Society assumes that everyone has a conscience and the ability to empathize.
In fact, 1 in 25 people in the United States is estimated to be sociopaths, according to Harvard psychologist Martha Stout. Narcissists (those who meet the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder), sociopaths and psychopaths, speak in the language of crazy-making, of projection, of word salad, of gaslighting and of pathological envy.
While I will be focusing on narcissistic abusers in this post, keep in mind that all three are unable to empathize with others and frequently exploit others for their own agenda. If you encounter someone with narcissistic traits, they could very well fall towards the extreme end of the psychopathy spectrum and be a sociopath or psychopath.
Narcissistic and partners with Antisocial Personality Disorder engage in chronic manipulation and devaluation of their victims, leaving victims feeling worthless, anxious and even suicidal. This type of continual manipulation, which includes an idealization-devaluation-discard abuse cycle where they “lovebomb” their partners, devalue them through stonewalling, gaslighting, smear campaigns, verbal and emotional abuse, then discard them until the trauma begins again, also known as narcissistic abuse—abuse by a partner with NPD or on the far end of the narcissistic spectrum.
Their manipulation is psychological and emotionally devastating and very dangerous, especially considering the brain circuitry for emotional and physical pain are one and the same. What a victim feels when they are punched in the stomach can be similar to the pain a victim feels when they are verbally and emotionally abused, and the effects of narcissistic abuse can be crippling and long-lasting, even resulting in symptoms of PTSD or Complex PTSD. Needless to say, this type of abuse can leave psychological and emotional scars that can last a lifetime.
Yet what makes narcissistic abuse so dangerous is that it is often not recognized as abuse.
Mental health professionals are only now beginning to research and understand what Narcissist Victim Syndrome is, although survivors have been speaking about it for years. Narcissistic abuse is primarily psychological and emotional (though victims can suffer physical abuse as well) and since these abusers employ very covert and insidious methods to abuse their partners, they are able to escape accountability for the abuse because of the false persona they present to the outside world which is usually a charming mask that hides their cruelty.
Survivors often blame themselves for the abuse, not being able to put into words what they’ve experienced. Once they learn the vocabulary of narcissistic abuse, they are armed with the tools, the insights, and the resources to heal. Learning the language and techniques of these predators means that we are better prepared to identify the red flags when interacting with people who display malignant narcissism or antisocial traits and that we can better protect ourselves from exploitation and abuse. It means we can set appropriate boundaries with others, and make informed decisions about who we keep in our lives.
5 Things Psychopaths Say To Make You Feel Crazy.
Understanding the nature of these toxic interactions and how they affect us has an enormous impact on our ability to engage in self-care. I personally know how devastating this type of abuse can be, especially when survivors are not able to speak of their experiences in the traditional discourse about what abuse entails and are often alienated and invalidated by friends, family members, and even mental health professionals who are not trained in this type of abuse. As a survivor, author, coach and a researcher, I’ve made it my mission to continue educating the public about the effects of narcissistic abuse, the techniques of narcissistic abusers, and the fact that healing from this type of abuse is possible.
These pathological individuals walk among us every day in their false masks, often unseen and unnoticed because of how eerily normal they are. They can be of any gender, background, and socioeconomic status. Often times, they are charming, charismatic, the life of the party, able to hook their victims in and dupe the public effortlessly. It’s possible you’ve dated, worked with, had a family member or friend with Narcissistic Personality Disorder or Antisocial Personality Disorder in your lifetime.
Learning their emotional language means acknowledging that their cruelty is not only explicit but implicit, deeply ingrained in nuances in their facial expressions, gestures, tones, and most importantly, the contradictory mismatch between their words and actions. Their cruelty is deliberate and designed to control and ultimately destroy their victims.
Why The Nicest People Have Suffered The Most Damage In Life.
These types of abusers are fluent in manipulation, well-versed in sadism, in control and in rage. It is akin to psychological and emotional rape—a sordid violation of boundaries and of the trust the victim has given his or her abuser.
Narcissistic abusers can attack at any given moment, using their choice weapons of sarcasm, condescending remarks, name-calling, and blame-shifting whenever they perceive you as a threat or whenever they need entertainment in the form of an emotional reaction. They can also use their nonverbal language in the form of a sadistic smirk, the cold deadness in their eyes while professing their love to you, their bored, sulky looks or their cruel laughter to bully you into believing that you are inferior to them.
Survivors spend much of the evaluation phase of an abusive cycle (the phase where they are thrust off the pedestal, only to be demeaned and degraded) constantly on their toes, careful not to make a sound lest they incur the wrath of their narcissist. Yet walking on eggshells doesn’t help, as the narcissist can and will use anything and everything you’ve said or done to you.
There are three key pieces of information that narcissists frequently collect in the idealization phase of the relationship where they are the first love-bombing and grooming you with excessive attention, that they later wield against you in the devaluation and discard phases in their special language of depravity:
1. The flaws, shortcomings, insecurities, and secrets you’ve confided in the narcissist about.
The narcissistic abuser rejoices when you share your wounds, your struggles, and your triggers early on. It is then that much easier for them to get underneath your skin and inside of your mind. During the early stages of the relationship, you are likely to feel so trusting and open with a narcissist that you share everything with them: your past, your heartbreaks and what you perceive to be your flaws.
You may see this as a way of establishing rapport, a connection with your partner, a way of being vulnerable and intimate. A narcissistic abuser sees it as dinner laying itself on the table. They will pretend to support you and empathize with you when you reveal these to them initially, but will later use these to provoke you, belittle you and demean you during the evaluation phase.
Remember: The narcissist has no limits as to what he or she will use, they thrive on the fact that you are being retraumatized. Their ability to make you regress right back into the original trauma with just one turn of phrase makes them feel powerful. And they live for that power because it is the only power they have. To a narcissist, any open wound is an invitation to cut deeper and the narcissist can and always will cut a wound even deeper than the first.
2. Your strengths and accomplishments, especially the ones they are pathologically envious of.
Initially, when you were on the pedestal, the narcissist couldn’t get enough of your strengths and accomplishments. They couldn’t stop raving about you to family and friends, showing you off, treating you like a trophy, an essential part of them. Their association with you inevitably made them feel superior and important. It bolstered their false image of being a normal human being who could get a “prize” like you.
In the evaluation phase, a narcissist will literally translate your strengths into perceived flaws. Once you were “confident and sexy,” but now you’re “cocky and vain.” Before, you were “intelligent and driven,” and now you’re just a “know-it-all” or an “a smartass.”
They gaslight you into believing that your value and worth are not real, all while projecting their own sense of inferiority onto you. They will degrade, minimize, and ignore what you accomplish, now acting as if it means nothing to them and as if it is of little importance or value to the world. They will feed you falsehoods about your lack of competence and ability. They will claim to be better at you, all the while stealing your ideas.
Why Does It Take So Long To Get Over A Relationship With A Psychopath?
They will taunt you into believing that you’re not capable of the smallest of tasks, even if you are out of their league professionally and personally. They will threaten to ruin your reputation and they will often sabotage major events as well as support networks you may have, attempting to turn everyone against you. They will trample upon your dreams, your aspirations, your beliefs, your personality, your goals, your profession, your talents, your appearance, your lifestyle – all the while extolling their own.
Their sudden turn of language takes a toll; it is traumatizing, shocking and unexpectedly vicious. Everything they once praised will inevitably be turned and twisted into a weakness. This is because they cannot stand you “winning” and being better than them at something. To them, everything is a competition and a game that they must win at all costs. They seek to destroy you in every way possible so that you, in turn, destroy and sabotage yourself—all the while they sit back, relax and watch the unraveling of everything you’ve worked hard for.
3. Your need to please them and their need to be perpetually dissatisfied.
The narcissist cultivated your need for his or her validation and approval early on in the idealization phase. By making you dependent on his or her praise, they conditioned you to seek the excessive admiration that only they could dole out. Now, as they devalue you, they use your need for validation to their advantage by withdrawing frequently, appearing sullen at every opportunity, and converting every generous thing you do for them as a failure on your part that falls short of their ludicrous expectations. Nothing can meet their high standards and everything wrong will be pointed out. In fact, even the things they do wrong shall be pinned on you.
Their blame-shifting language, passive-aggressive sulky behavior and narcissistic rage at the slightest injury become all-consuming for the victim, as the victim attempts to strengthen his or her efforts to meet the standards of the narcissist —standards which inevitably set the victim up for failure. For this, the victim is met with verbal assault, accusations and unfair comparisons which instill in him or her a pervasive sense of worthlessness and never being “enough.”
What If The True Problem In Your Life Is Yourself?
If the victim ever attempts to make the narcissistic abuser accountable for being a decent human being, they will lash out in rage, blaming them for the abuse and stonewalling the victim into silence. They love to have the last word, especially for the language they’ve created.
Taking back our control and power from a narcissistic abuser means going to war with the language they use against us. This means seeking to validate, professional help for the abuse we’ve suffered, detaching from these people in our lives, learning more about the techniques of abusers, finding support networks, sharing our story to raise awareness and finding the appropriate healing modalities that can enable us to transcend and thrive after their abuse.
We can channel this experience of abuse for our highest good and for the greater good. We just have to be willing create in its place what I call a “reverse discourse”—a new language and a rewriting of the narrative that instead lifts us, motivates us, inspires us and revives us by replacing the narcissist’s cutting words with our own powerful truth.
Source: elephantjournal.com, Author: Shahida Arabi, Editor: Katarina Tavčar, Photo: Stephanie Overton/Flickr
Aussy, mate
1 in 25?? Wow! I definitely know a few and have had some havoc in my past more then once. I’m always curious if it’s nature or nurture? Perhaps it’s both.
Psychopath – nature
Sociopath – nurture
I think
yes if you agree
that’s right
I’ve known narcasistic types there just insecure and very sad fools
I would go as far as 50% the world is full of givers and takers
Felipe Rodriguez Edis !!!! in seiner wahren Schönheit
i picked two, never again.
I think that’s a low estimate.
Diana Reyes Peimbert
Facts that should be known to more people.
really scaring…!
I’d say that figure is very optimistic.
I’ve lived all those things a few years ago, and for someone who still feeling some emotional/intelectual pains because of this kind of destructive people, I can say that all of what is written are very true!
Narcisistics are jsut like plagues, parasites! They pretend to be good listeners and good friends in the begining, because they want to know your mind, your dreams, your weaknesses, and everything else they can.
So, when they know you more deeply they begin to attack your weaknesses and turn you into a species of mental slave / emotional one. They make you believe that they are right in what they say, and for that use thousands of strategies, threaten to become nervous, destroy their self-esteem, taunt you etc. And through this blackmail game and handling a narcissist will draining your potential, your intelligence, destroying your life slowly and making you feel guilty about it. It is really horrible and people really have to be very attentive to this kind of behavior and fade away from people so as soon as possible.
But there is a simple solution to all this: Self love! love yourself 100%, always rely on their capabilities and their potential and never, ever let anyone tell you that you are not able, to belittle and anyway sabotage you or do you you believe that you are unable. Love yourself! love yourself!
you just described donald trump,….
c’est n’est pas normal
Really good article.
Is there any cure for their behavior? Inter generational egoism, taught or learnt damn cruelist thing ever.
Narcissism is no longer a “disorder” according to the DSM, as over 1/3 of the population tests into it. Does anyone know about neurological research about the brains of narcissists?
I survived one.
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Sociopath_Next_Door.html?id=mU05YWM2aUUC&source=kp_cover&hl=en
You cannot fix crazy.
Haydee Fontiveros
Sounds lagit
That’s a lot of sociopaths…
That sounds about right. There’s alot of crazies running around.
Wow…and this is why I am not in a relationship…picked 3 in a row. I’m happy and greatful to be single
That is true!
Pierre Cy
No room available in the mental hospital so much of are scattered around
We all know a couple or more
LaQuan Miles
the UK is the same. i married two of them.
I think the number is higher than 1 in 25!
And that’s the scariest part
Yea i can see it
This is legit.
This should be made available to a lot of victims….it’s straight to the point
YOU ARE RIGHT. Mr. Garcia my mom was my monster. it started before I even turned 12mo. It was a horrible life in her home. the worst part is she actually raised two others that still to this day just say “you know how mom is. she lives in her own little world and we never challenge her on it”. IT IS BEYOND MESSED UP. my father on his death bed, well a few months before he died, spent 4 days apologizing to me for her. he told me he allowed her behavior to continue even though he knew what she was doing. it was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen. When I was two I heard my gramma, his mother, basically scolding my dad for allowing it and told him he’d better fix things. He didn’t. I started running away from home at 8. We were very upper middle class, plenty of money, etc…no drugs, no alcohol etc. it was definitely a case of ”don’t judge a book by it’s cover”. I still today am blamed and looked down on by my ”family” for crap she did. she is 83 now and I just don’t understand how in the world she can live with that kind of guilt…oh yeah she has no guilt. she says she moves on and doesn’t dwell on things. if you never talk about stuff then you get to keep moving forward. I on the other hand wake almost every day with her in my minds eye. Still the little kid screaming for my mommy. it took a LOOOOONG time to love me. but I got there around 30. I sure do wish we could at the least talk about stuff and she’d take SOME responsibility, but…………………………………
p.s. if you ever want to chat i’m on f.b.
The one in 25 number is very scary.
My mother….my brothers…my father…it started before I could talk…and continues to this day to the point where I have had to completely CUT ALL TIES….Sad, it seems, but for The Best…Survival of the human race depends upon transparency and exposing these insane people to the world for who they ARE…they can cry and complain and try to put the blame back onto you…but standing STRONG, knowing one’s OWN TRUTH ultimately defeats these losers.
Remember narcissists suffer. Their suffering is enormous and endless. They seem to knowingly behave as described above, but their behaviour comes from trying to escape their own deep suffering.
I am the parent of a grown 24 yr old son. I realize he is in a relationship with a woman who is displaying many of these fearsome traits. She has had me fooled for some time as well with her charm and success. Once they moved in together she completely changed and has total control in the relationship. There have been many disturbing things that have come up like I must ask her if they can join us for dinner not my son. She told him I pushed her and she has him so manipulated he completely accused me when I was shocked at this accusation he still defended her. All of his friends and family have shared concerns with me. The list of situations like this is continuous. Anyone have advise as to how I approach this with my son. She seems to have been able to turn him against me and I fear for his emotional health.
This is an interesting and useful article, especially for victims of this kind of abuse. However, I feel like the article attacks narcissists and paints them as some sort of evil without a cure, which is wrong. These narcissists are also ill, and need support and counselling. I wouldn’t be surprised if narcissists also suffer from depression, low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts. In fact, I have known people who display these traits and they have all struggled with these issues. Please consider how your article will affect a reader who sees some of these narcissistic traits in themselves, and provide some information as to where they can seek help. They are victims of their mental health too and need support, and if we don’t help them, then they will only continue to abuse.
To be fair, so are pedophiles…victims of their own mental health, I mean.
And sorry, but the victims of this are the…victims of this. Speaking as someone who lived trapped with a narcissist/sociopath for 5 years? This is what we need. They can find their own post to get help.
Socipath is where it ties in more with the social side of things.
I am not devaluing what you and other victims have gone through. But the author of this article appears to be describing these people as pure evil, without a cure, of deliberately doing what they do. And while some of those people may get genuine enjoyment out of it, others, perhaps most, either don’t realise they are doing it or have many issues both as the cause and result of their behaviour. Not addressing the fact that these people are also ill is only going to aggravate the problem. As for comparing them to paedophiles, they are two quite different kinds of illnesses, but the same argument goes. Perhaps by making support more accessible and less taboo for potential paedophiles, offenders could be reduced significantly. I don’t condone paedophilia, it is the one crime that sickens me above all others, but you are right, they are ill and need help, preferably before they offend rather than after.
As a victim you are biased against narcissists, I understand that, but please do not dismiss their need for help. This article needs to address their need for support instead of alienating them the way it does.
Lived 7.5 years around this type of person and it destroyed me. Only belatedly did I realize they were NPD and chronically so. Yep PTSD…I finally escaped but have carried the abuse internally. Working my way out of the hell I was in slowly.
Many are difficult to help, and refuse to see they have a disorder. Believe you me. I know a Psychologist who now refuses to work with these people, they are crazy-making and he turns a person over, as soon as he knows they are NPD to his interns. He cannot deal with them any longer, even as a professional. Many think they are beyond help.
Scarier still is many believe the number is higher than 1 in 25. You rub shoulders with them daily.
My sympathies. They can take you on a trip to hell and back.
Kaye Love (I know the last name is crazy-making in itself…no love in this person.
good for you! I’m still reaping the results of the abuse, even though I finally escaped.
EXACTLY!!!!
No…do you have information available you can point those interested, to? Gad! 1/3
Yes!!!! This is exactly what he’s done to his followers.. duping his followers into believing in him to get elected and then using that massive platform to instill his madness on the FBI, news media, the world! Anybody he finds threatening is to be incompetent, at fault for his actions and words and then manipulates his followers to believe its true.. So so sad, Americans fell for this and are blind to what he’s actually doing on a very grand scale now that he is potus. Scary to think of him and Bannon teamed up in the WH. America is in big, big trouble. Might I add he has actually said repeatedly”we will be winning again” exactly as it is stated in this article. He’s literally used key words. The name calling and then his followers brush it off as that’s Trump he speaks his mind! No he’s iill! God help us.
I’m low key one a bit myself, disguised a bit like someone who wanted to be emotionally empathic to people. But I just quit when I realized they wanted to drain me like a sponge. Felt a bit too much like they were demanding my “wisdom” which felt too close to narcissism. But my mom is most assuredly one…and we have “battle of the narcs” all the time.
These articles never tell you what to do or how to fight back in the event of living with a narc. First of all, definitely like Vitor says below. LOVE YOURSELF. That’s most important of all. REALIZE that this person who thinks they have all the power over you, once you see what they’re doing, recognize it for just that. Words and a stance they don’t really have, and tell it right back to them. Say this right to their face: “You have no power over me.” Say it and mean it! Then start walking around like that turf is yours and no one is gonna take it from you. Do and say everything like you were meant to. Watch them lose power. NEVER feel guilty for something you’re innocent of. Guilt is a choice when you’re innocent. Remember that, too. Keep your head up while you search for your escape plan. Don’t get too impatient. Good things take time. Remember that while you’re working to escape, you have the upper hand. Little do they know they’ll be on the losing end when everything is over. And you’re on your way to getting your life back. 🙂
Good luck and Godspeed! I successfully rid myself of a few by knowing these tactics…just thought I might help out anyone who’s stuck in the rut and not knowing how to get to the next phase of the journey.
I’m going out on a limb here and saying that it’s a product of human nature and evolution over time. We are constantly trying to outdo ourselves and each other, and because we are never going to do exactly what one another wants from each other, we always want to bribe one another to do it, so this is the byproduct. Constant manipulation that leaves each always on guard, emotions too volatile and it’s anymore too typical for humans to be suceptible to it.