Couples

The pain of narcissistic abuse is beyond comparison of any other. Most people aren't even aware they are being abused and unless you've been through it yourself its hard to imagine just how devastating and destructive it can be. Here are common emotional experiences felt by individuals who may be suffering from Narcissistic Abuse.

Do you often:

• Question your sanity
• Mistrust those who support you, i.e., family, parents
• Feel abandoned, as if only the narcissist cares
• Feel worthless
• Give yourself no credit for your hard work and not get any from them either
• Doubt your ability to think or make decisions
• Disconnect from your own wants and needs
• Give in to whatever the narcissist wants
• Devalue your own contributions
• Obsess on your faults or mistakes
• Ignore or make excuses for narcissist’s actions
• Spin your wheels trying to gain narcissist’s favor
• Obsess on how to make the narcissist happy
• Idealize the narcissist

If you answered yes to some or all of these you may be the target of a narcissist in your life.

 In our  egocentric, social media obsessed society it can be difficult to clearly identify a true narcissist from those with simply an over-inflated sense of self. The reality being, a true Narcissist causes severe emotional damage on those they target and the targeted individual has little to no awareness of the manipulation and lies taking place until the damage is well underway. Similar to that of a frog in boiling water: place a frog in lukewarm water and slowly turn up the heat and they bask in the warmth, but drop a frog in boiling water and their immediate response is to jump to safety.

 Narcissistic emotional abuse starts off unassuming and gradually turns up the heat over time. The victims of this type of abuse are typically very caring and Empathic individuals and often disbelieve someone could ever be so deceiving. Healing is possible but be mindful. The smarter you become about Narcissistic Abuse the crazier the Narcissist will say you are.

 Narcissistic Abuse and Counseling 

A person victimized by narcissistic abuse often comes to counseling, and presents disconnected from their own emotional pain and mental anguish. Instead they tend to be obsessed with their own failures and inadequacy, desperately seeking answers on how to solve the specific problems and flaws the narcissist has identified as causes for the Narcissists misery. You might even have been given a list of the expectations  not met to take to therapy, most of which are centered around you not being attentive enough, being too attentive to the children or family, and not enough fantasy sex.

This can leave your mind spinning, preoccupied with trying to sort the confusion — the effects of tactics such as gaslighting and word salad constantly on the mind, with intent to distort your reality and impose their own — seeking an explanation for why the narcissist is so miserable, why they treat you the way they do, why they are so insecure, why they cannot communicate, why they still don't “get” what your trying to tell him, and so on. (Notice a theme?) The rules however, constantly changing so you cant get it right; often leaving you full of self-blame and self-condemnation.

Through the guidance of a trusted mental health counselor, you can begin to:

• Identify common manipulation tactics
• Learn causes of Narcissistic development
• Understand Normal vs Pathological Narcissism
• Identify the characteristics of Narcissistic behavior
• Re-align with and Rebuild your truths, validate your emotions and learn how to use them to heal