Narcissists are master manipulators and experts at gaslighting. Chances are, in your previous life you were made to question your reality over and over again. Now that you’ve put some distance between you and your abuser, you probably understand just how insane his pattern of communication really is. The problem is, though, as time passes, it’s all too easy to relax a bit and believe you’ll never meet another person who will put you through the same toxic interplay. You may also start to question if the narcissist in your life was really all that bad. After all, you’re an empathetic person and believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt. These are dangerous thoughts to have. Giving others the benefit of a doubt at the expense of your own well-being is what got you into this messy situation to begin with. And there is more than one narcissist in the world happy to prey on this part of your personality should you let him in.
Because of constant gaslighting and grooming, victims often begin to question their own perception of the person they’re with and the things that are happening to them. Most narcissists would also prefer to use emotional abuse before physical abuse. And, since emotional abuse only leaves scars below the surface, this further makes victims question whether they are truly being mistreated or they’re operating from a skewed point-of-view.
It can take years for victims to wrap their heads around what feels off in the relationship, and often it takes either escalating abuse, total dependency, isolation or an otherwise abnormal aspect of the partnership to surface before it’s finally understood that the relationship is unhealthy. If you suppress this gut feeling and stay long enough, there will be significant consequences.
Remember that mind-numbing, debilitating pattern from which you escaped. You already know the gaslighted target of a narcissist will eventually be rendered completely submissive and unable to leave because they cannot trust their own decision-making. There was likely a point in which you didn’t trust yourself, but by some divine intervention you were made to finally see the truth. The psychological control the narcissist is able to assert over those who share his intimate space is uncanny. He uses his cleverness and confidence to will them into submission and convince them to do his bidding. Don’t let this happen all over again.