Folie à deux Among Narcissists? Or Sycophants? Or Maybe Not Either?

 So what is Folie à deux?

Here is a definition from Google AI in red (and you can search other articles about the phenomenon):

"Folie à deux," which translates to "madness of two" in French, is a psychiatric syndrome where two or more individuals share a delusional belief. This shared psychosis is also known as shared psychotic disorder or induced delusional disorder. The term "folie à deux" was first used in the 19th century to describe this phenomenon, according to Wikipedia.

Key aspects of folie à deux:

Shared Delusion:

One individual (the "primary" or "inducer") develops a delusion, which then influences another person (the "secondary" or "induced") to share the same delusion. 

Close Relationship:

Folie à deux is typically observed in individuals with a close relationship, such as family members or intimate partners. 

Influence and Suggestibility:

The primary individual's delusion can influence the secondary individual, who may be more suggestible or impressionable. 

Treatment:

Treatment typically involves separation of the individuals, antipsychotic medications, individual and family therapy, and potentially psychotherapy. 

Types of Folie à Deux:

Folie imposée (induced psychosis): The primary individual's delusion is imposed on the secondary individual. 

Folie simultanée (shared psychosis): The primary and secondary individuals share delusions independently but become very similar. 

Other Terms:

While "folie à deux" is the most common term, other terms like "shared psychotic disorder," "double insanity," or "psychosis of association" are also used, according to Merriam-Webster. 

In the context of the movie Joker: Folie à Deux:

The movie uses the term "folie à deux" to reflect the shared madness and delusional beliefs between the Joker (Arthur Fleck) and Harley Quinn (Lee Quinzel). The film explores their shared delusion and the impact of their relationship on each other. 

Pronunciation:

The term "folie à deux" is pronounced as "FOH-lee ah DEU".

In addition, a Wikipedia article claims that the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual that psychologists use will not legitimize Folie à Deux, and therefor no psychologist can diagnose a patient with it.

However, the Wikipedia article classifies two sub-divisions of Folie à Deux in these passages (also in red):

Various sub-classifications of folie à deux have been proposed to describe how the delusional belief comes to be held by more than one person:[9]
Folie imposée
Where a dominant person (known as the 'primary', 'inducer', or 'principal') initially forms a delusional belief during a psychotic episode and imposes it on another person or persons (the 'secondary', 'acceptor', or 'associate'). Normally the latter, described as "un malade par reflet", does not suffer from a true psychosis. If the parties are admitted to hospital separately, the delusions in the person with the induced beliefs are typically abandoned.[10]
Folie simultanée
Either the situation where two people considered to independently experience psychosis influence the content of each other's delusions so they become identical or strikingly similar, or one in which two people "morbidly predisposed" to delusional psychosis mutually trigger symptoms in each other. Due to the lack of a dominant partner, separation of patients might not improve the condition of either.[10]

So while it is illegitimatized by the writers of the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual so that no one can get a diagnosis of it, can it still be discussed and researched a bit?

My feeling about it is that "of course it can." 

I have often wondered whether people can pick up narcissistic traits from long term exposure to a narcissist. Can psychopathic traits be picked up from being around a psychopath? Can Machiavellianism be picked up from being around someone who has the traits of a Dark Triad?

Then there is the phrase "narcissistic fleas" where people who engage with a narcissist might pick up some narcissistic traits. It is heavily used in forums for victims of narcissistic abuse. I found the phrase being repeatedly used in this one and here.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula, a psychologist and expert on narcissism denies that it is possible in some of her videos that discuss this, and in my mind she has a lot of clout because she studies this subject so diligently. 

But I also can't help noticing how sycophancy is being embraced in politics, in political parties, in wars, between nations, and how so many people are willing to parrot the ridiculous false narratives of someone else. Are these sycophants an actually a mini-me or have they lost their minds to the point of being an almost-puppet, or an almost-robot, spouting the phrases of narcissists and dictators without being influenced by them a bit (hard to believe they are generating this "stuff" in their own mind) or are they just lazy thinkers and adopt someone else's thoughts, opinions and beliefs? Or is something else going on?

And is it folie à deux or something else? 

And how responsible are we if we "go along to get along", if we adopt sycophancy to keep a job or to keep being a member of a family, or if we adopt another person's perspectives ala folie à deux?

The reason I think it deserves some consideration, even if it can't be a diagnosis is because of a narcissist's incredible pressure to get people to enable them and to be sycophants for them - and it is often so highly successful even when it is clearly not advantageous to the person who has decided to support, enable and submit to what ever a narcissist wants.

So many enablers take up the narcissist's perspectives too even if the narcissist is lying, spreading false narratives, is clearly out to exploit and benefit from his powerful position (grifting or other means), is telling people he is very popular when he's not, is telling people he invented something when he did not, is telling people that most people agree with him when they don't - these sycophants and enablers seem to stick with the narcissist and what ever he says even as his life and their own lives and autonomous decisions are being unraveled and eroded away constantly. 

in terms of politics:

Politically, this happens all of the time: Why does a population believe in the lies of a politician? 

They often do believe in the lies politicians tell. And as we know, a population can go much further than believing lies are the truth, and help to enact policies which hurt themselves, their families and communities, giving too much power over to a leader who is more interested in his own power than the people he diabolically serves. Some of them will even go to war and die for a narcissist when they know that the spoils from the war will mostly go to the leader and his oligarch grifters. 

We know how a combination of threats, punishments and rewards are used to get people to enable and submit to despotic leaders. That's usually in plain sight. If it's so plain that you are following a person who threatens to get his own way, why do people do it so willingly, with so much loyalty and fervency. 

It's been branded as "the cult mind" all over the internet these days. You've probably seen it yourself. People who are not submitting, who don't believe in the lies and false narratives, constantly shame these enablers for "joining a cult", for giving credence to a leader who "takes away more than he gives, and if you can't see that, then you have been anaesthetized with fantasies and hopes rather than reality" - the obvious stigma of what a lot of cult followers get from outsiders. 

Then there are the voters who voted for the tyrant but who complain constantly about what he is doing. They'll say, "I didn't want to pay more taxes and I don't like socialism, so I went for him and I hope we can all live through what he's doing", or "I didn't want an authoritarian right wing government, so I went for him and cringed the whole time he was in office." They certainly can't be branded as sycophants, but are they enabling "a mad leader" if the leader is indeed truly mad and producing crazy-making policies? 

And by the way, that is how Jekyll/Hyde personality types are often created: reluctant sycophancy, alternating between being enraged by the actions of an abuser, tyrant or silencer behind their back, calling them names, swearing up a storm, then being fawning and sweet to them in their presence.

Then this kind of sycophancy becomes a way of life for them: they vacillate wildly between being scary and nice depending on the person they are relating to, the situation they are in, what they get out of the situation to the point where they can be two-faced with every person they meet. And it can have extreme manifestations, their violence constantly being corrected by their sweet-talk afterwards, over and over and over again via the cycle of abuse. 

I had to separate from one of these types myself. It was no longer safe and it made for an unpredictable, extremely chaotic, "walking-on-eggshells" type of environment. 

It tells me that reluctant sycophancy over years, or starting in childhood, is not in the least bit healthy, for anyone, least of all them, or even particularly valued by most people, even the tyrant, and I bet it can have an impact on the brain as I've never seen or heard of cases where it can be abated in any significant way except with borderlines. For folks with heavy narcissistic or antisocial personality disorder traits in addition to pronounced Jekyll/Hyde traits, these traits seem hopeless to correct. Maybe it can be "modified" somewhat through DBT therapy. I don't know. Although it might be best not to change these people especially since narcissists and psychopaths are consummate actors looking at how to exploit situations with new-found tools, and "politeness tools" in the hands of people like this may not be a good idea as far as society goes. "Better to see it and flee it" I'd say.

Anyway, for now it seems that reluctant sycophancy to despotic tyrants would be just as unhealthy as the all-in sycophants. 

Can folie à deux manifest among followers of despotic tyrants? Can some of those followers peel off from an adoring crowd if these tyrants fall from power? I bet they can via folie imposée. Can Jekyll/Hyde personality types go more Hyde on a despotic tyrant as the tyrant is falling from grace? I bet they can and do.

crime families and accomplices: 

Then there is the advent of crime families. If two parents are criminals is it likely their children will become criminals too? Research suggests that yes, a child of criminal parents is likely to commit crimes themselves. Not only are they being taught criminal behavior through a parent setting an example, but I'd bet they are being pressured in some way to be accomplices. Criminals usually pressure other people. They want to get away with unlawful acts and if the consequences for those actions can be put on others, so be it. So children grow up in situations where crime is normalized at the very least, and they are coerced to commit some of them themselves at worst. 

Children are either going to please the parent by being an accomplice, or condoning what their parents are doing, or keeping quiet about it, or they are going to disapprove of the criminal acts and usually suffer severe consequences from the parent. If their criminal parent has delusions the child may very well have them too, right? Or at least puppet those delusions. 

Children are assumed to not have much of a free will, so they are usually put in detention homes instead of prison. "My parent made me do it." Not exactly, but to disobey a parent like this might have a very dire outcome for a child. As for the thought processes they might have adopted from the parent maybe it goes like this: "My parent can be scary. I guess he steals so that makes him more scary, right? I believed in what he believed in because it made him happy. I felt I was more a part of the family if I believed everything he said. If I didn't I felt alone, shivery, cold and scared. Being so alone and cold made me realize I should believe him. It makes me happy to see him happy and he is happy if he is believed. I can tell the difference between a lie and the truth when I'm away from him, but when I'm with him my mind tends to go where his goes. Is this my fault?" - I think this is possible for children, yes? So we could say it is a case of folie à deux and folie imposée ... maybe. But not quite because the child can think for himself (mostly? sometimes?) outside the presence of a parent. Still, his free will is compromised by being dependent on a parent, and possibly societally ("obey your elders"). 

But what about when it comes to adults committing crimes under peer pressure?

Folie à deux doesn't typically work because a free will, the ability to come and go, the ability to make your own decisions and know the law, and follow the law, and an ability to be and act in an autonomous manner is assumed after you turn the age of 18. You'd have to make a pretty iron-clad case that these things were restricted all or most of the time for you by someone. If you were able to leave the house, walk the dog, go to the grocery store, talk on the phone, and go to a job every day, then it shows you don't have the kind of restrictions that would keep you from making a lawful choice. Still defense lawyers sometimes try to legitimize folie à deux anyway. 

This link tells why the defense typically doesn't work. 

No wonder psychologists don't want to give folie à deux much credence. "Your honor, my client has folie à deux and was unduly influenced to commit crimes because of it." - Thank God this is not happening and that no doctor can diagnose it. 

But the law about being pressured also means that you must resist sycophancy. That might be harder to do in a country where sycophancy to a leader is extreme and expected to the point of worship, and where there is also a double standard about it: sycophancy to others besides "the leader" is punishable, like if you follow a father into a life of crime, or if you follow the leader of your troop out of the battlefield and all go AWOL, or if you try to escape a country like North Korea. 

It is notable to me anyway, that sycophancy is so popular when it comes to people with no empathy, who start wars (whether killing wars or trade wars or silent civil wars), who bully others, who lie their way through life, who harm lots of other people, who make rash irrational decisions, who often show a disregard for the law, and whose main goal in life is to get as much attention in life as possible (narcissistic supply), get as much money as possible even if it's done unethically, and to get ever more power, control and domination.  

Why would anyone want to be a sycophant to someone like that? Why wouldn't they opt for a free mind instead, a mind unfettered with worry about a tyrant's disapproval every time they had a thought that was different than the tyrant's? Wouldn't it be better to be out of the tight confines of sycophancy? Wouldn't it be better for your mind to go free than to be deemed, under pressure and tyranny, to be no more important than having a lock or silencer on it? 

Is it possible for folie à deux to be more common among a group of malignant narcissists, or is it more common for sycophants to adopt it?

In a lot of ways, sycophants and narcissists are kind of alike. They both are looking for rewards in relationships and with each other, and they both tend to give up on ethics to do so. 

The sycophant is looking to be rewarded by the narcissist either monetarily, or through position, or through reputation, or through membership, or attention. Something is going on where they want something from the narcissist and are willing to prostrate and sweet-talk to get it. They wouldn't need to be a sycophant if it wasn't for something they value and want. They could speak their mind, not worry if the narcissist approves, not care if their thoughts or opinions on a matter match the narcissist's - they'd be their own individual and not be afraid of being their authentic self. 

There is usually something in the sycophant where they feel they cannot be their genuine self, to be self aware, and self accepting. In a way, it's about giving into a narcissist via shame. And sycophants give into narcissists a lot and often find themselves so deep into doing and saying things for a narcissist, even evil-doings, that they can lose sense of who they really are beyond what the narcissist wants them to be. 

Some sycophants are expected to be the fall-guy for the narcissist so much so that they eventually reach a point where they can go no further into immoral actions and places that the narcissists comes to expect from them. They then have to give up on the rewards and being in the good graces of the narcissist. 

This isn't a relationship based on compromise.

The narcissist won't hear the sycophant's ideas and thoughts, and the narcissist won't really care about the sycophant past what the sycophant can do. It's also usually based on how much and far the sycophant will go to please the narcissist. How much will the sycophant give up on themselves, their dignity, their safety, their dreams, their authenticity, their own thoughts and feelings, their own experiences, for the narcissist?

The narcissist will always be testing the sycophant to take on more of this too. 

The narcissist, in contrast to the sycophant, is looking for admiration, attention, domination, power and control, and in order to get it, they have to have sycophants who will constantly promote them, bring in people the narcissist thinks are important for their self image and reputation, call them a genius, make admiring gestures, say what the narcissist tells them to say, speak in the way the narcissist wants them to speak, do what the narcissist wants them to do and generally "follow" them. They will also be expected to have the same enemies as the narcissist. If the narcissist bullies an individual, the sycophant is either expected to enable it or to go along with it, and sometimes even take on the role as the main perpetrator.

For the sycophant it is a job of servitude, and if there are few or no rewards, a kind of slavery. Unfortunately the vulnerable, the disabled, the sick, the traumatized, the prejudiced against, and children can be lured into slavery for a narcissist. There isn't much power and control to achieve for a narcissist without a sycophant, or two, or ten, and narcissists think it is easier to find and keep  sycophants among the disadvantaged or children. 

Sycophancy might not be so bad if narcissists weren't cruel and didn't use blackmail, threats, manipulations, fake grand-standing, lying, punishments and coercive control to get sycophancy out of others, if it was totally a volunteer job where you could get a good recommendation if you wanted to quit. 

But narcissists often get enraged when you quit. They want you to suffer. They want to punish you. Only they are supposed to do the firing. Most of them attack you for quitting the sycophant role. They look at it as a grave disloyalty. They look at it as a deep betrayal. But is there really any loyalty in sycophancy since it is based on rewards? And is there really any loyalty when narcissists only looks at people as potential sycophants? In other words, isn't it co-disloyalty?

"Will this sycophant be a good one or a bad one? How will they compare to others? Do I need to run a competition between them all to see who is best at it? Do I need to throw away the sycophants who aren't doing enough of what I want them to do?"

And they love the competition. One of their sycophants can be dangerous to another one of their sycophants, and the narcissist will insist they still need to compete for narcissistic rewards and approval. 

That's just sick. If this is being done to children it's especially sick.

You'd think they would make exceptions for their children in this regard. Like: "No, honey. You can't be a sycophant. You're too young for that job. You should spend your childhood playing, laughing, learning, and being healthy. You can't handle it at this age. If you grow up and really want to be a sycophant, then that's up to you. But not even under my dead body will I want you to be a sycophant." - but no, a narcissist will traumatize a child, bully them, threaten them, lie to them, wreck their self esteem and play abandonment games to prime them for a sycophant job for their use!

And then they will especially seek revenge on a child who no longer can work in that capacity. Richard Grannon talked in one of his videos about narcissists who wouldn't even take care of or visit their young child dying in a hospital, because these narcissists thought the child was a disappointment to them. There is no getting around the fact that most of them are too transactional and very cold-hearted individuals.

So in that way they are worse than a lot of their sycophants.

However, there are usually a lot of sycophants around a narcissist unless the narcissist is old, and because of the numbers of sycophants, and because they want "the rewards" mostly to themselves (there are already too many sycophants vying for those rewards), so they can be quite a bit more menacing for that reason than one lone narcissist. 

And the other thing to take into consideration is that sycophants can be other narcissists. Maybe even most of them are. They want power and control too, but have to work their way up the sycophancy ladder. 

Granted children, even adult children, the disabled, the traumatized, etc. don't necessarily know what they are getting into. This is especially true if they are relating to a covert narcissist. 

For instance, let's choose a child who was rejected in childhood and adolescence for not being enough of a sycophant as our example. Perhaps this child doesn't know they were rejected for those reasons. They just knew they weren't loved and that's about all they know. Perhaps they also know their parent wasn't like other parents. 

So they don't have a very strong connection with the parent afterwards. Maybe they don't have any contact with their parent when they reach adulthood. If they see the parent, the parent puts them down which reinforces, in the child's mind, that they aren't loved. But nothing is new there and let us say there is radical acceptance of this fact by the child even though it is not what the child wants. 

So time goes on and the parent spends most of their time with the golden child while the rejected child scraps together a life for themselves. They are learning to live autonomously from the parent while the golden child is not. The golden child is called upon a lot and there is a lot of parentification and infantilization in their relationship. 

But then the golden child is not producing enough sycophancy and not enough narcissistic supply. Most narcissists do reach a point where sycophancy and narcissistic supply is not good enough in any relationship. They also get sick of relationships they are in because they are novelty seekers. 

So the parent wants the rejected adult child back. It'll rock the golden child's world, but narcissists typically don't mind if it does. This is very common, by the way. Because of the love bombing and future faking the child is receiving, they think that their parent has had a change of mind and heart and found that they actually loved their rejected child after all. No, but the child doesn't know that because the love bombing is convincing them that the parent's intentions are sincere: to love. 

Often the child doesn't know they are being groomed to be a sycophant and source of narcissistic supply at this point until they are near rejection again from the parent or just after they've been rejected again. 

Another example is a person who comes from a highly functional loving family. They, and everyone else in their family takes good care of each other and "goes to bat" for each other, just the opposite of a narcissistic family. It is all voluntary. The members have a of empathy for one another and were taught to have empathy through example by empathetic elders.

If a person is sick, or has had an accident, the family wants that member to recover and to be their best individual selves. They love and respect individuality because it means the help and expertise is diverse.

So this kind of person enters a relationship with a narcissist thinking that this is going to continue with them, only to find out that sycophancy, impolite undignified conversations peppered with insults is the standard fare, as well as the narcissist's insistence they get their way all of the time and that there will be no compromise. 

So these are the un-intentional sycophants who didn't know that they were supposed to be in a sycophant role, or were even called upon to be a sycophant. They thought the intentions of the narcissist were love and compassion. 

By the way, love and compassion are the two things you will never find with a narcissist (though they can pretend). The discard and torturing you over not supplying enough sycophancy, enough narcissistic supply, enough mirroring and mind-slaving is proof of it. 

In terms of narcissists, they are sycophants themselves in enough situations until they gain power over others.

If you have had narcissists in your own life, you know they can be beating you up in a car, or dropping you off on a road in a rage to walk home by yourself, or throw food at you and not talk to you for days at a time, and then turn it all off in an instant when someone who is rich, or famous, or has a lot of clout, or is popular, or who they want to impress, walks in the door. They are sticky sweet to these people who come to see them; they fawn all over them and compliment them endlessly; they do things for them that they'd never do for you and you live with them! And you think, "Who on earth are they?! Are they the mean person or the nice person, and how come the mean person and the nice person aren't anything alike, that they are too drastically different from one another, like two different people?"

If a sycophant goes out of the realm of the narcissistic cult and no longer has this kind of Jekyll/Hyde personality where the cruel side of them is exceptionally cruel, and the nice side of them is so sticky sweet that they might as well put a big shining yellow lollipop in the mouth of people they idealize, then they probably aren't a narcissist. If they keep up with the Jekyll/Hyde treatment of other people, then they are probably a narcissist, or at least a Cluster B. 

No one who has an authentic self wants or needs to be Jekyll and Hyde. 

So the answer to "Is it possible for folie à deux to be more common among a group of narcissists, or is it more common for sycophants to adopt it?" It's both. It's both because sycophants can be other narcissists and often are. They, like the narcissist they are "following", often expect rewards for "thinking like the narcissist", otherwise they'd just be themselves and let the chips fall where they may when they speak. If they are rejected or punished by the narcissist for not being a sycophant, so be it. Whereas for someone who has put a lot into sycophancy, and given up a lot to be a sycophant, and they are narcissistically inclined themselves, they can go through a major narcissistic collapse from their leader's discard, making themselves out to be horribly betrayed victims. But that is also the price for being in relationships for rewards, and the price for being the sycophant of a "discarding narcissist" since most narcissists discard, and the price for giving up yourself to please someone who could care less about other people (especially sycophants because it is a user-ship type of relationship for them). 

The fact that narcissists feel they need to reward to get people into relationships with them speaks to their hidden shame and agendas. If they stopped giving out rewards or promises, or idealizations and flattery, would people walk away from them?

Probably. Usually who they have around them are reward-driven people, so yes, people would walk away from them.

No one should be in a close personal relationship for the purpose of rewards (rewards are about having extrinsic value to another person, not intrinsic value - so no, it's not a good relationship because of that).

The fact that narcissists feel the need to punish and hurt people (and children!) because these people no longer want to be a sycophant, or can't deal with it to begin with, also speaks to the folly of trying to punish people for not being sycophants. The purpose of the punishments, I take it, is to get these people to submit to further sycophancy out of fear. That just doesn't work unless they are trapped! And trapping people to serve you is against the law. And it's kind of a disgusting reason to have a relationship with someone to begin with.

Whether a narcissist is flattering, pedestal-ing and rewarding,  or whether they are punishing, threatening, and trying to destroy someone else in a pre-adolescent name calling way because the other person isn't a sycophant enough, none of these are ever going to make a good relationship full of realness, lovingness, care. It's a desperate mimic of a relationship, a junkie relationship, and a limited one at that (as in "any relationship will do, even a bad one where people are after rewards from me or they are kicked to the curb by me because they are willing to sacrifice the rewards to get away from me"). - makes a lot of sense, doesn't it - said facetiously, of course. 

FURTHER READING

Folie à deux and the Sycophant - Google AI article followed by other articles on the topic

 
Folie à deux and the Narcissist - Google AI article followed by other articles on the topic

Folie a deux among a narcissistic group of people - Google AI article followed by other articles on the topic

Folie à deux and Antipersonality Disorder - Google AI article followed by other articles on the topic

Folie à deux and Psychopaths - Google AI article followed by other articles on the topic

The Malevolent Side of Human Nature: A Meta-Analysis and Critical Review of the Literature on the Dark Triad (Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy) - professional study by Peter Muris, Harald Merckelbach, Henry Otgaar and Ewout H Meijer for Research Gate

How Do Dictatorships Survive in the 21st Century?
Early in the twenty-first century, the number of democracies surged past the tally of authoritarian states worldwide. By 2019, dictatorships outnumbered democracies. Why do they keep rising from the ashes? - by Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman for Carnegie

The dictator who got away - by Adam LeBor for The New York Times

Home-schooled Girl Kept in a Dog Cage From 11 Years Old Among Other Types of Egregious Abuse by Mother and Stepfather, the Brenda Spencer - Branndon Mosely Case

 
Here's yet another story of homeschooling, false imprisonment and unlawful confinement, this time about a girl living in a filthy house, and allegedly being sexually abused by a stepfather, held against her will, living in a dog crate for an entire year, and chained up in a bathroom . 

It has so many similarities to the Turpin case, the Kimberly Sullivan case and somewhat to the Kornegay case. 

The story also includes, as so many of these child abuse cases do, other children living in or visiting these families. These "other" children are not abused, proving that scapegoating at least one child goes on in most child abuse cases and for now, it seems only this child was treated this way according to the story in The New York Times written by Sarah Maslin Nir (with photography by Rachel Wisniewski). 

Homeschooling is another commonality among these more egregious cases. The message seems to be that if you want to commit this level of crime against a child, you need to homeschool the kid to get there, have constraints such as a securely locked room, chains, an alarm system, or a dog crate to keep the child from running away from this kind of torture (and what kind of message does that send to other parents who feel the incredible need to take child abuse route to this level? Just homeschool them and the persecution will go according to plan?). 

What I found interesting about the Kimberly Sullivan case and the Gloria Williams - Brian Coulter case is that the defense for letting abuse get to this level was about normalizing, enabling, sycophancy, and the brainwashed mind. Egregious abuse got so normalized even when both adults worked, and were absent from each other to think of other alternatives to abuse?

Apparently the mother served as a dog handler who attended dog competitions - that's scary. Who wouldn't have extreme anxiety thinking about this kind of person handling their dog?

And the stepfather is a rail conductor for the greater Philadelphia area. Who would want to ride that kind of train, especially with a child?

Apparently neither the mother or stepfather thought to stop the abuse. And if one of them did, was it so inconvenient to go to the police? Is it hard to find a way to get a child out of the home and into safety?

Or did they think there was nothing wrong in treating a child this way?

Or did they feel during the escalation process of abuse that they didn't want to partake in it any longer, but let their partner do it without interference or protest?

How much enabling, brainwashing, sycophancy, and fear can really be taken seriously as a defense of criminality in cases like this? But time after time, lawyers keep trying for this kind of defense (possibly because lawyers can't find other defenses and just have to think, even with this kind long-shot, that it is the only way to go, the possibility that the defense may be reviewed?). 

Like: "My husband (or wife) told me to do it!" or "taught me to do it!" with "Am I in trouble now? Wasn't I brainwashed? How about that? Can't we use that as a defense? What about the other children and the animals in my house that I loved? That makes me a good person, doesn't it? I just made this one mistake with this child, a child that I was taught to see as a demon! At the time I thought it was an act of kindness to let her use a bathroom instead of a bucket and that I should have been praised for it. Was I wrong to think she was ungrateful?" - is this how this kind of defense is verbalized?

Another thing we find in common is that so many of these kinds of parents live in squalor. Not all of them, obviously. Either their houses are obsessively cleaned, or it's filthy - it is what I've seen. And how do they defend the squalor?

Another thing: so many of these children aren't allowed to use the bathroom. Either a bucket is provided for them, or they find a way to eliminate it out of a window, or they mess themselves because they are chained up. 

And why is any of this happening in the first place? Is all child abuse rooted in how much a child gives a parent narcissistic supply? 

Do parents like this expect a child to flatter them and then the child can't or isn't believed because the child is being tortured? Is it that kind of double bind?

Does the shame-rage spiral of a dark triad parent get to a point that the more shame they feel, they feel the inclination to abuse in a blame-shifting manner, the more they have to hide the abuse, the more shame they feel, and the more they spiral in their shame-rage spiral, the more they hide the abuse, which produces more shame, the more they have to make it the child's fault, the more they feel they have to abuse the child, which produces more shame, and the more child abuse happens? 

Do people like this think they need to torture someone? And does it go to a child because they are easy to hurt, or easy to imprison? And is the overwhelming desire to torture so great, so overwhelming as to require holding someone hostage, against their will? Is having a child with a will so threatening to them? 

Most of these headlines don't cover these kinds of questions. Perhaps psychologist, Dr. Todd Grande, takes a stab at them (double entrende done on purpose), but he also admits his analysis is conjecture as to what "could be happening" from a psychological perspective. However, the narcissistic supply analysis makes the most sense to me in these most egregious of cases, however this too is conjecture, and only based on what I know about narcissistic supply and how it manifests if a narcissist can't get flattery or doesn't believe in what a child says to them. 

Most of us don't have a shame-rage spiral and perhaps that is what sets these cases apart from how most of us treat children. Most of us don't rage or start a campaign of abuse and engage in defamation of character over narcissistic supply deficiencies, but narcissists often do.

Perhaps some day I will have some clearer answers on this phenomenon. 

As usual, I will keep you updated on this case as it progresses. 

New Jersey couple accused of abusing, confining child in dog crate and bathroom for years - by Tom Dougherty,  Scott Jacobson, Raymond Strickland, Will Kenworthy, Madeleine Wright for CBS News

18-year-old girl escapes from New Jersey home where she was allegedly forced to live in dog crate and abused Brenda Spencer, 38, and Branndon Mosley, 41, of Gloucester Township, were charged with kidnapping and Mosley with additional counts of sexual assault, prosecutors said. - by Marlene Lenthang for NBC News

Mother, Stepfather Arrested After Girl Escapes from Home Where She Was Allegedly Held Captive, Kept in Dog Crate and Abused: Police
The teenager, 18, also claimed she'd been "forced to live in a padlocked bathroom while being chained up," before escaping on Thursday, May 8, police say - by Becca Longmire for People Magazine

Prosecutor: Gloucester Township couple charged with abusing, confining child for years
During the investigation, the victim told detectives that Brenda Spencer, 38, and Branndon Mosley, 41, had been abusing her since approximately 2018. - by the staff at News 12, New Jersey

SINCE PUBLISHING

Two news stories of the mother and her boyfriend (hitherto referred to as her husband) - kept in jail before trial:

New Jersey couple accused of abusing child for years to stay in jail until trial: "domestic torture" - by Madeleine Wright and Alan Wheeler for CBS Philadelphia 5/22/25

NJ couple accused of abusing teen in dog crate to remain in jail
Brenda Spencer and Branndon Mosley will remain in jail after they allegedly held a teen girl captive in a dog crate and abused her for years inside their New Jersey home. - by Hayden Mitman and David Chang for NBC Philadelphia

Grief or Sadness on Mother's Day for Estranged Scapegoat Children of Narcissistic Families

 

From all I have heard, Mother's Day and Father's Day are often the saddest days of the year for estranged scapegoats. 

This post is about Mother's Day. 

I remember reading Toxic Mothers Don't Deserve Your Time On Mother's Day by Lenora Thompson years ago for Huffington Post. Then she wrote a column for Psych Central for years about what it was like to grow up as "an only child" in her family of origin. Her column was named "When Narcissism Meets Normalcy." 

We became friends and since then there have been many changes in her life with the death of a parent and grandparent, life challenges, and some different perspectives she has had since that post long ago. She is still estranged from her family, although death can sometimes challenge the often "fixed order" of narcissistic family childhood roles into more fluid, transforming and less challenging situations. Not everyone adopts a narcissist's perspectives even if they pretend to or "play dumb", especially after the narcissist has passed away. Sometimes even before the narcissist passes, the perspectives are regretfully adopted, even if temporarily, by some members over a narcissist's Will and Estate, or some kind of help, or accolades, or gravy train. Since narcissists base most of their relationships on winning or losing "their approval", be what it may, and on rewards and punishments, once the rules for approval and rewards go away, the fixed perspectives on who to hate often go away too.

For instance: "Mom always hated my oldest sister, but Mom always hated a lot of people. She was a very difficult person to get along with and we should have all gotten a medal for not running away. But I never hated anyone, especially a sister I barely knew growing up except for what Mom said about her. But none of us really trusted her as distorting reality was the name of the game for Mom! However if I didn't pretend to hate my sister too, Mom would have made my life a living hell! Now I'm trying to get to know my sister since Mom passed. I haven't had a relationship with her since I saw her last, which is when I was 15 years old, and even then, Mom tried to separate us from each other and tried to build a hate campaign towards her using us kids first. I never really knew her. Mom wanted my sister estranged from the family in the worst way, but we never understood why. We heard a lot of fights, and then my sister was gone forever from our household, though I found out later she had moved to Canada and now has two sons. No explanation was given to us by our mother except ones that made no sense and were filled mainly with emotion and vitriol." - those kinds of changes.

And they happen enough.

There aren't necessarily the same kinds of narcissists around either to smear the original narcissist's  scapegoats. And if scapegoats leave the family, and a scapegoat is needed for another generation, the hate will be for the new scapegoat, usually a child, not for some old white haired scapegoat they barely know, and haven't seen since they were kids, and no one knows where they live, or even if they're alive. With many new members, new in-laws, and new babies, they might not even know that someone served as a bullied scapegoat member of the older generation in the first place.   

I notice in workplaces that the scapegoating dynamic can change drastically with new people, and even more by new generations that come in, where the scapegoating of one worker can go out of style in a year or two depending on the change-over, and sometimes even be gone altogether when the old guard no longer works there or dominates. Some workers don't want a gossipy heavily competitive combative negative work environment to begin with. They are not into hearing negative talk about people they haven't gotten to know yet, or they are more empathetic than the people giving the "low-down" on such-and-such a worker. They want everyone to get along. And they may not understand what was wrong in the first place with a worker that the last group found so horrible as to bully them so relentlessly.

I still notice, on the whole, that the youngest, smartest, most talented, most justice-oriented, most kind, creative thinkers are the people most likely to be scapegoated in narcissistically oriented environments, especially when surrounded by older, less talented, more insecure workers. The fact that dynamics can change so rapidly in terms of a prior scapegoat no longer serving that role is testament to the fact that it's not that the person is bad, but that the role that workers and families put these people into is bad (the bullying is bad, as well as not justified, and obviously not justified to continue it forever). 

Only toxic environments have scapegoating and bullying in them, and if the toxicity vaporizes because of different attitudes and perspectives of newly hired workers, then the scapegoating and bullying goes away too. And the workers who were doing the bullying suddenly can become "the outsiders". I've seen it myself in two work environments (very drastic changes over two years in that way). The same can happen in a narcissistic family, but at a slower rate. I've also heard of that happening to survivors who were previously estranged from their entire family getting contacted by family members again once one of the family bullies has died.  

But in the meantime, while the scapegoating is "fixed" and the continuing bullying plan is in place, you might be feeling some grief and sadness on Mother's Day if you are estranged from your Mom.

Your Mom may not even be the bully. 
* Maybe the bully is your father or stepfather, and like all bullies, they have to separate the two of you so that they can have your mother all to themselves. 
* Maybe the bully is a sibling and they want your Mom's undivided attention, all of her worldly goods, all of her affection going to them, and you're estranged from your Mom because being around your sibling is dangerous. 
* Maybe you have all of this going on, and even your Mom has been brainwashed to hate you. 
* So maybe you stepped away, and didn't know what to do other than that. Maybe you were in shock that it was happening at all since you were always welcomed by your Mom before. You didn't know she could be talked into hating you so easily. Maybe suddenly your own children and spouse needed so much attention that you put whatever was happening with your Mom on the back-burner to think about for another day. By the time "another day" came, there weren't any solutions that were palpable, or were made available to you. Were you supposed to stay estranged just for the agenda of the bullies in your mother's life, or stay estranged because your mother was going along with the stories and hate-speech of others, or did your mother assume you were going to put up with bullying and then didn't know what to do once it became clear you weren't going to put up with it? 

A lot of families go silent during times of estrangement; they are not open to any kind of discussion. So you never really know, and then estrangement becomes your way of life out of default. You might feel devastated or mad and speak out, but usually when you do that in these kinds of situations, the silence continues, and so does the confusion. 

Sometimes you get an answer like a fleeting facial expression you had was taken out of context, or because of a singular phrase that most people would have over-looked or forgotten about. Or someone might have mentioned lack of object constancy to you. 

This is way more common than people realize as to who becomes estranged.

You might find out later from a therapist or two or three that bullying families are usually toxic families and get worse, and that the bullying gets worse and worse too no matter what you do, and can become life-threatening if those bullies feel you are defenseless or vulnerable. Maybe you seek a therapist, and they read off what the traits of narcissism are, and you notice those traits sound so much like the traits of the bullies you are dealing with. Narcissists are antagonistically inclined. So then you might become reliant on the advice of a therapist and they become who you go to for comfort, explanations, solutions, a way forward ...

But before you get to wanting advice from anyone, the confusion gets worse and worse, and the cognitive dissonance becomes extremely uncomfortable especially for making decisions. In the end, you may not go to a therapist. You may go to your family's minister, or Co-Dependent's Anonymous, or a close friend who has known you most of your life, or to someone you know who also had to deal with estrangement, or a psychic or fortune teller if you are inclined to go that way. At any rate, you are more than likely to go to someone to help you with the grief and confusion. Most scapegoats deal with a brick wall of silence from their family, or an uncharacteristically inflexible, unyielding "I have to win" attitude that didn't seem to be there before. And most people avoid bullies and bullying, so you, like most people in the world, are not going to take actions to place yourself in situations that are potentially bullying.

For most of us, our actions are going to be about getting answers we can understand.

Maybe all we have to understand is that either the mother, or the people surrounding her do not have object constancy when it comes to relationships, even relationships with children, siblings and mates. Lack of object constancy is just another trait of narcissism, so it further confirms someone or everyone in the group is narcissistically inclined.  

Estrangement becomes your new way of life as well as deepening relationships you've had all along, entering new relationships, dealing with the symptoms of being estranged, possibly dealing with some financial fall-out, or hanging out with other people who have become estranged - you've entered a new life, at any rate. You hope the door that you just walked through is sunnier than the dark traumatic one you've left behind. 

Like the change of the guard at a workplace, we can find that we are suddenly not bullied at all, and actually appreciated for who we are and what we bring to the table, with nothing in sight remotely like the scapegoating we endured before.

However, as the years roll by, you may sometimes wonder about your mother. 

"Did she really deserve not having contact with me at all?" you might ask. Wouldn't it be nice to drive to her house, give her some flowers, and take her out for lunch like you used to in the old days? But you hesitate. Can't go; the bullies are still there. Or maybe she never loved you in the first place; maybe it was all an act. Maybe she's adopted bullying herself, but you didn't really know it until you were estranged. Maybe she always thought of her real family as the bullies, and you were on the side for only a little while. Maybe she's so brainwashed that her own thoughts don't exist any more. Maybe she would never appreciate the flowers anyway. Maybe the bullies give her huge expensive bouquets of flowers that fill up her entire living room, and take her on vacations to the Italian Riviera, and your little bouquet and little lunch at a modest cafe would never be appreciated. "Bah, humbug! Not enough flowers! Not enough food!" Maybe this, and maybe that ... and all of the maybes don't lead anywhere except to more maybes. Maybe the advice you have been given about narcissists, and their isolation tactics, and their divide and conquer strategies is all of the "maybe" you need to know, and when you think about the scapegoating again when you no longer are a scapegoat in any part of your life, maybe that's what's keeping you away from another Mother's Day with your Mom.

Perhaps you just try to forget Mom and Mother's Day when there is no clear path that has revealed itself for yet another year of estrangement. Maybe taking a walk in the woods or celebrating your own motherhood with your child or children is how you go about Mother's Day now. At least there is no bullying or fear of bullying. It's a sweet holiday that you should enjoy precisely because there's nothing but flowers and love, and most of all, no bullying.

You may not even want to think about Mom because thoughts of Mom conjure up too many memories of the bullying and bullies. Or the violence. Or the sexual abuse. Or the stealing. Or the threats, intimidations, and the ordering you around as if you are a slave to a thankless family. Or however you were hurt by them. So you put thinking about her on the back burner just as you did when the estrangement first started.

Anyway, while Lenora Thompson's article for The Huffington Post is certainly a legitimate reason for not celebrating Mother's Day, and a lot of survivors go through "exactly that", what I'm saying is also the way survivors think about Mother's Day. It's more about the grief, sadness and confusion starting up again, and even of not wanting to remember the past. Especially since it came with so much confusion, a change of rules, or a change of judgements, or a change in someone's attitude. For instance they may have thought that estrangements are a good thing and should be done more often.

Since it never really made much sense to begin with except, perhaps, the very human tendency we all possess to flee from bullying (and wars, danger, violence, bombs, hate speech, prejudice, threats, intimidations, slaving, maybe even physical abuse, or being shamed for things you didn't actually do, or being treated as though you are vermin, Hitler's favorite phrase, or a recalcitrant sycophant-puppet). Everything that bullying and family wars bring seem so annihilating in so many ways, whether in whole or in part, whether they want to erase your personality, or your thoughts, or feelings, or reactions to the bullying, whether through making your health worse, or effecting your mind and body in negative ways. It's all so destructive and most things in life are all better than that kind of destruction. However, that doesn't make it less sad, especially on the day that celebrates parenthood. 

I just thought that this perspective on what can happen was as necessary as Lenora's.

Thank you. And I hope you are enjoying Mother's Day.