The trauma this abuse causes to victims.

Let’s look at the whole picture and why this abuse traumatizes victims.The vicious cycle of this abuse is really a manipulative trap that keeps you running in circles until it completely disables your reality, erases your personality, and then it ends – AND as if that wasn’t enough your abuser attempts to completely destroy YOUR integrity so they can move on unscathed to start this cycle up AGAIN with some new and unsuspecting person.

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

We constantly struggled with the vision of that special love in the back of our mind (the one that we were CONNED into believing) to make the relationship work and make our Narcissist happy by working harder at the relationship. We are even asked (more like demanded by threats) to do things differently or do what this Narcissist wants but it only led to more demands and made us sink deeper and deeper into this distorted and desperate love. From time to time we were even offered an ‘olive branch’ and an “I love you so much,” to achieve a cohesive peace but again it was not real AT ALL and the Narcissist cashed in on their agenda once again! But despite our intuition or the deep-rooted sense that something is totally wrong with this relationship it felt familiar or similar to love because it started out that way and that is what we held onto to alleviate the struggles and pain. We begin to feel increasingly unhappy because we are never getting our needs met as well as totally confused and lost. The struggle to get this person to love and accept you is not working so you employ all kinds of tactics to try harder but to no avail. It is the vicious cycle of this abuse or the trap that keeps us running in circles until it ends, and that end is always devastating and destructive because of the psychological damage that the Narcissist inflicted that kept this toxic relationship in motion like a toy ‘yo yo’ on a string being forced up and down and guess who has their finger in the loop of that string – The Narcissist!

While you keep trying to hang on to this relationship you are only burying yourself deeper and deeper in the darkness and the void that defines a Narcissist and their personality disorder. It is this daily struggle that is so unfulfilling and damaging, as well as makes you feel so unhappy and worthless. Beyond that there is going to be a huge eye opener with the full devaluation this creature is going to throw at you when your time is up with them. It is virtually impossible to love a Narcissist normally because you are only plugging yourself into their game of abuse as their PRESENT source of supply. They are literally using up every bit of your life and reaping all the benefits. You can’t love a Narcissist because they are invisible and all you are seeing is a projected image to fool or con you into their game or ABUSE.

A Narcissist AVOIDS seeing their real self and that is why they create all of these images/facades because they are completely empty and this is what they do to avoid seeing their real reflection in a mirror as well as make themselves look functional enough to create their fake bonds to con what they need out of people. They avoid their real self so totally that they will defend their false image and destroy you for making them accountable for what they really are. There is such a mystery to them and that in itself becomes an addiction because we thought we saw a flicker of real love and a real person, so we keep digging to find that again, but no there was none and yet we keep searching for it!

That idea that if we just try hard enough, we will find a way to create that loving connection or revive it becomes a goal, BUT it is really a trap. Unfortunately, it kept us tied up in a relationship that really only revolved around basic functionality, but it always seemed to hold the unspoken promise of one day becoming a connection of unconditional love to us. The message that was always there was that we had to keep changing to meet this dictator’s needs and unfortunately we listened to this and made it our goal. That is the addiction we get so caught up in and end up losing ourselves completely. Trying harder is NOT going to unlock the magic door to their unavailable and dead heart because you are dealing with a void and not a person. The unfortunate consequence to this is that you will have to grieve this empty love just as if it were real. Unfortunately, there is the psychological damage that destroyed your integrity (and trust of people) that is also attached and it requires many, many steps to actualize the entirety of this. So, it is not like walking away from a normal relationship with a broken heart – you are walking away with a broken SELF.

When it comes to understanding this love with a Narcissist, all we really had was a dream and a reflected image from this Narcissist of what we thought was love that was based on what we grew up believing was love. We have seen this love all around us growing up and even experienced it and felt it before. This love was very strong and amazing in our mind and we superimposed that image right onto this Narcissist like he/she conned us into doing so and they reacted to it like it was the real thing because THAT made their façade work!

Every little thing that they did to reinforce it ALSO enforced that ‘distorted truth’ we kept hanging onto as if it was real and part of that big dream we wanted or the love we believed in – but this dream turned into our worst nightmare! This belief always kept us at that safe distance and blinded from what was really happening and away from all of the lies, betrayal, manipulation, and hate that was really right there in front of us. Believing in them kept the painful reality at bay and disabled us a little bit more each and every day. At some point we must see the truth and accept it as well that it is impossible to love or be loved by the Narcissist.

The real picture will unfortunately reveal itself and you will hear things that will make you feel sick to your stomach. You will question yourself in so many ways and beat yourself up over all of it. Why didn’t you see this coming, why did you keep trying and hanging on to this monster? You will feel defective and worthless and maybe even deserving of all of this! It is not answerable in any one given manner as far as applying the fault to yourself. Let it go because that doesn’t help you achieve clarity, nor opens a door to move forward to recover from this toxic relationship. It only sends you deeper into this abuse by blaming yourself! Narcissist PLAY big time games and they are completely unavailable to ANYONE in this world. The person you were before was conned and the person you are now is still being conned and you MUST get away completely to achieve clarity and move on. In reality we all know it takes two to have a healthy relationship, and there were two in this relationship and one person was real, but unfortunately the other one pretended to be real because they had an agenda to make this real so they could use you and they were seamless with the game.

So, despite everything you truly and deeply loved this person, or a Narcissist! Somewhere deep down inside of you there are feelings that have been buried and have only shown up as feelings of frustration because of how hard you tried. Let these feelings surface. Society has sort of taught so through imposed beliefs how we are supposed to feel as well as what we are not supposed to feel, but this abuse is very different and deserves respect and patience! We are told we MUST NOT be victims. Unfortunately we are, but we never wanted this or to become a victim. It is a reality that must be processed to heal and that is understanding it all. I hate the word victim, but I understand my reality and I am not going to write it off in favor of being stigmatized by a word. I lived through something called abuse from a personality disordered person that tried to destroy me and then blamed me as if I were the abuser and then isolated me with backstabbing and a smear campaign that was an attempt to destroy my life COMPLETELY.

I am not going to acknowledge a frame of reference that disallows my recovery because of a label someone created that now tells me I am even MORE wrong and must not speak out. Victim’s become survivors by actualizing the truth and THEN we dump that label! We all know how damaging it can be if we stay in this victim role, but that is your first cry for help as someone that needs more support, education, love and a hand to pull them back up. IT IS ACTUALIZING THE TRUTH FIRST! I have heard from too many people that buried so much and it resurfaces and locks them up in many years of mistrust and isolation because they were told to move on. Educate yourself, get healthy again and then work on ‘you!’ YES, you must move on and away from everything Narcissist once you get it and stop talking abuse or Narcissist. It is a personal process and different from everyone!

So ask yourself this now, have you allowed yourself to feel any disdain or anger towards them? Due to those beliefs we are always supposed to take the higher road. BUT you are dealing with a Narcissist or a very disordered person that intentionally inflicted so much destruction on you through horrendous lies, betrayal, manipulation and they abused you terribly. Get angry and get mad because it can be liberating because you are acknowledging the truth and purge it out of yourself completely – THEN put that anger away to move forward. It is a stage of recovery to move you forward by purging it out of you completely. This can be very liberating when you embrace the truth and a great relief to realize that there is nothing wrong with you or your mental abilities. You didn’t know that this was a predator and a horrible person to have in your life. You didn’t have all of the tools to understand the relative danger of your reality with this Narcissist so don’t deceive yourself into thinking that there was a solution right there in front of you.

You get it today and you are away from them, so it happened and you are free from this creature and the abuse. Count those blessings first to give yourself some levity to keep moving forward! Get healthy and use that as an opportunity to understand that there is evil out there and close every door that would enable this to happen to you again! Dig down deeply and acknowledge ALL of the distorted messages as well as the psychological abuse or it will only surface later. AGAIN, there is no magical cure or guru that can take you to recovery except for yourself. Your beliefs about life have been distorted and even shattered to your core and has created a negative and fearful view of the world and you must purge that out of you or be disabled for life. The process is long and you CAN’T skip any part of it. You must separate completely from diagnosing the Narcissist or reliving the past trying to understand it any more than what you do today. It was abuse imposed on you by a Malignant Narcissist. Educate yourself about this creature until you get it, then work on healing YOU!

Your heart is unconditional and you are full of goodness and empathy, but protect that now that you have started to close that door to this Narcissist because they will always welcome you back for more abuse! If you have ever tried to really help a Narcissist as most of us have you know that if you get too close to the truth of what they are it will blow up in your face and cause you horrendous damage. The Narcissist doesn’t want to be fixed or have their issues solved. They want to escape with absolutely NO accountability to the truth as it concerns them and they will ALWAYS blame others for their problems and the way they ABUSE people. No matter what you say or do, the Narcissist will shift all of the blame right back onto you! Attempting to reason or demanding accountability only starts their immense denial mechanism and they will find every reason to divert from divulging the truth and they will even bump it up to destroy your integrity for attempting to divulge the truth. It is a tactic on their part that they have used all of their life. Blaming others keeps the Narcissist at arm’s length from their true darkness as well as their many issues. They have spent their entire life living under this shield of protection and you or nobody else can make them see the truth. They will strike out at you in such a manner that will hurt you more than you already are.

Reasoning with a Narcissist is a lesson in futility. They are liars through and through and have perfected the game of diverting from reality. Any person that can act out in the manner that a Narcissist does or intentionally extort/harm people like these creatures do can’t have access to rational reasoning, empathy, love, or reality. If they are breathing they are lying AND abusing. Lying even in a dysfunctional personality disorder like Narcissism has a cognitive basis (ability to reason) to it, so they know what they are doing after all they trap their prey and that requires a plan to make their agenda work with these lies – that is THINKING and KNOWING. They ALSO lie after they discard you to avoid being exposed – again they are thinking about what they NEED to do to survive. This is why they are out there with a new and newer target/victim.

They are masterful at deception to get what they want. My Narcissist would have the world believing that I am mentally ill and scorned and THAT is what motivates me to write as I do. Even with the clarity and resonance of my words as well as the amazing similarity to ALL of the circumstances of this disorder, and mounds of written proof, and the collaborated stories from family, friends and co-workers that describe my ‘ex’ as a textbook Narcissist. Let them think what they think because you won’t change that because they are protecting themselves from exposure. Nobody is exempt from their destructive smear campaign when they are on the run. In the end you realize that only fools believe this Narcissist and the smear campaign and in reality their (Narcissist’s) world is very small. Please no/minimal contact! Greg