Appendix A: Glossary of Terms

Key Concepts and Definitions

These are the terms you'll find throughout this book, along with ones you'll meet outside it: from a therapist, an advocate, a court, a support group, or another book on the subject. When you can name what you've experienced, you reclaim power. Understanding this vocabulary helps you communicate about it with others.

A

Abuse Amnesia

When you forget or minimize past abusive incidents, remembering only the "good times." Trauma affects memory. So does cognitive dissonance. Abusers exploit this by referencing a rosy shared past that minimizes the harm. The term comes from the recovery literature; Chapter 5 §"Absence of the Bad Doesn't Mean Absence of the Good" names it and describes the same forgetting as part of what holds a trauma bond together, and Chapter 16 shows a hoover built on it.

Acute Explosion

The name the domestic violence literature gives to the incident phase of the abuse cycle: the point where built tension releases into an episode of abuse. This book calls the same phase the Incident (Chapter 5). If a service, a court, or a support group has handed you a cycle-of-violence wheel, this is the term printed on it.

Ambient Abuse

Subtle, hard-to-identify abuse that creates a constant atmosphere of anxiety without specific incidents to point to. Examples include sighing, eye-rolling, "forgetting" important things, chronic lateness, and other behaviors that individually seem minor but collectively create an oppressive environment. You will meet the term more often in recovery writing than here; Chapter 2 comes at the same thing from the other direction, through what your body registers when there is no incident to point to.

Attachment Style

Patterns of relating to others in close relationships, formed in early childhood. You'll encounter four main styles: secure, anxious-preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant, and fearful-avoidant. Understanding your attachment style can help explain vulnerability to certain relationship patterns. The four-style vocabulary comes from attachment research and is common in therapy; this book works with the attachment system itself rather than the labels. See Chapter 5 §"The Attachment System Under Siege."

B

Baiting

Deliberately provoking you to get an emotional reaction, which the abuser can then use against you. Examples: bringing up sensitive topics, making subtle insults, or creating situations designed to trigger jealousy or anger. For what the provoked reaction is then used for, see Reactive Abuse and Chapter 5 §"When You Fought Back."

Blame-Shifting

Deflecting responsibility for one's behavior by redirecting focus to you. Instead of addressing their own actions, the narcissist makes the conversation about something you did wrong.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

A clinical diagnosis in the DSM-5-TR (2022) organized around instability: of relationships, of self-image, and of mood, along with impulsivity, fear of abandonment, and difficulty regulating anger. It is a different pattern from narcissism, driven by dysregulation rather than by supply, and it is among the more treatable personality disorders. It is also frequently confused with the effects of prolonged abuse. Note: This book describes behavioral patterns, not clinical diagnosis. See Chapter 6, "When It Isn't Narcissism."

Boundaries

Limits you set to protect your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. Healthy boundaries define what you will and won't accept in relationships. Narcissists typically resist, test, and violate boundaries.

Breadcrumbing

Giving you just enough attention or affection to keep you interested without any intention of following through. Like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that leads nowhere. Card 15, Conditional Affection, and Card 23, Withholding Tenderness, are the same mechanism under the deck's names.

C

Cerebral Narcissist

A narcissist whose superiority is organized around intelligence: being right, knowing more, having the answer. Supply comes from intellectual dominance, correcting you, explaining what you already understand, and dismissing feeling as irrational. The characteristic damage is to your trust in your own mind. See Chapter 6.

Circular Conversation

A discussion that goes round and round without resolution. The narcissist uses deflection, word salad, blame-shifting, and topic changes to prevent any productive outcome. You end up exhausted and confused, having resolved nothing. Cards 16 and 38, the Gaslight Loops, are this book's version. See also Word Salad.

Cisgender

Describing a person whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth, the opposite of transgender. It is listed here for clarity when distinguishing experiences specific to transgender survivors from those that affect cisgender LGBTQ+ survivors. Naming cisgender as a category, like naming any unmarked default, is part of seeing the structures clearly.

Closure

The sense of resolution and understanding at the end of a relationship or situation. Narcissists typically deny closure, leaving things unresolved as a way to maintain connection and control.

Coercive Control

Controlling behaviors that create an environment of fear and dependency around you. This pattern may include isolation, financial control, monitoring activities, making threats, and other tactics that limit your freedom and autonomy. This is the term most advocates, courts, and domestic violence services use for the overall pattern, and in some jurisdictions it is the name of the offense. Where they say coercive control, this book says the pattern, and breaks it into the decoder cards of Chapters 3 and 4. When the Pattern Becomes Physical, after the first chapter of each book, names the term where it matters most, at the handoff to an advocate. See also Duluth Model.

Cognitive Dissonance

Mental discomfort you feel when holding two conflicting beliefs simultaneously. In narcissistic abuse, you often struggle to reconcile the loving person you believed existed with the harmful behavior you're experiencing. The same mechanism runs in the other direction, in anyone who has caused harm: "I am a good person" against "I hurt someone." The cheapest way to end the discomfort is to revise one of the two, which is why self-justification has such a short and recognizable vocabulary.

Communal Narcissist

A narcissist who takes supply from being seen as good rather than from being seen as great. Presents as giving, selfless, and community-minded, often in helping professions, charities, or spiritual communities, and appears to be the opposite of narcissistic. The giving is performed, kept score of, and eventually invoiced: after everything I've done for you. See Chapter 6.

Compartmentalization

Separating different aspects of life or self to avoid the discomfort of contradiction. Narcissists compartmentalize to maintain their different "masks." Victims compartmentalize to survive cognitive dissonance. Chapter 7 does this work under the language of masks and roles.

Complex PTSD (C-PTSD)

PTSD that develops from prolonged, repeated trauma, often in situations where escape is difficult. You commonly see this in survivors of ongoing abuse. Symptoms include emotional flashbacks, difficulty regulating emotions, negative self-perception, and relationship difficulties.

Conditioning

Repeated associations that modify your behavior over time. In abusive relationships, you become conditioned to accept treatment, suppress reactions, or respond in specific ways through repeated patterns of reward and punishment.

Covert Narcissist

A narcissist who hides their traits less obviously. Rather than grandiose displays, covert narcissists often present as shy, victimized, or self-deprecating, while still maintaining the core narcissistic traits of entitlement and lack of empathy. Also called the vulnerable narcissist. See Chapter 6.

Cycle of Violence

The three-phase model of abuse used across the domestic violence field: tension building, acute explosion, and the honeymoon or reconciliation phase, with denial at the center. It is Lenore Walker's, first set out in The Battered Woman (Harper & Row, 1979), and it is hers rather than the Duluth Model's, a distinction worth holding, because the two are often merged and they argue different things. It is the same pattern this book describes in Chapter 5 as the Anxiety-Relief-Abuse Cycle, where it is broken into four phases (the calm after reconciliation is separated out) and paired with what each phase does to your nervous system. Two clinical traditions, one pattern. If you learned this material as the cycle of violence, Chapter 5 is where it lives here.

D

DARVO

Acronym for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. This manipulation tactic has the abuser denying the abuse, attacking you for bringing it up, and then claiming to be the real victim.

Deadnaming

The deliberate use of a transgender or nonbinary person's birth or pre-transition name after they have changed it. Accidental use (by family adjusting, by acquaintances who haven't been corrected) is part of the social terrain transgender people navigate. Weaponized deadnaming is something different: a public reassertion of power, a punishment for noncompliance, a reminder that the abuser still holds documents, photos, or memory the survivor has worked to leave behind. The threat to deadname can do the work without the act ever being executed; the possibility is the leash. See Chapter 13 §"Identity as Leverage."

Devalue

The second phase of the narcissistic abuse cycle (after idealization). During devaluation, the narcissist begins criticizing you, withdrawing affection, and treating you as inferior after initially putting you on a pedestal.

Discard

The third phase of the narcissistic abuse cycle. The narcissist abruptly ends the relationship, often cruelly and without explanation, leaving you confused and devastated. May be followed by hoovering.

Dissociation

When you disconnect from your thoughts, feelings, surroundings, or sense of identity. Your mind protects you this way from overwhelming stress or trauma. This can range from mild "zoning out" to more severe forms of disconnection from reality.

Double Bind

A situation where no response you give is correct, you're wrong if you do and wrong if you don't. This creates helplessness and confusion in you. Example: Being criticized for being "too emotional" when upset but "cold" when calm. The term is Gregory Bateson's, from the family-systems literature of the 1950s; Card 13, Moving Goalposts, is the nearest decoder card.

Drama Triangle

Stephen Karpman's model of three positions people move between in conflict: Victim ("I can't handle this, someone save me"), Persecutor ("this is your fault, you deserve it"), and Rescuer ("let me save you, you need me"). The positions are places, not personalities, and rotation between them is fast: a Rescuer who is turned down becomes the Victim ("after everything I've done") or the Persecutor ("you're so ungrateful"). Chapter 5 §"The Victim/Persecutor Cycle" applies the model to an abusive relationship; Card 53 is the post-exit form.

Duluth Model

The framework developed in Duluth, Minnesota that produced the Power and Control Wheel and the Equality Wheel, and that underlies most domestic violence services, court-mandated programs, and shelter education in the English-speaking world. It did not produce the cycle of violence, which is Lenore Walker's and predates it; Duluth's own argument is that abuse is a sustained pattern of control rather than a cycle a person passes through, so crediting the cycle to Duluth reverses the point it was built to make. Its emphasis is on coercive control as a deliberate strategy rather than a loss of temper. This book draws on the narcissistic-abuse tradition instead, which uses different vocabulary (love bombing, idealization, devaluation, discard) for heavily overlapping ground. Neither is a rival to the other; if you are working with an advocate, expect their language to come from this model.

E

Egocentrism

The ordinary cognitive fact that your own mind is the only vantage point you have, so everything you know about another person's experience was assembled out of your own materials. Not selfishness, and not a diagnosis: it is standard equipment in everyone. It becomes a problem at the moment when what someone meant and what landed are different things, and only one of the two is in the room. See Chapter 15, "Why the Story Changes."

Emotional Flashback

A sudden regression to the emotional state of a past trauma, without necessarily having visual memories. You may suddenly feel small, helpless, or terrified without fully understanding why. Common in C-PTSD. The term is Pete Walker's and you are most likely to meet it in trauma therapy or in his writing; see Complex PTSD, and Chapter 17 for the body-level work.

Emotional Incest (Covert Incest)

When a parent inappropriately relies on you as a child for emotional support typically expected from an adult partner. While not sexual, this violates your emotional boundaries and can cause lasting damage. The term comes from the family-therapy literature; Chapters 9 and 10 describe the same pattern as a parental wound. See also Parentification, Spousification.

Empathy

Your ability to understand and share the feelings of another. It has two parts that can come apart: the cognitive part, accurately modeling what another person is thinking and feeling, and the affective part, actually feeling it with them. Narcissists have impaired empathy, they may intellectually understand emotions but don't feel them the way you do. Other patterns split it the other way, feeling intensely while losing the accurate model of you under stress. See Chapter 6, "When It Isn't Narcissism."

Enabler

Someone who facilitates the narcissist's behavior, often unintentionally. May make excuses for them, pressure victims to "keep the peace," or fail to acknowledge the abuse.

Enmeshment

Unhealthy closeness where boundaries between individuals blur together. You often see this in families where members cannot have separate identities, opinions, or lives.

Extinction Burst

The escalation that follows supply being cut off rather than merely threatened. The term is from operant conditioning, where it names the burst of harder and more frequent attempts that comes once a reward stops arriving, and the borrowing is exact: a feed that stops does not produce a shrug, it produces a search. This book describes it at two intensities. Chapter 16 §"Core Principles," Principle 2 has the ordinary version, where provocations sharpen and begin arriving through other people once flat responses have starved the dynamic, and where that escalation is the clearest confirmation available that something was being fed. Chapter 13 §"The Exit Phase Escalation" has the dangerous version, the last attempt to reassert dominance before losing access, which is the most dangerous period of the relationship and carries its own safety guidance. In collectivist systems the burst is not the narcissist's alone, because the community mounts one of its own. See also Narcissistic Supply, Hoovering, Intermittent Reinforcement.

F

False Ideal

This book's name for the idealized self-image every narcissist is defending, whatever their type: a grandiose self-concept built to shield them from the inadequacy and shame underneath it. Winnicott's False Self names the persona they present to the world; the false ideal is the structure that persona exists to protect, and supply is what it needs in order to keep standing. Most of what felt inexplicable follows from it. They could not take feedback, because feedback implies imperfection. They needed constant admiration, because the structure has no support of its own. They lied when the truth would have been easier, because reality is always subordinate to protecting it. Anything that punctures it is experienced as an existential threat, which is what narcissistic injury names, and when it is threatened language is the weapon nearest to hand. See Chapter 6 §"The False Ideal." See also False Self, Narcissistic Injury, Narcissistic Supply.

False Reveal

The core move inside Magician Tactics: a disclosure staged to look like honesty, timed to pre-empt a discovery you were about to make on your own. It buys credit for candour while controlling what is actually disclosed. See Magician Tactics, Chapter 4.

False Self

The constructed persona a narcissist presents to the world. They design this persona to gain admiration and hide their true feelings of inadequacy. The "mask" they wear in public.

FLEAS

Maladaptive behaviors you pick up from living with a personality-disordered individual. Not full-blown narcissism, but unhealthy patterns you learn from exposure. The saying "lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas" names this phenomenon. The term belongs to the online recovery communities rather than to the clinical literature, and that is where you will meet it; Chapter 11 covers what you learned in order to survive, and Chapter 18 covers setting it down.

Flying Monkeys

People who do the narcissist's bidding, often without realizing they're being manipulated. The Wicked Witch's minions in The Wizard of Oz give this phenomenon its name. They may spread gossip, apply pressure, or gather information on the narcissist's behalf.

FOG

Acronym for Fear, Obligation, and Guilt, the three emotions narcissists use to manipulate and control their victims. The acronym comes from the recovery literature; these chapters name the three separately rather than as a set, and Chapter 12 §"Detaching Without Guilt" is where the guilt half is worked.

Future Faking

Making promises about the future with no intention of following through. Used during love bombing to create investment and hope. Examples: talk of marriage, vacations, moving in together, or life changes that never materialize.

G

Gaslighting

A manipulation tactic that makes you question your own reality, memory, and perceptions. The 1944 film Gaslight gives this tactic its name. Examples: denying things that happened, calling you crazy or too sensitive, rearranging facts until you doubt yourself.

Gender-Affirming Care

Medical, psychological, and social support that recognizes and affirms a person's gender. Includes hormone therapy, surgical care, mental health support, voice training, and other services. It becomes a control point when a partner positions themselves as the sole route to access, driving to appointments, holding insurance, writing or withdrawing letters of support, and converts that cooperation into ongoing leverage. See Chapter 13 §"Identity as Leverage."

Golden Child

In narcissistic family systems, the child whom the narcissistic parent idealizes and favors. This child may become a narcissist themselves or struggle with perfectionism and identity issues.

Grandiose Narcissist

The type most people picture: confident, charming, dominant, visibly superior. They advertise their entitlement rather than hide it, take credit and deflect blame, and turn conversations into monologues. Older literature more often calls this the overt narcissist; this book uses grandiose, and pairs it with covert. See Chapter 6.

Grandiosity

An inflated sense of self-importance that characterizes narcissism. The narcissist believes they're special, superior, or deserving of special treatment.

Gray Rock Method

A technique for dealing with narcissists where you become as boring and unresponsive as a gray rock. Giving minimal emotional reactions and keeping conversations brief and dull.

Grooming

Building trust and emotional connection with you for the purpose of manipulation or abuse. This can occur over weeks, months, or years before abuse becomes apparent. The word is most established in child-protection and safeguarding contexts, which is where most readers first meet it; Chapter 13 §"The Arc of a Narcissistic Romance" traces the adult version.

H

Hero / Parentified Child

In narcissistic family systems, the child who takes on adult responsibility early and holds the household together through competence. Praised for being responsible, and unseen except when something needs fixing. Often carries the achievement the family points at, and pays for it in an adulthood organized around being useful rather than known. See also Parentification.

Histrionic Narcissist

A narcissist who holds attention through drama, emotional display, and shock value rather than through status or achievement. Performed emotionality, provocative talk in group settings, and stories in which they are always the hero or the victim. See Chapter 6.

Hoovering

Attempts to suck you back into a relationship after a discard or when you try to leave. The vacuum cleaner gives this tactic its name. May include love bombing, false apologies, threats, or playing victim. One variant appears to ask for nothing: an achievement, a piece of good news, or an announcement of therapy, sent to the person who left. The absence of a request is what makes it effective, and the fact that it went to you rather than to anyone who would have congratulated them freely is what identifies it. See Chapter 13 §"The Hoover That Isn't Asking for Anything."

HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy)

Medical hormone therapy used by many transgender people to align secondary sex characteristics with their gender. In abusive relationships, control of HRT becomes a particularly dense form of leverage: it combines medical, psychological, and physical dependence in a single mechanism. Holding the prescription, controlling appointments, threatening to interfere with insurance or supply, or simply forgetting to refill it on time, all of these convert healthcare into a control point. See Chapter 13 §"Identity as Leverage."

Hypervigilance

A state where you become increasingly alert and sensitive to potential threats. You commonly experience this as a trauma survivor. In relationships, you constantly scan for mood changes or signs of impending conflict.

I

Idealization

The first phase of the narcissistic abuse cycle. The narcissist puts you on a pedestal, showering you with attention, affection, and admiration. This creates the "high" that you later chase.

Identified Patient

In family therapy, the family member whom everyone blames for the family's problems. In narcissistic families, the family often treats the scapegoat as the "problem" while ignoring the real dysfunction.

Intermittent Reinforcement

An unpredictable pattern of reward and punishment that creates powerful psychological bonding in you. The inconsistency creates hope and addiction in you similar to gambling.

Invalidation

Dismissing, ignoring, or rejecting your thoughts, feelings, or experiences. This core tactic of emotional abuse erodes your self-trust.

J

JADE

Acronym for Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain. These are behaviors to avoid when dealing with narcissists, as they give them ammunition and rarely lead to understanding. The acronym comes from the support groups and recovery forums; Chapter 16 §"Core Principles" makes the same case as Principle 3, You Don't Owe Explanation.

L

Limerence

An involuntary state of obsessive romantic fixation on one person, marked by intrusive thoughts, intense longing, idealization, and a fantasy of how life will feel once they finally choose you. Coined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov in 1979. Limerence is not love. Love can rest; limerence cannot. The intensity comes from the uncertainty itself, not from the person, which is why it often attaches to those who give just enough and then withdraw. In narcissistic dynamics, limerence is frequently mistaken for "deep connection" or "soulmate" feeling, and it tends to grow strongest with partners who are emotionally inconsistent. Chapter 13 §"The Neurochemistry of the Rush" describes the mechanism without using the word.

Lost Child / Invisible Child

In narcissistic family systems, the child who survives by taking up no room. Not favored and not blamed, simply absent from the family's attention, and often overlooked by outsiders for the same reason. The cost is an adult who does not expect to be noticed and does not know how to ask.

Love Bombing

Overwhelming someone with excessive affection, attention, and admiration, especially early in a relationship. Used to quickly establish connection and dependency. Often too much, too soon.

Low Contact

Maintaining minimal necessary contact with a narcissist when no contact isn't possible (such as with co-parents or family members). Involves strict boundaries and limited communication.

M

Magician Tactics

A framework, not a numbered card, for manipulation that works by manufacturing a revelation: the manipulator arranges what you are allowed to see, then presents the result as something you discovered. The tell is that the reveal always arrives at the moment it is most useful to them. Set out in full in Chapter 4.

Malignant Narcissist

Not a separate category but an intensification: narcissistic traits combined with antisocial features, paranoia, and sadism. This pattern needs control as well as supply, and may take pleasure in the harm itself. It is the most dangerous combination, and the one where safety comes before understanding. See Chapter 6.

Manipulation

Using indirect, deceptive, or underhanded tactics to control or influence others for one's own benefit.

Mascot / Entertainer

In narcissistic family systems, the child who manages the family's distress by deflecting it, usually with humor, charm, or performance. Valued for lightening the room, and rarely asked what the performance is costing. Often the family member others describe as the easy one.

Masking

The act of hiding one's true self or feelings. Narcissists mask their true nature to appear charming. Victims mask to avoid triggering the narcissist or to survive in the relationship. See Chapter 7 for the narcissist's masks, and Chapter 17 §"Protecting Yourself in Required Interactions" for yours.

Medical Gatekeeping

In trans-specific contexts: the layered system of clinician approval, letter requirements, insurance gatekeeping, and waitlists that conditions access to gender-affirming care on someone else's judgment. This is a structural feature of the healthcare system, not a partner's invention; it becomes weaponized when an abusive partner positions themselves as essential to navigating it. The gatekeeping is real. The narcissist's claim to be the only route through it is not. See Chapter 13 §"Identity as Leverage."

Mirroring

Reflecting someone's behaviors, preferences, or values back to them. Narcissists use mirroring during love bombing to appear as the perfect partner.

Misgendering

The deliberate use of pronouns or gendered language that contradict a transgender or nonbinary person's identity. As with deadnaming, occasional accidental misgendering is part of social life; weaponized misgendering is something else, correct gendering offered as reward and withheld as punishment, slips timed for maximum public impact, escalation when the survivor begins to assert independence. The pattern is recognizable by its precision: real mistakes are evenly distributed; weaponized misgendering clusters around moments of conflict. See Chapter 13 §"Identity as Leverage."

Moving Goalposts

Constantly changing expectations or criteria for success so that the victim can never meet them. No matter what they do, it's never enough.

Mutual Abuse

A term you may encounter, and one to treat with care. It describes a situation where both people are said to be abusing each other. Practitioners in the domestic violence field are largely skeptical of it, because what usually looks like mutual abuse is one sustained pattern of control plus the other person's reactions to it (see Reactive Abuse). That skepticism can be overapplied: genuinely mutual, escalating, low-safety dynamics do exist, and they call for different help than a coercive-control situation does. The useful questions are not about labels but about direction, pattern, and fear. Chapter 5 §"When You Fought Back" gives the tests.

N

Narcissistic Collapse

When you expose a narcissist's false self or cut off their supply, this leads to rage, depression, or dramatic behavior. Chapter 6 §"When the False Ideal Is Defied" and §"The Rage Response" describe what happens and why.

Narcissistic Injury

A perceived threat to a narcissist's self-esteem or self-worth, leading to disproportionate rage or withdrawal. Minor criticism or perceived slights can trigger this response.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)

A clinical diagnosis in the DSM-5-TR (2022) that features grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy. Note: This book describes behavioral patterns, not clinical diagnosis.

Narcissistic Rage

Intense anger in response to narcissistic injury. This rage can explode (yelling, violence, threats) or manifest passive-aggressively (silent treatment, sabotage).

Narcissistic Supply

The attention, admiration, and emotional reactions that narcissists need to maintain their self-image. This supply can come from positive sources (praise) or negative ones (fear, anger). These chapters mostly say simply supply, and treat what is being supplied as your energy: see Chapter 6 §"The Terror Beneath the Types," Chapter 7, and Chapter 16 §"Core Principles," Principle 2, Reaction Is Supply.

No Contact

Completely cutting off all communication and interaction with a narcissist. Often recommended for healing but not always possible.

O

Object Constancy

The ability to maintain positive emotional connections to someone even when frustrated, hurt, or distant from them. Narcissists often lack this, people are either all good or all bad. The term comes from developmental psychology; Chapter 7 §"Black-and-White Thinking" is where this book treats it. See also Splitting.

Overt Narcissist

See "Grandiose Narcissist." Overt is the term used across much of the older literature for the same type; this book uses grandiose throughout.

P

Parentification

When others force you as a child to take on adult responsibilities, particularly caring for a parent emotionally or practically. You commonly experience this in families with narcissistic parents.

Peacekeeper

In narcissistic family systems, the child who manages the emotional temperature, reading tension early and moving to defuse it before it becomes anything. Agrees quickly, avoids conflict, and loses track of their own preferences in the process. Distinct from the Enabler, who manages what outsiders are permitted to see rather than what the household is about to feel.

Persecutor

The blaming and attacking position on the drama triangle: "this is your fault, you deserve what's happening." Some popular treatments call this corner the Bully, which is the same position under a blunter word. It is a place people move into and out of rather than a personality, and the speed of that movement is what makes the triangle a trap instead of a set of labels. See Drama Triangle, Rescuer, and Chapter 5 §"The Victim/Persecutor Cycle."

Power and Control Wheel

The best-known diagram in the domestic violence field, produced by the Duluth Model. It maps tactics of control (intimidation, isolation, economic abuse, using children, minimizing and denying, male privilege) around a hub labeled power and control. It is often shown alongside Walker's cycle of violence but is a different instrument by different authors: the wheel maps tactics, the cycle maps phases. Nearly every tactic on it is a decoder card in Chapters 3 and 4.

Projection

Attributing one's own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or behaviors to you instead. Example: A narcissist who is cheating accuses you of cheating.

Protective Self

The part of yourself that developed survival strategies to cope with abuse. This may include hypervigilance, people-pleasing, or emotional numbing. You need to honor this part even while outgrowing these patterns. Chapter 17 §"The Four-Step Remapping Process" is where you work with it rather than against it.

Proxy Recruitment

Enlisting others to do your work of manipulation, abuse, or control. The people recruited (Flying Monkeys) may not realize they're being used. This book uses the shorter name throughout; see Card 47, Flying Monkeys.

R

Radical Acceptance

Accepting the reality of who someone is, not who you hoped they'd be, not who they pretended to be, not who they could become "if only." This doesn't mean approving or forgiving; it means no longer waiting for change that won't come. When you stop hoping they'll become different, you reclaim the energy you were spending on that hope. The term comes from DBT, where it means something broader than this; Chapter 10 puts the same move in plain words, you stop performing and you stop hoping.

Reactive Abuse

When you finally react to sustained abuse, with anger, tears, or behavior they can use against you. They provoke the reaction, then point to it as proof that you're the problem. The reaction is real behavior and it is not the pattern that produced it; the distinction is worked through in Chapter 5 §"When You Fought Back."

Reality Testing

When you check your perceptions against outside sources to counter gaslighting effects. This may include journaling, consulting trusted friends, or reviewing documentation.

Reparenting

When you provide yourself the nurturing, validation, and care you didn't receive as a child. This often becomes part of your healing from narcissistic family dynamics.

Reproductive Coercion

Interference with someone's reproductive decisions in order to control them. It covers pressure or threats to make a partner conceive or not conceive, sabotage of contraception, lying about contraception, and controlling access to termination or prenatal care. It is often framed at the time as wanting a family or wanting commitment, which is why it can take years to recognize as control. A pregnancy that deepens dependence is not incidental to a coercive relationship; see Chapter 13 §"The Baby That Was Supposed to Fix It."

Rescuer

The third position on the drama triangle, and the one hardest to see as control, because it presents as help. The Rescuer takes over, soothes, and fixes, typically without being asked. It requires someone below it to function and collapses when the other person is fine, which is why a rescuing posture often needs you to be struggling and reacts badly to evidence that you are not. Distinct from a helper, who supports someone in doing something themselves and is glad to become unnecessary. The test is refusal: heart-led help is relieved to be declined, ego-led rescuing is injured by it. See Chapter 5 §"Heart or Ego: The Test That Separates Helping from Rescuing" and Card 53.

Rumination

When you repetitively think about distressing experiences without resolution. You commonly experience this after narcissistic abuse as your mind tries to make sense of what happened.

S

Scapegoat

In narcissistic family systems, the child whom the family blames, criticizes, and treats as the problem. This child becomes the repository for the family's dysfunction.

Silent Treatment

Withdrawing communication as punishment or manipulation. This form of emotional abuse aims to create anxiety in you and extract compliance.

Smear Campaign

Deliberately spreading negative information (often false or exaggerated) about you to damage your reputation. This often occurs when you try to leave or expose the narcissist.

Somatic Narcissist

A narcissist whose superiority runs through the body: appearance, fitness, sexual conquest, being desired. Partners are valued as trophies, aging registers as threat, and your own body becomes something you are assessed on rather than something you live in. See Chapter 6.

Splitting

Viewing people or situations as all good or all bad with no middle ground. Also called black-and-white thinking. Common in personality disorders.

Spousification

A form of parentification in which a child is placed in the emotional role of a partner rather than a helper: confided in about the parent's marriage, romantic life, finances, or grievances, and expected to provide comfort and loyalty in return. The child usually experiences it as closeness and being trusted, which is what makes it so hard to name later. Closely related to Emotional Incest. The term is from the family-therapy literature; Chapters 9 and 10 describe the experience from the inside.

Stonewalling

Refusing to communicate or cooperate. Withdrawing and being unresponsive as a way to punish or control.

Strangulation

Any pressure applied to the neck or restriction of breathing, including with hands, an arm, an object, or by covering the mouth and nose. It is listed separately from other physical violence throughout the domestic violence literature for one reason: it is among the strongest known predictors that a relationship may become lethal, and it is treated as its own risk category rather than as a severe form of hitting. It is also a medical event whether or not it leaves a visible mark, because injury to the blood vessels of the neck and to the brain can appear hours or days later. Use the word "strangulation" rather than "choking" with medical staff and advocates; it is the term that triggers the correct assessment. See When the Pattern Becomes Physical, printed after the first chapter of each book.

Supply

See "Narcissistic Supply."

T

Toxic Shame

A deep, pervasive sense that you're fundamentally flawed or defective as a person. This differs from healthy shame about specific behaviors. Narcissistic abuse often instills this in you. The term is John Bradshaw's and is common in recovery work; this book calls it deposited shame, because it was put there rather than grown. Card 6, Shame Inversion, is the tactic that installs it, and Chapter 17 §"Breaking Shame Conditioning" is the work of undoing it.

Transition

The process by which a transgender or nonbinary person aligns their outward life with their gender. Can include social transition (name, pronouns, presentation), medical transition (hormones, surgery), and legal transition (documents, ID). Transition is not a single event, not a checklist, and not required to be transgender. Abusive partners often use its timeline, expense, or visibility as control points: threatening to disrupt steps already taken, withholding support for steps to come, or framing themselves as the one person willing to stay through it. See Chapter 13 §"Identity as Leverage."

Trauma Bond

An attachment you form through repeated cycles of abuse and intermittent reinforcement. This creates powerful psychological bonds that make leaving difficult. Similar to Stockholm Syndrome.

Triangulation

Bringing a third party into the dynamic to create jealousy, insecurity, or competition. Examples: comparing you unfavorably to an ex, comparing your body or appearance to other women's, even when framed as a compliment ("other men prefer X, but your body type is perfect for me"), flirting with others, or using children as messengers.

Trigger

A stimulus (word, sensation, situation) that activates a trauma response in you, often bringing back emotions from past experiences.

V

Validation

Acknowledgment that your thoughts, feelings, and experiences are real and understandable. The opposite of invalidation. This becomes essential for your healing.

Victim Stance

When an abuser presents themselves as the victim to avoid accountability and garner sympathy. Different from actual victimization. Card 43, The Victim Narrative, is the deck's name for it. See also DARVO.

Vulnerability Hangover

The uncomfortable feeling you experience after sharing something personal or setting a boundary. You commonly feel this in recovery as you learn that vulnerability is safe. The phrase is Brené Brown's, and you will meet it in her work rather than in these chapters; it is listed here because the feeling routinely follows the boundary scripts in Chapter 16.

W

Word Salad

Incoherent, rambling speech patterns used to confuse and deflect during conflicts. The listener ends up disoriented and unable to maintain their point.

Understanding These Terms

Knowing these definitions is the first step. The deeper work involves:

Recognizing which patterns have been present in your life
Understanding how they affected you
Healing the wounds they created
Protecting yourself from future harm

Return to this glossary as needed. Each time you name what happened, you reclaim a piece of your power.

"When you can name something, you can begin to take your power back."