People who have been abused wonder if they’re the narcissist. The reasons they wonder this are:
1. Their abuser has been telling them for years that they don’t do things right, nobody likes them, and that they’re abusive. This is known as gaslighting. Gaslighting is intentionally twisting the truth to get the outcome you want. Abusers do this beautifully. They gaslight you into thinking you’re the problem and the abuser.
Because of the way you grew up with limited positive reinforcement from someone you cared about and because you value your partner’s opinion SO highly, you believe them and wonder if maybe you ARE the narcissist.
2. Your partner intentionally does things to get you agitated to get a reaction out of you. When you do react, they respond, “I was just trying to have a reasonable conversation and look how you’re reacting.” Then they tell everyone else, “She’s crazy. She’s flying off the handle. I have no idea why she does this.” They don’t know the real problem and can’t see what’s happening behind the scenes, so they think you are the problem.
During the time you’ve been with an abuser, you’ve learned that a soft answer does not turn away wrath, that no matter what you do you’re going to be in trouble, and they complain and blame you for everything. Since nothing else is working, you wonder if maybe the best way to interact with them is to do to them what they do to you and you start to engage in ‘reactive abuse’ (visit stopemotionalabuse.net/commonterms for a more detailed description).
Then you learn what abuse is and you know you’ve been doing some of those things, so you think you may be the abusive one. Nope, you were just reacting to their abuse.
Also, there’s one BIG reason I know you’re not the abuser.
Abusers can’t objectively look at their behavior to see what they’re doing wrong. Their ego is so fragile and their need to be right is so strong that they don’t wonder if they’re a narcissist. The need to protect the ego at all cost is SO STRONG, that they don’t wonder if they’re hurting other people. They can’t operate in reality, because it’s too damaging to their ego.
No, you’re not the narcissist. You’re just reacting to hellish conditions, you’re being gaslighted into believing you’re the abuser because the abuser doesn’t want you to know the truth about their abuse.
