Imagine this: you hear a noise in the middle of the night. You’re suddenly jarred awake and you wait and listen. Was it just the neighborhood cat knocking something over outside? Or was it someone breaking into your home? You slowly sneak downstairs to look for clues… If you see the window cracked open, and pawprints on the window sill, you’d probably think it was the neighborhood cat. But if you see shards of glass all over the floor and a hammer on the counter top—you’d probably think someone must have broken in. Depending on the evidence you see and the clues left behind, you can make a good guess about what has happened while you were sleeping.
And this is what it’s like when you’re dealing with a narcissist or trying to recover from one. It’s like you’ve suddenly woken up and you’re trying to string together the evidence of what’s happened. Whether you experienced overt or covert abuse, it leaves a recognizable imprint on you, clues that are easy to spot. Even though you might not have realized the abuse at the time, there will be an unmistakable legacy left behind.
So, today, instead of talking about the personality of the narcissist, we are going to talk about the profile of the victims of narcissists and the 5 personality traits you’ll find in the wake of this type of abuse.
For over two decades, I've dedicated my life to teaching and researching the complexities of self-worth, and the dark shadows of narcissistic abuse that lurk behind so many of our struggles. I’m not only a coach, author, and teacher in this field—I’m also a survivor myself and share my personal experience about reclaiming self-worth and recovering from narcissistic abuse.
So, let's go back to that night-time scenario for a moment. That sinking feeling of doubt, the questioning, the worry… this is exactly how you feel after narcissistic abuse.
Sign #1: Intense Sense of Self-Doubt
It's this haunting feeling that makes you second-guess your judgments, actions, and feelings.
This came up recently with one of my clients. When I asked her to explain her feelings and aspirations, her response was a repeated, “I don’t know.” What's on your mind? “I don’t know.” What do you hope to achieve? “I don’t know.” “I don’t know.” I paused, meeting her eyes, and said, “I believe that. I know you don’t know.” Tears welled up in her eyes, a mix of relief and pain.
It's this exact loss of self that happens when you’ve been tangled in a narcissistic dynamic. Your inner voice becomes confused, unreliable, and impossible to believe. So, why is this part of the profile?
The reason is gaslighting—a narcissist's favorite weapon. They’ll twist and turn reality until you're unsure of what's real. It's their way of making you question memories, events, and feelings. The goal is to keep you off-balance, so that they remain in control. When someone you love consistently challenges your version of events, doubting yourself becomes a default.
This self-doubt manifests in a variety of ways. You may find yourself constantly seeking validation, overthinking every move, or fearing decisions. Every achievement might feel like pure luck rather than due to your own effort or abilities.
This happened to me as well. I remember standing in a grocery store aisle, shortly after leaving my ex-husband, feeling utterly paralyzed. I had spent 17 years knowing what he wanted to eat. I had a little girl and I knew what she wanted to eat. But I had no idea what I wanted to eat. Every decision in my life, no matter how minor, was filtered through the lens of what others wanted, and if no one was there, I had no connection to my own voice. This is a small example but a huge red flag showing how much I’d lost connection with myself.
Sign #2: Profound Loss of Self-Trust
While the first clue—the enhanced sense of self-doubt, revolves around doubting your judgment and perceptions, our next sign goes deeper into the core of your self-worth. Beyond just questioning your decisions, you begin to grapple with a profound loss of self-trust. This isn't just about doubting your thoughts; it's about doubting your very essence and capabilities.
It reaches a point where you may no longer trust yourself to keep commitments, both to yourself and to others. It's like a relentless echo in the back of your mind, taunting you with thoughts of impending failure.
Consider this: if you’ve spent years being told you're unlikable, unreliable, inconsistent, or that you never follow through, you may internalize those false narratives. Over time, this can manifest in the form of self-sabotage. You might hesitate to make promises, even to yourself, for fear of breaking them. You stop setting goals and chasing dreams because you start to feel doomed to fail.
When I was first recovering from narcissistic abuse, I felt like I just wanted to hide. I felt like my instincts were wrong, and that I was permanently broken. The anxiety of potentially disappointing myself or others loomed so large that it seemed easier to avoid commitments altogether. There was this underlying belief that, no matter how hard I tried, I was doomed to fail. The narcissistic voices from my past (my mom, my dad, my ex-husband) had morphed into my own inner critic.
And this erosion of trust isn’t confined to yourself. After being deceived, manipulated, or betrayed by someone you loved and trusted, it's only natural that your faith in others would waver. You begin to wear a shield of skepticism, constantly on guard, expecting others to let you down just as the narcissist did.
Most of my clients, and so many of you guys, have asked about this loss of trust. This loss of trust is one of the top personality profiles that you’ll see after narcissistic abuse. But healing doesn’t exactly mean that you gain trust. It’s more that you move slowly toward trust. You don’t dive in head first. You trust yourself in the not-trusting. You trust that it’s okay to not trust. This type of awareness is a powerful weapon. By acknowledging these feelings and understanding their roots, you set yourself on a path to healing and to re-establishing connection to yourself.
Sign #3: Trauma Responses
While self-doubt and mistrust are, in essence, the mind's tug-of-war with reality, trauma responses are the body's way of reacting to deeply felt pain and distress. The body keeps the score, and when you've been through narcissistic abuse, it responds, sometimes in ways you might not even be fully aware of.
When I mention trauma, you might visualize physical scars, but emotional trauma leaves invisible marks, deeply etched into your psyche and behaviors. Narcissistic abuse puts you through chronic emotional stress, causing your body and mind to develop responses to cope.
You might find yourself becoming hyper-vigilant, always on edge, waiting for the next outburst or criticism. Small triggers, like a raised voice or even just a particular tone, can make your heart race. It's as if your body is perpetually ready for battle, a fight or flight mode, even when there's no immediate threat.
And then there's the freezing or fawning response. Instead of fighting or fleeing, you might become paralyzed in stressful situations, feeling like a deer caught in headlights. Or, alternatively, you might go out of your way to appease and placate, desperate to avoid conflict or confrontation.
After my experience, there were times when an innocent comment could send me spiraling into a panic. A simple critique felt like an attack. I remember once, while leading a retreat, a participant simply said, “Let’s move on,” while I’d been trying to make a teaching point. Instead of taking it as constructive feedback, or even a light-hearted joke, I froze. My heart pounded, my palms sweated, and all I wanted was to hide. It took time for me to understand that these were trauma responses, remnants of my past.
The goal in healing is to start recognizing these patterns, understand their origin, and do your best to self-soothe when triggered. With time, you can learn where these patterns came from, and then train yourself to slowly lean into new patterns.
Sign #4: Swinging Between Toxic Guilt and Resentment
Another thing that you’ll see in the profile of narcissistic abuse victims is a pendulum between alternating self-blame and resentment. What I see most often with my clients, as well as in my own life, is a tendency to swing between these contrasted, but related, emotional states.
On one side, there's this overwhelming guilt, the nagging voice that says everything was your fault. "If only I'd been more understanding, less sensitive, more patient," you tell yourself. This self-blame becomes a toxic cycle, where you carry the weight of the relationship's dysfunction squarely on your own shoulders.
But just as you're sinking into that guilt, the pendulum swings. The resentment flares up, the memories of being manipulated, used, and made to feel less than begin to boil. You're filled with rage, not just at the narcissist, but sometimes at yourself for allowing it to happen. And it's this oscillation between extremes that can be exhausting.
If you’re like me, you might chastise yourself for "letting" things get as bad as they did. Even to this day, I still struggle with being mad at myself for not seeing it sooner, for not leaving earlier. But in the next breath, you might find yourself seething, furious at the abuser for every manipulation, every lie.
Recognizing this swing, this emotional tug-of-war, is key. It's natural to want to place blame somewhere, but the goal is to eventually move beyond blame.
Sign #5: Loss of Identity
After touching upon the way your body and mind might react with unexpected trauma responses, let’s go deeper into a less tangible, yet equally debilitating after-effect of prolonged narcissistic abuse. When you’re constantly navigating an emotional minefield, you gradually start losing your sense of self. And that brings us to our fifth point: a debilitating loss of identity.
Sometimes relationships require a certain level of compromise. However, in a relationship with a narcissist, this "compromise" often becomes a complete loss of self. You're constantly adapting, changing, and molding yourself to fit the shifting desires, expectations, and whims of the narcissist.
Over time, you might not even recognize the person staring back at you in the mirror. The hobbies you once loved, the music that moved your soul, the dreams and goals you had... they become distant memories, replaced by whatever pleased the narcissist.
Maybe you stopped playing piano, or stopped reading books. Maybe you gave up yoga, or stopped lifting weights. Over time you’ve lost pieces of yourself which makes it impossible for you to feel empowered, or like a real human being. To have clear boundaries, and a sense of purpose, you have to have a stable sense of self.
After I left my marriage, I remember being constantly surprised to reclaim aspects of my old self. Things I’d forgotten I loved. Things I’d forgotten that I used to do. I realized that I was way more introverted than I’d thought, that I loved being home my pj’s more than out at a night club. Little by little I started to collect pieces of myself. My identity, my passions, my essence had been pushed to the background for so long that I'd lost touch.
so to recap…
the 5 signs you have been abused by a narcissist:
intense sense of self-doubt
profound loss of self-trust
trauma responses
swinging between toxic guilt and resentment
loss of identity
But here's the silver lining: this loss isn't permanent. There is a way to heal. There is a way to reclaim your life and to empower your sense of self worth and I have video just for that. To learn how to heal from narcissistic abuse and to learn 3 ways to take your life back, read this next: People Pleasing & Narcissists: Why We Attract Them, How to Break Free & 3 Key Tools