Today, we are going to be talking about some of the telltale Signs You Are A Victim Of Narcissistic Abuse. Or more specifically, you are a victim of Narcissistic Abuse.
Because sometimes, when you’re living in it or experiencing it, it’s really hard to know, especially, if you have been abused in this way for a long period of time.
At the heart of all narcissistic abuse is psychological abuse. And the goal of psychological abusers is to rob you of your own beliefs and perceptions. Coming out of the fog of psychological abuse is not an event, it’s a process.
So if you’re wondering if you are indeed living through narcissistic abuse, I’m going to give you my top seven Signs You Are A Victim Of Narcissistic Abuse.
Here are my top Signs You Are A Victim Of Narcissistic Abuse:
1. You have trouble making decisions
You second-guess yourself constantly, you have a very real fear of making a mistake or that you will make the wrong decision. And this fear can be debilitating. Usually. If you are or have been exposed to long term narcissistic abuse, making decisions, even some seemingly insignificant decisions, can be incredibly difficult to make.
The reason this happens is that we have been ridiculed and criticized, or even raged at for so many decisions that we’ve made in the past by the narcissist. Decisions that we wouldn’t have even thought would have amounted to anything. Nor did we think that we were making the wrong ones have been torn apart by the narcissist. We have been mocked humiliated, degraded, and insulted for any belief or perception that we had that did not align perfectly with the narcissist.
On top of that, narcissists are famous for constantly moving the goalposts. So no doubt, there have been many times that we believed we were making the decision the narcissist would have wanted us to make. And lo and behold, they explode enraged that we made a decision that we never dreamed they would have had an aversion to.
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So many times, the narcissist only has this violent reaction to a decision that you made. Simply because they wanted to take an opportunity to make themselves feel superior to you. Most times that’s all it is. It’s not that you did or didn’t make the right decision, but rather, it’s just a great time for the narcissist to Gaslight you. Make you doubt yourself, degrade you, and make themselves feel superior and better than you. And this can result in extreme difficulty for the victim when it comes to making even the smallest of decisions.
2. You doubt your abilities and your competence
This is another very big sign that you might be a victim of narcissistic abuse.
The narcissist loves to take any opportunity they can to degrade your intellect, your competence, your perceptions, or your abilities to do anything independent of the narcissist. The goal of the narcissist is to gain control over you. And they certainly do not want you to have any faith or confidence in your abilities because they know you’re competent. And know you’re capable. They just don’t want you to know that.
They will use all kinds of overt and covert manipulations to make you believe that you enable incompetent or just too stupid to do whatever it is. The problem that happens here is that if we do not understand what the narcissist is. If we think that their motivation is coming from a genuine honest or even a protective place, we come to accept and believe these things about ourselves when their reality is nothing could be further from the truth.
3. You have a cruel inner dialogue or inner critic as it’s sometimes referred to
This is nearly always present when you’ve been exposed to narcissistic abuse, especially if you were raised by a narcissistic parent. The narcissist loves to degrade, humiliate, criticize, ridicule, and destroy all aspects of a victim that they find threatening or difficult to control, and your self-esteem, self-compassion. And self-worth is at the top of the list.
And because we’re treated like this for years on end, and we do not know what the narcissist is, and what their motivation is, we internalize that voice. We eventually start berating ourselves. Not knowing that the voice in our head is the voice of your abuser, not knowing that the voice is a liar and not truthful. And not knowing that the things it says to us are abusive, cruel, and wrong.
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Essentially, we start talking to ourselves in treating ourselves no differently than the narcissist. If you have a mean destructive cruel, or unforgiving inner dialogue or critic, I highly suggest you take a long hard look at the people that surround you. This is a huge red flag that you have been exposed to a significant amount of narcissistic abuse.
4. You are self-medicating with drugs or alcohol
To make yourself feel better, to silence that inner critic, and to have the courage to face life, it’s very common for a victim of narcissistic abuse, who inevitably will have symptoms of complex PTSD from the continual exposure to this environment, to be at least misusing drugs or alcohol or just flat-out abusing drugs and alcohol. This is very common.
When you have to live day in and day out exposed to these people, eventually, you’re gonna want to find some way to escape, even if you have gotten away from the narcissist. But you have internalized your abuser’s voice as your inner dialogue for a real nasty berating and cruel demoralizing sessions about how horrible of a person you are. And how or how insignificant you are, or what a loser you are. Eventually, you’re going to reach for something to escape from the abuse.
So if you are regularly using drugs or alcohol to escape from your home life, work-life, or the horrible way that you think about yourself or talk to yourself, this is a very sign that you’re a victim of narcissistic abuse.
Take a real hard look at the people who are surrounding you, or who have been surrounding you because there’s a pretty high probability there will be a narcissist or two in close proximity that has either been a part of your life for a long period of time.
5. You walk on eggshells or try and anticipate any problem or issue
So that you don’t anger your partner, or your parent, or your boss, or whoever this person is, you’re paranoid and scared about every move you make so as not to anger, or cause a fight, or some kind of an issue with someone in your life. If someone seems to overreact to the smallest things that shouldn’t warrant that type of reaction, and you find yourself walking on eggshells, you are probably dealing with a narcissist.
You might also find yourself over-analyzing. What you said, or did in other circumstances, or be overly concerned that something you said or did will be interpreted by others as wrong or stupid. This can manifest as being a preoccupation with constant monitoring. What you say and do in all kinds of circumstances.
So if you find yourself walking on eggshells, or overly worried that you might say or do the wrong thing all the time, there’s a good chance that you have been or are being subjected to narcissistic abuse.
6. You find yourself constantly Lowering your standards of what is acceptable behavior
Or you are continually having to justify someone’s behavior or the way that you’re being treated. This is a consistent theme for someone who is being exposed to narcissistic abuse. Because as we all know, narcissists do and say outrageous things. They are so incredibly selfish and will disregard your feelings or wishes at the drop of a hat.
If you find yourself saying, ” well, they didn’t really mean that, or I know they didn’t show up or even call to tell me they wouldn’t be here for our scheduled date, but I wasn’t really excited about going to that concert anyway, so it’s not that big of a deal. Or he or she is only verbally abusive to me, it’s not that bad. At least, they aren’t physically abusive. I just needed to toughen up, so those things don’t hurt my feelings so much.
If you are having to adjust your standards for someone you are dealing with on a consistent basis, this is a very big red flag that you are a victim of narcissistic abuse.
7. You regularly find yourself trying to prove you are a good person
This is really common in narcissistically abusive relationships because the narcissist projects their true character, values, and behavior onto other people, especially those that are closest to them.
One of the absolute funniest ones you will route routinely hear from a narcissist is saying to their victim is that you’re selfish. You are so selfish. All you do is think about yourself. And you’re thinking, are you kidding me? If that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black, God, you know he or she is such a hypocrite, and of course, they are complete hypocrites, but it’s deeper than that.
They literally project the deep-seated feelings they know and have about themselves that are completely inconsistent with their false self. And this fake reality they have concocted about themselves onto other people meaning on to you.
Usually, you will find yourself having to defend yourself or trying to convince the narcissist that you are not those terrible things that are not your character and those things are just not true on a regular basis.
If this is happening, if you’re being accused of things that you are not and are not guilty of, chances are you’re dealing with a narcissist or a victim of Narcissistic Abuse.
Those were the top 7 Signs You Are A Victim Of Narcissistic Abuse for today’s topic. Don’t forget to share this article with your friends and family.
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