The film I, Tonya, depicts the physically and verbally abusive home life of notorious Olympic skater Tonya Harding. Harding is best known for the scandal that took place in 1994 in which her husband, Jeff, carried out a plot to maim Nancy Kerrigan, her skating rival, prior to the winter Olympics that year. There is a scene in the film in which the teenaged Harding sits at the dining room table eating breakfast with her mother. She has a black eye, given to her by Jeff, her boyfriend at the time. Harding’s mother tells her that her makeup doesn’t cover the abuse and remarks in...

“You used to wrap yourself in fairy tales like a blanket, but it was the cold that you loved. Sharp shivers as you uncovered the corpses of Bluebeard’s wives. Sweeter goosebumps as Prince Charming slid one glass slipper over your little toes. A perfect fit. “But by the schoolyard, real princesses floated by you on fall winds. You saw the gulf between you and rich girls, and vowed to stop believing in fairy tales. But the stories were in you, deep as poison. “If Prince Charming was real, if he could save you, you needed to be saved from the...

Covert verbal abuse takes place when the abuser hides the abuse inside the context of the conversation. It can make victims feel as if they are going crazy. One of the most dangerous methods of delivery is covert verbal abuse. This type of verbal abuse takes place when the abuser hides the abuse inside the context of the conversation during which the abusive comments are made. Abusers who engage in this type of behavior still intend to humiliate and demean the victim. Instead of doing it directly, however, they are able to deny that they intended to do so because they...

Being in a relationship with a narcissist exposed me to massive amounts of pain that were difficult to explain. There was sadness, grief, loneliness, confusion, fear, anger, humiliation, shame. This emotional roller coaster is one you should never experience in a healthy relationship with someone who claims to love you.   While in the middle of it and even after I went no contact, it often felt like I had lost so much–parts of myself, friends, time, my ability to focus on anything good in my life, the illusion that he was looking out for me and that he was the partner...

Going no contact with a narcissist is one of the hardest and most painful things I’ve ever done in my life. The relationship itself was draining enough–I either felt like the queen of the world or I was suffering through nightmares that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. There was often no in-between. But then there was the aftermath. Once I was out of the psychological cage my ex-boyfriend had so carefully crafted for me, my brain did not catch up to that fact immediately. I was still infected and the poison drained out slowly. I felt rejected, broken,...

Verbal abuse and anger seem to go together. In fact, one common stereotype of abuse is that the abuser must have been angry when the behavior occurred. This makes sense because aggressive behavior is the easiest to see and understand. When it comes to verbal abuse, subtle psychological mind games are more difficult to pinpoint and explain than direct insults and putdowns. There is more than one way to deliver verbal abuse, however, and the delivery method matters. When I was still with my ex-boyfriend, I recognized three ways that he used to deliver his verbally abusive insults: the “hot method,” the “covert method,”...

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...