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Helpful Definitions

Antisocial Personality Disorder

Antisocial Personality Disorder

The terms “sociopath” and “psychopath” have been combined under the term “Antisocial Personality Disorder” (ASPD).
Some common traits of ASPD are:

The person is usually charming, highly manipulative, using domination, charm, guilt, sympathy, pity, obligation, or intimidation to get their way.

Has a disregard for rules and others.

Shows behaviors based on either exploitation or cruelty, often leading to time in jail as an adult.

Has a lack of remorse.

Lack of empathy, although they can do an award-winning performance to make others believe that they are sorry and that this time will be different.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

A personality disorder usually includes impulsive and risky behavior, unstable and intense relationships, highly manipulative behavior, frequent outbursts of anger/poor emotional regulation, unstable or fragile self-image, fears of abandonment, and suicidal behavior or threats of self-harm. There can be a lot of overlap between the behaviors associated with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD), and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

Codependency versus Over-giving

Codependency versus Over-giving

The term codependency originated in the context of Alcoholics Anonymous and was initially used to describe the excessive emotional reliance a spouse of an alcoholic has on their alcoholic partner. The alcoholic is excessively reliant on alcohol, and the spouse is overly dependent upon the alcoholic. These relationships are one-sided. The alcoholic spouse is continually having destructive behavior, and the codependent spouse is forever busy picking up the pieces, doing damage control, and trying to make things work.

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance

The term Cognitive Dissonance means “mental distress.” In particular, it’s the mental distress a person experiences when they have two conflicting thoughts about the same topic simultaneously, as it pertains to an action that they are going to take. The reason this is so distressing is that we need our thoughts and actions to agree with each other. If our thoughts and actions don’t line up, we act in a way that doesn’t make sense to us, so we experience mental distress. To relieve mental distress, we either have to change our thoughts to match our actions or change our actions to match our thoughts. Most of the time, we tend to change our thoughts about what we are experiencing until our reality becomes painful enough to take different actions. When we change our thoughts, we do so by either denying them, trying to suppress them, or rationalizing them.

Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) is similar to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in that the person experiences much of the same symptoms but for different reasons. PTSD tends to happen after a specific event or situation like war or a car accident. In contrast, C-PTSD is more complex because it’s often the result of ongoing traumatic events, many of which can be challenging to pinpoint. This is especially the case if a person grew up in a den of dysfunction, and the traumatizing behavior was considered normal.

Crazy Making

Crazy-making behavior is abusive and manipulative behavior designed to confuse, irritate, exhaust, or provoke a target into some emotional reaction. The target feels either like the narcissist is trying to make them crazy or that the narcissist’s behavior is so infuriating that it’s making them crazy. This happens especially when the narcissist acts like nothing is wrong or that the target is making a big deal out of nothing, or worse, that the target is crazy, mentally ill, or losing their mind.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health (DSM) is a manual of mental disorders published and continually revised by the American Psychiatric Association. This manual is currently in its 5th edition and is referred to as the DSM-V. The DSM categorizes a wide range of mental health disorders, including mental illnesses, personality disorders, and developmental disorders that impair cognitive development.

Cognitive Dissonance or Abuse Amnesia

Cognitive Dissonance or Abuse Amnesia

Dissociative Amnesia, or Abuse Amnesia, is when a person forgets specific incidents surrounding a traumatic event or events—in this case, abusive behavior. Abuse amnesia can range from forgetting whole episodes to certain things that are said, and the sufferer tends to remember the abusive person in a positive light. Abuse amnesia is not normal forgetfulness, as the person is only unable to recall events surrounding the specific traumatic event. Many people who continue to go back to an abusive partner report feeling frustrated and crazy because they forget about much of the abuse and hold onto the good times to be abused again.

This level of forgetting can make a person question their sanity, as frequently they forget or not easily remember pretty essential things.

Abuse amnesia is a critical concept of which to be aware. Prepare yourself for it, as it happens to many people who have been in an abusive relationship.

Domestic Violence and Narcissism

Domestic Violence and Narcissism

The United States Department of Justice defines domestic violence as “a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner. Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, financial, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person.”

Domestic violence does not only include married couples. It can be any harm inflicted on a member of the household or family member by another member of the same household or family.

Flying Monkeys

The term Flying Monkeys comes from the movie The Wizard of Oz, where the Wicked Witch of the West has flying monkeys under her spell to do her bidding, mainly to harass and torment Dorothy and her friends. In terms of a narcissistic relationship, “flying monkeys” are people who have been manipulated by the narcissist to carry out their bidding, usually to harass and torment the narcissist’s target or to push them back into the relationship.

Anyone can be turned into a flying monkey—friends and family of the narcissist, friends and family of their target, therapists, members of their church, or neighbors, you name it. Because they are also being manipulated, flying monkeys are duped by the narcissist into doing the narcissist’s bidding. They believe the narcissist is the victim of the situation. They may also think the target is the one who is manipulative and abusive or that their relationship issues are somehow shared issues. The narcissist’s bidding generally includes spying and getting information from the target, pushing the target back into the relationship, stalking, harassing, or abusing the target.

Future Faking

Future faking is when a narcissist talks about, hints at, or promises their target an ideal future together. The narcissist may future fake by claiming that they want the same things from the relationship or promise to change their abusive behavior.

Narcissists often go about future faking by gathering information about the target’s idea of a great future or perfect relationship from the early love bombing stage. Usually, this includes getting engaged or married, buying a home, settling down, starting a business, adopting pets or children, having a baby, or moving to a different area to get a fresh start. These false promises manipulate the target into a new relationship or into rekindling a broken relationship.

At first, these actions may seem sincere. After all, who would talk about such deep commitments if they weren’t sincere? The narcissist may even turn their talk into actions and convince their target to buy a house, adopt a pet or a child, or move. Over time, the target may realize that they have become more trapped due to these actions. They now have a mortgage they can’t afford alone, have a child, quit their job, moved, or otherwise committed themselves to the promise of doing these things as a team. They then realize that the narcissist isn’t emotionally invested, so the target stays out of guilt, obligation, or the inability to undo these actions.

What started as the promise of an ideal future quickly turns into a hellish nightmare.

Gaslighting

The term gaslighting is taken from a 1944 movie called Gas Light, starring Ingrid Bergman. In the film, Bergman plays the part of Paula, a woman who is married to Gregory, a man who, unbeknownst to her, is a thief and the murderer of her rich aunt several decades earlier. She doesn't know that Gregory only married her so that he could have access to her aunt's house and can find her aunt's jewels, which he had been unable to find in his earlier robbery attempt. Whenever Gregory is hunting in the attic for the jewels, he has the gas lights on. Since the lights are on in the attic, it causes the rest of the house's lights to flicker. When Paula asks Gregory why the lights are flickering, he tells her that they aren't and that she is seeing things. Another sign that points to her being "crazy." As Paula begins to uncover things about Gregory that don't line up, he tries to prevent being found out by her or others. He slowly begins to erode Paula's perception of reality, and sanity, by moving objects around and telling her that she is not well whenever she questions what is happening.

Today, gaslighting is a term that refers to a form of psychological abuse in which information is twisted, spun, or selectively omitted to favor the abuser, or false information is presented with the intent of making the target doubt their memory, perception, and sanity. It is commonly used with narcissists and other types of emotional manipulators trying to avoid being accountable for their behavior or who are intentionally trying to erode their target's sanity.

Gaslighting is incredibly damaging and crazy-making behavior, which often has long-lasting results and leaves a person questioning their sanity and perception of reality not only when they are around the abusive person but in general.

Grand Finale of Abuse

Grand Finale of Abuse

Grand Finale describes an over-the-top ending of a relationship with a narcissist, which is often characterized by an extreme amount of drama, chaos, lies, and overall outrageous, soap-opera type of behavior. Their behavior can be so intense that it can quickly become dangerous and even deadly. An abusive person's target needs to use extreme caution when leaving the relationship, even if the narcissist has never shown any signs of violent behavior before. Once the narcissist realizes they've lost power and control over their target, they begin to scramble and say or do anything they can to get that power back. Around this time, the narcissist's mask either slips or is taken off completely, and the target is shocked by what they see. They may be surprised by the level of contempt the narcissist has for them and realize that the narcissist does not love them or even like them. This can be hard to accept and leaves many targets feeling numb, devastated, and angry once they realize the narcissist is nothing more than an emotional con artist. Someone they don't even know, and feeling used, abused, and exploited.

Gray Rock

Gray rock is a technique used to minimize contact and damage from a narcissist by becoming as emotionally unreactive and dull as a "gray rock." The goal of using the gray rock technique is to stay cool, calm, collected, uninterested, and uninteresting when around a narcissist so that they lose interest in abusing their target and stop. There is a saying out there that goes, "Violence is only enjoyable when there is suffering. Without suffering, it is a hollow act." The goal with gray rock is not to let the abusive person see you suffer. By denying them this, you are cutting off the "supply of pleasure" they are getting from your pain.

This tactic flies in the face of most thinking behind conflict resolution, which is based around having open, honest, sincere, solutions-oriented communication. This type of communication doesn't work with a narcissist because they are not looking for a solution—they are looking to bully their target. Let me be very clear: to let an abusive person know how much they are hurting you will only make the abuse worse, as they now know they are getting to you—and worse, they specifically know what buttons to push. It's dangerous to treat an abusive relationship as though the issue has to do with communication issues between two people. It doesn't. The problems are about power and control, and the abusive person is intentionally grinding their target down. They know what they are doing, so don't get caught up thinking they don't or that if you could somehow explain to them how much they are hurting you, they would stop. Again, this will only make things worse.

Hoovering and Narcissism

Hoovering and Narcissism

Hoovering is a manipulative technique named after the Hoover vacuum. Hoovering occurs when a narcissist tries to reopen communication with their target with the intention of either thoroughly sucking them back into the relationship or sucking them back into their “supply pipeline.” By keeping contact open, the narcissist can re-enter their life down the road to abuse or exploit them.

Hoovering consists of any attempt to reopen communication with the target, no matter how small and seemingly innocent. Hoovering is often done in the form of text messages, phone calls, liking comments or pictures on social media, emails, contact through mutual friends, family, children, neighbors, coworkers, or “accidentally” bumping into the target. Multiple forms of manipulative messages can be used. From seemingly kind, considerate, or harmless attempts at communication where they might claim to want to say, “Hi,” “Happy Birthday,” or “I love you” to more aggressive or provoking messages such as claiming that they have cancer. They may even make suicide threats to get the target to respond.

Love Bombing

Love bombing is when a narcissist "bombs" their target with "love," or more specifically, attention, affection, communication, and compliments. Love bombing is a term that is usually associated with cults and how they go about recruiting members. However, the same concept is used by narcissists regardless of the role they play in a person's life, whether that is as a cult leader, an abusive partner or parent, an online-dating scammer, a scam artist in general, a coworker, or neighbor.

Love bombing often leads to rushed intimacy, heavy amounts of mirroring, a whirlwind romance, a high degree of future faking, and a feeling of a soul-mate connection.

Low Contact with a Narcissist

Low Contact with a Narcissist

Low contact is the alternative to “no contact” and is usually done if a person wants or needs to keep communication open with a narcissist. For instance, a person might want to stay in minimal contact with a family member who is a narcissist, or they may need to keep in minimal contact if a person has a child with a narcissist.

Low contact is whatever amount of contact that you want it to be. You may decide that you can only handle seeing this person for three days over the holidays, or you may decide that you can’t do three days, but you could do one day. Maybe that one day is too much, but meeting for dinner is fair. If that’s too much, perhaps limiting contact to a phone call on holidays or a couple of times a year is your limit.

A great way to tell how much contact to have with a person is to examine how you feel when you are around them and after you are around them. If you feel angry, resentful, hurt, annoyed, or that you need to decompress after being around them, then these are all signals that something needs to change. Some boundaries need to be set for how you expect to be treated, the length of time you are spending with them might need to decrease, or you might need to increase your self-care when you are around them or after you are around them, or some combination of all three.

Masks of a Narcissist

Masks of a Narcissist

A narcissist's mask refers to the different faces or masks that a narcissist shows in public and to the target, especially at the beginning of a relationship. These different masks are often socially acceptable and ideal, making them seem charming, likable, and the furthest thing from an abusive person. When a narcissist switches masks or their mask slips, their true self is seen, which is often horrifying and different from the person the target knows. Over time, the narcissist's mask slips more often, and the target starts to view the narcissist as having a "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" personality or having both tremendous and awful sides to themselves.

Some of the masks they wear might be that of the great parent, the God-loving church-goer, the volunteer, the world's best spouse, or the charming and funny person. Those close to the narcissist know that their actions are very different from those of the people they pretend to be.

Narc Speak or Word Salad

Narc Speak or Word Salad

Narc speak, short for narcissist speak, generally refers to a series of either misleading, loosely-related, or nonsensical words that a narcissist will string together to avoid accountability and groom their target into not questioning or challenging them in any way. Like the rest of a narcissist’s behavior, narc speak is about gaining and keeping control over the situation, target, and target’s perception of reality.

You may also hear the term narc speak referred to as “word salad.” However, it can be helpful to understand that there are two types of word salad. On a medical level, the term word salad is generally used to describe the disorganized speech from cognitive impairment due to schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, a stroke, or other types of brain injury or mental illness. This is not the same type of word salad in which narcissists engage.

Narcissistic Abuse

Narcissistic Abuse

Narcissistic abuse is behavior through which a person targets and manipulates someone into giving up their wants, needs, feelings (and thus their identity) for their self-esteem needs to be met.

The concept of narcissistic abuse was made popular by the work of psychologist Alice Miller. Her work primarily focused on exploring the family dynamics between a narcissistic parent (or parents) and their children. What Miller found in her work with emotionally abused and neglected children were that for them to "survive" their environment (meaning, for them to try to get their basic needs met—including food, clothing, shelter, love, and acceptance), they were forced to give up their wants, needs, and feelings—and thus their identity—to serve their parent's need for validation and esteem.

The term "narcissistic abuse" has grown to include the dynamic between a narcissist ("friend," parent, child, neighbor, coworker, significant other, member of their church, etc.) and their "target" where the target is manipulated out of their wants and needs, and thus their sense of self, to please or satisfy the other.

Narcissistic Injury

Narcissistic Injury

Narcissistic Injury is a real or perceived threat to a narcissist’s ego, which usually results in them going into attack mode, known as “narcissistic rage.” This attack mode can happen subtly and behind the scenes, or it can happen with them exploding and going on a verbal or physical attack. A narcissistic injury could occur in any number of ways. Perhaps the most common are challenging the narcissist’s decisions or abilities, criticizing them, questioning them about their behavior, setting boundaries, or talking positively about good things or others.

Everyone gets jealous or envious of others from time to time, and no one likes feeling challenged or questioned. This is all normal to an extent. What’s not normal is to fly off the handle or to have a meltdown when things don’t go our way. Narcissists have a paper-thin ego, and any criticism of them, or something good that is happening to someone else, is perceived as an attack. Because narcissists go into attack mode when their ego is threatened or start to lose power over their target, a target of abuse needs to be careful when they leave them, as this is when they are the most dangerous. It is always a good idea to anticipate how you think they might respond and then to err on the side of caution. Even if a narcissist has never been physically violent before, they can quickly become violent during this time.

Narcissist

Narcissists are people whose actions are entirely self-centered and self-serving, to the point that their behavior causes significant disruption in their lives and trauma to the lives of those closest to them - whether they realize it or not. They are often charismatic, convincing, and can be very charming when they want or need to be. They need admiration and are often very focused on impressing others and maintaining their public image. They tend to feel entitled to treat others however they wish, and because of this, they have a lack of empathy, regard, and remorse for the results of their actions.

In short, the narcissist feels they should be able to do whatever they want, whenever and as much as they want, and with whomever they want, and anyone that disagrees with them is the problem and the enemy.

Covert or Vulnerable Narcissist

Covert or Vulnerable Narcissist

Covert narcissists, also called vulnerable narcissists, are also self-absorbed, self-centered, and lack empathy and remorse. They differ from a more textbook narcissist, often called a grandiose narcissist, because vulnerable narcissists tend to show more emotional depth when they are wounded and are very concerned with how others see them. They are thought to fear abandonment and perceive any mistake, criticism, rejection, or inferior treatment by others. They think of themselves as superior beings and often crumble when others don't believe the same. This crumbling reveals their vulnerability and often comes across as their appearing as a deeply-wounded child. Their inflated sense of self-worth and need to be acknowledged as superior is the most reasonable compensation for their low self-esteem. Their fear of abandonment is thought to be due to a lack of secure bonding with their parents when they were children.

When a vulnerable narcissist's wounding is visible, it can pull at a person's heartstrings. The target may watch with amazement as the narcissist emotionally transforms into a small child. They may cry, stay in bed, fall into a depression, or need a seemingly large amount of reassurance that they are okay or did a good job. A vulnerable narcissist's target may have difficulty distancing themselves from a person like this because they know how hard they take rejection. They may also think that because narcissists can be emotionally wounded, they can also be empathetic and remorseful. After all, these narcissists feel emotional pain, so you'd think that they'd be able to relate to the pain in others sincerely. As soon as they've had enough time to lick their wounds, they are back to their old selfish, insensitive and hurtful, self-absorbed, and entitled ways. Because vulnerable narcissists tend to need reassurance and approval, they also have a hard time being alone. Their partner may have a hard time leaving a vulnerable narcissist because, even despite the abuse they've gone through, they know how fragile the vulnerable narcissist is and how hard they will take the breakup. They may go back if the narcissist threatens to commit suicide or contacts them with repeated pleas for help, or begs them not to go.

Overt or Grandiose Narcissist

Overt or Grandiose Narcissist

An Overt Narcissist, also called a Grandiose Narcissist, is more obvious and tends to be a textbook example of what most people expect a narcissist to be. Overt narcissists are usually grandiose, arrogant, overly-confident and self-assured, obnoxious, and charismatic. They do not seek approval, fear rejection, or show emotion as vulnerable narcissists do. If they are rejected or insulted, they don’t crumble as a vulnerable narcissist does. Instead, they go on the attack, and they don’t stop until they’ve sufficiently ground down their opponent for not treating them with the admiration and respect they feel they so rightfully deserve. Grandiose narcissists don’t need the support and reassurance of others like vulnerable narcissists do. It’s thought that grandiose narcissists aren’t compensating for lack of self-esteem, but more so that their inflated sense of self. This comes from being spoiled or from their parents telling them how special, amazing, and talented they were, without balancing that with proper discipline and a more realistic view of themselves and their shortcomings.

Altruistic Narcissist

Altruistic Narcissist

An Altruistic Narcissist is a type of narcissist who gets their ego stroked from appearing kind, good and caring, but they only do so to get the praise and validation that comes from being seen as a good and caring person. Everything they do is for show. They often give money they don't have and gifts they can't afford. If their charitable acts are denied, they often become angry and enraged. Altruistic narcissists may volunteer a lot, be leaders of a spiritual group, or work in a position that is seen as caring, such as a teacher, nurse, doctor, counselor, social worker, director of a non-profit, etc. However, those who know them best realize that there are always strings attached to their acts of kindness, and they are better off not accepting any help from them. These acts of kindness are held over their head and expected to be repaid ten-fold, or they are used to lure people in so they can be exploited. An altruistic narcissist's behavior tends to come across as confusing because, on the one hand, the narcissist is so charitable and considerate and seems to care so deeply. Still, their emotions seem shallow and insincere, and their actions seem like they are for show.

Cerebral Narcissist

Cerebral Narcissist

Cerebral narcissists take great pride in their intellect and are often extremely intelligent and convincing. What makes them different from an intelligent person who enjoys a good discussion or who enjoys teaching others is that a cerebral narcissist leverages their intelligence to win. They often proclaim that they are logical and reasonable even though their opinions and arguments are usually anything but rational. Because they often come across with such great conviction, they can say the most outlandish, hateful, or dangerous things and spin it in such a way that they come across as balanced and fair.

They are usually incredibly persuasive, intelligent, quick-witted, and able to shift between logic, logical fallacies, lies, name-calling, and anger to knock their opponent off-balance and make their point. They often have advanced degrees or high levels of success or claim so. Those who see through them come across as pretentious, grandiose, and exhausting. They rarely like to associate with anyone below their (perceived or even fabricated) intellect, educational, or financial level. When they do so, it’s generally to engage them in some argument so that they can win.

What can be so crazy-making is these narcissists continually shift their argument. They use a series of logical fallacies, reductionist arguments, lies, half-truths, word salad, and semantic ploys to frustrate the other person until that person becomes exhausted or explodes in anger. At this point, the narcissist will declare that the other person is too unreasonable, illogical, or overly emotional. It’s like the saying goes, arguing with a narcissist is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are, the pigeon will knock over all the pieces, poop on the board, and act victorious.

Malignant Narcissist

Malignant Narcissist

The term malignant means dangerous and harmful. A malignant narcissist is one who has all the traits of a narcissist. Grandiosity, seeks approval and attention, lacks empathy, lacks remorse, is entitled, and has fragile self-esteem and a blend of Antisocial Personality Disorder traits such as charm, aggression, a lack of regard for rules or laws, paranoia, and is often sadistic. Their level of superiority far surpasses being arrogant, obnoxious, and self-centered and is often dangerous, destructive, and deadly. Even though they need others' approval and attention, unlike a psychopath, they still view others as expendable and feel justified in harming them. Those who have experienced this type of person often report feeling dark energy about them. They are fearful or terrified of what the abuser might do even though they might not have done or said anything overtly that the target can point to as the reason they feel this way.

Somatic Narcissist

Somatic Narcissist

Somatic narcissists get their ego fed mainly through their attractiveness, power, money, or sex. They are often shallow and associate with either other shallow people or those who have power and money. They tend to be hyper-sexual, focused on their physical appearance, and are often very status-driven. They are often very seductive and are usually pathological cheaters. They may be highly successful, or they may latch onto others and use them for social status or money. Sex is their primary weapon, and they can put on an outstanding performance in bed, becoming the most amazing sexual partner their target has ever had and using their seduction and sexual prowess to create what feels like a once in a lifetime connection.

Narcissistic Rage

Narcissistic Rage

Narcissistic rage is inappropriate displays of anger from a narcissist that occurs on a spectrum ranging from passive-aggressive to aggressive and can span from aloofness or cruel indifference, often leading to the silent treatment or annoyance severe outbursts, including verbal or physical abuse. Narcissistic rage generally happens after a narcissist receives a narcissistic injury or perceives that they are losing control over their target or a situation. On the milder end of the spectrum, this narcissistic rage can come across as though the narcissist is being immature, bratty, or having an adult temper tantrum. This rage can be terrifying on the more major end of the spectrum, and the abusers can quickly become violent or deadly.

Narcissistic Smirk

Narcissistic Supply

Narcissistic Supply

Narcissistic supply is a term used to describe what feeds a narcissist's ego. Narcissistic supply can be a person, a reaction, attention of any kind, money, power, social status, sex, or admiration.

It can be tough to walk away and say nothing when a person who has wronged you continues to harass and provoke you, but it's essential to realize that you can't set them straight and let them know how hurtful they are will only feed their ego.

New Supply

No Contact

No contact means cutting off all contact with a narcissist and not responding to them if they try to reopen communication. For many people, going no-contact also means avoiding the narcissist on social media. This may mean blocking them on Facebook or Instagram or creating new accounts under a fake name to avoid their messages. Going no contact may also involve cutting off contact with the narcissist friends and family—especially those trying to get information about what's going on or pushing the target back into the relationship.

Going no contact is often the best way to set yourself free from a narcissist because the odds are that they will continue to abuse and use you as long as you let them have access to your life. The only way to get them to leave you alone is to cut off their supply of attention that they get from provoking a reaction in you. When a person goes no contact with a narcissist, they may find they also need to go no contact with a handful of other people or the flying monkeys. Those who seek information from them or seek to abuse, harass, and be rude and hurtful about their relationship should go no contact. This is because these flying monkeys have been manipulated into thinking the narcissist is the victim and that their target is the manipulative one.

While no contact is seen as the ideal for most people and what many abuse targets are encouraged to do, this approach may not always be doable or safe. The target may need to formulate a safety plan of escape so that the narcissist doesn't become enraged once they realize that they are losing control over their target and the situation.

Parental Alientation Syndrome

Parental Alientation Syndrome

Parent Alienation Syndrom (PAS) was coined by Richard A. Gardner in the early 1980s. Parent Alienation Syndrome describes a significant adverse change in a child’s behavior toward one parent without justification. The child becomes belittling and emotionally withdrawn to the point where they don’t want to spend time with that parent. Occasionally it can extend to not wanting to spend time with that parent’s family. PAS can be caused intentionally by telling a child negative things about the other parent or unintentionally by a child hearing or overhearing one parent talking about the other parent in a negative light.

It is important to note that sometimes a parent does need to be alienated and that contact does need to end for the child’s safety. This would be if the parent is dangerous and if the child is at risk of harm. If this is your situation, talk to an attorney and a therapist well-versed in abusive and manipulative people and PAS about handling reducing contact with a destructive or dangerous parent.

Reactive Abuse

Reactive abuse is when a target of abuse reacts abusively to an abusive person. A target often puts up with a lot of abusive behavior because they either can’t escape it or because they’ve been conditioned through stonewalling, silent treatment, threats, or more abuse to put up with it. When a person reacts abusively to abuse, they often do so because they’ve reached their breaking point and lash out due to pent-up frustration and anger at being an emotional or physical punching bag. Once the target does react abusively, the original abusive partner will portray themselves as the victim of their target, exclaiming how abusive, crazy, or unhinged the target is. Reactive abuse is a delayed self-defense response. It is often extreme and is often disproportional to the current situation. It’s the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. A person can become reactive in ways that are immediately aggressive, or they may begin to plot a way to hurt the abuser to settle the score. Reactive abuse is also one of a narcissist’s favorite weapons against their target. They will push their target’s buttons in ways that would take any sane person to their breaking point. Once their target does explode, they’ll sit back and exclaim how unhinged, abusive, or crazy their target is.

Reverse Projection

Reverse Projection

Reverse projection refers to the distorted way targets of abuse tend to see their abuser. The psychological term projection refers to a person projecting all of their uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, or actions onto another who doesn’t think, feel, or act that way. Reverse projection is when targets project all of their good thoughts, feelings, and actions onto another who doesn’t think, feel, or act this way.

Smear Campaign

A smear campaign is an unwarranted attack on the target’s reputation, character, and intent by making false accusations that others often believe. Narcissists are notorious for launching smear campaigns after ending a relationship, regardless of who ends the relationship. It’s their way of maintaining their public image, gathering the attention and sympathy from their enablers, and trying to destroy their target all at the same time. It’s also how their level of denial and lack of self-awareness about their behavior shows itself, as a smear campaign lets others know that they are not the problem.

Trauma Bonding

Trauma bonding refers to the strong emotional attachment or bond between an abused person and their abuser, formed due to the trauma of the bad times followed by the relief of the good times that a person often experiences during the cycle of abuse. A target will often try to walk on eggshells to avoid the abuse, get the good times back, and keep the relationship going as smoothly as possible.

Because abusive people are generally not actively abusive one-hundred percent of the time, the target clings to the moments of the narcissist’s good behavior as proof that everything will be okay and that the relationship can work.

The target attempts to cope with all the abusive behavior and ease all the cognitive dissonance they are experiencing to shift their thinking from “me” to “we.” This way, the abuse isn’t something that happens to them alone. Instead, it is a shared experience with their partner. It is an ordeal they survive together. The target feels they are going through so much together. Instead, they are being put through so much by this person. Manipulations and lies often feed this new mindset by the narcissist, who may claim that “going through so much” is what relationships are all about or that people in real relationships stay together no matter what. When this mindset shift is made, a bond forms between the narcissist and their target. Now there are three elements in the relationship: the abuser, the target, and the abusive or exploitative behavior. The problem is that there is no third element; the abusive person and their actions are one and the same.

Triangulation

Triangulation happens when some form of drama or chaos is created between three people. Triangulation can occur in several ways, but perhaps the most common is when a narcissist turns two other people against each other while putting themselves in the middle. The narcissist may also align themselves with one of the people, creating an “us against you” situation.

A narcissist generally triangulates others for three main reasons:

To escape being accountable for their behavior.

Because watching others fight over them or get caught up in the drama they have created feels smug and superior.

Simply because it’s fun for them to watch this chaos unfold.

Trigger

A trigger is a sight, smell, sound, word, touch, taste, place, or person that sets off an emotional flashback to an event. Flashbacks can relate to a positive or negative event. The trigger is often not seen by others. A trigger can be as seemingly harmless as the smell of baking bread or daisies blowing in the wind. A trigger can be more obvious, such as the home in which the abuse took place, seeing the same type of alcohol on the shelf that their abuser drank, seeing the same kind of car that they drove, meeting someone who has the same name or hearing a particular sound such as a loud noise, or “their” song.