Love-bombing the excessive praise and flattery a predatory partner showers on their prey might as well be crack cocaine.
They are skilled wordsmiths and psychological puppeteers, pulling the strings each step of the way.
They learn your love language and they know how to appeal to what you want to hear.
Vitalii Odobesku
Their initial chivalry masks their cruelty.
Their tenderness is a very convincing facade for their chilly interior.
The idealization phase can only be described as pure, unadulterated ecstasy both for the victim and the predator.
Love-bombing the excessive praise and flattery the predator showers on the prey might as well be crack cocaine.
Your devotion to them becomes servile, disturbingly teetering on the edge of worship.
And its usually because youre following their lead.
We begin to invest in the predator as they seem to invest in us.
They mirror our deepest needs and desires; they even mirror our interests, hobbies, and viewpoints.
We get used to the daily praise and laser-focused attention.
Its because theyve studied what we like and have learned to mimic it.
Little do we know, sex will later be used asammunition.
During idealization and love-bombing, our place on the pedestal is secure and complete.
We become the center of the narcissists world or so we think.
Along the way, we deepen our investment because the bond feels so special and unique.
We feel weve met our soulmate, our other half, our twin flame.
And that is when the danger begins.
They are able to depart with their savings and sanity intact they are able to leave, still whole.
The rest move onto the devaluation phase, to be tattered and broken.
An adept emotional predator knows how to exploit a targets strengths as well as his or her weaknesses.
When devaluation begins, its not always sudden.
In fact, it can be like a gunshot in the dark or a quiet murmur in the corner.
You justfeelthat something has shifted, but youre not sure why, how, where, or when.
Your lover stops taking your calls.
They withdraw without an explanation.
They praise others the way they used to praise you.
The number of disappearances, discrepancies and marked evidence of infidelity start to climb.
They enjoy actively provoking you to respond, making you out to bethe crazy one.
Then there is the stone-cold silence after stonewalling you during arguments.
The narcissists silent treatment is deafening and it hurts,literally.
But the man or woman you love does not exist.
Targets who are devalued are torn to shreds by the verbal and emotional battery inflicted by their narcissistic partners.
Their psyche is infiltrated with disempowering belief systems and messages about their worthiness.
They live day-to-day in aperpetual battle a power struggle that never seems to end.
They try not to internalize the criticism and blame, but they feel ashamed about being treated so viciously.
This is not a shame that is theirs to carry it belongs to their perpetrators.
Yet they feel it deep down to their bones.
It burdens them on sleepless nights and through countless weary days.
Throughout the vicious cycle, pain is periodically mixed with pleasure.
Victims are overjoyed at receivingcrumbs of attentionfrom their abusers only to be devastated by blow after blow.
They are left in a way that leaves no closure.
Thediscardis staged in a way that is excessively painful and humiliating for the victim.
Perhaps it occurs in public, or happens shortly after the narcissist has galivanted off with their new victim.
However it happens, it is merciless and calculated todestroy.
Victims of narcissistic abuse are often brought to their knees and left blindsided by the narcissists departure.
They are depleted, drained, belittled, diminished.
They are left with more questions than answers, more doubt than certainty.
Many fall into depression, spells of anxiety, and suffer the symptoms oftrauma.
In extreme cases, some evencommit suicideor get close to the precipice of death.
If the victim survives the discard, the only path left is the long road tohealing.
If so, the cycle just begins again.
