4 Tactics Covert Narcissist Uses To Make you the Villain
One day, my narcissistic mother turned into a total monster. She physically abused me to the point of leaving me bruised and broken. She chased me with a large spoon, hitting me non-stop while I cried and begged her to stop. She hit me until I could barely stand, and then, in an instant, she changed. Tears welled up in her eyes; she began sobbing uncontrollably. “I don’t know what happened to me. Why did I do this to you? Oh my goodness, I’m such a horrible, horrible mother.”
In that moment, instead of taking responsibility or consoling me as the abused one, the entire dynamic flipped. She became the victim, and I became the comforter. I found myself falling at her feet once more, apologizing to her: “It’s okay, Mom. It’s fine. Things happen. You lost control, but that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.” I didn’t want her to feel bad about herself, and that’s exactly what this tactic does.
It warps reality so completely that you cannot even trust your own perception anymore. You lose the ability to recognize abuse; you start seeing your abuser as a victim and yourself as the villain. This is the heart of covert narcissistic gaslighting that most people do not address because it does not feel like abuse. Those who are tortured by a covert narcissist keep thinking that they are the problem and keep changing themselves while nothing changes. Such people are punished at an unimaginable level.
It takes a long time for a survivor of covert narcissistic abuse to recognize that they were being manipulated, that they were being lied to, and that a role was assigned to them they never agreed to take. It took me over 20 years to recognize that my mother was a covert narcissist.
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