8 Weird Symptoms of CPTSD in Narcissistic Abuse Survivors -

No one really prepares you for the aftershocks of narcissistic abuse. You leave them, you block and breathe, and then suddenly everything that is supposed to feel good feels wrong. Safety makes you anxious; affection makes you freeze. Rest feels impossible. Why is that? Not because you are damaged; it happens because your body has not caught up with your freedom yet. You spend so long in survival mode that your nervous system does not know at all how to stop scanning for danger, even when it is no longer there.

This is complex trauma, the kind that does not come from one moment of stress, but from years of being emotionally erased, manipulated, tortured, and blamed. It is the slow poisoning of your trust in the world and in yourself.

The topic for today’s article is eight strange symptoms of complex post-traumatic stress disorder after narcissistic abuse. These symptoms are rarely discussed, often misunderstood, and silently endured. But once you understand them fully, everything begins to make sense.

Number 1: You feel guilty for simply having emotions.

One of the first wounds from narcissistic abuse is feeling ashamed of your emotions. You start having a hard time feeling things like sadness, anger, or happiness — and when you do, you feel guilty about it. You question your own tears and say sorry for feeling uncomfortable. You think your anger is wrong and your needs are “too much.” You even wonder if you’re pretending, because every time you showed emotions around the narcissist, what happened? They used it against you. They said you were too sensitive, too emotional, or too needy. So your nervous system tried to protect you by shutting your feelings down completely. Now, even though you’re no longer in danger, you’re still afraid of being “too much.” You learned to shame yourself before the narcissist could do it.

For More: 5 Weird Addictions All Narcissists Have.

Number 2: You crave affection but do not trust it when it comes.

You long for closeness; you want to be held. You want someone to just sit with you and not judge you. But the moment that warmth arrives, something inside you flinches. Your brain says, “This is nice,” but your body says, “Be careful,” because affection in the past was never just affection. It came with hidden motives. Kindness was followed by control; warmth was followed by withdrawal. So now your body expects a trap, even when there isn’t one. It’s not that you’re crazy; you’re scared in ways even you do not fully understand, and that your survivor is totally okay.

Number 3: You only feel truly safe when you are completely alone.

Hyperindependence doesn’t mean you hate people. It just means being around them, even the ones you like, wears you out. You feel like you have to act a certain way. You overthink what you say, how you sound, how your face looks, and how much energy you show. It’s exhausting and too much to handle. Being alone is the only time you can relax. There’s no one to figure out, no one to impress, and no chance of being caught off guard. Part of you wants connection, but another part feels safer staying alone. That’s not just social anxiety — it’s what happens when your nervous system has learned that being around people means you’re in danger.

Number 4: Your s£xµality feels disconnected, robotic, or shameful.

You feel numb during physical intimacy and perform rather than participate. You even feel waves of guilt or self-disgust afterward. Why? Because your body still carries the memory of being used and not loved. Narcissists distort intimacy; they basically distort the concept of it. They turn it into a transaction, a performance, or a punishment, and that distortion does not disappear just because the relationship ends. It lingers. Healing means relearning what your own body feels like when it is not being watched, judged, or controlled. It takes time, and it’s not your fault that it feels off right now.

Number 5: You lie in bed for hours, and then you think you’re lazy.

You beat yourself up for not being productive, for not doing enough, for sleeping too much, or doing too little. But what looks like laziness on the outside is usually grief on the inside. Grief for what? For your lost time, for who you had to become just to survive, for all the energy you had to spend pretending you were okay. Your body is asking you to pause; it’s not betraying you. Because when you were in the relationship, there was no time to collapse, and now that the collapse is catching up with you, you’ve got to let it happen. You have to let it happen because you have to be reborn from your ashes. You have to rise like a phoenix.

For More: 5 Ways To Break a Narcissist’s Heart.

Number 6: You panic when things are going well.

Peace feels strange, and safety feels fake. So when things get calm, your brain starts looking for something to go wrong. You question people’s motives and wait for them to show their “true” self. You search for signs of betrayal, even when there aren’t any. It’s not that you’re trying to ruin things — and you’re not being dramatic, even if that’s what you were told. You’re just used to being hurt, so your nervous system is always getting ready for something bad. You’re expecting loss. That’s trauma. And just knowing that is the first step to healing. You’re not avoiding happiness or being negative — you’re just trying to protect yourself.

Number 7: You feel anxious about feeling anxiety.

It’s a loop that’s hard to explain unless you have lived it. You get anxious, and then you get anxious about being anxious because it reminds you of what it felt like when you were spiraling, stuck, or emotionally hijacked by the narcissist. You fear losing control; you fear falling into that darkness again. So the tiniest wave of discomfort feels like a tsunami, and you start trying to fix it right away instead of just letting yourself feel it. It is functional brain damage that I have talked about a lot in action. It is your brain sounding the alarm before anything even happens because once the danger was real, it is your painful referential experiences and patterns getting reactivated.

Number 8: You either do not remember anything, or you remember too much.

Your mind is either blank or flooded with memories. Some parts of your past feel completely erased, like they happened to someone else; other parts come back in sharp, unbearable flashes at random times. It is trauma memory, and trauma memory behaves differently than normal memory. Your brain prioritized survival over storage; some memories were overwhelming to hold, while others were too important to forget. Your nervous system still does not know what is safe to recall, so you live in a strange space where you are haunted and hollow at the same time.

You didn’t get these symptoms because you’re weak, and that’s really important to understand. You got them because you had to survive. Your nervous system did its best to protect you in a place where love was used to hurt you, showing emotions got you in trouble, and feeling safe depended on other people’s moods. These symptoms don’t mean you failed — they mean you survived. The fact that you’re here now, trying to make sense of how you feel, shows that the strongest part of you is the part that never gave up.

Complex post-traumatic stress disorder after narcissistic abuse is not something you can talk yourself out of. It is not just in your head; it is in your body, your sleep, your relationships, and your identity. Basically, it shows up quietly and lives in the background of your day-to-day life. Unless someone has been through it, they would not understand how exhausting that truly is.

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