One Rule That Ended My Victim Mindset And The Narcissist’s Power Forever

For a long time, I thought that walking away from the narcissists in my life would be the hardest part.

Turns out it wasn’t.

The hardest part was what came after. The silence. The overthinking. The grief for a version of me I lost in the chaos.

I had already cut them off.

But somehow, they still had power over me. Through the constant reruns in my mind, the guilt, the rage, the endless inner debates about what I should’ve done differently.

I was out of the relationship but still stuck in the role they’d shoved me into: The one who always needed to explain herself. The one who never felt good enough. The one who carried the weight of someone else’s dysfunction.

Then, I came across a quote that shattered that loop. Just one rule.

So simple, so direct, and so damn true it pissed me off, until it cracked something open in me. It became the line between the old me and the one who finally took her life back.

The rule that ended my victim mindset…

And took back every ounce of power I thought I’d lost.

Then I Read This Quote by Arnold Schwarzenegger

It wasn’t from a self-help book. It wasn’t even something I was looking for. Just a random scroll moment. But damn, it landed:

“I have a rule: no complaining about a situation unless you’re prepared to do something to make it better. If you see a problem and you don’t come to the table with a potential solution, I don’t want to hear your whining about how bad it is. It couldn’t be that bad if it hasn’t motivated you to try to fix it. This was a big mindset shift for me.”

It stopped me.

Whether I liked it or not, that quote held up a mirror I wasn’t ready for.

I had a lot to say about my past. I had nothing to say about my present. And don’t even get me started on the future. I haven’t seen one yet.

Complaining had become a routine. A way to process, sure… but also a way to stay emotionally loyal to people who didn’t deserve that loyalty.

And the worst part? It kept me stuck in reaction mode.

The Slippery Slope of “Just Venting”

At some point, venting became my comfort zone. It felt productive. Emotional. Even necessary.

But the more I talked about how much they hurt me, the more I stayed in that identity: the one who got hurt. And that identity came with baggage.

It didn’t make space for who I was becoming. It only focused on who I had to be in order to survive back then.

And trust me, I was a survivor. But I was tired of surviving.

I wanted to start living.

A Hard Truth: Healing Can Become a Hiding Place

When you’ve lived through narcissistic abuse, the idea of “moving on” feels like a betrayal. Not of them… of yourself.

Like you’re saying, it didn’t matter. Like it didn’t scar you. But here’s what I had to face: My healing had become so focused on what was done to me… that I forgot I had choices now.

That I was allowed to create something different. That I didn’t owe anyone my pain on repeat.

I needed to stop waiting for the people who broke me to suddenly feel sorry and start showing up for the person I was becoming.

So I Asked Myself: What Can I Actually Control?

Not much, at first. I was still picking myself off the floor emotionally.

But I could start with little things:

One of the hardest but most powerful things I did? I gave myself permission to stop talking about them.

Not because it didn’t matter. But because I finally mattered more.

The Science Part (Because My Overthinking Brain Needed Proof)

Later on, I read something by psychologist Adam Grant that made me feel seen.

He talked about a study that found that ignoring your worries, instead of constantly obsessing over them, can actually lead to better mental health.

That blew my mind. For years, I believed “processing” meant never letting go.

Never forgetting. Never ignoring.

But ignoring doesn’t mean denial. It means: I choose peace today, not another deep emotional dive into something I can’t change.

And honestly, some days that choice felt like freedom.

Rebuilding Doesn’t Start with a Grand Plan, It Starts with a Boundary

The first real change didn’t come from a journal entry or a therapy session.

It came the moment I decided: No more complaining unless I’m going to do something different today. That “something different” wasn’t always big.

Sometimes, it was just not calling the one friend who always fed into the drama. Sometimes, it was letting the thought pass instead of entertaining it for an hour. And sometimes, it reminded me:

“You are not the version of you they created. You get to be someone else now.”

Here’s What I Wish I Knew Sooner While Healing After Narcissistic Abuse

Leaving them is only step one.

Healing, yes, it’s messy. But at some point, healing has to shift from processing what happened to deciding what happens next.

You don’t need to have it all figured out. You don’t need to forgive, forget, or fake positivity. You just need one rule.

One rule that stops the spiral. One rule that reminds you of your power. One rule that pulls you back into the present, where your life is actually happening.

And for me, that rule was this: No complaining unless I’m ready to do something about it.

It changed everything.