#How sometimes to end an abuse cycle requires hard decisions and how we survive the aftermath of that is complicated

[thatonebirdwrites]

Sneak peak on a Lena Luthor, Sam Arias, and Kara Danvers fic that has grabbed me by the throat and won't let go till I finish it

(Once I finish it, I'll throw it up on AO3.) Finished so will post weekly/bi-weekly until it's all up. Here's the link.

THE EVENT

Lena realizes something is very, very wrong when she feels the heft of a gun in her hand. The fog in her mind lifts slowly as she wrestles back her consciousness. She blinks and realizes she’s in a concrete room with a desk to one side.

But far more disturbing is her brother, Lex, who has pushed himself half-up with one arm, the other hugging his abdomen. The gun she holds points at him. Blood dribbles from his mouth. He laughs, and his words swim through the fog in her brain.

“It’s ironic, isn’t it? The very people you fight to protect. Do you know their truth?” He reaches up to grab a remote and turns on the televisions that make up a wall of the bunker.

Lena breathes in sharply. Bunker?

No, no, she can’t be alone with Lex. Bad things always happen.

Panic rises like bile in her throat. Her brother is speaking again, but his words can’t penetrate the growing haze in her head. She blinks at the televisions, but it blurs into a mosaic of color and faint soundscapes.

Her thoughts spark and sizzle like a broken circuit. She hyperventilates, lightheaded, as tears sting her eyes. The gun’s weight pulls her arms down. The fact her brother is bleeding out in front of her, while laughing, alarms her.

He believes this is checkmate. It’s not. Please, let me handle this.

The thought laces through her alarm and comforts her. The confidence in her other self dismantles her rising panic. Just like the last time in Kasnia during the self-destruct sequence. Time had warped for her, the fog saturated all awareness, until she woke in the cool air, the sky studded with stars. In her hands was an air duct grate, her clothes rumpled, one heel broken, and streaks of dirt on her legs and arms.

Oh.

Her other self must have fronted like in Kaznia. What is the last things she remembers? She briefly closes her eyes.

She had been escorted by armed guards to where her brother and Lillian waited in the Presidential room at the White House. Listened in horror at her brother’s rant of his victory over aliens. Saw evidence of Supergirl’s death. The terror that grabbed her by the throat had the fog boiling through her mind. No matter how hard she tried, she could not escape the Luthors.

Then nothing. Time evaporated until she wrestled her way out of the suffocating fog.

And here she wakes in a bunker, a gun in her hand, and her brother bleeding out in front of her.

“Do you see the lies they’ve woven? How they’ve abused your trusting nature? Your broken mind?” he continues with another irritating laugh.

He seeks to manipulate us again. Trust us. Lean into our anger.

Lena takes a steadying breath. That’s right. Her anger and horror at his brutal experiments and murder of aliens. The prison couldn’t hold him, cutting off his assets also failed — all facts she has factored into her calculations.

But this exact scenario is supposed to be the last resort. Her stomach curdles, bile on her tongue. Kieran, wait, what of the other plans?

We had to end the cycle, Lena. Otherwise, he’ll never stop coming.

Stop being cryptic. What the hell happened? She needs to reassess. There must be a better solution. She can still repair this somehow. Seek the Truth. Focus.

Fine. I confronted him and injected Harun-el as we agreed. He demanded we join his genocidal crusade. We are not his tool anymore. The solidity of the decision warms her from head to toe, even as her heart shatters at the sight in front of her.

Lena clears her throat and summons what strength she has left. “You’ve abused me, Lex. You have no ground to stand on.” She tries to avoid looking at the wall of televisions, for what is surely a cleverly crafted way to destroy her yet again. Like he always does. Her lip quivers, and she blinks back the urge to cry.

“Me? Your trusting brother?” Lex laughs then coughs blood into his hand. “I’ve given you the world, Ace. Only ever been truthful. Honed your skills. Do you still not see the truth? I’ve laid it out for you this time, you stubborn fool!”

Colors leech into grey in her periphery. Her limbs feel puppeted by her other self still. A rare moment of synergy but it leaves her nauseous and her head aching in a growing migraine.

“They’ve all been lying to you,” Lex continues as he laughs and spits up more blood. “Preying on your weaknesses.”

That’s you, Lena thinks. You’ve preyed on us.

But her curiosity overwhelms her, and she can’t ignore the televisions any longer. The scenes capture her gaze, and her ears roar with the orchestra Lex has woven into the security footage he’s stolen. Half the screens are footage from when Mercy attacked L-corp.

<<.....>>

Lena turns to Kara desperately. “No, Kara, you’re safer with me.” She can feel the grey fog pulling her toward the dark maw of her psyche. She reaches out to grasp Kara’s arm, the fabric of her cashmere sweater soft and comforting. As the emergency light goes off again, she slips deeper into her mind’s tumultuous seas.

Kieran rises forward, and her body transforms. Her shoulders straighten, her limbs more agile, her stance that of a fighter. Commands issue from her voice, but Lena can no longer discern meaning.

She wraps herself in the cold of shadows.

Time hiccups and coughs. Shots echo like thunder, safety doors drop like quakes, and the clatter of heels click against metal.

Is Kara okay? She needs to know. She swims through grey fog, until she pushes into consciousness again.

An uncomfortable weight hangs on her arm. Kara stands behind her, but Mercy holds the bigger gun of the Lexosuit. Fear curdles her stomach. Of course Mercy would hack through security to reach her experimental prototypes. Lena had built a lighter suit to be used for good. Not like this.

Lena, don’t. Let me handle this. Kieran’s smug confidence scratches into her thoughts.

Kara is still here!

Lena, we don’t have time to argue. Kieran surges to the front, and Lena watches as her body moves to block Mercy’s shot. “You did not see the upgrade. The arms hold more goods now.” A hint of excitement sweeps through her voice, the onset of a fight a thrill for Kieran, while Lena nears a panic.

Please, get Kara out of here. Lena struggles to keep them moving backward. Kara is behind her still, the door to the lab just a few feet away.

I said let me handle this. Anger filters through Kieran and burns against Lena’s presence.

Lena throws open the door. “Go, Kara.” Kara stumbles backward into the hallway, and she slams the door shut. The fog sears through her mind, Kieran’s anger pushing her back.

A blast tears through the air, but Kieran blocks the shot with their shield.

Except, Lena can’t let go fully. Kieran blocks and shoots, but Lena fumbles with the footwork. Kieran’s the fencer, not her. Mercy spars not only with the gloves but with caustic words. Kieran fights Lena for control, their dodging clumsy, their shots missing.

The fight warps and fizzles in her mind; the fog screeches through Lena’s consciousness.

She fumbles. Slams against metal.

“You aren’t deserving of the Luthor name,” Mercy says, her poison like barbs that sink into Lena’s insecurities.

Heat beams destroy the door, and Supergirl blasts into the room. Mercy is slammed against the wall, Supergirl’s arm against her throat. “No, you got that backwards,” Supergirl hisses, “the Luthor name isn’t deserving of Lena.”

Warmth floods through Lena at the strength and resolve in Supergirl’s words. A massive turnaround from the worldkiller crisis.

Stay focused. Don’t let your guard down until Mercy’s off the property. Kieran releases her hold, and Lena stumbles, back in full control. Already her mind shifts into overdrive to plan the exact route to verify the security of her building and her people.

<<....>>

This is a repeat of the Mercy incident. Where Lena couldn’t let go, and both of them co-fronted. It sparks a migraine, the grey in her periphery darkening, and her nausea worsening. She hates moments like this.

Let me handle this. We have him in a checkmate. The confidence in Kieran’s analysis softens the panic that has started to freeze her limbs. We know the Truth.

If there is one thing that unites Lena’s fractured psyche, it is an overwhelming need to protect those she loves. And her own brother has nearly killed her and her friends a dozen times over.

She’s exhausted, terrified, and wants this endless game of his to stop.

Lena raises her gun and shoots the televisions one at a time. The shards explode outward and rain down on her brother.

For once, Lex shuts the fuck up. His eyes widen.

The fog burns away the rest of her awareness.

She stumbles across wet grass, her clothes wet and clinging to her body, as the heavens pour down upon her. She’s outside the bunker in a stand of aspens. The sky sparks with lightning, the greyness suffocating.

You’re safe now. We all are. It’s okay. It’ll be okay.

Lena shouldn’t dig deeper. She knows it’s not healthy. Kieran has always protected her, held the worst of the horror. It’s how they’ve survived this far.

But this was her brother. And those screens showed Kara as not human. It makes no sense with what Kara claims. How does she reconcile it all?

Kieran, what did you do?!

What was necessary. Kieran’s confidence holds a trickle of grief and pain. We must seek help now, Lena. Focus.

She feels strange, unreal, like a pantomime of herself. The urge to lie in the mud, to let the rain wash her away, nearly overwhelms her. She pushes off a trunk and stumbles forward. Her hair falls in front of her eyes, sticking to her forehead and cheeks.

The images from the televisions ripple through her thoughts. Is that the Truth?

Yes. Now focus, Lena. We must call her.

Has Kara been deceiving her this whole time? She doesn’t want to believe it.

She’s given Kara her heart, far more than she ever meant to do, and yet, those videos sync with the disjointed mess of her memories. Bits and pieces that Kieran has held for her, scattered shards unlocked like the showers above.

Wait, did you know? Shock starts to shiver through her body.

That’s not important now. Call her.

Lena stumbles and falls. Her hands push into the mud and the world crackles with thunder. It’s too loud. Too bright.

It's all so wrong; she gags and spits out bile.

She wishes Kieran would take over again, to call for her, but her protective self has faded from awareness. Fatigue throttles all of her.

Her brother is likely dead in the bunker. By her own hand. Tears mix with the rain and her fingers dig into the mud. Her senses crackle with pain. She feels herself shrinking. The hairs on her arm raise, goosebumps from the cold, her body vibrating into oblivion.

She wants to go home.

Call her now. The thought is weaker, laced with grief.

“I know. I know,” Lena says it out loud to ground herself. To stop the shrinking, to avoid the inevitable pull of a switch. She shudders and leans against the trunk of a tree.

Focus on the goal. Break it into smaller steps.

She hugs her legs to her chest with one arm. Her other hand fumbles through pockets of her suit. Too many. Suit so wet. She feels slimy, gross, slipping toward the warmth of shadows.

Her fingers grasp he phone in her inner suit jacket. There’s two numbers on speed dial: Sam and Kara.

Her fingers hesitate over the two. She bites her lip, closes her eyes, and hits the button for Sam.

(To be continued on AO3, will edit in the link or drop in comments once up.) Note, this playlist was on repeat as I wrote this piece: Shattered Playlist

Edited.

[infpisme]

9 Things People Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because You’ve Been Abused By A Narcissist

1. Constantly doubting your self-worth. Where once you were self-confident and assured, you are now in people-pleasing mode. Your friends and family notice that you are always on edge, doubting your strengths and experiences. You’re constantly explaining yourself, deflecting compliments or evading opportunities to shine. You obsess over whether you’re worthy, attractive, appealing or desirable enough. You begin to wonder if you’re the one who’s toxic and abusive when you start reacting to the abuse (after all, narcissists are prone to projecting their own behavior and calling us narcissists as a defense mechanism). You start to think that you must be the problem if you’re being treated in such a horrendous manner. This sort of self-blame is common after abuse, but it is one that is rooted in the effects of trauma, not reality.

2. Questioning your ability to make the right decisions or perceive reality correctly. Narcissists are masters of warping our reality and inviting us to play in their funhouse (more like torture chamber) of distortions, falsehoods, smoke and mirrors. When you’ve been gaslighted for so long into believing that what you’re experiencing isn’t real, you doubt whether you’re even perceiving your own reality correctly. You second-guess your decisions and feel a tremendous amount of conflict about doing what’s right for you versus what you’ve been conditioned to do for the narcissist. You develop a sense of cognitive dissonance (conflicting thoughts and feelings) about the toxic relationship as well as other major facets of your life.

3. Chasing after toxic people. The more toxicity a narcissistic partner brings into your life, the more likely you’ll gravitate towards people who subject you to similar trials. It’s because you’ve been subconsciously programmed to abusive behavior as a new normal. As a result, you might have a very distorted perception about what healthy behavior actually entails.

Instead of searching for healthier alternatives, those who have been abused by narcissists try to “search for a rescuer” but wind up encountering more people who are toxic. These experiences can compound the trauma you’ve experienced. It can mirror the self-sabotaging beliefs the narcissist has trained us to believe in. It perpetuates the vicious cycle. When we feel alone and abandoned, we’re less likely to know we deserve better.

4. Self-sabotaging. Narcissists program you to self-destruct. They subject you to cruel insults, harsh put-downs, subtle sabotage and taunt you with perceived flaws, manufactured insecurities and a hyperfocus on your shortcomings. By doing this, they commit covert murder with clean hands. You’re so taken aback by their attacks that you suffer from anxiety about your competence, your skill sets and even your God-given talents.

Why? Because the narcissist has convinced you that all your strengths are actually weaknesses. They do this on purpose to rob you of your sense of confidence and independence. Once you believe all the cruel things they say about you, you’ll start to sabotage yourself in the areas you naturally flourish in. When you catch yourself sabotaging yourself or engaging in negative self-talk, always ask yourself, “Do I really believe this about myself? Or is this what the narcissist wants me to believe?”

5. Being people-pleasing and perfectionistic. Every time the narcissist criticized you, they planted seeds of self-doubt which burgeoned into full-blown insecurities after the relationship ended. You did everything to please your abuser to gain their approval or even just a moment of peace from their crazymaking. So it’s no surprise that when the relationship has ended, the pattern of trying to please people remained. People-pleasing and perfectionism are survival mechanisms that developed early on so that you could try to ward off any form of violence (be it physical or emotional). So long as the abuser approved of you (even just temporarily), you felt in the clear.

The challenge in the aftermath is to become the observer of your perfectionistic tendencies as well as your habit of people-pleasing. Instead of judging these habits, mindfully observe your thoughts and feelings whenever you’re tempted to do something that is not authentic to who you really are.

Ask yourself, “Why am I really doing this? What do I think I have to gain?” Examine the root of each compulsion as it arises and find a healthier alternative that honors what you really want and what you desire. To start overcoming needless perfectionism, start to self-validate and approve of yourself. When you’ve done something well, give yourself some healthy praise instead of waiting for someone else to validate it for you. Habits can be hard to break, but new habits can form to replace destructive ones.

6. Withdrawing from others and isolating yourself. Abusers isolate you so you begin to isolate yourself as well. The narcissist is so charming and likeable that they are able to depict themselves as the sane ones while they provoke their victims into becoming unhinged. With a perceived lack of support from others, you start to feel as if you have no one there to help you. Your body, mind and spirit is reeling from the trauma and is trying to process it.

Although a period of hibernation is normal after abuse and sometimes much needed to begin the healing process, don’t isolate yourself from professional support or validating people who understand what you’re going through. Reach out to those who can help you, those who’ve been there and those who have a solid understanding of what narcissistic abuse feels like.

7. Falling into abuse amnesia. When the narcissist tells you they miss you, you’ll start to romanticize the relationship. When the narcissist shows good behavior, you’ll be tempted to fall into “abuse amnesia” as a coping strategy and rationalize that they were good, upstanding partners all along. You might fall prey to their “hoovering” attempts to get you back into the abusive relationship.

To counter abuse amnesia, it’s important to have a list of abusive incidents or at the very least, behaviors you experienced with this person. This will help you to reconnect to the reality of the abuse and keep you grounded in what you experienced. Confiding in a therapist and/or a trustworthy friend can also help to increase social accountability; when you find yourself rewriting the abuse, they’ll be there to help you get back on track and remind you of what you’re not missing out on.

8. Protecting your abuser. Being abused means that we become trauma-bonded to the abuser. This is very much like Stockholm Syndrome; we were taken emotionally “hostage” by this predator and we’ve learned how to protect them, defend them and cater to them in order to survive. That is why survivors often feel compelled to talk about how happy the relationship is, even when they are suffering behind closed doors.

That is also why survivors of narcissists may not come forward right away to friends and family members about the abuse; they fear that they are overreacting, too sensitive, or imagining things, just like the abuser has told them. Even after you break free of a narcissist, you might still be prone to protecting the abuser’s image at the risk of your own welfare.

This can manifest in many different ways, from the major to the minor. You might refuse to cooperate with law enforcement on revealing the details of abuse or become argumentative with loved ones who call out the abuse for what it is. You might refuse to get an order of protection even if the narcissist is stalking or harassing you, for fear of retaliation as well as a warped sense of loyalty you developed to the narcissist during the relationship.

When fighting the urge to protect the abuser, remember that the abuser never protected you. They never protected you from the pain they inflicted upon you or the consequences that came with it. Your only duty after leaving an abusive relationship is to protect yourself, first and foremost.

9 . Having a warped sense of boundaries. One of the effects of being abused is that our boundaries become extremely malleable. We’re more compelled to say “yes” to things we desperately want to say “no” to. We’ve lost our sense of agency and control over our lives, so it takes time to rebuild our boundaries and reclaim our power. It helps to remember your basic human rights after you’ve been violated. These include the right to say no, the right to protest unfair behavior or mistreatment, and the right to feel angry and express it non-abusively.

You can also create a list of emotional and physical boundaries you commit to honoring in the future with any relationship or friendship. These are customized to your needs can include boundaries like, “I don’t tolerate anyone lying to me” and “I don’t respond to threats or ultimatums.”

Take small steps to practice your new boundaries and follow through with them. When a toxic person tries to put you down, stand up for yourself in whatever way you can – even if it just means walking away from the interaction. Being assertive doesn’t always require a grand gesture – it just requires your willingness to prioritize your safety and wellbeing. When a friend tries to take advantage of you, start calling them out – even if it’s just in a polite but firm manner. Start asking yourself every day whether you’re doing something to please someone else or because you really want to do it.

It takes practice, but you will get there. No matter what you are struggling with now, you can reclaim your life and your power after being abused by a narcissist. In fact, you can thrive.

Source: though catalogue

[megatentious]

Majin Tensei 2 and Shin Megami Tensei If… let’s talk about them

This past year saw the fan translation release of two 16-bit Megaten games, Shin Megami Tensei If… (lord help me if I need to type this ellipsis every time) and Majin Tensei 2. I am maybe the only person who decided to play through both of these games for the first time in English in one year, and so maybe it will be instructive to see how these two series black sheep (can you call a game a black sheep if no one has actually played it?) fit together in the context of the larger franchise. Or maybe this is just an ungainly excuse to cobble together months-old observations into blog content. Let’s find out!!

Both of these games come from a period when Atlus was still trying to figure things out from a game design perspective, testing how much they could push their console audience with PC dungeon crawler inspirations. There were no compunctions at this point about making unforgiving design choices, even in their crowning achievement mainline series games. Sometimes this worked, like the lack of guidance in Shin Megami Tensei 1 leading to perfectly tuned feelings of lonely exploration. Sometimes this didn’t quite work, like the tedious backtracking and brutally untelegraphed stat skill check requirements of Shin Megami Tensei 2. “Getting Megaten’d” is a message board expression meant to describe the sudden game overs that can occur in this series after hours of play, so it’s not as if unforgiving punishment is something that has been eradicated from the more modern games. But there’s a reason even many Megafans (yes i just said megafans, please deal with that) refuse to play anything in this franchise that released before the Playstation 2, and it’s because of choices that are perceived as promoting tedium and time-wasting. We’ve seen how this can affect their big marquis mainline successes, but what happens when you apply these principles to dicier spinoffs? Well…

Majin Tensei 2 is at least, quite conceptually ambitious. Spanning numerous worlds and time periods, showcasing political intrigue and explicitly defined characters with varying motivations, five distinct endings across light-dark and law-chaos axes, hidden events that depend on how many turns you take and which demons you have in your party, there is a lot (too much!) to keep track of. There are ideas in Majin Tensei that pre-sage much of what makes up Devil Survivor, from demon races with differing map skills to introducing demon fusion to a strategy RPG space that was mainly just Shining Force and Front Mission. In practice though, what you do repeatedly in Majin Tensei 2 is slowly s l o w l y clear fifty plus maps, maps that will occasionally provide fun challenges, but more often that not will repeat large not particularly memorable landmasses with simply hellish amounts of monsters. Seriously look at this screenshot I took, this is less than one third of the map!

There’s a reason that so many volunteer debuggers dropped out during playtesting, and there is a reason that 100% of the ones who persevered used fast forwarding emulation features to finish. This is because Majin Tensei 2’s sluggishness can be linked to the infamous Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. problem, S.T.E.A.M. being a largely unloved Intelligent Systems strategy game on 3DS that was raked over the coals in reviews for allowing enemy phases to go on for inordinate amounts of time. Majin Tensei 2 does that game one better by allowing literal minutes and minutes to pass as each enemy decides its action one by one. Do you remember that map in the screenshot above? Imagine twice as many enemies as that taking 10 seconds each to complete their own turn. Majin Tensei 2 makes it clear that you are absolutely not supposed to kill every enemy, through turn limit bonuses and appeals to your general sanity. But that still doesn’t stop the game from dumping demons haphazardly across each map in the manner of someone pounding the bottom of a trashcan to make sure every piece of refuse has tumbled out. So even if you are trying to be efficient, with each passing turn you’re going to be dealing with plenty of downtime.

So yes, the game is cruel. Just to take one example, Majin Tensei 2 spends the whole game teaching you that you need to keep someone tough at your home base even if you think you are safe, since at any moment some sort of aerial demon can sweep in from 12 spaces across the map to occupy it and end your game. And then in one level 40 chapters or so in, the game will punish you for keeping anyone behind at your home base by spawning multiple inaccessible dragon type demons who will one shot anyone who was trying to hold down the fort no matter what (did I mention that this game has instant permadeath for all demons and instant game over for any of your five human characters, five humans whom you cannot possibly level up sufficiently to all be able to survive multiple demon attacks?). Majin Tensei 2 is willing to mess with you to the extent that it absolutely wants you to cheat. After all, this is a game that in 1995, allowed you to save after every turn, which is another way of the designers telling you that savestate abuse (or in my case, copious use of the rewind button) is built into the design.

So why put up with this sort of nonsense? Well, for one, you’re dealing with the atmosphere of a 16-bit Atlus game, a combination of visuals, sound design, music and tone that is simply unlike anything else in the industry. And there is absolutely satisfaction to be found in slowly conquering the game’s maps. But those who scoff at something like, say, Soul Hackers, will find this game absolutely impenetrable, which likely means it will only ever be played through by advance Megatenists (okay i changed it to this, are you happy). Majin Tensei 2 tries to do quite a bit, switching up much even from its direct predecessor, and the play experience ends up suffering despite the ambition.

SMT If in comparion, well … If is by far the least ambitious game in the series to date. While Majin Tensei 2 lavishes you with cool unique digitized photo backgrounds, an extraordinary soundtrack with lengthy moody electronica from the late great Hidehito Aoki, and spectacular boss sprites, SMT if reuses all the most drab and uninspired wall textures from its predecessors, and offers absolutely nothing in terms of new music. Worse yet, many of the reused tracks have somehow depreciated in the conversion. Listen to the offkey shrillness of the iconic Ginza music here , seriously what did they do to it!?. If does feature some lovely new boss sprites, showcasing demons from rarer mythologies that were never again revisited (where are all my Persians at ATLUS???), but even some of the best of these are hidden in new game plus routes the average player will likely never see. The general fugliness of the overall game and relentless asset reuse gives the whole experience a very unfortunate rom-hack feel, and though it’s not hard to figure out why the game ended up this way (it was cranked out less than 9 months after SMT2) it doesn’t make things better.

I should note one important item here, however, and that is that the PSX version renders almost all of these complaints obsolete. It’s the version I first played actually, stumbling through the first few hours untranslated during a Japanese PS+ trial period. The PSX version not only offers very dramatic visual upgrades and some excellent needed remixes, there is a small measure of kindness built in for the player through the game’s Easy Mode. It’s only in this mode for whatever reason that Atlus offers a design “solution” for the most infamous portion of the game, a dungeon in which you are required to wait for hours of lunar cycles in order for students to dig your path forward. In Easy Mode the time requirement is halved for you. Behold the design advancements of the 32-bit era!

If is generally an odd game in the context of the series. There is a type of person out there who likes to call this game Persona Zero, and for people who have played the Snow Queen route of Persona One I can see why the comparison is made. But despite the initial high school setting and pseudo-selectable party members, it still feels strange and off-putting to play a Shin Megami Tensei game with almost no meaningful narrative choices (routes here are essentially locked in at the start). Guardians are seen as proto-Personas, but in this game they are earned only through dying and are associated with combinations of stat augments and skill lists that are frequently at odds with each other. What you end up with is a system that is interesting conceptually (should I die to gain useful spells at the cost of my current stats?) but unworkable in practice (it is almost never worth the steep steep battle count cost to experiment). The seven deadly sins theming is sometimes used to inform the map design and dungeon concept, but again more often than not these concepts simply lead to unfortunate tedium for the player (shout out to the final dungeon of Reiko’s route though, which very brilliantly mashes together traditional SMT dungeon design and a thematically cool map floor I won’t spoil for you).

If we look at SMT If through the prism of 16-bit Atlus design principles, having the foundation of SMT1 and 2 to work from should in theory have led the developers to refine their decisions in ways that ought to have helped the player experience. Instead, the game makes bold choices that result in remarkably less fun. For example, If understands that guns were ludicrously over-powered in 1 and 2, and tries to course correct by … making it much more tedious for the player to use guns? Bullets now cost money and can only be bought by slowly ticking up the counter to 99 one click at a time, with each bundle purchase of 99 filling up a limited inventory slot. The encounter rate is as insane as usual, Estoma takes a little bit more time to get than usual, and the game’s economy does not afford you that many useful things to spend money on in terms of equipment. Combine these three aspects of the game and every player invariable ends up large quantities of makka on hand to spend on bullets to your hearts content, and given that bullets are still far and away the best way to dispatch groups of enemies, you’ll find yourself engaging in this tedium in order to play the game efficiently.

I’ve spent a lot of time repeating the word tedium in these observations, and it’s unfortunate that this is the main takeaway most players will get from playing these two games. Both SMT If and Majin Tensei 2 devise interesting systems and then execute them as grimly as possible from a playability standpoint. There are aspects of true unique accomplishment in both games (Majin Tensei 2 has the funniest demon negotiation dialogue in the entire franchise! SMT If’s final dungeon really is super cool!) but the kind of player who is willing to experience them is essentially a rounding error. I don’t have any regret at all that I played through each of them in their entirety (FYI Majin Tensei 2 is longer than Dragon Quest 7 or Persona 5 and SMT If has a new game plus with all new dungeons that increase difficulty and dullness), but I might understand if you have regret. Then again who knows, you made it to the end of this aimless and dull writeup so maybe these games will be right up your alley! Be sure to let me know!!!

[anyatra]

9 Things People Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because You’ve Been Abused By A Narcissist

1. Constantly doubting your self-worth. Where once you were self-confident and assured, you are now in people-pleasing mode. Your friends and family notice that you are always on edge, doubting your strengths and experiences. You’re constantly explaining yourself, deflecting compliments or evading opportunities to shine. You obsess over whether you’re worthy, attractive, appealing or desirable enough. You begin to wonder if you’re the one who’s toxic and abusive when you start reacting to the abuse (after all, narcissists are prone to projecting their own behavior and calling us narcissists as a defense mechanism). You start to think that you must be the problem if you’re being treated in such a horrendous manner. This sort of self-blame is common after abuse, but it is one that is rooted in the effects of trauma, not reality. 2. Questioning your ability to make the right decisions or perceive reality correctly. Narcissists are masters of warping our reality and inviting us to play in their funhouse (more like torture chamber) of distortions, falsehoods, smoke and mirrors. When you’ve been gaslighted for so long into believing that what you’re experiencing isn’t real, you doubt whether you’re even perceiving your own reality correctly. You second-guess your decisions and feel a tremendous amount of conflict about doing what’s right for you versus what you’ve been conditioned to do for the narcissist. You develop a sense of cognitive dissonance (conflicting thoughts and feelings) about the toxic relationship as well as other major facets of your life. 3. Chasing after toxic people. The more toxicity a narcissistic partner brings into your life, the more likely you’ll gravitate towards people who subject you to similar trials. It’s because you’ve been subconsciously programmed to abusive behavior as a new normal. As a result, you might have a very distorted perception about what healthy behavior actually entails. Instead of searching for healthier alternatives, those who have been abused by narcissists try to “search for a rescuer” but wind up encountering more people who are toxic. These experiences can compound the trauma you’ve experienced. It can mirror the self-sabotaging beliefs the narcissist has trained us to believe in. It perpetuates the vicious cycle. When we feel alone and abandoned, we’re less likely to know we deserve better. 4. Self-sabotaging. Narcissists program you to self-destruct. They subject you to cruel insults, harsh put-downs, subtle sabotage and taunt you with perceived flaws, manufactured insecurities and a hyperfocus on your shortcomings. By doing this, they commit covert murder with clean hands. You’re so taken aback by their attacks that you suffer from anxiety about your competence, your skill sets and even your God-given talents. Why? Because the narcissist has convinced you that all your strengths are actually weaknesses. They do this on purpose to rob you of your sense of confidence and independence. Once you believe all the cruel things they say about you, you’ll start to sabotage yourself in the areas you naturally flourish in. When you catch yourself sabotaging yourself or engaging in negative self-talk, always ask yourself, “Do I really believe this about myself? Or is this what the narcissist wants me to believe?” 5. Being people-pleasing and perfectionistic. Every time the narcissist criticized you, they planted seeds of self-doubt which burgeoned into full-blown insecurities after the relationship ended. You did everything to please your abuser to gain their approval or even just a moment of peace from their crazymaking. So it’s no surprise that when the relationship has ended, the pattern of trying to please people remained. People-pleasing and perfectionism are survival mechanisms that developed early on so that you could try to ward off any form of violence (be it physical or emotional). So long as the abuser approved of you (even just temporarily), you felt in the clear. The challenge in the aftermath is to become the observer of your perfectionistic tendencies as well as your habit of people-pleasing. Instead of judging these habits, mindfully observe your thoughts and feelings whenever you’re tempted to do something that is not authentic to who you really are. Ask yourself, “Why am I really doing this? What do I think I have to gain?” Examine the root of each compulsion as it arises and find a healthier alternative that honors what you really want and what you desire. To start overcoming needless perfectionism, start to self-validate and approve of yourself. When you’ve done something well, give yourself some healthy praise instead of waiting for someone else to validate it for you. Habits can be hard to break, but new habits can form to replace destructive ones. 6. Withdrawing from others and isolating yourself. Abusers isolate you so you begin to isolate yourself as well. The narcissist is so charming and likeable that they are able to depict themselves as the sane ones while they provoke their victims into becoming unhinged. With a perceived lack of support from others, you start to feel as if you have no one there to help you. Your body, mind and spirit is reeling from the trauma and is trying to process it. Although a period of hibernation is normal after abuse and sometimes much needed to begin the healing process, don’t isolate yourself from professional support or validating people who understand what you’re going through. Reach out to those who can help you, those who’ve been there and those who have a solid understanding of what narcissistic abuse feels like. 7. Falling into abuse amnesia. When the narcissist tells you they miss you, you’ll start to romanticize the relationship. When the narcissist shows good behavior, you’ll be tempted to fall into “abuse amnesia” as a coping strategy and rationalize that they were good, upstanding partners all along. You might fall prey to their “hoovering” attempts to get you back into the abusive relationship. To counter abuse amnesia, it’s important to have a list of abusive incidents or at the very least, behaviors you experienced with this person. This will help you to reconnect to the reality of the abuse and keep you grounded in what you experienced. Confiding in a therapist and/or a trustworthy friend can also help to increase social accountability; when you find yourself rewriting the abuse, they’ll be there to help you get back on track and remind you of what you’re not missing out on. 8. Protecting your abuser. Being abused means that we become trauma-bonded to the abuser. This is very much like Stockholm Syndrome; we were taken emotionally “hostage” by this predator and we’ve learned how to protect them, defend them and cater to them in order to survive. That is why survivors often feel compelled to talk about how happy the relationship is, even when they are suffering behind closed doors. That is also why survivors of narcissists may not come forward right away to friends and family members about the abuse; they fear that they are overreacting, too sensitive, or imagining things, just like the abuser has told them. Even after you break free of a narcissist, you might still be prone to protecting the abuser’s image at the risk of your own welfare. This can manifest in many different ways, from the major to the minor. You might refuse to cooperate with law enforcement on revealing the details of abuse or become argumentative with loved ones who call out the abuse for what it is. You might refuse to get an order of protection even if the narcissist is stalking or harassing you, for fear of retaliation as well as a warped sense of loyalty you developed to the narcissist during the relationship. When fighting the urge to protect the abuser, remember that the abuser never protected you. They never protected you from the pain they inflicted upon you or the consequences that came with it. Your only duty after leaving an abusive relationship is to protect yourself, first and foremost. 9. Having a warped sense of boundaries. One of the effects of being abused is that our boundaries become extremely malleable. We’re more compelled to say “yes” to things we desperately want to say “no” to. We’ve lost our sense of agency and control over our lives, so it takes time to rebuild our boundaries and reclaim our power. It helps to remember your basic human rights after you’ve been violated. These include the right to say no, the right to protest unfair behavior or mistreatment, and the right to feel angry and express it non-abusively. You can also create a list of emotional and physical boundaries you commit to honoring in the future with any relationship or friendship. These are customized to your needs can include boundaries like, “I don’t tolerate anyone lying to me” and “I don’t respond to threats or ultimatums.” Take small steps to practice your new boundaries and follow through with them. When a toxic person tries to put you down, stand up for yourself in whatever way you can – even if it just means walking away from the interaction. Being assertive doesn’t always require a grand gesture – it just requires your willingness to prioritize your safety and wellbeing. When a friend tries to take advantage of you, start calling them out – even if it’s just in a polite but firm manner. Start asking yourself every day whether you’re doing something to please someone else or because you really want to do it. It takes practice, but you will get there. No matter what you are struggling with now, you can reclaim your life and your power after being abused by a narcissist. In fact, you can thrive.

[tfrohock]

The joys of partisanship, or how rage brings happiness

I happen to belong to an organization that views their own elected leaders as trusted servants. One of the maxims of this philosophical outlook on leadership stems from the idea that each person must put principles before personalities. Rather than finger-pointing and exacerbating problems, the leaders, or trusted servants if you will, are supposed to work through a series of improving compromises in order to find practical solutions to the problems facing the organization.

It sounds easy. But having served in various capacities as a trusted servant in this organization, I can tell you from experience that putting aside one’s ego to work toward the betterment of a particular group of people—all of whom have highly diverse interests and interpretations of those guiding principles—can be a balancing act worthy of any high wire. Sometimes, it’s necessary to disappoint one faction in order to protect the organization as a whole.

However, and this is the part that will test any leader’s mettle, it is also the trusted servants’ job to bring people together, especially when one faction feels they were slighted or left out of a decision. It’s a matter of bringing people together rather than driving them apart, and that takes tact, patience, and respect.

This is, ideally, how our democracy is supposed to work. Each city, county, state in the U.S. elects leaders whose main responsibility is to the people, which essentially makes them trusted servants. These trusted servants are supposed work for the betterment of the city, county, state, not just the red/right or blue/left side, so that theoretically, while various sections of the country fall solidly into either red or blue, it’s the job of our trusted servants to see the country in shades of purple.

The idea of politicians intent on manipulating partisan rage in order to maintain positions of power is not new by any means. Aldous Huxley noted identical attitudes in his psychological analysis of an incident at Loudun in 1634, when a group of nuns were allegedly victims of demonic possession in The Devils of Loudun (1952). Huxley writes:

“There are many people for whom hate and rage pay a higher dividend of immediate satisfaction than love. Congenitally aggressive, they soon become adrenalin addicts, deliberately indulging in their ugliest passions for the sake of the ‘kick’ they derive from their physically stimulated endocrines. Knowing that one self-assertion always ends by evoking other and hostile self-assertions, they sedulously cultivate their truculence. And, sure enough, very soon, they find themselves in the thick of a fight. But a fight is what they most enjoy; for it is while they are fighting that their blood chemistry makes them feel most intensely themselves. ‘Feeling good,’ they naturally assume that they are good. Adrenalin addiction is rationalized as Righteous Indignation and finally, like the prophet Jonah, they are convinced unshakably, that they do well to be angry …

“…The untutored egotist merely wants what he wants. Give him a religious education, and it becomes obvious to him, it becomes axiomatic, that what he wants is what God wants, that his cause is the cause of whatever he may happen to regard as the True Church and that any compromise is a metaphysical Munich, an appeasement of Radical Evil …

“… Partisan loyalty is socially disastrous; but for individuals it can be richly rewarding—more rewarding, in many ways, than even concupiscence or avarice … Because they do these things for the sake of a group which is, by definition, good and even sacred, they can admire themselves and loathe their neighbors, they can seek power and money, can enjoy the pleasures of aggression and cruelty, not merely without feeling guilty, but with a positive glow of conscious virtue. Loyalty to their group transforms these pleasant vices into acts of heroism. Partisans are aware of themselves, not as sinners or criminals, but as altruists and idealists. And with certain qualifications, this is in fact what they are. The only trouble is that their altruism is merely egotism at one remove, and that the ideal, for which they are ready in many cases to lay down their lives, is nothing but the rationalization of corporate interests and party passions.”

Which essentially describes all the hand-waving hysterics we’re seeing from the extremists in our government today. These politicians work hard to stir self-righteous anger, because self-righteous anger feels good. And don’t get me wrong, anger can be the motivator that jettisons us out of complacency, but only when that the anger fits the offence and is directed toward redressing the wrong.

Manufactured anger designed to disguise egoism is more rewarding for extremists and enables them to avoid compromise. The situation at the border is a good example. Rather than discuss the influx of migrants as a humanitarian crisis, which it is, extremists paint the issue as an invasion. The former requires a nuanced remedy that will take time and patience to implement while the latter is framed in overly simplistic terms of “build a wall,” which over the long term will suck more money and resources than a more thoughtful solution to deal with the root causes of migration.

When they don’t get their way, extremists happily use their rage to paint the opposing party in shades of “Radical Evil,” especially if the opposing party is a woman or BIPOC, because the implication that women and BIPOC are evil is already well-seeded in the public mind. A mere sprinkling of triggering words adds wicked designs to the extremists’ target. If murder by character assassination were a crime, all the extremists in Congress would be in jail right now.

Meanwhile, the press delivers all this pomp and circumstance with the same gusto as a reality TV show films its contestants back-biting at one another, and somewhere, lost in all this, are we the people—half of whom are convinced they are experts on political science because they read an article on the Internet, and the other half desperately trying to survive in an increasingly hostile world. No wonder we’re all on medication.

Unfortunately, we the people bear a certain amount of responsibility for this mess, because we fall for the click-baity links and use the social media water-cooler of our choice to further poison the well of algorithms. This, in turn, sends the extremists to the front of everyone’s pages so that we’re all assaulted on a daily basis with the latest rage-scream from the party’s current list of grandstanding intellectually challenged adrenalin addicts.

The solution is to break the cycle of abuse, and we the people have the power to change our country. We need to focus more on electing people who have a desire to seek compromise and solutions, rather than adrenaline addicts whose only cause is to exacerbate rage and anger so they can reap the rewards of money and power. Listen carefully to the candidates and know that if they are offering quick remedies or screaming about perceived slights, they are snake-oil salesmen and hucksters.

It’s time we take responsibility for our future and demand better from our candidates and ourselves. We need to ask ourselves: Is the person offering a practical solution, or are they simply trying to pick a fight?

Then we have to decide whether or not we want extremists to control our country. If the answer is no, it’s time to temper our anger and begin a legitimate search for trusted servants.

[foursprout-blog]

9 Things People Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because You’ve Been Abused By A Narcissist

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/9-things-people-dont-realize-youre-doing-because-youve-been-abused-by-a-narcissist/

9 Things People Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because You’ve Been Abused By A Narcissist

Aaron Anderson

1. Constantly doubting your self-worth. Where once you were self-confident and assured, you are now in people-pleasing mode. Your friends and family notice that you are always on edge, doubting your strengths and experiences. You’re constantly explaining yourself, deflecting compliments or evading opportunities to shine. You obsess over whether you’re worthy, attractive, appealing or desirable enough. You begin to wonder if you’re the one who’s toxic and abusive when you start reacting to the abuse (after all, narcissists are prone to projecting their own behavior and calling us narcissists as a defense mechanism). You start to think that you must be the problem if you’re being treated in such a horrendous manner. This sort of self-blame is common after abuse, but it is one that is rooted in the effects of trauma, not reality.

2. Questioning your ability to make the right decisions or perceive reality correctly. Narcissists are masters of warping our reality and inviting us to play in their funhouse (more like torture chamber) of distortions, falsehoods, smoke and mirrors. When you’ve been gaslighted for so long into believing that what you’re experiencing isn’t real, you doubt whether you’re even perceiving your own reality correctly. You second-guess your decisions and feel a tremendous amount of conflict about doing what’s right for you versus what you’ve been conditioned to do for the narcissist. You develop a sense of cognitive dissonance (conflicting thoughts and feelings) about the toxic relationship as well as other major facets of your life.

3. Chasing after toxic people. The more toxicity a narcissistic partner brings into your life, the more likely you’ll gravitate towards people who subject you to similar trials. It’s because you’ve been subconsciously programmed to abusive behavior as a new normal. As a result, you might have a very distorted perception about what healthy behavior actually entails.

Instead of searching for healthier alternatives, those who have been abused by narcissists try to “search for a rescuer” but wind up encountering more people who are toxic. These experiences can compound the trauma you’ve experienced. It can mirror the self-sabotaging beliefs the narcissist has trained us to believe in. It perpetuates the vicious cycle. When we feel alone and abandoned, we’re less likely to know we deserve better.

4. Self-sabotaging. Narcissists program you to self-destruct. They subject you to cruel insults, harsh put-downs, subtle sabotage and taunt you with perceived flaws, manufactured insecurities and a hyperfocus on your shortcomings. By doing this, they commit covert murder with clean hands. You’re so taken aback by their attacks that you suffer from anxiety about your competence, your skill sets and even your God-given talents.

Why? Because the narcissist has convinced you that all your strengths are actually weaknesses. They do this on purpose to rob you of your sense of confidence and independence. Once you believe all the cruel things they say about you, you’ll start to sabotage yourself in the areas you naturally flourish in. When you catch yourself sabotaging yourself or engaging in negative self-talk, always ask yourself, “Do I really believe this about myself? Or is this what the narcissist wants me to believe?”

5. Being people-pleasing and perfectionistic. Every time the narcissist criticized you, they planted seeds of self-doubt which burgeoned into full-blown insecurities after the relationship ended. You did everything to please your abuser to gain their approval or even just a moment of peace from their crazymaking. So it’s no surprise that when the relationship has ended, the pattern of trying to please people remained. People-pleasing and perfectionism are survival mechanisms that developed early on so that you could try to ward off any form of violence (be it physical or emotional). So long as the abuser approved of you (even just temporarily), you felt in the clear.

The challenge in the aftermath is to become the observer of your perfectionistic tendencies as well as your habit of people-pleasing. Instead of judging these habits, mindfully observe your thoughts and feelings whenever you’re tempted to do something that is not authentic to who you really are.

Ask yourself, “Why am I really doing this? What do I think I have to gain?” Examine the root of each compulsion as it arises and find a healthier alternative that honors what you really want and what you desire. To start overcoming needless perfectionism, start to self-validate and approve of yourself. When you’ve done something well, give yourself some healthy praise instead of waiting for someone else to validate it for you. Habits can be hard to break, but new habits can form to replace destructive ones.

6. Withdrawing from others and isolating yourself. Abusers isolate you so you begin to isolate yourself as well. The narcissist is so charming and likeable that they are able to depict themselves as the sane ones while they provoke their victims into becoming unhinged. With a perceived lack of support from others, you start to feel as if you have no one there to help you. Your body, mind and spirit is reeling from the trauma and is trying to process it.

Although a period of hibernation is normal after abuse and sometimes much needed to begin the healing process, don’t isolate yourself from professional support or validating people who understand what you’re going through. Reach out to those who can help you, those who’ve been there and those who have a solid understanding of what narcissistic abuse feels like.

7. Falling into abuse amnesia. When the narcissist tells you they miss you, you’ll start to romanticize the relationship; when the narcissists shows good behavior, you’ll be tempted to fall into “abuse amnesia” as a coping strategy and rationalize that they were good, upstanding partners all along. You might fall prey to their “hoovering” attempts to get you back into the abusive relationship.

To counter abuse amnesia, it’s important to have a list of abusive incidents or at the very least, behaviors you experienced with this person. This will help you to reconnect to the reality of the abuse and keep you grounded in what you experienced. Confiding in a therapist and/or a trustworthy friend can also help to increase social accountability; when you find yourself rewriting the abuse, they’ll be there to help you get back on track and remind you of what you’re not missing out on.

8. Protecting your abuser. Being abused means that we become trauma-bonded to the abuser. This is very much like Stockholm Syndrome; we were taken emotionally “hostage” by this predator and we’ve learned how to protect them, defend them and cater to them in order to survive. That is why survivors often feel compelled to talk about how happy the relationship is, even when they are suffering behind closed doors.

That is also why survivors of narcissists may not come forward right away to friends and family members about the abuse; they fear that they are overreacting, too sensitive, or imagining things, just like the abuser has told them. Even after you break free of a narcissist, you might still be prone to protecting the abuser’s image at the risk of your own welfare.

This can manifest in many different ways, from the major to the minor. You might refuse to cooperate with law enforcement on revealing the details of abuse or become argumentative with loved ones who call out the abuse for what it is. You might refuse to get an order of protection even if the narcissist is stalking or harassing you, for fear of retaliation as well as a warped sense of loyalty you developed to the narcissist during the relationship.

When fighting the urge to protect the abuser, remember that the abuser never protected you. They never protected you from the pain they inflicted upon you or the consequences that came with it. Your only duty after leaving an abusive relationship is to protect yourself, first and foremost.

9. Having a porous sense of boundaries. One of the effects of being abused is that our boundaries become extremely malleable. We’re more compelled to say “yes” to things we desperately want to say “no” too. We’ve lost our sense of agency and control over our lives, so it takes time to rebuild our boundaries and reclaim our power. It helps to remember your basic human rights after you’ve been violated. These include the right to say no, the right to protest unfair behavior or mistreatment, and the right to feel angry and express it non-abusively. 

You can also create a list of emotional and physical boundaries you commit to honoring in the future with any relationship or friendship. These are customized to your needs can include boundaries like, “I don’t tolerate anyone lying to me” and “I don’t respond to threats or ultimatums.”

Take small steps to practice your new boundaries and follow through with them. When a toxic person tries to put you down, stand up for yourself in whatever way you can – even if it just means walking away from the interaction. Being assertive doesn’t always require a grand gesture – it just requires your willingness to prioritize your safety and wellbeing. When a friend tries to take advantage of you, start calling them out – even if it’s just in a polite but firm manner. Start asking yourself every day whether you’re doing something to please someone else or because you really want to do it.

It takes practice, but you will get there. No matter what you are struggling with now, you can reclaim your life and your power after being abused by a narcissist. In fact, you can thrive.

[foursprouthappiness-blog]

9 Things People Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because You’ve Been Abused By A Narcissist

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/9-things-people-dont-realize-youre-doing-because-youve-been-abused-by-a-narcissist/

9 Things People Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because You’ve Been Abused By A Narcissist

Aaron Anderson

1. Constantly doubting your self-worth. Where once you were self-confident and assured, you are now in people-pleasing mode. Your friends and family notice that you are always on edge, doubting your strengths and experiences. You’re constantly explaining yourself, deflecting compliments or evading opportunities to shine. You obsess over whether you’re worthy, attractive, appealing or desirable enough. You begin to wonder if you’re the one who’s toxic and abusive when you start reacting to the abuse (after all, narcissists are prone to projecting their own behavior and calling us narcissists as a defense mechanism). You start to think that you must be the problem if you’re being treated in such a horrendous manner. This sort of self-blame is common after abuse, but it is one that is rooted in the effects of trauma, not reality.

2. Questioning your ability to make the right decisions or perceive reality correctly. Narcissists are masters of warping our reality and inviting us to play in their funhouse (more like torture chamber) of distortions, falsehoods, smoke and mirrors. When you’ve been gaslighted for so long into believing that what you’re experiencing isn’t real, you doubt whether you’re even perceiving your own reality correctly. You second-guess your decisions and feel a tremendous amount of conflict about doing what’s right for you versus what you’ve been conditioned to do for the narcissist. You develop a sense of cognitive dissonance (conflicting thoughts and feelings) about the toxic relationship as well as other major facets of your life.

3. Chasing after toxic people. The more toxicity a narcissistic partner brings into your life, the more likely you’ll gravitate towards people who subject you to similar trials. It’s because you’ve been subconsciously programmed to abusive behavior as a new normal. As a result, you might have a very distorted perception about what healthy behavior actually entails.

Instead of searching for healthier alternatives, those who have been abused by narcissists try to “search for a rescuer” but wind up encountering more people who are toxic. These experiences can compound the trauma you’ve experienced. It can mirror the self-sabotaging beliefs the narcissist has trained us to believe in. It perpetuates the vicious cycle. When we feel alone and abandoned, we’re less likely to know we deserve better.

4. Self-sabotaging. Narcissists program you to self-destruct. They subject you to cruel insults, harsh put-downs, subtle sabotage and taunt you with perceived flaws, manufactured insecurities and a hyperfocus on your shortcomings. By doing this, they commit covert murder with clean hands. You’re so taken aback by their attacks that you suffer from anxiety about your competence, your skill sets and even your God-given talents.

Why? Because the narcissist has convinced you that all your strengths are actually weaknesses. They do this on purpose to rob you of your sense of confidence and independence. Once you believe all the cruel things they say about you, you’ll start to sabotage yourself in the areas you naturally flourish in. When you catch yourself sabotaging yourself or engaging in negative self-talk, always ask yourself, “Do I really believe this about myself? Or is this what the narcissist wants me to believe?”

5. Being people-pleasing and perfectionistic. Every time the narcissist criticized you, they planted seeds of self-doubt which burgeoned into full-blown insecurities after the relationship ended. You did everything to please your abuser to gain their approval or even just a moment of peace from their crazymaking. So it’s no surprise that when the relationship has ended, the pattern of trying to please people remained. People-pleasing and perfectionism are survival mechanisms that developed early on so that you could try to ward off any form of violence (be it physical or emotional). So long as the abuser approved of you (even just temporarily), you felt in the clear.

The challenge in the aftermath is to become the observer of your perfectionistic tendencies as well as your habit of people-pleasing. Instead of judging these habits, mindfully observe your thoughts and feelings whenever you’re tempted to do something that is not authentic to who you really are.

Ask yourself, “Why am I really doing this? What do I think I have to gain?” Examine the root of each compulsion as it arises and find a healthier alternative that honors what you really want and what you desire. To start overcoming needless perfectionism, start to self-validate and approve of yourself. When you’ve done something well, give yourself some healthy praise instead of waiting for someone else to validate it for you. Habits can be hard to break, but new habits can form to replace destructive ones.

6. Withdrawing from others and isolating yourself. Abusers isolate you so you begin to isolate yourself as well. The narcissist is so charming and likeable that they are able to depict themselves as the sane ones while they provoke their victims into becoming unhinged. With a perceived lack of support from others, you start to feel as if you have no one there to help you. Your body, mind and spirit is reeling from the trauma and is trying to process it.

Although a period of hibernation is normal after abuse and sometimes much needed to begin the healing process, don’t isolate yourself from professional support or validating people who understand what you’re going through. Reach out to those who can help you, those who’ve been there and those who have a solid understanding of what narcissistic abuse feels like.

7. Falling into abuse amnesia. When the narcissist tells you they miss you, you’ll start to romanticize the relationship; when the narcissists shows good behavior, you’ll be tempted to fall into “abuse amnesia” as a coping strategy and rationalize that they were good, upstanding partners all along. You might fall prey to their “hoovering” attempts to get you back into the abusive relationship.

To counter abuse amnesia, it’s important to have a list of abusive incidents or at the very least, behaviors you experienced with this person. This will help you to reconnect to the reality of the abuse and keep you grounded in what you experienced. Confiding in a therapist and/or a trustworthy friend can also help to increase social accountability; when you find yourself rewriting the abuse, they’ll be there to help you get back on track and remind you of what you’re not missing out on.

8. Protecting your abuser. Being abused means that we become trauma-bonded to the abuser. This is very much like Stockholm Syndrome; we were taken emotionally “hostage” by this predator and we’ve learned how to protect them, defend them and cater to them in order to survive. That is why survivors often feel compelled to talk about how happy the relationship is, even when they are suffering behind closed doors.

That is also why survivors of narcissists may not come forward right away to friends and family members about the abuse; they fear that they are overreacting, too sensitive, or imagining things, just like the abuser has told them. Even after you break free of a narcissist, you might still be prone to protecting the abuser’s image at the risk of your own welfare.

This can manifest in many different ways, from the major to the minor. You might refuse to cooperate with law enforcement on revealing the details of abuse or become argumentative with loved ones who call out the abuse for what it is. You might refuse to get an order of protection even if the narcissist is stalking or harassing you, for fear of retaliation as well as a warped sense of loyalty you developed to the narcissist during the relationship.

When fighting the urge to protect the abuser, remember that the abuser never protected you. They never protected you from the pain they inflicted upon you or the consequences that came with it. Your only duty after leaving an abusive relationship is to protect yourself, first and foremost.

9. Having a porous sense of boundaries. One of the effects of being abused is that our boundaries become extremely malleable. We’re more compelled to say “yes” to things we desperately want to say “no” too. We’ve lost our sense of agency and control over our lives, so it takes time to rebuild our boundaries and reclaim our power. It helps to remember your basic human rights after you’ve been violated. These include the right to say no, the right to protest unfair behavior or mistreatment, and the right to feel angry and express it non-abusively. 

You can also create a list of emotional and physical boundaries you commit to honoring in the future with any relationship or friendship. These are customized to your needs can include boundaries like, “I don’t tolerate anyone lying to me” and “I don’t respond to threats or ultimatums.”

Take small steps to practice your new boundaries and follow through with them. When a toxic person tries to put you down, stand up for yourself in whatever way you can – even if it just means walking away from the interaction. Being assertive doesn’t always require a grand gesture – it just requires your willingness to prioritize your safety and wellbeing. When a friend tries to take advantage of you, start calling them out – even if it’s just in a polite but firm manner. Start asking yourself every day whether you’re doing something to please someone else or because you really want to do it.

It takes practice, but you will get there. No matter what you are struggling with now, you can reclaim your life and your power after being abused by a narcissist. In fact, you can thrive.