As usual, this post features a number of sections, as well as a section devoted to Dr. Ramani's passionate videos on this subject, as well as a "further reading section".
This subject figures into a lot of interaction with narcissists and their enablers. It is actually a preview to so many other future posts I'll be writing on how toxic positivity figures into other tactics. One of those "tricks of the narcissist's trade" that narcissists, malignant narcissists and sociopaths tend to all use, particularly in grooming, is to attempt to get you to see your reactions to their abuse as "being negative", that you are flawed because you aren't focused on the positives.
I discussed this phenomenon briefly in my post about the silencing of others in narcissistic family systems. This post takes it a bit further in that your depression, your trauma, your inability to "move on" from past events is creating "negative vibes" and a "negative environment" in a family that wants to move on from the past and forget about the issues you have raised about past events.
I also talked about how trauma becomes an involuntary brain issue for people going through trauma in that post too, and why so many survivors of abuse do not "move on" as quickly as people are pressuring them to do.
Toxic positivity can be found in all areas of life: at your job, between friends, between siblings, between partners, and between parents and children. When propagated by a parent on a child, it is quite challenging for the child to deal with as it will invariably lead to a "stuffing of emotions" (very unhealthy for the child, even if it seems ideal for the parent).
Some parents grew up with the ill informed notion that administering abuse and pain to a child "toughened them up", made them more resilient and independent, made them more submissive, and even taught children good lessons. These would be parents who were born from the 1930s - around 1960. We know now from all of the studies that were done that all of these notions produce just the opposite:
* Abuse makes children distrustful of authority, so they will come out of the experience not trusting that the parent has their best interests at heart, and will be clammed up in terms of revealing much, if any, information to the parent about themselves, their whereabouts, struggles they are having, and so on.
* It doesn't make children more resilient and independent so much as dependent on other people for parental care. It also makes children more resistant to their parents, more rejecting of a parent.
* Abuse does not make children more submissive except in the very short term, under lots of pressure, threats and duress. What tends to happen instead is that children are more likely to be a rebel, and to be rebellious. They can be outwardly rebellious like scapegoat children tend to be, or inwardly rebellious, disapproving of the parent, pointing out the hypocrisies of the parent behind their back, having very little or no respect for the parent, but staying quiet about it all, like a lot of lost children, as described in family systems theory, do.
* Abuse does not teach children lessons beyond the fact that the parent may be blind or cruel, that they don't care for the child or children, that they put themselves first before the well being of their children. I explain it in this post. What children get out of painful lessons, is pain, and that's about it. They don't tend to see the parent's perspectives because the parent does not see the child's perspectives (sharing perspectives has to be an open, sharing part of the relationship, and that won't happen when pain is involved). What happens is a distrustful child.
Toxic positivity makes all of this worse. The expectations that a child should be happy and smiling while he is in pain is, well, obnoxious and unrealistic.
I thought it would be good to define what "toxic positivity" is, so that you can understand the contexts in which it is used.
Writers of Wikipedia describe toxic positivity this way:
Toxic positivity or positive toxicity is dysfunctional emotional management without the full acknowledgment of negative emotions, particularly anger and sadness. Socially, it is the act of dismissing another person's negative emotions by suggesting a positive emotion instead.[1]
Definition
Toxic positivity is a "pressure to stay upbeat no matter how dire one's circumstance is", which may prevent emotional coping by feeling otherwise natural emotions.[2] Toxic positivity happens when people believe that negative thoughts about anything should be avoided. Even in response to events which normally would evoke sadness, such as loss or hardships, positivity is encouraged as a means to cope, but tends to overlook and dismiss true expression.[3]
Toxic positivity is defined in Psychology Today as:
... the act of avoiding, suppressing, or rejecting negative emotions or experiences. This may take the form of denying your own emotions or someone else denying your emotions, insisting on positive thinking instead. Although setting aside difficult emotions is sometimes necessary temporarily, denying negative feelings long term is harmful because it can prevent people from processing their emotions and overcoming their distress. ...
... Emotional suppression doesn’t only fail to resolve the underlying problem, but it can also breed guilt, shame, sadness, and anxiety. It can even backfire by magnifying suppressed feelings. ...
This is a definition I found in the article, Toxic Positivity—Why It's Harmful and What to Say Instead from the site, Very Well Mind by Kendra Cherry, MSEd and medically reviewed by Rachel Goldman, PhD, FTOS:
Toxic positivity is the belief that no matter how dire or difficult a situation is, people should maintain a positive mindset. While there are benefits to being optimistic and engaging in positive thinking, toxic positivity rejects all difficult emotions in favor of a cheerful and often falsely-positive façade.
The article also discusses the harmful effects.
However, when narcissists, malignant narcissists and sociopaths pressure you to adapt to toxic positivity it is usually much more nefarious, and is part of a number of tactics to either get people under their control using gaslighting tactics, or taking something or someone away from another person.
In other words, it is used for self serving purposes.
Here is an article about how narcissists use toxic positivity:
From the article How to avoid shaming others with toxic positivity (Toxic positivity and narcissism) by Nathalie Matinek PHD for the website "Hacking Narcissism":
Some of the narcissistic behaviours embedded in toxic positivity are: Gaslighting: They invalidate your experience by projecting their preferred version of your perceptions or events that occurred in your life. Superiority: They assume they know what's best for you and what you should think and feel instead.
What makes this narcissistic behaviour is that toxic positivity can be a form of control to eliminate unwanted experiences or feelings by offering or imposing a preferred narrative or interpretation on the other person who is in a more vulnerable state. They are ‘helping’ with toxic positivity to restore their own comfort, under the guise of empathy and comforting the other.
Some of the narcissistic behaviours embedded in toxic positivity are:
Gaslighting: They invalidate your experience by projecting their preferred version of your perceptions or events that occurred in your life.
Superiority: They assume they know what’s best for you and what you should think and feel instead.
Self-centred: They centre their thoughts, feelings, opinions, experiences over yours and others.
Black and white thinking: They have fixed rules about how the world works and how others should behave or see situations.
Conversation control: They move conversations away from a confronting topic to a preferred version of the topic to either end the conversation or move into a different topic that involves taking action.
Some people don’t notice what’s happening in the moment and believe that the person employing toxic positive statements is being supportive. When they do notice, it’s because they feel ashamed that they made such a big deal out of nothing, which is similar to the effect of gaslighting.
This is also dangerous when someone is in a situation that is truly detrimental to their wellbeing. Toxic positivity can also be used unintentionally to align with a perpetrator, shaming (and potentially revicitimizing) the person in distress but believing that their positive mindset approach is going to lift that person up.
* "Oh, here we go again! Ms. Depression has just entered the room!"
* "I got raped too. But I didn't go around with a dark cloud month after month! You need to snap out of it and give the family a godda&m break! Everyone is tired of dealing with this!"
* "You know we did a lot of good for you! Stop focusing on the negative!"
* "This person is so negative! I just can't deal with them. Find a way to dis-invite them please!"
* "Sure my daughter has had a lot of trauma. But if she hasn't gotten over it, we're just not dealing with her or it any more. She has choices like everyone, to be positive."
* "My uncle brings his health problems and all of his trauma about where ever he goes! Please put me at another table so that I don't have to listen to him!"
* To a child: "Oh, you can't take a little slap on the face even when you deserved it!? You're going to cry!? You're so negative!!"
* "I could care less about you. All you are is a big negative nelly to the entire family. It's like you just don't belong any more. No one wants to hear any more negativity from you!"
* "Your brother is so much more positive than you are! I just like him a lot more because of that!"
* "When you criticize me, it's not doing you any good. I don't care how you feel, especially when you try to hold me as the culprit of your pain. How dare you be negative towards me! Just for that, you will be published severely for that!" - this is a typical covert narcissist's way of thinking, and hopefully you can see the gaslighting in this statement, and punishing a child over this is off the wall!
* "Your aunt has had a bad car accident and isn't invited because she's just so negative. We want a positive atmosphere here! Having fun isn't about listening to her go on and on about her car accident!"
* "We achieve bliss in this spiritual group of ours. Keeping positive and blissful means keeping out anyone who is negative. We don't need to be let down by their negativity."
I knew someone in a work situation who was constantly being stolen from. She was scapegoated for complaining about what was happening to her. They let her go and kept her perpetrator. "Oh, she was SO NEGATIVE! Do you hear how she talks? She blames ______________ for stealing from her! No one is stealing from her!" - with no evidence or looking for evidence about the stealing. I saw her getting stolen from, and I told them so. And then they turned on me: "Oh, you're both just jealous! You are so negative on her, so it has to be jealousy! That's why you are both accusing this poor woman of stealing!" - oh, yes, this happens, and it is pure enabling. No one looked into anything. Dismissing the perpetrator and blaming the victim was all based on "belief". As far as they were concerned, the perpetrator brought them peace, until that person was on to the next victim she wanted to get out of the workplace.
And you can see that it teaches others, first and foremost, to have a lack of empathy. You can see how enablers like in the last example can help greatly in promoting a work or family environment with even more of a lack of empathy. Narcissists are all about lack of empathy, and they like an environment that doesn't have empathy, except when some tragedy befalls them. For malignant narcissists, they have no empathy, and enablers can adopt it all (called "having fleas").
accusing victims of negativity after they have been abused, treated unjustly, or when they have been abandoned over trumped up charges:
As a lot of us know, narcissists, malignant narcissists and sociopaths often accuse their victims of abuse of being "so negative" and to develop a more "positive attitude" of things that happened to them so that these victims won't talk about the things that hurt them with other people outside the realm of the narcissist's "group", and the ways in which they were hurt (perpetrators tend to have a Cluster B personality disorders including Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder or a combination of these personality disorders in the way of malignant narcissism).
They all do this more or less, refusing accountability, lying or omitting facts that brought about the abuse. So accusing victims of being "negative nillies" is along the same lines, and an addition to the lying. If they can convince others that their victims are crazy, mean and also negative, it keeps the victim vulnerable for another round of abuse, or at the very least being raged at.
Toxic positivity is also another way of silencing and censoring the words and thoughts of victims of abuse not to talk about their experiences, to keep toxic secrets to themselves, and to keep them from seeking comfort, friends, help, therapy, counseling, research, help from family members, law enforcement, or an attorney.
Narcissists are obsessed about their image and reputation, so they do not want you to reveal how abusive they are because it might sully that.
Sociopaths become obsessed with taking people or things from other people, and need you to focus on anything positive so that they can get away with it.
This is to say that in the context of narcissistic and sociopathic family systems, insisting on toxic positivity tends to be about attempts to isolate victims further and further (often to push them out of the entire family) and to brainwash and silence other family members from talking to victims, so that the narcissist can control the narrative.
Many narcissists just pay off other family members with promises, money, gifts, grand family get-togethers where they will corner each member to find out where they stand, flatteries, down payments, and family cruises (and very obviously not invite victims).
All of this and more turns into another favorite tactic of narcissists and sociopaths, the baiting tactic. They sense you will feel even more hurt and angry and that you will go to them and ask them why they told family members lies about you, or told them not to listen to you or your tragedy, or told them that you are crazy so that they won't hear you out or take anything you have to say at all seriously. Sometimes this baiting tactic works and you go hot-headed right to the narcissist for a show-down, but I have to say just as often it doesn't work. Sometimes the fact that people can be so easily brainwashed elicits disgust instead. Sometimes you realize they've been brainwashing people for many, many years, perhaps even decades, and these backstabbings and false narratives preceded the situation you are in now to such an extent that you know that to defend yourself will do no good. Sometimes you've just had enough of the whole entire narcissistic family cult, and it is the final straw to dealing with any of it again.
So toxic positivity figures into a lot of their already-used tactics, so when you get to defending yourself or getting angry over what they have done to your reputation, you have very few recourses. Again this is just one more aspect as to why 90 percent of scapegoats, the ones who are abused, used, shamed, blamed and rejected the most, tend to go no contact, often with most of their family. Toxic positivity has no place in closeness (usually - there are some caveats), or for that matter, in healing from narcissistic abuse.
Do scapegoats sometimes wish they could talk to a family member about a fun trip they took with another family member? Sure they do, but the pressure of toxic positivity or censorship that looms over their heads, makes them more likely to withdraw unless the relationship has always been superficial, never about mutual concern for one another.
So what is the one caveat I mentioned?
It is this: If the other person is just dealing with too many tragedies of their own, or is also a victim of the narcissist, it is understandable why they can't deal with your issues too.
But if they aren't dealing with a lot of tragedies, what if you slip up by mistake, mention the perpetrator by name in another context? Will the other person be slapping you on the wrist to "stay positive"? I think it is entirely possible and I've read enough forums to say that I've seen a lot of this.
Sometimes people can be a little more polite and say things like: "I'm sorry you got hurt, just so you know," and then jump to another topic. Jumping from topic to topic happens in a lot of family gatherings any way, and is a lot less obnoxiously censoring, and sometimes it is barely noticeable.
But always beware that narcissists and sociopaths have been grooming your family members to look and see you the way they want you to be seen, probably pretty consistently, and for years on end, so that they can claim the whole entire rest of the family to be their allies and to show you that you have none, and that no one cares at all about you or your plight. They have probably been paying these family members off with gifts, money, kind words and good deeds for years or decades too, to cover up their treatment of you.
I'm sure that many scapegoats become suicidal over this, and I'd bet a major portion of suicides happen over families treating other family members this way, but believe it or not, for anyone contemplating suicide most scapegoats heal and find that their best years are ahead of them, rather than behind them. Being constantly tripped up by narcissists and sociopaths in your family with all of this gaslighting, baiting, spreading nasty false gossip, backstabbing, ally-ing against you behind your back, trying very, very hard to get family members to think that you are crazy, or inept, or stupid, or something that you are not, will no longer be happening. If what you lived through, and the pain you endured cannot be respected and met with empathy, then is this really a relationship to hold on to? What is there really left of it? Puppet sayings by the narcissist, where it gets spread to other puppets in the narcissist's circle?
The silver lining to family members bailing out on you and accusing you of negativity is that they will no longer be a conduit of information for the head narcissist. It means the head narcissist will know very, very little about you, and therefor won't have many avenues of attack left at their disposal, not even nasty gossip as it requires a little of the truth, however little it may be, even all of the proxy ways they seek out. And believe it or not, that drives them crazy, not having information. Who you are, what you are doing and saying will be like trying to find a crumb in a dark lake.
Most scapegoats find other scapegoats, and that becomes the way forward in terms of meaningful connections. Scapegoats are typically the product of alcoholic families, narcissistic families, sociopathic families, crime families, and toxic communities where a minority is treated with toxic rules and regulations (think Jim Crow laws, or laws that discriminated against women).
This means that healing groups tend to be where scapegoats go, including ALANON, CoDA, ACOA and ACON groups, as well as groups and religious organizations that deal with particular kinds of prejudice. Change does not happen without a group, as anyone dealing with prejudice can attest to, and beating back the de-humanizing aspects of scapegoating types of prejudices takes organization, safety protocols, and avoidance of scapegoating prejudiced kinds of people and groups. Which is to say that scapegoating, even in families, tends to be a particular kind of prejudice that is most likely intergenerational and part of the extended family picture.
Very few narcissists go to these kinds of groups. The kind of talk in these groups would probably turn a narcissist off really fast as a lot of the teachings and sayings are about accountability, empathy, compassion and self reflection. The twelve steps are particularly impossible for narcissists and sociopaths to do, authentically speaking. They'd have to wear a poker face, but more likely they'd be wincing the entire way through the twelve steps, and never want to go back again. As a therapist once told me, "Scapegoats stand together, and stick together", and they will defend each other since they know all too well what scapegoating sounds like, feels like, and the types of people who perpetrate it (the public is becoming educated!).
However, there is a caveat to that too, and I'll be writing about that soon.
greatly over-reacting to criticism with rage and/or punishments, trying to censure your findings on them
Consider that one of the reasons they want "toxic positivity" so bad in the first place is to keep you from being critical of them, and to keep flattery going in their direction at all times. It's no secret that they like their ego strokes, and it doesn't seem to matter what form it takes. Psychopaths are the most flattering charming people in the world, for instance.
If this is the expected outcome, and they are shaming you about not being positive all of the time, in every instance, about them, it would have to be fake positivity they want, right? What ever is not authentic, is fake, right? So it doesn't make sense when they hurt you to want you to give them that toxic positivity over those hurts, for instance, but narcissists seem to want that positivity any way.
And why they'd want that fake flattery and toxic positivity every time they do something noteworthy, whether that noteworthiness is to hurt or help others, it is to "build" their reputation and "grandiosity". It's how they get in high places themselves, fawning and prostrating themselves all over the rich and famous, flattering them like crazy. Right?
And knowing covert narcissists and malignant narcissists, they really can be extremely fake about all of this fawning to the point where they'd kiss a ring, since they are tyrants and criticize others behind their backs relentlessly. They want you to do that for them too, apparently, to be just like them. They want to pretend that they are the King or Queen instead, and you'll just have to stuff your real emotions, and pretend everything is great, and nod to everything they want (pretending that is great too), even their abuses and ill-fated plans to destroy, go to war, or hurt others, or to hurt you.
"Oh, master, I've learned so much from you! Hurting other people works! Great teacher!" is what they expect, but rarely receive and this is why.
Some narcissists will get on your case for rolling your eyes or yawning when they are talking.
If they actually looked at this state of affairs in writing and why it doesn't make a lot of sense for them, they might "get it", but maybe not. It's more likely to be compulsively driven in them, just part of the personality disorder at work.
The other reason they want toxic positivity emanating from your being is that they feel that with all of this positivity flowing their way that you won't talk about any findings you have about them. In terms of this tactic, it's kind of like a cult. Inside the cult, everyone accepts the cult leader as is. They might know all of his flaws, even that he goes to the bathroom like everyone else, but they never talk about anything negative that he does. There is a culture of shame in talking about a cult leader's flaws: "How dare you talk about him that way! He has made us see the Lord in a way we have never seen Him before!" - or whatever belief is being propagated.
Instead, outside the cult, there might be investigations: maybe there are child marriages and statutory rape. Maybe an escapee has been kidnapped and they have brought him back to the cult to be tortured for having left, and so on.
If there are crimes and hypocrisies like this, what's going on inside is definitely a form of toxic positivity. And what is going on outside is growing evidence that it "ain't so positive."
Again, if narcissists could see how the toxic positivity with their followers is a fantasy, and perpetrating a fantasy, because people outside know plenty of what's wrong, especially defectors who start talking, they might see that it doesn't make sense to censure the negativity, that it's better to live in authenticity, and to try living what they preach instead; i.e. to have some morality and ethics for once in their lives, and not just pretend they are with convenient brainwashed loyalists. But I doubt they will: again, I think this is mere compulsion, and to try to correct the compulsion is deemed to be "too hard" for them (i.e. not grandiose enough for their image), so they cover up one lie with more lies, rather than any kind of thought-out process.
I would guess that living in fantasies that they are the ultimate authority and that everyone has to be following what they want is why they fall from grace eventually. Cults usually do not last, and their leaders often get in trouble with the law. And narcissistic family systems are definitely cult-like.
Part of the rules of cults is that you worship the head narcissist "leader", and all that they do, and all that they want (the sycophants, enablers and followers are usually "getting something" for being so loyal, so they will also have an agenda of shaming you or abandoning you if you don't agree with their leadership choice to put this head narcissist "in charge" of your life and decisions, and the lives and decisions of others too).
Since most narcissists come with a shame-rage spiral, every time they are criticized or thought of as "less than a great leader", they rage. They may punish too, but usually they leave the punishments to their loyalists (who may or may not break the law). This keeps them from breaking the law themselves.
In other words, being negative or showing negativity towards the narcissist is punished. This is one of the most common forms of toxic positivity, being required by the narcissistic system to be positive to the leader no matter what you might be going through, how you are treated, and whether the kind of control they want over your life is only for their benefit, and not for yours at all. You can quickly find out that it is not to your benefit when the narcissist and loyalists shun you, or throw you out of their cult over some trumped up or hypocritical charge.
And 9 times out of 10, you will go negative on them. They might not hear it from inside their cult, but from the outside, more eyes will be on the illegalities, the kinds of punishments and abuses they perpetrate, and the brainwashing that is being done.
You can see that this lovely bliss isn't so blissful after all if people must be tortured to be loyal. It becomes obvious to insiders too that it is a "fantasy of bliss".
If you become shunned by a narcissistic family, consider all of this, and don't take it personally. These are just desperate attempts to keep a cult-like atmosphere from being truly investigated for its flaws and possible misdemeanors.
as a means of sadism:
Some narcissists (particularly malignant narcissists) are perfectly aware that shutting you up, and making it seem like you are crazy for thinking that you were abused by them, and making it seem like you are "way too negative" for having the reactions to abuse that you have, they like it because they know that if you stuff emotions, it will hurt you more.
Malignant narcissists will always choose paths which will hurt you more than you already are.
Let's say they discard you "for being negative". Let us say that they also know that the only reason you are negative is because you were abused by them.
If you seem happier at some point, and your life is going better than they like, they will attempt to get you back with flattery to do more harm and damage to you.
If they think you are suffering, they will stay away for as long as it takes and hope that you suffer much, much more than they ever thought was possible.
AND THEIR ENABLERS USE TOXIC POSITIVITY
Part of growing up, also meant punishing and ostracizing his siblings himself, so that he could stay in the favored role. This is very likely to work in a bully golden child's favor, because of his narcissistic parent's proclivity to have black and white attitudes about their own children, to put their children into unchanging roles at an early age, and to have significant confirmation bias about their own children as "unchanging, unchangeable people" (most likely projection on the narcissist's part because they are the most unchangeable people on the planet). So he gets away with bullying and abusing his own siblings which creates the attitude that he can do this to his own family and in any leadership position he tries to acquire.
So everything that goes on in the cult, or family cult of a bully golden child is going on the premise that he is still a golden child everywhere and anywhere he goes, more special than others, that he is endowed with special rights and privileges that others don't have, that he is entitled to rule other people.
So how does toxic positivity play out with grandiose narcissists and their enablers? Here are some of the ways:
* They tell you that you are the source of your own misery
* The enablers are usually very naïve, and see him as a magical being who is bringing positivity and positive energy to their life (until they aren't any more, and because grandiose narcissists turn cruel when someone complains about them, they are likely to throw people away based on the fact that they aren't "positive enough").
* The enablers believe that the narcissist has charisma and is specially endowed to see "life's truths", and if you aren't following their "positivity leader", then something is wrong with you.
* The enablers are getting money or gifts, and if you aren't receiving the same, then something is wrong with you, and they determine that you aren't really part of the inner circle of the positivity cult
* The narcissist insists that people who aren't positive about life, their experiences, and especially about them (the narcissist), then something is wrong with them, that they are inept, or crazy, or love to be depressed, or love to be the center of attention with their depression, or some other nonsense along these lines.
* The narcissist family cult cannot handle issues of trauma, and really don't understand, or want to understand what trauma does to people, so traumatized people are often shunned and prejudiced against. They have the attitude that they just can't handle traumatized people, that it "hurts them" or "hurts their heart" to interact with traumatized people.
* They diminish trauma that narcissists and sociopaths inflict on others by saying spiritually superficial sayings like, "It's not that bad! Everyone has their spiritual good side! You have to see their good side!" - a gaslighting statement meant to infer that you don't see people right because you are not spiritually evolved.
* They insist that you forgive narcissists and sociopaths, not realizing that forgiveness just enables these types to continue hurting and breaking the boundaries of others.
* They will do anything not to hear your truth (the reasoning? - because it's so negative! It makes the narcissist look bad, their great leader!).
* They will tell you to get over it if you are telling them what you went through, not understanding that trauma cannot be willed away. And even if they know that it cannot be willed away, they don't want to hear it because it focuses too much on negative experiences.
I featured psychologist Dr. Ramani's videos below. The first one features toxic positivity with grandiose overt narcissists and their followers, so to focus on this any more here would be more redundant than I have already made it.
In general, narcissists and their loyalists will not hear your complaints because you are focusing on the negatives instead of on the positives, and they insist that you should be like them and focus on the positives.
In general, the narcissistic family cult cannot hear that they hurt members (and that they don't do anything to allay the trauma that hurt members are going through), because admitting you are hurt is, again, focusing on something they don't want to face: that there are negatives to hurting, manipulating, shunning, gaslighting and abusing members, and they don't want to deal with any negative aspects of of themselves or of life, only the positives.
So, victims of the narcissistic family cult are often left alone to deal with the pain on their own.
The irony here is that trying to arm-twist victims to see only positivity, they don't feel like they belong in the cult, and take their negative experiences to be healed to people outside the family cult ... and in an extended family, it means there will be more victims, perhaps one scapegoat per nuclear family, which brings attention to the narcissistic family cult as a whole, from outsiders, that the family is full of negative experiences which can include abuse, neglect, abandonments and law breaking by members inside the cult.
Refer to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's cult where Rajneesh's closest personal assistant, Anand Sheela, was the master-mind in poisoning Wasco County locals who had complaints and were racking up police reports against the cult. These locals, who in their demeanor, were much more conservative than the cult members, wanted some boundaries and laws about what cult members could do in public places in the county (such as not fornicating in public).
Again, hurting other people, or poisoning them, won't make anyone more accepting of a cult, including a narcissistic family cult. It will always make them feel like an outsider, not an insider, not as a friend, and won't help them want to join, or re-join, the cult. Again, for victims, the memory they will carry with them (and this is based on research about trauma) is that the cult, or family cult, is hurtful and out to hurt them further.
And they wouldn't be wrong with that assessment because abuse escalates. And narcissists become paranoid, often to the point of doing everything they can to either vanquish the ex-member or at least to vanquish their voice.
I hope the irony of this situation is clear: that by trying to force toxic positivity on other people, especially in a narcissistic closed minded system, they end up with more negativity than they could ever dream of. It may come from the outside at first, but the inside is not immune.
The other irony is that the survivors of narcissistic family cult abuse tend not to want narcissists around them, the kind of people who propagate abuse, who propagate enforced isolation and manipulation, who propagate arm-twisting to be loyal to them through terror, and who bring so many other negative experiences to survivors of narcissists including gaslighting, and even, perhaps, a poisoning by their most loyal allies.
AND MALIGNANT NARCISSISTS
AND THEIR ENABLERS USE TOXIC POSITIVITY
So let's say that he ordered the poison to be made and painted on the food at the local restaurant (he probably didn't, but let's pretend that he did just to make a point about how covert narcissists act in these situations).
Let's say he ordered his highest assistant, Sheela, to make this poison happen. So let's say she made it, and tainted the food the way he wanted.
The true real part of the story is that Sheela ordered the poison, and it was painted on the food at the local all-you-can-eat restaurant. So she ordered the way the poisoning happened too.
She and her cohorts were also arrested and Bhagwan Shree Rajneeesh felt betrayed by his most loyal assistant, and abandoned her to her fate. She claimed to love Rajneesh, and that she did it for his benefit, to no avail. He didn't want her near him, or to help with her legal case.
But let's say that he did order the poisoning (as a demonstration on covert narcissism only, not as the reality or truth of the actual event), and used her as "the fall guy", the one who would get arrested on his behalf. That would be how covert narcissists, particularly covert malignant narcissists, act.
They will always be trying to find a fall guy, or a scapegoat, or two, or three, or four, to take on the repercussions of what they want, and either the immoral, the retaliatory, or illegal activities of what they want too.
They conveniently and without much hesitation, put the fault on one of their allies, play the victim and then walk away from the person they back-stabbed with their cult still intact. They were able to retaliate without a single blemish to their image, ego or reputation because they put the fault on someone else. Of course, they won't have their loyal personal assistant any more, but usually they will have one lined up to take their place, and shower gifts and "special entitlements" on that person so that they will serve too (and may even end up with the same fate).
Of course, the assistant that did the poisoning might say that the cult leader was the one to order the poisoning to the police (in a retaliatory way) so that both of them suffer the fall-out, but unless there is clear evidence, a cult leader can walk away without a single legal issue unless someone else heard the command. Even if he said, laughing, and in public, "We should just poison those people, that'd fix them! No, just kidding, just kidding! It was a joke, really!" it would still probably not be enough to get him into legal hot water, because the argument would be that it was taken literally when the statement was never supposed to be taken literally because of the "just kidding!" and "it's a joke!" remarks.
Throwing people under the bus, and having a "fall guy", is very common for covert narcissists and malignant narcissists. They will even do it to a spouse and even their own children (the fall guy in the narcissistic family is usually the child they put in the scapegoat role, a child that is hardly ever rewarded or praised, and for whom the narcissistic parent tries to keep down, hierarchically down so that the narcissist can keep using them as the fall guy when issues or conflicts arise in the family).
The Cluster B personality disorders are on a spectrum, starting with Borderline Personality Disorder, getting worse with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Histrionic Personality Disorder, and getting worse still with Antisocial Personality Disorder. It is generally agreed that covert narcissism is worse than overt grandiose narcissism too because the abuse is more covert, planned, or what is generally referred to as "proactive". "Proactive abuse" in its ultimate form tends to be attributed to the Antisocial Personality Disordered, so covert narcissists are approaching the Antisocial more, and they also tend to have even less empathy than overt grandiose narcissists. As we get to lighter versions, such as Borderline Personality Disorder, it tends to be reactive, and not proactive. Borderlines can also have empathy, something that narcissists lack, and the antisocial personality disordered have none of and tend to be sadistic.
Vulnerable covert narcissists aren't necessarily the golden children of their families, and don't particularly act outwardly grandiose or arrogant, and can appear to be humble, quiet and reserved, so they tend to catch people unawares when they abuse, back-stab, go for power and control in the relationship, show arrogance and entitlement, all the while making it very clear that they have very little empathy. In other words, being exposed to them can be quite a bit more painful and traumatic because we learn to be wary of the grandiose, arrogant, bragging, shouting types of narcissists (and they make themselves known with those qualities), but most of us aren't as aware of the shy types of narcissists.
A lot of covert narcissists ask a lot of intimate personal details of other people, but refuse to share much of their own. They will mostly shoot the questions back your way. That's one way you can tell if you are dealing with a covert narcissist. It is usually very lop-sided that way.
Another way that you can tell is that like any narcissist, they have one golden child who they hold up as a wonderful example of the family, their breeding, and parenting, and one child who they call difficult, inept, rebellious and crazy.
Another way that you can tell if they are covert narcissists is that after they rage at you and get a reaction out of you, they get calm, even if they blame you for something off the wall or self serving (erroneous blaming).
Another way to tell is that they play the victim an awful lot. Vulnerable covert narcissists generally have a victim mindset to begin with, and want people to coddle them and stroke their ego, so that they can feign helplessness when they are abusive. Sometimes they have been abused in childhood, however, so it is not always the case that they feign; it can be a matter of a particularly aggressive form of PTSD where they compulsively attack anyone who they feel might be bruising their ego.
In other words they assume people want to attack them and the narcissist finds a way to do the attacking first.
The proactive part is attacking before they think they will be attacked.
The other part of being proactive is that they ask many, many personal questions, not out of interest in your answers, although they feign interest, but to gather information on your vulnerabilities to use to over-power you, to hurt you, to isolate you from others via some truths in conjunction with false narratives to ruin your reputation, and attack you when you are in a particularly vulnerable part of your life so that the attack has the most devastating results. This means they are keeping score of all of the ways they don't like in how you treated them, the slights (even the imagined slights), hurting their ego (even their imagined bruises to their ego), not putting them first place in your life (even their imagined scenes of not putting them first place in your life), not giving them things they feel entitled to (even if they are imagining slights of not giving into their fantasy entitlements), and so on.
These narcissists are "negative nellies" themselves, trash-talking about people behind their backs, so it wouldn't seem like they'd insist on toxic positivity themselves. But in fact they do; it just takes a different form, and is much more of a kind of mind control than the way overt grandiose narcissists do it.
Some of the ways covert narcissists use toxic positivity:
* They diminish the trauma they have caused you and insist that you are crazy and over-emotional or "too sensitive" in your reactions instead. It's a head game. They can grind away at you with this narrative, refusing to hear any other narrative, refusing to hear your point of view at all. This is the way covert narcissists are aggressive. The way they try to turn this false narrative into "toxic positivity" is that you are expected (and it is even demanded of you), that you see that the parent is wonderful, trustworthy, empathetic and great, and that you are the one who is chronically at fault, negative and crazy, always.
* They play the victim and expect you to apologize and take care of them emotionally, and sometimes physically (some covert narcissists stay in bed day after day feigning tears, heartbreak and depression) even when they were the ones to perpetrate an attack or abandonment. They expect you to "give in" and treat the parent the way the parent demands you treat them. Again, this is a horrible head game and very, very common with covert narcissists, and the toxic positivity here is to "leave everything in the past and start over" with the parent, to focus on all of the good things the parent does for you (there is a reason why survivors tend to focus on the negatives and it has to do with trauma reactions, how trauma is stored in the brain and body, how traumatic events block the positive events - all of which I will be discussing in later posts).
Being positive after enduring abuse, and then the parent pretending they were abused instead, is just not going to happen, even if the survivor tries to pull his own mind in a positive direction to please the parent.
The fact that it is impossible to pull one's mind in a positive direction about the parent means that distrust will continue to be an issue, no matter how much the narcissist blathers on about how trustworthy they are. The traumatic brain literally resists any further brainwashing.
* They insist you be positive about them, and put them in a favorable light, in family situations and in public. Again, a lot of scapegoats try to do this, especially when they are still under-age, but I have to say that being touched by the narcissistic parent and flinching afterwards is "automatic", another trauma response. There will be so many signals like that, including round-eyed fear or shock at what the parent says emanating from the child, that people will eventually notice that something isn't right. So a lot of narcissistic parents stop inviting their scapegoated children anywhere, and they make up excuses that their child is ill or insane. This causes social isolation for the child, and feelings of not being wanted, which is another way the child gets further hurt.
So narcissistic parents expect all of this toxic positivity from their hurt abused child instead of doing the hard work of putting an end to the abuse, of trying to heal their traumatized child, of doing things that might give them a more positive rating like actually being ethical, moral and fair for once in their lives.
Again they put their image and reputation first, way in front of how they actually treat their child.
The unfortunate thing is the reason why they do this. It does come down to a lot of laziness and entitlement, but the major reason is that narcissists keep behaving the way they do because of arrogance. Arrogance keeps all of these horrible behaviors and actions in place, unchanged, with the expectation that because they think of themselves as so grand, everyone should be serving them up some toxic positivity every time they snap their fingers.
* The narcissist gives his wife a list of things she is allowed to talk about and not to talk about at a gathering. In other words, it is all to make her narcissistic husband look good, so that he can climb the ladder of success, "and so that I can make more money so that I can take care of your ass, you ungrateful piece of _________!" and a host of other reasons which are framed in such a way as to tell her to perform "toxic positivity" for him.
Again, maybe she winces a couple of times when he talks (maybe he's spreading a lot of lies and self aggrandizing statements about his career, and telling people he was a victim in his last job, but his new boss sees the value in him that the old boss couldn't), and maybe she flinches when he touches her. Maybe he's asked her to hide a bruise. Maybe she has a couple of drinks because she's had enough of this charade and talks about herself as the dutiful unfulfilled housewife more than promoting him.
They get home and he rages for 3 days flat about how stupid she was not to promote him, to do everything she could to paint a rosy picture of their marriage and of his success. "And you flinched when I touched you! How do you think that makes me look!? You ungrateful biatch!"
For children, toxic positivity is expected to be life-long. A lot of shunned children and adult children from narcissistic families are ostracized because they didn't act believable enough in terms of being "toxic positivity upholders". Maybe they slipped and told a couple of people about their parent's affairs. Maybe they slipped and told people they weren't crazy after all, that what they really had was PTSD.
Children bucking the "toxic positivity" have a lot to do with the current high rate of child/parent estrangements.
Wives of narcissists who don't totally live up to "toxic positivity" expectations can either find themselves in divorce court, or as domestic violence victims.
We aren't meant to be in hurtful, sad environments and pretend we are happy about it, but that's what covert narcissists expect in spades, and what a lot of their enablers expect too. It is hard for anyone to constantly "act", and lie, to promote the narcissist's ego all of the time, especially in the scripted ways narcissists want, and especially if you've been isolated, gaslighted and hurt by that narcissist so many times that you lost count.
For children, their job is to play, go to school, find healthy ways of communicating, to be doing age-appropriate things. Giving a job to a child to prop up a parent's ego should never be part of their upbringing. It promotes and teaches lying, acting and disingenuousness. Some golden children can be very good at all of this (as they are rewarded for it), but at what cost? And many psychologists would argue that this is the very thing that turns these golden children into narcissists themselves.
For a wife, her job is to love her husband, to nurture him when he is sick, and to be partners who enjoy each other's company. If she is constantly expected to promote him, build up his ego, and never look at any fault he has, especially when he rages so much, it eventually seems like a "sham of a relationship", like: what else is he lying about? Why am I here if I'm just supposed to be a promoter, and if I fail at my job, I get raged and punished over it?
If a narcissist has to hide that many skeletons in his closet, maybe it's time to rid himself of his own behaviors so that he doesn't gain more skeletons!.
The irony in this is that most covert narcissists are very negative people, and rarely make it their job to promote, or co-promote, or build up other people's egos. They are masters of tearing other people's egos apart. They are masters of daily rituals to ruin their child's self esteem. They can certainly flatter other people, but it is pretty fake when they return home and trash your character and back-stab.
It's also hard to be positive of people who act this way, and who probably act this way about you too. We find out later that they have been running smear campaigns on us for a long time, concentrating on disappointments, false narrative about us, exaggerations, name-calling, endless complaining about things that are real and unreal, trying to influence people who barely know us.
The other irony is that trying to arm-twist people to adopt toxic positivity about them, can get the "husband narcissist" the following attitude from his wife: "I got out of that one! The idea of promoting him and being quiet about who he really was, was too much for me! A guy who has had 5 marriages and who has cheated in every one of them!? A guy who stole from his sister!? A guy who drives down the road like a maniac and passes on the double line, and if you object because it is a life-threatening maneuver, he tells you to shut up and acts like he could care less whether you live or die!? A guy who makes excuses for why he can't pay child support when he has a million dollars in the bank!? A guy who is so enamored with himself that he can't see that he hurts people right and left all of the time!? I'm so glad I got away!"
Some of the ways malignant narcissists use toxic positivity:
For those who haven't read my blog, malignant narcissism is a combination of Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder. These days malignant narcissism is also categorized more recently as the dark triad (narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism), and for a more deadly version, the dark tetrad (narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism and sadism).
Psychopathy is another word for Antisocial Personality Disorder. Psychopathy is also used in the context of Primary Psychopathy (people born with a different autonomic nervous system who don't get anxiety in dangerous or life-threatening situations and who are PTSD resistant) and Secondary Psychopathy (people who have the same autonomic nervous systems that most people have, and who are often referred to as sociopaths).
If narcissism is present with psychopathy, it will always be the secondary type of psychopathy (sociopathy).
A more thorough post I did on this can be found HERE.
Can narcissists turn into malignant narcissists? According to Dr. Les Carter, yes they can. It usually manifests in the beginning in narcissists who turn to revenge-mindedness, tit-for-tat mindedness, and retaliatory types of reactions, who make a break with the usual conventions and are willing to break laws, codes of conduct, and turn to domestic violence (physical abuse) to inflict more harm on their victims.
Some malignant narcissistic individuals will have more sociopathy than narcissism, and some will have more narcissism than sociopathy. Sometimes you can tell a person is a malignant narcissist, and sometimes you can't. The main difference between your run-of-the-mill narcissists from malignant narcissists is that run-of-the-mill narcissists will have regret for their actions in terms of the possible hit it will take to their reputation and image as not being upstanding or superior to others as they want to be looked upon, and will try much harder not to break laws, whereas malignant narcissists do not have regret or show regret, and are much more brazen when it comes to breaking laws and breaking through the physical boundaries of others (i.e. domestic violence).
They may try to hide the harm they do to others by trying to present a certain reputation, and keeping with it no matter how much opposition they face, but will make one excuse after another as to why the other person "deserved it", their favorite phrase. When caught, they will also describe their being held accountable as "a sham", "a witch hunt", "fraudulent", "simulated", "persecution-motivated", "a peacock event to take away my power", "a craven event that is beneath them - they should just get off my case now!", "motivated by people who want to see me victimized", "for someone as popular as me, it's all motivated by jealousy", "done by people who are so far down the moral ladder that they are practically insane demons", and so on.
They spend a lot of time trying to elude accountability, trying to defend the indefensible, and trying to brainwash others that they are victims who are going through something like a cruel inquisition meant to wipe out their wealth and power. And some people will be brainwashed because after awhile, "my innocence" is all that the malignant narcissist can talk about. They are sometimes experts at acting like Teflon for every crime they commit, and getting away with things they really should be accountable for. This is, in part, where they get so much of their arrogance, acting like Teflon that no bad deed can stick to.
And yes, malignant narcissists tend to be more traumatic, cruel and threatening to deal with. Most psychologists and domestic violence therapists would prefer that you leave a malignant narcissist (with help from a domestic violence center, of course). These people are less able to see any kind of truth, or insight, or anything good that could come from changing their behaviors, and they tend to get worse much faster than other kinds of narcissists.
They will also plan ways to be un-accountable too. If they know a crooked cop, they'll use the crooked cop. If they know a crooked judge, they'll use a crooked judge. If they know a crooked lawyer, they'll use a crooked lawyer. If they can spread hate speech and be believed, they'll do that. After awhile they will be spouting so many conspiracy theories, lies and half truths, sometimes all day long, a person will feel insane who is required to listen to it, especially anyone prone to cognitive dissonance and an open mind.
And by the way, malignant narcissists can also be grandiose and overt, or vulnerable and covert.
Anyway, in terms of toxic positivity, malignant narcissists use it to absolve themselves, project the bad things they do on to you, and to excuse their own behavior. Here are some examples:
* They have stolen from you. And they say: "What's the matter with you!? You're so hung up on things and property! You should be enjoying life instead of worrying about things that are missing! What's the matter with you?!"
* They have broken into your house. And they say: "No one would break into your house! You don't have anything anyone would want!" But then they get caught and say, "You gave me a key!" when you didn't. And the toxic positivity part is: "You should be thankful it was only me! It could have been someone who was a total stranger! Just be grateful that it was me instead of someone else!"
* They have committed domestic violence and you have bruises on your breasts, arms and jaw. And they say: "It's just a little scratch!" - diminishing the violence they do to others is very common. "What, are you going to cry like a baby and make me out to be a domestic violence offender!? Oh, poor you! Get up! Get up, or I'll kick you some more! You are so lucky I didn't hit you harder for looking at me like that! You should be grateful for the fact that you are with someone like me who is forgiving! You should be grateful that you weren't much more hurt! And you better be grateful or you'll get it! That's the way I see it!"
* You are a child and your sexual abuser gives you candy. And by the way, sexual abusers tend to be malignant narcissists because they break the law over and over again, and feel entitled to do it. So anyway, you cross paths again and you start crying and your abuser tells you that you are not seeing him in a positive light, that you aren't grateful towards him, because he gave you candy.
* They have wrecked another car with reckless driving (malignant narcissists tend to be fast reckless, impatient, insult-driven drivers who use the gas and break pedals more frequently than most drivers), and you are supposed to, according to them, give up your job and drive them to their job, and any time they expect to be driven anywhere. Let's say you follow along with their request, but one Saturday afternoon you want to attend a bridal shower and they have a fit and think up an event they want to go to so that you won't go to the bridal shower. You argue, but they are insistent that you go to this other event that they want to go to. So you go to the event, but you really don't want to be there. You'd rather be at the bridal shower. And perhaps your mood shows it.
Let's say that it is a truck mudding racing event. So the malignant narcissist yells at you for "not enjoying" the event he has planned, that you are acting miserable and moody on purpose because you didn't get your way, that you can never appreciate anything he does for you or with you, this is a great sport that you should enjoy, that you need to be positive or you will just stay home next time and not go anywhere. And in fact, he tells you that he's going to make your life as miserable as you are trying to make his, and that if you don't get positive now, you are really going to "get it" this time.
The toxic positivity here would be about trying to force you into a positive mind-frame, even when you genuinely don't feel that way, and threats to punish you for not being positive.
(WITH A DISCUSSION ON SHUNNING)
~~ Carlos Dominguez
Preface:
Narcissists assume leadership in your life if they feel they can get away with it. They assume control very slowly, almost imperceptibly. Covert narcissists are better at being imperceptible than overt narcissists as overt narcissists take to yelling commands instead of making it seem like it is something you thought up or promised, which on the covert's part, is just another form of gaslighting.
Narcissists use a number of tactics to get there including pretending to care a great deal about you and your situation, gaining access to you through lots and lots of flattery and direct attention, trying to dominate your decision-making by too many suggestions or taking over your decisions, giving you a little too much unsolicited advice.
Eventually, they will be pissed off if you don't take their advice (where they will reprimand you). Eventually, if you don't give them the power and control that they demand they will retaliate in some manner too. If you don't give them information that they demand, they will retaliate over that too (as I've said before, narcissists use information you give them to hurt you, so they garner information in a pre-emptive way, to hold it over your head). And one sure way to tell if they are narcissists is that they appear to turn the empathy off and on, and they begin to make you feel inept (i.e. treat you as though you are not a grown up), and often call you crazy too, or act as though you are crazy and need mental help.
They will also ignore you over their perceived loss of power and control over you, or if they are not getting increased amounts of it, even if you go through a crisis, or are going through a crisis. The lack of empathy will be there no matter what you are going through because they hold grudges even during tragedies. Power and control will always come first for them no matter what the circumstances are.
If any of these things are happening, the narcissist deems themselves to be superior to you.
They assess people in hierarchical ways, always. And they especially don't like people who figure them out and refuse to be controlled in all the ways they want and demand.
We learn that all of their power-and-control efforts are all self-serving. This can happen any time, even towards the end, or at the end, of relationships with them. This is when we learn that they have very few ethics too. However, they can talk about ethics and empathy when it suits their agendas for a reputation, but it doesn't mean they feel or practice ethics and empathy at all. In a way, their lust for power and control block their empathy and ethics just as countries who invade will be focused on the invasion and not at all on empathy or ethics. They especially won't feel ethics or empathy for people who stand in their way of their invasion agenda. Relationships with narcissists feel like invasions on a personal level. Even the love bombing phase is an invasion of sorts as they "bomb you" with love messages, intense gazes of feigned interest, lots and lots of flattery, even when they barely know you.
At the end of their relationships, they are capable of many, many unethical deeds. Their lack of empathy will also be on full display. They make a point of not hiding that from you, even if they try to hide it from everyone else.
How Enablers Fit in With Their Agendas:
If a narcissist is "head of a family", they will be treating the family very much like a cult leader does (another link).
Like cults, you are required to be submissive to parental control even when you are a full adult with your own life, career and children. As psychotherapist Amanda Robins states in her article, "Why are Narcissistic Families like Cults?":
... There’s always a lot going on under the surface in narcissistic families and most of it isn’t good. Personality disorders cause intense and unacknowledged emotions to circulate and be transferred through projection and identification. Everyone ends up being subsumed into the zeitgeist of parental dysfunction. The family’s prime directive and raison d’etre is to meet the needs of the narcissistic parent. Everything and everyone else is expendable. ...
The enablers are people who are invested in helping to keep the family reputation, and the narcissist's reputation clean, and without fault. Anyone who challenges this vision inside the family is summarily dismissed and deemed to be at fault for any of its dysfunctions.
I like Amanda Robins's writing on this subject - it is succinct, and anyone who has been shunned from their family of origin can relate to her article.
In the narcissistic cult family, obedience is usually taken to extremes, and assumed at all times that you will be obedient. A golden child is expected to be the adjunct to the narcissistic parent in making sure obedience is followed at every turn by members too. He is usually rewarded and paraded around as "the perfect example of a superior child" for that honor too.
Anyway, shunning is extremely common in narcissistic families just as it is in cults. Members are told not to talk to, or invite, anyone the narcissist(s) shun. If they do invite a shunned member without knowing all of the rules of shunning, the narcissists will usually try to take control and un-invite the shunned member, sometimes taking over the very wording of the un-invite.
Family members are taught to hate the shunned member(s), to look at them as difficult people who are trying to ruin the superior "look" of the family. They may go as far as declaring you as mentally insane, or as criminals. Often none of it is true. But the narcissists will do just about anything to ruin shunned members' reputation even if they have to lie about it to keep everyone in line, not contacting any shunned members, not listening to them, not partaking in any holidays or get-togethers with them. The only time they might not balk at a family member contacting the shunned member is if they want to get information.
You'll notice that the narcissist(s) will ask many, many questions to a member who has had contact, about the shunned member(s). Like anything narcissistic, the questioning will be invasive: "What are they doing these days?", "Why do you think they are doing that?", "What were the conversations you had?", "Do you think they miss the family?", "Do they seem bothered or hurt by anything? Obviously I care," when they really don't care (it's a ruse), "Do you think they are happy or unhappy?" - in other words you will be "bombed" by questions. And then you most often will be rewarded for answering those questions, money, gifts or privileges being the more obvious rewards.
Because there is so much pressure on family members to take part in the shunning, if you don't shun, they may stop going to your functions; they will retreat; they will stop rewarding you with attention or money, or what ever hold they have over you; they will very obviously appear to be withdrawing.
The withdrawal can be complete (total shunning like the original shunned member), or more likely a partial shunning with constant messages of disapproval and a retreat from empathetic gestures. If you care about the narcissist(s) disapproval, it can feel very bad because most of us know that if we don't give the narcissist what they want, we might be shunned too.
This means that shunning is not only used for attributing fault to a member, but as an example of what can happen to you if you are beginning to be disapproved of too.
Anyway, to keep up the family image, narcissists also use toxic positivity. They talk about how the ex-member is "SOOOOO NEGATIVE!" - that they are always hurt, and depressed, and negative about the good people in the family cult. And believe it or not, it tends to work in their favor. "Why would you want to hang out with someone who is so depressed? Doesn't it bring you down?", "Do you really think you are spending your time wisely, listening to what they have to say? You do know that they are crazy, don't you?", "It's interesting all of the negative qualities they attribute to me! It's so far out! Does it really seem like I am like that to you at all? I mean come on! That's some agenda!", "They have always been so negative. That's why we couldn't really get along with them any more. That's the real reason they are out of the family.", "I'm not going to reward someone who is so negative.", "You're stronger than I am! I couldn't be around all of that negative talk all of the time!", "I know it's challenging for you to give up (that member), but they will bring you down. It will be like you are drowning right along with them", "They went negative on the family again!? I mean, really, how can you listen to all of that with a straight face? I'd have to laugh!", "So much complaining! How can you stand it?! It's no one's problem to fix her life. She did this to herself!", "It's a good thing they are out of the family. No one could stand having them around!"
This is all gaslighting B.S.
Narcissist(s) are pretty persistent in getting these enablers brainwashed by this nonsense so that they can extract total loyalty from these minions as well as never be accountable for the fact that they have hurt other people egregiously and behaved unethically and in ways that most people wouldn't be able to live through easily either. And they get a high of arrogance for having fooled "their congregation" into believing that the ex-member is only an ex-member for being "negative".
The fact that so many enablers can go along with adopting toxic positivity means that people can be brainwashed pretty easily. I have even been brainwashed and I tend to look very carefully into everything. So as a survivor, you absolutely need to be careful of this set of circumstances, even members who got partial shunnings, or full shunnings but who are back in the family cult again.
You will probably be blamed for being negative. You will probably be silenced either a little or a lot; you can, most likely, count on that too. Other members who used to not shun you will suddenly and without warning, be shunning you for reasons you don't understand, or that were never explained to you.
There are always forces at work to get you completely out of the family - remember that.
This is how cults, and family cults, do their work. As far as they are concerned you are a "defector" and cults generally do not like their members, or any member, having contact with a defector.
Narcissists also like to hurt people who do not adopt their perspectives and beliefs, and if they can get rid of people by crying "THEY'RE SO NEGATIVE!!!" that's how they will do it.
So, before you think you have a great relationship with another family member, think about the cult atmosphere and pressures first before you get hurt. It behooves a lot of us to be careful about what we say and reveal as it will probably end up being repeated to the narcissist(s) so that they can gauge how hurt you are, and what they need to do to hurt you again if you appear to have recovered and your life appears put-together.
In many ways, the family cult members, even if they are not particularly narcissistic, even if they have been known to be empathetic and humble, even if they seem way too intelligent not to know what is going on, can sound just like the narcissists. Realize that puppeting perspectives are part of the narcissistic family system.
At any rate, one of the ways the narcissistic family cult is similar to other cults is that you are either all-in the family, or all-out of the family. The head narcissist(s) do not want you to have relationships with only some members and not others. They'll insist it has to be all of the members, or none of the members.
Without tactics like toxic positivity, narcissistic families would fall apart, and some of them do. While very few members turn on the narcissist(s) themselves, I've seen families split apart, more or less down the middle, with half of family members deciding that living through these tactics was not for them.
Yes.
In a family situation, you can feel like you are talking to another narcissist. They may merely be enablers of an older authoritarian type of narcissist, and you can justify that they are brainwashed, but in terms of symptoms, what I have found is that you will have the same symptoms you have with a narcissist, especially if you are estranged from the narcissist and your brain and body balked at dealing with any more of the narcissist's toxic positivity and abuses.
By trauma I mean, you were not be able to sleep for days on end. If you did sleep, you had nightmares. You were "jumpy", anxious and hypervigilant to attacks. You were grieving.
In terms of the enabler, you may have all of these same symptoms with them too. You may be grieving more because you may think that your attachment to the enabler was stronger, not mired with abandonments or abuse.
In terms of "results", enablers, even the incredibly naïve brainwashed cult-like followers of narcissists, can do as much damage as the narcissists themselves, and sometimes more, especially if there are numbers of them, in terms of not allowing a diversity of perspectives, of not allowing any complaints at all, not having empathy for those who are different from the head narcissist in the least bit including independent thinkers, adopting in full the innate prejudices that narcissists have on other people or "types of people", who should be accepted to "the group" and who should be shunned from the group.
So it is the enabling of the narcissist and their toxic positivity tactics by a number of people that can traumatize you more than the narcissist can, as the therapists at NICABM can attest to.
The same can happen after a marriage. The narcissist may rush to others you both know to compete with you about being victimized (when they aren't), and gobble up more of those people's bandwidths, or adopt certain people's prejudices to get you knocked out of the group (political prejudices seem to work when sexism, race, et al don't work). As long as they can convince a person that they are of the same mindset, all of their fake victim stories tend to work in getting you thrown out of "the friendship group" you used to have with your ex. However, in my experience, there are some people who are wiser than others, and can see through the narcissist's desperation to get people on their side, and it won't work no matter what. Those are the people you may be able to talk to when the dust settles.
Yes.
I think that is clear.
Narcissists and their enablers will phrase it this way:
* Again: "We shouldn't invite them! They are so negative!"
* Again: "If they can't be positive for what I've done for them, I just don't want them around."
* "I don't care if they are hurt! That shouldn't matter to us as much as that they are negative, griping, complaining people. It's awful to listen to, and it isn't even true!" when it is true. "If they can get over their hurts, maybe they can invited back into the fold again." (But who would want to be invited back into a fold like that? No one thinks about that because cultish people generally think they are "the special ones" because narcissists generally are good at flattery, rewarding sycophants, and telling people they are better than an ex).
Run-of-the-mill narcissists usually just rage instead. Some can get into a snippy punishing mindset a little, but it is not a stand-out trait. The more stand-out trait is trying to draw you into an endless argument, wearing you down until they feel they have won.
The stand-out malignant narcissistic trait is punishing other people for perceived, or even made-up, wrongs. They can be actual events too, but they tend to be events where the narcissist feels he is not controlling you enough to his liking, so he attempts to control you through threats and hurting you more than you already are (and keeping the escalation of abuse going until you "cave in").
They are very revenge-oriented narcissists and perceive attacks and ego smashes from every direction. They can engage in criminal activities to hurt you, or engage in domestic violence.
They can also be exceptionally arrogant and paranoid, making them quite a bit more dangerous than a merely "raging narcissist". However, realize that raging narcissists can also be malignant narcissists who will graduate faster and further into traumatizing their victims.
AND THINK CAN CHANGE? WHY CAN'T THEY JUST FORGIVE LIKE WE DO?
WHY IS SO MUCH ATTENTION GIVEN TO THE ABUSE OR THE ABANDONMENT
INSTEAD OF THE GOOD THEY DO FOR PEOPLE LIKE ME?
~~ Bessel van der Kolk, MD, psychiatrist and author of "The Body Keeps the Score" for NICABM
So to understand how trauma works is to understand that people who are traumatized are hijacked a lot or a little by past events, depending on how the event is processed, and how severe the event was. A certain part of the brain, the anterior cingulate cortex holds traumatic memories differently than normal memories are stored in that they have an emotional context to them. These emotions effect other emotions and even day-to-day experiences. Typical emotions associated with trauma include terror, fear, anger, despair, depression, hopelessness, hypervigilance, avoidance, fight and flight responses, freeze responses, avoid responses, and anxiety. This in turn has effects on the physical body, most notably the "flight response". If the person cannot get out of the situation, or feels "hopelessly attached", "trauma bonded" or has a lot of cognitive dissonance to such a degree where it is perceived that there is either no escape, or very few good options for escape, sore muscles are often the outcome, and it can effect all of the muscles in the body. A fast heart rate is also noted. Hyperventilating can also be a symptom, not being able to get a sentence out because you sound out of breath. Blanking out on what an abuser is shouting, screaming or saying can also be the result of trauma such that you don't remember what happened minutes after the event even if someone tries to get you to remember.
This obviously has an effect on "what to do" with memories that are lost, which can create more anxiety about the present, and present events, that the traumatized individual may also be forgetting, not just past events. It can have a sort of crescendo effect where the hypervigilance and the anxiety keep you from remembering even after a present event because you are anxious for not remembering the previous event. This is how mental breakdowns and nervous breakdowns happen.
However sometimes that blocked memory begins to be unblocked, and a typical way that it becomes unblocked are in states of rest, even if the rest is fleeting. The memories and emotions start to be processed in the way of dreams and nightmares, so a person might jolt awake and it is then that they suddenly remember that they had blanked out on very important information, whether that is information about the other person (another abuse, or more egregious abuse, or being laughed at for not responding) or about their own reaction to the abuse (for instance hyperventilating or freezing in their blanked out state). This is just one of many reasons why sleep is so disturbed for people with PTSD.
In a perfect world, we wouldn't do this to other individuals, but try to make a policy like that stick in a world full of wars, domestic violence offending, child abuse and neglect, and being practically anesthetized to defending people who are being insulted and threatened, and other "bad behaviors", we have such a long way to go that it doesn't seem possible to achieve in present times.
Are some of us bothered by it all? Sure we are and we only have to look at the number of nations willing to give weapons to Ukraine so that they aren't just a trauma bonded nation with Russia. And there are the protests on U.S. campuses about the destruction of lives and homes, hospitals and infrastructure in Gaza. And a lot of people are in an uproar over school shootings of which are mostly perpetrated by young male malignant narcissists who have had a narcissistic collapse.
And so many people are talking about narcissism, domestic violence, and domestic abuse in general these days that it isn't exactly the "ignored subject" that it used to be. It has a direct effect in what happened to leaders in countries who perpetrate abuses, war crimes, and genocides in other countries.
There is an evolutionary reason why the brain remembers, and keeps alive traumatic events more than good events that happened with "the difficult people" or the ones who "traumatized" the subject of their abuse.
Which is to say that the traumatic memories will always be more forceful, more "now", more in the present state of the mind than the pleasant memories. We are likely, in fact, to think of the love that the traumatizing person had for us in the past was "always fake" if that person can then turn around and hurt us so badly. That can happen on a national scale too between hitherto allies.
So, no, we aren't going to whitewash the traumatic memories in favor of the good memories and here is why:
Depending on how deeply you were traumatized, the reason why those traumatic memories exist in the first place is to keep you aware that the sights, sounds and visuals of similar things may mean you are in a dangerous situation. Your body will adopt one of the trauma responses to it (fawn, fight, flee, freeze or avoid/side-step). Most mammals and a lot of birds have the same reactions when a present event has too many like-nesses to a past event.
This is why when a domestic violence offender wants you back, and he tells you he would never hurt you again (but he does, and even worse the second time), your trauma is going to get so much worse, and the symptoms and responses to it will be more devastating. None of us are meant to go back to trauma, over and over, and over and over again. It is why soldiers get battle fatigue, and why they lose morale, and why they can defect, even when their commanders tell them they must either fight on or go up against a firing squad by their own countrymen. Some of them are going to opt to take their chances of going AWOL because they have reached a limit.
The same sort of results can happen to women in domestic violence situations. Women are more prone to PTSD because they tend to be more sensitive, more care-giving, more empathetic, have smaller muscles (in general), and because they are smaller in stature (in general). Narcissistic men and narcissistic women might describe victims with empathy as weak, but I'm not convinced any of those things show weakness so much as the evolutionary push to be more caring and empathetic, with women leading the way (in order to keep our species from self-destructing) ... those are my thoughts on that.
Most domestic violence escalates no matter what the malignant narcissists promise. If there are enablers around that malignant narcissist, then the trauma will be worse. If there are many, many situations where you are imprisoned or there is a lot of injustice, then that adds even more to the trauma. When it is overwhelming, the victim feels a lot more of a flight trauma response than any other responses.
And that, folks, is why victims do not remember the good times, or even think about them much. The brain is not geared that way. It is geared towards the host wanting safety, equilibrium, and peace. After awhile, most victims don't even care what their perpetrators think, or what their opinions are, because most of it is just a bunch of very obvious self-serving nonsense. Or it can be another "blank out" event, or another feeling-sick event for you if the narcissist is trying to convince others of their superiority and grandiose self reflections, or just another traumatic event lopped on top of all of the other traumatic events.
Victims enter a mental state like narcissists have done for their entire lives, where black and white thinking takes over. The difference is that for victims of abuse it tends to only encompass the perpetrator of abuse (though it can stretch further if the PTSD is severe enough, something I'll be discussing in another post).
The "traumatized brain" and symptoms they experienced afterwards are not going to change their opinions of a perpetrator of abuse, and a lot of victims re-experience abuse when they go back or forgive their abusers, because perpetrators look at forgiveness as a green light to abuse some more. They really don't care about people enough to keep promises in any situation (they'll always find excuses). In other words, in the brain, the malignant narcissist will be deemed to be "all bad", or someone to avoid, or "irredeemable" in terms of changing behavior enough so that they give up on abusing, in the eyes of their victims.
You aren't going to change that no matter how much you think you can convince a victim otherwise, toxic positivity or not, just like you can't convince a narcissist over 18 years of age not to be a bully, not to hurt other people, especially vulnerable types of people, or what narcissists' call "weak humans".
WITH MY COMMENTS
I can tell that she is not a raving fan of this new age movement as it is about blinding you to your own feelings, and the legitimacy of your own feelings, especially if you listen to these "toxic positivity folks" and take their advice.
In essence, it is about silencing you when you are undergoing narcissistic abuse. Since narcissistic abuse is traumatic for most people, she makes the point that it is important to know why and how the abuse is effecting you first, and how toxic positivity may cover that up too much. Then after you know what you are dealing with and make your plans on how you should deal with it, then if you want to go on a more positive path with your life and with your internal struggles and internal dialogue, then that is up to you.
Toxic positivity puts shaming other people for not being more positive when you are going through an awful time in the spotlight, and it can be obnoxious.
In terms of showing you what she has to say, I am like a student who likes to underline parts in college text books that I find particularly poignant, wise and pertinent, so I did that with her videos. Not all of what she has to say has been transcribed here in written words, and the places where I didn't transcribe, I left dots "..." - those are the gaps in her speech.
"Narcissists and Toxic Positivity"
by Dr. Ramani
(watch it here or on You Tube):
Partial transcript of this video (in dark red) and some of my thoughts (in black type) follow:
...Today we're going to take on a very interesting topic which is this idea of how toxic positivity can make things really difficult for survivors of narcissistic abuse. ...
Some forms and sayings of toxic positivity she brings up:
"If you forgive, it will set you free"
"Don't block your love and light. See the good in everyone!"
"Oh, you've got to give second chances because everyone, just everyone deserves them."
We are in a very interesting era in mental health. There is a movement in positive psychology, and research in positive psychology, that is actually quite compelling. Positive psychology and broadstrokes focuses on things like resilience, strengths building, and stepping back and thinking about things outside of a dysfunctional framework, and actually talking about function. In the right hands, it's a healthy lens and it's good.
The problem is a lot of this positivity stuff in the wrong hands, this positivity discourse can actually become really toxic. ...
... Telling people to think differently, or that somehow they were the only source of their misery because they were thinking wrongly about it all is disrespectful and unkind.
Now the toxic positivity people are unwilling to hear anything that doesn't suit their unicorns and rainbows narrative, they may write off people who are going through difficult experiences as having "bad energy" or bringing "toxic vibes", or they may not even want to hear about their struggles because "Ughhh, I can't hear this kind of negativity. It messes me up!"
Okay.
There is a very emotionally stunted quality to all of this as though these are adults who don't want to hear about the reality, and the ugly under-belly of adult life. These are people who would rather hold on to metaphysical incantations and intentions, and magic, and the best way to keep up this childlike fantasy (I'll tell you one way) is to keep all of that nasty talk outside the door.
I actually remember very well once sitting with a group of friends and in that conversation we were talking about a woman all of us knew who was managing a particularly a horrific malignant narcissist in a divorce. It was a very painful story to think about and hear about. And the "toxic positivity person" in our group said, "Please don't talk about these negative things! It hurts my heart! I don't want to think that the world is like this!"
I was like, "Seriously?" ...
... I am not enabling this kind of nonsense. If people want to keep up their childlike magical positivity fantasies about life and love, then "you do you". But I draw the line at the damage this kind of toxic positivity nonsense does to people who are experiencing real narcissistic abuse. Remember that narcissists retain their power and dominance in the world pretty much (largely) because they're enabled to do so. Nobody stops them. And you want to know one key group of enablers they've got? Yep, it's these toxic positivity folks.
First of all, the "toxic positivity people" are very suggestable. They're very naïve. And they fall for the charisma and charm. In fact, "toxic positivity people" are exactly the types of people who are vulnerable to cults, or cult-like structures for the same reason - because they actually want to believe some magical universe thing is going to happen. So in that way, "toxic positivity" people often become really great "flying monkeys" because they want to believe the best story in the room. And who tells the best story in the room? The narcissist. So, if you turn around and tell them, "Hey! That person is being manipulative!" that doesn't fit in with the unicorns and rainbows positivity world and they will silence you, and they will often gaslight you, or attempt to shame you.
Now the main way the "toxic positivity folks" do their damage is often by stonewalling the experience of people who are enduring any form of narcissistic abuse. They will just say, "I don't want to hear it! I don't want to talk about it!" And they will often engage in gaslighting and say, "Oh, it can't be that bad! Everyone has a light inside of them! You just have to find their light!" Or "You're a Scorpio and he's a Taurus, so it has to work out because that's such a star-loving, lover pair!" Or saying "You aren't just saying your intentions loud enough!"
Honey, there ain't no megaphone big enough out there to say your intentions loud enough to turn a damn narcissist around. I can tell you that right now. So, and boy, oh boy, oh boy! - do the "toxic positivity folks" love forgiveness. They love it! They seem to think that forgiveness is some kind of fairy dust that you can just sprinkle on a situation and just conveniently make it all go away so they can keep their narrative going. "Just forgive! Forgive and you you'll feel fine! Forgiving is holy!"
These hyper-positive types don't recognize that forgiveness in a narcissist's hands is merely permission for the narcissist to keep doing what they are doing rather than a wake up call to change it. And when it comes to change, those positivity types love to prattle on about un-tapped potential. ...
... The greatest risk is that these "toxic positivity folks" truly believe that narcissists can change. And what's worse is that they believe that it's your love that's going to be what changes them.
She makes the point in the rest of the video that "toxic positivity people" can talk you into going back to your abuser again, to try much harder at loving the narcissist more than you ever have. But most often these situations turn into a lot more abuse, gaslighting and invalidations of your experiences and perceptions.
She does make fun of a number of New Age philosophies, but that is fine with me as these philosophies can be extremely damaging to someone undergoing narcissistic abuse, abuse that is most likely getting worse no matter how much love and rainbows you send the narcissist's way.
I had a good chuckle when she said (at 15:07):
This kind of positive talk, the kind of positive talk you often hear from famous motivational speakers, who will blame the people in a difficult relationship, rather than teach them about narcissism, is dangerous for people who are in the throes of narcissistic abuse and are too confused to easily find the path out. You cannot "downward dog away" narcissistic abuse. You cannot caress a rose quartz or crystal away narcissistic abuse. You cannot intention it away. You cannot "sage and smudge" it away.
Instead, she would have the population and those undergoing narcissistic abuse to look at it this way:
You have to face it head on. You have to learn about it, yes. It is uncomfortable, and it can feel judgmental, and icky to talk about it, and recognize it. ...
... The damage wrought by toxic relationships - it's real. And you have the right to speak your truth without it being edited to fit a more positive and "sunshine-y" narrative.
Any time someone is unable to hear your take on the situation without altering it to fit what feels better to them, it doesn't matter if they are positive or not. It is disrespectful. And what's unfortunate is that some of this positive stuff, some of these "positivity zealots" that can put positivity out there, some of it's not a bad thing! Yoga, in fact, can be a great space in which to practice breathing, and centeredness, and strength, meditation, mindfulness, all of these things are essential tools, and can be essential tools in helping you heal: heal your body, heal your mind, heal your soul. But healing has to first start with someone being willing to bear witness to your truth no matter how uncomfortable your truth is.
So it's okay to channel a little realistic negativity and when the "positivity people" come your way, and try to shut you down, you can respectfully step back and hold on tightly to your reality. ...
... Ultimately what people who are going through narcissistic abuse need is accurate, clear information - and no, this isn't positivity stuff. No, they (narcissists) are not going to change and it stinks! It stinks if this is your Mom, or your Dad, or your husband, or your wife, or your sibling, or your friend. It feels terrible. But the idea that you can positively, magically think this away is a really, really tricky space.
Dr. Ramani has a number of other videos on toxic positivity, or that feature toxic positivity in narcissistic family systems, and they are below:
The video called When narcissists use positivity to control you she takes a more nuanced look into how grandiose narcissists, in particular, try to propagate toxic positivity in a way where you are not allowed to talk about your negative experiences and where the narcissist sets "the emotional temperature in the room" (her words) that everyone is required to follow.
Here are some parts (partial transcripts) from that video (the link takes you to the whole video):
... A couple of weeks ago I did a video on toxic positivity and how it hurts people who are in narcissistic relationships or recovering from narcissistic relationships.
But one thing that hit me that I didn't hit in that video which I think deserves its own video, its own content is the idea that "What about if it's the narcissist who is the one who is toxically positive? - because they often are! ...
... Again, just to reiterate that video in case you didn't see it, these are the 'love and light people' who tell you to just be positive all of the time and say mantras, chant when someone is gaslighting you which I can promise you ain't gonna help you at all.
What if it is the narcissist who is toxically positive? This pattern is actually more common than you think, especially when we are talking about grandiose narcissists because narcissists are, you know, many of them are grandiose, and in their world, everything is great. Everything is wonderful. In fact, many narcissists may really take offense at you having a bad day and bringing your gray cloud into their sunshiney day. ...
Dr. Ramani paints the scene of you having a bad day and the narcissist responds in this way:
"Why are you always so negative!? I'm in a good mood! I don't want your negativity and your bad energy near me!"
... Narcissistic people like to set the emotional thermostat in the room. And they like things to be good. Bad things make them uncomfortable ... and they want people to mirror their artificially grandiose and positive world view. ...
... Because narcissists themselves are responsible for most of the misery around them in many cases, they don't see the misery storms they create. ...
... Now interestingly, this toxic positivity that narcissists can show can occur in any kind of narcissist. If it's your parent, the very parent that has made life miserable for many members of your family will be: "If you aren't always positive, or upbeat, on the many celebrations they require you to attend, or guilt you if you don't show up, and if you show up with less than a big bright energy to one of their narcissistic supply gathering events, you will hear, 'Uck, don't be such a dark cloud and ruin my day. Everything is great here!'"
You may have grown up in a family where the only one who was allowed to express a negative mood was the narcissist. It's the ultimate "in control". They, of course, require you to feel a certain way. So you may find yourself having to psyche yourself up when you walk up to Mom and say, "Hey, Mom, everything is great! Yea, you look great! I'm great! My life is great! It's all great!" And you start to feel like you are in one of those cult documentaries or the Twilight Zone where your face starts to hurt from that. (smiles) ...
(6:25)
... With a partner this (toxic positivity) can feel absolutely miserable, because it can really feel like a false life.
Normal human beings have a range of emotions, and we sometimes have good days, and we sometimes have bad days. It's life. It's fine. It's accepted. But people who are narcissistic hate having their naive and childlike world views crushed.
They are eternal children who forever want to believe the world is happy, and fair, and just and it's nice to them and it never rains on a parade.
In that way, your narcissistic partner will blame you for anything that isn't right in your life. They will blame you and blame it on your unwillingness to be happy all of the time. It would be falsely happy, but if you are happy all of the time, then everything would be good in your life. "It's your fault for having a bad attitude."
The irony is that when stuff starts going south in a narcissist's life, then they're not going to be so positive any more.
So after faking a smile day after day, if for any reason things go south, then they will rage, and scream, and blame everyone else, and then they will expect you to reassure them. But when things were difficult for you, you just got criticized for being grumpy.
Because narcissists and difficult people have a very shallow emotional world, the "let's always be happy" is really not a stretch for them.
However, people who are authentic, and have real depth, and have real emotions that go deep, and who don't ascribe to false ones just so they do not feel the pain, that's an entirely different experience than what the narcissist feels.
And that's the big part of it. Narcissistic personalities are not made for the stuff of real life. They lack the capacity to manage frustration, disappointment, or real problems. They just attempt to glide through life on an "everything's great!" platform. They're in a sort of like modern-day Stepford wife world where everything is robotic, and everything's great, and much of this is driven by the dynamic of denial.
Denial is a primary defense in narcissism. It keeps the egos safe and just deflects anything bad or undesirable. And then, even if you're just being a realist in a conversation with a narcissist, just spelling it out to them and saying, "Hey, you know what? This isn't a good situation. And we've got some problems coming." They will get angry at you just for being realistic and for puncturing their denial.
Finally, narcissists are very invested in looking strong to the world. "Strength. Power. Control. Domination." These are all key dynamics in narcissism. And being sort of above it all and pronouncing that it's all great is another way of maintaining that power while the rest of us look anxious and weak, actually to them, not to the real world - but while the rest of us look seemingly anxious and weak, actually being concerned with the real issues of the world, they, the narcissists, are just able to maintain a façade of strength by just repeating their mantra that "everything is just fantastic!" And the scary thing is that they really trick the world, and everyone's like "What a natural leader! They're just always positive!"
The narcissist's toxic positivity can impact us like any toxic positivity. It has a very gaslighting feel. There can be a temptation just go along with the "everything's great" mentality.
But you don't need to do that. You have the right to step back and not buy into their self serving rose colored glasses and simply see the world as it is. Sure, some days are great, and you're clear on what those days are. But it's okay when some days are not. But it's not okay for the narcissist.
And something that's a last take-away is that one way you really see this is that narcissists actually hate getting sick. It's very hard for them when they get sick because now everything's not great, it's like, "I'm as strong as a bull! I NEVER get sick!" And when they finally do get sick it can actually be very destabilizing for them. They'll try to fight through it and say, "I'm going to get better in record time! I don't need no stinkin' flu shot! Flu shots are for suckers!" And when they get sick, yea, they'll complain more than ever, but it is very important to them never to show any weakness to the world.
So their toxic positivity, it's not just gaslighting, it's putting this false grandiose front to the world, so that no form of weakness ever peers out from behind them.
But if you ever had to grow up with a toxically positive parent, or live with a toxically positive partner, or have a toxically positive friend, or have a toxically positive boss, these kinds of narcissistic patterns, which are really, really common, especially in grandiose narcissists it can be galling.
Interestingly also, in the covert narcissist, you don't tend to see as much of the toxic positivity - they don't tend to run positive. ...
I would beg to differ about the covert narcissist. They are more likely to want you to see things on their terms, whether positive or negative. Sure they might be negative, and their negativity is just as much of a "toxic negativity" as the grandiose narcissist's "toxic positivity". Instead of manipulating you into seeing everything in a positive light, the covert narcissist will be manipulating you to see everything the way they see it, whether it is in their usual negative light, or a positive light.
People who they put on pedestals, they will want you to put on pedestals too.
People who they can't stand, they will want you to grimace about in disgust too.
They can even be rageful about it: "What's the matter with you!? This person is awful! You need to stay away from them! They did x, y and z, and no one should be talking to them!" or on the other spectrum they may say, "This is someone I hold in the highest regard and my experiences with this person don't mean anything to you!? You can't see what I see? Maybe you're lying to me about who you think they are! In fact, maybe I'll just replace you with them!"
They will want to control who you have relationships with, how you talk or don't talk to other people, and even how you perceive people. It's an isolation tactic at its very core, isolating you from others they find threatening or who don't pump their ego. And they will often put you on the spot as to how you regard or treat other people (and rage at you about it to keep you compliant with them in this regard).
And then when you can't take the rage any more, and you really don't like the person they are raving about and putting on a pedestal, and the loneliness and isolation you find with the narcissist is giving you major depression symptoms, say that you decide to leave, at least while they are in this phase.
Or say that you can't take them trashing other people that you like, spreading false narratives and gossip about others, making fun of people behind their backs, and you leave over that for awhile until they stop too.
In either case, they are likely play the victim. They feel they absolutely have to have your feelings and perspectives aligned with theirs. It's one of the more toxic parts about being controlled by them.
And what about the person they put on a pedestal? The person they saw as "all good"? They can suddenly find them to be "all bad" because black and white thinking is so much a part of this disorder: "You left me all by myself with this toxic controlling person! You knew they were toxic and did nothing to enlighten me, or help me! You ran away instead! You're not a good friend!" - playing the victim.
Or the person they trashed? "You know we've been doing a lot together since you left. In fact, every day we talk. I got her all wrong! It happens. We are the closest of friends now. I heard you mentioned a couple of times by her. Don't you like her enough to call her more than once a week? Why would you only talk to her once a week when you seemed to like her so much that you didn't want to hear what I said to her? Well, you run away from relationships like you did with me. It's too bad you're like that. She's such a great person! Like the sun on a cloudy day." - playing the manipulator, getting in-between you and your relationships with others.
I, myself, have been through this with covert narcissists more times than I can count.
Anyway, that is their way of handling toxic positivity - it's what I've seen anyway.
Here's another possible scene:
A person who they might want you to see as negative, they say, "What's the matter with you!? I've told you over and over again that she cheated on my brother! And the best you can do is to have a 'wait-and-see' attitude!? The best thing you can do is to still be saying 'hi' to her? Well, I guess you're not loyal! I guess you better leave for good!" And when you leave, years later you see her, and she says, "I'm sorry I got it all wrong! My brother was cheating on her instead! And he took every stick of furniture out of my parents house and left me with nothing! Why didn't you tell me? Why did you just leave like that!?" That is another way they handle "toxic positivity" that has turned into a "negative toxicity".
Anyway, I have a lot of respect for Dr. Ramani regardless. I just think that since the toxic positivity manifests a little differently in covert narcissism, it can be missed (because covert narcissists act a little more humble and aren't as outwardly aggressive about insisting you have a mind-set exactly like theirs, and because they can switch to "toxic negativity" just as easily.
They just can't stop putting people down, just as much as they can't stop putting people on pedestals.
Anyway, here is another video that is worth your while. Again, I write some of what I feel are the pertinent transcripts of that video:
"How toxically positive people enable narcissism" - by Dr. Ramani Durvasula
... Now we've been doing a series on enablers and the different types of enablers. Today we're going to talk about a very specific kind of enabler, the "toxically positive" enabler.
Now this series gets at what I consider to be a problem that's on equal footing, frankly, with narcissism. A lot of people would be on a quicker path to recovery if they didn't have to hear other people saying, "Well, you shouldn't use that word!" or "Well, we don't know their side of the story," or "It sounds like you're being too sensitive."
This kind of pattern is actually what keeps narcissism so prevalent and in place, and it often leaves people feeling further gaslighted, manipulated and isolated.
Now, let's talk about this kind of enabler, the toxically positive one. ...
... Now, as a general rule, emotions are useful, because they are our messengers, right? But in most cases, maybe not all, emotions pass. We have them and then they work their way through.
But we need to heed our emotions as the messengers and signals that they are. And what we need to do is to learn appropriate ways of being with our emotions, and learning to respond in the face of them.
Now, the toxic positivity folks are the ones who shame people for not walking around eternally optimistic. And they are fully convinced of their power, all of the time. They will often evoke and weaponize all kinds of New Age "hooey" to sort of do the shaming of negative emotions, and will tell you, "None of that negative talk! Come on now, shift your mindset! You have the power over your mind! Set a happy intention! You are the master of your mind!"
And for people who are facing oppressive, and dominant, and abusive behavior, not just from a partner, or family member, but from the world at large, you can set all of the damned intentions, and mind power you want - you can't change the world, and you shouldn't blame yourself for that, because that's what ends up in these toxically positive spaces, that somehow your mind is so magical that it changes everything, including the other toxic people in it.
So in the toxic positivity world, these are folks who don't like hearing about narcissism. It's just too negative for them, and it's interesting because a fair number of these toxically positive folks are narcissistic themselves.
Narcissism feels like it's too defeatist a conversation for them. It feels too negative, and this idea that something can't change, well that's just way too much for them! To them you've got this "mind power" that should change anything, right?
(4:03)
In the toxic positivity world everything can be changed they think. And if you believe it can't be changed that's your fault. Interestingly, the toxic positivity folks may also not be that bothered as it were, at the narcissistic traits and qualities we see in people and instead, they may frame narcissistic people as people who are "tough leaders", or "who think out of the box", or who are just able to make "direct decisions", and that if we are having trouble in a relationship with them, then it is our fault. Pleeaase don't get me started on this. This one gets me going.
This toxic positivity movement is actually observed in - we see it in a certain subset of motivational speakers and basically anyone who tries to silence people who are trying to say, "Hay! Not everything is good!" ...
... Toxically positive enablers will also convert all of your emotions about other people into a projection. They'll say things to you like, "Well you're angry at that person because you're just disappointed in yourself" - and that can leave you with even more self doubt especially if that person you're angry at is a gaslighting, invalidating narcissistic person. ...
... Listen, you cannot look within yourself until you are educated about what is also outside of you so that you can make an informed decision. The positivity folks leave that rather important bit out.
Sure, so when a person's reality is being denied, or they are not being shown basic human empathy, or they are being invalidated, exactly how are they supposed to take responsibility and control? It's like blaming someone's face for being in the way of another person's fist. But this idea of personal responsibility to a fault coupled with the unwillingness for so many "heal-y types" to see narcissistic relationships clearly means that many, many survivors walk around in a state of self blame, self shame, and self gaslighting for years and even decades longer than they need to.
The toxic positivity enabling is one of the major reasons why this entire issue of narcissism and what it does to other people, isn't getting addressed systematically. ...
... Once you really get the perimeters of what these antagonistic relationships are really about, yup, then I can get behind a person taking responsibility when they are in one of these relationships, and making a decision. But blaming a person for being sad, or anxious, or confused when they are being narcissistically abused, that's B.S.
Toxic positivity enabling is dangerous. It is systemic, and it is everywhere. Someone invalidating you is not your fault. But, it's not because your energy is off. It's just not okay. Someone gaslighting you is not your fault ...
... No one can rush your healing. There is no magical yoga pose, or crystal, or self development course, or mantra that can do it. Get the information on what these toxic personality styles are about. Be kind to yourself and trust the process. It will happen. And while you are setting up the boundaries, and the disengagement, around the narcissistic folks, you might want to cast that net a little wider, and you may want to do that with the toxically positive enablers as well.
The toxically positive enablers are actually a little bit different than the Pollyannas. The Pollyannas actually take a little more of a simplistic stance: "Everyone has good in them!" The toxically positive ones take this a level up. They actually blame you and want you to take responsibility for everything that happens to you, even the narcissistic abuse, and will blame you when you have a negative mood, for not having a strong enough mind to get your way out of it. ...
Another video worth your while:
"Saying good-bye to toxic enablers in your life" - by Dr. Ramani Durvasula
Hi everyone, it's Dr. Ramani. Welcome back to this You Tube channel on narcissism.
This next video is a bit of a, sort of a painful (I don't know it I'd call it a cautionary tale) but the kinds of boundaries we have to set in these relationships, and why none of this is easy - I think a lot of people want the quick fix of "Eh, just leave the narcissistic relationship." It ain't that easy. There's a lot of collateral harm in surrounding these.
So, if anything, this is really a video about how enablers legitimize toxic people and what you should do with those enablers.
Okay, so I'm going to tell you a story about myself, as detailed a story as I can. I'm going to tell this story in a bit of an obtuse way because I don't want to hurt some of the people who were involved, but I learned a lot from this story. I still ruminate about this so I know there is something to be learned about here.
(1:02)
In this instance I am not going to write everything down that Dr. Ramani said, but she went to the party of a sweet empathetic person in her life, and was insulted by a woman she had never met.
Her friend, the sweet person, described this toxic insulter as "being silly". To Dr. Ramani it wasn't about "being silly", but something a lot more nefarious than that. And the party, in general, seemed to have a number of insulting people in it, not something that is at all comfortable for people who want to avoid toxic events and toxic people.
I hope I have done justice in giving everyone a succinct version to her story. To hear the whole story, you have to check on the link above.
Anyway, she no longer felt comfortable at the event because her sweet friend really did not put an end to all of the insulting going on, and Dr. Ramani left early.
(7:24)
The insulting woman was glad to see me go. I will never be able to get a straight answer on why she didn't like me. When the nice person introduced us, the insulting person wouldn't even shake my hand. And she said she had never met me, nor had she ever heard of me. So I didn't think it had been something I had done. I thought, "This is the Catch-22 that survivors find themselves in all of the time."
In the course of that afternoon, a thousand bad memories flooded me at this event. The damned body holds all of these memories and I felt sick. I got into my car and I called one of my best friends just to hear her voice, to be in the safe space of a friend who does have your back. ...
Notice that she said she "felt sick". Remember what I said above in my last section.
Those feelings of sickness may be trying to tell you something. Injustice and verbal abuse can effect your anxiety levels (even a lot), and anxiety effects the nerves, the stomach, head, heart and breathing the most. The stomach is effected in trauma because it is saying, "Don't eat anything! It's flight time! It's time to run and get out of this situation! You don't want to do that on a full stomach!", so you get feelings of nausea to keep you from eating.
In really traumatic situations, you will actually throw up, and not kidding.
Having memories of childhood, those helpless feelings when you were bullied can come up in events where you are being insulted as an adult. You feel alone too, like "These aren't my people. They belong to a very different cult than what I am used to."
(8:38)
... We can conduct ourselves well enough in the moment, not take the bait, hold our heads high, breathe through the traumatic memories popping up in us, try and do the right thing, and show empathy, and still not have to go again (to the party). And we can learn. The fact is that the nice person didn't step up. She didn't notice. She didn't check up on me. Her enabling was more important than showing compassion to a person who is clearly being treated badly. Maintaining that other relationship with that difficult person was far more important to her. It doesn't mean I'm going to reject her, but she's definitely been demoted a bit in the sort of matrix in my heart of "safe people." She's not as safe. She's not as close now.
I have been in situations like this myself, and as I've said, people can "blank out" on insults. I've done it myself on occasion and felt really, really bad at not "catching it" to defend the other person.
If she is a "nice person", it's still possible that she may have blanked out because narcissists take advantage of "nice people" and try to get nice people to normalize atrocious behavior as being "just silly 'ol me! I'm sorry I wrecked your party! I'll watch myself next time!" with those next times being worst than the first times.
Which is to say that this nice person may be brainwashed to think of an insulting person as just a "silly 'ol me" type of person who is trying to check her behavior but is slipping up now and then, and just happened to slip up with Dr. Ramani.
The other problem is society itself, particularly in the unassuming stand-up comedy world where insults fly as acceptable just to enjoy the art form. In America, a lot of people watch comedians, and it's hard not to laugh, even when they keep poking fun at the same person, or politician. Most politicians let the insults fly over their heads and don't respond, as the comedians just take their being insulted as another provocation to start another comedy.
It becomes a game of attention-seeking, and the sometimes unassuming, self-effacing comedians appear to win the game over and over again against the politicians who find the jokes "too insulting".
I make cartoons, not about a particular person at all, but about narcissism, in general. But a narcissist might think that all of my cartoons were about them specifically, and get mad. The thing is, most narcissists tend to have the same behavioral issues.
Anyway, all of this normalization of insults, especially on late night T.V., in some movies, in cartoons, and on the internet, is making the issue of insults hard to know how to respond to, which is why there is such a freeze response to them, with both victims and enablers.
You'd have to be thinking an awful lot while it was going on at your own party ... like: "Is this insult mean, or like something on T.V.?" ... "Should I intervene right now? Would that be appropriate or would I be making a fuss out of something that might embarrass the two of them, where Dr. Ramani would tell me that it isn't that big a deal, that is just a joke?" ... "How do I read this situation? I don't like it, but maybe she can handle it herself? Maybe I should tell her this friend of mine is silly so she won't take the insults right into her heart?" ... "Wow! This is making me uncomfortable! And I don't even know if I should help in defending her. She might think I was pointing out a weakness like 'too sensitive to insults' and Dr. Ramani would get mad at me for not letting her defend herself?"
These situations can be tougher than they look to a lot of us who have been insulted and where it was not a joke at all, where our pasts were full of being bullied, and where narcissists tried to exert power and control over us.
Some "enablers" aren't dealing with enabling per se as much as a pervasive societal habit of making fun of other people.
This is not to excuse the behavior she endured at all, and it would have been better if the insult-er had better intuitive capacities, better manners, better capabilities of stopping it to assess enough as to what the doctor was feeling, to realize she was causing trauma and pain, to "stop with the insults already".
Healing from narcissistic abuse is a series of calibrations. All of us let dangerous people into our inner sanctums once before. That can't happen any more. This isn't about "no contact". I'll definitely see her again, but only one on one, never amongst her group of people. Healing from narcissistic abuse is also about being flexible. Listen. I have no idea whether this insulting woman was narcissistic. I only encountered a thin sliver of her. She definitely has terrible manners and clearly has some strong opinions, and no self awareness.
I don't know if it was narcissism, and it doesn't really matter. Her behavior was hurtful. The (hmmm) icky people at that event all enabled the most toxic person there. It might have been cultural.
All of those in the group were people who had known each other for a long time. But it became so clear that the most toxic people at this particular event were absolutely legitimized by the enablers who were more invested in how this system flowed and in keeping this system running than in stepping in the face - than in helping someone out who is being treated badly. My guess is that I wasn't the first, and I definitely won't be the last.
These kinds of things happen in antagonistic systems all of the time.
I actually, during this event, was so overwhelmed by this event that I grabbed my phone and started taking notes. It's actually where the idea for this video came from. I figured I may as well share the pain, and foster some growth.
Personally though, this event was one of the first times I saw how healing actually happened for me. Healing actually does happen. Because for the first time I didn't blame myself. For a minute I did wonder what was so offensive about me, but I was quick to assess my behavior and realize it wasn't me.
Note that people can be prejudiced, especially narcissists.
People can be competitive, and might have been competitive with someone introduced as "Someone I feel very close to --" - maybe the hostile person wanted to be in the number one position of closest friend.
Maybe the hostility was from thinking she, the hostile person, was the best friend, and was mad about it, and instead of confronting the nice person who was holding the party, she took it out on the doctor instead, which might have been why she was glad Dr. Ramani left.
Maybe the hostility came from "This person does not belong in this friendship circle!" - insular thinking.
Maybe she knew who Dr. Ramani was, probably the most famous psychologist on T.V., talk shows, and the internet at the moment. A lot of people don't like famous people. Seriously. Some feel they should be in that spot instead. A lot of people think that famous people have these gargantuan egos and that they need to be brought down a notch or two.
I spent a lot of my life as a performer, in a music band, and even when I was playing tiny little coffee houses, people said, "I didn't want you to have a bigger head than you already had, so I _________."
Since when did I ever have a big ego? People assume things that aren't true. And even when I played to bigger and bigger live audiences, I'd see people sleeping, some were bored, some were annoyed their parents dragged them there, some were fidgety. They weren't all-adoring audiences, and the all-adoring ones, the ones who came up to me at every show, I was always suspicious of.
I know an awful lot of famous people by now, and I can tell you that not only are most of them humble, and introverted, even the "hamming-it-up" musicians (it is just part of the role of musician, after all), but many have lost their families, or very close dear friends they used to have, and are still a "grieving mess" about it all, that their the limelight and adoring fans of their career cannot fix. And it all started because of their career.
Anyway, people can be hostile about anything, for any reason, and even by personality trait alone.
I have to say that I like Dr. Ramani's conclusion, "...I was quick to assess my behavior and realize it wasn't me."
I think immediately hostile people that you barely know or have contact with, it is a "them situation" just about always, than a "me situation", and it can feel good for anyone who has been blamed, shamed, bullied and given unusually cruel treatment to have an automatic thought that "My God, it isn't me!"
Not all survivors of narcissistic abuse are going to blame themselves in all situations, and that will drive narcissists nuts. Too bad for them.
Going AWOL by refusing to listen to any more "It's all your fault, and always your fault no matter whats" from blame-shifting, brainwashing narcissists, especially when you see the very obvious truth behind it, is always such a good moment.
(12:50)
Despite being flooded with painful memories of childhood ostracism, not fitting in, being chastised and shouted at, being told that most things I did were wrong, something in this event clicked in me, and I even got to keep my own empathy. I gotta tell you, folks, I wish I had left at about thirty minutes earlier. The true confession is that I stayed the extra thirty minutes for dessert. That's on me. Had I left thirty minutes earlier, I have to give myself credit, I definitely would have stuck the landing. But this is a process.
Next time, if there is a next time, I'll leave in these situations before the proverbial appetizer. But I have to say, I also didn't lose my empathy in a disruptive event that mattered to the nice person. It's all a balancing act and for now, my introverted past is about staying home, and no more holiday parties or get-togethers for me.
But it is a warning to be careful of the enablers. Their legitimizations of the narcissistic and toxic folks in our midst, may not have created the monster, but they sure keep it fed ...
I have been in that thought-tank of "no more holiday parties or get-togethers for me".
But I also discovered that sitting home was not for me either.
In the last few years, I have been to the best holiday parties and get-togethers I have ever been to. And that came from listening to Richard Grannon who is very much a "you've got to take chances if you really want to get to a place where PTSD and trauma is not effecting you so much, and not taking over your life, your thoughts, and everything you do." I think he is so right about that.
I really do think if you study narcissism and all of their tactics, you can stay away from toxic people. You won't be fooled so easily by them again, or brainwashed, or gaslighted, and you will understand what they are raging about much more clearly, and yes, you will walk away much sooner from them at a party, or go over to meet someone else from the party you'd rather talk to.
When any of us hang around narcissists too long we become extra introverted. Some of us become so quiet, self effacing, and like we don't matter that we revert to one sentence when we feel like it is our turn to talk. That's not necessarily "us"; that's what being around narcissists turned us into. So I think it's important to fight that tendency, and go to parties, and recognize the obnoxious people before we begin to talk to them, and have a nice conversation with the people who have clear amounts of empathy, the ones who are not the bulls in the china closet.
5 Ways Positivity Can Hurt Your Mental Health - by Psych to Go (a conglomerate of mental health practitioners)
Podcast 359: Toxic Positivity: What it sounds like, why it's toxic, and what to say instead - by Dr. Caroline Leaf
Toxic positivity, Toxic Gratitude, Malignant Optimism: Self-gaslighting - by Professor Sam Vaknin
Don't Be Grateful To Your Abuser - by Professor Sam Vaknin
Toxic Positivity and Parenting - Kyle Kittleson interviews parenting influencer, Desirae Barnett for Med Circle
How a Narcissist Uses Toxic Positivity to Gaslight You - by Rebecca Zung, Esq
The DANGER of NOT SPEAKING UP about the narcissist - by Dr. Ramani Durvasula
The psychological toll of BEING SILENCED - by Dr. Ramani Durvasula
Narcissist Manipulates You With “Emotional Cocktails” - by Richard Grannon
Toxic Positivity - from the writers of Psychology Today
Toxic Positivity - by Graham Reynolds, Ph.D. for Anxiety and Depression Association of America
Toxic Positivity: Definition, Examples And What To Say Instead - by Breanna Mona, reviewed by Mariam Ayvazyan, M.A., L.M.H.C., M.B.A. for Forbes
Toxic Positivity - Wkipedia
Toxic positivity at work: Examples and ways to manage it - by Allaya Cooks-Campbell for Better Up
What to know about toxic positivity - by Zawn Villines, medically reviewed by Jacquelyn Johnson, PsyD. for Medical News Today
What You Need to Know About Toxic Positivity - by McKenna Pricing for Right As Rain by UW Medicine
Toxic Positivity: What It Is and What to Do About It - by Kate Skurat for Calmerry
All About Toxic Positivity: Definition, Health Effects, and How to Respond - by Emily P.G. Erickson and Medically Reviewed by Seth Gillihan, PhD for Everday Health
