People who are abused by a Narcissistic or Borderline significant other, boyfriend, girlfriend or a parent from childhood continuing into adulthood, develop what is defined as a “toxic” or unhealthy “comfort zone.” People try to meet their needs in ways that are familiar but do not provide comfort, but that do result in more pain and suffering.
The “comfort zone” that is toxic after NPD BPD abuse has become the familiar default emotional landscape you were taught in childhood. It is also what houses your beliefs about relationships, love, and attachment styles. It is also the childhood legacy, for many, of the roots of codependency. Cultivating a healthy true comfort zone in recovery is the way to knowing yourself and breaking toxic relational patterns in your life.
These negative core beliefs, along with this narrative of the “toxic comfort zone” after Cluster B abuse (often that starts in childhood) is largely subconscious learned behavior that is the way you learned or adapted in the absence of learning or having your needs met and boundaries modeled to you in your family of origin.
That “comfort zone” has a foundation, largely subconscious, of what is familiar. Not all that is familiar to you will be healthy for you. Familiarity, can indeed, breed contempt. A contempt that is born out of a need for change. A need for healing. A need to stop being in so much emotional and psychological pain. A need to connect or re-connect to one’s own precious Self.
The need to create your own healthy comfort zone, one that will actually provide comfort versus abuse, trauma, and stress that has been familiar but does not offer comfort.
I work with people to help them re-learn what they didn’t learn in childhood and to heal those wounds of abuse and/or unmet needs. I work with people to help them create, build, and know this positive healthy self-comfort zone after abusive relationships in adulthood too.
© A.J. Mahari, April 1, 2019. Video content © A.J. Mahari, December 15, 2018 – All rights reserved for both the blog post and the video original content.
