If you’re in a relationship with a narcissist, it’s likely your human rights are being violated.

When I was in a relationship with a pathological partner, he never controlled what or when I took care of my basic needs or kept me from talking to others. However, he did exert quite a bit of control over my wardrobe, where I went, who I saw, and with whom I interacted.

“I never told you that you couldn’t hang out with your friends!” he would say to me. It was always said in a tone that suggested I was crazy for implicating him.

He was right. He had never explicitly said to me I couldn’t. 

He had other ways of getting me to comply. He questioned my commitment to the relationship. He manipulated my emotions. He made threats and punished me with what he claimed was just behavior when really it was just more abuse.

“Hidden” Methods of Control

Here are a few things my pathological partner did when he felt threatened by my actions:   

• Intentionally made plans for the two of us at the last minute on a night I had plans with my friends, then became hostile when I didn’t break my plans to be with him

• Insulted my friends and made comments that implied they didn’t like him or our relationship, and I was being disloyal if I saw them

• Started arguments right as I was about to leave, then accused me of not caring about his feelings if I tried to walk out of the argument

• Made sexually degrading comments and cruel remarks such as, “If you get raped, don’t come crying to me.”

• Requested pictures of me while I was out to prove to him I was where I said I would be

• Insisted I turn on my GPS while I was out

• Bombarded my phone with dozens of demeaning, accusatory, and threatening texts if I didn’t respond to him while I was out

• Stalked my social media pages afterward to see if I had added any new men

• Made false accusations without cause that I was actually on a date instead and made me go to exhausting lengths to prove my faithfulness

• Exploded in rage if he didn’t find out until afterward and questioned me relentlessly about what had taken place

• Threatened to cheat on me or break up with me if I went out

• Actually cheated on me

• Withheld his love and pretended as if I didn’t even exist, gave me the silent treatment, or broke up with me.

• Accused me of doing the things to him he was doing to me—all the other things in this list.

Do any of these behaviors look familiar?

The last one is particularly tricky.

On the surface, the tactic looks harmless–perhaps even ridiculous, especially when you know you haven’t done any of those things. However, these accusations can become some of the most powerful methods of control they have.

How Narcissists Twist the Truth

Accusations that their partners are abusing and victimizing them can eventually coerce their partners into a sanity battle.

For example, first, narcissists may label choosing to spend the evening with friends as disloyalty. 

Or they may claim going out with our friends is us walking out on them. If we don’t respond to their many attempts to contact us while we’re out, we are giving them the silent treatment.

The conclusions by the narcissist about our motivations or their impact can cause us to question our own behavior and doubt our judgment. The accusations can bring on feelings of guilt or shame when they become repeated often. We may even give up trying. They “win.”

However, when we do the things that threaten them, they take a secondary action that twists reality even further. They use them to draw a false equivalency to their actions.

They point to our actions that make them feel threatened (but aren’t actually a threat) to create an illusion that the things we did that they merely didn’t like are no worse than their damaging actions. 

Of course, their actions actually are betrayals and abuse, such as deceptions about who they are, cheating and keeping other partners, smearing us to others, or using things we told them during moments of emotional intimacy to dehumanize and verbally abuse us. 

If we challenge them on any of this, we are being disrespectful and degrading their feelings on the matter, further reinforcing the for them belief that we are the offenders and giving them even more ammunition.

Wait, wait, wait. What happened there?

[Read “How Narcissists Play Mind Games to Make You Think the Problem is You“]

Our normal, everyday human behavior and our right to engage in it were pitted against their attempts to stop it. Yes, exercising our rights gets framed as an attack.

Family therapist Terrence Real calls this “offending from the victim position.” Once they can cast themselves as a victim, they turn their abuse into a method of defending themselves. “When we offend from the victim position,” Real says, “we feel like a victim while acting like an offender.” 

So you see, pathological partners don’t actually need to tell us explicitly not to visit our friends—and in fact, they get to deny they have forced us into anything. They look innocent—and sometimes victimized—as they put on the different masks to get us to comply.

The types of actions in this example create invisible chains that have a more formal name: coercive control.

Traditional definitions of abuse focus on individual incidents of physical injury. However, coercive control uses dominance and conditioning that have the cumulative effect over time of restricting the victim’s human rights to result in entrapment.

[Read: Coercive Control: The Domination of a Narcissist]

What Should You Do?

A narcissist’s perceived entitlement to not feel threatened and out of control does not trump and is not equal to your assertion of your autonomy and your human rights.

If this is happening to you, start keeping a journal of all of these instances of control. (Be sure to keep it somewhere safe where your partner can’t find it!) 

You may have many different reactions to them: fear, anxiety, desperation, anger, helplessness, despair, guilt, shame, or others. You may even feel as if you’ve done something wrong when you haven’t.

Even if your partner has convinced you that their actions are justified or you feel compelled to respond in a way that gives control over to your partner–write them down anyway.

By writing them down, you are solidifying to yourself that they happened. The list can provide you with a psychological tool that you can read again and again to be your own witness and objectively observe how you have been trapped in a box that keeps getting smaller… and open it before it’s too late.

Over 60 million people are in a relationship with a narcissist. Are you one of them? Parts of this article have been adapted from my book,Why Can’t I Just Leave, which takes you step-by-step through the path that got you here and helps lead you straight to the exit.

In it, you will read what over 600 survivors said in their own words about their experiences and how they left their relationships. You will learn about 75 signs that you’re in a pathological love relationship, what makes narcissistic abuse unique, the most damaging effect of narcissistic abuse, why we change while we’re in the relationship, and the five stages of breaking up with a pathological partner. 

You can read the first chapter which includes the pathological love relationship checklist, here:  Why Can’t I Just Leave free preview.

References

Real, Terrence. (2022). Us: Getting Past You & Me to Build a More Loving Relationship. New York: Goop Press.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in these: 

• Survivors of Narcissistic Abuse Must Stop with the Questions
• The 5 Stages of No Contact with a Narcissist
• The Best Resources for Narcissistic Abuse Recovery

The post How Narcissists Twist the Truth and Trap Their Partners appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

That’s obvious, they’re likely thinking. Narcissists want attention.

So the stereotype goes. These traits are essentially harmless and may even be amusing when portrayed in pop culture.

However, some narcissists carry other more sinister traits.  

Pathological narcissists lie excessively, wear different masks around different people, have secret lives, and fake positive emotions.

The heart of narcissistic abuse is the deliberate manipulation of others into willingly making themselves vulnerable enough so that they can be exploited. It results in an extraordinary amount of psychological damage.

It all sounds very Shakespearean.

And yet, still, it remains difficult to explain narcissistic abuse to someone who has never been in a relationship with a narcissist. 

How do you explain what someone gets out of exploiting people when there’s nothing to gain other than someone’s dignity and humanity? 

We have no frame of reference in our culture for that type of abuse. Abuse, to be abuse, must be direct. Abusers punch, insult, coerce sexual behavior, stalk, and harass. 

They don’t play mind games. At least–not according to the way we define abuse. 

The Film Version of What Narcissists Want

“Somebody being an asshole is not a personality disorder.  If somebody is being an asshole consistently every moment of the day through multiple contexts and multiple scenarios even when you’re saying, ‘Please stop being an asshole, it hurts and you’re ruining my life,’ that’s a personality disorder.” – Richard Grannon

I mean, what is it that narcissists, as psychological abusers, even do?  And, more importantly, why do it at all?  What do they get out of it?

Larceny without a Story

We can also understand intellectually that those who have the desire to kill and hurt others may have one of many motivations: they desire vengeance, may stand to gain something through someone else’s murder, or maybe they, perversely, enjoy it.  

Swindlers, we understand, con people out of their money. 

We at least have a mental construct that provides reasons for what they do even while we are disgusted with the behavior and can’t put ourselves in their minds.

However, the things survivors endure in pathological love relationships–double lives, love bombing, brainwashing, smear campaigns, gaslighting, hoovering, silent treatments, trauma bonding, and so many other abuses– comprise a mystifying and horrifying-sounding jargon that, from an outsider’s perspective, likely seems dramatic and outrageous. [See The Narcissistic Abuse Dictionary to review unfamiliar terms]

The survivors come from all over the world and the stories of what they survived may differ, these same tactics appear again and again. 

Yet we have no socially-recognized go-to blueprint for explaining what happened to us and why much less for understanding it ourselves. 

It’s like a black hole exists where our experiences are concerned.

One of the reasons that socialized psychopaths are so successful is that normal people don’t believe such evil exists.

What Do Narcissists Want?

One of the keys to explaining the harm narcissists cause is to explain what it is they want. 

Is it just that they get pleasure out of watching the chaos around them when they triangulate people against one another?  Do they enjoy seeing people in emotional pain? 

This too sounds like something straight out of a movie.

It is important to know:

Yes, there really are monsters walking around in human skin who orchestrate social mayhem for no other reason than to do it. It makes them feel powerful murdering souls instead of bodies. 

However, the answer is more nuanced than that because these narcissists are the ones who share some of the traits of antisocial personality disorder. 

What about the rest?

Narcissists Want Control

What narcissists want is control.  Not just a little. 

They want to wrap their love around you until it turns into their hate. They make you believe it’s directed at you, when really–it’s their own self-loathing with which they’re choking you.

A normal relationship won’t do it for them. They need people to focus all of their attention on them. They need to have total control because they are threatened by anything in their partner’s lives that isn’t them. Their motto is:

“Anything good that happens to you better be because of me… or else. Anything bad that happens to you is never because of me… or else.”

To protect their own image of themselves as perfect and avoid the shame and worthlessness they feel at their core, they feel entitled to perform all possible actions on the range of human behavior. Nothing is off-limits.

Angry desperation drives them to drain you until you feel nothing and they feel something. Then they blame you for having done it to avoid feeling criticized for it.

Narcissists violate their partners’ basic human rights to elevate their fantasies of greatness.

They want to become your liberator and your executioner.  Over and over and over again.

Narcissists want to be gods.

Join the community to get more articles like this one delivered straight to your inbox. 

If you like this article, you’ll also enjoy these:

• 7 Narcissist Lies That Are Easy to Spot
• Word Salad: When Talking is a Narcissist’s Weapon
• Idealization and Devaluation: Why Narcissists Flip
• The Unlucky 13 Different Types of Narcissism
• A Letter to the Narcissist Who Destroyed Me

The post What Do Narcissists Want? appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

In addition, what can sometimes make it even more unclear is that narcissism is often treated only as a negative quality.

However, Harvard psychologist Craig Malkin (2015) indicates that narcissism is a spectrum trait. On one end lies healthy narcissism, and on the other lies unhealthy narcissism. 

The spectrum can tell us a lot about how people prioritize their own emotions and needs. Someone without healthy narcissism has difficulty standing up for themselves and always puts other people first.

However, people who fall on the unhealthy narcissism end of the spectrum may meet the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). [See The Ultimate Narcissistic Abuse Dictionary to review unfamiliar terms]

They cannot treat other people’s needs, desires, and emotions as if they were as important and valuable as their own.

However, even among those with narcissistic personality traits, all narcissism is not “created” equally. One person with NPD may think and react differently than another person with the same disorder. 

What is a Narcissist?

The criteria for the disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders (2013), which mental health providers use to diagnose their patients, include:

• An inflated sense of self, which provides them with the belief that they are superior, and an expectation that others should treat them as more important; 
• Unrealistic and pervasive fantasies of being rich, famous, powerful, or of being excessively beautiful, admired, and envied;
• A belief that they are extraordinary and can only relate to other “special” or high-status people;
• A desperate need for excessive attention and admiration;
• A sense of entitlement and belief that others should automatically comply with their expectations; 
• A willingness to exploit others in their interpersonal relationships to get what they want; 
• A lack of empathy for the circumstances and feelings of others; 
• Pathological envy of other people or a belief that other people envy them; 
• An arrogant attitude;

Someone with NPD needs to have only five out of these nine criteria to be labeled a narcissist.

As a result, different combinations of the traits result in different types of narcissism. 

Identifying 13 Different Types of Narcissism

Despite the nine criteria laid out in the DSM, many resources that describe narcissism use labels for different types of narcissism in ways that overlap and contradict one another. This overlap makes it difficult to tell how many different types exist. 

This article does three things: 

1. identifies and compiles the types of narcissism from medically reviewed and other resources into one master list; 
2. describes and explains the characteristics of each of the types, including the overlap between them; and 
3. organizes them into the major types and their subtypes (or dimensions). 

Using this approach, I have identified three major types of narcissism and ten subtype categories for a total of thirteen types of narcissism.

Narcissists may belong to one of the three major types: classic, vulnerable, or malignant. They may then further qualify as one or more sub-types.

The major type determines the subtypes into which a narcissist can be classified.  Some sub-types’ characteristics are not compatible with how a major type displays itself.

• Subtype 1 (Overt or Covert)
• Subtype 2 (Agentic or Communal)
• Subtype 3 (Somatic or Cerebral)
• Subtype 4 (Individual or Collective)

Sadistic and Inverted Narcissists are special sub-type designations of other major types.

The Three Major Types of Narcissism

• Classic Narcissism

Classic Narcissism is also known as High-Functioning Narcissism, Exhibitionist Narcissism, or Grandiose Narcissism. These are the typical narcissists that most people think of when they hear the term “narcissist.”

They are the attention-seeking narcissists who brag about their accomplishments, which may or may not be real (Bressert, 2017; Ettonsohn, 2016; Greenberg, 2016).

Classic Narcissists also expect others to flatter them and feel entitled to special treatment. They get bored when they are not the focus of the conversation and don’t like to share the spotlight with others.

The irony is that they are desperate to feel important, and at the same time, they often perceive themselves as superior to most people they meet.

• Vulnerable Narcissism

Vulnerable Narcissism is also known as Fragile Narcissism, Compensatory Narcissism, Victim Narcissism, or Closet Narcissism. There are some similarities among these narcissists with the classic narcissist (Bressert, 2017; Ettonsohn, 2016; Greenberg, 2016).

They also have difficulty focusing on others’ needs and emotions and feel as if they are superior to most people they meet. Yet, they actually despise the spotlight and try to stay out of it rather than seeking out admiration.

Classic narcissists seek out grandiosity, while vulnerable narcissists only fantasize about it. The avoidance that vulnerable narcissists feel toward attention is due to their hypersensitivity.

Although they feel they deserve special recognition, vulnerable narcissists don’t feel they will receive it if they put themselves out there. They don’t want to put themselves in a position to be criticized. 

They often try to attach themselves to special people instead of seeking special treatment themselves. Doing this provides them with the opportunity to receive some of the attention they crave without making themselves the center of it.

Levels of happiness differ between classic and vulnerable narcissists; vulnerable narcissists are not as happy as classic narcissists.

Classic narcissists appear to mostly remain blind to others’ opinions because they are always acting on their self-entitlement. Vulnerable narcissists, however, always feel as if they are not getting what they deserve (Rose 2002). 

• Malignant Narcissism

Also known as Toxic Narcissism, malignant narcissists are highly manipulative and exploitative.

From an NPD perspective, their traits may resemble either a classic narcissist or a vulnerable narcissist. What makes them malignant narcissists is that they also meet some antisocial personality disorder (DSM-V, 2013) criteria.

They are antagonistic and hostile. A malignant narcissist’s primary goal is often to dominate and control to make sure they can get what they want. They will use deceit and aggression to accomplish it, and they lack remorse for their actions.

Malignant narcissists may also ignore laws and moral standards that would hold most people back from doing things they know would hurt others. 

They may even enjoy the suffering of others.

Narcissist Sub-Types

Narcissist subtypes are not standalone types of narcissists. 

They figure into one of the three major types of narcissists above by providing information about different behavioral dimensions. The subtypes indicate how a narcissist presents themselves, how they think, or their goals.

Sub-Type 1

• Overt vs. Covert

This sub-type describes whether the narcissist’s actions are more openly observable or whether they are hidden and harder to detect. 

Both overt and covert narcissists may put people down and look for opportunities to take advantage of people. Overt narcissists, however, do so in unmistakable and noticeable ways.

Covert narcissists work behind the scenes or are more passive-aggressive. Others may come away from an encounter with a covert narcissist, not knowing the covert narcissist manipulated them.

Sometimes the covert narcissist’s tactics may be harder to spot. This hidden abuse may allow him or her to deny what happened.

Classic narcissists will always be overt narcissists, and vulnerable narcissists will always be covert narcissists. However, malignant narcissists could be either.

Many researchers do not appear to distinguish between covert narcissists and vulnerable narcissists. Other researchers, however, argue for a distinction between the two because malignant narcissists can operate covertly.

For example, a malignant narcissist may make statements to attack someone’s self-esteem, such as, “That’s a good major for you given your abilities” or “That outfit really flatters your body type, but I could never wear something like that.”

Sub-Type 2

• Agentic vs. Communal

Some narcissists gain narcissistic supply by doing things to benefit others. This narcissist sub-type is called a communal narcissist (also known as an altruistic narcissist).

As all narcissists do, they love feeling important. Yet, they bask in the attention and praise they receive for the good things they are doing on behalf of their friends, family, or community. 

Contrary to the narcissist stereotype, these types of narcissists might be some of the biggest charity donors or do a lot of volunteer work (as long as everyone knows about it). 

In your personal life, the communal narcissist always willing to lend their help–even when you don’t ask for it. They want to be in the middle of everything, micro-managing it all. In their view, no one knows how to do anything without them.  If you don’t want their help, they take it as a narcissistic injury–because it was never about you in the first place. 

In contrast, an agentic narcissist is a typical narcissist whose immediate behavior benefits themselves directly and openly (Nehrlich, A.D., et al., 2019).  Communal narcissism is related to grandiosity and is a subtype of the classic narcissist. 

Sub-Type 3

• Somatic vs. Cerebral

This sub-type defines what the narcissist primarily values in himself or herself and others. Neither sub-type wants to be outshined by their partner.

Yet, they want someone around to enhance their standing. To narcissists, their partners are status symbols they can show off as objects (Vaknin 2015).

Somatic narcissists are obsessed with their bodies, youth, and external appearance. They often spend a lot of time at the gym and in front of mirrors.

Cerebral narcissists are the know-it-alls. They think of themselves as the most intelligent ones in the room, trying to impress people with their accomplishments and positions of power.

Any of the three types of narcissists—classic, vulnerable, or malignant—can be either of these two sub-types.

Some writers classify cerebral narcissists as vulnerable narcissists only and somatic narcissists as classic narcissists only.

Others argue that this is a stereotype because of the connections people tend to make between the body being “physical” and out in public view, while the mind, being “mental,” is more hidden.

These associations, however, don’t take into account other scenarios. Vulnerable narcissists may use their bodies to get their needs met, such as through physical illness.

Classic narcissists may be cerebral narcissists and seek attention for their educational status or accomplishments, for example.

Sub-Type 4

• Individual vs. Collective

Collective narcissism is narcissism that a person develops based on membership in a group (Agnieszka and Lantos 2020). The collective narcissist believes that the group they belong to has some exceptional qualities that make the group (and by default, him or her) superior to others.

The collective narcissist also believes that the group is not being treated as superior by others, which makes other groups a threat. 

Collective narcissism has been found among members “national, ethnic, ideological, and religious groups; professional organizations; football teams; students of the same university; gender (men); and fictitious groups,” according to Agnieszka and Lantos. 

The collective narcissist is a subtype of the vulnerable narcissist. These vulnerable narcissists have attached themselves to their group identity to feel special.

Collective narcissists are hypersensitive and have low self-esteem. After a social upheaval, they may use their group identity to bolster their self-image.

The collective narcissist is contrasted with the individual narcissist. Individual narcissists feel self-entitled because of special qualities they possess independent of their identity in any demographic or social group.

While collective narcissists are specific to vulnerable narcissism, the individual narcissist can be a subtype of any of the three major types of narcissism.

Special Sub-Types

• Inverted

Some researchers have identified a special type of covert, vulnerable narcissist called an inverted narcissist. These narcissists are codependent.

They attach themselves to other narcissists to feel special. The only time they feel satisfied is when they are in relationships with other narcissists. They are victim-narcissists who suffer from childhood abandonment issues.

• Sadistic

This special type of malignant narcissist is similar to sociopaths and psychopaths. [Read: Narcissist, Sociopath or Psychopath: What’s the Difference?]

As with sociopaths and psychopaths, they also take pleasure in hurting people. In addition, their purpose in interacting with others is always to control. They enjoy humiliating others and may have unusual sexual fetishes.

Caution: The Trap of Different Types of Narcissism

When you’re in the middle of a relationship with a narcissist, few things make sense. Arming yourself with information about different types of narcissism is crucial. [Read: Why We Read about Narcissism When We’re Trying to Heal]

If we aren’t aware that not all narcissists behave in the same ways or have the same goals, reading about narcissistic abuse is confusing and can lead to even more questions.

When we read something about narcissism that doesn’t seem to describe our partner, we may hold out hope that perhaps our partner isn’t a narcissist after all. What we read may help us deny our abuse when we are struggling with cognitive dissonance.  [Read: Why Cognitive Dissonance is Trauma to Narcissistic Abuse Survivors]

Yet, there is also a danger in going too far in the other direction as well. 

At the opposite extreme is the obsession with categorizing our partners down to the exact narcissistic type before we will allow ourselves to leave. In this case, the need for certainty has taken the place of the lack of it.

No external resource can ever validate your personal experience. Only you can do that. It doesn’t matter how many articles you read or online tests about narcissistic abuse that you take. [Read: The Narcissist Test: A Quest for Answers]

Once you’ve gotten the point–that your partner’s behavior is indeed abusive, let the knowledge that your partner is a toxic person and that you are suffering because of it be enough.

Join the community to get more articles like this one delivered straight to your inbox. 

If you like this article, you’ll also enjoy these:

• If You’re in Love with a Narcissist, You’re in a Cult
• 11 Crazy Things You May Do Before Going No Contact
• How to Know When a Narcissist is Finished with You
• What a Narcissist Says About Breakups: They Never Let You Go
• Love Bombing: Signs You’re in Danger

Sources

Agnieszka, Golec de Zavala and Lantos, Dorottya. (2020). Collective Narcissism and Its Social Consequences: The Bad and the Ugly. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 29(3): 273-8.

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Ed. (Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association).

Bressert, S. (2017). Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Psych Central. Retrieved on March 7, 2018, from https://psychcentral.com/disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder/

Ettensohn, Mark. (2016). Unmasking Narcissism: A Guide to Understanding the Narcissist in Your Life. Berkeley, CA: Althea Press.

Greenberg, Elinor. (2016). Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid Adaptations: The Pursuit of Love, Admiration, and Safety. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Malkin, Craig. (2015). Rethinking Narcissism. New York: Harper Wave.

Nehrlich, A.D., Gebauer, J. E., Sedikides, C., & Schoel, C. (2019). Agentic narcissism, communal narcissism, and prosociality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 117(1), 142–165.

Raskin, Robert N., Hall, Calvin S. (October 1979). “A narcissistic personality inventory.” Psychological Reports. 45 (2): 590.

Raskin, Robert and Terry, Howard (1988). “A principal-components analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and further evidence of its construct validity.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 54(5): 890-902.

Rose, Paul. (2002). “The happy and unhappy faces of narcissism.” Personality and Individual Differences. 33(3): 379-391.

Vaknin, Sam. (2015). Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited. Narcissisus Publications: Skopje, Macedonia.

A version of this article appeared online at Mindcology.

The post The Unlucky 13 Different Types of Narcissism appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

It’s easy to become obsessed with that question. 

Out of all the questions we have, isn’t that one of the critical questions about narcissists that we want to try to answer? [Read Do Narcissists Know They’re Narcissists? And Other Questions]

There’s a kernel inside that question of whether narcissists can love that feels connected to almost every other question we have about the relationship. 

If we could crack this question about narcissists and love, it seems as if everything else we don’t understand might fall into place. [Read Closure 7 Reasons Why Narcissists Won’t Give You Closure

How is it that we can feel so soul-shatteringly seen when they grab us and stare into us that we feel as if we might burn to ashes in their fire? Yet then they deny and reject every genuine attempt at communication and vulnerability?

These questions may highlight some of the most visible aspect of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

What is a Narcissist?

Narcissism is characterized by what is known as “entitled self-importance.” They believe that their needs and concerns take precedence over those of the people around them.

While some narcissistic individuals may be indifferent to others’ needs, those with Narcissistic Personality Disorder may actively exploit, manipulate, and abuse others to get their own needs met (Pipich and Saleh, 2020). 

This is known as narcissistic abuse.

In a relationship with a narcissist, it can sometimes feel as if we are experiencing the purest form of love that could ever exist. Other times, well, they rained hell upon us, traumatized us, left us for dead. We know that no one who loves us could ever have been able to inflict that kind of pain.

Even when we understand the characteristics of narcissism, the extremes they express in their love toward us don’t make sense. 

Understanding their thoughts, feelings, and motivations seems crucial. Ordinary people do not shut their love off and on like a light switch. 

Or was it love?  If it wasn’t, why did it feel so much like love?

What is Love?

Is love something you feel, or is it something you do?

Ideally, there should be some evidence of both. We do certain extraordinary things for people for whom we feel certain particular emotions.

Yet focusing on the feelings versus the actions will provide a different emphasis. It helps explain why we have trouble understanding whether or not narcissists can love.

How love “feels” emphasizes the two people as individuals, separate and distinct from one another. It happens internally for each person. 

What each person does because of their love emphasizes the connection between the two people. It is an expression of the emotions, and we can witness the evidence externally.

When Narcissists Fall in Love

Rhonda Freeman (2017), a neuroscientist who studies narcissists and psychopaths, would say yes, they can fall in love. She has a theory about what happens to narcissists when they fall in love. 

The brains of narcissists are hypersensitive to rewards and are always seeking stimulation.

“This suggests to me that their reward system is extremely activated by their new target,” says Freeman. “During this time, many abuse victims describe lavish gifts, attention, and compliments unlike ever received from past partners. This has become such a common phenomenon that survivors of these relationships have termed this occurrence, love bombing. The neurochemistry of love (e.g., norepinephrine, oxytocin, dopamine, vasopressin, and endogenous opioids) flows in abundance, making it an exciting time and a perfect setting for a deep connection.”

Ross Rosenberg, the author of The Human Magnet Syndrome, agrees that narcissists can experience love.   “If you don’t believe me, ask one! In the rapturous and euphoric beginning stages of the relationship, the narcissist experiences complete and unconditional love, which is what they have been seeking their whole life.” 

Can a Narcissist Love?

Expressions of love between two people include commitment and sacrifice, mutual support, honesty and trust, compassionate communication, and other unique benefits. These benefits are all negotiated in the ways that meet both partners’ needs uniquely within each relationship.  

They also indicate that the two partners have established a bond. In a narcissistic relationship, however, this is not exactly what happens.

Freeman explains that eventually, the idealization stage ends, and the dopamine, oxytocin, and other neurotransmitters in the brain released during this early stage return to baseline.

The narcissist’s partner becomes invested in the relationship during the idealization stage, so he or she has formed an attachment when it ends.

Yet the narcissist never attaches to it. As he or she returns to baseline, they may begin to resent the partner and see them as responsible for their boredom.

Why Narcissists Start Hating Us

They may think they love you, and you may think they love you too, but does it ever feel as if there are some things you can’t do? 

When the idealization stage is over, you may no longer know how they’re going to treat you. Accusations come out of nowhere, and just living your life independently of them sets them off. 

You can’t say no to them, or see your friends. You can’t disagree with them or prefer something different than what they prefer. 

In these situations, they feel attacked, so they put you in a box in their minds they have labeled “enemy.” 

This is because narcissists lack something called “object constancy” and cannot hold both positive feelings toward you and a negative attitude toward something you did simultaneously. [See The Ultimate Narcissistic Abuse Dictionary to review unfamiliar terms]

This process is called “splitting.” They can only see people as all good or all bad.

When you have wounded their self-esteem or disappointed them, they will forget they loved you or you have ever done anything good for them. 

They are also low on emotional empathy, so nothing is holding them back from being vicious and cruel toward you when they feel this way.

When their anger dissipates, and they can see you in a positive light again, it can be to them as if none of it ever happened.

The problem is that even the tiniest things we do can feel to them as if we are wounding them–including when we live our lives independently from them!  

What Love Means to a Narcissist

In a universe where these things make up the definition of love, these two statements cannot exist together:

1. Your partner loves you.
2. Your partner is capable of intentionally and knowingly causing you pain.

Once we understand how a narcissist views the world and their capacity for love, we can know that these two things are compatible in the narcissist’s universe. The two statements can be true simultaneously by considering how a narcissist experiences relationships: 

1. A narcissist partner can feel love for you.
2. A narcissistic partner is capable of intentionally and knowingly causing you pain.

As Elinor Greenberg, a psychologist who treats narcissists, says, “If you thought that your very romantic Narcissistic ex really loved you and wanted to marry you, you are not crazy.  Even though he is now gone, your guy actually meant what he said when he said it to you.  He was in love with you, or at least with his own romantic fantasy of the two of you as the perfect couple.”

Yet when we heard them say they loved us, we took for granted that they were expressing the underlying desire to share the unique characteristics that come with the implied bond. 

Can a Narcissist Change for Love?

Narcissists do have the desire to received those benefits from you. They want your fidelity, trust, honesty, support, and commitment–they just don’t have the capacity to give them.

They want your obedience in exchange for their superficial expressions of love.

When we stop trying to put their idea of love into our framework, we can stop waiting for them to answer questions they are never going to be able to answer.

They will never be able to answer them in terms that we will understand. Any answer they give will never fit into a normal person’s view of relationships.  

A narcissist’s understanding of love is very superficial. They come into the relationship with it, and it isn’t personal. 

There’s nothing the partner can do to change it. Once we can accept this, we can start to gain the perspective we need to heal.

Join the community to get more articles like this one delivered straight to your inbox. 

If you like this article, you’ll also enjoy these:

• Love Bombing: Signs You’re in Danger
• Idealized and Devalued: Why Narcissists Flip
• How to Know When a Narcissist is Finished with You
• What a Narcissist Says About Breakups: They Never Let You Go
• Narcissist Gaslighting Examples in Romantic Relationships

Sources

Freeman, R. (2018, September 19). “Neuroscience Behind Idealize, Devalue, and Discard.” Retrieved February 4, 2019, from https://neuroinstincts.com/neuroscience-behind-idealize-devalue-and-discard-rhonda-freeman/

Greenberg, Elinor. (May 4, 2017). “Narcissistic Love Patterns: The Romantic.” Psychology Today. Retrieved March 19, 2018: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/understanding-narcissism/201705/narcissistic-love-patterns-the-romantic

Pipich, Michael & Saleh, Naveed. (2020). Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Signs, Symptoms, & Treatments.” Choosing Therapy. Retrieved at choosingtherapy.com/narcissistic-personality-disorder/

Rosenberg, Ross. (September 3, 2015). “Narcissists Can Love– But You Should Still Run!” The Good Men Project. Retrieved March 19, 2018: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/narcissists-can-love-but-you-should-still-run-fiff/

Rosenberg, Ross. (2013). The Human Magnet Syndrome: Why We Love People Who Hurt Us. Eau Claire, WI: PESI Publishing and Media.

The post Can a Narcissist Love? It’s Complicated appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

You may have asked the narcissist to account for their behavior. If you got answers at all, they likely didn’t make sense.

There’s poison in their non-answers. It seeps into you a drop at a time until you’re sick with their self-loathing, and they’re drunk with their control of you.

This non-reality is the very essence of narcissism.

If you’ve interacted with narcissists enough, you’ll know that you can’t make them tell you the truth directly.

However, sometimes they’ll tell you the truth indirectly if you pay close enough attention.

So when can you tell when that’s happening?

They say (or don’t say) seven things that let you know you are likely being fed more narcissist lies.  

The 7 Cardinal Narcissist Lies

1. “I was just mad.”

You know those times when he or she is flying into a rage about something, and they start spitting out verbal daggers and trying to wound you? Listen carefully, and you may hear what they’ve been up to. [Read: How Verbal Abuse and Anger Combine to Trap Victims]

They may threaten to do things they’ve already been doing as a way to try to justify their actions and blame you:  “I wasn’t cheating, but I will now!”.

If they are really upset, they may tell you straight out what they have been doing: “I’ve been sleeping with your roommate!”

Later, they will come back when they want to hoover you or they have calmed down.

“I was just mad,” they’ll say, implying that the content of what they said was made up in the heat of the moment to hurt you.  [Read: Why Narcissists Hoover]

No, they wanted to hurt you by telling you the truth. 

2. “I was just drunk/kidding.”

There may be times near the beginning of the relationship or even a little later when they try to tell you who they are. They won’t necessarily tell you that they are narcissists, but they’ll let you know something about their true selves.  

It may not always occur consciously. Sometimes the narcissist may let something slip out about their true intentions when they’ve been drinking.

They may tell you that they are “a bad person,” fully expecting you to disagree with them. They may even come out right out and tell you that you should leave because they will only hurt you.

If you call them on it, they will act as if they don’t know what you’re talking about.  “I was just drunk.” 

For whatever reason, though, they need to drop hints. They sometimes feel the need to let what’s behind the mask leak out a little.

Take them at their word. 

3. “I’m not _______, but I could if I wanted to.”

Sometimes they verbally tell you the exact opposite of what they are actually doing.  When narcissists tell you explicitly that they’re not doing something, however, what they’re telling you is that they are.

Narcissists usually deliver a statement like this one calmly.

They are trying to divert your attention from the actual behavior. It’s a calculated lie, and they don’t want to arouse your suspicions with disproportionate emotional outbursts. 

They also usually say it at an awkward moment or in an odd way. 

Imagine a scenario in which you are discussing where your partner has been for the past three hours. All of a sudden, he or she says, “I’m not talking to my ex, but I could if I wanted to.” 

The context of the rest of your conversation makes the statement inappropriate. Yet your partner still felt the need to reassure you.  The question is, why, if your ex had not come up in the conversation? 

It should also set off alarm bells when they say that they could do something if they wanted to.  It’s a statement of the obvious that the narcissist doesn’t need to say. 

Within relationships, we take for granted that we are with someone trustworthy and that they’re not doing whatever it is they claim not to be doing. We don’t need them to tell us that they could if they wanted to, but they’re not.

Yet someone who isn’t acting trustworthy can’t be objective about what is reassuring to others. 

The dead giveaway is that narcissist thinks it makes them look trustworthy to say they’re not betraying you or violating a norm–instead of realizing it sticks out to point out the obvious.  

4. “I know what you’ve been doing.”

If they start accusing you without cause of lying, cheating, or other actions, and you have never given them a reason to suspect you, they are telling you what they have secretly been doing. 

This behavior is called projection, a psychological defense mechanism that everyone uses at one time or another when we don’t want to deal with our thoughts or feelings. [See The Ultimate Narcissistic Abuse Dictionary to review unfamiliar terms]

However, narcissists frequently use it because they cannot bear to see themselves as anything less than perfect.

Narcissists cannot deal with feeling shame. Rather than face the parts of themselves they would find ugly and shameful, they accuse you of doing the things they’ve done.

5. “All my exes cheated on me/were whores/were abusive.” 

Because they can’t face up to their negative behavior, any accusations narcissists make against others should be taken with a grain of salt.

They don’t just project their actions onto you–they also project them onto other people in their lives as well. 

If you hear stories from the narcissist about their past partners doing horrible things, they are likely projecting their past destructive behaviors.

Not only did their exes probably never do those things, but it was also likely the narcissist who did those things to them!

Also, if they get caught doing something in their relationship with you, they will likely project the blame onto others for that as well.

For instance, if they tell you the other person begged them to spend the night together, what they probably mean is that they are the ones who sweet-talked the other person into the tryst.

Be wary if you hear the narcissist try to blame others. Everyone has had some people in their lives who didn’t treat them well, but if every ex “mistreated” them, they’re telling you something about themselves.

6. The Lie Under the Partial Truth 

Robert Hare, the author of Without Conscience (1993), describes the “partial truth” phenomenon among the psychopaths he interviewed. 

One of the women he interviewed admitted to “salting the mine” with nuggets of truth. She reasoned that if others thought some of what she said was true, they were more likely to believe everything else she said.

“I sometimes tell the truth about something bad about myself. They’d think, well, if she’s admitting to that, she must be telling the truth about all the rest,” the woman said (p. 47).

This lie can be the most difficult to detect because it’s hard to sort out when the narcissist tells you only part of the truth, so you don’t catch on that the other half is a lie. 

If you’re confused because it sounds true but feels wrong, it might be because you hear a partial truth.

They brought up something that sounded suspicious, or you asked them about something, and your gut told you their response was a lie. 

Yet then they said something else, trying to show you it wasn’t, something verifiable they knew you wouldn’t doubt.

Then you didn’t know what to believe.  

What probably happened is that the narcissist fed you a truthful story on top of the original lie to distract you. 

7. Their Lie on Top of Their Actions 

Sometimes all you have to do is stop listening, and that’s when you realize they’re lying.  

Pretend you can mute what they say and watch how they behave. Turn the volume down on what comes out of their mouths, cover their texts with your hand, don’t read their E-mails… what’s left?

What are they actually doing?

The narcissist’s actions should tell you the truth about how they feel, what they want, and what they intend.

Whatever they say to try to make their behavior look as if it’s something other than what it is is the thing they want you to believe.

Spotting Narcissist Lies

Narcissists rarely speak the truth. We don’t have to take everything they say at face value.  We already know we can’t.

Because narcissists are accountable to their emotions, unable to put themselves in others’ shoes, and try too hard to control conversations, they can be more transparent than they realize.  

By paying attention to these narcissistic blind spots, it’s not difficult to see what we should throw out as another narcissist lie.

Source

Hare, Robert. (1993). Without Conscience. New York: Guilford Press.

Join the community to get more articles like this one delivered straight to your inbox. 

If you like this article, you’ll also enjoy these:

• Can a Narcissist Fall in Love?
• Narcissist Gaslighting Examples in Romantic Relationships
• How to Know When a Narcissist is Finished with You
• What a Narcissist Says About Breakups: They Never Let You Go
• How Narcissists Play Mind Games

The post 7 Narcissist Lies That Are Easy to Spot appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

How does it make you feel to read that? 

Dismissive of words that sound alarmist?  Angry that I would put victims of narcissistic abuse and cult members in the same category?  Shocked that your experience of narcissistic abuse might have something in common with anything other than, well, others’ experience with narcissistic abuse? 

If you feel dismissive of this idea, it may be because you have perceptions of cults that don’t seem relevant to your relationship.  For example, when you think of cults, you may think of religious groups. 

If this is the case, you’re in good company.  The word “cult” has a common meaning, just as the word “narcissist” does.  However, it isn’t religion that makes a cult.  

No One Joins a Cult

Perhaps you believe that if you were in a cult, you’d know it.

However, according to Steve Hassan, a world-renowned expert on cults, that isn’t necessarily true. In his book Combating Cult Mind Control, Hassan says that most people who are in cults don’t realize it at the time, or sometimes, even after they leave:  “People don’t join cults.  Cults recruit people.”  

Perhaps you find it difficult to believe that cults have nothing in common with being in love with a narcissist and narcissistic abuse. By the end of this article, you may change your mind. 

Comparing the two isn’t just an intellectual exercise. The cultural frame of reference supplied by the word “cult” provides visibility that narcissistic abuse victims desperately need.

In other words, most people understand the concept of a cult–but they have never heard of narcissistic abuse. Using what we know about cults to explain relationships with narcissists helps make narcissistic abuse a little more visible. [Read: Narcissistic Abuse in Relationships: What is It?]

Are They in Love with a Narcissist or Are They in a Cult?

In a 2017 article, Buzzfeed broke the news that musician R. Kelly was holding six women seemingly against their will in properties outside of Chicago and Atlanta.

A former inhabitant of one of the homes described the conditions in which the women lived. Kelly took away their cell phones, forced them to cut off almost all contact with their friends and family, and forbade them from leaving the house. They had to call him “Daddy” and ask permission to eat, sleep, bathe, or use the bathroom.

Also, he confiscated the women’s clothing and forced them to wear jogging suits so his male friends couldn’t see their bodies and forced them to turn and face the wall when his friends came over. 

He also forced the women to perform sex acts, which he filmed and showed to his friends. 

This all came to light when the parents of one of the women contacted the local authorities. They told police that Kelly was abusing their daughter and holding her in the house against her will.

But when the police went out to the home to check on her, the woman claimed she was fine.

Her parents told Buzzfeed that the last time they saw their daughter, “It was as if she was brainwashed…she just kept saying she’s in love and [Kelly] is the one who cares for her.” They wanted to get her out and get her treatment for cult indoctrination.

Is their daughter in a cult, or is she in love with a narcissist and, by default, a victim of narcissistic abuse? 

What is a Cult?

Common misconceptions of cults include:

• they are always religious in nature
• they were more common 40 or 50 years ago, but these days they’re rare
• the members to engage in extreme practices, often of a violent or sexual nature
• they are made up of many members (at least dozens of hundreds

None of these things is necessarily true.

Experts claim there are up to 10,000 cults operating in the United States at this time (LaRosa, 2018), most operating in secret. They can be as small as a family and can be based on any type of ideology–political, racist, spiritual, business, or other. 

If it’s not religion or size that defines cults, then what does? 

The International Cultic Studies Association defines a cult as “an ideological organization held together by charismatic relations and demanding total commitment.” 

As this definition shows, what a cult believes isn’t as important as how it structures itself around its beliefs.

What differentiates a cult from a regular ol’ group is that, in a cult, what holds the group members together is their commitment to the cult’s beliefs.  Their commitment is so strong that it takes over their entire life.  And, at the center is a charismatic leader controlling it all.

Does this sound familiar?

Research has demonstrated similarities between cults and high-control abusive situations (Zieman, 2017; Lalich & Tobias 2006).  Cult experts who have identified these similarities call high-control relationships (such as those with narcissists) micro-cults, cults of personality, one-over-one cults, or cults of two.

Unfortunately, almost none of that research has made its way over to narcissistic abuse survivors and those who love, treat, and support them.

The Cult Leader as Narcissistic Abuser

A similar pattern emerges to explain why people enter both cults and relationships with narcissists.  Once in them, the pattern persists in demonstrating how the group’s dynamic, whether it is many people or two people, keeps the victim there.  

The dynamic begins with deception, a “message” communicated to a targeted victim by a person who is very good at deceiving people.

The victim is love-bombed into falling in love themselves with that message and with what’s possible. [See The Ultimate Narcissistic Abuse Dictionary to review unfamiliar terms]

It hasn’t escaped some researchers that cult leaders look like abusers. In an article about how women in cults are treated, Alexandra Stein (2018) makes the explicit comparison:

“Cult leaders…engage in many of the same tactics of control as one sees in domestic violence cases. The leader slowly gains control of every element of a woman’s life and cuts off her close relationships, portraying him or herself as the sole remaining figure to whom the woman should turn; this frightening abuser confusingly becomes the apparent ‘safe haven.’ This results in a ‘trauma bond’ through which everything outside of the group and the relationship with the leader feels threatening, and the woman is no longer able to think clearly about her own survival needs. But, when it is the leader and the group that is the real threat, it creates a dangerous situation in which a woman can no longer trust her own feelings and perceptions.”

Note that there is nothing to indicate that this dynamic doesn’t also function the same way for any relationship or group, regardless of the genders of those involved.

Similarities Between Cults and Love with a Narcissist

The deceiver very slowly isolates the victim from anyone who can tell him or her later how awful the abuser is–or has turned those people against the victim.

The victim may do things the abuser doesn’t like but which are normal under the circumstances, such as say, “Hey, this doesn’t seem like what I got myself into.”

In response, the abuser withdraws love, telling the victim it’s something they’ve done that’s causing the problem and dangling the promised ideal just out of reach.

A barrage of brutal abuses, control techniques, and emotion management then rains down on the victim, and if they fall in line and give just a little more, it stops. 

The more the victims give up, the further away they dissociate from themselves. They lose track of how they got there. Abusers tell them it’s their fault. If they fight back or question it, the punishment gets worse.

I reviewed lists of cult characteristics by the following experts and organizations on cults and mind control: The International Cultic Studies Association, the Cult Information Centre, Rod and Linda Marshall-Dubrow, Steve Eichel, Steve Hassan, Margaret A. Singer, and Robert Jay Lifton.  

The similarities between cults and being in love with a narcissist fall into three basic categories: 

• the people involved
• the features of the group or relationship
• the effects on the victim or aftermath once leaving the cult or relationship

This table demonstrates the major similarities falling into each of the three categories.

Okay, so now that we’re clear there are similarities between the two, now what?

Being in Love with a Narcissist is Misunderstood

The parents of the girl living in one of R. Kelly’s homes explicitly mentioned that they wanted to get her treatment for “cult indoctrination.” 

They recognized that their daughter had undergone an identity change, that she wasn’t behaving like herself.  She wasn’t acting in her own best interest, even though it appeared as if she had free will.

She did not, however, have free will in the way that we usually think of it.  The key to understanding both destructive cults and relationships with narcissists is “mind control.”  

Cult expert Ian Haworth says the mind control in a cult can happen in a period of days when a victim is broken down physically and mentally, “so as to become highly vulnerable to the suggestions and wishes of the group and its leader… The end result is a sudden, drastic personality change in the individual… The new personality is unable to reason, to choose, to critically evaluate, and is dependent on the cult to interpret reality and his reason for living. Having lost the freedom of choice, cultists will do what they are ordered and programmed to do by the leader… Such a group intends to control and keep its members for life or until the victims cease to be of value to the leader.”

Even though the girl had entered a romantic relationship with Kelly, this was not just an ordinary emotionally abusive environment.  Even her parents understood that she was, essentially, in a destructive cult situation.  

Framing the situation strictly as an abusive and exploitative relationship was not enough. There is no framework for dealing with indoctrination and mind control within the context of romantic or interpersonal relationships. 

Narcissistic Abuser Survivors Need Deprogramming

As narcissistic abuse survivors, we know better than anyone that we endure something psychologically that’s difficult to explain to anyone else. Our sense of reality is shaken, and we feel as if we lose a part of ourselves.

What we are actually feeling or describing is the effect of indoctrination. 

However, severe psychological manipulation that reaches the level of indoctrination in abusive relationships is mostly ignored.  This special type of psychological damage, if left untreated, may keep us from integrating back into our lives indefinitely once the relationship ends. 

Yet, no specific treatment for it even exists. 

We have a lot we can learn from cult abuse recovery experts.  We don’t have to give up any other type of treatment that we might desire or receive because we experienced indoctrination in a pathological love relationship. 

However, by adopting the idea that our relationships meet the criteria of a cult, we can be sure that the special harm we experienced due to the psychological manipulation will not be ignored.

Narcissistic abuse survivors need deprogramming too. 

Join the community to get more articles like this one delivered straight to your inbox. 

If you like this article, you’d also enjoy these:

• 11 Things You Might Do Before Going No-Contact and Meaning It
• How Narcissists Use Cognitive Dissonance to Control Us
• Narcissist Gaslighting Examples in Relationships
• What a Narcissist Says About Breakups: They Never Let You Go
• 6 Things that Explain Narcissistic Abuse in Relationships 

Sources

DeRogatis, J. (2019, January 6). Inside the Pied Piper of R. Kelly’s “Cult”. Retrieved January 27, 2019, from https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jimderogatis/parents-told-police-r-kelly-is-keeping-women-in-a-cult

International Cultic Studies Association. (n.d.). What Is a Cult. Retrieved January 27, 2019, from https://www.icsahome.com/articles/what-is-a-cult

Lalich, J. & Tobias, M. (2006). Take Back Your Life: Recovering From Cults and Abusive Relationships. Berkeley, CA: Bay Tree Publishing.

LaRosa, P. (2018, February 25). How to identify a cult: Six tips from an expert. Retrieved January 27, 2019, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-to-identify-a-cult-six-expert-tips/

Singer, M. T. (n.d.). Post-Cult After Effects. Retrieved January 27, 2019, from https://www.icsahome.com/articles/post-cult-after-effects-singer

Stein, A. (n.d.). Cult/Totalist Recruitment Warning Signs. Retrieved January 27, 2019, from http://www.alexandrastein.com/warning-signs.html

Stein, A. (2018, April 2). Cults are terrifying. But they’re even worse for women. Retrieved January 27, 2019, from https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/cults-are-terrifying-they-re-even-worse-women-ncna862051

Zieman, B. (2017). Cracking the Cult Code for Therapists: What Every Cult Victim Wants Their Therapist to Know. North Charleston, South Carolina: Createspace.

The post If You’re in Love with a Narcissist, You’re in a Cult appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

Yes and no. 

As survivors, we seek out narcissistic tests for two reasons.

Either we have a desperate need to know whether someone in our life is a narcissist, or we are worried that we are the narcissistic ones–a seed often planted by repeated interactions with a narcissistic person who casts our normal reactions to their outrageous behavior as irrational and our human needs as self-absorbed. 

The concept of a narcissistic test feels like a “magic bullet.” Rack up the correct number of points or say “yes” to the right number of items, and our lives can make sense again.

What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

Before we look at how it’s measured, let’s take a brief look at how it’s understood. 

Most psychologists believe that narcissism is a spectrum and that psychologically healthy people have a moderate level of narcissism that enables them to function appropriately (Malkin, 2015). 

Pathological narcissism, however, is a personality disorder–Narcissistic Personality Disorder, or NPD.  A personality disorder characterizes someone’s behavior across all domains of a person’s life and across a long period of time. It’s not situational. For example, it’s not caused by drugs or alcohol or due to a difficult circumstance or unusual hardship. It’s a way of life. 

Often, someone with NPD is just referred to as a narcissist. If you’re reading this, you likely already know that.  But there are many different types and subtypes of narcissists, and some are easier to spot than others.

Regardless of the type, narcissists are obsessed with grandiose fantasies of success and power and look to others to validate them. 

There are nine criteria for diagnosing narcissism in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (2013) and because there are three main types, only five are needed for a diagnosis.

The nine criteria include:

• A grandiose sense of self-importance

• A preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

• belief that he or she is special and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people or institutions

• A need for excessive admiration

• A sense of entitlement

• Interpersonally exploitive behavior

• A lack of empathy

• Envy of others or a belief that others are envious of him or her

• A demonstration of arrogant and haughty behaviors or attitudes

Some of these traits are more harmful than others.

How Psychologists Test for Narcissism

Some of these traits are more harmful than others. 

The Narcissistic Personality Inventory or NPI (Raskin and Hall, 1979) is one of the most popular tests for measuring narcissism. It suggests that the nine criteria actually measure three different dimensions: Leadership/Authority, Grandiose Exhibitionism, and Entitlement/Exploitativeness.

For survivors of narcissistic abuse, it is the latter category of traits that we are most likely to care about because it is these traits that have led someone in our lives to cause us so much harm. 

So let’s take a look at the test.

It consists of forty pairs of statements. The test-taker is supposed to select the statement that he or she most identifies with. If he or she most identifies with both, then the one which is most important should be selected. (I don’t know what you do if you don’t identify with either!)

Here are the statements:

I have a natural talent for influencing people.
I am not good at influencing people.

Modesty doesn’t become me.
I am essentially a modest person.

I would do almost anything on a dare.
I tend to be a fairly cautious person.

When people compliment me I sometimes get embarrassed.
I know that I am good because everybody keeps telling me so.

The thought of ruling the world frightens the hell out of me.
If I ruled the world it would be a better place.

I can usually talk my way out of anything.
I try to accept the consequences of my behavior.

I prefer to blend in with the crowd.
I like to be the center of attention.

I will be a success.
I am not too concerned about success.

I am no better or worse than most people.
I think I am a special person.

I am not sure if I would make a good leader.
I see myself as a good leader.

I am assertive.
I wish I were more assertive.

I like to have authority over other people.
I don’t mind following orders.

I find it easy to manipulate people.
I don’t like it when I find myself manipulating people.

I insist upon getting the respect that is due me.
I usually get the respect that I deserve.

I don’t particularly like to show off my body.
I like to show off my body.

I can read people like a book.
People are sometimes hard to understand.

If I feel competent I am willing to take responsibility for making decisions.
I like to take responsibility for making decisions.

I just want to be reasonably happy.
I want to amount to something in the eyes of the world.

My body is nothing special.
I like to look at my body.

I try not to be a show off.
I will usually show off if I get the chance.

I always know what I am doing.
Sometimes I am not sure of what I am doing.

I sometimes depend on people to get things done.
I rarely depend on anyone else to get things done.

Sometimes I tell good stories.
Everybody likes to hear my stories.

I expect a great deal from other people.
I like to do things for other people.

I will never be satisfied until I get all that I deserve.
I take my satisfactions as they come.

Compliments embarrass me.
I like to be complimented.

I have a strong will to power.
Power for its own sake doesn’t interest me.

I don’t care about new fads and fashions.
I like to start new fads and fashions.

I like to look at myself in the mirror.
I am not particularly interested in looking at myself in the mirror.

I really like to be the center of attention.
It makes me uncomfortable to be the center of attention.

I can live my life in any way I want to.
People can’t always live their lives in terms of what they want.

Being an authority doesn’t mean that much to me.
People always seem to recognize my authority.

I would prefer to be a leader.
It makes little difference to me whether I am a leader or not.

I am going to be a great person.
I hope I am going to be successful.

People sometimes believe what I tell them.
I can make anybody believe anything I want them to.

I am a born leader.
Leadership is a quality that takes a long time to develop.

I wish somebody would someday write my biography.
I don’t like people to pry into my life for any reason.

I get upset when people don’t notice how I look when I go out in public.
I don’t mind blending into the crowd when I go out in public.

I am more capable than other people.
There is a lot that I can learn from other people.

I am much like everybody else.
I am an extraordinary person.

According to PsychCentral (2019) the average person scores between 12 and 15, celebrities score closer to 18, and narcissists score over 20.

Now, beautiful survivor, as you were reading this… did you see the issue with our primary interest in the test?

If you were trying to determine whether there is a narcissist in your life, the test isn’t going to be much help.

We could only answer as if we knew what the narcissist was thinking, but that’s always been the problem, hasn’t it? We’ve never known for sure what the narcissist is thinking, because they present so many different sides to us and their behavior doesn’t make any sense.

Is Your Partner a Narcissist?

Perhaps you were seeking out a test because you were curious to know if you were the narcissist.

Narcissists play mind games with us to make us believe that somehow we are the problem, or that the things we’ve done in reaction to their abuse is equivalent.

If you were wondering if they were right–if you, were, in fact the problem, I’d bet that if you’re reading this, the answer is no. 

But the real question at hand is–is your partner a narcissist?

The answer cannot be found in a test such as this, because the answer is already right in front of you.

It’s been stolen from you.

It’s your intuition and it’s telling you everything you need to know.

Sources

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition

Raskin, R.; Terry, H. (1988). “A principal-components analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and further evidence of its construct validity”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 54(5), 890-902.

Research Team, P. (2019). Narcissistic Personality Quiz. Psych Central. Retrieved on November 4, 2019, from https://psychcentral.com/quizzes/narcissistic-personality-quiz/

The post The Narcissist Test: A Quest for Answers appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

For example, if we could just explain to the narcissist how his or her behavior is hurting us, then perhaps they would stop. 

Things never align. We never reach the elusive place where they are fulfilling our psychological relationship needs in a way that each member of a normal couple does for one another. Instead, we find ourselves becoming weaker and more exhausted trying to do things that are beyond the bounds of what we should be expected to give.

It’s a merry-go-round we either ride until we’re sick or that we finally stumble off of when we realize it will never stop on its own.

Understanding why these are the only two options is the secret to saving ourselves. 

Why Going No Contact is So Hard

The idealize-devalue-discard model for explaining narcissistic abuse is valuable for understanding the three different primary ways that the narcissist treats us throughout the relationship.

First, we are put on a pedestal and viewed as the love of the narcissist’s life. Then, we are denigrated as if worthless and subjected to some of the cruelest treatment we have ever endured. Finally, we are thrown away and ignored as if we never existed. The cycle repeats.

But why do these three stages occur? Why would anyone idealize then devalue that same person and then why would the person who is idealized and then devalued and discarded not exit the cycle immediately?

This is the trap we can get caught in.  A deeper understanding of the dynamics of the relationship based on the narcissist’s disordered view and subsequent actions which then result in the partner’s reactions helps to show:

1. How the narcissist guides the relationship toward dysfunction, and
2. That the partner cannot do anything that results in a different outcome because everything that the partner does is filtered back through the narcissist’s dysfunctional lens.

As a result, the partner slowly becomes dysfunctional as well in order to exist within the confines of the relationship. Healing and a restoration to healthy ways of interacting in the world can only be possible when the relationship ends.

Yet, while in the relationship, it can feel impossible to break away and go no contact.

What would an expanded cycle of narcissistic abuse look like?  Something like this:

The Expanded Narcissistic Cycle of Abuse

Stage 1. The Narcissist Love-Bombs the Partner

This is the first stage in the cycle in any relationship with a narcissist, previously noted as the idealization stage. As the narcissist idealizes the partner, both experience an emotional high that chemically simulates cocaine when certain neurotransmitters are released in the brain.

The narcissist puts the target on a pedestal and, when doing so, begins to mirror both the physical actions and personal likes and dislikes of the partner. The narcissist creates an emotional “safe space” of utter acceptance that induces positive feelings of love, trust, and vulnerability.

It is a reflection of all that the partner wants to hear and see, based upon what the narcissist has learned of the partner’s identity and background. There is fast “familiarity” and “future-orientation” in the relationship, accompanied by grandiose statements about destiny or a once-in-a-lifetime connection.

For narcissists, this time of idealization is what they crave most, as it is when they receive the purest form of their own idealized view of themselves reflected back to them from their new partners. The more perfectly they reflect back what the partner wants to see, the better the narcissistic supply they will receive.

This is the stage that draws us into the cycle in the first place, thus, in the graphic, it is the entry point. It also establishes itself as set apart from all of the other stages, as once the partner is hooked into the cycle through this stage, it will fade away and only glimpses of that side of the narcissist will ever be seen again.

Stage 2. The Partner Inevitably “Disappoints” the Narcissist

The idealization stage may last weeks, months or even a year or longer, but it cannot be maintained because it is built on illusions about who the narcissist truly is, and because it is not supported by the principles that must comprise a healthy relationship, such as mutual trust, honesty, and commitment. The narcissist has manufactured a false persona that doesn’t truly exist.

There are many things that can begin to alter the way the narcissist interacts with the partner:

• The narcissist becomes bored with the relationship or partner as the problems of the real world start to interfere. For example, the partner comes to him or her with real world problems and the narcissist doesn’t want to deal with those. When the real world pierces through the idealized one, the narcissist starts to feel life sliding into mediocrity. He or she can no longer keep the emptiness and sense of worthlessness at bay and, in addition, becomes irritated that he or she has to focus on someone else or someone else’s problems.

• The narcissist is keeping secret lives and it’s starting to cause a strain on the relationship in one way or another. Narcissists have a sense of entitlement about having two sets of rules about their extracurricular activities, such as lying and cheating, but this can result in two things. First, the narcissist never truly trusts his or her partner because he or she projects all of the secret behavior onto the partner. As a result, the narcissist tries to control him or her, causing unnecessary strain on the relationship. Second, the partner’s intuition may tell him or her that something is off, and the narcissist may begin to gaslight him or her. Either of these things may lead the narcissist to become irritated with the partner, despite the narcissist being the one to engage in the betrayals.

• The narcissist starts to see flaws in the partner. These flaws can range from choosing a night out with friends or engaging in hobbies to saying no, to not letting go of asking questions about suspicious behavior, to merely holding a different opinion. When the partner does not make the narcissist the center of attention, the narcissist feels offended.

• The narcissist begins to feel threatened by the partner’s autonomy. Narcissists like to know what the partners are doing at all times. They don’t like to be “outshined,” even if they also look good by association. Furthermore, they can be threatened by a partner’s independence or by a partner knowing more about a subject or having more of something than the narcissist does.  This might mean that the partner will abandon or reject the narcissist, and narcissists need to feel in control at all times.

What’s interesting is that narcissists do not see any of these things as problematic because of their own perceptions or as a result of their own actions. To them, these things are all problematic because the partner will not do or stop doing something.

The issue, for the narcissist, is that the partner is “disappointing” the narcissist by not living up to his or her generally excessive and inappropriate expectations and so the narcissist feels resentful and unappreciated:

“Look at all this effort I put in to give her everything she wanted. This is the thanks I get. She doesn’t even know how lucky she is.”

Stage 3.  Narcissistic Injury Occurs.

The narcissist feels disrespected and slighted by the partner’s lack of acknowledgment of the surface-level actions he or she shows– the kind words, the trips, the sex, the gifts, the promises. What the partner has been providing all along is no longer good enough because the narcissist demands that the real world stay suspended forever and the partner forever keep him or her at the center (while he or she does whatever they want in secret).

This is where we usually hear phrases such as:

“Nothing I do is ever good enough for you.”

“If you loved me, you’d do [x].”

“All you want to do is argue.”

“I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“You always have to bring up [x] and ruin everything.”

“You’d better call me back in five minutes or it’s over.”

Meanwhile, the partner is completely baffled about what is happening. Where is the person they fell in love with?  Why is the narcissist so angry?  Statements like these from the narcissist come from a place of entitlement and trying to maintain control.

Stage 4. The Narcissist Devalues the Partner.

At this point is when the verbal abuse begins. The narcissist might start to denigrate the partner for the “disappointments,” for not meeting his or her high expectations. They usually verbally abuse and humiliate the partner, even on qualities they once praised.

The narcissist is reminded or his or her own fears and insecurities when partners do not conform to expectations or cannot be controlled. This incites narcissistic rage and so they lash out at the partner in revenge.

They feel wounded by what they perceive as the partner not “playing along” and seek to take back what the things they gave when morphing into the “perfect partner,” so try to tear down the very ways in which they built the partner up.

Narcissists suffer from something called “object constancy.” If you’re not with them, you’re against them. If you have caused them a narcissistic injury, they see your actions as intentional attempts to disrespect them. Once you are placed into the “bad” category, you are viewed as the enemy.

Their devaluations of you are viewed as justified and, because they also have low empathy, there are almost no limits to what they are willing to do to hurt you. They will employ the “nuclear option” to destroy you and discredit whatever it was you did that caused them the narcissistic injury.

Stage 5. The Partner Confronts the Narcissist Over Being Devalued.

The partner will be crushed but also completely baffled by what is now taking place for several reasons.

First, the extreme devaluation by the narcissist will be at complete odds with the soulmate persona that was portrayed at the beginning of the relationship.

Second, the partner will be blindsided by it. It will seem illogical, and the partner will not be able to figure out what caused such an extreme reaction.

Finally, once the narcissist cools off, he or she may pretend as if the incident of devaluation never happened or was no big deal.  The narcissist may have diffused the narcissistic injury through the harmful abusive behavior or engaging in other behavior in secret, and now that the damage is under control, there is no motivation to act.  The balance has been restored for the narcissist and everything feels normal again– to the narcissist.

To the partner, however, nothing feels normal. Hurt and confused, he or she confronts the narcissist to get an explanation that will make this behavior make sense.

Stage 6. The Narcissist’s Defense Mechanisms Kick In.

This is where the narcissist will begin to engage in a variety of verbal tactics to deflect, project, gaslight, blameshift, and even stonewall.

You’re too sensitive.

That’s not what I said. You heard me wrong.

Well, what about that time you said [something unrelated]? 

I have been really stressed out. I’m sorry– it won’t happen again.

Can’t we leave this in the past? I told you I’d never do it again. If you can’t stop talking about it, I’m leaving.

This is all part of the word salad that narcissists use in circular conversations that minimize partner’s pain, avoid taking responsibility and keep their abuse and the real nature of the relationship hidden.

What narcissists cannot accept is that they are wrong or and even to hear that they have harmed their partners is to feel criticized by them. It sparks feelings of weakness and shame to hear from them that they have done something that is less than perfect and are the source of why partners now are not providing them with the narcissistic supply they crave.

Stage 7. The Partner Tries to Hold the Relationship Together While Maintaining His or Her Self-Respect and Autonomy.

The path that the relationship has taken to this point defies logic, and so as the narcissist offers excuses and explanations, at this point, the partner will likely accept them to resolve cognitive dissonance. Otherwise, we have to accept that there is something wrong with the person with whom we have been interacting.

There are two possible choices based on what we have experienced in the relationship:

• The person we are with is disordered, as evidenced by the things about our actions that seem to upset him or her, and the fact that he or she can seem to switch love on and off like a light switch and willingly inflict devastating destruction on us.  OR
• There is a misunderstanding and the excuses that come out of the narcissist’s mouth are genuine; if we can just do the right things, all of the “bad times” will stop and things can be as they were in the beginning.

This is the stage where partners begin to unknowingly be drawn into and buy into the narcissist’s distorted reality. Once reaching this stage, partners begin to lose touch with their own intuition and judgment.

Stages #2-7 form a mini-cycle within this larger cycle. Within this mini-cycle, the narcissist becomes completely disillusioned with the partner as the partner continues to “disappoint” the narcissist with normal human behavior. Meanwhile, the partner becomes baffled about what happened to the wonderful person they met at the beginning of the relationship. 

This mini-cycle may repeat for some time until the narcissist’s cruelty progresses.

Stage 8. The Narcissist Gives a Silent Treatment or Discards the Partner

At this point, the partner has generally become very traumatized by the emotional and psychological abuse perpetrated by the narcissist.  Without realizing it, he or she has been slowly pulled into the narcissist’s reality, which is extremely volatile and unhealthy for the partner and his or her “fight or flight” mode may now be triggered.

Some of the ways it may manifest itself are withdrawing emotionally out of fear of having to walk on eggshells (flight); anxiety over the consistent feeling that something is off so asking questions when something doesn’t add up to avoid being hurt again by another betrayal (fight); feeling so hurt and broken-hearted over what has happened, that depression sets in (flight); reacting or trying to stand up for oneself when provoked by further devaluation (fight).

The narcissist is disgusted with the partner’s behavior, whether it comes from the “fight” mode or the “flight” mode. To the narcissist, the partner is either combative, abusive and jealous, or crazy and never satisfied, or is self-absorbed and inattentive.

The narcissist views the partner as the cause of the issues because he or she lacks the insight to understand and accept how his or her perceptions of the partner’s normal human reactions have resulted in this pattern, and also how his or her reactions to it are unacceptable.

To avoid having to confront the totality of what he or she has done, the narcissist will give a silent treatment or even discard the partner and disappear at this stage for days or weeks at a time– or even longer.

Stage 9. The Partner Suffers Crippling Pain, Doubt, and Confusion

The entire relationship to this point has been held in place by the dominance and control of the narcissist through hundreds or thousands of instances of emotional and psychological (and sometimes physical or sexual) abuse.

The emotional and psychological abuse tactics are important because it is these tactics that were invisible and that eroded the partner’s sense of self. The partner has at least partially adopted the narcissist’s points of view, which range from:

• the partner is too sensitive
• the partner has caused or magnified the issues in this relationship
• the relationship is special and it provides benefits to the partner that he or she doesn’t want to lose, such as the connection that the narcissist established with him or her at the beginning of the relationship

In contrast, the harmful ideas that have been downplayed, ignored and hidden through the emotional and psychological abuse are:

• the narcissist’s view of the partner is fluctuating between extremes (which is not normal) and the fluctuation itself does not represent love but control
• the narcissist is trying to suppress and deny the partner’s lived experience of the relationship as painful and confusing
• the partner has been enduring and then reacting to the narcissist from a position of extreme volatility and abuse

During the silent treatments, the partner will suffer tremendously as his or her reality has been warped through the manipulation of events– the narcissist putting on a show of being a loving person with surface-level actions and promises but without the commitment and support underlying such a relationship. Further, the narcissist does not take responsibility for the harmful behaviors that undermine the soulmate facade that he or she has conveyed.

The partner will likely feel panicked that the narcissist is gone, after having taken on the view of the narcissist, which has instilled doubt in his or her own intuition and judgment. He or she will likely miss the narcissist and wish for another chance to try to “get things right” so that everything will only go back to the way it once was, the way it was during Stage #1. 

The partner may be hurt by what the narcissist has done and may believe there is still some way to reconcile the narcissist’s hurtful actions with the dream that the narcissist has fed him or her if only he or she would stop talking about them– as if talking about them is the problem, and not the fact that the narcissist acted hurtfully.

Stage 10.  The Narcissist Hoovers.

The partner is extremely vulnerable to being drawn back into the relationship. Even if the partner doesn’t reach out to the narcissist, whether for answers or any other reason, the narcissist will likely reach out to the partner in hoovering attempts. [Read Signs the Narcissist You Know is Hoovering You]

The narcissist hoovers once he or she feels that the partner is conciliatory enough in some way to accept that it is the narcissist who is the true victim or that the narcissist will not have to work very hard to gain back control over the partner.

The partner will “forgive” the narcissist and stop asking questions or look the other way. The partner will apologize for being too “needy” or “jealous” or for lashing out in response to being repeatedly devalued or baited (the narcissist’s context of abusive control is conveniently ignored).

The narcissist may apologize too and promise change in an attempt to hoover if necessary, but the acknowledgment of the wrongs done will lack insight and any explanations and excuses will be shallow and unsatisfying. The narcissist will not be able to offer explanations for what they have done that make sense. They will promise not to do it again (whatever it is), but nothing changes.

On the surface, things may be good again for the moment, but underneath, the foundation is still rotten. All the partner wants is for the confusion and pain to stop, and so it does– for a price.

Stage 11. The Relationship is Restored But the Partner is Conditioned to Expect Abusive Treatment.

The purpose of the silent treatment and discarding is to teach the partner a lesson:  if you behave this way (“if you don’t do as I want you to do”), I will shut you out of my life. Furthermore, the narcissist will often try to crush the partner in the most devastating way possible as they do it.

The things that happen that get partners shut out of the narcissist’s life, however, are normal human behaviors and expectations within relationships.  Those actions may include the freedom to engage in self-autonomic behaviors such as enjoying evenings with friends without being monitored or speaking up and reacting to abusive comments or behaviors in kind after months or years of being subjected to an abusive environment.

The expectations may include being heard and validated when one has been violated and betrayed– or to not be violated in the first place.

The narcissist views the partner’s actions as problematic simply because they inconvenience or illicit negative feelings in the narcissist and the narcissist does not put himself or herself in the shoes of the partner to see, first, how those actions and expectations are reasonable, and second, how someone having reasonable expectations is not an affront to another person– that two people co-existing is not a zero-sum game.

And so the cycle continues and Stage #2 starts again. The partner gives up more and more rent in his or her head while the narcissist behaves more and more erratically, getting away with more and more.

The longer a partner stays, the more emotional trauma is inflicted, and the harder it can be to get away as the identity erosion occurs, learned helplessness sets in, and the partner forms a trauma bond with the narcissist or develops Stockholm Syndrome.

Stage 12. The Partner Goes No-Contact with the Narcissist.

At some point, the partner must make a decision to go no-contact with the narcissist in order for the relationship to ever truly come to an end.

This happens when the partner recognizes the abusive pattern for what it is and understands the cycle in which he or she is caught up. No-contact is something that must be initiated psychologically by the partner, regardless of the status of physical contact between the two.

It means that the partner recognizes the true harmful nature of the relationship and that the narcissist will never change.

The partner makes the intentional choice to cut the narcissist from his or her life forever, and block all methods of contact.

The End of the Relationship and Going No Contact

If you decide to do everything the narcissist wants and subsume your identity and well-being for that of the relationship and the narcissist, would that create a happily-ever-after?

Here are some reasons why it would not.

• Everything you do might be interpreted as a threat even unintentionally and there’s no way to predict or prepare for what might set off a narcissist.
• Nothing you do will ever be quite good enough; the goalposts move dependent on the narcissist’s moods and whims. In addition, if they are feeling fragile because of something someone else did, they may take it out on you and suddenly, what you’re doing isn’t even satisfactory anymore.
• They always suspect you of being unfaithful and doing whatever they are doing. You’ll be constantly caught up in it, anxiously either trying to confine your life so that they aren’t suspicious or convince them they are wrong. Yet you’ll never be able to prove to their satisfaction that you aren’t doing the things they accuse you of.
• It’s hard to stay open and loving to someone who intermittently hurts you and blatantly cheats on you or is cruel to you in other ways. Your withdrawal, depression, anxiety, learned helplessness or other results of trauma are all offensive to narcissists because they remove your focus from them. They will view you as self-absorbed and selfish when your attention is not solely focused on them, and are unempathetic to your emotional needs for any extended period of time.

In other words, there is no pleasing a narcissist.

Stages #2-11 keep us confused about the outcome for as long as possible using Stage #1 as the elusive future that never arrives.

At some point, when it becomes more painful to be in the relationship than to leave it, we come to the devastating realization that the only way to break the cycle is to exit it by moving to Stage #12, go no contact, and beginning the road to recovery.

Assistance with Recovering from a Breakup with a Narcissist

I’m always on the lookout for new and high-quality resources for survivors. Are you struggling with how to leave your narcissist partner?  This course on the five steps you can take to exit can help. Are you having trouble recovering from the relationship even after it’s over? Try enrolling in this Webinar on getting started with your recovery so you can start to get off the emotional roller coaster or this one on using EFT Tapping to break the addiction to the narcissist. Lovefraud webinars on relationship abuse are presented by experts but also from the perspective of experience. Almost every instructor learned about the behavior of sociopaths in relationships the hard way. They’re affordable and offer practical information you can start using immediately. If you decide to try one, send me an email and let me know how it went!

The post The Real Narcissistic Abuse Cycle: Why You Can’t Go No Contact appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

When bachelorette Hannah Brown said those words to Luke Parker on the ABC series The Bachelorette this season, we knew things were flying off the rails. But it was what he said in response that warned us this wasn’t just the usual reality show drama–the relationship was heading into dangerous territory.  

In the episode, Hannah had recently been on a date with one of the other men on the show in Riga, Latvia, during which the two of them had gone bungee jumping naked. When Luke heard about the date, he couldn’t contain his jealousy and pulled her aside.

He called her actions a “slap in the face,” and said, “Your body is a temple and I’m just thinking of you holding him bare-skinned and I’m just thinking in my mind, it really pissed me off and it really frustrated me.” He went on to talk about what had happened as “a mistake” and insisting that she’d “slipped up” and he would forgive her for it 

But then, when she balked at the judgment and control he was exhibiting, he backtracked, saying that she misunderstood him, that he wasn’t “judging her character.” He became increasingly calm, apologetic and loving in an attempt to soothe her, and meanwhile she became confused about what had just taken place.   

Watch here:  https://abc.go.com/shows/the-bachelorette/video/vdka10699752

It’s called gaslighting, a key component of narcissistic abuse. 

But this wasn’t the only sign of narcissistic abuse Luke has exhibited this season.

What is Narcissistic Abuse?

Bree Bonchay, a trauma therapists who specializes in helping people recover from toxic relationships, estimates that narcissistic abuse affects over 158 million people in the United States alone (Bonchay, 2018).

But what is it exactly?

Narcissistic abuse is a type of emotional abuse characterized by bombarding the victim with three forms of abusive behavior until it changes him or her psychologically and allows the abuser to be in control–often without the victim realizing it (“Narcissistic Abuse is a Dangerous Cocktail of Three Types of Emotional Abuse”).

The three forms of abusive behavior include deception, authority/domination, and cognitive manipulation.

The abuser deceives the victim by hiding his or her true self and intentions behind a barrage of says all the right things to get the victim to fall in love, grooming him or her and using a method called “lovebombing” to increase vulnerability and trust.

The abuser also tries to dominate the victim by presenting himself or herself as all-knowing or powerful or resourceful in significant ways that the victim is not. The abuser may exhibit this authority very slowly but over time, the effect is that the victim becomes isolated, feels inferior, and becomes dependent on the abuser.

Finally, the abuser uses cognitive manipulation to convince the victim that no abuse is taking place, or that the abuser is the one being harmed by the victim’s actions. For example, if the victim stands up for himself or herself and refuses to be dominated, the abuser uses manipulative psychological and verbal tactics to convince the victim that he or she is the real bully or that any conflict in the relationship is the victim’s fault. 

Narcissistic abusers tends to follow a four-stage cycle with partners in relationships of idealize-devalue-discard-hoover. The narcissistic abuse dictionary states:

“Considered the cycle of abuse in narcissistic relationships, in the idealization at the beginning of the relationship, the narcissist puts his or her partner on a pedestal and showers them with excessive praise and attention. At some point, the narcissist will begin to see his or her partner as flawed or even grow bored and the devaluation begins. Many tactics characterize this phase, such as verbal abuse, withholding, humiliation, and smearing. Finally, when the narcissist no longer sees any value in the partner, perhaps if the partner has reacted in a way that the narcissist perceives negatively, such as demanding respect, the narcissist may discard the partner. The cycle often repeats many times before the relationship ends.”

The cycle repeats itself because after a discard, narcissists hoover partners back into entanglements with them using a variety of methods. 

Narcissistic abuse is a form of romantic con artistry designed to confuse and exploit. The victim loses any sense of objective reality, especially if the abuser is effective at isolating the victim from outside support, and the abuser can completely control the victim using these three methods effectively. 

Narcissistic Abuse on The Bachelorette

Sometimes, we read or hear about a case of what we could categorize as narcissistic abuse in a news story or a documentary, such as Dirty John: The Dirty Truth. This season of The Bachelorette has given us a rare opportunity to observe narcissistic abuse unfolding over the course of a relationship, because it is broadcast weekly. 

It provides a unique learning opportunity by demonstrating some of the key tactics of narcissistic abusers in a mainstream, popular series. Here are some of the primary features on a relationship characterized by this type of a abuse as observed in the series this season.

If we follow the trajectory of what he did all season, we can understand how narcissistic abuse works to keep men and women in relationships so long with abusers. Note how closely these tactics and effects weave together to form a tight web for victims who are emotionally involved in closer and slowly draws the shade on the abuse, drowning out the danger.

Targeting by the Abuser

In retrospect, on the “Men Tell All” episode when most of the cast was brought back to discuss their time on the show, Luke said he would not have gone on the show if Hannah had not been the bachelorette. He had seen her previously on The Bachelor and was attracted to her religious faith.

Because of his behavior, Chris Harrison, the host of the show, had told Hannah in an earlier episode that Luke had it in his head that she was “the one.” Luke repeated this himself on more than one occasion.

In the “Men Tell All” episode Hannah explained their connection by saying that she immediately began to feel special because she knew he was there for her while she had concerns about the other guys and whether they were there for the right reasons.

She also said that she felt unsure about being the bachelorette at first and whether she would be a let down to the men on the show, but that Luke put those fears to rest: 

“I would never try to say that the feelings I had for him weren’t real…but I think a lot of that came from being insecure about being the Bachelorette in the first place…Ultimately I’m really glad that that relationship is behind me, and that I can move forward and I learned a lot from the experiences I went through. I deserved so much more than what I put up with.”

When Luke was able to sweep in and reassure her, it reduced her fears and insecurities and she became deeply attached to him, which made it difficult for her to see and understand the underlying issues once the red flags began to appear.

Idealization and Lovebombing

As noted, the first stage of the narcissistic abuse cycle is “idealization.” Luke explicitly stated in the “Men Tell All” episode that he had projected his idea of a “perfect woman” onto Hannah.

He was the first of the men to tell Hannah that he was falling in love with her.  It was early. Very early. In fact, it was after spending less than 24 hours with her.

Not long afterward, he began to show signs of possessiveness and treat her as if it was a sure thing that she would select him in the end. He told the host, Chris Harrison, that he thought she needed “to be rescued” from the other men on the show.

Overly Controlling/Excessive Jealousy

Luke seemed to become almost obsessed with what Hannah did with the other men on the show. Hannah told him he was making things about sex that weren’t sexual, and mentioned outside the show that her faith was “weaponized.” 

Luke was unable to accept that the show was about her relationships with all of the men.  He said during the “Men Tell All” episode that he thought she would call off the whole show to be with him.

On this episode, after one of the other men told him he wanted a woman he could control, the host prodded him to answer whether or not that was true. After a long silence, Luke replied that he would never seek to control a woman, but that it was a man’s job to guide a woman.

Gaslighting

Despite his constant questioning her about her intentions with the other men on the show and his judgmental comments, Luke used a tactic called “gaslighting” to tell her that wasn’t what had happened every time the conversations took place.

Luke frequently gaslighted others on the show by saying or doing one thing, and then claiming it wasn’t what he said or meant. He would then accuse the person of twisting his words, as in the example of Hannah’s naked bungee jumping date.

Here’s one example how it works:

• State your claim, ask your question, or perform your act
• The other person states how it makes them feel or answers in an oppositional way that reflects their own reality rather than accepting the one presenting in the original claim or act
• You tell the person that they have misunderstood your intentions behind the claim, question or act, although the original wording or the act would suggest to any rational person that they were correct or  You tell the person that that’s not what you said at all, that those exact words never came out of your mouth
• Now the focus is on the other person for “causing a conflict” over wording rather than you for the attack 

The real problem with gaslighting is that, from the perspective of an outsider, it can look like two people arguing over semantics, especially if the gaslighting abuser stays calm.

Meanwhile, the victim may become increasingly distraught trying to understand what’s true. Many times Hannah said that she felt like she was “going crazy.”

When a person is gaslighted over a long period of time, he or she begins to doubt themselves on a much deeper level. The victim starts to modify his or her behavior without realizing it to avoid these confrontations.

Then once the victim is doubting his or her own reality, it’s easier for the abuser to push the boundaries further and erode more and more of the victim’s personhood and slowly break him or her down. 

Luke has kept repeating the line, “I only wanted a woman who was on the same page.”

Yet, his statements “Your body is a temple” and “It pissed me off,” show additional emotional intent that he did not take responsibility for. 

Furthermore, late in the show when he questioned her about whether she was having sex with other men on the show, he changed modified his reason for asking from “I would want to go home if you did that” to saying that they could talk it out if she’d had made that “mistake.”

If he wanted a woman who was on the same page, there would be nothing to talk out. This is key to understanding that his comments had been judgmental all along. Yet he could not own up to this fact.

Outright Lies

Luke’s statements went beyond just gaslighting, however. There were times when he outright lied to Hannah and the other men about events that happened on the show.

This happened most frequently concerning the confrontations with the other men. Luke made claims that another man was being physically aggressive toward him, so he took a physically aggressive stance in return. However, there was no evidence that the other man was physically aggressive at all. 

In addition, he lied to Hannah about the nature of other conversations that took place with the other men to make himself look good. For example, he told her that another man had sent him in to talk to her about him.

Outside the show, he has also made the claim that when he took her to his hometown to meet his family, she told his Sunday School group that she wasn’t going to have sex with any of the men on the show, however, she claims that never happened.

Of course, none of us were there and we have no way of knowing what was said. Taking the facts into consideration, however, it seems more likely that Hannah is the truthful one. Given that we saw him lie on camera several times and his obsession with sex, it’s difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Plus, would you talk about your sex life with people you’d just met, especially a Sunday School group? 

Excessive Anger 

Luke shows issues with anger throughout the entire season, including going too hard on a rugby field and slamming one of the other men into the ground.

The other men are baffled when they question him about it and he doesn’t own up to the behavior. He continues to cause conflict among them and his behavior causes a lot of drama in the house.

When Garrett, one of the men on the show, lets him know that he knows that he is the source of the drama and understands what is really going on, but stays completely cool, Luke loses his and throws lunch meat at him. You can watch the scene below.

https://abc.go.com/shows/the-bachelorette/video/vdka10996477

Claims of Victimhood

Hannah was frustrated, baffled and upset about the drama among the men in the house and didn’t understand what was causing it. Luke jumped in to explain it by claiming the other men were ganging up on him.

He continues this narrative in the “Men Tell All” episode. He seems to recognize that his behavior on the show isn’t well received by the public, yet he explains it by saying that being on the show was difficult because all of the men were against him.

He fails to recognize that his own behavior was the source of why the men were confrontational with him. He was physically aggressive, gaslighted them about it, tried to divide them, alienated Hannah from some of them, told lies both to them and to Hannah, and demonstrated unreasonable jealousy.

Double Standards

Luke like to use the idea of “sin” to point out what Hannah might be doing wrong. Hannah told him that “Jesus still loves her” and that he shouldn’t judge her because he had his own sins of pride and anger.

In addition, since leaving the show, he has since posted on social media, “Even if you slam some guy on a rugby field and sling bologna at someone, God still loves you.”

Hannah claimed that she was “slut-shamed” by Luke and said on the “Men Tell All” episode, “I wanted a man of God that had those same values, but then it was almost weaponized against me. I was, at the end, threatened by the shared faith that we had…his love was contingent on if I did the things that he wanted me to do, as he saw that a wife should do, not unconditional love.”

Empty Emotional Gestures (Words and Actions Don’t Match Up)

When Hannah goes on a one-on-one date with Luke, she keeps asking him to show emotional depth. He has told her he is falling in love with her during the first 24 hours!

She is once again baffled at his behavior. Over and over again she tells him she doesn’t feel anything from him and she isn’t getting what she wants.

We can see Hannah talks to the producers: “I don’t know what to do… Like he has to have emotions, right? It’s obvious he has emotions, but, like, ‘Speak from emotions,’ I guess, right? I feel like that’s what’s missing, Can somebody talk to him about what it means when I say, ‘How do you feel?'” 

In the end, after that date, she doesn’t give him the rose to let him stay. You can see what she said to him about the date they had together here:

https://abc.go.com/shows/the-bachelorette/video/vdka10456249

But as he’s about to walk out, he turns around and suddenly, after hours of being together and conversation where she has asked him what he feels and who he really is, he begins to pour out his heart about how much he cares about and wants to be with her.

In another example, during the “Men Tell All” episode, Luke turns to the group of men and apologizes for his behavior on the show and says he “made mistakes.” 

Just minutes earlier, Harrison, the host, asked him if there’s anything he would change about his behavior on the show. He thought for a moment and said no, that he wouldn’t change anything, that he didn’t feel he had done anything wrong. 

Entitlement and Self-Centeredness

Luke demonstrated a refusal to take no for an answer and a lack of respect for what Hannah wanted.

There were two times she told him she no longer wanted to continue with him on the show. Both times, he returned expecting to be given another chance. In the example described above, she did.

There is an important moment in the show when Hannah finally realizes that this relationship is toxic.

Luke has made it to the final four. As they are sitting at dinner, he claims that if she had had sex with any of the men, he would want to leave. 

Hannah has an epiphany about his self-centeredness, lack of unconditional love, and controlling behavior. She tells him that what he has said to her is not okay because there are things about him that are problematic and that she wants out of a relationship but he doesn’t possess. Yet she has kept him on the show anyway and all it takes for him to is sex and it makes her feel so devalued. His love is not conditional.

Here is their conversation: 

https://abc.go.com/shows/the-bachelorette/video/vdka11318621

He then modifies his original terms to say that if she has “slipped up,” he would talk through it with her (instead of leaving). She finally realizes that she does not want him on the show with her anymore. Here is her speech:

https://abc.go.com/shows/the-bachelorette/video/vdka11347169

Yet he won’t accept her decision. He continues to sit there at the table, saying that she owes him more conversation and a chance to “clarify what he said.” Finally, she gets him to leave by telling him that she has had sex.

She effectively allows herself to “fall off his pedestal.”

It’s not over.

The next day, he shows up at her rose ceremony with his own ring, prepared to propose to her. He continued to talk over her and claim she owed him a chance to speak. 

At the “Men Tell All” episode, he said “I really thought, no matter what, this is the one for me. I’ve never felt anything like this. If you’re wondering, these feelings were real and I know they were real for her. That’s why you see me say things like, ‘She has never told me she loves me, but I believe that she does.’”

He’s also said that, of his questioning of her sexual interactions with the other men that he only wanted a woman who was on the same page. 

But… Isn’t It Bad to Call People Narcissists?

Let’s be clear. 

Talking about narcissistic abuse is less about diagnosing a perpetrator than it is about helping victims understand what is happening to them. Narcissistic abuse is largely kept hidden from victims because of the nature of the abuse itself.

Narcissistic abuse is called such because the three types of emotional abuse described above tend to point back toward someone who has a set of personality characteristics that lead them to behave in a way that forms this special tri-fold cocktail of abuse in which only their own needs matter and they attempt to systematically erase and control the other person.  

Those characteristics include low empathy, an inability to feel remorse, feelings of entitlement to special treatment, hyper-awareness to what others think about them and hyper-sensitivity to criticism, propensity to deception, shallow emotions, belief that they are special, enviousness of others, and a willingness to exploit others. 

While these characteristics can be attributed to someone who has Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) or even Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) or some combination, it should be noted that this is not always the case.

Narcissism is thought to be a spectrum and having some narcissism is required of all people in order to lead a healthy life. When someone has an unhealthy level of narcissism, however, even if they do not qualify for an official diagnosis, their behavior can become abusive to others. The more narcissistic they are, regardless of whether they ever get diagnosed, the more harmful they can be to others.

Diagnoses are not necessary to label behavior as abusive and dangerous.

This is a moment in television history where we got to see play out in real time how this type of abuse began to operate at the beginning of the relationship. We were all rooting for Hannah at home to see through it before she chose him at the end–and she did.  

The point of this article isn’t to call Luke pathological or a narcissist. 

The point is to call abusive behavior abusive and shine a light on a type of abusive behavior that is infrequently recognized.

Want more? Please take a moment to sign up to get all future articles delivered straight to your inbox.

You may also enjoy reading:

• Do Narcissists Know They Hurt You? Yes, But That’s Not the Real Problem
• What Are Flying Monkeys? Beware the Narcissist’s Fan Club

Sources

Bonchay, B. (2018). “Narcissistic Abuse Affects Over 158 Million People in the U.S.” Psych Central. Accessed July 28, 2019 at https://psychcentral.com/lib/narcissistic-abuse-affects-over-158-million-people-in-the-u-s/

The post The Bachelorette, Luke P., and Hannah Brown Put Narcissistic Abuse in the Spotlight appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

They may even go on to torment us for years on end while they can still manage to make other people believe that they were the ones who were victimized. 

Narcissists can get away with the things they do because they take advantage of cognitive psychological biases we all have and social norms we all share to further their own selfish ends.

For those closest to them, however, that can often mean taking the brunt of the damage. 

The Four-Stage Narcissistic Cycle of Abuse 

In many other articles, I have described at length the narcissistic abuse cycle, in which narcissists tend to blaze through four stages with their partners: idealization, devaluation, discard and hoovering.  The narcissistic abuse dictionary states:

“Considered the cycle of abuse in narcissistic relationships, in the idealization at the beginning of the relationship, the narcissist puts his or her partner on a pedestal and showers them with excessive praise and attention. At some point, the narcissist will begin to see his or her partner as flawed or even grow bored and the devaluation begins. Many tactics characterize this phase, such as verbal abuse, withholding, humiliation, and smearing. Finally, when the narcissist no longer sees any value in the partner, perhaps if the partner has reacted in a way that the narcissist perceives negatively, such as demanding respect, the narcissist may discard the partner. The cycle often repeats many times before the relationship ends.”

The cycle repeats itself because after a discard, narcissists hoover partners back into entanglements with them using a variety of methods. 

But how does the narcissist manage to maintain this control over us so that this cycle does play on seemingly endless repeat?

Explaining Narcissistic Abuse  

To say that narcissists are doing things to get us there and keep us there in the relationship is an understatement. But those things themselves can be difficult to even put our finger on sometimes. Even when we can list some things they did, how do we explain the larger picture?

It is also true that there are many factors that may keep us there in the relationship. Those factors may include those outside the relationship before we got there and those inside the relationship that arose over time to make it difficult for us to leave. These, however, are not the abuse. They are conditions. 

So what is it the narcissist actually does to us, and why can’t we ever focus on that? 

When we try to talk about what narcissistic abuse is, we often end up describing:

• A handful of random tactics or incidents that are difficult to explain in their scope because the reason they were abusive was the fact that they were connected to one another over a long period of time. It’s the combined narrative of how the relationship unfolded that was so damaging, not an act here or an act there.
• The effects the abuse had on us.  This doesn’t explain the narcissist’s role at all, and can, from an outsider’s point of view, make us appear potentially unreliable or unstable in our explanations of what happened since we are focusing on ourselves and can’t explain what the narcissist actually did. 
• The pattern explained above. Yes, that is the pattern, but what behaviors did the narcissist exhibit within that pattern to abuse us and that can explain so much about why each stage was abusive and allowed it to repeat in the first place?  

Three Components of a Narcissist’s Emotional Abuse (The DAM Model)

Narcissists may use physical, sexual, financial and more traditional forms of emotional abuse in relationships, but narcissistic abuse is a distinctive form of emotional abuse that is separate from all other types of abuse. 

I believe that it is possible to group the things that they do into larger categories because narcissistic abuse is not a unique phenomenon.  It’s compared to other forms of abuse–as it should be.  

Because of its nature, however, it can be compared with many other types of criminal and exploitive behavior that exists, because we have the social psychological research that explains the principles that they have used to manipulate us into these types of relationships. It is just that the connection between this type of abuse and these other phenomena is only beginning to be made.

When we view narcissistic abuse using this framework, we can actually group the narcissist’s emotionally abusive behavior into three types. 

Watch this video to learn more:

So think of the three types of emotional abuse as the DAM Model:

• Deception
• Authority/Domination
• Cognitive Manipulation

All three must be present in order for narcissistic abuse to occur. 

Another way to think about it is that narcissists shift like chameleons to ensure their behavior fits the situation. So I like to think of the three components of their emotional abuse as roles the narcissist plays:  

• The Savior 
• The Punisher
• The Magician

The DAM Model Described in Detail

Through the use of deception, the establishment of authority/domination over their victims, and cognitive manipulation, narcissistic abusers are able to gain control over their victims and exploit them.

Deception

In a relationship with a narcissist, they use deception as a tactic to hide their true motives and intentions and who they really are.

This is done by intentionally presenting misinformation to the partner for the purpose of instilling love and trust.  This takes the form of love-bombing and constructing a false persona for the partner to fall in love with: The Savior. The narcissist will hide other lives and aspects of his or her personality that would not fit with the persona that is needed to gain whatever is desired from the partner. 

In turn, the partner makes himself or herself vulnerable and open to exploitation and is also more pliable to the other forms of emotional abuse. 

Authority/Domination

The narcissist slowly begins to take over the partner’s life. This most closely resembles the devaluation phase of the relationship but extends beyond it. It is an overt form of behavioral control in which the narcissist presents oneself as either all-knowing or all-powerful or both to persuade or coerce the partner to bend to his or her will: The Punisher.

For example, the narcissist might monitor the partner’s behavior, make constant unfounded accusations, control access to resources, make devaluing comments to indicate that the partner doesn’t know anything, or create a situation in which the partner must ask for permission or depend on the narcissist for survival.

The purpose is to instill fear and dependence. The partner may fear what will happen if he or she leaves, but may also fear what will happen if the narcissist leaves.

“Authority and Domination” is the most recognized form of emotional abuse of the three described above. It is the most overt and most easily recognized. 

Yet not all emotional abusers are narcissists. Narcissistic abuse extends beyond this type of control to a deceptive aspect and cognitive abuse that enables the narcissist to take control of the partner’s mind in a way that results in undue influence.

This is why it is important to distinguish between emotional abuse as we traditionally understand it (that is as it is defined in this sub-type) and the much broader form of emotional abuse we are defining as narcissistic abuse that includes this sub-type.

Cognitive Manipulation

Although all of this behavior by the narcissist is manipulative, cognitive manipulation as I’m using it here refer specifically to the use of a variety of underhanded (that is, invisible) tactics that the partner does not recognize to influence the partner’s thoughts or behavior. The partner often does not recognize that abuse has occurred.

The purpose of cognitive manipulation is to confuse and weaken the partner so that the partner is more easily exploitable. The narcissist uses tactics such as gaslighting, circular conversation tactics to project the problem onto the partner and avoid ever discussing the issues or taking responsibility, pathological lying, victimhood, encouraging the partner to give up treasured ideas and people from a more gentle perspective, and maneuvering back into The Savior role. This is the role of The Magician: the make the acts of The Punisher disappear.

When the narcissist uses cognitive manipulation, when the partner is confused, the partner is unable to clearly distinguish between the contradictory other roles of The Savior and The Punisher and make a clear decision that the narcissist is dangerous. The narcissist is able to replace doubts the victim may have about how he or she is being treated and with thoughts that will ensure the victim chooses to act in the best interest of the abuser instead.   

The result is the stripping away of the personhood of the partner one small word or act at a time until the dominant will to act on his or her own behalf is erased.

Understanding the Larger Implications of the DAM Model

Deception, Authority/Domination, and Cognitive Manipulation are used as forms of emotional abuse in by a narcissist in relationships.  They are narcissistic abuse.  In other social contexts, however, one or more of these forms of control are the basis of other types of exploitation. 

Narcissistic abuse is not just an individual problem–although it leads to individual destruction and devastation that can last for months, years or even a lifetime.

It is a social problem because these tendencies are everywhere. They’ve even been demonstrated week-by-week on a popular television series The Bachelorette.

Some of the same people who wreak this havoc in their personal lives have these same tendencies in other areas and may or may not carry them out.

From romance scams to cult abuse, false confessions to prisoners of war, the right conditions can put anyone at risk.

Don’t forget to check out these resources:

• Taking Your Life Back After a Relationship With a Narcissist – Free Recovery Toolkit
• Comprehensive Narcissistic Abuse Dictionary
• The Best Resources for Narcissistic Abuse Recovery

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