Survivors of domestic abuse involving the psychological components like coercive control are highly like to Google that exact phrase either at the height of the abuse or during the healing process. Many psychologists emphasize though that even in asking that question, you probably aren’t. That leads then though, to several questions.

How do you identify the narcissist? Why do the victims of it believe they are what has victimized them? How do you help others see them?

Let’s break it down.

What is Narcissistic Abuse?

True narcissistic abuse is not a collection of messy arguments or two partners simply being toxic to one another. It is an organized, asymmetric system designed to strip away your physical, mental, and fiscal autonomy.

• One partner controls the physical perimeter, dictates where you are allowed to sleep, and tracks your movements via digital surveillance loops.
• One partner systematically cuts off your lifelines, widening the cracks between you and your closest childhood friends until you are stranded in plain sight.
• One partner deploys an endurance strategy, forcing circular, grueling arguments that stretch until 4:00 AM to deliberately keep you sleep-deprived and neurolgically exhausted.

When a human being is placed inside that type of psychological bottleneck for years, their autonomic nervous system enters a state of permanent survival fatigue. Your brain’s natural defense mechanisms—Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn—become permanently activated.

When you are cornered in an environment you cannot logistically escape, and your system finally overloads, you will lash out. Clinical frameworks classify this explosive self-defense mechanism not as abuse, but as One partner controls the physical perimeter, dictates where you are allowed to sleep, and tracks your movements via digital surveillance loops.

One partner systematically cuts off your lifelines, widening the cracks between you and your closest childhood friends until you are stranded in plain sight.

One partner deploys an endurance strategy, forcing circular, grueling arguments that stretch until 4:00 AM to deliberately keep you sleep-deprived and neurolgically exhausted.

When a human being is placed inside that type of psychological bottleneck for years, their autonomic nervous system enters a state of permanent survival fatigue. Your brain’s natural defense mechanisms—Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn—become permanently activated.

When you are cornered in an environment you cannot logistically escape, and your system finally overloads, you will lash out. Clinical frameworks classify this explosive self-defense mechanism not as abuse, but as Reactive Abuse.

My therapist doesn’t even like that term: reactive abuse. She prefers to have me speak of it as reactions. Anything alive will react to stimulus. We might not like how we reacted, but I strongly encourage you, and it is a process, to work on giving yourself some grace. If someone else had endured what you (or I) have, and had a less than stellar reaction, how much would you really blame them? Or would you instead reassure them, that it is understandable? If you would do it for someone else, why not you?

Reaction, that is why many of us search that question. We lash out after taking abuse, and do things we don’t agree with. We might try harder to look perfect to outsiders because we are trying to conceal the abuse. We might keep arguments going in efforts to communicate out a problem. I know I begged Brandon to seek a psychologist to help him. Sometimes what I did might look like intermittent reinforcement when in actuality it was me trying to please my abuser while in Fawn response and other times retreating. We might become controlling to try and limit our exposure to violence. When we finally escape and are ready to tell our truth, we look like we are putting out a smear campaign. To someone without the training it would be very easy to paint this person into a narcissist. It is why we find ourselves asking.

Here is how you can tell, if you still are questioning. I know I wasted many hours on it.

A narcissist does not sit awake at night experiencing a crushing black hole of self-doubt about whether they are hurting the person they love. The very fact that you possess the psychological capacity to look inward, evaluate your actions, and feel deeply broken by the fact that you lost your composure is the ultimate proof that your empathy is entirely intact.

Identifying them isn’t easy. The best advice I have is look for pattern recognition and resistance to reasonable requests. The resistance often looks like excuses, but don’t accept them so fast. Take time to sit with them.

If you are currently trying to navigate the landmines of an environment that turns your own mind against you, you are not alone. Volume I of Lessons from a Scripted Life is a slim, easily concealable tactical handbook engineered to help survivors decode the mechanics of control and map a secure path to freedom. Look for updates on this book coming soon.