“The dangerous personalities among us harm us behind closed doors at home, at church, at school, and in the office, often preying in secrecy on the unsuspecting or the trusting —and for the most part, no one finds out until it’s too late.” – Joe Navarro, Dangerous Personalities: An FBI Profiler Shows You How To Identify and Protect Yourself from Harmful People The aftermath of being bamboozled by a sociopathic or narcissistic dating partner can leave even the most self-aware of victims confounded. That’s because sociopathic predators can fly under the radar for quite some time before we’ve had a chance to figure them out. By the time we have,…

Narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths can inflict long-lasting damage on their victims. Their emotional and verbal abuse, combined with their cruel, persistent attempts at sabotage, can even drive their victims to self-destruction and suicide. For part one of this series, here are five ways these covert saboteurs can infiltrate your life and attempt to destroy it: 1. SMEAR CAMPAIGNS. Covert predators like these will spread falsehoods to slander your reputation or smear your credibility to others. This is a form of gaslighting intended to manage your image in the public eye to ensure that no one would believe you were being abused. The abuser works overtime to paint you as the…

Narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths can cause long-lasting damage to the lives of their victims. Their emotional and verbal abuse, combined with their cruel, persistent attempts at sabotage, can even drive their victims to self-destruction and suicide. In part two of this series, I asked survivors for examples of the following behaviors from their experiences with malignant narcissists. These experiences include retaliation, discarding victims during the worst possible moments, ruining holidays, birthdays and special occasions, destructive conditioning, hypercriticism, and withholding praise. Here are six ways these covert saboteurs can infiltrate your life and attempt to destroy it. Warning: Some of these stories contain graphic details and may be triggering for readers.…

Malignant narcissism has been described as an “intermediate” between Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder, two disorders which, despite some differences like the level of grandiosity and tendency for criminal behavior involved, have many overlapping symptoms as well (Kernberg, 1989; Gunderson & Ronningstam, 2001). Malignant narcissists are higher on the spectrum of narcissism and possess these antisocial traits, paranoia, and sadism in addition to their narcissism. They may not all be physically violent, but many of them are psychologically violent and aggressive towards those they target. I find that there are a few myths that hold us back from holding abusive malignant narcissists as well as more colloquially termed…

Gaslighting is an insidious erosion of your sense of reality; it creates a mental fog of epic proportions in the twisted “funhouse” of smoke, mirrors, and distortions that is an abusive relationship. When a malignant narcissist gaslights you, they engage in crazymaking discussions and character assassinations where they challenge and invalidate your thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and sanity. Gaslighting enables narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths to exhaust you to the point where you are unable to fight back. Rather than finding ways to healthily detach from this toxic person, you are sabotaged in your efforts to find a sense of certainty and validation in what you’ve experienced. The term “gaslighting” originated in…

Exploitive relationships create betrayal bonds. These occur when a victim bonds with someone who is destructive to him or her. Thus the hostage becomes the champion of the hostage taker, the incest victim covers for the parent and the exploited employee fails to expose the wrongdoing of the boss. – Dr. Patrick Carnes “Why didn’t he or she just leave?” is a question that makes many victims of abuse cringe, and for good reason. Even after years of research about the effects of trauma and abuse and the fact that abuse victims often go back to their abusers an average of seven times before they finally leave, society still does…

Adult children of narcissists go through a lifetime’s worth of abuse. Narcissistic parents lack empathy, exploit their children for their own agendas, and are unlikely to seek treatment or change their destructive behaviors long-term (Kacel, Ennis, & Pereira, 2017). Their children often endure severe psychological maltreatment, as their parents employ behaviors like bullying, terrorizing, coercive control, insults, demands, and threats to keep them compliant (Spinazzola et al., 2014). This form of trauma places children of narcissists at risk for suicidality, low self-esteem, depression, self-harm, substance abuse, attachment disorders, and complex PTSD, leading to symptoms similar to children who were physically or sexually abused (Gibson, 2016; Schwartz, 2016; Spinazzola et al.,…

This article contains major spoilers for the HBO show, Game of Thrones. You have been warned. Many of us who tuned into Game of Thrones last night were astounded, yet, ultimately not surprised by the hero who conquered the Night King. It was an epic scene when Arya Stark leaped out of seemingly nowhere and skillfully maneuvered her Valyrian steel dagger to kill the biggest threat to Westeros. And it was perhaps one of the most powerful takedowns on television. After all, this was a young woman who did what Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, and many other characters on the show couldn’t. Yet one could argue that Arya Stark has…