Reactive Abuse Explained: Why You're Not The Narcissist -

Has a narcissist ever pushed you to your breaking point? What am I saying? Of course they have! But when you reach this breaking point, why does it so often happen in front of an audience?

Well, I can tell you it’s by design. The narcissist triggers something called reactive abuse in you, and that’s when you start acting like the narcissist. It’s part of the reason why so many people who have encountered narcissists wonder if they’re a narcissist themselves. So, what is reactive abuse, and does it make you a bad guy?

So, the answer to that—the simple and straightforward answer—is that reactive abuse is a form of self-defense. Imagine that a bully on the playground is hitting your kid, and they won’t stop. They just keep going and going. When no one’s looking, they just keep getting those jabs in, and finally, the kid hits back with one really big, strong punch.

But unfortunately, by the time this happens, all the teachers are standing around and watching. Who gets in trouble? It’s gonna be the kid who had an audience. But that kid wasn’t the one who started it, and that kid probably tried to end things peacefully many times before they were pushed to the breaking point.

Now, does this make hitting right? No, we’re all responsible for our own actions. But I can tell you it does make the punch a lot more understandable.

A Book: Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men.

So that’s what’s going on with reactive abuse. This is when a narcissist or another abusive person pushes and pushes and pushes to the point where the person that they’re targeting feels no choice but to fight back, because they need it to stop. And when you’re in that place, when you just need it to stop at all costs, you’re probably not going to be acting very logically. You’re going to let anger take the wheel, and you may say or do things that you wouldn’t normally say or do. You may say or do things you might regret later, and this is what makes reactive abuse so powerful.

Because if you’re a decent person, you’re going to feel bad about the way you acted. You probably will still be angry at the narcissist for triggering you in such a way, but you’re also going to know that you’re an adult and you should take responsibility for your own actions. So there’s a sense of guilt associated with this too, and this is the layered approach to reactive abuse.

Because we have the audience, who only has part of a story, and they’re looking at you like you’re insane or you’re just angry—you’re emotionally immature, maybe. And probably they’re thinking that you’re abusive and feeling bad for the person who’s actually abusive. So that’s one layer.

The other layer is that you’re gonna end up beating yourself up over it and ruminating over the entire situation. You might think about how you could have done things differently or how you could have stopped it sooner, or you might get lost in the thought spiral of what other people are thinking about you or saying about you.

So reactive abuse keeps going; it’s the gift that keeps on giving. And it’s a really powerful way for a narcissist to get to you. And the dangerous part is really that they can do it at any time, as long as you feel some sort of emotional connection to that person or to the thing that they’re triggering you about.

Recommended: Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse.

So you may not care about the narcissist at all anymore, but if they know a deep wound within you, if they know how to trigger you, they’re going to use that against you to get you to lash out in front of a crowd. So, bottom line: reactive abuse isn’t really abuse. The behaviors that you may have engaged in—so you may have raised your voice, you may have thrown something, you may have said things, shared secrets, or done things that you wouldn’t normally do or say.

And these are things that you’re probably not proud of, right? But just like the kid on the playground, you’re not instigating this abuse; you are reacting to it. So, reactive abuse kind of sounds like you are abusing reactively, but really, I think it’s more accurate to look at it as you are reacting to abuse. Reactive abuse can come in all different forms.

So I know that a lot of you who have dealt with this may be questioning yourself because of what you did, out of character, because it felt so bad and just out of sync with who you are. And you know that when people act that way to you, you know how it makes you feel.

So for those of you who might be feeling guilty about how you behaved and questioning whether you’re the narcissist, I want to share some signs that what you’ve experienced is reactive abuse and not actual abuse; so that you were reacting to someone who was being abusive to you and that you are not an abusive person yourself.

1. You feel guilty.

So the first sign that it’s reactive abuse and not real abuse is that you feel guilty. People who are abusive feel justified almost 100% of the time. They feel justified in their abusive behavior because you made them act the way they did. And this one is a little bit tricky when it comes to reactive abuse because the other person did push you to a breaking point. But if you feel guilty for the way you behaved after the fact, that’s where the difference comes in. Even if you can acknowledge that they played a role in getting you to that point where you just broke, if you feel guilty about your behavior, it’s probably reactive abuse, and I wouldn’t worry about being the abuser or the narcissist.

2. You were not the one to act first.

So the next sign that it’s reactive abuse is that you were not the one to act first. The other person knowingly set you off, and they probably did it in a series of events that led to your eventual breakdown. And now I want to say this: the longer you are with or exposed to an abusive person, the easier it is for them to trigger you.

So think of the series of events as happening over months, years, decades. It all builds up. So if you have been with an abusive narcissist for long enough, they can trigger you very, very easily in front of a crowd.

3. You are not abusive to other people.

The most important sign that you are not the narcissist and you’re dealing with reactive abuse is that you are not abusive to other people. So if this is literally the only relationship where you get to your breaking point and you consistently do or say things that you regret or feel guilty about, that’s a sign that you’re definitely not the narcissist.

Now, with that, I’ll say that we all go through our lives and none of us are perfect, so we end up doing and saying things that we regret from time to time. But if it’s happening consistently in one relationship and you’re never the one to initiate it, you’re definitely not the narcissist.

And if you’re looking for ways to cut back on those triggers, I have an article on things that you should never say to a narcissist if you want to keep your sanity. Because the best way to stay away from this whole reactive abuse topic is to stop feeding the narcissist. So give that a read.

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