Note on 9/20/22: I have edited this post since publishing (spelling errors and grammatical mistakes) ...
more minor editing on 9/21/22 & 9/23/22
I haven't been publishing posts since March of this year, which is unprecedented for me considering I have so many in the wings almost ready to go. In the meantime, I do have a message for my readers below, and some news about comments I have been receiving.
I have been answering some of these comments, and a couple of them do provide some new information I haven't published yet, if you are interested. Feel free to add your thoughts and experience to be part of the conversation, especially if you are a survivor of abuse (polite discourse only).
Some of the posts getting comments include (but are not limited to):
Why It Is Important to Keep the Conversation About Gabby Petito Going: Lessons in Domestic Violence
If You Are Good and Show Altruism and Magnanimity, Will That Keep You From Being Abused?
How Dangerous is My Abuser? How Do I Get Out of a Dangerous Relationship?
Do Abusers Project Their Thoughts and Feelings On To Others?
Interviews with Someone Diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Abusers and Splitting
Verbal Abuse: Constant Insults and Criticisms
In the meantime, I also have some words to say (very shortened version) of what I believe is necessary to know when suffering through abuse:
- abuse escalates
- abuse can and does reach dangerous levels
- abuse can, and often does produce the debilitating symptoms of PTSD, which manifest as physical symptoms, not just emotional/mental ones, so it is very unhealthy in a myriad of ways. Some of those symptoms are listed in a section below.
- the majority of abusers are not out to change their behaviors; they are out to inflict more pain and get away with their behaviors. Important to know ...
- abusers with Cluster B personality disorders try to get their way by raging, threatening, and using abusive tactics (many of those tactics are listed on the right side of this blog)
- abusers often target the most vulnerable
Here is a slightly longer version of the above:
Not really, however:
Borderlines without narcissistic traits have the ability to change the most, but it can mean baby steps, a lot of hard work, and a very long journey.
Narcissistic traits that bleed over into some borderlines include:
* arrogance (particularly "I'm right all of the time and you are wrong all of the time")
* putting their children into roles (one child is deemed to be "all bad", and one is deemed to be "all good")
* being overly sweet to friends, acquaintances, and strangers, but being cruel, abusive and bullying in the home or to their partner or kids (which is a form of gaslighting).
If they have the above narcissistic traits, they aren't very likely to change.
Borderlines can have narcissistic traits, but many of them don't. They can have empathy, and that sets them apart from narcissists. Narcissists will always have very little empathy, and psychopaths have none, or close to none.
Many borderlines aren't particularly arrogant, many don't gaslight, or split their children into unchanging roles. Or they may show arrogance and grandiosity in the evening, but then feel horrified by their own actions (particularly if they rage in a haughty style) by midnight, and then experience an emotional crash and feel the opposite way: very low self esteem, self pity, suicidal.
The reasons why people with narcissistic traits - particularly arrogance and lack of empathy - don't change, is precisely because of the arrogance, and lack of empathy, especially the kind of arrogance where they feel they are right all of the time, and that your job is to listen to them and do what they tell you to do. When people have lack of empathy with that brand of arrogance (which is really a propped-up grandiosity - an image they try to maintain at all cost), it adds up to them not wanting to hear how much they have hurt you or others, and not caring if they hurt you or others. Lack of empathy with arrogance is partly a brain issue, and it is also a personality trait, neither of which can be changed very easily or very much (I will go into this in depth in another post).
Note: narcissists will say that you hurt them if you criticize them, or if they perceive criticism from you, and they will expect your empathy to flow in a never ending direction towards them afterwards, and very often when you give them apologies and empathy, they feel it is not good enough (because what they really want is to control you and use it as an excuse to hurt you when they feel they are losing power).
However they are most likely hypocrites because narcissists make an art out of criticizing others, even insulting people, manipulating facts that other people tell them in such a way that is not only nasty but the facts are twisted into half truths. Narcissists are usually much more constant, harsh and cruel than you could ever think of being: if you are their partner or kid a lot of them tell you repeatedly that you are crazy or stupid.
They often expect you to live with low self esteem and to keep enduring getting your self esteem battered, while they expect you to prop up a "perfect image" of them, another hypocrisy.
The reason they get hurt by criticisms but expect you to take much worse forms of it from them is that your criticism of them is a wound to their self-appointed authority over you, their grandiosity, their fantasies that they are superior to you (in other words, they insist that they come first, and they will rage at you until you follow their script of how they want this to happen). So this doesn't really count as a legitimate "hurt" in terms of this discussion.
Knowing that narcissistic abusers are extremely unlikely to change, means the decision rests with you as to whether you can engage with or want to engage with a person who lacks empathy, is terrible at listening (refuses to acknowledge any hurt or pain they may have caused you), is most likely to lecture, particularly "behavior lectures". If you want them to address the pain you are living under, they will do anything to deflect the fact that they are a culprit. They cannot stand to do anything except to be in the dominant position (cannot compromise, or address your concerns).
They tend to trick you, play head games, play with your self esteem, sabotage you with negative comments behind your back, blackmail you. They escalate abuse because they never are satisfied with the amount of power and control they already have over you.
Some of them are downright spiteful (the more dangerous abusers).
People with empathy are the only people among us who can truly change, and the more empathy we have, the more ability we have to change. Still, most of us aren't going to change drastically: personalities tend to be more fixed than mutable, and in the best case scenario, can only change 30 percent at most.
When we are in abusive relationships that aren't changing and are getting worse, and when our focus is mainly on what to do with abusive relationships or a toxic family, we sacrifice living in a world of consistent empathy and consistent love. Abusers withdraw their love to punish you, so they are not capable of real love, and the investment of time and energy for you is always going to add up to pain. When we stay engaged in abusive relationships most of the time, we sacrifice the possibility of relationships where mutual trust, mutual empathy can be expressed (most abusers will insist that the empathy go one way: towards them). In staying in abusive relationships, we are not available for the best forms of mutual belonging, of safety, mutual understanding and mutual intimacy, the elements that make us feel whole with the world. We also can't heal properly from the trauma the abuse brought to us. We are not as likely to experience the best form of working together in harmony. We aren't likely to experience mutual understanding, mutual compromise, mutual compassion and reasonable solutions.
One of the reasons why we feel stuck is that abusers often use smear campaign tactics with gaslighting ("they are crazy and should be institutionalized ... you shouldn't even talk to them" - one example) - it is an attempt at isolating their victims from better relationships and a better life.
Simplistically said:
- how rages for many borderlines play out: rage, feel guilty, beat themselves up, lots of self pity
- rages for narcissists: rage, feel like it might ruin their reputation, get paranoid, pretend to be a victim
- rages for malignant narcissists and sociopaths: rage, feel like their victims brought it upon themselves for being so gullible and easy to brainwash, feel like it might touch upon their reputation but feel they are too clever and that they can weasel out of anything, thinks of ways of turning the tables so that they appear to be the victim to others and their victims appear to be the perpetrators, either wish they had been more clever in punishing their victims or make "revenge plans" to better hurt or sabotage their victims
- rages for psychopaths: rage, feel no remorse for what they have done, pat themselves on the back for "a job well done", feel invincible, go on to do it again. Doesn't feel fear, paranoia, doesn't care about anyone's feelings, or that they will get caught. No one means anything to them. Most laws don't mean anything to them. The worst of them believe that other people are to be used and abused to get what they want.
Again, can you live with, or do you want to put up with rages?
Habitually rageful people tend not to have empathy (and especially when they are in the act of raging, or feel that raging at you is good for them in terms of getting what they want out of you). Habitually rageful people also tend to amp up the rages rather than cool them down.
Rages can be overt: screaming, yelling, loud, insults, swearing, out of control, telling you what to do, where to get off, telling you to go away, pushing and shoving, slapping, hitting, pounding their fists at the wall, throwing things or smashing up things, telling you that they can't stand you or don't love you any more.
And rages can be covert: spiteful, attempting to hurt your reputation with common friends or at work (smear campaigns), "scapegoating" rages (rages over spilled milk, a look on your face, forgetting to take out the garbage, rages over remarks you made that were never meant to hurt them), the silent treatment and stonewalling (a selfish maneuver meant to pressure you to give into them and a sign that they have no empathy), hurts you through personal property (stealing, throwing things out, giving your things away, taking your picture off the wall, cleaning out your bank account, sending the message they don't care about you, they don't care about respecting your property or the rule of law, or your contributions), hurts you through triangulation ("I have a lover and I don't care how it makes you feel!" when they are married to you, or "I never loved you. Your sibling is the only one I ever loved" when they are your parent).
Again, is this something you can live with, or want to live with? Is there a better way to live in the world than living under a constant cycle of escalating rages, threats, put-downs, lots of instability, and scapegoating? Is this the best use of your potential? That should be the focus.
Again, changes in the worst part of the human race are extremely unlikely (and the probability that they will get worse is predictable - look at tyrannical vindictive authoritarian leaders for how they conduct themselves). Look to the traits I have listed on the right hand side and see if you truly want to deal with these traits going forward?
Some other traits I have not listed in this post or on the side (and where I will be covering them in the future) are:
- jealousy (the urge to trip you up to make themselves appear "superior" and to feel less jealous)
- confirmation bias (opinions and stances that never change, especially about the people in their lives, no matter whether their views are fantasies, or what you do for them, or what apologies and overtures you make)
- sadism and cruelty
- coercive control
- punishments
- trying to kill your self esteem
- threats
- brainwashing
- infantilization and parentification: (update 11/22/22 - this post has been finished) - talking at you as though you are a child who needs to learn lessons from them when you are an adult, or expecting you to take care of them as though you are their parent when you are their child (the role of the handmaid child).
- demands, commands and micromanaging what you do, how you speak, how you react to their control and domination tactics
- hoovering, sweet-talk, and otherwise drawing you into another round of conflicts and abuse (can include revenge for "not abusing you enough the first time")
- physical abuse (not all abusers are physically abusive, but those who are, tend to be dangerous, especially if verbal and emotional abuses have been escalating)
- scapegoating (the urge to use you for blame out of convenience for what is "going wrong" in their lives ... it is also where they display the most hypocrisy - also mostly dangerous)
I would bet that you will feel like you are being slowly killed by all of these tactics and traits of theirs rather than changing them. Note: they can often change them temporarily and "for show" if you are doing what they want you to do and giving in to them, but otherwise they won't. But always remember it is "temporary". True change is a long hard process. The "temporary" niceties, or temporary relief from abuse, doesn't change who they are or what they will do. Some of them terrorize you more when you give in.
I encourage anyone who is going through abuse to contact a domestic violence counselor or center to assess the dangers. The counselors may suggest a safety plan, a slow or fast withdrawal process depending on the risks, support groups, legal or financial help, shelters, medical or emotional treatment for what you endured or are still enduring.
Why it matters
The more rage or punishment cycles you endure from abusers, the less longevity you will have, the more upset you will be, and eventually debilitating physical symptoms will likely appear.
Being constantly exposed to rages, discards and abuse mean that the stress hormones will be constantly firing off, especially if you are also being threatened in addition to the rages and abuse. Constant stress means symptoms physically, mentally and emotionally.
Physical symptoms:
- stomach aches and other stomach issues which never go away, and cannot be explained by a gastroenterologist (in "fight or flight mode", the blood needed for digestion goes away from the gut and into our limbs; the heart also beats faster). In PTSD, this response can be going on all of the time, thus chronic stomach aches or nausea, sensitivities to foods, bloated gut, and other symptoms.
- lack of sleep, light sleep, and nightmares when you do sleep (if you are really sleep deprived, only sleep 3 hrs. a night, you can have hallucinations).
- heart issues (racing heart, heart pain, heart disease)
- constant overall muscle pain (especially in legs, neck, shoulders and arms)
- constant headaches
- constant state of panic
- auto-immune diseases
- extreme weight gain or loss
- shaking, trembling, the feeling that your nerves are going haywire, problem getting your words out (speech impediments, not remembering words, "trying to find words" to finish your sentence and panicking because you can't retrieve the word from your memory, nervous speech, stammering, often accompanied by heart palpitations)
- prognosis for longevity: not good
All of these are symptoms of PTSD and you can have them in varying degrees, or you can have some of them but not all of them. Symptoms can fade in and out or be constant. If you have most of these symptoms, and they are becoming disabling, you have most likely been over-exposed to traumatic events or Cluster B people.
Mental and emotional symptoms:
- when rare feelings of calmness come over you, it is extremely difficult to maintain
- easily triggered (symptoms re-emerging) over sights, sounds and especially when you are around your abusers or people who remind you of your abusers. Swearing, hyper critical behaviors, insults, loud angry voices, violence on T.V., commanding or demanding people or attitudes, arm-twisting, punishing people, manipulations or manipulative people, people who want to dominate you, also are usually triggering.
Re-emerging symptoms often mean 5 - 7 day periods where you will want to isolate from others. If your abusers are still in your life in some minimal way, you can limit what they talk to you about so that you don't get triggered again, and if they can't respect that, which they probably won't, then you can always make the choice to remove them from your life completely and forever. "Completely" means not allowing them to contact you or control you in any way: making sure they are not allowed to see you at your most vulnerable moments: in the hospital or urgent care (nothing like mean abusive people in those environments!), when you or your loved ones have been diagnosed with a chronic or terminal illness, when you are going through PTSD symptoms, when you are alone without support, when you are going through a divorce or break-up, when you are financially devastated or you and your loved ones have had an accident. It means separating from them as much as you can. You'll have a great desire to separate once the symptoms get to a certain point anyway.
Other Mental and Emotional symptoms of PTSD:
- inability to focus or concentrate
- inability to complete simple tasks without crying or other emotions
- inability to find resolutions to issues in your life
- feelings of doom
- feeling that you no longer have feelings (numbness): happens after an intense emotional separation from an abuser
- feeling that your life or ability to cope is falling apart
- chronic depression
- "everything seems to make you cry"
- generalized anxiety disorder
- social anxiety disorder
- separation anxiety disorder especially from someone who you feel safe with, where you feel if they left you alone that your abusers would find you or a vulnerability in you, and attack you some more.
- other anxiety disorders (less common in PTSD than the ones listed above, but still possible)
- For victims of child abuse:
If you have a parent who practices idealize-devalue-discard or love bomb-devalue-destroy (the "destroy" is more indicative of physical abusers), you will go through a process of three phases. I list them here:
feeling terrorized that you will be abandoned (first phase)
then the terror of being abandoned plus the terror that they will try to reconnect or engage with you again (second phase) - this is a very uncomfortable kind of cognitive dissonance, which can vacillate between guilt and feeling justified, between sadness (of losing your old life) and joy (for being in a new life without abuse), between wanting justice and not wanting to make any "waves", between wanting to understand what happened and feeling like you don't want to understand anything and prefer a life of ignorance, between thinking you can deal with them to realizing you can't and the dangers. It often comes down to more opposite feelings and anxiety than you can seem to handle.
and finally the concern of being abandoned has dropped, but the terror that they will try to contact you, get back into your life, or try to hurt you again remains (third phase) - can last a long time or even forever, and produce a lot of anxiety because you have figured out by then that they have no empathy for you. Their attempting contact is more likely to have the same effect on you as a known criminal wanting to make a visit. The threat they will return can produce many sleepless nights. Note: if you have "stalker parents" it is really important to get domestic violence services and police involved. It is nothing to take lightly.
Also note: the reason why children and adult children go through these three very common almost predictable phases is because biologically we are programmed to trust our parents to take care of us, keep us safe, be consistently engaged with us in a loving and supportive way, until we reach adulthood, and if they aren't this way, they are scary, the opposite of what we expect parents to be, monster-like, beings who will hurt us and are not to be trusted. By the time we reach adulthood, we are programmed to expect them to respect our decisions and autonomy, to accept how we relate to our own children and other family members, to accept who we want in our lives and who we don't want in our lives, to respect that we have our own lives now and that they need to give up the reins of control and lecturing and treat us as co-adults. If we don't get that, we tend to think, "Something is wrong here. This doesn't seem to be 'the way it is supposed to be.'"
If we don't have consistent love, respect, safety, stability, and reasonableness as children or adults, or our parents are cruel to us, or if we are abandoned heartlessly with narcissistic discards, the mere presence of our parents can send off a litany of debilitating PTSD symptoms that are too hard to live with again. Most abused children prefer to heal and leave the past behind.
- For victims of marriage and partner abuse:
Cognitive dissonance is still probable, but the phases above are not as predictable as they are for child abuse survivors (I'll cover the intricacies of why in another post). Since partnerships mean different things to different people, depending on the disparate ways we are brought up these days, plus our individual expectations of how people should act in a partnership, even biology fails to tell us what we should expect out of a marriage or partnership. If we go into a partnership assuming we are both "equal adults" in terms of responsibilities and decision-making, living with a partner who refuses to live that way can mean catastrophe for the partner who wants those things. Because of constantly changing gender roles, a huge upswing in child abuse since the Industrial Revolution which effects generations of people and their attitudes, a country of citizens who seem to prefer more individualism out of life than family, a country of citizens who are seeking "personal fulfillment" out of partner relationships instead of the creation of a healthy intertwined family, a country of citizens who prefer desk jobs over manual labor where they are working with members of the opposite sex, the advent of birth control taking away prior norms like men ingratiating themselves to a whole family of potential in-laws to get their daughter's hand in marriage, the advent of much smaller families and the new generation preferring not to have children at all, the advent of school children potentially becoming a victim of school shootings putting undue stress on people who want to have families, the rise of psychopaths in western societies with the USA coming in third, the advent of atheism wiping out traditional expectations of certain morals and rules of marriage - a lot of these very profound changes have not caught up to our current level of evolution and biological proclivities. There seems to be a lot of confusion as to whether there are any rules at all, including whether you have to be true to your partner, or even consider him or her beyond what you want for your own individual needs and desires. So divorce rates are sky high.
But to get back to PTSD ...
The symptoms of PTSD that I covered above aren't something you can control or deal with on your own most of the time: counseling from mental health professionals is usually sought to get you on a healthier track (domestic violence counseling, and trauma counseling at the very least). Note: keeping abusers out of your life or on "very minimal contact" with absolutely no drama or emotionally-laid discussions is the very first step to healing. Without that step, you will keep going down the rabbit hole of worsening symptoms for you, and more raging from them. Without treatment for symptoms, and with an abuser still in your life, PTSD is likely to get much, much worse.
If you tell your abuser(s) that you have PTSD, and they are not making any signs that they want to help you, or provide you with peace, comfort, safety, stability or compassion, which they won't be (pretty much guaranteed), consider that these people are not good for you in any way.
Consider also that you weren't born to carry these symptoms, or to take on the constant rages of others, or the constant domination by people who are hypocritical, ethically and morally bankrupt, and cruel. Consider that you are a vital part of the planet and its healing: even healing what ails the human race (abuse, violence, corruption, war and ecological heartlessness). Perhaps you are a vital part of what the human race needs in order to heal: transforming a past of dark deeds by humans into an evolution that is more compassionate, more peaceful and harmonious, more about healthy co-operative relationships. Perhaps if we treated our kids with the respect and love that we would have wanted, and in ways that honor co-operation (as opposed to what abusers do to extract co-operation from you to fulfill their own needs: coercive control and abusing the most vulnerable among us). Start change with the changeable.
Some quotes I found on the
"War at Home" Facebook page:
