The Emotionally Abusive Relationship_How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing

by Beverly Engel

  Strategies for Specific Borderline Behaviors

  •To stop possessive, clinging, harassing behavior. Keep a photo of your partner or loved ones close by, and when you become insecure in their absence, take a long look at the picture. Do the same with love letters written by your partner. This will provide you with what is referred to as object constancy and will help you to feel more secure and trusting of your partner.

  •To stop losing yourself in the relationship. Take time away from the relationship. For example, one client shared with me, "I feel quieter inside when I'm away from George. Whenever I'm around him I feel chaotic inside. But when I get away, it's like I can breathe. I can hear myself think. I need to take mini-vacations from him from time to time just to find myself again. I don't know if I'll ever be able to have myself and be in a relationship at the same time, but I sure know time away helps."

  •To curb your tendency to be critical or judgmental. The next time you feel critical of your partner or children, make sure you aren't trying to push him away because you are feeling engulfed or feeling critical of yourself and projecting it onto others. Before you say anything negative, write in your journal, take a walk, or just let some time pass-and possibly with it your mood.

  •To curb your tendency to need to be in control. Instead of trying to control others, focus your energy on gaining control of yourself. The best way to do this is by identifying and monitoring your emotions, identifying your needs, and setting your boundaries.

  Do You Suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

  You may have reason to believe that you suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, either from reading the information on narcissism in the previous chapter or because someone, possibly your partner, may have told you that you fit the description. If this is true for you and you haven't read the previous chapter, I suggest you do so now. The following questionnaire will also help.

  QUESTIONNAIRE: Do You Have Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

  1.Do you feel you are special or that you have special talents or gifts that others do not possess?

  2.Do you feel you are entitled to special treatment or recognition?

  3.Do you secretly feel you are better than most people (e.g., smarter, more attractive, more talented)?

  4.Do you become easily bored with people when they talk about themselves?

  5.Do you tend to think that your feelings or your opinions are more important than those of others?

  6.Does it hurt you deeply if your talents, accomplishments, or physical attributes are not recognized or appreciated?

  7.Do you feel deeply insulted if you are ignored or not acknowledged?

  8.Have you been accused of being overly self-focused or self-centered?

  9.Have you been accused of being conceited or of being egotistical?

  10.Do you often fly off the handle or become enraged at the slightest provocation and often without really knowing why?

  11.Do you lose respect for others when you discover they are less intelligent, successful, powerful, or together emotionally than you had first thought?

  12.Do you have difficulty identifying or empathizing with others, especially with their pain?

  13.Do you find that you are often envious of what others have accomplished or accumulated?

  14.Do you tend to focus more on what you don't have than what you do?

  15. Do you frequently feel that your efforts and accomplishments are being ignored, minimized, or that you are being passed over for special recognition, promotions, awards, and so on?

  16.Are you able to walk away from relationships fairly easily once someone has insulted you or hurt you?

  17.Is one of your major goals in life to become successful, famous, wealthy, or to find "perfect" love? Do you feel like a failure or feel depressed because you haven't reached your goal?

  18.Do you feel like you don't really need other people all that much, that you are fairly self-sufficient?

  19.Are most of your friendships based on a mutual interest, or on the fact that you both have a strong desire to become successful, famous, or wealthy?

  20.Do your relationships tend to be short-lived? Are you close to someone for a while but find that over time they no longer serve a function in your life?

  If you answered more than five questions with a "yes," especially if they were questions 10 to 20, you may suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

  According to the DSM-V, Narcissistic Personality Disorder is characterized by the following:

  •An inflated sense of self-importance

  •Fantasies of unlimited success, fame, power, beauty, and perfect love (uncritical adoration)

  •Exhibitionism (a need to be looked at and admired)

  •A tendency to feel rage with little objective cause

  •A readiness to treat people with cool indifference as punishment for hurtful treatment or as an indication of the fact they have no current use for the person

  •A tendency toward severe feelings of inferiority, shame, and emptiness

  •A sense of entitlement accompanied by the tendency to exploit

  •A tendency to overidealize or devalue people based largely on a narrow focus or an inability to empathize

  How Narcissistic Personality Disorder Leads to Abusive Behavior

  If you suffer from NPD or have strong narcissistic tendencies, your behavior and attitude toward others is often experienced as abusive, even though you may not intentionally try to hurt anyone. Those with NPD are often oblivious to others and to how their behavior affects them. This doesn't make your behavior and attitude any less hurtful or damaging, however, and often it is your careless disregard toward others that hurts the most. The specific behaviors and attitudes manifested by a narcissistic individual that are most hurtful to others include:

  •Negating the feelings, ideas, and opinions of others

  •Sarcastic remarks and put-downs

  •A general attitude of arrogance and condescension toward others

  •A tendency to be dismissive of others, especially if he or she does not respect them

  •Being overly critical and judgmental of others

  •Unreasonable expectations; never being pleased

  Although most of their abusive behavior is unconscious and unintentional, at times those suffering from NPD can be deliberately abusive. Generally speaking, the impulse to emotionally abuse is set in motion either when the relationship becomes too symbiotic or when a partner is somehow found lacking. Too much closeness terrifies a narcissistic individual and so he criticizes or imposes control on his partner in order to hold her at bay. By accusing her of being too demanding or invasive, he can keep her at a safe distance. By asserting control and dominance over her, he can keep her in a dependent or one-down position. The narcissistic abuser also works at keeping his partner off balance so he can avoid having to make the emotional commitment that he so desperately fears. The unspoken message is "I don't love you," but it remains indirect and hidden so his partner won't leave. But neither can she feel safe and secure in the relationship. She is always in a state of confusion, constantly asking herself, "Does he love me or not?"

  When a person suffering from narcissism experiences disappointment in his partner, this can also set abuse in motion. A typical narcissistic individual often becomes intensely attracted to someone in a short amount of time and will tend to idealize his partner, viewing her as more beautiful, talented, popular, or giving than she actually is. When this idealization wears off, he may become so disappointed that he loses any respect he once had for her. This lack of respect is expressed through belittling, dismissive, or sarcastic comments or put downs, and a blatant lack of consideration.

  When the person suffering from narcissism is faced with the inevitable ending of a relationship-either because he is unable to ignore the fact that the relationship is a failure or he is interested in someone else-he will inevitably become abusive. Unable to accept responsibility for the
failure of the relationship or for his attraction to someone else, he must make his partner responsible-in his own mind and in hers.

  In some cases, it is not a question of the narcissistic individual becoming abusive but of his previously hidden abusive nature being revealed. In order to justify his desire to end the relationship, his partner must be forced to behave in unacceptable ways so that she can then be invalidated. In the situation where the narcissistic partner is attracted to someone else, he must turn his previous partner into a scapegoat and project everything bad onto her in order to idealize the new love object and establish a new relationship.

  How You Can Begin to Change Your Emotionally Abusive Behavior

  1. Admit You Have a Problem

  This will undoubtedly be very difficult. In fact, it may be the most difficult thing you will ever have to do. Believe me, I know. There came a time in my life when I had to admit to myself that I have some very clear narcissistic tendencies. It occurred during the writing of my book The Emotionally Abused Woman. As I listed the symptoms of narcissism, I was amazed to find that I recognized myself in the description of the disorder.

  It should have come as no surprise to me since I come from a long line of narcissists. My mother and several of her brothers suffered from the disorder, as did her mother. But for some reason, I imagined I'd escaped from our family curse. I should have known that it is not that easy to do. Having been raised as the only child of a narcissistic mother, there was no way I could escape my destiny, no matter how hard I tried. As Elan Golomb wrote so eloquently in Trapped in the Mirror:

  Each narcissistic parent in each generation repeats the crime that was perpetuated against him. The crime is nonacceptance. (The narcissist is more demanding and deforming of the child he identifies with more strongly, although all his children are pulled into his web of subjectivity.) How can he accept offspring who are the product of his own unconsciously despised self? His attitude is a variant of the Groucho Marx Syndrome: "I would not join any club that would have me as its member," here transposed into "I would not love any child that would have me as its parent." The child has rejection as its birthright.

  Even though it is difficult to imagine, those suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder have an even worse reputation than those who suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder. Calling someone a narcissist is considered an extremely derogatory word. To be a psychotherapist with narcissistic tendencies was especially humiliating, although I have come to realize I certainly am not alone. And neither are you. We are said to live in the age of narcissism, and because of this, few of us are entirely free of its traits. We see our narcissism reflected in the label "the Me Generation," and in such popular expressions as "What's in it for me?" and "taking care of number one." Our society worships beauty-especially beautiful bodies-as well as external things such as power, status, and money.

  As difficult as it will be for you to admit your narcissistic traits, this is what you will need to do if you are going to stop your abusive behavior and possibly save your relationship. As long as you avoid admitting the truth, you will continue to be abusive, and you will continue damaging your partner and your relationship.

  2. Face the Truth about Your Childhood

  When we look behind the self-important, self-absorbed, egotistical, "me-first" behavior of the person suffering from narcissism, we almost always discover a person whose early, healthy narcissistic needs (for attention, affection and respect, as well as the need for food and shelter) were not met. Some of you reading this book already know the roots of your problem. You remember well the neglect or abuse that you experienced at the hands of one or both of your parents. But others have been so good at covering up their hurt and anger that they have little or no memory of how their parents treated them. Fortunately (and unfortunately), you can almost always recognize shadows of your parents' behavior in your own. If you are domineering and tyrannical toward your partner and/or children, you can almost guarantee that this is the way your were treated as a child. If you are distant and aloof with your partner, you need only look to your parents for the reason.

  3. Begin to Let Down Your Defenses

  If you are like most people with narcissistic traits, you have probably built up a fairly strong defense system to protect yourself from pain, doubt, and fear. Perhaps you learned early on in life that you couldn't depend on others, that you were essentially alone in the world. You may have had to toughen up after years of neglectful or abusive treatment from your parents or other caretakers. You may have determined early on that in order to reach your goals, you needed to block out all other distractions, including your own emotions. Only by looking behind these defenses will you be able to get to the roots of your problem and come to terms with your parents' abusive behavior.

  In order to achieve success, recognition, financial gain, or adoration-prizes that those with NPD or with narcissistic tendencies value more than the average person-you probably had to work hard. You had to keep your eye on the prize and not get distracted by other things (relationships, petty problems, your emotions and those of others). That kind of focus creates a certain kind of person: someone who doesn't give up easily, but also someone who doesn't reach out for help easily; someone who is tough, but perhaps a little too tough when it comes to his own feelings and the feelings of others.

  Discovering that you have emotionally and possibly even psychologically damaged your partner and/or your children and that you have risked losing your family because of it has undoubtedly put a chink in your armor and caused you to feel more vulnerable than you are used to feeling. This crack in your facade can be the first glimpse you have had to your real self. Ironically, your newly experienced vulnerability-the feeling that you are now exposed for all the world to see, that all your weaknesses are now visible-is the very thing that can save you. It is the very thing that will allow you to admit that you need help.

  4. Reach Out for Help

  Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a serious psychological disorder that requires professional treatment. If you have a full-blown version of this disorder, you will not be able to recover without the help of a qualified psychotherapist. Treatment will not be easy because it will require you to admit that you have human failings like everyone else. It will require you to face the truth about how you have caused those closest to you to suffer-namely, your partner and your children. You will also need to recognize your need for other people. At the same time, you will need to recognize that just because you need other people, it does not mean they will necessarily supply your needs. Most important, it will require you to once more experience the feelings of being a helpless and manipulated child who sustained considerable damage at the hands of selfish or unloving parents or other caregivers. You will need to begin to recognize the emptiness of a life compulsively controlled by the need for admiration and achievement.

  But as difficult and painful as the process is, the rewards are many. You will uncover your authentic self underneath your cold mask of superiority. You will gain the ability to feel compassion and empathy toward others and yourself. You will gain the ability to feel real, genuine gratitude toward others and toward life in general. And you will grow to appreciate leading an ordinary life, one with real joys and sorrows, not the false pleasures of a fantasy life filled with distorted mirrors.

  My Personal Program for Overcoming Narcissistic Tendencies

  It will take time to overcome your narcissistic tendencies and to reap the benefits of long-term therapy. In the meantime, you can begin to make some changes right now. The following suggestions are based on what worked for me and many of my clients:

  1. Catch yourself in the act when you begin to criticize your partner. Ask your partner to tell you each and every time she feels criticized, belittled, or made fun of, and then, when she does so, thank her for the reminder. Realize that your need to criticize comes from either your own self-hatred, your need to push your partner away, or your need to maintain co
ntrol over your partner.

  2. Instead of talking about yourself as often, start listening-really listening-to your partner when he or she is talking. Ask more questions and take a real interest in what he or she has been doing. It will be difficult at first. You may find yourself bored or easily distracted. When this happens, you'll need to will yourself to focus on what your partner is saying. You will undoubtedly slip back into monopolizing the conversation from time to time, but with continued effort you can make real changes that your partner will appreciate immensely.

  3. Admit your need for people, especially your need for your partner and children. Notice how much better you feel when you and your partner are getting along and how wounded you feel when you don't feel included, acknowledged, and admired. Make the assumption that your partner and children probably feel the same way when you don't include, acknowledge, and admire them.

  4. Instead of focusing only on your own needs, try focusing on the needs of others, particularly the needs of your partner and children. Think of ways to show them how much you appreciate them.

  5. Ask your partner to tell you the ways that you have been abusive or hurtful and really listen to her when she does. Ask her how your behavior affected her. Try putting yourself in her place and imagine how it must have felt to be treated the way you have treated her.

  6. Apologize to your partner for the way you have treated her in the past and show her that you mean to make significant changes in your behavior.

  7. Start appreciating the good things in your life, especially the good things your partner brings to your life. Begin to practice gratitude every day. For example, every morning, think of five things to be grateful for. Or, at the end of the day, instead of keeping yourself awake by obsessing about your career or your looks, think back over the day and find at least five things to be grateful for.