Healing after Being a Victim of Narcissistic Abuse

8 min readJun 21, 2022

This blog is intended to increase your self-awareness, and to empower you after narcissistic abuse.

Validating experiences

Whatever the relationship the narcissist has with you, their focus is on you and you become their target.

It will be a very intense relationship, with a lot of ups and downs and very little peace and no love.

You are selected as their scapegoat, which makes you the target for all their bitterness, anger, jealousy and uncomfortable or unpleasant feelings they have.

Each of the discussions, rows or arguments are contrived by the narcissist, even if you are the one that starts the discussion because of a problem or issue that you have with them.

These incidences will be blown out of all proportion and leave you confused and frustrated. The drama and chaos that results are because the narcissist is exploiting the situation for the maximum attention and energy. This is what the narcissist thrives on.

The narcissist twists things so they are the victim

During each discussion, row or argument, you are frequently in the situation where the narcissist twists things so that they are your victim.

This is especially the case when it comes to involving other people, the narcissist will manipulate others into feeling sorry for them.

The more people the narcissist can draw into the drama, the more attention and energy they get. The narcissist has already established that these people will believe their lies and support them.

You will feel alone and like the one to blame, especially as the narcissist will be shaming you and so will their minions.

They’ve set it up already so you’re discredited in advance

Of course, the narcissist would have already begun the smear campaign about you.

This would have started from the beginning of your relationship or since your birth with a narcissistic parent.

Twisting the situation will only feed into their narrative of you, which will be believed by the people they share with. This could be with people who knew you before, even your friends or family may side with the narcissist.

The narcissist does this, so that you won’t be believed if you ever reveal their abuse.

They will have a story about you, about your mental health or about an addiction which they reenforce every opportunity they can. Others will feel sorry for them, for putting up with you and your terrible behaviour.

The truth is- this behaviour is a result of the abuse that the narcissist subjects you to.

A narcissist will twist things

During the conversation with a narcissist, they will twist things and turn it back to you.

Whatever it was that you wanted to resolve with them will be ignored or belittled and the narcissist will begin their attack on you.

They know your weaknesses, so they know exactly what to go for.

Once you are distracted, justifying, arguing defending or explaining yourself then the narcissist has you exactly where they want you. They’ve manipulated you into this, to turn the attention from their actions onto you.

The more it’s about you, the more drama they can create, the more attention and energy they get from you and others.

It could be that they have a list of all the things you’ve done ‘wrong’, all the grudges that they have. Some of these will be outright lies, or because of the narcissists fragile and sensitive ego.

Somehow, something you wanted to raise turns into a dramafest, and you’re the one that has to account for your actions.

They blame you

The narcissist will blame you for the problems, somehow you will be responsible for their actions.

A narcissist will never take responsibility for their actions, apologise or change their behaviour.

Instead, they blame everyone else for whatever they are going through. They are the perpetual victims of everyone else, this way they feel justified in never having to do anything about it.

Again, they go for your weaknesses, so whatever is an unhealed emotional wound will be their target.

These unhealed wounds dictate a lot of your actions, until you become aware of them.

You believe them, because of the wound not because of your actions. The narcissist is very clever at poking at these pain points without appearing to do so, even with the appearance of concern or care for you.

When you are consistently told, by someone supposed to love and care for you, you are to blame you believe it.

It also gives you a sense of control, because if you can solve your ‘issue’, then the relationship can be fixed. However, if you ever manage to fix the issue the narcissist will just exploit another of your weaknesses or wounds to blame you for.

Relationships are 50/50. So, the narcissist is also responsible for the state of the relationship. Although they will never take any responsibility.

The narcissist’s desires

A narcissist doesn’t have the same expectations or needs from the relationship.

You love and care for them, they are important to you and so is the relationship. You have an emotional connection with them.

However, sadly, the narcissist is incapable of forming a genuine emotional connection with you. They are too selfish to care about anyone else.

It isn’t until you understand this, that you can really understand the true dynamic of the relationship.

Whilst you are a source of attention and energy for them, the narcissist will stick around.

However, if you want to change the dynamic the narcissist can just walk away and find someone who will give them what they want.

The end of the relationship

Whilst you are in the relationship it is all about the narcissist. They are the focus of your attention and energy and if there’s a problem it’s up to you to ‘fix’ yourself.

You take on the blame for the relationship failures.

You think that you are solely responsible for the relationship.

But then, one day, the narcissist walks away and everything is over, no matter what you’ve done to try to salvage the relationship.

The first thing is to try to fight to get them back. Perhaps they ignore you, or tease you with broken promises, whatever they do the relationship that you wanted is over.

It’s a very difficult process at the beginning, and you will blame yourself, and feel 100% responsible for the failure of the relationship. This is the narcissistic abuse still at work within you. This could take months to work through.

Then there comes a point when you start to understand the dynamic better.

Something will click and you will start to understand that the narcissist wasn’t your victim but you were theirs.

Greater understanding

As your awareness of narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic abuse deepens, you will understand more and more.

Becoming more aware of narcissistic abuse will mean that you become more and more angry about the situation. This is a natural stage in the healing process, as you begin to understand the abuse that you’ve endured.

This is when you are likely to find forums to read others’ experiences or share your own.

The more you can read about others’ experiences or other people can offer their opinions, the more validation you find.

Narcissists invalidate you because it leaves you more vulnerable to their abuse. If you blame yourself, or wonder if it’s something you’ve done, then the longer you will stay with them.

This is a very important stage in your healing, as you seek validation the more you grow in confidence in yourself. The narcissist also destroyed your trust in yourself over the period of your relationship.

When you have a greater understanding, you realise that you’ve been a victim.

Finding self-validation

What’s important to mention is that this is about self-validation.

No-one else has had your experiences.

In the case of narcissistic parents, your siblings didn’t have the same experiences as you.

With a narcissistic ex-partner, their ex would have had a different experience with them.

As you grow in confidence, you begin to realise that no-one can truly confirm your diagnosis of the narcissist. It’s really up to you to undo the damage the narcissist did, and to confirm for yourself that everything you went through was very wrong and not the actions of a loving person.

It is very important to truly acknowledge what you’ve been through and to process the anger, sadness, frustration and injustice of it all. Without this stage you can not heal from the abuse or grieve the person and the relationship.

This is an important stage in the healing process, but one to not get stuck in.

You may reach a time when you get fed up talking about the narcissist, researching or posting on or reading forums. This is the time when you are ready to move forward.

The next stage

This is the stage after the realisation of narcissistic abuse and where the true, deep healing lies.

Once you’ve grieved the person and relationship that you wanted and hoped for, you are ready for the next steps.

Stepping out of this stage can feel really scary, because this is the time when you take responsibility for your part in it all. When you acknowledge those unhealed wounds that you were unaware of that the narcissistic exploited.

This is the time when you are ready to realise the red flags that you ignored. The million times that you knew something was off, but you put it to one side because you weren’t ready for it.

There is nothing that is a failure, every mistake is an opportunity to learn.

The good news is that the more you can recognise those wounds and heal them, the less likely you are to attract narcissists in the future.

It is hard, to be self-aware and acknowledge your pain, however I think that this is easier than ever being involved with a narcissist again.

These pain points and unhealed wounds are like targets for a narcissist. They are very astute at spotting them and then using them to abuse.

You may be involved with a narcissist again. However, the intention from healing is that you don’t form those emotional connections with them to allow yourself to get hurt again.

Healing

The healing process can take a long time, but it’s very important to say that every day free from them you are getting stronger. It won’t feel like it, for sure, but you will be.

If you’ve endured a narcissistic parent, then a childhood spent in a toxic environment takes a long time to heal.

However long you’ve been with a narcissistic partner, the damage they do goes very deep.

There is no end date to healing. It’s about understanding yourself, and this is the work of a lifetime.

It’s also about having patience with yourself and being kind to yourself. This is a difficult thing to do, as your self-care has been neglected for a long time.

Letting go of expectations about healing is a great idea.

It’s best not to have a timeframe, or even an idea of how healing will feel or be.

Whatever you go through, whenever you go through it and how it makes you feel is all the appropriate thing for you.

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