“Although clinical research has been conducted on narcissism as a disorder, less is known about its effects on victims who are in toxic relationships with partners with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Individuals with this disorder engage in chronic devaluation and manipulation of their partners, a psychological and emotional phenomenon known as “narcissistic abuse.” Unfortunately, the full extent of what narcissistic abuse entails is not taught in any psychology class or diagnostic manual.
Since pathological narcissists are unlikely to seek treatment for their disorder, it is difficult to pinpoint what exactly makes a narcissistic abuser tick and the manipulative tactics they use, which are likely to differ from those of other types of abusers as they are more covert and underhanded. What is even more baffling is the addiction we form with our narcissistic abusers, created by biochemical bonds and trauma bonds that are also unlike any other relationship we experience.
In this book, (#Ad) “Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself“, survivors will learn:
•The red flags of narcissistic behavior and covert manipulation tactics, including subtle signs many survivors don’t catch in the early stages of dating a narcissist.
•The motives behind narcissistic abuse and techniques to resist a narcissist’s manipulation.
•Why abuse survivors usually stay with a narcissist long after incidents of abuse occur.
•How our own brain chemistry locks us into an addiction with a narcissistic or toxic partner, creating cravings for the constant chaos of the abuse cycle.
•Traditional and alternative methods to begin to detach and heal from the addiction to the narcissist, including eleven important steps all survivors must take on the road to healing.
•Methods to rewrite the narratives that abusers have written for us so we can begin to reconnect with our authentic selves and purpose.
•How to rebuild an even more victorious and empowering life after abuse.
Narcissistic partners employ numerous stealthy tactics to devalue and manipulate their victims behind closed doors. These partners lack empathy and demonstrate an incredible sense of entitlement and sense of superiority which drives their exploitative behavior in interpersonal relationships. Their tactics can include verbal abuse and emotional invalidation, stonewalling, projection, taking control of every aspect of the victim’s life, gaslighting and triangulation.
Due to the narcissistic partner’s “false self,” the charismatic mask he or she projects to society, the victim often feels isolated in this type of abuse and is unlikely to have his or her experiences validated by friends, family and society.
Using the latest scientific research as well as thousands of survivor accounts, this book will explore how the emotional manipulation tactics of narcissistic and antisocial partners affect those around them, particularly with regards to its cumulative socioemotional and psychological effects on the victim.
It will also address questions such as: What successful techniques, tools and healing modalities (both traditional and alternative) are available to survivors who have been ridiculed, manipulated, verbally abused and subject to psychological warfare? What can survivors do to better engage in self-love and self-care? How can they forge the path to healthier relationships, especially if they’ve been a victim of narcissistic abuse by multiple people or raised by a narcissist? Most importantly, how can they use their experiences of narcissistic abuse to empower themselves towards personal development? What can their interactions with a narcissistic abuser teach them about themselves, their relationship patterns and the wounds that still need to be healed in order to move forward into the happy relationships and victorious lives they do deserve?” (#Ad – Amazon description)
37 best Quotes from “Becoming the Narcissist’s nightmare”
“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.” ― Shahida Arabi
“Narcissistic abusers first idealize their partners, flattering them excessively, giving them all sorts of attention in the form of constant texts and gifts. They share secrets and stories with you to create a special bond; this technique also enables you to feel as if you can share your deepest insecurities and desires with them. Later, they will use your disclosure as ammunition and pick at your weak spots to regain a sense of psychological control.” ― Shahida Arabi
“What drags most survivors back in after this first incident is the makeup period. The narcissist will convince you that this incident and future incidents have a reasonable explanation behind them – it was really your fault that they called you a terrible name, or they just become abusive when they’re drinking, or sometimes they just have “bad days.” You, the willing, compassionate, empathic partner, will be prone to agree – perhaps you did do something to provoke it and nobody’s perfect.” ― Shahida Arabi
“Frequent use of phrases such as “You provoked me,” “You’re too sensitive,” “I never said that,” or “You’re taking things too seriously” after the narcissists’ abusive outbursts are common and are used to gaslight you into thinking that the abuse is indeed your fault or that it never even took place.” ― Shahida Arabi
“There are many people who abuse alcohol or other drugs but do not abuse others when they do. Those who abuse alcohol and abuse others are often the ones who are using their addiction as an excuse to hurt others without having to be held accountable for the abuse they dish out while under the influence. The truth of the matter is, curing a narcissist of his or her addiction will not cure his or her lack of empathy.” ― Shahida Arabi
“A child that’s being abused by its parents doesn’t stop loving its parents, it stops loving itself.” ― Shahida Arabi
“The fact of the matter is, if you haven’t been in an abusive relationship, you don’t really know what the experience is like. Furthermore, it’s quite hard to predict what you would do in the same situation. I find that the people most vocal about what they would’ve done in the same situation often have no clue what they are talking about – they have never been in the same situation themselves. By invalidating the survivor’s experience, these people are defending an image of themselves that they identify with strength, not realizing that abuse survivors are often the strongest individuals out there. They’ve been belittled, criticized, demeaned, devalued, and yet they’ve still survived. The judgmental ones often have little to no life experience regarding these situations, yet they feel quite comfortable silencing the voices of people who’ve actually been there.” ― Shahida Arabi
“The very same techniques that narcissists use on us are the very same ones we must use to get over them.” ― Shahida Arabi
“Demonstration of unwarranted anger is an incredibly important tactic that abusers use to 1) preserve their self-image and their ego, 2) project blame onto others, 3) take back control by recreating a “version of events” that makes them look superior and saintly and 4) evoke fear and intimidate others into doing what they want.” ― Shahida Arabi
“Blameshifting and projecting their malignant traits onto their partners during conversations while using a false charismatic self to make their victims look like the “crazy” ones. It’s almost as if they hand off their own traits and shortcomings to their victims as if to say, “Here, take my pathology. I don’t want it.” ― Shahida Arabi
“Narcissists do not choose us because we are like them; they choose us because we are the light to their darkness; regardless of any of our vulnerabilities, we exhibit the gorgeous traits of empathy, compassion, emotional intelligence and authentic confidence that their fragile egotism and false mask could never achieve.” ― Shahida Arabi,
“So for those who think abuse survivors can simply logically process their situation and get out of and over the situation easily, think again. The parts of our brain that deal with planning, cognition, learning, and decision-making become disconnected with the emotional parts of our brain – they can cease to talk to each other when an individual becomes traumatized. It usually takes a great deal of effort, resources, strength, validation, addressing wounding on all levels of body and mind, for a survivor to become fully empowered to begin to heal from this form of trauma.” ― Shahida Arabi
“What occurred to me was that our strengths – the ones that narcissists often convince us are weaknesses – are the very things that can save us from narcissists, which is why narcissists work so very hard to diminish these strengths in the first place. I also realized something even more incredible: that the techniques narcissists use against us can also be merged with those strengths to help us transcend and thrive after narcissistic abuse.” ― Shahida Arabi
“Dissociation leaves us disconnected from our memories, our identities and our emotions. It breaks the trauma into digestible components, so that different aspects of the trauma get stored in different compartments in our brain. What happens as a result is that the information from the trauma becomes disorganized and we are not able to integrate these pieces into a coherent narrative and process trauma fully until, hopefully, with the help of a validating, trauma-informed counselor who guides us to the appropriate therapies best suited to our needs, we confront the trauma and triggers in a safe place.” ― Shahida Arabi
“They will suddenly develop abuse amnesia, where they’ll forget horrific incidents of abuse or deny saying or doing something that they actually did. This allows them to escape accountability, but it’s also a type of crazymaking that enables the abuser to rewrite reality for you and control your reality.” ― Shahida Arabi
“To any survivor who may be doubting whether what they’ve experienced is truly abuse, remember that emotional, verbal, and psychological abuse will never be, and should never be, considered part of the messy equation of a normal relationship. As both metal health professionals and survivors can attest to, the traumatic highs and lows of being with a narcissist, a sociopath, or a psychopath are not the natural highs and lows of regular relationships. That suggestion is quite damaging to society and to survivors all around the world.” ― Shahida Arabi
“Narcissists gaslight you so you begin to gaslight yourself into thinking what you are feeling, hearing, seeing and experiencing isn’t true. A narcissistic partner can manipulate you into thinking that perhaps that hurtful comment really was just a joke and that their infidelity was just a one-time thing. Many of these partners engage in pathological lying and rewrite reality on a daily basis to suit their needs and to conceal their manipulative agenda.” ― Shahida Arabi
“What’s important to remember is that while human beings in general can engage in toxic behaviors from time to time, abusers use these manipulation tactics as a dominant mode of communication. Toxic people such as malignant narcissists, psychopaths and those with antisocial traits engage in maladaptive behaviors in relationships that ultimately exploit, demean, and hurt their intimate partners, family members, and friends.” ― Shahida Arabi
“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 (Kross, 2011). 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.” ― Shahida Arabi
“Gaslighting their partners into believing the abuse isn’t real by denying, minimizing or rationalizing the abuse. This includes deflecting any conversations about accountability using circular conversations and word salad in order to avoid being held accountable for their actions.” ― Shahida Arabi
“People pleasing does make it easier to ignore the red flags of abusive relationships at the very early stages especially with covert manipulators. We can also become conditioned to continually “please” if we’re used to walking on eggshells around our abuser.” ― Shahida Arabi
“Healthy relationships thrive on security; unhealthy ones are filled with provocation, uncertainty and infidelity. Narcissists like to manufacture love triangles and bring in the opinions of others to validate their point of view.” ― Shahida Arabi
“In the book Psychopath Free by Jackson MacKenzie, the method of triangulation is discussed as a popular way the narcissist maintains control over your emotions. Triangulation consists of bringing the presence of another person into the dynamic of the relationship, whether it be an ex-lover, a current mistress, a relative, or a complete stranger.” ― Shahida Arabi
“See, narcissists don’t truly feel empathy for others – so during the discard phase, they often feel absolutely nothing for you except the excitement of having exhausted another source of supply. You were just another source of narcissistic supply, so do not fool yourself into thinking that the magical connection that existed in the beginning was in any way real. ” ― Shahida Arabi
“Covert narcissists blind you with their saccharine sweetness: they present the perfect public image, routinely go on their knees to pray, say their mantras on their yoga mats, preach ‘peace and compassion,’ all the while plotting on how to best stab you in the back. In some ways, covert narcissists are worse than overt ones. At least overt ones are open about how awful they really are.” ― Shahida Arabi
“The narcissist does not feel empathy for others; he or she makes connections with other people for one purpose and one purpose only: narcissistic supply. Narcissistic supply is the attention and admiration of the people the narcissist collects as trophies. It is anything that gives the narcissist a “hit” of praise, or even an emotional reaction to their ploys. They need these sources of supply because they suffer from perpetual boredom, emotional shallowness and the inability to authentically and emotionally connect to others who do have empathy.” ― Shahida Arabi
“The narcissist relies on jealousy as a powerful emotion that can cause you to compete for his or her affections, so provocative statements like “I wish you’d be more like her,” or “He wants me back into his life, I don’t know what to do” are designed to trigger the abuse victim into competing and feeling insecure about his or her position in the narcissist’s life.” ― Shahida Arabi
“I’ve heard from clients and readers who were on top of their game, attractive, highly educated individuals who felt as if they had lost themselves in an abusive relationship because they thought they had met the love of their lives, only to discover further down the line that their soulmate became their daily tormenter, breaking down their confidence and feeling of self-worth.” ― Shahida Arabi
“Triangulation is the way the narcissist maintains control and keeps you in check — you’re so busy competing for his or her attention that you’re less likely to be focusing on the red flags within the relationship or looking for ways to get out of the relationship.” ― Shahida Arabi
“If I have learned anything in my lifetime about relationships, it is that until you truly love, respect and honor your right to have opinions and emotions, you cannot attract someone into your life that can love and respect your opinions and emotions.” ― Shahida Arabi
“It is important to recognize that the narcissist constructs a false, dark alternate reality in which he hands over his pathology to you. You will be labeled the crazy, oversensitive person throughout the relationship even while enduring mind-blowing verbal and emotional attacks from your abuser. The abuser enjoys employing gaslighting and projection techniques to essentially rewrite the history of abuse in the relationship and misplace all blame onto you. Since you are prone to cognitive dissonance, you will often start to blame yourself for the abuse and seek to deny or minimize the severity of the trauma you’re experiencing in an effort to survive and cope with the fact that the person you love and care for is a pathological abuser.” ― Shahida Arabi
“Survivors spend a lifetime waiting – waiting for their abusers to change, waiting for their kindness to turn into cruelty, waiting for the next blow or hit in an attempt to avoid it or escape it, waiting for the right time to end the relationship. It is only when they stop waiting and start walking away that they begin to process what they’ve escaped and begin a journey back to wholeness. It is challenging to walk away, even more difficult to heal, but more than possible with the right resources and support.” ― Shahida Arabi
“When their victims calmly explain to them that their behavior is unacceptable and why, they claim their victims have temper issues, are overreacting to a pattern of abuse and are acting childish – all because their victims attempt to hold them accountable and/or provide a different perspective.” ― Shahida Arabi
This is gaslighting and projection at its finest. Meanwhile, they engage in narcissistic rage and tend to be immature, close-minded and unable to see anyone else’s perspective. Insults, put-downs, name-calling and derogatory language soon follow to regain a sense of control. The narcissistic bully does not disagree respectfully; rather, he or she must make the victim feel as small as possible if the victim dares to challenge the status quo and the false self.” ― Shahida Arabi
“I refocused on the people who validated me and wanted me to rise rather than fall. I also made sure to validate myself and realized that while being among the few to recognize a narcissist was an alienating experience, it was also a liberating one. There were many times I saw behind the masks of toxic people, sociopaths or narcissists while others continued to believe in the false self they projected. Instead of attempting to convince others of what I observed, I quietly turned the focus back onto myself and my own self-care. I stopped listening to the dark voices of others and began to reconnect with that divine light inside of me and other survivors. I knew the truth about toxic people and for the first time, my faith in myself was enough to break the spell. It was by no means easy; sometimes it took longer for me to detach from toxic people than I felt it should have. There were times when I felt I could’ve done better. Yet I treated myself compassionately and forgave myself for any failures, knowing that any type of “relapse” was simply an inevitable detour on the road to recovery. So I pushed forward and kept moving. I knew that each encounter with another narcissistic abuser, whether friend, foe or relationship partner, was simply a test – a test of how far my core wounds were still tethering me to toxic people.” ― Shahida Arabi
“Yes, we can be compassionate towards the fact that our abuser may have been traumatized, but we cannot let that compassion blind us to the fact that if they are unwilling to change or receive treatment, as many narcissists aren’t, we need to make our own self-compassion and self-care a priority in order to detach from them.” ― Shahida Arabi
“– what was once a “playful” sarcastic comment now becomes frequent emotional terrorism that questions your right to have an opinion that challenges theirs.” ― Shahida Arabi
