1. You feel nervous around this person.
They often express intense, exhilarating emotions which change radically from one extreme to another. You’ll often hear words like “the best, awesome, amazing” and “the worst, horrible, awful”. One moment they are kind, cheerful and flattering you, or if they are in love, they feel adventurous and passionate. The next moment things take a turn to the dark – they quickly become annoyed or angry at you or something in their life. Stability of good emotions is rare. Part of you feels that negativity can just as easily turn against you. You feel the need to constantly perform at your best. And by your best I mean what they view as best.
2. They withhold attention and make you feel desperate for breadcrumbs of it.
After hooking you with praise, flattery, attention and affection they become uninterested. They make you feel desperate and needy, ensuring that you are always the one to initiate contact or physical intimacy. You find yourself writing off most of their questionable behavior as accidental or insensitive. They don’t seem to care when they leave your side. It often feels like you’re disposable and forgetful. Or when they care it is accompanied by jealousy or anger.
3. Over the top often hyperbolized flattery.
Lots of compliments, adoration, attention. “You’re the best, you’re awesome, you’re perfect, you’re a KING/QUEEN!” You’ll feel slightly uneasy with it all. However, if you have low self-esteem, you might also enjoy their attention and compliments, and if you are not used to trusting your intuition, you might overlook or dismiss their odd behavior. When it’s not all about them, it becomes all about you. In those moments, it seems like all their focus is on you and they disappear from the map. You, your dreams, your ideas are all that matters. Your favorites are their favorites. What you do is great, and now they do it too. Everything you do is complimented or shown that it’s awesome. It’s as if you felt cut open and put spread on a platter. It feels uncomfortable in your gut. Remember: If it feels strange, it is strange.
4. The Inconsistency.
Of behavior – they say they’re going to do something. Then they do something else. Breaking little agreements and promises here and there. “Forgetting” to do things they said they’d do. Plan things that never come true. And this happens OFTEN. A lot of talk, little and inconsistent action. When in doubt, pay attention to what they do over what they say.
Of feelings – At times they bombard you with texts, photos, and invitations to join their thrilling life. You feel slightly uneasy with so much attention, but somewhat delighted. They can’t get enough of you, you are now amazing. But then they suddenly ignore you, and act like they don’t care at all, you are dull or worthless. This might make you feel like you have to try harder, because sometimes you seem to impress them and you are awesome, and other times you fail to interest them and are boring. The truth is – this change had nothing to do with you.
5. Thrill seeking & drama magnets
There always seems to be something happening. New people coming into their lives, dramas with someone, at work or with friends. Today a new coworker quickly becomes a great friend who they mutually share their life stories with. Tomorrow a fallout with a friend. The next day something happened with the dog. The day after they have a horrible night. The one after they are going on an unplanned hike with some friends. Then they need to go relax somewhere because it’s been too much, only for the next day something else to happen. They may want constant excitement, adventures, going out and experiencing new things, meeting new people. They get very easily bored by the familiar. This also makes you anxious, because it tells you that if you’re not constantly ON and fun, they’ll get bored of you too.
6. Everything in the relationship moves blindingly fast.
Relationship moves quickly. It starts strong and fast. They share a lot very quickly. Perhaps early sex, falling in love really soon, talking about spending life together, and marriage/kids occurs early. Little disagreements, and a feeling that something is off also shows up in very soon after you met them. Fights might happen soon as well. When they do, emotions are expected to go from one extreme to the other very quickly. They may shock you with how extreme, and cold they can be in a fight, to be point of one of you crying, threats of breakup or others. And then quickly make up, and think about the future. And you have to accompany their feelings just as quickly or be accused of bringing the relationship down and not “letting it go” or “being too sensitive” or “still being hung up by the past.” They ask you to move on at an inappropriately short time for the emotions that were involved. And if they don’t say it, they show it by moving on very quickly and expecting you follow them. After fights, you may feel high, ethereal. Like all is good in the world. But also exhausted and beaten down. And you never know when the switch will happen. You can go from amazing to piece of shit and back to amazing in a blink of an eye. From wanting to marry you to wanting breakup. Remember: If someone attaches quickly, they will disattach as quickly.
7. The lack of empathy.
On the surface they look calm and unaffected. A sort of flat-lined emotions. Some people may see this as being cool and collected, which makes you in comparison feel over-sensitive and emotional. Maybe they make jokes about others suffering, or laugh at someone’s misfortune. Notice how they talk about themselves. They often react to their own pain with insensitivity, callousness, laughter and lack of compassion. Or rage, if they perceive it was caused by someone else. Expect the same treatment. They struggle with emotionally putting themselves in anyone’s shoes, including yours. You find yourself needing comfort… and getting little of it from them. They may stare at you blankly, give you no validation, or just some superficial physical affection and blank comforting words. The bare minimum, as someone who is just trying to barely pass a test with minimum effort. In certain cases they may even not control themselves and just by inaction prolong your suffering out of enjoyment. If it feels sick and cold, it’s because it is sick and cold.
8. They hyperbolize emotions, display little of them, and when they do, they often feel oddly out of place. Because they are disconnected from their emotions, they are not really feeling what they say they are feeling (and often not even aware of this). Because of that, they may act in ways that feel weird and out of place, because they’re acting out of their “thinking” and not out of their “feeling”. Listen to your intuition.
9. You’ll find them using manipulation tactics.
10. You can’t seem to trust them. You may find yourself playing detective. In previous relationships you didn’t feel this need. But now, even if you haven’t directly or consciously caught them lying, you somehow have the feeling they’re not to be trusted. You may get this feeling if for example they seem distrustful of others (often a projection because they know themselves are not to be trusted, and they assume others not to be as well). Or if you’ve seen, or they told you about them deceiving other people (which means they can deceive you as well, when the tide inevitably changes against you).
11. They also put you in constant competition with others for their attention and praise. They may make themselves artificially unavailable to give the appearance they’re in high demand, and that you should be grateful when they give you attention. They might also surround themselves with potential mates but they assure you there is nothing to worry about. You feel more jealous than you know yourself to be. They turn this around on you by accusing you of being insecure and need to work on your trust issues. At the same time, you are given the perception that you need to be on your best game, and even then that at the slightest disappointment you can easily be dropped for someone else. And this jealousy they provoke, is always maintained by a cover of innocence.
12. The critics and comparisons. So many, so exhausting. Compares you to ex-partners, friends, family members, or even strangers. When flattering you, they make you feel special by telling you how much better you are than these people. When devaluing, they tell you, often very subtly, the thousand ways in which you are lacking. It can be so subtle the only indication is that you feel your self esteem going lower and lower. You need to be more fun, you need to be more adventurous, you aren’t like i met you anymore, you’re too boring, you should do it like this instead, you’re breathing wrong, this is not ok, look how that one is doing, the way you do it is wrong. It feels like you as a person are not ok, and everything you do is wrong.
13. Laughs at you or things you do. They sometimes smirk when you say or do something, with an aura of pity and arrogance for you. Teasing started as fun, but quickly feels like a tireless beat down. They give you backhanded compliments (a critic given in the form of a compliment). They subtly belittle you. If you ask a question they may laugh, because “the answer is obvious 😂”, or because “who would ask such a silly question😂”. Then may dress it up as a joke. If you point this out, they’ll make it about you – you’re too sensitive, it was just a joke, you’re too uptight, you need to relax more and take things less seriously, you need to be more fun, what’s wrong with you that you can’t take a joke.
14. The negativity. Tests. Punishments. Revenge. Anger.
A cloud of never ending darkness and negativity seems to have become part of your life. Something negative always comes around the corner somehow. It may seem like you have a degree of control over it, if only you are understanding, and pay attention to their words, and are calm, and don’t make any mistakes, then maybe it will be like you imagine. But it won’t. Because they have been like this way before you came along. And so they will continue after they leave you.
15. They often exude a general sense arrogance.
People suck, they’re sheep, dumb, etc. See how they reframe their negatives in a way that they sound positive. Abusive = difficult, just a misfit in current society. Rageful = passionate. Cold and talking with disregard to people’s feelings = no filter and real. You may also sense disregard for rules, especially those that don’t benefit them.
16. They dislike your boundaries.
Boundaries are to an abuser as garlic is to a vampire. When you set a boundary, they tend to react with some form of punitive behavior – anger, put downs, accusations, silent treatment.
17. You find yourself explaining basics of human conduct and decency to an adult.
Normal people understand the fundamental concepts of honesty and kindness. No adult should need to be told how they are making other people feel. It can feel as if they have troubles being nice in general to people, and they may ask your help to navigate situations when that is necessary.
18. They focus on yours or others’ mistakes while ignoring their own.
If you point out their mistakes, you should not expect a real apology. They have difficulty or downright complete inability to truthfully admit faults. They will be quick to turn the conversation back on you or to dismiss their mistake as unavoidable, not their fault, no one’s fault, or your fault. They have extremely high expectations for fidelity, respect, and adoration. After the idealization phase, they will give none of this back to you. They will cheat, lie, insult, and degrade. But you are expected to remain perfect.
19. The loneliness you feel with them.
You may feel alone even when you’re sitting next to them. You don’t really feel like you can count on them. It may feel as if there is a wall that prevents you from connecting with them emotionally. In romantic relationships sex will feel more like sex, and rarely like making love. It can often leave you feeling emotionally malnourished. Like something is missing.
20. The superficiality.
They tend to place high importance on how others see them, especially for those they deem important or high-value. On the surface, they seem to do a lot in a way to appear to be great. However this is usually superficial only. People that are with them more often, get to see the real them. Because they are out of touch with their own feelings, the emotions they show are also shallow and lack real depth and sincerity. You can tell this by how they seem unaffected by their emotions despite how strongly they express them. Or by how quickly they seem to express one strong emotion only to quickly express another that contradicts the previous. This is not how a normal human being acts.
21. Their mood appears to switch very quickly.
It can be eerie when you see them switching their charming happy face as they turn from a conversation with someone to you and don’t need to pretend anymore. Or in messages you see them quickly mentioning through words or Emojis contradictory emotions. Going from wanting to die/cry/sad to laughing and dancing. It feels like someone on emotional steroids. It feels tiring, and a roller-coaster. It also feels off. You will start to feel that their personality just doesn’t seem to add up.
22. It seems like you are the only one who sees their true colors.
Abusers often let go of the anger build up and get the most triggered in close relationships. Some times others will think they’re the nicest person in the world, even though they are used for money, resources, and attention. Other times, their friends have also troubled pasts, and issues themselves, and are either blind or submissive to this person. Hurt people often hang out with other hurt people because it feels familiar, it feels like home. Abusive people are able to maintain superficial friendships far longer than their romantic relationships.
23. Troubled past.
Rough childhood. Hurt people hurt others. An unusual amount of “crazy” people in their past, troubled intense relationships. Several partners. Any ex-partner or friend who did not come crawling back to them will likely be labeled jealous, bipolar, an alcoholic, or some other nasty smear. They will speak about you the same way to their next target.
24. Flatters your deepest insecurities. If you’re self-conscious about your looks, they’ll call you the sexiest person in the world. If you’ve got a need to entertain, they’ll say you’re the funniest person they’ve ever known. They will also mirror your greatest fantasies, playing whatever role is necessary to win your heart.
25. Judges how you look. They try to arrange you. Or make backhanded compliments about how you look. They may try to pretend to be helpful while covering up a birthmark you have to make you self-conscious of it.
26. You fear that any fight could be your last. Normal couples argue to resolve issues, but abusers make it clear (often subtly and indirectly) that conversations that they don’t like can jeopardize the relationship, especially ones regarding their behavior. You apologize and forgive quickly, and do as they say, otherwise you know they’ll lose interest in you or leave you
27. When in a position of power, abuses it. Examples of positions of power (because just saying it like this sounds abstract): doctor/nurse to patient (especially if debilitated), doctor to nurse, customer to waitress or shop clerk, policeman to civilian, bully to someone who’s been abused before, someone depending on them financially or emotionally, them knowing something and you don’t. Being in a position of power to an abuser is like giving a shot of a drug to a drug addict. The temptation will be really strong. “Because you need me, I can abuse you and you’ll take it.”
28. Gaslights. You’re reading their emotions wrong, you’re interpreting things wrong, you’re forgetting things, you can’t understand things right (…).
29. You feel worse about yourself when you’re with them. You get criticized and blamed without even noticing. The main sign is that you feel increasingly lower self-esteem. This is especially felt during and after fights.
30. Your feelings. One of the best ways to identify – you feel anxious, your self esteem gets lower and lower, you seem to have to fake to be with them. You start not knowing your likes and wants. You are often confused by their behavior. But because you’re used to not trusting yourself, and they seem very sure of themselves you think maybe you just understood it wrong, or you’re not seeing the whole picture, or you shouldn’t be judgemental of people and accept people’s quirkinesses.
Notes
Note 1: it’s not necessarily the case that someone abusive will fit all of these. In fact, some abusive people will have the opposite red flag. For example, some aren’t thrill seekers and instead are too socially anxious to want new experiences. Also, some of these may exist in otherwise non-abusive people, although often in a less extreme way. The point to make is that they are still way more likely to be there in abusers and especially when they are there in a pronounced way.
Note 2: abuse often is unconscious, not on purpose, and many times out of insecurity. A learned behavior to try to control and get a need met. This is not an excuse. And this doesn’t make it any better for the receiver. You don’t deserve to be abused no matter their intentions, no matter if they don’t mean it, and no matter if they do it out of insecurity. Abuse and mistreatment are abuse and mistreatment. What you feel is what counts. They need therapy, and you need to take care of yourself.
