Why are abusers, narcissists and sociopaths rejecting, violent and offended by facial expressions, glances and your tone of voice

As with most of my blog posts, I cite sources and other reading material below. The first part of this reading section is devoted to research articles by professionals. I have also included articles here and in the false narratives post as to why facial expressions are not a reliable indicator as to what someone else is feeling and thinking.

I am surprised this topic isn't brought up more often because I see wave after wave of battered women who were beaten up badly for just glancing at someone of the opposite sex, most of these glances only lasting a second. It is an incredible phenomenon, something most of the population does not have to experience, or to worry about, to be concerned about, to get a complex about, or to work around, so why is an innocent glance so objectionable to men who beat up women?

Then there are parent figures who reject or terrorize children (including grown children) for a look  on their face, whether it is a smirk, a purse of the lips, a grimace, a look of horror, a look of happiness, a look of sadness, rolling eyes ... again it can be anything. Someone very close to me was rejected by her mother for life for a look on her face (no kidding!), and this, and battered women who I have seen and met, were the reasons I decided to cover this topic. It is a common topic in domestic violence. I decided to do some research and think about why this is so huge in the minds of perpetrators of domestic violence and abuse and what it does to the recipients of abuse.

Any domestic violence counselor will tell you that they see this again and again, and that it is common among abusers, particularly people with psychopathic, dark triad and dark tetrad traits - extremely indicative of personality disorders. So this practice is pretty exclusive to them. In other words, it is very uncommon for the rest of us. The one notable exception is that people who are inebriated (high on alcohol and some drugs) can look at facial expressions as being hostile too when they are not. Also alcoholism can co-occur with narcissism and psychopathy. For the intents of this post, I am keeping the topic on personality disorders (mainly Cluster B) and address alcoholism and an impaired ability to judge the intentions of others in another post.

People with personality disorders associated with psychopathy, dark triad and dark tetrad tend to see quite a bit more hostility in a wide range of facial expressions than the rest of us. Professional articles (research) about this are cited below.

On top of it all, facial expressions that they view as hostile, especially in close personal relationships,  often arouse them to be violent and/or vindictive, retaliatory and punishing. If they have Machiavellian traits which a high percentage do, they also become obsessed with punishing; in other words it occupies their thoughts to the point where it interferes with other matters in their lives. And to make matters worse for their victims, perpetrators often spend a great deal of time at planning out new punishments, including punishments where they think they won't be detected, where they think they can dodge law enforcement, where they think they can successfully switch culpability on to their victims (why it is important NOT to meet them in private).

I will be covering typical ways they plan out punishments in another post.

In my own personal life, I have also been the target of being punished over a facial expression (it happened in my fifties, and I found out quickly after this occurrence that age is not a factor when it comes to being victimized). In fact, when people ask me why I haven't seen so-and-so, I say "I am being punished for a look on my face" (and ... I have proof of this if they don't quite believe me, and also witnesses for the day that it allegedly occurred: no unusual, hostile, bored, disapproving facial expressions that would cause so much unmitigated rage and sadism; i.e. off-the-charts emotional dysregulation ... in fact, we were all well under the impression that we were having a pleasant respectful conversation, not a hostile one in the least).

People who have looked at his e-mails to me are either horrified that someone would actually do that, say that and think that, or they laugh at the absurdity of being punished over a facial expression.

Gasping in shock or saying "That's so jacked up!" is the most common response. However, some people who actually know him aren't terribly surprised. He has had a reputation for being a brute and tyrant.

In the beginning, most people who go through punishments over facial expressions want to talk to the person to iron out the problem. I was no exception.

Why? Because it is confusing most of all. You want to know what the facial expression is to them, why they think a punishment is reasonable, what they think they will gain from the punishment, trying to clear up misunderstandings ...

The counselors I talked to were dead set against it. "Don't do it! People who do this are dangerous and twisted! This isn't about you, or a misunderstanding. It is about sadism and an anger management problem in them, period." And it was explained to me that I would not find a real explanation anyway. "Talking to a person who acts like this is an invitation to damage you, never to clear things up and be reasonable. It doesn't matter how educated they are. We see this from the working poor to the highly educated, wealthy and successful."

Typically if you do show up at their house or apartment they usually put you through a lengthy blaming-shaming session, where they will talk about how much they did for you, how ungrateful you are, how much you owe them, how 100 percent bad you are, and even try to talk you into accepting bullying as the payment. All of this blaming and shaming is most often accompanied by lack of respect for boundaries. In other words, they don't usually talk to you ten feet away in a calm respectful intelligent empathetic manner. They are in your face, intimidating you, threatening you, shouting at you, spitting on you, interrupting you. It is not uncommon for them to be insulting you, pushing or shoving you, throwing you around, twisting a limb, choking you or mock choking, hitting you, using false imprisonment on you (very often "I will not let you go unless" ...), and if they aren't getting what they want out of you, either escalating the violence in some way, or calling police over trumped up charges. In fact, people who punish over facial expressions or a tone in someone's voice usually have all kinds of plans made well in advance of your coming so that they can get out of trouble with ease, try to switch the victimhood (which I discussed above: it is their motivation for calling the police). In other words they will try to flip the abuse on to you (in other words, call you the abuser, typically referred to as blame shifting).

I felt incredibly lucky to have dodged a bullet once I heard domestic violence survivors and child abuse survivors tell what they had gone through by trying to talk it out with their abusers. One of them landed in the hospital, another one was driven off the road at a high rate of speed, another stole her car keys, shoes and coat while she was visiting (false imprisonment), a child abuse survivor had a T.V. thrown at him and his toys destroyed.

Some therapists tell clients "Never ask why" because of all of these reasons and then some, but some domestic violence therapists tell their clients they can ask "why" through e-mail, text or a recorded phone call to get more feedback and information.

The most common answers that "typical impulsive abusers" give as to why there is a punishment for facial expressions and a tone of voice are these answers:

gaslighting answers:
"You KNOW why!"
"You can't figure this out? Come on now!"
"You need to think about what you have done!"
"I don't need to answer that. You have a pretty good idea."
"Because you're ungrateful. You know what you did!"
"You never were good at figuring out what you do that is terrible. You need to think more! You mean to tell me that you are innocent all of the time? I don't buy it!"
"Take some time to think about it. I don't want to hear from you until you can behave."
"You brought this upon yourself. You are in the doghouse now."
And variations on this theme.

If you tell them that you are not a mind-reader, they typically join the gaslighting answer with verbal abuse:

"What's the matter with you? Are you stupid?! It's so obvious!"
"Are you crazy? Just think about it and come back to me with an answer! It better be soon or it will be too late!"
"Because you're a bitch! If you can't figure it out then something is seriously wrong with you!"
"I know you! You're a sick piece of sh$t! I can't stand you! If you can't figure it out, I want nothing more to do with you! Do you hear? Nothing!! Get your sniveling little child out of here too!"
"You owe me! Since you can't pay me then I'm going to punish you! Sounds right to me! If you can't do what I say, you are going to get it good! You always were a piece of crap!"
"You meant to glance at him because you are crazy enough to try to make me feel jealous. You were trying to signal that you want him. Therefore you need to be punished for that thought." (besides gaslighting and insulting, there is also perspecticide in this statement, another common tactic among abusers).
And variations on this theme.

The reason why these answers are important is because gaslighting and verbal abuse confirms the personality disorder even more (abusers are known to use gaslighting, verbal abuse and deriding your character for their explanations to you about why they acted the way they acted, their reasoning through the issue between you, their thoughts, and their feelings where as people without Cluster B personality disorders rarely, if ever, use gaslighting phrases and verbal abuses to work out an issue like this).

These phrases aren't about talking to you and offering you a reasonable thought-out explanation, they are about talking at you. They are both outright, and subtle, forms of attack (i.e. abuse). They are also instances of infantilizing you (very common: treating you like a child who needs to learn lessons from them and punished for not learning lessons to their standards of perfection), lecturing and reprimanding (also common among abusers and not appropriate to close personal relationships) and invalidation.

It is one reason you won't find a fulfilling answer, so if you can't get one through e-mail or text, it does not make much sense to talk to them in person.

You can also ask them what the punishments will be in e-mail and text forms. Some of them actually tell you. Most won't and will be giving you the same kind of gaslighting answers.

However, the most dangerous abusers are not as impulsive as the ones I have talked about so far (that's where the Machiavellian abusers come in: the dark triad and dark tetrad). These personalities may sweet talk you into a meeting to talk things over. They may say they have presents, even apologize, or send you a cake, money or flowers, and then once you have "softened up" and enter their door, or are driven to a remote spot, beat you up. Or wait to enact some sort of dark revenge fantasy. And by the way, dark revenge fantasies can come about no matter what you do or say, even if it is non-provoking and innocent, even if you are quietly going about your business and not talking to them, because again, they erroneously blame, and even make things up out of thin air to blame you about.

The general advice is not to trust ANYONE who wants to hurt you. If they are hurting you or threatening to hurt you over erroneous blaming incidences like a facial expression or tone of voice, it is even worse. Be aware that it is the mark of psychopaths, sociopaths, people with dark triad or dark tetrad personalities, and tendencies in that direction. Most are quite dangerous. Talk to a domestic violence counselor on how to handle people who behave in this way and have their sights on you.

HOW DID ABUSERS GET LIKE THIS?

WHY DO FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AND VOCAL TONES
SET THEM OFF?

All of these quick facial expressions seem to loom incredibly large in the minds of abusers, are so impressionable as to be stuck in their memory, obsessively churned over and over in the mind, and yet, I have seen over and over, that most of us who are recipients don't consider a single facial expression that could set us off. If we ruminate about our own facial expressions, we don't understand what could have set them off either. While there are conditions which show drastically different facial expressions from what you are feeling, most of us don't have those conditions. It baffles.

Unless your memory can stick to a common bird zipping across the sky in a second and to be enraged about it, it seems just as far out of the realm of normal experience to be obsessed and so deeply enraged by someone's split second facial movements that you want to do great bodily damage, or to reject them without a backward glance or a bit of conversation on the matter.

Targets of abuse who have been raised by a child abuser tend to over-think what they might have done wrong that set their abuser off.

In contrast, targets with a very supportive non-abusive family will know that something is wrong with the enraged other person. They may do a little bit of self reflection, but probably not much. They will most likely want to get out now.

Child abuse victims will be doing a great deal of self reflection (not necessarily the golden child in abusive families, but other siblings, yes). While the parent abusers are obsessively churning over the "provoking" facial expression, their child abuse victims tend also to be obsessively churning over their part of the conversation too, the facial expression that might have "caused" the rage, or at the very least "the mountain that was made out of the molehill". They will be playing over the conversation in these ways:

"What if I had said _____________, would that have enraged him as much?"
"How do I placate (the abuser), and explain what is really happening?" - and then when they realize they can't placate, "Why is this happening?" and never being able to figure it out (i.e. it's not meant to be figured out purposely, by the abuser).
"What could have I done to cause this much rage?"
"Why can't I please him? I work so hard at it with no results."
"What's the matter with me? Am I having facial expressions that I don't mean to have?"
"Did I glance the wrong way?"
"Am I really as stupid as he says I am? Maybe. I just don't know what set him off. And how do I become smarter about this?"
"What's the next step? I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do or think about this. I feel frozen with indecision. Should I ask someone else what they think about all of this?"
"Does this mean our relationship is over?"
"Why is he trying to hurt me like this? Have I really done something wrong?"
"Why am I such a burden? Should I just stay quiet and not say anything if I am sick or need something?"
"Should I just die? Would that make (my mommy or daddy) more happy?"

This is the inversion of what the perpetrator is doing. Often child abuse survivors spend most of their time and ruminations finding fault inside themselves to make the relationship with the abuser better and whole again, and abusers spend most of their time finding fault outside themselves, with their children.

The good news is that child abuse victims, and particularly family scapegoats, will have a much easier time healing and moving beyond finding fault inside themselves, whereas abusers tend to stay "fixed" and only find fault outside themselves (for life). Abusers also only like relationships where the other person is finding fault within themselves, so the high majority will give up on people who find any of the fault in them. It means abusers never grow out of what they are doing. When survivors finally become enlightened through therapy, and really understand where their internal dialog came from, they are too much of a liability to the abuser and the abuser's ego, especially if the survivor gets good therapy.

In order to be a healthy person, you have to be both self reflective (i.e. know what caused a reaction in the other person) and at the same time know the agenda of other people. Enlightenment and maturity require both. My own view is that if you really want to do well in life you should study personality disorders to avoid the kind of thinking and confusion that leads to too much self reflection and not enough reflection of how others are behaving.

If you are a child abuse survivor, it would be good to read up on PTSD too to understand why you react the way that you do, why you are drawn to certain people, and the thoughts, feelings, "mental tapes", ruminations, sleeping patterns, anxiety (hypervigilence), situations, careers, styles of dress, why you keep house a certain way, and so on. The more self awareness you have, the more that you can transcend feeling wounded by the child abuse, the better a parent you will be, and the better antennae you will have for healthy people (i.e. people you do want and don't want around your children, your spouse, your friends and yourself).

In general, healthy people do not want to erroneously blame; they won't be trying to trash your self esteem; they won't send blaming shaming flying monkeys your way to hurt you; they won't be comparing you negatively to others, they won't be punishing (abusive) towards you; they won't be giving you the silent treatment if they feel they can't dominate you (i.e. put themselves in the dominant "up position" and you the receiver of the domination in the "down position"). They won't be beating you up for facial expressions. Be with the healthy people.

As to why abusers act like this?

It has to do with how they were molded as children by the parent. In family systems theory, an abusive-style golden child is molded to be competitive, aggressive, to sweet talk to get what he wants, to be an authority figure, and often groomed to feel he can do no wrong and that he is entitled to receive "more". A scapegoat is molded to think about why he or she is being abused and listening  to a parent telling them how they deserved it, why they are flawed and unwanted, to walk on eggshells and to be super-sensitive to everyone else's feelings while denying their own, and often groomed to feel they can do no right (given double bind situations and dilemmas), and punished  by receiving "less".

Please note that not all golden children are molded to be bullies. Some are just molded to be sycophants (put the parent first place in their lives). But over half are the bully-style goldens.

Some psychologists say that narcissism is inherited, that it has something to do with genes. But I tend to pay most attention to psychologist Dr. Ramani Durvasula's findings in that "narcissists and sociopaths are made, and psychopaths are born". That is because they have done the best extensive studies on it at the lab where she works: the University of Southern California. Dr. Judy Rosenberg is also a proponent of the same kinds of models and findings, and also resides in Southern California where the extensive tests have been done.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula has also made the claim that a lot of narcissism and sociopathy is a "bully golden child issue"; i.e. that the golden child is often molded to be a mini-me version of the narcissistic or sociopathic parent, or to be an agent of the parent (someone who will uphold the parent's agendas).

With so much molding and grooming to make a golden child feel good and rewarded about being a bully, and unempathetic to the plight of his or her siblings, to be "better than your siblings", this has a lot to do with how they end up being abusers. The scapegoats on the other hand are groomed to "think about what you have done", and it may very well have included facial expressions, tones of voice and other erroneous blaming incidents that the golden child sees throughout childhood.

One reason why abusers think it is reasonable to hurt others over facial expressions and a tone of voice or a glance is probably because they saw it happen in their childhood home. It was normalized. The administration of the punishments were most likely promoted and accepted. Not having empathy was also promoted and accepted. Most likely no one ever really listened to the person who was being blamed over a facial expression or tone of voice.

When children are brought up to be a competitive aggressive bully who can do no wrong, they will most likely become a permanent unchanging bully who feels he is always right.

The major reason why they can't and don't want to change can be about the parent's suppression of empathy in all of the children except the scapegoat. They survived the abusive early atmosphere by siding with the parent and being unempathetic. If they had been empathetic for a sibling who was receiving a great deal of abuse, they surmise they would have been severely punished for it.

When you have a bully golden child as a mate, you have a person who was molded in this way, to look at himself as a person who can never do wrong, to not to feel empathy over someone's suffering or injustice (to feel disgust over abused disenfranchised members of society instead, although they do "fake it" sometimes to not appear suspect), to erroneously blame when there aren't better blaming opportunities to latch onto, to be an administrator of punishments, to be entitled to receive extraordinary "me first" rewards, praise and treatment.

The only thing that would change that mold from childhood is if they dared to have empathy and to give you some empathy. Try talking an abuser into empathy. It doesn't happen. If anything, they become enraged instead. Or they say that "Empathy is for weaklings" or "I don't care about empathy" or they will be gaslighting you and playing a game of one-ups-manship: "I am more empathetic than you are!"

Without empathy, you won't be treated right. You won't have a healthy relationship. If anything you will experience more and more invalidation from your abuser and more pain.

Some other reasons why they are doing this:

1. They feel deeply wounded when you don't do exactly what they want (narcissistic injury). Part of this is entitlement run amok: i.e. they feel they deserve something and you don't deserve the same thing. If you are honest about your abuser, they would never tolerate you punishing them over a facial expression. So it is hypocrisy run amok too.
   Most abusers look at their victims as little children (called infantilizing). Part of infantilizing means they will be lecturing, telling you what to do, what to say, reprimanding you, being patronizing, being dictatorial, being dominating, insisting you tell them where you are and what you are doing at all times, insisting that you break confidential information that others have told you. "Infantilizing" mainly means treating you like a child. If someone did this to them, would they have tolerance for this? So, again, we run into a situation of hypocrisy.
   Do they change their behavior? Not very likely. They get addicted to power and control. Once they feel they cannot dominate you in this way, they often leave you to find someone who they can dominate and infantilize more than they could you.

2. Invalidating and perspecticide: In a lot of ways this is about infantilizing too. They want you to assume that you don't know your feelings and thoughts, only they do. And if you tell them that they are not getting your feelings and thoughts right, they will call you a liar. In other words, they try to brainweash you into thinking that only they can tell what you feel and think, and that you don't. A lot of narcissists and sociopaths like to think of themselves as mind readers, but they are often much further "off the mark" than the rest of the population. See my post on false narratives.

3. How much authority and pain will you withstand from them?: I would describe this as a cruel game. They usually insert more emotional pain as time goes on in your relationship and increase the erroneous blaming too in order to see how much they can get away with hurting you with this tactic (and therefor putting up with them). Usually if they are at the stage where they are terrorizing you over facial expressions and vocal tones, the erroneous blaming is at its ultimate. It means, to them, that they can blame you for anything and everything, even completely made up things, that they no longer have to look for a good excuse to punish you, that a facial expression will do, a vocal tone will do, looking over at something or someone will do, and that you will tolerate it (if you stay with them or still want them). It also signals to them that you can be brainwashed and bullied into thinking something is wrong with you, even your facial expressions and vocal tones. If you have gotten to this stage, you have heard more "what's-wrong-with-you stuff" than you can even count: hundreds of times? thousands of times? tens of thousands of times? hundreds of thousands of times? So the facial expressions and vocal tones stage is like reaching the mountain of domination for them: they have achieved the ultimate in arrogance: the right to tell you what you feel, think, experience, and what every move, bodily function and bodily twitch means about you (most of it will be used as a weapon). To them this is something they take with dead seriousness. For you, I hope you are laughing, and see how incredibly silly and posturing this is (it is like they want to play the role of king, but too arrogant to know that there are no clothes on them).

4. They generally make assumptions about others, even about facial expressions, because they are too self involved to do anything else.
   They are also incredibly unable to self reflect. Most of us mull through personal issues this way: "I said this, which caused them to react that way, which caused me to react this way, which caused them to react that way - jeez, we need to fix this! Obviously we are triggering each other, and taking a lot of baggage into this issue." - that is how most of us think, but it is not how they think. They think this way instead: "They caused me to react this way, and it is up to them to fix it." - that's narcissism. And it is also the big difference between normalcy and narcissism.
   Because they are unable to self reflect, most of what they have to say is projection: what is going on inside of them (not you). If they think your facial expression means that you want to hurt them, it probably means they want to hurt you (big warning sign that they probably will hurt you). If they think your tone of voice is disrespectful, it is probably because they are disrespectful (and most of us know it: they insult people like crazy). If they think you glanced at a man because you want to cheat on them and make love to the guy you glanced at, it is probably because he is cheating, and looks at women as sex objects (and we know that many narcissists are pathological cheaters). In fact projection is so reliable, you can tell the motivations of your abuser, the thoughts of your abuser, what actions your abuser may take against you by what he says about you.
   Because so much of their judgments about you are projection, you also know that they are intimidated by your strengths, and perhaps your normalcy too. The reason why they have to appear stronger and domineering than you is because they don't feel strong inside (it actually is blustering, kind of how a house cat puffs up its fur when feeling threatened). It becomes a competition for who is going to be the dominant heavy-weight in the relationship. If they were actually secure, they would not need to dominate. They would not need to tell you that everything is your fault and nothing is their fault. They wouldn't need to put you down to feel better. They wouldn't need to tell you that you are crazy (let's face it: narcissism, abuse, gaslighting, perspecticide and expecting perfection in deeds in looks is pretty darn crazy, and crazy making ... and yet very few of us tell them they are crazy because we have empathy and don't want to hurt their self esteem).
   Probably the most crazy-making thing they do is to assume that you look at them as the ultimate authority figure on what and who you are, that they are mind readers, what fleeting moments of looks mean about you, and they never question the validity of making improper and absurd judgments about any of this. They can even hate you and kill you over crazy judgments. I would say that's a lot more insane than anything we do.

Which is to say that once they are at the stage of punishing you over facial expressions, glances and vocal intonations, they are dangerous. You're in trouble. Time to call a domestic violence center. I have met so many battered women over this issue that I have lost count.

As for survivors living through this: getting a complex about your facial expressions, not wanting to hurt an abusive person over a glance, kids crying because "my face does things I don't want it to do because I'm always being hit for what's on my face!" is common to the brainwashing experience. We are constantly groomed to see these experiences as "something being wrong" with how we are communicating. Punishing you over facial expressions and vocal tones is a practice among incarcerated abusers as much as high functioning non-incarcerated "trickster", successful educated abusers. Abuse is abuse, and we even see abuse in presidents, and presidents are more powerful than your abuser, so don't assume that they are so powerful that you can't call the police or domestic violence centers for help.

IT IS VERY COMMON THAT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE THERAPISTS

SPEND A LOT OF INITIAL TREATMENT ON THE SUBJECT:

In the very beginning of treatment, most therapists spend an inordinate amount of time trying to deal with the facial expression issue:

"You don't deserve to be hit because you glanced across the room!"
"No, there is nothing wrong with your facial expressions!"
"No, that's THEIR interpretation of what you are feeling!"
"If someone made a grimace at you on the street, would you punch him in the gut? There are many reasons why we don't punch someone over a grimace, and there are many reasons why a lot of people don't do it on the street! Because they could be arrested! Punching you in the secrecy of a home is as illegal as doing it on a street. It is harder to arrest people who do it in a home and that's why abusers choose home to do it. It's called isolation and a lot of abusers practice isolation on their victims. They are also cowards and liars. In order to be an effective coward and a liar, they have to do their abuse  without eyes on the situation. Anyway, always think of this as being as arrest-able as punching you in the gut on a busy street with people looking on. Do you understand what I am saying? This is not normal behavior on your abuser's part. Looking at someone does not make his actions redeemable. This has nothing to do with you. Not at all. Don't be brainwashed!"
"Glances and facial expressions can have many interpretations, plus they are all fleeting. Don't get talked into deserving to be punished over them!"
"No, that's called gaslighting! I'm a therapist and I don't think you are crazy! I'm the one doling out the diagnoses! There is absolutely nothing crazy about you at all!"
"Again, everyone in the room, listen up! Abusers love to call you crazy! Many love to punish you over facial expressions and glances!"
"Did you deserve to be hit because your husband decided that how you looked at him was offensive? If a three year old child looked at you with that expression, would you hit that child? No, of course you wouldn't! So, why should you get hit for that same expression?"
"Did you plan on an expression just to hurt your mother? No, it was a fleeting expression, something that changes from moment to moment. That does not deserve your mother's abandonment of you!"

This is not much different than the Turpins trying to convince their children that if they get water from the faucet past their wrists, they deserve to be chained up, lying in their own excrement and beaten.

Did those children still get startled if water splashed past their wrists even when they were away from their parents and into foster homes? Probably yes. Because they were groomed so consistently that water past their wrists was a punishable offense.

Do victims of domestic violence get hung up on what is sweeping across their face? Yes, absolutely. It takes time to get past the brainwashing about facial expressions, vocal tones and the violence.

But if you want to survive and to be happy, you must allow domestic violence workers to help you shed the grooming and the brainwashing. Spending your time with other survivors is important too, as you will realize it is possible to get through the experiences.

As long as you and your therapist are questioning the validity of someone punishing you over facial expressions, glances and vocal tones, you are on the right track. If you have a therapist who hasn't addressed this issue, and it is a big issue in your relationship with your abuser, I would find another therapist. In fact any kind of erroneous blaming is too big an issue for a therapist to ignore.

There is never an excuse for punishing you over facial expressions, glances and vocal tones. In fact, if you are an adult (over age 18 years old), there are no reasons for punishments, period. Always look at punishments in close personal relationships as abuse. If you are under age 18, and this is a pattern (i.e. not a one-time occurrence), you can call Child Protective Services (even without your parent's permission).

(edit on 7/7/2020):

After I published this post, Richard Grannon put up a video that I think best explains the dynamic of what goes on in domestic violence counseling to get a co-dependent thinking about breaking free of their abuser: to stop fawning, to stop being brainwashed that just a glance deserves a beating (or other kinds of abuse), and ultimately to stop victimization. 

My comment to him was the following:

"This is a much more elaborated version that is taught in domestic violence counseling (especially women who are beaten for just glancing at someone of the opposite sex ... 'Sleeping with the Enemy' movie portrays this dynamic). Beaten women have to be talked out of 'the glance' being their fault (and yet they know it is not their fault, but again, they feel they have to please the narcissist). I am going to suggest this video on my own blog as I think this is a better way to teach it in domestic violence counseling rather than going over and over the brainwashing ("No, you don't deserve to be hit! Hitting is not a reasonable response to glancing at anything!"). This breaks it down and I think would have a greater impact at educating women in terms of 'toxic attachment' to a narcissist. Great video."

I'm not crazy about his title however. A better phrase might be "Understanding Yourself and the Narcissist in the Co-dependency Game":

"Codependent as mirror image of narcissist"

by Richard Grannon

further reading:

Erroneous Blaming - my own post

Invalidation and Perspecticide - my own post

Mommie Dearest Movie Review - my own post (Mommie Dearest as portrayed by her adoptive daughter punished her child over facial expressions, a tone of voice and a glance)

Emotional Expressions Reconsidered: Challenges to Inferring Emotion From Human Facial Movements - by Lisa Feldman Barrett, Ralph Adolphs, Stacy Marsella, Aleix M. Martinez, Seth D. Pollak for Psychological Science in the Public Interest

Perceiving the evil eye: Investigating hostile interpretation of ambiguous facial emotional expression in violent and non-violent offenders - by Niki C. Kuin, Erik D. M. Masthoff, Marcus R. Munafò and Ian S. Penton-Voak (project funded by a number of universities)

Why our facial expressions don’t reflect our feelings - by Talya Rachel Meyers for the BBC

excerpt:

For centuries, we’ve believed that facial expressions mirror our innermost emotions. But recent research has found that may be far from the truth.

Physical Aggression and Facial Expression Identification - by Alisdair James Gordon Taylor and Maria Jose for the Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada and Department of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom.

In your face: the biased judgement of fear-anger expressions in violent offenders - by
Martin Wegrzyn, Sina Westphal & Johanna Kissler
excerpt:
... For example, inmates diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder or psychopathy have been found to show deficits in emotion expression recognition ...

Factors of Emotion Recognition in Faces: Three Perspectives - by Jeremy Fox for John Hopkins University

Psychopathy and Identification of Facial Expressions of Emotion - by Mark E. Hastings, Ph.D., June P. Tangney, Ph.D., and Jeff Stuewig, Ph.D.

This article talks about the impaired recognition of sociopaths and psychopaths when it comes to facial expressions (i.e. the ability to tell whether someone else is happy or sad)

Cynical Hostility and the Accuracy of Decoding Facial Expressions of Emotions - by Kevin T. Larkin, Ronald R. Martin and Susan E. McClain for Journal of Behavioral Medicine

Generalized hostile interpretation bias regarding facial expressions: Characteristic of pathological aggressive behavior - by Smeijers D, Rinck M, Bulten E, van den Heuvel T, Verkes RJ for:

* Department of Psychiatry, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

* Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

* Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

* Pompestichting, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Psychopathic traits in adolescents and recognition of emotion in facial expressions - by Silvio José Lemos Vasconcellos, Roberta Salvador-Silva, Viviane Gauer and Gabriel José Chittó Gauer
for Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Santa Maria, RS, Brasil and Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil

Facial affect processing in incarcerated violent males: A systematic review - by
HarrietChapmana, Steven M.Gillespie and Ian J. Mitchell for Aggression and Violent Behavior

Volume 38, January–February 2018, Pages 123-138

Looking For Trouble (And Seeing It) - Association for Psychological Science

Do People See Emotions in Your Face That Aren't There? (Studies of "resting bitch face," and why women see it more than men). - by Gwendolyn Seidman Ph.D. for Psychology Today

When a smile becomes a fist: the perception of facial and bodily expressions of emotion in violent offenders - by M. E. Kret & B. de Gelder for Experimental Brain Research (Springer Link)

Facial expressions don't tell the whole story of emotion (Researchers warn of drawing too-quick conclusions about people's feelings) - Ohio State University 

Social-emotional agnosia - a Wikipedia article

Why faces don’t always tell the truth about feelings (Although AI companies market software for recognizing emotions in faces, psychologists debate whether expressions can be read so easily) - by Douglas Heaven for Nature

Alexithymia, but not autism spectrum disorder, may be related to the production of emotional facial expressions - by Dominic A. Trevisan, Marleis Bowering and Elina Birmingham for Molecular Autism

The Punishing Personality Type - by Eric R. Maisel, Ph.D., for Psychology Today
This article is about how abusers get obsessed with punishing, and why they think they have never punished you enough.

Child Abuse, Punishment or Discipline: What is the Difference - by Jody J. Pawel for The Parent's Toolshop
Note: this is only for children under 16 - 18 years old, depending on state. Punishing an adult is always abuse.

When People Say You Always Looks Angry/Upset/Worried/etc - by Chris Macleod, MSW for Succeed Socially

Lack of Facial Expressions: Symptoms & Signs - by Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD, for MedicineNet

Research says ‘emotion detection’ AI can’t do what it claims - by Taylor Telford, The Washington Post for New Hampshire Union Leader

When a Sociopath Is Hell Bent on Destroying You (If you've been abused by a sociopath, here are 16 focus points for recovery) - by Carrie Barron M.D.

My facial expressions convey feelings which I am not thinking. How can I change this? - Quora forum

Are You the Target of a Sociopath? Part I of 2 (Anti-social personalities want to dominate people. Don’t let it be you.) - by Bill Eddy LCSW, JD for Psychology Today

Part 2: How to Spot a Sociopath in 3 Steps (It helps to know some of the warning signs of sociopaths.) - by Bill Eddy LCSW, JD for Psychology Today

6 Tips to Avoid Becoming Someone’s Target of Blame (People with high-conflict personalities are always looking for someone to blame.) - by Bill Eddy LCSW, JD for Psychology Today

Narcissists, Sociopaths: Similarities, Differences, Dangers (Both of these personalities present a false self, so we must be aware) - by Bill Eddy LCSW, JD for Psychology Today

Keep the Conflict Small: 4 Tips to Avoid High Conflict (In families, dating, work and even in politics, don’t get emotionally hooked.) - by Bill Eddy LCSW, JD for Psychology Today

The Psychology of Revenge (and Vengeful People) ... (When it comes to watching your back, hone in on narcissism and anger.) - by Peg Streep for Psychology Today

Revenge and the people who seek it (New research offers insight into the dish best served cold.) - by Michael Price for American Psychological Association

Understanding and Ameliorating Revenge Fantasies in Psychotherapy - by Mardi J. Horowitz, M.D.

The Benefits, Costs, and Paradox of Revenge - Karina Schumann and Michael Ross for the University of Waterloo

Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence - by Alex Berenson for Hillside College