Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse

They said they were managing the finances — because you weren't good with money.

That every purchase had to go through them. But somehow, there was always money for what they wanted.

They made you feel like a child asking for an allowance — in your own home. And the moment you tried to leave, you realized you had nothing. Because they had made sure of it. That wasn't financial stress. That was financial control.

This Thurs...

He checked the grocery receipt. And the look on his face said everything: he expected to catch you at something. 

You weren't a partner. You were a suspected thief. 

But that moment — that first time money became a surveillance tool — didn't come out of nowhere. It didn't start with the receipts, or the interrogations, or the separate account he opened without telling you. 

It started the moment he made you ...

They said they were managing the finances — because you weren't good with money. That every purchase had to go through them. 

But somehow, there was always money for what they wanted. They made you feel like a child asking for an allowance — in your own home. And the moment you tried to leave, you realized you had nothing. Because they had made sure of it. 

That wasn't financial stress. That was financial contro...

Your child comes home from a visit with the other parent guarded. Repeating things they couldn't have come up with on their own. Now they’re looking at you differently. 

That's not just "divorce being hard." That's a smear campaign — and your narcissistic ex has recruited your own children to run it. 

This week, Dr. Josh Davis — neuroscientist, psychologist, and author of The Difference That Makes a Differ...

If you can name the patterns and see the behaviors, have you wondered why do you still feel so stuck?

This week I'm sharing an episode from Renee Swanson of the Covert Narcissism Podcast — a feed swap I wanted to bring straight to this community. Renee unpacks what she calls "hitting the wall": the moment you can no longer live the lie in a covert narcissistic relationship, when you can't keep pretending that you're fine, that...

Food shouldn't feel like a threat — but for narcissistic abuse survivors, it often does.

In this viewer stories episode, survivors share exactly how the narcissist in their life weaponized food — turning meals into rituals of control, criticism, and shame. Kerry shares her own experience too. If mealtime ever filled you with dread, this episode will name what you lived through and show you why it happened.

In this episode...

Food is the most primal human need — and narcissists know it. The demands that ruin a vacation. The meal that is never made right. The praise given once, then withheld forever. These are calculated moves in a much larger control strategy.

In this conversation, Kerry McAvoy and co-host Lynn S. decode the psychology behind narcissistic food control: why it is never actually about the food, how narcissists exploit your deepest vu...

That flash of something is wrong you couldn't quite explain? Your body caught it before your mind could argue you down.

In this Viewers' Stories episode, Dr. Kerry McAvoy reacts to a so-called "prank" a husband pulled on his wife — secretly serving her breast milk in their guests' coffee, then bringing her breakfast in bed: toast smeared with their newborn's poop in place of peanut butter. The wife wondered if she was overreac...

The most dangerous narcissists don’t go ballistic: they peck you to death.

After spending decades studying dangerous personalities, former FBI agent Joe Navarro has learned that the cruelest narcissistic abuse almost never looks the way we expect.  It hides behind the withheld compliment, the public put-down disguised as a joke, the silent treatment and the affection that never comes.

In this conversation, Joe and Dr. Kerr...

It's your special day. Your birthday. Maybe the narcissist participated in the build-out or maybe they pretended not to notice. But you knew. And you got your hopes up. Perhaps this birthday will go differently.

What you didn't expect was to spend the rest of your birthday managing their feelings.

In this Viewers' Stories episode, Dr. Kerry shares submitted accounts of birthdays that ended in tears, anniversaries eng...

The ruined birthday. The wrecked anniversary. The gift left in a drawer. It wasn't thoughtlessness.

Dr. Kerry sits down with psychodynamic psychotherapist Lynn Strathdee to break down one of the most painful — and least-named — patterns in narcissistic relationships: the deliberate destruction of special occasions.

Lynn identifies the core drive as pleasure at being the cause — a compulsion rooted in early developme...

In this Viewers' Stories episode, Dr. Kerry unpacks the psychological damage done by narcissistic abuse, especially when you’re living with a partner who’s keeping a secret life.

Learn how cheaters use gaslighting, lies, and calculated reality distortion to conceal their betrayals. They want to make you question your own mind so completely that you stop listening to your instincts, destroying your self-trust.

If you've ev...

Most people imagine they'd recognize a sex addict. But here’s the reality most survivors never realize: you were never meant to see it.

Sexual addictive behavior doesn’t look like deception or betrayal; it looks like distance, irritability, or a relationship going cold. You don’t realize you’re with someone who’s living a double life.

In this interview, Dr. Kerry sits down with therapist Cheryl Camarillo...

Abuse is something we imagine happens behind closed doors. For a lot of survivors, some of the most frightening moments happened not just in the home but in the passenger seat of a moving car.

In this Viewers' Stories episode, Dr. Kerry pulls directly from your comments and unpacks what each one reveals about how narcissists weaponize the car.

It was never about losing the narcissist losing their temper. It was about control. And if ...

If you've ridden in a car with a narcissist, then you've likely experienced them using their driving to intimidate, threaten, or scare you. People with narcissistic traits often use vehicles like a weapon, turning you into more of a hostage instead of a passenger.

This week, Dr. Kerry and co-host Lynn break down why road rage and narcissism frequently co-occur and how the car gets used for far more than just driving, i

If you've surv...

Narcissistic abuse doesn't just affect your mind — it gets stored in the mind-body connection.

Do you have the kind of chronic pain no doctor can explain? Does it get worse the harder you try to fix it? Are you bracing, clenching, and shutting down without knowing what's wrong?

In this episode, Dr. Kerry unpacks how narcissistic abuse gets stored in the body, not just the mind. Want to learn more about healing from narcissistic...

What if the chronic pain, the exhaustion, and the sleepless nights aren’t because of stress, or you’re getting older, but because your body keeping the score of narcissistic abuse? 

In this episode, Dr. Kerry sits down with somatic healing expert Liz Tenuto, as known The Workout Witch, to explored one of the most overlooked truths: abuse doesn't just impact your mind; it affects your body. 

Learn why survivors g...

Why has the person who claimed to love you gone years without once saying your name — not even once?

When a narcissist won't say your name, it isn't a quirk. It's name erasure: a slow, deliberate way of treating you as less than a full person.

In this Viewers' Stories episode, Dr. Kerry reads real survivor stories and unpacks four ways the same tactic shows up. Each one is a covert control tactic, and together they're a form of...

What if the sweet pet name your partner calls you isn't affection at all — but rather designed to keep you off balance? 

In this episode, Dr. Kerry and co-host Lynn Strathdee unpack one of the strangest and most overlooked patterns in narcissistic relationships: the use of pet names.  

Learn why some narcissists even speak about themselves in the third person, and the chilling moment when a "compliment" reveals exactl...