Tired of being abused? Tired of being yelled at, criticized, and punched in the face all the time by the abuser? Have you reached the point where you say “enough is enough” and resist? But should you offend the abuser?

“No. Even narcissists and abusers are human beings. Furthermore, you should never stoop to their level. Simply forgive them and keep putting up with the abuse because you are an empath and that is what empaths do.” What a load of monkey shit.

If this is the kind of answer you’re expecting here, you’re in the wrong place. Self defense is a necessary and natural reaction. Going toe-to-toe with your abuser and giving them a taste of their own medicine may be exactly what you need to restore your dignity and self-esteem.

Beat the aggressor at their own game. Play their tricks again on them. Use their abusive strategies to abuse them. They deserve it and you know that better than me.

But… things may not always go as planned, and this is where the idea of mistreating an abuser gets complicated. And there may be good reason why people say walking away is the best thing you can do.

Should you offend the abuser?

Let me tell you a little story. I was in a relationship with someone who was abusive, manipulative, and exploitative, yet I kept believing he loved me. They continued to abuse me, and I remained blind to their abusive behaviour. This went on for years shattering my self esteem and confidence.

It pushed me deeper into stress, anxiety, and depression. I constantly doubted myself. I wondered what I did wrong. I wondered what I did to deserve this. I walked on eggshells the whole time. And it broke me from the inside.

Then one day I realized I had had enough. So I resisted. I did exactly what my abuser did. I used the exact same terminology, the same phrases, the same strategies, and the same tactics to break it. They tried to play the victim and tried to see me as an abuser in the relationship.

But I could see clearly through their drama and nonsense. I wasn’t going to fall for it. I will not stop. I would break them from the inside, as if they broke me, and nothing would stop me. My only motto in life was – “I mistreat my abuser.”

So I became more aggressive, more manipulative and more abusive. It’s not that they stopped offending me, but that I offended them at once. This went on for weeks and I didn’t back down because I knew deep in my heart that they were worth it. I finally started beating them at their own game. Or so I thought.

Abuse is abuse

In psychology, when you resist abuse, it is called reactive abuse or reactionary abuse. It is a form of manipulation and gaslighting in which an individual intentionally provokes another person into an aggressive response. When you are constantly facing violent abuse, it is natural to lash out at your abuser and react negatively to them.

However, when you start to react, the abuser will retaliate against you by pretending to be the victim. This is why interactive abuse can be threatening and often dangerous.

While you may think that offending the abuser will enable you to rewrite the story, this will actually make things worse for you. Although each person’s individual experiences can be different, the end result is often the same. For me, my strategy for dealing with my abuser was to change my personality.

From interactive abuse, it was turning into mutual abuse. I was enjoying the whole game of abusing my partner. And the process turned me into a sadistic, abusive narcissist, something I set out to eliminate from my life.

Yes, I took revenge. I felt better. I felt more powerful. More control…in my head. But in fact, I was more vengeful, intoxicated and negative. The relationship dynamic had definitely changed — I was the abuser now, and my narcissistic partner was pretending to be a victim of abuse. But the power dynamic in the relationship never changed.

My narcissist was still controlling me. They were still manipulating me, my reactions, my behavior and my mind. I thought I was fighting back, but I was just letting my abuser control me better.

To make matters worse, I felt terrible as a human being that I had become something I am not by nature — mean, vindictive and abusive. I have never been a narcissist. I have never been so abusive. But still, I am here now. And no matter what name you call it, abuse is abuse.

Should you offend the abuser then?

While you should definitely fight abuse, set strong boundaries, and stand your ground, you should never abuse an abuser. Trust me, it’s not something you want no matter how angry you feel right now. No matter how hard you try, deep down you are not an aggressor.

You are a caring, loving, and empathetic person who just wants to give and receive love. And no matter how hard you try to change a narcissist or how desperately you want to teach them a lesson, deep down in their hearts, they are abusive.

When it comes to drama, manipulation, and abuse, they have more experience than you. They have more strategies and tactics and a lot of drills. They have been abusing others their entire lives. you did not. You are not the abuser. You are only fighting for your pride and your peace. The narcissist is more motivated to break you than to break you down. No matter what you throw at them, they’ll have some move up their sleeve to contend with it.

In fact, by choosing to mistreat the abuser, you will end up angering the narcissist even more, and eventually, they will retaliate with more aggressiveness and toxicity. that happened to me. In the end, I lost the battle. I wasn’t the best aggressor. I just didn’t have it. And I had to pay dearly for it. I ended up being a worse person than I used to be. So I moved away.

Narcissists don’t feel the emotions we do. When you abuse them, they don’t feel broken like we do. Do not break their hearts. It does not break their self-esteem. They will not react to your abuse the way you do to theirs. They simply don’t care. Instead, they focus on how they can use this situation for themselves and against you. The whole “abuse abuser” idea just doesn’t work.

Does this mean you should not resist?

Of course, you should. Fight as hard as you can. Stand your ground. Don’t give in to their abuse. But as I said earlier, retaliation and abuse are not the same things. When you resist and protest all the abuse you have faced, you are refusing to accept toxicity. You set boundaries to tell them what is acceptable to you and what is not. But when you offend the abuser, you become the abuser. That’s it.

While it may seem fantastic in your mind that when the abused becomes the abuser and the abuser becomes the abused, it can change the power dynamic; In fact, it doesn’t have to be done that way. The narcissist always has power as long as you are influenced by his behavior. The only way to get the energy back is to detach and walk away.

All your efforts to restore self-esteem and self-esteem are a fun game for the narcissist. They will allow you to abuse them until it is beneficial to them. They love to see you explode, lose control and go crazy. Your tantrums are fuel for them to play the victim.

What you don’t realize is that all the abuse you give them, they will come back to bite you in the ass. They won’t get angry, they won’t yell, they won’t hit you physically, but they will break you while remaining ever calmer.

And I learned this the hard way. Do not offend the abuser. But don’t stand your ground. Practice self-defense. Do not refuse to give in to their demands. Don’t refuse to be manipulated or change your opinions. But do not offend the aggressor.

Related: MY CLOSURE from a Narcissist

How can you truly hurt a narcissist?

If the abuse of the abuser doesn’t work, what do you do? How can you defeat a narcissist if you don’t offend the abuser? So how do we fight the aggressor? by walking away. Simply. If you want to hurt your narcissist, inflict some serious pain and make her cry uncontrollably, walk away from the relationship.

The most effective way to get revenge on a narcissistic abuser is to simply get out of your relationship and never look back, suggests therapist and author Elinor Greenberg, PhD, CGP.

If you plan to abuse a narcissist, they will simply walk away from the relationship. An abusive narcissist needs you to supply their narcissism. They need you to be dependent on others. They need you so that they can offend you. They need you to constantly shower them with positive attention or admiration.

Should you offend the abuser?

Abuse is abuse

Should you offend the abuser then?

Does this mean you should not resist?

How can you truly hurt a narcissist?

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