The stages of a narcissistic abuse cycle | The nightmare that once started as a fairy tale

 

The love bombing is a first stage of a narcissistic abuse cycle and it is also known under the terms "idealization face" or "honey moon period" or "grooming". People who are not educated on type B personality disorder imagine the psychopaths as the crazy looking individuals with the axes in their hands hunting the poor victims through the abandoned houses. People who are not educated on type B personality disorder imagine the narcissists as individuals who are very vain and spend most of their times by looking in the mirrors, being a bit annoying yet absolutely harmless. These are very stereotypical views on the cluster B type of the personality disorder and although its true that the individuals who suffer from this disorder are very dangerous individuals and sometimes they even kill or push someone to suicide (actually, behind most of the suicides, crimes and murders you see on TV News, you can find cluster Bs), they usually do not look or act anything like the psychopathic characters in the classic horror movies, especially not in the beginning of the relationships. Quite contrary. Coworkers, neighborhoods, friends around the cluster B individuals know them paradoxically as "the nice guy" or "the nice lady". Also, most of the cluster Bs will never kill in their lifetime but it does not make them any less dangerous as they usually do a great damage to people´s life and they are capable to inflict a tremendous amount of pain to the point that their victims oftentimes end up in the therapist´s office suffering from a PTSD or C-PTSD. Its a great misapprehension that people can suffer from PTSD only if they are veterans or soldiers coming out of the war zones. People can also suffer from PTSD when they are or have been in an abusive relationships. Because abusive relationships are war zones.

The devil does not enter our life showing us his horns. He does not show his terrifying glory in the beginning. The devil usually comes to our life with charming smile on his face offering us everything we ever dream of. If the abusers are being abusive right from the beginning, how they would be able to groom you? Who would jump voluntary into the messy situation that is highly abusive? Nobody. The abusers need to groom the victims first by creating the illusion of a perfection before they can abuse the victims. The covert narcissists use the same manipulative tactic as the devil in order to sneak into the future victim´s life. The way the covert narcissists are trying to hook the victims is very similar to the technique of the drug dealers. The drug dealers give the victims the first shots of heroin for free to hook them up and secure them. The first shots of the heroin are very euphoric. The drug dealers work hard to develop an addiction in the victims. As the time progresses, the victims become addicted to the drug and depend on the drug dealers. Then suddenly the rules change - the victims have to start to pay for the drugs to the drug dealers. And the bills are very high. The heroin is now destroying the victims and the drug dealers are milking the victims until they will suck them completely dry. Once the victims have nothing to offer to the drug dealers anymore, the drug dealers throw them under the bus in a cruel way as they do not see any further use for the victims. The narcissists are exactly like the drug dealers. The pedophiles use very similar tactic to the narcissists when they groom the children victims . The pedophiles offer the candies and toys to the children to trap them and lure them in and once they secure the children and earn their trust, then they abuse them. The narcissistic abuse is a nightmare that once started as a fairy tale.

The narcissistic grooming is the process of luring the victims into the abusive cycles by the predators. The overt type of the narcissists are much more overt when it comes to grooming, they are usually overly confident and arrogant and they do not need to invest too much effort and time into the grooming as they usually do not have an issue with getting the narcissistic supply for them. Those are usually "the bad boys" who are overly confident to get the new female victims or that highly attractive women who are hyper sexual, overly flirting, overly dramatic and animated who do not need to work very hard to find a new source of a supply. In the most cases "overts" are not capable to maintain long term relationships and the love bombing stage is very aggressive, short and overly fast. On the other hand, the covert narcissists are known as a "vulnerable" or "shy" narcissists and as they have a very low self esteem, lot of complexes and their grandiosity is being crippled, they have to invest much more effort and time into grooming their victims. They are capable of having long term relationships and the grooming phase takes a longer time in a comparison with the "overts". However, the discard by the covert narcissists in the end of the abusive cycle is much more sadistic as the covert narcissists have to angrily punish the victims for making them work so hard on the love bombing. The narcissists are kings and queens of the punishments.

The covert narcissists come first as overly friendly and overly nice people who are very patience with getting to know the victims and build a relationship with them. First, they make the victims comfortable around them and they usually do a lot of favors for the victims in the love bombing stage. They often come as the heroes and savior into the life of the victims and they usually target people who currently have some issue, people who has lower self-esteem than the covert narcissists, people in crisis, people freshly after the divorce or after the death of their beloved or people who are being vulnerable in some way in that particular time. These targets are very easy manipulated and exploited. Another great target for the covert narcissists are codependents. The covert narcissists are excellent in sniffing out any vulnerability and weakness of the victims. They are sharks who can smell the blood of other people´s wounds from far away. They never target healthy people with healthy self-esteem and healthy boundaries. In case the covert narcissists date a dominant person (other overt narcissists or just people who are dominant in nature), the covert narcissists usually play very submissive role and they present the "poor me" card to their future victims. Their favorite tactic is to have a victim mentality and use it against others like a weapon. The covert narcissists always play either the hero, the martyr or the victim role to manipulate the people they date. They take great satisfaction from superiority they feel from pretending to be someone´s else savior as it made them feel powerful and in a control over the victims. They feel superior to people who have very low self esteem. Or, they search for savior in the dominant people who would save them and fix all of their problems in their life. Already from the beginning, they try their best to program the new victims to accept their parasitic lifestyle. The covert narcissists first earn the victim´s trust and work hard on securing them. During the grooming phase they are on their best behavior. The victims would not be able to find more nice people than the covert narcissists in the love bombing stage. They create the illusion of perfection right in front of the future victim´s eyes. They take their time with testing the waters, testing the boundaries of the victims and with gaining as much information about the victims as possible such as whats the interests of the victims, what they lack, what are their issues, what they like or dislike. They use the mirroring technique to mirror back to the victims their liking to create fake safety and fake familiarity in the victims so the victims feel like they just found "the perfect match made in heaven". If the victims like blue color, such a coincidence, the covert narcissists like also the blue color! If the victims like certain movie or certain flavor of the ice cream, such an coincidence, the covert narcissists love the same! The covert narcissists lack of personality, its a part of their disorder. They are known as "the chameleons of the society". As they lack of personality, they mastered the art of mirroring other people to be able to act like them and match them. They are capable of being completely different personality type with each person they meet.

Already on the first dates the covert narcissists will shower the victims with fake flattery, they adore, applaud and admire the victims in the most embarrassing exaggerated way. They fake praise the victims to boost the victim´s low self-esteem. The covert narcissists boost their own low self-esteem by boosting the low self-esteem of the victims as the victims return the favor to the covert narcissists by praising them back. They did not target the particular victims by an accident. The covert narcissists are very calculative and they usually target naive people who are being easily exploited. The victims do not lack of intelligence, rather they lack the knowledge on the narcissism thus they are not aware of what they are dealing with. The narcissists know how to make their victims feel very special. This is extremely dangerous especially for codependent people who has been raised with neglectful, emotionally unavailable parents as they are not used to get any attention or admiration from their caregivers. The codependents suffer from "syndrome of chronically hungry hearts". And as the covert narcissists suffer from the codependency and unhealthy attachment style too the same as the codependents, they use the fake empathy to play the emotions of the victims like a violin. Once the covert narcissists shower them with such an intense love bombing, the victims are sweep of their feet and they become easy target. The covert narcissists exactly know what they are doing. The individuals who suffer from the cluster B type of the personality disorder are the most manipulative people on Earth and they use their superficial charm and cognitive empathy (fake learned empathy) to trap their victims. They gain information about the victim´s likes. If they like baseball, the covert narcissists will focus on buying them the tickets for baseball match and watch every match in TV with them. If the victims show interest in fashion, they will buy them the expensive design clothes. They will shower the victims with expensive gifts and intense attention already on the first dates. The abusers are very generous in the love bombing stage but its all an illusion and it has nothing to do with real love or intention to build a meaningful deep connection with people. The narcissists are not capable of building deep meaningful connections, they are only capable to build unhealthy shallow attachments. A connection is completely something different than the attachment. The narcissists never do anything without an agenda. They never do any favor without getting something out of it. If they invest in the victims one dollar in the love bombing stage, they make sure they will cone the victims of twenty dollars in the discard stage of the narcissistic abuse cycle. They listen to the victims very carefully in the beginning of the relationships. The gifts and the attention can be very impressive in the beginning. They will try to gain as much secrets of the victims as possible just to use those secrets against them later in the devaluation stage of the narcissistic abuse cycle. While they are gaining all information from the victims, they remain very secretive about their own life, they only share the manufactured stories with the victims to either impress them or to gain their sympathy. Thats why once the relationships with the narcissists are over, the victims realize that they actually do not know the narcissists at all while the narcissists know everything about the victims and they use it against them. From the narcissist´s side everything is only a game and a manipulation while for the victims it is a real thing. They often hide grandiose bragging behind the false modesty and they often play a victim "poor me" card sharing a fake sad stories about how their exes abused them, cheated on them, how the exes have been mentally ill, alcoholics, drug addicts and absolutely crazy while in reality they are only using projection of their own bad doings that they did to their exes. Once the relationships progress, the new victims experience themselves the first hand the deceives and lies of their once perfect prince charming or princess charming who suddenly changed overnight into their greatest nightmare. If the narcissists feel too good too be true, its because they are fake.

The narcissists are being known for their impulsive nature. The overt narcissists rush everything. Rushing things is a very unhealthy behavior and it tells you that the person who rush everything has a dysfunctionality of an attachment style. A true deep connection takes time to develop and it starts with a slowly progressing friendship. The "friendship stage" is here to get to know the person properly. The trust is earned, not given. Only time can prove who is worthy to be in our life. There is no reason to rush. But there is so much to lose if we do so. The overt narcissists confess to the victims with never ending love already on the first dates and they call the victims "love of their life" and "the soul mate" within a few days. They use big words such "where have you been all my life" or "you are the best thing ever happened to me" even they do not know the victims at all and they never experienced any real life situations with the victims in the past to be able to have a back up for such a strong statements. They demand trust from too early on into the relationships and they did not even earn that trust. They want to attach immediately. The narcissists consider the relationships with the victims more intimate than it really is. The overt narcissists rush especially the intimacy. After few dates the victims already have a sex with the narcissists as the emotional and psychological predators know very well that the sexual act creates emotional bond and once they create this bond, they secured the victims because through sex people have the tendency to get emotionally involved. In a matter of a few weeks, the narcissists and their victims already move in together. Al thought, the covert narcissists are much more patience, they also somehow rush everything, they just use  a bit different technique to do so. In a subliminal and a covert way they activate the codependency in their victims. The victims themselves start to rush everything as the covert narcissists use a manipulative tactic of "proving" the victims how amazing they are. In the love bombing stage the covert narcissists serve the victims and make them feel good the way they never experienced before. In reality, the covert narcissists are evil and very far from being the good people they pretend to be, but they manage very well to put the masks of the overly nice people to convince the victims that they just met their perfect partners. This will activate the urgency in the victims to make sure they secure their own future abusers.

Narcissistic love is very materialistic. On the first dates the victims will feel like they are not sitting in a coffee bar but rather in an interrogation room. The narcissists will investigate in a direct or very sneaky indirect way if the victims are a good and valuable source of a supply. By the investigation they want to see what you own, how much money you make, how much money you have in your bank account, who you know, how you can be useful for them and if you are capable of boosting their fragile egos properly. 

If the narcissists realize the victims are a good source of supply, they will do very aggressive maneuvers to trap the victims - either by a quick marriage without even properly knowing each other, by getting the victims pregnant as soon as possible, by adopting pets with them too early in the relationships or taking the mortgage on a giant house and of course, the bills will be payed by the victims. In only one year the victims go from the first date to being married with a child on the way and the common properties. They do not give a victims the time to realize that they have been manipulated. They rush everything on purpose so once the victims realize that they have been trapped, they will have no chance to get themselves out of the bad situation. 

The covert narcissists are the professional crying babies and the masters of playing the victim "poor me" card. They know very well how to portrait themselves in a good light while to distort the reality and show their ex partners (or anybody against whom they are maintaining the smear campaign) in a bad light. They love to twist the reality. They often pretend to be martyrs. They want the victims to feel sorry for them or admire them. The pity party is just another way how to extract a bit of a narcissistic supply (sympathy) from the new source of supply. Already on the first dates they will cry over how mistreated they have been in life and how nobody understand them. They will share fake stories with the victims about their horrible exes (isn´t a bit suspicious that all of their exes are always such a crazy, mentally ill and horrible people?). They often complain about their exes already on the first dates in order to gain sympathy and recruit another flying monkey to join them in a smearing campaign of their previous partners. They infect complete strangers to help them to abuse and hate an innocent people they do not even know. In most cases they will share with the victims the stories what horrible things their exes did to them, how their exes cheated on them, how they have been abused by their exes but in fact, it’s a projection of things they actually did to their exes. As the relationships with the new victims will progress the new victims will eventually come to the realization that the covert narcissists are actually the real villain in this story as at some point the covert narcissists will be caught cheating, stealing or doing something shady. In the beginning of the relationships, they will try to impress the victims with the manufactured stories about how they frequently help others. They are often the pillars of the community and do the charity things but what they often forget to mention is that they do not do it because they have the good hearts but rather for their selfish reasons to gain positive emotional supply from people and to cover their crimes (such as the priest molesting the children or stealing from church funds).

The new victims feel so lucky to find such a soulmates as the covert narcissists. They feel very flattered by the covert narcissists who put them high on the pedestal and are crazy about them. In the love bombing stage they obsessively communicate with each other - the victims receive 50 messages on a social media a day and they are on the call for several hours each night While for the victims it is euphoria of the new beginnings and hope that this time they found their perfect match, for the covert narcissists it is only a manic phase of their disorder. The victims do not realize that this intense love bombing has anything to do with love. It is a cross of their boundaries. As the narcissist´s boundaries have been crossed whole their childhood by their caregiver(s), they did not develop a healthy sense of the boundaries thus they are crossing the boundaries of other people in their adulthood. The narcissists ignore social, emotional, physical boundaries and limits. No healthy person would bomb other person in a such intensity before even knowing them. It is not a normal behavior when someone is demanding an ultimate trust right from the first day of meeting them, no healthy adult would ever investigate such an intimate and confidential information from others from the first day they met them and no healthy and properly emotionally and psychologically developed person would ever bomb others with intense love messaging as the healthy adults do not behave like the teenagers. The victims never experienced more passionate relationships before like they experienced with the narcissists. The victims misinterpret the narcissist´s recklessness, impulsiveness, irresponsibility and hazard with other people´s life and safety with something that felt as a adventurous characteristic of the narcissists. The victims are very flattered when the narcissists share the photos of them together on social medias. What the victims do not realize is that someone´s love bombing stage is always someone else´s devaluation stage as the narcissists have the tendency to have more narcissistic supply sources simultaneously. While they are grooming the new victims they are usually devaluating the old victims in the same time. The ultimate way how to gain as much narcissistic supply (both positive and negative) as possible in the same time is to triangulate the new and the old victims. While the new victims are melting behind the cell phone screens being overwhelmed with happiness that they get so much attention and admiration from the narcissists who obsessively posting their photos on social medias, the old victims are also watching their social medias trying to make sense of what happened to them while they are going through the greatest horror of their life with their narcissists feeling utterly shocked, betrayed and hurt. The narcissists do not post the photos of the new victims on the social medias to make the new victims happy but to gain a positive supply from the audience to feed their fragile ego so they are able to function (without any narcissistic supply the narcissists would collapse as they are addicted to people and they use people to regulate their emotional dis-regulation). They also post the photos of the new victims on their profile to inflict a pain onto the old victims. The covert narcissists are the heroes and the hangmen in the same time. The way they build the victims up and put them on the pedestals during the love bombing stage, they also destroy the victims and drag them down of the pedestal when the devaluation stage begin. They use the intense love bombing stage also to justify the wrong doings they did to the old supply because in their disordered mind they think "if I prove the audience I am this kind and carrying person to the new supply, I am good and correct and when I am good and correct it automatically means the old supply is bad and incorrect". The love bombing of the new supply is in a sense a part of the smear campaign against the old supply.

They see the victims as the trophy they can show to their audience to make themselves look good as this helps them to maintain their "false self mask". When the victims look and act as an amazing people, it means that the covert narcissists are perfect too. Once the victims show to the abusers they have flaws (because everybody has some, nobody is perfect), it causes narcissistic emotional injury in the narcissists as you mirror back to them that they are not perfect. Their entitlement is a part of their disorder and in their heads they think they deserve only the best. As the narcissists idealize the new victims in the beginning of the love bombing stage and they gain a lot of narcissistic emotional supply from the new victims, temporary that moment the new victims make them feel very good about themselves thus they parade the new victims all over the place and putting them on the pedestals. Boosted by causing pain to the old supply in the devaluation stage and simultaneously gaining the positive supply from the new victims make their egos feel temporary like on the top of the mountain.

If they do not see you as the best for them, they start to see you with the black optics. Nobody in this world can keep up with the nonsense standards and demands of the narcissists as they are disillusion and they have magical thinking. At this point, the narcissists start to manufacture the first crisis in the relationships as their new supply "disappointed" them with not being perfect and flawless. The victims are being manipulated to try harder and harder, to satisfy the narcissists, yet they are completely unable to reach any satisfaction in the eyes of the narcissists. Once they drain the new sources of the supply completely dry, they start to plot the plans on where to get a new shinny toy who would be perfect. The narcissists are known for their recklessness, need for a constant excitement  and stimulation and no hard work of the victims can keep them in the relationships and prevent the narcissists to leave the victims. They will be always on the hunt of "something better". In their mind the grass is always greener on the other side and something better is waiting for them right behind the corner. They are opportunists who when once finding a new sources of supply, they will move on to the next target in the blink of an eye not paying any attention to the damage they are causing to people around them. They are utterly selfish and they only care about their own needs, wants and safety. Very often the victims are blaming themselves thinking that maybe if they tried  harder or make the things differently, they would be able to prevent the abuse or prevent the narcissists to leave them. This is not true. The Hollywood is full of "perfect" women who have the perfect bodies, the perfect clothes, the perfect make - ups, they are super young, they have the perfect careers and they have lot of money. Yet, they are also being abused by the narcissists and despite the "perfection" they are offering to the narcissists, they are being discarded. It is because the issue is not in the victims. The narcissists suffer from personality disorder and one of the symptoms of their disorder is repetitive compulsion syndrome which means they will be always running in the narcissistic abuse cycle on repeat just like the hamster is running in the hamster´s wheel. The hamster who runs in the hamster´s wheel also thinks that if he would run faster, he would finally arrive in the greenest field full of fresh and crunchy grass and fresh choices of fruits and vegetables.

The rule is: the more intense the love bombing in the beginning is, the more intense the fall during the discard is.

During the love bombing stage the covert narcissists start to train the victims. The training might seems like a flattery to people who are not educated in narcissism. The covert narcissists will say something like: "I am so happy that we never argue because with my ex we argued a lot and I hated it so I am happy you are not like my ex because I can´t really imagine to be with someone like my ex". This make uneducated victims feel special because it sounds to them as a compliment while it is nothing else than the subliminal programming to train the new victims to never complain or to never set the boundaries when the covert narcissists decide to cross their boundaries. As the new victims do not want to be like the "crazy ex", they will let the abusers to walk all over them without any complain for the fear to upset the abusers or loose them. The subliminal ultra MK mind control training starts already in the grooming phase. As the relationships progress, the victims will be fully programmed to be the nonresistant slavers and the victims will become the extension of the abusers. The covert narcissists work hard to trauma bond the victims with the constant mind control, highs and lows while making sure themselves do not connect in any way with the victims. That´s why once the grand finale discard happens, the victims are in a tremendous pain going through a withdrawal symptoms of an addiction to the abusers while the abusers seem to move on very easily (and often literary overnight) without any remorse or guilt after they threw the victims under the bus. The love bombing stage feels so good for the victims but while it is a real thing for the victims, its only a manipulative tactic from the abuser´s side to get from the victims what they want (for every narcissists it is something else what they see valuable - for some of them it is a trophy wife/trophy husband, for others it is money, visa, free vacations, etc). No matter how the love bombing stage tastes good, the fact is that the love bombing is only a manipulation technique and the first stage of an abusive cycle. The love bombing has nothing to do with love, it is an abuse. The love bombing might seem very sweet, but its only more sugar coated part of the brutal emotional and psychological abuse cycle.

Through the abuse cycle, the covert narcissists slowly isolate their victims from their circle of friends and family to have an ultimate power and control over them. They have to isolate the victims from their support so their closest people might not have any chance to notice the abuse or compare the notes during the smear campaign. They will start to bad mouth the friends and family of the victims to change the perception of the reality so the victims start to see others as a threat or as a bad people and the abusers can have the victims only for themselves. If the victims are being isolated from their support even before they met the abusers (for example they moved across the countries) or if they are lonely or introverted in nature, it makes everything much easier for the abusers to suck them into the abusive cycle. While the overt narcissists have more tendency to be social (they are social butterflies) and they prefer to meet all of the victim´s important people in their life to infiltrate into the circle just to later recruit all of those people in order to turn them against the victims, the introverted covert narcissists work more like a solitaire and prefer to have the victims only for themselves, they isolate them completely from everybody and perform the abuse behind the doors in secret. The more covert the narcissists are, the harder it is to realize the abuse. In most of the cases even the victims themselves do not realize they are being abused for a long time, sometimes even years or decades. This is the reason why it is hard to believe the victims that they have been abused as the covert narcissists are experts in keeping the "false self masks" on and act as the most nice people on the Earth in front of the other people. What is happening behind the doors or behind the scene is a completely different story.

As it takes time to uncover the covert narcissists, the victims do not report the abuse to their surrounding right away. Very often even the victims themselves do not realize that they had already progressed in the abusive cycle from the love bombing stage to the next stages - to the devaluation  stage and the discard stage as the more covert the narcissists are, the more covertly the abuse will be done to the victims. The more covert the narcissists are, the majority of the attacks and manipulations will happen behind the scene well hidden from the victims while the covert narcissists will pretend they are loving carrying people to the victims to build a fake safety in them. In most cases, the devaluation and discard stage will happen behind their back. Once the victims awake to the realization that they have been abused (with covert narcissists it is usually right before the grant final discard phase), unfortunately, they find themselves already being deeply trapped in a well designed spider web of  the covert narcissists without no or very little options to fight back or protect themselves. The abusers have the ultimate advantage as they have been planning, plotting and preparing themselves for the attack in the grand finale discard from the day one. Once the abusers realized that the victims awakened to the truth and they start to see through their masks, the abuse is being ready to be switched from covert to overt and also being ready to be fully exposed to the victims and to the  audience too. At this point, the victims are going through a brutal shock because for them the abuse is being uncovered right now, but the truth is that this whole machination is not new at all, it is going on for a pretty while but because it is happening behind the scene, they did not realize the fact that they have been actually abused for a long time. While the victims have been living in the illusion that they live in a perfect relationships, their destruction was already ongoing behind their back. The whole time the covert narcissists are pretending to be the loyal perfect partners. Once the victims start to have at least a little clue what is going on and they start to have a lot of questions, the covert narcissists pretend they have no idea what are the victims even talking about. At this point, the abusers try to do the "damage control". While the victims have been living in a perfectly isolated bubble of an illusion, the covert narcissists already managed to proceed with the smear campaign, to prepare all the manufactured future alibi, to secure the new victims that they have been living the double life with, to cone the victims of their money and so on. Once the narcissistic abusive cycle comes to an end and the narcissists are not able to hide their evil doings from the victims anymore, the curtains of the grand final discard dramatic show are being finally fully open and fully exposed to the victims and to the audience. At this point, the drama starts and of course, the abusers will make sure that it all look like some phantasmagoria of the victims and they try to depict the victims as mentally ill, unstable, on drugs or crazy. The abusers drive the victims to the point of the mental break down and then they point the fingers onto the victims claiming that the victims are unstable and crazy. As the victims are going through a shock and their whole world is crumbling down, they start to act out of their character - for example they might start to be hysterical  (even their true character is to be calm and collected person) or they try to explain in a very animated way what happened to them to the flying monkeys but as they do not understand fully yet what actually happened to them (and in a lot of cases that the flying monkeys are also involved and they cover the abuser´s back), they by themselves contribute to their own self-sabotage and they unknowingly support the manufactured story of the abusers about their craziness. The victims go through the anger stage and once they lash back at the narcissists (known as "reactive abuse"), the narcissists make sure they provoke this anger out of the victims in front of the audience so the abusers can accuses the real victims to be the abusers ("You see, I told you this man/woman is crazy"). They will use the victim´s emotional reactions to the abuse against the victims. The more the victims try to explain themselves or try to find the support around them, the more the things get worst.

What makes the situation complicated and impossible for the victims to report the abuse on time is the fact that the covert narcissists do a great job of being at the best behavior in the love bombing stage and they make sure that they presented this false nice mask not only to the victims but also to all people from the victim´s circle. The victims unknowingly cooperated with the covert narcissists on their own destruction by overly praising the covert narcissists to their surrounding in the love bombing stage. Once they awake to the realization that they have been used and abused and their partners are not that perfect how they pretended to be in the beginning, the victims are afraid to report the abuse as they feel that nobody would believe the truth anyway after they praised the abusers so much in the beginning of the relationships. Who would believe that this amazing woman or amazing man turned into the monster? Another great factor that make the victims impossible to report the abuse is a fact that the covert narcissists make sure that they create as much chaos and confusion in a life of the victims to the point it takes even few years till the victims are capable to make sense of what actually happened to them. The truth is not being revealed at once, rather it comes to the surface piece by piece, sometimes even for months or years. For the victims making sense of what happened to them is very similar to puzzle. With a further investigation they are bringing the pieces together till they have the full picture. Oftentimes, the abuse is so hidden they will never discover the full truth or they do not uncover the truth at all (they will live for the rest of their lives thinking they are mentally ill while they have been actually abused and suffered from PTSD). The covert narcissists did such a damage in a life of the victims that the damage prevents the victims to take legal actions due to the financial bankruptcy the abusers caused them. The victims are not able to afford the lawyers. The already bad situation is being worsen by secondary abuse by proxy, by the recruited flying monkeys that are coming to the victims to abuse them even more. Knowingly or unknowingly, they are helping the real abusers to cover the crimes and help the real victims to fall even deeper that they already fell into the dark hole. The victims are being left without any support and their social circles are being destroyed by the narcissists. In most cases, the victims are suffering from the PTSD or C-PTSD developed during the abuse by the covert narcissists and the victims found themselves in a survival mode not being able to cope with the situation in an appropriate manner. Its also very hard for the victims to admit publicly that they have been abused. The victims feel very embarrassed, confused and ashamed so they have the tendency to hide with their pain behind the doors. Statistically, no matter what form of an abuse is being done to the victims, most of the victims report the abuse even many years later. Its not uncommon that if a child has been sexually abused in the childhood by a pedophile, the person will report this abuse even 20 or 30 years later.

The main love bombing happens in the beginning of the relationships but little love bombings can be used on the victims by the narcissists during the re-idealization phase and during hooverings when the narcissists are trying to suck the victims back to the narcissistic abusive cycle. Every time the victims try to pull away and the covert narcissists start to feel that they are losing the power and control over the victims, the abusers might love bomb the victims to suck them back into the cycle. During the love bombing stage the narcissists are on their best behavior. The moment the covert narcissists feel they secured the victims again, they switch back to the abusive behavior. The narcissists are nice only for two reasons. The first reason is when the narcissists plot against the victims and they want to keep the victims in an illusion that nothing is going on. When the narcissists are nice, usually there is a "surprise" behind the corner waiting for the victims. The abusers have sadistic tendencies so the more shocking the revealing of the displeasing situation is going to be for the victims, the more pleasure  and narcissistic supply it will give to the abusers. They are being overly nice also when they try to do the "damage control" and recruit the victims to help them to cover the evil doings and crimes they did to them so they would prevent the victims to expose the truth. The narcissists are manipulative to the point that they will use their victims to cover the crime against those victims. The second reason why the narcissists are nice to the victims is because they want something from the victims. Once they obtain what they want, they switch back to abusing mode. If the covert narcissists are suddenly overly nice, its very important to start paying an attention to this sudden changes.

Each time the victims go back to the abusers, the abuse intensify and the love bombing shorten. Each time the victims come back to the abuser, the abuse are getting worse and worse. Per statistics the victims come back to their abusers 7 times before they leave for good (or being killed). As the narcissists feel entitled, the rejection and loss of the control over the victims cause them an emotional narcissistic injury. The only reason why the abusers are so intense in trying to win the victims back is that they want to punish the victims for being "cheek" to them ("How dare you left me? I have to punish you!" or "How dare you to move on after I left you?"). The narcissists want to punish the victims for leaving the abusers. In case it was the abusers who left the victims, the abusers still want to maintain the power and control over the victims (forever) and if the abusers feel that the victims are recovering and they start to be not affected by the abusers, this can cause also the narcissistic injury in the abusers and activate the need in them to lure the victims back to "finish them". The abusers are never coming back to the victims that are "finished", only to those victims who managed to revitalize and recover as only those sources of the supply are capable to "feed" them again. The ultimate goal of the psychopath is to kill you. The ultimate goal of the covert narcissists is to push you to suicide. If neither of these happen, the victims might expect the hoover somewhere in the future (even years after the discard) as the discard is only an illusion. The end of the abusive cycle can be set solely by the victims. Only victims can stop the abusive cycle by going strict no contact as the abusers have obsessive minds and there is no limits for them. The limits and boundaries need to be set solely by the victims otherwise the abusers will go on and on and on ... forever.

Most of the victims find themselves stuck in the abusive toxic relationships because the love bombing in the beginning of the relationships was so intense and felt so good that they hope that if they work harder to save their relationships, they would be able to experience the love bombing phase once again which unfortunately never happens as the love bombing has been only a manipulation from the side of the narcissists and it was never real. Sometimes the victims get stuck in the narcissistic abuse cycle for many years just for the nostalgy of past and false memory of the love bombing stage. The abusers are very manipulative so they do not abuse the victims 24/7 as they know very well that if they keep to abuse the victims nonstop, the victims would realize very soon in a very clearly way that they are being abused and they would leave the abusers. The abusers keep giving the victims some bread crumbs of an attention and fake love here and there, just enough to keep them stuck in the abusive cycle. The victims are being stuck in the cognitive dissonance when they experience one good day with the narcissists (the narcissists take them for a nice trip and they do some nice gestures towards the victims), but then the next day the abusers completely switch to their true self - into being cold, angry, abusive, mean and withholding. Its this extreme highs and lows that create a chemical cocktail in the victim´s brain and it leads them into creating a trauma bond with their abusers (known as Stockholm syndrome). The relationships with the narcissists are known for "push and pull", back and forth, "hot and cold", "nice and mean", "stay or leave"  and "fight or fly" dynamics and ping-pong energies. They are sometimes nice, sometimes cruel and you never know where you stand with them.

The only way to end this abusive cycle for the victims is to have a discipline to go no contact (or low contact in a case of co-parenting with the abusers). The end of the cycle is solely in the hands of the victims. The victims need to find the strength inside of them to end the abuse. The "grant final discard" after the narcissists secured the new sources of supply and moved on is only an illusion. The narcissists have a tendency to recycle the victims (re-idealization) and in most cases they come back and try to hoover their old supplies, sometimes in a few weeks, months, sometimes in a few years and sometimes even after 20 years. The narcissists are like herpes, they always keep coming back.

Love bombing does not necessary happen only in a romantic relationships. This technique can be used also by the narcissistic parents to triangulate the children or in a work place by the narcissistic bosses who would like to keep the victims in the abusive cycle. 

In a healthy relationship you do not need to work hard to prove your worth to your partner. The love never hurts and the love is not an agony. The person who truly loves you will never ever abuse you and he or she would never constantly triangulate you into a toxic triangles with others just to keep you fight for him or her. The real love is a very peaceful and easy connection to another human being and the person who loves you has no need to invite the third party into your intimate and sacred space nor to causing you stress. When it is a real love, its not feeling hard to be faithful. The real love has no drama. Its very easy to get lost while you are in the middle of the eye of the hurricane in the toxic relationship as the chaos is being implemented into your life on purpose and as the time goes by, you let the emotions over-write your logical thinking. Because the abuser knows that if he or she gives you a little bit of a peaceful and silent space to sit down and really think about what is happening to you, you would use your logic and this logic would come to the clear conclusion that what is happening right now to you is crazy and wrong. The most dangerous fact about the covert narcissists is that they do not abuse you right away. Its coming slowly, silently, in a sublime way and you have zero chance to notice it. Like a rust that is corroding the iron over time. Sometimes the victims wish that the abusers would beat them and there would be a lot of blood so they can have a proof that they are not crazy and what is happening to them is real... so they can see the truth clearly and remove themselves from the toxic relationship as soon as possible. The covert narcissist starts to program you very slowly the way you not even notice that they are taking full control over your mind and life and you become only a puppet in the hands of the handler. If the abuse would start right from the first day and if it would be physical right from the beginning, you would be able to recognize it right away, put a label "abuse" on it and you would leave. But it does not work this way with the covert narcissists. Once you live too long in an abnormal situation, you somehow adjust to the abnormal functioning as the abuse has been overtime normalized by the abuser. The abnormal became your normal and you do not even realize it. The abnormal dynamic in your relationship with your abuser became the giant advertising flashy billboard screens attached to the walls of the buildings in Tokyo. First you notice them, but once you live in Tokyo for some time, even the add billboards are screaming at you and flashing at you, you just start to ignore them more and more each day on a subconscious level. You start to be blind and deaf to them. And one day, you walk in the streets of the Tokyo and you do not even know that there are some add billboards ...

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