To truly understand why women do not leave, the reasons are better understood in light of seeing first and foremost the human reasons, as human beings, women have hardwired emotion-drives to matter and create meaningful connections to self and others, life and self. These drives are connected, as discussed in Part 1, to “real” or “perceived” fears that can interfere with clear thinking and decision making processes.

The traumatic experience of desperately seeking to contribute, feel loved and worthwhile, in intense survival-love contexts, forms trauma bonds that are highly addictive.

There are at least 7 “human heart” reasons that activate fear response and addictive patterns of thinking, in that women do not want to believe the man they love:

1. Has no capacity to love.

Women have been socialized to make excuses for men, when it comes to their couple relationship, to let him off the hook or, on the other hand, to look for how she better contribute, support him, help him “get” what love means. This can be reinforcing as it fulfills the human need to feel needed, valued in some way. “Surely,” she may tell herself, “he must love her; he just doesn’t ‘know how’ to show it.” A woman feels so needed when she says things like this to herself.

In other words, women are socialized to follow the “boys with be boys” script, just as men are, albeit in different ways. What a woman doesn’t know, however, is that the narcissist in her life has been socialized to play by different rules; and he guards these rules closely. For example, he regards it his job to “fix” this “love thing” that only “weak, needy and inferior” persons demand, and uses this to play an array of bait and switch games. She needs to learn what a narcissist really means when he says ‘I love you’; he’s referring to the pleasure he derives from feeling “superior” by exploiting, using her like a punching bag.

2. Derives pleasure from hurting them.

Women were socialized to link their self-identity to bringing happiness to others and succeeding in their relationship.  There is a vast gulf between where a woman wants to go in a relationship, and where a narcissist is overtly or covertly leading her. Overall women today think of their relationships as partnerships in which both persons support one another’s happiness and wellbeing. A narcissist however is 24/7 guarding the dominance image. For a woman, it’s confusing when they bring up hurts and concerns to their partner, and he gaslights her to derail the focus she wants, and to make her think she’s crazy. To the narcissist, the more information he has on what “hurts” her, the more successful he feels in accomplishing his goals. From his worldview, he intentionally “hurts” her to ensure she is less dangerous to him.

3. Intends the abuse and lies as means of control.

The socialization of women, as a group, teaches them to adhere to “toxic femininity” rules, subconsciously, to some degree, and to romanticize dominance and believe that proving her devotion to make him feel happy and secure in her love, at her own expense, will eventually “work” to change how careless he is about her feelings, wants and needs — or pain. He’s been socialized to perceive women as “fierce competitors” out to dominate men, and to block her attempts at closeness (warned this “emotional craziness” is dangerous to his masculinity). In contrast, she has been conditioned to believe in a fantasy, that: Once she finds a way to get through to him that her love and devotion to his happiness are real, he’ll magically trust her, and then treat her like a real, and valued human being.

 4. Will not benefit or be rescued by their efforts. 

Women are trained to believe and refuse to let go of their belief that, somehow and someday, her love and sacrifice will turn a heartless abuser into a caring prince that, at last, sees and loves her with his whole heart! Not only will her sacrifice not make a difference, it enables his arrested state of emotional development to get worse. In a paradoxical way, getting women to serve as narcissistic supply is a set up to enable narcissism in men, for example, women are expected to prop up a man’s ego by letting them think they are dominating, making it easier for them to display their superiority to themselves and others.

5. Feels scorn for the idea of a meaningful human connection.

Women have social permission to enjoy the deep gratification and meaning it brings, to merely yearn to love another, to yearn to make them feel valued, important, loved. That is so human; and that, is love. No one can take it away from her, She felt the love. It just wasn’t coming from him. It was her own love for him, and the rest was her imagination of how loved he felt, and how much he must love her in return. It’s how love works, in a sense, between two humans. Narcissists however disdain and hate human traits of caring, love, kindness. To them, these are abominable weaknesses. They were socialized to learn to hate these impulses in you to prove you’re a “real” man. This leaves men miserable, fighting 24/7 to prop up fragile egos. What women do not realize is that a narcissist’s own lust to hate and be hated is what leaves him vulnerable. Nothing she does can change this. The disorders of narcissism and psychopathology are serious cognitive disturbances. What can be worse than for a human being to detest his (or her) own “true self” and to seek to make their “false self” appear real? The narcissist has been deceived by his socialization to follow the rules of “toxic masculinity” that cost him his human connection to love and meaning.

6. Keeps her in a fog of illusions and fantasies to her disbelief.

Who can blame her for not wanting to accept, much less believe, that an intelligent person like herself was deceived to such a degree or length of time? This, she tells herself, would mean she is stupid; and she’s not. It can take a long time to come out of the fog to accept what she’s known deep inside. He has no capacity, or desire, to bring her love, to emotionally connect in intimate ways. He’s after his fix, opportunities around the clock to prove he’s in control of her mind, emotions, behaviors, and thus, superior to her inferiority. He proudly does not feel her pain, to him, that’s more proof of his rightful dominance.

7. Has no sense of morality in the treatment of those perceived “weak.” 

Who can blame her? It’s only human to want to think the best of others. It’s also human to project our own inclinations to others. In the same way a narcissist projects himself onto the way in his life, i.e., sees her as a fierce competitor, dangerous, out to control him, and so on, a codependent thens to project her own caring, kindness toward others to the narcissist. This is not only undeserved, it is unwise. A narcissist has no conscience, feels no remorse for harming others, indeed, he derives pleasure from inflicting pain. Even in cases where he’s a church goer, or political leader, he likely defines “morality” overall as a code of ethics that is set of double standards designed to grant impunity to those in authority positions to use any means to keep “the weak” in their place. It is human to not want to accept that he feels scorn for her “weak” traits of wanting him to care about her pain and hurt feelings.

In sum, socializing women to deny or make their wants invisible to men is not only unhealthy for women and their relationships, but also even a greater disservice to the man in their lives. It’s not easy to leave because trauma bonds are highly addictive. Notably, although these norms may hurt women, they still have permission to feel human, to bring love and happiness to those they love, to know the joy of making others feel important and participating in their success. In contrast, arguably, nothing worse can befall a human being than “living” in emotionally arrested states of development of narcissism, and more so, sociopathology or psychopathology.

** The term narcissist, or narcissism, refer to persons that fully meet the criteria (as opposed to mere tendencies) for narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) — or its more extreme version on the spectrum, sociopathology or psychopathology, labeled as antisocial personality disorder (APD) in the DSM.

These character disorders are cognitive disturbances that, unlike other mental health disorders, predispose persons to intentionally act out their rage and scorn to harm others, in characteristically patterned behaviors (known as narcissistic abuse). 

**** The use of male pronouns is supported by decades of research showing that domestic violence, sexual assault, rape, mass shootings, pedophilia, and other acts of “false-power” violence are not gender neutral. They are rooted in rigid adherence to gendered might-makes-right norms for “toxic masculinity” for men (and “toxic femininity” for women). These norms idealize violence and intimidation as means to male establish status and dominance. See also “5 Reasons Violence and Narcissism Are Not Gender Neutral.

Photo by Patricia Pierce

Why do some women not leave abusive relationships, characterized by narcissistic*** abuse?

In one word, fear. Both real fears, and “perceived” ones. Perceived fears are more often the real road blocks to leaving and, or healing.

Human beings are hardwired want to matter, to find the treasures of happiness and fulfillment, and to do so following wise principles that enrich and bring meaning to our lives and relationships with ourselves and key others. Period. That is an unalterable reality of most human beings (one that only severe trauma and neglect impairs). When our early experiences or conditioning has given us bogus treasure maps, it’s a set up for addictive relating in which women (and men) look for treasures in all the wrong places.

All fears feel real. The subconscious mind handles both “real” and “perceived” fears in the same way: by activating the body’s survival system. Many of these “perceived” fears are illusions rooted in a woman’s early childhood socialization, and others are reinforced by targeted mind games, such as gaslighting, narcissistic partners play.

This post, Part 1, looks at some of the “real” reasons women do not leave abusers, with a specific emphasis on understanding women (or men) who do not leave abusive relationships … in human terms.

Both “real” and “perceived” fears are human. There is overlap as they are inseparably connected to core human emotion-drives to matter and meaningfully connect to self and life; these yearnings are needs, like water and oxygen, not mere wants. In turn, these yearnings are linked to core human fears, such as fear of rejection (not belonging), inadequacy (incapable of finding meaningful love connections) and abandonment (living in loneliness and isolation).

First, the “real” reasons for not leaving:

In contrast to fears that unnecessary activate the body’s survival response, real fears are overall reasonable and good; they allow us to thoughtfully respond and take consciously loving actions accordingly. They can be grouped in three categories of hardwired emotion-drives:

1. Physical safety needs.

A woman in a relationship with an abuser may not have a place to go. The fear of uncertainty blocks action. She may have no means to support herself if she leaves, especially if there are children involved. She may fear he’ll harm her, the children, the pets or destroy cherished belongings. She may have heard him threaten to commit suicide or take her life. (The risk of a woman getting killed increases when they try to leave or some time thereafter.) She knows what he’s capable of and what he’s done in the past, and she’s familiar with his pattern of taking punitive actions when he does not get what he wants.

These are real fears, based on real concerns. However, the narcissist knows how to play on these fears to increase their intensity to have paralyzing effect. He knows intensifying fear can have an addictive hold on a persons brain and body; it literally shuts off the otherwise amazing abilities of the brain to think clearly and make optimal decisions. Research shows fear can be used effectively to control others, take over their minds. Narcissists are skilled at emotionally manipulate fears to intensify them with fantasy scenarios.

2. Efficacy and contribution needs.

A woman in an abusive relationship may have fears related to whether she is capable of living on her own, finding happiness outside of her relationship with a man. Women are socialized to take primary responsibility for making others happy, and their relationships work.She worries therefore that she will be blamed for any failures in these areas. 

A narcissist partner plays on these fears, having studied women, knowing well the worst thing to call women is selfish, controlling or emasculating. The abuser may have repeatedly blamed her for his anger, his “unhappiness” or “insecurities,” and his hurtful, abusive actions. She’s made to feel inept, doubt herself, and crazy. A narcissist takes on the role of expert in having diagnosed her as “bipolar,” “borderline” or even “narcissist”!

Once again, while these fears in part are reasonable and natural part of developing a relationship, the narcissist manipulates her mind and emotions to make fears larger than life. For example, he tells her everyone agrees with him that she’s crazy, unloved, controlling and so on. He’s likely diagnosed her with mental disorders of either borderline or bipolar, and images himself as an expert judge, jury, doctor, therapist, you name it. Her biggest mistake is taking his words at face value. She’s socialized to do so. He takes advantage of this, and this makes it easier to instill her mind with self-blame patterns of thinking/believing.

3. Belonging needs.

Women are relationship oriented, as human beings are, by birth. Humans have hard wired needs, not mere wants, for belonging, connection, finding meaning in their relationships. She may not consider leaving an option out of fear rejection or abandonment by her family, religious persecution by her church group and, or shunning. In some families, communities and groups, religious or secular, these fears may be real. Some groups require friends, family or other believers to shun or reject persons that do not conform, i.e., if they seek divorce. Women may also be shunned or shamed for not protecting a man’s image and reputation if they go public and disclose the abuse. A narcissist may retaliate if she does not maintain a code of silence.

In some groups or families, there is group retaliation for disclosing abuse, or attempting to dissolve a marriage. Characteristically, cults require women to subjugate themselves to men, regardless the abuse.

In closing, the real problem with the rules of “toxic femininity” is that they are unhealthy for both women and men in couple relationships. Her socialized refusal to heal by learning to love and fully accept herself and wants in order to prove her love, sadly, feeds the narcissist’s addiction to using others as narcissistic supply. The more he does, the more he feels the cruel treatment of others is “normal” way for men to display their superiority, in this case, perhaps the person who most has his back.

In Part 2, seven “human heart” reasons women may not leave abusive relationships.

Whether conscious or subconscious, shifts in your thoughts, in particular, to what you believe and hold in your awareness, literally, change the state of your mind and body in a split second in time.

You literally have the power to consciously command these inner processes; it’s a capacity that is yours to cultivate.

A world of difference exists, when it comes to your emotional and mental and relational health and wellbeing, between living your life in primarily in survival mode, where fear takes over your ability to choose. As a human being, you’re not wired to be primarily controlled by the sympathetic division of your autonomic system. You’re wired to be happy with your self and relationships, to thrive and grow, and become all you’re meant to be.

According to Dr. Candace Pert, neurotransmitters are “molecules of emotion” that activate the chemical reactions necessary to run your body. In the same way that words and verbal communication is the language that your conscious-self understands, emotions are the language of your body.

How you think about a problem determines what you focus on, and in turn, what you hold in mind, sparks images in your mind and emotions accordingly — either emotions of comfort and pleasure (love-based) or emotions of distress (fear-based). Regardless the issues you are attempting to solve, personal or relational, optimal solutions and actions are unlikely when your thinking brain is in fear-mode.

Here are five steps to self-activate your body’s relaxation response, in other words, to consciously shift away from survival-reactivity and instead remain in learning mode, that is, ensuring the parasympathetic division of your body’s autonomic nervous system is in charge.

1. Learn how your brain works.

The last two decades have produced more research on the brain and brain technologies than all past years put together.

Much of this new information dramatically changes how we view the brain, revealing mental and emotional capacities that, providing we know how to access them, can be lifelong assets with which we may create positive changes … and do so consciously … in the direction of our highest aspirations. That’s really good news.

You may have heard it before: change your thoughts, change your life.

If this sounds too simple, think again.

Consider that, in a split-second, a fear-thought can cause a panic attack, unnecessarily by activating the body’s survival response when there are no “real” threats to one’s physical survival, for example, yet a love-based thought in response can restore a sense of immediate calm and safety.

One key understanding is that the human brain isn’t designed to remain in survival mode for extended periods of time. It’s all about seeking fulfillment and happiness that stem from the quality of our relationships to our self and life around us. Certain universal emotion-drives direct many or most of your actions, in particular, toward a lifelong overarching pursuit “to matter” in relation to self and others, seeking meaningful connections in life.

This explains why a sense of love and connection to someone or some aspect of life enhances your sense of security – and why some of your greatest fears have to do with, not physical dangers and lions and tigers, but rather a fear or rejection, abandonment, inadequacy, all of which threaten to steal the meaningful connection to life we yearn to realize.

All its operations in some way have to do with maintaining balance to protect the integrity of the multitude of relationships that support you to survive and thrive, whether physically, mentally or emotionally (spiritually?).

Based on the yearnings to matter, and fear of not realizing these core-drives, you are also wired to form certain protective patterns in the first years of life.

Once set, these habituated protective response patterns operate, for the most part, without conscious awareness.

From infancy to adulthood, your brain is wired to work directly shapes and is shaped by relationships throughout life.

2. Identify any limiting beliefs and “self-talk.”

The next step is to identify and become aware of toxic thinking patterns, or “self-talk,” that is, what you tell yourself in your mind.

The cells in your body respond to your thoughts, in particular, interpretive thoughts, the kind that explain (to your body’s operating system, the subconscious mind) how you see the world in any given moment in time.

Your self-talk has power over your emotions and responses, to the extent that it remains unaware. In fact, no one has ever literally “controlled” you; it’s your thoughts, so become aware of your thoughts, and their underlying beliefs, and be careful to consciously guard your thoughts and thus heart, mind and body, from negative and toxic influences in entertainment media.

In what areas of your life or relationships do your thoughts drive your body to automatically activate its survival-move, and defensive strategies that repeat old negative reactions and stuck outcomes?

It is estimated that you have about 60,000 thoughts a day. Many of these are remnants of thoughts you picked up in childhood interactions with parents and other influential persons in your life, to include programs you watch, the music you listen to, and so on.

More precisely, certain perceptions that you formed as a small child, and that you associated at the time to early-survival fears, such as fear of rejection, abandonment, inadequacy – in moments of stress – can hijack the otherwise amazing capacity of your brain to heal old wounds and make the changes you want (even miraculous ones).

Based on what emotions they activate, thoughts correspondingly release hormones into the bloodstream, which affect the chemical firing of neurons in your brain. In other words, your subconscious mind activates emotions and physiological sensations throughout your body according to your perceptions.

The emotion of fear, survival fears in particular, can have a paralyzing effect on the brain, that is, unless you know how to process fear in ways that allow your brain to engage in certain natural integrative processes. If not, early-survival fears can jam the network for purposes that are often well-intentioned, yet misinformed.

Essentially, these limiting beliefs are scaring you into protecting yourself in situations where it is not necessary to do so!

Your beliefs are perceptions that interpret the events in your life. In what areas of your life or relationships do your thoughts drive your body to automatically activate its survival-move, and defensive strategies that repeat old negative reactions and stuck outcomes?

3. Set an intention to break free of limiting fears.

Your thoughts create images in your mind that your entire body responds to accordingly. A focus on what you want or how you have overcome obstacles in the past, for example, is going to produce completely different chemical reactions inside you from a focus on what you lack or how your loved have not met your expectations. When you apply focused attention to these processes, however, you get to actually choose the specific changes you want to make to your brain. This key finding in the field of neuroscience is discussed by several experts in the field, for example Daniel Siegel notes that:

“The power to direct our attention has within it the power to shape our brain’s firing patterns, as well as the power to shape the architecture of the brain itself.” ~ DANIEL L. SIEGEL, M.D.

Your brain is always primarily in one mode or the other, by the way. Your subconscious mind is continually eavesdropping on your inner self-talk 24/7. A master at multi-tasking, remarkably, your subconscious is designed to process millions of bits of information per second, in contrast to your conscious mind that only needs to process hundreds at any given time to do its job.

Thoughts and emotions are designed to work together.

In cases where you experience problems, stuck places, addictive compulsions or emotional suffering in your life, such as depression or anxiety, etc., it is because your thinking patterns are preventing your conscious mind (logic) and subconscious mind (emotions, heart) from working together. This produces imbalance in your life, and the primary cause of this imbalance, in my experience, is the emotion of — fear.

These often “well-meaning” protective blocks, comfort zones and walls of fear may be preventing you from stretching and growing out of “old” comfortable places that you must leave behind, much like a butterfly a cocoon, in order to realize the happiness and empowered life you want to live.

In reality, by offering a false sense of security, “comfort zones” can impair your ability to realize the inborn yearning for happiness you are designed to fulfill. You need a way of thinking that empowers optimal emotions at any given time, a way of “making sense” of your life experiences that consciously creates healthful conditions for your brain and body.

By practicing a new way of responding to or thinking about an old issue causes neurons to fire together in different ways, forming new connections, perhaps new neurons.

Your first step to becoming aware of your own inner stream of thoughts, is to set an intention to do so. This engages your subconscious mind to support you to focus on becoming more aware of your “self-talk.” Are you open and willing to let go of old fears and protective strategies, old comfort zones, in exchange for taking command of your life choices and direction, by choosing optimal thoughts and emotion states in response to triggering situations?

4. Develop your ability to shift to the most optimal states of body and mind.

Certain perceptions that you formed as a small child, and that you associated at the time to early-survival fears, such as fear of rejection, abandonment, inadequacy – in moments of stress – can hijack the otherwise amazing capacity of your brain to heal old wounds and make the changes you want (even miraculous ones).

You need a way of thinking and responding to challenging situations that empowers you to “make sense” of your life experiences and, at the same time, promotes healthful conditions for your brain and body. Your brain is always in one of two modes, either in “learning” or “protective” mode.

The former describes the mind and body in a natural state of balance, one in which you are open to reflectively think and learn from your experiences or environment. In contrast, the latter describes the body in “fight or flight” mode, a state in which your defense strategies put up barriers and walls that automatically and purposefully block processes of the higher cortex, such as reflective thinking, and in effect, block change.

You are always in the process of becoming what you are most thinking. Thoughts shape your actions. You become what you do.

As is often said in neuroscience since the late 1990s, neurons that “fire together, wire together.” When a pair of neurons fire at the same time, they build an association or connection between them.

This is what happens whenever learning takes place. Whenever you learn something new, a new grouping of cells comes together to form neural associations between them. If you learn something new, it is because either old or new neurons are wiring together in new ways. When you hear certain words or see certain images around you, and respond to what you see and hear in different ways, for example, your brain automatically forms new associations. With repetition or practice, these connections thicken and strengthen, meaning the behavioral response is more likely to be repeated.

This, by the way, is how you learned all of what you know, even how to walk, run and ride a bike. Even prior to birth, your brain began processes of structuring neurons in certain patterns, wiring and rewiring neurons together to form set pathways that permitted the essential transmission of these chemical and electrical messages throughout the neural network of your body. As you can imagine, most of this learning happens subconsciously, that is, without a lot of conscious thinking on your part. Let your brain work for you with optimal efficiency by discovering the power of consciously focusing your attention.

Whenever you experience re-occurring problems, stuck places, addictive compulsions or emotional suffering in your life, such as chronic depression or anxiety, etc., it is likely connected to these early neural patterns that, essentially, prevent your conscious mind (logic) and subconscious mind (emotions, heart) from working together.

New learning occurs as new cells and connections between cells are formed. Though events and experiences may alter the structure of your brain, new learning and connections largely depend upon how you respond to events around you, rather than the actual events themselves. If your brain is in a protective mode, such as may occur, for example, when you or someone criticizes you, your body turns off the brain’s learning mode. (You know all those lectures you’ve heard or given? They were a waste of time and energy.)

Much anxiety is a misinterpretation of what poses a threat or danger to you. How can this knowledge help you optimize your life, and take charge of the direction of change in your own brain?

5. Hold a clear and inspiring vision of who you want to become, the life you aspire to realize, and how you want to relate to yourself, others, your mind and body, your life.

A vision is seeing what you most yearn to create. It energize your imagination, and gives you a laser focus on what changes you want to make to the circuitry of your brain.
when you feel connected (to self, life, others in the present moment), despite the circumstances around you, you likely feel an overall sense of love and safety. What is now happening in the brain to make this difference? In this case, Oxytocin, a naturally occurring hormone that produces a felt sense of safety and bonding, of love and connection, is released into the bloodstream.

The feelings of trust and connection that this hormone stimulates automatically reverse the survival response by reducing fear and anxiety. Oxytocin is the body’s antidote to Cortisol.

You need a vision of a new way of being, way of thinking and responding to challenging situations that empowers you to “make new sense” of your life experiences and, at the same time, is set in a direction that promote your highest health and well being, healthful conditions for your brain and body.

Your thoughts are a powerful energy that can, and do, completely shape your responses, even as they change the state of your mind and body to what you believe and hold in your conscious awareness.

Do you have a clear and inspiring vision that subconsciously commands powerful inner processes?

What you most passionately want in your thoughts, combined with what you believe and feel as possibilities, release emotional states of mind and body, and energize you to hold a conscious awareness and act to keep reaching as if you’re already there … is a winning formula. Test if for yourself.

These hidden aspects of yourself are powerful shapers of your life. Even if a miracle occurred and you awakened tomorrow morning to find your relationship instantly transformed into a healthy radiant one, for example, you will not likely be able to sustain the changes long enough to enjoy them. These unloved parts of you would likely begin to act quickly to return your relationship back to what you had before.

Though some call this “self-sabotage,” it really is not. These hidden parts of you are controlled by a part of your mind known as the subconscious. It is responsible for managing all processes of your mind and body that you do not have to think about with your “conscious” mind, the part that does conscious thinking, makes plans, decisions, and so on.

Your subconscious mind monitors all systems 24/7. It never rests. That’s because its primary directive is to ensure your survival. Unlike the conscious mind, it does no thinking of its own. It does not recognize a difference between a physical threat and a psychological threat to your emotional safety, it will keep anything that resembles a close intimate relationship at bay until you are prepared to receive another’s love by knowing, as a prerequisite, how to nurture your own unrestricted self-love and self-acceptance.

This is not self-destructive behavior, rather self-preservative. It is an instinctive survival response that is activated automatically—based on your current set of beliefs about yourself, others, life, etc.—to protect you from what you believe, deep down, you cannot handle. In a sense, you cannot. However, that is only because you do not think, for some reason, that you are worthy of your own unconditional love and acceptance. You have been conditioned to believe that, in order to feel loved and accepted, others in your world “should” treat you in specific ways, otherwise, it means you are not. It is this type of thinking and beliefs that create a felt sense of being unloved or not accepted as you are. This keeps you continuously looking for someone or something out there to do it for you. This is not the way you and the world of relationships are designed to work.

What Keeps One From Fully Loving Self?

What keeps you from loving or connecting to the part or parts of yourself you do not love or fully accept? In one word, fear.

Fear is a natural human response that serves our survival. The rush of adrenaline triggered by our fears prepares us to either physically run away from or face a potential danger. Fears that seem bigger than us or life, however, can prevent us from growing by facing and participating in life. In this case, fear is a misuse of our imagination. Fear in the face of a tiger in the jungle is a healthy fear; however, fear that we are not inadequate because someone gives us a look of disappointment. Once we realize that fear is an energy of the mind to which we have an array of options we may choose from, we can stop fear from controlling our lives, and take charge ourselves. We can choose to avoid what we fear, but we may also choose to face them, and create the life we want to live.

More specifically, existential fears related to an inborn drive to protect your life—to survive, exist—these are the fears of rejection, abandonment, inadequacy, loss of control or loss of self to others, fear of failure, all of which come with the territory of being human. On the surface, for example, you may be aware that you fear and want to avoid conflict. Beneath the surface, deep down this may have to do with what fears conflict triggers beneath the surface, such as fear of rejection or inadequacy.

This is why your brain is in its most alert state of learning and awareness when you face danger, real or perceived. You were born wanting to learn, and the primary thing your subconscious seeks to learn first is how to help you survive in relation to others. Your current deepest fears have to do with early wounding experiences, the memory of which continue to be held inside. Rejection or abandonment by caregivers in early childhood spells death. A child’s survival is completely dependent on caregivers in childhood. Each of us, it seems, come into this world wondering intensely, and seeking answers to the following question: “Is it safe to be me, make choices, express feelings and yearnings, and still get my needs met for being recognized, valued, loved and accepted unconditionally in my relationship with you?”

Though your thinking mind as an adult may not seem concerned with these questions when you get triggered, the heightened intensity you feel is reflective of how you felt in similar situations as a child. Triggers activate old pockets of negatively charged memories. These existential fears were more highly charged then because, as a child, you were truly vulnerable. You needed your defenses. The misuse of your imagination, at the time, was actually useful to help you survive. Infants and small children literally cannot survive without love. In fact, even more than sustenance, children need love in the form of loving care, touch, eye contact, attention, being comforted, held. Your defenses helped your brain cope with the stress of having you needs met inconsistently, inadequately or at the expense of allowing you to exercise your own inner resources. How critical these factors are to the normal growth and development of an infant’s brain has been substantiated in numerous studies of attachment in the last century, a theoretical framework first formulated and researched by psychiatrist John Bowlby in the early 1900s.

You may think that you are the only one with a particular fear, that nobody else could possibly be scared of ordinary things such as water, heights, public speaking, or flying. These types of fears are very common, and you can have great success overcoming them. Remember, it is not the absence of the fear but the courage to take action anyway that determines success. When we learn to face our fears, we learn to observe our thoughts and feelings but not be ruled by them. Instead we choose how to shape the lives we want.

Problems usually occur when the wires get crossed and we develop a habit of running away from a fear that needs to faced while simultaneously facing a danger we need to avoid. Our brain, when it operates optimally, has the power to observe, create and make informed choices.  Regardless the fear or its intensity, we have the power to create new connections by choosing to respond differently. When we choose to think of or “explain” a fear to ourselves in a way that fulfills our emotional needs to feel good about ourselves and our lives, we create powerful new life serving connections in our brain. When our conscious mind and our subconscious mind are in alignment, we flow.

This journey requires a step by step approach, trusting life to unfold, moving and acting with courage through the process.

1. Set an intention to practice and cultivate self-love and acceptance.

Begin with making a commitment to practice self-love and self-acceptance, especially in moments when you may feel unlovable or a loved one seems most unlovable to you. Remind yourself that self-love is not narcissistic love; it is the opposite of being selfish or egotistic. A person who is narcissist or egotistic is desperately attempting to fill the void they feel inside, the self-loathing, low esteem. Their boasting or blasting displays a super wounded and fragile ego. They are trying to make life work by living in illusions of control. And, by the way, you will never do this perfectly, so accept you are perfectly imperfect—or imperfectly perfect—whichever you prefer! As you do, you will notice new energies and capacity to accept and love others, unconditionally, to be present when they express painful emotions and deal with your feelings of wanting to run away or shut them down.

2. Empathically connect to thoughtfully respond.

It’s impossible to stay empathically connected to the other in a relational interaction if you do not connect empathically in the present moment to compassion for yourself.  It is only natural that fear gets triggered in our closest relationships, therefore, all of our existential fears are relational, that is, they are in essence fear of intimacy. It is in our intimate encounters that our fear of rejection or abandonment, fear of loss of control or fear of loss of self in the relationship, get stirred. Automatically, we get defensive in order to maintain or even cause distance between us. After all, that is what the fight or flight response does. If we faced a tiger, we would do something to either run away from it or scare or eliminate it, as a way of dealing with our fear. Thus, defensiveness serves to produce distance. The problem in couple relationships, of course, is that distance causes us anxiety. The whole point of an intimate relationship is to fulfill each person yearning for closeness, isn’t it?

3. Practice consciously observing and replacing judgments.

If you have judged yourself as unlovable deep down inside, the more someone attempts to love you, the more reactive you become, the farther you stray from healing solutions.  You are not doing this to sabotage your relationships. You are doing this because, by design, the part of you that runs your body, the subconscious mind, has primary responsibility to ensure your survival. And, it still thinks that criticism or an unfulfilled request of a loved one spell danger! It is a misuse of your imagination. Beliefs you formed as a small child are still operating to help you feel “in control” and “safe” in your world. In reality, these are causing you a lot of undue stress and suffering. The truth is you CAN handle your emotions, you can experience your fears, and they are not real threats to you at all!

4. Breathe and feel your feelings with an understanding love.

An understanding love grows your inner wise-self. You have the capacity to calm yourself by connecting to your feelings, breathing deeply, and affirming your intention to do so. Turn inside. What are you feeling? Scan your body for sensations. What are you sensing physically, and where is this feeling located? Do you fear a relationship is going to fail and inadequate in changing its course? Do you fear there is something inherently wrong with you?  Do you question whether you deserve to be loved based on your past?  Whatever you feel, just observe and feel your feelings. Breathe deeply into your sensations, noticing and following them as they circulate in your body. Breathe in love, feel grateful for your ability to feel your fears—they are useful action signals—containing a lot of information on what you want and do not want, as well as a potential source of energy to formulate action plans. Enjoy building courage to feel your fears. An understanding love allows you to feel your fears, and upsetting emotions in general, without triggering your body’s survival reaction.

This is about becoming more and more consciously authentic, empathically connected to compassion for yourself—as a human being. It’s a humble love, in a sense, because it leads you to see that your highest interest is intricately connected with the highest interest of the other. It calls for humility, as you give yourself and life to understanding the way you are designed, the way relationships are meant to work, much like a scientist who studies physical laws, such as the Law of Gravity.

Racism is learned. Like sexism, it’s based on targeted conditioning, a forced imposition of a “might makes right” belief system that seeks to arbitrary double standards in attempt to normalize double standards and granting authority and power to the “entitled” group to exploit, abuse and limit the rights and freedoms to pursuit happiness of another group deemed “weak, inferior” yet also somehow “dangerous” to the entitled group.

The goals of this belief system is to gain widespread acceptance of aggression and dominance, thus violence and war as “valued” and “necessary means” supposedly for the protection of citizens when, in effect, these ideals serve the mission of a mere handful of wealthy, and more often white, men desperately vying to hoard power and exploit others — in their mind — to prove their worth.

The orchestrators of these inhumane standards meet criteria for antisocial personality disorder, in other words, a diagnosis for psychopathology or sociopathology, depending on the degree to which they pose risks of harm to others.

They need professional help, and must never hold positions of authority. As as past and present political contexts prove without question.

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), and its more extreme expression, antisocial personality disorder (APD, or psychopathology), are severe thought disturbances that cripple the vital ways the physical brain and body, and the intelligence centers in particular, link to and work together with the heart and gut; all designed to work together. Most narcissists are male, comparatively speaking, there are fewer females. This makes sense. Men are much more likely to be raised to rigidly self-identify and act out “toxic masculinity” norms than females. (And female narcissists identify with toxic masculinity norms.)

The thought patterns associated with these disorders are crippling, indeed incomparably traumatizing as the belief system itself iregards with scorn, mistrusts and attacks core human “true self” traits, such as caring, empathic connection, kindness, or remorse, sadness and hurt. These are regarded as dangerous threats, or at best contaminating influences that threaten to weaken “masculinity” and thus, are attacks target and seek to eliminate, punish, deny, deprive, render human traits as invisible. Merely being human threatens a narcissist’s “false self” existence, which wars to normalize violence and any means necessary to (supporsedly0 “prove” the superiority and rightful dominance of the “dominant” group.

This explains why narcissists are on guard in their interactions with those they regard as inferior. Their body and mind, responding to their disturbed pattern of thoughts and underlying beliefs, put their body’s survival system in charge of processing — thus keeping offline, the higher thinking part of the brain, or frontal cortex.

These highly disordered patterns of thinking release high level of fear-activating hormones, such as cortisol, into the bloodstream, in response to even kind, caring gestures of their partners. In their view, “true self” emotions are not real, they are mere tactics to con and exploit, subvert and dominate, prove superiority to “win” fierce competitions.

These highly disordered patterns of thinking are a result of early childhood exposure to hatred for human traits regarded as weakness in childhood. Without conscious awareness, the trauma of children exposed to misogynist treatment of women, and the vulnerable in general, i.e., children or “weak” males, is not only enduring, but also passed on from generation to generation.

This “might makes right” value system in always on in relational contexts operating motto is “get them before they get you.”

Narcissism is a result of internalized expectations that dehumanize, often through emotional trauma in childhood, that exposes persons early on to toxic cultural messages that foster toxic norms of a cult of masculinity on men and — a complementary set of cult of femininity norms on women (often known as codependency).

Toxic norms are rooted in supremacist ideals. They categorize human beings into dichotomous and adversarial groups of superior and “strong” persons versus inferior and “weak” ones. The dominant groups is entitled exploit and granted license to exploit, mistreat, control and enslave those they arbitrarily identify as targeted victims. All cults are based on might makes right values, and an idealized identify for “masculinity” that is associated with aggression, lack of empathy.

No remorse for mistreatment and abuse of those deemed weak is valued as a trait of status and superiority.

A boy child learns it is not a safe world, that no is there for you, that it is a dog eats dog world, and that the strong prove themselves by being ruthless and emotionally detached in order to block the emasculating threat of love and caring for others cause.

This faulty-learning occurs as a result of trauma in childhood. It is highly-disorded patterns of thinking that, because the brain is intentionally conditioned to feel disgust and rage, and thus attack, suppress or seek to eliminate, human emotions of empathy and caring and kindness and acceptance for self and another — it cripples the thinking capacity of the brain by releasing high levels of stress hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline.

Meanwhile the dopamine mix of reward and feel good chemicals, instead of aiding the complex of cultivating personal and relational capacity to empathically connect, mutually understand and participate in own and another’s emotional and mental grown and transformation, perversely shapes and maintains addictive patterns of relating to self and others, “hooked” on deriving primary pleasure — not from contributing to another’s wellness and happiness, rather from instilling pain, hurting, humiliating, subverting and controlling other’s will, mind to serve the narcissist’s interests, safety and comfort at the expense of their own.

An NPD on one side of the spectrum, and more so an APD on the other side, derive please from hating and being hated, raging and getting others enraged. Like addicts, their drug of choice lusts for evidence of superiority and entitlements to dominate. They strategize on customizing ways to instill pain, prove dominance, make others squirm with discomfortable, feel invisible, or spin their wheels explaining themselves, proving their devotion, making narcissist happy, taking them out of their misery and hyper sensitivity to any hint their authority over those they perceive themselves superior, their “false self superiority,” is questioned. It’s not going to happen. Narcissists lust to feel miserable, and as they’ve numbed themselves to not feel pain, do not suffer in the same way that most all feeling and caring, connected human beings would.

Boys quickly learn there is a “Code of Silence” they must adhere to if they want to continue to belong to “the entitled group,” and thus, they must cover and hide abusers in the cult, to protect the rights of those in the “boys will be boys club” to engage in otherwise inexcusable acts of sexual assault, not only against women and girls, and other men and boys — but also remain silent when and if a male with higher status abuses and assaults them.

Even otherwise good men, and their accomplices, take and work together to enforce strict adherence — of the dupers and duped alike — to “the cult of masculinity” and its coveted “code of silence.”

Acts of sexual assault by “the club” are not exclusive to women and girls. Boys and men are assaulted, likely in far greater number than our men are free to admit.

Actor and former NFL player, now speaks out on the “Cult of Masculinity”that he once solidly belonged to, as a result of his experiences of being attacked, shamed, etc., when he broke the “code of silence” by revealing his sexual abuse experience in the film industry, and his abuser.

In Crew’s words:

“Growing up…asking friends how to talk to a girl … I was told to lie to her, to keep her off-balance. Having “game” was all about manipulating girls, getting them to give you sex, then tossing them aside. As a man, you’re also taught to keep your girl in check, to maintain control. But you cannot control someone and love them at the same time. You only control things that are beneath you.”“I was a card-carrying member of the cult of masculinity. I and other young men in my community watched our mothers and sisters be abused, which taught us that we were worth more than the women in our lives.”

It’s a predictable pattern, however. It’s known as gaslighting in lay terms. In terms of research, the pattern was identified and labeled as D.A.R.V.O.: “Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim and Offender.” by psychologist Dr. Jennifer Freyd in her research of male sexual assault of women.

Let’s connect the dots with 4 inextricable links.

By asking who gains from the use of thought-control tactic to demoralize, silence and block those they target from speaking their truth, addressing harm confronting their abuser to speak her or his truth?

1. Idealization of abuse of weak persons as proof of superiority

It’s a pattern most every pathological abuser*** uses in some way to shift blame and demonize their victim, while simultaneously gain the sympathy and portray themselves to others as the “real” victims. Domestic violence. Rape. Sexual assault. Child abuse. Divorce or Custody Disputes.

2. Idealization of “feeling no remorse” as proof of superiority

t’s a pattern of behaviors of persons who meet the diagnostic criteria in the DSM for one of two character disorders listed that, unlike other mental health problems, pose risks for harm to others: antisocial personality disorder (APD)and, or narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). These two character disorders lie on a continuum but share three key traits: (1) lack of empathy, overall disregard for the feelings or hurt they cause to another; (2) a sense of entitlement to derive pleasure from hurting or making others feel uncomfortable; and (3) feelings of scorn for others in particular those they deem weak and inferior.

3. Idealization of “violence” and “dominance” as proof “real” masculinity

It’s a pattern cults have used for centuries. It works to link violence to strength and masculinity, and it’s a key defining trait of all cults, religious and secular to dupe innocent persons. It has been used for centuries, however, in the last century, the methods have become increasingly sophisticated based on scientific experiments in thought control, known to cripple the otherwise amazing ability of their human brains to think.

Safe to say, all cults, whether they call themselves dictatorships or democracies, religions or rock stars and their groupies, start early using institutions of family, church and school, to condition young minds to value aggression and superiority as “male traits,” devalue and feel scorn for arbitrarily defined “female traits’ of love, caring, nonsexual affection, empathy, and the like, was weakness and inferiority.

4. Idealization of lies and deception as evidence of intelligence and superiority

As far back as Ancient Greece and Rome, oligarchs knew that violence in and of itself fails to maintain rigid hierarchical social orders. Most people rebel and reject and revolt as it is the inherent nature of human beings to live free, in self termination, to create and thrive in self-governing communities.

So the real tools of dominance and control that narcissists and cult leaders use are lies, illusions, con artistry to get into the minds of people, as individuals or groups. The use of Orwellian contradictions, and doublespeak, have been scientifically studied and applied for many, many decades, and have proven effective to confound the the thinking areas of the brain, so much so, that a certain percentage of the population can be made to participate in their own abuse and enslavement, and some can be corrupted with “benefits” to serve as accomplices to support narcissists to victimize others.

Humans are paradoxical beings. The mirror-neurons in our brains make it impossible for one persons to rage against, or seek to diminish, subvert and without producing the same feelings of diminished and subverted self, living in fear of being powerless, exploited, dominated, proven unworthy. To enslave and rage against another is to appoint them a master.

It’s how the neurochemistry in the body and brain is designed to work. Narcissists are caught in their own trap. The main thing that blocks them from feeling healing, which in human terms means feeling overall fulfilled and happy with self and life, secure in their relationships is that they are addicted to depriving their victims from ever feeling happy, secure, fulfilled in order to prove their “false self” exists. It does not. A false self is based on illusions of power, based on activating own and other’s survival reaction. Fear, although it can put on displays making itself appear larger than life itself, is a low energy power. Similar to how a few cowboys, riding on horses dragging dried branches behind them, could make themselves appear like a whole army to scare their victims into submitting.

What blocks narcissists from feeling genuinely happy and secure, fulfilled and meaningfully connected to life — is that they war and fear and derive pleasure from attacking the very substance that makes them human inside. They are in a trap, warring to eliminate and control and eradicate any evidence that their “false self” is an illusion — and thus they war against the truth, that the real world of human beings and the relationships is governed by powers of kindness, caring, compassion, collaboration, contribution, gratitude, yearning for all beings to live happy and not needlessly suffer.

For all human beings, healing takes place when you restore sense of connection to your authentic core true-self. That is, to come out of the fog of lies, and to embrace the truth of what it means to be come, whom you already are, have been, were born to be.

**** The use of male pronouns is supported by decades of research showing that domestic violence, sexual assault, rape, mass shootings, pedophilia, and other acts of violence are based on toxic belief systems that negatively impact both men and women, and prevent them from building healthy partnership relationships. Beliefs that male violence and dominance of weak persons, and women as a group, are key drivers of male against female (and other male) violence. Domestic violence  and violence against others in general is not gender neutral. On the contrary, they are rooted in rigid adherence to gendered might-makes-right norms that idealize “toxic masculinity” for men (and “toxic femininity” for women). These norms idealize violence and intimidation as means of establishing male superiority and dominance (over females and others, i.e., “weak” males).  And though comparatively speaking, fewer female narcissists exist,  they also rigidly self-identify and act out “toxic masculinity” norms. It should also be noted that, in many cases, women are mislabeled as narcissists, because society holds women to far higher standards when it comes to being nice, never getting angry (an inhumane expectation), serving at the pleasure of men, etc. See also post on 5 Reasons Narcissistic Violence Are Not Gender Neutral.

Purpose is about relating at higher level of consciousness, one that serves to connect you more deeply to life in and around you. Words to human beings matter. Neuroscience tells us we have an intimate relationship with words. Our words can serve a higher purpose in making us feel closer to a loved one, or they can tear us apart.  When you speak consciously aware, you connect to the hardwired value system that exists in every human being. You are wired to matter.

Even the most basic words, for example, “how are you,” can be spoken with purposeful connection in such as way that both speaker and listener grow in the light of them, even if the words are spoken in situations of a disagreement or situation charged with emotions of stress, fear or anger.

What is survival-love talk?

Purposeful talking is the opposite of reactive or defensive talk. It also means to take the reins of emotions as you feel them, to disallow them to intensify and become reactive, impulsive, defensive. What does the word reactive or defensive mean to you? Stressful or aggressive action? It means to push against, pressure, shock. Think about the highest goal of speaking with conscious-love, and allow the definition to sink in. See it in your imagination. Then see what different outcomes are produced if you, instead, speak to push against, force, attack?

Your brain’s “mirror neurons” and The Golden Rule

This is an unalterable reality wired into our biology and automatically regulated by the “mirror neurons” in our brain.

When we consciously listen to understand the other, we better understand ourselves. And vice versa. When we honor the boundaries of the other, we honor our own. When we become aware of the power and impact of our words, we engage the best of what it means to be fully human in every interaction. Yes, the process is easier said than done. It cannot be yours without effort, struggle and accepting that you, and the other, will make errors, mistakes, experience setbacks.

1. Set intention to “do something different.”

Remind yourself that, to serve your higher interests and intentions to relate more meaningfully, remain aware and ready to respond differently. When you do, you create new neurons and pathways to replace “old programs” in your own brain (and partner’s).

2. Give the benefit of the doubt.***

Avoid jumping to conclusions, making judgments, negative forecasts, etc., and instead consider finding some way to stay compassionately connected to your partner, possibly a legitimate explanation for the other’s actions or viewpoints? And keep in mind, this does not mean you “agree”; just that you can also see the other’s perspective.

3. Find the understandable part. 

Look to connect and understand the other’s feelings and core need(s), or emotion-drives. The foundation of trust and love is built on mutual understanding of one another. This fulfills human core emotion-drives to be seen, recognized, known, among others.

4. Connect and express what need is driving your upset.

Express your feelings and needs in a way that supports you to remain relatively calm, and invites your partner to do the same.

5. Offer assurance.

Assure your partner that you understand where they are coming from, that their actions or viewpoint make sense at some level. And remind yourself that assurance or understanding does not equal agreement.

6. Ask partner to work with you.

Invite your partner to  find a win-win way of talking and resolving an that respects both of your feelings and needs about an issue.

7. Remain confident, calm and centered.

Set an intention to maintain a 3-C state of mind and body, that is: Calm, Confident, and Centered. This keeps you in the present moment, observing your breath, speaking of self as a person of value, dignity, honoring your emotional needs, yearnings, dreams, etc.

8. Maintain your calm if you need to stand up for yourself to abort reactivity. 

Stand up for self, in event partner gets reactive, i.e., dismissive, and do so in a way that honors the dignity of self and the other. To the best of your ability, resolve to never break this rule.

9. Disengage or push away and postpone to a later time (if reactivity continues).

Walk away, after briefly stating why and calling both of you to disengage and return to talking, at a later time, when both have taken time to restore own sense of calm, confidence, compassion for self and other.

10. Avoid getting too serious – stay lighthearted!

Remain light-hearted, avoid taking self or situation too seriously, maintain a hopeful manner that conveys messages of “I..You..We can do this!” or “We can do anything we put our mind to!” or “Now that we know better, we CAN do better.” Remind yourselves and one another that you and your relationship are worth making quality changes in how you relate.

Photo by goMainstream

Human are hardwired to need a sense of safety and security. This is not a want. It’s about one hormone in particular, oxytocin, that is released into the bloodstream, and nourishes the cells of our body, whenever we feel an overall sense of safety and love. It is the same hormone that floods a mother’s body, and her newborn, when she holds her baby in her arms. This hormone, literally, ensures a baby’s survival. We know from mad-science experiments conducted in Nazi Germany, that infants do not survive past age 3 to 5 without love and human touch. Food, shelter, clothing did not suffice to keep babies alive. From the first breath to the last, a sense of love and wellbeing is a governing force. Mere physical survival does not keep humans alive. The yearning to thrive, connect meaningful to life and others is unstoppable. It also keeps us healthy throughout life.

When you feel overall safe and secure, you feel overall loved and loving, and vice versa.

It’s how you’re wired; it’s an unalterable fact of our biology.

Albert Einstein that:

“The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.”  ALBERT EINSTEIN

Why would one of the most brilliant scientists who ever lived declare this?  Perhaps because he understood or observed first hand the danger that high levels of fear pose both to human health, physically and mentally. Einstein considered the human imagination the greatest of all capabilities. High levels of sustained fear have a debilitating effect, taking over this capacity, and others, such as the capacity for creative thought, possibility thinking, believe is self and life, happiness, many more.

Fear can take over the mind of an individual, and mass media can take over and mislead the public mind. The human brain in survival mode switches off the amazing abilities of the frontal cortext, and goes into black-and-white, either-or flight or flight type thinking.

Another brilliant thinker of the 20th century, psychologist Alfred Adler, put it this way:

“The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.” ALFRED ADLER

Intense and prolonged fear, additionally, have a negative impact on the human immune system, the very system you most need to protect you from getting the flu or from anything but minor systems. Think about how many times in past that you got the flu or a cold, or some ailment, following a prolonged period of worry and stress.

Low levels of stress are good and helpful to critically think and plan for living our best life. High levels of stress – when protracted – compromises the immune system making us more and more vulnerable to viruses and illness.

Fear disempowers us, whereas the attitude of managed concern leaves us more in charge of our mental and emotional nature — and creates easier access to our intuitive guidance and highest choices. Fear disrupts this connection, especially when we need it the most for grounded direction.

1. Thoughtfully respond to this (or any challenge) with a measured or disciplined concern.

Develop a practice of listening to a concern and responding with a measured awareness that keeps you in the present moment. When you are in the present moment, you know you’re thinking brain is engaged. It can reflectively think. Whereas your survival system automatically switches you to either-or, flight or flee reactions. This is a practice of going opposite an old fear reaction. A measured and thoughtful response to a concern is one that keeps your brain and body systems connected, avoids the unnecessary triggering of your body’s survival system. In the words of another brilliant thinker, psychologist Abraham Maslow:

“Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth). Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.” ABRAHAM MASLOW

The human quest to derive meaning is dependent on our ability to remain present, in the face of danger, and keep our frontal cortex engaged, otherwise the brain and body in fear mode have no ability to think creatively, engage in possibility thinking.

2. Add mindfulness practices to your lifestyle.

Practices such as yoga, meditation, and similar tools that build inner awareness, such as spending time in nature, have been shown effective in lowering depression and anxiety. A mindful orientation deepens awareness of inner processes and thus potentially promotes better care for the body and mind. Sign up for weekly yoga classes, find a meditation practice that is right for you.Learn and practice deep belly breathing, and make this a lifestyle. It will be well worth your time and effort. It helps ground you in the present, and that’s just what you need to make sound choices in challenging moments.

3. Become aware of your self-talk at given times or situations.

This internal dialogue is a stream of words that automatically produce images and turn on fear- or love-based emotions, accordingly. This is where you have leverage to regulate your emotion response. Your thoughts have a lot of power over what actions you take because they active the emotion molecules, or neurotransmitters, that produce or stop behaviors. They also affect your health and happiness in a positive, versus negative, way. So notice what you say to yourself and others. Conscious choose caring, uplifting words and actions when you speak to yourself or others about the coronavirus. Make thoughts and words nourishing, productive, optimally supportive of wise choices and behaviors at any given moment.

4. Limit news, disengage from TV news entirely if possible.

Fear sells. And TV news present the virus as they would a hostile terrorist invasion. It is possible to present the news of a serious concern in a civl way, but it is not. Instead there’s misinformation, and it’s politicized. It appears that both the “right” and “left” have some different aspect of the truth, mixed in with untruths and misinformation. And thus anxiety from uncertainty is dangerously on the increase. Stay informed by signing up for headline news via email; watch your state governor’s briefings on Facebook, etc. In TV terms, keep in mind, fear sells news, and the stations are a business, and businesses prioritize profits. (One may argue that profits should never be above what is in the highest interest and health of the public, but that needs to be addressed in other contexts.)

5. Eat and drink clean, nutritionally smart way to build a strong immune system. 

Chronic inflammation is now accepted as the root cause of all major illnesses. It’s a signal that the body is not getting ample nourishment. The original Greek oath by the founder of western medicine, Hippocrates, litterally translated says the following:

“I will apply dietetic and lifestyle measures to help the sick to my best ability and judgment; I will protect them from harm and injustice.” HIPPOCRATES

By helping to normalize insulin and leptin levels, nutrition is a potent antidote against inflammation. Nutrient rich foods are also recognized as powerful protection against depression and anxiety; the link between nutrition and emotional health is proven science. (It does not make money for the pharmaceutical industries, however.) Whereas anxiety and depression were primarily as psychological disorders, recent findings show insufficient nutrition causes biochemical conditions in the brain and body that may be at the root of debilitating emotional disturbances. Sickness occurs when the body is out of balance. Your subconscious, without question, will do its part to ensure you are optimally healthy and have minimal, if any, reaction to viruses. It cannot do your part, however. Get to know how your body works, and what your body needs included in your lifestyle (not just a few days or weeks here and there) to energize its powerful ability to produce optimal emotional and physical health and wellness for you.

6. Make a balanced exercise routine part of your lifestyle. , get some sunshine outdoors, and plenty of sleep.

The body is wondrously designed, among other things, for continual movement (inside and out). Its equipped with an operating system, or subconscious mind, that 24/7 monitors and keeps check on this balance, and there is little to no separation between your emotional and mental health and happiness, and your physical health, strength, stamina. Studies show that exercise significantly reduces the symptoms of depression and anxiety, and other emotional disturbances. It is the natural way to lower depression and anxiety. You are wired for wholeness and healing, and it occurs, naturally, when you know how to care for your body. The reason exercise is critical is that it oxygenates the body; and oxygen is as vital as nutrition and water. Most all physical exercise, walking, running, cycling, etc., can boost your mood and sense of well-being. It works by releasing an array of feel-good hormones in the body. Clients often hear this therapist say, “exercise is free therapy” between sessions. It is not only nature’s “pill” for depression, it has no side effects. Exercise is to the body, what the refresh button is to your computer. 

7. Keep doing what worked before to cope and alleviate stress.

What a stressor like this comes up that disrupts your routines, many stop doing the things they knew work. If journaling was a great tool to lower stress, keep making your entries. If practicing gratitude lifts your spirit and keeps you focused, embrace the practice again. Get outdoors, get some sunshine, stay active and get plenty of sleep, all that you can do to maintain a healthy mind and body.

8. Reach out to family and friends, and thanks to social media, it’s easy.

They are likely feeling anxious too. Sharing your feelings, thoughts, time and resources can put all of you at ease. Choose things to do that connect you with what you most value, volunteer or donate if possible.  the point is to put thought into how you most want to spend time, whether time alone, and time together with loved ones. Your physical health is connected to the extent you improve your capacity to form life enriching relationships with others, and as a foundation, with yourself.

9. Connect to what you’re feeling and address ‘how’ you deal with stress.

It’s not easy to accept interruptions. Learn and practice connecting to your emotions, practice mindfulness and meditation, compassion with yourself and others. Feel any disappointment, hurt, grief. It’s good to feel your feelings, but learn how to give these small chunks of time, planned time if possible, and resolve to not let upsetting emotions consume your mind and day. Learn to practice doing what is within your power to do, and letting go of what is not yours to control. (Find a copy of the Serenity Prayer and post this on your refrigerator. It’s a wonderful formula to boost your energy and wellbeing.)

10. Energize an optimistic outlook to enhance your resiliency, peace of mind and wellbeing.

In addition to promoting personal growth and life-satisfaction, positive emotions nourish the brain and body, and have been linked to creativity, resiliency, performance, and the formation of healthy relationships. In contrast, pessimism is linked to depression, learned helplessness, repeated mistakes, and serious health conditions, such as heart, cancer and higher risk for PTSD.

In sum, anxiety and panic disorders may not be life threatening, however, they can significantly affect your quality of life, especially when they lead to taking desperate and fear-based actions to cope, such as drinking, anger outbursts, avoidance, among other unproductive or problem causing ways of handling fear. If you have symptoms of anxiety and, or panic attack, see a professional. While intensely uncomfortable, they are not dangerous, just need to know and practice ways of connecting and directing your fear response. Hopefully, you will find that, once you better understand and process fear, your level of fear lowers and issues quickly respond in most cases.

Your subconscious mind, believe it or not, is your most devoted, forever on earth friend, a loyal-to-you-alone companion. It’s highest interest is for you to thrive, in wellness and happiness. It knows you are a social being, with critical need to learn to connect and relate to yourself and others in healthy and balanced, to practice self and other empathy and compassion is no small task. It is a life long endeavor.

1. Know the symptoms of anxiety and panic as disorders 

Anxiety disorders, such as generalized anxiety or social phobia, consist of intense, excessive and persistent worry about everyday situations, and these feelings of anxiety and panic are characteristically out of proportion to the actual danger, and they interfere with daily activities, for example, causing avoidance of certain places or situations in attempt to control anxious feelings.

Signs and symptoms of anxiety disorder include:

• Feeling nervous, restless or tense
• Sense of impending danger, panic or doom
• Having an increased heart rate
• Breathing rapidly (hyperventilation)
• Sweating
• Trembling or shaking
• Feeling weak or tired
• Thinking and concentration is disabled by worrisome thoughts
• Having trouble sleeping
• Experiencing gastrointestinal (GI) problems
• Having difficulty controlling worrisome thoughts
• Cope by avoiding things that trigger anxiety

Panic attacks are sudden episodes of intense and irrational fear that can cause the body’s survival response to produce physical reactions seemingly without apparent cause or danger. Many have a panic attack or two in their lifetimes, and the problem goes away when a stressful situation ends. When panic attacks reoccur, and interfere with daily living, i.e., job, education, relationships, the symptoms may meet the criteria for a panic disorder.

In addition to the above symptoms, panic attacks typically also include the following:

• Fear of loss of control or death
• Shortness of breath or tightness in your throat
• Chills
• Hot flashes
• Nausea
• Abdominal cramping
• Chest pain
• Headache
• Dizziness, lightheadedness or faintness
• Numbness or tingling sensation
• Feeling of unreality or detachment

2. Understand healthy fear versus “irrational” fear

There is a key difference between “healthy fear” and fear experienced in anxiety or panic disorder. First, it must be said, however, that fear or stress in itself are vital to building resiliency, growing courage, strength, awareness. At low levels, when the stress hormone cortisol is released into the blood stream, it can boost your awareness, clarify thinking, prompt you to take action or precautionary measures.

Your amazing body naturally releases a higher level of cortisol every morning, for example, just to motivate you to get out of bed with some sense of purpose or goals. Humans are hardwired to seek to meaningfully connect, contribute, and make the most of each day

In other words, healthy levels of fear serve to guide, teach, push you out of old comfort zones, consider taking new actions, etc. Fear is a great companion, a guide and teacher, and at some level takes part in all creative endeavors and transformation, expanding our capacity beyond limitations, discovering miracle-making capacities you’d questioned.

In contrast, elevated and intense fear, when prolonged, is held in place by spiraling-loop “irrational thinking” patterns, characteristic in all anxiety disorders, panic or phobia. Irrational thoughts are ones that activate feelings of powerlessness, and desperate actions that may temporarily lower fear, such as avoidance, but make the overall pattern worse.

And that’s the difference between healthy and irrational fear! Healthy fears prompt you to take actions that grow your resiliency, and stretch your capacity to deal with stress in the future. In contrast, irrational fear can lead to toxic thinking and beliefs, such as catastrophizing or fear of rejection based on inadequacy.

How do you know fear is out of proportion to the actual danger? When the level of cortisol released in your bloodstream clouds you ability to think clearly, make decisions, and take optimal actions on what you can control. That’s never true. You are not your thoughts. You are the producer, director and creator of your thoughts — or you could be, if you really, really want to be — and you knew and understood that, as a human being, you’re totally wired with everything you need to make this possible. It’s just a breath away.

3. Get to know the two modes of your brain and body 

Your brain and body have two operating modes, depending on whether your autonomic nervous system is in “learning mode” (parasympathetic division); or “survival mode” (sympathetic division).

Your subconscious mind tunes in to your interpretive beliefs and thinkingare perceptions that interpret the events in your life. What you say to yourself repeated, to your subconscious mind, is true. It’s true because the subconscious cannot tell the difference between what is real and what you imagine. Your body’s autonomic nervous system listens attentively to your thoughts 24/7, a fact you cannot change; it’s how your brain and body are wired.

Consider the following. If you were a snake handler or a lion tamer, for example, you would have beliefs that allow you to handle snakes or wild cats without triggering your survival reaction. You’d be able to perform what you do, and maintain your body and mind in relaxation mode, or  the brain’s “learning mode.” For most of us, however, even the sight of a snake nearby (outside a glass enclosure) would likely activate the body’s “survival mode,” right?

The brain and body are always primarily in one mode or the other. Your body’s autonomic nervous system listens attentively to your thoughts 24/7, a fact you cannot change; it’s how your brain and body are wired.  When the cells of your body are eavesdropping on your inner self-talk, your subconscious is tuning in on what is thinks is factual information about what is going on around you.

Your thoughts and emotions are wired to work together. Emotions are molecules of energy that move the human body’s autonomic nervous system in one of two overall directions, either safety and love or anxiety and fear. In other words, they either keep the body energized to remain in overall feel-good (love-based) emotions or overall feel-bad (fear-based) emotions. When you feel safe, you feel loved, and vice versa, when you feel loved, you feel safe, and when you do your body releases higher levels of the love and safety hormone, oxytocin, to let you know that you do. This hormone has a healthful nourishing effect on the cell of your body.

In sum, stress is not the problem. The quick fix ways of “coping” with stress that you habitually learned are the problem. Whenever a stressor appears, for your protection and defense, your subconscious mind automatically reacts with an old programmed reaction.

Thoughts are more than airy pieces of information that enter our minds and then disappear. The words we think or speak are energy. They produce emotions and feeling sensations. Feelings are energy. Together, they energize action, or immobilize. They have the power to activate neurochemical changes inside, and thus can have a profound effect on our ability to achieve the goals that we’ve set.

In part 3, a list of 10 tips to take the reins of lowering fear and boosting your sense of self, health, and immunity.

Can you spot a narcissist**? And the warning signs that a malignant narcissist may be exploiting you to serve their interests at the expense of your health and wellbeing?

Narcissists self-identify with at least 7 traits they regard as evidence of their superiority, and worth, and what entitles them (in their mind) to exploit and abuse with impunity. (They would not admit this, of course; admitting the truth would take them out of hiding. Truth neutralizes the power they wield, their biggest weapon is the specific “lies” they tell to get into other’s minds, in such a way, that, unwittingly, they “participate” in their own victimization.)

1. They present a consistent pattern of predatory behaviors.

Did your relationship develop too fast, feel too good to be true at the start? Did he**** seem to be interested in what makes you happy, and said just the right things to make you feel special (love bombing), and shape a fairy tale illusion of who he is, and the kind of relationship he wants?

Looking back months or years later, did his words mirror your highest hopes of life together, yet were rarely, if ever, backed by consistent actions? Did he profess to value you as a person, care about your feelings, for example, promised to never cheat, yet dismissed your concerns about female “friends” and closely guarded his cell?

Did you often make excuses or minimize abusive actions in your mind or to others? In effect, did you develop an idealized image of him that disarmed you to the point that you to let him off the hook, regularly, for repeated actions that hurt you at emotional, mental levels, perhaps also physical or sexual? And, did this gradually lower your expectations for him, simultaneously put more and more expectations on you?

Narcissistic sociopaths prey on women with certain vulnerabilities. They go after them with a strategy to get into and control their mind, thus their behaviors. Sociopaths link their identity, and worth as men, to violence, and proving dominance by violating the rights of those they perceive as inferior. Predatory behaviors are strategic and always guarded, and predators are always on the look out for prey. Their motto is to win, and that means to “get them before they get you.”

A narcissist regards women as a sport, a thrilling erotic game between objects, hunters and prey. They study women, like hunters prey. They know, for example, what women look for in men, what words disarm or crush them, how happy “pleasing others” makes them, and how often women say ‘yes’ when they mean ‘no” in order to avoid being labeled as selfish, controlling or rejecting.

Not all narcissists are sexual predators, but all sexual predators are narcissistic sociopaths. They pretend-talk about “love” and “relationships,” especially at first, and occasionally as needed, and this works to disarm and trap women into trusting the words that are strategically designed to get into and control a woman’s behaviors and emotions by controlling what she thinks about herself, life, him. In cases of sexual abuse, similarly, predators use a combination of love-bombing to disarm those they prey upon; fear to terrorize and obtain their loyalty to a code of silence regarding their abuse, and, last but not least, predators “play the victim” to hide in plain sight, blame-shift their wrongs onto their victims, silence critics, gain witting or unwitting accomplices, and overall discombobulate their victims minds to participate in their own abuse, even to protect their predator from others’ scrutiny — at their own expense.

2. They self-identify as intentionally, willfully exploitive.

Were you flattered by an overdose of attention at the start, amazed at his interest to hear you pour your heart out, share your deepest fears, past wounds, and so on? Did you then notice his use of what you disclosed to tear you down, and build a case against you?

And now, looking back, is it nearly impossible to make a request, state an opinion, or express how you feel (about the way he treats you), without him becoming enraged, or shifting the focus to make you feel bad, tear down your sense of worth, make you feel isolated, ashamed, judged by others as unloved, crazy and controlling? If so, you’re being exposed to thought control, an attempt to train yo  to silence yourself, your wants, needs, observations, feel like an object, seen and not heard.

Gaslighting is a form of narcissistic abuse, distinct from abuse that occurs in conflict, due to its insidious goals. As predators, narcissists view others as objects to exploit for their own gain, and meticulously study those they prey on as a group. It may be that, while you were thinking you’d found a dream boat, he was really gathering data to customize a nightmare. Intentionally, he disarmed and made you feel you’d found a romantic prince charming, a soulmate, committed to you alone, a guy that sees you as his one and only.

Narcissists identify themselves by their actions, and their actions reflect their goals. They have a keen interest to know what you want in a relationship at the start, for example. It’s not to build a better life together through mutual understanding! Their goal is to use this information to get into women’s minds, gain their trust. They gather data from women in past relationships, and added to yours, fashion illusions that match your biggest wishes, and yearnings for safety and protection. The goal is to disarm and make you feel you can totally trust them, they are your savior, the one you’ve been waiting for. This, however, allows them to do wrong in plain sight.

3. They self-identify with no moral compass.

Does he predictably ruin travel plans, a scheduled event or date, things you’ve looked forward to for months? Is it impossible for him to say he’s happy? Do you blame yourself when this happens, taking responsibility for not figuring out how to make him feel less stressed, more secure in your love, loyalty? Does he regularly accuse you of doing what he does repeatedly? Do you know what he really means when he says he loves you?

It is impossible to make happy someone that derives pleasure from instilling others with pain. Sociopaths link their identity to proving their superiority by feeling no remorse, instead pleasure, manipulating, hurting and making others feel uncomfortable, getting them squirm and spin their wheels. In studies of sexual assault, psychologist Dr. Jennifer Freyd labeled the pattern D.A.R.V.O.: “Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim and Offender.”

The pattern is always the same. A woman reveals domestic or sexual assault happened. He denies and plays victim, accusing her of being a narcissist, emotionally crazy, or abusing him. In the meantime, he’s been working on getting her and those that know her to think she’s emotionally crazy, has diagnosed her as borderline or bipolar, and wants her to get help and start taking medications. It’s all part of keeping handy a smear campaign of any victim (or supporter) that questions the narcissist’s perceived “rights” to abuse with impunity.

Most if not all sociopaths are pathological abusers exhibit a consistent pattern of lies and denial that seeks to normalize any violence they commit, deny any wrongdoing on their part, and shift blame onto the victim, attack the victim’s character, mental stability, and so on, in attempt to get others to side against the victim, while simultaneously portraying themselves as the “real” victim to gain sympathy.

Narcissism is a severe cognitive disturbance and is regarded as an enduring character disorder by the DSM; this means the prognosis for recovery is zero to none. This disturbance is characterized by the absence of an internal value system, a set of core emotion-drives that universally guide the decision making behaviors of human beings in relationships. Nothing repels narcissists more than human traits of caring, tenderness and compassion for others, except persons that emphasize these values in the treatment of others.

In other words, narcissistic sociopaths have no moral compass.

They lust to feel hatred and scorn for others, and lust equally for others to hate and fear them. It is not possible to make them happy. Their own cognitive disturbance keeps them in misery.

Narcissism isn’t about loving self too much! Quite the contrary, they feel hatred and rage against human traits of love and compassion, inborn “true self” capacities. This is why no one can take a psychopath’s misery away; they link their identity and sense of power over others to this hatred and scorn, a “false self” superiority they zealously fight to keep.

To heal from their misery, as a prerequisite to feel human again, they’d first have to dump the “might makes right” motto they live by. Due to the mirror neurons in human brains, to the extent narcissists hate others, they live in mind and body states of self-hatred.

The fact that a narcissist has no moral compass is what makes them a risk to others. In their worldview, caring, kindness and moral treatment of other human beings are traits of those they prey on, in their mind, that “deserve” to be exploited and lied to, as prey.

4. They self-identify as con artists, pathological liars.

Does he gaslight you to shift the focus of a topic you brought up to “his list” of complaints for what you need to fix that justifies abusive treatment, such as “overly sensitive,” “controlling,” “emotionally crazy” and so on? Do your conversations leave you confused, crazy, wondering what you could say or do to get him to understand, and work together as partners? Does he add that “everyone” who knows you agrees with him?

Narcissists are expert con artists. Their game is to con women to participate in their own abuse and exploitation. They intentionally lie, and the lies serve their interests and aims to abuse, shame, dupe, cajole and gaslight their victims, to make them feel confused, crazy, blamed, and to top it off, reverse roles by not only making their victims feel responsible for the abuse, but also for protecting and shielding them from being held accountable for their wrongs.

Nothing gives narcissists more pleasure than to deceive, manipulate another to do something against their will. It’s the purpose of the con game! To them, the means and ends are one. From their worldview, skillfully exploiting others, and getting them to blame themselves rather than the narcissist, is proof of their “intelligence and “superiority”; in their mind, this “entitles” them to dominate and exploit those they deem “feeble” and “inferior” with impunity.

Their motto is based on “might makes right” code. As they have no moral compass, narcissists regard skills in con artistry and lies as a critical assets, a means to an end — to dominate, conquer, enslave. The goal is to get into the mind of another and cause such confusion, to then slavishly participate in their own abuse and exploitation without their awareness of such.

This explains why a narcissist refuses to change! To change would mean to not exist.  To them, “healing” is talk only the weak engage in. Indeed, their greatest fear is connecting to their own “true-self” — to be a human being like everyone else! They desperately seek to deny and pathologise human yearnings for intimacy, closeness, collaboration. The only contact people require, in their view, is sex for pleasure. They need lies because their false-self does not exist in a world of truth about the power of love and creativity, collaboration and human connection!

5. They self-identify as abusers, bullies.

Does he automatically turn your every attempt to talk into a “conversation from hell”? Does he prop up a façade of superiority with intentional acts to ridicule, shame, scorn and punish you for minor things or just because?

Narcissists are chronic abusers. Like addicts, they intentionally seek to inflict pain and violate their partner’s rights. They weren’t born with this cognitive disturbance; they learned by witnessing and experiencing adult males treat women and weak persons, i.e., girls and boys,  with scorn, exhibiting no remorse, indeed, boys in particular are shamed in these settings to display a callous disregard for weak others to prove they deserve the status of belonging to the “cult of masculinity.”

The use of fear and anger to terrorize targets into submission and silence is strategic, as is instilling pain, subverting other’s will, making them uncomfortable, publicly shaming them, or taking away one’s sense of self and peace of mind.

Notably, wherever they go, sociopaths form “we versus them” religious and secular cults. All cults rigidly train followers to adopt heartless, dehumanizing “might makes right” rules that supports their supremacist beliefs. They refuse to “see” evidence, all around the world, that biologically all human beings, male and female, white and nonwhite, and so on, have tremendous capabilities, miracle making even, to excel and contribute intellectually, athletically and spiritually, etc., in meaningful ways!  They are hooked on “the lie” that they men are biologically superior, and “thus” entitled to victimize and exploit and regard women as less than human. This lie spreads forms the foundation of most supremacist ideologies, racism, classism, ageism, and so on.

6. They self-identify as heartless.

Does he question and accuse you of being a narcissist when you want attention; selfish when you make requests; sensitive when balk at abusive or sarcastic comments; or controlling when you ask him to change a hurtful behavior?

To know if a man’s love is real, never go by their words. Believe their actions.

Narcissism is not merely a label. It is a serious cognitive disturbance, a profile of one that has lost their connection to feeling human traits of kindness, empathy and caring for others wellbeing and happiness. Their loss is their doing, however. It’s because they hate and feel disgust for human traits. Their mindset is based on a misguided ideology, twisted beliefs that dehumanize them, yet also leave them with extremely fragile, weak and wounded egos. A lifetime of trying to not be human is inhumane.

As a result of the rigid belief system, a narcissist is left with no capacity to love. How can one love when they feel scorn and disgust for those that yearn to love and be loved? The more a woman signals that she wants to make a narcissist happy, the more a narcissist seeks to torment and take control of her mind.

Narcissists, nevertheless, can be skilled at play-acting love, known as love bombing, a tool to deceive and disarm. They have studied those that have hearts and may even watch “Hallmark” movies for ideas. Only someone disconnected from their ability to empathize derives pleasure from strategizing cruel treatment of those that try to love them. In their mind, this proves their superiority. Empathy is a tool they use to bait others, to snare and exploit them, to use them as punching bags. They cannot fake empathy, however, not once you become aware and informed. First, you need to understand and accept that all they do is intentional, and that, around you, they are on guard, ever strategizing their next move. Your awareness protects you, and neutralizes their ability to get into your mind and effect harm.

Narcissism is a love deficit, a mind and body state of existence that a narcissist has been tricked to believe somehow — not engaging or feeling inner human processes — proves he is superior, with entitlements over others.

7. They self-identify as entitled to exploit, con, abuse with impunity.

Does he harass you about getting on meds or seeing a psychiatrist to check if they agree with him that you’re bipolar or borderline!? Thinking back, does every “conversation from hell” make you increasingly start to blame yourself, feel bad, doubt your self and sanity? Do you spin your wheels wondering what you need to do to prove your loyalty and devotion so he would stop feeling so insecure and miserable (and blaming it on you!)?

All of the above together indicate that the narcissist feels entitled to treat those he deems inferior with impunity, and thus, to exploit, con and abuse, lie, get you to question your sanity, spin your wheels, anything to keep you in the hot seat, and appear blameless, as if nothing they do sticks.  explaining to them “why” their behavior is hurtful, and so on. The narcissist lusts to torment, make his targets feel uncomfortable. While you’re wondering why he doesn’t “get what he does hurts you,” he’s enjoying every level of discomfort, hurt, pain, frustration, you display. He thrills in his own ability to get you to deflect any doubt about him, and instead to question and doubt yourself, for example, by openly giving attention to other women, to get you to compare and doubt your ability to please and keep him happy.

Narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders, NPD and APD respectively, are listed as enduring character disorders, serious cognitive disturbances. Unlike other mental health disorders, sociopaths intentionally pose a risk of harm to others; they show no remorse, rather derive pleasure from hurting others, and feel entitled to violate other’s rights with impunity. In their mind, this is evidence of one’s superiority and rights to dominate.

** The terms narcissist or narcissism in this article refer to persons that fully meet the criteria (as opposed to mere tendencies) for narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) — and in this post, much more so, to the more extreme version on the spectrum, listed as antisocial personality disorder (APD) in the DSM, and more commonly known. 

**** The use of male pronouns is supported by decades of research showing that domestic violence, sexual assault, rape, mass shootings, pedophilia, and other acts of violence are based on toxic belief systems that negatively impact both men and women, and prevent them from building healthy partnership relationships. Beliefs that male violence and dominance of weak persons, and women as a group, are key drivers of male against female (and other male) violence. Domestic violence  and violence against others in general is not gender neutral. On the contrary, they are rooted in rigid adherence to gendered might-makes-right norms that idealize “toxic masculinity” for men (and “toxic femininity” for women). These norms idealize violence and intimidation as means of establishing male superiority and dominance (over females and others, i.e., “weak” males).  And though comparatively speaking, fewer female narcissists exist,  they also rigidly self-identify and act out “toxic masculinity” norms. It should also be noted that, in many cases, women are mislabeled as narcissists, because society holds women to far higher standards when it comes to being nice, never getting angry (an inhumane expectation), serving at the pleasure of men, etc. See also post on 5 Reasons Narcissistic Violence Are Not Gender Neutral.