Category: Understanding Narcissistic Abuse

There seems to be no logical reason why narcissists manipulate us when they could so easily have everything we have to give without going to all that trouble. What hurts so much is the fact that the horrible things they do to us are coming from someone we love. But why? Why do narcissists want to hurt us, if we love them so much? Narcissist do not want the same things from relationships that we do because they do not view themselves and the world the same way that we do. They even go out of their way to ruin...

Do narcissists know they hurt you? For the entire relationship, we denied, rationalized, suppressed, excused, or wrote off the inexcusable things that they did to us in order to remain there in the relationship with them. And yet it’s one of the questions that remains even after the relationship ends. Did they know? Shannon Thomas, who wrote the book Healing From Hidden Abuse, puts the answer like this: “Psychological abusers know when and where to turn off their manipulative games. They know precisely how to push all the right emotional buttons to get the victim’s frustrated response that the abuser...

What is verbal abuse?  The idea itself seems pretty straight-forward. Yet everyone has said things in anger they regret. Everyone has also had their feelings hurt by the words of others.  But are those words abusive? How can we tell the difference?   I would argue that there is an intention behind abuse that differentiates it from other non-abusive words or behavior that may otherwise offend or hurt.  With this in mind, verbal abuse can be described as the use of any form of communication to intentionally inflict psychological or emotional harm on someone, to manipulate his or her behavior, or...

Narcissistic abuse in relationships is notoriously difficult to define. Because narcissists may engage in physical, sexual and financial abuse, victims may spend years recovering or rebuilding their lives psychologically at the same time they must also learn new ways to support themselves or save money after they have lost everything.   What is it about narcissistic abuse that sets it apart from the other forms of abuse? Why bother to carve out a separate space for it at all? Narcissists are cruel. Narcissists can belittle, name-call, and shame. They fluctuate between “honeymoon periods” and “abusive periods.” They are often controlling and...

Describing what narcissistic cruelty looks like is extremely difficult because it’s hard to explain exactly what it is in one or two sentences. In contrast…  We all have a shared definition of physical abuse that says something about the intentional infliction of bodily harm on someone for the purposes of controlling them. We also have shared definitions of psychological and emotional abuse. Some people separate the two types of abuse and some people don’t. Either way, both definitions basically revolve around acts of verbal aggression or non-physical hostility that result over time in the loss of self-esteem or ability to trust...

What is an empath? Most definitions of empaths characterize them as highly intuitive people who absorb the emotions of others, often to the point of feeling them themselves. Empaths have a desire to help others and may often feel drained or even physically ill. Some definitions even claim it is almost like a sixth sense.  Scientific studies that are used to explain why empaths exist can only give us indirect evidence.   We know that there are mirror neurons in the brain, which are said to enable us to read and understand each other’s emotions by filtering them through our own...

In no other form of abuse does there seem to be so much concern about talking about the abuser and how it might make the abuser feel if we call out his or her behaviors and give them a label. Why does it matter so much that survivors of narcissistic abuse end up labeling people narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths?  Why not just refer to the abusers as “abusers?”   On Labeling People Narcissists: It’s Not About the Abuser It was a mental health professional who first used the term “narcissistic abuse syndrome,” based on a series of symptoms she began...