23. Where Am I in the Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Journey? Healing Roadmap From Trauma Bond to Freedom as an Autistic Woman - Emotional Detachment as a Tactical Advantage for Family Court, Season 2

There are several possible entry points into Season 2, depending on how much time has passed since you left your abuser as well as how much work you've already done on yourself. Remember that Season 2 is not just about narcissistic abuse recovery, it's to get you to a point where you detach emotionally and are better able to focus all of your energy on being the best mom you can be, and on protecting your babies in court in a strategic and effective manner. Family court against a narcissist has to be approached in a particular way, which your lawyer will coach you on, but only after you have reached a certain level of surrender will you be able to receive that legal advice and coaching. Season 2 helps you get ready mentally, to receive that legal advice and coaching.

Welcome back to Light in the Battle. I'm Faustina, a single autistic mom raising an autistic child, healing from narcissistic abuse, and winning in court. You are here in the middle of season two, "emotional detachment as a tactical advantage for family court", and I did want to create a an orientation episode so that you can figure out where you are in your recovery journey, what comes next, and which episodes you would benefit from the most in season two, depending on where you are at.

So this episode is really here to help you and to orient you towards the stage that you're at, so that you don't go and listen to episodes about gratitude if you just came out of the abusive relationship, or you don't go listen to episodes about the trauma bond if you've been out for six years and are now looking for a way to integrate all of this and release your past identity.

This is the transcript for Episode 23.

In season two, what I've done is I've condensed several years of what narcissistic abuse recovery can look like into one season of content, and so I'm not talking to a monolith of people.

• In the beginning of season two, I'm talking to people that just came out of their relationship.

  
  

• Towards the middle of the season, I'm talking to people that are starting to feel some detachment and are wanting to start working hard on that healing.

  
  

• Towards the end of the season, I'm talking to people that are ready to let it all go, to release all of that, integrate who they've been, and start looking into who they want to become for the future, the next version of themselves.

So the whole season doesn't talk to the same person. One same listener isn't going to get the same value throughout all of the season. So this is an episode I'm adding as a roadmap through your recovery, and I want to base it on the actual progression that people have moved through after trauma and nervous system destabilization. In this episode, I'm acknowledging that recovery is definitely nonlinear and that it's confusing. It's two steps forward, one step back.

And I've designed the season as a sequence of pit stops, and some of them will make more sense to you this year, some of them will make more sense to you next year, some of them will echo what you went through last year. It's a menu that I'm offering, and you can pick and choose the ones that apply to you best, all the while keeping in the back of your mind that it's designed to take you through pit stops and take you from point A to point B.

You're not supposed to be anywhere. You're not expected to be at the gratitude stage if you just came out from your toxic abusive relationship, a year ago.

Know that there are no expectations. This content that I'm offering in each episode, is for the survivor that is at that step in their recovery today, and will find it helpful.

To put it briefly, Season 2 covers:

• The Trauma Bond

• PTSD and CPTSD

• Forgiveness

• Codependency

• Fellowship & Mentorship

• Gratitude

• Surrender

• Grief

Phase 1 of season two is really about the trauma bond. Episodes 15A to 16B, and this is for early stage listeners, for you to recognize yourselves. I'm describing what this phase feels like internally, and I want you to feel heard and seen. I picked the example of winning in court as an example of what the end of chaos looked like for me, but obviously that can apply to how you felt when leaving the narcissist in your life, when getting out of the abusive relationship. What I'm describing in episode 15A, it's the same feelings and emotions that you may go through as you leave the narcissistic coparent. You'll be faced with a void. Then in 15B, I'm explaining how I managed to thrive in the face of that void, regardless of the example that I chose. In 16A, I talk about the neurochemical approach, the neurochemical explanation of what's going on in your brain, and that no, despite what your abuser said to you, you're not crazy. You're not stupid for wanting to go back to dysfunction and chaos, whether it's with that same person or by starting new projects or getting into another abusive relationship. You're chemically addicted to the stuff that's been going on in your brain for a very long time, sometimes dating back to childhood.

And then in 16B, I suggest ways of balancing the levels of the neurochemicals in your brain. It's quite heavy on the faith aspect in the beginning of episode 16B. So if you're not a believer, then you can skip the first part of 16B and go straight into very practical suggestions as to how you can normalize those levels in your body and in your brain.

I see you. I know what that constant cycling is like, between the emotional pull back to chaos and the awareness that you don't want that anymore. That's what I'm wanting to address in that series about the trauma bond that I start my season with. I see you. I understand what's going on. I've been there. And I'm telling you that you're not the only one.

It's a very simple, biochemical phenomenon. And there are ways to move forward with your life.

I would strongly recommend that this phase be stabilized in your life before you move on to deeper work in your recovery from narcissistic abuse, as the post separation abuse rages on, and as the legal abuse begins.

If you're still addicted to chaos and dysfunction (through no fault of your own, again) you will likely jump right back into more dysfunction and make your PTSD or CPTSD worse. So it's pointless to move on to PTSD stabilization if you're still inclined to look for chaos unconsciously.

TLDR: If you're fresh out of chaos and dysfunction, I strongly recommend you start at the very beginning of season two, which is episodes 15A to 16B about the trauma bond and the addiction to chaos and dysfunction that we find in a lot of survivors of narcissistic abuse.

Then I'm suggesting a phase two, which is PTSD or CPTSD stabilization and treatment via what worked for me, which was EMDR. That's episodes 17 and 18.

The goal here is to normalize nervous system dysregulation and delayed reactions. So I want you to feel seen, to know that if you're diagnosed with PTSD, then none of your extreme reactions, your hypervigilance, your ruminating is your fault. These are called symptoms of PTSD and it can be treated.

Even though the trauma bond starts to weaken, what you'll start seeing is kind of a flare up of your PTSD symptoms - because now you have more bandwidth to see them, to consciously notice them. So it's not really a flare up of the symptoms, it's that you suddenly see them clearly once you've handled the trauma bond and you're not focused and obsessing over a person or over a need for dysfunction anymore.

Now you've got more bandwidth and you're going to start seeing your PTSD or CPTSD symptoms a lot more clearly (the hypervigilance, the rumination, the mental loops, the avoidant behaviors, the nightmares, etc).

With EMDR (which is what worked for me, but there are other types of trauma therapy that might be a better fit for you) what that stabilization work does is it rewires your nervous system. And so I walk you through that in episodes 17 and 18. 17 is a very concrete, matter-of-fact explanation of PTSD, CPTSD and what EMDR does. Episode 18 is more of a lived-experience episode where I share the 10+ massive impacts that EMDR treatment has had on my life and therefore why I highly, highly recommend that you get access to some form of trauma therapy. It's changed my life and I want the same for you.

Phase two is really about stabilizing your nervous system responses so you can keep moving forward in your life.

Then in phase three, I talk about forgiveness. Definitely don't go listen to an episode about forgiveness if you just came out of abuse, and you're now going through post separation abuse. Your life is very chaotic right now. You're feeling like a walking target. You don't need to be hearing about forgiveness if you're still there.

Forgiveness may not be your entry point into season two if you're fresh out of the abusive relationship, if you're zero to 18 months out, you're not ready to hear about forgiveness.

However, if you have handled the trauma bond, the PTSD and you're moving forward with your life, and quite a bit of time has passed, then you might be ready to hear about forgiveness, not prematurely. I don't want you to be trying to forgive prematurely if your nervous system is still all fucked up.

I want to clarify in one sentence that forgiveness is not giving people another chance and it is not reconciling.

Forgiveness is YOU making the decision for yourself in secret to let that hurt go and let that resentment go so that you don't end up with stomach ulcers, autoimmune diseases, and all the things that experts have shown are tied to resentment and anger stuck in the body. It's a decision you make for yourself to protect your physical body and your mental health from further damage. That's what forgiveness is. And the more nonsense you go through, the more you'll have to let go of.

I go a little theological in that episode, so same thing as before, you're very welcome to skip the part where I talk about the Christian meaning of suffering. I mix very practical things to think about with more theological aspects. You're welcome to skip the parts that don't necessarily speak to you.

And then we move on to phase four. At this point we've come out of our trauma bond. We've started helping our nervous system rewire with EMDR or whatever trauma therapy works for you. We've let go of that hurt and resentment to make sure that our mind and body are clean from all that negativity and violence. Now we're able to start thinking about codependency. And this is at the identity level. I'm talking about your identity. Again, it's absolutely irrelevant to someone who just came out and is still dealing with PTSD and the trauma bond to think about codependency. Don't do it. It's premature.

But if it's been a while and you've thought about letting that hurt go and you've thought about the possibility that maybe there was some dysfunction in you that enabled for this dysfunctional dynamic to occur, once you start being open to that idea, then phase four about codependency is very much relevant for you. And that's episodes 20, 21, and 22.

In episode 20, we talk about what codependency is, the common behaviors and traits, and we talk about the self-verification concept. In episode 21, I suggest some very strong links between the ASD brain in women and codependent traits and behaviors. It's a very sick and twisted realization that I've come to, without training in psychology or anything, but I've analyzed this and I've come to the conclusion that if you've gone through your entire life with an autistic brain, then you're a lot more likely to come with a built-in codependent view of relationships and friendships than you would if you were neurotypical.

In episode 22, I list a bunch of ways that have worked for me to come out of codependency, which are things that you would want to bring to the attention of your therapist.

That phase working through codependency and acknowledging that there may have been some dysfunction in you that allowed for this disaster to happen, that part, is about reclaiming internal autonomy. You're going to be reorganizing your internal patterns. Which is going to lay the groundwork for the reconstruction of your identity for future dynamics and the rest of your life going forward.

As I'm recording this episode, I just finished the last one about codependency. So I haven't written or recorded the future episodes, but I plan on talking about gratitude, fellowship & mentorship, surrender, and grief.

And so again, if you're fresh out of an abusive relationship, there's no need for you to be listening to that. But if you're starting to be open to the idea that maybe you were part of the problem, and you've started working on your codependency, or you have completely owned the role that you played in that dysfunction coming to be, that's handled, then, okay, the future episodes are going to be for you.

Because you're going to come to a point where you start being able to see that all of that didn't happen to you, it happened for you.

And it's made you who you are today. And you're going to be an amazing, kick-ass woman, more empathetic, more giving, you're going to have things to share with the world, you can help others. There's a lot to be grateful for in what you've been through.

So the goal of the future episodes that I'm going to be writing and recording is to provide a way forward - without pressure, as I'm not here to tell you what to do.

I'm telling you what's available to you after you've stabilized the nervous system and the hormones, the neurochemicals, and you've restructured your internal identity. So to briefly give you an idea of what I want to be talking about for the gratitude piece, I think I pretty much covered it. The short of it is that it happened for you. And it's made you who you're becoming right now, the amazing, compassionate, stable, boundaried, stronger, (gently stronger, as in, you've got a gentle strength to you), the type of woman that you're becoming, and maybe even a more feminine woman that you're becoming.

All of that is pretty dope and would not have happened if you hadn't been through that disaster in your life.

Fellowship and mentorship: I'm going to be promoting the STAR Network. This is something I committed to in the context of Podcasthon. Podcasthon is an event that goes down in the podcasting world every year. This year, they have 2,000 podcasters that have committed to dedicating their podcast episode that specific week in March 2026 to a charity of their choice. And so I'm going to be promoting the STAR Network. The STAR Network is an organization that gives us all access to TAR Anon meetings. TAR Anon is akin to what you see with Alcoholics Anonymous or Codependents Anonymous, all these recovery groups.

It's not trying to be a 12-step program, but TAR Anon offers you fellowship and guidance on how to come out of a toxic and abusive relationship with the mentorship of someone who's been through it and therefore can definitely understand what you're talking about, when and if you want to share at some point in the meeting.

And then I want to talk about surrender and grief.

And that's really the full integration of this whole recovery journey and a release of your past identity, your past ways of functioning, your past coping mechanisms and experiences. I want to help you shed that skin and be that new woman, that 2.0 version of yourself, that new and improved you.

So now I'd like to help you identify your current phase based on internal markers.

• If you're still constantly thinking about the chaotic situation that you left, you're still feeling emotionally pulled towards them, then you would want to start with trauma bond episodes.

  
  

• If you're physically free and the trauma bond has started to loosen its grip and your PTSD symptoms are starting to flare up, so you're ruminating a lot, you're avoiding certain places or people, you've got a bunch of nightmares, you're hypervigilant, you want to dive straight into the PTSD, CPTSD and EMDR episodes.

  
  

• If the (C)PTSD has been handled in whatever way worked for you, and you feel stable and you're beginning to question your own patterns and how you got there, the codependency episodes will be most relevant.

  
  

• If you feel largely stable and you're beginning to rebuild identity and you've owned the role that you played and you're looking towards the future, then the episodes about gratitude as well as fellowship and mentorship will become relevant all the way to surrender and grief.

  
  

In closing, I'm here to reinforce that this intended as a safe collection of content. Feel free to navigate through it, travel through it in whatever way feels right for you today. And there's a continuity to it. So an episode that's relevant to you this year might be completely in the rearview mirror next year. And next year, you might be ready to jump three episodes forward as you've done a ton of work in your recovery.

And conversely, something that's absolutely not relevant to you today and actually makes you very angry, like you're absolutely not ready to hear about forgiveness because you just left the situation or you're absolutely not ready to hear about gratitude, like "no, no, I'm not grateful that this happened to me, no!" then focus on the earlier episodes and come back to that next year. See if that makes more sense to you then.

The journey that I'm suggesting is sequential, but it's not rigid. I don't want you to feel forced to travel through the content. I've condensed years of recovery into one podcast season. So you'd be drinking from a firehose if you tried to go through the entire season as the episodes are being released. It's not reasonable to expect you to progress through them that fast. Your nervous system will naturally move through the phases that I suggest.

And I'm here to provide support - you can contact me via the website or on Facebook. I'm here to make sure that you feel seen, as there are thousands of us that have gone through those phases and are doing fantastic a few years later - despite the ongoing legal abuse, despite what the kids are going through, despite the lifelong consequences of narcissistic abuse. You're not alone and there's hope.

I'm here to tell you there's hope even if you're in the darkest, darkest part of the journey today. Because the sooner you see the blips of light in the battle, the sooner you can focus on legally protecting your kids from harm.

That dark pit of hurt and despair? That was me a few years ago. And I'm here today, with the bandwidth and with the joy and with the clarity of mindset, the ability to think again that I had lost back then, to now be able to obtain what is reasonable from the courts, and to create this podcast and help you guys.

There's hope, and your life can become pretty amazing. You do need to give your nervous system time to adjust, and you need to commit to doing the work - either what I'm suggesting here, and/or what you're doing with a mental health professional.

You can move forward or backward between episodes as needed. Maybe even though you're already in the codependency phase, maybe you've never heard about PTSD and CPTSD and you're curious about it.

Definitely feel free to skip any parts that are spiritual and don't apply to you. I'm Catholic. It's the meaning of my life, it is my relationship with Christ. And it's definitely played a huge role in my recovery. It would be very unfair for me to not talk about it, but maybe you're not a believer. If so, don't worry about that. Stick to the parts that are more factual, non-spiritual, non-theological, non-religious. 90% of what I talk about has nothing to do with my faith. So feel free to skip the parts that don't apply to you.

You got this. You got this, Mama. And as I like to say at the end of most of my episodes, while you travel through that journey, you do what kept me functioning for many, many years, which was to take it one day at a time. Your only job, if you're earlier in this process, your only job is to stay standing until this evening. Don't look any farther. And you'll do that again tomorrow. We'll talk to you next week. Bye.