Nobody told me that leaving was only the beginning.

I thought I'd be sad for a few weeks and then feel free. At one month, I was in complete panic mode. At six months, I completely shut down — wouldn't answer the phone, wouldn't answer a text, kept telling everyone I was fine when I wasn't.

And I kept asking myself: why am I still not okay?

Because leaving doesn't start the healing. It just stops the bleeding.

In this episode I walk through what actually happens in the months after you leave — the panic, the shutdown, the moment the dots finally connected and everything changed.

What To Expect When You Leave is available on Amazon and at SheRisesFromAshes.com

Steady Fire with M. Martin is available on Spotify and YouTube.

I was six years old when I first told the truth about a narcissist. And I spent the next 50 years paying for it.

I grew up in a narcissistic household. I walked out at 15 with nothing but myself and a decision. I put myself through school, worked full time, and built my own life from the ground up. And then I walked straight into a narcissistic marriage — because the chaos was the only love language I had ever been taught.

For 25 more years I asked myself what I was doing wrong.

And then one day I stopped asking what was wrong with me — and started looking at the patterns.

That is when I saw it. It wasn't random. It wasn't moods. It was a system. A very specific, very consistent, very intentional system of control.

This is why I wrote The Anatomy of Control: Inside the Mind of a Narcissist. Because nobody should spend 50 years inside a system they didn't know existed.

📖 The Anatomy of Control on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Control-Inside-Mind-Narcissist/dp/B0G1M7P65H

🌐 All books, episodes & resources:

SheRisesFromAshes.com

📅 Work with me 1:1:

https://tr.ee/hJRKu3hkgK

Steady Fire with M. Martin is available on Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, and YouTube.

Today is my daughter's 27th birthday. And I want to talk about something that most people don't realize about narcissistic abuse when it involves children — it doesn't stop when they turn 18.

I grew up in a narcissistic household. Birthdays weren't celebrated. Holidays came and went. And then I got married — and it was the exact same pattern. There was always a reason. Always too busy. Always a woulda, coulda, shoulda.

You learn not to expect it. But you never stop hoping.

Now I'm watching my daughter go through the same thing at 27. And that is what this episode is about. The narcissistic parent who performs devotion for the world while their child lives a completely different reality. The way that child gets replaced by new supply. And the hope that never fully dies — no matter how many times they don't show up.

That hope is not a weakness. That is what narcissistic abuse does to someone who loves.

This is why I wrote When Love Becomes Leverage.

📖 When Love Becomes Leverage on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/WHEN-LOVE-BECOMES-LEVERAGE-Understanding/dp/B0G1RXRN1Q

🌐 All books, episodes & resources:

SheRisesFromAshes.com

📅 Work with me 1:1:

https://tr.ee/hJRKu3hkgK

Steady Fire with M. Martin is available on Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, and YouTube.

I grew up in a narcissistic household. And because of that, I walked straight into a narcissistic marriage. Not because I was weak — because it felt like home. The chaos was familiar. The hot and cold, the walking on eggshells, the love that came and went without warning — my nervous system had been trained for all of it long before I ever knew what narcissistic abuse was.

In this episode I'm talking about why I wrote The Empath's Dilemma: Loving What Hurts You — the book I needed and couldn't find. We're going into the origin wound, how narcissistic abuse in childhood conditions survivors to repeat the dynamic in adult relationships, and why empaths don't just fall into these relationships — they fit into them.

This one is personal. And I think it might be exactly what you needed to hear today.

📖 The Empath's Dilemma — available on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G42VWYBK

🌐 All books, episodes & resources:

SheRisesFromAshes.com

📅 Work with me 1:1:

https://tr.ee/hJRKu3hkgK

Steady Fire with M. Martin is available on Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, and YouTube.

Nobody believed you when you tried to tell them. And that wasn't an accident.

In this episode of Steady Fire, we talk about one of the deepest wounds survivors carry — the moment you finally spoke up and nobody believed you. We walk through why that happened, how the public face was strategically built to protect the abuser, and why your experience was real even when the world couldn't see it.

You were not crazy. You were not dramatic. You were not too sensitive. You were living in the version of them nobody else ever saw.

📖 The Silent Epidemic on Amazon at SheRisesFromAshes.com

For all books & resources visit:

🌐 SheRisesFromAshes.com

📧 Join the community: m-martin-she-rises-from-ashes.kit.com

🎧 Full Survivor Series podcast playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBGlZgEGq9Ch7w4sHGmadDfSapBWghmH3

Everyone celebrates when you leave. Nobody prepares you for what comes next. Leaving a narcissistic relationship isn't one act — it's a series of internal divorces. The divorce from the fantasy. The divorce from the hope. The divorce from the version of yourself that stayed and survived.

In this episode M. Martin breaks down each internal divorce, why each one carries its own grief, and why the aftermath looking like falling apart means you're doing it exactly right.

If you've left and you feel like something is wrong with you — this episode is for you.

What To Expect When You Leave walks through every stage of the aftermath. Grab your copy on Amazon — link below.

📖 What To Expect When You Leave: https://www.amazon.com/What-Expect-When-You-Leave/dp/B0G7XZDMF7

🔥 Full Survivor Arc on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/M.-Martin/author/B0FVB5H5NF

🎙️ Steady Fire Podcast Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBGlZgEGq9Ch7w4sHGmadDfSapBWghmH3

🌐 SheRisesFromAshes.com

Most people think narcissistic abuse starts with the first obvious incident. It doesn't. It starts in five quiet patterns that look nothing like abuse — patterns that install the control system long before the overt harm begins.

In this episode of Steady Fire, I break down the five-pattern installation phase: love bombing, boundary testing, emotional conditioning, isolation setup, and self-doubt seeding. Why each one works. How they build on each other. And why you didn't see it coming — not because you missed it, but because it was specifically designed not to be seen.

This is the foundation of The Anatomy of Control — Book 4 of the She Rises From Ashes Survivor Arc.

📖 The Anatomy of Control on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Control-Inside-Mind-Narcissist/dp/B0G1M7P65H

🌐 All books, resources, and podcast episodes:

SheRisesFromAshes.com

📅 Work with M. Martin 1:1:

calendly.com/martin-srfa/survivor-clarity-session

🎧 Full Survivor Arc podcast playlist on YouTube:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBGlZgEGq9Ch7w4sHGmadDfSapBWghmH3

Steady Fire with M. Martin — daily narcissistic abuse pattern breakdowns for survivors who are done being confused.

Most people think gaslighting is just lying. It's not.

Lying is one false thing. Gaslighting is a process — five stages deep — designed to systematically erode your trust in your own perception until you stop relying on yourself entirely and start depending on the person dismantling your reality.

In this episode of Steady Fire, I break down exactly how that process works: from the first moment your version of events gets pushed back on, all the way to stage five — where you've accepted someone else's reality just to survive the relationship.

I also talk about why the confusion doesn't stop when you leave. The self-doubt, the second-guessing, the automatic way you run your own thoughts through their filter — that's not weakness. That's the residue of a deliberate system. And it has a name.

This episode is drawn from When Love Becomes Leverage, Book 3 of the She Rises From Ashes Survivor Arc — available on Amazon now.

In this episode:

Why gaslighting and lying are not the same thing

The five stages of perception erosion — and how to recognize which one you were in

Why the confusion follows you after you leave

What recovery from gaslighting actually looks like

📖 When Love Becomes Leverage on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/WHEN-LOVE-BECOMES-LEVERAGE-Understanding/dp/B0G1RXRN1Q

🌐 All books, resources, and podcast episodes:

SheRisesFromAshes.com

📅 Work with M. Martin 1:1:

calendly.com/martin-srfa/survivor-clarity-session

🎧 Full Survivor Arc podcast playlist on YouTube:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBGlZgEGq9Ch7w4sHGmadDfSapBWghmH3

Steady Fire with M. Martin — daily narcissistic abuse pattern breakdowns for survivors who are done being confused.