So I wanna talk about something that comes up time and time again.
You’re out in the world, months after leaving, doing fine and then something happens.
Small thing, you see a dynamic play out. Someone gets defensive when they hear no.
You notice an expectation that one person
will manage the feelings while another person
just has them.
And there’s this feeling in your chest,
this tightness, this recognition.
Like, oh, this is the same thing, different context,
same pattern.
And the question becomes whether that recognition
means you’re not healing right.
Like maybe you’re projecting your ex onto every situation.
Seeing abuse, where there isn’t any being unfair,
being too sensitive, all those phrases
that used to make you doubt yourself.
But what if the problem isn’t your perception?
What if the problem is that you’ve gotten really good
at recognizing a specific kind of control?
And now you’re seeing that same logic everywhere.
Not because you’re broken,
but because it actually is everywhere.
Just operating at a different scale.
And that’s what I wanna dig into today.
This idea that narcissistic abuse isn’t just something
that happens in private relationships
with disordered individuals.
It’s a pattern, a logic, a way of organizing power.
And that pattern shows up in relationships, sure.
But it also shows up in systems, in culture,
in the way entire societies are structured.

Welcome back to the Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Podcast.
I’m Lynn, your host.
Since episode 69, where we explored the great divorce
and the widening gap between men and women
in relationships, we’ve been digging deeper,
unpacking social conditioning,
calling out collective blind spots,
and confronting the ways patriarchy shows up
in our everyday lives.
That episode marked a shift for this podcast.
From there, we’ve been unraveling patriarchy
from every angle, and yes, sometimes sideways too.
We’ve also been connecting these patterns
to narcissism and emotional abuse
in ways that aren’t often talked about.

In this episode today, we’re going to talk about
how recognizing patterns of control in one relationship
can help you see similar patterns
operating at a cultural scale.
Why leaving a narcissistic relationship
often means confronting not just one person,
but an entire lifetime of conditioning
about what women owe the world.
The concept of emotional labor
and how performing unpaid emotional work
keeps certain power structures invisible
and self-sustaining.
We’re also going to talk about
what identity reconstruction actually looks like
when you’re trying to rebuild a self
that was never entirely yours to begin with.
We’re going to mention how survivor grief
is about mourning, not just what was lost,
but also what was never real
and what could have been in a different world.
Why recovery from narcissistic abuse
is both deeply personal healing and political refusal
and how those two things are inseparable.
The ways that anger, boundaries,
and the refusal to make others comfortable
become tools of liberation rather than character flaws.
And finally, what it means to deprogram from a framework
that made your suffering invisible
and your resistance is irrational
and why that process happens in spirals
rather than straight lines.

Buckle up and let’s get to it.

Now to begin, a little disclaimer.
I’m not saying every person is a narcissist.
I’m not saying everyone is abusive.
I’m not here to bash anyone.
What I’m saying is that the tools are the same.
The mechanisms are the same.
And once you learn to recognize them in one context,
you can’t unsee them in another.

Let me start with gaslighting…


This podcast is for educational
and informational purposes only.
The content shared is not a substitute
for professional mental health advice,
diagnosis, or treatment.
If you are experiencing a mental health crisis,
please seek help from a qualified professional
or contact a local crisis hotline.