How To Spot Someone Playing Victim

Not all victims are manipulative. Feeling like a victim has taken on negative connotations, but there are people who “play the victim” in order to manipulate you. This is a favorite defense of narcissists and other personality-disordered people. In some other instances, this behavior is learned as a child because as a way to get needs […]

Read More

Dynamics of A Narcissistic Home

The Narcissistic Parent – Family Dynamic The dynamics in a narcissistic household are abundant.  Each member of the family has certain expectations to fulfill, to satisfy the needs of the narcissist.  In a case where there is only one child, this particular child may have the daunting task of serving several different roles to appease […]

Read More

The Narcissist’s Spouse: Understanding Primary Supply

As a complex trauma therapist who specializes in treating trauma incurred through narcissistic abuse, I encounter many spouses desperate to escape from the perfidious torment of marriage to a malignant narcissist. Similarly, I work with adult children of mothers and fathers who embody malignant narcissistic traits or fit the diagnostic criteria for NPD. Narcissistic Personality […]

Read More

Taking Time For Healing Is Not Optional

The desire to experience unconditional love is the heart cry of every human heart. Loving yourself matters and fulfilling this experience in our lifetime is the spiritual path of awakening and enlightenment. Our early relationships, our experiences of friendship, a romantic encounter with another soul, and our commitments and decisions to love all influence the […]

Read More

Individuation: From Codependent Chameleon to Selfhood

When we first met, I told my husband I was very “adaptable.” I didn’t realize the price of being a chameleon until I started recovery and my journey of individuation. By then I was dead inside. I’d spent years adapting to abuse and belittling that I’d absorbed. I was detached from my feelings and needs, […]

Read More

Parental Alienation: What Is It and How Do You Cope?

After close to three decades and without any planning, I chose to escape a narcissistically abusive marriage. Wow! I wished I would have read Tracy A. Malone’s book, “Divorcing Your Narcissist: You Can’t Make This Shit Up!” because then I would have learned from her extensive research and experience about the “covert tricks they pull” […]

Read More

Sons of Narcissistic Fathers: The Pain and Shame of Never Measuring Up

Even in this day and age of generational shifts in parenting and shared parental responsibilities, the father is still viewed by many as a collateral caregiver whose primary function is to mete out discipline and pay the bills. However, the father is so much more than just an authority figure and a material provider. In fact, the […]

Read More

Think Like A Narcissist Without Being One

The most common question I get from my clients or readers is, “What if I’m the narcissist?” If you’ve asked yourself this question, it’s likely because your narcissist is accusing you of being one. But the simple answer is, if you think you’re a narcissist, then that means you are concerned about other people’s feelings, […]

Read More

The Narcissistically Disordered Family

The Narcissistically Disordered Family A Glimpse At The Grooming And Abusing That Occurs Within The Home by Rev. Sheri Heller, LCSW In a memoir piece I wrote about my disturbing relationship with my narcissistically disordered father I elaborated on how his neglect, sadistic mockery, objectification and abandonment nearly destroyed me. The proverbial silver lining of having […]

Read More

First Christmas Alone Post-Narc Abuse

First Christmas Alone Post-Narc Abuse by Tracy A. Malone They say that nothing is certain in life but death and taxes. I will add one more item to the list of things you can always count on: Narcissists always ruin holidays. The cliché holiday culture is the big family dinner with happy, loving people, cookies, […]

Read More