When women find the courage to speak out about the narcissistic abuse they have endured, many tell us, “The abuser and his family are calling me crazy!”
Learn more about how narcissistic abusers call their victims crazy on The FREE Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast. Learn to identify and seek safety from the misogynistic scripting that keeps us in a harmful and abusive situation.
Why Is My Narcissistic Abuser Calling Me Crazy?
Disturbingly, many narcissistic abusers turn the tables on their victims. This means they gaslight her into believing that she is the problem in the relationship. This “table turning” is not only perpetrated by abusers, but also by their flying monkeys (friends, family, and others who enable the abuser).
Abusers may blame women with phrases like:
- Why do my habits affect you so much?
- You’re the controlling one.
- If you weren’t so ____, I wouldn’t _____.
- You’re always overreacting.
- You’re such a sensitive person.
- Why are you so jealous?
- You always get like this when you’re on your period
But What if I Actually Am Crazy?
The table-turning and gaslighting can be so insidiously effective, that many women often believe that they are the narcissistic abuser, rather than their abusive partner.
Anne explains,
“If you’re thinking, ‘Am I the narcissist?’, take a step back and take a deep breath and think about your desire for safety, peace, and truth.”
Anne Blythe, founder of Betrayal Trauma Recovery
Often, the “abusive behaviors” that narcissistic abusers accuse their partners of, are actually safety-seeking behaviors.
Perhaps you have checked your abuser’s phone: that was not to control or harm him, but to secure the truth about his behaviors, because he won’t tell you the truth. Perhaps you have reacted to his infidelity with anger, intense sorrow, or even rage. These are normal human reactions to betrayal.
Abusers will use your healthy human behaviors to make you believe that you are actually abusive and crazy.
How Can I Stay Grounded When He’s Calling Me Crazy
If you are seeking safety from abuse, chances are that you will be called crazy by your abuser, his family, and his other enablers. This is understandably devastating. But you can find peace in the assurance that seeking safety from abuse is the exact opposite of crazy. Harming and betraying someone that you supposedly love? That is crazy.
You can stay grounded in reality by:
- Attending a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session
- Journaling and practicing mindfulness
- Scheduling an Individual Session with a Betrayal Trauma Trauma Coach
- Repeating truthful affirmations to yourself, like, “I choose safety for myself because I am worth it.”
Finally, try to accept the reality that your abuser and his flying monkeys will probably tell really hurtful lies about you, including that you are “crazy”. Don’t let this stop you from seeking safety and peace.
Fine, let everybody keep calling me crazy. I’m getting to safety.
Anne Blythe, founder of Betrayal Trauma Recovery
Betrayal Trauma Recovery Knows Your Not Crazy
At BTR.ORG, we understand the utter frustration and confusion that comes with being deemed “crazy” by a narcissistic abuser. It is a disgusting reversal of truth and is abusive in and of itself.
Women who are seeking safety from a narcissistic abuser need support to process the trauma, ask questions, and receive validation for the many painful feelings and experiences they endure.
Attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY and find women who understand what you are going through, who want to hear your story, and help you find the safety you deserve.
Dear Anne,
I cannot begin to describe how much your podcasts mean to me. I am a 65 year old professional woman who has been married for 35 years. Your podcasts have helped me to finally understand what has really been happening to me all these years. In my heart I knew my husband’s severe pornography addiction made me feel awful, degraded and invisible. But the prevailing sentiment from my husband, friends and family was otherwise. I did everything I could to be enough at the expense of my self worth and dignity. When I heard you say that secret pornography use in a marriage without the consent of one partner was abuse the lights literally came on. I’m not sure where I’ll go from here- 35 years is a very entangled life but I know for sure that right now you and btr are my lifeline.
With all gratitude and love.
Nell
They are pathological. The saddest part is this person who broke my soul never even existed. Mine went so far out of their way to hurt the parts of me they promised to always protect. It’s disgusting. They planned how they would leave before they ever said “I love you” to me. I was just practice for them. It hurts my heart to say all this, but it’s better to admit the truth than blame yourself.
No one is perfect, but they are unreasonable people who have lied to you for your entire relationship. They don’t care about you, they only cared that you were useful. They bided their time and built your relationship up to be everything only to break you as much as possible so they could call you crazy. They cover insane things they did instead of honesty. I won’t go into details but they abused the law, programs for needy people, the sympathy and feelings of everyone. They ruined my life and my future, abused me in the ways they claimed to be abused and planned it so maliciously it broke me as a person.
I am trying so hard to build myself back, but everyone is leaving me now and I’m just too broken. All I feel is sad anymore. I have so many plans and dreams, finally have goals for myself, but I’m too depressed to function. I don’t know what to do anymore. Why did you do this? Why do it in such a cruel way and dangle hope like that. You don’t know what it did to me. Well you probably do you planned it while I planned a future for us. You should be ashamed, but you’ll always be the “victim”, even if you’ve done the cruelest most damaging things anyones ever done.
I carried our emotions for years. You’re just an over privileged, fake person, it’s just a cover. How you could claim to be a feminist or even decent human being anymore is beyond me. The things you did are just evil. I sometimes think I’m over you and out of tears, but it still hurts just as much everyday. You broke every promise you ever made. Even the ones I framed (you knew how much it mean to me – home, our little family). But it’s all broken.
People don’t seem to understand how soul wrenching and psychologically damaging to not only find out you were used and lied to for years, but then to be labeled the abuser on top of it!
It honestly broke me just trying to understand what was happening, even after months of research and therapy I could still barely accept I was abused and that this person I spent every day with for so long was always putting on an act. Lying to me and manipulating my family and using all my deepest pain against me.
Nothing has ever hurt as bad or broken me in ways I never imagined I could be broken. I don’t understand how people like this exist or live with themselves, but I guess they really don’t have empathy or a real conscious. You want to pity them, but the damage they do and the way they disregard the suffering of others for their gain with no remorse is unforgivable. They are soulless shells of people.
Agreed Katie. Recovering and understanding narcissistic abuse had been by far the greatest struggle of my life. Try to remember you’re not alone, it’s confusing, terrifying even when you see their true colors. There’s so much support out there for people who’ve gone through the same things, it can be hard to see sometimes but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. You matter, they are the broken ones… they thrive on pain when you just wanted love
It’s mind blowing when you look back on all the lies you believed implicitly over the years. Their whole identity is lies, they need manipulation to play the victim while still having power and control over you the real victim. You’re better off not digging, you’ll make yourself sick trying to figure out what was real and what was part of their twisted games to extort or use you in whatever way they wanted. Just try to understand there’s no figuring it out, some people are just evil and will do whatever it takes to get what they want regardless of the pain and suffering they inflict, they’ll always be the victim in their own minds
I don’t feel like I have the strength to face anything anymore.
All I do is sit here and try to feel normal. I have two grandparents struggling, everyone struggling and I still feel so crippled thinking about my ex. It’s easier to put things in perspective now, but I’m a little ashamed of how much it broke me. It’s hard to feel so used and manipulated, no one sees it coming but there’s always a part of me that wants to fight it.
It’s hard knowing your life and everything they promised mattered so little. All those fake actions like everything else about them, they were always going to make make you into their next victim story. Use you like some stepping stone for their growth. It just hurts so feeling to be messed with in such twisted emotionally triggering ways.
Please just move on, I already had too much, now with all this and me not being able to support people I love the right way because of it . . . you have no idea what you took from me. I don’t care if you ever read it, I know it doesn’t matter to you, but I didn’t deserve this from you of all people it’s been like a nightmare and how your could be so cold and set me up. I feel so gross, the ways you were with me up until you left make my skin crawl. But I need to let it go for me. I honestly don’t know how to feel normal anymore I’m so tired of thoughts of you and the insidious ways you hurt me to my core popping into my head and making it hard to breathe. I’m done please just drop it and leave me alone. You stole my life what else do you want?
Legal abuse is the WORST. After 12 years of abuse from my ex husband, after every abuse there is, including abuse from our therapists, the legal abuse was the worst. I had to endure a property settlement of 100% to him and 0% from him while I had no job (because he fired me from our business and would not allow me to work), no money, no lawyer, while my ex husband (an anbuser) ran away with all our money and brought himself a $100,000 lawyer (which is also my money) to fight me in court. I wish the courts understood legal abuse.
Clare, we totally get it. So many women experience this type of abuse. You’re not alone! Have you considered attending one of our daily support groups for betrayal trauma?
Thank you, reading this instead of venting all the same feelings and frustrations helped me tonight.
I don’t m is about you but I’m ready to move on and let go completely. I’ve held onto the hurt for too long, I’m working hard on me now trying new things to feel whole and not live in shock and pain anymore. We’ll probably never know the whole truth about them, I doubt they even really know what’s real after awhile. They’re masters of rewriting history to fit their narratives… it has to be exhausted to try to keep all the lies straight, but we don’t need to worry about them or cater to their every need while being neglected and used. It’s time to let go and think about how I can do Better in the future and not allow myself to ever fall for a soulless manipulator again. I hope you can do this same hope things have gotten better since you wrote this. Take care 💚
I wish this weren’t true for me. I feel so pathetic, I drove around all night thinking trying to escape, but no matter where I go, I cry alone in the car. I see reminders of my ex. I don’t think I knew a real person, but I miss the lie I loved.
I never mattered. I’ve had to face the hardest times of my life while trying to cope with this crippling pain from all the things they did. How far they went to hurt me and ruin my life in all the ways they promised to always be there. I want to give up everyday, I keep telling people I’m trying and don’t better but I can’t even work and am barely hanging on. I feel so trapped and alone and I can’t explain to anyone why it hurts so deeply.
I’ve never felt so hurt and depressed for so long, now everyone else is leaving my life too and I keep wondering why I try. I just want to be in a coma and not wake up I wish I never existed
My ex still posts things saying I’m the abuser and I used emotional abuse, manipulative narcissist tactics to never have to look at him or talk again. It might feel that way to him, but it’s empowering for me. You can be safe and not have to fight or hear about how awful they think you are. Women have suffered enough, they shouldn’t have to make their abuser comfortable when they’ve leaving. In fact, that’s just another way to control her or try to get her not to leave.
Unfortunately narcissists don’t play by the rules. My ex abused the law, made me out to be some monster while still writing me love letters for months. They can justify anything they do with a little reinforcement from their enablers.
I was lied to, manipulated. It’s been like a nightmare.
I’m grateful for Betrayal Trauma Recovery. Thanks for sharing. Hope things have gotten better. CPSD after emotional abuse can be devastating even with treatment. It’s never an easy road for survivor’s. Take care
It’s nice to look back instead of having to say it all… funny thing is this is someone else’s post… it’s crazy how abusers all follow the same cycle. I hope things are getting better
Oh god this made my heart ache, I know just what you’re feeling and how awful it is. I don’t think I’ll ever be fully healed after Narcissistic abuse, they are master manipulators. One of the worst mind F’s with mine was she claimed to be the victim of Narcissistic abuse her whole life!
It’s like she was preparing me or foreshadowing exactly how she would torture me. All these things her parents, sister, and best friends she has cut out of her life did to abuse her was a more tame version of what she did to me. I know I have a form of ptsd, they break your reality, flip 180 degrees and go out of their way to hurt you as deeply as possible.
It’s all about projection, power, and control. People don’t really matter to them, they could be stitching had made promises to your inner child one day and labeling you their next Abusive Narcissistic the next. The only time they feel, show the anxiety they claim to have is when they’re in danger of being caught in a life, and everything is a lie to them.. they are shameless attention seekers, you’re really better off not digging into their double/triple lives. I feel so used and ashamed for loving her, her whole life was about mental health issues and I knew that going in. But I thought she was so kind, brave, and the most genuine person id ever met.. she’s a monster.. but anyone who gets too close and sees it needs to be cut out and worked into her latest horror story, her excuses for not living and not facing her real issues.. it’s so sad that I do understand her not wanting be like her mentally Ill relatives who made her this way. But to lie to yourself and everyone, to pay to lie to therapists, to break down and throw insane tantrums when your adult friends might not agree with your opinion or think you’re uncool?? Everyone is just their supply, or another flying monkey, their friend are just people they keep at arms length and tell victim stories too for validation, or flirt with and justify later as your fault somehow.. they have no accountability and never will. Some part of them is stuck in a state of arrested development they can never grow beyond crying for attention and living in fear of anyone they get too close to. I know I was just convenient now… she knew how she would get into my head and leave me, what victim card she would play before we even started dating. They really do plan out how to grow and try to transfer their issues, the lengths she went to see so ridiculous it might be funny if it didn’t ruin my life.
I needed to read these today. Hurting so bad again I can’t pick myself back up like I used to. I have to work again but it’s like I’m cursed since my discard, everyone keeps dying around me and I feel so isolated. Why do they need to destroy you to make themselves stronger? All I wanted was love and the partner I was promised not to be used and tossed away and treated like my life doesn’t matter and I’m the crazy one for complaining about it!! I was tortured and mislead at every step and now I need it to
Just end so I can heal and do the things I need but I can’t.. help? 😑
I’m so sorry, you’re not alone there is help emotional abuse survivors all over. I finally had a breakthrough in therapy today and admitted I couldn’t put groceries away or cook without breaking down crying. The scars abuse leaves behind can supine you sometimes, narcissistic abuse should be a crime
I am alone though in all the ways that matter. Emotional abuse and ptsd stole the parts of me I loved and needed to function.
You’re dealing with actual psychopaths in some cases, they’re close enough in the spectrum anyway. It’s impossible to justify to reconcile with the things they did to you, they made you love a lie.
That’s a convince to phrase, an easy way to minimize the trauma of truly loving a narcissistic. No one deserves to be dehumanized and used for some stunted child’s sense of power and control. Praying for all the survivors who know there’s no justice or peace and the best we should can hope for is that our scars don’t itch when it rains
Married 30 years and 4 adult kids. Same script as everyone else here. I’m grateful to have the knowledge, but in the abusive moments it still hurts and rips open a fresh new wound. Every time I metaphorically get back up, he metaphorically knocks me back down. I’m afraid I won’t have the strength to get back up again someday. I’m working to get out, finances have made me stay. I love my kids but wish I never married him.
I wish I could add a photo to show what narcissistic rage looks like! I’m the type to avoid conflict at all costs and extremely tolerant. But years of tolerating lies, I finally confronted him. I watched as he unsuccessfully stuttered more lies and held my ground and watched the devil emerge and it was ugly. The projecting was insane! It was like an unmasking of their true self. I’m ashamed of myself for actually giving sympathy and attention to this person when I was fed the victim stories all along. My Dad, ex husband and current boyfriend all warned me and I made excuses. My Dad warned me since 5th grade and we’re 48 now! I can’t go back or change anything and I’ll forgive myself but wow! Once you see the light, you wonder how you were blind to it for so long!
My sad story . . . it’s all because of how he treats women he verbally, mentally and emotionally abused us and he still does even today he likes to control women and neglect and manipulate us. I guess that he thinks it’s cool or something. I’m just trying to find a better place to live.