As an author who writes for survivors of abuse, I’ve connected with thousands of people who have been affected by malignant narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths as partners, friends, family members, co-workers, or even bosses. Throughout my work, I have noticed a common theme: societal invalidation and the spotlight on survivors.
This type of secondary gaslighting and invalidation is incredibly painful, especially when it comes from professionals, friends, and family members who aim to help support the survivor on their healing journey. Not only does secondary gaslighting from other people isolate the survivor, it actually hinders the healing process. I can’t tell you the number of times a survivor has reached out to me to tell me about the traumatic effects of being invalidated by a friend, family member, spiritual leader, or even therapist who doled out ill-considered information, sometimes even blaming the victim. ideas.
This also contributes to a global impact where speaking out about abuse by covert manipulators is met with a form of backlash, victim blaming, and victim shaming from both enablers of abusers and the abusers themselves. Survivor Ariel Lev explains that this secondary form of gaslighting is incredibly painful for survivors. As she says, “It wasn’t just that my reality was canceled out, but that my perception of reality was changed… It wasn’t the loudest, scariest explosions that caused the most damage. It wasn’t the physical violence, the verbal abuse, the lack of boundaries, the inappropriate behavior. The real damage was done by denying that these incidents occurred… erasing the abuse was worse than the abuse.”
How have we harmed survivors? How do we help them?
I want to preface this by saying that there are many excellent therapists, life coaches, writers, and advocates who are very knowledgeable about the effects of being with a highly manipulative narcissist. Unfortunately, there are also professionals and everyday people who unwittingly re-traumatize survivors due to a lack of knowledge about how covert manipulation tactics work – as well as the effects of this type of trauma. Some survivors are misdiagnosed by therapists when in fact they suffer from PTSD or complex PTSD from years of chronic abuse.
It is important to learn appropriate ways to communicate with survivors of malignant narcissists, those who lack empathy, who exploit others for their own gain, who chronically abuse others, and who lack remorse and conscience for their actions.
Here are common mistakes people make when communicating with survivors of this type of insidious violence:
1) Treating the abuse as a matter of conformity, a “bad breakup” or minimizing the pathological behavior of the abuser by equating it with the behavior of the jerk variety.
What we need to understand as a society is that malignant narcissism is not an everyday problem. While narcissism does exist on a large scale, many survivors who suffer from the trauma of emotional abuse have encountered individuals at the extreme end of the spectrum. They encountered predatory individuals who systematically stripped them of their self-worth and confidence. Victims of malignant narcissists often experience emotional, psychological, spiritual, financial, and sometimes sexual or physical abuse.
A malignant narcissist has characteristics that go beyond selfishness, selfishness, or arrogance. They have antisocial traits such as lack of remorse, failure to conform to social norms, impulsivity, aggression, and lack of conscience. This is a person who can engage in inhuman brutalities and acts of psychological and physical violence just in order to satisfy his needs.
“I have done research and worked in this area of domestic violence or also called intimate partner violence, and most people who commit domestic violence are either narcissists or psychopaths. So there is a risk there,” says Dr. Ramani Durvasula (2018), an expert on relationship abuse. In other words, they will get rid of you if you get in their way.
A narcissistic abuser or sociopath is not just a cheater, player, or difficult individual and you cannot treat him as such. They tend to be abusive, manipulative, deceitful, and chronically cruel in their mind games. It can even escalate into horrific acts of violence.
When they do not want or do not respond to treatment, a malignant narcissist is someone with persistent behavioral patterns that cause irreparable harm to others.
Whether you are a therapist, advocate, part of law enforcement, or a family member or friend of a survivor, be careful not to offer advice or counseling that may apply to the garden variety toxic people. For example, sometimes direct communication or assertiveness may make the aggressor angry or give him information that these manipulators can use as ammunition. Survivors will need strategies tailored to the dangerous aspects of getting out of a relationship like this.
The same advice you would give to someone dealing with an empath does not apply to someone with low empathy who is intentionally and sadistically causing harm.
2) Interrupting key features of the healing process by trying to heal the survivor quickly.
While every healing journey is unique, the journeys of narcissistic abuse survivors have many similarities across the board because the same manipulation techniques are used. A survivor of habitual gaslighting by an abuser experiences the severe effects of cognitive dissonance. They are trying to reconcile the false image of their abuser that initially associated them with the cruel and cold true self of the abuser.
As a result, survivors tend to ruminate on incidents of abuse as well as the initial love bombardment they received from their abusers. Confused bystanders (counselors, friends, family members) may assume that the survivor is stuck or unable to move forward because they ruminate on incidents of abuse.
What they fail to understand is that rumination and over-analysis are effects of the trauma they have experienced.
Survivors of any form of abuse always try to scrutinize the thoughts, feelings, and memories that caused them this cognitive dissonance. This is why they tend to tell their stories over and over again because they are trying to provide a coherent account of the trauma they have just experienced.
This narrative allows them to overcome the dissonance and cognitive dissociation (including dissociation between thoughts, memories, and emotions) they experienced as a result of the abuse. As Andrea Schneider, LCSW (2014) writes, “Cognitive dissonance is prevalent and reduced when the survivor of narcissistic abuse is able to obtain validation and confirmation of the reality of his or her circumstances.”
Interrupting the rumination process in a judgmental and invalidating way is especially harmful to survivors who are just trying to figure out what happened to them. While you can certainly offer advice about healthy alternatives to over-rumination, do not judge rumination as a flaw or flaw on the part of the survivor. It’s a natural part of the healing journey. A healthy way to interrupt rumination may be to ask what survivors can do to better reconnect with the reality of their abuse and guide them to reconcile their cognitive dissonance by acknowledging the disruptive nature or tactics of the abuser. This will help reduce the effect of gaslight.
3) Holding the victim responsible for the actions of the attacker and not realizing the impact of the trauma bond.
I realize that mental health professionals may only treat the victim, so some feel they cannot “talk” about the actions of the abuser. Some law enforcement officials may be confused as to why the victim does not “press charges” or even defend the attacker. Friends and family members may also be reluctant to “judge” a situation in which they are not closely involved. However, aside from guiding the survivor to leave the abuser safely, too much focus on what the victim should do in the early stages of assault recovery can be harmful.
Asking the victim to constantly “look inward” in the first weeks of recovery can go beyond blaming the victim. Therapists, law enforcement officials, and loved ones must acknowledge the effects of the trauma bond that survivors develop with their abuser throughout the relationship. This is the bond created by the intense emotional experiences in the cycle of abuse. Providing survivors with tips and tools to gradually break what Dr. Patrick Carnes calls the “betrayal bond” is essential to their recovery journey.
Victims of malignant narcissists have heard many different statements that hurt the victim, such as the following, even at the beginning of their recovery journey:
“You should let it go.”
“You need to move on.”
“You may be codependent.”
“Let’s talk about you, not him.”
“Why did you stay for so long? Let’s find out.”
These statements may come from a place of wanting the survivor to own their agency. However, when said in the early stages of recovery, they can re-traumatize the survivor. The survivor at this stage is usually very traumatized towards their attackers. This means that regardless of any co-dependent traits (which may not apply to them at all), they have bonded with the abuser in the cycle of abuse in an attempt to survive the abuse.
This trauma bond is strong and requires attention. This was no ordinary breakup. The survivor at this stage has experienced a great deal of gaslighting and needs to come to terms with what their abuser did to them before they can move to actions that effectively support their healing. They need to connect with the vocabulary of the abuse they experienced. For this reason, they need to talk about their abuser first — to determine the tactics used and the effects of those tactics — before even trying to move forward in any concrete way.
4) The mistaken belief that the attacker has good intentions and reporting this to the survivor.
Narcissistic abusers or sociopaths tend to be very charming and can attract, deceive and manipulate even the most skilled professionals. Just ask Dr. Robert Hare, creator of the Psychopathy Checklist, who admits he still gets scammed despite his experience!
I’ve heard many horror stories about what happens when survivors of narcissists enter couples therapy with their abusers. The National Domestic Violence Hotline actually advises against couples therapy because the abusive relationship suffers from a severe power imbalance. Being in the therapy room with the abuser is to give the abuser access to manipulate the therapist and increase the spotlight on the victim.
As the National Domestic Violence Hotline confirms:
“The main reason we do not recommend couples counseling is that abuse is not a problem in the relationship. Couples counseling may imply that both partners are contributing to the abusive behavior, when the choice to abuse falls solely on the abusive partner. Focusing on communication or other relationship issues is distracting Paying attention to, and in some cases may actually reinforce, abusive behavior. Additionally, the therapist may not be aware that abuse is occurring and inadvertently encourage the abuse to continue or escalate.
This is something to consider when talking about an abuser’s intentions, even if you are only providing one-on-one counseling. Trying to shift or take the focus away from the abusive behavior or misreading the “intentions” of the abuser can have the unintended effect of making the victim feel as if their reality is not worth acknowledging. For any friend or family member of a survivor, communicating that I don’t think this person meant to hurt you is not only harmful, it also tends to be false.
The abuser always has an agenda to control the victim. Their intentions are clear in this regard. The average person or garden variety toxic person who doesn’t realize it might be different. However, when it is clear that the survivor has been emotionally intimidated, there is absolutely no reason for anyone to doubt that the attacker’s intentions were to harm.
