The Narcissist's Playbook

Perhaps the most emotionally destructive aspect of being in a relationship with someone who exhibits narcissistic behaviors and uses manipulative tricks, is that you stop being able to see the world through your own eyes. Your abuser (and the people we write about in this book are or were abusers) becomes the lens through which you view the world. Through that lens you are weak, wrong, inadequate, always at fault. Seeing yourself only as your abuser sees you also involves always hearing his voice in your head. You judge yourself as he judges you. You feel fear when you think you have wandered from the path he insists you stay on – even if it involves a book you are reading, a meal you have prepared, or how you have placed the toilet paper roll. The message of this book is, yes, “it’s not me, it’s him” but also “I can move on and learn from this.”