The journey to understanding WHY and HOW they take us from CHARM to HARM. I want to really to drive these points home so we can understand how we fell down this rabbit hole and right into these abuser’s grasp.

Fake does not completely and accurately describe a Narcissist, but add these to their worldly resume – manipulative, emotionally and psychologically abusive, pathological liar, predator after a target, and personality disordered sums it up better – but FAKE is a tool of their trade. The journey to understanding WHY and HOW they take us from CHARM to HARM. I want to really to drive these points home so we can understand how we fell down this rabbit hole and right into these abuser’s grasp.

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

The Narcissist is a master of fake and fraudulent emotions/empathy with a phony façade and life to match. They appear to take you in, care about you, understand everything you are experiencing, and they appear to genuinely put themselves in your shoes to understand “YOU” with acceptance and unconditional love. They observe and react with that resounding smile, approval, and unconditional care and love. All of this causes you to let your guard down and honestly believe there is a genuine give-and-take in your relationship and a love that exists that is just for you. It is overwhelming to meet someone that is so much like you, so connected to your thoughts, and so reactive to meet your every need that you BELIEVE in them completely. BUT once they gain your trust, they will pounce on you. They wait until you are perfectly comfortable with them, and your guard is completely down or even perhaps having a low moment in your life and now the time has come to manage you down and to control you to manage the business at hand or secure the supply they came for. How do they do this? Through that amazing connection they created with us – what we did not expect is that THEY were also unlocking our insecurities, our likes and dislikes, our personal secrets, and anything else they could use AGAINST us in the second phase of this so-called relationship or the devaluation phase to control us – or the HARM phase!

What would you do if you were completely void of love and empathy, how would you interact in the normal world? Without emotions or the ability to bond you would have to control people to trap them into your defective world so you could essentially fit in and get/take what you need that you cannot accomplish on your own. Narcissists perfectly execute an emotional and psychological attack on their victim because their purpose is to wear you down, to humiliate you, and make you feel small and inferior and dependent on them OR again control. A Narcissist is not going to allow you to have feelings for YOURSELF and they are going to make you believe you are selfish and wrong for wanting ANY attention. There is no such thing as YOUR needs or individuality, and they basically erase your personality bit by bit. They want what they want, and they have invested their time to mold you into a viable source of supply. Narcissists do not tolerate individuality because people are objects for them to use as they see fit. There is nothing more here than their agenda coming to fruition, and you must understand that THIS IS ALL IT WAS. Predator after their prey using camouflage to hide the truth to trap you – or that façade and mask. The simple truth is that a person that cannot relate to emotions or empathy cannot relate to another human being in the smallest way.

A Narcissist ALWAYS loves to make you feel that YOU are crazy, especially if you try to confront them, make them accountable, bring up past issues or behaviors, or expose them when they are doing something appalling or lying. Basically, YOU are told that you have an overactive imagination, you don’t know what you are talking about, they have NO idea what you are talking about, or that you are simply making things up to cause problems. They will tell you that it is obvious that YOU are the one who is crazy (and tell you that everyone around you agrees with them about you being crazy). FURTHERMORE, they will claim not to remember any of these events, even flatly deny that they ever happened, and will NEVER accept the possibility that they might have forgotten. Your perceptions of normalcy and reality are continually undermined so that you end up without any confidence in your own intuition, memory, processing your thoughts, or reasoning, AND constantly confused. The Narcissist is a master at spinning everything and deflecting to remain in control and keeping you vulnerable!

The Narcissist will up the game to include destroying your soul, your ego, your accomplishments, and any belief system you have to completely manage you down to feeling worthless. The way the game is played is for them to try to turn everything about you and everything you do, into a complete failure. The Narcissist has the reasoning of a child – but they act out like a controlling, demanding, and demeaning parent (more so toxic). No matter what your real age, you are never allowed to reach a viable emotional age with them especially one that allows for your individuality or growth with them. You will always be treated like a stupid child, a bad child, a silly child, etc., and you will always be reprimanded and put in your place to honor them completely and NEVER question them! Consistent managing down is what all this amounts to!

Everything with a Narcissist is competitive and every life situation is a competition that requires “one-upmanship”, to beat their opponent. It always involves a “payoff” for the Narcissist that is ALWAYS about them getting something or extorting everything they can and devaluing and hurting you somehow too. They feel superior within their ability to con, control, and destroy. Again, their delusional world is like a battleground with them against us because everybody and everything is a threat – be it real or perceived. They keep track of real AND imaginary things you do, have done, or might do. It is a reactionary relationship with them BUT you are the one that always must explain your every word and action to them and made accountable when you are not serving their every whim and need!

Lastly what supports their lies is complete DENIAL. It is important to recognize that the Narcissist will never acknowledge that any games are being played AND the important point here is that it is up to YOU to stop playing. There is absolutely NOTHING you can do to fix them, the situation or heal them! You will always be told you are wrong, they are right, and that you are in need of some serious help. You cannot get them to acknowledge or take responsibility for their words or actions because they will always say they didn’t do it, or it never happened. They must or else face real accountability and retribution for their actions and then their gig would be up, so they deflect with more lies, more manipulation, and punishing, silencing and abusing you! They will destroy you completely to avoid exposure.

The main point here is that what I described is a Narcissist and how they abuse. They are not fully functioning human beings. They do not connect on ANY level with human beings except to use them as supply. We can describe this as a superficial relationship, but it goes far beyond superficial because it is a toxic and destructive relationship that will completely drain you and disable you and your belief system. Your responsibility is to get your ‘ah ha’ moment and understand that they are the defective ones that emotionally and psychologically inflicted some deep wounds that have severely affected your psyche. BUT that is where you start on your road to recovery. There is another type of healing that involves your personal emotional wounds that the Narcissist sourced out and used against you. Healing involves you and only you closing all of those wounds permanently through your personal journey or recovery!

Whatever that Narcissist has said to you that has deeply hurt you or wounded you is NOT a real observation; it was your vulnerabilities that you shared with them when you trusted them. They twisted, tweaked, and distorted these vulnerabilities to use against you and define you. They were so supportive in the beginning, but that was also to gain your trust and the knowledge of your weaknesses to use against you. You opened your amazing heart along with all your wounds and gave them the opportunity to find any and all of your weaknesses AND they were looking for them. They DO NOT have the ability to understand pain, sorrow, being vulnerable or apply empathy – they only want access to your weaknesses to use them against you or to CONTROL you.

This is what we must heal within us or those weaknesses that they have constantly pointed out because they are real and within us and now, they have made them come to the surface so much so that we lost our worth and trusting our own reality. They are master game players and used their keen perception to always be on top of their game. They took these weaknesses and embellished them to even make you think you were mentally ill and even fear yourself and your way of thinking. It is an extremely sick game that these Narcissists play, BUT it is a game that requires other players, and you have to totally opt out of participating! They will attack you at any and every level they can, even making fun of you physically and they can be VERY cruel! You will ask why and how they can do this – well again because they have no empathy, no care, no connection, no bond, no morals, and no love for any other human being or they are personality disorder AND they were after something – that is your complete answer. Please internalize and KNOW this! ALSO, please understand that you still ARE that amazing person, and this was situational abuse and lastly you will recover with knowledge, education, and support. No/minimal contact to start out on your journey to recovery! Greg