When it comes to a narcissist and control, they’re looking to brainwash you into becoming submissive and obedient and shower them with praise, attention and recognition. They often do this by devaluing us along with those intermittent idealisations, love bombing, and nice stages. We can not control their behaviour. However, we can learn to recognise it to control ourselves, to no longer be submissive for a peaceful life, which is far from peaceful and to supply them no longer the attention they’re so desperately seeking from us. It’s not that easy. It is that simple, narcissists attack these eleven things, which send you into a state of flight, fight, freeze and fawn. If your subconscious believes you can conquer a danger, your body jumps into fight mode. If you believe there’s no hope, you might run away in flight mode. If you think you can not win by fight or flight, you may freeze.
Fawn is when those three don’t work, so you find the best way to protect yourself is by unwittingly going along with it, complying to the narcissists demands of you, giving up and agreeing to the very person who’s abusing you for fear of what could happen to you if you stood up for yourself. Making it easier for them to control you coercively. Coercive control is mental, emotional or psychological abuse. In legal terms, Coercive control is long-term ongoing behaviour where one person drip-feeds another into losing everything, losing friendship, family, money, jobs, children, homes, themselves and their reality. The manipulation slowly breaks down the victim’s personality, from breaking down boundaries, trust, health, self-respect, self-worth, and reality, to name a few. From the onslaught of mind game after mind game, it’s like living in a war zone. The target often ends up becoming confused and overwhelmed, losing all sense of self, and being left with guilt, disappointment and heartbreak.
Fear is one of the most powerful emotions to use against people. Fear often keeps people unwittingly trapped in situations they don’t want to be in, often without even realising they don’t want to be In it. Fear of judgement from others for no longer giving into our narcissistic parent’s demands, fear of judgement from others for no longer giving into our adult narcissistic children’s demands, fear of judgement for splitting up the family, fear of judgement for staying with someone who treats us so wrong, yet at times treats us so right. Fear of raising our boundaries, our standards, for fear people will look badly upon us, fear of saying no, in case another doesn’t understand our no, fear of letting go, because of the pain to let go, without realising the pain of holding on to something that was never meant to be hurts us more. Fear for our safety, and our loved one’s safety, fear of what they might do. A narcissist will attack these nine things to place that fear within you, to coercively control you into becoming submissive and living life on their terms.
Trust.
Trust is one of the most powerful emotions a narcissist can use against us. In the beginning, that idealisation and love bombing stage of the relationship, a narcissist will be one of the nicest people you could ever meet. They’ll be there for you, do things for you, earn your trust to sabotage you, and throughout their devaluation of you, they slowly break your trust in yourself, your thoughts, feelings, perceptions, your abilities and your trust in others due to the narcissist triangulation of you.
Finances.
No longer being able to support yourself leaves you feeling trapped in a narcissistic relationship. Lacking the financial ability to support yourself and cover the basics in life such as food, water, and shelter, narcissists take your ability to provide for yourself, so you submit to providing for them out of fear of reactions if you don’t. Narcissists are incredibly exploitative people, and they’ll use finances to control you coercively.
Relationships.
To isolate you, a narcissist will go all out to sabotage your relationship with yourself and your relationships with others, either by draining you so you’re exhausted and don’t feel up to seeing others, accusing you of cheating so you no longer go out, a simple trip to the gym can turn into an unhealthy environment with the narcissist’s attacks of “who are you trying to impress.” As you care for them, you don’t want to upset them and slowly but surely stop doing everything that makes you happy. As you become more miserable and depressed, you’re less willing to see others, often blaming yourself, while a narcissist covertly states, “You should go see your friends.” Leading you to believe they care for you. Only when you go they do something to make life more difficult for you. Those subtle dig of “I don’t trust that friend of yours. They’re jealous of you.” Or “Your family interferes too much.” And down to the rumours the narcissist is spreading about you, claiming you’re an addict, exaggerating that drink you have now and again, you’re in financial difficulties, which you could be due to the narcissist. The narcissist claiming you’re the abuser, liar and cheater, or you’re unstable and have mental issues, triangulation with those around you, so when you’re around those the narcissist is smearing your name to something just feels off around them but you can’t put your finger on what, all while the narcissist will be really nice to you because they’re getting away with what they’re doing to you.
When narcissists can no longer control you, they will try to control what others think about you.
E.S
Credibility.
Due to the narcissist’s smear campaigns, exaggerated stories, and even taking you to the Doctors for help so they can play the hero of how much they’re helping you, getting you on pills, while playing the victim to others about how much they do for you. When people can’t see what the narcissist is doing to you, they believe the narcissist’s lies as it matches the reality the narcissist is selling. Therefore when you start to work things out and speak out, people are less likely to believe you.
Confidence.
Confidence is a feeling or belief in something or someone, a belief that you can trust within the reliability or credibility of yourself and those around you, having a faith which is the complete trust in something or someone. Through a narcissist’s devaluation, they humiliate, shame, blame, ridicule, judge and mock you, so you no longer trust within your own abilities, questioning and doubting everything about who you are, the things you do, your motives and your knowledge.
Reputation.
During the devaluation, a Narcissist will go after your reputation through those smear campaigns against you. A narcissist will do this through exaggeration, twisting the story of what they did to you, yet telling others you did to them, lies, slander, half-truths, spreading rumours and much, much more and damaging your reputation so you hit rock bottom.
Freedom.
Once a narcissist has destroyed your finances, trust, relationships, credibility, confidence and reputation, it’s easier for them to isolate you, taking away all the things you enjoy, driving you into the depths of despair, matching the narcissist’s stories they’re telling others about you, that you’re depressed, lazy, don’t want to do anything. And if you dare to do anything, they have trackers on you. They’ll bombard you with excessive, unnecessary communication, accuse you of lying and cheating, the narcissists projection as they’ll be claiming to others you’re obsessed with them, will not let them out, are jealous of them, as often they’re the only person you have, you can message them when they ghost you, to find out if they’re ok, to which a narcissist will use against you.
Health.
Being in a relationship with a narcissist, be it an intimate partner, a family member, a boss or a work colleague. It is a highly stressful and hideous experience psychologically and physically. They are toxic, and with their continued games leave us uncertain of our own thoughts, actions and feelings. You become so physically and psychologically out of touch, starting to lose reality with the help of the narcissists gaslighting, which is further psychological abuse to distort our reality, getting us to question our own instincts, our thoughts and our feelings, leaving us with brain fog, confusion, cognitive dissonance, where our beliefs clash with evidence, yet the narcissist then distorts the evidence. Hence, it conflicts with our realities, leaving us with extreme mental discomfort, and slowly we lose touch with reality. Your body produces so many chemicals when in a relationship with a narcissist, long term, physical or psychological stress, even perceived stress, causing that trauma bonding, difficulties in sleeping, digestive problems, depression, anxiety, adrenal fatigue, being more vulnerable to illness, complications with illnesses and taking longer to recover from illnesses. You might end up with many health complications.
Sanity.
All this manipulation confuses your mind, which causes cognitive dissonance and then induced compliance where you begin to act in ways that go against your values or beliefs, against your moral standards, causing cognitive dissonance which is a state of mind when your own thoughts are conflicted, where there are conflicting beliefs, realities or thoughts. Narcissists earn your trust, to devalue you then and take everything away from you, all while blaming you. Once you’ve lost your confidence and trust within yourself, you begin to question if it’s all down to you, and that’s without the narcissist’s gaslighting of your reality every time you get close to the truth.
Resources.
Once a narcissist takes your trust, finances, friends and family, your credibility, confidence, reputation, freedom, health and sanity, you become codependent on them, no longer being able to believe or trust within yourself, more likely to fawn and become submissive for fear you’ll have nothing if you don’t.
Hopes and dreams.
With the narcissists mirroring and future faking during the love bombing and idealisation, it creates a strong desire within you to achieve your dream with them, with their intermittent reinforcement every time you begin to wake from the trance they put you under to give you that false hope, you hold on a little longer, not realising they’re not the narcissist’s dreams, they’re yours that the narcissist sold to you, to gain that attention they so desperately craved from you, yet once they’ve destroyed you’re hopes and dreams, destroying you, they no longer want you. Thus they discard you while blaming everything on you.
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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.
