I’ve been working with Kate for 18 months now healing from narcissistic abuse, and can safely say that I’m more ‘me’ than I’ve ever been. To want to stay in my body and not fly away. Feeling myself as a safe place, for myself and others? Unbelievable to me a year ago.
I feel I’ve run rings around CBT therapists in the past (and not consciously either) because I can all-too-easily use words to distract & deflect, to fill time, to keep my security bubble intact. I can see that now that these are skills I’ve learnt to protect myself. I’ve a narcissistic parent so running rings became… important. Honestly, I wouldn’t have known a boundary in a police line-up of boundaries.
With Kate, I can heal and engage without the ‘what, why, how, where’ of my whole life (a lot of which I just don’t remember), because I can now experience my emotions without the narrative, and experiencing my emotions in a safe environment is the healing.
As is being able to take my emotional self out into the world and know I (and others) will survive. And then more than survive…
I’ve clocked up 50 years of dissociation, depression, anxiety, self-sabotage and destruction., Now, with Kate, not only do I experience true kindness, trust, humour, the warmest care & acceptance on a regular basis (I mean, the soul-food in indescribable), but I also come away with tools, actual tools accessible to me every minute, hour, day that I can use to ride through bumps, blocks and emotional tsunamis, and still remain in my skin, in the world.
My personal agency increases by the day, and new patches of effortless joy can blow me away. Effortless. I mean, I had no idea I could find healing from narcissistic abuse.
I’m looking forward to the second half of my life knowing I’ve got this. If tomorrow, I meet a trigger then I know what to do to help myself, and I want to do it. That’s where I’m at and that’s huge. Huge.
Honestly, Kate is just lovely, and so skilled, so kind and whole and true. And I, for one, am incredibly grateful.
Caroline A