How Narcissists Destroy Your Self Esteem (And What You Can Do About It)

How narcissists destroy your self -esteem and what to do about it.You know from my work that the narcissist pursues four things in relation to the appliances, the victims that we prey upon. Control, fuel, character traits and residual benefits. Those are the prime aims. The vast majority of narcissists being unaware don’t realize that’s what they seek. The aware narcissists know that’s what they’re after. They may call it different terms to that which I use, but they know why they do what they do. However, the vast majority of narcissists do not. And that’s why my work is so valuable, to provide you with insight in relation to the individuals that you deal with, so that you can unlock and unravel why they behave as they do. Key to all of this is to control you. And in controlling someone, the most effective way is to win that battle before it’s ever fought. This has always been applicable to military conflicts that have taken place. And part of that is to destroy the will of the enemy. If you manage to frighten your opponent before a shot’s even fired, there is a possibility that they will surrender, and thus the day is yours without there being any bloodshed. Not only does that preserve your military assets, It also looks rather good that you can state that Concus was achieved. without loss of any life on your side. And also in relation to the opposition. Although of course, certain of them may be put to the sword in order to maintain governance over them, but that’s a separate matter.

The fact is that crushing the morale of your opponent is absolutely crucial. I’ve spoken about this before, where in relation to physical conflict, By taking out the leader of the group, it’s invariably the case that the will of the remainder shrivels away, and they’re no longer minded to try and fight, because they’ve seen their leader go down. There’s also this principle as to why officers were targeted in conflicts, because this impacts upon morale and command and control. It means that an army becomes less effective with the loss of its leadership. Ensuring that the morale of an opponent is diminished, shredded, destroyed is critical with regards to the narcissist achieving control and maintaining control. And the context of morale in relation to the narcissistic dynamic is in respect of your self -esteem. Because the narcissist thrives on the necessity of control, the narcissist, in essence, always needs to feel better than you. And therefore, this is achieved by targeting your self -perception through a series of manipulations. Now these manipulations are, for the most part, instinctive with the unaware narcissists, but calculated and targeted where you’re dealing with an aware narcissist.

The aim, be it instinctive or calculated, is to destroy your self -esteem, because in so doing, that means that you’ll be far easier to control. Not only will you not resist control, you will also become more reliant upon the narcissist. This means that your fuel provision will be easier to obtain, your character traits will be simpler to purloin, and those delicious residual benefits will be offered up so freely. In effect, by breaking your morale, the battle is won. By destroying your self -esteem, you become controlled, and all of the other aspects of the prime aims follow. To achieve this, the narcissist will engage in repeated criticism as part of the devaluation. It can start subtly, backhanded compliments. You’re pretty smart for someone so emotional. Then evolve into overt putdowns. You’re too sensitive. You’re never good enough. You always cause problems. Your achievements will be minimized. Your flaws will be embellished and exaggerated. You’ll be triangulated unfavorably with others. Over time, the expectation is that you will start to internalize those messages, believing then that you’re inherently flawed or inadequate. It is invariably the case that empathic individuals who form the prime prey of the narcissist do come with flaws and insecurities, and the narcissist simply exploits them. This erosion seeks to foster a deep sense of inferiority that can linger long after the relationship with the narcissist has ended.

The narcissist will engage in rewriting events to make you doubt your memory and judgment. This is the gaslighting of which you’ve heard many times. That never happened. You’re imagining things. It didn’t go that way. These become common phrases. When you confront the narcissist about the behavior, the position is shifted. There’s deflection and blame shift. You become the problem. Repeated exposure to this behavior causes you to question your perceptions, leading to self -doubt and reliance on the narcissist’s truth. It becomes like viewing yourself through a warped funhouse mirror. You start believing the distorted reflection that the narcissist is giving you is actually accurate. The narcissist will project their behavior onto you. If the narcissist has difficulties in relation to their intelligence, you’ll be called stupid. If the narcissist is cheating, you’ll be accused of cheating. You’re made the bad guy. This enables the narcissist to preserve their self -image, while you are one who’s made to feel shame. This blame -shifting fosters guilt and self -blame, convincing you that you’re unworthy or defective.

The existence of the addiction, which I’ve explained separately, is utilized also because the cycle of idealization, devaluation, Idealization, devaluation, through the provision of the sustained devaluation and respite periods, or taking you off the shelf, interacting with you and putting you back on the shelf, will keep you hooked. Moments of affection feel euphoric after you’ve been treated cruelly through devaluation, and this is simply part of the addiction. Those without it are more likely to think something’s wrong and walk away. You, with your addiction, are more likely to remain. The unpredictability erodes confidence, because your worth then becomes conditional on the mood of the narcissist. You end up chasing approval, which then means that you’re diminishing your sense of independent value, making you easier to control, because your self -esteem becomes reliant upon the measure of value that is given to by the narcissist. Isolation and discouragement of independence follows as a consequence of discouragement of friendships, holidays, career growth. For instance, your friends don’t understand us, or you don’t need that job, you’ve got me. Without external validation, the narcissist’s negative narrative dominates. It also means that anybody who might intervene and point out the poor behaviours of the narcissist is far less likely to do so. You also have nothing to compare the narcissist’s behaviours to, believing that that is the way that it actually is. Think of it like a child who only knows about the world through what they’re told by their parents. they don’t know that it might be different to what they’re being told because they’ve had experience of nothing else.

This all results in deepening feelings of unworthiness and helplessness. This dominance means that your self -esteem becomes beaten down, fractured, and in some instances destroyed through such tactics that are utilised, as I mentioned, either instinctively or in a calculated fashion by the narcissist. Understanding that your self -esteem is targeted by the narcissism for destruction because it makes you easier to control and thus access the other residual benefits. You should be aware that this is going to be a likely casualty of your involvement with the narcissist. However, it’s not all bad news. By knowing that this is targeted, you can also, of course, take the steps that are necessary to restore your self -esteem. It isn’t quick, it’s possible. The first and most important aspect, of course, is to recognise that you’re dealing with a narcissist, and to accept that what has happened to you was abuse, and it was not your fault. Your denial of these factors, the denial of being involved with the narcissist, the denial of abuse, is what the narcissist relies upon. And your denial protects you initially, but the acknowledgement is what actually frees you. It is so fundamental for the re -establishment of your self -esteem that you establish a no -contact regime and as quickly as possible and I have set out in my separate work in my book No Contact and Exorcism the means by which you can achieve this. This means, of course, that you are no longer being abused, that the addiction is no longer being fed, so you won’t be affected by emotional thinking as greatly, and it means that you would then create space and time for you to be able to dedicate resource to the re -establishment of your self -esteem. You look to challenge your core beliefs. You will have been told that you’re defective, and therefore, you need to look at appropriate steps to take To overturn these core beliefs by seeking alternative validation, by realizing that you’re not crazy, by accessing my work and consultations, you are able to understand what has actually happened to you and make sense of the fact that you were not the problem, that you were not at fault, that you were not crazy.

By understanding what you were dealing with and why that person treated you in the way that they did enables you to make an effective recovery. It’s important for you to treat yourself with the kindness that you’d offer to a friend. When self -critical thoughts arise, primarily driven by emotional thinking, for instance, the belief that you’re worthless, you need to apply logic and counter them and remind yourself that this is not true and look to your traits where you are successful and worthwhile and listen to those that are supportive of you. You may find, for instance, daily practices including journaling, compassionate responses based upon logic to negative self -talk helpful. Narcissists naturally erode your decisions. confidence. You need to rebuild your self -esteem by trusting yourself again. Therefore you need to start making daily choices independently of what the narcissist sought to control you in relation to. It could be as simple as making decisions about what you eat, what you wear, who you fraternize with, where you go. You could attract evidence of your competence. Not accomplishments, but competence in terms of how you finished a task, how you handled that conversation calmly, that you made decisions about what you were going to eat for the week. Creating this list, it helps counter the internalised narrative.

You need to reconnect with hobbies or skills that you enjoyed before you were being abused, because success in those areas rebuilds proof of your capabilities. Identify your distorted beliefs and use cognitive restructuring. Gather evidence against those distorted beliefs. Pass positive relationships, achievements, compliments from others. Affirmations grounded in reality help you, coming from other individuals. Luck eventually, and ensure of course that you put into practice my steps with regard to avoiding further narcissists, the necessity of surrounding yourself with validating relationships. revisit and rebuild friendships or join groups where emotional empathy is evident. You may want to undertake specific work to focus on nervous system regulation, looking at breath work, yoga, walking in nature is particularly useful, and mindfulness. And exercise patience. The return of your self -esteem will not happen overnight, but by removing yourself from the destroyer of your self -esteem and ensuring you stay away from that destructive element, and then creating space and time for you to focus on the return of your self -esteem, you are going to create the conditions that will meet with the greatest prospect of success. But it won’t happen overnight, and you must recognize that and you must recognize that the narcissist may seek to hoover you, and to start the process of destruction once again. You need to ensure that that no -contact regime is solid, and you need to ensure that you diminish your emotional thinking, because that will look to hamper your attempts to restore your self -esteem.