Why the nervous system regulation? Nervous system regulation because if your nervous system is in a constant state of sympathetic dominance, in a state of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, basically in fear, and you feel unsafe, it’s not going to allow your brain to switch off that survival state. Your brain will stay stuck, so will your body. It’s a feedback loop. You do not only scan your external environment; you also scan your internal environment as well. It’s a feedback; one feeds the other. Your brain notices your body; your body notices the brain. That is how this whole thing gets produced.
chance, you’re able to induce relaxation through living an intentional and deliberate life; you are going to give signals to your brain. “Oh hey, it’s safe now. It’s fine. You can come back to your early state.” That is what will lead to healing.
All of this interesting conversation with my client reminds me of the day I saw one of my first clients, and she said to me, “It’s extremely difficult for me to pick up a book and read a page when I am a scholar. I’m a Ph.D. holder. I have done so many papers. I have published so many papers, and today my condition is so bad that I can’t even read a line because I just can’t understand. I read those words, but I just can’t process them.” And she was the same person later, after a year of feeling, who published two more papers at once.
I hope this example gives you hope and tells you that there is a possibility for recovery and healing. I hope it helps you release that fear because we are talking about brain damage here, and it sounds really serious. Well, it is, but there is healing as well. You’re not a failed case. You just have to know what resources you need, how to work on your nervous system, what your trauma responses are, and you have to devise a strategy, a plan, so that you can attain the outcome of keeping your nervous system in a regulated state for most of the time. And as a byproduct of that, you will see the changes happening in here.
In conclusion, narcissistic abuse causes functional brain damage. It changes the brain’s anatomy, changes the structure. There is amygdala inflammation, hippocampus shrinkage, frontal lobe also changes, so does the Broca’s area, which is responsible for language production, syntax, speech, muscular movement of our tongue, and other muscles that produce speech, and so on. It’s because of the overall change in the brain that area can also change, which may produce difficulty in language comprehension, reading, writing, and speaking.
If you are struggling with any of this, there is hope for you because there is neuroplasticity. You have to work on your nervous system, and as a byproduct of that, you will heal your brain.
With that, let’s bring this episode to an end. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I’ll talk with you in the next one. Until then, as always, let the healing begin and continue.
When a Narcissist Realizes You Refuse to Be Controlled
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