At first, you won’t notice your life shrinking when you meet the narcissist.
Things like closeness, or being understood start to fracture and disappear as you fade into the background of your own life.
When everything starts to become blurry without a single dramatic moment responsible for it all, you might not realize just how much the narcissist had to do with it.
They did, though.
They erase the life you had before them, and this is how.
#1 The beginning: dropping your guard
If you aren’t familiar with narcissistic abuse, or have learned about how it can affect you, then it’s safe to say the beginning of any relationship with one won’t even feel like abuse.
When you assume that abuse is some form of treatment that is negative, hurtful, and makes you suffer, then the good side of the narcissist will feel like you have met your soulmate.
In fact, it’s still abuse. Manipulation to make you believe they are a good person is still abuse, and I am here to speak about that in the strongest of ways.
Narcissists force you to drop their guard. With each promise, compliment and loving text, you’ll think you landed firmly on your feet.
This is the start, and what causes those trauma bonds to firm up and establish. You drop your guard because you finally think you’ve met somebody who won’t hurt you.
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I know what you’re thinking:
How can that possibly make them then erase the life I had before them?
#2 Your whole world becomes about the narcissist
For starters, when your whole world becomes about the narcissist, you feel nothing but gratitude for the fact that they even exist.
You are pleased your paths crossed, because it means you now get to share your life with somebody who openly loves and cares for you.
Well, that’s at least what they tell you, anyway.
You obsess over them. Their energy feels magnetic, and you forget who you are.
You get swept up in the current that is the narcissist, and everything else drops away like insignificant weight you’ve thus far been carrying.
You live to please them, you’d do anything for them, and you think the whole world revolves around them because of how special they make you feel.
#3 Then the criticism begins…
It doesn’t take long, and I know if you have been there, you’ll be acutely aware of just how quickly the tables can turn.
Soon enough the criticism begins. The anger boils up and over. The silent treatment becomes a pattern you notice, and you realize that life isn’t as rosy as the narcissist had painted it to be.
You wonder what you’ve done wrong. You try to make sense of why somebody came into your life like the answer to all your problems, and ended up being the main source of them.
It’s a confusing time for victims. They never signed up to this kind of relationship. They wanted to make sure they found their happy ending, and not just another chance for somebody to take advantage of them.
This truth; the way the narcissist’s mask slips, is troubling. As a victim, you may have used that point in time to try anything to please them and reverse this new side to them.
Whatever it takes, you want to hope for a better future.
#4 Followed by isolation
When a narcissist meets you, they also eye up your social circle. That can be family, coworkers, neighbors, friends; whoever has an impression – and place – in your life.
They want to make a mental note of all the people who you speak to, and who may be an influence on you.
Those people to the narcissist are a threat. They have the potential to stand in between you both at some point or another, and as the narcissist predicts who that may be, they slowly yet surely pick them off one by one and isolate you from them.
You do too much for them.
You are too good for them.
They use you.
They drain you.
You don’t need them in your life.
I can be your support.
Over time, they disappear, and you’re left alone with the narcissist. Suddenly, there’s nobody to turn to, or spot the signs of abuse.
Your old life is being erased, and the narcissist makes it look like they’re doing it out of concern.
#5 Turning your passions into dust
The things you used to love become a thing of your past, as the narcissist encourages you to let go of your passions.
From hobbies, to what you feel strongly about, you won’t be allowed to be your own person.
The narcissist won’t say that outrightly, but they will criticize your passions, pick apart your goals, or find reasons why you are not up to doing what you set your mind to.
Eventually, each passion turns to dust, and you are left with nothing but memories of being somebody with direction.
That part of you shrivels up and becomes erased, with nothing to replace it. That’s why victims always talk about a void that they can’t explain.
That is the void.
#6 Your voice becomes theirs
If all of that wasn’t bad enough, how about losing your voice? I don’t mean literally, but I am talking about how your inner voice becomes theirs.
When you want to do something, it’s overtaken by a fierce negative and critical voice that tells you you can’t, or shouldn’t, or that you aren’t smart enough.
Where your voice once sat, has now been totally erased and replaced, and this is how victims end up never believing in themselves, or their capabilities.
#7 Shrinking your world
Your world becomes small not because you adjust it, but because the narcissist erases it over time. What once was bigger than it is now, you had room to move in it, breathe and grow.
Now, you’ve been re-potted in a small environment, and you are stuck.
You can’t do this, you’re too scared to do that, you decide it’s best not to do that.
You stay home more, and say no more.
#8 Waking up not knowing who you are
It’s a grief that nobody really discusses, but it’s really all the same. Not knowing who you are doesn’t happen overnight.
It’s built up over a long period of time, and you wonder how you got there.
There’s not one moment that made you sure it was the narcissist, and that’s how they can get away with it for the time they do.
Waking up not knowing who you are means there have been huge chunks of your life that have been erased.
They’re lost to your past, and are nothing but memories now. You don’t know who you are or what makes you happy.
You wonder where it all went, and the narcissist shares your concern because they don’t want to admit that it’s all because of them.
It’s a serious issue that faces victims everywhere, and it goes to show the power narcissists have over their victims.
You do not have to live like this.
