Tag Archives: narcissistic abuse

I think Melania Trump is an abused woman.

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I think Melania Trump is showing signs of PTSD.  Watch the way she flinches and looks uncomfortable when her husband passes her and touches her arm, before she starts to recite the Lord’s Prayer at the Trump rally in Florida last week.  Also watch the smug expression on her husband’s face after he passes her.

Melania has admitted she hates the position of being First Lady (because she is apparently an introverted, shy person — and English is not her first language), but I wonder if there is something more going on than just natural reticence and a dislike of being in the public eye.     I find it strange that she has rarely been seen in public with Donald, and seems to prefer to remain in New York with Barron, meeting up with her husband only rarely.   Whenever she is with him, she looks miserable and scared, and her smile is VERY fake.   When he does touch her, she always seems to stiffen, if not outright flinch.  She seems either disgusted by, or afraid of him, and possibly both.

There is also this video of Trump and Melania attending a worship service.   Melania is either moved by the song (which is very spiritual) or is just feeling sad and miserable, and toward the end she is wiping away tears, but Donald just sits there, with his arms folded, not offering her a hand on the shoulder or a hug or even a word of comfort.   He never shows any affection or love toward his wife, and appears to treat her like an object or a prop, just like the extreme narcissist he is.

Most of us also remember that viral video of Melania’s reaction to SOMETHING Trump apparently said to her during the inauguration proceedings (he smile disappears and face falls as if he just broke her soul).  This video also shows other evidence of Trump’s and Melania’s body language, that seems to indicate to me she is being abused.

Donald seems to ignore her or walk in front of her whenever they are in public, as if he’s ashamed to be seen with her or just oblivious to her presence.   During his inauguration, he just walked ahead of her, and Obama and Michelle had to lead Melania up the steps instead.   In contrast, Obama always acknowledges his own wife’s presence and seems to treat her respectfully and affectionately when they are together in public.

Some cynics criticize her for being a gold digger and says she got what she deserved.  Personally, I don’t care why she might have married him.   Maybe it was for his money, or maybe she really did love him, or maybe she’s a codependent type of person who is attracted to narcissistic men.   Donald probably lied to her  and swept her off her feet, the same way he is lying to an entire nation and appears to have swept at least some of his supporters off their feet.  I feel sorry for Melania. I think she is a quiet, sensitive person who is being slowly destroyed by this man. She’s smart to stay behind in New York with Barron.   She needs to leave him.  He may not be physically abusive of her (though the flinching makes me suspect he probably is) but he is clearly at least emotionally abusive and she seems miserable.  Melania Trump is literally a prisoner in a gilded cage.

This post is just my opinion.  I have no proof that he is abusing her, but I think there’s a good case to be made that he is.

Is Donald Trump Abusing His Wife Melania?

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What we’re all thinking.  That poor woman looks terrified whenever she’s with him.   She probably has C-PTSD.

When and How do Victims Develop Narcissistic Patterns of Behaviour

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I found another very informative video from Richard Grannon.  Here he talks about the ways C-PTSD, NPD, and BPD inter-relate and can even resemble each other, and why victims of narcissistic abuse can adopt narcissistic traits or even full-blown NPD.

This is definitely a confusing field and sometimes it’s hard to tell the real victims from the real narcissists.   There are a few things here I didn’t know.    Maybe the only people immune from developing narcissism are people who were never traumatized by a narcissist or a borderline — which means you might have to live in a bubble..

 

The 5 stages of narcissistic abuse recovery.

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I went No Contact with my sociopathic NPD/ASPD ex in February, 2014 — almost three years ago. Enough time has elapsed that I’ve seen that there are several stages one goes through on the way to recovery and healing. There does seem to be a clear pattern that I’ve seen in both myself and in others. The order of these stages never varies, though the circumstances may vary. Unfortunately, many people get “stuck” at a particular stage and can’t seem to move to the next one.

1.  Numbness/codependency.
A person at this stage is still living with or involved with their abuser(s). They are in a state not unlike a victim of brainwashing or an active cult member. They have been led to believe (through the manipulations of the abuser — gaslighting, projection, isolation, and all the rest) that they are worthless, crazy, stupid, and the one at fault for all that has gone wrong. They question their own sanity because they have been told by the abuser that everything they believe is not true. They may even identify with their abuser (codependency) or look to them as their only reason for living. At this stage, they will do anything for the abuser, and can’t figure out why they feel so depressed and why their lives (and possibly even their health) is falling apart and everyone seems to have turned against them, sometimes even their own families.  They blame themselves, and have no idea that this is something being done to them by their abuser. A person at this stage may have shut off their ability to feel any emotions, and tell themselves (and may even believe) that this is normal.  Suicide is a real possibility.

2. Righteous anger and No Contact.
If an abuse victim is lucky, they will reach a point where they realize they have been abused, and that they are not the one at fault. Usually, this leads to righteous anger, and the victim may begin to express this. Because you can’t reason with an abuser, and they will not tolerate your honing in on the truth, in most cases the victim will realize they need to break away from the abuser. The anger the victim feels overrides the fear, depression, and numbness they felt previously, and gives them the motivation to do what they need to do to get away. In some cases, such as when there are children, going No Contact may be more complicated and it may be only possible to go very low contact.

The rage the victim feels may remain for a time (some longer than others). This is the stage that many narcissistic abuse bloggers are at when they begin to write about what happened to them. While unremitting rage will eventually poison the soul if the danger has passed and it has nowhere left to go, it’s still a lot healthier than remaining stuck in an abusive relationship and slowly dying a soul-death.

Unfortunately, many survivors seem to remain stuck at this stage. It almost seems as if the anger becomes a sort of addiction.  But I won’t write about that here;  I have other posts about that.

3. Asking questions, seeking answers.
At some point (for most people), the rage (which served its purpose) burns itself out. Some survivors grow weary of the unremitting hatred toward the personality-disordered and seek to understand the behaviors of those who caused them so much pain instead, while still remaining No Contact with abusers. They may spend time reading about the disorders of their abusers, and otherwise educating themselves. In time, this gives them a more balanced perspective, while they still acknowledge how dangerous such people can be. During this time, the survivor also learns how to navigate the world and relationships with better boundaries, practice being mindful, and also is better able to detect red flags to avoid being abused again (this may have begun during Stage 2).

4.  Looking inward, self awareness.
It’s not until a survivor can forgive their abusers (while never forgetting the harm they caused) that the healing can truly begin. Survivors continue to practice having good (or at least better) boundaries, and practice being mindful.

At the same time they may begin to look inside themselves to see what their own role(s) might have been in the abuse they endured. They may realize they tend to be codependent, or didn’t set good boundaries (usually because they were never trained to have good boundaries by their own abusive parents) or in some cases, may even be personality-disordered themselves (this kind of self-awareness can come as a huge shock but isn’t possible as long as a person is stuck in anger and hatred).

Though the survivor might have played some role in the abuse they endured, this doesn’t mean what happened was their fault or that they could have stopped it. The self-defeating behaviors and/or codependency that led to a person becoming a victim are almost always unconscious and programmed into the person during early childhood by abusive parents.

It’s during this stage that a survivor will often decide to enter therapy or some other type of psychological or spiritual counseling (this can happen as early as Stage 3).

5.  Coming together.
This last stage is when an abuse survivor begins to put all the pieces together, begins to understand the complicated dynamics between abusers and victims, and in some cases, becomes able to to use their own experience to consciously help others heal, even seeing what happened to them as a kind of blessing.   It’s at this stage that real freedom and happiness can finally be achieved  because the person has developed a sufficiently strong sense of self that is no longer attracted to (or attractive to) abusers.

I believe I’m somewhere between stages 4 and 5, though I have frequent relapses.  Remember: relapse is part of recovery!  Don’t beat yourself up.

5 Howling Wildernesses

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This post has haunted me for months and I was thinking about it again today. Enter the inside of a malignant narcissist’s mind — a vast and bleak howling wilderness — if you dare. This is one of my favorite posts by HG Tudor, who is a brilliant and poetic writer.

HG Tudor's avatarHG Tudor - Knowing The Narcissist - The World's No.1 Resource About Narcissism

Five reasons it cannot work

1. Nothing about the golden period is real

It feels like every day is summer doesn’t it? Warm and wonderful. No rain clouds anywhere, just a cornflower blue sky. Not a cloud to be had. Everything is fantastic. We do everything together. We match on every conceivable level. I like what you like. We laugh at the same things. We enjoy the same books and films. I know what you are about to say. We like to cook together, try new wines and explore interesting places. Whether it is forest or foam, city or village we both enjoy going to these places and do so together. We are soulmates. I do not want anyone but you. You have finally met the person that you have wanted all of your life. You still cannot believe how lucky you are to have found someone like me, someone…

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Guest Post: Recovering from NPD: My Journey to Self-Awareness

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A very insightful and courageous post written by a woman who once identified only as a narcissistic abuse survivor with a case of “fleas” who later discovered she had NPD herself.  She started a blog and is working hard to change and find real happiness.

The Truth In The Lie Of Narcissistic Love

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This brilliant post ponders on the question all of us who have ever been in a narcissistic relationship (or had narcissistic parents) have asked: can a narcissist feel love? This deeply personal post says yes, they can. But they have no idea how to express their love in appropriate ways because everything, especially loving someone, hurts too much. So they hurt the one they love instead so they don’t have to feel all that pain.

You can’t reason with them or plead with them to stop doing what they do, though. Attacking you isn’t something they can control — it’s an automatic reaction, almost like a reflex. Whether or not a narcissist is capable of FEELING love, they don’t know how to EXPRESS it in a loving way, so you’re better off not wasting your own love trying to make a relationship with one work. If you must love a narcissist, do it from a safe distance.

A trip to Oz (narcissistic abuse).

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Anyone who reads narcissism blogs has heard the term “flying monkey,” straight out the famous movie, The Wizard of Oz. But WOZ is important to narcissistic abuse survivors for much than just that. Tracy Malone takes us down the Yellow Brick Road and explains what we can all learn from the film’s iconic characters and their actions.

8 ways letting go of my “narc-hate” has changed me for the better.

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Back when I started this blog, I was a narc-hater. I think such an attitude is both justified and normal when you’re trying to go No Contact with an abuser. In fact, your rage gives you the courage and motivation to make your escape, because righteous anger overrides fear. Without that anger, you’d stay stuck in fear and codependency and that has an extremely high price, maybe even your life.

But too many abuse survivors (I prefer the term “survivor” to “victim”) can’t or won’t move on from the rage and hatred. Although that enables them to get to the point of going No Contact with their abusers, they seem to remain stuck in a victim mentality that keeps them from progressing or moving past the abuse in their minds, even though the narcissists are out of their lives.

Here are 8 good reasons why letting go of narc-hate has made my life better, and can make yours better too.

Not everyone is going to like this post, and I understand. It’s controversial to some people. But these things have been an important part of my recovery and without them, I’d still feel like a victim instead of a survivor!

1.  Education.  After I ditched the hate, I realized I wanted to learn the real facts about NPD. I found out that not all of them are evil or don’t want to change. I learned this mostly by reading forums for people with NPD and found they are just as human as anyone else, but have adopted certain defense mechanisms that cause them to project onto and act out toward others.

2. Looking inward.  Letting go of hatred made me able to look at myself and see my own narcissism (I was shocked to learn I had quite a few N traits of my own!) I am working on those now in therapy. I would not have been able to do this if I hung onto my “us versus them” mentality.

3. The victim mentality sucks.  I found out that by hanging onto rage, when it has nowhere left to go, you start to become paranoid and start finding narcissism in normal human behavior. You begin to suspect everyone of being a narcissist.   You even run the risk of becoming narcissistic yourself.   I’ve seen it happen too many times to people who had no idea it was happening to them.  That’s no way to live and a sure recipe for misery and continually feeling like a victim.

4. Pity removes their “teeth.”  I started to feel less like a victim. By realizing my abusers did what they did because they couldn’t help themselves, and not because they were inhuman, evil monsters, somehow that made them seem to have a lot less power over me. They began to seem sort of…pathetic. Which they are.

5. They can teach you about yourself. Slowly, I realized that although what they did to me was terrible, that they chose me as a target precisely for those qualities which are my strongest and which I want to reclaim (having tried to hide them due to shame) and develop even more: sensitivity, vulnerability, empathy, and the ability to love. Framed this way, narcissists can be very important teachers in our life’s journey. I’m beginning to realize just how valuable these lessons were. Whatever they seem to hate about you are those things you should work to develop and use even more. They hated you because you had strengths they envied and feared.

6. Strength.  Having grown up in a family full of narcissists, I had to become strong. I think I’m a lot stronger and think more deeply about human nature and life in general than I would have if I had been raised in a normal home.

7.  Shades of grey.   I found out that nothing is black or white. Everything is just shades of grey. Narcissists usually also have PTSD and adopted narcissistic defense mechanisms, and those of us who aren’t narcissists are still often on the spectrum somewhere. There’s a lot of overlap between the “victims” and the “abusers.” Often a person can be both.  Realizing this has made me more empathetic in general and less likely to see everything in terms of black and white.

8.  It’s better to be a survivor than a victim.  If I continued thinking of myself as a “poor victim” instead of someone who could actually learn something from the narcs, I would not have come so far in my recovery as I have.

6 stages of recovery.

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