Signs you are being emotionally abused.
Some narcissists use physical violence. Often by this point, you’re too full of fear to leave them, yet a lot of narcissistic People don’t use physical violence. Mental abuse is harder to see.
Signs within yourself.
Are you blaming yourself for their actions toward you? Do you keep hoping they’ll change? Are you isolated from friends and family? Are you getting bad anxiety? Are you feeling depressed? No longer knowing who you are? Are you walking on eggshells? No longer feeling comfortable around your partner? Fearing what mood they’ll wake up in? Fearing the key in the door? Or, if you don’t manage to answer the phone to them straight away, live in fear of their accusations or reactions? Are you no longer going out with friends? If most of the answers are yes, it is highly likely you’re with a narcissistic person. Even if they are not a narcissist, they are extremely harmful or toxic. If your fear speaking up for yourself and feel your boundaries are slipping, you need to find a safe way out. Do you feel safe? If you no longer feel safe, you need to find a safe way out.
An abusive relationship can have devastating effects not only on your mental health but your physical health also. These relationships can not only happen in our romantic relationship, but it can also happen with friends, family and people within your work setting.
Emotional abuse is harrowing and hard to see it’s happening to you, as it happens so gradually over time, as the abuser can treat you so well at times. They have ways of explaining everything away, making you doubt yourself, or making you blame yourself, then as they fill all your human needs for certainty, uncertainty, contribution, growth, love and connection, significance in a negative way. As you are left so uncertain at times, yet certain you’re in a relationship, you forever grow and change even though it’s hurting you. Sometimes you feel the love from them, and you contribute by always picking the pieces up after them. You become addicted to the abuser on a subconscious level.
In the beginning, they lure you in, make you feel comfortable then slowly take control over you. Genuine, kind-hearted people make excuses for their partner’s behaviour, often blaming themselves, so continually sacrificing themselves and things they enjoy in attempts to make the relationship work.
If you’re feeling any of these, crazy, confused, depressed, broken, beaten, always to blame, fear of reactions, cannot get your own inner feelings out, feeling worthless, unlovable, self-doubt, thinking it’s all so unbelievable, there is a high chance you’re around an abusive person.
Twelve signs you’re in a psychologically abusive relationship.
1. You’re always feeling on edge and fearful. You’re afraid to speak out or speak up at times. You are worried about or scared of their reactions if you do.
2. They are very petty. They make a massive deal over minor things; what you did right once is suddenly no longer right. Even simple things like you have not cooked their vegetables how they like them.
3. You’ve lost your self-esteem. They criticise you over things about your friendship choices, your family members, to how you clean, how you parent, how you cook, tell you you’re not good enough, criticise how you dress, and your figure. All to make them feel better about themselves, slowly losing your self-esteem.
6. They distract you, again changing the subject or saying. “You’re too sensitive,” you’re overacting.” Or “That never happened.” “I told you last week you’re losing your memory.” So you doubt your instincts and your version of reality, usually then going to the abuser for a reality check.
7. You end up walking on eggshells around them, always being careful what you say or do, where you go, for fear of how they’ll react.
8. You feel humiliated. They often poke fun at you, especially in front of others, in subtle ways. They do it in the form of. “I’m only joking.” Slowly losing your confidence. They also do it by making comments about how you look. Covert narcissist. “You’re not wearing that are you.” Overt narcissists. “That looks terrible on you.”
9. They use all your weaknesses against you, provoking you constantly to get reactions from you when you defend yourself, then they blame it all on you, leaving you full of more self-doubt and feeling guilty for how you reacted, often blaming yourself.
10. If you’re hurt or upset, they often show no compassion, often walking out and leaving you upset. Or they’ll go on about a situation they had that was far worse. They don’t care for your feelings and have no real empathy towards you unless they have something to gain by pretending to do so.
11. They treat you better than anyone ever has at times, to keep you more confused and working harder to please them. This is what makes it so confusing: they’re not bad all the time. They switch the game from being nice to nasty, like a flip of a light switch to keep you in a trance while they slowly drain everything from you.
12. You no longer know who you are; you don’t feel yourself anymore and feel like you’re slowly losing more and more of who you are. You lost all the things you used to enjoy so much, your values, your trust and your beliefs.
13. You’re always on edge, and it’s starting to become not only when you are around your abuser but when you’re around others also. You’ve lost your self-trust in your judgment, you feel judged by others, and you no longer trust those around you.
If you’re still in an abusive relationship, seek help from the domestic violence helpline, and ask friends and family for assistance if you’ve not been isolated from them.
Stay safe. Do not tell your abuser what you think or that you are leaving, try gathering money, and keeping a diary of events where the abuser can not find it. Gather passports and birth certificates, and get to a safe place.
You are not alone. Unfortunately, a lot have been through and are going through this, and some people understand how you feel and what’s happening.
You can, and you will break free and move on to a much happier life.
Letting go can be extremely hard. It is possible, though. You’ve just got to find the best method for you to achieve it for yourself.
Learn to let go of all the blame, yet don’t pass all the blame over. Take responsibility for yourself, and never for them. No one deserves to be abused. Blaming those who have hurt us for everything that is wrong within our own lives only holds you back, “ If it wasn’t for them doing that to me.” is only keeping you trapped in your own negative mindset and your past. You need to change it to. Blaming others is only self-sabotaging your own peace of mind and your own inner happiness. Pass responsibility for their behaviour back to them. Abuse is abuse, no excuse. You did nothing to deserve that. That is on them.
The past is in the past. If you want to become free, you need to stop locking yourself into your past. Once you heal from your past, whatever that narcissist is trying to do to you now, you’ll no longer be affected. Once you understand how and why they act the way they do, learn to observe and not absorb. Keep your standards high for yourself, lower your expectations of those who are incapable of loving and caring for others, learn practice and do grey rock or no contact. Your life will become so much easier.
If you don’t want them to win, let it go, move on and create a happier, more optimistic, more successful you.
If you really want to move on, stop letting your past hold you back.
They are thieves, so now, in the present moment, and every present moment after this, you need to stop allowing others to steal your joy.
Stop letting them live rent-free in your mind. Yes, this takes practice. If you want to achieve this, use pattern interrupt. Every time they pop into your mind, you have to consciously remove that thought and replace it with a positive one. There is a post on this page with more information about pattern interrupt.
No longer allow them to steal your joy and live in your mind when they pull something in the present moment, don’t give them what they want; instead, stay calm and do not react. It’s hard at first, but the more you practice, the easier it becomes, don’t let it spoil the rest of your day. Let it go.
Sometimes, people hold on to the past and the pain and the blame, as they believe it’s easier than moving on. You’ve got to face up to that pain of letting go. So you can move onto a much happier future,
The more you allow them to infect your mind, the more of your life they take from you. They are a virus that swoops in, treat you better than anyone ever has, and then slowly destroys you. It takes time and work from you to recover from that trauma bond, just like when you get ill, you have to take the steps to get better when you break a bone. It has to heal, depending on the severity of the narcissist and how long you were with them, how much it affected your health, and how much they are trying to affect you now, differs to how long it takes individuals to recover, we are all more than capable of recovery if you put your mind to it, others have done it before you, with more awareness it’ll become easier and hopefully stop people getting involved with these, energy-draining vampires in the first place.
The best and only revenge is letting go and moving on. Showing you’re strong enough to let go, your ego is happy to let go, you’re now not even interested in them to even bother seeking revenge, or give reactions as you are now free to be happy, you’re now free to live your own successful life, something they’ll never be able to do, as they don’t see themselves as the problem, they can only hit pattern repeat, you can hit pattern interrupt and start a new direction, a great journey, wiser and stronger than you were before.
You can live in calm, peace and joy. Let them take their toxic, infectious negativity elsewhere.
People always hit some form of a roadblock in life’s journey, life doesn’t always go as planned, but you can leave your mistakes in the past and take the lessons into your present.
Give yourself a positive mindset, focus on the good, write down the good things you have, and focus on adding to that list.
Write down the good things you want in life, then keep adding to the list.
People don’t just get lucky in life. And they work hard to make their own dreams a reality. When they hit an obstacle, when it gets tough, they find a way to find the positive and move past it.
Lose negative thoughts instantly and focus on what you can do to be positive. Focus on the good and lose those negatives. You will also have to lose that victim mindset, the mindset of negative toxic people live by, and people can not help them. They seek to destroy others to feel better within themselves. You can give something back to those who are reasonable people and help others. You can be bigger and better than they can ever be.
Your past is over. Close that book. Don’t cheat yourself out of a positive future by living in your past. Your past no longer exists. The here and now, the present moment, is what exists.
When you keep hold of resentment, you will only suffer. You need to become happy within yourself, and then things will become perfect. You’ll be able to laugh off toxic people’s negative behaviour. It’ll no longer consume you. With your inner happiness, and wisdom on toxic people, new-found boundaries and saying no, to things you don’t find acceptable, you’ll have a self-made shield around you to deflect toxic people away from you.
Life isn’t always perfect, life is hard, but if you can get into that positive place, it’ll become easier to deal with a hard times, go through them, release them and go again.
See the good in everything, but understand that some people can not be helped and leave them be.
Forgive those who have hurt you. It’s in the past. You have to accept that it happened to you and let it go. You don’t have to accept that it was ok. Abuse is never ok, and there is no excuse, but forgiving yourself, as you didn’t have the understanding of what all the manipulation, gaslighting, word salad, and blame-shifting were doing to you.
Forgiveness is for you to release yourself from them, to free yourself from your past, to release that hope that it couldn’t have been any different, and it was what it was. That it’s your past and not your present-day, holding on to resentment will only hold you to your past.
When you learn to hold grudges no longer, you become a better person, and you allow yourself to move forward in your own life with self-respect and dignity.
No one person is better than another, yet you’re allowed to judge. I don’t mean to judge others in a negative way. I mean, recognise they are toxic, make the judgment call they are not the person you want in your life and walk the other way.
To gain happiness and success in your future, you need to take the steps in your present, to put your past where it belongs, and leave it behind you. The time is now at this moment to allow yourself the freedom, to allow yourself happiness, to forgive, and find yourself again.
You do not have to condone toxic people’s behaviour, but while you are letting your past keep you, hostage, you are the one that’s suffering, and they still have power and control over you. Now is the time to release them from your mind. And keep going until you do.
Day by day, it gets easier, you become stronger, you live happier, you create a happier life, moving on for you is the best thing you’ll ever do.
Coercive Controlling Behaviour.
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Elizabeth Shaw is not a Doctor or a therapist. She is a mother of five, a blogger, a survivor of narcissistic abuse, and a life coach, She always recommends you get the support you feel comfortable and happy with. Finding the right support for you. Elizabeth has partnered with BetterHelp (Sponsored.) where you will be matched with a licensed councillor, who specialises in recovery from this kind of abuse.
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