The art of learning is that all good things do come to an end. But the testing part is trying to convince the ego that it’s ok to let that part of us go. The ego wants to attach itself to something that is no longer there.
As soon as you accept that this is all part of life the sooner you come to realise that hurtful emotions can no longer keep you anchored in the past anymore.
So raise your sails and let the winds carry you forth.
Elizabeth Pozoglou
Gratitude is an integral part of life.
We have become fast absorbed in a society that places conditions on us, how we should look, feel, act and live. Is this really sustainable?
Why are we so fixated on this way of being when in truth we are so far removed from what our true soul purpose is.
I for one have been fortunate enough not to fall victim to these “conditions”. One which passes judgement on you if you don’t “fit” in.
Who cares what model of car you drive, what labels you have in your wardrobe, what suburb you live in, what social status you obtain.
What is ultimately more important then having to maintain a facade that’s not your true authentic self is in fact living from the core essence of who you really are.
Get out, breathe in the fresh air, get in touch with nature, take a swim in the oceans waves, feel the earth beneath your bare feet, have the sun kiss your lips, listen to the sounds of our wildlife, have the wind sweep through your hair, take an adventure with no destination in mind and enjoy the journey along the way. Spend time with your kids, they don’t stay young forever, say no to taking on more work and give yourself a break, be in the moment with those that matter most because you never know what tomorrow may bring.
That’s living, to feel yourself, to feed your soul and to be completely transparent and free… Above all else have gratitude that you are blessed with a life that doesn’t place conditions on you when you don’t allow it to.
The choices you make are yours alone, sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that can change your life forever…
~Elizabeth Pozoglou
I am
We are all part of the “I am”
Some ponder on its name
It really doesn’t matter because it all leads to the same
Some wonder about its mystery
It’s the stories of old told from our history
We go in search for it’s higher meaning
Messages come to us whilst we’re dreaming
It’s the light we see when we feels it’s dark
The shallows fall away with a single spark
You’ll hear the “I am” when you listen to the truth
Look around you, the “I am” surrounds us with it’s proof
You can call out to it from the highest mountain top
Or you can reach out and feel its presence as your knees drop
If you silence your mind long enough
The “I am” will talk to you with all its love
You have no need to feel any fear
Always know that it’s never far but ever so near
“I am” is a part of you and it’s also a part of me
Sometimes you just got to let it all go and set yourself free
There’s no need to run nor a need to hide
Leave yourself open, the “I am” doesn’t lie
We are connected through space and time
Evolution has brought us all here, we were all meant to shine
Like the stars above and the earth below
Like waters on the lands, they just flow
Like the winds that carry wisdom as it blows
Like the fires that keep us warm
We all learn to transform
The sun sets and the moon rises
Life is always full of surprises
The “I am” is all that there is and all that will ever be
The “I am is you and the “I am” is me.
Written by
Elizabeth Pozoglou
We all know that that malignant narcissists (narcissists who also have antisocial traits) are manipulative and can even fool experts, psychiatrists and the most experienced of law enforcement officials. Yet there are six crucial truths about these types of manipulators that can come in handy when it comes to resisting their tactics. Use this information wisely and you can find yourself cutting the cord to a toxic relationship with one that much more safely:
1. They will unmask themselves much more quickly when they think you’re not aware of who they truly are.
Direct confrontation of their narcissism will result in further manipulation and narcissistic rage, which can cause you to remain entrenched in the cycle of abuse.
If you suspect you’re with a narcissist, the better route might be to prepare mentally on how to leave while collecting more information about their character. Watch out for the red flags and when you see them, self-validate without relying on the narcissist’s counter-explanation (which is likely to be filled with a whole lot of gaslighting, projection and half-truths). Their actions and pattern of behavior will tell you far more than their words ever will.
Pretend to be the naïve lamb rather than the wise lion and you’ll get yourself a manipulator who won’t work as hard to conceal their contempt, their malice and their joy at bringing others down. Their mask will slip all the more frequently because they don’t feel as invested in managing their image around you. They will assume you’re gullible enough to believe in their façade, which satisfies their need to feel grandiose and superior to you.
This will also give you the ability to observe their behavior more carefully because it will be less filtered by their attempts to charm you. By the time your abuser has realised that you’ve caught on, you’ll be well on your way out the door. That is why I always recommend that when victims recognise that they are dealing with a narcissistic partner, to never confront them using the term “narcissist.” It will only cause narcissistic rage and backlash that can convince you to retreat.
Hell hath no fury or contempt as a narcissist you dare to disagree with, tell they’re wrong, or embarrass… What is really at the core of narcissists is an instability in their ability to feel and sustain feeling bigger, larger, smarter and more successful than everyone else which they need to feel stable. Narcissistic rage occurs when that core instability is threatened and furthermore threatened to destabilise them even further.
Rage isn’t the only response narcissists have to your awakening of the truth. In response to your public acknowledgement of their narcissism, some narcissists will work that much harder to groom you and re-idealise you, thus making you more confused about the nature of their true character.
They will do everything possible to punish you or coerce you into staying – including love-bombing you again to make you remember the good times. During the same time they’re throwing in crumbs of affection, they’re also plotting on how to best covet what resources of yours they can get before the relationship is over.
As you prepare your exit as quietly as possible (preferably with the help of a good lawyer and a safety plan) – you have a better chance of departing safely with your sanity and your finances still intact. Sure, they may think you’re a fool for the time being, but once they realise you secretly had the upper hand all along, they’ll be outraged for completely different reasons – namely, due to the loss of control.
2. One of their biggest fears is being caught and held accountable – so always document their abuse whenever possible.
Recently I’ve studied a string of predators being exposed for sexual assault and harassment. It is no coincidence that many of these predators finally ‘fessed up because of being held accountable on a much larger scale this time around. Perhaps the cultural climate protected them decades ago, but when Harvey Weinstein on the NYTimes was exposed and the stories of numerous victims stepping forward, it’s a lot more difficult to gaslight everyone you’ve victimised into thinking they’re “crazy” or “oversensitive.” Not only do victims have more evidence, they also realise they’re not alone.
You can use this knowledge of a covert predator’s fear of exposure to your advantage. Document all incidents of abuse so that you have it on hand should you ever need to go to court, take legal action, or for the purpose of getting a restraining order.
Narcissists care deeply about their status and reputation, so if they feel they may be exposed as culpable for their crimes, they’ll scurry quickly because they will consider you a “high-risk” victim. They’re paranoid about being caught – so even just dropping a subtle hint that you mean business (for example, noting that you’ve been speaking to someone else about what’s been happening – preferably someone they can’t manipulate) can cause them to flee quicker than you can say “gaslighting.”
On documenting abuse that is not physical:
The best way to protect yourself: writing or journaling as much as you possibly can…download your text messages and keep them in a file. Keep your messages brief and factual, and avoid emotion, it is important to stay calm yourself whenever reacting to a narcissist’s provocations through text, phone calls or e-mails because the narcissist is also trying to ensure that they also have you on the record – whether they’re trying to depict you as an unfit parent or a crazy ex (while they’re the ones stalking you), remember to always appear stoic and stick to the facts when communicating with them.
Whether it be photographing injuries or stalking behavior, taking screenshots of online messages, recording phone conversations (if permitted by law in your state), saving text messages, and voicemails and/or keeping a journal of abusive incidents, it can all serve you in the future should you ever want to take legal action or even if you just want to reconnect to the reality of what you experienced.
3. Your indifference is their kryptonite.
Forget any type of petty revenge you may be plotting; malignant narcissists see all of your emotional responses to them (whether positive or negative) as attention, and they live for that shit. Instead, refocus on yourself and on rebuilding a better life (not for the narcissist, but for you). It won’t be long until you’re moving forward, kicking some serious ass and thinking less and less of the person who once terrorised you.
If you do you choose to grant them access to your emotional responses, rest assured they will use it to bolster themselves and feed off of your energy. As narcissism expert and author Dr. Martinez-Lewi puts it:
“When we live with a narcissist–mother, father, spouse, sibling or are involved with them, our psychological energy is continually sapped. Some victims of narcissists describe this process as trying to destroy and annihilate them, taking what is most precious inside away with their cruelties, chronic deceptions, hidden agendas, humiliations, threats and ambushes.”
That’s why it’s so important to go No Contact (or Low Contact if co-parenting) to prevent their parasitic ways of feasting on your empathy. By that time, you simply won’t care what they’re up to or who they’re with because you’ll know for a fact that they’re repeating a similar abuse cycle with their newest victim. And ironically, it is in that state of utter indifference that the narcissist becomes most powerless, because they know they are no longer able to control you.
4. They’re not hoping you’ll come back to them so they can give you the good relationship you truly deserve. They hope you’ll come back to them just so they can have the final say and retraumatize you further.
Narcissists hate being “discarded” first because it represents a loss of power and a threat to their perceived superiority. After all, if you were the one who initiated the breakup, it means they didn’t get to have the complete emotional control they feel entitled to in their relationships. They need to have the last word; they need to feel like they’ve terrorised you to such an extent that you would be unable to move forward after being in a relationship with them.
So that’s why they really come crawling back and ask for a second, third and fiftieth chance. It’s not because they miss you. It’s because they miss feeling like they own you.
“When the narcissist senses that you are leaving the relationship, they will try to suck you back in… This is a common pattern in abusive relationships. There’s an abusive episode, then a reconciliation phase, then a buildup of tension, then another abusive episode. The cycle doesn’t end. With a narcissist, the blowup gets worse each time you reconcile. And that blowup is coming.”
5. You’re not inferior in any way to their other victims or new targets.
Remember that narcissists don’t see their relationship partners as people – they see them as objects, as sources of what psychologists call “narcissistic supply.”
However, they’d like you to believe that the reason they’re picking on you is because you’re more disposable, less than or somehow defective. That’s why they’ll compare you to their exes or their new targets. In order to resist this form of crazymaking triangulation, remember how the narcissist talked about their ex in the beginning of your relationship, in the early stages of idealising you.
Chances are, they called their ex-partner “crazy” along with a whole other plethora of disparaging narratives – which is what they’re probably now doing to you as they relay their distortions to their latest target.
Narcissistic supply is the form of exchange that a narcissist will accept from those he is in a relationship with to gratify his insatiable needs; but this supply is not love, because narcissists are rarely capable of receiving love.
They always repeat the cycle with others. To them, you are no different, even if they’d like you to think otherwise.
6. They’re not really that humble or remorseful – and pity is one of their greatest ploys.
Narcissists project an image of themselves as very charitable and humble human beings in the beginning of every relationship. It’s what makes them so compelling and charismatic to society. It’s what disarms law enforcement and their harem, allowing them to skirt the law with a slap on the wrist and no more than a dent in their reputations.
Even the most hardened police officers can witness an impressive performance of faux remorse from a narcissist they’re meeting for the first time and find themselves thinking, “Aww, how noble.” You look at the same performance after years of being with them and see a snake attempting to put on a furry dog costume.
Don’t get me wrong: some people truly are modest and humble, which can be wonderful traits. Narcissists, on the other hand, use the image of modesty to mask their true haughty interiors. A narcissist who is truly arrogant and contemptuous may hide it well during the first few months of a relationship (though there may be tiny tells through their facial expressions, covert put-downs and so on) but their belief that they are inherently superior will eventually reveal itself.
Another tactic narcissists bank on when manipulating you involves the art of the pity ploy. Narcissists will try to latch onto your sympathy when they see no other recourse or even as a primary tool to sweep you off of your feet.
That’s why they give you half-assed “apologies” without a concrete change in their behaviors or a true acknowledgement of the harm you must have suffered. That’s also why they present you with sob stories from the onset of the relationship so you’re inclined to see them as victims rather than the true perpetrators.
It’s why these types of manipulators can even be self-deprecating as a way to pull off their “little boy” or “little girl” act. Seemingly defenseless people are always more appealing to our natural compassion, after all – and so their crocodile tears and pity ploys work – and they work really, really well.
Dr. Martha Stout, author of The Sociopath Next Door, notes that an appeal to your sympathy is actually one of the most powerful ways a manipulator with antisocial traits gets away with his or her abusive behavior. As she writes:
“If, instead, you find yourself often pitying someone who consistently hurts you or other people, and who actively campaigns for your sympathy, the chances are close to 100 percent that you are dealing with a sociopath… I am sure that if the devil existed, he would want us to feel very sorry for him.”
In order to be a strategic survivor, you have to be able to recognise a manipulator’s pity ploys immediately and resist, especially when there is no actual change in their harmful behavior when they’re called out.
When you start to see how fake their so-called remorse truly is, you’ll find you have much less sympathy for their excuses for horrendous behavior. This will bring you farther away from your idealised notions of their fabricated conscience and that much closer to forging your freedom from the narcissist.
Imagine this: your entire reality has been warped and distorted. You have been mercilessly violated, manipulated, lied to, ridiculed, demeaned and gaslighted into believing that you are imagining things. The person you thought you knew and the life you built together have been shattered into a million little fragments.
Your sense of self has been eroded, diminished. You were idealized, devalued,then shoved off the pedestal. Perhaps you were even replaced and discarded multiple times, only to be ‘hoovered’ and lured back into an abuse cycle even more torturous than before. Maybe you were relentlessly stalked, harassed and bullied to stay with your abuser.
This was no normal break-up or relationship: this was a set-up for covert and insidious murder of your psyche and sense of safety in the world. Yet there may not be visible scars to tell the tale; all you have are broken pieces, fractured memories and internal battle wounds.
Psychological violence by malignant narcissists can include verbal and emotional abuse, toxic projection, stonewalling, sabotage, smear campaigns, triangulation along with a plethora of other forms of coercion and control. This is imposed by someone who lacks empathy, demonstrates an excessive sense of entitlement and engages in interpersonal exploitation to meet their own needs at the expense of the rights of others.
As a result of chronic abuse, victims may struggle with symptoms of PTSD or Complex PTSD if they had additional traumas like being abused by narcissistic parents or even what is known as “Narcissistic Abuse Syndrome” (Staggs, 2016; Stailk, 2017). The aftermath of narcissistic abuse can include depression, anxiety, hypervigilance, a pervasive sense of toxic shame, emotional flashbacks that regress the victim back to the abusive incidents, and overwhelming feelings of helplessness and worthlessness.
When we are in the midst of an ongoing abuse cycle, it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly what we are experiencing because abusers are able to twist and turn reality to suit their own needs, engage in intense love-bombingafter abusive incidents and convince their victims that they are the ones who are abusers.
If you find yourself experiencing the eleven symptoms below and you are or have been in a toxic relationship with a partner that disrespects, invalidates and mistreats you, you may just have been terrorized by an emotional predator:
You feel emotionally or even physically detached from your environment, experiencing disruptions in your memory, perceptions, consciousness and sense of self. As Dr. Van der Kolk (2015) writes in his book, The Body Keeps the Score, “Dissociation is the essence of trauma. The overwhelming experience is split off and fragmented, so that the emotions, sounds, images, thoughts and physical sensations take on a life of their own.”
Dissociation can lead to emotional numbing in the face of horrific circumstances. Mind-numbing activities, obsessions, addictions and repression may become a way of life because they give you an escape from your current reality. Your brain finds ways to emotionally block out the impact of your pain so you do not have to deal with the full terror of your circumstances.
You may also develop traumatized ‘inner parts’ that become disjointed from the personality you inhabit with your abuser or loved ones (Johnston, 2017). These inner parts can include the inner child parts that were never nurtured, the true anger and disgust you feel towards your abuser or parts of yourselves you feel you cannot express around them.
According to therapist Rev. Sheri Heller (2015), “Integrating and reclaiming dissociated and disowned aspects of the personality is largely dependent on constructing a cohesive narrative, which allows for the assimilation of emotional, cognitive, and physiological realities.” This inner integration is best done with the help of a trauma-informed therapist.
A common symptom of trauma is avoiding anything that represents reliving the trauma – whether it be people, places or activities that pose that threat. Whether it be your friend, your partner, your family member, co-worker or boss, you find yourself constantly watching what you say or do around this person lest you incur their wrath, punishment or become the object of their envy.
However, you find that this does not work and you still become the abuser’s target whenever he or she feels entitled to use you as an emotional punching bag. You become perpetually anxious about ‘provoking’ your abuser in any way and may avoid confrontation or setting boundaries as a result.
You may also extend your people-pleasing behavior outside of the abusive relationship, losing your ability to be spontaneous or assertive while navigating the outside world, especially with people who resemble or are associated with your abuser and the abuse.
You may have once been full of life, goal-driven and dream-oriented. Now you feel as if you are living just to fulfill the needs and agendas of another person. Once, the narcissist’s entire life seemed to revolve around you; now your entire life revolves around them.
You may have placed your goals, hobbies, friendships and personal safety on the back burner just to ensure that your abuser feels ‘satisfied’ in the relationship. Of course, you soon realize that he or she will never truly be satisfied regardless of what you do or don’t do.
You may have gained or lost a significant amount of weight, developed serious health issues that did not exist prior and experienced physical symptoms of premature aging. The stress of chronic abuse has sent your cortisol levels into overdrive and your immune system has taken a severe hit, leaving you vulnerable to physical ailments and disease (Bergland, 2013).
You find yourself unable to sleep or experiencing terrifying nightmares when you do, reliving the trauma through emotional or visual flashbacks that bring you back to the site of the original wounds (Walker, 2013).
Every person now represents a threat and you find yourself becoming anxious about the intentions of others, especially having experienced the malicious actions of someone you once trusted. Your usual caution becomes hypervigilance. Since the narcissistic abuser has worked hard to gaslight you into believing that your experiences are invalid, you have a hard time trusting anyone, including yourself.
Along with depression and anxiety may come an increased sense of hopelessness. Your circumstances feel unbearable, as if you cannot escape, even if you wanted to. You develop a sense of learned helplessness that makes you feel as if you don’t wish to survive another day. You may even engage in self-harm as a way to cope.
As Dr. McKeon (2014), chief of the suicide prevention branch at SAMHSA notes, victims of intimate partner violence are twice as likely to attempt suicide multiple times. This is the way abusers essentially commit murder without a trace.
Many abusers isolate their victims, but victims also isolate themselves because they feel ashamed about the abuse they’re experiencing. Given the victim-blaming and misconceptions about emotional and psychological violence in society, victims may even be retraumatized by law enforcement, family members, friends and the harem members of the narcissist who might invalidate their perceptions of the abuse.
They fear no one will understand or believe them, so instead of reaching out for help, they decide to withdraw from others as a way to avoid judgment and retaliation from their abuser.
A narcissistic abuser is highly skilled at manufacturing love triangles or bringing another person into the dynamic of the relationship to further terrorize the victim. As a result, victims of narcissistic abuse internalize the fear that they are not enough and may constantly strive to ‘compete’ for the abuser’s attention and approval.
Victims may also compare themselves to others in happier, healthier relationships or find themselves wondering why their abuser appears to treat complete strangers with more respect. This can send them down the trapdoor of wondering, “why me?” and stuck in an abyss of self-blame. The truth is, the abuser is the person who should be blamed – you are in no way responsible for being abused.
Victims often find themselves ruminating over the abuse and hearing the abuser’s voice in their minds, amplifying their negative self-talkand tendency towards self-sabotage. Malignant narcissists ‘program’ and condition their victims to self-destruct – sometimes even to the point of driving them to suicide.
Due to the narcissist’s covert and overt put-downs, verbal abuse and hypercriticism, victims develop a tendency to punish themselves because they carry such toxic shame. They may sabotage their goals, dreams and academic pursuits. The abuser has instilled in them a sense of worthlessness and they begin to believe that they are undeserving of good things.
Since many pathological predators are envious of their victims, they punish them for succeeding. This conditions their victims to associate their joys, interests, talents and areas of success with cruel and callous treatment. This conditioning gets their victims to fear success lest they be met with reprisal and reprimand.
As a result, victims become depressed, anxious, lack confidence and they may hide from the spotlight and allow their abusers to ‘steal’ the show again and again. Realize that your abuser is not undercutting your gifts because they truly believe you are inferior; it is because those gifts threaten their control over you.
Rationalizing, minimizing and denying the abuse are often survival mechanisms for victims in an abusive relationship. In order to reduce the cognitive dissonance that erupts when the person who claims to love you mistreats you, victims of abuse convince themselves that the abuser is really not ‘all that bad’ or that they must have done something to ‘provoke’ the abuse.
It is important to reduce this cognitive dissonance in the other direction by reading up on the narcissistic personality and abuse tactics; this way, you are able to reconcile your current reality with the narcissist’s false self by recognizing that the abusive personality, not the charming facade, is their true self.
Remember that an intense trauma bond is often formed between victim and abuser because the victim is ‘trained’ to rely on the abuser for his or her survival (Carnes, 2015). Victims may protect their abusers from legal consequences, portray a happy image of the relationship on social media or overcompensate by ‘sharing the blame’ of the abuse.
If you are currently in an abusive relationship of any kind, know that you are not alone even if you feel like you are. There are millions of survivors all over the world who have experienced what you have. This form of psychological torment is not exclusive to any gender, culture, social class or religion. The first step is becoming aware of the reality of your situation and validating it – even if your abuser attempts to gaslight you into believing otherwise.
If you can, journal about the experiences you have been going through to begin acknowledging the realities of the abuse. Share the truth with a trusted mental health professional, domestic violence advocates, family members, friends or fellow survivors. Begin to ‘heal’ your body through modalities like trauma-focused yoga and mindfulness meditation, two practices that target the same parts of the brain often affected by trauma (van der Kolk, 2015).
Reach out for help if you are experiencing any of these symptoms, especially suicidal ideation. Consult a trauma-informed counselor who understands and can help guide you through the symptoms of trauma. Make a safety plan if you have concerns about your abuser getting violent.
It is not easy to leave an abusive relationship due to the intense trauma bonds that can develop, the effects of trauma and the pervasive sense of helplessness and hopelessness that can form as a result of the abuse. Yet you have to know that it is in fact possible to leave and to begin the journey to No Contact or Low Contact in the cases of co-parenting. Recovery from this form of abuse is challenging, but it is well worth paving the path back to freedom and putting the pieces back together.
Hoovering is a behavior pattern associated with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), and its more extreme manifestation on the spectrum, antisocial personality disorder (APD) or psychopathology.
Narcissists** are known to make contact with one or more past partners, or perhaps all, after a period of separation or when they perceive them as getting on with their life.
What sets hoovering apart from the otherwise “normal” behavior of contacting an old friend are the ruthless intentions.
Here are 7 narcissistic reasons a narcissist engages in hoovering.
1. A narcissist returns because, in their mind, they perceive people as objects and in this case possessions.
To a narcissist, a partner is mere prey, an object serving their pleasure. From this deranged view of human relations, a narcissist regards failure as a threat. To him****, it’s inconceivable to lose control of someone they intentionally trapped with the full range of tactics of narcissistic abuse. He’s back to prove who’s “superior” and who’s “inferior” by re-establishing possession. He returns to display he has control, for example, the power to destabilize another’s life, to con and love-bomb them with lies into believing more fairy tale illusions, once again, merely to let them down, to exploit and use them like punching bags, and so on.
In the mind of a narcissist, a possession is always a possession. Leaving is never an option. Objects don’t leave; they don’t have a mind of their own. They serve the whims of owners. In the case of malignant narcissists (APDs), this explains why leaving them, or demanding they leave, is when they post the greatest danger and risk to others.
2. A narcissist is an addict, and thus always preoccupied with their next fix.
A narcissist views others as objects to exploit for own gain. He hoovers to reengage a tried and true drug-source, heartlessly re-opening a past partner’s old wounds to “re-enable” the supply. To him, a previous partner is nothing more than a place to get a “fix,” and they return when running low in getting fixes, or in times of scarcity — but also, like a juggler, to keep an supply-source spinning and available. Now you may say, why would someone do that? Don’t they have a life? Based on a narcissist’s thought-disordered worldview, using others to get a fix is it, what life and pleasure is all about.
Each fix, to a narcissist, is a victory, one that adds to his false-self sense of superiority. And that is his fix, period. And when he acts and says caring and loving things, it is not love, it is love-bombing, a tactic used as part of the larger strategy, in this case, to disarm and bait the “human” types they prey and look down on with scorn, in order to gain their trust. Remember, they study and know their prey, mostly women. When they love-bomb, they intentionally talk in ways that make women swoon — with an ulterior motive to exploit them. Everything he says and does serves to get the next fix, then the next.
3. A narcissist’s drug of choice is based on violating the rights of others.
Narcissists are chronic abusers. At minimum, emotional and psychological. Like addicts, they intentionally seek to inflict pain or violate their partner’s rights. From this disordered mindset, if a person can be conned and get “hurt,” that makes them weak and stupid — and the narcissist strong and smart. Violating others with no remorse is linked to a rigid belief system that, in varying degrees from boyhood, shames men to display a callous disregard for their partner’s feelings to prove they deserve the status of belonging to the “cult of masculinity.”
To them, superiority and strength are proven on the basis of how heartlessly one can re-capture, deceive and subvert the will and mind of an old partner, for example, to raise their hopes only to dash them, to throw them off course, to prove who’s still got the top dog status by, once again, tearing down a past partner’s sense of self, value, and instill them with shame, doubt, fear, confusion, not to mention rejection, abandonment, worthlessness, and the like. Domestic violence, sexual assault, rape, pedophilia, mass shootings all have one thing in common: they are patterns of behavior displayed by (mostly) men that identify and work 24/7 to enforce the rules for “toxic masculinity.“)
4. A narcissist returns to prove (what he perceives as) “entitlements” to exploit and abuse with impunity.
To a narcissist, a past partner is a sex object he’s entitled to exploit forever. He returns to prove he’s still has the power to both mistreat her as he wishes, and in return expects she treats him as infallible and entitled. And, he is always on guard to protect and maintain a double standard when it comes to entitlements. Gaslighting is his favorite tool to derail the focus of any conversation to serve his goals. He gaslights, and relishes the power this gives him (providing she remains unaware of her truth and his lies) to turn every conversation into a nightmare, and to condition her step by step to silence herself, to never bring up her pain, wants, needs, and to blame herself for his misery.
Based on his belief in male dominance and superiority, he feels entitled to hoard the benefits and pleasures in the relationship. It’s all a con game, and in this case, the art of erecting illusions and implanting false-self images of themselves as having godlike powers, while tearing down their victim’s sense of self and agency, is based on scientifically proven methods of thought-control. All cult leaders by the way, religious and secular, are malignant narcissists, meeting the criteria for narcissism on the extreme spectrum of narcissism, which is antisocial personality disorder (APD) also known as psychopathology. Meanwhile certain romanticized fantasies women are conditioned to believe from childhood make them easy prey for narcissists.
5. A narcissist returns to keep a past partner trapped on an emotional roller coaster, manipulated by lies and illusions, caught in the same patterns of hope-then-let down and powerlessness.
A narcissist can only be understood from their worldview, never yours! He is proud to be known as ruthless, callous toward women’s pain, a fierce competitor vying to hold onto every bit of the power in a relationship, and to render his partner powerless. (A covert narcissist does this in hidden ways, painting himself as a nice, laid back guy, controlled and emasculated by his partner.) He lusts to hate and be hated, and is pleased to no end when he can get his partner to say she hates him, and to act out violently toward him. (Unlike him, she will likely feel bad afterward; this gives him double pleasure, and makes it easier to blame and fault her.) Thus he works to make her feel every bit as miserable, self-loathing, scheming, vying for power, ruthless, unfeeling, detached, and so on, as he is. He works hard to make her fear and hate him.
Though he’d deny it, he fears emotions of vulnerability as signs of weaknesses and inferiority, and works hard to deny, reject, suppress them in himself and other males. These emotions consist of his true-self, at least when he was born. His upbringing that him to fear and reject his true-self! It means his false-self does not exist! He’s been shamed from boyhood, conditioned to train himself to deny and disown any of emotions of tenderness — that would prevent him from displaying “real” man feelings such as no remorse and callousness toward a woman’s pain!
6. A narcissist returns for the sadistic pleasure of hurting the person who tried to love him.
A narcissist is hooked on deriving pleasure from hurting others, making them feel bad, raising expectations to dash hopes. Call it what it is, narcissistic abuse! This form of abuse consists of intentional acts of harm, to the degree, it causes a set of symptoms, similar to PTSD on the one hand, and Stockholm Syndrome on the other, and a disorder, not yet listed in the DSM, some refer to as: narcissistic abuse syndrome. By rigidly holding fast to this disturbed mindset, narcissists condemn themselves to live a life of misery and self-loathing; and since misery loves company, that means a life of working hard to make others feel like they feel inside: miserable, alone, fragile, guarded, disillusioned, confused, stuck, powerless, etc.
Making those they deem week squirm to please, spin their wheels, etc., is a drug that provides relief — their best friend, like a bottle of whiskey is to an alcoholic. Their drug of choice numbs the pain and misery inside, and like addicts, they vehemently deny any responsibility for their misery. They are addicted to deriving pleasure from making others feel miserable. A sad bunch, they believe the lie that this proves their superiority. (This explains why truth is their biggest enemy, and they fear nothing more than truth and truth-tellers.)
7. A narcissist returns to reinforce the lies he wants his prey to believe about self and him, life and others.
In a narcissist’s view, humans exist in dichotomous and adversarial categories of superior versus inferior, strong versus weak, meant-to-rule versus meant-to-be-ruled, male versus female, white versus nonwhite, and so on. Thus, narcissists return to reinforce the illusions and fantasies they devise to play god. They are active illusionists, on 24/7 so to speak, strategizing to alter and stay in control of how others to think, what they believe, how the world of relationships work, etc.
The narcissist lies about things, big and small. In contrast to “regular” lies that are defensive or protective, most of the lies of a narcissist are offensive in nature. They lie to promote a worldview in which their “false-self” superiority is real, a view that normalizes violence and cruelty as means for “strong” men to maintain dominance over the “weak.” This explains why a narcissist refuses to change! To change is to not exist. To them, “healing” is talk only the weak engage in. Indeed, their greatest fear is the true-self of self and others — human being! They desperately seek to deny or pathologies human yearnings for intimacy, closeness, collaboration. They need lies because their false-self does not exist in a world of truth about the power of love and creativity, collaboration and human connection!
In conclusion, previous partners beware! A narcissist does not regard a past partner as a human being. Indeed, he feels scorn for human traits and ideals. The identity of a narcissist is married to acts of violating others, and in the process, making themselves seem like the “normal” ones, while smearing their victims or critics to make them appear emotionally crazy or evil.
The belief system he holds drive his actions and the pathological patterns of behavior, the underlying thoughts and physiological feeling states. Identify and get to know the traps they set, the bait they throw, and avoid these like the plague.
What do you need to heal and set yourself free?
To get to a place where your main goal is to so love and respect and honor yourself and life, that your highest goals is to let the narcissist go, refuse to give them any space in your heart, mind and soul — except to thank the Universe for learning from the experience to better love and accept yourself and life!
This may mean working with a trained therapist, do whatever you need to learn and train yourself to take smart-actions to stop feeding the narcissism, and instead nourish and cultivate your authentic self and life.
** The terms narcissist or narcissism refer to those individuals that meet the criteria for either narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) or its more extreme version on the spectrum, antisocial personality disorder (APD).
Feeling attached to a narcissist or sociopath even though he treats us badly is a constant source of angst for those in recovery from toxic relationships. Victims want to know why…why can’t I just let go of this guy? Why can’t I move on? Why am I obsessed with no closure? Why do I feel so connected to someone who feels no connection to me? One logical answer to this is that we’re normal and they’re not and normal people want to fix things that are broken so that they work again.
The problem, of course, is that a narcissist can’t be fixed because he was never right to begin with. In essence, the narcissist isn’t really broken at all. He simply is what he is and what he is is no good. This being true, what do we do, after a Discard, when we can’t shake the feeling of being only ½ a person without him…of feeling utterly attached even when we’re apart and even when he’s with someone else? Why can’t we disconnect from the Bad Man? Well, there is an answer to this for those who seek a deeper psychological reason for the suffering and it’s a condition often referred to as trauma bonding.
Narcissists & Trauma Bonding: Twisted Attachment
When we think of trauma bonding, we typically associate it with The Stockholm Syndrome (TSS) – a condition named after a real-life situation where a group of hostages became emotionally attached to their kidnapers. TSS, however, although certainly similar to trauma bonding, typically occurs in life-threatening situations where the victim is literally in fear of dying at the hands of her toxic, abusive partner. Trauma bonding is more descriptive of the attachment dilemma that occurs from the type of trauma caused to our emotions (i.e. betrayal and neglect, over and over and over). It’s the type of bonding that can easily occur via passive-aggressive manipulation (i.e. sex, lies, silent treatments) and other forms of narcissistic control.
The narcissist partner, as cunning as he or she is, understands the process for streamlining a victim’s codependency to point of least resistance. He has actually figured out – without a single day of formal training – that the best way to ensure narcissistic supply is to create trauma bonds with his targets via the method of “seduce and discard”. He has figured out an easy way to turn us into a narcissist’s enabler.
The conditioning that leads to trauma bonding focuses on two powerful sources of reinforcement recurring in succession over and over and at perfectly timed intervals. Psychologists call this reinforcement the ‘arousal-jag’ which actually refers to the excitement before the trauma (arousal) and the peace of surrender afterwards (jag). Take a second to reflect on the narcissist’s behaviors. Creating trauma bonds is what he’s been doing his whole life!
‘Arousal-jag’ reinforcement is all about giving a little and then taking it away over and over and over in well timed intervals. Narcissists do this all the time (disappearing/reappearing, silence/chaos) whereby creating an illusion of twisted excitement that reinforces the traumatic bond between us and them. And to be clear, the narcissist feels a connection here as well only his connection is to the excitement alone and not to us. This is why a narcissist always has multiple partners because it doubles and triples his excitement factor. The fact that we – as his victims – become so attached to the chaos that we’ll eagerly await a hoover is quite an added bonus!
Are you getting it yet??
The excitement before the trauma (of betrayal and neglect) is created during the devalue stage…that point in time right before a discard when our intuition has already told us he’s going to leave based on his behaviors. It’s that knot-in-the-stomach feeling, the overwhelming urge to call his phone 100 times, the torment of cognitive dissonance…. it’s the hours spent scouring the internet looking for clues…it’s the feeling we get from the chaos that a narcissist ALWAYS creates right before the silence. Like it or not, we become highly addicted to his narcissistic behaviors and all of the nonsense that goes with it… and we miss it like a motherfucker when it’s gone…when, suddenly, the narcissist goes silent. We long for the connection – as manipulated and fabricated as it is – until we can barely breathe. Then, right before we either kill ourselves or come to our senses, in swoops the narcissist once again – like a Phoenix rising – to give us the second reinforcement: the peace of surrender that happens afterwards. His reappearance is meticulously timed for maximum effect and usually follows a silent treatment that has lasted just a tad longer than the one before. The narcissist is conditioning us to accept less and less so he can get away with more each time he vanishes.
Either way, this second dose of reinforcement – the peace of surrender – is absolutely heaven! Again, it’s an addiction – to the narcissist and the make-up sex, to the vanishing of our anxiety, and to the feeling of calmness and euphoria we get from knowing that, once again, we’ve been given a reprieve to breathe until the cycle repeats again. Seduce and discard…seduce and discard…till the end of all fucking time. And, at the moment it’s happening, we’re actually okay with that! In fact, there’s no place in the world we’d rather be.
As I am writing this, I am realizing that my ex worked very, very hard at trauma bonding. In fact, he was a Master at it, subjecting me to silent treatments (two weeks on/two weeks off) like clockwork.
Our addiction to the narcissistic chaos and then to the reprieve also explains why we find it so hard to maintain No Contact and/or to move on into new relationships after it’s over. No one excites us in quite the same way or with the same intensity as a toxic partner. Via trauma bonding, we become the suffering and the suffering becomes us. We forget what normalcy feels like. We stop differentiating between good excitement and bad excitement. The chaos and turmoil becomes almost as big a turn-on for us as it does for the N.
If we look back on or inward on (if we’re still in it) our relationship, we see that at the moment the Idolize Phase ends, the trauma bonding began. We may not have even known this but you can be sure that the narcissist did. As time passed and the narcissistic partner became more successful at managing down our expectations of the relationship, our connection to the nonsense began to stick like super glue. But now that we know it….that there is a name for that strange hold this bizarre person had over us..we can make sure it never happens to us again. If we’re still in the relationship, then we can get out (and fast!) because, unlike a hostage victim who trauma bonds with a kidnapper, we are NOT being held at gunpoint and we CAN escape. Let us be grateful for that fact and do what we need to do to save our sanity.
To draw you closer, narcissists & psychopaths create an aura of desirability—of being wanted and courted by many. It will become a point of vanity for you to be the preferred object of their attention, to win them away from a crowd of admirers. They manufacture the illusion of popularity by surrounding themselves with members of the opposite sex: friends, former lovers, and your eventual replacement. Then, they create triangles that stimulate rivalry and raise their perceived value. (Adapted from “The Art of Seduction” by Robert Greene).
A note before I continue: people fall in and out of love. People find new love, before and after relationships come to an end. People cheat on one another. This section is not about these everyday occurrences—no matter how heartbreaking and unfair they might be. Instead, I will be describing a very specific set of patterns and behaviors that psychopaths utilize in order to torture and control their targets.
Psychopaths, like most predators, seek power and control. They want to dominate their partners sexually, emotionally, and physically. They do this by exploiting vulnerabilities. This is why they love-bomb you with attention and flattery in the beginning of the relationship—because no matter how strong or confident you are, being in “love” makes you vulnerable by default. Psychopaths don’t need physical aggression to control you (although sometimes they do). Instead, relationships provide them with the perfect opportunity to consume you by manufacturing the illusion of love. This is why it’s so damaging when bystanders say: “Well, why didn’t you just leave?” You never entered a relationship with the psychopath expecting to be abused, belittled, and criticized—first, you were tricked into falling in love, which is the strongest human bond in the world. Psychopaths know this.
So how do psychopaths maintain such a powerful bond over their targets? One of their favorite methods is through triangulation. When I mention this term, survivors usually equate it with the next target, but that is not always the case. Psychopaths use triangulation on a regular basis to seem in “high-demand”, and to keep you obsessed with them at all times. This can occur with anyone:
1. Your family
2. Their family
3. Your friends
4. Their friends
5. Ex-partners
6. Partners-to-be
7. Complete strangers
The psychopath’s ability to groom others is unmatched. They feel an intense euphoria when they turn people against each other, especially when it’s over a competition for them. Psychopaths will manufacture situations to make you jealous and question their fidelity. In a normal relationship, people go out of their way to prove that they are trustworthy—but the psychopath does exactly the opposite. They are constantly suggesting that they might be pursuing other options, or spending time with other people, so that you can never settle down into a feeling of peace. And they will always deny this, calling you crazy for bringing it up.
The issue here is that you’re accustomed to such a high level of attention after they first lured you in, so it feels very personal & confusing when they direct that attention elsewhere. They know this. They’ll “forget” plans with you, and spend a few days with friends that they always complained about to you. They’ll ignore you to spend more time with their family, when they initially told you that they were all horrible people. They’ll seek sympathy from an ex when a member of their family dies, and explain that they just have a “special friendship” you wouldn’t understand. Often—if not always—that ex is someone they first claimed was abusive and unstable.
Seeking attention, sympathy and solace from people who are not you is a very common tactic of the psychopath. As an empathetic person, and as their partner, you rightfully feel that they should be seeking comfort in you. You’ve always healed them in the past, so what’s different now? They once claimed that they were a broken person, and that you were the reason they were happy again. But now, they turn to private friendships or past relationships that you could “never understand”. And they will always make sure to shove this in your face.
This brings me to the next topic: social media.
Technology makes it so much easier for psychopaths to manipulate through triangulation. It can be as simple as liking a comment from an old ex, while ignoring one from you. They will “accidentally” upload a photo album where they’re embracing the ex they once claimed to hate. Everything appears to be unintentional—you often attribute it to insensitivity—but make no mistake: it is carefully calculated.
They will post strategically ambiguous statuses, songs, and videos that suggest you might be “losing” them. They will share things that are intentionally meant to lure in new & old targets. For example, an inside joke with their new victim. Or the love song that they once shared with their ex. This does two things: it leaves you feeling unhinged, anxious, and jealous. But it also makes the competing party feel confident, loved, and special. They are grooming others as they erode your identity—two birds with one stone.
They want you to confront them about these things, because they are so seemingly minimal that you will appear crazy and jealous for bringing it up. They will calmly provide an excuse for everything and then blame you. Covert abuse is impossible to prove, because it’s always strategically ambiguous. You can’t prove that they’re luring in their ex because of a song they posted, but you know it intuitively. This is how they finalize the crazy-making. Because let’s be honest: complaining about Facebook statuses & comments does seem immature. That’s exactly how they want you to feel.
Psychopaths are also expertly skilled at surrounding themselves with givers—insecure people who find self-worth in taking care of others. This is why your giving seems so insignificant and replaceable during the relationship. They adore qualities in others who are nothing like you—sometimes even the exact opposite of you. The message is simple: you are no longer special. You are replaceable. If you don’t give them the worshipping they deserve, they’ll always have other sources. And even if you do give them positive energy, they’ll get bored of you eventually. They don’t need you. Their current round of fans will always spoil and admire them, making you believe that they truly must be a great person. But take a careful look around. You’ll notice that they all seem to have an unspoken misery about them.
The final triangulation happens when they make the decision to abandon you. This is when they’ll begin freely talking about how much this relationship is hurting them, and how they don’t know if they can deal with your behavior anymore. They will usually mention talking to a close friend about your relationship, going into details about how they both agreed that your relationship wasn’t healthy. In the meantime, they’ve been blatantly ignoring frantic messages from you. You’ll be sitting there wondering why they aren’t chatting with you about these concerns, considering it’s your relationship.
Well, the reason is that they’ve already made the decision to dump you—now they’re just torturing you. They only seek advice from people they know will agree with them. That “friend” they’re talking to is probably their next target.
After the breakup, they will openly brag about how happy they are with their new partner, where most normal people would feel very embarrassed and secretive about entering a new relationship so quickly. And even more surprising, they fully expect you to be happy for them. Otherwise you are bitter and jealous.
During this period, they make a post-dump assessment. If you grovel or beg, they are likely to find some value in your energy. They will be both disgusted and delighted by your behavior. If you lash out and begin uncovering their lies, they will do everything in their power to drive you to suicide. Even if you come back to them later with an apology, they will permanently despise any target who once dared talk back to them. You’ve seen too much—the predator behind the mask.
This is why they constantly wave their new partner in your face, posting pictures and declaring their happiness online. Proving how happy and perfect they are. It’s a final attempt to drive you insane with triangulation. To make you blame the new target, instead of the true abuser.
Exes who stay strung do not understand that they are puppets to the psychopath. Instead, they feel that they are fulfilling some sort of beautiful duty as a friend—someone who will always be there for them. They don’t understand that they are only kept around to spice things up when the psychopath becomes bored. They don’t see that they are the basis of so many fights—not because their friendship with the psychopath is special and enviable, but because the psychopath intentionally creates that drama. They are operating under the delusion that their friendship with the psychopath is brilliant, unique, and unprecedented. When in reality, they are just used for triangulation.
So how can you protect yourself from this devastating emotional abuse? First, you must learn self-respect. I will discuss this in more detail later on in the book. But the bottom line is, you need know what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior in a relationship. You should know that a partner who cheats and antagonizes is not worth your time. You should never resort to calling yourself crazy in order to account for their extremely sketchy behavior. But that’s hard to do with subtle, covert, crazy-making abuse.
So here’s where I introduce “The Detective Rule”. The idea is simple: if you find yourself playing detective with someone, you remove them from your life immediately. Remember your Constant? Do you play detective with them? Do you cyberstalk their Facebook page and question their every intention? No, of course not. So you know the common denominator is external.
Even if this sense of distrust feels obscure and unreasonable, trust your gut. If you are constantly worrying or doubting your thoughts, it’s time to stop blaming yourself and start taking action.
Miraculously, every single time you remove that toxic person from your life, you will find that the anxiety subsides. Some of us are better at judging ourselves than others, so this finally gives you a chance to put that to use. You can decide whether or not you like the way you feel around someone. No one can ever tell you that your feelings are wrong. Remember the question: “How are you feeling today?” The answer is all that matters.
Triangulation leaves long-lasting emotional scars, and it makes you feel as if you are a jealous, needy, insecure monster. Start healing those scars and understand that they were manufactured. You were not yourself—you were manipulated. The real you is kind, loving, open-minded, and compassionate. Never question these things again.
One study reveals that individuals with the narcissistic character traits enumerated above possess what the authors define as narcissistic awareness: they know of their tendency to be narcissistic from time to time.
The other kind however, is a genuine psychiatric disorder, and if you aren’t prepared, you will find yourself the victim of narcissistic manipulation.
Individuals who meet the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder use extremely manipulative tactics when dealing with relationships.
This is due to their dishonesty, lack of empathy and their tendency to be outwardly exploitative.
Recognizing their harmful influence, and removing yourself from the grip of narcissist manipulation is the best thing you can do to protect your mental and emotional well-being.
Here are 7 Of The Most Harmful Narcissistic Manipulation Tactics:
1. Public and private shaming.
Whether it is in a public setting, or the privacy of your own home, a narcissist will make comments that belittle you. They derive pleasure from making others feel small, look weak, or appear less intelligent than themselves. This form of manipulation is subtle- dangerously so. You won’t recognize it under the guise of “I’m only kidding.” “Can’t you take a joke?” or “I’m just trying to help you.” Eventually you begin to rely on their hurtful words. Or rather, you rely on the hope that one day you will be “good enough”, and they won’t have to say them.
Trust me, you are good enough already.
Narcissistic individuals feel very comfortable in today’s world of global interconnectedness, where public shaming is being used to shift our beliefs, and we’ve started accepting is as the new normal.
2. Third-party reinforcements.
Of course the narcissist needs back up. Their egos are massive, and as big as they are, they are equally fragile. This means that regardless of what you say, or how much logic you use, or what facts you have on your side, you won’t win. You can’t. They have already swayed one of their friends or colleagues and convinced them to take their side.
Unbeknownst to you. So now, you, the person you intended to have the conversation with, and a third-party member of their choosing are now all a part of this triangle of defeat from hell. This is known as triangulation.
Toxis narcissists do not miss a chance to triangulate their partner with family members, friends, colleagues, ex-boyfriends or girlfriends, or even complete strangers in order to spark jealousy and uncertainty in them.
3. Minimizing your worth.
When your relationship began, the narcissist complimented you and made you feel like you both could be the greatest couple that ever walked the earth. You were so happy- or you thought you were. Then they started changing things around. The compliments turned into things you needed to change about yourself. The way they liked your hair is now “dated” or “silly.” Your awkward puns that everybody genuinely enjoys?
“Nah, those are dumb too, and the people only laugh because they pity you.” You will never feel like you are worth more than what they say you are.
4. Perpetuating the role of victim.
Despite the fact that you’re the one who is being victimized, the narcissist will turn it around on themselves. You might have told them how it feels like you are talking to a brick wall when you try to get through to them, and the narc will say something like, “See? I just can’t get through to you.”
It literally makes no sense whatsoever, and their words will have you questioning if you really are the one to blame. Maybe you just haven’t been clear enough. Do not fall for this kind of manipulation.
5. Gaslighting or “crazy-making.”
Each one of these types of manipulation can damage your mental and emotional health, and this happens because we start to doubt ourselves and our sanity. We begin to question if we really said something, or if they never said something, or if everyone else sees the same thing you do. Well, unless they are living with them, someone else isn’t going to see what you see. Gaslighting works exceptionally well for the narcissist because there is no proof.
You can’t prove how they feel, and you can’t prove if they said something or acted irrationally. Of course, you could record them, but then you would be the crazy one. Again, it all goes back to making you rely on them- for your sanity, for your worth, and for your very basis in reality. If that’s not dangerous, I don’t know what is.
6. Controlling everything.
The conversation, the meals, the social outings, the bills- literally everything. The narcissist feels the need to control these things so they are the center of attention and main focus of the relationship. If you want to talk about your day, go for it. But know that they won’t hear you, they won’t remember anything you’ve said, and the conversation will immediately encompass their day.
This eventually causes you to forget all about yourself and what you want. As soon as the relationship reaches this level of manipulation, stop, and ask yourself what you are doing and where you can go from here that will better your life.
7. Project, and deflect.
Remember, the narcissist is flawless. So if they’re upset about something at work, or if they’ve been made aware of one of their many “flawless” attributes, they are going to take it out on you. And guess what? You aren’t going to be prepared. You can’t be. When you say something that triggers them (and it could be anything under the sun) you become the target of their aggression. Not only is this dangerous for your mental and emotional health, it can be detrimental to your physical health as well. Read more at CPOE.org website
Increased levels of cortisol rush through your body when your stress levels are elevated, and too much of it can cause heart problems.
A brief conclusion
Hopefully, knowing these signs can help you to recognize and identify them when they happen, so you can take the appropriate measures. These can include anything from physically distancing yourself from the narcissist (e.g. stop meeting them, moving out of the home you share with them, or even moving out of town) to building an emotional barrier around you, whereupon you just cut all communication with them.
The Narcissistic Weapon of Choice, and its Catastrophic Damage to the Psyche.
The term cognitive dissonance is used to describe the feelings of discomfort that result when your beliefs run counter to your behaviors and/or new information that is presented to you. People tend to seek consistency in their attitudes and perceptions, so when what you hold true is challenged or what you do doesn’t jibe with what you think, something must change in order to eliminate or reduce the dissonance (lack of agreement). A classic example of this is “explaining something away.” — Verywellmind.com
Cognitive dissonance is a catastrophic breakdown of steadfast beliefs and self-knowledge. It is the sense of complete confusion — an entire dissolution of clarity. It feels like mental torture. If you have been in a relationship of any kind with a narcissist, you will know this feeling well.
In day to day life, we all face bouts of cognitive dissonance. In small doses, and dealing with normal healthy people this is no bad thing as it can allow us to consider two sides of the same coin with fact, reason and critical thinking.
But when cognitive dissonance becomes a pattern of ongoing conflict and confusion in your mind as a result of toxic abuse, severe damage can be done to your sense of self and personal autonomy.
In a relationship with a narcissist, Cognitive Dissonance underlies trauma-bonding. In its extreme, it can cause Stockholm-syndrome and battered wife syndrome.
With Narcissists
Word Salad
Narcissists are spectacularly skilled in causing cognitive dissonance.
They engage in word-salad type monologues — taking you on a wild goose-chase with their words and long self-oriented tirades. You are left exhausted and depleted trying to decode what it is they are saying.
If you manage to get a word in edgeways, narcissists will surreptitiously sidestep the thrust of your every point, and then deflect and redirect incessantly to a point where you cannot even remember where you started or how you end up at the final destination. The final destination looks like chaos — a complete and utter jumble of words and re-framed semantics that actually lack meaning entirely.
Projection
They are even more adept at redirecting to you. Woe betides if you express sadness or disappointment at the narcissist. Masters in the art of projection, you will be on the receiving end of all their rage and self-hatred. They will insult you, criticise your character and press deeply on all your own insecurities to deflect the spotlight from themselves. What started out as you hoping for some resolution from your disappointment, finishes with you doubting yourself and all that you are.
Projection is an insidious form of lying — by projecting unto us, we are the ones to blame and the narcissist avoids all accountability. Shame is often the cornerstone of their projection. It lies at the root of the narcissistic personality type. Narcissists cannot handle the deep severity of the emotion thus they project it onto others in a primitive attempt to rid themselves of it.
When you love this person, cognitive dissonance magnifies in its power. It slowly breaks down the psyche causing chronic confusion — about yourself, and about the person in question. We wonder, how can this person keep saying the same things if it isn’t true? They love me, so they must be right. How horrifically tragic it is when we start to believe this.
Gas-lighting
Of all the weapons in the Narcissists armory cabinet, this is probably his favourite. Gas-lighting is a deleterious maneuver that narcissists and other toxic types use to make you bring your own sanity into question.
“I think I am losing my mind, I don’t know what is real and what is not anymore.”
It is a terrible notion to believe — that somebody we love could be purposely trying to distort our version of reality but sadly it is a reality in life with a narcissist. Narcissists use this tactic to make us dependent on their account of reality whilst covertly pulling the rug from under our feet so that you are no longer on psychological or emotional terra-firma.
Examples of Gas-lighting
Flat-out denial of events that occurred, words that were uttered, abuse that took place.
Reversal and projection of facts — onto you. “It’s you that is insane, why do you think I keep telling you this? I say it all the time but you just don’t listen, I’m tired of you not hearing me.”
They’ll tell you you’re irrational, you’ve lost your mind, you are too sensitive.
The supremely artful narcissists of the covert type will mask their words under sweet-icing “No baby, I know what is right for you, you just need to trust me, what I am saying is right.” Or, “I was just joking sweetie.”
Your deepest wounds will be prodded and poked at — upturning your self-control and emotional stability.
Reactive abuse — goading you to a point where you implode and then blame you for being the abuser.
Cognitive Dissonance Paralyses Clarity and Agency
Rationalization — something feels intuitively very wrong, but we rationalize the behaviour of the toxic other; they love me, they wouldn’t want to hurt me on purpose. This explanation reduces the anxiety of the abuse, strengthening the toxic trauma-bond to the abuser.
Defensiveness — we defend the toxic individual to other people, especially when loved ones are trying to protect us. We think the abuser is simply misunderstood, that we understand their psychological wiring and therefore must act to defend it.
Denial — the brain goes into overdrive to protect the internal conflict. It is too painful to consider that the person we care for may actually be abusing us. So we deny the reality and force it deep into our unconscious. But the conflict is magnified by doing so and will rear its head in complete emotional depletion.
Justification — we justify to ourselves why we need to stay in the relationship. Maybe we think that the narcissist suffered terribly in childhood and justify his behaviour.
The Impact of Cognitive Dissonance to the Psyche
A complete deterioration of self-worth. Tragic but inevitable that self-worth breaks down when your mental reasoning is protecting an abuser to the point that you believe it is you to blame for the toxic state of the relationship. This reasoning is the only way the brain can justify staying in the partnership.
Chronic self-doubt. The line between right and wrong is now entirely muddled, blurry. We are no longer in control of destiny, emotions, desires. We have become wired to the ambient mood and behaviours of the toxic other, enmeshed in their way of thinking and being. Self-doubt becomes an internal disease, rendering the psyche entirely devoid of a sense of self.
Perfectionism and people-pleasing. Unconscious fear about the next bout of rage or shift in mood leads to a persistent hypervigilance. This vigilance is a finessed attunement to the moods of the other, allowing us to cultivate ways of avoiding or deflecting the next meltdown or round of abuse. How this plays out in practice is perverse pleasing of the other — anything to avoid further damage. In doing so we lose ourselves entirely in the other, neglecting ourselves fully in the process.
Social withdrawal and isolation. The clever narcissist has a way of making himself look like a pillar of grace and humility. And he will make you look like you’re deranged and unhinged. So we withdraw from those that we love, retreat into our hovels of confusion and despair, further amplifying the self-doubt that is haunting the mind.
Profound lack of clarity. You no longer know what is real and what is not, what is right and what is wrong. Your narcissistic loved one has shattered your sense of reality so you have to clarify everything — when somebody speaks you ask them to elaborate, to be clearer — you don’t trust your own perception or interpretations.
What to do When You Realise You’re Suffering From Chronic Cognitive Dissonance
Your intuition has probably been telling you for some time that something is interminably wrong. You care for this person deeply, but you feel confused, lost and depleted for the majority of your waking hours.
Confusion and depletion are luminescent markers of cognitive dissonance.
So now what?
Take a big step back from the toxic other, and seek help. If you can get access to a counselor or therapist this will be a great blessing to yourself and your healing from this covert emotional abuse. A therapist or counselor will help you wade through the murky terrain and identify the behaviours and actions of the narcissist. In doing so, you will reclaim all of what you have lost in time — control, self-worth and clarity.
Accept that the other person cannot change. Certainly not with your help, only with that of a therapist. Even then, it is sadly unlikely that they will change. Their behaviours are deeply embedded in their personality structure, formed in very early childhood. Moreover, it is a the hallmark of a narcissist that they never ever believe they are in the wrong. This would shatter their false illusion of entitlement and grandeur. This is the most heartbreaking aspect of it all — especially if we really love the narcissist. But it is an immutable truth: they cannot and will not change.
Remove this person from your life — they have been abusing you, intentionally. Any human being that purposefully makes us question our sanity does not deserve any place in our life.
Seek clarity as your number one goal in these early days after you have removed yourself from the relationship. The loss of definitive lines is the main crux of the damage done. We need to regain this as a priority. Only then can we rebuild the definition of right and wrong, real and fiction, healthy and unhealthy. And then reclaim ourselves and all that we stand for and believe in. Friends, family and therapists can help us redefine the lines (with permanent marker this time).
Surround yourself with good, kind people that love you and respect your boundaries. A healthy soul does not try to bulldoze over, or eradicate your personal boundaries. Someone who truly loves us will respect the lines that we draw.
When cognitive dissonance betrays our once wise and clear mindset, we feel like we have lost ourselves. Rest assured, this is a temporary madness, we can reclaim all that has been squashed under the oppression of narcissistic abuse. We just need a little time, and a whole lot of love from ourselves and healthy loved ones.
N.B. Narcissists come in all shapes and sizes, I have referred to the narcissist as a ‘he’ here as my only experience has been with two males. Please forgive the reference, there are plenty of female narcissistic abusers out there.
elizabethp 