When people ask what you've been up to lately, how do you explain that you've been dismantling decades of programming, rewiring your entire nervous system and fundamentally restructuring who you are at your core? The casual nature of these conversations doesn't leave room for the truth, that you've been doing the hardest work of your life, completely alone, with no external recognition for the revolutionary changes happening inside you. So you offer the socially acceptable response, "working a lot" because it's easier than watching their eyes glaze over or their discomfort rise when faced with the reality of what deep healing actually looks like.

The work you're doing is invisible yet all-consuming. Whilst others see you going about your daily life, you're simultaneously deconstructing years of survival mechanisms that no longer serve you. You're learning to recognise the difference between intuition and anxiety, between healthy boundaries and trauma responses, between love and manipulation. Every social interaction becomes a laboratory for practising new ways of being. Every trigger becomes an opportunity for growth. Every old pattern you break feels like a small death of who you used to be.

Ego death isn't something you can casually mention over coffee. How do you explain that you've had to let go of the version of yourself that was built entirely around surviving dysfunction? That the people-pleasing, hypervigilance and self-doubt that once felt like core parts of your personality were actually just adaptations to trauma? The process of releasing these false identities is profound and disorienting, like shedding skin that you thought was permanently attached. You grieve for parts of yourself whilst simultaneously celebrating their departure.

The generational patterns you're unlearning didn't just affect you, they've been passed down through your family line for decades, possibly centuries. You're not just healing your own wounds; you're breaking cycles that have shaped how love, conflict and communication have been handled in your family for generations. The weight of this responsibility is enormous, yet so is the liberation. Every toxic behaviour you refuse to repeat, every boundary you maintain, every moment of self-compassion you practise is an act of revolution that reverberates through time.

What makes this work particularly isolating is how few people understand the depth of transformation required to heal from narcissistic abuse. They might expect you to "get over it" or wonder why you can't just "move on" from childhood experiences. They don't realise that rewiring a nervous system trained in hypervigilance isn't a weekend project; it's a complete restructuring of how you exist in the world. The changes are so fundamental that you sometimes feel like you're becoming a different person entirely.

Your simple answer of "working a lot" isn't a lie, it's protection. You're protecting your sacred healing process from people who couldn't hold space for its complexity. You're safeguarding your transformation from those who might minimise, question or judge what you're going through. The work you're doing is too precious to be reduced to casual conversation topics or unsolicited advice from people who've never walked this path.

The most profound revolutions happen quietly, in the privacy of your own mind and heart. Whilst the world sees your external life continuing as normal, you're rebuilding yourself from the inside out with a level of courage and dedication that deserves the highest recognition. Your healing work is reshaping not just your present, but your entire future and potentially the futures of generations to come.

So yes, you've been "working a lot", just not in the way they think. The most important work of your life doesn't fit into small talk, and that's perfectly fine.