One of the most persistent and damaging myths about narcissistic abuse is that it happens to people who should have known better. The implication — sometimes stated, more often implied — is that intelligence, professional success, emotional maturity, or relational experience ought to confer protection. That people with those qualities should have seen it coming. That falling for it reflects…
Narcissistic Abuse
Narcissistic abuse is a pattern of psychological manipulation and subtype of coercive control by individuals with narcissistic personality traits or narcissistic personality disorder.
It encompasses love-bombing, gaslighting, intermittent reinforcement, devaluation, financial exploitation, isolation, and discard — a cycle that is specifically designed to erode the target’s self-assessment, epistemic trust, and capacity for autonomous judgment.
Narcissistic Abuse Rehab was founded in 2019 by trauma recovery coach Manya Wakefield to provide evidence-based resources and one-to-one coaching for survivors. The site’s resources draw on the clinical literature of Evan Stark, Judith Herman, Bessel van der Kolk, and Craig Malkin, among others, and has been featured in Newsweek, Elle, Cosmopolitan, and HuffPost.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder and the Trauma Bond: What It Is, How It Works, and How to Break It
Narcissistic Personality Disorder and the Trauma Bond: What It Is, How It Works, and How to Break It
The question survivors of narcissistic abuse ask most often is not “what happened to me?” It is “why couldn’t I leave?” The answer to that question is not a character flaw. It is a clinical phenomenon — one with a name, a documented mechanism, and an established path out. In this article I draw draws on the clinical expertise of…
Love-bombing is one of the most disorienting experiences a person can have in a romantic relationship. In the moment it feels like the opposite of abuse. The intensity of the attention and the seemingly perfect compatibility are emotionally intoxicating. It feels like being seen, heard, understood, and chosen – all at once. In my coaching practice, working with survivors of…
The dusty man is not a new phenomenon. He has existed, in various forms, wherever systems of power have created men with enormous entitlement and small means. Dusties espouse the ideology of masculine authority without the character or resources to make that authority anything other than a weapon turned against the women he seeks to exploit. The dusty moves through…
Financial abuse is a tactic used by one person to gain power and control over another through the deliberate manipulation of money, assets, and economic resources. It can take many forms – from controlling a person’s access to their own bank account, to forcing someone into debt, to stealing money outright. It may be subtle and incremental, or overt and…
People find themselves seeking a path to narcissistic abuse recovery in a variety of different contexts. Whether it is the cognitive dissonance of a gaslighting partner, the intermittent warmth of a narcissistic parent, the passive-aggressive undermining of a spiteful sibling, or the quiet erosion of self-worth by a hostile colleague in the workplace, the trauma is real. Most devastating is…
The invisible wounds of narcissistic abuse run deep. Neuroscience is finally catching up to what survivors have long understood: narcissistic abuse rewires the brain. Chronic gaslighting, emotional manipulation, and coercive control don’t just hurt emotionally. They disrupt how the brain handles fear, stores memories, makes decisions, and responds to stress. In this article, we break down how narcissistic abuse affects…
Through the enactment of Om’s Law, Utah is formally recognizing the urgent necessity of closing the knowledge gap regarding the true, multifaceted nature of intimate partner and family violence. In the post-#MeToo era, the response to women articulating the reality of men’s violence has been a systematic rollback of bodily autonomy and labor equity. The political climate has shifted so…
U.K. law enforcement is finally confronting a chilling, yet frequently overlooked, instrument of coercive and controlling behavior: the tactical abuse of household pets. This February, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is launching a specialist training program for more than 150 senior investigators, casework managers, and decision-makers. The curriculum is designed to sharpen the investigative eye for the hidden…
For World Diabetes Day 2025, the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) championed a theme of Diabetes and Well-being, with a specific focus on the workplace. The campaign urged employers to combat stigma and foster supportive environments — a worthy cause, but one that illuminates a troubling blind spot at the heart of global diabetes advocacy. For millions of survivors of intimate partner…