Why You Stayed, Why You Snapped, Why You’re Still Healing

Leticia Francis Author

From covert narcissism to somatic healing, Jessica’s path shows how to leave, rewire your body, and rebuild a self-led life.

You can grow up with a roof over your head and still never feel safe.

Jessica did. As a child of divorce raised around addiction and volatility, she learned to read rooms, walk on eggshells, and earn love with straight A’s and “good girl” perfection. It worked—until it didn’t. Those same survival skills led her straight into an adult relationship that mirrored the chaos of childhood: covert narcissism, gaslighting, silent treatments, coercive control, and—when she stopped complying—physical violence.

“Either he was going to kill me, or I was going to kill myself.”

That sentence is what survival mode sounds like at its loudest. And it’s where this episode begins its turn—from the terror of trauma bonding to the steady, embodied rhythm of healing.

Below is Jessica’s journey through the three phases we use on Survival Mode Disrupted—Self-Awareness, Reprogramming, and Reinvention—and how you can begin moving through them, too.

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

What she lived:

• Childhood codependency as control. When home was unpredictable, perfection became safety. Self-worth moved outside the self: grades, compliance, achievement.

• The slow burn of covert narcissism. At first—mirroring, “me too,” whirlwind affection. Then came gaslighting (“you’re always angry”), silent treatments, reality distortion, and isolation.

• Trauma bond, not true love. Chemicals keep you hooked while your identity gets stripped in tiny, deniable ways.

• Reactive abuse. He poked the bear; the bear finally roared, then blamed herself for roaring.

• Escalation. Coercive control slid into physical violence. Her nervous system lived in fight/flight/freeze… and then shut down.

How awareness arrived:

• The moment she googled narcissism to make sense of the madness.

• Listening daily to survivor education just to “reality-test” her experience.

• Feeling the bottom: If I stay, I die.

Try this:

• Reality test in writing. “What did he say? What did I feel? What actually happened?” Pattern breaks begin with facts.

• Name it. Gaslighting, stonewalling, coercive control, trauma bond, reactive abuse. Language weakens confusion.

• Safety plan. Code word with a friend, cash access, copies of documents, a packed go-bag, and where you’d go if you left today.

Phase 2: Reprogramming — Giving Your Body Proof It’s Safe

Trauma isn’t only in memories; it’s in your nervous system. Talk therapy alone couldn’t unwind what her body had learned. So Jessica chose somatic healing:

• Somatic work & brainspotting. She became a provider herself after experiencing how subcortical processing released trapped survival energy her words couldn’t touch.

• Boundaries as biology. Non-engagement with bait, gray rock, and no-contact protected her vagus nerve more than any speech ever could.

• Community as co-regulation. A circle of survivors helped her reality-test and metabolize shame.

• Post-separation awareness. Hoovering attempts and “check-ins” weren’t romance; they were control.

• Grief + forgiveness. She chose to stop bullying her former self for doing what she had to do to stay alive.

Try this:

• Two-minute downshift: Inhale 4, exhale 8 (x8). Whisper: “In this moment, I am safe enough.”

• Somatic discharge: Shake for 60–90 seconds; then stillness for 60. Let the body finish a stress cycle.

• No-contact toolkit: Block, document, KRAs (Kids/Resources/Agenda only if co-parenting), witness every interaction.

• Repetition instead of revelation: Small, boring safety—sleep, protein, sunlight, movement, honest text to a friend—done daily, rewires faster than big breakthroughs done rarely.

Phase 3: Reinvention — From “Good Girl” to Self-Led Woman

Reinvention wasn’t a makeover. It was a return. Jessica took radical ownership of her story and turned post-traumatic growth into practice:

• Purpose: She launched it ends with U LLC and now coaches women using the very modalities that saved her—somatic work, brainspotting, trauma-informed coaching.

• Identity: Worth moved back home. Not perfection, not people-pleasing—presence.

• Pace: Healing stopped being a race and became a rhythm. Ten steps forward, three back; still forward.

Try this:

• Identity statements (present tense):
  I protect my peace. I choose safe love. I believe myself first.

• Stop “earning” your worth: Replace one people-pleasing “yes” this week with a self-honoring “no.”

• Give your past self grace: Write a letter to the version of you who stayed. Thank her for surviving so you could thrive.

If You’re in It Right Now

• You are not weak. Narcissistic abuse literally changes the brain.

• You are not crazy. Confusion is a symptom of gaslighting, not a diagnosis of you.

• You are not alone. Community heals what secrecy protects.

• You have options. Safety first; healing second; reinvention third. In that order.

It’s never too late to leave. It’s never too late to choose yourself. And it’s never too late to start over.

You were not built to break—and you weren’t built to only survive.

Categories: : Podcast