We can’t leave a narcissist and begin our journey toward narcissistic abuse recovery until we go through five stages.  These stages embody the necessary psychological steps that will give us back our lives. I’ve written before about eleven things that can happen before a partner goes no-contact. These are things I experienced in response to what I was enduring in my past relationship. They included things such as epiphanies I had, unusual behaviors I exhibited, and inexplicable emotions I felt. I wrote this not long after I went no-contact as I thought back on the relationship and the psychological turmoil...

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

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

Ex English teacher and journalist now business owner . I am educated to masters level and well travelled .

When you’re with a narcissist, you’re typically in limbo where either you leave and then they draw you back in once again, or they give you a silent treatment or discard you, leaving you baffled over what has just taken place, often only to return after a period of days or weeks to tell you that they can’t live without you. We need to be able to outsmart the narcissist in order to ever break out of this pattern that keeps us locked in invisible chains that weaken our ability to ever leave at all. There is a reason you...

The primary model that has been offered for how narcissists abuse their partners is the three-stage idealize-devalue-discard narcissistic abuse cycle.  It has some similarities to the traditional cycle of abuse in domestic violence situations, which was first developed in 1979 by Lenore Walker. Walker’s model was characterized by three phases: (1) Tension-building stage: the abused partner is submissive and walks on eggshells to avoid an outburst; the abusive partner becomes increasingly demanding, controlling and irritable; (2) Violent episode: erupts after the tension builds to a high point, where the abused partner may fight back or try to get away; and...

If you’re swimming in the ocean and happen to get attacked by a shark, you’re lucky if you happen to escape. If the shark turns back around to bite into you again before you’re able to swim to shore, no one asks why you didn’t swim away fast enough or why you let the shark attack a second time. I left my abuser dozens of times before it was finally over. Long before then, there had been two of me: the one that prayed for it to end and the one that prayed it never would–the one that wished desperately...