Deconstruct your identity as a victim.

There is a fine balance between seeing our situation clearly (without venturing into denial territory) and internalizing our identity as seen through the eyes of the abuser.

After your dysfunctional relationship experience, do you often feel:

Broken

Like your life will never be the same

Less than other people

Powerless

Hopeless

Not intelligent or not attractive enough to matter
Depressed and uninterested in our own feelings and ideas
 

The more time we spend trying to understand how they saw us, and therefore molding our own view of ourselves that way, the more we re-abuse ourselves. What you as a victim may need to do is to disregard all of the ways that the abuser saw you, labeled you and treated you completely, and realize that they interacted with the shadows of their own twisted, tortured reality - not with you. They never saw you as a person at all, they never had the capacity to know you as a person, they were too caught up with their own inner drama to have the spare energy for understanding someone else's person.

The best proof that I can offer of the statement is the fact that your abuser, sadly, will go on treating everyone else who is open to them more or less the same way, no matter how nice those people are to them, because to them all of the people are a reflection of their own personal inner hell.

So if we are to truly understand that the abusive counterpart never knew us and never even experienced our trust or love the same way that other "normal" people would, it becomes easier to take the whole thing a little less personally.

Most people feel terrible because they have trusted the Narcissist and they feel completely shocked when they end up abruptly discarded as if they did not matter at all. That is because they see that kind of behavior as a reflection on their worth as a person. But that if it was the Narcissist's limitation that had them incapable of seeing your value? You know the famous adage about pearls before swine? Just because the pigs could care less about the jewels, does not mean the pearls are any less beautiful and precious to a person who knows their worth.

However, to me, the real healing begins a step further than understanding that it is the Narcissist's mind that has your value misjudged. The real healing and a source of power are in realizing that it is us and us alone who can fully know our own self-worth and we unlock the full potential of our person when we chose to cultivate and bring out our best qualities so that WE can enjoy them.

Unfortunately, the reverse can also be true - we abandon our most beautiful qualities when we adopt our abuser's unflattering view of ourselves as our own. You can all probably relate to this quick example: all of us have known a person who we thought was absolutely beautiful, yet they behaved in a way that betrayed their own poor opinion of their looks and personality. No matter how much you wanted to show them they were lovely they just didn't be-live in it, and so they were unable to tap that beautiful feeling you had when you shared time with them.
With our inner value things can get even more complicated as no other person can truly know all of your creativity, the feeling of aliveness and love that you carry inside - they may appreciate us as friends, co-workers, mothers etc but we must first realize of our own true worth as a human and it bring out in our own relationships with ourselves before we can begin to share it with others. That is why we hear so much about our relationship with ourselves - because it is the basis, the very centerpiece for developing all healthy relationship with other people, be they intimate partners, colleagues, friends, relatives etc.

Whenever you feel like you are holding back from doing something you secretly want to do, ask yourself: is this a natural way to see myself or am I feeling this way because of my history of abuse? Once you know the answer, the shift may happen all on its own, or it may need to be nudged a bit by trying on a different, kinder view on yourself that one time, then maybe again and once more until seeing yourself in a supportive way becomes your new reality.

As an exercise: pick one thing you secretly want to do but you feel you are not worthy of even trying and then view yourself as a person who is completely successful at that activity. Then when you feel a little more secure go out and make a first step toward making that inner vision come true.

There is no point in letting your abuser live on in your heart and mind perpetuating their toxic legacy. It has once been your experience, once you could not always completely control. Now it continues to live in your mind and emotions, where it is up to you which goals, agendas, ideas and themes to cultivate, and which ones to scrap. You may have seen yourself as powerless before - choose to see yourself differently today.

As a quick action point - go back to the list in the beginning of this post and pick one item that felt like it resonated with you. Reflect on the way you would naturally feel about yourself, excluding the abuser's influence. Chose to practice seeing and feeling yourself that way until that is once again the most natural way for you. My best wishes to you!