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Survivors of Narcissistic Abuse and Emotional Manipulation
What is Narcissistic Abuse?
Narcissistic abuse is a form of emotional and psychological abuse inflicted by someone living with a Cluster B personality disorder like Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) or Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), or a person who exhibits many traits of those disorders. Narcissistic Abuse involves manipulative behaviors intended to control, undermine, and/or degrade the survivor. The most important dynamic to be aware of is that the person will often exhibit an enduring need for power and control over others. That person will subsequently exhibit extreme emotional variances, as well as abusive and destructive behaviors which result when they lose any sense of power and/or control over their victims.
What is a Cluster B Personality Disorder?
Cluster B personality disorders are a group of mental health conditions characterized by dramatic, overly emotional, or unpredictable thinking or behavior. These disorders include Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD), and Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD). Individuals living with Cluster B personality disorders often experience intense emotions, self-destructive and interpersonally destructive impulsivity, and difficulties in maintaining stable relationships. It is important to note that many people living with Cluster B personality disorders have a history of complex trauma. These conditions are not created in a vacuum.
Here are some common characteristics you might see in a person who is living with a Cluster B personality disorder:
Emotional Instability: Intense and rapidly changing emotions are a hallmark of Cluster B personality disorders, often leading to unpredictable and often problematic behaviors.
Impulsivity: Engaging in risky or self-destructive behaviors without considering the consequences. The impulsive behaviors may also be interpersonally destructive.
Distorted Self-Image: A fluctuating or unclear sense of self, often leading to identity disturbances.
Relationship Difficulties: Struggles to maintain healthy and stable relationships due to intense, sometimes erratic, interactions.
Attention-Seeking Behaviors: A need for constant validation and admiration, sometimes manifesting in dramatic or inappropriate actions.
What is Emotional Manipulation?
Emotional manipulation is a form of psychological abuse where an individual uses manipulative tactics to control, deceive, or exploit another person's emotions. It often involves subtle, covert methods that can make the survivor feel confused, doubting their own perceptions and reality. This kind of manipulation is particularly damaging when inflicted by a trusted attachment figure, such as a parent or partner, often leading to long-lasting emotional and psychological trauma.
What kind of behaviors are considered to be Emotional Manipulation?
Abusers may employ several tactics to undermine the survivor's self-esteem and sense of autonomy. The manipulative behaviors victims may experience include:
Gaslighting: Using lies, twisting information, or employing other forms of deception in order to make victims question their own memories, perceptions, and sanity. The abuser denies reality, causing the victim to lose confidence in their own judgment
Triangulation: Pitting others against the survivor to create conflict and confusion. Abusers may send “flying monkeys” after the survivor to manipulate the survivor into compromising their own safety and giving in to the abuse.
Silent Treatment: Withdrawing communication to punish and control the survivor.
Love-Bombing and Devaluation: Alternating between excessive praise and harsh criticism to keep the survivor off-balance.
Guilt-Tripping: Using guilt to control and manipulate the survivor's actions and decisions.
These toxic dynamics can have long-lasting effects on the survivor's mental health, including depression, anxiety, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD). Recognizing and understanding the signs of narcissistic abuse and emotional manipulation is the crucial first step towards breaking free from its harmful effects. This then can lead to healing and reclaiming one's sense of self-worth, well-being, and autonomy.
Effects of Narcissistic Abuse and Emotional Manipulation
People who are in abusive relationships with individuals who exhibit Cluster B Personality Disorder traits and behaviors often endure significant emotional and psychological trauma. The relationship with an abuser can be casual, professional, or intimate. Whether the abusive individual is a coworker, a boss, a friend, a family member, or an intimate partner, the experience can be overwhelmingly distressing. The abuse is often more severe when an abuser wields an inordinate amount of power and control over their victim(s). Survivors often feel confused and trapped in a cycle of manipulation and control. The abuser's behaviors can leave the survivor struggling with the following problems:
Confusion and Self-Doubt: Tactics like gaslighting, guilt-tripping, and blame-shifting are commonly used by abusers; leaving survivors feeling confused and filled with inordinate amounts of self-doubt. Survivors often continue with patterns of questioning their own reality and judgment even after leaving the abusive relationship.
Fear and Anxiety: The erratic and often dangerous behavior of abusers can create a constant state of tension, fear, anxiety, and even hypervigilance for survivors. Survivors may feel like they have to “walk on eggshells” to keep the abusive behaviors from occurring.
Low Self-Esteem: Continuous emotional devaluation and manipulation can erode survivors' self-worth and confidence.
Emotionally Drained: The intense emotional demands and volatility of individuals living with Cluster B disorders can exhaust the survivor's emotional reserves.
Isolated and Helpless: Abusers often work to isolate their survivors from friends and family, undermining their victim’s social support network. They also split and pull in people who they can manipulate to gang up against their victims. This isolation intensifies feelings of loneliness and helplessness.
Shamed and Blamed: Survivors may be made to feel responsible for the abuser's behaviors and emotional state, leading to deep-seated guilt and shame. Codependency is also a common side-effect of surviving an abusive relationship.
What if I love somebody living with a personality disorder?
It is essential to approach individuals with Cluster B personality disorders with empathy and understanding, recognizing that their behaviors are often rooted in deep-seated trauma. The trauma has affected them so profoundly that many lack any insight into their own emotions and behaviors. They often truly believe that they are the victim, and that the world is completely against them.
Compassionate support can play a crucial role in their journey toward healing. It is crucial to strike a balance between empathy for loved ones living with personality disorders, and a firm commitment to not enabling their abusive behaviors. Enabling by permitting, ignoring, or turning a blind eye to abusive behaviors can perpetuate cycles of abuse and further harm to those involved. Many people who live with Cluster B personality disorders unfortunately do not seek treatment as many are resistant to personal change, and it is important to set strong and firm boundaries to protect yourself from further harm.
The most important thing to understand as a person who loves somebody living with a personality disorder is that you cannot help a person who does not have any interest nor any intention to seek professional help and change; especially when they believe that everyone else is the problem. The inability for many well-intentioned survivors of narcissistic abuse and emotional manipulation to accept this reality about their loved one(s) often leaves them trapped in abusive relationships.
I am a survivor. What do I do now?
While it is vital to understand and empathize with those living with Cluster B personality disorders, a survivor’s primary focus must be on ensuring their personal safety and well-being.
Recognizing the signs of emotional abuse and manipulation is the first step towards breaking free from the cycle of abuse. Survivors need support systems that prioritize their safety, validate their experiences, and empower them to reclaim their lives.
By creating a safe and supportive environment around themselves, survivors can begin to heal from their trauma and work towards rebuilding their sense of self-worth and autonomy. This may or may not involve ending the relationship with the abusive person or people.
Finding a therapist who understands Narcissistic Abuse and Emotional Manipulation with experience in working with survivors is crucial to your healing process. Therapists who do not understand and recognize these dynamics may unintentionally invalidate or retraumatize survivors, and they may even unknowingly enable the abuse to continue.
At Matter Mental Health, we understand Narcissistic Abuse and Emotional Manipulation implicitly, and we can provide survivors with effective psychoeducation and therapeutic support. Contact us if you are seeking therapy to assist in the process of healing from the effects of Narcissistic Abuse and Emotional Manipulation.
What if I am the abusive partner? I think I might be living with a Cluster B Personality Disorder or I was already diagnosed with one by a mental health professional.
It is important that you do not demonize yourself, and that you recognize that you are also a human being who deserves to feel safe and to be loved unconditionally. It is highly likely that you have survived chronic and pervasive invalidation from your attachment figures, and you are sensitive to feeling invalidated by anyone and anything. Change is the most invalidating thing of all, and we validate that change can be uncomfortable, terrifying, and even painful. If you are not quite ready to change, we understand and recommend you seek professional help only when you feel ready.
If you are ready to change, a courageous and incredibly wise first step will be to seek intensive treatment in the form of Dialectical Behavior Therapy or DBT. DBT is an amazing treatment model that helps survivors of trauma who have marked issues with regulating their emotions, tolerating distress, being interpersonally more effective, and managing destructive behaviors. It involves a weekly skills group, and weekly individual therapy that will help you learn the skills to create a life worth living and prepare yourself to be able to tolerate the difficult process of healing from your trauma as well.
We do not offer DBT at Matter Mental Health as it is an intensive treatment model which we are not equipped to provide.
Our founder has a relationship with San Fernando Valley DBT, and would strongly like to recommend you consider working with them for your therapy goals. They are an amazing practice with an intimate group of extremely compassionate, patient, and talented therapists who have a solid track record of making their clients feel safe and providing effective treatment.
DBT is a model that requires tough love, but that tough love doesn’t mean that you should be treated poorly. San Fernando Valley DBT will provide the support and the tough love you need to heal and create a life worth living.
They provide services to all California residents via telehealth. You can contact them at (310) 994-2317 to consult and determine if DBT is right for you.