WHY NARCISSISTIC ABUSE IS SO HARD TO SEE 

the biggest part of the abuse is to make you believe that it isn't abuse, to make you doubt your own judgement(and instinct), to turn you against yourself.

It often takes distance to see how bad the narcissistic abuse was - even when you can recognize it.

"Doing good things" for someone doesn't buy you the right to abuse them. That is a manipulative, malicious game.

A persistant state of confusion while with that one person can be the 1st red flag that there's toxicity.

It’s insane how they use the same tactics to draw you in and manipulate. Seriously disturbing people.

Thanks so.much. 17 years with a very abusive covert narccisst. Verbally abusive. No remorse. No accountability. My father was also a covert narccisst. I have suffered with these abusive people for over 70 total years. I always thought I was to blame.

Another reason is that some narcissists can be very helpful and can seem to be "ok" however they are still negatively affecting our lives and because they are not the absolute worst - it is easy to just stay in this "so so blah blah" taking you down slowly relationship.

The negative treatment sneaks up on you without you noticing. One late night I surprised him tapping on the computer. He was so nice to me, I was shocked! I realized then how badly I had been treated for so long. I put my detective hat on the next day and discovered a secret email with romantic relationships with other women. No one deserves to be treated and disrespected by another person, especially one who you love and who you thought loved you.

The abuse gets really bad when you’ve finally realized you’re in an abusive relationship you can’t get out of, and so while you stop taking the bait, then you get criticized for being shut down all the time. She can’t say to this person, “I’m shut down because of the abuse,” because then she’ll REALLY fly into a NARCISSISTIC RAGE. You can’t gray rock them, and you can’t react to them either. You will attacked no matter what strategy you employ.

This is such a good explanation. After leaving an abusive marriage, it took years for me to see how my family of origin set me up to accept mistreatment, make excuses for it, and keep on going in the fake relationship. It's a lot. Our society allows and enables abuse and even rewards abusers. I see it changing, but the exposure process comes first, and it is so ugly.

It's easy to justify behavior's that we don't understand or never been through! Because we as humans only know abuse as evident or obvious! We've never experienced hidden abuse! So early on we trust and believe this person that we believed loved us has our best entrance at heart! It actually takes repeated offenses for us to actually see what's really going on! My wakening moments was whenever I got the strength to leave taking him back was me believing that he was actually trying to work on himself! But then the patterns would start all over again! That's when I said to myself, clearly he knows how to behave, he just chooses not too! And that's what gave me the strength to leave!

The way that they operate confuses you a lot. Add the love you have for them and this leads you to rationalize their wrongs. The wrongs become tolerable and the damage being done goes unnoticed. Great video.

Unbelievable!! Whom ever survived this madness is Greatly Loved and blessed by “The Most High!!” I’m a survivor!!❤

there are sooo many of them its like an ocean

“Actually comforting to blame yourself….that means you can do something to fix it…” In a nutshell my 18 years of marriage! I reached for every goal he set and I still cracked the facade of perfection! Now I see!!! It was only about me feeding his narcissism!!! 😮

Your insight is truely incredible and has helped me soooo much, you have sooooo many videos that have brought so much clarity to what i was going through.....in my opinion, you're one of the best youtubers about narcissism and narcissistic relationships, (you and the little shaman....and ive watched MANY) .... i just really want to thank you for what you do!

Another cliche that people tell abuse victims (and they tell themselves): You’re responsible for your own happiness, no one else. Or it’s variant: You can choose to be happy.

the abuse might be hard to see, but the result(damage) isn't (hard to see).

They agree with you that no one is perfect, that’s why they cheat on you.

It is so good to hear someone explaining and advocating what I have been going through. It’s unbelievable, the resemblence between my experience and your explanation

You are so right that I knew nothing about narcissist when I met her 40 years ago and I am just learning what happened to me. I knew something was wrong with her the week we got married, we were on our so called honeymoon and as we were traveling she started raging like I never seen before. This went on and off for about 4 days and I said to myself something is wrong here but then she would be nice and that's what keep me in with her. She was lucky that I didn't just follow my heart and now each day go by I wished I would have followed my intuition but I thank God that I know now.

It is not just raging or insulting. It is the constant disapproval, everything you do is wrong, it comes in the form of disrespectful comments and gestures. It is also what they don't do, having a household with children and neglecting every single responsibility. It is being accused of being an abuser because you won't tolerate poor behavior. It is being treated all the time as if you owe them something. It is, after years of that, being brutally discarded and replaced and being made responsible for everything, cheating included.

It took a long time to admit to myself that I was being abused. I did not want that to be true. No, not me. Please not me. But eventually it was just so obvious that I couldn’t deny it. And I had to face it and keep moving forward and thank God for videos like these. They help so much!

My dear, you are so knowledgeable on the topic. Thank you 💗. You put everything I’m going through so eloquently. I’ve been going through so many digestive issues and I think it’s my body’s response to me having a hard time digesting the fact that the person I thought was my soulmate, is actually a narcissistic abuser.

They must transfer the disappointment they feel within themselves to you. This they can do without a word. Actually it is not what you do that disappoint them but your whole being. Goes back to how they see themselves.

You may not be a professional, but you sure hit the nail on the head.

I love your brutally honest information about these horrible people. I had an adopted pack of them. Sometimes it takes them passing away before you can face the horror of just how horrible they really were. The scales are never balanced. And this is the generational curse. That their hate gets passed down.

Narcs do not and can not LOVE, FEEL EMPATHY, REGRET, REMORSE.

Family GP of 35 yrs told me to leave.

yep. 25 years before i saw what I never thought existed. once seen, it cannot be unseen.

This whole vid is 💯 but @15:40 you grabbed my attn & kept it. You really do get it bc you really have lived it & your compassion is authentic. Shi+ hurts don't it? I'm very near radical acceptance & I feel like I'm losing my mind. Thank you for validating my feelings ❤

Excellent! These are critical and powerful distinctions of what most of us go through in developing trauma, mistrust and depression. We believe so much that humans are inherently good and they must be right because no one would be an abuser. It must be our fault. Even when we realize the behavior is wrong we believe that all that has to happen now is to make it better, get help, change ourselves or be the support they need because they are suffering from a mental illness and we can be the support they never received. The best course of action is to leave but that concept is an even harder thing to wrap our brains and heart around. We don’t give up on our lovers, children, parents, grandparents, best friends, spouses or siblings etc. Thank you LBTM for this: (what’s really going on in our head and heart) Take off the rose coloured glasses, grasp realty and RUN AWAY FROM THEM AND NEVER LOOK BACK!!! 🙏🏼😊

you comment of abusive people are terrible all the time, and only good people help other people, hits home so much.. Thank you for your videos. Its helping me heal and leave an abusive relationship

Thanks for this video, you really sum it up very clearly! One factor to add is the "frog in the hot water" effect. When the abuse is increased very gradually and is intersperced with good/normal treatment, you become habituated to be treated that way and it becomes harder to fully recognize it. And then there is the trauma bond/betrayal bond of intermittent reinforcement, which is a whole topic on its own.

12:46 EXACTLY! After all, EVERYBODY out there loves this charming lovely helpful humorous angel, and she's nice to everybody... So it's another EVIDENCE that I am a worthless piece of... , like my narcissistic father convinced me from birth to my twenties.

it may seem so simple in your head but it is turmoil in a narcs head

I think people with disabilities are even more prone to narcissistic abuse. Like myself who has ASD and ADHD, every time i try to call out my husband's behaviour, he would use my disabilities to go and against me. Lacking social skills means it's always me who says things incorrectly and understand things incorrectly. When i said just because i have my own issues and limitations that doesn't mean you have no problem. My husband would basically laugh about it and said," you want to compare your problems with mine?"( It's like how dare you)," your problem is unchangeable, it impacts us way more than mine." After that sort of comment, i really have no idea what else i can say to him 😢

Lady behind the mirror your like a beautiful mom i never had. Thank and may God bless you and family in Jesus name amen. Thank you.

You buy into you being the bad person and responsible for it happening. You bring your history into it and they are just more of the same. You don't see it.

Knowledge is power! U tube saved my life. It’s been an incredibly long journey as I realized that the inter generational curse had touched me from my narcissistic family gaslighting me since birth. Twenty years ago I was being narc abused by my youngest sister. I got cancer and moved to where my other sister and bro live and they continued the narc abuse right after radiation treatments and there abuse has continued on for another 10 years. Spirit really wanted me to experience this extensive and intensive abuse to finally get it and heal and move forward with my life. I am a very strong 64 yo woman that is single. Thanks you to all of the excellent info on narc abuse - it saved my life Andy mental health ❤️

Unconditional 'Hope' is what keeps the empath from 'seeing' and believing the reality of the situation. Unfortunately, in these relationships, hope has repeatedly proved useless .... like the title of the old, evergreen song, 'Helplessly Hoping' by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY).

You are amazing! SPOT ON!! Thank you for taking the time to reach out & help people understand these type of mind-$#@ks. You are saying EVERYTHING that took me MONTHS to unpack, break down & figure out! Down to belief systems & the discrepancy between your own perceptions of what "abuse" really is. What it looks like "for everyone else." And what that same concept looks like in your OWN LIFE. Everyone knows that when he beats the shit out of you, it's abuse. Everyone knows if he calls you a slew of horrible names, it's abuse. If hes unreasonably controlling with money, what you wear and/or who your friends can be, it's abusive. But there's far more insidiously abusive tactics in their tool box of bullshit than we're taught to look for that FLY UNDER THE RADAR for most people. And even fly under the radar for the victim's friends & family. At least for the first half of the "relationship." You have to seriously REWIRE your brain(belief system) to really wrap your mind around it. The further you get away from that crazy town, the clearer & clearer things become. And suddenly the relationship looks nothing like it did while you were actually in it. Chances are, you were always too busy defending why you lost your shit on him(after the first 7 times you talked/acted/asked respectfully....that you didnt have the energy to see the relationship as-a-whole and for what it really was. It totally sneaks up on you. *The Reactive Abuse "Trap" is also a whole other level that can add a ton of trauma & make it even harder to see your way out.

I don't understand how a person don't know when they're being abused if someone is treating me badly I know that it's not a good thing and that's when I pull out

They are dangerous so dangerous

Wow! I can see a different picture of what was really happening for 15 years 25 years ago. A con artist leading a double life. So many things start to fall into place once the true nature of these people is revealed. I did not think her behavior was abuse because i did not join the dots. Now i can see how she was controlling me to make time for other men.

Your unbelievable spot on with this .. makes things so clear .. thank you

I feel i cannot yrust any close relationship anymore, my family are all npd and it seems many of my close relationships have been with npds or mentally ill people, I just have to learn to be alone for rest of my life, even my cat is a time bomb as he is defei wont go into it! Thanks for your insightful, intelligent discussions, appreciated! My cat is beautiful, ragdoll, just toileting problem,

We start justifying abuse

I find your podcasts so very helpful. You have a real gift for explaining the aspects of a narcissistic relationship in a way that is really accessible. Thank you!

Dad blamed me for abusing me and that I was at fault. Not true. Only his fault. I gave up on his lies!

Thank you so much for this video. This was so well explained and made so much sense. It helped explain to me why I stayed so long in an abusive marriage to a narcissist. Thank god I finally stopped justifying his behaviour to myself and I woke up and got the strength to leave. He used all of those tactics that you described to blame everything on me and I believed it for a long long time.

Your words have made a life changing effect on me… can’t say more right now but I’m deeply grateful

So wise. Tysm. You described who I used to be. And the situation I was in.

oh my, I just listened to this again. damn, spot on. we have no compass for life. we came from dumpster fires. we got involved with a dumpster fire. we have no compass for knowing it is a dumpster fire. we have no direction home as Bob Dylan once said. we don't even know what a dumpster without a fire looks like. We just start leaving and hope it doesn't end like the movie, The Burning Bed with Farrah Fawcet. Anyone who survives escaping these Soviet Gulags in the Archipelago is amazing.

My Mom used to find sneaky ways of putting me down. Only I knew and she knew what was going on... Only now i understand after analysing my childhood days...as a child I never put the two and two together

Nailed it

Your videos help me a lot about what I think about my own situation. I am thankful for this video.

Totally agree ❤️

i found i needed good people to be around after escaping the narcissist 2B vital.

LOVE this video, THANK YOU!!!

Thank you! You helped me a lot. Im watching you since the abuser beats me and you were in my ears and made me think a lot 💪🏻🔥🤘🏻 #iwillmakeit

This video was so helpful! My ex changed a tire for me early when we were dating and I also did nice things for him, but when the abuse started, he would always go back to that and back to all the good things at the beginning of our relationship. He had a TBI as well and then the abuse was worse. I always wanted to blame it on the TBI, but it did start before that. This video spelled out EVERYTHING I dealt with, even with family members. No one understands. Thank you for this insight and validation.

This channel has really great information, it resonates with me a lot more than other channels that are more popular. You deserve bigger viewership, keep going and thank you for your content.

Our parents were emotionally not available

Thanks for noticing that there is no stereotype for a man to relate to. As a man you don't really have a grasp on things until after the end of the relationship. You start to recognize things for what they were. You really do have to distance yourself from it to get it.

Wow. By 4:30 said it all. I have watched hundreds of videos on narcissism and this was the most 'precise' representation of what I felt/went through. And now 31 years later... Thank you SO much 'Looking Behind the Mirror!'

He was probly the one that gave you the flat tire because he knew that you would call him to help you. It happened to me. I also had to have my hot water tank repaired too many times; the pilot light kept faltering....They are very sneaky, unsuspecting criminals. You could be at work, and they could be in your house....

You are sooo right!

Excellent video. Thank you!

Thank you for this ❤

Thank you. I get a strong sense this vid is saving people's lives. You're helping lift stigma that abuse survivors so often face alone, to empower them to leave.

thanks! great channel ❤️

This makes so much sense ❤

Thank you! This video provides such understanding, self-forgiveness and relief.

Thank u for that. Best I have heard. ❤👍🙏

Thank you 🙏🏼

It took me 35 yrs too discover what this mind f he really was .. I thought it was bi polar , I wonder if anyone else thought this before they realized this is NPD .

Creating 22.50 - losing almost all, after already losing almost all. Coming out of a long period of time trying to explain a better way for us, trying to save them from drowning, but now I have to save myself. Repetitive Compulsion compels us to repeat certain actions, especially the most painful ones - a subconscious motivation to repeat a circumstance in order to get it right. The child's true identity gets pushed underground in face of fear, neglect, so they try to follow the identity rules of the caregiver to please them, to become perfect, to get love and acceptance...but impossible in that dysfunctional family, so altered ego remains, true self is hidden resulting in shame, self hate. After trying to be perfect fails, we feel innately and fatally flawed in our parents eyes, other eyes, God's eye - I AM the flaw. We grow up and w/o healing get a partner with similar traits as parents, trying to repeat situation so we can finally have closure and make it right, be good enough.

forgiving yourself comes from realizing a narcs problems that you allowed in

I feel like I was born into abuse 😂

I have ruined my life justifying this behaviour in my head. After all I had kids to raise😢. Everybody kept telling me that something is clearly off with me. But I was too scared and stupid to accept the obvious. Now,with adult kids it has become a much greater nightmare😢. For any young person reading this,just know that Allah has given us mental faculties that better be used or we will forget who we are . So if you find yourself in such a situation, run as far away as you can from this carzy person! Remember, life is too precious to be wasted on psychos. All the best. 👍👍

but you won't change and what looking behind the mirror is trying to tell you is smash the mirror and get back to yourself before you met the narc .

I've accepted that God isn't going to do anything to change my situation. My ex still abuses me n our 7 yr old. It is what it is.

I do not feel that the abuse is my fault at all. It comes from my husband’s own inner torments. I am not able to leave the relationship at the present, unfortunately. However, what he says, while hurtful, is not believable. Mostly he projects his fears and insecurities on me. I know I am not that. Not all of us in abusive relationships believe the lies.

Yeah, well, the reality is. They're not like that all the time.

👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

It angers me how cheaply she would threaten to end the relationship! I would be told all the time that “we’re going to be together forever”. “Near and far always together”. Programming me with the Donna Lewis 90s hit. I suppose in a way unless I stop this push pull cycle this could happen but not in the way I originally thought. I’m shocked at the lack of sentiment she’s capable of!

❤

FUTURE VIDEO: any advice for person in long term abusive marriage, wanting out, but won't go unless they find adultery and is porn adultery?

EVEN THE OTHER DAY SHE RANG ME, BEING ALL NICE AND I FELL FOR IT FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME, I GET CAUGHT OFF GUARD BT END OF BRIEF CONVERSATION SHE COULD HARDLY BE BOTHERED TO TALK TO ME; THIS FAKE NICE, THEN REALLY NASTY GOES ON ENDLESSLY, I HATE HER INSIDES (GUTS) I'VE CUT THE OTHER PARASITE OFF (SISTER), SHE'LL RING AGAIN BUT I WILL NEVER SPEAK TO HER AGAIN UNLESS I HAVE TO! ONE AT A TIME!

And when. Your narcissist is in a true cult ….

Nobody who isn't bei g a used is not going to be watching this!😂😂😂😂😂❤

So so disappointing and so so sad the torture ur suffering

'Promo sm'