OMG! HOW DID I GET IN THIS SHAPE?

Or, in other words, how did the narcissist take a normal woman and make me into someone I hardly know, a shadow of my former self? The narcissist has an arsenal of devastating tools to destroy the victim, and here's a few:

1. The narcissist destroys your sense of safety and security. Yes, at first, he love bombed you, then things changed. You once had a sense that someone who loved you would do you no harm, then you find yourself being lied to, cheated on, being used, financially exploited, being physically and/or emotionally abused, and even the closest and most private part of your relationship—sex—has been twisted into something with which to hurt you. Now, how do you make sense of the world and relationships? The confusion and pain is incredible.

2. Nothing seems to make sense anymore because he has assaulted your mind and sense of reality, called “gaslighting” you. Someone who cares about you behaves in a understandable and predictable way. However, the more we tried to understand the narcissist, the more confused we got. You doubt your own judgment, and that's intentional, since the only thing that DOES make sense is that the narcissist is a monstrous evil.

3. Part of our understanding of the world is our sense of moral values, or right and wrong. We expect that virtue will be rewarded and evil punished, but the narcissist USES YOUR GOODNESS AGAINST YOU as a part of a firestorm of abuse. One day, there is a sickening sense that the narcissist is evil and the abuse senseless, and it has NOTHING to do with who we are or what we do. The horrifying reality: narcissists ENJOY abusing.

4. You used to know who you were, but now, after the narcissist you don't know who you are anymore...and moreover, our friends and family don't either. How could we be so stupid? Or so weak? Why did we believe his lies? We no longer make sense TO OURSELVES. The mental trauma has caused a psychic collapse under a barrage of abuse.

And, there's more. It's easy to understand how we got to this point, looked at from the reality of narcissist abuse. Narcissistic abuse is nothing less than an all out assault on who you are as a person, and on your mind and consciousness, and it's devastating. However much in bondage you were to the narcissist, still....”You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”