Five Things I Want Say to Victims of Narcissists
I receive emails almost daily from victims of narcissistic abuse. Each of these victims sounds just like me twenty years ago. My heart aches for each of them because I know what they have ahead of them: the fight of their lives. Time and time again, the victims question themselves, afraid to face the brutal truth. How can it be true that the person you married does not love you and even more, has become your worst enemy?
I remember Danny Silk once saying at a conference that if your loved ones don’t know you love them, you don’t. That quote struck me hard. He was talking, of course, about the act of loving. If the people around you do not experience you loving them, then you are not actively loving them. But there is a darker caveat to this that I wish all victims of narcissists knew. If someone you love acts as an enemy, they are.
Before I list out what I would like to give this caveat for some of my readers who have not experienced this personal tragedy. I
am not pro-divorce. But I am pro-person which means that I believe that people are more important than institutions like marriage. Like Jesus’ enemies who condemned Him for healing on the Sabbath, people can get very focused on rules and ignore the victims. Living a life free of fear and abuse trumps the commitments of marriage in my view.
So here is what I would like to say:
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I can’t tell you whether to divorce or not. No one can.
But I can tell you that if you are afraid, you probably have good reason to be. Choosing to divorce my first husband was a journey for me. I had to face the specter of parental disapproval and the sure knowledge that I would have to provide for my children alone. And divorcing a narcissist feels really dangerous. They threaten and play hardball. They generally pull out all the stops in order to win. My ex even brought my prayer diary to court to try to prove that I was the unstable one.
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That said, my chief regret is not leaving sooner.
I would have saved myself and my children a lot of grief if I had stopped denying the depths of the problem. My children have had to really face a lot of unnecessary trauma because I stayed when I should have left. And so have I. We often lie to ourselves about how much damage we can sustain. We think we can ‘take it’ but, my friends, you were made for better things than being someone else’s punching bag, whether physical, emotional, or verbal.
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Your abuser doesn’t have all the power.
It just feels that way. Your abuser has been cultivating their power over you for quite a while. Narcissists lie, hide 
money, threaten, intimidate and seek to isolate their victims from their friends and family. One day the Lord showed me how He saw my ex compared to how I saw him. I saw him as a giant like Goliath but God saw him as a petty tyrant over a woman and four little girls. He showed me that I was much bigger in spirit. I was more than a conqueror and moreover, I had God on my side.
God fights for the abused and the exploited. Over and over, I have seen Him rescue people from vicious abusers when they call on Him. He makes a lot of promises about this and, believe me, I claimed every one.
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It isn’t your fault. At least not the way you think it is.
I recently was attacked by a woman whose husband had treated her very badly. She said she had taken responsibility by admitting that she had made a mistake and accused me of not facing up to my responsibility. But the truth is that we victims fall into the trap of blaming ourselves all the time. God had to tell me very specifically that I was not responsible for any of my ex-husband’s wickedness. We marry in good faith, but narcissists do not.
My primary fault was in not admitting to myself and my family the severity of the abuse. But even that is tempered by the constant twisting of the truth by my ex. I could not always tell what was true or not. Eventually, I realized that he used confusion as a weapon. If I was unsure, then he had the upper hand. If you ask yourself whether or not you are the one with the problem, you aren’t. Abusers are always one hundred percent sure the problem is their victim, though they will appear remorseful just long enough to keep their victims from leaving.
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Surround yourself with good counsel.
I could not have made it without the help of my pastors and family. If your church is not supportive, find another. Get professional counsel, both in the form of lawyers and counselors. Get your kids in therapy. Document everything your spouse says and does to you and your children. One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t tell the judge everything that happened. If I had, I would have won much more quickly. I wish I had known enough to insist on expert psychiatric evaluations from someone specializing in narcissistic personality disorder. If you are divorcing one, do your utmost to prove their mental incapacity. It will change the game in your favor.
Find people that will hear you and believe you. I can’t emphasize this enough. The number one fear of a narcissist is exposure. Shine as much light as you can into the darkness in your marriage. I was terrified and you will be too. But facing the truth of what happened has been the single most freeing decision I have ever made for me and my children.
I have so many other things to say, but no matter how awful your circumstances, you are worth saving. You can be free of fear. If you fear for your life, find a shelter that will hide you. Ask for help from people you trust. You may not have any control over your abuser, but you have control over your decision to stay or leave, to live in fear or to fight for your life.
Listen carefully to what the Lord is saying to you, whether directly or through people who really get it. Not everyone really understands the depravity and degradation that narcissistic abuse involves. I can’t even write down the words my ex called me ‘as a joke’ because the internet filters would tag my post as offensive. Your life is precious in the eyes of the Lord. He will deliver you as He did me. And I know. Leaving a narcissist feels as possible as walking on water. But I am here to tell you that life after narcissism is worth the fight. So worth it.
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8 Comments
Anonymous
What if you had family members harassing you and no matter what steps you took to try to keep them from harassing you they still somehow managed to harass you. My mom and younger sister have harassed me in the past and it seemed like no matter what I did to stop them they found other ways. For example I moved a couple years ago and I figured that since I hadn’t heard from them in a while prior to me moving they finally got the hint. I was wrong. A few months ago I guess they contacted someone who told my older sister who told me that they saying that they were going to send the police if they didn’t hear from me which is their way of trying to get me to contact them so the drama and other nonsense can start up again.
Anonymous
Our Pastor teached us that the old testament should be explained with the new one.
If You are in a dangerous relatinship with a true narcissist the only thing You can do is to leave if you want to stay alive.
But why there are these terrible stories in Bible in the first place? I believe they are there so that we do not think a blinking moment that there is such a person as a good man or a good woman. There are non. The darkest place of all is a human hart. There are sin in everyone of us but when we learn to know God and are in a true relationship with him, we have Hope. He loves us. We know that we are sinners but redeemed, adopted in a Royal race. Our actions have causality and we will suffer. God will not live our lives for us..But God can heal – even a narcissist. But pray from a distance.
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Anonymous
Thank you is what I think. I am just starting this process after 38 year marriage, several girlfriends on the side while raising a son. But my son just finished medical school and started residency yesterday.
Shannon Willett
I think this blog post is the one thing that was so close to me than any other I have read in the last 8 years. I was married to my ex husband the narc for 25 years. We have 2 biological boys and an adopted son. I tried to leave about 11 years prior when we were living in Japan. I caught him cheating and I had enough of the lies and cheating throughout what I know now started before we married and he was in college. But he said if I left he would kill himself. I couldn’t handle the thought even when I didn’t want to be with him I could handle my boys knowing I could have stopped him and didn’t so I didn’t leave. We looked like the perfect picture of a family. Even our kids didn’t know what we were going through. When I prayed I asked God to tell me I would be ok if I left because I believed I was married in front of God at church and marriage was to be forever. I asked God what have I not done to save my marriage? Am I giving up too easy? But when I caught him and his step sister exchanging gifts at Christmas and he didn’t buy me anything I was always ti go buy something and put his name on it. I knew that Christmas Eve I was done and I prayed so long that night as I started sleeping on the couch. It was a good night’s sleep and I knew the next morning that God was ok and I felt ready to leave. That worried me up till that day and I never regretted leaving. I wish I would have done it sooner. But the games with him has continued for 8 years now since I left. I didn’t know what a narc was until about 3 years after I left because I fell into a long dark deep depression and I had no idea what was happening to me. That depression almost took my life in more than one occasion. But I kept coming out of those things and I have have a lot of health problems now. But I started to see a psychiatrist about a year after I had left when the depression got really really bad I lost my job and I moved in with my sister. My sister then began to play games with me and I didn’t know what was going on then. I was so lost that I didn’t think I would ever have a life again. But one morning as I said in my chair that I slept in because I couldn’t lay down because I was on oxygen 24/7 because of him and I was over 300 lb and life was done. But that morning when I woke up I seen to most beautiful clear White Sunshine coming through my window that I couldn’t do anything but scared. I sat there for a while and then I took a picture of myself because I had no clue what I looked like I wasn’t even sure how I was living the way I was living. That’s when I was doing with my sister and then I began to realize my sister was playing games with me too so I never told her that I seen this beautiful sunshine coming through the windows it was like somebody had cleaned my eyes while I was asleep so when I woke up they were shining clear. Sitting there that day thinking the only thing I could think of was God must have picked me up and carried me when I gave up on myself. My psychiatrist said I went through a narcissistic withdrawal. I have had nothing but true faith my whole life and I know for a fact that I was carried and I have had a hard time fighting to keep my head up but I have God beside me and he didn’t give up on me so I can’t either.
Angel White
I find that what I am having trouble with (after 32 years of marriage – I left 6 months ago) is viewing him as evil. I struggle to believe it is intentional. But reading the things you have written, and seeing him so clearly in what you describe, I see mental health issues that he has known about for years but never actually treated – counseling sessions that were turned into his own personal gripe sessions and then used against me, shaming and blaming me and our children for everything that made him unhappy. Now that he is having health issues, I felt so guilty leaving him….but i could not stay and let the emotional and mental abuse get worse. The lies, the gaslighting (“I’m not cheating – what do you THINK you know?” – even though I had the text messages to prove it). But it was all my fault. But what I found is that when I left – I gave my adult children freedom too. Now they don’t have to suffer through interactions with him to be near me, and the change in all of us is dramatic. Even though I was rarely afraid of him physically, I do get physically ill thinking of how often I was emotionally afraid – what was going to set him off? What were we going to be in trouble for? The shame of admitting I allowed us to live that way for so long is strong…but I am blessed by the people who saw through him, and understand…
H
Thank you for sharing your wisdom and courage. You write beautifully, with compassion and understanding. Our stories are somewhat similar and I’m comforted to know I’m not alone or crazy. I also prayed so much that it became almost constant over the last few years, it seemed the more I prayed the worse things got. God had become my only friend and confidant, as no one could prevent me from talking to him. The day I decided to leave, God had to smack me in the face with reality, finally giving me the clarity and courage I needed to pack up my daughters and leave. I have been so blessed to have my father who instinctively knew I had been struggling (even though I tried to hide it), and guided me to God’s love and grace, then helped me escape when I was ready. Although, I do know God wanted me to leave, I still grieve the loss of having an intact family and the hope for him healing, the loss of having his family in our lives (well, some of them anyway) and the financial support that he provided. I still can’t understand or get my head around what life would be like to have the void or absence of love and compassion that these unfortunate souls experience. It’s hard to understand that they do not, nor have they ever, loved you and/or your children, it’s heartbreaking. I truly hope God will one day forgive and heal him and allow him to actually know and share love, peace, and acceptance, but I do fear for the next person to fall into his net. May God have mercy on those who hurt and those of us who love them and may God one day eradicate and heal this iniquity. Thank you, again and God bless.
Anonymous
I agree with this article. With that being said, my family and friends tried to tell me that my boyfriend was bad news. I even knew and witnessed his daddy being physically abusive to his mother. However, he would say over and over that he was nothing like his dad, yet, he had been verbally abusive and I thought one night he was going to choke the life out of me. I was 18 and had dated some, but, he was the one that had an effect on me. He love bombed, he trauma bonded, then he would think of some stupid reason to break up with me. I know now that he was messing around. Then he would call and beg me to get back together. Ugh, this went on and on, and then I married him. I am not even going to give details about the abused I endured. He was diagnosed as bi-polar 2, seasonal bi-polar, with severe sociopathic tendencies. By, the time i finally left, my head was so messed up. I saw a therapist twice a month and that was the best thing for me. I should have listened to my loved ones. But, most of the time, lessons are learned the way. Thank you for sharing this article. Great read.