Once the Narcissist is confident in the fact that you have fallen in love with them, the devaluation stage begins.  In this stage, the narcissist will become outraged by even the smallest of things. Wherein the idealization stage you were the best thing smoking, in the devaluation stage, not so much.  The Narcissist will begin to negatively criticize you and imply that you are inadequate to carry out the simplest of task.

The Narcissist will then control your behavior by going into narcissistic fits of rage that are manipulated to make you think that you did something wrong. Over time you start watching your every move in hopes of not angering them and experiencing Narcissistic rage.   And rightfully so, these bouts come equipped with yelling, insults, degrading name-calling and public humiliation just to name a few.  For example,  The Narcissist will imply that you talk to a particular family member too much and even become quite angry with you for doing so.  To avoid Narcissistic rage you begin calling the family member only when the Narcissist is not around, or worse, you begin to not call them at all.

In time, your life starts to revolve around how the Narcissist will respond.  You may find that your internal dialogue is fixed on ” if I do this it’s going to make them angry ” or ”  if I spend too much time at the grocery store they’re going to be mad “.  So what happens is you start to live your life through the eyes of the Narcissist and in time your core values, beliefs and desires dwindle away.

The danger here is that little by little you begin to lose your true self by avoiding what makes you happy in order to please the Narcissist until one day you hardly recognize who you are.  Unfortunately, at this stage, you are completely clueless to the fact that the Narcissist has been meticulously erasing the very essence of your being.