Gotta Get It Out



People tell us to just move on and expect us to get over our relationship with a narcissist, but we can't until we fully process how we feel about it, share our story with others who can relate, and organize our thoughts in such a way that we feel we have made sense of the situation. You may ask: “How do you make sense of a senseless situation?” Well, this is certainly not easy, but I believe sorting out our feelings and organizing our thoughts in a way that helps us feel we have given the experience some kind of form and structure helps tremendously. We have a need to organize the trauma and chaos we experience in life. It makes us feel better to express ourselves in a way that allows us to feel as though we can finally put the whole crazy mess to rest in our heads. Until we do this, we will always obsess about it. Each of us must find an outlet to give creative expression and form to what we experienced. For me, this outlet has been my first book, It’s All About Him and my music album, Gotta Get It Out.

After writing my first book in 2009, I cut this album with some friends in a studio in Chicago as a way to process my pain. It was an incredible catharsis for me. The album consists of 10 cover songs by my favorite female vocalists and one song, which I co-wrote with Nashville songwriter, William Dean titled "It's Not You, It's Me." The song is about the process of accepting my ex-husband's self-professed narcissism. Instead of avoiding the truth any longer, I finally got honest with myself about his narcissism. Hence, it's not you (You always told me you were a narcissist), it's me (I just finally woke up). I'm no longer afraid to see or do what I need to do to move on and be happy on my own.

The key to Step 2 - Get It Out - is to find an outlet in which we can express our feelings and share our story. For some, this may include talking to family members or friends, sharing on our on-line forum, journaling or creating art or music. Whatever it is, it is critical that you find an outlet to express yourself in a way that helps you release your emotions and put things in perspective. In my opinion, it is the only way to put it to rest in your mind. A narcissist will never give us closure, but we can help ourselves get closure by making sure we process our feelings. The main reason for the stress of psychological trauma is that our memories of these horrible events are fragmented. Psychologically traumatic events are ones that have no good explanation. You have painful facts that make no sense, right? Our natural tendency is to avoid thinking about painful memories or events. We suppress them and hope they will go away. But, they don't. If you don’t process them, deal with them and get them out, they will never go away. This is because the mind is most settled when there is coherence to our thoughts.

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