NARCISSISTIC ABUSE WARNING SIGNS: RECOGNIZING HARMFUL PATTERNS
This article is aimed at women who may be in abusive relationships with men, noting that it’s important to remain aware that narcissistic and coercive abuse can take place between people of any gender and in all kinds of relationships. The narcissistic abuse warning signs discussed here could apply to abusers of any gender. No one behaviour, observation, or warning sign by itself is sufficient to indicate narcissism or abuse; what is important is the overall pattern, how frequently it occurs, the context, and its effect over time.
Some relationships are like a sudden change in the weather. At first, the fresh air makes you feel uplifted and light, and joy radiates from you like sunbeams. Before long, however, the weather shifts and you begin to sense a slight heaviness that you try to ignore. One day, you wake up to find yourself in the middle of a storm that is constantly approaching. You are always in “prep mode,” readying yourself for the day it arrives, even as you continue to long for the sun to return.
What we fail to realize is that you are living within someone else’s sphere of delusion. It can take days, months, or even years before this realization becomes clear. For those of us who spent decades living in survival mode, we leave with frayed nerves, worn down, anxious, and with fear always just around the corner. What had previously been invisible becomes blaringly obvious. You have been living inside a distorted reality that keeps you isolated, emotionally destabilized, and confused.
What feels confusing in isolation often becomes unmistakable when viewed as a pattern.
What can you do? Name it! You speak up or call it out. You have to name the things that have happened to you. Your experiences, what you saw, heard, and lived. It begins without fanfare: a subtle nuisance, a minor inconvenience, then slowly builds into a sharp remark that stings, which they dismiss, or you ignore.
Over time, these incidents accumulate like a pile of pebbles. Each pebble is insignificant on its own. However, over time the pile grows, and you find you’ve built an insurmountable mountain you must climb every day. Against the exhaustion, emotionally drained, overwhelm, and constant walking on eggshells, you climb it. In the long run, the mountain erodes, pieces break, and it wears away gradually until you no longer have the energy to hold it together on your own.
The harm is rarely found in one moment. It is found in what those moments become over time.
When you have lost both your strength and your desire to be yourself, indifferent to the sharpness, the cruelty, and the gradual destruction of your own voice, the only thing you see in the mirror is confusion and uncertainty. For some of us, this state of numbness is nothing new; it’s a familiar state, a coping mechanism from childhood.
Many of us lived in environments where love was limited, conditional, and earned. To belong meant conforming to dominant narratives and long-held beliefs and values you may never have agreed with. You remember how you were conditioned to bear burdens that weren’t yours to carry. It became your responsibility to ensure a parent’s emotional comfort, to explain yourself, and to be the first to make peace. You may have felt like the “black sheep” or “problem child,” never fully accepted or as though you truly belonged. The reality is that we grow up longing for attention, affection, and love. These early experiences do not cause someone to enter or remain in an abusive relationship, but they can shape what feels familiar, acceptable, or recognizable as love.
Clarity often begins when we stop explaining away what repeatedly hurts us.
For many years, I had no idea what healthy love actually meant or looked like. I ended up in a relationship with someone who felt familiar because he mirrored patterns from my past. And while I was committed, he never was. I spent years living with the reality of repeated betrayals while he maintained a self-image of upstanding moral character. The perfect husband to the world. A nightmare behind closed doors. It took considerable courage I had no idea I possessed to get out of the lie that was my marriage.
Why do I share parts of my life? I do it because I want women to know they are not alone. I do it because I am naming the harm and calling out narcissistic abuse. My hope is that my words serve as validation and support for others’ experiences, and that you find the courage to leave people and places that seek to hurt, control, or manipulate you. Abuse is a choice. Trauma, childhood adversity, or personality traits may help explain behaviour, but they do not excuse harm.
Narcissistic Abuse Warning Signs Checklist
If this article has raised questions about patterns you may be experiencing, you can use the Narcissistic Abuse Warning Signs Checklist as a reflective tool. It is not a diagnostic instrument. It is designed to help you notice repeated behaviours, relationship patterns, and their impact over time.
Support and Safety Resources
If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 911. If you are in Alberta and need confidential support related to family or domestic violence, call or text the Family Violence Info Line at 310-1818, available 24 hours a day. If you are experiencing a suicide crisis in Canada, call or text 9-8-8. If you are in immediate danger, please call 911. You can also find shelters and domestic violence resources across Canada through ShelterSafe.
If you would like to learn more about my mentoring support and whether it may be a good fit for you, please contact me at iliana@ilizianinitiative.com.
I meet you where you are and walk alongside you as you make sense of your experiences, reconnect with your voice, and move forward on your own terms.
Oliver, E., Coates, A., Bennett, J. M., & Willis, M. L. (2024). Narcissism and intimate partner violence: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 25(3), 1871–1884. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380231196115
Kassing, K., et al. (2026). “Slowly, over time, you completely lose yourself”: Conceptualizing coercive control trauma in intimate partner relationships. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605251320998
Adair, J. (2025). Defining gaslighting in gender-based violence: A mixed-methods systematic review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380251344316
Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence, from domestic abuse to political terror. Basic Books.
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