Narcissistic Abuse Documentary

[Music] he was returning and very attentive very kind very willing to listen interested just charming we already knew each other for years we weren't like close friends but we got closer when I moved back to my birth country where I had originally met him and I was alone with a baby and he was there for me I mean emotionally he was very nice and helpful and we had really good talks at that time in the beginning my ex was the perfect woman the woman that I always dreamt about you know and every aspect she would

treat me like like my dreams you know perfect he wanted a lot of my attention now that would be a red flag but then it felt very flattering I was like wow he really likes me because he really wants to talk to me was spend a lot of time with me he wants to Skype even though I just saw him an hour ago but then it felt very flattering I wasn't used to being acknowledged in that way a month or two later we were living together she just made me feel really fantastic I don't know

it's like a drug or something we know how it is when you fall in love the first time this was something extra-special what changed was it's kind of hard to describe because it's so subtle just little things about me I don't explain this don't don't put your shoe shoes over there don't wear these pants don't lay on the bed like this though whatever yeah the abuse it it built up very gradually so you don't recognize it as abuse because he made it seem like there was just this argument or this discussion that we had to

get out of this problem we needed to solve together even though it was his created problem that I had nothing to do with it was ambiguous enough to believe that it wasn't really a thing maybe I was just being too sensitive you know but it started with ya digs at how I looked it was when we met friends he would say it will you talk I don't like the way you talk and it just gradually progressed to him you know taking me grabbing my throat and then denying it you know [Music] logistic abuse is simply

the sum total of all known ways to abuse other people it could be physical could be emotional could be verbal could be psychological could be financial could be legal narcissistic abuses impersonal precise devastating accurate it's it's like a cruise missile it hones in on the victim in and eradicate the victim annihilates the victim that's why narcissistic abuse subjectively speaking fails much much worse to any other traditional forms of abuse let me start to say that we all have some narcissistic tendencies only you have to have a lot of them to be called or diagnosed as

a narcissist the main thing is egos interesting and that's where you can put all the other behaviors around narcissism is not something you can see from the outside it doesn't discriminate and it could be my man or woman like a white hire low education the main thing is lack of love the acts out of fear so the big ego is constantly part of their daily life they always act from ego so arrogance and self-importance is a very common thing and if you always act from fear it means you are gonna be on top of everybody

else what they do you want to control and manipulate everything [Music] he was very charming and willing to hang out with me and spend time with me and spent a lot of attention on me like a bee he was very attentive where she really made me feel like this is our place is our little nest and you're my prince on the white horse and I'm gonna treat you like you've always wanted to be treated and I'll pamper you and all that stuff saw was the best thing that you can imagine in the beginning of the

relationship it will be all love love love love you are put on a pedestal and you really feel like you have met for real soul mates because they will chew into you in whatever you like they will look at this say so so if you like the color Reds in the beginning of the relationship they love the color X Indians you will find out the hatred but anyway so in the beginning they really act like your perfect perfect match but only as long as they think it's necessary to get some new so that's stage 4

depends on how long it detect them together into their power and control so you can say that it's gonna go well until you get married or until you will be pregnant or until you are at least within their control and they think you can't get out anymore so whatever way then it was tough things talked changed quite quickly after a couple of weeks I guess two three weeks the first signs started coming we would wouldn't go out as much anymore would you stay in the house I think it had to happen gradually or else it

would have been too noticeable and then I would have checked out earlier because it happened so slowly I I was taken for a loop really it started with him criticizing everything I did from me parenting my son to my work to the way I looked my friends even the way I organized the dishes I had to do it and exact the same way he did it otherwise he'd explode she would put me down quite a lot you know like you're not that grating musician because otherwise she would have made it already you know you try

to make this Indian dish but you know this is not the way in Indian dish it should be uh sure she would criticize most of my life actually you know new pants new haircut everything from how you talk to how you dress to the choices that you make to the people that you have with the TV that you watch the music that you listen to the you know the the way you look at people on the street he critiques everything in the beginning I used to go against it all Riley say that just you know

will not start a fight but just say no and getting my own space and stuff but at the more time progresses the more you think you well you know these are just some rules and there's something with her that makes her do this kind of thing I don't care where I put the shoes out petitions wherever I wanna wherever she wants me to put them and I didn't really feel anything about that anymore I just did it you know like yeah a puppy or something but when I would drive home I was thinking that she's

crossing some lines or something I thought something was wrong but I didn't exactly like abuse felt like such a strong word even when he became physical it still didn't feel real because he made it like his business didn't make me not believe my memories he was very very like you shouldn't believe your memories you should believe what I tell you you know so even when something happened to me I still didn't believe it happens to me the narcissist divides all people into two basic groups those who can provide him with no statistics apply on a

regular basis high-grade non statistics applied unmitigated unadulterated with criticism or disagreement or and those who cannot those who cannot are devalued and discarded those who can a groomed nurtured maintained until they no longer provide narcissistic supply in the end it's all about energy narcissists are feeling empty inside so they need other people its energy to fill them up and they tried to do that with getting emotions out of somebody else and it can be emotional love can be emotional fear it can be lots of different emotions but in the end there always try to manipulate

you to get something out of you some immersion [Music] when she abused me and make me feel mostly like it was all my fault that I did this to myself that she was there in my life for a reason and that reason was to change me because I I'm an [ __ ] and without her I would stay the [ __ ] unless I listen to her and and and behaved the way she told me to behave then I would be become a better person so it made me feel like well not worthless but like

I had to be grateful to her because she discovered those things in me that were not okay and she was there to change them for me as long as I listened to her the first thing that changed was my feeling I guess he had helped me after I moved back to the Netherlands and let me stay at his house for like two or three weeks until I had my own place and it was a hard time for me you know rebuilding my life from scratch being a single mom but he was taking credit for it

when we got into a relationship he was constantly saying like he made me it is even weird to repeat that knowing how hard I work to start up my new life here he was saying that I wouldn't have accomplished anything without him and would rub that into my face whenever there was an argument I was actually feeling quite proud of myself of how well I dealt with that situation because I came here into this country with nothing but it was like he wanted to take that pride away from me I had to be thankful which

of course I was but even thankful to him for the things I accomplished myself [Music] the abuse was detrimental to my self-esteem like if I have any when I entered the relationship I had none when I left it like honestly he annihilated any piece of self-esteem I still had left he made me feel very small and insecure and in the long term he make me lose my self-esteem and my self-worth and everything that was important to me it seemed to be gone after a while [Music] yeah she isolated me from everything and everybody I used

to have a lot of friends before I met her and I was always a very social person and in the time that we were together we didn't see anybody it was practically I'd lost well didn't lose all my friends I just didn't never talk to anybody anymore really absolutely nobody just just to my parents every once in a while he would say things to me like my friends weren't good enough my friends didn't have the best interest my friends they weren't real friends so he was constantly trying to say bad things about my life and

I was constantly defending my friends like no my my friends are not like that at all and especially as he stayed at my house for a very long time I was made to feel guilty every time I wanted to see somebody like I betrayed him or something and he never went out to see any friends for himself so whenever somebody came over he would put up a fight about it later he even threatened to kill one of my best friend's one he never even met in his life so in the end I felt so uncomfortable

that I didn't invite people over anymore I only saw his friends and his family but the thing is when you're inside of it it's not that black and white I knew my friends were good people but he made it seem like he saw something that I didn't about them and he wouldn't let it go he made it seem like he was helping me trying to see the truth about other people in the world because he loved me so much it was one big show of manipulation they don't try to break the bonds between anybody your

close connected to me so anybody you love to gain more power and control over you so they will destroy anything which gets in their way so your connection with your family might be sabotage you're free you will get into fights because of them which are friends they will try to do everything to destroy your social network another part of the isolation you're always used to live in the city she had this big thing about us be this perfect little family and so we should move it to the country buy a house and just be this

happy little family so I went with that I bought a house in the middle of the country I bought the house one weeks later she says I'm never gonna live here I'm gonna stay in the city you just stay here later our thoughts you know at the moment you don't realize them which is what the hell just happened my never thought we were gonna have this life together later I found out this is also an isolation technique or something she just wanted me to have nothing to do with any other people so I live in

the middle of nowhere with no neighbors nothing well if some day was but you know what I mean it's a big difference to the city so but mostly in all those years I had no contact with anybody if and if somebody if people would call me friends or something I was just not react it is about them waiting for you to be so invested and be so trusting and be so loving in you are already head over use with them and then they show you who they are they show you the monster when they know

they have you that's why mine wanted me to live with him that's why mine wanted to claim me so that I couldn't go anywhere the moment he showed me his true self he wanted total control over my life he wanted to control over the things I did the people I saw but also he wanted control over the way I was thinking so when I would have my own opinion about something or if I would disagree with him but thing he would keep me hostage and wouldn't let me go and I'm talking hours and hours he

wouldn't let me go until I agreed with him and the funny thing is sometimes it felt like brainwashing in in the end after many many hours of him having having him scream at me and making his own statements clear I felt like yeah well maybe he is right even though I knew like this this doesn't make sense he made that the weirdest things sound good and then when he would be gone and I would come back into my own energy I felt like why why did I believe him so why do we experience that psychopaths

want absolute control of people in their environment and often also just one person in their environment it is because they are really damaged little children who have not received in many cases the attention they needed to be able to develop themselves and then it becomes an obsession for them to control somebody so that they do the exact thing that they think they need to fulfill their need I mistook this control for love because I could see him make an effort and I could see him always coming back and I wasn't used to that and so

I thought well he must really care about me but I didn't see that it had nothing to do with love it had everything to do with him controlling me and seeing me as his like he owned me many victims believe that the person they are dealing with whether it be a psychopath or a narcissist or both that he or she loves them whereas what the experience is the show with a very convincing show they are seeing the convincing mask and perfection mask most people when they hear the term psychopath think the psychopaths are these serial

killers this cases exists but they are very rare most Psychopaths never go to jail they just walk among us in society if you walk on the street and you pass 20 people statistically you have encountered one psychopaths they meet you in a state in which you can't function to your to the best of your abilities be it physically like for instance my mum kept me physically weak by you know medicating me herself and my ex kept me mentally weak by making me doubt all my decisions making me doubt everything I stood for so they need

you weak in in some department and dependent on them for even your most basic needs some narcissists do it by keeping you financially dependent even you know making sure he can't go anywhere making sure you have to live with them and in the new city where you don't know anyone where you can't find a job so they can control your behavior so they need you in a weakened state to have influence a majority of people who suffer from narcissistic personality disorder are also psychopaths because they have no functioning conscience [Music] do you have tempera so

she could change like this within a second that we become really aggressive and blame me for whatever she could find at the moment during this relationship I became very much alert I was always walking on eggshells because we could be at the beach for instance and having a really great time and all of a sudden he could throw a bomb at me like what are you thinking about you're thinking something negative about me aren't you and yeah it was usually things like that that all of a sudden I had to defend myself for something I

did not do so everything I did became a potential source of anger the way I put down a plate for dinner if I didn't put down a plate right then that would be a reason for him to get angry even thus I would be enough to do to stir fight it didn't end with me saying no no I I wasn't thinking that it's because he wouldn't stop until I would acknowledge like yes indeed you're right I was thinking something negative about you we would have to go out to get groceries for instance we would have

to go out on the street every once in a while and as soon as there would be any woman in the neighborhood in a 100 meter radius of me she would go off like that you know why are you looking at that [ __ ] and you know you're just following your take and you know that she would hit me with work she wasn't aggressive in there and that she would physically harm me but she would go her words were just she was just verbal diarrhea all over me about all the things that I did

wrong with looking at other women itself me wanting to watch dr. Phil when I came from my work would be a reason to doubt my intelligence to say like how can you be so simple you're so feeble-minded that you can watch this stuff well I could hear his car in front of my house I was already thinking is everything in place the way it should be because I don't want him to I don't want to trigger any anger because his anger could be triggered by the littlest and smallest things I was always being overly nice

to protect myself I had to make sure he didn't become angry so I had to make myself smaller to do so you know like almost making no noise in the house address a certain way not look at people on the streets because he would get angry if I got attention if someone looked at me then I would go home I would hear about it the rest of the night most psychopaths are severely damaged little children and they have not been able to go through normal development so they can be very demanding you have to behave

exactly in a certain way otherwise they blow up or they harass you what is behind that is that most Psychopaths that are in reality little children with Arrested Development they have no theory of mind so they cannot as adults do spontaneously taken to account that other people have another viewpoint than themselves she had like Marty said a monopoly on the truth I don't know if that is the right way to say like everything she would say would be the truth any only truth no matter what whatever the topic would be about if it was something

other news her opinion was was the truth so there was no way of arguing with her not you couldn't I mean if you would be talking about politics or relationships with other people or the kind of music you like or which kind of games or films you like her opinion was the truth mostly he would keep me hostage and he would keep me hostage for many many many hours sometimes he would do that for the whole night and he would just keep me seated at a chair and I I wasn't allowed to get up or

to walk away and if I try to walk away he would grab my arms push me again and say like if I said oh you're hurting me he would say like oh yeah you're just doing that to yourself because you're trying to escape yeah he didn't just kind of push you push you up to the hall he didn't just kind of kick you he kicked you down he didn't just you know he he told you he was you were hard to love or you were unattractive that's abuse but it didn't feel like a news until

it just felt like I was being sensitive still until it was over and I was like oh wait unfortunately most people don't recognize narcissistic abuse and that's mainly because there's a lack of knowledge so no it is very important to avoid it otherwise not only partners but also children and whole families can be negatively affected by it it's one of the most dangerous forms of abuse even if it doesn't give any bristles sometimes not always but a lot of times you cannot find any physical abuse so that's what's making it so difficult to recognize and

to see or even to understand when it happens to yourself [Music] when I found out I was allergic to gluten I felt so much better after I stopped eating them but me instead of being happy that his girlfriend was feeling better he was constantly on a daily basis telling me and looked horrible that I was just making it up he was saying like yeah it's all in your mind you're not allergic to gluten you're just yeah you're just crazy Psychopaths often try to convince the prey that he or she is crazy and when they succeed

in making someone doubt himself they weaken that person immensely because doubt very quickly makes you lose your energy makes you lose your self-confidence and then they can more easily move you around manipulate you make you doubt yourself even more this is how the prey is being destroyed and an example of that we see in the film's gaslighting I came home and I put my keys on the table and went about my business went back to that spot on the table couldn't find my keys I asked him where they were he said he didn't know I

went through the house looking like crazy returns to the living room found my keys where I put him in the first place and I remember saying they weren't here a second ago and he was like I have no idea what you're talking about are you are you sure you're fine that's kinda crazy gaslighting it's a process of rendering another person mentally ill and that is of course the worst thing you can do to a person even physical wounds are never as bad as driving someone insane most of this relationship are spent in a state of

total confusion like for instance one time he heard me physically really bad so bad I had bruises on my my arms and I was ready to get out of this relationship and I send him pictures of of my bruises saying this is not this is not good when I saw him the next day I thought he was going to apologize but when he came in he had his wrist in bandaged I asked him if he had an accident at work or something but he claimed that I had done that to him I went over the

past night again and again in my mind and I was a hundred percent sure I never even touched him but then I could see his wrist in bandaged and it got me really confused he told me I was crazy he told me that was something wrong with my memory and instead of doubting him and his manipulative tactics I doubted myself I had no idea what gaslighting was and that he was just trying to stop me from going to the police and even though down deep down I knew I hadn't done anything wrong I felt guilty

anyway and a state in the relationship gaslighting is relentless it is planned it is evil there's no respite there's no retreat no no way to avoid it the abuser gaslights you via the phone via chats physically online offline there's nowhere to escape there's nowhere to go and the voice of the abuser is inside your head forever they in trajector you can't even escape the abuser by going no contact that's the only abuse technique where no contact doesn't work I came up with a strategy of no contact in 1997 and immediately victims told me yes I

can go no contact if he beats me I can go no contact if or shouts at me I can go no contact if he stays and money but how do I go no contact if his voice is inside my mind telling me all the time you're crazy you see you're crazy you see you're delusional you see you have hallucinations you see how do I get rid of this voice and indeed you can't this voice goes with you and it goes with you long long after the relationship is over that's the main problem with guests liking

you doubt yourself essentially forever I absolutely believe that was crazy so much so that I went to psychologists and set there and looked at what that woman in all seriousness and said I think I'm crazy I think I have completely lost my entire mind that's how much I believe that I started becoming paranoid I started coming anxious because I didn't believe my own reality I didn't even believe my own memories when he grabbed my throat and denied it I was like you know what maybe my memory is off that's how insane I felt she called

me crazy every day especially when I would when she got caught on certain things like for instance the cheating or stealing money from me or whatever if I if you confront her with something that she did she would go crazy and she would you know call me crazy for thinking that he would call me a [ __ ] out of the blue or call me crazy and when I responded and said like why would you say something horrible like that then he would say like I never said that see you're crazy it's literally crazy making

you would say something and then immediately take it back I say I never said that grabbed my throat I never grabbed your throat you are so mean that you would ever make stuff like that up what is wrong with you that's what he did the narcissist himself does not perceive reality properly the narcissists are something called cognitive deficits he reinterprets reality to support his grandiosity and so he would tend to conflict with the victim the victim would say something in the nurses would say that's not true it never happened I never said that they isolate

you from others so you can't test your truth and why you can't test your truth everything they say becomes the truth and you know that's why I guess the idea works because you can't you know not your friend I mean like is this real or what because you won't have any friends anymore because you are only invested in him every time you wants to meet up with someone who isn't him he'll have some kind of crisis which makes you stay at home she was cheating on me I know with one person with a lot of

people so I got upset about that I never touched her I raised my voice you know what what is going on and that got turned around into that I had an aggression problem which then and the end resulted that I saw a psychologist for about a year that she found for me that I had to drive for up and down for my job every week for about three hours to see this psychologist that she picked for me to work on my aggression problem and I went there every every week for a whole year just to

find out that there was nothing wrong with me he would tell a lie I didn't fall for it and he got really really angry with me because I didn't fall for it and then he would just randomly break up with me because he said I wasn't worthy of him because I didn't trust him or whatever and and then after I presented him with the facts of course he would come crawling back and make it into a joke or something but he would always like turn tables he would always twist the facts like he would say

things like yeah I was I was using him for instance well the facts were he was staying in my house not paying rent not doing anything to participate not even look for a house for himself so yeah he would every time I think every time he felt like he was doing something that was imbalanced he would just blame somebody else so he didn't have to take responsibility for it the narcissist doesn't want to see feel certain feelings by himself so that's why he's gonna project it with somebody else so the behavior is just totally turn

around everything he does he will put a new if he tells you and you have no clue what he's talking about that you are financial holding something back you can be sure that he's gonna do that yeah oh yeah you would say stuff like you know you're very hard to love people have a hard time being around you and I feel like he was just talking about himself he knew that he was hard to be around he knew he was hard to love and he just projected all of that on me you know I guess

saying I was very argumentative knowing that he cannot be in it in a company without getting into an argument with people and stuff like that he would project all the things he knew he was doing wrong and you felt probably kind of insecure about onto me so he didn't have to deal with it himself then it was just my problem instead of his I discovered a pattern in when I was feeling very happy and very strong those were the moments when he started picking fights belittling me criticizing me keeping me hostage for hours and when

I felt like completely broken and down that's the moment where he switched like a button and all of a sudden was the sweetest and kindest man in the world saying things like oh I see you're feeling so down and you know I'm always there for you and that that exact moment is where the confusion started because this happened so often that the same person who is trying to destroy you is giving you discomfort and saying all these nice things to you and inside my mind I just I just didn't know it like is he a

good person is he bad person in the end that was convincing myself like oh but he's nice to me now so maybe he's not that bad after all and that's what kept me in this relationship she was perfect you know whenever I would go against whatever she had to say she was I've guessed better with words or better with a kind of manipulation or something that I just she just put me in the corner and she was right also in my view although I'm I was really sure that I'm not that kind of person I

would never cheat I would never do those kind of things when I'm in a relationship she hit something in me were I thought well maybe she's right maybe I am that kind of person so it made me doubt about myself a lot when this happens within the first couple of months it just grew stronger and stronger then you know towards the end of the relationship you just don't have any clue who you are anymore at least in my case this relationship could not have existed had I not been that confused there was no sense of

self left I remember I went to the bathroom at work a lot just to look at myself to see if I was there because I felt like I wasn't there at all completely worthless like all I was was a an instrument for him in every way I didn't feel like who I was mattered I didn't feel adequate I didn't feel like it was worth anything completely annihilated I didn't feel like I existed even it's very strange [Music] but the strange thing is at the moment I didn't really feel that as being abused it was more

like if the feeling you gathered there that there was something wrong with me that I was a person that would look at other women or wouldn't treat her right or she had a reason to feel like she did I think what you go through as a victim of narcissism is the closest thing to brainwashing hey-ohh CIA tactics aside I think narcissists rely on you not relying on yourself they need you to know not take yourself seriously in that way they need you to ignore everything all the glaring red flags all the unhealthy stuff they need

you to not pay attention to it and the only way they can make you look over those things is by brainwashing the hell out of you nothing you think is real nothing exists without their permission [Music] it kept me thinking like what I ever if somebody is like crying and saying please stop what you're doing like what I ever want to continue what I'm doing if somebody is doing that and I would just I felt like I would just like feel so guilty and that exact feeling that was lacking in him he never felt guilt

he never felt remorse he never felt like oh I'm so sorry for making you cry or I'm so sorry for making you feel so down it was like he felt he had the right to abuse me and hurt me like that and that was when I felt like something really important is lacking in this person he didn't have empathy narcissists blame mothers for what's happening to them for their misbehavior or their defeats misfortune cetera et cetera they never take responsibility they never assume guilt of name they are always the victimized party so they believe it

and it is this inner conviction that shines true the losses is when the losses claims it is over him he doesn't come across as though he is acting because he is not acting it truly believes his eviction I saw that he only had these type of feelings of empathy when it was about him like when his feelings were hurt so for instance when after he had abused me I didn't want to see him for for awhile and so him that was really painful so he didn't have like this action-reaction feeling he would always leave out

the action so he would always leave out the abuse also in the stories that he would tell people he would never tell about abuse he would always tell about Oh all of a sudden out of nowhere she doesn't want to see me anymore and I think he just didn't he didn't register he didn't I think that's what empathy is you'll register somebody else's pain or the hurt you caused you know in another person he couldn't do that he couldn't feel like oh this is crying and begging me to stop because I hurt her so much

I should stop now he didn't have that you can you can't approach these these people that have this thing like they are normal human beings because you expect if you're in relationship with anybody that there's a certain level of empathy and you know and when that's not there don't pretend to think that these people think the same way as you do this is one thing that uh for me it's like the core of this whole thing that we if your relationship with somebody like that you because you have empathy you think that the other person

has asked that as well and so when you think about the other person you think with that perspective but when that empathy is lacking these are different kind of these people program differently so you can ever have you just do the the thoughts that you have about what's normal they don't have it so don't really project that on them psychopaths lack conscience and empathy that may also go for people with narcissistic personality disorder but it may not apply in sufficient measure for some narcissists to be able to say that they are all sub Psychopaths and

that they lack a foundation completely then fund their foundation insight may be weakened but it may not altogether the absence or in significantly the percentage of people who have a personality disorder it's estimated around 10 percent of the population I estimated that around 5% of the population also has psychopathy she had a small son and whenever there was something wrong with the son I would be the one to take care of that she wouldn't be able to relate to him or so it was so blatant with her she could see it so clearly that she

missed that empathy that she she couldn't act like she did so she would just fall out saying I don't give a [ __ ] about anything or anybody so that's different than other people that have this she didn't have that acting those acting skills and that's in that sense my ex was really good at acting whenever I was sick he sounded so nice on the phone saying that he would cook for me and take care of me but when he came over he expected me to be better and we would be very annoyed if I

wasn't even when I was puking or when I had fever he would scream at me and wouldn't let me sleep all night and this wasn't just one time this happened so many times that whenever I got sick I told him to stay away because he didn't only make me more sick he also took away my son's mother because my ex well he would go home and he would sleep but I had to take care of my son being even more sick than I was before and I think a problem with these people is that they

are so good with this acting and coming off as empathetic that it takes a while to understand what's going on especially well in my case at least when he was playing victim afterwards I have stepped over a lot of my own feelings because he triggered my empathy towards him but well of course a person who has empathy doesn't do these things you know would I don't know watch tennis she say well if I would have started as a kid I would be better than anybody if it was about music literature whatever you know her opinions

about any topic would be better than anybody else's he felt significantly better than other people even then his friends he would they were the only people who have patience with him for I think on Elsi reasons you know but even then he would look down on it would look down on everyone listen it's so lonely being the king of your castle you know like the king of the hill I constantly had to prove I was loyal had to prove I loved him had to prove he was the best man alive and he would always come

up with reasons why my love wasn't true and would randomly accuse me of things and even before things happened he would go like I know you're going to do this are you going to do that and it would be something really really bad that was quite the opposite of the person I am or what I would ever do and I would ask him do you have any idea who I am but to him he was always right and I was always wrong he said he knew me better than I knew myself so whenever he accused

me of something I had no right to defend myself he was completely unable to see me for who I was and projected a lot of negativity onto me she she well she to me she had like she had the monopoly to the truth everything that she would say would be the truth her opinion would be the truth so there was no discussing anything [Music] I stayed with him because I felt I had to because my sense of self and identity was so intertwined with his that I felt like I would actually cease to exist without

him and that is how completely dysfunctional abuse can be I felt helpless I remember daydreaming about someone saving me because I felt I wasn't capable of doing it myself as a grown woman I was so I was made to feel so worthless and useless that I felt like I couldn't even make a difference for myself in my own life that's how insidious that abuse is it just plants the seed and then it grows [Music] you [Music] many times I was at the point of leaving him and thinking okay this is it I'm gonna go but

just at the moment I really wanted to get out he would do something so nice so or he would come up to me for help and sometimes he would even be crying and explaining how he was like a victim of his own behavior like he was crying because he knew he was yeah he had this anger problem and he had this young people who have strong empathy and who are able to see the unrealized potential inside of Psychopaths they feel that they cannot leave that person because it's very difficult for them to be not loyal

to someone because they have very strong loyalty to people in general and also Psychopaths are very good in triggering the caring instinct in people and when people have a strong caring instinct it also has a very strong grip on them they feel that they have a moral duty to help this person and in that way you know when they are in a relationship with this person either personal or professional relationship they are not able to abandon a lost cause it is very difficult to leave somebody who is asking you for help so and I didn't

see that was a part of his manipulation so I [Music] whenever I was helping him I felt safe and also when he asked for help I thought at the same time he was admitting like there is something wrong and he needs help and there is change there's going to be the change for the better so I thought okay so when I help him I will only see this nice guy that I saw in the beginning I will only see this nice part of him again and all the abuse it's gonna go away maybe it was

very naive but it sounded and seemed very sincere the way he presented it so because you're already not yourself anymore don't have to straight anymore and you don't know really what's going on it's really hard to get out and then a lot of times when you don't get out the narcissist is not feeling to let you go of course it's all about power and control so if the relationship is ending the narcissist is losing you to control over you so that's something they can't cope with so that's why they will keep on trying to get

you back and there's so goods in all this acting that they will act like Prince again and you remember the high feelings you had from the beginning of the relationship and you always want that feeling back so what's next thing will happen did you think well maybe I didn't see it right maybe I should try it again and then there you go on again and again and every time you go back you will get weaker so every time it's harder to get out she would call me from from morning till night and leaving messages like

this long about how I was I was so perfect for her and she would have even apologized for stuff that that that she did and that I was I was right about everything and that she needed help and she couldn't live without me and I was her Savior yeah we were back right where we started in the beginning of the relationship it was that thing again like all lovey-dovey they keep sending me messages or he'd make sure I I knew that he had a new girlfriend within a week obviously because narcissists don't exist without supply

so he needed a new one immediately and he made sure the news reached me so you wanted to in that way kind of be on top of what I was doing by you know one of them that see we were in was very small so he would find out what I was doing three other people he would look at all my socials and I blocked him everywhere but that's what he was trying to do you know just trying to save my life in that way or trying to push my buttons in that way when he

wanted me back literally everything changed about him I was no longer crazy for being a spiritual person now he liked it to everything I liked he liked he seemed very empathetic all of a sudden talking about feelings and he was crying when he told me how sorry he was for abusing me and that he wanted a second chance he said that that knew him would never do that at that time I didn't know as much about narcissism yet and I thought well maybe he has changed maybe I should give him a second try and just

when I was getting close enough he returned right back into his old abusive self it was all a show and he was already isolating me and setting me up against the new friends I had made after leaving him he did threaten me but in a very very mean way I think the meanest way in which to threaten a woman and that was sexually he would of course if someone is super mean to you you don't feel like having sex with them which is you know like not rocket science that I didn't wanna have sex with

him and then he would threaten me and say if you don't want to do it I'll find someone else who will which he did but obviously it's a very mean way to threaten a woman that's already very insecure well you were in the relationship and there were some moments with her that she kind of showed her real self and she said watch out I'm gonna destroy you I'm saving up stuff about you and I'm going to destroy you and I just thought oh this is so sad you know there's something really well not wrong with

her but this is so sad that she has to say these kind of thing I didn't believe her but at the end she did he would make threats like if you ever leave me I will destroy you I will break you I will call everybody and make sure nobody wants anything to do with you or wants to work with you ever again and that's exactly what he did I expected him to do it in that aggressive way but he he did it in like a very victimized way like he was the victim I was the

evil person I found out that she was cheating on me with somebody and on Facebook I saw that she was with some with that person in Mexico I think of course I called a lot of times in a road or a letter and stuff what's going on you know but at the end I went to her house because I just wanted to know didn't we breakup what what the hell is happening so I rang the door she opened a real quick she closed the door again I was completely nervous and think what that what what

just happened so I went downstairs from work from from the door of her apartment into the streets within two seconds police officers show up they handcuffed me and take me to the station and I was just sitting there what what happened this is completely not true and I read the report and all the stuff that was in there was just nothing but lies lies lies and lies that she had been saving up for years you know those little pieces of emails of me which ill collected them put a fabricated the whole story around me which

they told me you're gonna be in jail for a really long time yeah he did a smear campaign starting with calling people people he knew people I knew work based people he called my friends and he was he was trying to set up everybody against me by saying things like oh you should know what she is saying about you and he would tell like the craziest lies about me the meanest and lowest things that you can possibly imagine like he would take this very tiny little bit out of a story like a very painful story

out of my childhood for instance or he would use a miscarriage I had and presented it in such a way that I look very crazy or evil and so he would used my he would use my deepest wounds against me in the smear campaign and to Mia to make me look as if I was crazy the victims are usually devastated they are rolling they are ruined mentally they're ruined physically also they are physical physiological effects to trauma the traumatized the broken they're wounded they don't have time or inclination to present their case they just want

to lie in bed and withdraw they're depressed clinically they they have anxiety disorders they have mood disorders I mean victims are devastated narcissus is untouched by the crisis because the gnosis has no emotions no empathy no nothing gnosis is a machine so the narcissus goes on to present his version of events which is expertly put together his approach is a professional at storytelling he presents himself as victim and there is no countervailing voice the victim is too devastated to do anything about it and to present her sighs the narcissist is the lone voice usually at

the beginning not for the whole duration but in the first few critical weeks it's usually the narcissist is the lone voice the victim is not heard and that's the version that sticks okay I think that that was what hit me the most that from from the starting of the relationship till the end it was all one big film that she invented for ourselves and she you know she knew exactly what she was going to do she was going to destroy me and she knew that from day one she actually told me a couple of times

during the smear campaign I realized that he wasn't just telling his side of the story he was trying to destroy me he tried to ruin my reputation my career my friendships and was basically trying to isolate me again by trying to take away my support system and on top of that he was smearing and playing victim on social media stating that I was the one doing those things to him even though I had been silent from the start so I guess the whole relationship is with one big smear campaign and of course you know the

smaller smear things are on Facebook where she put public posts like what job my ex-boyfriend is going to try to do this and this this to me if any of my friends if he contacts any of my friends please tell me so I can report it to the police and he's harassing me and all that [ __ ] but the biggest thing was that whole one big story that she made up and throughout these years just to get me in jail and she told me this before she did it to her ex you know so

I should have seen it coming but that was a smack in the face like he wouldn't believe being in jail about a lie you know that really hurt me a lot there also lies about you very simple the whole life's a lie but they will tell lies about you and about the relationship and bad things they will make it up he was trying to make everybody he knew accomplice to abuse even though they had no idea they were doing it and but he had a best friend and she knew what he was like she is

exactly like him and she would yes send emails to my friend telling my friend to reconsider the friendship tell the craziest lies she would just repeat all the lies that he was telling about me and she would just repeat them to anybody willing to listen abuse by proxy is a phrase I coined in 95 to describe the use of third parties to perpetuate and perpetrate the abuse and flying monkeys are the people who are who are used to do this most the overwhelming majority of flying monkeys do not realize that they are being used and

also do not realize that their conduct is abusive the narcissism might convince his flying monkeys that they are doing the victim a service that they're helping the victim that in some way they are restoring justice or that is the victim and who there should be redress or that he just needs a small favor to get everything restarted when he is trying to hover the victim etc etc so the flying monkeys are always ego-syntonic in other words they always feel good about what they're doing that's why it's extremely difficult to break the cycle of abuse by

proxy because the flying monkeys feel good about it they are taking the Nasus aside because they believe that what they are doing is virtuous his worth one is justified and it's impossible to stop them because of that had they felt bad about what they were doing it would have been much easier to break this so this mere contains the perfect proof that narcissism our are not able to love because if you ever ever had connection with someone like that they want normal people normal mental healthy people wonder that they cannot talk so bad about you

even if there was a fight and there will be some emotions but not that big as with narcissist [Music] because if psychopath is not dependable it may in use in his quarry hyper alertness hyper alertness is a result of the production of stress hormones and ultimately when we people are built to handle short periods of stress not chronic stress so when we are in chronic stress in the environment of somebody who is destructive most of the time not dependable it may be exhausting for us so what you often see in people who become victims of

Psychopaths that is that their energy level has gone down very much and when the energy level goes down when the vitality has been undermined then all kinds of diseases can come up you can develop chronic diseases that are due to lack of vitality that might be cancer for instance depression burnout and they might also be severely traumatized the abuse affected my health big-time I was diagnosed with complex PTSD m.e I had been attacks and sleeping problems that I never had before and yeah I was extremely exhausted and my self-esteem was at the lowest level ever

anxiety depression I got a burnout I lost weight I served under eating and then I started everything I was just overall incredibly unstable mentally unstable I felt physically sick also I got sick a lot if your friends in a healthy environment there's expansion there's growth there's error in an unhealthy abusive environment there's shrink so your brain look at smaller kind of it's very simplistic tools but and what does it mean that you kind of think outside of the little circles so your brain and your thoughts will be going around in circles and it will all

make you depressed emotionally unstable and it will continue as long as you're in this and healthy environments everything in love will grow it's also read your brain everything you fear think that's the same thing with the with the abuse my mental health was I don't know physically there was nothing wrong with me I think so but besides that I've slept a lot more than I used to but mentally I just I used to be quite active and a lot of stuff you know social things meeting friends making music I was making music all the time

after this happened I just didn't care about anything anymore I just stopped making music I wasn't interested in the world anymore so I'm mental mentally I wasn't doing that great the damage done to the prey can be very deep so it can be not only post-traumatic stress disorder but also what is called moral injury where there is damage to the core of a person and what we often see also in people who have dealt with a psychopath for a long time that is the loss the ability to trust anyone and so they lose the ability

to be in relationship so your brain needs to have some more expansion if something like this happened to you narcissistic abuse to get out of the circles you're thinking you need to expand in every possible way so there's a lot of health things you can do to bring your brain back in a better situation like everything which is healthy for you in normal life is healthy for your brain like oxygen water training nice environments nature whatever there is many people who have become traumatized by absurd Psychopaths feel that they need to do trauma work in

order to heal themselves but it is very important to take into account how much self-healing capacity is there how much ego strength is there because if the self-healing capacity is too low if one has been weakened too much and when those trauma work for instance EMDR then it is possible that one gets rich dramatized and that the problem becomes even more severe so what I recommend to people is that they invest in their inner comfort by giving themselves many many many positive experiences that are nourishing for themselves and that strengthen their foundation and then when

they are strong enough and the need is still there to do trauma work then it is much safer to do it [Music] there was abuse in my image outed and it geared me up for this relationship it really did because I think I subconsciously recognized his behavior and felt comfortable with it because it was what I was used to I was used to having my feelings ignored having my emotions minimized so even if it's unhealthy if it's something you used to you're comfortable were they if you've had a nice childhood a nice person is going

to feel like home well the same goes for abusers if you have grown up with abusers you feel attracted to this certain type of energy that abusers have it's there like unconscious patterns then it's not like you really choose for it it's just they feel so familiar that you feel attracted to them I think my mom was a nurse assist to but a covert narcissist so she wasn't grandiose she was the opposite she made herself extremely small so that everyone would flock around her with attention yes my brothers are very sensitive to that because I

feel like boys and their moms have a different bond they just wanted her happy and she controlled them by like being this banshee but being always being the victim crying how can you do this to your mother you know my father he was like a full-on narcissistic psychopath even though he was a person who would be very kind and friendly to the outside world behind closed doors he was he was he was like a monster and because his abuse was so openly I felt from a very young age like I don't need anything from this

guy nothing good comes from this guy so all my hopes as a child went to my mom so I got I felt really close to my mom so the damage done to me was much worse by my mom because I didn't see it coming I do blame her for this kind of not making sure me and my brothers had a good bond she basically drove us apart by means of favoritism they were a team and I was just an island she was very manipulative she would set people up against each other she would always criticize

belittle laughs about other people behind their backs use the children and use the talents of children to make herself look good but emotionally neglect the children she would like have a favorite and make the other person or the other kid feel like less worthy and the favorite child that would it would change it wasn't the same person all the time I felt like in a lot of ways she was envious of me because I was a girl and I just did things I was confident I don't know where I got the confidence but I was

confidence I was very entrepreneurial I did things even though no one helped me or no one supported me and I felt like she was kind of envious of my drive that I got from literally nowhere because no one ever encouraged me to do anything yet here I was I was writing books that I was doing things and I think she was kind of envious and when I learned about narcissism I was finally able to understand my childhood because earlier sometimes I would still get angry at my mom thinking like how could how could she how

could she do that to me how could she be so insensitive or so mean to me but once I learned about narcissism and the one thing that narcissists don't have is empathy so when I learned that she didn't have empathy and that it wasn't really her fault as well because she was a victim too I finally realized that it had nothing to do with me and to me that part that it had nothing to do with me was very important for my healing process I come from a loving family I got everything that I ever

wanted and all that stuff but I'm just completely naive I grew up in their environment which was very safe and I when somebody tells me something I believe them I trust everybody I trust everything all the time so I guess if somebody sees a person like me I'm an easy prey because you could tell me anything and I'll believe [Music] [Applause] [Music] looking back on it the most important parts of being a victim yeah fix my hate the work of being with a narcissist is being codependent you have to feel like your happiness and someone

else's happiness can't exist next to each other and has to come from somewhere from childhood maybe maybe as a kid you were used to you know ignoring your own sadness to bring the family together or make sure everyone else felt better and you take that into adulthood you try to say it's kind of like Savior syndrome like if he's with me if I love him enough then it'll be fine if I if I'm I'm pathetic enough if I'm patient enough he will be fine I went in therapy I I knew I had a problem with

boundaries I was too forgiving I was too much of a people pleaser I was always trying to keep the peace even though I was harming myself as well the more I stayed away from this person and the more I learned about narcissism because I had no idea what narcissism was so I learned the traits and I also learned that I had dealt with narcissistic people a lot and so I saw a pattern there and once I knew what the pattern was I could break it the moment I started to remove these type of people out

of my life I started to feel better I started to feel happier my health was improving every level of my life started to improve it was progress in the beginning I was just broken I would look in the mirror and I would see no one I recognized and my inner voice was replaced with his so every time I looked at myself I heard you are unattractive you know you are dumb you are like I don't understand how anyone can can handle being with you that's what I heard for a long time and what I did

was not resist it or just sit in that feeling not rejecting it not not fighting it and then at some point I just knew logically that at some point if you take it one day at a time it'll get better and I noticed when when I didn't cry every morning and okay so that that's done now we can work on what got you in this situation in the first place I find it a lot harder to trust people after this happened because before that I was naive and I trusted everybody and whatever somebody would say

I would think that's the truth and I would trust them I don't do that anymore well I have to refrain rephrase that I still do but I noticed the red flags a lot sooner I still trust people I still believe what they say in the first when I first hear it but as soon as there's something off a little bit the red flags go up and I'm at a lot I don't want to have anything to do with these people anymore hungry I'm much more I trust everybody but as soon as to make one little

mistake that's it I got a lot more sensitive I notice the small things that are off it is a lot harder for me to trust people especially because you simply can't guarantee yourself that you'll never meet another narcissist but I just promised myself to really go with that gut feeling like if I see signs of manipulation or isolation for instance I'm not staying as long as I would have stayed earlier in a relationship you should feel like yourself and my biggest sign that I'm dealing with a narcissist is that I'm feeling smaller like I have

to fight to be seen you know and in any case that's not a healthy dynamics so yeah I've learned to choose for my own happiness and as long as I can trust myself on making strong decisions I'll be fine I wasn't given a lot but I was given an extremely strong personality I I feel like that the core of Who I am I stayed the same and I lost that for a second I lost it and after him I just found it back again honestly I just picked up where I left off with a healthier

sense of self-worth basically this is maybe strange but I always felt immediately after to happen I felt this can be the worst thing that ever happened to me or it can be the best thing that ever happened to me and it turned out it was the best thing that ever happened to me because it really made me rediscover myself in a way and and notice because before I met her I had a lot of friends and a lot of social things in blah-dee-blah her and I all went away when I was in the relationship and

afterwards I found out that I still have that and my friends came back to me and I am a good and a nice person and it was some reason I appreciated a lot more after this thing happened if you have plans before you'll have plans after you know what I mean if you were someone who is dedicated to making something out of their self themselves you will you might have to work through trauma but you'll get there so if the narcissist would see that I'm so much better than now they would probably say see see

I did that that's not that's what I did it was good for something [Music] friends Nona love us do I met a different tiny in a way perfect guy said he loved me until I died but then Dempsey jealousy will slowly suffer hating me why is he in duty to wanted me to prove my love no kind of prove was enough there were no boundaries to your anger hurting me I could he'll punch with love turn your anger into my friends being a fool to let me do that [ __ ] to you we should

treat you kind still a cool give up hold Oh boys I'm ready to let go I guess that love [Music] I could drive a little more a little harder if that's the cure for us to find eggshells pray and a my feet how hard I tried out who could be with her ever-changing me [Music] also magic word still echo in my head screaming you so all I could do was run river there was only one conclusion Hey [Music] I [Music] see more each day [Music] is loved [Music] to go away myself more each day you