Hi.
I’m Justin.
And like many people in the world these days, I have come to the devastating realization that I am a survivor of what’s called narcissistic abuse.
If you know what narcissistic abuse is, then you know.
I’m sorry you have to know about something so painful and insidious that it almost borders on being evil, but you know nonetheless.
If you DON’T know what narcissistic abuse is, first I would say count your blessings.
Next I’d like to take a moment of your time to explain what it is conceptually as well as to give insight as to what it’s like experientially.
I’m doing this for a couple of reasons.
Number one, the people who have gone through these horrible experiences in their own lives need to be VALIDATED.
They need to be seen heard and acknowledged for what they went through in their lives and maybe even with what they continue to go through.
Number two, it’s important that these things are talked about and brought to light in general and on a larger scale.
There are far too many abusers in this world who have gotten away with incredible abuse, especially parents, because for generations people have been taught to simply “let the past go” if they experienced some kind of abuse in their lives, or to simply sweep everything under the rug and let bygones be bygones.
In both cases trauma and abuse that people have been struggling with have gone unacknowledged and ignored.
This kind of thing can’t go on.
We as a human race need to become aware of these realities and bring them to light so hopefully when these things happen in the future they can be stopped and something can be done about them, but also so that victims of narcissistic abuse can actually HEAL and get their lives back.
And of course the first part of healing is to acknowledge and validate a person’s feelings, traumas, and what they’ve been through in their lives.
This is what this blog post, and frankly this entire site and channel aims to do.
In all honesty I would say, as someone who has experienced narcissistic abuse first hand, that narcissistic abuse is one of the absolute worst thing a human being can experience on this planet.
And as horrible as it is in and of itself, many times children born into this world are born into a family with one or more parents who are narcissists.
Narcissistic abuse is complex, which is why it can be difficult for the average person to understand on any level and thereby provide some sort of validation, compassion, and maybe even help to someone who is sharing this type of story with them.
Because of this, I thought I’d share what narcissistic abuse is like as simply and as easily understandable as possible from someone who has experienced it first hand, both to give validation to those who have gone through it too, and to also provide some insight to those who simply do not really know what narcissistic abuse is.
So what is a true narcissist and what is narcissistic abuse like?
Narcissists are Like Bullies
First and foremost you’ve got to picture a true narcissist as a form of a bully.
This is a person who has a lot of their own inner issues and very likely has experienced their own traumas at some point in their life.
This is ok and understandable to a certain point, but instead of certain narcissists or bullies choosing to deal with these inner issues in a healthy way so that they don’t pass on the trauma they’ve endured, many of them choose to ignore their traumas and issues and so become bullies and abusers themselves.
So because bullies and narcissists choose not to deal with their inner traumas and pain in a healthy way, the first thing a bully or a narcissist needs is a target to lash out at, abuse, and to take their unresolved pain anger and hatred out on.
In school this target might be someone who is considered “weak” or vulnerable in some way.
Someone who is “safe” for the bully to pick on and abuse.
Once a target is acquired so to speak, the bullying or the narcissistic abuse begins.
But unlike your classic school bully, a narcissistic abuser can be your mother, your father (hopefully not both), a boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife.
It can be your boss or someone else you come across in life.
And of course dealing with any form of narcissist is horrible, but it’s in dealing with the ones that you live with and who have more intimate access to your heart and soul are the worst.
The Narcissist’s Target is Called a Scapegoat
So in a narcissistic abuse dynamic the “target” for the narcissists bullying, rage, hatred, and abuse is what is called the scapegoat.
This scapegoat is usually someone who is unknowingly most likely to reflect back to the narcissist what the narcissist hates about themselves, even if this person isn’t actually doing anything.
This is what happens with what’s called projection.
The narcissist is projecting what they hate about themselves along with their unresolved trauma and pain 24/7/365 and some people’s energy will actually reflect this projection back to the projector, acting as sort of a mirror to the narcissist.
This of course is something the narcissist can’t stand.
And it’s precisely because they see themselves and their flaws and areas of self loathing in this particular person mirrored back to them that they generally choose this person to be their primary target or scapegoat.
Being the victim of narcissistic abuse is horrible for anyone, but in many cases this target can be a child.
Imagine being a child or even the child of a narcissist and having absolutely NO IDEA what is wrong with or going on inside of the narcissistic person in your life, and simply being yelled at screamed at shamed, bullied, emotionally abused in different ways, and in many cases even physically assaulted just for EXISTING.
And again the primary reason this is happening is that this person is unknowingly acting as a sort of a mirror for the narcissist and reflecting back to the narcissist what they hate about themselves.
This is why some people in life seem to just dislike or even hate certain people even if those people aren’t doing anything at all to the other person.
Sometimes a person’s very presence can be enough to reflect back to certain people their projections and reflections about themselves.
Narcissistic Abuse in a Nutshell
So the narcissistic abuse starts with a target, usually someone who is reflecting back to the narcissist what they don’t like about themselves on sort of an energetic, emotional, or psychological level which causes an enormous amount of resentment and hatred to build up against that target.
With many in narcissistic abuse relationships victims have stated that it felt as if the narcissist just absolutely hates them.
And this is true.
In narcissistic abuse you are dealing with an INCREDIBLE amount of anger, hatred, and rage coming at you from the narcissist.
And this is where the narcissistic abuse really begins to get worse.
Because this person hates you, or rather what they SEE in you which is simply their own reflection being mirrored back to them, they set out to DESTROY you.
They may not do this through literally killing you, but they will do anything and everything just short of killing you.
Of course there are many cases of murder as we all know, and who knows how many of those cases were fueled by something like narcissistic rage and hatred.
What they do is abuse, manipulate, and torture their target through a whole host of abusive and manipulative tactics.
There may be some physical abuse involved with narcissistic abuse, but at the core of narcissistic abuse is extreme and persistent emotional and psychological torment, torture, and abuse of the victim.
Believe it or not there are an incredible number of behavior patterns and forms of abuse that a narcissist can use on a person, and they may use all, most, or some of these tactics in order to manipulate and abuse their target or scapegoat.
We won’t delve into all of them here, but some of the more common ways people are abused by narcissists are with things like the narcissist raging, yelling, screaming, blaming, manufacturing chaos or crises, gaslighting, emotional blackmail, no-win scenarios, smear campaigns against the scapegoat with members of the family or mutual “friends”, triangulation, alienation from other family members, constant criticism of virtually anything and everything you do or don’t do, and various other forms of emotional and psychological torture and abuse.
To put it simply, under narcissistic abuse you are under CONSTANT attack in a multitude of ways.
There is no stopping the narcissist from being abusive.
There is no help coming your way, ESPECIALLY after the scapegoat or victim has had their name and reputation drug through the mud by the narcissist.
No one believes you when you try to tell them what’s going on behind the scenes because you either don’t know how to put this invisible yet insidious form of abuse into words and/OR the people you are talking to about your situation have no experience with someone like this and so they generally assume you simply must be “mistaken”.
And the constant narcissistic abuse and torture of your mind heart and soul usually develops within the victim what’s called CPTSD or complex post traumatic stress disorder.
Narcissistic Abuse Generally Leads to CPTSD in the Victim
CPTSD is like PTSD only more severe.
It is comprised of five key developmental arrests which are: a vicious inner critic, toxic shame, emotional flashbacks, social anxiety, and self abandonment.
So now you are not only under attack from the narcissist and their flying monkeys outside of you, but you are also under attack from WITHIN as the vicious inner critic you develop is essentially just your narcissistic abuser now living in your head abusing you and putting you down when they aren’t around.
You have no training for how to deal with this sort of thing, most therapists can’t help you for whatever reason if they even know what narcissistic abuse actually is, you don’t know what is causing the narcissist to be so abusive towards you, and you also don’t know what you can do or NOT do in order to get the abuse to stop.
But the truth is NOTHING will ever get the abuse to stop because the narcissist doesn’t WANT the abuse to stop.
So you’re dealing with something akin to a demonic entity behind closed doors who completely changes their appearance and perception in public and paints YOU as the crazy and abusive one even though it is THEM, all to deflect attention away from how horrible they really are.
This is called a smear campaign and they do this to get people in the family or friends of the family to sort of dog pile on the scapegoat and abuse and alienate them further.
Then of course dealing with CPTSD itself with no help from the mental health field on how to heal from it or even RECOGNIZE it causes all kinds of other problems in the person’s ability to function and cope in life on virtually every level: in school, in relationships of any kind, in work, and in just being able to function across the board.
Narcissistic Abuse is Like Pure Hell
So this is a brief summation of what narcissistic abuse is like generally speaking, although it can come in different forms.
And this is what I went through in my life with my mother.
My mother was the most hateful, rage filled, manipulative and abusive person I have ever come across in my life.
She caused me nothing but INCREDIBLE emotional and psychological pain, but also incredible emotional and psychological DAMAGE which I struggled with for many years to heal from.
On top of dealing with narcissistic abuse from my mother, I come from a broken home, abandoned by my father largely although we saw him every other weekend as our parents divorced when we were young, along with a family who treated me like absolute garbage.
My mother alienated me from family and friends with her incessant smear campaigns against me, which is a core part of narcissistic abuse, to try to alienate me from any potential outside help I may have received from dealing with her, and made ME look like I was the crazy one or the abusive one and that SHE was the victim when it reality it was the COMPLETE OPPOSITE.
Dealing with this caused me incredible problems with interpersonal relationships, in dealing with school (I dropped out of the public education system in 10th grade due to me having a nervous breakdown from the incredible stress and torture I was dealing with from my own mother to finish with an at home correspondence program), I couldn’t hold down relationships, I could barely hold down jobs, and there was a period where I was homeless and living out of my car just to get away from abusive people in my life and have some peace.
Furthermore, as stated previously, NO ONE ever saw that I was going through abuse of an extreme degree at home including the multitude of therapists I went to, spiritual healers and guides who I sought for guidance and healing, shadow workers, personal development workshops designed for healing and growth, and even gurus and swamis.
It took me many years of intense searching and even then I only came across the concept of narcissistic abuse from someone in passing after I described a bit about what I had gone through with my mother.
THEN it took me even MORE time to learn about CPTSD and to then do something about it.
These Experiences Led Me to Create Healing from CPTSD
It’s because of the hell I went through in my life on many levels that I decided to create this website, a podcast, a YouTube channel, and this blog in order to share my experiences with others who have gone through similar things, to give validation and a voice to those lost in the shadows, and to provide as many tools and resources for how to heal from narcissistic abuse and CPTSD and to get their lives back.
If you’re reading this and you’ve found some of the things I’ve shared to be similar to things you’ve gone through in your life, I am SO SORRY for what you’ve had to go through and probably continue to have to struggle with to some degree or another.
But hopefully by reading what I’ve shared here you know that you are NOT alone in this.
Oh and btw, although it was difficult I DID manage to largely heal and recondition myself from the affects of CPTSD and I feel SO much better emotionally and psychologically than I used to.
I still have some trouble handling stress but I’ve learned to adapt my life to what’s best for me and in taking care of my own health and well-being.
So if you’re wondering if you can get your life back too, the answers is DEFINITELY YES.
Although healing, especially from something like CPTSD, is something of a lifelong process, you CAN heal sufficiently and get your life back to lead a happy fulfilled a somewhat normal life.
And doing this, more than anything, is what I’d like to share with you.
My name is Justin, and I am a survivor of narcissistic abuse.
But I am here to tell you that through all the hell I’ve been through in my life, I am still alive and breathing and have largely made it through to the other side where there’s inner joy and outer peace.
So welcome one and all to Healing from CPTSD as a site and blog, a podcast, and a YouTube channel, and I hope that my story and experiences can be of some use to you as you take your journey to healing from narcissistic abuse and CPTSD.