THE ABUSE TRAP! Narcissists PURPOSELY steer and trap you into a chaotic situation that leaves you exhausted, confused, and worn down completely!

THE ABUSE TRAP! Narcissists PURPOSELY steer and trap you into a chaotic situation that leaves you exhausted, confused, and worn down completely! Why we were always walking on eggshells or had that constant and uneasy feeling when we were around this Narcissist, or that feeling of anxiety, panic, and FEAR like we had to protect ourselves? Well, we were protecting ourselves from more chaos, more attacks, more blame, and shame – BUT FROM WHAT? The answer – abuse that constantly kept us wrapped up in uncertainty, chaos, and unbalanced with them – or their control!

From my Book – Greg Zaffuto – Author – From Charm to Harm and Everything else in Between with a Narcissist!

It is always a circular conversation with a Narcissist that never ends and is always filled with irrelevant and meaningless points, word salads and basically nonsense meant to keep you in chaos AND fearful with no end in sight. WHY because they want to diminish something about you through their conflicting messaging. They have a point and that is to bring YOU down with their words.

The Narcissist’s reign of terror and destruction begins with small negative comments about the victim. The Narcissist will begin to mentally disassemble the victim’s self-esteem and beliefs about themselves and the relationship. What was once considered the perfect relationship now becomes a relationship that is unnerving, controlling, debasing, dehumanizing, gut wrenching, unstable and full of blame and shame. The victim is constantly kept emotionally and psychologically off balance by the insidious behaviors of their Narcissistic partner and ALWAYS having to explain themselves and feeling like they must do more and more to please the Narcissist and living in FEAR.

So, they start off with what always seems like a command hidden in a question – and right away you feel confused and a little taken back by how they start this conversation out. You try to work with them, maybe even asking them to be more specific because you WANT to work it out. NO, that Narcissist is going to keep you jumping through hoops instead of getting some sort of reason or logic going because they want to take complete control of this so-called conversation by locking you up in a word salad or confusion. That Narcissist wants a REACTION – whether it is to get you frustrated, angry, or whatever so they can take it to another level – BUT you still do not know what the jest of it YET. You try harder – and even give your best attempt of resolving whatever they are trying to say – grabbing onto bits and pieces of what they originally said, and they raise it up to a higher level by scrutinizing YOUR good words and making them wrong now. They then weaponize YOUR words and say that YOU are mistreating THEM. NOW it becomes an argument about YOUR words – and you are standing there with your jaw dropping to the ground because where did this conversation come from and you still do not know what it is exactly about, you have given them options to resolve it – but now they are attacking you at every level they can treating you in a condescending tone like YOU are a child. This keeps going in circles and all that is happening now is that YOU are being admonished. They bring up things you said that were innocent and are now using them against use as if you threatened them – still you have no clue how this got to this point. Next, they will take it to a higher level where they will say that they have never experienced someone that acts like you, or others say or have said that you are difficult. Lastly it is time for them to push you close to the edge and accuse you of something or other that is supposed to make you feel horrible, they may even threaten you by saying that what you have done is illegal! BAM – there you go they have created a toxic scenario to trap you into a chaotic situation that leaves you exhausted and confused.

The victim becomes less and less of what they used to be prior to meeting the Narcissist. It becomes a vicious cycle of denigration, debasing, dehumanization, and destruction by the Narcissist until there is nothing of substance left of the victim. The dismantling of the victim’s total identity was skillfully orchestrated by the Narcissist, and then as if to add INSULT TO INJURY the Narcissist will unmercifully criticize and blame the victim for “not being the person” the Narcissist fell in love with. All of the “blame and shame” will ceremoniously be dumped on the victim to kick them down even further into the destruction a Narcissist inflicts on everyone.

The Narcissist will even “project” their betrayal and perverse lifestyle onto the victim and accuse them of what they (the Narcissist) is actually doing. The Narcissist will not yield to anything once they have the reigns of terror going and will even physically make fun of their victim to inflict every possible form of damage they can. This disables the victim completely, so they cannot possibly fight back and expose the Narcissist as the REAL abuser they are. The Narcissist has been back-stabbing and “smearing” the victim to family, friends, co-workers, and any other people that will listen to further damage the integrity of the victim. The Narcissist will then discard the victim quickly and without regard. The cycle of abuse and destruction has been completed. The victim has been disabled by the Narcissist and left by the roadside. This describes and is NARCISSISTIC ABUSE or better yet emotional and psychological rape of their victim. This is not simply “emotional abuse”, or a bad relationship between two people – this is a calculated attack of a predator after prey. This is a disordered human being that willfully harms good people – EVEN their own biological children will become victims of their damaging cycle of abuse. Predator after prey!

You can and will recover from this abuse – but YOU MUST understand that the Narcissist is as calculated in their attacks on people as is a shark with its prey. Once you establish the facts/truth about your abuser you must put it all into perspective to release from the “blame and shame” as well as the worthlessness you feel that the Narcissist made you internalize or better yet forced down your throat. Find that spirit, it is still there with you as well as your self-esteem, goodness, empathy, and LOVE — I promise you that this had NOTHING to do with who or what you are, it has to do with an extremely disordered person that manipulated you into ALL OF THIS because they are an abhorrent and disordered human being. You are and always have been the beautiful and amazing person you were – THAT IS WHY YOU ARE STILL HERE TODAY, and you still have tomorrow – and do not give that up. You WILL be the person you once were! Greg