Drowning in an Inch of Water: Learned Helplessness

Learned helplessness paralyzes recovery after abuse from a Cluster B partner. It is a dynamic that happens slowly over the course of a relationship with a narcopath that is a total erosion of your ability to be a self-actualized, whole, and complete individual. You come to depend on the narcopath for all cues and behaviors and responses. You depend on them to be the only source of your existence and survival. They take away all of your power until you are a raw, defenseless, helpless, incapable mess. You are not helpless, and your only chance of freedom from this nightmare is to assert your ability to be a complete individual without the need to attach or become addicted to external people or things.