Narcissists are adept at hiding abuse. And there’s a good reason for this.

While narcissists want to exploit and abuse, they don’t want to alienate people. They need others around them to hurt them and give them attention. So, they find clever ways to hide their abuse.

Hiding abuse allows narcissists to escalate it without alienating people. This is because people don’t realize they’re being abused. In fact, they may think the narcissist is trying to help them.

This allows narcissists to have the best of both worlds. They can exploit and abuse, while still keeping people around.

Here’s how narcissists hide abuse…
Tough Love

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Perhaps the most powerful way to hide abuse is “tough love.” Here, narcissists are cruel in the name of “help.”

Tough love allows narcissists to be hypercritical, harsh, and verbally abusive, under the guise of “toughness for the sake of kindness.”

Unfortunately, this is a trick. Narcissists don’t intend to help. Instead, they use tough love to justify verbal abuse.

Tough love allows narcissists to berate someone for being fat, stupid, useless, etc., while claiming they’re trying to help them improve.

Weatherstripped

Narcissists are known for treating casual acquaintances much better than their loved ones, allowing them to hide in the darkness of their pain.

Narcissists often gain a reputation for being helpful and kind. So, outsiders naturally assume they must be better to their loved ones.

This makes it difficult for people to believe that a narcissist could be abusive. They assume their loved ones are just exaggerating the problems of normal relationships.

Fake Anger

Narcissists may hide their abuse by waiting for you to do something that could be interpreted as immoral or disrespectful. Then they exaggerate your rebuke.

Narcissists may deliberately misinterpret what you said or did, or give it a negative spin to make it seem worse.

Related : 6 Things That Trigger a Narcissists Breakdown

Fake anger enables narcissists to abuse while pretending to be taking a moral high ground. They can direct their anger at someone else, using the excuse of standing up for what is right.

Unfortunately, this makes their victims feel responsible for the abuse they inflict. They feel sorry for the trouble they believe they’ve caused, allowing the narcissist to get away with it.

Many narcissists have exploited the COVID pandemic to fuel their false anger. They’ve become hyper vigilant toward those wearing masks and adhering to the rules. Not because they care, but because it gives them an excuse to direct their anger toward others.

Other narcissists have taken the opposite tack, berating people for not adhering to the rules, calling them “sheep,” and other derogatory names.

While these two approaches seem at opposite ends of the spectrum, they share one theme. Both have exploited the pandemic to hurt people. Which is exactly what they wanted to achieve.

Negative Emotions

Many narcissists hide their abuse by alternating between intense and cold emotions. They may treat people poorly for a period of time. But when they feel they’ve overstepped their bounds, they retreat and treat them well.

This causes confusion, because the victim is confronted with entirely different versions of the narcissist. They also largely forget the difficult times when the narcissist acted well, because it makes them feel more comfortable compared to their previous treatment.

This softens the blow of the suffering. It makes people more appreciative of even the simplest acts of care, which can be seen as countering all narcissistic abuse, even if it’s trivial.

Victimization

Covert narcissists mask their abuse by playing the victim. They may create a facade in which they appear as poor, oppressed victims, allowing them to hide from view.

People don’t suspect that poor victims are plotting evil, because there’s an assumption that victims must be good people; we naturally root for the weak.

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So, narcissists may financially abuse people by repeatedly borrowing money without paying it back. Then, they fabricate a sad story about their misery.

Or they may lash out at people for no reason. But they get away with it because they use their mental health issues as an excuse. They reverse the roles of victim and aggressor.

Some narcissists portray a bad or abusive childhood to justify their abusive behavior.

Playing the victim allows narcissists to assert themselves as the victim in every situation, even when they are the ones abusing or exploiting others. This allows them to evade accountability and continue their abuse unchecked.

Bad Advice

I don’t know about you, but I’ve received a lot of bad advice from narcissists. At the time, I thought they meant well, but they misunderstood my situation. Now, I realize they were deliberately trying to sabotage me.

Narcissists hate seeing people as better than them. So they drag people down, to feel better about themselves. Even their loved ones.

Bad advice enables narcissists to create the impression that they’re trying to help, when in reality, they’re sabotaging someone.

If a narcissist blatantly sabotages people, no one will survive. But because they portray it as a clumsy attempt to help, people forgive them and allow them to stay in their lives.

Reactive Abuse

Narcissists often mask their abuse by using “reactive abuse.” Here, they repeatedly annoy and upset others until they explode in anger.

Related : 7 Signs The Narcissist is Faking To Love You

Narcissists may use subtle insults or mention things they know you’re sensitive to. They then repeat these insults until you finally break.

When you react, instead of apologizing, the narcissist focuses on your reaction. They then blame that reaction, as if it were for no reason.

Narcissists ignore their provocations, giving the impression that you are the abuser, not them. This is what they are likely to bring up when you complain about their abusive tactics.

Mind Manipulation

Mind manipulation is when someone intentionally distorts another person’s sense of reality. They may deny what they said or did, tell people they’re being overly sensitive if they complain about abuse, or even intentionally hide things and then repeat them. This makes them think they’ve lost their minds.

Mind manipulation causes people to doubt their sanity, memory, and reality. This causes them to lose confidence in their own perceptions, making them rely on the narcissist’s biased version of events.

Psychological manipulation allows narcissists to present a false narrative, portraying themselves as good people despite their narcissistic behavior. However, they can get away with it if they can convince their victims not to trust their own perceptions.

Religion

Some narcissists use religion to conceal their abuse. For starters, religion allows them to hide in plain sight, as people assume they must be good if they are religious.

Religion also allows narcissists to castigate others if they don’t adhere to the religion literally. Therefore, they may adopt very strict interpretations of religion, giving them ample latitude to castigate others when they don’t comply.

Related : 8 Things You Can Not Do With a Narcissist

Narcissists are often hypocritical about religion. They hold others to much higher standards than they hold themselves to. This indicates that they are more interested in using religion to control others than actually practicing it.

Narcissists are often hypocritical about religion. They hold others to much higher standards than they hold themselves to. This shows that they are more concerned with using it to control others than actually practicing it.

Most narcissists exaggerate about religion. But when we observe their behavior, we often find dramatic inconsistencies.

Shaming

Narcissists often fear that their partner will reveal a secret after the relationship ends, because they lack sufficient control over them. To combat this, some smear their reputation to diminish their credibility.

Narcissists portray their ex-partner as crazy, unstable, or even abusive. They may project their abusive behavior onto their ex, hoping that revealing their behavior behind closed doors will make people stop believing them.

Some narcissists are so vigilant that they anticipate the collapse of the relationship. Therefore, they smear their partner’s reputation before the relationship ends, just in case.

They may contact people who claim to be concerned about their partner’s behavior or mental health, or report alleged misconduct, implying they can’t be trusted.

The sad thing is that shaming can lead people to disbelieve narcissists’ victims, which can exacerbate the psychological damage caused by their abuse.

Final Thoughts

Hiding abuse allows narcissists to treat people poorly while hiding in plain sight. This is arguably worse than blatant abuse because it keeps people around them longer.

Many say they weren’t aware of the extent of the abuse they suffered during their relationships with narcissists. They only realized it after the relationship ended.

This shows how effective narcissists are at concealing abuse. So don’t beat yourself up for accepting it. You had no idea the people close to you could be so cruel and manipulative.

Instead, be glad you survived. And if you haven’t survived yet, work on it. Because no matter how bad things seem now, they could actually be worse. But you may not fully realize how bad they are until you’re free.