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A child that’s being abused by its parents doesn’t stop loving its parents, it stops loving itself.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Blameshifting and projecting their malignant traits onto their partners during conversations while using a false charismatic self to make their victims look like the "crazy" ones. It’s almost as if they hand off their own traits and shortcomings to their victims as if to say, “Here, take my pathology. I don’t want it.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Narcissists do not choose us because we are like them; they choose us because we are the light to their darkness; regardless of any of our vulnerabilities, we exhibit the gorgeous traits of empathy, compassion, emotional intelligence and authentic confidence that their fragile egotism and false mask could never achieve.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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The fact of the matter is, if you haven’t been in an abusive relationship, you don’t really know what the experience is like. Furthermore, it’s quite hard to predict what you would do in the same situation. I find that the people most vocal about what they would’ve done in the same situation often have no clue what they are talking about – they have never been in the same situation themselves.
By invalidating the survivor’s experience, these people are defending an image of themselves that they identify with strength, not realizing that abuse survivors are often the strongest individuals out there. They’ve been belittled, criticized, demeaned, devalued, and yet they’ve still survived. The judgmental ones often have little to no life experience regarding these situations, yet they feel quite comfortable silencing the voices of people who’ve actually been there.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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(a quote from a survivor)
Information was key. Once you begin waking up to what has been happening around you the whole time you can begin stopping the cycle which angers the Narcissist to an interesting boiling point
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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People pleasing does make it easier to ignore the red flags of abusive relationships at the very early stages especially with covert manipulators. We can also become conditioned to continually “please” if we’re used to walking on eggshells around our abuser.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Triangulation Healthy relationships thrive on security; unhealthy ones are filled with provocation, uncertainty and infidelity. Narcissists like to manufacture love triangles and bring in the opinions of others to validate their point of view.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Gaslighting their partners into believing the abuse isn't real by denying, minimizing or rationalizing the abuse. This includes deflecting any conversations about accountability using circular conversations and word salad in order to avoid being held accountable for their actions.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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So for those who think abuse survivors can simply logically process their situation and get out of and over the situation easily, think again. The parts of our brain that deal with planning, cognition, learning, and decision-making become disconnected with the emotional parts of our brain – they can cease to talk to each other when an individual becomes traumatized. It usually takes a great deal of effort, resources, strength, validation, addressing wounding on all levels of body and mind, for a survivor to become fully empowered to begin to heal from this form of trauma.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Narcissistic abusers first idealize their partners, flattering them excessively, giving them all sorts of attention in the form of constant texts and gifts. They share secrets and stories with you to create a special bond; this technique also enables you to feel as if you can share your deepest insecurities and desires with them. Later, they will use your disclosure as ammunition and pick at your weak spots to regain a sense of psychological control.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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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.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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What’s important to remember is that while human beings in general can engage in toxic behaviors from time to time, abusers use these manipulation tactics as a dominant mode of communication. Toxic people such as malignant narcissists, psychopaths and those with antisocial traits engage in maladaptive behaviors in relationships that ultimately exploit, demean, and hurt their intimate partners, family members, and friends.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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To any survivor who may be doubting whether what they’ve experienced is truly abuse, remember that emotional, verbal, and psychological abuse will never be, and should never be, considered part of the messy equation of a normal relationship. As both metal health professionals and survivors can attest to, the traumatic highs and lows of being with a narcissist, a sociopath, or a psychopath are not the natural highs and lows of regular relationships. That suggestion is quite damaging to society and to survivors all around the world.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Dissociation leaves us disconnected from our memories, our identities and our emotions. It breaks the trauma into digestible components, so that different aspects of the trauma get stored in different compartments in our brain. What happens as a result is that the information from the trauma becomes disorganized and we are not able to integrate these pieces into a coherent narrative and process trauma fully until, hopefully, with the help of a validating, trauma-informed counselor who guides us to the appropriate therapies best suited to our needs, we confront the trauma and triggers in a safe place.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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(a quote from a survivor)
Read up on the psychology of abuse. Listen to music. Being alone to process without chatter. Usually outside doing something physical, doing these things helps you believe you CAN do anything. Share my story without shame.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Their manipulation is psychological and emotionally devastating – and very dangerous, especially considering the brain circuitry for emotional and physical pain are one and the same (Kross, 2011). What a victim feels when they are punched in the stomach can be similar to the pain a victim feels when they are verbally and emotionally abused, and the effects of narcissistic abuse can be crippling and long-lasting, even resulting in symptoms of PTSD or Complex PTSD.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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In the book Psychopath Free by Jackson MacKenzie, the method of triangulation is discussed as a popular way the narcissist maintains control over your emotions. Triangulation consists of bringing the presence of another person into the dynamic of the relationship, whether it be an ex-lover, a current mistress, a relative, or a complete stranger.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Life after narcissistic abuse is filled with miracles – you just have to be ready to reach out and let them in.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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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.
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Shannon L. Alder
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along. See, narcissists don’t truly feel empathy for others – so during the discard phase, they often feel absolutely nothing for you except the excitement of having exhausted another source of supply. You were just another source of narcissistic supply, so do not fool yourself into thinking that the magical connection that existed in the beginning was in any way real. It
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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The narcissist relies on jealousy as a powerful emotion that can cause you to compete for his or her affections, so provocative statements like “I wish you’d be more like her,” or “He wants me back into his life, I don’t know what to do” are designed to trigger the abuse victim into competing and feeling insecure about his or her position in the narcissist’s life.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Covert narcissists blind you with their saccharine sweetness: they present the perfect public image, routinely go on their knees to pray, say their mantras on their yoga mats, preach ‘peace and compassion,’ all the while plotting on how to best stab you in the back. In some ways, covert narcissists are worse than overt ones. At least overt ones are open about how awful they really are.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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The narcissist cultivated your need for his or her validation and approval early on in the idealization phase. By making you dependent on his or her praise, they conditioned you to seek the excessive admiration that only they could dole out. Now, as they devalue you, they use your need for validation to their advantage by withdrawing frequently, appearing sullen at every opportunity, and converting every generous thing you do for them as a failure on your part that falls short of their ludicrous expectations. Nothing can meet their high standards and everything wrong will be pointed out. In fact, even the things they do wrong shall be pinned on you.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Members of the flock who demand accountability from sick leaders are quietly pushed out the back door. Mother-Judah had become that kind of leader—a compassionless narcissist. Never burden a narcissist, or you will be quickly discarded.
Lamentations, pg Intro
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Michael Ben Zehabe (Lamentations: how narcissistic leaders torment church and family (The Hidden Series))
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Triangulation is the way the narcissist maintains control and keeps you in check — you’re so busy competing for his or her attention that you’re less likely to be focusing on the red flags within the relationship or looking for ways to get out of the relationship.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Once you are no longer a source of supply a narcissist will discard you cruelly with horrifically unimaginable devastation. This is when they show the 'no empathy' part. They do not care about you and learning that puts victims into a tailspin of confusion and depression.
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Tracy Malone
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The narcissist does not feel empathy for others; he or she makes connections with other people for one purpose and one purpose only: narcissistic supply. Narcissistic supply is the attention and admiration of the people the narcissist collects as trophies. It is anything that gives the narcissist a “hit” of praise, or even an emotional reaction to their ploys. They need these sources of supply because they suffer from perpetual boredom, emotional shallowness and the inability to authentically and emotionally connect to others who do have empathy.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Their manipulation is psychological and emotionally devastating – and very dangerous, especially considering the brain circuitry for emotional and physical pain are one and the same (Kross, 2011). What a victim feels when they are punched in the stomach can be similar to the pain a victim feels when they are verbally and emotionally abused, and the effects of narcissistic abuse can be crippling and long-lasting, even resulting in symptoms of PTSD or Complex PTSD.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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In fact, trauma “shuts down” executive functioning associated with the frontal lobes of the brain. These frontal lobes that are negatively affected due to trauma are the reasoning, logical aspects of our brain which help us to pay attention, manage time, switch focus, plan and organize, remember details, and perform tasks based on experience.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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During the discard phase the ignoring and silences that the narcissist uses and the cold hateful stares send coldness to your very spirit. Fire turns to ice,love to hate, attention to abandonment. It stays with you that malignant cruelty.
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Alice Little, Narcissistic Abuse Truths
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Love is intermittent reinforcement with spouses and children alike. The child is love-bombed when the narcissist feels the child reflects their false self. The moment the child fails to do so, the narcissistic parent blithely discards them.
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M. Wakefield (Narcissistic Family Dynamics: Collected Essays)
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Everyone loves CNs on a surface level. They tend to not have long-lasting friendships with people who know them deeply. They may have friends who have known them for years, but don’t really know them. They are rarely without a partner. After they discard you, they usually move on quickly to another source—another target who will think they are so lucky to have found such a “nice guy” or “nice gal,” just like you did in the beginning.
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Debbie Mirza (The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist: Recognizing the Traits and Finding Healing After Hidden Emotional and Psychological Abuse (The Narcissism Series Book 1))
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Understand the narcissist will be a worse parent when they are out of the fake family game. On the surface everyone will hear what a good parent they are. Your kids will be devalued and possibly be discarded. Be the balanced grounded loving person you were before the narcissist and your children have a chance.
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Tracy Malone
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The biggest mistake abuse survivors make after leaving their relationship is to shrink. They wallow in sadness and allow the abuser to go on social media sites and post pictures of how wonderful their life is now that you left them. They allow the abuser to win again by showing people they are so over you. This is not okay! I hope every abuse survivor has a marketing campaign of glory and triumph. Don't let the abuser paint the image of you as someone they discarded. Post your comeback story on social media. Invite the world back into your life. The victory is yours. Show the world that you overcame a monster. Show them you won!
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Shannon L. Alder (The Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Bible)
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It won’t matter if you turned cartwheels in bed for him and performed circusworthy stunts.
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Serena Prince (What You Need To Know About Narcissists: Why Cartwheels In Bed & Circusworthy Stunts Won’t Matter)
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Cycle of Narcissistic Abuse: The cycle of narcissistic abuse is most commonly known as “Idealize. Devalue. Discard.” This cycle is covered in much more depth in the next section.
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Dana Morningstar (Start Here: A Crash Course in Understanding, Navigating, and Healing From Narcissistic Abuse)
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I’ve heard from clients and readers who were on top of their game, attractive, highly educated individuals who felt as if they had lost themselves in an abusive relationship because they thought they had met the love of their lives, only to discover further down the line that their soulmate became their daily tormenter, breaking down their confidence and feeling of self-worth.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Narcissistic divorce. Narcissists often hide assets. Some strategies are set in motion years prior to the discard. Assets are put into trusts, moved off shore, your name removed from accounts or their name removed off debt accounts.
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Tracy Malone
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Yes, we can be compassionate towards the fact that our abuser may have been traumatized, but we cannot let that compassion blind us to the fact that if they are unwilling to change or receive treatment, as many narcissists aren’t, we need to make our own self-compassion and self-care a priority in order to detach from them.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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The discard phase is excruciating. It is also extremely confounding, to say the least. You saw your CN as one person for years, and now you see someone you don’t recognize, someone cruel and unfeeling. Your head is spinning, and your heart is devastated. You’ve never experienced betrayal, hurt, and confusion like this before.
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Debbie Mirza (The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist: Recognizing the Traits and Finding Healing After Hidden Emotional and Psychological Abuse (The Narcissism Series Book 1))
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Most likely, the discard phase will feel like the most confusing and painful betrayal you’ve ever felt in your life. The person you have loved for years and who you believed loved you back is now saying the cruelest things—things you would have never imagined possible. They treat you like a child, “teach” you, punish you, and tell you how you should behave.
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Debbie Mirza (The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist: Recognizing the Traits and Finding Healing After Hidden Emotional and Psychological Abuse (The Narcissism Series Book 1))
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It is important to recognize that the narcissist constructs a false, dark alternate reality in which he hands over his pathology to you. You will be labeled the crazy, oversensitive person throughout the relationship even while enduring mind-blowing verbal and emotional attacks from your abuser. The abuser enjoys employing gaslighting and projection techniques to essentially rewrite the history of abuse in the relationship and misplace all blame onto you. Since you are prone to cognitive dissonance, you will often start to blame yourself for the abuse and seek to deny or minimize the severity of the trauma you’re experiencing in an effort to survive and cope with the fact that the person you love and care for is a pathological abuser.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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The more my own eyes began to open, the more overwhelming grief and anger I felt. With time, education, and support, this awakening turned into a growing strength and hope inside me. This will happen for you, too. Reading this book is going to be incredibly helpful for you as you begin to awaken to the truth of what you have been through. If you have lived with a covert narcissist, you have been held down for a long time. You have experienced the illusion of love, not the real thing. You have been lied to, manipulated, and controlled. You have not been heard or respected. You were devalued and brutally discarded by someone who said they cared about you, but in fact only cared about themselves. You have experienced an insanity-inducing relationship that is difficult to describe.
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Debbie Mirza (The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist: Recognizing the Traits and Finding Healing After Hidden Emotional and Psychological Abuse (The Narcissism Series Book 1))
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Normal ups and downs in a relationship don’t have abusive aspects to the extent that I’ve described. A non-narcissist, for example, would not need to stonewall/invalidate/smear campaign/gaslight/triangulate you constantly. Normal partners may have their flaws, may have different moods from time to time, but they don’t persistently carry on affairs, deny they’ve said/done something they know they did, shut down every time you bring up a legitimate complaint, provoke you with belittling and insulting comments, attempt to stage a smear campaign against you or displace blame onto you. Normal partners have the ability to empathize and see your point of view – even if they disagree with it. They have the ability to feel remorse when they hurt you. They don’t gain sadistic pleasure from constantly provoking you and making you feel badly about yourself.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Stop Rewarding Bad Behavior – If narcissists are emotionally like children, the last thing we want to do is give them candy every time they walk in our houses with dirty shoes. If your narcissist is hoovering you after discarding you horrifically, the best satisfaction would be to give them nothing but silence. Complete withdrawal and indifference is what destroys the narcissist and keeps them up at night. If your narcissist did not appreciate your presence, why not give them your absence? If you are dealing with a narcissist you can’t avoid, don’t indulge them in their grandiose fantasies. Stop giving them so much air time with your people-pleasing habits. Don’t invest more energy than you need to. Every ounce you give the narcissist is energy you could be using to better yourself. Remember, it’s time to idealize and supply yourself – not the narcissist.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Police Sonnet
Police is not a profession,
But a promise of protection.
So long as you carry the badge,
You must discard self-preservation.
The thin blue line of service,
Is not for self-serving narcissists.
When your sole concern is society,
Only then can you uphold justice.
You mustn't become manikins of politics,
Nor of bureaucratic brutality.
Your allegiance is only to the people,
Their welfare will rescue your humanity.
In the sea of selfishness be the selfless drop,
Taking care of people you become a real cop.
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Abhijit Naskar (Boldly Comes Justice: Sentient Not Silent)
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Common phrases narcissists use and what they actually mean:
1. I love you.
Translation: I love owning you. I love controlling you. I love using you. It feels so good to love-bomb you, to sweet-talk you, to pull you in and to discard you whenever I please. When I flatter you, I can have anything I want. You trust me. You open up so easily, even after you’ve already been mistreated. Once you’re hooked and invested, I’ll pull the rug beneath your feet just to watch you fall.
2. I am sorry you feel that way.
Translation: Sorry, not sorry. Let’s get this argument over with already so I can continue my abusive behavior in peace. I am not sorry that I did what I did, I am sorry I got caught. I am sorry you’re calling me out. I am sorry that I am being held accountable. I am sorry you have the emotions that you do. To me, they’re not valid because I am entitled to have everything I want – regardless of how you feel about it.
3. You’re oversensitive/overreacting.
Translation: You’re having a perfectly normal reaction to an immense amount of bullshit, but all I see is that you’re catching on. Let me gaslight you some more so you second-guess yourself. Emotionally invalidating you is the key to keeping you compliant. So long as you don’t trust yourself, you’ll work that much harder to rationalize, minimize and deny my abuse.
4. You’re crazy.
Translation: I am a master of creating chaos to provoke you. I love it when you react. That way, I can point the finger and say you’re the crazy one. After all, no one would listen to what you say about me if they thought you were just bitter or unstable.
5. No one would believe you.
Translation: I’ve isolated you to the point where you feel you have no support. I’ve smeared your name to others ahead of time so people already suspect the lies I’ve told about you. There are still others who might believe you, though, and I can’t risk being caught. Making you feel alienated and alone is the best way for me to protect my image. It’s the best way to convince you to remain silent and never speak the truth about who I really am.
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Shahida Arabi
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Stonewalling – An abusive tactic in which an abuser shuts down a conversation even before its begun, subjecting his or her victim to the silent treatment. The abuser withdraws emotionally and physically. The most drastic scenario of stonewalling I’ve seen was of a survivor whose abuser kept calling the police whenever she brought up an issue in their relationship. The most common one is when an abuser subjects you to the silent treatment as soon as you bring an issue up or displays narcissistic rage to make you fearful of ever expressing your feelings.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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MANIFESTO OF THE HUNGRY GENERATION
Poetry is no more a civilizing maneuver, a replanting of the bamboozled gardens; it is a holocaust, a violent and somnambulistic jazzing of the hymning five, a sowing of the tempestual Hunger.
Poetry is an activity of the narcissistic spirit. Naturally, we have discarded the blankety-blank school of modern poetry, the darling of the press, where poetry does not resurrect itself in an orgasmic flow, but words come out bubbling in an artificial muddle. In the prosed- rhyme of those born-old half-literates, you must fail to find that scream of desperation of a thing wanting to be man, the man wanting to be spirit.
Poetry of the younger generation too has died in the dressing room, as most of the younger prosed -rhyme writers, afraid of the Satanism, the vomitous horror, the self-elected crucifixion of the artist that makes a man a poet, fled away to hide in the hairs.
Poetry from Achintya to Ananda and from Alokeranjan to Indraneel, has been cryptic, short-hand, cautiously glamorous, flattered by own sensitivity like a public school prodigy. Saturated with self-consciousness, poems have begun to appear from the tomb of logic or the bier of unsexed rhetoric.
Published by Haradhon Dhara from 269 Netaji Subhas Road, Howrah, West Beng
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Malay Roy Choudhury
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The biggest mistake abuse survivors make after leaving their relationship is to shrink. They wallow in sadness and ignore the continued abused when the abuser goes on social media sites to post pictures of how wonderful their life is now that you left them. They allow the abuser to win again by showing people they are so over you. This is not okay! I hope every abuse survivor has a marketing campaign of glory and triumph. Don't let the abuser paint the image of you as someone they discarded. Post your comeback story on social media. Invite the world back into your life. The victory is yours. Show the world that you overcame a monster. Show them you won!
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Shannon L. Alder
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The child will be forced into a therapist role by the parent. It will be forced to take responsibility for the parent and everything the parent feels. Now, see how easy it will be for a narcissist that meets this kind of survivor to start puppeteering them around, using their own guilt, empathy and shame against them? Holding their abuse-target accountable for their adultery? For their anger and rage? For their abuse? This relationship is a one-way street where the abuse-target is held accountable for everything, has a long complex list of rules to follow and every minute is unpredictable. If one doesn’t manage to follow the rules, one gets punished. Love and affection is taken away. Just like in childhood. The narcissist will just pick up where the abusive parent left off, and the survivor will fall right back into the role of the child obediently taking accountability for every aspect of every minute.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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The bond between the narcissistic father and their child exists, but it is unhealthy and not based on mutual respect and love, but on shame and guilt. Such a father projects his deepest fears of inadequacies, shame and rejection on their children, but they also do the same for their ambitions, unrealistic qualities, imagined authority and false sense of personal power, grandiosity and success. Based on these two they give their children the roles of the scapegoat and the golden child where the first one becomes the embodiment of the narcissistic fathers’ fears and the second one becomes the embodiment of their ideals. Neither of these are based in reality and are never a reflection of a child's real potential, skill, character or talent. The scapegoated child is the one who is ultimately the greatest threat to a narcissist's false sense of self-importance, and so that child will be the one to be discarded and rejected.
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Theresa J. Covert (Narcissistic Fathers: The Problem with being the Son or Daughter of a Narcissistic Parent, and how to fix it. A Guide for Healing and Recovering After Hidden Abuse)
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True narcissists will defend themselves adamantly and become triggered when confronted with the truth, i.e. via a narcissistic injury - this results in narcissistic rage, which is a disproportionate amount of anger towards a perceived slight, disagreement or criticism that serves as a blow to the narcissist's ego and constructed false self. This will only continue the pathological mind games and narcissists will most likely become incredibly defensive in ways that can be even more traumatic. Knowing that they are narcissists are enough - no need to confront them with what you know. When narcissists suffer a narcissistic injury from a perceived criticism, they will often respond with rage and aggression. Many people with NPD don’t wish to accept accountability for their abuse and many rarely will. They would rather project and blame others than accept that they have a false self. Attempting to “shed light” on their condition often proves fruitless and only strengthens their defense mechanisms. I always recommend that survivors focus less on what they can do to change their abusers, who probably can’t be changed, and refocus on their own self-care.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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At the end of the article the author explains that some targets provide such large sources of ego fuel that they may remain in the idealize phase for years, depending on what the sociopath desires out of the relationship. The article calls this “narcissistic supply” and states that all sociopaths are also narcissists. I read the next line: If a target is providing a constant stream of supply, they may be overvalued and idealized by the sociopath for many years. However, when their supply eventually decreases, they will be quickly devalued and discarded. Oh my God. Green card. Restaurant. Wedding. Travel. Reputability. Maine. Money. Family. I was an almost never-ending source of supply for Marco until I had a baby and suddenly, my stock plummeted. I would no longer be feeding his ego if I was taking care of a newborn.
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Jen Waite (A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal)
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Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go; lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul.” (Proverbs 22:34–35) “But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.” (1 Corinthians 5:13) “Do not be misled: Bad company corrupts good character.” (1 Corinthians 15:33) “A hot-tempered person must pay the penalty; rescue them, and you will have to do it again.” (Proverbs 19:19) As you can see from the above scriptures, God is direct with us. He doesn’t feel your spirituality can sufficiently grow in an abusive relationship. If you want to live in peace, then you are the one who needs to make the changes to have peace. However, Satan knows this and will do everything he can to keep you in an abusive relationship or thinking about your abuser long after you have been discarded.
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Shannon L. Alder (The Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Bible: Spiritual Recovery from Narcissistic and Emotional Abuse)
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By not rejecting yourself and supporting your inner child and nurturing your vulnerabilities instead of discarding them, you are ultimately taking responsibility for yourself. You could not choose your childhood, but now you can choose yourself and you can become your own person of trust, someone you always needed and who was never there. Please remember that you already have what it takes to re-parent yourself, as otherwise you wouldn’t be hoping or looking for healing and you are absolutely not alone. Re-parenting includes an immense amount of self-care and self-nurturing. It also includes getting in touch with your inner child and recognizing it’s needs and understanding how it wants to express itself, which goes hand in hand with choosing yourself. Choose you, because you deserve all those beautiful things you were made to believe you are undeserving of.
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Theresa J. Covert (Narcissistic Fathers: The Problem with being the Son or Daughter of a Narcissistic Parent, and how to fix it. A Guide for Healing and Recovering After Hidden Abuse)
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I know it’s narcissistic to make my best friend’s new relationship about me, but it was only when I heard that Naima was thinking of moving that I realized I’d had a companion all this while in what I’d seen as a well of loneliness. And now she was distracted by this man she claimed to have manifested. And I was like, what about me? Why didn’t you feel like you’d manifested me when we met? We form these elaborate fantasies of romantic partnerships, Romeos and Majnus who we’ll spend our days and nights with in a passion of rose petals and fireworks, while discounting our non-romantic relationships (if such distinctions can even be made), often more enduring and authentic. We discard them as soon as some man comes along, flashing his teeth and brandishing his penis. But it’s always the friends in the end, isn’t it, who remain to pick up the pieces when the men have gone, leaving destruction in their wake? Still, only the romantic partner is taken seriously. Friends and family will not gather, ever, to celebrate my partnership with Naima—there will be no anniversaries or acknowledgments, no congratulatory cards, no celebratory ceremonies. And yet, it is this slow burning love of female friendship that actually keeps the world turning. Truth
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Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi (The Centre)
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Most likely, the discard phase will feel like the most confusing and painful betrayal you’ve ever felt in your life. The person you have loved for years and who you believed loved you back is now saying the cruelest things—things you would have never imagined possible.
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Debbie Mirza (The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist: Recognizing the Traits and Finding Healing After Hidden Emotional and Psychological Abuse (The Narcissism Series Book 1))
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refocused on the people who validated me and wanted me to rise rather than fall. I also made sure to validate myself and realized that while being among the few to recognize a narcissist was an alienating experience, it was also a liberating one. There were many times I saw behind the masks of toxic people, sociopaths or narcissists while others continued to believe in the false self they projected. Instead of attempting to convince others of what I observed, I quietly turned the focus back onto myself and my own self-care. I stopped listening to the dark voices of others and began to reconnect with that divine light inside of me and other survivors. I knew the truth about toxic people and for the first time, my faith in myself was enough to break the spell. It was by no means easy; sometimes it took longer for me to detach from toxic people than I felt it should have. There were times when I felt I could’ve done better. Yet I treated myself compassionately and forgave myself for any failures, knowing that any type of “relapse” was simply an inevitable detour on the road to recovery. So I pushed forward and kept moving. I knew that each encounter with another narcissistic abuser, whether friend, foe or relationship partner, was simply a test - a test of how far my core wounds were still tethering me to toxic people.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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The wise critique Unlike the overt narcissist who would openly put you down and discard your efforts, with coverts, things get a bit more complicated and a lot more undercover. Their aim is to lower your self-confidence by taking the role of a wise teacher who only wishes the best for you. They are the one who knows everything, and you are an infant who is unable to deal with the world around you. When they are around, you simply won't feel supported or protected, and you won’t be able to pinpoint exactly why. When someone else criticizes you,
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Theresa J. Covert (The Covert Narcissist: Recognizing the Most Dangerous Subtle Form of Narcissism and Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships)
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Being raised by a narcissistic parent can literally change our brain, potentially making us a completely different person than we would have been pre-trauma.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Healthy relationships thrive on security; unhealthy ones are filled with provocation, uncertainty and infidelity. Narcissists like to manufacture love triangles and bring in the opinions of others to validate their point of view. They do this to an excessive extent in order to play puppeteer to your emotions. In the book Psychopath Free by Jackson MacKenzie, the method of triangulation is discussed as a popular way the narcissist maintains control over your emotions. Triangulation consists of bringing the presence of another person into the dynamic of the relationship, whether it be an ex-lover, a current mistress, a relative, or a complete stranger.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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I choose, every day, what I put my energy into. I can choose to waste time on the people who bring me down or the beautiful ones that raise me up. I can choose to meditate and reflect rather than absorb the choices of others. Their actions do not take away the good I have left to give to the world. Every day, I make my choices as if I truly, unconditionally love myself. In times of darkness, uncertainty, and struggle, I return to that self-love. In times of psychological warfare, I will fight for my right to peace of mind and happiness. I will win. And in doing so, I will inspire in others the courage to do the same.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Avoid triggering subjects and derail catastrophic conversations. Narcissists enjoy using circular conversations, meaningless word salad and countless contradictions to mess with your mind, deflect your attention off their abuse and keep you off balance. They'll deny saying something, they'll contradict something they said earlier, they'll bring in irrational arguments and they'll continue to break your boundaries in a way that leaves you inevitably frustrated. This keeps the focus off the narcissist's actual behavior and leaves you wasting precious energy and time trying to figure out what's actually being said. Think of it as looking through garbage trying to extract gems. Except, there are no gems. You're just becoming a hoarder of the narcissist's useless "crazy-making" tactics.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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If the narcissist is your supervillain, there’s only one way to “defeat” him or her. His or her ultimate goal is to destroy you, destroy the self-esteem and success you’ve worked hard to build, destroy your ability to trust in future relationships and your self-worth. You must take inventory of your existing “superpowers” as well as his in order to save your own life and that of your kingdom – everything you’ve built from your finances to your relationship with friends to your business. Every small victory scores a point and gets you ready for the final battle. It’s time.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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Let today be the day you decide he doesn’t walk through your door ever again. Your home is supposed to be a place where you feel safe – it’s your haven, your sanctuary from the world. Don’t allow him to continue to desecrate your sacred space. You have every right to demand that he no longer enters your residence. Notify him that you have made this decision. If he attempts to disrespect your request, inform him that you will notify the authorities if necessary. Then, follow through. Feel the fear, and do it anyway. The purpose of doing this is not only to implement a new way of life for you, but also to eliminate the under-handed tactics often employed by the disordered personality to stay in your head and keep you feeling off-balance. These tactics might include planting spyware on your computer and/or in your home, stealing heirlooms and other valuables (including cash), or raiding your home in search of evidence of a new partner, which is absolutely none of their business.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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The discard phase is excruciating. It is also extremely confounding, to say the least. You saw your CN as one person for years, and now you see someone you don’t recognize, someone cruel and unfeeling. Your head is spinning, and your heart is devastated. You’ve never experienced betrayal, hurt, and confusion like this before. Victims look back over the years trying to figure out what happened. Once someone brings up the idea that their partner might be a narcissist, they search again for signs they missed, traits they didn’t notice.
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Debbie Mirza (The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist: Recognizing the Traits and Finding Healing After Hidden Emotional and Psychological Abuse (The Narcissism Series Book 1))
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Shutting down due to trauma and chronic anxiety are symptoms of the aftermath. It will take time. Small steps are easier than big steps. I just hope you know that a part of you can never be taken and destroyed. It's the same part of you that is still willing to survive and hope. Hold onto that part of yourself and keep adding to it every day. Meditate, adopt a mantra or affirmation, say a short prayer...start small and I have faith you will move onto the bigger actions when you are ready. You have to fight for the miracles that are ahead of you no matter how bleak it may seem now. It does and will get better. The best is yet to come.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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You have been lied to, manipulated, and controlled. You have not been heard or respected. You were devalued and brutally discarded by someone who said they cared about you, but in fact only cared about themselves.
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Debbie Mirza (The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist: Recognizing the Traits and Finding Healing After Hidden Emotional and Psychological Abuse (The Narcissism Series Book 1))
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Something didn’t seem to add up. How could my narcissist appear so nice to strangers or friends outside the relationship, but behind closed doors be so manipulative and disrespectful to the person they professed to love? How could people who claimed to believe in God have a total lack of empathy, devaluing and discarding me without an explanation
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Shannon L. Alder (The Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Bible: Spiritual Recovery from Narcissistic and Emotional Abuse)
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If you want to turn the tables on the Narc and have the upper hand, you shut the door to the relationship after they discard you. You leave for good. You pack up your things. You don’t provide an explanation. You certainly don’t provide a warning. You don’t reason with them. You just go. Separate yourself from them both physically and emotionally.
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Marie Sarantakis (How to Divorce a Narcissist and Win)
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An amicable divorce is not possible when you are dealing with a covert narcissist. The breakup is sudden. It is a fire hose of so many different traits. You will experience intermittent reinforcement, smear campaigns, flying monkeys, lies, manipulation, crazy-making conversations, triangulation, absolute absence of empathy, devaluing and demeaning insults, emotional immaturity, profound selfishness, entitled superiority, and so much more during this discard phase. You will feel a betrayal like you’ve never known.
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Debbie Mirza (The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist: Recognizing the Traits and Finding Healing After Hidden Emotional and Psychological Abuse (The Narcissism Series Book 1))
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Narcissistic abuse rips your heart out in so many ways. First because of the time
spent, then the discard and battle of lies. Sadly, to see the damage they caused
your children
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Tracy A. Malone
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Narcissists reward loyalty, on their side, oh golden one.... You think you are safe.
The truth is they will quickly discard your ass and flip your golden role to
scapegoat. This is the illusion of loyalty.
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Tracy A. Malone
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There was a brief moment, in the run-up to the 2016 election, when many prominent Republicans stood firmly opposed to Trump. Ezra Klein writes: Ted Cruz called Trump a “pathological liar,” “utterly amoral,” and “a narcissist at a level I don’t think this country’s ever seen.” Rick Perry said Trump’s candidacy was “a cancer on conservatism, and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised, and discarded.” Rand Paul said Trump is “a delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag. A speck of dirt is way more qualified to be president.” Marco Rubio called him “dangerous” and warned that we should not hand “the nuclear codes of the United States to an erratic individual.” 63 But once it was clear the tide was turning, nearly all major Republicans—including Cruz, Perry, Paul, and Rubio—pulled a 180 and backed Trump.
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Tim Urban (What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies)
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Narcissists identify being loved with being possessed, engulfed, and inevitably discarded.
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Rokelle Lerner (The Object of My Affection Is in My Reflection: Coping with Narcissists)
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If I have learned anything in my lifetime about relationships, it is that until you truly love, respect and honor your right to have opinions and emotions, you cannot attract someone into your life that can love and respect your opinions and emotions.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)
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don’t think this country’s ever seen.” Rick Perry said Trump’s candidacy was “a cancer on conservatism, and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised, and discarded.” Rand Paul said Trump is “a delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag. A speck of dirt is way more qualified to be president.” Marco Rubio called him “dangerous” and warned that we should not hand “the nuclear codes of the United States to an erratic individual.” And then every single one of those Republicans endorsed Trump.
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Ezra Klein (Why We're Polarized)
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I grew up with a narcissistic, abusive father, and then spent 12 years of my adult life repeating that dysfunctional pattern when I married a narcissistic abuser.
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Shahida Arabi (Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself)