# How to handle abuse from others

Every form of abuse is an unfair violation of boundaries that severely damages us.

- Physical abuse: physically injuring someone else
- Emotional abuse: harming someone else's well-being or peace
- Sexual abuse: sexual violence or exploitation
- Financial abuse: misusing or stealing money or possessions
- Digital abuse: using technology to cross boundaries
- Stalking: excessively tracking someone else's activities

The worst thing to do with our abusers is to ask "why":

- It's often very difficult to even *know* why people do what they do.
  - Because it's so difficult to tell with some people, we may find a delusion that discovering motivations will give [meaning](meaning.md) to the situation.
- Many times, abusive people hide their behavior when confronted.
  - Most of them will often perform *more* abuse to hide it.
  - Further, knowing others' legitimate motives can frequently magnify the pain they brought on you.

You generally won't find healing from those that hurt you:

- Deep down, if you're honest with yourself, all you want is for them to say, "I hurt you, and I'm sorry," and then never hurt you again.
- By doing this, you're essentially waiting for them to start the healing process, and they don't deserve that power.

Instead, focus on yourself and your safety:

- Learn to accept yourself for who you are.
- Accept others for who *they* are, not what you want them to be.
- Give yourself grace for whatever you've done.
- Let go of what you can't control.
- Find [goals](success-3_goals.md) and [purposes](purpose.md) that have *nothing* to do with those who abused you.

Keep yourself safe:

- Learn to handle [conflicts](people-conflicts-inner.md) with your abuser as they arise.
- Find ways to create distance from anyone who abuses you.
  - Try to create distance from the people who *enable* that abuse as well.
- If you don't take time and effort to self-heal, you'll often abuse back, and the situation will typically worsen.

Watch that you're not doing the same:

- Abuse victims tend to become abusers themselves, so without making further changes on your own you'll likely become an abuser later.

## Narcissistic abuse

In particular, people with [Cluster B personality disorder](mind-neurodivergence-clusterb.md), non-negotiably, causes the most damage to others.

- Except for [narcissists](mind-neurodivergence-clusterb-narcissist.md), they don't really *aim* for that abuse, but the naturally-formed selfishness within their personality means they're unable to recognize the damage they do to others' feelings.

If you've *ever* been close to a narcissist, they will cause trouble for you:

- They will often blame you for their faults ("projection").
  - Over time, they will eventually call others narcissists, which can cause tremendous [trauma](hardship-ptsd.md) to someone who is [self-unaware](mind-awareness.md).
- They will often use other people against you ("triangulation").
- They'll demand constant attention and obedience from people close to them.
- They have a double standard on empathy and praise:
  - They'll have zero empathy for anyone else's pain.
  - They will, however, expect others to acknowledge their [pain and hardship](hardship.md).
  - While they won't give much sincere praise, they'll expect others to praise them in some capacity.

When we've encountered a narcissist, our only healing comes through learning to [love others](people-love.md) more than ourselves.

- Narcissists build their fantasy around victimization, so absolutely *anyone* who victimizes, even as a response to a narcissist, runs the risk of becoming one themselves.
  - The vampire [mythology](stories-myths.md) comes directly from this imagery: you become the monster yourself if you don't take the time to heal from it.
- Victimization from narcissistic abuse directly affects brain structure and function, dominantly in the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex.
- The start of this is in directly owning the mistakes you made:
  - The mistake of consenting to that person entering your life so intimately.
  - The mistake of responding with [bad boundaries](people-boundaries.md).
  - The [sins](theology-sins-list.md) you committed against them, even if you feel it was justified.

Their behavior is the direct cause of most [family hardship](hardship-family.md).

- Most of them are *very* severe parents, often [disciplining their children](parenting-children-boundaries-rules.md) far more than loving them.
- When there isn't any formal discipline in the home, the children are exposed to severe [chaos and disorder](unknown.md).

Being raised by a narcissist can severely affect someone's [personality](people-personality.md).

- A child raised in that environment will come to believe that they can only receive love conditionally based on what they do, and are never worthy of love for their intrinsic nature.
- Beyond anything else, narcissist parents create an inherent risk that their children become narcissists as they [mature](maturity.md).
- Many other [neurodivergences](mind-neurodivergence.md) can arise, such as [autism](mind-neurodivergence-autism.md) (through feeling entirely unloved to the point of severe [distrust](mind-trust.md)) or Tourette's Syndrome (through bottled-up repressed behavior).