Category: Effects of Narcissistic Abuse

By presenting to us what feels like two completely different people, we can become snared in the narcissist’s battle for control over our perception of reality. This is where cognitive dissonance begins. It is nothing less than mind control and it must be broken. What is Cognitive Dissonance? The idea behind cognitive dissonance is that people will feel so much anxiety when they do something that’s inconsistent with what they personally believe–or when they are confronted with new information–that they will somehow find a way to make everything consistent again psychologically. Leon Festinger was the psychologist who originally developed this idea....

If you’re with a narcissist, you may be dreading the holidays. You may already be familiar with some of the ways they try to ruin any festive or fun plans you’ve tried to make.   Here are some ways to survive the narcissist during the holiday season and make it through to the next year with your sanity intact. Even if you’re in no-contact, it’s important to keep in mind that holidays are a prime season for trying to pull ex-partners back into the web. Therefore, I’ve included a special section on how to arm yourself against the holiday hoover....

To be human is to know both joy and pain. Loss, suffering, grief, loneliness, and sadness are inescapable parts of the human condition that everyone experiences. Their ubiquity does not make them something that we should minimize or dismiss. These profound emotions and life experiences should not, however, be confused with living with PTSD.  It’s important to acknowledge that there is no linear timeline for grief or loss, “getting over” an event and everyone experiences loss and sometimes suffers.  Trauma stands apart from these other normalized parts of the human experience.  There are some experiences that are so psychologically damaging that,...

Did you ever wonder why the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood didn’t just kill the little girl when he found her in the first place? I mean, he’s a wolf. He can outrun her. And he has teeth. Why run ahead to grandmother’s house and play dress-up? The story of the wolf in sheep’s clothing is a story of a hidden predator. The predator walks among the sheep undetected because gaining the trust of the sheep first before attacking gets the wolf more for less effort. Have you found yourself in more than one narcissistic relationship?  I bet you’ve...

I recently saw a quote in which someone was lamenting the fact that there were more articles describing narcissism and narcissistic abuse than how to heal core wounds as a result of the abuse. I thought it was a strange distinction to make. When survivors of narcissistic abuse read articles about narcissism and narcissistic abuse, that is a form of healing.  In addition, although the quote acknowledged that there are differences in the types of information that is needed to heal, it appeared to elevate healing core wounds over learning about the narcissistic relationship without acknowledging that they are two different but equally...

This is how narcissists play mind games. They call it “morally equivalent,” the things they incite in the dramatic production they’re scripting off-stage while we wander through the storybook they dropped us into, wondering how things veered so sharply off-course.  Or worse, the imaginary things, the shadows they project onto us of their own behavior. The cheating. The lying. The stalking. The abusive and predatory actions. The contradictions. The controlling manipulations. The jealous attitude. They manufacture emotions that look and feel like monstrosities in our own repertoire, then call us monsters for reflecting back to them what they wanted to...

Lies are not the same for narcissists and psychopaths as they are for the rest of us. When a narcissist lies, it splits the world off into two realities and forces us to choose the one in which we want to live. In the article “16 Faces of a Psychopath,” the author writes that in their world, “they don’t lie because lying is not a relevant issue for them. The idea or image of truth doesn’t exist with the psychopath, so he cannot lie…. there is for him no difference. He says what’s convenient, what comes to his mind, but...