All The Good Things About Narcissistic Abuse
Narcissists want what they don’t have.
What narcissists loved about you at the start and what they hate about you, in the end, are all the good things that make you, you!
Studies show that narcissists are attracted to attractive people. They are drawn to those who get attention, whether it's due to personality, money, career, status, looks, intelligence, or confidence in social situations.
“Narcissists are specifically attracted to high social status [and] less interested in warm, close, communal, and caring relationships,” — Ahmet Altınok.
This surprises me. I’m all warm, close, communal, and caring and consider myself aesthetically and socially average. In saying that, he wasn’t working, nor looking for work, and had a history of living off others, including his parents and a string of solo mothers, so he didn’t have to reach too high for status.
I mean no offense to myself or anyone. It is what it is. I’m as happy as a clam, clam being the operative word — I have a tiny handful of friends and am not interested in anyone's social ladder. I blissfully ride my own escalator.
Contrary to popular belief, studies show narcissists are less attracted to victim traits and more attracted to narcissistic traits such as leadership, a sense of entitlement, and low agreeableness.
Narcissists also don’t learn from their mistakes, nor do they learn from their successes; they will recycle the same behaviors through friendships and relationships. A victim will actively learn from the situation and have better success in future relationships.
While narcissists and their flying monkeys (supporters) lack integrity, you develop a stronger sense of honesty and integrity, in both yourself and others, through the trials of narcissistic abuse.
The Idealize/Grooming.
- Love bombing.
- Data mining.
- Mirroring.
- Gifting/narcissistic altruism.
- Idealization.
During the grooming phase, you’re idealized beyond belief, and you’re the bee's knees, best thing since sliced bread, the apple of the narcissist’s eye, they’re telling you everything fabulous about you, some of which you didn’t even know about.
Grooming is a tool used to control and fool you into a false sense of security. You and the people close to you are fooled into believing you’re the best thing that ever happened to them. Once you’re fooled, those same things that were good about you are used against you, i.e., “You used to be more fun, kinder, more compassionate, encouraging, and generous.”
Those awesome things about you still hold.
This time, however, you’ve learned your lesson and can save those awesome things for people who deserve and appreciate you.
A. Joshua W. shares his personal experience of narcissistic abuse and offers thanks to a list of other writers on Medium who also share their stories here:
The Devalue.
- Gaslighting.
- Nit-picking.
- Lying & Blaming.
- False compromise.
- Empty promises.
- Humiliation.
The devalue actually begins during the grooming; they drop in a few seemingly minor criticisms, flirt with others making suggestions that you should be more like them, and isolate you from those you love using insults and triangulation with your children, friends, and family.
They will try anything to test what bothers you and set you up for a massive devaluation.
Suddenly, the person who raised you on a pedestal starts tipping that pedestal till they push you right off.
You begin to doubt yourself and your grasp of reality, losing trust in everyone and everything.
Despite the above quip at my averageness, my self-esteem’s actually pretty good, I don’t come up in my mind often enough to think about it much, but I know there’s nothing I want to change.
I sure as hell noticed how low my self-esteem had dropped once I was out of the relationship but was completely blindsided during the devalue phase. I didn’t think I’d ever get my self-esteem back. I’m pleased to say that my self-esteem is back and stronger than ever because of the lessons from narcissistic abuse.
Leah Hill offers some great advice for identifying gaslighting and what to do about it here:
The Discard.
- Ghosting.
- Stonewalling.
- Scapegoating.
- Withholding information.
- Projection.
- Threats of suicide.
The narcissist normally instigates the discard, and they’re planning to leave right at the beginning. The discard begins when the narcissist realizes you're on to them. If you try to leave first, most of the same tactics apply, except they’ll push harder on the blame and projection and threatening suicide through fear of abandonment.
You can not help a person threatening suicide by staying with them; this will only make things worse. They need comprehensive professional help.
The most compassionate thing you can do for a person with a personality disorder is to stop enabling their behavior, have some compassion for yourself, and set boundaries around abuse. It’s not nice to accept, but narcissists do know what they’re doing to you.
By living with a narcissist, I discovered that I place little emphasis on what other people think of me unless those people mean a lot to me.
The narcissist was preoccupied with what people thought of him. Even though the few friends he mustered up probably should have been in rehab, he valued their opinion or at least pretended to.
This adds to the devalue and discard, realizing that anyone stupid enough to believe them is idealized — I was that stupid!
The Hoover.
- Return of all the same tactics used in the grooming phase.
- Telling all your friends, family, and anyone in your vicinity that they love you, they don’t know what happened; they were only trying to help.
- Turning up as if nothing ever happened.
The hoover happens every time you try to leave during the first three phases. I’m not sure the hoover ever ends when you leave. The narcissist I left is a serial predator. I’m actually more convinced he was a sociopath; whatever it is, it means you’re one of the multiple people who are on their lifetime hoover list.
I refuse to be labeled or listed, and they can stick their list up their jacksie.
I have a protection order, though it might as well have been written on toilet paper for all he cares, I’ve had a nice break, but sometimes I feel like that bit of fluff stuck on the end of the vacuum hose hanging on for dear life.
The Flying Monkeys.
Flying monkeys seem to hate you more than the narcissist; some will fake liking you, which is much worse. I would rather be hated by a real person than loved by someone fake.
That’s what you learn from flying monkeys, both the loud-mouth and too-ashamed to admit it ones, that you’re actually pretty amazing. You don’t need to keep secrets or sneak around gossiping to people; you’re a straight-up authentic as you can be, good person.
Once you’re out, you have nothing to hide.
Flying monkeys and narcissists are swimming in a muddly hole of lies and deceit, and there you are, coming up for air.
Watching other people make the same mistakes you did forces you to want to tell them. You desperately want to reach out and save them from the same fate.
This only adds to the narcissist’s story that you’re the crazy ex who did everything they did to you.
In the end, you realize that you are blessed with insight others are yet to gain. Enjoy it, but don’t be so arrogant to think they won’t figure it out themselves.
So once you’ve left the narcissist and still suffering from the abuse, how can you see anything good about narcissistic abuse?
- You're still all those good things you were at the start, but now you’re smarter and stronger for it.
- You actually have good self-esteem. Unlike the narcissist, you don’t need to devalue someone else to feel good about yourself.
- You attract better people. Not so much at the start of leaving. Flying monkeys are more like flies, and you have to learn to spot and swat. Once you do, though, that’s when you attract better people and notice the good in the people who supported you and the shite in those who didn’t.
- Not only do you know what to look out for in other people, but you also become more aware of your own hurtful behaviors and learn to work on those for better outcomes.
In my first attempt at a Haiku, “Dear Narcissistic Abuser,” I discuss how victims are drawn to reading and writing almost furiously about personality disorders and abuse, many victims now make a living out of the pain and their healing journey, reaching and supporting all those going through similar experiences.
For further information on narcissists and other cluster B disorders, see:
Thank you for reading.