How does narcissistic injury make you unhappy? Narcissistic injury is a popular psychoanalytic term. In order not to get too clever here, I will speak in simple words. This is the kind of thing that happened to you regularly in childhood (we are talking about regularity, not a couple of cases). When your mother (father or other significant adult) made an unspoken demand to you: “Be good, and then I will love you.” If you have the feeling that in childhood you were loved for a reason, but for something: A’s, victories , reviews from teachers... When your goodness could only be confirmed by something from the outside. Most likely you have narcissistic injury. This is how the psyche usually reacts to the toxic influence of a narcissist on it. By the way, it can be acquired not only in childhood. It happens that you are in a relationship with a person who is a true narcissist (or a psychopath with narcissistic manifestations). He/she can greatly damage your self-confidence over time. Because such partners constantly point out your shortcomings, compare you with others and devalue you. How do you understand that you are traumatized? In adulthood, it manifests itself as follows: ➖ You cannot praise yourself until you reach the bar. No intermediate results are significant for you. And the bar is often too high.➖ To confirm your “I’m great,” you definitely need the assessment of another person, and not just anyone, but a significant and “big one.”➖ You feel shame if you cannot reach your bar. Or you are close to people who achieve it faster and easier than you.➖ You have a feeling of eternal dissatisfaction with yourself.➖ In fact, you can do a lot, you do everything “better than anyone,” you take first places and the best positions. Only you yourself usually devalue it: “It could have been better.”➖ You are not particularly supported by compliments and support. You still don’t trust anyone and feel “worthless.”➖ You are capable of being around people who humiliate or devalue you. It is important for you to “earn their love.”➖ You don’t know how to say no, you don’t want to offend others, you don’t defend your opinion, you react painfully to criticism and condemnation (internally agreeing with it). These, of course, are not all the options for the manifestation of narcissistic injury. But, if you found more than half of the points, then perhaps this is about you. By the way, narcissists themselves also have this trauma that was inflicted on them in childhood. It’s just that their psyche, unlike the victims of narcissists, reacted this way. What to do? What else can I advise?))) Go to therapy. This can be “treated”, although not quickly. But it definitely doesn’t go away on its own..