I Didn’t Heal Using Clinical Definitions—My Healing Was in the Trenches

Healing from maternal narcissistic abuse isn’t a linear, neatly categorized process.

My experience with it didn’t fit into clinical definitions or diagnostic codes.

While there is value in understanding terms like C-PTSD, emotional enmeshment, trauma bonding, dissociation, and learned helplessness, those words alone didn’t heal me.

I healed in the trenches, not in textbooks.

My emotions were on the battlefield in full display—raw, unfiltered, and often overwhelming.

My healing wasn’t an academic exercise. It was a reckoning. A war fought within my Self, where the only way forward was through every painful memory, every ingrained belief, and every moment of doubt.

The validation that opened the door

In the early phase of my healing, I worked with a therapist who, after hearing my story, said:

“You experienced chronic, egregious abuse at the hands of your mother.”

It was a pivotal moment.

Those words weren’t just a clinical observation—they were a validation of my reality.

For so long, I had internalized the belief that I was overreacting, exaggerating, or misunderstanding my own childhood.

That single sentence from my then-therapist shattered those doubts.

Hearing a professional acknowledge the depth of my suffering was both liberating and devastating.

It confirmed what I had always known deep down but had been conditioned to question.

And yet, even in that moment of validation, I knew that understanding my trauma was not the same as healing from it.

My personal take on the value and limits of clinical definitions

When I first began untangling my past, I deeply craved knowledge.

I devoured books, articles, and studies on maternal narcissistic abuse.

The clinical terms helped me realize I wasn’t alone—that what I had experienced wasn’t an isolated, personal failing, but a recognizable pattern of abuse with psychological consequences.

Learning terms like:

• Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD): A psychological disorder that can develop due to prolonged exposure to repetitive trauma, often involving harm or abandonment by a caregiver. Symptoms include difficulties with emotional regulation, consciousness, self-perception, and relationships.  

• Emotional Enmeshment: A situation where personal boundaries between a parent and child are blurred, leading to an over-involvement in each other’s lives. This can result in a lack of autonomy and hinder the child’s individual development.  

• Trauma Bonding: A strong emotional attachment that develops between an abused person and their abuser, often due to cycles of abuse and intermittent reinforcement. This bond can make it challenging for the victim to leave the abusive relationship.  

• Dissociation: A mental process where a person disconnects from their thoughts, feelings, memories, or sense of identity. In the context of abuse, dissociation can serve as a coping mechanism to distance oneself from traumatic experiences. 

• Learned Helplessness: A state in which a person feels unable to change or escape from a stressful situation due to repeated exposure to uncontrollable events. This can lead to feelings of powerlessness and resignation.  

…gave me language for what I had endured.

But knowing those terms didn’t heal me.

They gave me validation, but not transformation.

Healing required me to show up for my Self

Understanding that I had experienced relevant clinical terms didn’t change the fact that I had to sit with my grief.

It didn’t change the fact that I had to face memories that left me breathless.

It didn’t hold my hand through the nights when the weight of everything crashed down on me.

I did that.

I showed up for my Self.

I held space for my pain.

I screamed into the depths of my pillow.

I sobbed deep and ugly.

I collapsed into exhaustion.

I wrestled with rage and sorrow and confusion.

I refused to gaslight myself into thinking it wasn’t that bad.

And I kept going.

I am not denouncing therapy—but I was my own healer

This is not an argument against therapy.

It is invaluable to have someone listen, to have a professional guide you toward insights, to feel heard in ways you never were as a child.

But a therapist couldn’t do the work for me.

No professional, no book, no diagnostic label could sit in the silence with me as I faced the shattered pieces of my Self.

Only I could do that.

Healing is more than understanding.

It’s feeling.

It’s getting inside your memories, not just naming them.

It’s grieving, not just recognizing grief.

It’s reconstructing your Self, not just identifying the damage.

Healing happens in the trenches, not in the pages of a medical journal

I didn’t heal through clinical definitions.

I healed through raw, brutal, beautiful self-confrontation.

I healed by stepping into my pain instead of analyzing it from a safe distance.

I healed by showing up for my Self when no one else could.

And that is why I am free.

Living lighter, 

Carole