People who have been in a long relationship with a Narcissist commonly may have PTSD, self-esteem issues, and even Stockholm syndrome. They have been trying to survive, living in a field of emotional landmines, forced to act like everything is normal – keep moving.
Most, if not all of their world may feel gray and dingy, littered with emotional fires, guilt and shame. Breathing is exhausting. All of this can present as depression, anger or both.
Sometimes it’s really caused by a toxic relationship. They need someone to help them turn the light on and see the connections. Someone who will believe them. Because it isn’t just about what someone says to you, it’s about how they say it and what they are insinuating.
You can say “I’m going to smack you for that” and mean nothing. Or you can mean, you really ARE going to hurt someone. But if you are the threatened person, repeating to someone else what the words spoken were, does not always sound like a real threat. It is the emotional control of the person delivering it that can make it a joke or a threat of impending torture.
If you have not been in a close relationship with a controlling abuser like a Narcissist, you probably don’t understand the emotional bondage, manipulation and fear they can incur. You can’t understand how they can control others who seemingly could “just walk away.”
The abused may have lost their sense of self, their validity to exist without validation from the abuser. It is a circle of guilt, shame and one-sided love, leaving the victim of the abuse feeling everything is their fault.
It also slowly eliminates their confidence in themselves and their own decisions. This is the key to walking away – confidence in yourself. Without it, you are stuck in a loop of failure, unable to see the way out. Or even unable to know you should be looking for anything but excuses for your abuser.
This is why a version of Stockholm syndrome can occur for victims of Narcissistic Abuse, making them feel attached to their victimizer. We’ll talk more about why this happens in the next post.
Needless to say, the Narcissist’s actions are aimed at keeping their victim off-kilter, feeling desperate and hopeless to leave the situation. Paradoxically, the victim’s one dysfunctional and captive hope, is that the Narcissist will change. Especially if the victim becomes better at everything. And around we go on the Merry-Go-Round of impossible quests again.
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