victims of narcissistic abuse come to believe that everything has been basically due their way of being, their innocence, their generous and selfless love, their complacency and capacity for forgiveness led to the abusive relationship that has devastated their lives. victims come to believe that there must be something in their internal, emotional and psychological mechanism that led to this abuse. by taking away the victim’s status as a victim, this type of approach produces further damage in the form of confusion, feelings of guilt and paralysis through analysis. it ultimately leads victims to analyse themselves and their actions over and over again in an endless loop; an examination of conscience that aims to find the reasons why they have been destroyed by the actions of their perverse predator. this search is bound to fail, as it looks for the cause of the problem where it is not found. this is in the victims, without a doubt, knowledge of narcissism is the best weapon of defense. only when we understand what narcissistic personality disorder is, its dynamics, the aftermath of the narcissist’s games, manipulations and the causes behind it, we can move forward in recovery and free ourselves from the abusive relationship in which we have been trapped.

in fact, anyone can potentially become a victim of the narcissist for the following reasons.

1. narcissists are accomplished masters of seduction and deception. they carefully study their victim, become mirrors of their characteristics, values and attributes, camouflage themselves among the people dressed as meek lambs and are experienced actors; in fact, they create fictional characters in order to hypnotize their target. whatever the psychological profile of the person, it is very difficult not to succumb to this trap, unless you have prior knowledge of this reality and are alert.


2. the whole cycle of narcissistic abuse aims to make you extremely dependent. most victims end up developing emotional and psychological dependence. all manipulation games seek to bend and devastate the self-esteem of their target in order to get from them everything they want: attention, favors, gifts, submission, etc.


3. all human beings have vulnerabilities. the personal history of each of us, our personality traits, our shortcomings and weaknesses, we all have weaknesses, even the most emotionally healthy people with the highest self-esteem and the highest levels of personal security; if studied closely, they have areas in which they are vulnerable. the narcissist works hard to identify these vulnerabilities, making a true scan of the deficits of each person with whom they interact. they are predators. they study the personality profile of their victims, detect their emotional buttons, their reactions, their most sensitive areas, etc. from there the narcissist perversely exacerbates the victim’s vulnerabilities. the predator has covertly dismantled their psychological defense systems and have identified their emotional wounds and right there, where they smell the most, they have stuck their vampire fangs to abuse the victim and damage them psychologically and emotionally. the victim has been abused not because they have certain emotional wounds, but because they have maintained a relationship with a vicious predator, which they were unable to identify in time and which have used their vulnerabilities to harm them. on the part of therapists and specialists, the victim of the narcissist is treated as if they had an emotional dependency problem at birth, their life is reviewed, the traumas of their childhood, their parental relationships, their social life, trying to explain why they present this dependent profile, and reaching the conclusion that they themselves propitiated the abusive relationship they have lived, blaming them indirectly and victimizing them a second time. by the way, the narcissist will be delighted with this approach to the matter, a way of seeing things that tacitly exonerates them from their responsibility in the psychological devastation they themselves have caused. only those who know first-hand what narcissistic abuse is, know that these traits of emotional dependence were perversely induced by a narcissist, who subjected that person to such powerful manipulative tactics as love bombing or intermittent reinforcement. this behavior has generated in the victim a traumatic bond that has a biochemical component in their brain. that person has had to go through a real ordeal, enduring the whole destructive cycle of devaluation and discarding. the traits of dependency that are observed are a consequence of the relationship with a narcissist. if the problem is well understood, then the victim will no longer be blamed for being a victim, and will know how to apply the treatment that the person actually needs.


4. all human beings live in circumstances in which they are emotionally more vulnerable. an illness, the death of a family member, a separation, economic problems, situations of loneliness, etc. the narcissist is an expert in identifying whether or not the specific situation experienced by their potential victim favors their predatory agenda. many of the stories that are known about people who have suffered abuse, agree on the same thing; the narcissist managed to enter their lives just in a situation where they were more emotionally weak or in need. no matter how strong and invulnerable people are, it is impossible for them to control all the circumstances of their lives. there will be situations where they will be more helpless and exposed from the narcissist’s point of view; those are the times to entrap them in an abusive relationship.


5. the narcissist acts in the shadow. abuse and manipulation are always covert, and rely heavily on powerful behavioral conditioning and brainwashing techniques such as intermittent reinforcement, denial, projection, or gaslighting. all human beings can be victims at some point of these behavioural training mechanisms that rely on such powerful behavioural triggers as reinforcement or punishment. the manipulation is always subtle; it is applied continuously but in doses and intermittently, the person does not get to perceive the perverse game in which they are trapped, only in time they will feel the serious effects of the conditioning to which they have been subjected, usually when it is already too late. any person who does not know how the narcissistic manipulation works, who does not know how to detect it in time, becomes a potential victim of their predatory behavior.


6. victims of narcissists are usually not emotionally or psychologically weak people. what would such a person bring to them? what kind of energy can they draw from a precarious source? — these abusers seek psychological validation, someone to compensate for their continual ups and downs in self-esteem, their hidden feelings of inadequacy, people from whom they can copy traits that will remedy their deficiencies. the narcissist never chooses people that could be catalogued as “weak”, that would clash with the exaggerated and great concept that they have of themselves; they deserve the best, that is why they chooses as supply the “strongest”; empathic, generous people full of life, responsible, honest, with ethical values. there is a model of a strong and successful person, which pays tribute to a certain individualistic narcissism that permeates the current culture. it seems at times that being cold, distant, calculating, knowing how to take advantage of others, being centered on the self, is the ideal to follow. to be compassionate and generous, to have empathy, to be communicative, honest and kind, to know how to share and to forgive does not make anyone a weak person, in any way. these are the traits that are usually found in those who have been victims of narcissists, and it is logical that this is the case, it is the people who shine who stand out in the middle of the masses ethically speaking, the strongest. another thing is that because of the devastation caused by the narcissist, the person suffers a real deterioration of all those traits, which the abuser knew how to see in them at first and then, moved by their hatred, by their pathological envy, they have been determined to destroy by undermining their self-esteem, stealing their joy of life by eroding their sense of identity, absorbing their vital energy. the beautiful thing is to observe how many of these people who before the arrival of the narcissist were true diamonds of light, manage to rise from their prostration, to go forward in the midst of situations of really atrocious suffering and to recover the best of their own lives; although they would have many reasons for the hate, for the bitterness, they rarely show these feelings, on the contrary, the majority share with humility the pain that they have lived and they are capable of feeling compassion for other victims. the victims of narcissists are not weak people, that simply does not do justice to the truth either before or after the abuse. conclusion: there is much suffering and pain behind the arrival of a narcissist, there is no need to add to the burden by telling the victim that the devastation was caused by their personality traits. this is not true. they have been caught in their good faith, in their innocence. you can’t blame the victim for what they’ve been through, it revictimizes them. if an act as violent as rape occurs, the blame is not on how the person was dressed, nor on the way they walk, nor even on the fact that they walked alone at night; the blame is on the rapist, who is a deranged and perverse person.

they have had the bad luck to meet them, that is the truth of the victim, the one that does their justice and the one that has to be defended. overcoming abuse must always begin with a clear definition of who the abuser is and who the victim is. there is no room for half measures here. the challenge is to commit every day to one’s own recovery, to restore and strengthen personal self-esteem, and to turn this devastating experience into an opportunity to grow in consciousness, humanity and wisdom.