Narcissistic Abuse Syndrome

Symptoms of Psychological Abuse & Relational PTSD

This blog is written for female survivors of male perpetrators.

This is how you know you are or were the victim of psychological manipulation by an extreme narcissist or sociopath. This devaluation behaviour starts the moment you are bonded or ‘hooked’. Then it escalates.

• You start to realise that there is something very ‘wrong’ with him but you can’t quite put your finger on it, so you dismiss your suspicions as baseless (you enter into denial)

• He ignores you in private but plays the adoring husband in public

• You seem to be the least important person in his life when you feel like you should be the most important ( you enter into cognitive dissonance – holding two conflicting beliefs at the same time – he loves me, he loves me not)

• Your needs are last thing on his list

• You mutually agree on a compromise plan and then he behaves as if you never made the agreement and does what he wanted anyway (gaslighting - an extreme form of, "Are you nuts? I never said that")

• You try to discuss things but he refuses, walks away, leaves the house for days (stonewalling)

• You feel like you give and give and get very little in return

• You feel him become emotionally distant and cold with increasing frequency

• You feel yourself disappearing

• You feel like you cannot do enough to regain his affection

• You feel worried or afraid of abandonment

• You are constantly forgiving him for his bad behaviour but he punishes you for yours

• You feel like he continually takes advantage of your good nature (your forgiveness, trust, putting other’s needs before your own)

• You think he’s lying to you, but if you ask him directly, he tells you you’re paranoid

• You feel guilty and don’t know why

• You feel angry and don’t know why

• You feel used, undervalued, ignored and disempowered (you feel fat, stupid, incompetent, useless)

• You are constantly being made to apologise for things you shouldn’t really have to apologise for

• You feel responsible for his adultery, his failures, his financial irresponsibility

• You feel sorry for him (when he plays the victim)

• His friends, colleagues or family treat you with a total lack of respect/suspicion/contempt (he’s slandering you behind your back)

Symptoms of PTSD

And these are the official symptoms of PTSD. PTSD is not so much a mental illness as a mental injury, caused by someone or something. (Some Australian shrinks won’t call it PTSD if they cannot understand that you experienced your psychopathic abuse, betrayal and abandonment (life rape) as life-threatening. So I refer to PTSD on this site as being the condition categorised by the cluster of symptoms below. OK?) The proof of the pudding is surely in the eating.

• Intrusive, upsetting memories of the event or events

• Flashbacks (acting or feeling like the event is happening again)

• Anguish and disbelief

• Nightmares (either of the event or of other frightening things)

• Having trouble remembering and difficulty processing information

• Loss of interest in activities and life in general

• Sense of a limited future (you don’t expect to live a normal life span, get married, have a career)

• Difficulty communicating

• Difficulty falling or staying asleep

• Irritability or outbursts of anger

• Difficulty concentrating

• Hypervigilance (on constant “red alert”)

• Feeling jumpy and easily startled

• Depression and hopelessness

• Feeling alienated and alone

• Anger and irritability

• Guilt, shame, or self-blame

• Feelings of mistrust and betrayal

• Physical aches and pains

There is also a condition known as Complex PTSD, which is the result of earlier abuse and/or psychological manipulation prior to your most recent experience of it.

"The mental health community has been slow to recognize and acknowledge CPTSD, which has led to misdiagnoses of long-standing traumatized individuals with anxiety and depressive disorders, and borderline or dependent personality disorders (Walker, 2013). While Complex PTSD has been discussed in the framework of physical and/ or sexual abuse in childhood, it can also be caused by emotional and/or verbal abuse, long-term domestic violence as well as long-term childhood emotional neglect."

Power – Surviving and Thriving After Narcissistic Abuse, Shahida Arabi, Thought Catalogue Books, Brooklyn, NY, 2017