LOVE DOES NOT HURT

You can say the most loving words with sarcasm and silently communicate contempt through body language, rolling eyes, sighs, grimaces, tone of voice, disgusted looks, cold shoulders, banging dishes, stonewalling, cold shoulders, etc. There are dozens of ways to be emotionally abusive.

In some respects, emotional abuse is more devastating than physical violence, due the greater likelihood that victims will blame themselves.

If someone hits you, it's easier to see that he or she is the problem, but if the abuse is subtle - saying or implying that you're ugly, a bad parent, stupid, incompetent, not worth attention, or that no one could love you - you are more likely to think you’re the problem.

Emotional abuse is more personal than physical abuse, more about you as a person, more about your spirit. It makes love hurt.

Abuse will keep you stunted, but Love will cause you to flourish.

Love is 'inclusive'. 

Love protects, defends, shelters and cares. 

Love believes the best, love prefers you. 

Love never gives up on you, doesn't interrupt you, love listens to you and hears you.

Abuse is 'exclusive'. It fails to protect and defend you. 

Abuse pretends to care, but doesn't. 

Abuse does not believe the best in you, but rather, brings out the worst in you. 

Abuse talks over the top of you and doesn't ever really 'hear' you.

Abuse will make sure you are excluded and left out if you don't behave how it wants you to. Abuse is fearful and insecure, threatened by your presence.

Abuse maintains a sense of perceived power, 

   by deciding who is worthy to be inside the 'inner circle' and who will be kept out. 

Abuse withholds information and keeps secrets.

Love is inclusive, and doesn't leave others out, everybody's welcome. 

Love is secure and firm, love is not afraid. 

Love celebrates others, (not seeing one as better than another), 

   but enjoying diversity and uniqueness in all people. 

Love will maintain a sense of privacy as a boundary, but doesn't use secrecy as a weapon.

Abuse will keep you stunted, but Love will cause you to flourish.

Empathy is Gone.

Lack of empathy is one of the most striking features of people with narcissistic personality disorder. It's a hallmark of the disorder in the same way that fear of abandonment is in borderline personality disorder.

"Narcissists do not consider the pain they inflict on others; nor do they give any credence to others' perceptions," says Dr. Les Carter in the book Enough of You, Let's Talk About Me (p. 9). "They simply do not care about thoughts and feelings that conflict with their own." Do not expect them to listen, validate, understand, or support you.

Never let a narcissist determine your self-worth. Narcissists lack empathy and the ability to validate others, so don't trust them with sensitive information or sharing important achievements because they won’t treat it with the respect it deserves.

Pity the Narcissist. Arrogance doesn't inspire sympathy or compassion. But at the end of the day, when you think about it, pity may be the only emotion evoked by someone who is so desperately in need of constant compliments, attention and validation.

Source.

Confusion is Insurance.

Victims or targets of a narcissistic personality leave the interaction, feeling Baffled, confused, and SELF BLAMING.

It is more often that a target of a narcissist will seek out therapy, often complaining to the therapist, that they suffer a general malaise and dis - ease with their lives; wondering what is WRONG with them.

As a person begins to understand the dynamics of a narcissistic personality, they begin to not only feel the relief that the problem is NOT themselves, as they've been blamed or encouraged to believe, but rather the presence of a personality disorder in the person they've been so baffled by.

With knowledge, comes POWER. The power to walk away from and establish boundaries to reclaim your identity, as narcissists are the CONSUMMATE identity thieves. Often taking what they want from a person they view as an 'OBJECT' and then leaving them in the dust and destruction of the chaos they caused in that person's life.

Source.

Why?

I have known my husband since I was 17 and he was 20. He was my best friend's high school sweetheart, and one of my favorite people on earth. In one sudden move, he broke up with my best friend and abruptly fell off the face of the earth. Years later, I finally found him --- married to the woman whom he'd left my best friend for and miserable. His wife had effectively isolated him from his family, convinced him that he was a drug addict, forced into NA, and obliterated his sense of self. He was a shell of who he used to be, his spirit was dim, and his heart was crushed. It took him eight years, but he finally shut down completely and reached levels of hopelessness that he'd never imagined. The marriage ended with his being falsely accused and wrongly convicted of domestic violence against a family member; and she took the house, the car, the kids, and any shred of dignity that she could get out of him along the way. 

This is a very short version obviously, but the pain of what he went through, paired with the pain of what she has put him through since the marriage ended is hard to describe. Physical abuse is easy to explain and prove, but emotional abuse is a devastation that can steal years of your life. These are his stories, our experience, and information we have used to help us navigate through having to withstand a true Narcissist at work.