A Visualization Technique to Understand The Confusion and Brain Fog When You’re In An Abusive Relationship

Sometimes the most simple techniques can say a lot.

When you’re in a relationship that has abuse in any form, it can be confusing as well as painful. Use this visualization to understand the dynamics at play.

Visualization is an easy technique that almost seems too good to be true. It doesn’t cost anything. It can work anywhere. It’s simple. It’s not hard to do.

But finding the right one for you is the tricky part.

(This one is great to do with children as well because it’s so simple.)

When I’m struggling with a coaching client to explain the science behind the brain fog and chaos that happens when you’ve been abused. Especially during a narcissistically abusive relationship. I like to pull out this one the most because nearly everyone can see it clearly. But not only can they see it, they can also feel it.

After I go over the visual, I’ll go a bit more into the reasons on why and how it affects you.

The Bear and The River — Visualization

Imagine your mind is a river in the woods. There are rocks of all sizes from boulders to pebbles settled along the bottom. The water is flowing peacefully down your stream and there are minnows swimming around in the water just doing their fish things.

Now picture a big brown bear coming along and stepping into your river.

See how the mud along the bottom gets swirled around and the fish go into hiding and the rocks are jostled around out of their resting places.

When the bear is moving around in the river -> it creates a mess!

This is what happens during abuse of any kind. The abuser gets your nervous system activated and things are a big mess.

How are you supposed to see, feel or think clearly with all of that going on?

Now Let’s Break it Down a Bit Further — Continuing the Visualization

Imagine the bear has left for a while. The sediment settles back down and the fish return, everything seems normal again.

Things are settled but they are not the same as before. The rocks are not where they had been. The riverbed has some imprints where the bear had walked. The fish are skittish as if they expect the bear to return at any moment.

This is what happens after abuse.

Now imagine that it happens over and over again. The landscape of the river is going to look much different than it did before any of this began. It has changed.

It Can Be Helped — What to do after abuse

Therapy and Life Coaching after abuse is specific to taking back those bits that were moved and arranging them in a way that soothes you. A trauma-informed approach is necessary because general assistance isn’t enough. Specialized help will get you to your goal faster and will be more effective.

A trauma-informed approach uses body-based approaches to resolving pain and discomfort because you weren’t just hurt in your thoughts. Your whole body experienced it, so your whole body needs to heal from it.

You can’t un-live an experience, but you can take a trauma and turn it into just another memory by removing the hurt from your system and teaching your brain and body different ways to react to it.

Finding a counselor or coach to work with you is also a good way to establish and fortify boundaries. That would be like taking your river and placing a fence between it and the bear. It deters any bears from coming in and trampling about anymore.

I hope this helped you picture what happens with brain fog and confusion after abuse.

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Narcissism Informed Trauma and Abuse Life Coach- for links to my life coaching services, you can find me at www.cpresleycoaching.com or email me at [email protected]

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