“Is he a narcissist?” “Is he a psychopath?” “What is wrong with them?” “Why do they do that?

These are common questions for people who have experienced abuse.

I often sit across from women and men in my office who ask me these questions when faced with manipulative or abusive behaviour from a partner, parent, or even employer. What all of these questions have in common is that they focus on the other person. They focus on trying to make sense of the abuser’s motivation, thinking, and behaviour.

My clients’ minds become focused on trying to solve a puzzle.

When we encounter someone whose actions are significantly out of alignment with how we ourselves would behave in similar circumstances, our brains are presented with a puzzle. This often happens unconsciously. Most people do not sit down and consciously decide, “I am going to figure out why this person behaves this way.”

No. It often plays out almost beyond awareness.

The person who has experienced abuse becomes preoccupied and may find themselves able to think about almost nothing else. They replay what happened over and over again: what was said, what they said in response, what they could have said differently, what they could have done differently.

And here is the catch: one of our evolutionary advantages—our ability to seek patterns and make sense of the world—can become our downfall in situations like this.

The person is simply trying to find a pattern so they can make sense of the other person, understand the abusive behaviour, and hopefully prevent it from happening again. They are looking for a way to create some sense of control so they can feel safer going forward.

While this goal makes perfect sense, it can backfire in one major way.

The more we think about someone, the more emotional real estate we give them in our mind. The more time we spend analyzing them, the stronger the signal we send to our nervous system that this person—the abusive person—is important to us. Very important, in fact, because we are investing so much time and energy into trying to understand them.

A quick summary: my clients often spend extensive amounts of time focusing on why an abuser is doing what they are doing. The amount of time spent thinking about them, and the kinds of questions being asked, continue to focus attention on the other person. This can communicate to our nervous system: This person is important to you. Keep paying attention.

And this can set us up for a loop in which we remain mentally caught up in the other person, unable to stop thinking about them or focus fully on anything else. It can begin to feel obsessive.

A natural question follows: How do we break out of this cycle?

The solution is very simple—not easy, but simple.

The focus of the questions we ask needs to shift from being other-focused to self-focused.

Instead of asking:

Are they a narcissist? Are they a psychopath? Why do they do that?

The questions become:

What was it about their behaviour that made me feel something was off?

How did this action make me feel? Anxious? Scared? Confused? Ashamed?

Where do I notice this anxiety or discomfort in my body?

Have I felt this way before with this person, or with other people?

How often have I felt this way when interacting with this person?

What pattern might exist in my own emotional responses?

Yes, notice that I used the word pattern.

We are still looking for a pattern. We are still making use of our natural, evolutionary tendency to search for patterns—but now we are using it in a way that can actually benefit us.

You are looking for patterns in how you feel when you are around this person.

How often do you feel anxious, confused, ashamed, diminished, or unsafe after interacting with them?

The focus is now on yourself.

And in doing this, you are communicating something very different to your nervous system: You are important. You are valuable. Your feelings matter. Your experiences deserve to be noticed, considered, and validated.

This creates a very important shift.

When you focus on yourself, you begin focusing on what is actually within your care and responsibility: taking care of yourself and protecting yourself.

You are adulting.

You are stepping into a position where you can notice what may be causing you harm and begin considering what actions might be appropriate to protect yourself. The actions themselves will depend entirely on your circumstances.

For some people, the safest and healthiest choice may be to leave the interaction or relationship. For others, leaving may not currently be a safe or realistic option.

But even when external circumstances cannot immediately change, this internal cognitive shift matters. You are beginning to communicate your own value and importance to yourself, laying an important foundation for future choices and action.

If this focus on oneself sounds familiar, it is because it is deeply grounded in self-attunement.

I have written several blogs on this topic because I believe self-attunement is one of the most fundamental skills we can develop for navigating our world.

You can become an expert on narcissism, psychopathy, and abuse. You can acquire an enormous amount of knowledge, and that knowledge can certainly help you identify patterns when you hear about someone else’s abusive relationship.

However, when you are inside such a relationship yourself, knowledge alone may not be enough.

When confusion, anxiety, and fear set in, our ability to think clearly can become compromised. We may intellectually know a great deal about unhealthy relationship dynamics, but accessing that knowledge becomes much harder when we are emotionally activated and our nervous system is in survival mode.

At that point, it is often our practiced skills of self-attunement that help us stay afloat and begin navigating more safely through the waters of abuse.

You may never fully understand why another person behaves the way they do. And perhaps you do not need to.

What matters most is learning to notice what happens inside you when you are with them: Do you feel safe? Respected? Confused? Afraid? Small? Are your needs and boundaries consistently being disregarded?

The shift from asking “What is wrong with them?” to asking “What is happening to me in this relationship?”can be profoundly important. It brings your attention back to the one person you can truly care for, protect, and make decisions for—yourself.

If you find yourself in an abusive or deeply confusing relationship, you do not have to make every decision at once. You can begin simply by paying attention to your own experience, trusting what you notice, and allowing your feelings to matter.

And if making that shift feels difficult, therapy can provide a safe space to untangle the confusion, strengthen self-trust, and consider what you need moving forward. I offer individual sessions in my Nanaimo office and online throughout British Columbia.

I am here to help you thrive in every relationship – starting with yourself.  
Viktoria