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People who are starved out of conversation will approach it as if it was sacred, people who are starved out of touch experience any touch given to them as the highest form of intimacy, people starved out of gentleness will react to it as if it’s an invasion, an attempt to break them down, and people starved out of a community will approach it as if it was a minefield.

Recognizing Abuse Masterlist

Signs that you’re living in abuse:

Breakdown of abusive parent’s behaviour:

Signs your parents are narcissistic:

Signs you’ve been thru sexual abuse:

Signs of abusive friendship/relationship:

Signs you’re struggling with trauma

abusive parents, repeatedly: Nobody cares what you want! You’re nothing and nobody! No one will ever love you! You look like garbage! Look at yourself! You make me sick! You’re disgusting! You never do anything right! You’ll never survive in the real world! You’re a lazy worthless brat! Everyone hates you!

child: develops depression, anxiety disorder, eating disoder, ocd and ptsd

abusive parents: I DO NOT SEE IT stop faking for attention!!! And even if you did have anything its your fault and you gave it to yourself!!! You’re too sensitive!! This has nothing to do with us and also if you don’t ACT NORMAL we will physically throw you into a fire

Children grown in abusive family can end up starved and longing even for conversation. Extremely abusive parents don’t talk to their children; they manipulate, fearmonger, attack, project, monologue, bitterly rant, demand compassion, criticize, lash out and triangulate but they never see you worthy of actual conversation. It is possible they wouldn’t know how to have one.

So you grow up only struggling to find your way thru a myriad of lies, accusations, criticism, attacks, false information and emotional manipulation, as if one day, if you say the right thing, you could convince them to talk to you like humans. It never happens. It makes you hungry for being seen, acknowledged as a worthwhile partner for conversing; you need to be able to ask questions, to bounce ideas off of someone who won’t ridicule and shut them down only because they’re from you, you want to be worthy of intellectual stimulation and not told you’re too stupid to understand, to share without being afraid of everything being used against you.

The simplest and most normal aspects of socialization can be taken away from you in abusive family, without you even noticing it’s going on. It can make you grateful to other people for as little as talking to you, and make you feel indebted because a person who offers you an equal part of a conversation, has already done more for you than your parents did. And regardless, they never shut up about how much you owe them.

being born to abusive parents is like a forced quest of ‘see if you can survive for long enough to get ptsd’ and if you make it, congrats now you have ptsd.

Life was literally like a game. Level 1 passed. At one point I can clearly see through them and those levels so I decided to re-route the game and play it until the last level reached

I spent my entire childhood hoping someone would love me enough to save me from my parents

Thinking about how sad this is: this reminds me of a few things like this:

I spent my entire childhood hoping someone would love me enough to save me from my parents

Because I feel like kids of color don’t hear it enough: domestic abuse is not a part of your culture. 

A lot of us were raised with the idea that “its normal for wives/children to get hit! it helps them learn– only white folk don’t get beaten when they misbehave”. That’s not true, white people aren’t the only ones who deserve a safe and abuse free environment. Black and brown people can and do have loving families. 

If you’re in a situation where you are enduring abuse and people use your culture to justify it, I want you to know that what they’re telling you are lies.

The idea that nonwhite cultures are somehow based on abuse is so prevalent that my mandatory reporting abuse seminar had an entire section in it about how this is bullshit and we shouldn’t ignore abused indigenous kids.

this goes very much for asian kids too btw. in a lot of asian countries, esp east asian ones, physical punishment has been very much a standard in disciplining children, both at home and in the classroom, so this is something that’s often brought over to america when families immigrate and stuff

i can’t tell you the number of times my mother has told me “in america you can’t hit kids or else they’ll call it child abuse and take your kids away, but back home you have to hit them, or else they’ll never learn” and stuff like “with chinese kids you have to hit them or else they’ll turn out spoiled”

so like, despite what your parents tell you, no kids deserve to get beaten, and you’re not “assimilated” for thinking so

Ok so like yes, poc culture, especially with east asian families in my experience do have some very strict and borderline abusive ideals, but like in some ways this idea that POC families and disciplinarian styles are abusive detracts from the fact that white people are just as bad many times in conservative christian circles where white christians have written wholeass books about the best way to beat your kid (Example: to train up a child) so yeah….

— to everyone who decided to “hurt me out of love” (via furiousgoldfish)

— (via furiousgoldfish)

Every time you think “they could have hurt me worse”, remember that you shouldn’t have been hurt at all. You should have received support and help on everything you struggled with. You should never have faced pain from the hands of your loved ones. You should have been safe and happy and without a care in the world as a child. That’s what you compare your abuse to. 

You have to remind yourself “I did nothing to deserve any of that.” every once in a while to keep that guilt down and rage up.

Abusive parents love to pretend that whatever is going on at home is not “real life”, and you, would have no chance of surviving in “real life”. In fact, you know nothing about “real life” at all, you are an dumb, uninformed slob of ignorance and know nothing about living at all. According to them, you have been living in some kind of “bubble” where no real life events have been happening, and all of your experiences and opinions have nothing to do with reality. They even have the nerve to tell you to “start living in the real life.”

You have been living nothing but real life. You had a real life experience of surviving in abusive environment. You have lived a reality of existing next to an abuser. There is nothing unreal or fake about your experiences, your abusive home is no bubble, it’s a real, definite hell that you went thru. There’s no question of you surviving in real life, you literally were surviving the worst of it already. You proved you are capable of surviving the worst of the worst, being in presence of a predator who was capable of brainwashing and manipulating you to keep you scared and unbelieving in your own senses and experiences. 

Every single thing you lived thru was real life. You took on real life from the second you were born. Your circumstances were hard and cruel, you got all advantages taken away from you, replaced with sabotage and hatred, and you’re still alive now. There isn’t a harsher reality than what you already went thru. Your experiences count in the real world. What happened to you affects the real world. Your parents have done nothing but lie to you. You were living in the real world entire time.

— you don’t have to explain to anyone why you can’t get out of bed today. (via furiousgoldfish)

Tactics of narcissistic abuse

Love Bombing & Mirroring are tactics to gain your favour. These will come from a narcissist you’re just getting to know and they’re trying to convince you they’re your perfect partner, soulmate, best friend, ideal lover. Love bombing is showering you with over-the-top affection and support, they’re likely to see what works best on you, then give you just that. They’ll convince you that you’re special and make you feel special, whether it’s with attention, gifts, promises, love phrases, or making you look and feel very good in front of other people. If they can spin this as fate or destiny, they will. You have one lucky coincidence? It’s destiny that you met. They’ll create the image of ‘it’s us against the world’ and convince you that they’re all you need to never be alone, unappreciated or unhappy again. They will say phrases like ‘We were born to be together’ or 'You’re the only one who understands’ and make you feel like you’re in a romance film.  Mirroring is the way to convince you that they are just like you, your perfect match. They do this by pretending they want the same things as you. All of your opinions will be shared, your desires will be their desires too, however you want to live, that’s now their ideal life too. If you want children, so do they, if you want to live in a cottage, so do they.

These will be repeated until you feel like you finally got something perfect from life, you commit to them and trust them completely. You will become lenient with your boundaries and disregard minor red flags, because hey, you finally found love, or someone like yourself who makes your life better. These are crucial to keep you around for a long time; the illusion of happiness and perfect companionship you always wanted will keep you holding onto them in hope that things could once again, be this perfect for you. You will not want to let go of them even after the love bombing and mirroring is long gone. Love bombing and mirroring are not indicative of how they’re planning to treat you once you’re committed to them; as soon as they feel you are ready to fight for a life with them, roles will change and you will have to endure escalating abuse from this person, endlessly.

Scapegoats and people badly damaged by trauma will often not get the full love bombing or mirroring, narcissists will be able to win our devotion by acts of basic decency, small thoughtfulness and acting tolerant of our trauma symptoms, this will feel like everything to us, and once we decide this is a good, special person who makes us feel safe and we’d do anything for them, they’ll turn and exploit us endlessly.

Only way to spot this on time is: there will be a little voice of suspicion in your head going ’Isn’t this actually a little too perfect to be real? A little too convenient and ideal?’ and you will not want to listen to that voice. You should listen to it. It’s your instinct, trying to tell you something is off. I won’t blame you if you don’t. Most people won’t just walk away from their ideal partner because things seem 'too perfect’. But, get suspicious at least. Alert to red flags.

Enablers and Flying Monkeys

Narcissists can’t abuse if they’re on their own; they will work hard to build a reputation and charm people who they can later use for purposes of enabling, triangulating, controlling, scapegoating and smear campaigns. Enablers, or Flying Monkeys, are people who are either admiring the narcissists, want to be in narcissists good favour, are trauma bond and scared of the narcissists, are emotionally manipulated or simply too cowardly to point out that the narcissists is wrong and cruel. Most people will fall under the influence and want to be on narcissists side because it’s easier, tempting, feels safer, and doesn’t require much thinking. Narcissist will sometimes emotionally manipulate people to go do their dirty work; they will cry about how they miss their runaway children so flying monkeys would harass and judge children for running away, they will invent stories of abuse and insanity of their spouse so people would shame and judge the spouse who the narcissist is abusing. They create environment in which they can keep abusing and other people will jump to defend, justify, victim-blame and further confuse the victim. “They had a hard life”, “They’re your mother/father/uncle, you have to forgive them” or “He’s not that bad” are the phrases you’ll hear from enablers and flying monkeys. The term “Flying Monkey” is taken from the Wizard of Oz, because the Wicked Witch owned an army of brainless flying monkeys who would do her bidding – much how narcissists do with their enablers.

What enablers are doing is absolutely wrong. They should not be ready to defend abuse, or excuse and justify it, or believe and act on smear campaigns, not for any reason. They are hurting and isolating the victim, and regardless of how much they suck up to the narcissist, they will eventually become the targets too. Victims are right to cut out enablers just how they’re right to cut out abusers. You do not have to suffer for their cowardice or stupidity.

Triangulation is a form of abuse where narcissist brings another person into the relationship in order to bypass your boundary. For instance, you refuse to speak to the narcissist, so they send your family members, friends, or their friends, to talk to you about how much you’re hurting the narcissist and how cruel and unfair you’re being. Or, you’re trying to set a boundary in your marriage, and suddenly a friend or a relative comes talking to you about how unreasonable it is to set such awful boundary and to think of your spouse’s feelings and how bad they have it. Narcissist may try to use you for triangulation too, for example, they might tell you 'Go tell your sister she should do xyz and she’s making a mistake, she’ll listen to you’. It’s implied you agree with the narcissist, and that both of you are doing it for the sister’s good, when it’s more likely the narcissist is trying to force this person to do something they’re deeply set against and would only serve the narcissist. Narcissists will use their children to triangulate a marriage, they will often 'gang up’ other family members on their spouse, or one of the children. If you’re the victim, you’ll find yourself cornered, isolated, and in doubt whether you’re doing the right thing, trying to establish a boundary. Narcissists will also often show affection, compassion or even love to a third person simply to make you jealous and worried that something is wrong with you since you don’t get the same treatment. It’s what creates an illusion that the entire world is agreeing with the narcissist and no matter what you do, you look unreasonable for fighting them.

Narcissists will sometimes invent completely boogus scenarios and try to terrify people into doing their bidding and believing they’re right. As if the world will fall if narcissists don’t get what they want.

Society at large will often enable abusers; you can call out abuse and be rendered a 'killjoy’ because people prefer to enjoy cruelty together with the narcissist than to oppose them. Narcissists are capable of rousing a whole gang of people to turn against the victim and to aid in their abuse; this is scapegoating.

Gaslighting is a form of abuse where the abuser attacks your sense of reality. They will usually do this to obscure and deny acts of abuse. “I never said that” “That didn’t happen” “That’s not how I remember it” “You imagined it” or “You’re crazy, I would never do that!” are common gaslighting phrases abusers use for events that absolutely happened, and they absolutely remember. It’s even more powerful if they get other people to agree that you’re insane for remembering a past event of abuse. They can sometimes try to convince you that something didn’t occur while it’s still happening. This renders your intention of calling out abuse impossible; you’re now debating whether the event even happened and your sanity is questioned.

The point of this is to drive you into insanity; prolonged gaslighting will make you doubt your own memories and senses, and you will no longer be secure in your own point of view or version of reality. You will not be able to fight abuse, because you will get stuck on wondering if it’s even real, or if you’re making it up. Narcissist wants not only to abuse you, but to control your perception of it, reaction of it, and to disable you from telling anyone and being taken seriously. Smear campaign and gaslighting ensures that everyone thinks you’re lying to make problems, even you.

You can attempt to block gaslighting with phrases like 'That was not my experience’ 'I know the truth and I am not debating it with you’ ’ Don’t tell me what happened, I was there’ or ridiculing them for thinking it would work, but sometimes abuse will escalate if you refuse to play along, so be very careful with them.

Baiting, Projection and Scapegoating

Baiting is the way narcissist finds out which triggers will work on you. Types of baits are: Scaremongering, Accusations, False Claims, Guilt-tripping, Victim-playing, False Hope, or Intrigue. They will use these to elicit either fear&anxiety, or guilt&responsibility. You are likely to get pulled in and respond emotionally to these, and thus the narcissist will discover which one of these is most triggering and they can use it to either control you, or to affirm that they can still get you riled up, scared, guilty – they feed on being able to provoke these, it makes them feel powerful. They can later use the same trigger to push you into guilt and fear if you try to resist their control. If they continue doing this to you for a long time, you are likely to develop self-doubt and anxiety about your own persona. Way to counter this is to grey rock them.

Projection is a primitive defense-mechanism, where a person feels uncomfortable with their behaviour or thinking, so they accuse someone else of it to deflect the bad feelings from themselves. This can feel the same as baiting, but narcissists do it without realizing they’re giving you the information about what they’re actually feeling and doing. For instance, a narcissist will accuse you of being self-absorbed after they start feeling uncomfortable with how self-absorbed they are, they will start to call you selfish when it comes to their mind how selfish they are. They will accuse you of the exact shit they’ve been doing whether it’s lying, manipulating, faking for attention, cheating, exploiting, lacking compassion, stealing. These claims will feel like they’re coming out of nowhere at first, but eventually you will wonder if you’re really like that, and accept their projection on yourself, believing to really be as bad, or worse than they are. Even though they’ve done 100% of these things, while you have done none of it. This can also be countered by being aware what is going on and grey-rocking them. Deflecting the blame back to them will not work because they’ll either deflect it back, or throw a tantrum and insult you.

Scapegoating is the most vicious abuse narcissist can inflict on their victims and is designed to completely break a person’s spirit while creating power out of terror. Scapegoating doesn’t only serve to terrify and control the victim; it shows everyone what the narcissist is capable of, causing them to go very far to avoid becoming the next scapegoat. This creates enablers, flying monkeys and other benefits for narcissist to enjoy, while the scapegoat is isolated, not believed, and often shunned by the community to show loyalty to the narcissist.

Scapegoat will be blamed for every narcissists flaw, accused of provocation and creating trouble, shamed for their likes and interests, humiliated for their appearance or needs, their work will be rendered worthless and any pain and injury will be treated as if the scapegoat deserved it, or wanted it. Nothing is out of bounds to criticize or belittle in the scapegoat; flying monkeys will do it too, to either affirm themselves with the narcissist, or because they too crave power by stepping on someone defenseless. If a narcissistic parent decides to scapegoat a child, the other parent might stop caring for the child, and agree that the child deserves only to be neglected and shunned. The illusion narcissists create, of entire society agreeing that a person is irredeemable, deserving only of pain and ridicule, has turned people to suicide.

Scapegoat absorbs all of the narcissist’s malice, cruelty, sadism, baiting, projection, guilt and tantrums, so other people in the environment can get some relief and can use the scapegoat as their shield. You can be chosen to be a scapegoat for challenging the narcissist and standing up to them, for refusing to scapegoat someone else, for seeing thru them and showing any potential for undermining their authority, if narcissist is jealous of you, if narcissist feels threatened by your intellect, compassion and emotional depth they lack. And often, you’ll just be chosen because they’re in position of power and you’re unprotected. If you’re their child, a lonely classmate, employee with no high reputation or lots of friends, a minority, different in the way of sexuality or behaviour, anything that is easily used to sway a group of people against you. Narcissists will make sure to spread a smear campaign filled with lies against you, so that nobody would align with you, or believe you if you try to counter their word.

This type of treatment is beyond anything a human being could deserve, and devastating for the victim’s self esteem and sense of reality. After surviving a scapegoating situation, people might not want to find themselves in any social setting anymore. They might start believing themselves to be unlovable and defective. There is usually no way to counter it or fight your way out, unless there’s a higher authority who could side with you, or there’s a way to physically remove yourself from this environment.

Grey Rock, Hoovering and No Contact

Grey rock is a way to counter baiting and projection; narcissists learn and thrive on our emotional responses, it gives them a thrill to be able to send us into rage, terror, disbelief, shock or panic. Grey rocking means you give zero emotional response, and thus prove yourself very boring and a bad source of narcissistic supply. So, regardless of what egregious threat, accusation, claim or insult they make, you just reply with 'mhmm’ and look completely disinterested. You reply with one-word sentences, say 'sure’ or 'yup’ if they accuse you of something or try to fearmonger, answer questions with 'maybe’ or 'I don’t know’, agree with whatever bs they’re pulling out of their ass without caring, refuse to get pulled in or baited, give them no significance in the conversation until they leave. It is very hard to do, because they will up their game and even fly into rage to get a response, if they feel entitled to it. In some cases they might resort to violence. Often, they’ll keep changing the tactics until something works, and if nothing does, they’ll feel dejected and go find another source of supply. If they feel like they can’t get to you, this undermines their imagined power over you.

No contact is the only way to truly win against a narcissist; if they can’t reach you, they can’t manipulate or hurt you. This means no responding to messages, no letting them know where you live, blocking them on every service, and in most situations, even the enablers have to be no contact, because the narcissist is likely to send them into triangulation and use them to get to you. If you’re unable to go no-contact with a narcissist, a lot of people opt for 'low contact’, which means you only hear from them once a year, or once every 6 months, insufficient for them to gain control over you, and you grey-rock them all the way, and never share any personal info that might be used against you. Hoovering is something a narcissist will do to you after you’ve left them. They might leave you alone for a long time, then suddenly send a message saying they miss you, or they’re thinking about you and wishing you could do xyz together. They might also influence another person to tell you 'x misses you, they wish to see you again, they’re doing bad without you’. This is done to remind you of the 'good times’ and an attempt to draw you back in, as you’re supposed to have forgotten all the abuse already and be ready to take them back. It might come as outrageous expectation or denial of everything bad that happened – that’s because it is. All you have to do is grey-rock this, not respond, and enjoy in knowledge that even if you can’t ensure revenge, you can take yourself away from them, and they will never have you back.

Sources: Baiting, Scapegoating, LoveBombing, Gaslighting(video), Projection(video), Triangulation, Mirroring(video),  FlyingMonkeys (video), Hoovering, Grey Rock

I realized growing up alone caused me to never give other people any roles in my life. I don’t allow myself to need anyone, because I still know how bad it hurt to need my parents, and how badly I was punished for it. Needing people is scary. I get attached to things instead. When I was a kid, some of my clothes had actual names. I had a favourite pillow, favourite blanket, favourite pajama. I was attached to every poster on my wall, and some of my things felt like extensions of me, if someone hurt them, it felt equal to hurting me. I gave things a role in my life one would usually give to humans, because I needed connection and interacting with humans was so unsafe.

Forms of communication that didn’t include direct interaction felt like the pinnacle of bonding to me. Reading a book felt like talking, listening and understanding. Watching a show felt like having friends. Listening to audio books felt like being read bedtime stories. Playing a game felt like being played with. Identifying with a fictional character felt like being seen, that character finding happiness felt like being fulfilled. Reading a blog felt like intimate connecting with someone’s soul.

I was out there absorbing and feeling like that was it, this is how you feel like a part of humanity. Only problem with it was, I was still invisible to all these creators, existing only in my own mind, nobody affirming I was a part of the bond. And it was safe. So I keep doing it with people too. I absorb what they say, without making myself a part of their world, and without giving them a role in mine. That kind of a role is reserved specifically for my socks.

Neglected child is unprotected child. Neglected children have already learned it doesn’t matter what kind of experiences they have; if they’re hurt, if they need help, it’s useless to cry or complain, nobody will come to their aid. They’re abandoned and left to themselves in terms of navigating the world, and the traps for them to fall in are already laid out. They’re likely to be starved for attention, so they won’t reject the groomers and predators who start talking to them; quite the opposite, this will seem like the only person who cares about them, and will easily get a special place in the child’s heart. Later, when this predator starts exploiting, sexually violating or otherwise hurting the child, they will blame themselves and feel like they deserved it. They learned that the price for attention is pain. They’re likely to take it on to preserve the only relationship that gives them attention, especially because they can’t know what the price is, and how badly traumatized they will be later.

A child who gets care from their parents won’t be so easily subceptible to this, because they’re likely to tell their parent as soon as something bad happens to them. They won’t have to trauma-bond with a stranger to get an inch of self worth. They won’t be taught to blame themselves if they get hurt.

Neglected children almost don’t have a choice but to bond with the first person who shows them care, because the alternative is to reject humanity altogether, and a child cannot survive on their own. It is too devastating for a child to face that nobody, not their parents, nor other people, will ever care for what the child is going thru.

Being outcast before they had a chance to even prove themselves as a valuable member of society is too painful, all children rely on adults to accept them as someone who belongs in this world and has a valuable part in people’s lives. Children will not be able to grow up and become a part of society without this. To neglect children is to render them unimportant, unprotected, and opened to every single predator who will easily clock a child who has nobody to tell their secrets to. Neglect is the cause of children breaking in trauma, breaking in abuse, and struggling to ever see themselves as a member of society.

I learned recently, while researching gaslighting, that there is a second type called ‘Emotional gaslighting’. This is when your abusers deny the reality of your feelings. 'You’re too sensitive’, 'It wasn’t that bad’, 'You’re just faking it for attention’, 'Stop acting like you’re hurt’ 'Come on, it didn’t hurt you’ 'You’re overreacting!’ 'You’re fine, stop exaggerating’, these phrases deny your own feelings to you. They communicate to you that not only the abuser doesn’t believe you’re experiencing pain, they’re demanding you to pretend that you aren’t. They’re asking you to deny your reality and to pretend it’s not real.

This will make you feel like you’re not allowed to feel your own emotions, and you’ll end up questioning if any of your emotion is real or are you faking it? Are you justified in feeling what you do? Are your feelings of pain and terror really just an exaggeration that doesn’t have a basis in reality? Are you making up your own suffering? Is all this pain in your head only?

This, again, will cause you to feel like you’re going insane, and doubt your every reaction to any event, you’ll try to see if thru someone else’s eyes you would be perceived as 'reasonable’ for having a reaction that you do, and it will drive you insane trying to figure out what are the 'correct’ responses while all you feel is shame, anxiety, pain and desperation.

This illusion falls apart when you realize that all 'correct’ responses are only those convenient to your abuser, and that somehow, your every positive and obedient reaction to them is 'correct’, while justified upset and pain at their abuse is 'wrong and forbidden’. So somehow you’ve been reacting to everything right, except the abuse. Somehow, your every thought and feeling needs to be convenient to them or it’s wrong. That’s how you know it’s only a self-serving game they’re playing, and all your emotions were correct all along, as there’s no way for you to 'feel’ wrong. All your pain is still their fault, and not your fault for 'feeling it’, and things are exactly as bad as you feel them. Your feelings are a reflection of reality that is happening to you, if there was no cause of you feeling upset and pained, you would not be feeling it.  

WHISPER OF THE HEART (1995)  dir. Yoshifumi Kondō