4. Not sleeping until you’re fully, fully exhausted
You may spend a lot of time scrolling and scrolling unnecessarily. You may be paining and aching, yet you don’t feel it. You may have walked, let’s say, 10-15 km that day and still not feel like sleeping. People say, “Oh, you need to tire yourself,” but that doesn’t work for me. I’m a trauma survivor. My brain is like this, especially at night. That’s when all thoughts start coming up, and that’s when I start thinking about all the things that happened in the past and what I survived. With all these memories, I start ruminating.
This is a clear sign of how you are disconnected from your body. Your body shows you that it needs rest, but it’s like there’s a block here that does not let that signal go in here. It’s only when you feel utterly exhausted, and you can’t keep your eyes open no matter what, that you go to sleep. That’s such a tiring way to rest, isn’t it? Your lack of awareness of your body is what keeps that disconnection alive. And to be able to build that connection, to lay, let’s say, a foundation for it, what you can simply start doing is you can become intentional in listening to different sensations and cues.
For example, intentionally checking a couple of times during the day to see if you’re hungry, if you need to use the washroom, if you’re feeling tired if you need to rest, if you need to take a nap. You need to learn what your narcissistic partner or parent did not allow you to experience. To make this exercise easier, you can set alarms at different times of the day and name them. Do I need to drink some water right now? Do I feel thirsty? Do I want to take a break and practice some kind of silence for a minute or two? Do I need to go in and try to relax my body? What I need right now is the question that you should be asking if you are chronically disconnected from your body.
5. Experiencing hot & cold flashes
I call it hormonal disconnection. If it is too hot outside, you will start feeling cold flashes. It’s really cold, and you will feel hot flashes. But why? Because of all the stress accumulated in the body, because of how your nervous system has lived in the survival state, how dis-attuned your vagus nerve is, and how that has changed the circadian rhythm, the temperature-regulating system of your body.
The hormonal imbalances massively impact what your brain does, how your nervous system acts, and how that influences the overall homeostasis. What your narcissistic partner or parent did to you completely imbalanced these systems, and that’s why you experience these hot and cold flashes.
It is a sign of massive panic and anxiety as well, which will only go away if you learn how to regulate your nervous system.
Read More: 5 Weird S**exua**l Habits of a Narcissist
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