Narcissistic Abuse: Gaslighting & Psychological Manipulation

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano.

I am a life coach,

Best-selling author,

YouTube vlogger,

Meditation teacher,

And expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse.

I am a believer in the power of an organized mind.

My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness rather than living a reactive life.

May your heart feel blessed,

Your mind feel expanded,

And your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

When you are being emotionally invalidated by a narcissist,

What you will notice over time you might not notice when you're right in the middle of it,

Especially if you're struggling with a trauma bond and the narcissist has done a really good job at pulling you in through love bombing you,

Idealizing you,

Making you feel good about you.

You get activated or this level of narcissism in yourself gets activated and it's a natural thing that happens.

You start to feel like,

Oh,

There I am.

It's like you don't know who you are until you look into a mirror or you don't know what you look like until you look into a mirror.

And so when someone is reflecting back to you the qualities that you hold that are wonderful qualities and when someone says,

I see these qualities in you,

It's a magical experience.

It helps you feel seen.

It helps you anchor to the self.

Narcissists use that to their advantage to exploit other people.

And that is,

I think,

Where a lot of this psychological abuse begins to really take hold.

It's that I trusted you when you said that you knew that I was a giving person.

I trusted that you really saw that in me and that you honored that and that you wouldn't exploit it,

But yet you have.

You trusted,

You loved,

And you should never be ashamed of yourself for that because you met someone who could have won an Academy Award for acting.

That is not your fault.

And we don't always realize when we're in the middle of the relationship,

In the trauma bonded aspect of the relationship,

When we're still hopeful,

When we're still dealing with,

Well,

Maybe if I twist myself into a pretzel,

Maybe he'll calm down.

Or maybe if I can figure out what set her off,

Then she'll relax and she won't leave me.

So when we're in the middle of that,

We don't always realize that we are being consistently and chronically invalidated.

As time goes on and we gain information,

We gain knowledge,

We gain insight,

We learn,

We reach out to other people,

We ask our friends what they think.

We go to trusted friends and we say,

You know what,

Can you be honest with me?

What do you see in this relationship that I'm having?

Is there anything off to you?

Because I want you to tell me what you see.

I want you to be completely honest and tell me what you see.

Coming out of a narcissistic relationship is an opportunity really to experience a spiritual awakening because a spiritual awakening is a dissolution of ego and illusion.

And being in a relationship with someone who is highly narcissistic is being in a relationship that is an illusion because they're not real.

Their version of you isn't real.

So therefore they can't be real.

The version that you have of them within your own mind is really an illusion that they wanted you to believe in.

And that's very,

Very difficult to process,

But it can happen.

You need clarity,

You need direction,

And you need some key ideas to help you.

And you need time and patience,

And you need some key ideas to really help you wrap your mind around this process because it can be extremely,

Extremely emotionally damaging.

And so when you're in the middle of this relationship,

You don't know that you're being chronically invalidated,

But once you get kicked out of it and you look back,

You start to put the pieces of the puzzle together where you begin to see,

Oh my gosh,

I was invalidated.

Ever so slightly,

I was invalidated.

So how does a narcissist invalidate you?

Well,

One of the things that a narcissist will do is they will not pat you on the back.

Once they've secured you as a source of narcissistic supply,

One of the very common things that a narcissist will do is they will hold validation.

You get a promotion,

They don't make a big deal out of it.

You do great at a job interview and they find a way to make you feel bad that you've experienced this success.

You have a birthday that you're all excited about.

And they talk to you like,

What's the big deal?

You have a birthday every year.

Any time that you get excited,

A narcissist will find a way to damper it down.

Another way that a narcissist will invalidate you is when you're upset.

Something happens at work,

You come home and you should be able to come home and talk to your spouse,

Your partner,

Your best friend,

Or whoever,

A sibling about what's happening to you at work.

And you will be met with things like,

You should just let that go.

Well,

How do you know that you're right?

Or you always get like this,

Or you tend to be overdramatic.

Well,

You always have these issues.

So you'll see that even when you're down,

Not only when you're up,

But even when you're down and you need a little bit of support,

The narcissist is going to invalidate you.

You call the narcissist and you say,

Hey,

I'm at the airport,

It's five o'clock.

And the narcissist replies with,

I never told you to go to the airport at five o'clock.

And you think,

I must be crazy.

And you say to the person,

Yes,

You told me that you were going to arrive at JFK at five o'clock.

And they go and they absolutely deny,

Deny,

Deny,

I never said that.

This narcissist could be on vacation with a mistress.

This narcissist could be on vacation with a boyfriend you know nothing about,

Or could have missed the flight.

They will not tell you the truth.

They will deny that they said what they said.

They will also,

If you keep pushing them,

Come up with as many ways as possible to get you to doubt your reality.

This is where gaslighting comes in.

This is where they say things like,

You always screw things up.

I can never trust you with time.

There you go again,

Making things up again.

You might want to get your head examined.

Maybe you're getting Alzheimer's.

Maybe you're getting dementia.

You keep doing this.

You keep messing up and see you're even trying to blame me because you screwed up.

Another way that a narcissist will invalidate you,

And again,

You'll notice this over time is when you are angry.

So you're angry.

You're not only sad,

Like I said earlier,

But you're really,

Really angry about something.

Your mother said something that was really,

Really mean to you,

Or there was some injustice that happened at some grocery store,

Or someone stole your wallet,

Or whatever.

You did something that you lost your keys,

Whatever it is,

And you're upset that you lost your keys.

You're upset that someone stole your wallet.

They'll turn it around,

And rather than support you,

They'll mock you for losing your keys.

They'll mock you because someone stole your wallet.

They will blame you for why you were pickpocketed.

If your car gets stolen,

It will be because you did something stupid,

Because you're a nincompoop.

Your car gets stolen.

You're angry about it.

You are not allowed to be angry about it.

What they will turn around and do is rather than support you,

They will blame you for why this thing happened to you that's making you angry.

Another way that a narcissist offers victims chronic invalidation is when they embarrass them.

In other words,

You are with someone who is highly narcissistic,

And they say something really nasty about your weight,

Or they say something nasty about your hair.

They just embarrass you in front of a group of people.

When you turn around,

You have something to say back to this person.

They say,

Oh,

I was just joking.

You can't take a joke.

Now it's not about the fact that they offended you and what they said was rude.

They completely pull the rug out from underneath you,

And they blame you for being upset with them for being rude.

Sarcasm is really their ability to hurt you in a covert way.

When you react to it,

They tell you that you don't have a right to feel the way that you feel.

This is emotional invalidation.

Another way that a narcissist will chronically invalidate you is through stonewalling you.

This is so frustrating in any type of a relationship when you have things that you have to deal with as a couple,

And you are married to someone or you are partnered with someone that absolutely makes it impossible for you to get from point A to point B.

You have to deal with some issue with the children,

Or you have to get some paperwork done,

And you have a narcissistic spouse.

The narcissistic spouse knows that you want to get this thing done.

Whatever it is,

If it's important to you,

The narcissist is going to find a way to make sure that you feel it's not important to them.

If you want to discuss something,

Finances,

Doctor's appointments,

Whatever it is,

Even a serious relationship issue,

Just not going to talk about it.

The quiet one that is stonewalling you is the one that is holding all the cards.

If I come to you to have a conversation,

To try to work something out,

And you just turn around and say,

I'm not talking to you about it,

Arbitrarily decide you're not going to talk to me about it,

Or if you offend me and I go to you and I say,

Listen,

I want to talk about this,

And you're offended because I got offended,

There's no resolution.

I'm stuck.

If you're my partner,

We can't resolve this.

If we have a mortgage,

If we have kids,

This becomes a really sticky situation.

What are our options?

If you're someone who's healthy,

This makes you really,

Really uncomfortable.

You want the flow in your relationship.

You want to be on the same page with your partner.

Heck,

You even want to grow.

You want to learn.

You want to say,

I'm sorry.

You want the other person to say,

I'm sorry.

You want to take accountability for your actions.

You want to kiss.

You want to make up.

You want to make changes.

You want to grow.

Partners that challenge you with the right integrity are the best partners to have.

But when you are dealing with someone who is highly narcissistic,

They didn't partner with you for that reason.

They're not your partner because they want you to challenge them so they can grow.

No.

A narcissist wants you to really mirror back to them their grandiose vision of themselves.

That's why you're there.

You're there to stroke their ego.

If you get a little out of line,

If you get a little too happy,

They're going to pull the air out of your sail.

There is life after the narcissistic relationship.

There is life and there is abundance after healing from codependency.

As far as I'm concerned,

If you're a codependent and you found yourself in a narcissistic relationship or many,

Like so many of us have,

I hope you see this as an opportunity to really embrace the spiritual awakening journey.

Living above the veil of consciousness is all about dissolving illusions.

Certainly being codependent is an illusion because you were always good enough.

Codependents never feel good enough.

You're dissolving the aspects of ego that have you stuck thinking that you're not good enough and seeking approval.

Certainly ending a narcissistic relationship is an opportunity for you to live above the veil of consciousness,

Pay attention to those red flags,

And rather than ebb in the direction of what is unhealthy,

It gives you an opportunity to ebb in the direction of what is healthy.

There is life after all this stuff,

Dear one,

There really is,

So hang in there and keep growing.

Namaste,

Everybody.

Until next time.

Bye.