5 Signs That Narcissistic Abuse Has Changed Your Personality
You are no longer the same person. The encounter with a narcissist leaves deep scars in us. It takes a very, very long time until we understand their power game. Even then we usually cannot easily free ourselves from their clutches. If these manipulators are parents or partners, the consequences are felt for life. While we can avoid narcissistic superiors, neighbors, friends or colleagues, it can be much more difficult to do so in the fabric of a family or partnership relationship.
Moreover, the process of realizing what kind of person we are actually dealing with is a very slow and agonizing one. Finding yourself face to face with a narcissistic personality in your life can escalate into a never-ending horror. However, if you decide to take a step back and cut this person out of your life, you have a good chance of making a fresh start.
Emotionally and psychologically, however, all those years in the shadow of this psychological manipulation will keep you occupied for a very long time. In this article we will present 5 signs that narcissistic abuse has permanently changed you and your personality.
1. You no longer have a positive image of yourself
Even if you used to be quite self-confident and in the mainstream of life, time spent with a narcissist can rob you of that self-confidence. These psycho-terrorists are excellent at sawing away at your mindset and convincing you that you are inferior and helpless.
Parents and partners, who will constantly confront us only with our apparent incompetence, literally plant this negative opinion about us in our hearts. We see ourselves as losers and second-class people who are lucky that anyone is interested in us at all.
Narcissists have an exceptionally good feel for the weaknesses of their fellow human beings. They find the Achilles' heel of even the brightest personality in the blink of an eye and exploit this knowledge shamelessly and systematically. After the separation from or loss of this connection, it will take quite a while until you find your old self again.
You will probably even have to reconcile with yourself, because you have let yourself be led astray.
2. You are extremely sensitive to constructive criticism
We all become familiar with this in school if not earlier: Constructive criticism may be well meant, even if it may not sound like it at first. A narcissist, on the other hand, usually skips the constructive part and goes straight to relentless criticism, which is usually also without any basis.
They are not trying to help you become better. Their only goal is to make you feel small, to humiliate you, and to keep you defenselessly trapped in their web. A narcissist never means well with you, they mean well exclusively with themselves. This constant bombardment of unjustified criticism for years has left massive wounds inside you.
Everything that goes in this direction from now on will be rejected outright. Former victims of narcissists react with extreme sensitivity to any form of suggestion for improvement or second opinion that they have not explicitly asked for.
3. Your personal boundaries no longer exist
What makes narcissists so dangerous is the creeping advance of their insidious mind game. No one immediately starts to reveal their dark side on the first date or when they first meet someone. On the contrary, at the beginning everything is glorious, blissful and beautiful.
The potential new partners are courted and ensnared as if they were the greatest manifestation for their partner. Only with time do they drop their masks more and more often. In this way, you give up your private and intimate sphere bit by bit. Your cell phone is searched, your personal contacts with other people are cut off.
The narcissist dictates how you dress and what you should say or think. Manipulation by a toxic significant other is like an invasion. Without realizing it, you give up more and more of what used to be important and completely natural. It becomes a familiar habit to let someone else completely rule over you. After this time, your boundaries are not only blurred, they simply no longer exist.
4. Asking for help is not an option for you
Narcissists are excellent at targeting the sensitive points of their victims. The alternating carrot and stick is one of them, but also the twisting of facts and the falsification of truth in their favor. If you have been together with such a person or otherwise helplessly at their mercy over a prolonged period of time, asking for help leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. They have also done a great job of keeping you away from all those who could have really helped you.
Family and friends are gradually removed from the victims lives by these puppeteers, and sometimes through highly dishonest means. Now only this toxic person is there for you, at least that is the impression you are supposed to get. Asking for help is then either interpreted as weakness or held against you forever and accounted for. And so it happens that after the end of this relationship scenario you have a real problem with turning to others for help.
5. You are deeply insecure about your decisions
Unfortunately, if you've been told for years that you're incompetent and useless, you'll eventually believe it. As a result, victims of narcissists find it exceedingly difficult to ever regain confidence in their judgment and in their own decisions.
Some victims of narcissists never emerge from this valley of woe and persistent insecurity into which narcissistic abuse has driven them, without professional help and long-term therapeutic interventions.
Today's Conclusion: A narcissist remains forever
Tragic, but unfortunately true. An encounter with a narcissistic character changes your life permanently and forever. Being caught in a web of manipulation, psychological terror, lies and cleverly placed flattery leaves deep wounds in us. Building trust is difficult for us, including trust in ourselves. You could accuse narcissists of many things, but their most serious crime is probably that their activities still cast long shadows even when they themselves have long been history. That's it for today. Thanks very much and see you soon.