Narcissistic Abuse & Narcissitic Personality Disorder

What is Narcissistic Abuse?

Narcissistic Abuse (NPD Abuse) is what a targeted person experiences in a relationship with someone who meets the criteria for narcissistic (NPD) or antisocial (APD) personality disorder. The potentially debilitating, life long effects of narcissistic abuse on a target’s mental and physical health form a group of symptoms, not yet included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), known as Narcissistic Abuse Syndrome – (NAS) or Narcissistic Victim Syndrome – (NVS).

Too few people speak out about abuse because they fear being attacked or called liars, leaving abusers to continue unchecked.

"Narcissistic Abuse: An Unspoken Reality" by Richard Grannon at SpartanLifeCoach.Com

Emotional abuse is just as damaging as physical abuse.

"Many survivors report that after being in a relationship with a narcissist, sociopath or psychopath, they experienced a significant decline in not only their mental wellness but also their physical health. The body, mind and spirit can only take a limited amount of stress before it starts shutting down in response to the abuse. This is when being in contact with a toxic person starts to literally poison a survivor. It should serve as a serious red flag when the relationship starts taking a toll on a victim’s health. People can recover from a psychologically abusive relationship but it requires a season of detoxing and rebuilding."

“Due to the covert and insidious nature of narcissistic abuse, it often gets the least amount of attention and validation in the realm of domestic violence discourses. Society is prone to victim-blaming survivors of this type of abuse because it does not always leave visible scars; those who have not experienced it can misunderstand it as simply compatibility issues or “normal” relationship problems, not recognizing the amount of psychological and emotional damage that is often involved.”

Narcissists are pathological liars.

Narcissistic abuse is intentional.

"You will be subjected to a campaign of abuse. There is no need to call it anything else. Our behavior towards you will be abhorrent and will encompass a vast array of manipulative techniques that we deploy in order to control and abuse you. Emotional, physical, sexual and financial atrocities will be meted out against you. You will not recognize much of it at first, as it will be delivered to you with a smile and a pouring of sugar in your ear. You will be left confused, bereft and broken. You will lose your friendships and your family. Your work will suffer. Your health will deteriorate. Your finances will be wrecked and your sanity will be left hanging by a thread."

"In a relationship like this, you end up feeling like a worn out puppet – tethered toxically to a person who controls you through your emotions. You always feel you have to be careful what you do and say even though they have the freedom to do and say as they wish. You have to tip toe, acquiesce, sacrifice, be mindful, and always obsequiously attentive. When you associate with them, you feel as though your free will has been taken from you. Why? Because they are pulling the strings that emotionally torment. If you have been in a relationship like that, it is a relief to get away and when you look back, manipulation doesn’t even begin to cover what you experienced."

Covert narcissists are the worst, because you won't see them coming.

Coercive control is abuse.

“Pathological mind games. Covert and overt put-downs. Triangulation. Gaslighting. Projection. These are the manipulative tactics survivors of malignant narcissists are unfortunately all too familiar with. As victims of silent crimes where the perpetrators are rarely held accountable, survivors of narcissistic abuse have lived in a war zone of epic proportions, enduring an abuse cycle of love-bombing and devaluation—psychological violence on steroids.”

"Abusers don’t abuse ever day. They have good moments. Days when they do the right things. Moments when they say the correct words. When this happens, the key is to remember that it is just an abuser having a good day, but is still an abuser base on all the other days. "

"Since the narcissist suffers from a severe deficit of conscience, their moral & ethics are mobile and adaptive; their rules for living are based strictly on the end game, the bottom line. The question is not whether they will cross legal, ethical or moral lines but when."

"Lying is as automatic a response to the as breathing. They are emotionally crippled & conscience-less, but fiendishly clever. They are audacious risk-takers who will say anything &, if that doesn't work, they will say something else that will. They extract our dreams, and sell them back to us, with bombardments of seduction & flattery, with promises of glorious futures. They are little more than walking sales pitches."

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)is characterized by a long-standing pattern of grandiosity (either in fantasy or actual behavior), an overwhelming need for admiration, and a complete lack of empathy toward others. It is an extreme self-interest with zero real concern for anyone else.

This self-centeredness results from the total failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole. The effect is a psychological defense known as “splitting” (black or white thinking, all good or all bad), a term used in psychiatry to describe the inability to hold opposing thoughts, feelings, or beliefs.

Additionally, a person with NPD has an inability to distinguish the self from external objects (lack of whole-object relations) and a lack of understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, touched, or sensed in some way (lack of object constancy). The disorder is generally considered to be a result of trauma in early childhood (abuse), although genetics may also play a role.

TRAITS OF NPD

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Narcissistic Personality Disorder is characterized by overt or covert displays of arrogance, entitlement, exploitative behaviors, grandiosity, an obsession with success and celebrity, an excessive need for admiration, pathological envy and a complete lack of empathy towards others.

Persons with the disorder (or a likely overlap of other personality disorders including sociopathy and psychopathy) are rarely professionally diagnosed, as they don’t see the lack of moral conscience as an issue and are able to internally justify their actions as a necessary defense. They tend to be highly skilled in impression management and thus difficult to detect, but they operate as dangerous abusers who deliberately wreak havoc in the lives of others, particularly those who are closest to them (friends, family, intimate partners, work colleagues).

It is important to note that severe NPD (malignant narcissism) resembles APD (sociopathy), and any differences between the two are really irrelevant.

"You come to the horrifying realization that the person you trusted was actively working against you."

"When people are aware that the narcissist has been abusive to you, yet remain supportive of the abuser, they are condoning abuse. They are, in fact, accomplices by their failure to take a stand."

A narcissist is a great pretender.

Love Bombing

Lies

Future Faking

Silent Treatment

Neglect

Withholding

Isolation

Name-Calling

Coercive Control

Betrayal

Gaslighting

Projection

Lack of Empathy

Sadism

Triangulation

Stonewalling

More Lies

Shame

Sabotage

Smear Campaign

Con Artist

Denial

Threaten

Circular Conversations

Shame

Baiting

Discard

Narcissistic Rage

You will be completely blindsided.

“Imagine – if you can – not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern of the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken. And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools. Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless. You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodlessness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience that they seldom even guess at your condition.”

"Michael Mastromarino is a good example of someone who exhibited significant narcissistic and sociopathic traits, but for years, no one around him knew the nefarious things he was capable of. Mastromarino was a very successful dentist with a “perfect” life, a grand home, a trusting wife and beautiful children. He also was a master excuse maker, serial philander, abused prescription drugs, and was convicted of running a multi-million dollar scam in which he took body parts from funeral homes and sold them for medical research. For years, Mastromarino’s wife believed his lies and excuses because she was so in love with him. As his childhood sweetheart, she saw in him only his drive to succeed and the handsome, charming young man with whom she’d fallen in love. In a recent documentary, she spoke about how it remained incomprehensible to her that Mastromarino could be guilty of the above until the evidence was truly overwhelming."

"There are several reasons why I believed his lies. First, I had never imagined that anyone could lie ALL THE TIME. So if I didn’t have absolute proof of a lie, I believed it must be the truth. But on the contrary, psychopaths never stop deceiving, it is their nature. Secondly, there was no reason to lie to me. None that I could imagine. If he was lying to protect himself then he didn’t have to lie to me. I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to hurt him. But of course, he knows his intent to harm others will likely be met with a desire for vengeance. His lies were not preemptive defense tactics against enmity, they were his exit strategy. The third reason that I believed his lies was because when he lies, he performs with his entire body. Every phony expression, every practiced movement, testifies to the veracity of his statements. He has no nervous response that would betray him."

"Appearances are all there is with narcissists -- and their self-hatred knows no bounds.The most dramatic example I can think of is from John Cheever's journals. Throughout his life he had pursued surreptitious homosexual activities, being transiently infatuated with young men who reminded him of himself in his youth, while also living in a superficially settled way as a married family man, a respected writer with an enviable suburban life, breeding pedigreed dogs and serving on the vestry of the Episcopal church. When his secret life (going to New York City for a few days every now and then to pick up sailors and other beautiful boys for brief flings) came to scandalous light, his family sought to reassure him by telling him that they'd known about his homosexual activities for years. Now, a normal person would be ashamed and embarrassed but also relieved and grateful that scandal, not to mention chronic emotional and marital infidelity, had not caused his wife and children to reject and abandon him -- but not the narcissist! Oh, no, Cheever was enraged that they would ever have thought such a thing of him -- if they really loved him, they'd have bought his artificial "country squire" persona: they would have seen him as he wished to be seen: they would have believed his lies without question or doubt."