6 Things God Will Do If You’ve Been Mentally Abused By a Narcissist 

Here are 6 things God will often do after you’ve been mentally abused by a narcissist.

1. God Will Seek to Rebuild Your Self-Worth By Strengthening Your Identity in Christ

A narcissist will use mental warfare on you to make you feel like you are the one being selfish and inconsiderate anytime you focus on yourself rather than on them. Their goal is to break you down so you have such a low view of yourself you feel you’re only valuable when you are making the narcissist happy. If you are mentally abused long enough by a person like this, you will lose all sense of your own identity and completely attach your self-worth to what the narcissist thinks of you, which is exactly what they want.

If this has happened to you, God wants to rebuild your self-worth through strengthening your identity in Christ. Secular psychology will try to rebuild your self-worth by building you up and telling you how good you are. Taken too far, however, this type of “rebuilding” will actually turn you into a narcissist yourself if you let it.

Your goal must not be to tell yourself how important you are and how great you are and how bad the narcissist is. You will not regain your self-worth by idolizing yourself and demonizing the narcissist. Your goal must be to remember who you are in Christ. You are valuable because you are created by God, you are a new creation if you have put your faith in Jesus, and you are set free from all lies so that you can serve and obey God as the Lord created you to do.

You are not what the narcissist said you are. You are who God says you are. 1 John 3:1 states, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”

God will rebuild you by helping you to fully accept who you truly are in Christ.

2. God Will Show You That He Is Actually the Center of All Things, Not the Narcissist Who Mentally Abused You

As we just said in point 1, we have to be careful that in our journey after being mentally abused by a narcissist we do not try to find healing by elevating ourselves above everyone and everything else. You are valuable beyond belief, but no human is the center of the story. God alone is the center of all things, so the Lord will help you recover after mental abuse by a narcissist by showing you the truth – that this narcissist is not the most important person, you are not the most important person, God alone is the most important person. As Isaiah 42:6-9 teaches us:

I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.”

God has called you in righteousness and he has an extremely important plan for you. You are God’s covenant people meant to help others see the truth and be set free from bondage. But let us not forget that while we are extremely blessed and valuable to God, God is also jealous over his own glory. He gives his glory to no one but himself not because he is selfish but because he is always absolutely true, and he alone truly deserves all the glory. God can never lie; therefore he will always take all the glory because he deserves all the glory.

A narcissist’s mental abuse on you was not really about you. It was about their desire to be God and take the glory for themselves. God will heal you and set you free by reclaiming his rightful place as the one true Lord of your life who deserves all the glory.

3. God Will Give You Wisdom on How to Deal with This Narcissistic Person Now

Each relationship that involves a narcissist will have unique variables in it, therefore it is impossible to give a one-size-fits all approach for everyone who has been hurt by a narcissist.

For example, if your boyfriend or girlfriend has mentally abused you because they are a narcissist, you should break up with them and not speak with them again because they are not showing the biblical qualities needed for marriage and thus dating them serves no biblical purpose.

If your pastor has mentally abused you, you should follow the disciplinary actions outlined in 1 Timothy 5:19-21 and distance yourself from this person either through helping the leadership remove him or by leaving that church.

If you are an adult who is dealing with your narcissistic mother or father who has mentally abused you in the past, perhaps you need to confront them and explain to them how you are willing to forgive and start fresh if they truly repent and seek to change, otherwise you will need to setup new boundaries with them to protect your heart.

My point is, there are countless situations that will require different plans of action based upon the variables. Therefore, you have to ask God for wisdom for your specific situation. As James 1:5 states, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”

4. God Will Give You a Righteous Anger and Supernatural Grace Towards a Narcissist Who Mentally Abused You

While each situation dealing with a narcissist will be unique, there are a few things God will lead all Christians to do if they have been mentally abused by a narcissist.

One, you should feel a righteous anger towards those who have abused you and sinned against you. It is healthy to feel wronged. It is a sign you have a proper view of how God sees you if you are upset by the mental abuse that occurred in your past. In Luke 17:1-2, Jesus said:

Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.”

Clearly Jesus is very unhappy with those who harm his children. However, in Ephesians 4:26-27 it also states, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” It’s right to be angry at times, but we must not sin in our anger or else we are allowing the devil a foothold in our own lives.

So if you have been mentally abused by a narcissist, God will give you a holy anger about this, but he will also give you supernatural grace to forgive this person even though they do not deserve it. Forgiveness is very different than reconciliation. The Bible does not say that you have to have a relationship again with the people that have abused you. You must guard your own heart (Proverbs 4:23) and if someone abused you in the past you must seek to prevent them from abusing you again. But God still commands us to forgive.

Forgiveness is not saying the offense was okay. It means you are releasing them of the punishment they rightfully deserve. But please note, this does not mean you want this person to be spared of discipline. Discipline may look like punishment but it has a different goal. Punishment is what is given to make someone pay for what they did. Discipline is a consequence meant to help change bad behavior. And if something criminal occurred, forgiveness does not mean you should not report this crime. As Christians, it is our duty to protect others and allows the moral laws of the land to be enforced. Churches who protect abusers should be ashamed of themselves.

But spiritually speaking, forgiveness means we are releasing them of punishment, we are choosing not to hate them, and we are entrusting God to deal with them how he sees fit. As Ephesians 4:32 states, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” Only by God’s supernatural grace can this occur in our hearts.

5. God Will Give You Insights to Help Other People Avoid the Abuse You Endured By a Narcissist

One of the ways God protects us is through other people. There are people in the world who want to hurt you and there are people in the world who want to help you. Once you’ve been hurt by a certain type of person and learned valuable lessons, you now have the obligation as a Christian to help others with this knowledge you have and to expose evil when possible. In 2 Timothy 4:14-15 Paul wanted Timothy:

Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message.”

Paul named names when appropriate. I’m not saying you need to publicly blast the narcissist who hurt you, but when you have opportunities to help others avoid the pain you experienced, God will lead you to do so.

6. God Will Judge That Narcissistic Person for the Sins They Committed and Deal with Them in His Perfect Way

If you’ve ever been abused in any way, God wants you to know that no one is getting away with anything. All sin will be dealt with. If someone repents and asks for God’s grace, God will put those sins on the cross of Christ who endured the greatest torture to satisfy the wrath God has towards all evil.

But if that person does not repent and does not seek God’s grace through Jesus, that person will reap what they sowed and endure a punishment that is worse than anything our human minds can fathom. So either way, we know God will deal with narcissistic abusers in his perfect way. As 2 Peter 3:7-10 states:

But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”

For more on this subject, you may want to explore my article called What Does the Bible Say About Narcissism?