Recovering From Narcissistic Abuse Without Validation
One of the tragedies of narcissistic abuse is that victims never get the validation so desperately wanted from their abuser(s), to help them recover from narcissistic abuse.
When a Healthy Person Hurts Someone
When healthy-minded people hurt someone, whether deliberate or not, or whether they agree with an alternate account of what happened or not, it is their validation of the other person’s perspective that allows the other person to recover. And it is that validation that allows the relationship to repair.
When a Narcissist Abuses Others
That never happens with narcissistic abuse. Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), by nature, blinds the abusers to their responsibility for the devastation they cause. When confronted with the casualties of their behavior, they always believe that they are the ones being victimized.
Victims of NPD abuse are met with rejection, judgment, dismissal and disproportionate rage at any mention of wrongdoing by the perpetrator. NPD abusers infamously tell their victims to “stop living in the past” or to “get over it already,” even though they remember everything their victims ever did or said and will use these things to hurt them over and over again.
It is very difficult for any of us, abused or otherwise, to move forward from any type of assault or tragedy when our feelings and emotions are so adamantly discounted. It is especially trying for NPD abuse victims who have suffered constant devaluation and “gas lighting” (invalidation) of their perception of reality.
How to Recover from Narcissistic Abuse without Validation
Healing and moving on from pathological narcissistic abuse requires immense inner strength, the very strength that narcissists systematically try to strip from their victims. Survivors must rebuild what they’ve lost, or create what was never created in the first place. That is not an easy feat, but it is an attainable goal; something that must be done for personal sanity and peace of mind.
It doesn’t seem fair. Survivors must do all the work; they need extensive counseling, must stay dignified under the pressure of unfair judgment, must take actions that feel contrary to their natural behavior or inclinations, and must accept the reality that they will never make sense out of the irrational behavior exhibited by their narcissistic abuser.
Survivors have the right to live their lives unencumbered by the abuse of their past. They have the right to live happy lives, despite the malevolent intent of narcissistic abusers that wish them otherwise. And they have the right to do whatever is needed to protect themselves from abusive relationships. Saying “yes” to happiness means saying “no” to toxic relationships.
If you are suffering from narcissistic personality disorder abuse, do not waste another day in pain and feeling powerless. Seek professional help with someone who has lived and fully understands this confusing disorder. Decide to take your power back today.
This article was written by:
Randi Fine is a narcissistic personality disorder abuse expert, radio show host of A Fine Time for Healing, author, and life issues counselor practicing by telephone worldwide. She resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Find Randi on Facebook and on her website.
To be a guest author on the Your Mental Health Blog, go here.
APA Reference
Author, G.
(2015, October 15). Recovering From Narcissistic Abuse Without Validation, HealthyPlace. Retrieved
on 2024, May 6 from https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/yourmentalhealth/2015/10/recovering-from-narcissistic-abuse-without-validation
Author: Guest Author
Many, many thanks to all of you strong and caring people for taking your precious time out to help all of us who read your stories to gain some perspective of what has happened or indeed still happening to some poor souls. I have found this site and all of your comments invaluable in helping me to understand and to escape from my NPD partner. It was very hard and I am still struggling as he is not due to leave until tomorrow with all his stuff for good. I am praying that he does go as promised. half his stuff(clothes etc) are already gone, so I am holed up in my room alone trying to keep safe and waiting. My nerves are shattered and although i am in bits i’m holding out(just about) thank you all once again, for caring enough to post your experiences, and I wish you all the best for your futures narcissist free xx
It is the most painful and empowering thing a woman can do, leave their Narc partner. I didn’t realize what I was going thru, it took a friend to tell me I was with a Narc. I walked away from my job, family and friends to go start a life with my partner in another state. As we started living together the emotional abuse started, he knew I needed to financially depend on him and he would take away at a moments notice. It left me unraveled. One minute it’s I love you so much- the next it’s your selfish and I’ve given you everything! It took all my strength but I left. Even knowing I still loved him. Women and men, fight for yourself! Find a friend, a family member anyone who you can turn to and get out of the cycle of abuse.
How were you able to leave? I am financially dependent on my narc husband and am also pregnant with his second child. We moved cross country so he can work for our fathers company (our fathers wre bhsiness partners, thats how I met him) and now we live close to his family. I have no money for a divorce and no one even believes the extent of the abuse. I really don't know where to start!
This is not sound advice, you empower More covert narcissistic abuse by using no contact and imposing ridiculous unfair boundaries in an established relationship. It can be the bravest and most empowering thing a woman can do.. but more often these days womens groups for narcissistic abuse full of enablers and people looking for reinforcement and validation. Communication, honesty, those are healthy.. cutting a long term person out of your life and never looking back is not healthy for anyone it’s traumatic.. groups who peach this like gospel should be condemned.. you exploit women as a women during vulnerable times… I’m not alone here I’ve talked to so many women who’ve experienced the cult tactics that’s being packaged by women who’s agenda is anything but feminism.. it’s shameful and I pray people come to their senses and realize how many fake unaccredited women are exploiting the cause and hurting women.. teaching that inequality and one sided special rights are what we need.. please educate yourselves before falling into these witch hunt mind sets and strict rules meant for abuse not to leave guilt free ladies
Hi , I’m susie, i have been putting up with narcissistic abuse from my daughter for years and in the last couple of months she has got so bad, she has broke me down to my lowest point and I don’t know what to do any more .My family all assure me I have been a great mum but I feel she is trying to turn everyone against me.My mum in law passed away March 2nd this year and my daughters 27th birthday was March 6th ,we were to busy organising the funeral and she was only bothered about her birthday and called me a horrible disgusting person because I wasn’t giving her attention, this was a very sad time for us but feel I haven’t been able to mourn as she is making it all about her . Her rage is like something from a horror film and the things she says are so hurtful. .My husband and the rest of the family have told me to block her from my phone so I don’t have to read the abussive texts she sends me . I have a wonderful family who are there for me but feel unless you are the one getting the abuse you don’t understand how your insides feel I’ve constantly got knots in my stomach and feel ill with it all.The hardest thing is understanding why she hates me so much, I have four kids and-she is my only daughter . I feel like I have to cut all ties with her but then that would make me a bad mum!!!
The phrase that keeps circling my brain is “I can’t believe this happened to me.”
I thought I had strong boundaries, a keen sense of self, and a promising life. But my mystical thinking, my belief that this person was potentially “my person”, led to a complete breakdown of my well-being. I never lost my identity, per se, being incredibly strong-willed and practiced in self-centering, but I did begin to doubt my worth, values, and sanity as well as doubt other people and relationships in my life. Being in a relationship with a narcissist caused me to behave in ways I never imagined I could (breaking objects because I was just so angry I couldn’t contain it), to feel things I never thought I would (severely depressed and suicidal). I am still spinning, trying to make sense of it all.
I also feel the shame of being a man in this relationship, often feeling like no one will really believe me or will think that I couldn’t possibly be abused because men have more systemic power. She also told me she was diagnosed with high-functioning autism and used that diagnoses to explain her behavior. Was that a lie? Or a misdiagnosis? Whatever the case I ended up becoming so disoriented from the gaslighting that she suggested I might be bi-polar, and actually I was convinced for a little bit until I went to therapy and he was like, ummm no I think not.
It’s so so so sooooo hard to swallow that they manipulated me and hurt me intentionally. It almost seemed like a compulsion for them. Like they knew they were hurting me (sometimes) but didn’t mean to but couldn’t stop.
Does anyone else have experience with the Vulnerable Narcissist as opposed to the Malignant version? This is what I think I was dealing with and I just cannot wrap my head around it. It was so subtle and insidious and yet I was protective of them and dismissed anyone’s concern who expressed that it might be a toxic relationship because they were struggling with mental illness and I wanted to make sure they knew I loved and supported them unconditionally. Why would they take advantage of that and tear me down over and over...The confusion is unbearable.
I'm with you, brother. My ex took off in February. She spent 2 months convincing me we would reconcile. We went to counseling and we would talk on the phone for hours. But then she would disappear for days. Finally in May, a week after the most recent "let's tart with a clean slate" and "I miss you" she tells me she doesn't love me anymore, yells incoherently at me and hangs up. She then disappeared for lost of May and again in June.
I completely understand the head spinning mind f**k. She swept me off my feet 7 years ago. I thought we had a connection that was deeper than anything I've ever known. She walked away like it was nothing to her.
I just came across this site today. I also saw that your post is fairly recent. This is something I am going through also and have been almost nonstop for the last 2 years. I don’t know who to turn to but I am at a breaking point and don’t know who to turn to with help to make it through this somehow and someday.
I’m so sorry that happened to you. It’s mind blowing, traumatic, you need feel whole or safe after. You loved a lie who used you in the deepest ways you can use a person and lied about who they were from the beginning. Your Angel, that sweet vulnerable big hearted girl doesn’t really exist.. never did.. she had another phone and emails, the best parts of your honey moon phase she was still deciding between you and the guys she has in waiting.. she probably had sex with one or two of them after using you like practice.. you were always disposable to her, no one really matters even those golden people she takes turns worshiping and hating.. chances are there’s a lot more friend and stories you never heard… stories about other people they shame are sometimes thing they did… I feel so dirty and gross ? I never imaged feeling so violated by a woman’, especially not the one I thought was the most genuine caring person I’d ever met. I still feel like giving up too often, it still feels like a bad dream I can’t wake up from. I wish it was. I guess we get to learn women like this exist and to avoid them? But who cares… I’ve had longer relationships, been engaged and had to call it off last minute.. but nothing has ever been as damaging as falling in love with the sweet quirky neighbor girl who made cutsie gifts and got me to open up about all my inner pain as we worked on hers… adjusted to her needs… for us… it’s all just what they want to do when they want it and justifying it later… I still feel so used and stupid but again no one expects that from anyone!! Not their partner they spent every minute with who said they’d worth through anything always, god it still hurts so much bro think about. Trying to be helpful but i think eventually you just move in because what other choice do you have?? Just be miserable forever,, it will hurt forever.. you were manipulated and utterly betrayed.. it hurts on the best and worst days.. it reduces me to tears, makes me not able to live a life I can be proud of or feel like I’ll ever be normal again.. I cry sometime when I do feel a little like my old self because I see who I am now and how far away I am from being the man I was and want to be… anyway I need to stop but you can get through it, I won’t say you’ll be better or stinger or things happen for a reason … sometimes the reason you a narcissist attached themselves to you and tried to steal a part of you while using you as an emotional dumping ground.
These sick manipulative users don’t win in the long run. I understand that’s little consolation when once destroys your life and sense of self, I’m sorry… no one deserves to be dehumanized and abandoned after years of promises to that hurt part of yourself you exposed only to them. These are mentally I’ll people, i don’t expect any sympathy from their victims, nothing makes that pain any easier, please just know it’s not not your fault for loving a broken a person. Happy Holidays, truly wishing you the best, to have the sweetest dream and wake up with a sense of wholeness within yourself even if you still feel so broken
You feel like you’re going crazy… like the floor is dropping out from under your feet… it took me close to a year to really even accept it all and be able to think straight. I was a wreck, in utter disbelief… I never believed in a person that way before, never imagined they’d be gone and the most meaningful relationship of my life was just me being manipulated, used like a practice dummy, a stepping stone to someone who lied to me from before we ever hung out… I still feel that confusion creep in, but now it’s mainly just pain. It’s still so sharp I feel like I can’t breathe sometimes but overall I know I’m improving. Some days I feel like I’d like to meet someone new and maybe I could be excited for it. The whole getting to know you excitement, falling in love, but then I usually end up crying myself to sleep. My ghost, my user, was the one after all others who the universe, fate, had led me to… I used to get very upset imagining all the what ifs that could have happened, all the things that needed to happen just right for us to finally have the love we both deserved from a person we knew we’d get through anything with together… ? I care barely function, I tried to work through it all and needed to be hospitalized when the bombs really started dropping. I never had panic attacks before this, I was having them so bad I fell over and hurt myself the day I was ordered to leave so they didn’t have to look at me. I was abandoned and lied to, manipulated in every way, violated in every way and I was still defending it to my family and friends, still believed my love would snap back to the person I knew and the nightmare would end. It never did… it gets easier to live with but some things will always hurt… maybe they need to for us to learn, but I didn’t need this lesson.. not from an overprivileged, self entitled professional victim, who uses people like toys and tries to dump their trauma on. They do everything they claim they were the victims of to the people who get closest… at least in my case.. then you get hit with another surprise when you think, wait all those little things that didn’t add up…
Do yourself a favor and don’t go digging, the things I’ve found out…. The old pictures and such j never bothered to look too closely at… the other phone lines, profiles, people you never knew who apparently live a few minutes away for years,, fronds you never heard of they talk about like best fiends… all the lies the hypocrisy… things they picked fights you ended up apologizing for and they lied and accused you!!! It should be illegal to torture a person emotionally so severely… it’s sick and no matter how much I want to move on and feel ready I still feel trapped by it, afraid of it.. it’s like they transferred their self when we met into me!! I couldn’t feed myself! They had a severe eating disorder, Always talked about panic attacks and how they felt and that’s what they did, every step of the way made me feel safe then dropped the floor out,, it’s bizarre.. like you lived with a stranger who hated you … where did the live who framed all the promises they made go?? Oh you broke them one by one and used toy reaction to months of severe emotional abuse to call me crazy and validate it all!!! I hate that they know exactly what they did and plan how to use you, how to leave you and torture you so I matter what they can justify it to their fiends and family or themselves.. I wish I never knew, I’d rather be ignorant of so many things, it makes me physically sick sometimes when I think of the happiest memories of our honeymoon phase… I was chosen to be a broken persons training spouse and then punished, setup, even took videos of us being intimate the night before leaving home… I feel like I’m never clean, like hands are Always on me and they’re still trying to punish me… still drive past, I’ve caught it in camera parked where I can’t see doing god knows what… why?!? Are you that sick?? Everything you accused me, everything you accuse your parents and sister of doing and being, it’s you!!! It’s always been you, you used my life, stole my strength and took a piece of me that I earned, and needed… you’ll never read this but you won’t win.. I can’t heal and love and grow one day.. I know you want to drive me to take my own life and that was the goal of you couldn’t play the victim card, I won’t give you the satisfaction.. you don’t know how to feel or love, and I feel sorry for you… even you don’t deserve to feel so bad inside, I don’t wish you harm.. I wish I could honestly you deserve it, but adding more hate and hurt to the world won’t help me heal.. seeing you in pain wouldn’t help me heal. You don’t have real emotions anyway.. I’d just give anything to feel like my old self just for a little bit so I can remember what life was like before you reached into the deepest most vulnerable parts of me and promised to always guard them as I did with you.. I don’t know how to finish this now I can’t stop crying, my face hurts all the time now.. it’s changed so much, people have told me they assumed I lost loved ones and didn’t want to ask.. I can barely look at myself in the mirror, I’m so ashamed of it all, loving you.. believing all the cards and hard made gifts and promises.. you turned me into your whipping horse, your scape goat; you are not a victim,, you crave attention and justify it by gaslighting and flipping things around, you change every story every thing to fit what you need your friend to hear so they can Parrot back your lies to you die validation.. you need to learn or just leave people alone and live in your own personal hell, user abuser, you broke my heart mind and soul
I’m so sorry this happened to you. I hope you can find the peace of mind you need to feel whole again. No one deserves psychologically abuse and manipulation. They are masters of projection, triggering a response to say it’s you and justifying their emotional abuse is text book stuff. I know how deeply it can damage you’re psyche when you’re faced with the reality of it all.. please seek help there are so many resources for survivor’s of domestic and narcissistic abuse, you’re not as alone as you think. You can always keep trying even after you lost hope, just wanting to hope again can be enough I promise.
Lucas…. It’s shocking how similar our stories are. I know exactly what you mean. That confusion is physically painful. It wasn’t even until well after she was gone I could almost think straight again. The way she did it tho everything you described almost word for word, she always had chaotic unpredictable sometimes scary emotional reactions. I excused it and gave into all her needs for her growth and mental health because she had me so convinced she was this champion of mental health and psychology. I thought she was the most genuine caring person I’d ever met.. we spent everyday together for so long and then it was all me.. I was accused of being Bo polar an abuser a narcissist. It was the scariest most confusing time after Covid and all the stress I don’t think a lot of us realize the climate of everything out in our mental health.. it’s been the most damaging hurtful things a person has ever done To me , one after another like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.. even then when people were telling me she was manipulating and being unfair, abusing me and using emotional manipulation then blame shifting to put it all in me. Blame all her issues on me make me her next monster and call me crazy so she could leave and never face any of it.. years of lies and my reality just crumbled. It’s been so hard trying to come back and whenever I’m feeling strong life takes someone else away and I remember how far I’ve sunk and barely remember how it feels to be confident or feel safe and not just scared and confused.. admitting I was abused has been a challenge, they are masters at projection but they set it up for their story to fit what we narrative then tell people about you when you’re not listening. I hate all the things that are true because of what it means, I never loved a person like that or felt like I could be with someone and content forever .. she flipped it all and told me I was the weak one, I was mentally I’ll I was a burden no one ever liked me I was crazy and tortured me in the ways she promised not to always while calling me crazy and saying my reaction justified her horrible abuse and pretending to be a battered woman in the run.. I was catatonic falling over from panic attacks while she’s accusing me of hunting her down, it was insane but it was all lies and she set it up that was did what more behind the scenes to avoid ever talking communicating and used my mental health and pain like weapons after years of coddling hers. You feel sick and used everyday I do anyway it’s like I was chosen to her her practice hubby to work out the kinks and take her trauma out on. I’ve never felt so hurt or betrayed and she still insists she’s the victim .. just move on everyone believed you you ruined my life and used me for years missions accomplish! Why do they need to keep you tethered to them even after they moved on.. I deserve peace and to mourn my family and move on, but she’s adorable and a professional victim with all the money and entitlement she needs to do whatever she wants court wise. I just want my life back and to feel anything other than hurt and depressed again.. let me move on and we can just do that you know you lied and used me abused the system fine you win.. big victim for life you must be proud.. you don’t need power and control over my life for mistakes j made before we ever met you sick user.. why me? I was finally thriving and thought you were the love of my life like you promised I wanted to do all those things we talked about with you and only you.. and you used all my deepest pain to hurt me in ways you swore in everything you could never do.. why.. your life is so much more important?? Your mental health is worth destroying mine over because you claim you were abused, I doubt that’s even true anymore not how huh claim anyway blah.. I can’t even talk about I’m thanking ready to move on and heal myself but she won’t let it go
This is a wonderful article. Unfortunately as empaths we have to understand there is no closure when dealing with narcissistic abuse. This is what we seek and we seek some sort of explanation and justification of what was done to us but it doesn't exist when dealing with narcissists. We have to close the door, walk away, and be grateful every minute for our freedom. Being free of abuse is our gift.