1. YOU DOUBT YOURSELF

Do you recognize that you’re doubting yourself more than you ever have before?

Victims of narcissistic abuse often appear uncertain of themselves, constantly seeking clarification that they haven’t made a mistake or misheard something.

This reactive adaptation to narcissistic abuse is because the narcissist is ALWAYS finger pointing and shifting blame to YOU for ALL of the ups & downs both in the relationship AND in the narcissist’s personal psyche.
Because this relationship has NON EXISTENT boundaries, you will find YOURSELF constantly PUT UPON and FORCED to accept responsibility for things you didn’t do or say. This borrowed humiliation and shame is exactly what the narcissist intends for the victim to take from the narcissist. Their own unfelt core of shame.

2. CONFUSION

Just refer to the above explanation of self doubt and boundary transgression if you want to understand the CONFUSION that is part and parcel of narcissistic abuse.

Daily boundary transgression and criss crossing of responsibility starts to wear on even the clearest minded of targets.
Suddenly you wake up and realize that all the realities and borders between yourself and others is not only BLURRED but MISSING.

It’s confusing to KNOW that you aren’t responsible for someone else’s behavior, thinking and feeling but to be CONSTANTLY SCOLDED for behaving, thinking and feeling as if you ARE.

It’s crazy-making and a narcissist purposefully causes this confusion. They know that a divided and conquered mind is their most vulnerable and susceptible target who won’t be able to identify that their confusion is caused by an abusive technique called ‘gaslighting’.

Gaslighting is a technique of psychological abuse used by narcissists to instill confusion and anxiety in their target to the point where they no longer trust their own memory, perception or judgment.  With gas lighting, the target initially notices that something happens that is odd, but they don’t believe it.  The target attempts to fight the manipulation, but are confused further by being called names or told that they’re: ‘Just Too sensitive’, ‘Crazy’, ‘Imagining things’ or the narcissist  flat out DENIES ever saying anything hurtful. Gradually, the target learns not to trust their own perceptions and begins doubting themselves.  Broken and unable to trust themselves, they isolate further. The target now doubts everything about themselves: their thoughts and opinions, their ideas and ideals. They become dependent on the narcissist for their reality.

For it is in your CONFUSION and acceptance of responsibility that belongs to the narcissist, that a narcissist is able to successfully CONTROL YOU and USE YOU as a scapegoat for their problems.

3. FEELING CRAZY

Every minute of every hour of every day of every year, a Narcissist, who has a DSM classifiable personality DISORDER (ie: not playing with a full deck) is PROJECTING their disorder onto those around them. If you don’t think that having a crazy person constantly blaming you for being “crazy” will make you crazy, I’d like to introduce you to a narcissist that will convince you otherwise.

This disorder isn’t a relationship gone wrong. This disorder isn’t kid stuff. It’s MALEVOLENT. It’s a transference of malevolence and MENTAL DISORDER from the person who has it to the person who DOESN’T.

Frankly, before a narcissist, I’ve not once in my life, FELT CRAZY. Neither have I ever been told by a psychologist and I’ve seen lots of them – that I had anything WRONG with MY own MENTAL HEALTH. Personally, I always had it “together”. I was resilient, mentally tough, and withstood many events in my life that would make others crumble.

Yet, when I unwittingly dated someone with this serious mental health malady, I wanted to slam an entire set of broken porcelain down his throat sideways and every obtuse moron that believes the garbage that comes out of his mouth. No, it’s not that I suddenly became a person interested in physical violence, I suddenly became a person who was witnessing a DSM category all wrapped up into a physical being – who turned his mental health problems ON Me. I became a target of a person with a problem. They say, “Hurt people, HURT people”. I say, “Narcissistic People DESTROY PEOPLE”.

4. EMERGING CLUSTER OF SYMPTOMS THAT HAVE NO OTHER EXPLANATION

All I could muster to the narcissist in my dear john letter when I broke up with him that wonderful New Year’s Eve, was “I DONT KNOW what’s WRONG!! But I just don’t feel like myself. Something feels EXTREMELY TOXIC and I don’t know why”…..This should be the alert when a victim of narcissistic abuse presents themselves to therapists. The inexplicable “complaint”.

My first visit to my therapist were those words exactly. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but It’s SERIOUS!” I felt it. I did – I felt BEWILDERED inside, but I could not articulate what it was. (another red flag for someone usually able to articulate every feeling and explanation about myself in-depth).How was it that after 43 years of explaining, analyzing and discussing my own deficiencies quite well, I could NOT for the life of me explain to my therapist what was so “wrong” with me that it was palpable. His answer, set me free, it really did.

“YOU HAVE BEEN IN A DOMESTICALLY VIOLENT RELATIONSHIP WITH A NARCISSIST “

My therapist had some background with this person. He’d WITNESSED the narcissist calling me, berating me during sessions. I held the phone away during one session, so that my therapist could hear the narcissist on the other end questioning me about cheating, “Accusing me of having an affair with the therapist”.  Grilling me about what the therapist looked like and would speak to me like. He even accused the therapist of wanting me sexually and that was the reason the therapist spoke so lowly of the narcissist. (of course it couldn’t just be that the narcissist had a bad reputation and the community was on to him)

Sufferers report that their spark has gone out and, even years later, find they just cannot get motivated about anything.

Unaware that we’ve been living in a war zone with a tyrannical narcissist, we can’t quite grasp the words to articulate the abuse, yet at the same time, we VERY MUCH FEEL IT. We present ourselves to the mental health community, incapable of speaking about an abuse we yet know nothing about. Until that word, “NARCISSISTIC ABUSE” is given to us, we have NO IDEA that is what’s causing our pain. That’s why it’s SO IMPORTANT to get the word out there, what narcissists look like, their modus operandi, the words and phrases they use, so that when a victim of their abuse begins looking for answers, they quickly will be able to identify that they are involved with a narcissist.

In Narcissistic Victim Syndrome you are looking for a cluster of symptoms to emerge many are the symptoms of trauma (avoidance, loss of interest, feeling detached, sense of a limited future, sleeping or eating difficulties and nightmares, irritability, hyper-vigilance, easily startled, flashbacks, hopelessness, psychosomatic illnesses, self-harming, thoughts of suicide etc).Some victims develop Stockholm Syndrome and want to support, defend, and love the abuser despite what they have gone through.

5. DISSOCIATION

Victims tend to ‘dissociate’ or detach from their emotions, body, or surroundings. Living in a war zone where all forms of power and control are used against you (intimidation; emotional, physical and mental abuse; isolation, economic abuse, sexual abuse, coercion, control etc), the threat of abuse is always present. Dissociation is an automatic coping mechanism against overwhelming stress.

Symptoms of dissociation resulting from trauma may include depersonalization, (disconnecting your body awareness from your physical self) psychological numbing, disengaged from life and passions, or amnesia regarding the events of the abuse.

It has been hypothesized that dissociation may provide a temporarily effective defense mechanism in cases of severe trauma; however, in the long-term, dissociation is associated with decreased psychological functioning and adjustment.

Other symptoms sometimes found along with dissociation in victims of traumatic abuse (often referred to as “sequelae to abuse”) include anxiety, PTSD, low self-esteem, somatization, depression, chronic pain, interpersonal dysfunction, substance abuse, self-mutilation and suicidal ideation or actions. These symptoms may lead the victim to erroneously present the symptoms as the source of the problem.

6. PTSD

Let’s face it. If I didn’t mention PTSD, or Complex PTSD, I would NOT be doing the topic of narcissistic abuse syndrome ANY justice.

Ptsd, in layman’s terms? From a fellow sufferer? A Cerebral anxiety attack that makes your whole body come alive with PALPABLE FEAR. The rapid heart beat, the intrusive and spinning thoughts and fears – just like the abuse is CURRENTLY HAPPENING SEQUENTIALLY ALL OVER AGAIN. This is called RE-LIVING.  It’s as if the traumatic abuse event is occurring in the present tense. All the emotions of fear, shame, shrinking, wincing, looking over your shoulder & walking on eggshells waiting to be attacked ruthlessly AGAIN.

Physical numbness –

(toes, fingertips, lips) is common, as is emotional numbness (especially inability to feel joy).

Avoidance –

of places, sounds, tastes, and songs that remind them of their abuser or the abuse. Intense feelings of anxiety even in anticipation of having to revisit the memories.

Memory Loss – Almost all targets report impaired memory. Partially due to conscious avoidance as well as from the damage done to the hippocampus, an area of the brain linked to learning and memory.

Need for solitude / tendency to isolate –
We’re EXHAUSTED after narcissistic abuse. Feelings of withdrawal and isolation are common; we just want to be in our own head for a while, find our own answers; thus, solitude is sought.

Lack of Joy and Hope –
Inability to feel joy (anhedonia) and deadening of loving feelings towards others are commonly reported. One fears never being able to feel love or trust again.

The target becomes very gloomy and senses a foreshortened future sometimes with justification. Many targets ultimately have severe psychiatric injury, severely impaired health and/or stress related illnesses.

Sleeplessness-
Melatonin became my new best friend after narcissistic abuse. The nightmares and night terrors can be overwhelming that good restorative sleep becomes impossible.  Napping became my new favorite passion.

Sleep becomes almost impossible, despite the constant fatigue; such sleep as is obtained tends to be unsatisfying, unrefreshing and non-restorative. On waking, the person often feels more tired than when they went to bed. Depressive feelings arrive very early in the morning, making falling back to sleep an impossibility.  Feelings of vulnerability and loneliness may be heightened overnight.

Anxiousness, Guilt & Disturbing thoughts – 

Targets have an extremely short fuse and are easily irritated. The person frequently experiences obsessive visions of violence happening to the narcissist  hoping for an accident for, or murdering the narcissist; the resultant feelings of guilt further limit progress in healing.

Fight or Flight Response – 

With your system on alert for ever-present danger in the environment it’s easy to react sensitively to sudden changes – causing the startle response.

***

Comments:

1. Mona | July 21, 2014 at 2:21 AM

   I have difficulties trusting people, due to being raised by extremely narcissistic parents who would put me down for being honest about myself, even when I was as young as three or four. And for some reason, a number of the people I’ve met later in life have solidified that distrust, continuing to teach me that opening myself up is dangerous and bound to lead to hurt.

   While I still have trouble trusting people, I’ve found that one way to break the Narcissist’s Spell, is to open your most vulnerable spots up to them, and dispassionately note their response.

   I wanted to give a narcissist a last chance because I was young and had deep emotions I couldn’t let go (sounds like many here have been in that exact situation), and told him something dark, private, and vulnerable about my family life when I was growing up–something I had never told anyone else. This was the last chance, I felt it intuitively. His response would tell me what kind of person he was, and if he could ever show me love or kindness when I truly needed love and kindness. His response to my meaningful and personal tale was: He ignored it. IGNORED IT. If the topic wasn’t about validating him, or something he could use in attempt to manipulate me, it wasn’t a worthy topic. “I just told you something deeply personal and disturbing.” I said to him. Again, he brushed it off, making light of it. “I’ve made some poor choices in my life,” I said, describing him. He didn’t defend himself, he didn’t reverse or even show any latent caring.

   That broke the spell. I realized then and there, he truly did not care about me AT ALL. While depressing, it liberated me from the entire song and dance routine Narcissists do, stringing you along, never giving you what you truly deserve, but keeping the hope alive that someday they will care and treat you well.

   Just sharing my POV. I think this could be a helpful tactic for those who are trapped in the web of a Narcissist. While definitely emotionally raw, it exposes their front to the light of Truth, and there’s nowhere to hide then. When I was growing up, undergoing so much parental abuse and their put-downs, a small part of me still held out hope that my parents loved me, and even though they were destroying me, that they still cared for me. In romantic entanglements, the deep intimacy that sex and romance can bring, that attitude showed itself in a way that it didn’t in other parts of life.

   Try this tactic. It really does work. DEMAND that you be cared for, and let the garden weed itself. He didn’t care.

   REPLY
2. Joy | July 28, 2014 at 12:52 AM

   I was engaged for a few years to a guy like this: lied to me, used me, stole from me, manipulated me, belittled and controlled me, intimidated me, he would flip out and go into a tizzy over almost anything, I lived walking on egg shells never knowing when the next flip out would come, why or how long it would last. If I questioned him, because he was convinced of his own perfection he would become unbearable to live with. One time, for example he stole from a store, he had a good job and no reason to steal he was just a raving nut case- I demanded he return the merchandise, but being a narcissist he seemed to truly believe rules did not apply to him and he could do whatever he wanted to- he screamed and ranted and raved for 4 hours. It was like this all the time. The man was so full of himself if someone didnt kiss his butt and tell him how perfect he was he would go all out ballistic for days. Another time he literally stormed out of a reception for his job because two in a company of 2,000 people got awards for their work and he didn’t, because according to him he’s “the best person they have”. I felt so trapped with him. I hated my life. I tried to leave him so many times, but this article is true: living with a nut makes you a little nuts! You can’t think straight anymore. I finally got away by calling off our wedding, moving back home (I’m American and met him here but he was Israeli and I lived for two years with him there) and by making it very clear I thought he was a nut who I would never marry. He wrecked my life for years. Today I’m married to a wonderful man, that nightmare was 5 years ago and I have a baby daughter and living husband. I hear wacko is still alone and my guess is: he’ll die that way like he should. Please if you are with one of these people run like hell: mine was starting to become violent and I suspect maybe cheating also. These people will wreck you, you cannot reason with them, they are not reasonable. Just run like hell. Their lives are and will remain miserable and empty, don’t let them drag yours down with them! Run just run! Smartest thing I ever did!

3. Katie | July 28, 2014 at 8:52 PM

   Thank you for writing this! Thank you! I finally sent this to my abuser and said here is what I have been through. Of course he turned it around and is punishing me with silence. Thank you. This writing has helped me so much!

4. Donna | August 15, 2014 at 8:49 PM

   I would like to know is there really happiness after the narcissist has left. My daughter was involved with a narcissist for 6 and half years . I took him in to live with us he clamied he had know place to go I treated him like he was my son as well as my husband did then little by little he took over my house and our lives including my daughter whom my heart breaks for its been 2 years since he left and he still bothering my daughter . They have a son together . He moved on with someone right away after he left my daughter but does not want my daughter to be happy it seems like .any advice for this family I would really appreciate thank you

5. CAC | August 16, 2014 at 9:48 PM

   Yes, speaking as someone who was involved with a narcissist for almost 13 years, there is happiness. A lot of happiness. But you have to let go of the narcissist, and that’s actually hard. Your sense of worth becomes so wrapped up in the narcissist during the relationship that you have to make effort to find yourself again. In the year after the breakup, I said over and over again that I felt like I was meeting myself again for the first time as if I was old friend who I bumped into at the grocery store. I had lost my identity to the narcissist. I had no feelings of self-worth without the narcissist because I had been stripped of everything about me that made me an individual, so I felt lost and it was like taking baby steps to learn how to walk on my own again. I did, but I had to deal with my own codependency, and be honest about why I’m attracted to narcissists. He doesn’t want your daughter to be happy because she is still supply for him. Most victims of narcissists have a certain level of Stockholm syndrome, and will continue to defend and feed the narcissist even after the relationship ends. I certainly did. Narcissists don’t give up a supply, the supply has to give up the narcissist. It’s up to your daughter.

   I don’t know if you have seen this slideshow, but it’s very informative. The one page I keep returning to is the one that says, “It’s amazing how much destruction one person can cause.” http://www.slideshare.net/jenimawter/narcissistic-victim-syndrome-a-powerpoint-by-jeni-mawter

   I saw so much of myself in it, and it helped me to recognize the pattern and how it affected me. I said so many of the things in this reference at the end of the relationship. I felt as if I had lost my soul, and I was just floating through life without any associations or connection anymore. I didn’t trust my own emotions or judgements anymore, and didn’t know if what I was feeling was valid because I had been told for so long that I was just a drama queen and exaggerated everything, so I suppressed my emotions because I believed that I didn’t trust them. I had been living in a mine field for so long that it was a natural state for me and I got used to living in paranoia and fear. It wasn’t good, but it was familiar.

   The only way to take your life back from a narcissist is to cut off the supply. The best way to do that is to accept the fact that the narcissist never actually loved you, and the relationship was built on nothing but lies and manipulation. And you have to WANT better for yourself, and you have do to something that you have been conditioned to not do by the narcissist: put yourself first. You have to do selfishly and unapologetically.

6. Peter Chen | August 17, 2014 at 2:06 AM

   Only recently have I found out about this toxic term related to my nm. Fifteen years of my life has been wasted by this bitch. All this time I always thought it was me and how she indirectly told me how better the golden child was. All this time I always thought it was my own problem and obviously the words “you think too much” pop up regularly. This slut never forgets to mention how great a mothers love is and one must be filial to their parents, not regarding my dad of course, otherwise the gods will teach you some respect. In every one’s eyes she is the saint, very religious, a Jehovah witness, so she claims.. the only place I see her after life is playing mind games with Satan, since she’s so good at it. She is so god fearing not because she respects the gods but since she already knows the shit she has pulled will reap dire consequences, so as to reserve herplace in heaven, which i highly doubt.