Narcissist Abuse Recovery Community/ The Heal Louldy Movement Blog

 The Narcissistic Abuse Declaration of Independence By Daniel Ryan Cotler Founder of the Heal Loudly Movement Author of Voiceless: The Silent Epidemic of Suicide Due to Narcissistic Abuse Architect of the Voiceless Justice Act and the FRANKIE Initiative When in the course of human survival, it becomes necessary for those who have been psychologically terrorized to reclaim their autonomy and separate themselves from the control of their abusers, a decent respect to the truth requires that they should declare the causes which compel them to this separation. I, and all survivors of narcissistic abuse, hold these truths to be self-evident: That all human beings are born with inherent worth. That no one is entitled to control another’s mind, body, emotions, or identity. That psychological abuse is a form of violence strategic, intentional, and designed to destroy. That narcissistic abuse, when left unchecked, leads to fragmentation of identity, collapse of will, isolation, and, in far t...

Functional Freeze: The Trauma Response That Looks Like  Laziness But Is Actually Psychological Shutdown By Daniel Ryan Cotler, Narcissistic Abuse Expert & Survivor Advocate. 🧠 What Is Functional Freeze? Functional freeze is a severe trauma response often misdiagnosed as laziness or depression where the body goes through the motions of living, but the mind is trapped in psychological shutdown. This is a nervous system freeze response, commonly found in survivors of narcissistic abuse, complex PTSD, and prolonged emotional trauma. Unlike acute panic or emotional breakdowns, functional freeze is subtle. Survivors can appear “fine” while feeling disconnected, exhausted, numb, or even dead inside. It is not a personality flaw it is a survival mechanism rooted in unresolved trauma. 🔍 Key Symptoms of Functional Freeze Common signs include: Chronic exhaustion and inability to get out of bed Emotional numbness and mental fog Disassociation or feeling “checked out” Forgetting basic tas...

Narcissistic Abuse SURVIVOR STORIES “He Said He Can’t Wait to Go to My Funeral” Submitted to the Heal Loudly Movement. Name changed for privacy. This one… this one leaves no room for doubt. No room for pretending narcissistic abuse isn’t deadly. No room for soft language or silence. She came forward because her soul has been shattered. Not metaphorically literally. Systematically. Deliberately. And in writing, her abuser told her exactly what he wanted: “I can’t wait to go to your funeral.” Let’s not dance around what that is. That is premeditated psychological murder. That is a narcissist admitting the endgame. And yet… no consequences. This survivor wasn’t just abused by one person she was hunted by an entire family system. A cult of enablers. A circle of silence. The kind of multi-front abuse that erodes everything: your mind, your trust, your identity, your hope.  “Nobody will listen to what I have to say.” That line should haunt us all. Because it echoes in every survivor’s ch...

Narcissistic Abuse Survivor Story (Anonymous Submission) "She Doesn’t Even Know She’s Dying" I have a friend who is being destroyed by narcissistic abuse. Not by one person nbut by many. By a lifetime of trauma stacked on top of trauma, like bricks on her chest she was never strong enough to carry but no one ever helped her unload. She’s been hurt in the worst ways, by more people than I can count. It started with the unthinkable trauma from a family member. The kind of trauma that rewires your brain, your spirit, your instincts. Now, every man she meets becomes another abuser. It’s like she’s trapped in a loop, repeating the same pain over and over, and I can’t pull her out. Her brain is locked in survival mode fight, flight, freeze. Sometimes fawn. She doesn’t realize how broken she is, because this has become her normal. She’s been held against her will. She’s disappeared into jails and courtrooms and toxic relationships and come back acting like nothing happened. The poli...

 SURVIVOR STORIES “I Died. And Came Back to Tell the Truth.” Submitted to the Heal Loudly Movement. Name changed for privacy. In 2021, she met a man on a dating app charming, attentive, magnetic. The kind that sweeps you off your feet and makes the whole world feel like a movie. It felt like fate. She followed love from Denmark to Cyprus, and finally to Nigeria, where they married. It should have been a fairytale. But like so many survivors of narcissistic abuse, what she thought was love quickly unraveled into something much darker. When they returned to Denmark, everything changed. Behind closed doors, the mask fell. What followed was a descent into deceit, manipulation, and psychological abuse. What she once called romance became control. What looked like love became a slow, calculated undoing of her identity.  “I lost myself. I couldn’t see a way out.” The emotional damage was catastrophic. The gaslighting was relentless. She was isolated from her support system. Her reali...

 SURVIVOR STORIES “Her Truth Didn’t Die With Her” Submitted to the Heal Loudly Movement. Name changed for privacy. Some stories come in and leave a mark on your soul and this one carved itself in deep. A survivor recently reached out after watching one of our videos about emotional murder. Her message hit like lightning: painfully honest, deeply moving, and tragically familiar to far too many of us. She lost her mother to suicide. But it wasn’t just suicide. It was emotional murder.  “The day I lost my mother, I knew how, why, and who was responsible.” This survivor watched her mother suffer at the hands of a narcissistic abuser for years until it broke her spirit. She tried everything: speaking out, pleading with family, friends, even the police. But no one listened. Not really. Not enough. They closed the case. Wrote it off as mental illness. But they never asked what caused that illness. They never questioned who cultivated the despair that killed her. Her father her mother...

 🎥 Series Title: “Tactics of Psychological Warfare: How Narcissists Break You Like the CIA” The 100 War Tactics of Narcissistic Abuse  By Daniel Ryan Cotler “This Is Psychological Warfare Not a Breakup” This isn't drama. This isn't a messy relationship. This is psychological warfarebthe kind designed by intelligence agencies to break prisoners of war. And narcissists are using it. Every single day. They're not just toxic. They're tactical. Every mood swing, every silent treatment, every gaslighting session is not random. It's programmed. It's calculated. It's a weapon. These tactics come directly from CIA interrogation manuals, KGB psychological operations, and military torture programs. And survivors of narcissistic abuse are living through this hell silently, invisibly, every single day. And what happens when people don’t understand it? They tell us to “just move on.” They say, “it couldn’t have been that bad.” Survivors are left to question their own mi...

Today is Narcissistic Abuse Awareness Day. For those who are looking for closure. If you are reading this, then you already know how devastating narcissistic abuse is. This kind of abuse doesn’t just break hearts it breaks lives. It destroys self-worth, dismantles identities, and far too often, it ends in tragedy. Many people don’t survive it. And for those who do, they’re often left haunted by questions that may never be answered. They find themselves searching for closure, clinging to the hope that the person who hurt them will one day offer an apology, an explanation, or a moment of remorse. But here’s the truth that no one wants to say out loud: That apology is never coming. That closure you’re hoping for will not come from your abuser. They are not capable of giving it to you. Closure requires empathy, accountability, and a conscienceband those are not traits that narcissistic abusers possess. So today, I want to talk to you about creating your own closure. Because healing cannot ...

 How Many People Have to Die Before Narcissistic Abuse is Taken Seriously? Narcissistic abuse is not a buzzword. It is not a dramatic overreaction or a therapy fad. It is a deliberate, premeditated form of psychological terrorism that leaves behind a trail of invisible corpses. The victims may look alive, but inside, they are often shells battling complex PTSD, addiction, chronic illness, dissociation, and far too often, suicidal ideation that ends in tragedy. So we ask how many have to die before this form of abuse is treated with the gravity it deserves? When someone takes their own life after years of psychological warfare, the world shrugs. Families are told they were mentally ill. The abuser walks free. The victim’s truth is buried with them. Suicide by narcissistic abuse isn’t in the textbooks. It isn’t in the courtrooms. It isn’t even part of the domestic violence conversation. And yet, it is one of the most deadly forms of interpersonal violence in existence. Let’s be blunt...

 The Most Dangerous Lie I Ever Believed: “They Made Me Feel This Way” By Daniel Ryan Cotler Today, I want to speak directly from the heart. This is one of those honest conversations where healing meets truth, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll recognize a version of your past self in what I’m about to say. For years, I carried a belief that felt completely true. But it wasn’t. I used to tell myself things like: “They made me feel like I had no worth.” “They made me feel invisible.” “They made me feel like I didn’t matter.” And I hear countless survivors say the same thing. These words sound right. They feel valid. After all, when someone constantly violates your boundaries, chips away at your self-worth, and manipulates your reality, what else are you supposed to feel? But here’s the truth that changed everything for me and I share this not to judge, but to empower. They didn’t make me feel that way. What hurt me most was that I kept allowing myself to feel that way… by staying. Let me ...

 When Intimacy Is Used as a Weapon: Speaking the Truth About Intimate Partner Violence There’s something I need to talk about something many survivors of narcissistic abuse and intimate partner violence have experienced but rarely feel safe enough to name. It’s the kind of abuse that doesn’t leave visible bruises, but it leaves permanent scars on your psyche, your sense of reality, and your ability to trust. For me, it was one of the most psychologically shattering parts of the abuse I endured. For the first time in my life, I thought I had found both the physical and emotional connection I had always longed for. Until then, people had either been attracted to me but emotionally unavailable, or they had loved me in theory but discarded me when I needed real intimacy. I never had both not at the same time. But with my abuser, it felt different. At least at first. He made me feel seen. He made me feel beautiful. He created an illusion of safety and depth. Sex felt intimate, even sacr...

 The Hardest Question in Healing: Why Did I Stay? This one’s going to be hard to hear. But if you’re reading this, I know you’re ready. Maybe not ready to be comfortable but ready to be honest. And honesty is where healing begins. To truly take your power back, you have to do something that almost feels unfair. You have to take responsibility not for what they did, but for what you allowed. For what you tolerated. For what you excused. Not because it was your fault. It wasn’t. But because you’re the only one who can reclaim your life now. Let’s be clear: You didn’t cause the abuse. You didn’t deserve it. You were manipulated, gaslit, lied to, broken down. You were made to question your reality, your instincts, your worth. You survived something most people can’t even imagine. And you did the best you could with what you knew at the time. That deserves compassion not shame. But healing asks you to go deeper. To ask the question that gnaws at your soul in the quiet moments: Why did I...

 You Can’t Keep Running from the Pain Healing doesn’t happen in avoidance. It begins the moment you stop running. I used to believe that if I could just outrun the pain through distractions, new relationships, staying busy, or numbing out I’d eventually leave it behind. But pain doesn’t work like that. It’s not something you escape. It’s something that waits. And wherever you pause whether that’s a week, a year, or a decade it’ll still be right there, asking to be heard. You can’t run from what’s inside you. You can only delay the moment you finally face it. There comes a time in your healing journey where you have to make a choice: keep running from the pain, or run into it with everything you’ve got. Because what you're actually running from isn’t just pain. You’re running from yourself from the parts of you that were silenced, betrayed, dismissed, or never taught how to cope. You're avoiding the mirror because you're afraid of what you'll see: the shame, the regret, ...

Be careful when you get involved with a narcissist. They lack the emotional intelligence to truly understand or see your feelings. Instead, they twist things to serve their own needs, leaving you feeling invisible and unheard. They struggle to regulate their emotions, so you’ll often find yourself walking on eggshells around their sudden anger or cold moods. It’s exhausting and unfair, but it’s part of how they operate. They also lack self-awareness. They don’t recognize or don’t want to recognize how their actions hurt those around them. Because of this, they repeatedly cross boundaries and cause pain without taking responsibility. And empathy? That’s something they simply don’t have. They can’t genuinely feel what you’re going through or respect your feelings. Your pain doesn’t register with them, and your boundaries often mean nothing. So protect yourself. Surround yourself with people who have emotional intelligence, who understand themselves and care about others. People who can m...

 Grieving Someone Who Never Existed: Why Narcissistic Abuse Breaks the Human Spirit June 1st | Narcissistic Abuse Awareness Day Www.change.org/VoicelessJusticeAct One of the most excruciating parts of healing from narcissistic abuse is coming to terms with a paradox that breaks the human heart: mourning the loss of someone who never truly existed. For a long time, I was paralyzed by grief. Not just any griefbbut the kind that leaves your soul gasping for air. I wasn’t just heartbroken over the end of a relationship. I was grieving the death of a person who only existed in my mind the version of my abuser that I fell in love with. The charming, kind, attentive partner who mirrored everything I ever wanted. But that person wasn’t real. He was a mask. Behind that mask was someone entirely different. Someone capable of cruelty so calculated it nearly killed me. I lived in limbo torn between two versions of the same person: the man I thought I loved, and the abuser he truly was. That me...

 Policy Brief: The FRANKIE InitiativeFederal Registry for Abusers of Narcissistic Knowledge, Identity, and Exploitation Www.change.org/VoicelessJusticeAct Executive Summary:The FRANKIE Initiative is a legislative proposal that seeks to establish a federally maintained registry of individuals with substantiated histories of narcissistic abuse—particularly those who exhibit patterns of psychological manipulation, coercive control, and identity-based exploitation. This initiative provides a structural safeguard for survivors, supports law enforcement and the courts, and deters serial psychological abusers. It is a critical companion to the Voiceless Justice Act and reflects an urgent national need for transparency and accountability in cases of psychological abuse. Problem Statement:Narcissistic abuse, though often invisible, leaves deep psychological scars and drives many survivors to mental health crises, homelessness, and suicide. Predators exploit society’s ignorance and a lack of...

I love with my whole heart openly, honestly, and without holding back. When I care about someone, I give them the best of me: loyalty, compassion, patience, and understanding. I forgive easily, not because I’m weak, but because I know that people make mistakes. I’ve made them too. I believe in growth. I believe in second chances. Www.change.org/VoicelessJusticeAct If you hurt me and you own it if you come to me with truth in your voice and a genuine apology in your heart I can move forward. I can still call you a friend. I don’t hold grudges when someone shows real accountability. That’s just who I am. But there’s a boundary I do not bend on. If I ever find out that you were scheming watching me, studying me, learning what makes me vulnerable just to strike when I’m weakest then you’ve made a different kind of choice. You’ve crossed into something calculated, something cold. That’s not a mistake. That’s betrayal. And I don’t let that slide. Because I’m not naive. I’m a dark empath. I f...

The most foolish thing a narcissist can ever do… Www.change.org/VoicelessJusticeAct is mistake an empath’s silence for weakness. They think our gentleness is naivety. They think our forgiveness is permission. They think our love is a flaw they can exploit again, and again, and again. But here’s the fatal miscalculation: Empaths aren’t weak. We are forged from pain. We carry the weight of the world in our hearts and still find room to carry others. Yes, we bend. Yes, we bleed. Yes, we break. But when we break… we don’t just shatter  we awaken. And in that awakening, something shifts. The soft becomes steel. The heart that once only healed now holds a sword. We become something else. Something they never saw coming. A reckoning with a pulse. A storm with a spine. The empath evolved. And I was that empath. Until Frankie Zerella pushed me too far. My narcissist didn’t just break my heart he tried to break my will to live. Nine suicide attempts. All of my possessions stolen. False charg...

 "Every day, survivors of narcissistic abuse are buried alive in silence erased by gaslighting, blamed for their own trauma, and driven to the edge by invisible violence. The Voiceless Justice Act is our scream into the void, demanding to be heard. It says: we matter. Our pain is real. And our abusers will no longer hide behind charm and loopholes. Stand with us. Sign. Share. Be the voice for someone who doesn’t have one anymore." #VoicelessJusticeAct #HealLoudly #JusticeForSurvivors Www.change.org/VoicelessJusticeAct Www.change.org/VoicelessJusticeAct 

 The Ultimate Guide to Red Flags in the Love Bombing Phase Www.change.org/VoicelessJusticeAct By Daniel Ryan Cotler When survivors look back on the beginning, they often ask themselves the same haunting question: "How did I not see it?" The truth is, narcissistic abusers don’t arrive with fangs bared. They arrive with flowers, flattery, and fabricated forever-after promises. They arrive like a dream but they are the prelude to a nightmare. This is not love. This is psychological warfare in a tuxedo, in a fairy tale, in your favorite song on repeat until you’re numb. These are brainwashing techniques disguised as intimacy. This is love bombing. Below is your field guide, your armor, your mirror. These are the 35 Red Flags to watch for during the love bombing phase. Not all will appear at once, but even a handful should raise concern. Because real love doesn’t rush you into dependence. Real love doesn’t hijack your identity. And real love doesn’t burn out your soul just to make...