Do Narcissists Know They’re Hurting Their Victims?
They lie, deny, and come up with alibi’s; so yes, they know exactly what they’re doing.
Abuse makes you want to hide away from the world, it becomes a strange place, something you remember being a part of, but can no longer relate to.
You think you’re fine, when you’re not getting abused everything seems normal, but you just know something isn’t right. It’s not a clear and obvious thing like you’d expect abuse to be — get hit, leave, right?
Looking back, I would rather have swapped the psychological torment, which he used multiple times in a day, with a cut or bruise or another night in hospital.
Those cuts, bruises, and nights in the hospital trying to keep my baby in my belly longer so he had a better chance were physical signs of what was happening, but the emotional symptoms of abuse meant I couldn’t see, feel, hear, or understand that my children and I were being abused.
I’d heard of dissociation and cognitive dissonance having studied psychology, but I couldn’t comprehend it, till I felt it. A trauma bond is created through the process of intermittent reinforcement or being abused, then being praised or supported through the abuse they actually inflicted.
