For days, I was curled up into a fetal position on my couch, with my heart breaking, again. The fully-orbed relationship with my adult children that I so longed for seemed beyond my grasp, and I felt helpless.
financial, sexual, or physical harm. Narcissists exploit those around them through gaslighting, sabotaging, love-bombing, lying, and twisting situations to suit their needs. As a result, victims can suffer long-term effects from their abuse.” So, how do we know when what we are enduring is abuse – especially if we aren’t being physically hit? Leslie Vernick, Author of “The Emotionally Destructive Marriage,” draws the lines between “difficult,” “disappointing,” and “destructive” (abusive), relationships. The first two are relational, with maybe, personality, annoying mannerisms, or contrariness, etc., affecting how we, as a couple, might relate. The last involves intentional harm to a partner, and is not provoked, but rather, simply sadistic. Both she and Dr. Simon agree on one point. If a partner is asked to stop a harmful or damaging behavior and repeatedly refuses to stop, then it is abusive. Dr. Simon leaves no room for doubt, saying, “…they know full well what they are doing!” From a personal perspective, I remember my aha moment when the lights came on for me, that I was not just in a disappointing or difficult relationship. It was 1982. At the time, I had locked the den door, turned to my friend, and
Words tumbled about in my mind, rearranging themselves into endless conversations that could never be spoken without further damaging my kids. Like other victims of narcissistic abuse, after escaping years of psychological torture by my partner, I was still caught in the no-win dilemma of parental alienation. According to Dr. George Simon, author of the bestseller, “In Sheep’s Clothing,” and nine other books on the topic, this deluge of narcissistic abuse we are seeing around the world, is cross-cultural. It is disrupting even those cultures that were once based upon honor and old-world values. He refers to this maelstrom as a Pandemic. What I, like millions of men and women, maybe even you, face, can be catastrophic, affecting us physically, mentally, emotionally, and yes, down to our core being. The toxic aftereffects of exiting a certain type of relationship involving prolonged psychological abuse are a carry-over of the relationship itself. Nakpangi Thomas, PhD, defines this insidious topic this way: “Narcissistic abuse” occurs when a narcissist progressively manipulates and mistreats people to gain control over them, creating a toxic environment full of emotional, psychological,
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