The Psychopath: A True Story(64)

Toxic people often target previous victims of trauma. I don’t think this is particularly sadistic, just that victims of trauma (who have recovered and come to terms with that trauma) often overlook or explain away the flaws in others. They have empathy for a ‘damaged’ person and toxic people use that to explain away any negative traits.

Love-bombing prepares the way for everything else. It puts the victim into a fog which will only ever properly lift once the victim is out of that situation.

How to protect yourself:

Go slow – anyone worth being with will respect that!

Set boundaries – if you feel pressured by them, that is a red flag.

Don’t get too wrapped up in the moment.

Don’t be overly empathetic, try to fix people, or share too much of yourself early on. It’s important in a genuine relationship to actually get to know someone but keep something in reserve that’s just for you!



Gaslighting

This term was coined after the 1944 film Gaslight, in which the husband purposefully makes his wife think she is going mad, in order to hide his criminal activity.

Gaslighting is a deliberate attempt to sow the seeds of doubt in victims’ minds (either an individual or a group). It makes victims doubt their own memory or perception of reality, and even to question their own sanity. The toxic person uses lying, misdirection, contradiction and denial with such confidence and conviction that the victim – who has been love-bombed already and believes the toxic person has only their best interests at heart – feels the problem must lie within.

The toxic person uses statements like:

‘That didn’t happen.’

‘You imagined it!’

‘Are you crazy?’

‘Fake news!’

It’s an insidious manipulative tactic and distorts and erodes the victim’s sense of reality. It eats away at self-trust and disables the justification for calling out abuse and mistreatment.

The toxic person convinces the victim that trusting their own experience is a sign of dysfunction and that the only person they can truly trust is the abuser. To the victim the ground is always shifting and whenever they get a grasp of the situation it changes. Especially after being love-bombed, the gaslighting period is very painful. The victim just wants (and craves) to get back the lovely person their partner was before, and how special they made them feel. They have bought into the dreams and ideals that the love-bomber sold them, and so trust that this is just a ‘rocky patch’ that they will get through eventually. Meanwhile, the victim succumbs and imperceptibly shrinks into themselves day by day, allowing the gaslighter to take full control.

How to protect yourself:

Ground yourself in reality.

Don’t let things ‘slide’ or become distracted from your own reality.

Write things down as they happen so you can refer back to it later. Writing is a powerful tool to sort out your thoughts. Putting things down on paper gives you a distance and perspective that you cannot get from just thinking alone.

Talk to friends and your support network. The power of a validating community can reground a distorted reality from a malignant person and back to inner trust. Also, be very wary of a partner who tries to drive a wedge between you and your other relationships (such as friends and family)! Keep lines of communication open.

Be centred in your own reality.

Validate your own identity. Take time for yourself to ensure you are grounded, do mindfulness exercises and journal your feelings.



Projection and Reframing

This is when the toxic person turns any flaw or situation around to blame someone else for something they have done and make it look like they are the victim. For instance, this might be accusing their victim of lying when it is they who have told the lie. A classic example of this is an unfaithful partner accusing their spouse of cheating. It is a way of avoiding ownership of a situation or any accountability. Emotionally damaged people can do this unconsciously, but toxic people tend to do it deliberately. Rather than acknowledge their own flaws or imperfections, a toxic person will outrageously dump their own traits on their victims, which can be painful and cruel: accusing their partners of cheating, lying, stealing, being selfish, unkind, thoughtless, cruel, ignoring them, disinterested, etc.

Another form of this is sometimes called ‘reframing’, where the toxic person changes your legitimate experience into supposed character flaws and evidence of irrationality.

Reframing is a technique used in therapy to help create a different way of looking at a scenario, situation, person or relationship – simply by changing its meaning. It is a strategy that therapists use to help clients look at their situation from a different perspective and adjust thought patterns, leaving the client feeling healthier and more in control. However, it can also be used by toxic people to change how their victim views something they themselves have done.

For instance, after a victim simply expresses feelings that the toxic person has been rude to the victim, the toxic person might state:

‘Oh, so now you’re perfect?’ or ‘So I’m a bad person, huh?’

It is a pre-emptive defence because they are putting dramatic words in their victims’ mouths, deliberately invalidating the victim’s right to have thoughts and emotions about inappropriate behaviour. Plus it is designed to instil a sense of guilt when trying to establish boundaries, by accusing the victim of being unkind or having toxic thoughts before the victim has even had a chance to discuss the issue with the perpetrator.