Narcissistic Abuse 05 QUESTIONS

You don't have to decide whether someone else is a narcissist. Instead, step back, and look at what is happening in the relationship, and with you.

Everyone has disagreements and makes mistakes. What matters is the pattern and the effect it has on you.

1. Can you disagree with this person without being blamed, punished, intimidated, or made to feel guilty?

2. What happens when you say “no”? Can they accept your answer even when they don't like it?

3. What happens when you tell them they have hurt you? Can they listen, take responsibility, and make changes?

4. Do you feel free to express your feelings, opinions, needs, and interests?

5. Have you changed your behavior because you are afraid of their reaction?

6. Do you find yourself watching their mood or walking on eggshells?

7. Are your boundaries respected, or do you have to keep defending them?

8. When something goes wrong, can both people take responsibility, or does the blame usually end up on you?

9. Can you trust your own memory and judgment, or do you often question what really happened?

10. Do the same painful patterns keep happening, even after promises that things will change?

11. Who were you before this relationship, and what parts of yourself have changed?

12. Do you feel more like yourself now, or less like yourself?

13. Are you free to have your own friends, interests, privacy, time, and choices?

14. If nothing about this relationship changed, would you want to live this way five years from now?

15. If someone you loved described this exact relationship to you, what would you want for them?

Now turn that question toward yourself: What would you want for yourself?

Read more about Narcissistic Abuse: 01 WHY • 02 WHAT • 03 HOW • 04 WHAT IF • 05 Narcissistic Abuse QUESTIONS