Understanding Narcissistic Abuse: Abuse, #1

By ANNU PANDEY

This is the first book on this issue by an Indian author. English is very simple and easy to understand by anyone not having English as their first language.
In "Understanding Narcissistic Abuse", I have imparted experience and wisdom gained from five years of book and research articles reading, observing behavioural patterns of narcissistic people around me, academic studies through my psychology graduation and writing career as a relationship and mental health blogger on my website www.theexhaustedsouls.com.
I aim to clear the emotional and irrational fog covering the cognition and reveal the narcissistic relationship dynamics that are hard to understand, even by the victims who are directly involved and abused on a daily basis by the narcissists in their life.

 

About the Author

Annu Pandey was born in 1981 in Nevada Village of U.P, India. Growing up, she was always captivated with human behaviour and the complexity of family dynamics and this fascination led to her researching self-help books as well as opinion and research papers related to the subject. Later, Annu Pandey, a civil engineering postgraduate and a technical author, who is also a psychology graduate now due to her passion for psychology, found a passion for writing about family dysfunction. Started her blogging journey as a guest blogger seven years ago, now she owns her website www.theexhaustedsouls.com where she has been writing about family dysfunction and mental health correlation for the past two years. In "Understanding Narcissistic Abuse", Annu analyses every aspect of the relationship dynamics between a narcissistic controlling abuser and their victim, to educate the victims and their loved ones about the complexity of narcissistic abuse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Author Tree Publishing
• Release date: May 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9789391078959

Book preview

Authors Tree Publishing

W/16, Aman Vihar, KBT MIG, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh 495001

First Published By Authors Tree Publishing 2022

Copyright © [2022] [Annu Pandey]

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact: [[e-mail] and [phone]]

ISBN: 978-93-91078-95-9

MRP: Rs. 370/-

Cover by [Annu Pandey].

This book has been published with all reasonable efforts taken to make the material error-free after the consent of the author. No part of this book shall be used, reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The author of this book is solely responsible and liable for its content including but not limited to the views, representations, descriptions, statements, information, opinions and references [content]. The content of this book shall not constitute or be construed or deemed to reflect the opinion or expression of the publisher or editor. Neither the publisher nor editor endorse or approve the content of this book or guarantee the reliability, accuracy or completeness of the content published herein and do not make any representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose. the publisher and editor shall not be liable whatsoever for any errors, omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause or claims for loss or damages of any kind, including without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage arising out of use, inability to use, or about the reliability, accuracy or sufficiency of the information contained in this book.

FAMILY DYSFUNCTION AND MENTAL HEALTH

UNDERSTANDING

NARCISSISTIC

ABUSE

In intimate relationships

By

ANNU PANDEY

DEDICATION

To Almighty God for his unconditional love and causeless mercy on me.

To all the brave victims suffering in silence and oblivion.

To all the brave survivors I met in real life and on social media support groups who helped me gain clarity of intimate relationship dynamics with narcissists.

To my wonderful kids who forgave me for stealing their time.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to all the brave victims and survivors of narcissistic abuse I met online in various online support groups for sharing their stories of abuse, survival and thrivingness. Their stories gave me a clear and wide picture of the mysteries of narcissistic abuse.

I am grateful to the readers of my blogs and website responders whose overwhelming response encouraged me to compile my understanding of narcissistic Abuse in the form of this book.  Their words of encouragement and validation of how much they can relate with each word that I write gave me the power to believe in myself and my work.

I am grateful to all the women going through narcissistic abuse who have knowingly or unknowingly shared their suffering stories with me and felt comforted and validated when I expressed my understanding of Narcissistic abuse and the relationship dynamics between abusers and victims.

PREFACE

Narcissistic abuse is a type of abuse perpetrated by someone having a narcissistic personality disorder or narcissistic traits along with or without another mental, emotional, personality-related and behavioural problems. These types of abusers have a very sharp split in the personality that they possess at home and outside, which makes it very confusing and challenging for the victims to understand and prove the abuse to themselves as well as outsiders. Narcissists and sociopaths are very charming and intellectually empathetic which makes it nearly impossible for victims to seek help from outsiders including some therapists.

There is very little awareness about this issue in society and I observe so many victims suffering in silence and self-doubt while their abusers are sleeping in peace every night. I feel deep pain for these helpless and hopeless victims and wish to make them aware and hence if not free then at least less vulnerable to abuse.

I wrote this book to help people identify narcissists in their life and set appropriate boundaries with them for healing and growth.

I had been doing a lot of studies on narcissism and other personality disorders as a part of my psychology graduation coursework and had been personally observing narcissists in my social life and around me for the last several years and this book has all of the information and insight that I have gained on this issue from all of that.

NARCISSISM IN POETRY

"He's very clever at making you doubt the reality of your own perception.

He's very intentional at persuading you to question the evidence of your own senses. The fact that the facts are always twisted is the Narcissist's very believable deception to make it seem as if he were a victim so that you pay his expenses."

Anna Szabo

NARCISSISM IN SCRIPTURES

Bible:- 2 Timothy 3:1-17 But understand this, that in the last few days there will come times of difficulty. For people who will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power. Avoid such people. ...

Quran Luqman 31:18: And do not turn your cheek [in contempt] toward people and do not walk through the earth exultantly. Indeed, Allah does not like everyone self-deluded and boastful.

Quran 17:37:-"And do not walk upon the earth arrogantly. Indeed, you will never tear the earth [apart], and you will never reach the mountains in height"

Bhagavad Gita 18.28:The worker who is always engaged in work against the injunctions of the scripture, who is materialistic, obstinate, cheating and expert in insulting others, and who is lazy, always morose and procrastinating is said to be a worker in the mode of ignorance.

Bhagavad Gita 16.4: Pride, arrogance, conceit, anger, harshness and ignorance – these qualities belong to those of demoniac nature, O son of Pṛthā.

Bhagavad Gita 16.7: Those who are demoniacs do not know what is to be done and what is not to be done. Neither cleanliness nor proper behaviour nor truth is found in them.

Bhagavad Gita 16.9: Following such conclusions, the demoniacs, who are lost to themselves and who have no intelligence, engage in unbeneficial, horrible works meant to destroy the world.

Bhagavad Gita 16.10: Taking shelter from insatiable lust and absorbed in the conceit of pride and false prestige, the demoniac, thus illusioned, is always sworn to unclean work, attracted by the impermanent.

Bhagavad Gita 16.11 & 16.12: They believe that to gratify the senses is the prime necessity of human civilization. Thus, until the end of life, their anxiety is immeasurable. Bound by a network of hundreds of thousands of desires and absorbed in lust and anger, they secure money by illegal means for sense gratification.

Bhagavad Gita 16.16: Thus perplexed by various anxieties and bound by a network of illusions, they become too strongly attached to sense enjoyment and fall down into hell.

Bhagawad Gita 16.18: Bewildered by false ego, strength, pride, lust and anger, the demons become envious of God, who is situated in their bodies and the bodies of others, and blaspheme against the real religion.

Bhagawad Gita 16.19: Those who are envious and mischievous, who are the lowest among men, I perpetually cast into the ocean of material existence, into various demoniac species of life.

Bhagavad Gita 16.20: Attaining repeated birth amongst the species of demoniac life, O son of Kuntī, such persons can never approach Me. Gradually they sink to the most abominable type of existence.

How to use this book

This book is meant for anyone who doubts that they might be dealing with a narcissistic intimate partner or have a loved one dealing with a narcissist in their life.

This book touches on narcissistic behaviour in general, talks about narcissism in loved ones like parents, siblings, spouses, friends and adult children, but mainly explains the relationship dynamics between a narcissist and his victim in a romantic relationship. Various scenarios have been taken up to explain the behaviour of narcissistic abuse and its effect on their victims.

Narcissism has no gender, but this book has been written keeping in mind the narcissistic abuse of men towards women as with three decades of data from more than 475,000 participants, a new study on narcissism from the University at Buffalo School of Management reveals that men, on average, are more narcissistic than women, so I believe that narcissistic abuse of women by men is more prevalent and therefore this issue needs more awareness however this book can be used by male victims of narcissistic abuse as well.

Narcissistic abuse is as mysterious as anything could be. Victims are not able to figure out for years even if they are educated by an outside resource, then what to say about people not directly dealing with the narcissist in the life of a loved one? By reading this book thoroughly one can get an insight into the overall dynamics that exists around a narcissist.

This book can be used as a self-help book by victims to get educated about what is happening in their lives as well as by general people for understanding the situation of a loved one who is struggling as an isolated victim somewhere in the claws of a narcissist.

If you are a narcissistic abuse victim and feel it is difficult to put your situation/condition in words while explaining it to loved ones who have never seen anything like this and could prove to be a potential support system to you then you should give this book to them.

If you doubt that a loved one is dealing with a narcissistic partner and are unable to make sense of events happening around them, this book will be of great help from your side.

This book comes as a result of encouragement that I constantly receive from my readers, who are also victims of intimate or childhood abuse by loved ones with narcissistic tendencies and personality disorders, on my blogging website.

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D

o you feel you are always exhausted? Not just physically but also on a mental, emotional and soul level!  Do you feel helpless in getting rid of a never-ending race of doing and achieving things you are not even sure of, you want to do? Do you feel overwhelmed most of the time due to heavy emotions roiling inside you? Do you feel tired at the level of your soul?

Well, if you can call yourself an exhausted soul, then there is a very high chance that you are living a life that is being controlled by others.

When we