abuse
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Despair: The Aim of the Abuser
Despair is not often discussed, though it is considered a dangerous psychological condition. Psychology Today describes despair as: … profound and existential hopelessness, helplessness, powerlessness, and pessimism about life and the future. Despair is a deep discouragement and loss of faith about one’s ability to find meaning, fulfillment, and happiness, to create a satisfactory future for oneself. The goal of an abuser is to produce the elements of despair in another person. In speaking with the victims of this abuse and having suffered as one myself, I am always surprised at how difficult it is to admit to the intentionality of emotional abuse. Victims often invent excuses for their…
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Four Ways We Gaslight Ourselves after Abuse
By now, most people realize that to gaslight someone is to attempt to separate them from a core belief in themselves and their reality. In a genuine gaslighting situation, an abuser will often say things like Are you sure that is how it happened? I don’t remember it that way. Or perhaps it will go like this: I think you took my words just a little too seriously. You are just too sensitive and don’t know how to take a joke. In extreme situations, the abuser suggests that something is really wrong with the victim, that they need professional help. I am pretty familiar with this phenomenon because my narcissistic ex…
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The Concept of Narcissism in the Bible: Part 1
The concept of narcissism was called out by Paul long before Psychology sank its teeth into the idea as a personality disorder. But having just created a list of fifteen narcissistic traits, I thought I would see how Paul did it. And it strikes me as very interesting that Paul says these men would surface in the last days. NPD, or Narcissistic Personality Disorder, didn’t make it into the DSM until 1980. Paul nailed it sometime in the first century. I am just going to go one by one and look deeply at the concept of narcissism according to Paul. I find it very instructional and somewhat painful, as my…
