When Your Nervous System Remembers: Understanding Polyvagal Theory After Narcissistic Abuse

A personal reflection on the neuroscience of surviving and healing

I’m currently working through a coaching certificate in post-narcissistic abuse recovery, and something struck me as I read through the materials: I already knew almost everything they were teaching. Not from textbooks or lectures, but from living it. Every pattern, every response, every survival mechanism, I’d experienced it firsthand.

That realisation hit hard. It’s a strange kind of grief, recognising that your trauma was severe enough to serve as your own education in abuse dynamics.

However, I then came across material on Applied Polyvagal Theory, and for the first time in this course, I found something that didn’t just validate my experience—it provided me with language for what my body had been trying to convey all along.

The Three States: A Map of Survival

Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory reveals something the old “fight or flight” model never captured: our nervous system actually operates through three distinct circuits, not two. Understanding these has transformed how I view my own recovery journey and the work I do supporting others.

The Ventral Vagal State: When Safety Feels Real

This is our optimal state—the one where we can genuinely connect with others, where our face is naturally expressive, our voice has melody, and eye contact feels comfortable rather than threatening. In this state, we access empathy, creativity, and complex thought. We can be present.

For those of us emerging from narcissistic relationships, this state can feel like a distant memory. A version of ourselves we lost somewhere in the chaos, wondering if she’ll ever return.

The Sympathetic State: Constant Alert

This is mobilisation—fight or flight. Heart racing, shallow breathing, muscles tensed and ready. Cortisol floods the system. Energy is redirected to survival.

If you’ve lived for months or years under the constant threat of devaluation, rage, or silent treatment, this system doesn’t know how to turn off. Six months after leaving, you still jump when your phone vibrates, your body instantly preparing for the venomous message that might arrive—even though it won’t. The threat is gone, but your nervous system hasn’t received the memo.

The Dorsal Vagal State: Shutdown

This is the oldest evolutionary response immobilisation. When neither fight nor flight is possible, the system simply… stops. Heart rate plummets, breathing becomes barely perceptible, and a profound disconnection floods in. This is dissociation. Numbness. Complete shutdown.

I recognise this state intimately—those final months of my relationship when I became a ghost in my own life. Frozen on the sofa for hours, unable to move, think, or feel, while criticism poured over me like background noise I could no longer process.

The Hierarchy of Survival: How We Try to Cope

What makes this theory so powerful is understanding that our nervous system follows a predictable sequence when faced with a threat. It’s called neuroception—an unconscious, automatic detection of safety or danger that happens before our rational mind can even process what’s occurring.

The sequence goes like this:

First: Can I communicate to resolve this? (Ventral vagal—social engagement)

If that fails: Can I fight or flee? (Sympathetic—mobilisation)

If that’s impossible, I must freeze to survive. (Dorsal vagal—immobilisation)

This progression became my life pattern during the abuse. I tried to communicate, to explain, to reason. But gaslighting and constant invalidation made social engagement impossible. Then I entered fight mode—confronting the behaviours—and flight mode—planning to leave. But trauma bonding, fear, and manipulation blocked those exits.

Eventually, my nervous system had no choice but to. Freeze. Dissociate. Numb. It was the last remaining survival strategy.

Mixed States: The Chaos Inside

Here’s what complicates recovery: these states aren’t always pure. After prolonged trauma, the nervous system can become stuck in mixed states—the most common being simultaneous activation of sympathetic and dorsal vagal pathways.

Imagine pressing the accelerator and the brake at the same time.

Outwardly, you appear frozen, lethargic, and depressed (dorsal vagal). But internally, your system is in complete hyperactivation (sympathetic)—racing thoughts, overwhelming anxiety, constant hypervigilance. Exhausted but unable to sleep. Wanting to move but paralysed. Mind in turmoil in a body of lead.

This is anxious depression, and it’s devastatingly common after narcissistic abuse.

There’s another mixed state as well: dorsal vagal and ventral vagal, creating what’s called “functional dissociation.” You seem socially engaged, smiling, conversing, but you’re deeply disconnected from your internal experience. The social mask so many of us wear, functioning on autopilot whilst internally absent.

I lived in this state for longer than I care to admit.

Recognising the Signals: Learning Your Body’s Language

Part of my healing has been learning to identify which state I’m in at any given moment. Each produces distinct signals:

Ventral vagal: Relaxed, expressive face. Comfortable eye contact. Voice with natural melody. Smooth, diaphragmatic breathing. Access to nuanced emotions. Ability to think complexly and be curious. “I feel good today.” “I noticed something interesting.”

Sympathetic: Visible tension; shoulders, jaw, fists clenched. Vigilant, scrutinising gaze. Rapid, shallow breathing. Agitation. Can’t sit still. Checking phone compulsively. Knee bouncing. Words tumbling out too fast. Anxiety, irritability, anger, panic, all swirling together.

Dorsal vagal: Expressionless, masked face. Blank or glassy stare. Monotone, flat voice. Collapsed posture. Shallow, barely perceptible breathing. Long pauses. Struggling to find words. “I don’t know.” “I don’t feel anything.” “Everything is blurry.”

Learning to recognise these states in myself and in my children has been transformative.

What Helps: Interventions for Each State

The crucial insight is this: what helps in one state might be harmful in another.

When sympathetic (activated, anxious):

• Discharge the mobilised energy through movement, shake your arms and legs, press your feet firmly into the ground
• Practise extended exhales (inhale for 4, exhale for 6)
• Slow everything down deliberately
• Use soft, intermittent eye contact rather than sustained
• Remember: purely cognitive interventions don’t work here; the thinking brain is partially offline

When dorsal vagal (shutdown, frozen):

• Start small; wiggle toes, gently roll shoulders
• Use sensory stimulation hold something warm, smell something pleasant
• Move your eyes slowly around the room, naming what you see
• Do NOT push for deep emotional work that deepens dissociation
• Gently reintroduce mobilisation without overwhelming the system

When ventral vagal (regulated, safe):

• This is the window where real healing work happens
• Practise conscious connection with safe others
• Notice and savour positive experiences
• Try vocal self-soothing—humming, singing, speaking in a soothing tone
• Build your “safety database” through present-moment awareness

The Dysregulated Safety System

Here’s one of the cruellest aftereffects of narcissistic abuse: your neuroception—your unconscious safety detection system—becomes profoundly dysregulated.

After months of gaslighting, where the environment was objectively dangerous but presented as safe, your safety/threat detector stops working correctly. You feel endangered in safe situations (normal conversation triggers hypervigilance, comfortable silence feels like the silent treatment, and genuine compliments are scrutinised for hidden sarcasm).

Worse, you might miss real danger signals. Your nervous system, conditioned to constant activation, interprets intensity as passion, unpredictability as excitement, and chaos as familiarity.

Re-educating neuroception is slow work. It means creating new experiences of authentic safety and consciously noticing them. When you’re with someone who makes you feel safe, what do you notice in your body? What’s the quality of your breathing? How does your stomach feel?

It means practising present-moment orientation: “Look around this room. Is there immediate danger here, right now? Name three things that indicate you’re safe in this moment.”

Session by session, experience by experience, your nervous system begins to learn: This is what safety actually feels like.

Why This Matters

Polyvagal theory isn’t just academic; it’s deeply practical. It’s given me:

• Self-compassion: Understanding that my body’s responses were protective, not pathological
• Agency: Knowing which interventions might help in which state
• Language: Words to describe what was happening when I had none
• Hope: Evidence that regulation is possible, that healing happens through the body, not just the mind

It’s also transformed how I support others. Whether in my healthcare work or my advocacy, I now understand that people can’t access complex thinking or emotional processing when their nervous system is in survival mode. We have to address the state first.

The Wisdom of Lived Experience

Coming back to where I started: yes, it’s grief-inducing to realise I already knew the course content from lived experience. But there’s also power in it.

I have pattern recognition developed through survival. Emotional intelligence forged through navigating manipulation. Practical understanding of what actually helps versus what sounds good in theory. And the credibility that comes from truly “getting it.”

This combination —professional healthcare background, formal training, and lived experience—positions me (and others like me) to offer something unique: evidence-based support delivered with the empathy of someone who has been in the depths and found a way forward.

Polyvagal theory gave me the missing piece: the neuroscience behind what I already knew in my bones.

And now, as I continue this work, I carry both the hard-won wisdom of survival and the structured understanding of how nervous systems heal.

If you’re reading this and recognising yourself in these patterns, please know: your body’s responses make perfect sense. They were protective. With understanding, patience, and the right support, regulation is achievable. Your nervous system can relearn safety.

One breath, one moment, one small movement at a time.