Hello everyone, I hope this month was a serene month despite all the shit that is happening across the world, but that's not the topic of this blog. This blog was born after I discovered a blog I find extremely vital to share or read at least. I was lurking in the artist news section and I saw this blog called Sexual abuse - as an open secret on Newgrounds made by UNCLEREGZ . In the blog I found a Google Document addressing a serious matter concerning a user I didn't know his existence until now but he has quite a following here apparently. I usually don't read Google docs because most of the time they just fuel drama and callouts blogs/journals, but this time my gut feelings told me to read it as I sensed it was important and I'm glad I did it despite it was a very painful read (so take your time to fully read it and in case you are experiencing some elements these victims experienced and this might trigger you mental breakdown, DO NOT continue to read it, your mental health comes first). I asked Uncleregz if I could make this blog because I want to take this opportunity to talk about abusive and toxic relationships especially with narcissistic people or people with narcissistic personality traits. Majority of my knowledge comes from both personal study of these types of relationships and personal experience with some of them. I may change the title of the blog, if I find a better one.

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL, this blog is for educational purposes only and it's not a substitute of therapy. For real help, please consult a health care provider. This blog is meant to educate about trauma-bonding and techniques toxic people use to manipulate others, because I've noticed too many people (especially young ones but adults are not free from that too) are unaware of red flags that come from abusive relationships starting from the extremely dangerous love bombing and friendship bombing. My full support goes to the victims and I have frankly zero empathy of abusers because of personal experience and indirect knowledge from people who fell victim of them, not to mention the scientific literature that shows how toxic relationship can even destroy mirror neurons in victims of abuse. And let me clarify one last but vital thing: ABUSE IS NEVER, AND I REPEAT, NEVER THE FAULT OF THE PERSON BEING ABUSED!

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Abuse: definition

What is abuse? In the context of relationships, abuse is the improper treatment of a person with the aim to gain power and/or control over the person in order to have personal advantage. The intent is to cause harm or exert power over the person who gets abused. It can be hard for many to recognize it because abuse most often comes from someone we know and trust and if a person is already having a difficult time emotionally it’s even harder to realize he/she/they might be suffering from abuse, especially when it starts out in a subtle way and builds over time, such as is common with domestic or child abuse. It’s estimated that one in five people have experienced some form of abuse in their lifetime and one in four women, and one in seven men, will experience severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime (CDC, 2017).

Abuse can take many shapes, in this drawing I did for an old goretober challenge I wanted to depict abuse in a very symbolic way where each leg represents types of abuse:

here you can see a better resolution since the image tends to be ruined when directly posted in a blog:

(Esuba is backwards for Abuse)

Types of abuse include: physical, emotional/verbal, sexual, financial, digital, and stalking.

Physical abuse is meant to hit the body and it doesn't have to cause pain or even leave a mark to be considered abuse.

Emotional/verbal abuse is linked to name-calling, insults, threats, isolating an individual and constant monitoring of whereabouts or behavior. This can include yelling, publicly embarrassing someone, intentionally gaslighting or confusing someone, belittling, threatening to leave or attempt suicide if certain demands aren’t met, starting rumors and controlling or telling someone what to do.

Sexual abuse is about forcing, coercing, or pressuring someone to participate in unwanted sexual activity. This can be a wide range of behaviors including r*pe, unwanted kissing or touching, refusing to use a condom or lying about using a condom, using sexual insults, or having sexual contact with someone who is drunk, under the influence, or drugged.

Financial abuse is very subtle and takes the shape of controlling someone's use of money, using financial pressures or restrictions to control someone’s behaviors or accessing/stealing financial resources or information without a person’s permission.

Digital abuse is a variant of emotional/verbal abuse but occurs in the realm of digital sphere. Social media, texting, e-mails etc. are used as tool to harass, bully, stalk and/or intimidate the person. Online insults, intimidation, starting rumors, sharing personal photos, manipulating personal photos or information, catfishing or impersonating someone online are typical examples of digital abuse.

Stalking can be particularly damaging because many of the techniques used to harass the person are not considered illegal. So stalkers can often cause significant damage to a person’s life and sense of well-being without legal ramifications.

Cycle of abuse

Abuse doesn’t look the same for everyone or in every situation. Even in the same relationship, abusive behaviors can change from time to time and, in some cases, they may appear to cease before they show up again. This is often referred to as the cycle of abuse. The stages of the cycle of abuse may not always happen in the same order, or some of them may not happen in some cases. Abuse can be, and is for many people, without respite

During the tension phase the abusive person may begin to display emotional outbursts, irritability, impatience, and shortness of temper. This is may be related to external stressors like financial difficulties, interpersonal challenges at work or other environments, or health challenges. As the outside world starts to feel more out of control, the abusive person may start to turn to the relationship as a way of feeling in control again. As the tension starts to become evident, the non-abusive person may also feel increasingly anxious. This may lead them to act in specific ways — such as “walking on eggshells” — to ease and appease the abusive partner’s tension and prevent an abusive incident. If you feel that your relationship with a person feels like walking on eggshells, that's a red flag.

After the tension reaches a breaking point, incidents occur. In this stage the abuser attempts to overtly regain a sense of power and control. Intimidations, breaking of things in the home, humiliation, silent treatment, gaslighting, insults, name-calling, financial abuse, emotional abandonment, shaming and blaming are just one of the types of incidents occurring during this phase.

After the incident of abuse, the abusive partner may feel like the tension starts to dissipate. This can be quite the opposite experience for the person who’s on the receiving end of that abuse. Reconciliation begins.

Once that tension has abated, they may feel inclined to make amends for their behavior. They may apologize, shower you with affection, or promise they’ll never do it again. In the Google doc I read I could sense this cycle of abuse especially in the last two cases even if in a more subtle way. This a particularly dangerous because the abuse starts doing things that may seem romantic, supportive, and loving during the reconciliation stage and may even seem genuinely ashamed of their behavior and committed to reform.

From reconciliation we reach calm phase in which the abuser may continue to be attentive; however, the abused person might notice a shift from them being apologetic to now excusing their actions. During this phase abusive behaviors may be minimized. These behaviours occur during calm phase: shifting responsibilities, justification of the behaviour and gaslighting

This stage can feel confusing. Your partner seemed to want to make things right, but there’s now an underlying tone of dismissal you just can’t put your finger on. After a while, you may start experiencing tension again, as the cycle of abuse starts once more (1).

Dangerous tools: love bombing/friendship bombing

I mentioned these two terms in my disclaimer, but what are they? They are a form of manipulative behaviour where someone “bombs” their partner with extreme displays of affection and attention, only to later do a 180, becoming distant and possibly cruel, leaving the victim agonizing over how they can get back to the “bombing” stage. Love bombing occurs in romantic relationships, friendship bombing happens in friendship ones and typically occur in the early stages of a relationship when the narcissist, or the toxic person in general, is trying to win over their partner (it's mostly used by narcissists but it's not limited to them). I discovered the existence of the latter from personal experience and it's very dangerous and subtle as it starts out nice to end up badly, very badly. The core nature of both love bombing and friendship bombing is IDD: Idealization, Devaluation and Discard. I've noticed this pattern reading the Google doc, especially in the last case.

The intense affection and attention create a strong bond which leads to idealization, where the partner is placed on a pedestal and a deep sense of connection is established. It's not that different from what many politicians do, they put on a pedestal the voters and their need in order to gain power, and I'm not surprised since a good chunk of them is a narcissist or has narcissistic personality traits. Gradually, the narcissist will begin to devalue their partner, becoming critical, degrading, and distant. This cycle often culminates in a discard where the narcissist abruptly ends the relationship with little explanation, maybe even disappearing (ghosting).

In some cases, the narcissist might engage in “hoovering,” which involves attempting to draw the partner back into the relationship through love bombing and promises of change. Don't fall for it, they will never change, because if the abused person returns to the relationship, the cycle often repeats itself, only to end in eventual devaluation and discard.

How does love/friendship bombing manifest?

Usually in the shape of excessive communication, lavish gifts, future plans (future faking), or execute grand romantic gestures to make their partner feel special. The goal is to create a sense of deep connection and dependency, making the partner more vulnerable to the narcissist’s manipulation and control tactics as the relationship progresses.

In this study made by by Day, Townsend, and Grenyer (2021) on the interpersonal dysfunction within narcissistic relationships, participants described the pattern of interactions with their partners (2):

“Our early relationship felt like a fairy tale; I’d never been adored and idealized before and was totally sucked in. [He] was very charming in the beginning. He pursued me hard and fast and I didn’t quite know what was happening…He complimented me, put me on a pedestal, and told me he loved me really early on in the game. I was flattered.”

Usually love bombing and friendship bombing last four up to six weeks before turning into the abuse cycle, BUT they can last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months or even a year. 

In a survey conducted among 500 individuals who experienced love bombing from their partners estimated that the average duration of the love bombing phase is five-and-a-half months with narcissistic men and three-and-a-half months with narcissistic women. The maximum duration of the love bombing phase reported in the survey was six months (3).

After the idealization phase ends, problems arise with the devaluation stage. The abuser will become critical, dismissive, and potentially even emotionally or verbally abusive towards their partner. The narcissist may also use manipulative tactics, such as gaslighting or blame-shifting, to control the partner’s emotions and behavior. The affection and intimacy that were abundant during the love bombing phase start to diminish, leaving the partner feeling isolated and unloved. This abrupt shift can be deeply hurtful and confusing for the partner, who may struggle to understand where the relationship went wrong. 

After this, discard is the last stage of love/friendship bombing. When the victim no longer serves a purpose or holds value for the narcissist, or when the narcissist has found a new source of attention or validation, they often will discard their victim. During the discard phase of the narcissistic love pattern, the narcissist might abruptly end the relationship or pull away emotionally. 

Hoovering may happen instead of discard or after discard. What is it? It's a manipulative attempt to draw the partner back into the relationship after the devaluation (or discard) phase. They may use manipulation, guilt-tripping, promises of change, or even renewed love/friendship bombing to regain the partner’s attention and control.

Warning signs of love/friendship bombing

• Showering you with intense and immediate affection, compliments, and attention right from the start of the relationship
• Talking about deep commitment, future plans, and being in love within a short period of knowing you
• Constantly contacting you, whether through text, calls, or social media (and becoming upset if you don’t respond immediately)
• Telling you that you are perfect or the best thing that has ever happened to them
• Showing signs of extreme jealousy 
• Isolating you from your friends, family, or other relationships to make you more dependent on them
• Presenting you with lavish gifts, extravagant outings, and other grand gestures

And now I would like to give you some advice on things to pay attention within yourself. When dealing with potential love bombing or manipulative behavior, paying attention to your own feelings, thoughts, and reactions is crucial for maintaining your emotional well-being and making informed decisions.

If you experience intense highs and lows in your emotions due to the relationship, feel smothered or overwhelmed by your partner/friend, feel obligated to spend time with them or to reply to every message immediately, spend less time with friends and family, feel pressured to commit or make decisions before you’re ready, feel overly dependent on your partner emotionally, financially, or otherwise (codependency), constantly try to meet their expectations, change your habits, interests, or values to align more with theirs, seek support from a trusted friend, family member, or mental health professional as soon as possible!

Why do they use it?

To secured the partner’s emotional attachment and dependence or better co-dependence, and to inflate their sense of self-worth, perception of their own self (which are both very fragile and weak) as the positive reactions from their targets feed their ego and emphasize their belief that they are exceptional.

Codependency

Codependency is a relationship dynamic where one person excessively relies on another for emotional support, often sacrificing their own needs in the process. This can lead to unhealthy patterns, where one individual enables the other's self-destructive behaviors, such as addiction or irresponsibility. Because of the lack of formal definition, codependency has not been included as a condition in any edition of the DSM or ICD. The codependent person's sense of purpose within a relationship is based on making extreme sacrifices to satisfy their partner's needs. Codependent relationships signify a degree of unhealthy "clinginess" and needy behavior, where one person does not have self-sufficiency or autonomy. One or both parties depend on their loved one for fulfillment (4).

Abusive person's best friends: silent treatment, gaslighting, and trauma bonding

The abuser uses many techniques to better manipulate the person they targeted for their abuse cycle and some of them are: silent treatment, gaslighting and trauma bonding.

-Silent treatment

Silent treatment is the refusal to communicate with someone who is trying to communicate and elicit a response. It may range from just sulking to malevolent abusive controlling behaviour. It may be a passive-aggressive form of emotional abuse in which displeasure, disapproval and contempt is exhibited through nonverbal gestures while maintaining verbal silence (5).

It is a form of attention seeking behavior and can generate desired responses, such as attention, or a feeling of power from creating uncertainty for the victim. Unfortunately, the avoidance of conflict in the form of silent treatment is psychologically exhausting for all involved parties and leads to the irreparable deterioration of meaningful romantic and familial relationships. tools to promote changes in behavior. Tactical ignoring is a strategy where a person gives no outward sign of recognizing a behavior, such as no eye contact, no verbal or physical response, or acknowledgment that a message has been read. However, it is a very active process as the person remains acutely aware of the behavior and monitors the individual to observe what the individual has planned and ensure their safety or the safety of others.

-Gaslighting

This is one of the most dangerous abusive techniques employed by the abuser and it consists of causing someone to question their sanity, memories, or perception of reality. People who experience gaslighting may feel confused, anxious, or unable to trust themselves. The term “gaslighting” comes from the name of a 1938 play and 1944 film, “Gaslight,” in which a husband manipulates his wife into thinking she has a mental illness.

Some examples of gaslighting:

• questioning someone's memory and sanity
• refusing to listen or faking confusing to make someone doubt themselves
• belittling or disregarding someone's feeling
• refusing to take responsibility for their actions
• changing the focus of discussions by questioning someone's credibility
• using negative stereotypes against someone

Shapes of gaslighting

Gaslighting takes several shapes such as countering (“Are you sure about that? You have a bad memory. I never said/did this,” or “I think you are forgetting what really happened" are examples of countering), withholding (“Now you are just confusing me,” or “I do not know what you are talking about”), trivializing ("You are too sensitive. You need a thicker skin. I was just joking"), diverting the focus of the discussion (“That is just nonsense you read on the internet. It is not real”) and stereotyping (6).

Warning signs of being victim of gaslighting

• Doubting your feelings and reality
• Questioning your judgement
• Feeling vulnerable and insecure
• Feeling alone and powerless
• Feeling confused
• Wondering if you are what they say you are
• Being disappointed in yourself and what you have become
• Worrying you are too sensitive
• Sense of impending doom when you are around the abuser
• Spending a lot of time apologizing
• Second-guessing yourself
• Feeling inadequate
• Wondering what's wrong with you
• Assuming others are disappointed in you
• Struggling to make decisions because of distrust of yourself

If you experience these (not all of them but a majority of them), seek professional help immediately, don't isolate yourself and don't ignore your gut feelings because unchecked gaslighting will definitely take a toll on your mental health.

Gaslighting behaviours

• Lying
• Discrediting you (they pretend to be worried about you while subtly telling others you are emotionally unstable or crazy; in the stories told by the people who were abused by this person, other girls were described as obsessed with him while they were just trying to understand why he distanced himself from them)
• Distracting you
• Minimizing your emotions and feelings
• Denying wrongdoing
• Shifting blame
• Using compassionate words as weapons (examples "You know how much I love you. I would never hurt you on purpose")
• Rewriting stories in ways that are in the abuser's favour

-Trauma bonding

For those who don't know this term, trauma bonding may have a positive meaning (two people bonding over a shared trauma), but sadly it's not a nice thing. Trauma bonding is a form of attachment an abused person feels for the abuser. Positive reinforcement and cycle of abuse create this.

Every time there are a cycle of reward and punishment and power imbalance, trauma bonding occurs.

Warning signs of trauma bonding

• the abused person covers up or makes excuses to others for the abuser's behaviour
• the abused lies to family and friends about the abuse
• the abused doesn't feel comfortable with leaving the relationship or is not able to do so
• the abused thinks the abuse is their fault
• the cycle of abuse keeps happening
• the abuser promises to change but they will never change
• the abuser controls the abused
• the abuser isolates the person who's being abused from family and friends
• the abuser gets the victim's friends and family on their side
• the abused person continues to trust the abuser

Even though each trauma has unique traits, the trauma bonding has seven typical stages and are:

1. Love/friendship bombing
2. Gaining trust
3. Criticism
4. Manipulation
5. Resignation
6. Distress (emotional numbness)
7. Repetition

If you read carefully again the Google doc, you will notice how these people experienced trauma bonding, gaslighting and abuse cycle. It's so clear to my eyes.

Keep in mind that trauma bonding can happen in any situation of abuse no matter how long or short an amount of time it lasts, but it's most likely to happen in a situation where the abuser makes a point of expressing love to the person they are abusing, and where they act as if the abuse will not happen again after each time it does.

I strongly recommend watching this video about it:

Most victims of psychological abuse within intimate relationships often experience changes to their psyche and actions. This varies throughout the various types and lengths of emotional abuse. Long-term emotional abuse has long term debilitating effects on a person's sense of self and integrity (7).

Short-term reactions such as psychological shock and psychological denial typically follow a psychological trauma. Long-term reactions and effects include flashbacks, panic attacks, insomnia, nightmare disorder, difficulties with interpersonal relationships, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD), and brief psychotic disorder. Physical symptoms including migraines, hyperventilation, hyperhidrosis, and nausea are often associated with or made worse by trauma.

And when I said in the disclaimer that traumatic abusive relationships can destroy mirror neuros I was explicitly referring to this study:

https://www.ibpj.org/issues/articles/Stupiggia%20-%20From%20Hopeless%20Solitude.pdf

This study is one of the reasons I have zero empathy for abusers I ALWAYS blame them, not the victim.

Final thoughts

Because I'm gradually running out of characters (I would have loved writing even more stuff about this, especially about some techniques to protect yourself from harm done by abusers), I would like to leave two other videos that may give some help to those in need and educate those who don't know or know little:

My deepest emotional support goes to the people who had to deal with this person, I am with you and I wish you all the best. I also feel to say that if you are in an abusive relationship, you are NOT alone, there are people who care about you and are ready to help you, don't isolate yourself, seek help from close, TRUSTED, friends and professionals because what you have had, IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT, because you deserve to be happy, at peace, and safe. If you feel to be always walking on eggshells, and your guts tell you "DANGER, stay away from this person!", ALWAYS trust your guts because human beings have this extraordinary ability to sense when something is off and AVOID RATIONALIZATION at all costs because that's one of the first symptoms of abuse cycle. And a personal advice of mine: avoid charismatic people if you can, I know there are very few good people with charisma, but I've personally noticed that in majority of cases charisma is a trait typical of abusive people, mostly narcissist or psychopaths.

I also want to personally thank @UNCLEREGZ for making the post I linked above because it made me know this story that needs to be known by as many people as possible, the victims, the abuser, and gave me the opportunity to share a bit of what I know in order to educate others and help a bit those in need by sharing what is part of my personal experiences. Stay safe everyone and educate yourself about relationships, emotions, feelings and love.

References and footnotes

(1) https://psychcentral.com/health/cycle-of-abuse

(2) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pmh.1532

(3) https://unfilteredd.net/how-long-does-the-love-bombing-phase-last-case-study/

(4) https://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/features/signs-of-a-codependent-relationship

Strutzenberg, C. C., Wiersma-Mosley, J. D., Jozkowski, K. N., & Becnel, J. N. (2017). Love-bombing: A Narcissistic Approach to Relationship Formation. Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, 18(1), 81-89.

(5) Booth, Sally Scollay (2017). "Planned Ignoring". The Challenge of Teaching. pp. 181–187. doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2571-6_25. ISBN 978-981-10-2569-3

(6) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122419874843

(7) Packota, Valerie J. (2000). "Emotional abuse of women by their intimate partners: a literature review". springtideresources.org. Springtide Resources.

https://www.ibpj.org/issues/articles/Stupiggia%20-%20From%20Hopeless%20Solitude.pdf