Rerelease | How Abusers Wear You Down

Narcissist Apocalypse: Patterns of Abuse

Abuse Survivor Network

True Crime, Society & Culture, Education, Relationships, Self-improvement

4.7 • 791 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2026

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this rerelease episode of Narcissist Apocalypse Q&A, Brandon talks about how abusers use exhaustion as a form of control. From constant monitoring and privacy violations to fear, guilt, gaslighting, circular conversations, lack of help, and sabotage, these tactics can slowly drain a survivor’s energy, clarity, and sense of self. This episode looks at why abuse can become harder to name when you are worn down, why leaving can feel impossible when you are running on empty, and how abusers use confusion and depletion to keep the relationship centered around them. Brandon also discusses why rest, reflection, and separating your own feelings from the feelings someone else is trying to create can be an important part of getting clarity back.

Transcript

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0:00.0	On this episode of Narcissist Apocalypse Q&A, we discussed the coercive control tactics that abusers use to wear you down.
0:32.8	Music. Welcome to Narcissist Apocalypse Q&A, everyone.
0:34.9	I am Brandon Chadwick.
0:40.9	And today we're going to be talking about how of the users exhaust you, how they wear you down to make it very difficult for you to see things clearly.
0:47.2	And before we get into that, if you want to be a guest on our Survivor Story episodes,
0:52.6	please go to our website at Narcissistapocalypse.com.
0:55.8	Top of the page, here's a button that says guest form. When you click on that button, it takes
0:59.5	you to our guest form page. And there you can read all of our instructions and either send
1:03.8	us an email at Narcissist Apocalypse at gmail.com or fill out our guest form and press the
1:09.3	submit button. And please do send it in the format that we
1:12.7	ask for. So today we're going to be talking about exhaustion and abuse and how abusers wear you
1:21.0	down and the reasons why they can wear you down or how some of these tactics are used in
1:27.3	specific situations to wear you down. how some of these tactics are used in specific situations to wear you down.
1:29.9	And I've talked with, I think, over 1,000 abuse survivors by now.
1:37.4	And by listening to their stories, I've gotten a pretty decent handle on the different types of abusers,
1:53.1	you know, besides the ones that are after you for your money or are leading a double life and being pretty perfect until they're caught.
2:00.4	You know, most of them employ tactics of wearing you down as they abuse you in different ways. And because of the abuse and wear down tactics, you begin acting in ways that aren't like
2:06.0	you.
2:06.3	You lose yourself.
2:08.0	You know, there's confusion, emotional disarray as you're just trying to make sense of what
2:15.0	is happening.
2:16.3	And with abuse, as the abuse kind of takes one step further down
	...

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