Manipulation And Gaslighting Quotes

Lies don't end relationships the truth does.

Playing the victim role: Manipulator portrays him- or herself as a victim of circumstance or of someone else's behavior in order to gain pity, sympathy or evoke compassion and thereby get something from another. Caring and conscientious people cannot stand to see anyone suffering and the manipulator often finds it easy to play on sympathy to get cooperation.

Let us not get scooped up by gaslighting manipulators stealing our emotions and taking possession of our inner child to carry out their dark agenda. Let the light of our intuition guide us subtly and wisely along the path of trust and suspicion. (“Juicy rumors”)

I think this point is so important, I'm going to repeat it: You should never listen to criticism that is primarily intended to wound, even if it contains more than a grain of truth.

Narcissists are consumed with maintaining a shallow false self to others. They're emotionally crippled souls that are addicted to attention. Because of this they use a multitude of games, in order to receive adoration. Sadly, they are the most ungodly of God's creations because they don't show remorse for their actions, take steps to make amends or have empathy for others. They are morally bankrupt.

Some people will label you as vindictive, unforgiving or even evil for not allowing them to hurt you, yet again.

so often victims end up unnecessarily prolonging their abuse because they buy into the notion that their abuser must be coming from a wounded place and that only patient love and tolerance (and lots of misguided therapy) will help them heal.

Don't ask yourself, "Who's Right?" Ask yourself, "Do I like being treated this way?

invalidation is crazy-making, and it is also at the root of gaslighting, where victims' feelings are purposely denied or manipulated in order to make them question their sanity.

Changed behavior is the only apology, otherwise, it's just manipulation.

After the fog lifts and you awaken to the truth about abuse, the narcissist and flying monkeys will minimize the facts about what took place. They will discredit you. They will undermine your own perception. They will accuse you of being insane. Even if you took the time to explain yourself, they will cast all blame onto you.

i have bruises no one can see i am hurting but i’ll just smile

Selective amnesia by harmful people is blame-shifting. According to FreeDictionary.com, “Blame-shifting is when someone shifts the blame from person to person.” The root of blame-shifting is when an abusive person fails to take responsibility for their cruelty.

Paradoxically .. the very feminist movement that gave women more options also helped create pressure on many of us to be strong, successful, and independent—the kind of women who would theoretically be immune to any form of abuse from men. As a result, women who are in gaslighting and other types of abusive relationships may feel doubly ashamed: first, for being in a bad relationship, and second, for not living up to their self-imposed standards of strength and independence.

Narcissists gaslight you so you begin to gaslight yourself into thinking what you are feeling, hearing, seeing and experiencing isn’t true. A narcissistic partner can manipulate you into thinking that perhaps that hurtful comment really was just a joke and that their infidelity was just a one-time thing. Many of these partners engage in pathological lying and rewrite reality on a daily basis to suit their needs and to conceal their manipulative agenda.

Gaslighting is a subtle form of emotional manipulation that often results in the recipient doubting their own perception of reality and their sanity. In addition, gaslighting is a method of manipulation by toxic people to gain power over you. The worst part about gaslighting is that it undermines your self-worth to the point where you’re second-guessing everything.

Maybe you cannot be the CEO of a multinational corporation, but you can frighten a few people, or cause them to scurry around like chickens, or steal from them, or—maybe best of all—create situations that cause them to feel bad about themselves. And this is power, especially when the people you manipulate are superior to you in some way. Most invigorating of all is to bring down people who are smarter or more accomplished than you, or perhaps classier, more attractive or popular or morally admirable. This is not only good fun; it is existential vengeance. And without a conscience, it is amazingly easy to do. You quietly lie to the boss or to the boss's boss, cry some crocodile tears, or sabotage a coworker's project, or gaslight a patient (or a child), bait people with promises, or provide a little misinformation that will never be traced back to you.

Oftentimes, the scapegoat feels worthless and powerless. After being beaten down, year after year, we have a strong sense of false guilt. Unconsciously, we take the narcissist’s guilt as if it were our own. As if it were our fault. As if we are deserving of mental torture and physical abuse.

When you love yourself you won't need to ask God if someone is being honest with you. You will know already because you wouldn't have asked him if you had the self confidence to know how people should treat you.

Across the board, gaslighting is a way of psychologically manipulating someone (or many people) such that they doubt their own reality, as a way to gain and maintain control.

I also want you to remember that changing your own behavior is an extraordinary achievement and one that will repay you handsomely for the rest of your life.

Narcissistic Supply You get discarded as supply for one of two reason: They find you too outspoken about their abuse. They prefer someone that will keep stroking their ego and remain their silent doormat. Or, they found new narcissistic supply. Either way, you can count on the fact that they planned your devaluation phase and smear campaign in advance, so they could get one more ego stroke with your reaction. Narcissists are angry, spiteful takers that don't have empathy, remorse or conscience. They are incapable of unconditional love. Love to them is giving only when it serves them. They gaslight their victims by minimizing the trauma they have caused by blaming others or stating you are too sensitive. They never feel responsible or will admit to what they did to you. They have disordered thinking that is concerned with their needs and ego. It is not uncommon for them to hack their targets, in order to gain information about them. They enjoy mind games and control. This is their dopamine high. The sooner you distance yourself the healthier you will become. Narcissism can't be cured or prayed away. It is a mental disorder that turns the victims of its abuse into mental patients because it causes so much psychological manipulation.

Five Ways to Turn Off the Gas   1. Sort out truth from distortion.   2. Decide whether the conversation is really a power struggle. And if it is, opt out.   3. Identify your gaslight triggers, and his.   4. Focus on feelings instead of “right” and “wrong.”   5. Remember that you can’t control anyone’s opinion—even if you’re right!

The malignant narcissist has a split persona. They are like Jekyll and Hyde. One minute, they are sweet as sugar. The next minute, they fly into an uncontrollable seething rage! The narcissist loves playing mind games with you. They are clever to conceal who they are. Wherever there’s a narcissist, you can find a false mask plastered upon their face.

When you don’t take responsibility for your actions, or deflect responsibility, or try to undermine the credibility of the person asking you about your actions, that’s gaslighting,

Andrew was right. We probably wouldn’t have any problems if I didn’t go out of my way to create them.

You should never listen to criticism that is primarily intended to wound, even if it contains more than a grain of truth.

You might be a victim of gaslighting if you apologize often, have trouble making decisions, have changed significantly over the course of the relationship, feel you're in a constant state of bewilderment, or have become reclusive and withdrawn.

Instead of realizing how much she didn't like Matt's behavior, Leah took the problem on herself, crafting a reassuring explanation that made her entirely responsible for everything that went wrong, and so, presumably, entirely capable of fixing it.

Gaslighting causes us to doubt our own memories, perceptions, and judgments. It throws us psychologically off balance. It’s like being in the Twilight Zone. If you feel as though your self-esteem, confidence, and dignity has withered under the flame of gaslighting, you are not alone.

You built a house and filled it with death images

gaslighting is a major tool of manipulation. It’s about distorting your perceptions and asserting what works better for the abuser.

You owe it to yourself to stand up and advocate for yourself. To not agree to what is harmful to you. To protect yourself from further bullying, manipulation, gaslighting, and abuse.

When a narcissist and flying monkeys see that you are onto their sly tricks, they will argue with you. This is their final attempt to find a way out of getting caught. No matter how much they scream, cuss, and fight with you, their arguments are to trip you up. They want to provoke you into more conflicts. Remember, they crave narcissistic supply. This is why they are projecting and gaslighting you. They need you to have a negative emotional reaction to them. It feeds the fuel with them. Don’t participate in the drama, denial, and dysfunction.

When language works to make you question your own perceptions, whether at work or at church, that’s a form of gaslighting. I first came across the term “gaslighting” in the context of abusive romantic partners, but it shows up in larger-scale relationships, too, like those between bosses and their employees, politicians and their supporters, spiritual leaders and their devotees. Across the board, gaslighting is a way of psychologically manipulating someone (or many people) such that they doubt their own reality, as a way to gain and maintain control.

I want to clarify that one of the worst things we can do with a narcissist of any kind is actively battle against this person. Nothing makes a narcissist happier than the chance to be a true victim. They seem primed to fall to the floor, a dramatic hand to their foreheads, and cry out, “Why?

Using the tactic of gaslighting, the manipulator denies, and therefore invalidates, reality. Invalidating reality distorts or undermines the victim’s perceptions of their world and can even lead them to question their own sanity. "I don't know where you got that idea." "It's all in your head.

Examples of gaslighting: A manipulator claims that the victim is mistaken in her belief that he wanted a committed, long-term relationship, even though everything he did and said created that belief. A

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) causes problems in many areas of life, such as relationships, work, school or financial affairs. People with NPD may be generally unhappy and disappointed when they're not given the special favors or admiration, which they believe they deserve. They may find their relationships unfulfilling. Others may not enjoy being around them.

The narcissist is a master of manipulation. To maintain the illusion of power over you, they employ the use of third parties to gaslight you, manipulate you, and to bully you. They try to groom your friends, family, children, spouse, or intimate partner from the moment they meet them. Initially, the narcissist is testing them. To see how strong your other relationship bonds are in effort to triangulate them.

Narcissistic abuse is cited as being ‘soul murder.’ It not only breaks your heart and crushes your spirit, but it’s directly linked to trauma wounds. Trauma pierces your core essence. It breaks you into dozens of pieces. Your trauma runs deep. Unaware, you may carry it into your adulthood.

What Is a Boundary? At their very core, boundaries are the way we teach others to treat us. They are how we communicate what is acceptable and what is not. They define where you end and another person begins. We need boundaries in order to protect ourselves from manipulation, gaslighting, disrespect and abuse.

But it’s all fake. Rotten, just like Penthesilea said. It’s gaslighting and manipulation and casual racism and classism and never-ending total bullshit. Not to mention murder.

If you didn't exist, I wouldn't exist. Everything I've done is because of you!

Feeders (A Narc in Love): They'll feed off your energy, Soak up your adoration, Seem perfect in your eyes, As the love-bombing ignites the manipulation They will never truly love you, They do not love themselves, But they'll break you down from the inside-out And demolish your sense of self And then when they see they cannot control you, They'll shout, and shut the door, As you elevate from the ashes, Gone, is the backing down you had displayed before Then, they'll drop you, And from a shaky, fantastical ivory tower you'll fall, Because they've realised, They cannot keep you on their puppet-strings anymore

I have encountered narcissism-induced invalidation, rage, betrayal, dismissiveness, manipulation, and gaslighting in my family relationships, intimate relationships, workplace relationships, and friendships

Remember: As long as there's any part of yourself that believes you need your gaslighter to feel better about yourself, to boost your confidence, or to bolster your sense of who you are in the world, you'll be leaving yourself open for gaslighting.

Narcissists use jealousy to control you. They flirt in front of you and when you ask about it, you become the jealous one. They get jealous and accuse you of things you aren't doing. They also get jealous of the closeness of your friends and family, so they gaslight you into isolating yourself from them.

A person of genuine trustworthiness doesn't need to persuade you of their reliability; their actions speak for themselves. On the other hand, narcissists lack integrity – they make and break promises, denying their commitments, and further manipulate by gaslighting and shifting blame, questioning your memory of the promise.

Two words sum up being the daughter of a narcissistic mother: deep sorrow. It was like a massive boulder sat on my chest. Choking me. Suffocating me. Drowning me. Spinning my life out of control. My memories of growing up to become an adult woman who suffered ritual narcissistic abuse had a common thread: Tears. Drama. And compounded trauma.

Actually, manipulation is just a continuation of their existing strategy. You can’t cheat on chumps without lying to or gaslighting them. Cheaters are not about to change tactics and go with unvarnished honesty now. Remain highly skeptical. Judge cheaters by their actions over time—a long time. Don’t assume friendship and mutuality where it doesn’t exist.

Even in an absence of major incidents, the residue of “little t traumas” accumulates: bullying, educational and professional uncertainty, emotional manipulation, discrepancies between what we perceive or express and what others see or express, and gaslighting (being convinced that mistreatment is the invention of one’s own mind) make it difficult to imagine—much less establish—healthy interpersonal boundaries or a sense of where “I begin and you end.” If others’ reactions are our main source of determining who and how we are, and if, as Dr. Salters-Pedneault asserts, those reactions have been unpredictable and/or scary, we are literally without a framework within which to develop a strong sense of identity

Like Ingrid Bergman in the film Gaslight, whose husband has convinced her that she’s delusional when all along he’s set her up, the victims often lose faith in their ability to determine what’s real and what isn’t. (“Gaslight” has since become a psychological term, meaning to deliberately manipulate someone.) Being duped contaminates your entire sense of self.

The narcissistic mother is a lethal force to reckon with. If you don’t give her the flattery she craves, she will lash out at you like a rattlesnake. Unraveling, she has an emotional meltdown. She flies into a frenzy, shouting at you, bullying you, gaslighting you, and manipulating you. If she’s anything like my mother, she will victim-blame you with F-bombs flying!

traits—which is to protect the narcissistic person. Narcissism is about a deep insecurity and fragility offset by maneuvers like domination, manipulation, and gaslighting, which allow the narcissistic person to stay in control. The variable empathy and lack of self-awareness mean that they do not stop to consider the harm their behavior is creating for other people.

The family bully takes sibling rivalry to a whole new level; sibling abuse. While it’s common for families to have sibling rivalry, what stands out the most with the bully is their intent to hurt others badly, especially the family scapegoat. They can physically harm you. They will mentally torture you. In some cases, they will sexually violate you. They have evil motives to control their family members, manipulate them, and gaslight them.

If you feel hopeless, joyless, bewildered, if you second-guess yourself a lot and question whether you are too sensitive, you might be a victim of gaslighting. If you can’t figure out why you are so unhappy when you have so much good in your life, you might be experiencing this type of manipulation. Maybe you find yourself making excuses for your parent or partner’s behavior to friends and family. These are all signs you might be experiencing gaslighting.

In 2018, I publicly disclosed that I had experienced psychological abuse by my sisters. Prior to uploading my first YouTube video on this sensitive topic, I had no idea if anyone else would relate. Shortly after my video went live, I received hundreds of comments by strangers who shared similar stories of being bullied, manipulated, gaslit, and abused by their own siblings. Five years later, my videos now have over 163,234K views and thousands of comments.

The scapegoat is the family punching bag. On a daily basis, you are singled out for all of the collective ridicule, made into the butt of every joke, and excluded from family events, holidays, and important legal matters. It doesn't take long for outsiders or other relatives to take note of your role and to be drawn into the destructive dynamics. Family scapegoats are belittled, humiliated, battered, rejected, betrayed, and treated poorly. It's a clear case of psychological abuse, manipulation, and harassment.

This syndrome is a distant cousin to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. What makes PBS different from PTSD is the sense of disbelief one gets from PBS. How could someone who loved me hate me so deeply? How could I stay and subject myself to all that pain despite all my education and awareness? Remember the error message—the brain can’t compute bizarre behavior right away, but after some time, it can look back and parse through the details. But that’s rarely a neutral process. It can create an inability to focus and a foggy mental state that keeps the victim stumbling through their day.

1. You are constantly second-guessing yourself. 2. You ask yourself, “Am I too sensitive?” a dozen times a day. 3. You often feel confused and even crazy at work. 4. You’re always apologizing to your mother, father, boyfriend, boss. 5. You wonder frequently if you are a “good enough” girlfriend/wife/employee/friend/daughter. 6. You can’t understand why, with so many apparently good things in your life, you aren’t happier. 7. You buy clothes for yourself, furnishings for your apartment, or other personal purchases with your partner in mind, thinking about what he would like instead of what would make you feel great. 8. You frequently make excuses for your partner’s behavior to friends and family. 9. You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don’t have to explain or make excuses. 10. You know something is terribly wrong, but you can never quite express what it is, even to yourself. 11. You start lying to avoid the put-downs and reality twists. 12. You have trouble making simple decisions. 13. You think twice before bringing up certain seemingly innocent topics of conversation. 14. Before your partner comes home, you run through a checklist in your head to anticipate anything you might have done wrong that day. 15. You have the sense that you used to be a very different person—more confident, more fun-loving, more relaxed. 16. You start speaking to your husband through his secretary so you don’t have to tell him things you’re afraid might upset him. 17. You feel as though you can’t do anything right. 18. Your kids begin trying to protect you from your partner. 19. You find yourself furious with people you’ve always gotten along with before. 20. You feel hopeless and joyless.

Across Western nations, shell-shocked citizens experienced all the well-worn tactics of rising totalitarianism—mass propaganda and censorship, the orchestrated promotion of terror, the manipulation of science, the suppression of debate, the vilification of dissent, and use of force to prevent protest. Conscientious objectors who resisted these unwanted, experimental, zero-liability medical interventions faced orchestrated gaslighting, marginalization, and scapegoating. American lives and livelihoods were shattered by a bewildering array of draconian diktats imposed without legislative approval or judicial review, risk assessment, or scientific citation. So-called Emergency Orders closed our businesses, schools and churches, made unprecedented intrusions into privacy, and disrupted our most treasured social and family relationships. Citizens the world over were ordered to stay in their homes.

Civil disobedience in the attention economy means withdrawing attention. But doing that by loudly quitting Facebook and then tweeting about it is the same mistake as thinking that the imaginary Pera is a real island that we can reach by boat. A real withdrawal of attention happens first and foremost in the mind. What is needed, then, is not a “once-and-for-all” type of quitting but ongoing training: the ability not just to withdraw attention, but to invest it somewhere else, to enlarge and proliferate it, to improve its acuity. We need to be able to think across different time scales when the mediascape would have us think in twenty-four-hour (or shorter) cycles, to pause for consideration when clickbait would have us click, to risk unpopularity by searching for context when our Facebook feed is an outpouring of unchecked outrage and scapegoating, to closely study the ways that media and advertising play upon our emotions, to understand the algorithmic versions of ourselves that such forces have learned to manipulate, and to know when we are being guilted, threatened, and gaslighted into reactions that come not from will and reflection but from fear and anxiety. I am less interested in a mass exodus from Facebook and Twitter than I am in a mass movement of attention: what happens when people regain control over their attention and begin to direct it again, together.

Healing childhood trauma is more difficult and complex because the child’s brain is not yet developed. And most children don’t have an adult nearby who is wise and supportive enough to help. On their own, a child will try to think his way out of the trauma, and that’s a task no child is up to. His mind can end up resembling a piece of twine that’s become hopelessly knotted and tangled. The child, and later the adult, will make twisted assumptions about himself, about the world, about life. He will blame himself for the events that caused the trauma. Ultimately, he will disconnect from himself and suffer from depression, dissociation, anxiety, insomnia, negative self-talk, and low self-esteem. Trauma specialists now believe that the experience doesn’t need to be a dramatic, life-endangering accident to cause post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. Growing up in a dysfunctional family can cause relational or attachment trauma and lead to complex PTSD symptoms. In a dysfunctional family marked by emotional abuse or neglect, as I have come to view my family, a child is often scapegoated. The family, overtly and covertly, blames a child for their problems as a means of deflecting attention from the real problems. Instead of a single traumatic event, a child in this role might experience a continual barrage of subtle attacks on his worthiness, sense of belonging, and even his very identity. These attacks might come in the form of gaslighting, verbal abuse, and other obvious forms of manipulation. But they also can come in the form of thousands upon thousands of subtle negative facial expressions and sarcastic put-downs over years or decades.

Teddy actually cries, he misses her so bad, and eventually he convinces her that she”—here Sadie makes quote marks with her fingers—“‘owes’ him the chance to explain.” “And she agrees to meet?” I ask, mostly because I worry I’ve been silent too long. “Yes.” “This,” I say. “This is the part I never get.” Sadie leans forward and tilts her head to the side. “That’s because while you’re trying, Win, you’re still too male to get it. Women have been conditioned to please. We are responsible not just for ourselves but everyone in our orbit. We think it is our job to comfort the man. We think we can make things better by sacrificing a bit of ourselves. But you’re also right to ask. It’s the first thing I tell my clients: If you’re ready to end it, end it. Make a clean break and don’t look back. You don’t owe him anything.” “Did Sharyn go back to him?” I ask. “For a little while. Don’t shake your head like that, Win. Just listen, okay? That’s what these psychos do. They manipulate and gaslight. They make you feel guilty, like it’s your fault. They sucker you back in.” I still don’t get it, but that’s not important, is it? “Anyway, it didn’t last. Sharyn saw the light fast. She ended it again. She stopped replying to his calls and texts. And that’s when Teddy upped his assholery to the fully psychotic. Unbeknownst to her, he bugged her apartment. He put keyloggers on her computers. Teddy has a tracker on her phone. Then he starts texting her anonymous threats. He stole all her contacts, so he floods mailboxes with malicious lies about her—to her friends, her family. He writes emails and pretends he’s Sharyn and he trashes her professors and friends. On one occasion, he contacts Sharyn’s best friend’s fiancé—as Sharyn—and

They will put others down if it makes them look better in everyone else’s eyes without hesitation.

Remember that all of this is designed to make you—the one on the receiving end of the abuse—feel better. I don’t want you to waste time trying to fix your abuser or hanging onto the belief that one day they’ll wake up a saint. We can’t control others’ actions because it’s an impossible feat. What we can control is how well we take care of ourselves and how much we value ourselves as people.

Often in our culture, there's the message that if you do the healthy thing, you'll find happiness, pure and simple. I think that the truth is more complicated and that even the healthiest decision may bring sorrow, grief, and fear. But if we face our fears and choose wisely, we may be grateful for the decision that preserved our integrity.

Gaslighting is a psychological tool that psychopaths use to mess with their victims’ hold on reality during the devalue phase. It’s a form of mental manipulation that eventually causes the target to question her own sanity and to mistrust her perception of reality. The most common example is a P denying something he said or did. The P is so adamant and incredulous in his denial that his partner second-guesses herself and then finally decides that she must be confused, misremembering, going insane. I think back to the day Marco tagged and then untagged me in the sunglasses picture. How easily I decided to let it go; how easily I let myself be convinced that I was probably confused—maybe Marco never tagged the picture, maybe I was going insane from sleep deprivation.

These are attempts to make a victim’s compassion bubble up and turn anger into understanding, even when the narcissist does real harm. Most narcissists target exceptionally kind and generous people because they see an opportunity to take that kindness and sharpen it to a point. You’re kind? What happens when I stab at you with your own emotion, then tell you it’s not my fault? Are you still a nice person?

This is a long con. Your narcissist partner or relative will feign concern for you while dropping hints that you are “unstable” or calling you “crazy” to anyone in your personal network. This works as a defense in case you go to anyone for help.

This move is called triangulation. Jan’s claim that I was “depressed”, and she was “worried” about me were meant to make me worry that perhaps I wasn’t feeling quite right. Narcissists love making their partners or family members question their own sanity. It puts the narcissist right in the driver’s seat and makes them look like a saint for being concerned in the first place.

I want to clarify that gaslighting is abuse. It is an emotional and psychological beating that can leave a victim scarred and uncertain of their own reality for years to come. I don’t want you to fall into or stay in the terrible cycle of gaslighting because it can do horrible things to your stress level, fear, anxiety, and sanity.

Someone who gaslights another person, such as a child, partner, or family member, wants to make that person question their sanity, memories, or perception of reality. Like Gregory playing with the lights or making objects disappear, it’s a ploy to make a person feel powerless in the world and their relationship. A successful attempt at gaslighting ends with one person telling the other what’s real, what their opinion should be, and what they remember. Let someone gaslight you long enough, and you’ll atrophy into a kind of zombie bumping around in the world.

The reason I feel so strongly about gaslighting and worked so hard in my career to help people see it is because it’s a weapon. This thing causes damage, but it also violates the love and trust you’ve given to your partner or friend. It looks at your affection and sees a chance to twist it into a shiv that can cut you deeply and leave you bleeding for years, wondering where it all went wrong.

On a basic level, it helps them gain control. The person they’ve torn down will either question themselves, doubt something they know to be true, or leave. All scenarios are a win for the manipulator; the first two give them a willing participant whom they can continue to control, and the last gives them someone who sees their true personality out of their circle, allowing them to avoid accountability.

You’ll hear it in phrases like, “What do you mean?” or “You’re not making any sense.” These attempts to redirect the conversation get the narcissist’s partner to focus on being clear rather than the actual problem.

Remember that getting upset can make it hard to present your side of a situation or make a coherent argument. Your gaslighter wants you to be an emotional wreck so they can maintain their presence as the calm, logical one in the relationship. Don’t fall for it! Do whatever you need to keep yourself balanced.

It’s not productive for us to sit here and criticize each other. I’m ready to talk about this like an adult. When you’re ready, you know where to find me.” Then get up and walk away. Don’t say you’re leaving or where you’re going; get out the door without apologies.

Keep reminding yourself that staying means disrupting your life. It means committing to a toxic person, not a loving one. It also means you see yourself as someone who does not deserve happiness and love, but you do!

Trust me—the best revenge is you finding your own happiness. That makes you a clear victor. Don’t give your abuser anymore of your energy or time, even if it’s meant to hurt them. Focus on building your new, better life.

All of this affects how a narcissist relates to others. Their relationships exist to make them look good and no one else. Their thin veneer of false self-confidence can come crumbling down at any moment, and they have to be in complete control of their date or partner.

We have to keep in mind that the person doing the gaslighting is hiding something. They aren’t all necessarily secret criminals like Gregory in the movie, but they each have a terrible secret. They’re insecure, and some sick part of themselves believes that making someone who trusts and loves them feel terrible will build them up.

The more practiced gaslighters—the real pros—are the hardest to detect. They’re extremely careful when in the company of anyone not close to them and make sure to be polite yet not lay it on too thick. They’ve struck a delicate balance that makes it much harder for anyone outside of their closest relationships to see their true selves. Only their partners and families get to see the darkness they carry and often have no one to turn to for help.

That’s exactly what a gaslighter wants. They need you to see them as a guide through life, a professional to hold your hand as you stumble along. This experience makes the narcissist drunk with power. They will see themselves as a genius, able to string along partners so they will do whatever they say, whenever they give the command.

To have our own emotions used against us can feel terrifying. Instead of standing up for ourselves we start to see ourselves as mean, uncaring, even evil. Again, this takes the pressure off the narcissist. They can feel free to strut away from any problem, no matter how badly destroyed he’s left the one he loves.

First, always remember what drives a narcissist’s behavior. Everything behind a narcissist’s actions comes from a place of fear. They’re afraid they’ll be uncovered as a fraud, be alone, don’t deserve love, and everyone else is better than them. They’ve learned to fight that fear by constantly making others feel terrible, but this sham of a life can’t last forever, and they can see the end coming.

Ask them for a conversation about the incident, and they’ll do everything they can to avoid it. No narcissist wants to develop their introspection. That’s a terrifying notion to most of them because one look inside will show them how much fear they carry inside. They’re not a swaggering, good-looking superstar; they’re a trembling child desperate to be loved. One glance might be all that true self needs to come out.

Manipulative relationships are impossible to see from the inside, yet when we find ourselves in one, we can still sense that something is wrong. Every time we try to pin down what exactly could be the issue, we’re quickly assured by our partner that we’re way off. This could be thanks to a sudden rush of sweetness or a big fight in which we find ourselves apologizing, though we’re not quite sure why we’re the sorry ones.

Narcissism is a personality. A narcissist exhibits traits that send a singular message: “I come first.” This person might manipulate those around them, tell lies, deny saying or doing anything that could cause potential embarrassment, or be abusive.

Remember that narcissists love to make others doubt their reality at every opportunity. Once your motives and actions are called into question, you’ll either defend yourself or question your reality. That’s a big win for a narcissist.

Attention is a narcissist’s bread and butter. They won’t do anything if no one will see them. Why help someone if no one is looking? Why get a job with no opportunity for recognition? No, the narcissist wants to ensure that they have an audience, even a small one, before they do you a favor or put in any extra effort at the office.

A narcissist can be a great friend as long as they see you as someone who will get them what they want. Most narcissists see their social group, romantic partners, or family members as special tools to unlock the life they want. And narcissists always want; they’re never satisfied.

That name-calling tactic has a goal: narcissists want the people around them to abandon their personal lives, separate identities, and sense of self-worth by arguing with them. If we’re busy fighting with our partner or family member about their image of us, we’re not out living our lives. The point goes to the narcissist.

The victim can see their partner’s disinterest on their face, yet something makes them hold on to the hope that things can get better. They loved them once. What did they do to inspire so much passion and romance before? Can they recreate that same dynamic again?

I have heard your point of view many times now, and I still don’t agree with it.” “I’d like to take a break from this conversation.” “I don’t like how much energy I’m putting into proving my perspective, and it would mean a lot to me if you gave me the benefit of the doubt.” “I get that you’re mad. I’m angry, too.” “I realize you disagree with me, but this is how I see it.” “I’m not imagining things.” “Name-calling is hurtful to me. I find it hard to listen to you when you talk like that.” “My feelings are my feelings; this is how I feel.” “This is my experience, and these are my emotions.” “It sounds like you feel strongly about that, but my emotions are valid too.” “I feel like I’m not being heard, and I need some space.” “I know what’s best for me.” “This is what I want and what I need right now.” “I’m making this decision for myself.” “I’m not responding to that.” “I want to figure things out for myself.” “It’s hard for me to stay engaged in this conversation; I’ve already said no several times.” “I’m finding it difficult to keep discussing this.

Stand on what you know to be true. When your gaslighter sounds confident, that doesn’t mean they’re automatically right; it means they are certain they can manipulate you and make you feel weak.

An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing the right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead.” ~ Carl Jung

The saddest moment of my study came when I saw how few people who dated narcissists realized they were in a highly manipulative relationship. They described their partners as “really funny” or “so smart,” despite how bad they felt in that person’s company.

In many situations, empathy is the most wonderful quality I can think of: the balm that makes sorrow bearable, the gift that multiplies joy.