10 Signs You Are Dealing With Narcissistic Abuse

Gaslighting is a form of psychological erosion. It usually starts small then builds each time. At first, they may deny saying things that you know they said. Then you start to question yourself. You question your memory and your sanity, but all they do is tell you that you're just "imagining things" and when you try to speak up, they dismiss you, saying you're being "too sensitive."

Over time, you stop trusting your own memory. You stop trusting your intuition. You may even start recording conversations just to try to prove to yourself that you are not losing your mind.

I lived through this. I have had my reality twisted just to benefit his narrative. It was his word against mine. He was so good at the game he was playing that I was beginning to believe every word he said.

But the sovereign truth is, you're not going crazy. Your intuition is not broken. It has just been silenced by the very person you're supposed to trust the most.

Does it feel like your nervous system is constantly humming with anxiety, waiting for the other shoe to drop?

I remember being very careful, terrified of making one wrong comment, because as soon as I said anything he didn't like, the whole vibe would be off for weeks. He would withhold affection from me just for asking a question out of concern.

When you're going through this, you end up monitoring your tone, your facial expressions, and even your breathing to avoid triggering an outburst. You become hyper-vigilant, constantly scanning the environment for threats. This is not love. This is survival mode.

In the beginning, the relationship felt like a fairytale. It felt perfect, passionate, and intense. They placed you on a pedestal and made you feel special. They told you that you were soulmates or that you were made for each other. It was enthralling, magnetic, and overwhelming.

The gifts would keep coming, you'd be flooded by compliments, they'd boast about how they "spent every day in the past week" with you...

But here's the catch.

This "idealization" phase is not about connection. It never was. It was about hooking you in before their mask slips and making sure you're sucked in. Once they have secured your devotion, the devaluation begins.

A ruler without a court is vulnerable. A narcissist knows this.

Slowly, they subtly criticize your friends and family. They make you question whether your friends and family truly care about you or have your best interests at heart. Maybe you even start feeling guilty for spending time away from them. Eventually, you find yourself isolated, with no one to validate your reality or reflect your true self back to you.

There were many birthdays, Christmases, and other celebrations where I spent time with my friends and family alone. My ex-fiancé never wanted to join and made up excuses, arguing with me about leaving him at home by himself on such an important day. As time went on, I began to feel guilty and I started staying at home more frequently, isolating myself from friends and family. The few times I did go and visit my friends or family, I'd find out later that he didn't want to come because he just wanted to stay home and play video games by himself instead of spending time with me or his soon-to-be in-laws.

If this sounds familiar, this is not normal behavior. Someone who truly loves you would want to be a part of every aspect of your life and not guilt trip you about seeing important people in your life.

In a healthy dynamic, boundaries are respected. In a narcissistic dynamic, your boundaries are viewed as a declaration of war.

When you try to say "no" or protect your space, they react with rage, silent treatment, or victimization. They view your autonomy as a threat to their control.

Whenever my ex-fiancé wanted something from me and I felt uncomfortable, he would hit me with a "you don't love me" and sulk. Many times, I would feel the guilt creep in and I would end up doing whatever he wanted. This only taught him that my boundaries weren't set in stone and that if he pressured me, I would eventually give in. He learned that my boundaries were merely inconveniences and under the right manipulation tactics, he could make me do anything no matter how uncomfortable or dangerous it was for me.

Anyone who views your boundaries as obstacles they can overcome do not have your best interests at heart.

Have you ever been pushed so far that you snapped and screamed, only for them to calmly look at you and say, "Look how unstable you are"?

They shame you for having a completely human response after they've pushed you over the edge.

This is reactive abuse. They provoke you until you react, and then they use your reaction as "proof" that you are the abuser. It is a trap designed to fill you with shame. But do not be ashamed because it is not your fault.

It's another tactic to make you question reality and wonder if you were in the wrong all along.

I have once been accused of being toxic and abusive. A narcissistic tactic called triangulation was used against me when he claimed his therapist (that I've never met) said that I would abuse him if I didn't go to therapy. He used that as a way to victimize himself and control me since he knew I didn't have the financial means to go to therapy at the time.

Once I did go to therapy, my therapist said my reactions were perfectly human and the actions he was taking was pushing me to react in a way that made him appear to be the victim. When I confronted him, he got defensive and argued with me immediately by saying my therapist was bad and that I was wrong. This showed me everything I needed to know.

The body keeps the score. When your soul is under siege, your physical vessel takes the hit.

You may experience unexplained fatigue, brain fog, digestive issues, or chronic pain. This is your body screaming "no" when your voice feels like it cannot.

You may feel unsettled around this person. You may even feel more alone around them than if you were in a room by yourself. If you feel exhausted around them, like you're being drained, there's more to this feeling than just the feeling of dread. This is your body rejecting the relationship before your conscious mind sees the threat. Your Higher Self knows best.

You try to meet their expectations, but the goalposts constantly move. What pleased them yesterday angers them today.

You find yourself jumping through hoops, trying to decode their mood, hoping to get back to the "good times." But the logic never adds up because control, not logic, is the goal.

I was only called his girlfriend when it benefited him. Otherwise, he would constantly say we were in a "situationship". Whenever I did something he didn't like, he would tell me that he was my boyfriend and I wasn't allowed to act that way because it wasn't how a girlfriend was supposed to act, but as soon as I brought up any conversations about commitment, he would say we're not even together, that we're just in a "situationship".

The rules to our "connection" never made logical sense. It was never about logic. He constantly changed the rules whenever it didn't please him. It was never about deep connection, it always about him using me to gain "girlfriend benefits" without the commitment.

If you listen closely to their history, you will notice a pattern. All their exes were "crazy." Their boss was "out to get them." They seem to never be responsible for any of the chaos in their life.

This is a red flag.

Any person who is capable of introspection would be able to determine where they made mistakes and would hold themselves accountable. Even if they were ashamed of their mistake, they would still admit that instead of making other people the villains in every single story. In reality, everyone has been a villain at some point, even if they're not proud to admit it. We're all only human. If they're incapable of admitting when they've been in the wrong, they're no saint, they're just playing victim.

One time, I was lucky enough to hear two sides of the same story. In the first version I heard, I was told that his group of friends were playing a video game together and he was abandoned and left to die. I later heard from a mutual friend that what really happened was that he skipped ahead of the group and didn't wait for anyone, then when he was ambushed by enemies, he had no help from teammates and died. He screamed at everyone and left the game in a rage. The version he told me left out some crucial details and embellished how much of a victim he really was.

Anyone who does this is incapable of feeling true empathy and seeing the situation from an outside perspective. They are only capable of seeing the situation from a selfish point of view, so if they hurt you, they will certainly spin it to claim that they did because you made them do it. They are incapable of genuine accountability.

This is the most painful sign. You look in the mirror and you do not recognize the woman staring back. The vibrant, ambitious, magical woman you used to be feels like a distant memory.

You feel hollowed out. Drained. Insignificant.

In every photo I had of myself, you could tell there was a dimness in my eyes. Now that I have left these toxic connections, my spark is back and the vibrance is bolder than ever.

If you recognized yourself in these signs, take a deep breath.

The fact that you are reading this means that the spark is not gone. It was just buried under the debris of someone else’s toxicity.

You are not just a "survivor." You are a Queen who has been temporarily displaced from her throne. The pain you feel is not the end. It is the fuel we will use to alchemize your trauma into an empire.

It is time to resolve the trauma of narcissistic abuse and restore your internal authority.

You do not have to do this alone. In fact, isolation is what kept you stuck.

Are you ready to clear the fog and reclaim your life?

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