A Personal & Biblical Reflection on Narcissistic Abuse by Tina Malaty

For a long time, I did not have the language to explain what was happening to me. I only knew that I was becoming quieter, more uncertain, and increasingly disconnected from the person I once was. I found myself questioning my memory, my reactions, even my character. 

Conversations left me confused instead of resolved. Apologies became automatic, even when I wasn’t sure what I had done wrong.

This is what prolonged narcissistic abuse does. It doesn’t arrive as cruelty, it arrives as confusion.

The Bible tells us that God is not a God of confusion, but of peace (1 Corinthians 14:33). That verse became meaningful to me only after I left the environment where peace was constantly withheld.


How Narcissistic Abuse Feels From the Inside

Narcissistic abuse is not always loud. Often, it is subtle and cumulative. It looks like being corrected constantly under the guise of “help.” It sounds like your feelings being reframed as flaws. It feels like walking on eggshells while being told you are too sensitive for noticing the shells at all. 

Over time, you stop trusting yourself.
Psychological research confirms what many survivors already know intuitively: long-term emotional and psychological manipulation erodes self-trust and identity. Survivors often experience anxiety, cognitive confusion, and a deep sense of self-doubt; not because they are weak, but because they were repeatedly trained to doubt their own reality.

Scripture speaks directly to this kind of harm:

“A lying tongue hates those it hurts.”- Proverbs 26:28

Abuse does not require physical violence to wound deeply. Words, when distorted and weaponized, can fracture a person’s sense of truth.


Gaslighting and the Slow Rewriting of Reality

Gaslighting is not disagreement. It is the repeated denial of your lived experience. It is being told something didn’t happen when you know it did. It is having your emotional responses analyzed instead of acknowledged. Eventually, you begin to defer your discernment to someone else.

Now, I didn’t lose my voice all at once. I misplaced it gradually, through explanations that went nowhere, through apologies that never brought peace, through hoping that if I loved better, spoke softer, or tried harder, clarity would return.

But clarity does not grow in environments where truth is constantly negotiated.

“Buy the truth, and do not sell it.”- Proverbs 23:23

God never asks us to surrender our perception of reality in order to maintain a relationship.


Why Leaving Is So Hard

Many people ask survivors why they stayed. This question misunderstands the nature of psychological abuse. When affection and approval are given intermittently, warm one moment, withdrawn the next, the nervous system becomes focused on survival, not logic. 

Hope becomes conditional. Peace becomes rare.

Scripture offers compassion here:

“A bruised reed He will not break.”- Isaiah 42:3

God does not shame the wounded for being wounded. He does not rush healing. He restores gently.

Leaving was not a moment of strength, it was the result of truth becoming louder than fear.


Boundaries Are Not Unloving

One of the hardest lies to unlearn after narcissistic abuse is the belief that boundaries are cruel or unchristian. But scripture repeatedly affirms the wisdom of distance from unrepentant harm.

Jesus Himself did not entrust Himself to those who were manipulative or dishonest (John 2:24). He withdrew when necessary. He did not explain Himself endlessly to those committed to misunderstanding Him.

“Guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”-Proverbs 4:23

Boundaries are not punishment. They are protection.


Healing Looks Like Remembering

Healing, for me, has not been dramatic. It has been quiet. It looks like trusting my instincts again. It looks like realizing I no longer need to justify my feelings. It looks like prayer becoming a place of safety instead of confusion.

“He restores my soul.”-Psalm 23:3

What narcissistic abuse took was not my worth, it was my peace. And peace, I’ve learned, can be rebuilt.


To the One Reading This Who Isn’t Sure Yet

If you are reading this and wondering whether what you experienced “counts,” know this: confusion is not the fruit of love. Fear is not the fruit of devotion. 

Silence forced by self-doubt is not humility.

“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”- John 8:32

Freedom often begins with permission; permission to trust yourself again, to name what happened, and to believe that 

God was with you even when you couldn’t hear Him clearly.

You are not broken. You were surviving.
And now, you are healing.