Perspecticide and Being Invalidated Often Feels Unsafe and Even Downright Dangerous On the Receiving End. Comes With a Discussion on Narcissism.

Note: this post is a deep dive into this subject, so you may want to read it in parts.

To understand what perspecticide and invalidation are, you may want to go to my post on the subject first HERE. 

If you've experienced a lot of invalidation, hopefully you will find this post helpful as I use a lot of links (and even a short personal story) to help validate what you may be experiencing, feeling and seeing. 

So do children feel unsafe with adults who invalidate their experiences? Yes. This is the shorthand version of the Google AI article (in dark red):

Emotional invalidation—dismissing, minimizing, or belittling a child's feelings—disrupts their fundamental sense of security and trust.

* Threat to Attachment: A child's nervous system interprets the withdrawal of emotional warmth as a threat to survival, as they rely entirely on caregivers for protection.
* Loss of Predictability: Chronic invalidation removes the "foundation for trust," making relationships feel unpredictable and unreliable.
* Hypervigilance: Children may develop a state of "walking on eggshells ... 
* Internalized Fear ... 

Long terms impacts are self doubt, shame and low worth and suppression: They may "push down" emotions to maintain a connection with the adult, which can lead to later Complex PTSD (CPTSD) symptoms.

How about in long term adult relationships? Can perspecticide and being invalidated feel unsafe or dangerous? Yes. 

Many of the same consequences for invalidating in adult relationships are the same as for children with some differences (the list of differences for adults are as follows):

The nervous system response is manifested as physical pain. Repeated invalidation can trigger a permanent fight-flight-freeze response. 

Psycholgical Erasure: Chronic invalidation acts like an "emotional eraser," making you feel as though your reality doesn't count. This "existential wound" can make you feel that your very right to exist is being threatened.

Emotional Suppression: You've learned it is "safer" to stay silent or hide your needs to avoid being judged or told you are "too sensitive". - this is similar to a "walking on eggshells" environment that a child experiences. 

Physical Symptoms: Living in this state often manifests as a tight chest, shallow breathing, chronic anxiety, or insomnia. - These are well known trauma symptoms (I'd add in gastrointestinal problems and headaches to make it a more complete list), all of which can turn into PTSD if ongoing, which has some similarity in children in these situations. 

The article goes into a discussion about emotional abuse, domestic violence and gaslighting. 

All of this is in the same link I referred you to when talking about adult-to-adult relationships. 

If someone invalidates a dangerous situation you experienced, can it create more danger for you? Yes. 

That link points to all kinds of issues that result from it:
* That it can put you in more danger than the initial danger.
* That there can be a "gaslighting effect" where others deny your reality or try to make you think that you are exaggerating or making things up. 
* There can be a compromise to your safety where others downplay your risk to the point where you believe them over what you are actually experiencing. This can mean that you also downplay your own risk. 
* Chronic invalidation is linked to higher rates of PTSD and also increases self harming behaviors. 
* It can prevent you from seeking medical or psychological help (fear that you'll be invalidated there too). 
* It adds a layer of social and emotional trauma to the original danger. 

And who invalidates others much more than other people do? Narcissistic and manipulative personalities, those people with Borderline Personality Disorder (another cluster B personality disorder along with Narcissistic Personality Disorder), people who relate to others in a co-dependent style, people who focus on logic and "proving a point" more than on what is actually happening, caregivers from invalidating environments (people who grew up hearing a lot of invalidation can invalidate others). 

This particular Google AI article makes the point that it is "a core trait", not just a tendency, of people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

But why do narcissists invalidate?
* They don't trust other people and feel they are being lied to most of the time or that people are plotting against them, or they feel that others are trying to undermine their power and control - that is because they are that way themselves and it is hard to conceive that others aren't just like them (and the link to the article does talk about projection). 
* They are only in relationships for power and control and all other issues are inconvenient.
* They have a lack of empathy (which is a brain issue) which means they simply don't care what other people are experiencing or feeling unless it concerns them and their ambitions for more power and control over others. However, they are likely to lose power and control as they invalidate and show no empathy, so I'm not sure why they would think invalidating would help get them power and control unless they feel that "gaslighting works". Part of it is a brain issue too, the lack of ability in judging how others feel (separate from how they feel, that is). It would seem whatever power and control they had at the time would be wiped out by their invalidations. 
* Narcissists really don't care about other people. They see relationships as transactional, ones that will benefit them more than the other person.  
* Relationships are disposable to them. Again this is a core trait, not just a preference.

HOW CHILDREN AND ADULT CHILDREN FEEL
IN A FAMILY ENVIRONMENT THAT INVALIDATES THEM

Children fight with invalidating parents to be heard, especially about issues which are frightening, dangerous, unfair, abusive, upsetting, provoking, or awful. They do it to get safety and boundaries against the dangers.

If they are getting invalidated instead of getting safety, they learn that they are not safe, and not safe from an adult shielding them from harm. The adult becomes untrustworthy, someone they can't talk to, someone who won't listen, or someone who is biased (confirmation bias would count as a bias too). 

Part of invalidating a child by a caretaker is an unspoken resolve that "I'm not listening to you. You're ---" and then the judgements come out that miss the mark (or a character assissanation). "You're exaggerating!", "You're paranoid!", "You're crazy! That never happened to you!", "You're a liar! I know a liar when I see one!", "I believe your (sibling). I don't believe you!", "You think you know everything! Well you don't! I know much more than you do and it simply never happened!" - when they apply it to situations, "You'll think of anything to gripe about to make the family miserable!", "I don't believe you!", "I really don't care what you have to say! I've never cared!", "Don't forget that I was alive at the time! I have eyes everywhere!", "You're responsible for this!", "You don't do things right, otherwise you wouldn't have been in danger!"

Part of the issue is that they don't investigate what real situations are, to see what you are going through, and they rarely, if ever, try to understand your perspectives and why you would feel what you feel. It's easier for them to decide what reality is and to tell you what it is, and if you don't adopt their perspectives, they may well call you "crazy", or "insane", or "lying", or that you are only trying to prove them wrong and make their life miserable, or they may feel that it is hopeless to talk you into false narratives, and therefor reject you over that. When I went to Google AI to get an answer to this issue, this is what I got:

Narcissists rarely investigate the "real" situation a partner or friend is going through because they are fundamentally uninterested in realities that do not center on their own needs, image, or convenience. To a narcissist, relationships are mirrors, not windows; they interpret your life experiences—sadness, success, or failure—only in terms of how it affects them. 

In the Google AI article it was broken down into several parts: 

The "False Self" and Projection: The narcissist looks to see how they appear and do not seek to understand your experiences. They insist that you have their traits. They ignore reality and build a fantasy to enhance and protect themselves from flaws or ego "fall-out". 

Lack of Empathy and Cognitive Dissonance: they lack affective emotional empathy and can only understand what you are going through cognitively. In other words, they can barely, if at all, see anything from your perspective and how it would effect you on a psychological or emotional level, which is why they use invalidation in the first place - they don't understand the emotional fallout of not having empathy for others.
     Their main agenda is transactional relationships. If they feel acting empathetic will get them what they want, they act it out, but otherwise are indifferent to what you are going through. - obviously this is incredibly problematic and can be dangerous for children. 
     Since they don't care about or value your perspectives, if you speak about your perspectives, you are likely to get shouted down or told you are "difficult" or "never satisfied". 

The "Victim Narrative" and Self Centeredness: They find your "difficult times" (illness, surgery, losing a job, getting bullied, your child needing care over an accident) as an inconvenience to them, and may tell you that it's "all your fault" or that you need to get over it. They are also too self centered to care. If they are part of your narrative of why you are going through a difficult time, they blame-shift, refusing to understand or take accountability. Note: blame shifting for narcissists is usually impulsive, rash. It is also incredibly cowardly.

In other words, they do it in most situations where they are being held accountable, not just with their children. They rarely can stop this behavior because they use it as "a primary survival mechanism because their sense of self is too fragile to handle accountability. To them, admitting a mistake is an existential threat to their 'perfect' image" - the link to the Google AI article this quote comes from. This makes it hard to solve any problems, or get safety or concern out of a narcissistic parent. 
 
Why They Don't Investigate: It offers no immediate or conceivable pay-off for them or for their ego. They see no advantage to them in investigating. Also: Investigating the truth might expose their own faults or weaknesses, which they are desperate to hide.

Scapegoats of narcissistic families endure a lot more invalidation than other members. That Google AI article has this to say about the phenomenon:
Scapegoats in narcissistic families endure intense invalidation, serving as the "emotional landfill" for family dysfunction to protect the narcissist's image. They are punished with chronic criticism, gaslighting, and blamed for problems they did not cause, leading to profound isolation. Despite this, they often develop greater independence, self-awareness, and resilience compared to other members.

There is a lot more to that article, but you can explore it yourself through the links. 

So while scapegoats are the main object for invalidations of their experiences, feelings and thoughts, other family members can go through this too. I was talking to a Lost Child recently who became the family scapegoat in her later teenage years after her oldest sister left the household. Before becoming "the new scapegoat" she rarely said anything, rarely revealed anything, rarely approached her narcissistic parent for anything, or over anything, and kept her mind away from the family and put it on her school studies instead. 

However, much to her surprise, her school studies were constantly being interrupted by accusations from the same parent her eldest sister endured. After that original scapegoat left she, the lost child, was the one getting attacked by the other family members instead. Since study and research were her main interests, and since she spent most of her time with her head in books and on the internet looking up subjects, she began to look up some of what she was experiencing: "being called a liar when I'm not", "Trying to make me believe something that's not true", "suddenly being attacked by my family", "What is a scapegoat of a family?", "What is gaslighting?", "Why is my family suddenly gaslighting me?" - and eventually she found out about narcissism and why narcissists scapegoat through those kinds of links. In the process, she discovered that narcissism and scapegoating was the problem in her family. Also, once a scapegoat leaves, the lost child often gets saddled with the role. However, she accused her parent, in this case her father, of being a narcissist (usually not the best idea as that will make most narcissists go ballistic and they can be dangerous). Anyway, the wheels came off of her life and her ability to be left alone (she was attacked constantly), so she moved in with her older original-scapegoat sister.

Narcissists need a scapegoat, and if you're no longer in their presence, or "convenient for scapegoating", they find someone else.

Also they tend to scapegoat and invalidate others who are:
* Truth tellers  
* Children who are independent minded - that link also points to kids who are intelligent, perceptive and seem to challenge the narcissist in some way through their intellect. Narcissists really only want totally obedient children who will believe any story the narcissist tells. A child's independent thoughts are a threat to a narcissistic parent. 
* Children who research and find the parent is off on their facts. 
* Children who are going through a difficult time, whether illness, disease, distress, losing someone, most anything ... again, a child in distress is inconvenient and a nuisance. In fact, the scapegoating and invalidation can increase and amplify. If a child is chronically distressed, they are often ignored or discarded by a narcissistic parent. - that link also says narcissistic parents often punish distressed children. The silent treatment is also brought up in that link. So is increased gaslighting. So are disparaging judgements: "selfish", "weak", "an embarassment", and dismissal of the child's pain with words like "useless", "get over it", "don't bother me", "over-reacting" and "crazy" - all invalidating gaslighting statements to turn the child's focus back on pleasing the parent, focusing their attention on their parent's needs while at the same time giving up on their own needs.
     Obviously this is not possible when a child is in chronic pain, but instead of finally dealing with the issue, as most people who are distracted and self centered might, the parent escalates with neglect, avoidance, rejections, more invalidation. 

And this, folks, is cited as the number one reason for why children from Generation Z become estranged from parents (that link includes not being heard and being dismissed - which is a manifestation of invalidation). When the invalidations, neglect of concerns and distress are ignored, when too many silent treatments are used to solve dire issues, and the gaslighting and smear campaigns and negative "off the wall" judgements continue, expect estrangement from your child (if not right away, eventually). 

And by the way, smear campaigns sound like more invalidation, denial, and blame-shifting. Obviously, it doesn't solve a thing with the child. What it apparently solves for the narcissist is getting really gullible people to believe a parent's false narratives and smear campaigns against their own child. It's not an admirable occupation to have in the world, and once the narcissistic parent is found out, it will create disgust in those same people. 

I think anyone in their right mind can see that being invalidated with all that goes with it (the distress, the negative judgements, the bullying, etc) is an impossible situation to live through, and is the antithesis of parenting.

In fact, many of these children fail, eventually, to look at these kinds of people as parents: there has never been safety, love, concern when distressed - it's only been about the parent trying to put the attention back on themselves whether that's in positive or negative ways. And that's just not the kind of parenting that most people want.  

However, non-narcissists can also use it. 

Years ago I watched a series (I'm pretty sure it was on Amazon Prime or maybe Apple TV - about 12 years ago?) about children who were estranged from their whole family. The genre was documentary in nature, and published as a series - interviews, showing the estranged adult child  in the new life they had adopted, the community they became part of, how dfficult the transition was and what it does to your happiness, psychological health and makeup, and how they felt years after leaving. One of them featured an Amish nuclear family who had decided to separate from their community, and another woman from The Twelve Tribes Commune, and another woman from a Jehovah's Witness background, and many others from the tighter knit communities in American society. 

My opinion is that the producers featured tighter knit communities because they are more enmeshed, harder to leave without enduring significant blow-back, and, for victims, it is harder to assimilate into the rest of American society. 

Almost all of them described situations where they were being invalidated by a parent, and many were abused because they wouldn't go along with the invalidation-oriented narrative, even when their parents browbeat them or punished them, sometimes severely, to accept it. They all experienced emotional shunning and ostracism from their family or whole community, and found it so intolerable to stay in their families and communities, that they felt that leaving was the only option, that life with their family would never work again. Many of them had safety issues with their families too (usually some sort of abuse). Either they didn't feel safe, or they didn't think their children were safe. 

It proves to me that if you are going to insist someone did something that you don't approve of, or said something, or is actually who you say they are, you should be absolutely sure you have an awful lot of facts that legitimize your view, that it's not just a theory or heresay, or from another person who may have an agenda, or some kind of vague suspicion or paranoia.

Shaming a person over something they didn't do, didn't think, or didn't feel won't work. Shaming a person over a judgement about them that has little bearing of the truth won't work either. 

Shaming people over what they didn't do and insisting they did do it is a narcissistic trait (another link) and if you aren't narcissistic in any of the other traits, if you are a parent who is invalidating your child because you grew up with it, maybe it's time to drop behaviors of "invalidation". One reason why is because the newer generations are so much more educated than past generations on what narcissism is, and what the traits of narcissism are, that if you speak in hunches, and vague suspicions, or believe in something someone else said, you may be viewed with suspicion yourself. 

Estrangements, in this day and age are very common. At the time of this writing, 30 percent of Generation Z are estranged from at least one parent. It's become a normalized part of society and of relationships, and definitely accepted and tolerated by younger generations, and becoming more tolerated by older generations, just as divorce became normalized in the 1970s (and my hunch is that estrangements directly or indirectly came out of the divorce movement).

As far as estrangement is concerned, the numbers continue to grow. If you are a parent, trying to figure the estrangement out, and you've given your child a one-time invalidation, it probably is something "big", something the child can't live with: some possibilities include an abusive family member, incest, a sibling bullying them, the other parent abusing them, not taking their adult-hood and decision-making seriously, destructive toxic home environments with lots of down-side issues that the adult child no longer feels safe in or wants to be part of. 

However, if there were constant invalidations while your child was growing up, there's your answer as to one of the most intolerable aspects of their experience of the family. Other reasons for what is causing estrangements, can be found in this post where I go much deeper into the subject - the common reasons, whether your child is a narcissist (includes signs), or whether they are depressed upon leaving (and those signs, usually isolating and being alone).

As for what childen feel when being chronically invalidated (incudes dealing with a narcissistic parent):
* "My parent doesn't love me."
* "My parent doesn't care about me."
* "Why is everything about them?"
* "Why do they have to control everyone and everything?"
* "I feel like a non-person in this relationship."
* "I feel like I don't matter at all to my parent. I'm just a robot who works or doesn't work the way they want. Is this normal or an anomoly?"
* "They are so terrible at listening. Why?"
* "I am treated much better by most other people compared to my parent. Why?"
* "Other people want to know who I am. My parent just makes assumptions, and the worst part about this is that they stick to the assumptions! So annoying! But why?"
* "Why am I experiencing so many punishments over things that other kids never get punished for?"
* "Why am I not believed when all my friends have parents who listen and want to get the full story?"
* "Why am I not valued? By my own parent? What are they getting out of devaluing me? Why not just give me away to another parent if that's the case?"
* "Why does my parent give me a hard time over leaving them or ignoring them? They never liked me in the first place!"
* "Why do they like provoking me over made up fantasies? What are they getting out of this?"
* "Why do they insist I listen to them when they don't listen to me? Am I just a robot that is just supposed to take orders from them, and believe stuff that isn't true?"
* "All I feel is frustration talking to my parent. It shouldn't be this hard to grasp their attention or for them to understand. It's like I have to shut up and only talk about what they want to hear. And what they want to hear is just another attempt to make a fantasy out of a reality."
* "Am I supposed to always be silent? If so, I'm nothing to them."
* "I feel like (my father or mother) is just blind. Why?"
* "Why wouldn't my parent want to know what's real? Why are they always trying to cover everything up to enhance their ego, with fantasies that they think will make their ego bigger? And how can a fantasy really make an enlarged ego anyway? I don't get this whole trip they are on."
* "Why does everything for them have to be solved using the silent treatment or shouting me down? Why can't they use the kinds conflict resolution practices that other parents use? Something seems terribly wrong with their method. It doesn't solve anything and is making me feel more invisible." - the silent treatment can be looked at as a sign of invalidation too. 
(Note: this may be of use: What a parent's chronic use of the silent treatment does to a child. A parent's chronic use of the silent treatment can cause C-PTSD in the child. Also note: C-PTSD syptoms can cause children to separate from a parent when they become an adult).
* "Why is the silent treatment being used by my parent to solve an issue where I'm being abused by ________ family member? Isn't this too major for that kind of treatment?" - Again, this can cause C-PTSD and usually does. 
* "Why can't they stop using the silent treatment? Sometimes they promise to stop it, but they usually don't. And I can't see what they are getting out of it. I hardly want to talk to them about anything any more, and I certainly am sick of caving in. Caving in does nothing except that I distrust them more and more."  
* Sometimes: "For some reason my parent wants and enjoys hurting me." - Some parents really can be sadistic when it comes to their children (it's a sign of Malignant Narcissism). 
* "Is my parent a narcissist?"
* experiencing either intense shame (if you believe them, are easily gaslighted, or want to believe in their judgments of others) or hyper independent (if you don't believe them). It's usually an either-or situation.
* experiencing hypervigilence to attacks and more invalidation
* nightmares about being invalidated over important issues they try to bring up with a parent, or conversely, dreams where they try to bring up a situation with the parent and they listen in the dream, but when awake and the child is inspired to re-enact what they did in the dream, their hopes are shattered once again
* pressure to be silent and not speak about anything except for what the parent wants to talk about
* feeling both invaded and ignored
* feeling both that their thoughts have to be internalized, but hounded by the narcissist for information
* "Why do I have to have a life where I have to protect myself from my own parent?" 

These are just some of the thoughts and internal struggles that survivors of parental invalidation have, the more common ones. 

HOW ADULTS FEEL IN RELATIONSHIPS
WHERE THEY ARE CHRONICALLY INVALIDATED BY ANOTHER ADULT

In close adult relationships when your experiences, feelings and thoughts are being invalidated, you are likely to feel silenced, alone, going through life without the other person's help or empathy - and if the narcissist tries to isolate you or forbids you to have relationships with other people, you can feel starved of compassion, love and care. 

Narcissists often try to make this your fault, that this is all you deserve, and if you leave, they will tell you that you will experience worse life experiences if you leave them - it's absolutely not true, but they will try hard to get you to believe it. Note: clicking on the Google AI versions will get you better articles and answers and less searching.

With adults in close personal relationships, being invalidated a lot often means divorce, especially in an age where divorce is common. 

Neither relationship can survive without the receiver of invalidation experiencing suppression. It is exceptionally unhealthy and traumatic over time.

The only other route is separation, a new beginning.

Part of invalidating someone else is an unspoken resolve that "I'm not listening to you. You're ---" and then the judgements come out that miss the mark (or character assissanations). "You're exaggerating!", "You're paranoid!", "You'll think of anything to gripe about!", "I don't believe you!", "I really don't care what you have to say! I've never cared!", "You're crazy!", "You're responsible for this!", "You don't do things right, otherwise you wouldn't have been in danger!" 

What you are going through becomes an invitation to attack, at least with invalidaters. Gaslighting is bound to be part of it. 

If this is your husband or wife, all of these invalidations can make you feel as invisible. 

If you are married to an invalidating spouse, your children are probably being invalidated too. So it becomes a dire family issue. If your spouse merely learned to invalidate, and does not seem to have the traits of narcissistic personality disorder, they can probably change out of it. However, it might take some nuance to suggest therapy for it. People who invalidate often feel they are "right", otherwise they wouldn't do it at all. Expect slow progress as it takes a lot of effort to grow out of habits. 

Following are ways that narcissists (and sometimes alcoholic spouses) behave when they want to invalidate:

WHEN THEY ARE HAVING AN AFFAIR OR AFFAIRS:

In this section, I refer to a man cheating, but all of this can be applied to women who cheat too. 

A high majority of narcissists cheat on their partner just so you know. 

How invalidation works when they are cheating: 

"Your suspicions are wrong. I'm a solid guy. I don't cheat. You need to think some other thoughts other than those. Suspcions aren't reality. It's your mind playing with you again. Maybe you're insecure." - for the more covert dark triad kinds of narcissists. 
     Note: the more overt narcissists will usually get angry if you suspect they are having an affair: "Why would you accuse me of that?! You have no right!" is a likely outcome. They may accuse you of having an affair instead.
     You might voice a suspicion that "Something doesn't feel right. There are women calling you on the phone. You take the phone outside a lot to talk to them. And you suddenly go quiet when I go outside." And the reaction you get is: "You're crazy!"

Then they get caught (you saw him kissing a woman on the mouth):
     "You didn't see what you think you saw! It was just a friendly kiss, the kind friends do! What's the matter with you!?" - the gaslighting starts, as well as the invalidation of what you saw. 
     The more you tell him what you saw, the angrier he gets: "You're crazy! I told you the truth, so what's really happening is your mind is going nuts on you! That's not my fault! That's your fault!" - the blame-shifting starts. 
     The covert kinds of narcisists will be a little more calm, telling you need therapy or a psychiatrist to help you recover from your suspicions and decipher reality. 
     Notice how the gaslighting deepens, the escalation of silencing you as he tries to take control of the narrative, and how the invalidating is escalating (discounting her sense that something is "off" in what he is telling her, trying to get her to distrust her own thoughts and feelings). By trying to control the false narrative, this is also a sign of narcissism (they are usually only in relationships for power, control, domination and narcissistic supply and they often try to make untruths into truths - the more they succeed at it, the more they use it). 

Then you catch him french kissing the woman:
     He says: "I told you that we're friends! Did you get some help for your problem?"
     You say: "I don't think I have the problem at this point! French kissing is not a 'friendship kiss'. Why are you trying to get away with all of this lying?" 
     He says: "Okay, so she comes on to me! I didn't initiate it!" 
     You say: "It seemed pretty mutual to me!"
     He says: "You were spying on me! How DARE you spy on me! How DARE you tell me that lying is unethical when you're spying on me! Look at yoursef before you accuse me!" - this is where the blame-shifting starts. 
     You say: "Stop trying to blame me for your infidelity!"
     He is out of control (for overt narcissists): "You know what's wrong with you!? Everything!" - he's trying to create a situation where you are so flawed that he's not going to listen to or care about your complaint. 
     Going silent on you (the silent treatment for covert narcissists): They refuse to speak to you, and go about doing what they want regardless of the commitments, regardless of your feelings, regardless of the lack of morality they show. They have to direct situations, and insist that you have to do as they say, and if you are refusing to let them by rebelling against their affairs, they are going to keep giving you the silent treatment. 
     Destroying something, stealing something of value, intensely spreading smear campaigns about you, or beating you up (for malignant narcissists): they try to drive fear into you that they will destroy you or your life if you object to what they are doing and will make you pay for resisting their plans for you. Or they will file for divorce and flaunt their lover, or move their lover into your common space and expect you to either compete with the lover or be afraid of them or leave your house and possessions to them. 

Many narcissists insist that you put up with them. If they say, "I'm the best person you ever met! Before me, you were nothing!", which a lot of them do, it does not mean you have to take that grandiose vision of themselves as your reality, and probably shouldn't. A lot of them use "the ungrateful phrase" too. 

All of it started with invalidating your experiences, your feelings, and your person. You become an obstruction to their agenda of having another partner or partners. If they can't push you around, they do see you as useless and very well may say so. 

Narcissists also are "boundary crashers". If you've caught the two of them in your bed, that's one sign. But they keep it up with other boundaries you have to see how much they can get away with, how much you'll tolerate from them.

After awhile you won't feel comfortable or relaxed in your bed or possibly your entire house. All of it is incredibly disrespectful of your peace, and needs for privacy and stability, and sometimes is crafted by them to be that way. Narcissists aren't particularly careful who they get involved with either (they do it to get narcissistic supply primarily, and sometimes types of narcissistic supply that will rock your world and make you more and more vulnerable to manipulation and attack). 

Usually if you stay, there may be some love bombing and hoovering to keep you giving them narcissistic supply, or in the game of putting up with the affair, but it will never last (it's fake love and fake overtures of regret at trying to get you back - narcissists don't love people; they are in relationships to manage and control people).

Being afraid of them, giving into them, being concerned with which lover they are with, being concerned with what false narratives they are spreading about you, being concerned about your boundaries and how they are being violated by them, feeling constantly upset or "put on edge" by their actions, feeling anxious around them, wondering what drama they will conjure up next, allowing yourself to be seduced by them even though you're objecting to their affairs - these are all narcissistic supply to them. Again, they get off on negative narcissistic supply as much as they get off on positive forms of it. They validate that they are important this way, that they are the center of your attention, that they have power, control and domination over what you do, what you think, what you feel and all of this gives them information about your vulnerabilities so they can attack those vulnerabilities when the time is right for them.

Their blackmail, obfuscation, on-going smear campaigns, lying, false narratives, on-going gaslighting, pushing the envelope in terms of what they "can get away with", on-going ignoring of your feelings, breaking every part of your peace of mind can become your everyday experience with them, along with dealing with their constant demands, excuses, grandiosity, extra-marital affairs, the invasiveness of their affair partners into your house, or bed, or childrens' lives, or place of employment, which they may try to normalize: "Everyone has affairs! What's wrong with you?!" - and you can feel that your life is in danger from the lack of boundaries (their allowing lovers into the house, lovers who may be violent or jealous, lovers who may want to destroy you and/or the children to "get the man", their constant intimidation tactics to get you to accept what they are doing at your expense, and so many other unforseen events). 

It's not your fault: narcissists are traumatic to be around, and can present dangerous situations or be a danger to you themselves. 

In terms of extra-marital affairs, one way to tell if you are dealing with a narcissist is that narcissists blame you for their cheating, whereas most other people will not. However, cheating is more likely to happen with people who have narcissistic traits. 

Being cheated on can resemble the trauma of being home invaded, and having things you value stolen from you - again, go to Google AI for the information on this, or go to articles which discuss betrayal trauma by a cheating spouse. 

Being cheated on can also make you feel devalued. Understand that love bomb, *devalue* and discard cycles are a core narcissistic trait, and this trait has nothing to do with you even if they may try to make it about you, or your fault. They will do it to others too, whether co-workers, employees, their siblings and other family members, their present scapegoats, anyone. That is a type of invalidation in that your being, your self esteem, your peace, your thoughts, your feelings, your health, are all invalidated by the rejection (devaluation and discard). 

There is an underlying cause to this behavior however:
What is the major childhood issue that would make narcissists want to cheat?
What that answer reveals:
* often profound emotional neglect
* sometimes abandonment of a caretaker 
* Possibly a childhood filled "with abuse, neglect, or unrealistic conditional love". 
* Narcissists may cheat to "avoid being abandoned. By keeping relationships superficial or having multiple partners, they avoid true vulnerability, which they perceive as dangerous due to early life trauma."
* A need for constant attention and validation. "Because their self-esteem is constructed from external validation rather than internal confidence, they require continuous praise. When a long-term partner stops providing intense, constant admiration, the narcissist seeks it elsewhere."
* They are re-enacting childhood neglect. 
* "A childhood of emotional neglect is often a direct route to an inability to feel empathy for others, making it easier for them to engage in betrayal without remorse." 
* "Entitlement: If their needs for attention are not met, they often feel entitled to seek it elsewhere, without regard for the emotional damage caused to their primary partner."

One thing that this article does not mention is that narcissists attack other people pre-emptively because they think others will attack them, and because they are paranoid or suspicious - this Google AI article goes into more depth about why they think pre-emptive attacks are "necessary for them". This would include cheating on you. Many narcissists assume that if they are cheating that you are cheating. Even if they know that you're not cheating, they assume you might, especially if you are bucking their control, or they do it to have more ups-man-ship. 

Narcissists are also novelty seekers, even when it comes to finding new partners and ways to cheat. 

WHEN THEY HAVE AN ADDICTION:

Narcissists who have an addiction can be more invalidating and abusive than they would be if they were sober - the link in this sentence goes to this Google AI article at this period of time (partial):

Narcissists who struggle with addiction often exhibit more extreme levels of invalidation and abuse, as the addiction exacerbates underlying narcissistic traits such as a lack of empathy, grandiosity, and intense emotional volatility. When a substance use disorder (SUD) co-occurs with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), the individual may become more volatile, reckless, and cruel, using substances to fuel their ego or to cope with deep-seated insecurities.

They become more volitile, exhibiting rapid mood swings, explosive with intense anger, they exhibit more intensive invalidating tactics, escalated forms of manipulation, more grandiosity than usual, and more resistance to treatment where the narcissistic ego cannot admit they have a weakness such as an addiction, and less empathy. - all of this is in the same link. 

But what about malignant narcissists?

It's so much worse. Here is what the present Google AI article says about that (partial):

When malignant narcissism is combined with addiction, the risk of harm to others increases significantly. This "dual diagnosis" creates a volatile environment where the narcissist's existing traits—such as lack of empathy, grandiosity, and a need for control—are amplified by the disinhibiting effects of substance abuse.

Here is a shortened version of the rest of it: gaslighting with devaluation; they try to shift responsibility for the addiction on to others; there is heightened selfishness and belittling the needs of others; there are heightened paranoias, fantasies, lying, and they try to make small disagreements into deep betrayals and conspiracies. 

But the more concerning issue is that "there is a significant risk factor for violence": 

"Substances like alcohol or stimulants can remove the small amount of self-control a malignant narcissist might have, leading to impulsive physical, verbal, or sexual aggression.

The article also outlines heightened sadistic trends as well as heightened resistance to treatment. 

I had to deal with someone with both issues myself, and it was truly a nightmare. You may want to get police and domestic violence counselors involved in safety plans, as well as install a security system if you live apart from them. And not kidding. You can easily under-assess the dangers because of the type of relationship it is, or live on wishes that they will change, or have PTSD where your experiences are broken apart into autonomous episodes, and at the very least believe they won't go any further than they did with the violence, but abuse almost always escalates to worse forms of violence. It very rarely de-escalates, no matter the relationship, and no matter which "good side" they show in public (narcissists try hard to hide their abusive sides by being overly sweet and accommodating in public). 

Malignant narcissists who have substance use disorder often micro-manage you and call you lazy. Watch for this as it is a tell-tale trait of the malignant type. 

As far as how you'll feel being around a substance abuser with either type of narcissism, you'll probably feel like you're in some kind of danger and you would be right to perceive it that way. You'll probably feel a heightened sense of anxiety. You'll probably have restless sleep and nightmares, stomach aches and headaches which are the beginning of trauma symptoms which can turn into PTSD, even within months of their mistreatment.

I decided to go mostly "no contact" with this kind of person myself. You may want to do the same. 

The problem with getting PTSD is that it clouds your thinking and it plays a part of why women go back to their abusers. You can have memory lapses about what happened to you until you can fully get away from them. Then the memories start invading your thinking as you begin to relax, and then become incredibly intrusive, making you relive it over and over again, but in some ways in worse ways because full memory recall is very, very unnerving, painful and can cause so much tension that it will effect all of your muscles. The muscle cramping can be so painful in that it can give you more hypervigilant symptoms than you had during the actual episodes. It's yet another nightmare you'll have to deal with that can make you feel broken and sometimes unable to break the spell of symptoms. 

This is actually a "natural process": it is how the brain works to protect itself. An onslaught of violent and abusive situations (including verbal abuse, emotional abuse and psychological abuses like gaslighting) will mean the brain can't handle it, and the situations break apart into fragments, where as they are happening, some fragments stay, but other fragments break away and on recall seem either dream-like, or dim, or not quite there. Eventually the full recall happens during times when the body relaxes and the mind starts to make the memories very vivid, even maginified, and eventually the "whole" is presented (I'll get into this more for the trauma section of this blog). 

This is part of the reason why people with PTSD want to be alone - the brain is trying to process what happened, and frankly the symptoms exist to keep you away from the person. 

My PTSD over this particular event lasted a full two and a half years without let-up and even got worse a year in (over a four month experience, mind you). It's so not worth dealing with malignant narcissists in my book, especially with drinking problems. I also don't feel anything is worth it, no promise, no promises to change, no money, no great honeymoons or anniversaries or vacations, hanging on to relationships where this person is brainwashing other people (turning them into "flying monkey"- type of enablers), not even putting up with their tactics just so that you can still be part of a marriage, or a family, or a friendship circle, nothing. And malignant narcissists do not change a bit, no matter what they say (another link from a prominent psychologist). They won't get more empathetic and often get worse. They won't get training on how to treat a person with PTSD to help the PTSD'ed person get better, and if they do, they use the information they get to make people with PTSD feel worse - because they are sadists at heart. 

Malignant narcissists sometimes try to kill you if they think their reputation is at stake.  - again, go directly to the Google AI article and the derivative articles on the right as the search is filled with articles that do not address this particular phenomenon.

The enablers and sycophants make things worse. They can actually be the main instigators of perspecticide and invalidation because they very badly want to believe in what ever the malignant narcissist says and does, and take their side for their own benefit. Apparently many people have to believe in everything a malignant narcissist says whole-heartedly not to be on the chopping block themselves (and for what malignant narcissists do to others, you can see it in plain sight with the despotic tyrants who rule nations ... they do a lot of damage or kill sycophants who disagree with them on one issue). 

I think this is really how PTSD symptoms go to levels that cause such strong symptoms of feeling ill, the flying monkey-like people who say, "That never happened", "I can't believe you", "Such a nice charming man! He would never hurt a flea!", "You're not listening right", "You're exaggerating", "You can't be serious", "You must have an agenda," , "You must be afraid of your own shadow", "The way it happened was ______" and they parrot the malignant narcissist's false narratives. 

In my case, they not only did this, but were shaming me over thoughts I didn't have, and experiences that were either totally made up by them or made up by the malignant narcissist. 

The relationship not only died over on-going attempts of pressuring me to adopt the malignant narcissists perspectives, but by:

* The "flying monkey" gave me the silent treatment - this person had done it before over an earlier incident, and when wanting to re-establish a relationship with me again, said they would never use it again. The fact that she used it again was a betrayal of a promise (meaning I could never trust her again), and the silent treatment seemed, in and of itself, a totally inappropriate response to this kind of an issue. - this is enough to kill any relationship, but there was more ... 

* She and her husband were trying to shame me and blame me for thoughts and experiences I actually did not have. If they had been true, which they were not, they were such tiny issues that in most people's worlds they would not register as anything "awful". But this was the reason this person instigated a silent treatment, and broke a promise about it. I started wondering if she was a narcissist herself because when looking back on her history, she did a lot of over-the-top unethical things in her life. Usually when someone unethical is trying to make a case that you are unethical through invalidations of your thoughts and experiences, it shows narcissistic traits in them - that article actually points to a trait of dark triad individuals - *shudders* (it is probably good we no longer talk to each other any more, considering this)  ... Regardless, the use of the silent treatment is another clue of narcissism and further made the untrustworthiness of this person even more pronounced in my eyes. 

* there were some sadistic remarks by her - a very bad sign, and even more of a sign of untrustworthiness and perhaps malignant narcissism - and a definitive killer of any relatonship. Who wants to have dinner with a sadist?

PTSD itself feels really, really bad. In the more severe cases it is considered by the government to be a  disability (in terms of eligibility for SSI disability income). I'd say it is close to the severity of the flu, especially if you have whole body muscle aches, and headaches, and stomach upset, except unlike the flu, the muscle aches are on-going. PTSD can interfere with your everyday life in the same way the flu can. 

Having a disability is something that sadistic-oriented narcissists are likely to enjoy, rather than help you recover from. 

This means that you will have to find peace, safety and healing on your own (or with the help of domestic violence counselors, a therapist specializing in trauma therapy, and often with police).

The more controlling a narcissist is, the more malignancy is present in the person.

In terms of invalidations, I'd bet anything that most of the things that come out of the substance addicted malignant narcissist's mouth will have some form of invalidation. Like: "You're lazy" when you've done a lot more during the day than they have. "You're useless" when you're quite a bit more empathetic than they are. "You can't do anything right" when you have successfully navigated your own life for years without them. 

How invalidation feels for victims of substance addicted narcissists:

* "Why do they blame me for their drinking!?" - although most people with alcohol use disorder will tell others that someone else  isto blame for their drinking. Blameshifting is as much of a problem for alcoholics as for narcissists. 
* "When I try my best and feel I'm giving them what they want, they get worse?" - Narcissists with prominent addictions never feel satisfied with how much people do for them.
* "Why are they spreading so many false narratives about me?" - Narcissists with prominent addictions often spread false narratives about other people (see the Google AI article - other articles appear on the right side).
* "I've been diagnosed with PTSD. Why don't they care about me, when I've done so much for them and walked on eggshells so as not to upset them?" - substance addicted narcissists will not care if you have PTSD or are suffering from the symptoms of it.  * "Why is everything in their life about them? They never think about how others are feeling, ever?" - substance addicted narcissists rarely think about other people.
* "I can't be in this relationship any more. Is there something wrong with me that I can't go through any more of this?" - Being in a relationship with an addict is intolerable for most people.
* "I can't be in a this relationship any more. Their narcissism is getting worse and I've reached my level of tolerance. Is that wrong? After all, they are a big part of my family (or friendship group)." - Being in a relationship with a narcissist is traumatic and intolerable for most people - see the Google AI article on this with other articles on the right side. 
* "Why can't I cope? I feel frozen, but also deeply sad." - PTSD from narcissistic abuse can make you feel frozen and sad - very common as the link suggests. 
* "I've given up. I can't take any more. What happened to my capacity to deeply and endlessly care how others feel?" - This is actually normal. There is such a thing as "Empathy burnout" and "Compassion fatigue" especially when dealing with narcissists (very common) and addicts (also very common). 
* "I'm tired of fighting to be heard. I feel like I don't exist in this relationship." - It is common to feel you are a non-entity, that you don't exist to a narcissist or an addict unless you enable - both of these are found in Google AI and the articles provided on the right side of the Google AI section. 
* "I can't seem to handle this situation. I used to be so resilient and thought I could handle anything. But I'm feeling like I don't have the capacity to handle much of anything with this situation." - It's extremely common to feel you are losing your resilience when you are in a relationship with a narcissist. Again, look into the Google AI part of the link and the articles on the side. The issues it brings up: feeling completely exhausted, identity loss, physical burnout, "walking on eggshells", symptoms of trauma, what the stress does to your nervous system. It is also common to feel like your resilience is slipping when dealing with an addict too. When the narcissist is an addict, your ability to keep strong and resilient is definitely going to feel compromised. You may also feel sick or weak. Long term exposure can give you an autoimmune disease or increase symptoms if you already have one. And note: narcissists do not have the capacity to care about any of this. They don't even have the capacity to understand even, and will most likely invalidate or minimize what you are going through mentally, emotionally and physically. If you feel you must withdraw from them, they can increasingly become more dangerous (and that's how invalidation can feel dangerous, what this post is about). They make big bones about how they don't like you, or approve of you, or how you're flawed, but they also want to trap you and not let you leave. Cognitively, it is hard to figure out why, but it has to do with narcissistic supply and not wanting to fill the role they assigned you with another person.

They also blame you and shame you in order to get their way and control you (not to make you leave), and so do addicts, but if these tactics no longer work for them, they tend to resort to destructive solutions, including all kinds of abuse, and some even turn to crime against you, which can also translate into more danger, and more invalidation of your worth. 

I've never found it useful to discuss what I'm going through personally with anyone with narcissistic characteristics myself, although I've tried. Generally what I see with just about everyone who is in a relationship with a narcissist is that you usually have to take steps for your own self care, and give up on them caring about you, or even treating you with dignity and respect. It doesn't matter what you are going through; they do not have the empathy to care or even the capacity to have an inkling for why they traumatize others, and for malignant narcissists they enjoy traumatizing others.

Most people find that it is best to greatly minimize contact with narcissists with addictions in order to recover. Most doctors and therapists know the facts that I've brought up in this section of the post, and should be able to help you get your life back together again. Note: recovery is slow, and narcissists will often try to sabotage it, but it can be done if you give it a lot of time, and do all of the exercises they prescribe. 

WHEN THE NARCISSIST IS PARANOID OR HAVING A NARCISSISTIC COLLAPSE:

Note: Narcissists become more invalidating when they are paranoid or having a narcissistic collapse. Narcissists can also become much more dangerous during a narcissistic collapse - significantly so. For instance, many school shooters are young men who are experiencing a narcissistic collapse.

In terms of narcissists with Paranoid Personality Disorder (35.9% of narcissists have this comorbidity), they can become significantly more dangerous when their paranoia is acting up (for this link, look to Google AI and accpompanying articles). 

You can see that with Paranoid Personality Disorder mixed with significant narcissistic traits, they are going to be living on conspiracy theories about others. People with Paranoid Personality Disorder tend to endorse other people's conspiracy theories, and people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder tend to make up conspiracy theories and insist that others believe them. 

This combination is very difficult for any partner or any child to live with. Their assessment of others tend to be total fantasy, and if they are confronted or proven wrong, they can and do get dangerous. If you don't know them very well, or they are spreading false rumors against you, the danger can take you by total surprise. 

Also, narcissists can slowly develop paranoid traits over time, meaning they might not be that dangerous at 20 years old, but become dangerous when they are 40, say. The fact that their paranoia and clandestine smear campaigns with conspiracies grow and evolve, means again, that you won't necessarily be prepared to face the danger they present to you or your common children, and their destructions can come as a total surprise and be devastating. 

How people with Paranoid Personality Disorder invalidate others (from a Google AI article - partial):

People with paranoid personality disorder (PPD) invalidate others by constantly questioning their motives, accusing them of disloyalty, and misinterpreting innocent actions as hostile. They create a tense, defensive environment by dismissing others' intentions, holding grudges, and reacting with anger or counterattacks to perceived slights.

When the two traits of narcissism and paranoia come together, it can, and often creates Malignant Narcissicism.  

When narcissists assume malicious intent and misinterpret neutral actions, watch out! - especially when they also exhibit paranoid traits.

Since the combination is hard to decipher, and it can be clandestine for many years, and can be quite a bit more injurious and deadly, it is also why so many therapists and psychologists suggest "no contact" with their clients even when they are only hearing narcissistic traits coming up in discussion. Since Paranoid Personality Disorder is so common in narcissists, in terms of a safety plan, it makes the most sense to them, anyway, for you to begin to separate.

Feelings you may have:

* You may feel unsafe, or you may not.
* You may have nightmares about them, or you may not.
* You may have symptoms of trauma or hypervigilence, or you may not.
* Your major feeling around them is fear, walking on eggshells and high amounts of anxiety and significantly more frustration when talking to them than you do with other people. You may also feel that trying to please them makes no sense and is a constant drain without a good resolution. 

What is more important is to pay attention to signs you are seeing in them (especially collapsed narcissists and narcissists with paranoid personality disorder):

How much control are they trying to exert over you? How much do they withdraw affection from you to get their own way? Is their life and attention focused more on themselves, and not on the both of you? Are they gaslighting you at all? Are they insulting you at all? How much diminishing and invalidating are they doing of your feelings, experiences and thoughts? Do they like to argue and insist that you adopt their perspectives? Do they rage a lot, especially if you complain about anything? Do they make up things they cannot verify about other people? Are they haughty and arrogant? - these would be the better questions to ask yourself about the level and kind of narcissism they have. 

Detecting collapsed narcissism: Are they being held accountable for something they obviously did, and they are reacting with on-going rage or have a pronounced victim mentality about it? Are they blaming you for not caring and for not getting them out of the mess they are in? Have they fallen from grace publicly? Do they count on others to make excuses for them? Have they failed their courses in college and blame it on their professors? Have they been fired from a job and blame it totally on their boss and cannot seem to get over it?  

Detecting Paranoid Personality Disorder: Go HERE. When combined with narcissism, they believe in a lot of conspiracy theories, or if their primary actions and main beliefs are conspiracy-oriented, that is a sign. Hunches, fixed opinions, and suspicions without clear evidence is another sign. Making up a lot of stuff that is damning about other people, is another big red flag. 

Some well-known people who are considered to have these dual personality disorders are (again, from Google AI):

Adolf Hitler

Joseph Stalin

Saddam Hussein

Mao Zedong

Pol Pot

I would add in King Henry the VIII too. 

Who are the well known figures who have had a narcissistic collapse? Google AI only listed a few people: John List, Elizabeth Holmes and Bernie Madoff. However the article does a great job of describing what collapsed narcissism looks like and acts like. If for nothing else, check out the link for that kind of information.

FOUND ON FACEBOOK

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