Rerelease | When Abusers Play the Victim to Make You Feel Guilty

In this rerelease episode of Narcissist Apocalypse, Brandon discusses how victim-playing abusers use guilt, empathy, and blame-shifting to make survivors feel responsible for the abuse they are experiencing. The episode looks at how an abuser may present themselves as wounded, abandoned, misunderstood, or mistreated in order to gain sympathy early in the relationship. But as the relationship continues, that same victim story can become a way to control the survivor, avoid accountability, win arguments, and make the survivor feel guilty for having boundaries. Brandon breaks down how this pattern can show up through jealousy, isolation, silent treatment, guilt trips, defensive abuse, smear campaigns, DARVO, and post-separation abuse. At the center of it all is a painful reversal: the person causing harm keeps finding ways to make themselves the victim of the person they are harming.