Have You Been Brainwashed by a Narcissist?
Have you been brainwashed? If you have been in a relationship with a narcissist or are coming out of one, the likelihood that you have been brainwashed by a narcissist is high.
Brainwashing is something that happens in cults. It is a conditioning of the mind to align with a particular set of beliefs.
The reason victims of narcissistic abuse stay in their relationships, much longer than they should, is due to brainwashing.
In Dictionary.com the definition of brainwashing is:
a method for systematically changing attitudes or altering beliefs, originated in totalitarian countries, especially through the use of torture, drugs, or psychological-stress techniques. Any method of controlled systematic indoctrination, especially one based on repetition or confusion:
Gaslighting is a form of brainwashing used by narcissists. Through Gaslighting, the narcissist uses confusion and gets you to doubt your realty. A narcissist may tell you that what you heard him say, he didn’t really say, or you didn’t see what you saw, or that you said or did something you didn’t say or do. The result is your feeling very confused and questioning or doubting what really happened.
Often times the more confused you are the more you doubt your own version of reality. The more you doubt your reality, the more you may look to the narcissist for help or support.
The narcissist brainwashes you by continuing to find fault with you, and continue to implant the suggestion that the problems in your relationship with the narcissist are all your fault. He or she will give you reasons that you are to blame and continue to repeat these reasons until you begin to believe that maybe you are at fault.
At the same time the narcissist builds himself or herself up and reiterates his or her importance. The narcissist establishes himself or herself as the authority, the one who knows what is really going on and devalues your assessment of the situation.
The narcissist may tell you how much he or she loves you and this is why they want you to invest more in the relationship by siding with them, listening to what they say is true, trusting them, and taking responsibility for the problems in the relationship.
You may want or need to believe that this person really does love you and has your best interest at heart. But the truth is the narcissist has only his self interest at heart and he or she will do whatever is necessary to protect this interest, including destroy you.
If you begin to see the truth about what is happening, you become more of a threat and the gaslighting and brainwashing techniques are amped up even further. It is a way the narcissist keeps you under his or her control.
Often the gaslighting and brainwashing is so subtle that you don’t realize it is happening. It is the frog in the pot of water slowly heated to boiling. You are so immersed in the water, you don’t realize the temperature change.
What you may notice is that something just isn’t right.
I know when I was deeply entrenched in a relationship with a narcissist, I felt something wasn’t right, but I was convinced that something wasn’t right with me. It was me! I was the problem and I had the problem. I had physical, mental and emotional issues. This was true. I did! I was breaking down physically, there was no denying this. I was confused mentally. There was also no denying this. And….I was an emotional basket case. This was clear.
The more unstable I felt, the more I clung to my beloved, the narcissist, for help and support. He showed me no empathy, but rather shamed me for being so emotionally unstable.
I would try and get stronger so that my beloved would have a more positive opinion of me. I didn’t like myself like this. I was becoming more and more depressed and insecure. I noticed his attention going to other women, who all seemed so bright, happy and healthy compared to me. I knew it was only a matter of time he would leave me for one of these women. I didn’t like feeling this jealous, needy and insecure, but couldn’t seem to help myself.
Eventually I started stepping away from the relationship more and began taking better care of myself. I took a trip away, even though he didn’t like it, and ironically the symptoms I was struggling with cleared up. All of them! My physical symptoms, my emotional and mental symptoms all cleared up, almost overnight. I started to feel positive again. And I started to wonder if my dear beloved might have something to do with how I had been feeling.
My getting stronger and more confident in myself caused more crippling behaviors from the man in my life. He needed to get me back under control. He was very passive aggressive in how he operated. He used the silent treatment, avoidance, emotional abandonment, ignoring issues, playing the devils advocate in every situation, and attempting to squelch any original ideas I had, leading me to believe they were bad ideas.
My confidence in myself was very low. He was the smart one. He was the one who had all the answers. He was the one in the know. He was the one who was emotionally and mentally stable. He was the one who was physically healthy and fit. Nothing seemed to phase him.
Why did I believe that he was the strong one and I was the weak one? It was brainwashing! The way in which he interacted with me and denied me the support I was asking for, led me to believe there was something really wrong with me and I was simply not worthy of such support.
I remember one day I was feeling so depressed and in such a state of darkness and I almost begged him to just listen to me, to be with me while I tried to sort it all out. His response was “This is your darkness and I’m not going to join you in it. I’m going to leave, and you can deal with this yourself.”
I felt so ashamed of my darkness and depression. I was made to feel it was like a virus he didn’t want to catch. So, he would leave me suffering without a hint of compassion.
My physical issues were another source of shame. I had severe candida and constant yeast infections. He was a sex addict and always wanted sex with me regardless of how I was feeling. The way he dealt with my physical issues was to ignore them. I would tell him I had a doctor’s appointment to find out what was going on with me. When I came home from my appointment with my diagnosis and my prescriptions, he wouldn’t ask me about it at all. It was like he completely forgot that I even had a doctor’s appointment. I would feel such shame about even having these issues and so I wouldn’t bring them up anymore.
If I refused him sex, he would withdraw from me completely and wouldn’t treat me like I didn’t exist. When I asked him why he was ignoring me, he would tell me that I wasn’t being very nurturing to him. That meant I wasn’t giving him his daily sexual release. Suddenly the attention was taken completely off my physical issues and what was going on with me on all levels to how I wasn’t taking care of him.
Because I was so deeply entrenched and brainwashed, I ended up feeling guilty that all my issues were preventing me from being a good girlfriend. I would put my needs aside and try to tend to his needs, even if I was in pain and agony.
Shortly after my trip away, I decided I was going to leave the relationship. I was so in love with him, but I felt that perhaps my issues were directly tied to the relationship and the only way I was going to be able to heal was to leave the relationship. Maybe if I left he would take some responsibility and come around.
I didn’t know what narcissism was at this time, so I was under the distorted belief that if he really loved me, he would be willing to look at his own part in the issues going on in our relationship.
After I left, he immediately got involved with one of the women he was eying. There was no downtime for him.
Instead of feeling relief, I felt devastated. My shame and self blame kicked into high gear. His ability to move on so quickly was proof to me that I was the one to blame. It was all me. I was a sick, depressed, dark, moody, unlovable woman who could be easily replaced by a bright, healthy, happy woman.
I became even more depressed and was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which explained the intense anxiety and obsession I was dealing with. All I could think of is how easily he went on to the next relationship and how happy he was now with her, while I was deeper in darkness than ever.
I had such self-loathing and my belief that there was something seriously wrong with me was highly activated. He was even telling people that I was confused, much as his Mother who had Alzheimer’s was confused. I was convinced I was mentally ill.
I wasted away to a skinny, bony shell of my former self. I was prescribed anti-depressants for my anxiety and depression and so that I could eat and sleep. I was unable to work and living off my savings.
I didn’t want anybody to see me so I avoided going out in public as much as possible. I thought everybody would know I was mentally ill and sick and I was really ashamed.
My friends were concerned about me but also supported him. He was the one going to the parties my friends were throwing and I was the poor, sorry, sick, mentally ill, disturbed woman whom he couldn’t be with anymore.
One of my friends was concerned enough about me that she sent me to a therapist she had gone to; someone who helped her a lot when she was depressed. I decided I probably should go ahead and find out what exactly was wrong with me. I needed a diagnosis so I had the hope of getting better.
This was a powerful turning point in my life. When I went to the therapist and took the battery of psychological tests to determine what mental illness I might be suffering from, I was completely unprepared for the results.
After I spent time with the therapist, talking about my recent history, my ex-boyfriend whom I couldn’t get over, my obsessive thinking, my physical illness, my depression and darkness, she said “He is a narcissist!”
I didn’t expect in my wildest dreams that the problem would be him and not me. He was living the good life. He went on without skipping a beat. He had an abundance of women wanting to be with him. He was confident in himself and seemingly emotionally cool and secure. I was the one with the problem.
This is the brainwashing! The brainwashing I underwent was a process of convincing me that my concerns were unwarranted, I was insecure, needy, dependent, depressed, moody, dark, sickly, weak, and always at fault. I learned to believe these things about myself and the more I believed them, the more they became true.
Even after the relationship was over I was still lost in the program that I had been living under, only now I had PTSD on top of it. The PTSD was developed from experiencing his complete lack of compassion towards me, his lack of emotion around our breakup after three years of living together, his ability to move on so quickly without skipping a beat, my intense shame, self blame and feelings of inadequacy.
Even after the psychologist told me my beloved was a narcissist, I still questioned and doubted. I thought maybe she was wrong. After all, I was still the one who wasn’t well. He seemed great! So how could he have an issue?
It took a lot of research and understanding to begin to over ride the old programming, the brainwashing I was encoded with, to wake up to a new realty.
My sickness, my depression, my darkness, my emotional instability was all part of the program. I had slowly absorbed everything this man had denied as coming from within himself. Over the three years we were together, he slowly, slyly and methodically put all issues in our relationship onto me. I began to weaken under the weight of it all. I believed I was the problem. I believed I was the sickness.
It took a long time for me to heal and come out of the deeply entrenched programs I had been living under.
He came back for me after I started to heal and wake up from the nightmare. It was as if he knew I was waking up and needed to come back and put me to sleep again. I fell for his re-seduction at first, but the words of my therapist echoed in my mind. I stayed overnight with him a couple night’s, but I couldn’t sleep. I lay awake all night and my inner voice was saying “Don’t you dare go to sleep!”
I finally listened to my inner voice and went “no contact” with him. By this time I was aware that his narcissism was a major part of the problem. I still had my own issues, my lack of confidence and self-worth that I was healing, but I no longer believed it was all my fault that the relationship fell apart. With intensive research and study, I came to understand malignant narcissism and the subtle ways it gets into your head and brainwashes you to doubt your own reality.
When I studied cult programming, I discovered that anyone can be brainwashed. Anyone can be programmed and conditioned to believe a certain way. There isn’t one particular type of personality who is more likely to be susceptible to programming. The media programs the masses every day through advertising. The church programs its members to believe a certain doctrine. The government programs its people to believe it has their best interest at heart. Corporations program their employees to make their jobs more important than their own lives.
We are programmed by society not to trust our own inner knowing. We are conditioned to go against our own soul’s blueprint. We are programmed to do what will bring us the most attention and approval from others. We are programmed to sell our soul and go against our integrity for money.
We are conditioned to eat diets that are harmful for our bodies, so that the food corporations can make a profit. Children are programmed to ask for cereals and other cardboard box food substitutes that have no nutritional value because of the advertising. We are programmed to believe that as we age it is normal to get all the “older age” diseases.
Even those of us who have chosen to eat a healthy plant-based diet, are told we are extreme, while the masses pound cheeseburgers, fries and colas by the truckloads. What is extreme?
We live in a world where brainwashing is a daily occurrence. So narcissistic brainwashing should not come as a huge surprise. I don’t think most malignant narcissists are aware of how they are brainwashing. They are simply controlling, gaslighting and shucking responsibility by the nature of who they are. They don’t have the insight and self-awareness to see that they are not only part of the problem, but often the one who really has the problem. By the nature of their narcissism, they project their unhealed aspects onto others and blame them. If we are not self-aware or even if we are self-reflective, we may be inclined to look deeply within ourselves and see some truth to the accusations.
It is the little bit of truth we may spot in our own character defects, that give the narcissist ammunition to manipulate us. We may be feeling a little insecure and so the accusations that we are insecure have a place to stick. We may be feeling shame and so the blame has a place to stick. We may be feeling guilty so the sob story of how we are not tending to the narcissist has a place to stick. We may even be feeling a bit jealous when our beloved is so focused on other women or men, so the accusations of our being jealous has a place to stick.
Our stickiness is what makes us so receptive to the brainwashing. We are conditioned to believe things about ourselves that are not completely true. Just because we have a little bit of a thing doesn’t mean we are responsible for 100% of it. We all have the propensity to be a little jealous, insecure, needy, weak, depressed, angry or whatever it is that the narcissist in your life uses to control you. Especially if we are provoked on a daily basis.
We can only really break away from the brainwashing programs when we break way from the brainwasher. Cult members only ever break free when they break out of the cult.
To break free of the brainwashing, we need to look at what we have come to believe about ourselves and about the other. We need to be really honest with ourselves and look deeply into our subconscious programming. We may not believe these things so much on a conscious level. It is in the subconscious.
If I ask you “do you think yourself unworthy?” You may say “no, no I don’t think that I am unworthy, but sometimes I really feel unworthy.”
Since brainwashing is a type of hypnosis, hypnosis is an effective tool to reverse brainwashing. We need to identify the programs you are currently living under; the obsessive thoughts you are having and the beliefs you have formed about yourself. We then need to use hypnosis to convince your subconscious mind of another reality, one that is in alignment with the truth of who you really are.
There are other methods that can also be helpful such as Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and EMDR, which is a type of rapid eye therapy. Affirmations and repetition can also be helpful.
So lets break free of the programs we have been living under in our personal life, our professional life and in our cultural life. Lets re-align with our soul authenticity and step fully into who we are and who we have come here to be. When we can really align with our soul’s highest truth and calling, we won’t be very receptive to brainwashing. We will be aligned with the truth of who we are, and the truth will set us free.
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