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I really thought this may help to understand what you are feeling, for me when I read this I felt relief that I am not crazy.
The 7 Stages of N**********c Trauma Bonding
Stage 1: “Love Bombing”—The N********t showers you with love and validation.
Stage 2: Trust and Dependency—You start to trust that they will love you forever. You now depend on them for love and validation.
Stage 3: Criticism Begins—They gradually reduce the amount of love and validation that they give you and start to criticize you and blame you for things. They become demanding.
Stage 4: “Gaslighting”—They tell you that this is all your fault. If you would only trust them and do exactly as they say, they would shower you with love again. They try to make you doubt your own perceptions and accept their interpretation of reality.
Stage 5: Control Is Established—You do not know what to believe but think that your only chance of getting back the good feelings of Stage 1 is to try doing things their way.
Stage 6: Resignation and Loss of Self—Things get worse, not better. When you try to fight back, they up their abuse. Now you would just settle for peace and for the fighting to stop. You are confused, unhappy, your self-esteem is at its lowest.
Stage 7: Addiction—Your friends and family are worried about you. You know that this situation is terrible, but you feel as if you cannot leave because this person is now everything to you. All you can think about is winning back their love.
How is it possible that this can happen to a normally sane and functional person like you?
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Wow, thats a really clear explanation of the very large mess going around inside my head, thankyou x
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Excellent explanation. Thanks for that.
Leaving is a process. You’re well on your way. Awareness is the first step. Knowledge is Power.
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Found it while researching. It’s strange but its everything I already knew placed nicely in order. In my head it was all just jumbled up mess of words that made no sense other than I was dramatising and exaggerating his actions, again my excuses for his actions. He has no intentions of taking any responsibility so I’m done trying to make him. Actions speak louder than words. My actions. I deserve better and so do my girls x*x
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Hi everyone,
Just a quick reply to explain why Women’s Aid steer clear of using the term ‘n********m’.
Womens Aid’s stance that there is no excuse of any kind for perpetrating abuse has to be a clear and absolute message. Linking it with or equating it to any kind of Mental health condition is not appropriate.
Detailed analyses of mental health problems and their possible relation to abuse can be very misleading to women who are vulnerable to suggestions of excuses for their partners’ behaviour.
Women’s aid believe that perpetrators of domestic abuse are solely responsible for their behaviour, and linking it to a mental health condition removes some of that responsibility from them.
Best wishes
Lisa
Forum Moderator -
I’ve pasted a link below for you, hope it helps as its what social workers and domestic abuse workers, police, etc use to explain how domestic abuse works.
Its a series of wheels, and you’ll be able to recognise in them all the elements of what you have suffered.
Sent link to you via pm
NPD can only be diagnosed by a psychiatrist, and applies to a very small portion of the population. Certainly not all who show n**********c traits are n*********s, or abuse women.
We cannot blame mental illness and psychiatric conditions for domestic abuse. It supports the idea that there are excuses for abuse, like mental illness, or alcoholism, and so on. As abusers will so commonly, when it suits them, use these ‘excuses’ to blame their abusive choices on, it hides the abuse and draws sympathy from survivors.
Although,I know, its a label very commonly thrown around at the moment by the inqualified and very misleading.
All the services you will need, are trained around domestic abuse and will speak, or should do, the language of domestic abuse, to help you.
Also, another great resource is the freedom programme. If you are looking to understand what is going on and how it makes you feel which is a great way to recover, the freedom programme is so helpful.
Really hope this helps you on your journey. Once you see it and your eyes are open, they never close!
Warmest wishes
TS
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The numbers diagnosed is low because these people rarely if ever enter therapy or seek help; believe they are always right and there’s nothing wrong with me – it’s everyone else; very hard group to reach and actually help – very little prospect of change; growth is possible but without prof help unlikely and can take years of therapy. Also this trait is often amidst others – its in a cluster of dysfunctional traits which adds to the complexity. Evidence for how many is short on the ground and not known x
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I respect Women’s Aid and understand their concern about giving women in abusive relationships a reason to stay ie. ‘It’s not his fault he’s ill’ but when I found out about NPD and psychopathy it actually made me leave that day because my ex fit the psychopath description to T and I knew there are no treatments for psychopathy or NPD. You can’t teach empathy. I guess I don’t consider NPD as a mental health condition, it’s a personality disorder.
The other issue is the rest of the Internet has the same discussions we have here but they talk about n**********c abuse so it’s difficult to remember not to say it here.
I do however try to not use it knowing the rule here. I can see both sides of the argument, why the rest of the Internet uses the term and why women’s aid do not. I also agree there’s a risk of the term becoming so diluted it becomes meaningless.
I try to use the terms emotional or psychological abuse instead here as long as I remember because I’ve noticed most of the time when people say n**********c abuse it tends to fall under the emotional and psychological abuse categories (although not always).
I also wonder if the term n**********c abuse has become popular because most people associate ‘domestic abuse’ as only physical abuse. I know I definitely used to think this and it still seems to be a popular misconception with the public. Almost everyone I’ve told about experiencing domestic abuse asked if he hit me/was it physical abuse with an almost morbid fascination. It always bothers me when they ask that because I can tell they have no idea of how much harm psychological and emotional abuse causes.
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We’re all born with narcisistic traits and like most personality traits there is a scale from low – moderate – severe. Without using the n********t label, these men often didn’t develop empathy or emotional intelligence, meaning they react from their emotions in the same way a small child will; and they will also project their thoughts, feelings and behaviours onto you and others; in the playground the saying for this would be ‘what you say is what you are’ – it’s true huh. Another give away is the blame and contempt, hate – no sense of personal responsibilty.
We can only recognise the N trait because we all possess it – only as we mature we grow to understand our emotions, understand our actions impact on others, consider another person’s feelings – grow in empathy – understand that the world does not revolve around me. I don’t feel it’s an excuse for their behaviour in the slightest, it helps us to understand what the hell is going on though as we assume they are functioning adults for a time when they are not.
Lovin’ the 7 stages; succinct and clear – helps to clarify what the hell is going on for sure. Good find! x
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