Do you ever wonder why you wind up with narcissistic or abusive toxic people? If you are wondering if you are crazy then wonder no longer because it is not from you being crazy. It is not because there is something inherently wrong with you! It is because of a multitude of things which we will talk about in this post. But one major thing is that narcissists and manipulative people seek after certain traits and you got picked because you have those traits! I know, I know, It is the one time where you do not want to be picked. Narcissists are always looking for people to fill their ego or people that they can control or manipulate. So if you have any of these traits then you are a good candidate for dealing with their abuse.
If you are interested in a more detailed description you can watch my video below but we will briefly go over what makes Narcissists attracted to you.
If you had a narcissistic parent, a mentally ill parent, or an alcoholic parent then dealing with that type of abuse is familiar to you. We as humans always look for familiarity. We are taught that we can’t trust ourselves, we can’t trust others so we go to what we know which is abuse. Also, there is an intense trauma bond that is formed when dealing with abuse and you become addicted to the high after the low. So you will be attracted to people that remind you of these trauma bonds and the intermittent reinforcement.
If you have child wounds of feeling unloved, never nurtured, never feeling good enough or worthy you will then take those wounds into your relationship. Not only will you take it into your relationship but you will seek for others to heal that part of you. We normally look for people that remind us of our parents or the opposite. If you don’t heal your inner wounds then you will seek the approval of people that remind you of your abusive caretakers. Not only that but if you grew up with mistreatment you never learned that this was wrong so you think it is normal and even maybe that it is love.
If you are an empath you feel others’ feelings strongly, you are connected to nature and things impact you more intensely than others. Studies show that most empaths had to take on their abuser’s emotions in childhood to protect themselves and now it is something ingrained in their brain. So with being an empath, you are very compassionate, you want to help people, and take care of others since you feel others feelings so strongly as if it is your own. Now narcissists see that as a tool. They subconsciously know they don’t have it and they want you to take care of them and make them feel important. They know they can manipulate you and control you because of your empathy for others.
You are a people pleaser or a fixer or a giver. When you are codependent, as a child you did not feel validated so in order to feel worthy or validated you would help, people please, or fix to gain that validation. Narcissists are the opposite of codependents. They dealt with something in their childhood but instead of getting validation by helping, they gain validation by manipulating and controlling others. So Narcissists know they can take advantage of you because you lack self-love and you have self-doubt.
Narcissists prey on people who have a low sense of self since they don’t know who they are or people that don’t think highly of themselves. They’re already so low that they want to find someone that equally feels low. It’s easy to manipulate someone that doesn’t know who they are or their worth. They will purposely bring up your issues to make you feel insecure because the worse you feel the less likely you will leave. Narcissists make you feel like you need them and they manipulate you to believe they do it because they care about you. These negative things they tell you, then become your own voice. And it reaffirms that you’ll never do better and you need them.
Part of dealing with past abuse is that you lose trust in yourself. You listen to the self-doubt more than yourself. They teach you not to trust yourself because if you listen to yourself then they have nothing to work with. So like we said earlier if you don’t trust yourself or others then you will go to what’s familiar. And since they constantly gaslight you, belittle you, and make you feel like you are crazy, or teach you not to listen to your intuition, you don’t trust yourself. If you don’t trust yourself then you wind up in the hands of people that will reinforce that belief that you shouldn’t. They will use your past as an example of why you need them and not trust yourself.
We all have intuition. We feel things are either off/right. Sometimes people can mistake insecurity with intuition so because of this and because you were taught self doubt, you will listen to fear rather than intuition. Or you will ignore red flags because of the lack of trust. So you ignore the red flags or you don’t realize they’re red flags. Until later you look back and realize you got caught in ignoring them and listening to self doubt.
The first thing is you want to be aware, educate and look for the signs. Next, what you want to do is learn to trust yourself, don’t listen to that self-doubt! Form a sense of self, who are you? What are your requirements for a partner or friends? Put up boundaries. Boundaries are set to protect ourselves from the things we do not want. Prioritize you. And validate and love yourself first. And last, understand you are not responsible for others’ feelings. That’s where boundaries come into play. Once you love yourself, and take care of yourself and heal these wounds then you are less likely to welcome these types of people.
What do you guys think? Leave it all in the comments below!
