Warning: The "You're Useless" Phrase, the "You're Nobody" Phrase and "You're Worthless" Phrase in Narcissistic Abuse and Domestic Violence

© Lise Winne - 2/10/23

 

This is what domestic abuse can devolve to. Yup, getting upset with you over the tiniest thing and calling you worthless because you made a mistake and forgot the cinnamon. It's crazy making!

Abusers of all kinds use these kinds of phrases, but overt narcissists seem to love them the most. These phrases are always categorized as verbal abuse by psychology and domestic violence field professionals. 

At the core of these phrases is hatred, usually spurred by a black and white thinking process, which abusers experience much, much more than the rest of us. There are very few, if any, people who really please them, so they usually spend a lot of free time complaining about other people, insulting them behind their backs, even lying about them. If you are privy to hearing about all of the people they hate and that do not live up to their standards, if they are in a love bombing stage, you may think that you are safe from their hatred, but most of us find out that we are not. 

And it is their hatred that can be dangerous to us. Hatred is usually rooted in either family prejudices (hating women in the family, or overweight people in the family, or being prejudiced against people who are mentally ill, or of a different race, or of a different lifestyle, or who are financially or physically challenged ... it can be anything).

One thing all narcissists have in common is that they talk negatively about other people, usually a lot, and they tend to be harshly judgmental too. It tends to be a daily affair, but it can be weekly as well, and it will still influence people around them.

Highly critical people tend to lack empathy too, just because their minds are on what to despise in other people. They feel better in comparison if they can trash-talk about others, what they do, what they look like, who they are ... They spend way too much time on what to nitpick apart, what about the differences of others that make them feel disgust, what about them that incentivizes the narcissist not to care about the struggles of other people.

For the rest of us, it is pretty awful to listen to negative talk about others.  

Certainly highly judgmental people are not inside the heads of others, looking at their thoughts, or even looking at situations through their eyes, and how they got to where they are now. For the most part they don't know their cultural background, or their family background. For this reason a lot of people call highly judgmental people ignorant and prejudiced, and the reason why is that if you are really open to who other people are, and explore their perspectives at length, it will expand your understanding such that you will get along with more people, and you and others in your orbit would experience more peace. 

Tolerance and peace go together. 

Narcissists can be so rageful about how all kinds of other people act, and it can, in turn, create an environment that is at best irritating, and at worst, dreadfully horrible and depressing. If they are shouting every day about someone, whether it is a new person or not, I'd bet all you want is the raging and complaining and their insults of other people to stop. 

However, we are all judgmental and it probably came from the days we lived in tribes. We are judgmental because we have to discern friends from enemies, bad fruit from good fruit, predators from prey, but when extreme, and children are listening, then being harshly judgmental can become normalized within a family, and one of the unforeseen consequences is that children can also turn on parents with the same harsh judgments they grew up hearing. So it doesn't do much good. And, of course, if the parents are harshly judgmental (not just of outsiders), but do it to family members, or a member, there can be an estrangement.  

Most of all, harsh judgements, and turning to judging people as a constant conversation activity, can often turn into prejudice, and it tends to be based on the usual ones I mentioned above: on race, creed, religion, sex, financial status, etc. 

One way you can tell who the family is prejudiced against and who they hate is: Who is treated without dignity and respect? Who is criticized a lot? Who is not getting empathy? Who is not listened to? Who is treated as a second fiddle or like they don't matter in terms of voicing their perspectives or being an integral part of the family? Are their hierarchies where certain members seem to be more valued, and where others are not? And in an extended family, what do they have in common? I would bet that it has something to do with societal prejudices like the ones I have mentioned above.

Let's just say as an example that members trash-talk about women in the family much more than the men. Trash-talkin' means: harshly judged, criticized, blamed, shamed, treated with disrespect, punished, insulted, disparaged, down-graded, talked about in a derisive way, peppered with false narratives and false motives, devalued, put on a lower hierarchy in terms of importance. Perhaps there are even quite a few women in the family who are estranged from a parent because of all of this. Maybe the parents in the family went overboard and women started to be scapegoated, and you find out they later became estranged. 

And why? My guess is that there is an attitude that women are considered to be more "useless", more "nobodies", more "worthless", the phrases we are talking about in this post. So when you get a male in the family shouting this at a female in the family, they've been taught to disparage women by example. 

And why are women hated - or why is there a family narrative of anyone being hated? My guess is that there are unrealistic or downright no-win expectations on these women, and in some way or other, they fall short every time. Usually the women aren't submissive enough - that's usually the real reason behind the disparaging. So then prejudice turns into scapegoating. 

Hatred within the family also means the abuser has either some mild or high expectations of roles, and that the roles have to be performed to exacting standards. And people are defined by the roles. The usual roles of abusive families are golden child, scapegoat, family mascot and lost child, but there are other roles that the family pushes on to a child.

The need to put someone else in a role and feeling prejudice towards that person usually goes hand in hand too. Roles and submission are much more expected from an abuser when his extended family expects the same thing. For instance, the expectation can be that girls must be submissive to the men and older women of a family. If a young adult female member strays out of that expectation, the family members rage, blame, shame and/or ostracize, or all four.

And even if you are from a different family and you are dating or married to someone who was brought up this way, that is the crux of why you are abused too. Your abuser can't get out of the mindset that you deserve it (and in this case it would be "You deserve it because you are female; you are supposed to be submissive; I have learned that females are below men in stature; I believe I have a right to control you like my mother controlled my sister; I have a right to punish you in ways that are similar to how my mother punished my sister; I have a right to tell you what to do, where to go, how to act; I have a right to rage at you, insult you, walk out on you; even dismiss you as useless and worthless if you are not living up to these standards.") 

I am using "mother" here for a reason. While narcissistic dads are much more likely to treat daughters as underlings who are expected to be submissive, and disparaged because of their female sex, believe it or not, these attitudes can take hold in the mind of a boy by a mother who treats her daughter badly, with disdain, and with enormous amounts of disrespect. And jealousy. Narcissistic mothers tend to be extremely jealous of their daughters, especially if the daughter(s) are talented, or conventionally beautiful, or highly educated and respected, or highly independent, dignified and revered. They also tend to be very competitive with these kinds of daughters too. Sabotage can also come into play. This is often not apparent to daughters who have pronounced C-PTSD because C-PTSD can mean they don't feel jealousy themselves. If you don't feel jealousy yourself, you do not know what the narcissist is going through with this emotion, so you may miss the signals that would make you look into the reasons for their jealousy, and how they are relieving it, and it can mean that you fail to protect yourself. I'll be publishing a post on jealousy soon.

And because jealousy and competition can consume the thoughts of a mother about her daughter above anything else, these mothers can act out in very destructive ways against a daughter to get rid of feeling jealous. Narcissistic Moms can actually feel better about themselves when they abuse their own daughters, or have other people do it - sort of: it is not long lasting enough for them ... I'll discuss that in the post about "Jealousy and the Narcissist". We tend to think an overbearing authoritarian narcissistic dad will teach his boy attitudes about women, including that women are inferior to men (common), but it can come from a mother just as easily, and may be a more powerful lesson because usually the self esteem of a boy comes from his mother much more than it comes from his father. 

So let us say that he finds a mate, but his expectations of a mate are that women must be inferior and need to be submissive, controlled, dominated, told what to do. If they are not submissive, then he will learn to deal with the situation the way his parent or family treats women. It could be via a swift discard (immediate termination of a relationship). Or raging. Or violent outbursts. Or the silent treatment. Or punishing her by depriving her of resources. Or even murder (especially if he has been taught to hate women to the extent that he gets the feeling they should not exist if they aren't trying to please men. Or it could be all of these things).

At any rate, the verbal abuse gets to the point where he is calling his mate "useless", "a nobody" and "worthless" a whole lot.  

Of course, this has nothing to do with the victim. And as the cartoon portrays, it can be over silly stuff, and usually is.

Perhaps she comes from a family who reveres strong women. And she doesn't understand why a man would want to dominate her in the first place. Why not real love than all of these domination plays? What's he getting out of this?

It has to do with prejudices, family and cultural attitudes about women, and the familial and cultural background of the abuser. And it is where abuse usually comes from: their family, who they listened to when growing up, not you.

They may try to talk you into that it's something to do with not reaching their perfection standards in behavior, or actions, or duties, or appearance, but if you really look closely at what the abuser is trying to accomplish by being hyper critical of you, you will usually see that it has to do with how much you submit to his will, authority, domination, threats, and how much you are sublimating.

Unless you want to prove how submissive you are, you are going to be rebelling, defending yourself, complaining about how you are treated. And believe it or not, it rarely makes a difference to them. And what do they do when you are rebelling, defending yourself and complaining? They rage, and lecture endlessly (usually), argue endlessly too, try to trash your self esteem any way they can, and they try to wear you down so you will get exhausted and throw up your hands and do what they tell you to do just to get them to stop with the tactics, and use phrases like these to make you aware that you are not particularly special to them.  

Where does the attitude come from that women must be submissive? In his family. If he has a sister who was beaten down every time she did not submit, then he is going to have the attitude that abuse works in making women and girls submissive.    

Very seldomly it can come from peer relationships or other families (unless the children of a family are neglected by both parents and their closest bond is with peers or the members of another family). 

If he saw a sister get hit, and he has most of the traits of narcissism found in the right column, he will probably be hitting you eventually if he isn't already. If he saw his sister get discarded for not being submissive, he will most likely discard you when you are not submissive.  

And as we know, prejudiced people can be very, very abusive, and even violent, especially if you are "only one" among them, or if the abuser thinks it can be done in secret, or you are being isolated, or if you are enduring lots of insults and gaslighting, or have been through an abandonment by them before (especially if it was over something erroneous), and especially if you are enduring any kind of physical aggressive touch or displays (grabbing, shoving, pushing, trashing a kitchen or smashing dishes, breaking property, punching fists against the wall or near your face, driving recklessly, fast and dangerously while you are the passenger). 

Calling people useless, a nobody and worthless typically has a lot of hatred and rage behind it. Obviously. And it also tends to be used most by physical abusers. 

One reason these phrases are more dangerous than other kinds of verbal abuses is because they are dehumanizing. People who dehumanize tend not to see you as human, with feelings as important than theirs. Dehumanizing means that they will not have empathy for you, and that the only thing they care about is whether you fulfill a role they demand that you fulfill, period. I bet if you've heard these phrases, the disrespect is off the charts, the rage is off the charts, the insults are off the charts, they are constantly telling you what is wrong with you, and they are either in a physically abusive stage (during the escalation of abuse), or they are constantly trying to intimidate you. But I would bet that the physical abuse has started, or will start very soon.   

These phrases, can and often do, mean the kind of abuses that can escalate to much more egregious forms of attack, since these phrases are in the "worst" category of verbal abuse. In order to escalate, he has to go beyond these phrases. The escalation is pretty certain, especially if these sayings are said with rage, and it is clear that they are not respecting physical boundaries (pounding their fists in close proximity to you, raging within 5 feet from you or in your face, pushing you aside, shouting commands at you from several feet away as well). The other sign is making demands with rage, or trying to micromanage your movements and how you perform "duties".  

Abusers usually tell you or show you in some way or another what their intentions are towards you too. These three phrases tell you that the narcissist has devalued you a lot. As I've said before, it's about as extreme as you can get. However, thinking of you as worthless can add up to any number of final results, including egregious physical injury, and even murder, so it is very important to know how much intimidation is behind these phrases and get help.

Rage with clenched fists is not a good sign. 

In terms of covert narcissists, they are not as likely to use these phrases. They try to show victims, rather than say it out loud, that the victims are useless, a nobody and worthless through discarding, something narcissists are known for. The narcissist throws you away like a toy that isn't working right for them. 

Either way, it is important not to let these phrases or discards ruin your self esteem (if you at all personalize what they have to say, or take their opinions of you to heart, or if you care about their opinions, which narcissists will always assume you do because they have very inflated views of themselves).

In many ways it is also dangerous for you to let these phrases compromise your self esteem because you can fall into a state of cognitive dissonance about your abuser where you miss the signs that the abuse is escalating. If you go to a domestic violence counselor, and they make it clear you are in a dangerous situation, they know more than you do about the signs of dangerous perpetrators. If you are caught in this line of thinking, "Well he has his good side and his bad side, and the Christian faith tells me I should forgive the sins of others, and I can tolerate it for now while we figure out what we are going to do with our relationship. And hopefully the love between us will make him change" - that is cognitive dissonance, and for the most part, unrealistic thinking, and it is often what happens to women who go back to their abusers.

But back to the phrases ...  

Some perpetrators mean to scare you with these phrases, and they make it clear that they must exert power, control and domination over you at all times, what many of them, especially narcissists with darker traits, live for 24/7. Every time they need something, want something, and are dissatisfied with something, they want to rage at you like a king does, scaring you into submission. 

I hope that these phrases, at the very least, will not be something that you personalize: look at them. Could you tell them that they are useless, a nobody and worthless, and would they act like a pleaser puppet for you? Probably not. They have to take what they dish out. Hypocrisy does not make a good argument for justifying their actions.

The reason why so many abusers are hypocrites is because they think they are special: that they are endowed by god, or by a parent, or by their own superiority fantasies, with special rights, and that you do not have those same rights. Some instances: they feel they have a right to insult you and criticize you at any time and with these kinds of phrases, but feel "incredibly hurt" if they even perceive that you might be critical of them (very, very common). Or they feel they can't trust you so they try to keep you isolated from friends and family, but feel justified in coming and going as they please, and even feel justified to have an affair on you because they deem that you are so untrustworthy that they need someone else waiting in the wings for them when you take off (also pretty common).  They feel that you deserve their rages any time they want to rage, but if you so much as complain about anything, they deem you are being incredibly unstable and selfish (also common).

So if we are tired of dealing with all of their rationalizations for hypocrisy (and their being so darned special that they think your attention should be on them at all times, and what they have to say, and their views, and their paranoias and conspiracy theories, and what they want from you), we should be able to see these phrases for what they are: much like Dorothy, the tin man, the lion, and scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz who saw the mean wizard for what he was: an old feeble man with a weak voice working levers behind a curtain to make his wizard ferocious and terrifying.

In other words, these wizards of abuse are actually scared little entitled children who are often extremely jealous, and also believe others are jealous of them, with a broken self esteem, behind a ferocious, and perhaps even dangerous, mask, just like the man behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz.

And notice in The Wizard of Oz how the wizard wasn't satisfied after Dorothy, the scarecrow, the lion and the tin man did everything that was demanded of them, but the wizard still told them it wasn't good enough and to come back later. That's very much how an abuser does things too. 

And the injustice that Dorothy's group expresses is very much how victims react too .... unless the wizards of abuse can keep talking them into what their victims are doing wrong, and that their motivations for pleasing the wizard are continually wanting: bad, wrong, crazy, stupid, useless, and worthless, like only the way a "nobody" would do it. In other words, you can always decide you need respect, than trying to win this infantile game of being their perfect pleaser puppet. It rarely works to please them anyway, because people who hate you can't, and will never, be pleased. You'll be spinning like a top and exhausting yourself in the process while they adopt more and more abuse tactics to keep you spinning harder, and harder, and more dominated by them. 

And being submissive is a sure-fire way to end up with PTSD. We are not meant to be puppets of someone else's domination fantasies. 

If you only get the silent treatment (another form of abuse), consider that you may have gotten off easily.

Some abusers who have actually gone public to tell their stories have said that they gave the silent treatment for a good reason: because otherwise they might have killed or injured their victims. It was the best way for them not to break the law. When you are perceived to go out of the type of role they assigned for you, they get very, very enraged, to the extent that they feel they cannot control it and control what they will do with it. 

It is also why you shouldn't plead with them, or argue with them when they give you the silent treatment, a tactic that is pretty exclusive to them if it goes on longer than 24 hours. I think many of us usually come to the realization that they become even more rageful if we initiate contact to settle the dispute. Relationships with narcissists aren't like other relationships where both people argue their points, or plead with each other to understand, where you both come to many realizations, and finally come to a conclusion that makes both people happy and feeling loved. With narcissists, they do not accept resolutions that make you both happy (they feel like you should make them happy, period). They also are not interested in understanding you or what the conflict is about. They just want you "in role" because being out of role seems like an act of hostility, of instability, and a recalcitrance to them - think of tyrannical authoritarian leaders who want to destroy a country because all of a sudden the country they want to destroy has gone democratic (even though the country may have been going democratic for a long time) - the democratic government is no longer acting like a puppet to the destructive authoritarian country - this is how narcissists view people in personal relationships too, puppets to their narcissistic supply needs, end of story. 

The way I now look at an unbroken narcissistic silent treatment is that it means they are in a constant state of rage over you being "out of role", and if it goes on for weeks, months or years, it means they are still in a rage. You don't want to deal with them when they are in a rage, so you let the silence go on and continue to come between you. Eventually, you'll forget about them. They may see that you have moved on, and have found happiness, which makes them rage more, and can even spark them to attempt a hoover.

I totally understand that it is shocking that they don't care about you at all, but it is part of their condition not to care about the fate of others (lack of empathy is one of the stand-out characteristics of narcissism). They'd like you to believe that you deserved it, just as murderers like to convince juries that their victims deserved to be killed, but it really does not belong to you and besides the upbringing they had, it is also the result of how abuse escalates.  

Most victims tend to find happiness because nothing is worse in life for most people than abuse, violence and sadism.

And more often than not narcissists are much more cruel than other kinds of people. However, if your self esteem really has been broken by them it can point to another danger which I discuss in a paragraph below.

But for those of us whose self esteem is not decided by them, we will find happiness. They usually don't because the "puppet fantasy" can never be truly achieved, no matter how hard they try, no matter how many people they try it on. So, they stew in their rages in the silence that they created. 

For those of you whose lives and self esteem have taken a deep dive after a silent treatment, it can be dangerous in terms of mental and physical health, so it isn't just about how these phrases escalate to other forms of abuse, but what it is doing to your body and mental health.

Most survivors seek mental health counseling from therapists. There are therapists who specialize in domestic violence and others who specialize in trauma. 

But as I've said, the silent treatment is not all you receive from narcissists usually. And so the dangers need to be talked about. These phrases are just some signs of danger. This post is about getting the low-down on what these phrases actually mean, and why they are used (mainly for manipulation by the abuser), and what the dangerous outcomes can be.

"you're useless"

Narcissists tend to see people as utilitarian objects or tools. They love you if you are useful to them, and they hate you if you become, or are, useless to them in terms of the agendas they want. 

It is often why they discard people who are caught up in other issues: caretaking a loved one, getting a diagnosis for a terminal or chronic illness, or alternatively when you are caught up in good things in your life like getting married to the person of your dreams (where they often either don't show up to your wedding, or where they show off so that the attention is on them), getting a significant award for an achievement (where they might skip that event too). Narcissists hate it when your attention isn't on them all of the time, which is what narcissistic supply is all about. 

One of the reasons why narcissists have an easy time discarding people is because of the fact that they don't see people much beyond tools and objects for their use. 

If they say they love you, it may mean they love you momentarily, or because you served a purpose for them in getting what they wanted. Perhaps you made a dinner they liked, or you took care of them when they were in the hospital, or you inadvertently bullied someone for them, or you made their ex jealous by your presence, or you made them look good in their social circle by being at the top of your graduating class or getting a scholarship, or you took on a role unconsciously in their life that they felt they badly needed.

As I've said before, roles are extremely important to narcissists, but not to the rest of us (if we are at all enlightened, we see people beyond roles, even beyond the roles of certain jobs and careers). Narcissists don't, not even in their closest personal relationships. They can't separate what they want from other people from who a person is.  

Likewise, very few us use the "You're useless" or "They are useless" phrases when we describe people who aren't doing what we expect them to do, but overt narcissists tend to use the phrase whole lot, even when describing their own children, or a spouse, or an ex-spouse. 

So be careful and be on guard when you hear the "useless" phrase when it comes to describing other people, especially if they are using it in a close personal relationship. Children, parents, a spouse, siblings, and friends are not "supposed to be useful" unless they are gainfully employed by the person using the phrase, and the job description is clear as to what duties they are supposed to perform.

Another tid-bit that goes with this that I think you might be interested in:

A lot of narcissists and especially sociopaths (who believe that people should serve some utility to them even more than narcissists do), is that they will say things like, "I don't like that actor."

Now acting is a job, and usually comes with a lot of education and a long career, and actors are often required to do different parts, even drastically different parts from one film to the next, or one play to the next, and the best of them have to learn to use different accents and perform certain types of body language so that they can "seem" as close to the person they are portraying as possible. 

But if you ask a sociopath what they don't like ("is it the acting styles, the parts they play, their appearance, the roles they are cast in, what they do outside of acting, or is it something else?"), they often can't separate the actor from any of this, even from what the actor does outside of acting. You'll often only get: "I don't like that actress, and I don't want to see anything she has a part in, and that is all there is to it." 

There are better ways to decipher whether you are dealing with Cluster B personalities high on narcissistic or sociopathic traits than asking them what actors they don't like and why they don't like them, but if you want just one more "sign", then this can be "useful" to you in terms of whether they may be narcissists or sociopaths who may, some day, find you as "useless" as the actors and actresses they don't like. 

"You're useless" is not necessarily dangerous on its own (though it can be), but when used in tandem with the next phrases "You're nobody" and "You're worthless" it certainly points to danger. I tell why: 

"you're nobody"

"You're nobody" is a pretty common phrase for domestic violence offenders. And like the rest of the phrases on this page it is also meant to hurt you, and to give you a personal devaluation (where a discard can often follow). Because it is intended to hurt you, and your self esteem, it qualifies as abuse. 

When I did a survey on what abusive parents say to their kids, this was right up there in the "common" category. 

Now why on earth would any parent want to say this to their kid?

And once they start saying it, they tend to say it repeatedly. 

Do they have rocks in their head? No, but they do have blind spots. 

And this is what this phrase is largely about. "You're invisible to me" was part of that survey too, and as far as I'm concerned, "You're nobody" and "You're invisible to me" are too alike to be discounted as not  the same. The meaning here could be put together as "a nobody is invisible, and since you are a nobody, you are invisible to me." 

I would bet, if a researcher wants to take this further, that narcissists who go around telling "loved ones" that they are a nobody (children, siblings, who ever they deem to be "un-useful" at the time they are saying it), are narcissists who give the silent treatment, either interrupt what you have to say or stonewall, who devalue and discard people they are in close personal relationships with, and who use perspecticide and invalidation on their victims. And what I found out is that this is the road that led to estrangement. 

However, it can mean something significantly more dangerous for those of you in a relationship with a partner who abuses, a sibling who abuses or someone who practices elder abuse ... 

So assuming that "You're nobody" is just another phrase for "You're invisible to me, and I don't care what you have to say; I don't care who you are; I don't care what your thoughts and feelings are; I don't care what you have to say to me or what your perspectives are because all I care about is what I have to say and what my perspectives are; I don't care whether I never see you again or not because after all, you mean nothing to me."

A lot of people who are not psychologists and domestic abuse therapists say to "discount" phrases like this as unregulated rage, that maybe they are "stressed out", and that they'll be calm once again, but a lot of domestic violence survivors say that they may get a calm period, but their abusers are right back at it again moments, days or weeks later, and always worse than they were before: more in-your-face, all the way to the most egregious forms of physical abuse. 

Sometimes it is a combination: the perpetrator physically abuses the victim, then goes silent on her, then plays the victim. 

When gleaning forums, it turns out that from all I have seen, "You're nobody" and similar phrases like "You're invisible to me" and "You're worthless" and "I wish you were never born", and "I wish you'd just go kill yourself" and "I'd be better off if you weren't in my life", or "I'd be better off if you were just dead" and phrases in the "general camp" of the three phrases I bring up in this post tend overwhelmingly to be physical abusers.

Parents can sometimes be the exception, but often they aren't. 

The usual escalation process is: verbal abuse, graduating to verbal abuse with emotional abuse, graduating to verbal, emotional and physical abuse, with the physical abuse often starting with pushing and shoving. Since this phrase is "over the top" in terms of verbal abuse, it would stand to reason that escalation is assured. 

Also from gleaning forums and blogs by survivors, abusers often tell you what their intentions are. "You're a nobody" means that they have every intention of making you a nobody, whether you are  wiped out by them in a silent treatment, or wiped out in terms of your voice, or wiped out in terms of punches or murder. 

They are telling you that they want to make you a nobody in their life, to get rid of you in some way. 

I would even bet that these phrases, when used in tandem, point to as many danger signs as assaults to your face, head and neck; it's just more of a preliminary act to physical abuse than the later assaults are. 

"you're worthless"

Again, "You're worthless" and "You're a waste" are pretty similar phrases. Both are meant to hurt, and both are categorized as verbal abuse. 

"You're worthless" is similar to "You're useless" except it is more about shaming than about blaming (usually). "You're worthless" can mean, and often does mean, "You'll always be useless".

"You're worthless" is also similar to "You're a nobody" too. 

"You're worthless" can mean "You're worthless to me" or it can mean "You're worthless to the world", but in domestic violence situations it usually means "You're worthless to me." 

"Waste" is more about something to throw away, and again, I wouldn't be surprised if you receive the silent treatment or a violent type of attack shortly thereafter, whereas "worthless" can mean that they find you not worth anything as far as their agendas go, not worthwhile as far as putting you into a role that satisfies them (whether scapegoat or pleaser puppet roles), or worthwhile as far as their ambitions go. 

When it is said in tandem with phrases like "You're nothing to me", "You're nobody", and "You're invisible to me", I wouldn't be surprised if it put your system into "high alert": a sense of danger, hypervigilance, fight or flight reactions, anxiety, un-surety as to their volatile intentions.

VERBAL ABUSE AND PTSD

Verbal abuse can cause PTSD, especially abuse that is this aggressive and annihilating. 

For now I list symptoms on the bottom of this post. 

The further reading section also has some articles about the effects of verbal abuse. 

THE SILENT TREATMENT AND THESE PHRASES

Some narcissists use these phrases in addition to giving you the silent treatment. And some narcissists just go directly to a silent treatment without giving you these phrases, but they may think of them as they are doing it. The problem is, in terms of safety issues for you, which of these three phrases are they trying to convey, or are they not trying to convey any of them, or are they trying to convey all three? 

The silent treatment (of which "ghosting" and "cancel culture" count) can be have many reasons behind it. However, if they were abusive at the time they gave you the silent treatment, like calling you names, referring you as an animal creature, trying to destroy your self esteem, doing lots of gaslighting (i.e. referring to you as crazy with people you both know, or calling you crazy to your face), neglecting to respond when you try to give them some reasonable solutions (like meeting in a public place to talk out your differences), then the silent treatment has to be considered an escalation of abuse. Once you have received all of these abuses, they are highly, highly likely to keep escalating. There isn't much to do to stop it other than getting help:
- keeping a record with police of any harassing or threatening e-mails, texts or phone calls, and then keeping police abreast of any more threats or harassment, so that they know what is going on and how to intervene).
- getting a good safety plan from your domestic violence center
- getting financial advice if they are practicing financial abuse (something domestic violence centers also usually help victims with in terms of advice and/or shelter) 
- talking to a lawyer
- grieving and healing

Instead of trying to wrap your head around all of the various possibilities in terms of what they are trying to convey in terms of how they see you, and which displeasure they are experiencing, most domestic violence counselors will tell you to go "no contact", usually. The rule of thumb here is if they give you "the silent treatment", you go "no contact". I think if you are in this situation, you'll get that response from most counselors who work in the domestic violence sphere.

This is because with the silent treatment, the kind of safety you have to adopt isn't as clear, so you have to assume the worst.   

If they give you the silent treatment without abusing you, then you can consider other things. But it is still possible they are trying to show you contempt. Or that they just prefer someone else's company. It is always best to seek a safety plan regardless because you never know ... 

The silent treatment is hurtful to most people, and reassuring you that they care, or calling you to find out how you are doing, is what most people do when they "go missing into a period of silence". If they don't have a good, heartfelt response to going silent on you, even when you've reached out a number of times to talk to them, or talk through a problem between you, consider that they have no empathy for you. A lack of empathy usually points to narcissism, sociopathy or psychopathy (lack of empathy tends to go hand in hand with these disorders, in other words). 

And narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths are not safe people to be in relationships with. 

FURTHER READING

Recommended: The Dangers of Verbal Abuse - by Kellie Jo Holly for Healthy Place
excerpt:
     Abusers who have not yet turned to physical violence could be "time bombs" with fuses of unknown length. If your abuser feels that his "normal" verbally abusive techniques are not working, he will probably move into physical abuse to maintain his control.
     Abuse escalates over time. Time spent in abusive situations and relationships cause you to feel beaten down and devastated - but it is never too late to get help.
What could happen if I stay?
     Remember that your abuser benefits from abusing you. S/He gets his way and lives the life he wants to live while you do everything in your power to "make them happy" at the expense of yourself.
     Here are some possibilities of what can happen if you choose to stay with your abuser: S/He could escalate the abuse until he kills you ...

RECOMMENDED: 15 Disturbing Forms of Verbal Abuse in Relationships. The abuser feels more powerful when he puts down his victim. - by Berit Brogaard D.M.Sci., Ph.D for Psychology Today
excerpt:
KEY POINTS
* A verbal abuser may regularly tell the victim they're too sensitive, have no sense of humor, etc., which denies the victim’s inner reality.
* Any form of ordering or demanding is a form of verbal abuse.
* Threatening is a common form of verbal abuse and can either be very explicit or subtle.

RECOMMENDED: Why Verbal Abuse Can Do So Much Damage ("Tough love" and "discipline" are often just rationales for maltreatment.) - by Peg Streep for Psychology Today

My own post: constant insults and criticism (verbal abuse), how to deal with them

Verbal abuse is a dangerous form of workplace bullying - by Thorman Petrov Group Co., LPA for Thorman Petrov Group, Your Ally in Workplace Justice

4 Reasons Verbal Abuse is So Dangerous (and what you can do about it) - by Andrea Zintz, Ph.D.

Why Verbal Abuse Is So Dangerous - by Emma-Marie Smith

EXAMPLES OF VERBAL ABUSE: A Comprehensive 2022 List - by the administrators of Soul-Mate.com

Domestic Abuse - a Help Guide article

“You’re A Useless Man!” – When Men Fall Victim to Domestic Abuse - by Lim Zhan Ting for Family Central

You are NOT worthless - by Lynn for Get Domestic Violence Help 

What's the best comeback/response to "you're useless"? - Reddit question

"We're doing so much for you and you're useless" - How to not get triggered? - a similar Reddit question

People can't use you if you're useless. - a Reddit comment with 46 replies

Russia's Leaders Won't Deal With a Domestic Violence Epidemic. These Women Stepped Up Instead - by Madeline Roache for Time Magazine

newest update: new comments, the gist of what I have to say to survivors suffering from abuse, my October plans

Note on 9/20/22: I have edited this post since publishing (spelling errors and grammatical mistakes) ... 
more minor editing on 9/21/22 & 9/23/22

I haven't been publishing posts since March of this year, which is unprecedented for me considering I have so many in the wings almost ready to go. In the meantime, I do have a message for my readers below, and some news about comments I have been receiving. 

I have been answering some of these comments, and a couple of them do provide some new information I haven't published yet, if you are interested. Feel free to add your thoughts and experience to be part of the conversation, especially if you are a survivor of abuse (polite discourse only). 

Some of the posts getting comments include (but are not limited to): 

Why It Is Important to Keep the Conversation About Gabby Petito Going: Lessons in Domestic Violence

If You Are Good and Show Altruism and Magnanimity, Will That Keep You From Being Abused?

How Dangerous is My Abuser? How Do I Get Out of a Dangerous Relationship?

Do Abusers Project Their Thoughts and Feelings On To Others? 

Interviews with Someone Diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Abusers and Splitting

Verbal Abuse: Constant Insults and Criticisms

In the meantime, I also have some words to say (very shortened version) of what I believe is necessary to know when suffering through abuse:

- abuse escalates
- abuse can and does reach dangerous levels
- abuse can, and often does produce the debilitating symptoms of PTSD, which manifest as physical symptoms, not just emotional/mental ones, so it is very unhealthy in a myriad of ways. Some of those symptoms are listed in a section below.
- the majority of abusers are not out to change their behaviors; they are out to inflict more pain and get away with their behaviors. Important to know ...
- abusers with Cluster B personality disorders try to get their way by raging, threatening, and using abusive tactics (many of those tactics are listed on the right side of this blog)
- abusers often target the most vulnerable 

Here is a slightly longer version of the above: 

Can people in the Cluster B spectrum change their behavior?

Not really, however:
     
     Borderlines without narcissistic traits have the ability to change the most, but it can mean baby steps, a lot of hard work, and a very long journey. 
     Narcissistic traits that bleed over into some borderlines include:   
* arrogance (particularly "I'm right all of the time and you are wrong all of the time")
* putting their children into roles (one child is deemed to be "all bad", and one is deemed to be "all good")
* being overly sweet to friends, acquaintances, and strangers, but being cruel, abusive and bullying in the home or to their partner or kids (which is a form of gaslighting).
     If they have the above narcissistic traits, they aren't very likely to change.
     Borderlines can have narcissistic traits, but many of them don't. They can have empathy, and that sets them apart from narcissists. Narcissists will always have very little empathy, and psychopaths have none, or close to none.
     Many borderlines aren't particularly arrogant, many don't gaslight, or split their children into unchanging roles. Or they may show arrogance and grandiosity in the evening, but then feel horrified by their own actions (particularly if they rage in a haughty style) by midnight, and then experience an emotional crash and feel the opposite way: very low self esteem, self pity, suicidal. 

The reasons why people with narcissistic traits - particularly arrogance and lack of empathy - don't change, is precisely because of the arrogance, and lack of empathy, especially the kind of arrogance where they feel they are right all of the time, and that your job is to listen to them and do what they tell you to do. When people have lack of empathy with that brand of arrogance (which is really a propped-up grandiosity - an image they try to maintain at all cost), it adds up to them not wanting to hear how much they have hurt you or others, and not caring if they hurt you or others. Lack of empathy with arrogance is partly a brain issue, and it is also a personality trait, neither of which can be changed very easily or very much (I will go into this in depth in another post). 

Note: narcissists will say that you hurt them if you criticize them, or if they perceive criticism from you, and they will expect your empathy to flow in a never ending direction towards them afterwards, and very often when you give them apologies and empathy, they feel it is not good enough (because what they really want is to control you and use it as an excuse to hurt you when they feel they are losing power).
     However they are most likely hypocrites because narcissists make an art out of criticizing others, even insulting people, manipulating facts that other people tell them in such a way that is not only nasty but the facts are twisted into half truths. Narcissists are usually much more constant, harsh and cruel than you could ever think of being: if you are their partner or kid a lot of them tell you repeatedly that you are crazy or stupid.
     They often expect you to live with low self esteem and to keep enduring getting your self esteem battered, while they expect you to prop up a "perfect image" of them, another hypocrisy.
     The reason they get hurt by criticisms but expect you to take much worse forms of it from them is that your criticism of them is a wound to their self-appointed authority over you, their grandiosity, their fantasies that they are superior to you (in other words, they insist that they come first, and they will rage at you until you follow their script of how they want this to happen). So this doesn't really count as a legitimate "hurt" in terms of this discussion. 

Knowing that narcissistic abusers are extremely unlikely to change, means the decision rests with you as to whether you can engage with or want to engage with a person who lacks empathy, is terrible at listening (refuses to acknowledge any hurt or pain they may have caused you), is most likely to lecture, particularly "behavior lectures". If you want them to address the pain you are living under, they will do anything to deflect the fact that they are a culprit. They cannot stand to do anything except to be in the dominant position (cannot compromise, or address your concerns).
     They tend to trick you, play head games, play with your self esteem, sabotage you with negative comments behind your back, blackmail you. They escalate abuse because they never are satisfied with the amount of power and control they already have over you.  

Some of them are downright spiteful (the more dangerous abusers).  

People with empathy are the only people among us who can truly change, and the more empathy we have, the more ability we have to change. Still, most of us aren't going to change drastically: personalities tend to be more fixed than mutable, and in the best case scenario, can only change 30 percent at most. 

When we are in abusive relationships that aren't changing and are getting worse, and when our focus is mainly on what to do with abusive relationships or a toxic family, we sacrifice living in a world of consistent empathy and consistent love. Abusers withdraw their love to punish you, so they are not capable of real love, and the investment of time and energy for you is always going to add up to pain. When we stay engaged in abusive relationships most of the time, we sacrifice the possibility of relationships where mutual trust, mutual empathy can be expressed (most abusers will insist that the empathy go one way: towards them). In staying in abusive relationships, we are not available for the best forms of mutual belonging, of safety, mutual understanding and mutual intimacy, the elements that make us feel whole with the world. We also can't heal properly from the trauma the abuse brought to us. We are not as likely to experience the best form of working together in harmony. We aren't likely to experience mutual understanding, mutual compromise, mutual compassion and reasonable solutions. 

One of the reasons why we feel stuck is that abusers often use smear campaign tactics with gaslighting ("they are crazy and should be institutionalized ... you shouldn't even talk to them" - one example) - it is an attempt at isolating their victims from better relationships and a better life. 

Raging is common for most Cluster Bs:

Simplistically said:

- how rages for many borderlines play out: rage, feel guilty, beat themselves up, lots of self pity 
- rages for narcissists: rage, feel like it might ruin their reputation, get paranoid, pretend to be a victim
- rages for malignant narcissists and sociopaths: rage, feel like their victims brought it upon themselves for being so gullible and easy to brainwash, feel like it might touch upon their reputation but feel they are too clever and that they can weasel out of anything, thinks of ways of turning the tables so that they appear to be the victim to others and their victims appear to be the perpetrators, either wish they had been more clever in punishing their victims or make "revenge plans" to better hurt or sabotage their victims
- rages for psychopaths: rage, feel no remorse for what they have done, pat themselves on the back for "a job well done", feel invincible, go on to do it again. Doesn't feel fear, paranoia, doesn't care about anyone's feelings, or that they will get caught. No one means anything to them. Most laws don't mean anything to them. The worst of them believe that other people are to be used and abused to get what they want. 

Again, can you live with, or do you want to put up with rages?

Habitually rageful people tend not to have empathy (and especially when they are in the act of raging, or feel that raging at you is good for them in terms of getting what they want out of you). Habitually rageful people also tend to amp up the rages rather than cool them down.

Rages can be overt: screaming, yelling, loud, insults, swearing, out of control, telling you what to do, where to get off, telling you to go away, pushing and shoving, slapping, hitting, pounding their fists at the wall, throwing things or smashing up things, telling you that they can't stand you or don't love you any more.

And rages can be covert: spiteful, attempting to hurt your reputation with common friends or at work (smear campaigns), "scapegoating" rages (rages over spilled milk, a look on your face, forgetting to take out the garbage, rages over remarks you made that were never meant to hurt them), the silent treatment and stonewalling (a selfish maneuver meant to pressure you to give into them and a sign that they have no empathy), hurts you through personal property (stealing, throwing things out, giving your things away, taking your picture off the wall, cleaning out your bank account, sending the message they don't care about you, they don't care about respecting your property or the rule of law, or your contributions), hurts you through triangulation ("I have a lover and I don't care how it makes you feel!" when they are married to you, or "I never loved you. Your sibling is the only one I ever loved" when they are your parent).

Again, is this something you can live with, or want to live with? Is there a better way to live in the world than living under a constant cycle of escalating rages, threats, put-downs, lots of instability, and scapegoating? Is this the best use of your potential? That should be the focus.

Again, changes in the worst part of the human race are extremely unlikely (and the probability that they will get worse is predictable - look at tyrannical vindictive authoritarian leaders for how they conduct themselves). Look to the traits I have listed on the right hand side and see if you truly want to deal with these traits going forward? 

Some other traits I have not listed in this post or on the side (and where I will be covering them in the future) are:
- jealousy (the urge to trip you up to make themselves appear "superior" and to feel less jealous)
- confirmation bias (opinions and stances that never change, especially about the people in their lives, no matter whether their views are fantasies, or what you do for them, or what apologies and overtures you make)
- sadism and cruelty
- coercive control
- punishments 
- trying to kill your self esteem
- threats
- brainwashing
- infantilization and parentification: (update 11/22/22 - this post has been finished) -  talking at you as though you are a child who needs to learn lessons from them when you are an adult, or expecting you to take care of them as though you are their parent when you are their child (the role of the handmaid child).
- demands, commands and micromanaging what you do, how you speak, how you react to their control and domination tactics
- hoovering, sweet-talk, and otherwise drawing you into another round of conflicts and abuse (can include revenge for "not abusing you enough the first time")
- physical abuse (not all abusers are physically abusive, but those who are, tend to be dangerous, especially if verbal and emotional abuses have been escalating)
- scapegoating (the urge to use you for blame out of convenience for what is "going wrong" in their lives ... it is also where they display the most hypocrisy - also mostly dangerous)

I would bet that you will feel like you are being slowly killed by all of these tactics and traits of theirs rather than changing them. Note: they can often change them temporarily and "for show" if you are doing what they want you to do and giving in to them, but otherwise they won't. But always remember it is "temporary". True change is a long hard process. The "temporary" niceties, or temporary relief from abuse, doesn't change who they are or what they will do. Some of them terrorize you more when you give in. 

I encourage anyone who is going through abuse to contact a domestic violence counselor or center to assess the dangers. The counselors may suggest a safety plan, a slow or fast withdrawal process depending on the risks, support groups, legal or financial help, shelters, medical or emotional treatment for what you endured or are still enduring. 

Why it matters

The more rage or punishment cycles you endure from abusers, the less longevity you will have, the more upset you will be, and eventually debilitating physical symptoms will likely appear. 

Being constantly exposed to rages, discards and abuse mean that the stress hormones will be constantly firing off, especially if you are also being threatened in addition to the rages and abuse. Constant stress means symptoms physically, mentally and emotionally.  

Physical symptoms:
- stomach aches and other stomach issues which never go away, and cannot be explained by a gastroenterologist (in "fight or flight mode", the blood needed for digestion goes away from the gut and into our limbs; the heart also beats faster). In PTSD, this response can be going on all of the time, thus chronic stomach aches or nausea, sensitivities to foods, bloated gut, and other symptoms. 
- lack of sleep, light sleep, and nightmares when you do sleep (if you are really sleep deprived, only sleep 3 hrs. a night, you can have hallucinations).
- heart issues (racing heart, heart pain, heart disease)
- constant overall muscle pain (especially in legs, neck, shoulders and arms)
- constant headaches
- constant state of panic 
- auto-immune diseases 
- extreme weight gain or loss
- shaking, trembling, the feeling that your nerves are going haywire, problem getting your words out (speech impediments, not remembering words, "trying to find words" to finish your sentence and panicking because you can't retrieve the word from your memory, nervous speech, stammering, often accompanied by heart palpitations)
- prognosis for longevity: not good

All of these are symptoms of PTSD and you can have them in varying degrees, or you can have some of them but not all of them. Symptoms can fade in and out or be constant. If you have most of these symptoms, and they are becoming disabling, you have most likely been over-exposed to traumatic events or Cluster B people. 

Mental and emotional symptoms:
- when rare feelings of calmness come over you, it is extremely difficult to maintain
- easily triggered (symptoms re-emerging) over sights, sounds and especially when you are around your abusers or people who remind you of your abusers. Swearing, hyper critical behaviors, insults, loud angry voices, violence on T.V., commanding or demanding people or attitudes, arm-twisting, punishing people, manipulations or manipulative people, people who want to dominate you, also are usually triggering.
     Re-emerging symptoms often mean 5 - 7 day periods where you will want to isolate from others. If your abusers are still in your life in some minimal way, you can limit what they talk to you about so that you don't get triggered again, and if they can't respect that, which they probably won't, then you can always make the choice to remove them from your life completely and forever. "Completely" means not allowing them to contact you or control you in any way: making sure they are not allowed to see you at your most vulnerable moments: in the hospital or urgent care (nothing like mean abusive people in those environments!), when you or your loved ones have been diagnosed with a chronic or terminal illness, when you are going through PTSD symptoms, when you are alone without support, when you are going through a divorce or break-up, when you are financially devastated or you and your loved ones have had an accident. It means separating from them as much as you can. You'll have a great desire to separate once the symptoms get to a certain point anyway. 

Other Mental and Emotional symptoms of PTSD:
- inability to focus or concentrate 
- inability to complete simple tasks without crying or other emotions
- inability to find resolutions to issues in your life
- feelings of doom
- feeling that you no longer have feelings (numbness): happens after an intense emotional separation from an abuser 
- feeling that your life or ability to cope is falling apart
- chronic depression
- "everything seems to make you cry"
- generalized anxiety disorder
- social anxiety disorder
- separation anxiety disorder especially from someone who you feel safe with, where you feel if they left you alone that your abusers would find you or a vulnerability in you, and attack you some more. 
- other anxiety disorders (less common in PTSD than the ones listed above, but still possible)
- For victims of child abuse:
     If you have a parent who practices idealize-devalue-discard or love bomb-devalue-destroy (the "destroy" is more indicative of physical abusers), you will go through a process of three phases. I list them here:
     feeling terrorized that you will be abandoned (first phase)
     then the terror of being abandoned plus the terror that they will try to reconnect or engage with you again (second phase) - this is a very uncomfortable kind of cognitive dissonance, which can vacillate between guilt and feeling justified, between sadness (of losing your old life) and joy (for being in a new life without abuse), between wanting justice and not wanting to make any "waves", between wanting to understand what happened and feeling like you don't want to understand anything and prefer a life of ignorance, between thinking you can deal with them to realizing you can't and the dangers. It often comes down to more opposite feelings and anxiety than you can seem to handle.
     and finally the concern of being abandoned has dropped, but the terror that they will try to contact you, get back into your life, or try to hurt you again remains (third phase) - can last a long time or even forever, and produce a lot of anxiety because you have figured out by then that they have no empathy for you. Their attempting contact is more likely to have the same effect on you as a known criminal wanting to make a visit. The threat they will return can produce many sleepless nights. Note: if you have "stalker parents" it is really important to get domestic violence services and police involved. It is nothing to take lightly. 
     Also note: the reason why children and adult children go through these three very common almost predictable phases is because biologically we are programmed to trust our parents to take care of us, keep us safe, be consistently engaged with us in a loving and supportive way, until we reach adulthood, and if they aren't this way, they are scary, the opposite of what we expect parents to be, monster-like, beings who will hurt us and are not to be trusted. By the time we reach adulthood, we are programmed to expect them to respect our decisions and autonomy, to accept how we relate to our own children and other family members, to accept who we want in our lives and who we don't want in our lives, to respect that we have our own lives now and that they need to give up the reins of control and lecturing and treat us as co-adults. If we don't get that, we tend to think, "Something is wrong here. This doesn't seem to be 'the way it is supposed to be.'"  
      If we don't have consistent love, respect, safety, stability, and reasonableness as children or adults, or our parents are cruel to us, or if we are abandoned heartlessly with narcissistic discards, the mere presence of our parents can send off a litany of debilitating PTSD symptoms that are too hard to live with again. Most abused children prefer to heal and leave the past behind.
- For victims of marriage and partner abuse:
     Cognitive dissonance is still probable, but the phases above are not as predictable as they are for child abuse survivors (I'll cover the intricacies of why in another post). Since partnerships mean different things to different people, depending on the disparate ways we are brought up these days, plus our individual expectations of how people should act in a partnership, even biology fails to tell us what we should expect out of a marriage or partnership. If we go into a partnership assuming we are both "equal adults" in terms of responsibilities and decision-making, living with a partner who refuses to live that way can mean catastrophe for the partner who wants those things. Because of constantly changing gender roles, a huge upswing in child abuse since the Industrial Revolution which effects generations of people and their attitudes, a country of citizens who seem to prefer more individualism out of life than family, a country of citizens who are seeking "personal fulfillment" out of partner relationships instead of the creation of a healthy intertwined family, a country of citizens who prefer desk jobs over manual labor where they are working with members of the opposite sex, the advent of birth control taking away prior norms like men ingratiating themselves to a whole family of potential in-laws to get their daughter's hand in marriage, the advent of much smaller families and the new generation preferring not to have children at all, the advent of school children potentially becoming a victim of school shootings putting undue stress on people who want to have families, the rise of psychopaths in western societies with the USA coming in third, the advent of atheism wiping out traditional expectations of certain morals and rules of marriage - a lot of these very profound changes have not caught up to our current level of evolution and biological  proclivities. There seems to be a lot of confusion as to whether there are any rules at all, including whether you have to be true to your partner, or even consider him or her beyond what you want for your own individual needs and desires. So divorce rates are sky high.  

But to get back to PTSD ...

The symptoms of PTSD that I covered above aren't something you can control or deal with on your own most of the time: counseling from mental health professionals is usually sought to get you on a healthier track (domestic violence counseling, and trauma counseling at the very least). Note: keeping abusers out of your life or on "very minimal contact" with absolutely no drama or emotionally-laid discussions is the very first step to healing. Without that step, you will keep going down the rabbit hole of worsening symptoms for you, and more raging from them. Without treatment for symptoms, and with an abuser still in your life, PTSD is likely to get much, much worse.

If you tell your abuser(s) that you have PTSD, and they are not making any signs that they want to help you, or provide you with peace, comfort, safety, stability or compassion, which they won't be (pretty much guaranteed), consider that these people are not good for you in any way. 

Consider also that you weren't born to carry these symptoms, or to take on the constant rages of others, or the constant domination by people who are hypocritical, ethically and morally bankrupt, and cruel. Consider that you are a vital part of the planet and its healing: even healing what ails the human race (abuse, violence, corruption, war and ecological heartlessness). Perhaps you are a vital part of what the human race needs in order to heal: transforming a past of dark deeds by humans into an evolution that is more compassionate, more peaceful and harmonious, more about healthy co-operative relationships. Perhaps if we treated our kids with the respect and love that we would have wanted, and in ways that honor co-operation (as opposed to what abusers do to extract co-operation from you to fulfill their own needs: coercive control and abusing the most vulnerable among us). Start change with the changeable.

October plans

I hope to be back by October with the posts I have been working on since March. 

Some quotes I found on the 
"War at Home" Facebook page:

Escalation of Abuse, With Discussions on Why It Happens, What to Do About It and How Dangerous It Is

 

Updated 1/27/22: newest updates include a section on ownership of guns, as well as one on threats. 

Note: this post is for information purposes only. It is not to be used to diagnose yourself or anyone else. If you need help, contact your local domestic abuse center or the domestic violence hotline. 

As usual, this post contains articles, resources, videos and a further reading section. 

So does abuse almost always escalate? Yes. Read on: 

Abuse Almost Always Escalates (Bad news: If you’re trapped in a cycle of abuse, it’s most likely going to only get worse) - by Amanda Kippert for DomesticShelters.org:

When you ask survivors what their last straw was during domestic violence, their answers will likely range from “the first time they threatened to hit me” to “the first time they put me in the hospital.”

Survivors can pinpoint that moment in time when abuse took a sudden escalation and for many that’s their cue to find a way to leave, and fast. Others may feel trapped, either by circumstances like finances or housing that make it seem impossible to leave, or by the hope that they can still change the abuser. Either way, escalation is often a glaringly red flag that indicates a survivor’s life is at risk.

The article describes both gradual escalation (from insults to pushing), or sudden escalation (physical assault or threats of physical assault). 

Here is another excerpt from the article as to why escalation of abuse is so dangerous:

Why It’s So Dangerous

When abuse escalates, an abuser is basically showing that they have a new way to exert power over a survivor. The abuser is becoming more emboldened. They are moving on to the next phase of their plan to trap a survivor.

Escalation is not caused by something a survivor did. A survivor did not make an abuser “more mad” by something the survivor did or said ...

According to "Aris" from the National Domestic Violence Hotline:

     The reason why escalation is so dangerous is because the abuser is showing their partner that they can use new and more damaging tactics to continue to hoard power and control in the relationship. An abuser may test out whether they can get away with crossing a line that has never been crossed before, with the intention of creating a new and deeper level of power and control when they fear they are losing it.

     Abusers typically escalate when they feel they are losing control over the relationship, often because they feel that the independence of their partner has increased in some way or that their partner will leave. The escalation may be intended as a warning or a demonstration of what could happen if their partner decides to become independent. This warning is not to be taken lightly—leaving an abusive relationship is a dangerous thing to do. In fact, 75% of all serious injuries in abusive relationships occur when the survivor ends the relationship. This does not mean that the survivor should stay if they want to leave, but it does mean that any plan to leave should be a good, solid safety plan that takes into account the unique barriers specific to each survivor’s situation.

However, staying in the relationship is dangerous too because it is escalating, so many domestic violence counselors prefer that their clients make a good safety plan (safety plans are available at most domestic violence centers and should be sought there). 

The article also goes on to say that emotional and psychological abuse can also turn into homicide or injury. I cover some of the red flags below as to how dangerous the situation is when it comes to purely emotional and psychological abuse.  

From the same article:

Is it my fault?

You deserve independence and individualism in your relationship. If your partner responds to your request for independence by escalating their abusive behavior, it is a clear sign that you are with someone that seeks to gain power and control over you, which is abusive and never okay. Healthy relationships nurture independence, and nobody feels threatened by their partner seeking friends, safety, happiness, individualism or anything that brings them joy. Abuse is a choice—nobody is forcing your partner to take away your independence. Therefore, the fault of abusing (and escalating abuse) can lie only with the person making that choice—the abusive partner.

Some abusers, instead of doing physical damage to you, will target your possessions or pets. Some of them may also use threats, false imprisonment, burglary, stalking, criminal trespass and other crimes. Threats of criminal intent also count as abuse.

PETS:

Why keeping pets safe is important. This is from the same website as the one above:

48% of respondents feared that the abusive partner would harm or kill the pets;
37% reported that the abusive partner had already threatened to harm or kill pets; and
29% said pets had already been harmed or killed.

My note: People with Antisocial Personality Disorder often harm, kill or torture animals. If they are not doing direct harm to animals, they will show disdain for animals (note: if you hear a person repeatedly tell you that they don't like animals or that they wish they were dead, it is a huge red flag for Antisocial Personality Disorder). 

The opposite of that would be empaths who make their pets often a lifelong part of the family, who are diligent caretakers of their pets, and who, these days, are often vegetarians.

POSSESSIONS:

According to an article entitled Domestic Violence and Destruction of Property by Christopher Martens for Martens Law Firm: 

Domestic violence is a very specific offense comprised of a number of actions against a certain individual ... This can be a past or present spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, fiancé, partner, or cohabitant, the parent of your child, or someone you are closely related to through blood or marriage. Abuse is broadly defined to include physically hurting someone, sexually assaulting them, making them fear for their safety, or violent or destructive behavior such as stalking the person, disturbing their peace, or destroying their property.

In certain states in the United States, destroying someone else's property is also illegal, no matter what kind of blood relationship exists between two people.

Laws in the United Kingdom are more extensive and include threat to destroy someone else's property (another link). 

OTHER TYPES OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AGAINST THE LAW:

This comes from LSNJ LAW (from New Jersey - check laws in your own state or country):

harassment: note this definition can change from state to state. In some states it can simply mean unwanted communication (you have asked a perpetrator not to call or text you, but he does it anyway). In some states the term is much more narrow and has to include insults or threats. 

assault: in some states it includes "intent to harm". In other states the "intent to harm" must include a weapon. In other states you actually have to be harmed.

terrorist threats

criminal mischief: breaking or tampering with your personal property. Using your property as a weapon. 

criminal restraint and false imprisonment: servitude against your will, keeping you in a place that is dangerous, locking you in a structure or room, restraining you from leaving when you want to leave

burglary: breaking into a building or car owned by you. "Intent" to break into your property is also considered to be a crime in some states (such as hiding out in another building or car with the intent to break in).

criminal sexual contact:  Someone who uses coercion or force to have sexual contact. Different states have different laws as to what "contact" means. In some states touching or fondling the inner thigh and breasts counts as criminal sexual contact.

sexual assault: laws on what constitutes sexual assault varies from state to state in terms of how far it goes out of the realm of penetration. 

kidnapping: taking someone out of their present location and bringing them to another location through force, threat or deception - again "threat" and "deception" is about "intent to kidnap" and may not count in some states.

stalking: follows you or has others follow you, harassment in a person-to-person way, threats, staring at someone a long time. Again different states have different definitions as to what constitutes stalking. 

lewdness: someone who exposes his private parts to a non-consenting individual. 

criminal trespass: defined as a person ignores restrictions such as signs, locked doors, fences, or a security guard and enters anyway ... (taken from their website)

homicide: one person takes another person's life. 

criminal coercion: defined as Criminal coercion means that someone tries to make you do something or tries to stop you from doing something by threatening you ...  (again: taken from their website) Laws differ from state to state. Some states have no coercive control laws, some states are considering coercive control laws, and some states have coercive control laws that encompass a lot of different kinds of threatening acts and sentences. 

robbery: defined as someone steals something from you while at the same time hurting you, threatening to hurt you, using force, or committing or threatening to commit certain other crimes ... (again: taken from their website)

contempt of a domestic violence restraining order: Restraining orders are available in most states for some or all of the crimes above. Violations usually carry an additional crime added to the record of the offender.

cyber-harassment: defined as ... when someone threatens online to harm you or your property or someone else or their property. In most states it also includes selling or posting lewd, sexual or naked videos or pictures of you. 

Any other crime involving risk of death or serious bodily injury: can include neglect of a child or elderly person, destruction of your pets or your farm animals, destruction of your land, putting your life at risk (coercing you to perform dangerous duties that put your life at risk) and other crimes. Again, laws are different from state to state.  

My note: emotional, psychological and verbal abuse count as unlawful in some countries. In the United States, some laws are being considered, especially in child abuse and partner abuse. It is also likely that most states in the United States will have coercive control laws (some states already have them). However, verbal and emotional abuse are considered domestic violence by domestic violence shelters and domestic violence centers, so you can gain admittance to these kinds of services in most states if you are experiencing these forms of abuse. 

Also if children are being verbally and emotionally abused, in some counties in the USA, mandatory counseling of parents is starting to be a trend, or children are removed from the home by social services. Children who are receiving this form of abuse often display learning disabilities (their grades take a deep dive and they are often upset and distracted in the classroom).  

All of the above crimes (plus emotional, psychological and verbal abuse) create trauma symptoms the longer they are endured. I will be covering trauma symptoms in another post, but one of the first signs is feeling hopeless, distracted, depressed and having sleeping issues (can be nightmares, restlessness or inability to get a full night's sleep). 

RED FLAGS THAT THE ESCALATION OF ABUSE
WILL CONTINUE TO GET WORSE

initiating insults in a close personal relationship is often the first red flag. A person who insults you more than once or twice is showing he has disdain for you. If he also shows that he does not care how you feel after insulting you, it is pretty much a given that the abuse will escalate. The number of insults will also show you how fast it is escalating. If he tells you that you deserve to be insulted (and has no remorse): extremely dangerous sign!
     However, if you are the one who is initiating insults, and you are getting insults back, it may be their way of defending the insults with another insult (as in a volley of back-and-forth).

gaslighting and calling you crazy after an abusive episode is also a huge red flag and can eventually put you in a dangerous or life-threatening situation. The reason why gaslighting is such a huge red flag for escalation is that the perpetrator is trying to minimize the abuse, trying to convince you that you are crazy for feeling hurt after abusive incidences, trying to convince you that the severity of the abuse is "all in your head", trying to convince you that you should be blaming yourself and not the abuser, trying to convince you that your perceptions of events are always wrong. Warning: gaslighting can sometimes work the way gaslighters want it to work because most abusers use it gradually, seeing how much they can get away with each time they escalate this form of attack.
     It is a form of brainwashing. 
     Punishing you for criticizing them for being hurtful, unempathetic, or cruel will usually result in them raging (a lot of abusers rage when they feel criticized, which can also result in more abuse by them). One of the ways they try to gaslight you is to try to convince you that you deserve to be criticized, scolded over insignificant events or behaviors, insulted, and told you are crazy over and over, while they will try to make the case that they never deserve to be criticized, ever. I will be talking about hypersensitivity to criticism in abusers in another post.
     Playing with your perceptions and trying to convince you and others that you are insane is largely a trait of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder. These personalities are extremely resistant to change, and an overwhelming number of them are abusive, so always expect the escalation of abuse when gaslighting is part of the picture. 

perspecticide and invalidation of your feelings, thoughts and experiences: This is also a type of gaslighting in that your abuser is trying to convince you that you are not feeling the way you say you are feeling, that your thoughts are not what you really think, and that your experiences didn't happen the way you said that they happened. It is about calling you a liar in other words.
     But it can also mean that your abuser states what you are feeling, thinking and experiencing before you state it yourself, or without getting your feedback as to what is the truth. In other words, your abuser is showing you that he doesn't care what the truth is. He only cares about his own opinions and agendas where it concerns you.
     Blocking the truth of someone's reality is a bad sign in terms of them understanding or caring about what you are going through. It is a big contributor to why they do not feel empathy. 
     It is also a sign of someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder or Antisocial Personality Disorder. While normal folks sometimes use it (very sparingly, if at all), they are open to hearing the other person out, especially if this is their child or partner. With the disorders, you will notice that you aren't heard, nor do they want any part of hearing you out. They very often give you the silent treatment or stonewall you as a way to tell you that they want no part of hearing what you have to say (and the silent treatment and stonewalling is often a huge sign of the two personality disorders too).
     And if they do hear you out, they will be arguing about what you really felt, or thought or what you went through. 
     You can see why abuse would escalate with perspecticide as part of their agenda. It's just one more avenue for invalidating the abuse you experience from others or them. 

erroneous blaming: Erroneous blaming is about blaming someone for a perfectly normal activity such as:
    To a child: "You hurt me by going to college."
    To a wife: "You hurt me when you got a job. Your job is to take care of me and the household."
    To a husband: "You hurt me when you went against me punishing your child. Perhaps this calls for a divorce."
    To a child who has been hit by a parent: "How dare you cry! You are hurting me by making me feel like a terrible parent!"
     To a girlfriend or wife: "I know you were glancing at him! Just for that you are going to get punished, and punished good when we get home!" - it's also a sign of perspecticide. 

     To a child: "You deserve to be punished, and punished severely, for that look on your face!" - also perspecticide.
     To a wife, sibling or child: "Why did you think the bread belonged in the refrigerator!? Are you STUPID? It ALWAYS goes in the breadbox!" and then the insults and rages come out for the "mistake" you made at putting the bread anywhere he did not want you to put the bread. Note: these kinds of demands and arguments will escalate, and can even become a daily or hour-to-hour event. 
     A lot of abusers abandon their victims when erroneous blaming "perfection standards" are not met with the utmost concern by their victims. While many abusers want to neglect relationships with children and partners who do not live up to what is expected, some use it as a way to scare their victims into submission instead (i.e. physically abusive or physically threatening) to make their victims comply with their demands at all times.
     A lot of abusers nitpick at you about how you are not managing your choices about your own life. And then when you aren't managing your affairs in the exacting standards that they see fit, they abuse you.
     When a relationship has gotten to the point of erroneous blaming over little things, the escalation has reached a tipping point where danger can happen fast. It is not unusual, also, for abusers to punish over erroneous expectations. They will see their own abuses as excusable, and at the same time your perfectly normal "mistakes" are inexcusable. The escalation of this would be: they see that the abuse is justified because you made a "mistake". You did not live up to their perfection standards (and therefor, in their minds, deserved the abuse/punishment). 
     They also use erroneous blaming to see what they can get away with, and how far a victim will go to please them. 

     Erroneous blaming is also often used by your abuser as an excuse to become more entitled, more abusive, and more powerful and controlling, if not totally dominating. 
     I think anyone can see why abuse would escalate with erroneous blaming in the picture, and why finding fault in you in a myriad of small ways and possibilities would incite escalation (especially since they excuse the abuse they do through blame shifting, gaslighting, normalizing and other tactics).

    Again, these are definitely signs of the two personality disorders I have mentioned before, and since it is extremely rare for them to change, they won't be changing addictive tactics like erroneous blaming with an aftermath of abusive "punishments" or prolonged rages. 

blame-shifting and playing the victim: These are strategies that abusers use to avoid accountability of any kind. They use them with impunity and are also traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder.
     They are linked to gaslighting, of trying to change perspectives so that you look like the abuser and they look like the victim. 
     Every and any excuse will do to get themselves off the hook of accountability, and any lie will do to protect themselves from the fall-out of hurting other people. 
     They will insist that you see yourself as "the flawed at-fault one" and themselves as "the perfect never-at-fault one" and that you brought on the abuse all by yourself, and ruined the relationship as well. Most abusers don't change and they certainly won't change this stance no matter how many years go by. 

     When they refuse to accept any accountability, it means they have anaesthetized themselves of the shame of being a perpetrator of abuse and therefor have excused themselves from hurting and/or damaging other people many, many times.
     The abuse of others can be verbally, emotionally, psychologically, physically, financially or via self esteem.
     Some abusers get to the point of abandoning you, and then if they see you again they will reprimand  you: "Why did you let me abandon you?" as if you are the one ultimately responsible for their abandonments - it's just another "dirty tricks blame-shifting game" as well as a "playing the victim" tactic, and crazy-making for you. It's to get you to sympathize with them, rather than to consider the dire straights they left you in at the time of their abandonment. 
     When abusers excuse themselves so readily with these two tactics, you can see why abuse would escalate. They'll just excuse the next egregious act. And the next one. And the next one after that. 
     In many abusers' minds, any and all abuses they perpetrate deserve excuses.

entitlement: This means they feel they deserve more than other people deserve. In abuse this often translates to:
     "I demand and deserve the utmost loyalty from you, but I don't have to give my loyalty to you."
     "I demand that you never criticize me again, but I can criticize you as much as I want to, and do it constantly."

     "I demand and deserve that you talk to me when I want you to, and I deserve to be able to walk away when conversations aren't serving my purpose, but how dare you walk away from talking to me! In fact, you are flawed and can't work out problems through discussion!" - also a type of gaslighting and blame-shifting.

     "I demand that you disclose everything I want you to disclose, including the most sensitive details of your life, but how dare you think you can get the same kind of disclosure from me!"
     "I will call you selfish when you forget to put gas in the car, but I'm not selfish when I take every stick of furniture out of the house that you paid for when we are getting divorced."
     "I deserve to be treated with the utmost politeness and respect at all times, while I get to call you names, call you crazy and stupid with impunity, abuse you, and treat you like you and your feelings don't matter most of the time."

     A sense of entitlement means they think they are special and you are not. They believe you are so "un-special" in fact, that if they abuse you, they won't feel sorry.  You can see why abuse escalates under these unfair standards.

infantilization and parentification and putting people in roles (with unchanged opinions):
     Infantilization means that the abuser takes on the role of parent or teacher when you are a full adult. It is inappropriate in these ways: they lecture you constantly, tell you what to do and how to behave, what to say to others, what to do with your money, what to do in your relationships, how to manage your career, and how to manage your life. Sometimes they will micro-manage how you drive, how you cook, how you house-keep, what you say to whom. 

     It is very common for abusers to infantilize. A perfect demonstration of what it looks like can be found in the movie, "Sleeping With the Enemy" where the victim has to keep towels and cans of food in perfect precision.
     On the other hand, parentification is just the opposite, but it is also common for abusers.
     "Parentification of a minor" is often used to describe how an alcoholic parent relates to a child. They are too inebriated to parent their children, so the parent expects his or her child to play the role of parent or handmaid: make his or her parents mixed drinks, open beer cans, serve them hors d'oeuvres and chips during "Happy Hour", make dinner every night, be the one to keep the grocery list up to date, clean the entire house, make their parent's bed, change their siblings dirty diapers, heat milk for the baby, make appointments with car mechanics, electricians, carpenters, get their parent out of bed and dressed in the morning for appointments, dress their parent, calm their parent during an alcoholic rage, do damage control when there is family strife. When things are not running smoothly then this child is seen to be at fault for the state of the family. 
     However, parentification can happen in abusive partner relationships too where one partner is given a predominance of responsibility for emotionally soothing the other partner, for being the sole breadwinner, for managing all of the affairs of the household, for doing most of the shopping and housework, for raising the children, for being the one who is loyal and steady, for being the one to take all of the "fault" when they argue, and so on. If things go wrong, then it is claimed that this overly-responsible partner is at fault.
     Whether the abuser is infantilizing or parentifying, you can see why abuse might escalate. Most abusers love to put people in roles where they, the abuser, is pulling the puppet strings, telling others what to do. If the person goes out of role, the abuser rages. Raging can lead to abuse and violence. 
     Children of abusive narcissistic or antisocial personality disordered parents are put in roles very early in their lives, often when they are babies or toddlers, and pre-verbal. In family photographs you can even see it: the golden child is often in the lap or hugged by the parent, while the scapegoat child is sidelined and often by himself or herself, even if in the same photograph with the parent, and where there are few-to-no photographs of affection between parent and child (during childhood). The scapegoat is used for derision, ignoring, blame and abuse while the golden child is lavished with attention, gifts and affection. The roles usually do not change over the lifetime of the children unless the golden child disappoints (the parent switches the roles temporarily until the golden can re-assume the pleasing behaviors and the role). 

     The parent excuses their lack of affection and attention for the scapegoat child by claiming that this child is crazy (extremely common - gaslighting is used as an excuse for not parenting or caring about the child). It is common for a parent to initiate an estrangement between himself (or herself) from the scapegoat child during the child's adult years, however to outsiders the parent will try to make the case that the child initiated the estrangement instead. After years of estrangement, grief and pain, some adult children prefer to continue the estrangement to reinstating the relationship (because it is an incredibly toxic trauma bond with no hope that the abuse will stop, and if anything, they are told by mental health professionals that it will increase - many also have no hope of the relationship becoming a healthy loving bond with truth and trust behind it). Scapegoat children are often left out of wills and trusts.
     It means opinions about children are fixed and unchanged in the abuser forever. 
     When an abuser wants to put people into roles this much, you can see why abuse would escalate to unbearable proportions when someone wants to go out of role, or when they are deemed not to be enough of a puppet to make the abuser happy.
     However, a scapegoat, a forever-target of the abuser, will never make an abuser happy, ever, even if the scapegoat works hard to please, to take abuse, to take being blamed even when they are not at fault. The role requires martyrdom, and it isn't something most people can withstand for any extended period.     
     An abuser wouldn't last a day in the role themselves, so it is hypocritical to expect it of anyone else, let alone a child.

     
rage off the charts (includes quiet rage): Some abusers overtly rage all of the time, at almost anything. It shows entitlement and that they can't deal with what life hands out like the rest of us, without becoming overwrought. Rage-a-holics often get their way because they won't stop raging until they get their way. People often respond to raging the way they would a baby who is screaming. 
     Then some of them rage when they perceive that they are criticized. They rage because their grandiose, have-to-be-in-the-dominant-all-powerful-position-all-of-the-time is being challenged. Almost all abusers who are sensitive to criticism are very critical of others, and some spend their whole lives being critical with cruel remarks, especially if they are triangulating other people a lot (they try to get other people suspicious of each other, especially people who they find to be a threat to their grandiose ego - it is a divide-and-conquer strategy mostly used by people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder) - the link to triangulation above explains it. 
     In both these personality types, rage is used to get what they want, and it is the reason why both types rage over erroneous or relatively small issues, to see if you are going to bend to their will over small issues, or any issue. If you do bend, then they exploit this information and use you for more of their power-and-control fantasies.
     The rage either manifests as shouting, threats and insults or passive aggressive threats: "I'll never talk to you again because you did the unthinkable thing: criticized me!" If you tell either type that you are hurt by their behavior, and lack of respect for you and the relationship, or that they are being hypocritical or unreasonable, they look at it as another criticism and double down on their mode of punishment. 
     It is the abuser's temper tantrum and it looks that way to most people too.
     Most of the time rage turns into abuse. Abuse is almost always a power-and-control move (whereas for normal folks who express anger it's mostly about an injustice - and no, most people who get angry over injustices do not abuse others; they just want their voices heard). To make the differences clear, notice they excuse themselves if they criticize and hurt you, but you are never excused by them if you inadvertently hurt them by a mere "perceived" criticism or injury to their ego. 
     All of this is definitely another sign of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder.  
     In other words, rage and abuse are the tools they use to gain more dominance over you. Sometimes it works the way they want it to, other times it doesn't (people usually get weary of the constant displays of rage and abuse, and the disordered person's ever-increasing demands for more power, control and domination - if you want to be a slave to them, you put up with it and if you don't, you excuse yourself from these manipulative games). 
     There is one caveat here: if you are their scapegoat, the one who they use for continual unfounded blame, rage and abuse, they won't accept it when you try to meet their demand, or if you offer an apology. They often tell you that the apology is not good enough. It is so they can keep using you (and it also has to do with the role they put you in: you are deemed by them to be 100 percent bad, and all-bad people do not apologize in good enough ways). 
     You can see that rage (especially over a power-and-control addiction - an addiction which is never satisfied) will lead to ever more egregious acts of abuse and domination to the point where you lose yourself to become the narcissist's or sociopath's puppet. This is extremely unhealthy and potentially deadly for children. For partners who have the choice to leave, it is still unhealthy, just remember not to get into a cycle where you are as addicted to pleasing them as much as they are addicted to hurting you to get pleased. 

     I discuss leaving below.
     At any rate, the appearance of rage, and the level of punishments that follow should let you know how far they will go in being injurious (dangerous). If the punishment is severe, long, unforgiving and over something relatively small in the scheme of things, and they follow up with smear campaigns on your character, they are potentially a lot more dangerous than the abuser who shows up at your door in two weeks after exploding and appears to want to do everything they can to make it up to you, but WARNING: it can still be dangerous: some of them soft peddle a honeymoon period to soften you up enough to enact a life threatening attack (it's a lure to attack in other words).
     Even if they appear to be truly contrite (the ones who show up at your door and do not attack you after "winning you back"), they usually cycle back around to abusing you again, with each attack getting worse and more hurtful and destructive. 

     It is why once they start abusing you, they never stop, and it is very important to realize this. It is a habit in them, often a reaction to not feeling they have enough power and control over you. It can be impulsive: they feel a trigger of shame, or they feel insecure about their power for a split second, so they rage and abuse. Or it can be planned: they need to make you feel that you deserve to be abused, so they gaslight you and play head games with your self esteem (gaslighting and trying to manipulate you so that you feel you don't deserve to be treated well, or listened to, is a planned attack ... once you see gaslighting on a regular basis, which is a planned attack, tread carefully).   

     Planned attacks eventually become part of the escalation process for narcissists, and are definitely part of the picture for sociopaths. The escalation of planned attacks happen especially if they get the sense that you are not as brainwashed by them as you used to be, or if they feel you are too influenced by someone else, or are backing off even minutely, or trying to heal from what they did to you, or that you are not convinced about what they are saying (especially if they say they are sorry, but continue to abuse).
     When you are dealing with planned attacks, this means that they are certainly capable of injuring you or killing you. Even unplanned attacks can become deadly because they are often not in control of how they use their strength when they rage (outward rage tends to tighten the muscles). But planned attacks are always dangerous, even if they are escalating them slowly.
     Planned attacks are usually done without outward emotion (but have aspects of internal rage), whereas unplanned attacks usually have a lot of emotional outbursts and you can see the rage right away.             

power and control agendas, and jealousy:  Power and control is the "be-all-and-end-all" strategy for most abusers (not all of them, but certainly a very high percentage of them). That is why, if you are discarded by them, they make it clear you are not important to them. Relationships are not important to most abusers unless the relationship is about fulfilling their needs for power, control and domination.
     The abuse will tend to escalate because the abuser never feels fulfilled with the power, domination and control they already have. They want more and more, and for their demands to be met by the target. I talk about how the power-and-control agenda is connected to rage and abuse in the section above.
     As for jealousy, most abusers feel jealous, really jealous, jealous to the point where they are very uncomfortable, so uncomfortable that they believe they have to take some action to relieve it.
     A boyfriend might be jealous of their girlfriend's beauty and her ability to attract the attention of other men because of her beauty, so they try to isolate her, and often pro-actively abuse her so that she never thinks of leaving (see my Gabby Petito post about how this dynamic can play out).
     A mother might be jealous of her daughter's beauty, talent or intelligence, so she might proactively abuse her by crushing the daughter's self esteem, or trying to lead her astray so that the daughter won't seek success, and if that doesn't work, trying to tell others that the daughter is only successful because of the mother's doting. Either is a red flag that the daughter will be, has been, or is, abused. Note: normal parents don't act like this.
     A father might be jealous of his son's success and ability to make more money than the father. In order not to feel ashamed and jealous, the father sneers or displays chiding targeted jokes about his son to a big crowd to make the son "look less than" the "picture of greatness in the world of success". If the son falls on hard times, the father can make the son look like a much worse business failure by withdrawing support, attention, sympathy and empathy so that he never outshines the father again. If the son becomes financially beholden to the narcissistic father because the father bailed him out, the father can try to keep him in an "infantilized position" by only giving an amount which will bind son and father together financially, so that the father can control the shots (have power over the son), and blackmail the son into giving him, the father, more domination, power and control. Note: normal parents don't act like this either.

     A friend is more successful in her marriage than the narcissist is. In order to "one up" her, and crush her self esteem, the narcissist tries to see if the friend's husband can be seduced away from her, to see if the husband is as loyal and good to her as the friend says he is. If the husband can be seduced away, the narcissist tells the friend that her husband was seduced. The narcissist feels better because now she and her friend are on the same level in terms of misery in their relationships, and the narcissist is above the friend because she has "the power to seduce" a relationship away from her friend. It's typical narcissistic behavior, though not all narcissists cheat. But they all triangulate people against one another, and if the husband doesn't want to cheat, the narcissist will try to be his confidante about how the relationship is going instead. Note: a normal friend does not act like this.
     The reason why jealousy plays a huge part in the escalation of abuse and why it is a sign that abuse will escalate, is that the narcissist feels better when they can enact these kinds of events. Narcissists feel better about their own state of affairs when they can penetrate the weaknesses in other people's marriages, in other people's successes, in other people's self esteem, in other people's financial autonomy, in their daughter's good relationship with her children or husband, and so on. They will keep poking and prodding these weaknesses in "escalation-style" to the point of seriously hurting other people, dividing them up so that the narcissist is the center of their world, and leaving a trail of destruction behind. The narcissist may run away from their dirty deeds when they get uncomfortable and start rumors with other sources of narcissistic supply about how their victims brought their own downfall on themselves, even though the narcissist had a huge hand in aggressively pursuing the destruction.

becoming calm after abusing or attacking you (showing no empathy): This is a bad sign. Without empathy, there is little hope for change in them. If you are upset, and they become calm, it is usually a sign of a personality disorder (most often Narcissistic Personality Disorder or Antisocial Personality Disorder, especially if they meet the criteria of everything else on this list). If they have no regrets after hurting you, or say that you deserved it, then it points to more Antisocial Personality Disorder traits. You can see why a lack of empathy would mean they would escalate abuse. "Empathy" is normal, and "shame" is normal once we step over the bounds of hurting another person, and once we know we hurt another person. It is like an internal break in most of us which keeps us from going too far.
     Warning: don't get caught up in narcissists playing the victim after attacking you. This is a sign they want empathy to go one way, towards them.    

at some point in the relationship, they enlist you in order to "make" someone else jealous: Another bad sign, especially if they meet the criteria of everything else on this list (generally just one of the signs of Narcissistic Personality Disorder).     

normalizing abuse: They wouldn't be able to escalate abuse unless they can talk other people into abuse being "perfectly normal", or at the very least excusable because they had a hard day, or because they are so sensitive, or because they worked so hard at the relationship.
     Some may say: "Punishing children is normal" - not when it is abusive, and not after children reach adulthood.
     Normalizing abuse is a brainwashing technique to get you to side with them if they abuse other people, and if they abuse you too. They want to hear how it is all other people's fault they were abused (blaming the victim). They also want you to be self effacing enough to believe it was all your fault when they abused you too. 
     It's just another sign that they will escalate abuse, and escalate it without thought, because people are so agreeable to abuse being as normal as eating apple pie. 

     It isn't normal, of course, but when any number of people are putting up with it, it can seem normal, whereas your rebellion in saying "it isn't normal" may be met with derision and corrected by the group. They are putting up with abuse, so why can't you???
     The reason why escalation of abuse happens so seamlessly and effortlessly may be because normalizing may be part of the picture with their group or family.
     WARNING: When normalizing is present, you may be expected to apologize to your abuser. This can escalate abuse faster and be quite a bit more deadly. It is a get-out-now situation. I talk about this in the chapter below:

EXTREMELY DANGEROUS RED FLAGS

Sadism: Sadism means the abuser likes abusing. This is basically a "get-out-as-soon-as-you-can" sign for a victim. 
     Some of the signs:

     The abuser boasts about tricking someone out of their money.
     The abuser boasts about hurting another person and how they, the abuser, got a free pass by playing the victim.
     The abuser boasts that he committed a crime without being caught.

     The abuser boasts that he got an entire inheritance by pretending he was a victim of a sibling. 
     The abuser boasts that he stole, or tricked someone, and got away with it. 
     The abuser tells someone else he will get everything he wants and that someone else won't get what they want.
     The abuser tells someone he got rid of someone else's cat without telling them where the cat went.
     The abuser spends a lot of time trying to make you feel uncomfortable or scared.
     The abuser spends most of his time in private conversation insulting others, sneering at others, putting people down with an arrogant air.  
     The abuser tells his adult child that he, the abusive parent, is having a wonderful Christmas (even though the adult child was not invited) and laughing about how hurt the adult child was at hearing this.

     In other words "getting" and "making someone uncomfortable" is the main conversation. There is no "We agreed that since my wife is good at playing the piano, she should get the piano, and that I was good at woodworking, so we both agreed I should get the tools." There is no "My child and I weren't getting along, so we decided to go to therapy together. The relationship means a lot to both of us, and we were both suffering." In other words, there is very little conversation about sharing and coming to an agreement, and if there is a miniscule amount of it, it is usually for effect only, to impress someone else outside the relationship.
     Sadistic people tend to be two-faced. They are incredibly charming and overly sweet to a person when face-to-face with them, and then behind their backs verbalize them in cruel ways: "He's a dork, a loser, a mamby-pamby man." 
     People with obvious sadism characteristics tend to be either malignant narcissists, sociopaths or psychopaths.
     They are going to escalate abuse for the love of making people uncomfortable, unhappy, sad, left out of events, traumatized, and so on. The more traumatized people are, the more they like it. 
     When sadists are escalating abuse, it is very, very dangerous. 
     It is best to get out of it, but get out of it with help from professionals like domestic violence counselors, police and possibly a lawyer too. 

Physical abuse: Physical abuse is a very bad sign that the escalation has reached a dangerous point. Pushing and shoving can escalate very fast to a life threatening situation. Do not expect physical abusers to change or for your abuser to be sorry for how they treated you. If they do act sorry, usually it means they will be doing it again. In the cases where they are sorry, the overwhelming tendency is for it to be a cycle: honeymoon, tensions building, explosion, making up, back to honeymoon, back to tensions building, and so on. 
     Physical abuse always tends to escalate to more egregious forms of it.

An abuser has abused you physically before or assaulted you in the head, the neck (strangulation or mock strangulation), struck your face, or pulled you by your ear or hair or threatened to injure you or kill you:
     These are a huge danger sign, perhaps the biggest danger sign of all of them. A lot of child murders and partner murders are perpetrated by abusers who attack this part of their victim's body. If you have been attacked anywhere on the head, face or neck, get out as soon as you can, but get out carefully and smartly (usually domestic violence services can help you devise a plan of escape - see section below). 

     See my post on the Gabby Petito case on how an abuser who initiated an assault to his partner's face, ended up killing her (more common than most people realize).         
      

You are expected to apologize to, or make up with, your abuser, or someone you have complained abused you (especially if there is social pressure to make you apologize):
     Another really, really bad sign. It's another "get-out-as-soon-as-you-can" situation.
     Abusers like to see victims apologizing to other abusers because it translates for them into "If they are apologizing to this abuser, then it is likely they will apologize to me too when I abuse them. It's a great way to see how much abuse I can get away with." 
     A lot of victims are ostracized from their families (even an entire family) if they refuse to have a relationship with a family abuser, and this abuser is probably inside a family with other abusers in it, or where abuse has been normalized to a large extent. The abuser is being coddled and excused for hurtful behavior. Abuse tends to be multi-generational, so usually where you find one abuser in the family, you find others.
     Prepare yourself for being abandoned and "sacrificed" in situations like this by preparing for an autonomous life without them. This kind of situation won't get better and can escalate very fast. It is very dangerous because the abuser you are complaining about has a free pass from his family or group to abuse you some more without second guessing themselves as to the "rightness" of putting pressure on you to apologize. There are also no repercussions for the abuser, no eyes on the situation, no one is caring what happens to you. The path they have chosen is for you to apologize to someone who has hurt you and/or put you in danger.
     It is a total no-win situation.     

The abuser insists that you meet him alone to discuss your relationship issues, but only in a place of his choosing, (again, it is not about an agreement between you) or The abuser is trying to lure you to a place where you will be alone and vulnerable to more abuse:
     Again, this is a really, really bad sign. People who are uncompromising about where to meet are insisting they get their way. Who insists on getting their own way most of the time and are un-bending about it? Narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths. There is no reason why they should be pressuring you to meet them in only one place, so consider that "the place" is dangerous for you, but will serve them. 

     When they have shown they are abusive, or have abused you, and want to make sure you meet them alone in a place of their choosing only, it always means they want to abuse you or blame you some more. This is not in the least bit trustworthy on any level.

     They may try to lure you instead: "Don't you want some help with that project?", "Don't you want to work out our differences?", "Wouldn't you like that violin you always dreamed about?", "I'd like to give you some flowers, money, a vacation" (what ever it is) "if you only meet me at -" after they have abused you or abandoned you - dangerous. 

     In fact, it is never advisable to meet with any abuser alone. But it is especially inadvisable to meet with an abuser who is stubborn (and repeats that it has to be a certain place). Quite creepy too.

The abuser tries to lure you into a situation where there are co-abusers present or You are a scapegoat and are bullied by a gang: This is even more dangerous than the situation above. Not only is the abuser trying to lure you into a place that is dangerous for you, but when they have co-bullies, the dangers intensify. There will be someone in the group who will enact the most egregious abuse they can think of, even injuring you, to see if the group approves or might approve. It sounds wild that they would look for group approval for perpetrating injuries and murder, but it happens. 
     This is not anything to mess with. It is better to be alive, than be a member of a group like this. It is beyond unsafe.   

    

An abuser has used, or is making real or veiled threats of criminal acts such as false imprisonment or kidnapping: 
     Sociopaths usually voice their fantasies well in advance of their threats and abuses. If they have fantasies or they are writing a novel, a short story, or drawing pictures about how someone resembling you is being strangled, held against their will, or is kidnapped and put in a dark dungeon, they are telling you what they want to do. It is to be taken seriously and literally, in other words: they are not just saying it to scare you. 

     They are especially to be taken seriously if they have sociopathic traits: sadism, are hyper-critical of others, enjoy hurting other people or animals they do not like, have no regret for hurting others, they rage over perceived criticisms, they display arrogance, they try to make people feel uncomfortable by bringing up topics that will trigger the other person into a negative response (crying, anger, shocked, terrorized, traumatized). 
      Making threats of criminal acts is dangerous and should not be "brushed off". Very few people make threats or make up fantasies about breaking the law to hurt another person. While it may be used to scare you, often it is not: they are trying to tell you that they want to hurt you, and how they want to hurt you. When criminal acts are added to a dialogue about what they want to do to you, it is best to assume it is real. 
     It is also dangerous.
     If you happen to be in this person's presence again, abuse is likely to escalate, but they may try to lure you somewhere before doing anything to you. 
     Many sociopaths like to stalk and harass. They have a "hunter mentality" where you are the prey. 
     If you are not stalked or harassed, it may be because they are high functioning (meaning they care about their reputations in society to some extent, minimally of course). 

An abuser who talks to you about his fantasies of hurting other people, children or animals:
     Again, this is the chatter of sociopaths and psychopaths. Danger!

An abuser is an owner or has access to lethal weapons (can be guns):
     According the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, a government website:
     Firearms contribute significantly to domestic violence in the U.S. — to threaten, to coerce, to control, and to kill. Around 4.5 million women in the United States have been threatened with a gun, and nearly 1 million women have been shot or shot at by an intimate partner.
     According to The Guardian article How the US fails to take away guns from domestic abusers: ‘These deaths are preventable’ by Jennifer Gollan:

     Guns are the No 1 weapon in domestic violence killings in the US – just owning a firearm makes an abuser five times more likely to take a partner’s life. People with a history of violence against a partner, including stalking or strangulation, are also far more likely to go on to commit more heinous acts. Earlier this year, researchers reported that more than two-thirds of recent mass shootings in the US involved perpetrators who killed partners or relatives or had a history of domestic abuse.
     According to The Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban:

     The act bans shipment, transport, possession, ownership, and use of guns or ammunition by individuals convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence, or who are under a restraining (protection) order for domestic abuse that falls within the criteria set by 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8).
     However, even if your abuser does not own a lethal weapon, he can still kill you by other means.

An abuser threatens to punish you, kill you, or hurt you by unlawful means:
     A huge red flag. See this article on characteristics of abusers to see if any of these match your abuser. 
     Fantasies that abusers have in terms of violence or emotional abuse should be taken seriously. A lot of abusers have, make, and try to realize their plans in hurting other people.   

An abuser who talks of "taking other people away from you" that you hold close to your heart:
     Again, malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths do this at some point during their escalation of abuse. They can mean it emotionally ("I'll talk bad about you and this person will believe me and never want to have anything to do with you again"), or actually ("I plan to threaten this person, or get rid of this person to hurt you").
     It's a blackmail threat. If you give into the blackmail, the abuse is likely to escalate to very dangerous levels. If you don't give into the blackmail, the abuse can escalate to very dangerous levels too. This situation requires professional help.

Stalking: Stalking is dangerous, and a crime. Stalking, like harassment, is unwanted contact. Go HERE to read about types of stalking. Stalking with rates of post traumatic stress disorder in stalked victims, and rates of murder are discussed in this article HERE.     

An abuser who tells you repeatedly that you mean nothing to them, that you are a waste to the human race, or that you are a waste of time for them:  

     Anyone who tells you this in a close personal relationship is trying to smash your self esteem. But an abuser means it. It is not a threat; it is actually how they view you.
     Abusers who use these statements tend to only be interested in dominating conversations, dominating your every move, shaming you repeatedly, to be nitpickers, rage-a-holics, micro-managers, and criticize people with impunity. It is their way of saying they are not happy with the narcissistic supply they get from you. 
     Most often a person who views you this way will ignore you, abandon you, stonewall, not be interested in what you have to say in the least. They will be bored by you. While it may hurt, it is usually a much more dangerous situation if they still want to be in your life. 
     If this type of abuser is interested, or becomes interested, in what you are doing, in your whereabouts, in finding out details about your life and relationships, or is information-gathering at all, your being a waste of time is a contradiction. But it is also stalking-by-proxy (especially if they have abused you), so beware!
     A person who says that you mean nothing to them, but isn't leaving you alone, is dangerous because they are usually thinking and planning. Thinking and planning means escalating abuse most of the time.
     My own experience with a person who fits this category is that they steal. And not only with one victim. This shows that they are interested enough in you to take from you, but not interested in what you have to say, and definitely not interested in what you have to say about being stolen from.
     People who steal, especially if they knowingly steal personal mementos and things that mean something to you, are usually malignant narcissists, sociopaths, or psychopaths (it's sadistic, after all), unless they are children playing at "stealing", or an adult desperate for food and shelter, or an addict.
     These abusers do not like fairness, or believe in compromise or agreements. They take. They will call other people selfish, but are way beyond their own standards of selfishness. I would say that based on my own experience that you need to guard not only yourself but other things in your life as well. And be happy if they find you not fit for their narcissistic supply needs, and find you boring. 
     Johnny 

HOW TO HANDLE
ESCALATING ABUSE

This is something you should never take on alone, without professional help. As this article from endingviolence.org by Jocelyn Coupal states:

Separation is the most common risk factor present in a domestic homicide (81%).* While leaving may be the best response to a violent relationship it is in leaving without adequate safety planning that the majority of women are killed. 

However, if you stay in the relationship the violence is likely to escalate too, so leaving is what most victims of domestic violence tend to do eventually. 

There are unforeseen dangers in leaving, which is why most victims seek help through their local domestic violence centers and domestic violence shelters. They are usually the most helpful in terms of devising a realistic plan to keep safe. A lot of victims feel emotionally worn out, and often down-play the dangers (it's the mind's way of dealing with the abuse: numbness, plus you are probably being groomed by your abuser that his or her treatment is perfectly normal and that you make him abusive - realize that this is brainwashing on your abuser's part and a very common tactic).

Every abuser is different, and professionals are going to be able to tell how dangerous your situation is by assessing your abusers reactions and your reactions. They will also be able to tell if there might be a personality disorder present in your abuser which raises the risks for you.  

While police can be helpful in telling you what your rights are, they are not always up on how leaving your abuser may effect you, your life, your children's lives and your pets' lives. However, knowing your rights can help with safety measures when you decide to leave the relationship. 

"Will An Abuser Kill You? 11 Signs Abuse May Turn Deadly."
from the administrators of DomesticShelters.org:

"Warning Signs Of An Abusive Relationship Becoming Violent or Ending in Homicide"
by Street Smart Women:

Further reading:

Escalation - by Michael Samsel for Abuse and Relationships blog
     Note: the blog also lists "acts of abuse" as Subtle Control, Manipulation, Basic Coercion, Discouragement, Rage, Deflection, Jealousy, Misogyny, Grooming, Authoritarian Style, Financial Control, Substance Abuse, Stonewalling, Battering, Stalking, Suicide (not out of depression, but to "guilt" the victim), Victim Role (i.e. "playing the victim"), Isolation, Sexual Abuse, Using Children, Legal Abuse, Slipping By - some of the same things I have discussed on this blog too.

Abuse Almost Always Escalates (Bad news: If you’re trapped in a cycle of abuse, it’s most likely going to only get worse) - by Amanda Kippert for Domestic Shelters

Domestic violence against women: Recognize patterns, seek help (Domestic violence is a serious threat for many women. Know the signs of an abusive relationship and how to leave a dangerous situation.) - by Mayo Clinic Staff for the Mayo Clinic

Spotting the Signs - Before Someone Dies - by Jocelyn Coupal for Ending Violence

 
Stop! 9 WARNING Signs That You May Be in a Dangerous Relationship - by Royale Scuderi for LifeHack.org

4 Signs That a Relationship Could Become Dangerous (Jealousy, isolation, and more red flags.) - by Abigail Brenner, MD for Psychology Today

Signs That Indicate a Relationship Could Turn Violent - by Buddy T, reviewed by Carly Snyder, MD for Very Well Mind

16 Warning Signs Your Partner is Dangerous - by Cyril Abello for Inspiring Tips 

Tell-Tale Signs of Dangerous Relationships - by the administrators of Meet Mindful

Is your partner making you feel unsafe? - by the administrators of Family Violence

Five Ways a Narcissist Comes Unglued - by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC, medically reviewed by Scientific Advisory Board for Psych Central

In Control: Dangerous Relationships and How They End in Murder - by Jane Mockton Smith (Bloomsbury Publishing)

When Men Murder Women (Interpersonal Violence) - by R. Emerson Dobash and Russell P. Dobash (Oxford University Press)

No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us - by Rachel Louise Snyder (Bloomsbury Publishing)

Recover and Rebuild Domestic Violence Workbook: Moving On from Partner Abuse - by Stacie Freudenberg, PsyD (Rockridge Press)

Healing the Trauma of Abuse: A Women's Workbook - by Mary Ellen Copeland, MS, MA and Maxine Harris, PhD (New Harbinger Publications)

Gaslighting: A Step-by-Step Recovery Guide to Heal from Emotional Abuse and Build Healthy Relationships - by Deborah Vinall, PsyD, LMFT (Rockridge Press)

Recovery from Gaslighting & Narcissistic Abuse, Codependency & Complex PTSD (3 in 1): Emotional Abuse, People-Pleasing and Trauma vs. Emotional Regulation, Mindfulness, Independence and Self-Caring - by Don Barlow (independently published, but very high ratings)

Becoming the Narcissist's Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself - by Shahida Arabi (CreateSpace Independent Publishing) - a bestseller book on narcissistic abuse

Raised by a Narcissist: Understanding and Recovery for Adult Children of Narcissists - by Alan Chatting (Audible)

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents - by Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD (Audible Books)

Effects of Narcissistic Abuse - by Arlin Cuncic, medically reviewed by David Susman, PhD for Very Well Mind

This Is What Narcissistic Abuse Looks Like - by Marissa Pomerance for The Candidly

How do narcissists control you? How do they react when they can’t control you? - by Taylor Bennett for Thrive Works

How to Handle Narcissistic Abuse (Narcissists want power. Learn not to react to abuse, but to be strategic.) - by Kaja Perina for Psychology Today

Here's how to stop an argument with a narcissist from spinning out of control - by Lindsay Dodgson for Business Insider

excerpt:

     Elinor Greenberg, a therapist who wrote the book "Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid Adaptations: The Pursuit of Love, Admiration, and Safety," told Business Insider that fighting with a narcissist is a completely different experience to regular relationship quarrels.
     They are wired to be abusive because they're so hypersensitive and completely lack empathy, so they are primed to take offense and misunderstand someone else's needs and points of view ...
     ... Narcissists love talking about themselves, or expressing just how much more they know about something than you do. So, in a similar way you might distract a baby with a set of keys, you can dangle a new topic in front of their face to veer the conversation away from conflict. This might not be that effective in the midst of a fierce row, but if you do it after some time has passed, the narcissist will probably take the bait.

What is a Narcissistic Abuse Cycle & How Does It Work? - by Silvi Saxena, MBA, MSW, LSW, CCTP, OSW-C, reviewed by Naveed Saleh, MD, MS

The Narcissistic Abuse Cycle: Idealization, Devaluation, Rejection - by Michael G. Quirke, MFT for MichaelGQuirke.com

The Target of Narcissistic Rage? Steps to Take Now - by Michael G. Quirke, MFT for MichaelGQuirke.com

Signs You Had a Narcissistic Parent & What Trauma Treatment Can Do to Help - by Michael G. Quirke, MFT for MichaelGQuirke.com

At the Mercy of a Narcissist? Don’t Dismiss Signs of Narcissistic Abuse - by Michael G. Quirke, MFT for MichaelGQuirke.com

Narcissistic Relationship -Why It’s So Hard to Be Happy - by Michael G. Quirke, MFT for MichaelGQuirk.com

How Life with a Narcissist Can Contribute to C-PTSD - by Michael G. Quirke, MFT for MichaelGQuirk.com

Understanding Complex PTSD: What Is It? What Are the Signs? - by Michael G. Quirke, MFT for MichaelGQuirk.com

How To Help Someone With Complex PTSD (CPTSD) - by Michael G. Quirke, MFT for MichaelGQuirk.com

Why Use EMDR for PTSD and Complex Trauma Symptoms? - by Michael G. Quirke, MFT for MichaelGQuirk.com

Complex PTSD Symptoms- How They Take Over Your Life - by Michael G. Quirke, MFT for MichaelGQuirk.com

Complex PTSD and Dissociation: How the Mind Copes with Trauma - by Michael G. Quirke, MFT for MichaelGQuirk.com