Owning Your ‘Too Much’ and Never Apologizing Again

Leticia Francis Author

Darla turns narcissistic abuse into radical self-love, through self-awareness, reprogramming, and reinvention.

Some stories don’t arrive quietly. They kick the door open and sit in the front row. Darla’s does exactly that.

Told her whole life she was “too much”—too loud, too honest, too direct—Darla spent decades trying to squeeze herself into rooms that shrank her. A childhood of walking on eggshells around a volatile parent taught her two things early: stay vigilant and don’t make noise. Later, that unhealed training pulled her toward emotionally unavailable men—and eventually into a marriage with a covert narcissist who weaponized charm, silence, and confusion.

This episode isn’t just about trauma; it’s about the architecture of freedom. Darla shows us how to exit survival mode through the three phases I teach again and again: Self-Awareness, Reprogramming, and Reinvention.

Phase 1: Self-Awareness — Naming What’s Really Happening

Survival mode blurs the edges of reality. Abuse thrives there.

Darla’s ex didn’t present as a villain. He presented as rescue. The love bombing felt like oxygen after years of being overlooked: attention, tenderness, the intoxicating sense of being chosen. Then came the devalue—the cutting comments, attention pulled away, praise rationed like a prize you had to earn. Then the discard—not always leaving, sometimes worse: silence as punishment. Days in the same house with no acknowledgement. (If you grew up with “silent treatment,” your nervous system will recognize this as love. That’s not love. That’s control.)

The gaslighting was surgical. He’d move her keys from their spot—then put them back—so when Darla returned, shaken and late, he could say, “See? You’re crazy.” That tiny sabotage seems trivial until you realize its purpose: break the bond between you and your own perception. If you can’t trust your eyes, you’ll trust your abuser.

Awareness often arrives at rock bottom. For Darla, it was 2013—on the floor, grief and shame pressing the air from her lungs. She did not choose to end her life. She chose one sentence instead: “If I get up, show me the way.” That “yes” cracked the door.

Self-Awareness looks like:

• Recognizing patterns: love bombing → devalue → discard → hoover → repeat.

• Naming trauma bonding and Stockholm syndrome for what they are: an addiction to intermittent relief.

• Admitting, without blame, “I am not safe here. And I haven’t been for a long time.”

Awareness is not blame. It’s sight. And you can’t heal what you won’t name.

Phase 2: Reprogramming — Rewriting the Rules You Lived By

We don’t “think” our way out of survival; we retrain our nervous system and recode our beliefs.

Darla’s reprogramming wasn’t a weekend breakthrough. It was years of unlearning: therapy, trauma-informed support, and the brutal honesty to see where childhood vows (“I only have me”) had calcified into adult isolation and self-abandonment.

She learned:

• Boundaries aren’t meanness. They’re oxygen.

• Her standards weren’t “too high.” They’d been too low for too long.

• Compassion doesn’t mean a pass. She can understand why someone harmed her and still choose her safety.

• Silence is not peace. Peace includes voice, needs, and choice.

She also practiced embodied reprogramming—shutting the phone off, camping, letting the body come down from red alert. She devoured the kinds of resources that shift identity (hello, Single on Purpose), and—this is big—she stopped outsourcing her sense of self to whoever loved her last.

Reprogramming sounds like:

• “When I feel that old panic, I pause. I ask my body, what does this remind me of? Then I respond from the present, not the past.”

• “I can miss someone and still block them.”

• “Guilt is the price tag narcissists attach to my ‘no.’ I’m not paying it.”

And when a familiar pattern slipped through again (because healing isn’t linear), she chose grace over self-contempt. That’s reprogramming, too.

Phase 3: Reinvention — Becoming the Person Survival Kept on Mute

Reinvention is not pretending it never happened. It’s integrating what happened so it never owns you again.

Darla said yes to identity work—including Human Design—which didn’t “fix” her but finally named her: a disruptor with a purpose to shake things up with love. Suddenly “too much” became exactly right. She stopped contorting herself to be tolerable and built a life that could hold her full volume.

She moved back to the place she once fled—not to tempt danger, but to stop outsourcing power to fear. She launched self-love mentoring and a 90-day Reinvention program for women exiting narcissistic dynamics. She didn’t weaponize her story; she alchemized it.

Reinvention practices to borrow:

• Create rituals that re-anchor you in reality: journaling, somatic grounding, daily self-attunement (“What do I need right now?”).

• Treat your nervous system like a beloved child: rest, nature, nutrition, movement, and safe community.

• Build a values-aligned life (work, friendships, dates) where your truth doesn’t cost you love.

If You’re in It Right Now

1. You’re not crazy. Your confusion is an effect, not a flaw.

2. Silence is information. If someone withholds love to control you, believe what that behavior says.

3. You can’t heal where you’re being harmed. Safety first. Plan, support, exit.

4. Grace, grace, grace. You might go back. You might text them. You might romanticize the beginning. You are still worthy of a future.

And when you’re ready to climb out, take Darla’s three steps with you:

• Self-Awareness: Name the pattern. Tell the truth.

• Reprogramming: Retrain your body and beliefs. Install boundaries.

• Reinvention: Build the life that can hold the real you—the one they tried to make “too much.”

You were not built to break. But you damn sure were not built to just survive.

Categories: : Podcast