Love Bombing, Future Faking and Gaslighting

In this insightful episode, we explore the manipulative tactics often used in narcissistic relationships: love bombing, future faking, and gaslighting. These tactics can be incredibly powerful and initially effective, leaving many wondering how they fell into such situations.What You'll Discover:

• Love Bombing: Understand how this seductive trap works by overwhelming victims with affection and attention. While it may feel intoxicating at first, it is a manipulation tactic designed to create a trauma bond, making it difficult to detach even when things go wrong.
• Future Faking: Learn about the false promises narcissists make to keep you invested in the relationship. These promises of a perfect future are rarely fulfilled and are used to manipulate your emotions and maintain control.
• Gaslighting: Recognize how this form of psychological abuse warps your reality, making you question your own perceptions and memories. Gaslighting erodes self-confidence and makes it challenging to leave an abusive relationship.

By understanding these tactics, you can start recognizing patterns and protecting yourself. Whether you've experienced these firsthand or are supporting someone who has, this episode offers clarity and support as you navigate recovery and rebuild your life.

Transcript

 Welcome back to Thrive and Flourish, the narcissistic abuse recovery blueprint. If you've fallen prey to a narcissist in a romantic relationship, I'm sure you've asked yourself this question, something along the lines of, how did I fall into this in the first place? I know for sure I did. And so For me, it was important to get answers about why I'd ended up in the situation I found myself in.

So, today friends, I'm going to share or shed some light on how it may have happened. We are diving deep into three of the manipulative tactics often used in narcissistic abuse that are often quite powerful and and sadly very effective at first. Those three tactics are love bombing, Future faking and gaslighting.

If you've not heard of these before, then stay tuned because I know for sure you'll find the information in today's episode so informative and hopefully you'll end up with much more clarity about your situation. These intentionally manipulative behaviors can be incredibly confusing and damaging, but by understanding them you can start to recognize the patterns and protect yourself.

Whether you've experienced this firsthand or you're trying to support someone who has, this episode will give you the clarity, the information that you need. Remember, the focus of this podcast is to help you or anyone who's experienced or is experiencing narcissistic abuse to educate ourselves about this very damaging form of abuse by recognizing and educating ourselves.

And then for those who have survived narcissistic abuse. This podcast is here to support you as you recover and then rebuild your life. As always, if you're wanting to feel better after narcissistic abuse, and you don't know how, you don't know where to start, or if you're in need of support, as you navigate the journey of recovery and rebuilding your life, you can connect with me on social media.

We have a Facebook group and the links to those are shown in the show notes below and I will be happy to help guide you through this journey through the blueprint that I've created to help women just like you. So let's get into this. Let's start with love bombing. This is often the first stage of a narcissistic relationship, thinking perhaps about romantic relationships, and it can feel somewhat intoxicating at first.

It's the showering of attention that at first seems genuine, and for many, it feels good, does feel good at first. As good as it seems and feels. You must recognize that this is actually a manipulation tactic. It's when the narcissist overwhelms their victim with affection, attention, often grand gestures, and they might tell you or make you feel like you're their soulmate.

That's a really common one, this kind of soulmate talk, um, that you're the one, that they've never felt this way before. And it kind of feels like a whirlwind. And looking back, it's clearly too good to be true. And that is the thing, it really is too good to be true. Because narcissists use love bombing as a way to quickly create an emotional bond.

And it's this emotional bond that later on down the line, It becomes a trauma bond or it can and it's the thing that makes it so hard to detach yourself from the relationship. Even when things aren't feeling right and you know something's not quite right but probably by that stage you're not sure what's right.

Anyway they want to make you feel special and deeply connected so that you become dependent on them, maybe not financially or ways that seem visible, but emotionally, you keep coming back to them for comfort and affection and all of those things that feel so good. And it's the constant praise and attention that you get from them can boost your self esteem initially, but it's all part of a strategy to gain control over you.

So it's really something we need to be aware of. Love bombing is a form of psychological manipulation and the goal of the narcissist is to make you feel like you found the one so that when their behavior starts to shift later on, trust me, take my word for it, their behavior will shift, it will change.

You're already like in, you're hooked and because they made things seem so wonderful in the beginning then when Things come up that cause you to question or things that seem off to you You're likely to dismiss them because you have all of that memory of that love bombing phase like of all of the great stuff They did early on and you're kind of latched on to that memory and that emotion and that time and this makes it harder for You to leave when things turn sour And love bombing, it impacts you because at first it feels euphoric and you kind of get like caught up in all of that, you know, it feels good to feel like you're in love, but it really isn't love.

That's a whole different conversation for another day. But yes, but once the narcissist feels like secure in your attachment, once they see and they know that you're attached to them, they often begin to withdraw that same affection that they were showering on you and they may start to discard you or criticize you.

And that behavior will be such a. Start contrast to what you experience from them before and it often happens quite suddenly like It's not like you've fallen out with them or you've been arguing it just it's just like a sudden change It happens quite suddenly and sudden changes like this can make you feel confused, but also really longing for, or almost desperate for going back to what it was in the beginning, that honeymoon period that often even healthy relationships can have, um, that kind of honeymoon phase where it feels real good, but you kind of long for that because all of a sudden they've cut off your supply set, so to speak.

And. You might even start to blame yourself for the shift in their behavior. You start to like question, did I do something? Did I say something? You know, the types of people that narcissists target are often people who are quite, we're empaths and so they, they play on this. And so I'm wondering, does any of this resonate with you?

Because if it does, then this is a good sign that what you've experienced in your relationship was love bombing, and it's a very big indicator that you were in a relationship with a narcissist. And so the thing about narcissists is that they all seem to operate from the same playbook. And once you start to learn about who they really are and how they operate, You can pretty much predict their future behaviours, and that's going to be really good for you, for those of you who are exiting or who have exited, because you know how to, you'll know what's coming up and you'll know how to prepare for those things.

But the key is, you must educate yourself about them to know these things. So if you're here listening and you're like, yeah. This rings a bell, or you know you're in a relationship with a narcissist, but you're not quite convinced because you think you can change them, you think it will get better. Keep listening because the more you educate yourself, one day that light bulb will go off and you'll be like, I'm done with this.

And love bombing is a classic manipulation tactic because it creates a trauma bond. It's like an emotional attachment that keeps you tied to them, even when they are abusive and they start mistreating you. And so, because I'm a curious person, I wanted to understand more about this whole love bombing business because it was something that I experienced in my own relationship with a narcissist.

And as I looked into this, I learned from Dr. Ramani, now I've, I've mentioned her before. She's incredible. If you really want to delve deep into this, and I don't suggest you go too deep into it because it can. kind of, you can become obsessed with learning all the things, but if you don't know very much about it, she explained things so well and she's one of the leading experts on this whole topic of narcissism.

I've mentioned her before and I'll probably speak about her work a lot more because I admire her work so much and her teaching is just first class and I encourage you that if you have further questions about narcissism, check out her work because she's awesome and a leading voice in this space. But back to what I learned from her about all of this love bombing business, I learned that there were different types of or expressions of love and so as you listen, pay attention.

And see what rings a bell for you and for your own experience. And I will add that narcissists and their behaviours may fall into one or more of these categories. So don't be surprised if you've experienced some or all of these types of love bombing from the one person that you were in a relationship with or associated with.

So, one of the types of love bombing that there is, is called grandiose love bombing and it's super extravagant, expensive gifts and gestures. The types of things that should really come later on in a relationship, those things happen quite early on in the early stages and this type of love bombing, I see as a mask that acts to cover up their true selves, well actually they don't really have true selves but they just go around copying other people, trying to, you know.

Be something that they're not, but trying to cover up all of their insecurities. That's what I want to say. It's as though they're putting on a performance, and they're quite good at putting on this show and keeping up this performance. But the problem is, is that they can't keep it up long term. They can't keep up this facade forever, and the mask eventually falls.

And I guess that their tactic is to create such a big distraction so that your attention, so they create a distraction with all of these grand gestures and all these, so much attention, The attention is taken away from the red flags or the concerns that you will eventually see but you don't see them in the beginning.

So it's as though you'll see something that isn't quite right in the, in the narcissist but then at the same time something so big and grand is happening such as expensive gifts or like they're super kind that they're very over the top with. that you kind of dismiss whatever doesn't seem right because alongside of the big fancy gestures it's like it's not such a big deal it you know it doesn't seem to make sense what you're sensing that's not right doesn't seem to make sense against the backdrop of all this kindness and love and affection and all of these things and so you make excuses for the small things.

that seem off because they're just tiny things, right? And compared to how great the love bombing is, it just seems quite small in comparison. It can also happen in the form of excessive time and attention given to the victim, lots of phone calls, endless texts, and like an inordinate amount of attention.

When I think back to my own experience, it really was a lot. It was very full on. And sometimes with this type of love bombing things are often going so quickly it's quite hard to see it's kind of like being on a roller coaster or one of those like whirly rides at the fairground or at an amusement park.

So it's all going so quickly it's really really hard to keep up. So that's kind of grandiose love bombing. Another type of love bombing is The type of love bombing that happens from communal narcissists. And these are the types of narcissists or the types of behaviors that actually seems on the surface to be not self centered, which is quite contrary to the classic self centered nature of narcissists.

But this type of love bombing is. very common for narcissists. These are the types of behaviors such as like charity work or even like if you have a faith in your church or um, your, your religious group, spiritual acts and on the surface it seems like they're doing good, they're kind, they're generous but the reasoning behind it is purely for the purpose of getting validation from other people.

And in many cases, they engineer this to get the validation they so desperately crave, which may I add is an insatiable desire. They just seem to need an endless supply of validation and attention. And they'll do anything to get it, which is one reason that they're commonly unfaithful in relationships, which I've spoken about before in the previous episode, but yes, they do these good acts in a public setting or a public way so that they can be seen by many as doing good.

And they focus on making themselves look like great public figures. They also can present themselves like the savior of other people. That's the other thing, like people need me and I, you know, no one else is going to help them if I don't do it. And when they behave like this publicly, it's actually a form of manipulation because people will see them as such good people.

And then later down the line, if you are to speak out about what you're experiencing with them, No one's going to believe you. And this can make those who are victims of narcissistic abuse from this same person feel really confused because you may ask yourself, well, why do they treat others so well and not me?

Which then leads to thoughts of, well, maybe there's something wrong with me, or maybe I'm blowing things way out of proportion. Maybe the way they treat me isn't that bad. And all of this is part of the pattern of manipulation that narcissists use. as a weapon against their victims. So, for clarity, my friend, and because you probably need to hear it, There is nothing wrong with you.

And no, you are not blowing things out of proportion. I don't know who needed to hear that, but that was certainly for someone. The thing about this type of public do good behavior is that it can also be quite difficult and confusing for you or the person who's being abused because it's confusing because on the one hand the narcissist is so concerned about seemingly doing good to others, and these others, they don't really have any strong bond or connection or relationship with, yet to you or the person being abused, the person they're supposed to love and prioritize, the narcissist treats you so poorly.

abusively. So this type of behavior is also selfish and self serving on the part of the narcissist because it's all part of their obsession with creating a desirable public image. And I heard Dr. Ramani say this, and I think it's so powerful. She said the true measure of a person is how they treat the person standing right in front of them.

I don't know if she quoted someone else, if that quote is attributed to someone else. I'm sorry, I don't know who it's from, but I heard her say it. And the point being is that If a person has all the empathy and care and concern for other people and all of these important causes but treats you, their loved one, poorly, then that's an indication as to who they truly are.

So still on the topic of love bombing, another type of love bombing you may experience is the type that comes from narcissists that are quite self righteous. And self righteous narcissists, they're like highly moral people who are rigid and unwilling to consider other ideas or perspectives. They're quite judgmental, and they're also the type to withhold.

So withhold money, affection. time, empathy for those, from those they're in relationship with. And they appear to be like moral and always doing the right thing, but they focus on doing all of these things to look right, just so that they can be painted in, in a great light. And love bombing from narcissist can include.

or looks like someone who does all of the right things. They follow strict moral codes and they control how they spend their money and time and it seems like, wow. This person is so responsible and it may seem like that in the beginning and it might feel very safe because who doesn't want that? But in short, they love bomb you by doing all the right things, fixing things and helping you with, helping you out with things and maybe even doing things for your family so that they look like model citizens and you know, they show up for you.

They, they do the right thing. And these types of narcissists follow a very high and strict moral code, but they also very judgmental of anyone and everyone who doesn't live up to those standards. But then it goes south because they eventually begin applying the same unattainable high standards to you and become very, very critical and judgmental of you whenever you fall short, which you will, because we're all human beings and.

You know, we have flaws and all of these right and responsible acts also eventually come with other things that don't really seem to make sense, a lack of affection, or maybe they're unwilling to spend time with you, which is neglect of your emotional needs. They lack empathy towards you or even a lack of respect.

And so that's another type of love bombing to be aware of. And then the final type of love bombing comes from narcissists who are neglectful. And when I was researching for this, I found that it's not as common, but they only notice you or pay attention to you when it's beneficial for them, so you can seem or feel somewhat irrelevant to them.

And love bombing from them looks like kind of short bursts of attention when it suits them. because they need something and they tend to move quickly because they don't really have the capacity to sustain this false identity for long periods of time. And quite frankly, they're not interested in truly being affectionate or spending time with you.

They're more interested in what they can get. And they'll only do just what it takes to hook their victim. But after that, things will go south and. it will be a relationship that's marked by quite a lot of neglect. So they may be physically there, but they neglect you in terms of time, affection, empathy.

And these types of narcissists tend to prey on people who have very low expectations of, what to expect from a partner. So they kind of just accept or settle anything. And because the bar isn't set very high in these types of relationships, it's quite easy for a narcissist who is neglectful to get in. I think in these situations, they actually use their neglect as a tool or a pull because people who fall for these types of narcissists because they have such low expectations or perhaps false beliefs about what they deserve in, from a partner in a relationship, they will jump through hoops and the hoops of the narcissist to gain their attention.

And so this turns out to be quite a sad situation. And so friends, love bombing is something that We really need to educate ourselves about and if you recognize any of the things I've mentioned so far it should be evidence to you that perhaps you are or were in a relationship with a narcissist and remember here we're all about recognizing recovering and then redefining life and success on our own terms so that you can rebuild your life after the misfortune of having encountered being in a relationship with a narcissist.

So I say that if the light bulb has come on for you during this podcast, as you've listened to this and you realize you have been in a relationship with a narcissist, there's no blame and there's no shame at all. This is the beginning of your journey to freedom and redefining life on your own terms. So I said today, we were going to talk about Love bombing, future faking and gaslighting.

So let's move on to future faking. Many women I work with say, Oh, I don't really know what that is, or I never heard of that before. I've never heard of that one. But then when I explain it, they're like, Ah, yes, I did experience that. So here's a little bit about that. The simplest way I can explain future faking, I guess, is false promises.

It's when the narcissist makes grand promises about your future together, promises to change or promises to make improvements about the things that are of importance to you and they know that these are things that are important to you. And they are promises that they have no intention of keeping. The reasons why narcissists do this, manipulation.

It's another way to manipulate you to give them what they want. Or manipulate you into staying in the relationship. They might talk about things like marriage, or children, or even buying a house together if they know that these things are of importance to you. And they may even go as far as entering into the beginning stages of planning for these things.

even though they have no plans to follow through. And so these promises are designed to keep you invested in the relationship. Future faking plays on your hopes and dreams because remember you're dealing with a master manipulator and they've studied you. They've lulled you into a false sense of security by making it safe enough for you to be vulnerable with them so that you can share your desires and hopes with them.

And then they pretend to like what you like, to gather more information from you. They gave you all the soulmate vibes as part of this master plan, remember? The narcissist knows exactly what you want out of life and uses those desires against you. And this is another thing, be careful when sharing vulnerabilities with, if you're still in a relationship with a narcissist, should I say.

Be very careful about sharing vulnerabilities with them because they will use those things against you. So the narcissist knows exactly what you want out of life and then uses those desires against you and it's literally like they dangle an idolized future in front of you. The future that they learned from you.

that you want in order to keep you hooked. And so these kind of glimmers of hope are designed to make you ignore the red flags because, yeah, this is not right, but we're going to buy a house together, or we're going to try for a baby in a year, or whatever it is that's important to you. You ignore those red flags that are in the present because if you can just hold on, you'll get the gold at the end of the rainbow, so to speak.

And so, this type of manipulation causes you to hold on even if the present is filled with red flags or abusive behaviour or things that are uncomfortable to you. It's not good. And future faking may be linked to time. So, it could be short term, like tomorrow we will such and such, or in a year we will, or when I get promoted.

So, they have between the time that they're making that promise to the time that they promise it will be fulfilled to kind of behave as they will because they know that you'll be holding on for that thing. One other common example is with money. They'll often borrow or spend money with the promise of paying it back.

and paying it back this time. But if you look at the track record, this never happens. They may even get you to put things on your credit card with this promise, but never follow through. And this is actually a form of financial abuse. And I guess perhaps it's something that deserves its very own episode because it's a real thing and a very prevalent part of relationships with narcissists or.

Narcissistic abuse at least. So the reason future faking works is because it's actually believable. It's not based on like ridiculous promises that you know that they could never keep or unrealistic promises that you know could never actually happen or materialize. And even though the promises they make never materialize, it takes time for you to figure that out.

it requires time. And so the constant cycle of promises that never materialize has an impact on you. It creates cognitive dissonance, a state where your mind struggles to reconcile the discrepancy between the promised future and What's reality for you right now, currently. You might feel embarrassed for believing these promises or guilty for staying in a relationship despite knowing deep down that something just isn't right, but these promises are the things that keep you holding on.

Also, future faking keeps you stuck, because narcissists are incessant liars. Until the light comes on, you don't realize the lies and deception. And you, or the person being lied to, will wait for the time, or even promised time, only to realize that When it's time for the narcissist to deliver, it never happens.

Future faking keeps you trapped in somewhat of a cycle of hope and disappointment, hope and disappointment. And even if things are bad now, you hold on because perhaps things will get better because they said they would. Except they never do, they never get better. And so remember this, on the part of the narcissist, The purpose of future faking is for the narcissist to get what they want.

That may be to get you to stay in the relationship, you may, without realizing it, be the source of the attention they crave, and they want you to continue to provide that for them. It could be anything that benefits them. And be aware, my friend, future faking is real. If you're still in a relationship with a narcissist, just pay attention.

Pay attention to what they've promised versus what they actually delivered, and this should be a real eye opener for you. So I hope you're finding this information useful. I hope it's affirming some of the experiences that you went through so that you know and you can be convinced that what you went through was real and you're not overreacting.

So, let's move on to the final part of our episode today. Let's talk about gaslighting, one of the most insidious forms of psychological abuse in my opinion. It's a word that I feel has become overused, however, that doesn't make it any less true or any less relevant in the context of narcissistic abuse.

Gaslighting occurs when someone manipulates you into questioning your own reality and it is a form of emotional abuse. They might deny things they've said or done or accuse you of being too sensitive or irrational. The goal of gaslighting is simple, it's control. By making you doubt your own perceptions, even doubt your own memories or feelings, which they do very well, the narcissist gains power over your reality and they may twist facts or outright lie about the past because, as I always say, they're big fat liars.

They just lie so much but they lie about past events to make you feel like you're losing your grip on what's real. Over time, gaslighting erodes your self confidence and self esteem because it, um, what's the word, destabilizes you. It makes you feel unsettled and, yeah, destabilized. Think about it. If you're constantly being told that what you know to be true isn't true or real, That can and will have a profound effect on you.

And you may start second guessing everything, not just things in relationship to your relationship with the narcissist, but your own decision making, wondering if you are too sensitive, or wondering if you're imagining things that never happened. And this constant doubt can lead to anxiety and depression and even a sense of isolation as you may begin to pull away from others who might help to validate your experiences.

So gaslighting is particularly damaging because it makes it so difficult for victims to trust themselves. And if you can't trust yourself, it becomes even harder to leave an abusive relationship because you wonder, am I making the right decision? Am I blowing things out of proportion? All of these questions about everything, it's exhausting.

And because Although what you're experiencing is really as bad as you think it is, you doubt and question whether that's true. Is it really that bad? You question whether it's true or are you too sensitive? Everything is destabilized and so You certainly don't have the confidence to leave, not when your whole world is being shaken.

Now, I do need to say this friend, not everyone who gaslights people is a narcissist, but for sure, all narcissists use gaslighting as a manipulation tool. Some signs that you may want to look out for Like, just disagreeing with someone is not, not, it's not gaslighting, so let's be clear about that. But some things you may want to look out for are, if you are or you feel the need to record conversations you have with a narcissist, to prove what was said or not said, but also to maintain your own sanity, that is a huge indicator.

Or, if you're met with phrases such as, or, you're so sensitive, or, I never said that, or, that didn't happen. Those phrases that indicate that you're weird or acting odd when you're not, those are signs that you're being gaslit. Now, what makes these three tactics so effective and harmful is how they often work together.

Love bombing pulls you in with all of that intense affection and then you've got the future faking that keeps you so Invested because there's a promise of a brighter or a perfect future and then we've got gas lighting Which breaks you down and breaks down your sense of reality So that effectively you're easier to control and these behaviors create Somewhat of a cycle where you feel or victims feel stuck constantly chasing after the initial affection while doubting their own perceptions of what's happening in the relationship and so Friends if any of this sounds familiar to you, or maybe you're just supporting someone going through this Know that recognising these patterns is the first step toward breaking free from them and narcissistic abuse thrives in confusion and self doubt.

And so by understanding these tactics for what they are. Manipulation, you can begin reclaiming your power. Remember, you deserve relationships built on mutual respect, trust, and genuine love, not manipulation or control. And so, if you are in a relationship that is filled with manipulation and control, such as gaslighting and love bombing and future faking, you're probably better off out of that space.

As always, if you need help, if you need support, do connect with me on the Facebook group where I can answer your questions individually. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. If this resonated with you or you'd like more resources on how to heal and recover and feel better after narcissistic abuse, check out the information in the show notes.

Until next time, take care of yourself, friends.