Abusers Don’t Abuse Everyone

You’ve been there with the narcissist. They’re raging at you and calling you vile names, then suddenly they answer the phone or the waitress walks up and they are all smiles. You feel like you just witnessed the abuser having an out of body experience. How could they be so cruel to you then instantaneously become sweet and charming for another person?

Domestic violence and abuse are used for one purpose and one purpose only: to gain and maintain total control over you. An abuser doesn’t “play fair.” Abusers use fear, guilt, shame, and intimidation to wear you down and keep you under his or her thumb. They know society will look down on their behavior so they work very hard to keep the abuse they inflict upon you a secret.

Narcissists must keep their false mask of superiority up at all times. They need to be seen as all good all the time. As a result, outside of their intimate relationships they maintain those faux healthy connections.

I remember one distinct time my abusive narcissist was raging at me in the car (his favorite place to attack because I couldn’t get away) when he suddenly stopped to pick up a man walking on the side of the road with a gas can. He instantly became the hero to this stranger when only moments before he was brutally abusing me with his vile contemptuous words. After we dropped the man off at a gas station he looked…