 Hey there, welcome back to a brand new Psych2Go video. Today's video is brought to you in collaboration with Melanie Tanya Evans from MTE. Many people are not sure whether or not they're suffering from narcissistic abuse. Cognitive dissonance and the confusion that goes with abuse can have a lot to do with this. This is exactly what today's video is all about. The awareness and solutions to empower you up and out of narcissistic abuse. Please know this video is about absolutely any narcissist in your life. All the signs apply to any toxic relationship such as a spouse, lover, family member, neighbor or friend, anyone. So without further ado, here are eight signs to know that you are suffering narcissistic abuse. 1. Your relationship is not kind, caring or sane. Toxic relationships can be very confusing at times, making it difficult to know who is who in the zoo. This happens because a toxic person will spin it back on you, blame you, and will not be accountable. Remember, if someone hurts you and is not capable of a genuine apology and you keep hanging out with this person, they'll continue to hurt you. They'll never be remorseful and of course will continue the same behavior. The truth is, people either have a decent character or they don't. You can't change them for who they are. People like this simply do not have the resources to grant us a healthy, loving and happy life. But we do. 2. You're dealing with immature behavior and give up pieces of yourself to comply. A hallmark of narcissistic relationships is the person gets bent out of shape on hairline triggers that mature adults just don't get upset about. Also, they believe they're entitled to and expect preferential treatment and can be nasty, demanding, punishing and even explosive if they don't receive it. Are there things that you would normally be free to talk about to anyone but the same topic may be unacceptable or risky with this particular person? And why do you feel so? Maybe if this person doesn't get their own way, they'll abandon you or threaten to leave you. Then again, you start doing things outside of your comfort and value systems to stop this from happening. 3. You're angry, disjointed and are behaving in ways that you normally don't. This is an important question. How do you feel with this person in relation to everyday dealings with other people? If you know you have integrity, can listen, have empathy, are capable of having sane conversations and get along with most people in your life, and yet there's this person who brings out the worst in you. This is generally because your boundaries are being violated and the normal modes of human operations don't stand. The circular arguments you're having make your head spin because they go around and round on unrelated tangents, points that make no sense. Narcissists state how disloyal your accusations of them are when confronted, or they argue with you to manipulate you into something unwholesome. 4. You find yourself trying to prove that you're a good person. Because the narcissist is regularly accusing you of all the things that they are and do, such as lacking integrity and love and care for people, being unfaithful, lying, making it all about yourself, wanting to use people for your own gain and more, naturally you'll be incensed and try extremely hard to prove and convince them otherwise. This is another deadly hook that narcissists can get you enmeshed with them on. If you believe that your integrity, character, a well-being and safety is dependent on what other people think of you, then you're susceptible to this narcissistic behavior. 5. You are mopping up the messes. Being connected with a narcissist has lots of drama, rough edges and quite frankly means that disasters are always looming. Narcissists usually aren't good with detail, accountability or sensibility. They fly high, seeking narcissistic supply and acclaim with little to no thought for doing the right thing. If your life is connected with one of these people, it's usual that you will be paying their fines, sorting out their messes and dramas, and even lying for them to cover their tracks. It's like this analogy. As you're watering their back lawn trying to keep it green, yours gets parched and turns brown and dies. This is how narcissistics roll, and this is what happens to the sensible, well-meaning responsible people who narcissists like to recruit into their lives. By walking away from people like this, we can heal and restart our life with self-responsibility. 6. Your boundaries are being disintegrated. It's extremely common for people with poor boundaries to get involved with narcissists. You find it difficult to speak up, stand up for yourself or hold boundaries with this particular person, and when you try to do so, are you often criticized, rejected, abandoned or punished? You're likely dealing with a narcissist. As a result of that, you try to minimize the trauma and mayhem that breaks out by giving up on trying to assert your needs. Or maybe because you've dissolved into so many feelings of powerlessness, helplessness and despair that you find yourself begging or pleading for your boundaries to be respected. Discovering that the narcissist has zero empathy for you and won't comply, it takes you down into an even deeper place of helplessness. 7. You feel addicted, disjointed and manic. Reverse addiction happens with narcissists. This is also known as trauma bonding. To find out more, you can check out the links in the description. Do you feel manic and unable to stop trying to contact or hook back up with a narcissist? Even when you know how much you continually get hurt by doing so? We can be horrified by how addicted we are to someone who treats us so terribly. It just doesn't make logical sense. It is of course very serious when it gets to a stage where we simply can't talk ourselves out of doing the actions that we know are putting ourselves back into the fire to get burnt again. 8. You're suffering from abuse symptoms. Things are now very serious. When your emotional inner being has been screaming out for our attention and we haven't as yet pulled away and turned inwards to heal, then we start breaking down physically as well. It's likely that anxiety and depression and even greater issues like fibromyalgia, adrenal issues, PTSD, and agoraphobia start to develop. You lose interest in the activities, people, and self-care that used to grant you energy as the toxic person in your life takes up more and more of your energy and focus. The shame and pain become so great that we may start hiding out from the world, lying to people, covering up, and feeling even more isolated in our traumatic feelings and symptoms. This is when we have to ask ourselves, how bad does it have to get before we awaken to the truth? There are varying degrees of narcissism, and there are also people who can just be clueless and selfish but not necessarily afflicted with narcissistic personality disorder. If someone in your life does not share your values and doesn't care for your feelings, then this is not a healthy relationship for you. As soon as we try changing other people, it's time to pull away and say to ourselves and them, this is who I am and what I need for us to continue. We may lose a lot by leaving, as many of us have, however, by leaving we can achieve the greatest gain, finally turning inwards to integrate with ourselves so that we are in a position of wholeness and can be in control of our choices and have the power to look after ourselves and create a happy, healthy, and truly loving life. Do you relate to any of these signs? If you do, what do you plan to do next? Let us know in the comments below. Again, this video was brought to you by Melanie Tanya Evans from MTE. Links are in the description if you're interested in learning more about narcissistic abuse. If you'd like to see more collaborations like this, be sure to share this video with someone who might need it.