Individual Counseling Can Help: Why We Stay In Relationships With Narcissistic Traits

Getting out of a toxic relationship can be extremely difficult, but individual counseling at Take Charge, Inc can help. People with narcissistic traits are manipulative and often extremely charming. They are easy to fall in love with and skilled at creating bonds that feel very real and unbreakable. They can make you believe that their abuse is your own fault, and that you deserve it. Individual counseling can help you identify their techniques and create healthy boundaries.

Narcissists and other manipulative people use a tactic called “love bombing” to get a partner on the hook. They will shower you with compliments, gifts, and affection, making you feel like the most special person ever. At this stage, the relationship seems like a dream come true. By the time the abuse starts, you are deeply attached and want to maintain that early connection.

Abusers often choose victims who already have low self esteem, but they can chip away at even healthy self esteem until there is barely anything left. A person with low self esteem is likely to deny that they are being abused. Not only to others, but to themselves. Denial doesn’t mean they don’t know what’s happening. It means that they minimize or rationalize the abuse and its impact. They may not even realize it’s really abuse. Individual counseling can help you rebuild self esteem and move forward.

It may help to understand that humans are hardwired to attach for survival. When we develop a bond — even if that bond was artificially created with trauma by an abusive partner — our natural instinct is to maintain that bond even when it hurts. So when a partner does something cruel or violent, we want to believe that it was our own fault. We want to believe that they are really the loving, attentive partner they seem to be while love bombing. If you believe that you did something to provoke their cruelty or violence, then you can feel you have some measure of control and can just not do that thing again.

Psychological abuse is just as harmful as physical abuse, but it’s more difficult to identify because there aren’t physical scars. Unfortunately, manipulative people often know this and use it to their advantage. Gaslighting is a form of abuse in which a narcissistic or sociopathic abuser uses manipulation tactics to make the victim doubt their own experiences and recollection. It is not a one time event, but ongoing and repetitive offenses that make the victim question their perception of reality. This is another way that abusers make their victims believe the abuse is their own fault. Individual counseling can help you see the situation for what it is and make decisions in your own best interest.

If you believe that you or someone you love has narcissistic traits, individual counseling can help you identify the root of the problem and figure out the best course of action to correct or escape it. For more information, call Take Charge, Inc. at (913) 239-8255 or click here to schedule an appointment.