Ignore me and talk to each other and ignore my presence and outcast me, and live and abuse cycle, disrespect me, and buy me candy, and will help or give me without me asking like buy me lunch when i didn't ask about it, and next very rude to me, kind of like to step on me and inflict pain on me and make me feel dissonance

My step dad does this thing where he ‘tickles’ really hard, where he’s digging his fingers into your ribs in a painful way.

He did it to me as a kid. He does it to my daughter (8) and son (1). My son actually scratched his eye when he was doing this.

He is extremely possessive of me daughter. I’m feeling sick. I’m going to leave my body now.

Firstly, I hope this is allowed here, I did message the mods but didn't get any reply.

A number of people have been unfairly banned from the other narcissistic abuse sub so we started a new one with friendly mods and fewer/more relaxed rules. The sub is /r/TrueNarcissisticAbuse. Apparently there are a lot of refugees.

We would be very happy for you to post about whatever you like. We have a growing community who are supportive and caring.

We don't want to take people away from this sub - we have linked this one in the sidebar and view ourselves as a different side or brother/sister sub rather than a competitor or replacement.

Having a difficult childhood, I didn't know that l had been suffering from a whole lot of issues until now where I am depressed 😔 and struggling to make a good life out of nothing. So I was brought up by guardians who are related, but one lady who looked after me with resentment and other things... wasn't emotionally close to me. As a child I considered her as a very good person because she had no obligation to look after me as a toddler, literally had kept her on a pedestal. Loved and respected her a lot, but I never realised that she hardly ever did the same to me. Of course, I was accepting of my situation and knew that she has her own family to love and all, but never knew that she hated me silently though she was indifferent. She has not been much of a good Positive support for me, but I had believed her to be and had kept blaming myself as a loser and inefficient "burden on earth" type because I was abused by my family right from childhood like these statements. They made me feel that I was lucky to be with them (right with my circumstances) which made me feel guilty too for being an additional responsibility to all of them.

My only goal in life was to do well in studies, get a job (go to foreign country) and earn money to repay them back and settle down in life. I had all the capabilities to fulfill my dreams, but unfortunately, they themselves were a source of negativity to me who had a part of crashing down my dreams. Being a good shy introvert, I had issues being a mouthbreather which I Suffered immensely 😔 and struggling even now. People always insulted and looked down at me that I had low self-esteem issues, inferiority complex though I resembled my Mom who was very beautiful ❤️ needless to say I didn't do well in studies and I had lots of anxiety issues too, especially social anxiety (which I didn't know before).

When I struggled to make something of my life, this lady was silently JEALOUS as well as looking down on me because she is smart, arrogant, high self-esteem, etc... I never thought it was an issue.. like when I was in a good job doing okay, struggling with office politics and all, she made fun of me with the family (few of them) with reading a personal column in newspaper (where a girl was fired from her job, had difficulty with finding her passion of filmmaker and her mother shouting at her and she being a comedy piece and disrespected by everyone and asked a solution where the therapist was critical of her and judgmental giving her an advice to find a job and earn instead of dreaming about her passion and she deserves being shouted at and treated poorly) that I am that girl's friend (meaning I am like her, a loser) and they all had a good laugh and making fun and comments which worsened my mental health issues. I felt bad and told her that I am working well and how can they hurt me like this. She replied when I am going to leave the job the future situation is similar. I was scared TBH because I didn't wanted to suffer like that.

Also now she keeps saying that "so and so is working well, xyz is in foreign countries studying or working or in India earning money well" etc.. meaning I am a Big loser and inefficient and should be ashamed and that she has done a lot for me, but I didn't come up in life. Like all her efforts were in vain and she feels ashamed etc... and has been looking down at me worse than before. I feel that if she really had been good to me from childhood, doing well in education and good job wasn't even an issue to me. Though I blame myself too because I was innocent girl who didn't know better when I was young, she had a big role to play with undermining my self-confidence etc... so how can she blame me fully for everything including treating me BAD now.

Doesn't she realise that she had a part (negative) too in me turning out like this?

How can she do only BAD and expect only good?

So I want to know whether she abused me subtly all these years purposely?

Why does it always have to be about them? Every single thing had to be about him. What he wanted for dinner, where he wanted to live, what he wanted to buy. Anyone else's covert nex spend money like it was going out of style? Mine did. He spent thousands on every damned gadget he could get, and then lose interest in it before a year was up. Or want to upgrade it. Or want to modify it, and when he wanted to modify it, spend a bunch more money on the tools and items to modify it, and then it would sit there, taken apart, half done, and broken. Kind of like how he left me. Taken apart, broken, wondering if he'd ever try to put me back together.

I'm not sure when I realized that he liked me broken. The subtle and not so subtle digs, the insults, the love bombing, the sex (which was again, all about him), the gaslighting. 30 fucking years of my life I wasted on him. 30 years of my life I spent catering to him, to his needs; soothing his hurts, trying to make up for a shitty past I had nothing to do with, trying over and over to reassure him that he was loved.

I finally had enough when he turned his rage (verbal, emotional) against our son. Started calling him a dick, an idiot, stupid, a dumbshit. Packed up our kid and haven't looked back. I finally realized that I needed to be the one to put myself back together. And I'm a work in progress. I have up days, I have down days. Kind of having a down day right now because his birthday is coming up and I'm torn as to whether or not wish him a happy birthday. Kind of seems like a petty thing to do, and I really don't want to e-mail him. Ugh. I'm just tired of it all. Trying to keep up with work, with raising my son, with therapy, with the divorce paperwork, trying to do it all on my own.

I still struggle with asking anyone for help. I still feel that I need to do it all, and sometimes I feel it even more now, because I do have to do it all. I mean, I have help, I have family, I have friends, but sometimes I just want to cry, and sometimes I just want to rage, and sometimes I want to just fall apart and have someone gather me up and tell me it's all going to be okay, here's some chocolate, a nice cozy bed, tv, books, and all near the ocean. You just sleep as much as you need to, we'll take care of everything.

Sorry, didn't really want to dump, but it has nowhere else to go. Thanks for reading. I'll be okay. Just a difficult day today. Tomorrow will be better. I do really just need to get some sleep.

Covert abuse is a form of psychological or emotional abuse which is unique because of the difficulty in identifying and describing it. More overt forms of psychological and emotional abuse may include calling you names, yelling at you, or threatening you. In contrast, covert abuse tactics are far more subtle and insidious means of manipulating your thoughts and feelings, often leaving you feeling as though you're going crazy.

Many people in relationships with individuals who use covert abuse tactics sense that something is wrong in their relationship but just can't put their finger on it. It is very common for people to stay in these relationships for years, or even decades, without ever suspecting that the cause of their mental distress is due to their partner, friend, co-worker, etc.

I have been mulling over this for a while since cutting off a CN friend about a year ago. There were early warning signs early on in the friendship. In and of themselves, these signs are neither here nor there. I thibnk there are 2 factors that I amgoing to take into account in future.

1. The intensity of my emotional reaction to these small acts. Intense negative emotions like shame. And the very clear sense that I am suddenly a child again being told off by the principle. Helpless and completely devalued.

2. The collection of similar small acts over time. These are not one off misspeaking. But a consistent attack.

Here are the red flags I noticed:

1. Quick to dismiss. "Oh, since you dont like the same thing as I do, I guess there's no point being friends." Framed as a joke, but I could feel the contemptuous dismissal underlying it.

2. Quick to correct. Pointless things in the midst of conversations. Like the pronounctiation of words. "I am the more knowledgible one' I will teach you to improve you." (And he was wrong BTW)

3. Quick to interrogate. "Why do you think that? Where is your evidence? How do you know that?" Again over things irrelevant to the current conversation.

4. Quick to personalize. Innocent comments and jokes are taken as direct oersonal attacks. And responded with extreme anger.

5. Quick to anger. Anger is directed at me personally. And speech pattern echoes that of a parent speaking to a stupid child. "How dare you say that to me. Do you want me to turn the car around right now? We can forget getting food."

6. Repeated elaborate victimhood stories. "They treated me badly even though I did so much for them" "They made me use the outside toilet" "They just ganged up on me and made me quit my job" "I do so much for others but no one appreciated me"

7' Telling me who he is. This is the most fascinating one. We were discussing narcissism as he had also (allegedly) experienced narcissistic bullying. He suddenly said "I am a covert narcisist" Just like that. I had never thought of him like that prior to that point. But forewarned is fore-prepped? I became more conscious of his behaviours towards me after that point.

How it ended was him suddenly taking great offence to a joke I made. I thought we knew each other well enough to make such comments at that stage. I apologised. That only magnified the situation. He became paranoid an'sand prosecutorial. There was now a list terrible things i have done to him over the years that i must atone for to his satisfaction. When he threatened to turn up at my house "some time over the next week" i cut him off with a clear statement of do not approach me or come to my house.

Would love to hear others thoughts on red flags.

Triangulation is a tactic intended to make you feel insecure about a relationship. By introducing a third person into your relationship, they create a triangle intended to make you feel insecure and desperate to please the abuser.

Bringing a third person into the relationship can mean doing so both literally and figuratively. They may frequently talk about a co-worker, ex, or current friend, or flirt with someone right in front of you. Their persistent interest in another person creates insecurity, especially if they are making comparisons between the two of you. If you mention this hurting your feelings, they will use that as an example of your "jealousy".

What might someone using triangulation say?

1. That girl over there has a really nice figure...
2. Don't get me wrong, you're really smart, but my friend John is a total genius.
3. Robert's wife is so pretty. Did you hear that she's a personal trainer?
4. My co-worker Tom is soo funny. He tells jokes better than anyone I know! Nobody even comes close.
5. My friend Jessie is the best person in the world to talk to. I can tell her anything and she'll never get mad at me, unlike you.

A common invalidating statement I hear from enablers is that I should "think about all of the nice things they did for me", and I want to acknowledge that, yes, abusers sometimes do nice things.

Abusers aren't abusive all of the time, because if they were, you would leave and never look back. They emotionally terrorize you for weeks on end and then throw in a "nice favor" every now and then to keep you hooked. Maybe they buy you something or there's a day here and there where they're particularly emotionally available, but it never lasts. They probably did all sorts of nice things during the love-bombing phase-- nice dinners, gifts, praise, and adoration.

What these enablers are missing is that these "nice things" take place within a larger context of abuse and manipulation. Abusers may do things that look nice, but they can't ever really be nice as they do them, because it's only done to further their own agenda of abuse.

Emotional invalidation is a form of emotional abuse in which a person rejects, minimizes, judges, or otherwise makes you feel that your emotions are irrational, unreasonable, or invalid. People invalidate others for many reasons, including a lack of empathy, discomfort dealing with emotions, or feeling powerless as to how to help you. Covert abusers, however, use invalidation as a tool to increase their control as well as a tool to manipulate.

What does emotional invalidation sound like?

1. I can't believe you're bringing this up again. You need to move on.
2. Stop feeling so sorry for yourself.
3. Other people have it so much worse.
4. You have to stop worrying. Just stop worrying.
5. Why can't you lighten up?
6. Why do you always have to be so serious?
7. What about my feelings?
8. You are the only one who feels that way.
9. If it's not bothering anyone else, why is it bothering you?
10. I'm sure she was just having a bad day.

Invalidation ultimately leaves us feeling as if there is something wrong with us for simply feeling. Invalidation makes us feel isolated, misunderstood, and as though something is wrong with who we are. Those who invalidate you are sending the message that your individuality is something to be ashamed of and that your individual voice does not matter.

r/covertabuse is a work in progress, although you will certainly see more posts from me in the days to come. In the meantime, if you’d like to post something of your own, please do!

Those of you who received an invite likely did so because you frequent subreddits such as r/NarcissisticAbuse, r/abusiverelationships, r/raisedbynarcissists, or r/emotionalabuse.

If you’d like to join to see what is to come, we’d love to have you and grow this community.

Not enough content yet for your liking? That’s fine, too! I hope you come back around another time to see our growth. In the meantime, the subs I mentioned above are great resources.

Take care.

Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse that causes someone to question their sanity, perception of reality, or memories. The term “gaslighting” originates from a 1938 stage play, Gas Light, in which an abusive husband manipulates his wife into questioning her sanity. Gaslighting can be done non-intentionally, but becomes abusive when it is a pattern of manipulation used to cause a victim to doubt their own perceptions therefore increasing the abuser’s control.

Common Gaslighting Tactics

1. Guilt Trips
2. Playing the Victim
3. Minimization and Denial
4. Feigning Ignorance or Innocence when confronted
5. Actions and words do not match
6. Blatant Lies
7. Denial, even if you have proof
8. Criticizing, shaming, or demeaning

Common Gaslighting Phrases

1. “I never said that.”
2. “That never happened.”
3. “You’re so sensitive.”
4. “You have an awful memory.”
5. “You’re crazy. Everyone thinks you’re crazy.”
6. “You should have known I would react this way!”
7. “I obviously didn’t mean it like that.”
8. “You need mental help.”
9. “Your emotions are your problem.”
10. “You’re upset over nothing.”

Signs You’re Being Gaslighted

1. You’re always questioning yourself or wondering if you’re too sensitive.
2. You constantly apologize, often not fully understanding why.
3. You struggle to make decisions.
4. You always feel like what you do is wrong.
5. You think you’re not good enough.
6. You’re afraid of speaking up for yourself or saying how you feel, so you stay silent.
7. You feel confused or disoriented.
8. You doubt you ability to remember the details of a situation correctly.

Additional Resources

What is Gaslighting?

Gaslighting Red Flags

Gaslighting and Narcissism

What are your experiences with gaslighting?