. In it, a really powerful protector figure was leaving an inner child figure with other figures it did not know or trust so well. With help from some Jungian dream analysis, I actually determined that this was the beginning of my inner critic finally leaving the inner child alone - moving it's criticisms away from the child to elsewhere and be put to better use, after much internal/therapy work.

But the inner child was terrified. It knew no other relationship than that with this highly critical figure, and it felt completely abandoned and alone without them - even without their judgement! It interpreted the internal work as potential abandonment, when in fact I've been doing quite a bit of Shadow work, trying to retrain the inner critics to be critical of those who are not good for me - rather than being critical of myself. I've left my inner child in the care of parts that it's not so familiar with, so to speak, even if they are being much kinder right now!

This doesn't sound crazy to me at all and I've done quite a bit of active imagination work, "talking" with these parts like this....I guess the thing is, in my case, I'm still in a phase of figuring out how much anger can work for me and when it works against me. At the moment, overstating boundaries feels more required than understating, even if awkward and clunky, or deeply unsafe-feeling to do so - I've been so hurt by extreme boundary violations a part of me just cannot chance them happening again. Very bad PTSD over here.

I'm completely new to anger or dislike, it is alien to now learn how to wield it (or even just use space, distance, and silence) outwardly against others who cross boundaries rather than what I did before: suppressing it and unleashing it on myself secretly for not being good enough, likable enough, loveable, etc., and then deciding to have no boundaries so people would like me or love me. Maybe this is the "old self" my subconscious is trying to shock me back into.

The survival mechanism that seems to be screaming out in my dreams, for fear of abandonment, is my extreme people-pleasing side. It's as if it says "what if you lose all these connections? And you're just all alone? And no one likes you if you're like this?!?" I will literally wake up from the nightmare with a panic attack thinking I need to send a message to certain toxic acquaintances/family right away. It will actually feel like I MUST do this, and it's so crazy and real feeling (but fades with the day).

But these people in real life are so obviously problematic, toxic, and draining to me now at this point that I'm shocked there is still a little vulnerable part of me that so deeply, deeply believes I must act this way in order to be accepted, liked, and loved. The theme in my dreams is a deep terror that expressing anger/boundaries will only bring me abandonment. It's almost like the inner child is being critical of the protector! "No, you're doing too much - we'll be alone forever!"

Thank you so much NRITH for bringing up this angle, it's really helped shift a perspective on my inner dreams and constellate something, a new understanding.

1footouttadefog - Totally. My FOO absolutely raised me this way, like a narc partner treats a non-narc partner: isolating me from community and training me to only meet their needs 100%, no building away from them. I was raised in a cult religion that encouraged this as well.

Up until age 16 or 17 I felt like my ability for community or friendship was completely obliterated/nonexistent. PD FOO made sure I had low self-esteem at home and to support any notion or feedback that I was unlikable outside family, e.g. agreeing with the opinions and statements of my school bullies, bullying me themselves, etc. Having a husband, friendships, a life outside home etc. always posed a huge threat to them. The first time I truly had any real friend group in my teens my covert narc mother made attempts to block and isolate me from these friends.

Now that old childhood/teenage fear lives in me and comes alive when I stand up for myself. It's a very deep-seated fear I have that who I am naturally is not "easy to be with" and not meant to be loved or part of a community, and it definitely comes from that type of treatment. My anger and strong emotions were regularly and thoroughly punished for sure.