Narcissists use a variety of techniques to abuse their victims in order to control them.
For this purpose of abuse – to control the other person. A narcissist may use emotional abuse, verbal abuse, mental abuse, or physical abuse.
Verbal and physical abuse are straightforward – they are verbal and physical aggression directed at another person.
Mental and emotional abuse are discussed as the same thing (often lumped together as “psychological abuse”) in many articles, but mental abuse is different from emotional abuse.
Mental abuse refers to the misuse of mental processes. Mental abuse is sometimes called “causing madness.”
For example, when a narcissist tries to make their partner feel “crazy” to cover up their guilt about something they want to hide.
If they are successful in making their partner feel irrational and overly emotional, they may also lead other people in the family or community to believe that their partner is unbalanced or “crazy” as well.
A narcissist may do this to gain sympathy while hiding their bad behavior.
Instead of taking responsibility for their failures, a mentally abusive person will try to shift the blame onto someone else.
What is emotional abuse?
Emotional abuse is a form of abuse that affects the victim’s emotions.
It is characterized by a person subjecting another person to behavior that may lead to psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression, low self-esteem, or post-traumatic stress disorder.
This abuse is often associated with situations of power imbalance such as abusive relationships, bullying, and workplace abuse.
Dominant behaviors are emotionally abusive (for example, withholding contact from family or jealous behaviors such as accusing a partner of maintaining other parallel relationships).
Another characteristic of emotional abuse includes causing fear through: intimidation, threatening physical harm to self, partner, children, or partner’s family or friends,
destroying pets and property, and forcing a person to isolate themselves from family, friends, school, or work.
Rejection, terror, isolation, spoiling/exploitation, and ignoring/silent treatment are also hallmarks of emotional abuse.
A narcissist responds to their partner’s emotions in inappropriate ways.
They may become angry when their partner is happy or may act happy (or ignore) when their partner is angry, depressed, or upset.
They may become aggressive and rude when their partner is feeling vulnerable, hurt, or sad.
Another form of emotional abuse occurs when narcissists use their emotions to try to impose their will on another person, for example,
insisting that their partner obey them because they are angry, or expecting them to drop everything and “cheer them up” if they are depressed, angry, sad, or upset.
Types of Emotionally Abusive Behavior
Here are all the behaviors a partner may experience from an emotionally abusive partner:
Blocking – withholding love, affection, empathy, and intimacy
Confronting – This is when a partner expresses an idea and the abuser immediately confronts that idea with their own perspective without really listening or thinking about it.
Devaluing – When the abuser belittles the importance of the partner’s opinions or ideas, telling the partner that these ideas are unimportant, incorrect, or stupid. The abuser may also belittle the partner’s memory of the abuse itself.
Related : Dealing With a Sadistic Narcissist – A Look Inside The Mind Of A Narcissist
Blocking and Diverting – When a partner wants to discuss something, the abuser changes the subject and prevents any discussion or resolution.
Accusing and Blaming – The abuser accuses the partner of some crime.
The abuser may know full well that the partner is innocent of the alleged crime,
but this tactic serves the purpose of putting the partner on the defensive rather than seeing the abuser’s behavior clearly.
Judging and Criticizing – This serves to undermine the partner’s self-esteem and increases their reliance on the abuser for validation.
Devaluing something that is important to the partner, such as worrying about something they did.
Undermining – When a partner wants to do something positive in their life,
The abuser feels threatened and tries to stop the partner. This may be overt, or it may be an attempt to subtly convince the partner why this is a bad idea.
Threatening – This can include threats of divorce, leaving, abuse, or other threats of actions that will hurt (not necessarily physically) the partner or someone the partner cares about.
Forgetting – This includes the abuser “forgetting” incidents of abuse, undermining the partner’s reality.
The abuser may also “forget” things that they know are very important to their partner.
The matter – treating a partner like a child or slave; denying the partner’s independence.
Denial – similar to ignoring, although the abuser here explicitly denies their actions. This diminishes the reality of the partner.
Abusive rage – when the abuser becomes so angry that it frightens the partner. This rage is often triggered by incidents that the non-abuser would consider unimportant.
Final Thoughts
No matter which form of narcissistic abuse a narcissist uses, they are all abusive.
Whether one describes what a narcissist does as verbal abuse, emotional abuse, mental abuse, physical abuse,
sexual abuse, or economic abuse – some or all of these tactics are used to belittle their partner in order to keep them under their control.
In fact, it is sometimes difficult to pinpoint which specific behaviors should be labeled.
How can you tell the difference between verbal abuse and emotional abuse when an abusive partner uses words to create emotional pain?
Labels don’t matter – not when you get to the bottom of the matter. When you are dealing with a narcissist, and you know that their behavior has led to an abusive relationship,
It doesn’t matter what each behavior is labeled.
What matters is that the narcissist is an abusive man or woman and that the abuse is hurting their partner.
Emotional abuse can be just as (if not more) damaging than physical abuse.
