You are NOT crazy, but a Narcissist will do everything they can with their arsenal of tools to convince you that you ARE!

FACT: Narcissists always rewrite history whether it is lying, switching out their story to confuse us, manipulate us with FALSE facts, deny OUR memory, or any number of things to keep us in that constant maze of desperation and blame to ultimately push us to the edge and over if they can. YOU ARE NOT THE CRAZY ONE – you are being manipulated to FEEL like you are – disengage completely!

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

The Narcissist has successfully developed strong and shrewd communication skills that basically invalidate and manipulate our own perceptions about ourselves and distort all logic and reasoning rendering OUR communication with them useless. All interpersonal communication becomes twisted, circular, and an opportunity to make us feel invalidated, wrong, mentally unstable, invalidated and basically worthless. This within itself is often overlooked (the subtle abuse) but it is as dangerous as any of their other tools in the arsenal of Narcissistic abuse!

Well let’s go to the source of your abuse, a Narcissist. Now let’s define this Narcissist. They are mentally unbalanced, and not a fully functioning human being so with that thought in mind they are quite capable of poisoning our minds and harming our reality – JUST FACT. Whether they have a disdain for all things human or they are cruel, evil, despicable or whatever THEY ARE TOXIC and destructive to us. If you educate yourself and understand what we lovingly call their ‘arsenal of tools’ it will spell out their agenda and a definite pattern of what all Narcissists do to ALL of their targets/victims. The key words that describe the whole cycle of abuse are love-bombing, devaluation, discard and I always add DESTROY! In a nutshell they are the reason that our reality has been so distorted and disabled.

So what goes on in the omnipotent Narcissists distorted version of life? There is no such thing as a POSITIVE value judgment as it concerns any other human being on this planet – people are merely living objects for a Narcissist to use, abuse, and discard at will. It is a very controlled mechanism in their arsenal of abuse. Normal people respect all life, but a Narcissist doesn’t deem life as worthy of THEIR respect. So, by treating others as unworthy the Narcissist is acting as if they are beneath reprieve for their actions, and we are totally insignificant, very disposable and infinitely less important than the all-important Narcissist. A Narcissist has no more regard for us than a person that steps on and squashes a poor bug that is minding its own business on the ground. Basically and unequivocally we are nothing and the Narcissist is everything in their world and at all costs even if it means total destruction of an individual!

Here is a quick ‘personal’ example from my past abuse situation of the flip flop rhetoric and tactics a Narcissist employs to constantly keep us on that up and down dizzying roller coaster ride: In one breath my Narcissist would say I was ‘the one,’ we were soul mates, and the perfect person the Narcissist had searched for all of their life. I was praised for being intelligent, physically attractive; I had wit and charm, as well as many other wonderful accomplishments. Then in an about face this Narcissist would deny all of what they said and find fault with everything I did, criticize the way I looked by making fun of me, denigrate my profession as a chef instructor calling me a cook that only serviced other people, scream at me, tell me I had no breeding or culture, had an ugly home, had no friends, was thoughtless, unaffectionate, selfish, etc.

What does all of this shout out at us? Many opposite and damaging extremes and the actions of a highly dysfunctional and manipulative abuser. Specifically one that uses CHARM and HARM to constantly modify their victim’s behavior AND security to keep them totally off balance — and in a constant thick fog of confusion by purposely manipulating with fake emotions and psychological abuse tactics. It completely distorts the victim’s thought processes and creates a form of trauma bond or a mishmash of intense feelings stretching from intense NEGATIVE rejection/putdowns and then back to the POSITIVE lifting up and attraction again. All of this takes up a great deal of your brain’s real estate and hijacks your emotions and ‘normal!’ AGAIN, like a ride on a roller coaster that leaves you craving the highs. Remember those highs you experienced seemed so great – but they were NOT. Everything became VERY painful/agonizing and that is what leaves you craving and ruminating about the old highs you ONCE believed in. BUT, it will NEVER change and you will be left on this roller coaster ride but without those highs because one day it all crashes OR YOU GET OFF FIRST.

The journey to recovery is now a process because we were unconsciously living and dealing with all the manipulative and destructive messages we internalized and validated as our reality. We must seek out education about this abuse and the truth about our situation as a key to unlock the door to our recovery. Yes those messages are going to be in our head for a good while BUT we have to create a healthy balance and desensitize them. What this means is that we have to move into a place where it is possible for us to recognize that a person HAS betrayed us in a manner to control us through mental abuse. We have to think about it in terms to validate the truth of the situation, but not to try to dissect the Narcissist and put our energy into trying to get into their heads. We spent a great deal of time trying to fix or basically heal them and we gave away too much of ourselves and ALL we got in return were MORE lies, manipulation, twisted stories, diversion, blame and more chaos. Turn this around and accept the truth that they are completely disordered and put that healing power back into yourself.
You HAVE the ability to change if you deprogram the messages that have been imprinted on your mind if you ALLOW yourself to be your OWN motivator in this process. Just say ‘NO’ to Narcissist. Remember the old drug campaign that showed an egg as describing your ‘healthy’ brain, and then it showed that same egg in a frying pan stating this is your brain on drugs (the fried egg.) Well just switch that around to the fired egg being your brain after being with a Narcissist. Please understand no/minimal contact and start of your road to recovery, it is imperative to moving on! Greg