Manipulative/narcissistic people can cause a great deal of trauma. If you’re in a relationship with a manipulator/narcissist, they may have traumatized you in ways you didn’t even realize. Read on to discover how a manipulator/narcissist can affect how you view yourself and the world around you.
(Note: I’m using “he” or “him” for most of the pronouns in this article, but women can also be manipulators/narcissists.)
They change your view of people being good in general. People tend to start in life with the view that people are good. If you experienced trauma in your childhood, such as abuse, this view of the world quickly changes. The people you were supposed to trust in your life didn’t protect you. If you reach adulthood with the view that people are basically good and then enter a relationship with a manipulator, your view of people being good in general may change. Here’s someone who told you they loved you, and then turned into a monster. This is someone who will drop the “mask” they were wearing, and what you saw underneath terrified you. You saw someone who not only had your best interests in mind but was the furthest thing from their mind.
They undermine your self-esteem. Part of the invasive pitches’ strategy is to make you believe that you are incapable of functioning without them. They will tell you that you are crazy, or that what you saw and heard “isn’t what happened.” By making you feel unstable, you begin to rely on the invasive pitches to give you the “correct” version of reality. This manipulation of the invasive pitches ensures that you will stay with them and continue to feed their narcissistic supply. You may begin to feel like you are perceiving things incorrectly. The invasive pitches will hide your stuff and tell you that you are irresponsible and untrustworthy. They will tell you that you are crazy, that they have told other people that you are crazy and that your friends and family think you are crazy. (See “Obsessed People Tell You That Others Think You’re Crazy Too.”)
They undermine your trust in others. Gaslighters manipulate their partners by telling them how great their exes are, or by telling them that they can have anyone they want. You start to distrust your friends, people you meet, and even strangers. Gaslighters “split”—they pit you against others, isolating you from the important people in your life. One common tactic is to tell you that your friend has been flirting with them and that if you don’t start treating the gaslighter with respect, they have other options. Telling you this makes you view your friends with suspicion. It even makes you view people you don’t know with suspicion. You might interpret a friendly person as flirting with the gaslighter because they told you how many people they want. People who are manipulative/narcissistic are also more likely to cheat, which further increases your distrust of others.
They hurt your relationships with friends and family. As you read above, emotional manipulators practice separation. This is a way to create a rift between you and your friends and family. It helps the manipulator isolate you so that you don’t “distract” from feeding their narcissistic supply. Manipulators will lie and tell you that your friends and family think you’re crazy. They will tell you the horrible things your friends and family supposedly said about you. They usually lie.
They make you never want to be in a relationship again. At the beginning of your relationship, the manipulator bombards you with love. He tells you how great you are, how he’s never felt this way before — all the things you love to hear from a potential partner. But once the manipulator knows you’re addicted, he starts to devalue you. The manipulator puts you on a pedestal at the beginning of your relationship, then pushes you away — a long way down. From this point on, the manipulator is telling you (and showing you) that he or she doesn’t think you’re good enough.
It can be difficult to want to get back into a relationship after being with an emotionally manipulative person. While it’s important to look for red flags, such as love bombing, looking for them can take over your dating experience.
They alienate your children. Many emotionally manipulative/narcissists see their children as extensions of themselves. They don’t differentiate between themselves and their children. They tend to have poor boundaries with their children. When their children start differentiating between them (saying “no” more often, for example), this is developmentally appropriate. However, emotionally manipulative people can’t handle this, because they demand 100% loyalty at all times. Saying “no” to an emotionally manipulative person can trigger narcissistic rage. The gaslighter will tell their children horrible (and untrue) things about the other parent, to get the child’s full attention, and also to “punish” the child for setting boundaries with the parent. (See “10 Tips for Raising Children Together with a Narcissist.”)
They make you forget who you are. You may have had a job you were passionate about and interests and hobbies that gave you a sense of accomplishment. However, the gaslighter belittles your interests and career because they see it as a threat to your ability to devote all of your attention to them. Gaslighters may also force you to quit your job and make you financially dependent on them. This is a form of abuse.
