Narcissistic Abuse: The Survivor’s View from Inside

When it comes to narcissistic abuse, there are two groups of people. There are those who have experienced it and understand the depths of its agony and those who have been fortunate enough to never experience it. For those who have never experienced it, it is incredibly difficult to understand the nuanced and complicated problems of narcissistic abuse for those who are in or have been in these tumultuous and confusing relationships. That is why I am writing this post. This post is for the ones who don’t understand. It is for the ones who dismiss the claims of survivors or at least don’t want to be bothered by them. It is also for the ones who truly mean well and want to help, but they just don’t understand. This post is for anyone who wants to love the people in your life well. Because there is a very good chance that someone you love has been affected by narcissistic abuse.

Narcissistic abuse can take place in many different contexts. It can be perpetrated on a child by their parent. It can be levied on an employee by a boss. It can be used ceaselessly by a spouse or partner to control and manipulate. It is insidious and unending. And perhaps the most complicated part of it all is that the narcissistic abuser genuinely believes they are blameless. Narcissism obliterates the presence of self-awareness. I understand that men can be the victim of this type of abuse from a partner, and increasingly so as our culture is finally making slow progress at closing the power differential between genders. However, it is more statistically common for women to suffer from intimate partner abuse. So, for the purposes of this article, and because this is a specialty area in my professional work, I am going to focus on a woman who is suffering from the effects of narcissistic abuse by her husband or male partner. These experiences are broad and far reaching. I have spoken with, heard the testimonies of, and read the experiences of countless women who have these similar experiences. There are common threads in all of them. So please listen and try to understand what it would be like to experience this firsthand.

From inside the relationship, the survivor experiences extreme confusion. The narcissistic abuser is not consistently abusive. He has good days and bad days. He may come home one day and be gregarious and charming, offering to make dinner or play with the kids so that she can rest. And the very next day he may come home and be wildly abusive, telling her everything that is wrong with her and blaming her for all his life’s struggles. She cannot figure out the method to the madness, so she lives everyday walking on eggshells, trying vigilantly to make sure that she doesn’t push his buttons or do anything that might invoke his anger. If she doesn’t deeply understand narcissistic abuse (and most people do not), she doesn’t realize that he is kind when everything is going his way, and his ego is being fed – when his narcissistic supply is full. But when anything in his life happens that drains his narcissistic supply, she pays. It can be an event that happened at work that hurts his ego, but she will be the one that pays. All her mental and emotional resources are funneled toward trying to survive and, often, trying to protect her children from the next outburst. This keeps her from having the energy and resources to figure out what is happening to her. Her inability to understand what is happening to her can also be largely attributed to the constant gaslighting she is enduring from her partner. Gaslilghting is a way of making someone doubt their own reality. So, when she takes issue with something he has said or done, he denies it or tells her it was her fault. He is a master at turning things around and convincing her to be sorry for his dark deeds. This deeply amplifies her confusion, as she is introspective and self-aware and wants to take responsibility for herself (all things that he lacks). She is living in this day-to-day reality and has no time to figure it out. She is commonly also over functioning in the home and dealing with the mental overload of parenthood without a lot of help. Simply put, she is drowning and trying to keep her head above water, and he is continuing to dump buckets of water on her head.

Why is she the target of his anger for every narcissistic injury he incurs? Well, an essential defining factor of narcissism is that image is everything. If a narcissistic person does not have his image, he has nothing. Many men who are narcissistic abusers dedicate their lives to making themselves look like heroes. They do charity work. They lead churches. They are the guy who will “give you the shirt off his back”. But when they go home, they won’t give their family an ounce of decency or compassion. The survivor finds herself in a strange matrix where she is living with the tyranny of the narcissistic abuser, but the people in her community (and sometimes even her own family) only see his public image. He has two personas. And most people only ever see the one he wants them to believe. So, they believe it. She knows that if she comes out with her reality and asks for help or tries to leave, most people will not believe her. And that is often enough to keep her waking up to this fresh hell every single day and just try to make the best of it. She also knows that if she outs him or leaves him it will be the biggest narcissistic injury of all. And she is afraid of what may happen. If she has children with him, she is petrified of his outbursts being directed at them in her absence.

This is a look at what her life is like while she is still in the relationship. But what does it look like if she does eventually decide to leave? Well, a true narcissistic abuser will not leave her alone. She can get some distance from him and start to rebuild her life. But as soon as she decides to leave, he will begin his smear campaign against her. Why? His image. His image is his god, and he will do anything to protect it. There is no length to which he will not go, no depth to which he will not sink. He has one objective and one objective only – to save his image. And because that is the objective he will manage to do everything under the radar. He won’t show his dark side in public. But he will very effectively play the victim. He may even smear her to her children or people in her workplace to give himself more credibility. At this point she has a choice. She can try to defend herself and set the record straight or she can decide to quietly move on with her life and try not to worry what people think about her. If she decides to speak up for herself, people who have been manipulated by the abuser will often judge and ridicule her, disbelieve her, or say she is being dramatic. Those in her very closest inner circle will believe her if she is lucky. But most people will believe her charming, charismatic partner. If she chooses to move on quietly, she must live her life knowing that everywhere she goes, people are likely misunderstanding and/or judging her. Either way, it affects her personally, professionally, and relationally. Many women who try to speak up initially end up going silent because the consequences of speaking up outweigh the loneliness of being silent. It is a terrible reality. I often tell women in this situation that their circles will become smaller but safer. And it is almost always true. She loses social connections, church families, long-term friendships, in-laws, and sometimes even her own family in the wake of leaving the relationship. And as horribly painful as this is, the reality is that she is still happier and less depleted than she was when she was in the relationship with the abuser. The losses are worth the gain.

The abuser will likely continue to abuse her after the relationship ends if he has any access to her. He will use the children, the court system, mutual relationships, anything he can to hurt her. And she will continue to silently fight these battles for years after the separation. But the difference for her will be that she can also build her own life now. She can live in her own peaceful home. She can make her own decisions. She can chase her dreams. She can surround herself only with people who feel safe. She can be the mother she wants to be. Those freedoms usually make the separation feel worth it. However, often (and especially if she shares children with him), she will not feel free from the abuse for a very long time, if ever. She will live her life with the fallout always. She will live with the severe injustice and the lack of public understanding. She will live with the grief of the things he took from her and continues to try to take. She will live with being judged and held accountable for his poor choices while he still basks in the light of his false image. She will live with the experience of feeling deeply misunderstood by people she so dearly loves. She will likely struggle to trust new people who come into her life because so many people have proven to be untrustworthy. She will valiantly attempt and succeed at putting her life back together. But it will be the fight of her life. She will have an inner knowing that can never be an outer showing because people don’t want to hear it or simply won’t believe it. She will carry within her the scars and the cry for justice. And maybe, maybe she will cry out at some point. But often if she does, he attacks once again with legal charges or parental alienation or anything he can levy against her. It is an incredibly difficult road. She is a hero, often seen as a villain or overlooked altogether. And she desperately needs people to see her, understand her, and love her.

Hopefully at this point you are wondering what you can do to help her. And I do have some suggestions.

1.       Tell her you believe her. This suggestion takes minimal effort and has maximum impact. It takes you five seconds to say, but it is hard to overestimate how therapeutic the three little words “I believe you” are to a woman who has endured narcissistic abuse. They are a game changer as she heals from the confusion and gaslighting.

2.       Offer your support. Maybe you could offer to watch her kids so she can have a Saturday morning to herself. Maybe you could offer to pay for her therapy if you know she cannot afford it. Maybe you could offer to help her move when she leaves the family home or to mow her lawn while she is at work. There are myriad ways that you can offer help and support to a woman who is in or has left an abusive relationship. And not all of them require a financial investment. Many just require time and care. And it will mean more to her than you can imagine.

3.       Refrain from saying “I don’t want to take sides”. Here is the thing. In many divorce situations it may be reasonable to choose not to take sides. However, when a relationship ends because of narcissistic abuse, refusing to take sides means that you are enabling the abuser. Your neutrality further harms her. If you have a close relationship with both of them, it may be necessary to distance yourself from him if you want to remain in her life. This is not an issue of vitriol or pettiness on her part. This is an issue of present and future safety for her. The narcissistic abuser will use anyone who stays connected to both of them to hurt her and will feel justified in doing so. And it will be done in such manipulative ways that the person he is using often has no idea what is happening.

4.       Give her a chance to tell her truth. If her ex-partner is telling you things about her that you do not factually know to be true, don’t just believe him. Go to her and ask her if the information is true. You may find out that much of what you have been told has been made up or extremely distorted. Again, the narcissistic abuser believes his own lies, so he will tell you those lies as though he is telling the absolute truth. If you love her, go to her. Listen to her.

5.       Cheer her on at every turn. A woman who has been in this type of relationship has had her confidence, sense of empowerment, feelings of competence, and ability to trust herself shattered. She is trying to put herself back together, and she doubts herself often. Telling her you believe in her means everything. Celebrating her victories, encouraging her dreams, and telling her you are proud of her are gamechangers for her and help her heal the deep wounds of narcissistic abuse.

6.       Remember that it could have been you or yours. Women who end up in these situations are often the most intelligent, kind, strong, empathetic women you can imagine. They are targeted because of these qualities, not because of their weaknesses. A narcissistic abuser will only go after the best of the best because image is everything. If you think you are beyond getting roped into a relationship like this or that it couldn’t happen to your daughter, your sister, your friend - you are wrong. It happens to wonderful, unsuspecting people all the time. And there are many very valid reasons why they stay as long as they do. So, please reserve any judgment toward her and remain humble and curious.

I hope this has helped you understand this difficult and painful experience. And I hope it inspires you to greater empathy, compassion and kindness toward those in your life.