Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “narcissistic abuse”
I think there’s an idea in the world of recovery from any sort of trauma – narcissistic abuse included – that it requires revisiting the feelings that were felt during the abuse and that if those feelings are felt and those experiences re-examined properly then the survivor will be released from it all. Although that may work in some cases, …
One of the most challenging aspects in recovering from narcissistic abuse is the task of putting psychological, emotional, and sometimes physical distance between yourself and your narcissistic abuser. I’ve talked about the guilt and ambivalence that can sometimes emerge when beginning to separate from a narcissistic family or partner. Questions can arise like: “Am I making all this up?”, “Am …
Did you tend to feel any of these ways with a parent or a partner? Never sure what to expect from them? In certain moments they would seem thrilled with life and you but at other moments would treat you with such hostility, contempt and rage such that they could seem like two different people? Caught up in the drama?…They …
Do you notice that you find yourself to be inadequate almost without cause? Do you perceive yourself to be inadequate in comparison to others? Are you surprised or in disbelief when someone praises you for your adequacy in some regard? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions then you may have had your sense of basic adequacy attacked …
Do you find your moment to moment experience to hinge on what thought you’re thinking right now? Do you carry around a feeling of inner pain, malaise, or otherwise suffering? Do you find that the more you learn about and think about narcissistic abuse, the less free from it you feel? Do you find yourself having to operate more like …
Do you find yourself feeling low or down after periods of feeling good, proud, or effective? Do bouts come over you where it feels like you’ve done or are something wrong even though you can’t point to anything? Do you carry around a sense that the other shoe is going to drop? It’s a matter of when not if? Many …
I remember that my favorite school days in elementary school were when we got to do ‘show and tell’. These were days where the teacher would devote 30 minutes for our class to sit in a circle and around so that each student got a turn to show some thing or skill that they wanted to tell the class about. …
There is a form of psychological abuse committed by narcissistic parents that is hard to identify for a child. It is a psychological process that is designed to mess with the child’s sense of himself or herself. In fact, therapists sometimes get paid the ‘big bucks’ so that they can bring all of their professional and personal training in therapy …
One of the grave impacts of being scapegoated by a narcissistic parent is the sense that at your core you are not real. Survivors often feel this way from early in life and have found a way to live with it. This can be a terrifying feeling that is often not discussed with friends, partners, therapists, or even oneself. It …
This post considers the take-no-prisoners quality of narcissistic rage. A narcissist’s rage can feel – and sometimes be – life-threatening to its recipient. First, narcissistic rage will be described and a case example provided. Next, I discuss the role of rage in the narcissist’s psychology. Particular attention gets paid to how rage ensures others comply with the narcissist’s inflated sense …
