I know a girl who was in an abusive relationship and who was raped by the ex. She didn’t tell anyone the true depths of what went on until years later. Her friends knew he was an asshole, but no one knew about the sexual abuse. No one knew he was guilting her into sex, and fueling her guilt by telling her that she had a shitty memory and didn’t remember events correctly. In an act of desperation, she begged one of her roommates to sit with her during a phone call with him so that she could confirm whether or not she was losing her mind. The ex lied all throughout the call, changed the story, moved goalposts, and anytime she said “that’s not what you said just a second ago,” he’d explode in fury and accuse her of being too drunk or high to remember anything and then would “remind” her of what he “actually” said moments prior...which would be anything to make him right and her wrong, so the “actual” comment he made was rewritten several times in a 5 minute call.
It was the maddening spiral of disinformation and the onslaught of verbal abuse that she’d endure every time she contradicted his delusions of reality was what drove her into silence. She claimed she thought no one would believe her because everyone who knew her and told her to get out of the relationship was still friends and in near-daily contact with her abuser. His family had money and some were elected/running officials, and she was afraid that if he caught wind of what she was saying, he would sue her (though now, in reading the last few posts about the legalities of defamation, her fears appear to have been for naught). Her abuser also had a tendency to stalk around areas she would go hang out with her few remaining friends after she left his ass. It was easier for her to just block any method of communication with him/his friends, change all her contact info, and go off the social media grid for a while. She was afraid he’d find her again because he had already keylogged her laptop and implied to her that he could hack a cellphone. He probably couldn’t do the last one, but something about it sounded just threatening and just technical enough for her to be wary.
What made him (and all narcs, IMO) truly scary though, was that every lie he told was not a lie to him. He believed it. It was his perception of actual events that—despite continually rewriting at the convenience of his ego—he knew to be true. It wasn’t lying to get out of trouble; it was pure delusion. He could never be at fault in his mind because he had never done anything wrong. So incapable of wrong, that even when his girlfriend cried, punched, and kicked him in an effort to stop from being choked to the point of nearly passing out during sex, he actively perceived the whole moment as it was happening to “she’s actually really enjoying it and I can feel she’s enjoying it because I know what turns her on.” That was the truth, as far as he was concerned. And he knew that he was an honest, caring, and loving man that always respected his girlfriend.
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