tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62553381093336353042024-03-29T07:55:19.961-07:00Misadventures with Angry Alcoholics, Bullies and NarcissistsLisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.comBlogger131125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-81391658357550748392024-03-25T01:44:00.000-07:002024-03-28T20:53:55.288-07:00Silencing From Narcissistic Parents: "I wasn't allowed to talk about my feelings, thoughts and experiences, and if I tried to I was told to shut up or get over it." <p style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHe0eg8PhnlVo2p7IujLU0KzvepbmX_r-SlXdwKiUwCUnJy94ERB6wwmF9d766__RWP-QLndYX-gfMYrSqnlP7C_gngiufHVbwX2dHj41Ft2lPdIksHGfafK-vK82zbeu-3oN5ZyfpYt6TiL2Vl0ZquAEQOWkEsUWzUujC_pMEw0e9aZXypreNNi2pAfQ/s607/cylce%20of%20abuse%20with%20silencing%20web.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="607" data-original-width="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHe0eg8PhnlVo2p7IujLU0KzvepbmX_r-SlXdwKiUwCUnJy94ERB6wwmF9d766__RWP-QLndYX-gfMYrSqnlP7C_gngiufHVbwX2dHj41Ft2lPdIksHGfafK-vK82zbeu-3oN5ZyfpYt6TiL2Vl0ZquAEQOWkEsUWzUujC_pMEw0e9aZXypreNNi2pAfQ/s16000/cylce%20of%20abuse%20with%20silencing%20web.jpg" /></a><br /><br /></p><p>This will be part of a series on stonewalling and silencing. This post concentrates more on silencing than on stonewalling.<br /><br />Silencing is different than the silent treatment, but they do share a few things in common such as that the narcissist, malignant narcissist or sociopath (the more likely people to use it) has decided that what you have to say is either not worth hearing or worth understanding ... or that what you say doesn't fit in with their world view and general perspectives, or that they are not interested in what you have to say. <br /><br />This can happen even if they accuse you of something and they walk away from any kind of defense or rebuttal to what you say. It can happen when they abuse you or hit you: they may say that any reactions you have towards their abuse are not to be expressed, or are not valid, and that they do not care how their abuse is effecting you. <br /><br />It also happens in war, and that would be the more extreme example. <br /><br />Let us say some invaders have taken over a city, and a few residents are still left. The soldiers march into someone's house and tell them they have to leave, that the house belongs to the invaders now. A family member says to the soldiers, "You are stealing our house? Is that right? Would you like it if someone stole your house? We have nowhere to go!" <br /><br />A few soldiers don't want that kind of resistance, even if it is the truth, so they rough handle the member and toss him out the door and tell him to run or that he will be shot. <br /><br />So, that didn't work. Another family member decides not to handle things this way, so asks the soldiers if they can be transported out of their house in a truck with their belongings and food. <br /><br />"I think this one needs to be tossed out too", one soldier tells the others. "Listen, lady, this is a war, and you are lucky you didn't get killed in the bombing! If you want to live, I'd leave now!" And she does.<br /><br />So the survivors that are left start shaking and clustering together in an ever tighter bunch, and try to compromise another way forward. "You will at least let us have a suitcase with clothes! We have to walk quite a ways out of here, and we need clothes to keep warm. We could die otherwise in the elements. You seem to have an interest in keeping us alive, of not shooting us, so can we take some clothes, please? Maybe let us take some bedding too? Is there anyway we can get some transportation out of here?" <br /><br />The head soldiers says, "Listen lady, I'm not up to hearing demands from you. Like I said, this is a war and our duty is to clear out these residences so that our people can move in. We have the right to kill you if you resist. Our leader has made that clear. If I were you, and some heavily armed soldiers walked into my house, I'd want to leave."<br /><br />Some other soldiers suggest a meeting. They decide that the family can carry one suitcase or bundle out, and that they have 15 minutes to pack while being overseen so that they don't carry out anything the soldiers disapprove of, that can be made into a weapon. <br /><br />If anyone asks for a little more they are told to shut up, and if they ask for more time, they are told to shut up, and if they ask if they can carry another suitcase, they are told to shut up, that the orders are clear. <br /><br />And then if they cry, they are either beaten or told to shut up, and tossed out the door without their suitcase. They are <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/10/why-abusers-who-punish-use-ungrateful.html" target="_blank">told to be grateful</a></b> that they are allowed anything at all. <br /><br />This is to say that silencing is very common when any type of aggression is going on, including child abuse. And child abuse with silencing is what this post is about. <br /><br />Some silencing kinds of sentences used in child abuse, and <i>adult child abuse</i> are:<br /><br />(note: trigger warning):<br />- "We've been over this, and you are not to talk about it again." - even if the subject is something egregious that has to be solved (even lawfully solved, like the abuse of another family member). <br />- "You need to get over the past. Live in the present."<br />- "You won't talk about this again if you know what is good for you."<br />- "If you're going to continue to talk, you will be punished."<br />- "If you insist on talking about that when you've been told not to, there will be dire consequences for you!"<br />- "If you know what is good for you, you will not continue down this path. You will learn to shut up when we tell you to."<br />- "I have never been interested in what you have to say, so I'd stop now."<br />- "You need to get over things. So you were hurt! Big deal! Everyone gets over it, but not you!"<br />- "I have no interest in continuing to hear what you have to say. I'm done."<br />- "I can't stand to hear you talk! It's all drivel. You can't even talk without stuttering. And stuttering is a sign of lying." - no it is not. Stuttering and stammering, and forgetting words, can happen when a survivor is around abusive people. It is actually a sign of trauma. <br />- "Have I ever cared what you thought? No, I never did! So you can stop talking now!"<br />- "You need to let these things go! It doesn't do me any good, and it doesn't do you any good either if you think about it." (again, this kind of person doesn't understand how trauma works)<br />- "You are so brain-dead! You have absolutely nothing to say! I have better things to do than to listen to someone so stupid!"<br />- "You need to apologize to me, and then maybe we can talk. But we're only going to talk for five minutes and never talk about this again." (this person would also not understand trauma).<br />- "You can never say anything right, so you might as well not talk at at all."<br />- "Did I say I wanted to hear that!? No, I didn't! You can be silent now!"<br />- "You need to sit in your room until you can apologize to me for saying that! If you don't apologize for talking about it, then you won't have a parent who cares about you. Is that what you want? It's up to you to apologize and to be silent about this."<br />- "I can't stand you when you talk about this!"<br />- "What a bunch of nonsense! We're not talking about this subject again!"<br />- "If you continue with this, I'll never be able to hear another word you say!"<br />- "Shut up already!!"<br />- "Hearing all of your crap is never going to be good for me. You need to stop now!"<br />- "I can't stand to hear you talk!"<br />- "Okay! You're going to be punished for talking when I've made it clear I don't want to hear any more of it!"<br />- "You seriously need to get over the past. No one is going to go back into the past with you, no one cares about your past, and no one wants to hear about it any more."<br /><br />One reason a child might bring up a subject over and over again is that for the child, issues are unresolved. They are unresolved for two reasons: <br /><br /><u><b># 1.</b></u> To be redundant, but to also make clear this is important: If children keep bringing up a subject over and over again, it mainly means that it hasn't been resolved. Actually adults do it too, but they may not be as persistent about it. A narcissist would say, "it mainly means it hasn't been resolved in my child's mind." <br /><br />No, that isn't what is happening. A parent who makes it known that they will silence a child out of some kind of existence in the parent's life, or in an on-going event like a silent treatment, means that the child will have trauma symptoms. Trauma isn't just a mind situation; it is an evolutionary involuntary brain situation: <a href="https://bbrfoundation.org/content/ptsd-trauma-memories-are-not-represented-brain-other-memories-study-suggests" target="_blank"><b>experiences which brought on the trauma are located and experienced in a different part of the brain than memories</b></a> and are often experienced more as a present event than a past event, <b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/health/the-silent-treatment#:~:text=Physical%20response%20and%20side%20effects,the%20brain%20that%20registers%20pain." target="_blank">effecting the anterior cingulate cortex</a></b>. And no, narcissists don't care about this. <br /><br />This means that unresolved trauma has to be resolved so that the brain can go back to normal. And the way it is resolved is to heal it to the extent where it becomes a mere memory than a nightmare (nightmares are the result of the intrusive memories and often the profound lack of sleep associated with PTSD, which are the result of the activation of the anterior cingulate cortex, as well as amygdala hijacking). This is where trauma therapy comes in, and why narcissists have to be out of your life altogether to give the activated parts of the brain some peace. <br /><br />And it is also necessary because narcissists typically love the silent treatment and other traumatization measures. <br /><br />If narcissists aren't interested in anything, they aren't interested in healing anyone, let alone healing anyone from trauma. They are not healers and never will be. Most of them are barely capable of remorse, and their type of empathy does not exist enough to be true healers of any kind of malady. They will continue the silencing and their hostilities. The good news is that this means that exceptionally few narcissists are going to be in the trauma therapy business, so it is likely you'll get the healing and empathy that you need there, as well as more sleep, more peace, less intrusive memories. </p><p>The desire to talk to family members you used to be able to talk to can be problematic if they are not sympathetic to your plight. Most survivors make the mistake of sharing intimate details with certain family members they should not be sharing with (I've done it myself). And that lack of empathy in others, and especially if you are silenced because they want control over the topics you bring up, can bring back the intrusive memories, the anxiety, the lack of sleep, etc. You might not have to cut them all the way out, but realistically they are probably making you feel like you are dealing with another narcissist. <br /><br />Families with narcissists in them typically do not want to be reminded of the traditions of abuse that the narcissists practice, and the silencing that they do, and they don't want you talking about all of the healing modalities you had to go through because of the family, so a narc will just have to get a smear campaign going, and brainwash a few minds and ---> out you go: as close to zero family members with empathy as the narcissist can create!<br /><br /><u><b># 2.</b></u> The second reason is that narcissists are not interested in resolving issues in relationships; they <b>are only interested in getting their own way, chronically </b>...<b> </b>and manipulating<b> </b>character, and events, and the truth to suit getting their way. This is no secret. They let you know it over and over, and over and over again throughout your relationship with them, if you can call it a relationship at all. In their ambition to try to get other people not to hear you out, which can frustrate you, it will be bottled up until you can adequately share it with a trusted person - it's unhealthy, no doubt about it, and unhealthy blockages make for a lot of horrific symptoms and suffering, but unless you want to get hurt, you have to stop talking to people who have an agenda against you (and yes, silencing you counts). <br /><br />A real adult relationship is not going to be full of silencing other people. <br /><br />However, narcissistic families end up that way eventually, going against victims in favor of serving the narcissist, even if it takes 7 - 10 years to turn their backs on the victims. Calming and helping the narcissist usually comes first because narcissists are much louder than victims, and they make it plain that their emotional regulation (i.e. keeping them from raging and attacking) is more important than empathy for traumatized members - and they also get people more oriented towards panicked decisions (also the result of narc rages). <br /><br />Reasonable decision-making by letting a member decide what they want to do about healing family discord is not all that likely in narcissistic families. <br /><br />Loyalty to narcs tends to be high because they get people panicked, out of sorts, and hijacked by fake victim stories and false narratives enough to create fawning in other people, to do what the narc wants, and become sycophants so as to avoid their inevitable punishments and rage (we even see this in government). <br /><br />Also I would be extra careful and private if you are <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-abusers-co-bullies-enablers.html" target="_blank">silenced by people who know the narcissist</a> </b>and who have chosen regulating them over compassion for you, or if they aggrandize the narcissist. Member-comparing is also a narcissistic family trait that they may practice, another bad sign. Again, real adult relationships aren't about comparing family members, and who is sweeter than whom, and who does more of something for a narc than another family member. And it goes without saying that narcs who insult and call members names should be avoided. <br /><br /> These are some of the things that can be going on with people who start to withdraw empathy from you and silence you from talking about things which effect you:<br />- They are being used or lied to in order that they go against you <br />- They are narcissists themselves or have narcissistic traits<br />- If you are a scapegoat, they are afraid of being scapegoated themselves, so they sacrifice the relationship with you to keep the head narcissist(s) happy or from going into a potential rage<br />- They are receiving money from the narcissist and feel that has to come first before you and your feelings do<br />- They are being charmed or promised something and feel they have to sacrifice you to get it<br />- They do not treasure the relationship with you, and don't really care what you say or feel <br />- They think you are expendable "for now", but that they can get you back again if they want<br />- They aren't feeling well, and they need a temporary break from talking to others (but usually they tell you this so that they don't hurt your feelings, so that you won't think the relationship has been trashed)<br /><br />What ever the reasons are, you're not likely to feel comfortable sharing anything with them. They have broken the trust that you used to have in them. It is just another <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/01/abuse-and-walking-on-eggshells-being.html" target="_blank">walking on eggshells situation</a></b> where you are being asked <i>not</i> to be yourself, <i>not</i> to share much of anything of import with them, and where you have to manage down the relationship to <b>breadcrumbing</b> diminishments. When you have to do that, it is a broken relationship that does not take you into consideration, only them. <br /><br />If they are silencing you with contemptuous words or tones, they often don't care about you any more than the narcissist does.<b> </b>Their brains have been hijacked by both fear<b> </b>and attention to the narcissist. It is a challenge and test for them: to submit to the narcissist and be ego fodder and a <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-abusers-co-bullies-enablers.html" target="_blank">flying monkey</a></b> for them over and over again. <br /><br />These days,<b> <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">if I'm in a situation like this, I look for a lack of empathy first</a> </b>to clue me in as to their intentions towards me. If I hear, "I'm sorry. I know you have good intentions, and that you've been through a lot, and I don't want to lose you, but I just can't talk about this now. Can we be agreeable to that?" shows more empathy, more of a relationship than, for instance, "I'm not interested in what you have to say and I refuse to talk about your trauma, perspectives or issues again." The latter shows more hostility, that they aren't interested in an adult relationship; only a relationship on their own terms. <br /><br />They may not be interested in a relationship at all. <br /><br />Ghosting is pretty common these days too, especially with the younger generation (or that's what I've heard from my own older generation). Don't talk to people who ghost you. Ghosting is a definitive statement. And if it is coming from someone who is part of a narcissistic family system, and you don't know why it was done, it's toxic.<br /><br />Again, in real relationships, at least you are in communication as to why. <br /><br />A lot of people know you are traumatized, because they know what violent, power hungry, raging, gaslighting, rejecting people (who tend to be narcissists, or alcoholics with narcissistic traits) can do to your life, and if they don't show empathy for your plight, and can't see beyond what they want for themselves only, I'd say put them on some back burner (you might relegate them to the "unicorns, rainbows, bubbles and fluff" talk, if even that). The more insistent they are in not wanting to know you, or what you experienced, or how you think and feel, either they are extremely brainwashed, or lied to, or self serving, or entranced/traumatized by the narcissist, or they don't want a relationship with you to begin with ... or unfortunately they can be narcissists out to shut down people who are too much of a liability to them, or tell them what they want to hear.<br /><br />Information should only be shared with people you trust whole heartedly, and where the relationship is not lopsided. That is obvious. It doesn't matter what the relationship was before they silenced you. Silencing does not belong in any close personal relationship, period. It falls under the category of "stonewalling" and is one of <b><a href="https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-recognizing-criticism-contempt-defensiveness-and-stonewalling/" target="_blank">the four horseman of the apocalypse</a></b>. When one of the four horseman is part of a relationship, usually what follows is that once that one person withdraws from wanting to hear what you feel, think and experience, then you will turn away too. It's the very normal common response, and scientifically vetted and proven. <br /><br />If you are trauma bonded, you may not turn away altogether or right away, but you will turn away ... until there is finally nothing left of your former relationship. <br /><br />I would also say silencing falls under <b><a href="https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-recognizing-criticism-contempt-defensiveness-and-stonewalling/" target="_blank">contempt</a></b> too, which is another one of the four horseman, unless the person is going through something temporarily and just cannot listen to upsetting information. Most people don't shut other people down unless contempt is present, which in these terms is "inconvenient hearing", "adversely hearing", and "hearing with prejudice or hate". <br /><br />When it comes to children, the damage of not being able to trust a parent with pertinent or critical information about you, also means both parties turning away from each other unless there is <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/11/breaking-trauma-bond-with-abusers.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">a trauma bond</a>. With children, that is likely, unfortunately<b>.</b> <br /><br />The "turning away" will be easier and more complete if you are falsely accused, but anger over the injustice can stick with you longer than the grief of losing a parent to silent treatments. <br /><b><br /></b>A trauma bond with silencing, stonewalling and contemptuous parents is not just unhealthy, but downright toxic, and actually, if we are honest with ourselves, dangerous for a child, physically, emotionally, psychologically, including altering their immune system, altering their brain in some instances, and altering their ability to emotionally regulate efficiently. It is a lot of psychological and emotional neglect and harm at the very least. But usually there is so much more to it than that. <br /><br />A parent who stonewalls, silences and has contempt for their own child's thoughts, feelings and experiences, and is trying to intimidate a child with a continual trauma bond too, is probably abusing them - I'm 99 percent sure about that. I'm all for letting a child have another chance in a foster home with this going on. <br /><br />In terms of the sayings I featured above, every child abuse survivor I have ever known has gone through more of the silencing kinds of sayings than they can count. And what is even more incredible is that these parents keep doing this to their child when the child is a full adult. Go over these sayings again, and you will see that they are completely unfeeling and inappropriate adult-to-adult behavior. Imagine a parent talking this way to their adult child in front of children, and husband, and in-laws, and even great grandchildren. It's no wonder so many adult children eventually go no contact with parents who think this is fair, adequate, good behavior. But that is one of the things that never stops: child abuse doesn't stop unless the child stops it by removing themselves, whether a little or a lot. <br /><br />In fact, these phrases are typically part of daily life with a narcissist, malignant narcissist, and a sociopath. Most of these types of people like to silence individuals. The reasons they like to silence are pretty similar from one narcissist to the next, and one sociopath to the next. And they particularly silence children, and shame them about <i>not</i> being silent, and shame them for talking about any topic that is not something they want to hear, whether the words are or are not an immediate boost to their ego. <br /><br />When done to children, it can have serious ramifications, and one of them is stuffing thoughts, feelings and either giving up on verbal communications with their parent, or giving up on themselves as verbally competent intelligent people who can decipher right and wrong, truth and non-truth, and what their feelings and thoughts <i>really</i> are without interference from their out-of-control parent. All of the ramifications will be explored in another post. This post is more of a 101 introduction to the topic. <br /><br />As I've hinted at before, silencing has a lot of components of <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" target="_blank">perspecticide, invalidation</a></b> of feelings and thoughts, <b>pretend mind-reading</b> (very typical of narcissists), as well as a lot of <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">gaslighting</a></b>, and<b> <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">escalating contempt and prejudice</a></b> due to the exceptionally fixed confirmation biases that narcissists are known for.<b> </b> <br /><br />What it sounds like when perspecticide, invalidation and pretend mind-reading are part of silencing:<br />- "I know what you are feeling and thinking, so you can stop talking now."<br />- "You think I'm going to sit here and listen to a bunch of lies?" - when their child is not lying. "You must really take me for a sucker! Ha! I'm not listening to any more of what you have to say! So you can be quiet now!"<br />- "You really think I'm going to believe that's what your feelings are!? Well I'm not, so you can be silent now!"<br />- "You really think you can talk people into believing anything! Well, you can't! I have the last word on who is going to believe what! So you can be silent." <br />- "Sure you feel that way! I know a liar when I see one!" when they didn't lie. "You sure do think I can be hoodwinked! And that's why I don't choose to hear a word you have to say!"<br />- "I can't stand to hear what your feelings and thoughts are because they are all bullsh%t! You might as well keep that trap closed so no one has to hear you anymore!"<br />- "You don't really think that way. What you really think is that you have a lot of respect for your aunt, but that you are pretending not to so that she won't discipline you. So you can stop talking about your aunt now. I don't want to hear any more of it."<br />- "What a fake apology! You made me look bad! Next time just keep your mouth closed and I'll do the apologies for you!" (not a good idea, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/07/why-you-should-not-force-children-to.html" target="_blank">and here is why</a></b>).<br />- "I know that you can't possibly feel that way. You just had a bad day. You're not looking at things straight. You need to listen to me. I know what you feel. You only think you do."<br />- "Why can't you see anything straight? Obviously I have to tell you what you think because you're too crazy to get it right. Now I'm burdened with that!" - all narcissists try to take hold of verbalizing what their victims are thinking and feeling, and they tell others that it is a burden that they are dealing with a crazy person who doesn't know their own mind, so they won't be accused of being controlling, and going for domination and power over that child (it is perspecticide, invalidation, mixed with gaslighting)<br />- "Do I have to listen to your feelings again? Perhaps you need to take this to a therapist." - good idea, except therapists will usually want you to separate from narcissists and sociopaths. <br />- "I really don't want to talk about your feelings. I have better things to do. You should learn how to control your feelings so you won't need to talk about them."<br />- "I could care less about what you have to say about your feelings. I don't even think they are real feelings! I think they are excuses to hurt me, and to pretend that you didn't have the best parent."<br />- "Your feelings aren't important! They only exist when you want to see me as a bad parent. The rest of the time, they are put away. So I'm not listening to this any more."<br />- "I don't really like listening to your feelings and thoughts about anything. You should have been able to tell that I don't like listening to you. But you continue to hound me. Why can't you be nice and quiet like other children? Why can't you just be silent?"<br /><br />What it sounds like when gaslighting is part of the silencing:<br />- "You know what you did, and I'm not hearing any more lies about it!" - trying to convince a child that the truth is a bunch of lies.<br />- "You know that you're acting like an innocent princess which is why I'm not listening to another word you say unless it is about your guilt!" - when they aren't guilty for anything<br />- "You are never aware of things that you do. You're crazy, do you understand? You know that you are because I let you know that you are. That's why I never listen to you, and why you need me to tell you of all the bad things you do, and all of the bad things that you are" - quite evil on the parent's part. <br />- "You make a lot of assumptions and conjectures based on your own twisted mind which is why I don't listen to you. You need to stop talking." - also evil. <br />- "I don't care to hear another word from your crazy perspectives!" <br />- "I can't believe you still talk! You should have been silent long ago! You don't have anything worthwhile to say."<br />- "I wish you knew when to talk and when not to talk. You get it wrong every time!" <br />- "Poor thing! It's your mind again! You never know how to perceive things, so I guess I'll have to tell you what is really going on. In the meantime, you need to be quiet because you get things wrong all of the time, even though you think you are right!"<br />- "I don't know how many times I've told you not to talk! But you keep doing it, and it all sounds insane! Stop now!" <br />- "Your thoughts are so distorted! How can you think this way?! You should have had your head examined a long time ago! The least you can do is shut up already!"<br />- "You are faking at being sick! I can tell! So you better stop talking about it and get ready for school!" Narcissistic parents usually tell at least one of their children that they fake illnesses. I was in a study group about this phenomenon myself (perhaps some day I will share the findings).<br />- "Why, oh, why, can't you stop thinking about this and getting over the past. What's wrong with your mind that you can't just stop talking about this nonsense? Your feelings aren't that important to anyone but you!" <br /><br />What is incredible is that narcissists like being this way. They don't want to change it. <br /><br />Why?<br /><br /><b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-pursuit-of-power-control-and.html" target="_blank">Power, control and domination</a></b>. They like being in charge of their child's self image, as well as telling them what they feel and think, and what they are doing wrong with how they <i>might be</i> feeling and thinking. <br /><br />Is it more compulsion than thinking about the ramifications clearly and "going after this aggressively"? I would say it depends on the narcissist.<br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">WHY NARCISSISTS FEEL THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO TELL YOU<br />WHAT YOU THINK, FEEL AND EXPERIENCE<br />(from a trauma perspective)</div><br />Any person who tries to reach in aggressively to take over your feelings, thoughts and self esteem and verbalize them <i>for </i>you is probably on the Cluster B spectrum. There is a very good explanation for why narcissists feel they have a right to do this, and one of the reasons is that they were probably exposed to a lot of lying when they were a child. They learned that nothing is as it seems, so they assume people are lying a lot of the time, or most of the time, and that they, the narcissist, needs to fill it in with the truth. <br /><br />But by doing that, they also drive people away because the relationship is not about knowing what you truly think and feel; it is about <i>them deciding</i> whether you are lying or not, and filling it in with what ever they don't understand to be the truth right away. They compulsively decide what they want to believe or what they think your words should be replaced with.<br /><br />And typically what they want to believe and what they want to replace it with will be a lot more hostile than what was meant, because narcissists typically grow up in abusive hostile circumstances. As we know, abusive environments can create as much PTSD as war does. And if the environment is also full of lying, which it usually is, then they are at war with lies too, except their overly-aggressive approach to replacing what people think and feel with their own spin on it, or their own flawed mind reading is, can create even more illusion (i.e. where they are lying to themselves). <br /><br />It has a lot to do with why and how they have scapegoats who they deem to be "all bad" too. That individual may remind them of the person in their early environment who lied all of the time, so they assume their scapegoat child is lying all of the time too. <br /><br />And to make matters worse, if their scapegoat disagrees with their narcissistic parent's assessments about them lying, then their narcissistic parent is likely to rage and hate the scapegoat more for pointing out the narcissist's flaws (at not being a perfect mind-reader and lie detector of the child). <br /><br />Scapegoats are told they are liars a lot, as well as being crazy, so it is no wonder <b>that about 90 percent</b> eventually go no contact with their parent. <br /><br />If the narcissistic parent isn't willing to work on all of their judgements and assumptions, then being in a relationship where you are constantly accused of lying, of not feeling what they say you feel, and of not thinking what they say you think, it is not a relationship that can work. It eventually ends up to be all that the relationship is about: constant accusations, constant judging (and lots of wrong judging at that), and so much silencing that it is barely a relationship at all (because most relationships are about talking things out and sharing). Again, it isn't about knowing you, but about aggressively invading you and your mind and your feelings with their dirty interpretations. <br /><br />The more wrong they are about their perceptions, the wider the rift, the less likely anything can be resolved. <br /><br />For instance invaders that try to convince a population that they are all Nazis and all hostile liars, and must be weeded out as vermin, and especially when it isn't true, are not going to gain the enemy's trust with that thought. They are going to meet with resistance at every turn (and possibly lose their entire standing army). Close personal relationships aren't much different. <br /><br />The "wrong turn" that narcissists take when growing up in an environment like this is that they decide they are going to be lie detectors (which is okay if you do it the right way, slowly, gathering a lot of evidence), and aggressively invade and punish people who they <i>think</i> are lying to them, while at the same time lie a lot themselves to protect themselves from any abuse or fall-out of their reputation. That often means keeping secrets, and extra-marital affairs, and can mean stealing and hiding things. None of this works in close personal relationships. <br /><br />One reason why <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI5-NfFYZ9A" target="_blank">scapegoats tend to become the truth-tellers</a></b> and <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI5-NfFYZ9A" target="_blank">why truth tellers tend to become scapegoats</a></b> in most narcissistic families is because they see more of the downsides of lying than the upsides, especially if a sibling is lying in order to get an unfair advantage over them. But they also tend to be more truthful than other family members because they see much more clearly the way lies are destructive to the entire family unit, and can also be disgusted with a narcissistic parent who will give themselves permission to lie over and over again, even for nefarious self serving purposes, but be completely rageful, intolerant and punishing of even the most innocent white lie of other family members. <br /><br />In other words, they are aware that the narcissistic parent that tells lies about them is destructive. They see that the narcissistic parent's lies about others to be destructive too. They see relationships become ruined over lies. They don't see the positives of lying, so they don't do it. <br /><br />Golden children can be rewarded for lying, especially if they are lying for the parent, and parent's reputation. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">SURVIVORS OF PARENTAL NARCISSISTIC ABUSE WEIGH IN<br />ON HOW IT FELT TO BE TOLD INSTEAD OF ASKED<br />WHAT THEY WERE FEELING, THINKING AND EXPERIENCING</div><p></p><p>I grabbed these from a number of forums and groups. Each entry marked with a "*" is another survivor.<br /><br /> I did contribute to this in one entry (but again, anyone would be hard-pressed to know which one). Again, I chose entries where I didn't need to clean up grammar. <br /><br />I thought these would be useful to see what others go through. <br /><br />* I was never allowed to talk about my feelings about how I was abused and mistreated. But the prevailing attitude has always been that I “live in the past” when I try to talk about how emotionally hurt I was because nobody cared. And so because of that there is something wrong with me.<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"> <span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">
</span>* Hard relate!</span><span style="background-color: white; white-space-collapse: preserve;">
</span></span>My mother's go to response "quit feeling sorry for yourself".<br />There is nothing wrong with you. People have set you up to feel like you need permission to heal from being affected. They train us up to be always in survival mode and fear the day we begin to thrive.<br />Closure is something they will never allow, and they believe our closure is impossible without them. It's all a lie.<br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I so get it!</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">* I was told to forget about my oldest sister who died in a terrible accident! They didn't want to see me cry any more after five days !!! They wanted me to re-focus my attention on them. These people are monsters! They will never have empathy for us or anyone but themselves! Maybe the point is to forget about the parents who say these kinds of things so that you can adequately grieve and pay homage to the sister. <br /><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>* I relate. My family does not understand why I can’t “let it go.” They are not interested in the truth or how the past affected me and the family as a whole. Instead, they soothe themselves in harmful ways and pretend everything is great. It’s not you. It’s them. Big hug.<br /><br />* You don't just get over trauma. There is a reason why we don't snap out of it, and if we did, it would be a really unhealthy experience of compartmentalization. We all have a right to have our feelings heard and addressed. They certainly want their feelings addressed ALL OF THE TIME!! We're supposed to shut up about our our own feelings and their feelings are supposed to be front and center at ALL TIMES. Crazy-making bs that I don't want to be a part of any more. NC for me.<br /><br />* “The past is alive in the present”…we can’t forget trauma because it haunts us in the present. People who invalidate us have no idea. There is nothing wrong with you, this is just what trauma does and people who are ignorant don’t understand. (Trauma therapist and trauma survivor here)<br /><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><br /></span>* Trauma experiences are stored in a different way than most memories. The trauma is experienced as more of a present event rather than a past event. This is why pushing the memories out often makes them bounce back harder in the form of disturbed sleep, anxiety and nightmares. It isn't healthy to stuff the feelings, and stuff your narrative no matter how much they want you to. You owe it to yourself to talk freely about traumatic experiences and have them addressed. Our minds keep them valid, and you have a right to keep them valid too. (another trauma therapist here)<span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><br /><br /></span>* And these parents get away with it over and over again. Everyone else looks frozen while they push their unempathetic responses at you again and again. That's such a flaw in human beings and leads everyone else around them to be flying monkeys eventually, to feel that they have a right to shut you up too when ever you want to express yourself. Or they talk over you as though only their perceptions and feelings are valid. If you have to be that quiet in your family, and tiptoe around like your mind and feelings don't matter, you might as well be no contact. <span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><br /><br /></span>* It's why a lot of us feel better when we are no contact. We weren't seen or heard any way. We didn't matter in that situation. We will always be more comfortable in situations where we matter to others. They think we go off and that we don't matter to other people too, because they have this iron-clad bias and devaluation against us, and an internal arrogance that tells them that that the way they experience things is better than the way you do. They would probably be surprised at how much we are loved. <span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><br /><br /></span>* I hated being a scapegoat of this kind of crap. They would do it to me over and over again, at least a couple of times a week. Rage and then blame me for reacting. It's the game they all play so don't take it personally. <br />When I went almost completely silent and refused to answer their insipid self serving questions, and realized that showing my feelings or thoughts to them wasn't wise, they not only devalued me, they discarded me. <br />Lesson: they want you to talk, but only when asked, and on their terms. They want you to say what they want to hear, so that is all on their terms too. They want you to feel something, so that they'll stop raging, so that's on their terms too. They want you to only feel the way they want you to feel. They try to manipulate certain feelings out of you which doesn't work out so well for them because they aren't you and you have different feelings than they have. If you don't have the feelings they want you to have and demand that you have, they will call you crazy. That is obviously all on their terms too. Rinse, repeat week after week, year after year. <br />Then they send you to college and expect a phone call every week - without ever telling you that. When you don't call the first time, they rage and threaten to take college away. When they take college away, they call you inept because you don't have the skills they need you to have, and the money they require you make.<br />This is why it is no use to relate to narcissistic parents in any long term way. Everything they do is about ordering you around and manipulating certain feelings and calling other feelings you have that they don't want to deal with as "crazy". They want to control us to every little detail, even when and how we respond to them and their rages. <br />Not that I liked being discarded over not having the perfect feelings they thought I should have, but I definitely felt relieved when I could finally feel something without it being thought of as "Wrong! You need to feel this way!" <br />These kinds of parents don't know anything about trauma and traumatic reactions to being raged at twice or more times a week, and they rarely help us with the healthy expression of feelings. In fact, they don't even understand the workings of a healthy mind at all. For their sake we are supposed to stuff our feelings.<br />Everything they do is meant for them and their ego. I wasn't enough of an ego regulator and up-lifter so they just had to get rid of me somehow and cooked up a lie they refused to hear me refute. <br />After 14 years I am okay with it. I wouldn't have healed without it. I would be more like my sister who is nothing more than a constant ego think-u-lator for our parents. All of them seem so ignorant. A family's ignorance can definitely hurt you for a long while, but once you know more about this stuff than they do, your life will be much better, richer, more colorful than theirs ever was. <br />If I was still a kid, I would have put up a sign on my bedroom door that said, "You cannot control other people's feelings at all. Or their thoughts. Do not enter unless you understand."<span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><br /></span><br />* I never knew this before! I think you could actually use this to your advantage. Like pretend to have feelings you don't have to give them an ego boost. Kinda too late for me as they discarded me too and I was always confused because I didn't know this was how I was supposed to play their game. Confusion ended! <span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><br /><br /></span>* Yea, it's how to play their game, but it isn't genuine. What if they tell you that you don't mean it? A lot of scapegoats are told by their narcissistic parents that you are a liar, that you are constantly pretending to get something out of them. It wouldn't have mattered no matter what you did. They are such paranoid individuals that when you are authentic, they think you lie, and when you lie they think you are authentic. That is because they are like that! <br />Just let them leave to their head games to use on other narcissists and psychopaths they know. I don't think this kind of game can end well for an empath. And besides it's a time-suck. I don't envy my sister who, as I said, is the ego think-u-lator. Having to think about their feelings while denying - or pretending - is no way to live. <br />Life is about finding your own feelings, thoughts, power and purpose, and putting descriptors and words to them. It is not about being sucked into their game of getting you to prop their ego for them 24/7. <span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><br /><br /></span>* Thank you. I needed that. Yer right. It's time for me to stop being concerned with the way they think and feel and to find ways to understand the way I think and feel. My own feelings and thoughts were denied so long by them, and I also denied my own to serve theirs, even though nothing worked, and even though I never understood they were trying to play a game. <br />I'm totally out on my own without any contact, and it was their choice years ago, so I might as well use the time to figure everything out that I wasn't allowed to even wonder about when I was with them. It's not exactly like if I said, "Oh, I get the game now! I'm supposed to boost yer ego by pretending to have feelings different from the ones I actually had! I get it now! I'm supposed to deny my feelings and pretend to have other feelings that boost yers! Then I'm accepted! You're ego satisfied! Right?" - they would have beat me up AND kicked me out. <br />Granted, I didn't want to hear what you said about this, but it was the best thing I could have heard. Yer right that it is the wrong path for me. I would have had a role just like your sister! <span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><br /></span><br />* Exactly. She hasn't really done anything with her life except to pretend to think and feel the way my parents want her to. They don't like everything she feels and thinks either, and gets corrected constantly. But at least she's a willing slave to it all. I wasn't. My sister is the one who they hang up as an example of a "good child"! When she is a woman of 32 years old, not a little girl, and all she does is serve my parents? Anyone should be suspect at their claim that this is their good child and that I'm their bad child when I am married, have children, and help run a business with my husband, and have never been arrested or drunk. Any parent who wants to keep their child a child and who is touting that example as "the best child" is both evil and toxic. <br />Note that my sister has no ambitions except counter-manipulating my parents! And she pretends plenty! It's not a life I wanted, nor should any parent, so I accepted giving it up, and I'm way better off for it. <span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><br /><br /></span>* When you are with parents like this you aren't allowed to talk about anything. They talk over you or they tell you what is real, what you're thinking and what you're feeling. Whether you are no contact or in contact, the result is the same. It's totally about silencing us so that we don't really exist for them. They make sure their existence, and their thoughts and feelings are known to everyone, and that we're their audience. <br />I think this is the worst thing about child abuse<br /><br />* Therapy. That’s the safe place to work out stuff in the past and overcome issues to be more adaptive in the present. Unfortunately generally people don’t do the work and don’t know how to do the work to help others get there. So there are observations and feedback and not always too sensitive and hurts from the interference of others and lack of growth because of it allegedly, but there is a place to pursue that growth and the public or private arena just aren’t suited well to help. If you want to actually heal go talk to someone who knows how to help with it and don’t settle for the feedback of the prevailing attitude.My family’s favorite saying, ‘oh get over it.’<br /><br />* I have gotten to the point where I have been silenced so much that it has destroyed my capacity to listen to my NM. I am finding that I blank out when she talks. Is it years and years of being manipulated by her, and my mind has just said, "No more manipulation"? Is it years and years of gaslighting to the point where if I respond to anything, she will call me crazy? Is it my choice to blank out when she talks? It doesn't feel like it. It might be good to know what she is talking about so that I don't get a surprise attack. I have no idea what she has said most of the time these days. It's like I come out of a dream after she is done talking. No one else creates this in me, except her. Actually Trump on T.V. can make my mind go blank too. I hear only so much and then "wipe out!" and I'm gone. <br />Is this common? <span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><br /></span><br />* I have no idea if it is common, but it might be trauma related. I think if we compare it to war, we turn off the continual sounds of guns, bombs and airplanes to survive. When your brain is over-loaded with attacks, maybe you just enter a space where those noises are cut off?<span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><br /><br /></span>* Yea, like when she begins to say anything, I roll my eyes, and then I don't hear anything more. Maybe there is nothing worth hearing, but I wouldn't know because it seems automatic at this point. One time she was screaming at me and the people around us were surprised I didn't respond. I feel like I live in my head so much. It's like I've got a separate world going on inside, and why bother pretending I'm in a one sided conversation with an NM who can't hear or understand what I'm saying. She either has layers of defenses if I respond, or goes on the attack if I'm not saying something she doesn't want to hear. Maybe she blanks out on me too when I talk which is why she interrupts me every time I respond. I'm not really a part of her monologue. I'm just a gravestone she decides she needs to vent to and about.<span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><span style="background-color: #f0f2f5; font-size: 15px;"> </span><br /><br /></span>* I think we are always dead to them. They are primarily assuaging how much power and control they can detect we are willing to give them, and as a side line, wondering what we think of them, and whether we place them up or down on a hierarchy that for a lot of us doesn't even exist. <br /><br />* Oof, I could have easily written this.<br />There is nothing wrong with you. Someone(s) traumatized you and it's hard to move forward when you've never been able to get validation or resolution or closure.<br />Idk if this helps, but coming to the conclusion that my family would never be able to give me any of that and working on myself was how I got my closure.<br /><br /></span></p><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial;">* agree with all of this <br /><span class="x3nfvp2 x1j61x8r x1fcty0u xdj266r xhhsvwb xat24cr xgzva0m xxymvpz xlup9mm x1kky2od" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; display: inline-flex; font-size: 15px; height: 16px; margin: 0px 1px; vertical-align: middle; width: 16px;"><img alt="♥️" class="xz74otr" height="16" referrerpolicy="origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/t33/1.5/16/2665.png" style="border: 0px; object-fit: fill;" width="16" /></span><span style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"> </span>we’ve all experienced this to some extent in this group. So, share those feelings whether it be rage, disappointment, rejection, whatever it is here with us. It’s a safe place to get the recognition and validation. You’re seen. Keep going lovely. You’re not alone<br /><br />* This is all gaslighting. It's about saying, "You're too crazy to know what you think and feel. So I'll tell you!" And the worst of it is that they can punish you for how they interpret your feelings and thoughts, especially if they sense that you are bucking their so-called entitlements to control you all of the time, especially if they think you are hurting their ego. <br />Be careful of going along with this belief that they are mind-readers and can tell what you are thinking and feeling just to get some peace. I did this, and it made them even more entitled to tell me what I was thinking and feeling, and gave them a sense that they really were great mind readers. They are not. <br />Even tho defending yourself and arguing with them is really uncomfortable, it keeps them from going down the rabbit hole of thinking that they are super human mind readers. They are not even close. We all know that. It takes empathy to be able to understand other people. They don't have that ability and that needs to be drilled into them over and over again. <br />Once they get the feeling that they are mind readers - watch out! They will punish you for all sorts of things that are not even happening! They act more like sociopaths at that point than narcissists. <br /><br />* Having people tell you what you feel is the worst kind of human interaction I can fathom. It's like being imprisoned for crimes you did not commit. When I was a child I was constantly accused for things I didn't feel. And yes, I was punished for them. It's like our parents have decided they are in a war with us and that they have to strike us down before we find out what they are trying to do to us. It's like they are in fear of phantom enemies. <br />I think this is why parents have scapegoats. <br />Needless to say I was discarded once I turned into an adult.<br /><span style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>* Ongoing gaslighting and emotional manipulation. This is the way they keep the dysfunctional system in place and their foot pressed on our throats. I'm in the process of growing my capacity to honor my needs and validate my experiences within that toxic system, regardless of their agenda to keep me prisoner of their toxicity.<br /><span style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>* My mom's favorite response is, "So what do you want?!" Or, "Well, that was a long time ago. Time to move on, that's what adults do." Not only is this stuff *not* really in the past because the abuse continues to this day, but we werent allowed to feel and process our feelings when the incidents were happening. They're never going to take responsibility. They're never going to understand that the closure we need is healthy and normal, and they're the dysfunctional ones for denying and hindering that. The way you felt and feel about what happened to you is valid. This is part of how they try to silence us so they can continue as they always have. You deserve better. Talk to chosen family and friends you trust who are in a good place to support and listen, and if you have access to a trauma-qualified therapist it can be a wonderful help in self-validation and processing all this stuff that you've never been safe to address. You are not alone. <br /><span class="x3nfvp2 x1j61x8r x1fcty0u xdj266r xhhsvwb xat24cr xgzva0m xxymvpz xlup9mm x1kky2od" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; display: inline-flex; font-size: 15px; height: 16px; margin: 0px 1px; vertical-align: middle; width: 16px;"><img alt="💜" class="xz74otr" height="16" referrerpolicy="origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/tef/1.5/16/1f49c.png" style="border: 0px; object-fit: fill;" width="16" /><br /><br /><br /></span><span><br /><br /></span>* Narcissists will silence you over things that bring them shame, as parents, as people, per their reputation in the family or community. They don't like to know they aren't perfect either, that they make as many mistakes as other people, if not more of them. It is typical for them to silence you, and then give you the silent treatment, as though you have callously hurt them by bringing up a topic, even if it is an important topic that most parents would discuss with their child. Realize that this is part of narcissism, and if they refuse to talk, you can walk away. Some narcissists will make sure the shame lands on your shoulders instead of on theirs, which is why this sometimes graduates to the silent treatment, were they try to make you out to be the most shameful person that ever lived. Don't be influenced by that. It isn't your fault. <br />(said by a therapist)<br /><br />* I have gotten numb to the silent treatment. When I get the silent treatment, I tend to talk to other people more. And when NM is in not in one of her silent treatment modes and gets really talkative, I get quiet and so reserved you'd probably think I was a zombie. <br /><span><br /></span>* Please call a domestic violence shelter and ask if they offer trauma consell8ng. That is what I chose to do. Trauma is sonething they 7nderstand and can help with. Or ask your doctor for numbers of other associations that may. . You are worth it. Childhood trauma is just as valid as any trauma. Your feelings now and your feelings as a child are also valid.<br /><br />* Look at it this way. Manipulating us to have certain feelings or no feelings at all means they don't know us and never will. They will claim to know us throughout our childhood, and even through adulthood even when we are estranged, but how can you know someone when they can't tell their parent what they really think and feel, when the parent tries to take charge of that? They don't know anything. Literally, they don't you any better than a neighbor they wave to but never talk to. <br />And we are expected to live in that environment full time? <br />We are nothing more than a neighbor they wave to. They can register that we exist and that is about all. <br />And that is what makes them really, really bad parents. You can't just acknowledge that your child exists, and that you're the only one who gets to decide what they are feeling and thinking, any more than a neighbor would put up with another neighbor deciding what they are thinking and feeling based on what they see through a window. <br />But that's what it is like growing up with disordered parents. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><br /></span>* Yea, and it's one of those situations where the window is translucent, where they can tell you're there, but only the rough shape. <br />This is all so relatable. I can't tell you how many times I thought, "My father doesn't know me or understand me." His accusations of hostility were so off the wall. He determined that I ruined his life! No use in defending myself or talking. He decided whether I defended myself or not. I tried to get him to hear a reasonable perspective on what I was actually thinking and feeling. He was determined to wipe it all out and put his interpretation on it. <br />Getting away from my father was the best thing I could do. I could explore what I thought and felt rather than have it shot down over and over again without discussion. I still see him once in awhile in large family gatherings, and he still does it there, does all of the talking about what I do, feel, think, etc., but I also make it clear how often we see each other, like once every three years and only at big family events, and that he doesn't know me or my life at all.<br />They say that family will stick together against a scapegoat, but I think he is just too domineering and crazy for a lot of them to take seriously. He's seen as an interrupting attention-seeking blow-hard with a bad swearing and drinking problem. An unpleasant person in other words. <br /><br />* Classic manipulation by ppl who don't want to face what they've done or be accountable for their actions. This is one of their favorite go-tos.<br /><br />* This is why the gray rock method doesn't work. Who ever thought that up had to have their head examined. It only works if you want to keep the more egregious abuse at bay, but only for a little while. They will still want to start up an argument to get their narcissistic supply, and denying them that by distracting them with boring subjects is going to make them enraged. <br />They constantly make up what you feel and think whether you are gray rock or not. And they try to get arguments going about it too. <br />Every therapist should suggest going no contact first and foremost, and really press their clients to consider it, and if the client refuses, then only talk about the gray rock method then. However, I think people who decide what you're feeling all of the time are going to be the people who will not stand for gray rock and be determined to punish you for not being drawn into an argument. <br />Narcissists are not reasonable and they are pathologically stupid about how to relate to other people. <br /><br />* Highly relatable. The general public have a very low emotional tolerance for hearing about abuse. The denial is strong. Nothing compared to our abusers though.<br />I can confirm that having therapy with a psychologist specializing in trauma has been incredibly healing and massively cathartic.<br /><br />* Same here. My NM always said: "You've always felt like you got the short end of the stick". And I always believed I was not worthy of her love- let alone anyone else's. I'm at the beginning of my healing journey and so far going NC has been the best decision I've ever made.</span><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />* I tried the gray rock method. It means your family can attribute more feelings to you that you're not having because you are no longer defending yourself. <br />NC is the only way to go. It frees you from the internal depression, rage and helplessness you feel constantly when your parent guts out your real feelings and thoughts with their evil intentioned ones over and over for eternity. You can never get out of feeling that way without going NC.<br />The depression, rage and helplessness can eat away at your soul.<span style="color: #050505;"><span style="background-color: #f0f2f5; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><br />* And not only that, but they think they are good parents when they do this, and that we should be eternally grateful to them for getting us wrong all of the time. Cuckoo. <br /><br />* Don't most of us stop talking when they get us wrong? Won't they punish us for explaining ourselves more than if we kept silent? Don't most of these parents want us silent so they can attribute things to us without blow back?<br /><br />* My GC has denied my truth forever and I’ve finally cut him out of my life for it, among other things. My husband and kids however give me the validation and understanding that I need and I appreciate it so much. AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU!<br /><br />* They'd tell me, "You're obsessed with the past!" the day after they shouted me down and wouldn't let me talk about an experience I had that any parent would be concerned about. They didn't want to listen to what I had to say no matter what. <br />Why didn't they want to listen to it? Because they have no empathy. So instead of saying, "I don't want to listen to it because I have no empathy, and you don't want me to fake that, do you?" they say, "You're obsessed with the past!" They try to find the flaw in you rather than make it about their own lack of empathy. <br />In your mind, just call it for what it is: their lack of empathy speech. And then laugh at how they desperately, desperately, and without success, try to make it about a flaw in you. It's their "perfect" blame-shifting tactic at work, except it isn't so perfect because we can see right through it.<br /><br />* You have to be very selective of who you share with. If I would ever get that comment my response would be that I live very much in the present but I have not forgotten the past. The past informs my future.<br /><br />* I think this is just another patriarchal thing that narcissists take advantage of. You are only allowed to talk if you are a man. They can say absolutely anything want, but the girls and women in the house have to shut up and listen to a man order them around. It is how my mother used our stepfather. She'd tell him what orders to give us, and he gave them. I was hushed into submission so many times and my brother was asked for the truth. It was a barely survivable environment and one in which I felt I had to go no contact with.<br /><br />* Interesting about that. Yes, they will use any old standard to get girls to be submissive. My mother wore the pants in the family, and my father was the one who she decided needed to listen to her. If he confronted her, she'd get retaliatory and run away. Years later he no longer wanted to hear her words because she lied about so many affairs. He said she'd lie about anything at that point. Then the family split up, and after that she decided I had to listen to her and become an absolutely submissive part of my former self. My brother was spared and was allowed to say anything, and he took after her, lying all of the time about nearly everything. <br /><br />* Wow, so he let his wife talk and decide everything, including silencing others of the same sex? <br /><br />* She said she liked men more than women. She said that all mothers pretend to love their daughters, but that they really don't. They only love their sons first and their husbands and lovers for a little while until they get sick of them and want to find another. She said she had no use of little girls unless they were like maids. She had no trouble hiding her feelings about that to me. At age 16, she no longer wanted me and I went to live with my grandmother. My grandmother didn't really like girls any more than my mother. I went no contact with that side of my family when my daughter was born.<br /><br />* I have to say that I'm still in shock over the fact that my NM refused to talk to me about my brother's bullying and his domestic violence of his ex-wife and most of his children. She insisted I apologize to my brother, and when I wouldn't (I did say it was crazy to apologize which probably injured her poor ego), she said she didn't want to talk about my brother again. After a couple of months went by, she gave me a life-long silent treatment. She spread a lot of false narratives about me to get other people to vilify me.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">It's amazing that they think their lies will re-instate their bigger than life ego. It's amazing when you find out they don't love you and that all they care about is that you apologize to abusers in the family. <br />It's amazing that they'll give you up just to promote a false fantasy. It's amazing that they don't care about you at all when they do their final discard after a life time of pretending to love you. It's amazing how little they care about and for their own children. It's amazing that they can live with what they've done without reflection or remorse. It's amazing that social services said that they'd take me if they didn't straighten out their act, but that they keep re-playing their act after your childhood has ended, and that they show no self reflection over being a bad parent. It's amazing that they are out to prove that you are a worse child than they are a bad parent, and again, when they have to make up stories about what you did, and what they did is in writing by a head psychiatrist at a mental health facility. <br />It's amazing that they will do anything, and I mean anything, to protect their sorry ego. It's amazing how far they will go to that end. They will sacrifice everything and anything to honor their ego. If they have to protect their ego with that many lies, maybe their ego isn't worth protecting, but do they consider that? No. They'll give up every relationship, everything they have, everything they are, to hang on to protecting their ego, but will stop at nothing to shoot yours down, over and over, and over again. </span><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial;">Maybe silence is golden when their ego protections have gotten to this kind of toxic level. <br /><br />* Protecting their ego when they have done wrong is always going to be toxic - for everyone. Most of the people left in their lives will be effected by it too, but they don't realize it right away. <br /><br />* Narcissism is always going to about protecting their ego. It's a disease of admiring the self at all cost. <br /><br />* Knowing this, it is possible not to care about them any more than they care about you. The requirement to pump up their ego doesn't do you any favors, and it certainly doesn't do them any favors. They make it a life and death issue, and it is not. They need to learn that. They can't have you around if they want to pretend the mirror has no cracks. If they have you around, they have to be reminded that they sacrificed their child and lied about their child to protect their ego. Is that what they want for their lives? No way. <br />It is why they move on in a cold way. <br />I think we owe it to ourselves to realize that talking to them is always going to be about how well we are ego pumping. Enjoy the silence as much as you can, and don't take their silent treatment as a reflection on you. <br /><br />* I have learned how to deal with my NM's silencing and silent treatments and I am no longer effected by them. I have learned they are ego temper tantrums and that they are responsible for building themselves back up by right action instead of wrong action. I have a right to accept or refuse her ack into my life. There are a lot of boundaries now. She refused to talk to me, and now I have refused to talk to her about any personal subjects. She is the last person I want to share that part of myself with. We have managed a very simplified relationship, and when ego dramas rear their ugly head again, I tell her that it's not my job to fluff her ego up while she tries to destroy mine, and that the best thing for both of us is to take a break from each other. <br />It is how I've managed the relationship. So far there is more silence between us than talking, but that is fine with me. It keeps me having to deal with the narcissistic side of her. She only really wants to parade me around as her "successful daughter" to her friends any way. Aside from that, the relationship doesn't consist of much.<br /><br />* I'm a truth teller and they love shouting me down and trying so hard to get me to stop talking. To no avail!!! <br />These people love lies and living in lies! Who is kidding who? <br />I used to be abused for speaking the truth, but now I'm not scared at all. I succeeded in life, and that scares the hell out of them, so now they are quiet. <br />I love how I could turn the tables on them. <br /><br />* Silencing someone is a gaslighting tactic. Don't be influenced by it. Just say to yourself, "I'm being gaslighted" and talk to people who can better handle the important things you need to talk about.</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial;">Remember that narcissists have their ego in everything they do and everything they say. That is why they can't hear you, and can only hear you based on how it is effecting their ego. <br />(written by a therapist)<br /><br />* I'd get, "You never said that!" when I said it over and over and over again, but they'd shoot me down and tell me not to talk about it. Then when something happens that they don't like, and all of a sudden they pretend that I never talk to them about important stuff. It's a dirty rotten game, and I'm done playing it. <br /><br />* With me, they shut me up when they don't want to hear what I have to say and then demand that I talk if I don't want to talk about something. They will punish me if I don't shut up, and they will punish me if I'm the one who wants to stay quiet and not tell them things. They have to be in control of when I open my mouth, what I say, how I say it, and what they don't want me to say. Sometimes there is literally nothing I want to say to them, and they decide that there is, that I'm keeping things from them. I can't win at their game and like another poster above said I can't listen to them any more anyway. They can't keep on subject and because of that they accuze me of things I never said, or even experienced. I think I just need to give up on them in terms of any more long discussions. I don't know oif that means no contact or just moving, but I'm in the process of putting my own life together. <br /><br />* Growing up with parents who don't want you to talk, and can't hear what your saying is sooooooo hard! Its easy to fall into the wallflower role. Like trying to match the wallpaper so that they don't see you and pick on you. Once they pick on you, they don't want to hear what you have to say. Only they get to interpret the world around you. Your supposed to listen to them and get an idea of what is happening only. That is just not right. Their versions, even tho they spend way more time talking than we do are more insan, if we can't get more than a word in edgwise. <br />I think the reason why they like to talk about what is real is that they know they are out of touch with reality so much that the only way they can convince themselves and us that they aren't living in a fantasy is to persuade us and others that they are the ones with a grip on reality, never us. <br /><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">* I am so allergic to being told to shut up and keep quiet that I no longer want a relationship with my parents. It was my way of giving them exactly what they wanted: quiet in their world forever.<br /><br />* So do any narc parents care what we have to say? Or are they always more focused on getting us to shut up so that they can coerce us with their words?</span><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />* I think they know that scapegoats can't be coerced because we are allergic to them as authority figures. We know that what they have to say is only for their benefit. I don't listen to my parents any more than they listen to me which is almost never. I'm not going to have them talk at me and deny me a response. Not happening!<br /><br />* My family is like a bad cult. My parents only give themselves permission on when to talk and what to talk about and most of it is BS. We are supposed to be entranced and follow the leader. Didn't work. I was the first one to leave. <span style="color: #050505;"><span style="background-color: #f0f2f5; font-size: 15px;"> </span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />* Yep. My mother would say "I don't remember that." Or she would remind me of the terrible things going on in the world. Just another way of minimizing my feelings.<br /><span><br /></span>* I don't tell anyone what's going on with me anymore. Just 1 friend and my husband.<br /><br />* Talking with narcissists is like walking in a minefield. You never know when they will blow up at you. I have no problem with keeping silent these days. They can tell me to be silent all day long if they want. Much more of a relief than when they demand gossip. <br /><br />* I could have written this , im currently in the last few months at university and writing a dissertation.<br />When i was a child i was never allowed to express myself, and was told off talking about myself, in the dissertation we were told to write an artist statement which is talking about your self. I've found it very difficult to separate my personal self from my artist self. I was told today to talk less about myself and more about art. I understand what she was saying but it brought up a lot of past trauma. Im nearly 38. I've been refured for therapy but it could take a year before i see someone. It is such a hard road ...</span><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />* I am in a very similar situation. The waiting is hard. I feel I have suffered so much for so long it is time for me. I am worth it, and so are you<br /><br />* I know exactly how you feel, people will abuse you and when you react to their abuse they will call you the crazy one<br /><br />* I used art to express myself because I couldn't at home with my NM ruling the roost. I was encouraged by many teachers because they said I had talent. I thought it was one way to avoid feeling frustrated at never being able to express how I really felt and thought around her. If I dared to talk, she'd rephrase and correct everything to make it sound bad. <br />My father drank as his escape and refused to stand up to her no matter how awful she got.<br />Wouldn't you know that she couldn't stand my art, my last mode of expression. One day while I was at school she ripped it all up and told me that I was no longer allowed to make art. It broke my heart and a couple of my teachers told her that I had real talent, that I should be encouraged. She wouldn't listen to them, and when I got home she yelled, "How dare you get your teachers to call me! I will not stand for it!" <br />It was like she threw away my identity. <br />Somehow I managed to pursue my passion any way. When I was crying that my mother would just rip up everything I did, my grammar school teacher came up with the idea that she could save my drawings and paintings until I left home. She saved the work I did in high school too. <br />It was clear that I was only to be a drudge for my mother. I wasn't willing to accept that in the long run even though I had to accept it living under her roof. <br />I put myself through art college and I have been a practicing artist ever since. And I don't have a relationship with my mother any more. <br />God forbid I sneak around doing art instead of drinking like my father and eldest brother!<br /><br />* I've heard that many narcissists disapprove of artist daughters. I wonder why that is? <br /><br />* Probably because they have talent and the parent doesn't. Narcissists don't like anyone outshining them. <br /><br />* Why not pick on male carpenters and woodworkers too? "They're making something that I can't make! Oh, no! Put a stop to that!" <br /><br />* Yer right. There is a bit of a double standard there!<br /><br />* Patriarchal society. They are proud of men and in competition with women. <br /><br />* Mine focused so much on the past, that I dared to sneak art making into my life despite her disapproval, but had no trouble telling me that I focused on the past too much when a discussion got uncomfortable for her, which was about always. <br /><br />* I can very much relate to this, it has been used against me many times.<br />Remember.... just because they say it doesn’t mean it’s true ( probably the opposite)<br />Something that I have found helpful lately is that I have been rephrasing their rubbish in my mind to the actual reality of the situation so for this one it would be...<br />“ I have seen exactly who you are from your past actions and behaviour and I will act appropriately on that information ”<br />They can call it living in the past or holding grudges or whatever they want but in reality who would keep touching a fire when they know it burns? Saying that something was in the past doesn’t excuse it at all, without a genuine apology and without a change in behaviour it is nothing more then manipulation.<br />It’s just another tactic to keep you exactly where they want you to be.<br /><br />* Sometimes I find talking about things helps me heal or understand more. Then I find it easier to let go or in fact not let go sometimes and know that someone did something to me and I don't have to just forgive or feel guilty. I don't have to live in the past but understand it more good or bad.. so you talk but find the correct person or people to talk to. The narcissist will use what you say against you or say your crazy or you live in the past. They don't care or want to care about you. Sending strength and positive thoughts.</span><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />* Yep. Same for me. Therapy and no contact is the only way to peace. These people don't change.<br /><br /></span><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs" style="margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial;">* There is nothing wrong with you.. you’re allowed to talk about your feelings and hurt. People that tell you that you live in the past are invalidating you and shutting you down. Have your voice heard and speak up.</span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial;">Similarly I’ve had parents treat me like this. Try and talk about something and I’m told I have problems. More like they are blocking and don’t want to acknowledge my feelings or their behaviour<br /><br />* That's gaslighting. They love to ignore that you were hurt by them. If you got over it really fast, they'd say, "What's the matter with you?! You never think about anything?" too. It's a no win situation.<br /><br />* Gaslighting. I can not say anything referencing my past or its ‘stop living in the past’. Narc families most toxic and invalidating mantra towards the scapegoat. Yet they are allowed to make jokes and poke fun about things in my past THEY’VE chose to make a topic to embarrass and exploit me.<br /><br />* I love it when some family member comes to me and tells me to stop talking about family dynamics. They really, really love living in illusions and lies and posturing. Phonies to the max!! <br />While I won't talk to them any more, poor pitiful things, I can just as easily talk everywhere else - and they HATE, HATE, HATE me because I won't stop!! And I have so much evidence to back up the false facades!<br />Hahaha<br /><br />* I tried to make sense of why they feel allowed to talk about anything and everything, and why their own children, even when 40 years old, are not allowed to talk about anything except what narcissistic parents allow. There is simply no way to understand this. I found that the best thing to do is to share only with people who don't try to shut you up or shut you down. If they start that, it's time to walk away. They are just not safe people if they are doing that. <br /><br />* Oh, they act ferocious, but really they only act that way because they are wimps when the big bad truth finally shines a light on them. Once the truth is out there, they look like victims for a change, instead of us. <br /><br />* "The past is in the past" but only for you, not for them. They hold grudges forever. But it's their favorite saying to get you to shut up about any subject except for them!!! <br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">FURTHER READING</span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br /><a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/stonewalling-narcissists.html"><b>Stonewalling: Narcissist’s Silent Treatment Method</b></a> - by Saul Mcleod, PhD & Julia Simkus for Simple Psychology <br />excerpt: <br /><i> ... Stonewalling involves withdrawing from communication and deliberately avoiding providing any information, feedback, or emotional response, effectively shutting down a conversation or interaction. ... <br /> ... Stonewalling is commonly observed in conflicts or disputes between individuals in a relationship. According to psychologist John Gottmann, this behavior can have serious consequences for a relationship because it creates a sense of disconnection and frustration between the people involved. ...<br /> ... While stonewalling is typically used as a way to avoid conflict, narcissists will use stonewalling as a tool for manipulation. ... <br /> ... The narcissist consistently ignores your requests, needs, or concerns, showing a lack of consideration or empathy for your emotions. If you speak to them about something important to you, they might dismiss you, ignore you, cut you off, or say something like “who cares” or “just be quiet.” They might also dismiss you by belittling or laughing at what you are saying. ... <br /> ... Feeling ignored, dismissed, or shut out by someone you care about can be hurtful and can lead to feelings of rejection and inadequacy. Social rejection and exclusion can evoke significant emotional pain. Stonewalling is a form of ostracism and is often interpreted as a threat to the body and brain. In response to stonewalling, our alarm system (fight/flight response) is set off. This can lead to feelings of panic, anxiety, depression, and/ or anger. Stonewalling threatens our fundamental need to belong. <br /></i><br /><b><a href="https://gcyp.sa.gov.au/2017/07/11/for-abuse-to-occur-a-childs-voice-must-be-silenced/" target="_blank">For abuse to occur, a child’s voice must be silenced</a></b> - gcyp.sa.gov.au (Australian government site)<br />excerpt:<br /><div>11 July 2017<br /><i> For abuse of a child to occur, the first necessary condition is that the child remain silent, that their voice not be heard. <br /> This silence may be engineered by the abuser, using their status, fear or shame. It may be engineered by institutions that are passive in protecting children or complicit in covering it up or by adults and peers who are not alert to the signs or do not know how to respond. ... </i></div><br /><b><a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/parenting/toddler-year-and-beyond/silent-treatment-from-parents-the-psychological-implications-on-kids-and-why-it-should-be-avoided/articleshow/89563929.cms" target="_blank">Silent treatment from parents: The psychological implications on kids and why it should be avoided</a></b> - Times of India<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/impact/2019/06/children-should-be-empowered-and-protected/" target="_blank">Children should be empowered and protected, not silenced and side lined</a></b> - by Holly Shorey for Amnesty International</div><br /><a href="https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/identifying-abuse/diversion-tactics-highly-manipulative-narcissists-sociopaths-and-psychopaths-use-to-silence-you-part-iv"><b>Ways Manipulative Narcissists Silence You: Part IV (Narcissists enjoy making malicious remarks at a survivor's expense)</b></a> - by Shahida Arabi for Domestic Shelters.org<br /><br /><a href="https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/identifying-abuse/diversion-tactics-highly-manipulative-narcissists-sociopaths-and-psychopaths-use-to-silence-you-part-ii"><b>Ways Manipulative Narcissists Silence You: Part II (Does your abuser shift blame, change the subject, name-call or nitpick?)</b></a> - by Shahida Arabi for Domestic Shelters <br /><br /><a href="https://narcissisms.com/how-narcissists-silence-their-partners/"><b>How Narcissists Silence Their Partners</b></a> - Narcissisms.com<br /><br /> <a href="https://www.brainzmagazine.com/post/unknowingly-silencing-others-are-you-a-conversational-narcissist"><b>Unknowingly Silencing Others – Are You A Conversational Narcissist?</b></a> - by Tatiane Garcia, Executive Contributor for Brainz <br />excerpt: <br /><i> Have you ever noticed a friend who, despite giving you sporadic moments of attention, primarily uses your presence as an opportunity to unload their thoughts and feelings without truly listening to yours? Indeed, we've all experienced the one-sided nature of such "friendships." ... <br /> ...Growing up in a family of women, I was always fascinated by our unique social skills. However, none of us possessed the necessary skills to truly listen to one another. Taking into account factors such as our culture, environment, age, beliefs, and ambitions, I often listened to my sister's narrative with a certain bias. I sometimes disagreed with their wrong or incorrect views, comparing my struggles to theirs without realizing that the conversation was about them, not me. <br /> When we find ourselves in the opposite position, needing a secure space to express ourselves, we quickly realize our mistake in speaking. Often, we feel stifled, misunderstood, embarrassed or even smaller, and the conversation ends up revolving around the other person. The sensation of being ignored induces an immediate feeling of sadness and discouragement. ... </i><br /><a href="https://medium.com/@ernestwaith/the-effects-of-silencing-your-childs-voice-15f334fe994b"><br /></a><a href="https://medium.com/@ernestwaith/the-effects-of-silencing-your-childs-voice-15f334fe994b"><b>The Effects of Silencing Your Child’s Voice</b></a> - by Dr. Ernest Waith, DMin. for Medium<br /><br /> <a href="https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/silent-treatment-a-narcissistic-persons-preferred-weapon-0602145"><b>Silent Treatment: Preferred Weapon of People with Narcissism</b></a> - by Andrea Schneider, LCSW for Good Therapy <br /><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8LZz7uqeuURolSSINTthMjFK4KW3JQfRSynLwcG7Dsbqe5_1BYqErNPBibmMaX7r6KBeUR51D82UNEwxK4OYnQIfg_fioKCZvPBiADRheEy3_geX-KA1YFI7RVq6KSRNN46STBU9PtcHZG6VBknou2SniWH6_ZFzYW4IPOC51Dbkjjsnuu0H7Sw4Ay78/s584/rebel%20scapegoat%20I.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="584" data-original-width="498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8LZz7uqeuURolSSINTthMjFK4KW3JQfRSynLwcG7Dsbqe5_1BYqErNPBibmMaX7r6KBeUR51D82UNEwxK4OYnQIfg_fioKCZvPBiADRheEy3_geX-KA1YFI7RVq6KSRNN46STBU9PtcHZG6VBknou2SniWH6_ZFzYW4IPOC51Dbkjjsnuu0H7Sw4Ay78/s16000/rebel%20scapegoat%20I.jpg" /></a><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjzYL3CiqAouYFwuuIRBe_Dx4vHmarvkPcnpFtwZb7C02GNuS3h5qn92BT3bDtfn_sVRUUDzi2_hL21G48276o5Pj0Qh62aIxPgZGB7GOsaRzoPH0zpsBzbnHCy4vFlHEEIWH4UY7XrWzPCjfNeBmw-Ow6kF8FvYDa-YIhs_OETET-dQRQeWqaZO1oDAs/s442/love%20language.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjzYL3CiqAouYFwuuIRBe_Dx4vHmarvkPcnpFtwZb7C02GNuS3h5qn92BT3bDtfn_sVRUUDzi2_hL21G48276o5Pj0Qh62aIxPgZGB7GOsaRzoPH0zpsBzbnHCy4vFlHEEIWH4UY7XrWzPCjfNeBmw-Ow6kF8FvYDa-YIhs_OETET-dQRQeWqaZO1oDAs/s16000/love%20language.jpg" /></a><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNMrZfUEBgG5y2rKT8wl9N0nd0EQAC7axntg6oWZAtmDPhgJMpnYZBgOm-Us8_XyQr1vZtnHaEAS8eMDZTb8neSNO8oiPeiCZaoMvkzMNGCfrufBxJVmV17K7FCUAClhNQePT6trgsT-oDqm0_H5Mbcd8jPLDPYembcffna70fX53Gaj9uLk64VkxU4AU/s498/place%20close%20attention.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNMrZfUEBgG5y2rKT8wl9N0nd0EQAC7axntg6oWZAtmDPhgJMpnYZBgOm-Us8_XyQr1vZtnHaEAS8eMDZTb8neSNO8oiPeiCZaoMvkzMNGCfrufBxJVmV17K7FCUAClhNQePT6trgsT-oDqm0_H5Mbcd8jPLDPYembcffna70fX53Gaj9uLk64VkxU4AU/s16000/place%20close%20attention.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-77626421463065706572024-03-21T12:54:00.000-07:002024-03-23T08:19:11.302-07:00A New Course on How to Break Through the Defenses of Narcissists?<p>Yes, there is a new course being offered to both professionals and "anyone interested" in how to break through the defensive behaviors of narcissists. </p><p>On Facebook, the advertisement appears this way:<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOaVVZIWfrPelH2JvaxnRzUd2VzConhle_5W8RiaS4iXyAHAwry3Bqp5do2hKClOkTngV3wX6KLISN5PCTIubHZ3d7NYYbqA6BfslkGlBW1g2rhAUwZfOQ5jKvDhCk4Aqr4_pf15S3YXTH1fJUxWeHfo88Hvl7YSnpytPwlNr0hOA8Hwf-QK7BnHeoWuY/s526/355808255_6342912866908_5339673927543054263_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="526" data-original-width="526" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOaVVZIWfrPelH2JvaxnRzUd2VzConhle_5W8RiaS4iXyAHAwry3Bqp5do2hKClOkTngV3wX6KLISN5PCTIubHZ3d7NYYbqA6BfslkGlBW1g2rhAUwZfOQ5jKvDhCk4Aqr4_pf15S3YXTH1fJUxWeHfo88Hvl7YSnpytPwlNr0hOA8Hwf-QK7BnHeoWuY/s16000/355808255_6342912866908_5339673927543054263_n.jpg" /></a></div><br />The writing below it says this:<br /><p><i>Working with narcissistic clients is one of the most challenging tasks therapists encounter.</i></p><p><i>It becomes even more complex when faced with their defensiveness, grandiosity, and lack of self-awareness – all designed to guard against vulnerability.</i></p><p><i>So, how do we get through these layers of defense? How do we create a therapeutic alliance that encourages vulnerability and empathy in these clients? Even more so, how can we be effective when traditional interventions seem to bounce off their fortified walls?</i></p><p><i>To answer these questions, we've curated this comprehensive, targeted online course featuring 22 of the world's leading experts in treating narcissism. Take a look: <a href="https://www.nicabm.com/program/fb-narcissism-1/">https://www.nicabm.com/program/fb-narcissism-1/</a>...<br /></i><br />Another advertisement on Facebook goes like this:<br /><br /><i>(CLOSING NOW) Dissolving the Defenses That Sustain Narcissism - Expert</i> <br /><br />The course features a well known psychiatrist, Bessel van der Kolk, MD who wrote the famous book, <a href="https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-score" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">The Body Keeps the Score</a>.<b> </b>This book is on the must-read list if you are going to college or graduate school and your major is a psychology degree or a Masters in Social Work in trauma research and/or trauma therapy. <br /><br />Some of the other names associated with this course are: Janina Fisher, PhD, Peter Levine, PhD, Jennifer Sweeton, PsyD, Ron Siegel, PsyD, Lynn Lyons, LICSW, Russell Kolts, PhD, Zindel Segal, PhD, Shelly Harrell, PhD <br /><br />When you click on the link, you get this:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.nicabm.com/program/fb-narcissism-1/"><b>https://www.nicabm.com/program/fb-narcissism-1/</b></a><br /><br />There is also a course on how to treat victims.<br /><br />This is one of the advertisements for this course:<br /><br /><i>Helping patients heal from trauma is one of the most challenging things therapists do. </i></p><p><i>It becomes infinitely more challenging when a patient is missing one key experience – a stable, secure relationship. </i></p><p><i>So how do we work with patients who are missing those cherished relationships? Beyond that, what do we do when traditional talk therapies don’t work? </i></p><p><i>That’s why we've created this short, focused online course with 5 of the world’s top trauma treating experts. Take a look: </i>https://www.nicabm.com/program/a2-attachment-fb2/...<br /><br />As for narcissists in treatment, I'm fine with professionals tackling this. However, if you've ever been in a personal relationship with a narcissist, or <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/11/breaking-trauma-bond-with-abusers.html" target="_blank">trauma bonded</a></b> with one, and you suggest therapy with the idea that the narcissist is going to heal by examining and giving up on their defensive/aggressive strategies, and that by inference you will heal, and that your relationship will heal too, I don't see how it can work at all. They are more likely to rage at your suggestion that they need treatment. That is what fortification does; that is what grandiosity with defensiveness does; that is what only focusing on how much power, control and domination they have in relationships does. <br /><br />Also if there is a power differential between you and the narcissist where the narcissist thinks you are less powerful than they are, suggesting this therapy could be a disaster, and dangerous in some situations. That's my take on it. <br /><br />If they want to go on their own, it's another story. <br /><br />If this was me, I wouldn't even suggest it. I also say this from experience dealing with this type of personality disorder. Most of them don't look at therapy as a learning experience or useful; they look at it as a put-down, something they use to shame other individuals mental capacities, emotional capacities, inability to get along with others, or if they insinuate that you are mentally challenged for not taking orders from them. Because of this, most of them will not look upon therapy in a positive light because of the way they use it in conflicts and arguments: "You need to get a grip; you need therapy bad!", "You sound insane. You need to see a shrink," "You need to stop. If you don't, I'll get you committed" and so on. <br /><br />I'm not sure how they take situations that have very little chance of being resolved without therapy (going together for instance, like in marriage counseling), but even there they mostly will be rooting for themselves and manipulating to get their own way, calling you crazy for resisting control and domination, putting themselves in a dictator position, deciding to be a lecturer, and it won't be productive. Psychologists who deal with patients undergoing narcissistic abuse generally do not advise going to marriage counseling at all, and actually say it should be avoided. They usually suggest detaching yourself from the narcissist instead. <br /><br />Also, if they are sometimes willing to go to therapy they can become more sneaky covert narcissists. I just can't see any positive benefit of suggesting it to a narcissist at this time, and with the knowledge I have about the issues surrounding narcissists, unless you are a therapist, or life coach, or someone who just wants to take this course to learn something, I really think the narcissist would only go to therapy at your suggestion to find a way to show that they can tough it out and that it's an "easy course", or to be resistant to it, or to challenge it, or to prove to you that they can go but that it isn't useful to them at all because you should be in therapy because you're the crazy one. I think most of us have been around and around many, many times with these narcissistic defenses and the inevitable attacks that come with narcissistic defenses. <br /><br />I have not seen anyone in a "trauma bond experience" with a narcissist get anywhere except a worsening trauma bond (and that's after hearing at least a thousand stories from survivors of narcissistic abuse) - nothing lessens the trauma bond unless they find ways to mostly separate. With a power differential (parent and child, for instance), the trauma bond is even more destructive and pronounced, and I doubt any parent is going to go along with a child, grown or not, estranged or not, who says their parent needs to be in treatment for their personality disorder, or that issues between you need to be worked out in a therapeutic professional setting. <br /><br />But for a boss to put a worker with traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder into a program of therapy, maybe it can help. The worker may do a better job, or be less contentious and less adversely competitive, stick to work rather than dirty gossip, and all of the other pitfalls narcissists fall into in the workplace, then it might do some good. How much good it does in anything other than a work situation, I don't know. Maybe they go home and kick the dog and spouse after therapy. Maybe not. <br /><br />If you want to get some perspectives on what psychologists, therapists, life coaches and a little bit of the public are saying about this, I suggest reading the following comments (all of which are on the Facebook advertising pages for this course too - and available to see on that page for anyone). </p><p><br />* OMG. Totally here for this!!! And super interested… You’re doing the Lord’s work<span class="x3nfvp2 x1j61x8r x1fcty0u xdj266r xhhsvwb xat24cr xgzva0m xxymvpz xlup9mm x1kky2od" face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; display: inline-flex; font-size: 15px; height: 16px; margin: 0px 1px; vertical-align: middle; width: 16px;"><img alt="💞" class="xz74otr" height="16" referrerpolicy="origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/tf1/1.5/16/1f49e.png" style="border: 0px; object-fit: fill;" width="16" /></span><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><span style="background-color: #f0f2f5; font-size: 15px;"> </span></span>I agree, at the heart of it is a wounded child and TRAUMA!!! It’s also really hard for narcissists to change, but kudos to those who try<span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><span style="background-color: #f0f2f5; font-size: 15px;"> </span></span><span class="x3nfvp2 x1j61x8r x1fcty0u xdj266r xhhsvwb xat24cr xgzva0m xxymvpz xlup9mm x1kky2od" face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; display: inline-flex; font-size: 15px; height: 16px; margin: 0px 1px; vertical-align: middle; width: 16px;"><img alt="😺" class="xz74otr" height="16" referrerpolicy="origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/tb5/1.5/16/1f63a.png" style="border: 0px; object-fit: fill;" width="16" /></span><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><span style="background-color: #f0f2f5; font-size: 15px;"> </span></span>Luv u Bessel!<span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><br /><br /></span>* I experienced a client who after cutting through these barriers would silently cry during sessions because it was so difficult to see herself as being wrong minded and accepting responsibility for her behaviors. But even through the tears she seemed to slowly appreciate the therapy. I agree tools are important when dealing with narcissistic personalities. Some truly struggle with seeing themselves as good.</p><p>* I'm an experienced life coach over decades & humans never fail to inspire me ….to learn more … As I develop insights into this patterning … I’m a little freaked by how this information might be applied without experience / expertise. I love that we can develop insights .. just mindful that to walk this delicate topic needs support .. keep connected to supervision groups as you navigate this arena.<br /><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>* I think the training along with the life skills that therapists excel, can empower and change lives. I do not have any misconceptions about their gifts, mission, and knowledge. I appreciate and highly respect the life path they have chosen. Some of the resources therapists and doctors find for their clients are coaches. I have worked with both. Professional coaches have their place as well. I hope that they have training and are certified. I'd loved to see coaches in our schools K-12 teaching mindfulness etc. I believe that there is a place for all people with a passion to hone their gifts, talents, and abilities to contribute to others.<br /><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>* schema therapy has had good results with narcissism<br /><br />* An empathetic narcissist seems like an oxymoron. And how many even seek treatment since they think nothing is wrong with them?<br /><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>* they absolutely think something is wrong with them. Which is why that facade feels so real. It’s a fully realized self that puts all the things they hate about themselves and buried it deep as possible. It’s a defense/coping mechanism. It’s something that can often be triggered on or off too<br /><br />* if you realize they feel everything and then deflect it, hypersensitive. The vulnerability is there.</p>* What type of narcissism is this course focused on?<br />As far as I understand, treating perverse narcissism or the narcissism of "integrated psychopaths", for example, can be counterproductive as these types of personalities use what they "learn" in therapy to continue disguising their condition and manipulating others.<p><span class="xt0psk2" face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; display: inline; font-size: 12px;"><a aria-hidden="false" class="x1i10hfl xjbqb8w x6umtig x1b1mbwd xaqea5y xav7gou x9f619 x1ypdohk xt0psk2 xe8uvvx xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r xexx8yu x4uap5 x18d9i69 xkhd6sd x16tdsg8 x1hl2dhg xggy1nq x1a2a7pz x1heor9g xt0b8zv" href="https://www.facebook.com/NICABM?comment_id=Y29tbWVudDo2ODIzNzQyNTcyNjQ2MTdfNjU0NDY0NjE5OTk3OTM5&__cft__[0]=AZViuXY7eMOGGOiw0JKW1flvrEm4lBQQYHd_EDjBmw0G4d5ZZEK0nNcJgqTkWOTKtahnwSmFi7lYAm6GL9ICi2dKb7ER3pCjOMEvQ9Up1JdfcO72xK8HPvQRDuNkElDK6H2VLOA3bpF4CRIQd_BKaScADCGsLaHd7GjDmYEHYvqRF0ClLhczaXPQer_MsHPtni683Jw7Jz_QtqKZfO-M1TzRyIPe23z3APfnqxKoj0UCuLnQYQUNER9V4HR323YNg1PNlUhgz35R47eptCJjf5S0nz0RMiAyfD_R48GnmQ8Bv2muDQmG0_SD8aQPXWciBx4&__tn__=R]-R" role="link" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0"><span class="x3nfvp2" style="display: inline-flex; font-family: inherit;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x x4zkp8e x676frb x1nxh6w3 x1sibtaa x1s688f xzsf02u" color="var(--primary-text)" dir="auto" style="display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.8125rem; font-weight: 600; line-height: 1.2308; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">NICABM</span></span></a></span></p><div class="x1lliihq xjkvuk6 x1iorvi4" style="padding-bottom: 4px; padding-top: 4px;"><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs" style="display: block; line-height: 1.3333; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;"><div dir="auto">* If you click on the link to the program, there should be a brief description of the content that is talked about in the course. Hope this helps!</div></div></div><p>* I was very careful when exiting my relationship to give him as little information as possible that might make him more effective for the next woman. I had watched him learn and manipulate with me. The less we give them to improve their tactics, the better! --- This is one reason I would never work with someone with strong narcissistic or psychopathic traits. <br /><br />* Think of narcissism, like most things on a spectrum. You are referring to the extreme end, which is more so just one aspect of antisocial personality disorder. I don’t believe that is what they are referring to in this advertisement but rather the mild to moderate range, which tends to be more associated with learned defensive strategies due to trauma/negative life experiences. People can also be very successful and have elevated levels of healthy narcissism that may be important to be mindful with how it comes out in times of stress. It can get confusing fast, for sure!</p>* Narcissism exists on a spectrum for sure. But if someone truly has NPD this would be difficult to treat as many professionals and researchers in mental health will say again and again NPD is hard to treat. This is why insurances don’t pay you to treat NPD. Hard to treat NPD. But yeah you can ameliorate narcissistic behaviors for sure as we all have done these as a result of maladaptive childhood attachments.<br /><br />* patterns of behavior do in fact, validate a view point.<br />Society is being educated and taught how to spot abusive behavior.<br />The word abuse can replace the word narcissism in every situation.<br />the pattern of behavior is very identifiable quickly in these individuals<br />the number one pattern to show itself early is the compliment with put down technique to start the confusion and trauma bond early.<br />for example, wow, that is a nice looking sweater, but I think you belong in a more sporty looking outfit. This sweater is for someone older than you.<br />this is a compliment with a direct hit to your confidence.<br />the sweater is nice<br />but it's not for you<br />someone older would choice it<br />(the comment is supposed to reinforce you look younger but at the same time, makes you start to doubt you know who you are and what is right for yourself.)<br /><br />* Patterns evolve rapidly and are identifiable quickly following the honeymoon period/love bombing stage.<br />when the victim looks back they see the strategic placement of doubt into the victims head started almost immediately<br />for me, it was the first date, the second day I knew the person.<p>* Exactly. I also take an attachment/trauma informed approach, because that's what I believe it is. They want to be seen. They want to know their existence matters. They feel like nothing, because needs weren't met. They are wounded. Yalom talks about the group approach as being the only way to really get them to heal. I have found this so helpful, as long as only one narcissist is in the group. Protect him from being called out in a cruel way, but let him be called out. Let him see that he's safe in the boundaries of the group leader, but the BS cannot be thrown around and the focus on themselves will only go so far. Others have problems and want to be seen, too.<br /><br />* there’s no such thing as an “actual diagnosis.” It’s just a checklist with a bunch of behaviors listed and somebody just says “yeah I think you fit this” or “I don’t think you do.” There’s your super scientific diagnosis.</p>* Thank you for pointing this out. I recently watched a narcissist use therapy to strengthen their manipulation tactics and it was gut wrenching. Made me wonder if there is any hope at all for people with NPD.<br /><br />* I knew a sociopathic woman who faked stability and empathy because of the $100k her mother paid for her to go to therapy. She caused turmoil everywhere she went, but I did not know this at first. She was psychologically sophisticated and knew how to manipulate with words.<br /> She was building a case to extort money from her parents as her father did things that messed her up. She tried to steal MY dad's house through the court system (she was a fake caregiver) so her mother gave her four houses worth $1.5 million to get her to leave everyone alone. <br /> When her father died, there was security at his funeral in case she showed up.<br /> It's been seven years and it's still hard to think about.<br /><br />* Seen this myself unbelievable how they can learn to manipulate so well but can’t learn to follow through on integrity. Still blows my mind<br /> it was a nightmare. I should be able to write about this experience someday and publish it because it was like being in a horror film. It's people like this who predate on the elderly and children.<br /> Giving therapy to a psychopath just makes them more able to manipulate people for devious ends.<br /><br />* that's what my husband has done over the years and I've become more manipulated and eventually labeled the narc in the smear campaign. Thank goodness for endless recordings to prove the truth behind his mask. Masks always slip!<p>* I'm not a therapist but this is a wonderful course for explaining how to deal with narcissism in every day life.<br /> Step 1: Don't<br /> - Tricky if it’s a family member!<br /><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>* don't worry, I'm way beyond trying to change them! I'm just trying to understand what's going on for them. Neither live with me but they cause havoc in our family. One is coming to stay for 6 weeks while my husband's away so this is for me! The family member will be in their own suite so I am working on maintaining healthy boundaries.<br /><br />* I'm wondering if it's a bi-product of societal conditioning within our current generation...not to say they didn't exist outside of this generation.... but with the break down of the nuclear family system... they seem more prevalent than ever!<br /><br />* we need it because they are everywhere and a lot more common than ppl like to think.<br /><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>* Unfortunately narcissistic patients are very sensitive to embracing their behaviors and opinions about themselves. It feels discouraging at the slow progress. But it’s possible with patience and dedication.<br /><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>* respectfully, this is not the case for malignant narcissists , bordering on psychotic…..it just isn’t. Therapists need to consider taking the same course as victims. Block phone calls and emails. Don’t walk, run.<br /><br />*extremely rare, typically not worth the trouble. Usually they become grifters.<br /><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>* With patience and dedication anyone who wants to heal, can.<br /><br />* yep, exactly that. Some it educates for the better and actually helps them, the others, teaches them how to evade getting found out again. It's a risk<br /><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>* true! I’ve seen it over and over again . The most difficult of personalities.<br /><br />* The people who need therapy are usually the ones who have been harmed in a close relationship with a narcissistic individual.<br /><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>* I can’t even imagine having a profession where you have to deal with these people all the time. You counselors must have some upgraded steel grit.<br /><br />* In my experience, the narcissist is only half the problem. The people that cover for and support the narcissist are the other half -- at least.<br /><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>* Start with the therapists themselves. And the MDs.<br /><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>* therapy and medicine have an in-built power imbalance. Some try to reduce the inequality as far as possible (never completely possible in that dynamic), some relish the role of ‘expert’ a little too much… We all have egos. Unfortunately the sense of power one can have if not careful in those fields often attracts those who will misuse it, consciously or unconsciously, to varying degrees along that spectrum.(Disclosure: I am a therapist working with health, a therapy client and a patient!)<br /><br />* Monetizing Narcissism what a concept…<br /><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>* Those of us impacted by narcissistic people in our lives can change our behaviors so we don't enable their dysfunction. We have power we can exercise that can effectively decrease the negative influence that narcissists put into the world.<br /><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>* I would like to know more how to deal with one of the serious side effects of these attacks….anxiety. Sometimes the victim of narcissism wants to heal, but feels overwhelmed, incapable. It’s not a choice to experience anxiety.<span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><span class="xt0psk2" face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><span class="x3nfvp2" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x x4zkp8e x676frb x1nxh6w3 x1sibtaa x1s688f xzsf02u" color="var(--primary-text)" dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><a aria-hidden="false" class="x1i10hfl xjbqb8w x6umtig x1b1mbwd xaqea5y xav7gou x9f619 x1ypdohk xt0psk2 xe8uvvx xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r xexx8yu x4uap5 x18d9i69 xkhd6sd x16tdsg8 x1hl2dhg xggy1nq x1a2a7pz x1heor9g xt0b8zv" href="https://www.facebook.com/NICABM?comment_id=Y29tbWVudDo2ODIzNzQyNTcyNjQ2MTdfNjkxODcyMDk5NDg2MTc3NQ%3D%3D&__cft__[0]=AZVROryWCFP_ZFlnIwHzqtqB7-V38pfAY_KonHceSv2N-WRvwWZtYIejH9zYamijvLOP75oBl5kzCsANHjDx-i2-4S9cTs3QjjJ6LKl7UbG2Jt90NtLMea9ozZ_AN1J403HR_P-QLwCV10vu07Xuc67t7iKbebCdDX3mNBDK0KZBRHNU4AFzvQ4WJ-TesnInudDjsr9dIv-9XhA4Go3q4JWmtcMALgeJigFIgKvV31xREbmO5f_eejczuWIA4pTcjQ5LGKf8xIvs8KDh9xAkDKi10KoKBOP2P1bbrbaxYaZJw_dILg0rovAfxlhremw577M&__tn__=R]-R" role="link" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.8125rem; font-weight: 600; line-height: 1.2308; list-style: none; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation; word-break: break-word;" tabindex="0">NICABM</a></span></span></span><br /><br />when you purchase a course from us you are given online access forever and can begin the course whenever you'd like. Our courses are geared towards mental health and healthcare practitioners, but people from all walks of life have been able to benefit from them. Plus, we have a 30-day money back guarantee if you decide the course isn't for you.<br /> I hope this helps!</p>* The core of narcissism is an extremely negative self-concept. They can't accept any more negative, which is why they often for periods of time can't consciously look at what's wrong (and to be honest most "normal" people have trouble with this too on a certain level), or be near people who think there is something wrong. It's very hard for them to feel safe in their imperfection, which makes the therapeutic alliance so hard to create.<br /><br />* The NICABM courses are invaluable & never stop learning. I’ve learnt so much to help my understanding. My share was around my concerns for how practices are applied and how vital it is for us as practitioners to stay connected to supervision groups. I have a number of psychologists & specialists that I refer my clients onto as we bump into arenas that are not my expertise.<br /><br />* no health professional, regardless of training or experience, should be free of being questioned. A good one will welcome it and be fully transparent. In addition, the most important source of feedback is our clients, or in this case, our target audience, not other "top professionals". As a psych of many years experience, i welcome and take on board all comments, criticisms and information, to help continually build my skills and provide a service that my client base actually find helpful.<br /><br />* I am a manual therapist specializing in visceral and neural manual therapy of the Vagus nerve complex, and I have clients with complex trauma regularly being traumatized by Somatic Experiencing done by other therapists that should never be practicing this work.<br />It’s not ethical to traumatize your clients and develop trauma bonds with them as part of “healing” process. And it’s not necessary. Somatic Experiencing should not be applied with most people that it is used with for treatment of trauma history.<br />It’s probably only ethical and useful in a very few number of cases.. and should be used as a triage.. we as therapists should not be actively and purposefully triggering and traumatizing people in sessions.<br />A lot of techniques get taught to whoever has the money to pay for them, then those people use them with clients when they should not be using them.<br />I teach manual therapy to align the nervous system to shift away from the trauma response and start a path of healing… without more trauma.<br /><br />* my experience with nearly every one I have treated and talked to not in my clinic that has had an SE session has described it as retraumatizing, so maybe you are the exception to the rule, but people are certainly not applying the somatic work correctly then, and that is a problem. I’ve not heard from one person that says it was actually helpful after they have stepped back from the trauma bond that it creates with the therapist. This is just my experience with interviewing colleagues, friends, and clients that have had the work. My philosophy is that people don’t need to relive any part of their trauma. The body can let the “score” go, with proper physical and energetic release and alignment. Just as a body can “keep the score” through a mechanism beyond consciousness, it can also let it go. No talking or retraumatization is necessary.<br />If you are interested in learning how, and the theories and science behind it, check out the link I posted.<br /><br />* Unfortunately SE training is open to pretty much everyone so there are people without any education or license using SE. Also, if you're doing SE correctly, it wouldn't retraumatize because SE is all about titration and safety. Sometimes, I even say inevitably, you will come up against someone's window of tolerance and you may not know where the line is until you've crossed it. But, hopefully, a licensed therapist has been working that client prior to any trauma therapy, helping them build a toolkit of containment strategies for this very reason. trauma therapy is challenging. You will be exposed, however titrated, to the very things that traumatized you in the first place. I am a licensed clinical social worker who specialized in treating trauma. I have also been a patient in trauma therapy many times over. It's tough work, but with a skilled therapist it's amazing. EMDR, SE, IFS - these therapies have been life savers. I completely disagree with you that trauma can be completely "let go" first of all, and second of all I do not believe that it can be released by body work alone. I believe body work can be really helpful and release stuff. But it's not the be all and end all. That doesn't exist. If you understand complex trauma you would know people have deeply held core wounding narratives that cannot simply be massaged away. They have significant challenges with regulating their emotions, and often have significantly disrupted relationships because trust has been destroyed and they have experienced profound betrayal. These things cannot simply be resolved my manual therapy. I think you have serious blinders here and are biased. And honestly, unless you studied and are licensed in psychology, social work, counseling or marriage and family therapy, and then trained in other modalities to treat trauma, you have a very limited frame of reference to even discuss the treatment of trauma.<div dir="auto"><br /><br />* If it was a blanket statement that I originally intended to include “all” mental health professionals in (which I never stated once that such a thing applied to all mental health professionals) perhaps your remark would be useful to emphasize “not all professionals”; I actually agree with you so why bring this up again?<br />Coaches, I did not imply, stated or by mind reading, that they are more likely to be trauma informed; only that I wouldn’t criticize someone for furthering their own personal education of what it means to be trauma informed *within their scope to know to whom they might redirect their clients to those who might help them better.<br />Professionals do not get the gilded “privilege” of being a gatekeeper to guiding people in need to their next steps. Any individual (coach, minister, volunteer, friend, etc) can help guide others to resources. No one need be limited to give such help. I’ve personally recommended friends get diagnosed for further treatment for cptsd and/or ptsd. Medical gaslighting is a common occurrence in the medical field. You can best believe I’m going to encourage ppl who are showing signs of cptsd or ptsd to seek help and not withhold such direction/resources if they request additional help or advice?<br />I’ve been seeing mental health professionals since middle school. I’m 41… I can count double digits for me personally for any type of mental health professional with which I have *not personally received trauma informed care. This is just me. Double digits. “Trauma informed” has evolved to mean different things even in the past 3-5 years. I’m grateful for the evolution for which Nicabm has shown commitment toward developing the next generation of supercharged advocates, no matter how many hours of Accreditation or licenses etc they have.<br />It’s much needed in the field. I’ve heard this by many patients in the chronic illness communities and I’ve experienced it on the receiving end personally. I’m not a fan of perfection but striving toward excellence in any pursuit.<br />Pathologizing is, in fact, a bigger problem than you are currently seeing from your credentialed perspective.<br />See the receiving side and you will hear a different story. I am in the trenches with many with chronic conditions.<br />I have changed many lives over my past 15 years’ experiences as a volunteer for one of the largest online health communities in the world for just *one of the conditions that I have.<br />I appreciate your credentials and they are noted. Your experiences will continue to evolve. And I’m giving you a free, valuable and unique perspective from having been in the trenches with 100k strong members with Hashimoto’s for almost 15 years. I will continue to advocate for underprivileged and undeserved communities to continue to put patients first and direct them to best possible resources, as I have done for free for years.<br />I have easily put in over 2,000 hours myself as a volunteer myself over the years for the express purpose of improving quality of life.<br />The importance of trauma informed and properly educated professionals is not lost on me. It most certainly is not and i reject any implications to that effect that I am not in touch with the patient side of this problem, personally or otherwise.<br /><br />* In reply to “some patients are too complicated for life coaches”<br />That’s why you see multiple practitioners for however many conditions that you have.<br />I’m never ever going to criticize a coach for going above and beyond to point their clients to best possible resources and practitioners based on their needs in the moment.<br />I referenced that I myself received trained “peer support”<br />Peers understand a lot more than many would even realize. They point to resources just like life coaches do. Trauma informed professionals of all kinds simply do a better job at their jobs as trauma informed professionals on an “off day” and give supports better than seeing a pathologizing professional on their “best” day.<div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><br />* you do know that Bessel Van Der Kolk is THE leading trauma expert in the world yeah? <br />You can't get much more experienced or expert than that<div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />* I do - his work has hugely impacted my life & just reread Body keeps the Score for 3rd time<br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />* I think this is why we go to 7+ years of school and work under years of direct supervision……4 years of undergrad, 1-3 years of volunteering, 3 years of grad schoo, 2-3 years of direct weekly supervision.<br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Coaching is !#@!<br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />* I definitely agree. Do not operate out of your areas of certification and expertise. People can cause harm to other thru ignorance, even tho they had good intentions… a mind is a delicate thing to mess with<br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />* messing with the mind is exactly what narcissists do to their victims...no certification required at all there!<br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />* I think this is the difference between being a coach and clinician. Clinicians have ethical training and clinical training to work with this and every population with respect to every person’s human dignity however challenging the therapeutic work is and where every person is more human than any label or heterogenous population however homogenous it might seem. I agree supervision is critical for any therapist. I think where your comment is applicable is if folks who are not therapists are signing up for this course. I do think for topics like this is should be limited to licensed/certified therapists.</span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>I’m actually relieved to see a course like this instead of the usual toxic, pop psychology driven articles, videos and even more disturbingly courses that vilify a whole group of people with any diagnosis - particularly ones associated with insufficient parental attachment, environmental and or genetic factors that are out of that persons control in ways that ironically are not very empathic or ethical. So be thoughtful with your comment because it reflects an inappropriate tendency in the lay world to arm chair diagnose, demonize and act out of lack of scope of expertise in ways that are dehumanizing and harmful.<br />There’s some great research on early therapeutic interventions in the juvenile justice system with adolescents exhibiting sociopathic traits (before their of age to diagnose) usually with oppositional defiant disorder diagnoses resulting in significant outcomes like profoundly lower recidivism and in one study a zero murder rate following release. That’s is a more extreme setting with kids exhibiting these traits, acting out criminally abs leading to incarceration suggesting a lot of promise for those with traits somewhere on the anti social scale who aren’t acting out criminally. As long as there is a lanaguage of demonization we get in the way of humane treatment and research.<br />We have an ethical obligation to get beyond this language of implicitly or explicitly vilifying any population as some sort of dark threat while also balancing that without having any naïveté about the risks of working with some individuals with certain diagnoses that pose some risks to the clinician. Hopefully this course has mindful discussions about these challenges in ways that do not demonize clients, which ironically lacks the very empathy as well that certain populations are demonized for having limited quantities of or ability to access. One thing that has given me hope for people with this and other more challenging diagnoses is brain scanning of individuals with high sociopathic checklist scores have shown they can can access empathy centers if they are instructed to try to although those centers don’t light up in response to certain exposures like those without these scores do. That to me suggests the possibility to cultivate interventions that help rewire those parts of brains. The key is to begin with not vilifying a population that gets in the way of research and humane care for all with human dignity.<br />We all also need narcissistic traits to function with healthy self concept, which is why there are positive and negative narcissistic and psychopathic traits. Acknowledging that is one way to move beyond a language of exclusively demonization or any demonization. We can present the negative traits as toxic patterns that no longer serve the individual and that were often coping mechanism developed by a resilient child to transcend what no child should face - whether biologically, environmentally or genetically.<br />Furthermore, we have been humbled into realizing how wrong our prognoses are. The fact that borderline personality was once considered challenging to treat and in some ways resistant to treatment but that now has been shown quite responsive to dialectical behavioral therapy is an example of how treatment failure is not the patients fault when there are not successful therapeutic interventions available - it is the medical fields lack of a treatment. It’s also interesting to me dialectical behavioral therapy is derivative of Zen Buddhism, which I think is another humbling commentary on the limitations of mainstream science and it’s tendency toward dehumanizing labels and negative beliefs about outcomes that set the stage for poor outcomes.<p>* therapists do focus on goals and moving forward. That is a common misconception most coaches seem to have. Trauma, mental health issues, poverty, abuse, and a ton of other problems can make it hard to reach goals or most people would have already done it. That's why licensed therapists can help by first diagnosing the issue and then coming up with a plan to heal trauma and find resources so that the person can reach their preferred future. There is so much that goes into it and it's frightening that "coaches" are dabbling in helping with things that take therapists at least 6 years of college, 1,000 hours of unpaid internship, two years of employed supervision time and passing two state licensing exams to be able to help with. It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't portraying themselves as qualified to help with personally disorders and mental health issues.<br /><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span>* I absolutely understand your point and it is scary how many people call themselves a coach these days. I’ve thought about this a lot because I’m actually a trauma coach with a psychology background. So just to throw some points out there to debate the other side, some things are actually limiting in the therapy world. Dealing with insurance and over focus on diagnosis (at least in a Eurocentric lens). And also, the academic world (which again is so important!) doesn’t really make room for life experience. I’ve done extensive trauma training and although it’s been integral in how I work, my “school of life” and spiritual experiences are the core of what I draw from. I think that’s why a lot of people are drawn to see a coach. I think there’s room for both. But I definitely agree how scary it is when people try to help others without proper training.<br /><br />* wow, I didn’t know that narcissist behavior could change ! Maybe there’s hope in the world after all !</p><div style="text-align: center;">HERE ARE SOME GRAPHICS FROM NICAB's FACEBOOK</div><div style="text-align: center;">(<a href="https://www.facebook.com/NICABM">https://www.facebook.com/NICABM</a>)</div><br /><p></p>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-82338807615268663432024-03-02T09:31:00.000-08:002024-03-22T07:05:35.290-07:00A Psychologist Speaks Out About People Estranged From Their Family, and Narcissistic Abuse Survivors Speak Out About Suicidal Thoughts, Scapegoating, and Losing Their Entire Family of Origin<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Xb27FNJVvCgpI2EWkAu_yly-4N2EaA2qW34KHtsQtAP_GV_TefAr9EP-gpr2hNtq5adUwEOTzLD_gtfY8HmajQTcs0RNg7s94ComLnDmh0dqjfCgvqoB4MsA7xwzUPwoOxzfeIuGnot-sIixKy-gRp_i1pOiC2fB_MnV3_HSIenMSPiQGwypPA0EPeU/s570/Dr%20Ramani%20qu%20on%20projected%20shame%20web.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="570" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Xb27FNJVvCgpI2EWkAu_yly-4N2EaA2qW34KHtsQtAP_GV_TefAr9EP-gpr2hNtq5adUwEOTzLD_gtfY8HmajQTcs0RNg7s94ComLnDmh0dqjfCgvqoB4MsA7xwzUPwoOxzfeIuGnot-sIixKy-gRp_i1pOiC2fB_MnV3_HSIenMSPiQGwypPA0EPeU/s16000/Dr%20Ramani%20qu%20on%20projected%20shame%20web.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div>(trigger warning!)<br /><br />The way I went about this post was first to share Dr. Ramani Durvasula's video about the necessity of not judging or shaming people about being estranged from their family of origin. In her video, she doesn't direct her lecture towards survivors of narcissistic abuse (as she most often does), but towards others who are apt to judge, lecture, blame or shame adult children estranged from their parents or families. </div><div><br />It's an important message because so many young people, especially, are experiencing this, and often it is just another victim-blaming activity, and another diatribe about shaming and silencing victims. In many cases, it is just another addition of how their families treated them for years or decades. Shaming doesn't work, especially when you do not know the survivor's story, and judging doesn't work because the judging, lecturing and blaming a survivor is assuming you know what happened to that survivor (narcissistic parents often lie about the reasons for the estrangement to protect their egos, their image, and their grandiosity). <br /><br />So often the shame you want to instill into a survivor to push them back to their family is actually victimizing them more. Do we try to send wives back to their husbands who beat their wives so badly they ended up in the hospital? Do we try to send wives back to husbands who practice false imprisonment? You'd also have to live under a rock not to know <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">that abuse escalates</a></b>, and that includes child abuse (it continues during the entire life of that parent - their child can be 50 or 60 and they are still the object of abuse). <br /><br />So her message is an absolutely necessary one, and who better to do it than a well known and brilliant psychologist who has made a lot of inroads in terms of bringing out very important topics of who commits abuse and discarding their own children (primarily narcissists, the antisocial personality disordered and alcoholic families), and why and how they do it. <br /><br />While not all estrangements across the USA are due to personality disordered parents or siblings, I would make the wild guess that about 70 percent of them are, with the rest being about alcoholism, drug addictions, criminal activities of members, and children who have either narcissistic traits or antisocial personality disorder traits, who threaten their parents to give them money for drugs, or a car, or a house, or something else. <br /><br />At any rate, it would be hard for any outsider to know which of these cases it would be. And even inside the family, members don't know what happened unless they were in the same room for a lot discourses between the family members who became estranged.<br /><br />Then there are some members of families who would be afraid of a narcissistic or antisocial personality disordered parent abusing them too, and out of fear tell others that the estranged member is at fault.<br /><br />Narcissistic and antisocial personality disordered parents play upon the fears of children to gain ultimate power and control over them in the family. And then, of course, they tend to be a lot more charming than victims. <br /><br />So it can all get very confusing as to who the real victim is. There are certainly signs to look out for.<br /><br />In perpetrators some signs are a very obvious power differential from the victim, charm, grandiosity and flippancy, overly endearing, flattering and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/08/love-bombing-by-narcissists-and.html" target="_blank">love-bomby</a></b>, and talk about mental illness and disabilities disparagingly, and at the same time present themselves as victims. They also tend to look for a romantic partner (or have one) before or just after a marital separation, and they tend to attend a lot of social functions, or to be with another child a lot after they have separated from another one of their children. They self aggrandize in their victim stories rather than focus on what they did wrong, or how they could have contributed to the demise of the relationship. There is not much despair in their demeanor, and they tend to engage easily in conversations with others.<br /><br />Some of the signs of victimhood are isolating oneself, marked introversion, passive, lack of engagement, lack of self care, humility, poor body posture, timidity, missing out in conversations (appearing to others to be mentally "somewhere else"), sometimes flinching or looking shocked when touched, long hair in women, and appearing distracted and anxious in large gatherings.<br /><br />But like everything, this is not written in stone. It depends on a lot of circumstances and factors, and for the most part, most people will not know why an adult child is estranged, what the circumstances were that lead up to it, and why it cannot be resolved. </div><div><br />And it can be foolish and destructive to assume. <br /><br />Anyway, I put some of the comments that were left in the doctor's video so that you can get a sense of the attitudes that survivors of abuse have about being judged over being estranged.<br /><br />However, the real focus of this blog began as a way to tell what victims go through when they lose a parent or parents in their own words, and what often happens afterwards: losing their entire family when the narcissist spreads smear campaigns, false narratives and challenges one family member after another to be loyal, and to adopt their perspectives of other people. <br /><br />In two entries, they are therapists talking (giving insights). </div><div><br /></div><div>When a whole family sides with the family abuser, the child or adult child experiences many emotional and physical symptoms that are the result of PTSD and/or Generalized Anxiety Disorder, as well as feelings of being broken, in chronic pain, unlovable, lonely, feeling suicidal, scared (of the parents or family). Many have nightmares for years over a parent or other family member. <br /><br />I thought that this would be a good addition to what Dr. Ramani points out, so that it becomes clear why some familial relationships just do not work out, and why a survivor would not want to return to, or make up with, family members. <br /><br />Hopefully you will see that they felt they had no real good choices in the matter either.<br /><br />Granted some families will welcome a member back only to demand that the survivor has to relate to everyone in the family on their terms (can mean a highly abusive mob bullying situation, and often does mean that). They are also often chastised and lectured at about how to get along with members, as though a victim of abuse is responsible for the abuse because of some flaw in <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/01/abuse-and-walking-on-eggshells-being.html" target="_blank">not walking on eggshells in a good enough way</a></b>. It's also a sign that the family is still trying to control the member, who they can and cannot relate to, or deciding the victim is not allowed to pick and choose who they can have a relationship with, including the worst kinds of perpetrators. As long as they are trying to control the victim's relationships, it's not a good family to return to by a long shot, for obvious reasons. <br /><br />I spent a couple of years gathering comments from survivors (all written ones) from four separate groups. I tried to pick comments where I would not have to correct grammar or spelling, comments that were not redundant, comments that brought a new perspective to the issue, comments from survivors who were struggling with suicidal thoughts, or poverty, or dealing with nightmares every night, and so on. I also tried, in some cases, to focus on comments that were enlightening, knowledgeable and helpful, and not just a stream of personal experiences. <br /><br />All comments are from real people. Two are from therapists. I usually don't contribute mine in any posts, but for this one I contributed one comment (and anyone would be hard pressed to figure out which one it was). <br /><br />I picked them from survivors who were in the process of losing their entire families (not just their parents, or a sibling). Often this happens because the parent is spreading a false narrative, or a smear campaign, or trying to get other people to side with them against the child they ostracized (or against the child who left because they could no longer withstand the abuse). <br /></div><div><br />Although the type of post that started the discussion was different, they all sort of sounded the same. This is one example: </div><div><br /></div>"Yes I'm here the thoughts come strong I'm balling until I'm shaking I slept for 2 hours woke up crying but calmer. Thank you to anyone that took their time to write anything on this post. No one in my actual life cares I'm literally just a trophy. They have no clue that I'm suffering everyday" <br /><br />This poster was on the verge of suicide, didn't sleep for days, in a lot of pain, couldn't perform at work optimally because of the profound lack of sleep and grief. The other posters where other comments came from sounded very similar to this one. <br /><br /><div>Before I get to the post,<span style="color: #cc0000; font-weight: bold;"> if you are feeling suicidal, or thinking suicidal thoughts, please get help, or call a hotline, or feel free to read </span><a href="https://www.metanoia.org/suicide/" style="color: #cc0000; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">THIS FIRST</a><span style="color: #cc0000; font-weight: bold;">. </span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">DOCTOR RAMANI'S VIDEO<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">After the video, I have some comments and also another section on what victims of narcissistic abuse actually go through when they are estranged from their family of origin. </div><br /> "STOP judging people for being estranged from a narcissist"<br />by Dr. Ramani Durvasula<br />(watch here, or <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8coWU8gXC40" target="_blank">CLICK HERE</a></b> to be directly taken to You Tube):<br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8coWU8gXC40" width="320" youtube-src-id="8coWU8gXC40"></iframe></div><br />transcript of excerpts from the video in purple follow for those who want to study Dr. Ramani's words and advice through reading:<br /><br /><div><span style="color: #351c75;">Hi Everyone,<br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #351c75;">I'm Dr. Ramani and welcome back to this You Tube channel on narcissism, narcissistic relationships, healing from these relationships, and just making sense of them. </span></div><div><span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #351c75;">Today this is in response to a question sent into me ... and this person had said "People are so judgmental if you're estranged from your family." In this person's case they had a narcissistic family. How do you navigate this judgement? </span></div><div><span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #351c75;">This is such a relevant question for this channel because this question comes up a lot from folks who are from narcissistic family systems. It's one of the most complicated spaces because the harm done by narcissistic families is quite deep. It effects your sense of self, your identity, how you go through the world, how you talk to yourself, so that's enough harm. Sadly, these patterns almost never resolve in families. So your on-going contact with the family is rarely going to be healthy. </span></div><div><span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span></div><div><span><span style="color: #351c75;">Now many people don't feel they can go fully "no contact". And there may be a wide array of reasons for this, from the practical, cultural, duty, obligation, or perhaps there are some families members you do like and having to endure your narcissistic parent is part of being able to interact with them. Your reasons are your reasons. But you also know that the ongoing contact with the narcissistic family system takes a toll. It's just the nature of the beast. </span><br /><br /><div style="color: #351c75;">It's actually quite galling when people look at people who are estranged from their families and accuse them of taking the easy way out. I actually think that the decision to cut away from a family system is one of the more difficult things a person can do. Some people do it somewhat abruptly, knowing if they were to try to explain themselves to their family that they would end up even more abused, gaslighted, and that it would only set them back, or that they would be vulnerable to the manipulations that the family was engaging in that would pull them back in. </div><div style="color: #351c75;"><br /></div><div style="color: #351c75;">Some people do their "no contact" in pieces. They try their best to connect to the narcissistic parent, or the narcissistic family system, then they start going lower and lower, and lower and lower contact, and then they're "all out".</div><div style="color: #351c75;"><br /></div><div style="color: #351c75;">It's painful because you may be trying to only excise or cut out one family member, like just one parent, or sibling. But it does tend to end up to be an "all or nothing deal" since these are deeply enabled family systems in which even the folks you like a little may be chronically putting "the push" on you to reconcile. So some of you are going to go "no contact". And this will carry the label of you "being estranged" from your family.</div><div style="color: #351c75;"><br /></div><div style="color: #351c75;">There is a lot of bias against this, and I'm always struck by the bias people carry against familial estrangement. It happens! You had no choice or say in these people who were assigned to you as family. It was the roll of the dice. And anyone who plays dice will tell you they actually roll wrong more often than they roll right. So if your luck didn't hold out, and you are in a system that was rigid, harmful, manipulative, resistant to change, then distancing yourself to protect yourself, to save yourself, is a difficult, but for many people, a necessary choice. </div><div style="color: #351c75;"><br /></div></span><div><span><span style="color: #351c75;">The bigger issue really comes up when you have to sort of take this out into the world. How do you navigate sharing this, that you're estranged from your family? How do you go about doing that with the world? It amazes me how undeveloped so many people's frontal lobes are well into adulthood, and that they feel they have the right to ask intrusive questions, get an answer, and then be judgmental, or even more intrusive about your answer. So here are some thoughts about how you navigate this issue of family estrangement if you are out in the world. (4:33)</span><br /><br /><div style="color: #351c75;">First of all, you've got to remember, you owe nobody the details of your life. If you have grown up in a narcissistic family, problematic boundaries came with the territory. And experiencing intrusiveness from them and then experiencing their withdrawal if you ask them for something they didn't want to be bothered with, that comes with the territory. You lose your personal sovereignty when you grow up in a narcissistic family system. So safe-guarding yourself is so important in the after-math of experiencing this! And part of that means that you may be quite protective when it comes to sharing about yourself. And all of this falls under the idea of discernment.</div><div style="color: #351c75;"><br /></div><div style="color: #351c75;">The details of your family or familial estrangement may still be quite painful. And even something that you have difficulty processing, so if you decide you do not want to share it, then that is your right, and your privilege. </div><div style="color: #351c75;"><br /></div><div style="color: #351c75;">Somebody says to you, "Tell me about your family. Do you talk to them very often?" You can just give a vague, "Ah, no, we haven't been that in touch. I'm sure that they're fine." You can give them that vague kind of answer and change the subject. If that other person pushes you, you can then say, "I don't have much to say about it." If they push even more, step away or say, "I don't think you're hearing me. I prefer not to talk about it." And by the way, by that point, it is a "them-thing", it's definitely not a "you-thing". <br /><br />And secondly if you do decide to talk about it, and you feel you can, you decide how much you want to share. You may decide to take the path of being bold. You might say, "My mother is a raging narcissist. She did enough damage and I'm not allowing her to do more," and you sit back and wait for their response. If you're lucky, then the other person will get it and let you know that they are sorry. And maybe even share a similar story. If you're not as lucky the other person may judge or criticize, or be rude. Again, this is why discernment becomes so important. You feel something coming out, or if they're coming at you ... If you feel someone coming at you with an interrogation, that may be the person not to share any of this with. If the person is asking vague questions, and not demanding answers, or you're dealing with someone who is empathic, when you've dealt with them in the past, or even during your interaction with them, maybe you tread in slowly on the topic. <br /><br />And third, you may decide to take the middle ground and say, "We're no longer in contact. It's been complicated and painful, but this is my choice. I'm okay, but I'd prefer not to talk about it." The healthy person will say, "Got it. Thanks for sharing, and I'm sorry you went through that."</div><div style="color: #351c75;"><br /></div><div style="color: #351c75;">An intrusive, judge-y person may say any number of things like "Oh, come on! How bad could a family member be!" Or my favorite that they will tell you: "You better be careful! You may regret that some day! Be careful! Ask yourself how you will feel when they die!" as though you did not do this multiple times. </div><div style="color: #351c75;"><br /></div></span><div><span><span style="color: #351c75;">Your estrangement, your history with your family is your business, nobody else's. And frankly, this experience and how other people receive it becomes a great litmus test. If someone hears about your experience of estrangement, and is unable to hear it with respect, empathy, and compassion, they are really not someone who you keep close. It's sort of the "Keep them on the list of the 'Need to Know Basis' kind of person". And you also do not need to be the "estrangement teacher". The judgmentalism, the intrusiveness, and the "I have the answers" arrogance of someone who critiques your difficult life and decision, that again, is a reflection on them, and their poor boundaries, and maybe even their toxicity. The hard work for any of us is to not internalize that. These judgmental encounters can feel like a recapitulation of all of the toxic stuff that happened within your narcissistic family. And you often need a second to get your legs back under you again when you're dealing with someone who is critiquing this. (10:26)</span><br /><br /><div style="color: #351c75;">The obsession with "family at any cost" has done irreparable harm to many survivors of familial narcissistic abuse. Listen: in a casino of life, some folks just sit at a cold table, and end up in a family that does not do right by them. "Throwing good money after bad" does not work. Narcissistic family systems are about projected shame, about a parent projecting their self-shame and judgements on to their own children, so they can walk around feeling great about themselves. And their children carry that burden. </div><div style="color: #351c75;"><br /></div><div style="color: #351c75;">That's enough shame for one life time. </div><div style="color: #351c75;"><br /></div><div style="color: #351c75;">Navigating these situations means discernment, assessing your level of comfort, and also sniffing out whether these are people who can be respectful of your experience.</div><div style="color: #351c75;"><br /></div><div style="color: #351c75;">If they can't, then stick with a party line, and if someone asks you straight out "Why aren't you in touch with your family?" you can respond, "They just weren't good for me, because they weren't." </div><div style="color: #351c75;"><br /></div></span><div><span><span style="color: #351c75;">I hope that's helpful ... </span><br /><br />Some of the comments below her video follow (in green). You can check these out yourself on the video page:<br /><br /><span style="color: #274e13;">* </span></span><span style="color: #274e13;">What people don't understand is that a narcissistic family is not a family. It is a collection of people who are genetically related to each other. Period. Some of them are users and abusers, some of them are used and abused. It is an unfortunate situation and the victims who extricate themselves should be praised for their strength and courage.<br /><br />* Wow. As a former family scapegoat and outcast, and now estranged from my whole family, I've never heard it put so well. "A narcissistic family is not a family. It is a collection of people genetically related to each other". <br /> I think at some point, all those who are estranged, have come to this conclusion on a subconscious level. This is what gives us that peace to cut ties. No love lost. There never was a bond. <br /> This is a great comment!<br /><br />* If people are judgmental about someone cutting their family off, that is a red flag in itself. I don't want narcs or judgmental people (most likely narcs) in my life. A peaceful life is much more important.<br /><br />* so true. My mom has to be the most judgmental person on the planet, tied with my ex. I have learned my lesson and avoid judgmental people like the plague.<br /><br />* my mom misses her parents and says the same thing about wanting them back. She really tortured me as a child, and I know her parents weren't the good parents she portrays. How do we know these people had good parents or aren't narcissists themselves? My sister always says how wonderful our parents are, and for me it is gaslighting. Doesn't she remember all the times we hid in our room with the dog while our parents were fighting? I truly wondered if all the abuse was in my head until my cousin validated me by saying they knew I was abused.<br /><br />* Society enables narcissists- that’s the HUGE problem<br /><br />* What people find hard to understand is that someone who eventually decided to go no contact with a narcissist family member (or maybe more), is a person who has not done it "just like that". They do it because they feel they have no choice. Leaving a narcissistic family member behind for good is a grieving process. A very complicated one as said narc did not literally die. Hence survivors of narcissistic abuse are struggling, grieving people, and it takes a long long time and loads of energy for them to heal. Those people deserve nothing but compassion.<br /><br />* Exactly, and what most people fail to understand and accept is that there will be some family bonds that are irretrievable and cannot be restored, and that's okay. What's not okay is that people believe in the fairytale that things will always work out in the end, and all family members will set aside differences, have a family reunion, and things will return to normal. Let's be real, depending on the nature and intensity of harm inflicted, it's best that victims go their own way and cut off contact with toxic family members for their sanity. No one asks to be born into a specific family, race, or choose their parents and doesn't owe anyone anything, or loyalty to a family or racial group for that matter. This is a trap set up by narcs to maintain control over their victims and keep them in a hostage situation. On a positive note, there's always someone in toxic families who are learning from family estrangement and attempt to do better by treating others with respect to avoid being estranged from loved ones, like other members of their family. In other words, family estrangement has a positive side, which provides the opportunity for others to learn what is appropriate and not appropriate on how family members treat and respect the boundaries of their relatives.<br /><br />* There are some of us out there that pretty much celebrate going no-contact with narc family systems though...& this isn't wrong either. Whether we grieve deeply or just break out the party hats from the overwhelming relief of not dealing with it all anymore...All of it is perfectly fine.<br /><br />* I am 70 years old and I had to be estranged from my entire family, due to my mother's narcissism and borderline disorders, (also alcoholic physical abuse) at the age of 18. My dad died young. While I never missed my siblings (she had strived hard to alienate us kids from each other) I longed for a loving mother to guide me along life's roads. I made a lot of mistakes trying to figure everything out by myself, but I'm still here. That longing for a mother never went away. In that way, I've had a sad life.<br /><br />* I’m 28 and last year I had to cut off my entire family and any people related to them. It was the most painful decision of my life but the best one at the same time. I spent my entire life trying to earn their love and respect by accepting to be treated like a property. People may not understand but it is most loving thing to go not contact. First for them, as staying in this situation makes you an enabler even if you’re the victim. Secondly, you do not only do that for them but for all the people you will interact with not only spouse, children, I’m talking about the world by deciding to provide them with the most healthiest version of yourself. It’s not only about us, it’s about the entire society and the next generation. Narcissism is an highly contagious virus that we have been transmitting for generations. It has to stop somewhere and I’m glad it did with me.<br /><br />* Until only recently, whenever hearing about an adult child/parent estrangement, I immediately assumed it was the child's fault. They're damaged. Troubled. Astonishing how many of us were conditioned that way.<br /><br />* That's interesting- I've always thought, "What did the parent(s) do to their child for their child not want to be around or even talk to them."<br /><br />* When someone says that you may regret your decision to distance from toxic family, you can respond by saying that your estranged family has decisions to regret as well that have led to the estrangement. A lot of folks, especially enablers, think respect is a one-way street and that putting up with disrespect is a kind of moral virtue. (Enablers egos can be nearly as inflated as the narcs.) When you don't follow suit, instead of questioning their worldview, they make a moral judgment on you.<br /><br />* This is such an important topic. I went no contact with my family before the internet, and knew of NO ONE who'd done the same so mostly kept it secret (still do with strangers). I was so grateful when a friend's father kindly shared that he'd done the same with his family. We need to normalize that this is a healthy and appropriate choice for some people.<br /><br />* THANK YOU for sharing this. When I went no contact with my narc mother, I had NO IDEA that my entire familial community would go with her. It didn't occur to me that she'd spent 75+ years crafting an impeccable, generous, kind, warm public persona and that I would be made to look like the "crazy" one for not speaking to her. <br /> Although it was absolutely the best decision for overall well-being, the pain of isolation has been severe.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">WHAT LOSING YOUR WHOLE FAMILY IS REALLY LIKE<br />FROM A COMPILATION OF SURVIVOR'S COMMENTS</div></div></div></div></div><br />Why should you be interested in this when there are so many comments under Dr. Ramani's video? <br /><br />You may be interested because it is a different topic. There are similarities, of course, and many of them sound just like the last comment I featured above. But there are obviously other issues that come into play when a survivor is estranged and loses their family. <br /><br />MORE FAMILY BULLYING:<br />For one thing, many survivors who are estranged experience a lot more bullying (and sometimes even crimes) from family members than they ever had before. The reason other family members decide to bully an estranged member can be for may reasons. The reasons include:<br />- They are in service to the head narcissist to get the estranged member back serving as the head narcissist's whipping boy so that they don't have to take on the role themselves, so that the role will be carried by you at all times and never by them. </div><div>- They decide that you deserve it. They may feel that family or the head narcissist "should come first" in your life, or that you should have the attitude of "family at any cost", or you were always assigned the role of <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">family scapegoat</a></b> and they don't want you to get away from that role (they may need you in that role themselves, to take off any potential blame the narcissist may throw at them)<br />- They have sadistic qualities and like bullying you<br />- They sense you are weak without many family members to back you up, and that you won't resist their bullying</div><div>- They decide you are "going back, hell or high water" and if they need to threaten, torture, endlessly lecture and shame you, criticize you, dream up erroneous lawsuits, or physically take you to the family themselves, you WILL go back to the family. <br /> My post on <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-abusers-co-bullies-enablers.html" target="_blank">co-bullying, enabling and flying monkeys</a></b> cover some of the dynamics that go into why other family members would treat an estranged member this way. <br /><br />Any level-headed person knows <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/03/hurting-or-punishing-others-to-teach.html" target="_blank">that this will not work</a> </b>in any long term way. <br /><br />SUICIDAL THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS<br />Many survivors have suicidal thoughts. They realize that their family members do not love them at all (that they were being used for utility only), that their family members do not care about their mental and physical health, that their family members do not care if they live or die, that it was all fake and totally dependent on how much blame they took, how much they were "willing" to be a scapegoat for the narcissist's ego propping, and it all can be internalized as "They've decided I'm worthless and maybe I am" and "I'm just this lone person out here living alone with profound loneliness, and no one in the world cares at all what I'm going through." This can be the most shocking realization. <br /> When a whole family acts like this, it can be devastating, as though the survivor is the only one with empathy. <br /> A survivor can look at their own empathy as "not common", "a burden", "not like most other humans" as so different and such a weight that they were abused and rejected because of it. In a narcissistic family, empaths can be rare, are often singled out to be used and abused, so they are not necessarily wrong to think this way. And because of the survivor's empathy, they can be a minority, or even an extreme minority figure. If they were <b>isolated</b> within the family, or home-schooled with abuse, or strong-armed or lectured about giving up other relationships, or told false narratives about others, they may very well feel like "a freak of the family". <br /> None of this will mean they will go back to the family because the lack of empathy is truly scary to most survivors, and not an investment that most survivors are willing to make. In other words, the high majority of survivors won't think of it as a "one-off" that the narcissist is using in the survivor's present situation, but the survivor will be looking back into many situations of the past where the narcissist or entire family showed coldness of heart and a lack of empathy. <br /> Because they may feel that empathy is extremely rare in the world, and not something they want to live with in the world again, they can commit suicide. <br /> I would guess most of the suicides in abusive narcissistic families are for this reason. <br /> And how does the head narcissist use this? They use it as a threat: "If any of you leave, you can end up killing yourself like my last child did. We did not help him, or care what he was going through, and we will not care at all about you either." <br /> It can mean a very toxic trauma bond with who ever is left. They may see it as a sign that it will be harder to break from the family than ever before. The lack of empathy and the lust for power and control is going to take charge in the head narcissist every time there is a tragedy like this.<br /><br />POVERTY, LACK OF RESOURCES, LACK OF SUPPORT<br />In narcissistic families, there is often quite a bit of financial abuse. <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2024/01/do-scapegoats-of-narcissistic-parents.html" target="_blank">I have covered how many scapegoated children are left out of the parent's Last Will and Testament</a></b>, but there is usually a life time of financial abuse way before it gets to that point. <br />Some common things that happen:<br /> <u>favoritism</u>: one favorite child gets the bulk of family resources, while the others get less, and one scapegoat, most abused, child gets very little or nothing at all. This starts early in childhood, and often unbeknownst to the child it is in response to how well the golden child is making the parent "look good", thus the rewards, and how well the scapegoat child is allowing a parent to "find them at fault for everything - how well the blame-shifting is working", thus some small efforts are rewarding scapegoats with <b>breadcrumbing</b>. Some of the signs of breadcrumbing behaviors by narcissistic parents are hot and cold behaviors (i.e.: I reward you now, then take away rewards; I love you now but take my love away when you don't go along with what I want or you don't keep to your role; I acknowledge you now, but I'm most often disappointed that you aren't taking your role without blow-back, so I reject and abandon you because of it). <br /> In other words, scapegoats get much fewer rewards and resources than the rest of their siblings, and there is usually a strong differential between what a golden child receives and what a scapegoat receives <i>throughout the life of the scapegoat </i>- extremely common. <br /> <u>trying to keep a child "in role", particularly a scapegoat, means trying to present them as failures without money or resources</u>: Narcissistic parents put children in rigid roles, and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">the scapegoat role</a></b> exists so that a parent can blame-shift their own faults and wrongs they commit on to a scapegoat. They surmise that the only way to have a scapegoat and to keep a scapegoat, is that the scapegoat be kept from getting away through providing a lack of resources and rewards to them. All narcissists believe that a scapegoat in their life is absolutely necessary in order that when they commit wrongs, or even crimes, they have someone else to take the "rap" for their wrongs. <br /> It is very common for a narcissistic parent to present their scapegoat as "crazy", "difficult", inept", "a burden", "alone - because no one gets along with them" and "a child that will never amount to anything". This is also often said directly to the scapegoat too, so that if they hear it enough from their parent, they will assume that it's "the real them", their "full identity" (sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't work - it tends <i>not</i> to work if another family member is building up the scapegoat at the same time that the parent is trying to tear them down). <br /> Most narcissistic parents are aware that their child is trying to buck the role (as any child would), that the child is angry and distressed from being put in the unfair role, that the child appears to be looking at ways to get out of the role, which sends all kinds of warning signals throughout the narcissist's system that this child may try to get out of the role by not accepting it, leaving, or telling other adults about how they are treated. <br /> So when the child, even an adult child, tries to separate and go more and more their own way, and make their own decisions, a narcissist will pull back on celebrating the scapegoat's birthday, pull back on inviting the scapegoat to holiday get-togethers, pull back on including them in on anything, being willing to send them to college or give them "bread-crumb" amounts to attend college ... in other words they try to put a scapegoat either into poverty, or withdraw all help and support as they grow up and separate enough from the role that it freaks the parent out. <br /> Narcissistic parents also try to convince other family members to withdraw all support too. <br /> Besides narcissistic parents wanting to plunge their scapegoats into poverty for the child not accepting their role, the other thing that happens is that the parent withdraws all support, medically, emotionally, on all levels. It is common for a scapegoat, when asked to provide a family list of diseases, or doctors you went to, that the parent won't provide that list (Dr. Ramani made a holiday video about this phenomenon too, as it is a fairly common practice in narcissistic family systems). <br /> It is also common when a scapegoat is hospitalized for the parent not to show up. It is common to get a diagnosis for something pretty severe and life threatening and the parent ignores it, or seems blithely unconcerned. It is common for a narcissistic parent to either make a big family gathering extremely uncomfortable for the scapegoat, or to pretend that the scapegoat does not exist. It is common for a narcissistic parent to put pressure on other family members to get them dis-invited to weddings, funerals, holiday gatherings and parties, reunions, graduations, and other family events.<br /> In other words, the cruelty is in full force, and because it is in full force, the scapegoat won't return. The parent will have to get another one, and it can start to split a family apart because a child who has never been scapegoated before in the family, and sees another scapegoat from her family surviving and thriving, is more likely to join the scapegoat than the parent (they go through a period of grief and the guilt can often turn them towards the scapegoat and away from their narcissistic parent - and this is another reason they want the scapegoat in poverty, so that no one will want to join them, or think they have an admirable lifestyle. <br /> The other thing that happens is that when the parent sees a scapegoat child being successful, having money, being happily independent, they often try to return to sabotage. They try to reward the scapegoat, or tell them they got them wrong so that the scapegoat will slip back into the family un-impeded by the usual cruelties. The rewards, or money, are often a manipulation to sabotage the scapegoat's successes. A narcissistic parent will often tell a scapegoat that they don't have to be successful (as a way to get them dependent on the narcissist), that they don't have to work so hard (as another way to get them dependent), while the parent works on sabotaging them behind their back. When the scapegoat seems to be faltering financially or is in imminent danger of losing their job, the parent yanks all support. <br /> So, in other words, they have been toyed with financially, gifts, rewards, with family resources and the injustices thereof their entire lives. <br /> The poverty reported by some adult and barely-adult scapegoats can also be extreme: homelessness (and their parent can be worth millions), living in abandoned buildings, living in unheated shacks, living in slum apartments, living in their car, living in group tenement buildings, living off-the-grid and so on. Again, the wealthiest parents who inherited most of their wealth can sabotage their children financially, sabotage their career, and put their own child in these situations "by design" and think it is a-okay just because the child cannot take the scapegoating any more. <br /> However, scapegoats have also survived horrific situations of injustice, blame and abuse for years on end, or for decades, with all kinds of parental erroneous shaming sessions, lack of respect, withdrawals, abandonments, loveless communications and in-communications, they have also learned to be resilient too. So they can and do become highly successful, even if it takes years. However, you will also hear scapegoats who have not only been abandoned, and judged by their whole family, but also hear that they are living in poverty. <br /><br />Other things you will hear include advice, a crisis line, suicide prevention phone numbers, urging the person to go to the hospital, urging them to find means to deal with loneliness. Family narcissistic abuse and discard is very painful, shocking, traumatizing, and can and does cause suicide, more than should be acceptable in this nation. Narcissistic abusers are not likely to care if their child commits suicide, but other family members may. Losing a life because the victim can't or won't fawn or submit to bullying or abuse is more than just a tragedy. Remember to call and keep checking up on anyone going through this. <br /> This person may also be showing signs of trauma or PTSD: profound lack of sleep, heart pain, stomach aches, headaches and startle responses, and the best thing for that is to provide peace, safety measures, a safe place, as you would provide the victim of a car crash, a rape, losing close family from death, and other tragedies. <br /><br />Following are the responses people gave for a survivor suffering from family scapegoating and abuse, suicidal thoughts, PTSD symptoms, loneliness, nightmares about their family, who either finds themselves suddenly estranged from their family or chose estrangement to get away from familial abuse. Again none of the comments are mine (except one - and not noticeable, but I felt it contributed something useful that I didn't see in other comments), and, in this case I tried to pick comments where spelling and grammar were already good. There is one comment I included from someone whose first language isn't English, so in that case I did, but I also marked it for my readers. <br /><br />As for swear words, I did clean those up to look like this (more or less): "@$$" and "Sh^t" are two examples. <br /><br />* You can survive this. We all did. Don't give them the satisfaction of taking your own life. Get help. <a href="https://www.metanoia.org/suicide/">https://www.metanoia.org/suicide/</a><br /><br />* It’s all self projection on their part and those people tend to pick on others who appear to be weak or an easy target. You let that slide right off your back and keep moving forward! I’ve been NC with my immediate family for over 5 years. Once you find that true love for yourself, you’re no longer bothered about what others are saying or doing/not doing. It’s in there. You just have to dig deep down<br /><br />* Find a partner who also came from a narcissistic family to move on with. Family is not really dependable to me any longer. I've stated that even if I received an invitation, I'd NOT SHOW UP. Leave the PAST in the past.<br /><br />* Always remember that they really believe they have something to gain by treating you badly, and some other family members believe that too, especially when it comes to resources, that abusing others is their ticket to a better life. It is not, but that's how all narcissists see it. Do everything you can to pick yourself up and tell yourself that these beliefs are not yours and that they are disgusting, not fit for happy family life. <br /> We can internalize this B.S. that they feed us, that we aren't good enough for them, but none of it is true. It is only being done to us for their own self serving reasons. And to get power over us. Never forget that the #1 reason they do this is to get more power either from us or from the people that are left. <br /><br />* I could never undress around my narcissistic family members. I never understood why but I was afraid of their “gaze” all my life.<br /><br />* It's a huge Catholic clan, but it's falling apart. It's pretty much the narcs on their own blowing smoke up each others' a$$es and talking sh*t about others, while hating and putting other people down, making fun of them.<br /><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" face="Roboto, Arial, sans-serif" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #0f0f0f; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">
</span>* They're incredibly boring people, stirring up the most ridiculous stupid trauma. Other family members including myself got tired of them. As narcs are incredibly predictable closed-minded people- truly boring, after awhile you do heal and get almost completely indifferent toward them and going no contact frees up a lot of energy and space for yourself<br /><br />* I'm glad I was the scapegoat rather than the golden child. Of course I wish I had a good, normal, kind, loving mother. But if I had to choose, I think being the scapegoat is better. My GC sister has been propped up by an evil monster all her life and she is twisted. I can't imagine how she will ever be able to become whole again, especially since she doesn't know how twisted she is. Yes, I have been damaged by being the scapegoat, I have to work on getting better every day. But at least I am standing in Truth and Light and that is healing me. <br /><br /><div dir="auto">* Being alone is hard. No friends, no family I feel safe talking to. Which is all I feel like I need. A loving hug and kind words. Coming home to emptiness day after day being your own cheerleader is so hard. No one to cheer for me when I struggle getting out of bed some days. No one to cheer when the bullies get to me at work. <br />I feel so tired. Bills are paid and food in the fridge but I'm so unhappy.<br /><span face="Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">
* </span></span></span>My question is WHY are there soo many people like this? Why do my ex sister in law and I constantly have to try and detox our teenagers after they go spend 48 hrs with these type of people?? It’s absolutely crazy trying to reel this destructive behavior in…esp when it just brings up PTSD Triggers from being with the primary Narcissist for YEARS…How/When does the craziness stop????<br /><span face="Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><span><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span></span>* So true. Narcissistic, if around you for to long, will actually cause you to have Stockholm syndrome and will take you a long time to get over. Please, stay as far away from a narcissist as you can get. Once you get the courage and strength to get them out of your life NEVER let them weasel back in, because in time (after they have used up their new victims) they will try to go back to their old victims and sneak back in through using your emotions to have pity for them. It’s a trap, never fall for it.<br /><br />* what I have noticed is this..to make a long story short, if I can… our society for many years have taught people how to play a game of “pity me” to have others care for them, this is how they have learn to manipulate people and turning themselves into narcissists. they develop a “me first” attitude and through time have learned to weasel their way into people’s lives through pity and then take control once they have a good victim. They use many means to do this, society has taught them well. Now it’s our responsibility to stop it, to say “I’ve had enough, stop pitying them, stop believing their lies, turn the tables and say NO MORE. We work hard for what we have in life, we work hard to have a happy life, we need to stop compromising our lives for people that try to use us up. Having a kind heart is one thing but we need to stop letting people, narcissists, pull us down because these people will never change as long as they have victims to use.<br /><br /><div dir="auto">* I am working on putting together a zoom meeting for scapegoats. I'm going to try to do a weekly online meeting so we can start to create a support system for each other. It's not right for so many of us to be going through all this alone. I'm so glad you reached out for support.<br /> There are healthy environments. You just have to find them. Left a healthy environment and then wound up in a toxic one (but did not have all the answers back then). When I see red flags now.......I believe them. Learn all you can about this serious mental disorder that will only get worse. Check out the you tube videos. Many good ones just put in word Narcissism. We need to find those like ourselves. You are still young. Never never give up ~ Winston Churchill.<br /><br />* Are you in a position to adopt a dog? Maybe try volunteering. I found it very healing. A few hours at a dog or cat shelter - animals are the best and cheapest therapist. Or visit a resident in a retirement home - loneliness there is rife. Join a church, volunteer in a charity shop.<br />Get your head in a good place. Remember that you are a worthy and loving person.<br />Bullies are cowards. Use psychology against them. Never show any emotion towards them but stare them in the face and ask “ How are you doing. I sense your in some kind of pain”. It’s all mind games so beat them at their own game!<br /><br />* That’s the design of this garbage…. To tear you down until you’re a shell. We’ve been repeatedly isolated and abandoned to have to waste years sifting through where their control derailed ... I’ve taken about 6 months, and written my story out. I chose to do it in a timeline. Most of it was out in a week, but you fill in with all the additional memories that surface. It’s very therapeutic, and afterwards, you have a product that is compartmentalized, that you could shared without recalling everything, and after a while it’s more distant than it was before. The story of how you were abused is less within yourself. It’s over in that book over there instead.<br /><br /><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs" style="margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">* This feeling of utter loneliness is why people go back to abusers. I know if I go back though, it'll all just start up again and I'll be back here feeling the same all over again.<br />Makes me think about human nature. No one at work knows I go home and silently cry to my pets and myself. They'd bully me anyway. Never know what someone is going through and if I was in worse mental health this could easily be the end. Idk.<br /><br />* My family threw me to street. Then war came. My best friend, her family took me and we were refugees to go to other country. I marry her brother. Then family comes to me after nothing is left and home bombed wanting me to provide. No, I say. You threw me to street to live in abandoned building. Now your turn.<br />(Note: I cleaned up the spelling on this one). </div><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs" style="margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs" style="margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">* Exactly. They terrorize us and want us to live in poverty or homelessness to get power for themselves, to turn us into traumatized slaves, whether slaves to abuse or putting up with incest from a family member, but when they fall on hard times they want us to accommodate them. The balls these people must have!<br />Sorry you lived through this.<br /><br />* Being discarded by your family with no word or understanding anything is so traumatic, more than anything you can live through. My family tried to hoover me back after eleven months. I don't see how anyone could go back after that. It would be living through the trauma over and over again. Loneliness feels incredibly bad, it's a tear jerker day in and day out, but at least it is peaceful. Going back seems like being invited to a war zone with people who are not kind, on your side, who do the most evil things to you, and will have no trouble attacking you again. God help us all. This is the hardest thing to live through. <br /><br />* I don't know how it happens, but when I was first discarded, there were some family members who reached out to me. They were really comforting and checked up on me. Then even they backed away, some of them unfriended me or blocked me seven years after the split with my parents. I don't know what happened. I actually stopped talking to them about family one year after the break-up, so that wasn't part of why they discarded me. I let them talk about family, but I didn't engage. Mostly I talked about my kids, vacations we were taking, the store we own, house projects, and so on. I guess it was smear campaigns. But it's only a guess. I'd like to ask them why, but I think it's brainwashing, kind of the way they do it in politics. They hear one side of a story, it gets bent further into conspiracy theories, until they accept it as truth. <br /> I never did feel all that comfortable around family any way. I knew the stories about my life would be shared and I wasn't comfortable with that. I knew those stories could be used against me by the members who have actually gone out of their way to hurt me my entire life. <br /> Or maybe I'm just talking myself into not missing them. Mostly, I just try not to think about it. <br /> I'd like to say, "If you don't want me in your life, I accept that. But just tell me why." I think I should have sent a letter like that at the moment where the split with my parents happened. It's just mean. And it's not fair to my kids either. <br /><br />* Same here. I lost my entire family eventually, but not in the first few years. I too did not know why they departed from my life. But by then I had my own life, got married, moved, spent time at community activities and causes, etc. I was trying to be accepted into my new community, not trying to be accepted by family.<br /> It didn't really effect me when they went silent on me. I don't know why because it should have. I was so busy and it seems like a lot of people don't have good family ties any more. I was just another implant. I just think we are in a cultural phase where family is no longer important. It's careers, your marriage, keeping your children safe, neighbors and friends. If you've grown up with bad actors and the sun is shining in your own world every day, you just stop reacting to the past. It's like a ghost that you don't want around. <br /> Not that it didn't effect me early on. But for me, my life got a lot better. Learning from communities like this about narcissism, learning about the important fact that narcissists don't change, the fact that eventually you have a better life than before, it keeps you moving forward, you know? <br /><br /><div dir="auto">* I got a puppy. So much unconditional love.<br /><br />* Try <a href="http://meetup.org/?fbclid=IwAR2eMzhOhcTWyF_F85HaGm_u1rroEuFfU23Tm5vLKsC8J6zEFMBht5Bj9K0">meetup.org</a>? There's groups for people to meetup based off their interests. It seems like the groups are all over: <a href="https://adultchildren.org/?fbclid=IwAR17kR3vv89yda3NLICZBeALyWbi0DVAsEpLpyd-jdjkGC69HERJTCxj2r8">https://adultchildren.org/</a>.<br /><br />* I'm glad the younger people here have learned about narcissism. All that I knew growing up is that my mother hated me and I really did try to please her. Un consciously I tried to adopt all of her tastes, her style of dress, the way she saw things, and put her much higher than myself, and my own needs.<br /> When I became an adult, she made it clear that she no longer wanted to have anything to do with me despite those efforts. I asked her why, but she wouldn't tell me. I went to live with a friend in a slum. Two suicide attempts later which she ignored, and a lot of stays in a recovery, mental health facility, I was better and more connected with other kinds of people so that I no longer wanted to commit suicide. But for at least 15 years I wanted to go back to my family. Still! I just could not feel whole without my family. I also thought it was my own fault even though I didn't know what that fault could be. <br /> What I don't understand is why the rest of my family didn't contact me or care. Didn't they know I was suffering? This is something I don't understand about families. How you can be suffering and they don't care or show you anything. They don't even call to see how you are doing. <br /> Anyway, after 21 years, I was finally welcomed back only to discover that the family was only a shell of what it used to be. There were so many family members who had not only stopped talking to each other, but they were very, very cruel to each other too. As for me, I felt like I went back to the cruelest members, not the ones I missed all those years. <br /> I felt like I had wasted my life wishing for something that was an illusion. I say this because I don't want you to be going through this too. <br /> I went back to therapy, and learned about narcissism then. I learned it wasn't my fault. I learned when family members treat each other this bad, they end up like my family. I learned there was nothing I could do other than to warn other people that this is what can happen and that it isn't worth killing yourself over. I learned that NPD is a mental problem that has nothing to do with you, but that is most visible when they are in power, and can develop in a number of family members and that it may be an inherited disorder. I learned not to take it personally, but to see it as something that is effecting them and their ability not to see you as you are and only what you are providing for them moment to moment. <br /> You are lucky when you can learn this when you are twenty than when you are an old person like me. I hope I have saved some lives here. <br /><br />* Good point! We are the survivors. I don't know how many of us have committed suicide over someone else's narcissism, but I bet there are more than we realize. We probably all know people who killed themselves over a break up. Perhaps they broke up with a narc.<br /> But we are the survivors. We stood up to them and lived a better life despite all of their cruel efforts. While it is really hard, you can be proud of yourself. No narc can take that away. <br /><br />* I am a suicide survivor and I can tell you that it isn't worth it. You have to stop thinking about them and stop pleasing them. They aren't quite human and they have no empathy to prove they aren't human. They are f&cked up!<br /><br />* I can see how anyone who goes through this could have suicidal feelings. It's enormously traumatic, worse than being in a traffic accident. At least in a traffic accident people are trying to help you even when your life is on the line. You have the comfort of that thought. <br /> When you are discarded, and your whole family takes part in it, it leaves you with the feeling that the world is cold and cruel. <br /> Think about it! They probably know we are extremely lonely, unmoored, and many of us have significant financial problems or finding a new home. Narcs do this to us when we are at our weakest, let's face it. We all know they do it when we have a major illness, or are in the hospital, or when we've lost our job, or we are financially destitute. And you learn no one cares at all about you in that kind of state? It's like being in a war and only being surrounded by your enemy with their guns pointed at you. You aren't going to be calm and feeling okay in the world after that. <br /> You are going to feel desperate in so many ways. Desperately lonely. Desperately scared. Desperately grieving. Perhaps even desperately impoverished. I think we all know people who lived in the most awful desperate situations after being discarded by a parent where the rest of the family went along. People who sleeped on the street. People who lived in crime infested neighborhoods who were crying their eyes out night after night, wondering what other cruel acts their families were capable of. We also know people who lined up for food stamps only to meet with bureaucratic red tape. People who couldn't understand why one family member didn't have enough empathy to say, "I care. I am so sorry this happened. You are a valuable member." They all disappear like brainwashed fools? Or they partake in bullying you? That's so ugly! And she's right that it isn't human. It's more like a reptile. They don't have empathy. They leave their young to fend for themselves after they hatch. They are still at that level. It's too bad they don't have alligator eyes so that we could tell the difference between them and real humans. <br /> So, it's amazing to me that more do not get into that hopeless state where they take their own lives. <br /><br />* I use <a href="http://adultchildren.org/?fbclid=IwAR2N4iwQMazlL_c_D6Yz_Cw7bQS33cs7Wvh-MnWl3ukK9UU93wNEsX3JrEY">adultchildren.org.</a> there are online meetings all over the world in every time zone. There are in-person meetings as well if you can find one locally. It is a safe place to share about your trauma!<br /><br />* I lost my whole family when I was 16 and placed in foster care. My foster family wasn't exactly kind to me either, but they knew they'd lose their gravy train if they abused me outright. They were continually vetted and visited by social services, unlike my birth family who abused me in privacy, so they have to be on much better behavior. They are also getting paid for being parents, and that pay can go away in an instant if they are not doing the job social services wants.<br />Then when you turn 18 and there is no more money exchanging hands, apparently they can be cruel to you too. That's what happened to me. I was sent out into the world without a caring word or a speck of support, not even a pat on the back, or a "good luck."<br />It is something to lose two families, not just one, as an adult. I am living on my own, and I understand the suicidal thoughts. I really do. I have never tried to commit suicide, but to live completely alone where no one from either family cared to look into how I was doing made me lose faith in humans for a long time. I didn't trust anyone, even potential mates. <br />I am eight years out now, and things do get better, but I have to tell you that life is excruciatingly painful for two years. Everything that has been said, feeling scared, lonely, alone, knowing that you have absolutely nowhere to go for support is mind boggling. And then I think of all of the women who were sacrificed and put to death in our past just to give their bodies to the gods, and I guess that is what human beings really are. Some of them like sacrificing their family members. It's shocking that they'd do that to their own child, or a sibling, or a niece, but humans really are not enviable creatures. Something is wrong with a lot of them. And that would be NPD or narcissism. They are the inhuman animals that look human amongst us, but otherwise they are an abomination to our species. <br /><br />* I lost my family and all anything anyone could say was, "You're no good! You left your parents!" When they left me! I also got all of the usual sayings like "But they are your family! Family has to stick together!" When did my parents ever want me to stick together with other members? If anything, they wanted to isolate me from them! I was constantly isolated with trumped up charges. Our siblings don't want anything to do with us because they are on an endless race to please our parents, throw us under the bus, blame us constantly for stuff we didn't do, and get our parent's resources. They don't love us or care about us and they have been trained to be that way.<br />They told lies about me to get other members to hate me or look upon me with suspicion. The reason why no one cares about us is that family gets brainwashed to think of us as crazy, as sub-human, and some of them believe we tried to hurt our parents deliberately when they were the ones to do that to us starting when we were small children. They took a path of destruction with us, and ended up throwing us away. And a lot of the reason they threw us away has to do with being destroyed by them. They don't want to see their own handiwork, so they get rid of us so that they aren't reminded of it. <br />They are destroyers and they get a big high from it as long as we're functional. Then when we aren't, they don't want to be reminded that they broke the thing they were toying with al of the time.<br />My therapist told me that they get depressed when we start breaking, and that they prefer an "out of sight, out of mind" ending to it all. I believe that. <br /><br />* We were alone and lonely in our families, and we are alone and lonely when we are kicked to the curb by them too. They have never cared about us. It becomes more obvious when they kick us to the curb that they never cared about us, but let's be honest with ourselves. They never have. I can count so many times I was abandoned even under their own roof. They didn't care what I said. They didn't care what I thought. They didn't care what I felt. They talked over me as though I didn't exist. They gave me endless silent treatments. They kept me separated from other family which is another type of abandonment so that they could control the narrative about what I was about.<br />And they accused me of lying all of the time when I wasn't lying. They were invested in making me out to be a bad child right from the beginning.<br />The difference between that and being an adult is that now they get to abandon all of who we are, something they wanted to do all of their lives but didn't dare to try in case they might be looked upon in a negative way by others.<br />In the end all that they care about are their images. It's part of why they get rid of us too. Our very presence reminds them that their image isn't so great. It allows them to continue with saying they are great because no one is around to remind them that they failed at parenting, and failed at caring about their children in all the ways that most parents care. <br /><br />* Almost two years NC and I feel like I am faking at happiness a lot of the time. I get up in the morning and I know I don't ever want to go back to my family. I'm not having second thoughts about that at all. But I feel really freaked out sometimes, like no one from my past can ever be there for me in case something happens like I have to go to the hospital for surgery, or some other issue. I'm racked with anxiety about that through the day. I have friends from my past, and even though they would help me, I'm afraid each one of them would call my family. None of them knew what I lived through, and even the two that did would say, "They have their own way of loving you." No they don't. There is no love in anything they do to me. <br />I go to groups and I'm trying to make friends, but because I'm from another state, I am not part of the community. I'm this lone female out in a sea of other potential narcs and it scares the hell out of me. <br />I know I have to be patient and give this new life a chance, but there are times I come home and sob. But there are other times I come home and feel happy for no reason at all other than that I'm free of abuse and of continually being knocked down, and I'm dancing in my kitchen. But then I tell myself I'm faking at being happy just because I don't want to go back to feeling utterly crushed. Like I have to have an excuse as to why I'm happy.<br />And then I remember that I wasn't allowed to be happy by my NM who liked to see me in tears all the time, and would create scenes just to see me in crying.<br />I'm filled with guilt for feeling so happy and free because oddly I know it would hurt my NM if she knew I was this happy. But I also feel like it's fun sticking it to her: "I'm happy and you can't control whether I am or am not anymore! Go f*ck yourself!" <br />I feel most crushed when I wake up from nightmares about my family, with no one to comfort me except myself. And then in the day time I feel like I'm floating around on this cloud of joy, in control of my own life, no one to bring me down, good job, good people who, for a change, have the empathy I sought my whole entire life. And then wake up in the middle of the night with another nightmare about my NM, and another bout of feeling devastated.<br />It's like I'm living two lives, one forged in darkness and the other forged in the light. <br />Does anyone else feel like this? I'd call it confusion, but I don't know what it is. <br /><br />* Trauma for sure. Your body and mind are adjusting! <br /><br />* I’m similar I am recently having dreams of leaving my country altogether. It's so bad I don’t want to walk the streets of my home town any more, or anywhere that I recognize. It brings all the memories to the forefront every time.<br /><br />* I am living in an area where it's sunny almost every day. I think every survivor of a narcissistic parent or family member should consider a place that is sunny most of the year. It helps your mood. It's hard to feel suicidal when the sun is bringing a positive experience to your life every day. Granted the nights can get you down, but then when you go to sleep you know you will wake up to brilliant sun again. <br />The dreary places like the northeast and the northwest are nowhere for someone trying to recover from trauma, depression, PTSD, GAD, and all of the other things we are saddled with, largely to deal with on our own. <br />As far as other family members are concerned, realize that disordered parents make it their agenda to brainwash, convince, threaten and otherwise make other family members lives miserable if they don't comply with hating you, silencing you, and ignoring you. In a way they are all junkies, getting something in return for being loyal to the narcissist by hating you.<br />It's a political maneuver, kind of like what we see in broader politics today, being sycophants to dubious leaders. <br /><br />* I feel like I have some narcissistic traits myself. I was actually afraid of having children and treating them like my NM treats children. And sometimes I would be totally off my rocker and screaming at them. I hit my youngest one too many times for comfort and felt awful afterwards. <br />I'd get all weepy and stop and think I don't want to hurt my babies. What am I doing? What's wrong with me? Why am I acting like NM? Why can't I unlearn this? I knew it was wrong. <br />I spent their earliest years hurting them and then regretting it, over and over again. For me, that brought on more suicidal thoughts than being discarded by NM. I knew I had to get control of myself, and stop raging and it was hard. They call it dysregulation. It is an abnormality you have that you have to get therapy for and learn to temper so that you don't destroy them, your relationships and your own life. <br />As I worked hard at controlling my temper, I thought that my NM would come around to working on herself too in the same way, have the same realizations I was having. But she didn't. She got worse. <br />I don't know why she can't and I can. <br />If I have narcissistic traits and I can temper and cure them, why can't she? All she did was blame me and tell me that how she treated me was my fault. She sneered and laughed at me when I told her about therapy and how it helped my babies and my self esteem grow. I told her that I was a much better mother for all of it. <br />You know what her response was? "You'll NEVER be a good mother! You were F&CKed up since birth! NOthing is going to cure you!"<br />That was more devastating than anything I have been through with her, that she can't see that it is wrong, that she doesn't want to work on herself, that she's happy being a narcissist and hurting people<br /><br />* I wouldn't assume you were narcissistic. That sounds more like borderline. Narcissists can't change, but borderlines can. Narcissists don't think about what they are doing is wrong. It always gets pushed out on to someone else, even when they bully, anything else other than them. Borderlines go back and forth and a lot of them seek change. <br /><br />* I never knew that.<br /><br />* Find a partner who also came from a narcissistic family to move on with. Family is not really dependable to me any longer. I've stated that even if I received an invitation, I'd NOT SHOW UP. Leave the PAST in the past.<br /><br />* I think a lot of family and friends of the narcs don't understand. For one, they haven't lived it, and from the outside it seems like estrangements are easy things to fix. Most of them tell you to go back and work it out. They don't know that going back is about terrorizing you. A lot of us get beat up, or pushed around, or screamed at for hours on end without being able to respond, or they try to hold us hostage to a room or in their house so that we can't leave. It's never been about "working things out" even when you are an adult with children. It's always been about terrorizing you to get their own way. <br />I think it is better to think of the people who surround the narcissist as ignorant rather than that they hate you. If they hate you, they will be trying to hurt you too. But they aren't. They are asking you to work things out. The differences should be noted. <br />Not that you should go along with them.<br />The other thing is that they are probably ignorant about your abuser. Abuse happens behind closed doors. Everyone knows that, but unless it's readily apparent to them, and they are being charmed, they tend not to believe it. Narcissists love to get away with this kind of thing, that they can act and be believed even by otherwise intelligent people, but we owe it to ourselves to think of this behavior of the narcissist's as evil, as beneath humanness. It is poison. They are liars and actors who cover up abuse. There is nothing admirable about that, and we should feel sorry for the people who swallow up this horsesh&t rather take it personally. Feeling hurt that they got brainwashed and that they are using their brainwashed states to tell us what to do, and to shame us for being estranged is not the right perspective to have on this. The right perspective is that they got poisoned by lies and an acting job from the narcissist. The analogy is that the poison that the narcissist gave them is about trying to change them into being a sycophant for the narcissist, and to go after you, to change your mind to go back to the narcissist. <br />It's like a bunch of brain-altered zombies giving you advice in their brain-altered way. <br />It's why most of us don't go back when the zombies come after us, right? Because we know what the real truth is. Right? Underneath we know all of this, but our mind goes towards being hurt by this manipulation by proxy because we're used to responding to things the way the narcissist has always wanted us to respond: to go around hurt and to be hurt continually by them. It makes them feel better in their sadistic way.<br />In order to counter being hurt by the narcissist's sycophants, I personally look at them as zombies first and foremost so that I don't feel the pain that the narcissist is trying to inflict. And besides, that's more of the truth: they ARE more of a zombie than a hurtful being. They are just as much of a slave to the narcissist and the narcissist's emotional regulation as we were. Everyone in the narcissist's circle is serving them, otherwise they'd be discarded like we were. It's always important to remember that too. <br />The most important thing is that these zombies have no idea what we are going through. Even if we try to tell them, they often silence us, try to shut us up, or walk away from us. They don't want to hear what we have to say because they like being charmed and flattered by the narcissist. A lot of people are just stupid and they want to believe narcissists because generally they hold a lot of power compared to their victims. They treat victims as though they are half brained lackeys while we are in the company of these zombies, so they never really notice you. If you are a real victim, you are gong to be pretty introverted around them. As long as these sycophants are getting along with the narcissist, they often don't care what others go through. And for some family members they say things like, "I get along perfectly well with them. What's the matter with you that you can't?" They rub your nose in how easy it is get along with difficult people and that something must be wrong with you that you can't. <br />And it's not a matter of getting along with them in the first place. It is a matter of what we have gone through being around them. It's a matter of our peace being shattered to bits over and over by them and their destructive emotional coping mechanisms whether it's silent treatments, overt rage, severe neglect of our emotional or physical selves, abandonments they have done to us since we were little kids. It is about how that has effected everything from our health, to our trust, what it has done to our personalities being frightened, depressed and suicidal kids. It is about what it has done to our brains in terms of having continual nightmares about them, disturbing our sleep, and in terms of all of the PTSD symptoms we are enduring.<br />These people don't understand that we don't want to get along with them. We don't want to go back to them. It's fine if they want to get along with them and that they think it's their great feat in life to get along with really cruel people, but most of us don't share in that. We're not going to put ourselves in a competition to prove that we can absorb what the narcissist dishes out just like they can. <br />Everyone in our group knows how hard it is to endure this. Unlike our family members, or our parent's brainwashed friends, we don't call each other babies, or softies, or wimps, or insane, or stupid because we can't deal with our families any more. I don't think there has ever been a comment made between any of us like that, between all of us 1,256 members that belong to this group that has ever put anyone down, or made us seem weak or crazy because we couldn't endure any more of what our parents or siblings or family was dishing out.<br />We all go through the same horrific experiences when we go "no contact". We are all surprised at how far our families will go to hurt us even more when we go "no contact." We are surprised at how much they want to punish us for going in the direction many of them suggested to us when we were kids ("Just run away already!"). When they have spewed hate about us for so long and when they indulge in so many silent treatments and discards, it's shocking that when we finally do leave, they hate us for that too. They are much worse than we ever thought possible in most regards.<br />And many of us really, really do NOT want to go back to that. I think the zombies think we want to go back to our families, or assume we are lying when we say we don't want to go back. They don't understand that there is only abuse for us there. Most of us been through going back at least once and nothing improved. The situation got much worse for us. <br />A lot of families that aren't full of abuse are warm and close and are sought out for comfort for the best days of the year, the holidays, birthday parties, weddings, family gatherings for the birth of a new baby. It's a welcoming clan. The zombies think we are giving up that sort of thing in some sort of fit of selfishness, or ingratitude, or rage.<br />They don't understand that most narcissistic families aren't full of rounds of happy family get-togethers like this, celebrating every holiday that comes along with a big dinner, a lot of tolerance or even love of differences between members, reveling in days of each other's company, and cheering each other on our goals. There aren't big showers for every baby that comes along, or even showing intense grieving over the loss of a family member because I bet we don't get to spend much time with that member growing up. Or that family member believes in some false gossip about us by our parent, so it creates this unnatural rift between us and them that wouldn't be there if our parent wasn't a narcissist with an agenda to hurt us and isolate us.<br />I'd bet that most of us in this group don't experience family warmth, or big happy family gatherings where everyone is loved and appreciated. We probably don't really know a lot of our extended family members, and even our siblings are told lies about us. Family is a lonely prickly experience for most of us. I'd bet that some of us have even been disinvited or told to stay away from family events, with the idea that the narcissist can't have a good time with us there. They probably can't because we remind them of "the unfortunate abuse" they committed, and they are paranoid that we might leak out a little of our story.<br />I would even venture to guess that even if there is a big party or get-together more than half the family members are probably missing. Even if they aren't treated with abuse like we are, no one really likes being around narcissists and their pushy behaviors and pushy opinions.<br />Some members may show up and sit quietly with one member in the corner. Or they eat a little with the family, but then take off with one or two members for the rest of the time. <br />And that's why the zombies say what they have to say. Our circumstances are not even close to the way most people live, but I would bet the country is going more and more in this direction, that it is much more commonplace than it was decades ago. There is an outcry now, and many more people are talking about narcissism. <br />My point was to say to you don't let these zombies lead you down into suicidal thoughts. Understand what they are about, the narcissist's minion, or someone who thinks you want to be re-instated back into your family and that you're just being difficult and expecting too much. They've been fed lies. How would you feel if you had been fed lies and actually believed them? Probably really ashamed. Think of them as people with lots of lies in their head one inch away from shame and I guarantee you'll feel better.<br /><br />* I found new family inside Alanon (Alanon.org).<br /><br />* Actually there was a new member who was shaming us for going no contact. They said we were hurting our families, hurting our children, etc, etc. Remember her? She was on everyone's grief post trying to get us to go back to our families. She was kicked out. <br /><br />* We all ganged up on her. She didn't get far. The last thing we need when we first separate from our families, or are discarded, is a narc telling us what to do. "Just go back to your families and get abused some more!" <br /><br />* I came from a family who thought abuse toughened you up. They thought ignoring us, and not feeding us would toughen us up too. They thought that discarding us when we were desperate would toughen us up. While some of us survived that upbringing, some of us didn't. That's the lesson with that. Two siblings dead, two siblings that had a little luck at being seen for ourselves outside our family and the gumption to know that abuse doesn't toughen you up. Empathy, going no contact, and a little luck where your hard work is appreciated is what toughens you up not to take abuse again. Such a misinformed belief!<br /><br />* For me "no contact" is a safety concern. They hurt me so much and still want to hurt me. I had to move far away, and even go anonymous. I don't care if the rest of my family rejects me or not. If they are taking orders from my parents or my GC brother, I'd rather they reject me. It tells me that they are on their side, which is a clear message, and that I need to do everything I can to avoid them. So far, no family member has inquired about me, and I haven't had contact with any family member. It is fine by me. I think they'd all make me nervous any way. I think my fate is to be without the birth family. I didn't choose them and it's my choice not to keep them. <br /><br />* I was written out of the will because I was not the Golden Child. I have 2 dogs to come home to. They think I'm perfect. One loves to get on my lap as much as he can. They both act thrilled that I'm there. They follow me around the house. And I feel much safer.<br /><br />* A lot of us are NC because it's about our safety. Some of us are out because it's our mental or physical health. Some of us are out because our parent discarded us and they don't want us any more. We shouldn't want to be with parents who don't want us. They are probably so ill they would want to destroy us if we begged them to want us. These are big important reasons to consider. It's best to stay away when any of these things are present. <br /><br />* To commit suicide is to give them satisfaction. Live a good life, and reach for the stars, and they will be in pain, not you. <br /><br />* When you are with narcs, you are living their life, not your own. They put high demands on you and criticize you constantly about how your personality needs to change, how your looks need to change, how your focus needs to change, how you need to be submissive to them. That's really suspect because worshipping bad people, or bad idols is written in the Bible as going down the devil's path. The devil has coins and gifts to give you too.<br />They are people who want to ruin what God made and put on this earth, you. These parents would turn us into another devil just to have a chance to tell us that we are evil and to discard us. Therefore, renounce the devil and devil worshipping and live the life that God meant for you, and away from false idols, even if those false idols are your parents. You are God's, not theirs. If they hurt you, they are hurting God's child, and they will have to pay for that in one way or another, more or less situations that God will make a path for them to follow. They will be too ignorant to know it is God leading them in the direction they need to go. A any rate they will go away from you because God will protect you, and they need to learn a big lesson without you present. Let God do his work. <br /><br />* Those of us who have been NC for a decade or more feel we made the right choice. Being in abuse all of time is no way to live. <br />Like the poster above, the narcs are so bad and ignorant that they won't have an easy time of it, and will probably have to live a diminished life. I'm not a hard core Christian, but I see every day that what comes around, goes around, even for them. <br /><br />* I'm not into vilifying narcissists. Yes, they hurt other people a lot. <br /> But many of them also got to where they are because they were either abused, or neglected, or there wasn't enough mirroring or attachment to a parental figure when they were babies, or because they were expected to be a mirror for the narcissist (the golden child role). None of that is good for babies and small children. And yes they do perpetuate it for other generations because they want us to be like them or to have the same perspectives that they have.<br /> It's unfortunate for the rest of us, but the way I see it is that these types of people will be part of the human race for a long, long time unless we blow ourselves and the earth up. <br /> There's no question that narcissists should not be in power without a lot of oversight, whether that be caretaking children, at work, in politics, and as world leaders. <br /> They deal with others by idealizing those who are attracted to them, who give them more power, who give them constant attention, who let them get away with things, but then the threats and abuse come after if there is so much as a small rebellion. And we know they don't change.<br /> For this reason they make terrible parents, terrible romantic partners, terrible bosses and co-workers. <br /> Right now the trend is to "go no contact", "start over" and get police involved if there is anything illegal going on like domestic violence. For children it is dependent on relatives and mandated reporters reporting which can have significant loopholes. And there is a lot of information about narcissism available to the public so that you can tell if you are dealing with narcissistic abuse, and what to do about it. <br /> But I think eventually we have to move beyond that in a preventive way. While these people tend to be a danger to children and partners, where they are most dangerous is when they gain power communally and politically. You know who they are because they are authoritarian and the people around them start adopting their perspectives, becoming more and more like sycophants, and sometimes become even more bootlicking no matter how unhinged, violent, reckless and self serving the narcissist gets. Narcissists do not hide in plain sight once they achieve power. They let you know they have to be in charge. <br /> I don't know if more laws, more teaching, more home visits, more and better kinds of accountability are necessary, more therapy is needed, but I do know that there has to be other answers other than to avoid, go no contact, erect boundaries, fire them, join them or get away from them.<br /><br />* I actually think it is fine to go through a period of vilifying the narcissist when you have continued to endure child abuse. It encourages them to walk away and not get stuck in cognitive dissonance. <br /> In terms of what they have gone through, the narcissist is a villain, abusing them in all sorts of ways. <br /> For doctors, lawyers, law-makers, psychologists and therapists, it probably does not serve the public good to see them as villains, but as people who need perimeters, more boundaries, more laws, and a lot more consequences. Narcissists are heavily invested in getting away with actions and behaviors that most of the population find damaging and unacceptable. <br /><br />* Remember that narcs have no ethics, no morality, no empathy. That's not a reason to kill yourself. That is a reason to rejoice in your own ethics, morality and empathy and to feel lucky you aren't them. <br /><br />* I think it is natural to have suicidal thoughts for all she has lived through. But not giving into it shows that you are willing to see what life has to offer after NC. Most of us have way better lives years later. Join us. Call me. DM me. I will tell you how I beat the fate of being in pain all of the time. <br /><br />* Anyone who wants to be around a narc family with all of their negative talk, their arm twisting to be loyal to evil, like the posters above me said: it is being loyal to unethical thought and actions, is not on the right path of a life that will bring you happiness, love, a loving community, good relationships and joy. Throw off the evil, stop the evil thoughts of suicide. That's their voice inside your head - remember that it's their agenda to tell you that you are not good enough, but you are probably much, much better than they are. <br />You will see that the more you give up evil, the better you will feel. <br /><br />* I actually don't think it is a matter of good and evil. It is a matter of what a family wants to hear. <br />I was sexually abused by my stepbrother starting when I was only 10 years old. I tried to tell my mother and stepfather and neither of them wanted to hear what I had to say. I was silenced. I think being silenced is worse than anything. I think eventually that escalates too, to being silenced about everything. I would talk and they treated me like I was invisible. My mother would sometimes give me a hug, but she always looked to him. <br />My step father called me a spoiled brat because I was crying all of the time and he said I was determined to make life miserable for everyone. He would systematically trash my room and throw my things out to get me to stop crying. <br />I did feel suicidal. Then I made friends with a girl in my neighborhood who said I shouldn't die because she wanted me to be her best friend. We got along great. I found every excuse to get away from my family to be with her at her house with her family. Often the only time I saw my family was at bed time. Her mother knew something was wrong because I would sometimes have long cries at her house. Every night I begged to sleep over. Her mother kept asking me why, and I told her I didn't feel safe at my house, and she kept saying that she couldn't help me unless I told her what was wrong. I was scared of what my stepbrother and stepfather would do so I didn't tell anyone. <br />When she moved away when I was 13, I ran away. I was eventually picked up by the police and lived in a group home and then eventually with a foster family.<br />The only person I missed was my mother. I would sometimes call her, and she would cry on the phone, and tell me that she couldn't see me. I could sometimes hear my stepfather yelling, "You are not to see her! She has to apologize to me on her hands and knees!"<br />She's not an evil person. She goes to church every Sunday and makes meals and keeps the house clean. She's not out drinking or having affairs. She's spent her life being a responsible home maker. She's not trying to hurt anyone. And she's meek for the most part. She's not exactly a picture of grandiosity and narcissism. Far from it. My stepfather is the narcissist and tells her what to believe and what to do, and she goes along with it. I think it is out of fear. Someone suggested that putting him before the safety of her own daughter was evil on her part. I don't know. But I think it's more of a Christian tenet that a man be in charge of a woman in marriage. Since I'm not his daughter and he probably wants to protect his son's reputation, I cannot go back (without apologizing). <br />I'm not going to apologize for being victimized by incest and rape. <br />I think this is the true nature of why a lot of us hurt over family. We reach in to have a relationship with one family member, and the family makes it clear that in order to have a relationship with one of them, we have to have a relationship with all of them. <br />She is also ignorant as to how much damage my stepbrother did. They don't even believe it happened. Or maybe they know by now, but cannot face it due to their reputation. <br />The discovery that I can't say anything at all, even if it is positive like "I love you Mom" is what can be devastating in these situations. I can't look at her as a zombie. I look at her as a small humble woman who is over-powered and tied to Christian beliefs that men come first, even narcissistic evil men who let evil perpetuate through their offspring.<br />All she has in her household now is men. That's not something most women want. <br />And it is a fact that the years go on and on, and I can't see her or talk to her. I've been silenced out of existence. <br />I suppose at some point I will not think about her any more. But even that makes me sad. <br /><br />* I can relate to this. My family is very clannish and they all stick together. Some of them have committed crimes and they bail them out of jail. I have never committed a crime, have never been a party animal, never particularly rebelled, never had babies out of wedlock, but a bunch of my family members have, and yet I'm on the outside. <br />WHY ?????<br /><br />* I think some of them actually are quite angry that people like us are ethical, that we strive to be better versions of ourselves, that we are compassionate, and for the most part, clean of debased motives. They want us to be like them, drug addicted, committing crimes, in jail, lying all of the time, and so on. They think our goodness makes them look bad. <br />Remember that narcissists have to feel that they look better than anyone else in the clan. They can't with us around, so out we go. <br /><br />* All narcissists care about is that we are grateful to them - for being abused, for being discarded, for enduring rages, for being used, for being neglected, for coming in last place behind the golden child, for being bullied by other members, for being excluded from all kinds of events, for being forced to give into them our entire lives. <br />True. If you listen to them, they are fixated on how everyone is ungrateful to them. Beyond delusional and just another display of self serving nonsense. <br /><br />* This has me chuckling, but my story isn't exactly funny. <br />I was the scapegoat, discarded at age 15 by NM and stepfather. Went to live with my aunt. Lost contact over the years. <br />Sister became the next scapegoat, discarded at age 17, went to live with our father. <br />Youngest sister became NM's last scapegoat. Little sister tried to hang on and became our mother's secretary and main source of narc supply. for NM's biz. She was, despite all efforts, discarded at age 20. Suffered more than we did. Felt suicidal because she tried so hard. <br />I started to have children seven years after discard. Ten years after discard, I thought I should take my mother out for lunch and show her some pictures of her grandchildren. Note that this lunch was also the first time I saw her in ten years.<br />She looked at the pictures of my kids very briefly and put them face down on a table that was wet and said, "I don't know them." And then went into a diatribe about how all three of us were ungrateful. It was all she would talk about. She didn't acknowledge the pain she caused any of us, or that she missed us. When you want some acknowledgement, to be hugged, or missed, or apologized to for the abandonments of you and your siblings and others she abandoned, or for the new generations that are being born, and all you are given is "You are all ungrateful!" it's just more cuts in the old wound. <br />I wouldn't sit there and be blamed for her thoughtless discards and putting my children's beautiful faces face down in on a wet table, so I left. <br />None of us care how ungrateful she thinks we are. So true that it is self serving and not about how her discards effected us. I doubt she even thought about that, or about anything other people feel. Such a one-sided view of relationships. And the world too. <br />We should pity her, as the real family now are 3 sisters all doing better than her financially, and all of these children between us. She is alone with her enabling ailing second husband, spending lots of money on home care because none of us feel comfortable around her. <br /><br />* I admit I went back more times than I can count. I won't lie about it even though I feel so ashamed. It's true that my parents will insist that everything has to go their own way and that it is my job is to serve them. <br />I don't know why I keep doing it. My internal reasoning is that I'm a helpful guy, and self effacing, and I just can't seem to say no when they need me for something. <br />Things actually are fine until they expect me to do something I can't do. Sometimes it's dangerous work. Sometimes they want me to intervene in a situation with another sibling they are trying to teach a lesson to and every fiber of my being is saying I can't do that. It's not my place, and it is wrong. Or they want me to promote them, put in a good word for them in a social situation where they are either not being accepted, or where they think they deserve to get in. I take off pretty rapidly when it gets to that point. Sometimes I leave with my head down and I look ashamed and they have no problem pointing that out. <br />On some level I feel shame, but the shame I feel is not because I'm refusing. It has more to do with feeling ashamed of them, of going back to them and getting caught in another scheme. It's clear they think I'm ashamed of myself rather than them, and I don't correct them because it would start a circus of them raging. They think they are always right and that's what matters to them. <br />I get discarded for months at a time, and once for a year and five months. But they always call ack when they need something and don't want to pay someone to do their work. And like an eager little boy, I'm back at their door again. I feel shame about that because I know I will be yelled at and shamed again. <br />Sometimes I feel like two separate people, one wo is eager to try to please them, and one who is angry that they only call when they want something. It's clear they don't value me and all the free work I give them. I feel like one face is facing them saying, "Sure, I'll do everything I can to please you again. I love you. You're my parents!" while another face behind my back is saying, "Here I am again! Their wipping boy! I must be a patsy! I must think I'm not worth anything at all! I hate these people!"<br />This is where I think I need some serious mental health. I ended up here with you all when I was no contact and suffering most of the time, but I'm no more in contact than out of contact. I'm the imposter of no contact. <br />I don't know who I am. I feel compartmentalized. Am I the guy who runs to please or the guy who is being taken advantage of and has had enough? Or am I just scared? Or do I just feel obligated because I'm a kind guy and I care about others? Or am I just confused?<br />In the meantime, I am not doing much of anything significant with my life. I am just a patsy. And when I do try to do something I am interested in, I tell myself that I won't be happy because I won't have a family.<br />I think women are much stronger than men. I can see that you all decide not to give into fear or pressures, and you are not out to prove you are a people pleaser.<br />I wish I could say no without shaking in my boots every time I say no. <br />And that bothers me too. I know it will sound sexist, but I think guys need some power or they just feel broken, useless, worthless. We derive some of our identity from power, our professions, being paid for what we do, and being seen in a positive light for what we can do. <br />Being in this situation is about utter powerlessness, as though we are a girl and not a real man. That brings me shame too.<br />Lately my thoughts have been to leave without a word, and go where I can't be found. I've started to prepare for that life. I think that's a guy's way. We've never been oriented to the thinking that says we can talk things out, or trying to reason through a situation. They have power or I have power. We know when we've been beat as far as power is concerned, and we know that we have to let go of parents who want us to be their powerless little boy forever. <br />It is bad for them to want so much power over me, and bad for me that I have to leave them behind forever without a word. I don't know why they do this other than narcissism. On a reasoning level, it makes no sense, so it is something that has to be wrong with their brains perhaps. <br /><br />* Splitting yourself into parts (strong vs. weak) is very natural in situations where you are powerless, where your inner peace is constantly being meddled with, where you are being used and abused. And it's outrageous they want you to be triangulating with other family members for their benefit. <br /><br />* I'm estranged from parents because of my violent volititive brother who is narcissistic and an alcoholic. He was the GC my whole life, but not over board the way most people describe their narcissistic family. But any complaint he had about me would be taken at face value. I could no longer be around him which they could not accept, although for two years they met with me and my husband for a couple of years at their favorite diner. <br />He talked them into something because they will no longer talk to me, not in the diner, not even on the phone. I offer to take them out and they don't respond. I used to think they were good parents if a little brainwashed and followers of bad leaders, but I don't think so any more. Brainwashing is evil, and being brainwashed is about being willing to let evil live in your self full time, giving loyal credence to it, so since I know that about them, I will not go back<br /><br />* It wasn't so bad for me to go NC. Granted I understand how someone could be suicidal because these families are just cruel and they seriously go out of their way to bring you the most devastating results. I saw that growing up happening to my scapegoat sister. My GC brother seemed to be reveling in my sister's tragedy and that did not sit well with me. <br /> The decision came for me when I realized in my own silent way when I was with them that they were toxic during a time when my husband and I were having children. I was seriously squirming when my parents and brother were picking up my babies when they'd be crawling around or playing, and hugging them. It felt exceptionally creepy, knowing what they did to my sister. <br /> I have heard that most family members usually take the perspective of the parent becoming less and less empathetic with the scapegoat's fate. That we would be more submissive to our parent because of what happened to the scapegoat. This did not happen to me. It made me feel really uneasy at how awful they were towards her, and as far as I was concerned, it wasn't deserved and was downright evil.<br /> I ended up going NC slowly, moved, stopped sharing much of anything, then went NC completely when my first child turned 12. I am happy that I did. I did it for my children. I didn't want my children to be poisoned by them. <br /> My parents are so negative on other people and their punishments are off the wall. I didn't want that for my children. As a parent I felt obligated to give them the healthiest upbringing I could, and this is not it. <br /> Sometimes I have doubts that I did the right thing, but when I talk to my scapegoat sister, I stop having them. She is doing okay now, but obviously damaged by the situation. I was not going to see her homeless, so I took her in for awhile without our parent's knowledge until she could get back on her feet. I will always love my sister and my parents cannot change that. It takes courage to stand up to these kinds of parents, but you also feel a lot better about yourself when you do. <br /><br />* What you have to realize in a big way is that narcissists are disordered. The stand out characteristics are that they don't have empathy and can be really cruel because of it, plus they can't stand any blame sticking to them and will shake it off of them as soon as they feel it, plus they are entitled jerks. You could be any good kid and they would discard you and try to get the family to do it too. Their disorder has nothing to do with you.<br />All narcs are the same and most of them discard one child at the very least. <br />And they all feel okay in doing so. <br />Their common disorder is the driving force, not you. They try to make it have everything to do with you because they tell themselves that nothing is their fault. <br />They aren't going to change this way of thinking, and they aren't going to change discarding people. <br />Instead of committing suicide over their lack of empathy which won't change even with every child committing suicide and every lover and spouse they seduce committing suicide, realize that this is your opportunity to get out of their control and to take control of your own life going forward. I can assure you that narcs are unaffected by the death of other people. I have had a few narcs in my life and they look at deaths and funerals as eye rolling inconveniences and they have no idea why people cry at them. <br />For me it was my stepfather who got my entire family to put me out to pasture. These were people he wasn't related to. If people can go along with a non-relative, they can go along with any one. A lots of people are sheep and let them take control because they are afraid of narcissists and because they believe they are powerless, that something precious will be taken away from them, so they let narcs make their decisions for them and run all over them.<br />He took control of my mother eventually and all of her correspondences. Now he is working on getting my brother out of the family so that the family is mostly made up of his relatives and none of my mother's. His reason for discarding me was that he felt I owed him. He paid for a few things in my childhood like a costume for a school play and flute lessons and has made it clear that my mother pushed him into it and has resented it ever since. He thought I should give up my entire life with my husband and child over it.<br />This didn't seem normal to me at the time in terms of losing my entire family, but it made sense only when a therapist said "narcissism". <br />His narcissistic reactions aren't my fault. And what you are going through isn't your fault either. <br />When you are with narcs, life and bad things happen to you, and when you are without narcissists, your life is yours to do with as you please, finally. <br />If your family is acting like a bunch of sheep by being strong armed by the narc, they are either going to remain sheep or realize that being a sheep is weakening them further and further, and giving up what they believe and their heart in the process. You have no control over that. Let nature run its course, and some sheep will leave the fold over the narc going too far, while others will stay. <br />If you are committed to the fact that this narc is not your leader, more people are likely to defect. It takes one to empower others. <br /><br />* When you are dealing with narcissistic abuse, part of recovery is how you are going to handle right and wrong. <br /> It is very wrong to scapegoat a child. When you have the choice, you have to stand up to that and be firm in the fact that it is wrong, that you will protect yourself or anyone else who is scapegoated. If you don't, or just try half measures, or buckling under, then to some degree you are accepting that wrong into your mind and heart. I know for myself that I feel a lot better when I am challenging what is wrong. It takes an unselfish mind to think this way, and you have decide which one you are, because you too could lose the family. But for me, a much better life opens up. It's hard to see it at first. But in choosing "the right way", "right situations" start happening to you instead of the wrong ones you lived through. <br /> The worst thing a narcissist could ever wish for are you going in the right direction, and healing from them. They "think" they feel good when you feel bad, but when you recover from them, I bet they don't feel so good. That's why they come back, and why they choose destruction over and over again, then spend the rest of their lives trying to hide from their destructions. <br /> It is wrong to turn their entire family against their child and make that child suffer more, especially if they are telling lies about the child, and you know it. Very, very sadistic. If you try to ignore it, or make excuses for it, or go along with it without being repelled by it, you have accepted it as part of you too. You become like them, even a little. <br /> When they try to get back in your life to create more suffering for you, they haven't changed even if they say they have, and all you have to do is check these and other forums to see that they never change. They always have the same amount of evil within them, even if they try to hide it for awhile, even if it is hidden for years. You will come across their evil again when you have been diagnosed with a terminal illness, or when you have a terrible accident, or when someone important in your life has died, or when you are down on your luck. Any one of us could tell you how the evil starts reasserting itself through giving you sabotaging advice, through disapprovals, through trying to take control of what you do and who you are, through the subtle back stabbings they do when they talk to others. As long as they start asserting themselves in these ways, their evil has not diminished. They are just hiding it and trying to find an opportune moment to pounce. Narcissists are predators. <br /> Therefore you have to make a commitment that you will live, that you will heal and that you will not be seduced by evil. You have to make a commitment to do what is right, and suicide is not right. It is perpetuating the idea that you deserve to be hurt, damaged, voiceless, disappeared like narcs do. You have to crawl out of that the best you can and be devoted to happiness and not despair. Part of that is getting in touch with people like us who have lived this and gone past it, and know the road is hard, but that it is worth it to be on the right path. We can show you that this is not only survivable, but that a better life is possible too. <br /><br />* Yers sounds like my life. You can do this without giving in. <br /><br />* Feeling so powerless, defeated, erased out is the hardest part of this. As long as you can build good boundaries against their attacks, be committed to doing your own life on your own terms, the better you will feel. It's an eventual process. It takes years. <br />The only alternative you have with this is going back and going through this again. <br />It's why most of us go no contact. Going through it over and over is the equivalent of being stuck in a war.<br /><br />* My NM assigned GC and SG alternating roles for both my sister and me. When I was the SG and ignored and thrown out, she was the GC. When NM wanted me back, she treated me as the GC and my sister as the dreadful SG. <br />The last time we went through this, which was really damaging to both our lives and psych, I started to read about narcissism. It all made sense in that context, the silent treatment, the idealizations followed by discards, the GC & SG roles, everything written was about our lives and what we were living through. I was so angry that I was being manipulated this way and went to a counselor on what to do. I turned my sister on to what I discovered when NM discarded her and wanted me back. <br />Neither one of us went back.<br />We are no longer in competition or resentful of one another realizing our mother was running the puppet strings and this destructive game since we were little children.<br /><br />* Here we go... getting to know a man who connected with me online, from a singles group on FB. A family man. The sort of man I'm looking for! And yet, we're discussing our family and it's awkward, to say the least! He is from a large very close family, they travel together and you see all the photos together. How do I explain that I'm a family woman who has no family?? In fact, I'm a family woman who has basically gone NC with most of my family. Any thoughts? May the force be with me. <br /><br />* Just tell him the truth. It takes a strong person to go No contact and to lose their whole family. Explain that you were left with no choice because your mental health comes first and you want healthy relationships.<br /><br />* Thank you. You brought me to tears. I didn't even consider that I may look strong instead of looking like a red flag!<br /><br />* It’s not your fault. You’re a cycle breaker. That flag is not red or beige, friend. It’s as green as springtime.<br /> Not every person from a healthy, happy family is going to understand that at first. He may need time to listen, trusting in your word and good intentions, and learn to understand and support. If he can’t do that, please believe — he’s not for you and you don’t want him!<br /><br />* I feel seriously damaged from the scapegoating and having to make it totally on my own without a family. <br />In my case, they threw me and my sister out of the family and kept our two brothers. <br />My sister and I were close for awhile and even lived together, but she started comparing herself to me in terms of resiliency. She always thought she was the model of resiliency, able to pop out of despair, while I was still the hurt and depressed basket case. She'd say things like "Get off your but!" and "Do something about it!" <br />This did not help with my healing. We had a few fights and then she left. I felt like I was rejected again by the only person left who had any kind of understanding of what I was going through, of what being estranged felt like. We were on the same page for such a long time, but her scapegoating me over my depression made me feel even more suicidal, alone, and unable to snap out of despair. I actually became homeless afterwards for awhile. My father's great wish finally came true, but I literally could not function. <br />Eventually I realized that comparing herself to me was just part of belonging to a narcissistic family. I was done with the comparisons of who was ahead in our parents favor, and in my case, realized it was my father's favorite passtime to compare us all of the time, while for me it was an event I wanted to escape. It drove home how little our needs mattered to him, only how his needs were met, even when I was a small child.<br />I survived, but I still feel like I'm in pieces. I can't reconcile the pieces into one whole. I might not have survived under my father's roof. It was probably worse. But the fact remains that either way, I was going to go through hell. <br />Isn't that sad? Like I can barely survive being kicked out, but I probably would have fared much worse being around him. There are no good answers to this. <br />I think when you are mentally, physically and emotionally abused, and laughed at you when you cry or show pain, they are going to be the ones to kick you out. It is better to leave, I think, before it gets to that point, to make it your own choice. <br />I work for a library and it's a job I can survive in because it is quiet. When I'm not functioning at my job perfectly, I get yelled at, but it doesn't happen very often. And the yelling is my boss whispering to me. It's a lot easier to deal with yelling when it is quiet, and to actually understand what is being said, and do what they are expecting. It doesn't trigger me like loud yelling does. <br />Part of my surviving is that books have become my social life. <br />But I always wonder who I would have been had I not grown up with an intolerant misogynistic father. How much of what he put me through contributed to my depression? All of it or some of it? Like if I had actually been loved and valued would I have been footloose and fancy free or clinging to quiet and safety in every situation? <br /><br /></div><div dir="auto">* I've been fully estranged for 11 years and counting (and before then too - I was one of those who "went back" and it was so much worse, incredibly damaging to my psyche and well being). Where you are right now is the hardest stage. It's intense grieving, loneliness, often smear campaigns, and worst of all, realizing that your family wants you in that state.<br />Then I started to go to Alanon. I realized there were a lot of estranged scapegoats there. And in my experience, the scapegoats were the kindest people I'd ever met. My husband is a scapegoat from his original family of origin too. To keep from getting derailed by trauma, the intrusive memories, having a shot self esteem, I went to ACOA and CoDA meetings too and group therapy for ACONs.<br />Then I did deep dives into reading about PTSD, narcissists and sociopaths and the lack of empathy, false arrogant self and lust for power that drives their destructive cruelty towards others.<br />And that knowledge all got intellectualized rather than feeling it on any kind of emotional level. Granted I had continual nightmares about those people for at least 4 years (the worst ones were the first year and a half), but would awake in my nice safe, cozy warm bedroom with good locks on the door of my house and an alarm system.<br />And then I started having nightmares about an inconsolable little girl pleading with her Mommy to stop hurting her. Someone here suggested that it was my wounded inner child.<br />I feel I have emerged into a better life than I have ever had. Scapegoating will always keep you down, like a wounded soul who can no longer do anything the narcissist wants - even keep yourself alive for them. I never think about suicide, ever, any more. It rained all of the time in my past, and like the poster above, now it shines most days.<br />I also learn to listen to my body. Narcissists give me headaches. I don't have narcs in my life any more because the headache tells me all I need to know.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">FOUND ON FACEBOOK:</div></div></div></div></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoigzuCTI6M5BzwMEzl3Ces7M-BHz7V229I8s-3h_m5kn0by700UHdNgOBPpcpDuBpcO9tBLeM7tqV-MrR_Bp5S33McShuqw6JkWmq391LVXgG7L1rxLv0JNRGeEY2azuHw6yFX2KcQePo_AWf0-oXZRgQjA8f4K6_pkeGNsUZitEtBNAsbCextJDPpXI/s570/Alexx%20Bradley%20quote%20your%20story%20web.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="365" data-original-width="570" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoigzuCTI6M5BzwMEzl3Ces7M-BHz7V229I8s-3h_m5kn0by700UHdNgOBPpcpDuBpcO9tBLeM7tqV-MrR_Bp5S33McShuqw6JkWmq391LVXgG7L1rxLv0JNRGeEY2azuHw6yFX2KcQePo_AWf0-oXZRgQjA8f4K6_pkeGNsUZitEtBNAsbCextJDPpXI/s16000/Alexx%20Bradley%20quote%20your%20story%20web.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJIRjhOlXTI8Wh19zXKpRp-0D95XBW2g3QAwfx9uDhugYIjCfWuA9-rVHRf8F_FZSIzUUYx1j2PZlVDl_vjXHzL2lmx7CqDKIIfi-X-wkHEyFLukCVh8BLbbsmBoGwtZrLXfyKxERcu-Qs6VqpksMcmRnxeae2HC-hjoBQ7Xz9noACYUdC6rt5Gk4tS4o/s575/trauma%20bond%20with%20false%20narrative%20web%20II.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="525" data-original-width="575" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJIRjhOlXTI8Wh19zXKpRp-0D95XBW2g3QAwfx9uDhugYIjCfWuA9-rVHRf8F_FZSIzUUYx1j2PZlVDl_vjXHzL2lmx7CqDKIIfi-X-wkHEyFLukCVh8BLbbsmBoGwtZrLXfyKxERcu-Qs6VqpksMcmRnxeae2HC-hjoBQ7Xz9noACYUdC6rt5Gk4tS4o/s16000/trauma%20bond%20with%20false%20narrative%20web%20II.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #7f6000;">© Lise Winne<br />"Trauma Bond with False Narrative Blaming Cycle of Abuse" (all rights reserved)</span></div><br />In this post I discuss how trauma bonds can happen, and what is at stake for the recipient of the trauma bond. <br /><br />First of all, in trauma bonds there are always going be stark power differentials, where the person who holds the most power will want to take away from the person with less power. For narcissists, that usually means they want to take away the autonomous decisions, self esteem, and sense of peace from the person they deem as less powerful, so that they can gain more and more power over that individual for themselves. <br /><br />Ruminating that a less powerful individual that they've been taking power away from, even the power to take away autonomous decisions from that individual, will usually cause them to rage at, possibly reject, and resent that individual. <br /><br />Most trauma bonds in close personal relationships are between a parent and dependent child, between a parent and a disabled adult child, in a marriage where one partner lords power over their partner, and between siblings where one sibling (most often a favorite <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">golden child</a></b> who is financially and lovingly rewarded by parental figures) tries to control, damage and take something from another sibling (most often a <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">scapegoat child</a></b> who is financially punished by parental figures and where their love has been withdrawn).<br /><br />For the purposes of this post, I will be talking about situations between two adult partners in an intimate relationship, and mention more briefly the kind of trauma bond that is often formed between a parent and child. <br /><br />Since this is part of a series, I will be mentioning other kinds of trauma bonds eventually as they can occur between a boss and a worker, between an invader and the invaded, between soldiers and their captives, between a cult leader and their followers, between a president or national leader and the population, between a more powerful nation and a less powerful nation, between a drug dealer and addict, between a pimp and his prostitutes, between a perpetrator of child sexual abuse and his victim, and so on. A lot of these relationships can have violence and threats in them to make victims submit and to be more and more submissive.<br /><br />On-going trauma bonds, particularly for children where the trauma bond is being instigated by a parent can be life long and can have a lot of adverse and devastating effects not only for the child, but for the parent, family, and for society will be discussed much later. Since trauma-bonding can effect the brain, brain development, and even what trauma survivors focus on (i.e. how to relate to perpetrators) it will also ultimately effect the evolution of the human species too. As a species, are we going to spend our time focusing on science, the health of a beautiful planet, the health of other people so that their attentions will be on the greater pursuits of human beings, the ability to make great, great works of art, architecture, beautiful cities, healthy joyful relationship building, or are we going to spend most of our time on the planet attacking and defending?<br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">IN ADULT RELATIONSHIPS<br />(PARTICULARLY BETWEEN MARRIAGE PARTNERS AND INTIMATE PARTNERS)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">To start off, I'm going to introduce you to a common way that power-hungry people (namely narcissists) decide to traumatize you and then intermittently award you for putting up with their rages. And I found a perfect example in a You Tube video by Dr. Ramani Durvasula called <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tLZX5gZoLc" target="_blank">When narcissists HARM YOU and then expect a HUG...</a></b> . I will expound on her video in this post so that you can see where this leads, and why, so often the narcissist abandons a person who is not falling in line with being controlled, some of the science as to why it doesn't work very well for them in any long term way even with an extreme power differential, and why the trauma bonded can also abandon the narcissist too. </div></div><div><br />Following is some of what she said in that video (in blue type) to explain what can create a trauma bond. The "push-pull" reaction, and why the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank">"Jekyll/Hyde" behavior</a></b> that is on display here by the narcissist is what will create trauma in the other person. <br /><br />I decided to write her words out, so that you can study them, and understand what is going on between both parties. <br /><br /></div><div><div><i> </i><span style="color: #0b5394;">Trauma bonds are created by the alternation of bad and good, a good day and a bad day, idealization and devaluation. Sometime back in my podcast, the actress and writer Rebecca Humphries - she said it the most beautifully when she said in the narcissistic relationship she was in, it was like being pushed off a 100 story building and then the narcissist manages to be the one catch you just as you are about to hit the ground. So they are not just your abuser, they also become your savior.</span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394;">And that is how trauma bonds get created and reinforced. ... <br /> Often in toxic relationships, they devalue, they demean, they insult, they argue, and once they feel better (it's like they let it all out), then they go in for the hug. <br /> Let's say it's a situation where they can't find their keys, and they believe that you've moved them. They say, "Hey, where are my keys!? Seriously, where are my keys!?"<br /> You may respond, "I don't know. I haven't seen them today."<br /> They say, "Yes! Yes you have seen my keys! You had to have seen my keys! I came home and I put them here, and you always move my stuff! You are so damned disorganized! Look at this mess! You don't put stuff away! I'm so sick of it! You have ruined my day! I need to go out in ten minutes to pick up that stuff and if I don't do it, then my entire day is going to be messed up! How could you do this to me!? How could you mess with my keys!?"<br /> Now imagine they are saying this relatively loudly like I was trying to show, and you really, really did not touch their keys. Some of you may go and try to look for the keys. Others of you may be having a freeze response where you're just sort of stuck. Some of you may fight back, but most of you will not feel well at this point. There will be more yelling. They are still trying to find them, then they say, "To hell with it! I am taking your car! Too bad if you need it!" And they grab their coat and put it on and viola: their car keys are in their pocket. <br /> They feel that pocket and they feel that jingle and they say, "Got 'em!" and then "I'm heading out!" and no apology. But as they are about to head out (and this is the part that's not okay), they may come in for a hug. <br /> They'll say, "Oh, come on! Let's make up!" and they'll come in for the hug or the kiss, and you mean well at this point, but you may feel sick, exhausted, depleted, scared, or triggered, but they may want to have a snuggle or a kiss and where "Let's make up!" makes no sense because they were the ones who were screaming at you for something you didn't do. It was largely a one-sided argument (if you want to call it an argument because there was no other side to it) ... <br /> ... If you freeze up and don't respond, they are going to tell you that you are difficult and unforgiving. But at a somatic level, to have the person who just psychologically harmed you, and then tried to touch you in a soothing or intimate manner (for lack of a better way to say it), it's kind of gross. And once again, you may feel that there is no response you're allowed to have - because if you push back or don't respond to them - it all starts again. <br /> It's always important to remember that narcissistic folks always use conflict to regulate. The yelling and screaming and abuse allow them to reassert their power, and as they shatter you, they feel better. So after they feel better (and that coupled with their lack of empathy), then as far as they're concerned, everything's fine. And they come in for the hug, and they just assume you want to snuggle because your argument is done. And they play upon your self-blame and your self doubt because when you push back and say, "I'm not hugging you!" and "We're going to have to talk about this more" and just say "This doesn't feel okay", then you become the bad person who can't let go of stuff. <br /> It feels very violating when someone swoops in for a hug or a snuggle, or a kiss after they have harmed you, and there has not been a period of time for you to talk it out, or work it through. Everything is on their time frame. And the more that happens, the worse it feels. Things that happen in the relationship feel like they are happening to you, and not with you. You are relegated to being an object, a sort of adult pacifier that they use to regulate, and when they are done with the yelling, they will want to regulate by being held. It's really not much different than a tantrum-ing toddler that screams and cries, and starts yelling in the middle of a store, and then they need a hug from the parent afterwards. But there's a big difference. That toddler is three, not fifty three. But many people are confused, and really put off ... It definitely reinforces, as you can imagine, the trauma bond. And it can also reinforce that somehow "You're the one who is closed off, you're the one who is mean. You're the one who is cold or unforgiving" if you don't just go with it. It's not true, but it is an absolute Catch-22 because there is no way you can talk to them about it and share your feelings. And then there is the stuck-ness, and that tees up the self blame. <br /> ... When someone goes from rage to affection, it's very normal not to want to hug back ... it's not about you holding back, or being distant, or holding a grudge, it's that other person not having empathy, or absolutely no awareness, of how their behavior is effecting you. So if that dynamic happens, be aware. It is quite harmful, and it reinforces a trauma bond. <br /> And when they constantly put themselves in this position of tyrant and tormenter, and lover and hugger and care-er, of perpetrator and savior, there's really no winning at that game, and it really helps you to understand why this relationship is not only so difficult to remain sort of sane in, but even more difficult ... to get out of. </span><br /><br />What Dr. Ramani doesn't fully explain in her video (although she does explain it in many of her other videos) is that while the trauma bond is building, the person on the receiving end of the rages and hugs is usually responding with these trauma reactions: fawn, fight, flight, freeze, or avoid. <br /><br />To a narcissist, these trauma reactions are narcissistic supply and they may very well be thinking these things (*trigger warning*):<br /><br />Fawning: "You're going to fawn!? Good! That's what I want, for you to do everything I want, when I want it, and I'll correct how you're responding! Please me now! I'll guide the way on how you can please me!"<br /><br />Fighting back: "You're fighting!? How dare you fight me! We'll just see who wins this fight! I'll win it, that's who! I'm superior and I'll knock you down a peg or two, and punish you! If you defend yourself, then that is your way of fighting with me too. I don't respect your defenses and explanations. I'll find a way to make you feel guilty and pay whether I'm the one who lost the keys or not! You are not to mess with my rages and perceptions! Got that!?"<br /><br />Freezing: "You're just going to sit there in your frozen state! You're supposed to be reacting, or at least looking for my goddam keys! What's the matter with you!? Are you crazy or something!? This is important! This is what I hate about you! You're totally <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank">useless</a></b> at a time like this! You're supposed to be looking for my keys! Anyone else would be looking for my keys! But not you! You're so incompetent. In fact, you're crazy! "<br /><br />Fleeing (flight): "You're going to just walk away! You have better things to do than look for my keys which you moved on purpose!? I see that I'm high on your priority list! Always running away when there are important issues in this house! For all I'm getting around here, it's no wonder I'm not having an affair! You owe it to me not to escape and to help me find the keys that you actually moved! Maybe you moved them on purpose just to get me into that state! Did you do it!?" <br /><br />Avoid: "You weren't home when the keys went missing! What are you trying to do!? Avoid me!? Because if you are, I'm going to catch up with you! I never put those keys in my pocket, goddam it! You did it! I had to spend hours looking for them too! It's your fault, and as soon as you realize it, the better!" <br /><br />Some of this may not be said outright, but they are inferred. <br /><br />The partner of the narcissist is going to be undergoing situations that resemble the keys situation over, and over, and over, and over again. It won't just be about keys, obviously. It may, in fact take over every conversation depending on how controlling they are. <br /><br />If they are true run-of-the-mill narcissists, they'll be telling you what <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" target="_blank">you did, or thought, or felt</a></b>, and they will be enraged about it. If you disagree with them, they'll be <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" target="_blank">invalidating</a></b> your disagreements because it doesn't fit in with their blaming narrative, and what they perceive as "the truth". I talk about why they do this below (it has to do with a number of traits that are particular to narcissists, and why, even when they are caught, can't readily admit why they screwed up. For the meantime I'll say it is a compulsion: they feel they need to blame and rage, even if they might not be in touch with reality, or what it is doing to the other person). <br /><br />Anyway, the same sort of situations will play out again and again that resemble "the keys" diatribe. It might happen when you forget to pick up the clothes at the dry cleaners. It might be about not putting enough gas in the car. It might be about not setting the table to the narcissist's exacting standards. It might be about why you weren't thanking them enough when they got you to the hospital after getting the car in an accident where you were the passenger. It might be about how you caused the accident because they told you they were tired, and you should have been the one to drive. It might be about how you didn't ask for forgiveness when they were giving you the silent treatment. It might be because they wanted to leave you the message that you were no longer allowed to talk to them about anything. </div><div><br /></div><div>The silent treatment is hard to figure out, and the reasons why narcissists use it are often indecipherable and muddy for a reason, but you can bet you aren't going to know the real reason, and you will surely fail at doing what they want when they go silent on you, so they refuse to discuss anything at all with you. If you do attempt to get to the bottom of it, you'll most likely get a similar kind of confusing blaming and rage session as the "keys incident", only much, much worse. <br /><br />Most narcissists don't communicate directly, but leave interpretations open-ended so that if you accuse them of the silent treatment, they can blame you for not really understanding what was <i>really</i> going on. It's a dirty mind game, of course, but this is a common narcissistic tactic that you should always be aware of. </div><div><br />They may even do this cycle of erroneous blaming, then attacking (insults, yelling, threats) in about every situation in your joint relationship after awhile, and over every action and reaction you make, in a kind of micro-managing style as in the movie, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/p/move-reviews-page-five.html" target="_blank">Sleeping with the Enemy</a></b>. The cycle is very common, even with the hug at the end, but I would bet that eventually you won't even get that, that the only reactions you'll get over time are the crazy blaming and rages. Most of your relationship, for them, will be about how you respond to the blinding rages, whether you respond, what you do when you respond, while they are blaming you for the next thing you didn't do. <br /><br />Or let us say that there are some situations where they are half-right, but they are not listening to the context or situation that it happened in, and they go on raging at you about what they believe <i>really</i> happened, and they still won't let you explain or defend yourself, or tell them what the situation is because they are on to the next false accusations ... <br /><br />They decide what you are <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" target="_blank">doing, thinking, feeling, planning</a></b>, and you're supposed to go along with what they believe, and respond to it all in such a way that <i>they want</i>, to show themselves that they still have control over you and how you react. As Dr. Ramani said in her video, they become addicted to treating you this way to get themselves emotionally regulated, feeling at peace within themselves and the relationship, and in charge, but it is all at your expense.<br /><br />As the relationship progresses, the false accusations build up. Their suspicions (paranoia) build up at the same time about what you are possibly doing, what you are possibly thinking, and what you are possibly feeling - and whether you'll think of bucking their control over you, or whether you will hurt them, or run off on them when they start to rage for the 1,658th time in your relationship with them. Usually by the time they become really paranoid of your intentions (which is why there are false narratives to begin with, in part), many of them can't live with the paranoia or any reaction that isn't what they have come to expect, so they often end relationships at this point, suddenly, without explanation. They reason with themselves that they need someone ultra predictable, weak and timid, who can be groomed to be a better sycophant. <br /><br />The problem with abrupt endings to relationships, especially when you aren't getting anything but muddled confusing narratives, reasons and messages, is that there are usually matters to settle between you, even if it is just going to be about retrieving some of your clothes, or asking if they are going to be at a party you both were invited to (going to a party where the two of you are separated is difficult to deal with just after a break-up, and it's reasonable to ask your ex-partner if they will be there). <br /><br />But there, again, they are going to be raging at you over something, perhaps for accepting their rejection (and not working hard for their approval), or they'll be raging at you because: "I made it clear I don't want to talk to you! And I could care less whether you will be at that party or not! There's plenty of fish in the sea and I'll just ignore you! So there!" Or if it's about your clothes: "You're worried about your clothes at a time like this! I could care less about that pink cocktail dress you always thought you looked great in! It belongs in the dumpster and that's where I'm putting it! You must be crazy to want that back! I hate the color pink! But you were always too blind to see it! You are too blind to see anything that I like and don't like, apparently!"<br /><br />Any response they have will be unpleasant to deal with.<br /><br />These arguments (or actually diatribes) are most often no-win situations. Relationships with narcissists don't end the way most relationships do, with a lot of discussion beforehand, especially about compromises you could both make to solve a problem. In most relationships, the problem is the issue between you, but with narcissists, the problem is almost always going to be about what they believe about you, or what they think or falsely want to present to themselves and everyone else as an emerging problem with your character, mind, or perceptions. This is what <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">gaslighting</a></b> is about. <br /><br />Narcissists are, for the most part, compromise-resistant, and will be manipulating ways to keep you "in the game" without compromising on anything. If they are able to do a little bit of it, I'd bet anything that they'll be giving an inch to your mile in that department, and then try to hoard all of the power again later on.<br /><br />Again this has to do with the fact that they can't admit they are wrong (it risks their vulnerability), and the entitlement that they have that you have to go along with them no matter how far from the truth they are. <br /><br />Narcissists will usually tell you that you are crazy and that no one would ever love you or put up with you except them (they'll try to make themselves out to be eternally patient), and in general they will try to wear down your self esteem and nullify your relationships. This the other <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html">gaslighting tactic</a></b>, trying to make you feel that you are alone and will be <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-abusers-co-bullies-enablers.html" target="_blank">surrounded by other attackers</a> </b>as long as you ignore their pleas to do what they tell you to do (make them faultless and make yourself at fault). <br /><br />But let's say that the narcissist says that he gave you the silent treatment because he wants you to coddle him, and try to please him more, and he gives you that as the reason for why he went silent on you. <br /><br />It is very unlikely he will change the way he treated you before. Because abuse escalates, it'll probably get worse. He is most likely trying to fine-tune the sycophantry and submissiveness that you provide. <br /><br />And you may be back in your old role over trauma bonding or co-dependency. There may be finances involved. There may be guilt involved: like the idea that you didn't try hard enough to please him. You might be frightened over a threat he has made. Maybe he is physically abusive and you are aware of the statistics of how many women are killed in the first few weeks of leaving their partner. You may not have a good plan in place on how to escape. Or you may just love the perpetrator. The reasons for staying are endless. <br /><br />You may be highly empathic, and every time your partner has a fit, there may be enough affection that you feel guilty for not accepting it. <br /><br />After enough of these episodes, and without some respite, or some kind of intervention (like a person who goes to bat for you), you are likely going to have full blown PTSD. <br /><br />PTSD symptoms are involuntary, with physical, mental and emotional repercussions. If you are getting therapy for PTSD, these kinds of scenes (losing keys, silent treatments, and so much more) contribute to why your therapist may be insisting that going "no contact" may be the the only way to heal from the PTSD, and all of the symptoms that are present. It also gets you out of the loop of continual trauma responses, and giving in (bonding over and over again over the perpetrator's inclination to stir up traumatic situations where your life hangs in the balance, or finances, or your work, or children, or pets, or anything that is being threatened by them). <br /><br />One of the major symptoms of PTSD is not being able to sleep, of being in a hypervigilant state. At the point you aren't able to sleep, you are keyed up about the next impending false accusations or attacks by your partner. Your anxiety about all of this is such that it is keeping you awake at night. Your partner, on the other hand, may be sleeping just fine. Blowing off steam has regulated them enough so that they feel at peace, contented with the state of things. There is no looming danger to their authority or conscience about how they treat you. This may make <i>them</i> feel better, but for you, it is not only impinging on your happiness, wellbeing on all levels, ability to focus, ability to get through the next day with your best foot forward, it is literally driving you into more and more disability.<br /><br />And aside from disability, narcissists are often trying to strip away any independence or autonomy you used to enjoy when you made your own decisions, had your own thoughts and feelings without someone countering you with what they want to believe, had your own relationships without the narcissist commenting on them or interfering in them. <br /><br />PTSD is a normal condition to being exposed to narcissistic fits day in and day out, but it can also be qualified as a disability, because the symptoms are such that they hobble your day to day ability to function at capacity. In the most severe cases you will be trembling from head to foot, and really won't be able to concentrate on anything people are saying to you, or about you.<br /><br />To get a semblance of PTSD, try not sleeping for 3 days, and see how you feel. Then add in anxiety about being attacked or told what you think or feel (when you don't feel or think what they believe you do), and try to defend yourself in such a state, or get someone to start a crazy-making erroneous-accusatory argument with you after not sleeping for three days. See how well you do with their accusations, and how they try to manipulate certain negative responses from you. Get the person to rage in your face a few times too, and perhaps insult you in many, many ways (how incompetent you are, that they should just leave you to the dogs, that you never meant anything to them - just tell them to hammer you with this BS until you have that wide-eyed stare, and where you no longer seem to be comprehending what they are raging about). Then have them kick you once for not responding any more. See if your nerves are frayed after that episode, and take note of your symptoms, and imagine that the way they treat you largely goes on day after day, after day, and intermingle it with a few episodes of audacious and very confusing affections. Do you feel weepy? Are you begging them to stop it? And what happens when you ask them to stop it? </div><div><br /></div><div>They continue it, right? No one is going to stop them from their God given right to attack! Right? <br /><br />Now imagine you are so exhausted that you finally do fall asleep. But you have nightmares about being attacked by them. They are very vivid dreams. And when you wake up, there they are! Looking right at you with more rage in their heart. "You're done with sleeping! Get up and do something useful!" they shout at you. Take note of your symptoms after that. <br /><br />I'd bet you'd want to crawl under a rock. I bet you want them to just leave you alone already! Right?<br /><br />And some of them do leave you alone, but not in a good way. They take all of the money out of your joint account, for instance. Or they get other people to lecture you about what a great, great person your abuser is. They run smear campaigns about you to other people. They taunt you with a new lover perhaps. They bait you about wanting to be left alone, as if that is totally unreasonable: "After all I have done for you," they say, "and all we have meant to each other, you're going to leave me in the lurch!?" - it's another blaming tactic and you're supposed to feel guilty, put your PTSD symptoms on hold somehow just for them, but your PTSD symptoms have the upper hand (usually).<br /><br />The trauma bond at that point is starting to unravel apart because of the symptoms of PTSD in response to attacks, invalidations, and feeling hostage. Once your flight responses are more numerous than your fawn responses, or freeze responses, you are going to want to leave. It's actually better to leave before you get to that point, because you will leave much less disabled. The more disabled you are, and when you are at the point of thinking "I HAVE to get out of this! I WILL get out of this!" You will most likely have to build a new life from scratch, and the more disabled you are, the harder it will be to take on that monumental challenge. <br /><br />And it is monumental. Most survivors of narcissistic abuse go through retaliations by their exes, which again, is very confusing considering how much contempt they have shown you, and usually they are threatening to leave you or giving you the silent treatment, and usually they try to show you that they don't care about your feelings too. So why would they be angry and retaliatory if we leave? <br /><br />Some of the answers can be found in Jason Skidmore's video, a man diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder where admits to doing <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzjadf8Yw6o&t=1s" target="_blank">fake discards</a></b>. Since narcissists often use other forms of stonewalling and silent treatments with their discards, it leaves it up to the survivor how they are going to interpret and respond to a discard. And what I have seen so far is that they tend to go in the direction of family values and family upbringing and what I mean by this is: Let us say that the recipient of the discard is from a family who thinks their daughter has been treated horribly, that discards have no place in an intimate relationship. She's more likely to take the discard as so unreasonable that it should not be responded to. Then there are other families who want you to talk to your partner, to work things out face to face, and to insist on it, or to go to counseling if both of you do not come to any conclusions, so you might try to talk to them, and report back to your family to get more advice from them. The other side of the coin are abusive families who expect women to beg their men to take them back, and sometimes, but not as often, for men to beg women to take them back - it's one way to ensure a trauma bond will go on and on. And then there are families with so many estranged members that the message is that if you attempt a return, nothing will work out, that there are no resolutions and that there is nothing you can do about it. <br /><br />Or let us say that you read survivor forums and go to meetings with other domestic abuse survivors and it becomes clear that not only were there no resolutions for the high number of cases (or quite often all of the cases), where the abuse got much, much worse when they went back. In some of these cases you will find that it became a life-threatening situation. <br /><br />To make matters worse, at the point of the discard, narcissists usually play the victim as well as spread more false narratives to get their co-bullies, enablers, and sycophants to attack you, or to tell you of the dire straights you left them in (when most likely they <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/12/important-darvo-tactic-and-why-it-is.html" target="_blank">DARVO</a></b>'d you). There will be all kinds of social pressures to get you back into the trauma bond again. It's a huge betrayal on the discarder's part, and for most victims, it seems scary, like how criminals act when they get caught and want to make it someone else's fault. My sense is that DARVOs don't work in bringing any survivor back; in fact, it creates a lot more barriers.<br /><br />Then there are narcissists who get fixated on beliefs about you. The least obnoxious is that they believe that you have a permanent flaw of <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/10/why-abusers-who-punish-use-ungrateful.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">ingratitude</a>.<b> </b>In fact, if you watch other videos by narcissists, they become quite fixated on that - and there are videos by Jason Skidmore of "The Nameless Narcissist" (mentioned above) where he talks about gaining leadership positions and being a mastermind in some games in friendship circles in high school and college where his friends bailed on him, and on how it hurt him greatly, where his mind went in the direction of wanting to hurt them for the "ingratitude" he perceived they had. <br /><br />But I have to say that it usually gets way worse than fixations of only "perceived ingratitude". After listening to so many survivor stories about the kinds of things perpetrators say about their victims, it can get really "far out". For instance, one parent became absolutely convinced that her daughter was bringing home fake report cards from school (because she was convinced her daughter was stupid), and even when her daughter told her mother to contact the teacher to see if the report card was real, the mother would find other ways to justify her belief such as the daughter talking the teacher into giving her better grades than she deserved, trying to play teacher's pet, and threatening the teacher. If perpetrators believe, or are stubborn about holding on to a false belief, you are not going to be able to say much without repercussions (whether they rage at you for convincing them or others that they were wrong - which narcissists hate - or they do everything they can to ignore the truth).<br /><br />Another survivor's family was convinced that their physician family member was a clandestine prostitute on the side (and eventually it was found that the mother in that situation was a prostitute and assumed her physician daughter was one too). So a lot of it is projection. <br /><br />Another survivor's family from a right wing community told all of the relatives that their daughter ran off with Antifa and was living in an LGBTQ commune when the real truth was that she left because of on-going physical abuse by her father as well as his propensity to continually make up things about her, isolating her further and further with him. What really happened is that she moved far away, was never part of a liberal community, and didn't know a single LGBTQ person, and was living alone scared out of her mind in an apartment. She was scared that her father's family and friends would beat her up over false accusations. In that case, it would seem the message was clear: "don't come back". Otherwise why make up such stories about his own daughter?<br /><br />The most dangerous one was where a survivor went back to her abuser and the abuser beat her up badly at the doorway. She managed to get away and was hospitalized, but it became a case where the abuser believed he was in danger from the abused because if he had been abused like she was, he would have tried to kill the person who abused him. <br /><br />So part of the trauma bond is living continuously with fantasies, false narratives, dangerous assumptions and diabolical lies to get others to threaten you, abuse you, or kill you. And guess what? You often won't know which one it is. There are some signs, like the DARVO that can immediately put you on "DISTRUST ALERT", but most survivors are usually really surprised at how far their abusers will go to hurt them.<br /><br />And, of course, narcissists can have <b><a href="https://www.choosingtherapy.com/narcissistic-collapse/" target="_blank">Narcissistic Collapse</a></b> where they feel that their egos or the image they are trying to portray to others is in immediate jeopardy, where they feel they will never be able to reach the heights they did before (even if those heights were illusory and were only propped by manipulations of other people), and where they can be on a mission to hurt a person, or type of people that remind them of someone who they believe provoked their narcissistic collapse. <br /><br />In that way, abusers can be like <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepper_(disambiguation)" target="_blank">preppers</a>. </b>Preppers are known to build long tunnels on their property and store them full of food because they believe that a situation is building where their lives are under threat from world events out of their control. The one difference between them and abusers is that abusers "prep" for an attack by their victim. <br /><br />It can be one of the reasons they attack you without provocation. It can be one of the reasons they spread false narratives and insist that people believe them, and protect them from phantom ostracism and victimization. <br /><br />It can be one of the reasons they indulge in so many false narratives, as if you'll spread lies about them first and they'll be left without friends or family or a support group, so they do it to you as soon as they think you are not coming back. <br /><br />It can be one of the reasons why they always left you out of social situations, or <b>isolated you from family</b>, or why they decided on estrangement over continuing the relationship they had with you, or why they took you out of <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2024/01/do-scapegoats-of-narcissistic-parents.html" target="_blank">their Will</a></b>, because they falsely believe you will be trashing them and being as scary as they are. <br /><br />And it may even have to do with why they rage at you or abuse you if they perceive they have been criticized by you - because when they criticize there are many, many agendas behind their criticisms including trying to dominate you, take away your decision-making, take away your relationships, and take away your freedoms.<br /><br />What this has to do with is that a lot of narcissists are paranoid, and some even have <b><a href="https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9784-paranoid-personality-disorder" target="_blank">Paranoid Personality Disorder</a></b> (<b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoid_personality_disorder" target="_blank">another link</a></b>), in addition to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Narcissistic Personality Disorder</a>,<b> </b>which tends to be the more <b><a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-recognize-a-malignant-narcissist-4164528" target="_blank">malignant brand of narcissism</a></b> where there is sadism and/or violence being expressed. The combination can be deadly, so it may be best not to go back, at least to a private residence (if they tell you they want to talk to you, consider a public place). If they are spreading a lot of false narratives about you (<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-smear-campaign-in-abuse-and.html" target="_blank">smear campaigns</a></b>) that seem really delusional with a lot of false victim stories, you can see why this might be dangerous.<br /><br />You would think that with all of the blaming, contempt, criticisms and insults they have for you that they would be happy that you left, or that they instigated a silent treatment, but the fact is that, as Dr. Ramani said in her video (and which I transcribed above), <u>"<span style="color: #0b5394;">It's always important to remember that narcissistic folks always use conflict to regulate. The yelling and screaming and abuse allow them to reassert their power, and as they shatter you, they feel better."</span></u></div><div><br /></div><div>In other words, they need you back in your role, taking blame and abuse so that they can feel regulated and in charge. Perhaps when they feel they can't use you as a rage receptacle, they discard and use the DARVO. This also has everything to do with why they <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">gaslight</a></b>. If we were to add gaslighting to Dr. Ramani's tale, the gaslighting would sound like: "You know, you're so crazy that you didn't know you lost my keys. You go around and take things of mine, and then put them in my coat pocket on purpose so that you know I'm not going to find them." <br /><br />Gaslighting just gets you to PTSD symptoms a lot faster. <br /><br />Narcissists do not care about PTSD, and the symptoms and disabilities it presents. If they are instructed by a health care provider or mental health counselor about strategies to keep a peaceful, calm environment, they don't do it. They look at PTSD as a weakness, in fact, and something that is inconvenient. They have a love/hate relationship with you, just as they do any disabled person. A disability to them means: a limited amount of narcissistic supply where they can rage and insult like crazy, where the disabled person is too disabled to defend themselves against the attacks, but cannot do much more for them than that. Any other potential ego trips are stifled by the disability. <br /><br />I taught school, and <b><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandsafety/bullying.html#:~:text=Children%20who%20bully%20others%20target,bullied%20than%20children%20without%20disabilities." target="_blank">the disabled are often picked to bully the most</a></b> because they have fewer defenses and less of a network of peer support than the bullies do (usually). Bullies aren't going to look at an individual with PTSD differently than someone with a physical disability. On the playground, they might refer to a child with PTSD as "stupid", "retarded" (because children with PTSD are often <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/stress/amygdala-hijack" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">amygdala hijacked</a>). In terms of the amygdala hijack, it means the capacity to learn has been hijacked by hypervigilance, and walking on eggshells to temper the narcissist's clockwork rages). They may be referred to as "a baby" because children with PTSD tend to cry a lot more, and can appear inconsolable and unaffected even when they are comforted or teased about their crying. That is because they are literally living in pain most of the time. They can be described as a kid "no one likes" because kids with PTSD tend to isolate and not trust others. </div><div><br /></div><div>In terms of adult bullying, many of the same kinds of phrases will be lobbed at the partner, but they might say things like "intellectually challenged", or "insane", or "socially inept" - the more grown up phrases. Or they may say things which denigrate your PTSD: "Oh, here we go again! Your PTSD is activated again! You know, I've just about had it with your PTSD! You've got excuses to cry and be spacey again! Boohoo! But guess what!? I didn't activate it! You're a weak person who can't take a little argument! Or an insult! Such a baby! Waaahhhhh!!!!" <br /><br />In terms of <i>the way </i>adults bully, it is not much different than the way kids engage in schoolyard bullying.</div><div><br />I will talk about the set of traits that attract other bullies in another post. Every scapegoat, and ex-partner of a narcissist, should learn what those traits are so that you can work on them, and so that narcissists won't even notice you, and hopefully not want a relationship with you either. </div><div><br />Anyway, the PTSD symptoms can go off every time the narcissist is around you: headaches, stomach aches, a deep kind of exhaustion, anxiety through the roof, your heart may even hurt or pound, and you can't even pay attention to what they are saying any more because your own body and mind are all that you can deal with. You feel like you are under constant siege, onslaught, hostage to their nitpicking and rages. And you may get to the point where you don't care about the narcissist any more than they care about you. You just want to escape and get out of the situation. <br /><br />If you stay, your symptoms get even worse. You may feel like you can barely function. So escaping is going to cross all of our minds eventually. <br /><br />None of us are meant to be under constant onslaught (and having nightmares about a partner, not sleeping, flinching over being touched, and doubled over with stomach aches) in a marriage. </div><div><br /></div><div>I came across this from researcher and popular book author, Shahida Arabi, on Facebook: <span style="color: #0b5394;">"How is it that narcissists and psychopaths can love bomb their partners so heavily, only to suddenly withdraw, devalue, or attempt to “replace” one person with another? Why do you feel like the narcissist or psychopath no longer “sees” you, is bored with you or that you cease to exist when you challenge the narcissist’s ego by standing up for yourself? Psychologists have a surprising answer to these questions."</span><br /><br />This ends up at her Thought Catalog article, <a href="https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2024/01/the-reason-narcissists-love-bomb-and-devalue-their-partners-so-easily-according-to-psychology/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">The Reason Narcissists Love Bomb and Devalue Their Partners So Easily, According to Psychology</a>. <br /> Here is an excerpt from her article (written in blue):<br /> <span style="color: #0b5394;">You’ve heard of the phrase, "out of sight, out of mind." But did you know it applies to the mindset of narcissistic and psychopathic individuals? <i>Object constancy</i> is a term to describe the ability to maintain a consistent perception of objects or people regardless of whether they are physically present or if there are changes to their behaviors, emotional states, or appearance. For example, children exhibit object constancy when they begin to realize that when their parent has left the room, they have not abandoned them and will usually return. Adults have an expanded sense of object constancy in their relationships, as they are able to still maintain bonds and relationships to people even during minor, temporary conflicts or experiencing emotions of being upset at the person. Psychologists have suggested that narcissistic people can have a distorted sense of emotional “object constancy,” in relationships, which means they can devalue people they once put on a pedestal quite easily because they refuse to hold the simultaneous state of loving and maintaining a bond with someone, while also being upset with them. <br /> However, as a researcher specializing in narcissism, I would say it’s more accurate to include that not only do narcissists have a distorted sense of object constancy, they also lack empathy and have an excessive sense of entitlement. These are the driving forces behind their harmful and aggressive behaviors. “Out of sight, out of mind” applies to them emotionally because if their ego is harmed or sense of entitlement rattled, they begin to devalue the very partners they once love bombed heavily without much empathy or remorse, not caring how building a close relationship with someone and then suddenly pretending that person doesn’t exist may affect the other person. <br /></span> <span style="color: #0b5394;">This lack of object constancy, lack of empathy, and distorted emotional permanence is also what drives narcissistic and psychopathic people to pit people against one other and maintain a harem of people to “play” with. They seem to devalue other people at the drop of a hat to pursue someone or something they deem more novel or exciting at a moment’s notice. Narcissists do this because they are attracted to status and prestige, so they’re always on the lookout for people who can boost their image. They place people into categories of “high value” and “low value” based on what these people can do for them or offer to them at the time. That is why it may seem arbitrary and off-putting when they once put you on a pedestal, making you feel important and cherished, only to suddenly pursue another target.</span><br /> <span style="color: #0b5394;">People who were married to narcissistic individuals can attest to the shock and betrayal they experienced, when, after being the object of the narcissist’s affections and hyper-fixation, they were suddenly devalued or triangulated with another target. Or, partners of narcissists share how they experienced the rage, gaslighting, stonewalling or silent treatment of the narcissist when they stood up to the narcissist, because the narcissist does not allow themselves to keep both states of, “I still have a close relationship with this person and love them,” and “They have hurt my ego,” in mind at the same time. Narcissistic individuals often opt to focus instead on how that person has challenged their ego and entitlement, rather than focus on how this bond can be improved with their partner’s feedback, or create an even stronger bond with more trust and vulnerability. ... <br /></span><br />The whole article is worth reading. <br /><br />The point of showing her article to you is that for a person who is not a narcissist or psychopath, this will cause trauma. The rest of us are not built to invest hours every day, and years of our time into a relationship that can go "non-existent" in a second over our partner's ego issues, or because they compulsively decided we are "too low value" for them. <br /><br />Okay, so let us say that we get that they have devalued us to "low stature", and we move on with our lives. <br /><br />But sometimes narcissists circle back around to us because we might do something that gives them a double take. Maybe you are in a relationship with someone who is deemed to be "high value" to them. They might even be afraid that the other person is of higher stature than they are. Or we make a lot of money at something, which makes them feel insecure (that we are on a higher hierarchy of money than they are). I think any number of us can count the times narcissists "showed up" suddenly - one woman I know had an art show and her estranged cruel mother decided to show up to it, and wanted to buy all of the paintings. It was very possible that she wanted to buy the paintings to destroy them because she had destroyed most of her daughter's paintings before. <br /><br />It can happen with exes too, and someone who had been cruel to me (complete with discard) just happened to show up (with a gift) when he heard the news that I was involved in a project that he had always said he wanted to be a part of. I knew enough about narcissism by then not to trust him at all. <br /><br />If narcissists decide to come back at some point, you can see from Arabi's article that they are not doing so for good reasons. It is either to enact a kind of Trojan Horse of reinstating the love bombing to get revenge or to enact a retaliation for their bruised ego, or because they want <i>your success</i>, or because they miss your brand of narcissistic supply and think you can help elevate them by the company you keep. Love for them means "You are of some utility to me"; it does not mean what the rest of us mean. <br /><br />If you do accept them a second time, I think you'll see that they'll do another discard no matter what they promise (narcissists <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/02/can-narcissist-or-abuser-ever-keep.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">do not keep promises</a>, especially these kind). They might keep a promise for the most mundane of matters, and even there they make excuses and slip up. <br /><br />The second time they come back and do another discard it can be quite a bit more traumatic than the first time. What I have seen and heard in asking survivors of narcissistic abuse how they survived narcissistic discards twice are these take-aways. If you are discarded in your late teens or early twenties, and are never tempted to go back, you have the best chance of healing, leading a normal happy life, not obsessing over a discard, and building your life from scratch. You can forget about the people who hurt you more easily. If you are discarded again by that same person in middle age, or in your fifties or sixties, it is much, much harder, and I bet PTSD symptoms are through the roof too. Perhaps it is because we are built in such a way where when we are 18 - 20 years old, our lives are more about exploring a grown up world and peer relationships, and moving around a lot, and constantly getting to know new people, that to get bogged down in a toxic partnership/marriage is not as likely. The testosterone levels tend to be higher then for both men and women. You can move on from them more easily because most people in their late teens and early twenties have fluid changeable lives any way, and you are at your healthiest to endure what ever trauma symptoms may temporarily plague you. <br /><br />It does not always happen this way, however. When I was in my early twenties and part of a friendship circle of people my own age in my city, a young man from the group had been suddenly, and without explanation, discarded by his girlfriend, and hung himself after pleading with her numerous times to talk to him. I thought about him more than usual because another friend I saw a lot rented the apartment where he hung himself. I ruminated about his self esteem, whether his self esteem had been knocked down in childhood or in his teens before he met his girlfriend, or if it had only been knocked down by her. I never found the answer. <br /><br />The specter of suicide can be an issue. Seconds-long discards with cruelty behind them, and the silent treatment following the discard, and lots of stonewalling can, in some cases, produce a suicide. While most of us would care about that, be concerned with how he was handling the issue, and be effected by his suicide (certainly the friendship circle did), I somehow doubt that a narcissist would. As long as they feel they can say "It wasn't my fault" they move on. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">IN RELATIONSHIPS WITH CHILDREN</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Obviously children experiencing a trauma bond with a parent or other care-taking adult, and an on-going cycle of the false narrative blaming cycle is going to be tremendously damaging to the child. It is nothing better than a hostage situation. And because children don't have choices like adults have, and because the power imbalance is so wide, the likelihood of child abuse, even physical abuse over the false things they are blamed for, is high. <br /><br />On their own, children don't have many choices when they are falsely accused. The only way that they might get help is through another adult calling Child Protective Services or a mandated reporter knowing that a child is being mistreated over a parent's false accusations continually. <br /><br />And narcissistic parents tend to falsely accuse other people and their own children (or more often their <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">scapegoat child</a></b>) a lot so that they don't have to <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/09/how-shame-is-core-struggle-of-most.html" target="_blank">feel shame</a></b>. In a way, that is why they give a hug or some other form affection at the end of their diatribes (after they have found the car keys in their own pocket after accusing their child of taking them, for instance). It keeps them from having to apologize, admit that they are wrong, admit that they are hurting a child, admit that they are damaging a child with these continuous cycles of false accusations, or admit that any shame can be attributed to them. It is probably also done to ensure to themselves that they still have a bond with the child. <br /><br /><span style="color: #990000;">But the damage is more likely to be extreme with children. All children are afraid of their parents going missing or abandoning them. All children are afraid that their parent won't be able to provide for them (food, clothing, shelter, teaching life skills). All children are afraid of divorce (<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2018/10/abuse-and-step-families.html" target="_blank">for good reason</a></b>). All children are afraid of punishments, especially unjust ones. All children are afraid of not being liked or loved by a parent (shown contempt or criticized instead). All children are afraid of adult rage and violence. All children are afraid of being so dependent on adults for their survival. All children are afraid that this survival dependence is also tied to attention and love from a parent (that it can be taken away). All children are afraid that if a parent doesn't love them that supervision, being fair, being protective and putting safety first, being just, being emotionally self regulated will be taken away - and that if the parent isn't adult enough to take on challenges that a child cannot handle because of their age and size, then that can be pretty scary too. </span>- there is a reason I wrote this in red ... <br /><br />Narcissists know these fears because they were once a child too. But they are more likely to play on these fears, take advantage of the fears, and use them repeatedly as threats, in <b><a href="https://www.fiphysician.com/dog-whistling-narcissists/" target="_blank">dog-whistling comments</a></b>, in head games, in manipulations, in power trips, and some parents, especially narcissistic parents who have some sociopathic qualities, actually go through with all or most of them to show a child (even an adult child) that the parent doesn't really love them, need them or want them. <br /><br />If one or two of these things from the list (in red above) is missing, like a parent not being able to provide for them, it is challenging for a child. It can also be traumatic depending on how bad it is. If half of them are missing, the child is walking around on eggshells wondering when the next crisis will happen. If all of them are missing, it is a game changer and PTSD is inevitable, as well as a really, really sick, toxic, and dangerous (for the child) trauma bond. <br /><br />Let me say it this way: <br /><br />So let us say that the parent is a rage-a-holic, that any kind of consistent love is missing, that they are violent, that they don't protect you from the violence of others, that they provide meals that aren't particularly nutritious (like feed you boxed cereal for breakfast and dinner, where you get a real meal from school lunch or the neighbors), where they are telling you that they are going to get a divorce from a parent who actually loves you, where they tell you that you "Can run away any old time" or threaten to abandon you, that's only half of the issues above that you are forced to deal with. I would argue that one or two of these issues, like improper physical care coupled with an angry temper, is too much for children to deal with. But if you add in all of the rest of the ingredients from that paragraph, with even more like: erroneous unfounded blaming, gaslighting, silent treatments, some actual abandonments, actual withdrawals of love over short or long periods of time, hyper-criticisms, contempt for who the child is and the way they do things, comparing the child negatively to siblings or other children, and all of the other ingredients from that paragraph, it is way too overwhelming for any child, even the strongest most resilient of them. Then if you add in more than I have mentioned like exposing the child to a parent's alcoholism or drug addictions or to family members with those issues, being abused by others with no protection or resolution from the adults, <b>retaliatory or tit-for-tat parenting</b>, false imprisonment, sexual abuse, war, street violence, more criticism than love, that child is going to have PTSD so severe that it is likely to be life long. It can be mitigated in adulthood with trauma therapy, domestic violence therapy, and going "no contact" with people who display more than a few narcissistic traits, but it will never go away completely ... absolutely calm environments are the best bet. Even there it is not full proof: too many human beings seem to want to start wars, retaliate, start pointless grand-standing arguments, and destroy ... <br /><br />And by the way, most scapegoat children of families have to live with more of a predominance of the fears (that end up coming true) listed in the red paragraph. It's no wonder that so many scapegoats I have met all seem to go "no contact" and are "nature bugs". Humans are difficult animals to cope with, and especially when you've been brought up with so many loud arguments that never go in a positive direction (mainly because narcissists require that they chronically get their own way), you can't hear any more rages, criticisms, DARVOs, loud arguments, without symptoms or blanking out altogether. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />So how do trauma-bonded, scapegoated children act? <br /><br />There are so many symptoms other than an inability to sleep, headaches, stomach aches, nightmares and anxiety, that I'll take that up in other posts when I get more into the trauma section of the blog. At the very least, it can impact the developing brain, and all of that hypervigilance can effect the heart too (medical issues with the heart can happen early in life even if you have a good diet, and stay away from smoking, alcohol and caffeine). It is what Bessel van der Kolk writes about, and particularly for the well know book he wrote called <b><a href="https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tVP1zc0TCrJMzRLsUg2YPSSKMlIVUjKT6lUyE5NLShWAHGLk_OLUgEFqQ1g&q=the+body+keeps+the+score&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS1048US1048&oq=the+body+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBwgCEC4YgAQyEAgAEAAY4wIYsQMYyQMYgAQyEwgBEC4YxwEYsQMYyQMY0QMYgAQyBwgCEC4YgAQyBggDEEUYOTIKCAQQLhjUAhiABDIKCAUQLhjUAhiABDIKCAYQLhjUAhiABDIKCAcQLhjUAhiABDIHCAgQLhiABDINCAkQLhivARjHARiABNIBCTc5MzBqMGoxNagCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8" target="_blank">"The Body Keeps the Score"</a></b>. <br /><br />All of the anxiety, hypervigilance, being on the powerless end of the relationship, being abused, condescended, insulted, used for diabolical purposes, and abandoned can have significant medical issues sooner or later. <br /><br />In the meantime, here are some healthy videos and writings by various psychologists, researchers and experts: <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">VIDEOS<br />(WITH SOME OF MY OWN COMMENTS)</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">"What Do Narcissists Gain by Your Trauma Bond"<br />by Dr. Les Carter for the Surviving Narcissism channel:<br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vuYxRTDC1AY" width="320" youtube-src-id="vuYxRTDC1AY"></iframe><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">I have transcribed his video so that you can study his words carefully (his words are in a mustard color):<br /><br /><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">When you hear the concept of trauma bonding relative to a relationship with a narcissist, we often and rightly will focus on the difficult experiences that you have because of the narcissist's behavior towards you, and it's so necessary for you to understand the dynamic of trauma bonds. </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">Today I want to help you find out how you're going to manage your end of the trauma bond with a narcissist by understanding what's going on inside of them, what they feel like they are gaining from having their side of the trauma bond with you. </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">Now before we get too deep into all of that, let's first remind ourselves what we're talking about when we refer to having a trauma bond. When we talk about psychological trauma, basically we're talking about you receiving so much negative stimulation in that moment, you simply don't have the bandwidth, you don't have the inner wherewithal to process what's going on in front of you. It's too over-powering. And then we can add the word "complex trauma" and that implies that the trauma repeats itself over, and over, and over. Now when you have a trauma bond, basically what we're talking about is a relationship that's based upon a strong power differential. And guess what that equation you're on. </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">Narcissists have an on-going need to keep you in the "down position". They're going to argue with you a whole lot. They can have major anger when ever you try to have a dialogue with them regarding any difference or difficulty. You're not going to have a constructive dialog at all. There is lots of character assassination. These individuals have a vested interest in keeping you feeling inadequate, or inferior. They'll put guilt and shame upon you. And specifically when I talk about shame, they want to keep you believing that your character is truly defective. They demand blind loyalty. They have extremely strong control features in the way that they come toward you. And lots of double standards. They'll isolate you from other individuals. As you can tell just from this description, a word that we often use relating to the trauma bonding is "toxic". This is a toxic way of engaging with other individuals. </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">When we're talking about trauma bonds, we're talking unhealthy attachments that are on-going. </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">Now I know that on your side of the equation, you can readily relate to certain feelings or experiences. You might end up trying to filter your decisions or priorities through that narcissist. "Well, am I going to set this person off?" Sometimes you just wonder "What's the next false move that I might make that's going to get them angry at me?" So you become guarded and calculating. You can commonly feel very angry in reverse towards them, and you can have a build up of hurt and pain, and resentment, and all that goes with that. Often there can even be times when you feel the need to cover for the narcissist's anger towards you because you can feel so embarrassed and humiliated by the experiences that you have. </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span><span style="color: #7f6000;">But then let's go to that question - we know that this has a debilitating effect on you - but what's in it for the narcissist? What are they hoping to gain by creating this illicit form of bonding with you? And it's so essential for you to understand what's in their mind, what drives them because the narcissist definitely wants you to think you're "the problem". When in fact, no, what's going on is that they're carrying a great deal - and when I say a great deal - of psychological damage from the inside out, but they want you to think you are deficient because of heir unwillingness to examine themselves. <br /></span>(4:50)<br /><br /></span><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">So what does the narcissist gain by keeping you bonded in this traumatic kind of way? </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">Now first, let's begin with the understanding that the trauma bond between the narcissist and you is all about the narcissist's pain management strategy. </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">Now you may think that is truly strange. You see, these individuals are already damaged individuals in their own right. Frankly many of them are already living in their own version of Hell and some of the ones who grew up as the golden child already want to perpetuate the myth that they are special. But make no mistake. They operate with an illogic: "The way for me to manage my pain is to make you have more pain. The way to make me feel like an adequate person is to make you feel inadequate. When you are down, then I feel validated. I'm not as pitiable as you."</span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">And so as a result, narcissists in their own strange pain management try to fend off their pain by putting it on to you. And they feed off of the fact that you're hurting because it's a way of reminding themselves, "See, there's the inadequate person right there."</span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">Much of this is going on in a subconscious level, but none-the-less this is their strange psychological math: "I get rid of my pain by making you feel pain."</span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">Now in addition, I mentioned trauma bonds are based upon a power differential. One of the things narcissists feel like they gain by maintaining the bond with you is it becomes a compensation of their own fear of powerlessness. In the mind of the narcissist, their assumption is that relationships are based upon dominance and submission. That's the psychological language they learn and so they've thought to themselves, "Well, I definitely don't want to be on the submissive end of it, so I'll be on the dominate end of it", and they will come at you with all sorts of power tactics, because they must keep you in subjection and subordination to them to build up their pitiable weak ego.</span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">Another thing we can say is that narcissists carry on the inside - and again it can be that they won't admit this necessarily - but they carry a great deal psychological fatigue. You know and I know that relationships carry a great deal of work and concentration and patience for them to unfold for us to build a solid foundation, and narcissists have the thought, "I don't have time for all of that! I don't want to put in the work; I don't want to invest myself not knowing what the outcome is going to be", so in their psychological fatigue they go straight to the finish line and say, "Look, let's just establish that I'm good and you're not good. I'm excellent; you're terrible." And they refuse to live in the patience that's required to establish a healthy love of respect and honor. It just doesn't happen overnight. But to the narcissist it's like "I don't have time for that."</span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">In addition, narcissists harbor a lot of self directed insults. And again, this is not what they will say out loud to you. But in their mind, they "Hate what people have done to me. And they think I'm going to take the inadequate side of the equation? No way!" Instead what they'll do is to go in the opposite direction and say, "Well, I'll tell you what. I actually hate what you are!" And it takes them away from hearing the message that says "People out there have rejected me. I just reject you." It's again, a compensation. <br /><br />Or they can think to themselves, "I've been subjected to much judgement and condemnation, or being on the outside looking in, so if I can make you look worse than me, I'll be happy to judge you." And so they need you to be inadequate to take the focus off of their own internal psychological confusion, which is why they put so much psychological energy in to keeping you down. All of that anger, and all of that brash, and pushy and contemptuous way of living - it is all a part of their compensation for their inner sense of inadequacy. They have an empty interior. They do not have a well-conceived philosophy of what brings meaning or purpose to life. Instead it's all about being on a grading system, and they have to be on the high end, which means they require you to be on the low end. <br /><br /></span><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">So, we go back to that question: "What does the narcissist gain by keeping you trauma bonded to them?" </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">They gain a diversion from their own inner confusion. They gain the capacity to go into denial of their own fears and hurts (like: "That's not me!"). <br /><br />They gain dominance as a cover for their powerlessness. <br /><br />And so much of what they do is such a matter of projection - they see in you all of the confusion that they refuse to come to terms with on the inside of themselves, and then along with projection, they love to gaslight. In other words, if they can keep you confused about what's really going on, they win. And so what we're trying to do here is to clear up some of that gaslighting, and remind us that the world view that they have is so inappropriate, and it is so illogical. </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">I mean, for example, "My self respect arises from insulting you." That doesn't make sense. </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">Or "My feeling of power arises from wiping out your ability to make decisions."</span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">Or "My sense of pleasure is derived from you having pain." </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">Or "My hostility I have on the inside is satisfied by displacing it on to another individual." </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">I mean their whole world view makes no sense what-so-ever. So, basically by understanding what is going on inside the narcissist as they try to keep you bonded to them, I'm hoping that you can see that you're being used. And you're being used to prop up their poorly constructed interior. And you know, "If I'm on the receiving end of all of the messages and the abuse and condescension that goes with this, my response is, 'I didn't sign up for this. This doesn't help me, and frankly it doesn't help the narcissist, therefor I'm going to withdraw from the role that was assigned to me without my permission. I need my freedom.'" </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">... I so want you to break free from the bonds that the narcissist holds you into. ... </span></div></div></div></div></div><br /></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">"THIS Is What Trauma Bonding With A Narcissist Does To A Decent Person"<br />by Dr. Les Carter for the Surviving Narcissism channel:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7tPaTyy1zgM" width="320" youtube-src-id="7tPaTyy1zgM"></iframe></div><br /><div>I have transcribed his video up until 7:13 so that you can study his words carefully (his words are in a mustard color):<br /><br /><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">... When you've been bonded with a malignant narcissist (inevitably that's who this person would be), it takes such a toll on you that you begin to wonder is "Is there something really and deficient about me?"</span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">That's part of what trauma bonding does. </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">And I'm here to tell you "No." You have to understand that the problem that happens with trauma bonding is that with a very pathological person, who themselves is very disturbed and dis-regulated, they are the problem. They want you to think you're the problem, and it's so necessary for you to see what they do to you so that you can recognize it is more about them than it is about you. So we need to adjust some of the thoughts and feelings that you carry about yourself. </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">Now before we get into that, I've actually read quite a few comments I have seen from people who have been in trauma bonds, but let's remind ourselves what we're talking about when we use that term "trauma bonding". </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">Basically the person who has been trauma bonded feels very self limited. They are mentally and emotionally exhausted and they feel very unworthy specifically because of an ongoing toxic relationship with a hyper controlling narcissist, a master manipulator. And one of the things we know about trauma bonding is that as time passes, the recipient of that toxicity begins to feel weaker and weaker relative to the narcissist, and of course the giver of the toxicity, the narcissist, becomes more and more diabolical. By the way, do you understand the meaning of the word, diabolical? We also have "diablo" in other languages. But it comes from a Latin root word that just means "the devil." It's evil. And it's truly evil when a malignant narcissist in their malignant mannerisms says "I need to make sure you know who's in charge around here." They grind you into the ground. They want you to have little to no belief in yourself, because they are going to fill you with them. And so the narcissist demands your subjugation ... Over time when you've been around someone that long, you become habituated to the game that they go to. You're trying to seek peace to get rid of conflict, that you feel that if you do leave, then you're disloyal, you're wrong or somehow you're the impossible one - that's the bond that happens. You stay stuck to them because the malignant narcissist lets you know "If you do something away from me then that means there is something terrible about you. You need to stay underneath my subjection."<br /><br /></span><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">Now I have a whole list here. I just sat down at my desk and I wrote it out and these are comments I've received from viewers such as yourself and from other individuals I've spoken with and I want to read these to you. And as I do, I want to see if you can identify with some or maybe all of these comments because this is what happens to a decent person when they have been trauma bonded to a narcissist, inevitably a malignant narcissist. Here we go - </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><span>... "I totally lost myself. I can't tell you how hard I've tried to hold the relationship together. I constantly felt it was my job to make peace. Nothing, and I mean nothing, ever satisfied that person. I had to choose to be a 'yes person'</span><span> or face serious wrath." <br />How many of you have worried about that one? <br />"There was lots of verbal abuse and constant shame." <br /><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">You know what that's like? <br /><br />"After all of the controlling demands, I would be left wondering 'Who am I? And how the Hell did I get here? I had to Comply," with a capital "C, "to that person. And I hated it. My worth, my self respect weren't just stolen, they were trampled upon. To this day, I struggle with doubt and profound grief." </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">These are words from people who have been in trauma bonds. </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">"I feel like damaged goods. Will I ever be accepted or lovable again?"</span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">"I was told repeatedly if I left, 'it will not end well for you.' I felt so alone. I had to get away from the toxic fumes, but I felt terrified."</span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;">You know, I read through these kinds of comments and there are more and I know that many of you can recall or add to the list here. I read through comments like this and I'm thinking, "Yea. This is what happens. This is what trauma bonding does to a decent person. That narcissist who has such a strong control agenda and has somehow convinced himself or herself that it's a reasonable thing to grind you into the ground - they give you so many messages and there are so many experiences where they rob you of your own decency, that this is what happens to an otherwise decent individual." </span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #7f6000;"><span>And I want you to understand that if you've been on the receiving end of this, you don't have to stay. We call it "trauma BONDING" - the narcissist wants to bond to you, but it really is okay to say "No! No! I can't do this." And so I want to give you a few thoughts here. If you've been associated with a narcissist who has tried to bond you to them through this trauma and toxicity, I'm going to see how we can figure out how to get away from that. </span><span>... </span></span></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>When Dr. Carter talks about some of his clients, or the people leaving comments, who feel like they are half a person, an invisible person, a person they don't know or recognize within themselves is called an "echoist state". Who you are is constantly about a narrative that the narcissist has decided to be in control of, so it causes internal confusion: "Am I really as terrible as the narcissist says I am?" No, but that is their agenda in a trauma bond - to constantly make you feel that you are not up to their standards. They are judging you in the extreme to the point where you no longer recognize your version of who you are and sometimes their version of who you are either. You are confused, and in most cases you don't have time to think, because they have some other criticism to present to you. That's another subject I hope to take up soon too. <br /><br />In the rest of the video he tells how to psychologically break the trauma bond by noting that it is not your duty to protect, defend, constantly apologize to, be loyal to, and stay with a person who is continually putting you down, attributing the worst qualities to you, who treats you like you don't matter past what you can do to regulate their rage and need for power and control, and who is grinding you down to take control of you in every way they possibly can regardless of how it is making you feel (a very diminished version of yourself, or not knowing who you are at all other than the narcissist's constant overbearing berating and shaming sessions). <br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The following video by Lisa A. Romano, a life coach specializing in healing from narcissistic abuse, is so good! Not only does she explain what is going on, she consistently has a warm compassionate delivery:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> <b>RECOMMENDED</b>:<br />"BREAKING TRAUMA BONDS WITH A NARCISSIST/" WHY it's SO HARD TO LEAVE A NARCISSISTIC RELATIONSHIP<br />by Lisa A. Romano, Life Coach:<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iN57iVgZiA8" width="320" youtube-src-id="iN57iVgZiA8"></iframe></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-XBoQjoW-g&t=381s" target="_blank">"SIGNS YOU'RE IN A TRAUMA BOND AND TRAUMA TRANCE"</a></b> - <span style="text-align: center;">by Dr. Kim Sage (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkpCmmVbDr4" target="_blank">8 SIGNS OF MAMA TRAUMA BONDING: COMPLEX PTSD AND BORDERLINE/NARCISSISTIC RELATIONSHIPS WITH MOMS</a></b> </span>- <span style="text-align: center;">by Dr. Kim Sage (You Tube)</span><span style="text-align: center;"><br /><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp--1lNbQ1o" target="_blank">5 Tips to Help Support Someone with a Trauma Bond</a></span><b> </b>-<b> </b>by Doctor Donnelly Snipes (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8sMgmPsb_A" target="_blank">12 Potent Strategies Narcissist Use to Sabotage Breakup Attempts. "Humanization" Trick & Others</a></b> - by psychologist Ross Rosenberg (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk1ExnDC_HI" target="_blank">Origins of Codependency (Self-Love Deficit Disorder). Recorded 2012. EMM = Pathological Narcissist</a></b> - by psychologist Ross Rosenberg (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGkjYKvvp3I" target="_blank">12 Steps to Overcome the "Narcissistic Storm." Safely & Strategically Setting Boundaries</a></b> - by psychologist Ross Rosenberg (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qByRP3zJ8Os" target="_blank">Narcissistic Parents: When 'Honoring' Them HURTS you</a></b> - by Jerry Wise, MA, MS, CLC (You Tube) <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGXv3RC5dno" target="_blank">Narcissistic Parents: The Damage of their RAGE & Explosive Outbursts</a></b> - by Jerry Wise, MA, MS, CLC (You Tube) </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChTUw1WPo9U" target="_blank">Narcissistic Parents: Ways You Are Invisible to Them</a></b> - by Jerry Wise, MA, MS, CLC (You Tube) </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EqbuAlrilQ" target="_blank">8 Signs Its A Trauma Bond, Not Love</a></b> - Psych2Go (a consortium of psychologists), You Tube <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">FURTHER READING<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_bonding" target="_blank">Traumatic Bonding</a></b> - Wikipedia<br /><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/relationships/signs-of-traumatic-bonding-bonded-to-the-abuser" target="_blank">6 Signs of Trauma Bonding</a></b> - by Jenna Fletcher and medically reviewed by Lori Lawrenz, Ph.D. for Psych Central<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/lifetime-connections/202105/breaking-the-trauma-bond-forged-narcissistic-parents" target="_blank">Breaking the Trauma Bond Forged by Narcissistic Parents (Tips for undoing a dysfunctional parent's hold on you.) </a></b>- by Suzanne Degges-White, Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br /><br /><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_parent#:~:text=Children%20of%20narcissistic%20parents%20are,love%20and%20appreciation%20with%20conformity." target="_blank">Narcissistic Parent</a></b> - Wikipedia <br /><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/blog/recovering-narcissist/2019/03/narcissists-use-trauma-bonding-and-intermittent-reinforcement-to-get-you-addicted-to-them-why-abuse-survivors-stay" target="_blank">Narcissists Use Trauma Bonding and Intermittent Reinforcement To Get You Addicted To Them: Why Abuse Survivors Stay</a></b> - by Shahida Arabi, MA for Psych Central<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.newportinstitute.com/resources/mental-health/narcissistic-parent/#:~:text=Being%20valued%20more%20for%20what,the%20energy%20in%20the%20room." target="_blank">How Having a Narcissistic Parent Impacts Young Adult Mental Health</a></b> - Newport Institute (treatment center)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://mhcsandiego.com/trauma-bond-with-a-narcissist/" target="_blank">What Does a Trauma Bond with a Narcissist Look Like?</a></b> - Mental Health Center of San Diego<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/26/psychologist-these-2-parenting-styles-raise-narcissistic-adults.html" target="_blank">PSYCHOLOGY AND RELATIONSHIPS (There are 2 styles of parenting that lead kids to become narcissistic adults, says psychologist who’s treated dozens of them)</a></b> - by Aditi Shikant for CNBC (Make It section)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://jreidtherapy.com/trauma-bonds-in-narcissistic-abuse/" target="_blank">Break Free of the Trauma Bonds in Narcissistic Abuse</a></b> - by Jay Reid, psychotherapist for his own website<br /><br /><b><a href="https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2023/01/10-shocking-ways-to-break-a-trauma-bond-with-a-narcissist/" target="_blank">10 Shocking Ways To Break A Trauma Bond With A Narcissist</a></b> - by Shahida Arabi for Thought Catalog</div></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.sofia.com.sg/7-stages-of-trauma-bonding/" target="_blank">7 Stages of Trauma Bonding: Why Leaving Is Hard and How to Stop It</a></b> - by Gyenn Ow for Sofia Wellness Clinic</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.saferplaces.co.uk/blog/traumabond" target="_blank">Are You in a Trauma Bond?</a></b> - Lexie (Children and Family Worker) for Safer Places, UK<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">FOUND ON FACEBOOK<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/NICABM" target="_blank">from NICABM</a> </b>on Facebook:<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwnWqhKd_96Mi1lXKs655LpjaGn8T8aaoMsl1LYsfJ8Tn-xvA3_ezgSTDBcMxBHvoGBkI6jUax4xgIsldxQCoSvxeyz0I8-KJfDxv9ybv629aKXtQUTwJpAAP6D7xILL9GfwTSfjYb6NAlt9Aeboj75jWPe2eqE2S2_ujJEjkE8QfZd6-o9hJkzH7PN9k/s575/Bessel%20MD%20IV.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="575" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwnWqhKd_96Mi1lXKs655LpjaGn8T8aaoMsl1LYsfJ8Tn-xvA3_ezgSTDBcMxBHvoGBkI6jUax4xgIsldxQCoSvxeyz0I8-KJfDxv9ybv629aKXtQUTwJpAAP6D7xILL9GfwTSfjYb6NAlt9Aeboj75jWPe2eqE2S2_ujJEjkE8QfZd6-o9hJkzH7PN9k/s16000/Bessel%20MD%20IV.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">also<b> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/NICABM" target="_blank">from NICABM</a> </b>on Facebook:<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSidBfMgZ1lKtOLqannzJnLwim3Dne3FY0lY-faxy5oTtpgrLTn0kh9JN37c0Q1lAv0WW7C8os7799_cMJbwCp4IG1G-QS2Mysl5rtd4YZOs-k75tNveoiA7LTchimzPvJgOscUzHz_fTz5TaZR_k0_KxfWE-Dc9vSMDneclx_fdwKgymAtcQlfcYpsUs/s500/Bessel%20MD%20VI.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSidBfMgZ1lKtOLqannzJnLwim3Dne3FY0lY-faxy5oTtpgrLTn0kh9JN37c0Q1lAv0WW7C8os7799_cMJbwCp4IG1G-QS2Mysl5rtd4YZOs-k75tNveoiA7LTchimzPvJgOscUzHz_fTz5TaZR_k0_KxfWE-Dc9vSMDneclx_fdwKgymAtcQlfcYpsUs/s16000/Bessel%20MD%20VI.jpg" /></a><br /><br />From <b><a href="https://www.shahidaarabi.com/" target="_blank">Shahida Arabi</a><br /></b>Note: This one seems to be said to the gaslighters and not the gaslit:<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrPZzNHOCgXe8L20Zk-PPVcWrZ-JTg-TkewgeRh0XNHPOMg3heKgtMpZPLyliQ1Co-OVbCeNvsRLlwkzrT9yrAtzScJdl9joVSdIc0lm283yX7Mns4zxnWBcCT9wDpuvAWDSx9xiRp_FIhRlSECi6Nrz7sXCUf8cFvly3P6kdTqwtYXVTmq1Yq-h0S1GI/s502/gaslighting%20arabi%20quote.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrPZzNHOCgXe8L20Zk-PPVcWrZ-JTg-TkewgeRh0XNHPOMg3heKgtMpZPLyliQ1Co-OVbCeNvsRLlwkzrT9yrAtzScJdl9joVSdIc0lm283yX7Mns4zxnWBcCT9wDpuvAWDSx9xiRp_FIhRlSECi6Nrz7sXCUf8cFvly3P6kdTqwtYXVTmq1Yq-h0S1GI/s16000/gaslighting%20arabi%20quote.jpg" /></a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-22407064220575291702024-01-15T13:54:00.000-08:002024-01-28T11:35:53.151-08:00Do Scapegoats of Narcissistic Parents Get an Inheritance? Are There Any Statistics on This Phenomenon?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi98fEP8X6Kwj2JzZfq-AUA7G2teBqnQ8EqVMBeAigx82MjjuXdgo59xiyMYPW9odVVjIgYnDNpEO2xqcv-lXr0f_4DtW_aWMCpuyPgT6EsNh7mkfYvWxwZ0GUzG0wsIYYbTAfUlp2lbgKRiRqDrLiuwqrjw_qw2WWaJz0URutHxGdV8PVWu8TCYCol8Ow/s580/Ramani%20qu%20parents%20and%20inheritances%20web.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi98fEP8X6Kwj2JzZfq-AUA7G2teBqnQ8EqVMBeAigx82MjjuXdgo59xiyMYPW9odVVjIgYnDNpEO2xqcv-lXr0f_4DtW_aWMCpuyPgT6EsNh7mkfYvWxwZ0GUzG0wsIYYbTAfUlp2lbgKRiRqDrLiuwqrjw_qw2WWaJz0URutHxGdV8PVWu8TCYCol8Ow/s16000/Ramani%20qu%20parents%20and%20inheritances%20web.jpg" /></a></div><p>I was urged to write a post about this subject, so I did. <br /><br />This post is for scapegoats of narcissistic parents, or a narcissistic family. <br /><br />This post discusses whether scapegoats and black sheep of narcissistic parents get an inheritance. Although there is not much research on this phenomenon aside from people like me, and a few therapists in the field (some of whom I discuss in this post), and some attorneys who tell the stories about scapegoat clients and the abuse they've endured by their families, and the lack of rights that they have, you can find what I found in the further reading section below, and also some opportunities for legal action, which may help you to understand what is being discussed. <br /><br />I also share a little personal story which you may relate to. </p><p>From all I have been privy to, the answer is overwhelmingly "no", most scapegoats do not receive an inheritance. Or they receive much less than their siblings, no matter what they do for the parent, and how much end-of-life-care they provide compared to their siblings. I discuss my findings below.<br /><br />No scientific studies or statistics have been done on it, but from my experiences talking to, or looking through the answers to this question from at least four hundred "scapegoats" (also referred to as estranged child abuse survivors), looking through forums, going to Alanon, CoDA, and ACOA meetings where scapegoats abound, asking questions to groups on-line and off-line, I'd say I've only seen and met a handful of scapegoats get an inheritance that matched their siblings, no matter how much caretaking they did, no matter how much "service" they provided for the family, no matter how available they were, no matter how much they sacrificed other relationships and work to care for family members. There is a reason for all of this, which I get to later in the post. <br /><br />First of all, make sure you are really a scapegoat of your family before you assume you might not get an inheritance. <br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">HOW TO TELL IF YOU ARE A SCAPEGOAT OF YOUR FAMILY</div><br />Scapegoats are treated with the <b><a href="https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-recognizing-criticism-contempt-defensiveness-and-stonewalling/" target="_blank">"Four Horseman of the Apocalypse"</a></b> (a model by John Gottman). The four horseman you receive are:<br /><br /><u>criticism:</u> Scapegoats are criticized to the extreme. A parent decides that their hair isn't right, the clothes they wear is either not right or they are attracted to clothes the parent doesn't want them to be seen in, their intelligence isn't right, their interests aren't good enough interests, their mind isn't right ("they're crazy"), their experiences aren't what the parent decides they are, their thoughts aren't what the parent decides they are, their feelings aren't what the parent decides they are, the way they speak is deemed to need constant correction by the parent, the way they are deemed to think has to be constantly corrected too, the way they feel is deemed to need constant correction too. They are deemed to be so incompetent and inept that they need to be told what to do as constantly as possible, with a lot of unsolicited advice, micro-management in the extreme, rage to keep the scapegoat from deviating out of role, because left on their own the scapegoat is told they will screw things up. They are deemed to be too sensitive to criticism (with the constant message from the parent that they need to "learn the parent's lessons" even when they are middle aged and old), they are deemed to be so hierarchically inferior to everyone else the parent knows that the very existence of this child makes them feel embarrassed and inept themselves (and of course, all of that embarrassment and ineptness gets cycled around to the child - that it's the child's fault for making the parent so inept at being a parent) - again, narcissistic parents won't take responsibility or even think about their projections ... and yes, projecting is a very common trait in narcissistic personality disorder because they refuse to self reflect). <br /> In other words, the criticism encompasses every aspect of the child: physically, emotionally, psychologically, and in terms of expression and speech. For a lot of scapegoated children, there is not a single thing that they are and do that isn't criticized and picked apart in the extreme. This would point to contempt too (the next horse of the apocalypse).<br /> Please note that the narcissistic parent who is doing all of this "obliterating criticism" can't even take a hint of criticism themselves without feeling extremely hurt, going into a rage, withdrawing all love and desire to "take care of" the child, and the parent may end the relationship with their child altogether over it. <br /> Any situation of abuse is usually riddled with a lot of hypocrisy, and this is just one instant. <br /><br /><u>contempt</u>: This doesn't sound much different than what I have written above. <br /> As we know, contempt is a type of hatred where a person is considered beneath consideration, and is deemed to be primarily deserving of scorn. <br /> Dr. Les Carter's video, <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXaq0_XqhWk" target="_blank">The Sign That a Narcissist is Beyond Redemption</a> </b>is one of the best videos I have found when it comes on how to tell if a person has a lot of contempt for you (there are others too such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlOv-99_IQI" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">"Should I Stay, or Should I Leave? 8 Signs the Narcissist is Unsafe"</a>, which is really about narcissistic contempt too, even if it doesn't have it in the title). <br /> So if we take some of that list above, and we word it this way, this is how contempt is expressed:<br />(*trigger warning*)<br /> "Your hair doesn't look good. It's always been a rat's nest. I have never liked your hair or the way you do it."<br /> "Why do you want to look like that? You just look bad. You should wear _____________."<br /> "You've always been stupid. You always have been and always will be. You can't do anything right without me, so help me God."<br /> "Why would you be interested in that? You should do this instead."<br /> "It's too bad you are so insane. If you actually could think right, you'd know I was a model parent."<br /> "You didn't experience that! I know a liar when I see one!" <br /> And so on. <br /> Contempt is also a sign that the narcissistic parent won't change, or treat you any better than they did when you were a child. In fact, contempt tends to get worse, less cognitively driven, and more automatic with deeply ingrained prejudices which I started to write about <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/12/for-scapegoats-of-narcissistic-parents.html" target="_blank">HERE</a></b> a bit, just as <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">abuse usually escalates</a></b>. <br /><br /><u>defensiveness</u>: For a narcissistic parent, defensiveness is usually expressed as rage and blame-shifting. It can also be expressed as <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/12/important-darvo-tactic-and-why-it-is.html" target="_blank">DARVO</a></b>. And as we know, rages can get dangerous for a child. Rage and child rearing and teaching children do not go together. So the child will react to the rage by retreating. Even small children know that rage is not good parenting, or about child safety, or consideration for their child, or about empathy for their child's feelings and emotional well-being. <br /> When you are a scapegoat, not only are you subjected to the parent's rage much more than your siblings are, but you are practically used to dump rage onto for the entire family, or any family member who wants you to be "the fall guy" for what they do wrong, or can't admit to the parent, or neglect to do. <br /> In order to blame you so constantly, a lot of false narratives have to be told about you. If you are a scapegoat, most of you will also have a bully sibling, who takes credit for work you do, who lies about you to get favor from the parent, who tells you that you did something they are potentially in trouble for, and so on. As a grown up, you may think this sibling has gone past the bullying stage, but then you find out he has not, and may even have all of the narcissistic traits your parent has. At least half of you will have a sibling who treats you with disdain and contempt, and will verbally make sure you know that they see you that way. Siblings who have mirrored your parent can be quite a bit worse, and even dangerous than your parent, because the bond isn't as strong, and in narcissistic families, competitiveness is emphasized over co-operation to the point where sibling bullying and sibling estrangement is not only extremely common, but in a lot of cases likely (especially if one or two of these horseman are present - and if all four are evident, there is no hope, and sibling abuse and contempt can get dangerous). <br /> Scapegoats are blamed for a lot of these false narratives by the parent. Narcissistic parents, with their black and white thinking ( i.e. the thought that they have one "all good child" and one "all bad child"), and their need for a scapegoat to take the blame off of themselves to "keep up appearances" in society, they won't care or look into false narratives. <br /> And if that wasn't bad enough, they also accuse their child of doing things they aren't doing, thinking things they aren't thinking, feeling feelings they aren't feeling, and it gets so bad that their scapegoats are continually called liars even when they aren't. <br /> And to make things unbearable, if the child doesn't go along with all of these false narratives and admit to these false versions, the parent withdraws their love, punishes and neglects the child, until the child gives in. When the child gives in, it is all the more reason to fault them for everything that goes wrong in the family. These days if there is good mandated reporting, and good child protective services, scapegoats are removed from the home and put with a relative or foster care. <br /> If you are an adult child and still being scapegoated, I would bet that you will be either "very low contact" or fully estranged from your parent or entire family eventually, sooner or later, forever, or for some long period of time. As I've said before, abuse escalates and it is impossible to stay in a scapegoat role for your family for so many reasons (and those reasons will eventually take over the blog). For most scapegoats, the bullying reaches unbearable levels eventually.<br /> In terms of defending yourself, scapegoats do try to defend themselves, but because they are outnumbered and over-powered, and there are too many adverse repercussions and punishments for telling the truth, those defenses are usually ripped down when a scapegoat is a child. The parent still tries to rip them down even when the scapegoat is an adult by trying to get the whole family to go against the scapegoat, but it is not nearly as effective as when they were children for the very reason that the scapegoat is an adult. <br /> One of the ways they try to rip down a scapegoat's defenses is by punishing them and threatening them about the Will, which is what this post is about. There are so many reasons why this will always continue to be a threat, and why you probably won't get anything from the Will regardless of how much you get back into your old scapegoat role. Which is to say that most narcissistic parents will always want that. I hope I'll make that clear further in the post. <br /> The only real defenses you have with a scapegoating parent is making it clear you don't want or need a close personal relationship from them, that it doesn't matter how many family members they talk into false narratives about you (because it is unethical and you don't respect them enough to trust them again), and getting police involved in some way, reporting incidents to police, and talking to lawyers, and I'm not kidding. <br /> The last thing a parent like this will respect is boundaries, "protection", healing, etc., from a scapegoat. You can look to the prejudiced mind to know how scapegoats in society are treated (based on race, sex, creed, religion, culture, etc). A lot of the prejudice going towards an individual scapegoat of a family, is for the same reasons.<br /><br /><u>stonewalling (particularly the silent treatment):</u> The overwhelming number of scapegoats experience stonewalling from their parent in the form of the silent treatment. When narcissists aren't getting their way, or when they want quick fixes to a problem, they give the silent treatment to their child. <br /> For some adult children, they can be given the silent treatment for decades. <br /> For underage children, as I've said before, the parent withdraws love and affection. The child is treated like they don't matter including their feelings. They are usually neglected socially, emotionally, psychologically and sometimes "punished" by absurdly long "groundings" or isolation. They are treated as outcasts. Or their needs are ignored. In more severe cases, they are ignored medically, or they aren't allowed to eat.<br /> Narcissistic parents have very little empathy, so they don't really care what their child is going through, how much damage and hurt it is creating. <br /> You can see why this would be extremely damaging for an underage child. <br /> The way that "relationship physics" works is that when a parent stonewalls, turns away, gives the silent treatment, doesn't care, the child will turn away too. <br /> The child is also likely to turn away because of the criticisms, contempt, and unreasonable, cruel and unethical defensiveness (the parent's misuse of a scapegoat as their way of defending their own crazy-making honor). The parent has turned away from the child in terms of care, empathy, and ethics, and instead replaced it with scapegoating (which is just criticism and contempt on steroids, and it is especially so when the scapegoating started when their child was a toddler, which is when narcissistic parents usually start). <br /><br />If your parent hasn't used these Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, you may not be a scapegoat (or a full scapegoat). If you weren't used as a family trash can for blame when you were a child, teenager and young adult (especially when you weren't at fault), you are probably not a scapegoat either. <br /><br />If you can identify with how the parent used these four horsemen, the rest of this post may be helpful:<br /><br />Narcissists don't love the way most of us love, with constancy and empathy (they lack both of these). So their love is without much, if any, empathy, and without constancy (they end a lot of relationships abruptly and without much thought, reflection, or self reflection put into it, even with their own children, and a spouse, or two, or three). Narcissistic love is expressed as "love of utility only" or "utilitarian love" by psychologists who study narcissism. What this means is that as long as you are providing some use or utility to them, they love you in their own "I love you because you do what I want" sort of way, but when you aren't doing what they want, even if it is a small matter, you are of no use to them and they discard you. The relationship with narcissists is always tentative. This is especially true with scapegoats. Most scapegoats experience their parent's affection as a very tentative experience, inconstant, not reliable, and in the more severe cases as anxiety-producing, nerve wracking in a <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/01/abuse-and-walking-on-eggshells-being.html" target="_blank">"walking on eggshells"</a></b> kind of way, because they know affection can be taken away. And if they are true narcissists, they will be taking affection away a lot (and also attention to your feelings). <br /><br />If you are not experiencing tentative affection, and you are wondering how tentative your parent's affection for you is, you can always test them: say "no" to something they want from you, and watch the snippy-ness or rage or withdrawal come out. They will even do this if they are meddling in your personal life (like if you say, "No. I'm not going that way with my career. I appreciate your input. It may be a great bit of advice, but I'm not going to be going that way. I'm taking a different approach."). You can be as nice about saying "no" as you want to, but they will still rage or get snippy or withdraw affection ... unless they aren't full blown narcissists. <br /><br />For the rest of us, one way to understand their love for you is quite a lot like Miss Daisy's initial relationship with her chauffer in the movie, <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_Miss_Daisy" target="_blank">Driving Miss Daisy</a></b>. In the movie, the chauffer, a black man in the south during a dangerous <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws" target="_blank">Jim Crowe Period</a></b>, stops the car on a country road to empty his bladder, but Miss Daisy objects, tells him he can wait, and treats him like one of her students. He tells her that he's not "just some back of the head, that he's a sixty some year old man, and I know when my bladder is full." - in other words, he reminds her of his humanity. <br /><br />Most narcissists don't see the humanity behind us. A child is looked at as supplying a certain thing, and a role, for the parent. It's almost like they hire you for the role they want in their life. Aside from that, you aren't important to them. <p></p><p>If you are given the role of golden child, you are supposed to uphold the image of the parent as being a faultless superior-to-everyone parent, and of upholding the image of the family as "superior" as well. The parent gives a great deal of money to the golden child usually in order to get that child to advance, succeed, and make the parent look good by telling everyone that he, the golden child, got great success, became superior in his field, because of the parent. </p><p>But narcissistic parents aren't all that they want to portray. So the golden child has to be complicit in hiding the unethical deeds narcissistic parents do, and a lot of them are, and some of them aren't. About 75 percent of narcissists cheat in their marriages, lie about their partners or lovers, lie about their children to portray themselves as a certain kind of parent, or to get others prejudiced against their scapegoat, or they are trying to hide a gambling addiction, alcoholism, stalking women, or a number of petty thefts, it can be anything. It is rare for narcissists not to be hiding something dubious, dark and that would bring them shame. And that's where you, the scapegoat, come in. <br /><br />Many narcissists know they aren't the best citizens either, so they must blame-shift it all on to a scapegoat to make sure no one suspects them. They must portray the scapegoat as being a liar, as being disloyal, as getting the parent into legal or social trouble, what ever the narcissist is. It is about <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/06/do-abusers-project-their-thoughts-and.html" target="_blank">projecting</a></b> all the "bad things" they do, and are, and how they plan their deeds, on to you. It is also about <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/04/narcissists-and-blame-shifting-avoiding.html" target="_blank">blame-shifting</a></b> it on to you too, so that they remain, in society's eyes, to be the faultless, loving parent that their friends assume they are. "It was my child who did all of that instead!" - and they get other family members to scapegoat their scapegoat too.<br /><br />Scapegoats get rewarded for submitting to the role. The way that they are rewarded is to be tentatively accepted into the group ... until the next time that someone in the family wants to blame and burden the scapegoat child again. <br /><br />In my research on it, scapegoats do not tend to get rewarded with money unless the golden child is being punished at the same time. This is to say that they hope that by giving money to the scapegoat, the golden child will fight to be on the parent's good side again, and submit to the control and demands of the parent once again. Once the golden child submits, the money stops going to the scapegoat and goes back to the golden child. <br /><br />Because children are likely to admit to faults they don't have under pressure, or to just go silent when blamed, even when they don't want to, and when it goes against their ethics, it mostly is to get the torture, the neglect, the rejection and abuse to stop. Because there is torture or abuse involved in scapegoating, it is much as the founders of America found: that torture doesn't get anyone to confess the truth; it gets them to confess to anything that stops the torture. It is why we no longer draw and quarter a person into four pieces with horses, or use the rack and the screw, disembowelment weapons, or remove criminals' fingernails, teeth and eyes without anesthesia, that the Europeans used to do during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.</p><p>Small children are most traumatized and threatened by cruel sudden abandonments, neglect, long periods of withdrawal of affection, and smear campaigns by their parents, which is why these types of personality-disordered parents use abuse so much with their scapegoated children. The parent, who uses this, means to hurt them where the child will hurt the most, to get a child to submit to being the scapegoat that the rest of the family can blame. If you were hurt by your parent where they wounded you in a deep way, the most traumatic and destructive way that they could, then you are a scapegoat. It also shows a gross <b><a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/crime-and-abuse-power-offenses-and-offenders-beyond-reach-law" target="_blank">abuse of power</a></b>. <br /><br />Most narcissists and sociopathic parents have scapegoats (it's part of the territory of their disorders, and I'd bet the majority of those scapegoats in their families are girls and women, or <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb9yXZHLGPQ" target="_blank">the disabled</a></b>). It's unfortunate when we are chosen, and especially when we cannot do anything about it. Studies have found that changing personalities, reactions, emotions, going quiet, doing more for abusive personalities does not work, and if anything, <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPrbXSXalJA" target="_blank">makes them more abusive</a> </b>(aggressively demanding and excusing their abuses with ineffective pushback tells them <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnH_Cqj_yc8" target="_blank"><i>what</i> they can get away with</a></b> and it ensures in their mind that you will take more abuse, or come back after you have left). <br /><br />Overwhelmingly if you ask them to stop scapegoating you, they won't stop. They feel they have a right to treat you any way they want, and that they have too much to gain by giving it up. If you are a true scapegoat, the scapegoating is never-ending, unless the golden child slips up. <br /><br />Narcissists and sociopaths will always interpret things the way they want events to sound like (to keep up appearances), and the way they want other people to view their scapegoat (in other words, false narratives about the scapegoat usually abound). They do this so that events will unfold the way they want them to unfold, and again, to keep up appearances. A true scapegoat is lied about life long unless the parent isn't taking time to get to know you beyond the role. Both are possible. However, if you try to tell your narcissistic or sociopathic parent what is really happening inside you, they usually don't listen (they feel they have a right to attribute thoughts, emotions and experiences to you that you don't have, and they rarely ask you how you feel, or what you are thinking about, or what you are experiencing, and if they do, they often don't want to believe it ... <b>there is a reason why they are like this</b>, and I hope to touch on this soon). <br /><br />Sometimes scapegoating is done to get everyone else in line. In other words, you have no idea why you were banished and rejected from the family and are told in a seething kind of way, "You know what you did!" This is gaslighting, of course, but it is also done in a "human sacrifice" kind of way: that if your siblings aren't submitting and pleasing your parent at all times, they too will end up like the scapegoat. <br /><br />The tragedy in these cases is that once you are out of the family, another sibling is usually scapegoated. And because they aren't used to it and have few coping strategies, they can be saddled with tremendous guilt for having gone along in scapegoating you. They are much more liable to run away, even when too young to be out on their own, or to commit suicide. <br /><br />If you were "let go" without an adequate reason, it is still scapegoating, but with the caveat that it was most likely done to get your sibling(s) submitting and being more subservient to the parent than they used to. <br /><br />Another thing I'd like to mention is that Rebecca C. Mandeville, LMFT, is doing a lot of research on scapegoating. I can't find the link I'm looking for (I'll put the link in as soon as I can), but one of the issues that came up was "How many of you went 'no contact' with your parent?" The answer came out to around 90 percent. Some went "no contact" after an incident, some went "no contact" after being given the silent treatment by the parent, some went "no contact" slowly, and so on. So, sometimes the initial rejection was done by the parent, and the scapegoat decided not to go back or contact the parent afterward. In many of those cases, the parent told everyone that their child abandoned them instead of the truth (even though it was the parent who started the abandonment with a long silent treatment). <br /><br />Anyway, 90 percent is pretty significant, and it shows that most human beings cannot live in a scapegoat role. <br /><br />The high majority in that 90 percent realized they were giving up on an inheritance too, so it shows that human beings who are being abused will not continue to be abused even with the possibility of money or an inheritance dangling in front of them ... and if they read forums, they'll find out that scapegoats rarely get an inheritance even when they are caretakers. <br /><br />Narcissists, however, (from getting some answers from a few of them), believe that if they were in the same situation with their parent, that they would submit, even with their own obligations to children and spouse and career, even if they are making more consistent reliable money on their own, in order to be considered for an inheritance. I somehow really doubt they would be willing to be scapegoated for an inheritance (?), but what is important is that <i>they</i> think they would be willing to be scapegoated just to be considered for an inheritance, which is why they set up a competition in the first place. They do tend to place winning "possible money" much higher on their agendas than most people do (and many of them marry for money, and cheat on their spouses with monied people), and believe most people are like them in that regard. <br /><br />No, we are not. <br /><br />But it tells why they make inheritances about "winning a prize".<br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">SO DO SOME SCAPEGOATS GET AN INHERITANCE?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">My own research (talking to 442 scapegoats whose narcissistic parents died) is that 90 percent of them were either left out of the Will entirely with 12 percent of the 90 percent receiving only a small fraction of what their siblings received. It is interesting to me that 90 percent of scapegoats leave their parent (Rebecca C. Mandeville's findings in the previous section), and 90 percent get a fraction of what their siblings got (even one dollar counted), or were left out of the Will entirely. <br /><br />When they were left out of the Will, the phrase, "and __(insert members name here)__________ knows why they were left out" was the most common phrase used when it was read. <br /><br />But what about the ten percent who did not go "no contact", many of whom were long suffering, or disabled in some way, and who did the bulk of the caretaking (because their narcissistic siblings just don't want to do it except to delegate it). Were they left out of the Will? Yes, my findings revealed that they were also predominantly left out of the Will, if slightly less so. But why?<br /><br />Here are some reasons I was told:<br /><br />- <u>The parent said the caretaking wasn't good enough</u> (even when their siblings were out of the picture). Scapegoats are often told that their efforts aren't good enough no matter what they do. In a forum I saw, some scapegoats were asking, "My golden child sibling got a B in biology his sophomore year, and was praised up and down for it, and my parent's friends were notified of his grade. I get a B a year later with the same teacher, and my parent shouts at me that I could have done a lot better. Have any of the rest of you experienced this?" - and the answer was overwhelmingly yes. The same went for caretaking. A golden child takes the parent to a doctor and he's thanked many times for it, and a scapegoat takes the parent to the same doctor, and the scapegoat is admonished and complained about. It's the way all scapegoats are treated apparently. I would say it is part of "the criticism" aspect of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse that I wrote about as part of this post. <br /> Caretaking is the other effort that roughly 10 percent of scapegoats put out. What they find is that the parent will compare the scapegoat's caretaking to the golden child's caretaking, and the scapegoat will always come up short, <i>even when the golden child is not there, or comes around intermittently when they feel like it</i>. <br /> So, you can see what the scapegoat is up against.<br /> This can be one reason they are left out of the Will. <br /> I knew 3 people in my own personal life who went through this too. I briefly tell their stories here: <br /> Person #1 moved back home to take care of a dying parent for 2 years. He was left without anything, and lived in a homeless shelter for the next few years. I don't know where he is now. I used to see him a lot, and now I don't. His sister sold the house, and used some of it to buy a Mercedes Benz. <br /> Person #2 I have written about before was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and had to leave her mother in a nursing home while she sought treatment. She was also left out of the Will. <br /> Person #3 has a sibling who lived with his mother, and got her to sign over her house to him before she died. He kicked his mother out of the house, and she was stranded outside on the porch for hours in cold weather while her daughter made the hours-long trip to get her. She took her mother into her own house, and did the bulk of the caretaking (a sister contributed once in awhile too). After she died, neither sister got any part of the inheritance. It was all left to the brother. I actually know a similar story to this one from a couple who ran a BNB we stayed at where the elderly parents were kicked out. The repercussions were worse because all of their children threw the parents out, leaving them to fend for themselves without a home or money. <br /><br />- "<u>Compete with siblings!"<br /></u>Narcissistic and sociopathic parents expect their scapegoats to compete with their siblings, and especially the golden child, for an inheritance. In other words, an inheritance is treated as "winning a prize", much like the King Lear play by Shakespeare where giving a parent narcissistic supply determines how much inheritance you get. And Shakespeare was intelligent enough to know how it would work out (lots of threats and murders, and King Lear thrown out of his own castle to live in the wild, and its weather elements, much like getting kicked out of your house by your own children - things haven't changed much since those days).<br /> Because the narcissistic parent has so much contempt for the scapegoat, they are going to make sure the golden child wins, or any child other than scapegoat win. It's just another chance for them to humiliate and hurt the scapegoat, and it is partly why they do it. Seeing a scapegoat lose the dirty head games again and again is very much narcissistic supply for them (especially if they can get reactions out of the scapegoat). <br /> If you have a narcissistic or sociopathic sibling, they are going to do what ever they can to get you disinherited (lots of threats, and using <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-abusers-co-bullies-enablers.html" target="_blank"><b>flying monkeys</b> </a>to get them what they want). They will constantly be running to the parent as they always have, to tell their parent false narratives about you, and getting them so suspicious of your intentions, that you are no longer considered. The parent is used to believing this sibling, and it is common for the parent to think of the scapegoat as "at fault, all of the time, no matter what", so they do manage to get the parent to reject the scapegoat out of heresy. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> If that doesn't work, the domestic violence, and the threats, often increase to get the scapegoat terrified and running off. I wouldn't be surprised at all if murders were committed by some of these siblings, with the parent helping to cover it up. Besides researching on my own as to how this particular brand of disinheritance played out, I also know quite a few people personally where the disinheritance played out with domestic violence and threats. <br /> In one case, the sibling inherited a few million dollars while the scapegoat got nothing (one wonders why a parent would do this, with that much money, unless they were threatened by the same child that threatened their sibling). <br /> I know someone else who started to write a book about how this very common "disinheritance via a sibling" played out, but was told to make the book about his father (whom he greatly loved and admired, and who did a lot of compassionate acts for his community, and for other people who fell on hard times) and include the story of the disinheritance and the end of his father's business that the father wanted to pass down the generations. <br /> The parent feels they have been abandoned by everyone except the narcissistic or sociopathic child, and can hand over the inheritance on that basis too. <br /> For most narcissists, everyone is in competition, and everyone is on a hierarchy, whether that is adverse for the parent or not. <br /><br />- <u>The "You aren't doing this for good reasons"</u>:<br /> How this goes:<br /> "I was somehow roped into caretaking our parent full time by my siblings who all seem to have silly excuses as to why they can't be there, and my parent thinks that the only reason I'm there is to get his (or her) money when they die." <br /> Scapegoats are attributed the worse qualities of human-kind: liars, fakers, takers, criminals, addicts, prostitutes, violent schizophrenics, stalkers, only out for money. The stuff that is made up about scapegoats always seem to run along these lines. Some of the things narcissistic parents believe about their scapegoats would be absolutely dumbfounding or hilarious if the results for the parent and the family weren't so tragic. Again, the scapegoat role blocks out any knowledge of who the scapegoat is beyond the role. Therapist <b><a href="https://jreidtherapy.com/" target="_blank">Jay Reid</a></b>, who treats scapegoats and studies scapegoating, said in a number of videos and writings, that in most cases, people outside the family know the scapegoat much more than anyone inside the family. That shouldn't surprise any scapegoat, even though it might surprise a lot of outsiders. <br /> It makes sense either way. Who inside a family would know "the banished" anyway? Who, inside a family, would know "the ignored", especially when there are pressures on other members to ignore too? Who inside the family would know someone who was either "shut up" or talked over? Who inside the family would believe that a parent doesn't care about their child at all, but many scapegoating parents don't care about their children even medically. Some narcissistic parents never mention their child, unless confronted, and often it's short answers like, "We don't like to discuss that child." <br /> It's what you get when a parent, who teaches children on how to behave by example, and is spouting false narratives and derisive fantasies about other people day in and day out. It's like living in a dungeon of lies where each member (except the ignored scapegoat) is trying to out-lie, and out-do each other with lies and bullying to get rewards and more hierarchy. <br /> Anyway, the parent disinherits the most empathetic, willing child of the bunch because he believes his child to be an addict, or a prostitute, or any of the other things I've talked about. <br /> So a question I am asked is: Why wouldn't a parent do a double-take about all of this? Why wouldn't they say, "I might have gotten this wrong. My other children aren't here, and this child is doing such a good job, and seems to really care about my comfort, and making meals for me, and is putting in a full effort, and is getting me professional help ..." <br /> Again narcissists don't do double-takes because the overwhelming need to have a scapegoat blinds them to who the child is. The role is also fixed for life, as well as the mind that created that role for their child when they were a mere toddler. The fact that a toddler can get a scapegoat role is beyond the pale, but that's when it usually happens. And it can happen earlier than that with a difficult birth: "I knew that you would be difficult, and like a noose around my neck for the rest of my life when you gave me such a difficult birth!" - I saw this being said to a childhood friend when I was a child myself, and yes, that child is also estranged from her parent, and in her case, her entire extended family. And I've seen phrases like it in many forums since then.<br /> I find this is one of the more perplexing aspects of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It isn't just <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias#:~:text=Confirmation%20bias%20is%20the%20tendency,one's%20prior%20beliefs%20or%20values." target="_blank">confirmation bias</a></b>, which would explain the inability to understand other modes of thinking, and thinking styles, and even erases the desire to understand people beyond fixed perspectives. We know this is how the prejudiced mind functions too. <br /> For instance, we find that narcissists have "attitudes" with a lot of people who are different from them: people with pink hair are always deemed to be "flakes", people who are overweight are deemed to be gluttonous, people who live in communes and cults are all deemed to be brainwashed, that black people are mostly deemed to be lazy and on the dole - we're used to prejudiced minds going in these directions, even though those directions are wrong and built on flawed beliefs that encompass a wide range of stereotypes. <br /> But where does the attitude that "I can tell what my toddler is always thinking" come from when the toddler can't even speak yet? At least the prejudiced mind usually targets adults, and lazily labels, categorizes, judges and stereotypes. We know narcissists are not good mind readers (again, what they want out of people comes before knowing who people are). <br /> So my wild guess is that besides confirmation bias and the fixed perspectives that prejudiced minds indulge in, it may have to do with arrogance (thinking they are right when they aren't, thinking they can read minds and ulterior motives when they can't - all of it driven by illusory feelings that they are superior beings compared to other people, which would also explain why they rarely look into, or listen, to others). The feelings of contempt and resentment like "You put me through a difficult birth!" - isn't reasonable, or even slightly scientific, because most people know that it isn't a child's fault; it was probably about how the uterine contractions were going at the time. Most uterine contractions during childbirth are painful, but narcissists can't stand to think that it would be something within their own bodies, because again, they go around with the illusory feeling that they are superior and never at fault, and that other people cause them pain. <br /> I was accused myself of throwing something when I was told about the impending birth of someone when I was two years old, and the person tried to convince me that I hated that person because I threw something. Yesterday, I spent the day with a two year old who was the age I was when I was accused of hating. She was throwing things all day long, and I mean all day. About three quarters of the things were thrown over her shoulder, and the rest were thrown in front of her. The day for her was about picking up toys and throwing them. She'd bend over, look at the object, and throw it. Then she'd either pick up the object, or pick up another object. It's a phase that children go through. It's two year old behavior, and it's fun for them, otherwise they wouldn't do it.<br /> It's simply not possible for a toddler that age to hate anyone. It's not even possible to throw objects as a physics experiment. To me, and the people around me, it was about carrying things and having or showing some ability to throw things and pick up things, and that's about it. There was some intense examining of objects at times, which is probably a step into the next phase of two year old behavior. All of it was pretty cute and fascinating to watch. <br /> When people don't stop short and question why someone else would interpret "hatred" in a toddler, you have to wonder why. Isn't that as irrational as devil possession of babies? <br /> So when a toddler can be blamed for everything and anything, you can bet an adult child can be blamed x 1,000,000. <br /> I think that attributing feelings and thoughts to toddlers and very young children should be part of <b><a href="https://mandatedreporter.com/" target="_blank">mandated reporting</a></b>. Narcissists and sociopaths feel that they absolutely need a scapegoat child, and as teachers, social workers and police, and the rest of us who are mandated reporters, we need to look out for signs of this kind of parenting. Since scapegoating is overwhelmingly life long, getting children placed in homes where they aren't scapegoated is important in terms of child welfare, and for the society at large. It shouldn't just be the elective choice of children who become adults to get counseling, and become one of the 90 percent who live without a parent, and often without their entire family. It is especially critical because siblings most often take part in the abuse too to garner favor with their abusive parent so that they can avoid the scapegoat's fate. <br /> And some of what should be reported are parents telling a child what they feel and think, and certainly being punished over what the parent assumes about the child's feelings and thoughts.<br /> The other thing that happens to children in narcissistic families is that when they are truth-telling, they can be severely punished for it. Let's say a child finds her mother in bed with another man, and runs to tell her father. In narcissistic families, the mother is likely to punish the child for telling, if she can't get her child to keep a secret before telling the father (narcissistic parents have no trouble encouraging their children to lie when it suits them). Narcissistic parents can also be tit-for-tat, revenge-seeking parents, and the child that tells is always going to be in danger. So this needs to be taken into consideration too in terms of mandated reporting. <br /><br />- <u>Promises, promises</u>:<br /> This is when the narcissistic parent makes the promise of an inheritance to get something out of a child, but never had any intentions of delivering on that promise. Many of these adult children find that the Will was written before the promises were made, and that the parent never changed the Will. <br /> Many of the stories I witnessed had to do with money. They were all daughters who were expected to serve the family in some way.<br /> A daughter, or daughters, were brought back into the family after long estrangements and were told that a lot of time had gone by, and the parents had time to think about events that had passed, and had decided that their daughter(s) were valuable and worthwhile after all. The daughters found out soon afterward that the parents wanted money from them. <br /> The parental sob stories ran from the possibility of losing their homes, to medical bills piling up, social services threatening to take the rest of their savings and putting them in a home, and a host of other issues. <br /> In most of these cases, the scapegoats had deep suspicions because the parents seemed to be living more opulently than they were. Also, the scapegoated daughters were used to having the rug yanked out from under them, and living in dire straights (poverty) after being kicked out of the family. They didn't trust their parents. <br /> However, all of them buckled under and gave their parents money in the end. It wasn't always the amount asked for or expected because of the distrust or because the child didn't have it to give, but substantial amounts were given. <br /> Most of the scapegoated daughters wanted to be re-included in the Will in return for giving the parents money for expenses, so that they might be able to recoup some of their financial losses if the parent died and still had some assets. <br /> And in one case, a daughter wanted it in writing.<br /> The parents promised to include them in the Will. <br /> But in all cases they weren't. <br /> In one case where there were two sisters who were scapegoated and thrown out of their families, their two brothers received the entire estate of four million dollars. The brothers told their sisters that the parents had plenty of money to leave them, but pretended not to have any as a way to punish them for "not coming back" after they had been kicked out (which shows that "getting kicked out" <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/08/why-do-narcissists-care-so-much-about.html" target="_blank">is often fakery</a></b>, and about trying to get an adult child to submit, but it is impossible for scapegoats to know what is fake with their parents and what is not). So it was retribution and revenge for accepting the rejection, in other words. So bad. The brothers told their sisters that they deserved to be left out because they were <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/10/why-abusers-who-punish-use-ungrateful.html" target="_blank">"ungrateful"</a></b> about the fact that they were given food, clothing and a roof over their head in childhood, and were given some tuition money. Note: most parents do not expect payment back from such services, but narcissistic and sociopathic parents do. <br /> To me this story wasn't particularly shocking as I'm used to stories about parents seeking all kinds of revenges against their scapegoated children (especially children who won't accept their scapegoated role any longer), but I write this as a warning to other scapegoated children. <br /> In the case where the parent "put it in writing", it was a fake Will with no signatures or notarized (she was told there would be signatures later), and there were a number of real Wills written after the fake Will, and she was clearly disinherited in those Wills. She was able to launch a legal case in which she received a small portion of her money back from the estate. The lesson here is to take anything a narcissistic or sociopathic parent puts in writing to your own lawyer and discuss the legitimacy of it, and whether it can be over-ridden with a new Will (in most cases it can be over-ridden with a new Will). <br /> There was also another case where two scapegoated sisters who were estranged for nearly 15 years from their parents, were asked by their brothers to be caretakers of the parents. One of the sisters would have to give up her job in order to do the work, and another had to travel a long distance and give up her own nuclear family life in order to do the work. The brothers told their sisters that it would be a chance for them to "prove their worth", to "redeem themselves" to the parents. But, again, they obviously did not trust their parents because of the long history of being scapegoated. One sister was the original scapegoat, and got taken out of her family at age 16 by social services to live with her grandmother, and then her sister became the next scapegoat many years later, with the same result. The two sisters became close and lived together for awhile as they tried to figure out how to get jobs, build a social life, and get help without belonging to a family. Once they were achieving some success, the parents started phoning, coming around, and inviting them to holidays and family events. <br /> By the way, this happens because narcissistic parents do not want their scapegoats to be successful at all - it makes them nervous, and it's harder to scapegoat children who are successful because they can live without parental contact or support. <br /> To make a long story short, it was an "on again, off again" kind of situation, where the sisters would be invited back into the family, and then get kicked out again, until the sisters had enough and stayed out. There were also attempts to break the two sisters apart (<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/11/abusive-families-who-triangulate-love.html" target="_blank">triangulation</a></b>) by getting them to be suspicious of each other. But it didn't work, and they would stoutly defend one another. Narcissistic parents can't stand that either, so they were probably kicked out for that reason too.<br /> The sisters did not know why the brothers wouldn't do the care-taking themselves. If any of them had narcissistic qualities like the parents, they aren't going to want to do the care-taking (delegation is the primary role they will accept in a situation like this, i.e. getting another family member to do it). <br /> The sisters also assumed they were not in the Will and they were sure that their parents did not care how they were faring financially, and never did, and never would. They told their parents that their brothers wanted them to do the caretaking, but because one of them had to give up a job, they balked and said no. The parents assured them that they had always been in the Will, that they had their differences, but that they were always considered to be family members, not ex-family members. They invited the two women to come any time they could get away, and apparently the parents sounded so warm and convincing, and the brothers seemed to be loving and welcoming too, that the two sisters jumped at the chance to take care of their parents, and lived with the parents for a little under two years. They made dinners when the brothers visited. They spent their own saved up money to hire night caretakers, took their parents to physical therapy, and doctors, and allowed them to die at home in the comfort of family (the parent's wishes).<br /> After the parents died, the Last Will was read. <br /> At no time were the daughters ever included in the Will. The parents obviously lied to them. <br /> So this is another "warning situation" as to how scapegoats are treated. It sounds like a misogynist family too, where inheritances go to men instead of women. If the brothers had been loving brothers, they would have shared some of their inheritances with their sisters (this sometimes happens unless the brothers are narcissists themselves), but in this case, it did not happen. <br /><br />- <u>Other reasons scapegoats are left out</u>: <br />- Narcissistic parents hold grudges forever - even over the misplaced thought that their child gave them a difficult birth, or even a C-section. So for that, they seek revenge, and a Will is just one way they do that. <br />- Most narcissistic parents can't stand it if you have complaints about a sibling bullying you, especially if it is the golden child (<b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-narcissist-in-your-life/202205/26-signs-your-golden-child-brother-may-be-narcissist" target="_blank">who is the most likely to do it</a></b>). They have invested so much in the golden child that they cannot stand to think that the child is anything other than a saint, and many narcissistic parents will retaliate over that because they believe they have superior abilities to tell who is good and who is bad, and you are challenging that. It is also why scapegoats often leave - it's a dire issue, and the parent will not only refuse to discuss the matter, but they demand you apologize. When you do not apologize for being bullied, they discard you. <br />- I have heard that some narcissistic parents discard their scapegoats when they start to get some serious medical issues over trumped up, made up charges, just so that the inheritance will go to their most favorite children. <br />- I have heard of a sibling who never told their other siblings that their parent was dying, so they could arm-twist the parent into signing over the Will completely to them. Then after the parent died, the sibling let the other siblings know that the parent died and that they got their entire estate. <br />- I have heard of a sibling who talked their parents into entrusting their money to them when the parents were dealing with a lawsuit, and when the parents died, not sharing the contents of what was in the Will.<br />- I have heard of a golden child locking their mother in a trailer on their property to avoid having her money go to a nursing home (the golden child was the inheritor), and leaving the mother alone to mess herself. The only contact the mother had with anyone was when her golden child slipped in a tray of food a couple of times a day. The scapegoat was shocked because the mother had always spoken so glowingly about the golden child, that the scapegoat thought she was okay. <br />- I have heard of a golden child keeping the parent's death a secret, not reporting it in the news, to keep his siblings in the dark about the fate of their parent. <br />- And there are so many more dark stories than this, but it gives you an idea of what narcissistic families can be like. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />- <u>Anyway, so when we mix this altogether we get</u>:<br />- the insistence that the scapegoat is all-bad, all-of-the-time<br />- the insistence that the scapegoat doesn't have good motives in taking care of a parent<br />- the lifelong scapegoat role that both the parents and siblings of the scapegoat use for blaming, or in the case of sociopathic siblings and parents, getting the scapegoat incarcerated for crimes that someone else in the family committed<br />- trying constantly to get other people to believe the scapegoat is all-at-fault all of the time for what he or she does and doesn't do, and succeeding at it, even with lot of false narratives that would generally be easy to figure out if those people actually did some research, or had a little skepticism<br />- the insistence that an inheritance is a "prize" that must be won and fought over by their children (note, in most families, an inheritance is given out of empathy, to make sure their children are taken care of in old age - and since narcissists do not have empathy, a no-win, often dangerous, highly abusive, competition is set up instead).</div><div style="text-align: left;">- the insistence that the golden child always has good intentions toward the parent, and towards the scapegoat, and that if anyone is wrong, it always has to be the scapegoat. </div><div style="text-align: left;">- often letting the golden child take total control of the parent in old age, which can mean the parent is at the mercy of that child, but because they put so many unrealistic attributes in that child, they aren't aware of the possible downfalls<br />- narcissists are known to <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/02/can-narcissist-or-abuser-ever-keep.html" target="_blank">break most of the promises and commitments they have made</a></b> <br />- and 90 percent of scapegoats leave their parent or family of origin<br /><br />You can see why scapegoats do not get an inheritance. <br /><br />If you are a scapegoat, you can always consider leaving, not only to heal, but because scapegoating families, unlike other families, often cannot be counted on in any manner to help pull you out of financial danger, or to provide a soft landing, or to care about you, or to love you on any level, or to tell the truth about their intentions towards you, the last one being the most important. <br /><br />It's always important to remember that narcissistic parents lack, usually in the extreme, any meaningful kind of empathy where you will be seen for who you are, for the humanity you possess, for your positive points, and for anything other than a person to blame and hurt if you are their scapegoat. <br /><br />The way they keep you in the scapegoat role is through a lot of pressures, threats, punishments, awards, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">parentifying</a></b>, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">infantilizing</a></b>, unsolicited advice and commands, and they think, by hurting you that you will submit to their control and demands (but <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/03/hurting-or-punishing-others-to-teach.html" target="_blank">there are reasons why hurting you doesn't work for them</a></b> because they are blind to how people actually respond to abuse and narcissists' lust for power in these situations). <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">WHAT ABOUT THE TEN PERCENT OF SCAPEGOATS<br />WHO RECEIVE AN INHERITANCE?<br />WHY DO THEY RECEIVE IT AND MOST OTHER SCAPEGOATS DO NOT?<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">I'm going to make some wild guesses here, and a little on what I know, because, as I said before, there have not been any peer-related scientific studies or statistics done on this phenomenon. Tallying has only begun based on what therapists and psychologists know from their clients, and the beginning of gathering data on this phenomenon. <br /><br />I do have some stories to share, but this is what I have found:<br /><br />- The parents are worried about their reputation that they will garner when gone by not including their child in their Will. They figure if they split the estate evenly, the scapegoat will either cease to tell everyone how traumatized they were by living in a narcissistic family where they were abused, abandoned or given over to foster parents, or they will begin to think well of their parents because they've been treated fairly in the Will. This may especially be the case if part of the scapegoating was about telling everyone that their child was crazy, and needed constant mental health supervision.<br /><br />- The parents think their golden child is getting too entitled to the parent's resources and they want him to think that he isn't any more important than any other sibling (cutting him down a notch or two - he or she is getting too arrogant, and assumes all "prizes" will go to him). <br /><br />- The scapegoat isn't really a scapegoat (they are not treated with the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse), or they have a parent who switches the scapegoat role around to all of their children (each child takes a turn at the role - this isn't as common, but I've heard of it happening, especially when the parent senses arrogance - narcissistic parents don't want to tolerate anyone who thinks they are superior to them, or a child who they think is hoodwinking them and manipulating them through lies). <br /><br />- The parent doesn't have all of the traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder or Antisocial Personality Disorder, and can see some value in their child, even if not as much as most parents do. <br /><br />- The parent plays a lot of "Who should win the Will games", and decides the game isn't working, that the adult child is refusing to play because they are being threatened or abused by a sibling as soon as the game starts. Sometimes even narcissistic parents don't want a sibling to take over who wins the game. These parents would prefer a game where each child can stay in the competition indefinitely. <br /><br />- The parent goads an adult child into "wanting an inheritance." <br /> This is one case I have seen. Because the scapegoat was sure she was not going to get an inheritance like most scapegoats she knew, and when she was threatened many, many times that she would not get any portion of the Will, when her father asked her when he was getting significant health problems in his old age whether she wanted an inheritance or not, she told him "no" so that she wouldn't be hurt during the reading of the Will. <br /> He mocked her, and chided her, and laughed at her, in the few family gatherings she attended about not wanting to be in the Will. "Sure, you don't want to be in the Will! Come on! I can see you lying through your teeth about that!" And the rest of her family would laugh at her. Or he'd introduce her as "the only child in America who doesn't want to be included in a Will." In other words, she became a laughing stock over it. <br /> She was absolutely dumbfounded when he included her - and it wasn't just the dollar or two that so many other narcissistic parents give their scapegoat child to make sure they sit through the reading of the Will where the lawyer reads out how much everyone else gets. She got an even portion. Even our group was surprised - it's not usually "the way things go."<br /><br />- The parent almost died and the scapegoat is the only one to take care of the parent (for many months), and to practically live in the hospital with her parent. The golden child sister appears when the parent lies on the deathbed, and produces a copy of the parent's Will. It is clear to the scapegoat that her golden child sister will inherit everything (which is usually what I see). The children are told to prepare for the worst by nursing staff. But a miracle happens and the parent recovers.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> The scapegoat is included in a 50/50 way in the Will after the parent recovers enough to write another Will. <br /> This was one story by a survivor that I was privy to. Whether she stayed on the Will is questionable. Narcissistic parents tend to change their Wills a lot based on narcissistic supply. <br /> Apparently, the golden child had a temper tantrum when she found out. She was stomping her feet and yelling that it wasn't fair. You can't make this up. <br /><br />- The parent dies and leaves an inheritance to a couple of her children and leaves others out. The children who received the inheritance either split the inheritance evenly between the siblings, or are ordered to do it by a judge. There are some circumstances where you can get a portion of a Will even when your parents don't leave you in - check with your state if you are in the USA, but it requires many, many efforts on the scapegoat's part (with evidence), that they, the scapegoat, tried to re-unite with their family. Most scapegoats aren't willing to take that chance because they are aware that the abuse will be much more egregious than it was before - it's a flaw in the law, and a flaw of judicial insight into what really happens in scapegoating cases. <br /> In some European countries, it's not possible to leave a child out of a Will. My understanding is that in Norway, children get a quarter of the assets and money, half goes to a spouse, and the other quarter can go to whomever the parent wants it to go to. It perhaps keeps the government from having to support scapegoats of families (which can be considerable with both housing and medical expenses). And to some degree, it may keep parents from going into full "scapegoat mode" to the extremes that it does in the USA. <br /> And perhaps scapegoating children is more illegal in other countries than it is in the USA. It has become illegal in the United Kingdom, along with coercive control. The only good recourse children have in the USA is to get help when they are minor children, to have their parents caught by a mandated reporter (teacher, police, and so on), but many narcissistic parents homeschool, and those children, judging from what happened to <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turpin_case" target="_blank">the Turpin children</a></b>, fell through the cracks in terms of intervention in a big way, showing that homeschooling needs constant and surprise visits from social workers. However, social workers intervening goes against the United States Constitution, where there is a clause that states that parents have the right to treat children any way they want. It is why we are one of the few nations left in the western world that still allows corporal punishment (of underage children only ... parents lose that right when their child becomes an adult at age 18). The USA has a higher rate of child abuse than other developed countries, scapegoating being just one aspect of it. <br /><br />- The parent signed a legal contract to re-pay a scapegoat money back even if that money was passed to others in a Will. <br /> I don't know if this counts as being part of a Will, but it may. <br /> It is the way tenant agreements are often written too, that the inheritors are responsible for payment to a landlord. <br /><br />- The parent signed a legal contract that their child would receive an equal part in the Will as the siblings, for having received services or money from their scapegoat. I have, however, seen this "broken" by a parent gifting another child a house or a lot of money before the parent died, leaving very little that was left to the scapegoat. <br /> And by the way, I have seen and heard many, many stories from scapegoats where when they become much more wealthy than the parents, the parents play "the poverty card" and ask their scapegoat to give them the money. <br /> In one case, a woman was thrown out of her family as a teenager, taken in by her grandmother, her grandmother paid for her college tuition (the parents were busy sending children they thought "could succeed much more"), went out on her own, started her own business and became a multi-millionaire. She spent her childhood being neglected and abused, got kicked out, and the parents dared to show up with their hands out, and expected her to "pony up" (the audacity, right?) , but the hardest thing for her was wondering if she should give them any money. She actually struggled with this decision (and I bet anything, she was left out of her parent's Will when she was thrown out). She was wondering if she should give the money they were asking to her grandmother instead, and have her grandmother make the decision of whether to give any of it to the parents. <br /><br />- The scapegoat child is welcomed back into the family a few years before the parent passes and is re-included in the Will at that time. <br /> I do know one person who was re-included in her mother's Will when her mother divorced a stepfather who was abusing her (her mother was involved in a lot of social clubs and charities, so "keeping up appearances" may have played a role in giving her scapegoat daughter an inheritance). The scapegoat daughter didn't get "a full inheritance" however (as much as her golden child sister did), but it also wasn't a dollar or two like most scapegoats get, if they get anything at all. It was enough to pay for a college to get trained in a field where she could make more of an income as she approached old age. </div></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">LEGAL ISSUES</div> </div><div style="text-align: left;">In most states in the USA, there aren't very many avenues you can take if you are disinherited. Check with your state. In more liberal states, there are some measures you can take, but the process may be very long, and you will have to have pretty ironclad proof that leaving you out was done for malevolent reasons, with intentions of keeping you abused and traumatized. Not only is it hard to prove those things, some states require proof that you tried on many occasions to reconcile and were rejected for your overtures, and that you endured years of suffering and counseling, and got a diagnosis such as PTSD. Most scapegoats don't want to take those chances because where you find narcissistic parents, even if they are dead, you find narcissistic siblings that are threatening, and many even become violent at the prospect that you are willing to go to court to get what they feel they are owed in full (like getting the entire estate). <br /><br />After being scapegoated, most scapegoats want to live in peace, even if it means being reliant on the government in old age. When those 90 percent leave their families, they are aware that they are unlikely to get an inheritance. <br /><br />Also, PTSD which plagues most scapegoats, can cause the scapegoat to feel too "frozen" to do anything major like bring a lawsuit that is very difficult to win. Most scapegoats just want to retreat into a safe world where they can choose who they relate to, and what they do going forward with their own lives. In other words, they just want to be left alone. During the anger stage, when they are either abused or abandoned (or both), they might feel like winning a law suit, but usually they settle into feeling "frozen" to do anything with their family other than for the abusive members and the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-abusers-co-bullies-enablers.html" target="_blank">flying monkey</a></b> enablers and co-bullies to leave them alone. <br /><br />If you want to sue your parents before they die, there is a better chance of obtaining justice (than if you waited until they were dead). This is especially true in more of the liberal states (USA)<br /><br />Here are some articles on that, (each state will have different laws):<br /><br /><a href="https://bernsteininjurylaw.com/blog/can-you-sue-a-family-member-for-emotional-distress/" target="_blank"><b>Can You Sue a Family Member for Emotional Distress?</b></a> - by Jack Bernstein, Injury Attorney for his own website (Florida)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.jpllaw.net/child-abuse/child-abuse-civil-cases" target="_blank">Child Abuse Civil Cases - What You Need to Know</a></b> - From the Law Offices of Joseph Lesniak, LLC (Pennsylvania) <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.tariolaw.com/can-you-sue-your-parents-for-child-abuse/" target="_blank">Can You Sue Your Parents for Child Abuse? </a></b>- Tario and Associates, P.S., Attorneys at Law (Washington)<br /><br /><div><b>RECOMMENDED: <a href="https://www.injuryclaimcoach.com/child-abuse-victims.html" target="_blank">Can You Sue Your Parents for Physical or Emotional Abuse? (Adult survivors of child abuse have the right to sue the abusing parent. Learn about justice and compensation for victims of child abuse and neglect.)</a></b> - by Charles R. Gueli, Esq. for Injury Claim Coach (Florida, but may be relevant in your own state) - I recommend it because a list of all the aspects you should consider, statute of limitations, and other information. <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.1000attorneys.com/post/personal-injury-claims-from-child-abuse" target="_blank">Civil Claims for Injuries from Child Abuse and Neglect in California</a></b> - for 1000 Attorneys website<br /><br /><b>RECOMMENDED: <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/civil-liability-failure-report-child-abuse" target="_blank">CIVIL LIABILITY FOR FAILURE TO REPORT CHILD ABUSE</a></b> - U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.cga.ct.gov/PS94/rpt/olr/htm/94-R-0158.htm" target="_blank">Child Abuse Civil and Criminal Statutes for the State of Connecticut</a></b> - written by Lawrence K. Furbish, Assistant Director for The Connecticut General Assembly (government website), Office of Legislative Research<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.rblaw.net/practices-minor-child-abuse" target="_blank">Minor Child Abuse</a></b> - Romanucci and Blandin, Attorneys at Law (Illinois)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://donaldsonlaw.com/child-injury-attorney-denver/child-abuse/" target="_blank">Denver Child Abuse Attorney</a></b> - Donaldson Law, LLC (Colorado)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.keanelaw.com/practice_areas/how-to-file-lawsuit-for-failure-to-report-child-abuse-against-a-mandated-reporter-in-california.cfm" target="_blank">California Child Abuse Lawyer For Failure To Report Child Abuse</a></b> - The Keane Law Firm (California - suits against mandated reporters for failure to report)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.keanelaw.com/library/statute-of-limitations-for-california-child-abuse-lawsuit.cfm" target="_blank">Statute Of Limitations (Time Limits) To File A California Child Abuse Lawsuit</a></b> - The Keane Law Firm (California) - see also above<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/personal-injury/can-you-sue-your-parents-for-child-abuse/" target="_blank">Can You Sue Your Parents for Child Abuse?</a></b> - by George Khoury, Esq. (2019 article ... check to see if laws have changed in your state)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.mergefamily.com/can-you-sue-your-parents-for-emotional-abuse/" target="_blank">Can You Sue Your Parents For Emotional Abuse?</a></b> - by Tyler S. Rios for Merge Family<br /><br /><b><a href="https://legalbeagle.com/5751852-sue-past-physical-mental-abuse.html" target="_blank">How to Sue a Parent for Past Physical & Mental Abuse</a></b> - by Dana Hinders for Legal Beagle<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/comments/za8t9v/can_i_sue_my_parents_for_the_years_of_emotional/?rdt=55912" target="_blank">Can I sue my parents for the YEARS OF EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL abuse I have suffered from? I am experiencing the effects of my abusive childhood now what can I do? </a></b>- Reddit forum question<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.justanswer.com/law/ibf81-sue-parents-emotional-abuse-23-year-old.html" target="_blank">Can i sue my parents for emotional abuse as a 23 year old? Florida. I am unemployed and cannot afford legal fees but i - Expert's Assistant chat</a></b> - talking to a lawyer on chat who can assist you in whether you have a good case <br /><br /><b><a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/78556/can-a-child-sue-their-parents" target="_blank">Can a child sue their parents?</a></b> - Law Stack Exchange (discusses the possibilities of minor children bringing lawsuits against their own parents) ... also discusses scapegoating (referred to as "discrimination")<br /><br />Overseas:<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/children-and-young-people/protecting-children/getting-help-and-compensation-if-you-were-abused-as-a-child/" target="_blank">Getting help and compensation if you were abused as a child</a></b> - Citizens Advice (Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales)<br /><br />Canada:<br /><br /><b><a href="https://disinherited.com/breach-of-trust/dysfunctional-families-scapegoat-child-sues-parents-wins/" target="_blank">Dysfunctional Families: Scapegoat Child Sues Parents and Wins</a></b> - from the "disinherited website" (a British Columbia case)<br /><br />If this isn't helpful:<br /><br />If you are upset by the laws in your state, find ways to change them. Bring awareness to scapegoating issues, ways to resolve them through better laws, research whether scapegoats are willing to bring suits when they are in danger from family members, research what can be done while a scapegoat is pursuing a lawsuit to keep a scapegoat safe, how to encourage more scapegoats to come forward to find resolutions to their issues through the court system, roadblocks for scapegoats who have always "lost" in their families and feel they can't win in something as big as a lawsuit, and so on. <br /><br />Instead of just disappearing from your family and "shelling up" in pain and isolating in anxiety-ridden "aloneness", discover what you can and can't do for scapegoats' cause. By the way, most narcissists who scapegoat will do anything to hurt their child <u>except break the law</u>. How would new scapegoating laws help you and other scapegoats you know?<br /><br />Don't get the idea that it can't be done. The Child's Victim Act in New York State was started by <b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/nyregion/three-billboards-sexual-abuse-student-emma-willard.html" target="_blank">an Emma Willard student (a high school student who was allegedly sexually abused and found roadblocks in bringing a suit against her perpetrator)</a></b>. She probably felt "frozen" from doing anything about her situation, until she didn't. If it can work for her, perhaps it can work for you too. Find out what she did to change the law. And by the way, after her allegations, <b><a href="https://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Emma-Willard-report-reveals-history-of-sexual-11082409.php" target="_blank">the school was found to have many counts of sexual misconduct.</a></b> <br /><br />We know that family scapegoating can be just as painful and traumatic (and even more so because mob bullying is extremely likely, and even sexual abuse can happen as part of the scapegoating). <br /><br />If you want peace in your life, please remember to help bring peace to more scapegoats who are more down on their luck than you were. The more peace that can be brought into the world, and the more repercussions there are for disturbing and abusing others to break their sense of peace and wellness in the world, the more peace we will be able to achieve. Also remember that perpetrators usually start perpetrating in their own families <i>before</i> they invade, lie and cause havoc for the rest of the world. <br /><br />If you go this way, contact me. I'll be a part of the mob that helps to bring more justice to this issue.<br /><br />The other thing that this discussion needs is a lot more research. Some ideas:<br /><br />- Interviewing people who disinherit their children while their siblings get inheritances, and interviewing the disinherited as to what they think were the reasons for being disinherited (how much contact they had with their families, asking questions about abuse or parenting styles, what they would have done differently to inherit). <br /><br />- Peer related scientific probes into the reasons for disinheriting, and how scapegoating contributes to being disinherited (I would think that this would be hard to research, but it's not impossible)<br /><br />- Research on scapegoating and discrimination in society and the attitudes that arise from it (racial, cultural, sexual, body mass, the poor, and the disabled) and how it differs or is similar to family scapegoating. My wild guess is that the differences are miniscule (from my studies on the psychology of hate, judge-mentalism and contempt). I would even guess that the ratio of girls being scapegoated by parents in comparison to boys is the same as it is for sexual abuse survivors by non-family members (in other words, I would bet the rate for girls would be much higher than for boys, and match very, very closely, to that same rate for childhood sexual abuse by non-family members). I'd love to know if any of you are doing research like this. As far as I know, it has never been done. <br /><br />- If the research comes to the conclusion that discrimination is the same when it comes to groups or races of people, as it does to be discriminated (scapegoated) in the family, then shouldn't the Child Victims Act encompass more than just sexual abuse of minors? Should it take into consideration other forms of abuse, especially if a survivor has been impacted negatively in the same way or worse than childhood sexual abuse survivors? What kinds of health and emotional problems do they both have, and do they match?<br /><br />- Since all kinds of abuses tend to be allowed or over-looked in the homes of parents with Narcissistic Personality Disordered and Antisocial Personality Disorder, what kind of monitoring could be set in place other than Mandated Reporting (which can be flawed if a teacher is not taking behavioral problems seriously and only looking at it as a child who is vying for more attention)? How much one-on-one contact should parents with a proven track record of abuse and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/12/important-darvo-tactic-and-why-it-is.html" target="_blank">DARVO-ing</a></b> have with an abused child? In other words, what are some preventative measures that could be used to prevent scapegoating?<br /><br />- How many scapegoats were deemed to be crazy by their family members? I bet the rate of affirmation would be really high. I'd also bet that the rate of mob bullying would match those who are actually truly disabled either physically or through mental disorders like schizophrenia. <br /><br />- In my own extended family, or a corner of it, the rate of estranged female members by an older generation of both men and women was/is so high and so all-encompassing, that all but one younger female member experienced it (it included daughters, step daughters, grand daughters, and step grand daughters). It adds up to nine members in all from three families, and from two generations. One of those nine members was male. Some step-parents in the family practice estrangements with their daughters and step-daughters too, and there are family members through marriage who have been estranged too, so it can be said to be a lot more than nine. <br /> The stand-out was that it probably started much earlier in generations before. In those generations, the daughter was left out of receiving an inheritance, at least as far as any property or real estate was concerned, and perhaps with money too. Males were rumored to be favored down the line, and generally received more than females. <br /> To me the estrangements with the current generations is so obviously a copy-cat approach that took fire in one generation, then in one family, and spread to siblings, then to children, as to what to do with female members. More than half of the women were given the silent treatment to start, until they became full-fledged estrangements. When reading John Gottman's findings, who I cite above, it is not surprising that the silent treatment, often accompanied by criticism and contempt, led to estrangements (according to studies by his institute, it is these four horsemen that permanently end relationships, and creates an enormous amount of distrust). <br /> So a question I have for a researcher, would be how common is this? Is my extended family rare in terms of this kind of rate of estrangement that effects two generations of all of the women and girls (except one member)? <br /> If you find estrangement in one family, do you find it again in the closest relatives, multiples of times, and inter-generationally, and even through marriage into a family? I would guess yes, but I also haven't been able to find a family with this many estrangements. <br /> If we conjecture an issue like scapegoating, is scapegoating also going to be primarily multi-generational and family-wide, just as domestic violence and child abuse is, and is it almost always driven by the same kinds of discriminations in extended families that we see in society? - We know the answer to this is yes, but only based on what some psychologists are experiencing with their clients, but what are the hard statistics on this? Are women the most discriminated against in families who ostracize and/or scapegoat, and how many of them are there compared to families who ostracize and/or scapegoat based on political affiliations, the disabled, the choice of a religion, or the choice of a mate, for instance? </div><div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">FURTHER READING AND VIDEOS<br />(with some recommended)</div> </div></div></div><p><b><a href="https://disinherited.com/family-estrangement/black-sheep-and-scapegoats-in-dysfunctional-families/" target="_blank">disinherited - Black Sheep and Scapegoats in Estate Litigation</a></b> - by Trevor Todd, litigation attorney<br />excerpt:<br /><i>Estrangement and the Wills Variation Act<br /></i><i> As previously stated, one of the overwhelming commonalities between a black sheep and the scapegoat is that they are often advised by medical practitioners or counsellors to learn to distance themselves from their family, for their own mental well-being.<br /></i><i> That is based on the probable reality that the family’s behaviour as a group will never change. The ostracized child will continue to be abused psychologically and be unable to escape or change the role he or she has been assigned.<br /></i><i> When testators disinherit a child on the basis of non-contact for many years, alleging estrangement, it may well be that a valid Wills Variation claim should or will override the defence of estrangement if the long-term minimal or total absence of contact was based on the advice of a medical doctor or a qualified counsellor.<br /></i><i> It would particularly assist the disinherited victim if such medical/counselling advice were passed onto the family members who were causing the continuing abuse, on or after family counselling has failed. At least records would be available to show attempts were made at reconciliation.<br /></i><i> The common consensus of the general public, and even some judges, is the view that the black sheep or scapegoat should simply never give up at attempting to reconcile with the family, and that the fault must be with the ostracized one, not the family. Thus the scapegoat is victimized not once, but twice.<br /></i><i> It is inconceivable for anyone raised in a “normal” environment to comprehend that an estrangement could occur for anything but valid and rational reasons. In my practice, the majority of estrangements are almost always the result of petty issues and irrational reactions to them.<br /></i><b><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw9ja6ifk8I" target="_blank">Is it common for the narcissistic parent to disinherit the scapegoat from their will?</a></b> - Transcending Narcissistic Abuse (forum)</p><p><b><a href="https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=343447.0" target="_blank">Common: Scapegoats are Cheated Out of Inheritance: Stories/Wisdom to Share</a></b> - forum for BPD FAMILY<br /><br /><b><a href="https://medium.com/@SPClusterB/how-a-narcissistic-parent-divides-inheritance-7ba5ffd8fce6" target="_blank">How a Narcissistic Parent Divides Inheritance</a></b> - by A.M. Champion for Medium.com <br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTYY7SmDUz0" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Is inheritance earned? When we are worth less to our parents</a> - by Chess of The Scapegoat Club for You Tube<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e02Z1nWs0dA" target="_blank">Risks of a Scapegoat of Narcissist Parents Choosing Hope for Inheritance in the Will Over No Contact</a></b> - Raised by Toddlers: Surviving Narcissistic Parents<br /></p><p><b>RECOMMENDED: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1VH48JwuNA" target="_blank">When SCAPEGOATS END CONTACT With Family: A TRAUMA-INFORMED View #scapegoat #nocontact #cptsd</a></b> - by Rebecca C. Mandeville, LMFT (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzOrJWMIVcQ" target="_blank">4 Reasons Narcissists Desperately Need A Scapegoat</a></b> - by Dr. Les Carter (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofzsItQlr_s&t=363s" target="_blank">8 WAYS A SCAPEGOATING NARCISSIST TRIES TO KEEP YOU IN YOUR PLACE</a></b> - by Dr. Les Carter (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyjdB-tg9rM" target="_blank">Signs Your Family is Using You as the SCAPEGOAT</a></b> - Psych to Go (a consortium of psychologists for You Tube) <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_mVil-m6CE" target="_blank">Lessons for anyone who was scapegoated by a narcissist (Narcissistic Family Roles)</a></b> - by Dr. Ramani Durvasula for You Tube<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw9ja6ifk8I" target="_blank">How the SCAPEGOAT keeps everyone IN LINE in narcissistic relationships</a> </b>- by Dr. Ramani Durvasula for You Tube<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_mVil-m6CE" target="_blank">Lessons for anyone who was scapegoated by a narcissist (Narcissistic Family Roles)</a></b> - by Dr. Ramani Durvasula for You Tube<br />excerpt:<br /><i> Scapegoating is very bad for a child, and a child's mental health. It is emotional abuse, plain and simple. <br /> ... Don't let their abuse define you ... <br /> Trauma bonding can be a major issue for scapegoats into their first initiation into "so called love" which was really about abuse, and as such, they may be at greater risk of equating love with abuse ...<br /> ... But there is some bright light, believe it or not, for the scapegoat ... This is the group if they can find the gumption and give themselves permission to be able to walk away from these toxic family systems, especially the scapegoated person who receives therapy, they may finally be able to give themselves permission to set a boundary, go "no contact", stop taking responsibility for the family B.S., and not be surprised when nothing is left to them in a Will, and when they are still told by siblings and parents alike, that it's your fault, and while the trauma bond always lurks, if the scapegoat can find the mental health they need, and finally escape (ideally both), they may be less likely to participate in the broken system. <br /> Scapegoats may be more likely to "cut and run" and leave the family system, move far away, create a life in another place, and that geography can make it easier to maintain distance and boundaries even though we know narcissists are capable of taunting you from the other side of the planet. ...<br /><br /></i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MmKk9OHU58" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Narcissistic Family: Signs You're Escaping the SCAPEGOAT ROLE</a> - by Jerry Wise, MA, MS, CLC (You Tube) <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCaGjXUBPco" target="_blank">Can a narcissistic relationship TURN YOU INTO A LIAR?</a></b> - by Dr. Ramani Durvasula (You Tube). <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPrbXSXalJA" target="_blank">These Twin Traits Make Narcissists Insufferable</a></b> - by Dr. Les Carter for Surviving Narcissism (You Tube)<br />excerpt from video:<br /> ... <i>If you say, "Okay, okay, I'll do everything that you tell me to do", then they are going to think, "Well, okay, I got my way." And then they are going to be that spoiled brat. And by the way, what they are saying is: "Feed me, feed me, feed me. I'm very needy; I feel very inadequate, and the only way I can be okay, is for you to satisfy my needs." They are very demanding, and you're in charge of their self esteem, and that's just not a role you need to play. Instead, the mindset I'm going to take towards this self gratifying and emotionally unregulated kind of narcissist, is:<br /> My approach is, "I can appreciate your desire to be gratified. I have that same desire too. Just as we all do. But your strategy of doling out punishment and going into this high demand, condescending and invalidating role or emotion when ever you don't get your way, doesn't work, and I'm not going to go along with that."<br /> And you might go as far as to say (I don't know if you'll say it out loud), but to the narcissist you might think, "Did it ever occur to you that one of the most gratifying things you can have in your life is co-operation?"</i> ...</p><p><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKTaufecrOw&t=624s" target="_blank">Narcissistic relationships LEAD TO F***ED UP RESILIENCE</a></b> - by Dr. Ramani Durvasula<br />This is a worthwhile video to see if you are a scapegoat. While scapegoats count on their resilience time and time again, and get used to picking themselves up from all kinds of abuse, smear campaigns, being scapegoated and rejected, and left out of a Will, the challenge here is that you don't use your resilience and abilities to adapt and survive for other narcissists you might meet and their abuse, or to "give in".<br /> My own experience with scapegoats is the same as what Dr. Ramani found: that they are the kindest, most adaptable, most hard-working people you will ever know, but hopefully they have, and you have, your limits. I do believe that there comes a time in every scapegoat's life where where "super resilience" begins to crack under health issues related to abuse, and where hypervigilance (one of the first PTSD symptoms you will be plagued with), begins to take its toll in a big way. Part of the scapegoat's road in life is that they aren't cared about by their family outside of the "punching bag" role that is demanded of them, and they have no choice but to be resilient if they are to survive, but being resilient with the right people, and the right employers, will keep you alive much better than if you keep resilient for narcissists. As one person commenting on Dr. Ramani's video said:<br /> @SummaGirl1347 said:<br /> <i>As a child being raised by two malignant narcissists, it was either get really, REALLY resilient and self-reliant or give in to suicidal ideations. The first time I realized that my life was not going to get any better, and that I wouldn't be missed if I died, I was eight-years-old. But, I came to the conclusion that my death would only give them more attention and sympathy and I refused to give them the satisfaction.</i> ...<br /> @sushmayen said<br /> <i>We might be in the relationship thinking they'll take care of us in old age or during illness. They don't. They abandon us without a thought. We have to be resilient and not compromise our dignity<br /> </i>response to @sushmayen by @anitadanforth6995:<br /> <i>I just never assumed my parents would. it was cleaner to just stand on that than be disappointed so many times.<br /> and I went forward with that resolve. beginning to earn and save Money at 12 yrs old. in the end I did get and inheritance...very late in life. which I am grateful for.<br /></i>- So, some scapegoats do get an inheritance (from the comment above), but I wouldn't count on it based on all of the other comments I saw below the video. <br /> </p><p><b>HIGHLY RECOMMENDED IF THERE ARE A LOT OF ESTRANGED FEMALES IN YOUR FAMILY: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Macho-Paradox-Some-Hurt-Women/dp/1402204019" target="_blank">The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help (How to End Domestic Violence, Mental and Emotional Abuse, and Sexual Harassment)</a></b> - book by Jonathan Katz (note: I suggested this to my family, and put his book in an area where some family members might see it). Read the reviews too, if you can. <br /><br /><a href="https://www.quora.com/Do-narcissistic-parents-reject-their-children" target="_blank"><b>Do narcissistic parents reject their children?</b></a> - Quora question<br />An A.I. bot said: <br /><i> Narcissistic parents can indeed reject their children, either emotionally or physically. Narcissistic parents often prioritize their own needs and desires over those of their children, leading to neglect, emotional manipulation, and even abandonment. This can have long-lasting effects on the children's emotional well-being and self-esteem. If you or someone you know is dealing with the effects of narcissistic parenting, seeking support from a therapist or counselor can be beneficial.<br /></i><br /><b>RECOMMENDED: <a href="https://artflorentyna.com/the-ripple-effect-how-narcissistic-parental-rejection-shapes-a-childs-life/" target="_blank">The Ripple Effect: How Narcissistic Parental Rejection Shapes a Child's Life</a></b> - by Art Florentyna, Trauma-Informed Personal Development Coach<br />excerpt:<br /><i> Before delving into the topic of parental rejection, it’s crucial to acknowledge that individuals with narcissistic traits will frequently deny any form of rejection or wrong doing toward their own children. They may vehemently deny these behaviors and, instead, manipulate the narrative to suit their personal agenda and public image. Recognizing these manipulative behaviors and understanding the signs of narcissistic personality traits is essential for comprehending and addressing familial dynamics marked by scapegoating and emotional abuse.<br /> A narcissistic parent or caregiver skillfully crafts a narrative where the scapegoat child is unjustly portrayed as the wrongdoer, a narrative that often takes root in the child’s early years. This calculated strategy serves the dual purpose of eliciting sympathy not only from unwitting onlookers but also from within the family itself. Its primary function is to redirect attention away from the actual issues, which are unrelated to the child and deeply rooted in the narcissistic parent’s emotional dysregulation, an unwillingness to acknowledge personal shortcomings, an unrelenting need to project pent-up frustrations onto an external target, and at times, an effort to conceal their own addiction to narcissistic supply, which is a compulsive desire for attention, validation, and control over others. ... </i></p><p><br /><b>RECOMMENDED:</b> There are also some videos by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@drjudywtf8793/videos" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Judy Rosenburg</a>, a<b> </b>practicing psychologist<b> </b>who runs a healing center in Los Angeles, California, who has a You Tube Channel and takes callers, some of whom have been disinherited from a Will by a narcissistic parent. She explains that Wills are decided by narcissistic parents in terms of how much narcissistic supply they get from their children, not on empathy (most parents will always choose empathy when deciding a Will). <br /> The Golden Child role given by the parent will practically ensure that the golden child gets most of the inheritance or the entire inheritance - this is the child who has been spoiled since they were a toddler, and in return, most golden children understand that their job is to make the parent look good (not too hard when you are constantly rewarded and rarely, if ever, thrown off the pedestal of idealization). Not all Golden children <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/04/two-types-of-golden-children-favorite.html" target="_blank">like their set of circumstances</a></b>, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/06/how-narcissistic-bullies-domestic.html" target="_blank">but most do</a></b>. <br /> At this point, I'm not sure in which videos she discusses it, but it may be in the 2016 - 2018 era. I leave you her channel, and perhaps you can find the discussions <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@drjudywtf8793/videos" target="_blank">about that there</a></b>. <br /> But besides divvying out assets, real estate and money over narcissistic supply, narcissists are also likely to do what they have always done: scapegoat (hurt, or try to hurt) one child. Seeing as that is the case, it kind of keeps you from caring about pleasing the parent, especially if you know scapegoats who worked really hard for their parent, did the lion's share of the drudgery and caretaking, and gave up their lives to do so, and still did not get a penny (I know quite a few of them). <br /> Judy Rosenberg does talk a lot about narcissistic parents regardless, and the incredible hurdle you have to overcome to heal - she describes growing up in these families for scapegoat children as a "hostage situation". You are hostage to the parent's mind games, gaslighting, rage, punishments and on-going cycles of "love bomb - then devalue - then discard". When you finally leave when you are an adult of age 18 or so, a host of issues follow you where ever you go, especially C-PTSD mental health and physical health related issues, and having fear and anxiety in relationships which can make you vulnerable to other abusive people. The wounds can run so deep that it takes a long time to heal, and she warns constantly that <u>"the hurter cannot be the healer"</u> and not to look for comfort or support with family members. <br /> If the family members aren't going through the same kind scapegoating, they are either likely to shut the conversation down, laugh at your pain, ghost you, or give you advice about how to get along with them or "forgiving them" (often very bad advice because it puts you in the line of fire again to get re-traumatized). <br /> "Forgiveness shaming" is very bad for scapegoats, and audacious especially because of all that they have lived through. I have a post about that subject <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/should-you-forgive-abusive-people-with.html" target="_blank">HERE</a></b>. <br /> Dr. Judy Rosenburg is not as well known as <b><a href="https://doctor-ramani.com/" target="_blank">Dr. Ramani Durvasula</a></b> who lives in the same city, and spends most of her time helping survivors of narcissistic abuse too. Dr. Rosenberg does have a slightly different perspective, but her views and how she constructed her <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-49JdQuM-g" target="_blank">Mind Map</a></b> to explain what traumatized children go through is very relevant to the discussion of narcissism, and provides psychological modalities of healing from narcissistic parents and the damage they do to their children and the damage they continue to do to them even when they are gone. <br /><br /><b><a href="https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2024/01/if-you-experienced-these-5-behaviors-in-childhood-you-may-have-had-narcissistic-parents/" target="_blank">If You Experienced These 5 Behaviors In Childhood, You May Have Had Narcissistic Parents</a></b> - by Shahida Arabi for Thought Catalog (note Shahida Arabi is a researcher and writer on narcissistic abuse, wrote a bestselling book, and graduated from Harvard University). <br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">FOUND ON FACEBOOK<br /><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEion5Y9aDXlC4KCEmDvUQiOvK_7MSIaZ_hHPVbmYCO-rQl-8TrAJu_5NpnvmAtJ6xAulgYHkjQfG1yiJct0p4BHTLQu8k_-fjMIon7KJ1UaOxyu8AWYZikh5UDFBtz6vzvBuZ9pevyDSmRmcGcdKvR2MIvx62w1vJ1DKhU-TySVS0HeiiVkhBsdAYiB73c/s502/mind%20journal%20quote.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEion5Y9aDXlC4KCEmDvUQiOvK_7MSIaZ_hHPVbmYCO-rQl-8TrAJu_5NpnvmAtJ6xAulgYHkjQfG1yiJct0p4BHTLQu8k_-fjMIon7KJ1UaOxyu8AWYZikh5UDFBtz6vzvBuZ9pevyDSmRmcGcdKvR2MIvx62w1vJ1DKhU-TySVS0HeiiVkhBsdAYiB73c/s16000/mind%20journal%20quote.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJsNPHZJKgwnlXFd5csK0kfqi7lfvuxQHwBl1wYdDAyYLt526YhLLg3nUqdz_KkDgVbiBvGGMwOFCKzm8yA-FsmdkN078nLuT7l3gEGv2xNUNWnb-_GntccF-k4ZXd13MjbxqpQgaBpD31Ot6i-1faXInpnfkWEekpXsBy7FnrQlB5Qr_xox6pSCOLUx4/s466/not%20treated%20well.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJsNPHZJKgwnlXFd5csK0kfqi7lfvuxQHwBl1wYdDAyYLt526YhLLg3nUqdz_KkDgVbiBvGGMwOFCKzm8yA-FsmdkN078nLuT7l3gEGv2xNUNWnb-_GntccF-k4ZXd13MjbxqpQgaBpD31Ot6i-1faXInpnfkWEekpXsBy7FnrQlB5Qr_xox6pSCOLUx4/s16000/not%20treated%20well.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgU0I-4hi-xR-xZ_iSppCSiyf-r-Oml7Ll7Fh4zVzNB7AXh_RHdaVeosE1Rd6MeCDSUSaf3Qzpn8VdQdsb7QoszoDVxKIhAFq9qHwOOCx14Xis8uTUurU1LDnM6z_KXj0fQ0l6D5hHSm9e7wiXmLzDFdrczLr77tt5n7W46lBtDV8XBFlJYa-CG_MXmsc/s721/silencing%20herself.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="721" data-original-width="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgU0I-4hi-xR-xZ_iSppCSiyf-r-Oml7Ll7Fh4zVzNB7AXh_RHdaVeosE1Rd6MeCDSUSaf3Qzpn8VdQdsb7QoszoDVxKIhAFq9qHwOOCx14Xis8uTUurU1LDnM6z_KXj0fQ0l6D5hHSm9e7wiXmLzDFdrczLr77tt5n7W46lBtDV8XBFlJYa-CG_MXmsc/s16000/silencing%20herself.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIVw2BTtPGKFHBMkgpMp7JdUJQUeGNtlstoMaXzk58oNqPHD4Or00b4GrsMxuikmq13nId9XqXvyBgbkm4YUKGkwU9NaTLh6UsS_f6T0it19tNtmO_RUq8KO6arWTy1kS5ZGJnhInxqJRCtaqxTv2433cYU2radkiTVQ7O6cULV7ajbxrmBX04IdttNfM/s634/I%20don't%20want%20to%20fight.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="634" data-original-width="466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIVw2BTtPGKFHBMkgpMp7JdUJQUeGNtlstoMaXzk58oNqPHD4Or00b4GrsMxuikmq13nId9XqXvyBgbkm4YUKGkwU9NaTLh6UsS_f6T0it19tNtmO_RUq8KO6arWTy1kS5ZGJnhInxqJRCtaqxTv2433cYU2radkiTVQ7O6cULV7ajbxrmBX04IdttNfM/s16000/I%20don't%20want%20to%20fight.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><p></p>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-66840574972588659222023-12-15T12:07:00.000-08:002023-12-21T06:37:55.463-08:00For Scapegoats of Narcissistic Parents: "I'm being invited back into my family after being estranged, and I'm pretty sure my parents are narcissists. Have they changed? Is this an apology or something else?"<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQRWGrrMfRTBQIJgc0MG7SFn_Bnli47H7qabsVz0ttdW6rf061vcJ2jya-aG-nGo2Y919-SmvnaJhnbqtPGN_xblpY_RUu6v7aI9Ezps7iBCIFe-RZ9USg_X6oZT9i8JCiOda8N-keku1O7kd10V-MH83FDyWEgSeYkG0kCoNxmeRtv_IbShDdDyfmAjQ/s575/Dr%20Ramani%20quote%20on%20verbally%20abusive%20parents%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="337" data-original-width="575" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQRWGrrMfRTBQIJgc0MG7SFn_Bnli47H7qabsVz0ttdW6rf061vcJ2jya-aG-nGo2Y919-SmvnaJhnbqtPGN_xblpY_RUu6v7aI9Ezps7iBCIFe-RZ9USg_X6oZT9i8JCiOda8N-keku1O7kd10V-MH83FDyWEgSeYkG0kCoNxmeRtv_IbShDdDyfmAjQ/s16000/Dr%20Ramani%20quote%20on%20verbally%20abusive%20parents%20blog.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><div style="text-align: center;">BEFORE I GET TO THE POST<br />FIRST, AN ANNOUNCEMENT</div><br />Before I get to what this post is about, I have an announcement. <br /><br />I will be continuing my series on shaming, as promised, but during the holidays, I thought that this post and the topic might be more appropriate.<br /><br />The last three posts in the series on shaming to be published are:<br /><br />* <u>How Being Exposed to Shaming, Erroneous Blaming, Perspecticide, Gaslighting, and Most of All Fawning, Can Create Narcissism in a Child, Plus a Tease About a Personal Story</u> - that's the title, and the writing is completed. It's a deep dive into this subject. A minor graphic artwork has yet to be made. So, you can look forward to that. <br /><br />* A cartoon/illustration that will make a post in the series more understandable<br /><br />* And another deep dive post into the shame/rage spiral<br /><br />So you can look forward to that.<br /><br />Now for this post:<p></p><div style="text-align: center;">PRELUDE<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">I was inspired to write this post from a number of sources. The sources are listed below. <br /><br />Around this time every year, many scapegoats of narcissistic parents are asking the question: "I was thrown out of my family, but after <u>xxxx</u> years, they are inviting me to spend Christmas with them again. What is going on? Have they decided I'm not to blame for all of the things they threw me out of the family for, or are they apologizing for what they have done to me, or is it for something else? And should I find out for sure?" - or some variation of that. <br /><br />And invariably people who have had the experience of going back say "Don't do it! It's a trap! This is what happened to me ..." and they tell some horrific tale of abuse by the parent, or a sibling (often siblings don't want you back - they believe it threatens the family resources they feel entitled to), or the whole family starts abusing again, often beginning with an extraordinary amount of chiding and cruel put-downs that they try to cloak as humor at your expense. <br /><br />While the tales have their differences, the fact that they were scapegoated again when they rejoined the family is the part of the tale that rarely seems to change, and in the overwhelming number of stories they are scapegoated worse than they were before, often over the most flimsy of reasons and excuses. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?</div></div></div><p></p><p>Narcissists grew up in homes with too much blaming, shaming and criticizing. To avoid being targeted, they put fault on others, usually a sibling. If it worked, then they kept using it. Eventually they came to use it most of the time, and lied to keep from being targeted. Sometimes they were targeted regardless. In that case they were more likely to end up as the vulnerable covert kind of narcissist who seems more shy and less grandiose on the surface. If they got away with it time and time again, then they are more likely to be the overt grandiose style of narcissist. </p><p>Once they become narcissistic parents, they put children in roles, usually by the time they are toddlers. All of the roles exist to pay service to, and enhance, the narcissist's ego. Almost all children who grow up with authoritarian narcissistic parents have shattered egos, and some even have a shattered sense of self, even the favorite less abused child, and they all react differently to being gutted. It's understandable why a scapegoat would have a shattered sense of self, but why would less abused children have one too? And the answer is that they developed a false self in order not to be scapegoated themselves (in other words, they acted). <br /><br />Narcissistic parents punish, reward, play head games, and manipulate to keep you in the role they have assigned you.</p><p>The scapegoat role exists because the parent refuses to be accountable for anything that might tarnish their ego and an image they want to present, or that causes delays in their ambition to reach the top in terms of power, control, domination, superiority and an authoritarian role in the family, at work, and in their friendship circles. All of this is pretty common, and self deceptive, because their style of bringing up a family rarely works (the rate of divorce, the rate of cheating, the rate of lying, and the rate of estrangement from children is very high, and they don't have what most families have: mutual support and having each other's back - all of that usually falls apart). <br /> They don't gain superiority at work either because what they do at work is usually triangulating, constant complaints to the boss about others in the workplace, indulging in false gossip, manipulating bosses and workers to believe in conspiracy theories about workers they feel they are in competition with, and blame-shifting (they most often get fired eventually because their tactics are found out, or they are caught bullying, or stealing from the business, or their work isn't up to par because they are spending too much time throwing co-workers under the bus instead of working). <br /> They also don't have "real friends" the way most of us have because they engage in lying to friends about what is really happening in their lives, and they are, again, in certain friendships only for ego reasons, or because they think they will gain some sort of superior standing by associating with certain people. <br /><br />Likewise, giving a child a scapegoat role is self deceptive too because the child isn't really at fault for everything the parent wants them to be at fault for, of course. They may not be at fault for anything, no matter how hard the parent tries to put the fault on them, no matter how much gaslighting they do, no matter how many punishments there are and how severe they try to make the punishments, no matter how much hatred the parent throws at the child, no matter how many smear campaigns they run trying to get others to believe they have an all-of-the-time, all-at-fault child, because the parent isn't dealing with reality, and it isn't moral or ethical. They are just replaying their childhood family script. Someone in the family usually knows what the truth is anyway, especially siblings, though because the parent is exerting so much pressure, power and threats, the other children may never say anything because they are trauma-bonded, too threatened by the specter of becoming a scapegoat themselves. In order to keep that threat away from themselves, they too are likely to attribute anything they do that is "bad" to the same scapegoat child the parent is using. So then it can become a situation of family bullying. <br /><br />Because children who are given the scapegoat role have a difficult time <i>not</i> defending themselves when falsely accused of events that either did not happen, or did not happen the way the parent thought they did, they are likely to react strongly to being falsely accused. Defending yourself when wronged is very normal, and under these kinds of circumstances it is especially normal. And if you are a scapegoat, you know the drill when you react to being falsely accused: they will call you crazy for reacting or defending yourself, or tell you in some way or another that your reactions aren't appropriate or normal - the gaslighting starts, and it never ends over fantasy events and fantasy faults they try to saddle you with. <br /><br />They'll often spend their entire lives punishing you if they fail to correct your perceptions, wearing you down, until you give in. If you don't give in, you are punished again, or banished. If you give in to get the issue off your back and to stop the coercion, you are a martyr and a liar. Then you are likely to be rewarded for being a liar by your parent, which causes all kinds of issues, both with the parent (lying under duress), people in the family who know you are lying to make the narcissist happy, and who begin to lie for their own outcomes. While the parent may be happy that you lied, and tried to please them, your own physical, emotional and ethical well being takes a huge hit. </p><p>Most scapegoats of narcissistic families are banished at one time or another, or several times from their family. In fact, I'd bet that most children and adult children who are banished or estranged from their parents, and who haven't been charged with a crime or crimes, and who aren't going to rehabs over and over again, are scapegoats of narcissistic families. Alcoholic families have their scapegoats too, but there isn't the same kind of on-going consistency of hatred, attacks and never-ending fault finding that there are towards scapegoats of narcissists. The hate will deepen and become full of conspiracy theories when narcissists practice scapegoating. <br /><br />Scapegoating also happens because narcissistic parents tend to be full of rage, jealousy and resentment, and they have to take it out on someone. Why? Because they aren't as high on the superiority ladder as they would like, ever, and I mean ever. They want to be so high to the point where everyone takes their orders and advice without question, all of the time, under any circumstance. It boils down to this: narcissistic parents want their children to cater to demands, all of the time, and children who aren't caterers to every demand aren't of much use to them, and the child gets the cold shoulder and is neglected. <br /><br />They don't look into why some children might not want to cater, or why those children might feel resistant to catering, or why a child might be defending themselves. The parent just gets into the habit of abusing, punishing and rejecting children who don't cater, which increases the chances that the child won't cater past childhood because <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/03/hurting-or-punishing-others-to-teach.html" target="_blank">the science on this</a></b> says that the abuse, punishing and rejecting caused them to distrust the parent and the parent's intentions towards them. <br /><br />Scapegoating and benevolence are total opposites. And, as I've said before, awards are not benevolent actions in narcissistic families - they are a manipulation to keep a child in role, and are most often accompanied by punishments, coercion, hounding to submit, and other actions that don't work long term.<br /><br />Do most narcissistic parents know the science on why scapegoat children don't become reliable sycophants? Not likely. Do they care about this fact? Not a bit unless they feel it might ruin their reputation, or create adverse outcomes in their illusory climb to superiority. <br /><br />They manipulate children to fit into these <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">roles</a> </b>too. While some of it is based on personality, a lot of it is not. Usually they pick the more bootlicking child to be the golden child, and the more resistant-to-control to be the scapegoat, although family prejudices and proclivities play the biggest role in who gets scapegoated. Note: roles are usually decided when children are mere toddlers, so the personalities can change and the narcissist won't notice. They've decided who is who and what is what at a very early stage when the child is pre-verbal where the narcissistic parent feels entitled to fill in the gap as to what the child is feeling, when the personality is unsure and fluctuating, when day to day behaviors with toddlers are at their most unreliable in terms of being a predictor of future behavior. <br /><br />But don't narcissists change, and see the error of their ways in how they treat others? I mean, how can they justify this forever? Isn't that why I'm being asked to return to the family fold, and especially at Christmas, which is supposed to be a time of peace and making up? <br /><br />Couldn't it ever be because they have seen the light?<br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">CAN NARCISSISTIC PARENTS CHANGE,<br />AND WON'T THEY WANT TO STOP THE SCAPEGOATING AT SOME POINT,<br />KNOWING THAT IT ISN'T PARTICULARLY WORKING?<br /></div><br />The answer to this question, is that narcissists can change, but do they really want to?<br /><br />There are several roadblocks to change and the things I have mentioned are that they feel they need a scapegoat - to take the blame off of themselves, to give themselves the sense that they are never at fault for anything, to give themselves the vision of superiority, and to silence any and all members who aren't giving them that, and who are complaining that the narcissistic parent is cruel, unjust, abusive, and won't listen. If the parent has full blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder, they are highly likely to rage about any tiny thing that is not an ego stroke, where they feel they might be slighted or criticized, or where they might be called on to work out issues in the way most people do. They sit on their imaginary throne and wait for others to change and work out issues in their favor. When they don't get that, they rage. And rage, as we know, can turn into abuse and estrangement. <br /><br />If they aren't willing to take any responsibility in their dealings with others, and they aren't sorry for scapegoating you and putting fault on you when it didn't belong there, then they probably only want you back to scapegoat you again, as there are many instances of shame they feel they cannot deal with without having a scapegoat to blame-shift it all on to. <br /><br />The reason why it might take years to invite you back is that they have probably been getting some satisfaction either by scapegoating someone else, or scapegoating you by proxy through false complaints, false gossip, telling others that you are "no good", smear campaigns, trying to bait you or <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/get%20someone%27s%20goat#:~:text=informal,people%20really%20gets%20my%20goat!" rel="nofollow">"get your goat"</a>. If they scapegoat-by-proxy, most people around them get tired of this. Narcissists tend to be obsessed with hurting grown children they cannot control or manipulate, and people also grow more and more suspect when narcissists show they have contempt for their own child. <br /><br />For most parents, raising children is about benevolence, self sacrifice, of insisting on the truth, of honest and sometimes herculean efforts to be emotionally regulated, of caring about their children's feelings and emotional health at all stages of life, of being fair even when they might be angry at a child, of being ethical and teaching ethics to their children. Narcissistic families don't raise children this way at all, quite the opposite, and they don't want to change the script because they feel they must scapegoat all of their parental failings on to one child, and sometimes their partner too.<br /><br />"The reason I wasn't a good parent was because of my child" is the general message. <br /><br />So when they say goodbye to you and then decide they want you back for a big holiday event, if they can't take responsibility for what they have done, and they can't take responsibility for the way they have hurt you, is it worth it? Sometimes the invite is about trapping you, and abusing you until you give into them. Sometimes it might be an issue where they only have one child left, and they feel they can't risk losing that child too. And they know themselves enough to realize that disappointment is inevitable with that child too (children are actually not very good sources of narcissistic supply no matter what they do and how they act). Plus narcissists are never truly happy because they focus their attention on getting rewards predominantly. <br /><br />Disappointments can end up where they impulsively scapegoat, even when they don't want to. So both the parent and the only child left with a parent have a lot to lose without the original scapegoat present. However, the reasons behind wanting you back can be myriad. But more often than not (from reading forums from survivors) they try to get you back because they feel they need you in your old scapegoat role. <br /><br />Which is to say that they are not likely to change, even if they say they have changed, but there are also ways to tell if they have changed. I invite you to read on, as there are some definite signs to look for if you are wondering if they have truly changed, or if they are faking at changing: <br /><br />One of the most iron-clad ways that you can tell if they just want you in your old scapegoat role is if they show signs of contempt. The research on this originally came from <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gottman)">John Gottman</a> </b>(<b><a href="https://www.gottman.com/" target="_blank">another link</a></b>), and many psychologists since him <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt" target="_blank">have run many experiments to discover that he was right</a></b>. <br /><br />I have also been doing some research on the psychology of hate, prejudice and resentment myself, and if a person is committed to hating and resenting certain individuals, or groups of people, and they have strong antagonistic traits like narcissism, they tend to get worse (spiraling down into more hatred and resentment) to the point where their hate becomes totally irrational, paranoid, and delusional. There is no more cognition applied in whether their stance on hating you is the right way for them to proceed. The hate becomes more visceral, automatic, impulsive and compulsive. <br /><br />In terms of hating their own child, there is also research that confirms that too much power can lead to more <b><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/dec/17/does-power-lead-to-corruption-research-testosterone" target="_blank">anti-social traits</a></b>, including violence and corruption. Authoritarian types of power also block empathetic feelings (<b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-empathy/201909/power-blocks-empathy" target="_blank">another link</a>, <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2018/05/14/what-power-does-to-you-the-psychological-consequences-of-power/" target="_blank">another link</a></b>, <b><a href="https://www.mindtherisk.com/literature/159-the-power-paradox-how-we-gain-and-lose-influence-by-dacher-keltner" target="_blank">another link</a></b> and <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption" target="_blank">another link</a></b>). This especially becomes an issue with narcissistic parents because they are obsessed with getting more <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-pursuit-of-power-control-and.html" target="_blank">power, control and domination</a></b> no matter how old you are, no matter how many grandchildren you have, no matter how much power the narcissistic parent already has. <br /><br />Children who have become full adults don't need to be controlled or dominated on any level. The expectation that the older you get you are expected to give more and more control and power over to your parent is absolutely crazy-making! <br /><br />On empathy ... They are already so low on empathy. Do we want to give them more power so that they can become even more unempathetic, and more sadistic (sadism being the opposite of empathy)?<br /><br />Narcissists tend to be put out by children and adult children who need empathy too. Narcissists also tend to scoff at children and adults who have been traumatized. They are very much into <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/08/injustice-victim-shaming-and-blaming.html" target="_blank">blaming victims</a></b> and viewing them as <b><a href="https://stoprelationshipabuse.org/educated/avoiding-victim-blaming/" target="_blank">weak and incompetent</a> </b>(<b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming#:~:text=Victim%20blaming%20occurs%20when%20the,the%20harm%20that%20befell%20them." target="_blank">another link</a></b>). One form of this kind of thinking goes like this: "If you had been smarter, you would never have been disabled when the bomb fell on your town. You would have realized that you should have left the area long before the war started." What this means is that narcissists bypass empathy by telling you what you should have done, and what they would have done, competing with you about how their strategic mind is superior to your reactive mind, making it into a diatribe of "the intelligence it takes not to get hurt." <br /><br />When we need empathy, this is just cold hearted. <br /><br />Narcissism is also often comorbid with Paranoid Personality Disorder. But even when narcissists don't have the extra personality disorder, hatred and contempt can lead them to be paranoid, with a desire to hurt others or to get rid of them, to relieve themselves of the paranoia they feel, especially in regards to their image and the reputation they are trying to build. In addition, narcissists also look for reassuring signs that they have a right to hate and hurt others, and that is where prejudice comes in: based on sex, sexual orientation, race, cultural differences and political differences, mainly, and things like the disenfranchised, the poor, the minorities, the elderly, the over-weight and the disabled secondarily. In other words, they will tend to think, "See? I was always right to hate this person, and to treat them badly." <p></p><p>This happens even when it is built on the flimsiest "evidence": their own beliefs, their thoughts about what other people's thoughts are, assumptions, what they want to believe, fantasy perspectives, convenience (targeting "powerless" targets), cultural or biological differences, and so on. </p><p>And one of the things we find that helps them come to the conclusion that they should be committed to hating, hurting and being contemptuous in such a strong way, if not a powerful way, is that they become as equally committed to criticism. Because they tend to only want to find fault outside themselves, they decide that being highly critical and judgmental is necessary to prop up their own insecure ego, to gain power and control, to gain prominence, to get attention. <br /><br />For adult children of narcissists:<br /><br />The surest way to tell if they haven't changed, and want you back as their scapegoat is if they show signs of both contempt and criticism. It often manifests in these ways:<br /><br />Unsolicited advice is criticism. <br /><br />Condescension, which can be constant, shows contempt. <br /><br />Rage over what you have to say about being hurt by them is a form of contempt and criticism. <br /><br />Verbal abuse is definitely a form of criticism. <br /><br />Other signs of contempt are listed below in the next section. <br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">HOW DID THEY GET THIS WAY<br />AND CAN YOU DO ANYTHING TO STOP IT? </p><p>I have talked about how they probably used blame-shifting as a child, but what I did not mention was that narcissists tend to grow up in environments where extrinsic values greatly trumped intrinsic values when it came to other people, so they will base worth on another person much more in terms of extrinsic values than intrinsic values. And those extrinsic values tend to be money, wealth and prestige, and have to match what they <i>expect</i> from the people who have these extrinsic qualities. </p><p>The problem for narcissists is that they have decided that showing and displaying contempt is one of the ways that they feel superior (superiority is delusional thinking, but to them it only matters that they "feel" superior). In other words, they feel they must be critical and judgmental of others a whole lot in order to feel better about themselves. Usually contempt, criticisms, and being judgmental are signs of insecurity, that they are afraid they will find themselves on the outside of acceptability instead of inside acceptability. In a way, it is like passing the buck, where the more insecure they feel about acceptability, the more critical and judgmental they become, and this also fuels the demise of what ever empathy they used to have for others (usually empathy begins its wane in early childhood). In fact, it has everything to do with why they lack empathy. <br /><br />I'll explain:<br /><br />When they are contemptuous, and cruel, and parental figures are laughing about people a lot (trash-talking), and when they are building their hate on assumptions, and lack of empathy, it actually turns the most intelligent of us off, rather than turns us on. It's not enlightening; it's not pleasant; and it doesn't actually convince a lot of us that they are superior, the goal they have in acting this way. </p><p>In more powerless individuals, like children, hyper-critical behavior tends to produce anxiety at the very least, or a trauma bond at worst. If it produces fawning and ingratiating, realize that the fawning response is a trauma response. <br /><br />If a person is fawning totally voluntarily, without fear or anxiety, or from being pressured, it is different than fawning over being intimidated, bullied, threatened or coerced into it. Fawning is actually the response of last resort when it comes to trauma responses, and it creates situations and outcomes that the narcissist doesn't like (which I will discuss in a <b>future post</b>). <br /><br />If scapegoats aren't using trauma responses like defending themselves, or fawning, they can blank out when being criticized. I think the artwork I did <b><a href="https://fineartamerica.com/featured/effects-of-verbal-abuse-lise-winne.html" target="_blank">in this piece</a> </b>explains how a scapegoat child can feel overwhelmed by criticism, so his mind shuts down. He might feel incredibly hurt as the art work shows, but cognitively he can't comprehend the hate unless he hates himself as much as the parent does. And some children get talked into hating themselves, and they can and do commit suicide over it too.<br /><br />If you are a scapegoat, you know that the criticisms can overwhelm your entire autonomic nervous system because the criticisms from narcissists are often on all levels: your body, your mind, your interests, your personality, your emotions, your thinking, your perspectives, your experiences, the way you express yourself, the clothes you wear, the way you present yourself in public, how well you perform expectations, your sex, how much flattery you give narcissists - just about everything that you are, do and say, is met with criticism and contempt. When a child who is being criticized is blanking out and has that wide-eyed deer-in-the-headlights stare, they most likely have C-PTSD, and it is time to stop the contempt. But narcissists don't do that; they find him or her useless for not hearing anything, and continue to throw more criticism at the child for not responding to the original criticisms. Eventually when narcissists only get a PTSD stare, they neglect the child when underage, or banish when adult. <br /><br />At any rate, to insist that children fawn to abuse is to damn them to be in a prison of continued traumatization, whether that is conscious on the narcissist's part or not. Most narcissists are conscious enough to know that their scapegoat is hurt, grieving, and in pain, and that lots of pressure and bullying to "make them fawn" causes him or her a lot of anxiety. <br /><br />If I was betting, I would bet that narcissists know that they traumatize their children, otherwise why put on acts in public that they adore their children and care about them when they do not? Why spread lies and make up stories about their scapegoated children? </p><p style="text-align: center;">HOW NARCISSISTIC CONTEMPT IS EXPRESSED </p><p>I have already pointed out criticism. Usually scapegoated children are criticized in the extreme. Most narcissists criticize their scapegoats directly, and the remaining ones criticize their scapegoats behind their backs in a two-faced kind of way. All of it is destructive, and it is also part of the personality disorder of narcissism.<br /><br />Any kind of destructive behavior towards their child's self esteem means contempt, that they don't like and love you the way that you are. Again, they only put extrinsic value in other people, whereas the rest of us put intrinsic value in others (it is why the rest of us take care of disadvantaged, disabled family members - narcissists would balk at doing that, and try to get the disadvantaged and disabled serving them instead, or they would just throw them away). </p><p>A narcissistic parent will try to make the argument that a scapegoat child doesn't act right; that they don't dress right; that they don't look right; that they are too fat or skinny; that they are psychologically inept or damaged; that they are emotionally insane; that they are inept in terms of career and career goals. That's all part of what narcissists are up to, and what they do, and if you are a scapegoat, you are very aware that you've been treated this way most of your life. <br /><br />If you have been successful in love and career, and if they extend an invite, consider that the reason for it might be that they don't want you to be successful, that it will "ruin" their plans for you being the family scapegoat, and "ruin" what they have said about you, and therefor "ruin" the perception others have of you of being crazy or inept. Success mars their abilities to scapegoat effectively.<br /><br />These are other ways they show contempt:<br /><br />They get on their high horse and compare you to them (it sounds and is similar to what I've said in the previous chapter above, except it is about comparing themselves to you). <br /> What it can sound initially like:<br />"You can't say anything right", "You can't do anything right", "Your mind and feelings are all wrong", "You're too sensitive", "You're crazy", "I can't stand you", "You can't even dress right", "You'll never amount to anything", followed by: "I never had bad grades like you", "I had a lot more boyfriends at your age than you do", "I was always loved by my parents. It's too bad you aren't", "I never had zits. It's too bad you have so many of them", "I never was overweight, but you've spent most of your life being that way", "I was always well behaved. It's too bad you aren't good at it the way I was because you'd be a lot more liked if you did", "You have ratty hair. When I as a child, I never did and as a consequence, I could decide when I could get my hair cut, but you can't, so I'm going to cut your hair whether you like it or not", "I won so many awards! What have you won?", and so on. They will always deem a scapegoat to be quite a bit inferior to themselves, and even to almost everyone they know.<br /><br />They also show contempt by comparing you to your siblings and other children, starting when you were very young.<br /> What it can sound like:<br /> "How come you can't do as well as Carl? Why can't you be as nice as Carl? I love Carl more than you, and I always have. I'm sorry I favor Carl, but he's a lot better at everything than you are. Carl was an easy child, and you were always difficult. Carl always knew I had his best interests at heart, but you always had to question it. Carl has always trusted me, but of course, he knows I'm trustworthy. He was always the sane one in the family, but your mind was always too messed up to realize I was always a model parent. What's wrong with you!?" - in fact, if they are still playing favorites with their children, and they are comparing you unfavorably, they still want to scapegoat you. <br /></p><p>Any gaslighting is the sign that they have contempt for the way you perceive things. Gaslighting is usually a sign of scapegoating. They want to dictate how you think, and what you should be thinking about and perceiving instead. It shows that they have no respect for the way that you think, or the way you experience things. It's also a nasty mind game. If gaslighting doesn't show a lot of contempt, I don't know what does.<br /><br />If and when a family member insults you, abuses you, or assaults you, and they tell you that they don't want to hear it, or that you should deal with it on your own and in silence, it is a sign that they don't care about you. Narcissists generally discard scapegoats who complain about a family member's abuse and violence because they are afraid it will tarnish their image as the most superior upstanding parent. So the scapegoating becomes a must for them, more severe, more about portraying you as a villain.<br /><br />If they advocate for your abuser and do not try to protect you, they probably prefer that others use you as a scapegoat too. Very few scapegoating parents protect their scapegoat child from any kind or form of abuse, because it would mean looking too carefully in the mirror at their own abuse. </p><p>Another way they show contempt is that they eventually, after decades of scapegoating, disregard all of your feelings, thoughts, life issues, medical issues, and generally do not care to hear what you think at all, or how anything effects you. They do not show any respect towards you. When it gets to these extremes, they do not listen to what you have to say about much of anything. In other words, you will feel like you are talking to a brick wall. It can get to the point where they don't respect your boundaries, what you want and don't want from them (which can lead to invasive actions against you to prove they won't respect your boundaries regardless of what you want, like stealing, stalking, talking over you, pushing you around, kidnapping, imprisoning, physical abuse, home invasion, kidnapping, and so on). Usually when the contempt gets to the point of breaking boundaries and breaking the law, they have entered into a more anti-social personality disordered way of scapegoating (as I talked about above, where their power has caused such a degree of a lack of empathy, they can get to a point of justifying committing crimes against you). Once it has gotten to the point where they are indulging in criminal behavior, whether they still want to scapegoat you or not, should probably not concern you as much as your safety. <br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">the attitudes of contempt:</p><p>They have no interest in understanding you. They decide you are inferior, a second class citizen, and that they don't need to know you.</p><p>They feel they deserve good treatment from you (respect, honor, civility, praise), but don't treat you, their scapegoat child, this way by a long shot. In fact, they have the attitude that they deserve these entitlements/hypocrisies from all children, without realizing that showing a child respect, honor and civility is a more teachable moment than rattling off a bunch of rules that they cannot, and will not, follow themselves. It makes situations fake, and phony, where some children will adopt a "false self", including "fake-fawning" to narcissists and other people who they deem to have more power than they do, and talking derisively behind their back. </p><p>They blame you in entirety for their hatred and anger towards you (we see this a lot in the prejudiced mind too).</p><p>They decide they don't need to invest in anything you want, or feel, or think (they come to believe that only their own thoughts, perspectives, and feelings are all that matter because to them, and it <u>is</u> all that matters to them most of the time). </p><p>Lack of civility is always a sign of contempt. <br /><br />So is verbal abuse.<br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">CONCLUSION<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">If they still want power, control and domination, they will probably still be scapegoating you.<br /><br />If they can't take any blame, or they are trying to shift fault on to others, or they are engaging in talk about the faults and flaws of others, they are showing that they still need scapegoats. <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If they show a lot of contempt (even if it isn't you right away), they are still engaged in their "superior" fantasies, and blame-shifting and scapegoating is all part of it. <br /><br />Narcissists have tremendous hurdles in giving up scapegoating. <br /><br />They would have to stop gaslighting, first and foremost, and they would have to stop being contemptuous of others (i.e. stop the trash-talking). <br /><br />They would have to grow some ethics and empathy, and what chance is there of that? <br /><br />They would also have to apologize for once in their lives instead of expecting others to do it every time there are issues, and what chance is there of that? <br /><br />And they'd have to share the power instead of hoarding it all for themselves and telling people what to do and where to get off if others don't do what the narcissist wants, and what chance is there of that?<br /><br />If you are tired of all of the narcissist's power games, and lust for power, and their manipulations to get more and more power, and trying to get them to talk to you in a respectful manner while they commit to threats and blackmail to get more power over you while trying to make you more and more powerless at the same time, even when it comes to your decisions about your own life, career, and relationships, then don't give them any more power. Be one of the individuals that cuts their destructive-to-everyone ambition off.<br /><br />The reason they don't apologize is because not only do they not care about your feelings, they see apologies as weakness. For them it sets them back into not being the most superior faultless person on earth, and they feel they may be more vulnerable to being looked at as the same kind of faulty person that they make fun of. Remember, they've lied their entire lives, starting in childhood, keeping the faults going outward away from them, dumping them on to someone else, instead of inward.<br /><br />In fact it is such a huge hurdle that they would have to give up on narcissism altogether, and be compromising and reasonable, and what chance is there of that? <br /><br />All of this is why psychologists prefer that their patients have as little to do with narcissists as is humanly possible, and especially if you are their scapegoat and have trauma symptoms or full blown PTSD. If it's obvious that they don't care about you emotionally and medically, or want to help you with your PTSD instead of making it worse, what does that say about them? </div></div><p></p><div style="text-align: center;">WHO INSPIRED ME TO WRITE THIS POST<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">John Gottman's <b><a href="https://www.gottman.com/" target="_blank">findings and research on contempt</a></b> and how it effects the hater as well as the hated is probably the most profound inspiration for writing this post second to the many survivors who wonder if they should return to their parents after years of estrangement and a childhood as a scapegoat. <br /><br />Dr. Les Carter's video, <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXaq0_XqhWk" target="_blank">The Sign That a Narcissist is Beyond Redemption</a> </b>says a lot of the same things I have said here. He also mentions John Gottman. <br /><br />My own research into the psychology of hate, prejudice and resentment played a big part in this post too, as well as research into how power corrupts and reduces empathy, sometimes to the point that they become <b><a href="https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000921.htm" target="_blank">antisocial personality disordered</a></b>. There is a great piece you can read from PBS called <b><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/the-science-behind-why-power-corrupts-and-what-can-be-done-to-mitigate-it" target="_blank">The science behind why power corrupts and what can be done to mitigate it</a></b>. It is an interview with Dacher Keltner and his research for his book called <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Power-Paradox-Gain-Lose-Influence/dp/1594205248/ref=asc_df_1594205248/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312045580796&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2012465094458035744&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=21152&hvtargid=pla-494313020057&psc=1&mcid=e96ccbd8cb9535a6897973c1911e152d&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=60223809337&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=312045580796&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2012465094458035744&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=21152&hvtargid=pla-494313020057&gclid=Cj0KCQiA7OqrBhD9ARIsAK3UXh20ILBF1IdqrHZq5lGYJ3zj2UKM2IZRQgn8klMvuHL2vEfccD9THz4aAlV3EALw_wcB" target="_blank">"The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence"</a></b> and it reveals these details: <br /><br />Shoplifting is usually done by the wealthiest Americans, not the poorest. When given too much power, people become more unethical and think it is okay to be unethical. People with more power than those around them are more likely to stereotype. People with more power than those around them tend to stop caring about others. People with more power than those around them tend to try to broker deals that benefit them much more than the other person. People with more power than those around them tend to become much more greedy, unfair and to take a lot more resources from others than is respectful, right or fair. People with more power than those around them tend to be more exploitive. People with more power than those around them assume they can touch people any way they want without asking permission. Undoubtedly there is a lot more to explore in the actual book than in the PBS article, but the article gives you some idea of what is discussed in the book. <br /><br />It also seems to explain so much about why our society seems to be getting more and more swamped by narcissistic "I-don't-care" unempathetic parenting styles and the kids who parrot them, why we seem to have approached another <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age" target="_blank">Gilded Age</a></b> of wealth disparity where the have-nots are rarely listened to, or heard, or cared about, until it is time to vote again where politicians make the <a href="https://katiecouric.com/lifestyle/relationships/what-is-future-faking/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">next future faking statements</a>.<br /><br />And it explains something that I had wondered about for a long time: someone who was quite wealthy in my own personal life got obsessed with stealing, hiding things, hoarding, taking way more than their fair share, and probably even breaking the law to do it. They were totally negotiation adverse too - they would just take and get <a href="https://www.wikihow.com/Dupers-Delight" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">"dupers delight"</a>, and a following<b> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandiosity" target="_blank">high</a></b> from it. Until I studied Antisocial Personality Disorder, and knew about the psychological impacts of gaining power over others, it made very little sense to me. <br /><br />I will have some more research articles to share with you in the post entitled "How Being Exposed to Shaming, Erroneous Blaming, Perspecticide, Gaslighting, and Most of All Fawning, Can Create Narcissism in a Child, Plus a Tease About a Personal Story". It would be redundant to list them here. <br /><br />Have a happy holiday, and don't let narcissists ruin it. </div></div>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-32675564699620114832023-11-03T07:32:00.009-07:002023-11-18T11:00:57.125-08:00The Difference Between Narcissists and Those With Antisocial Personality Disorder: Narcissists Feel Shame and Regret for Hurting Others Even When it Doesn't Have to Do with Empathy, and Antisocial Personality Disordered Do Not<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ZmaOEpS72gJmKa_nV-ylQm4KYiLNg8Z5hcTyOQIjjA7rUAXEVNKwZguW_TgPwQRAFRRfYa1-iPqqca4iEZTqkinQ0-Hjm2AdXbLpZl5BuxNfRsP1XLnp8np8EeVFiVmI7Xz4O8ISvtyA4OvYh5nDMneWkvxL03YzRVijheb9JCmrs7nXcH97KhO4PxY/s913/narcissist%20vs%20psychopath%20web.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="913" data-original-width="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ZmaOEpS72gJmKa_nV-ylQm4KYiLNg8Z5hcTyOQIjjA7rUAXEVNKwZguW_TgPwQRAFRRfYa1-iPqqca4iEZTqkinQ0-Hjm2AdXbLpZl5BuxNfRsP1XLnp8np8EeVFiVmI7Xz4O8ISvtyA4OvYh5nDMneWkvxL03YzRVijheb9JCmrs7nXcH97KhO4PxY/s16000/narcissist%20vs%20psychopath%20web.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/10/why-shaming-your-children-is-not.html" target="_blank">this is part of the series on Shaming</a></b></p><p><b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/09/how-shame-is-core-struggle-of-most.html" target="_blank">In one of my last posts</a></b>, I was challenged in the comments section about whether narcissists had any shame, and from there I felt that I needed to write this post, and to feature other posts by other authors and researchers (below), that differentiate between Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder. </p><p>In fact, as the title suggests, that's where the dividing line is between the two disorders: Narcissists can feel quite a bit of shame, and can even feel much more of it than other people, and their tactics and abuse don't help them diminish their shame, which increases their shame even more, but the Antisocial (i.e. sociopaths and psychopaths) don't feel regret or shame at all when they hurt other people. <br /><br />Or they might feel it a little when they are being incarcerated, but it's more like they'll be telling themselves that they committed some act of abuse "stupidly" and that they'll plan it out better next time. <br /><br />Why is this significant? Because people with Antisocial Personality Disorder are quite a bit more dangerous and menacing. These are people you should not directly confront - they will never accept, or even hear with an open mind, what you have to say about their behavior. They don't care what you have to say, and they don't have the empathy to care if they hurt other people either. For most of these folks, empathy died for them in their childhood. There are a number of factors that go into why their empathy is so dead, but to keep this post relatively short compared to others I have written, I will be focusing on the difference between them and the narcissists. <br /><br />One major difference is that they aren't driven by morals or ethics. While your run-of-the-mill narcissist may be low on ethics, most of them don't commit crimes against others, while the Antisocial Personality Disordered folks have no ethics at all, and are likely to be dangerous and hurt people with impunity, with no regrets because of that fact. They are driven by self-serving agendas always, period, and as simplistically as I stated it. Most of them are basically con-men or con-women through and through, exploiting who ever they think they can exploit with as little effort as they think is necessary. They don't care what other people are going through <u>at all</u>. <br /><br />In order to make it easier to talk about the Antisocial Personality Disordered types, I will refer to them as psychopaths. Why? Well because Antisocial Personality Disorder has subtypes: primary psychopaths and secondary psychopaths. To confuse you more, secondary psychopaths are often referred to as sociopaths. Primary psychopaths are born with their disorder, and have different autonomic nervous systems (which boils down to the fact that they don't feel fear or trauma when confronted with dangerous situations or of being overwhelmed by the enemy in a battle) and sociopaths are much more influenced by home life and the environment they grew up in, but have the same autonomic nervous systems as the rest of us have. <br /><br />Then there are sub-categories of sociopaths, mainly the functional sociopath and the dysfunctional sociopath, but even there, psychologists keep coming up with even more subcategories. <br /><br />And to confuse you even more, there is a brand of narcissist called the malignant narcissist. Malignant narcissists have a combination of Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and Antisocial Personality Disorder. They aren't likely to feel much regret or shame either if they hurt other people, though they may pretend to. And that's the problem; they are big pretenders, and they can appear very, very functional except for their rages, manipulations and very commanding, demanding natures. It is hard to tell the difference between malignant narcissists and the psychopaths, and sometimes the difference between malignant narcissists, the run-of-the-mill narcissists, and to some extent, one of the sub-types of Borderline Personality Disorder. Malignant narcissistic traits tend to stand out more than run-of-the-mill narcissists, and like the psychopaths, they don't feel much remorse for hurting others (they tend to engage in domestic violence, some crimes and bullying) and they over-react to anyone who questions their self-appointed superiority and grandiosity with incredible amounts of rage. <br /><br />Even with malignant narcissists, there are subcategories: the overt malignant narcissist, the covert malignant narcissist, the vindictive narcissist, the sociopathic narcissist, the dark triad, the dark tetrad, and the dark empath.<br /><br />In some of my explanations, including the malignant narcissist, I'll be calling them psychopaths. For the malignant narcissist, it's not all that accurate to proclaim them psychopaths, only that they have psychopathic tendencies to a large or small degree, depending on the person. However, like purely psychopathic individuals, they do have traits and proclivities to do harm to others. <br /><br />But I'm trying to simplify it so that you can be aware of the differences between them as opposed to the run-of-the-mill narcissists who do carry around quite a bit of shame inside them. <br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">THE DIFFERENCES<br />(simplistically covered)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><u>Narcissists</u>: primarily ego driven. They put enhancement of their ego above just about everything else and anyone else. A need to appear perfect and superior to others. High need for power, control and domination in personal relationships, a high need to be in powerful decision-making situations or professions. <br />Tends to be emotionally abusive or dismissive of anyone who stands in their way of their agendas, including people in their personal lives.<br />Fairly charming. <br />Feels shame and regret, but not in an empathetic way. The shame and regret comes from people finding out that they are not who they are making themselves out to be. It is expressed more as paranoia, and rage at the person who exposed them (so that the person doesn't expose them further).<br />While you can't appeal to them to be empathetic and to care about the feelings and life situations of others, you can appeal to them in terms of how what they are doing might destroy their reputation since they are reputation oriented. <br /><br /><u>Psychopaths</u>: primarily driven to take from others by force, or to bully people into submission. Some psychopaths only target people who they think are "easy" or who they deem to be weak: children, women, the disabled, the elderly, etc. <br />Exceptionally charming. <br />Feels no shame or regret. They are so driven to take from others, or over-power others, that regret would short-circuit their ambitions. Their attitude is that people are to be used. <br /><br /><u>Malignant narcissists</u>: a combination of both agendas. <br />If male, tends to be domestic violence offenders and child abusers. Very menacing and cruel if they don't get their way. <br />Exceptionally charming, two-faced, Jekyll/Hyde personality, can fool others easily, can act the part of being fawning to get what they want.<br />It is very rare for them to feel shame or regret. Attaining power, control, domination, wealth, and an air of superiority is so overwhelming that they rarely, if ever, consider the feelings of others. If someone tries to get them to consider the feelings of others, they may rage like a narcissist, or punish and get violent like a psychopath. </div><br />THE CHILDHOOD BACKGROUNDS<br />AND BELIEF SYSTEMS THEY ADOPTED<br />(simplified)</div><p></p><p><u>Narcissists</u> grew up in traumatic environments where there was a lot shaming and blaming going on, and there was likely to be emotional abuse in those environments too, as well as emotional neglect at the very least, if not other forms of neglect. In other words, they tended to have a narcissistic parent with authoritarianism at the center.<br /> Now narcissists can be plenty exploitative of their children too, just like the psychopaths, because of entitlement issues. Both disorders display entitlement. <br /> But narcissists are driven by different ambitions than psychopaths. Their ambition is to be thought of as a "superior being" compared to other people around them, to be thought of as "special" with special attributes that only other special people can decipher. Narcissists want to be spoiled with constant praise. They feel they need to compete with others in terms of who can win at beauty or handsomeness, who can win at arguments and debates, who can win at "wealth games", who can win at "head games", who can win at "phoniness" (most of them believe others are as phony as they are), who can win at fooling others, who can win at work through work place bullying, or triangulation, or sweet-talking a boss, and who can win at being thought of as the most charming upstanding citizen, who can win at being thought of as a victim if they don't get their way in their relationships. <br /> Narcissists are basically in competition all of the time. They wake up with manipulating others in mind, and they go to sleep with thoughts of manipulation in mind too. They don't like the thought of "letting things be". The agenda, in other words, is primarily social: looking and acting superior, trying to get people to listen to them with baited breath, getting lots of positive attention. It is exhausting for the narcissist to put up this front all the time, especially in front of people or children who they deem to be weaker or voiceless compared to themselves. <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/08/why-do-narcissists-care-so-much-about.html" target="_blank">"The mask" falls</a></b>, and they become abusive to take off steam, especially if they feel that their superiority is being questioned, and they worry that they'll get caught at being abusive, at being phony, that people will see their perfection and superiority as phony too, and that they might have to deal with community shame. <br /> Narcissists in their early environment were much more likely to be expected to "fawn to power and control." If you watch them carefully, they will be exceptionally fawning to anyone who has wealth, popularity, fame, and who they believe is "superior" to them. Whereas, they will tend to be abusive to children, the disabled, females, people in poverty, people of a minority race or religion, people who have weight issues, and so on, especially in their close personal relationships. They are very dependent on societal disenfranchisements to tell them who they can pick on and who they have to look up to.<br /> And because they fawn to power, and were expected to fawn to power when they were children, they expect others in their close personal relationships to fawn over them too when they insist on being dominant and bully others.</p><p>As I said above, <u>the psychopath</u> is driven by different agendas. Again, they are con-men through and through, and usually learned to take from others or to impose themselves on others in their childhood environment.<br /> They tend to grow up in environments where parenting was spotty, or neglectful, or where they had to parent themselves. While some of them are taught ethics, it may have been a situation that was inconsistent, or where the rest of the environment was not particularly ethical (growing up in environments where there is gun violence, war, little adult supervision, a lot of crime, and so on). <br /> They can also grow up to be a golden child, where anything they do is enabled, including hurting other people, or being violent. <br /> Malignant narcissists and psychopaths tend to be very, very exploitive of children especially, expecting them to do things which take away a child's maturation process, and their dignity and individual selves, to serve the parent. They must be a pretty close version of a mini-me version of their parent to not be abused. The malignant narcissist or psychopath has the fantasy that they are a tyrant king or queen, and that their children are to be either submissive little helper servants or to be abused (and they more or less infer or say outright: "take your pick"). <br /> For malignant narcissists, it is to make their children into narcissistic supply, to puppet them into spouting unequivocally that their parent(s) are "the grandest of the the grand", the all-superior, the all-knowing, the all-wonderful, all-superior beings. And they must promote the idea that they are the all-helpful doting parent(s) too. Or again, the child will be punished. It kind of reminds me of the Turpin family who were unchained and put in matching outfits in public and to smile for the camera, even though they were being starved, lying in their own excrement and abused at home.<br /> The malignant narcissist who tends to want both social acceptability <i>and</i> to exploit others (having others do work for them while taking credit for it, lying about workers in the workplace to get them fired so that no one will stand in their way of getting to be the boss's only reliable and knowledgeable source, winning a race by disabling their opponent, the extremes of being brought up by a narcissistic parent who put competition before anything else) will manipulate others through terror and rewards to take control of the narrative, to get others to believe them.<br /> Neither the malignant narcissist nor the psychopath are interested in child welfare, "good practices in parenting 101", treating children with dignity and respect, treating them in age-appropriate ways, encouraging their own personalities and interests to come forward, and unconditional love (they wouldn't even know what this is, and if they did, they wouldn't want it anyway - a mind set on exploitation can't love unconditionally). <br /><br /><u>Narcissists and malignant narcissists</u> manipulate their children and grown children through rewards and punishments as a way to temper the behaviors and speech of those closest to them, particularly compared to those they feel hierarchically superior to.<br /><br />I have talked in other posts about how fawning is incredibly unhealthy and traumatic, especially when the fawning is done because of the threats, punishments, blackmail, silent treatments, coercive control, and other forms of abuse by narcissists and malignant narcissists. It is particularly traumatic for children because children learn over and over again that they have to fawn to abuse, any abuse. With normal healthy families, children are taught to have good boundaries and self respect instead, to keep safe, to leave people who abuse. Narcissists teach their children the opposite, and many children are even exposed to narcissists who expect them to apologize to other abusers. They are also at risk of other predators: child molesters, rapists, kidnappers, child abductors and child murderers. </p><p>In the case of the two kinds of narcissists, note that rewards are not benevolence. Benevolence is giving because someone needs help, or is hurting, or is overwhelmed with a life situation, and it requires empathy. Rewards are a manipulation: "I'll reward you for x, y, and z , but if you slip up, the rewards go away." In other words, it's transactional and dependent on something: for scapegoats, whether they can be used for blame, shame and abuse in return for rewards, and for golden children, whether they can uphold a perfect, superior image of the parent (this is what they are rewarded for). Narcissists learn early on that people, and especially young children, can be manipulated and molded very easily with the reward/punishment tactic, and they use it for the entire life of that child, into old age if necessary. This can and is of detriment to themselves, and often their images are at stake because of it too, so there is a backfire built in to all of it. Rewards and punishments are used by them for self-serving purposes only, and not for their children.<br /><br />In contrast, <u>psychopaths</u> tend to manipulate through terror primarily. They also tend to choose victims who they deem to be more powerless than others, who are hurting, vulnerable or alone than others because they feel they are easier to prey upon, and get things from. They aren't going to reward if they can, at all, help it. They don't care about impressing unless they feel they have to in order to exploit, and take advantage of. <br /> Their agenda also tends to be less about shaming than just taking, unless they are malignant narcissists. In contrast, run-of-the-mill narcissists love to shame because their agenda is more social than material, to appear as someone to worship, look up to, to have power and control so that they don't ever have to fawn to power and control themselves as they did as children. They get the feeling that power and control is all that matters. <br /> Psychopaths get the feeling that only money, material things, property and forcing themselves on others are all that matter, and that they don't have to work for them because others who work are an easy mark. "They have too much and can share, so I will take ..." <br /><br />In fact, all <u>narcissistic, malignant narcissistic and psychopathic parents</u> will have a "me first" agenda and attitude when it comes to how they relate to their children. The psychopathic parent will just be more "me first" than the others (i.e. all of the time) than narcissistic parents.<br /> If you are a child who grew up with any of these parent types, you are either going to be a "hurting mess", feel trauma-bonded and imprisoned by your parent, and have trauma symptoms, or you are going to have the coping skills of another Cluster B, one being another "rewarded" immature narcissist who fawns to power, and abuses the powerless. <br /><br />One reason why psychopaths become so dangerous is that they believe that by hurting others, or threatening others, that it will bring the reward of submission of the other person they are abusing <i>every single time</i>. They don't think of any other ways to deal with others other than to "charm and harm." And if they don't get submission, they keep hurting the other person, and escalating the pain that the other person is in, more and more and more, sometimes to the point of outright torture. <br /><br />We see this in leaders of countries who invade other countries without provocation too, who commit atrocities in order to make a population submit (i.e. fawn to being overtaken). <br /><br />They don't worry about accountability, or of getting caught, or paying for their aggressions, or even concern themselves with a societal reputation because they are so arrogant and really do believe they will never get caught, ever. They believe they will get away with their abuses and terrorizing over, and over, and over again, indefinitely. Some of them play "catch me if you can" games and cat-and-mouse games with police to assure themselves they will never be caught, that they can even win with law enforcement hunting them down, surveillance, DNA evidence, and teams of agents brainstorming where and when they will make their next move.<br /><br />Likewise, tyrannical invading psychopathic leaders who commit atrocities also do not believe they will ever be held accountable either, that they can wear any opposition down. Most will always believe they have more power and destructive capabilities than anyone who confronts them.<br /><br />But it is also their arrogance and the feeling they have rights to aggress upon people, and their property, that cause them to make blunders. <br /><br />Here is an illustration of what can go on:<br /><br /><u>The psychopath</u>: "How can I get money and material things, and wealth, and servitude from this situation? How can I fool people out of what they have?"<br /><br /><u>Malignant narcissist</u>: "How can I get money and material things, and wealth, power, control, domination, and most of all, most everyone's attention on me, and get the admiration from the rich and powerful? How can I make others serve me to these ends? What connections do I have to have, and how much do I have to lie about my status to ensure that this happens? How much lying do I have to do to remain on top at all times, or at least give the appearance that I'm on top? How much blame-shifting and gaslighting do I have to do to keep my status as 'top dog'. How much fawning do I have to do to the rich and powerful? How much threatening of the peons do I have to do?"<br /><br /><u>The run-of-the-mill narcissist</u>: "How can I get attention, admiration, get to be known as a superior likeable charming person who would never harm anyone or compete with anyone? How can I get power, control and domination over others? How unselfish do I have to appear to be? How much of myself do I have to hide, how much fawning do people expect of me, how much do I have to reveal about myself to get what I want, how much empathy do I have to pretend to have, how many people do I have to lie to, how many people do I have to pretend to be empathetic towards, to be accepted as one of them, how many people do I have to reward for putting me on a higher hierarchy or pedestal, how many people do I have to discard or hurt to get what I want?" - you can see that this kind of narcissist would care a lot about how other perceive him or her, and why they are vulnerable to shame and regrets, and why the other two types aren't as much. <br /><br />The shame and regrets, by the way, have nothing to do with empathizing. It has to do with their standing in social circles and in society, and how much their standing is rising or falling. They feel they cannot manipulate people if it is falling. <br /><br />One of the reasons your plain envelope narcissists hate their scapegoats is because scapegoats are usually not so quiet and they know first hand that the grandiosity is false, and that there is an abuser underneath. Some of them do not have the incentive to stay quiet either. They know that no one ever had a law changed, or helped the abused, disenfranchised and downtrodden by being quiet. They know they aren't going to help themselves by being quiet either. Societal changes, in large part, mean going against what narcissists and psychopaths want, and are getting away with, and getting rid of their loopholes including coercive control, corporal punishment of children, silencing the opposition to abuse, and reducing or eliminating assault weapons (mass murders are overwhelmingly committed by young collapsed narcissists, malignant narcissists who are negative on others and have significant prejudices, malignant narcissists who also have other personality disorders like Paranoid Personality Disorder, obsessed psychopaths, and Paranoid Schizophrenics, none of which can easily be detected, even the paranoid schizophrenics because most of them don't get symptoms or show mental illness until their twenties at the earliest). <br /><br />Anyway, the narcissist, the malignant narcissist, and the secondary psychopath learned in childhood (from it being modeled by a parent or other authority figure) how to be this way. The likelihood that they will pass this down to at least one child is very high. <br /><br />This is very simplistic, but when I get to adding to the list of the rest of the Cluster B personality-disordered (I only have the primary psychopath at the present time), I will talk much more about how childhood influenced them.<br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">BREAKING THE LAW<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">All of the types I mentioned will break traffic laws, and they tend to be obnoxious entitled drivers. Speeding, going significantly over the speed limit cutting other cars off, making dangerous moves like going from a third or fourth lane to make a quick exit on to an exit ramp, speeding on bumpy country roads where there are children and farm animals, aggressive driving, and blaming accidents on other drivers is usually par for the course, especially when they are in their twenties, thirties and forties, but it tends to still be their mode of operandi when they are older than that too, if less so. <br /><br /><u>Run of the mill narcissists</u> tend <i>not</i> to break the law when it comes to hurting other individuals. They are rarely violent, choosing to use emotional, psychological, proxy, and financial abuses to achieve their ends. If they are accused of abuse, they will usually tell others that their victims are crazy. When it comes to breaking the law, they will break laws that won't incarcerate them. Instances are: carrying illegal drugs, going swimming on beaches that have "No Swimming" signs, smoking in designated "no smoking" rooms, jay walking, purposely ignoring "no trespassing signs", nude swimming on beaches that are designated for swimsuits and families, the smaller illegal activities and crimes in other words.<br /> When they abuse, it is usually ego driven. They want flattery, even when other people are having issues with them. <br /> They tend to be hypocrites, and will <i>not</i> treat others the way they demand to be treated. <br /> They are "terrible listeners" because everything you say will be filtered by them in terms of how your message will influence them, what it will do for their ego and what it won't do, what is in it for them, and some childhood background issues: not believing in the truth because the truth was not practiced in the childhood home, not believing in what you say because they are so agenda driven to get power and control and figure everyone around them is too, and so on. So whether you are <b>silenced</b> by them, or whether they listen to you, they aren't going to hear what you have to say regardless, even if you try to get them to understand you. They live in their own reality, and they also don't care what you have to say beyond how things effect them. If you feel like you are talking to a dense brick wall, it has to do with the narcissist's <b>selective hearing</b>. <br /><br /><u>Male malignant narcissists</u> tend to be domestic violence offenders. They get in your face, they rage in your face, they grab you, they can push you around without your permission, and otherwise aggress upon you in a physical manner, which very often leads to physical attacks: punching, tripping, slamming you into the wall, and so on. They think that if they are in enough of a rage or angry, that they have a right to act in this manner even though it is against the law and you are both adults. <br /> If they do commit domestic violence and are confronted by authorities, their favorite thing to say is: "She made me do it."<br /> Some of them engage in false imprisonment or trying to isolate you from the empathetic people in your life. If they can't do it through persuasion, they will try to do it financially, or disabling your car, or losing your keys on purpose, and other kinds of motives to keep you in some sort of state of bondage to them. <br /> If this is a partner relationship, they are very suspicious of you, where you go, what you tell others, if you are trying to escape, if you might be thinking of an affair, and so on. This is especially true if they have had affairs on a partner themselves. Malignant narcissists cheat on you as a way to ensure they have another love relationship to go to if you aren't acting like a puppet, or if you leave. It's just one way they like rubbing your nose in the fact that they don't need you as their partner, that you aren't special. <br /> Child abuse tends to be more severe than the run-of-the-mill narcissists too, with child exploitation, lots of gaslighting, absurdly long and pointless silent treatments and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">infantilizing lectures</a> </b>(lectures meant for a child much younger than the child is), and "child discipline", a lot of it lasting well past childhood, and almost always accompanied by shaming, and verbal abuse. Tearing down a child's self esteem is mostly part of the picture too with at least one child (usually their designated <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">scapegoat child</a></b>).<br /> Children are often "silenced" when the malignant narcissist does not want to hear anything that is not in line with how they want to see things, and what they want to believe, or that alters their perception of other people or phenomenon. They like to be the authorities on speech and knowledge, and that goes for what "the truth is" too, even if what they believe or are spouting isn't the truth. This is one reason they are prejudiced, either on a personal level against a number of people, or on a societal level. It tends to be both, each influencing the other. <br /> Like all narcissists they insist that they appear faultless, except with a capital "F". They will not tolerate being blamed for anything, even when they commit illegal acts. They can and do react with violence to being blamed, especially if the one confronting them is their child or partner. You are "supposed to" believe what they want you to believe, and you are pressured via rewards and punishments to go along with their beliefs in every facet of life. And we wonder why therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists tell their patients to get away and stay away from malignant narcissists as soon as they can. <br /> The "you have to's" don't end there, however. Malignant narcissists also often tend to be micro-managers, and don't ask you permission to be that, even if you are both adults. They just aggress themselves upon you in that way. "Take out the garbage! Do this, do that!" If you counter them, they go into a rage. Let's say that you feel sick during one of their micro-managements, they are likely to shout, "You aren't sick! Get out there and do it now!" - and from that you can also tell that they don't deal with reality. They make it pretty clear that they can't deal with excuses, no matter how relevant the excuses are. <br /> They are bullies, using their status, or power to order you around. If they fail miserably at ordering you around, they treat you with contempt or violence or a discard. <br /> This means that relationships with malignant narcissists aren't really relationships. They are a drill sergeant or terrorist ordering you around, and for you it is a test of endurance only, until you either break from the trauma bond, or if you leave, or if you call authorities. <br /> It is common to have <b>trauma symptoms</b> or PTSD if you relate to malignant narcissists in any long term way. <br /> They very rarely confess their wrongs unless there are some social benefits for them in doing so. For instance, some of them start channels on You Tube because You Tube pays them if they have enough of an audience. But aside from that, most of them do not admit to any wrong, and if anything, will blame their victims time and time again.<br /> They tend to break other laws and codes of conduct because they are also driven by what psychopaths are driven by, plus what narcissists are driven by. If they have more psychopathy than narcissism, they will insist that joint property be theirs entirely, or mostly, and if property or money belongs to others, they will insist to themselves that they have to have it. They don't have the ethics to care how these attitudes effect others, or the empathy to care how it effects others either. They'll say things like, "All that you care about is stuff and money!" (showing projection of how they behave) or "You need to stop thinking about what you've lost and enjoy life!" (trying to persuade you not to notice what they are taking from you).<br /> Home invasion is not out of the question for malignant narcissists, even though it carries huge risks. It's part of the psychopathy part of malignant narcissism. <br /> On the world stage, malignant narcissists love to invade other countries, including invading citizens' houses, and taking their belongings and farm land. It's usually a "bloody war" where they try to take over as much as they can by killing as many people as they can too. If they succeed, they are often on to invading the next country on their list of "places to own". They really feel that this will catapult them into a "great memorable leader status." <br /> They have little to no regret for hurting other people, believing that people should fawn to their authority. They will keep hurting others if they feel they can get away with it, depending on how much psychopathy they have compared to narcissism.<br /> They also won't care too much what their reputation is if the psychopathy is more pronounced than their narcissism. One way to tell is if they are more "loner" than wanting to be around others, and to impress others. <br /><br /><u>Psychopaths</u> are a lot like malignant narcissists, except that they don't really care about their reputations that much, unless having a reputation can help them acquire more property, wealth, sex and material things. Either way, they tend to be more secretive, master-minding plans to achieve more and more wealth. They are extremely driven to take from others, and to get others to serve them, with the more functional psychopaths using more societally acceptable means to get there, and the more dysfunctional psychopaths resorting to petty theft, and sometimes graduating to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/home-security/home-invasion-statistics/#:~:text=75%25%20of%20all%20homes%20in,crimes%20are%20solved%20each%20year." target="_blank">home invasion</a>, grand larceny, burglary, assault, aggravated assault, rape, etc. <br /> It's hard to get people to part with their money, children, property or things without crimes being committed. So the functional psychopath has thought of ways around those loopholes. And what profession attracts functional psychopaths the most? <br /> Venture capitalism. There are a lot of psychopaths who are venture capitalists. When big companies fail or start to falter, one of the reasons they start to falter and fail is that they have capital shortages. The owners or CEOs of these companies look to venture capital firms to keep the company going. But most often, venture capitalists try to take them over and force huge "discount sales" of inventory to raise cash. In some instances they sell merchandise at such a discount that it costs more to make the merchandise than what they are selling it for. Then the venture capitalists have a liquidation sale and close the business. The venture capitalists walk away with millions, and occasionally billions. <br /> And all kinds of sectors are played with to enrich a few while destroying otherwise sound and needed businesses, and can include loaning institutions, housing, consumer goods and supplies, banks (credit default swaps, quantitative easing, and other tactics including lobbying for less regulation) ... in other words, the emphasis is on money much more than on society, relationships, and taking care of relationships. <br /> All psychopaths sacrifice relationships, and even benefits for the society they are living in, for an insatiable appetite for more money and property for themselves.<br /> So many of the shows out today glorify psychopaths including <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sopranos" target="_blank">The Sopranos</a></b>, <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Bad" target="_blank">Breaking Bad</a></b>, <b><a href="https://www.paramountplus.com/shows/billions/episodes/" target="_blank">Billions</a></b>, and <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_(American_TV_series)" target="_blank">Yellowstone</a> </b>to name a few. I really liked <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlander_(TV_series)" target="_blank">Outlander</a></b> until the main character, a man in this case, was tortured and raped over a few episodes by a psychopath. Television is actually so flooded with shows about psychopaths, and their sadistic acts, that you can't possibly watch all of them, even if you wanted to. And in those shows, the victims are barely considered, barely a character. Even if we look at history shows like Ken Burn's <b><a href="https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-american-buffalo" target="_blank">The American Buffalo on PBS</a></b>, it is likely that psychopaths killed the herds down to only 27 buffalo from hundreds of millions of them through what is now known as The United States (murder and making money are very much a psychopath's calling - they don't have ethics; they don't have compassion or empathy; they don't care who it effects or if it leaves people starving; they are always going to justify taking in ways that are purely destructive, and in this case their excuse for such destruction was "to solve the American Indian problem" - horrible!). <br /> How can featuring and glorifying psychopaths to the extent that our media companies are, going to lead to peace, such that invasions are intolerable, that school shootings and other mass murders are intolerable, that money mixed with murder is intolerable? Are we becoming numb to what psychopaths do to us and just accept them and their deeds forever?<br /> On a personal level, psychopaths threaten or practice egregious forms of abuse against their siblings while at the same time spouting false narratives about their siblings so that the parents will believe the psychopath is the victim, and leave their entire inheritances only to the psychopath. They tell bosses false narratives about anyone who they feel threatened by, in terms of dedication and talent, so that the boss is left with no one but the psychopath to lean on in making sure the business runs smoothly (but it won't). They steal money from businesses if they can get away with it. As bosses, they are tyrannical and expect people to be total puppets. They tend to fire a lot of people. They tend to be divorcees unless a spouse lets them order them around. They try to make everyone except themselves seem like money grubbers, only obsessed with what they can gain out of a situation, because they are like that.<br /> Psychopaths rarely tell the truth about anything because they are so focused on "getting something" out of every situation that truth is inconvenient to that ambition. <br /> Are psychopaths charming? Yes, they are, probably a lot more than any of the other Cluster Bs. But again, whether it is charm or harm you are getting from them, every single conversation and encounter is going to be "me" oriented, or it is going to be fluff or fawning that they feel they have to endure until they can get "the goods". <br /> <br />You can see why the secondary types of psychopaths might be produced by narcissistic parents who try to exert power and control via constant rewards and punishments. The rewards and punishments don't end in childhood either. <br /> <br /><div style="text-align: center;">LYING</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><u>Run-of-the-mill narcissists</u> primarily lie about things that will prop their ego: that their IQ is higher than it actually is, that their school grades were more admirable than they actually were, that many men asked to marry them when only two of them did, that they received awards for good citizenry when they actually didn't, and so on. <br /> They are going to be lying for ego-related reasons. <br /> And they will hate and often reject anyone who finds out otherwise. This is how narcissists are exploitive. They demand flattery, and if you don't give it to them, you're "out". However, they are hyper-critical of others, and often like breaking the self esteem of others. Go figure. That kind of entitlement is part of the disorder, and everyone who is close to them will see it eventually. <br /> They will lie about what great parents they are, and sometimes manufacture events that never happened. Often they put down their spouse, even when they aren't an x, to make themselves look like the hero in every situation. <br /> They can't stand to be in any kind of relationship where the other person isn't flattering them constantly, or at the very least, isn't doing enough to prop them up into some superior position, whether that is at work, at home giving them power and control over you, or in their friendship circles. <br /> They are so focused on that, that hardly anything else really matters to them, even their own children and spouse unless their children and spouse are acting like the flattering marionettes they were trained to be through rewards and punishments. <br /> These standards were probably multi-generational. Children of narcissistic multi-generational families aren't valued or loved for intrinsic reasons (i.e. for who they are), only for extrinsic values (whether they can make the family look good, whether they have admirable professions, whether they are wealthy, whether they flatter authority figures, and so it goes down the generations). <br /> Most narcissistic families are also authoritarian families who tell the younger generations what to do with themselves and their lives, what to say to whom, and who to accept and not accept in terms of their relationships, and it is life-long, even if it is not in the best interest of the member. If the member doesn't go along with the authoritarian, and tries to explain why it is not a good idea (perhaps they are being abused by another family member, or do not want to be part of the family business), they can be marginalized or ostracized to teach them a lesson as to what happens if they don't go along with what an authoritarian wants, including a false narrative that an authoritarian is trying to get many others to believe. Very unhealthy, very heartbreaking, if not totally toxic. <br /> So budding narcissists who are still children learn that they have to be "special" and "superior" because of those circumstances, or they won't be accepted or acceptable, thus all of the posturing, lying about their credentials, lying about how much money they have, lying about how prestigious their job is even if it is not, lying about being good friends with whoever is rich and famous, pretending to be much more than they actually are. They were not accepted by an authority figure for themselves in childhood, or their sibling wasn't, so they try to be accepted through distortions, false narratives and outright lies. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> Narcissists are quite vulnerable to psychopaths, as psychopaths can, and do flatter them to get what they want. And since narcissists are known to need a lot of flattery, and reward for flattery, they can be caught unawares when they "get taken" and the psychopath leaves them high and dry. <br /> They tend to lie less than the other two types I discuss next, however. <br /> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><u>Malignant narcissists</u> lie out of habit to get what they want socially and in terms of wealth and property. <br /> Again, it depends on whether they are more narcissist or more psychopath as to what they will lie about. <br /> One favorite phrase of malignant narcissists and psychopaths is "I would never lie to you." <br /> Since they are such phonies (while tearing up people behind their backs), they sincerely believe that everyone is a phony, and they often accuse others of being phonies. <br /> Thus no one can get very close to them because "no one is home" in terms of them having a reliable personality type. They have drives certainly, but they use others' personalities and mirroring to get what they want. As children, they may have felt that they had to do it to survive, and when it worked to get them what they wanted, they kept using it. <br /> Flattery won't necessarily work on malignant narcissists; they don't trust anyone. However, they may not show their distrust. <br /> It is possible that malignant narcissists grew up in a similar style to run-of-the-mill narcissists, but I bet you anything that someone in that environment was being threatened and terrorized, whether it was another child or their other parent.<br /> To illuminate your understanding of malignant narcissists and their ties to how secondary psychopaths grow up, the dysfunctional types of psychopaths usually are exposed to quite abusive, traumatic, crime-ridden, or war-like environments, so this would be the added element to the way run-of-the-mill narcissists grew up. Perhaps they felt they needed to steal food, or others' belongings to sell.<br /> Secondary functional psychopaths can grow up in environments where "money is everything" to the point where how you attain it can be unethical. For instance, they commit white collar crimes. Or they are 22 when they inherit money, and they buy a slum apartment building and live off of the income and become quite wealthy from other people's poverty. The poverty, of course, would be blamed on the tenants solely, rather than looking into whether the culture or society contributed to it. They become anaesthetized to the suffering of others, and they learn to be unempathetic in all relationships to the suffering of others. <br /> Malignant narcissists lie to aggrandize themselves, to sully the reputation of others, to get money, property, power, control, and domination over others. And they tend to lie a lot. They lose people in the process of doing all of this and move on to the next person to take advantage of them without remorse too, and without empathy for the next person's life they have destroyed. <br /> Malignant narcissist men are known for committing domestic violence, and even if they have put someone in the hospital they will lie about how their partner fell down the stairs, or crashed into a tree, or hurt themselves in some manner, anything to keep from being accountable. <br /> They use people, lie <i>about</i> people, lie <i>to</i> people, all with a lot of deadly charm. They can sadistically laugh at everything they are getting away with, and do. They can come across as huge fawners, flatterers, sensitive little boys or girls who cry for show when others have had enough, whereas when they are with people who they deem to be weak, they act like terrorists, bullies, tyrannical bosses, micro-managers, and insulting contempt-filled megalomaniacs, and in close personal relationships can graduate very fast into being physical abusers. <br /> They don't have regrets about hurting other people because they have been brought up in a hierarchical way where the weak get abused and the powerful are the abusers. If they think they can get more power, control and wealth by being a bully, they will keep escalating bullying to get ever more power, control and wealth. Again, it doesn't matter how they get it; it only matters that they attain it.<br /> That's why they don't care about anyone but themselves: their whole system is about getting rewards from bullying and disenfranchising, period, by pretending and lying to get others to go along with them, including how to get help bullying others. <br /> On the larger scale, this is why malignant narcissistic tyrannical leaders can go into another country and commit atrocities. It only matters that they "get" what ever property and wealth that exists in the countries they invade. They do not care about the people, or populations they destroy in the process, not even the number of people they are hurting and traumatizing - the psychopathy part of them gets off on the acquiring of other people's property and territory, and the narcissistic side believes they will be worshipped and held up as great fearless forceful leaders who got their country more territory, more wealth and who crushed a population of rebels. <br /> And all of how they "get" it is based on lying about the people they are invading, and false narratives to soldiers in the trenches as well as their own country-men, and self aggrandizement that is left from their deeds. <br /> Like the run-of-the-mill narcissists, they will only listen to fawning sycophants and flatterers. <br /><br />As for the <u>psychopath</u>, the loner types of psychopaths who don't trust people who flatter, or who fawn ... These psychopaths know they aren't trustworthy when they fawn, so they don't trust others who fawn either. <br /> "What are you trying to do here!? Are you trying to get something from me?!" - this is how some of them think, if they are flattered. So if you flatter someone and get an aggressive hostile response, consider that they may be a psychopath. <br /> The dysfunctional psychopaths can be loners and tend to be alone when they plan their misdeeds or crimes because they assume they aren't liked. <br /> Dysfunctional secondary psychopaths tend to grow up in abusive homes, and in crime-ridden neighborhoods, or in full time traumatic situations. Often there is very little parenting, ethics aren't enforced or introduced; it's like a free-for-all where they do what compels them to do. Without an adequate background of care and concern for their well-being, or the well-being of others that the psychopath is pursuing, they are going to choose the easiest path to obtaining money, wealth, and property. <br /> The more functional psychopaths, however, who grew up in financially stable situations, but who were neglected or ignored in other ways, can also grow up with the feeling that they can do anything that compels them to acquire wealth, or what ever they want including sex by force. They are also not likely to grow up with ethics either, or they were modeled unethical behaviors so much that they don't care about how their behaviors impact others. <br /> They also lie and plan to obtain what ever it is they want to attain, no matter what it does to the lives of others. <br /> Because they are so singularly driven to exploit, if you confront them, and try to stop their aggressions towards others, they will project it all back on to you and use shame, contempt, rage, manipulation, abuse and sometimes even violence to get you to stop confronting them. Any time you confront a sociopath, you will "pay" (as in their revenge against you) for having confronted them, challenged them, or questioned them and their motives. You are not supposed to see their motives or agendas, so their retaliations will be pretty extreme. </div></div></div><br />That is all I have to say on this subject for now. I will discuss fawning to abuse more in other posts, as it causes much more trauma than other forms of trauma reactions ... It is necessary to know about in terms of healing, in terms of holding those who traumatize accountable for causing it, and hold politicians accountable for passing laws that protect its citizens from violence and abuse, so that we can all live in a world of more peace and empathy.<br /><br />The further reading section below goes more thoroughly into the differences. The posts in the "recommend" categories explain some things that I have not covered in this post. <br /><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: center;">FURTHER READING<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Recommended: <a href="https://www.choosingtherapy.com/sociopath-vs-psychopath-vs-narcissist/" target="_blank">Sociopath Vs. Psychopath Vs. Narcissist: What Is the Difference?</a></b> - by Hailey Shafir, LCMHCS, LPCS, LCAS, CCS, and reviewed by Rajy Abulhosn, MD for Choosing Therapy</div></div>My note: this is a thorough article, and more importantly tells you how to deal with people with personality disorders: avoid, talk about "information" types of topics, choose public spaces, stay off of personal topics, etc. <br /><br /><div><b>Recommended: <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/spycatcher/201712/narcissist-or-psychopath-how-can-you-tell" target="_blank">Narcissist or Psychopath—How Can You Tell? (We hear the terms all the time, but what is the difference?)</a></b> - by Joe Navarro, M.A., and former FBI Counter Intelligence Agent, reviewed by Jessica Schrader for Psychology Today<br /><br /><b>Recommended: <a href="https://www.scarymommy.com/lifestyle/psychopath-vs-sociopath-vs-narcissist" target="_blank">Is There A Psychopath, Sociopath, Or Narcissist In Your Life? How To Know</a></b> - by Brianne Hogan for the Scary Mommy website (includes interviews with Sterlin Mosley)<br /><br /><b>Recommended: <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/the-difference-between-a-narcissist-and-a-sociopath-5181518" target="_blank">Sociopath vs. Narcissist: What's the Difference?</a></b> - by Elizabeth Plumptre, medically reviewed by David Susman, PhD for Very Well Mind</div><br /><b><a href="https://www.choosingtherapy.com/sociopath-vs-narcissist/" target="_blank">Sociopath Vs. Narcissist: Understanding the Difference</a></b> - by Renee Skedel, LPC and reviewed by Kristen Fuller, MD for Choosing Therapy<br /><p></p><p><b><a href="https://neuroinstincts.com/a-few-basic-differences-between-psychopathy-narcissistic-personality-disorder-part-one/" target="_blank">Basic Differences Between Psychopathy & Narcissistic Personality Disorder [Part I]</a></b> - by Rhonda Freeman, Ph.D. for Neuroinstincts</p><p><b><a href="https://richinrelationship.com/married-to-a-narcissist-or-a-psychopath/#:~:text=While%20the%20narcissist%20simply%20wants,take%20revenge%20at%20any%20opportunity." target="_blank">Married to a Narcissist or a Psychopath?</a></b> - by the administrators of Rich in Relationship<br /><br /><b><a href="https://medium.com/invisible-illness/psychopath-sociopath-or-narcissist-how-to-spot-the-difference-94a4e55c2f0d#:~:text=When%20narcissists%20do%20a%20bad,t%20care%20who%20gets%20hurt." target="_blank">Psychopath, Sociopath or Narcissist — How To Spot The Difference (No — they’re not all serial killers the way they are portrayed in movies.)</a></b> - by Kim Mia for Medium.com<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353928" target="_blank">Antisocial Personality Disorder</a></b> - by the administrators of the Mayo Clinic<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.verywellhealth.com/psychopath-5235293" target="_blank">How to Tell If Someone Is a Psychopath</a></b> - by Laura Dorwart and medically reviewed by Michael MacIntyre, MD for Very Well Health<br /><br /><b>Recommended: <a href="https://psychcentral.com/blog/recovering-narcissist/2020/05/the-1-myth-about-psychopaths-and-malignant-narcissists-what-people-get-wrong-about-these-types#1" target="_blank">The #1 Myth About Psychopaths and Malignant Narcissists: What People Get Wrong About These Types</a></b> - by Shahida Arabi, MA, for Psych Central<br /><b><br />Recommended: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/narcissists-cannot-love-their-children-2017-7?IR=T#:~:text=This%20doesn't%20change%20when,a%20possession%2C%22%20Neo%20said." target="_blank">Why psychopaths cannot love their own children, according to a psychologist</a></b> - by Lindsay Dodgson for Business Insider<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2118547-real-life-psychopaths-actually-have-below-average-intelligence/#:~:text=Overall%2C%20the%20team%20found%20no,of%20people%2C%E2%80%9D%20says%20Boutwell." target="_blank">Real-life psychopaths actually have below-average intelligence</a></b> - by Jessica Hamzelou for New Scientist<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.inc.com/amy-morin/advice-from-a-therapist-5-ways-to-with-a-psychopath-at-work.html" target="_blank">How to Stay Mentally Strong When You're Dealing With a Psychopath at Work (Working alongside a toxic person will take a toll on your psychological well-being. These strategies can reduce the damage.)</a></b> - by Amy Morin for Inc.com<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/romance-redux/201609/8-common-long-lasting-effects-narcissistic-parenting" target="_blank">8 Common, Long-Lasting Effects of Narcissistic Parenting (What happens when you live in the shadow of a narcissistic parent?)</a></b> - by Craig Malkin Ph.D., reviewed by Kaja Perina for Psychology Today<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/love-in-the-age-narcissism/202202/narcissistic-obsession-attention" target="_blank">Narcissistic Obsession with Attention (The most important person in the life of a narcissist is the narcissist.)</a></b> - by Kristy Lee Parkin Ph.D., reviewed by Gary Drevitch for Psychology Today</p><p><br /><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-mysteries-love/201611/narcissistic-men-and-their-mothers" target="_blank">Narcissistic Men and Their Mothers (Why selfish mothers tend to raise selfish sons.)</a></b> - by Berit Brogaard D.M.Sci., Ph.D, and reviewed by Kaja Perina for Psychology Today<br /><br /><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12602785/#:~:text=Subtypes%20of%20psychopathy%3A%20proposed%20differences,borderline%2C%20sadistic%2C%20and%20antisocial%20psychopaths" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Subtypes of psychopathy: proposed differences between narcissistic, borderline, sadistic, and antisocial psychopaths</a> - by by Carolyn Murphy and James Vess</p>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-47558022309330588662023-10-16T11:43:00.016-07:002023-11-12T06:33:32.790-08:00Why Shaming Your Children Is Not Effective, How Narcissists Respond to Feelings of Shame, What You Can Do if You Are an Adult Child and Your Narcissistic Parents are Still Playing the Shaming Game, and How to Start Healing from a Lifetime of Parental Shaming<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAupZrv678ghsit63930SQKwSPEhXDjD9GMQaB9dzXY_NrOv-pKvlm7eAQMc4ZA8EtwoliUA5aHgn_1Q_dHjua1xrg-Ptrz8g86fl4HHFCf33c8kW10ElETGm0G31eZkAAEYTSUPIFMtOm7nDXwPbBdQISvCPhWYi-Ol7w99IFwXtOzHcCYLIGhf_I2oE/s613/SHAMING%20quotes%20my%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="575" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAupZrv678ghsit63930SQKwSPEhXDjD9GMQaB9dzXY_NrOv-pKvlm7eAQMc4ZA8EtwoliUA5aHgn_1Q_dHjua1xrg-Ptrz8g86fl4HHFCf33c8kW10ElETGm0G31eZkAAEYTSUPIFMtOm7nDXwPbBdQISvCPhWYi-Ol7w99IFwXtOzHcCYLIGhf_I2oE/s16000/SHAMING%20quotes%20my%20blog.jpg" /></a><br /><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #800180;">THIS POST IS PART OF SERIES ON SHAMING<br /><u>the first post is</u>: <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/09/shaming-from-abusers-narcissists.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">shaming from abusers, narcissists</a><br /><u>the second post is</u>: <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/09/how-shame-is-core-struggle-of-most.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">How Shame is the Core Struggle of Most Narcissists. How it Gets Dumped Onto You, and How They Try to Harvest Regrets and Shame From You. Does It Work For Them?</a><br /><u>the third post is this one<br /></u></span><span style="color: #741b47;">a fourth post will show how an environment of shaming, blaming, perspecticide and fawning can produce narcissism<br /></span><span style="color: #741b47;">a fifth post will follow on the connection between shame and rage in narcissism<br /></span><span style="color: #741b47;">and probably a sixth post too, which will focus more on the trauma aspects</span></p><p>Shaming is a type of abuse that narcissists and sociopaths use to get you to do what they want or demand, and when used in a close personal relationship, it is to get you trauma-bonded to them. <br /><br />Shaming will cause trauma in children, whether it is used directly against the child, or whether it is observed (a caretaker or parental figure using it on one child in front of another child). <br /><br />Most of what narcissists do is to serve their power and control needs through manipulating others and events. They especially do this to spouse, children, and their adult children, putting them in <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">roles</a></b> which serve their needs. When their desires aren't met in these manipulations, they generally take the road of hurting the spouse or children. </p><p>Children experience shaming as painful, and if used throughout their childhood, they will develop trauma symptoms. People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder have many other traits and tactics which cause trauma to just about everyone, except primary psychopaths who are trauma-resistant, so with the combination of these other traits, it is highly, highly likely that most people will come out scathed if they are in any kind of close personal relationship with a narcissist. <br /><br />You may not notice the trauma symptoms right away, but they will start to appear little by little until your system is totally disabled by the symptoms. It is the reason why domestic violence counselors, psychologists who specialize in Cluster B Personality Disorders, and psychiatrists urge patients who are dealing with narcissists to either go "no contact" or "gray rock". Note that <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/p/does-gray-rock-method-work-for-family.html" target="_blank">the gray rock method is not effective for scapegoat children</a></b> of narcissists; however, it can be effective if your parent puts you into any other role aside from that one <b>(<a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">the scapegoat role</a></b> means that your parent is out to hurt you and blame you for things that are not your fault - most scapegoats end up without their family of origin, and no, there isn't anything you can do about it yourself ... I explain why later in the post). <br /><br />The reason why shaming is so damaging to children has been written about extensively. For one, enough shaming can "wipe out" their budding personalities, their budding interests, drives and ambitions, as well as their self esteem (self esteem is necessary in order to grow into a full functioning adult). It tends to delay emotional and psychological growth as well, and in some cases it can cause brain damage. The child is being pressured to put their attention on the parent first and foremost, and definitely in terms of what the parent wants from you (and the minefields that the parent sets up to hurt or reward a child again and again, often with no other choices than those two choices, however remember that whether you are hurt or rewarded is not your choice; it is in the parent's hands totally). This upbringing causes child neglect at the very least, as it puts more emphasis on denying the needs of the child in favor of the parent's, but most often it is not effective discipline at all. Children get the sense that they aren't liked, loved, cared about, that their existence isn't appreciated, and that they are being forced to supply all of this by other means, so they develop coping strategies that narcissists do not like, and do not care to understand. <br /><br />Here are some posts out of many as to why shaming children is not effective (note, my own writing continues after):</p><p><b><a href="https://www.verywellfamily.com/why-you-shouldnt-shame-your-children-4089277" target="_blank">Why Shaming Your Kids Isn't Effective Discipline</a></b> - by Jennifer Wolf and medically reviewed by Carly Snyder, MD for Very Well Family<br /> This article goes into what shaming does to children, and how it leads to the destruction of the relationship between parent and child. Here is an excerpt:<br /> <i> ... Not only do you lose considerable relational equity, but shaming kids in public or online also tears down trust and self-esteem. At the same time, it zaps your child's motivation to engage in the very behaviors you're trying to encourage. <br /> ... What If You've Already Publicly Shamed Your Kids?<br /> Let's get real. You might be reading this and thinking, "Oh no! I've already done this." Now's your opportunity to apologize. Your kids need to see that you're human and willing to own your mistakes. So even if you're experiencing a degree of remorse that makes it extremely difficult to initiate that conversation, make it happen.</i><br /> My note: I agree that apologies go a long way, but if you have apologized for it before, and you keep doing it, your apology will only go so far in mending your relationship. Apologies are difficult for narcissists since they prefer to stick the person they have a conflict with, with <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/02/why-abusers-and-narcissists-say-it-is.html" target="_blank">"all of the fault"</a></b>. It is more likely to compound the rift. <br /> The article also goes into words parents should avoid, how to address your child's behavior without shaming, phrases you should avoid (the following are taken from the article, although the article has explanations for each one of them: "You're such a bad girl", "You're just like your mother (or father)", "I don't know why I even bother with you", "I should ship you off to live with dad (or mom)", "I'm so tired of dealing with you"), how to influence your kids' behavior without shaming (and using these phrases instead: "I'd like you to tell me what happened", "What did that feel like for you?", "What could you have done differently?", "What will you do next time?", and "How can I help?")<br /> The article is worth reading and studying, especially if you've been shaming your kids, and you see absolutely no improvement from it (it is doubtful you will). <br /><br />Some other articles I found along these lines:<br /></p><b><a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/think-hard-before-shaming-children-2020012418692" target="_blank">Think hard before shaming children</a></b> - by Claire McCarthy, MD, Senior Faculty Editor, Harvard Health Publishing for The Harvard Medical School<br />excerpt:<br /> <i>“Do you really want to go out looking like that?”</i><div><i> “You let your teammates down during that game.”</i></div><div><i> “Why can’t you get good grades like your sister?”</i></div><div><i> “Why do you hang out at home all the time instead of going out like other kids?”</i></div><div><i> “Why are you crying? It’s not that bad.”</i></div><div><i> As we blurt out such things, we usually don’t think of them as shaming. We think of them as something that might help our child recognize a problem — and perhaps motivate them to change. We think of them as constructive criticism.</i></div><div><br /></div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-it-together/202103/3-dangers-shaming" target="_blank">3 Dangers of Shaming (How shame leads to only bad consequences.)</a></b> - by Dianne Grande Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br />excerpt:<br /> <i>... Research has shown that common problems linked to the shame experience include proneness to anxiety and depression. In particular, studies have shown a link between shame and social anxiety disorder as well as generalized anxiety disorder.<br /> Another way in which shame has been shown to harm the self is apparent in the association between shame and addiction. For some individuals who are susceptible to addictive behaviors, the addictive substance is used to numb the intense and painful negative feelings, including <a href="http://www.gatewayfoundation.org/addiction-blog/addiction-and-shame/">shame</a>.<br />According to Internal Family Systems theory, the use of the substance may be the mind’s way of trying to protect itself from intensely painful emotions that might otherwise lead to <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/suicide">suicide</a> (Schwartz, 2020). This also may become a self-defeating cycle when the abuse of substances is in itself experienced as shameful behavior, possibly leading to more self-numbing through <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/addiction">substance abuse</a>. </i><br /> <u>For narcissistic individuals, shaming them goes this way (from the article):</u><br /> <i>... For some individuals, the immediate sense of being flawed or of being unlovable is so painful that it cannot be acknowledged and corrected through rational self-statements. The defensive response is to put the blame on someone else. “It can’t be my fault; it must be your fault.” This pattern was explained in the recent post by Carol Lambert. Clearly, this type of reaction, if habitual, can be very destructive in relationships. ...</i> <br /> <u>Violence and shame (from the article)</u>:<br /> <i>... Possibly the least well-known consequence of shame is its connection to violence. While most of us occasionally react to feelings of shame with either self-directed criticism or other-directed criticism (blaming), the most unstable and emotionally vulnerable among us react to feelings of shame with violence. A violent reaction may be self-directed or outwardly directed. Both are primitive and potentially deadly responses. According to research by Brene Brown, shame is highly correlated with both <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/bullying">bullying</a> and suicide, in addition to the consequences noted above.<br /> When shame leads to violence directed at others, those harmed may be close family members. They may also be complete strangers, as in the case of <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/mass-shootings">mass shootings</a> that have tragically become so common in daily news. This is not to suggest that shame is the only motivating factor in mass shooting incidents; rather that it can be one of the factors. ... <br /></i> <u>A note here of my own</u>: studies have shown that many mass shooters have significant narcissistic traits, and narcissism has been associated with feelings of deep shame (my post about narcissistic shame is <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/09/how-shame-is-core-struggle-of-most.html" target="_blank">HERE</a>, </b>the one on mass shootings will be published soon, I hope - or check back <b>HERE</b> for when it is published).<br /> In the meantime, here is a clue as to why narcissists can become violent if they think you might be unhappy with them or critical of their behavior: <br /> <i>This aggressive behavior in response to shame was studied by Donald Nathanson (2008) and labeled the “attack-other response.” Feelings of shame, including low self-esteem and a self-perception of being defective, are so intense that the person feels themself to be in danger. In effect, anger is used as a weapon to hurt the person(s) who triggered the feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness.<br /></i> <u>Another note of mine on this part of the article</u>: <br /> However, the triggers may be real and may not be real. "Triggers" are a PTSD word and concept. A soldier, for instance, can be triggered by a certain look on someone else's face, because the look was one that someone else used when they were being held at gunpoint. PTSD works in such a way as to bring back the memory when they see someone else with that expression. The memory can be so vivid that the PTSD'd individual may feel that they are back in the war again, and react the way he would in war: by hurting, damaging, injuring or killing, and not kidding. If the soldier was trained to kill the enemy so as not to be killed himself, this may be the reaction to the flashback, though exceptionally rare, even if his life is not in danger in any way during the moment. Hurting or killing someone in a PTSD flashback is something most of us have heard. The proliferation of guns without a lot of mental health background checks can create this sort of horrific ending too. So we would say that a soldier who is back home and having an emotional flashback based on how someone looked at him would be an unreal situation: the soldier is not in danger, even if his brain is telling him that he is. <br /> What contributes to it is that PTSD keeps you in a hypervigilant state, so you have sleep disturbances: light sleep where any noise or dream can create a startle response where you wake up with your heart beating wildly, plus nightmares through the night. It can be so bad that you only get 2 -3 hours of "disturbed sleep" maximum, or you are up for three days with no sleep, and then crash on the fourth day, then up again for another three days, and so on. <br /> Lack of sleep has been known to create <b><a href="https://www.verywellhealth.com/can-sleep-deprivation-cause-hallucinations-3014669" target="_blank">hallucinations</a></b>. So the "facial expression" of someone else can be interpreted by the soldier as "the enemy soldier is about to shoot me! I have to shoot him first!" It would be like having a "waking dream", where the PTSD'd person is going around half asleep and half awake, and in a heightened state of defense and hypervigilance against attacks to take his life. <br /><br />This is not to say that people with PTSD have violent or aggressive reactions when they get triggered, but narcissists do, especially the covert brand of narcissist and malignant narcissist. They are fighting a war all of the time against being shamed as a child, something I will be discussing further in the post. <br /><br />For most child abuse survivors, they adopted one of the trauma responses: fawn, fight, flight, freeze, or avoid (and a lot of times it is all 5 of them in varying degrees, and depending on the situations they are in). Abusive parents want, and try to mold the child to give the fawn response at all times during bullying and shaming sessions, but it is very dangerous for the child, and creates situations where the child will fawn in just about <i>every</i> situation with any perpetrator and with any predator (until they have a sense of their own power and that they have choices - situations where they can decide not to put up with it). Their very lives are at stake, and if we look at what fawning does to the brain, to the emotions, and how it gives them PTSD and generalized anxiety disorder, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/how-narcissistic-abuse-ages-you-makes.html" target="_blank">it destroys the child little by little emotionally, mentally and physically</a></b>, especially if they have gotten to the point of suicidal thoughts (<b><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/09/childhood-abuse-increases-risk-of-adult-suicide-finds-research" target="_blank">suicidal thoughts are extremely common</a></b> for abused children who have both PTSD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder). <br /><br />Besides shaming being bad for children physically, mentally, and emotionally, it's not the ethical thing to do to a child by their caretaker by a long shot. Trying to mold them to accept shaming, wipes out their ability to defend themselves adequately in any situation. <br /><br />It's kind of like they need to be re-wired when they are fawners. Many seek therapy after going through a couple of disastrous or abusive relationships where they are expected to fawn in those situations too. Counselors in the domestic violence field, and trauma counseling are the most sought. The re-wiring is necessary to stop the fawning. In the end, it means not having abusers in your life, being able to tell who is likely to be abusive and who is not, which is one reason why, when parents are shaming, humiliating, being abusive or being unethical (like lying about you), it will end the relationship between the parent and child. <br /><br />You can't be going to trauma therapy, spending thousands of dollars on it, and getting pressured or threatened by parents to always be fawning, or endure a punishment ... You might as well flush your money down the toilet. <br /><br />In counseling with a domestic violence counselor, you are being trained against fawning when people are disrespectful and aggressive towards you on any level. You learn the channels of self defense, including what laws, and law protection can do for you. <br /><br />It's the process of saving your life from any more predation and the continued degrading of your emotional, mental and physical health, or of being attracted to substances like alcohol or cocaine to keep from dealing with the horrible reality of the situation. It means you aren't spending your life being a reactor to abuse any more.<br /><br />But first, the reactions of narcissists to shaming:<div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">NARCISSISTS REACTIONS TO SHAMING<span style="text-align: left;"> </span><br /><br style="text-align: left;" /><div style="text-align: left;">When we look at narcissists, they grew up in a situation or situations where there was usually a lot of shaming going on, and usually a lot of "trash talking" about other people too. Possibly there was bullying too. And possibly there were perfection standards that were not reachable, or were weird or unattainable, or they were bullied and taught to treat the bully as a "superior being", or in ways that were hurtful, shameful or humiliating to the child. <br /><br />Growing up in an environment with a lot of shaming and trash-talking going on, even if it is not directed towards you, is traumatic for any child. For all intents and purposes, shaming is the emotional equivalent to bombs, arrows, bullets, landmines and invasions. There is rarely a good outcome to it where children either repeat what was modeled to them (i.e. where they can become another narcissist), or they become so overly fawning that they are used by other narcissists, psychopaths and human predators. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Covert vulnerable narcissists react very similarly to being blamed and shamed as a soldier with PTSD would react, however they tend to "get rid of" (via a discard) of anyone they feel shamed by, again whether it's really happening or whether they are dealing with a PTSD trigger.<br /><br />Overt grandiose narcissists react to shame as if they are only entitled to praise. Grandiose narcissists tend to grow up more on a pedestal than being bullied, where they are praised constantly, even when it isn't justified, or when they are being cruel or selfish, and where someone else in the family is constantly being disparaged. People who do this - whiten one child's motives, and blacken another child's motives - is called <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank">splitting</a></b> in psychological terms. One child gets the nice <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank">Dr. Jekyll</a></b> part of the parent; the other gets the mean, cruel <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank">Mr. Hyde</a></b> part of the parent. <br /><br />Splitting is usually the result of a personality disorder: Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and Antisocial Personality Disorder (the cluster B personality disorders). The latter two also put their children into roles most often for life (<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank">one golden child and one scapegoat</a></b>, which exacerbates the splitting in the parent, makes it a stubborn trait of the disorder that is about impossible to dis-lodge by anyone, even by the most trained therapists, even when faced with many tragedies because of it). They just cannot let go of the feeling they have one child who is all good and the another that is all bad, even when presented with a lot of other views. <br /><br />It's part of the disorder.<br /><br />They could even be shamed about splitting by their own parents, and they might <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/08/why-do-narcissists-care-so-much-about.html" target="_blank">act out the part</a></b> that they love both of their children, but when they are behind closed doors, they go right back to their "all good/all bad" views of their own children. And it presents a real challenge to social workers. There aren't enough foster parents around to re-parent the narcissists' "abused, all bad children". <br /><br />And what makes a child look "all bad" to them aside from the dictates of the disorder?<br /><br />A lot of reasons why scapegoat children are chosen by narcissistic parents is because one child makes them feel ashamed of something, and it can be just because the child exists, and I'm not kidding. <br /><br />Narcissists are exceptionally jealous, and if the scapegoat is naturally beautiful (which narcissistic Moms and narcissistic Dads have trouble with, for different reasons), has a lot of empathy (something narcissists lack), a lot of talents (something that narcissists can lack because they are a lot more focused on narcissistic supply, negative workplace gossip, triangulating workers against each other, and competition baiting, money and power grabs, than work, or talent), has a lot of authentic friendships (something else narcissists lack too - their friendships tend to be shams with a lot of lies and arm-twistings such as you might expect from politicians to get <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-abusers-co-bullies-enablers.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">"group think" policies going</a>),<b> </b>then it's the jealousy of the parent which keeps the child in a scapegoat role. <br /><br />Narcissists are always in competition, even with their own children. <br /><br />Both kinds of narcissists go through a <b>shame-rage spiral </b>when they feel criticized (i.e. shamed). But if you notice, covert vulnerable narcissists are <b><a href="https://www.choosingtherapy.com/vulnerable-narcissist/" target="_blank">"hypersensitive to criticism"</a></b>, whereas grandiose narcissists are just <b><a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-grandiose-narcissism-7112083" target="_blank">"sensitive to criticism"</a></b>. The rage they experience when feeling criticized or shamed is still off-the-charts for both, and rage, in general, over feeling shamed is part of the disorder. <br /><br />The <b>shame-rage spiral</b> is a post I'll be publishing soon, but I thought this post was necessary to understand that post. <br /><br />Anyway, narcissists don't deal with shame in healthy ways, and they either rage at, or rage about, or punish people who they think are trying to shame them. But first, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/09/how-shame-is-core-struggle-of-most.html" target="_blank">they try to give what ever they feel ashamed about to you</a> </b>so that they can feel free of accountability and responsibility. If you refuse to take the blame or the shame, they rage again, and then feel shame again. The shame and rage spiral down together, one feeding off of the other, and their ethics tend to spiral down with it all too. It is why <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">they tend to get more abusive (escalating)</a></b>, not less so, and more desperate with trying to shame you by proxy once you have let them know that you can't deal with their escalations of abuse: <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-smear-campaign-in-abuse-and.html" target="_blank">smear campaigns</a></b> and co-bullies (<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-abusers-co-bullies-enablers.html" target="_blank">flying monkeys</a></b>) are the most common. <br /><br />The more unethical they are, the less people want to relate to them. There is nothing to say to them any more at a certain point, which causes them more shame, and more aggression, until they are even further down in the moral dumpster. Then they play the victim once they are in a sorry enough state, which is even more immoral. Then they become ashamed of that. So this gives you a pretty good idea of how the spiral starts and where it goes. <br /><br />It has been proposed in psychology circles that covert narcissists may very well have PTSD, which would explain their incredible reactions to being criticized or of feeling shamed by others. The way they deal with their PTSD is to be aggressive unlike most of us (i.e. they develop the "fight" response as the result of feeling ashamed). But for them, they go to war against you. The more aggressive or punishing they are as a result of feeling shame, the more they are on the darker end of narcissism (more Antisocial Personality Disorder traits). And they can be dangerous because they are not in control of their emotions; they are very over-reactive, not just ultra sensitive to criticism, which explains why they rage so much, often discard relationships over it, blackmail over it, insist they dominate over it, and abuse others over it. It is referred to as <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/08/why-do-narcissists-care-so-much-about.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">"the mask falling"</a>, i.e. their false self starts disintegrating before your eyes and you are left with Hyde-like reactions and often an evil type of personality as well. <br /><br />They do make it very clear that they don't want to be criticized, ever, which makes relating to narcissists tough because they ask you <b><a href="https://salcla.medium.com/how-lying-by-omission-harms-us-and-our-relationships-db7585bf714e#:~:text=Lying%20by%20omission%20defined&text=%E2%80%9CLeaving%20out%20one%20or%20more,to%20correct%20pre%2Dexisting%20misconceptions%E2%80%9D" target="_blank">to lie to them by omission</a> </b>if you have an issue with them. Actually, there is no winning this because they will most likely give you a double bind: "Don't lie to me or omit things you want to say to me, but don't bring up any issues you have about me either." Double binds are "no-win" situations and it is a sure recipe for more of their raging. <br /><br />So what started out to be one minor criticism of them (activation of shame), or may have only been interpreted as a criticism, they can retaliate by shaming you x 1,000. Getting as many flying monkeys as they can to shame you is one tack they take. Ostracizing or abandoning you is another and is also primarily about shaming you. Comparing you to others (in a negative way) is an extremely common add-on for narcissists too, which is supposed to seize your brain with humiliation and shame also. Then of course, they must criticize you themselves, and weigh you down with guilt for every single issue between you, even if they reframe those issues with false narratives and lies. Gaslighting is also a form of shaming: "You are SO crazy and you are so incapable because of it! In fact you should feel humiliated for being crazy and not seeing reality the way I see it!" - gaslighting is absolutely about shaming every time it is used. <br /><br />And of course, there is so much more than this that they add, and keep adding. So maybe it isn't retaliation by shaming x 1,000. Maybe it is a lifetime of shaming you in whatever ways they think will work to their benefit in trouncing you with more shame.<br /><br />It can get to the point where every interaction with the parent is about that parent humiliating the child in some way. The parent insisting they are superior and the authority over a grown adult child is shaming in and of itself (which is to say that <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">continual infantilizing</a></b> via lectures are just more shaming). <br /><br />In art renditions, the scapegoat is weighed down with a heavy pack on his back (all of the things on his back are representative of the sins of the tribe), and of course, the scapegoat is sent out to the desert to die without food, water, and weighed down with all of the things the tribe finds shameful <i>within themselves. </i>Not being able to take shame, but dishing it out in spades would be one of the sins loaded onto the back of the scapegoat. <br /><br />And are we surprised that children walk away from this, that mental health professionals tell these patients not to take the narcissist's shaming tactics seriously (because it means that the narcissist can't take any shame themselves and they have to give it to you instead), that your symptoms are never going to be met with empathy and compassion because all that the narcissist cares about is retaliation and shaming, and that to heal you, you should go "no contact"? <br /><br />So what they can't take (criticism or activating their shame in any manner whatsoever, even a tiny amount of it), they do constantly to others and about others, without fail.<br /><br /><b>Hypocrisy</b> and abuse always go together, fist in a glove with spiked knuckles. And hypocrisy is also the first sign you get that they are unethical. How hypocritical and unethical they go tells the tale of how disordered they are in their narcissism, especially if they go as far as sadism (which shows they probably have the malignant brand of narcissism, and have no remorse in hurting other people - these people can shame and hurt people all day long and sleep well at night). <br /><br />Now when they shame, they expect their children to absorb it like a sponge, and even insist on it, and to not act like them (use the trauma response of "fight" at all, and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/11/why-do-narcissists-feel-so-entitled-and.html" target="_blank">not to be in the least rebellious</a></b> about being shamed like the way the narcissist acts). They insist that their children be docile, polite little sycophants to the narcissistic parent's out-of-control rages with a lot of impoliteness and abuse. Some narcissistic parents will even insist that their children act like sponges for other abusers too. <br /><br />Most abused children do end up as fawners or as freezers. That is why they end up with crippling symptoms eventually. And what do narcissistic parents do when their child has crippling symptoms? They pile on more abuse, retaliations for not acting like a perfect sycophant (which children with PTSD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder cannot do anyway - both disorders keep them from doing so). <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">THE IMPLICATIONS FOR CHILDREN<br />LIVING THROUGH THIS</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Fawning, more than any other response, will get you terrible symptoms faster and be harder to treat the more you are absorbing shaming and abuse. <br /><br />The trauma response of freezing is what happens when you get to the point where you either feel totally powerless in the situation, and/or when PTSD symptoms start to manifest. <br /><br />Now why would any parent want their child to freeze and get symptoms over them raging at them or shaming them? <br /><br />Normal healthy parents don't even get to this stage, and they don't need scapegoats or even want them the way narcissistic and alcoholic parents need and want them. <br /><br />The fact that narcissists have no empathy for their children, whether those children are fawning or freezing, is one reason why narcissists who gain ever more power can be so dangerous. Their ways of dealing with people in the world around them is to be aggressive, and to aggress upon, and to be so threatening as to get ever more fawning and freezing out of others, even though they would never do that themselves, even when they are on the world stage, such as a leader of a country. <br /><br />Most narcissists on the world stage and in politics are invaders, the ultimates in aggression, as well as being triangulators and spouting false narratives. <br /><br />And that should tell you what narcissists are about in their ultimate form. <br /><br />A parent who has invaded their children and put shame and lots of unfounded unjust blame into them, that child will always manifest with trauma responses, and have trauma symptoms. In order to get those arrows out of the child, the child needs to be placed most often on a diet of "no contact" or "very low contact" with that parent, so that the arrows can be removed, and so that the slow process of healing can begin, and so that no more arrows will be shot into the child. <br /><br />Yes, it is a win-lose war for narcissists about who can come out on top in terms of who shoots the most arrows of shame. And therefor a game too, with game plans on how they are going to trash your self esteem even if you are on the sidelines or gone, trying your best to live your life in peace. They don't want you in peace; they want a war based on their terms and even knowing that they have the overwhelming advantage over you. It's the elephant fighting the ant in many of these situations, and most ants will go underground or skittle away. <br /><br />Which is to say that fawning is really unnatural, mostly only something human beings do in the animal world. Fawning is the response to kings and queens, to being a slave, to being deemed unimportant unless you are serving. <br /><br />Parenting is supposed to be about entrusting the parent to take care of children, their physical needs, intellectual needs via school, but also doing the best by them emotionally and mentally. Getting them to be fawning during times of out-of-control rages, during abuse, during being insulted a lot, during gaslighting, is not good emotional care by a long shot. It is the opposite of good care, and the fact that many fawning abused children get horrific symptoms is proof of it. <br /><br />And the other problem is that trying to get you into fawning positions takes place even when you are an adult too, even when you are 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70 years of age. It never ends. And to keep you from being independent of their <b>coercive controlling </b>tactic of trying to force you to be submissive and fawning, they will withdraw love, make every attempt to withdraw others' love and attention too, withdraw family belonging, withdraw money and keep you out of the Will, to make every attempt to make it plain that your independence from fawning has no place in their life or the lives of other people you both know. <br /><br />Yes this tactic is coercive control, and is likely to be illegal in most, if not all, states in the U.S.A. soon. It is now being reviewed in the states of New York and California. It is illegal in almost all of Western Europe. It means that narcissists will have a much more difficult time being who they are and using coercive control than they do now on the most vulnerable members of our society. <br /><br />Anyway, good parenting never means becoming a king and queen of your children where you can tell them how to serve you and your entitlements and rages, and how to be good little servants at all times to your needs for narcissistic supply. <br /><br /><b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">Parentifying roles</a> </b>are bad for your relationship with your children as well. The way children become capable full adults able to support themselves is by pursuing their own interests. It doesn't mean you shouldn't be teaching them some practical lessons and assigning chores, but if they are balking a lot, it will not do any good to force them or threaten them, and particularly shame them (for having interests? - trying to make them take on yours? Not a good idea). <br /><br />In terms of healing, I think I've made it clear why having rageful abusive parents who can't live by their own standards in terms of shaming is pointless to try to fix or deal with any more, and why your healing should be done without their influence, comments, threats, and voice of disapproval in your head (of course they are going to disapprove of your healing - remember always that their agenda is to have you fawning always and forever, and in more refined ways, to get you to be the "fawniest of fawners" as <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@RICHARDGRANNON/videos" target="_blank">Richard Grannon</a></b> likes to say, so getting their voice out of your head any time it appears is necessary for a lot of survivors: telling the voice: "Go away!" - it does work after enough times). <br /><br />Also the hypocrisy should create some disgust in you if you have ethics yourself, and if it doesn't, then consider that you have normalized hypocrisy being okay for parents, but not for children. Also consider whether you want to change it to not being normal at all (most parents, as I've said before, do not act this way). <br /><br />The problem with fawning as a child to a parent's or caretaker's abuse, hypocrisies, shaming, rage-full-of-projection, and dangers is that a lot of fawners take fawning into other relationships with abusers too. <br /><br />There are children who do fawning like narcissists do it, who only fawn to people with more money, more status, more power than they have, but talk about them with derision behind their back, and reveal little about themselves to these higher-on-the-hierarchy people that they want to pretend they are the "fawniest of fawners" to. <br /><br />That's what seems to happen: the pretend fawners who are much more likely to become narcissists, and the real fawners who are likely to become victims of narcissistic partners and receive more abuse in marriage as well as in business. If you refuse to be more and more fawning, you will meet the same end as you did in childhood with your narcissistic parent. <br /><br />The best way to avoid narcissists is to stay away from people who are overly charming (especially those who charm people to their faces but deride them behind their backs, any Jekyll/Hyde behavior), people who are hypocrites, people who are arrogant and constantly interrupting, and anyone who displays a lack of empathy. Some good people with PTSD get to a point where they don't feel anything, not joy, not sorry, not even empathy, so as with all things, it's important not to be absolute about it, and to keep enough of a distance for up to two years. Most narcissists show their true colors before a year, with the exception of the "I-plan-attacks" kinds of narcissists who can wait for two years to show their true colors. <br /><br />However, the lack of empathy is the strongest indicator. To tell if the empathy is real or fake, you can go to <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-discussion-on-cognitive-empathy-in.html" target="_blank">THIS POST</a></b>. But even there, there are no absolutes as you will read, which is why time and not rushing into anything is on your side. <br /><br />Also beware of the pro-social narcissist, which Richard Grannon explains nicely in his video, <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm_n-VvpSCA" target="_blank">The Nice Guy Narcissist | 14 Traits</a></b>. I have been around <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/p/list-of-some-personal-posts.html" target="_blank">this kind of narcissist myself</a></b>, and it is extremely, extremely challenging and traumatizing, to say the least. He was a nice guy narcissist <i>with</i> all of the traits that Richard Grannon lays out, <i>plus</i> all of the traits of Malignant Narcissism, plus a significant drinking problem indicative of the middle stage of alcoholism. Awful. If anyone traumatized me the most in my life, it was this individual, and it only took 4 months to happen. If I could put up the biggest warning sign for anyone, it would be this type of individual that Richard Grannon describes. As far as I can see, it means boundaries set by police. I talk further about this at the end of my post. <br /><br />Also, if this was me, I would go to domestic violence counseling with a certified domestic violence counselor, one who has experience with perpetrators and victims. Marriage/relationship counseling and mediation counseling is a disaster to go to with anyone who is highly manipulative and abusive behind closed doors, and many survivors end up in worse shape than they did before. Consider that abusive relationships are not really relationships; they are about one person trying to coercively control and hurt another person. It's never been a two-way street, and it never will be, which is why it is not really a relationship. It's one person giving into another, and it's about fawning, or being expected to fawn, to all of the shaming the narcissist does over, and over again without relief and without end. <br /><br />If it is a relationship, it is deadly, with way more <b>dangers</b> and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/how-narcissistic-abuse-ages-you-makes.html" target="_blank">symptoms</a></b> than most people can handle. I do believe, over time, that it can degrade your morals and ethics too (who hasn't lied to a narcissist or a dangerous person just to keep safe, for instance? ... Who hasn't gotten really angry at them after being raged 100 times by them, and being baited?). So it's no good. <br /><br />If this was me, I would listen as much as I could to the counselor as I could, and stop listening to the perpetrator as much as I could too. Abusers are extremely manipulative during this period, and you don't want to get talked into things by them any more. In healthy relationships, luring and persuasion is not necessary; relationships feel a lot better without that. Abusive relationships mostly feel bad, and you get symptoms around them. Listen to what therapists say about cognitive dissonance in particular (which is how we put ourselves in danger over and over again), and about triangulation and gaslighting. Know that most abusers will promise things like "I will never do this again" - but they either don't mean it when they say it, or they are incapable of keeping promises (usually both). Again, they can't deal with shame in a healthy way, and most narcissists do not go to therapy to get more healthy, so breaking the promise and raging is likely to come up again if they feel at all shamed again in their life.<br /><br />A list of domestic violence counselors in your area can usually be found at your local domestic violence center or domestic violence shelter. You can also get, in some instances, some limited free therapy and legal advice at either one. <br /><br />Not allowing yourself to be abused and saying no to abuse is only part of the picture because the brain has a way of storing traumatic events that make you feel that you are in continual danger, just like you were when you were with your perpetrator. And some of it is based on reality: stalking, stealing, home invasion, getting other people to attack you is part of the way that offenders keep trying to make you feel you are in danger, and keep adding to it to put you in constant turmoil. Abuse escalates always. <br /><br />And for all of that, you need police investigations, recording what has happened with police, and police protection, plus a good home security system with cameras, preferably cameras from different kinds of manufacturers (even police will tell you that you should do this). </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />You need to do what you can do to keep from being attacked again, and police have the best advice for that. <br /><br />Remember that narcissists do everything they can not to be shamed even one more time by you, and so you have the right to protect yourself from the myriad and continued onslaught of attacks and deep betrayals they keep giving you (retaliations x 1,000). They usually want separation from you for not fawning. You can have separation from them, including stringent boundaries to keep safe from attacks on all the tactics and people they use for these ends (and I bet you'll get attacks coming from all kinds of directions - and some of them break the law to attack you, especially the not-too-brilliant people with criminal mindsets). <br /><br />PTSD, hypervigilance, a rapid heartbeat, and all of the symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder are normal responses and normal symptoms when you are enduring people attacking you from all the angles narcissists and sociopaths love to use. <br /><br />However, if you have all of your protections in place and your home and life is peaceful (at last!), and you still feel a lot of symptoms (PTSD and/or Generalized Anxiety Disorder), and you haven't experienced any danger from attackers for several years, if this was me, and I could afford it, I would also go to a trauma therapist. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />In trauma therapy,<b> </b>you learn<b> </b>that your trauma symptoms are explainable by the events you lived, and how the brain functions in keeping those trauma experiences alive and practically branded into your brain (like a never-ending, if somewhat healed, wound, or nightmare) in your psyche.<b> <a href="https://apolloneuro.com/blogs/news/4-vagus-nerve-exercises-to-transform-how-you-handle-stress" target="_blank">Vagus Nerve exercises</a></b> and <b><a href="https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/22641-emdr-therapy" target="_blank">EMDR</a></b> are usually highly effective, especially if your PTSD and/or your Generalized Anxiety Disorder are through the roof. How effective they are has to do with how traumatized you are, how bad your PTSD or Generalized Anxiety Disorder is, whether you have disassociation experiences, whether you have substance addictions (common for trauma patients), or whether you have other kinds of addictions not related to substances, and your usual coping mechanisms for dealing with trauma. And I bet anything that hypervigilance, sleep disturbances and nightmares are still part of the picture and the hardest to resolve. <br /><br />A lot of the approach of trauma therapy is not focused on what you did (not "Why did you stay in an abusive relationship so long and even go back? Don't you know that abusive relationships escalate? Why would you do something so hair-brained?", but the opposite). The approach is: "What did you live through?" This is even the approach to alcoholism. They aren't going to say, "How could you go to rehab 38 times, spend your parent's money to do so, and not come out with good results?" In fact, all kinds of therapists, not just trauma therapists, have learned that this doesn't work. It increases the shaming. Even alcoholism is treated as: "What kind of environment did you grow up in?" And studies have shown that most alcoholics grow up in environments that are traumatic. There is a direct correlation between <b><a href="https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/related/problem_alcohol_use.asp#:~:text=Trauma%20and%20PTSD%20Can%20Lead%20to%20Problems%20with%20Alcohol&text=Up%20to%20a%20third%20of,an%20important%20factor%20as%20well." target="_blank">alcoholism and trauma</a></b>, and <b><a href="https://ranchcreekrecovery.com/blog/childhood-abuse-and-alcoholism/#:~:text=Researchers%20have%20found%20that%20traumatic,severity%20of%20their%20alcohol%20addiction." target="_blank">alcoholism and child abuse environments</a> </b>(<b><a href="https://drugfree.org/drug-and-alcohol-news/high-rates-of-childhood-trauma-found-in-adult-alcoholics/#:~:text=The%20study%2C%20conducted%20by%20researchers,a%20history%20of%20childhood%20trauma." target="_blank">another link</a> </b>and<b> <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-almost-effect/201307/childhood-trauma-and-alcohol-abuse-the-connection" target="_blank">another link</a></b>), even if they weren't the ones who were bullied. <br /><br />And I'm pretty sure a number of you will be asking if narcissism is one of those "What have you lived through?" conditions too? Yes. But you cannot treat your attackers. Even showing them empathy opens up a lot of lines for you to be attacked by them again (yes, they even exploit your empathy for continued attacks). The people that they should be going to are therapists - someone who specializes in treating Cluster B Personality Disorders, or who specializes in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, anger management classes, and possibly Schema Therapy (it sometimes helps them), plus a host of other therapies if needed including Dialectic Behavior Therapy and Trauma Therapy. <br /><br />But it is not for you to suggest or to be at all involved unless you can do a <b><a href="https://www.apa.org/pi/about/publications/caregivers/practice-settings/intervention/family" target="_blank">family-wide intervention</a></b> (a hard thing to pull off with narcissists especially - they are more likely to walk out and say they never liked any of you anyway). Be aware that most of them don't go to therapy because they are happy blaming and dumping all of their problems on to whoever they have adopted as their scapegoats (usually one of their children, an ex, a sibling, and one of the workers in their place of employment). <br /><br />If they think it is easier for them to always believe someone else is at fault for everything they do that causes them to be angry, rageful, discarding, bullying, envious, depressed and attacking, they reason they don't need any therapy.<br /><br />If they believe they can talk you into their anger, rages, discards, bullying, competitiveness, depression, broken promises, instability, inability to feel empathy, and attacking fests are always your fault, which they really do believe they can talk you into, then they feel they don't need therapy either. <br /><br />They do find out eventually that this won't work, but in the meantime, they live in a fantasy world about this. <br /><br />Either way, this is not of your concern. Your concern is to get healthy, to address all of the debilitating symptoms, to figure out who you are and discover all of your talents outside of the narcissists shadow, and to find a peaceful way forward. PTSD does and can get worse, so it is critical to re-wire and get on a healing path. <br /><br />For a lot of survivors of narcissistic manipulations, therapy is a god-send. <br /><br />As far as a new social group after you go no-contact or the narcissistic parent has discarded you, which many survivors find they want and need, fellow survivors and obvious no-B.S. empaths are also a god-send. For me personally, this is when my life felt like it was being put back together, and put back together in a way that was better than before. I noticed that a lot of my new relationships were with people who were a lot like me, in dress, in hair, in what they lived through, what their interests were (and the arts tended to dominate). A lot of survivors of narcissistic abuse are artists: what a great find and revelation! <br /><br />I noticed, most of all, that my sleep improved, and it was always disturbed, even as far back as when I was a three year old child living in my first home, an apartment building. I had constant nightmares about being picked at and slowly eaten alive by crows more than once. I remember the nightmares more than I remember specific events, though I do remember how the apartment was laid out, that the stairs were in the center of the building, that there were four apartments in our unit, that our bathroom was long and skinny with the sink closest to the door, that clothes were hung out on a line outside my bedroom window, and that my parents' friends with a girl near my age lived downstairs on the opposite side of the building (kitty corner, via length, not width). <br /><br />My nightmares increased afterwards in our new home, to the point where it was often impossible to sleep except in the beginning hours. <br /><br />It finally told me what I needed to know: "what I lived through".<br /><br />Every symptom that I had could be attributed to what I lived through, which didn't diminish the symptoms right away, but at least I knew where they came from and I could name them, and categorize them, and file them away, and not be confused or think about them as much, which, in and of itself, helped in diminishing them (except when they were needed - which I explain in the next chapter). <br /><br />For instance, I found that when I was around narcissists who weren't criminals, I always experienced headaches, and sometimes mini flashes of dizziness. Narcissists can be fun, and they can have an acerbic wit, and I did have fun sometimes when I was with them on a jaunt, but I would always come home with a headache, exhaustion, feeling unheard or silenced in one way or another, and those flashes of dizziness. It wasn't a good feeling, no matter how much I laughed, no matter how light-hearted I was, no matter how much I believed I had a good time. <br /><br />Around the criminal types of narcissists, I experienced high anxiety and a feeling that my head was buzzing (as if nerves could "buzz" in your head like bees). <br /><br />I tend to stay away from people now who give me headaches or where I get that "buzz" anxiety feeling. And usually those symptoms are dead-on accurate in terms of who I find they eventually are. I will not be pushed into relating to people I don't want to relate to either. Because my own experiences and system are way better detectors than anyone else. Most of us are not good detectors of toxicity and toxic people, especially people who are enchanted with any narcissist, and I have been led astray too by all kinds of do-gooders as well as people who liked seeing me being in traumatic situations, but now I have to rely on symptoms to clue me in. I have also tested some flying monkeys of narcissists' I know (ones who I have some respect for) just to see where their detection abilities are: not so good. It convinces me even more that I need to do this on my own terms. <br /><br />So symptoms are not always a bad thing: they are our warning systems not to get too close, to keep our guard up, and definitely not to fawn. <br /><br />There are other things I have done to heal, and to be on a healing journey in general, and I may share some of those anecdotes in the future. But the ones I have listed here are the major ones. <br /><br />I would say that finding out who you are without narcissists' constant comments and shaming is one of the first steps to living a better life. I'd bet you'd find you are a kinder person than you ever thought (narcissists have an agenda to always paint you as unkind, selfish and unhinged which you can't find out is untrue unless you separate from them completely, even when you have other people in your life constantly countering what the narcissist says, which, in my case, I did have - my father, my spouse, and other people who knew me well ... yup, I still wondered whether narcissists were telling the truth about me, and now I don't). You can find you are way more sane and able than the narcissist painted you as too (again, most narcissists will paint you as insane so that you put your decision-making in their hands and so that they can continue their power, control and isolating agendas). And you can find that you are way more talented and ambitious than you thought you were too (narcissists keep trying to make you feel too inept mentally, emotionally and physically to reach career and lifestyle goals). - As so many psychologists say, "Don't take what they have to say personally; take it as their disorder speaking through them." <br /><br />Finding out who you are and what you are capable of is one of the joys in life, and if that is being strung up and hobbled, break the chains of the trauma bond to experience what life truly has to offer. <br /><br />Most of all, realize what shaming does to children, and don't pass it down to the next generation. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-legacy-distorted-love/201209/shaming-children-is-emotionally-abusive" target="_blank">Shaming Children Is Emotionally Abusive (Children respect those who respect them.)</a></b> - by Karyl McBride Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anger-in-the-age-of-entitlement/202304/parental-shaming-vs-encouragement" target="_blank">Parental Shaming vs. Encouragement (What feels better, works better.)</a></b> - by Steven Stosny, Ph.D.<br />excerpt:<br /> ... <i>Encouragement tends to evoke cooperation, almost as consistently as shaming evokes resistance.</i> ... <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.heysigmund.com/how-to-avoid-shaming/" target="_blank">How to Avoid Shaming Your Child – And Keep Strong, Loving Boundaries</a></b> - by Karen Young, psychologist, for Hey Sigmund<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.ei-magazine.com/post/shaming-children-leaves-scars-on-the-brain-that-adversely-affect-emotional-health" target="_blank">Shaming Children Leaves Scars on the Brain that Adversely Affect Emotional Health</a></b> - by Jennifer Fraser, PhD. for Emotional Intelligence Magazine<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.baby-chick.com/why-shaming-your-children-doesnt-change-their-behavior/" target="_blank">Why Shaming Your Children Doesn’t Change Their Behavior</a></b> - by Rachel Tomlinson, Registered Psychologist for Baby Chick<br />excerpt:<br /><i> Shaming kids is not a great discipline tool. It can be easy to slip into shaming comments out of frustration. You want to try and get some kind of response or reaction from your child. Or perhaps it was the way you were parented. You might say things like:<br /> “You’re such a liar. I can’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth.”<br /> “Why are you crying? It’s not that bad!”<br /> “All you do is whine and complain. You’re being annoying.”<br /><br /></i><b><a href="https://time.com/3935308/when-parents-publicly-shame-their-kids/#tbl-em-lns4tk5ie9y9qaa88gi" target="_blank">When Parents Publicly Shame Their Kids</a></b> - by Susanna Schrobsdorff for Time Magazine <br />excerpt:<br /> <i>The story was so disturbing, it instantly became the latest parable of punishment in the digital age. A dad in Tacoma, Wash., filmed his 13-year-old daughter with her long hair cut off and piled on the floor around her. She was being punished for sending a boy a racy photo. “Man, you lost all that beautiful hair,” says his voice in the background. “Was it worth it?”<br /> That video went viral–especially after news spread that within days, she had jumped to her death from a highway overpass. Outraged YouTube viewers called for the father to be criminally prosecuted. There were headlines all around the world: Teen commits suicide following father’s public shaming.<br /><br /></i><b><a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/parenting/the-real-problem-with-publicly-shaming-your-kids-128856148225.html" target="_blank">The Real Problem With Publicly Shaming Your Kids</a></b> - by Elizabeth Flora Ross for Yahoo News<br />excerpt:<br /> <i>... Dr. Shefali Tsaberry, author, speaker and clinical psychologist, is not comfortable with the shaming of children in any manner for any reason. She describes shame as toxic. “[Shame] creates disconnection, a betrayal of trust. Shaming never works. Connection is the only way.”</i><br /><i> Katie Hurley, LCSW and author of “The Happy Kid Handbook” agrees.</i><br /><i> “Parenting has never been easy, and parents today are navigating new territory,” Hurley says. “It’s difficult to say what triggers one parent to take to the Internet to shame a child for‘misbehavior’ while another confronts the issue in the safety of the home, but there does appear to be a combination of anger and control beneath the surface of these posts.”</i><br /><i> Children of all ages make mistakes. Trial and error is the business of growing up, and they can’t get it right every single time. Shaming them, online or just in person, causes significant damage to the parent-child relationship. The parent-child relationship should focus on unconditional love and trust.</i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.healthychildren.org/English/family-life/family-dynamics/communication-discipline/Pages/Disciplining-Your-Child.aspx" target="_blank">What’s the Best Way to Discipline My Child?</a></b> - HealthyChildren.org, The American Academy of Pediatrics<br />excerpt:<br /> <i>As a parent, one of your jobs to teach your child to behave. It's a job that takes time and patience. But, it helps to learn the effective and healthy discipline strategies.</i></div><div><i> Here are some tips from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) on the best ways to help your child learn acceptable behavior as they grow. ... </i><br /><i> ... Verbal abuse: How words hurt. Yelling at children and using words to cause emotional pain or shame also has been found to be ineffective and harmful. Harsh verbal discipline, even by parents who are otherwise warm and loving, can lead to more misbehavior and mental health problems in children. Research shows that harsh verbal discipline, which becomes more common as children get older, may lead to more behavior problems and symptoms of depression in teens. ... <br /></i><br /><b><a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/such-shame-consideration-shame-and-shaming-mechanisms-families" target="_blank">Such a Shame: A Consideration of Shame and Shaming Mechanisms in Families</a></b> - U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs<br />excerpt:<br /><div><i> This paper focuses on shame in the family context and how the shaming of children is a core component of child abuse and its effects.<br /> ... Although shaming by a parent toward a child is important for the development of certain positive qualities in a child, toxic shaming occurs when it is performed for the benefit of the parent rather than the child. This occurs when the parent uses shaming toward the child as a regulator of self-esteem in the parent, as a means of managing past suffering, and as a means of controlling the child. The key feature of excessive shaming is emphasis on the failure of the child in the eyes of the parent, accompanied by turning away and conditional love. The most severe consequences of shaming are self-attack, the disowning of the self, and the splitting of the self. ...<br /></i></div></div> </div><b><a href="https://k8school.com/what-is-child-shaming/" target="_blank">Child Shaming: How We’re Ruining Our Own Children’s Future</a></b> - by Swati Reddy for K8 School <br /><br /><b><a href="https://empathicparentingcounseling.com/blog/the-toxicity-of-shaming-children/" target="_blank">Hidden Damage: Understanding the Toxicity of Shaming Children</a></b> - from the administrators of Empathetic Parenting Counseling <br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.naturalchild.org/articles/robin_grille/good_children.html" target="_blank">"Good" Children - at What Price? (The Secret Cost of Shame)</a></b> - by Robin Grille and Beth Macgregor for The Natural Child Project (article discusses research on the subject)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&sca_esv=573654737&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS1048US1048&q=Child+shaming+quotes&tbm=isch&source=univ&fir=cqLiMXQu1TIwjM%252CUH9A5amxtCMMCM%252C_%253B0OSjobxj1XEbVM%252CS1CpXtLfquCbMM%252C_%253B9nXUtR8k943LaM%252C0SjpJanMXYPNQM%252C_%253B0C2ylblgd4KtWM%252C2QuplyrjVDAPTM%252C_%253BuXVcsaotG3JVmM%252CUk55k6rzNVq1dM%252C_%253Bn7OWsPEsOEPBbM%252C6vtYCWKnEzvCbM%252C_%253B0UuU_jV91tinEM%252CFiDypOo-onetzM%252C_%253BKiCcq_7ZYW0oPM%252CUk55k6rzNVq1dM%252C_&usg=AI4_-kRWQs8RrqgYBH4_Z0XNqfIGNMUAEA&ved=2ahUKEwisqbDTiPmBAxWwGFkFHeC-ASEQjJkEegQIDRAC&biw=1280&bih=571&dpr=1.5" target="_blank">Child Shaming Quotes</a></b> - Google<br /><br /><b><a href="https://esme.com/resources/parenting/break-the-shaming-cycle" target="_blank">Break the Shaming Cycle </a></b>- by Dena Landing for Esme<br />excerpt:<br /> ... <i>Shaming can take the form of telling your child that he’s careless because he knocked over a chair, associating a onetime action with a negative character trait. Parents engage in shaming in an attempt to control their children’s behavior, but it can have lifelong negative consequences.<br /> Why is shaming so damaging?<br /> Shaming your child creates an environment in which she feels like she can never make a mistake. Because children naturally want to avoid being shamed again, they begin to fear ever doing anything wrong, which could lead them to avoid challenges or new situations.</i> ...<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/blog/raising-resilient-kids-in-fat-shaming-world" target="_blank">Raising Resilient Kids in a Fat Shaming World</a></b> - by Judith Matz, LCSW for NationalEatingDisorders.org<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.parentcircle.com/effects-of-body-shaming-on-children/article" target="_blank">Why body shaming children is a strict NO. Read about the adverse physical and mental health consequences (Fat-shaming children and adolescents is becoming a common phenomenon. Worryingly, it can lead to serious psychological consequences. Read on to find out why)</a></b> - by Team Parent Circle for Parent Circle<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.ronitbaras.com/family-matters/parenting-family/shaming-kids-good-parenting-not/" target="_blank">Shaming Kids: Good Parenting or Not?</a></b> - by Ronit Baras for Family Matters, Practical Parenting Guide<br />excerpt:<br /> <i>... Shaming kids is a form of bullying<br /> Shaming kids is an act of bullying. Bullying is picking on someone else’s weakness. This is what parents are doing by shaming children. They pick on their kids’ greatest weaknesses (e.g. the fear of being ridiculed, or the fear of being disrespected). ... <br /> ... The fear of punishment can only go so far</i><div><i>The fear of punishment can only go so far. Nobody misbehaves for the sole purpose of misbehaving. Unaddressed, the real reason for their behavior will make them do it again. For example, no person on earth has stopped speeding after being caught speeding once, because the need to speed has not changed!</i></div><div><i> The fear of pain can only last so long. ... </i></div><br /><b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/well/family/lunch-shaming-children-parents-school-bills.html" target="_blank">Shaming Children So Parents Will Pay the School Lunch Bill</a></b> - by Bettina Elias Siegel for The New York Times <br />excerpt:<br /> <i>... On the first day of seventh grade last fall, Caitlin Dolan lined up for lunch at her school in Canonsburg, Pa. But when the cashier discovered she had an unpaid food bill from last year, the tray of pizza, cucumber slices, an apple and chocolate milk was thrown in the trash.</i><div><i> “I was so embarrassed,” said Caitlin, who said other students had stared. “It’s really weird being denied food in front of everyone. They all talk about you.”</i></div><div><i> Caitlin’s mother, Merinda Durila, said that her daughter qualified for free lunch, but that a paperwork mix-up had created an outstanding balance. Ms. Durila said her child had come home in tears after being humiliated in front of her friends.</i></div><div><i> Holding children publicly accountable for unpaid school lunch bills — by throwing away their food, providing a less desirable alternative lunch or branding them with markers — is often referred to as “lunch shaming.” ... </i><br /><b><br /><a href="https://www.bellybelly.com.au/parenting/10-reasons-why-you-shouldnt-publicly-shame-kids/" target="_blank">10 Reasons Why We Need To Stop Public Shaming Of Kids</a></b> - by Fiona Peacock for BellyBelly<br />excerpt:<br /> ... <i>Your child needs to be able to trust you, to know that you love her unconditionally, and to know that she can come to you with any problem for help. By shaming your child, you’re burning that bridge. Your child simply isn’t going to seek you out for help, support and guidance again for fear or publicly humiliated. ...</i><br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://imperfectfamilies.com/reduce-shame-21-things-your-child-needs-to-hear/" target="_blank">Reduce Shame: 21 Things Your Child Needs To Hear (Is your child stuck in the “I’m a bad kid” cycle? Caregivers can reduce the effects of shame, using these phrases to remind your child that they are seen, known, and loved.)</a></b> - by Nicole Scwartz, LMFT, for Imperfect Families<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.10news.com/why-shaming-kids-for-bad-behavior-doesnt-work/" target="_blank">Why Shaming Kids For Bad Behavior Doesn’t Work</a></b> - by Tricia Gross for ABC News, San Diego<br /> ... <i>Researchers have found that chastising, belittling and punishing children to make them feel bad — shaming them, in other words — might do more harm than good.<br /> The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has a strong stance on the benefits of effective discipline, which refers to respectful discipline applied in a consistent, firm, and fair way.<br /> AAP research shows that yelling at or shaming children is minimally effective in the short-term and ineffective in the long-term. The organization states that doing so puts children at a higher risk of adverse behavioral, cognitive, psycho-social and emotional outcomes.<br /> Similarly, Claire McCarthy, MD, senior faculty editor of Harvard Health Publishing, states that there is a fine line between criticizing and shaming a child. McCarthy notes that shaming kids can cause issues with self-esteem. They might come to believe there is something inherently wrong with who they are or that they are not capable of changing. </i>...<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.heidirogers.com/blog/shaming-kids" target="_blank">Why Shaming Kids Doesn’t Work Long-Term</a></b> - by Heidi Rogers for HeidiRogers.com<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.teach-through-love.com/stop-shaming-kids.html" target="_blank">Stop Shaming Kids - Sign here!</a> - </b>by Lori Petro, Amy Bryant, & Robbyn Peters Bennett #StopShaming Kids <a href="https://www.thepetitionsite.com/102/838/621/stop-shaming-kids/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Petition HERE</a><br />From the site:</div><div> <i>Child maltreatment constitutes all forms of physical and emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect, or exploitation resulting in harm to the child’s health, survival, development, or dignity. Clearly, publicly shaming a minor is an abuse of power and a form of child maltreatment. To protect the basic human rights of children, we ask that Facebook and other social media sites establish parameters which prohibit public shaming of minors via photo/video and allow users to flag “suspected child maltreatment,” and/or “bullying of a minor.” Please help us make Facebook and other social media sites safe for our children.</i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.creativechild.com/articles/view/the-toxic-effects-of-shaming-children" target="_blank">The Toxic Effects of Shaming Children</a></b> - by Rebecca Eanes for Creative Child<br /><br /><b><a href="https://bcbstnews.com/bluehealthsolutions/are-you-teaching-your-kids-to-body-shame/" target="_blank">Are You Teaching Your Kids To Body-shame?</a></b> - by Ashley Brantley for bcbstnews (News Center of Tennessee)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://genmindful.com/blogs/mindful-moments/how-to-reduce-your-childs-exposure-to-shame" target="_blank">How To Reduce Your Child's Exposure To Shame</a> </b>- by Rebecca Eanes for Generation Mindful<br />excerpt:<br /> <i>Shame eats away at a child’s core emotional need to feel loved and connected, leaving them feeling small, unworthy, flawed, and unacceptable. As we learn to heal our shame wounds, we give our children chances for a healthy and happy emotional life. Here are 3 shame-free discipline tactics. ...</i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://more-love.org/2020/07/09/are-you-food-shaming-your-child-youve-got-to-stop/" target="_blank">Are you food shaming your child? It’s time to stop!</a></b> - by Ginny Jones for More-Love.org<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.romper.com/p/10-ways-youre-accidentally-shaming-your-toddler-50805" target="_blank">10 Ways You're Accidentally Shaming Your Toddler</a></b> - by Dina Leygerman for Romper.com</div><div>excerpt: </div><div> Toddlers are incredibly complicated humans. After the first year of remarkable milestones, they start growing into their own personalities and focusing on mastering specific capabilities. Toddlerhood is also the time when kids start testing boundaries and learn the power of their actions and words. While it can be exciting for both parents and kids, it can also be frustrating and difficult for both. It’s no wonder so many of us parents don't realize we are shaming our toddlers. In the end, it seems, those of us in charge of toddlers must walk the thin line between teachable moments and losing all of our damn self-control. ... </div><br />For an opposite view on all of this, here is this article: <b> <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4081413/danielle-smith-public-shaming-children/" target="_blank">Danielle Smith: Public shaming of children is sometimes justifiable</a></b> - by Danielle Smith for Global News <br />excerpt:<br /> <i>A Windsor, Ont. mother who took to social media to publicly shame her misbehaving kids got more than she bargained for.</i><div><i> She didn’t expect the posting to go viral or for people to misunderstand her intentions. Her post showed a picture of her kids walking seven kilometers and carrying a sign that said, “being bad and rude to our bus driver, mom is making us walk.”</i></div><div><i> She said she had them carry a sign because she lives in the kind of community where people would stop to offer a ride and she wanted her boys to learn a lesson. It went viral, with 28,000 people reposting the image and giving it a thumbs up. But, she also received death threats and was reported to Children’s Services. ...</i><br /><br />Another opposing view from most of the experts listed above: <b><a href="https://shameproofparenting.com/end-parent-shaming/" target="_blank">What is the Deal With Shaming Parents in Our Society?</a></b> - by Mercedes Samudio, Shame-Proof Parenting and EMDR for Parents for Shame Proof Parenting<br />excerpt:<br /> <i>... To all the parents and families who chose to hit, yell, or discipline their children the best way they know how this video is for you. ...</i><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">FOUND ON FACEBOOK</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeZn19Q0zRioIn-RbfwvF-3InZO2SkjSnSfEgaJB4Hu6InAoGJg2JEE4V5mdfcc2XAuwcxpH9-nCA-tSCUUgNOeNGRD1vUkF_H02gC6ElZiInEdfsja9lMchdYfy8HM9eaHhfuJWw5cu23MOL_lB-QTs2b71TfLOAZxh1t16QbZj_9nVs2zGrt0k1ycik/s556/hyper%20compliance.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="556" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeZn19Q0zRioIn-RbfwvF-3InZO2SkjSnSfEgaJB4Hu6InAoGJg2JEE4V5mdfcc2XAuwcxpH9-nCA-tSCUUgNOeNGRD1vUkF_H02gC6ElZiInEdfsja9lMchdYfy8HM9eaHhfuJWw5cu23MOL_lB-QTs2b71TfLOAZxh1t16QbZj_9nVs2zGrt0k1ycik/s16000/hyper%20compliance.jpg" /></a><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj21V95oo_nTm2TzaDHgD1BSs-6djdBrep-tPCH03ApbOW36fqQMF3stJ-Z8hkTlFGxQF1yrxzIjgboIZfwXI69nHXvh6lB1kh0pGrsHqrF7G38pnvQSKdmNcCR5ZVF-Tgae5m7-tv_7lDc1uXMgyMV5QcQX8J2WtwyzxEgi578V8TduIQvqsKrzmjMscg/s542/narcissistic%20injury.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="542" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj21V95oo_nTm2TzaDHgD1BSs-6djdBrep-tPCH03ApbOW36fqQMF3stJ-Z8hkTlFGxQF1yrxzIjgboIZfwXI69nHXvh6lB1kh0pGrsHqrF7G38pnvQSKdmNcCR5ZVF-Tgae5m7-tv_7lDc1uXMgyMV5QcQX8J2WtwyzxEgi578V8TduIQvqsKrzmjMscg/s16000/narcissistic%20injury.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlzY5sq7vI6jtwuVuBP28O8uKww8kasTnbuJYE-sYoNgE3QaEexdOvm9FYFfxY8QnOpb11PWASGVi3-ZlZxKv2tghefwUSVL3G2B0DhqJBJmgeRYQSUyvmBHW_KQqRVZU3z0-f5yRR9QnVqP8WmK-dPNIzXvqA8jSpupRrsEOUCjPzntFEmWPzbi43R_A/s682/KNOWING%20YOUR%20WORTH.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="682" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlzY5sq7vI6jtwuVuBP28O8uKww8kasTnbuJYE-sYoNgE3QaEexdOvm9FYFfxY8QnOpb11PWASGVi3-ZlZxKv2tghefwUSVL3G2B0DhqJBJmgeRYQSUyvmBHW_KQqRVZU3z0-f5yRR9QnVqP8WmK-dPNIzXvqA8jSpupRrsEOUCjPzntFEmWPzbi43R_A/s16000/KNOWING%20YOUR%20WORTH.jpg" /></a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-83492918381793281382023-09-28T13:53:00.011-07:002023-10-24T11:35:36.783-07:00Series Review: Wilderness (Amazon Prime version in six episodes, 2023)<p><b><span style="color: #741b47;"><span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: small;">note: all star ratings have to do with whether I think the story told is a realistic portrayal. </span></span>In fact, all reviews are about covering issues related to abuse, scapegoating, toxic family portrayal, alcoholic family portrayal, substance abuse family portrayal, children from abusive families and their experiences, and how effective that portrayal is, not about how effective the movie-making is, or the set design, or production, directing and acting. I leave those concerns to other writers and reviewers.<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: medium;"> </span></span>I don't even cover whether I would recommend the movie to others based on my likes and dislikes; I only recommend movies that I think will open people's eyes as to how survivors of abuse live in the world. </span></b></p><b><span style="color: #741b47;"><br /></span></b><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;">This page contains a review for:</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;"><u>Wilderness (Amazon Prime Version in 6 episodes, 2023)</u></span></b></div><p style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #38761d; font-size: x-large;">Wilderness<br /></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAK9pb8WqOrwm03ci_E7SsYpnY1c8gK6f4iXFlIPDLwC9bZVQLJ0Cn5R9u2XpQ6vXM07BfnUSEanUVV16f-ciohkkuFU6yRH_qfwPkXTogQHEn75lZRev8jktLieztqeNzYHAZKF7VrWH3dGqm_UpzCge_Ojx0ayqtmqBGqmY_jaxU9pYc8SXKu52aumI/s240/three%20stars.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="96" data-original-width="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAK9pb8WqOrwm03ci_E7SsYpnY1c8gK6f4iXFlIPDLwC9bZVQLJ0Cn5R9u2XpQ6vXM07BfnUSEanUVV16f-ciohkkuFU6yRH_qfwPkXTogQHEn75lZRev8jktLieztqeNzYHAZKF7VrWH3dGqm_UpzCge_Ojx0ayqtmqBGqmY_jaxU9pYc8SXKu52aumI/s16000/three%20stars.jpg" /></a></div><span style="color: #38761d;">According to Wikipedia, Wilderness is about:<br /></span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"> </span><i><span style="color: #38761d;"> ... Liv and Will Taylor are a young British couple whose marriage is threatened when Liv sees a message on Will's mobile phone revealing his affair with a co-worker. Heartbreak quickly turns into fury and revenge.<br /> </span></i><span style="color: #38761d;">It is created by Marnie Dickens from the 2017 novel <i>Wilderness</i> by B.E. Jones, directed by So Yong Kim, written by Marnie Dickens and </span><span style="color: #38761d;">Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini</span><span style="color: #38761d;">, and produced by </span><span style="color: #38761d;">Elizabeth Kilgarriff, <br />Marnie Dickens, So Yong Kim and Craig Holleworth<br /> Actors include Jenna Coleman, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Ashley Benson, Eric Balfour, Claire Rushbrook, Talia Balsam and Morgana Van Peebles<br /><br />Some other reviews of the series follow my own review:<br /></span><p>(spoiler alert)<br /><br />As some of you know from reading my other reviews of "moving pictures", I am not crazy about abuse topics turned into thrillers. It seems to cheapen the topic, but it also seems to go with the times. There are more movies and series about narcissists and psychopaths coming out every day doing the most cruel gruesome selfish deeds to others than anyone who has a job and a life to live can possibly watch. <br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vik0kdPIxF8" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">In one thriller series we watched which looked so promising</a><b> </b>the first few episodes, the psychopath killer turned out to be a little girl who lived across the street. How depraved do we have to be as a society anyway? That's enlightening? That's entertaining? That's a conclusion that makes the most sense in a long series? That's worth all of the acting, the writing, the cinematography? That's worth our effort in watching it? Not a bit. More than disappointing! </p><p><br />And where are the series about functional couples who have plenty to deal with, and who love each other aside from Amy and Ty in <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_(Canadian_TV_series)" target="_blank">Heartland</a></b>? <br /><br />But then Ty had to die in a later season, and some of the audience disappeared too as a result. It shows that many people like and want to see functional happy marriages that aren't boring or sickeningly sweet, as few as they are on T.V. and in the movies these days. <br /><br />So now I'll write about this series which features a British man, Will, living in the United States gaslighting his Welsh wife, Liv, constantly, trying to make believe he is not having an affair when he plainly is. His wife has caught him many times, and knows a lot more of what he's doing than he perceives. She mostly knows what he's lying about and when, yet she mostly stays silent about it, seeks revenge against him on and off, and continues to stay with him. But what she is silent about is an incredible amount of information: where he goes, what he says to his mistress, where the rendezvous are planned, and the phone messages left to him. So much of what goes on between them are lies and omissions, and one lie and omission covering up other lies and omissions. The intimacy between them is dissolving in front of our eyes, and we wonder if what ever relationship they <i>do</i> have is just one actor outdoing the other. <br /><br />Granted, there are wives who stay with cheating, lying, gaslighting husbands, but in this series there do not seem to be the kinds of challenges and dangers that most gaslighted wives have to bear, with the entrapments, the smear campaigns behind her back (though he does tell his mistress that he will leave Liv for her), the family pressures to make abusive marriages work (as if abuse and infidelity can be rehabilitated by a spouse - not possible), lots of shaming, threats about leaving, and the issues around how dangerous or unhinged he will be if the wife reveals what she knows (remember that narcissists rage over being or feeling ashamed, and they can be violent when many of their infidelities are uncovered too). There are also the dependencies and co-dependencies in marriages like this, especially when it comes to assets and money - all of it is what many spouses face when they are living with husbands who gaslight. To be fair again, the co-dependency issue is revealed in this series (she is dependent on Will's income). Also revealed is the background story of Liv's family that is in tatters over a father who cheats on her mother to the point of neglecting the daughter to some degree. <br /><br />Most wives, however, cannot live in marriages like this for many years, and even less so a lifetime, and they suffer tremendously by having to deal with living in a bunch of lies all of the time, never knowing whether their spouse is telling the truth or lying (which can make anyone feel like they are going crazy, even the most stalwart among us, and the instability and stress that having another mistress who is almost like a "pretend spouse" day in and day out brings).<br /><br />In some ways, she tries to make peace with it, using her stiff British upper lip not to reveal many emotions about any of what she knows and what she is feeling. In mini polygamist style, Liv manages to have some sort of relationship with the woman, Cara, that her husband is having an affair with. <br /><br />In one scene it is clear that Cara does not know that Liv knows she's Will's mistress. So Cara admits that she has a lover, but that her lover finds her to "not to be enough" and Liv knows who she is talking about (her own husband), and Liv admits she knows exactly how Cara is feeling. It is a poignant moment between two women who are being lied to and manipulated by the same man. <br /><br />The party of four (which includes Cara's boyfriend, Garth) are on a hiking trip together, with moments of "grin-and-bear-it", some moments of tenderness between the two women, some moments of rage and underlying hostility as Cara, yet again, tries to distract Will into a discreet sexual rendezvous by a waterfall. <br /><br />Liv and Will talk about Will's affair with Cara when they are back in their hotel room. Liv wonders why she is not enough. Will gets angry and says, "It's not that you aren't enough! It's that you are too much!" He tells her that she is making too many demands on him (very typical for abusive husbands who are having affairs on their wives, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/04/narcissists-and-blame-shifting-avoiding.html" target="_blank">the blame shifting</a></b>). He also brings up the fact that she's financially dependent on him, even though it was his idea - narcissists do like to throw <b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/jerkology/202212/the-narcissist-formula-you-get-choose-how-you-lose" target="_blank">double binds</a></b> your way. <br /><br />After drinking a lot of alcohol, and knowing that Will has gone to have sex with Cara, Liv becomes unraveled, and stomps off to the waterfall where the rendezvous between Will and Cara is supposed to take place. Liv thinks she has found her husband (who has his back to her, with the red waterproof jacket he left with), and pushes him off the cliff of the waterfall. <br /><br />However, it turns out that the person she pushed was not Will, but Cara instead, with Will's jacket on. Will shows up the next morning and Liv is shocked. She knows by then that she pushed someone else other than Will. <br /><br />Liv has enormous regrets over this fact. <br /><br />There is one last tender moment between Liv and Cara, as Cara lies in a hospital bed injured from head to toe. Then Cara dies, which sends Liv into shock, and her husband into flat calloused unemotional responses other than wanting to cover up the fact that he was with Cara the night of the murder. Oh, yes! He wants Liv to lie to the police that Will was with her, and not with Cara. <br /><br />And throughout the thriller Will comes off as an awful coward, and an immature brat-child. He wants to be devoid of responsibility for just about everything (and isn't that so narcissistic?), and is always crying when he pleads to Liv to cover up his sins, and give him a good image to the police, the public, to her mother, and their friends. <br /><br />But astonishingly, Liv gives Will what he wants: the false alibi to police. <br /><br />But she also holds it over his head as blackmail, that if he ever lies to her again, she will go to the police and tell them that he was with Cara at the time of the murder. So, in her own way, she is spiraling down with William in terms of ethics. <br /><br />Liv almost gets into a love relationship with a woman in her building, but tells the woman that she (Liv) is not good enough for that woman.<br /><br />Feeling "not good enough" can sometimes happen when you stay with narcissists, and cover up for them, and getting so angry at what they are doing that you take your anger to places you would not normally do, which is why a lot of people prefer to leave narcissists instead. Narcissists will always go lower in the ethics department than you when there are challenges, especially about their image, and it becomes another choice as to how low you will go with them. Which is to say that most people have much better ethics than narcissists do, so in the end they sacrifice the relationship they have with the narcissist not to be in that immoral space again. <br /><br />These are also good reasons not to argue with narcissists, because they will use arguments to get aggressive, abusive, and evil on you. It'll always be a tit-for-tat at the very least, if not an all-out war for them, where they are out destroy who you are and what is left of the relationship. Arguments with narcissists are always about winning something (for them), rather than the kinds of arguments we have with emotionally healthy people: to find a resolution, that, in the end, puts each person's best self forward. <br /><br />If you try to go in that direction, they will want no part in it. They think they deserve to win the argument, win the power, and win apologies no matter how destructive and bullying they are. <br /><br />Liv's mother shows up, convinced that Liv is being cheated on by Will. She also uses the visit to come up with evidence that he's cheating. She finds some Polaroids of a scantily clad woman who is not Cara. <br /><br />But are we really surprised? Most cheaters are usually serial cheaters. The difference is that narcissists use gaslighting (they are much more likely to be pathological liars too, lying and giving false narratives just about everything except the good - or easy - times). Which is to say that when things get really challenging for narcissists or <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/08/why-do-narcissists-care-so-much-about.html" target="_blank">when the mask of their false self starts slipping</a></b>, they "up" the lying and false narratives, just about always. It's their way of keeping the mask from slipping all the way off, to sound like someone who makes very few mistakes ("only once" as Will says, lying, about his infidelity). <br /><br />Police do an investigation and suspect Garth for the murder. Garth tells police that he proposed to Cara in their hotel room, that she rejected his proposal, and that he was angry about the rejection, but not enough to push her off of the cliff. Garth also finds out that Liv threw him under the bus and described in such a way that would leave the police suspicious. At this point, she's not only trying to deal with a cheating husband, but also out to save her own ass from arrest and incarceration.<br /><br />The police do not have enough evidence to convict Garth, so they let him go. <br /><br />Once he is free again, he shows up at Will and Liv's apartment and puts a gun to Liv's head for throwing him under the bus for the murder. Will admits to Garth that he was the one who was with Cara the night she died. A scuffle takes place, and Liv kills Garth with a present from her mother. <br /><br />Now Liv has killed two people. <br /><br />Liv and Will tell police that they were just trying to defend their home, and Will tells police that Garth put a gun to his wife's head, and that he was trying to defend his wife, but never expected to kill him. Police tell Will about New York's "Castle Doctrine", that they are both allowed to use deadly force for the home invasion. It looks like they are both off the hook for the murder of Cara and Garth. <br /><br />Liv confronts Will about his second mistress. By then, he can't deny that he is a serial cheater and promises to do everything he can to keep Liv, but Liv doesn't believe him. She wants a divorce. He can't think of a divorce (mainly it is because it would tarnish his image with his father and friends back home in England). To keep her from getting a divorce, he blackmails her, and tells her that if she proceeds with a divorce, he will run to the police and tell them that she killed Garth. <br /><br />So now there are two blackmails: hers if he lies to her again, and his if she proceeds with a divorce. It's a tit-for-tat blackmail.<br /><br />However, he has already broken his promise about not lying to her again. The more she is confronted with how deep the lies go, the more she wants a divorce. Which is how most of these relationships go. Who wants to be "stuck" with a serial cheater who lies all of the time, and is now getting into the blackmail stage to keep her tethered to him against her will? <br /><br />When they are at the airport, police stop Liv and Will from boarding the plane to London. Will is brought into custody because the police have the same video that Liv fist saw of Cara and Will engaging in sex. He has lied to police about his relationship to Cara only being for business. He goes to trial and is convicted. <br /><br />He is wrongly convicted because Liv killed both people. <br /><br />The ending very much reminded me of "Gaslight" and "Sleeping With the Enemy" where the women get the revenge in the end against their wicked husbands. <br /><br />The only difference is that this series is about being the victim of lying and cheating instead of about trying to make her crazy, or being the victim of physical assault. All of these situations feel like prison, and all three women want to get out of their marriages in the end. And who can blame them? <br /><br />But Liv, unlike Paula in "Gaslight", and Sara in "Sleeping with the Enemy", is not as innocent as the other two women. In the end, she lies as much as her husband. Is she as much of a narcissist as he is? <br /><br />Which is why it is just better to get out of awful relationships before "trouble mounts", as it invariably will either because <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank"><b>physical</b> </a><b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">abuse escalates</a> </b>(Sara's dilemma: often to the point of being injured or murdered), or because <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">gaslighting</a></b> is a <b>coercive control campaign</b> to get another person to think of themselves as insane and undeserving of freedom for the sake of an agenda that the narcissist has, the most common agenda being isolating a woman so that she only has the perpetrator to relate to (Paula's dilemma), or because <b>cheating</b> brings with it so many problems besides the secrets, infidelity and lies (unwanted pregnancies, split loyalties, split time, not being able to count on a partner, stalking lovers, such as this series presents, strong emotions, all kinds of risks and betrayals, split families, family shame, and so on). It's just not worth it! <br /><br />In the days when "Gaslight" first aired in the movie theaters, women were sometimes "put away" in mental institutions by their husbands, especially abusive husbands who didn't want to stay married to partners they said "I do" to any more, but felt they couldn't get an outright divorce. In those days, divorce was scandalous. <br /><br />And <b>narcissistic cheating</b> is usually <b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/relationships/signs-youre-dating-a-cheating-narcissist#tall-tale-telling" target="_blank">serial cheating</a></b> with lots of lies, betrayals and a double life. And it is extremely common for narcissists (<b>about 75 percent of them cheat on their spouse - </b>post coming soon). <br /><br />We all learn in today's world that relationships like these cannot be saved. All of them are being unraveled because of the personality disorder of narcissism, and in many cases, a marriage partner is dealing with all three: the gaslighting, the physical abuse, and the cheating. <br /><br />And Will does take a swing at Liv towards the end of the series. And he's obviously gaslighting her too, although it is "gaslighting lite" as most narcissists will try to convince their partners that it is the partner's fault that the narcissist is cheating <i>every single time</i> he is getting caught at it (Will isn't doing it every time, just some of the time, thus the "narcissism lite" label). <br /><br />Psychologist professor Sam Vaknin has said numerous times in his videos that when we are in close personal relationships with narcissists, we become a little narcissistic too, that their narcissism rubs off on us. Researcher and clinical psychologist with the California State University at Los Angeles, Dr. Ramani Durvasula, denies that wholeheartedly from everything I've heard her say. And then there are websites that use the word "fleas" to connotate that someone has picked up some narcissistic traits temporarily from living full time with a narcissist, either condoning the way they are behaving, or enabling it, or lying for them, or bullying someone for the narcissist. However, when the flea-ridden person leaves the narcissist, they lose the narcissism. <br /><br />I don't know. I think there are probably no absolutes. I'm keeping my eye on this phenomenon, since there are so many opinions, but I would bet that a lot of us non-narcissists get caught in arguments where our ethics aren't as clean as we'd like them to be when we engage with narcissists, especially when the narcissist is trying to justify abuse, or cheating, or gaslighting, or being hypercritical and cruel but can't stand criticism themselves. Do we go as far as Liv goes? Not by a long shot. I'd say that most of us get on the defensive, and exasperated that the narcissist is taking none of what we have to say into consideration, and in the frustration we shoot some verbal barbs at them: "You're not worth talking to!", "You don't care a shred about what I'm saying! All you do is hear yourself talk!", "All you want is a war? What's the matter with you!?" - all of this is shaming, something narcissists do in spades. We don't want to be like them, yet we do sometimes in this regard. <br /><br />A long time ago when I met with a psychologist following a break-up, she said, "Don't argue with narcissists! You'll always regret it because they get into 'the muck': insulting, abusing, hurting, destroying. They bait you to get into an argument either to fine-tune themselves to win the argument, or because you're seeing who they really are behind the false facade. Just walk away every time they start one!" <br /><br />Who wants to fight with an unethical person hell-bent on getting the worse possible outcome? <br /><br />And it is something Liv discovers too. It's not worth discussing his infidelities any more. In the end, she's disgusted. Most of us do become disgusted with narcissists, plus we are too traumatized to continue. She just wants out. He's destroyed her in some ways, and in the end she's destroyed him by being an accomplice to his incarceration, and destroyed two others by taking their lives. </p><p>That's something to be proud of? Not.<br /></p><p>As a thriller, it may be a perfectly good movie/series, but in terms of covering cheating and gaslighting in a meaningful way? This series fell short for me on multiple levels. I think "Gaslight" and "Sleeping With the Enemy" are better thrillers than this one because they showed in a much better way the consequences of being in a close personal relationship with a narcissistic-sociopathic husband. </p><p>But all three moving pictures had disappointing endings.<br /><br />In one scene Liv calls herself "a bunny boiler" referring to another thriller movie about abuse, this time stalking and terrorizing. That movie is <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_Attraction" target="_blank">"Fatal Attraction"</a></b>. She could be like the protagonist in "Fatal Attraction", wanting to save her marriage and punish him at the same time, but got too exhausted with his pathology to keep her end of the marriage going.</p><p><br />So is this series about two narcissists betraying one another? It could be. She does show some empathy towards Cara, the other woman, so maybe she has "fleas". Again, whether an adult can get some narcissistic traits just by being in the proximity of a narcissist is still under debate. We know that children who are either looking on or being molded <b>via constant shame, rewards and punishments</b> can certainly end up with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but we don't know whether adults, who tend to have more fixed personalities can be. <br /><br />I gave this series three stars because I suppose it is possible for a situation to really happen in this way, though rare, and because it shows pretty accurately how cheating narcissists act, and why staying and interacting with the lies they spout and their string of thoughtless, compulsive acts of infidelity aren't a good idea. <br /><br />The flaws in the series leave possibilities for other writers and producers to step in and make a much better story. While cognitive dissonance, and being torn as to whether a wife can make her marriage work, or whether she needs to go through a divorce, is certainly part of the picture for awhile (and child abuse survivors, especially scapegoats who have been groomed to think there are options to being abused and betrayed in hostage-like emotionally abusive toxic environments, tend to stay the longest, work the hardest, get the most symptoms, and leave with a lot of regrets that they wasted so much of their lives on unhappy experiences and stubbornly unchangeable narcissists). That part of the picture can stay, and even with more of a background story to make it more plausible (seeing her Mom work hard to get her Dad to stop cheating). <br /><br />But to make a meaningful story, the rest of it isn't necessary. I suppose Liv could still push Cara off the cliff in a significant <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6668891/#:~:text=As%20the%20dose%20increases%2C%20so,impairment%20known%20as%20a%20blackout." target="_blank"><b>black-out</b> <b>drunken state</b></a>, but the repercussions should be more thoughtfully portrayed: the consequences of being drunk, the consequences of giving up on your own self care to deal with narcissistic manipulations, crazy-making and blackmailing, the consequences of being so angry that you feel compelled to drink so much that you do things you are not aware of in your black-out state, the consequences of the crime, the consequences of going along with a partner's desires for a fake alibi who thinks police will arrest him just because he was with his mistress just before or after she was pushed. <br /><br />While it would be a completely different story, the point is that it would be a more poignant story, taking into consideration what police and judges actually do in these cases, and the public's response, especially since cheating in marriages no longer has legal ramifications aside from coercive control (in the United Kingdom where the story starts, coercive control is illegal, but not in New York yet, though it is being considered). <br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">OFFICIAL TRAILER<br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ogRNXn6Qoj0" width="320" youtube-src-id="ogRNXn6Qoj0"></iframe><br /><br />FURTHER READING<br /><br /><div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2023/09/what-prime-series-wilderness-gets-right-about-narcissistic-gaslighters/" target="_blank">What Prime Series ‘Wilderness’ Gets Right About Narcissistic Gaslighters</a></b> - by Shahida Arabi for Thought Catalog<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/wilderness_2023/s01/reviews?intcmp=rt-what-to-know_read-critics-reviews" target="_blank">Critics reviews on Rotten Tomatoes</a> </b>about <i>Wilderness<br /></i><br /><b><a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/wildernesss-ending-review-wolves-speech-analysis.html" target="_blank">The Cool Girl Gets Lost in Wilderness</a></b> - by Roxana Hadadi for Vulture, New York<br />excerpt:<br /> <i>... Liv can’t work, so the former journalist — we never learn what she used to write about — spends her days at home working on her novel, which is implied to be the story we’re currently watching. “I was whoever people needed me to be. When it was safe to, I stopped pretending. Finally, I could just be me,” Liv says of her relationship with Will in voice-over narration, but their seemingly perfect marriage doesn’t last. Will is cheating on Liv, and when she learns that what he swore was a one-night stand is actually a monthslong affair, she plans to murder him during a road trip through the American West. ... </i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://press.amazonstudios.com/us/en/original-series/wilderness/1" target="_blank"><i>Wilderness</i> Amazon page</a><br /></b><br /><div><b><a href="https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2023/09/10-lies-narcissists-tell-when-dating-you-translated-by-an-expert/" target="_blank">10 Lies Narcissists Tell When Dating You – Translated By An Expert (A researcher specializing in narcissism translates the common lies narcissistic partners tell in the dating world.)</a></b> - by Shahida Arabi for Thought Catalog</div> </div><u>miscellaneous reviews from Google</u><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><u>mr jak</u></div><div style="text-align: left;">(one star review)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> let me say first off, its well acted, its shot well, the cinematography is great. <br /> but the core morality of this show is so twisted in contemporary politics that its painful to watch. This series seems to fit with an agenda which justifies that people wronged- specifically women being wronged- are essentially in their rights to inact the worst crimes. <br /> the main character commits an actual crime which is somehow justified and not her fault. <br /> the other female main characters has back story that tries to explain away her behaviour. Its called backon right at the end of the series, where once again, its women who are disadvantaged and pushed to these acts because of men/ society and what standards they have been set. </i></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> SPOILERS NOW</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> so a guy cheats on you. you find out. instead of leaving him. which would devastate him and do some damage (if you need the revenge so bad). you plan to kill him. she is clearly in the wrong and nuts. but we continue for 6 episodes in the shows attempt to justify and balance her position.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> the outcome of this, is she kills 2 people and puts the other in jail.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> and yet the series ends with her justifying it in someway. that others have created this monster. NO. people always have choices. plus also, she basically got drunk and tried to kill the wrong person. she then killed someone else in self defence. she isnt some mastermind criminal/ wolf. shes a bitter, nut bag, just as awful as the main character at this point.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> this isnt so cleverly written.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> there are essentially 3 male characters of notes and 4 females.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> 1 male the cheater. no good</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> 1 male the female cheaters partner. a good guy but has to flip and become bad. then killed.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> 1 male cop. jumps to conclusions. not so bright.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> female- main character. her actions are painted as justified</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> female cheater- her back story tries to justifiy her actions</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> female cop- shes the smart one questioning all</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> female mother,- cheated on also.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> every male is either bad and/ or dumb.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> each female is exonnerated or justified in their actions.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> BUT it could have all been worth it, if the nailed the ending...</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> AND what would have been an interesting ending, would have been if something came up, which incriminated her. if she never found the necklace. and a kid hiking one day a few weeks later did. and it just cut to black there. at least then.. there would be the open ending, where you decide whether justice was served and how. but nope.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> killer goes free. and im sure.. the many feminists who love amazon prime's recent slate will love this series too.</i><br />(162 people found this helpful)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><u><div style="text-align: left;"><u>David Alexander</u></div></u><div style="text-align: left;">(four star review)</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <i> I have to admit I liked the series, mostly because I really enjoyed Jenna Colemen from the Dr. Who days - she was great then and played well here, except for the murder part. <br /> I will say that both married folks have deep-seated mental issues from unpleasant, though not tragic childhoods, (far worse parents exist), and I believe there are crimes that can be committed that might warrant injury or death, especially in the spur of the moment (catching ones spouse in bed with another, etc.). However, what the wife did was plan out the murder of her husband. Legally, that is 1st degree murder, in any state, and isn't likely to be justified by infidelity, which was the only crime committed, when she started planning the murder. <br /> Plus, frankly, no one is worth going to jail for. I guess for some, the satisfaction of hurting or killing someone who cheated on them might appear to be worth it, while being put to death by society, or spending the rest of ones life in jail, might allow for time to reconsider.
<br /> I also found it interesting that she took him right back the first time and he refused to let her go, despite clearly continuing to cheat on her and possibly intend to leave her at a later date, with a lot more pain for all concerned.</i></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> Those realities aside, the series was a lot of fun, well-acted, great backgrounds (amazing), and was fairly high-budget all the way around. I enjoyed it, if for Jenna Coleman and the backdrops. Good stuff.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;">(15 people found this helpful)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><u><div style="text-align: left;"><u>Carolyn A.</u> </div></u><div style="text-align: left;">(3 star review)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> I'm torn about this. The idea of a planned epic revenge against someone who did you wrong is appealing....it hits right into your core. As many others have said, it's impeccably acted and shot. Gorgeous scenery and the music is surprisingly good, its better than it otherwise would have been. It sticks in my craw that if it was a male plotting to murder his wife it wouldn't have been made let alone written up in the media as a "fun' show. If you can get past that it's worth watching.</i><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibpZCAxdeiaYiMByBNly2Nd59tsNQrN38sAbuvo6AhGmSbbvQKuevGJZRvZ-236YGLbnlUQo0WH5fOhyphenhyphenXQd5Gx3vh7U1aXvUA0bfUgvXBPnn4vxtGj8PgmyIhG3ktV0yHavYxLOuKuWdpG1omDrPar5D3ZTOi3OOe6dRUnXPeVPYYULBemCmybES3io70/s570/wilderness%20movie%20review%20post.jpg" style="font-style: italic; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="456" data-original-width="570" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibpZCAxdeiaYiMByBNly2Nd59tsNQrN38sAbuvo6AhGmSbbvQKuevGJZRvZ-236YGLbnlUQo0WH5fOhyphenhyphenXQd5Gx3vh7U1aXvUA0bfUgvXBPnn4vxtGj8PgmyIhG3ktV0yHavYxLOuKuWdpG1omDrPar5D3ZTOi3OOe6dRUnXPeVPYYULBemCmybES3io70/s16000/wilderness%20movie%20review%20post.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/05/movie-reviews-spotlighting-survivors-of.html" target="_blank">BACK TO MOVING PICTURE REVIEWS</a></b></div></div></div></div></div></div><p></p>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-65140663110035677532023-09-18T19:06:00.023-07:002023-10-29T15:52:17.626-07:00How Shame is the Core Struggle of Most Narcissists. How it Gets Dumped Onto You, and How They Try to Harvest Regrets and Shame From You. Does It Work For Them?<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidWKmXN_gESyniotepAFRT9NJ_rqI9VYO__V-W7x3vffq8dogMp3mfXdKrMM9nZUc9OvQz1TrRlCtkm4l5NnjtCslK1nSvlqt6PIPwzHjnp-k2N0WjUktpu7VEF_6v-Fdl9w_ElyHzWAg-QoJ5zi4lozIjVq1Y0Iy5b2BfmP-k0sePrL-uFugiL_4fScQ/s580/shame%20based%20narcissists.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidWKmXN_gESyniotepAFRT9NJ_rqI9VYO__V-W7x3vffq8dogMp3mfXdKrMM9nZUc9OvQz1TrRlCtkm4l5NnjtCslK1nSvlqt6PIPwzHjnp-k2N0WjUktpu7VEF_6v-Fdl9w_ElyHzWAg-QoJ5zi4lozIjVq1Y0Iy5b2BfmP-k0sePrL-uFugiL_4fScQ/s16000/shame%20based%20narcissists.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="color: #741b47;">THIS POST IS PART OF SERIES ON SHAMING</span></div><div><span style="color: #741b47;"><u>the first post is</u>: <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/09/shaming-from-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">shaming from abusers, narcissists</a></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #741b47;"><u>the second post is</u>: <b>this one</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #741b47;"><u>the third post is</u>: <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/10/why-shaming-your-children-is-not.html" target="_blank">Why Shaming Your Children Is Not Effective, How Narcissists Respond to Feelings of Shame, What You Can Do if You Are an Adult Child and Your Narcissistic Parents are Still Playing the Shaming Game, and How to Start Healing from a Lifetime of Parental Shaming</a></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #741b47;">a fourth post will show how an environment of shaming, blaming, perspecticide and fawning can produce narcissism<br />a fifth post will follow on the connection between shame and rage in narcissism</span></div><div><span style="color: #741b47;">and probably a sixth post too, which will focus more on the trauma aspects</span></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Also an update on 9/25/23: Five Hundred Peep (who I refer to as "Peep") commented on this post in her own blog, <b><a href="https://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/2023/09/shame-and-narcissists-or-everything-you.html" target="_blank">Shame and Narcissists or Everything You Do is Wrong to Them Anyway</a></b>.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">NARCISSISTS AND THEIR EXPERIENCE<br />OF SHAME</div><br />Narcissists typically walk around with a lot more shame than the rest of us do. And so they are constantly trying to run away from shame when it comes to their own behaviors. They also refuse to self reflect, which tends to mean that the shame within them is unaddressed. They learned in childhood that if they have faults, they are going to receive severe consequences for not being perfect, including being ostracized and condemned. It is likely their experience as a child was that an adult in their world over-shamed children, and under-shamed themselves (and often for the same wrongs). <br /><br />Shame eventually, as they become narcissistic adults, tends to be expressed outwardly at other people, rather than dealing with it inwardly. It contributes greatly to their <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/08/why-do-narcissists-care-so-much-about.html" target="_blank">false self</a></b>, their <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/04/narcissists-and-blame-shifting-avoiding.html" target="_blank">blame-shifting</a></b>, their <b>arrogance and grandiosity</b> (with the thought: "If I can convince people that I'm better, more intelligent, more successful, more liked than others are, then they will never shame me") and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/11/why-do-narcissists-feel-so-entitled-and.html" target="_blank">why they are so rebellious but expect others to conform and submit</a> </b>to codes of conduct. And they have also learned in childhood that the person who shames is the dominant person, the one who punishes, and they take that and model that in their own life, and take it to absolutes and extremes. <br /><br />In terms of "absolutes" it means statements like "You were always worthless", "You never really meant anything to me", "You were always a pain, and will always be that way". <br /><br />In terms of "extremes" it means statements like these: "You are ostracized forever", "You can never be part of this group again", "I'll never listen to another word you have to say". <br /><br />For the research on this, see the "further reading" section below.<br /><br />Shaming for narcissists is not used for personal growth and understanding. <br /><br />When they use it, it is mostly for punishment only, to hurt the other person. I tell why this backfires further in the post. <br /><br />If they aren't feeling shame (shame for them means attacking you emotionally via projection or blame-shifting when you have a grievance about how they treat you or others), consider that they may have the Malignant brand of narcissism instead (i.e. mixed with psychopathy - these people are marked by their lack of remorse for anything illegal they do, and any hurting of other people they do, no matter how erroneous or made up their reasons are). If you are dealing with malignant narcissists, they can be quite dangerous, and they won't care how they have effected you, and some of them even prefer that you are hurt by them (this is also the sign of <b>the dark tetrad</b>, known for their sadism). <br /><br />But to get back to narcissists who aren't the malignant brand of narcissism and those who do <u>not</u> have comorbidities of other personality disorders, they walk around with quite a bit of shame inside. They have remorse for hurting other people, not for empathetic reasons, but more because it might put a "monkey wrench" in their ambition for more power and control, degrade <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/08/why-do-narcissists-care-so-much-about.html" target="_blank">their image, their false self</a></b>, and clout, and diminish their ability to talk others into thinking they deserve more than other people do, that they are hierarchically superior (<b>superiority complex</b>).<br /><br />Some of the things that cause them shame:<br />- lack of empathy. Narcissists may be born with a proclivity for a lack of empathy, but they are usually also modeled or taught to have a lack of empathy in their early environment (usually by a caretaker). In other words, their empathy was damaged in early childhood (being abused, or being around abuse can cause <b><a href="https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubpdfs/braindevtrauma.pdf" target="_blank">brain damage</a></b>, something I will be discussing <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/how-narcissistic-abuse-ages-you-makes.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">at a later time</a>,<b> </b>or it can be the result of <b>intergenerational trauma</b>). Narcissists are generally <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/08/why-do-narcissists-care-so-much-about.html" target="_blank">faking empathy</a></b> so that they won't appear heartless to others. For some narcissists, their empathy was so damaged in childhood that feeling empathy is inaccessible to them; in other words, they can't help it. But appearing empathetic supersedes telling others that they don't feel empathy, so later on, they feel remorse for having faked or lied about having empathy. <br />- dysregulated emotions like rage. For narcissists, rage is usually "off the charts", and they are aware that they hurt others in the process, often to the point of violating boundaries of respect and decency, and often to the point of traumatizing individuals too. In other words, ethics and reasonableness have been sacrificed in their expression of rage, and they worry that it has sullied their reputation, and put a damaging light on their reputation. If their reasons for rage are not accepted by the other person, they can have a lot of shame to the point where they don't want to see the other person, or where they have a <b>narcissistic collapse</b> where the impulse to attack is even greater than before. And then those further attacks cause them shame too.<br />- lying, faking, spreading false narratives, and gaslighting. They worry that doing this will cause them to sully their reputation, to appear fraudulent. When these actions do sully their reputation, they worry that they will no longer feel hierarchically superior to other people, that other people will no longer respect them, or want to be around them. They get a sense of their personality from others, and without a more definitive positive personality, they often feel empty, angry and depressed. When they lash out at others for what they perceive as putting them in a place of unjust accountability (they feel that others should overlook their sins because they feel they aren't in control of themselves, that other people control their reactions instead), then they can walk around with an incredible amount of shame and feelings of annihilation of purpose and emptiness. This is when they try to get sympathy by playing the victim, which most narcissists do. <br />- their superiority complex. Narcissists tend to think in hierarchical terms, putting themselves in the #1 spot in the ranking of superiority. They do sometimes have serious doubts as to whether they are as superior as they think they are. In fact, some narcissists have admitted to <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank">"splitting on themselves"</a></b> (<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgX9Js55ea8" target="_blank">here's one instance</a></b>), i.e. seeing themselves as all superior, or all inferior, and changing back and forth between the two. They wonder if their feelings of superiority are a defensive delusion (yes, they are), that they contemplate that maybe they are even "bottom feeders" (the "I am nothing" is a defensive delusion too, just as much as they are when they tell other people <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank">they are nothing</a>). This doesn't happen often for a lot of them because they are constantly reaching for more grandiosity, but enough to cause some shame. Not being in a "winning position" shakes them up, and becomes the point where holes in their pervasive feelings and thinking that they are superior to others starts to shatter. <br />- discards of other people. The discards of others usually happen during fits of rage. For some of them, they didn't mean it, or mean it to last, and now they feel they have to make up stories for why they did it because to tell the truth might put them in a more shameful position. The lying and being afraid their secret will be uncovered causes more shame. It is also why narcissists try to hide themselves (i.e. don't share, but expect you to share), why they commit so many thoughtless, hurtful acts (because they figure they can always lie, deflect and counter blame someone else for what they did), but in the end, it still causes shame. Many narcissists cannot apologize because they feel to do so would be to show too much weakness or vulnerability, and they also feel that they have superiority and dominance over you that they must maintain, so they do not apologize, and their relationships languish without satisfying resolutions. <br /><br />Shame can feel like a terrible burden to them. And what do they attempt to do when they are saddled with a lot of shame? <br /><br />They try to give it to other people so that they will feel better, in comparison, about themselves. They vilify others:<br /><br />- "They should be ashamed for the way they treated me! I've never been treated so badly in my life!." - when they instigated it. We hear this from a lot of politicians these days too. It's a deflection strategy. It's about playing the victim too (and it is unethical), so it can cause more shame - they are always feeling on edge that their victim stance won't work with people they are trying to influence - thus they acquire more shame.<br />- "These people should not be listened to!" - they are afraid of people telling the truth, so they have to blacken their reputations so that no one listens to them, which causes more shame. <br />- "I'm perfectly aware of what went on and they are 100 percent at fault!" - shows black and white thinking, something they tend to feel ashamed about too (since they will do anything not to be 100 percent, or even 50 percent at fault for anything). <br />- "You are not to talk to me that way! You're a pig!" - shows hypocrisy, and therefor lack of ethics right away. This can cause shame in them too, but of course, they don't want to show you that. They want to keep giving shame to you instead. <br />- "You're no better than I am!" - shows that they are not a good person, even if they think others lower themselves as much as they do, thus it breeds more shame, self-contempt, and contempt of others.<br /><br />And so on. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">HOW DID THEY END UP WITH SO MUCH SHAME<br />TO BEGIN WITH?<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Narcissists usually grow up in environments where there is a lot of "trash-talking" about other people, shaming others is one of the things that is way over-done. <br /><br />The shaming statements are the "You are - " statements that describe a person, or a child, in many disparaging ways. <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/08/why-do-narcissists-care-so-much-about.html" target="_blank">This is one reason why narcissists don't know who they are</a></b>, that their sense of self is shaky at best. They hear or are the recipients of the "You are - " statements. <br /><br />Those statements can run the gamut:<br />"You are disgusting!"<br />"You wolf down your food like you are a pig!"<br />"Your body is disgusting! You couldn't attract anyone if you tried!"<br />"You are so crazy! No one will ever love you except me."<br />"You should hear yourself! As if anyone would listen to you!"<br />"You were at fault! And stop trying to convince me otherwise!"<br />"I know what you feel and think! And it's not good! I can tell you that!" - and this is where they get into <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" target="_blank">perspecticide</a></b>, even labeling what the child might be thinking. Horrible. <br />I got many of these kind of statements from survivors of child abuse and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-most-common-things-abusive-parents.html" target="_blank">they are listed in this post</a></b>.<br /><br />Or they will be disparaging a child in front of another child (and on some level, the child listening will know it is not true):<br /><br />"I've got the most hair-brained, crazy child! What am I to do!?"<br />"I can't stand to hear her talk! Who cares what little girls think! They should be talking to other little girls about make-up and hair, not their father!"<br />"Sometimes I just want to put my child back from where they came from!"<br />"Sometimes I just hate your sister! Don't you sometimes hate her too?"<br /><br />In healthy families, children get to describe who they are (not the family members - they stay out of describing). Children figure out for themselves what their interests are, what they might want to do in life, what they are proud of about themselves and what needs work, and so on. The parent may model some things with their own behavior, but there is not this constant attacking of "You are - " statements. <br /><br />And it hollows out any prospective personality that the child has. The generational curse here might be one hollowed out personality tries to hollow out another personality from another generation. <br /><br />And this can create narcissism, especially since the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank">black and white thinking</a></b> does not always go internally about themselves, but goes externally towards their own children. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Narcissists tend to have a golden child and a scapegoat child which is another form of <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank">splitting</a></b>: the golden child is thought to be "all good" and the scapegoat child is thought to be "all bad." And some of why the scapegoat child is thought to be "all bad" is that they are more resistant to being hollowed out than the golden child. <br /><br />The golden child doesn't get overtly hollowed out all that much by the parent - unless he strays from mirroring the parent, that is - which is how he gets hollowed out: he has to be a close version of his parent to be accepted. <br /><br />Most golden children are amply aware that their scapegoat siblings are given labels that show unkindness, unfairness, erroneous punishments, and untrue labels. It is why golden children tend to be so compliant and mirroring, to protect themselves from the scapegoat's fate.<br /><br />Anyway, let's say the golden child turns into a narcissist (which happens to more than half of them - a significant unfortunate fact). All of the trash-talking gets internalized and <b>normalized</b>. They can even trash-talk about themselves for going along willingly with the lies of a narcissistic parent. They learn not to trust what anyone says about anyone because the judgements can be so off the wall and full of lies - and to go for power, control and dominance instead to keep from being a victim of narcissistic abuse (the thinking goes: "If I victimize like my caretaker did, I won't be the victim; someone else will instead.") <br /><br />But it also means adopting the bully's or parent's personality, disorder and all, not their own. And just like their bully or parent, they can present a surface of being totally compliant and charming, but horrifically abusive, negative and cruel behind the bully's or parent's back. So parroting can have awful consequences. This is where narcissists often get stuck - they haven't developed a personality, and may go without one for an entire life time. They have <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank">Jekyll and Hyde splitting</a> - </b>that is not a true personality; it is a compulsion, a way of dealing with situations when they feel frustration and rage building up inside them. <br /><br />They are aware of what they are doing when they go "Mr. Hyde" on you, but since narcissists are known for their dysregulated emotions, particularly rage, and their compulsions to "be bad" or "go evil" on others, they will feel remorse for what they did, even if they don't try to make amends. <br /><br />And how did the narcissist not make amends, and what did they do with the anger turned inward? They shamed the most vulnerable people they knew. And the mirroring child of the narcissist will do the same. <br /><br />Which brings me to the next chapter:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">HOW NARCISSISTS TRY TO HARVEST REGRETS AND SHAME FROM YOU,<br />AND DOES IT WORK FOR THEM?</div></div></div><br />At some point in your relationship with a narcissist, they will try to elicit regret and shame from you. They will usually say things like:<br />"You shouldn't have said that."<br />"You shouldn't have done that."<br />"You should have done it this way."<br />"You should have said ______________ this way if you had wanted _____________."<br />"You shouldn't have done it that way."<br />"I can't believe that you did this! How could you think this would be okay?"<br />"You made a mistake. And there are consequences for every mistake you make."<br /><br />Most of this is said with foreboding, as though the consequences will be severe.<br /><br />And in the beginning, assuming we are talking about a close personal relationship, it works because you probably think their intentions towards you are benevolent. So you try to shift and change how you do things, and how you say things, and to some extent, you may even change how you think about things.<br /><br />The problem is that relationships with narcissists aren't like other relationships. What they will glean from you making big overtures based on their wishes of "how you should behave" and "how you should do things" is that they are in charge of you. As long as you do what they tell you to do, and behave the way they want, then they either feel temporarily pleased, and some of them might even say they love you or reward you as a way of giving you positive reinforcement. <br /><br />But unlike other relationships where you make adjustments, and the other person makes adjustments too, so that you can get along and understand one another, and keep from hurting or irritating each other, narcissists expect people in their lives to do all of the bending, all of the overtures, all of the compromising, all of the "behaving", all of the changing (even when it comes to personality, dress, your interests, how you express yourself, the expressions on your face - not possible). <br /><br />They don't think they should have to do any of this themselves, of course. Part of this has to do with their lust for <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-pursuit-of-power-control-and.html" target="_blank">power, control and domination</a></b> in their close personal relationships, and their feeling of entitlement. They will always be going for more power, which is not what you find in healthy relationships. <div><br /></div><div>The other reason they do this is that narcissists have a superiority complex, and many of them, when the manipulations of coercing people to change for them, they can actually start to believe they are better than everyone else when everyone works so hard for them to fit into their idealized visions, and where they don't have to work hard at all in their relationships. It goes to their head, in other words, and they think it is okay to take it to the point where your thoughts are their thoughts, your feelings are their feelings, your interests are their interests - to the point where they feel it is absolutely necessary to teach others constantly how to behave too - to be as "perfect" as they try to convince you that they are. <br /><br />Arrogance has incredible blind spots, and besides getting in the way of understanding and wisdom, it gets shattered more often than they would like - it has to do with their <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/08/why-do-narcissists-care-so-much-about.html" target="_blank">false self</a></b>,<b> </b>the grandiose<b> </b>self that they prefer to show to the world, but which in reality, is hiding their <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/08/why-do-narcissists-care-so-much-about.html" target="_blank">shadow self</a> </b>and their <b>fragile ego</b>.<b> </b>It is one reason why they rage so much when you point out things like (using one from the list at the beginning of this post):<br /><br />Said to the narcissist: "You have no trouble shaming me and trying to teach me, but you can't be shamed or taught anything yourself? What is going on with that? Where is this 'I'm prefect and you are not' mindset coming from? Because it isn't serving either of us very well at this point. I was okay with changing a few things for you, but you've gone too far. You want a sycophant? Because you are not going to get one out of me. I have my own personality and my own interests and you're not going to meddle or change that any more than you have." - their rage is likely to be extreme because you are challenging their false self, the mask and actor they have adopted to hide their shadow self and their dilapidated ego, who thinks they can just run rough-shod over others in this way to get more power and control, i.e. to get sycophants. They don't like strength of character and they don't like <b><a href="https://www.insider.com/why-type-a-personalities-attract-narcissists-2019-1" target="_blank">type A personalities</a> </b>in the long run (<b><a href="https://kimsaeed.com/2020/08/12/how-to-make-a-narcissist-miserable-12-things-they-hate/" target="_blank">another link</a></b> and <b><a href="https://medium.com/the-conscious-way/6-things-narcissists-really-cant-stand-8819c4f3b829#:~:text=Narcissists%20hate%20strong%20people%20that,other%20tactics%20to%20maintain%20it." target="_blank">another link</a> </b>and<b> <a href="https://www.healthassured.org/blog/narcissists-greatest-fear/#:~:text=To%20narcissists%2C%20ordinary%20people%20(i.e.,is%20the%20opposite%20of%20special." target="_blank">another link</a></b>).<br /><br />In fact, if you said anything on that list back to them, they'd probably run away like a coward and end the relationship. <br /><br />But assuming it's a one-sided relationship where they are trying to make you run through hoops to meet their <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/03/perfection-in-abusive-relationships.html" target="_blank">perfection standards</a></b>, this, in fact, incentivizes them to do more perfection standards that you must meet. I think I have demonstrated how it can get to the point where how you do simple minded chores and facial expressions will be met with impossible rage-filled standards and ridicule. <br /><br />So, what happens when you get to this point in your relationship with them? What happens when you fail to meet one of their super small perfection standards? Do they realize they are pushing for something miniscule compared to things in life which should really be attended to? And what if you laugh at the tiny issue they want you to put your attention to, and refuse to do it?<br /><br />They will most likely rage, and not kidding. They will, in the end, be seething at you with contempt if you refuse to meet perfection standards on absurdly tiny issues, especially if you have done that for them many times before. They become entitled to get what ever changes they want out of you. <br /><br />Once you have gotten to a point where your relationship is about meeting demands on super tiny issues, the relationship is in danger of ending. And they will certainly let you know, one way or another, that the relationship is very provisional and uncertain. <br /><br />Here are some of instances of things they say when they get to this stage (in purple):<br /><br /><span style="color: #351c75;">"You never did learn how to talk to me. Now I'm going to teach you in a way that you'll regret." - and the teaching lesson will invariably be about administering pain to you. <br /><br />"You are SO inept! Just look at you!" - about trying to break your self confidence that you can do things without them, and about breaking your self esteem.<br /><br />"I feel like you are wasting my time! Here I thought you really cared about me, that you wanted to please me, but now you don't?! What is the matter with you!? Get with the program NOW!!" - this about seeing if they can get their needs met by showing aggression, that "you have to" or there will be a lot of trouble or consequences between you (<b>micro-managing is a bad sign </b>in close personal adult relationships<b> </b>and is likely to escalate to abuse). <br /><br />"If you can't do what I want, you are useless to me!" - watch out for the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank">"useless phrase"</a></b> when it comes to narcissists. <br /><br />"You couldn't please a pig!"<br /><br />"I hate you when you're like this! And apparently that's who you really are! A complete and utter disappointment! What's the matter with you? You used to be so nice before! You used to do so much for me? And now you can't? You're going to be recalcitrant? It's time for a separation until you can do better!" - a separation is supposed to make you think about how to keep pleasing them in a better and better way, but instead it tends to enliven the trauma response of "fight or flight", and the longer the separation goes on, most of us put up boundaries with narcissists, even when we don't know they are narcissists, so that we don't get traumatized further. <br /></span><br /><span style="color: #351c75;">"You think it is okay to talk to others about me?" - when you are trying to get help in understanding what happened, why it happened, and in general, what happened to your relationship (narcissists use the silent treatment and discarding relationships an awful lot when they are disappointed, and so you can't talk to them and understand anything if they go silent on you, and if you do try to talk to them you'll get head games, and lots of blaming, shaming and contempt rather than a real conversation where they'll try to understand where each of you is coming from, and try to build a bridge or resolution to issues). Instead, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">they infantilize you</a></b> and punish you to teach you a lesson, as though you are a naughty child, rather than an adult. It doesn't work.</span><br /><br /> If they really wanted to teach you a lesson, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/03/hurting-or-punishing-others-to-teach.html" target="_blank">putting you in pain tends not to work</a></b> unless they are inclined to break the law to do so. As long as you have a free will, you will not be going towards pain; you will be going away from it. <br /><br /><span style="color: #351c75;">"You never could please me! Now look at you! You're just a shriveled up piece of meat! I could care less about you!" - this shows they have a lack of empathy. <br /><br />"So you think you are irreplaceable. You aren't. Let's clear that up now!" - to narcissists, everyone is replaceable in their lives including spouse, friends, children, parents, and siblings. And that says more about their character than it does about you. If you look at their history, they've been replacing and ghosting other people quite a bit before they did the same thing to you. </span><br /><br />So in other words, this "You've got to please me, but I never have to please you" attitude that they have is not going to change and it is likely to get worse. They will keep hammering you with how you must talk, how you must do things, how you must be a perfect sycophant for them. That becomes really obvious at some point. And in the meantime, they will be trying to teach you lessons by introducing painful situations in your life. And it isn't benevolent (that will become clear too). <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">Infantilizing you</a> </b>becomes the terrible and extremely unhealthy go-to tactic and rut they put you and others through time and time again. Most of them don't know how to do anything else because it is the personality disorder at work: they feel they must always go for superiority, and what better way to do it than to insist that you act like an inept child who doesn't know how to behave. <br /><br />I'm sure if you're reading this, most of your other relationships don't look like this at all. Since no one likes to be treated that way, including them (it is disrespectful), they often lose relationships over it. <p></p><p><b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/03/hurting-or-punishing-others-to-teach.html" target="_blank">If they really wanted to teach you a lesson, putting you in pain tends not to work</a></b> unless they are inclined to break the law to do so. As long as you have a free will, you will not be going towards pain; you will be going away from it. <br /><br />If this is a partnership, they may be <b>having affairs</b> on you to teach you more lessons, but unbeknownst to them, it actually creates more separation and trauma for most of us. It doesn't work all that well either unless you are the type of person who competes with their lover. But competing with a lover will cause most narcissists to have more affairs, to get more competitions going, attempts to get you to be more of a pleaser puppet, and their ethics tend to spiral down pretty far as well. What this shows is a lack of empathy for both parties, assuming their lover wants them, and is willing to compete with their latest partner. But at some point, the competition ends, and either one person "gets" the narcissist, or they both decide that the narcissist is not for them. <br /><br />The reality is that neither of them may be with the narcissist because narcissists often compete with their ex-partners or partner once they have one of them. Again, they stop running a competition between two people who want them, and instead <b>focus on competing</b> with their ex-partner or present partner instead - whether it is who gets the attention of their joint children, or the attention of their stepchildren, who wins the dominance game once they set up house together. <br /><br />Most people do not like being in constant competitions in their relationships unless there is nothing better to do with their time. So a lot of the people who won them, walk away from them too. There are exceptions, but not many. <br /><br />The exceptions tend to be that the partner is another narcissist. <br /><br />For children, narcissists set up competitions too, because they are not capable of caring, compassion, and love. So they <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/01/parents-who-pit-siblings-against-each.html" target="_blank">make their kids compete</a></b> for small morsels of affection and attention. But, as we know, narcissists usually have <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">a golden child</a></b>, and they will make sure that child wins all of the competitions. And they also have <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">a scapegoat child</a></b>, who they will make sure loses all of their competitions. <br /><br />What happens is that scapegoats begin to wince at competitions, and they don't believe the parent loves them anyway, even when the parent says they do. Most scapegoats who have become adults will say that their parent never loved them, or understood them, but that the parent put them in competitions with their siblings instead, to constantly humiliate them, destroy their self esteem, and that the narcissistic parent eventually wanted to destroy them altogether (i.e. they resent scapegoats who continue to live). I'm not sure all narcissistic parents resent their scapegoats living, but I would have to agree with most of this perspective because it's the overwhelming scapegoat experience - there aren't good endings for scapegoats in terms of parental love or compassion, as there were never really any "winning" moments for them in childhood either. <br /><br />In studies, narcissists will usually choose the child they see as dominant and/or male to win the competitions, as though it is still tough-it-out cave-man days, and you needed the one with the most imposing physique, the lowest voice, to deal with the Wooly Mammoths and the saber-toothed tigers, lest the narcissist not survive. This is probably how it is even when they have set up one child to fail, to be less dominant. So the competition, as you can see, is just a farce, just as most of the narcissist's relationships are. It is to see what children will do to each other to get the attention of the parent, and so that the narcissist can get ego strokes - tears mean a child cares that they are losing the narcissistic parent's game (ego stroke for the narcissist), and winning, flexing muscles, laughing and being grandiose means the child likes playing the game (ego stroke for the narcissist too). <br /><br />It is why domestic violence therapists and psychologists who specialize in the <b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/disorders/cluster-b-personality-disorders" target="_blank">Cluster B Personality Disorders</a></b> heavily suggest not taking what any narcissist does and says personally, or seriously. If you look at what narcissists say and do it is usually a mind game, a manipulation, an attack, a love bombing episode to get you to give up your personal power to their control and domination. They may ask lots of questions to get an idea of where your vulnerabilities are (so that they can attack you with those things later), or attack others behind their back, but conversations with narcissists usually do not deviate from these motivations and topics most of the time (that's also been my personal experience with narcissists too). <br /><br />Which is why, when scapegoats are still alive, but rejected by the narcissist in favor of the golden child, the narcissist will constantly be checking up on the scapegoat ("tragedy hunting" is a term <b><a href="https://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">my friend and fellow writer</a></b>, Peep, used in one of her blog posts, and I like that fitting term for when the narcissist is constantly checking on how well or how miserable a scapegoat is). If the scapegoat is succeeding, the narcissistic parent has a crisis, a melt-down; if the scapegoat isn't doing all that well, the parent breathes a sigh of relief (and some of them get happy - <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/05/punishments-sadism-cruelty-and.html" target="_blank">it shows sadism</a></b>). <br /><br />And by the way, all of this shows they are much worse and unlearned in the "behavior department" than you probably are. Most narcissists have very few ethics and morals, and they care very little about other people beyond how much power, control and domination they have over others. That's why discards are so rapid and easy for them: "They aren't going to let me dominate them? Okay, then, I will have nothing to do with them again!" <br /><br />So here is something to take away from this: Haven't they been busy trying to change you since the beginning of your relationship to mold you into who they want you to be, rather than trying to understand who you are? <br /><br />If you are so imperfect for them, then they don't want to take the time to know who you are beyond you twisting like a pretzel to please them, right? The more imperfect you seem to be to them, they are never going to accept who you are: your strengths, weaknesses, your happiness. If you can't please them, you are allowed to stop trying to please them. Most of us do (especially those of us who have been scapegoated by them and who get more negative feedback from them than positive feedback). </p><p>Most relationships aren't that much work and aren't fraught with that much pain, sadness, grief, denying of your needs to fulfill someone else's exclusive needs, dealing with crazy-making punishments, and all of the rest of what goes into dealing with narcissists. You are allowed to be happy, to be in relationships where people care about you, to be experiencing joy without someone nipping at it to take it down, and to forsake being close to people that live in idealize, devalue, discard cycles over and over again in their relationships. <br /><br />If they sleep well at night when they put you into an idealize, devalue, discard cycle, while you are traumatized, and they don't care about that trauma when you tell them that your symptoms are through the roof, then they are showing you they have no empathy. Do you really want to be in an intimate relationship with someone that devoid of empathy? Think what would happen if you were sick, had an accident, were diagnosed with a serious or terminal disease. They aren't just going to "grow some empathy" in those situations; they are going to be relating to you in ways they have done all along. It's not going to get better, it's going to get worse because narcissists are generally only going to want <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">parentified or infantilized relationships</a></b> where their needs always come first. </p><p>If they can't care about you in these kinds of situations, and when they are so one-sided in their ambition to have "pleasing behaviors" go to them only, and to be so calloused about causing you and others pain, they are pretty much capable of anything in terms of how they hurt others, and how much they are willing to go in hurting others. Empathy keeps most of us from going as far as they are willing to go in terms of causing pain. <br /><br />Trying to harvest regrets and shame from you basically means that they are trying to turn you into a "pleaser puppet", devoid of your own needs, personality and ambitions. If they are at a stage where they are screaming at you about the smallest things, they are just testing to try and see how far they can go with their power, control and domination agendas. And if part of that test includes any kind of threat or abuse, you know that they are willing to take their agenda much farther than you will ever be comfortable with. You will likely suffer and develop <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/how-narcissistic-abuse-ages-you-makes.html" target="_blank">a host of symptoms</a></b>. </p><p>Eventually what you will find is that the narcissist will be like this rigid unmovable, unchangeable, immoral person screaming at you <i>to keep changing</i>. Most people can't handle it when the narcissist gets to that point, and most people either leave the narcissist or work hard to get out of the relationship. <br /><br />In the end, the narcissist may make it clear that it doesn't make any difference to them whether you stay or leave: "So you think you are irreplaceable. You aren't. Let's clear that up now."<br /><br />So does trying to harvest regrets and shame from you work? For awhile, but only if you believe they are truly benevolent and have better ethics than you do. Once they turn on you, you see that they aren't benevolent as they punish you, and put you through cycles of love bombing you then more punishments, that they are downright hypocrites with way fewer ethics than most people. Then when we are fully aware that they severely lack empathy too, it becomes a way out: and this is our chance to heal.<br /> <br />What are we healing from? <br /><br />A love bomber that came in disguise (under the disguise was a shame-based, shaming, "destroyer"). <br /><br />Can we ever trust a person who tried to destroy us again? And who tried to do so at the most vulnerable time of our life? <br /><br />Not likely. </p><div style="text-align: center;">FURTHER READING</div><p></p><p><b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/well/mind/dealing-with-regret.html" target="_blank">Regret Is Painful. Here’s How to Harness It. You might even find it leads to some new insights.</a></b> - by Jancee Dunn for The New York Times<br /><br /><b><a href="https://narcissisticbehavior.net/the-narcissists-shame/" target="_blank">THE NARCISSIST’S SHAME AS A “PREMIER SOCIAL EMOTION”</a></b> - by the administrator of NarcissisticBehavior.net<br />excerpt:<br /><i> The narcissist’s excessive self-worth does a great job of chasing off their inferiority complex and replacing it with an outer veneer of superiority through their False Self. This goes a long way to disguising their inner sense of vulnerability that is far too shameful to be seen by others.<br /> This, to a large extent, creates the narcissist’s typical arrogance that is all too apparent. Narcissists are plagued with feelings of envy that are born out of their deep, emotional insecurities and poor sense of self-worth. It is important to know that their shame and envy are inextricably intertwined.<br /> Unable to form their own ideas and ideals for themselves, the narcissist latches onto others out of envy, especially those who they respect as being superior so that they can get that same sense of self from them. Unfortunately, those who are superior to the narcissist will eventually unintentionally trigger the narcissist’s feelings of lacking, causing them to feel shame. They just cannot abide or tolerate feeling less than anybody else, so when someone possesses something that they do not have, it provokes feelings of inadequacy and triggers their shame and resentful longing.<br /> It is the narcissist’s envy that causes their constant denigration of others. ...</i></p><p><b><a href="https://www.thecenterforgrowth.com/tips/narcissism-and-shame" target="_blank">Narcissism and Shame Treatment in Philadelphia, Ocean City, Mechanicsville</a></b> - by The Center for Growth (a therapy service in a number of states in the USA - the premise here is that they can help narcissists deal with their shame in order to have more fulfilling relationships)<br />excerpt:<br /> <i>Narcissism and shame go hand in hand in so many ways. Narcissists carry a LOT of shame. From mistakes made in the past, fear of not being enough, to fear of criticism in the present and future. For many narcissists their lives are rather shame-based but, they will never admit it. Facing shame is something incredible uncomfortable and difficult for most narcissistic individuals. To admit to shame means to become vulnerable, to let go of control, and to face the fear head on. These 3 tasks are not in a narcissist’s skill set. Shame is an essential emotion, we all have it, and it is often misunderstood. Facing one’s shame is necessary in creating meaningful and intimate relationships. Narcissist’s issues with shame is a major reason narcissists struggle to maintain friendships, experience true intimacy, and struggle with self-esteem.<br /> Narcissists fear and despise facing their shame so much so, that their way to survive is to project their own shame on to those around them. As they continue to blame, shame, and criticize those around him/her, they are able to distance from their own shame as well as feel better about themselves now that they can view those around him/her as flawed. ... </i></p><p><b><a href="https://www.yourtango.com/self/how-narcissists-use-shame-to-control-you" target="_blank">11 Ways Narcissists Use Shame To Control You (Narcissists are unable to deal with their shame, so they project it onto you.)</a></b> - by Christine Hammond, LMHC, NCC for Your Tango<br />excerpt:<br /><i> A weakness of a narcissist is their extreme hatred of being embarrassed. There is nothing worse for them than having someone point out even the slightest fault. Ironically, they have no problem openly doing this to others.<br /> Narcissists often have a complex relationship with shame, as they strive to maintain a grandiose and perfect image of themselves. They are highly sensitive to criticism or any perceived threat to their self-esteem, which triggers deep feelings of shame.<br /> However, instead of confronting and processing their shame, they tend to project it onto others by belittling or shaming them, in an attempt to protect their fragile ego. Paradoxically, this avoidance of shame can further isolate narcissists and perpetuate a cycle of unhealthy behaviors and relationships.<br /><br /></i></p><p><a href="https://medium.com/@stardustmusings1/the-role-of-shame-in-narcissistic-abuse-c46f56dcc97d" target="_blank"><b>The Role of Shame in Narcissistic Abuse (The narcissist’s projections and intentional infliction of shame)</b></a> - Stardust Musings for Medium.com<br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">PEOPLE WHO ARE DIAGNOSED WITH NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER<br />WHO HAVE COME FORWARD TO TALK ABOUT NARCISSISTIC SHAME </div><p></p><p><br /><b>Professor Sam Vaknin</b> (diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, studied psychology, particularly the Cluster B personality disorders, earned his doctorate in psychology). Videos:<br /><b>- <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvi8-pfygyw" target="_blank">Narcissist's Shame and Guilt</a></b> - by Professor Sam Vaknin (2010)<br /><b>- <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAN_QkmXUqY" target="_blank">Shame, Guilt, Codependents, Narcissists, and Normal Folks</a></b> - by Professor Sam Vaknin (2015)<br /><b>- <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziIrvAm6rJw" target="_blank">Narcissistic Mortification: From Shame to Healing via Trauma, Fear, and Guilt</a></b> - by Professor Sam Vaknin (2020)<br /><b>- <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOubd9CmKv0" target="_blank">Shameful Core of Covert Narcissist: Inferior Vulnerability Compensated</a></b> - by Professor Sam Vaknin (2023)<br /><b>- <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnw9E1q_ZNU" target="_blank">Narcissist's Never-ending Vengeance (Redemption: A True Story)</a></b> - by Professor Sam Vaknin (2023)<br /><br /><b>Jason Skidmore</b>, of The Nameless Narcissist channel (diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and in therapy to learn about the disorder). Videos:<br />- <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j3EYEyGefY" target="_blank">How shame RULES the Narcissist</a></b> - by Jason Skidmore<br />- Jason talks about living with a lot of shame in this video: <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOizbUPc77M&t=2002s" target="_blank">Talk at Northeastern University about Narcissism</a></b> by Jacob Skidmore (The nameless narcissist) - by Jason Skidmore<br /><b>- <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgX9Js55ea8" target="_blank">Do narcissists really hate themselves?</a></b> - by Jason Skidmore <br /><br /><b>Lee Hammock</b>, aka MentalHealness - diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, also in therapy<br /><b>- <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HYZpW0CcI8k" target="_blank">Compounding Shame as a Narcissist</a></b> - by Lee Hammock<br /><b>- <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP-JdGybx3Y" target="_blank">Some narcissists are ashamed of the younger versions of themselves</a></b> - by Lee Hammock<br />- <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX5Nu8xf6h8&t=382s" target="_blank">How to deal with shame as a narcissist | Self Aware Narcissist Sundays Ep 15</a></b> - by Lee Hammock </p><p style="text-align: center;">PSYCHOLOGISTS TALK ABOUT SHAME AND THE NARCISSIST TOO</p><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJt6cWyHerE" target="_blank">A Narcissist's Profound Struggle With Core Shame</a></b> - by Dr. Les Carter<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXuboIyhZp8" target="_blank">Rethinking A Narcissist's Shame Messages</a></b> - by Dr. Les Carter<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leTdlYeMPHk" target="_blank">3 Reasons Narcissists Develop Authoritarian Patterns</a></b> - by Dr. Les Carter<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwJFqCxcUjs" target="_blank">How shame molds the narcissist</a></b> - by Dr. Ramani<br />This video is about how <u>not</u> to raise a narcissist. <br />Excerpts from the video:<br /> <i>... if you're the parent, and you're saying I do not want to raise a narcissistic child, what can you do? </i><br /><i> Number one: Never, ever use shame as a means of addressing behavior or communication with your child. It is not good for them; it is not good for you. And to shame a child will never result in any kind of sustainable or meaningful change or improvement. If a child's behavior is an issue, address the behavior. Shaming or humiliating a child has no place in parenting. <br /> Number two: You don't want to compare your child to other children. Not your own, not others. Because, as you can imagine, that is certainly going to foster a sense of shame or inadequacy about not measuring up. It's a set-up for the child to always feel that they need to look outside of themselves, and to compare themselves, instead of learning to internally manage who they are. <br /> Number three: Never mock, or ridicule, or belittle, or use any form of defamatory language against a child. Now this should be "Human Being 101", but so many parents do it, and so many people grew up with it happening to them. Ironically having this happen to you as a child, hearing these kinds of things said to you, may be more likely to make you become vulnerable to a narcissist than to become a narcissistic person. But I would be willing to bet that for a child to be on the receiving end of really defamatory cruel language, is either going to end them up as a narcissist, or as an experiencer of narcissistic abuse. There really isn't a healthy path forward from that. <br /> Number four: Remain aware of how your child's school manages comparisons between children. And how your child's school is able to talk about both strengths and deficits. A child who regularly feels shamed and ridiculed and humiliated at school, can be really rendered quite vulnerable to those exposures even if things are supportive at home. ... <br /> ... The childhood risk factors for a child developing a narcissistic personality are interestingly quite similar to the risk factors for being vulnerable to narcissistic abuse ... </i> </div><p></p><div style="text-align: center;">OBVIOUSLY SHAME EFFECTS<br />THE VICTIMS OF NARCISSISTIC ABUSE TOO<br />ESPECIALLY CHILDREN<br />OTHERWISE THEIR BUDDING PERSONALITY WOULD NOT BE<br />CONTINUALLY CHALLENGED<br />AT EVERY STEP WITH "YOU ARE -" STATEMENTS <br />(and if you are the child, you will eventually realize the "you are-" statements are holding you back from a fulfilling life and self discovery)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Learning not to take the shame that narcissistic parents should be dealing with themselves is part of healing from child abuse. You work on your ethics and integrity, and you let your parent decide what they are doing with their own ethics. If they are getting worse by putting you in a smear campaign, it's all the more reason to keep walking away from them. <br /><br />By working on your own ethics and morality, their shaming sessions won't work. <br /><br />It is easy to lie to and for narcissists when you are a child, because there are incredible consequences when you don't lie for them (even children know that the narcissist "has to" present a false front in public and with their friends). And a child knows they too are pressured to be invested in propping up the parent's false front too ... or else ... <br /><br />In high school, some children become disgusted by the front, the phoniness, the false love, especially if there is openness and real love being expressed in peer relationships. Whether they rebel against their parent's false self has to do with how safe they feel in rebelling. If they don't feel safe, they feel there is no other choice than to lie for the parent, or to keep the relationship very, very superficial. But if you choose to lie for them to save them from themselves, parents also can tell pretty easily that you are lying for them out of fear. Lying is unethical, so it catches you, and makes you feel ashamed. <br /><br />Parents know that they can scare the living daylights out of their children, and if they are narcissists, they abuse that power over and over again. <br /><br />In adulthood, if they give you the silent treatment, that is their decision, and they have excuses for their decisions, or ways that they try to make those decisions your fault, always, no matter how much it hurts others or themselves. <br /><br />But most of us who receive the silent treatment from a narcissistic parent are scapegoats. Let's be real about that. We've never been liked, otherwise they wouldn't have tried to change us so much, or disparaged us so much over all the little things they tend to do. Most likely they didn't even like our appearance, looks, or style of dress either, or it challenged them too much in terms of what they thought we should be for them. <br /><br />A lot of scapegoats don't know who they are either, even if they have a greater sense than other children in the household. They've been listening to so many disparaging "you are -" statements since they were toddlers, and they never try to correct the parent because they can get pretty badly punished for that too. Arguing with narcissists is often pointless, unless there are, again, safe ways to say, "Stop defining me. I don't prescribe to your opinions." "Leave me alone, please. I am not who you think I am." <br /><br />Narcissists are likely to rage if you say that, and unless you don't care whether they rage or not, you are likely not going to challenge them in that way. <br /><br />And many scapegoats can struggle with an identity too. The disparaging "You are -" statements don't ring true to most scapegoats (they are often the first child to notice the coldness, the lack of empathy in their parent), but scapegoats also get so used to the "You are -" statements that they stop defending themselves to anyone who uses them, and life can become like Chauncy Gardner's in the novel by Jerzy Kosinski, "<b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_There" target="_blank">Being There</a></b>" (link takes you to the movie version). You are an echoist, letting everyone you meet describe you, whether good, bad or indifferent. And you don't try correcting them - and that can, and does attract, other kinds of narcissists, and even psychopaths. <br /><br />So it is important to find out who you are, and what your strengths are, how you need to protect yourself and how you don't. And in many ways, that journey never gets a full launch unless you go completely "no contact" with the narcissistic parent. <br /><br />You might be attracted to people who describe you in better terms than your parent did (which most people probably will be doing because most healthy people don't need a scapegoat, and they don't feel compelled to be constantly negative about others either). <br /><br />In my own life, I was much more of an echoist than I wanted to admit to myself. I was in a college art class one day, and my teacher asked me what I wanted to do with my life, and I said, "Write. Write books. Fiction and non-fiction." And he said, "That's interesting! A really talented visual artist like you wants to be a writer instead of an artist!" I changed my major to visual arts that day, and made him my career advisor.<br /><br />And then I spent more than a decade afterward trying to decide whether I did it for him or did it for me. <br /><br />So anyway, to get back to the narcissist going silent on you ... you take their silent treatment and you break the trauma bond. Unless they are an awfully aware narcissist, the relationship will always be a trauma bond. You grieve, you pound the desk, you do what you need to do to stop living your life to feed the narcissist's grandiosity fantasies. <br /><br />And then you live life in the truth. You do not tie yourself to the narcissist's opinions of you (because they are just projection any way, and you are just being used because they can't deal with their own shame). You live in peace, because after living with a narcissist, you need peace, lots of it, way more than you have ever had in your life. You surround yourself with truth-tellers and empaths, and you speak and act authentically - always going towards the light of understanding and wisdom.<br /><br />You figure out where your true interests lie, without input from others, at least for a couple of years or more, and you put your effort towards reaching those goals. <br /><br />You give up on listening to them. <br /><br />You discover who you really are without someone "shorting" you at every moment, keeping you from pushing forward into your true identity. <br /><br />Hopefully somewhere along the line, you get domestic violence therapy or police interventions for the smear campaigns, or stalking, or continued attacks from the narcissist, and trauma therapy for all of the symptoms you experience from being in a narcissistic relationship. <br /><br />But first you must heal:<br /></div></div><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkcrbDdg_6g" target="_blank">Healing from Narcissistic Abuse is Possible! Narcissistic Abuse Survivor Story Podcast</a></b> - by Lisa Romano<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/effects-of-narcissistic-abuse-5208164" target="_blank">Effects of Narcissistic Abuse</a></b> - by Arlin Cuncic, MA, reviewed by David Susman, PhD for Very Well Mind<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNnnPcwndb4" target="_blank">Signs of a Trauma Bond; The Things You Say that Proves You are Defending a Narcissist</a></b> - by Lisa Romano<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKONv4CrFLg" target="_blank">Validation and Approval: Stop Looking Outside Yourself</a></b> - by Lisa Romano<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfT0ocXAg18" target="_blank">Childhood Abandonment Issues: Healing Feeling Like Everyone Will Abandon You/Life Coaching Tips</a></b> - by Lisa Romano interviewing one of her patrons, Holly<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbubB90XYLo" target="_blank">Codependency Recovery with the Help of Brain Exercises</a></b> - by Lisa Romano<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTGk_QFT0W0" target="_blank">NEVER BE NEEDY AGAIN/CO-DEPENDENCY CURE</a></b> - by Lisa Romano<br /><p></p><p><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajAn8AmjD5U" target="_blank">How To MOVE ON From A NARCISSIST & Get Over The End Of A CRAZYMAKING RELATIONSHIP</a></b> - by Lisa Romano<br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">found on Facebook:<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ8XUic6515omZFfHDkrmDOMlNqY5VVcR5Qd_YzAgIAAkcpC7Jn7cd93O7K7UbJeZdhsL3pZaUCwxAE128LWvWTMnVGdPdguUlLRK8GIKT5CWHDfxjXajD4WsL58LR3knfySiHQVrnfoIFqgWsv323sp5CPB48GIvbvOYpljBlCAw4h3jUGFTbEJt2qXg/s520/my%20worth.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ8XUic6515omZFfHDkrmDOMlNqY5VVcR5Qd_YzAgIAAkcpC7Jn7cd93O7K7UbJeZdhsL3pZaUCwxAE128LWvWTMnVGdPdguUlLRK8GIKT5CWHDfxjXajD4WsL58LR3knfySiHQVrnfoIFqgWsv323sp5CPB48GIvbvOYpljBlCAw4h3jUGFTbEJt2qXg/s16000/my%20worth.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgg8GJUW6dnbFLjB-dQZjvGEAjIpgpPxejLBsmSwiD29ryKPyU8mr0GPJ81aHcqmQOkZwoVrCK4hRjYmq25iiDzavjYrFWFCEKqYbUZXUTm63U7bYCyRD3EZOpOL4GswB3C4Xpym8ilNR30Ci_Zhkcqgt_GJ36mS970YYLrTx1m4vCF0pdZFv074XT_cc/s518/things%20to%20keep.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="518" data-original-width="504" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgg8GJUW6dnbFLjB-dQZjvGEAjIpgpPxejLBsmSwiD29ryKPyU8mr0GPJ81aHcqmQOkZwoVrCK4hRjYmq25iiDzavjYrFWFCEKqYbUZXUTm63U7bYCyRD3EZOpOL4GswB3C4Xpym8ilNR30Ci_Zhkcqgt_GJ36mS970YYLrTx1m4vCF0pdZFv074XT_cc/s16000/things%20to%20keep.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOCBS1L1LCXUeRFLP21PMw57kSf09-0myZjcjOnJsUArggUT7hivUz7cthKGT-_Y4h-PJdK5jx2vedQdawYP5VS2josoaSaQOLGoPXnQh56uxQHez4SYLsSh9KxggCtjEW38ZatX0La_lHRBrYZji_egQF5hwLsthbdXpRbjVWI-u0PnkZbU9kfY7PNlc/s500/narcissists%20abandon%20children.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="410" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOCBS1L1LCXUeRFLP21PMw57kSf09-0myZjcjOnJsUArggUT7hivUz7cthKGT-_Y4h-PJdK5jx2vedQdawYP5VS2josoaSaQOLGoPXnQh56uxQHez4SYLsSh9KxggCtjEW38ZatX0La_lHRBrYZji_egQF5hwLsthbdXpRbjVWI-u0PnkZbU9kfY7PNlc/s16000/narcissists%20abandon%20children.jpg" /></a><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHgXX-YoH9KaEZ7mKXnfYnakL4P67u5ir35vwjAyjpzVj7hPCaCwjMEGDCVi4-8zdt3oT7Qw_827NqaTmhZyIsGMuDggvZZ75K0TYGOtdgoBRJ3ACSy88pWXNKJEHqJgb8u4g8paD03Z0S0tOfFk8j2V7J3oKkHJdyfw7epAxmXcRxNDg_OQ-OOInGTQ/s576/Khalil%20Kibran%20quote.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHgXX-YoH9KaEZ7mKXnfYnakL4P67u5ir35vwjAyjpzVj7hPCaCwjMEGDCVi4-8zdt3oT7Qw_827NqaTmhZyIsGMuDggvZZ75K0TYGOtdgoBRJ3ACSy88pWXNKJEHqJgb8u4g8paD03Z0S0tOfFk8j2V7J3oKkHJdyfw7epAxmXcRxNDg_OQ-OOInGTQ/s16000/Khalil%20Kibran%20quote.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-39372909290710916762023-08-31T13:53:00.015-07:002023-09-21T15:24:34.450-07:00Why Do Narcissists Care So Much About Their Image? Narcissism and the Inauthentic False Self: Acting, Faking, Self Aggrandizing, Playing the Victim<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxpENK8lLwM1TQoRte27QXi2ERUsULnApU6fbN-rGUTAfn2Uk5X-uhV_mVoNiQL71nvCBla7kFaNk1DRUT7Pdvkv49_YKYuPgznsH4cNx3CErEJB-JsKskrxYoyi-uUq0Qp68UCJliEylx4EhChIQ1F7XCjoAHdyqgJ-IO0ibtwZxuJr1UxynB8X9ioRo/s608/false%20self%20flat%20602%20jpg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="608" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxpENK8lLwM1TQoRte27QXi2ERUsULnApU6fbN-rGUTAfn2Uk5X-uhV_mVoNiQL71nvCBla7kFaNk1DRUT7Pdvkv49_YKYuPgznsH4cNx3CErEJB-JsKskrxYoyi-uUq0Qp68UCJliEylx4EhChIQ1F7XCjoAHdyqgJ-IO0ibtwZxuJr1UxynB8X9ioRo/s16000/false%20self%20flat%20602%20jpg.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">"Seems a Little Too Big, Don't You Think?"</div><div style="text-align: center;">© August, 2023</div><p></p><p>Someone asked me in the comments section of the post on <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-abusers-co-bullies-enablers.html" target="_blank">narcissistic enablers and co-bullies</a></b> whether narcissists are acting most of the time? Yes. It is explained in the text that follows and in the further reading and video sections below. <br /><br />It's why you see<a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank"> <b>Jekyll and Hyde behavior</b></a> (often super sweet to total strangers or people with money, harsh and cruel to and around family or people they deem weak or beneath them), <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/12/important-darvo-tactic-and-why-it-is.html" target="_blank">playing the victim</a></b> (when they are actually the perpetrators who started the ostracizing and/or <b>attacks on your self esteem</b>), <b>self aggrandizing</b> and pretending they are greater than they actually are (so they can convince people that they are <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/11/why-do-narcissists-feel-so-entitled-and.html" target="_blank">entitled to special treatment</a></b>). <br /><br />Narcissists who have gone public about their condition talk about the dilapidated self, that they don't know who they are beyond what people tell them who they are. What this means is that no personality was able to develop in childhood, so narcissists make up a personality to fit what ever situation they are in. Like the <b>echoist</b>, they tend to grow up in circumstances where other people decide who they are and their value (adults who heavily judged everyone). However, unlike the echoist, when narcissists become adults, they decide what kind of personality to use in order to manipulate people into thinking certain things about them, to exploit situations so they would either be feared or would inspire absolute loyalty (in other words, there is often no other choice except those two awful choices).<br /><br />And the reason why is this: <br /><br />When they deem they can control you, you often get the nice side. They can talk badly about you behind your back (and <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@SurvivingNarcissism/videos" target="_blank">Dr. Les Carter</a></b> says most of them do in several of his videos), but to your face, they are ingratiating and charming. If they think that they can get you to hitch your self esteem to their opinions of you, you are "in" their good graces. If they think they can brainwash you to hate the people they hate, again you are "in the club". If they think they can give you constant advice which they can later turn into commands, you are part of the club. If they think that you will be loyal to them no matter what they do, and if they think they can talk you into taking the blame when they do something wrong, you are part of the club. If they think that you will look at them as superior and entitled to special treatment at all times rather than as an equal, you are also in the club. If they think that you will believe their acting job is the real authentic person that they are, you are very much in the club and you will be rewarded for it. <br /><br />However, if you have some issues with how they treat you, or how they lie, or how they blame you for things that aren't your fault, and if you do not want to go along with what they advise, or expect, or command, you will be treated like you don't matter. You may get the cold shoulder, or the silent treatment, or they will discard you in the most inhumane way, depending on the type of narcissism they have. Some of them will spiral down into downright evil if you so much as look at them in a way that they don't approve, even if the way you looked at them was not what they assumed. If you experience or see their Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde side, and you don't like it, again, <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/be%20toast#:~:text=informal,His%20career%20is%20toast." target="_blank">you are toast</a>. They can make it known that they never cared for you or about you, that you never really mattered to them when they were love bombing you (which again, is an admittance that they lie to you - and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/08/love-bombing-by-narcissists-and.html" target="_blank">love bombing</a></b>, in and of itself, is a lie). Some of them, particularly malignant narcissists can be quite retaliatory and vengeful, deciding that they must hurt you in order to make themselves feel better. And if they are more sociopathic than narcissistic, they will have no regrets, no morality, for having done so. In their minds anyone who they hurt, and sought out to hurt, deserved it, even when they misinterpret (and the more disordered they are, the more they misinterpret). <br /><br />Being cruel and unkind to you for not living up to these kinds of standards is common to all narcissists, so it can't be counted as a trait or identity: these are just reactions that come from their personality being disordered. <br /><br />Most of us have consistent traits that people can count on every time they see us. We are likely to have strong interests, and to be motivated to pursue those interests. The same personality that we had the last time someone saw us is the same personality they see again. We don't have a Jekyll/Hyde personality. We don't look to people to prop up an image we want to have. We are secure in ourselves and who we are and it can't be dismantled by someone's opinions because we have morals and ethics that can't be denied by someone else. We don't just change our personality to become evil and dismissive because our ego isn't being stroked all of the time the way narcissists do. <br /><br />Narcissists can't do this, especially if they have all of the traits of their disorder. <br /><br />They often <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/11/mirroring-and-narcissistic-psychopathic.html" target="_blank">mirror</a></b> or become like their childhood abuser. "Mirroring" is not a personality. In childhood it is a survival tactic to keep from being abused and/or neglected and unloved. If the parent approved of their acting job in childhood, the child will use it as an adult. </p><p>In adulthood narcissists use the mirroring for garnering narcissistic supply than to get along with abusive people: they entice or get along with other people by <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/08/love-bombing-by-narcissists-and.html" target="_blank">being ultra nice</a></b>, and once they have your attention, they figure out what <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html">role</a></b> or <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">use</a></b> they want you to inhabit in their life. If you don't fit the role they want you to, they can become disenchanted and out you go. This is not a personality, per se. It is just a common part of the disorder. <br /><br />And by the way, a lot of narcissists think that everyone else has the same disorder that they do, but that we aren't as aware of that fact as they are. No, the whole population does not have the personality disorder they have, and we do not conduct ourselves in relationships in the same way that they do. <br /><br />They often get discarded themselves by others, and they think they are discarded for the same reasons. No they are not. They mostly get discarded for their profound lack of ethics, morals and lack of empathy (because they never developed them in childhood or adolescence), and because being in a close personal relationship with the high majority of narcissists causes almost all of us non-narcissists to have trauma symptoms, or to start getting them. </p><p>We don't have trauma symptoms when we are in healthy relationships (i.e. when we aren't in relationships where one person is hellbent on getting power and control over over another person in a close personal relationship - an evil motive as far as I see it). <br /><br />We don't discard others over roles either, but that is the way they want it. And they aren't able to tell that we don't discard over roles because they are highly self-absorbed, have selective listening, project their own behaviors on to others, and manipulate in ways that are not healthy for the majority of us.<br /><br />When they seek out relationships as adults, they generally pursue "followers" and people who would believe, even if not true, that the personality they propped up and that they try to inhabit is of greater stature and ethics than they really are or were. They don't feel comfortable with anything resembling true intimacy and the truth, and many of them resist it by having affairs on us, or toxic secrets, and avoid truth-telling. The truth to narcissists is "free to interpret" and therefor either disregarded or treated as an amorphous molding compound, just like the personalities they try on.<br /><br />Having a secret life is about getting more narcissistic supply, to get more feelings of grandiosity, power and entitlement outside the relationship whether that is through gambling, through finding a scapegoat or scapegoats to blame and/or torture, running an underground or illegal business that their family does not know about, fulfilling an addiction, telling false narratives to someone, or having an affair ... In other words, they don't share much of themselves, or their true motivations towards other people most of the time. </p><p>A high majority of narcissists have "a secret life" that their partners, friends, and children, and many others do not know about. The secret life is just another personality they are trying out, which they believe fulfils some need in them, which feelings of impulsivity drive. <br /><br />When the secrets are found out, the narcissist usually rages and abuses the person who either revealed the secret, or found out about the secret. So they have a crisis about it, and whose fault is it? They usually decide it is the person who found out. <br /><br />Being exceptionally cruel for speaking out about "their secret personality" is especially true for the malignant brand of narcissist. The morals and ethics of the narcissist spiral down because they feel entitled to a "secret life" that should never be spoken about, no matter how it effects the people around them. They don't want you to have a secret life from them, of course, and they feel highly threatened by information that is kept from them, and will insist that you even share confidential information from others. Their feelings of entitlement in this regard (an illusory feeling) <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmm0_XC1a3I" target="_blank">tells them that they are "special" and that they have rights that others do not</a></b>. That is also part of the personality disorder and is predictable for almost all narcissists.<br /><br />Many of them reject the people who find out about them, that they have toxic secrets. It is their way of saying, "You have found me out. I can't be anything but superior, and you knowing that I am not, that I lead a double life is always is going to compromise my superiority, so out you go!" <br /><br />You can see why a partner or family might react to "the narcissist's secret life" too: <br /><br /><u>in cheating</u>: unwanted pregnancies with non-family members, lovers who may become obsessed with "acquiring" the narcissist such that they'd be dangerous to the spouse or children to get them out of the way, getting venereal diseases that they'd then spread to their partner, the potential of splitting the family <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2018/10/abuse-and-step-families.html" target="_blank">where children aren't as likely to be cared for and risk abuse</a></b>, and just generally creating a lot of hurt and drama, among many, many other potential issues.<br /><br /><u>in gambling</u>: using money meant for the family towards an addiction to the rewards of slot machines, casinos, or a nightlife of one person's singular pleasure activities, and the possibility that the family will go broke, and lose the house, the car, and everything else that keeps the family functioning. <br /><br /><u>in addictions</u>: similar to gambling, but risking arrest or a round of rehabilitation centers. <br /><br /><u>acquiring scapegoats</u>: the secret life here is focused on bullying, hurting or killing other people. Some of the drawbacks here are: risk of arrest, risk of incarceration, risk of retaliation by the scapegoat's "people", risk of the family being thought of as prejudiced. Also, if the narcissist is a bread-winner for the family, it puts the whole family at risk. Since abuse tends to escalate, and scapegoating can become an obsession with many plans on "how to hurt the scapegoat(s)", the family has a lot to worry about. <br /><br /><u>stealing</u>: risking arrest. Some narcissists feel they have to impress people with what they have, so they steal from others as a way to say, "I'm richer than you think I am. Why look, I have a big diamond," even though they stole it, "If I were a low life, I wouldn't own a diamond." They get a sense of grandiosity and attractiveness by owning a diamond. It can be a way to entice others, to have power over others, to get into certain social circles, to get envy from like-minded individuals, and so on. Then they begin to have an air of superiority and think that anyone who goes to work 9 - 5 is living a boring life not worth living. They think people who get their money through honest means are stupid too (when you can get so much more by stealing?). Stealing can have a snowball effect, like an addiction where they don't feel quite powerful enough unless they acquire more, and more, and more, so they eventually take bigger chances to acquire more expensive goods, and possibly do home invasions, and then if someone finds them out, they have to get rid of what they have stolen or the person who found out about their stealing, and down in the moral dumpster they go, until arrest becomes imminent. Then they have a narcissistic crash after they have tried to make the point that poverty, or lack of goods, fairness or status, made them do it (and depending on where society is on this issue, if society is convulsing from a great depression where a quarter or more of a nation is out of work, juries may not convict, or give lenient sentences). But assuming that jurors and judges have played by the rules and laws, stealing can have serious repercussions.<br /><br />Narcissists don't like to be reminded of any of this. Again, they guard and defend their entitlements to these activities, and because of their <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">inability to care about others or to feel much, if any, empathy</a></b>, they take to raging and blaming instead of feeling embarrassed and cleaning up their act. <br /><br />In other words, they expect that others will keep their secret life of a Hyde personality a secret too. Not too likely. So then the narcissist, after rejecting you, finds other people to brainwash. </p><p>In terms of collecting "followers" in their authoritarian dictatorial way, they expect their followers to <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-abusers-co-bullies-enablers.html" target="_blank">adopt the same enemies or scapegoats that they want to hurt</a></b>, taking up interests that they want taken up, to think in the ways they want, and so on ... That also comes from their childhood, where they mirrored the adult abuser's personality, likes and dislikes, to avoid the abuse or neglect they saw around them. In other words, they became a follower, and perhaps even <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/06/how-narcissistic-bullies-domestic.html" target="_blank">a golden child</a></b>, and saw how the abuser got away with pressures, ultimatums, abuse and insisting on a script of behaviors, and now expects the same from others around them. <br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">A PERSONALITY IS NOT AN IMAGE</div><br />Narcissists put a lot of effort into acting out personality types. <br /><br />And the personality type they put the most effort in, and which is hardest to maintain, is the one where they are super nice and superior to others, that they aren't capable of any wrong-doing, that their ethics are clean and pure all of the time (past, present, future), their intentions towards others are to be empathetic, kind and understanding, and that if anything goes wrong in their relationships, they are so faultless that they are to be seen as the wronged victim. <br /><br />If you've lived with a narcissist or narcissists, you know that this is not who they are at all. If anything, you see the opposite of this. They are probably even talking and laughing about the people they show this "fake personality" to. It's endlessly humorous to them that people fall for this holier-than-thou image they put forward. They do like it that they get away with it so much, that they can fool others.<br /><br />They aren't going to go around and announce: "Well, I have affairs, and I particularly like this one guy. But when I'm around friends, I act like I'm shocked when I hear one of them talk about how their spouse ran off with someone else. I act like I don't condone the act so I can stay in my friend's good graces. I actually don't care about my friends' personal lives at all, and who is cheating on who, unless I find a way for it to work in my favor. I just play the angel or saint most of the time. It works for me, and they come to me for advice. I like being an advisor: it makes me feel in control of their life and gives me narcissistic supply. I also like the fact that I dupe them with this advisor persona. And if I can present the idea that I never have affairs, that my ethics are super high and clean, then I can feel like I have a superior life where I have a spouse I can work things out with, where I can present a happy marriage. And then they get jealous of this happy marriage I have, and come to me for advice so they can get the kind of marriage I have. But the marriage I have isn't that great, which is why I'm cheating." - after all, who would want a friend like that, who is faking it most of the time? And most narcissists know that they would be rejected for being this fake, or sense it, especially when they go negative on that same friend in private.<br /><br />So, they have to hide that part of what they do, and present themselves in another way. <br /><br /><u>They need it to get other people to side with them when something goes wrong in one of their relationships, thus the mask:</u><br /><br />One of the other reasons they go so negative on people in private also has to do with getting other people to side with them in case that person tries to expose them, or what is called <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBv3V8Ji4Js" target="_blank">exposing the mask</a> </b>(<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqnrQczJwuY" target="_blank">another link</a></b> and <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJbzxqCn2is" target="_blank">another link</a></b> and <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BBo6GK8XzE" target="_blank">another link</a></b>). They feel they have to be able to refute it all, and to have an entourage of <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-abusers-co-bullies-enablers.html" target="_blank">flying monkeys</a></b> who will stoutly defend them, and to shout down the person who has seen what they are really about. <br /><br />They will do just about anything not to be exposed. <br /><br /><u>The shadow self</u>:<br /><br />The mask also exists because they have a much, much larger backlog of embarrassments, of "a secret life", of stored shame-based information about themselves, than most of us have that they don't want exposed to anyone. This is called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbcYXQ5qFmM" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">the shadow self</a>.<br /><br />Most people have a shadow self, and how we relate to having a shadow self is to do better. This is how we develop ethics, and better alternatives instead of going around with shame. Narcissists don't do that. Instead, the shame-based "stuff" they hide is too overwhelming for them, that it would be too hard to fix because there is so much of it, so they rage and bully instead when you get close to it, or after you discover it. They feel the need to guard it like an attack dog so that you, and no other person will dare to look, let alone tell them what they have found, or venture to see what their particular "shadows" might be. <br /><br />They make it pretty plain that what causes them shame, and what has caused them shame in the past, is pretty locked up, not to be looked at, not to be talked about, not to be studied or researched, not to be brought up at the dinner table, and that anything at all that will lead to where their shame is, is going to be guarded. <br /><br />It is why very few narcissists share much personal information about themselves, and why they tend to stick to subjects that make them "appear" good instead. Why get into the shame-based stuff when they can show you something ideal and larger than life instead?<br /><br />However, when it comes to you, they'll want to know everything that makes you feel ashamed. They dig into it and tell you that you can trust them at the same time. You find out later that you can't when they use it all against you in a discard. But they have been using it all against you in gossip circles and with their <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-abusers-co-bullies-enablers.html" target="_blank">flying monkeys</a></b> all along. <br /><br />When we are children of a narcissistic parent we tend to over-share. They become enraged when we have to keep confidences that we have made with other people, when we want privacy, and when we want to keep our thoughts, interests, experiences and what goes on in our relationships to ourselves - even when we are full adults, even when we are over age 50 and not kidding. We and narcissists can sometimes misplace this "desire to know us" as a desire for intimacy, but it is not. <br /><br />Real intimacy is about both people sharing, so the lesson here is not to share any more information than you are receiving from them. And don't be pressured into sharing information you don't want to share. One of their favorite phrases is "It's none of your business." You have a right to that phrase too if they are using it. And don't be bought (narcissists will sometimes give you money to get you to talk - just don't do it, and keep things people say to you in confidence to yourself because it's the ethical thing to do). <br /><br />Narcissists will horde information their children give them to use against them later ("blackmail insurance"): "You do what I want or I'll start talking about you in derisive ways with all of the information I have gathered about you." <br /><br />They do play lots of games with other people's shame and "shadows", but get enraged when you've discovered one of theirs. That should speak volumes. <br /><br />But blindingly obvious hypocrisies is also part of their disorder; it comes with the territory of all narcissists. Hypocrisy and becoming dangerously enraged is also the way they keep the mask on. <br /><br />When they are breaking up with someone, or doing one of their discards, they have no trouble shaming the other person, or spreading gossip and false narratives to make their victims look shameful.<br /><br />Also, for people outside the situation, over-sharing with anxiety is a sign of the real victim, whereas making judgmental statements (especially, "They are crazy!") is the sign of the perpetrator. <br /><br /><u>Accountability and the mask:</u><br /><br />As I've said in the last chapter, trying to make them accountable for being fake, you get rage, and very often abuse too. The more drastic this two-faced behavior is, I'd bet the more malignant they are in their narcissism too (malignant meaning having some Antisocial Personality Disorder traits in addition to the Narcissistic Personality Disorder traits).<br /><br />They can't deal with shame in a healthy way, other than to rage. That has everything to do with <b>the shame-rage spiral </b>attributed to narcissists<b> </b>(to be published soon). <br /><br />If you have been around narcissists, you also see that they seem a lot more relaxed when they are negative on others, or towards others, especially if they have other narcissists to be negative with. "Ha, ha, ha! What a loser! Who wouldn't cheat on her anyway! Cow!" - that kind of talk.<br /><br />So, is that their real self?<br /><br /><u>Is their real self their shadow self, all of the negativity?</u><br /><br />Narcissists who have gone public say "mostly no" there too, even though it is easier, more comfortable for narcissists to be negative on others than it is to be positive. It's their quite large shadow self breaking through to the surface where they feel a bit safer, perhaps. <br /><br />But it has more to do with their lack of empathy and compassion (this is actually not fake: <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">they don't feel empathy most of the time</a></b>; they have to act it out and they find it trying and irritating to have to act, but necessary, if they don't want to come across as heartless - <b>I will be giving examples in another post </b>-<b> </b>so in situations, usually with other narcissists, they feel comfortable and at ease at not having to appear empathetic). It also has to do with the fact that most of them have low morals and ethics too, as I've said before. If they can let the acting go by the wayside like "I tell the truth all of the time and I am altruistic in everything I do" be put aside to criticize others instead, they feel more at ease. <br /><br />Scapegoating someone in these co-narcissist groups is always going to be an agenda too, so they are encouraged to be negative. They are encouraged to deal with their shadow selves by being aggressive, hurtful, abusive, insulting, and so on, instead of being nice and pretending to be altruistic. <br /><br />However, this is not necessarily their true side either. Here are a number of reasons why:<br /><br />Most narcissists feel they absolutely need to be in relationships all of the time. They are not comfortable at all not having close personal relationships where relationships are reduced down to the kind of relationship you would have with a grocery store clerk, for instance. It is the kind of relationship that psychologists suggest for the rest of us when dealing with narcissists, however (<b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/health/grey-rock-method" target="_blank">gray rock</a></b>), if they aren't suggesting you to go <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/10/should-you-go-no-contact-with-abusive.html" target="_blank">"no contact"</a></b>. So narcissists are having to deal with a lot of gray-rocking these days. When every relationship they have is full of people who are guarded and will only relate to them on a superficial basis, they tend to not take care of themselves and wither away when people aren't propping them up and when they are alone. Even getting proper meals can be part of the picture.<br /><br />The more pathological narcissists deal with <b>narcissistic collapse</b> by trying to hurt others, or if they have gone a certain way with their pathology, to do a murder-suicide. A lot of mass murderers have pronounced narcissistic traits. <br /><br />But if they haven't chosen this "deadly way" of dealing with narcissistic collapse, which most of them don't, and they are reeling from bad deeds instead where no revenge fantasy will work for them any more, and they are bereft of close relationships, they can get to a point where they no longer take care of themselves. <br /><br />But again, there is hypocrisy in not being able to stand being forsaken in this way as they have no problem trying to put other people in situations like this (smear campaigning one of their scapegoats to such extremes that the scapegoat is defenseless and alone, for instance, and has to fend totally for himself). What they dish out is what they can't live through themselves. <br /><br />They puff themselves up to be a big bad bully, but run and hide (like a coward) when being bullied themselves. <br /><br />They also puff themselves up to appear grandiose and better than all living beings on the planet, but when no one goes along with it, they practically shrivel up and die. <br /><br />So, without these facades, and left to ponder their ethics, and how they have lied about, and treated people in their lives, they often become a "pitiable mess". <br /><br />In other words, they feed off of what other people tell them, whereas the rest of us get to know ourselves and build our personality, starting in childhood, out of morals, our interests, our work, our relationships with peers, the thoughts that go through our head and what we are willing and not willing to do in terms of the kind of thoughts we have - in other words, we are always making moral decisions all of the time, and what we feel will be the best outcome <i>for everyone</i>, not just for ourselves, or primarily for ourselves. In order to grow up this way we usually have to have at least one ethical caretaker who takes an interest in our ethics, in addition to our emotional intelligence and well-being. It can sometimes happen organically, just because some of us are born with an innate sense of direction, no matter how much the caretaker tries to counter or sabotage it. But usually, someone in the child's life has to model ethical behavior.<br /><br />When we are challenged by narcissists into fights, many of us avoid them because they will go into a very unhealthy highly unethical place to win the fight, whereas we won't, so we leave them alone mostly when they want to fight. This doesn't mean that we won't fight for awhile to make our point and plead our case, but when we see how low they want to go, we either abandon them and the fight, or they abandon us for not fighting. <br /><br />In terms of all of the negative talk that they engage with their co-narcissists (trash-talking), the level of scapegoating can be uncomfortable for those on the lighter end of the spectrum since not all narcissists are created equal. Take the scene of slipping on a banana peel. Some of them are going to be laughing about the scapegoat hitting their head and dying while slipping on the banana peel, and some of them don't want to go that far: they are going to be happy with them landing on their bottom, and "learning a lesson" instead, as if good lessons can be learned by people getting hurt. <br /><br />Some of them are not going to feel death is necessary or justified, or a proper payment for what the scapegoat has done. Some of them will be laughing nervously even if they are pretending to go along with the group who wants death. <br /><br />On a grander scale, this happens in war too, with atrocities in particular: whether to obliterate women, children, farm animals, pets and personal homes, and not just military targets and personnel. There will always be members of any army who do not want to kill women and children, farm animals, pets, and take away their personal homes or shelter, who don't feel it is justified or necessary in winning a war (it is how members of an army get low morale, and how generals become complacent - because they are commanded to do things which goes against their morals and ethics, even the morals and ethics that their leader expects when they are on their own home territory. They cannot look at "the enemy" the way their commanders are demanding they be looked at).<br /><br />So, if being negative is also not entirely authentic, and just another mask, even if it is a bit more comfortable because they can let out steam, and let go of the act for awhile, why do they do it? <br /><br />The answers have something to do with the other traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder:<br /><br /><u>The manipulations:</u><br /><br />The other big part of the picture besides low empathy and low ethics is that narcissists, especially those with all of the traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and perhaps some other traits from the Cluster B spectrum, are manipulating people constantly. They wake up to a day of manipulating, and they go to bed at night wondering if they've manipulated others the right way, too much, or too little, and whether and how they've managed to effect people to their desires. <br /><br />Does everyone in their circle approve of them sufficiently; is everyone in their circle blind to their acting enough; is everyone brainwashed enough so that they can start a campaign of ____________? (and you can fill in the blank). <br /><br />One of the ways they like to manipulate people is by proxy. Let us say that you are a child and you are hearing the adults in your household having trash-talking sessions about other people. Part of the trash-talking goes around to talking about a child who slipped up and made a mistake, who was grounded for weeks for being insubordinate. "I let him have it hard! His ass was red by the time I was done spanking him. My child will never question who is boss again!" <br /><br />So, in this kind of scene it is to threaten the children who are listening to this story by proxy: that adults are boss no matter whether you like it or not, and if you fail to let them be boss at all times, then you will get hurt. Again, this comes from narcissists themselves (in their forums), talking about their condition, and the different personalities they put on to effect what ever situation they are in. <br /><br />The other way they like to manipulate is through gaslighting: "You're so inept! What is wrong with you!? It must be your mind again. I guess I'll have to take control."<br /><br />But, again, manipulating is part of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and part of an original larger defense mechanism of keeping safe from a Cluster B parent. The often subconscious and impulsive thought pattern is: "If I manipulate people and control people around me enough, like my parent did, then I am protected from accountability, fault, blame, hurt, abandonment, and I can do anything I want because I am even in control of labeling and telling them how they feel. They don't get to label that; only I do, and if I don't like how they feel, or they are rebelling against my labels, I have a right to call them crazy." <br /><br />Obviously there is way more to manipulation than this, but think of it as "the original manipulation" that put their narcissism into motion, and thus all of the different personalities they needed to coerce every source of narcissistic supply they came across into giving them power, control and domination. <br /><br />I will get to some of the other traits of the disorder in the next chapter. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF A PERSONALITY<br />AND WHY DO NARCISSISTS LACK HAVING ONE?<br /><br /><div><div style="text-align: left;">The definition of personality in this context according to the <b><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/personality" target="_blank">Merriam-Wester Dictionary</a></b> is: </div><div style="text-align: left;"> <i>the quality or state of being a person</i></div><i><div style="text-align: left;"><i> </i><i>the condition or fact of relating to a particular person ... </i></div></i><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><i> ... </i><i>the complex of characteristics that distinguishes an individual or a nation or group</i></div></span><i><div style="text-align: left;"><i>especially : the totality of an individual's behavioral and emotional characteristics ... <br /><br /></i></div></i><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">But then incites readers to pick the right synonyms:<br /><div> <i> <u>Choose the Right Synonym for personality</u><br />* DISPOSITION, TEMPERAMENT, TEMPER, CHARACTER, PERSONALITY mean the dominant quality or qualities distinguishing a person or group.</i></div><div><i>* DISPOSITION implies customary moods and attitude toward the life around one.</i></div><div><i> a cheerful disposition</i></div><div><i>* TEMPERAMENT implies a pattern of innate characteristics associated with one's specific physical and nervous organization.</i></div><div><i> an artistic temperament<br /></i><div><i>* TEMPER implies the qualities acquired through experience that determine how a person or group meets difficulties or handles situations.</i></div><div><i> a resilient temper</i></div><div><i>* CHARACTER applies to the aggregate of moral qualities by which a person is judged apart from intelligence, competence, or special talents.</i></div><div><i> strength of character</i></div><div><i>*PERSONALITY applies to an aggregate of qualities that distinguish one as a person.</i></div><div><i> a somber personality</i></div></div></div></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: left;">The <b><a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/personality" target="_blank">Cambridge Dictionary</a></b>:</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <i>the special combination of qualities in a person that makes that person different from others, as shown by the way the person behaves, feels, and thinks</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">For the intentions of this post, the list of synonyms from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary are more appropriate (with the concept of "consistency" as part of it). </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">To go from being an upstanding moral figure in one's family, with a secret life of killing prostitutes as a side-line activity (malignant narcissism - dark tetrad) is not any kind of consistent personality. The family will know him in one way, the great father and husband, and the law will know him in another way, as a criminal, with a predatory mind, and define his misdeeds as his personality. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But the fact of the matter is, in these kinds of individuals, personality is either:</div><div style="text-align: left;">1. <i>the sum of all of the parts of his character</i></div><div style="text-align: left;">or </div><div style="text-align: left;">2.<i> a person who has no personality and adopts certain personalities that have been modeled to him to achieve certain goals</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Narcissists who have gone public say it is the second. Adopting someone else's personality is, of course, acting. <br /><br />And if you want to get philosophical about it, these "adopted" personalities aren't particularly fake (even if narcissists say they are fake - like pretending to love someone they do not love), because they don't have a personality to begin with. For instance, let us say you have decided to take on baking, but you don't have all of the ingredients to make a cake. So do you make a fake cake, even though you have never made a real cake? Again, it is just a philosophical question.<br /><br /><u>Adopting the abusive parent's personality and what else they learn in childhood:</u> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As I've discussed before, as children, narcissists are known for having adopted the abusive parent's personality to keep safe. But it is not their personality: it is someone else's. As soon as the child realized their narcissistic parent liked their child mirroring them, the better off they were compared to their siblings. And narcissists expect a whole lot of mirroring from their golden children including adopting the parent's perspectives (<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-abusers-co-bullies-enablers.html" target="_blank">especially on other people</a></b>; i.e. parroting), the parent's style, the parent's agendas, and so on. Narcissistic parents very rarely tell their children to be their own selves, to discover and explore different fields of study to decipher what their real interests are, to treat their siblings with dignity and respect because they will never have another one, and so on. No, they just want mirrors, to talk about hierarchies and which of the golden child's sibling is doing better or worse, constantly comparing their children to one another, and "yes-men". </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So they are taught that having any other "persona" or "thoughts" other than the narcissistic parent's is dangerous for them, that they will be unloved and not taken care of. The parent must be seen as the "superior personality", which, if adopted in full by one of the children, can also make that child feel he is superior too, just like his parent. He gets to tell people how to act and behave just like his parent. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">They see the parent trying on all kinds of personalities to please and entice others, and being two-faced too to some extent, and they parrot that too. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So, they never really know what their real personality would be like without this constant micro-managing, molding and the power trip of their parent, what potentials they would have otherwise had beyond being just another manipulator, thought police, emotional regulation officer, and bully like their parent. And the rewards are so great for being a mirror that it keeps them stuck in a child-like molded-by-parent state often forever. It accounts for some of why they are so immature emotionally. My own observation is that a lot of golden children baby-talk well past age 50 too, just to keep the parent satisfied (narcissistic parents are satisfied when any follower <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">acts like innocent brainwashed child-like individuals</a></b> without a capacity for independent thinking). Adulthood is very hard to achieve when your parent keeps treating you like a six year old child, and is still enmeshed with your upbringing and rearing at age 60, and not kidding. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And of course, if you aren't allowing the molding, you can be thrust into adulthood very early, like at age 14 or younger (severe parental neglect). And they never have your back when you need it or ask for it - you've been naughty for not following a script and are deemed not to deserve care or consideration.<br /><br />One of the reasons why scapegoat children get chosen is because they tend to have ethics, and empathy, and much more of a sense of who they are (a more grounded personality) than all of their other siblings. That has been well documented, and you can google the findings. The parent keeps trying to write the scapegoat child's script, and if the child looks like they are resisting, it is more about being true to themselves, of keeping their personality intact, of disagreeing with the parent's judgements (when you are put down all of the time by the parent - common for the scapegoat, and the judgements are false, you are not as likely to hear what your parent has to say). You become disenchanted with your parent's judgements instead. <br /><br />Then the parent tries to make up a role for them: "thou art blamed for all of my faults and everything that compromises my image or the image of anyone else in the family." For this role, of course, the scapegoat child is going to be abused and exploited, or at the very least, put on the side-lines of the family and treated as though they aren't really a member. So they become disenchanted with their own families, and often feel a lot more free to talk about its dysfunctions. Of course, many in the family will fight like mad about it, but in order to do so, they have to make up lies about the scapegoat, and down in the moral dumpster the narcissist(s) go. <br /><br />Scapegoating is very primitive and scapegoats originally were blamed for famines, storms, ship wrecks, for living a little differently, and the like. It's not much different today, except scapegoats tend to be blamed because of the color of their skin, or their type of religion or culture, or because of what sex they are, or sexual orientation. If a scapegoat is raped, they are blamed for enticing their perpetrator; if they are abused by a sibling they are blamed for "egging them on". If a scapegoat is disenfranchised or abused because of the color of their skin, they might be blamed in this way: "You should have known your place" as if Jim Crow laws are still in existence, or the perpetrator thinks they should still be in existence. If the scapegoat is thrown out of their family for their sexual orientation, they might be told, "Members of this family have always been married to people of the opposite sex. If you are with the same sex, then you aren't one of us." If the scapegoat is a woman, they might be told, "Don't you know that men come first always?" If the scapegoat is hit by a parent, they might blamed for what ever the family dreams up as a reason: "You forgot to walk the dog!" Everything the scapegoat says and does is used for punishing, hurting and ostracizing. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Scapegoat children from narcissistic families are pressured to be their own caretakers at an early age, which can actually help them to be independent of their parent as adults. It is why scapegoats can and do achieve great heights in their careers - if they can survive and thrive outside their families. I have met quite a few famous artists who were ostracized from their families where parents are still saying these children aren't good enough. Good luck with that! - said facetiously of course!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The golden child sees how sibling scapegoats are treated, without respect or help, without hearing them out, so in a way it pushes them ever closer to the parent often to the point of emotional incest to keep from having the scapegoats' fate. Even if they highly resent the parent, they have to keep up the exhausting act of putting the parent first at all times, at any time, to keep up the constant parroting of the parent's likes and dislikes, discomforts, hatreds of others, political views, societal views, prejudiced views, and so on. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">To keep the golden child from seeking a life outside of parental control and micro-management, the golden child, along with the rest of the family, is counted on to hate and sabotage the scapegoat, and the scapegoat's success. It's a distraction away from complaining about the micro-managing and enmeshment. The scapegoat must always be seen as a failure, and themselves as superior, especially financially, otherwise the risk is too high that the golden child will seek independence too, and try to find their own personality separate from the parent. And a lot of money gets shoveled into the golden child compared to the other children in the household to keep up the financial disparity between golden child and scapegoat. But sometimes fate has other plans ... and the parent would have to break the law, and risk arrest, to sabotage the scapegoat's financial success. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The golden child can feel so out of control, meaning that they feel they have very little of their own control over their expressions with the parent who is dominating them to the extreme, that they resent it enough to become ultra-controlling bullies themselves, and the rage often gets funneled to their own children instead of against the parent, again picking the most vulnerable and innocent, an act that they saw their parent do first. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">You can see that independence might mean the co-narcissistic child would have a personality separate from the parent and what the parent wants. All of the parent's agendas could potentially be questioned with a personality that differentiates from theirs. This is just one reason why a budding narcissistic child has no personality either, and the lack of a real personality or self, the lack of any ethics or morals, the lack of perspectives that differentiates from the parent's, the willingness to be immorally two-faced, the lack of consistent personality traits, and why personality-lessness or adopting the personality disorder of the parent can last until they die. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">SOME INSTANCES OF HOW THE LACK OF AN IDENTITY CAN MANIFEST<div style="text-align: left;"><br /><u>the possibility of the individuated self as drowning under the shadow self and harsh judgements of early care-givers:</u><br /><br />As I've said before, narcissists make a huge effort not to be shamed, to feel ashamed, and to look at their past or present deeds (whether they be affairs, not loving one of their children, having addictions, using people for narcissistic supply, telling false narratives about many others, gambling with money or gambling with discards of people they actually wanted to maintain relationships with, and so on). The list tends to be quite long. <br /><br />As I've said before, I have included some writings and videos by narcissists below which I hope can enlighten you more than I have put into this post as to what narcissists go through with this, and why they want to bury this stuff so badly that it is like it doesn't exist in the first place for them (because it is defining them in a way that they aren't proud of, that they think should be over-ruled by the altruistic good things they do, and why defining themselves by these two drastic personas just doesn't feel right to them because they are acting on what other people want from them, or how they see them). Deciding they are an individuated person seems impossible. Some of them say they are nothing but actors and frauds most of the time, and when they get a break from acting, they feel empty and boring and bored with themselves, and therefor feel compelled to stir up some drama. <br /><br />Did you ever have arguments with rageful narcissists that were about nothing? This was their way of stirring up drama, and to get reactions because they are bored and feeling really empty without the narcissistic supply that your reactions bring to them. <br /><br />Have you ever had an argument with a narcissist <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" target="_blank">about how you really felt, and what you really thought</a></b>? For instance, they are insistent that you are feeling and thinking something else, and accuse you of acting, or of lying? Most of us who have dealt with narcissists have had more of those arguments than we can count. That is the narcissist's way of projecting what they do onto you. "Of course you are acting and lying all of the time!" they seem to say. <br /><br />They aren't authentic and many of them don't realize that most people prefer to tell the truth, and enjoy telling the truth, and prefer living in the truth rather than in a delusional muddied state of switching, changing, modifying lies and unrealities to fit what ever situation they are in. Narcissist's sense of what the truth is and what falsehood is changes all of the time, just like their adoption of personality styles to fit what ever situation they are in. You instinctively know that if you plunge into that world with them, you are going to feel insane. And so often, the narcissist no longer seems to have a grip on the truth either as they forgot to take mental notes of which lies they told to which person, what the original truth was, which exaggerated self aggrandizements they are trying to put forward to whom, to achieve what objectives, and whether those objectives really work, and so on. <br /><br />In some videos I have featured below, Jacob Skidmore of "the Nameless Narcissist" said he can keep track of his lies. But I have known narcissists who are terrible at it. They live in more lies than they live in reality, and can't even keep track of what is real and what is false any more. They create a confused muddled mess, and if you try to interfere and correct them as to what really happened, they rage over that too because it's the sign that you know their shadow self (the part that has to be out of view even though it isn't). <br /><br />Jacob Skidmore did realize people were authentic and told the truth eventually (but has serious bouts of doubt) when he was diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and studied up on his disorder.<br /><br />And then to realize that most people prefer being authentic? "Why do that when you can get so much more power and validation by putting on acts?" is how the narcissist thinks about it. <br /><br />They don't understand the benefits of the truth, like how sanity, and clarity, and insight, something that can only go so far when you are being overwhelmed with your own lies and fake personas, can create wisdom. Maybe he is starting to understand, but again, he doesn't know who he truly is, or how to present himself to someone, other than to react to who they are, and what he is being told he is. <br /><br />Which brings up the question of all of the "You are -" statements being bandied about today, of which narcissists tend to do a lot more than the rest of us, but maybe the rest of us should take heed and step back from that activity, especially when it comes to children. It obviously damages them, their psyche, their inner voice, their developing personality, their hopes and dreams, their ambitions, and makes them feel inept. Society doesn't need emerging adults who feel constantly inept, unworthy, or fraudulent, or crazy because they aren't pleasing some narcissist on high, and who are looking for an identity in other people. <br /><br /><u>How this hurts the family and society:</u></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Adults who can take care of themselves, and contribute to society move evolution along and seem to be the most capable and intelligent among us, as far as I can see. <br /><br />When you have arguments with narcissists, the first thing they do is to attack with "You are -" statements. It's never a resolution, of course, and is always meant to confuse and hurt and skirt around the real issue being brought forth. "You've changed! You aren't nice any more!", "You're not feeling that way! Give me a break!", "You should see how you act! As if that's going to change how I react to you!" right down to insults, "You are nothing but a selfish pig!", "I put up with you, but really, you are nothing but a sniveling brat most of the time!" Ask yourself why any human being needs to be doing this, hearing this, and going through this, especially children?<br /><br />I have been around families all my life who don't do this to children, or to each other as adults, and when that kind of oppression is lifted off, it's amazing how children and adults act and react, the peace and brotherhood that emerges, the careers they have, the health that they have, and even how people grow and learn in leaps and bounds. <br /><br />Who wants to live under the constant oppression of off-the-wall judgements? Even if you are doing this in your own mind to yourself? Which apparently can happen when you are in an emotionally toxic environment, even to narcissists who have spoken out.<br /><br />If you are an adult child of a narcissist reading this, have you ever been slapped or told to shut up when you were crying? Many narcissists think that you are crying for effect, to either create drama or to manipulate them (again see videos below on what narcissists see) - they most often aren't feeling empathetic; they are feeling annoyed and angry about your tears instead. And the empathy isn't there much to begin with. <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-discussion-on-cognitive-empathy-in.html" target="_blank">That too, tends to be an acting job for them</a></b>. If they truly understood that their child's expression was of real pain, then they might react differently, but most often they "believe" that it is not real, that it is an act, a manipulation. <br /><br />Ever wonder why narcissistic parents thought you were "faking it" when you were a child and were sick or you had a painful ear-ache? The same issue applies here too: they think you are an actor, especially when you are a child. Many of them send you off to school when you are in pain, or when you are sick, regardless of what you have told them. They don't want to hear any more about how bad you feel. Then the school nurse calls them up and tells them to take you home and get doctor's care. Then they listen. Narcissists don't want to listen to children, especially when they grow up with the meme, "Children should be seen and not heard." - what a crazy-making statement that is! It gives credence to ignoring and abandoning children when they most need to be heard and cared for, and when medical issues can multiply and be critical.<br /><br />If you were a partner, why they insisted that you were cheating on them when you weren't? It might drive you crazy when they keep it up. "No, honey, you're enough for me!" you might say, exasperated. And they up the challenge by saying, "Oh, you think I'm too much for you, do you!? Well, that's why you're cheating! Because I'm too much to handle! Just for that --" <br /><br />Also, do you ever wonder why, when you say to a narcissist, "You are really hurting me! Please stop! Can't we just work this out?" they not only don't work it out, but get angry and more hurtful. Narcissists look to people to tell them who they are, and if you tell them they are hurtful, they think that you are defining them in a bad way. Why would you define them as "hurtful" when they can be so much more nice to you than that? Also why insist that they are cruel when they can fight back and be more cruel than you ever imagined? "You want to define me as cruel?! Okay, then you're going to get cruelty!" ... or ... "Why would you tell me I'm hurtful when I give you the kind of personality that I always thought you wanted? What's the matter with you!? You want to turn me into a cruel person? Okay, I'll do that then, and be your worst enemy!" <br /><br />This is what they see, the judgement first. They may see what they have done and then deny, deny, deny, but many of them also don't hear or don't want to hear what you are saying because they have decided that they are never going to be accountable for anything that comes up, ever. And if they've been brought up as a golden child "who never does any wrong", they have been taught by their parent for 18 years at the very least, usually much longer, that they are never accountable either. <br /><br />They have selective hearing, and not kidding.<br /><br />And they can attack you on the spot for the insinuation that they are cruel. "How dare you!" <br /><br />This is why a lot of psychologists heavily promote the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-deep-method-for-survivors-of.html" target="_blank">DEEP method</a></b>: "Don't defend, don't explain, don't engage, and don't take it personally." In other words, hear what they have to say, and if they attack your character, continue to remain composed, don't explain why you are hurt by them because they won't understand or care anyway, and don't engage them in any more discussion about the issue (change the subject or find a reason to leave the conversation), and don't take what they have to say personally - obviously they are too disordered to take anything they have to say personally, and they probably don't know you very well because of all of the selective hearing they do. <br /><br />Unless this is also a manipulation ... that has also been proposed by a number of psychologists too, that they know exactly what they are doing, and that it is a game to get you roped into only giving them accolades and ego strokes, so that they can use your accolades and ego strokes to get ever more narcissistic supply from others so that they get a fan club going and a lot more flying monkeys, and have more power and control over you than ever before (especially if you give in). <br /><br /><b><a href="https://doctor-ramani.com/" target="_blank">Dr. Ramani</a></b>, a psychologist who specializes in the Cluster B personality disorders at the University of Southern California suggests that her clients find their deepest relationships outside of the one with the narcissist, always, and to back away from them, and learn how to do it slowly and relatively imperceptivity. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Not all of us went that way, and not all therapists give that advice. Some survivors decided to stand up to them instead, create boundaries right away. As a result, we got the silent treatment, or got beat up in response. Sometimes therapists want their clients to "break the silence of abuse" because you've been expected to shut up about it for too long, to keep the narcissist's treatment of you a secret (silence helps them to abuse you more, and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">the escalation process</a></b> of abuse tends to be faster too if they can convince you to be silent). By the time you are in therapy, you may be sick with trauma symptoms. One of the best way to break out of the trauma bond is to start speaking about what you went through and taking your power back, and ignoring the narcissist's reactions no matter what they are, or calling the police or moving if they've decided to attack you. <br /><br />But Dr. Ramani comes at this with a different perspective, from how narcissists act and react, how they perceive, what they generally do to solve interpersonal relationship problems, and their selective hearing (<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhGqMF2Erk8&t=727s" target="_blank">only hearing what has to do with them and their status in your life or in others' lives</a> </b>- the link takes you to one of her videos about what they hear and don't hear).<br /><br />I always suggest going to a domestic violence center to get the best advice for your situation however, because narcissists are unpredictable and can be dangerous in terms of what kinds of attacks they will use. <br /><br />Not having your pain addressed by a narcissist is one of many reasons people bail out on narcissists - they don't listen to you, and your pain is not resolved, or going to be resolved when relating to them. If anything they are increasing your pain. And also, there is the very real possibility that they think you are faking pain.<br /><br />But even if they know you are in pain, it's narcissistic supply for them. They are effecting you. And therefor they are being validated by the effects (they may think, "I'm a cruel person. Who ever knew? I guess I like it."). Their morals and ethics spiral downward because being a cruel person requires it, and they are getting rewarded for it. However, they can also experience great exasperation, indignation, and impatience, so upping the cruelty is not always the road they take. Jacob (the Nameless Narcissist) below explains why he experiences other people's pain as feeling irritated and convinced people are faking their pain just to hurt him, and make him seem like the culprit of it. In a more polite and elaborate way, Sam Vaknin who has also been diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder too says more or less the same thing.<br /><br />Vaknin, in one video that I remember said something like: narcissists just want you to be their Mommy, to soothe them as though they were a baby or small child, no matter what is going on, and not to blame them because they are like little children who don't really understand blame by big scary grown-ups yet. Could be ... <br /><br />But on the other hand, most narcissists openly admit that they often get bored with their relationships and acting a certain personality type with you - they thrive on adopting other personalities, and getting you out of the way opens up more possibilities for that, plus getting new sources of narcissistic supply. They say this is the reason for their cruelty and swift discards and not caring how you feel afterwards. If they care how you feel at all, some of them try to contact you in some way to see how you are doing, and they just don't want to be bothered any more. Boredom, many of them say, is a terrible irritating burdensome state for many of them, and they get around to feeling that about almost everyone in their life eventually, so this is why they react to your pain with irritation and anger too. <br /><br />They just don't want to put that much time into the relationship any more. And when it is being mired with burdens such as accountability, a terrible family issue (like someone complaining about an abusive family member), they just don't want to deal with it. Discarding the complainer is just "easier." And they do prefer people who are easy, who don't complain, who are agreeable to everything they want and everything that is happening. They don't have a sense of loyalty to anyone (although they expect everyone around them to be loyal to them).<br /><br />I remember seeing a post by a narcissist once in some sort of self-help forum. She said something like: "Stop grieving over us! We are all a bunch of nobodies, actors who played a part in your lives for awhile! We aren't real, so just leave us alone about how hurt you are! We don't want to hear it! And we also could care less!" This sounds super cold, and especially when you don't understand narcissism. <br /><br />We were duped, like how criminals dupe people out of their assets. We were duped into a loving relationship that was never loving. The sham was that the love was "convincing acting." <br /><br />Many narcissists like the ones I listed below, by the way, think you are stupid for complaining about them, since they rarely want to hear your complaint, could care less about how they treat you, feel that they treat you "good enough", and feel enraged that you aren't giving them ego strokes instead of talking about being hurt. They feel you made a big mistake in going into a discussion like that especially since you will have to pay (be in pain by them) for having done that. <br /><br />I, myself, have noticed that narcissists do require that you be <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/10/why-abusers-who-punish-use-ungrateful.html" target="_blank">grateful</a></b> at all times for what they do and don't do, even though they are rarely grateful themselves and show it (it's part of their entitlement and their disorder), so when you complain, they interpret that as "they are accusing me, and that is unacceptable because I have a personality that cannot do anything wrong, and they better realize this is the personality I'm putting forward at a time like this, but they want to be an enemy and be ungrateful instead. Good luck in fighting with me!" Also: "They aren't giving me positive narcissistic supply. So, just for that, I won't give them positive narcissistic supply either! No more flattery, no more gifts, no more relationship! Outright war! They haven't seen cruelty yet! They will be shivering in their boots for having crossed me!" In the blink of an eye, you can be their enemy just for a complaint, and for malignant narcissists they can be this way over the most minor of issues, or ones they are certain you are lying about (even when you aren't), the most made up inconsequential scenes you can imagine. <br /><br />The last thing a survivor is thinking is that they are in a tit-for-tat, retaliatory war with a narcissist. Later they figure it out. But the narcissist's war is always way too delusionary to be playing retaliation games with them. We might be angry about their aggressions against us, and might "tell them off", but we are also likely to back off and think they are totally nuts for taking it to this level over a legitimate concern that never deserved the all-encompassing hostile energy the narcissist put into it. <br /><br />Let us say that you are hurt and angry, and they throw a huge bomb in retaliation over it to show their might (maybe they take an action that is illegal like stabbing the tires of your car), to show that they are a much more formidable enemy than you are, and that you need to take what you said back or there will be more hurtful consequences by them against you for saying it, that they are much, much better than you are at retaliations, and manipulations about playing the victim, and will be believed when they lie to others that they are the true victim. <br /><br />This shows that they think that you are a narcissist, like them, and they do until they are convinced that they have a personality disorder, i.e. diagnosed by a clinician. <br /><br />We know there are retaliatory despotic world tyrants like this too, and yes, they do tend to be malignant narcissists with delusions of grandeur. As if being a mass murderer is an enviable position for anyone other than other malignant narcissists who want to destroy and murder too. Mostly they get a reputation like Hitler, Pol Pot and Stalin got ("disgusting!" - especially if you like laws and abhor murder for the sake of hurting other people and grabbing their stuff).<br /><br />And they tell lies about their so-called enemies too, to get the army motivated, but then the army figures out they have been lied to. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Over-reactive hostility to slights and complaints is a big sign of narcissism as well as primary and secondary psychopathy ... with the exception of paranoid schizophrenia, but usually these people are easy to spot because many of them have speech impediments (talking in non-sequiturs, for instance). </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Even with <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">gaslighting</a></b>, the main issue is that they are faking an alternate reality, specifically designed just for you, as they do with adopting a personality to fit the situation they are in with you. They want, also, for you to think you are the crazy one in the relationship, not them, that you are the one that is at fault in the relationship, not them, that you are the one who is inept in the relationship, not them (so that they can control you). </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And then add to it that narcissists fib their way through life to convince others that they are something they are not, or that they have hidden talents that they haven't exposed to the world yet (when they actually haven't been working on their talents at all - common for covert narcissists, in particular), that they know more than they actually do, that they discard and forget about people more than they actually do too, that their grades in school were higher than they actually were, and so on.<br /><br />Fibbing is just another extension of having a false self. <br /><br />The problem with narcissists making non-truths a mere convenience for their ego, is that, if they thought about it, it really doesn't feed their ego. How can lies about themselves feed an ego? A lie is a propped up thing, not the real thing. The conversation is just a made up narrative by taking a few truths and adding them to the lies (like you would sprinkle salt or sugar on to a food to make it taste better). <br /><br />If the truth is as amorphous as they want it to be, then they don't really live in the world that most of us inhabit. And maybe, as Vaknin and Skidmore suggest in the videos below, that's why they feel empty, like non-people. Then the question has to be asked, why fib at all? <br /><br />The truth is too blinding? It's like a bright light that they can't stand to look at? It's easier for them to do than telling the truth? They don't get butterflies in their stomach when they lie? What is it?<br /><br />The other problem of making reality into some sort of distorted story of fibs with a little reality sprinkled on top is that other people can't, and don't, want to deal with it; they don't want to get close to it. <br /><br />For adult children, what are they supposed to do? "This is my Dad. He likes to make up stories that aren't true. Don't bother listening to him or taking him seriously." <br /><br />Underage children tend not to do that because they will be abused if they do. They get punished for telling the truth. So lying is rewarded. If that isn't a screwball way to parent, and a toxic way to proceed in society afterward, I don't know what is.<br /><br />But that's not the end of it. <br /><br />Some children who get rewarded for lying, also get punished for lying. Perhaps if you lie for the narcissist, you might, but not always, get rewarded. If you lie to get something for yourself, you might, but not always, get punished for it. The problem with this upbringing is that there aren't any rules about what you can and can't lie about, so abuse can happen even when you were given a green light and rewarded for lying hours before. That's how it is in narcissists' households. You are encouraged to add to the lies to help create a totally fictitious parent and family situation, but punished if you add the wrong kind of truths or lies. Also, you can get even more punished for telling the truth, that your parent rewards you if they think you are lying for the their benefit. And, you are told you are lying when you aren't, and told you are telling the truth when you are lying. In other words, no one in the household knows what the truth is any more. It has a lot to do with why narcissists and psychopaths have very few ethics and morals to draw from. There aren't any in a household like this, and very often there never will be. The kids were brought up in this crazy-making situation and most had to endure it for 18 years - or more. <br /><br />Then there are the golden children, many of whom become narcissists themselves (<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/04/two-types-of-golden-children-favorite.html" target="_blank">but not all</a></b>). When they are like the parent, many of them know they have to outsmart the parent to survive, so many of them out-manipulate their narcissistic parent. They know intuitively that they have to flatter the parent like crazy even when they know their parent should not be flattered, so then it becomes fake flattery that they begin to use on everyone. <br /><br />So now there are two liars who "fake flatter" in the family just to stay safe, plus get narcissistic supply especially if they get flattered back. And if they get flattered back, they both feel safe.<br /><br />When narcissists disapprove, it is a sign you aren't safe from their rage or violence. If you flatter them in the midst of their rages, even if they are highly unethical while raging, even if it is not your fault, even if their punishments are incredibly abusive and off the wall, a lot of them will stop if you flatter them, thus the fake flatterers who don't have the strength of character to say, "The way you treat people is highly unethical." <br /><br />This kind of a golden child also knows intuitively that they have to "act" like a sycophant too. "Just be so sweet and accommodating in their company, kiss their ring if that's what they expect, put a crown on their head if they expect that too, but put them down behind their back for all of the neediness they exhibit, the lies they spread, all of the unethical deeds they do. You'll be rewarded and you can take off steam on someone else!" And who do they take it off on? The same child the narcissistic parent takes their rage off on (the golden knows they probably won't be punished for that), or a child smaller than they are, or a girl, or someone who is disabled, or disenfranchised, or from a minority, or someone who is bullied in school - anyone who they deem to be on a lower hierarchy than themselves. And they continue it with their spouse and children. <br /><br />Do we wonder why narcissists are so hierarchical in their thinking, and why they put themselves at the top? It's the bully's way of thinking: "I can beat them at any war game, any manipulation, any false narrative where everyone will believe me and not the nay-sayers." - as if that is something to be proud of. <br /><br />Then, of course, they use their false self to tell others they would never do that, never say that, that everyone is on an equal par in the family, that everyone's concerns are addressed, that everyone is loved in the family, that everyone is happy in the family (except a scapegoat, or two, or fifteen). "You mean, little 'ol me, who flatters other people constantly - the nice guy on the block who would give my shirt to someone? Who is so deferential?"<br /><br />And the more, they get away with it, the worse it gets, the more manipulative it is, the more entrenched it is, the more grandiose they feel. <br /><br />And we wonder why narcissists are so <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/two-faced" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">two-faced</a>, and why they can be like two separate people (<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank">Jekyll/Hyde</a></b>). The Jekyll/Hyde of some narcissists can be so de-stabilizing, cruel and violent that the family experience is something like you'd see in a horror movie, and not kidding. <br /><br />And we wonder why there are so many estrangements in narcissistic families. And why the estranged are mostly girls, women, the disabled, the ill, the disenfranchised (deemed as weak by narcissists). <br /><br />Then there are the scapegoats. <br /><br />The narc parent said goodbye to you as a child where you were shown over, and over, and over again that the narc parent didn't want to be close to you. Let's just say they were trying to avoid the above statement (the scapegoat telling a friend that the parent makes up stories). The scapegoat is discarded for telling the truth, but are often told they are lying when they tell the truth. <br /><br />But as we know, the truth is a threat to the narcissist's "false self". <br /><br />This is usually the first child to "tell it like it is", who is rolling their eyes at all of the lies flying around the family to keep up an image. They also tend to be the first to see the narcissist's shadow self, a particularly cruel Mr. Hyde side (the cruel side). Perhaps they are encouraged in school or by another relative to tell the truth. Perhaps their brothers and sisters are complaining about the random and unreliable disciplines of the narcissistic parent, and the scapegoat comes forward to try and put a stop to it for the sake of peace in the family. <br /><br />But the narcissist is totally committed to winning this game and imposed conflict or war. It is why scapegoats experience the narcissist's <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">gaslighting</a></b> in the extreme. The parent is convinced that they have to talk the scapegoat into having a mental illness such that they can never perceive anything the right way. When I said that narcissists will do anything to hide everything, and I mean everything, about their shadow self, or any mistakes they have made in life, and put that agenda first, especially when they are being challenged, I'm not kidding. Scapegoats are absolutely pressured, abused, taught sadistic lessons, tortured to "give it up already", to believe in the lies of the parent. All of the lies. <br /><br />If the child still refuses to go along with the parent in this regard, these days they most often experience neglect: they aren't cared for, they aren't looked after, their wounds are minimized, their health problems are ignored, what they have to say is ignored, when they are abused by other adults no police are called and they are either denied protection or they are ignored when they are traumatized by the experience(s), they are put in dangerous situations with dangerous people, and there are usually issues around food and dress. If you are a skinny scapegoat, these parents are liable to give you less food. If you are a heavy scapegoat, you are often given more food than you can reasonably handle and are told to eat everything on your plate. Neglect also means dressing you in dirty clothes and not having enough clothes to deal with temperatures and the elements. Many scapegoats talk about terrifyingly dangerous, speed driving (they thought it was on purpose, to scare them, or to hope they would get in an accident). Many, many girl scapegoats also talk about their parents dressing them down, in clothes they especially don't want and don't look good in, being dressed in boy's clothes, or baggy matronly outfits when they are starting to get curves in high school, and cutting the hair short (so common, causing them to scream and cry when they were kids - the overwhelmingly number of grown up adult female scapegoats have long hair, and at least half of them have hair past the bra-line or down to their waist).<br /><br />In the old days a parent could put their scapegoat child in a mental institution or insane asylum to get lobotomized or electric shock therapy. It was their way of getting rid of them without breaking the law. And a lobotomized child, of course, could no longer function in society, so they were institutionalized for life. Electric shock therapy could garner the same results. They also put these kinds of children there when they wanted to get out of their marriage and run away with a new lover (when the new lover did not want stepchildren: more common for male inlaws than female inlaws). <br /><br />If none of these "tortures to teach you a lesson" worked for the narc parent, in order to keep from being exposed, the narc parent has to get rid of the truth-telling scapegoat. And the scapegoat's reputation has to be ruined too, of course, because to the narcissist, the scapegoat told the truth, "and they shouldn't have done that. They should have put my reputation above the lies I tell!"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Really now!? <br /><br />But as Jason Skidmore (The Nameless Narcissist) has said, many discards are fake in his video, <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzjadf8Yw6o&t=1s" target="_blank">Watch Out for the Narcissist's Fake Discard</a></b>. Jeez, another fake phony thing they do, if he's at all right that a lot of narcissists do this. What he says in his video boils down to this: he and other narcissists discard you in hopes that you'll beg them to take you back and say, "No, no, everything is my fault! I'm so sorry! I still love you!" - his words in that video of what he wants others to say when he discards someone else. He tells us in the video this too: "... I was doing an interview and the lady asks me, like, 'Oh, so you are doing that to try to get what you want, is for them to, uh, love you, but like you're not realizing that you, um, that they actually think that you hate them.' And it almost blew my mind because I was like, 'Wait! Is it not obvious what I want in those situations? Is it not obvious that I want them to, like, beg for me?' It was so natural for me that it didn't even occur to - because I knew that it was toxic behavior, and I haven't done it in a long time, it's been like a year, at least, that I've done that - but it felt so natural and innate so I just assumed that everyone at some level knew - and which reinforced that fear of abandonment, right?" - and he goes on to talk about how he's abandoned a lot, and some of it is because of the fake discards. <br /><br />And I'm not surprised that narcissists have this indirect phony way of talking to others. And, of course, you can't know that it is fake. Getting discarded and getting the silent treatment from them is traumatic because it's not a normal break-up at all where you have a lot of discussions (with direct communication!) about what is working and not working, what you are both feeling and not feeling, some possible compromises, talks like "is there enough love to continue?", and if worse comes to worse, some therapy. There is usually a lot of effort put into saving the relationship. <br /><br />With narcissists, there is none of this. Something bothers them, and so often victims complain they didn't even know what it was. And if you've been through one silent treatment with them, you can't handle any more because it's too traumatic, often with full blown trauma symptoms. Discards mean that you are treated like you don't exist, and as Dr. Carter likes to say when he talks about narcissists and their discards, you are treated like a piece of meat that is tossed on the side of the road ... You are treated as though you don't exist, and that sends the inevitable message that they don't care about you at all or take any of your feelings to heart. It's all about the games they want to play, and the power they want. <br /><br />So the fact that we'd want to come back under those circumstances is not realistic. Would they beg if we just summarily dismissed them and didn't accept any conversation, or care what was happening to them at all, including emotionally, psychologically, physically, financially with what they were going through in their life, and their medical issues? <br /><br />As Jason Skidmore said, it's a game. Let's call it what it is: a head game. And we are supposed to figure out that we are supposed to beg, and beg for what? Not to be treated that way? But of course, if you focus on how a narcissist is treating you, they will rage because you've just defined them in a negative way, and you are supposed to, according to many narcs, be grateful. So, we're just supposed to take them back regardless of how they treated us, and so many other head games, and false selves we have to deal with, that we love them so much that we want more head games just like this? Because this is what loving a narcissist means: more head games = your trauma = more head games from them = more of your trauma = even more head games from them, until infinity. If you look carefully at what he wants from the victims of his discards it is for them to say this: "No, no everything is my fault! I'm so sorry!" in his charming endearing way. If you look at the real words instead of how he delivers the words, they seem diabolical. <br /><br />Begging is a way of giving up your own power. It's just adding another toxicity to a relationship where you're supposed to beg for love. And while he may not be in all relationships for power and control only, many narcissists are. <br /><br />And if you are a scapegoat, you've been getting the message your whole life that you aren't important, you aren't appreciated, that you are a "throw-away" kind of person, that you are hated to the point where they have to do a "fake gaslighting" on you so that they can make excuses as to why they don't provide care, that they can think of nothing better than to punish you endlessly for not going along with fakeries like the fake discard, that they don't want you around very much at all (and this proves they are so much more ungrateful than we could ever think of being). A lot of scapegoats are discarded by their narc parents when they 12 - 16, and they live with the other parent, or a relative, or in foster care. And estrangement tends to take over from there. <br /><br />So "I want you to beg" seems like it would be fraudulent too, not authentic. Especially when it comes to scapegoating. It's why a scapegoat would take the discard seriously. <br /><br />But even if it was not an authentic discard, "fake discards", and the thousands, if not millions, of other fakeries that narcissists discharge every day, is why every relationship that narcissists have is a sham. <br /><br />And what is weird about narcissists is that <b><a href="https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1519417-overview?form=fpf" target="_blank">they think most people envy them</a></b>! Whoa! I asked one time why, when it came to the false self and the pathological lying, and realized as I was asking it, that it was probably just more projection on the narcissist's part because they are so envious of others. Shared truth-telling is where you find intimacy, not in lies. So they are missing out on that wonderful experience completely. How sad!<br /><br />But let's just say that the discard was also sham. They didn't mean it, or at least that's what they say sometimes. But it could be their false self talking and you don't know. They could be using their false self to hoover you back, and the reason why is because they want revenge on you. Let's say that you think about that possibility, but you are hoovered back. <br /><br />But in going back, you are still not "up to snuff" according to the narcissist as the narcissist tries to get you to focus on them (very common), and they are gaslighting you even more than they did before so that you don't challenge their false self and expose it. So the issues are still there, but now you have trauma symptoms from their discard to deal with too, which is ruining their image as the great altruistic parent that they present to outsiders. Also, your healing keeps you distracted, quiet, irritable. Then they start telling you that you are selfish. The thing is, healing from narcissistic abuse, especially if you are their child and abandonments are part of it, means that you are going to be selfish, or self-involved, and inward-drawn, and you may even be unable to cope. Psychologists write that even parental abandonments that have nothing to do with narcissistic abuse (an illness, the parent having to leave for duty in the military) can be traumatic enough, but when parents abandon children out of cruelty and vindictiveness, it scars kids for life. Maybe that is the point. But since narcissists can't deal with interpersonal challenges like their kid being trauma-ridden, and because they have to present themselves as parents who would never do that, they do a discard of you again.<br /><br />This is the most common outcome if a child goes back to their parent, but my experience is that most children don't go back at all, or they go back for a week or two and realize they are too riddled with anxiety to stay. <br /><br />As for a second discard by the parent: is it a fake discard or a real one? Was it done by the false self, or the real one, or the shadow self, or a kind of grandiose "I killed them in battle" persona, or another adopted personality did they decided to use? And what other lies will they have to resort to in order to avoid looking like someone who abandons their children? <br /><br />Is your head starting to hurt yet? Or at least spin?<br /> <br />But that's not all I have to say ... <br /><br />Let's say that a discard of a scapegoat child is absolutely intentional. It doesn't seem to be a fake discard. The parent wants you gone, doesn't want to think about you, could care less what you are doing or going through, is just sick of you ... and you have failed to provide the parent with enough flattery to keep up a steady image for their false self. <br /><br />So let us say that this scapegoated daughter (since daughters tend to be scapegoated much more than sons) has spent most of her life mostly being estranged from her father, because the father didn't want his reputation ruined by truth-telling, and his daughter was seemingly giving him grief about being an uncaring father. Can't have that! He just wanted easy gullible people around him, people who he could lie to and be believed, people easy to brainwash, people who were more likely to flatter him no matter what he did. Life was easier for him that way. He didn't have to work hard at relationships that way. He could just parrot people, make up some personalities, have a private life of superficial extra-marital affairs that were purely sexual with no commitments. Except that not all of the women wanted to keep it a secret, and told his wife about "the reality" of what was happening. <br /><br />"Oh, no, reality is creeping in again!" So he tries to convince his wife that these women are just after him because he's good looking and has money, that they are all crazy and making false accusations against him! He says that some of them he never saw in his life!<br /><br />Anyway, his whole life falls apart after awhile. His wife leaves him, and all but one kid wants to be around him. And every time he is rejected, he's a tyrant. And he plays the victim even though he's the perpetrator, which disgusts his family members more. He also indulges in false narratives and smear campaigns about most of his kids. <br /><br />His sister believes he's been horribly mistreated by everyone in his family, but the closest family members keep telling her that he has this other side, the cruel side. She doesn't believe them. <br /><br />Then everyone starts dying off: his kids, his present wife, his sister, on and on. <br /><br />So, he figures he's got to have someone looking after him and gets in contact with the scapegoat who has now spent most of her life (let us say it started at age 16, and now she is 57) being estranged from her dad. He tells the scapegoat daughter that he really didn't mean to reject her "so badly", that he was mistaken by thinking of her as a bad person, and one excuse follows another and he says, "I need you to take care of me, because you are all I have left." Really? After years of cruelty, abuse, neglect when she was a child, abandonment and rejection when she was an adult? And being taught that it was best if she didn't contact him and stayed out of the family? <br /><br />Again, it's just more acting, lies, and about faking her out, right? - and of all people, scapegoats know this more than anyone about their narcissistic parents. She doesn't trust him at all. She figures it's just <b>a hoover</b>, and if she takes care of him that he'll go back to being tyrannical in no time flat. <br /><br />"Wouldn't you be better off with someone who can lie for you, Dad? Someone who can tell doctors that you have hearing loss instead of dementia? That your little pinky got broken fixing a car when it actually got broken when beating Mom? And just how many lies do you want me to tell like this, Dad? Your poor image might fail with me around!" <br /><br />After scapegoats spend so much of their lives learning how to live with the injustice of being prejudiced against, being lied about, told to be ultra-independent without their birth family, a scapegoat is supposed to coddle a dependent parent? And live in a bunch of lies again? <br /><br />These situations pop up. <br /><br />With narcissists, the constant manipulation of others, all of it ends up to be some major head games that confuse, disorient and eventually traumatize victims, especially victims who are vulnerable, have PTSD, are children, or are disabled. A psychologist who treats people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder guessed that 70 - 75 percent of them have extra-marital affairs throughout their marriage(s), and now someone did some research to back that up, and the psychologist was right (around 75 percent) - I'll be talking about this in another post. Most of the time, extra-marital affairs require, for the narcissist, so many lies, false narratives, hiding, excuses, different personas, and word salad arguments to the spouse, that the family feels like they are living full time in lies and cover-ups, where everywhere you turn, there's another lie you have to deal with, and that gets uncovered. <br /><br />And the narcissist also has to lie to the people they are seducing on the side too. It becomes like "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" where, if the narcissist tells the truth, it may very well be taken as just another lie. <br /><br />And if it's not extra-marital affairs, it is usually something else: a gambling addiction, or a substance addiction, or a porn addiction, or an addiction to retaliating over a prejudice they have against a person or people. Malignant narcissists especially tend to be obsessive about who they hate, and hate apparently tends to bring out overwhelming desires to hurt others.<br /><br />And most narcissists tend to be abusive to any number of people just because the empathy and ethics are so low, and they tend not to think they have a personality disorder unless it becomes absolutely clear to them. Otherwise, they figure human beings are more or less like them, faking empathy, faking personalities, making up stories, running smear campaigns, lying just about anything and about anyone they feel like lying about, and, as I've said, convinced they are being lied to all of the time too. - and we wonder why one of the trauma symptoms for people enduring all of this is headaches.<br /><br />They'd probably be shocked if they really knew that most of us aren't doing these things, that we don't want to live like this, in an insane asylum of lies. <br /><br /><u>In conclusion:</u><br /><br />Narcissists feel they did their best at giving you a personality that was tailor made for you, and that everything else they do (like the abuse, threats, gaslighting, lying, lack of empathy, the abuse they do to keep you away from looking too clearly at their shadow self) they insist, should be overlooked. If you read or watch some of the other videos by the three narcissists below, they all complain bitterly and constantly that people from their past who they abused, controlled, threatened and/or discarded were incredibly ungrateful. They believe people they reject should be pleading with them to get back into their good graces, and should be happy they are controlled. They believe that their abuse should be overlooked and that their victims should realize their narcissist is brilliant, generous, and superior to most others in the world in terms of the personality the narcissist put so much effort into. Many of them don't comprehend and don't care when they see that constant control, indirect communication, low empathy, low ethics, threats, lies about who they are and what they do, their discards and abuse generally cause trauma. <br /><br />In fact, they can't see that narcissists, in general, cause a lot of trauma to most people in close personal relationships. <br /><br />And this blind spot causes them to become obsessed with revenge. If they see that their past victims are thriving in any way afterwards, they have a narcissistic collapse that can cause even more vindictiveness, and danger, and their ethics keep spiraling down, down, down to achieve some sort of permanent damage to their victims. <br /><br />Unless they want to deal with primary psychopaths who are trauma-resistant and the least likely to run away from them, they will have to face the fact that trauma from their actions is why they lose those closest to them. When they create even more lies and vindictive solutions to their relationship problems, trauma drives those people away further. As I've said in other posts, they can even traumatize each other, so their lazy, I-have-to-have-my-own-way-because-I'm-Godlike-and-you're-not approach to relationship problems can mean they may have to face being old and miserable by themselves. <br /><br />Children especially become traumatized because they are hard-wired to see the parent as someone who will provide safety (if anything, narcissists don't provide safety, and they continually increase the unsafety by abusing their kids and putting them through tests that challenge their safety). Children also expect their parent to take care of them, to be fair and to treat them fairly, to soothe them when they are hurt or ill, to nurture their growing personalities, interests and education. Narcissists, in general, fall really short of providing any of this. Children, especially, cannot deal with communication that is not direct, that has a lot of manipulation and inconsistency in intent, black and white thinking, parentification, infantilization, triangulation, gaslighting, injustice, constant erroneous blaming, and other head games attached to those communications. And unfortunately children are often the first in the line of attack for narcissists. Children can be so hurt as to be practically emotionally branded by the traumas and scars from living through all of this.<br /><br />Even the golden child suffers. Even though the golden child is idealized and rewarded, the fact is that he is also at risk for not growing and developing into an emotionally healthy adult, when he is being coddled like an underage child so much, when he is called upon constantly to be controlled, and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-abusers-co-bullies-enablers.html" target="_blank">a perpetual flying monkey</a></b> for the parent, there are also repercussions on his psyche. It is not good child rearing at all, being so enmeshed with the parent to the point of emotional incest. The fact that a lot of golden children become another narcissist is proof of it, and what can be so rewarding about that? Also rarely are golden children close to any of their siblings, so even if they have ten siblings, they are most often alone - with their parent. <br /><br />The other issue with not having a very good identity or sense of self, is that they rely on other people to tell them who they are. Of course, the people who praise them, or fake-praise them, will be rewarded by them the most, as if the narcissist needs to pay their audience for their one-man show where they are actor, writer, producer, and of course, the manipulator of emotions. <br /><br />The fact of the matter is, when narcissists only surround themselves with flatterers, this is how they get a <b>superiority complex</b> where they feel it is perfectly fine, even when it is not, to love bomb prospective mates when they are already married, to give unsolicitous lectures, lessons, leadership, aggressive advice, aggressive opinions about the character and disposition of their victims. They make judgements about other's personality, talent, presentation of the self, sanity, type or lack of intellect, type or lack of appropriateness with others, and all of the other aggressions they display - and this has to do with the narcissist's belief that others also have the ability to make a personality tailor-made for the narcissist. They are constantly telling you that you are not good enough and need to change for them, right? "Just be another actor and praise me all of time, please! But let me play the lead!" they seem to be saying.<br /><br />If we refuse, they rage. As if all the world needs in its future are children who are more actors with false selves. <br /><br />It is a very, very similar "dictator trap" <b><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/putin-dictator-trap-russia-ukraine/627064/" target="_blank">that Brian Klaas talks about</a></b> where the constant presence of only sycophants, "yes men" and flatterers goes to the narcissist's head and becomes their illusory notion that they are great, and that they can control everyone and everything to procure more power, and where they seriously believe they can aggress upon others without consequences. <br /><br />Inside themselves, the aggression feeds the superiority complex, and the superiority complex feeds the aggression. <br /><br />This is one reason why narcissists tend to get worse in their aggressive behaviors, not better, and often turn to an array of abusive tactics to solve their problems. It also keeps them blind to the fact that their aggressions create more problems than solutions - they often get an illusory "high", a "feeling of great grandiosity", as if it was a drug, even from being cruel. But like all drugs, it's a hallucination that they are superior or becoming great. But, like all "highs", it doesn't last, and they have to procure their drug of narcissistic supply again and again and again.<br /><br />A few psychologists, but not many of them, suggest that in order to get along with narcissists, just give them what they want: lots of flattery so that they don't attack you or think of you as hostile. I think this is absolutely nuts unless you are in a life-and-death situation with them. Flattery is adding to the problem, the illusions, the incredible number of lies where there are already way too many of them, and creating more lies. Survivors should be getting away from the lies, illusions and acting trips. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The fact that so many narcissists highly resemble one another, the disorder is running their interactions, perceptions, and their inability to know themselves or anyone else. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@DrGrande/videos" target="_blank">Dr. Todd Grande</a></b> has said something like, "They are imprisoned by their own narcissism", especially when he talks about the vindictive-style narcissists who never feel fulfilled by their vindictiveness. <br /><br />The fact that they can go from "grand to shameful", and from the illusion of being admired even when they are evil and abusive, from mirroring someone else when they are love bombing and devaluing that same person months later, and all of the inconsistent, often changeable black and white thinking that they do, shows that they are not really in touch with what produces character, a strong identity that they, or anyone else, can recognize once they get to know them. <br /><br />When they murder their entire family, don't most of their neighbors say, "Oh, but he was so nice! Always a smile! He bent over backwards for those of us in the neighborhood. So shocking!" <br /><br />Who are they? This nice person who treats his neighbors altruistically, or the evil person? Even they can't come to terms with it because their impulsivities, their <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank">Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde switching</a> </b>to fit what ever black-and-white judgements they are making moment to moment, person to person, and the compulsive agendas for more power and narcissistic supply run their lives. If you have morals and ethics, the kind of agendas they have will never rule your life. <br /><br />"Oh, but being so false, and making up a false self is so rewarding!" - no it is not. <br /><br />It's a disorder that emerged as a way to survive childhood with either a Cluster B personality disordered parent (the most likely scenario), or an inconsistent alcoholic parent or parents with either anger management issues or a chronic inability to emotionally regulate themselves and their actions, but it doesn't serve them very well after childhood. No one wants to be manipulated, gaslighted, triangulated, pretend-loved, and lied to by them. So a lot of relationships fail for narcissists. By the time they are old, sometimes the only person left is the golden child, but even they have their limits, or they can get sick and die, and, as we know, narcissists don't really consider this, or have respect for realities in general. They are agenda-driven and they often think their agendas foretell the future. No, they do not. It's just another illusory issue they have.<br /><br />Some of my notes follow these videos, and because I'll be going more and more into the study of healing from trauma, I will be discussing how and why narcissists false self creates trauma for individuals, and ways to heal from it. But I think you have a pretty good idea from my writing above how you could get trauma from living the life as a flatterer for a narcissist. <br /></div></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><u><div style="text-align: left;"><u>the false self according to people who have been diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder:</u></div></u><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #800180;"><u>videos by Professor Sam Vaknin</u>:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFahESPWgbU" target="_blank">Narcissist's False Self vs. True Self: Soul-snatching</a></b> - by Professor Sam Vaknin (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdFexohftNg" target="_blank">Narcissism as Theatre: More on the False Self</a></b> - by Professor Sam Vaknin (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4kDi0-doa4" target="_blank">YOU are the Narcissist’s Ego, Self</a></b> - by Professor Sam Vaknin (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTUsmliZl-g" target="_blank">Narcissist's False Narrative and False Self</a></b> - by Professor Sam Vaknin (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfjvYo_Dag8" target="_blank">Narcissist’s False Self: Primates, Perverts, Serpents, God</a></b> - by Professor Sam Vaknin (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDSofibCJBU" target="_blank">Sam Vaknin Demon Possessed Narcissism & False Self</a></b> - by Professor Sam Vaknin (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAh5a5NhqW0" target="_blank">Narcissist as Social Misfit</a></b> - by Professor Sam Vaknin (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUO33Uxc0nI" target="_blank">Narcissist Hates Himself, So Can’t Love YOU</a></b> - by Professor Sam Vaknin (You Tube)<br /><br /><br /><span style="color: #800180;"><u>videos by Jacob Skidmore, the Nameless Narcissist</u>: <br /><br /> Note, I find Jason to have "Narcissism Lite". The reason why is <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iujkG7GdMZg" target="_blank">this video</a></b> where he states: "I would not consider myself an abusive person in my romantic relationships. And that's debatable. I was toxic. I'll say that ... but I would never dream of taking my partner's money, or like hitting them, or intentionally making them feel insane, or take advantage of them in some way ..." <br /> Exploitation, abusiveness and gaslighting are usually very common traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and most of us have run into narcissists who use all three - narcissists like Jason seem rare. Without those three ingredients, it puts him on a lighter part of the spectrum. So, keep this in mind when you listen to him. <br /> Sam Vaknin (above) calls himself a malignant narcissist (i.e. with some Antisocial Personality Disorder traits). But, he too, is unusual. For one thing, he was abused so constantly and so intrusively that he describes his childhood in some of his videos as "like the Holocaust". So, in other words he was a scapegoat, and like a lot of scapegoats, he has a bit of rebelliousness and wants to know why he was treated so badly, and what was going on when he was a child (including why a mother would hate her son to that degree), and feels free to talk about his vulnerabilities and even his diagnosis. Most narcissists would not be caught dead talking about either. They'd still be trying to please their parent (and not saying or staying quiet about your abuse as a child is part of pleasing an abusive parent, by the way - oh, yes, they want you to lie or omit). Also scapegoats are the least likely in abusive toxic families to be diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (according t</span><span style="color: #800180;">o therapist, Jay Reid). <br /> Sam Vaknin is also so much more aware and <b><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1635039/#:~:text=The%20five%2Dfactor%20model%20of,Neuroticism%2C%20and%20Openness%20to%20Experience." target="_blank">"open to new experiences"</a></b> than other narcissists, including changing, and growing, and advising others on what to do with the narcissists in their own lives (his words: "Abandon the narcissist."). <br /> It's doubtful you will run into any narcissists as self aware as Professor Vaknin. Self awareness is so lacking in the overwhelming majority of narcissists, and for some it is non-existent, that most people feel like they are talking to a brick wall, especially if there is an issue to be resolved in your common relationship. Not so with him. <br /> So also keep this in mind. <br /> H.G. Tudor, below (who is hiding his identity, other than the fact that he is British), seems much more like your average narcissist, however, I feel that you can gain more knowledge about the "whys" from Jason Skidmore and Sam Vaknin than Tudor. I think it takes missing a few of the traits to get into the nitty gritty of why narcissists act as they do. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8Tqk_353K8" target="_blank">The Narcissist is (and feels) FAKE</a></b> - by Jacob Skidmore, the Nameless Narcissist (You Tube)</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BBo6GK8XzE" target="_blank">The Narcissist’s MASK</a></b> - by Jacob Skidmore, the Nameless Narcissist (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEV7hFTe1F8" target="_blank">The Narcissist is completely empty</a></b> - by Jacob Skidmore, the Nameless Narcissist (You Tube)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvyuZhq11-I" target="_blank">The Narcissist’s vulnerability is FAKE</a></b> - by Jacob Skidmore, the Nameless Narcissist (You Tube)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY1Jf3TAydw" target="_blank">Narcissists are NEVER themselves</a></b> - by Jacob Skidmore, the Nameless Narcissist (You Tube)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKqRzHDLzIE" target="_blank">Narcissists are NOT HUMAN</a></b> - by Jacob Skidmore, the Nameless Narcissist (You Tube)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v71VKusz0g" target="_blank">Narcissists don’t feel like real people</a></b> - by Jacob Skidmore, the Nameless Narcissist (You Tube)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPQ-Rh_f-MI" target="_blank">Why the narcissist always fakes his emotions</a></b> - by Jacob Skidmore, the Nameless Narcissist (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMJY_r9zhqo" target="_blank">Do Narcissists care if they make you cry?</a></b> - by Jacob Skidmore, the Nameless Narcissist (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR9_mSOFluk" target="_blank">Why the narcissist always accuses you of lying to them</a></b> - by Jacob Skidmore, the Nameless Narcissist (You Tube)<br /> Note: In this video he makes the case that he (and other narcissists) lie and make up grandiose stories about themselves to impress other people (and he asks the question to his audience, "Why wouldn't anyone do that?"). It gets down to making up a personality too, though he doesn't say this, but I think it is implied: Why wouldn't someone act out a personality type to please someone else, if your goal is to please, or entice?<br /> It gets down to upbringing, especially the golden child role with a parent who disciplines children with heavy judgments about their character, for instance, the constant "You are - " statements. A golden child is also expected to live his entire life in the service of pleasing his parent most of the time.<br /> Narcissists most often assume they are not narcissists, especially if they are never diagnosed, and that everyone goes through life lying and acting. It may have something to do with the fact that in forums for narcissists I often see them accusing each other of "faking it", "being fake", "lying to themselves and others", "being a fraud". <br /> But they say this to non-narcissists too, which is a clue that they think we, in the majority, are like narcissists in this regard. No, we are not. <br /> Contrast that with other forums. This never goes on in forums for survivors of abuse, for instance. <br /> The "Why not lie?" question that Jason brings up in his video explains so much. As if social standing is some sort of concrete thing you can build that can never change or get knocked down when they get caught at being inauthentic. <br /> There are so many obvious and serious reasons not to lie. When I was over-exposed to narcissists at one point in my life, the alternate realities painted by narcissists was awful to live in. I felt nauseous and head-achy most of the time. I was deemed crazy, of course, for not going along with the alternate realities (which, as we know is <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">called gaslighting</a></b>). So, I find being around narcissists who insist that other people believe in their lies and alternate realities, and Dr. Jekyll niceness (when they have an obvious Mr. Hyde side that is very, very cruel and annihilating) to be traumatic, especially when you don't believe them and they become insistent and try to lecture you into the unrealities to wear you down. Malignant narcissists especially won't let it go. They can hammer you to believe them endlessly and even threaten you if you won't at least say, "I believe you." Changing, tampering with and coercively trying to control someone's "beliefs" should never be some end goal anyway, and being pressured to believe is something narcissists themselves don't tolerate, so why do they do it to us? <br /> Anyway, there is a trauma aspect to dealing with someone's acting jobs (especially finding out that they never loved you, but were with you to manipulate something, or to get narcissistic supply and power, possibly even to sabotage you), and lying (forcing others to believe something that isn't true). <br /> And then there is the problem of them being caught. If they fake running a marathon, and they get caught faking it, that they were never even at the marathon to begin with, they risk people not taking the narcissist seriously in anything they have to say. They lose clout. And people start wondering why anyone would want to lie about something like that when there is so much down-fall to lying?<br /> It explains why narcissists don't listen to what we have to say. They are always trying to find the alternate reality even of what we are saying. Or they look to see if there are any manipulative motivations to lie in us, and they go on "possible motivations" as their excuse to accuse someone of lying. And it is why they insist that we are lying when we are not. That's such a crazy-making world to live in and most of us can't live in that world with them. <br /> It also explains why narcissists don't take getting caught seriously. "Oh, it was just a little fib. It never hurt anyone! I was just trying to see if anyone caught on! Everyone lies, you know." Or they cover it up with another lie: "I was there. We all have our moments of forgetfulness. No one saw me because they were running and trying to win instead." <br /> For most of us, reality is something we don't want to tamper with because it kills the trust between people (trust is necessary for an ongoing healthy relationship), kills the clout (we see that the ethics are very, very low - "and what other unethical deeds do they do?"), and it really kills the desire to have anything but the most superficial relationship with them, if even that. <br /> On a grander scale, tampering with reality becomes a world of wild conspiracy theories and such drastically different perspectives that it creates many divisions and sometimes confusion. We see that in American society today. Conspiracy theories in politics are running people's decisions more and more, and we are creating a situation much like the kind of family narcissist's insist we live in when we are children. <br /> Narcissists love their made up totally untarnished images and the many lies that go with it, but we don't have to love it or feed it or be talked into it. <br /> Who wants to have a life like the one in their forums where they are all trying to convince one another that they are fake and fraudulent? What about trying to find a cure for Multiple Sclerosis instead? Or how about trying to find a cure for the trauma that narcissists bring to our lives? Anything seems better than spending your life on this, yes?<br /><br /><span style="color: #800180;"><u>Articles, Radio and You Tube videos by H.G. Tudor</u>:</span><br /><br /><b><a href="https://narcsite.com/2016/01/14/always-on-the-fake/" target="_blank">Always on the Fake</a></b> - by H.G. Tudor<br />excerpt:<br /> <i> ... The reason it seemed so genuine is because our performance was so convincing. This performance was of such a high calibre owing to two things. The first because we have practised repeatedly and we possess experienced ease at mimicking the behaviour of others. We have done it so often and to so many people we do it without thinking. And there is the neat segue into the second reason. We do it without thinking because we believe it to be absolutely the right thing to do. We are not concerned that we are exhibiting a false front to you. We are not troubled by the fact that all our smiles, kisses and pleasantries are manufactured. Not only are we not burdened by this because we are not designed to be burdened by such concerns it also because we have the complete and utter conviction that behaving in this manner is the right thing to do. We need to seduce you. We need to ensnare you and what better way to do so than by this campaign of love and desire? Where is the harm in that? We get you where we want you, we receive dollops of delicious fuel and you feel loved, wanted and placed on a throne at the top of a pedestal. It is a win- win surely? ...<br /></i><br /><b><a href="https://narcsite.com/2019/04/01/hiding-from-yourself-2/" target="_blank">Hiding from Yourself</a></b> - by H.G. Tudor<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.tumblr.com/skippyv20/702850743347118080/hg-tudor?source=share" target="_blank">A Word About Pathological Narcissism</a></b> - by H.G. Tudor (Tumblr) </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b><a href="https://fairytaleshadows.com/idealization-and-devaluation-why-narcissists-flip/" target="_blank">Idealization and Devaluation: Why Narcissists Flip</a></b> - by H.G. Tudor for Fairy Tale Shadows<br /><br /><b><a href="https://radiopublic.com/knowing-the-narcissist-hg-tudor-WYYvKd" target="_blank">5 Things You Do Wrong When it Comes to Narcissists and What You Should Do Instead</a></b> - by H.G. Tudor for Radio Public (google Play)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTzjl19nPRM" target="_blank">Do Narcissists Lose Their Sense of Self?</a></b> - by H.G. Tudor (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYzlDM31Keo" target="_blank">The Narcissist's Performance of One: Part 1</a></b> - by H.G. Tudor (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL8ocSsIOJc" target="_blank">The Narcissist's Performance of One : Part 2</a></b> - by H.G. Tudor (You Tube)<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">VIDEOS BY A PSYCHOLOGIST (NON-NARCISSIST)<br />ON THE FALSE SELF<br /><br />"To Narcissists, Lying Is A Necessity"<br />by Dr. Les Carter for Surviving Narcissism:<br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pVuK5kXWnzg" width="320" youtube-src-id="pVuK5kXWnzg"></iframe></div><br /></div></div><p style="text-align: center;">""HOW THE FALSE SELF DEVELOPS"<br />by Dr. Les Carter for Surviving Narcissism:<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0IIJZ71KbMM" width="320" youtube-src-id="0IIJZ71KbMM"></iframe></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;">"THE MAKING OF A NARCISSIST: How Narcissists Are Trapped Inside The False Self"<br />by Dr. Les Carter for Surviving Narcissism:<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IBDTxh3p3Fo" width="320" youtube-src-id="IBDTxh3p3Fo"></iframe><br /><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;">FURTHER READING<br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://adaptivetherapy.com/treatment-for-narcissism.html" target="_blank">Treatment of the False Self (Narcissistic Defenses)</a></b> - by Michael Etts, LCSW-C for Adaptive Therapy<br />excerpt:<br /><i> Rules of the false self family:<br /> Exhibit socially desirable traits (appearance, money, athleticism, intelligence, etc) to bolster the family image and hero status will be awarded<br /> Failing to bolster the family image or identifying flaws in the dominant parent will result in the assignment of scapegoat status<br /> Do not question the family consensual reality that the family unit is “special” “gifted” “lucky” or in other ways superior.<br /> Feelings and emotional intimacy are discouraged except “positive” feelings like being happy. This contributes to the myth of the “happy family” that is believed and presented to outsiders. This happy facade is often considered evidence of the family superiority. Empathy, compassion, sadness and warmth are all compromised, especially for those outside the family of origin.<br /> Dependency and attachment needs are disowned and denied. Guilt, power, money, etc are used to control family members to assure that dependency and attachment needs are met. In accordance with this, saying “no” or setting boundaries is reserved for the dominant parent (and to a lesser degree, the subordinate parent).<br /> The self esteem that does exist is entirely conditional and is based on feeling “better than” others. This requires almost constant judgment of others, both within the family and those outside the family. This explains the main function of the scapegoat. They are to assume an inferior role and thus enable a superior role for the remaining family members.<br /> In the more troubled false self families, children are largely objectified, related to as sources of gratification for the dominant parent’s needs. In a sense, children are seen as vending machines. Something that one goes to to get something, without the need for reciprocity. The idea that children are thinking, feeling beings with their own needs, is not acknowledged. This becomes the relational style of the hero.</i></div><p></p><div><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_self_and_false_self#:~:text=%22False%20self%22%2C%20by%20contrast,real%2C%20such%20as%20in%20narcissism." target="_blank">True self and false self</a></b> - Wikipedia<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/toxic-relationships/201804/understanding-the-mind-narcissist#:~:text=Despite%20having%20a%20seemingly%20strong,esteem%20and%20fragile%2C%20fragmented%20self." target="_blank">Understanding the Mind of a Narcissist (Narcissists are not who they appear to be. They're both easy and hard to love.)</a></b> - by Darlene Lancer, JD, LMFT for Psychology Today<br /></div><br /><b><a href="https://www.healthyplace.com/personality-disorders/malignant-self-love/dual-role-of-the-false-self#:~:text=Without%20the%20False%20Self%2C%20the,False%20Self%20has%20many%20functions." target="_blank">The Dual Role of the False Self</a></b> - by Sam Vaknin for Healthy Place<br /><br /><b><a href="https://medium.com/know-thyself-heal-thyself/how-do-narcissists-hide-and-suppress-themselves-bcfc2750b633#:~:text=The%20narcissist%20puts%20on%20a,a%20facade%2C%20a%20false%20self." target="_blank">How Do Narcissists Hide And Suppress Themselves?</a></b> - by Fahim chughtai for Medium.com<br /><br /><b><a href="https://elevationbehavioralhealth.com/why-do-narcissists-lie/#:~:text=better%20about%20themselves.-,Narcissist%20Lies%20Often%20Turn%20Into%20Gaslighting,to%20question%20their%20own%20sanity." target="_blank">Can a Narcissist Stop Lying Even With Evidence?</a></b> - by the administrators of Elevation Behavioral Health <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.narcissisticabuserehab.com/false-self/" target="_blank">The Narcissist’s False Self</a></b> - by Mayna Wakefield for Narcissistic Abuse Rehab<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/false-self-syndrome-the-dangers-of-living-a-lie-to-fit-in_b_12010650#:~:text=Some%20psychiatrists%20have%20suggested%20that,%22%20or%20%22wearing%20a%20mask%22" target="_blank">False Self Syndrome: The Dangers Of Living A Lie To Fit In</a></b> - by Robert Whitley, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, McGill University for Huffington Post<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-about-men/202103/false-self-true-self-the-perils-living-lie-fit-in" target="_blank">False Self-True Self: The Perils of Living a Lie to Fit In (Exploring the link between authenticity and mental health.)</a></b> - by Rob Whitley, Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br /><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/lib/why-narcissists-act-the-way-they-do#1" target="_blank">Why Narcissists Act the Way They Do</a></b> - by Darlene Lancer, JD, MFT (medically reviewed by Scientific Advisory Board) for Psych Central<br /><br /><b><a href="https://steveblizard.wordpress.com/2018/08/07/behind-the-facade-the-false-self-of-the-narcissist/" target="_blank">Behind the Facade: The “False Self” of the Narcissist</a></b> - by Steve Blizard for the Steve Blizard blog<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.676733/full#:~:text=In%20the%20case%20of%20narcissistic,functioning%20in%20empathy%20and%20intimacy." target="_blank">Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Are Psychodynamic Theories and the Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorders Finally Going to Meet?</a></b> - by Frans Schalkwijk, Patrick Luyten, Theo Ingenhoven and Jack Dekker for Frontiers - professional paper<br /><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/blog/liberation/2018/08/healing-from-identity-loss-after-narcissistic-abuse" target="_blank">Healing from Identity Loss After Narcissistic Abuse</a></b> - by Kim Saeed for Psych Central<br /><br /><b><a href="https://bpded.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40479-022-00209-6#:~:text=More%20recently%2C%20significant%20associations%20between,22%2C%2065%2C%2071%5D." target="_blank">“It’s not you, it’s me”: identity disturbance as the main contributor to interpersonal problems in pathological narcissism</a></b> - by Marko Biberdzic, Junhao Tan and Nicholas J. S. Day for Bio Med Central - professional paper<br /><br /><b><a href="https://medium.com/@jadencraymer/unveiling-the-mask-the-secrets-behind-narcissists-constant-identity-swaps-a37f50a11ffa#:~:text=At%20the%20core%20of%20all,of%20getting%20what%20they%20want." target="_blank">Unveiling the Mask: The Secrets Behind Narcissists’ Constant Identity Swaps</a></b> - by Jaden Craymer for Medium<br /> Note: this article argues that identity swapping is about getting control<br /><br /><b><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31115349/" target="_blank">Insight across mental disorders: A multifaceted metacognitive phenomenon</a></b> - by G Konstantakopoulos for National Library of medicine (PubMed) - professional article<br /><br /><b><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15533196/" target="_blank">Self creation and the limitless void of dissociation: the 'as if' personality</a></b> - by Hester McFarland Solomon for National Library of medicine (PubMed) - professional article<br /><br /><b><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2798203/" target="_blank">Self psychology and the narcissistic personality disorders</a></b> - by A Goldberg for National Library of medicine (PubMed) - professional article<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.heraldopenaccess.us/openaccess/dissociation-and-confabulation-in-narcissistic-disorders#:~:text=The%20narcissist%20needs%20the%20input,sense%20of%20self%2Dworth)." target="_blank">Dissociation and Confabulation in Narcissistic Disorders</a></b> - by Sam Vaknin for Herald - professional article<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/evolution-the-self/201311/6-less-known-signs-narcissism#:~:text=Lacks%20empathy%3A%20is%20unwilling%20%5Bor,and%20abusive%5D%20behaviors%20or%20attitudes." target="_blank">6 Less-Known Signs of Narcissism (How can you recognize the fragility behind the narcissist’s grandiosity?)</a></b> - by Leon F Seltzer PhD for Psychology Today</div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/blog/discoveries/2018/05/narcissists-7-weaknesses-reveal#1" target="_blank">Narcissists 7 Weaknesses Reveal</a></b> - by Amy Pierce Romine for Psych Central<br /><br /><b><a href="https://discover.hubpages.com/health/Narcissists-Have-No-Identity" target="_blank">Narcissists Have No Identity</a></b> - by the Little Shaman for Hub Pages </div><div> Note: this is not a professional article, but there is a lot of insight (possibly taken from Vaknin's many studies on the lack of identity in Narcissistic Personality Disorder) <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.quora.com/Do-narcissists-struggle-with-identity-issues" target="_blank">Do narcissists struggle with identity issues?</a></b> - Quora question<br /><br /><b>RECOMMENDED:</b> <a href="https://community.thriveglobal.com/catching-a-narcissist-in-a-lie-what-happens/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Catching a Narcissist in a Lie (What Happens?)</a> - by Rebecca Zung for Thrive Global<br />excerpt:<br /> <i>If you catch a narcissist in a lie and confront them, you will definitely face at least one of the Four D’s. They will either deny, deflect, devalue, and/or dismiss you.<br /></i><br /><b><a href="https://www.wikihow.com/Trick-a-Narcissist-Into-Telling-the-Truth" target="_blank">How to Trick a Narcissist Into Telling the Truth</a></b> - by Jay Reid, LPCC, and Madeleine Flamiano for WikiHow<br /><br /><b>RECOMMENDED (this post gets into the adoption of twisting reality to conform to their beliefs): <a href="https://goodmenproject.com/sex-relationships/narcissists-dont-lie-they-create-alternate-realities/" target="_blank">Narcissists Don’t Lie, They Create Alternate Realities</a></b> - by Kara Summers (her own story plus interviewing a psychologist) for The Good Men Project<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gOpKJ8Axcs" target="_blank">Would I Lie To You? A Narcissist's Fluid Relationship With Truth</a></b> - by Dr. Les Carter (You Tube)<br />excerpt:<br /><i>Narcissists have such a need to look good and to have their way that they are (shall we say) loose with the truth. With a motive of self-promotion, they can gaslight you will all sorts of comments leaving you just shaking your head in dismay. Dr. Les Carter exposes this pervasive pattern with the goal of promoting insight and awareness as you respond.<br /></i><br /><b>RECOMMENDED: <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/13/parents-who-make-these-mistakes-are-more-likely-to-raise-narcissist-kids-says-neuroscientist.html" target="_blank">A neuroscientist says parents who make these 3 mistakes are more likely to raise a narcissist</a></b> - by Cody Isabel for Make It<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.karstennoack.com/narcissists-lie/" target="_blank">Why Do Narcissists Lie So Blatantly? Chronic Lying of Narcissists</a></b> - by Karsten Noack for his own site <br /><br /><b>RECOMMENDED: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-reasons-narcissist-moves-so-quickly-sarah-squires#:~:text=The%20cerebral%20cortex%20has%20also,the%20rest%20of%20us%20do." target="_blank">5 Reasons A Narcissist Moves On So Quickly</a></b> - by Sarah Squires, Abuse Recovery Coach, NAPARRC for LinkedIn.<br />excerpt:<br /><i> ... 1. The area of the brain responsible for empathy (the frontal lobe) is much less developed in a narcissist that the rest of the average population. Therefore they are physically less able to understand others feelings and so will struggle to recognise love. We learn how to love from others but if our brains are less capable of performing this function, we won’t learn how to love meaning relationships are much more superficial for narcissists. ... </i><br /><i> ... 4. The cerebral cortex has also been found to be less developed in narcissists and this area is responsible for memory, emotions and behaviour. Therefore the narcissist seems to move on so fast because their emotions are not as deep as ours but also, they don’t form memories in the same way the rest of us do. For most of us it’s the memories which keep us attached to someone and unable to move on. The narcissist doesn’t have this problem. Their brain hasn’t stored those memories in the same way so they can quickly move on without the attachment. ...</i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://calmerry.com/blog/personality-disorders/what-is-narcissistic-personality-disorder-2/" target="_blank">What Is Narcissistic Personality Disorder?</a></b> - by Kate Dube, LCSW for Calmerry<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/personality-disorders/types-of-personality-disorder/" target="_blank">Personality disorders (Explains personality disorders, including possible causes and how you can access treatment and support. Includes tips for helping yourself, and guidance for friends and family.)</a></b> - by the Administrator of Mind (Welsh organization in the U.K.) - provides information on all of the personality disorders (many personality disordered individuals have a number of overlapping personality disorders. </div><br /><b><a href="https://www.powerofpositivity.com/how-to-spot-wolf-in-sheeps-clothing/" target="_blank">How To Spot A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing</a></b> - from the administrators of Power of Positivity blog<br />excerpt:<br /> ... <i>What does a wolf in sheep’s clothing mean? The warning regarding the wolf references a sermon often taught by Christian leaders, from Jesus Christ “beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” (Gospel of Matthew 7:15, King James Version) </i>...<br /> My note: apparently narcissists and psychopaths have been around for a long time. Read more excerpts:<br /> <i>... However, the message has since evolved beyond its origins in the church to serve as a warning not to trust someone in a friendly disguise who may not be a good person.<br /> What is the moral of the wolf in sheep’s clothing? Generally, a wolf in sheep’s clothing will display “red flags” that can potentially unveil its true intentions. ...<br /></i> ... <i>Be careful how much you tolerate. You're teaching them how to treat you</i> ...<br /> My note: Yes indeed! <br /> ...<i> The wolf in sheep’s clothing makes being with them fun and exciting at first, and then they shift the focus of the relationship onto them and their needs. ... <br /></i> My note: red flag!<br /> ... <i>A wolf in sheep’s clothing will try to hook you with sweet talk and a false sense of interest. That is how they build trust and form a bond. It enables them to use us emotionally once the real motive of the relationship becomes clear. ...<br /></i> My note: it's called <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/08/love-bombing-by-narcissists-and.html" target="_blank">love bombing</a></b>. <br /> ... <i>Take note of your friends’ feelings when you recommend something. If they harshly react when they don’t agree with you or when criticized, the wolf may be hiding underneath.</i> ...<br /> My note: narcissists and psychopaths <b>rage when they feel criticized</b>. "Feel" is the operative word here. <br /> ... <i>After you hear their story, you intuitively feel that they have embellished major parts of it or just fabricated the entire thing altogether.</i> ...<br /> My note: narcissists and psychopaths like to deal in <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/04/narcissists-sociopaths-and-abusers-why.html" target="_blank">false narratives</a></b> (anything to feed their ego, and to get them on an entitled bandwagon). <br /> ... <i>They quickly grow impatient.</i><div><i> Impatience can be defined as the following: <br /> 1. Irritable behavior that results from delays</i></div><div><i> 2. A restless need for change and excitement. </i>... <br /> My note: impatience is not always the sign of narcissism, but it usually is for people who perpetrate domestic violence (i.e. people who have traits of psychopathy). </div><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/09/us-culture-moral-education-formation/674765/" target="_blank">HOW AMERICA GOT MEAN (In a culture devoid of moral education, generations are growing up in a morally inarticulate, self-referential world</a></b> - by David Brooks, Illustrations by Ricardo Tomás for The Atlantic<br />excerpt:<br /> <i>... The story I’m going to tell is about morals. In a healthy society, a web of institutions—families, schools, religious groups, community organizations, and workplaces—helps form people into kind and responsible citizens, the sort of people who show up for one another. We live in a society that’s terrible at moral formation. ...</i><br /><i> ... In 1788, Noah Webster wrote, “The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities ; and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.” The progressive philosopher John Dewey wrote in 1909 that schools teach morality “every moment of the day, five days a week.” Hollis Frissell, the president of the Hampton Institute, an early school for African Americans, declared, “Character is the main object of education.” As late as 1951, a commission organized by the National Education Association, one of the main teachers’ unions, stated that “an unremitting concern for moral and spiritual values continues to be a top priority for education.” ... </i><br /><i> ... Expecting people to build a satisfying moral and spiritual life on their own by looking within themselves is asking too much. A culture that leaves people morally naked and alone leaves them without the skills to be decent to one another. Social trust falls partly because more people are untrustworthy. That creates crowds of what psychologists call “vulnerable narcissists.” We all know grandiose narcissists—people who revere themselves as the center of the universe. Vulnerable narcissists are the more common figures in our day—people who are also addicted to thinking about themselves, but who often feel anxious, insecure, avoidant. Intensely sensitive to rejection, they scan for hints of disrespect. Their self-esteem is wildly in flux. Their uncertainty about their inner worth triggers cycles of distrust, shame, and hostility. ... </i><br /><i> ... Sadness, loneliness, and self-harm turn into bitterness. Social pain is ultimately a response to a sense of rejection—of being invisible, unheard, disrespected, victimized. When people feel that their identity is unrecognized, the experience registers as an injustice—because it is. People who have been treated unjustly often lash out and seek ways to humiliate those who they believe have humiliated them. ... </i><br /><i> ... Lonely eras are not just sad eras; they are violent ones. In 19th-century America, when a lot of lonely young men were crossing the western frontier, one of the things they tended to do was shoot one another. As the saying goes, pain that is not transformed gets transmitted. People grow more callous, defensive, distrustful, and hostile. The pandemic made it worse, but antisocial behavior is still high even though the lockdowns are over. And now we are caught in a cycle, ill treatment leading to humiliation and humiliation leading to more meanness. Social life becomes more barbaric, online and off. ... </i><br /><i> ... Normally, she argues, we go about our days with self-centered, self-serving eyes. We see and judge people in ways that satisfy our own ego. We diminish and stereotype and ignore, reducing other people to bit players in our own all-consuming personal drama. But we become morally better, she continues, as we learn to see others deeply, as we learn to envelop others in the kind of patient, caring regard that makes them feel seen, heard, and understood. This is the kind of attention that implicitly asks, “What are you going through?” and cares about the answer. ... </i><br /><i> ... Democracy is the system that best enhances human dignity. Democratic regimes entrust power to the people, and try to inform people so they will be responsible with that trust. Authoritarian regimes seek to create a world in which the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. ...</i><br /> My note: democracy is better even in the family, especially when co-members are adults. Authoritarian families are much more likely to create criminals, immoral acts, to present a false image to outsiders, and to be an abusive family with a lot of ostracized and estranged members. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">FOUND ON FACEBOOK<br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8p32ev5GuSuOGA60kx7Jrat9K0xFZ9Fnh5DeFUMImOoBgKvZUzj-K4OYFQw03wFMc72bdJpnlCdAtyYqMUy9csp9Blw2dnUAO9tzal1iI2rwe0bB7uR-cFWVpOLeP5uE9sUsu7lQHkr7dCa3Kcmo7xpKetv9CJcwyvX_OuqdUq0CgaHMPSDWHqkiMXMA/s498/go%20eat%20a%20donut.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="458" data-original-width="498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8p32ev5GuSuOGA60kx7Jrat9K0xFZ9Fnh5DeFUMImOoBgKvZUzj-K4OYFQw03wFMc72bdJpnlCdAtyYqMUy9csp9Blw2dnUAO9tzal1iI2rwe0bB7uR-cFWVpOLeP5uE9sUsu7lQHkr7dCa3Kcmo7xpKetv9CJcwyvX_OuqdUq0CgaHMPSDWHqkiMXMA/s16000/go%20eat%20a%20donut.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil6khDelr0LkZi6HzxHZRs12-dc7YfUrS8rQJ1m65vF7zZQZ_m4KxvjII0OHTjeMGVnj9aBb5kSDOSErVPIpImj0Mtvbjy91adjUIHI4IFIvSQeoJLpJWY8BBa9EmmpVdbgXT4J0fK2xSBQngIQWkDEgxAePl639jEqWi0k-dcAMLuCi1q4sGEaL7oKL4/s498/focused%20on%20control.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil6khDelr0LkZi6HzxHZRs12-dc7YfUrS8rQJ1m65vF7zZQZ_m4KxvjII0OHTjeMGVnj9aBb5kSDOSErVPIpImj0Mtvbjy91adjUIHI4IFIvSQeoJLpJWY8BBa9EmmpVdbgXT4J0fK2xSBQngIQWkDEgxAePl639jEqWi0k-dcAMLuCi1q4sGEaL7oKL4/s16000/focused%20on%20control.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVhsr5Q1rgIHPwSm6Zo2-kAvNStw5PhB5D25ULptzXN5O3UvJZ1CPw9CGE6u2kJadCfiOruVmvabC8UVtoikd0PgTHSqmpzZJ6prW-qGCsU_sekJrAc_ap45muENhiMB3Ada-h09gMw31KMDdje7pk2oLdeXA-rlceY_XEY-ObOl2dVMkHHHfNHQiv3As/s562/poor%20innocent%20victim%20not.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="546" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVhsr5Q1rgIHPwSm6Zo2-kAvNStw5PhB5D25ULptzXN5O3UvJZ1CPw9CGE6u2kJadCfiOruVmvabC8UVtoikd0PgTHSqmpzZJ6prW-qGCsU_sekJrAc_ap45muENhiMB3Ada-h09gMw31KMDdje7pk2oLdeXA-rlceY_XEY-ObOl2dVMkHHHfNHQiv3As/s16000/poor%20innocent%20victim%20not.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzN3ED_g3FprdFL25VLpBSRzPoHWW0ZOT7MF5bYOmVXAXy25G45zEvXUdRp8brfpydttjm3cK0Z-Q_Chi_ZvkkG6ZUNUztMATi4vrI5CGs4e4bmxleauDW0rqOZyhvgJSXAk8KAb7Mb33tbL_-7EC6Y8sFJzvg3N1YC1F4XBX3UQnikj2_IEvsW-zQ4YY/s496/not%20putting%20up%20with%20it.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzN3ED_g3FprdFL25VLpBSRzPoHWW0ZOT7MF5bYOmVXAXy25G45zEvXUdRp8brfpydttjm3cK0Z-Q_Chi_ZvkkG6ZUNUztMATi4vrI5CGs4e4bmxleauDW0rqOZyhvgJSXAk8KAb7Mb33tbL_-7EC6Y8sFJzvg3N1YC1F4XBX3UQnikj2_IEvsW-zQ4YY/s16000/not%20putting%20up%20with%20it.jpg" /></a></div></div></div></div></div><p></p>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-43365229942476758262023-08-16T12:25:00.014-07:002023-08-31T14:11:26.845-07:00UPDATE<p>I planned to have a post published a couple of weeks ago, and I hope it can be published by the weekend, but there are a number of issues going on in my life. I am just one person who keeps the blog alive for my readers. <br /><br />The major work I have done on narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder as it relates to abuse is almost done. I was asked to do a post on "<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/08/why-do-narcissists-care-so-much-about.html" target="_blank">What is the real identity of a narcissist?</a></b> And how can they go from such kindness to utter cruelty in the blink of an eye? Are they mostly cruel or are they mostly kind? Which is it? What's their real character? And why do they try to hide their cruelty and justify it? Do they really believe their cruelty is justified?" - in large part this question will be answered this weekend (hopefully), but not all of it, but you will be able to see why a lot more clearly. <br /> (edit: published on August 31st, actually - later than I thought)<br /><br />The other ones that I will be publishing (hopefully in quick succession) will be about:<br /><br />- narcissists and envy and jealousy and what it has to do with abuse<br /><br />- how shame and rage are intertwined in narcissistic abuse, and even why they discard people, why they can't really hear what you are saying, their propensity to have selective hearing, and why they are so destructive to others especially in self esteem matters when this is going on. This "trait" is pretty exclusive to them, and when you see it, you can't "un-see it". It can help you to make a choice as to how you want to relate to them, whether you want to back off, only see them twice a year at a public place, and so on. I think it is as "stand-out" and as important as their grasping for power and control in most interpersonal relationships. Most of us know that abuse is about power and control - that aspect of abuse has been talked about the most, and drilled into the public consciousness for at least three decades. But there is another aspect to their rage besides power and control and it is as important as the power and control issue, something absolutely imperative to look out for, and why it can be a marker and a warning sign for safety issues, for how much further to proceed, why it is such a big deal for them and not for us, and why they would take such big chances at destroying relationships over it. The first post I'll be publishing on "what kind of identity do narcissists have?" is a precursor to the shame/rage post. Without that one, it's hard to understand this topic. <br /><br />For these two posts, the writing is done except for some touch-ups. <br /><br />I also did a recent update on <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/how-narcissistic-abuse-ages-you-makes.html" target="_blank">THIS POST</a></b> about trauma and illness. Check that out.<br /><br />Some shorter posts are in the works too, and are well known to this condition (however, I'll be interspersing them more with other topics that have more to do with trauma research and Borderline Personality Disorder as it relates to the topic of abuse). Some of the other posts in the works on narcissism include: <br /><br />- hoovering and sometimes stalking<br /><br />- a much deeper dive into the narcissist's typical way of dealing with chronic or serious interpersonal problems (<a href="https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/idealize-devalue-discard-the-dizzying-cycle-of-narcissism-0325154" target="_blank"><b>idealize, devalue, discard</b></a>) often accompanied by either the silent treatment or hoovering, and how it relates to common trauma responses in the people that are dealing with this - it might be saved for when I begin the trauma section of this blog since they are so often linked.<br /> <br />- Narcissist's "superiority complex" - do they have reasons for this other than wanting power and control over others? Is persuading you that they are superior about trying to make you feel that you are hierarchically much lower than they are, even if you don't want to be in the hierarchy game and could care less about this narcissistic competition of theirs? Or is it about trying to get you to accept that they are the authority on subjects and issues and that you are not? Or is it about about feeding their ego? Sort of all of these things, but it is not really looking into the core of the matter. It actually has a lot more to do with "what kind of identity and character do most narcissists have?", the post-to-be-published next. But underneath it all, do they really feel like this "big know-it-all", bigger-than-life, bigger-than-thou, super confident, super-man or super-woman person most of the time? Hint: not so much, and especially for covert narcissists, and especially since this grandiosity fails them in big ways especially when they are older than 30 or so. They can't stand to admit it because then "the power and control agenda" is compromised and can be disputed, at least in their eyes, and most feel they can't have that questioned (most narcissists feel that power and control over others is imperative to their well being).</p><p> The issue, really, has more to do with why they prefer superseding "who they really are" with this constant barrage of aggressive persuasion-oriented "I-know-the-answer talk" instead. In other words, "the superiority complex" is really a defense mechanism so much of the time. <br /><br />- broken relationships, estrangements, divorces, affairs - most of this has to do with power and control demands, shame-rage issues, triangulation, lack of empathy, and the fact that most people don't know how to relate to the narcissist's tactics beyond trauma responses where non-narcissists are called upon to give up all of their personal power (autonomous decision-making) and boundaries and so much more of themselves ... which is to say that <u>most people get trauma symptoms</u> when they are in close personal relationships with narcissists. There are a few who don't get trauma symptoms, some who get mild trauma symptoms, and some who get full blown PTSD, and I'll be discussing that too.<br /><br />- Why narcissists spiral down in terms of morals and ethics when they are challenged, or feel they have to "win something", or after they traumatize others (note: it is not always for sadistic reasons, although in some of them it is exactly for those reasons - these would be your malignant narcissists). Most of them don't really have any morals and ethics to begin with beyond what they find serves them (and where they make sure the ethics and morals are different for them than they are for you), but they also don't have many ethics and morals because of their childhood background too. You'll see why. <br /><br />- the isolation tactic (trying to isolate you from others - it's partly why they gaslight, and it is why they triangulate to some degree, and it is used as punishment against you too) ... even so, they use it on just about everyone in their close personal relationships as an extremely "flawed" insurance policy to keep from being abandoned, to keep from losing power, and to keep you in the role that they have assigned to you. It doesn't garner the results they want all that well, and once they try to use it in the punishment stage, it is really quite in-effectual (unless they are keeping you under lock and key, but then it's not just an isolation tactic any more that we are talking about). You will understand why it is more masochistic than rewarding for the narcissist. So, if you feel like they are trying to control relationships, and who says what to whom, and they are trying to dominate conversations that you are having with others, or when they tell others what you feel and think, they have an agenda to keep you from forming deep attachments to others - usually. And you definitely see it when they are at the "smear campaign stage." <br /> It explains a lot of why, in narcissistic families, siblings are not close, or when children feel that their extended family has been told something they are not aware of because the family is not as welcoming and friendly as, say, the friends, teachers, neighbors, most other grown-ups, or your other side of the family. In the more extreme cases trying to isolate you is why narcissists threaten false imprisonment or go through with false imprisonment, why they constantly threaten abandonments too, and why they try to infantilize and parentify you and expect you to follow orders (i.e. micro-manage what you do and what you say to others), and it even has quite a bit to do with stalking, home invasion, the suspicious behavior they show, keeping track of your whereabouts including who you are seeing, what you are talking about with those people, and way too much interrogating, and more. This is an important one to understand too, but it may be published some time after I talk about Borderline Personality Disorder just so that you can see the difference between the two in this regard. <br /> This is to say that one sub-type of borderline can make attempts to isolate you too (but in a different way and for somewhat different reasons), and your reactions to being isolated are treated differently by them too. <br /> It is also to say that attempts to isolate don't always mean they are a narcissist. <br /> In fact, sociopaths and psychopaths (the antisocial personality disordered) also isolate those people they are in close personal relationships with and can be much more dangerous about it than borderlines and narcissists.<br /><br />- Tit-for-tat parenting. Quite the topic, isn't it? This has a lot to do with mirroring, but not in a love-bomb-y style, but in a revenge style. Both are very similar. It can, and does, create some fall from grace for the narcissistic parent, and cause others to sometimes say, "Who is the parent here? They are acting like a child!" Exactly. But this isn't one I'll publish any time soon, as it is not integral to the discussion on narcissism, and in order to get a better picture on abuse and trauma subjects in general, posts like this need to be sand-bagged for awhile. <br /><br />But all of these posts-in-the-works give you a very shortened version of what is happening with the rest of these narcissistic traits. <br /><br />Hopefully I can get to the goal I set before of introducing more trauma-related subjects and Borderline Personality Disorder research this fall. Maybe some posts on alcoholism can be part of the picture too. And of course, I have some posts to share on current events that are done, but can't be understood entirely without the ones on identity, shame-rage, and jealousy as it relates to narcissism. <br /><br />Thank you to the many readers who keep coming back. <br /><br />Lise </p>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-90569149736116194612023-06-26T15:20:00.036-07:002023-12-05T14:01:01.133-08:00The Abuser's Co-bullies, Enablers, Believers, Henchmen, Co-conspirators and Parroting Sycophants (discusses narcissism, sociopathy and the "flying monkey" tendencies), plus a personal story<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw3c8nHSc4lN_LwhADmNVqshArK7njWaS8Y2rr9MqREJLsWAUtg72mtX1OH8RKjmTECBwgQ9Hfo6MqZZGZDetyJUuCnl7xuP2FPEPYfg9Cl3UsLnkKc1Da2COOTg7iJ5CMQOQIZzu_b0JHJTFzxvMWS1NGoi3efcJFtGIBdjCE_DQVaoqCEesw8eIUwUE/s647/Flying%20Monkeys%20web.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="647" data-original-width="611" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw3c8nHSc4lN_LwhADmNVqshArK7njWaS8Y2rr9MqREJLsWAUtg72mtX1OH8RKjmTECBwgQ9Hfo6MqZZGZDetyJUuCnl7xuP2FPEPYfg9Cl3UsLnkKc1Da2COOTg7iJ5CMQOQIZzu_b0JHJTFzxvMWS1NGoi3efcJFtGIBdjCE_DQVaoqCEesw8eIUwUE/s16000/Flying%20Monkeys%20web.jpg" /></a><br />© 6/26/23<br />(edit on 6/27/23 for grammatical errors)</div><p></p><p>Most abusers have co-bullies, enablers, believers, henchmen and parroting sycophants. In psychology circles they tend to be lumped together and are called <a href="https://narcissistabusesupport.com/red-flags/use-flying-monkeys/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">"flying monkeys"</a><b> </b>by many psychologists and therapists. <br /><br />I'm not sure why or how the term "flying monkeys" came to be used, but I suspect someone saw the witch as a sadist in need of victims to terrorize, and the flying monkeys, with their so-called inferior monkey brains, were used to procure the victims for the witch. <br /><br />But Dorothy has power too, helped by her ruby slippers. The witch wants all of the power, and in order to get it, she has to get the ruby slippers from Dorothy, but the ruby slippers give the witch a shock. Then the witch thinks up the grand scheme of getting all of the power, even the power that the ruby slippers are endowed with, by disposing of Dorothy. <br /><br />When Dorothy manages an escape, and pours water on the witch to keep her from burning the scarecrow, the witch melts, and more importantly, it dissolves her power completely.<br /><br />In a lot of ways, that is what happens in real life with domestic violence victims, and with child abuse victims: escaping victims make abusers feel they are losing power, control, the ability to influence ("Oh, my narcissism and entitlements are melting, melting, melting!"). So in order to keep victimizing, the flying monkeys need to keep doing her dirty work in keeping the old victims victimized in some way or another (just for having escaped), and help in procuring new victims. They would be called co-conspirators. However, there are all kinds of flying monkeys and I list them below. <br /><br />In real life, even if both parties agree to leave the relationship, the fact of the matter is that almost all perpetrators still want to hurt their victims. They are used to abusing you, and they don't want to give it up. With abusers, withdrawing from a relationship is never going to be about agreeing that you don't get along and therefor need to separate, and about agreeing to go in peace, even if you both say the words. <br /><br />Believe it or not, abuse, for them, is hard to give up. Really, really hard to give up, just like it was for the wicked witch of the west. If anything, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">they want to escalate the abuse</a></b>, not give it up. And for that, they tend to feel they need to enlist their flying monkeys (to get you to "stay in the game" and to get you trapped again, to get you to submit to them under the community pressure of their flying monkeys). <br /><br />In order to avoid push-back from their victims, narcissists need the most vulnerable-to-brainwashing monkeys they can find, or the most stupid, or the most blindly loyal, or Pollyannas who are in denial that abuse escalates or even exists, never mind that some narcissists have <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/05/punishment-sadism-cruelty-and.html" target="_blank">sadism addictions</a></b>. They also have to get rid of any evidence that they are less than perfect (why some of them resort to stealing evidence, although these days there are scanners and cameras). </p><div style="text-align: center;">WHO ENLISTS FLYING MONKEYS<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">People who enlist these cast of characters (co-bullies, enablers, believers, etc) tend to be perpetrators of abuse with either narcissistic traits (<b><a href="https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder.htm" target="_blank">Narcissistic Personality Disorder traits</a></b>, in other words), or people with sociopathic or psychopathic traits (<b><a href="https://www.helpguide.org/articles/personality-disorders/antisocial-personality-disorder-aspd.htm" target="_blank">Antisocial Personality Disorder traits</a></b>, in other words). When both personalities exist in one person, they are generally the sign of <a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/malignant-narcissist#signs-and-traits" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">malignant narcissism</a>,<b> </b>a dangerous form of narcissism. Some of the more aggressive types of borderlines (<b><a href="https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-disorders/borderline-personality-disorder.htm" target="_blank">Borderline Personality Disorder</a></b>) can enlist flying monkeys too, but they are not as likely to, or feel compelled to do so because they do have empathy (most of them, unless they have comorbidities with other personality disorders like Narcissistic Personality Disorder). What is more likely is that they can get talked into being part of a bullying mob, sometimes with great regret afterwards. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">WHY DO THEY ENLIST FLYING MONKEYS<br /><div style="text-align: left;"><p>Narcissists are notoriously lazy about solving their own relationship problems. They want the person they have a conflict with to solve everything, of course, but when the other person fails to solve everything to the narcissist's exacting standards, they then enlist flying monkeys, the <b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-autism-spectrum-disorder/202010/are-you-narcissist-s-flying-monkey" target="_blank">term psychologists use</a> </b>(<b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/pro/exhausted-woman/2019/07/narcissists-and-their-flying-monkeys#" target="_blank">another link</a></b> and<b> <a href="https://paulryburn.medium.com/flying-monkeys-learn-to-defend-against-this-top-weapon-of-covert-narcissists-2e7577667d8" target="_blank">another link</a></b>). They use flying monkeys to manipulate, bully and lecture a victim while keeping their own hands clean. They also use the flying monkeys to solve their relationship problems.<br /><br />Once the narcissist has unleashed their flying monkeys on you, you are officially a scapegoat. Scapegoating has a lot of dangers to it, precisely because the flying monkeys have their own agendas, not just the main narcissist's agendas. It can be very dangerous. Even with people who have the best of intentions, they can be brainwashed into scapegoating you too to go along with a crowd. <br /><br />I know a highly educated lawyer who spouts justice, fair and equitable treatment, and liberal ideas like peace, brotherhood, biodiversity, "No Mow May", and other causes on her Facebook every day, all through the day, and is even against abuse and domestic violence, who got roped into the flying monkey role, and if she can be brainwashed, I figure anyone can. <br /><br />As a survivor of abuse who now has to survive what the flying monkeys are doing, it can be overwhelming and it can feel like there is no justice in the world, that everyone is out for themselves, that narcissists are oppressing everyone else without the push-backs necessary to create some justice, that <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/04/narcissists-sociopaths-and-abusers-why.html" target="_blank">false narratives</a></b> are "believed" over the truth. With enough flying monkeys in the picture, it can be hard to tell who is working for who and what false narrative is being spouted by which flying monkey.<br /><br />My wild guess? Probably the one who initiated it, however since narcissists tend to "flock together", one of them can certainly get the upper hand over another one: "No. This is the way we're going to do it instead" ... and before you know it, one narcissist is letting another lead the aggressive charge. <br /><br />And narcissists love the bullying, and with enough bullies, they can do pretty much anything they want to you - unless law enforcement, police, domestic violence, child protective services, and the like, get involved - important because co-bullies are more likely to escalate the bullying very fast, and even commit crimes. </p><p>If this is a family situation, it's heartbreaking, but I don't think there is any other way to truly deal with being scapegoated than to leave the family behind. I don't know many scapegoats who stay in the family, and the ones I do know about, are trying to find a way to get out. Some of them feel they must leave without the family expecting it, or disappear forever, some of them try to set up a life overseas which makes them harder to track. Some try the gray rock method, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/p/does-gray-rock-method-work-for-family.html" target="_blank">but find it to be a disaster</a></b> because of the number of flying monkeys they have to use it on. The family seems determined to traumatize, and re-traumatize, and most scapegoats get pretty<b> <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/how-narcissistic-abuse-ages-you-makes.html" target="_blank">severe symptoms</a></b> from the traumatic experiences they are called upon to live through again and again. Anxiety, lack of sleep, inability to focus, muscle aches, headaches and all kinds of other symptoms from being around an abusive family make it impossible to stay. Some feel trapped, hopeless and commit suicide instead, especially if they are in their teenage years. Believe it or not, I haven't seen narcissists who care when this happens. They are still likely to insult their scapegoats (you can look into the details of <b><a href="https://www.bostonmagazine.com/education/2020/01/21/phoebe-prince-bullying/#:~:text=Incredibly%2C%20the%20bullying%20didn't,all%20but%20impossible%20to%20ignore." target="_blank">Phoebe Prince's death</a></b> to know that her bullies were still insulting her in public and on social media after she hung herself - and you can also see that she was a scapegoat and prejudiced against afterwards too - usually both go hand-in-hand). <br /><br />Abusive families can treat their scapegoats no better than Phoebe Prince was treated. The problem is that with family, it is much harder to find members with a conscience because bullying, abuse and isolating victims from familial belonging has been <b>normalized</b>. Even the better members can be like what Martin Luther King talked about, the members who are good people, but do nothing. <br /><br />But most abusive families, let us face it, have the "I get along with them" types of members. These are the members who feel if they get along with abusers and difficult members, then their world is okay, and they aren't going to rock it just for you. They don't care what you are going through; they don't care about what the flying monkeys are doing (even if the monkeys are breaking the law to hurt you - they are eerily silent even about that). They don't even care what it is doing to the family reputation except when it is at a critical mass, and even then, they side with whoever it is convenient to side with. <br /><br />But back to how the narcissist(s) deal with flying monkeys ... <br /><br />If the flying monkey doesn't manage to say and do everything the way the narcissist wants it to be done, then they too can be victimized. However, often they aren't because of the ambition flying monkeys have to stick together to abuse, to try for more power for themselves, or to be loyal to the narcissist for a reward, or just to keep from being attacked.</p><p>So again, why would they want to keep hurting you? And why would they want to enlist others to hurt you too?<br /><br />With most abusers, it tends to be a habit, via <b><a href="https://images.app.goo.gl/oj2A7Wy6ND1mHAxZA" target="_blank">the cycle of abuse</a></b> at best, or an outright addiction to causing someone pain at worst. I cover why in this section.<br /><br />Even if you are no longer in a relationship with them, and have both agreed it is time to separate, they are still in "the habit" or "the cycle" or "the addiction" most of the time. It's part of the research on this: <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">once they have initiated hurting you a number of times, they'll want to keep it going</a></b>. <br /><br />And why do they want to cause you pain? And why do they think other people will help them in that?<br /><br /><u>One reason</u> is that they think it will make you change your personality, your mind, your thoughts, your looks or your behavior in such a way that it suits them. In other words, they bank on you fitting more and more into a mold and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">role</a></b> that they want. They want you to be more pleasing and pleasant to them (it doesn't work,<b> <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/03/hurting-or-punishing-others-to-teach.html" target="_blank">and here is why</a></b>, and even they eventually realize that), but it also tends to be their hope, if an ever-diminishing one. You'd think they'd understand why people don't change all that drastically because they are the most unchangeable people on the planet. <br /><br />They want people to seek their approval always (they act like royalty, no matter what the realities and their social standing and behaviors really are, what their ethical behaviors reveal about them, and what their financial status is - usually nothing close to royalty). They like and prefer people kowtowing to them. However, if you are being repeatedly abused, it gets to the point where you not only <u>do not</u> want to kowtow (typically referred to as <b>fawning</b>), and as the abuse continues, you probably don't particularly like talking to them either. That is because almost all emotional subjects with abusers are usually about intimidating you, lecturing you, making demands of you - none of it reciprocal, trying to get you to be submissive to them, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/10/why-are-narcissists-so-argumentative.html" target="_blank">arguments that are demoralizing and degrading to you</a></b>, and where they insist on <b>winning</b> the argument, or they <b>play the victim </b>or do a<b> <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/12/important-darvo-tactic-and-why-it-is.html" target="_blank">DARVO</a> </b>to get empathy focused on them instead of on you, which is frustrating, nauseating, and unappetizing for a victim of abuse.<br /><br />This points more towards "habit". Perhaps you were more open or engaged to what they had to say in the past, or when you were a little child. It could be anything. Perhaps you were more open to being brought into arguments. Maybe your self esteem was more battered than it used to be (self esteem tends to be battered when you have some desires to still engage with people who hurt you). At any rate, they'd like you to be back in that <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">role</a></b> of getting your self esteem knocked, of getting insulted, of looking at them as someone you actually <i>want</i> approval from. When you don't want or need approval from them any more, they can go into a <b><a href="https://www.kaminiwood.com/6-signs-of-narcissistic-collapse-and-how-to-spot-them/#:~:text=A%20narcissistic%20collapse%20represents%20an,or%20harm%20themselves%20or%20others." target="_blank">narcissistic collapse</a></b>.<b> </b>So, to prevent that, they prefer to keep hurting you. Usually if they can't get positive <b><a href="https://www.choosingtherapy.com/narcissistic-supply/" target="_blank">narcissistic supply</a></b> from you, they'll go towards getting negative supply. And that usually means enlisting flying monkeys, getting other people to ignore you, disapprove of you, to parrot what the narcissist says and other possible aggressive acts like harassment or possibly even law-breaking on the narcissist's wishes. <br /><br />With the bigger issues in life which bring a conflict to the narcissist's attention, narcissists will always bring others into the conflicts you are having with them. They refuse to deal one-on-one with the bigger issues between you. The flying monkey is either with them to convince you that you are wrong and the narcissist is right (often without knowing all of the details, or of having an open mind enough to hear your side of the story), or the flying monkeys are there to bully and intimidate you into action, or reaction. <br /><br />Either one can create unforeseen problems for the narcissist. It will become obvious as to why further in this post. <br /><br />If you don't want to talk to the narcissist, the flying monkeys are there to talk to you, and to hurt you by proxy - narcissists, and especially malignant narcissists, do not like the idea of you living pain-free. Since they don't want to be accountable for hurting you, they get others to do it for them, primarily through shaming, but they also choose bullies to do their dirty work too. <br /><br />Most victims do not and cannot tolerate flying monkeys very well, and in anything but school bullying situations, or underage-child/adult situations, it tends to set off a "flight reaction" in the victim more than other kinds of reactions. An underage child can still experience pronounced flight reactions, but they are usually hostage, unfortunately. <br /><br /><u>A second possible reason</u> may be that after you refuse to engage with them in the way that they want, many abusers want to punish you for not engaging with them in terms of their demands (i.e. arguments where they win at getting you to be submissive to them). They may say they want nothing more to do with you, but wanting to punish you over not getting their way is still probably going to be in the forefront in their minds for awhile, and especially if you have thwarted a lot of their lectures and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/09/shaming-from-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">shaming sessions</a></b>. Usually they want some outcomes from their punishments too, kind of the way despotic rulers want certain objectives to be reached by battering a country. It's the objectives of their punishments that make them dangerous, so let us say that you back away from them some more, that you aren't expressing how hurt you are by complaining, crying, saying "it's not fair", or that you hate them for what they've done to you or your life, or respond at all to anything they do (and sometimes you actually don't feel any of these things regardless - <b>a lot of trauma can shut down reactions and feelings </b>- potential link to an article I am writing, which I hope I can publish this Fall).</p><p>Narcissists don't tend to see relationships the way most of us see them. They don't love <b><a href="https://www.emedicinehealth.com/can_a_narcissist_really_love_you/article_em.htm" target="_blank">in the way most of us love others</a> </b>either. They tend to view others as utilities for their use, and they will be manipulating their relationships to achieve what they want. This is why they can discard people so easily and swiftly: you weren't living up to the narcissist's expectations, so now you are deemed <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank">useless</a></b> in terms of their uses. <br /><br />They are always ready to reject at a moment's notice, even their own children, their spouse, and so on. Their concerns always come first, and your concerns are either barely considered, or not considered at all. They almost always deem that other people are to blame for interpersonal conflicts that arise. They criticize others a lot but cannot stand any criticism themselves without going into a tirade. They have very little empathy towards you, but expect you to have so much empathy for them that <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/01/abuse-and-walking-on-eggshells-being.html" target="_blank">you are walking on eggshells</a></b> around their temper and demands. They tend to have broken relationships with at least one of their children, and often a spouse too (ex). The way they do relationships is to manipulate you into a position where you are submissive to their power, domination and control (which is how you become a mere utility to them). It is a very lonely, painful relationship for the victim, if you can call it a relationship at all.<br /><br />You are either a one hundred percent loyal ally or you are not. Again, it is more like how a royal figure or a king would see the people around him: either you say nice things to the King, and about the King, despite who he is or what he has done, and how many people he has hurt, or put to death. You are expected to bow to him, and be submissive to everything he expects from you. "Realize my power over you" is the constant underlying drumming of their message to you, even if it is just this grandiose fantasy of his or hers.<br /><br />Except that many of us, especially if we are from the USA or Europe, don't live in a world of kings and queens any more, and we certainly don't want our spouses, parents, friends, siblings, and children to be acting like one, and to be lording things over on us, and threatening us, just so they can live in their sick fantasy.<br /><br />It's for a good reason most of us don't want to live like this - most royal figures were or are tyrants, and either reject, banish, enslave, torture, commit crimes and/or kill someone eventually. And they do so for a lot of god-awful reasons, many of them prejudiced-based, or totally based on paranoid fantasies, or over the popularity of the people, or the result of alternate ways of thinking about issues of the day such as new religious or political thought, or issues around being agreeable to a dogma, or their <b><a href="https://www.history.co.uk/articles/seven-sadistic-sultans-from-the-ottoman-empire" target="_blank">family based</a> </b>decisions <b>- </b>see "The Sibling Slayer"). But, since many abusers are often in this fantasy, they need allies like a king needs allies.</p><p>So they enlist who ever they can find who they deem to be good at being brainwashed, and/or good at lecturing with very little information about their victims, or torturing (enlisting the sadistic minded), or who they think they will ignore or hate the victim in some way (picking prejudiced-minded people, or people who are easily swayed into prejudiced perspectives). Some of them pick criminals to do this work. And some of them may also pick people who seem very easy to brainwash to do this work. Some of them pick people who are already entranced by them or their wielding of power. Some of them pick sycophants who they feel they can easily threaten ... they use every tactic and trick at their disposal. <br /><br /><u>The third reason</u> they may still want to hurt us has to do with sadistic reasons, that they get enjoyment out of inflicting pain, and in seeing us hurt. <br /><br />This would point to an addiction, more than the other two reasons above.<br /><br />Patterns are hard to break, but addictions are perhaps much harder to break or control. <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/05/punishment-sadism-cruelty-and.html" target="_blank">Sadists</a></b> aren't necessarily in the cycle of abuse where there is respite from abuse via "a honeymoon make-up period"; it can be on-going.<br /><br />The darker narcissists (malignant narcissists), sociopaths and psychopaths tend to take the sadistic route. <br /><br />They decide they need to cause you pain, or bully you over some issue, however small or made up it may be, that is not meeting their perfection standards. You react and they either get calm or they smile afterward. They have gotten their fix. <br /><br />However like any addiction, it is not long-lasting, and they will need another fix again soon. So they go into a tirade every time they need a fix. <b>And it can be all day long</b>. You can see it coming, and the excuse for going into a huge tirade will be another "perfection issue". For instance: you didn't fold the towels right - "don't you know how to fold towels, idiot!?" ... or you didn't look to see that you left the cap off the toothpaste "Why are leaving the cap off!? You did this on purpose! Just for that, I'll -" and they will threaten you ... Or you took a walk without asking permission from them - "You're my wife! When I want you to go for a walk, I'll tell you when you can do it!", or for any similar reason. They tend to be super-controlling micro-managers, even in a close personal relationship (i.e. they are not your boss). And of course, in the situation you are in, you are likely to be "held captive" or "feel captive" in some way. This, of course, makes you vulnerable to micro-managing, and they take any situation in the environment to use for their sadistic fixes. <br /><br />And most sadists are micro-managers. They find little things to blame you about to justify to themselves their use of sadism. It takes very little to set them off because it is not about the tiny thing that they are getting enraged or upset about; it is their desire to get the next sadistic narcissistic fix. They also like the power, control, domination and feelings of grandiosity they get afterwards from these incidences. Like other narcissists, it makes them feel like a king. <br /><br />Alcohol can make this worse, of course, because sometimes the micro-withdrawals from alcohol happen at the same time that they also need a sadistic fix. <br /><br />Which is to say that addictive personalities can have addictions to moods (alcohol is a mood soother for a lot of alcoholics). Causing someone pain can also soothe the mood of a sadist ("I'm in control of what that other person says and does, and I can get the peace I want at their expense; isn't it sweet that I can get them to do what ever I want, when I want it, and that they'll cry when I provoke them? I must mean a lot to get these reactions! I must be awesome to get everything I want!" - my guess is that this is the way most sadists feel based on some of the chatter I see from narcissists in forums ... <b><a href="https://forums.beyondblue.org.au/t5/young-people/born-a-sadist/td-p/511660" target="_blank">here is just one</a></b>). <br /><br />No one wants to be someone else's "sadism addiction", and it is likely to get very dangerous besides. If you are deemed to have an autonomous thought or to do things the way you want to do them, they find it way too challenging, and the aggressive response is not likely to stay at just the rage level. <br /><br />It is hard for many sadists to move on to another victim because it requires putting their reputations on the line again with someone new. It will be hard to tell whether they can get away with the same kinds of abuses that they did with you, and whether they have family who will serve as flying monkeys again with a new victim. And they don't know if they can get other people to hate the new victim as much as they did you. </p><p>So they tend to want to isolate you so much from others, that you lose all of your prior support. Sadists are so single-minded in their objectives about this, and in trying to convince others endlessly that you deserve sadism, with many, many false anecdotes, arm-twistings, charm, fake compassion, and persuasions, that people tend to believe them. Being white, a male, having success or money, having another entourage of co-conspirators, tends to help them get away with things (they are the dominant race, the dominant sex, have the dominant financial status, can more easily be a dominant boss). <br /><br />A sadist, a white fairly wealthy male, managed to rip apart some relationships that we mutually shared. The fact that these relationships could be ripped apart so easily and swiftly by him meant they were probably tenuous relationships to begin with, not substantial, not close, not significant. It shows that some people who claim to love you, really do not, and probably never did love you at any time, no matter what they said, and it is particularly evident when they discard you over what someone else says. <br /><br />Belief-oriented people do get sucked into biases. We just have to look to politics to see how many belief-oriented people there are (and who they believe for their news sources too). <br /><br />The reason for a sadist using <b>isolation tactics</b> to get you separated from other people is to get you defenseless. In most cases, even when you were getting along, and they seemed happy with you, they are stabbing you in the back (being two-faced: nice to you in person; hyper-criticizing you, and making up things about you behind your back constantly, with gaslighting, calling you crazy, being one of the features). If no one will defend you, or very few will, it makes his abilities to attack you that much greater. Crimes become a little easier to commit too, although there are things you can do to make it fairly certain they will get caught. <br /></p><p>The sadist who was in my life also has a criminal mind, so the warning I take from that for my readers is that protecting yourself, your assets and the people within your household should be high on your priority list. Sadists try to find holes in your defenses where they can slip through and wreak havoc, and, as I have said before, they can be so singular in their focus to hurt you (it's an addiction, and we know that things that get in the way of addictions are challenges to be knocked over, if they feel that they can knock them over without working too hard or getting caught - and since many of them are grandiose, they often make attempts). <br /><br />Part of protecting yourself is to talk to as many people as you can. Sadists want their dirty deeds to stay a secret. If your community or neighborhood knows what has happened, then authorities are more easily tipped off. This is much different than what they do, which is to tell false versions or narratives of what you did in order to get people against you, bullying you. I have no interest in bullying, and neither do most victims. I just want the particular person out of my life and to leave me alone, and it is what most people want in similar situations to mine.<br /><br />At any rate, it takes other people, co-conspirators, people who like to shame other people, people who think they are acting loyal to the narcissist, to keep a sadist's addiction going. It also takes other people to bully you into a situation where you are alone without support. It also takes other people to bully you so that the sadist feels that bullying is condoned and a-okay to do. As I have said in so many other posts, abusers generally target people who they believe are weak, ill, alone, children, unsupported women, or disenfranchised, not part of the dominant race of their particular country, and sadists are no exception. The weaker you appear to be, the more attacks you will receive. This is <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/setting-boundaries-for-victims-of.html" target="_blank">where boundaries are absolutely critical</a></b>, and sometimes it takes just one sadist to make you realize that having good boundaries is absolutely necessary in all relationships and a way to a happier life ("good fences make good neighbors"). <br /><br />Having boundaries from flying monkeys are necessary too. If one of them sees the truth, which some of them eventually do, then you can decide whether you want to re-instate any kind of relationship with them again, but I think that it will be very, very hard to trust them. It may be traumatic to have them around you in any meaningful capacity. Once people have sided up with a perpetrator, it means they are pretty prone to brainwashing. Trust takes forever to re-build any way, and unless they have been through hell with the perpetrator too, it's pretty likely that distrust will always be part of your relationship or contact with this person. It's just better to put most of your energies into people who have always been steady, who aren't so easily swayed or lured, who aren't so quick to disenfranchise others over heresy, and have always been compassionate about your struggles. Even the most awakened flying monkeys can never be that. <br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">TYPES OF FLYING MONKEYS<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In a post called <b><a href="https://www.narcissisticabuserehab.com/types-of-flying-monkeys/" target="_blank">Types of Flying Monkeys</a></b> by Manya Wakefield for Narcissistic Abuse Rehab, the author claims there are two types of flying monkeys, the "benevolent enabler" and the "malevolent enabler" (her quotes). She distinguishes the two this way (her quotes again):<br /><br /><i><u>The benevolent enabler</u><br /> A benevolent flying monkey is someone with a sociotropic nature that makes them an easy target for manipulators. Sociotrophic individuals suffer from the so-called “disease to please,” which means that they tend to put the needs of others ahead of theirs.<br /> Often they unwittingly aid and abet a narcissistic person’s campaign of emotional abuse because predatory manipulators are quick to sniff out a sociotropic person’s powerful longing for external validation.<br /> Benevolent flying monkeys are not consciously trying to cause harm. A benevolent flying monkey is likely to have been subjected to the narcissistic person’s love-bombing and gaslighting tactics. They are usually acting in good faith based on the narcissist’s persuasive vilification of the person they’ve targeted for abuse.<br /> The narcissistic person will have used the DARVO tactic to manipulate their perception of events and the people involved so much so that the benevolent flying monkey wrongly views the victim-survivor as the perpetrator of the abuse. Once the narcissistic person has effectively pulled the wool over this person’s eyes, they triangulate them into the conflict and with strong incentives to protect and “rescue” the narcissist. <br /></i><i><br /><u>The malevolent enabler</u><br /></i><span style="font-style: italic;"> A malevolent flying monkey is misanthropic in nature. They are bad faith actors who knowingly participate in narcissistic abuse because inflicting harm on others gives them a sense of power. Malevolent flying monkeys tend to identify with highly narcissistic people and NPDs because they are equally narcissistic in their own right. They usually share the same attitudes and beliefs and feel a sense of belonging in the narcissistic person or NPDs in-group.<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;"> Because a malevolent flying monkey is morally bankrupt, it doesn’t matter who is right or wrong. In fact, they are usually fully aware that an injustice is taking place. However, these types relish an opportunity to deny dignity and justice to someone who they feel is “not like them.”<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;"> Malevolent flying monkeys function as gatekeepers. Often they are foot soldiers of a larger system of oppression, i.e. sexism, racism, etc. and they engage in the conflict for the sole purpose of protecting a hierarchy that serves them.</span></div><p></p><p>I found her sub-categories very, very helpful, and it's always useful to decipher which of these types of flying monkeys is coming at you with the latest denigrating. Note: most of the denigrating will usually contain lies, misinformation or exaggerations from the narcissist, or the narcissist's pity-play where they are playing the victim (when they were actually the perpetrator - it is extremely common for narcissists to discard their so-called loved ones, and especially children, and it's not always easy to tell that from the stories narcissists like to tell in terms of how they got to their pitiful state). The benevolent enabler may not realize that, but they are also likely <i>not</i> to play rejection games with you the way the narcissist does. They are more open to your side of things. <br /><br />However, it's still weird, immoral, blind, highly aggressive and counter-productive for them to be denigrating you, or anyone else, over your relationship choices, or whether to stay in a relationship or leave.</p><p><b><a href="https://morinholistictherapy.com/parental-estrangement/" target="_blank">Even with parents, there are more youth today than ever before who are estranged from their parents</a>. </b>It is now the national trend, just as divorce was in the 1970s. To go from divorce being an acceptable trend in the 1970s to being estranged from a parent being an acceptable trend in the 2000s is perhaps for the same reason: women were divorcing their husbands because of the "submission expectations" of their husbands, and children are divorcing their parents for the same reasons. Expectations about submissiveness never adds up to love, or valuing a person based on who they are, but only on what role they play in the family. The main takeaway from both trends is that human beings do not like being submissive. <br /><br />Careers and jobs were and are highly important elements in both cases too. Women were expected to be home-makers, child-rearers and to not seek jobs outside the home at the end of World War II through the 1960s. They are still under-paid compared to men. Youth have also made jobs and careers their main focus, and relationships that take away that focus, or try to "control" what a child does with his or her own adult life is no longer acceptable. The main take-away here is that human beings do not like to be controlled.<br /><br />And since narcissists like to "make" people be submissive, and like to be ultra-controlling of other people, children are first in line in being targeted by the newest trends in broken relationships. They are tossing their independent-minded children off like crazy, but then complain that their children tossed them off instead. It is true that abused children do toss off their parents eventually, but it is usually <u>after</u> the parents have tossed them off first, or many times, the message from the parent being: "This is a tenuous relationship, and my love is never going to be consistent or anything that is stable, or to take seriously". <br /><br />Of course, narcissists play the victim over this, so it is hard to tell that they "discarded" their child first, or over half a dozen silent treatments, or boycotted so many events because their child did not allow their parent to control events carte blanche, the extremely likely scenario when you are dealing with narcissists. This is what I have seen in most forums for child abuse survivors. The parents do a discard of their child a number of times, and finally, the adult child does not go back, and the parent wails in public as though they've been discarded by the child instead. With that kind of <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/12/important-darvo-tactic-and-why-it-is.html" target="_blank">DARVO</a></b>, it's no wonder children refuse to go back.</p><p>And that is also the case when their parent's flying monkeys try to shame the adult children to go back too.<br /><br />Heavy narcissistic traits in parents are generally something that children find unappealing and often too counter to growing up to become full adults. <br /><br />It's not the same as in spousal relationships where the sexual bond, perhaps, makes it much more traumatic and harder to separate. My observation is that most adult children roll their eyes at haughty, self-aggrandizing, know-it-all, abusive, bossy parents. They prefer more humble calming parents, parents who listen carefully and with an open perspective, who live what they preach, and who mostly speak kindly of others, and who are moral and ethical all of the time (not just the few times it suits some agenda), and aren't out to hurt other people. In other words, hate-speech, prejudices and trash-talking is not part of family past-times. The closest parent-child relationships I see these days, the ones that aren't part of the trend, are the ones I talk about above. <br /><br />As I've said before in other posts, tolerance and peace go together. <br /><br />Being intolerant of a spouse's or parent's narcissism is perhaps the exception, but it is hard to be tolerant of people who aren't tolerant of you. </p><p>Part of showing how intolerant the narcissist is towards you, is what the flying monkeys' job is. What the flying monkeys say to you will generally also show what the narcissist's perspectives are, plus a lot of intolerance, of your decisions, and of your person (which will just be about parroting the narcissist's perspectives, because narcissists don't want to say it themselves - they want to blame the flying monkey for saying it if things go in an undesirable direction). It's very <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/11/abusive-families-who-triangulate-love.html" target="_blank">triangulation-oriented</a></b>, in other words, something narcissists love to do too. <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/02/why-abusers-and-narcissists-say-it-is.html" target="_blank">They also don't like to be accountable for anything</a> </b>and so with all of that going on with narcissists, flying monkeys, to them, are a dire necessity. It gets all of their points across without actually being accountable for what they say. <br /><br />While Ms. Wakefield's two types of flying monkeys may be all that you need to know, I decided to break them down further, and to tell how effective they might be or not be in getting the narcissist or sociopath what they want. If all that is happening is denigrating you, know that this is another narcissistic tactic <b>to break your self esteem</b>. You've probably been getting this anyway, right from the narcissist. Now it's just going through other people, that's all. <br /><br />Narcissists must break your self esteem in hopes that you have doubts about who you are, as if personality-changing is entirely up to them and their manipulative maneuvers. They apparently think who you marry, what you are doing in career, life, relationships, lifestyle, and so on, can be changed by them too by their manipulations and persuasions (or their magic wand). You can see that again, this is childish under-developed thinking since narcissists are the most fixed personalities on the planet, and are often much worse morally and ethically than the victims they like to shame. <br /><br />If they can't change who they are, how do they teach or expect other people to change? <br /><br />The short answer is: They cannot stand someone else's autonomous thoughts and actions that differs from what <i>they want</i>. You <i>must</i> think the way they do about yourself, and your interests, lifestyle and your relationships <i>must</i> change into what they want too, as if they can manipulate it all away. This is the reason for breaking your self esteem: "I hate you the way that you are!" They automatically assume that you've got your self-respect tied to their opinions because they are that arrogant. They think their tirades and lectures are listened to with baited breath, but what is probably happening instead is that it is a trauma response, a survival response to being around someone who has almost no empathy at all, who is highly volatile, unstable emotionally, cannot be counted on (because they "discard" people), is so ego-centric that they cannot stand any variations of anything except what they want or dream up. This leads them to think that you will change who you are<i> just for them</i>. They believe they have the power to do it too, that you will automatically take their bad opinions of you into your heart and let them fester there, and let all of the negativity they have about you ruin your self esteem, ruin your prospects and dreams, ruin your life, ruin everything other than being a sycophant for them. It's a power, control and domination scheme. <br /><br />Note: the reasoning behind these lines of attacks is that if your self esteem is shot, they can come at you more easily to mold you into the puppet that <i>they</i> want. So if you see or hear only denigrating from the flying monkeys, just chalk it up to: "The narcissist is having a fit about my self esteem again, or what I'm doing in my life, because <i>they</i> need to control me." And most of the time, it is nothing more than that.<br /><br />Anyway, here are the more nuanced definitions of flying monkeys:</p><p style="text-align: center;">THE CO-BULLY<br /></p><div style="text-align: left;">Most co-bullies are going to be narcissists or sociopaths. It's pretty unusual for them to be anything else, but there is the loyalist co-bully that I also discuss. <br /><br /><u>the narcissistic or psychopathic co-bully</u>:<br /> Note: when I am talking about the psychopathic bully I am referring to bullies who have some of the traits of Antisocial Personality Disorder, the bullies who have and show no remorse for hurting other people, no matter what the circumstances. They have their agenda, and if hurting other people is part of it, or it gets them where they want to be, they'll do it for the sake of the agenda.<br /> They tend take an even more aggressive stance than the narcissist you are having issues with.<br /> They may be physically abusive, or they like to use certain sadistic maneuvers, or they love false imprisonment, or they just like insulting and seething at you. If they have Antisocial Personality Disorder and are not particularly Machiavellian, they will tell you which one of these they prefer, and which one they fantasize using on you.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> Most often the bully in charge of the psychopath will not protect you from the harm the psychopath is trying to inflict. <br /> Most of these co-bullies are very aggressive, and it is mostly unwanted, and unsolicited. Some of them bomb you with texts, or e-mails, or letters, or phone calls and insult you like crazy, or call you names, or tell you what they want to do to you for not behaving the way Ms. or Mr. bully boss wanted you to behave. Unless you were trying to hurt the bully boss and feel guilty about it, this will not be welcome. <br /> Some of them act just like the co-bully on the playground: "Say ________ to (the bully boss), oh lord and master, or you are going to get it!" <br /> Or it can go further, where they say that they will hurt you, and keep hurting you, and hurt you as much as they can, knowing your vulnerabilities, unless you submit to them, or the bully boss. <br /> For adults, this is irritating, and it can be frightening and disturbing as well because this is behavior that should have been abandoned when they entered junior high. It shows <b><a href="https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/twisted#:~:text=adjective,corrupt%20More%20Synonyms%20of%20twisted" target="_blank">twisted behavior</a></b> besides. Unless you have always cared what this person's opinions are, and you have a warm, endearing relationship with them, and they are highly moral ethical people, and they have showed empathetic, compassionate thinking and behavior towards you and most others you know all along, except in this once instance, it is not only going to be ineffectual, but it will boomerang back on the narcissist.<br /> Any sane person is going to tell you to protect yourself or call the police when this is happening. Harassment is not to be taken lightly. Nor are threats to hurt you. Threats to divide up your relationships is abusive as well. Threats about false imprisonment are illegal in some countries, and is definitely illegal in the U.S.A. as well as other countries like Great Britain. Some of them will break the law to hurt you. Putting you under force to get you to say certain things to another person is like playground bullying, and illegal for adults. <br /> In most cases, the best result the bully boss will get is that their victim will tell this particular flying monkey not to contact them again. <br /> That is overwhelmingly what I see in forums, and it is the road I took when I was in a situation like this.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> It is pretty likely that narcissistic and sociopathic co-bully flying monkeys do not care about you, especially if the only thing you have in common is a relationship with the main bully boss. The co-bully flying monkeys definitely could care less about how their bullying will effect you, which is why it can be so dangerous and bad. If they are showing <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/05/punishments-sadism-cruelty-and.html" target="_blank">sadism or schadenfreude</a></b>, they should be avoided if at all possible (getting out of danger can be tricky, and often requires a safety plan from a domestic violence center or counselor).<br /> Sadism with <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" target="_blank">perspecticide</a></b> is definitely dangerous. <br /> They are probably all going to be gaslighting you too (even if the gaslighting has drastically different tactics: the agendas will be suited to the particular bully). <br /> We already have one narcissist or psychopath to deal with. We don't need another. And unfortunately they attract one another, so maybe they should just co-exist in their own narcissistic bubble and forget about most other people. I hope they decide <i>not</i> to have children, however. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><u>the puppet soldier and parroting sycophant</u>:<br /> The parroting sycophant may not be as dangerous a bully as others, but they repeat everything the narcissist does. They aren't very smart. They just want to be on the bullying team, and they learn that if they parrot they are rewarded. <br /> Whereas puppet soldier bullies have been told what to do and what to say to whom most of their lives. They are groomed to be prejudiced most of their lives against a person, or people, or race, sex, type. <br /> Neither type know who these people are that they are bullying, of course. They feel the main bully is great, or the family they are operating from is great, or the country they are fighting for is great. They want to show the main bully that they are loyal, that they are strong and can beat down any enemy of the main bully, and that any enemy that the main bully has, is their enemy too. <br /> Most of these "leaders" are too cowardly to fight their own battles, so they enlist brainwashed not-very-bright puppet soldiers to do the fighting for them. <br /> The leader just inspires them either to fight, or shame, or not talk to, or not negotiate, or not compromise with the bully's enemies - i.e. only that battle, prejudice and hatred should commence. <br /> In some instances, puppet soldiers do not have any real sense of who they really are, what they think, and they don't research anything, or weigh situations out. They count on the narcissist to make all of their decisions for them. They are like <b>echoists</b>, but in the "battle" sense of the word. They are molded, probably from early childhood to do what they are told to do, how to do it perfectly, what to say, how to say it, who to talk to and who not to talk to, and how to fight for the head narcissist. <br /> This, of course, is supposed to intimidate the victim, that dumb prejudiced aggressive soldiers will turn on the victim or scapegoat, do anything, and everything, for the narcissist and inflict what ever damage the narcissist tells them to inflict. The narcissist will say to the victim, "Everyone is against you! No one approves of you! We have overpowered you with our minions! Look at who doesn't approve of you now!" <br /> When they take someone not very bright and mold them in this way? See this situation for what it is: desperate. <br /> It is also a very obvious ploy to make someone else prejudiced. <br /> And when this enlisted soldier makes a mistake and is too aggressive against the victim to the point of breaking the law or codes of conduct, then what do they do? The head narcissist will stick him with the consequences, of course! Again, it is the coward's approach because they don't want to fight their own battles. It also gets them off the hook in terms of treating people with dignity and respect, of compromising. The message that they are trying to send here is: "I've got all of these soldiers on my side, ready to decimate you! I don't need to treat you better! All your talk of compromise is not going to do any good because this soldier is going to get me everything I want! Especially if he doesn't talk to you and know who you are - I've taken care of that by telling him who you are, and not to talk to you!" <br /> These co-bullies are not necessarily unethical in other situations. The danger here is that, on the slim chance, that if they talk to you, and get to know your side of the story, and your story sounds reasonable, they can back away from being a puppet soldier for the leader. This is happening to Russian soldiers in Ukraine, for instance, and it can happen just as easily in families too.<br /> Also, for narcissists who are primarily self serving, it is hard to keep puppet soldiers in line. Sure they have been molded to do what they are told to do, but if they are in a situation that they don't know how to handle, because the narcissist doesn't understand, or the narcissist isn't available for instruction, they will have to make their own decision. And because they tend to be not too bright, they will be making a lot of mistakes, or fighting too hard or too soft, and they may get shouted at for their mistakes: "Don't you know that is against the law?! What were you thinking!!!!" <br /> People who aren't too bright in the "battle strategy department" can also drive narcissists crazy enough so that they pick on the soldier and shout at them ("What's the matter with you? Are you stupid!? What a dumb strategy! You should have known that wasn't going to work!!"). No one likes to be shamed. It can break the loyalty of the brainwashed puppet soldier. <br /> And it is hard for narcissists to be loyal themselves. If they aren't getting exactly what they want, when they want it, and they can't count on their soldiers to read the narcissist's mind, then it is only a temporary kind of loyalty, based on utility. <br /> Some are so dependent or co-dependent on the narcissist, and if they don't bully for the narcissist, they know they are going to get into deep trouble for it. They think the risk is better than the consequences they will face from the narcissist. <br /> Narcissists constantly want you to prove that you are loyal to them. As I've explained, no person is 100 percent loyal. Anyway, being loyal to a narcissist is a trauma - survival response for most people. Even in the old days, most people at a king's court had their own agendas and dreams. It is obvious when you really delve into history. These flying monkeys were only loyal up to a point, and it shows. Being in a narcissist's king's court was not a safe place to be considering all of the changes in personnel via executions, being drawn and quartered, your head being chopped off, being the victim of torture chambers, being exiled, and so on. Narcissists still change their "personnel" constantly, but the personnel in present day is their close personal relationships instead. They are looking for "the perfect" loyalist, and that is one reason you may have been thrown out - they are constantly looking at new people to "try out" in the loyalist role. <br /> <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/06/how-narcissistic-bullies-domestic.html" target="_blank">A golden child</a></b> can also be enlisted as a loyalist to bully a sibling. Usually older children are chosen for the role and also serve as a babysitter to the younger children, but not always. Sometimes they learn to bully by example, and sometimes they are taught, or encouraged to hurt their siblings. <br /> Any of these co-bullying strategies make for a very toxic family situation, where life threatening violence can and does occur. <br /> These flying monkeys aren't doing anything to inspire, or contributing to mankind, or any causes. They are just doing a dirty job, a job to please the parent, or if they are young children or are severely disabled, to survive.<br /> Most people don't change by being tortured or hurt. The main response is a trauma response, primarily "flight". I discuss that in the post, <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/03/hurting-or-punishing-others-to-teach.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Hurting or Punishing Others to Teach Them a Lesson - Does It Work?</a><br /> <br /><u>the co-conspirator</u>:<br /> Some of these loyalists can be narcissists and sociopaths too, and perhaps they share the same prejudices (which put them in the co-conspirator category), and that's the only reason they are a flying monkey. They are a "flying monkey" by default, not because they have any particular relationship with the perpetrator. The only thing they have in common is that they are prejudiced in the same way. <br /> Some of them can be "swept up in the moment", to have taken up a prejudice because so many people around them have done so. <br /> Some of them can appear to be edgy or frightened. Some of them can look like they feel apprehensive, that their heart isn't into it. <br /> Some of them are so misinformed, but feel bullying or battling will help in some way. <br /> Some of them are so enchanted and enamored with what the bully says, that anything the narcissist wants, they get, including a co-bully. <br /> Some aren't so enchanted, but see that other people are, so they think should be. They "go along to get along." <br /> Some are drugged and go along with bullying because they aren't in full use of their faculties.<br /> Some of them are with cults or cult-like leaders, and the leaders are telling their followers that they need to bully, and they feel like something is wrong with themselves if they don't follow the herd. <br /> Some of them aren't particularly chomping at the bit to bully you, however. Their attention is focused on pleasing the narcissist to the point where you, the victim, are just a thing, a concept, a by-stander to that. <br /> Some may have Stockholm Syndrome, and are only bullying because they are under constant threat. They bully because they feel they have to. <br /> Some are so dependent or co-dependent on their co-bully, and if they don't bully for the narcissist, they know they are going to get into deep trouble for it. They think the risk is better than the consequences they will face from the narcissist, or from society.<br /> My <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/07/documentary-review-jeffrey-epstein.html" target="_blank">post on Jeffrey Epstein</a></b> covers how co-conspirators contribute to abuse. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">THE ENABLER<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Enablers are, for the most part, "I see no evil, I hear no evil, and I speak no evil." They are basically people who do not want to get involved in any big way. Some of them are the "good men who do nothing" that Martin Luther King used to talk about. They aren't going to protect you because they don't want to get involved. <br /><br /><u>The invisible enabler</u>: <br /> This is the flying monkey who heads to the garage when his wife is abusing the kids. Or sticks his head in a newspaper when he is being called upon by the narcissistic parent to help in disciplining his children (the way his narcissistic wife wants it done, of course). Or heads out for a drink when his child is begging him to intervene in stopping the narcissist's violence. Or a woman who is financially dependent on her husband with four small children and lets the bullying happen because divorce is just too much to think about (so acts like it's not happening, or that she can't deal with it because she has "too much on her plate", or that she'll deal with it later when she feels stronger and not so overwhelmed ... or a teenage girl who has been defended by her bully brother many times, but who bullies others for no reason, and can't seem to talk about what is wrong with that). <br /> Invisible enablers add to the dysfunction, and even the evil, by refusing to get involved.<br /> A lot of the spouses of narcissists go invisible for many, many reasons, only to learn that things have gotten so out of control in the family that they are beyond fixing.<br /> Some invisible enablers are in this role for a lifetime. Some of them feel powerless, that what ever they try to do to create a peaceful environment doesn't work, so they head to the garage to putter even when the family has violence going on in it. <br /> Some of these enablers say things like: "Well that's who your mother is," or "That's who your father is." Or: "I can't change (him or her)." Or "You're going to have to talk to (the narcissist) about that. He won't listen to me. I'm sorry that I can't help you; you're just going to have to relate to him on your own." Or "I've tried to talk to (her or him), but I don't get anywhere, so just be like me and stop trying to." - except that there is aggression involved, and aggression will always be something our bodies and minds will either defend against, or fight against, or fawn against, or flee against. Most people can't take someone else's aggression lying down without getting trauma symptoms, thus in order to fight the traumatic responses, your body and mind will always look for other ways to deal with other people's aggression rather than absorbing it. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> In child abuse, one parent might enable for awhile, hoping it will get better as the child grows, but they see that it doesn't get better, and they try to help their child who is being abused by over-compensating (spoiling the child). It is to juxtapose the abuse the child is receiving from his other parent. <br /> But <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">as the abuse escalates</a></b>, which it will, sometimes they can no longer sit by and be silent. They are listening to their child's cries, or to them talk about suicide, or talk about running away, or that they are tired of getting hit. They can no longer watch it happen or pretend it didn't happen. Usually a narcissist tries to divorce this kind of spouse.<br /> Jay Reid, a psychotherapist from San Francisco writes about this kind of "disappearing" parent: <a href="https://jreidtherapy.com/unprotected-from-narcissistic-abuse-by-the-enabler-parent/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">‘Better you than me’ – Going unprotected from narcissistic abuse by the enabler parent</a>. This is a really good in-depth article about the various ways the enabling plays out. I highly recommend it. I usually read the comments left by readers too, and in this case they are also informative as to how big the problem is.<br /><br /><u>The "everything is excusable" enabler</u>:<br /> Some of these enablers might say, "Well, you know that he had a terrible childhood. He's just acting out what he grew up with." <br /> Some of these enablers might say things like "God meant it to be this way. Everything was divinely preordained."<br /> There are other enablers who say things like, "Well, you <i>did</i> have it better than he had it. Maybe you can find the compassion to forgive, since this issue can't be resolved through the usual ways."<br /> The "everything is excusable enabler" can say things like, "Well you did say he had an alcohol problem. Maybe you need to understand how your talking about his drinking could have caused him to be violent."<br /> Here are some others:<br /> To a child: "You took away his toy, so he hit you! You understand that you can't take away his toy, right?"<br /> To a child: "Oh, he gave you a boo boo! All little brothers hit their sisters at one time or another!"<br /> To a child: "I'm sorry you got hit! But you must have done something to deserve it, right? There is <i>always</i> a reason, right?" <br /> To a wife: "If you hadn't tried to go grocery shopping so late in the evening, you wouldn't have gotten raped."<br /> To a brother: "Well if you had tried to soothe her, and comforted her, and treated her like a woman, something more special than your job, maybe she wouldn't have thrown that frying pan at you! Shame on you for not treating her like the love of your life!"<br /> To a sister: "Granted, your husband is a bully, but you could have tamed him. Women tame a man by 'putting out'. You probably didn't do that enough."<br /> To a parent: "I know Dad has been terrible all your life, but you stayed with him because somewhere deep inside him, he's a good man, right? You must have thought he was 'okay enough' to put up with his abuse and yelling for so long. I mean, he is a good provider and he paid for our tuitions. He's not a bad man most of the time. He always apologizes every time he goes off the rails. That should be enough." <br /> Some others: "If you just excused him for what he did to you, you might be able to (mend some fences), (have a meeting of minds), (have a meaningful relationship), (work on loving each other), (learn compassion and love heals everything), (to stop thinking about this), (to stop being traumatized - without knowing the real routes to healing from trauma, of course), (that we are all flawed), (that we are all human and we make mistakes), (that you're a better person, and therefor can make some excuses for his behavior), and so on. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> It's the usual lectures of <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/should-you-forgive-abusive-people-with.html" target="_blank">forgiveness shaming</a> </b>that most survivors of abuse experience. It's easy for someone to give you advice on how to relate to abusers, but if they were in your shoes, would they really react that way? Because if not, maybe this is one you can let go in one ear and out the other. Or maybe just ask them questions about how they have dealt with abuse in their past and go deep into their experiences. If they haven't lived what you've lived, maybe they simply "don't get it." However, I've personally never known this kind of enabler to practice what they preach. In all of my times listening to this in my own life, and from other survivors, it's just a desire in the enabler to promote themselves as "holier than thou", a fake image. If they are hypocrites in this department, they are just another enabler of abuse, another flying monkey for the "abuse is okay and/or acceptable" promotional detouring. Except abuse isn't okay; it effects society ... and human beings shouldn't normalize abuse ... and are capable of better, and should be <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/03/hurting-or-punishing-others-to-teach.html" target="_blank">promoting evolving out of this practice</a></b> instead, perhaps.<b><br /> </b>Empathy is a good start, <u>but empathy is not about shaming a survivor of abuse</u> because they aren't reaching some "holy" standard that you have. Let them heal and move on from their experiences in their own way and time. Usually a lot has been done <i>to</i> them to get to a point where they can't live up to someone's holy standards; some have been so beaten down that they shouldn't be doing much more than healing. <br /> <br /><u>The "Forgive and Forget" enabler</u>:<br /> These enablers are "a dime, a dozen". They are everywhere, it seems. They share a lot in common with the "everything is excusable" enablers. <br /> These enablers just want you to move on from your experiences, to clear your mind of your perpetrator(s), and to forgive them so you can let go of them and the bad experiences they wrought on your life. <br /> Some of it is because they are generally concerned and don't want you living the rest of your days in trauma and in pain. Others want you to move on because you are making life miserable for them (i.e. for selfish reasons). And sometimes it is hard to tell what their motivations are for telling you this. <br /> So since this is the path many, many enablers take, I have an entire post on it called <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/should-you-forgive-abusive-people-with.html" target="_blank">Should You Forgive Abusers</a></b>.<br /><br /><u>The Pollyanna enabler:</u><br /> These enablers are tied to the idea that everything and everyone is great, that we all need to give people a chance, and that no one really means to be cruel ("They are just having a bad day, and you just need to give them some slack"). <br /> These people just <u>like</u> to think the best of everyone, and you're deemed to be unrealistically cynical if you can't have that view.<br /> These people can be the most toxic enablers because they try to persuade you that the world is full of good people, unicorns and rainbows, and that most people are just waiting to work things out with you in a just and moral way. <br /> This can create cognitive dissonance in a survivor if you take this to heart, where you are vulnerable to going back to an abusive relationship - so be aware of how the Pollyannas are effecting your decision-making. Being swayed by them can put you into a lot of hot water again (it's better to get a more realistic view from a mental health professional, like a domestic violence counselor instead). <br /> It is also a form of victim blaming and shaming. The Pollyannas can sound like they are blaming you for not seeing so much good in violent, and frankly dangerous people. Not all abusers show their abusive sides to everyone, and frankly, they use Pollyannas to give them a good image. <br /> Where it gets particularly dangerous is when the Pollyanna is in an authoritarian position and is not informed as to how domestic violence patterns really manifest. <br /> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT3EcQbRdw4" target="_blank">Dr. Ramani Durvalsula</a> talks about the Pollyanna enabler, and so does <a href="https://artflorentyna.com/the-pollyanna-enabler-the-narcissists-most-treasured-minion/" target="_blank">Florentyna Domanski</a>, and there are links to their research on this below, so I don't feel it is necessary to go into it too much here. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT3EcQbRdw4" target="_blank">Dr. Ramani's video on this subject</a></b> is absolutely brilliant, and absolutely necessary for people in positions of power to hear. <br /><br /><u>The "How Could You?!" enabler</u>:<br /> This is the enabler that has been talked into the narcissist playing the victim. <br /> They sometimes get involved for an instant, but run away shortly after shaming you. <br /> Sometimes the enabler either doesn't or does have good intentions, but they always come at you with shaming:<br /> "You should apologize to him! He's your grandfather!", "You need to get along with your brother! You'll never have another one!", "You can't be serious! Your cousin?! Well, family has to stick together. You can't just ignore or divorce someone from your family!", "You shouldn't have walked out of that relationship! You could have worked it out!" - the drumming is to work out issues with abusers. But anyone who has lived through an abusive relationship, knows that most of the time it isn't possible. <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">This post tells why</a></b>. Sure you might get a honeymoon period in some cases, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">but once abuse starts, it always escalates</a> </b>(and will continue to do so <a href="https://images.app.goo.gl/WSSmuYVk3bi1DW9S6" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">even with many, many honeymoons</a> and people pressuring both of you to work it out). <br /> It's simply not going to get better over time; it'll get worse (and that goes for the reasons they tell you as to why they hurt you, as well as escalating to more traumatic forms of abuse). <br /> The other kind of "How could you?!" type of enabler is usually a do-gooder, maybe a close friend of the family, who sees the narcissist in a lot of pain, but you aren't rushing to save the narcissist. You are seen as a devil, a heartless, ruthless, cruel person who leaves narcissists to lie in their pain day in and day out. Except these enablers don't know the whole story, usually. <br /> And many of them don't want to hear it either. They just want to "shame and run". Why? Maybe they think that will motivate you to rush to save the narcissist. It mostly doesn't work, and if it does, it can expose you to more danger. Trying to force a make up should never be done for this reason. <br /> Most of us who have been around narcissists a long time, and have been abused by them more times than we can count, also know that narcissists play the victim more times than we can count too. And we also know that it's a trap. If we rush to save the narcissist, what will the narcissist do? They won't say, "Thank you for coming!" No, they will use it as a trap: sometimes it is a false imprisonment trap. Most often it is a "shaming, blaming" trap at the very least, where they will try to make you culpable any way they possibly can for everything, and I mean <i>everything</i>, that has happened between you, and to justify it all by abusing you again, perhaps worse than when you left (because, again, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">abuse escalates</a></b>). Maybe it's a trap of intimidations and verbal abuse. Maybe it is a trap of on-going threats. Maybe it is even a death trap. Abuse is dangerous and you can never know. But these are the common things survivors of abuse go through when they try to save their perpetrators.<br /> However, the tall tales and lies of what the narcissist tells these do-gooder enablers about their victims usually do not inspire the victims to save their perpetrators. The lies, the made up stories to blame, the made up "victimization" that goes with every abusive situation that they commit, feels like another horrific trap of abuse, and an aftermath of trauma. Narcissists tend to be much, much more <b>unethical and immoral</b> than most people.<br /> You are trying to do good in an unethical and immoral environment. Even if they aren't "crying wolf" for once, they aren't going to heal their <b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/lib/narcissistic-injuries-what-they-are-and-how-to-protect-yourself-from-them" target="_blank">narcissistic injuries</a></b> by you going into that environment, and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/02/why-abusers-and-narcissists-say-it-is.html" target="_blank">you certainly won't heal either</a></b>. <br /><br /><u>The co-dependent enabler</u>:<br /> The co-dependent enabler is so wrapped up in a "give and take" relationship with your abuser, they don't feel they can defend you and lose what they have worked so hard to get. <br /> Let us say that there are 3 sisters working for "the family business" in a very small rural town many miles from the next small town. Let's surmise that the siblings are 16, 17 and 19 years of age. <br /> Let us say that you are the middle sister and you are being bullied and micromanaged by the older sister, especially when Mom and Dad aren't around. Let's say the bullying is exceptionally bad: physical, emotional, psychological and verbal. If you don't do what she tells you to do at the exact time she tells you to do it, she grabs you by the hair and leads you to the place she wants you. She insults you and tells you that you are incompetent and that Mom and Dad should fire you, even in front of customers. She is also stealing, something that budding narcissists also do. <br /> You keep bringing up the issues with your parents, but they say things like: "You all need to get along. You are sisters," and they won't listen to what kind of bickering is taking place. <br /> You refuse to work, saying that you don't need the money, but your parents insist that you do so that you can learn about money and business. Your big sister is asked to apologize to you, but it has no effect and she's back at it again. <br /> You've had it with your hair being pulled, so you shave off all of your hair and buy a wig. Your parents only response is to say, "You had such pretty hair! That's a shame that you did that! She probably didn't mean to hurt you or grab your hair." And when you tell your parents that your little sister will vouch for you, she looks frightened, and notices how much the older sister is getting away with the bullying, and weighs the situation as to whether she will be in danger too if she tells, so she decides to lie and say, "I haven't seen it. Or I might have seen it. I just don't know." When she gets bullied by the big sister even worse than what you received for saying "Or I might have seen it", you suggest to your younger sister that the two of you should tell Mom and Dad. <br /> But your little sister has decided that the big sister has, and will continue, to get away with it over and over again, based on what she has seen, and she's seen it for years. She has also decided she needs the money so that she can escape the family and go to college far away. The little sister apologizes to the big sister for having said, "Or I might have seen it" just so the big sister will no longer bully her. It's a co-dependent pact they have made: big sister won't bully little sister, if little sister doesn't defend you or come forward about what the middle sister is going through.<br /> This little sister was your best friend. So you feel like you've lost her. While it is not a "two sisters against one" situation, it could become that, and it seems to be going in that direction, so being around either one of them makes you extremely anxious. The anxiety is a trauma response, by the way. This situation would probably provoke many more trauma symptoms than that, however. <br /> This is more of a co-dependent situation than a trauma-bonded situation because the little sister has actually decided that she will sacrifice you in order to meet her own objectives: to get away from the family altogether. She definitely sees it as toxic, that there is a lot of bullying going on, that the bigger sister is getting away with stealing, that your common parents are too busy making orders and sending orders to take you seriously, and so you've been hung out to dry by the whole family. In fact, little sis is super sweet to the older sister so that she won't be bullied again, and tells you that she is just faking all of the sweetness in order to get through the experience so that she can go to college. And she tells you that if she can do it, you can do it too. But nothing works. You are still bullied and trying everything you can do to make it stop. And in the meantime, little sis starts thinking she is better, and can protect herself better than you can. She is getting arrogant, in fact. <br /> Little sis would be the co-dependent enabler in a situation like this. <br /> However, co-dependent enabling doesn't just exist in families. It can exist in workplaces, among friends, among marriage partners, in wartime, in any situation, really. <br /><br /><u>The "I don't get involved because I'm going through enough stuff" enabler:</u><br /> We can actually understand why certain people cannot hear us, and cannot get involved in helping us. <br /> Some of these people have already been hurt by the perpetrator, and don't want to put themselves or their families at risk again. They are traumatized. They are trying to get away from the perpetrator, and they know what kind of position you are in, but don't want to "rock the boat". <br /> And some of these people are good people, but they don't want to get involved, even if you are in a life-threatening situation, or something illegal has happened to you. <br /> Some of them sit on the sidelines and watch it happen, even when they are watching violence unfold.<br /> And in some situations it may be understandable: "I've got a kid who is disabled at home. If I get involved, I'm putting the caretaker part of me at risk, plus my disabled child. Who will he go to if I defend this (or those) people?"<br /> Some of them don't want to get hurt too: "If so-and-so is a bully, I don't want to get bullied too just for standing up for you! I've got a right to save my own skin!" <br /> But some of them are just cowards: "I can't! But good luck!" And some of them are even worse than cowards and give you lectures: "Maybe you brought the bullying on! Maybe you are partly to blame! Maybe you egged him on. You should have looked at the issues that could set him off like that!" - <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">These are people who don't understand why domestic violence happens</a> </b>and think domestic violence is a fix-able relationship issue (and it is also <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/should-you-forgive-abusive-people-with.html" target="_blank">victim shaming</a></b>). <br /> And some of them are arrogant: "I don't get involved because domestic violence doesn't happen to upstanding people like me. You're inferior. You draw violent people to you, whereas the rich and famous are drawn to me. I party all day long at wealthy poolside parties while you're dealing with a domestic violence issue day in and day out. Maybe I should feel sorry for you. If you were as good looking as I was, and behaved the way I behaved, and learned when to speak and when to hold your tongue, and had the upper class schooling that I had, you wouldn't be in this pickle!" <br /> And some of them are perpetrators of domestic violence themselves. "I don't get involved. It's his wife to beat around. I've got my own wife that I put in her place!" <br /><br /><u>The peacenik enabler</u>:<br /> A guy I met at a party thinks peace is the highest priority, that the best and brightest of human-kind never gets involved in violent situations, doesn't pick sides, that nothing is worth fighting for, or blocking. For instance, he thought, and still thinks, that Ukraine should have allowed Russia to invade it just to keep from being brought into a war, even to the point of surrendering it's own government and elected officials. <br /> To my mind, it allows aggressions and aggressors to win, for people to be enslaved. <br /> Perhaps the idea is to have peaceful resistance instead: you protest. Except with tyrannical governments, you may be sent to prison for life for protesting, or killed in front of a firing squad. In other words, leaders and a population have to have a conscience in order for peaceful resistance to work, or even be seen (dictators tend to control the media too). <br /> This stance allows an aggressor to do anything he wants to do to you: murder you, steal from you, cut you, punch you, rape your children, leave you homeless without food ... you are supposed to remain pacifist through it all to achieve what? Holiness? <br /> But here is the problem: the more aggression you endure, the more violence you endure, the more symptoms you will endure, the more liable you are to getting PTSD, even PTSD that makes you disabled. There are reasons we have laws in this country against aggression. If anything, states are passing even more laws against aggression, not fewer of them. This is saying: "Aggression is not okay. You don't have a right to steal, or smash up someone else's property, or punch someone at a bar, no matter how drunk you may be." For newer laws: "You and other adults do not have a right to sexually abuse children, and we are giving children some recourse to have you arrested or to get civil damages when they become adults. You don't have a right to threaten and isolate people. We have coercive control laws now. You don't have the right to convince your child that their other parent shouldn't be loved or seen. We have parental alienation laws on the books now and we are assigning attorneys to children to keep this from happening." And so on. Some of the narcissists and psychopaths in our world like to aggress on all of these issues, and more, so more and more laws need to be written. <br /> Allowing aggressive people to aggress on you, or your loved ones, is masochistic. You are still allowing violence to happen, maybe even more so. By letting yourself to be treated as badly as they want to treat you, it is actually increasing the violence, and the propensity for violence, not decreasing it. What will be next on the menu in terms of making way, and normalizing aggression? In a lawless, let-anything-happen "because-we-believe-in-peace" environment, all kinds of atrocities will be committed. <br /> In abusive families, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/06/how-narcissistic-bullies-domestic.html" target="_blank">more than half of golden children become perpetrators</a></b>. They are the ones who are spared the rejections, the fault-finding, the violence while they often see the perpetrator abusing everyone else around them to one degree or another. It shows that if you allow aggression, it will grow, not diminish.<br /> Zelenskyy made a good point in allowing Ukraine to push back on the Russian invasion, to keep the invasion sequestered and swamped in part of his own country (Eastern Ukraine) so that the Western part of Ukraine, and other countries on the "invasion list" aren't taken over too. Everything he asked for and was denied in terms of weaponry, is now being given to him. It takes intelligence with a lot of foresight to know what you need to push back on aggression. I suspect he knows a lot more about human nature than a despotic dictator. <br /> Anyway, when it concerns domestic violence, it is like saying: "Just allow yourself to be punched and hit. You can block, but you can't hit back" - which isn't even good defensive martial arts strategy. You will get hurt if all you do is to "block". <br /> It's one thing to be anti-aggressive and to throw aggressors off your trail. But being a martyr peacenik was something for early Christians, not for today with the knowledge we have gained about aggression and violence and how it usually plays out in the real world. <br /> In fact, I think many of the martial arts have something to say about peace, and achieving peace: you don't go looking for a fight, but if someone else starts one, you have a right to defend yourself, and part of defending yourself often has in it, ways to disable the offender momentarily at least, both physically and in the way they are oriented. Then once you have taken away his ability to attack you, you make a run for it. The philosophies around martial arts, I have found, are some of the best ways to say "no" to violence and aggressive unlawful acts, but also acts against individuals.<br /> Many women who are victims of domestic violence <b><a href="https://www.oklahoman.com/story/opinion/2023/03/10/guest-new-research-shows-why-victims-fight-back-against-abusers/69981160007/" target="_blank">fight back</a></b>, whether that is to escape, or get the perpetrator to let go of them, or to get to the phone to call police, or to get the perpetrator to stop thinking of them as a sponge for battering. There can be a myriad of reasons. One of the reasons is simply a "natural fight or flight response" to being attacked. If you can't get away, or get the batterer to stop, there is no possibility of flight. Fawning often doesn't work because it gives a batterer the impression that you are "a sucker", low in stature, that they can escalate abuse with ease. <br /> The whole movement of "be nice to bullies" is the same "let 'em walk all over you" mindset I have talked about in this post. It has NEVER worked in my own life, or anyone I have known who had to deal with flying monkeys, not once. I used to think that if I did nice things for mean co-workers that they'd stop being mean. Nope. They got more mean. <br /> So that leaves the "fight response". If you don't put up resistance, your trauma symptoms can be much, much worse, another reason the all-in-peacenik approach doesn't work, and is just not the way we are built to deal with abuse. <br /> Do seals just lie around to be eaten? No, they have their strategies for trying to survive, part fight, part flee. <br /> Don't let people talk you into abuse being a road to holiness (it's a favorite of abusive families, and how they get away with abuse: many pretend to care about peace and other liberal causes). </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">THE DENIERS</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"> These people are like the "how could you!?" enablers, except they are so tethered to their beliefs about the narcissist, that they will consider no other views about the situation, no matter how many people tell them that there are good reasons as to why the true victim in the situation cannot deal with any more abuse. <br /> They deny that you were abused (even when they weren't there). They deny that the narcissist has capabilities to hurt other people (even when they weren't there). They deny what you experienced (in whole). <br /> They are not open to what you have to say in the least, what the evidence is, the possibility that you were hurt.<br /> All that they are interested in propagating is that the narcissist is a peaceful person, and would never do anything at all to hurt another person, that it isn't what they know and perceive. We see politicians getting away with this kind of thing. And it is possible in close personal relationships too. <br /> What they are doing is denying reality, and believing totally in a lie. <br /> Narcissists really like these "total deniers", these "I never would have suspected" kinds of people. Narcissists usually have a lot of skeletons in the closet, things that they don't want revealed to anyone, perhaps cheating and stealing they have done in the past, and which they may feel they still have to do to keep from being exposed, and these flying monkeys, to their way of thinking, keep all evidence hidden. <br /> Again, they think it is another "win" for them.<br /> When these people are fooled, and act so foolish, so easily? <br /> Again, being fooled to this extent can work against the narcissist eventually. The fact that these flying monkeys can be talked into something without a backward glance means they can do it to the narcissist just as well. </div><br />THE BELIEVERS<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><u>The "Cult of Personality" believer</u>:<br /> These people can have the same beliefs and prejudices that the narcissist has, and so they are willing to overlook the narcissism, abuse, lies, and so on. <br /> Or they believe the narcissist has been anointed by God to lead them. <br /> Or these people can be deniers <i>plus</i> they are totally enthralled with the narcissist. The narcissist is the greatest person they have ever met. So wonderful, in fact, that any perceived dislike, attack, complaint against the narcissist is reason to go to battle for the narcissist. <br /> People who put other people on pedestals can be other narcissists, or worse. Most of us don't put other people on pedestals, no matter how great they may seem on the surface. We recognize that we don't know a lot about other people, and that it takes a great deal of time, and effort, contact, delving into their personal life and relationships, and even living with one another to establish who they really are. <br /> Someone told me that she doesn't really know anyone other than the people she lives with, that it takes living with someone day in and day out for many years to truly know someone. That is the healthy approach. <br /> So when you hear other people putting another person on a pedestal, it is highly suspect, unhealthy, not particularly intelligent, and can lead to a lot of stupid brainwashed violent reactions. <br /> However, narcissists love this: they have always loved the superficiality, secrecy and grandiosity that they bring to relationships and these people fall for it like blind soldiers. In fact, if anything, narcissists want more of these kinds of relationships. However, they can be in as much danger from these people as their victims are - if they only look at their own behavior to see how far someone can fall from pedestals narcissists erect, the same thing can happen to them. And it doesn't take much to fall off of a pedestal built by an incredibly unstable and volatile narcissist. <br /> The more intelligent among us realize this: no one deserves to be worshipped. Maybe deities of religions. Or the Jesus that lived over 2,000 years ago. Or the Buddha who lived even longer ago than Jesus did. Or God. But to think anyone is grand? It's a slippery slope to disillusionment, and narcissists know it is, from one person to the next, to the next, to the next, as they look for some sort of "perfect" narcissistic supply that doesn't exist. <br /> And to get narcissistic supply from the brainwashed, from bullies, from people who bury their head in the sand, from people who can barely think for themselves and spend their lives parroting someone else? - what a cast of characters to get your grandiosity from. <br /> I realized when I was performing music for audiences every weekend these things:<br /> There were people who absolutely hated my music, people who were indifferent, people who were engaged and liked or loved my music, all the way to being looked as an angel, someone who would heal them by my very voice. The people who put me on the pedestal fell in love with a vision or sound (as music is partly about emoting, even emoting in such a way that it isn't always totally authentic for the moment, just as ice dancers look like they are in love with their ice partner, but are not: they are often married to separate people). It's not good to be that in love or possessed with an idealized vision of someone else. I got to the point where I was not invested in whether I was off the pedestal or on it; I just performed the best I could with my own standards, not anyone else's. And I noticed that some of the people who put me too high on the pedestal were invasive, could get to the point of stalking. <br /> Many narcissists haven't reached that conclusion. They are in love with their own inauthentic images. They love posturing an act, pedestaling others, and manipulating others to see them as better than they actually are. <br /> Enough already. We're just biological machines who have evolved up to a certain point, nothing more, nothing less. <br /> </div>HENCHMEN<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">According to <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henchman" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></b> a henchman is a <i>loyal employee, supporter, or aide to some powerful figure engaged in nefarious or criminal enterprises. Henchmen are typically relatively unimportant in the organization: minions whose value lies primarily in their unquestioning loyalty to their leader.</i></div></div></div></div><div> Note: not all narcissists break the law. <br /> My own exposure with narcissists in my own life is that all but one committed criminal acts against someone at some point or another, stealing being the most common among them. One of them is a photo and document stealer, another an heirloom stealer, another takes loose change and sometimes jewelry, another takes narcotics after someone has come home from surgery or hospitalization. In other words, they just go into someone's house, uninvited, and "take". <br /> And usually if you confront the person or people who stole, or you try to complain to a person who is close to the thief, you get total silence. <br /> People who do not help you solve a crime, or who give you false information, or refuse to talk to you (even if they don't know anything), or who condone the crime in some way are henchmen. <br /> Co-bullies are bad enough, but once a narcissist has enlisted henchmen that allow them, or help them, commit a crime or highly unethical act, have few, if any morals or ethics at all, and because of that, usually no empathy either, or even redeeming qualities that make them reasonable people to deal with, or talk to, on any level. <br /> These are bad people to be around, and if the abuse has escalated to the point of them wanting, or feeling they need henchmen to take on their crimes, or excuse their crimes, you know that any more escalation of abuse that they do from that point forward will be horrific. And with narcissistic abusers, they always escalate. <br /> It is time to call the police in these situations. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">WARNING:<br />A SIBLING IS BULLYING YOU<br />WHEN HE OR SHE IS A GOLDEN CHILD<br />AND IS USING THEIR NARCISSISTIC PARENT AS A FLYING MONKEY</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /> To make clear what a bully golden child is: it is the favorite child of a bullying parent (usually a parent that has a lot of narcissistic traits), that the parent uses to inflict more bullying and pain on to another child the parent has. I write about <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/06/how-narcissistic-bullies-domestic.html" target="_blank">the bully golden child here</a></b>.<br /> In other words, it is a team approach to hurt another child the parent has.<br /><br /> Some parents are just Pollyanna enablers, the kind I talk about above, who think if you just saw the good in your abusive sibling, then everything will be fine again (however, this usually does not happen). <br /><br /> But then there is the hurtful parent, who refuses to hear you out, who decides to withdraw their love unless you make up with your sibling. And then there is the parent who throws you out of the family, convinced that you are "no good, and never will be" if you don't make up with your sibling. <br /><br /> What ever kind of enabler/flying monkey they are will be listed above.<br /><br /> It can be a very dangerous situation to be in because the sibling relationship is different from the relationship between child and parent.<br /> The parent, even if they have a scapegoat child, will want to use the scapegoat for a designated purpose, mainly to blame, and also to punish, when the parent feels bad, hurt, disappointed, in a rage about something. They don't necessarily want the child out of the picture, unless they are feeling that the child is hopelessly out of their control, and they deem the child isn't acting <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank">useful</a> </b>to them. So the point of the relationship is to <i>use</i> the scapegoat, unlike the bully golden's agenda. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> If the scapegoat isn't around they have lost that particular narcissistic supply, and will need to find it elsewhere, except it is not so easy to find. Children, are by nature, more trusting of their parent than maybe they should be, and often blind to the intentions of others, so they are <i>easy to use</i> for predatory adults. So, a narcissistic parent will have trouble finding that again, and even if they choose another one of their children for the role, that child isn't used to it (he's used to his old role), and sometimes runs away from the parent much, much sooner than the scapegoat did. <br /> The sibling relationship in normal non-narcissistic families is both co-operative and competitive. When they are young, it may lean a little more towards competition than co-operation, but with good parenting, it becomes more and more co-operative over time.<br /> When you've got a narcissistic sibling who is enmeshed with his narcissistic parent, the rivalry may be the only thing that exists. The sibling may not want to co-operate on anything. Most likely the narcissistic sibling will assume he is boss over his other siblings, a role that is not healthy for anyone. The rivalry will grow to the point where, for the golden child, that it is all that he wants to exist between him and his siblings, or sibling. <br /> I have written about the overwhelming feelings of jealousy that narcissists feel briefly <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/05/punishments-sadism-cruelty-and.html" target="_blank">in this post</a> </b>(with more to come about the topic), and how it causes them to feel competitive in many more situations than the rest of us feel. <br /> They are not only competitive, but they are entitled as well. It manifests in this way: that they deserve the best from the parent, that they deserve more than the other siblings, that they have the better relationship with the parent, and so on. <br /> <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3BPTw9YxPo" target="_blank">Narcissists want people fighting over them</a></b>, and that includes <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/01/parents-who-pit-siblings-against-each.html" target="_blank">pitting children against each other</a></b> for the sake of the parents getting narcissistic supply. As children we may not have realized this was happening (we might have been putting verbal and reading skills first, for instance, to notice this particular mind game), but if you look back on your childhood, every time you had a problem with your parent or your bullying sibling, what did they do? The parent told us that they loved our sibling more, and stonewalled and rejected us in some way, right? And the sibling acted more entitled - to bully you, to boss you, to get what they wanted from you, and they came to the realization that co-operating on anything with you was not necessary, right? <br /> Anyway, that is what a lot of scapegoats experience. <br /> And it is classic narcissistic parenting, something that other parents don't do because they have empathy, don't want to hurt their children, don't want to hurt the relationship with their children, don't think siblings should be fighting with each other over love (the reasoning being that loving children should always be automatic, something in the genes, and unconditional, and something that should be taught to children rather than putting them in a war against each other). Narcissists seem blind to all of that and always go in the opposite direction. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> In some more conscious ways, golden children stumble upon the fact that they have to perform something for their parent to get what looks like love first. They get rewarded, and they see that their siblings aren't rewarded in the same way. And while the parent is "loving" the golden child, they are usually neglecting the other children in the household (the neglect can be in a lot of different areas and forms, and usually is, but not receiving love is a type of neglect too - it hurts a child, even when the child is pushing away the parent over the neglect - very common, even for babies: see <b><a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-attachment-theory-2795337" target="_blank">ambivalent attachment, avoidant detachment and disorganized attachment</a></b>). <br /> When the relationship turns into a relationship where the golden child is expected to bully his sibling to show support for his parent, the so-called rivalry can, and does in many instances, turn into domestic violence and sibling abuse (hitting, scratching, pushing, and many, many other styles of abuse, even sometimes, sexual abuse). It really is about getting his sibling out of the nest so that he can have the nest, the parent, and the family resources to himself. <br /> Bully narcissistic siblings are highly, highly likely to hijack the parent's Will, or at the very least try to. Many try to get his other siblings out of the way with false narratives and erroneous blaming, and save the threats and violence for the scapegoat, reasoning that the scapegoat isn't loved any way and that there won't be much push-back if he pushes that one away. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> In some states and countries there are legal remedies, but unless a parent wants you to inherit, and not just the bully golden, you won't be able to do anything about it.<br /> A parent being a flying monkey for a golden child makes the child even more entitled than he already is (sometimes to the point of break-ins and stealing), and can ease the way for him to become violent. A parent wanted their golden child to fight the parent's battles, but now the parent is fighting battles for the golden. <br /> Most narcissists support other narcissists, and if a bully golden is one of those narcissists, they will not only support his bullying actions, but also support him in old age, often exclusively, as though he is entitled to the whole inheritance. And with narcissistic parents, it very often all goes to the golden anyway, even when the scapegoat is the full time caretaker, which many scapegoats get talked into with guilt trips, and because they have empathy. But, their role is to take sh*t, and no amount of caretaking or kind of caretaking will be good enough for the parent. Scapegoats, don't forget, have been deemed to be <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank">"all bad"</a></b> since they were mere toddlers (most of them). You will not get an inheritance for that reason, and often it is the only reason. The only time they are not deemed "all bad" is when the parent is "miffed" over something the golden child said or did (i.e. there wasn't enough narcissistic supply in it). <br /> When the bully golden child gets the entire inheritance, he will then say he always deserved it for putting up with the extremely difficult parent. And to a narcissist, a super needy parent, which most narcissistic parents are, isn't something another narcissist wants to deal with, especially when times get tough. They are supposed to be on top of the world giving orders instead. If the scapegoat gets knocked out of the family, and he had a big hand in it, like a lot of bullies, he'll resent the fact that he had to take on the whole chore, even when he set the stage to make sure it happened that way by getting rid of his siblings in any manner he could? <br /> Narcissists are also "damned if you do and damned if you don't" double bind people, especially with scapegoats. In other words, the guilt trip will be heavy, no matter which way you go. <br /> At any rate, bullies <i>use people and love things and money</i>, and they will do what they can to make sure they are the sole inheritors when they've got a narcissistic parent. Usually. That is why they can be so dangerous.<br /> When parents become the flying monkey for the bully golden child there really is no other choice for other children than to be estranged. <br /> However, sometimes that's not the end of it. If you've got several narcissistic family members, they won't enjoy that they are the flying monkey instead of the person pulling the strings, "the brainstormer" in the situation. They've all got the opinion that they are the most intelligent schemers in the group. Let them all fight with one another about how well the flying monkey schemes are working, and how well or awful each one is doing at getting the schemes to work. It keeps the focus off of you. You are just "the thing", "the past utility", "the victim", the one they thrust their aggressions on. Which aggressions they choose are never going to become clear when there are that many narcissists in the picture. <br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">DOES THE FLYING MONKEY TACTIC REALLY WORK?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>Here is the problem in modern-day United States of America. Most children growing up and going to public school know what mob bullying is, and many of them know most of the signs of bullying too. So right there it puts narcissists at a disadvantage. All that children have to do in many cases of abuse is tell their teacher, or a friend tells a teacher. Then it gets reported. When they become adults, they are likely to have the attitude that "bullying is <u>not allowed</u>." <br /><br />But even if you are a partner, the fact that the younger generations are so much more knowledgeable about what constitutes bullying and abuse, and can see through tactics (like power trips), it's getting so much press that it's making narcissists uncomfortable, and in cases where they aren't so filled up with the gas of grandiosity, they are feeling more ashamed too. <br /><br />In order to be a narcissistic or sociopathic parent these days, you practically have to home school your kids, hold them prisoner by lock and key, and disable them in some way. But instances like <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turpin_case" target="_blank">the Turpins</a></b>, <b><a href="http://jimfishertruecrime.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-ariel-kornegay-murder-case-creating.html" target="_blank">the Kornegays</a></b>, and the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/p/9-year-old-kendrick-lee-found.html" target="_blank">Kendrick Lee case</a></b> are bringing forth the need to check on children who are not in school (to see if they are enduring false imprisonment and abuse instead). <br /><br />So that's what is happening in the country for folks under the age of seventy. They are waking up about <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/03/hurting-or-punishing-others-to-teach.html" target="_blank">the fact that hurting people does not bring about good results</a> </b>ever,<b> </b>for anyone, and they are waking up to an important fact that many psychologists talk about, that if someone is bullying, and is hard to get along with, who is showing he has to have his own way, is controlling and spiteful, they probably have a Cluster B personality disorder. And one of the main people in that space <a href="https://doctor-ramani.com/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">is a hitherto quiet psychologist</a>, who wrote books like many psychologists do (and still wasn't very well known - except among survivors of abuse - and even then, not as well known as she should have been). Her main expertise is the Cluster B personality disorders and she started research in a not-very-busy lab at the University of California. She went on to start a <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@DoctorRamani/videos" target="_blank">You Tube channel</a></b> after seeing and counseling people with difficult relationships. "Cluster B" were often the words. Her You Tube channel exploded with viewers. While she may not be a household name (yet), it's amazing to me how many people have heard of her <u>who aren't survivors</u>. It's remarkable what one person can do to change the world. <br /><br />She's our next <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom%27s_Cabin" target="_blank">Harriet Beecher Stowe</a></b> perhaps. <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRd68tyuzFU" target="_blank">Here is one she recently did on the flying monkey situation</a></b> (and in this case another survivor - why wouldn't another survivor get why you can't just make up with someone who abused you? - hard to figure out ...). I listed some of her other must-see videos at the bottom on this subject.<br /><br />Telling people that a lot of those difficult relationships are actually difficult because of Cluster B issues helps a lot (for a lot of people that includes dealing with someone's narcissism, controlling behaviors, gaslighting behaviors, arrogance, having your experiences and feelings constantly invalidated by that person, dealing with Dr. Jekyll/Hyde change-ability, hair-trigger rage, abusive behaviors - all a sign you are dealing with a Cluster B). <br /><br />And who is listening to all of the talk about narcissism? Generally people under retirement age. And people who are looking for answers as to whether they should end difficult relationships, or end jobs with difficult bosses or co-workers. And people who wonder what the fuss is about; i.e. why is everyone talking about narcissism these days? And people who wonder why their children are walking away from their families. And people who wonder why family life seems so screwed up these days. <br /><br />Mob bullying is not all that popular any more, and with recording devices, it can make it very unpopular. So what tends to happen instead is that if you ask them a question, or you try to get a hold of them, they go silent on you instead. They let you know that they are with the narcissist that way. <br /><br />Sometimes mob bullying works on older people (elder abuse), but even a lot of them have become savvy. Even one of my family members in his seventies came to the conclusion recently that controlling people are usually bullies. Yup! It was heartening to see that he reached that conclusion. So many folks in their seventies grew up in times when most of their classmates came to school with belt marks, scratches, bruises and other signs of bullying and abuse. Even the parents of those children thought that hurting kids was a good practice, that it taught them to respect their elders, to be responsible, to toughen up enough not to give into "weak emotions". What it produced instead was a huge generation gap, grown kids who didn't have much respect for how their parents raised them (many of them becoming rebellious, hating authority, and bringing up their kids the opposite way from how they were brought up). <br /><br />And when the reports started coming out in the 1970s and 1980s that hurting children often produced worse results in terms of getting discipline and respect out of children, these parents often didn't change their attitudes. "Oh, a good belt whipping never hurt anyone! It didn't hurt me when I grew up! Everyone is too sensitive today for their own good!" Books like <b><a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo3683497.html" target="_blank">The Battered Child</a></b> from 1968 certainly rocked professionals in the field of pediatrics and child psychology, but parents, by and large, still preferred to hurt their children when conflicts arose. It produced adult children who were closer to each other, their peers, than to their parents. You could complain to your friends, and they would absolutely understand what you were going through because they were going through it too, and it made separating from parents, even if just emotionally, a whole lot easier. <br /><br />I knew a lot of young adults under the age of 20 who went "no contact" in the 1970s with their parents long before "no contact" was a common phrase, or even the common occurrence that it is today. And the flying monkeys of their parents helped them to make that choice. The false narratives being bandied about to keep up an image really disgusted these young adults and college aged teenagers. Suburbia was looked at to define the parents of that generation: "Keep your lawn clean, without weeds, but beat up your children inside your house and pretend you are upstanding parents because of your lawn" is how it was phrased to me once. It was all about keeping up a false image. <br /><br />I think writers like <b><a href="https://kunstler.com/" target="_blank">James Howard Kunstler</a></b> who grew up with a not-so-wonderful childhood except when he went to summer camp, and who has nothing good to say about suburbia, echoes a lot of what I heard from the "no contact" children of the 1970s. And <b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/10/style/jann-wenner.html" target="_blank">Jann Wenner</a></b>, founder of Rolling Stone Magazine, and a peer of James Howard Kunstler, has made comments that his generation was saddled with the worst parents of any generation. <br /><br />The reason for enlisting flying monkeys (to get a mob bullying situation going), for the narcissist, is to put social pressure on the victim to submit to the narcissist. <br /><br />However, a lot of flying monkeys don't know it is the primary, and often the single-minded agenda of the narcissist. As I've said before, narcissists <b>love to play the victim</b>, especially after they have perpetrated an attack or a number of attacks on a victim. If the attacks don't work in getting their victims to submit, they enlist the flying monkeys. <br /><br />"Oh, that poor (narcissist)! They've been treated so badly!" - this is the premise that the flying monkey goes on. It is a masterful acting job on the narcissist's part, probably full of tears and feigned righteous anger, full of proclamations that the narcissist did everything they could to heal the relationship, had many, many talks, and even went to therapy with their victim. It's all lies, of course, because narcissists rarely, if ever, go to therapy, and if they go, they usually quit if they perceive criticism from a therapist (making them impossible to treat). And there are really not any talks that narcissists have with their victims except to get them to submit, to intimidate them, to threaten, to break their victim's self esteem, with heavy amounts of blaming, shaming, criticizing and gaslighting, and "You must do ---" commands. And because they don't want to suffer from social derision themselves, they feel they must make sure you are saddled with social derision instead; they feel they absolutely must play the victim ... And how's that manicured lawn going?<br /><br />Most adult victims of narcissists are disgusted by the narcissist's victim stance. In fact having these flying monkeys is usually a sign that the narcissist is willing to be quite unethical and immoral. How immoral and unethical they are has a lot to do with how many lies you hear coming out of these flying monkey's mouths. <br /><br />But, in general, most narcissists will choose to spiral down further and further into unethical and immoral behavior when their victims do not submit, when the narcissist is unsatisfied with how the interpersonal conflicts are working out with their victim. The flying monkeys become, to the narcissist, someone to tell lies to, and to get the flying monkeys motivated to bring further hurt and harm to the victim, and the victim's reputation. It is a sickening display, and you wonder how far down into dark evil deeds the narcissist is willing to go with these agendas. <br /><br />Survivors realize as soon as the monkeys are enlisted that the narcissist uses people - there really is no real authentic connection with their flying monkeys. The relationship they have with these people is totally built on lies and usage. It's what the victim used to be to the narcissist, a utility to lie to, and to see how many lies they could tell to you, including lying about loving you. When you are discarded by a narcissist, you realize instantly that they never loved you. When they refuse to work together with you on solutions that can make both of you feel loved and happy, they show they don't love you or care about you. That takes place right after the discard. <br /><br />And when they lie to all of these flying monkeys too about what happened, you realize they don't love them either, and if they are lying to their spouse, which most of them are, every single relationship they have is a sham. Their spouse is just as utilitarian and disposable as you were especially if the spouse(s) don't submit and refuse to be their most "effective" flying monkey. <br /><br />And usually all flying monkeys have much more of an allegiance, on a personal level, to the narcissist than they are to you, so you are probably <u>not</u> going to be swayed by the flying monkeys based on that. <br /><br />Some narcissists and sociopaths do try to enlist your children and spouse in their flying monkey brigade to go against you, if they can't get to you with their own minions. But it is not likely to work either unless your spouse and children have a long standing relationship with the narcissist, can be brainwashed easily, that they believe in authoritarianism to some degree, and unless the narcissist is bending over backwards for them (many, many gifts and privileges to put doubts in their minds, i.e., - "_____Mr. Narcissist____ is giving me all of these presents; perhaps they aren't such bad people after all! Maybe you should give them another chance!" Having a close familial relationship, like the narcissist living with your children, or doing constant babysitting, prior to their playing the victim and enlisting flying monkeys, also helps the narcissist's cause. The lesson here is: don't live with narcissists or let them babysit your kids). <br /><br />Note: I see it being reported in forums and groups that a survivor's children are being brainwashed by their narcissistic parent, and more rarely their spouse too, so I know that it happens. But in my own personal life among adult child abuse survivors, these manipulations by their narcissistic parent didn't work at all, and backfired in a big way to the point where the narcissist doesn't have a relationship with his or her child <i>and also his or her own grandchildren either</i>. Granted, most of the survivors I know personally are not part of an "enmeshed" family, and many are independent minded artists, musicians and teachers, and that seems to be where the difference lies: if you are from an enmeshed family where they all live in the same town, and where the attitude is that family must stick together no matter what, even through horrific abuses, then your children can be talked into things like putting grandparents and their views first. If you are from a family whose members are distant geographically, where there are a lot of estranged members, where there are a lot of members who are educated, independent and "doing their own thing" and don't particularly want to get involved with any particular family struggles, splitting you from your own children or spouse won't work.<br /><br />Mob bullying discussions by mental health professionals and in schools usually have something to say about flying monkeys, so it is getting really difficult for narcissists to use these tactics with any amount of success. At least among the educated class. If anything, it gets the victim running away faster because of the downward moral spiral that the narcissist shows. And they especially show it when they have flying monkeys.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO BE A FLYING MONKEY?<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">I have some videos below in the "MORE VIDEOS" section that explains why and how flying monkeys become part of the bullying and enabling social circle of narcissists. <br /><br />There are several videos in the beginning, two by people diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and one who is a psychologist who explains that having flying monkeys is a purely transactional relationship where they reward the flying monkey with something afterward. They don't have respect for the flying monkeys (after all, they can be lied to and brainwashed so easily). They look at them as "dumb followers" and the narcissist in one video refers to his flying monkeys as "soldier ants". Ants are rather tiny, so it is a derisive term. <br /><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: center;">FLYING MONKEYS IN MY OWN LIFE</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I was an observer to the whole flying monkey hate campaign against my father, an exceptionally good man by the way, and yes, there were so many false narratives that it was incredible how far and deep they went. I was always shocked, and doing double-takes it seemed. They tried to sully his reputation at work. they stole from him. They tried to pass him off as something that he wasn't. <br /><br />I've seen a little too much of flying monkeys having been exposed to a lot of people who grew up with abuse and being the daughter of a father who had to deal with lots of different kinds of flying monkeys. When it became my time to deal with flying monkeys, I knew what to expect and had decades to figure out responses. <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/06/competition-baiting-with-abusive-co.html" target="_blank">Here is how I dealt with a work situation</a></b>.<br /><br />Lisa Romano, whose video I feature below, talks about how an ex tried to sully her reputation in places like stores, and places she went, and through her kids, and well, just everywhere. When an ex has that much time on his hands to sully the reputation of another person to that extent, you know he's eaten alive with hatred, another problem narcissists have. They don't get anywhere in life because hate has taken over their brains, their ambitions and their entire beings. They feel they must, must, must have these flying monkeys, and lie to these flying monkeys like crazy to feel good about themselves. It's part of almost every narcissist's doomed playbook, and therefor nothing you can avoid entirely. <br /><br />Just remember: this is how they feel good about themselves. Wow, they must be pretty far down in the moral dumpster to feel good about spreading hate around and firing up and lying to flying monkeys to attack people!<br /><br />So that's my takeaway: it's no better than someone who hates the place he worked and therefor feels inclined to bomb out the building. We are usually disgusted by those kinds of actions, aren't we?<br /><br />While I don't agree with Lisa that in all circumstances you should just roll your eyes at the little annoyances that flying monkeys and the desperate hate-filled narcissist brings to your life, because in some situations it can produce dangers you are not aware of, especially if some of them are flying sociopaths who are just in it to get to hurt someone, anyone, who get a charge of feeling like a great soldier of fortune because they hurt people. A usually bored-with-people sociopath can become energized when called upon to bully. But it certainly does not deserve the attention of feeling emotionally shocked. Immoral people are programmed to want to do immoral things. <br /><br />My own thought on how to handle the narcissist is to back away and get a report going, either with police, or domestic violence services, something where you have a record in case they go after you. If they get really dangerous, you probably don't have any other choice than to move.<br /><br />Handling the narcissist's aggressions and schemes against you: </div><div style="text-align: left;">I like "record and expose" just enough so that they back away, but again, it depends on how dangerous they are (and for that you need domestic violence services - usually free in most states). Also you don't want to do to them what they have been trying to do to you or the narcissist may do a murder-suicide on you, and you won't live to tell the tale of how you healed. They don't like to be exposed because they will experience social derision, and they know it, which is one reason they do it to you instead through lies and why they play the victim. In some cases, letting them know just a little that you are just as capable as they are in bringing them societal shame will often make them back off. Narcissists tend to be pitiful cowards and run away to hide when they are faced with the same aggressions they dish out.<br /><br />With the flying monkeys (the way I've handled them): </div><div style="text-align: left;">much like Lisa Romano. Except some of them were much more aggressive than what she experienced. And went into illegal/criminal activities. It wasn't just gossip in other words; there were some who were dangerous, with at least one probable malignant narcissist, and one sociopath, with all of the traits of those disorders. In those cases, I called the police, went to social services, or talked to a lawyer. I did other things too, suggested by these professionals. And backed away from that particular social circle.<br /><br />As for whether they want to give me the cold shoulder and make me feel I am not part of their junior high-like bully clique: fine. I know it hurts a lot of you to be suddenly unmoored, and it did for me in the beginning too, but the way I look at it now is that after all of the darker criminally-minded flying monkeys still in that circle, I really don't feel comfortable with any flying monkeys even if they are just the frightened "I-don't-want-to-go-through-what-you-went-through" ones. The scared ones are still attached and enmeshed with the criminally-minded ones, so that means they are still being emotionally toyed with, expected to "report", and I see that they are pretending to be 100 percent loyal and enamored with the darker personalities just to keep from being attacked and devalued. <br /><br />They will have to figure it out as I did. Which is to say that I was a deeply frightened flying monkey at one point in my life too, I'm ashamed to say, the enabler kind I talk about above, who does not bully, but puts her head in the sand hoping all of the threats and mudslinging will go away some day, that the older ones would "mellow out" and get "with the times", that it would evolve into a peacenik love-fest instead of devolve into something worse. It's the Pollyanna fantasy! At one time I told one traumatized person in the tribe that maybe they should go back if they were so unhappy. If I had known what I know about domestic violence, I would have said, "Don't go back! <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">Abuse escalates</a></b>! I'll be here to comfort you when times get rough." So, in a way I felt I deserved at least some of the more enabling kinds of flying monkeys just so I would wake up to why being a flying monkey in any capacity is not a good idea. Like a lot of flying monkeys, when I screwed up and refused to be loyal and go along on one issue, I was dis-membered (my way of saying "no longer a member", because those narcissists weren't much different than "off with your head" dictators). <br /><br />And I was shamed by people who were some of the most unethical people, some without any morals whatsoever. I was shamed by some of them for being disloyal who were the most disloyal, two-faced people I had ever met in my life. I was shamed for not showing "enough respect" by people who actually went over-board insulting others on a daily basis as a leisure pastime, calling people animal names, who told other people they were worthless, who were abusive, even of children, and who laughed at other people in the most haughty chest thumping way imaginable. Once I learned that arrogance and abuse go together in narcissism, even when they've committed crimes, apparently, then I started to look at all of the rest of the traits too: false narratives (check), insulting others (check), gaslighting (check), threatening others about membership (check), especially members who aren't total doormats or dishrags (check), and all of the other traits (check, check, check ... ). <br /><br />When you have your peace shaken up and toyed with for years, plus dealing with a lot of future faking, threats about your future membership, and lots of trauma symptoms, you can think, "Being on the wrong side of these monkeys is something I can't deal with. I'm already shaken up by things outside of this. I'll just put up, shut up, be on the very margins and sidelines all of the time." But after having these flying monkeys do their dirty work at the worst period of my life where I was dealing with multiple medical crises, and deaths of loved ones, I can say that seeing the flying monkeys aggressions during these kinds of times pointed to who they really are (people without empathy, for one, and people who like to pick on others who are traumatized, two). It also alerted me to why no one should be a flying monkey ever. A tribe as bad as that one is never going evolve into a more peaceful one. The tribes that get more peace-oriented have members that are already all heading towards more and more peace anyway, who are inclusive and talking about their feelings already, who are open and encouraged to talk about what they went through, and not full of people trying to shut you up about your pain, rubbing their hands together at the chance to bully you some more, or moving on to victimize someone else who also showed signs of trauma. What was I thinking!? <br /><br />What I was thinking was not about reality, but some fantasy that the situation could be a lot more rosy if I just lived what I preached: that if I just stayed and talked about integrity, and talked about doing ethical good deeds, and had causes like the environment, animal rights, child rights, places in society where justice-seeking was necessary, what produces good mental and physical health, that I could change some things from the inside out. What I didn't realize was that I wasn't listened to, or valued for what I brought to the table, not at all, let alone these causes being accepted on any level. I was just another faceless, voiceless number on the inside of the flying monkey clique. It was depressing to learn that. I felt I had wasted my voice and my life. Who wants to just be an extra body just so that the narcissists in the group can count you as one of their loyalists? I'm sure they used my ethics to make themselves look better too ("Look who we have on our team! We are approved by someone who is involved in a lot of causes! We don't bully, hate and have prejudiced minds! This person wouldn't be in our group if we were bad people!"). And guess what? They not only did not care about me a bit, and probably not anyone else, nor did they care about any of these causes, except to use it to prove something to others. It was so obvious that "the group" was much more about violence, invalidating others, smear campaigning, committing crimes when possible, and just so much awful-to-listen-to trash-talking about other people that I didn't fit in at all.<br /><br />In a way, it was easy to be an ex-member, just because of that. <i>I did not belong </i>and never will. <br /><br />And I no longer felt loyal to that group. I felt ashamed of the group, and that I had hung on to membership for too long. And as it turned out, I was probably always a tentative member any way, being an independent-minded artist, maybe unknowingly taking after <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Wood" target="_blank">Beatrice Wood</a></b> in many ways. I felt disgusted with them, with myself, with what I had aligned myself to with unrealistic hopes. Those hopes now looked like deflated destroyed balloons. <br /><br />I am much more adaptable because of that experience, though. It was easier to be more independent, not less so. Freedom cannot be underestimated. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It was also much easier to deal with narcissists at work. My attitude changed: "I don't give a 'd' what narcissists think, and it's amazing that they think I do!" In one job, most people were quitting or getting fired like crazy because of a narcissist, and when it was my turn to leave or get fired, I left without any sadness. The narcissist, in this case, was not the boss. The boss was the flying monkey of a worker who was destroying his business, didn't think he could live without, and was feeding him false narratives about other workers. I knew, by then, how to respond to narcissists in work situations: gray rock all the way. There were no butterflies over the narcissist's tactics either: I had seen all of it before. Threats were met with "You don't say so!" or "That's interesting!" - nothing more, even though I was goaded to say much more. Nope, I'm going to do a task for the boss. I just looked at it as another lesson in how to deal with narcissists who filled their minds with competitions, manipulations, lies and grandiosity-seeking. And, of course, their smiles over the possibility I might be fired like all the rest who went before me said "narcissism" too. I also had the realization I was disgusted enough seeing that narc mind going to work with the usual tactics that narcissists are known for, to never want narcissists in my life ever again. I didn't miss any of my past relationships with narcissists where previously I had been wracked with grief and so much more, just from that work experience alone. It freed me and my mind forever. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Then I occasionally met others who <i>seemed</i> like good friendship material on the surface, and who I had a lot in common with, but who were gossipy and insensitive and starting to show narcissistic traits: "Back away!" I told myself. "This is not your kind of person; you've already lived through that." I don't look for approval from anyone any more unless their ethics are absolutely clean, or better than mine, and it takes awhile to know. I definitely no longer seek approval from the Pollyanna enablers, or any flying monkeys, or people who try to shame others into compliance (all of whom are usually hypocrites), and even the frightened, I-must-stay-enmeshed-to-the-group-to-avoid-disaster members. Not even the lawyer with the long list of causes I wrote about above, though that made me flinch a little bit more than any others, admittedly. I was never into flying monkey-dom to such an extent that I could attack, pull back afterward, and close my ears to the response (when you throw missiles and bombs, you act like that, right?).<br /><br />Although the narcissists and the one sociopath in the group weren't the worst people I have ever met in my life unfortunately, some of them were so bereft of any discernable ethics, more than I wanted in my life, more than I imagined they would be. Once I knew where their real ethics lay, and not just the Dr. Jekyll things they spouted for their own image-making to get along in society, I did not want their brand of ethics anywhere near me. It was unbelievable how they acted, especially the older ones, the ones over 50. You'd think older people would have learned in junior high that arrogance, hatred, lying about others and a resistance to being kind, thoughtful, and intelligent about relationship issues gets you nowhere. It's amazing that some people remain so arrogant after they commit such horrific acts of aggression against others too. I guess you have to be arrogant to live full time with your own immorality. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I'm sure there is a reason why they are like this (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXRrUfX55Jg" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">a traumatic childhood environment with arrested development perhaps</a>?), but it's not something I'm going to waste my voice and time on.<br /><br />Which is to say that I won't be a domestic violence counselor, after all, even though I have studied so much, and devoted a lot of my life to this cause, mainly because the best therapists in the field of domestic violence therapy and research, work with victims <u>and perpetrators</u>. In some cases, it is absolutely necessary to work with both. No, I do not want to work with perpetrators. Most perpetrators don't go to therapy except when they get arrested, and most choose jail over therapy when given the choice, and not kidding. Repeat offending is highly, highly likely no matter which road they take. And the ones who do engage in therapy? So many of them are out to fool therapists, and keep their unethical minds going in the same direction they have always gone, end of story. So all you are dealing with as a therapist is just more narcissistic manipulations, all of the twisted tragic head games they like to play, day in and day out. No thanks. <br /><br />I'm choosing the path of trauma research and healing techniques instead, hopefully at a university with the best trauma researchers in the field. Therefore there will be a limited number of posts on narcissism after I publish the last 4 big ones. There are so many good researchers in the field of narcissism right now that I don't feel I have much more to add. <br /><br />Healing is the best direction to go after abuse anyway, assuming you make a good safety plan to exit. Most human beings can't deal with a lot of aggressive power hungry narcissists without trauma symptoms and without wanting to flee (the exception are <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/02/psychopaths-and-abuse-how-do-i-tell-if.html" target="_blank">primary psychopaths</a> </b>who like the challenges of dealing with emotionally toxic environments and are "trauma resistant" because of the different autonomic nervous systems they were born with). Most people who are hurt by narcissists become estranged from them, and sometimes narcissists become traumatized and estranged from each other if there is a power struggle. <br /><br />Even more importantly, it's even hard to talk to the frightened enablers who are part of that group, and are on the very edge of discard or leaving themselves, who also want peaceful, and less "loyal-to-the-group-think" solutions, but on the other hand, feel so powerless and overwhelmed with fear that they can't seem to find a way towards <i>any</i> peace without selling their souls. In some cases they are asked to prove their loyalty and alignment by flattering narcissists publicly just so they won't be targeted again. Unlike me, they aren't trying to talk about ethics or peace; they are just trying to survive the whole sorry mess, keeping quiet, silent, flinching, with minds full of trauma, and feel they can't talk about much of anything without crucifixion. So sad.<br /><br />I can be the type of healer they go to <i>after</i> they learn that abuse escalates, and that narcissists rarely change and often get worse, and when the survivor can't take it any more. Which is to say that I'm definitely a proponent of "no contact" as I think it is nearly impossible to heal and discover who you really are with narcissists in your life (who constantly and disparagingly describe you and your motives to fit their own agendas, and all of the loyalist flying monkeys who come to the table trying to push you with your Pollyanna positions on abuse, or push you to "forgive and forget", or push you out of membership. Pushing, is, of course, aggressive, and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/03/hurting-or-punishing-others-to-teach.html" target="_blank">no one wants, likes or asks to be aggressed upon</a></b>). <br /><br />And the group has gotten worse, by the way, not better, so I made the right choice. They still believe that hurting children teaches a child good lessons. They still believe that women should be submissive, and if not, hurt and ostracized. They still eat meat at most meals. They still believe <b><a href="https://writingexplained.org/idiom-dictionary/children-should-be-seen-and-not-heard" target="_blank">"children should be seen and not heard"</a></b>, that they don't deserve to have a voice in anything, including defining their reality, their feelings, their thoughts, their character, and their decisions, or have any rights, even to common decency and respect. They are still arrogant and laugh at people, and too critical of way too many human beings than I want to sit around and listen to, but are hyper-reactive to criticism themselves, and cannot take even a mini portion of what they dish out. They still believe in scapegoating. They still are wasteful with resources, going on vapid boring luxury vacations talking over each other with their drunk-induced opinions, looking down their noses and laughing at the "peons" around them, deciding on the next person or group to disparage and bully, or which person cannot be invited to which particular event, take your pick. They are still making decisions on what self aggrandizing statements to make when they could care less about morals, ethics, justice or the health or state they leave people in. In other words, they tend to be what I term as "fake liberals", authoritarian dictators who pretend to be bleeding hearts but who are downright heartless - unless they have an awful lot to gain from it, or an image to make out of it, pretending to tout peace when their families are a mess of non-peaceful "it's-up-to-everyone-else-other-than-me-to-make-relationships-work" lazy-ass solutions: ostracisms, divorces, estrangements, silent treatments of people who they professed to love and care about for long periods of time, daughter-hating, grand-daughter hating, step-people hating, in-law hating (especially women in-laws), pretend victimizations, persistently angry that their kingly and queenly entitlements haven't been met yet, and resentments over who refuses to be dominated and commanded by them, the "they should" kinds of liberals when it comes to their personal lives, their politics, and societal ills, as if everything should be someone else's problem to solve, not theirs except in the sense of opinion-making and minimal ineffective back-seat driving, causes for governments to decide even - with a divided country, the last government infighting that we've had, the moral drop of people at the top?! Pppptttt!. <br /><br />And considering all of this, and the fact that they solve relationship issues by playing the victim while being the main perpetrators of estrangement and run smear campaigns against so many "exes", and other people who refuse to "follow the leader", and enlist flying monkeys only for the purpose of shaming people into compliance and total submission to what the narcissists wants out of people they discard, would you really want to be a flying monkey in that kind of group, or with that kind of agenda? Not me. What about you?<br /><br />Especially when they <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-most-common-things-abusive-parents.html" target="_blank">act like this</a></b> and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/04/narcissists-and-blame-shifting-avoiding.html" target="_blank">this</a></b> and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank">this</a></b> and sometimes even like <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/05/punishment-sadism-cruelty-and.html" target="_blank">this</a></b> behind closed doors? And when there are so many flying monkeys <u>who think they, themselves are the real ones in charge, and some who would commit violence and crimes just to have <i>more</i> control</u>? </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The victim, by the way, isn't even important when it has gotten to this point. They are only as important as the unity or dis-unity of the flying monkeys. They have you as the main agenda at first, but they also have to deal with each other. That's the problem with flying monkeys for narcissists - it can, and does in a lot of cases, eventually take the power away from that authoritarian head narcissist, and into the various hands of flying monkeys in the army, individuals who have their own reasons for enlisting in the fight (whether for themselves, or others, or for rewards, or to keep from being attacked, or to take decisions away from the narcissist, or just to see if they can make the victim into a slave for themselves, or because they are scared and remorseful - in which case, they won't be an effective part of an aggressive army and screw up the narcissist's plans. It's the playbook for most dictators). <br /><br />As I've said before, since they are mostly soldiers of fortune working for the narcissist, and getting rewarded for doing so, wouldn't it be better if they fought about who was the supreme god among themselves instead, while you escape to a more peaceful life? Aren't coups, and plans for coups part of the picture?<br /><br />Also once the army has arrived, what is the agenda? Usually with any army it is either to enslave, or to destroy. People who are hostile to you do not want peace, including peace for themselves or peace for you. Not at all. Enslavement causes pain, and destruction causes pain. Don't bother talking about your pain to them. They <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">don't have the empathy to care</a></b>. <br /><br />Also you can see that every cause I've ever cared about and "lived" for decades (children's rights, animal rights, etc.) was given the cold ear and rejected.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />I would say, "Don't waste your time like I did." Aggressors/criminals/fakers/dictators + co-dependents and enablers = toxic environment, period, with no change. All with an incredible amount of confirmation bias, gaslighting, usage, and <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2014/03/stuff-feelings-dont-talk-or-trust-be.html" target="_blank"><b>"don't trust, don't talk, don't feel" closed mindedness</b></a>, and the most uppity un-empathetic "they should" people you would ever meet - it's like putting yourself in a dumpster. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><a href="https://a-z-animals.com/blog/not-my-circus-not-my-monkeys-meaning-origin-revealed/" target="_blank"><b>"Not my monkeys, not my circus"</b></a> is a phrase I've heard a lot recently. It would describe my own present situation. <br /><br />I've also come to realize that when narcissists send their brainwashed flying monkeys to take care of you in a hostile manner, what the narcissist is really admitting to you is (if they spoke honestly, that is): "I'm threatened by your power! I don't want you to have any because I never learned how to handle it in a healthy way. I want <i>all</i> of the power! Please! You can't have any! It's mine! I'm boss! I don't want you in my life without that because I'm too threatened by the fact that you are making more of your own decisions than I'm comfortable with, so I'm going to send out my flying monkeys until you submit and let me control you again! How dare you not let me control you! As if you know how to live! You need me to make all of your decisions for you! You used to be so good at letting me run your life! Why can't you just stop being so headstrong and step in line again? I wanted you to stay in that role forever! But you didn't like that role (so ungrateful!), so now you must be punished for going outside that role! After the promotions, the flattery?! Never mind the abuse; what about the flattery? That means nothing to you?! Okay, so the flattery was fake, but you <i>never</i> deserved to run your own life because I'm so much better at it than you are: more intelligent, more desirable, more popular, more talented, better at everything! Well, at least I pretend to be all of those things because to think otherwise, I'd be scared to death as to who I really am! No, I'm not going to look at how abusive I am; I'm only going to be looking at how I flatter people, and how grateful they should be for the privilege. So I have to believe you're nobody <i>compared</i> to me if I'm only willing to look at the good stuff I do. I have to convince you that I'm much better at being in charge of you than you are of yourself. Just look: people do what I want all of the time! Look at how many flying monkeys do what I want, when I want, even the ones I don't reward! - which admittedly aren't very many, but hey, money talks! Even when I'm unethical, they never think to look, or they ignore it, as they should! - isn't it wonderful? That's why I can ignore it too, and why you should do the same. They don't want to risk not having me in their life if they know what is good for them! But you! You think you can get around my threats, my bullying, my disdain! They skip over my unethical deeds (good for me! - that makes me superior!) and I can do anything I want to anyone at any time, even you, and never get in trouble for it, because to defy me would mean punishment for them. No, most people will put blind faith in me. Why can't you just do the same? What's wrong with you that you can't just ignore my lack of ethics and do what all of the flying monkeys are doing???" <br /><br />And when you ask them to stop this B.S. because their attitude is Wicked-Witch-of-the-West thinking, not helpful, not moral, and not wanted, or that it hurts, they are going to tell you that they will stop it if you agree to let them have power and control over you again, plus a lot more than they had before. When they are like this? These are not realistic fantasies to have, and I think even they realize they are mere fantasies after awhile. If they are malignant narcissists and they know this is hurting you, they will think, "Oh, this is <u>SO GOOD</u>! Ha! They're feeling pain! Let's keep this going!!"<br /><br />And by the way, anyone who doesn't care what you experience or feel, and who thinks your pain is a good thing, is likely to have a Cluster B personality disorder, most likely with every single one of the narcissistic traits. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Would you be a flying monkey to someone knowing that? And most of all, would you tell someone to go back to, or stay in a relationship like that?<br /><br />If a narcissist is your parent, and you've been told in your religion to respect your parents, remember that respecting them does not mean obeying them. You can respect them for giving birth to you. You can respect them for "trying" in which ever way they contributed, but it doesn't mean that you have be in their company, to be abused, disrespected and traumatized. Or just take Dr. Ramani Durvasula's advice: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYLckzZCtDc" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Stop telling people to respect their elders! "Respect your elders"... enabling at its finest</a> (the link leads you to her video on the subject). I am also sharing some of the comments of this video below, and I also share my own comment about what I think the "saying" should change to.<br /><br />There has been an outcry recently as discussions about narcissistic abuse have been greatly ramped up on television and social media, but many narcissists are saying so much of society is being taught to be prejudiced against them (with psychologists leading the way, people they think, who are supposed to administer mental health treatment to everyone, and not just ditching narcissists when they rage or get entitled). It's interesting that the prejudiced are complaining about being prejudiced against for the first time in history. And I have had struggles with this myself. Am I as prejudiced against them as they are against me? But here is the difference: I am not trying to hurt them. I am not brainwashing flying monkeys or dealing in false narratives. I am not trying to control what they do with their own life. I am not trying to shame them for normal reactions to pain. After I went through that work situation, I could care less whether they even think about me. <br /><br />Most of us are prejudiced against people who try to, and go out of their way, to hurt others. A normal response is outrage, anger and hurt, even if they are hurting someone else and not us (it is empathy at work, a good thing). Self protection or protecting another is usually also part of the picture. Trauma too. Symptoms, if we the narcissist is in a close personal relationship with you. Compassion for those who are suffering. Denial is possible, but then so is your vulnerability to becoming a flying monkey. So is fear (which is when you get to fawning over people who hurt you, and giving into their toxic entitlements - toxic for you, that is, because it never means they will treat you justly, but also toxic for everyone else because "giving in" is allowing them to arrogantly feel they deserve these entitlements, and more ... their entitlements to hurt others should probably should be crushed instead). <br /><br />Most of us don't want narcissists in our lives for the very reason that <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/how-narcissistic-abuse-ages-you-makes.html" target="_blank">they cause us to have symptoms</a></b>, a <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/06/how-narcissistic-abuse-ages-you-makes.html" target="_blank">general feeling of ill health</a></b>, and no peace. And their qualities (<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">the gaslighting</a></b>, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/11/abusive-families-who-triangulate-love.html" target="_blank">the triangulations</a></b>, the discards, the arrogance, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/08/love-bombing-by-narcissists-and.html" target="_blank">the inauthentic love</a></b>, the constant manipulations and competitions, and most of all the flying monkeys to keep us in compliance with these agendas) - it's way too much for most of us to deal with, and not necessary in terms of living a happy life. We will always break good ethics, even if just to fulfill one of their entitlements under pressure or threat, to stay in their graces. <br /><br />Many of us would like it if they stopped hurting others voluntarily, but the high majority of us also realize that won't happen. It's cooked in to their character for good. So I am just trying to bring awareness to others that if people see certain characteristics of people in their family, at their job, in positions of power, expect to be hurt by them, or for them to meddle in your life in such a way as to get you fired, or take over a parent's inheritance, or to sabotage you in some way (remember that their jealousy is off the charts), or doing what ever they can that they think will garner the most pain for you. <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And it is, to my way of thinking, the challenge of good and evil, and a dilemma for any flying monkey, or soldier, and especially the enablers that don't like what they are witnessing, and don't like themselves in roles where they are pushed into fighting on the narcissist's behalf. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />The best that can be hoped for are societal measures and laws, with the good people of the world trying to flood their constituents for better laws, for people to stop abusing children (abusive families are where you find the next generation of budding narcissists, dictators, aggressors and abusers - so it has to stop if we want peace in the world). You can always save your own children by not exposing them to your worst relatives. It's a step. <br /><br />I also like the fact that this subject has become so popular and that more people are making a stand (which includes going "no contact" with abusive families, giving up on toxic bosses and work environments, refusing to have bullies in your life, period, no matter who they are or what kind of conventional connections we are expected to have, refusing to expose your children to triangulating narcissists, refusing to be a flying monkey in gossipy friendship circles, and bad dictators), and listening to the discussions being raised by the best in the field who study narcissism full time. Here are some who rise to the top of the field for me: </div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Dr. Les Carter's video,<br />"Are Flying Monkeys Also Narcissists Or Just Cowards?"<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JCnQslcq7pQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="JCnQslcq7pQ"></iframe><br /><br />Dr. Todd Grande's video,<br />"Narcissists' Flying Monkeys":<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7vbcpgoWTtk" width="320" youtube-src-id="7vbcpgoWTtk"></iframe><br /><br />Dr. Ramani Durvasula's video,<br />"How to handle flying monkeys":<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qEH23q1r-4Q" width="320" youtube-src-id="qEH23q1r-4Q"></iframe><br /><br />Lisa A. Romano's video,<br />"Bye Bye Flying Monkeys":<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eghbNR7uUnQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="eghbNR7uUnQ"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">MORE VIDEOS:<br /><br /></div><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JKsoUDKHpM" target="_blank">Why Do Flying Monkeys Let Narcissists Run All Over Them?</a> </b>- video by Les Carter for "Surviving Narcissism"<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrfPw7YtTPg" target="_blank">How the Narcissist views his FLYING MONKEYS</a></b> - video by The Nameless Narcissist (my note: he has been diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and tells what it is like to be a narcissist - in this video, he tells the audience that he always views people hierarchically, that it's just how he is, with himself at the top telling people what to do and how to behave - and what he actually thinks of his "ant soldiers").<br /><br />Another person diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder explains it too: <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYkn4QT1j3Q" target="_blank">A #Narcissist Explains: Flying Monkeys from the #narcissists perspective. Blind support is expected</a></b> - by Mental Healness<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ju4CVnRDVk" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">When enablers say "the narcissist is just under a lot of pressure"</a> - video by Dr. Ramani Durvasula<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbxOBmGY8Tg" target="_blank">When narcissistic enablers say "they didn't mean any harm"</a></b> - video by Dr. Ramani Durvasula<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYLckzZCtDc" target="_blank">Stop telling people to respect their elders! "Respect your elders"... enabling at its finest</a></b> - video by Dr. Ramani Durvasula<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqK2zHZrJFU" target="_blank">Your narcissistic family tells you this...</a></b> - video by Dr. Ramani Durvasula (discusses how flying monkeys can be family who never have your back)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLzmzfWB_hw" target="_blank">The fate of the brainwashed child</a></b> - video by Dr. Ramani Durvasula <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgkOxR89xXo" target="_blank">Dealing with a narcissist's enablers pollyannas and flying monkeys</a></b> - video by Dr. Ramani Durvasula<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT3EcQbRdw4" target="_blank">The Pollyanna narcissistic enabler</a></b> - video by Dr. Ramani Durvasula<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY9_-E4El2M" target="_blank">The self-serving narcissistic enabler</a></b> - video by Dr. Ramani Durvasula<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3yXMbvfmWg" target="_blank">The ignorant narcissistic enabler</a></b> - video by Dr. Ramani Durvasula<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok4-7RJut6I" target="_blank">6 things narcissist enablers say to you</a></b> - video by Dr. Ramani Durvasula<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H83sdYDJoo" target="_blank">Narcissists, Flying Monkeys and Sibling Estrangement</a></b> - by Ali-John Chaudhary, Psychotherapist<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQtGIYM9PkA" target="_blank">Narcissistic Parents and Sibling Estrangement</a></b> - by Ali-John Chaudhary, Psychotherapist<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhb5WdUV2q0" target="_blank">SIBLING ESTRANGEMENT in families that SCAPEGOAT</a> </b>- by Rebecca C. Mandeville LMFT - Scapegoat Recovery<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaFO4ABapi0" target="_blank">The COVERT Narcissist MARTYR Parent and the Scapegoat Child</a></b> - by Rebecca C. Mandeville LMFT - Scapegoat Recovery<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4h-pd74VKw" target="_blank">The enabler parent in the narcissistically abusive family</a></b> - by Jay Reid, Psychotherapist<br />(note: I found the comments section to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4h-pd74VKw" target="_blank">this video</a> interesting. There is one child abuse victim - now an adult - who said that his mother used her children as a shield from getting abused herself, so enabling takes many forms). I put some of the comments at the end of this section. <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0sPWe3p8cU" target="_blank">Moving out of the narcissistic parent's home for scapegoats (LEAVING IS DANGEROUS AND NECESSARY)</a> </b> - by Jay Reid, Psychotherapist<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a45XsxqxQEY" target="_blank">Trust what the narcissist shows you NOT what you hope for (seeing is believing)</a></b> - by Jay Reid, Psychotherapist<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT4LC3yR73Q" target="_blank">Why a narcissist says you're "too sensitive" (DISLIKING ABUSE IS NOT BEING 'TOO SENSITIVE')</a></b> - by Jay Reid, Psychotherapist<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kuUdz8oZrU" target="_blank">Narcissists Are 100% Done With You Forever After They Do This | NPD | Narcissism | BehindTheScience</a></b> - video by BehindTheScience <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARFyygg2K3M" target="_blank">Eleven Reasons Why Adult Children Cut Off (Not Just Toxic)</a></b> - by Morin Holistic Therapy<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiRTdCU6FfQ" target="_blank">What's Fuelling Family Estrangement? | The Agenda</a></b> - The Agenda TVO Today<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">some comments from these videos<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Sometimes I like to see the comments as they tell real stories of people living through experiences with narcissists and flying monkeys. If you are dealing with this for the first time, it also helps you to feel like you are not so alone. Here's just a few I picked out from the "comments section" on videos I listed above: </div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4h-pd74VKw" target="_blank">Jay Reid's video</a>: <br /><div><br /></div><div>from @Falconlibrary:</div><div>My dad was the narcissist, my mom the enabler--my mom never tried to stop the abuse and, if we're being honest, not only was relieved to see him turn his attention on us kids (better you than me) but developed a kind of sadistic pleasure in seeing us being emotionally and physically abused, because when my dad did that, it would satisfy his need for control for awhile. My mom used us as human shields.<br /><br /><div>from @hello.6748:</div><div>It's the most infuriating thing in the whole world when you have to listen to everyone praise the narcissist when you know what really goes on behind closed doors and what they're really like. </div><div>They act so fake that its almost unbelievable to others that they can actually be this disgusting, abusive bully.<br /><br /><div>from @TammyMayCormier:</div><div>My narc mom would order my enabler dad to beat me with a belt. If he hesitated she would fly into a narcisstic rage saying that he didnt parent equally and needed to back her up and enforce discipline. She also would often threaten to take us and leave him (in front of us kids) which would result in dad and all us kids crying and begging her not to split our family up. I will never forget the smug satisfied smile on her face when it got to that finale. I used to feel sorry for my father but now I realize he could have protected us and chose not to. We were children. Now they both are old and ill and people keep trying to involve me in their care. I have been no contact for 2 years and 2 months. Cycle breaker.<br /><br /><div>from @eresmathias8058:</div><div>The enabler parent isn't always a victim or innocent. They're accessory to the crime(s).</div><div>Not always black & white. Depends on family.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>from @Chahlie:</div><div>My family is so screwed up it's like both parents were double agents. Mother is the covert malicious narc and dad was the grandiose narc, but he also liked young girls and mother knew this and thought it was funny that we 'had to put up with it', and he enabled her rages and lies. What a mess. I think that's why I never got into drugs or alcohol, because trying to stay alert and on guard was the number one thing. Father is dead now and mother is completely out of control. Horrid beastly people.<br /><br /><div>from @fancynancylucille:</div><div>In defense of my enabler mother, I remember reading in Erikson about children who hated their mothers for not protecting them in an age when women were powerless. But my mother, in the 1970's, was still a woman of that pre-feminist era. She succumbed to the abuse and completely lost herSELF and behaved in prescribed neurotic ways. This is all so unconscious. And then how they forget!!!!!!!!!<br /><div><br /></div><div>from @AlisongsLA:</div><div>Thank you for these videos! I was labelled "highly-gifted," as a child, skipped ahead and put into a program for highly-gifted children. I also excelled in music and dance. Little did I know that all of this was the kiss of death with my Narcissistic mother and older sister. My dad is the classic enabler parent and, after divorcing my mother, married another Narcissist. You have described him perfectly, here! My childhood was hell with a jealous mother who triangulated me and my siblings to make sure we were at odds. I was the scapegoat and still am, although I am no longer in contact with most of them, thank goodness. I only wish I had understood this stuff when I was a teenager, desperate for help and thinking my only way out was suicide. Posting these videos has the potential to save someone who might be feeling what I was as a teen. Good work!<br /><div><br /></div><div>from @starlaeuropa:</div><div>The part about feeling undeserving of protection really hit home for me - my older sister was my abuser growing up, and my mum just buried her head in the sand and acted like it was normal for me to have my sense of self eroded, or to have the daylights beaten out of me whenever my sister was in a strop about something. I still have those feelings of worthlessness, and find it extremely difficult to ask anyone for help or support, because I had it drummed into me from an early age that I was on my own in this world....<br /><br />from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYLckzZCtDc" target="_blank">Dr. Ramani Durvarula's video</a>:<br /><br /><div>from @daveimus7274:<br /></div><div>Growing up the sadistically-scapegoated member of a narcissistic family, I heard “respect your elders” all the time. It was code for “submit to injustice.” Thank you, Dr. Ramani, for the work you do.<br /><br /><div>from @rynaa-nj2vn:</div><div>Someone at a social gathering said the children of today don't respect their elders anymore.... and I instinctively responded that respect is earned. Being older does not mean you deserve more respect than younger people. Thank you so much Dr Ramani.<br /><br /><div>from @carolclarke1573:</div><div>I was subjected to so much sexual abuse at an early age because I was told to respect my elders and was never allowed to say no. Those same people would have blamed and shamed me had I been able to communicate that sexual abuse to them. Triple whammy.<br /><br /><div>from @katie195:</div><div>Another spot on. Giving elders blanket respect puts you in a powerless state. I don’t think I’ve ever really discussed anything on a level playing field with my parents.<br /><br /><div>from @liambraithewaite6415:</div><div>The 'respect your elders' line for me has always communicated 'the people older than you know more than you and are smarter than you.; And in a way, that ends up being a form of gaslighting because being a youth dealing with a toxic elder, you are led to doubt your own ability to recognise this toxicity because it's constantly communicated that you understand less than this/these older people. ... <br /><br />If I had left an opinion, I would have said this:<br />from @ Lise: <br />The saying really should be: "Respect your children, and respect your parents." Narcissistic parents have run with this theme to mean, "I am entitled to respect and telling people what to do, but I don't have to respect, to acknowledge, or to be kind, to anyone, especially my children." A society that promotes only respecting parents without respecting its children, will be like the narcissistic family: dysfunctional, toxic, divided.<br /><br />from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JKsoUDKHpM" target="_blank">Dr. Les Carter's video</a>:<br /><br />from @heidihaeni7783:</div><div>It seems like the flying monkeys are addicted to the feeling of being important to the narcissist without realizing that they're actually more disposable to the narcissist than the target is.<br /> Dr. Carter's response: Well stated. <br /><br />from @DeborahLArmstrong:</div><div>I think flying monkeys are emotionally immature just like narcissists are, and they behave like "mean girls" in junior high school.<br /><br /><div>from @gertrudewest4535:</div><div>Narcs in the workplace are often trying to co-opt me as a flying monkey. They have turned on me in an instant when they find out I try to be conscientious about being a fair minded person. They don’t like me.<br /><br /><div>from @ravenel2:</div><div>Thank you for this. I had to leave two organizations headed by narcissists with flying monkeys and I had no desire to play that game. It’s heartbreaking because I loved both places but there is something sort of profound when you know that good people have to exit and not so good people have to stay…<br /><br /><div>from @ralphlaptop9215</div><div>Question: Given that the flying monkeys are so enamoured by and devoted to the narcissist, why does the narcissist not just use them for their supply? Why do they instead surround themselves with flying monkeys, while at the same time targeting a separate third party for supply?<br /> reply by @nicolececilia6593:</div><div> Because they are addicted to supply and can't get enough.<br /> reply from Dr. Carter:<br /> What Nicole said. Dr. C<br /><br /><div>from @anna2belle783:</div><div>I hate being the "devil's advocate"... But from my experience - there are three kinds of flying monkeys and enablers. The one's that do it maliciously (to get a kick out it or joining in gaslighting by tribe or "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" type), the one's that do it well intentionally (being naive) and those that do it out of ignorance (because they don't know or care to know the circumstances).</div><div>To explain my "heretic" point of view: let's say you caught your spouse cheating - some FM will cry "he just needed affection", some will wonder "why, were you having problems" and some will tell you "if it only happened once - think of the children".</div><div>I honestly believe a lot of enablers and flying monkeys do have good intentions, which doesn't make it ok, but ... Narcissists are very manipulative - people do fall for it.<br /> reply from Dr. Carter:<br /> Thanks for this good food for thought! Dr. C</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">FURTHER READING<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/pro/exhausted-woman/2019/07/narcissists-and-their-flying-monkeys#1" target="_blank">Narcissists and Their Flying Monkeys</a></b> - by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC, Medically reviewed by Scientific Advisory Board<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-autism-spectrum-disorder/202010/are-you-narcissist-s-flying-monkey" target="_blank">Are You a Narcissist’s Flying Monkey? (Are you caught up in a narcissist's emotional abuse of others?)</a></b> - by Claire Jack Ph.D., reviewed by Gary Drevitch <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Flying-Monkeys-JB-Snow-audiobook/dp/B074PBSH92" target="_blank">Flying Monkeys: The Inner Circle of the Narcissist</a></b> - book by by J.B. Snow, Author, D Gaunt, Narrator, JB Snow Publishing (Amazon)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.choosingtherapy.com/narcissistic-enablers/" target="_blank">Narcissistic Enablers: How to Recognize & Deal With One</a></b> - by Hailey Shafir, LPCS, LCAS, CCS, Reviewed by Heidi Moawad, MD for Choosing Therapy<br /><br /><b><a href="https://narcissistfamilyfiles.com/2018/09/10/enabling-the-narcissist-how-and-why-it-happens/" target="_blank">Enabling the Narcissist: How and Why It Happens</a></b> - by Julie L. Hall for Narcissistic Family Files<br /><br /><b><a href="https://artflorentyna.com/the-pollyanna-enabler-the-narcissists-most-treasured-minion/" target="_blank">The pollyanna enabler, the narcissist's most treasured minion</a></b> - by by Florentyna Domanski<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.carlacorelli.com/narcissistic-abuse-recovery/the-narcissist-and-the-enabler/" target="_blank">The Narcissist and the Enabler – A Match Made in Hell</a></b> - by Carla Corelli<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://paulryburn.medium.com/flying-monkeys-learn-to-defend-against-this-top-weapon-of-covert-narcissists-2e7577667d8" target="_blank">Flying Monkeys: Learn to Defend Against This Top Weapon of Covert Narcissists (Narcissists use them to manipulate you, surprise you, and shatter your reality)</a></b> - by Paul Ryburn, M.Sc. for Medium<br /></div><br /><b><a href="https://unfilteredd.net/usage-of-flying-monkeys/" target="_blank">How Do Narcissists Use Flying Monkeys? (A Complete Guide)</a></b> - by Elijah Akin for Unfilterdd<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/simplifying-complex-trauma/202306/how-family-estrangement-may-benefit-trauma-survivors" target="_blank">How Family Estrangement May Benefit Trauma Survivors (Blood isn't always thicker than water.)</a></b> - by Amanda Ann Gregory, LCPC for Psychology Today<br /><div>excerpt:</div><div><i>Survivors require safe relationships.</i></div><div><i> “People don’t become estranged from people they feel safe with.” —Nate Postlethwait</i></div><div><i> Everyone needs safe relationships to thrive. These relationships do not cause sexual, physical, or emotional harm and are based on trust, respect, equality, and honest communication. Safe relationships are not void of conflicts; all relationships must have conflicts to grow and to be authentic. Conflicts are often repaired in safe relationships but tend to go unacknowledged, unrepaired, and continue to occur in unsafe relationships.</i><br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://pesqueda.medium.com/stop-re-traumatizing-victims-of-narcissistic-abuse-6b29d7ebba35" target="_blank">Stop Re-traumatizing Victims of Narcissistic Abuse (There are many reasons they cannot ‘just get over it’, and your reactions may be causing additional harm)</a></b> - by Prajinta Pesqueda for Medium.com<br />excerpt:<br /><i> ... The time wasted on the narcissist in efforts to heal them, save them, teach them, reform them, etc ... they all fail because they were always nothing more than a delusion. There was never any real progress or victories. Just mirroring, parroting, faking, and pretending.</i></div><div><i> None of it was real. ...<br /></i><br /><b><a href="https://www.marytoolan.com/blog/how-the-scapegoat-is-gang-bullied-by-their-family" target="_blank">How the Scapegoat is Gang Bullied by their Family - by Mary Toolan</a></b>, Scapegoat Child Recovery Coach for her own website<br /><br /><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-29942330172809656862023-06-14T08:27:00.007-07:002023-09-17T05:01:21.369-07:00Is Racism Linked to Narcissism?<p><br /></p><p>Yes. Racism is linked to narcissism. See the research done on this below. <br /><br />According to a Very Well Mind article, <b><a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/the-link-between-psychopathy-narcissism-and-racism-5114588" target="_blank">The Link Between Psychopathy, Narcissism, and Racism</a></b> by Nadra Little and fact-checked by Rich Scherr:<br /> <i>* A recent study has drawn a link between racism and certain personality disorders, such as psychopathy and narcissism.<br /> * In many cases, a lack of empathy can lead to harmful beliefs about others.<br /></i> <i>... Psychopathic traits such as a lack of empathy and callousness are predictive of </i><a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-prejudice-5092657" style="font-style: italic;">prejudicial</a><i> tendencies. ...</i><br /><br />Should anyone be surprised? The lack of empathy, the propensity to be highly negative and judgmental about other people and even to dismiss their concerns and voices, the need to control other people and put them into submissive positions, nitpicking people apart endlessly because they don't seem "perfect enough" for the narcissist, the need for narcissists to destroy the self esteem of others who do not reach their impossible and often unwarranted "perfection standards", and the grandiose views that narcissists have of themselves, we shouldn't be surprised at all. </p><p>I have written about prejudice in Narcissistic Personality Disorder myself <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">in this post</a> </b>and also made mention of it in the post, <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Warning: The "You're Useless" Phrase, the "You're Nobody" Phrase and "You're Worthless" Phrase in Narcissistic Abuse and Domestic Violence</a>.<br /><br />One other take-away from the article I found interesting:<br /><br /><i>The Role of Machiavellianism and Narcissism</i><br /><i> Roy said that his research stands out because, while numerous studies have investigated the toll of racism on minority groups, few have examined the personality traits that make individuals more inclined to hold racist views.</i><br /><i> A 2017 Austrian study however, found that those with the four dark tetrad personality traits—psychopathy, narcissism, sadism, and Machiavellianism—were more likely to vote for a xenophobic presidential candidate with right-wing views.</i><br /><i> The researchers studied 675 Austrian citizens (264 females, 411 males) with a mean age of 35.9. The study found a positive association between the dark tetrad and a political right-wing attitude, with Machiavellianism emerging as the most important predictor that one would have such views.</i><br /><br />The narcissists I have known in my own life were heavily sexist, more than racist, and included women being sexist - hard to believe, except that narcissistic women typically compare themselves to other women and find other women to be lacking in personality, grace, talent, success, and beauty <i>compared to themselves</i>. But, to be fair, I also never saw that people of different races, or people of color, were part of their inner, or even their outer, friendship circles. <br /><br />At any rate, noticeable prejudice is always going to be part of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It will just manifest in different ways depending on their social circle and their family's attitudes, whether that be sexism, racism, cultural, religious, sexual orientation, weight, education, or some other human issue they like to laugh about, and talk derisively about (perhaps the health practices of others, the jobs of others, the mental health of others, refugees, the disabilities of others, the style of clothes other people wear, the type of groups people associate with, people in certain professions, people who believe in God or aliens ... it can be anything). What kind of people they talk about derisively will clue you in to where their prejudices lie.<br /><br />Most of the rest of us have open minds enough not to shut down the possibilities that people who look and think differently than us may have "more brilliant realizations" than we do, especially if we are not in a hierarchical frame of mind or a comparative frame of mind to begin with, where we see others as equals to ourselves, no more or less powerful, no more or less deserving, no more or less submissive, in other words. We realize that perspectives come from our experiences, how we filter those experiences, and how we react to those experiences, and how our personality developed, and whether we have <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#:~:text=Openness%20to%20experience,-Openness%20to%20experience&text=People%20who%20are%20open%20to,likely%20to%20hold%20unconventional%20beliefs." target="_blank"><b>"openness to new experiences and styles of thinking."</b></a> <br /><br />I have an article I'm working on that talks about narcissism and racism, so I thought I'd publish this preliminary post first. The links to the research into this phenomenon are below: <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2552506/" target="_blank">Racism: A Symptom of the Narcissistic Personality</a></b> - by Carl C. Bell for Journal of National Medical Association and the National Library of Medicine - professional paper<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2537052/" target="_blank">Racism, Narcissism, and Integrity</a></b> - by Carl C. Bell for Journal of National Medical Association and the National Library of Medicine - professional paper<br /><br /><b><a href="https://ps.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ps.55.12.1343" target="_blank">Racism: A Mental Illness?</a></b> - by Carl C. Bell Community Mental Health Council, Chicago, and the University of Illinois at Chicago and Psychiatry Online - professional paper<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aZKNck6LDE" target="_blank">The roles of gaslighting and narcissism in racism</a></b> - by Dr. Ramani Durvasula (You Tube video)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1037/0002-9432.73.2.167" target="_blank">Intolerance and Psychopathology: Toward a General Diagnosis for Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia</a></b> - by Mary H. Guindon, Ph.D., Alan G. Green, Ph.D., and Fred J. Hanna, Ph.D. for Wiley Online Library - professional paper<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/du-bois-review-social-science-research-on-race/article/abs/sick-racist/CB244A28222BDE29E64ED531E12CF2A0" target="_blank">THE “SICK” RACIST (Racism and Psychopathology in the Colorblind Era)</a></b> - by James M. Thomas and W. Carson Byrd for the Cambridge University Press (book)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1005159624872" target="_blank">Beyond Empathic Failures: Cultural Racism as Narcissistic Trauma and Disenfranchisement of Grandiosity</a></b> - by Maria T. Miliora for Clinical Social Work Journal<br /></p><p><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-psychology-of-racial-equity/202305/narcissistic-racism-revisiting-carl-bell" target="_blank">Racism: Revisiting Carl Bell (When racism and narcissism collide.)</a></b> - by J. Luke Wood, Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br /><br /><b><a href="https://brill.com/display/book/9789463004503/BP000006.xml" target="_blank">The Narcissism of Whiteness</a></b> - by Cheryl E. Matias for Brill - professional paper<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.oatext.com/racial-implications-of-the-narcissistic-personality-inventory-reinterpreting-popular-depictions-of-narcissism-trends.php" target="_blank">Racial implications of the narcissistic personality inventory reinterpreting popular depictions of narcissism trends</a></b> - by Mike A. Males for Oat - professional paper</p><p><b><a href="https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/link-between-narcissism-and-racism" target="_blank">How Narcissism & Racism Are Connected, According To Research</a></b> - by Abby Moore for Mind, Body Green<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00107530.2009.10745989?journalCode=uucp20" target="_blank">Whiteness as Pathological Narcissism</a></b> - by Arianne Miller, M.A. and Lawrence Josephs, PhD for Taylor and Francis Online <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0092656611000912" target="_blank">Narcissistic Racial differences in narcissistic tendencies</a></b> - by Virgil Zeigler-Hill and Marion T. Wallace for Science Direct - professional paper<br /><br /><b><a href="https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/handle/10355/61365" target="_blank">Pale Narcissus: The Role of Primitive Narcissism in the Relationship between White Privilege Attitudes and Modern Racism</a></b> - by Adam Breakey Hinshaw for Mo Space - professional paper<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/alt-right-racism-mental-illness-psychiatry-personality-disorder-652273" target="_blank">Alt-Right: Are Racists Mentally Ill? Some Psychiatrists Say Yes</a></b> - by by Jessica Firger for Newsweek<br /><br /><b><a href="https://neurosciencenews.com/personality-traits-prejudice-22320/" target="_blank">Personality Traits Could Predict Those Prone to Prejudice</a></b> - administrators of Neuroscience News (original source: The University of Oregon)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/a-psychiatrist-s-perspective-on-racism-2020" target="_blank">A Psychiatrist’s Perspective on Racism: 2020</a></b> - by Rahn K. Bailey, MD for Psychiatric Times<br /><br /><b><a href="https://donaldearlcollins.com/2016/09/22/if-racism-is-broadway-narcissism-is-grand-central/" target="_blank">If Racism Is Broadway, Narcissism Is Grand Central</a></b> - by Donald E. Collins, Ph.D.<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.theunion.com/opinion/columns/piper-devi-the-link-between-malignant-narcissism-racism-and-fascism/article_a4753b47-1f9c-58e4-824d-14b4d767d72d.html" target="_blank">Piper Devi: The link between malignant narcissism, racism and fascism</a></b> - by Piper Devi, holistic counselor for TheUnion.com</p><p><b><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/8/10/racism-and-narcissism-americas-original-sin" target="_blank">Racism and narcissism: America’s original sin (The racist, narcissistic behaviour that characterises the Trump administration has its roots in US colonial history.)</a></b> - by Donald Earl Collins, Visiting Professor of African American History with Loyola University Maryland for Aljazeera<br /><br /><b><a href="https://medium.com/afrosapiophile/types-and-traits-of-white-narcissists-17583a1194b" target="_blank">Types and Traits of White Narcissists (A guide on how to spot the worst of the worst of white supremacists)</a></b> - by Savannah Worley for Medium.com<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Black-American-Refugee-Escaping-Narcissism/dp/0593298543" target="_blank">Black American Refugee: Escaping the Narcissism of the American Dream</a></b> - by Tiffanie Drayton<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/04/opinion/racism-mental-illness-us.html" target="_blank">The Deadly Collision of Racism and Mental Illness</a></b> - by Eyal Press for The New York Times<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.yourtango.com/experts/laura-mae-lindo/un-friending-art-anti-racism-social-media-times" target="_blank">It's Totally OK To Unfriend Your Racist Friends — In Fact, You Should</a></b> - by Laura Mae Lindo for Your Tango<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.science.gov/topicpages/n/narcissism" target="_blank">Narcissism topics</a></b> - Science.gov (government website with a list of topics on narcissism, including narcissism with racism)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://jamesmichaelthomas.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/diagnosing-racism/" target="_blank">Diagnosing Racism</a></b> - by James M. Thomas, PhD for his own website<br /></p><p><b><a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/narcissism-racism-linked-may-donald-trump-234817474.html" target="_blank">Are narcissism and racism linked? They may be, in Donald Trump.</a></b> - by Jerry Adler, senior editor for Yahoo News<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.friendsjournal.org/white-narcissism/" target="_blank">White Narcissism</a></b> - by Ron McDonald for Friends Journal<br /><br /><b><a href="https://daily.jstor.org/is-racism-a-disease/" target="_blank">Is Racism a Disease? (Since the 1940s, mental health professionals have repeatedly debated the question of whether (some forms of) racism can be classified as a disease.)</a></b> - by Livia Gershon for JSTR</p><p><b><a href="https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/racists-are-essentially-narcs.3608503/" target="_blank">Racists are essentially Narcs</a></b> - Lipstick Alley (forum)<br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">MORE ARTICLES SINCE PUBLISHING</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><div><b><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/richard-hanania-racist-pseudoscience-woke-silicon-valley/675335/" target="_blank">The Young Conservatives Trying to Make Eugenics Respectable Again (The pseudoscience of race provides both a justification of hierarchies and an enemy to rail against.)</a></b> - by Adam Serwer for The Atlantic (2023)<br />excerpt:<br /><i> ... One explanation for the resurgence of scientific racism—what the psychologist Andrew S. Winston defines as the use of data to promote the idea of an “enduring racial hierarchy”—is that some very rich people are underwriting it. Mathias notes that “rich benefactors, some of whose identities are unknown, have funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into a think tank run by Hanania.” As the biological anthropologist Jonathan Marks tells the science reporter Angela Saini in her book Superior, “There are powerful forces on the right that fund research into studying human differences with the goal of establishing those differences as a basis of inequalities.” </i></div><div><i> There is no great mystery as to why eugenics has exerted such a magnetic attraction on the wealthy. From god emperors, through the divine right of kings, to social Darwinism, the rich have always sought an uncontestable explanation for why they have so much more money and power than everyone else. In a modern, relatively secular nation whose inequalities of race and class have been shaped by slavery and its legacies, the justifications tend toward the pseudoscience of an unalterable genetic aristocracy with white people at the top and Black people at the bottom. ...</i></div><div><i> ... “The lay concept of race does not correspond to the variation that exists in nature,” the geneticist Joseph L. Graves wrote in The Emperor’s New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium. “Instead, the American concept of race is a social construction, resulting from the unique political and cultural history of the United States.” ...</i></div><div><i> ... Scientific racism is little more than a resurrection of slaveholder ideology given an empirical sheen. As the proslavery congressman James Henry Hammond declared in his 1850s “Cotton Is King” speech, “In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement.” When Hanania wrote that “even if groups differ in skills or cognitive abilities, we can all still benefit from the division of labor,” he offered a not-so-subtle restatement of this idea. Note that he refers not to “people” or “individuals” but “groups.” Woe to those born into the wrong caste! ...<br /></i> <b>My note:</b> In this we see narcissistic hierarchical thinking: they believe they are always better, smarter, and if they can "under-class" one group of people, they will keep trying to "underclass" other groups so that they will have no competition for resources, or "entitled wealth". <br /> What is next? More past prejudices emerging like disenfranchising the Irish, Catholics, Jews and every other manner of immigrants? <br /> James Henry Hammond's declaration that we must have a "drudgery class" of people so that intellectualism and progress can thrive is obviously false in light of the fact that American progress has meant "machines can do the drudgery" to free most minds to pursue some goals other than hard or dangerous labor in their lives and thinking. Now we have AI and robots. Not that this isn't taking jobs away, but it is enabling most of us to stop being "docile" to quote James Henry Hammond.<br /> Part of being smarter is being more empathetic, and looking at the reasons people who think they are "greater than you" are treating you so badly. Treating people dismissively, badly, and hierarchically is not smarter; it is just denying to them that they have intelligence and must work as either an indentured servant to a "class of narcissists". No thanks!</div>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-25610669142241123942023-06-12T07:51:00.006-07:002024-03-22T06:33:43.570-07:00How Narcissistic Abuse Ages You, Makes You Ill, and Can Cause Debilitating Autoimmune Diseases, Among Other Medical Problems<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj-5L8KcKx0Yef9tCQCFt1eBHQIRYLbC4ZvI-hNGn7MaU4qI0QvRoSmuu_O-GR6fbthcFc8hk-J0tA77BvSsrssQ6Um3N3jfFDDBN-7KXKPJ98K0kt5igWlkM9FVdYVsg3CtD5OEnirQnGNuG3KVIWV76rNoi8iG-JOr_nfz2KZ77rk7a5wWWmU2H8/s500/peace%20sign%20final%20smaller.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj-5L8KcKx0Yef9tCQCFt1eBHQIRYLbC4ZvI-hNGn7MaU4qI0QvRoSmuu_O-GR6fbthcFc8hk-J0tA77BvSsrssQ6Um3N3jfFDDBN-7KXKPJ98K0kt5igWlkM9FVdYVsg3CtD5OEnirQnGNuG3KVIWV76rNoi8iG-JOr_nfz2KZ77rk7a5wWWmU2H8/s16000/peace%20sign%20final%20smaller.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p>Note: I have edited this page since publishing to include a video by psychotherapist Rebecca Mandeville to include a particular kind of abuse ("Family Scapegoating Abuse") and what it does to a child's health early and later in life. <br /><br />This page is going to be a catch-all page discussing how abuse effects us physically. Subjects I will be covering, with research, include the most well known and researched ones (links will be added as posts are added):</p><p><br />* headaches<br /><br />* stomach aches, nausea, and general gastro-intestinal issues like Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease, Gastroenteritis, Chronic Constipation, Chronic Diarrhea, allergies, Hiatal Hernia and Irritable Bowel Syndrome)<br /><br />* body aches and muscle aches (sometimes through your entire muscular system)<br /><br />* heart disease and general heart issues including pain in your heart (the "fight or flight" response effects the muscles, and the heart is a muscle, so abuse will cause pain in that part of your body too)<br /><br />* profound lack of sleep (and on-going feelings of fatigue, which can also include "brain fog").<br /><br />These are the major ones. But it can go further: <br /><br />* weight loss and weight gain<br /><br />* compromised immune responses, making you vulnerable to disease<br /><br />* autoimmune disorders (studies are starting to emerge that autoimmune disorders are much, much more prevalent in adult survivors of child abuse than in other people, especially in children who are diagnosed or tested in school in terms of being a <a href="https://happysensitivekids.com/2018/10/the-highly-sensitive-child-test-the-earlier-the-better/" target="_blank"><b>Highly Sensitive Child</b></a>, which most scapegoats of abusive families tend to be) <br /><br />* more rapid aging (studies have shown that many child abuse survivors, and survivors of domestic violence live shorter lives than they otherwise might have ... this is especially true for survivors who tend to self-medicate).<br /><br />* cortisol issues from the stress of abuse<br /><br />Mental health issues can also effect people who have been abused, but that is for another post. I will cover substance use disorder in that post, but it is just as much of a medical issue as a psychological one, but I had to choose one or the other, so I chose that one. I look forward to presenting those articles as this blog will be getting more and more into those issues, especially as I try to wrap up the big discussions and traits of narcissistic abusers.<br /><br />I thought the medical issue was important enough to publish this preliminary page, and I found something on You Tube (link below) that addresses some of it. If you are having these symptoms, trauma therapy can help, especially if you greatly minimize or end contact/exposure to abusive, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">un-empathetic</a></b>, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-pursuit-of-power-control-and.html" target="_blank">power hungry</a></b> people (i.e. people who display all of the narcissistic traits - found in the right column in this blog). In a lot of instances, it can help to ease some of the symptoms, and create a more stable health, as well as more peace of mind. </p><p>In the meantime, there is a video that addresses some of the research that has been done. And yes, I have read a lot of the same research articles that he cites in this video ... Dr. Ramani Durvasula also addresses some of these same issues, but hers tend to be for more specific health issues, and not a general overall view of all of the issues. Her main expertise and focus is on the Cluster B personality disorders, particularly Narcissistic Personality Disorder research at the University of Southern California, and how people who have this personality disorder effect the people around them. I feature her in a lot of articles already.<br /><br />But for a generalized view, hopefully this video can serve as a good introduction to the subject (note: I write an edit and explanation at the end of the video):</p><p style="text-align: center;">Narcissistic Abuse Is A Leading Cause Of Illness And Disease.<br />from The Royal We Channel: </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NPZ-ZJw8JO0" width="320" youtube-src-id="NPZ-ZJw8JO0"></iframe><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">edit on June 13th, 2023: In this video he remarks that doctors do not tell you that the symptoms you are going through are not related abuse, that they will only tell you that the symptoms are "stress related". That's not true. If doctors know that you were abused, and if you are diagnosed with PTSD and/or Generalized Anxiety Disorder, they are highly likely to attribute your symptoms to abuse. <br /><br />That's what I hear and what I have experienced when it comes to medical doctors. <br /><br />The mind and body are not separate, and most doctors are amply aware of that.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">What SCAPEGOATS Need to Know About CHRONIC ILLNESS <br />by Rebecca Mandeville (or watch on You Tube: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytSdn8nQCBg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytSdn8nQCBg</a>):<br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ytSdn8nQCBg" width="320" youtube-src-id="ytSdn8nQCBg"></iframe></div></div></div>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-15429583992957037562023-05-08T03:43:00.028-07:002023-05-23T08:14:59.097-07:00punishments: sadism, cruelty and Schadenfreude by narcissists and sociopaths, plus a discussion on jealousy, abandonment, and abuse as an addiction<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9xigeluibyam_41cseA76xwLZGubuGY99HE3tFijGNyAkctjGAtmshZtBkk49EZ1dUjwbgXLRFyh8OTLyWKtrlKWw_j-C7BaYzdhCixmBRNaI0dbQ8wjNKBkBJH6qPgviAXps6YmLnStLkjiO_CobPvQQ5nouJZeBqrcD_SIOrZdgYZrsIl955r3z/s935/Mom%20the%20Sadist%20web.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="935" data-original-width="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9xigeluibyam_41cseA76xwLZGubuGY99HE3tFijGNyAkctjGAtmshZtBkk49EZ1dUjwbgXLRFyh8OTLyWKtrlKWw_j-C7BaYzdhCixmBRNaI0dbQ8wjNKBkBJH6qPgviAXps6YmLnStLkjiO_CobPvQQ5nouJZeBqrcD_SIOrZdgYZrsIl955r3z/s16000/Mom%20the%20Sadist%20web.jpg" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p style="text-align: left;">And hopefully you will see this: that if a mother wants to keep hurting her daughter, then her own behavior has to be suspect (unless the daughter is committing crimes). But in that case a mother would be contacting police and legal services for protection, not trying to keep hurting her daughter. </p><p style="text-align: center;">INTRODUCTION<br /></p><div style="text-align: left;">This may be one of the most important topics I've written on the subject of narcissism and narcissistic abuse along with <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">Lack of Empathy</a></b> and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/10/how-to-tell-if-you-have-abusive-parents.html" target="_blank">How to Tell if You Have Abusive Parents</a></b>. It plays a huge role in narcissistic abuse. </div><p></p><p>Note: This is actually a deep subject with a lot of psychological research into human behavior by professionals in the psychology field, and for this particular topic, I highly recommend reading the articles in the "further reading section" below to understand the full scope of the problem and issues. I could not begin to cover them all in this particular post other than talking about the most common tactics that narcissists and sociopaths use, and the sadism behind those tactics, and why it matters in terms of continuing a relationship with them. Some other posts I have written that are related to this subject are <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/03/hurting-or-punishing-others-to-teach.html" rel="nofollow">Hurting or Punishing Others to Teach Them a Lesson - Does It Work?</a> </b>and<b> </b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-most-common-things-abusive-parents.html" rel="nofollow" style="font-weight: bold;">The Most Common Things Abusive Parents Say to Their Children and Why It Matters - Survivors of Child Abuse Weigh In</a> </p><p>First are definitions:<br />* Sadism (from <b><a href="https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/sadism" target="_blank">Collins Dictionary</a></b>): "Sadism is a type of behavior in which a person obtains pleasure from hurting other people and making them suffer physically or mentally."<br />* Cruelty (from <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruelty" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></b>): "Cruelty is the pleasure in inflicting suffering or inaction towards another's suffering when a clear remedy is readily available.[1] Sadism can also be related to this form of action or concept."<br />* Schadenfreude (from <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></b>): "(/ˈʃɑːdənfrɔɪdə/; German: [ˈʃaːdn̩ˌfʁɔʏ̯də] (listen); lit. 'harm-joy') is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another. It is a borrowed word from German, with no direct translation, that originated in the 18th century."<br />* related words to the above 3 words: spite, revenge, abuse, Katagelasticism, brutality, inhumanity, barbarism, malice, torture, viciousness, ruthlessness, wickedness, insensitivity, bestiality, unkindness, cold-hearted<br /><br />Sadists generally target people they view as weak: children, vulnerable, disabled, hobbled, ill, traumatized, disenfranchised over sex, race, creed, sexual orientation, prejudiced against, or enduring some manner of scapegoating. <br /><br />Narcissists who practice sadism either do it for self serving purposes or because they like the reactions they get from causing other people pain. Like so many other forms of abuse, sadism counts as an aggressive act, whether that is an aggression into someone else's life, an aggression into or against someone else's body, an aggression into or against someone else's happiness, well-being or self-esteem, or an aggression into or against someone else's psychological health, or an aggression into, or against the unwelcome taking of a victim's finances, home, person, loved ones or possessions. Sadism and aggression add up to causing another person pain or loss, and they usually get some sort of enjoyment out of it. </p><p>Sadism is typically a feature in certain personality disorders, namely <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder" target="_blank">Narcissistic Personality Disorder</a></b> and <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder" target="_blank">Antisocial Personality Disorder</a></b>. More on these personality disorders later in the post. <br /><br />From all of my reading and research, the most sadistic among human beings are usually child sexual abuse rapists and offenders. This would make sense. Children are not physiologically or emotionally ready for adult mating, and so any sexual acts will hurt them. Most children who have been victims of this crime experience PTSD, and sometimes life-long PTSD (C-PTSD), which hurts them further.<br /><br />Of those child sex offenders, there is a sub-group of offenders who do more than just committing a sexual abuse crime against a child to get sadistic satisfaction and gratification. It often includes physical abuse of the child, false imprisonment, threats that they will never see their parents or family again, which also causes emotional stress and pain, and a host of other sadistic acts. Sometimes these offenders know their victims, and sometimes they do not. <br /><br />Among those who don't, the offenders are a lot more likely to murder, and most, but not all, have elaborate plans of which child they will hunt down, and have luring strategies and capturing strategies planned out way in advance. They also have plans of how they will "let their victims go" or dispose of their bodies, and have plans as to how they will evade law enforcement. These offenders usually start at age 16, becoming more cunning and sophisticated in their planning as they grow older. They also tend to get more and more sadistic as they grow older too. The sadism becomes an addiction (when narcissists can't get positive narcissistic supply, they resort to getting negative attention, i.e. sadistic narcissistic supply). <br /><br />Most of the latter criminals (who commit not only sexual crimes against their victims, but also commit other kinds of crimes too against their victims), will also commit all kinds of other crimes in other situations. So it is a societal problem that will not only effect child victims and their families, but also a host of other kinds of people with different kinds of relationships or encounters with the perpetrator. <br /><br />Most of these perpetrators certainly have significant markers of Narcissistic Personality Disorder with Antisocial Personality Disorder, but also significant obvious additions like Machiavellianism and sadism (<b><a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2022-28163-001" target="_blank">the Dark Tetrad</a></b>), and <a href="https://www.psypost.org/2021/06/new-psychology-research-uncovers-why-people-with-dark-tetrad-personality-traits-are-more-likely-to-believe-conspiracy-theories-61088" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">sometimes with marked conspiratorial thinking</a>. These humans are probably the most dangerous among us.<br /><br />The Dark Tetrad personality type can also mean <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-discussion-on-cognitive-empathy-in.html" target="_blank">Dark Empaths</a></b> (sadists who appear to be overly empathetic, self sacrificing, caregivers of children, sweet, charming and kind), but who use it mainly to acquire victims. <br /><br />For the purposes of this post, I will <u>not</u> be talking about these kinds of sadists (though I have included articles below in the "further reading section" which touch on this subject), but how sadism manifests in non-triad and non-tetrad Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and to some degree in Antisocial Personality Disorder in the way of Malignant Narcissism. Which is to say that sadism is still a facet of the most common forms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and especially Malignant Narcissism, but not to this degree. In Malignant Narcissism, criminal thought and behaviors are common, but again, not usually to the degree that they torture, rape and dispose of children. <br /><br />As I have mentioned in so many other posts, Narcissistic Personality Disorder usually manifests during a person's childhood and is the product of a highly traumatic environment. It does not mean the child is the main victim in that environment however, but it is likely that someone is being abused or scapegoated in some way. Also Narcissistic Personality Disorder could not exist without some form of spoiling in the way of preferential treatment of that child (especially over other children) and being told or shown they are better than another child, or children, or person, or people - in other words, there is usually <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" rel="nofollow">prejudice</a></b> in that environment as well. It can be about a girl, or girls, or a woman, or women, and often is. <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Macho-Paradox-Some-Hurt-Women/dp/1402204019" target="_blank">That would account for why girls and women are often the targets for the most egregious forms of abuse</a></b>, including sexual abuse, incest, physical abuse and murder in close personal relationships. <br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">HOW SADISM MANIFESTS<br />FOR NARCISSISTS AND MALIGNANT NARCISSISTS </div><p></p><p>According to the Help Guide article, <b><a href="https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2023/02/sadistic-cat-and-mouse-games-narcissists-and-psychopaths-play/" target="_blank">10 Sadistic Cat-and-Mouse Games Narcissists And Psychopaths Play</a></b> by Shahida Arabi:<br /><br /><i>Some narcissistic and psychopathic individuals sadistically enjoy toying with and deliberately causing pain to others. This gives them a grandiose sense of power and control and a smug sense of satisfaction that they have “one-upped” you with their perpetual cat-and-mouse games. Researchers note that sadism is a key feature of malignant narcissism (narcissism with antisocial traits). Interestingly, other studies report that individuals high in narcissistic and psychopathic traits tend to experience positive emotions when they view sad faces. Neuroscience research also indicates that when they view sad faces. Neuroscience research also indicates that when psychopathic individuals imagine others enduring pain, there is increased activation in areas of the brain related to anticipation of reward and decreased activation in areas related to empathy. Psychologists have suggested that this may mean that psychopaths not only lack empathy for the pain of others, but that they also take sadistic pleasure in witnessing or even causing the pain and distress of others.</i><br /><br /><i>As a </i><a href="https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2023/01/relationships-with-narcissists-can-cause-ptsd-symptoms-a-new-research-study-finds/" style="font-style: italic;">researcher</a><i> who has corresponded with thousands of people who have been in relationships with psychopathic and narcissistic individuals, I have found that there are certain sadistic patterns of behavior common among narcissists and psychopaths who take pleasure in causing pain to their partners. Here are some red flag behaviors and cat-and-mouse games to watch out for:</i><br /><br />... and she lists and explains them. This is her list (without the explanations - for the explanations, read her whole article <b><a href="https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2023/02/sadistic-cat-and-mouse-games-narcissists-and-psychopaths-play/" target="_blank">HERE</a> </b>... I have also put her article in the "further reading section" below, one of the best articles on how the sadism plays out, "narcissistic style", although there are many more, particularly if they are malignant narcissists). <br /><br /><i>1. They manufacture chaos by frequently pushing your trigger buttons to exhaust and disorient you so you’re less able to fight back. <br /><br />2. They retraumatize you using your previous traumas and wounds. <br /><br />3. They bait and set you up with information to react to – just so they can rage and engage in crazymaking arguments.<br /><br />4. They coerce you into self-harm, reckless activity or substance use. <br /><br />5. They use hot-and-cold, push-pull methods to get you addicted to their attention, as they withhold affection after intense periods of <a href="https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2018/01/love-bombing-is-crack-cocaine-the-addictive-cycle-of-narcissistic-abuse/">love bombing</a>.</i></p><i>6. They abandon you during crises, losses, emergencies, and even during your success.<br /><br />7. They chronically provoke jealousy on purpose, only to frame your subsequent boundaries or questions as an invasion of their privacy and depict you as “controlling.”<br /><br />8. They go out of their way to spoil your joy during the holidays and hinder your enjoyment of achievements.<br /><br />9. They provoke fear and make covert threats using “dog whistling”.<br /><br />10. They distort your self-perception by instilling insecurities that never existed.<br /></i><p>The cat-and-mouse games add up to a life for their victims of having very little peace, and certainly not peace that you can count on (narcissists break most promises "never to hurt you like that again", and of course, many of them laugh sadistically when they do "hurt you like that again"). <br /><br />Although run-of-the-mill overt grandiose narcissists and covert vulnerable narcissists show sadism, they are not always happy after the fact, especially if it doesn't get them what they want. Many of them realize that sadism breaks their victim's trust in them (because it is a definite "opposition to empathy", not just a <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">"lack of empathy"</a></b>, what most narcissists are known for instead). Psychologists mainly attribute relentless, on-going sadism (including on-going desires or plans to hurt others) to <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malignant_narcissism" target="_blank">malignant narcissism</a></b>. <br /><br />Malignant narcissists are people with a combination of Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder, and it is the latter that makes them quite menacing, frightening, dangerous and cruel. <br /><br />They tend to be be singularly focused too, which can make things very difficult for their victims. For instance, let us say you have inadvertently criticized them (let us say that you have asked them to stop trying to control you - that you are an adult and don't need to be controlled). They take this as a criticism and as an an affront because malignant narcissists are exceptionally controlling, especially of people they deem to be beneath them in stature. They most often put themselves in the role of boss, teacher, dictator, tyrant and lecturer, whether you like it or not, even if you don't want that kind of relationship - which is quite aggressive and invasive on their part. <br /><br /><b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">Roles</a></b> mean almost everything to narcissists, and especially to malignant narcissists. Putting someone in "a serving or submissive role" is also aggressive and presumptive. However, they are not happy unless you are in a role and fulfilling the role they designed for you, and even then, they tend to rage about what you are doing wrong in that role, that "you can never do anything right ... What's the matter with you!?" - the typical phrase of the malignant narcissist. The role is so tightly defined in terms of what you must do and not do for them, that in order to keep pleasing them, you are expected to do everything <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/03/perfection-in-abusive-relationships.html" target="_blank">perfectly</a></b> too, even down to perfect attitudes, perfect expressions, the perfect number of spices in food they want, in perfect clothes and hairstyles that they like, in perfect health, in perfect mind-reading capacities where you can tell what they want and rush to serve them. And I'm not kidding. And if they don't get what they want, they rage like a king, insult, demand that you comply, and sometimes call you <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank">"useless"</a></b>. <br /><br />And of course, you won't ever live up to their expectations if you go down this road, because narcissists are never satisfied with the power they already have over you: they want more, and more, and more, and more. It's an insatiable desire in them which drives them to be abusive when you either cannot fulfill or will not fulfill their demands and commands, or if you make excuses about why you didn't. <br /><br />It very often drives them to be disloyal to you too. They often collect other people, mostly on the sly, and as an insurance policy in case their relationships break apart (most narcissists experience one or several close personal relationships that break apart). They collect other people who they believe may serve their needs better later on. They collect other potential mates to either use to make their present mate work harder for them, to ruin the self esteem of their present mate, or to use as a get-away from their present mate if their mate won't do what they want or files for divorce, for instance. </p><p>Cheating is very, very common for narcissists precisely because they are so entrenched in using the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/11/abusive-families-who-triangulate-love.html" target="_blank">triangulation tactic</a></b>, and being a perfectionist over how you do things (not over how they do things however, so there is hypocrisy involved). Their triangulation games are just another way to intimidate. <br /><br />They consider "loyalty" and "willingness to serve" to be the same thing - except when it comes to being loyal to you, of course. They try very hard not to be put into loyalty positions themselves unless there are considerable rewards like stature, money, image or power to be had in their association with you. <br /><br />They also rage when they are criticized, but malignant narcissists go further than that and punish too. In adult relationships, "punish" means "abuse", and this is especially true in close personal relationships. Children also can get punished for "unwillingness to serve their parent" (it is child abuse via <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">parentification</a></b>), but for the meantime I will focus on adult personal relationships: spouse, partner, adult siblings, adult parent to adult child, adult family members, and very close adult friends. <u>These relationships should always be lateral, where power is shared equally</u>, where no one is boss, no one is lording something over another person, no one is managing your life and decisions, and <u>if the relationship is not that way, then there is something wrong</u>. Consider that what might be wrong is that you are dealing with a narcissist, sociopath or psychopath, especially if there are punishments and hurtful consequences involved in <i>not</i> letting them have domination and control over you, especially if there is an expectation of <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">a role</a> </b>(especially a servant/master relationship), especially if they are acting authoritarian, especially if they are gaslighting (calling you crazy if you are not submissive), if they rage when criticized, where your needs and feelings are barely considered, where they display a lack of empathy for you, and there is hypocrisy involved in their commands (i.e. they expect you to do things they would never do themselves, and where they are very capable of doing them). <br /><br />Also consider that if they can't go lateral, then you are probably going to get hurt. How much you will be hurt has a lot to do with how deep and dark their narcissistic traits go. For malignant narcissists they go pretty deep and dark. <br /><br />Anyway, to get back to their singular focus ... you have told them that you do not want to be dominated and controlled. They are still going to be acting like you never said that and continue to be dominating and controlling but in a much more provoking way. They will most likely be trying to embarrass you, perhaps even harass you, perhaps make you into a laughing stock, making cutting if humorous remarks about you to get people prejudiced against you ... this is all about getting the upper hand in opinions about you. They may call you inept and crazy, drum up a lot of fake narratives that "they do everything and you do nothing" - very common for malignant narcissists, even though what they've actually done is mainly to delegate. Malignant narcissists, when their power is being challenged, are very, very likely to call you <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank">"useless" too</a></b>. If they can't force you into capitulation and submission, they usually try to enlist others to scapegoat you. <br /><br />Scapegoating requires lots of lies and twists of the truth, and derision, and disgust, leading eventually to prejudice. In terms of having a singular agenda, they will work at this until it is done to their satisfaction, that everyone in your common sphere has taken their side against you. If these enablers and co-bullies don't go along with them, then they too are punished (mostly by "ghosting" - they also make it known that they regard anyone who disagrees with them as the enemy, and like all enemies, you must either be loyal or be beaten down). <br /><br />So, because you are being recalcitrant about being controlled and managed by them, they will punish you for suggesting that they treat you with more respect and empathy, for thinking it is possible, for any mini-rebellion about being controlled by them. "How dare you think you are on the same par with me!" is the message you get. You also get: "You need to do what I tell you to do!"<br /><br />Their first act of punishment is going to be <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/11/abusive-families-who-triangulate-love.html" target="_blank">triangulation</a></b>. And they will focus on that exclusively until it gets as close as possible to what they want without suffering socially with people who have more authority than they do. They will try to find the weak spots in any of your relationships and try to get you separated from those people. They want people suspicious of each other which is why the triangulation goes hand-in-hand with negative false narratives. They demand other people see you as the enemy, as no one to be devoted to, as no one to be invested in, as no one to care about. The pressure to be unempathetic towards you will be a huge agenda of theirs. "They deserved it" will be the constant drumming. <br /><br />Triangulation can work to their benefit precisely because of the single-mindedness about following their agenda. A whole family can go against one single member - I've seen it happen. A whole friendship circle may go against someone - I've seen that happen too. <br /><br />Malignant narcissists who target the family for their triangulation objectives can also make life extremely difficult for the victim's spouse, hoping the spouse will want to get out of the marriage because the family is so awful. I've seen that happen too, especially with victims who still try to have relationships with some family members. They get torn between their spouse and family members. <br /><br />I've also seen that if a spouse walks out on a marriage over this, the family members get so dangerously abusive and controlling, that the victim is left with no one, and they often feel so entrapped that they barely escape with their lives (like in the series <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/11/abusive-families-who-triangulate-love.html" target="_blank">Maid</a></b>, where the character just barely manages an escape, but not just from the abusive husband, but a whole family who has been trained to abuse for a head narcissist). I've seen that happen too. <br /><br />The more people are "stepping in line" with what the malignant narcissist wants in terms of "taking away" the relationships of the victim, the more satisfied they will be, the more they will laugh at the horrible state their victim is in. That is sadism. I've seen it many, many times with other survivors, and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/should-you-forgive-abusive-people-with.html" target="_blank">even experienced it</a> </b>myself. And who loves to see their victims in pain and getting scapegoated? Malignant narcissists.<br /><br />Most malignant narcissists make a practice of continually and systematically triangulating victims, even if those victims are long gone from their lives. They want their victims to feel lonely and alone without support for the rest of their lives, and for their victims to believe that it's the only thing they deserve (it's why some of them resort to <b>stalking</b>, <b>hoovering</b> or <b>stealing</b> from their victims, to put their victims on edge again). <br /><br />They want their victims to feel constant pain. They cannot handle victims who recover, and then lead a happy, normal life afterwards, for instance. They spend an inordinate amount of time trying to crush the self esteem of their victims through many verbal assaults and planned acts of derision, even when they manage to get their victims to do as they say - and not kidding; they practice pro-active abuse, just in case their victims try to buck the narcissist's plans for the victim. Basically it is a way of starving a victim of socially belonging, starving them of <i>any</i> empathy, starving them of respectful humane treatment, starving them of attention, and starving them of emotional expression. <br /><br />As for emotional expression, they rage over your emotional expressions because they see sadness and tears as a criticism of them and their agendas, your anger at them as a provocation to fight you, happiness as an expression of rebellion against their authority, your peace and contentment as a challenge to their sadism, your feelings, thoughts and actions that happen out of their watch as a threat to their authority. </p><p>If you shut down all of your feelings and respond to him or her robot-like, you'll notice that the malignant narcissist will like it, except when he's in charge of <b>baiting</b>, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/06/taunting-and-goading-is-bullying-and.html" target="_blank">taunting</a></b> and provoking feelings out of you, usually in a bullying manner, so that he can convince himself that he, and only he, is in charge of your feelings: what you feel, how you feel, and how much pain he can inflict. <br /><br />Which is to say that many, many malignant narcissists are paranoid too. Some have <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoid_personality_disorder" target="_blank">Paranoid Personality Disorder</a></b> in addition to a range of Cluster B Personality disorders. <b><a href="https://discoveryplace.info/the-relationship-between-paranoid-personality-disorder-and-substance-abuse-disorder/" target="_blank">However, active alcoholism can mimic Paranoid Personality Disorder too</a></b>, so it is important to assess the reasons for their actions accurately. For victims, whether the paranoia is over substance abuse, or Paranoid Personality Disorder, or a <b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/understanding-narcissism/202202/what-is-narcissistic-collapse" target="_blank">narcissistic collapse</a></b>, this is when, how and why malignant narcissists can be quite dangerous for victims. Note: most malignant narcissists are paranoid, so it is, for the most part, a "get out as soon as you can" situation (with a good safety plan - safety plans can be found at your local domestic violence center).<br /><br />The combination of Paranoid Personality Disorder or active alcoholism, with Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder <u>is particularly dangerous if it is accompanied by a calloused prejudiced perspective</u>. This can mean scapegoating of anyone, or scapegoating a group of people. If they are scapegoating anyone, watch out! <br /><br />Tyrannical despotic leaders who invade other countries tend to be malignant narcissists with pronounced Machiavellian traits, lots of prejudice, lots of paranoia, and often with sadistic characteristics too (often referred to as <b>Dark Triads</b> and <b>Dark Tetrads</b>). <br /><br />Consider that <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/08/love-bombing-by-narcissists-and.html" target="_blank">the love bombing</a></b> they do, the tyranny, telling you what to do and how to act, and when and how to submit, and all of the bullying they do, as an invasion of your personal boundaries.</p><p>At any rate, malignant narcissists want their victims to feel that they only deserve isolation, loneliness and constant abuse (with constant <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/04/narcissists-and-blame-shifting-avoiding.html" target="_blank">blame-shifting</a></b>, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">gaslighting</a></b>, and<b> <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/04/narcissists-sociopaths-and-abusers-why.html" target="_blank">false narratives</a> </b>after every episode. Basically they want their victims to feel they have no value, certainly not valuable enough to experience anything other than terror and abuse, i.e. <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank">"worthless"</a></b>, a phrase that points to danger in and of itself). <br /><br />Many, many malignant narcissists are physically abusive or practice false imprisonment in their adult lives, with someone, or with several people. Most malignant narcissists enjoy being threatening and intimidating to others (it makes them feel that they have power over individuals). Most malignant narcissists make fun of people who they think are below them in stature. Most malignant narcissists have very pronounced Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde traits. Most malignant narcissists want their victims to continually suffer, even if they have to get back into the victim's life with sweet talk to ensure that it happens. Most malignant narcissists break the law at some point in their lives in order to hurt other people, or a person. Most malignant narcissists believe they are special and will get away with crimes and unethical acts because they act so menacing, cruel and frightening to their victims. Most malignant narcissists do not follow polite codes of conduct. Most malignant narcissists play the victim (do a <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/12/important-darvo-tactic-and-why-it-is.html" target="_blank">DARVO</a></b>) after they have broken the law or when they are caught over an unethical act. Most malignant narcissists demand that you tell them sensitive personal information, but refuse to share sensitive personal information with you. All malignant narcissists blame-shift automatically, without thought. Almost all malignant narcissists get into other people's lives because they want something out of them (i.e. they act like <b>Trojan horses</b> with either sob stories or love bombing to get into your life - it is never about having a trusting, peaceful, share-the-power, compassionate, intimate relationship; it will always be about aggression, what they can get, how much submission they can get, and how much they can get away with, especially in the way of false narratives). <br /><br />They can do what they did to other people to you too. It doesn't matter how much you believe they value you. Most of them come to devalue everyone eventually, unless they live to please them all of the time. And even then, the narcissist can turn on them over something most of us would find to be trivial. <br /><br />Consider that any relationship you have with a malignant narcissist is not really a relationship. One person is tyrannizing another person into submission, and that's all there is to it. <br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">WHAT SADISM HAS TO DO WITH<br />NARCISSISTIC SUPPLY</div><br />Narcissistic supply has to do with a lot of things including giving the narcissist attention, giving them flattery, giving them the idea that they can manipulate us (even if we aren't doing it consciously), giving them constant validation, agreeing with them, giving them your submission, agreeing to vanquish their enemies or people they don't like for them, agreeing to be put into roles by them (especially letting them decide when you should be <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">parentified</a></b> and when you should be <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">infantilized</a></b>, going along with all of their lies knowingly, agreeing on letting them define you any way they please, and especially agreeing to give them <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-pursuit-of-power-control-and.html" target="_blank">power, control and domination</a></b> over you. Narcissists will be sort of content, as content as they can be, if you are providing a constant stream of these kinds of things).<br /><br />However, part of narcissistic supply is getting reactions out of you. Let's say they want you to be outraged. So they do something to provoke you in a way that you will be outraged. Typically they also tell you that something is wrong with you to react that way (which is a form of <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">gaslighting</a></b> with <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/04/narcissists-and-blame-shifting-avoiding.html" target="_blank">blame-shifting</a> </b>and <b>a double-bind </b>- all of this is common and one of the cat-and-mouse games that narcissists love to play - discussed by Shahida Arabi from the article above). <br /><br />What this gives the narcissist is a lot of information, in particular what you are vulnerable to, how you can be manipulated, what they can do if they get insecure about your willingness to provide constant narcissistic supply, how you will defend yourself, what kinds of manipulations and abuses you will put up with. <br /><br />For criminals, many of whom have Cluster B personality disorders, this cat-and-mouse game goes to the extreme:<br /><br />For instance, you meet someone, and perhaps you get seduced. You think you are in the beginning of a loving relationship. You trust him and let him into your house, and cook dinner for him. He is staying at your house for the first time, and he steals your jewelry and what ever cash he can find. You are outraged at what he has done, and he says: "But you let me into your house! Why would you let me in your house? It was your fault for letting me in and having your jewelry and cash so available for the taking!" They may not say this directly to you, but when pressed by authorities during an arrest, these are the kinds of things they say if they get caught at making up lies. They are always going to put the blame on their victims for being "stupid". <br /><br />And notice the blame-shift: "It was your fault for getting into a relationship with me and not being able to resist my charm; it was your fault for trusting me; it was your fault for letting me stay in your house; it was your fault for not hiding your money and jewelry; it was your fault for blaming me over it; it was your fault for not seeing me as a criminal", and on and on. <br /><br />But they are also seeing what they can get away with, how much you will react. If they threaten you while they are stealing from you ("I'll come back and murder you if you so much as tell a soul about this!" - they are taking note of what they can take from you by being menacing and threatening). <br /><br />Malignant narcissists are always going to be putting the blame on their victims; they are always going to be non-empathetic; they are always going to be lying and making false narratives about you; they are always going to be stabbing you in the back; they are always going to be getting off on your pain. <br /><br />Seeing your pain is similar to <b><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470326/" target="_blank">Pavlov's Dog conditioning</a></b>. I will explain ...<div><br /></div><div>Run-of-the-mill narcissists get narcissistic supply from watching you get flustered when they start arguments and start blaming you over the next thing they find to be lacking. They get narcissistic supply from watching you <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/01/abuse-and-walking-on-eggshells-being.html" target="_blank">walk on eggshells</a></b>. They get narcissistic supply from watching you get uncomfortable and upset about subjects you don't want to discuss. They get narcissistic supply from not showing up at important events or when you are going through tragedies (an attention-seeking tactic). They get narcissistic supply out of lecturing and giving advice (also attention-seeking, and to see how much of it you will follow; i.e. to see how much leverage and control they have over your decision-making - very unethical). They get narcissistic supply from talking and laughing derisively about others ("They are so stupid!" or "They are so crazy" - the extremely common gaslighting tactic, but also stating a warning to you that unless you submit to what they want, you will also be talked about in this way). Flattering them gives them narcissistic supply because they get the sense that they are important to you, that they have some persuasion and power over you. They also show and talk about how they do cold harsh and complete "discards" of other people to show that they are capable of doing that to anyone, even you, and wait to see what your reaction is to that - it is narcissistic supply for them too. They get narcissistic supply from either idealizing you in the way of "Oh, you do so much for me! You are always thoughtful! You are 'my everything'! My knight in shining armor! The most perfect person in the world!" and then they will switch it off abruptly and be criticizing you and blaming you endlessly (playing "hot and cold") to see how you will react. They get narcissistic supply out of raging at you to see what your reaction is too.<br /><br />Malignant narcissists go further than that. They do all kinds of things to sabotage and hurt you, by pretending to be benevolent and compassionate towards you (when they think you won't suspect otherwise) - it's a narcissistic supply fix to be gutting you behind your back, taking your energy and good faith in them, and to get away with it. When they are no longer getting away with it, they will do everything they can to enhance the pain through any means they feel is necessary, whether that is triangulation, or smear campaigns, or hoovering, or stalking, or stealing, or murder. They love to see pain, and they don't care how much pain you are enduring, because their empathy is not just "extremely low", but often not there at all. Seeing empathy often disgusts them, in fact. "Those poor suckers!" is often how they speak about empathetic people. <br /><br />The other sadistic behavior attributed to malignant narcissists is simply taking things that you want, making sure they always get more than you get, or get things that are your joint property, or get things by breaking into your residence, or purposely destroying your property. Then they will either excuse their behavior, minimize it, tell you that you were at fault for not having better locks or a good security system, or that they needed what ever they took more than you needed it. Again, stealing is a criminal activity, but like they do with abuse, they can and do normalize criminal behavior. </div><div><br />The most well-known sadistic behavior they exhibit is domestic violence, either bullying on a physical level or attempting false imprisonment, striving to take away your relationships and credibility, making up things about you, and trying in any way they can think of to hurt you some more. It's incredible that they won't just leave you alone, but the reason why they do this is for narcissistic supply (to see if they can elicit a negative response from you). They will tell you they can't stand you in more ways than one, and when you go away and relieve them of your presence so that each of you can find your own happiness, they don't want that. They want their journey to be a happy one, but they don't want yours to be happy. Your happiness makes them feel enraged, and the cycle of abuse starts again, even if it is just by proxy. </div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">WHY TRYING TO MANAGE A RELATIONSHIP<br />WITH A MALIGNANT NARCISSIST CAN BE DANGEROUS<br />(hint: BECAUSE THEY ARE USUALLY SADISTIC)</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">All of the strategies like "gray-rocking" can be dangerous with malignant narcissists. One of the reasons is that they are, as I've said before, very, very prone to singular focus. If they want power and control about the subjects you both talk about, how you say things, how you express things, what words you use, if you <b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/health/grey-rock-method" target="_blank">go gray rock</a></b>, it can infuriate them. Malignant narcissists demand that you respond to their baiting, and in fact many of them will insist that you be in the "responding" position (and not initiating topics). <br /><br />They don't like you bringing up subjects that show your autonomy from their influences, from their contributions, from their opinions, from their control. <br /><br />For instance, someone asked me about my music career in the company of "Johnny" - not his real name (I talk about him <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2013/06/why-i-started-this-blog-and-my-own-story.html" target="_blank">in this post</a></b> and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/should-you-forgive-abusive-people-with.html" target="_blank">in this post</a></b>: he was deemed to "probably be" a malignant narcissist based on some psychology evaluation tests I took). So when I began to talk about my career in front of other people, I was shut down by him almost immediately: "I don't want to listen to this! It's so boring!" he said, and turned the conversation back to himself and his adventures. Now a music career is usually anything but boring, and I have had many decades in the profession, been on radio across the world, put out a number of recordings which won awards. You meet a lot of interesting people, some of them famous, some of them not famous but extremely talented, some audience members with incredible stories, and a lot of venues have their quirks which are fun to hear about. And traveling from place to place has its adventures as well (just as many adventures as Johnny liked to talk about in his own life). And I was <i>asked</i> to talk about my career.<br /><br />It quickly became apparent that everything I talked about, and was asked to talk about from others, was deemed to be too boring by him in front of everyone else. The only thing he wanted from me were responses to what he said, and he had opinions about every single one of those responses. <br /><br />Anyway, the reason I'm bringing this up is that this is the way malignant narcissists attempt to control conversations. They put their full attention to controlling conversations and what is talked about and not talked about in those conversations. <br /><br />They certainly do not feel comfortable talking about private issues unless they are giving boundaries about what you are allowed to say there too. <br /><br />The only time he didn't act like that was when someone had authority over him, showing the disparities of how he treated different people depending on their power over him. <br /><br />If they deem that you have no power, or very little power, many malignant narcissists will either be micro-managing your every move, or having opinions and attitudes about everything you have to say. <br /><br />It renders you invisible (unless you are putting your thoughts towards pleasing them all of the time). They are constantly manipulating to achieve this, and again, the focus and ambition can be so singular that you can't get away from it. It will always devolve into conversations about how much you are pleasing them and how much you aren't, how much you are following their directions and how much you aren't. Malignant narcissists press through "projects" like this until they are done. If their ambition is to have complete power, control and domination over you, they are going to do everything they can do to see it through, including getting other people involved in that ambition of theirs even if they have to run through hundreds of false narratives and lies about who you are and what you said to them endlessly, grinding you down, exhausting you, insisting that you agree with them. <br /><br />It's frightening; it's depressing; it's sad; it's anxiety on steroids; and most of all it is dehumanizing.<br /><br />Eventually, down the road you will be expected to agree with them on every single subject, or endure a rage, and very often abuse too. Malignant narcissists like pushing their victims around, both verbally through commands and physically through pulling and pushing. Even when they touch you with affection, very often there is even aggression in that: shaking your hand with too tight a grip, hugging you while rapping their knuckles on your head, hugging you and then taking your shoulders to push you away, hugging you too tight or inappropriately, and just generally giving affection with aggression behind it. <br /><br />And if they are successful at dehumanizing you - guess what? They won't feel empathetic towards you or jealous of you. You're just a nobody, especially if they can get other people to view you that way too. And they do try hard. <br /><br />If you can get out of the relationship safely, you have to take steps to ensure that they never are able to take away your autonomy again, especially in terms of decision-making and dignity (it means contacting a lawyer, and sometimes police, in many cases). <br /><br />As far as "gray rock" is concerned, you are initiating the subjects. They don't want to hear those subjects - they will deem them to be as boring as your profession, your thoughts, your research, your expertise, your interests. If you have gotten to a place where the only thing they want to hear are your responses to what they are saying, gray rock will simply infuriate them. And since the method is getting to be more well-known, they will say things like: "So you think I'm a narcissist! Well I'm not, and just because you think that, I'm going to (inflict what ever pain they tend to use or threaten - retaliation is always on their mind too)". <br /><br />Which is why most counselors want you out of relationships with malignant narcissists and anyone who is showing sadism. Managing these relationships is impossible because every interaction has to be about the malignant narcissist grinding you down into a submissive position. They often don't have any other thoughts except that one.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">SADISM AND THE NARCISSIST'S JEALOUSY<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">I will be talking about jealousy more in depth in another post, but this section will deal with how narcissists use sadism to tone down or get rid of the jealous feelings that they have. <br /><br />Jealousy is another huge feature of narcissism, and when I say huge, I mean <i>huge</i>. In the DSM-5, the manual psychologists use to diagnose patients, jealousy is mentioned twice in the list of symptoms for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. <br /><br />When I was trying to figure out something in my own life, a psychologist told me that narcissists feel jealousy to such extremes, way more than other people feel it, that it is a factor in most decisions they make, why and how they compete with other people (unethically compete, that is) even in areas where most people don't compete like with family members or their own children, and why they treat people the way they do. When I looked into the work of <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/samvaknin" target="_blank">Sam Vaknin</a></b> (a psychologist who is also a self-proclaimed narcissist), and read some of <b><a href="https://narcsite.com/" target="_blank">HG Tudor's writings</a></b>, watched You Tube videos by <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@Thenamelessnarcissist/videos" target="_blank">The Nameless Narcissist</a></b>,<b> </b>and visited forums for narcissists (<b><a href="https://www.psychforums.com/narcissistic-personality/" target="_blank">here's just one</a></b>), on how narcissists deal with overwhelming jealousy on a minute-to-minute, day-to-day basis without wanting to destroy the targets of their jealousy, it was right up there with discussions about not feeling empathy in an empathetic world (creating feelings of shame, non-acceptance, and having to act empathetic while feeling the opposite). When talking to other narcissists, they also feel good that empathy does not burden them so much that they are rushing around trying to help people all of the time, anxious about the emotions of others, that the only person they had to take care of was themselves - in other words, even this subject is seen in a black and white way, and dichotomized.<br /><br />Many narcissists feel chronically angry and like a misfit because of their endless jealousies. <br /><br />Conclusion? The only way that most of them deal with their overwhelming feelings of jealousy is to abuse and compete. <br /><br />The compulsion to abuse and discard afterwards looms so large in many of them that some of them feel they cannot control it. In some <b><a href="https://www.psychforums.com/narcissistic-personality/" target="_blank">forums</a></b>, some said that they found it to be the only way they felt better, less jealous. The more pain they could inflict on a target, the better they felt in terms of getting rid of jealous feelings. <br /><br />This is a good insight to have if you are getting abused and rejected over little things that are not making sense to you, like not folding the towels <i>just right</i>, vacuuming a room wrong, or saying something they didn't like, being rejected <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/05/why-are-abusers-narcissists-and.html" target="_blank">over a look on your face</a></b>, being <b>left out of a Will</b> by a parent, and being punished for not being submissive enough (they aren't jealous when you are submissive to them because submissiveness is the last thing that <i>they</i> want to be). <br /><br />It explains so much about the "why" part of narcissistic abuse, especially when they are called upon to work out conflicts that make both of you happy and content (they prefer it if they are the happy one and you are the miserable one - again, they can't feel jealous of an unhappy person). It is also why they manufacture situations to get you to feel jealous, and preferably more jealous than they feel day in and day out. Again, they won't feel as jealous as a person who is more jealous than they are.<br /><br />However, one of the things that keeps the rest of the population from feeling as jealous as narcissists do is empathy, so if their targets get jealous it won't necessarily happen the way they want it to happen; it won't mean their victims are consumed by it; it won't mean they have finally understood what the narcissist goes through with this emotion. Most people experience jealousy as fleeting.<br /><br />For those people who are traumatized and dealing with prolonged PTSD (or C-PTSD as recognized by <b><a href="https://neuroaffectivetouch.com/natouch-blog/the-world-health-organization-introduces-complex-ptsd/?doing_wp_cron=1682103667.3849918842315673828125" target="_blank">The World Health Organization</a></b>), they may <b><a href="https://www.newportinstitute.com/resources/mental-health/feeling-emotionally-numb/" target="_blank">not feel jealousy at all</a></b> because their brains are more consumed with surviving the traumatic experiences than on whatever head games are being played on them to get them to feel jealous. They may not even be aware of the head game to begin with because their attention has to be on ways to handle <i>the symptoms</i> of PTSD (which can be overwhelming) and the event that caused the PTSD (which can be overwhelming too). <br /><br />And who gets PTSD and traumatized the most? Who are the targets of abuse? <b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/traversing-the-inner-terrain/202002/the-empath-and-emotional-abuse" target="_blank">Empathetic individuals</a></b>. They are already not all that prone to jealousy in the first place, and when they are abused to the extent where they get PTSD, they won't be feeling much, if any jealousy. <br /><br />This, of course, will enrage the narcissist. Their games to get their targets jealous isn't working. <br /><br />So it's a stab-in-the-dark thing that narcissists do (which means they aren't in touch with their victim's internal struggles ... it is because the narcissist is too consumed with manipulating, so they make an uncalculated stab-in-the-dark move, hoping to hurt them, but it doesn't have the effect that they hope it will have). Narcissists are not all that emotionally intelligent in general, and they especially aren't if they are doing this. If they were, they'd know if they really want to get someone's jealousy going in a big way, they'd pick on another narcissist. Narcissists, as I've said, are the ones with extreme levels of jealousy, and it doesn't take much to set the jealousy off. <br /><br />But narcissists will keep trying and trying different tactics to get what ever jealous expressions they can get out of empaths. For them, it's a slot machine. They keep punching, kicking and stabbing at the slot machine in different areas with the hope that they will be rewarded. <br /><br />It is why they try all sorts of things: boycott or upstage a child's achievements, wedding, successes. It is why they abandon you when you are sick or have been diagnosed with a terminal illness, or have had an accident, or someone close to you has died. It is why they have affairs and rub your nose in it (especially if they think it will upset you). It is why they have a golden child. It is to get the rest of their children jealous. Again, when they can get a lot of other people around them jealous, they aren't as jealous - but it is only temporarily, until some other situation pops up that makes them feel jealous again. <br /><br />It is also why they micro-manage you: if they can micro-manage you with mundane inconsequential matters and rage about how imperfectly you do the chores, and try to switch your focus to pleasing them, and thereby keep you distracted from anything that might make you happy like a career, ambitions for a career, your talents, or personal goals, or a marriage, or autonomous decision-making, or deep relationships, they feel better, less jealous. It is also what drives them to be single-minded about making money to the detriment of everything else in their life (or for women, finding a wealthy man who will support everything they want, and who will spoil them) - and these two kinds of characters will attract one another. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">They can be so single-minded in the ambition to be wealthy and powerful that people who aren't jealousy-triggered pleaser-puppets aren't worth their time (<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank">useless</a></b>). <br /><br />If money is all-important, then they feel that relationships will be less important, and therefore they won't feel as jealous. They love things and use people, whereas <i>the healthy human beings of this world</i> use things and love people. <br /><br />They tend to feel if they have a great deal of money, they will have a lot of power to draw people to them, a lot more control over others, less jealousy, and can manipulate people a lot better to do what they tell them to do, and to wave money in front of their faces - an instant gratification of jealousy from someone else - finally! It took them a lot of finesse to acquire so much wealth, or perhaps even stealing, or affairs with wealthy people to get them upwardly mobile - and now they can rub people's noses in their wealth, especially people who don't have money. And they get sick satisfaction out of it ... until they meet people much wealthier than they are. Oh, no, back in the dumps they go! <br /><br />Of course, not everyone cares about money as much as they do. And they tend to be stingy about money, much more stingy and on-again-off-again in terms of enticing people with their money. Careers and work-places tend to offer a lot more in general than any relationship with a narcissist can offer, and most people don't want to be abused in exchange for money. In a way it's like being an "abuse hooker" instead of a "sex hooker". It can be incredibly demeaning. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Their compulsion to break up your relationships with false narratives and gaslighting also has jealousy behind it. They can't stand the thought that you may be in a happy relationship, supported unconditionally, loved in a way that they can't love, connected on a deep level, something a narcissist will never experience. They tell too many false narratives, are too manipulative and are plagued with too much black and white thinking to have a good meaningful connection with anyone. <br /><br />The narcissists who have studied their own condition who I have mentioned above (Vaknin, Tudor, and the Nameless Narcissist) have all said that they don't know, or understand, any of their victims. They have also admitted that the only emotions they feel are rage, envy, jealousy and the compulsion to abuse and compete. They don't feel empathy and don't know how to go about feeling empathy. <br /><br />If they can't break most of your relationships apart, they'll be jealous of those people who support you, and narcissists cannot stand that, so then they have to reject you along with all of the people who genuinely love you and offer support when the narcissist hurts you. <br /><br />Jealousy is also why so many narcissists steal (they figure if they get what you have, they will feel better, have the upper hand in accumulation of wealth, accumulation of personal goods, and everything else). It's a way they manufacture jealousy too: "I get what you had, and I get what you want. And you can't have it. And the fact that you can't have it and that I took it away from you causes you pain. And you're so jealous that I have it! Yippeee!" - except stealing is against the law and carries with it more downside than upside in relieving jealousy. Criminals aren't exactly people to envy. <br /><br />Do any of these manipulations ease the jealousy that they feel? Not really. They have to come back at you again ("lure then attack"), or find someone less savvy in detecting their personality disorder, and where their highly jealous natures aren't so obvious. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><u>jealousy with partners:</u></div><br />How they treat marriage partners is pretty predictable and also has a lot to do with jealousy. Again, they want you to be everything they don't want to be themselves. They want you to give and give to them emotionally without receiving anything back. They want you to be empathetic to every little displeasure they feel, even if it is tiny, even if it is grasping at straws, even if it is obviously attention-seeking. "You hurt me so egregiously over that teeny tiny thing that you no longer deserve any love from me again!" When they are incapable of empathy for you over the big challenges in life? Pppptttt! - and by the way, this is called gaslighting. It's also an excuse to hurt you. It's also about <i>finding</i> an excuse to hurt you because you are getting too autonomous with your decision-making (again, they won't feel jealous as long as they think they are making all of your decisions for you, and putting you in roles they would never want, and delegating jobs to you that they would never want either). </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div>And by the way, what decisions are they trying to make for you? If they are butting their nose into your career, finances, how your relationships are going, where you go and what you do when you are out, and with whom, micro-managing what you do when in their company, that's about two things: <u>1.</u> making your decisions for you so they remain comfortable and in control and emotionally stabilized and regulated (i.e. their green monster of envy isn't surfacing), and <u>2.</u> gaining information as to how they can hurt you or sabotage you if the need in them should arise (usually when they get jealous). </div><div><br /></div><div>You'll notice they don't share any of this highly personal and professional information themselves. The closest they will get is either completely unrealistic boasting and posturing, or it is about portraying themselves as the eternal never-ending pretend-victim. In other words, <u>it isn't a real assessment of what they are actually going through</u> in their work, relationships, and finances. It's just another phony narrative. </div><div><br />And of course, the ever-demanding narcissist will complain bitterly if their partner doesn't go along with everything they want and every entitlement they think they deserve. If they can't get what they want when they want it, they will resort to love bombing followed by being distant and disapproving, followed by the silent treatment, a rage, a beating, a disappearing act, or an extra-marital affair (<b><a href="https://images.app.goo.gl/QqhA3mASZqKjRRm69" target="_blank">the cycle of abuse</a></b> - something I talk about in a section that follows). <br /><br />If you can look at most narcissistic tactics as "jealousy on steroids" it will actually make <i>you</i> feel better. Their jealousy of you, in a way, is a compliment of your strengths (strengths they probably don't have), your talents (talents they probably don't have either), your honesty and openness (something they definitely don't have), and your relationships (they aren't in good relationships no matter what they say; they aren't capable of deep relationships, at understanding other people, and they lie repeatedly to people they are close to). They are also usually jealous of your intelligence, your empathy, your looks, and your authenticity. </div><div><br /></div><div>Narcissists usually have to go to great lengths to get where you are, and because they find themselves more jealous than ambitious, it is "easier" to try rip your self esteem to shreds instead, or complain how their own lives went (all of the opportunities they missed because someone did not notice how great they were, which is <b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-autism-spectrum-disorder/202005/5-signs-you-may-be-vulnerable-narcissist" target="_blank">the very common self pity ramblings of the vulnerable covert narcissist</a></b>). <br /><br />Hitting you because you happened to glance momentarily at someone who is the opposite sex when they walked in the door of a restaurant, is obviously a manifestation of an incredible amount of jealousy. It's something that domestic violence victims talk a lot about, how their glance set off their partner's violence. As if glances were a crime - no they are not.<br /><br />Wanting a beautiful woman they can show off to friends, but hating her beauty behind closed doors because it means she can attract other men is one of the <b>double binds</b> so many narcissists find themselves in. Part of hating the beauty is hitting her, giving her facial bruises and black eyes and putting her in the hospital.<br /><br />So much of domestic violence is over jealousy, and trying to control their jealousy by putting their partners into dreamed up jealous situations (like affairs) and into submissive subservient roles where they demand that your focus always be on them, and pleasing them. For perpetrators to only feel at peace when they do this to a woman, you know their jealousy is out of control, crazy-making and yes, sadistically oriented to hurt you as much as they feel they can get away with at any particular time.</div><br />Every time they rage, abuse, and abandon you, you are probably acting more autonomous, more "out-of-their-control" than you usually do. Hopefully that should be telling: that they want you to be more subservient and submissive, not less so. <br /><br />It's their temper tantrum over you taking a step out of being controlled by them. <br /><br />"Oh, the freedom of autonomous decision-making!" you may think. <br /><br />"No, no, no! Your mind is supposed to be consumed with pleasing me all of the time, and about how to get approval from me, not on making your own decisions! God forbid!" - even though you are a full adult - "If you dare to make an autonomous decision, you will be punished and fired from my love!" says the narcissist. <br /><br />Again, anyone making autonomous decisions except them, makes them jealous ... <br /><br />... And paranoid. If your autonomous decision-making eventually puts you in a relationship that is better than the one they have with you, which is pretty likely since your odds of being in another abusive relationship become slim once you become aware enough not to get involved with people <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-discussion-on-cognitive-empathy-in.html" target="_blank">whose empathy is sketchy</a></b>, they will go right back to feeling jealous of you again.<br /><br />Oh, the plans to make other people jealous do go awry! <br /></div><div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><u>jealousy over their children:</u></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Having a golden child who they spoil and tout as their favorite child definitely has to do with them trying to "make" their other children jealous. Again, if their children are all jealous of each other and tearing each other's hair out, the narcissistic parent won't feel jealous. In fact they may even feel superior: "Look at my unruly children! They don't know how to get along! They can't behave with each other and their interaction skills are terrible! Where did they learn to act this way? What am I to do? Parenting is so hard!" - when they are the ones who set up the game?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There are all kinds of problems with this. When I talked to a lot of child abuse survivors about this phenomenon, roughly half of kids knew they were being toyed with to feel jealous of a sibling. The feedback I reported is in <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/04/parents-who-are-narcissists-and.html" target="_blank">this post</a></b>. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Anyway, knowing you are being played by a parent makes it not as effective, and can even backfire where the child resents the parent for using the game (i.e. they stop fighting with their sibling and it gets re-directed away from the sibling and ends up as resentment of the parent). Even if children don't know they are being manipulated in this way initially, another parent or relative sometimes tips a child off, especially anyone who cares about children and protecting them from harm. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Again, this game is meant to harm children, and when narcissistic parents see the harm that it is doing, they rarely do anything about it, except in some cases they may tell their children to apologize to the golden child. It is never about stopping or ending victimization of a child or children. So it has to be counted as a sadistic act.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In fact, the sadism is most often apparent when they pick the golden child the winner of their competitions of their affection, gifts and positive attention over, and over, and over again. And that's what they tend to do. The message is to the other children: "You will never win!" </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So why get pulled into a competition in the first place?<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Which brings up the other things it does. Around half of kids aren't jealous of their siblings. That is also in <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/04/parents-who-are-narcissists-and.html" target="_blank">the same post</a></b> I wrote about above (I welcome professional statisticians to run tests on this phenomenon). Again not feeling jealous of their siblings can have to do with a combination of empathy, trauma and PTSD as to why a lot of them did not, and could not, feel jealousy. It can also have something to do with an aversion to competing since the golden child is always going to win. Why play a game you can't win? Why play any game where you are going to be victimized in the end by your parent or sibling? Why play a game where the narcissist gets sick satisfaction over you losing over and over and over again? </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Again, a loser is not something a narcissist is going to be jealous of, even though they are the ones who set up the game and who decides who loses. It makes the game very, very sick, and scapegoats especially, begin to walk away from any competitions dreamt up by the narcissist. They find better activities than competitions, or many of them end up competing against their own ideals and ideas of perfection, rather than their parent's. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Knowing what I know, I would say that <i>any</i> games, even board games and card games, should not be played with narcissists. And especially narcissists who deride, hate and/or scapegoat women and girls. I will explain why further in this section. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">How deep the game-playing can go for narcissists and why young children (who are most often put into <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">golden child</a></b> and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">scapegoat roles</a></b> when they are mere toddlers), find it tremendously disorienting, often not based on anything real, and so unpredictable that it's constantly rocking their world, kind of like bombs rock the world of children stuck in a war zone. In the following link to a video, you'll be able to tell why. Young children aren't even adept at language to decipher why a narcissist is lying to get you to respond in a certain way. Children don't have good descriptions for their feelings yet or even why they are feeling certain things. They often don't even understand why they are being hurt, punished, hated, manipulated into believing things that aren't true. They don't understand why they have punishing types of parents and most of their friends don't. They aren't good at social interactions yet and therefor cannot especially handle the narcissist's head games, and to make things worse, the head games keep children from understanding how to relate to others. They don't even understand why it is necessary to have a favorite child. Most children may not even be privy to the head games of their parent for many, many years (though scapegoats figure it out much earlier than other children in a family). They may know they are in pain from all of this, and that's it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The following link is to a video of just some of the head games the "Nameless Narcissist" admits he played with other people. He is someone who is diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and feels compelled to tell the rest of us what is really going on with narcissists ... And by the way, he's probably "Narcissism Lite", the non-sadistic type of narcissist rather than the "Malignant Narcissist" I am talking about in this post. But his video will give you an idea of what they do with mind games, why they do it, and how they do it: <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrXbXtdFHY0" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrXbXtdFHY0</a></b> . I hope you find it informative. I did.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">You will find that he talks about "winning" an awful lot, so it puts you in touch with the fact that narcissists are often in a competition, whether you are aware of it or not. That's also important to know. And it explains why malignant narcissists don't love you (or really anyone else). You can't deeply love someone you are in a competition with.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Supposedly, from my research, malignant narcissists play games in every single interaction with others, especially when they feel they will be able to get sadistic narcissistic supply. And yes, that goes for their own children.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">He also has <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyVdPHYyWpw" target="_blank">a video on sadism</a></b>, but I did not find it of particular use for child abuse survivors of narcissists. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So to get back to children placed in roles having to do with a hierarchy, and who is a favorite child and who isn't ...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Narcissists will say they love both of their children, but you can't love a child you are enjoying seeing getting victimized (and not doing anything about the victimization), and another child getting away with abuse, and enjoying that this child is "winning" at getting away with it. It's just another one of those mind f*&ks that narcissists love to spout about and play with, to get their victimized child believing that abuse is love, and to see if the child will accept that explanation.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And who normally gets put on that lower hierarchy, and <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+macho+paradox&hvadid=233520406232&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9004989&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=1624079739157793015&hvtargid=kwd-3509013626&hydadcr=9336_10314858&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_9f8c6w3qsk_e" target="_blank">who is scapegoated most in families? Girls</a></b>. For one thing, deriding girls and putting them in roles that serve men, <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+macho+paradox&hvadid=233520406232&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9004989&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=1624079739157793015&hvtargid=kwd-3509013626&hydadcr=9336_10314858&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_9f8c6w3qsk_e" target="_blank">is part of the culture</a></b>. Narcissistic fathers favoritize their sons, and narcissistic mothers generally favoritize their boys too. It's what happened in my own extended family and from the generations of that family from all I've been able to assess from its members. But apparently it's all the rage in many authoritarian-leaning families as well. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Besides the cultural acceptance of these practices, so many B-grade movies are out there depicting horrific murders of stunningly beautiful <u>innocent women</u> by sadistically oriented men who commit mass murders. That's entertainment enough to put in a theater? It looks like it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I was invited to a double feature by "a date" of two movies like this, and it was my first exposure to films in the genre of the sadistic killing of women. I was asked what I thought of the movies afterwards when we were both walking back to our cars. Really??? He acted like it was nothing out of the ordinary. I felt like I was walking with Mr. Cleaver from <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Beaver" target="_blank">Leave it to Beaver</a></b>, a perfectly upstanding acting gentleman who wasn't aggressive, didn't touch me on the date, didn't stalk me, or try to find out everything about me, wasn't pushy, wasn't invasive, but who wanted to know what I thought?? WHAT THE HELL?!! It was like I was in the <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twilight_Zone_(1959_TV_series)" target="_blank">Twilight Zone</a></b> - the guy should have been much creepier to pick out these movies. So it was obvious to me from this experience that people, even people who seem not to be narcissistic or particularly love-bomby or like creepy scheming loners, like to watch beautiful women get sadistically brutalized and murdered for their entertainment. <br /><br />And what message is that supposed to send? Could it have had some influence over the killing of <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/10/why-it-is-important-to-keep.html" target="_blank">Gabby Petito</a></b>, or <b><a href="https://www.bia.gov/service/mmu/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-people-crisis" target="_blank">so many native American women who are abducted and killed</a></b> from roadsides? <b><a href="https://katiecouric.com/news/why-are-indigenous-women-going-missing-and-cases-ignored/" target="_blank">Another link</a></b>. Does it have anything to do with <b><a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvv.pdf" target="_blank">why so many more women are victims of intimate partner violence</a></b>? Here is a Guardian article with the headlines, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/oct/20/domestic-private-violence-women-men-abuse-hbo-ray-rice" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Private Violence: up to 75% of abused women who are murdered are killed after they leave their partners</a>. That's partner violence, but I wouldn't be surprised if women escaping <u>any</u> abusive relationship, even by a family member, is at considerable risk. Sadism has an addictive component to it for the abuser, which I discuss below. It is one reason why it escalates and eventually reaches a dangerous level. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://jreidtherapy.com/scapegoated-by-narcissistic-parent/" target="_blank">Narcissistic mothers being extremely jealous over their daughter</a></b>'s appearance, their daughter's talents (mustn't outshine mother dearest!), their daughter's love life, and their daughter's ambitions to be anything other than to be a submissive melting-away personality has been written about many, many times (<b><a href="https://toxicties.com/narcissistic-mothers-daughters-jealous-envious/" target="_blank">here's just one article</a></b> out of many, many articles about why narcissistic moms are competitive, jealous, and end up hating their daughters). And by the way, if these malignant narcissistic mothers are women's rights advocates, but want their daughters to be less attractive and most of all to be very submissive, it's another head game (because they can't want women's rights and expect their daughters to submissive nobodies <i>at the same time</i> - it's just another narcissistic inauthentic image-making gaslight-y thing they do to play with people's perceptions as to who they really are).<br /><br />From hearing from some women who were of college age or in their twenties in the 1940s, many of them were working in factories to make uniforms, weapons and tanks, and other necessaries for World War II, while the men were enlisted into battle in Europe. When the men came back, almost all of these women were told to give up their jobs for the returning soldiers. Many of them resented it. Some of them still needed their jobs, but were told to get married to have a sound financial future instead.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Fast forward into the 1950s. From looking at "manners manuals" and fashion magazines of the time, it is clear that women were supposed to be completely submissive to men at all times, to only look forward to a job as home-maker and mother, and look attractive at all times to their husbands as well. Also, there was a very narrow margin of women who were deemed to be beautiful (they had certain hairstyles, were a certain age, wore certain kinds of make-up and clothes according the year's "trend", had a certain kind of figure, skin color, eye color, and so on). If you didn't "fit the mold", you were supposed to try your best to look like the magazine models and T.V. stars did. <br /><br />"How to look beautiful" was often the only way you felt noticed, or that you existed enough for anyone to take notice, especially by the other sex. In other words, it wasn't at all like today where all kinds of body types, hair types, weights, ages, educations are in modeling and T.V. careers. Women were docile, but as I learned, often seething underneath their docility. Movies like <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_to_5_(film)" target="_blank">"Nine to Five"</a></b> show a little of what it eventually grew into if you dared to go out and venture into the working world, or if you had to get a job because you were a single mother. <br /><br />So my understanding is that men originally set up women to compete with each other over attractiveness and appearance (as I was told), and as far as I know, it was <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide-and-conquer_algorithm" target="_blank">a divide and conquer strategy</a></b>:<b> </b>get women competing with each other, instead of joining forces and commiserating about how miserable it was to always be submitting. It was also so they would never complain that they aren't paid as well, so they weren't in good jobs, so that they would give up their jobs when men came around and would want them, so that they were forced into matrimony, and yes, forced into submission in a lot of those marriages too. <br /><br />And it is also my understanding that the more you looked like a "standard beauty" of the day, the more likely you were to "land" a decent caring husband who might treat you better than usual, the more other women would be jealous of you rather than celebrating your marriage. <br /><br />It sounds a lot like how narcissistic mothers act towards their daughters. I haven't met one daughter of a narcissistic mother with the exception of daughters placed in a golden child role, whose mother didn't try to make her daughter's wedding terrible. And from what I have seen, most daughters placed in a golden child role come from families without sons. <br /><br />Competing with daughters over appearance is a lot of what narcissistic mothers do too, from having grown up and around attitudes that you must compete with other women, to garner the best respect in mating, careers, and educational settings. Competing with a daughter seems absolutely sick, but apparently <b><a href="https://medium.com/practical-growth/this-is-what-happens-when-youre-the-only-daughter-of-a-narcissistic-woman-86312a6cf393" target="_blank">that's a big trend</a></b> in narcissistic women (<b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/blog/recovering-narcissist/2018/09/narcissistic-mothers#1" target="_blank">another link</a></b>, and <b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-legacy-distorted-love/201310/mothers-who-are-jealous-their-daughters" target="_blank">another link</a></b> and <b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder/narcissistic-mothers-the-long-term-effects-on-their-daughters#recovery" target="_blank">another link</a> - </b>these latter three articles are written by researchers and psychologists in the field, and there are a lot more of these articles in searches). </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Ever wonder why, when you went shopping as a young lady and tried on a lot of attractive outfits that your narcissistic Mom wanted you to have the frumpiest most matronly dress on the rack, or something that looked like it was meant for a boy, or the absolute cheapest garment she could find even though your family had money enough for decent clothes? Ever wonder why she boycotted celebrating your wedding over some B.S. thing, or tried to upstage it because her perspectives on your wedding dress, your wedding list, your venue, the timing, were never met? Ever wonder why your wedding became a crisis about her rather than attention given to everyone, including your betrothed? Ever wonder why she wanted to cut your hair so short, but her own hair was long? Ever wonder why she is flirting with your husband, trying to create doubts in his mind about you, perhaps even touching him too much and feeling him up? Ever wonder why she was trying to stuff you with so much food, and calling you fat for having done so, or alternatively not feeding you enough so that you liked like a skeleton with unpronounced feminine features? Ever wonder why your narcissistic Mom tried to seduce someone you had a crush on? Ever wonder why your narcissistic Mom suddenly hated your husband for defending you? Ever wonder why, when you were in a relationship with an abusive man, that your mother wanted you to stay in it and work it out? And while we are at it, the most important question: why so many narcissistic Moms have sons in the Golden Child role? </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And if your brother was <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/06/how-narcissistic-bullies-domestic.html" target="_blank">a bully to you in that Golden Child role</a></b>, why did she never protect you from victimization? Ever wonder why so many daughters of child abuse complain that nothing was "off the table" in terms of their narc mothers allowing them to be victimized - I've heard everything from sadistic stepfather sexual abuse, to elder brother sexual violation, to not caring if you were in an accident, or you tried to commit suicide and your mother went on a European cruise just after the incident or tried to upstage it with a shotgun wedding, or someone tried to murder you and the parent said, "oh" and that's it? Oh, yes, I've heard all of that and more right from the sources of those incidents. One mother told her daughter that she ruined her life (the mother's life) when the daughter wasn't taken seriously when her stepfather was having sexual relations with her every night, and Child Protective services got involved instead, and took the daughter and put her in a foster family. And the daughter ruined the mother's life?! This is how shocking it gets. <br /><br />But always the most shocking is that the parent never intervened in any of these situations, let them all happen without intervention. And why, oh why, would a mother let these things happen? <br /><br />Here's a good explanation that was told to me by a psychologist: if she's truly a malignant narcissist, everything that makes you feel bad makes her feel good: that's the cold hard truth of the matter. And since men may have culturally helped to create this situation, they often are the ones the mother enlists to take their daughter(s) down. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Even the better men, the ones with some empathy, aren't as much help because of cultural attitudes, or that it's a mother's duty to care about her daughter's sexual health. "Evil is allowed to continue when good men do nothing" - I think that's akin to a phrase by Martin Luther King. <br /><br />Both men and women, especially mothers and fathers need to truly care about the fate of <u>all</u> girls, especially if those daughters are <b><a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/self-injury/symptoms-causes/syc-20350950" target="_blank">cutting</a></b> and acting suicidal (you'll notice that a malignant narcissist will abandon or make things worse for a suicidal daughter because she isn't acting <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank">useful</a></b> to her Mommy Dearest, and if the mother's husband is an enabler to her, the most that many of them offer is: "Well, you know how your mother is! She has to have her own way in everything!"). <br /><br />I hope you can see how enabling fathers contribute to the abuse. A lot of competition-minded golden children contribute to it too. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">While a malignant narcissistic mother might not need anything more than a bullying, divide-and-conquer son or mate in her life to make the mother "win" at endless competitions with her daughter(s) and to make her jealousy fantasies come true (having a daughter in perpetual pain), some non-narcissistic non-enabling fathers won't necessarily tolerate it. <br /><br />So then there has to be a divorce, of course. Can't have a father who is protecting his own daughter from abuse! In the old days if you were a child under age 14, you had to lose your father over this, wave goodbye to him at the door afraid and with tears in your eyes, while your mother brought in some boyfriend who would "teach the daughter a lesson" with punishments behind it. Also you have to be brainwashed: the daughter has to agree to <b>parental alienation</b> under pressure, and get brainwashed into believing her Dad is a terrible father, and only the malignant narcissistic mother cares about her - again, it's just another lie with lots of head games, lots of coercion, lots of manipulation, lots of brainwashing, and lots of Jekyll/Hyde behavior with grandstanding outside the home and abuse inside the home, and erroneous blaming (picking apart silly incidents to get divorced over so that the real reason is disguised) - all of it happily becoming increasingly illegal since children are being assigned their own attorneys these days to keep this from happening. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Everything that malignant narcissistic mothers do to their daughters (and sometimes to the father of those daughters) is to keep you down, gaslighted, and living in eternal pain.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Narcissistic fathers are often even worse. They tear down their daughter's appearance (coming from forums of daughters abused by their fathers): "You look as ugly as sin", when they don't, or they say, bored without looking up at you, "You exist, and that's all I need to know" or they say "You're so sexy in that dress! It really emphasizes your breasts, and makes them look so perky!" - ew! They tend to be super jealous of their daughters, and maybe even more so than a narcissistic Mom. It's not uncommon for narcissistic fathers to <b><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cop%20a%20feel#:~:text=US%20slang,tried%20to%20cop%20a%20feel!" target="_blank">"cop a feel"</a></b> (<b><a href="ttps://www.facebook.com/ASAFEPLACETOTELL/posts/interesting-insight-into-incestnarcissistic-father-who-sexually-molest-their-dau/236533703168156/" target="_blank">another link</a> </b>by <b><a href="ttps://www.facebook.com/ASAFEPLACETOTELL/posts/interesting-insight-into-incestnarcissistic-father-who-sexually-molest-their-dau/236533703168156/" target="_blank">Julie Hall</a></b>), and to feel that they own their daughters <i>as a second wife</i>. I've heard from survivors of narcissistic dads that the dads act like the daughter belongs to them, solely, and should never get married or date anyone. They must be a life-long drudge around the house, and must submit to them and the male golden child must help them in squashing any of her dreams. <br /><br />"She's just a girl" is the common thing I see in forums as to how these dads talk to their sons about a daughter. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Everything that malignant fathers do to their daughters is very similar to what malignant narcissistic Moms do too, except with narc males it can entail more physical abuse, false imprisonment, isolation, covert and overt incest, putting them in endless babysitting roles and endless house-wife roles, not letting them date or marry, and a host of other issues, mainly "male domination issues". It can be quite a bit more damaging because girls tend to get their self esteem from their fathers more than from their mothers. It's also a terrible message to girls and women that you are "a good girl" when you are submissive, quiet, in constant servitude, in a constant state of abuse where quelling the abuse means total submission, not thinking about an adult life with your own job, husband, children and house. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Having males in the golden child role for both narcissistic mothers and narcissistic fathers probably has something to do with why, in the statistics about narcissists, three quarters of all narcissists are men, and one quarter are women. Since the golden child is most likely to become another narcissist mirroring his parent than all of the other children in the household, it would also explain why so many more girls are physically and fatally abused in their families and in their marriages than boys and men, why many more girls than boys are victims of violence, why many more girls are sexually abused and trafficked, why sadistic movies feature so many women getting murdered, bludgeoned and stalked in sexy outfits or stately gowns, and a host of other problems. I am working on a post about the trashing of girl's self esteem for <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/p/the-narcissistic-nation.html" target="_blank">The Narcissistic Nation</a> </b>which I hope will explain more than I can put into this post. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">At any rate, when children are being damaged in order that the parent feel better about themselves and the state they are in, then you can see how this would lead a parent to have an addiction to sadism. Again, the worse the child victim feels, the better the narc feels (in survivor forums malignant narcissists are called "happiness vampires" and it seems to be a perfect slang label for how so many survivors experience it all). <br /><br />If you notice a girl is the scapegoat of the narcissistic parent, whether that's the mother or the father, you and the girl should avoid all competitions with their narc parent (even card games and board games), and definitely any competitions they set up with their siblings. <br /><br />For a child, it is demeaning and sick that a parent will try to ensure that a girl will lose every time just because the parent can't regulate their jealousies without abusing girls and trying to crush their self esteem over and over again, throughout their entire childhood. It also sends the message to the rest of the family that girls are losers, that they are only as good as being submissive under the pressure of abuse, and that both men and women should try to ensure that girls and women lose and be second class citizens always. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If you are the designated scapegoat, and you have escaped, you are probably not going to be able to keep your ups and downs in life a total secret from your sadistic parent, but I would try. "Tragedy Hunting", a phrase I heard fellow writer <b><a href="http://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">500 Pound Peep</a></b> use, is so much a part of Malignant Narcissism - they want to see if you are in pain. If you are "no contact" the curiosity about it will eat them alive. The game here is: "Find out how well she's living. Find out how well off she is; find out whether she's in pain" ... If you're not in pain, then getting a hoover is highly likely, where they "lure and attack" to get their sadistic fix. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And then they go around with an uppity Schadenfreude smile afterward if they find you are in pain.<br /><br />Again, so sick.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Hopefully by knowing that this is what they are about, you can traverse them and their endless attack-and-retreat triangulation games. <br /><br />As for a parent who is trying to help their kid(s) from experiencing narcissistic sadism, know that malignant narcissists will probably not treat their scapegoat well at any point. Having a scapegoat means: "This is the child I want to blame for everything, even the smallest silliest issues I can think of to upset them, and who I want to see in constant pain, no matter where it comes from, how many people it comes from, how it manifests, and how awful it is for them." - if they didn't want that for their child, they'd stop it. <br /><br />The only time malignant narcissists stop scapegoating you (temporarily) is when they feel the need to punish the golden child for something. If you are experiencing luring, stalking, sweet-talk all of a sudden, contact the golden child and see if he is being ignored or given some sort of cold shoulder by the narc parent. I'd bet anything, he is. Again, it's a triangulation game to get the golden child jealous of the scapegoat, but once the golden child "straightens out", you will be taking the same crap you always took beforehand. Don't get involved in it. <br /><br />Also be aware that narcissists rarely include a scapegoat in their Last Will. Wills for narcissists are <u>not</u> about caring about a child in old age, it is about the same thing they've always done: <u>causing pain to a child to get narcissistic supply</u>, and to savor the outcome, the ultimate Schadenfreude maneuver. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Know that if your child can't live life in pain any more under a narcissistic parent's "care" (i.e. torture), that you are going to have an uphill battle where you will be met with fierce, spiteful, vengeful resistance from the narcissist over trying to protect the scapegoat. You may have to go through a nasty divorce over it, where the narcissist will try to put you in pain too. They will probably attempt to take most of your finances, your family heirlooms, steal from you in sneaky ways when dividing up assets, run smear campaigns on you, steal personal papers, and try to divide all of your relationships so that you will be alone, destitute and have to start your life from scratch. And because they lack empathy, they won't care, even when it effects their own children, so don't expect them to care about the effects on their children either. <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">Always remember that they do not have the empathy to care about you or your joint children</a></b>. <br /></div></div></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">IS THE SILENT TREATMENT SADISTIC?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Most of us know that overt attacks have some sadism behind them, but what about the silent treatment?<br /><br />It does tend to go in that direction the longer you continue to have contact with narcissists who use this tactic.<br /><br />Both overt and covert narcissists like to use the silent treatment, but covert narcissists use it much more than overt narcissists (it's one of the reasons they are referred to as covert: they like the passive aggressive forms of abuse).<br /><br />Covert narcissists usually practice the silent treatment in conjunction with stonewalling and withdrawing love and emotional support. It is usually done when they are angry or in a rage about something, if a conflict is not being resolved to their satisfaction, or if they feel criticized by you. If the silence goes on for longer than 24 hours, you can almost bet you are dealing with a narcissist. <br /><br />The silent treatment and covert narcissism go together like cake and ice cream - it's a given that they will do it to someone in their life, or even a lot of people. <br /><br />Of course, you may not have actually criticized them, but just the thought of a criticism will usually set off a silent treatment, where they will treat you with contempt, and as though you don't exist. Narcissists are usually hyper-critical of others, but cannot take what they dish out, even the thought that someone might treat them the way they treat others makes them rageful (which is where you see <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/11/why-do-narcissists-feel-so-entitled-and.html" target="_blank">entitlement</a></b>). They may even seethe at you: "You think I'm a terrible (parent, or spouse, or friend, or family member)! Look at you! You're nothing special!" they may say. <br /><br />But here's the double bind: you may not have thought of them as being terrible, but once they do a silent treatment on you, you probably will. People who indulge in the silent treatment are abusive (the silent treatment counts as abuse, and when done to children, as egregious emotional abuse <u>with neglect</u>). <br /><br />People who are abusive are terrible at being spouses, parents, friends, co-workers, and good citizens of families and of society. But again they don't want to hear about it because they go into a rage when they are criticized for being abusive. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If you are the spouse of a narcissist, and they are treating you with the silent treatment and contempt, they will probably be doing it to one of your children too. It's important to remember this fact so that you can begin to protect your child from child abuse if you haven't already. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />The silent treatment also shows a profound lack of resolution skills, lack of listening, lack of empathy and compassion, lack of an ability to compromise and find a middle ground, and sometimes a lack of remorse. "People who criticize me deserve to be hurt!" the narcissist thinks - it's a retaliatory hypocritical mindset, and of course, once they get into that mindset, they usually don't let go of it. They spiral; down, down, down, trying to find other ways to hurt their victim. <br /><br />When you didn't mean to criticize them in the first place, this is how they want to deal with you? It's crazy-making and definitely audacious. It is also very delusional. They are imagining something that doesn't exist. A lot of malignant narcissists like to play mind reader, and if you tell them that they are wrong, then they <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" target="_blank">invalidate</a></b> it. "No, you are really thinking and feeling this." - horrible. But <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" rel="nofollow">invalidation and perspecticide</a></b> is almost always going on unless you are being very submissive and letting them define reality (or unreality, as it turns out to be). <br /><br />It can be even worse if they drink alcohol in any significant quantity, or are alcoholics. Drinking can induce people to see hostility in facial expressions when there isn't any. If you have come across someone who insists that you meant <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/05/why-are-abusers-narcissists-and.html" target="_blank">hostility towards them because of your facial expressions</a></b>, this may be why. But, if they are punishing, sadistic, abusive and retaliatory about it, they are probably malignant narcissists (or possibly both - with a drinking problem). <br /><br />At any rate, they are weaponizing silence and using it to kill love, connectedness, responsibility to the bond, trust, and most of all, what ever peace used to be between you. <br /><br />Even if they "have you" back again, the best they are going to get is a trauma bond with you, if they get anything at all. A trauma-bond is what it sounds like. The victim will have trauma symptoms in relating to the narcissist. This can include an inability to focus on tasks, difficulty answering questions, conversations, resolving issues. The victim may get triggered when the narcissist speaks or lectures. They may be triggered and possibly dissociate when the narcissist gets rageful, authoritarian and demanding. They may get triggered when the narcissist lies and gaslights (extremely likely that the narcissist will do both). They will probably flinch if the narcissist touches them. They will probably have nightmares about the narcissist. They will probably feel depressed, exhausted, constantly upset and walking on eggshells being around the narcissist. They will probably be looking away when the narcissist is showing a lack of empathy. Even little tiny babies react to narcissists' lack of empathy and unstable connectedness by looking away from them and getting fussy. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And there will be so many more symptoms for the victim including a myriad of physical symptoms relating to the heart, stomach, head and muscles (mainly), but also effecting the immune and limbic systems. <br /><br />And how do narcissists react to all of this? They rage: <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank">"<b>This damn person is USELESS!!!!</b>"</a><br /><br />And, of course, most narcissists are not emotionally intelligent enough to know that the silent treatment rendered their victim useless to them. Unfortunately, emotional intelligence takes some empathy, and they have so little of it that they are out of touch with how people generally react to being attacked or ignored (all they usually have is just lip service to empathy:<b> <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-discussion-on-cognitive-empathy-in.html" target="_blank">cold cognitive empathy</a> </b>where they try to sound empathetic, but they aren't actually empathetic). <br /><br />And what do sadistic narcissists do with useless recalcitrant victims? They'll want to hurt them more for not being more useful (submissive). It defeats the whole purpose of connecting, which is why a lot of people who get a long silent treatment no longer want to talk to the person giving it: there is usually nothing to talk about regardless, unless you want more arguments, abuse, demands, and commands from the narcissist with gaslighting, lecturing, blame-shifting, non-quite-believable crying jags, and everything you faced before and can no longer deal with, or want to deal with. <br /><br />If the silent treatment goes on for longer than seven months, the relationship has, in almost all ways, died.<br /><br />The most intense grieving is in the first seven months, for instance. That probably has something to do with it.<br /><br />Most narcissists, with the exception of malignant narcissists, know this, or they know enough to try to return before those seven months are up. Two weeks to three months is the average amount of time that they <b>enact a hoover </b>(until I put up the post about hoovering, it means they try to get you back into their life again, but unlike a sincere apology or overture, they want to get you into a cycle of rescue ---> honeymoon ---> tension building ---> abuse ---- back to rescue ---> honeymoon ---> tension building ---> abuse, round and round ...). </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's very unhealthy. <br /><br />In it's way, it is quite cruel too because they use the height of your grieving against you: as a way to see if they can win you back, to see if you will abandon your grieving and let their charm, flattery, gifts, or their presence win you back. They may say they are sorry; they may say they missed you. What it gives them is an enormous amount of information about what they can do to you and you'll still take them back. It also gives them a significant hit of narcissistic supply. And it is definitely <b>a head game</b> because they do another silent treatment again, perhaps worse, when you've got something critical going on in your life. And they do it again, and again, and again, sometimes promising that they will never use it again in at least one of the cycles, but then reneging on the promise with excuses. They do this to see if they even need to make a promise at all, to see if you will take them back with <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/02/can-narcissist-or-abuser-ever-keep.html" target="_blank">broken promises</a></b>. It is all very "cat and mouse", but eventually, the victim gets exhausted, disillusioned and, yes, traumatized, and the narcissist's usual "charm" wears off too, at least for the victim, and holds no enticements. <br /><br />And guess what? Even then, many of them will want to hurt you some more: "Well, you never meant much to me anyway! I always liked person X way more than I liked you!" - I mean, really! It's like kicking a dog that is injured from head to toe. <br /><br />For malignant narcissists, they are so out of touch with what their victims are going through, and even who they are that they most often go past the seven month mark with their silent treatment. They also believe that everyone they have been cruel to and who they have hurt, likes or loves them, owes them, that all of their past victims will be submissive for them again under certain circumstances. Malignant narcissists have enough delusions of grandeur, plus delusions about what their victims think, feel and experience, that they can be quite dangerous as I've said before. They also lie and gaslight way too much and even to themselves that they do not have a good grip on reality itself.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />And to make them even more delusional, many malignant narcissists also have <b><a href="https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9784-paranoid-personality-disorder" target="_blank">Paranoid Personality Disorder</a></b> too. Even if they don't have the full personality disorder, they can gradually get to a hyper paranoid state because they are much more prone to <b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/understanding-narcissism/202202/what-is-narcissistic-collapse" target="_blank">narcissistic collapse</a></b> than other kinds of narcissists, the result of being too aggressive, too invasive, too prone to attacking with criminal intent (where they get caught), instigators of domestic violence, false imprisonment, over-the-top threats, use of the DARVO tactic on steroids - they can be <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/twisted" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">twisted</a>,<b> </b>in other words. <br /><br />Despotic leaders who invade other countries without being provoked tend to be malignant narcissists too, with significant paranoiac and conspiratorial traits. The general feeling you get is that they are cruel, cold, narrow minded, out of touch with how human beings react to being forced to submit, to lies, to violence, to being invaded, to being victims of crimes, to being put in positions of danger. They do not even have a handle of how people react to aggressions, because they do not self reflect enough to think "If someone did this to me, it would hurt me in these kinds of ways." In addition, they don't have the kind of empathy where they understand how a victim feels or thinks. That's why they have to make it up so much. <br /><br />In a way, there is nothing or no one to relate to: their minds are swimming in a stew of conspiracies, paranoias, getting drug-like highs from hurting other people, crazy off the wall narratives about the intentions of others, fantasies of how they will hurt or destroy other people, fantasies that their victims want to destroy them instead, fantasies that they have many more iron-clad loyal allies than they actually do, fantasies that they will be even greater leaders than ever before with a host of submissive boot lickers around, fantasies of how they will gain ever more power, and too many unprovoked dark intentions, ethics and traits than most people can deal with. <br /><br />Because of all of this, it makes no sense to talk to malignant narcissists about much of anything - and most of us see that talking to them is pointless. They can't and won't hear what you have to say anyway (they have too many interpretive filters on all kinds of topics, especially emotional ones), and their profound lack of empathy, their pronounced grandiosity, their lack of remorse for hurting other people, adds up to sadism. "Will the first person who wants to have a relationship with a sadistic person, please stand up!" No one is going to stand up. <br /><br />All narcissists however, are way too caught up in<u> <i>an incredible desire</i> to use the silent treatment tactic </u>despite what it does to relationships, or to the victims. The desire can be seen to be so strong in them that it negates researching, understanding, and knowing what the real outcomes are for using it, for themselves and others ... if you have ever wondered why on earth they'd resort to using this kind of destructive treatment to resolve anything. They probably don't know why they use it really. The desire supersedes any cognitive reflection (internal questioning about it).<br /><br />I'm pretty sure they know that it causes pain to their victims, possibly to themselves too in the long run, especially victims who are communicating that it hurts, who are reporting that they feel unable to cope, that they feel sick, that they can't sleep well, who are pleading with the narcissist to stop (which all victims experience from silent treatments in a close personal relationship; it is the beginning of the "trauma stage"). The fact that some narcissists, and especially malignant narcissists, either do not respond to the fact that their victims are in pain, or keep ramping up more abuses like smear campaigns, and enlisting co-bullies to threaten and treat their victim even worse, proves sadism. And it also proves they totally enjoy being sadistic.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Otherwise why would they have such a desire to try to inflict even more pain on top of the pain they already inflicted?<br /><br />And of course, they indulge in schadenfreude afterwards.<br /><br />Need any more proof that they are sadistic?<br /><br />And by the way, there are studies - see professional articles below - which suggest that narcissists know, to some extent, that their sadistic characteristics may very well add up to masochistic outcomes and tendencies eventually.<br /><br />If you have doubts, I invite you to read on ...<br /><br />What narcissists hope to achieve by using the silent treatment is "their own way". They really do believe (and yes, it is a belief rather than any kind of proof) that freezing their victims out will mean that they will get all of the power, control and domination in the relationship with you ... that when they want something enough from another person, all they have to do is to become cold, withholding, silent, and refuse to listen or respond to what you have to say, and refuse to offer support or kindness in any way. You can be in pain and what you get is silence, as I've explained before.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">They take great chances in losing relationships this way, and support and time invested precisely because they hurt their victims. The problem for the narcissists is that even if the victim isn't traumatized <i>yet</i>, the hurt the victim feels is not likely to go away. It keeps pestering them. So they will be suspicious of the narcissist, that the narcissist is out of control, will hurt them again, that the narcissist doesn't seem "sorry enough" to have really rehabilitated the desire to hurt others. <br /><br />And the desire is still there, which is why there is a cycle of abuse instead of a total make up with the victim. <br /><br />The victim's mind will be on what hurts and what the narcissist is doing to them first. Then their thoughts might be "the narcissist might do it again." Then: "And what kind of danger am I in?". Then "The narcissist is probably not trustworthy." Then they worry that their symptoms are getting in the way of their lives, and it takes them over them like a "host" in their body, so much so that they can't focus on what the narcissist wants from them any more. It's called "the hypervigilant stage". And it's normal. And it's reasonable considering that narcissists have very little chance of changing their domination head games with their victims. Even if the victim knows nothing about narcissism cognitively, their psyche and body is telling them something: "be hypervigilant!", <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2014/03/stuff-feelings-dont-talk-or-trust-be.html" rel="nofollow">"don't trust, don't feel, don't talk!</a>"</b>, the typical rules of toxic relationships. <br /><br />There's the narcissist's first disappointment: the victim is wrapped up in his own self, his feelings, what his mind is experiencing, the aches and pains in his body. The narcissist is just this volatile sideline figure where the victim has to figure out what to do. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The narcissist is <i>acting</i> on unvetted and thoughtless desires of aggression, and the victim is <i>reacting</i> in a "fight or flight" mode (which is more about action than it is about thought too). Neither one are using their full brain capacity. <br /><br />The narcissist's brain is activated by the hippocampus if they are scheming a way to hurt their victim, and <a href="https://www.brainfacts.org/in-the-lab/animals-in-research/2023/how-the-brain-calculates-a-quick-escape-012423" target="_blank">the tiny center nucleus of the amygdala</a> (not the whole amygdala, in other words, which is mostly shut down, just the part that controls the jaws - maybe why they rage and argue so much?), and the victim's brain is amygdala hijacked without much functioning in the hippocampus. So they are opposites in that the amygdala is mostly off-line in the predatory narcissist when they are planning, and ready to enact an abuse, and the hippocampus is off-line in the victim. This is what goes on between predators and prey too, by the way. <br /><br />And that's the reality of the situation: the narcissist and the victim are caught up in a predator/prey kind of relationship, and the best survival for the victim is actually "flight", just as it is in the animal world. <br /><br />The following paragraph is about a prey animal that also experiences trauma:<br /><br />I was reading or watching something about rabbits one day. Normally rabbits come out in the evening and early morning to eat. They are vigilant about predators, and they can often run away. But if a fox has caught a lot of them, the remaining ones spend much more time than they used to in their den underground. They get trauma symptoms. They have fewer babies, or no babies. Human beings who are being looked at as prey don't react much differently: they isolate, they hide or run away, they tend to bond with other people who have gone through something similar, their best relationships are with people where there is mutual trust, mutual safety, a lot of numbers, and where they are understood beyond being just prey for narcissists. And, many of them who have grown up with narcissistic parents, have few children or no children. If you are a survivor of egregious child abuse, how many of your siblings and cousins who were similarly abused or from a toxic family environment, did not have children? Half? It's a sign.<br /><br />In terms of the silent treatment on a marriage partner, it can work the way the narcissist wants it to work at least once or a couple of times. They might say to the narcissist: "What's the matter, honey? Why have you stopped talking to me?", "Why are you turning away from me? Am I doing something wrong?", "Why are you being so cold? Is there anything I can do for you?" and so on. There will be overtures on the victim's part, and yes, the narcissist will get their way (a little more power, a little more control, a little more domination every time they use it). But chronic use of it will send up red flags. It will lead to distrust, then resentment, then pain, and then probably some sort of separation, even if it is just emotional and cognitive separation at first - they won't want to share what they are going through with you.<br /><br />For children, they won't be saying "What's wrong?" necessarily. If they do say it, and the explanation is unreasonable, or has perspecticide in it, or is about breaking their self esteem, or is about neglecting the child's needs, or is obviously going in the direction where the parent wants ever more domination and control, especially during the teenage years and adult years, they will usually end up with an estranged child. Even for children younger than 13, the silent treatment is tremendously damaging. Children are aware instinctually that it is not nurturing, not loving, not caring or compassionate, and that their parent lacks all of the things required in good parenting, and unless another parent is fighting for the mental, emotional and physical health of the child, the silent treatment can have long-lasting devastating effects, and even have adverse repercussions on the developing brain.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">For teenage and adult children, a parent putting their own domination, control and power first (and inappropriately for the age of their child), and putting themselves above resolving conflicts and other issues, it may work for the narcissist once. The child will always resent the parent for stooping to this tactic, and the distrust is likely to be significant too. I know very few adult children who still have a relationship with a parent who uses the silent treatment, with the exception of about one in thirty maybe, but they are either using the gray rock method, or they are too disabled to leave home, or their parent is imprisoning them so much that the choice is either an escape where they can never go back, or living with the narcissist's constant micro-managing of their life, and they are trying to figure it all out. <br /><br />I think the reason why children aren't as ameliorating towards a narcissist as a spouse is because it works against a child's best interest, their continual development into autonomous adults, and it goes against biology itself for a parent to want more and more control and domination over a teenager or adult child. In fact, from gleaning survivor forums, most survivors don't even look at their parent as a parent any more. They tend to look at their parent as a competitive, mean, bratty, bullying, aggressive teenager, or worse: as a child bereft of adult behavior. <br /><br />Covert narcissists (including covert malignant narcissists) seem to be internally programmed to use the silent treatment on other people, even their own kids. Children do tell their parents to stop using it, that it hurts, but again, narcissists either will delight in it, or they refuse to hear it without thinking of it is a dire criticism of them which must be raged about, and possibly sadistically punished over. Sadistic punishments do have a way of repeating themselves over, and over, and over again. It's the aggressors playbook: terrorize, hurt, and kill off the spirit of others to get them to submit.<br /><br />It is never a child's duty to think of his or her parents as "a good parent" anyway, and especially if the parent is abusive, rejecting, self serving and is only in the relationship to get submission. Raging and punishing a child over the parent's own "image-rated issues", is also atrocious parenting. Conflicts never get resolved because the parent has refused to treat the child with the same kind of respect that they demand from the child. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The weird thing is, these passive-aggressive abuses like the silent treatment, gaslighting, stonewalling, and breaking the self esteem of another human being, and the abuse-by-proxy situations that happen afterward like smear campaigns, "tragedy hunting" and schadenfreude, probably won't work at hurting their victims after awhile, especially if the victims are in therapy with a domestic violence counselor or trauma therapist. The victim will know that these are all narcissistic tactics, and that it is abuse, and because of that, they, the victim, is not responsible for its use by the narcissist. And because a lot of therapy is about getting survivors less and less brainwashed from all of the aggressive vitriol of the narcissist, getting back on your feet, and getting a new life and relationships, it isn't going to work that well for the narcissist. Not everyone is convinced by what narcissists have to say, either. <br /><br />Thus, this is how narcissists can become masochists instead of apex gloat-in-the-dark predators. </div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">OTHER DANGERS </div><br />One of the ways you can tell how dangerous other people are is when they let their guard down enough to talk about other people. Narcissists will usually be really derisive and denigrating of other people. Again, it's extreme. They will not like most people. Something is always wrong with everyone they know except strangers, people they know superficially, or people who have more power than they do. Being <b>harshly and unjustly judgmental</b> is definitely a sign of all narcissists, but malignant narcissists will go further, and trash-talk about benevolent, kind, upstanding citizens ... in other words, people not hostile, or dangerous, or criminal, or addicted to the point of criminal activity, or bullying, or dominating, or without bad intentions towards them. <br /><br />Again, paranoia can be part of the picture for them, and particularly for sadistic narcissists, so they may see hostility when there isn't any. They can even cut people out of their life who they think "might" have bad intentions towards them. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Besides the usual "They are so stupid!" and "They are so crazy!" talk of most narcissists, they will often be shouting about how people are not worth living or breathing, taking up air, <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank"><b>useless</b>, <b>worthless</b></a>, hated (as in "I hate him!" or "I hate her!" - for no good reason other than that their very own souls are full of hatred and paranoia, or perhaps the other person reminds them of someone they hated in the past). They also make fun of other people endlessly, especially people who they have hurt, to the point where most people will think their hatred is unreasonable, and actually start backing away from them.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Many malignant narcissists will even say things like, "I wish they were dead!" Their venomous hatred, in other words, is off the charts. And like everything they say, they can mean it. You can suspect malignant narcissism if they are "sticky sweet nice" to the people they claim to hate. After hearing an extreme tirade from the narcissist about them, it can feel pretty uncomfortable to be around them. <br /><br />Because of the menacing, seething degree that they express their hatred, it is likely to either create anxiety, depression or disgust in others with more normal and moral constitutions. Most people do not come even close to hating others to the degree that they hate. "Disappointed" or shaking their head over the adverse behavior of others is about as close to hatred as most people get (and that is a good way to tell if they are narcissists - that kind of contrast). <br /><br />Most people do not hate anywhere near to the degree that they hate, so it does make most people uncomfortable to hear "hate speech" and prejudiced perspectives. <br /><br />In most people, the private side and the public side will match. Not with narcissists, and definitely not with malignant narcissists. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Showing Jekyll/Hyde two-faced behavior is very, very pronounced in malignant narcissists - the other thing to watch out for. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Showing hot and cold behavior is also extreme with malignant narcissists. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If they have Machiavellian traits, they will also be scheming revenges, scheming retaliations, how to take from others, how to hide their dirty deeds, and how to blame their victims if they get caught. <br /><br />While some of them can be close to others, most of them are truly only close to one other person in their lives. However, they do not trust anyone. And that one person they feel close to has to keep proving they are loyal over, and over, and over again, even to the point of hurting other people for them. The only people who can be loyal to that degree to someone without ethics and morals, without empathy, and with that much of a criminal mindset with such hatred in their hearts is going to be, most likely, <b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202012/do-narcissists-prefer-date-other-narcissists" target="_blank">another narcissist or sociopath</a></b>. So even the company they keep can be dangerous for you. <br /><br />And as I've said, malignant narcissists are very often physical abusers, or they like to enact false imprisonments. Most of them have pronounced fantasies about either one, or both, and if they let their guard down, they will tell you eventually what their fantasies are about. Wishing you dead or injured or hurt (especially if those people are not trying to harm the malignant narcissist) should send up red flags right away. <br /><br />Trying to escape the malignant narcissist is not a "discard" in the way that they discard. They discard over power and control issues, that they are not happy with the power they already have over you. For victims, walking away is a safety issue and a healing-from-trauma issue, however, malignant narcissists will try everything they can to turn it into "you discarding them over a power and control issue". Many narcissists call their victims narcissists - it is projection at work. <br /><br />People entering into families like this can find all of it very confusing. "Will the real abusers stand up!" - they won't do it, of course. I would say look into how many estranged members there are in the extended family - especially if there are any estranged children from parents, how many divorces, how many have substance addictions, how many golden children there are (i.e. obvious favoritism of a child), how many suicide attempts there have been among members, how many extramarital affairs there have been among members, how members talk to one another by lecturing, interrupting, shaming, and trash-talking about other members - that's all the sign of a toxic family most of the time. <br /><br />As to who are the abusers - members who dominate conversations (abusers must be in the dominant position), plus lecturing, plus being a little too sweet and familiar, plus interrupting and trash-talking about other members with you or with the rest of the members of a family, plus blaming in a black-and-white way ("totally at fault" for instance), laughing while they tell others that their victims are crazy, are most likely the real abusers. Also most abusers do <i>not</i> go to therapy, especially to repair relationships with their victims, however their victims overwhelmingly go - another sign. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">ABUSE AND SADISM AS AN ADDICTION<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Malignant narcissists can be addicted to abuse and sadism, especially if they feel their power and domination might be slipping, and if they use <b><a href="https://images.app.goo.gl/EcUUypu7ynE5oiCHA" target="_blank">the cycle of abuse</a></b>. It reinstates their power again (the power to make other people react). It's a depraved sense of power to make other people suffer, but if that is all they feel they have left in terms of influencing the other person, that is what they will use. They feel they MUST get narcissistic supply, and narcissistic supply is an addiction in and of itself, and inflicting pain is what they are willing to stoop to if they can't get it in other ways. <br /><br />This is just one reason why <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">abuse escalates</a></b> - they must inflict more and more pain, and different variations of pain to get the same "grandiosity high" that they got before. <br /><br />Also in <b><a href="https://psychology.as.uky.edu/do-sadists-feel-sad-after-inflicting-pain-uk-psychology-grad-reveals-intriguing-results" target="_blank">studies on sadism</a></b>, once the victim of the sadist is no longer hurt, the sadist is likely to feel sad. In order to get the "sadistic high" they used to have, they feel they must inflict more pain on that victim, or find another victim. <br /><br />Since most malignant narcissists practice the more egregious forms of abuse, it can easily turn into a life threatening situation - and very fast. <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank">Verbal abuse that is annihilating</a></b>,<b> </b>threats, micro-managing your speech and movements, and <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-dangerous-is-my-abuser-how-do-i-get.html" target="_blank"><b>any aggressive touch</b> (<b>especially to the face, head and neck</b></a>, past or present) is cause for great concern in terms of safety. <br /><br />Having a good safety plan for an escape is also very important because narcissists <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-dangerous-is-my-abuser-how-do-i-get.html" target="_blank">can get even more dangerous when you escape</a></b>. Don't think that because they are telling you that they hate you over and over again that they want you to leave. <br /><br />Getting a good safety plan tailor-made for your situation is possible at your local domestic violence center. Never under-estimate the dangers, even if there are some pleasant times, and don't fall into a state of <b>cognitive dissonance</b> if you can, at all, help it. Consider that what you are experiencing is not a relationship at all: it is <i>about a person trying to terrorize another person into submission</i> - if you keep that in your mind at all times when you get periods of cognitive dissonance, then you may survive much better. <br /><br />Being the victim of someone else's sadism will definitely create trauma symptoms. It is extremely unhealthy, mentally, emotionally and physically. Yes, you can get physical symptoms from abuse, even without any physical abuse. <br /><br />And, of course, if you've quit the relationship or you've gotten a restraining order, they will be using smear campaigns and schadenfreude, laughing at you when you are in pain, or when you've fallen down. <br /><br />Most of us cannot bear the sadism without symptoms, nor do we particularly want people in our lives who deal in smear campaigns, and laugh at our pain, and want us to feel more pain. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">THE PROBLEM OF THEIR SADISM<br />IS HOW PEOPLE REACT TO IT IN THE REAL WORLD<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">When people see sadism in individuals (and even their loved ones), it causes anxiety, and can even cause extreme anxiety and stress because of the "What other plans do they have to induce my suffering?" thoughts that flood a target's mind. Targets would be right to worry if you've read what I've said about sadism above and below in the articles I have featured. <br /><br />Sadism is one of the most ugly traits of human beings because it mostly manifests when victims are considered to be weak, disabled, traumatized or too young to defend themselves. That alone can create a feeling of nausea in most of our stomachs. <br /><br />When we relate to sadists, some of us go at them like: "I can be just as dangerous to you as you are to me, even if it's a different kind of danger, so you better lay off!" - and some of us feel we have to prove it, especially sadists who keep going at us. "Fighting back", even if it is just making a call to police, or telling others what we went through, or putting in a major security system, does make a difference in their continued assault or aggression most of the time. Again, they like weak individuals, and when we do things like this, we are showing them we aren't weak. They'll have to look for a weak person somewhere else, and we know they will ... <br /><br />But really the end result of it all is that we want nothing more to do with the sadist or sadists, even if it takes awhile to get there. Unless we are that desperate for interaction with them, or are still stuck in wanting approval from them, or we still want to get our point across, or to be understood, which we won't be (see the next section below), we are going to either be running away, or backing up slowly. The one thing we withdraw first is our trust in them. That is understandable and natural. <br /><br />Even if we did talk to them, that would no longer figure in because their sadism is always going to be in our minds, and make us reserved about their intentions towards us. And with narcissists it makes them extremely angry, their entitlement to us in that way (when they are sadistic? - it's part of the delusion of grandeur, I suppose).<br /><br />One other issue for sadists is that if you were bullied in school, or sexually abused as a child, or the victim of child abuse in your family, you know that it gets worse and escalates. You know that they keep dreaming up attacks, and trying to get information on you as to "how hurt you are", and how much they are getting away with being sadistic, and figuring what they need to do next to get the next high and power trip over being sadistic. <br /><br />It is basically the same planning that goes into war planning by despotic dictators. But like all sadists, they run huge risks in being sadistic, because on some level, they have to be dealing in false narratives about their victims, otherwise the support for their aggressions would not be there.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If they are deriving pleasure out of their sadistic acts, which most of them do if they reach their objectives, they will be doing all of these things. They might even try hoovering you with carrot sticks, candy, flowers, money, vacations, belonging to a group of people, whatever they think is necessary and enticing enough to get you back so that they can put you through more sadistic acts. So when someone is sadistic in your present life, you've already been through enough in your childhood such that you don't want to be dealing with it in your adulthood. No lure is worth what you endured in childhood - most of us know that. <br /><br />The problem for sadists, of course, is that it becomes too risky or poses too much of a social problem to them to use a victim who is fighting back, or defending themselves, or talking to others, or getting police involved, so they become repeat offenders, adopting another victim who is even more vulnerable. This makes sadism a societal problem. "Repeat offending" is highly likely for offenders with personality disorders because they already lack empathy and they are probably already spouting lies about their victims; they already have a lust for power and control no matter what the road blocks are and no matter how it effects others, and they most likely lack ethics too (even sadism, all by itself, shows a huge lack of ethics after all). <br /> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The other problem for them is that no one needs sadists in their lives, or want them. We don't want them in society either, which is why the sadists who "take it too far" end up in prison. But before then, they are acting like prey, running from law enforcement, which defeated their goal of being an apex predator. Most of us want peace, so they become a menace. <br /><br />And we don't need insecure people who have a compulsion to boost their importance who strive to be sadistic just to get attention.<br /><br />Their need for power and control also has nothing to offer: what could we possibly get out of being submissive? For anyone who has been through any kind of abuse, being submissive only added up to more sadistic acts against us. At most, submission is only a temporary survival strategy, and not a very good one at that. Sadism is usually accompanied by "the pleasure of hurting others", and that means the escalation of sadism to get "a drug-like high" will always be a problem in relating to them. <br /><br />Sadism has a lot of negative consequences for perpetrators, their targets and peace in the world. It is especially not appropriate, necessary or conducive for close personal relationships. It is more and more unlawful too, with increasing pressure by society on politicians "to do something". Leave the predator/prey relationship to the animal kingdom, until they too, grow out of it. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: center;">SOME THINGS I FOUND THAT WERE HELPFUL<br />WHEN MAKING DECISIONS<br />ABOUT NARCISSISTS<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">All of these are videos which I took notes on, and quoted from. All of them are from psychologists except the last one by Lisa Romano - she's wise; she's a survivor; and has a caring delivery to her fellow survivors. Before psychologists hit You Tube with videos on Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder, well-read, educated survivors did, and Lisa was probably my favorite during that time. <br /><br />As for the psychologists, this is standard in terms of what you will learn and be told when you go to psychologists on these issues. One of the differences between psychologists and domestic violence counselors is that domestic violence counselors tend to focus more on safety issues, the brainwashing done to you, trying to get you to see the cognitive dissonance when it comes to your relationship (which can put you back into an unsafe situation again). Psychologists tend to focus much more on the characteristics of the disorder, the tendencies of victims, and the research being done in the field of both. They are heavily focused on the DSM and the Five Factor Model. While domestic violence counselors are privy to the research too, the therapy approach isn't about focusing on them so much as how you've been brainwashed, how you have been toyed with, how you have been manipulated, how others have pushed their perspectives of you in an aggressive hostile manner that is more about a reflection of what they want out of you rather than who you are. <br /><br />In the old days before I was a researcher, I found domestic violence counseling "rough" at the time, like how alcoholics describe Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, but I can now see that it was necessary to get me out of the dreamy "la-de-da" cognitive dissonance frame of mind I was in (knowing what I know now, I may have been in as much danger as <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/10/why-it-is-important-to-keep.html" target="_blank">Gabby Petito</a></b> was in, maybe more so). <br /><br />Psychologists afterward furthered my knowledge of what I was up against, but they don't challenge the brainwashing, the attitudes and states of mind survivors typically go into, or even make many suggestions beyond some methods like the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-deep-method-for-survivors-of.html" target="_blank">DEEP method</a></b>, <b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/health/grey-rock-method" target="_blank">the gray rock method</a></b>,<b> </b>and sometimes setting boundaries. <br /><br />If I had to choose which kind of professional to go to, I would still have chosen to go to a domestic violence counselor first, and then afterwards talk to psychologists who specialize in the Cluster B Personality disorders. I find psychologists a little too soft and cerebral about issues having to do with abuse, and more ineffectual, or maybe the word is not as "serious", in treating the cognitive dissonance of victims. <br /><br />Anyway, here are the videos with my notes (I wrote notes to address cognitive dissonance - I have similar kinds of notes to these which I look at so that I, myself, don't slip into cognitive dissonance either). I have to read my notes when I have doubts, or double-takes, because I have a cognitive dissonance kind of mind, or what psychologists would refer to using the Five Factor Model as an "openness to new thoughts and experiences, new perspectives and exploring different beliefs". <br /><br />The videos and notes: <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><u>* Psychologist, Dr. Les Carter's video</u> called <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470326/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">"Should I Stay, or Should I Leave? 8 Signs the Narcissist is Unsafe"</a><br />Those 8 signs:<br /> 1. Nasty anger. Bad Temper. Easily argumentative. Cursing. Threats of harm. Contempt of you.<br /> 2. You are made to feel responsible for the narcissist's mistakes. The insinuation is "This is your fault! You're responsible for making me feel this way!" Are you required to go along with their thoughts that everything is your fault? <br /> 3. Hyper-control, micro-management, unsolicited advice, an agenda to control you. Too much criticism about how you do things. <br /> 4. Easily jealous. Doesn't want you to have connections with others. Suspicious. <br /> 5. Over-emphasizing your accountability towards them. You feel smothered and are often text-bombed. <br /> 6. You are being required to isolate from those people who care about you. You are losing connections as a result of being involved with them (or of having been involved with them). <br /> 7. They are willing to humiliate you when you are out in public together: Deep insults. Ridicule. They show that they want to "keep you in your place". Everyone who cares about you usually gets ridiculed too. <br /> 8. The narcissist uses stonewalling. From Dr. Carter: "If you don't give them what they want, they'll go into the silent treatment with you; they'll punish you with their withdrawal. They throw a thick impenetrable wall around them. They won't let you know who they are. They want to know everything about you, but they aren't going to allow you to know what is cooking on the inside of them. They don't admit their own problems. Very, very strong defensive structure."<br /> Some of his advice: "Listen to what your pain is telling you. If you're constantly feeling hurt, and discouraged, and put down, what is that trying to say? That's your inner person saying, 'I can do better than this. I need to do better than this.'"<br /><br /><u>* Next up</u> is a test to decipher sadists. Obviously only a sadist can answer these questions, and a lot of them would probably lie if you gave them this test yourself. If they wanted to become less sadistic and went to a therapist or anger management class, these kinds of questions would probably be the types of questions that would be asked. A lot of the questions have to do with control (it is how sadism gets started: by wanting to control someone or a group of people). The way that I think it is useful for victims is that if you are already in a close personal relationship with someone you suspect is a sadist, you already have a sense of how much they want to control you and hurt you, and from there you can get a sense of how deeply into sadism they might be. This test comes from this article: <b><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scientific-test-detect-sadism-sadist-2016-8" target="_blank">Scientists developed this 9-question test to measure how sadistic someone is</a></b> - by Rafi Letzter for Business Insider. <br /> The test (as written in the article):<br /> "1. I have made fun of people so that they know I am in control.<div> 2. People do what I want them to because they are afraid of me.</div><div> 3. When I tell people what to do, they know to do it.</div><div> 4. I never get tired of pushing people around.</div><div> 5. I would hurt somebody if it meant I would be in control.</div><div> 6. I control my friends through intimidation.<br /><div> 7. When I mock someone, it is funny to see them get upset.</div><div> 8. Being mean to others can be exciting.</div><div> 9. When I get annoyed, tormenting people makes me feel better.</div><div> 10. I have hurt people close to me for enjoyment.</div><div> 11. I enjoy humiliating others.</div><div> 12. I get pleasure from mocking people in front of their friends.<br /><div> 13. I think about harassing others for enjoyment.</div><div> 14. I have cheated others because I enjoy it.</div><div> 15. I think about hurting people who irritate me.</div><div> 16. I'd lie to someone to make them upset.</div><div> 17. I have stolen from others without regard for the consequences.</div><div> 18. Making people feel bad about themselves makes me feel good.<br /><div> 19. I am quick to humiliate others.</div><div> 20. I have tormented others without feeling remorse."<br /><br /><div><u>* next up</u> is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcJ-4Zavb6s" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">When Narcissists Become Sadistic</a> by psychologist Dr. Les Carter.<br />Note: I underlined passages in his speech that I hope help you to see the big picture of what is going on. Most of us are vulnerable to cognitive dissonance (being unsure) when we are in abusive relationships, but if you underline why you can't deal with the abusive person, and every time you wonder if you did the right thing in leaving them or stepping away from any kind of deep relationship with them, I think the list of these underlined ingredients in your relationship can help you realize again and again, why it was necessary, and why your own self care either will be greatly diminished in this relationship, or more likely cannot even exist in a relationship like this. <br /> As I have in the previous entries, I put quotation marks around things he actually said, but where you find breaks (like ...), I didn't include for the sake of brevity, or because it was redundant):<br /> "In general, dealing with narcissists can be a very difficult proposition because who wants to hang out with <u>someone who is constantly trying to figure out how to maintain control over you?</u> ... that <u>what ever needs or feelings or interpretations you have are just summarily dismissed.</u> They have this haughty attitude towards you - and all of that is difficult enough. But when you get to the point in a relationship with a narcissist where they've had enough of you, and they are thinking, 'You have not done what I want you to do; you have not given me the supply that I require or desire from you; it's payback time!' Then when they get to that point it can be just an awful experience. When narcissists have their sense of woundedness, or their sense of disappointment, or sense of disillusionment, they can turn into a mean person, and beyond ... <br /> "This is true with both the overt narcissist and the covert narcissist. You kind of expect it from the overt narcissist because they can be so brash, so loud, and so 'out there', but it gets really disappointing when that narcissist didn't seem terribly narcissistic - the covert - they can come on with a vengeance, and they can come on with a cruelty that catches you off-guard, and it's terribly, terribly painful." ... <br /> ... "Now let's say that there are some individuals that go into this 'payback narcissistic mode', who are not just mean, but they actually feel a sense of stimulation when they see you writhing in agony. This is what we refer to as 'the sadistic pattern' of narcissism. ... <br /> ... "It's like 'This is my way of illustrating that I'm the ultimate. Don't forget it.' It is beyond pathetic when we see individuals willing to go into that space ... <br /> ... "There's some entertainment themes that we have in our world today that absolutely sicken me. And when I say 'sicken' me, it just makes me feel awful ... just some of the movies we have that glorify the psychopaths and killers - it's bad enough to have that on the entertainment scene, but I think it's gotten worse in years past, but when you take that same mentality and bring it down to the individual personal level, that's when it becomes pretty real.<br /> "When we talk about people who have this rank pleasure 'Rah! Rah!' mentality of inflicting pain, there are multiple indicators we want to watch out for. <br /> "Now I've mentioned before that they have the core ingredients of sadistic narcissism, but when we say these individuals are entitled, <u>they are very entitled</u>. When we say these individuals (narcissists) have low empathy, we're talking <u>very low empathy</u>. When we talk about narcissists having an <u>under-developed conscience</u>, with sadistic narcissists, <u>it doesn't exist</u>. </div><div> "These individuals have a perverted, twisted ability to rationalize what they do. I mean, when you think about it, who in the world can justify <u>treating someone in a disdainful, painful way and then gloating over it, taking delight in watching that pain unfold.</u>" ... <br /> ... "<u>They don't just lust for power</u> ... <u>they want ultimate power</u>; they want ultimate dominance; <u>they want your subjugation in the worst sort of way</u> ... and again, <u>they smile as they see it unfolding</u>." ...<br /> ... "These people can be <u>terribly calloused, cold blooded</u>. They are unmoved when you say, 'Stop it! Quit it please! Leave me alone.' And it's like, 'Nope. I haven't got enough. Let's keep this going.'<br /> "<u>They are major score-boarders</u>. When they get to a point where they think you are winning over them, they are going to come through and it's like, 'I'm going to pummel you until you go down to zero.' ... <br /> ... "<u>They have zero conception of compassion. Or love. Or basic dignity</u>. <br /> "<u>They are in constant pay-back mode. Everything, as far as they are concerned, is 'tit-for-tat'</u>. It's like 'You give me this, and I'll give you that, and if you don't, it's curtains for you.<br /> "And then these <u>sadistic individuals operate with a great deal of paranoia</u>. In other words, they can't trust ... And of course they have <u>lots of double standards</u>: 'You exist to take care of me, but I don't take care of you. You exist to fill me up, but I'm not going to fulfill you with anything other than misery'.<br /> "So then this leads to the question: how does a person get to the point of being so low in the way that they engage with people? ... Somewhere they received the message this is a cold-blooded world ... and now they are basically saying, 'I'm going to be the one from now on who gets to harm you. I win when I damage you worse than when I was damaged.' That's how they think! Many of them will say, 'Nah! It wasn't that big of a deal.' Yes it was! ... Likewise we can say they get to this point because they have no good, or clean, or lasting emotional connections. <u>They see relationships, if we can use that word with them, in terms of utility only</u>. And when they engage with you in a relationship, basically what they are saying is <u>'I want to have ownership over you. And I want to have the final word.'</u> They don't just see it in a modified way. It's like: 'I'm in your head, and you need to filter everything through me.' And when they go into this negativity, it is part of their sadism.<br /> "<u>They have no guilt, no remorse</u> ... <br /> "<u>Being mean energizes them</u> ...<br /> ... "<u>understand that you cannot assume what-so-ever that this sadistic narcissist can reason with you. It's simply not going to happen. They don't have any moral compass; they don't have any ethics to draw from</u>.<br /> "When ever you attempt to <u>call them out, it simply becomes, to them, a reason to argue. Simply don't go into that space</u>. <br /> "These individuals are not just resistant to change, <u>they are highly resistant to change</u>. Drop that illusion.<br /> "<u>Move away when you can</u>, and do so with the least amount of provocation, the least amount of competitiveness, because it's bad enough to be in the presence of a hornet's nest, and when you're getting away from it, you don't want to swat at it, because they'll chase you down.<br /> "<u>Instead make yourself known to appropriate people</u>. There can be a certain amount of accountability if possible, with consequences and stipulations, and boundaries in place. <br /> "<u>But allow certain people to remind you of your core dignity</u> ... <u>and hopefully the brainwashing you've been exposed to can become minimized</u> ... <br /> ... <u>"Your pain is not a joke. And it's not to be minimized.</u> They will do so, but you need to take extra precaution when you realize what you're up against. <u>Listen to what your pain is saying: 'I NEED to get away from what is causing this'</u> ... "<br /> From the comments section of his video that I thought were useful:<br /></div><div><i> Robin Ellison writes in the comments section:</i></div><div>"It was a very hard day when I made the mental shift in understanding from "He's apathetic to my pain" to "He's creating and enjoying my pain." The realization was devastating. Thank you for this video."</div><div><i> t bunnyshy I writes in the comments section:</i></div><div>"There are so many levels this can go to. I cannot even put it into words, but there are parents that find joy in harming their kids, forcing them to do things that TERRIFY them. They endure years of pain and their cries go unheard. A sadist is like a “non-person”. SOULLESS, VOID, ABOMINATION.<br /><i> Marie Rose writes in the comments section:</i><br />"Listen carefully, when anyone laughs sadistically when a story is told about someone's painful experience. It is always a red flag for me. I am not just talking about slipping on a banana peel. I register the laugh and it tells me everything."<br /><br />* <u>Next up: Another Dr. Les Carter video that I also took notes on</u>: <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZVrfR9kGG8" target="_blank">A Three Trait Combination That Makes Narcissists Dangerous </a></b>. And if any of you have been following the story about the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/p/list-of-some-personal-posts.html" target="_blank">Johnny in my life</a></b> (a made up name), this describes him to a "T" (and when I first saw this video, I understood all of the reasoning and advice I got from professionals in the domestic violence field in those days I was trying to grapple with what to do about safety, about boundaries, about whether to talk to him at all - the advice I got was what Dr. Carter talks about in this video, with some extra precautions). Some notes on Dr. Carter's video and his quotes follow. The italics were passages that I thought were important to pay special attention to, and important to think deeply about, to "keep on track" so as not to get into cognitive dissonance about abusers and abusive acts:<br /> ... "Sometimes the further you get into this relationship, you realize 'This isn't just a disappointing relationship; it's become dangerous' ...<br /> ... "There are three different characteristics that I want you to be aware of, that if seen in combination with one another, can indicate that that person, is indeed, a dangerous person, someone you need to stay away from, to have as little or 'no contact' with as possible." ...<br /> * NUMBER ONE: being a complete phony<br /> * NUMBER TWO: having pervasive anger issues<br /> * NUMBER THREE: operating with a strong calloused nature (quotations with all three)<br /> he expounds on the three<br /> <u>1st: phony</u>:<br /> ... "They adapt to chameleon-like responses ... so that they can score wins. <i>They think of relationships as being competitions</i>. They are deathly afraid of being on the losing end." ...<br /> ... "<i>They don't just look at you as someone who they can share with authentically, but they look at you as someone they need to manipulate</i>. They can't be honest about who they are ... they are going to have low self disclosure and they are going to have a low appreciation of who you are ... If they are friendly or if they are helpful, it's a ploy. It's part of their calculated scheme to stay in the top position.</div><div> "They have lots of secrets ... they live by the motto: 'You will not get to know the inside of me.'"<br /> <u>2nd: pervasive anger</u>:<br /> ... "It takes very little to set them off. I have had so many people talk to me who have said: 'I just had such a small disagreement', or 'I made a mistake', or 'something happened and we just weren't on the same page, and BOOM! - It took next to nothing to trigger their anger.'</div><div> "Many times <i>these dangerous narcissists will come across with this very loud, and forceful, and rageful anger</i>. Sometimes if they're <i>a little more guarded than that, they can have such a strong sense of contempt for other individuals</i>. And as a result, the simmering anger and agitation is constantly there, and that anger is driven, by what I refer to as, a strong 'imperative style of thinking.' When I say 'imperative': Very commanding. Very controlling. Very overbearing. 'You must -!', 'You have to -!', 'You've got to -!', 'You're supposed to -!', and there's very little variance as to what they will accept from other individuals, which makes their anger very accessible to them. But we all deviate and differentiate from one another, but in their world it's like, 'No!<i> You better not deviate from me</i>!' <br /> "Once that anger shows up in them, <i>your assertiveness is not an option</i>. Through the years I've taught many anger management workshops and I've written on the topic of anger, and I explain that it's not unusual or wrong to feel angry. It's what you do with it that counts." ...<br /> ... "<i>For this kind of narcissist, they consciously choose to humiliate people when they're angry</i>. They consciously choose to put people in their place. It's like 'I'm going to teach you a lesson that you will never forget!' <br /> "They are <i>very overwhelming in their use of anger</i> ... <br /> <u>3rd: calloused</u>:<br /> "This is the one that makes narcissists most dangerous ... <br /> ... "They've got a hardened way that they engage with other individuals. Their attitudes are hardened; <i>there's an 'I couldn't care less' notion that they bring to other individuals</i> ... They have virtually no appreciation or understanding of love. Love can create so much good will, but it's like 'I don't need good will.' Instead <i>they go more towards the characteristics that make them a bully</i> ... They become hardened or impervious to the pain that they inflict upon others. Have you ever had that happen to you? - where you are over there pleading your case, and explaining ... and you just feel there is this darkened attitude inside of this person, where it's like 'Am I talking to a person who has some evil going on? There's something very, very wrong here.' And their response is: 'I don't care.' Or they have no response, no remorse. Being tough is considered a badge of honor ... They like the idea that they have created an intimidating presence ..."</div><div> his wrap-up:<br /> ... "These three ingredients in combination with each other ... means you're up against something that's very dangerous ... These people with these three ingredients, they aren't reasonable ... and you're going to have to recognize that: 'I'm not going to have a loving, and a caring, and a collaborative relationship." ... Counseling does next to 'no good.' ... <i>The one thing that's going to work with these individuals, if anything works at all, are consequences.</i>" ... <br /> And he wraps it up suggesting legal help, counseling, law enforcement help, boundaries, and so on. <br /><br />Next up: another Dr. Les Carter video on malignant narcissism:<b> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSeZOQ6mwsQ" target="_blank">8 Characteristics of a Malignant Narcissist</a><br /></b> My notes with what he says in is in quotation marks. Synopses will not be in quotation marks. Again, I have underlined passages that I believe have to be considered with more weight:<br /> He talks about Eric Fromm from the 1960s who came up with the term Malignant Narcissism to describe narcissists who have gone too far. <br /> Some of the things attributed to run-of-the-mill narcissism, and then what differentiates them from the malignant narcissists afterward:<br /> ... "Narcissists have to be in control ...<br /> ... "They have low levels of empathy.<br /> "They have a strong sense of entitlement: 'This is what I want. This is what I need and you owe it to me.'<br /> "They are very exploitive and manipulative ... <br /> ... "Narcissists honestly believe they are superior. And they believe they are in the superior position. They look at you from their high perches or perch.<br /> "They are pathologically defensive. They don't feel they need input ... Part of that is their creation of a false self. They've convinced themselves that they are so much more different and unique than everyone else that if anyone's opinions that differ from them - (you) can't be different, at least in their mind.<br /> "They operate with alternative realities. They make up their truth ... as they go along to suit whatever their whims, needs of the moment may be. ... <br /> ... "narcissist's have a temporary ability to create a favorable false impression.<br /> "So those are the basics when we're looking at the subject of narcissism.<br /> "<u>Now add the word 'malignant' to it and you get a pretty bad combination. In fact, Eric Fromm goes so far as to say that these people have crossed the line into the world of evil. Beneath their narcissism is an extra layer of mean-ness. They have an element of sociopathy, the 'Antisocial Personality'</u>. <br /> "<u>They don't have a well-developed conscience at all, and as a result, morality to them is what ever they need it to be in the moment, or they don't think about it at all</u>. They have no willingness to appeal to an authority - they are the authority. So no authority has any sway over them. They don't want any accountability and they'll shun any kind of accountability ... <u>They can go into their space of ruthlessness rather easily. They are impervious to the pain they generate</u>. ... If you feel discomfort by being in their presence, or some interaction you've had, in their minds, 'Well first, you caused it. Second, you probably deserve it anyway.' They don't care. There's just such a low sense of consciousness and contentiousness about how they impact other individuals. <br /> "<u>When we think of narcissists, very commonly we know that they tend to play 'the victim's role' pretty easily. The malignant narcissist will take it even further, and it's like they have a pretty developed sense of paranoia.</u> It's like 'You people out there - I know you're jealous of me. I know that you think I'm so good that you want to bring me down, but I got news for you. That's not going to happen!' And so they are watching for any kind of sign that you may be against them, or that you may want to come and bring them down, and so they want to jump on that before you have a chance to do things, which means that their control is just an uber need for control.<br /> "<u>When we say that narcissists are entitled, the malignant narcissist is entitled ALL THE TIME</u>. They have no sense of servitude. Or helpfulness. Or tenderness. It's like, 'I don't need to do that.' They just want people to cater to them ...<br /> "<u>They have a very low level of guilt, sometimes to the point of zero</u>. Sometimes you'll hear them say, 'I don't need forgiveness' because they ascribe to almost a God-like nature to their own selves. And they are truly unable to see their own short-comings. If there is a short-coming between you and them, it's always going to be you. And when we're talking about the malignant narcissist, we're talking bad news. These people with no conscience, they have no need to engage in an uplifting way at all. You're just going to be someone they can use. <u>And when they are finished with you, they are going to toss you off to the side like you're some sort of rotten meat, and then they'll just move on to the next victim</u>.<br /> "So knowing this, you need to keep a very low level of personal connection with these people. They don't know how to do relationships well at all. They don't understand the nature of love what-so-ever. You want to have very strong boundaries with them because they'll want to do nothing more than step in and tell you who you need to be, and how you need to live your life, and what your priorities are, and if you don't fit with the program, they'll just make you feel miserable. ...<br /> "That being the case, make no effort to reform them. They're not going to be reformed. Instead, <u>at your very first opportunity, get away from them</u>. <u>These folks are bad news</u> ... <br /> ... "Once you see it, you can say 'I get it. I need to do much better things with my life. I'm moving on."<br /> "One last thought: When you see people of this nature and realize this is deeply imbedded, I'm hoping it motivates you to be the better alternative. These are truly troubled souls and there's a deep, deep history as to how they got there ... But <u>they're not going to change, so I'm hoping at the very least, that you can look at them and recognize, "I can do better. I will do better, but I need to do it away from their presence entirely, if possible</u>.'" <br /><br /></div></div></div></div></div><u>Next up: Another Dr. Les Carter video</u> on<b> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqh_XuU-vi0&t=117s" target="_blank">Top 10 Indicators That It's Time To Leave The Narcissist</a></b> <br /> My notes on what he has to say (his exact words are in quotation marks): <br /> <u>1.</u> The Narcissist Killing Your Spirit<br /> "Your beliefs, preferences, your emotional responses, hobbies, interests, your connections with people, your professions - the narcissist can come along and say, 'I don't like any of that. I think you're stupid; I think your emotions are terrible; your beliefs don't make sense. Why do you have the preferences that you have? I don't want to connect with your connections' - and they kind of give you the impression that being you is just not reasonable." <br /> "If you hear those messages often enough, do you find yourself thinking: 'I feel like a shell of a person.'<br /> <u>2.</u> Ongoing Isolation or Alienation<br /> "There are going to be times when the narcissist makes it very uncomfortable for you to engage with the people you know and love. One of the characteristics of narcissistic abuse is that they try to take you to a place of isolation. When that is something that is on-going, you know you are at a bad place."<br /> <u>3.</u> Constant Haranguing<br /> "Many times a narcissist will have a deep history of ridiculing you, or harassing you, or mocking you, or saying harsh and critical words towards you. They dislike your interests and they make fun of your interests. And they make fun of your family and friends. 'Oh, you think you are so special!' and just lots of sarcasm. Are you on the receiving end of haranguing communication? That implies a high level of disdain and superiority that the narcissist feels towards you."<br /> <u>4.</u> Contempt<br /> "Many times when you've been in the presence of a narcissist, you realize they don't just disagree with you, and they don't just dislike some of the things you prefer, they have a sense of disgust towards you. It takes that sense of condescension and holds you in such low regard that you almost wonder, 'Do you hate me?' ... And basically through contempt, a narcissist may be implying, 'You are <u>so</u> beneath me!'"<br /> <u>5.</u> Divided Loyalties<br /> "Now obviously when you're in a relationship with a narcissist, one of the things you want is to have a feeling of connectedness, and loyalty, and shared responsibility (what ever the relationship may imply), but then you realize the narcissist doesn't share the same loyalties. Maybe that person is loyal to their alcohol and that's all they really care about ... It could be that there's an extramarital affair. Obviously that's going to be something that's very difficult. They can have other co-dependent attachments to other individuals that supersede their attachments to you.<br /> <u> 6.</u> Ongoing Keeping of Secrets<br /> "Trust is lost. You may have heard the old saying that your relationships are only as healthy as the secrets allow you to be. And there can be times when that highly narcissistic person may have hidden abuses with money, or maybe they haven't paid their taxes properly, or they refused to be accountable time-wise, and they don't want you to know what they're doing and when they're doing it. I mentioned a minute ago that there can be an extra-marital affair, or there's just a general sense of phoniness that they operate with. There's a secretiveness that's there that is pervasive and on-going. <br /> <u>7.</u> Imbalance of Power and Control<br /> "... 'The best way for me to be in control is for me to stop trying to be so in control.'<br /> "I want my influence to be such that goodness, and decency, and honor - those kinds of characteristics - is what holds us together, and it is not a dictator's kind of mindset. With narcissists, though, they are all about control, and so they can come on in such an over-powering way - haranguing, and 'You will do things MY way', black and white kind of thinking, lack of equality, lack of regard for you, that it's like, 'We have a huge imbalance here!'. This person wants all control, and all submission from you, and when it's that persistent and on-going, then again, we have a very difficult situation."</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <u>8.</u> Communication Breakdowns<br /> "One of the primary characteristics of narcissism is a lack of empathy. When we have good communication it needs to be a two-way street. An ultimate goal of communication is the willingness to hear one another ... Narcissists? 'Nope, ... I'm not hearing; I'm telling.' They want it to be a one way kind of a thing ... Listening is held in low regard."</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <u>9.</u> Stonewalling<br /> "There are times when the narcissist can say, 'I don't want to have anything to do with you.' They shut you out, make themselves terribly unavailable, sometimes just emotionally, other times physically. They just won't open up. There's a very tight wall of defense. There's a stubborn withdrawal, and the withdrawal typically has a sense of punishment to it."<br /> <u>10.</u> Varying Forms of Abuse<br /> "Now obviously if there's physical abuse, then that's something that's extremely negative and extremely detrimental. Sexual abuse: whether it is towards you or towards other individuals. If there's verbal abuse, and emotional abuse - it's like 'At some point I've got to stand up for my own self respect, and this is not part of the equation.'" <br /> <u>Final Thoughts:</u><br /> "So there we have it: we have ten different indicators that we need to move on away from the narcissist, and obviously if you have multiples of these ten, then that just adds to it all the more. I want you to remember a mantra I hold on to ... 'Dignity, Respect, Civility'. ... Standing for those ingredients adds to you. You want the person you are engaging with to say: 'I agree with all of that.' ... but when that narcissistic individual with their attitudes, behaviors and treatments of you, it's like, 'None of that DRC (Dignity, Respect and Civility) is for me.'"...</div><div><div><br /></div></div><div>VIDEOS:<br /><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;">"Why Are Narcissists So Mean?"<br />by psychologist, Dr. Les Carter for "Surviving Narcissism":<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iJX04FNLYeQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="iJX04FNLYeQ"></iframe><br /><br />Sadistic Narcissists:<br />by Dr. Ramani Durvasula:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FIKinW1JYdE" width="320" youtube-src-id="FIKinW1JYdE"></iframe><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">These are just some of the comments left in the comments section of her video that I thought could speak to everyone:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><i><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Sparky Gump writes in the comments section:</i></div></i><div><div style="text-align: left;">When you lack empathy, nothing is beyond you.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Cren Cottrell writes in the comments section:</i></div><div style="text-align: left;">"From my experiences, ALL narcs had a sadistic streak (it just ranges). EVERY one of them I've known has been guilty of being unnecessarily judgmental, condescending, unforgiving, hurtful, aggressive, passive-aggressive, AND/OR vindictive at some point."</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">10 Signs of a Husband with <br />Sadistic Personality Traits<br />by Dr. Todd Grande:<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IIywQTGGipM" width="320" youtube-src-id="IIywQTGGipM"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">THIS IS WHY NARCISSISTS ARE SO MEAN 😢 /LISA ROMANO<br />by Lisa Romano:<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tleu-d4b8No" width="320" youtube-src-id="tleu-d4b8No"></iframe><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malignant_narcissism" target="_blank">Malignant narcissism</a></b> - Wikipedia<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/malignant-narcissism" target="_blank">Unpacking Malignant Narcissism</a></b> - by Crystal Raypole, medically reviewed by Timothy J. Legg, Ph.D., Psy.D. for Healthline<br /><br /><b>Recommended: <a href="https://www.choosingtherapy.com/malignant-narcissist/" target="_blank">Malignant Narcissist: Traits, Signs, Causes, & How to Deal With One</a></b> - by Hailey Shafir LPCS, LCAS, CCS, reviewed by Benjamin Troy, MD for Choosing Therapy<br /><b><br /><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-harm-done/201812/what-drives-sadists-aggression" target="_blank">What Drives Sadists' Aggression? (Sadists turn others' suffering into their own satisfaction.)</a></b> - by David S. Chester Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br />excerpt:<br /><i>Sadists walk among us, and they are prone to being harmful to others. Such sadistic aggression appears to be driven by the pleasure of the act, is contingent on whether their victim is seen to suffer, and ultimately backfires, leaving sadists feeling worse than when they started. <br /></i><br /><b><a href="https://theconversation.com/from-psychopaths-to-everyday-sadists-why-do-humans-harm-the-harmless-144017" target="_blank">From psychopaths to ‘everyday sadists’: why do humans harm the harmless?</a></b> - by Simon McCarthy-Jones, Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology and Neuropsychology, Trinity College Dublin for The Conversation</p><p><a href="https://www.straighttalkcounseling.org/post/energy-vampires-emotional-sadism-and-the-narcissistic-relationship-by-dr-roberta-cone" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Energy Vampires: Emotional Sadism and the Narcissistic Relationship</a> - by Dr. Roberta Cone for Straight Talk Counseling<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.mentalhelp.net/blogs/sadistic-personality-disorder-the-cleveland-tragedy/" target="_blank">Sadistic Personality Disorder: The Cleveland Tragedy</a></b> - by Allan Schwartz, LCSW, Ph.D. for Mental Health.net<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/evil-roy-f-baumeister/1117011410" target="_blank">Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty</a></b> - by Roy F. Baumeister Ph.D., and forward by Aaron Beck (published by Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.)</p><p><b><a href="https://www.healthyplace.com/personality-disorders/malignant-self-love/the-narcissist-as-sadist" target="_blank">The Narcissist as Sadist</a></b> - from the administrators of Healthy Place<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.quizexpo.com/sadism-test/">Sadism Test: Are You Sadistic? This 100% Honest Quiz Reveals</a></b> - Quiz Expo<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-last-taboos/201308/sibling-sadists-versus-schoolyard-bullies" target="_blank">Sibling Sadists Versus Schoolyard Bullies</a></b> - by Jeanne Safer Ph.D. for Psychology Today <br />excerpt:<br /><i> Very few of my patients have escaped unscathed from their parents’ failure to protect them from harm. Many tell me they were actually blamed for their siblings’ attacks, or accused of overreacting. Girls can be every bit as vicious as boys, and age differences in either direction don’t matter. Here are a few of the outrages they suffered:</i><br /><i> * A girl of five was set on fire by her brother, who was three years older. When she told her parents, their only response was to make sure that there were no matches in the house thereafter, and to encourage her to spend time with him because he was friendless.</i><br /><i> * A boy of twelve was kicked in the head by his fourteen-year-old brother. His jaw was broken and he suffered a concussion. Their mother had no reaction whatsoever.</i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scientific-test-detect-sadism-sadist-2016-8" target="_blank">Scientists developed this 9-question test to measure how sadistic someone is</a></b> - by Rafi Letzter for Business Insider<br /></p><p><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Los-Zetas-Drug-Cartel-Instrument-ebook/dp/B011K7A7K4/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1GUYVUI4F4KW4&keywords=sadism&qid=1681854718&sprefix=sadism%2Caps%2C96&sr=8-5" target="_blank">The Los Zetas Drug Cartel - Sadism as an Instrument of Cartel Warfare in Mexico and Central America</a></b> - by George W. Grayson, Professor of Government Emeritus at the College of William & Mary (Amazon Kindle)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sadism-Masochism-Psychology-Hatred-Cruelty-ebook/dp/B00CIX2UYQ/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=Yffom&content-id=amzn1.sym.22f5776b-4878-4918-9222-7bb79ff649f4&pf_rd_p=22f5776b-4878-4918-9222-7bb79ff649f4&pf_rd_r=141-1249307-4665969&pd_rd_wg=gntGC&pd_rd_r=0a38577d-f8fe-4caa-82d2-114aeca3ba35&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk" target="_blank">Sadism and Masochism - The Psychology of Hatred and Cruelty - Vol. I.</a></b> - by by Wilhelm Stekel, psychoanalyst (published by Kolthoff Press)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sadism-Masochism-Psychology-Hatred-Cruelty/dp/1446505308/ref=sr_1_3?crid=12IFJW6Z9LH46&keywords=psychology+of+sadism&qid=1681855048&sprefix=psychology+of+sadism+%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-3&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.006c50ae-5d4c-4777-9bc0-4513d670b6bc" target="_blank">Sadism and Masochism - The Psychology of Hatred - Vol. 2</a></b> - by Wilhelm Stekel, psychoanalyst (published by Kolthoff Press)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Psychology-Psychological-Manipulate-Intelligence-ebook/dp/B0BNXR2B3H/ref=sr_1_11_sspa?crid=12IFJW6Z9LH46&keywords=psychology+of+sadism&qid=1681855470&sprefix=psychology+of+sadism+%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-11-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzVVo5SThWQlhUSEVVJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNDY1ODcwMzhKQkpZMzFUWkJaTSZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwODgzNDg5MlUyVk1BNjhNTlFNMyZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX210ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=" target="_blank">Dark Psychology: The Psychological Tactics They Use to Manipulate and Deceive You (Social Intelligence Training)</a></b> - by Andy Gardner (Kindle)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BR1JTK3X?notRedirectToSDP=1&ref_=dbs_mng_calw_3&storeType=ebooks" target="_blank">Gaslighting: How to Recognize Manipulation and Narcissistic Abuse and Set Boundaries So You Can Break Free and Recover from an Emotionally Abusive Relationship (Social Intelligence Training)</a></b> - by Andy Gardner (Kindle)</p><p><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-is-2020/201607/the-disturbing-link-between-narcissism-and-sadism" target="_blank">The Disturbing Link Between Narcissism and Sadism (What drives a troubling narcissistic subtype, and how to recognize it.)</a></b> - by Seth Meyers for Psychology Today<br />excerpt:<br /><i> Many narcissists are difficult to get along with, have a grandiose sense of self, and won't take accountability for their actions, but they don't have a driving need to punish others. I have found that the sadistic narcissist has lower self-esteem than the non-sadistic narcissist, even though neither truly has high self-esteem. The most important point to understand is that the drive to punish or upset others on a regular basis typically stems from an individual having been on the receiving end of confusing, mind-twisting behavior from a parent early in life.<br /> My hope is that readers can avoid relationships with narcissists, especially those with a sadistic streak. Those who have encountered a severe narcissist and gotten too close know how confusing and frustrating the experience can be. And I sincerely hope that anyone currently connected to a sadistic narcissist—whether someone at work or in their social life—can continue to educate themselves about narcissism and sadism to better protect themselves, and detach as quickly as possible.<br /><br /></i><b><a href="https://www.crimrxiv.com/pub/2ovingc5/release/1" target="_blank">Manifestations of sexual sadism in child sexual assault and the associated victim, offender, and offense characteristics: A latent class analysis</a></b> - by Kylie Reale, Julien Chopin, Alexandre Gauthier, and Eric Beauregard for Crimrxiv (professional paper)<br />excerpt:<br /><i>It is well-documented in the extant literature that child sexual abusers are a heterogeneous population (see Lim et al., 2021 for a review). Although contact sexual offending against a child, particularly of a violent nature, remains less common than other forms of child sexual abuse (CSA) (Lim et al., 2021), the widespread harm that these types of crimes can cause to the victim (e.g., physical, medical, psychological, and social), as well as the enormous cost to society, is unequivocal (Hall & Hall, 2007; Fang et al., 2012). Sexual sadism represents the most extreme form of sexual violence, involving acts such as coercion, torture, humiliation, and the infliction of pain for sexual pleasure (Chopin & Beauregard, 2022; Dietz et al., 1990; Nitschke et al., 2013; Longpré et al., 2018). The ability to identify whether a sexual crime against a child involves sexual sadism is crucial from not only an intervention standpoint but also for public safety. For example, studies have shown that there is an association between sexual sadism and the most serious crimes, such as sexual homicide (e.g., Brittain, 1970; Healey et al., 2013; Mokros, 2018; Ressler et al., 1986; Ressler et al., 1988). Moreover, deviant sexual fantasies, which are central to the diagnosis of sexual sadism (5th ed.; DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013), are a risk factor for sexual reoffending (Brankey et al., 2021) and sexual preoccupation (Hanson et al., 2007). </i></p><p><b><a href="https://thenarcissisticlife.com/the-sadistic-narcissist/" target="_blank">Dealing With A Sadistic Narcissist – A Look Inside The Mind Of A Narcissist</a></b> - by psychologist Alexander Burgemeester for The Narcissistic Life<br />excerpt:<br /><i> The narcissist must always “win” and they will use any means at their disposal to do so, including torture or abuse.</i><br /><i> They don’t think twice about causing pain in order to win.</i><br /><i> Narcissists always cause psychological pain and often physical pain as well. Usually those who are victimized the most are the closest and the most vulnerable: their partner or spouse, their children, siblings, and intimate friends.</i><br /><i> The sadistic narcissist gets pleasure and Narcissistic Supply from inflicting psychological and physical pain. ... </i><br /><br /><b>Recommended: <a href="https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2023/02/sadistic-cat-and-mouse-games-narcissists-and-psychopaths-play/" target="_blank">10 Sadistic Cat-and-Mouse Games Narcissists And Psychopaths Play</a></b> - by Shahida Arabi for Thought Catalog<br />excerpt (note: I included 1., but there are 9 more):<br /> <i>... Researchers note that sadism is a key feature of malignant narcissism (narcissism with antisocial traits). Interestingly, other studies report that individuals high in narcissistic and psychopathic traits tend to experience positive emotions when they view sad faces. Neuroscience research also indicates that when psychopathic individuals imagine others enduring pain, there is increased activation in areas of the brain related to anticipation of reward and decreased activation in areas related to empathy. Psychologists have suggested that this may mean that psychopaths not only lack empathy for the pain of others, but that they also take sadistic pleasure in witnessing or even causing the pain and distress of others.<br /></i><i> ... 1. They manufacture chaos by frequently pushing your trigger buttons to exhaust and disorient you so you’re less able to fight back.<br /></i><i> Narcissists and psychopaths know exactly which trigger buttons to push – and that’s usually because they installed them in the first place. They know exactly what to mention and how to act in order to provoke your emotions and depict you as “crazy” when you do. During the abuse cycle, they implant insecurities in you and watch you unravel as you fixate on them. They will do this so chronically that you are constantly scrambling to defend, react, and overexplain yourself and become too exhausted to detach from the relationship. This is their equivalent of playing with their “food” or prey and injuring it immensely before devouring it.<br /> By manufacturing chaos by provoking you, they take up your mental resources so you are only focused on them and the relationship and have less time for yourself, your goals, your healing, and your self-care. Such debilitating tactics are similar to the interrogation tactics used on prisoners of war. The victim has less time to recover from the abuse when it is ongoing, frequent or impactful, so they go to the source of pain itself in an attempt to survive the abuse. This is part of the powerful trauma bond you develop to your abuser as a survival mechanism. You seek comfort from your abuser due to their “hurt-and-rescue” methods – where they deliberately wound you, only to come to the rescue with their comfort and fake apologies and promises to never do it again, only to start the cycle once more. This uncertainty and devaluation keeps you perpetually off-kilter and dependent on their validation; much like a cat stalks its prey and swats at it while it runs around trying to avoid being eaten, you’re constantly walking on eggshells, negotiating your self-respect and basic needs with the predator to avoid being swallowed whole. </i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/pro/exhausted-woman/2019/02/what-is-sadistic-parenting#1" target="_blank">Recommended: What is Sadistic Parenting?</a></b> - by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC, medically reviewed by Scientific Advisory Board for Psych Central<br /></p><p><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-mental-health/202103/sadistic-narcissists-might-exploit-submissive-dependence" target="_blank">Sadistic Narcissists Might Exploit Submissive Dependence (The vulnerability of approval-seeking, separation anxiety, and submission.)</a></b> - by Caroline Kamau, Ph.D., reviewed by Davia Sills for Psychology Today<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/captivating-crimes/202104/what-is-sexual-sadism" target="_blank">What Is Sexual Sadism? (The most heinous serial killers.)</a></b> - by Steven Lampley for Psychology Today<br />excerpt:<br /><i> One of the most heinous serial killers is the sexually sadistic serial killer. The article, “Psychopathic Sexual Sadists: The Psychology and Psychodynamics of Serial Killers,” by Vernon J. Geberth, M.S., M.P.S., former Commander of Bronx Homicide, references the DSM-IV: “Psychopathic sexual sadists, based on the objective criteria of DSM-IV are extremely dangerous to the well-being of a civilized society.”<br /> What is sexual sadism? Lunde, in 1976, defined sexual sadism as “a deviation characterized by torture and/or killing and mutilation of other persons to achieve sexual gratification.”<br /> According to M. J. MacCulloch, the sexually sadistic thoughts of rape bondage, sodomy, torture, and murder began around 16 years of age combined with masturbation and progressing in frequency when the sadistic element was added to the fantasies. ...</i></p><p><b><a href="https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/from-psychopaths-to-everyday-sadists-why-do-humans-harm-the-harmless/" target="_blank">From psychopaths to ‘everyday sadists’: why do humans harm the harmless?</a></b> - by By Simon McCarthy-Jones, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin<br />excerpt:<br /><i> ... We understand if someone lashes out in retaliation or self-defence. But when someone harms the harmless, we ask: “How could you?”<br /> Humans typically do things to get pleasure or avoid pain. For most of us, hurting others causes us to feel their pain. And we don’t like this feeling. This suggests two reasons people may harm the harmless – either they don’t feel the others’ pain or they enjoy feeling the others’ pain. ... <br /> ... The popular imagination associates sadism with torturers and murderers. Yet there is also the less extreme, but more widespread, phenomenon of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797613490749">everyday sadism</a>.<br /> Everyday sadists get pleasure from hurting others or watching their suffering. They <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000602">are likely to</a> enjoy gory films, find fights exciting and torture interesting. They are rare, but not rare enough. Around <a href="https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0369056#downloadfiles">6% of undergraduate students</a> admit getting pleasure from hurting others. ... <br /> ... We now know the potentially appalling long-term effects of suffering cruelty from others, including damage to both <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2014.10.012">physical</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291715002743">mental health</a>. The <a href="https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/titles/paul-gilbert/the-compassionate-mind/9781849010986/">benefits of being compassionate towards oneself</a>, rather than treating oneself cruelly, are also increasingly recognised.<br /> And the idea that we must suffer to grow is questionable. Positive life events, such as falling in love, having children and achieving cherished goals <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000173">can lead</a> to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2013.791715">growth</a>.<br /> Teaching through cruelty invites abuses of power and selfish sadism. Yet Buddhism offers an alternative – <a href="https://tricycle.org/magazine/arent-we-right-be-angry/">wrathful compassion</a>. Here, we act from love to confront others to protect them from their greed, hatred and fear. Life can be cruel, truth can be cruel, but we can choose not to be.</i><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30184541/" target=""><br /><br /><b>Do Sadists Feel Sad After Inflicting Pain? UK Psychology Grad Reveals Intriguing Results - by Lidsay Piercy for College of Arts and Sciences (Psychology), University of Kentucky</b><br />excerpt:<br /> ... </a><span style="color: #0000ee;"><u>As expected, those with a history of aggression showed more pleasure in causing harm to others. However, in a shocking result, their overall mood went down afterwards. Contrary to popular belief, the aggressive behavior ultimately brought emotional pain — leaving them feeling worse than before.<br /></u></span><u style="color: #0000ee;"> "We expected that sadists would feel more pleasure and less pain after aggression, but we found the opposite. Sadistic individuals actually reported greater negative emotion after the aggressive act, suggesting that aggression feels good in the moment but that this pleasure quickly fades and is replaced by pain."<br /></u><u style="color: #0000ee;"> Overall, the results provide credible evidence that sadists find pleasure in harming others, but once they believe their victims are no longer suffering the pleasure fades.<br /></u><u style="color: #0000ee;"> So, what can be done with this revelation?<br /></u><u style="color: #0000ee;"> Having a better understanding of emotions that drive sadistic aggression could help with intervention. By changing how a sadist perceives the harm they inflict — or by helping the sadist understand how it will harm them — Chester suspects, the aggression cycle could be broken. ...</u></p><p><b><a href="https://www.straighttalkcounseling.org/post/energy-vampires-emotional-sadism-and-the-narcissistic-relationship-by-dr-roberta-cone" target="_blank">Energy Vampires: Emotional Sadism and the Narcissistic Relationship</a></b> - by Dr. Roberta Cone for Straight Talk Counseling (prevention services, wellness center)<br />excerpt:<br /><i> Narcissists are sadistic in their rejection of other people and feelings of superiority. ...<br /> ... The narcissist’s need for constant attention and caretaking takes center stage as the desires of others are neglected and denied. As a relationship progresses, the narcissist will ignore you in social settings and not compliment you on anything nor celebrate your accomplishments. They genuinely don’t care about your needs and are experts at pretending they do until they gain control. Then the self-involved energy vampire punishes you for having desires because they demand that you focus all of your attention and energy on them. They suck the life force and joy out of everyone they can take hostage. They prefer your admiration and awe, but eventually, their behavior destroys any feelings of love, and they will then settle for negative attention. This makes the emotional sadist feel all-powerful and capable of any cruelty.<br /><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The narcissist slowly progresses from minimal emotional assaults to intentionally deliberate attacks. Distancing and aloofness are their favorite weapons. It doesn’t matter to them if you cry because they are not affected and do not care. They feel nothing and are not concerned about what you are feeling. ...<br /> ... The emotionally sadistic narcissist derives enjoyment from hurting someone. More than physical abuse, they are experts at manipulating people’s emotions until they feel broken. They intimidate their partners to prevent them from expressing criticism or disapproval of their actions and decisions. Partners and children quickly learn the triggers for temper and rage attacks that make the narcissist argumentative and hostile. Their extreme reactions are a punishment for what they perceive as their partner’s lack of consideration and sensitivity. The narcissist blames their partner for their behavior, accuses them of provoking the outbursts, and believes the partner deserves punishment for their misbehavior. Apologies, unless accompanied by requests for forgiveness, are not enough. <br /></i><i><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The fuel of the narcissist’s rage is expended mainly on bizarre verbal accusations directed at the made-up and imaginary intentions of the victim. If you question the appropriateness of the behavior, no longer mirroring admiration and submissiveness, this causes them to doubt their illusory self-esteem. You are then subjected to a period of terror where they try to hurt you for not recognizing their entitlement to your utter obedience. You will be belittled and humiliated with displays of aggression and emotional violence in countless forms. Their behavior changes from putting you on a pedestal to ultimately devaluing you as a person. The narcissist is now repulsed by you and deems you useless. These extreme contrasts between seeing you as flawless to completely unworthy make long-term relationships with the narcissist all but impossible. ...</i></p><p><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30184541/" target=""><b>Borderline Personality Disorder: An Exploratory Study</b></a> - by Mark F Lenzenweger, John F Clarkin, Eve Caligor, Nicole M Cain, and Otto F Kernberg for National Library of Medicine (PubMed professional research paper)</p><p><b><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34783453/" target="_blank">Pathological narcissism: An analysis of interpersonal dysfunction within intimate relationships</a></b> - by Nicholas J S Day 1, Michelle L Townsend 1, Brin F S Grenyer 1 for National Library of Medicine (PubMed professional research paper)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3782696/" target="_blank">An fMRI study of affective perspective taking in individuals with psychopathy: imagining another in pain does not evoke empathy</a></b> - by Jean Decety, Chenyi Chen, Carla Harenski and Kent A. Kiehl for Frontiers in Human Neuroscience and National Library of Medicine (PubMed professional research paper)</p><p><b><a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/highlights/spotlight/issue-216#:~:text=People%20high%20in%20narcissism%20are,not%20be%20provoked%20to%20attack." target="_blank">The link between narcissism and aggression</a></b> - by Sophie L. Kjærvik and Brad J. Bushman for the American Psychological Association (professional article)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/pro/exhausted-woman/2019/02/what-is-sadistic-parenting#1" target="_blank">What is Sadistic Parenting?</a></b> - by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC for Psych Central<br />excerpt:<br /> ... <i>Sadistic parenting is the worse form of abuse for a child because the parent gets pleasure out of harming the child not caring for them. A parent is supposed to love, nurture, guide, and cherish their child, not hate, torture, misdirect, and throw them away.</i> ...</p><p><b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/25/well/mind/schadenfreude-freudenfreude.html" target="_blank">The Opposite of Schadenfreude Is Freudenfreude. Here’s How to Cultivate It. (The joy we derive from others’ success comes with many benefits.)</a></b> - by Juli Fraga for The Atlantic<br /></p><p><b>RECOMMENDED: <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-integrationist/201408/dealing-everyday-sadists-and-other-dark-personalities" target="_blank">Dealing With Everyday Sadists and Other "Dark Personalities" (Five important tips for protecting yourself from those who would do you harm.)</a></b> - by Traci Stein Ph.D., MPH for Psychology Today<br />excerpt: <br /> <i>There are several personality types that are more likely to harm another than the average person would. Sadists possess an intrinsic motivation to inflict suffering on innocent others, even when this comes at a personal cost. This is because, for sadistic personalities, cruelty is pleasurable, generally exciting, and can be sexually stimulating.</i><br /><i> In a recent study, Buckels and colleagues examined examples of everyday sadism as part of what they refer to as the “Dark Tetrad,” sadism plus the original members of the “Dark Triad”—psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. ... </i><br /><i> ... In a second related study, those high in sadism, psychopathy, and/or narcissism, as well as those low in empathy and perspective-taking, were willing to aggress against an innocent person when aggression was easy. Only sadists increased the intensity of their attack once they realized the person would not fight back, however. Furthermore, sadists, unlike the other "dark personalities," were the only ones willing to expend additional time and energy (in this case, first completing a boring task) in order to have the opportunity to hurt an innocent person.</i><br /><i> Previous research has found that although psychopaths have no qualms about hurting others, they are more likely to do so when it serves a specific purpose. Narcissists are less likely to aggress upon another unless their ego is threatened. Machiavellians will usually aggress upon others only if there are sufficient perceived benefits and the risk to themselves is acceptably low. ... </i><br /><i> ... Common examples of everyday sadism include:</i><br /><i> * Intentionally repeating secrets that the ES promised to keep private</i><br /><i> * Portraying someone in a false or unflattering light in an effort to damage their reputation</i><br /><i> * Working to bring about someone’s being fired or otherwise jeopardize their job in the absence of cause</i><br /><i> * Seeking to ruin another person's relationship</i><br /><i> * Theft of property—physical, financial, or intellectual</i><br /><i> * Deliberately marginalizing a coworker, classmate, or family member, or student</i><br /><i> * Cyber or other bullying</i><br />(My note: she talks about how to look at these situations, how to guard yourself and what steps you can take to avoid being the target of a sadist)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://evolutioncounseling.com/the-sadistic-worldview/" target="_blank">The Sadistic Worldview</a></b> - by Michael Schreiner for Evolution Counseling<br />excerpt:<br /> <i>The sadist secretly or openly respects any and all entities associated with power and secretly or openly denigrates any and all entities associated with weakness. To the sadist psychological, emotional, or material invulnerability equal power and psychological, emotional, or material vulnerability equal weakness.<br /> While these polar attitudes towards power and weakness sound simple enough they create confusing and contradictory feelings within the psyche of the sadist since honoring that which is felt to be more powerful makes the sadist feel weak and vulnerable by comparison, turning the sadist into the despised entity. And on the other side of the coin that which is associated with weakness, although loathed, denigrated, thought to be superfluous, is also absolutely necessary to have around in order to maintain or regain that wanted sense of power and invulnerability<br /> It turns out that all sadists are, unbeknownst to them, actually masochists ...</i></p><p><b><a href="https://behaviouralscience.imedpub.com/sadism-in-sadistic-and-narcissistic-personality-disorders.pdf" target="_blank">Sadism in Sadistic and Narcissistic Personality Disorders</a></b> - by Sam Vaknin, Department of Psychology, Southern Federal University, Geneva, Switzerland<br />excerpt:<br /> <i> ... Sadists are masters of abuse by proxy and ambient abuse.
They terrorize and intimidate even their nearest and dearest
into doing their bidding. They create an aura and atmosphere of
unmitigated yet diffuse dread and consternation. This they
achieve by promulgating complex "rules of the house" that
restrict the autonomy of their dependants (spouses, children,
employees, patients, clients, etc.). They have the final word and
are the ultimate law. They must be obeyed, no matter how
arbitrary and senseless are their rulings and decisions. <br /></i></p><p><b><a href="https://www.psychalive.org/sibling_rivalry/" target="_blank">Siblings: Retaliation or Sadistic Pleasure</a></b> - PARENTING, PARENTING ADVICE by Debra Kessler, Psy.D. for Psych Alive<br />excerpt:<br /><i> ... Another factor that may feed the sadistic and retaliatory behavior between siblings is when one of the siblings is very impulsive, demanding and intense and/or provocative. If one of the children, Johnny or Suzie, has difficulty managing their feelings and calming down, conflict management is significantly hampered. Similarly, if Suzie or Johnny can’t understand that the other person has rights and feelings, repair is also challenged. Finally, if a parent has the perspective that the hurtful behavior was “deserved” (ie: Suzie deserved to have her toy broken because she is “annoying” her brother or Johnny deserved to be called a name because he was cussing) the parents are inadvertently teaching that retaliation and sadistic pleasure are condoned ways of dealing with others who hurt our feelings or violate our rights. Clearly in these types of situations it is important for the parent to address Suzie or Johnny’s provocative behavior so the siblings does not take matters into their own hands. ...</i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.hra.nhs.uk/planning-and-improving-research/application-summaries/research-summaries/sexual-sadism-and-trauma-in-psychopathy" target="_blank">Sexual Sadism and Trauma in Psychopathy</a></b> - by Theodoros Papagathonikou for Queen Mary University of London (professional paper)<br />excerpt:<br /><i>Psychopathy and sexual sadism are two forensic mental health disorders that have been associated at a theoretical and a clinical level. Empirical research has shown that both constructs are linked to various forms of violence, ranged from non-sexual violence to sexual offending and sexual homicides. Furthermore, psychopathic and sadistic patients share several common characteristics, such as emotional detachment from the suffering of the others, and they have been thus far considered to be untreatable, dangerous and at very high risk of reoffending.<br /></i></p><p><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/disturbed/201307/sadistic-killers" target="_blank">Sadistic Killers (The most scary and dangerous of all killers are often the most easy to profile.)</a></b> - by Deborah Schurman-Kauflin Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br />excerpt:<br /><i> A sadist will inflict pain on someone in order to see a terrified victim’s reaction. The tears streaming down the victim’s face, the terror in the eyes, and the pleading for mercy are reactions that arouse sadists. Tormenting a victim is a way for sadists to bolster their egos and self worth. Having complete control over a helpless person makes them God-like in their own twisted worlds. ...</i><br /><i> ... The worst types of sadists are the sadistic serial killers. They spend their entire lives fantasizing about and creating new ways to make a person suffer. As many may look forward to Easter because of the family get together and the beauty of spring, sadistic serial predators look forward to their next kill. They live for causing damage and getting away with it. When investigators are given cases where the victims are tortured to death, they instantly know that a great challenge is before them. Why? Because sexually sadistic predators are meticulous, emotionally flat perfectionists who go to great lengths to commit their crimes. They plan their offenses, so much so, that when they do act out, it is very difficult to determine the age of the killer. What I mean by this is that sexually sadistic criminals rehearse and plan crimes to a degree that make it appear as if a longtime killer has committed the crimes.</i><br /><i> What is frightening is that sadistic predators never stop thinking about how to make others suffer. New torture methods are continually sought out and planned. <br /></i><br /><b><a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2010-14877-012" target="_blank">Comparing indicators of sexual sadism as predictors of recidivism among adult male sexual offenders.</a></b> - by Kingston, Drew A. Seto, Michael C. Firestone, Philip Bradford, John M. for American Psychological Association (professional paper) <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=103259" target="_blank">The Dark Reflection of Sadism within the Brilliance of the Narcissistic Persona</a></b> - by Xanya Sofra for City University, London, UK. and New School for Social Research, New York, USA. (professional paper)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/202008/are-you-dating-emotional-sadist" target="_blank">Are You Dating an Emotional Sadist? (Spotting the red flags of sadistic personality)</a></b> - Wendy L. Patrick, J.D., Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br />excerpt:<br /><i> Spotting Social Sadism</i><br /><i> As sadists form relationships, they likely put their best foot forward, showcasing positive traits. But as you get to know them better, research indicates there are in fact red flags that might suggest sadistic tendencies.</i><br /><i> Paulhus et al. note that measures used to predict “everyday sadism” include Internet trolling or bullying, cyberstalking, enjoying violent video games, weapon fascination, toxic leadership, and taking revenge. They describe sadism’s “distinctive ingredient” as the reward value, satisfied through either participating in or viewing, cruelty.<br /></i><br /><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-harm-done/201812/what-drives-sadists-aggression" target="_blank">What Drives Sadists' Aggression? (Sadists turn others' suffering into their own satisfaction.)</a></b> - by David S. Chester Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/child-physical-and-sexual-abuse-roles-sadism-and-sexuality" target="_blank">Child Physical and Sexual Abuse: The Roles of Sadism and Sexuality</a></b> - by A Criville for the<span face="Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #1b1b1b; font-size: 17px;"> </span>U.S. Department of Justice<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1158136021000888" target="_blank">Childhood abuse and sadomasochism: New insights</a></b> - by M. Abrams, A. Chronos, and M. Milisavljevic Grdinic for Science Direct (professional paper)<br />excerpt:<br /> ...<i> Bem and Money's models provide an explanation for the greater prevalence of sexual sadism and masochism in men. Specifically, male arousal cues (i.e., their lovemap) are far more malleable due their greater inclination to develop visual arousal cues which can be external or imaginal. In contrast, most females are not essentially visually aroused, their process of learning arousal cues, including masochistic ones is different. In short, male sexuality is predicated upon learning how to be appropriately aroused and female sexuality is predicated upon learning to select the appropriate aroused male. It follows that the gender difference in the development of arousal is the basis for the marked difference in the prevalence in paraphilias in men and women. Among the latter, a paraphilia like masochism would require far greater or prolonged disturbance during the development of sexual identity (</i><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1158136021000888#bib0035" style="font-style: italic;">Bem, 1996</a><i>, </i><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1158136021000888#bib0040" style="font-style: italic;">Bem, 2000</a><i>, </i><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1158136021000888#bib0185" style="font-style: italic;">Money, 1988</a><i>). ... </i><br /><i> ... Women who have experienced early life sexual abuse have a high rate of revictimization in adulthood. In addition, they tend to suffer from symptoms such as anxiety, fearfulness and suicidality (</i><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1158136021000888#bib0030" style="font-style: italic;">Beitchman et al., 1992</a><i>, </i><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1158136021000888#bib0180" style="font-style: italic;">Messman-Moore et al., 2000</a><i>). ...</i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3315132/" target="_blank">The untreatable family</a></b> - by DP Jones for National Library of Medicine (professional paper)<br />excerpt:<br /><i> The untreatable family is defined as one in which it is unsafe to permit an abused child to live. Despite the fact that many families turn out to be resistive to treatment, they have received very little attention. In the field of physical abuse, 16-60% of parents reabuse their children following the initial incident. Sexual reabuse is estimated to occur in 16% of cases. Treatment of abusive families also aims to alter family functioning. From studies in physical abuse we find 20-87% of families are unchanged or worse at the end of treatment. In sexual abuse the equivalent figures are 16-38%. Parental factors associated with a poor outcome include parental history of severe childhood abuse, persistent denial of abusive behavior, refusal to accept help, severe personality disorder, mental handicap complicated by personality disorder, parental psychosis with delusions involving the child, and alcohol/drug abuse. Parents lack empathy for their child and fail to see the child's needs as separate from their own. Severe forms of abuse (fractures, burns, scalds, premeditated infliction of pain, vaginal intercourse or sexual sadism) are more likely to prove untreatable. Munchausen by proxy, nonaccidental poisoning, and severe forms of nonorganic failure to thrive are similarly resistant. An early recognition of untreatability may help to reduce burnout by diverting precious resources from the untreatable to the families for whom there is relatively more hope. </i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/malignant-narcissism" target="_blank">Unpacking Malignant Narcissism</a></b> - by Crystal Raypole, medically reviewed by Timothy J. Legg, PhD, PsyD for Healthline<br /><br /><b>Recommended: <a href="https://jreidtherapy.com/scapegoated-by-narcissistic-parent/" target="_blank">The narcissistic family’s scapegoat: Survival and Recovery</a></b> - by psychotherapist, Jay Reid for his own website.<br />excerpt:<br /><i> ... Sometimes a client comes into therapy telling horrific stories of the chronic and systematic abuse. They recount how their caregivers criticized, humiliated, hurt, degraded and derided them at every opportunity. What’s made this suffering most destructive is the abuser’s conviction that it was what the child deserved. There is no sense of recrimination, accountability, nor guilt for what they put this child through. Rather there is an inscrutable self-righteousness in their cruel attitudes and behavior towards the victim. Without fail, there is also a concerted effort to keep this abuse private from the world at large. The adult child recalls seeing the abusive caregiver charm people outside the home and keep their demonic cruelty behind closed doors. All the better to discredit the victim’s credibility if they ever come forward to report the abuse. Welcome to the world of the narcissistic family’s scapegoat. ...<br /> ... A malignant narcissist loves the sense of power in making others suffer. In other words, they harbor sadistic intentions. They are exquisitely envious of those who do not put them first. Envy is an emotion that drives one to want to spoil the good they see because they do not have it. Lastly, they lack empathy for others. They do not see the fact that their child is suffering as a reason to stop their behaviors. ... </i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.944174/full" target="_blank">Gazing the dusty mirror: Joint effect of narcissism and sadism on workplace incivility via indirect effect of paranoia, antagonism, and emotional intelligence</a></b> - by Bo Wang, Muhammad Fiaz, Yasir Hayat Mughal, Alina Kiran, Irfan Ullah and Worakamol Wisetsri7 for Frontiers in Psychology (professional paper)</p><p><b><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886922002616" target="_blank">Subclinical sadism: Examining temperamental predispositions and emotional processing</a></b> - by Leah Thomas and Vincent Egan for Science Direct (professional paper)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jip.113" target="_blank">Sexual sadism, psychopathy, and recidivism in juvenile sexual murderers</a></b> - by Wade C. Myers, Heng Choon (Oliver) Chan, Eleanor Justen Vo, and Emily Lazarou for Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15564880802561770" target="_blank">Sexually Motivated Child Abduction Murders: Synthesis of the Literature and Case Illustration</a></b> - by Kathleen M. Heide and Eric Beauregard, and Wade C. Myers for An International Journal of Evidence-based Research, Policy and Practice, Vol. 4, 2009 - Issue 1<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0145213422003489" target="_blank">Manifestations of sexual sadism in child sexual assault and the associated victim, offender, and offense characteristics: A latent class analysis</a></b> - by Kylie S. Reale a, Julien Chopin a b c, Alexandre Gauthier c, Eric Beauregard a for Science Direct (professional paper)<br /><br /></p><p><b><a href="https://lovefraud.com/sadists-and-narcissists-similarities-and-differences/" target="_blank">Sadists and narcissists — similarities and differences</a></b> - by Joanie Bentz, B.S., M.ED, LBS for Love Fraud<br />excerpt:<br /><i> Sadists and narcissists — are they the same? Pathological personalities can overlap each other with their complexities and commonalities. Over the years, definitive conclusions as to whether a sadist is a narcissist, and vice-versa, have been lacking and debate has been ongoing. ...</i><br /><i> ... Sadism was once referred to as Sadistic Personality Disorder (SPD) in the DSM III-TR, but it was removed. Over the years, countless mental health professionals considered this removal a mistake and to this day continue to lobby for its reinstatement. Some continue to treat their patients as if they were formally diagnosed with this disorder.</i><br /><i> Although Sadistic Personality Disorder is still considered a legitimate pathological disorder by many health professionals, Unspecified Personality Disorder is now used by mental health professionals in diagnosing someone with sadism. ... </i><br /><i> ... Richard von Krafft-Ebing coined the term sadism in the late 19th century, and it was defined as “sexual pleasure derived through inflicting pain and suffering on others.” However, with time the definition of sadism evolved to include “nonsexual enjoyment derived from sadistic acts.” ...<br /></i><br /><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquis_de_Sade" target="_blank">Marquis de Sade</a></b> - Wikipedia<br />excerpt:<br /><i> ... Sade is best known for his erotic works, which combined philosophical discourse with pornography, depicting sexual fantasies with an emphasis on violence, suffering, anal sex (which he calls sodomy), child rape, crime, and blasphemy against Christianity. Many of the characters in his works are teenagers or adolescents. His work is a depiction of extreme absolute freedom, unrestrained by morality, religion, or law. The words sadism and sadist are derived from his name in reference to the works of fiction he wrote, which portrayed numerous acts of sexual cruelty.<br /> ... Sade was a proponent of free public brothels paid for by the state: In order both to prevent crimes in society that are motivated by lust and to reduce the desire to oppress others using one’s own power, Sade recommended public brothels where people can satisfy their wishes to command and be obeyed.</i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7683637/#:~:text=Studies%20show%20emotional%20abuse%20may,1996)." target="_blank">Is Emotional Abuse As Harmful as Physical and/or Sexual Abuse?</a></b> - by Heather L. Dye for National Library of Medicine (professional paper)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/health/effects-of-emotional-abuse" target="_blank">What Are the Effects of Emotional Abuse?</a></b> - by - by Courtney Telloian, and medically reviewed by Jennifer Litner, PhD, LMFT, CST for Psych Central<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0162309585900123" target="_blank">Child abuse and other risks of not living with both parents (Author links open overlay panel)</a></b> - by Martin Daly, Margo Wilson for Science Direct (professional paper)<br /></p><p><b><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0162309594900140" target="_blank">Some differential attributes of lethal assaults on small children by stepfathers versus genetic fathers</a></b> - by Martin Daly and Margo I. Wilson for Science Direct (professional paper)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0145213422004896" target="_blank">Child abuse-related homicides precipitated by caregiver use of harsh physical punishment</a></b> - by Rebecca F. Wilson, Tracie O. Afifi, Keming Yuan, Bridget H. Lyons, Beverly L. Fortson, Christal Oliver, Ashley Watson, Shannon Self-Brown for Science Direct (professional paper)<br /><br /><b><a href="http://www.csacentre.org.uk/sites/csa-centre-prodv2/assets/File/Sibling%20sexual%20abuse%20report%20-%20for%20publication.pdf" target="_blank">Sibling Sexual Abuse: A Knowledge and Practice Overview</a></b> - by Peter Yates and Stuart Allardyce (professional paper)<br />Note: this only covers sexual abuse by a sibling who is still a child<br />excerpts:<br /><i> Sibling relationships are likely to entail complex power dynamics that are informed by a range of gender and cultural differences. Older children typically have a wider range of tactics to draw upon, and are more likely to be given authority over younger siblings and be believed by parents. <br /> In the context of abuse, the nature of sibling relationships and the environment in which they develop makes it possible for behaviours to be frequent and unrestrained, and may make it difficult for younger siblings to tell anyone about the abuse or have confidence that they will be believed. ...<br /> ... The most common reported pattern of sibling sexual abuse involves an older brother abusing a younger sister, and most of what we know from research relates to this pairing. ...<br /> ... The consequences of this are often devastating for the families concerned; for the professionals involved, sibling sexual abuse challenges commonly held conceptions of what children, families and sibling relationships are like, as well as our understanding of what constitutes sexual abuse. The complexity of sibling sexual abuse and the challenges it raises can often lead to confused and confusing responses by the team around the child and the family, with professionals under or overestimating its seriousness, or vacillating between minimal and punitive responses. ...<br /></i></p><p><b><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-57386159" target="_blank">'Sadistic' abuser Abdul Elahi targeted 2,000 victims online (A "sadistic" paedophile targeted almost 2,000 victims online, blackmailing them into sending him degrading images of themselves and abusing others.)</a></b> - for the BBC (crime reporting, UK)<br /><i>excerpt:<br /></i><i> Abdul Elahi, of Birmingham, also ran encrypted digital "master classes" to train paedophiles to avoid detection, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.<br /></i><i> At Birmingham Crown Court, he admitted 158 offences against 79 victims.<br /></i><i> The NCA said it was "some of the most sickening sexual offending" it had seen and that the scale was "industrial". ... </i></p><p><b><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213422004872" target="_blank">Child abuse-related homicides precipitated by caregiver use of harsh physical punishment</a></b> - by Rebecca F. Wilson, Tracie O. Afifi, Keming Yuan, Bridget H. Lyons, Beverly L. Fortson, Christal Oliver, Ashley Watson, Shannon Self-Brown for Science Direct (professional paper)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780128194348000179" target="_blank">Chapter Seventeen - Vulnerability to fatal violence: Child sexual abuse victims as homicide participants in Australia</a></b> - by Amber McKinley for Science Direct (professional paper)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B978012819434800026X" target="_blank">Chapter Twenty-Six - Interventions for sex offenders who target child victims</a></b> - by Shamala Gopalakrishnan, Yasmin Ahamed, Natasha Lim for Science Direct (professional paper)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/25/well/mind/schadenfreude-freudenfreude.html" target="_blank">The Opposite of Schadenfreude Is Freudenfreude. Here’s How to Cultivate It. (The joy we derive from others’ success comes with many benefits.)</a></b> - by Juli Fraga for The Atlantic</p><p><b><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/15/611263456/10-children-living-amid-feces-were-tortured-for-sadistic-purpose" target="_blank">10 Children Living Amid Feces Were Tortured For 'Sadistic Purpose,' Police Say</a></b> - by Sasha Ingber for NPR<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/happiness-after-horror-gretchen-henderson/1137521328" target="_blank">Happiness After Horror: Girl Traumatized by Sadistic Stepfather</a></b> - by Gretchen Henderson (published by Author House)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-01/at-anthony-avalos-murder-trial-siblings-testify-about-alleged-family-torture" target="_blank">At Anthony Avalos murder trial, siblings testify about alleged family torture</a></b> - by James Queally for The Los Angeles Times<br /></p><p><b><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/abs/infanticide-and-sadism-in-wuthering-heights/4C2CE3ACE4E53F094372CC3972553AB2" target="_blank">Infanticide and Sadism in Wuthering Heights</a></b> - by Wade Thompson for Cambridge University Press (professional paper)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.history.co.uk/articles/seven-sadistic-sultans-from-the-ottoman-empire" target="_blank">Seven Sadistic Sultans from the Ottoman Empire</a></b> - History Channel (written version) <br />excerpt: <br /><i>The Sibling Slayer - Mehmed III (1595-1603)</i><br /><i> Upon Mehmed III becoming sultan he murdered his 19 brothers, who were all children, and over 20 of his sisters. They were all throttled by the traditional royal executioners – servants who could neither hear nor speak.</i><br /><i> This sibling slaying was not only traditional but was, until about 1603, enshrined in law. Once a sultan was girded by the Sword of Osman (an enthronement ceremony involving the sword of state) his brothers (and sometimes nephews and uncles, and apparently female relatives too) would all be executed in the name of imperial stability.</i><br /><i> Mehmed was a vicious ruler who enjoyed watching women’s breasts burnt off with red-hot irons.</i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://mentalhealthcenter.com/borderline-personality-and-abuse-cycle/" target="_blank">Borderline Personality and Abuse Cycle</a></b> - by A.J. Mahari and Reviewed by Ryan House, PsyD, Clinical Psychologist<br /><br />Even dogs react adversely to punishments meant to hurt: As the article, <b><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/09/dog-training-licenses-punishment-positive-reinforcement/671471/" target="_blank">Take It Easy on Your Dog (Punishments such as shock collars may not be doing much good.)</a></b> by Ula Chrobak for The Atlantic suggests, <i>... Some evidence also suggests that use of punishment in training can </i><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159119300127" style="font-style: italic;">diminish the bond</a><i> between a dog owner and their canine. ...</i><br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">FOUND ON FACEBOOK:<br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC_CYRwSvRxvn12HUhZGPLef6Hf8whR378QWf2-tLFaCDjhQHwceu4_86bjG6RaUtoLm1-8L2l9nQeehNM4Lmf80LgUIXt33uo4ljhcPrOidwXpyUIyCnFJ8wZJYQ3X-m04X4xubNzSw0LlzThatu5uh9o2YkCrm70qBgkBBE4EXzPbGuQCpSGPCoy/s502/Shahida%20Arabi%20psychopaths.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="492" data-original-width="502" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC_CYRwSvRxvn12HUhZGPLef6Hf8whR378QWf2-tLFaCDjhQHwceu4_86bjG6RaUtoLm1-8L2l9nQeehNM4Lmf80LgUIXt33uo4ljhcPrOidwXpyUIyCnFJ8wZJYQ3X-m04X4xubNzSw0LlzThatu5uh9o2YkCrm70qBgkBBE4EXzPbGuQCpSGPCoy/s16000/Shahida%20Arabi%20psychopaths.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh25EADSh0O21oGzuZkHQ63WyF-Y24OsMZVd1_f1P1dtcG5oeV0A78mTpCa0VJ5F_29ym9-udm2oBqDCEzc70hy6fwluqZTLFJSXYxlCjesvJDCzmagGV7hUsn8zWHsUtlAk_gt1ufSkfqr6ABmKji51zSo844sUEs2oej30B8hhHJWUJkK7eRPAXAN/s506/word%20porn%20little%20girls.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="506" data-original-width="492" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh25EADSh0O21oGzuZkHQ63WyF-Y24OsMZVd1_f1P1dtcG5oeV0A78mTpCa0VJ5F_29ym9-udm2oBqDCEzc70hy6fwluqZTLFJSXYxlCjesvJDCzmagGV7hUsn8zWHsUtlAk_gt1ufSkfqr6ABmKji51zSo844sUEs2oej30B8hhHJWUJkK7eRPAXAN/s16000/word%20porn%20little%20girls.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg64rVIjq31UdlEpaHT6Hjf3SQe7oNvjjwabvhcU5G2JpHyaCSbypGIwcC3RmHe7QvC9QP_-C07eKkMkfAu377eUBWLylu8oroFARjImuWsa0p58pD2x8_xJ95yhTj0rKp4zzDxiKj-jkSaxm1VqEhEQxzFDyI0oRYq8TJnzjXsLQG9oXQoJAUDp5aH/s500/All%20narcissists%20are%20hypocrites.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="494" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg64rVIjq31UdlEpaHT6Hjf3SQe7oNvjjwabvhcU5G2JpHyaCSbypGIwcC3RmHe7QvC9QP_-C07eKkMkfAu377eUBWLylu8oroFARjImuWsa0p58pD2x8_xJ95yhTj0rKp4zzDxiKj-jkSaxm1VqEhEQxzFDyI0oRYq8TJnzjXsLQG9oXQoJAUDp5aH/s16000/All%20narcissists%20are%20hypocrites.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyoQPw05XJvwYQ7qfWIsV1oVaVhKIUX03TPTFdlsYbsFbbitUAXbBoe4RCLkb2rZM391CF9VNkIie1a9FntTdER72__tyy_ZjgSj-eYcUQ2meqk1irZBEYcWIC1Ureyj3DGAwugt6_68xh01TGa81G6N4hft0cQ2ypQ15dwyo82Lopbv8xUyEIHOYR/s716/Shahida%20Arabi%20boundaries.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="590" data-original-width="716" height="329" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyoQPw05XJvwYQ7qfWIsV1oVaVhKIUX03TPTFdlsYbsFbbitUAXbBoe4RCLkb2rZM391CF9VNkIie1a9FntTdER72__tyy_ZjgSj-eYcUQ2meqk1irZBEYcWIC1Ureyj3DGAwugt6_68xh01TGa81G6N4hft0cQ2ypQ15dwyo82Lopbv8xUyEIHOYR/w400-h329/Shahida%20Arabi%20boundaries.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><p></p></div></div></div>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-426924340916152752023-04-27T20:11:00.001-07:002023-04-28T15:09:56.197-07:00A Short Update<p>Hi everyone who has been reading my blog,<br /><br /><u>First: </u><br /><br />For those of you wondering if I will be covering Borderline Personality Disorder as part of my discussions on the subject of abuse and manipulation, yes, but please understand that many Borderlines are not abusive or manipulative and can be more self harming, and suffering though life instead. Some of them have very little to nothing in common with the more aggressive styles of Cluster B personality disorders; others have more in common with them. <br /><br />Some of this has to do with the fact that there are several sub-types of Borderline Personality Disorder. It's a complicated subject because of the sub-categories, and especially because Borderline Personality Disorder can be comorbid with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, substance addiction, and more. In other words, the subcategories and comorbidities make discussions about Borderline Personality Disorder complicated, and one individual diagnosed with it can be drastically different from another diagnosed with it.<br /><br />The behaviors are not as predictable as Narcissistic Personality Disorder, for instance. <br /><br />I've been nudged about covering it, and so I will make an effort at starting the project sometime in the Autumn because I've got posts in the works that I would prefer to finish and publish. <br /><br /><u>Second:</u><br /><br />I will also be covering alcoholism when it comes to aggression.<br /><br />Also the role of guns in domestic violence. <br /><br />Some upcoming posts that play a huge role in narcissism:<br /><br />- How envy, jealousy and competitiveness are often an over-looked cause of narcissistic abuse, grandiosity, and why narcissists try to break apart your relationships <br /><br />- Sadism as a negative form of narcissistic supply, plus a little on why jealousy plays a part in it. <br /><br />- How over-reactive rage with shame can cause a downward moral spiral in narcissistic abuse. </p><p>There will also be some shorter posts having to do with narcissistic abuse: co-bullies and enablers of narcissists; the tricks narcissists use to lure you into a cycle of abuse with them again; how narcissists try to get you into a role where you are seeking approval; arrogance and grandiosity in narcissism; and common things narcissists do to upset you.<br /><br />I was working on a post having to do with estrangement in the family last summer, but discovered it was much too long, so I dropped it for the time being in favor of the other three subjects I talked about above. <br /><br /><u>Third:</u><br /><br />I have been jotting down notes on research having to do with relationship trends in the newest generation attending college. For the first time in history, a majority of college students are saying that they feel just as comfortable alone, if even more so, than in any kind of relationship. They are being brought up to succeed at a career and there is very little emphasis in childhood and adolescence on interconnectedness and relationship-building with others, making friends, establishing trust bonds, solving conflicts, having family get-togethers, and how to address the feelings of others. There is other research that many of them feel safer alone than with their families. One wonders what is going on there. Older generations who are part of these research projects often say they are at a loss as to how to relate to the younger generation, how to re-establish lost connections (and even contact) with children and other young family members, and that the younger generation feels it is less important to establish connections and re-connections compared to setting good boundaries in relationships.<br /><br />It is surmised that this is all caused by a growing narcissistic culture as almost all psychologists agree that narcissism is on the rise in America. </p><p>I'm also exploring other cultural topics. </p><p>This is just to keep my readers up to date on what my intentions are and what I am working on. </p>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-5463068705654055282023-03-30T20:45:00.039-07:002023-07-23T11:03:15.991-07:00Hurting or Punishing Others to Teach Them a Lesson - Does It Work?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuYpu-7GW4nNmDjIusn8EjdX11k0TD5ORD1KMxJv7mLibIr0Xv1vFMFbPOZIQfdZ5LI5YEUohuwSzZFZmqfmpk9R2Uz4CEzVXPPtym_ffqzykHz7HEI2nAkcHg8mJ8cBmUL2FysLONamEPyzJIBAnjrxzU8aO70QscXeIBBZcoa9SXXdspxacV04D-/s851/hurt%20you%20cartoon%20blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="851" data-original-width="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuYpu-7GW4nNmDjIusn8EjdX11k0TD5ORD1KMxJv7mLibIr0Xv1vFMFbPOZIQfdZ5LI5YEUohuwSzZFZmqfmpk9R2Uz4CEzVXPPtym_ffqzykHz7HEI2nAkcHg8mJ8cBmUL2FysLONamEPyzJIBAnjrxzU8aO70QscXeIBBZcoa9SXXdspxacV04D-/s16000/hurt%20you%20cartoon%20blog.jpg" /></a></div><p>This post isn't necessarily like other posts I have written for this blog, but it does foray into a discussion about abuse eventually so that you can see what can happen when people try to hurt others to teach them a lesson. This means I will also be discussing who perpetrates abuse (mostly people with personality disorders in the Cluster B realm).</p><p>And it is quite obvious that abusive people like to hurt others in order to get people to change their behavior (often with very little luck - and it will become obvious as to why). <br /><br />But even if you are <i>not</i> abusive, and don't want to hurt the other person to get them to change, will that work? <br /><br />The research says: Not too likely unless there are certain components in your pleas for change. </p><p style="text-align: center;">TRYING TO GET ADULTS TO CHANGE<br /><u>WITHOUT</u> HURTING THEM<br />AND <u>WITH</u> HURTING THEM<br /><br />introduction</p><p style="text-align: left;">Here is an excellent psychology article that describes why it is so hard and frustrating to get people to change behaviors so that a more healthy relationship can emerge (I suggest reading the whole article): <br /></p><p><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/constructive-wallowing/202107/how-teach-someone-lesson" target="_blank">How to Teach Someone a Lesson (Warning: What they learn might disappoint you.)</a></b> - by Tina Gilbertson LPC for Psychology Today.<br /><br />The main takeaway from that article is that you have to be the change that you want to see. <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/09/shaming-from-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">Shaming</a></b> someone does not work, especially if you can't practice what you preach. <br /><br />At the very least, the person you are shaming has to see you as a benevolent teacher, someone who has their best interests at heart, someone who is living and behaving in the way that they are touting as the best way for <i>you</i> to behave too. <br /><br />And the person who is going to think of you as a good advisor or teacher already clearly respects you, has a good relationship and rapport with you, senses that you are compassionate, steady and reasonable, and probably already takes your advice to heart. <br /><br />If you don't have a good trusting relationship with someone you are trying to teach, they will not listen to you.<br /><br />Most adults do not want people who insert themselves into a "teacher position" in our lives without our consent to have them in that position. We must welcome it, and we most likely won't welcome it unless we know they care about us a great deal. If they are doing it on behalf of themselves, or another person (as pressure to get us to move in a certain direction), it will most likely backfire - because it is an aggressive act. And like most unwanted aggressive acts, we are likely to balk and step back. If they step forward and get more irate with judgements and criticism, we are likely to step back even further. <br /><br />If you are being critical in a number of different ways of the person you are trying to teach, the best take-away you are going to get is that you are "a highly critical and judgmental person". <br /><br />Being judgmental has its issues because judgmental people aren't seeing you as a whole person, your good points, your bad points, what goes on in your mind, your life and ambitions, your morality, how you live, how you treat lots of other people in your life, what your life story is, and everything in-between. </p><p>When a person is highly critical and judgmental about us, what we will see are their blind spots about us, their inability to see others as they truly are, that they can't see us for what we are either, and their ego-driven audacity to criticize us when they are so flawed themselves (even in the way they are criticizing us). This is usually the stand-out thing we will focus on and walk away with. <br /><br />And if the critical judgmental person is more immoral and unethical than we are, we are going to scoff at what they have to say. Either it is: "Ppppptttt! Look at who you are! Like you are better in that department than I am? If anything you look worse in that department than I do! How dare you try to teach me a lesson!" or "Pppptttt! Look at them! They did x, y and z and they are going to criticize me and lecture me for something they do all of the time?! Not going to happen!" <br /><br />Even if the judgmental critical people in our lives <i>aren't</i> hypocrites, most of us are still going to search far and wide for hypocrisy to make sure your intentions are pure. This is one area where empathy and compassion can't be faked. The person giving us advice or criticism has to have a vested interest in, and compassion, for us, where their ego isn't involved, and we have to believe in it whole-heartedly, otherwise the advice or criticism is just not going to stir us to change.<br /><br />It is especially hard to do for those of us who have gotten burned by <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-discussion-on-cognitive-empathy-in.html" target="_blank">fake empathy</a></b> or a person <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">whose empathy seemed to shut down instantly when we were vulnerable</a> </b>so that they could get more <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-pursuit-of-power-control-and.html" target="_blank">power, control and domination</a> </b>for themselves over us<b> </b>in our weakened state. We aren't going to hand over trust to you just so you can do that to us again, or like the last person did to us. <br /><br />A teacher is someone you believe has greater knowledge than you do, who you endow confidence in to bring you into a higher state of knowledge. If you don't feel that way about them, they are not your teacher. A teacher is a "special position" to be in, and requires special social and personal skills and considerations on their part. If the teacher is insulting, judgmental, arrogant, highly critical, insolent, boorish, or abusive, they are not a good teacher. They need to be fired right away. It is my observation that they get fired from someone's mind first (the insults the offender spews boomerang off of a person's natural defenses) before they realize they are an unwanted teacher themselves. Unwanted teaching is a form of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harassment" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">harassment</a>,<b> </b>especially if it is hostile, bullying, insulting, denigrating, judgmental and unwelcome.<br /><br />It is very difficult to shame adults anyway. Unless we are ruining our lives with criminal acts, lots of lies, lots of false narratives, unethical acts that normally bring social derision, living with lots of paranoia that all of our acts will be exposed, addictions, abusing others, having second thoughts, and being rattled with shame or toxic secrets, we are most likely happy with who we are. The more ethical we try to be, the more at peace with ourselves we will be too. <br /><br />Who we are isn't likely to be rattled by someone who is less understanding or less ethical than we are. It might be if their ethics are noticeably higher than our own, but even there, most of us have to be sure enough that they are, indeed higher in ethics, and that takes a lot of time and investment in the relationship. We also have to <i>want</i> to make the positive changes in ourselves. <br /><br />For highly unethical people, shaming is even less likely to work. Shame-ers tend to only be known for their shaming. <br /><br />And if they are shaming us too much, and too loudly, and for too many pointless issues and extraneous reasons, or if there is hypocrisy involved, they tend to be narcissists or sociopaths who <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/12/important-darvo-tactic-and-why-it-is.html" target="_blank">DARVO situations</a></b> so that they don't feel at fault for the dirty acts that they commit and put the fault on us. That is not going to shame us. We are going to be looking at the tactic first and foremost. They just pretend the dirty acts belong to you instead. They are happy with <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/12/important-darvo-tactic-and-why-it-is.html" target="_blank">the DARVO tactic</a> </b>if they are using it. If they aren't happy with it, they'd stop it. It's that simple, and they do have a choice. </p><p>If you are an ethical person and you are dealing with someone who DARVOs you all of the time, their ways of teaching you a lesson will not work unless your self esteem and boundaries for respect are so low that you allow them to make you into a doormat. Being a doormat is a trauma response, and most of us don't feel well enough after awhile to stay in it (being a doormat for any length of time will start to give you trauma symptoms). So perhaps the best thing to do in those situations is to find relationships where ethics and morality match. We all need to be in relationships where people care about us, and DARVO-ing us shows us that they don't care about us at all. Really: they don't care about us <i>at all </i>if they are using this tactic. It's a criminal-type mind that does this (criminals use the DARVO tactic a whole lot). <br /><br />If the people giving us judgments, lectures, advice and criticisms aren't close to us, or don't know us, the same results will happen. What ever they say will be taken with a grain of salt because no relationship of trust or empathy has ever been established. So why do they do it? <br /><br />Here is something I went through: <br /><br />I remember someone who I had barely spent more than two days with in my whole life, giving me advice as to whether I should get married. She had a lot of opinions too, not just a few. And there was some coercion in her delivery. My first thought was: "That's so jacked up! Where does she get off!?" I didn't even look at her, and probably rolled my eyes. I don't even understand people who think that it's okay to do that, or even think that way. <br /><br />All that it shows are these possibilities: that they think they know me after two days (no, they do not), that personal decisions like this can be influenced by them (no, they can't be), that they think their own opinions are so valuable and noteworthy that other people will listen to them (no, I won't, and I doubt other people would either), that they are so high on the ethics scale that I would actually take what she had to say seriously (no, she wasn't high on the ethics scale by the company she kept, by her highly critical, judgmental, and biased nature in the short time I saw her in action, by being a blind follower of someone I do not respect). I knew she had no interest what so ever in anything to do with me unless it benefited her and her husband. People who don't know you and think they can make such a highly personal decision for you and your life are probably either delusional, have a very high opinion of themselves, think your intelligence is so below par that you would actually consider what they have to say, or are highly aggressive (or maybe all of those things). These don't make for qualities that are trustworthy, or even "listen-able", for other people. <br /><br />The choice of a mate, the choice of whether to get married, the choice of who to allow into a discussion about it, are filled with many moments of deep thought and consideration by the person who is making those decisions, and they have a right to make those decisions by themselves, without input. I never said, "I want input from you." The only person I listened to in my life, was someone I had known and spent a great deal of time with for over a decade, and also knew my husband in a profound way too. <br /><br />My main concern with anyone entering into my life is, "Will they try to hurt me? Are we equals, and will I be treated as an equal?" <br /><br />If those things aren't present, I lose interest right away. <br /><br />And with people who want to give me advice it is: Are they selfish and self-serving, lying, back-stabbing, hypocritical, aggressive or passive aggressive, judgmental, dis-respectful, punishing people? Do they have arrogance, do think they are superior; do they want me serving <i>their</i> needs and wants and giving up my own; are they interested in listening to me?" Obviously I wouldn't want their advice or to learn any of their lessons. That's normal. <br /><br />It can take time to know who people are, where they are coming from and what their agenda is. And it's normal not to want advice or criticism from these kinds of people either. </p><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><u>what kinds of personalities want to hurt other people</u></div><br />Now in terms of people who want to hurt you in order to teach you a lesson, this is always categorized as abuse. Right now some states make an exception: some laws in some states allow parents to hurt children under the age of 16 years old (but with a lot of counter laws so that it doesn't turn into abuse, which it tends to if they are hurting you a lot). However, most psychologists do not agree with these laws, and there is evidence that if a parent is purposely hurting a child or children to teach them lessons, that it tends to escalate to child abuse. The laws remain, however, because parents still want rights to hurt their children, within reason (no marks on the body).<br /><br />In Great Britain, you are not allowed to emotionally hurt your children and you can be arrested for child abuse. The United States has yet to catch up on the research that hurting children often leads to child abuse, including escalating into physical abuse. <br /><br />The reason why countries consider taking measures against the emotional abuse of children is that it has a huge impact on society, and in producing productive forward thinking adults. That will become clear as your read further into the post. <br /><br />As for administering pain in other parts of society, if you are a judge or jury in a criminal matter, there are allowances to hurt criminals, and also rules, laws and standards as to how much you can hurt someone who has been convicted of a crime. But even in these incidences, the focus is going more and more in the direction of rehabilitation, precisely because hurting others does not produce much remorse or guilt. If anything, the verbal and emotional defensive walls tend to go up to protect themselves from more pain, even if they are criminals. This comes from all of the professional studies and literature on what hurting others produces. Some of those articles are listed below. <br /><br />For the purposes of this discussion, any adult sixteen and over, and any adult in a close personal relationship who is experiencing a punishment or a lesson that involves hurting you (from a partner or spouse, a parent, an adult child, a sibling, a close friend, a grandparent, in-laws, step-family, for instance) then it is always categorized as abuse. To get the skinny on how much you are being abused and what tactics they are using to get you into a state of pain, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/04/what-are-types-of-abuse-scapegoating.html" target="_blank">go to this post</a></b>. <br /><br />As for who does this, and who are the masters of abuse, it tends to be individuals with <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_disorder" target="_blank">Cluster B personality disorders</a></b>: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Narcissistic Personality Disorder</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Antisocial Personality Disorder</a>,<b> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histrionic_personality_disorder" target="_blank">Histrionic Personality Disorder</a></b>, and some individuals, but not all, with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder" target="_blank"><b>Borderline Personality Disorder</b></a>. It is a spectrum disorder, so many of the Cluster B personality disorders can over-lap in one individual. Most of the Cluster B personality disorders are associated with abusive behavior, but not necessarily Borderline Personality Disorder, unless the individuals who have it feel they are being taunted in some way, or abandoned by a person, or they have some narcissistic traits in addition to the Borderline traits. In other words, it's complicated. If you are being abused, reading about the disorders will give you a better understanding of what is going on, and why. <br /><br />People with Borderline Personality Disorder, if they abuse at all, tend to reactively abuse. In other words, something sets them off and they react. <br /><br />People with Narcissism tend to reactively abuse and proactively abuse. Proactive abuse is what it sounds like: they abuse when there is no threat; they abuse when they think there <i>may</i> be a threat; they abuse as an assurance that they will come out on top (i.e. have superiority over their victim); they abuse if they think they may lose a competition (narcissists tend to have pronounced levels of jealousy and they spend an inordinate amount of time competing). <b>Overt Grandiose Narcissists</b> tend to be a little more reactive than proactive, <b>Covert Vulnerable Narcissists</b> tend to be a little more proactive than reactive, and <b>Malignant Narcissists</b> (who tend to have a conglomerate of all of the Cluster B personality disorders) tend to be quite a bit more proactive than reactive including elaborate plans of attack, revenge planning and revenge fantasies, tit-for-tat responses, an addiction to some forms of sadism, fantasies that they are in control of their victims' lives and other people's lives much more than they actually are, pronounced grandiose delusions and ambitions, a criminal mind ... but they can be reactive too: mostly when they feel power, control and domination is slipping away from them; they can react with rage and violence.<br /><br />People with Antisocial Personality Disorder tend to be proactively abusive, and even prefer it so they are not detected until they can make the most devastating impact on their victims. In other words, they wait to attack at the most opportune moment. They have no remorse for hurting others and often feel their victims deserved every part of it. This is even true for innocent victims or child victims: "They shouldn't have been so stupid to trust me" is their common response when they hurt others who never provoked them. A lot of them tend to be loners. Males show contempt for animals early on and females destroy, give away or steal other people's property. Most do not follow laws or codes of conduct and have criminal minds and criminal thinking (i.e. what can <i>they</i> get out of each situation). The lack of empathy is pronounced, and most of them have delusions that they are superior precisely because they have no empathy and get away with a lot of unethical behavior. More than half of the prison population are made up of folks with Antisocial Personality Disorder. <br /><br />Then there is <a href="https://images.app.goo.gl/9HAah6wfKBFCEat96" target="_blank"><b>the Dark Triad</b></a> which is an individual with malignant narcissism with pronounced Machiavellian traits, and <b><a href="https://fbr.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s11782-021-00103-y#Abs1" target="_blank">the Dark Tetrad</a></b>, which is an individual with malignant narcissism with pronounced sadism traits plus Machiavellian traits. <br /><br />Borderlines have remorse for the state their victims are in when they hurt them, and for the state they are in (in terms of reputation, trustworthiness, feeling shame about their emotional dysregulation). Many Borderlines are willing to change their behavior, and to regulate their rage to get along better with others, unless they have pronounced arrogance. <br /><br />Narcissists have little or no remorse for the state their victims are in when they hurt them in terms of empathy, but do have remorse for what it does to their reputation, whether people will trust them again, and whether their emotional outbursts will bring them shame. They have very little desire to change, preferring to blame their victims instead. They don't do well in therapy because narcissists tend to rage when they feel criticized and their behaviors are being judged, and they don't like to be taught. They want to be in the superior position, teaching, lecturing, criticizing others, so they overwhelmingly quit therapy. <br /><br />Some people with Antisocial Personality Disorder care that hurting others might mean they will be held accountable, and some hurt others without worrying about whether they will be held accountable. Most have no remorse for hurting other people and can have the attitude that they can talk themselves out of anything. Therapy often doesn't work because they look at it as a "cat and mouse game", a game where they can or can't manipulate the therapist, so rehabilitation is very difficult. If they are incarcerated, therapy is usually part of the incarceration, and they may be less resistant to therapy, and to teaching, in order to leave prison in good standing. Because sociopaths can be charming, and try to talk their way out of consequences, the therapist has to be "charm-resistant". <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><u>do they succeed in hurting other adults?</u></div><div style="text-align: center;"><u>and do they teach other adults an effective lesson on how to behave?</u><div style="text-align: left;"><br />People who want to hurt others can succeed at it. And sometimes that is all they want, to prove to themselves that they can hurt another person, and perhaps how much they can get away with it too. <br /><br />But the bigger question is, what are the ramifications of succeeding at hurting other people? <br /><br />Let's just focus on the topic of this post, which is about whether they can succeed at teaching another person a lesson by hurting them. Can they do that? <br /><br />Probably not, and certainly not in the way they were hoping for, or what they thought would be the outcome. Some articles follow this section of the post as to why. <br /><br />The problem here is that hurting another adult is abuse. The perpetrator knows it is abuse unless they are living under a rock, and their victims know it is abuse too, unless they too are living under a rock. <br /><br />Abuse brings out trauma symptoms. Unless a perpetrator is well educated as to what trauma symptoms will do to his victim, and has a keen Machiavellian approach way beforehand of what he will do once his victim starts having symptoms, he is not going to know what to do. The victim has failed to learn the lesson in the way the perpetrator wanted. <br /><br />Most often abusers just keep trying to hurt the victim, as if kicking a broken toy to see if kicking it will make it work better, and learn better. And, of course, that produces more trauma symptoms. And it doesn't make the victim "work better in the way that he wants it to work", so he usually kicks the victim "to the curb" instead ("abuse and abandon", or "abuse and kill"). - He will blame the victim for this failure: "Terrible defective toy!" <br /><br />Abusers tend not to know what trauma symptoms will do to their plans. They tend to be very low in emotional intelligence. If they knew that hurting others would do to their plans, they probably wouldn't abuse, but they don't know. They act on impulse or plan, and do it anyway, hoping that things will go their way. And they expect their impulsive actions to give them great rewards (because most abusers have an "arrogance problem" too: the arrogance keeps them blind). And it makes so many of them so blind that they think it's not their plan that went awry, but some faulty part in their victim. They think victims should act in some preconceived way. <br /><br />The other issue is that most abusers have a "self reflection" problem too. If they could put themselves in their victims' shoes, and think about how they would react if someone treated them the way they treat others, then they would see that they, themselves, would not react the way they expect their victims to react. In fact, they might be even more resistant to abuse others. <br /><br />They might think before they indulge in impulsive or planned retaliation too (because abusers tend to dwindle downwards into retaliation instead of thinking of other ways to cope with interpersonal issues). But unfortunately, most of them don't get to the self reflection part: they don't even think to attempt to look at how victims might feel, and what they might be going through. They just think if they abuse, then their victims will automatically do what they expect. Not too bright. Lack of self reflection makes them blind too. <br /><br />Another issue is that most abusers don't change their own behavior themselves. In fact, if they are narcissists or sociopaths, they are extremely resistant to change. How is a person who can't change their behavior going to teach another person how to change their behavior? Teaching someone else something means that they are experts in the subject of "how to change your personality so that other people will approve of you." Being abusive is not a way to get approval. You wonder what their logic is. Not very bright. You might as well be getting "behavior lessons" from a three year old who is having a tantrum. <br /><br />Another problem is that most abusers want either an <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">infantilized person</a></b> they can shout orders to (as though the victim is a child who needs to be told what to do, how to do it, and gets its self esteem from being an abusive authoritarian) or a <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">parentified person</a></b> who takes care of the perpetrator's every need (as though the victim is a parent who should be providing all of the perpetrators needs, and as though the perpetrator is a child who needs to be soothed out of tantrums), or both. These are <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">sick roles</a></b> that either lead to co-dependency or trauma bonding and don't end up in behavioral changes that either party will be <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/10/why-abusers-who-punish-use-ungrateful.html" target="_blank">grateful for</a></b> in the end. <br /><br />Another issue is that most abusers show that they are exploitive once they start abusing. It's the first thing victims see: "They want something from me and are intimidating me and blackmailing me to try to get it. They think abusing me is their ticket to get it. This is outrageous!" Victims will either try to go lateral ("Let's talk this out like adults and get rid of this power trip you are trying to pull on me", "Let's share the power and come to an understanding rather than me taking commands from you", "I don't do submission. You need to get a grip") or they walk ("I'm not playing that power game with that abuser", "I'm not going to be intimidated! Find some other victim to play head games with!", "They have got to be kidding! I can see their dirty motives and blackmail schemes a mile away!"), or they are going to be trauma bonded (they will get symptoms, work like a broken toy that can't do anything right for the abuser). If abusers were as smart as their arrogance tells them that they are, then they'd know their victims could see their unethical uncaring horrific motives and not want to play, given the chance.<br /><br />Also a note on the previous chapter ... When victims are abused, they tend to look at abuse as "the perpetrator hates me, and therefor does not have good motivations towards me." It is why victims never learn what perpetrators want them to learn. It produces either the <b><a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/fight-flight-freeze-fawn" target="_blank">flight response</a></b> in victims, or trauma symptoms. Take your choice. <br /><br />One other issue: they have very low ethics. How are they going to teach another person how to behave better when they can't even begin to do it themselves? How are they going to teach people to have empathy for them when they have very little or no empathy themselves and just want to go around poking people where it hurts just to get an emotional reaction out of them (narcissistic supply), more submission, and more power and control for themselves? We're supposed to learn how to behave from <i>them</i>? From people who have lower ethics than we have? From people who like to indulge in revenges, lies, smear campaigns, sadism, or other diabolical acts? From people who are so blind that they don't know what their abuses do? What planet are they living on? And why are they so arrogant when they are like this? You would think that their arrogance would fail them at this juncture. But no! It's kind of like a flea trying to teach a human how to behave. Fleas are annoying; they are exploitive, they leave welts that itch and hurt. No. They are not going to teach us lessons beyond what kind of person they are showing us that they are. That's not going to change our behavior in ways that they want or like. Again, not too bright. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I will be talking about emotional intelligence in another post, but you can tell that abusers have very low amounts of it. They really know very little about human behavior, and human reactions to being controlled, trauma bonded, intimidated, or even teaching people lessons on how to behave. <br /></div></div><p>Need some more professional articles that basically say the same thing as the Psychology Today article above? Note: this is not the end of this post - in the next chapter I talk about hurting under-age children in order to teach them a lesson)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/blog/what-it-means-to-teach-people-how-to-treat-you" target="_blank">What It Means to Teach People How to Treat You</a></b> - Medically reviewed by Karin Gepp, PsyD — By Margarita Tartakovsky, MS — Updated on August 12, 2022 for Psych Central<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.thehotline.org/resources/should-i-go-to-couples-therapy-with-my-abusive-partner/" target="_blank">Should I Go To Couples Therapy With My Abusive Partner?</a></b> - by National Domestic Hotline<br />excerpt:<br /> <i>We at The Hotline do not encourage anyone in an abusive relationship to seek counseling with their partner. Abuse is not a relationship problem. ...<br /></i><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/relationships/why-couples-counseling-doesnt-work-in-abusive-relationships#is-it-helpful" target="_blank">Abusive Relationship Therapy: Is It Helpful? (Couples therapy isn’t often recommended for abusive relationships, but individual counseling and other strategies may help.)</a></b> - The Administrators of Psych Central<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.malahidecounselling.com/why-couples-therapy-doesnt-work-for-people-in-abusive-relationships-with-narcissists/" target="_blank">Why Couples Therapy Doesn’t Work For People In Abusive Relationships With Narcissists</a></b> - by Shahida Arabi for Psych Central (re-published for Malahide Counseling and Psychotherapy)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.choosehelp.com/topics/couples-counseling/that-will-teach-you-why-punishment-damages-relationships" target="_blank">That Will Teach You! Why Punishment Damages Relationships</a></b> - by Dr. Ari Hahn, LCSW, Ph.D. Clinical Social Worker/Therapist for Choose Help<br /><br /><b><a href="https://marriagecounselingblog.com/marriage-counseling/is-it-okay-to-punish-your-spouse/" target="_blank">Is it Okay to Punish Your Spouse?</a></b> - The Marriage Counseling Blog<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/married-couples-silent-treatment-2303421" target="_blank">What Couples Should Know About the Silent Treatment (How to Know When Silence Is Abusive)</a></b> - by Sheri Stritof, Medically reviewed by Carly Snyder, MD for Very Well Mind</p><p><b><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/dealing-with-the-silent-treatment-in-relationships/10959724" target="_blank">Giving your partner the silent treatment isn't harmless — it can be devastating</a></b> - by Kellie Scott for ABC Everyday</p><p><b><a href="https://www.coaching-online.org/punishment-husband/" target="_blank">13 Reasons Why A Punishment Of Your Husband Isn’t A Good Idea (2023)</a></b> - by <a href="https://www.coaching-online.org/about/" target="_blank">Bijan Kholghi</a> for Coaching Online<br /> Note: this article talks about women who punish their partner, but his advice and insights can be applied to any relationship, especially any of your close personal relationships<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/how-silent-treatment-affects-children-and-adult-relationships/11061884" target="_blank">The silent treatment devastated me as a child. Then I used it as an adult</a></b> - by Kellie Scott for ABC Everyday<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/consequences-of-punishing-offending-partner-in-infidelity/" target="_blank">Infidelity: Consequences of Punishing the Offending Partner</a></b> - by Jim Hutt, PhD for Good Therapy<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.askmen.com/dating/dating_advice/unacceptable-relationship-behaviors.html" target="_blank">Unacceptable Relationship Behaviors (Unacceptable Behaviors That Will Destroy Your Relationship Real Fast)</a></b> - by Beth McColl for Ask Men<br /></p><p><b><a href="https://centralcoastcounselling.com/punishing/" target="_blank">Punishing</a></b> - by Susan Felsch for Central Coast Counselling<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2015/07/15/boyfriend-punishes-partner-by-criticizing-her-when-she-cries/" target="_blank">Boyfriend punishes partner by criticizing her when she cries</a></b> - by Neil Rosenthal for The Denver Post</p><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">CORPORAL PUNISHMENT OF CHILDREN<br />(HURTING CHILDREN PHYSICALLY AS A WAY OF TEACHING THEM A LESSON)<br />DOES IT WORK?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>Not really. <br /><br />Read: an article from the World Health Organization on corporal punishment: <b><a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/corporal-punishment-and-health" target="_blank">Corporal Punishment and Health</a><br /></b><br />Some take-aways from the article:<br /><br /><i>Evidence shows corporal punishment increases children’s behavioural problems over time and has no positive outcomes.<br /></i><br /><i>All corporal punishment, however mild or light, carries an inbuilt risk of escalation. Studies suggest that parents who used corporal punishment are at heightened risk of perpetrating severe maltreatment. <br /></i>My note: in other words it is a gateway to child abuse. Once abuse is introduced by a parent to hurt a child, it almost always <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">escalates</a></b>. <br /><br /><div><i>Corporal punishment is linked to a range of negative outcomes for children across countries and cultures, including physical and mental ill-health, impaired cognitive and socio-emotional development, poor educational outcomes, increased aggression and perpetration of violence.<br /><br /></i></div><div><i>Corporal punishment is a violation of children’s rights to respect for physical integrity and human dignity, health, development, education and freedom from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. </i><div style="font-style: italic;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic;">Consequences</div><div style="font-style: italic;">Corporal punishment triggers harmful psychological and physiological responses. Children not only experience pain, sadness, fear, anger, shame and guilt, but feeling threatened also leads to physiological stress and the activation of neural pathways that support dealing with danger. Children who have been physically punished tend to exhibit high hormonal reactivity to stress, overloaded biological systems, including the nervous, cardiovascular and nutritional systems, and changes in brain structure and function.</div><div style="font-style: italic;"><br /></div><div><i>Despite its widespread acceptability, spanking is also linked to atypical brain function like that of more severe abuse, thereby undermining the frequently cited argument that less severe forms of physical punishment are not harmful.</i><br /><br />The whole article is worth reading. <br /><br />The American Academy of Pediatrics has also taken a firm stance against corporal punishment. </div></div><br />Read: <b><a href="https://www.verywellfamily.com/facts-about-corporal-punishment-1094806" target="_blank">Facts About Corporal Punishment</a></b> - by Amy Morin, LCSW, fact checked by Adah Chung for Very Well Family<br /><br />excerpts from the article (underlined are the most crucial parts of the article):<br /><br /> <u style="font-style: italic;">The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has taken a firm stance against any type of corporal punishment. Its policy on corporal punishment, published in 2018, encourages parents and caregivers to use healthy forms of discipline when correcting their children and to refrain from using corporal punishment.</u><br /><br /><i> </i><u style="font-style: italic;">The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends healthy forms of discipline, such as positive reinforcement of appropriate behaviors, limit setting, redirecting, and setting future expectations. The AAP recommends that parents do not use spanking, hitting, slapping, threatening, insulting, humiliating, or shaming. </u><br /><br /> <i><u>The AAP policy also indicates that corporal punishment is ineffective over the long-term and leads to negative outcomes.<br /></u></i><br /> <i>In 2006, the Committee on the Rights of the Child released a statement declaring that corporal punishment is a form of violence that should be banned in all contexts.3 Other human rights organizations have issued similar warnings about spanking.<br /></i><br /> <i>Research has shown that children who are subjected to corporal punishment, such as spanking, pushing, grabbing, and paddling, are more likely to develop mental health disorders. One study reported that harsh physical punishment was associated with increased odds of mood disorders, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and personality disorders.7</i><br /><br />In my own generation, corporal punishment was all of the rage in terms of parents disciplining children.<br /><br />My husband remembers a time when most of the children in his school had signs of physical abuse, from parental abuse to peer bullying: whip lashes, cuts, scabs, bruises, and infected wounds were most visible. <br /><br />There was a huge generation gap when he finally reached adulthood too. Many from his generation did not respect their parents, especially those who received corporal punishment. Most who received corporal punishment past five years old were also recipients of child abuse. Most who were recipients of child abuse also experienced the silent treatment, lots of insults, the parents rarely, if ever, listened to their children and their concerns, there was way too much infantilization or parentification, a parent lashed out over so many things that were never their child's fault (unjust blaming), and so many "You are -" statements that the adult children could no longer remember all of them. <br /><br />In my generation and in his generation, so many of us have experienced estrangement in adulthood from the parent as well. I know many artist friends who were and some who still are, estranged. It was either initiated by a parent, or by us over disrespect or abuse (for many of us it was initiated by the parent, but the parent told the family and/or their friends or wrote on-line that it was initiated by us - in other words, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/04/narcissists-and-blame-shifting-avoiding.html" target="_blank">the blame-shifting tactic</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/12/important-darvo-tactic-and-why-it-is.html" target="_blank">the DARVO tactic</a> </b>were put to use by these parents, which furthered the lack of respect that we had for them). Most of us who were recipients of corporal punishment or child abuse thought our parent was "out of control", dysregulated emotionally, terrible teachers, saboteurs, terrible influences on our own children, terrible parents, with terrible respect for our boundaries as adults. Also "the bad years" of relating to our parent far outweighed "the good years". What a sad legacy. <br /><br />So, I have to say that at least corporal punishment is increasingly being taken off the table for parents. Some parents will probably resort to other methods of hurting their children, but at least that one is getting more and more outlawed in the western world. </div><div><br /></div><div>For those of us adults who never hit a child, and never thought of hitting a child, we can be proud that we are ending this scourge. Hopefully it also pushes us into an era of more world peace, and peaceful resolutions as well. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT ON CHILDREN<br />(AS A WAY OF TEACHING THEM A LESSON)<br />DOES IT WORK?<br /><br /><div><div style="text-align: left;">No. Anything that hurts children, especially if hurting them is a habit, will mean trauma symptoms. Children are much more vulnerable to getting <b><a href="https://endcan.org/2022/01/14/ptsd-and-adult-survivors-of-child-abuse/" target="_blank">PTSD</a></b> (or <a href="https://endcan.org/2022/01/14/ptsd-and-adult-survivors-of-child-abuse/" target="_blank"><b>C-PTSD</b></a>) than adults. Most of them don't have the wherewithal to know why they are being hurt, or how to stop it. While behavioral lessons are important, the best teaching method is to model the behavior that you want to see in your children. <br /><br />Most psychologists say that modeling empathy, ethics, morality, forgiveness, adult ways of regulating emotions, showing how to resolve relationship issues, showing how to forgive, showing children respect for their feelings, thoughts and experiences are also a much better teacher than punishment. <br /><br />If you feel you must punish your children, check yourself first for transgressions so that you aren't giving them mixed messages (i.e. "It's okay for me to insult you, but it's not okay for you to insult me" will never be a good lesson, and will at best confuse a child, and at worse, he will resent you and your lessons). Some psychologists suggest small "time-outs" no longer in minutes than a child's age, but even that practice is being studied as counter-productive since it is most used when a parent is angry. It teaches children that when the parent is angry, that the child is invisible to them. <br /><br />But if you make it a bad habit, time-outs can also seem punitive and unfair unless you state clear reasons why it is good for them and good for you, and listen to their responses with empathy. <br /><br />Most of us don't want to hurt our children because we are aware that it diminishes their trust in us as a safe place to go, as a reasonable source of learning, as a good sounding board for what ails us. If we hurt them, it will wound the relationship itself. <br /><br />However, parents that make a habit out of hurting their kids probably do not entirely realize this. Or if they do realize it, they make an impulsive decision to use their baser instincts instead. They will have a very hard time keeping and enjoying a healthy attachment and re-establishing trust. <br /><br />Here are just a few non-physical punishments that should not be used on children, and what these punishments do to children (when I could find links):<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><u>What Shaming Teaches<br />and What it Does to Children</u></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Shaming can be so subtle that you are not aware of it (some of the articles I feature explain subtle forms of shaming that a lot of us take for granted), and shaming can be really abusive too, especially if it is accompanied by a lot of insults and other forms of punishment. <br /><br />Most of the research that has been done on shaming children has shown it to be an ineffective way of disciplining a child. It doesn't work, and even tends to backfire. <br /><br />When I taught in public schools, shaming by teachers and other school authorities was not allowed, and was grounds for being fired. <br /><br />Habitual or over-the-top abusive shaming can produce trauma symptoms just like any form of abuse.<br /><br />You can't be a good teacher of behavior and be shaming at the same time. Too much shaming will mean your child eventually won't want to hear what you have to say. All that it does in the end is cause hurt to your child, and make them disappear emotionally, and disrespect the lessons you are trying to teach because you are defining him in a bad way rather than teaching him a lesson that he will determine is beneficial to him.<br /><br />So, what I'm saying here is that a child's mind always has to be going in the direction of: "My parents care about me; they are invested in helping me become all that I can be; my parents care about my behavior because my behavior and my ethics will help me to survive in the world; my parents ethics are better than mine and I have something to learn from them; my parents know how to regulate their emotions and how to get along better with others better than I do, and they are worth listening to for those reasons." <br /><br />If, for instance, the parents have worse morals and ethics, when their behavior is worse than their child's, when there's more hurt to the lesson than there is modeling and teaching, when you don't show that you care about how he will survive or how he is surviving, you may end up with an emotionally distant, non-trusting, and even an estranged child. <br /><br /><a href="https://www.verywellfamily.com/why-you-shouldnt-shame-your-children-4089277" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Why Shaming Your Kids Isn't Effective Discipline</a> - Jennifer Wolf, medically reviewed by Carly Snyder, MD for Very Well Family<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/think-hard-before-shaming-children-2020012418692" target="_blank">Think hard before shaming children</a></b> - by Claire McCarthy, MD, Senior Faculty Editor, Harvard, for Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-legacy-distorted-love/201209/shaming-children-is-emotionally-abusive" target="_blank">Shaming Children Is Emotionally Abusive (Children respect those who respect them.)</a></b> - by Karyl McBride Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.naturalchild.org/articles/robin_grille/good_children.html" target="_blank">"Good" Children - at What Price? (The Secret Cost of Shame)</a></b> - by Robin Grille and Beth Macgregor for The Natural Child Project<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.additudemag.com/doctors-warn-of-the-lasting-damage-of-shame/" target="_blank">Doctors Warn of the Lasting Damage of Shame (A new report tells parents: Lighten up!)</a></b> - by ADDitude editors for ADDitude</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><u>What Blaming Teaches<br />and its Effect on Children</u><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Blaming a child a lot has similar effects to shaming. Where assigning blame can get tricky is if the child is <i><u>not</u></i> actually a culprit of the blame. This can cause him to blame his parents later on for being blind, punitive, unjust, unloving, unfair, terrible parents. <br /><br />Getting a child to feel culpable for actions he actually <i><u>does</u></i> commit takes a lot of thought, and perhaps even education. Usually where you find unacceptable behavior, that behavior has been modeled somewhere in the child's life, and it can even be modeled by the parent. So adopting ethics when you are a parent is necessary if you want your children to tell the truth, to treat you with respect, and to be ethical and willingly accountable when they are culpable, themselves. <br /><br />There is also a lot that can go on between siblings. Let us say that sibling A accuses sibling B of a transgression (like stealing). But actually sibling A did the stealing, not sibling B. This is very common for siblings to do up to age 8 years old. They get scared that the parent will punish them for stealing, so they stick their sibling with the fault instead. <br /><br />It is before 8 years old, and even much earlier that parents need to nip this activity in the bud. Left unchecked, it can lead to a sibling using it in many other situations. The sibling relationship won't be close. If it goes past the age of 8, a continuation of these acts can lead to sibling abuse. I have heard many stories where it goes all the way to a sibling hijacking the parent's Will and Trust by planting false narratives and accusations into a parent's mind about the intentions of their siblings. There is an article in this section below that covers how to get siblings to stop blaming each other early on for things they did themselves. If it is not addressed early, it can turn children into liars, two-faced individuals and blame-shifters. <br /><br />If the parent is a blame-shifter themselves, children won't respect what a parent has to say about blame-shifting, so that part of a parent's behavior needs to be cleaned up in order for them to teach a child or children why blame-shifting is not acceptable behavior. <br /><br />Again, if you are going to be an effective teacher, you can't expect your students to do things that you don't do, can't do, make excuses not to do, or refuse to do. It becomes a completely ineffectual lesson, just as a bus driver teaching civil engineering who has never studied or practiced it, cannot and will not make a bridge. <br /><br />Blaming can also be a slippery slope, where, if you use too much of it on one child and not on another, your child will see that he is being singled out for blame. The lesson he will learn is not going to be about what you are blaming him for: it will be about how you love his sibling more than you love him. <br /><br />If he is being singled out for punishments too, then he is also likely to experience escalating trauma symptoms as well. <br /><br />Again that doesn't teach him anything other than that his parent is unfair, unloving, unusually punitive and ethically wrong. <br /><br />Most children cannot deal with the injustice of being "the blamed one" in the family. Usually when a child is blamed to this extent the parent cannot handle blame themselves, or they want to protect the reputation of another child or family member, so they give the one child all of the blame for family incidences that crop up. <br /><br />This is called scapegoating. Scapegoating is basically blaming in the extreme. Most scapegoats cannot count the number of times they were blamed because it was just too constant, a painful way of life they had to endure. This isn't teaching a lesson, obviously. <br /><br />Scapegoating is basically constant blaming where you have the realization that you aren't ever going to be be able to please your parent. You are an outcast, a virtual stranger where no one sees your good qualities. <br /><br />Let's say that you are the truth-teller in the family, <b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-narcissist-in-your-life/202202/the-8-types-children-scapegoated-in-narcissistic-families" target="_blank">which many scapegoats are</a></b>. If you are from a family of liars, and deniers, blame-shifting schemers, or criminals, they aren't going to appreciate your truth-telling. They are going to hurt you or ostracize you in order to get you to shut down your truth-telling, and probably even your talking. Definitely your insights. At the very least, they won't be interested in what you have to say. They'll interrupt, tell you to stop talking, tell you that you are crazy, give you the silent treatment or tell you that you are no longer welcome. <br /><br />So what is the lesson here for a child? "Lie a lot and be like us"? "Truth-tellers are bad people"? "Insights and intelligence are no good"? "Believing in liars is what is good for this family, and for society"? What's the main point of the lesson here, especially if the child is going to school and learning that "Truth is good; you should not lie; you should have insights and intelligence if you want to get the most out of school and get into a profession that you'll love" and so on. <br /><br />Scapegoating is always categorized as child abuse. Usually where you find a scapegoat child, you also find that the parent has a favorite golden child too who he or she keeps shielded from any blame, even if that favorite child is at fault in many incidences. The incidences are seen as excusable, even when they are not. <br /><br />Usually where you find scapegoating you find mob bullying, shaming, lots of verbal abuse, lots of emotional abuse, ostracizing, the silent treatment, lots of gaslighting, blame-shifting, lots of invalidation, many smear campaigns, even physical abuse, and you also find parents who are either narcissists, sociopaths or psychopaths. Some Borderlines can scapegoat too, but usually are enlisted by narcissists, sociopaths or psychopaths to do so. If they are part of a bullying mob, they can also go in the direction of scapegoating. If they grew up seeing scapegoating or prejudice, they can, in some instances go in the direction of scapegoating too, however most Borderlines have empathy, and feel terrible when they hurt others, so it is not very likely they will take this path on their own. The area where it becomes problematic: Borderlines are often attracted to narcissists and narcissists are often attracted to Borderlines, and this is how a Borderline can join in on mob bullying, even if it doesn't feel right to them (Borderlines also have a poor sense of who they are, and narcissists come in and have no trouble assigning roles as to who they are, and can convince them that they need to join the mob). <br /><br />Just as in society, where scapegoats are often of a different race, religion, or cultural background, and are being prejudiced against, conspiracy theories will usually be the main mode of how a scapegoat is viewed in the family as well. If a number of members are using <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/12/important-darvo-tactic-and-why-it-is.html" target="_blank">the DARVO tactic</a></b>, you can pretty much guarantee that there will be many, many conspiracy theories and smear campaigns with a lot of conspiratorial thinking swirling around the scapegoated child too.<br /><br />Since scapegoating is mob bullying with each person in the mob having their own agendas and reasons for being part of the mob, the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">abuse will escalate</a>. </b>Abuse always escalates, but it will escalate much faster and more egregiously if there is a mob involved. <br /><br />Scapegoating will always have additional <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">prejudices</a></b> and conspiracy theories, and be initiated primarily by narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths (who overwhelmingly tend to be abusive, and who like to abuse others). <br /><br />Therefor scapegoating is <b>very, very dangerous for the scapegoat</b>. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />If something happens to the scapegoat, specifically crimes against them, the people in the mob will most likely side up with each other the way they always have. <br /><br />What kind of possible positive lesson is available to the child with this kind of outcome? <br /><br />Let's get real here. Conspiracy theories, gaslighting and smear campaigns are no longer about the child. They are about the bullying mob's intentions, projections, aggressions and group-think, period. <br /><br />A scapegoated child will learn:<br />"Abuse escalates."<br />"Mobbing is about prejudice and conspiracy theories."<br />"Conspiracy theories get so far out, like a hallucinatory trip."</div><div style="text-align: left;">"The mob is dangerous."<br />"I better find a way out." <br />"I better buy home and auto security systems." - if they are an adult child</div><div style="text-align: left;">"I better call the police." - if they are an adult child<br /><br />That's what we want to teach our children, to protect themselves from us parents? <br /><br />I hope I have proved why and how a trauma-bonded scapegoat can die. <br /><br />Scapegoated members usually are ostracized from the family or quit themselves. And the mental health community encourages scapegoats to quit too. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Blaming can turn into scapegoating. Therefor, parents are encouraged to find other ways of dealing with issues so that blaming does not get out of hand, out of control, and escalate to this degree. And: if you can't take blame yourself, or have issues around being blamed, you should not expect your children to handle it any better than you handle it. That just makes sense. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/11/the-common-yet-parenting-mistake-that-psychologically-damages-kids-according-to-expert.html" target="_blank">A parenting expert shares the common mistake that psychologically damages kids—and what to do instead</a></b> - by Hunter Clarke-Fields, Contributor, CNBC<br />excerpt:<br /> <i>Blaming is a put-down, and it can easily cause children to feel guilty, unloved and rejected. Even worse, it prevents you from developing a positive relationship with them.</i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://bonnieharris.com/the-blame-game/" target="_blank">The Blame Game</a></b> - by Bonnie Harris for Connective Parenting</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/promoting-empathy-your-teen/201407/when-parents-blame-their-children" target="_blank">When Parents Blame Their Children (Does it really take a village to raise a child?)</a></b> - by Ugo Uche, reviewed by Abigail Fagan for Psychology Today<br />excerpt:<br /> <i>One of the most difficult things I find myself doing as a psychotherapist is holding parents accountable. Typically when you have a teen engaging in unhealthy behavior, you have a parent who makes it his or her own priority to set the teen on the right path. However, there seems to be a caveat.</i></div><div><i> “Please help me help my kid, but don't you dare tell me I am at fault.” ... </i></div><div><i> ... children and teens with bad tempers usually have at least one parent (in their lives) who has a bad temper. The teen goes to school and displays a bad temper and gets penalized, then comes homes and displays the bad temper and gets penalized, all the while witnessing one of his parents periodically display episodes of bad tempers with no consequences. ...</i><br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/liking-the-child-you-love/202303/3-reasons-your-adult-child-treats-you-like-dirt" target="_blank">3 Reasons Your Adult Child Treats You Like Dirt (Many well-intentioned parents express their concerns in off-putting ways.)</a></b> - by Jeffrey Bernstein Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br />excerpt:<br /> <i> 3. Expressing Criticism and Invalidation</i></div><div><i> ... When adult children sense criticism and invalidation, they can develop feelings of abandonment or rejection. Using guilt, shame, or other manipulative tactics to control an adult child's behavior can cause significant emotional harm. This can make the child feel like they are not in control of their own life and lead to feelings of resentment and anger. Lastly, parents who do not respect their adult child's boundaries and independence can run the risk of having their adult children alienate them. This is because your adult child likely feels like they cannot escape your influence or control. ...</i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/advice/ask-your-mom/how-can-i-get-my-son-to-stop-blaming-his-younger-sibling-for-his-own-bad-behavior/" target="_blank">How Can I Get My Son to Stop Blaming His Younger Sibling for His Own Bad Behavior?</a></b> - by Emily Edlynn, Ph.D. for Parents<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-the-family-scapegoat-5187038" target="_blank">What Does It Mean to Be the Family Scapegoat?</a></b> - by Nadra Nittle, Medically reviewed by<br />Yolanda Renteria, LPC<br />excerpts:<br /><div><i> ... Commonplace in families with unhealthy dynamics, scapegoating tends to start in childhood when children are blamed for all of the problems in dysfunctional households. ...</i></div><div><i> ... When children are assigned this role, the impact can be detrimental to their mental health and emotional well-being for a lifetime. ...</i></div><div><i> ... In addition, it results in an upbringing in which the scapegoated child’s inherent worth, goodness, and lovableness are ignored. Instead, insults, bullying, neglect, and abuse are deemed appropriate for the child forced into this position. ...</i></div><div><i> ... Why a parent decides to scapegoat a child tends not to make any sense because this behavior is rooted in dysfunction. For example, a child who is sensitive, inquisitive, attractive, and smart might be perceived as a threat and scapegoated by a parent who lacks these qualities. ...</i></div><div><i> ... Being a scapegoat or a favorite is never about a child’s inherent worth as a human being. ...</i></div><div><i> ... Being a scapegoat is a lonely, heartbreaking experience for a child, but it may also yield a more desirable outcome in some cases. For example, the maltreatment scapegoats endure in families is often the impetus that drives them to leave the dysfunctional, high-conflict home. ...</i></div><div><i> ... Moreover, scapegoats very often decide to end the generational cycle of abuse when they start their own families. ...</i></div><br /><b><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/traversmark/2022/12/12/3-ways-to-exit-the-role-of-family-scapegoat-according-to-a-psychologist/" target="_blank">3 Ways To Exit The Role Of ‘Family Scapegoat,’ According To A Psychologist</a></b> - by Mark Travers for Forbes<br />excerpt:<i><br /> Many people come to therapy when they feel underappreciated by their family. They may say things like:</i><div><i>1. “Someone is constantly making accusations against me for no fault of my own.”</i></div><div><i>2. “My parents keep blaming me for one thing or another as if it is always my responsibility to ensure everything goes right.”</i></div><div><i>3. “I am never praised for my achievements. Instead, I get belittled in front of everyone.”</i></div><div><i>It is no secret that families can be complicated. All too often, a single family member becomes the ‘scapegoat’ for the family’s problems.</i></div><div><i> A family scapegoat is a person who takes on the role of ‘black sheep’ or ‘problem child’ in their family and gets shamed, blamed, and criticized for things that go wrong within the family unit, even when these things are entirely outside of their control.</i></div><div><i> Scapegoating parents often have fragile, needy, and narcissistic personalities. They unnecessarily project hostility onto the scapegoated child.</i></div><div><i> ... Parents/family authority figures maintain control by attacking and forming alliances that isolate the victim. ...</i></div><div><i> ... Parenting figures distort reality to deny the target child’s legitimate needs and to act as if the victim child is the cause of not only the family’s problems but also the parent figure’s dissatisfaction. ...</i></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><u>What the Silent Treatment Teaches Children<br />and What It Does to Them</u></div><br />The silent treatment is most always defined as a form of abuse when given to children (and even when it is done to adult children and partners). It is a favorite form of punishment by narcissists. Narcissists tend to be abusive in order to get power, control and dominance in their relationships. <br /><br />If it is not being used as a form of punishment, it can be used as a way for someone who does not have good emotional coping skills, or as way for them not to hurt the other person any more than they have. However, if the silent treatment is accompanied by other abuses, or threats, it is pretty much guaranteed to be a punishment, especially when the target is a child.<br /><br />Because it is a form of abuse, trauma symptoms in the child are likely to emerge too. It is quite a bit more egregious than shaming in most situations if the silent treatment is used habitually or goes on for a long period of time. <br /><br />The silent treatment is also known to cause chronic pain, <b><a href="https://www.heysigmund.com/the-silent-treatment/" target="_blank">similar to physical pain</a></b>. It activates the anterior cingulate cortex part of the brain that senses physical pain. Even so, real physical pain can also be experienced in terms of <b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/anxiety/the-connection-between-childhood-trauma-and-generalized-anxiety-disorder" target="_blank">generalized anxiety disorder</a></b>, which often goes hand-in-hand with being abused and experiencing PTSD or C-PTSD. To children (and even adult children), the pain starts out as the PTSD symptom of hypervigilance. This keeps your mind in "fight or flight" mode. <br /><br />When children experience hypervigilance, especially if they live with their parents, they are mainly going to feel it as a "flight response". Most underage abused children know they can't fight with their parents and get a good outcome, thus the flight response is usually activated: trying to figure out the best way to get out of the situation they are in. It can mean the child will eventually fawn to the parent's demands, but it is never going to be an authentic response because the parent has activated the PTSD symptom of hypervigilance. <br /><br />And even when the parent is satisfied with what they got out of the deal (a fawning child), the child is still going to be experiencing a hypervigilant state, even if it is relaxed somewhat to the point where he can get more sleep even if he isn't getting <i>enough</i> sleep. The reason why it is still activated is because the brain is still on high alert that it will happen again. <br /><br />And there is a good reason why it is on high alert that it will happen again: because usually it does happen again. As I've mentioned many times, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">abuse escalates</a></b>, and that means <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-silent-treatment-is-abuse.html" target="_blank">the silent treatment will escalate too</a></b>. <br /><br />The way the silent treatment escalates is that it certainly happens again and again, but more importantly it goes on for longer and longer periods of time the more it is used. Some silent treatments go on for a decade or more, and some go on, and on, and on, to the point of estrangement. And of course, a child is never going to be able to fix a parent's use of this destructive abuse tactic. Parents will give excuses for using it over and over again, and increasing the level of pain, just like a batterer will give excuses for putting his partner in the hospital with an escalation of bruises and cuts. It is up to the abuser to give up on the abusive tactic. <br /><br />Since the point of abuse is to get more power, control and domination <i>for</i> the parent, the main focus that the parent will be to manipulate the child to be submissive to every command. The need for the parent to get more power, control and domination is working against biology; parents should be loosening the power, control and domination as the child becomes more adult, not the other way around. Also the child will be wanting more and more autonomy from his parent, at least in terms of making his own decisions, with the parent helping him along the way to be the best that he can be in terms of his own decisions - which is what teaching is about. The purpose is to get a student to be able to figure out problems on his own. If this isn't going on, you'll get a student like the ones every public school teacher sees: the ones who sit in the back of the classroom, un-interested, rolling their eyes, dismissing what you have to say. They are letting you know that they no longer want to be forced into lessons. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There are a lot of very good reasons why abuse is not a good way to get submission; it is a very, very bad idea (for the society at large, and even for family dynamics). <br /><br />Anyway, when the silent treatment goes on for days, or weeks, this keeps the brain on high alert for any more attacks. And usually people who indulge in the silent treatment of their children, do attack them in other ways: taking toys or other possessions away, insults, degrading comments, shaming, unfounded blaming, false imprisonment like locking in them in their room for much longer than is healthy, a lot of gaslighting is also usually present, more threats of ostracism, smear campaigns, prejudice and conspiratorial attacks.<br /><br />What hypervigilance also does is to keep the child's brain on such high alert that the child can't sleep, or they don't sleep very well (constantly waking up upset). If they do sleep, they are prone to nightmares which reflect the state they are in, that mimic his real life situation to a large degree. So it is like being haunted: he is haunted by the silent treatment night and day. Dreams don't even give him a respite.<br /><br />So it is very upsetting, and the pain tends to be constant the longer it goes on. If they cry a lot from the nightmares and inability to relax enough to go to sleep, they may do so in private, especially when the parent or parents punish him for crying or feeling hurt in addition to the silent treatment. Narcissistic parents usually punish the child for having feelings about how they are being treated because narcissists have very little empathy, so they will <i>not</i> soothe a child who is crying over the silent treatment. They won't want to rescue him from it, or say "I've punished you enough." In fact, a child who is crying and pleading for it to stop will more likely set off a narcissistic parent's rage (in the way of the <b>shame-rage spiral</b>). This means that when they see the child's pain, they see it as a criticism of them, the parent. Unlike the rest of us who experience pain when we are criticized, narcissists react to criticism with rage, and for children, the rage is usually accompanied by more punishment. <br /><br />Therefor, many children who receive the silent treatment bottle it up, and then the bottling up creates more symptoms. <br /><br />The worry, the bottling up, being on high alert, the continued pain (even when the silent treatment has been temporarily relieved by the parent), can and does create <a href="https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/generalized-anxiety-disorder" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Generalized Anxiety Disorder</a> (typically referred to as GAD). About three quarters of the survivors I talked to who were given the silent treatment as children and beyond into adulthood experienced a lot of muscle pain (part of the anxiety disorder), headaches (also part of the disorder), and even significant heart pain (the heart is also a muscle, which would explain the pain there). Some of them experienced chronic stomach aches as well. The most common symptom started out as muscle aches all over the body, as though they had the flu. <br /><br />For children and adult children who experienced the silent treatment for more than a year from a parent, most of them experienced Generalized Anxiety Disorder symptoms in addition to PTSD symptoms. The reason it wasn't 100 percent is because some children who started the emotional separation from their parent early on, when they were still a child - they withdrew so much by the time they were adults, that their parent had very little-to-no effect on them (in other words, the silent treatment was no longer hurting them because they didn't look to the parent for any parenting - that kind of relationship was emotionally severed early on). They were estranged to the point where they didn't feel any connection or intimacy with their parent. It was as though the parent was just an irritating stranger. <br /><br />The adult children of child abuse who I have known, numbering in the hundreds, usually gave up on their parent at the point when the silent treatment went on longer than a year, and when the physical symptoms showed up to this extent, and especially the body/muscle aches. To experience those symptoms day in and day out, and night after night without let-up and with very little sleep, is torture. <br /><br />The lesson here is that they are captives to torture, and that is it. <br /><br />However, you can get medication for Generalized Anxiety Disorder these days. So some survivors take it, their symptoms let up, and they go right back to their abusers because they feel better. So I'm not necessarily a proponent of medicating yourself for symptoms like this, and the medications themselves have some issues and side effects. And if you return and the escalation of abuse continues, which it will, the medication will cease to work very well, which can cause a dependency. <br /><br />The fact that your body is going through the symptoms in the first place is a sign that you cannot take any more abuse. That's a good message to get, not a bad message. Toxic families are called toxic for a reason. Abuse is a toxin when you are a child, and if the abuser uses a lot of lines of attacks, and if it keeps going on through adulthood, which it usually does, you are probably going to be receiving a lot of GAD symptoms. That's actually healthy compared to covering it up with meds, however, if you are pretty darned sure that you are not going to go back to abuse, medications can be a helpful way to move ahead, but always with some concerns (I hope to cover why in another post). <br /><br />The GAD symptoms are likely to subside eventually without medication, especially with time and continued distance, to the point where you can forget about them by focusing as much as you can on the present. There are also exercises you can do to bring your focus more into the present day so that you can stop ruminating about your victimhood and your parent (shifting focus is part of trauma therapy with a licensed therapist). <br /><br />If you can find relationships that are fulfilling and mutually respectful, empathetic and reasonable, then that tends to relieve symptoms too. <br /><br />The survivors who had their self esteem totally blown out by the parent, who felt like empty vessels of themselves, who felt and who had other extreme issues going on in their lives, contemplated suicide a lot during parental silent treatments. <br /><br />For underage children (talked about by adult children), they felt trapped, under siege, like hostages to abuse, and thought about suicide a lot, sometimes every day. It took all of the strength they could muster to get them to adulthood to escape their situation. <br /><br />The silent treatment has been written about so much, and I have not read one professional article that touted any benefit to a child. <br /><br />The way that a parent sees the silent treatment as a lesson to a child, is that the punisher expects their victim to writhe in pain over the silent treatment and do anything for the narcissist in order for the silent treatment to end. While it can get the parent of an underage child what they want, temporarily at least, the fact that it was used at all makes a child feel anxious, fearful, distrustful, inwardly upset and traumatized, resentful, invisible, not worth anything to the parent outside of fulfilling commands and demands ... and if used into a child's teenage years or adulthood, it will probably eventually lead to full blown estrangement. <br /><br />And as we know, the parent-child relationship is such that if it doesn't benefit the child too, the relationship will either be a shell of its former self, very very shallow and insignificant, or be a total estrangement. <br /><br />Abuse can be generational. Some children will adopt the silent treatment themselves as an adult and use it on their own children, or on the parent who used it on them, or on other members of a family. If there is a lot of estrangement in one extended family, I'd bet it had a lot to do with not knowing how to resolve issues beyond the unhealthy ways: silent treatments and other forms of abuse, stonewalling, blaming and shaming. This is where a child modeling the bad behavior of his parent can boomerang back on the parent or go down the generations as a family practice, sometimes with catastrophic effect. The silent treatment can and does produce suicide ideation and suicides, and I have been around enough survivor forums to know that it happens way more than it should - one therapist told me that one quarter of all children who get a long silent treatment lasting a year or more from a parent commit suicide (I am trying to find that source). <b><a href="https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/silent-treatment" target="_blank">Here is one source for now</a></b>. But even so, there is a lot of talk in survivor forums about a sibling who died from suicide during their teenage years and twenties where a parent was ostracizing them or giving them the silent treatment at the time of death. <br /><br />Again, that's not a good lesson: "Consider suicide because I don't care at all about you except what I can get out of you." <br /><br />I also notice that for every one male suicide, there are about 10 female suicides (again, not a statistic, just something I notice for those of you who are studying this branch of psychology who want to get statistics on the silent treatment). Anyway, to me it says that girls are given the silent treatment by a parent so much more than a boy is. It is similar to the statistics on childhood sexual abuse: girls are targeted much more than boys are. It also seems that girls are overwhemingly chosen for the scapegoat role in their families as well. It would be interesting to know why. Is it the same prejudice that's been going on for centuries that males are more <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank">worthwhile and useful</a></b> to a family than a female is? Or is it the same kind of trend in terms of sexual abuse where girls are a lot more sexually abused than boys? I suspect that both have something to do with why.<br /><br />In a later post, I will discuss why girls are, in general, much more subject to abuse than boys are. <br /><br />In a generational sense, the silent treatment when given to children, can also perpetuate the idea that this form of abuse should be used on the weak and vulnerable (like children, people undergoing tragedies, people who are disabled, and so on): perhaps you were given the silent treatment during a time when your own personal power was challenged. So you give the silent treatment when someone is going through a bad time!? That's supposed to teach what lesson now? <br /><br />Again, children learn from parental modeling, especially if there are no repercussions for doing so or that they see right away. The child learns if he wants more power in a relationship, and to dominate someone, to attack that person in their most vulnerable, weakened state, a person who needs help. That's not a good lesson to be teaching. Plus it's even more trauma symptoms than the silent treatment during calm times. <br /><br />Children who have been taught to normalize abuse and estrangement, may not realize this tactic is so dangerous until one of their own children commits suicide or becomes totally estranged from them, unwilling to put up with any more silent treatments. Thus, since there is too much of a danger in it becoming generational, it should be abolished. <br /><br />There is not enough empathy behind the silent treatment to make it a useful tool to get a person to change their behavior. In fact it shows the child what their parents behavior is like more than their own. It is gross emotional negligence, and if anything, your child will eventually double down on resisting what you want, knowing it is about your need for more power, control and domination in your mutual relationship. Most teenage and adult children believe their parent has enough power, control and domination to begin with, and they don't want to give them any more of it, especially if the parent is going to be using it in this kind of bullying way.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The silent treatment rarely works as a learning lesson because the child will focus on how unempathetic the parent is, how long the parent used it and in what situations. If the parent used it when their child was down on their luck or otherwise vulnerable, don't expect a relationship with your child ever again. The trust that your child had in you to act on his behalf (to parent, to love you, to keep you safe, to be there for you in tragic times, to teach good helpful lessons) can never be re-established. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Some material on the silent treatment and how it effects victims, including child victims (and why it is mostly attributed to narcissists): </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />general:</div><div style="text-align: left; text-decoration-line: underline;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XisdRlbWHAY" target="_blank">THE SILENT TREATMENT: WHEN THE NARCISSIST GOES PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE</a></b> - Dr. Les Carter, Psychologist, for Surviving Narcissism (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8Cv5tSE6RI" target="_blank">Narcissists and the Silent Treatment</a></b> - by Dr. Ramani Durvasula (You Tube) </div><div style="text-align: left; text-decoration-line: underline;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnDcuvgAwLU" target="_blank">6 Ways The Silent Treatment Is Harmful</a></b> - PsychToGo (YouTube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAsbYkKNPZI" target="_blank">Silent Treatment as a Way to Punish | Stonewalling in narcissistic relationships</a></b> - Mindset Therapy PLLC<br /><br />effect on children:</div><div style="text-align: left; text-decoration-line: underline;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxkDcVEIZ98" target="_blank">The Effect of the Silent Treatment on Children.</a></b> - by Ashley Berges (You Tube)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://cptsdfoundation.org/2021/02/25/the-long-term-effects-of-abandonment/" target="_blank">The Long-Term Effects of Abandonment</a></b> - CPTSD Foundation<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXm4H-zcM10" target="_blank">How & Why the Narcissist Mother Uses the Silent Treatment on the Family Scapegoat & How to Handle It</a></b> - Raised by Toddlers: Surviving Narcissistic Parents<br /><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/parenting/toddler-year-and-beyond/silent-treatment-from-parents-the-psychological-implications-on-kids-and-why-it-should-be-avoided/articleshow/89563929.cms#:~:text=Parents%20must%20avoid%20using%20silent,understand%20how%20unhealthy%20it%20is." target="_blank">Silent treatment from parents: The psychological implications on kids and why it should be avoided</a></b> - by the administrators of Times of India<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><u>What Does Gaslighting Teach Children?<br />and What Are the Effects on Them?</u><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">Gaslighting</a></b> is rare for normal parents who feel <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">empathy</a></b> for their children. However, it can still happen, but maybe only a couple of times in the child's entire life, and in perhaps in the heat of a moment when your child's behavior has exasperated you to the extreme. However, I'm mainly talking about calling your child crazy, and not <i>the whole campaign</i> of gaslighting that <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/10/how-to-tell-if-you-have-abusive-parents.html" target="_blank">abusive parents</a></b> are known for. <br /><br />I'd bet you don't go around and tell all your friends and family that your child is crazy either, like abusive parents are known for. <br /><br />Which is to say there are several parts to gaslighting, and one of them is <u>calling your child crazy</u>. This basically does what shaming a child does (which I discuss in the section above), and will have many of the same effects on your child. <br /><br />Part of gaslighting is also a lot of <u>attempts to deny his reality, deny the feelings that he has (and insist that he has other feelings instead), and deny the thoughts that he has (and insist that he has other thoughts instead)</u>. This part of gaslighting is called <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" target="_blank">perspecticide</a></b> - also referred to as <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" target="_blank">invalidating</a></b>. <br /><br />Even normal parents can slip up on this occasionally, especially when they are accusing a child of something that they feel has ironclad proof behind it (where their child might be denying he did it). But, again, normal parents are not doing it for an agenda. <br /><br />But it will probably be useful to know how abusive parents take it to an extreme, so that the rest of us don't go down the slippery slope of accusing our children of doing things, thinking things, and feeling things that they may <i>not</i> be experiencing, thinking or feeling. And getting these things wrong can build a really fast rift with your child. Which means that you have to develop an intelligent approach to accusations. <br /><br />As I made clear in the post above, blaming is not the panacea of family harmony anyway, even if you do get it right. But, blaming can put you at some amount of risk for getting it wrong. Fortunately, most of us know that. <br /><br />However, most narcissists and sociopaths do <i>not</i> know that, or if they are manipulative, they pretend not to know it. Most of them are so filled with arrogance and many <b>play mind reader </b>as well, that they consistently tell you what you experience, think and feel to the point where they will not even accept any other interpretation. They stonewall you instead (meaning that they stop the conversation), so that they don't hear your explanations. If their child persists in telling the parent they are wrong, they usually respond to the child with the silent treatment (because, again, they can't take criticism without raging). <br /><br />So for abusive parents, gaslighting usually goes hand-in-hand with the silent treatment, another type of abuse that I talked about in the preceding section. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">With the silent treatment the message is: "You are irrelevant unless you are submissive and doing everything I demand and command of you." With gaslighting, they add in: "All of your experiences, your feelings and thoughts are irrelevant too."<br /><br />And by the way, I don't think they are faking this message. When people are almost entirely focused on how much power, control and domination that they want and are getting over others, it is an aggression that does not take into account what you feel and think about it. It is an onslaught to take you over, and turn you into a puppet without a brain or feelings (you are only supposed to <i>be manipulated </i>into being submissive <i>for</i> <i>them</i>, or else!). <br /><br />So the child learns, "I'm supposed to be an empty vessel that other people decide who I am? And how am I supposed to do that? What if they tell me I don't have the feelings I say I'm having? What if I still feel the feelings that they say doesn't exist? Are they supposed to be telling me how I feel, think and behave, or am I supposed to be telling them how I actually feel, think and behave even when they don't listen to me?" <br /><br />And if they do press the parent to accept that what they experience, and the way they feel and think is different than what the parent believes, the parent is going to see it as a criticism of their mind-reading. And what happens to narcissists and sociopaths when they feel criticized? They rage, and sometimes punish. <br /><br />Over not being mind readers? <br /><br />Yes. Most scapegoat abused children have been through this. <br /><br />The message is: "How dare you challenge my mind reading abilities!" <br /><br />And let me tell you, they are the least able to mind-read. <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">The lack of empathy</a></b> coupled with their <b>lack of self reflection</b> makes it impossible for them to do it.<br /><br />This leads children to be silent, and letting other people define them. <br /><br />That's a good lesson? Hopefully you can see why this is a horrific thing to do to a child.<br /><br />If you add in the silent treatment to the empty vessel that you've made your kid out to be where you pour in his mind what he's about, and what he thinks, and what he feels all of the time without listening to him, you have poured poison in (or at least that is how the child's brain interprets it: symptoms). And for abusive parents they are going to do this most of the time. <u>Plus they are either going to say he's entirely wonderful and faultless, or entirely terrible and always at fault</u>, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank">the result of splitting</a></b>) - this is definitely child abuse.<br /><br />So the child is going to be experiencing trauma symptoms <i>in addition to</i> the trauma symptoms of being stonewalled and getting the silent treatment. Horrible. <br /><br />So what this teaches children is not to define themselves. Just let other people do it. <br /><br />And it teaches: don't defend yourself when others judge you, otherwise endure a rage and a lecture. <br /><br />And it teaches: let other people tell you what you think, feel and what you are experiencing, otherwise endure a rage and a lecture about that too. <br /><br />And it teaches: soft boundaries: let everyone walk all over your real feelings and wipe their dirty feet/thoughts on your clean thoughts; let everyone else define you; let people accuse you of things you didn't do (because again, you don't know your own mind; only other people do); let other people hate you and be prejudiced against you for unreasonable reasons; just be an empty old vessel for anyone's rage and judgements. <br /><br />And it teaches: <b><a href="https://www.pacesconnection.com/blog/dysfunctional-family-dynamics-don-t-talk-don-t-trust-don-t-feel" target="_blank">don't talk, don't trust, don't feel</a></b>, the hallmark of dysfunctional families. My own post about that is <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2014/03/stuff-feelings-dont-talk-or-trust-be.html" target="_blank">HERE</a></b>. (Note: I'd suggest the link to the prior article rather than my own ... the link to my own article is mainly about an art piece I did on the subject). <br /><br />Or conversely, it teaches children not to trust people who criticize them (even if it is helpful), to rage when they are criticized (so that the other person will stop; they won't feel any criticism is warranted anyway, so they'll just act scary and rage to throw off the idea that anyone can criticize them); to not trust anyone (they've been brought up not to trust what people say about them because those people who brought them up always got it wrong); and to not care about ethics (because their primary caregivers didn't care about ethics when they made up stories about how the child thought, how he felt and what he experienced, so he'll be damned if he has ethics too). This is basically how you make another narcissist or sociopath for the world to endure. <br /><br />So the lesson here is to either make another narcissist or sociopath, or to make a child into a garbage can to dump rage and projections into. <br /><br />Children who experience heavy doses of gaslighting with rage, where they are continuously told they are crazy, especially when they are upset about being raged at or abused (common), are going to have a hard time making <i>any</i> decisions for themselves, even on school tests. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We did a little survey in one survivor forum and the question was: "In school, did you have so much anxiety when given a 'multiple question test' of getting the wrong answer, that you simply froze and couldn't complete it?" Overwhelmingly the answer was "yes." Some survivors were so unnerved by tests like that, that they either handed in their tests a quarter done, half done, not at all done, or just filled in random blanks to say they did it and not be told by a teacher that they had to fill in all of it, or re-take it. A lot of them said they had terrible "shakes" (a sign of PTSD), and so much anxiety that they could barely read what the questions were (another sign of PTSD - also called an "amygdala hijack").<br /><br />Meanwhile, the parents at home were expecting their children to be so "perfect" in the marionette department, that when they came home with bad grades they were told they were stupid <i>and</i> crazy (also very common for abused kids). <br /><br />How are you going to have a perfect marionette child, when the child is constantly in this hypervigilant state to the point where he can't concentrate? He can't concentrate in school and he can't concentrate at home. He goes right into the <b><a href="https://www.ashleytreatment.org/rehab-blog/learning-about-stress-responses/" target="_blank">freeze response</a></b>.<b> <br /></b><br />A lot of abusive parents punish a child who has gone into a freeze response because the freeze response is not the marionette submissive response that the parent wants. <br /><br />And the child gets sicker, and sicker, and sicker, and it would seem from all of what I've read and put forward is that many of these children develop life threatening auto-immune disorders ... that is, unless another parent, or adult, is fighting for the child's survival, and for the legitimacy of his mind and feelings. <b><a href="https://doctor-ramani.com/" target="_blank">Dr. Ramani Durvasula</a></b> also mentions seeing abused patients with a lot more auto-immune diseases than usual. <br /><br />And we know that narcissists can't tolerate a marriage partner who challenges them. So they are likely to divorce over not being able to gaslight, by being challenged about the gaslighting. What does a narcissist do when they are challenged by their partner not to gaslight? They rage about being criticized. <br /><br />Which puts the child in more danger unless the loving, protective parent can get custody. <br /><br />However, many survivors were able to write papers. They preferred tests that were not multiple choice tests with right and wrong answers. And they did much better on those tests. It does limit the kinds of professions they can enter, but at least there are some ways that children saddled with PTSD symptoms can succeed. <br /><br />Anyway, for the underage child it can get worse ... </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Many children who live in a perpetual freeze response, are gaslighted so much that they can't tell you how many times they were gaslighted in childhood, and never had a good sense of who they were. Everything they felt they were, was invalidated by the parent. It may also be invalidated by a favorite golden child sibling who is trying to mimic the parent to get brownie points. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's like a parent has put a worm in their abused child's brain, and in their ear, and is even becoming part of what they feel. They <b>echo</b> what the parent has told them. Their own voice, ambitions and dreams get so diminished and lost, purposely by the narcissist, that it is the narcissist's voice that speaks in their child's mind. <br /><br />It's like the robot has been completed, much like in the Stepford wives, except the trauma symptoms are still there, even though the child tries as hard as he can to split off the trauma symptom part of himself from the functional-to-his-parent part of himself. <br /><br />In extreme cases, all of these splits that the parent sees and is not tolerating very well in their ambition to hurt the child, and continually gain more domination over the child, can add up to <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder" target="_blank">Dissociative Identity Disorder</a></b>. And even though a child might try to show only the functional side to the parent, and try to forget each and stash away the hurt and trauma to another part of himself that the parent inflicted, is not entirely possible. <br /><br />A lot has been written about how <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder" target="_blank">Borderline Personality Disorder</a></b> develops too. <br /><br />Almost every "symptom" of the Borderline can be attributed to being brought up by a narcissist too. <br /><br />Borderlines feel terrified that they will be abandoned. That is because narcissists abandon them repeatedly, through stonewalling, the silent treatment, the invalidation of their feelings and thoughts, and sometimes even abandon them altogether ("I want nothing to do with you any more"). <br /><br />Borderlines have a hard time defining who they are. They often can't tell you. And their dress and constant changing of careers reflects that: in one day, they can go from dressing Goth, to dressing like a secretary, to dressing like a dowdy maid, to experiencing the highest joy in the morning, to experiencing the depths of depression by the afternoon, to working as a waitress during the day to working as a research expert in the evening. One guy I have known for a good part of my life, looks drastically different from one day to the next, and has many, many outfits and styles of glasses to reflect it. He was egregiously abused too, a sign. <br /><br />Anyway, Borderlines can even have 5 or 6 careers all going on at once, with at least one of them art-related. Some people label Borderlines as manic depressive, however, this is wrong. Manic depressives take days or weeks to change a mood. Many borderlines change from hour to hour or at the least one day to the next. Their moods are constantly shifting. That is because they survived by splitting themselves off into other sections, and one of them was tailor made for the narcissist. <br /><br />Borderlines feel emotions much more strongly than other people do. They can wail when they cry, and they can laugh more heartily than others do too. This has to do with a myriad of different reasons: <br /><br />Narcissists <b><a href="https://www.choosingtherapy.com/narcissistic-supply/" target="_blank">get narcissistic supply by goading and baiting</a></b> their victims into a negative response by arguing with them, insulting them and stonewalling them. Then they use the emotional response of their victims to judge the victims as crazy and out-of-control emotionally. <br /><br />But there is also a double bind to this. Narcissists also teach people, including children, to stuff emotions (i.e. "If you weren't so sensitive and emotional, people might listen to you more." - this is an extremely likely gaslighting phrase by narcissists). The emotional energy that the victim is being expected to stuff has to go somewhere, so it tends to come out in extremes. Also narcissists tend to be cold, uncaring, unempathetic, the opposite of the Borderline. So kids, who need dire help, practically have to scream and cry and carry on to get the narcissist's attention - this means the emotions are going to be over the top. Narcissistic parents may still not care (they tend towards child neglect). Sometimes they'll say, "If you cry like that, you aren't going to get anywhere with me!" even if the issue is dire. And of course, that just perpetuates them getting hurt, where they have to bottle up some more pain, and where it is likely to create even more extremity of expression. Either way, the bottled up emotions are going to have to go somewhere, even if the narcissist shuts them down again and again and again. And it can be partly a brain issue: generally abused kids feel emotions much more than other kinds of people because there are actually changes in the brain due to the abuse and the stuffing of emotions. <br /><br />In Borderlines, suicide attempts, suicide ideation and cutting oneself can also be the result of having been abused. Suicide and suicidal thoughts come about because of the chronic pain the parent is putting the child through. Suicide is a relief of the chronic pain the parent is inflicting on the child. Whereas cutting is the way to echo your abuser and how much they hate you. You decide to hate yourself too so that the abuser will be happy and so they don't have to keep doing the abusing.<br /><br />Narcissists tend to become calm and satisfied when their Borderline children are going through pain and tragedies, as long as the pain and tragedies aren't taking the child's attention away from the parent. So in a way, cutting is just another way to serve the narcissist. <br /><br />A lot of Borderlines are also substance addicted. Substance addiction and being brought up by an abusive parent has been linked for a long time, and the studies on it keep showing more and more links. You can google it and a lot of professional articles show up. Again, substance addiction, especially if you are a scapegoat child in addition to being a Borderline, is a way to serve the narcissist with what they want. It also keeps the narcissist from hurting you if you are hurting yourself. <br /><br />Borderline Personality Disorder usually co-exists with <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-traumatic_stress_disorder" target="_blank">PTSD</a> </b>or<b> <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-complex-ptsd-2797491" target="_blank">C-PTSD</a></b>.<br /><br />Then there is the <b><a href="https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/memberarticles/echoism-the-silent-condition-in-narcissistic-relationships#:~:text=What%20is%20an%20echoist%3F,person%20in%20their%20own%20right." target="_blank">Echoist</a> </b>who<b> </b>is past the point of splintering himself off into different sections. He has been drained so much of any personality or identity by a narcissist or narcissists, or lived through so much brutality, that he basically is only a survivor (no personality was able to develop). The echoist has usually been drained of humanity too (meaning that he faces prejudice). He has no boundaries or so few boundaries that just about any one can show up and tell him who is and he goes along with what ever the person happens to say about him. In fact, who he is, and how he is defined, can so drastically differ from person to person that it doesn't matter any more: he isn't anyone in particular. He is just who the next person decides he is, kind of like a chameleon, except he changes according to what the next person wants him to be. <br /><br />This is the state that a gardener, <b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/873033-being-there" target="_blank">Chance Gardner</a></b> is in, in the book and movie, <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_There" target="_blank">Being There</a> </b>(a brilliant movie about a true echoist state). The book was written by <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Kosi%C5%84ski" target="_blank">Jerzy Kosinski</a></b>, a Jew who barely survived a brutal existence as a survivor of <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust" target="_blank">The Holocaust</a> </b>and wrote books afterwards. To write a book about an Echoist, and another book about the brutalities through the eyes of a boy, and later commit suicide, is not lost on me. This is what can happen. <br /><br />So, what does this teach children? That with enough abuse, a person can have PTSD, get Borderline Personality Disorder, get Dissociative Identity Disorder, be an Echoist, and die from suicide? That is what we want to teach children? <br /><br />But to get back to gaslighting. It gets worse.<br /><br />Most narcissists and sociopaths tell their friends and family that their child is insane. There are a number of things this does:<br />* If the child complains about abuse, no one listens (because they are deemed to be insane, to not know what they are talking about)<br />* Isolates the child with the parent (people don't generally want to be close to a person who can't think straight) - isolating people from each (<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/11/abusive-families-who-triangulate-love.html" target="_blank">triangulation</a></b> is huge in narcissistic abuse)<br />* People allow the parent leeway in all kinds of unethical ways (including total abandonment) because they have a crazy child to deal with<br />* Makes the child vulnerable to other human predators (they can tell everyone that the child is insane too, that their abuse of the victim never happened either)<br /><br />It becomes the go-to way for a parent to get rid of the evidence. So it allows one evil occurrence to happen after the other. It allows a parent to continually be allowed to harshly judge and punish a child. It allows a lot more <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/03/erroneous-blaming-and-erroneous.html" target="_blank">erroneous punishing</a></b> (punishing over sadist reasons) than might otherwise happen. <br /><br />This is what we want for children? For children to be the garbage cans for a parent's rage (turning into everyone else's garbage can for rage too)? For children to be the garbage cans for abandonments and sadism? Because this is what we get when we have continuously gaslighted children. <br /><br />And yet, it still can get worse ... <br /><br />Gaslighting is often used in every situation where the parent is frustrated with the amount of attention, power, control, and domination they already have, which is just about always. There is never enough for them. Sam Vaknin, who I feature below at the bottom of the further reading section, has said in a number of videos that this lust for more power and the manipulation to get more of it lives in the mind of narcissists all of the time. All they can think of is how to be the authoritarian in what ever situation they are in. He also said that this lust, coupled with rage and jealousy are about the only emotions they feel too. <br /><br />They use gaslighting to discard and abandon their own children (and they do discard way more than they let on). Here is how it tends to happen:<br /><br />The parent and adult child reach a point where the adult child is hurt way too much by the actions of the parent. Of course, all narcissists want their child to fix all relational problems. But the adult child can't. Perhaps the narcissist's henchmen have threatened him or abused him. So the adult child insists that the issues between them have to be worked out in therapy. The parent has touted therapy to be the big solution to all problems and that the child must go in order to make the child fit for family life. But the adult child sees that this was only done to get the parent's friends and family to look at the child as insane. The fact that the child would suggest therapy for both of them creates a narcissistic injury in the narcissist. The parent, feeling criticized by the suggestion that they both go to therapy, gives their adult child the silent treatment. The adult child attempts to re-connect. But the parent pushes him away and punishes him by continuing with the silent treatment and telling him he needs to learn a lesson. When the parent does reconnect, he blames, criticizes, shames, insults the adult child, trying to make him entirely responsible for what happened. But the adult child doesn't see it that way, and the silent treatment continues. Then the parent tells his friends and the family that the adult child has rejected them instead. You can see that this is highly unethical and immoral. And the parent keeps grasping at trying to teach the adult child through the same highly unethical behavior. When a child is more ethical than the parent, the parent can no longer teach a lesson. Trying to hurt him through the silent treatment and gaslighting has achieved what? And most adult children will want to back away from a parent who is this unethical. So then it is an estrangement that goes on and on, and the parent still insists that was his child's fault. This is extremely common when it comes to how narcissistic parents treat their own offspring. <br /><br />The very common DARVO tactic among narcissists and sociopaths is a type of gaslighting too, as well as all blame-shifting maneuvers. How is a parent supposed to teach a child anything good using this tactic?<br /><br />Lying about what a child is about and how they act is a type of gaslighting as well. Lying is second nature to most narcissists and is constant for sociopaths. Again, what is a parent teaching using this tactic, especially for children who go off to school and learn that most teachers, classmates, and school officials want the truth to be spoken. Either the child is going to deny, reject, play dumb, or lecture a parent who is lying so much. <br /><br />Gaslighting is also used by a parent to get a child to believe that the truth is a lie, and that a lie is the truth. And if the child doesn't go along with it, they get punished. Now what is that supposed to teach? <br /><br />And narcissistic parents also try to get children to believe that they, the parent, is the great sage of how to work out problems in relationships. They may lecture a child about the latest articles on how to make relationships work. That is laughable. They can't practice what they preach. So when they are doing the opposite of what all of these articles suggest (like throwing constant barbs and insults at their child - which is a type of grievous disrespect), they will talk about how the child <i>needs</i> to show respect. It's not too bright, but it is also about gaslighting. <br /><br />The end result is that the child is not likely to respect the parent or want to hear them talk about lessons ever again. <br /><br />A lot of survivors are estranged from their parent because there is nothing to talk to their parent about. They don't want to hear what their parent has to say any more because it's just about a bunch of blame-shifting, gaslighting, pointless drivel. A survivor might try to dumb-down the conversations to weather, cooking, and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/p/does-gray-rock-method-work-for-family.html" target="_blank">gray rock subjects</a></b> to stop the crazy-making, hurtful, nonsensical lessons, but then a lot of parents get narcissistically injured by their child stonewalling all conversation except those subjects, and decide to continue the silent treatment over that (often after <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/06/taunting-and-goading-is-bullying-and.html" target="_blank">taunting and goading</a></b> their children to respond to subjects other than the gray rock subjects). <br /><br />A lot of therapists attempt to teach "gray rock" to their patients, and tell them to be patient, and that it will work over the long haul, but what is that teaching children?<a href="https://secondchancetolive.org/2007/05/24/dont-talk-dont-trust-and-dont-feel/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank"> Don't talk, don't trust, don't feel</a>,<b> </b>just like the parent teaches them to do all of the time?<b> </b>It's just another denial of self to placate a narcissist. I'd bet for Borderlines, Echoists and those with Dissociative Identity Disorder, it's the worst thing you could teach them. So <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/p/does-gray-rock-method-work-for-family.html" target="_blank">I'm not a big proponent of that method</a> </b>unless it's a work situation. There's got to be a better way. <br /><br />The sad thing is that gaslighting a child is pretty much a given when it comes to narcissistic and sociopathic parents. It is incredibly common. And the rate of narcissistic and sociopathic individuals is growing (it accounts for <b>the upswing in school and mass shootings</b> as well - I'm working on a piece about that). Narcissistic parents may make up about 8 percent of parents (this accounts for the fact that many narcissists aren't diagnosed - they generally don't go to therapy). So this constant drumming for parents to teach children lessons that matter for society, like peaceful resolutions, respecting your fellow human beings, telling the truth, being kind, may be lost. While parents gaslight to get continually more power, control and domination over their children (and adult children for as long as the parent is alive), with very few laws or societal pressures to stop it, it does have a huge impact on society. And narcissists are consistently going to be teaching lessons that hurt people without any upside. <br /><br />Jealous, rageful, power hungry, unethical narcissists should not be teachers of children, period. And eventually some of the children they are trying to teach realize that too. <br /><br />My own feeling is that gaslighting will hold our evolution back in a big way, and for a long time. To have society full of amygdala hijacked PTSD'd adult children who can't talk to their parent and get reasonable responses, and the narcissists that prey upon them for their own selfish, self serving purposes, will create a culture that is not sustainable. Narcissists and sociopaths will never care about this fact (they don't even care about other people much), so it is up to the rest of us to care about this. <br /><br />Assuming that <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/03/putin-at-war-is-he-malignant-narcissist.html" target="_blank">Putin may be a malignant narcissist</a></b>, how is the lesson he is trying to teach the Ukrainian population working out? How are the torture lessons, in particular, working out? I bet you most of them are not learning that submission is a good idea. No, they are learning that Russians are dangerous, unreasonable, un-negotiable, impulsively destructive and terrorizing, that they don't have good intentions, and that they must be driven out. I bet that is the main lesson they are learning. I think even children learn the same lessons from malignant narcissistic parents (or any other family member). <br /><br />Dictators who invade other countries are usually arrogant Malignant Narcissists who tell people what to think, how to behave, what kind of decision-making they have a right to, and what to believe. They imprison people who make minor infractions while they have criminal intentions every day, have people murdered for instance. Their populations are lied to about the intentions of other countries on purpose. They are taught to be prejudiced. The dictators expect complete submission and loyalty to the dictator while he shows his loyalty to no one. This is the Hellish world we want for the human race going forward, for dictators to tell people what to do, how to think, and how to feel? <br /><br />And how do they do this? By gaslighting their population. Wars would be very hard to wage without lots of gaslighting and trying to turn people into full time echoists and submissive marionettes. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.verywellfamily.com/are-you-gaslighting-your-kids-5079089" target="_blank">Are You Gaslighting Your Kids?</a></b> - by Sherri Gordon, medically reviewed by Ann-Louise T. Lockhart, PsyD, ABPP for Very Well Family<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/my-side-the-couch/202211/when-parents-gaslight-their-children" target="_blank">The Danger of Parents Gaslighting Their Children (They deserve respect, at every age.)</a></b> - by Daniel S. Lobel Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br /><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/pro/exhausted-woman/2019/12/gaslighting-how-a-parent-can-drive-a-kid-crazy#1" target="_blank">Gaslighting: How a Parent Can Drive a Kid Crazy</a></b> - Medically reviewed by Scientific Advisory Board — By Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC for Psych Central</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/liking-the-child-you-love/202211/the-top-5-gaslighting-phrases-struggling-adult-children" target="_blank">The Top 5 Gaslighting Phrases of Struggling Adult Children (Shut down gaslighting by not getting sucked into it.)</a></b> - by Jeffrey Bernstein Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/signs-of-gaslighting-parents" target="_blank">27 Signs Your Parent Is Gaslighting You & What To Do About It</a></b> - by Abby Moore, expert review by Chamin Ajjan, LCSW, A-CBT, CST<br /><br />I also talk about how gaslighting can make children vulnerable to predatory relationships: <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/setting-boundaries-for-victims-of.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Setting Boundaries (for Victims of Narcissistic or Psychopathic Abuse)</a><br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/are-gaslighters-aware-what-they-do" target="_blank">Are Gaslighters Aware of What They Do? (</a></b><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/are-gaslighters-aware-what-they-do" target="_blank">Do gaslighters know they're manipulative, or do they do it without realizing it?)</a> </b>- by Stephanie A. Sarkis Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.psycom.net/gaslighting-parents-families" target="_blank">Gaslighting in Families: Signs of Gaslighting Parents</a></b> - by Stacey Colino, medically reviewed by Jean Kim, MD for Psycom<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.choosingtherapy.com/gaslighting-parents/" target="_blank">Gaslighting Parents: Signs & How to Respond</a></b> - by Silvi Saxena MBA, MSW, LSW, CCTP, OSW-C, medically reviewed by Rajy Abulhosn MD for Choosing Therapy<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">WHAT THE ESCALATION OF ABUSE<br />HAS TO DO WITH THIS TOPIC<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Most abusers don't stop to think, "Escalating abuse and keeping it going isn't working. They don't seem to be learning what I want them to learn. They don't seem to be changing in the way that I want them to change. They aren't trusting me or looking at me as a teacher. They aren't doing what I tell them to do. They don't even think my lessons are worth listening to." - no they don't think that way!<br /><br />Most abusers live in fantasies: <br />1. fantasies that people can change more than they actually can (if they looked at themselves, they'd notice they are highly resistant to change - so how are other people supposed to change to the drastic levels they expect?)<br />2. fantasies that they will keep gaining power, control and domination in relationships<br />3. fantasies that they <i>are</i> in control of others when they really aren't<br />4. fantasies that they are much more magnetic, persuasive, intelligent, wealthy, powerful and deceptive than they really are - a lot of us can see through this posturing, more than they'd be comfortable with, in fact.<br />5. fantasies of others submitting to their every wish and whim<br />6. fantasies that others will submit to being <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">infantilized and/or parentified</a></b> at the whims and commands of the abuser <br /><br />But the biggest fantasy of all is that if they keep increasing the pain on their victim, the victim will, after enough torture, change the way the abuser wants them to change. As I've pointed out before, they don't understand any of the research that has been done on personal change, otherwise they might take a second look at their methods and attitudes. Some of why they "just don't get it" comes from having such a profound lack of empathy - they can't even understand people on that level, so, of course, they don't understand people enough to know that growing their sadism is not a good choice <i>for them</i>. <br /><br /> What they really tend to think is this: "This isn't working. Apparently, I've got to increase the pain and keep increasing the pain until they come to their senses! Wow, are they stupid for not giving into me!" <br /><br />I hope I have proved above why they are the ones with the blind spots, not their victims. </div></div></div></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">FURTHER READING<br />general</div></div></div></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandoned_child_syndrome" target="_blank">Abandoned child syndrome</a></b> - Wikipedia<br /><br /><b><a href="https://dralisonblock.com/fear-abandonment-lasting-effects-trauma/" target="_blank">FEAR OF ABANDONMENT: THE LASTING EFFECTS OF TRAUMA</a></b> - by Dr. Alison Block for her own website (Health Psychology Center)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/blog/heal-pain-of-dismissive-mother" target="_blank">Tips to Heal After Growing Up with a Dismissive Mother</a></b> - by Sandra Silva Casabianca, Medically reviewed by Cydney Ortiz, PsyD for Psych Central <br /><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/blog/dysfunction/2017/07/19-lasting-effects-of-abandoning-or-emotionally-unavailable-parents#1" target="_blank">19 Lasting Effects of Abandoning or Emotionally Unavailable Parents</a></b> - by Audrey Sherman, Ph.D. for Psych Central<br /><br /><b><a href="https://drjonicewebb.com/the-3-main-issues-of-the-abandoned-child-in-adulthood/" target="_blank">How To Overcome Abandonment Issues From Childhood</a></b> - by Dr. Jonice Webb for her own website<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/tech-support/202110/unloved-daughters-and-the-pain-maternal-abandonment" target="_blank">Unloved Daughters and the Pain of Maternal Abandonment ("She felt absolutely justified in leaving us.")</a></b> - by Peg Streep for Psychology Today<br /><br /><b><a href="https://medium.com/narcissistic-abuse-rehab/why-do-narcissists-discard-their-own-children-f05d10006a2" target="_blank">Why do narcissists discard their own children?</a></b> - by Manya Wakefield for Medium.com<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-autism-spectrum-disorder/202109/5-reasons-narcissistic-parents-replace-their-children" target="_blank">5 Reasons Narcissistic Parents "Replace" Their Children (Being rejected and replaced can lead to lifelong challenges.)</a></b> - by Claire Jack Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br /><br /><b><a href="https://thenarcissistinyourlife.com/narcissists-abandon-their-families-and-re-invent-themselves-4/" target="_blank">Narcissists Abandon Their Families and Re-Invent Themselves</a></b> - by Linda Martinez-Lewi, Ph.D. for her own website<br /><br /><b><a href="https://childrenofnarcissists.org.uk/the-fear-of-abandonment/" target="_blank">The Fear of Abandonment</a></b> - by Sarah Graham for Sarah Graham Counseling</div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/here-s-what-spanking-does-kids-none-it-good-doctors-n931306" target="_blank">Here's what spanking does to kids. None of it is good, doctors say. ("Discipline older children by temporarily removing favorite privileges, such as sports activities or playing with friends.")</a></b> - by Maggie Fox for NBC News<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/encountering-america/201409/the-problem-time-outs-0#:~:text=They%20often%20make%20children%20angrier,(Siegal%20%26%20Bryson%202014)." target="_blank">The Problem with Time-Outs (Time-outs delivered in anger may have damaging effects.)</a></b> - by Jessica Grogan Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.parents.com/toddlers-preschoolers/discipline/time-out/why-time-out-is-out/" target="_blank">Why Time-Out Is Out (Six experts explain why one of the most popular discipline tactics is also one of the most misused.)</a></b> - from the Editors of Parents<br /><br /><b><a href="https://ourlittleplaynest.com/5-alternatives-to-time-out-that-actually-work/" target="_blank">5 Alternatives To Time-out That Actually Work</a></b> - by the Editors of Our Little Play Nest<br /><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/pro/exhausted-woman/2018/01/the-confusing-narcissistic-cycle-of-abandonment-and-return#1" target="_blank">The Confusing Narcissistic Cycle of Abandonment and Return</a></b> - by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC, Medically reviewed by Scientific Advisory Board for Psych Central<br /><br /><b><a href="https://cbtpsychology.com/narcissisticmother/" target="_blank">How to Deal with a Narcissistic Mother</a></b> - by Giselle Franco for CBT Psychology for Personal Development </div><br /><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaigns_against_corporal_punishment" target="_blank">Campaigns against corporal punishment</a></b> - Wikipedia<br /><br /><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporal_punishment" target="_blank">Corporal punishment</a></b> - Wikipedia (history)<br /></div><p><b><a href="https://connectedfamilies.org/do-your-consequences-build-up-or-tear-down/" target="_blank">Consequences vs Punishment: What’s the Difference?</a></b> - by Jim and Lynne Jackson for Connected Families </p><p><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-autism-spectrum-disorder/202008/6-reasons-some-people-hurt-the-ones-they-love" target="_blank">6 Reasons Some People Hurt the Ones They Love ...and what you can do if you're on the receiving end.</a></b> - by Claire Jack Ph.D., reviewed by Devon Frye for Psychology Today<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.insider.com/children-of-narcissistic-parents-are-either-favourite-or-scapegoat-2019-1" target="_blank">Narcissistic parents identify their children as either a favourite or a scapegoat, and they pit them against each other</a></b> - by Lindsay Dodgson for Insider.com </p><p><b><a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/when-your-spouse-doesnt-want-change-2302197" target="_blank">Dealing With a Partner Who Doesn't Want Change</a></b> - by Sheri Stritof, Medically reviewed by Carly Snyder, MD for Very Well Mind <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.marriage.com/advice/domestic-violence-and-abuse/signs-you-are-experiencing-emotional-and-mental-abuse/" target="_blank">50 signs of Emotional Abuse: Meaning & Causes</a></b> - by by Sylvia Smith, Approved by Paula Cookson, Registered Psychotherapist<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.insider.com/mutually-abusive-relationships-dont-exist-therapists-say-2022-5" target="_blank">There's no such thing as a 'mutually abusive' relationship, therapists say. With abuse, one partner is always in power.</a></b> - by Julia Naftulin and Keyaira Kelly for Insider.com<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/when-there-is-no-getting-away-grief-of-sibling-bullying-1219175" target="_blank">When There Is No Getting Away: The Grief of Sibling Bullying</a></b> - by Sarah Swenson, MA, LMHC </p><p><b><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/comments/7jri10/did_anyone_else_have_a_golden_child_sibling_and/" target="_blank">Did anyone else have a golden child sibling and you were punished for their bad behaviour?</a></b> - Reddit question (RaisedByNarcissists)<br /></p><p><b><a href="https://psych2go.net/10-ways-to-deal-with-a-toxic-sibling/" target="_blank">10 Ways to Deal with a Toxic Sibling</a></b> - by Psych To Go<br /> <br /><b><a href="https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/from-psychopaths-to-everyday-sadists-why-do-humans-harm-the-harmless/" target="_blank">From Psychopaths to 'everyday sadists': why do humans harm the harmless?</a></b> - by Simon McCarthy-Jones, Trinity College, Dublin for The University of Dublin<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/fulfillment-at-any-age/202301/what-does-it-take-to-restore-a-broken-relationship" target="_blank">What It Takes to Fix a Broken Relationship (Co-rumination, moral repair, and forgiveness.)</a></b> - by Susan Krauss Whitbourne PhD, ABPP for Psychology Today</p><p><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/blog/imperfect/2019/10/its-okay-to-cut-ties-with-toxic-family-members" target="_blank">Its Okay to Cut Ties with Toxic Family Members (Would your life be happier, healthier, and more peaceful without certain people in it?)</a></b> - by Sharon Martin, LCSW for Psych Central<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.choosingtherapy.com/narcissist-gaslighting/" target="_blank">Narcissistic Gaslighting: What It Is, Signs, & How Cope</a></b> - by Hailey Shafir, LPCS, LCAS, CCS, Reviewed by: Benjamin Troy, MD for Choosing Therapy<br /><br /><b><a href="https://overcomewithus.com/narcissist-personality/examples-of-narcissist-gaslighting-and-ways-to-deal-with-it" target="_blank">Examples of Narcissist Gaslighting and Ways to Deal with It</a></b> - by Chidi Mills for Overcomers Counseling<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/communication-success/201707/6-common-traits-narcissists-and-gaslighters" target="_blank">6 Common Traits of Narcissists and Gaslighters (How narcissists and gaslighters emotionally manipulate and exploit victims.)</a></b> - by Preston Ni M.S.B.A., Reviewed by Lybi Ma for Psychology Today<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.thelifedoctor.org/the-narcissist-and-their-children" target="_blank">The Narcissist and Their Children</a></b> - by Supriya McKenna for The Life Doctor<br /><b><br /><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-narcissist-in-your-life/202104/the-hidden-trauma-neglect-in-the-narcissistic-family" target="_blank">The Hidden Trauma of Neglect in the Narcissistic Family (Neglect is the most common form of abuse.)</a></b> - by Julie L. Hall, for Psychology Today<br />excerpt:<br /><i> Key Points:<br /></i><i> * Narcissists often cultivate the idea that they are “perfect” parents, but neglect is common in narcissistic families.<br /></i><i> * Narcissistic parents may neglect kids' emotional, physical, safety, medical, and/or educational needs.<br /></i><i> * Neglected children pay a high price in their physical, emotional, and psychological development.<br /><br /></i><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/peaceful-parenting/202212/micro-abandonments-how-a-narcissist-gains-emotional-control" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">How Narcissists Gain Emotional Control With Micro-Abandonments (Love bombing, and then sudden devaluation.)</a> - by Erin Leonard Ph.D. for Psychology Today</p><p><br /><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-emotional-intensity/202205/3-ways-narcissistic-parents-can-abuse-children" target="_blank">3 Ways Narcissistic Parents Can Abuse Children 1. Viewing children as an extension of themselves.</a></b> - by Imi Lo for Psychology Today<br /><br /><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/from-victim-to-victor/202103/what-are-typical-behaviours-of-narcissistic-abuse-survivors" target="_blank"><b>What Are Typical Behaviours of Narcissistic Abuse Survivors? Five things they have in common.</b></a> - by Mariette Jansen Ph.D.<br /><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/blog/recovering-narcissist/2019/04/5-manipulation-tactics-narcissistic-parents-use-to-control-their-adult-children#1" target="_blank">5 Manipulation Tactics Narcissistic Parents Use To Control Their Adult Children</a></b> - by Shahida Arabi, MA for Psych Central<br />excerpt:<br /><i> Adult children of narcissists go through a lifetime’s worth of abuse. Narcissistic parents lack empathy, exploit their children for their own agendas, and are unlikely to seek treatment or change their destructive behaviors long-term (Kacel, Ennis, & Pereira, 2017). Their children often endure severe psychological maltreatment, as their parents employ behaviors like bullying, terrorizing, coercive control, insults, demands, and threats to keep them compliant (Spinazzola et al., 2014). This form of trauma places children of narcissists at risk for suicidality, low self-esteem, depression, self-harm, substance abuse, attachment disorders, and complex PTSD, leading to symptoms similar to children who were physically or sexually abused (Gibson, 2016; Schwartz, 2016; Spinazzola et al., 2014, Walker, 2013).</i><br /><i> If children of narcissists choose to remain in contact with their abusive parents, they will continue to encounter manipulation even as adults. The same tactics which were employed to control them as children can still be powerful even when they are adults – perhaps even more so because these methods cause them to regress back into childhood states of fear, shame, and terror.</i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.scarymommy.com/narcissistic-parents-incapable-loving-children" target="_blank">Narcissistic Parents Are Literally Incapable Of Loving Their Children</a></b> - by JOANNA MCCLANAHAN for The Scary Mommy website<br />excerpt:<br /><i> Narcissistic parents see their children’s independence as a direct threat to the control they want or need over their lives.<br /> Out of desperation to retain control, narcissists will try to deliberately sabotage their child’s sense of self-worth.<br /></i><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/blog/heal-pain-of-dismissive-mother" target="_blank">Tips to Heal After Growing Up with a Dismissive Mother (Dismissive parenting can impact the way you see yourself, others, and the world in general. Identifying the signs may help you heal.)</a></b> - by Sandra Silva Casabianca, Medically reviewed by Cydney Ortiz, PsyD for Psych Central<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.constructionrehabplan.com/new-blog/unloved-in-childhood-10-common-effects-on-your-adult-self" target="_blank">UNLOVED IN CHILDHOOD: 10 COMMON EFFECTS ON YOUR ADULT SELF</a></b> - by Peg Streep for B.C. Construction Industry, Rehabilitation Plan<br /><b><br /><a href="https://parade.com/living/gaslighting-phrases" target="_blank">35 Common Gaslighting Phrases in Relationships and How To Respond, According to Therapists</a></b></p><div><b><a href="https://parade.com/living/gaslighting-phrases" target="_blank">(The lies that are told to create confusion.)</a></b> - by Renee Hanlon for Parade Magazine<br /><br /><a href="https://greatist.com/live/mother-daughter-jealousy#1" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Mother-Daughter Jealousy: Why It Happens and How to Cope</a> - by Fiona Thomas for Greatist<br />excerpt: <br /> <i> Broadly speaking, when a mother exhibits jealousy toward one or more of her offspring, she falls within the signifier of being a “narcissistic mother.”<br /> Senior therapist Sally Baker elaborates. “This is when a mother puts her own emotional needs above those of her children. It generally starts when the child is young, and growing up in a household headed by a narcissistic mother can be very damaging to a child’s development.”<br /></i><br /><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-legacy-distorted-love/201310/mothers-who-are-jealous-their-daughters" target="_blank">Mothers Who Are Jealous of Their Daughters (A mother’s jealousy distorts a daughter’s normal development.)</a></b> - by Karyl McBride Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br />excerpt:<br /><div><i> * A narcissistic mother may perceive her daughter as a threat.</i></div><div><i> * When a mother envies and then criticizes and devalues her daughter, she diminishes the threat to her own fragile self-esteem.</i></div><div><i> * As a daughter analyzes what her mother appears to be jealous about, she comes to feel unworthy.</i></div></div><p>Next up is a Richard Grannon video. His role is usually to help victims of narcissistic abuse, but in this video he acts the role of a narcissist who is intent on gaslighting and dominating his victim through erroneously blaming, and the reactions the victim has in being gaslighted. I'm not sure how I feel about him "acting the part of a narcissist", but this is exactly how it happens (especially for children and the vulnerable under the narcissist's "care"): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFi7Y02LJ1E" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Narcissist Speaking About Gaslighting</a><br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq1NA3WGRZ0" target="_blank">Narcissist Pays Heavy Price for Betrayal Fantasy</a> </b>- by Professor Sam Vaknin (You Tube) <br /> Note: Sam Vaknin is a self described narcissist who educates others about Narcissistic Personality Disorder. He got a PhD in Psychology and is now a psychology professor<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mjmr-9pt7M" target="_blank">Why Narcissist Never Says “I am Sorry”</a></b> - by Professor Sam Vaknin (You Tube)<br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><br />FOUND ON FACEBOOK:<br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf2xOUAW0vr2aRsoob16saCBlLm7J7IQhF0f8KFckDBMrIEfTof-gjl8KgpE5Gxi8BZ5QztfdOkyXIQBUl25CHssVOyz191phgbfNaaJg8LxMn4OafzNcz-fRXQH4Prt-ulV6LWJr5eCsSJHzNL9VgQaZIrId3JaColi2Hxpcu-cKkGLuOyaq76YKU/s656/Physiological%20Damage.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="656" data-original-width="654" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf2xOUAW0vr2aRsoob16saCBlLm7J7IQhF0f8KFckDBMrIEfTof-gjl8KgpE5Gxi8BZ5QztfdOkyXIQBUl25CHssVOyz191phgbfNaaJg8LxMn4OafzNcz-fRXQH4Prt-ulV6LWJr5eCsSJHzNL9VgQaZIrId3JaColi2Hxpcu-cKkGLuOyaq76YKU/s16000/Physiological%20Damage.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_v2cs-Y6_NHKIa9mQGFZxkaMB7m9Vwk6lwsf9SbIAbUQHFN-R7-yxgTlgwlLVKlMKtJ8dMdLTk70L-35S9H5DimWCHK2PSZg5vLiKHxqlFex6HYJ1rCqnejs_mIWksopxwOrjTHVMotcIcjOQlGFd5WYRozwQzBibIxccXCbX08W_HJdFnIIPKeoH/s598/arabi%20boundaries.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="598" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_v2cs-Y6_NHKIa9mQGFZxkaMB7m9Vwk6lwsf9SbIAbUQHFN-R7-yxgTlgwlLVKlMKtJ8dMdLTk70L-35S9H5DimWCHK2PSZg5vLiKHxqlFex6HYJ1rCqnejs_mIWksopxwOrjTHVMotcIcjOQlGFd5WYRozwQzBibIxccXCbX08W_HJdFnIIPKeoH/s16000/arabi%20boundaries.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvWDS4YEBo28bzyt0P0n-flmu2Y6qQXn4Uozqgh86j134Nxl4YcEMGDTMiwRflJZN12GyuIl_BFq-WaHNEQeczRtU6QmQNin36_PYq4qQcYliq5LZtY7OWgfNsC5sTFSGlothBLYCgxNfA4v_9SQX-MSMuELUoXyfZf4_S-k__kYwA_ENZpTSdPsXt/s656/narc%20abandonment.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="656" data-original-width="656" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvWDS4YEBo28bzyt0P0n-flmu2Y6qQXn4Uozqgh86j134Nxl4YcEMGDTMiwRflJZN12GyuIl_BFq-WaHNEQeczRtU6QmQNin36_PYq4qQcYliq5LZtY7OWgfNsC5sTFSGlothBLYCgxNfA4v_9SQX-MSMuELUoXyfZf4_S-k__kYwA_ENZpTSdPsXt/s16000/narc%20abandonment.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY5VgUOA2A-TDjsBflsUJRFh0nQaRT6noMGfsFpBooG4JwfYcyLnMG9NF61AB7hgeDPvFmVwbUY48HQMqf55avQG9o5_3j-uvtD8UgHpKT1ppfVqse3UX_j8ynQZiotTAIobiKHMhZ0SOf8w1jzabltCXbxHQROEG4Mw6E-u-Fk8TmFAivIix7M8fG/s518/narcs%20think%20you%20betrayed%20them.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="518" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY5VgUOA2A-TDjsBflsUJRFh0nQaRT6noMGfsFpBooG4JwfYcyLnMG9NF61AB7hgeDPvFmVwbUY48HQMqf55avQG9o5_3j-uvtD8UgHpKT1ppfVqse3UX_j8ynQZiotTAIobiKHMhZ0SOf8w1jzabltCXbxHQROEG4Mw6E-u-Fk8TmFAivIix7M8fG/s16000/narcs%20think%20you%20betrayed%20them.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-64601081899218757622023-02-28T14:52:00.034-08:002023-06-27T15:47:33.498-07:00Should you Forgive Abusive People (with a Discussion on Narcissistic Abuse, Forgiveness Shaming, and a personal journey)<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJktT8EgvKEwODqzRUvKioUlEcTbd2pLLQAVcnaFpz-uH0cLuVnQG16P7HdLAEJ3-F4r2oLh5gzLjJV4QHUbSv0CgUz2iRqdTVOsGMCdazP4V55F5kU_7fn6Lbkly91ExpjAl0HLxS6WipI2b9R-ThZPRm5bLhpJAmQCH8nAff5BpwLFNAXKzYU7cs/s580/Know%20What%20Forgiveness%20Shaming%20Is.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJktT8EgvKEwODqzRUvKioUlEcTbd2pLLQAVcnaFpz-uH0cLuVnQG16P7HdLAEJ3-F4r2oLh5gzLjJV4QHUbSv0CgUz2iRqdTVOsGMCdazP4V55F5kU_7fn6Lbkly91ExpjAl0HLxS6WipI2b9R-ThZPRm5bLhpJAmQCH8nAff5BpwLFNAXKzYU7cs/s16000/Know%20What%20Forgiveness%20Shaming%20Is.jpg" /></a><br /><br /></div>(edited on 3/4/23 over grammatical errors) <br /><p></p><p>First of all, what is "forgiveness shaming"? <br /><br />It is shaming a victim of abuse or crime because they did not forgive the abuser or criminal. Shahida Arabi, a respected writer on subjects about abuse has one of the best articles I have read on forgiveness shaming. Here are a few:<br /></p>1. <b><a href="https://self-care-haven.com/2016/12/28/should-we-forgive-our-abusers/" target="_blank">Should We ‘Forgive’ Our Abusers?</a> </b>(2016 article)<br />2. <b><a href="https://self-care-haven.com/2017/01/19/7-spiritual-ideas-that-enable-abuse-and-shame-the-victim/" target="_blank">7 Spiritual Ideas That Enable Abuse and Shame the Victim</a> </b>(2017 article)<br />3.<a href="https://psychcentral.com/blog/recovering-narcissist/2019/05/5-victim-shaming-myths-that-harm-abuse-and-trauma-survivors-and-encourage-spiritual-bypassing#1" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank"> 5 Victim-Shaming Myths That Harm Abuse and Trauma Survivors and Encourage Spiritual Bypassing</a> (2019)<br />the five include (from her article): <br />* "MYTH #1: You are not a victim! Get out of a victim mindset."<br />* "MYTH #2: You must forgive an abuser in order to heal. Don’t be bitter or angry."<br />* "MYTH # 3: Abusers just need love, understanding and more hugs."<br />* "MYTH # 4: What about the abuser? They had it so rough! We are all interconnected, so we have to help each other."<br />* "MYTH #5: Everything is a mirror. Send positive energy to this person and situation and it will be reflected back to you!"<br /> Note: the reasons that these are all myths is written about in the same article. Some psychologists have done enough research into how these attitudes effect perpetrators (not much, and not in a good way, and not in a way that will keep a victim safe from more abuse). <br /> The myths are worth reading. The fact is that perpetrators are often hard wired from childhood to have attitudes and beliefs about certain people, and they most often have the fixed attitude that abuse, domination and control of certain types of people are warranted. <br /> How abuse and trauma recovery works is that when the pressure is relieved to forgive an abuser, the victim can relax enough to start to heal. <br /><div><br /></div><div>related: <a href="https://www.survivingtherapistabuse.com/2015/08/article-by-shahida-arabi-what-abuse-survivors-dont-know-10-life-changing-truths/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">“What Abuse Survivors Don’t Know: 10 Life-Changing Truths”</a> - from Surviving Therapist Abuse<br />and<b> </b>"<a href="https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2018/04/how-to-forgive-yourself-for-something-you-shouldnt-have-to-forgive-yourself-for-healing-self-blame-after-abuse-and-assault/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">How To Forgive Yourself For Something You Shouldn’t Have To Forgive Yourself For: Healing Self-Blame After Abuse And Assault"</a><b> </b>- from the Thought Catalog<br /><br /><b>In another post</b> I will discuss why complex trauma survivors are often encouraged NOT to forgive their abusers, and how forgiveness can negatively impact trauma therapy. <br /><p>Anyway, hopefully, you can see right away what the problem is when it comes to pressuring a victim into forgiving abusers. It's just another way to shame victims for what they endured and for what they are continuing to endure in the way of trauma, trauma symptoms, of losing a piece of their lives, or still being threatened and/or stalked by their abusers. <br /><br />It's also a form of telling victims what to do, what to think and what to feel, something their abusers do plenty of, sometimes multiple times a day with rage in their hearts, so to hear how they should be relating to someone who hurt them, is just so triggering and short-sighted. <br /><br />The other thing it does is to normalize abuse in society. If abuse is always forgivable then it will always be acceptable to some degree. Some folks <i>want</i> it to be acceptable because they are abusive themselves, and if they can get away with abuse by putting fault on their victims for <i>not being forgiving</i>, then they can keep doing it. <br /><br />I mean, <i>really</i>; why is there so much focus on victims and how <i>they</i> behave? And how much they are forgiving, or not forgiving, as if that should be the main focus in any violent or abusive situation. <br /><br />So here is where this attitude probably started: it is done to make sure that people keep their marriage vows? To make sure the family unit stays together as a whole? But if there is a person being abused in either of these situations, the unity is a sham: there is<b> <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">no empathy</a></b> inside it and most victims can't starve themselves of empathy for the agenda of getting along with an abuser forever. In other words, the unit isn't really a unit, though it may look like one from outside to strangers. And that's the issue: it becomes about presenting <b>a false image</b> to outsiders which is disgusting to any member enduring abuse, and to many in the society at large once they find out what is really going on. <br /><br />And this is one reason why scapegoating of victims happen. They discard the victim for complaining and making the rest of the family members and the family unit "look bad". To the victim they say, "You are at fault for not forgiving (insert name here - the abuser)!" And a lot of victims are rejected for not forgiving the family abuser. To the outside they tell others that their victim is crazy, unstable, evil, addicted, a whore, and abusive, or anything they want to say that vilifies the victim instead of vilifying the problem of abuse. <br /><br />It is often why scapegoats are no longer part of the family. Normalizing abuse inside the family is somehow easier than throwing a victim away. Many of these "normalize the abuse" type families even try to falsify evidence or characteristics, or give one side of a story to make the victim look bad. The whole family can be arm-twisted to go along with <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/04/narcissists-sociopaths-and-abusers-why.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">false narratives</a>, and they do try hard. <br /><br />All of this is highly unethical and immoral, and the one thing that victims can keep track of is how far certain family members go, and are willing to go, in the ethics and morality department to blame and disparage victims of abuse. In my mind that should be the deciding factor in whether victims should be part of the family, or forgive the abuser(s) or leave the family behind. <br /><br />While it is true that victims get angry about the way they are treated, the family tries to use the victim's reactions to abuse to paint the victim as a perpetrator of abuse just because the victim got angry. So that means there is pressure on the victim to take the abuse lying down, and not to say a word about it. Highly unethical too. <br /><br />It is hard to just leave without saying things like "But you don't understand!", "No, I didn't do that!", "No, that act belongs to so-and-so (the abuser)!" <br /><br />Or let us say that one parent is trying to protect a child from the abuse of the other parent. The parent who is trying to force the child into forgiving, divorces the spouse (the protector) so that the child is forced to forgive the family abuser. What this means is that one member is willing to divorce over "forgiveness shaming". </p><p>Or an older brother is trying to protect his younger sister from abuse in the family. Because forgiveness is expected of the victim, they punish him for trying to protect the scapegoat by ostracizing him from the family. They may even try to cover the reason for the ostracism and "act the part" that they are "super nice to the victim after all" by being as kind as they think they have to be for awhile. But abuse tends to be cyclical, going from a honeymoon period, to devaluing the victim, to rage and abuse of the victim. This is highly immoral too. <br /><br />Eventually, most families realize their scapegoat isn't so fawning any more when the scapegoat gets enough of these cycles, which most scapegoats do get exhausted from, and also find themselves sick and unable to cope. <br /><br />Just about any other situation in life is preferable to being stuck in a cycle of abuse, so scapegoats start dreaming of a way to escape. So then the scapegoat is confiding in others (because after all, most people have empathy even if the family does not), which makes the family really uncomfortable. "Oh, no! We are being exposed for who we are! We must STOP this behavior in our scapegoat before we are shamed by the world! What will our friends think of us!? Maybe other family members will think badly of us and not support us or visit us if they think we are bad people!" So then they must punish the victim and throw them out of the family. As you can see, they keep going lower and lower in the ethics department just to save their sorry asses and to keep up an image that they are upstanding people ... Maybe they go to church as a way to help with their image (other people won't suspect church-going people to be abusive, will they?) ... Or they flaunt their successes and money ... ("Other people won't suspect successful wealthy people are abusive, will they?" Actually, yes. Abuse tends to happen most in poor families and in wealthy families). Or perhaps they are college professors ("People don't expect college professors to be unethical, do they? Well, we're so smart, we can talk our way out of anything!"). Or maybe they are politicians ("People don't suspect politicians because we are working on behalf of other people, our constituents, day in and day out! No one would ever suspect a politician of being abusive and of trying to cover anything up!"). Or they just try to grab any old "holier-than-thou" <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">role</a> </b>that looks convenient in terms of keeping shame at bay. </p><p>These kinds of situations are very common in abusive narcissistic families. Image comes first, always. End of story. </p><p>And this is also an ignorant and unenlightened way to handle abuse in a family. Most families do not do that. They know a victim and a perpetrator should not be in the same room, the same house, the same vicinity. They know they have to separate them. <br /><br />Not alcoholic families. And definitely not narcissistic families. <br /><br />While they may not need the scapegoated family member to be a part of the family, they are probably paranoid enough to keep false narratives circulating about the scapegoat. If they feel their image might be getting a hit, they graduate to manufacturing evermore false narratives, especially if they see a scapegoat in a role they don't want or like, that is making them feel uncomfortable (note: most families who scapegoat want their scapegoats suffering, being addicted, getting in trouble with the law, and becoming homeless can be on that list too for what they want ... and why do they want it? So they will not be seen as "at fault"). Then they try to tell outsiders that their scapegoat is trying to manufacture things about them instead (<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/12/important-darvo-tactic-and-why-it-is.html" target="_blank">the DARVO tactic</a></b>). What they really want is to keep the scapegoat in a perpetual role of being abused and blamed within the family secrecies and delegate certain family members to hide the evidence and to scheme more ways to keep the shame at bay.<br /><br />Again, the more they have to manufacture, the more unethical they are. <br /><br />I personally think it is very unhealthy for scapegoats to give into the pressure of forgiving family abusers. If you forgive an abuser, the abuse against the victim usually escalates. It doesn't just go away because that's the nature of abuse: <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">it always escalates</a></b>. This is especially true when family members truly believe they are not accountable at all for the scapegoat's fate, which most likely they won't be, even if the scapegoat is murdered by one of their own, or dies by suicide. If they are always going in the direction of false narratives and false gossip, there is your proof that they would rather make their scapegoat out to be a monster instead of risking their own image. <br /><br />Once they start going down the rabbit hole of escalating immoral behavior, they usually don't stop. And you can see from the paragraphs above that they get much worse. They get to a point where they can't stop: being immoral is a run-away train where they have to keep it up just because they have told so many lies and it becomes a situation where they have to live in their own lies (like living in their own sh*t). "Got an image problem? Just p##p out some more sh*t about the victim." <br /><br />Anyway, let's get real here as to why it is so hard to get on this forgiveness path that <i>other people want for us or for themselves</i>, especially when there is still a significant amount of danger for that member, or partner, and especially as it can make victims vulnerable to more abuse. I hope I can explain why further in the post. <br /><br />Let's just say that you are living in <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/03/putin-at-war-is-he-malignant-narcissist.html" target="_blank">Ukraine in the current Russia-Ukraine war</a></b>. Some atrocities have happened to your family members; your house has been bombed and is uninhabitable; in the process, your beloved cats died and you lost all of your worldly possessions except for a few items you stored in a water-tight safe underground, and you are now trying to flee to Kiev to live with a sister. The overwhelming emotions you are most likely to feel are anger, trauma, and fear. Right now you probably hate the Russians for what they have done to your life and to your entire country.<br /><br />It's easy for someone in another country to say, "You need to forgive the Russians for what they've done to you!" And some people who might insist on you making the first gesture of forgiveness, rather than the perpetrator making the first move of <u>being accountable</u> for the war they committed, might even say things like, "Maybe Ukraine just needs to give away some land to Russia to stop the violence." <br /><br />What?! That's just not realistic because once you've given invaders a prize for their aggression, they are going to keep invading. <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">Escalation</a></b> of abuse, of atrocities, of invasiveness, of bombing citizens is actually more likely to happen than that it will stop (unless they get a new leader or there is no army left). Hopefully my underlined links to the post on escalation will help you see that it is more likely than less likely. <br /><br />And just as aggressive nations keep pushing forward with their aggressions, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">so too does a domestic abuse offender or domestic violence offender</a></b>, usually. They overwhelmingly do <u>not</u> give up on trying to hurt their victims. If anything, they want to prove to themselves that they can keep hurting their victims, over and over again, and that they have the power to keep making their victims absorb it. Many of them are making plans to have even more control over their victims than they had before. If it seems too gnarly for them to try to keep up their aggressive behavior (like too much danger in being caught), they search for new victims instead, people who don't have as much inner strength, confidence, and intelligence to discern what the perpetrator's main motivations are. <br /><br />What is more likely to happen is that Ukrainian citizens will probably avoid Russians (unless they are in the army with full combat gear) just as a domestic violence victims will eventually try to avoid a domestic violence perpetrator. <br /><br />Not only that, but relationships will switch and change. Ukrainians are pretty likely not to want to see their Russian relatives. Likewise, limited contact with the closest people to the perpetrator will probably be a part of what happens to victims of domestic violence as well. <br /><br />While it may be a tenet of Christianity to forgive all kinds of criminals, murderers, aggressors, sex offenders and invasive types of individuals, it doesn't feel all that natural to forgive when you are in the middle of it, does it? So maybe the founders of Christianity meant that forgiveness can come at any time, when the perpetrator has died, or when the Russians have retreated, or maybe even for generations down the road. </p><p>We know Jesus forgave the people who tortured him because "they know not what they do." <br /><br />In other words, his torturers had a lot of blind spots. Most abusive people have an incredible number of blind spots, even if they willingly do. For instance: they think they know their victims, but if you talk to survivors, most of the abusers either did not spend enough time with them to get to know them, or tried to impose their negative views about them constantly. It's one thing to criticize a person a few times over your life, but the constant criticism usually points to abuse and abusers, and to narcissism especially. This is especially true if they can't handle any criticism themselves. </p><p>Most of them do not know their victims, especially the inner strength of their victims. Most of them make huge blunders on how victims will react to abuse, as one example. That is because they are too focused on being torturers or robbers or what ever crime or unethical act they are trying to commit to see or care what is really happening in the situation they are in, or who their victims <i>really</i> are - most have wild fantasies about their victims; that is why they practice <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html">perspecticide</a></b> so much. If they had empathy, they'd be able to tell more of who their victims were, but if they had empathy, they wouldn't be able to torture either. This is their double-bind: no empathy, no knowledge, but want to torture anyway, but they want enough knowledge to understand what the outcome will be <i>for them</i>, which will put them in the position of having to have empathy to get to the bottom of what their victims are about, which will make them feel and understand the pain of their victims way too much for their comfort (they are dying of shame inside for adding to the victim's pain), and they can't have that much of an understanding, so they go back to stabbing at their victims in the dark again. ... (that sentence is kind of like a logic question on a law school entrance exam - hope you can follow it). <br /><br />In other words, they live in the squalor of their own unethical behaviors, the poverty of not having the "authentic" respect and grandiosity that they crave (they have to create more lies and postures to get there, <i>they</i> think). In discarding victims, they discard their own ethics and morality as well. Which of course, will create more shame in them, and down they go into a more paranoid mindset, needing to seek other sources of narcissistic supply or another victim, which creates a more criminal mindset, totally obsessed with revenge fantasies, which when realized will create even more shame about their ethics, more paranoia, more need to hide many, many more dirty deeds, down, down, down. </p><p>When scapegoats can see that, it actually boosts their healing journey. They stop thinking about their abusers altogether because they are immoral people, especially if they can be outside of the terrible abusive family matrix. When the abuser(s) show no empathy and have a criminal mindset it does not exactly motivate a victim to want to go back. <br /><br />I do think many victims eventually come to a place of contentment, joy and happiness in their lives, but I don't think forgiving is part of that equation unless you are in a good part of your life where you are healed and not weighed down by trauma symptoms. You can let me know in the comments section if you feel this way too. <br /><br />I think victims actually experience more "radical acceptance" than forgiveness, which I explain in the next chapter in more detail. Radical acceptance is like forgiveness in that it sets you free, but it doesn't leave you as vulnerable to continued abuse as "forgiving". From everything I have gleaned from forums, when forgiveness is pushed upon survivors by oneself or others it can create more trauma, more feelings of helplessness, and more feelings of grief and isolation. Victims need to get over their perpetrators in their own time, and the acceleration of the healing process comes from not having to forgive their perpetrators until they are ready to do so, if ever. In other words, it should come naturally, because like any emotion, it is either genuinely felt or not. It cannot be pushed or expected. And if it is expected, ask the question why. Is it because they want to get off the hook when they abuse? Is it because they want to control you and how you react? Is it because they have to believe in a certain dogma, and if you aren't aligned in your thinking with theirs, they can't accept it?</p><p>Even then, when people expect victims to forgive their abusers, many people think the victim should take the abuser back. It is defeating the purpose of healing from them in the first place. Abusive people trigger survivors. It just sends the survivor back into traumatic reactions they have to recover from again. So <u>forgiving does not mean taking an abuser back into your life</u>. <br /><br />Trying to forget they were abused is even worse in terms of healing. Repressing memories has terrible effects on the mind. This is even true when the only thing abusers can do is to keep spiraling down and out of control into more lies, more false narratives, more crimes, more hiding their dirty deeds, more revenge fantasies, more and more unethical behavior, more desires to hurt others, It is just not wise to stuff memories and compartmentalize them. You'll usually have lots of nightmares and lack sleep instead. <br /><br />Once an abuser hurts you, that's who they are: they hurt other people because they get something out of it. It is purposeful to them. In all likelihood, if they never apologize for hurting you, they get enjoyment out of it too (unless it's a totally compulsive unaware thing they are doing - but if they are trying to hide it, and explain it away, and blame-shift, it is not compulsive: they are doing it with <u>full awareness</u>). As long as they continue to be abusive, and continue to spiral down into unethical behaviors, they will continue to escalate the abuse if you are still communicating with them. There is no getting around it for a victim of abuse. <br /><br />But I do think it is possible to forgive abusers, but not necessary, especially if the victim is not called upon to take the perpetrator(s) back. In the act of forgiving, however, we usually do not forget the abuse (it's important to remember what happened to us so that it doesn't happen again, of course, or continue to happen). It's okay to forget about them as people, in the same way that Ukrainians who are living in another country forget about Russians in their day-to-day lives.</p><div style="text-align: center;">MY OWN JOURNEY IN TERMS OF FORGIVENESS</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">intro<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">I think it is always good to tell personal stories of how we get to the point of forgiving our abusers, what we are capable of when it comes to forgiveness and what we are not capable of, and what this actually means. <br /><br />So I started out this project by writing <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2013/06/why-i-started-this-blog-and-my-own-story.html" target="_blank">this blog post</a></b> from 2013. I talked about why I wanted to study alcoholism (which I still haven't done adequately enough) and narcissistic abuse. Largely the latter research was more compelling, and is done except for some minor new developments. I haven't posted everything yet because posts still need editing. <br /><br />But one of the new developments I wrote about in the last post is that <b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202012/do-narcissists-prefer-date-other-narcissists" target="_blank">narcissists prefer other narcissists</a></b>; however I always sensed that to be true anyway ... It just now means there is research to back it up. <br /><br />I mean how can you bully someone unless you are in a gang and delegating different types of bullying to others so that you don't take the full rap? And we know that narcissists do not like to bully on their own, and they definitely do not like being held accountable for anything, and that they will pass the buck to anyone, even their co-bullies! ... And since they are in a gang, and most likely it's only a single person or two they are bullying, they probably don't care whose fault is whose, unless one of them commits a crime, and even there they cover up for one another or make excuses. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We know the bully gang mentality especially if we attended public schools before the 2000s. We've seen this at work on playgrounds, in hallways and in classrooms despite the adult monitors. <br /><br />And that's the thing ... to be a full adult means monitoring the bullying, making sure it doesn't happen, not being a <i>join-in-on-the-perpetrators</i> kind of person. But a child-like entitled narcissistic adult <i>will</i> join in on the bullying. If they bully a lot or if it is on-going or severe, they are likely to be very high in narcissistic traits (listed in the right column of this blog <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/p/a-continuation-of-posts-about-abusers.html" target="_blank">and continuing to another page</a></b>).<br /><br />So narcissism is a disorder that starts in childhood. The person hasn't grown out of six year old narcissism. Most children who are six years old are naturally narcissistic; they have to emit emotions and care about their own well-being first and foremost to let their caretakers know that they need emotional comforting and responses, or food, or their clothes washed. Babies and small children emote a lot to get their caretakers attention. The more helpless they are to supply their own needs, the more narcissistic they will act in early childhood. However, if they rarely get their needs met, or the parent is turning away from the emoting of the child, the child tends to shut down emotionally, realizing that no one will come to take care of their needs. They also become flat emotionally (have trouble emitting emotions or understanding the emotions of others) and the brain development isn't happening at a normal pace either. This was <b><a href="https://neuro.hms.harvard.edu/centers-and-initiatives/harvard-mahoney-neuroscience-institute/about-hmni/archive-brain-4" target="_blank">studied where babies and children were abandoned in orphanages</a></b>, and where there weren't enough caretakers in the facility (<b><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7249800/" target="_blank">another link</a></b>). So narcissistic adults either grew up this way, unattended, their emotions never mirrored and rarely addressed in a compassionate way. <br /><br />Or they were over-coddled, put on a pedestal, taught they were better than others, that they were never accountable for any hurtful actions they took against other individuals. Both are drastically different, but both adverse childhood situations can build a path to Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Covert narcissism is probably a result of the former (like in the paragraph above), and overt grandiose narcissism is probably a result of being the latter (the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/06/how-narcissistic-bullies-domestic.html" target="_blank">golden child</a></b>). <br /><br />Covert narcissists tend to express their abuse by abandoning you, giving you the silent treatment, neglecting you in all kinds of ways, ignoring what you have to say, and other passive aggressive forms of abuse, just like they experienced at some level when they were a child. However if they are malignant covert narcissists, that adds another element where they have little to no remorse for how they treat or abuse others. These narcissists actually get pleasure out of abandoning their victims, even their own children, whereas run-of-the-mill narcissists cannot do it without remorse (they still do it, but they aren't as willing to take as many chances at sullying their own reputation the way a malignant narcissist is; sadism comes first, in other words ... malignant narcissists spend a lot of time scheming ways to keep hurting their victims too). For victims, they wonder why the abuser can't just leave them alone once the narcissist has abandoned them. Why the need for smear campaigns and so many false narratives if the narcissist simply does not want the victim, and does not care about the victim? Isn't leaving you alone what abandonment is all about? The answer is that these kinds of narcissists often give you double messages: that they are better off without you, but why didn't you come back? It's confusing, and most victims feel they can't do anything right because covert narcissists use <b>double binds</b> like this all of the time. In this instance, you are a terrible person if you don't come back, and you are a terrible person for not getting the message that they wanted you to go away.<br /><br />Covert narcissists try to either destroy you from the inside out, or get you to be a mind-slave. They mostly target your self esteem, continually, and gaslight you like crazy (in almost every conversation). If they feel confident enough that they've gaslighted you enough, they can turn you into their mind slave (if they sense that you listen to their constant advice). They will be trying to force you to believe you are totally inept at running any of your own affairs, and that you need their help to run your life, which is another form of gaslighting. They will try to break your self esteem too. If you are resisting being a mind slave and insist that you have a right to make some or all of your own adult decisions, they ramp up more attacks on your self esteem, abandon you and use other passive aggressive types of abuse, and keep up the attacks with made up stories about you that make you look bad to others (<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-smear-campaign-in-abuse-and.html" target="_blank">smear campaigns</a></b>). <br /><br />Overt grandiose narcissists tend to express their abuse in arrogant ways by interrupting you when you are speaking, not listening to what you have to say (and making themselves the authority on speech and who should be listened to), telling you what to do and how to do it even when you are trying to tell them that you are a free autonomous adult - they will insist on lecturing you and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">infantilizing</a></b> you instead. Overt narcissists are more overt in their abuse too: raging at you in your face, hitting, pushing or pulling you around, throwing things at you, spitting at you. They feel entitled to be waited on, to come first in almost every situation they are in, to be heard at the expense of others, to get what ever they want at the expense of others too, and they expect "followers" and admirers,<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/06/how-narcissistic-bullies-domestic.html" target="_blank"> just as they were treated in childhood</a></b>. Talking things out is never really possible. They feel they have to dominate every conversation so that things go their way. When they are malignant overt narcissists, they will get pleasure out of denying you the same rights, justice, and privileges they give themselves. These narcissists often like to steal, and plan out ways of taking from others that are highly immoral and criminal. The lack of empathy that they have is also very overt, which means that it is a great deal more obvious than the way covert narcissists <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-discussion-on-cognitive-empathy-in.html" target="_blank">try to fake empathy</a>. </b>These narcissists even brag about hurting others, and taking from others.<br /><br />The goals of both kinds of narcissists are totally different. In the covert narcissist the goal is to make you believe they have empathy for you, and to take over your mind and decisions, and therefor your actions. <br /><br />With the overt narcissist, it isn't so much about taking over your mind and decisions, but to get you to do what they tell you to do with brute force, intimidation, threats, violence, and extremely loud raging. If they can't get you to do what they tell you to do, they work on other people they believe are completely loyal to them, to side up with them, so that they feel fully backed in raging at you without consequence. <br /><br />Overt narcissists try to destroy you from the outside in. They are invested in being frightening enough that if you don't do what they tell you to do, they will smash up things you love, steal from you, divide you from loved ones, frighten you with their temper, give you bruises or kill you. They do make threats of murder: "I'll kill you unless you do x, y and z!" You aren't supposed to believe they would ever go that far, but from all I have seen, some really <i>do</i> go that far. <br /><br />Normal people won't talk about killing you, or your murder, or even hoping something bad will happen to you. They will simply leave you alone in peace without complaint if they don't like you. And they won't be on the attack. Starting or continuing with attacks once you have separated is a huge sign of narcissism. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Whether they were abandoned a lot or whether they were spoiled too much in childhood is not anything you can heal or do anything about. They took the adverse situations of their childhood and decided to go in a certain direction with it. They either took the road of trying to control other people's minds, or control what they did by constantly being a tyrant who gives orders, and if you aren't doing things the way they want, to lecture and threaten you. It was their decision to be an abuser, and in the overwhelming majority, it is <u>a totally conscious decision</u>, otherwise they would never try to hide it from public view, the police, or lie about it, or try to do a <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/12/important-darvo-tactic-and-why-it-is.html" target="_blank">DARVO</a></b>. <br /><br />For those very few who do show the abusive side of themselves in public, and where other people can hear what they say and see what they are doing, and who grew up in situations where abuse was so normalized that they are brainwashed into thinking that it is always acceptable, even in public, then it is obviously not conscious. They think they have a right to hurt other people when they aren't getting what they want in all kinds of situations, <u>public</u> and private. So to some extent, victims can probably get around to forgiving abusers who really don't understand that legally, culturally, and ethically, abuse is not condoned, and the perpetrator could get arrested for it at some point. <br /><br />The immediate consequence is that the victim might not trust them again. As for forgiving, it can depend upon a lot of factors: whether a perpetrator is willing to go to therapy for an overhaul. Most abusers are not; they keep justifying abuse and keep making excuses for their motives.<br /><br />In terms of victims forgiving "the child part of these perpetrators", that they weren't raised the right way, I've seen that victims, by and large, overwhelmingly forgive that part of their abusers. You don't have a choice in the parenting styles of your early caretakers. Obviously a child who is ignored, not picked up and soothed when they are crying, where the caretaker is at most, minimally invested in care-giving, is adverse parenting. Obviously a child who is over-valued at the expense of other children in the family is bad parenting too. These actions are not a direct wounding to victims, and they can forgive the bad parenting. <br /><br />However, most abusers use their parents' mistakes to advantage too, to get more attention, to excuse their own behaviors, to get people to pity them and try to fix them by waiting on them, and most of all for entitlements: "I had a bad childhood, and you need to take care of me and forgive all of the abuses I've done to you, and you need to do all of the work in fixing this because I'm still a helpless little child who never knew how to take care of relationships because my caretaker was a terrible, terrible role model!" They've got a point except it's just another excuse, and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">except abuse escalates</a></b>. For most survivors, taking care of abusers never works, even when the bad childhood keeps coming up, because of that one fact: the escalation process.<br /><br />So it can be a "forgiveness trap", where you keep trying to help them while they keep abusing you. Not a good trap to be in. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">how forgiveness works and doesn't work<br /> (my own story, part one)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">In this part I discuss my own situation, and what I went through as far as forgiveness is concerned. <br /><br />I decided to use my own situation because I couldn't find others that were as extensive as mine and where feelings are talked about along the way. I did look through a lot of domestic violence survivor stories too. <br /><br />So I decided to settle on my own, so that I could tell you what my thoughts, actions and feelings were at each stage. Hopefully, readers who wonder why victims have such a hard time with forgiving can see why - and my examples show why I had a hard time with it. </div></div><br />Anyway, in <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2013/06/why-i-started-this-blog-and-my-own-story.html" target="_blank">my first post</a></b> I wrote about Johnny (a made up name). It's a typical domestic violence story. I explain a little more about what happened in this post to give you a clearer picture of how domestic abuse starts out and how it graduates to domestic violence. I don't think it got to the point where my life was in definite danger (?), but I think you could tell how it could get there easily. I also tell what domestic violence counselors were warning along the way, and what they were advising. <br /><br />In the second section, I talk about "Ellen" (another made up name). She eventually became part of what I went through with Johnny. That story tells how other people got involved in the domestic violence situations, and the decisions they made. However, that particular part of my story is not typical, but it is not unheard of in the realm of domestic violence situations either. I tell a little bit about how people generally react to domestic violence (note: most people who know both parties minimize it, but also accept a victim's decisions). <br /><br />The way I wrote both stories is that I stop and talk about whether I forgave, and if I didn't forgive, what did I do. Those parts are in <span style="color: #38761d;">green</span>. I think you'll find that my reactions are pretty standard survivor reactions, especially for the types of survivors who are getting help from domestic violence counselors or social workers trained in domestic violence, and therapists trained in healing trauma. <br /><br />But to get to part one. It's been a decade since I saw Johnny. And did I forgive him?<br /><br />Here's how it went for me:<br /><br />Johnny grew up as a super pampered spoiled golden child, very obviously favored. It was well known in his extended family. He also grew up in a family where a lot daughters were often derided and ostracized, and where women in general were denigrated, sometimes insulted and gossiped about. <br /><br />His mother was neglectful of the girl, especially throughout childhood (couldn't tell she was being abused outside the family; couldn't tell that she was being abused inside the family either; couldn't tell that she was awake for long hours most every night; couldn't tell that she was traumatized; and a host of other issues). And where did this come from? Johnny's grandmother also put her boy in the golden child role and neglected her daughters. So it was a family theme and tradition. Not his fault. That's easy enough to forgive because he didn't choose that role; the parent did. <br /><br />However, he didn't decide to do altruistic or even ethical things with that role. He terrorized his sister. As an adult, he became a domestic violence offender as well as a victim/offender (typically referred to as <b><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2695751/" target="_blank">bully victim</a></b> in professional articles). He grew cocky and became an alcoholic and a rage-a-holic. He became obsessed with getting rich. He grew to despise most women (nice to their faces, cruel behind their backs). <br /><br />I'm a woman, so that already put me in a bad position with him. <br /><br />When we got reacquainted many years ago, right off the bat, he was bossy. Note: he was not my boss. At first I took it in stride. This was my first mistake. I should have put a boundary up right away, made it ironclad that I am in charge of what I do, how I do things, and I'm an adult. I should have said "no" the first time I was being treated as a child, as a slave, as someone to be delegated to jobs he didn't want to do. In other words, I should have made it plain that "I'm fine with who I am; I am not looking for a boss; I am not a child and I don't need lectures; I am not looking for input at all unless I directly ask for it."<br /><br />Because once he got the idea that he could be bossy, he ran with it and fast. Note: if I even asked him for some small thing, he would go into a rage. So it was totally hypocritical and lopsided. <br /><br />From being a boss he graduated into a tyrant who micromanaged my every little move. He had constant comments and irate lectures for everything I did, every micro-move I made minute to minute and hour to hour. For all intents and purposes, this was insane, something out of the movie, "Sleeping With the Enemy" except it was a whole lot more than just cans and towels. <br /><br />In retrospect, I should have walked out every time he opened his mouth. So my fault was <u>not</u> putting up really strong boundaries right away so that the relationship would not devolve into this. My soft boundaries also has something to do with my childhood too, but I don't make excuses for it. I have actually tried really hard after that experience to make my boundaries much stronger and when situations devolve, to get out of them right away. <br /><br />So when someone with soft boundaries meets a tyrant, the tyrant is going rage and try to get his own way. <br /><br />I wasn't the only one who was the target of his rage. My husband became a target too. A poet was also a target. Then a sixteen year old girl. And workers of all kinds. And even some family members. His wife was sending him baked sweet goods, and he turned up his nose at them, and threw most of them away. Which prompted me to ask him how his wife dealt with him and his rages, and he answered, yelling, "She does what I tell her to do!"<br /><br />In fact, he was either raging about people all day long, or denigrating them: workers, all kinds of people, he was critical of just about everyone (this or that was not good enough for him). Almost every sentence had the "F" word in it too. When people showed up, his vocabulary and his rage instantly went away, and he was so friendly, too friendly. And then they'd go away and he'd dismiss them, denigrate them again. Just awful to be around. <br /><br />The combination of the on-going verbal abuse, the very obvious signs that he was trying to control me, and the expectation that I would follow all orders from him, seemed to seal the tone of all of our transactions afterwards. <br /><br />I began to be disgusted and kept quiet, and just dealt with the job at hand. My husband kept telling him to leave me alone and to "stop picking on her!" meaning stop delegating, stop reprimanding about every little thing I did or didn't do. "Just leave her alone!" my husband shouted. <br /><br />So then Johnny tried another tack: <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/11/abusive-families-who-triangulate-love.html" target="_blank">triangulating</a></b>. He was denigrating me to my own husband a lot (to put doubts in his head about me - and it didn't work). Johnny and I lived too far from each other and we weren't close; we talked briefly via phone calls every 6 months or so, and it was either chit-chat, or he was irate about something in his life when I called, and in those times I got off the phone rather quickly. So he didn't understand me - that is what was clear to my husband. <br /><br />Then Johnny tried to denigrate my husband to get me to side up with him (Johnny): "What the Hell is wrong with him anyway?" he'd ask me about my own husband, trying to break through where the loyalty lines were and weren't. That didn't work either. <br /><br />Then he called one of my father's friends on the phone. I was waiting by Johnny's side to talk to that same friend because I had something important to say to that friend. When I was finished with my part of the phone call, Johnny started yelling at me and telling everyone in the room that I was constantly grabbing at the phone, and then threw chairs around the room. The way he told it was very dramatic, and he took a chair to dramatize a total fiction about how I threw it. <br /><br />"Bulls&^t! She doesn't act that way!" my husband yelled back at him. "I know her better than anyone, and that's not how she acts!"<br /><br />Then they had a competition of who knew me better. <br /><br />Johnny's story didn't really work that time either, even with two other people in the room (two people who he had to gain something from, of course). But it showed me how far he'd go. The one problem with his story is that the room where the phone had been taken did not have any chairs. It had two stools, and one was quite heavy and would have made a big thud had I thrown it. The other stool was far away from where the phone call was taking place. <br /><br />He seemed quite frustrated that he didn't have an ally in terms of being bossy, so then he'd spend hours on the phone with his wife complaining about my husband and me. <br /><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">So do I feel forgiving of all of this? I didn't feel forgiving. Forgiveness seems to be more of a non-issue than "the real issue" that was going on. As far as I'm concerned, the "real issue" is that Johnny and I don't get along at all. He wants to complain about, and dominate most people 24/7, unless they have the potential to offer him a great deal. I don't want to be dominated, especially by someone like that. That's the natural feeling. Being pressured to feel something else (like forgiving) is not occurring "naturally". I feel free to experience my authentic feelings just as they are, and not wanting to be dominated by Johnny was the main "authentic feeling" at the time. <br /><br />My attitude has changed a tiny bit since then, but not in a significant way that would add up to forgiveness and renewing the relationship. The change has gone from "I don't want to be dominated" to "I'm not dominated by him and I feel much better."</span> <br /><br />But the story gets worse. <br /><br />There were several times I overheard him talking to his wife. At that time, I was trying to get away from him as much as possible, so I was unusually quiet, often for the entire day. I might say, "Pass the salt", or "I'm going out for a walk". If he raged I'd just find a way out: "I have to go to the bathroom", "I have to make a phone call", "I need some exercise", "I don't feel well", and I didn't feel well. I was actually sick, but I didn't tell him because I sensed he'd be even worse, knowing I was vulnerable in that way too. I knew enough about bullying to know that bullies pick on people who they deem to be weak in some way. <br /><br />Also, when my husband had surgery he was under strict doctor's orders not to lift anything over five pounds and not to stretch. Johnny wanted some things moved and expected my husband to be the one to lift things and help out. Even when he said, "I'm under doctor's orders not to lift. Sorry about that." Johnny got enraged about that too, and told anyone who would listen that my husband was lazy and "useless". So much for empathy - Johnny didn't show any concern about my husband's state.<br /><br />Anyway, several times he was on the phone, I heard him talking to his wife. And in every one of those calls he was fabricating things I was saying, even making up conversations, using tones I never used. And this was going on during the days I was silent. He was even making up entire scenes to turn her against me. Not only that but he said, "She's just like (my ex)!" <br /><br />I was shocked. Of course, I had been led to believe certain things about his ex. Now I was wondering, "Who is she actually?" Maybe stories had been made up about her too. <br /><br />As for the made up stories I felt nauseous. It also frightened me. The most awful thing about it was I couldn't tell if he was delusional, or if he was simply manipulative to get his wife's total unwavering support. I knew enough to know that truly delusional people who are aggressive to the extent that Johnny was, can act on impulse and on what ever delusions they are experiencing. Manipulative behavior (enlisting co-bullies) and delusional states are both dangerous, but delusions are much more of a critical issue because perpetrators can act on the delusions without notice. There is not necessarily an escalation at play to see where you are are in the process. If they are manipulative, the escalation process can be seen, and you can make plans based on that. With delusionary abusers, you can't do that. <br /><br />Both of them are safety concerns. I had trouble sleeping, and entered into a kind of hypervigilant state where all of the symptoms of trauma started emerging. <br /><br />What would he do next to me?<br /><br />The story he liked to tell about his ex was that she was this horrifically insane woman who perpetrated all kinds of violence towards him, and that she would do anything, even hurt her own children to get close to him enough that she would abuse him. And a lot of people believed him when he told stories about her. He would tell people to hang up on her, and they did. So he had a lot of power to get people to do things against other people. <br /><br />My husband was urging me to get out of the situation at this time, but there are actually good reasons why I felt I couldn't. I don't feel comfortable about telling what they were because it would expose who the people are in my story, and at this point the only thing I want is to be safe and to be left alone by him.<br /><br />Anyway, I decided I wanted to call up his ex considering this new development. But I didn't know if it was the right thing to do at the right time because it seemed like it could be a safety issue. It might inflame him even more, and he was already in so many crazy-making all-day rages over the smallest issues, and drinking every day too, all day. I knew enough to know that violence is more of a possibility when someone who is prone to rage is drinking to the extent that he was, and calling her would be just one more excuse to terrorize. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Anyway, I called up a domestic violence counselor and asked what he thought of the idea. "In my opinion, it should be done" he answered. "But ask her to keep the calls confidential. What happened to her might be helpful in discerning what he is capable of in terms of getting the kind of safety that you need, so you should call and ask for confidentiality in my opinion," he said. <br /><br />He also thought, from everything that was going on, that I needed to get out of the situation or call other people in for help. The more people were around, the less likely he would commit violence. <br /><br />I got on the phone with the ex, and just said one thing: "Okay, I'm ready to hear your story. What was the issue between you when you broke up?" <br /><br />And her first words were, "If you don't do exactly what he tells you to do in exactly the way he wants it done, he terrorizes you!" I thought, "This is incredible. It's describing my situation. And we haven't even begun to talk about anything else." <br /><br />"So was it like the movie, 'Sleeping with the Enemy'?" I asked her. <br /><br />"Yes, but worse. I needed to put an ocean between us."<br /><br />And then she told me about the physical violence she endured from him. It didn't surprise me.<br /><br />Shortly afterward, he got violent with me, and not because he found out about the phone call I made to her. His excuse for getting violent was something else altogether. While it didn't take me by surprise (after talking to her), I told a lot of influential people what had happened immediately afterward, including two social workers, and they knew why it was difficult for me to just abandon the situation, so they sent over people constantly so that I would rarely be alone with him. It also worked in keeping it from escalating. <br /><br />Close to that time, there was another witness at the scene who knew both Johnny and me, and she told me to bring my husband back into the situation, especially when she heard that Johnny's wife was arriving. "These two gang up on you like a couple of bullies!" she said. Apparently she had gone through that herself. <br /><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">So, to break away from my story ... Would I feel healed and would the relationship heal if I forgave him for all of this? What do you think? It keeps escalating, right? The only thing holding it at bay is bringing other people in. <br /><br />So my own thought at the time was "Why do people expect you to forgive in situations like this? It seems like it would give him a green light to escalate." <br /><br />My lack of boundaries (trying to figure out what was going on when he did not show politeness or respect, helped to create this situation surely, but from my perspective, forgiveness would have made it so much worse). My other thoughts: He's not going to change into a moral person just because I'm forgiving. I don't believe he is capable of change and I haven't heard anything to the effect that he has changed at all. And this goes for ten years later. I'm pretty sure he has the attitude that <i>other</i> people have to change to suit him, but he doesn't have to change, not even in a direction of authentic politeness. Another hypocrisy. He's not much different in his relationship with me than he was with his ex, and he was with his ex decades ago. If he can't change over decades, and even get worse, he is simply not capable of change. <br /><br />People who change also have to have empathy. He doesn't have any. While I saw two faced empathy of other people (fake overly "sweet drippy" empathy followed by derision, disgust, and hatred of the other person shortly afterward), that is hardly anything to put faith in, or even admire. Insincerity is pretty disgusting in my book. </span><br /><br />Around me, he was Mr. Hyde all of the time unless there were workers, professionals, helpers coming into the situation. A lot of abusers give you a break, and are nice to you for a spell (the cycle of abuse), but he was Mr. Hyde all day long, day after day. And I caught him in the act of being two-faced too many times over too many people, and he knew that I knew. A woman told me once that he didn't like anyone. Until this situation happened, I wasn't sure I believed her. <br /><br />He would say to my husband and me that he wished this woman who said this was dead, but then act like he valued her greatly to her face. My husband and I were even more disgusted at seeing this, and I think Johnny sensed my husband's shift in respect for him. <br /><br />Many years later, I became interested in <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/10/why-it-is-important-to-keep.html" target="_blank">the Gabby Petito case</a></b> (a beautiful woman killed by her fiancé, Brian Laundrie). The stand-out quality that he had was raging about and to others (the Mary Piglets Restaurant incident where Laundrie raged at some waitresses will be forever ingrained in the minds of people who became interested in this case). He was also raging at Gabby quite a bit. It was clear that the verbal abuse was "over-the-top" as well. <br /><br />In that situation, a woman police officer tried to get Petito to understand that she was in a dangerous situation, mainly based on the verbal abuse and that he had attacked her face with his hands as he was trying to drive off with her van without her, digging his fingernails into her face as he tried to get away. <br /><br />The "Johnny situation" had almost the same elements. The one difference is that he wasn't attacking my face. But when he raged at me, he was no farther away than two feet from my face, his spit often landing on my face, and if I stepped back from him, he moved forward - very aggressive, in other words. That sent up red flags to counselors and social workers I was contacting. I tended to diminish it (I figured if he wasn't slugging me, it wasn't serious). But they assured me that it was. So, here's the warning to other people who are going through it: don't think he won't be violent just because he's raging without touching you (yet). <br /><br />Another warning sign: he was also aggressively touching my head - when I was sitting, he would sometimes go by, put his considerably large hand over the top of my head and squeeze rather hard. He did it to my husband once too. At the time, I thought it was a bizarre act, like why would he be doing that? It's not exactly an act of affection. It had some aggression behind it, otherwise why the hard squeeze. However, I learned around that time that it was a sign of danger too (<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-dangerous-is-my-abuser-how-do-i-get.html" target="_blank">any aggressive touch to the face, head and neck is a danger sign that has to be taken seriously</a></b>), especially in light of the fact that he is exceptionally controlling, rageful, and verbally abusive. <br /><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">Okay, so would I feel better if I forgave him in the privacy of my own mind or at home, and not have any contact with him again? The thing is, again, I don't think we can force ourselves to feel anything. We either feel something or we don't. So what I went through is more like the stages of grief: shock, followed by disbelief, followed by sorrow, etc, and ending up with acceptance. Not acceptance of him as a part of my life, but acceptance that was who he was. My grief was over the fact that he wasn't who I thought he was. <br /></span><br />Besides not seeing integrity, "real empathy", respect for others, or authentic conviviality, there were other things that pointed to unethical behavior. He was scheming. He was always pretty focused on winning at something (a lot of it was about "getting more" than another person). He schemes ways to make things happen for himself to the point of entering into criminal thought and activity. <br /><br />Violence against others is criminal, so it is not a big leap to go into criminal activity about material things too. And I learned at that time that it is pretty common with abusers. <br />|<br />In other words, controlling other people is about taking more than you are giving back in terms of demands (I didn't make demands on him, but he did constantly). Likewise stealing, or insisting on taking more than you deserve is in the same ballpark. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">Do I forgive him for the crimes he commits? Absolutely not. I don't care what he learned in childhood or how he justifies this behavior. The fact is that he likes to steal. And not only that, but he accuses others of committing crimes against him. A car window was busted out in the place he lived the year that he and I separated, and he blamed it on someone who was visiting him at the time. Again, no investigation, a belief taking over. <br /><br />Abusers project, and they get paranoid that they will be stolen from or that someone is out to get them because <i>they</i> are that way. It is one reason they do a DARVO. But the other reason they like the DARVO tactic is to get out of crimes they commit. </span> <br /><br />So, when his wife showed up, was she co-bullying? </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Note: I didn't know her. I have spent less than 48 hours in her company over my lifetime. So any kind of bullying of someone you don't know is completely unethical in my book. <br /><br />Anyway, she was not bullying right away. And that let my guard down. And Johnny made it known early on that she was more ethical than he was, another reason I let my guard down. At first I felt relieved that she was there because I doubted that he would get violent with her around (he wanted to make an impression) and with all of the other people coming and going. <br /><br />One of the ways he made an impression is that I wanted something and he told me I could have it. Before then, he was fighting me tooth and nail on nearly everything. <br /><br />I made a few mistakes in the beginning, thinking that she was "one of us", that she was bullied the same way that I was, and that Johnny's ex was, and I confided in her in ways that I shouldn't have. Big mistake. I should have tried to figure out her intentions towards me first. Because it was clear that she didn't have the same experience that I had and the ex had with Johnny. After many years, I also understood that many people had drastically different relationships with Johnny. I also heard later that this is typical of abusive men, that their treatment of others has everything to do with what other people do for them, or what other people have <i>the potential</i> to do for them. It is also based on the fact that they need people who can vouch for them when they are accused of abuse, violence or crimes. <br /><br />So the "She does what I tell her to do!" statement is probably true, and it may very well be how they keep the peace in their relationship. <br /><br />It's not a marriage I would ever want, and my marriage is very peaceful without that, but I understand some women are perfectly happy and willing to be submissive at all times to male authority. Even to the point of bullying others they barely know for their man. <br /><br />Anyway, the way she co-bullied was to state that Johnny's intentions were to get me and another person Johnny and I both knew separated (the "Ellen" person I bring up in the next section). She also made it clear that she was going to be instrumental in helping him to make that happen. She said it the day before my birthday. I thought <u>1.</u> that it was cruel, and <u>2.</u> that this wouldn't work, that people would not just "automatically" side with Johnny. <br /><br />I was practically in tears at the thought of it, and also in denial, and didn't say anything. I was at the dinner table eating. On my birthday, they were planning an overnight in the north, but Johnny came down with a headache. His wife made me a birthday dinner which I appreciated. However, it didn't stop her from supporting Johnny while he tried to divide all of my relationships, just as he had with my husband and me. <br /><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">So, do I forgive a co-bully? Again, I didn't feel forgiving naturally, and she had no part in my life. When you don't know someone, even if you wanted to forgive, you don't know what you are forgiving. Was she a good person or a bad person? She both cooked me a birthday dinner and told me they were going to influence Ellen enough to separate us, but did she really mean that? Why would she cook me a dinner when she was hostile? This is the cognitive dissonance I was experiencing. <br /><br />Was she always a co-bully? Or just when <u>he</u> wanted her to bully someone? <br /><br />Was she just a co-bully in this situation? Would she really go through with it? <br /><br />When I talked to others, no, she bullied others too. It was the main complaint when there were issues: they would brow-beat a lone person. But I didn't know that at the time. And allegedly she said that she would kill a person for not behaving. Anyway, I got the overall sense that she may have been more ethical than Johnny, but not ethical when he called upon her to break her ethics ... I learned this much later.<br /><br />The main thing I felt was that the situation she wanted to enact against me was hostile, unethical, blindly loyal, and off the wall. Do you forgive someone who is acting blindly on the will of someone else, like the Russians do on Putin's behalf? </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Is bullying other people a good thing to do when you haven't shown any sign of aggression yourself? </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Are going through with the intentions and demands of another person forgivable?</span> <br /><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">And again, the fact that he had this co-bully, even if she was his wife, put me in more danger. Do you forgive someone who puts you in more danger just so that they can prove that they are a loyal servant to their husband?</span> <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">(my own story, part two)</div><br />The person they wanted to separate me from I'll call "Ellen". The main takeaway that readers may want to know about Ellen is that she was always much closer to Johnny than to me. They spent a great deal more time together, had a closer relationship, shared a lot more experiences and had many more conversations than I had with her. I was under the impression that I was close to her for about a decade, but not anything close to what they had. By then I had also been told that for safety reasons that I needed to separate from Johnny (i.e. to never be in the same room with him again alone, to avoid meeting with him in private, and so on). </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So my main intention after Johnny left was to tell Ellen that I needed to separate from Johnny. But she seemed to be in denial that I told her that. She thought the rift was temporary, that I didn't really mean it; that with a little bit of time and talking things out, I wouldn't take such a hard line "against him". She thought of it as an act of aggression on my part. She was acting like a lot of people in these situations act: that abuse is a "relationship problem" that can be worked out by talking. Not when the perpetrator is never talking things out (and is always lecturing and interrupting instead), not when he is constantly dominating, raging, never in "a respectful listening position", etc. <br /><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">So is the fact that she is naïve and ignorant about how abusive relationships go, forgivable? I mean, she really doesn't understand that abusive relationships can't be "worked out". It's a blind spot, right? </span><br /><br />And then she wanted to know why. I didn't want to get into it with her, but she insisted. And even after hearing my story, she took the tack that things could be worked out. I disagreed. I told her that I was listening to domestic violence counselors when it came to this situation because they knew a lot more than she did. <br /><br />One of the counselors who was "visiting" at the place Johnny and I were, told me that Ellen and I should go to therapy together, so that she would understand a little more about why a domestic violence counselor would want Johnny and me separated, and what was going on. <br /><br />Then it finally became clear to Ellen that when I sent a registered letter to Johnny, my intention was to separate from him. She couldn't be in denial about it any longer, or expect a make-up between us. She wasn't going to influence my decision just because she had a very different experience with him than I did. <br /><br />I'm sure she didn't like this very much (probably thought it was too harsh), but to my mind, it was my adult decision to make, and I was scared. While it was heavily based on what counselors were saying, it still wasn't her decision to make. And I'm glad I made that decision, then and now. My life is much, much better without Johnny in it. As is clear, he was a meddler, and not just between my husband and me, and Ellen and me: nearly everyone we both knew. Not seeing him any more meant that the meddling would go away. He could meddle and try to divide me from people we both knew, and they would go one way or another, or just see each of us separately, but I knew an awful lot of people he would never meet and I intended to keep it that way. <br /><br />For all intents and purposes, what existed between Johnny and me was never a relationship to begin with. It was just experiences of "endurance" for me until I could get away, and for him someone he found frustrating to control and dominate in the way he wanted to, and was used to. There was little else between us except that. We didn't see eye to eye on anything, and real relationships have at least a little of that. <br /><br />I was aware that my decision about Johnny might cause some issues between Ellen and me, and at the very least that my relationship with Ellen might be uncomfortable for me (and maybe for her too), and not be as close as it had been. Of course, she would have to see us separately, and at separate times, and there was a whole lot of that going on anyway. Beyond a dinner here and there, and with the distance Johnny lived, I didn't think it was much of an issue. <br /><br />But to her it was, apparently. She refused to go to therapy with me. The overall message was: "I don't want to understand at all why the break with him was necessary." Instead of the separate relationships with both of us, she decided to side with Johnny completely. She parroted back all of his perspectives, all of his words, all of the false narratives he liked to spout. <br /><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">So, again, I'll break away from this story. Let's just say that she was brainwashed. It could have been any reason she went for Johnny's perspectives, but for the purpose of this discussion, we'll explore brainwashing.<br /><br />Wouldn't brainwashing be an automatic forgivable offense?<br /><br />Here's the problem. Usually when you are brainwashed, you are loyal to someone's perspectives. It's engaging in a pretty drastic form of confirmation bias too. You aren't researching anything. You just <i>believe</i> in what you are being told by a perpetrator. And she believed pretty quickly. <br /><br />This isn't uncommon for people who only see the nicer Dr. Jekyll side. She's probably never witnessed him swearing like a sailor, or acting like a slave owner. So she believes that what she sees is who he is. <br /><br />Now is that innocent? <br /><br />So let me explain two situations:<br /><br />The first is about Ukraine. So we know that Putin is on a campaign to brainwash Russians that Ukrainians are Nazis (Nazis from Germany invaded Russia in World War II, so it stirs up fear when Russians are told that the neighboring country of Ukraine is Nazi too). It helps Putin's countrymen get into a fighting spirit even though it's a lie that Ukrainians are Nazis. <br /><br />Ukrainians also have a Jewish president, but it is lost on many Russians.<br /><br />As in domestic violence situations, the brainwashing has to do with dividing a hitherto peaceful relationship between two countries. It galvanizes Russian soldiers to want to torture Ukrainians since Nazis tortured them at one point in history. <br /><br />Anyway, the brainwashed soldiers are the ones throwing the bombs, missiles, and landmines into Ukraine. The leader is telling them to do it, but the army is the one who is actively doing it. <br /><br />Are Ukrainians forgiving Russians for being brainwashed? Are they saying, "Oh, you're brainwashed, so we'll excuse you for doing this to our lives and our country"? <br /><br />Pretty doubtful. It may happen at some future date if there is some kind recompense eventually, some sort of awareness that Ukrainians weren't the Nazis they were made out to be, that Ukraine should never have been invaded, but that forgiveness might come generations down the road. Right now, torture is not excusable.<br /><br />Also, forgiveness is not what Ukrainians are thinking about. They want these brainwashed bearers of death out of their country. <br /><br />Here's another situation: <br /><br />You are on the road and there are two cars in back of you. The one directly in back of you wants to pass, but he passes you on a double line and when he sees another car coming, he swerves into you and your car goes off the road and lands in a ditch. <br /><br />The car behind the passing car is occupied by a family who are friends with the occupants who hit your car. So you've got the one car you are in, and two other cars whose occupants are really good friends with one another. <br /><br />The cops show up, trying to determine whose fault the accident is. To you, it is obvious that the car who swerved into you caused the accident. <br /><br />But the occupants of the two other cars say it is your fault, even totally your fault. You swerved into him (the passing car) and didn't look to see that he was passing you. <br /><br />Again, they are loyal to one another because they are such good friends. We should understand loyalty right? And is loyalty always supposed to come before ethics and justice? <br /><br />Because if it does, you can see why Ukraine was invaded. You are just as much of a mind-slave to loyalty as the Russians are. <br /><br />These days, police can tell who hit who by the markings on the cars. The car swerving into you would have left streaks that were running up towards the front end of the car. But let's say that the police made judgements on biases alone. They just want to <i>believe</i> that you caused the accident, and so they give you a ticket. <br /><br />It would allow aggressive driving to go unchecked, right? You could get away with sending any old car off the road on any double lined highway. There would be no such thing as vehicular manslaughter. <br /><br />Likewise, when we give free passes and side up with domestic violence offenders, we are making it possible for him to continue with his actions, either with the victim he has been torturing in the present, or another one down the road, no pun intended. <br /><br />In fact, he can get away with just about any form of violence or dividing up people that he wants to, right?<br /><br />So do we forgive any of this? <br /><br />Maybe when there is this much injustice, the best we can do eventually is radical acceptance that this is how it played out, and we are moving beyond it, the kind of acceptance that comes after grief. <br /><br /></span>Here's another thing I know about Ellen. One hot day with all the windows open in a neighborhood I was visiting (a place where buildings were mostly all joined together) and before people adopted air conditioners en masse, I heard a couple fighting, and I could hear a woman screaming and crying, lots of thumping, and things breaking, lots of swearing, lots of insults. I was really concerned by what was happening. When I told the story to Ellen, she immediately responded, "Don't get involved." <br /><i><br />Don't get involved?</i> <br /><br />I was no more than 18 years old. So I took her advice, even though I wanted to call the police. And guess what? The woman was murdered the next night in that same apartment by that same guy. <br /><br />So obviously I felt, and still feel really, really guilty about not intervening and calling the police. I don't blame Ellen for this; I blame myself for taking the advice of others too readily. <br /><br />I have not made that mistake again. I called in other situations where I saw domestic violence. If someone hadn't called in to report what Brian Laundrie was doing to Gabby Petito's face, then police might not have stopped them on their road trip and warned Gabby that she was in a dangerous situation. In that situation, she didn't heed the advice, and was murdered. But calls do save lives. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />It also comes down to: What if I was that woman and no one called? <br /><br />So let's just surmise that Ellen's real reason for why she sided with Johnny was: non-involvement. <br /><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">Do we forgive people who don't want to get involved, at least as involved in making a call to police? Do we just let murders happen because you have to talk to police, even when it can be an anonymous phone call?<br /><br />Do we forgive people who run away when they know that a crime was committed?<br /><br />Do we forgive when we hear a woman getting beaten and either we don't do anything, or no one does anything? <br /><br /></span><span style="color: #38761d;">Do we forgive people who side up with perpetrators of domestic violence? <br /></span><span style="color: #38761d;"><br />Do we forgive a person who doesn't want to hear what we went through, because they wanted to be like Switzerland and not get involved? Except she sided up with Johnny, so the "non-involvement" argument does not hold water. <br /><br />Is forgiveness more important than changing your ways, and calling the cops? Or getting involved enough so that your relationships aren't ripped to shreds by other people who want to isolate you and call you theirs? </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">So here's another possible reason for why Ellen might have sided up with Johnny. Let's say she sided up with him because she didn't want to be bullied, and felt safer on Johnny's side than on my side. A lot of people do this too. They have to pledge loyalty to an abuser, so that they aren't abused too. <br /><br />Maybe she didn't want her relationships tampered with by Johnny the way he was tampering with mine. Maybe she couldn't handle the opposition and rage he might launch if she went against him. Maybe he was just more valuable to her, so she went along with what he demanded. Maybe he was so insistent that she give me up that it frightened her, and she gave into him under some kind of tremendous pressure that he launched. Maybe he threatened her: "If you keep her in your life, or contact her in any way, don't expect any contact from me ever again! Choose!" <br /><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">So do we forgive people who give up their relationships with us because they think that is the safest thing they can do?<br /><br />Do we forgive people who cave into someone else under pressure? Or do we just think of them as turncoats, as people without backbones, as wimps?<br /></span><br /><span><span style="color: #38761d;">Do we forgive people who decide to save their own ass at the expense of ours?</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">Do we forgive them enough to break bread with us again, or do we take the stance that we can't trust them again because they sacrificed us to be in an exclusive relationship with our abuser? </span><br /><br />Certainly, if you wanted to forgive, these excuses by Ellen might have gotten you there more quickly if that is all she did, but they may not be healthy reasons to be in an actual relationship because of all of the reasons I have brought up. <br /><br />But still, that's not all there was to it. <br /><br />I received e-mails and letters from Ellen's husband, a man who I don't have a relationship with outside of dinners and events with Ellen. There were rarely any significant conversations between us either except for the usual dinner conversations like gardening, traveling, cooking, healthy eating, books, photography, etc. He was never respectful, however, about my vegetarianism, and constantly needled me about it. But mostly, the topics were usual dinnertime topics. <br /><br />However, he always seemed irritated when I visited Ellen, as though talking to her was impinging on his time with her. I got the sense he did not want me around, and I was always uncomfortable in their house. But, I didn't think our superficial relationship was on shaky ground until I received his e-mails and letters. <br /><br />Anyway the e-mails and letters he sent me were full of insults and threats. One of the threats was the same as Johnny's threats: to break Ellen and me apart, another Johnny-type move. It was as though he was parroting Johnny every step of the way, and by then I had had enough, and needed to put up the kind of boundaries I should have put up with Johnny at the very beginning. I wasn't going right into another Johnny type-situation after Johnny left, and I told Ellen's husband to stop contacting me. He wouldn't stop. So I called the police to intervene. By the way, when a person keeps contacting you when you ask them to stop, it is called harassment (which is illegal). It's also an aggressive move, and like all aggression, it tends to escalate. It was necessary to put an end to the aggression right away. <br /><br />Then he contacted police himself and asked how he could get me to stop talking to him (a <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/12/important-darvo-tactic-and-why-it-is.html" target="_blank">DARVO move</a></b>), trying to paint me as the aggressor. The police knew that it was a DARVO move too, and so did counselors, and pegged him through his own writing, and with that tactic, as someone whose writings and tactic were typical of someone with Antisocial Personality Disorder. <br /><br />I have no idea why he did it, except to parrot Johnny, deciding that separating Ellen and me was a cool idea from Johnny. It's like he thought, "Great idea, Johnny! I think I'll try that too! I don't like her either in my wife's life! And I hate that she's a vegetarian! So let's both get rid of her!"<br /><br />Then he sent me a message through someone else that he wanted me to apologize to Johnny. <br /><br />He was also a professor - it's depressing to think of someone like that in that position. What are schools thinking?!<br /><br />And also, he was estranged from a daughter. And divorced. I don't know if he has the same attitudes that Johnny has about women, but I suspect he might. <br /><br />Also, like Johnny, he owned guns and he was a drinker, and may be an alcoholic. And most people know if you put verbal and emotional abuse together with drinking and guns, the prognosis for safety is pretty dire. <br /><br />As for my relationship with Ellen, it ended (probably loyalty to husband and Johnny). I tried to talk to her, but she shut me down. </span>I sent Ellen birthday cards for a couple of years, and while she didn't send them back to me unopened or tell me not to send them any more, she never responded, not even to thank me, and I gave up. She was the one who believed things could always be worked out, but apparently not this time. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br />Johnny did some more meddling to divide. <br /><br />My husband and I were invited to a wedding. Johnny and his wife were invited to the wedding too. And so were Ellen and her husband. I contacted a counselor and asked how I could go to the wedding, and be supportive to the couple, without being attacked by Johnny. He said to bring a video camera and to make sure that my husband was always with me. We had a good video camera then, and I liked the idea of being the videographer. I am an artist, and I knew I could edit a good and fun synopsis of what went on. "What a perfect idea!" I thought. So we both RSVP'd that we would be there. <br /><br />Then, Johnny, his wife, and Ellen's husband intervened to get my husband and me dis-invited. Again, the people who invited us to their wedding really did not know us that well. But we were always on good terms and I took care of the groom at one time in his life. So, now Johnny had succeeded in splitting that relationship apart, with even more help than he had before. <br /><br />Then Johnny and his wife sent out a letter to a bunch of people about what bad people my husband and I were - it was filled with denigrations and insults about us. Some people reacted to it by saying, "Work out your own relationships! Don't bother us!" and some people reacted to it by siding up with him based on loyalty. <br /><br />Obviously there was a campaign against us, with Johnny and his wife determined to split as many of our relationships with others apart. This is how prejudice gets rolling. <br /><br />There wasn't anything I could do about any of it. If people believe things without looking into anything, that's who they are; they are belief-oriented, the end. People who are belief oriented are even more tethered to confirmation bias than others, meaning that you can't convince them of anything other than their own beliefs. <br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br />So, I let a lot of people go based on that. I went through a considerable amount of grief, but I was also made aware that this happens a lot when there is domestic violence going on: people take sides. I had been warned of this ahead of time. And I also had been warned never to be around Johnny again in anything but a very large group ("and take your video camera with you if you have to go somewhere - even to the bathroom"). <br /><br />When counselors are that concerned about your life, you don't just ignore it. <br /><br />But not everyone drops away, no matter how hard they are worked on by the aggressors, no matter how much brainwashing, threats, pleas for loyalty there are. People of integrity seem to be the ones who resist these things, and those are the people you want around you anyway. <br /><br />However, it's not always easy. Where it got really sticky is that I had to work with a mother-daughter team on a kind of "business project" I'll call it. In the process, I had to let Johnny know what was happening by reporting to him. It was part of the "contract", so to speak. It was obvious he was meddling in this situation too, trying to get as much out of the situation as he could, and again, trying to prejudice the team against me so that the outcome would go in his favor: that he would get the advantage over me. But that's not the way it worked out. <br /><br />This mother-daughter team took advantage of it, and were doing things for their benefit, knowing that Johnny and I were not aligned or a team ourselves. I tried to tell him what was going on, but he was more interested and determined to drive a wedge between me and the mother-daughter team, and risk losing some of what he was entitled to get. He was also flattering them a great deal which I knew was not at all sincere. It never had been. <br /><br />In my frustration at this next triangulation he was mounting, I showed some e-mails I had received from Johnny's wife that they were not so enamored with the mother-daughter team after all, that the sweetness and flatteries were about pretending, and that the motive was about being preferred over us so that they would get more out of the deal than we would. <br /><br />Then the mother-daughter team was disgusted by both of us. They made fun of both of us a lot, laughed about how we both threw each other under the bus, felt way more superior and upstanding compared to us, took the story to their friends and had a laugh there as well, and continued to take advantage of the rift between Johnny and me to get as much for themselves as they could at Johnny's and my expense. <br /><br />As far as further meddling, I'm sure that Johnny is still at it, trying to split people apart, still <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/11/abusive-families-who-triangulate-love.html" target="_blank">triangulating</a></b>, or he's reveling in how easy it was to do in one situation or another, and will be easy to do in all situations. He laughs sadistically about his "wins". <br /><br />I took this long test from a psychologist when I was still trying to grapple with Johnny's agenda. There were all kinds of questions like number of insults, kinds of insults, how I responded to the insults. There were questions about what he said to other people about me. Questions to do with triangulation. Questions to do with ways he touched me. What kinds of demands he was making on me. It was a pretty thorough break-down of his actions towards me, and against me. It was determined that he was probably a malignant narcissist. And the dangers of relating to malignant narcissists were relayed to me. The gist of it was: I shouldn't even try <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/p/does-gray-rock-method-work-for-family.html" target="_blank">the gray rock method</a></b> on this kind of narcissist, as you could try with a run-of-the-mill narcissist. Malignant narcissists are quite a bit more dangerous, and the best thing to do is to make sure he was never in my presence or life again. <br /><br />And my own test turned up <b>"echoist"</b>, not nearly enough self preservation skills, terrible boundaries, responses that were largely ineffectual in terms of self preservation, not enough empaths in my life, not correcting people when they made assumptions about me, not resisting enough to domination and control, body language predators pick up on as being fair game, not defining myself first before others judged me, feeling undefined in a lot of ways, and all of the things that create an "echoist state", and that create a host of problems with making and keeping boundaries of respect. I was much lower than the general population on all of the tests I received to decipher narcissism (some of which I didn't even know were a measure of narcissism). <br /><br />So in other words, my job was to learn how to end any conversation where I was not treated with dignity, respect and ethics. I actually had to get lessons in that. <br /><br />The only thing that put me closer to the normal end of the spectrum than most echoists is not letting people define me (my internal voice did not match their voice inside my head, in other words) and so my self esteem was not blown apart, where for most echoists it is (and I thank my father, husband, all of my cherished long term relationships, and teachers for that). <br /><br />Then after these tests, some things were stolen from me long after Johnny and I parted, that he would have wanted. </span>Being stolen from is a sign of criminality, no resolution skills, an entitlement to break into other people's houses, extremely low empathy (especially if you know the perpetrator) and most likely a Cluster B personality disorder, especially if it is not over food, shelter and basic necessities. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">So, how did I react to "It was so easy for Johnny to split my relationships." I didn't like it, that's for sure, and even when I tried to do something about it, I was ineffectual. The trauma symptoms were sky high, and I dealt with depression and feelings of helplessness for many years. But it also showed me a lot about human nature and where we are in our present evolution. <br /><br />More than half of the population can be manipulated pretty easily. It's what I'm finding out in terms of politics too. It aligns with that. <br /><br />When bad characters are on soap-boxes and telling people what they want to hear, or that there is some reason to avoid a group of people, or a person, roughly half of them will follow the person on the soapbox who is trying to prejudice them. It's the old story of the salesman who tries to sell you your dreams, but it's just snake oil (it's the story of <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil" target="_blank">the two-faced snake oil salesman</a></b>). We're either going to buy the story or not. And it's up to all of us to decide. <br /></span><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">You can't change the minds of prejudiced people, who are bound by their own belief systems, and who like their beliefs just as they are, and who may even think their belief system is the best one around (arrogance). <br /><br />Some people just want to join a certain belief system or cult, or follow a certain leader or person. <br /><br />Jesus's statement, "They know not what they do" is appropriate here. <br /><br />Also, a lot of people like tyrants. A lot of people like to be followers of tyrants (they think that the tyrants will keep them safe because tyrants show aggression and are willing to show might, and go to war much more readily than other types of leaders). If the followers are tyrants too, or follow one, they believe they will be able to get the upper hand, and the riches, and influence people in selfish ways, and beat out the competition, just like the leader is able to do it, or just like Johnny did. <br /><br />A lot of people like violence and aggressive acts as a way to get what they want out of others too. Some people like narcissists (look at who gets adored in elections). A lot of people like bullying behaviors, invasions into other people's relationships, lives, personal resources. A lot of people like sitting around and gossiping, deriding people, talking in an arrogant style, building a prejudice against others. A lot of people like narcissists who keep their eyes peeled on how to get more money and the things money can buy at the expense of more important things. A lot of people think being two-faced is brilliant. They like invasions and maneuvers. They adore people who hate certain parts of a population.<br /><br />So I haven't exactly forgiven, but what I have done is to go through a realization process of that kind of darkness. Before I was plunged into darkness, I was so naïve, so in denial. I just did not want to see evil, until evil played hard ball with me. But once I knew exactly how dark some human beings can be (mainly through studying narcissism and psychopathy), I also understood much more clearly about what I wanted for my life. <br /><br />"The door" of radical acceptance of some of these facts has led me to a new life. I have accepted that Johnny is narcissistic, probably high on the scale, a person who will never change his ways (malignant narcissists are very, very resistant to change). He will always be unempathetic; he will always be in competition for riches and resources; he will always play head games with other people. He will always play dirty to get what he wants; he will always try to break people apart to get what he wants; he will always be thinking of ways to create false narratives about other people; he will always be two-faced and inauthentic; and he will always try to get people to "do as he says." Those are the tenets of malignant narcissism.<br /><br />And beyond that I don't know much about him because we did not and do not have normal conversations. There is always an agenda that he has behind every discourse. He's also an alcoholic (drinks an excessive amount every day, the sign). <br /><br />The only way to curb malignant narcissism in society is to educate parents on how to bring up their children. Good luck with that, right? Also what if the parents are narcissists themselves? What if the parents are substance addicted? It would have to take an extreme amount of societal effort. <br /><br />So the only way to really stop it is to educate people what the signs of narcissism and psychopathy are so that they can resist and traverse them. I tend to see them as the black holes of the human race. The more out of orbit you are, the better off you will be. That's the path I have decided to take. <br /><br />Radical acceptance and saying no to any more exposure to malignant narcissists and all of the people who follow them is what healing is all about. That is assuming that the gravity of the black holes hasn't become inescapable and you have a way out without being disabled or killed, or on the verge of either one. <br /><br />I think all survivors of domestic violence come to a place of radical acceptance rather than forgiveness (in most cases). <br /><br />When you are surrounded by evil, you can't live a quality life, have good health, and in some severe cases, you can't even concentrate on anything. In the severe cases, you are just dealing with trauma and its symptoms, day in and day out. <br /><br />All of my relationships are with empaths now. I like my humble life, the beauty that surrounds us, the ability to detect good and evil much more than I ever have, the ability to set boundaries with more conviction, the ability to put my energies into more noble causes instead of worrying where the next attack is coming from. All survivors worry, naturally, but you adopt the best ways of protecting yourself, and talking to people who are invested in your safety and healing, and letting go of those who just want to judge. The ability to detect the intentions of others has advanced in leaps and bounds for me too, and the ability to heal, and to help in healing others is better now too. Healing yourself and those around you cannot take place when your body and brain are filled with trauma symptoms. <br /><br />So part of the journey is not just staying out of abusive relationships, but healing from trauma too. And for that I also suggest trauma therapy. <br /><br />We all deserve to live in peace. Whether we get there through forgiveness or radical acceptance does not make a difference, really. </span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">ADDENDUM<br />(why it was hard to write this post)</div> <br /></span>Writing this blog was hard for me because it brought these memories back at a time when I'm in a new phase. I would rather have not revisited the past. But I wrote it in part because my father suffered from the actions of the same people. He wouldn't have liked or wanted to be around any of them, knowing who they are, and I realized, to a large extent, that he shielded me from them much more than I ever knew. His presence may have even hid me from them even looking at me as a source. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />The other reason I went through with this post, and even started to research and write this blog, is because he never understood that he was dealing with other people's narcissism. He thought all human beings sought redemption. No, they do not. Evil exists and is much more stubborn and fixed and becomes evermore hellish once it infects certain minds of human beings. If there are ever any more Robert Winnes who are born into the world who are living through what my father lived through, I have left this blog for them. If I had known what I know now, I think he could have healed. <br /><br />I have largely healed because I searched in ways that neither of us knew how to do at the time. I won't be on my death-bed looking to someone for the answers the way he was. I know enough now that I don't need to research and write for my own sake any more, just for the sake of others. <br /><br />If truth be known, I'd rather put my energy into healing arts, music and art, and spend my free time walking woods, fields and ocean paths, dancing in the moonlight on a snowy night, listening to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOO88gHu3ts" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Sons of Serendip</a>,<b> </b>watching <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@jonnajinton/videos" target="_blank">Jonna Jinton videos</a></b>, falling in love with the harp, <b><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=lothlorien&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwi73paAibD9AhWnD1kFHVzeBfkQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=lothlorien&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQDFAAWABgAGgAcAB4AIABAIgBAJIBAJgBAKoBC2d3cy13aXotaW1n&sclient=img&ei=DK75Y7uoHKef5NoP3LyXyA8&bih=609&biw=1263&hl=en" target="_blank">living in Lothlorien</a> </b>types of environments, being enlightened, and living in a better world than in the past, full of empathy, compassion, wisdom and beauty, and full of people much like my father, only healed and leading the way. <br /><br /><div><div style="text-align: center;">FURTHER READING</div><br /><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/simplifying-complex-trauma/202205/5-reasons-why-trauma-survivors-shouldn-t-forgive" target="_blank">5 Reasons Why Trauma Survivors Shouldn’t Forgive (Forgiveness can be psychologically and physically harmful to trauma survivors.)</a></b> - by Amanda Ann Gregory, LCPC for Psychology Today<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/simplifying-complex-trauma/202202/why-forgiveness-isn-t-required-in-trauma-recovery" target="_blank">Why Forgiveness Isn’t Required in Trauma Recovery (Imposing forgiveness can be problematic in trauma treatment.)</a></b> - Amanda Ann Gregory, LCPC for Psychology Today<br /><br /><b><a href="https://medium.com/illumination/forgiveness-is-the-wrong-response-to-trauma-37a002774ade" target="_blank">Forgiveness is the Wrong Response to Trauma (We must encourage healing, not forgiveness.)</a></b> - by Rosennab for Medium.com<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.symmetrycounseling.com/counseling-chicago/is-forgiveness-necessary-for-trauma-recovery-part-1/" target="_blank">Is Forgiveness Necessary for Trauma Recovery? Part 1</a></b> - by Amanda Ann Gregory, LCPC, EMDR Certified Therapist for Symmetry Counseling<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.symmetrycounseling.com/counseling-chicago/is-forgiveness-necessary-for-trauma-recovery-part-2/" target="_blank">Is Forgiveness Necessary for Trauma Recovery? Part 2</a></b> - by Amanda Ann Gregory, LCPC, EMDR Certified Therapist for Symmetry Counseling<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/simplifying-complex-trauma/202211/35-scripts-trauma-survivors-set-family-boundaries" target="_blank">35 Scripts for Trauma Survivors to Set Family Boundaries (A comprehensive cheat sheet.)</a></b> - by Amanda Ann Gregory, LCPC for Psychology Today<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/simplifying-complex-trauma/202210/10-things-not-say-trauma-survivors" target="_blank">10 Things Not to Say to Trauma Survivors</a></b> - by Amanda Ann Gregory, LCPC<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/identifying-abuse/what-is-toxic-triangulation" target="_blank">What Is Toxic Triangulation? (Abusers can turn a survivor’s friends, family and children against them through harmful fabrications)</a></b> - by Stephanie Thurrott for Domestic Shelters. org</div><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/lib/reasons-family-members-side-with-sexual-abusers" target="_blank">Why Family Members Take Sides in Sexual Abuse</a></b> - by Hilary I. Lebow, and medically reviewed by Janet Brito, Ph.D., LCSW, CST for Psych Central <br />(note: this article tells how common it is to side with the abuser ... this one focuses on sexual abuse, but in all forms of abuse, it is not uncommon for people to side with abusers over victims, but I couldn't find any more convenient on-line articles. For those kinds of articles, you should look in periodicals)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://carolineabbott.com/2017/04/why-do-people-often-take-the-side-of-the-abuser/" target="_blank">Why Do People Often Take the Side of the Abuser?</a></b> - by <a href="https://carolineabbott.com/about/" target="_blank">Caroline Abbott</a>, a ministry counselor, for her own website<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/investigations/case-dismissed-why-domestic-violence-offenders-often-get-away-with-it" target="_blank">Case Dismissed: Why domestic violence offenders often get away with it</a></b> - by Sarah Buduson and Mark Ackerman for News Five, Cleveland, OH<br /><br /><b>RECOMMENDED: FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT TO KNOW HOW INTERPERSONAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE BLEEDS OVER INTO OTHER CRIMES:</b> <b><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2578983X.2021.1904605" target="_blank">Understanding intimate partner violence in context: social and community correlates of special and general victimization</a></b> - by Maiju Tanskanen and Janne Kivivuori for Nordic Journal of Criminology and Taylor Francis Online (professional paper)</div><div><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/identifying-abuse/profile-of-an-abuser" target="_blank">Profile of an Abuser (Is it possible to spot an abuser before you get involved?)</a></b> - by Amanda Kippert for Domestic Shelters . org<br /><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2023/02/14/5th-circuit-ruling-is-detrimental-for-domestic-violence-survivors/" target="_blank">5th Circuit ruling is detrimental for domestic violence survivors (An abuser with access to a gun is five times more likely to kill his victim.)</a></b> - The Dallas Morning News</div><br /><div><b><a href="https://melissainstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/treating_perpetrators.pdf" target="_blank">FAMILY VIOLENCE: TREATMENT OF PERPETRATORS AND VICTIMS</a></b> - by Donald Meichenbaum, Ph.D. </div><br /><b><a href="https://womensafe.org/blog/12-common-characteristics-of-domestic-violence-abusers" target="_blank">12 Common Characteristics of Domestic Violence Abusers</a></b> - Women Safe, Inc. <br /><br /><b><a href="https://eggshelltherapy.com/toxic-sibling/" target="_blank">Toxic Sibling Relationship and Siblings Estrangement</a></b> - by Imi Lo for Eggshell Counseling<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.vukuzenzele.gov.za/how-abuse-affects-survivors" target="_blank">How Abuse Effects Survivors</a></b> - Vuk'uzenzele (a government website, South Africa)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.centerforpreventionofabuse.org/i-need-help-for-someone-else/helping-domestic-violence-victims/" target="_blank">Helping Domestic Violence Victims</a></b> - Center for Prevention of Abuse<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.ojp.gov/feature/family-violence/overview" target="_blank">Family Violence Overview</a></b> - U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs<br /></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><b><a href="https://stanfordmag.org/contents/8-tips-for-forgiving-someone-who-hurt-you" target="_blank">8 Tips for Forgiving Someone Who Hurt You (Forgiveness is the ability to regain peace when part of your life didn’t work out the way you wanted. Who doesn’t want that?)</a></b> - by Charity Ferreira for Stanford Alumni Magazine <br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/forgiveness/art-20047692" target="_blank">Forgiveness: Letting go of grudges and bitterness (When someone you care about hurts you, you can hold on to anger and resentment — or embrace forgiveness and move forward.)</a></b> - by the Mayo Clinic Staff<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-forgive" target="_blank">How to Forgive Someone (Even If They Really Screwed Up)</a></b> - by Crystal Raypole, Medically reviewed by Jennifer Litner, PhD, LMFT, CST for Healthline<br /><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/relationships/how-to-forgive-a-friend-who-wronged-you-and-why-its-so-important" target="_blank">Should You Forgive a Friend Who Has Hurt You Deeply?</a></b> - by Sonya Matejko, medically reviewed by Janet Brito, Ph.D., LCSW, CST for Psych Central <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/forgiveness-your-health-depends-on-it" target="_blank">Forgiveness: Your Health Depends on It</a></b> - John Hopkins Medicine<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.drwaynedyer.com/blog/how-to-forgive-someone-in-15-steps/" target="_blank">How To Forgive Someone Who Has Hurt You: In 15 Steps</a></b> - by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer for his own website<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.wikihow.com/Forgive-Someone-Who-Has-Hurt-You" target="_blank">How to Forgive Someone Who Has Hurt You</a></b> - a Wiki How article <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/when-is-it-ok-not-to-forgive-someone-5199745" target="_blank">When Is It OK Not to Forgive Someone?</a></b> - by Brittany Loggins, fact checked by Aaron Johnson for Very Well Mind<br /><br /><b><a href="https://caremattersllc.com/the-power-of-forgiveness-why-revenge-hurts-you-more/" target="_blank">The Power of Forgiveness: Why Revenge Hurts You More</a></b> - by Wendy Hooker<br /><br /><b><a href="https://madeyousmileback.com/forgiveness-vs-acceptance/" target="_blank">The Difference Between Forgiveness vs. Acceptance</a></b> - by Beth Elkassih for Made You Smile Back<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/is-psychology-making-us-sick/201409/6-reasons-not-forgive-not-yet" target="_blank">6 Reasons Not to Forgive, Not Yet (When we advise people to forgive and move on, we may make things worse.)</a></b> - by David Bedrick J.D., Dipl. PW for Psychology Today<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mindful-anger/201409/how-do-you-forgive-even-when-it-feels-impossible-part-1" target="_blank">How Do You Forgive Even When It Feels Impossible? (Part 1) (Forgiveness isn't something you do for the other person.)</a></b> - by Andrea Brandt Ph.D. M.F.T. for Psychology Today<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-at-any-age/202301/what-does-it-take-to-restore-a-broken-relationship" target="_blank">What It Takes to Fix a Broken Relationship (Co-rumination, moral repair, and forgiveness.)</a></b> - by Susan Krauss Whitbourne PhD, ABPP for Psychology Today<br /><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/relationships/how-do-i-forgive-my-abuser" target="_blank">How Do You Forgive Someone Who Abused You? (Forgiveness has many positive effects. But forgiving someone who abused you is a personal decision and one you make for your health — not your abuser’s.)</a></b> - by Kurt Smith, PsyD, LMFT, LPCC, AFC, medically reviewed by Kendra Kubala, PsyD for Psychology Today <br /><br /><b><a href="https://criminalinjurieshelpline.co.uk/blog/do-i-have-to-forgive-my-abuser-should-i-and-if-so-how/" target="_blank">Forgiving an Abuser – Should I? And if so, How?</a></b> - Criminal Injuries Helpline<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.619597/full" target="_blank">Is It Possible to Forgive Child Sexual Abuse?</a></b> - by María Prieto-Ursúa for Department of Psychology, Universidad Pontificia Comillas de Madrid, Madrid, Spain and for Frontiers in Psychology<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.baylorisr.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/stanford_forgiveness1.pdf" target="_blank">Forgiveness for intimate partner violence: The influence of victim and offender variables</a></b> - by Jo-Ann Tsang and Matthew S. Stanford for Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Baylor University, Waco, TX and Science Direct (professional paper)<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/simplifying-complex-trauma/202204/how-gratitude-can-harm-mental-health-and-ways-around-it" target="_blank">How Gratitude Can Harm Mental Health—and Ways Around It (Discover the dark side of gratitude and learn methods to avoid its pitfalls.)</a></b> - by Amanda Ann Gregory, LCPC for Psychology Today</div></div></div></div></div></div></div> <br /></div></div><b><a href="https://qasimadam.medium.com/19-traits-of-highly-toxic-mothers-580532473453" target="_blank">19 Traits of Highly Toxic Mothers</a></b> - by Qasim Adam for Qasim Adam website<br /><br /><b><a href="https://lifesavingdivorce.com/forgiveness1/" target="_blank">Forgiveness Takes Time Where There’s Marital Abuse or Betrayal</a></b> - by gbaskerville for Life Saving Divorce<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfxBz3VPmw6uh8pscrqYNcQm0S-3gfd3hnHj5r4k6qcGgkaW8HkMKjNq8rDc6AEwCvpHPf1tKzuSXr2oZxKH74p5YlM3RLCvPZafeT5_DNfpRce-a5SjLIpqFF8D1CC7884znXiNVMdo-NqrNbN8fm43kyD-J9kDjVKtHQ_qbYrcs6yR_Y8zW5PO_v/s500/holding%20a%20boundary.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Dv307M1NnUXp79ZtmDNhzVqvYPUoBE2wmWf-7qz_kbomTjfOg8anqvq3vKtYAb1lhdah9OePyG92UU1iF3q2QEkyafxqjcFq1HvXD3_GYp9nFYuX7CwCRFuk_Zm2x3mL3MW29b_DWFspojg6HcmH67ui6k9PluQanjp1RJXeAOAwejSt6LR9DUEL/s494/leaving%20a%20narcissist%20is%20messy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="476" data-original-width="494" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Dv307M1NnUXp79ZtmDNhzVqvYPUoBE2wmWf-7qz_kbomTjfOg8anqvq3vKtYAb1lhdah9OePyG92UU1iF3q2QEkyafxqjcFq1HvXD3_GYp9nFYuX7CwCRFuk_Zm2x3mL3MW29b_DWFspojg6HcmH67ui6k9PluQanjp1RJXeAOAwejSt6LR9DUEL/s16000/leaving%20a%20narcissist%20is%20messy.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0bWTignWMQjoU2CA4ZZyUZcAf1wLUuz7jp1vgmY8J62uAONNLsitep1d8iMViyfuRPIb_GiBl4U2_eyvd3HwIAMAEKnYsHX805Rj7f1pr7AwUmPmWTex5zhmQlG4wNixLpBkFp0lJz43GTcKDkDlFjwvBqIoos9b8Jb20qZVvWAi2aLMG-mjrKvpF/s500/giving%20up.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0bWTignWMQjoU2CA4ZZyUZcAf1wLUuz7jp1vgmY8J62uAONNLsitep1d8iMViyfuRPIb_GiBl4U2_eyvd3HwIAMAEKnYsHX805Rj7f1pr7AwUmPmWTex5zhmQlG4wNixLpBkFp0lJz43GTcKDkDlFjwvBqIoos9b8Jb20qZVvWAi2aLMG-mjrKvpF/s16000/giving%20up.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-80129552690923916952023-02-21T10:12:00.037-08:002023-03-13T10:31:16.005-07:00A Discussion on Cognitive Empathy in Abusive Relationships: How to Tell if the Person You Are Dealing With in a Close Personal Relationship Has Empathy<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUY9PvgvafJJG7X-3NgJzvrNGm9TB6ODDPR9Ib5B358FSzNAF0qknkCV5EvbO1A89G5xomcfUzy4d-xa8_JHlsLc6N-rpwWGPVp_bV5S8_8dfoYAywe52fbQ53h6_TAK-quuEAP0lbAuAn7wX4_fdxtRV-GLH2IGkGjQ_iFFGsx36PKAMW112Bo1hW/s580/beware%20of%20fake%20empathy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUY9PvgvafJJG7X-3NgJzvrNGm9TB6ODDPR9Ib5B358FSzNAF0qknkCV5EvbO1A89G5xomcfUzy4d-xa8_JHlsLc6N-rpwWGPVp_bV5S8_8dfoYAywe52fbQ53h6_TAK-quuEAP0lbAuAn7wX4_fdxtRV-GLH2IGkGjQ_iFFGsx36PKAMW112Bo1hW/s16000/beware%20of%20fake%20empathy.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>This is an addendum to my post on <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">Lack of Empathy</a></b> and the Cluster B personality disorders. It is also an addendum to my post on why narcissists <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/10/why-narcissistic-abusers-pick-worst.html" target="_blank">Pick the Worst Times of Your Life to Do Damage</a></b>.<br /><br />As usual I have articles at the end of the post written by other authors for your further reading enjoyment. <br /><br />To some of my steady readers, the following 2 paragraphs will be redundant, so you can skip over them if you want. For those who have landed on my blog for the first time, you will probably want to read the first two paragraphs to get a better understanding of what is at play. <br /><br />To get some perspective on who abuses, and who tends to have a lack of empathy, go to <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/04/what-are-types-of-abuse-scapegoating.html" target="_blank">this post first</a></b>. Or to get a synopsis, it tends to be people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Histrionic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder, all of which tend to be in the Cluster B range of personality disorders. Borderline Personality Disorder is part of the Cluster B personality disorders too, and whether they have <i>enough</i> empathy when tragic situations arrive in their closest people's lives, has to do with whether they also have some narcissistic traits (they will not have all of the traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder however). All of these disorders are on a spectrum - Borderline Personality Disorder is on the lighter end of the spectrum and Antisocial Personality Disorder is on the darker end of the spectrum. <br /><br />In a generalized sense of the word, in Borderline Personality Disorder the main characteristics are: terrified of abandonment, they don't have a good sense of who they are and <i>tend</i> to change their personalities and style of dress often to reflect a new persona, they are changeable emotionally and tend to have strong, and even overwhelming emotional responses, and they are quite prone to <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank"><b>black and white thinking</b></a>. They can show bullying tendencies, and even some lack of empathy at times, but they are very impulsive about it (quite a bit more impulsive than the other Cluster Bs) and they tend to feel pretty guilty afterwards. There a number of "types" of Borderlines however, so again, this is very generalized and is mitigated by the type of Borderline they are. Borderlines can grow out of their "disorder" or change out of it through therapy. Narcissists, Histrionics and the Antisocial Personality Disordered overwhelmingly will not grow out of their disorders, and overwhelmingly will not want to change when given the chance. They tend to want to move on to other victims instead, or other people who cannot detect their personality disorder very easily. <br /><br />If they do go to therapy, they tend to want to trick therapists into their way of thinking about issues. In other words, the focus will not be on healing their relationships, but on getting the therapist to side with them and their perspectives. It will be clear that is what they want and for their victims to do all of the work in the relationship (meaning <i>giving in</i> to the narcissist). They will also want their victim to take full responsibility for what happened between the two of them. <br /><br />"Heal your relationship" types of therapists often fall for this trick/manipulation by the narcissist; domestic violence therapists overwhelmingly tend not to. If you really want help, think about the <i>kind</i> of therapist you see. Note: relationship therapists and mediator-type therapists are not trained in domestic violence and the signs, and they are also not trained in trauma responses. You can end up more traumatized than when you went in if you pick this kind of counselor. For more information about therapy with abusers, <b><a href="https://www.thehotline.org/resources/should-i-go-to-couples-therapy-with-my-abusive-partner/" target="_blank">GO HERE</a></b>. </p><p>Also consider that abusive relationships aren't <i>really</i> relationships; they are one person trying to terrorize and traumatize another person into submission. And also consider that the relationship problems aren't <i>real</i> relationship problems; the real problem between you is abuse (note: even <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/10/constant-insults-and-criticism-how-to.html" target="_blank">verbal abuse</a></b> counts). </p><p>For the purpose of this post I will be talking about Narcissistic Personality Disorder the most. </p><p>Some psychologists say that the first tell-tale signs that you are dealing with a narcissist is 1. that they rage when criticized, and 2. they push you to believe that they are faultless, that only the <i>other</i> person is at fault when there are conflicts in their relationships. and 3. that the other person is crazy and therefor the relationship is not conducive to working out relationship issues (gaslighting). <br /><br />However, the other sign is that they tend not to show you empathy when you are going through a really tragic period of your life (especially if they have the other traits of narcissism shown in the right column) - unless they are trying to win you over during that time. Their agenda, once you are feeling "secure in your relationship with them" will be to get more power, control and domination for themselves. In other words, they try to create more trauma and drama at the time you are on your knees with tragedies so that you are putting your thought towards them instead of dealing with your tragedy. The reason they do this is because they look at it as a prime time to get more submission out of you in regards to fulfilling their desires for more power, control and domination. Quite heartless. <br /><br />They are always working on making you submissive anyway through gaslighting, lots of lectures about what you should do and how you should behave. If they feel secure in their bet for getting more domination and control out of you, and they are not getting it by your attempts to put up a resistance, it will be obvious they want to abandon you or hurt you if you do not give into them. It will be clear that they have put <u>"be submissive to me"</u> above <u>healing for you</u>. <br /><br />People in the normal range of human behaviors will always put your healing above their own agendas. <br /><br />Narcissists are always going for <b>trauma-bonded relationships</b>. That's the reason they go from lecturing you ----> to lecturing <i>with</i> trying to control your decisions in your own life ---> to lecturing & trying to control your decisions<b> </b>about your own life <i>with</i> <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">gaslighting</a> (trying to make you feel that your perceptions are so skewed and wrong that you are incapable and inept at making good decisions, or your own decisions, and that they have to make your decisions for you - where their domination and control starts to show up) ---> to coercive control, domination, the beginnings of abuse (usually devaluations of your character, lots of criticizing, and sometimes insults), with either threats of abandonment beginning with some mild forms of abandonment. <br /><br />All of that will still be obvious if that is all that they do. <br /><br />Where it can get tricky is that while they are gaslighting, and being abusive, they will most likely do several things. Try to convince you that you are the unempathetic one. For instance say things like:<br /><br />1. they did so much for you in <u>the past</u> that showed they were empathetic.<br />2. that you are withdrawing <i>from them</i> (which is the normal response from you) to being abused, gaslighted, being threatened and going for their own power, control and domination fantasies over your healing from trauma. <br />3. Tell you that they have done much more for you than you did for them (try to make a competition out of who is more empathetic).<br />4. You are not living up to their perfection standards and being in a relationship with you is exhausting, and they are really empathetic, but because you aren't doing x, y, and z for them, they don't want to show you any empathy. <br />etc ...<br /><br />However, that usually won't be the end of it. They will <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/10/why-are-narcissists-so-argumentative.html" target="_blank">argue</a></b> their points until the other person gets warn down and exhausted ... and they even resort to <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/06/abusers-narcissists-alcoholics.html" target="_blank">word salad arguments</a></b>, gaslighting, using <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" target="_blank">perspecticide</a></b>, all leading up to a <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/04/narcissists-and-blame-shifting-avoiding.html" target="_blank">blame-shift</a></b>, so that they are assured that you are saddled with all of the blame, or as much blame as they think they can reasonably get away with, taking your co-dependency with them into account, your vulnerability to power, control and domination into account, and your propensity for empathy into account. Narcissists make an art out of this, and on gauging your responses ahead of time (yes, they plan how to do this successfully, in their favor), and if you give in to all of this, you can fall into a state of <b>cognitive dissonance</b> and get abused again, and again, and fall into a pattern where you keep going back to your abuser again and again too. <br /><br />You always have to be cognizant of their propensity to blame, shame and blame-shift all culpability on to you, otherwise you will be in trouble. For this reason, most domestic violence counselors would prefer their clients not argue with narcissists, or have much contact with them. <br /><br /><span style="color: #cc0000;">Also, their blame-shifting tactics are a huge red flag that they are <i>not</i> the empaths they are pretending to be.</span> <br /><br />These are all tactics and distractions that the narcissist uses to get you into a compromised situation, using your empathy against you, using your vulnerability against you, using your trauma against you, using your trusting nature against you in order to get you into a submissive state. It is highly unethical. No matter what they have done in the past, in <u>the present day</u> they are showing you that this is who they are. <br /><br />The <u>past</u> is not who they are. They may have been more careful in the past (maybe they sensed you were endowed with too much power to be too cruel to). They might have sensed that you had a lot of support. They might have sensed you were not vulnerable enough for their manipulations. Many of them wait for the coast to be clear in terms of their agendas, and that is especially true of covert narcissists. Hopefully that will become obvious further into the post.<br /><br />At any rate, narcissists are sometimes capable of something called "cognitive empathy", whereby they say things like:<br />"Oh, I'm so sorry you are going through this."<br />"What a tragedy! I'm sending you much love, healing vibes and all of my sympathy!" <br />"How awful! I wish you and your loved ones the best!"<br />"Life can dish up so much tragedy! It's too bad so many people are cruel these days! I love you so much!" <br /><br />However, they usually don't experience empathy on the "feeling level". The feeling level is exactly what it sounds like: they don't feel what you feel. Signs that they <i>feel</i> empathy include:<br />- looking directly into your eyes and crying when you cry.<br />- your tragedies tend to come first in their agendas <br />- understanding on a deep level what you are going through emotionally, such that they feel what you feel even when it is not their direct experience <br />- empathy turning into compassion<br />- "We're in this together" types of outpourings. <br /><br />But most of all, there is constant eye-contact. Often real empathy is expressed by sitting near you, comforting you with hugs and other physical gestures, crying with you, making compassionate statements (i.e. what they can do to help you heal). Again, the constant eye contact is key. <br /><br />If you know narcissists, they don't do this. However, <span style="color: #cc0000;">WARNING</span>: there is a dark traumatizing breed of narcissist, one who has studied how to make empathetic gestures to the point of a significant acting ability. I talk about that later in the post. So it is not always the case that narcissists avoid eye contact, but mostly they do. They may give you fleeting looks, but they tend to look elsewhere when you are expressing emotions and telling your story. And some of their comments will probably seem odd, off-hand, or cold. Also their brand of empathy can turn off like a light switch - and most of us know that real empathy in close personal relationships can't do that. So we consider that when their empathy dies for us suddenly, it is fake. Fake empathy might be at play, certainly, but the right word is really cognitive empathy. <br /><br />Can they help it? <br /><br />A lack of empathy is probably the one thing they probably can't help. Some psychologists (who I feature below) say narcissists can be helped to feel more empathy, but I have never seen it myself, and if anything, I saw it get much, much worse. Most of the survivors I have talked to numbering in the thousands never saw it once either. <br /><br />More likely, the ability to feel empathy probably died in them in early childhood. It can be from being a golden child of a parent with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, where the child is never called upon to be empathetic, accountable, ethical or responsible for hurting others. In many of these cases, bad bullying behavior is even condoned and coddled by a parent. They are only required to be loyal to a parent, who may be highly unethical themselves. I discuss this phenomenon in my post on the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/06/how-narcissistic-bullies-domestic.html" target="_blank">bully golden child</a></b> where I make it clear how this can happen. <br /><br />Some psychologists say it might also be a "brain issue", and can be to some extent even when a child is put into a golden child role (that is also discussed in the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/06/how-narcissistic-bullies-domestic.html" target="_blank">bully golden child post</a></b>). But some psychologists are convinced that it has to do with a brain issue that starts in the womb, but those psychologists tend to be in the minority. However, most psychologists and psychiatrists believe that whether it is organic or learned, the lack of empathy starts in early childhood and becomes part of the development and fixed elements of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. <br /><br />Even without all of the other symptoms and tactics narcissists use, a lack of empathy is still extremely challenging, especially for children. Some of the complaints I have seen personally run the gamut: being stuck in <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">infantilized or parentified roles</a> </b>forever, not getting enough nutrition as a child and relying on people outside the family for an adequate amount of food, being carted around to lovers' living spaces and having to find ways of being occupied while their parent had sex, suffering through life threatening illnesses without medical care because the parent thought they, the child, was faking it ... In other words most children of narcissists suffer long periods of neglect. Being concerned about what their child is experiencing is just not on the radar of things to be concerned about when it comes to narcissistic parents and their needs for <b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/toxic-relationships/202108/the-concept-narcissistic-supply" target="_blank">narcissistic supply</a></b>, and that definitely includes children's feelings. If anything, the parent tries to either provoke children, or they try to squash the feelings of children. They tend to be enormously out of touch with what their children are experiencing, and even who they are, especially those children who are emotionally abandoned (very common), making children of narcissists vulnerable not only to bullying and predatory adults, but to health and medical issues, nutritional issues, safety issues, and general issues that arise where they are being called upon to be much more autonomous for their own care than their age can handle. </p><p>Since narcissists are only capable of cognitive empathy, with a profound level of misunderstanding others, they tend to do the following (this is their best behavior, by the way, not their worst - at the worst they won't care at all what you are experiencing, and sometimes even abandon when tragedies enact feelings):<br />- they tend to lecture you about how you should solve the problems in your life that will make the tragedy less tragic <br />- they will diminish the tragedy and the people who are effected by it and tell you not to focus or dwell on it (to make the best of it) - that is because that is what they do when they have tragedies. <br />- they will do research for you so that you know what kind of tragedy you are dealing with and how to respond to it<br />- they will tell you that your tragedy is ruining your life, or more importantly, their life. They put demands on your attention, and can even try to make you feel guilty for having feelings and thoughts about it. They might say they are being extremely patient until you can work through it, but again, it is all about them. <br />- they talk about how their tragedies are worse than yours (compete with you about whose tragedy was worse).<br />- they talk about how they got over a tragedy like yours, or similar to yours. Why can't you get over yours? - note: getting over tragedies fast is actually not normal, and is not the way you heal, so that should send up red flags. <br />- if someone else caused the tragedy, they disparage you for not forgiving and forgetting, or they ask you why you can't just forgive and forget, like something is wrong with you. <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/should-you-forgive-abusive-people-with.html" target="_blank">"Forgiveness shaming"</a></b> is quite common, and actually makes the trauma worse and last a lot longer, but because they want to see <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/should-you-forgive-abusive-people-with.html" target="_blank">forgiveness</a> in you so badly and right away for all kinds of reasons, usually for self serving purposes, they will most likely be shaming you for not forgiving or forgetting. <br />- that they helped you (in some small way, or in some way that they feel that you need to be <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/10/why-abusers-who-punish-use-ungrateful.html" target="_blank">grateful for</a>) and "now you need to get over it!" - mostly they want you to get over it fast, not in terms of healing, but to get back to them and what they want from you - they have very little patience for people who are distracted by trauma and trauma symptoms.<br /><br />Anyway, I hope I have enlightened you as to the differences between cognitive empathy versus the ability to actually <i>feel</i> empathy (to understand your agony on an emotional level, and a much, much deeper level than cognitive empathy).<br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">THE DARK EMPATH AND HOW IT RELATES TO THIS DISCUSSION<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Most narcissists don't know that real empathy requires constant eye contact, even when you are crying.<br /><br />And they don't know that lectures aren't helpful and can traumatize you more when you are going through a tragedy. <br /><br />And most narcissists don't know that most people aren't like them. They think everyone projects and fakes the way they do. <br /><br />But then there are those narcissists who do understand on a lot of levels that they are different from other human beings, especially when it comes to empathy. And they understand on an intellectual level the difference between cognitive empathy and real empathy. They even understand that in order to portray empathy the right way they have to keep constant with the eye contact, with attentiveness and soothing, and not to say anything too self-serving while this is going on - until they want to, of course, when they realize some ultimate goal in power and it seems ironclad. In other words they wait much later than most narcissists. <br /><br />They actually diligently study how people empathize. And they can even fool on empathy tests at times as well. <br /><br />These particular narcissists are called "dark empaths". They usually have many Dark Triad markers in their personality (a mixture of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism) with scheming and planning. Their main mode of operandi is to fool others that they are empaths and then when they get into a position of overwhelming power over others, lower the boom on their victims in terms of taking complete control over them; i.e. trapping them in ways that the victims would find extremely difficult to get out of. <br /><br />These people create much more trauma in their victims than your usual run-of-the-mill narcissists because run-of-the-mill narcissists are simply too self involved to study empathy to that degree. They are not really interested in empaths beyond what an empath can do for them. They know what empaths say, and they think that is all there is to it. And they aren't entirely convincing to most of us when they say they care (there is just enough looking away or a nose in the air, lecturing, and coldness in their delivery to make most victims suspicious of their real intentions). So they tend to over-play their hand early when an empath can still escape the relationship without as much trauma as victims of dark empaths.<br /><br />A few cult leaders are dark empaths, especially the ones who want to kill all of their followers. They find ways to manufacture the idea that the whole cult is in danger <i>from outside</i> because of their beliefs or religion, when the real truth is that they are in danger from dying from inside the cult (dark triad cult leaders can and do insist that their followers willingly commit suicide as a sign of loyalty). <br /><br />Dark empaths can create the kind of trauma where victims want to jump from a high building, who tell others they no longer want to live, who feel inexorably trapped (the ultimate in trauma bonding in other words). In fact, the trauma they feel is often so bad precisely because they could not detect that the person was <u>not</u> an empath at all (<i>so convincing</i>): the leader turned into this horrific, abusive, threatening, paranoid, murderous authoritarian monster practically overnight. And many kinds of narcissists do tend to switch from nice to horrifically abusive overnight, so that is where dark triads who show empathy have something in common with run-of-the-mill narcissists.<br /><br />Beware of these dark narcissists. Resist the thinking that you will find an idealized significant emotional and spiritual connection and community (especially in cults). This is especially a warning to <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">scapegoats</a></b> and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">lost children</a></b> who generally are the ones to be discarded by narcissistic parents, and are on a journey to find more genuine connection and empathy than the cold cognitive empathy they got from a parent or parents. <br /><br />If you are supposed to give up your past, all of your past relationships, and be isolated within the cult, or in the personal relationship, that is a sign of narcissism at work. Some cult leaders live "high off the hog" with lots of money and cars while their followers live barely scraping by (which is the usual sign of narcissism too), but dark empath narcissists can live like their followers, in poverty, giving and giving, and sacrificing, just to get followers' undying devotion. <br /><br />Trust should only be metered out a little at a time, and depending on how a person is behaving. Being aware that real empathy is expressed mostly with continued eye contact, with feeling your feelings, and soothing is definitely useful to know, but like anything, only up to a point. While dark empaths aren't very common, also remember that narcissism is on the rise in the Western world, which means more dark empaths, even if the percentage of them isn't higher. <br /><br />Most of all, any relationship (aside from a boss at work) that requires lots of submission is not healthy and probably will hurt you greatly in the end. Which, of course, means resisting forgiving and forgetting to the extent where you are back in a relationship with them, resisting fawning and submitting when people are raging, demanding, abandoning, cruel, and commanding, and where it is obvious that they only want power, control and domination over you. The relationship is just a "throw-away" in those cases, for them. <br /><br />All of this, of course, means resisting being a fawning submissive follower of their dubious and diabolical authority. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">REAL EMPATHY CREATES LONG LASTING RELATIONSHIPS<br />HEALTHY RESPONSES, AND CONTENTMENT</div><br />Narcissists tend to discard empaths and prefer other narcissists be their main personal relationships (they love mirrors), and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/traversmark/2020/12/17/narcissists-prefer-the-romantic-company-of-other-narcissists-according-to-new-research/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">now there is research to back it up</a> (and <b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202012/do-narcissists-prefer-date-other-narcissists" target="_blank">another link</a></b>). <br /><br />I'm not sure how that works long term, but perhaps with no one bothering them about ethics, which empaths would speak to them about, and hold them accountable for, perhaps on their own they lie to each other, stab each other in the back, and somehow tolerate it all as long as they are loyal to one another and there is a prize? It's something I do not care to study, frankly. In survivor forums I hear the worst stories, primarily of elder care, but maybe the rest of the time they are having a ball, living it up, idealizing each other in the most syrupy ways imaginable? <br /><br />So where do the narcissists discarded empaths go? <br /><br />My feeling is that they end up with other empaths. This is what happened in my own life. I became educated in the Cluster B Personality disorders (at the suggestion of a domestic violence therapist), and to some degree I can see them a mile away and avoid them. <br /><br />However, I was almost fooled by a construction worker (who was working for a friend at the time). I wanted to hire him. But something did not seem right about him, or his proposals, and he was shutting down my voice and insisting that I needed to trust in him. Most of my experiences with construction workers is that I ask questions, and they answer. If I had concerns, they'd explain in detail how they tackled the project. This guy was, in his own polite way, telling me constantly to shut up, to just put my faith in him and to stop questioning him. One evening I just wasn't feeling right about how I was being treated and I looked him up on the internet and found that he had an arrest and prison record a mile long. Good thing he didn't have an alias too. And my friend fired him once he found out what I found out. <br /><br />So, my ability to sense narcissism or psychopathy is not full proof. But apparently it is enough in terms of my close personal relationships. My relationships now are with the kinds of people I always wanted to be around and with. I always had really close girlfriends growing up, and that is what I modeled in seeking other relationships. I was fooled a bunch of times (especially <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/08/love-bombing-by-narcissists-and.html" target="_blank">the love bombing stage</a></b>), because I was <i>not </i>studying narcissism enough. <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder" target="_blank">I only knew the basics</a></b> - narcissists get enraged when criticized; they are preoccupied with fantasies of power, success and money to the exclusion of other things; they believe they are granted special entitlement (while other people have to follow rules and laws); and they act grandiose. However I didn't know about covert narcissism, the very common brand of narcissist who isn't particularly grandiose outwardly, and that's where I messed up in my life. I also didn't know about gaslighting (even when I was experiencing it constantly), and I didn't know that the silent treatment was pretty exclusive to them if it lasted longer than 24 hours. In fact, I didn't know much about any of it, certainly not enough to make a difference in my life. And so narcissists slipped under my radar quite a lot, and created a great deal of havoc, messed with my head, messed with my career and my life, and even stole from me. <br /><br />Had I studied it as diligently as I do now, my whole adult life would have probably been like it is now. I regret that I didn't study it much earlier. <br /><br />I knew my closest girlfriends and my father were very different people from the kinds of aggressive personalities I was dealing with, but I didn't understand what made them different, and I was under the wrong impression that narcissistic personalities were actually more in the majority instead of in the minority. In other words, I thought that empathetic people were in a crushing minority, barely hanging on, barely heard, barely considered, being replaced with people with much darker traits. <br /><br />So the fact that I was able to get out of the company of narcissists and their power trips entirely could be luck, or it could be that their personality types are in a significant minority, and maybe it is just the same "birds of a feather flock together" phenomenon that happens when "like" people come together. <br /><br />One thing about empathy is that you are understood on a deep level. I do think and feel that it can create intuitive or perhaps even a psychic connection with others. A deep understanding of how others feel, respond and what they are going through in their lives means that you won't hurt each other. What hurts them hurts you too, and not just on some sort of <i>psychic feeling level</i>. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">One of the big ways you can destroy relationships is by breaking the trust between you. Undermining someone's trust who you deeply care about is a nightmare for you. I'm of the opinion that trust can never be repaired once it is broken. No person can change enough of who they are to ever be a reliable "person of trust" again.<br /><br />So when you are in a mutually trusting relationship, you understand that. You do everything you can to keep the trust alive so that it can continue to be a deep relationship that you both can rely on. It is probably built in to our DNA to some degree so that we can survive as a tribe, or raise crops together, or hunt together. <br /><br />Narcissists don't do that. When narcissists break the trust and hurt you a great deal, as much as they possibly can hurt you, with knowledge they have gleaned about you and your vulnerabilities, and in ways they know will garner the most pain for you, they are also hell-bent on destroying the trust between you. They make it very, very plain that they don't care about you a bit. And, of course, they destroy the trust over the most <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank">inconsequential things usually</a></b> - however it's usually not about the thing they are raging about; it is really their insecurity that you are not being submissive enough to them, doing what they tell you to do, that you are not seeing them as "the boss" or in an elevated way, and saying what they tell you to say (another thing you learn when you study narcissism). <br /><br />It's easy to get in a retaliatory mindset when they attack you so many times in an egregious unprovoked way and are willing to lose the trust entirely that you used to have in them. They care a great deal of keeping up a public image that is not even true to who they are in private (common), but have no trouble smashing up your image even if they are using lots of lies to do it. It's disgusting. Unprovoked attacks do the opposite of what they want: it shows very little integrity such that you don't respect them and definitely do not want any part in idealizing them or "following them" again. <br /><br />They throw a lot of rage-bombs at you that you don't deserve just because they are having a crisis about their image. They devalue you, insult you, destroy the bond between you, destroy the trust that you used to have in them, for no apparent reason you can understand (unless you study narcissism). And in an impulsive retaliatory mindset you might throw some bombs, or counter manipulations, back at them to get them to stop, that break their trust in you too. It's called the <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/430639271683459" target="_blank">war at home</a></b> for a reason. What it accomplishes in the end is that you don't trust them and they don't trust you. You could have just as easily have achieved the same end by walking away from each other and agreeing never to bother each other again. <br /><br />In truly empathetic relationships <i>the war at home</i> simply doesn't happen. That means relationships can go deep. It is because you aren't trying to protect yourself from narcissistic attacks, which, as I said can be so small and ungrounded that it is impossible to tell what narcissists will do next. That means with true empaths you can be your authentic self. Self defense isn't necessary. Trying to figure out the next head game or blame game isn't necessary either. <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">Roles</a></b> aren't required which is very freeing and feels boundlessly loving, peaceful and appreciative. <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">Gaslighting</a></b> doesn't happen because no one is trying to control the other person (what they say, what they do, and how they behave is up to the other person - and empathy always turns them towards intimacy and empathy rather than domination and control). <br /><br />Boundaries of ethics and morality also keeps you respecting each other, which is something you can never, ever experience with narcissists no matter how hard you try because they are continually sacrificing ethics and morality to get narcissistic supply.<br /><br />It's really a night-and-day difference. <br /><br />What it has created in my own life are meaningful long lasting relationships, some that date back to high school and have evolved over the years, and most of all peace. I feel I can open my heart more too, and be vulnerable because empathy allows it. Being vulnerable used to frighten the hell out of me with the exception of my father and the friendships I made along the way. In the present day, being vulnerable means being able to tell the truth - people who want to live in the truth want you to speak the truth. <br /><br />Narcissists who want to keep a lie going about themselves or about one of their henchmen or about one of their cherished beliefs, will punish you or rage at you for telling the truth. <br /><br />In contrast, perspectives with empaths are often open rather than closed. In other words, it's about exploring each other's perspectives rather than fighting about whose perspectives are right or wrong. Confirmation bias is a lot less of an issue. <br /><br />I remember asking my husband what he thought the world would be like if narcissists had no power to invade nations, to do school shootings, to rob other people, to rape land for personal gain, to become the abusive Mr. Hyde with their families while spending most of the day outside the home being nice to strangers, and so on ... <br /><br />And he said, "The world would be a paradise." In other words: nothing ugly, nothing sclerotic, no drivers cutting you off, no mates having sex on their spouses behind their back, no more child abuse, no more senseless shootings, no more invasions, probably no need for mind altering drugs because your mind would be content with the paradise you were living in. <br /><br />What I'm about to say next may seem a bit "far out" for some people, but many of us in the world who have been beaten down in life still get out of bed with hope, grace, and dreams of a better future. <br /><br />Here it goes:<br /><br />I have been blessed to have gotten so many of my inspirations for art and writing from dreams. In fact, most of my inspirations come from dreams. I wake up in the morning and get to work on what I've seen or heard in these dreams. <br /><br />It would seem that J.R.R. Tolkien may have been inspired by dreams too. There is a lot of wisdom in his books, especially from Gandalf, Galadriel and some of the hobbits, and a lot of fantastical happenings and beings as well (which are what dreams are made of: fantasy is inevitable in dreams, and to some extent hope too). And then there is even some seeing into the future which may be the hope part of the subconscious: some warnings about the mechanized world (Mordor) taking over the natural world (Lothlorien, Rohan, Hobbiton, Gondor, and so on). The push into the mechanized world are largely made possible by not-too-intelligent, and largely self serving Orchs. Orchs run machines all day, and are fodder for Sauron's war, and so they don't have good lives and no one is promoting their intelligence to improve their lot. Thus in wars they get killed with more frequency. They don't even have good dental work if we look at how they are portrayed in moving picture series. They are kept stupid for a reason, and they can always be defeated even when their numbers greatly out-number the elves, dwarfs, hobbits, and men. And then of course, there are a lot of references to addictions in Tolkien's work: addictions to powers, to revenge and sadism, to the thought of everlasting life, to substances and even to jewelry (the rings). And of course, submission has a role in the story too, and how submissive should you be to rulers who are focusing on issues that are leading kingdoms astray, and are destructive in all of the ways I mentioned in this paragraph.<br /><br />I have had dreams about Tolkien's Middle Earth myself, dreams that altered the story slightly, or that continued after Galadriel left with Frodo, or where I am a character in the story. Not of my own choice, mind you. The most lucid dreams have a life of their own. <br /><br />But I also have dreams that are entirely my own, or are just ever so slightly influenced by someone else's art or perspectives.<br /><br />Anyway, one of the dreams I had was during the height of experiencing narcissistic abuse - I was being tortured over not being submissive to a series of lies. This was the dream: <br /><br />The dream concerned two very tall beings that I met in the forest. One was female and the other a male. They looked sort of human except they were twice as tall as I was, with long white hair cut in a "V" streaming down their back, past their waist. Some other differences: they had very wide flattened foreheads, where their foreheads did not slope back like present day humans. In other words, there was quite a bit more brain-matter than present-day humans as well. Their eyes were also big, and somewhat slanted. <br /><br />When I looked at them, I could feel more empathy emanating from them than I felt in my entire life. I felt a relief that I had never felt in my life also, and I started to cry, thankful that they were there, and the male said, "You are worth saving. Follow us. We have some medicine that will take care of that." <br /><br />So I followed behind them in a wooded forest where the trees were quite substantial, larger than the usual forests I visited during my waking day time hours. As I said, these human-like beings were huge and it was hard for me to look down at the path because I wanted to study them like an artist would, to look thoroughly at their features, and to know who they were as beings. <br /><br />They had me sit in an organically styled chair that had a big red cushion for a seat, and they gave me the medicine in my arm - it was a shot. As I was waking up, I could actually still feel the shot on a physical level for quite awhile, a minute even. <br /><br />In my grogginess when I first knew I had exited a dream, I thought, "Is that medicine to help me from feeling sad? Is that what humans are evolving to? Can we please just evolve into that sooner rather than later? Are we capable of it?" <br /><br />Anyway, I still have a tendency to discount my dreams as "just dreams" even though they have given me so much inspiration. I should always be grateful that I have them, right? Not everyone has them, and certainly not everyone has, or remembers, so many lucid dreams. But then the "lower thoughts" roll in: "Oh, it was just a dream. Now I have to deal with the real circumstances, as awful as they are." But on the other hand, like Tolkien, I had a dream of what humans could be, given enough time, and generations, and wisdom enough to give up on anything that runs contrary to empathy. <br /><br />As in Tolkien's Middle Earth, we are at a crossroads. We can keep going in the direction we are going with thick low black clouds rolling in (something I really saw: they were the result of fires burning in the west, and looked other-worldly, not anything I ever saw before, very ominous and acrid, effecting my lungs, something that the fantastical realm of Mordor might produce, but was real instead, something that alarmed me greatly and made me realize that we are on the brink of disaster with climate change and creating an earth that may not be inhabitable to us any more). But we are also at a crossroads with the other things that Tolkien brought up: over-building, over-mechanization, greed, invasions, wars, how we treat each other, narcissistic concerns, addictions to things and people who are unhealthy, etc. <br /><br />Whether we decide it with a war as all-involving as the Siege of Gondor, or solve it by slow evolution, or just die in what we have created, is the gargantuan issue of our day. <br /><br />I also look at Putin's invasion in this light too. It could turn into a world war, and if Belarus and China get involved, it is likely to end up that way. There is not a speck of empathy in invading a country, none, and it is pointless too, because as soon as fossil fuels start to be in short supply, or another type of energy takes over, Russia will lose then, at that later time. The bombing of people's houses and businesses, the raping, the intentional killing of children, the atrocities, the forced evacuation of citizens to Russia, it's all a devolution away from empathy and our higher selves. And even if Russia, China and Belarus manage to overtake Ukraine, the Ukrainians will be trauma bonded to Russians. That's the worst possible outcome for Ukraine, and for the world (the tolerance of slavery will be an issue again), and even, in the long run, for Russia. They will not be able to win the minds of a people who have been terrorized, tortured and robbed to this extent. <br /><br />That's pretty much all I have to say today on why I'm convinced that empathy is the only road out of this mess. I got a little off-track with this post with the inspirations of dreams, but I hope I have inspired some people who read what I have to write, that empathy is the main path forward if we are to survive as a species. <br /><br />As for how to deal with the parts of the population who have very little empathy or who have none at all, I don't know how to deal with that problem except to avoid them. If we all avoid them and they can't get into positions of power, maybe that helps move our evolution forward? That's where I am in my personal journey with this problem. <br /><br />But what if they are invading you and bringing a war to your home? <br /><br />I do have some ideas on how to deal with<b> school shootings and other mass murders</b>, most of which are largely perpetrated by young men with significant narcissistic traits and who are also consumed with paranoia and prejudice (that is an upcoming post).<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">FURTHER READING<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><div><b><a href="https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/14-signs-of-narcissism" target="_blank">15 Signs You're Dealing With A Narcissist, From A Therapist</a></b> - by Margalis Fjelstad, Ph.D., LMFT for Mind Body Green (note: this article discusses lack of empathy in Narcissistic Personality Disorder)<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/understanding-the-narcissistic-sociopath-4587611" target="_blank">How to Spot a Narcissistic Sociopath (Is a Sociopathic Narcissist the Same Thing as a Narcissistic Sociopath?)</a></b> - by Arlin Cuncic, and medically reviewed by David Susman, PhD for Very Well Mind (note: this article discusses lack of empathy in Narcissistic Sociopaths)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-recognize-a-malignant-narcissist-4164528" target="_blank">How to Identify a Malignant Narcissist</a></b> - by Elizabeth Scott, PhD and medically reviewed by Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD for Very Well Mind <br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="http://www.antoniocasella.eu/archipsy/Ritter_2010.pdf" target="_blank">Lack of empathy in patients with narcissistic personality disorder</a></b> - by Kathrin Ritter, Isabel Dziobek, Sandra Preißler, Anke Rüter, Aline Vater, Thomas Fydrich, Claas-Hinrich Lammers, Hauke R. Heekeren, and Stefan Roepke for Psychiatry Research and Science Direct (professional article)</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://spsp.org/news-center/character-context-blog/do-narcissists-lack-empathy-it-depends" target="_blank">Do Narcissists Lack Empathy? It Depends</a></b> - by Greta Urbonaviciute for SpSp</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://queenbeeing.com/narcissists-fool-you-with-false-empathy/" target="_blank">Agenda-Driven Empathy: How Narcissists Fool You Into Thinking They Care</a></b> - by Angela Atkinson for QueenBeing<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/do-narcissists-cry" target="_blank">Yes, Narcissists Can Cry — Plus 4 Other Myths Debunked</a></b> - by Alex Klein, PsyD for Healthline<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/intense-emotions-and-strong-feelings/202001/do-narcissists-actually-lack-empathy" target="_blank">Do Narcissists Actually Lack Empathy? (An unwillingness to empathize is different than being unable to do so.)</a></b> - by Mary C. Lamia Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://spacioustherapy.com/narcissism-and-empathy/" target="_blank">Narcissism is essentially a problem of lack of empathy</a></b> - by Shawna Freshwater, Ph.D. for Spacious Therapy </div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/blog/liberation/2018/07/how-the-narcissist-hurts-you-using-cognitive-empathy" target="_blank">How the Narcissist Hurts You Using Cognitive Empathy</a></b> - by Kim Saeed for Psych Central</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/cognitive-and-emotional-empathy-4582389" target="_blank">Cognitive Empathy vs. Emotional Empathy (Learn the differences between these two types of empathy)</a></b> - by Jodi Clarke, MA, LPC/MHSP, medically reviewed by Rachel Goldman, PhD, FTOS for Very Well Mind<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/there-are-actually-3-types-of-empathy-heres-how-they-differ-and-how-you-can-develop-them-all.html" target="_blank">There Are Actually 3 Types of Empathy. Here's How They Differ--and How You Can Develop Them All (Understanding the three types of empathy can help you build stronger, healthier relationships.)</a></b> - by Justin Bariso for Inc<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4415495/" target="_blank">Empathy in Narcissistic Personality Disorder: From Clinical and Empirical Perspectives</a></b> - by Arielle Baskin-Sommers, Elizabeth Krusemark, and Elsa Ronningstam for National Library of Medicine<br /><br /><b><a href="https://theconversation.com/dark-empaths-how-dangerous-are-psychopaths-and-narcissists-with-empathy-178715" target="_blank">‘Dark empaths’: how dangerous are psychopaths and narcissists with empathy?</a></b> - by Nadja Heym and Alexander Sumich for The Conversation<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter-Jonason/publication/270921933_The_emotional_deficits_associated_with_the_Dark_Triad_traits_Cognitive_empathy_affective_empathy_and_alexithymia/links/5afd1e80aca272b5d870814b/The-emotional-deficits-associated-with-the-Dark-Triad-traits-Cognitive-empathy-affective-empathy-and-alexithymia.pdf" target="_blank">The emotional deficits associated with the Dark Triad traits: Cognitive empathy, affective empathy, and alexithymia</a></b> - by Peter K. Jonason and Laura Krause for University of Western Australia and Research Gate (professional article)<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.wikihow.com/Relationships/Am-I-a-Narcissist-or-an-Empath-Quiz" target="_blank">Am I a Narcissist or an Empath? (Take this quiz to find out!)</a></b> - Wiki How<br /><br /><b><a href="https://psychcentral.com/quizzes/narcissistic-personality-quiz#1" target="_blank">Narcissistic Test</a></b> - Psych Central<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/narcissist-test" target="_blank">This Narcissist Test Will Tell You If Someone Has Narcissistic Tendencies</a></b> - by Kelly Gonsalves and Kistina Hallett, Ph.D., ABPP for Mind Body Green<br /><br /><b><a href="https://this.deakin.edu.au/self-improvement/quiz-how-narcissistic-are-you" target="_blank">Quiz: How narcissistic are you? (quiz)</a></b> - by Associate Professor Ross King, School of Psychology, Faculty of Health, Deakin University for Deakin University<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.allthetests.com/personality-tests/characteristics/other-characteristics/quiz33/1481998379/psychopath-narcissist-sociopath-or-empath" target="_blank">Psychopath, Narcissist, Sociopath or Empath? test</a></b> - All the Tests<br /><br /><div><b><a href="https://www.quizony.com/are-you-an-empath-or-a-narcissist/index.html" target="_blank">Are You an Empath or a Narcissist? (Are you an empath or a narcissist? Empaths are genuinely in touch with other people's feelings and quick to offer a listening ear. Narcissists can come off as self-centered but are often unaware of it. Does this sound like you? Take our narcissist or empath test now to find out.)</a></b> - Quizony<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.marriage.com/quizzes/am-i-an-empath-or-a-narcissist-quiz" target="_blank">Am I an Empath or a Narcissist Quiz</a></b> - Marriage.com </div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://www.quora.com/Can-a-narcissist-fake-being-empathetic" target="_blank">Can a narcissist fake being empathetic?</a></b> - Quora question (one of the answers is from someone diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder)</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://www.quora.com/Are-there-ways-to-identify-a-narcissists-empathy-as-fake" target="_blank">Are there ways to identify a narcissist's empathy as fake?</a></b> - Quora question<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.quora.com/Can-someone-have-narcissistic-personality-disorder-but-be-very-empathetic-too" target="_blank">Can someone have narcissistic personality disorder, but be very empathetic too?</a></b> - Quora question<br /><br />Note: I would not recommend taking this article seriously. It doesn't cite professional articles or studies, and can confuse readers, but I put it on the reading list anyway to stir conversation:<b> <a href="https://www.lovepanky.com/my-life/relationships/feeling-trapped-relationship" target="_blank">Empathic Narcissist: What It Means, 15 Unique Traits & How to Cope with Them</a></b> - by Nicky Curtis for Love Panky<br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ChBtLQHQ63p4m-RDGJLf7GdflFuQrNp5andIQjASjj8qN4hKgcY_9AtoUMrScu42uSnTFa3tuvb2LCQsQLAXxGQShRsQ9jI17CB1920u4ZJx9DQO3DEeB5OMQfaS4mPHGHXxyp1H7QPU4bU_HjhEtCJvzig4VWcLn1-Mf3XnmGawrDlXUVLgHPsG/s504/shahida%20ararabi%20watch%20out.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="504" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ChBtLQHQ63p4m-RDGJLf7GdflFuQrNp5andIQjASjj8qN4hKgcY_9AtoUMrScu42uSnTFa3tuvb2LCQsQLAXxGQShRsQ9jI17CB1920u4ZJx9DQO3DEeB5OMQfaS4mPHGHXxyp1H7QPU4bU_HjhEtCJvzig4VWcLn1-Mf3XnmGawrDlXUVLgHPsG/s16000/shahida%20ararabi%20watch%20out.jpg" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2KcY_Npy3Jfdz5r5ZS9s-mNN_smqQTr2NtdovcqiKNefQDH4dQTyOoYutr9oGLzU8SRK8grMw_c8jOi3aX9_j0voGbzf4jgoVhGJPKKD9D7FVMLNny0tb9AiB1e8APocZ8ojozurvpwAkDugNOifJNeO78iKRp63IxlkvGLJILXhGNrSiZ41gP4Wi/s496/psychopath%20free%20quote.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2KcY_Npy3Jfdz5r5ZS9s-mNN_smqQTr2NtdovcqiKNefQDH4dQTyOoYutr9oGLzU8SRK8grMw_c8jOi3aX9_j0voGbzf4jgoVhGJPKKD9D7FVMLNny0tb9AiB1e8APocZ8ojozurvpwAkDugNOifJNeO78iKRp63IxlkvGLJILXhGNrSiZ41gP4Wi/s16000/psychopath%20free%20quote.jpg" /></a></div><br /></div></div></div></div><p></p>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-9643968615294466062023-02-10T16:18:00.033-08:002023-02-16T12:48:54.090-08:00Warning: The "You're Useless" Phrase, the "You're Nobody" Phrase and "You're Worthless" Phrase in Narcissistic Abuse and Domestic Violence<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOfG7MPebWEKzvkA0pOmbIhVdRoOcswmrd04xK4j35UYt9jBFoBo19pr5iqWNTCcveJCWbOpBsq8fPrpcHsbe5ZeBZBDipjijtbxXhObP5AyKXT0xtyUgDHFoosHtDjLrgxRShepzQvNSpCqjCrWUc8ij5akraewV-WLGeyqK4_8wZ4I4GGz5gp438/s834/useless%20cartoon%20web.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="834" data-original-width="575" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOfG7MPebWEKzvkA0pOmbIhVdRoOcswmrd04xK4j35UYt9jBFoBo19pr5iqWNTCcveJCWbOpBsq8fPrpcHsbe5ZeBZBDipjijtbxXhObP5AyKXT0xtyUgDHFoosHtDjLrgxRShepzQvNSpCqjCrWUc8ij5akraewV-WLGeyqK4_8wZ4I4GGz5gp438/s16000/useless%20cartoon%20web.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">© Lise Winne - 2/10/23</div> <p></p><p>This is what domestic abuse can devolve to. Yup, getting upset with you over the tiniest thing and calling you worthless because you made a mistake and forgot the cinnamon. It's crazy making!</p><p>Abusers of all kinds use these kinds of phrases, but overt narcissists seem to love them the most. These phrases are always categorized as verbal abuse by psychology and domestic violence field professionals. </p><p>At the core of these phrases is <b>hatred</b>, usually spurred by a <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank">black and white thinking process</a></b>, which abusers experience much, much more than the rest of us. There are very few, if any, people who really please them, so they usually spend a lot of free time complaining about other people, insulting them behind their backs, even lying about them. If you are privy to hearing about all of the people they hate and that do not live up to their standards, if they are in <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/08/love-bombing-by-narcissists-and.html" target="_blank">a love bombing stage</a></b>, you may think that you are safe from their hatred, but most of us find out that we are not. <br /><br />And it is their hatred that can be dangerous to us. Hatred is usually rooted in either family <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">prejudices</a></b> (hating women in the family, or overweight people in the family, or being prejudiced against people who are mentally ill, or of a different race, or of a different lifestyle, or who are financially or physically challenged ... it can be anything). <br /><br />One thing all narcissists have in common is that they talk negatively about other people, usually a lot, and they tend to be harshly judgmental too. It tends to be a daily affair, but it can be weekly as well, and it will still influence people around them.<br /><br />Highly critical people tend to lack empathy too, just because their minds are on what to despise in other people. They feel better in comparison if they can trash-talk about others, what they do, what they look like, who they are ... They spend way too much time on what to nitpick apart, what about the differences of others that make them feel disgust, what about them that incentivizes the narcissist not to care about the struggles of other people. <br /><br />For the rest of us, it is pretty awful to listen to negative talk about others. <br /><br />Certainly highly judgmental people are not inside the heads of others, looking at their thoughts, or even looking at situations through their eyes, and how they got to where they are now. For the most part they don't know their cultural background, or their family background. For this reason a lot of people call highly judgmental people ignorant and prejudiced, and the reason why is that if you are really open to who other people are, and explore their perspectives at length, it will expand your understanding such that you will get along with more people, and you and others in your orbit would experience more peace. <br /><br />Tolerance and peace go together. <br /><br />Narcissists can be so rageful about how all kinds of <i>other</i> people act, and it can, in turn, create an environment that is at best irritating, and at worst, dreadfully horrible and depressing. If they are shouting every day about someone, whether it is a new person or not, I'd bet all you want is the raging and complaining and their insults of other people to stop. <br /><br />However, we are all judgmental and it probably came from the days we lived in tribes. We are judgmental because we have to discern friends from enemies, bad fruit from good fruit, predators from prey, but when extreme, and children are listening, then being harshly judgmental can become normalized within a family, and one of the unforeseen consequences is that children can also turn on parents with the same harsh judgments they grew up hearing. So it doesn't do much good. And, of course, if the parents are harshly judgmental (not just of outsiders), but do it to family members, or a member, there can be an estrangement. <br /><br />Most of all, harsh judgements, and turning to judging people as a constant conversation activity, can often turn into prejudice, and it tends to be based on the usual ones I mentioned above: on race, creed, religion, sex, financial status, etc. <br /><br />One way you can tell who the family is prejudiced against and who they hate is: Who is treated without dignity and respect? Who is criticized a lot? Who is not getting empathy? Who is not listened to? Who is treated as a second fiddle or like they don't matter in terms of voicing their perspectives or being an integral part of the family? Are their hierarchies where certain members seem to be more valued, and where others are not? And in an extended family, what do they have in common? I would bet that it has something to do with societal prejudices like the ones I have mentioned above. <br /><br />Let's just say as an example that members trash-talk about women in the family much more than the men. Trash-talkin' means: harshly judged, criticized, blamed, shamed, treated with disrespect, punished, insulted, disparaged, down-graded, talked about in a derisive way, peppered with false narratives and false motives, devalued, put on a lower hierarchy in terms of importance. Perhaps there are even quite a few women in the family who are estranged from a parent because of all of this. Maybe the parents in the family went overboard and women started to be scapegoated, and you find out they later became estranged. <br /><br />And why? My guess is that there is an attitude that women are considered to be more "useless", more "nobodies", more "worthless", the phrases we are talking about in this post. So when you get a male in the family shouting this at a female in the family, they've been taught to disparage women by example. <br /><br />And why are women hated - or why is there a family narrative of anyone being hated? My guess is that there are unrealistic or downright no-win expectations on these women, and in some way or other, they fall short every time. Usually the women aren't submissive enough - that's usually the real reason behind the disparaging. So then prejudice turns into scapegoating. </p><p>Hatred within the family also means the abuser has either some mild or high expectations of roles, and that the roles have to be performed to exacting standards. And people are defined by the roles. The usual roles of abusive families are golden child, scapegoat, family mascot and lost child, but there are other roles that the family pushes on to a child.<br /><br />The need to put someone else in a role and feeling prejudice towards that person usually goes hand in hand too. Roles and submission are much more expected from an abuser when his extended family expects the same thing. For instance, the expectation can be that girls must be submissive to the men and older women of a family. If a young adult female member strays out of that expectation, the family members rage, blame, shame and/or ostracize, or all four. <br /><br />And even if you are from a different family and you are dating or married to someone who was brought up this way, that is the crux of why you are abused too. Your abuser can't get out of the mindset that you deserve it (and in this case it would be "You deserve it because you are female; you are supposed to be submissive; I have learned that females are below men in stature; I believe I have a right to control you like my mother controlled my sister; I have a right to punish you in ways that are similar to how my mother punished my sister; I have a right to tell you what to do, where to go, how to act; I have a right to rage at you, insult you, walk out on you; even dismiss you as useless and worthless if you are not living up to these standards.") <br /><br />I am using "mother" here for a reason. While narcissistic dads are much more likely to treat daughters as underlings who are expected to be submissive, and disparaged because of their female sex, believe it or not, these attitudes can take hold in the mind of a boy by a mother who treats her daughter badly, with disdain, and with enormous amounts of disrespect. And jealousy. Narcissistic mothers tend to be <b>extremely jealous of their daughters</b>, especially if the daughter(s) are talented, or conventionally beautiful, or highly educated and respected, or highly independent, dignified and revered. They also tend to be very competitive with these kinds of daughters too. Sabotage can also come into play. This is often not apparent to daughters who have pronounced C-PTSD because C-PTSD can mean they don't feel jealousy themselves. If you don't feel jealousy yourself, you do not know what the narcissist is going through with this emotion, so you may miss the signals that would make you look into the reasons for their jealousy, and how they are relieving it, and it can mean that you fail to protect yourself. I'll be publishing a post on jealousy soon. <br /><br />And because jealousy and competition can consume the thoughts of a mother about her daughter above anything else, these mothers can act out in very destructive ways against a daughter to get rid of feeling jealous. Narcissistic Moms can actually feel better about themselves when they abuse their own daughters, or have other people do it - sort of: it is not long lasting enough for them ... I'll discuss that in the post about "Jealousy and the Narcissist". We tend to think an overbearing authoritarian narcissistic dad will teach his boy attitudes about women, including that women are inferior to men (common), but it can come from a mother just as easily, and may be a more powerful lesson because usually the self esteem of a boy comes from his mother much more than it comes from his father. <br /><br />So let us say that he finds a mate, but his expectations of a mate are that women must be inferior and need to be submissive, controlled, dominated, told what to do. If they are not submissive, then he will learn to deal with the situation the way his parent or family treats women. It could be via a swift discard (immediate termination of a relationship). Or raging. Or violent outbursts. Or the silent treatment. Or punishing her by depriving her of resources. Or even murder (especially if he has been taught to hate women to the extent that he gets the feeling they should not exist if they aren't trying to please men. Or it could be all of these things).<br /><br />At any rate, the verbal abuse gets to the point where he is calling his mate "useless", "a nobody" and "worthless" a whole lot. <br /><br />Of course, this has nothing to do with the victim. And as the cartoon portrays, it can be over silly stuff, and usually is. <br /><br />Perhaps she comes from a family who reveres strong women. And she doesn't understand why a man would want to dominate her in the first place. Why not real love than all of these domination plays? What's he getting out of this?<br /><br />It has to do with prejudices, family and cultural attitudes about women, and the familial and cultural background of the abuser. And it is where abuse usually comes from: <i>their</i> family, who they listened to when growing up, not you. <br /><br />They may try to talk you into that it's something to do with not reaching <i>their</i> perfection standards in behavior, or actions, or duties, or appearance, but if you really look closely at what the abuser is trying to accomplish by being hyper critical of you, you will usually see that it has to do with how much you submit to his will, authority, domination, threats, and how much you are sublimating. <br /><br />Unless you want to prove how submissive you are, you are going to be rebelling, defending yourself, complaining about how you are treated. And believe it or not, it rarely makes a difference <i>to them</i>. And what do they do when you are rebelling, defending yourself and complaining? They rage, and lecture endlessly (usually), argue endlessly too, try to trash your self esteem any way they can, and they try to wear you down so you will get exhausted and throw up your hands and do what they tell you to do just to get them to stop with the tactics, and use phrases like these to make you aware that you are not particularly special to them. </p><p>Where does the attitude come from that women <u>must</u> be submissive? In his family. If he has a sister who was beaten down every time she did not submit, then he is going to have the attitude that abuse works in making women and girls submissive. <br /><br />Very seldomly it can come from peer relationships or other families (unless the children of a family are neglected by both parents and their closest bond is with peers or the members of another family). <br /><br />If he saw a sister get hit, and he has most of the traits of narcissism found in the right column, he will probably be hitting you eventually if he isn't already. If he saw his sister get discarded for not being submissive, he will most likely discard you when you are not submissive. <br /><br />And as we know, prejudiced people can be very, very abusive, and even violent, especially if you are "only one" among them, or if the abuser thinks it can be done in secret, or you are being isolated, or if you are enduring lots of insults and gaslighting, or have been through an abandonment by them before (especially if it was over something <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/03/erroneous-blaming-and-erroneous.html" target="_blank">erroneous</a></b>), and especially if you are enduring any kind of physical aggressive touch or displays (grabbing, shoving, pushing, trashing a kitchen or smashing dishes, breaking property, punching fists against the wall or near your face, driving recklessly, fast and dangerously while you are the passenger). <br /><br />Calling people useless, a nobody and worthless typically has a lot of hatred and rage behind it. Obviously. And it also tends to be used most by physical abusers. <br /><br />One reason these phrases are more dangerous than other kinds of verbal abuses is because they are dehumanizing. People who dehumanize tend not to see you as human, with feelings as important than theirs. Dehumanizing means that they will not have empathy for you, and that the only thing they care about is whether you fulfill a role they demand that you fulfill, period. I bet if you've heard these phrases, the disrespect is off the charts, the rage is off the charts, the insults are off the charts, they are constantly telling you what is wrong with you, and they are either in a physically abusive stage (during <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">the escalation of abuse</a></b>), or they are constantly trying to intimidate you. But I would bet that the physical abuse has started, or will start very soon. <br /><br />These phrases, can and often do, mean the kind of abuses that can escalate to much more egregious forms of attack, since these phrases are in the "worst" category of verbal abuse. In order to escalate, he has to go beyond these phrases. The escalation is pretty certain, especially if these sayings are said with rage, and it is clear that they are not respecting physical boundaries (pounding their fists in close proximity to you, raging within 5 feet from you or in your face, pushing you aside, shouting commands at you from several feet away as well). The other sign is making demands with rage, or trying to micromanage your movements and how you perform "duties". <br /><br />Abusers usually tell you or show you in some way or another what their intentions are towards you too. These three phrases tell you that the narcissist has devalued you a lot. As I've said before, it's about as extreme as you can get. However, thinking of you as worthless can add up to any number of final results, including egregious physical injury, and even murder, so it is very important to know how much intimidation is behind these phrases and get help.<br /><br />Rage with clenched fists is not a good sign. <br /><br />In terms of covert narcissists, they are not as likely to use these phrases. They try to show victims, rather than say it out loud, that the victims are useless, a nobody and worthless through discarding, something narcissists are known for. The narcissist throws you away like a toy that isn't working right for them. </p><p>Either way, it is important not to let these phrases or discards ruin your self esteem (if you at all personalize what they have to say, or take their opinions of you to heart, or if you care about their opinions, which narcissists will always assume you do because they have very inflated views of themselves). <br /><br />In many ways it is also dangerous for you to let these phrases compromise your self esteem because you can fall into a state of <b>cognitive dissonance</b> about your abuser where you miss the signs that the abuse is escalating. If you go to a domestic violence counselor, and they make it clear you are in a dangerous situation, they know more than you do about the signs of dangerous perpetrators. If you are caught in this line of thinking, "Well he has his good side and his bad side, and the Christian faith tells me I should forgive the sins of others, and I can tolerate it for now while we figure out what we are going to do with our relationship. And hopefully the love between us will make him change" - that is cognitive dissonance, and for the most part, unrealistic thinking, and it is often what happens to women who go back to their abusers.<br /><br />But back to the phrases ... </p><p>Some perpetrators mean to scare you with these phrases, and they make it clear that they must exert <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-pursuit-of-power-control-and.html" target="_blank">power, control and domination</a></b> over you at all times, what many of them, especially narcissists with darker traits, live for 24/7. Every time they need something, want something, and are dissatisfied with something, they want to rage at you like a king does, scaring you into submission. <br /><br />I hope that these phrases, at the very least, will <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-deep-method-for-survivors-of.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank"><u>not</u> be something that you personalize</a>: look at them. Could you tell them that they are useless, a nobody and worthless, and would <i>they</i> act like a pleaser puppet for you? Probably not. They have to take what they dish out. Hypocrisy does not make a good argument for justifying their actions.<br /><br />The reason why so many abusers are hypocrites is because they think they are <b>special</b>: that they are endowed by god, or by a parent, or by their own superiority fantasies, with special rights, and that you do not have those same rights. Some instances: they feel they have a right to insult you and criticize you at any time and with these kinds of phrases, but feel "incredibly hurt" if they even perceive that you might be critical of them (very, very common). Or they feel they can't trust you so they try to keep you isolated from friends and family, but feel justified in coming and going as they please, and even feel justified to have an affair on you because they deem that you are so untrustworthy that they need someone else waiting in the wings for them when you take off (also pretty common). They feel that you deserve their rages any time they want to rage, but if you so much as complain about anything, they deem you are being incredibly unstable and selfish (also common).<br /><br />So if we are tired of dealing with all of their rationalizations for hypocrisy (and their being <i>so darned special </i>that they think your attention should be on them at all times, and what they have to say, and their views, and their paranoias and conspiracy theories, and what they want from you), we should be able to see these phrases for what they are: much like Dorothy, the tin man, the lion, and scarecrow in <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_(1939_film)" target="_blank">The Wizard of Oz</a></b> who saw the mean wizard for what he was: an old feeble man with a weak voice working levers behind a curtain to make his wizard ferocious and terrifying. <br /><br />In other words, these wizards of abuse are actually scared little entitled children who are often <b>extremely jealous</b>, and also believe others are jealous of them,<b> </b>with a<b> broken self esteem</b>, behind a ferocious, and perhaps even dangerous, mask, just like the man behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz.<br /><br />And notice in The Wizard of Oz how the wizard wasn't satisfied after Dorothy, the scarecrow, the lion and the tin man did everything that was demanded of them, but the wizard still told them it wasn't good enough and to come back later. That's very much how an abuser does things too. <br /><br />And the injustice that Dorothy's group expresses is very much how victims react too .... unless the wizards of abuse can keep talking them into what their victims are doing wrong, and that their motivations for pleasing the wizard are continually wanting: bad, wrong, crazy, stupid, useless, and worthless, like only the way a "nobody" would do it. In other words, you can always decide you need respect, than trying to win this infantile game of being their <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/03/perfection-in-abusive-relationships.html" target="_blank">perfect</a></b> pleaser puppet. It rarely works to please them anyway, because people who hate you can't, and will never, be pleased. You'll be spinning like a top and exhausting yourself in the process while they adopt more and more abuse tactics to keep you spinning harder, and harder, and more dominated by them. <br /><br />And being submissive is a sure-fire way to end up with PTSD. We are not meant to be puppets of someone else's domination fantasies. <br /><br />If you only get the silent treatment (another form of abuse), consider that you may have gotten off easily. <br /><br />Some abusers who have actually gone public to tell their stories have said that they gave the silent treatment for a good reason: because otherwise they might have killed or injured their victims. It was the best way for them <u>not</u> to break the law. When you are perceived to go out of <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">the type of role</a></b> they assigned for you, they get very, very enraged, to the extent that they feel they cannot control it and control what they will do with it. <br /><br />It is also why you shouldn't plead with them, or argue with them when they give you the silent treatment, a tactic that is pretty exclusive to them if it goes on longer than 24 hours. I think many of us usually come to the realization that they become <u>even more rageful</u> if we initiate contact to settle the dispute. Relationships with narcissists aren't like other relationships where both people argue their points, or plead with each other to understand, where you both come to many realizations, and finally come to a conclusion that makes both people happy and feeling loved. With narcissists, they do not accept resolutions that make you both happy (they feel like you should make <i>them</i> happy, period). They also are not interested in understanding you or what the conflict is about. They just want you <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">"in role"</a></b> because being out of role seems like an act of hostility, of instability, and a recalcitrance <i>to them</i> - think of tyrannical authoritarian leaders who want to destroy a country because all of a sudden the country they want to destroy has gone democratic (even though the country may have been going democratic for a long time) - the democratic government is no longer acting like a puppet to the destructive authoritarian country - this is how narcissists view people in personal relationships too, puppets to their narcissistic supply needs, end of story. <br /><br />The way I now look at an unbroken narcissistic silent treatment is that it means they are in <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">a constant state of rage over you being "out of role"</a></b>, and if it goes on for weeks, months or years, it means they are still in a rage. You don't want to deal with them when they are in a rage, so you let the silence go on and continue to come between you. Eventually, you'll forget about them. They may see that you have moved on, and have found happiness, which makes them rage more, and can even spark them to attempt <b>a hoover</b>.<br /><br />I totally understand that it is shocking that they don't care about you at all, but it is part of their condition <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">not to care about the fate of others</a></b> (lack of empathy is one of the stand-out characteristics of narcissism). They'd like you to believe that you deserved it, just as murderers like to convince juries that their victims deserved to be killed, but it really does not belong to you and besides the upbringing they had, it is also the result of <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">how abuse escalates</a></b>. </p><p>Most victims tend to find happiness because nothing is worse in life for most people than abuse, violence and sadism. <br /><br />And more often than not narcissists are much more cruel than other kinds of people. However, if your self esteem really has been broken by them it can point to another danger which I discuss in a paragraph below. <br /><br />But for those of us whose self esteem is not decided by them, we will find happiness. They usually don't because the "puppet fantasy" can never be truly achieved, no matter how hard they try, no matter how many people they try it on. So, they stew in their rages in the silence that <i>they</i> created. <br /><br />For those of you whose lives and self esteem have taken a deep dive after a silent treatment, it can be dangerous in terms of mental and physical health, so it isn't just about how these phrases escalate to other forms of abuse, but what it is doing to your body and mental health.<br /><br />Most survivors seek mental health counseling from therapists. There are therapists who specialize in domestic violence and others who specialize in trauma. <br /><br />But as I've said, the silent treatment is not all you receive from narcissists usually. And so the dangers need to be talked about. These phrases are just some signs of danger. This post is about getting the low-down on what these phrases actually mean, and why they are used (mainly for manipulation by the abuser), and what the dangerous outcomes can be.</p><p style="text-align: center;">"you're useless"</p><p style="text-align: left;">Narcissists tend to see people as utilitarian objects or tools. They love you if you are useful to them, and they hate you if you become, or are, useless to them in terms of the agendas they want. <br /><br />It is often why they discard people who are caught up in other issues: caretaking a loved one, getting a diagnosis for a terminal or chronic illness, or alternatively when you are caught up in good things in your life like getting married to the person of your dreams (where they often either don't show up to your wedding, or where they show off so that the attention is on them), getting a significant award for an achievement (where they might skip that event too). Narcissists hate it when your attention isn't on them all of the time, which is what narcissistic supply is all about. <br /><br />One of the reasons why narcissists have an easy time discarding people is because of the fact that they don't see people much beyond tools and objects for <i>their use</i>. <br /><br />If they say they love you, it may mean they love you momentarily, or because you served a purpose for them in getting what they wanted. Perhaps you made a dinner they liked, or you took care of them when they were in the hospital, or you inadvertently bullied someone for them, or you made their ex jealous by your presence, or you made them look good in their social circle by being at the top of your graduating class or getting a scholarship, or you took on <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">a role</a></b> unconsciously in their life that they felt they badly needed. <br /><br />As I've said before,<b> <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">roles are extremely important to narcissists</a></b>, but not to the rest of us (if we are at all enlightened, we see people beyond roles, even beyond the roles of certain jobs and careers). Narcissists don't, not even in their closest personal relationships. They can't separate what they want from other people from who a person is. <br /><br />Likewise, very few us use the "You're useless" or "They are useless" phrases when we describe people who aren't doing what we expect them to do, but overt narcissists tend to use the phrase whole lot, even when describing their own children, or a spouse, or an ex-spouse. <br /><br />So be careful and be on guard when you hear the "useless" phrase when it comes to describing other people, especially if they are using it in a close personal relationship. Children, parents, a spouse, siblings, and friends are not "supposed to be useful" unless they are gainfully employed by the person using the phrase, and the job description is clear as to what duties they are supposed to perform.<br /><br />Another tid-bit that goes with this that I think you might be interested in:<br /><br />A lot of narcissists and especially sociopaths (who believe that people should serve some utility to them even more than narcissists do), is that they will say things like, "I don't like that actor."<br /><br />Now acting is a job, and usually comes with a lot of education and a long career, and actors are often required to do different parts, even drastically different parts from one film to the next, or one play to the next, and the best of them have to learn to use different accents and perform certain types of body language so that they can "seem" as close to the person they are portraying as possible. </p><p style="text-align: left;">But if you ask a sociopath what they don't like ("is it the acting styles, the parts they play, their appearance, the roles they are cast in, what they do outside of acting, or is it something else?"), they often can't separate the actor from any of this, even from what the actor does outside of acting. You'll often only get: "I don't like that actress, and I don't want to see anything she has a part in, and that is all there is to it." </p><p style="text-align: left;">There are better ways to decipher whether you are dealing with Cluster B personalities high on narcissistic or sociopathic traits than asking them what actors they don't like and why they don't like them, but if you want just one more "sign", then this can be "useful" to you in terms of whether they may be narcissists or sociopaths who may, some day, find you as "useless" as the actors and actresses they don't like. <br /><br />"You're useless" is not necessarily dangerous on its own (though it can be), but when used in tandem with the next phrases "You're nobody" and "You're worthless" it certainly points to danger. I tell why: </p><p style="text-align: center;">"you're nobody"</p><p style="text-align: left;">"You're nobody" is a pretty common phrase for domestic violence offenders. And like the rest of the phrases on this page it is also meant to hurt you, and to give you a personal devaluation (where a discard can often follow). Because it is intended to hurt you, and your self esteem, it qualifies as abuse. <br /><br />When I did a survey<b> <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-most-common-things-abusive-parents.html" target="_blank">on what abusive parents say to their kids</a></b>, this was right up there in the "common" category. <br /><br />Now why on earth would any parent want to say this to their kid? <br /><br />And once they start saying it, they tend to say it repeatedly. <br /><br />Do they have rocks in their head? No, but they do have blind spots. <br /><br />And this is what this phrase is largely about. "You're invisible to me" was part of that survey too, and as far as I'm concerned, "You're nobody" and "You're invisible to me" are too alike to be discounted as not the same. The meaning here could be put together as "a nobody is invisible, and since you are a nobody, you are invisible to me." <br /><br />I would bet, if a researcher wants to take this further, that narcissists who go around telling "loved ones" that they are a nobody (children, siblings, who ever they deem to be "un-useful" at the time they are saying it), are narcissists who give <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-silent-treatment-is-abuse.html" target="_blank">the silent treatment</a></b>,<b> </b>either interrupt what you have to say or stonewall<b>, </b>who <b><a href="https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/idealize-devalue-discard-the-dizzying-cycle-of-narcissism-0325154" target="_blank">devalue and discard people</a></b> they are in close personal relationships with, and who use <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" target="_blank">perspecticide and invalidation</a></b> on their victims. And what I found out is that this is the road that led to estrangement. <br /><br />However, it can mean something significantly more dangerous for those of you in a relationship with a partner who abuses, a sibling who abuses or someone who practices elder abuse ... <br /><br />So assuming that "You're nobody" is just another phrase for "You're invisible to me, and I don't care what you have to say; I don't care who you are; I don't care what your thoughts and feelings are; I don't care what you have to say to me or what your perspectives are because all I care about is what I have to say and what my perspectives are; I don't care whether I never see you again or not because after all, you mean nothing to me."<br /><br />A lot of people who are <u>not</u> psychologists and domestic abuse therapists say to "discount" phrases like this as unregulated rage, that maybe they are "stressed out", and that they'll be calm once again, but a lot of domestic violence survivors say that they may get a calm period, but their abusers are right back at it again moments, days or weeks later, and always worse than they were before: more in-your-face, all the way to the most egregious forms of physical abuse. <br /><br />Sometimes it is a combination: the perpetrator physically abuses the victim, then goes silent on her, then plays the victim. <br /><br />When gleaning forums, it turns out that from all I have seen, "You're nobody" and similar phrases like "You're invisible to me" and "You're worthless" and "I wish you were never born", and "I wish you'd just go kill yourself" and "I'd be better off if you weren't in my life", or "I'd be better off if you were just dead" and phrases in the "general camp" of the three phrases I bring up in this post tend overwhelmingly to be physical abusers. <br /><br />Parents can sometimes be the exception, but often they aren't. <br /><br />The usual escalation process is: verbal abuse, graduating to verbal abuse <i>with</i> emotional abuse, graduating to verbal, emotional and physical abuse, with the physical abuse often starting with pushing and shoving. Since this phrase is "over the top" in terms of verbal abuse, it would stand to reason that escalation is assured. <br /><br />Also from gleaning forums and blogs by survivors, abusers often tell you what their intentions are. "You're a nobody" means that they have every intention of making you a nobody, whether you are wiped out by them in a silent treatment, or wiped out in terms of your voice, or wiped out in terms of punches or murder. </p><p style="text-align: left;">They are telling you that they want to make you a nobody in their life, to get rid of you in some way. </p><p style="text-align: left;">I would even bet that these phrases, when used in tandem, point to as many <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-dangerous-is-my-abuser-how-do-i-get.html" target="_blank">danger signs as assaults to your face, head and neck</a></b>; it's just more of a preliminary act to physical abuse than the later assaults are. <br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">"you're worthless"<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Again, "You're worthless" and "You're a waste" are pretty similar phrases. Both are meant to hurt, and both are categorized as verbal abuse. <br /><br />"You're worthless" is similar to "You're useless" except it is more about shaming than about blaming (usually). "You're worthless" can mean, and often does mean, "You'll always be useless".<br /><br />"You're worthless" is also similar to "You're a nobody" too. <br /><br />"You're worthless" can mean "You're worthless to me" or it can mean "You're worthless to the world", but in domestic violence situations it usually means "You're worthless to me." <br /><br />"Waste" is more about something to throw away, and again, I wouldn't be surprised if you receive the silent treatment or a violent type of attack shortly thereafter, whereas "worthless" can mean that they find you not worth anything as far as their agendas go, not worthwhile as far as putting you into a role that satisfies them (whether scapegoat or pleaser puppet roles), or worthwhile as far as their ambitions go. <br /><br />When it is said in tandem with phrases like "You're nothing to me", "You're nobody", and "You're invisible to me", I wouldn't be surprised if it put your system into "high alert": a sense of danger, hypervigilance, fight or flight reactions, anxiety, un-surety as to their volatile intentions.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">VERBAL ABUSE AND PTSD</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://www.healthyplace.com/abuse/verbal-abuse/effects-of-verbal-abuse-on-children-women-and-men" target="_blank">Verbal abuse can cause PTSD</a></b>, especially abuse that is this aggressive and annihilating. <br /><br />For now I list symptoms on the bottom of <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/09/newest-update-new-comments-gist-of-what.html" target="_blank">this post</a></b>. <br /><br />The further reading section also has some articles about the effects of verbal abuse. </div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">THE SILENT TREATMENT AND THESE PHRASES<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Some narcissists use these phrases <i>in addition</i> to giving you <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-silent-treatment-is-abuse.html" target="_blank">the silent treatment</a></b>. And some narcissists just go directly to a silent treatment <i>without</i> giving you these phrases, but they may think of them as they are doing it. The problem is, in terms of safety issues for you, which of these three phrases are they trying to convey, or are they not trying to convey any of them, or are they trying to convey all three? <br /><br />The silent treatment (of which "ghosting" and "cancel culture" count) can be have many reasons behind it. However, if they were abusive at the time they gave you the silent treatment, like calling you names, referring you as an animal creature, trying to destroy your self esteem, doing lots of <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">gaslighting</a></b> (i.e. referring to you as crazy with people you both know, or calling you crazy to your face), neglecting to respond when you try to give them some reasonable solutions (like meeting in a public place to talk out your differences), then the silent treatment has to be considered <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">an escalation of abuse</a></b>. Once you have received all of these abuses, they are highly, highly likely to keep escalating. There isn't much to do to stop it other than getting help:<br />- keeping a record with police of any harassing or threatening e-mails, texts or phone calls, and then keeping police abreast of any more threats or harassment, so that they know what is going on and how to intervene).<br />- getting a good safety plan from your domestic violence center<br />- getting financial advice if they are practicing financial abuse (something domestic violence centers also usually help victims with in terms of advice and/or shelter) <br />- talking to a lawyer<br />- grieving and healing<br /><br />Instead of trying to wrap your head around all of the various possibilities in terms of what they are trying to convey in terms of how they see you, and which displeasure they are experiencing, most domestic violence counselors will tell you to go "no contact", usually. The rule of thumb here is <u>if they give you "the silent treatment", you go "no contact"</u>. I think if you are in this situation, you'll get that response from most counselors who work in the domestic violence sphere.<br /><br />This is because with the silent treatment, the kind of safety you have to adopt isn't as clear, so you have to assume the worst. <br /><br />If they give you the silent treatment without <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/04/what-are-types-of-abuse-scapegoating.html" target="_blank">abusing you</a></b>, then you can consider other things. But it is still possible they are trying to show you contempt. Or that they just prefer someone else's company. It is always best to seek a safety plan regardless because you never know ... <br /><br />The silent treatment is hurtful to most people, and reassuring you that they care, or calling you to find out how you are doing, is what most people do when they "go missing into a period of silence". If they don't have a good, heartfelt response to going silent on you, even when you've reached out a number of times to talk to them, or talk through a problem between you, consider that they have <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">no empathy</a></b> for you. A lack of empathy usually points to narcissism, sociopathy or psychopathy (lack of empathy tends to go hand in hand with these disorders, in other words). <br /><br />And narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths are not safe people to be in relationships with. </div></div><br /></div></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">FURTHER READING</div><div><br /></div><b>Recommended: <a href="https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/verbalabuseinrelationships/2011/08/dangers-of-verbal-abuse" target="_blank">The Dangers of Verbal Abuse</a></b> - by Kellie Jo Holly for Healthy Place<br />excerpt:<br /><i> Abusers who have not yet turned to physical violence could be "time bombs" with fuses of unknown length. If your abuser feels that his "normal" verbally abusive techniques are not working, he will probably move into physical abuse to maintain his control.<br /> Abuse escalates over time. Time spent in abusive situations and relationships cause you to feel beaten down and devastated - but it is never too late to <a href="https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/verbalabuseinrelationships/2011/08/domestic-violence-resources/your-first-call.php">get help</a>.<br />What could happen if I stay?<br /> Remember that your abuser benefits from abusing you. S/He gets his way and lives the life he wants to live while you do everything in your power to "make them happy" at the expense of yourself.<br /> Here are some possibilities of what can happen if you choose to stay with your abuser: S/He could escalate the abuse until he kills you ...<br /><br /></i><b>RECOMMENDED: <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-mysteries-love/201503/15-disturbing-forms-verbal-abuse-in-relationships" target="_blank">15 Disturbing Forms of Verbal Abuse in Relationships. The abuser feels more powerful when he puts down his victim.</a></b> - by Berit Brogaard D.M.Sci., Ph.D for Psychology Today<br />excerpt:<br /><i>KEY POINTS<br />* A verbal abuser may regularly tell the victim they're too sensitive, have no sense of humor, etc., which denies the victim’s inner reality.<br />* Any form of ordering or demanding is a form of verbal abuse.<br />* Threatening is a common form of verbal abuse and can either be very explicit or subtle.<br /></i><br /><b>RECOMMENDED: <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/tech-support/202012/why-verbal-abuse-can-do-so-much-damage" target="_blank">Why Verbal Abuse Can Do So Much Damage ("Tough love" and "discipline" are often just rationales for maltreatment.)</a></b> - by Peg Streep for Psychology Today<div><br />My own post: <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/10/constant-insults-and-criticism-how-to.html" target="_blank">constant insults and criticism (verbal abuse), how to deal with them</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.tpgfirm.com/blog/2022/02/verbal-abuse-is-a-dangerous-form-of-workplace-bullying/" target="_blank">Verbal abuse is a dangerous form of workplace bullying</a></b> - by <span class="author vcard" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">Thorman Petrov Group Co., LPA for </span>Thorman Petrov Group, Your Ally in Workplace Justice<br /><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/4-reasons-verbal-abuse-so-dangerous-what-you-can-do-zintz-ph-d-" target="_blank">4 Reasons Verbal Abuse is So Dangerous (and what you can do about it)</a></b> - by Andrea Zintz, Ph.D.<div><br /></div><b><a href="https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/verbalabuseinrelationships/2017/11/why-verbal-abuse-is-so-dangerous" target="_blank">Why Verbal Abuse Is So Dangerous</a></b> - by Emma-Marie Smith<b><br /></b><br /><b><a href="https://the-soulmate.com/health/examples-of-verbal-abuse/#" target="_blank">EXAMPLES OF VERBAL ABUSE: A Comprehensive 2022 List</a></b> - by the administrators of Soul-Mate.com<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.helpguide.org/articles/abuse/domestic-violence-and-abuse.htm" target="_blank">Domestic Abuse</a></b> - a Help Guide article<br /><div><br /></div><b><a href="https://www.family-central.sg/news-articles/men-victim-to-domestic-abuse/" target="_blank">“You’re A Useless Man!” – When Men Fall Victim to Domestic Abuse</a></b> - by Lim Zhan Ting for Family Central<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.getdomesticviolencehelp.com/you-are-not-worthless.html" target="_blank">You are NOT worthless</a></b> - by Lynn for Get Domestic Violence Help <br /><p></p><p><b><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/cefpza/whats_the_best_comebackresponse_to_youre_useless/" target="_blank">What's the best comeback/response to "you're useless"?</a></b> - Reddit question<br /><br /><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/abusiveparents/comments/yf6jip/were_doing_so_much_for_you_and_youre_useless_how/" target="_blank"><b>"We're doing so much for you and you're useless"</b> <b>- How to not get triggered?</b></a> - a similar Reddit question<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/wxdhg6/people_cant_use_you_if_youre_useless/" target="_blank">People can't use you if you're useless.</a></b> - a Reddit comment with 46 replies</p><b><a href="https://time.com/5942127/russia-domestic-violence-women/" target="_blank">Russia's Leaders Won't Deal With a Domestic Violence Epidemic. These Women Stepped Up Instead</a></b> - by Madeline Roache for Time Magazine<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNlMVfvjHJ7O3tC_IwfERaQzfNiTewYOvW0hQKGhyQrmorkjypOQlVAI8KKJ7zVNu6cs5xiGKSZhcQK2nPSBeWKni_pCd_Lev801egHnkmgCjLkTYDyAg_wGsF_rogMqLHOpPY4URc-tQc6nL6XmAFatkQv5xSlhHWkO40FFQ5toUTuUgVuq4EeDT1/s550/Alex%20Bradley%20Quote%20II.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNlMVfvjHJ7O3tC_IwfERaQzfNiTewYOvW0hQKGhyQrmorkjypOQlVAI8KKJ7zVNu6cs5xiGKSZhcQK2nPSBeWKni_pCd_Lev801egHnkmgCjLkTYDyAg_wGsF_rogMqLHOpPY4URc-tQc6nL6XmAFatkQv5xSlhHWkO40FFQ5toUTuUgVuq4EeDT1/s16000/Alex%20Bradley%20Quote%20II.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifsqyvSiPb7pmgExWAP7027xX3RtsBcxR9u-XpErKJr8djK0QpgL5DlrbgLmRaPV2df10qfAKx87s-dvvzjy5qxiWml3vbgU5PYLwqBdgnXscf4kGyQ1BReGGcs2aazdY5zP69zFwwpJUMNgyUU60U9srrnPDbtyWE5veHqs4sMgS-DiRYkCC6Pojs/s498/discarding.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="472" data-original-width="498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifsqyvSiPb7pmgExWAP7027xX3RtsBcxR9u-XpErKJr8djK0QpgL5DlrbgLmRaPV2df10qfAKx87s-dvvzjy5qxiWml3vbgU5PYLwqBdgnXscf4kGyQ1BReGGcs2aazdY5zP69zFwwpJUMNgyUU60U9srrnPDbtyWE5veHqs4sMgS-DiRYkCC6Pojs/s16000/discarding.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5D8NuuJh_VmqCqT8CUaohAuqS_Fl5gPLXAIhSZTWekKoOGFnIvNBQdbPREZ0yI0BRP4Hl9_9Yopd2o0TO-Jf_LjTx9oBnA1LEtLwNnJwI5Qobn54zuiUeDHOYYa2kouf78DxwaDl4toSN7GCgNqoaxzfto7YSil-TKD0hV-rhACGbVkA8ulTwHrCM/s494/narcissists%20change%20victims.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="494" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5D8NuuJh_VmqCqT8CUaohAuqS_Fl5gPLXAIhSZTWekKoOGFnIvNBQdbPREZ0yI0BRP4Hl9_9Yopd2o0TO-Jf_LjTx9oBnA1LEtLwNnJwI5Qobn54zuiUeDHOYYa2kouf78DxwaDl4toSN7GCgNqoaxzfto7YSil-TKD0hV-rhACGbVkA8ulTwHrCM/s16000/narcissists%20change%20victims.jpg" /></a></div></div></div>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-61124828944740420552023-01-14T19:10:00.003-08:002024-01-28T09:14:18.814-08:00The Most Common Things Abusive Parents Say to Their Children and Why It Matters - Survivors of Child Abuse Weigh In<p style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxC5G6WM8NAj5pCpEeYrx8rhgWdVNWas4_ZD4bv9GO7r3LvYu2ae0YA5DeszM0CE-TTALuRacMRp0tuIyw3ouud9y455ddXX4jfFxyXLN5EGQtiM3CnVBYWuhs1fKWCcIxTFqZqKdeXjsoWsE3o-b6FbzhMs8cgNZ05pKWXbgFb9ojo8FZZfyQX1HC/s795/cartoon%20about%20bad%20mommy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="795" data-original-width="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxC5G6WM8NAj5pCpEeYrx8rhgWdVNWas4_ZD4bv9GO7r3LvYu2ae0YA5DeszM0CE-TTALuRacMRp0tuIyw3ouud9y455ddXX4jfFxyXLN5EGQtiM3CnVBYWuhs1fKWCcIxTFqZqKdeXjsoWsE3o-b6FbzhMs8cgNZ05pKWXbgFb9ojo8FZZfyQX1HC/s16000/cartoon%20about%20bad%20mommy.jpg" /></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">© 2023 </span></div><p></p><p></p><p>What was the most repeated abusive phrase your abusive parent made to you, or what was the most hurtful?</p><p>If you have been reading my blog, you probably know that the one floating to the top is: "You're crazy!" But there are a lot more of them, and they are pretty common. </p><p>I am putting them together here from three groups, just to help children of abusive parents know that they are not alone, and that narcissistic parents all seem to have their favorite phrases to hurt their children across the western world.<br /><br />However, most child abuse survivors know that it doesn't end with these phrases. There is usually a lot of emotional, psychological and sometimes physical abuse that goes along with it, and it goes without saying that neglect is also part of the picture.<br /><br />And to make matters worse, abusive parents tend to scapegoat one of their children, so the phrases tend to be "dumped" on them the most, and sometimes exclusively. The child chosen for scapegoating has been written about before <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">many times in other posts</a></b>, but for the sake of brevity here it tends to be a child who is seen as the most vulnerable, the most disabled, the most empathetic and the most sensitive to pain (emotionally responsive).<br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">WHY IT MATTERS<br /><br />the echo aspect</div><br />One of the huge challenges for therapists whose clients who have been brought up to accept abuse by narcissistic or psychopathic parents is trying to beat back the brainwashing these parents have done.<br /><br />These kinds of abusive authoritarian parents basically fill their children's minds with poisonous attributes while at the same time expect their children to withstand it, not fight back, and even to absorb it. They are shut up if they feel, and they are shut up if they object. <br /><span><br />So the child goes out into the grown up world with all of these parents' sayings in their head:<br /></span><span>"I'm no good"<br /></span><span>"My sibling is better than me."<br /></span><span>"I deserve to be abused."<br /></span><span>"I always believe I know what I feel or think, but my parent tells me I'm too crazy to know, and tells me what I feel and think instead." </span><span>And even things they don't say, but infer:<br /></span><span>- You only deserve frumpy matronly clothes (for girl scapegoats)<br /></span><span>- You won't ever be successful (for boy scapegoats)<br /></span><span>- You only deserve family bullying<br />- You don't deserve to be heard or taken seriously<br /></span><span>- Your feelings only deserve to be considered if you are a complete "Echo" to my narcissism.</span><span>... and so on ...<br /></span><br />That is all poison, all of it, and that poison is what fills up the mind of the Echo scapegoat.<br /><br />It's like being bitten with a venomous snake over, and over, and over again. The child is hurt and they are taught to be an empty vessel instead where the parent fills up their personality with these horrific judgements. <br /><br />Unless the child has another parent who counters all of this, which some of us have (I will talk about "the other parent's role" in an upcoming post), then going through the "de-brainwashing part of therapy" with a domestic violence counselor will be faster. However, if this is the only or main "food" for your self esteem that you have received while growing up (for instance if both of your parents are narcissists), "the de-brainwashing part of therapy" can take years and years unless you can begin to see where their voice ends and yours begins. But I bet you anything, you don't have much of a voice yet (in the sense that you listen to it and your family listens to it). You may not even know what your voice is, where your voice separates from your family's. Your identity has been lost and crushed under the overwhelming weight of your parent's venomous judgements, judgements that rarely left you with the ability to have critical thinking about them. <br /><br />If you were the <b>scapegoat </b>of your parent, you probably heard so many of the following sayings, that you don't even know <u>the number of times</u> you heard them. There were too many to count.<br /><br />When children grow up with "normal parents", there will probably be a few times the parents snapped, perhaps out of impatience (at least that is what I have heard - and they are usually forgiven by their children, because the rest of the time, the parent was kind). And believe it or not, the children remember those few "slip-ups" for the rest of their lives. It has probably been discussed many times, perhaps even giggled about sheepishly for both children and their parent. Normal parents get no joy out of hurting their children. It's a family way of saying the children acted out and the parents made the mistake of saying something hurtful that they regret, and that all human beings are flawed enough that they will hurt one another a few times in the course of the whole relationship. <br /><br />But for survivors of child abuse, they don't remember singular incidents. They remember incidents and sayings as though they were a kind of alternate reality about their behavior that the parent sees, but that they can't see (because there is too much <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">gaslighting</a></b>,<b> <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" target="_blank">invalidation </a></b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" target="_blank">and <b>perspecticide</b></a>). In other words, it is a day-to-day or week-to-week attacking session, as though it is melded into their <u>entire childhood and even part of their inner dialogue.</u> The child's mind is full of the negative sayings of their parent, even to the extent that it is <u>their parent's voice speaking</u> in their minds and in their sleep through nightmares, and not their own voice. <br /><br />And that is unacceptable. <p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">I will be talking more about the "Echo" part of narcissistic abuse, but this part of the post is a precursor to that post. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">breaking your self esteem<span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div></div></div><br />This post is also being published as a preliminary to posts having to do with narcissists and their agenda to break the <b>self esteem</b> of one or more of their children.<br /><br />Narcissists have a profound <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">lack of empathy</a> </b>and<b> </b>narcissists experience and view love as <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">role-related</a></b> and as a <b>transactional business relationship</b> even with their own kids. That will become clear below.<br /><br />As far as abusers go (those with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and those with Antisocial Personality Disorder), breaking the self esteem of others primarily has to do with their lust for power, control and domination, their over-the-top feelings of competition and envy, and their inability to regulate their rage when things aren't going the way they want them to in these prior areas. <div><br /></div><div>They want to tell someone what to do, how to think, how to perceive situations, and how to view themselves without blow-back. They think that by annihilating the self esteem of their victims for this agenda of theirs that they will garner good results for them in the domination department.<br /><br />Perpetrators are often not aware of the pitfalls, and victims are often not aware of how much this kind of treatment is effecting them over the long haul (and they also question why a perpetrator would want a relationship at all when they seem to hate and threaten them so much, even when the perpetrator is a parent ... in fact, the desire to parent is often voiced to be undesirable as you will see). <br /><br />Just as invaders try to hurt "the invaded", and make them bend to their will, invasions do not always work, precisely because the agenda entails inflicting pain. <br /><br />In terms of this post, the hurtful things these parents say often goes hand-in-hand with control, such as "We're only treating you bad because you need to learn a lesson!" And of course, the lesson either entails hurting the child and/or teaching the child to be catering to the needs and desires of the parent. Hurtful lessons have been shown not to work (<b><a href="https://exploringyourmind.com/how-punishing-children-affects-their-brain/" target="_blank">the research on punishment versus teaching by example is clear</a> </b>... <b><a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/corporal-punishment-and-health" target="_blank">another link</a></b>). The harsh lesson to sublimate their own feelings and needs and submit at any and all times to the parent usually continues when they are<b> <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">a full adult</a> </b>(and forever after - a child's retirement age does not keep a parent from trying the same lessons that they did on the three year old).</div><div><br />Apparently once you learn the lesson, your parent often tells you that he or she will treat you better. But this is overwhelmingly an empty promise, as they crave more and more power, and as more life situations come up. Then the abusive sayings appear again (the ones the child had nightmares about).<p></p><p>Now as far as lack of empathy goes, abuse couldn't happen unless <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">a lack of empathy</a></b> was present. Empathy means that you care how criticisms, insults and put-downs are effecting your children. Narcissists only care how they are being treated, not the impact they make on others. That is why they are so quick to minimize, deflect, make endless excuses, and blame-shift. <br /><br />Most parents wouldn't dream of saying the things in the list below to their own children for fear of causing harm to their children and destruction to the relationship. A normal parent's agenda is NOT to hurt their children, but to help them grow to learn how to be autonomous adults with skills and talents. By modeling empathy, the bond between parent and child becomes stronger, as well as the entire family unit. </p><p>The goal of abusive parents (who tend to have a Cluster B personality disorders including narcissism) is to have a <b>trauma bond</b> or a co-dependent relationship with their child, if they want any bond at all. A trauma bond is where the bond exists because of traumatizing: punishments, threats, blackmail, insults, hyper-critical comments, emotional wounding, psychological wounding, financial abuse, sometimes physical wounding, gaslighting, lying, abandonments, broken promises, denying care, denying resources, destroying the self esteem of the child, and all kinds of other abuses (to get the child, and the adult that the child becomes, to do what the parent wants them to do at all times, to control the child and adult child, to mold the child into a <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">puppet-like role</a></b> - parental abuse tends to be life-long, and the scapegoat role is simply the role to be hurt, bullied and threatened by your family, and often abandoned and ostracized as well).<br /><br />Trauma bonds are what they sound like: the child (and later the adult child) is traumatized by the bond between himself and his parent, just as "the invaded" are traumatized by the bond by the invaders. The trauma bond often does not work to keep the child bonded over the long term because inflicting and administering pain to the child tends to cause debilitating symptoms to the child. It isn't a happy bond. It is a bond where the child experiences fear, trepidation, hypervigilance, anxiety, sadness, anger at the injustice, depression, sometimes disassociation, and often all of the symptoms of <b>C- PTSD </b>both physical and mental. It isn't a strong bond either in the way <b>normal bonding</b> is between a child and a parent. For a trauma bonded child, it is about <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/01/abuse-and-walking-on-eggshells-being.html" target="_blank">walking on eggshells</a></b> for the parent. Meanwhile the parent is always gauging how much pain it is taking to get the child to re-bond, or bond more. When the parent feels he is losing the game of administering pain to get the child back into the trauma bond, they wonder why the abuse isn't working in the way it used to when their child was still a child (i.e. why it isn't garnering ever more power, domination, respect, grandiosity and control for the parent). <br /><br />Wanting the trauma bond so badly and gaining ever more domination, power and control has everything to do with why they <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/03/erroneous-blaming-and-erroneous.html" target="_blank">erroneously blame</a></b> (blame you and end the relationship over any little desperate thing they can think of), pick a time when you are already traumatized by something else in your life (their thinking is that if you are vulnerable and suffering, that you will cave into more trauma bonding with them), and why they punish you when trauma bonding does not work. Most often the punishment for children is some sort of abandonment like <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-silent-treatment-is-abuse.html" target="_blank">the silent treatment</a></b>, but often there are other punishments which are added to it when that doesn't garner results.<br /><br />When the trauma bond doesn't materialize for them, it is also why they tell other people that you victimized them (even though the victimization was the other way around: it is <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/12/important-darvo-tactic-and-why-it-is.html" target="_blank">the DARVO tactic</a> </b>which they teach their co-bullies to use too). It is just another punishment for you when you do not give into the trauma bond.<br /><br />As for a parent wanting and expecting role playing and a transactional business relationships with an underage child as well as an adult child, it is also usually about: the parent gives something to the child, and expects the child to let the parent dominate and control the child in return for what was given. </p><p>Most children will balk at that, at least to some degree. Or they will try to keep some part of their life from the narcissist's knowledge (compartmentalize). The child who doesn't balk at the parent trying to gain more power and control tends to be <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">the golden child</a> </b>(they are usually an <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/04/two-types-of-golden-children-favorite.html" target="_blank">empathetic golden child</a></b> or a <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/06/how-narcissistic-bullies-domestic.html" target="_blank">bully golden child</a></b>). The reward that the golden child gets is favoritism and being held up as an example of how the other children in the family should be behaving to get the better part of a transaction from a parent. </p><p>However, since family roles tend to last a lifetime, especially if the golden child is a bully (he enforces the roles even more than the parent does, and administers more pain than the parent does too), having a better transactional relationship with a parent may never happen (<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/02/can-narcissist-or-abuser-ever-keep.html" target="_blank">broken promises</a></b> are very common for narcissistic parents). So children see pretty early on that it is a pointless goal. The way the roles are assigned will also ensure that the scapegoat gets left out of <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2024/01/do-scapegoats-of-narcissistic-parents.html" target="_blank">the Last Will and Testament</a></b>, again as a punishment for not being as trauma bonded as the parent wants (i.e. wholly, and absolutely a total Echo, with no voice, thoughts, feelings, dreams and inspirations of their own), and that the role itself demands that the scapegoat suffers whether <i>in</i> the family, or <i>out</i> of the family (smear campaigns when out of the family is how the scapegoat keeps getting abused), whether the parent is alive, or dead. <br /><br />It is extremely rare for a scapegoat to get an inheritance (from looking through forums), whether they are the only ones to care for the parent, or not, whether they are bending to the parent's will or not, whether they fully try the transactional role-related relationship the parent wants, for the very reason that the scapegoat role requires them to be a scapegoat, to be continuously bullied, threatened and hurt (and all of the phrases below repeated over and over again to them by the parent throughout childhood and adulthood). <br /><br />To understand this further, you can look to how countries scapegoat. Being Jewish in Germany at the time of Hitler meant you were being hunted to be killed. It didn't matter who you were, what you had to say, how educated you were, how pretty you were, how much of a puppet you were willing to be to the regime to stay alive. It only mattered if you were Jewish. The same thing is happening in Ukraine. Being Ukrainian means you are seen as a scapegoat for Russia. That is the level of thought that is put into it - the individuals picked for death, robbery, torture, and scapegoating don't matter. And I bet both regimes said as many nasty things to and about their scapegoats as narcissists say about their scapegoat children.<br /><br />Narcissistic parents <b>hate</b> their scapegoats. They really, really despise them in the same ways that all scapegoats are hated. You cannot love people you are trying to hurt, destroy or dominate. So the parent wants to make that message loud and clear even when they, the parent, dies, and it is usually generated by a generational prejudice and practice ("girls must submit to their mothers and husbands", "whites must be the dominant decision-makers", "liberal family members are higher in our family hierarchy than conservative members", "family scapegoats must be in pain all of the time because that is the way the rest of the family stays loyal, out of fear, to a parent", "the point of having children is to serve the parent and to be a perfect example of a well-bred family" and other toxic rigid generational assertions) - I have talked about this in other posts. </p><p>Scapegoat's symptoms can become so severe (<b>C-PTSD</b>), that the kind of relationship the parent demands makes recovering from C-PTSD nearly impossible. C-PTSD symptoms can be so bad that it will make a person suicidal and dysfunctional. The physical symptoms, based on age and overall health, based on whether both parents are narcissists, can make a person disabled too. Those who I have known with seemingly incurable and severe C-PTSD (usually with some Dissociative Identity Disorder symptoms too) have killed themselves, or gone to Europe for an assisted suicide, or the stress brought about an incurable auto-immune disorder where their life is always hanging in the balance.<br /><br />The take-away that a parent assumes from having a child with PTSD, is that their child does not want to please them, and therefor they feel let down by that child, and because they feel let down, they use anything at hand for more punishments (just as an invader throws more bombs at a nation that is acting recalcitrant about being invaded). The perception that they have been let down by a child who cannot please by virtue of their traumatized state, keeps existing because of the parent's lack of perception (<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRlQxXKlXWw&t=3s" target="_blank">narcissists do not like to learn new perspectives</a> </b>... <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpmcbcf9Kn0" target="_blank">another link</a></b>), their lack of empathy, lack of insight, lack of caring about what their child is enduring, their on-going prejudiced rote perspectives, and their usual self absorbed tendencies and dreams of being the ultimate authoritarian. <br /><br />As evidenced below, they show they don't care about their children. </p><p>Hurting their scapegoat child is always the agenda whether there is a present existing trauma bond or whether the child is estranged. Both actions break the child, to the point where the child becomes <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank">useless</a></b> in the transactional business way that narcissists require.<br /><br />For <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">scapegoated children</a></b>, the role and the transactional expectation is that this child take all of the blame for issues that arise with his parent(s), his sibling(s), and anyone else the parent puts in superior hierarchies over this child. The bargain also often entails being abused (child abuse) by the entire family. At the very least, the phrases below are used disproportionately to this child than anyone else in the family. This has to do with narcissists <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank">black and white thinking</a></b>, that the people they are in relationships with are either <i>all bad</i> or <i>all good</i>, where the narcissist's opinions depend a great deal on whether a family member will adhere to the role that the narcissistic parent wants. Abusive parents think the <i>all bad</i> child is so desperate for any morsel, that the bargain is reasonable (i.e. to give the child some kind of <b>breadcrumbing</b> in return for being blamed and bullied), but any reasonable person knows that this is still child abuse. </p><p>Like any abusive relationship, the abuse <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">escalates</a>.<b> </b></p><p>Now in terms of therapy, certain phrases like, "I wish you were dead" shows a lot more danger than "Money doesn't grow on trees!" Likewise "You're crazy" is much more damaging and destructive to a child's psyche than "Set a good example! You are the eldest!" <br /><br />The one thing it should begin to show is:<br />* What are these phrases doing to the child?<br />* How much pro-active abuse as compared to reactive abuse is going on in conjunction with these phrases?<br />* How calloused are the parents to how the child is feeling? Is it intermittent or is it uncaring all of the time?<br />* How much "cloaked danger" is there in these phrases that point to a rapid escalation of abuse that require an immediate intervention?<br />* How many others in the family are doing this to the scapegoat, and what are their agendas for doing it?<br />* How many of the phrases have underlying threats that point to a situation of great harm for the abused? </p><p>At any rate, I put the most common phrases towards the top. The "x 28" (the numerical number means the original plus all of the repeats by other survivors) to take care of redundancy issues. The ones toward the bottom are "one-offs", in other words, just said once where they didn't seem to fit into any category. There were so many "one-offs" that I decided to do just a sampling of them. Some were parental threats of murder or abandonment towards their child, and others were "much milder". I tried to go with a sampling that encompassed both sides and everything in the middle so that it wouldn't be overwhelming.</p><p>These are the answers from real survivors (one answer per survivor). Please also note that I was not part of answering the question; I was an observer only.</p><p style="text-align: center;">THE ANSWERS FROM SURVIVORS</p><p>* "You're crazy!" Some of the similar ones that I put in this category were: "If you weren't so crazy, you'd understand that I did the best that I could!", "If you weren't so crazy, you would have appreciated the good parent I always was!", "If you weren't so crazy, you would have realized that everything you thought about me was a figment of your imagination!", "If you weren't so crazy, you would know good parenting when you saw it", "You were always so crazy to think you were a victim of abuse!", "I treated you right! But you were too insane to realize it!", "You have mental health issues!" and so on. (x 48) <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">see my post on this phrase</a><br /></b>* "You have a vivid imagination!" (x 45) - <b><a href="https://twitter.com/selfcarehaven/status/1107437699462504450/photo/1" target="_blank">a common gaslighting phrase</a></b>.<br />* "When I need you to say something, I'll ask for it. In the meantime, I expect you to be quiet and listen!" Some others I put in this category: "You should listen to your elders! They know best!", "I don't want to hear about your problems until you listen!", "You need to do more listening! That way we would get along better!" - in other words, shut up about abuse or being hurt, and endure a lecture instead (x 41)<br />* "You are so ungrateful!" (x 41) - after you tell them that you are hurt, or that you want something different for your life, or any other reason that has nothing to do with gratitude <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/10/why-abusers-who-punish-use-ungrateful.html" target="_blank">see my post on this phrase</a><br /></b>* "You're so fat!" (x 40) - or insults about weight issues<br />* "Nothing you could say could make this right!" (x 40)<br />* "If you think you're going to blame me for this, you have something else coming!" - refusing to be accountable, and threatening their child if the child "dares" to hold them accountable. (x 40)<br />* "You’re ugly on the inside AND out" - sometimes said with a big smile. Others along the same lines: "You are not beautiful and never will be. You will have to work at a job where beauty is not required", "You were never beautiful. Ugly in fact. You might be an old maid", "You're ugly! That's why no one loves you or cares about you!", "You're ugly as sin!", "Unfortunately you didn't get my genes, so you have pimples, greasy hair, pockmarked skin, and you have a long way to go to attract anyone. In the meantime, you are stuck with me!", "You were the ugly duckling in the family!" (x 39)<br />* "Shut up or I'll beat you!" and variations thereof: spanking, whipped, slashed, punched, etc. (x 39)<br />* "You always were stupid!" - and variations like: "For someone who is supposed to be so smart, you sure are dumb!", "What's the matter with you!? Are you so ---" - stupid, dumb, retarded, loony, etc. (making fun of your mind or intelligence) (x 39)<br />* "You're useless!" and variations thereof such as: "If you weren't useless, you'd actually amount to something that I can be proud of", "You aren't useful to me. I don't really appreciate you. But you were born to me so I guess I'll have to suck it up until you can be useless to someone else!" - all of these adult children are estranged from the parent who shouted this at them (x 38)<br />* "I'm sick of you!" Others that fit in this category are "You make me sick with your whining! Go away!", "I'm so sick of you! I wish you were never born!", "I'm so sick of dealing with you! I wish I never had kids!" (x 38)<br />* "You're worthless!" and variations thereof: "No one will ever find any worth in you if a parent doesn't", "You were born worthless and you will always be worthless", "If you were worth something, people would want you and be trying to snatch you up." (x 38) - most of these adult children are estranged too.<br />* "You'll never be as good as" - a sibling, sometimes a cousin, or your friend - comparing children to each other (x 37) - tends to lead to estrangement too.<br />* "Children should be seen and not heard!" - the ultimate <b><a href="https://www.quora.com/What-do-you-think-of-the-saying-children-should-be-seen-and-not-heard" target="_blank">authoritarian family</a></b> phrase - the attitude is about seeing children's concerns, experiences, feelings and issues as unimportant and invisible. It promotes neglectful parenting. (x 36) - most of these adult children tend to be estranged too, but not as much as the ones that I mentioned above.<br />* "I know how you feel! You don't fool me!" and variations thereof like, "Wipe those thoughts from your mind!" - when they don't know what the child is actually thinking. <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" target="_blank"><b>This is called perspecticide and I cover this in my post about it</b>.</a> (x 36)<br />* "If you're going to be like that, then you won't have a (mother or father) any more!" - threats about abandonment (x 35)<br />* "You'll never get anything from me again!" - threats about holidays, birthdays, family resources, love, caring, empathy; in general, withdrawing in similar ways as the threat above. (x 35)<br />* "You gonna cry? I’ll give you something to cry about!" there are also similar ones under this category: "Stop that sniveling or I'll give you something to snivel about!" (x 35)<br />* "I hope you have kids just like you!" (x 35)<br />* "Don't talk to (x family member)!" and variations like: "You are not to talk to them, do you hear me!?" twisting your arm to make you comply ... in other words, their family enemies (which tend to change) have to be your enemies too or you will endure a consequence. (x 35)<br />* "You'll never amount to anything!" (x 34)<br />* "I hate you!" - and variations thereof such as "I can't stand the sight of you!", "I hate the ground you walk on!" and so on (x 34)<br />* "I wish you were never born!" and variations thereof: another common one I counted in this category is "I should have aborted you!" (x 34) All of these adult children are estranged from their parent. <br />* "You brought this upon yourself!" (x 33) <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/11/you-brought-this-upon-yourself-why.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">see my post on this phrase</a><b><br /></b>* "You're too sensitive!" (x 33) when you complain that your parent or other family member is hurting you<br />* "Life isn't fair, get used to it!" when complaining about how you are treated, and variations thereof (or being treated unjustly: <b>post coming soon on this</b>). (x 33)<br />* "You ruin everything!" and variations thereof. Some others in this category are: "You ruined my life!", "I was a good looking woman until you came along!", "If it weren't for you ruining my life, I would have been a dancer and attracted a better man than your father!", "You ruined my life on purpose!", "You know you ruined my life! And now you want to ruin it some more!", "You ruined our marriage! We were happy until you came along!", "You ruined my happiness when you put your mother before me!", "We were happy until you told me he was sexually abusing you! I should just feed you to the dogs for what you've done to me!" - sexually abused by a stepfather in that case, "You ruined my health! Before you were born I was on my way to becoming a star athlete!" (x 32)<br />* "You're so jealous!" - when you complain that your sibling is hurting you or bullying you (x 32)<br />* "Shut up!" (x 32)<br />* "I can't stand the sight of you!" (x 32)<br />* "Suck it up and deal with it!" and variations thereof when you are upset about something (x 31)<br />* "You'll sit here until you clean up your plate--I'm setting this timer, and if you haven't eaten those (vegetables) when the timer goes off, you're getting a spanking!" and variations thereof, threatening abuse if you don't eat the food that they make - many survivors have reported that they have food issues from childhood (bulimia, anorexia, feeling a need to eat everything on their plate when they are full, etc) when they became full adults (x 31)<br />* "I don't care!" - when you are trying to tell your parent something important that happened to you (x 31)<br />* "You just think you're better than anyone else!" (x 30)<br />* "Why do you think anyone cares how you feel!?" (x 30)<br />* "You were never good enough for me!" and variations thereof. Some of the variations are as follows: "I deserved so much better than you!", "I have always been a stellar parent while you have been a bad child!", "I deserved a better child, and what did I get?? A stranger in my house!", "I deserve a much better child than you! In fact, I think I'll trade you in for another! I'll just drop you off at the adoption center, and get another child, and you can rot in an orphanage!" <b>Arrogance</b>, and thinking they deserve a better child, is one of the hallmarks of narcissistic and abusive parenting. (x 30)<br />* "I never cared for you!" or "I never wanted you! I got pregnant with you and that's the only reason you're here!" (x 30)<br />* "You think money grows on trees!" (x 29)<br />* "Why do you think you're so special? You're not!" (x 29)<br />* "Why don't you just run away and make my life easier!?" (x 29)<br />* "You're a -- (animal name: snake, tarantula, pig, hog, b$tch, black widow spider, etc) (x 28)<br />* " I am busy go find someone else to bother!" (x 28)<br />* "You think you have it so bad! There are starving children in Africa!" ... India, Siberia and other places are mentioned sometimes too. (x 28)<br />* "I'm not abusive! I never put my cigarettes out on you!" Other phrases are: "I never threw you across the room!", "I never let you starve!", "I never made you sleep outside!", "I always made sure you were fed and clothed!", "I never slapped you even though I thought about it many times!", "I never stopped talking to you! You can't say I ever gave you the silent treatment or abandoned you! So I insult you sometimes! Big deal! Get over it!", etc ... they excuse their abuse by planting the idea that you could have had it so much worse in the abuse department. (x 27)<br />* "No one likes you!" or variations thereof like "No one can stand you!" (x 27)<br />* "You are never to defy me or I'll be your worst nightmare!" (x 27)<br />* "Cry your eyes out for all I care!" - leaving you alone with your sadness (x 27)<br />* "Just for that, I'll --- " they threaten a retaliation (x 26)<br />* "You are just like your father!" or "You are just like your mother!" (x 26)<br />* "Your (other parent) never loved you!" and variations thereof like "Your (other parent) was never as good to you as I was" - competition with your other parent (x 25)<br />* "Lord, why did I have to have you as my child?!" (x 24)<br />* "So I love (your other sibling) more! Get over it!" (x 23)<br />* "I don't care if you think I'm treating you unfairly! All I care about is how you are behaving!" and variations like: "Life isn't fair, and since you are stuck with me, you're going to have to prove to me that you deserve fairness." - using the position of power to decide how much fairness is doled out to you - gets a child into pleasing behaviors which can lead to <b>soft boundaries</b> and depression. (x 23)<br />* "I brought you into this world and I can take you out!" (x 22) All but one of these adult children are estranged from their parent.<br />* "Who cares!" - when you are trying to tell your parent something (x 21)<br />* "I always do stuff for you, but I never get anything back!", "If I give you something, you need to give back!", "It's called giving and receiving and you've never been good at that!" - when you are still a child; expecting a transactional business kind of relationship with your own child (common expectation among abusive parents) (x 21)<br />* "What the hell did I do to deserve this?" - after you tell them that you are hurt by their behavior (x 20)<br />* "Nothing you say will ever make a difference to me!", "If you notice, I never listen to you, so you can stop talking now!", "I don't care what you have to say because I decide what is what, and make the decisions!", "When I want you to talk, I'll ask for it! In the meantime, what you have to say on any subject without my permission to talk is meaningless!", "When you talk, I don't listen! Just stop bringing me your bullsh&t!" (x 20)<br />* "You act like everyone is out to get you!" - when you complain about family mobbing, a form of family abuse against a designated scapegoat (x 19)<br />* "Your feelings belong to you! You are responsible for how you feel, not me!" - when you confront them about hurting your feelings. (x 19)<br />* "You always feel so sorry for yourself! Wahhh!" - when you are crying over their mistreatment (x 19)<br />* "You're never going to marry anyone! No one would ever want you!" (x 19)<br />* "You used to be so pretty!" ... or handsome (x 18)<br />* "You're never going to gain my approval, so don't even try!" Others in this category are "You're never going to gain my love, trust, care, etc" (x 18)<br />* "You don't need to be (educated, successful, happy, married, going to college, having children, buying a house, moving away, making that much money, going on that cruise, hanging out with those friends)" and variations thereof like "You hurt me when you decided to go to college!" - they are hurt that you are an adult, in other words (x 17)<br />* "You need to be punished for that!" - when you are an adult (x 17)<br />* "You'll never get an inheritance!" and variations thereof like threats about who will get what, leaving you out (x 17)<br />* "You used to be a nice girl! What happened to you?" - other variations include: "When you were a kid you were good! But now you're just bitter and awful to be around!" (x 16)<br />* "If you want to be part of the family, you need to do --" something that is either not in your best interest or is downright hurtful to you (blackmail). (x 16)<br />* "I really can't stand how you are behaving! If you want anything from me, then you'll have to please me!" and variations like: "You need to please me in order for me to be a good parent to you", "I expect you to behave in ways that please me, or else!" (x 16)<br />* "You just love to cause drama!" - when you are hurt; other variations are: "Stop being so melodramatic!", "You are such a drama queen!", "I can't stand all of your drama!" and so on (x 15)<br />* "I'm the worst mom in the world and you're always the victim! Boohoo!" and variations thereof (x 15)<br />* "We're only treating you bad because you need to learn a lesson! Once you've learned the lesson, then we'll treat you better!" - using abuse as an excuse to teach a lesson. (x 15)<br />* "You always make a mountain out of a molehill!" - similar to the drama phrase. (x 15)<br />* "You just love attention!" when you are trying to tell them something important (x 15)<br />* "You're nothing special to me! Never were and never will be!" (x 14)<br />* "Run away and never come back!" - and variations thereof (x 14)<br />* "Ha! You would never commit suicide! I know a liar when I see one!" - and variations thereof, making fun of a child who has suicidal thoughts (x 14)<br />* "You're not sick; you're just faking it!" - and variations thereof; health issues aren't taken seriously (x 14)<br />* "Who do you think you are!?" loudly and sadistically, said before a beating (x 14)<br />* "I gave birth to you and that is all. It doesn't mean you are important to me." (x 14)<br />* "I have always been deeply ashamed of you." (x 13)<br />* "Big liar!" when you are telling your parent that you are being sexually abused by a family member (x 13)<br />* "You need to apologize to (him or her)!" - when you've confessed to being abused by a family member (x 13)<br />* "Stop living in the past!" - when you feel there is an injustice from the past that hasn't been solved (x 13)<br />* "That never happened!" - when you are trying to make them accountable for something they did or said. (x 12)<br />* "This is MY house!" - or variations thereof - the message is basically about telling a child that it's the parent's house and therefor the parent can do or act in any way that they like, even abusively (x 12)<br />* "A mother always tells her children the truth!" - when caught at a lie ... can be a father too (x 12)<br />* "Why couldn't you have been a boy?" and variations thereof like: "Girls are so much easier than boys! Why did I have to have you, another boy to deal with!?", "I like boys so much better! God didn't do me any favors by giving me two girls!" (x 11)<br />* "Only a mother could love you!" and variations thereof like: "At least you HAVE a mom!", "Only I could love you!", "Only a parent loves a child. No one can compete with that. So you better get used to it and not complain!", "A mother's love is unconditional!" when by their actions they are abusive and showing you conditional love based on usefulness to them. (x 11)<br />* "It's just a joke, don't be so damned miserable!" - when they are hurting you and laughing at you and you are obviously distraught. Variations would be making you a laughing stock or teasing you, and you react with pain. Not being empathetic is also the hallmark of abusive parenting. (x 11)<br />* "He's only treating you bad because he loves you!" or "She's only treating you bad because she loves you!" (x 10)<br />* "You love to make me look like a bad parent!" (x 10)<br />* "Knock that (facial expression) off your face before I knock it off for you!" (x 10)<br />* "I always knew you loved (your other parent) more than me!" (x 10)<br />* "You take the patience of a saint!" (x 10)<br />* "This hurts ME worse than it hurts YOU!" when being beaten with a belt or switch as a child. (x 10)<br />* "I would never do that to my own child!" - when you talk to your parent about the beatings you endured from them when you were a child. (x 9)<br />* "I always knew there was something wrong with you!" when they hear bad news about you including divorce, accident, coming down with an illness, etc. (x 9)<br />* "Look what you made me do!" - a parent blaming their own bad behavior or mistakes on a child (x 9)<br />* "I feel so sorry for you!" when you are upset by something they did (x 9)<br />* "We don't keep secrets in this family! You owe it to me to tell me what is going on!" (x 9)<br />* "You're a little devil and I'm God!", "You're the devil and I'm the saint for putting up with you!" (x 9)<br />* "Who's going to believe you?! It's best to say nothing because people don't believe you." - - "Don't air our family's dirty laundry - don't you dare tell the neighbors!" and variations thereof like: "If you tell anyone the police will take you away and you will never see me or your grandparents ever again!", "What happens in this house, STAYS in this house!" (x 9)<br />* "Behave yourself! Set a good example. You are the eldest!" (x 8)<br />* "You're lucky to have a roof over your head!" (x 8)<br />* "You need to prove your worth!" and "You need to prove that you are worthwhile!" (x 8)<br />* "I don't want to be around you!" and "You should just go away!" - temporary rejections (x 8)<br />* "You'll never appreciate anything!" (x 8)<br />* "I'm always going to be better than you at ---" - competition with their own child over an activity or profession (x 8)<br />* "I'm always doing what's best for you!" when they aren't (x 8)<br />* "All you have ever done with your life is to embarrass me!" many abusive parents are concerned about their image. (x 7)<br />* "You should have been institutionalized, but no one does that any more." (x 7)<br />* "If I have to stop this car, someone's gonna get out!" Alternatively it is "someone is going to get it!" (x 7)<br />* "How dare you think I would insult you! I would never do that! I have always been polite." - playing the amnesia card out of being culpable - common (x 7)<br />* "You just love to argue, don't you?" (x 7)<br />* "I don't want a son!" ... or daughter (x 7)<br />* "What are you crying for? I'll tell you when you can cry, when I'm dead! Then you'll have something to cry about." and variations thereof. The message is that the child can control when they are crying. (x 6)<br />* "I stayed married to your (mother or father) just for you!" - blaming a child for staying married to his or her other parent (x 6)<br />* "Everybody thinks you're so pretty, but they wouldn't think so if they knew the real you!" and variations thereof. (x 6)<br />* "You always have an alibi, don’t you?" and variations thereof including "You're always trying to get off the hook", "You're always trying to appear innocent!", etc. (x 6)<br />* "I always liked (your husband, boyfriend, girlfriend - i.e. the opposite sex of the parent), but he was never good enough for me, so I let you have him!" - competition with their child over a mate. Some others are: "I know your husband always thought I was more attractive, but I never wanted to hurt your feelings!", "(Your date) looked at me! I'm a mature woman. You can't compete with a woman who is as well endowed as I am!", "You think you are the only beautiful one in the room! But your boyfriend always gives me a twice-over!" (x 6)<br />* "You put a permanent frown on my face, and now you'll have to live with it!" (x 5)<br />* "You act like I'm not important!" - after the parent has ignored them. (x 5)<br />* "You think you are so talented!" (x 5)<br />* "It's not that big a deal!" and "You could have done better!" and "There is always room for improvement!" - when you've won a prize, received a promotion, or are proud of something you did. (x 5)<br />* "You need to do things without being asked!" - said to an underage child about household issues, cleaning, changing their siblings dirty diapers, mowing the lawn, etc. (x 5)<br />* "You never were good enough for (your husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, etc)" - after a break-up when you are grieving and heartbroken (x 5)<br />* "Stop living in fantasy land!" and variations thereof are: "Stop drawing unicorns! You have something better to do with your time!", "You could never be a fairy princess! You're an ugly duckling so you dream about being something other than what you are!", "Fantasy is everything to you, but then there is the real world, and I'm in it and you better get used to it!" (x 5)<br />* "Get off your high horse!" (x 5)<br />* "Why don't you die? Then we can all be happy!" (x 5)<br />* A parent sobbing and saying "You're abusing me!" - after they have abused you (x 5)<br />* "Why is it always that what you want, isn't what I want for you?" - i.e. the child complains about receiving food they don't like, toys they don't want, clothes and fashions they don't like, but the parent wants them for the child (x 4)<br />* "You think you are so hot!" (x 4)<br />* Regarding dreams: "You have to have people skills, and be a good person to be successful, and you don't have any of that!" (x 4)<br />* "You took the best years of my life!" and variations thereof - trying to make a child feel guilty over being born and parented. (x 4)<br />* "You're such a prude!" - when a parent goes around the house naked, or making out on the couch with a lover, or being sexually inappropriate, and you've asked your parent to put on clothes, or to stop feeling their partner up on the couch when your friend is coming over or when you have a date coming over to pick you up. (x 3)<br />* "You could be doing so much more to make me proud!" and variations like: "You're not everything you think you are! You could be more than that!" (x 3)<br />* "I take it that you are hurt by something I said, but you need to understand it is not my fault. You should always look first at what you do." (x 3)<br />* "Your Dad (or Mom) is always angry because of you!" - blaming a child for the mood of the other parent. This quote sort of goes along the same lines: "'Your dad drinks because of YOU.' He was my step-dad and he was a falling down drunk when she married him. I was 6 years old". (x 3)<br />* "You're a fuckup! That's the cause of all of your problems!" (x 3)<br />* "That dress looks too good on you! Take it off!" when you are trying dresses on in a store and your abusive parent is with you (x 3)<br />* "I'll kill you if you don't follow my orders!" (x 3)<br />* "I can't believe you actually found someone who wants to be friends with you!" (x 2)<br />* "It should have been you that died instead of your brother!" (x 2)<br />* "You like to pretend you are a better parent than I am! But I know you are a sh&t parent! You can't fool me!" The other one was: "You are a much worse parent than you are pretending to be! What did you do? Threaten them to say you were a good parent?" (x 2)<br />* "If you don't respect me, you will fear me." (x 2)<br />* "I'll knock you down a peg or two!" (x 2)<br />* "You're a disaster!" (x 2)<br />* "You're so annoying!" (x 2)<br />* "You're a piece of sh&t" (x 2)<br />* "Creep!" (x 2)<br />* "You think having a parent is bad? You can try living without one any time you want!" (x 2)<br />* "You think you are a saint, but I think you are the devil in disguise!" (x 2)<br />* "I have never cared what you thought or felt. It's my life, not yours when you are under my roof!" (1)<br />* "Why do you have so many flaws when I'm such a good parent and teach you how to behave all of the time?" When I told her that my flaws weren't any worse than hers, she punched me in the gut and didn't talk to me for 3 days. I was only 9. (1)<br />* "Why do you do art? You were never good at it!" when I've won more awards at it than she can count and am bringing up a son on the income I make! (1)<br />* "There’s nothing human about you! You’re an alien living in my house!" (1)<br />* "You have sh&t brown eyes, just like your father!" (1)<br />* "Nobody will care about you like we do." Around the time they were feeding me and my sister these phrases and lies, they changed the family trust and gave their house to GC brother and disinherited my sister and I. They did not disclose this for 5 yrs, the same 5 yrs they kept feeding me and my sister phrases like this. I got a letter from their lawyer, wretched awful people, and I have no words for the deceit they gave all of us kids, nor for my brother. (1)<br />* "You had a perfect childhood! You have never had anything to complain about!" I was raped by my neighbor and she did nothing! (1)<br />* When I was about 3-4 I would ask her if she loved me. She would angrily exclaim, "of course I love you, I could tell you I love you 'til I’m blue in the face and you’d never believe me." Last year (when I was 41) she told me how when I was little she used to imagine giving me to my dad (because I was so much like him) and leave with my younger sister. So that was actually quite validating. (1)<br />* "I'm gonna ship you off to a reform school if you don't behave!" (I was a super shy and a good kid) (1)<br />* "You have Borderline Personality Disorder! I always knew it wasn't my fault!" (1)<br />* "I should have locked you in a basement the entire time you were growing up and never let you out!" (1)<br />* "You're ruining people's lives! You're so selfish and manipulative! " It started when I was six years old! (1)<br />* "Slut! I bet you have every STD! Oh let me guess, YOURE little miss fucking perfect, huh? You NEVER hurt ME! I’m the only one who fucks things up?! I fucking hate you! Never loved you. Never wanted you." - tried to kill me (slapped a restraining order on her) (1)<br />* "For our sake, feel sorry for us when something happens to you!" I'm the one in the hospital, why should I feel sorry for them? It's always about my Nmom! (1)<br />* "He only does that to you because he likes you, it's not bullying, you have to take it and be grateful. Nobody will ever love you, you have nothing to offer." (1)<br />* "You should just be a strip tease artist!" when I was getting A's in school. (1)<br />* "You will never amount to anything!" Meanwhile I’m the most successful one of the whole family. (1)<br />* "You owe me 1,000 dollars just for breathing the air in my house while you were growing up!" (1)<br />* "You don't look pretty with your own hair color", blonde, "When are you going to dye it dark again? You look so much better as a brunette." (1)<br />* "I guess I'm the worst mother in the world! What do you want me to do about it? Stand on my head?" (1)<br />* "So, I stole your pictures! You shouldn't have shown them to me!" (i.e. the parent is sending the message that stealing is okay when you show them something they want to steal) (1)<br />* "You're so in love with yourself!" - when I was a small child. (1)<br />* "You’re not worth loving. He doesn’t love you. Look at you! You need a man with pockets down to his knees and unlimited money!" (1)<br />* "You'll take what I give and like it." Then it would be taken away. (1)<br />* "What makes you feel you are so important? A lot of parents can't stand their kids! You're all pariah and you especially were when you were little!" (1)<br />* "I'm not committed to anyone! I never got married to your father, and I'm not going to be committed to you either! If you don't like it, I can give you away!" (1)<br />* "If you don't get along with everyone in the family, you deserve to be left out!" (1)<br />* "You were a little liar when you were two and you're still a liar!" How can a two year old be a liar? They can't even talk yet. When I asked NM about this, she said I was talking enough to lie. What BS, but it hurt anyway to be called that so often and especially in front of my extended family. (1)<br />* "But poverty is good for you! This lifestyle is perfect for you!" My mother is a millionaire (1)<br />* "You were always good at being alone!" After my mother abandoned me when my father died. (1)<br />* "Maybe you should be a lesbian. No man will ever want you! Men don't like women who complain about how they are treated!" (1)<br />* "I should have won a medal for going to your boring concerts and plays!" (1)<br />* "You are perfect!" and then minutes later she would be a nightmare: "I hate your guts and I wish you were never born!" After a childhood like that I can't be around her any more. She tells everyone that I abandoned her, that I'm a psycho who loved her one minute and then hated her the next - she thinks I'm her, in other words. She has never been able to see me as a separate person. (1)<br />* My stepmother said to me when I was 12, "Stepchildren are not wanted! We put up with you because you came with your father! My own children come first!" And then she slapped me hard across the face. It was the second time I was in her company after my Mom died. It really hurt me and I walked on eggshells for years afterward. (1)<br />* "I regret that you're not up to par with people who behave themselves and don't cry when they are told the truth." NM was so cold about it too! The truth was, according to her, the incredible number of insults and put-downs she gave me. (1)<br />* "Why would you ever want to see your father? He's a loser. You don't want that rubbing off on you!" to try to keep me from seeing him. Other times she would say, "You're a loser just like your father! You should go live with him!" (1)<br />* "You have 3 minutes to be upset, and then you need to move on." (1)<br />* "You can't be serious? You will never have anything to offer anyone if you are fat, grieving and complaining!" when I was an underfed child and grieving over my father dying. She was trying to keep me on a diet until the doctor told her that I was seriously underweight and at risk for heart issues. (1)<br />* "If you complain, you won't have a parent at all! Got that?" (1)<br />* "I never cared for you as a child. You just wanted to suck on my breast and then later suck the life out of me." (1)<br />* "Your uncle never really molested you! He's family and would never do that, but as a child you insisted on it to your own detriment! So now look where you are! I'm sorry you didn't like him." (1)<br />* Anytime I express my experience of being raised by them I get, "No, no, no, that didn't happen that way, that was how YOU felt!" (1)<br />* "I'm always going to think you are inferior to me! Everyone knows that mothers don't love their daughters! You just have to pretend that you do!" (1) <br />* "The reason I loved your sister more than you was because she was easy! You had way too many problems like the time you were raped at xxxxxx summer camp! That made my life miserable!"(1)<br />* "What makes you think you're so special? I'm going to wring your scrawny little neck! I'm done with you. Your hair is a rats nest!" - while tugging hard on my hair with the brush. "You are a nothing and you will always be a nothing." (1)<br />* "You need to appreciate what parents do for you no matter what! Otherwise you don't have parents." She was always threatening abandonment and I could never tell her I was hurt or I was threatened by abandonment for that too! (1)<br />* "You never liked anyone but yourself when you were a child. That's why I left you for your father to to take care of you." (1)<br />* "You think you're better than me!" when I won a scholarship award in college.<br />* "Oh, poor you! I was raped a couple of times in college! I got over it! I don't let it effect my life! You were a kid and kids snap out of everything! But not you, God forbid, piece of sh$t!" (1)<br />* "I could never read any of your novels! I'm not a novel reader and there are so many lies you like to tell in those books!" She can't wrap her head around the idea of fiction apparently. Still hurts that she is not interested in my life or career. (1)<br />* "You never appreciated me, so I thought you'd appreciate me more if I took you out of the Will." (1)<br />* "I thought you were a devil when you were a child like in 'Rosemary's Baby'. At least the beatings helped in getting the devil out of you!" (1)<br />* "At best you're an inconvenience and at worst you are a nightmare!" (1)<br />* "Why would you think that we would think about what you were going through! We had ten kids to raise!" I was just another one of the kids. (1)<br />* "Everyone knows that boys are better than girls and that boys need money and girls don't! Girls can get money with their pussies and a little make-up!" This was said to me by my mother when I was fourteen and told her that I hoped she was saving up for college for me just like she and Dad did for my brother. (1)<br />* "You think your mother was a saint? Well she wasn't! All she wanted to do was to defy everything I wanted! That doesn't make a saint. All she wanted to do was fight me! And she's nasty! Even a jerk! You're never going to be good enough for me now! You're just like her, her clone, so I don't want you any more!" said to me by my father when I was just 16 and hadn't seen him since I was 4. He sent me on a plane back to her just after 5 days. I hardly said a word to him the whole time because I was nervous about being accepted by him. I told him I didn't like fish on the fourth night and he threw a temper tantrum. That was all it took. At the time I was devastated. But I also understood why Mom left him. (1)<br />* "I know I always loved your brother more than I loved you. But you never admit that to a child. You're supposed to raise them as if you really love them, but inside you resent every breath they take. I didn't know how to get someone else to take care of you without making myself look like a bad mother, and I'm a Christian so I couldn't just throw you in a dumpster, so I put up with you for as long as I was required, and now I've let you go." She said it so coldly. She seemed like a psychopath in that instant. It made me shiver that she even thought about throwing me away in a dumpster, let alone talk about it. It made me suicidal. I haven't seen her since then. (1)<br />* For me it was these "Don't cry!" sessions. She would throw me across the room, throw things at me, punch me, insult me, and yell, "Don't cry, don't cry, or I'll hit you some more!" When I was 11, my father came home early and I didn't flag him to get his help because I wanted him to see everything that I confided in him was true, and that she was the liar. He hid, and peaked out at what was happening with eyes as big as saucers. When she grabbed this coffee table book to beat me with it, he flung into the room and grabbed me and packed suitcases for us both. She lost custody and I have never seen her since then. However, I still have a lot of trouble with dissociation, so just because abuse ends doesn't mean you can't be damaged and haunted by it for life. (1)<br />* "I can't wait until you're old enough to get the f&ck out of my house and I can finally enjoy life without you and your drama trying to make us as miserable as you!" - I was 13 and suicidal. I stormed upstairs the last time my stepmom said that, and maybe 10 minutes later my dad kicked my door down to find me standing on my desk chair in my closet with a noose tied to the rod and secured by the top of the door that I'd fashioned from my flat sheet looped around my neck. My NPD Dad + BPD stepmom were so enraged by this that my stepmom fractured my wrist dragging me downstairs and then strangled me, crushing my windpipe. I briefly lost consciousness, and because my head was being slammed against the hardwood kitchen floor too, I threw up from the concussion they gave me. My dad ended up frantically driving me to the hospital and abandoning me outside the ER at 1 AM. That's the last time I saw them in person as a minor, because they lost custody pretty much on the spot. (1)<br />* After I tried to commit suicide when I was ten years old, both of my parents were screaming at me in my hospital bed that I should be in prison and in solitary confinement for the rest of my life. I went into foster care after I got out of the hospital. Years later I learned that my only bio brother took his own life. Now they have no kids. (1) <br />* When I was fifteen, my mother told me I was worthless and useless. I was rebelling a little, but not nearly as much as my peers were. I was forgetting to do things that were expected of me around the house because my mind was too focused on school and friends. Sometimes I was away at a friend's house or stayed after school and she would go ballistic on me because I failed to do a chore. I asked her what she was going to do when I was all grown up and living on my own in a few years. That made her so angry that she drove me to my dad's 311 miles away with my clothes in trash bags. One night I got into an argument with my stepmother and she said my mother was right, that I was useless, and drove me back to my mother's. My mother told me she was going to discipline me by making me live in an unheated cabin in the back of her property. It was pretty far away from the house and my friends got whiff of it and used it to party in and sleep over. It became a place to get high. I forgot to throw out some marijuana butts one morning and Mom found out what was going on. I also left my homework in the house and it was locked, so I couldn't get it to take to school. Anyway, I told my teacher what was going on and Child Protective Services looked at my situation and put me in foster care. My mother wasn't all that bright. She told school authorities that I was too focused on school and not enough on what she wanted me to do, that I had become useless to her in terms of serving her needs. Anyway, it stuck in my head for years, that I was useless to my parents. I had severe depression for awhile. Then I got angry. Then I recovered. When I was 30 I ran into her with my two kids. She told me how much she loved me with tears flowing, and how she always wanted grandkids. I hated her touching them. I grabbed my kids and said, "You are not going to be a grandmother and teach my kids that they are useless! And you are not capable of love either! Leave us alone!" Her tears dried up pretty fast and she looked like she wanted to kill me. As if she's entitled to my kids after all of that abandonment! <br />* They called me “Little Princess.” But not in a good way. “Why do you have to be such a little princess?” They always told me I had no reason to be unhappy. That I was just spoiled. They were grooming me to be a narcissist too. They told me I was better than everyone else that also I was worse than everyone else. It was pretty sick. I think I’m half narcissist still for this reason and also half zero self-esteem. (1)</p><div>Comments:<br />* Maybe we should literally put all these in a book and publish it with the title "Things to NEVER Say To Your Child Ever Ever Ever In a Million Years".<br />* Title: "The Abusive Parent's Guide for Making Your Child Miserable by the Things You Say" - unfortunately, probably a best seller the way the world is going!<br />* Reading these comments....my God, look how strong and beautiful we all are; look what we've overcome! Hugs to all my fellow warriors</div><span class="pq6dq46d tbxw36s4 knj5qynh kvgmc6g5 ditlmg2l oygrvhab nvdbi5me sf5mxxl7 gl3lb2sf hhz5lgdu" face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="animation-name: none; background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; display: inline-flex; font-size: 15px; height: 16px; margin: 0px 1px; transition-property: none; vertical-align: middle; width: 16px;"><img alt="❤" height="16" referrerpolicy="origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/t6c/1/16/2764.png" style="animation-name: none; border: 0px; transition-property: none;" width="16" /></span><span class="pq6dq46d tbxw36s4 knj5qynh kvgmc6g5 ditlmg2l oygrvhab nvdbi5me sf5mxxl7 gl3lb2sf hhz5lgdu" face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="animation-name: none; background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; display: inline-flex; font-size: 15px; height: 16px; margin: 0px 1px; transition-property: none; vertical-align: middle; width: 16px;"><img alt="❤" height="16" referrerpolicy="origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/t6c/1/16/2764.png" style="animation-name: none; border: 0px; transition-property: none;" width="16" /></span><span class="pq6dq46d tbxw36s4 knj5qynh kvgmc6g5 ditlmg2l oygrvhab nvdbi5me sf5mxxl7 gl3lb2sf hhz5lgdu" face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="animation-name: none; background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; display: inline-flex; font-size: 15px; height: 16px; margin: 0px 1px; transition-property: none; vertical-align: middle; width: 16px;"><img alt="❤" height="16" referrerpolicy="origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/t6c/1/16/2764.png" style="animation-name: none; border: 0px; transition-property: none;" width="16" /></span><div><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><br /><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/tech-support/202008/how-unloved-daughters-rationalize-verbal-abuse" target="_blank">How Unloved Daughters Rationalize Verbal Abuse (Insights into why it often takes so long to recognize toxic behavior)</a></b> - by Peg Streep for Psychology Today</div><div><span><span><br /><span style="color: #050505; font-size: 15px;">How most people view having children from The Atlantic article, </span><b style="color: #050505; font-size: 15px;"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/jd-vance-childless-left-culture-wars/619705/" target="_blank">Invasion of the Baby Haters by Elizabeth Bruining</a></b><span style="color: #050505; font-size: 15px;">:</span></span><br />excerpt:<br /></span><i>Children are excellent; they’re wonderful. Having them, loving them, raising them is everything it’s cracked up to be and more; you could install an ecstasy pump in your brain stem and never feel half the euphoria that rushes up from within when your child runs to you, beaming, to bask in your love. These feelings are ancient and deep ...<br /></i><span style="color: #050505;">My note: when you are a scapegoat, your parent never sends this message, and probably never feels it. <br /></span><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">From the MedCircle videos</div><div style="text-align: center;">with Kyle Kittleson (interviewer) and clinical psychologist, Dr. Ramani Durvasula</div><div style="text-align: center;">Understanding the Narcissist: "Why Do They Treat You This Way?"<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/J4yraZiJ9D8" width="320" youtube-src-id="J4yraZiJ9D8"></iframe></div><br /><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: center;">"8 Toxic Things Parents Say To their Children"<br /><span>by Psych2Go: </span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GS_mATLF7BE" width="320" youtube-src-id="GS_mATLF7BE"></iframe></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">"8 Hurtful Things Parents Tell Children"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">by Psych2Go: <br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N3Hb9FiyN34" width="320" youtube-src-id="N3Hb9FiyN34"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"<span style="text-align: left;">10 Toxic Things Parents Say To Their Kids"</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">by Psych2Go: <br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pIKlxuO8LK8" width="320" youtube-src-id="pIKlxuO8LK8"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvq8pHlNgrs0jyiynhYWgWpYUeWxGaMScijC_MyC7wStdsJ_1r04WQGBQiwTeROIedYgP82cQmGtj_5lq51pPNtmz3hzraR8tOos6tgpCOq4Pe4LS6Z_Gs6Yh2M9fetlYjI_ZMbcPeYkUvaJMS_aioB4f5RUSDQLcG_sPmvUsOriCWULaw4RKySrHM/s722/Another%20bad%20Mommy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvq8pHlNgrs0jyiynhYWgWpYUeWxGaMScijC_MyC7wStdsJ_1r04WQGBQiwTeROIedYgP82cQmGtj_5lq51pPNtmz3hzraR8tOos6tgpCOq4Pe4LS6Z_Gs6Yh2M9fetlYjI_ZMbcPeYkUvaJMS_aioB4f5RUSDQLcG_sPmvUsOriCWULaw4RKySrHM/s16000/Another%20bad%20Mommy.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-43484068582168568642022-12-26T08:43:00.012-08:002023-04-23T14:45:34.221-07:00Important: The DARVO Tactic - and Why it is Important to Know About It in Domestic Violence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYBl1weCy8oKPHBDqqobjD_oT0ohESD7iRYq5XTuVsAuH1dhocE7sgKvuXZOEV4fxFhCTfl29e9oT1HhJIiH9Ssht2-uWtSYC2OrAuzpeth0ordsPEQ_rkvKkiW5aZWJSPlno_uj7P2Ux0XPsbhHf49HLsOFiTb-Htabyrf68wB0K-lKRAgJeaG_9v/s583/DARVO%20blog%20c.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="583" data-original-width="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYBl1weCy8oKPHBDqqobjD_oT0ohESD7iRYq5XTuVsAuH1dhocE7sgKvuXZOEV4fxFhCTfl29e9oT1HhJIiH9Ssht2-uWtSYC2OrAuzpeth0ordsPEQ_rkvKkiW5aZWJSPlno_uj7P2Ux0XPsbhHf49HLsOFiTb-Htabyrf68wB0K-lKRAgJeaG_9v/s16000/DARVO%20blog%20c.jpg" /></a><br />© illustration by Lise Winne </div><p>I think the DARVO tactic is a very important abusive tactic to know about for any survivor who is suffering from abuse, or has suffered from abuse. And in a way it is precursor to some other posts I'm getting ready to publish, namely some of the head games narcissists use and why they can't hear, and refuse to hear, why you are hurt. <br /><br />The DARVO tactic was introduced by Jennifer J. Freyd, a professional psychologist at the University of Oregon. <br /><br />It translates into "Deny. Attack. Reverse victim and offender." It is a method that narcissists and both primary psychopaths and secondary psychopaths use. Some addicts and alcoholics use it too. Most criminals definitely use it.<br /><br />It is a common form of gaslighting, and it is rare for most of us to use it, although some narcissists accuse us of using it (perhaps because they feel so free to use it in any number of circumstances: <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/06/do-abusers-project-their-thoughts-and.html" target="_blank">projection</a></b> is their game because they are highly resistant to self reflection and feelings of self-shame, preferring to blame and shame others instead). <br /><br />So what are some examples of the DARVO method? Here are some:<br /><br />* You accuse a co-worker of stealing your work, ideas, writing or design on a project and presenting them to the boss as their own. Your narcissistic co-worker <u>denies</u> they ever did that, <u>attacks</u> you (often telling you that you are crazy, and that you need to apologize to them for insinuating that they are a thief), and then tells the boss that they are the <u>victim</u> of you (that you tried to steal <i>their</i> work instead of the other way around). <br /><br />* A narcissistic parent abandons you (this is very common for narcissistic parents to do to at least one child, usually <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">the scapegoat child</a></b>). Then they tell all of your mutual family members that you discarded them instead. You may have walked away and pursued your life goals <i>because</i> they discarded you, but they make no mention of that, and they <u>play the victim</u> of a cruel abandonment by you instead. When you confront them as to why they are turning this situation around and making themselves out to be a victim, they <u>deny</u> that they ever stopped speaking to you, and then <u>they attack you</u> (often telling you that you are crazy for thinking that way, that you are cruel for "letting them go", that now that you have proven that you are cruel, they no longer want to have anything to do with you - it is a way for them to get away with abandonment a second time). <br /> This is extremely common for family scapegoats to endure, and part of every day life when dealing with a narcissistic parent. <br /> For children, this is extremely damaging and it is classified as a severe form of child abuse and child neglect.<br /><br />* Two political opponents are trying to get votes. One politician (politician A) runs smear campaigns on the other politician (politician B), making up stories out of thin air about politician B, making him out to be a baby killer, someone who will take away guns from citizens, someone who is out to take over the government and obtain absolute power. Then politician A gets into an accident (gets bruised up) and decides to use it to create a false narrative: that politician B beat them up. Politician B reacts to the false narrative (of course), asking why Politician A is spreading lies.<br /> Politician A responds with shock that Politician B would ever accuse A of spreading lies. He denies that he spreads lies ("Who do you take me to be?"), and then attacks politician B ("You are so immoral for telling someone like me that I spread lies! What a cheap underhanded move!"), and then plays the victim by turning the situation around: "Politician B is spreading lies about me, making it seem I spread lies about him. How dare he tell me that I'm a liar! What a daring move of projection!"<br /> If there is no investigation, or investigative reporting, the liar and smear campaigner (Politician A) will probably beat the honest politician (Politician B). The reason why is that most of the population does not use this tactic. Most people are honest, and adhere to honesty, because dishonesty can have many adverse consequences (such as a fall from social grace), so they <i>assume</i> that Politician A is telling the truth about Politician B, and they <i>assume</i> Politician A was needlessly and un-provokingly attacked by Politician B (this is especially true if they are loyal to a particular political party). <br /> Unless people are aware of narcissism, and the DARVO tactic, they won't suspect Politician A of using this method. <br /> If you are aware of narcissistic tactics, and that politicians tend to act this way, it is because narcissists and psychopaths tend to be attracted to running for office (politics is about "power, control, and domination" after all, something that narcissists and psychopaths like to do to business partners, bill collectors, family members, etc, etc, so "why not try it on a whole city, county, state, nation?", they think). <br /><br />* DARVO can also happen to you when you are questioning a narcissist's or psychopath's motives, and when they assume a role of teacher. Teaching full adults "behavior lessons" as a way to take the focus off of their own behaviors, is very common for narcissists, and it can be common for psychopaths too if you are in a close personal relationship with them. <br /><br />* As I've stated, alcoholics can use it to take the focus off of their drinking alcohol. Let's say that your husband tried to make out with all of the women at a party in a drunken state, then sprawled out on a couch and fell asleep, and that it was hard to load him into the car and out of the car after the party ended because he could barely stand up straight. <br /> The next morning you tell him how upset you were by his behavior and his drunken state. <br /> He <u>denies</u> that he was drunk and denies trying to make out with any women. <br /> You tell him that his alcohol habit is impacting your social life together. And that he doesn't remember things he has done. <br /> He tells you that it isn't that bad, and that you are making "a mountain out of a molehill". <br /> But you press him on the issue that he needs to drink less at parties and social events you attend together. <br /> He becomes enraged and tells you that he doesn't have a problem with alcohol, and to lay off already, that you are a "shrew" and "a bitch" for continuing with this subject (<u>attacks</u> you verbally).<br /> You become hurt by the verbal abuse and he tells you that <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/11/you-brought-this-upon-yourself-why.html" target="_blank">"you brought on yourself"</a></b> for complaining about his drinking. In fact, he says "I don't deserve this treatment! You need to apologize to me now!" (<u>reverse victim and offender</u>).<br /><br />* And I have also said that criminals use it:<br /> For instance, you are a musician and forgot to lock the car each time you were unloading for a performance. One of your instruments goes missing. The evening news puts the theft of your instrument on the air. <br /> Someone "snitches" and the offender is arrested. <br /> The offender tells the police that he did not take the guitar, but that the musician loaned him the guitar (<u>denial</u>). <br /> However, when the musician tells police that he did not loan his guitar to the offender, that he doesn't even know the offender, he brings up the fact that he was bringing instruments into a venue that he was to perform at, and why would he lend out a guitar in such a situation when he had to start playing it in an hour for the performance. <br /> Anyway, the issue goes back and forth, and the offender shouts, "What a liar! You lent me that guitar and you know it! And you did it, apparently, just to see me get arrested!" (the attack, plus reversing victim and offender in one sentence). <br /><br />One of the more dire forms of victimization of using the DARVO tactic:<br /><br />* A narcissistic sibling punches you in your bedroom. No one else is in your bedroom except you and your sibling. You tell your narcissistic parent that your sibling punched you, but narcissists don't care about the truth, or tell the truth, so without investigating anything, they make an impulsive determination and they tell you that you hurt your sibling instead. <br /> Note: a narcissistic parent will "protect" their favorite child (<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">the golden child</a></b>) from fall-out, even if there is a possibility that the sibling is violent. That is because narcissistic parents are more invested in "nothing is my fault" and "I get off clean", rather than displaying good parenting. <br /> So the violence is never addressed. <br /> Then this golden child will also <u>deny</u> that he hit you. But then he is also likely to <u>attack</u> you ("Mom always sticks up for me! She would never listen to you! She would never take your side! And how dare you talk to her about me! I'll teach you to never tattle on me again! I'm going to take her away from you completely if you don't watch it, and you're going to pay dearly for tattling on me! Never think you can ever tattle on me again!!")<br /> Then, to drive a further wedge between your parent and you, <u>they are telling constant lies about being victimized</u> by you, while they are, in fact, escalating the violence towards you.<br /> The parent is not likely to intervene at any point. That is because narcissists severely <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">lack empathy</a></b>, and have agendas of their own - usually to keep you in the scapegoat role. <br /> Eventually a whole family can be using these tactics, especially if they are shown how to do it, especially if they see no consequences for doing it, and they have an impressionable mind (children who grow up seeing the parent use it, and anyone much more bonded to the narcissistic parent than they are to you).<br /> A scapegoat is actually safest with the narcissistic parent than all of the people around them (but only in the one-on-one sense of the word), but parents who scapegoat rarely allow one-on-one discussions between themselves and the scapegoat.<br /> However a narcissistic parent may very well want to "keep" a scapegoat child in the family, at least in terms of continual trauma bonding via scapegoating, but the folks around that parent will mostly want the scapegoat entirely out of the picture (usually). <br /> Many psychologists talk about how the scapegoat is the "lucky one" who will escape the family and keep it from going into more generations. Scapegoats are for sure, aware of the downfalls, the unethical, and highly immoral aspects of narcissism, enough to make positive changes in their own lives and children's lives. But scapegoating is also extremely, extremely dangerous, and I'm not convinced the dangers ever really subside entirely, even when they are old, and if anything escalate to extreme levels (where crimes are committed against the scapegoat - that is what I have seen in forums).<br /> Societal scapegoating is very dangerous (imagine what the Ku Klux Klan would do to one individual with a different racial background than theirs alone in their midst). Scapegoats of families are often just <i>one</i> <i>child </i>and that child may be disabled in some way, or suffering from trauma, or kept from forming relationships with other family (because the narcissist tells other family members that their child is crazy which is another added <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">gaslighting tactic</a></b>). <br /> When you see a lot of estrangement in one family, and the trend is some kind of prejudice: females being estranged, or members who are showing a different race being estranged, or members who are not in the dominant political party of the family being ostracized, it invariably has to do with scapegoating. Scapegoating is a family disease, just as any form of abuse is. <br /> Some of the things that happen to scapegoats:<br />* mob bullying<br />* suicide (from on-going trauma related issues due to the mob bullying), or suicidal thoughts<br />* getting injured by someone in the group<br />* being murdered by someone in the group<br />* being ex-communicated from the family<br />* being disinherited<br />* constantly being shamed over erroneous micro events or even made up situations<br />* being used by other human predators who sense vulnerability<br />* severe PTSD symptoms<br />* double standards: where the scapegoat is not allowed to make even one complaint about how they are treated by the co-bullies, but where the co-bullies can criticize ad-nauseum, insult, deride, reject, often steal from, threaten and injure the scapegoat. <br /> Most scapegoats go through all of this and more. The exception <i>may be</i> murder (but even there they can be victims, or threatened, especially if they are receiving any kind of <b>physical abuse</b> or threats of physical abuse, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">false imprisonment</a></b> or threats of false imprisonment, or other kinds of threats especially around an inheritance or money - but there are others: I discuss murder and injury in the family as it relates to this subject at the bottom of this section).<br /> So scapegoats are very unlucky in the sense of being saddled with all of this. If they get out at an early age, and stay out, they can be lucky, but most often they are drawn back in with love bombing by some family member who may be "the new scapegoat" and wants it to go back to "the old scapegoat" - you, or by the parent (a "successful, happy, healed scapegoat" is extremely challenging for them in terms of keeping the scapegoat <i>in the continuous role </i>and convincing the scapegoat that <i>the role</i> is all that they deserve in life). <br /> The DARVO tactic is also used by every co-bully in the family on the scapegoat to disenfranchise him or her more and more, to get them out of the family. They talk the parent into false narratives about that scapegoat, while at the same time threaten the scapegoat (usually covertly, rather than overtly). It can become so tangled, where one manipulator tries to out-manipulate another manipulator in the family to get certain actions taken against the scapegoat. It seems to work: the parent will refuse to hear the scapegoat out, and only listen to DARVO explanations of what happened by the co-bullies. <br /> One of the reasons the scapegoat ends up with such a high probability of injury, death, and other dangerous outcomes has to do with the narcissistic parent's recruitment of the co-bullies in the first place. Even brainwashed empaths can help to further the estrangement between child and parent. The parent will also often tell you that in order to talk to you that they need their co-bullies present to <i>protect themselves</i> (which is another DARVO move). If they need to talk to you with bullies present, it always means they want to bully you and scapegoat you some more - that should be obvious. <br /> Scapegoating is abuse, and it happens to be one of the more egregious forms of abuse, especially if it is done to a child, and continued throughout the child's adult life, which it usually is unless there is continual estrangement, otherwise it <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">will escalate</a></b>. Important to know ... <br /> At any rate, they lose their scapegoats because, like the one person of a different race in and among a Ku Klux Klan rally, it is a dangerous mob situation that the scapegoat must get out of.<br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><u style="text-align: center;">threats, murder, injury for scapegoats</u></div></div></div><p></p></blockquote><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"> If you are murdered or injured by a family member, they are likely to use the DARVO tactic again. They have all spent a great deal of time <i>as a family</i> spinning false narratives about you to each other, singly and as a group, that you are to be seen as this practically wild animal who attacks willy-nilly. So if you are murdered, they are likely to tell authorities that you attacked them and they were "just defending themselves". The same goes for injuries.<br /> This is why it is important for scapegoats who aren't discarded by their families, to get out of the family themselves. Again abuse <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">escalates</a></b>, and if the family is rejecting, cruel, breaking laws, physically abusive or threatening physical violence, perpetrating false imprisonment or threatening false imprisonment, touching you on the face, neck, or head in an aggressive way, stalking you, getting others to stalk you, trying to isolate you (dis-invites to family events, the unsuspecting family members getting a <i>brainwashing</i> and <i>believing</i> the narcissists in the family), <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/warning-youre-useless-phrase-youre.html" target="_blank">telling you that you are a waste</a> </b>(one of the verbal abuses that point to danger), and if they are they are spiteful or planning revenges, there is no question<b> </b>that you must find a way out of your family (domestic violence centers have the wherewithal to devise a good safety plan for you to escape). If they are doing some or all of these acts in conjunction with the DARVO tactic, and if some or all of the abusive family members are using it (usually all of them will), it is especially critical. </div></div> Remember that in toxic abusive families, DARVO comes first, and what you have to say comes last (or they are likely to not want to hear what you have to say at all). So you cannot solve any issues having to do with abuse within the family. It has to be solved outside the family, thus the need for police, domestic violence centers, people who have your safety in mind first and foremost, and perhaps a good home security system, maybe an auto security system too, a lawyer, and other methods to produce more safety for you. <br /><b> </b>It is also really important to keep a record with police of aggressive texts<b>, </b>e-mails or any kind of recorded evidence in case something happens to you. It is also good to share these same texts, and other recorded evidence with people you can trust like therapists, very close friends, and therapy groups, so that they can vouch for you when your family perpetrates abuse or crimes. Talking to a lawyer may also be advised by police or domestic violence services.<br /> To get help if you are a family scapegoat: <p></p><p><b><a href="https://www.thehotline.org/resources/escalation/" target="_blank">National Domestic Violence Hotline</a><br /><br /><a href="https://domesticviolenceresourcecenter.org/" target="_blank">Find the domestic violence center in your area</a></b></p><p>This can save your life.</p><p>Most of all, the DARVO tactic is good to know about to avoid narcissists and psychopaths altogether (who tend to be predatory of others), so that you can start backing away when you first see it. <br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">MORE READING</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO" target="_blank">DARVO</a></b> - Wikipedia<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.banyantherapy.com/darvo/" target="_blank">DARVO: Understanding a gaslighting strategy of reversing blame</a></b> - by Dan Drake, LMFT, LPCC, CCPS-S, CSAT-S for Banyan Therapy Group</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://www.choosingtherapy.com/darvo/" target="_blank">DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender</a></b> - by Eric Patterson, LPC and reviewed by Heidi Moawad, MD for Choosing Therapy<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.narcissisticabuserehab.com/darvo/" target="_blank">How Narcissists Use DARVO to Escape Accountability</a></b> - by Manya Wakefield for Narcissistic Abuse Rehab (NAR)<br /><br /><b><a href="https://themindsjournal.com/darvo-tactics-narcissistic-abuse/" target="_blank">DARVO Tactics: How Narcissists Resort To Playing The Victim</a></b> - by Darlene Lancer, JD, LMFT for Mind Journal<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.rayfamilytherapy.com/blog/what-is-darvo-in-a-relationship" target="_blank">What is DARVO in a relationship?</a></b> - by Rebecca Ray for Ray Family Therapy<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.marriage.com/advice/domestic-violence-and-abuse/darvo-relationship/" target="_blank">What Is DARVO Relationship and how Can It Be Resisted?</a></b> - by Jenni Jacobsen, Licensed Clinical Social Worker for Marriage.com<br /><br /><b><a href="https://nyssashobbithole.com/main/how-darvo-could-prove-which-of-us-is-telling-the-truth/" target="_blank">How DARVO could prove which of us is telling the truth</a></b> - Nyssa McCanmore for Nyssa's Hobit Hole (her own website)<br /><br /><b>recommended: <a href="https://dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/defineDARVO.html" target="_blank">What is DARVO</a> </b>- by Jennifer J. Freyd for the University of Oregon<br />Note: Jennifer J. Freyd was the psychologist who first introduced the tactic, and she has a lot of links where this method was used in public criminal cases (as well as other links of interest).<br /><br />Some of my own posts that may be relevant to this discussion<br /><br /><b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/04/narcissists-and-blame-shifting-avoiding.html" target="_blank">Blame-shifting</a></b> <br /><br /><b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/12/gaslighting-and-lying-from-active.html" target="_blank">Gaslighting</a><br /><br /><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/09/lack-of-empathy-in-abusers-narcissists.html" target="_blank">Lack of Empathy</a><br /><br /><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/11/you-brought-this-upon-yourself-why.html" target="_blank">"You Brought This Upon Yourself Phrase"</a><br /></b></div><div><br /></div><div>also a special note ... I got an e-mail from Google on December 3rd that I had reached one million minutes of views on this particular blog. I did the math, and that rounds out to be about approximately 3 minutes worth of reading per person for each post published. However, there are some visitors who don't read anything, so it is more like 5 - 7 minutes worth of reading, to compensate for the visitors who leave right away. As I've said before, I don't really know who my readers are, or where they come from, or why they are here. The e-mail sent to me only stated that one million minutes of reading were logged by them, and that the time allotted was different for each person landing on the site.<br />Anyway, it was nice to get that e-mail, and to know that people care about this subject. </div>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-32887867082517073182022-11-29T10:31:00.029-08:002023-02-21T11:42:52.233-08:00Lack of Empathy in Abusers, Narcissists and Sociopaths with a Discussion on the Dangers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEBb1WCu70Xn3PiFesQgmK-ClNBn9bGq9mm6Nix1uKNHNCqzB5T0lFFHr0Pn0Fk4d3bCEHShrtqIw6bmrJR1237jQog58AOixYDgu_quwekFTsFOluuVhq4uI0kOa-nqehX4r-PLf5OWaMHB0FGVqkxuCQ56pCFsAjJ7Gvx3A7c98m3aJaSIWczWkd/s588/My%20quote%20Unempathetic%20Parents.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="588" data-original-width="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEBb1WCu70Xn3PiFesQgmK-ClNBn9bGq9mm6Nix1uKNHNCqzB5T0lFFHr0Pn0Fk4d3bCEHShrtqIw6bmrJR1237jQog58AOixYDgu_quwekFTsFOluuVhq4uI0kOa-nqehX4r-PLf5OWaMHB0FGVqkxuCQ56pCFsAjJ7Gvx3A7c98m3aJaSIWczWkd/s16000/My%20quote%20Unempathetic%20Parents.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Note: related post: <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-discussion-on-cognitive-empathy-in.html" target="_blank">A Discussion on Cognitive Empathy in Abusive Relationships: How to Tell if the Person You Are Dealing With in a Close Personal Relationship Has Empathy</a></b><br /><br />Lack of empathy is one of the tell-tale signs that you are dealing with someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Histrionic Personality Disorder or Antisocial Personality Disorder. However, active addicts and alcoholics can sometimes present a lack of empathy too, and many addicts and alcoholics also have personality disorders, so it can be hard to tell who and what you are dealing with. <br /><br />For the sake of this post, I will be talking mostly about lack of empathy in Narcissistic Personality Disorder, however, I talk about some signs to be aware of in terms of what you may be dealing with.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">INTRODUCTION</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Lack of empathy is sometimes our first clue that something isn't right with our date, partner, parent or child. <br /><br />If the lack of empathy is accompanied by controlling behavior, name-calling (verbal abuse), hair-trigger rage or abuse especially when they feel they are criticized (and especially when they are highly critical of others themselves), consider that they might have the prior personality disorders that I mentioned: Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Histrionic ... and so on. <br /><br />Lack of empathy in these kinds of people can mean dealing with abuse and the aftermath of trauma for you down the road (or your children, if your children are exposed to them). It can also mean traversing their rages in a way that impacts the way you relate to them: a life of not sharing much other than the very basics, building boundaries so that nothing other than polite discourse is acceptable, not reacting emotionally to any baiting or silent treatments, not engaging with them (letting them engage with you instead if they wish to do so), or leaving them or letting them leave you. Most people who are dealing with a person with a combination of lack of empathy, rage, controlling behavior, abuse and hypersensitivity to criticism usually seek therapy or go to domestic violence counselors who are trained in perpetrator behaviors and victim behaviors. <br /><br />But first: </div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">WHAT AM I DEALING WITH?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In terms of the possible reasons for a lack of empathy (or for a seeming lack of empathy), please be aware that there may be extenuating circumstances, or that there are a number of factors (a personality disorder and a drinking problem, for instance). <br /><br /><u>a child who lacks empathy:</u><br /> Children under five years old <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mothers-empathy-and-child_b_152456" target="_blank">cannot be expected to show empathy</a> because of where they are in their developmental stage. <br /> Even when they are past five years old, their empathy is in "growing stages". <br /> However, after five years of age if they show no empathy at all, it is cause for concern especially if they also show signs of bullying, destroying other people's property, torturing animals, and having symptoms of <b><a href="https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2001/0415/p1579.html" target="_blank">conduct disorder</a></b>. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><u>alcoholism:</u><br /> Lack of empathy in active alcoholism is well known if you have ever gone to any ALANON meeting. Previously committed marriage partners are having affairs left and right with just about anyone including people they don't know or don't remember picking up at the local bar, men who were responsible now forget to pay bills and put gas in the car, you used to be able to hang on to a car for at least ten years and now your partner gets in a car wreck every year. They don't seem to care at all about how any of this is effecting you. Or they tell you they care, but end up being unethical or putting themselves in danger again. <br /> Perhaps they don't care enough about you or your common children to give up drinking. Booze has such a powerful grip on them that they barely notice what anyone needs, what your emotions are, why you are angry with them, etc. Besides that, they are so inebriated when you try to talk to them about your concerns that you might as well be talking to a brick wall. They don't seem to register that you are hurt. They are too disabled to have an adult conversation.<br /> To complicate matters, alcohol also <b><a href="https://drugfree.org/drug-and-alcohol-news/alcohol-can-distort-mens-feelings-of-empathy-and-understanding-of-irony/" target="_blank">effects the brain</a></b> in terms of empathy.<br /> If the person stops drinking and is sober for a year, and hasn't had any significant brain damage, then if the empathy comes back, you know that the lack of empathy was caused by the alcoholism.<br /><br /><u>addiction:<br /></u> Again, a powerful addiction is going to cause a lack of empathy because the next fix is all that the person cares about in the moment. Stealing, lying and gaslighting are common ways that they show a lack of empathy.<br /><br /><u>trauma survivors, people going through traumatic events:</u><br /> Trauma survivors or people who are going through traumatic events can appear to have lack of empathy, but what they are experiencing is the fight-or-flight reflex known as amygdala hijacking. The heart is racing faster than normal and adrenalin is running through their system. People who are deep into an amygdala hijack are unable to absorb new information or to problem solve. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> Some of them seem self absorbed, not able to respond appropriately. This is because they are trying to solve the issue that is causing them the trauma. <br /> Likewise, people who have lived a life with too much trauma can live so much in their own heads that they don't always respond normally to situations. Some of them can seem exceptionally introverted. They can seem like they are only half present. They don't seem to be able to engage in conversation, or if they are engaging, they don't feel at all comfortable. Some of them feel that they have to respond, even though they haven't listened to what was said, or know what was said, so they can sometimes laugh when something tragic is conveyed or convey worry and sadness when something joyous is conveyed. <br /> People who experience a lot of trauma typically have sleep disturbances. They are either not sleeping at all or they are sleeping only a few hours. This is what hypervigilance does. If they are able to sleep to some extent, many of them have nightmares and flashbacks which tend to wake them up and keep them awake. They can go about a day as though they are sleep-walking, upset over little things that are happening or little mistakes they make. They don't seem "quite with it". Feeling emotional from a lack of sleep, and making mistakes because of a lack of sleep, is normal.</div><div> "Selective hearing" can happen in situations where they are over-exposed to abuse. When they are being abused, they shut off what the other person is saying or demanding at the height of the abusive situation in order to survive the abuse (called dissociation: it is actually involuntary, not something that they are in control of - it is the brain's way of protecting itself). This is also sometimes why domestic violence victims stay with their offenders, because they experience abuse in a dissociative way. <br /> If you demand a lot from a traumatized person, they can seem to lack empathy, but what they are really doing is shutting down (into an amygdala hijack). Some of them dissociate in a big way. To make things worse, a lot of abuse survivors get triggered by demands. That is because many abusers demand things from their targets that are hurtful to the target, and if the targets aren't responding to the demand in the way that the offender wants, they are often abused more to get them to comply.<br /> When the survivor is not anxious, in a hypervigilant state, having flashbacks and nightmares, and feeling calm again, empathy tends to go back to normal again, and can even be exceptional, and they can hear what is going on again.<br /> If you have abused a trauma survivor without knowing it (violence or incest in an alcoholic black out state, for instance), you may become triggering to them too. Trauma survivors sometimes get to a point where they walk away from everyone except the most empathetic, calm people. It may seem they are unempathetic when they do this as it seems personal, but they are doing this to survive, so that they can be functional for themselves and functional to those people who love and depend on them. <br /> Chronic disappearing acts can sometimes also be a trauma survivor's way of coping. It is not necessarily due to a lack of empathy, but a way for the survivor to be in a calm environment where getting triggered is less likely. This tends to happen to survivors who are threatened "not to tell", or where no one wants to hear about the abuse they endured, or who feel they have to stuff emotions. The <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">lost child</a></b> in family systems is the most obvious manifestation. They turn off the abusive environment in their minds as much as they can by trying to distract themselves with interests and projects, but when they can't, or they are getting triggered, they disappear. Being alone in nature is one of the common ways of "disappearing" that I have seen. <br /> Some trauma survivors are also narcissists and sociopaths, but they will have the traits of these cluster B personality disorders in addition to trauma responses The most common traits of narcissists are lack of empathy, insistence on dominating you, controlling you and having power over you, hypersensitivity and rage over perceived criticism, triangulation, gaslighting, entitlement, and invalidation/perspecticide of your experiences, thoughts and feelings (most of the traits I cover in the column on the right under "abusers tricks of the trade"). Narcissists tend to be abusive or neglectful.<br /> Sociopaths and malignant narcissists are similar to run-of-the-mill narcissists, but they are more deceptive, punishing, vindictive, sadistic and pro-actively abusive (i.e. they plan attacks). </div><div><br /><u>Asperger's:<br /></u> People who have Asperger's can seem to lack empathy, <a href="https://www.aane.org/emotions-and-empathy/" target="_blank">but they don't</a>. Far from it. In some of them, <b><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/a-radical-new-autism-theory" target="_blank">they feel so much empathy that they feel overwhelmed by it</a></b>. <br /> Asperger's is a high functioning form of autism. <br /> In autism-spectrum disorders it is not a question of not feeling, but rather a hypersensitivity to experience with an inability <a href="https://ada.com/signs-of-autism/" target="_blank">to communicate effectively or to communicate with gestures that other people can understand</a> (this is generalized autism). However, people with Asperger's often have normal language skills and a hyper awareness of how everyone else is feeling, but they will have some limits in terms of how much they can non-verbally express.<br /> The reason why some people might feel that people diagnosed with Asperger's have a lack of empathy is because their facial expressions often do not match what they are saying or feeling inside, so they are often misunderstood. They can have limited or frozen facial expressions. Adults diagnosed with Asperger's tend to avoid eye contact too. So when they are called upon to be empathetic, they may appear to be unmoved or awkward, but what is really happening is that they are unable to entirely express what they feel. <br /> The presence of a lack of empathy means that a person will not be able to tell how much damage they are doing to other human beings, or care either. This does not describe people with Asperger's.<br /> People with Asperger's tend to be highly moral, and do not like to see others being abused or hurt. </div><div><u><br /></u></div><div><u>dementia:</u><br /> People with dementia can lack empathy because they are unable to function at normal cognitive and emotional levels. <br /> Most of these people should be excused for lack of empathy. They require help rather than being admonished for a lack of empathy. <br /> If you need empathy, these are not the people who you should be seeking this from.<br /><br /><u>schizophrenia</u>: schizophrenia is a lifelong mental illness that appears in men in their twenties, and in women in their late twenties to early thirties. <br /> Before the mid-1980s children and teens were often diagnosed with schizophrenia, but it was found in the 1980s that they were actually experiencing PTSD instead (almost all children diagnosed with schizophrenia pre-1980s who were in hospitals or mental health facilities had experienced extra-ordinary amounts of abuse, either severe, or they were constantly being re-traumatized). In children, and sometimes in teenagers, PTSD can mimic some of the same symptoms of schizophrenia, such as hallucinations. However, hallucinations in childhood PTSD come from a profound lack of sleep due to hypervigilance to danger (fear) and it is curable, whereas hallucinations in schizophrenia come from a generalized inability to decipher reality from fiction and is generally incurable.<br /> Today it is understood that they are two very different diagnoses, and that PTSD can be greatly mitigated through trauma therapy, calm stable non-abusive environments, and sometimes with anti-anxiety medications, and that schizophrenia is an incurable mental illness where the symptoms can only be mitigated by medication (often anti-psychotic medications, and sometimes with additional mood stabilizers, and anti-depressants - prescribed mainly by psychiatric doctors). <br /> So, do schizophrenics typically display with a lack of empathy? No. These would most likely be attributed to psychopaths, or others in the Cluster B spectrum of personality disorders. <br /> But can schizophrenics be violent? They sometimes can be, <b><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2022/11/28/schizophrenia-what-know-complex-mental-health-diagnosis/8292076001/" target="_blank">but they are much more likely to be victims of violence.</a></b> <br /> Symptoms of schizophrenia are delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking, and disorganized speech (typically the kind of non-manipulative <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_salad" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">word salad</a>, like talking in non sequiturs,<b> </b>that is typical of schizophrenics), abnormal motor behavior, lack of ability to function in ways that most of us function (many are unemployable and cannot reach career goals because of extra-ordinary symptoms like the inability to speak where the use of meaningless words makes it impossible to interact with people in a work situation: customers, audiences, staff, bosses, and co-workers). For more on the symptoms of schizophrenia, go <b><a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizophrenia/symptoms-causes/syc-20354443" target="_blank">HERE</a></b>. <br /> The stigma that schizophrenics are possessed with two personalities, who are devising ways to hurt other people in a mad vindictive style is a wrong one. <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><u>narcissism:</u><br /> Narcissists are much more likely to have the trait of a lack of empathy. However, they often pretend to have empathy to draw people in, to seduce them, to gain power and control over them, to use them for scapegoating. <br /> Narcissists are like addicts in that if they don't get their narcissistic supply fix at the time they want it and in the way they want it, they go into a rage. Giving a narcissist "supply" very often means giving them flattery, <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-pursuit-of-power-control-and.html" target="_blank"><b>power, control and domination</b></a> over you, being agreeable to their demands and lectures, and agreeing to give them sensitive information about you or others (so that they can triangulate and attain leadership over everyone). <br /> Narcissists who are high on the scale of narcissistic traits don't just rage when they don't receive narcissistic supply, but they also want to punish and/or destroy people who don't give them their fix. <br /> One way to tell if they are narcissists is that you will notice that the lack of empathy comes on suddenly. Let us say that they have shown you a great deal of empathy for nine months. They seemingly care about every aspect of your experiences, your hurts, and your traumas. They call you often to make sure you are safe.<br /> But let us say that you <b>inadvertently criticize them over something</b>, or they take what you said as a criticism. Criticism is the opposite of the kind of narcissistic supply that entails flattery. Most people feel hurt when they feel criticized, but true narcissists get very angry and will rage at you instead. They feel entitled to narcissistic supply (and to being idealized by you and others), so in their minds, you screwed up when you criticized them. <br /> The end result is that they suddenly and abruptly have no empathy for you. They stop caring about you. And they no longer care if you are safe. <br /> This is true even if you are in the middle of a tragedy. <br /> Most of us know that real empathy does not turn off and on like a faucet. In fact the more that you complain about their lack of empathy, the more they show you that they could care less about the issue or about you. That is because they take complaints as criticisms, so they rage again over it (either passive-aggressively via stonewalling or overtly, through shouting, insulting or abusing). <br /> Note: They dish out plenty of criticism to and about others, but they make it known that they are above criticism themselves (that's their fantasy, anyway, and they make it pretty clear that you are not to mess with their fantasy about that). <br /> Narcissists fake empathy to seduce "followers". They have a cult-leader mentality in that they draw you in with <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/08/love-bombing-by-narcissists-and.html" target="_blank"><b>love bombing</b></a> and then take away your freedoms, work on either getting you financially dependent or sabotage your career ambitions, then they isolate you, then they order you around, and figure out ways to totally dominate you, and abuse you. Eventually you feel like you are in prison with a dictator.<br /> Another note: They will always be demanding narcissistic supply in ever greater amounts to the point where, at some point they feel they deserve to be blindly worshipped and rewarded with what ever they want, no matter how unethical it is, even if what they want hurts you, with the demand that you "follow them" without questioning, no second-guessing, no emotions, no intelligent reflection. Most of us can't do that, so then it becomes an "off-with-your-head"-like moment where the narcissist goes off the rails with rage or abuse. <br /> The more they reach this apex of feeling "ideal" (kingly or queenly), the more they will rage about their entitlements and get abusive. The abuse can escalate to financial abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, social abuse, scapegoating (mob bullying), blackmail, and physical abuse. A lot of them feel that their grandiose leadership fantasies must be reached at all cost, and who gets hurt in the process is not something they think about much. For them it's "the cost of doing business" (and this goes for their spouse and children too).</div><div style="text-align: left;"> If you see an abrupt loss of empathy (especially within the context of <b>hypersensitivity to criticism</b>, and a resultant <b>shame-rage spiral </b>- something I will be talking about in an upcoming post), that is a pretty sure sign of a personality disorder, particularly Narcissistic Personality Disorder. <br /> It's also a sign you can't change them "back" into being empathetic. That's also part of their personality disorder too.<br /> No pleading for empathy will change their trajectory of <b><a href="https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/idealize-devalue-discard-the-dizzying-cycle-of-narcissism-0325154" target="_blank">formerly idealizing you, now devaluing you, then discarding or destroying the relationship or you</a></b>. Once you realize it is part of their personality disorder you can proceed from there (domestic violence counselors and domestic violence centers are best for getting advice on how to keep safe). <br /> The high majority of us are not built to deal with a sudden lack of empathy in a close personal relationship. We are not built for a narcissist only acting empathically when you fulfill their demands and look at them as ideal either. The result from long term exposure to people without empathy (with or without abuse), are trauma symptoms. <br /> The reason trauma symptoms appear even when there is no abuse is that lack of empathy, in the best-case scenario, causes them to neglect you. We aren't built for long-term neglect either. <br /> However, knowing that they have lack of empathy, and that the empathy they show is almost always fake, will make it a lot more easy to make a decision about what to do about your involvement with this person and this relationship. <br /> I will talk more about how a person's lack of empathy effects us and the symptoms you are likely to encounter in another post, but beware: if you back off from a narcissist because of their lack of empathy (which is the healthiest thing to do for both of you), you are likely to meet either resistance in the way of luring, stalking, <b>hoovering</b>, spying, or more attacks whether social ones, financial ones or emotional ones. Whether they are trying to lure you back into a relationship with them, or conversely, proceeding to escalate attacks, the agenda is to hurt you more. Luring for narcissists is always about softening you up, getting you into a honeymoon frame of mind, so that they can dominate you and get control over you again, getting you to do things that are not in your best interest (like another round of abuse or neglect). For that reason, it is always best to get help from a domestic violence center or domestic violence counselor. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><u>malignant narcissists and sociopaths:</u><br /> These people have a lot in common with narcissists with a couple of caveats ... <br /> The lack of empathy will also be abrupt and switch-like, but instead of just rage, they will be very vindictive and punishing. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> The shame-rage spiral with malignant narcissists and sociopaths is a shame-vindictive spiral instead. They can become obsessed with attacking you, including how to attack you in a way that will garner the most pain and trauma for you, and have revenge fantasies about ways to hurt you more. <br /> These folks don't feel empathy at all. Run-of-the-mill narcissists feel a little bit, depending where they are on the spectrum. Narcissists can cry when a sad movie is playing, for instance. But most malignant narcissists and sociopaths will be laughing at the people who are crying instead. They target them in their mind as "vulnerable people to exploit".<br /> However, beware: malignant narcissists and sociopaths are highly adept at acting and can fake cry. The movie, <b><a href="https://www.pbs.org/show/widower/" target="_blank">The Widower</a></b>, shows pretty well how fake crying is done. I also talk about The Widower series in the post about <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/11/mirroring-and-narcissistic-psychopathic.html" target="_blank">mirroring</a></b>.<br /> The reason I bring up the mirroring post is because mirroring you is often the main tool that malignant narcissists and sociopaths use to lure people in. They treat people they want something from like the love of their life, like soul mates, then they usually want to move very fast into commitment with you (though the commitment will always be about how they tricked you into a commitment with them while they only pretended to be committed to you). And when you break up, or your heart is broken by all of their evil deeds, they will be laughing at you again. <br /> In other words, the lack of empathy is so profound that they have no regrets about hurting other people. Some of them don't even care whether <i>other people</i> know that they have no regrets about hurting others. Run-of-the-mill narcissists usually care about their reputations because that is how they get narcissistic supply, but some malignant narcissists and many sociopaths don't care about their reputations in polite society (they care about how other criminal minds look at them instead, and whether they are jealous of their criminal exploits). In other words, they just take it as another challenge on how to get away with evil behavior without being accountable or detectable. Playing the victim is one way they subvert accountability. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> However, rare high functioning sociopaths <i>might</i> act out the most minimal amount of regret they can get away with if they have reached high positions of leadership and they are overwhelmingly reprimanded in the media. But, more likely they look for a fall-guy to blame for all of it instead. <br /> Most of us can't tolerate being close to these kinds of people either. </div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">THE DANGERS AND POTENTIAL DANGERS TO YOU<br />WHEN IT CONCERNS SOMEONE ELSE'S LACK OF EMPATHY</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Note: I will be discussing lack of empathy when it concerns full functioning adults in this section, not about individuals who have cognitive disabilities, mental disabilities like schizophrenia, trauma disabilities, learning disabilities, or substance addictions. <br /><br />A consistent lack of empathy that is part of the personality of an individual usually points to a Cluster B Personality Disorder of which Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder are two of them.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As I've said before, narcissists and sociopaths (sociopaths have Antisocial Personality Disorder) can fake empathy to get what they want, to get you under their control, so it is sometimes hard to tell in the beginning. So there are other traits to watch out for when you discover a lack of empathy. Or you can get out of the relationship when you first spot it before you become attached to the individual. <br /><br />If you want a sure-fire way to never be in a relationship with a narcissist, sociopath or psychopath, back out of the relationship at the first signs of a lack of empathy. I write about that in more depth <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/09/part-ii-never-get-involved-in-abusive.html" target="_blank">HERE</a></b>. <br /><br />Lack of empathy matters in close personal relationships and it is an important sign to pay diligent attention to. When you see a lack of empathy it means the narcissist is blind to your feelings and pain in the best of circumstances. However, most often there is a lot more to it. But be aware that even this kind of blindness can hurt you. <br /><br />Most people who exhibit lack of empathy for you (as a character trait - and part of that character trait is an unusual amount of criticism of others) are usually going to display abusive behavior at some point too. In very rare circumstances, people who are totally overwhelmed like going through multiple tragedies and conflicts (a death of a parent, losing a business, in the hospital for a surgery, a child in a devastating car accident - all at once for instance) can display a lack of empathy because they are dealing with too many issues. However, if you see a lot of <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/10/constant-insults-and-criticism-how-to.html" target="_blank"><b>verbal abuse</b></a>, while they are in the middle of their tragedies, it is a bad sign. <br /><br />People who are verbally abusive or hyper critical of you usually want to cut down your self esteem. That's usually a sign of the beginning of abuse. It usually escalates to emotional and psychological abuse later on, and can even escalate into physical abuse, threats, harassment, false imprisonment, coercive control, sometimes stalking and stealing, and even life threatening occurrences. Always remember that once abuse appears, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">it escalates</a></b>. <br /><br />As an individual you won't be able to stop the escalation. Only law enforcement, the keeping of records with law enforcement so that they know where to look if you come up missing or dead, voicing clear boundaries, getting lawyers and domestic violence counselors involved, and restraining orders can stop the trajectory, and even then, an abuser will try to find work-arounds and loopholes. I talk about their work-arounds later in this section.<br /><br />The type of verbal abuse, how critical they are of you matters, especially in terms of safety and the context of what you are going through at the time. <br /><br />Let us say that you are going through a tragedy yourself. Maybe you have been raped, or in a car accident, or your spouse is undergoing a terrible illness, or your parent is dying (it can be anything). Do they pick on you over other little extraneous things, make a lot of demands during times like this, rage at you? Narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths manufacture relatively insignificant things to get upset at you about. They also put more demands on you than you can handle, and nit-pick you about issues because you are vulnerable. In your vulnerability, they want to see how much attention you will give to these small issues and sensitivities of theirs, how they can exploit you, take control of you and your actions, get your attention focused on them rather than the important things in your life, get things from you, and how much selfishness they can get away with. This is a really, really bad sign. You will know it because your anxiety levels will go up, and you will feel that any move you make will be the wrong move in their eyes. You will feel distracted and upset, and you will usually have trouble sleeping. Some people who are overwhelmed with a tragedy or tragedies, and are dealing with a narcissist on top of it all, do sometimes feel hopeless and experience lingering depression. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">People who pick on others who are vulnerable are bullies (and therefor most often narcissists or sociopaths), and that is where your attention should be, always, even when they are making excuses for themselves and their behavior, even when they are trying to convince you that you deserved their horrendous behavior, even when they are giving you word salad arguments about why you are not pleasing them or flawed, even when they insist that you don't know what you are doing, and trying to draw you into arguments where you have to defend yourself. This is especially true if they exhibit model behavior in public. <br /><br />They will even try to convince you that <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/04/narcissists-and-blame-shifting-avoiding.html" target="_blank">everything that has happened between you is your fault</a></b>. <br /><br />If you focus on the fact that it is inappropriate and calloused to pick on someone who is going through a tragedy, or tragedies in this way, or who is vulnerable in some way, you have a better chance of emerging from the experience unscathed, including unscathed from trauma symptoms. <br /><br />One thing domestic violence counselors do is to ask questions like this: "Would you pick on someone who is going through the tragedy you are going through?" "Would you rage at someone about all of these little things, and try to bring up so many arguments with someone who is going through the kinds of tragedies you are going through?" - they try to keep the focus on your perpetrator's actions, in other words, because normal folks will often be self reflecting instead: "Am I really as insensitive as they say I am?", "Am I really as crazy as they say I am?", "Did I really fail at cleaning the kitchen?", "Do I really deserve to be betrayed like this? What do they think they are seeing that they would betray me in this way?", "Am I really acting as spacey as they say I am acting and not setting the table right?" Perpetrators will usually be overwhelming you with a barrage of complaints about you, even made up ones, and keeping it up in rapid-fire succession, keeping you on the defensive so that it takes your focus off of <i>their</i> actions. It's a typical tactic all abusers use. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The real question should always be: "Is it right to pick on someone who is vulnerable?" That should always take precedence over their barrage of complaints, their barrage of commands and demands, their barrage of attacks on your character. I know it is hard to do, which is why domestic violence counseling should be sought: to keep you focused on the right issues.<br /><br />But let us say that they are not abusive, that lack of empathy is their only stand-out trait. In other words, they aren't hyper critical of you; they aren't telling you are crazy or deficient; they aren't trying to smash up your self esteem; they aren't particularly controlling or demanding. What can possibly go wrong?<br /><br />Well, a lot of things. Lack of empathy minus abuse and coercive control usually adds up to neglect. <br /><br />You have an accident and you need help. People without empathy are not going to respond in an appropriate way, and get emergency help. <br /><br />You feel car-sick. People without empathy aren't going to care and keep on driving. If you insist that they stop so that you can vomit, they might stop. But they are going to be out of touch in terms of what you are going through.<br /><br />You tell someone without empathy about what you are going through emotionally. They either ignore you, or shift the focus to them and something they want to talk about. While emotional neglect doesn't seem as dire as abuse during an accident, for instance, it can still take a heavy toll on the relationship. You can't talk about anything and get a reasonable response - to issues like losing your job, totaling the car, breaking your arm, having a heart attack, getting hit by a drunk driver, getting raped, being stalked, needing to keep the doors locked, that someone stole from you. They neglect your concerns.<br /><br />Granted, neglect is far more dire when children experience it, and in those cases, it often includes food issues, clothing issues, medical attention, safety issues, and vulnerability to predatory people, but it still can feel awful for adults. And if you have children with a narcissist, you can expect child neglect from them. If you think you can take on all of your children's issues and keep the child neglect from happening, what if you die or are incapacitated in some way? This is the nightmare every person who marries a neglectful person should think about. <br /><br />While there is a subcategory type of narcissist who <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhYe5SuVIKc" target="_blank">is neglectful without being abusive</a></b>, they are a rare breed. Most narcissists are neglectful AND abusive AND controlling. It means that neglect (and therefor lack of empathy) is more often "a sign" rather than the whole picture.<br /><br />It also means that at least one of your children, if not more, will be neglected, coerce-controlled and abused. <br /><br />Some of the common things that narcissists and sociopaths say and what they do that show a lack of empathy are:<br /><br />"I'm sorry you feel that way."<br />"That didn't happen." "You weren't hurt!" and other <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" target="_blank">perspecticide</a> </b>statements. <br />Always and never statements:<br />"You always make a mountain out of a molehill."<br />"You always make a big deal out of nothing."<br />"You can never do what I ask of you."<br />- blame-shifting<br />- making you a continual laughing stock of their jokes<br />- taking over conversations, interrupting<br />- insisting that you see things the way they see things, insisting that you have the same perspectives<br />- making you responsible for everything that goes wrong in the relationship between you<br />- making you responsible for <i>their</i> abuse, cheating, lack of empathy, lack of love, lack of respect<br />- manufactured chaos (especially <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/10/why-narcissistic-abusers-pick-worst.html" target="_blank">when you are experiencing tragedies</a></b>)<br />- neglectful<br />- sadism<br />- abuse<br />- vindictiveness<br />- baiting you, taunting you (for arguments, for defenses, for more abuse from them) </div><div style="text-align: left;">- normalizing abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, and rage over fairly small or manufactured issues</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We know there are many categories from not caring about your wounds, to medical problems, not caring about your emotional states, not caring about hurting you, to the states they leave you in when they do their discards, physical abuses, false imprisonments, coercively controlling, injuries ... </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And by the way, controlling behavior, raging when they don't get their way, and neglect with a lack of empathy has a high probability rate of being dangerous. It is certainly dangerous to your mental health and well-being, but it very often escalates into more egregious forms of abuse later on.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Controlling behavior, dominating behavior, lack of empathy with verbal or emotional abuse is definitely dangerous. In some perpetrators, the escalation from verbal and emotional abuse to physical abuse can happen fast. In some real instances, the physical abuse did not escalate from coercive touching, to violence, to murder. The perpetrator went from verbal and emotional abuse right into murder (there are certain verbal phrases that point to more danger than others, which I'll be discussing in another post, but they all carry risk, especially if they are used a lot). If you are not in a planning stage of escape, you may want to get a hold of a domestic violence center to discuss the issue. <br /><br />When physical abuse has started, it tends to escalate very fast into abuse that causes injury and/or death. Pushing, shoving, raging inches away from your face, raging while touching any part of you, pushing you so that you fall down, tripping you, throwing things at you, pulling at you in controlling ways, smashing their fists at walls when you are standing nearby, or punching something close to your hands or another body part in a rage, is certainly dangerous. It is the "get out now" stage (the Netflix series, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/02/netflix-series-review-maid.html" target="_blank">Maid</a></b>, expertly shows why). </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If the lack of empathy and physical abuse are accompanied by micro-managing controlling behavior, a lot of raging and verbal abuse, where they are on edge and irritated by you a lot, where they are hyper critical of you, where they make up false narratives about you, where they have either touched your face or neck in an aggressive way or scratched your face or neck, punched you in the face or head, strangled you or put their hand on your face or across your throat or mouth, it is the "get out immediately" stage for sure. You will also probably need professional protection at this stage. Any marks on your body should also be photographed (going to a domestic violence center is usually recommended). <br /><br />You have a right to end a relationship that is abusive and dangerous, no matter who objects to it. You have a right to end an abusive dangerous relationship even if this is your partner, a sibling, a friend, a parent or child. Some people you know will not accept this, and that is part of the territory of domestic violence. It tends to split people apart. Some people will be outraged that you were abused, some people will not believe it, some people will think there is something wrong with you if you can't get along with a person they get along with (especially people not aware of the Jekyll and Hyde behaviors of abusers). <br /><br />If people in your life are not taking the dangers seriously (or showing lack empathy, are lecturing you about how <i>you</i> need to forgive your abuser, or are acting un-empathetic and neglectful of your concerns or safety), and especially if they insist that you apologize to your abuser, you probably want to back away from them too. People who are high on beliefs and low on empathy, low on listening, low on an open mind, low on investigative practices and research, will not change. You can see this even in politics (very few people choose to look at both party's perspectives, and keep their minds open about those perspectives - because of beliefs and a propensity to vilify people whose beliefs do not align with their own). While belief-oriented perspectives are common, when it comes to abuse, and being protected from abuse, it is even more deadly than a purely one-on-one perpetrator-victim relationship. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There is nothing an abuser likes more than for people you both know to side with them. It will embolden him to become even more abusive because he feels that he will be backed, that he can get away with it, and may even feel that a group will applaud him. Victims do not do very well in the court of family or friendship alliances because victims complain about what they went through with an "outwardly charming person" while perpetrators play the victim. Perpetrators typically aren't honest about what has happened (lying and vilifying is part of abusers' agenda: they want the social support even if they have to lie to get it). Victims become traumatized and depressed by the lies and loss of relationships and tend to isolate, which to common alliances can appear like guilt. While perpetrators tend to go through with big ambitions, big social plans, show a lot of confidence, which to some people looks like someone who is "together". However, a lot of people will get what is going on, even if not all of them will. They know that when you are traumatized, you aren't going to be up for huge ambitious plans and projects, or a whirlwind social life, and will be licking your wounds instead. They will know that "getting over it quickly" for perpetrators is not normal behavior for someone who says they are a victim. In such instances, you know who are your real friends are. <br /><br />And most of all, you know enough not to get entangled with anyone who shows a lack of empathy again. There's too much of a chance that lack of empathy hides an abusive nature.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;">WHY DO NARCISSISTS LACK EMPATHY?<br />HOW DID THEY GET THIS WAY?</div><br />Lack of empathy is the one trait that trumps all of the other traits of narcissism. As I have said in the previous section, it is a relationship killer for a lot of us, and something that seems to seize the narcissist from everything from positive progress in relationships to enlightened perspectives about others they are in relationships with. Without empathy, most of them aren't good at judging character beyond who will make good prey, and even then they can get it wrong. <br /><br />There is a lot of debate about how a lack of empathy happens. <br /><br />For primary psychopaths, <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/02/psychopaths-and-abuse-how-do-i-tell-if.html" target="_blank">they are born with a lack of empathy</a></b>. But this post isn't about them.<br /><br />Most psychologists agree that with sociopaths and narcissists, it is more of a learned behavior stemming from generational abuse (and generational narcissism), where some parent put themselves first and were hell-bent on making their children walk on eggshells and be servants to their dysregulated rages (both overt and passive aggressive rages), as well as inconsistent affection, unrealistic expectations and<a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2019/08/abusers-and-splitting-drastically.html" target="_blank"> <b>splitting, the psychological meaning of it</b></a>.<br /><br />But having said that, personality can have some bearing as to whether they will naturally bend towards narcissism too. Some children have to work much harder at showing empathy than others. If these children aren't constantly taught to consider the feelings and emotional states of their siblings and others in the family, they tend not to develop empathy. <br /><br />It is up to parents to nip narcissism in the bud when the child is still a child, but when the parent is a narcissist or sociopath themselves, it isn't as likely that they will nip the narcissism of a child in the bud. In fact, narcissistic parents tend to teach at least one child by example on how to be a narcissist, how to get your own way through bullying and hurting other people (the siblings <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/04/narcissists-and-children.html" target="_blank">in the scapegoat role</a> </b>will be the recipients of the parent's AND their sibling's bullying). The head narcissist will also teach by example on how to treat people to get them to capitulate to your desires and demands, how to abuse and commit crimes or almost-crimes and get away with it, how to have affairs and blame your infidelity and your lack of commitment to marriage on your partner using <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2016/03/erroneous-blaming-and-erroneous.html" target="_blank">erroneous blaming</a></b>, how to be immoral and excuse your immoral behavior. The most likely child to suck up all of this knowledge is <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/06/how-narcissistic-bullies-domestic.html" target="_blank">the enforcer-type of golden child, the favorite child who enforces abusive forms of discipline on his other siblings</a></b>.<b> </b><div><br /></div><div>However, scapegoats can take up narcissism too, just to keep from being bullied the way they were in childhood, <b><a href="https://jreidtherapy.com/scapegoated-by-narcissistic-parent/" target="_blank">though they are the least likely of all the children in the household</a></b>. They couldn't be a bully in childhood because they are the ones who are bullied, <b><a href="https://jreidtherapy.com/scapegoated-by-narcissistic-parent/" target="_blank">that the bullying is practiced on</a></b>, and most of them are too plagued with PTSD symptoms to scheme a life of bullying others anyway. However, on rare occasions, sometimes trauma and PTSD symptoms do not manifest, or they are dissociating so much that their personalities are splintered into different characters, with one part of them plagued with PTSD symptoms, and another part mirroring and taking on the narcissistic traits of their disordered parent.<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@samvaknin/videos" target="_blank">Sam Vaknin</a></b>, the psychologist and self proclaimed narcissist would seem to have the scapegoat multi-personality, dissociative style of narcissism. The abuse he endured was horrific and too constant not to have a tremendous impact on his psyche. He talks about his personality being split, and his memory as well, which would point to a dissociative personality style, however mild and not entirely unconscious, and of his PTSD symptoms too. Being a scapegoat is one reason, I believe, why he is able to self reflect, and to have achieved the heights of awareness and professional prominence (a profession where it forces him to look at his own narcissism, and its impacts, all of the time, something most narcissists wouldn't be caught dead doing). The overwhelming number of narcissists do not self reflect, and they avoid any opportunity to do so, preferring to blame, especially if they grew up being <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/06/how-narcissistic-bullies-domestic.html" target="_blank">taught that they can do no wrong</a> </b>and that they are valued for their bullying, and more importantly, enforce what the parent wants no matter who and how it hurts others. Like the parent, the immoral behavior is treated as if he's a Teflon kid, that his immorality is always excusable, always good because of extenuating circumstances. A scapegoat kind of narcissist is going to be hobbled by his bullying because he'll see too much of his parent in it, thus the self loathing and self reflection. He is both self-flagellating and self-aggrandizing, which points to not having every single trait of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (though he might argue with me on this if he was ever to read my blog - he seems committed to the fact that he's a full blown narcissist). <br /><br />All babies and children are narcissistic. As they grow older, the narcissistic traits tend to retreat and they think about how they effect others more and more. Good parental modeling helps too. It is part of the maturation process. This is especially true if both parents are empathetic (i.e. not narcissists). When children are younger than six years of age, they put their own needs first and count on a parent to put the child's needs first too. It's all very normal. <br /><br />When you have narcissistic parents, they will want you to consider their needs before your own (stunting the child; it has a lot to do with why narcissists are emotionally stunted at six years old), plus the parent will want mirrors to assure them that they are valid (and that all of their most horrific traits are valid and excusable too). Inside narcissists often feel alone and like a freak, and having a "mirror child" makes them feel less like a freak and less alone. While putting out another narcissist in the world feels great for them, it is terrible for most of the rest of us. <br /><br />This is why and how abuse and narcissism is multi-generational too.<br /><br />My own opinion (which is not entirely my own, but something a number of psychologists have been discussing openly) is that narcissists and sociopaths are so haunted by jealousies, envy, competition goals and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/11/abusive-families-who-triangulate-love.html" target="_blank">triangulation objectives</a></b>, plus so overwhelmed with gaining power, control, and domination in relationships (which requires rage to get their own way, and when that doesn't work, playing the victim to get their own way), that there is no room in their minds for empathy. And for malignant narcissists when they don't get their way, their minds are also on spite, how bring ruin to other people, and how to enact a revenge. </div><div><br />In fact, all of these thought processes are the opposite of empathy. You cannot have empathy and be overwhelmed with the ambition to dominate someone else, or be consumed with vengeful plans. This may also account for why narcissist's brains are atrophied in the amygdala (<b><a href="https://drsyrasderksen.com/seeing-narcissism-in-the-brain.html" target="_blank">the part of the brain that generates empathy</a></b>). <br /></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">HOW IS LACK OF EMPATHY AND GASLIGHTING LINKED<br />IN NARCISSISTIC AND SOCIOPATHIC ABUSE?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In this section, I decided not to discuss, but to show the type of thinking that narcissists and sociopaths have when it comes to lack of empathy and gaslighting.<br /><br />They are somewhat alike, as you'll see, and rather simplistic. With narcissists it is "I don't care" and "I want" with some guilt and trepidation. With sociopaths (or more likely malignant narcissists who have sociopathic traits) it is "I don't care" and "I want" with no guilt, no trepidation, and pronounced grandiose delusions.<br /><br />Both types base their intelligence on predatory thinking: how much they can get away with, how much they can lie and act without being detected, how wonderful it is to zero on what they want through manipulating other people. It has nothing to do with how the rest of us talk about intelligence. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">At the very end, I take the empath's point of view, which is quite different, obviously. <br /><br />An empath can understand and get inside the head of a narcissist or sociopath, but it is highly doubtful that a narcissist or sociopath could begin to understand how an empath ticks. Their understanding of empaths is superseded by their disdain for empathy (which are felt by both narcissists and sociopaths). <br /><br />So here we go, in three parts: <br /><br /><u>If narcissists could be honest, this is what they would say:</u><br /><br /><i> I don't feel love or empathy for anyone, nor do I want to, but I know that most people do feel love and empathy, and that they are in the majority, and that the society in which both of our kind lives in is disgusted by lack of empathy. They would be very disgusted by me if they knew who I truly was. I have seen the news enough to know that people who don't feel empathy and who do horrible things to other people from a lack of empathy either get a public shaming or put in jail.<br /> I have to fake empathy and it is a lot of work for me. Imagine having to act for months or years on end! And people find out that I'm faking it after awhile anyway and break up with me over it, and I get sick of acting the part enough to slip up. My mask falls down and they see the real me and it horrifies them. I feel like a freak.<br /> I really don't like empathy. All of the empathetic Christmases, birthdays, and other holidays make me sick. I just don't want to care about anyone any more. On the other hand, I feel like a Scrooge and am noted for being one, so I have some shame about it, but only with friends with big family get-togethers and in a societal sense. <br /> I am really hyper critical of other people, all people. I judge people harshly and it's the way I feel most at ease in the world. I don't really like other people unless there is money involved, material things that I want from them, services I want from them, prestige involved or they can make me look good to others I might want narcissistic supply from in the future. <br /> I know I criticize others a whole lot, and that I'm nice to their faces in a two-faced kind of way, but I don't like to be criticized myself, not even for the slightest thing, and I know that I will be when they find I am not empathetic, and this is why I take on the anxiety-ridden tactic of acting. <br /> If I could just get what I want out of people without acting, I'd be a lot more at peace in society. But society will never accept me as I am, so I am caught in a Catch-22. People only appreciate my highly critical personality if they have the same perspectives on an individual that I do. If I need to sway people to be prejudiced of people I don't like, then I have to embellish or make up stories about those people. I also use criticism to scare people, that I will smear their reputations if they ever think about crossing me. <br /> But personally, I can't take criticism at all. It scares me. I'm a big baby about it. I figure that if they are criticizing me, they are doing it the way I do it, so I have to be scarier than they are and threaten them a whole lot to get the upper hand. <br /> I know it is hypocritical that I can't take criticism, but it's just the way I am, and I don't want to change, nor do I see a way for change. I know it's why a lot of people don't accept me and why my relationships are just with people who I can fool easily.<br /> Since the kind of relationships that the rest of you have are not relationships I can succeed at, or even want to do, and are so forced on my part, the reason I am in relationships are totally different from why you are in relationships. I have to have domination, power and control over you, and you have to do what I say after a honeymoon period, and it has to be in a totalitarian way. I get half way there with most of you, but then get abandoned when I demand more. <br /> I try not to care because I always have other sources of narcissistic supply on the side. If you are my partner or lover, I have other lovers on the side. To justify having these lovers if I get caught, I have to gaslight everyone again, that you are a crazy scary monster and that my new lover is saving me from you.<br /> The only way I know how to get more out of you is to gaslight you. <br /> The only way I know how to control what you do and what you say is to gaslight you. <br /> The only way I feel I can prove that you are flawed and need to listen to me most is to gaslight you.<br /> The only way I know how to get you to never criticize me is to gaslight you by saying "You know what you did! You hurt me egregiously! I wipe you from my life forever!" <br /> When I tell you I love you, I am gaslighting you. It's not real, of course. But I know that's what you want so I'm constantly trying to manipulate you, trick you and make you confused about whether I love you or not. If anything, this is what keeps you at my beck and call. <br /> When you start acting up and resisting my control and lectures, I gaslight you and tell you that you are crazy for resisting, that your perceptions are all wrong, that you didn't really understand my motives. I try to hide the fact that power, control and domination is my motive. Some of you will buy the gaslighted version and some of you will see right through me and know that my motives are to tell you what to do at all times. <br /> The only way I can deal with the pain of you leaving me when you can't take any more gaslighting and other tactics I use to gain more domination over you is to gaslight you and the other people around us by claiming that you are the craziest of crazies, right from the very start, even before you hear me say to you that "You are crazy". It may take months before I start grooming you to look at yourself as crazy and in need of a leader.<br /> The only way I can get to a point where I don't have to pretend to care about you any more is to gaslight you into believing you don't deserve to be cared about. <br /> The only way I can justify all of the abandonment I receive from you and others, and all of the cruel discards I do to you and others, is to play the victim and tell other people I was abandoned instead (and that takes even more acting and gaslighting because I have to tell other people that "my children, husband # I, sister # II, my best friend of 30 years left me because they are all crazy and can't see that I am wonderful to them and that I loved them deeply" - when of course, I didn't love them at all ... I just hope most people don't hear their stories, and keep listening to mine instead, which is another reason I have to convince people as much as possible without sounding like a broken record that all of the people I abandon are crazy). It makes me feel both ashamed that I stoop to these explanations, but also elated that I can get away with it so many times and do this to so many of my victims. <br /> I don't know how to get out of the lies I tell other people, so I just gaslight and lie some more. Just about everything in my life needs a cover up explanation and lie added to it, and I'm good at lying - just look at how many people base their opinions on beliefs. <br /> Most people aren't that important to me anyway, especially people I have lied about more than usual and victimized. The lies work better when your victims are out of your life than if they are in your life again. You can create the illusion that this or that victim is so crazy and unpredictable when they are not in your life. If they are still in your life it is harder to convince people that you need to be listened to and protected from your crazy victims. <br /> </i><i> It's amazing to me that so many people fall for my lies. They would be disgusted with me if they knew I was lying this much, but I am disgusted with them for being so stupid and gullible. It's another thing that makes me hyper critical. But in the same breath I am also glad they are gullible because my days of getting any more narcissistic supply would be over if they truly knew or suspected, and I can't have that happen! </i><i><br /> Though sometimes I'm sad that I don't have their particular brand of supply anymore. My daughter seemed to worship me until I screwed it up and betrayed her in a huge way and told her to apologize to a bunch of abusers. Hopefully she thinks it is all her fault, but I doubt it. She's now too intelligent to fall for any more lies. It's too bad she can't focus on the things between us that aren't my lies. It is to her own downfall that she does. <br /> One of the people I insisted she apologize to was my new husband. I know now he was too abusive to her, but I also knew that he'd say to me, "You are not to contact her again until she apologizes on her hand and knees to me!" So it is her fault that she won't apologize and his fault for insisting on an apology from her that my daughter and I no longer have a relationship. I do believe that everything in my life is someone else's fault. I have never considered anything else.<br /> One of the things I have to deal with by having a lack of empathy is that because I don't care about other people, they stop caring about me. I have a sixth sense when it happens too. It causes me to be depressed and I no longer am around them enough to blame them for making me depressed. <br /> Yes, I like to blame others because it makes me feel better, less depressed. <br /> I know I feel down when people no longer want or seek my approval. I may sometimes understand why they could care less about whether I approve of them or not, but I don't understand why they treat me like I treat them. Aren't they supposed to be the empathetic ones while I'm the unempathetic? Where are they then? Don't they glorify in their empathy enough to feel sorry for me? Maybe no one feels empathetic. Maybe we all act. Maybe I don't have to envy them after all. <br /> I know I can never change because telling lies keeps me from being empathetic. And as I've said before, I don't want to be empathetic. I know enough to know that if I really dealt with the truth and stopped blaming others for not submitting to my will, I would feel so bad that I'd want to die. I have to believe in my own lies at this point because that's how I have survived being uncaring in a society that insists that I care. I simply don't have it in me to care. I have to spend most of my time on cover-ups and would never have time to care anyway.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> I am totally invested, at this point, in swaying other people to believe my lies are the truth, and in meeting people who can fit into the idealized role I want: being my puppet. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;">All of this is assuming that narcissists are aware of what they are doing and why they are doing it ... many aren't. A lot of them act on impulse and panic, although not necessarily all of the time, such as when they attack others. They do plan some attacks just like the sociopath.<br /><br /><u>If sociopaths (or more likely malignant narcissists who have sociopathic traits) could be honest, this is what they would say (note: they will sound a lot like what narcissists say, but where they differ will be in green):</u><br /><i><br /></i><div><i> I don't feel love or empathy for anyone, nor do I want to, but I know that most people do feel love and empathy, and that they are in the majority, and that the society in which both of our kind lives in is disgusted by lack of empathy. <span style="color: #38761d;">They might be very disgusted by me, but they barely exist in my mind unless I'm getting what I want from them. Money means the most to me, followed by sex and domination in equal parts. I know I have to treat people I am getting what I want better than I treat most others, and if they don't give me what I want, they know to some extent I will terrorize them.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">I personally don't care what society wants from me in terms of empathy. It's the most boring conversation out there. If they think I'm empathetic, it's just an added bonus because I know I can get away with more than I'm getting away with. I'm like "the Teflon kid". I can turn minds in my favor. I can act any way I like. Karma is for sissies to believe in. Imagine the stupid minds who believe in Karma! Yuck!</span><br /> I have to fake empathy <span style="color: #38761d;">sometimes</span> and it is a lot of work for me. <span style="color: #38761d;">I don't mind it because I go home and rip them to shreds anyway.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">I hate most empaths anyway. The only people I respect are authoritarian leaders and the rich.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">I could care less what some empath is doing with his time.</span> </i><span style="color: #38761d;"><i>If</i></span><i> my mask falls down and they see the real me <span style="color: #38761d;">it will be less horrifying for me than it will be for them.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">I just laugh my ass off at their discovery. Poor sucker!</span><br /> <span style="color: #38761d;"> Like I said,</span> I really don't like empathy <span style="color: #38761d;">and it's not something I want to become.</span> All of the empathetic Christmases, birthdays, and other holidays make me sick. <span style="color: #38761d;">I like the fact that I'm </span>a Scrooge and am noted for being one. <span style="color: #38761d;">If I'm invited to a </span>big family get-together <span style="color: #38761d;">I'll go, and I'll be especially happy if they give me something, but otherwise, it's a big bother.</span> <br /> I am really hyper critical of other people, all people. I judge people harshly <span style="color: #38761d;">because that is what they deserve,</span> and it's the way I feel at ease in the world. <span style="color: #38761d;">Like I said,</span> I don't really like other people unless there is money involved, material things that I want from them, services I want from them, prestige involved or they can make me look good to others. <span style="color: #38761d;">I won't wince if they want to put me in a powerful position either. It's every sociopaths dream to be president or king of something and rule with an iron fist, to make disloyal recalcitrant followers suffer. I'd even execute some of them in some situations. Who wouldn't want to execute someone who is your enemy or who is keeping you from the top? To get to high positions, we can get away with so much more, our dream. It's the apex of success.</span><br /> I know I criticize others a whole lot. <span style="color: #38761d;">Most people deserve it. I'm smarter than most people by a long shot. I know more than the experts do on any number of topics.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">I don't need to be</span> two-faced <span style="color: #38761d;">because I treat people in a way that they deserve.</span> I don't like to be criticized, <span style="color: #38761d;">nor do I feel like I deserve it,</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">because they should realize who I am, someone not to mess with.</span> <br /> If I could just get what I want out of people, I'd be a lot more happy. <span style="color: #38761d;">People would envy me. I want their envy.</span> But society will never accept me quite as I am. Is this something to worry about? Only if I'm stupid. And I'm anything but that. People appreciate my highly critical personality if they have the same perspectives on an individual that I do. <span style="color: #38761d;">I use that to my advantage.</span> If I need to sway people to be prejudiced of people I don't like, then I have to embellish or make up stories about those people <span style="color: #38761d;">which I like to do and am good at</span>. <span style="color: #38761d;">People will believe just about anything.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">I function in a world of beliefs pretty well.</span> If someone doesn't believe what I say,<span style="color: #38761d;"> I also use criticism and </span>scare<span style="color: #38761d;"> tactics.</span> I will smear their reputations <span style="color: #38761d;">so bad and with such awesome force</span> if they ever think about crossing me.<br /> <span style="color: #38761d;">Personally, I'm not built</span> to take criticism at all. <span style="color: #38761d;">But </span><span style="color: #38761d;">criticism doesn't </span>scare <span style="color: #38761d;">me.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">It just makes me furious! "I'll get you!"</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">I'm a big, unrepentant bully</span> about it. It <span style="color: #38761d;">makes</span> me feel <span style="color: #38761d;">great that I can intimidate people as much as I do.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">Man, I love that rush of power!</span> I figure that if they are criticizing me, <span style="color: #38761d;">they are stupid for doing it.</span> I <span style="color: #38761d;">am a lot</span> scarier than they are <span style="color: #38761d;">and I will succeed at</span> threatening them a whole lot to get the upper hand and do what I want. <span style="color: #38761d;">They should quit because no one is as good as I am at this.</span><br /> I <span style="color: #38761d;">don't care if</span> it is hypocritical that I <span style="color: #38761d;">don't</span> take criticism,<span style="color: #38761d;"> but dish it out. So what!</span> It's the way I am, <span style="color: #38761d;">and you're just going to have to deal with it.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">Understand?</span> <br /> Since the kind of relationships that the rest of you have are not relationships <span style="color: #38761d;">I care to have</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">and frankly couldn't</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">stand,</span> I am in relationships <span style="color: #38761d;">for</span> totally different <span style="color: #38761d;">reasons than</span> you are in relationships. I have to have domination, power and control over you, <span style="color: #38761d;">totally,</span> and you have to do what I say, and it has to be exactly the way I want it. <span style="color: #38761d;">I'll point a knife at your throat or find a way to imprison you to get what I want if I have to.</span> I <span style="color: #38761d;">may not</span> get half way there with most of you <span style="color: #38761d;">like the narcissist above,</span> because <span style="color: #38761d;">either I don't care if you abandon me because you're of no use, or if you are of some use, I use threats and blackmail. I have ways of dealing with you to get you to capitulate.</span> <br /> I try not to care because I always have someone else on the side, <span style="color: #38761d;">even a whole entourage.</span> If you are my partner or lover, I have other lovers or potential lovers on the side, <span style="color: #38761d;">always.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">And if I happen to be in a dry spell, I can get anyone I want. Just kiss, flatter and touch them gently while telling them how beautiful they are (and they have to be beautiful unless you are one of the poor sad types of sociopaths). Seduce them all, I say. People love me!</span> Sure I have to gaslight everyone, <span style="color: #38761d;">but that is how it is done if you want to get ahead.</span><br /> The only way I know how to get more out of you is to gaslight you <span style="color: #38761d;">and threaten you.</span><br /> The only way I know how to control what you do and what you say is to gaslight you <span style="color: #38761d;">and threaten you.<br /></span> <span style="color: #38761d;">The only way I know how to rip you off is to gaslight you that you don't deserve to be paid.<br /></span> <span style="color: #38761d;">The only way I know how to steal from you is to gaslight you and tell you that you brought it on yourself by being stupid. </span><br /> The only way I feel I can prove that you are flawed and need to listen to me most is to gaslight you <span style="color: #38761d;">and threaten you. And besides, I'm an awesome teacher and leader.</span><br /></i></div><div><i> The only way I know how to get you to never criticize me is to gaslight you by saying "You know what you did! You hurt me! <span style="color: #38761d;">You are never going to get away with that again!</span>"<br /> When I tell you I love you, I am gaslighting you. It's not real, of course. But I know that's what you want <span style="color: #38761d;">to hear</span> so I'm constantly trying to manipulate you, trick you and make you confused about whether I love you or not. If anything, this is what keeps me <span style="color: #38761d;">interested.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">It's a great challenge! I know I'll win it! </span><br /> When you start acting up and resisting my control and lectures, I gaslight you and tell you that you are crazy for resisting, that your perceptions are all wrong, that you didn't really understand my motives. I try to hide the fact that power, control and domination is my motive sometimes <span style="color: #38761d;">just to get what I want. You're going to bend to my will and you'll love it or else! </span><br /> The only way I can deal with you leaving me when you can't take any more gaslighting, <span style="color: #38761d;">cruelty</span> and other tactics I use to gain more domination over you is to gaslight you <span style="color: #38761d;">and threaten you some more. I</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">use</span> other people around us <span style="color: #38761d;">for that agenda too.</span> I <span style="color: #38761d;">claim</span> that you are the craziest of crazies <span style="color: #38761d;">if I have something to gain from it.</span> It'll <span style="color: #38761d;">only take days</span> before you look at yourself as crazy and in need of a leader <span style="color: #38761d;">like me.</span><br /> The only way I can get to a point where I don't have to pretend to care about you <span style="color: #38761d;">or listen to what you have to say</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">is when you have nothing to offer me any more or when I get sick of you. I get sick of a lot of people because they are not that interesting. They are never going to be able to compete with me in terms of being interesting.</span> I try to talk you into <span style="color: #38761d;">the fact that you don't deserve to be cared about or listened to anymore. That's my privilege and my right.</span><br /> The only <span style="color: #38761d;">reason</span> I can <span style="color: #38761d;">perceive as to why you might</span> abandon <span style="color: #38761d;">me</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">is that you're stupid.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">You don't know greatness when you see it. You should want to follow me instead if you want to learn anything, and I suspect a lot of people are very envious of me for having the gumption to go after what I want and not get side-tracked by what you want. Totally. <br /> And if I want to, I have a right to play the victim any time I want and I make full use of it.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">I don't have trouble telling other people who have dared to abandon me that they are crazy. </span><br /> <span style="color: #38761d;"> I have no trouble lying to other people. If I want to,</span> I gaslight and lie some more. Just about everything in my life needs cover up lies, and I'm good at lying, so I do it! - just look at how many people base their opinions on beliefs. <span style="color: #38761d;">It's a good strategy on my part! </span><br /> Most people aren't that important to me. <span style="color: #38761d;">I have no remorse for</span> people I have lied about and victimized. <span style="color: #38761d;">Most of the time I lie about everyone anyway.</span> You can create the illusion that this or that victim is so crazy and unpredictable <span style="color: #38761d;">and it is awesome. I pat myself on the back at such times, especially when everyone is falling right into believing me, just like a city falls to a conqueror. If it wasn't for beliefs, I might have a harder time. But most people are stupid and I love that.</span> <br /> </i><i> <span style="color: #38761d;">I'm not</span> amazed <span style="color: #38761d;">that so many people fall for my lies.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">Sure,</span> they <span style="color: #38761d;">might</span> be disgusted with me if they knew I was lying this much, but <span style="color: #38761d;">I don't care</span>, and I'm <span style="color: #38761d;">both</span> disgusted <span style="color: #38761d;">and grateful</span> for them<span style="color: #38761d;"> for being</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">so </span>gullible. It's <span style="color: #38761d;">just</span> another thing that makes me hyper critical <span style="color: #38761d;">of others because if gullibility isn't stupidity, I don't know what is.</span> I am glad they are gullible <span style="color: #38761d;">because otherwise I'd make them pay a heavy price that would hurt them for not believing me!</span> </i><i><br /> Though sometimes I'm furious that <span style="color: #38761d;">some of them</span> aren't in my life <span style="color: #38761d;">and bending to my will</span> anymore. My daughter <span style="color: #38761d;">worshipped</span> me until <span style="color: #38761d;">she thought I </span>betrayed her in a huge way and <span style="color: #38761d;">when I</span> told her to apologize to <span style="color: #38761d;">everyone who abused her.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">I have no problem with telling people to apologize to abusers or criminals if I have something to gain from it.</span> Hopefully she thinks it is all her fault by now <span style="color: #38761d;">if she knows what is good for her.</span> She's <span style="color: #38761d;">paying for not believing in my</span> lies. It's too bad <span style="color: #38761d;">for her</span> that she can't focus on the <span style="color: #38761d;">good</span> things between us. <span style="color: #38761d;">It is </span><span style="color: #38761d;"><u>her</u> loss and her</span> downfall! <span style="color: #38761d;">She will be in a state of punishment for a long time!</span><br /> One of the people I insisted she apologize to was my new <span style="color: #38761d;">wife</span>. So my new <span style="color: #38761d;">wife</span> was abusive to her. <span style="color: #38761d;">"</span><span style="color: #38761d;">Too bad! Suck it up! Get over these disgusting sensitive feelings, you ungrateful brat!"</span> I knew that my <span style="color: #38761d;">wife might say</span> to me, "You are not to contact her again until she apologizes on her hand and knees to me!" <span style="color: #38761d;">My wife comes first because she's the one with the money! My daughter has nothing to offer me!</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">If anything, she's a pariah on my resources. She needs to get over herself.</span> So it is her fault that she won't apologize! <span style="color: #38761d;">I don't care whose</span> fault it is <span style="color: #38761d;">though.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">It is certainly not my fault!</span><br /> One of the things I <span style="color: #38761d;">get</span> by having a lack of empathy is that because I don't care about other people, <span style="color: #38761d;">I get to focus only on what I want exclusively. A lot of people can't do that: they get bogged down with caring. "Oh, you have a sore arm! Let me help you!" What a bunch of B.S.!</span> <br /> I have a sixth sense just like the narcissist above <span style="color: #38761d;">when people stop caring about me.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">However,</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">it doesn't make me feel sad or</span> depressed though. <span style="color: #38761d;">It makes me feel enraged instead.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">And I can punish people in a way they will never forget!</span><br /> Yes, I <span style="color: #38761d;">love</span> to blame others. <span style="color: #38761d;">It's a great</span> feeling! <br /> <span style="color: #38761d;">People need to seek</span> my approval. I <span style="color: #38761d;">have never understood</span> why <span style="color: #38761d;">anyone</span> could care less about whether I approve of them or not. <span style="color: #38761d;">I'm awesome, highly intelligent, I know how to get what I want, and you should realize that.</span> <br /> But <span style="color: #38761d;">no one should ever think</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">to</span> treat me like I treat them. <span style="color: #38761d;">I'm going to win every time because they don't have it in them to take me on. They are big cowards.</span> They <span style="color: #38761d;">are </span>empathetic <span style="color: #38761d;">weaklings.</span> <span style="color: #38761d;">Too bad for them!</span> If they are so empathetic, <span style="color: #38761d;">why do they sometimes try to run away from me?</span> I'm the great challenge to their empathy, <span style="color: #38761d;">and if they don't feel empathetic towards me and</span> sorry for me, <span style="color: #38761d;">maybe they aren't so empathetic after all. C'mon! Tell me how much my childhood sucked! Blowhards!</span> Maybe no one feels empathetic. Maybe we all act <span style="color: #38761d;">and I'm just a lot better at it. </span><br /> I know I can never change because <span style="color: #38761d;">I like telling</span> lies. And as I've said before, I don't want to be empathetic <span style="color: #38761d;">or even pretend at it unless I absolutely have to. And I'm a good judge of when I have to pretend. However I get a lot more out of life by terrorizing people and it's my preferred way.</span> I <span style="color: #38761d;">will never</span> have it in me to care. I would never have time to care anyway.</i></div><div><i> I am totally invested in swaying other people to believe my lies are the truth, and in meeting <span style="color: #38761d;">many other</span> people who can fit into the idealized role I want: being my puppet. </i></div><i> </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><u>This is what an empath would say:</u> (they tend to be honest, so no need for the prelude I used with the two previous types):</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> <span style="color: #b45f06;"> </span><span style="color: #783f04;"> </span><span><span style="color: #783f04;"> </span><span style="color: #7f6000;">I have a propensity to feel a lot of empathy for just about everyone I meet. My empathy is sometimes a burden in that I can actually feel pain in my own body where someone else feels pain. This is hard when I'm in a crowd of people who have ailments, depression, and physical issues. I have had this as long as I can remember, starting some time in very early childhood I suspect. </span></span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #7f6000;"> When people cry, I often cry right along with them. <br /> But I have to be careful not to drain myself and to be selective of who I take care of. I don't want to be taken advantage of, which happens a little too often for my liking. I have been fooled, like most empaths. </span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #7f6000;"> But I do my utmost to get back up and make healing my first priority, even if I have to heal myself first so that I can get back to caring about others, so be it. <br /> I am not easily threatened by users and blackmailers because I have an inner strength. I know I am a good person, but I do make mistakes sometimes. I listen to people who have something to say about my mistakes and I reflect so deeply on how they feel about me, that sometimes I get sucked into their perspectives to the point where I am not questioning their motives. Sometimes I have terrible self esteem when I'm not questioning their motives enough. I shame easily. I shame so easily that I can shame myself! I take criticism into my heart.</span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #7f6000;"><i> But eventually I take a look at what their agenda might be too, after I have searched far and wide inside myself about what I need to improve and change. I make the changes and try to be a better person</i><i>. As far as where they are coming from, I look for hypocrisy. If they accuse me of something, I look to see if they are like what they are accusing me of being. Like, for instance, if they accuse me of being selfish, are they quite a bit more selfish than I am? A lot of empaths don't do that; they're only self reflecting. They get so caught up in that to the point where they are practically self flagellating. That's not a good way to be, especially for an empath, or any type of healer. They don't tend to look at the possibility of projection of the other person until they've been seriously burned, but they should if they want to save themselves and their empathy, and be of help. Otherwise low self esteem will keep them and their highest potentials down. <br /> Empathy is good and we should all aspire to have more of it. It enables us to understand other human beings in so many dimensional ways. It is a type of enlightenment. If I was a liar, or a predatory- type person, they'd never trust me, nor should they trust me, to reveal their innermost selves. They'd understandably be on the defensive and walking on eggshells. That's no way to live or put people through! I don't want that! And I don't have that, at least in my closest relationships.</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #7f6000;"> The other reason why empathy is good for us is because each of us has a chance to grow and explore. Imagine not having it or not giving it. We'd never know what people would become; they'd act like boring robots or suppressed slaves with a fear mentality instead - that's not good for evolution, for human potential, or for peace between all of us. Don't most of us want peace to explore our own potential and the potential of others? Why dampen potential by standing or stomping on the souls of others?<br /> Another reason why empathy is good for us is that it creates safety and security. Who would want to be trauma-bonded in an insecure attachment where people blow up at you over all kinds of things, especially when you are trying your best, and committed to always being a better version of yourself? And being a better version of yourself does not mean enslavement (most of us know that, hopefully). People want more safety and security and real agape love, not less of it. Most of us are going to be attracted to light, not to darkness. So providing a place of light for other people, you tend to attract other people of light, or other people who want the light of compassion. It puts everyone in a place where they have to be thoughtful and sensitive to how other people feel. <br /> I look at all of the wars we humans engage in. Narcissism and sociopathy are war-like mentalities. They want to destroy. You make something beautiful for all humans, put it in a public square, and other humans become inspired. It gets the mind going in a higher direction than destruction. Education, research, profound truth and thought, enlightenment, and peace begin to take over society to a point where it advances human evolution at a faster rate than normal. It takes decades to build that. And then one war takes it all down in hours, and all of the people are using the survival parts of their brains again: the flight response, the fight response, fear and anxiety responses, resistance to slavery. So enlightenment, in a way, gets put on hold for a long time until everyone recovers, if they can recover. So human potential is at stake unless we adopt a more empathetic team response to issues in our society. Otherwise we are stunting human potential. <br /> I don't want any part of my close relationships to be uncomfortable for me or for them. I want both of us to feel at ease to say anything, and for trust and truth to be so understood that we can both be open with no worries and no anxiety that we will be harshly judged by one another. I know enough now that people who are not open, and who expect you to be the one who does all of the revealing, and all of the empathy, are not safe people to reveal much of anything to. They are about as safe as their closed mouths are, and your "reveal" should be no more or no less than <u>their</u> "reveal." I've had bad luck with these kinds of people who pry and use what they know about you against you or against other people, to try to get power and control over others, or who paint the picture that you are not a real empath, and even make up lies about you. They have hurt me so much that I was disabled by pain for awhile, but the lesson I learned was to be selective in who I share my innermost self with.</span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #7f6000;"> Granted predatory people are damaged and their trust was damaged so much in childhood that they have a disabled approach to relationships. I do have empathy for them in that way. And I'd be more than willing to soothe them about that and put dressings on their wounds, but I do not think sharing my feelings, thoughts and experiences with them is necessary or even helpful to either of us. I understand that most of them actually like being predatory and that informs my decisions too. <br /> The reason why our society needs more empaths is because: imagine with this many people on the planet, if we were all predators! We would not last. No one would really care for the young because being predatory means only caring about your next prey and what you can get. And the young, being in a neglectful state, will be fighting each other too over the scraps left by their elders. Too many children would be modeling the behavior of their elders too, adding more predators than before. No one would really care for the old either for the same reason they don't care for children. </span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #7f6000;"> When there is nothing left but predators, predators attack each other. The wars, the school shootings, the school bullying, the abduction of children to be used as slaves, the parentless children who have lost their parents to wars, the destruction of society, the despotic leaders would escalate rapidly, and our entire species would be at stake of becoming extinct. The volley of ever-bigger bombs would decide everything. It can still go that way, especially if empaths are considered to be prey and they are attacked repeatedly. </span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #7f6000;"> I think we have to decide very soon whether to strive for being a peaceful species or a predatory one. And it has to be thought out carefully, investigating all of the ramifications. We even have to think about that in terms of environment. The environment is not going to withstand exploitation forever, obviously.<br /> This is what human predators don't think about. They go for one fresh piece of victim at a time, one overwhelming want to the next, and their eyes are not on a bigger picture. To me, they are using the reptilian part of the brain. "I want", "I have to have", "This one looks good to attack" is alligator behavior and mentality. <br /> I know they think we are incredibly stupid for not being ever-vigilant about being attacked and targeted as prey by them, but if you're going to focus on that as being "the ultimate stupid", you're not looking at whether you can sustain the environment you are picking your prey from. Prey animals choose "flight", which in the end means estrangement. Read abuse forums or the comments sections on abuse topics on You Tube: the "flight response" is the overwhelming trend and advice, even when it comes to a parent (because many of today's parents are predatory towards their own offspring - the pool for prey must be getting very thin to choose the future and your own flesh and blood to munch on). <br /> And to keep human predators out, the humans who want peace and protection from them also choose law to intervene. Granted there are loopholes in laws where predators still get through, and these predators point them out with glee when they get away with another abuse, but they are closing up. What ever prey you want, may be illegal to "have" at any given thoughtless moment. And I doubt predatory humans look at changing laws much anyway, so the loopholes may go away without them knowing, the very ones they keep using again and again out of single-minded habit. It might be their downfall in the end. </span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #7f6000;"> As for my daughter apologizing to abusers and predators - no way! I understand the concept of flying monkeys and co-bullies, and that in order to devastate a victim, you need to pile on a victim with as many loyalist bullies as you can. In order to get that many bullies behind you, you have to lie about your victim too. I want no part of being that way, or of having a home with that in it, so my daughter, in contrast, gets to have a peaceful home where we work out our differences by talking to each other. <br /> I also understand that estrangement in families happens as a result of either alcoholism or narcissism. </span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #7f6000;"> A lot of alcoholics turn mean somewhere in their disease. Someone in the family is bound not to be able to deal with a mean alcoholic without becoming disabled in the same way people become disabled by war. It's too destructive to the victim. So to keep the family together, someone in the family invariably expects the victim to apologize to the abuser since the abuser is too inebriated to make an apology stick: it's not a secret that many alcoholics become quite cruel and immoral and can be too addicted to change their behavior for the better (i.e. respectful). So if things are bad and dangerous enough, which they can be, the flight response takes over in the victim. <br /> Narcissists and sociopaths are cruel by personality instead. So the same thing happens in those families as in alcoholic families. </span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span><span style="color: #7f6000;"> To keep estrangement from happening in my own family and with my daughter, I have to have at least enough sense and empathy not to drink and get addicted, which I do, and enough empathy not to be a narcissist or a sociopath. So far, so good. Part of providing safety and security for her is not setting your family up for estrangement in the first place, starting with these two basic important ways.<br /> As for gaslighting, I have never told my daughter that she was crazy, not once. My understanding of gaslighting is that it is used to make your child feel like they can't trust their own perceptions. In terms of a child doing the best that he or she can do, this won't work. You are pretending that they are disabled for what now? So that you can excuse yourself for not caring, for not wanting your child, for abusing them? Or is it to get your child totally dependent on you so that they will stay a child forever? All of this seems evil to someone who is an empath. Even if you had a child who was truly insane, why would you want to focus on that part of him, on what is wrong with him? It would seem you'd want to focus on what is right about him so that he could be as functional as possible. Most teachers know to do this, and parents are teachers. But my understanding is that gaslighting is about an agenda to crush a child's self esteem, to render him incapable, to render him unlovable and abandonable, and as a way to blame shift (you can't stand to admit you are cruel so you call your child crazy instead). It's also a way to stunt your child's intelligence and enlightenment as well as your own, because you can't know a child you are gaslighting. The agenda is in the way of the truth.<br /> Unlike the narcissistic parent who feels threatened by a child's wisdom, successes and maturity, I like that my daughter is more mature than I was at her age. I like that she's more successful than I was. I like the fact that she is enlightened in areas I am not enlightened. If kids aren't teaching you a whole lot just by being who they are, you are not aware of much of anything as far as I'm concerned. A kid that is more mature than you were also shows evolution. It's better this way, believe me. And the way it gets there is through as much empathy as you can give, as much intelligence as you can muster given where you are in your "adult developmental stage", and as much consistency as you can. <br /> I am invested in learning, being empathetic, and in evolution that brings our species into an age of true peace, and true enlightenment. </span></span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span><span style="color: #7f6000;"><br /></span></span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><span>SOME WORDS TO EMPATHS<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"> A lot of empaths feel they must help narcissists (and sometimes sociopaths too) when they meet them or when they are called to help. A lot of empaths expound a tremendous amount of empathy and care into these people. Most empaths also think (and believe) they are softening the narcissist up, that the narcissist is beginning to trust, to love and care about you, and beginning to see another way to be in relationships other than manipulating people for an agenda. <br /><br />And this is where many empaths get it terribly wrong and become traumatized. <br /><br />Narcissism does not change. It is a life-long personality disorder. There are exceptions, of course, but they are very rare. <br /><br />As I hinted in the beginning of this section, unlike most of us, narcissists are in relationships for agendas (and they even assume <b>via projection</b> that other people are too), and because they are trying to meet an objective in their relationships, whether meeting the objective of gaining more power and control over you, or something else, it is one of the main reasons they don't change. Their minds are too caught up in <i>you</i> meeting goals <i>for them</i> to even think about changing who they are. Sometimes they make promises to change how they are treating you, but <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/02/can-narcissist-or-abuser-ever-keep.html" target="_blank">they usually break those promises</a></b>. Being so agenda-oriented is their number one blindness right there. <br /><br />But it goes so much further than that usually. They try to manipulate a role for you (that serves a variety of purposes for them). Some of these roles can be downright dangerous for you. Or they can cause you to have symptoms. <br /><br />They aren't all that interested in what you have to say (it's called<b> <a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2020/03/invalidation-and-perspecticide-why.html" target="_blank">perspecticide</a>).</b> Making sure the agenda is met by you is so huge in them that they decide what ever you have to say is not important or is rebelling too much against the agenda, so they are always trying to correct you via "behavior lectures", interrupt you, focused on come-backs. Which is to say that narcissists just assume the role of teacher, a "behavior teacher", and do not give you a choice in the matter. That adds a whole lot to the blindness too. <br /><br />Narcissists aren't interested in self reflection or emotional growth. They tell other people that they have to change and bend, but they don't practice what they preach. This means that if you change and grow, you will still be relating to the unchanged narcissist. What this means is that even when you have changed, you will still have to deal with the same issues that they have with you over and over again. So, in fact, the relationship is not allowing you to change. If anything, narcissists dig their heals in against "changes in you" (even though they have told you that they want you to change - it's the trap of the double bind, something narcissists do a lot). They impulsively think they want you to change to have more demands met, to micro-manage your actions more, to get more disclosure and gossip from you, to get ever more domination over you. Again, that's the same playbook you have been given all along. <br /><br />If you are new to studying narcissism to get some answers, what they usually demand is to have power, control and domination over you. That's a given. They also want you to be overwhelmingly loyal to them, to be a full time puppet, and to agree to being isolated by them and with them. Notice they are not like this themselves at all. It's like they create a job for you but have no first-hand knowledge or experience in knowing how the job works or how people will react to the job. And they are incredibly taken off guard when the job they assign isn't working. <br /><br />Most empaths make the realization sooner or later that they are being used in this way and then exhaustion sets in. <br /><br />But I'm not finished: then there is the gaslighting they feel they must do in order to convince you that you must take on the job. And then they tell lies about your character and eventually believe in their own lies. And through it all they show lack of empathy - lack of empathy is going to make them more blind than all of these other things, and these other things create an enormous amount of blindness just by themselves. It's sad. They have no idea what empathy really feels like, so they can never understand an empath, though they use empaths to pick on. They often use them for exploitation and bullying too. <br /><br />Which means that they are totally delusional about who you are (all that they know is that you never reached <i>their</i> expectations). It's not a relationship; it is just about their demands, period. <br /><br />At most, some of us might have agendas for our children, simple agendas like our children learning empathy, learning morals, learning life lessons, being safe, going to school and finally by adulthood being the best they can be without guidance. We rarely have agendas for our spouses except for treating (and being treated) with dignity and respect, being trustworthy, being loving enough that we don't hurt one another, being fair. The agendas narcissists have is so very different from that, plus they can't even give the basics I have listed here like being trustworthy, speaking with dignity and respect, agreeing not to hurt others ... <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So I ask narcissists how can you really know how other people must behave and change if you don't even know them for themselves because of all of the blindness, and have no experience in changing yourself? <br /><br />So if a narcissist breaks up with you, realize they are breaking up with their own unrealized dream or fantasy, and don't take it personally. <br /><br />As for how they treat you during an escalation of abuse or a discard, it can make the most placid empathetic person hurt and angry. Some empaths just walk away and never speak to them again. In most empaths, that brings up guilt feelings: If I'm a true empath shouldn't I be considering their feelings and agendas again? Some empaths fight with them a little and become disgusted with themselves for fighting back (because fighting back reminds them of how the narcissist does things, and they don't want any part of being like the narcissist). Some empaths try to be more agreeable, which also brings on self-disgust because they are becoming more agreeable to someone who is evil, cruel and immoral. Some empaths try to re-engage with the narcissist to defend themselves against a barrage of altered facts, erroneous issues, perspecticide statements and smear campaigns, but find themselves feeling worse (more angry and sad) because the narcissist isn't trying to understand you, they are just trying to draw you into a no-win argument where they will try to convince you that you must be agreeable to the assignment. <br /><br />And in the end, after going "this way and that" with these reactions (trying the fawning, the fighting back, the defending, even <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/p/does-gray-rock-method-work-for-family.html" target="_blank">the gray rock method</a></b>, and the going "no contact"), many of you have symptoms: not being able to sleep, eating issues, headaches, ruminations, nightmares about the narcissist, crying a lot, and so on. And you realize the narcissist doesn't care about that either if you communicate that you are not feeling well - all they care about is whether and how you get back to their agenda. <br /><br />And you might even be disgusted by your own empathy because in using your great reserve of empathy, you got burned. You wonder whether being empathetic is a sucker's folly ... </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But here's the thing. Having empathy <b><a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=empathy+and+intelligence&t=chromentp&atb=v333-1&ia=web" target="_blank">is synonymous with intelligence</a> </b>(another <b><a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=empathy+and+bigger+brain&t=chromentp&atb=v333-1&ia=web" target="_blank">link</a></b>). Empaths are known for being open-minded, for having a "sixth sense", and for their listening. They have to be in order to understand where other people are coming from so that they can help them in the most effective way. The only problem is that you, as the empath, can project your caring nature and intelligence on to other people, including an unchanging narcissist, just like narcissists project evil and a critical nature on to other people. <br /><br />But here is where you differ: the narcissist will always project evil and all the bad things they are onto other people. You won't make the mistake of projecting good qualities on to others again. You will see more clearly how other people are. You will be able to handle narcissists in the workplace in a way you never were able to handle them before, and be able to see them "from a mile away". You will also be able to tell when other people are dangerous more effectively. Wisdom plus empathy is what you walk away with from an experience like this, and that is a good thing.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">IN CONCLUSION<br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">When you have empathy, you "put the brakes on" before you really hurt someone. You reserve your anger and outbursts. You think before you talk (usually). In normal non-abusive relationships, empathy also gives you the ability to forgive another person who has hurt you. You are open to explanations and discussions about what happened and why it happened. <br /><br />In abusive relationships forgiving them to create peace between you can put you at risk for more abuse. Abusers expect you to reserve your anger in a way that is not realistic (to totally bottle it up) while they let their anger go to the point of egregiously hurting other people with verbal, emotional, psychological, and physical abuse. They don't practice what they preach in reserving their anger (which, for them, is really outright rage). They also expect you to forgive them in a way that they would never do, so again, it is unrealistic and out of touch with real human behavior. <br /></div></div></div></span></span></div><div><div>
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"DAY #1: LACK OF EMPATHY (30 DAYS OF NARCISSISM)" - <br />
by Dr. Ramani Durvasula:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y0BElb33l3I" width="320" youtube-src-id="Y0BElb33l3I"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"Cold Hearted Narcissists Who Are Grossly Insensitive"<br />by Dr. Les Carter for "Surviving Narcissism":<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4R0WLxqZJYk" width="320" youtube-src-id="4R0WLxqZJYk"></iframe></div><br />
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<u>Further Reading:</u></div>
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<b><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/08/05/you-only-need-a-one-question-test-to-identify-a-narcissist/?utm_term=.f9008ab1c913">You only need a one-question test to identify a narcissist</a></b> - by Rachel Feltman<br />
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excerpt:</div>
<i>... as narcissism increases, empathy will continue to fall ...<br />"I've been studying aggression for about 30 years, and I've seen that the most harmful belief that a person can have is that they're superior to others," Bushman said. "Men are better than women, my race is better than your race, my religion is superior to your religion. When people believe they're better than other people, they act accordingly."</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><b><a href="https://thenarcissisticlife.com/narcissism-and-empathy/" target="_blank">The Narcissist and Their Lack of Empathy</a></b> - by psychologist Alexander Burgemeester for The Narcissistic Life<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mothers-empathy-and-child_b_152456" target="_blank">Mothers, Empathy, and Child Neglect (The way we rear children has changed through history and it differs from one place to another. What also changes are views about child neglect.)</a></b> - by Dan Agin, Contributor to the Huffington Post<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/lifetime-connections/202212/gaslighting-behavior-is-sign-weakness" target="_blank">Gaslighting Behavior Is a Sign of Weakness (Here are five tips for leaving a relationship with a gaslighter.)</a></b> - by Suzanne Degges-White, Ph.D. for Psychology Today<br />excerpt:<br /><i> <u>Do Gaslighters Have Empathy for Their Victims?</u><br /> Gaslighters have extraordinarily little emotional depth, and they may try to “fake <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/empathy">empathy</a>,” but they don’t experience true empathy. They will tell a partner that they “understand what they’re feeling,” but their emotional shallowness doesn’t support emotional empathy; however, it does allow for cognitive empathy and instrumental empathy. These types of empathy reflect a type of empathy that can be used for nefarious reasons—they do see what’s going on inside your mind, but rather than be emotionally affected by your fears, your uncertainty, or your confusion, they capitalize on those feelings in such a way as to exacerbate your <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/anxiety">anxiety</a> and increase your emotional discomfort.<br /> Manipulators are skilled at using their target’s emotions as tools of psychological destruction. Gaslighters aren’t “accidentally” confusing you; they are intentionally creating situations in which you question your own cognitive faculties and your own senses. Control is their aim, and this leads to psychological disruption, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/learned-helplessness">learned helplessness</a>, and clinical levels of <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/depression">depression</a> and anxiety.</i><br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.quora.com/How-does-someone-deal-with-a-parent-who-has-a-lack-of-empathy-for-their-child" target="_blank">How does someone deal with a parent who has a lack of empathy for their child?</a></b> - Quora<br /><i><br /></i><b><a href="https://www.quora.com/Am-I-evil-I-feel-no-love-care-empathy-or-connection-with-my-children-and-husband-I-want-to-but-its-just-not-there" target="_blank">Am I evil? I feel no love, care, empathy or connection with my children and husband. I want to but it's just not there.</a></b> - Quora<i><br /></i>
<br /><div style="text-align: center;">All of these I found on Facebook:</div>
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<i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7mKXXzsGNtCi3GC2yTC5RjoCguSeVBg3zQKklOC1gP_8rhqTrAWgcEWX6H6j5NcCLQBMpvNCVuIDGiS30gpc3tekDjkbCoEm4c3-q1OZHwLDUWxZdIYIkiygTxEzivhiVmSbWmS8YEbBigX3QOhtnpgw6U-f2Ig9YweKHIWkvyS7Ay-RxdTnB2PGP/s499/cruel%20people.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="499" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7mKXXzsGNtCi3GC2yTC5RjoCguSeVBg3zQKklOC1gP_8rhqTrAWgcEWX6H6j5NcCLQBMpvNCVuIDGiS30gpc3tekDjkbCoEm4c3-q1OZHwLDUWxZdIYIkiygTxEzivhiVmSbWmS8YEbBigX3QOhtnpgw6U-f2Ig9YweKHIWkvyS7Ay-RxdTnB2PGP/s16000/cruel%20people.jpg" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-I1iU2cF35UUlUkagseOMXGCkMyStaT2ghgHBksTDqL8aDCoAEu8rH8QUfsp4dM-N8dwHRRT1wImj2sYP7SawYdTARNbXqD9HgXfR6csxeI74kBp1qmGvBA9ksEOluavYO1uhWMt98jty4GVdPvWjGfvFkAC8TRvd1N9BNsuRUAH5Cml8cTdlWJIc/s579/gaslighting.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="579" data-original-width="501" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-I1iU2cF35UUlUkagseOMXGCkMyStaT2ghgHBksTDqL8aDCoAEu8rH8QUfsp4dM-N8dwHRRT1wImj2sYP7SawYdTARNbXqD9HgXfR6csxeI74kBp1qmGvBA9ksEOluavYO1uhWMt98jty4GVdPvWjGfvFkAC8TRvd1N9BNsuRUAH5Cml8cTdlWJIc/s16000/gaslighting.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwpVJOPinESHfpCWqlphA7-4V25UdnDHyT-o_dhX49XNeP8P_29N4M3VbSA9V_irUt1pFead2Xhoc55YM3XkO_XxTU_25KqUnFkn7A0kn-nkUP4Unhv_5oWG2emeYnUYx11m55-n5QlmbiSmWRqnk1FebSBveVujduf3rjTOjaOsbEqBTZDKVxJoO4/s496/not%20terrorized.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwpVJOPinESHfpCWqlphA7-4V25UdnDHyT-o_dhX49XNeP8P_29N4M3VbSA9V_irUt1pFead2Xhoc55YM3XkO_XxTU_25KqUnFkn7A0kn-nkUP4Unhv_5oWG2emeYnUYx11m55-n5QlmbiSmWRqnk1FebSBveVujduf3rjTOjaOsbEqBTZDKVxJoO4/s16000/not%20terrorized.jpg" /></a></div></div>
</div></div>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6255338109333635304.post-69631453317424955722022-11-03T10:20:00.013-07:002022-12-19T07:32:22.555-08:00The DEEP method for survivors of Narcissistic Abuse<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC8jvaigO8Tpg9u2BdlywjOwSP7I_OjLCDCz923CGskoR9h9NQYIhpNO69BNMSPEOU4CUlDg5QoxrN-1Vv3HOHdX2DaKETQmn4XwuuQ4LviyofcET4HHIQS8N-KtRxjK2U7Xmz5m0xI0rKwZ6AMOLGeutzxkqgJ6PlqBNqup9aI8BHwMEMlWT7vveG/s589/deep.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="589" data-original-width="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC8jvaigO8Tpg9u2BdlywjOwSP7I_OjLCDCz923CGskoR9h9NQYIhpNO69BNMSPEOU4CUlDg5QoxrN-1Vv3HOHdX2DaKETQmn4XwuuQ4LviyofcET4HHIQS8N-KtRxjK2U7Xmz5m0xI0rKwZ6AMOLGeutzxkqgJ6PlqBNqup9aI8BHwMEMlWT7vveG/s16000/deep.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>As with every post, I have a "further reading section" below, and a video by psychologist, Dr. Ramani Durvasula. </p><p>Before I get into this method, it is important to know a few things:<br /><br />* This method can be dangerous under certain circumstances<br />* Most narcissists want to bully someone in their lives, and usually pick certain victims for certain reasons. The kinds of people they tend to choose are people who are vulnerable or traumatized in some way, people who they feel they can brainwash and fool, people they are already in relationships with who are showing some resistance to their control and domination tactics (who they perceive as recalcitrant or rebellious), people they are jealous of or feel they are in a competition with, people who criticize them (or are perceived to be critical of them). This means that this method may not work in certain circumstances where the narcissist is dead set on bullying you to get one of their agendas met for power, control and domination, or if they are constantly trying to manage most of your actions and reactions towards them. <br />* Narcissists almost always want to <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">escalate abuse</a></b>, so this method may be ineffectual for those of you in a serious or dangerous escalation process (consult a domestic violence counselor or center before using it). <br />* They have very little empathy for others, and the darker narcissists have no remorse if they hurt you, and this technique, unless it is used slowly over time, and is imperceptible to the narcissist, can make them more enraged.<br />* Narcissists are highly resistant to changing their behavior, so this method will not change them; it is supposed to bring more peace to you however, but that is all. </p><p>One of the first ways that narcissists try to get into our lives is by <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/08/love-bombing-by-narcissists-and.html" target="_blank">love bombing</a></b> us, or trying to charm or flatter us in social spheres. Some start straight in with giving us <b>unsolicited advice </b>(pretending to care about your issues and tragedies - this gets them into your inner circle, so be careful who you share your most personal hurts and tragedies with: this is how vulnerable traumatized people become their victims). <br /><br />They build you up through flattery and idealizing statements. Alternatively, for those who are vulnerable and dealing with tragedies, they attempt to advise and heal you, then they bring you down through devaluation, destruction, and very often through discard. </p><p>Through the flattery, idealizations, and attempts at healing through advice, they expect you to be <i>mesmerized</i> by them, and to feel obligated to them. This is the stage where they over-advise, command, demand and get snippy if you aren't stroking their ego. If you don't spin like a top for them and <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/narcissistic-abuse-with-parentification.html" target="_blank">adopt pleasing behaviors</a></b> when they are insisting that they are the greatest human being in your life, they rage, devalue you and then do the opposite of what they did before: smash your self esteem and tell you, or show you, that you do not mean that much to them. They can act as though you don't matter to them at all, that you are dead to them (unless you will always be their "pleaser puppet", of course). They try to turn things around so that the relationship between you is 95 percent about them, and what they want, and only five percent about you, if even that. Most often they discard you after they devalue you, but they can also set about trying to destroy you, for not meeting their expectations. Then they smear your reputation and play the victim and move on to someone else they feel will be "easier" to victimize than you were.<br /><br />Some of them try to get you back. But most often, going back results in worse forms of abuse than the last time. They haven't changed because they "lost you" even if they tell you that. Change takes a long time, and for bullies, a lifetime, but only if they want to change. "They are what they are", as the saying goes. Assuming you don't want to be swallowed back into another round of <b><a href="https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/idealize-devalue-discard-the-dizzying-cycle-of-narcissism-0325154#:~:text=The%20relationship%20cycle%20typical%20of,idealization%2C%20devaluing%2C%20and%20discarding." target="_blank">idealize, devalue discard</a></b>, this method can work. <br /><br />Some exceptions to the trajectory of constant manipulating and bullying with a discard is if they perceive that you may not be as vulnerable to attack as they originally surmised (like if you have more social support or financial hutzpah than they realized), they have been caught being abusive to you by others they wish didn't see it or know about it (where their reputations come under scrutiny), or if they feel you are competition for them but have superior connections or money (like in a workplace and where they might back off). In these cases, they are afraid of how having a bad reputation might effect them. In situations where they are more afraid of you than you are of them, the method works really well. </p><p>Most of us would feel horribly guilty if we exploited people in the ways that they do, but they don't feel guilty because their lack of empathy keeps them from feeling what we would feel. <br /><br />Anyone who needs a victim, and anyone who pretends they are a victim (when they actually perpetrate abuse), needs to have special boundaries placed on them. That's where methods and techniques come in (like the DEEP technique). </p><p>It's better to know the beginning signs before we get into any kind of relationship with them, of course, since most narcissists traumatize who they choose to victimize. And there are certainly some signs, and if we are being targeted by them for love bombing, flattery, or unsolicited advice in the beginning, the DEEP technique can put up pretty strong boundaries to keep you safe from their manipulations. In fact, this technique is liable to turn them off, knowing that you aren't impressed by persuasion, and they tend to look elsewhere. <br /><br />Beginning signs:<br /><br /><u>Charm</u>: A great majority of charming people are narcissists. If they are a little too nice to you, and a little too familiar with you (like touch you on the arm, or whisper things in your ear), you may want to back away. People who have been burned by narcissists, put this first on their list as to who to avoid. <br /><br /><u>Love Bombing</u>: Coming on too strong, idealizing, too much flattery, too familiar, stands too closely or gazes into your eyes a little too long. They push you to be "swept off your feet" and they are eager to impress you. The best candidates for intimate, long last relationships are actually people who are hesitant, reserved, somewhat shy, not bombastic, and not pushing you to get involved with them or have sex with them. <br /><br /><u>They talk about their exes as being crazy.<br /></u><br /><u>They often mirror your likes and dislikes.</u> Most often this isn't genuine; it is to pull you in and make you think that you have similar minds, similar perspectives, similar life goals, similar morals, etc. Warning: psychopaths use mirroring even more. <br /><br /><u>Arrogant, Haughty, Bombastic</u>: They brag. And they brag in ways that they think will impress you. It can be about how much money they have or travel they have done if they sense that you will be impressed by that, or it can be how many causes they are involved in if they sense that you are an empath. Arrogance is definitely a danger sign. People who are arrogant are usually highly judgmental, unempathetic, and entitled. Watch how they treat waitstaff at a restaurant. They are usually terrible about listening to concerns you raise. If they also start to give you unsolicited advice before they truly know you, or the advice is without considering your feelings, life goals, and the issues that are important to you, consider that they may be narcissistic. <br /><br /><u>Competitive Talk:</u> How they were/are better than someone else at the same task. They exaggerate achievements and talents they have, or that they think they have (goes with the above).</p><p><u>Pushy:</u> Narcissists insist they get their own way most of the time, except in the beginning they are pushy in some ways more than others. Ways that are obvious: pushing you into a relationship with them (trying to go fast), trying to make you believe you are "twin souls" or closer than you really are, getting snippy if you are holding back or reserved over giving them "the right of way" into your psyche or life, pushy about getting you to agree with them. People who aren't narcissists don't push you for information about your personal life, or push you into a close personal relationship. Also, covert narcissists, tend to share very little information about their personal life, but expect you to share everything. Don't share confidences with people who are haughty, arrogant, harshly judgmental, show-offs, pushy, who brag without the evidence to back it up, or anyone who gets angry with you because you aren't sharing everything they demand that you share. </p><p><u>Secretive:</u> Narcissists tend to be secretive, and have done things they don't want you to know about or to see, but cannot stand being in relationships where others are secretive. They will terrorize you later on if they deem you have secrets from them. If you do find out some unethical things from their past, they tend to diminish them.<br /><br />If you see a number of these signs in one person, the DEEP method can help you to avoid them, or help to fade out their attention on you. However, as I've said before, there are some dangers, and I state them in one of the aspects of the method below. <br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">THE METHOD </p><p>The DEEP method is actually spelled D.E.E.P. and stands for "Don't defend, don't explain, don't engage, and don't take it personally".<br /><br />Basically this technique is for denying the narcissist narcissistic supply and/or getting into arguments with them where they will demean, attack your character, call you names, deny reality, and turn it into a crazy-making conversation to attack, defend and exploit what you have to say to "win" the argument. And then afterwards they usually pretend to be a victim (playing the victim is all about an excuse to get sympathy so that they can attack you some more).<br /><br />To make it clear, raging can be overt or covert. Covert raging is the silent treatment, interrupting, only considering themselves, gaslighting, stonewalling, punishing and is usually used by covert narcissists, although overt narcissists can use both. <br /><br />However, if they are physical abusers, or they have <u>threatened</u> to hurt you (includes hurting you emotionally, socially, psychologically, and via blackmail, not just physically), or they are breaking laws, or touching you aggressively or roughly anywhere on your head or neck, or they rage in your face, or have sadistic characteristics, the DEEP technique could enrage them more, and you could be faced with a life threatening situation. In the video below, Dr. Ramani does not make mention of that, but from a domestic violence perspective, it is important to know this. <br /><br />It is always best to go to a domestic violence center or therapist to help you assess the dangers, and ask them if <i>this</i> technique is best for you and your circumstances.<br /><br />Also psychopathic abusers and abusers who have malignant narcissism have the same traits as the narcissists I talk about in this post, but unlike plain-envelope narcissists, if they hurt you, they will have <u>no</u> remorse. And they often get satisfaction out of being spiteful, vindictive, sadistic and breaking the law without getting caught. Often you can't tell whether they are psychopaths or malignant narcissists unless you know them really, really well (including <i>all</i> of the tactics they use to <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-pursuit-of-power-control-and.html" target="_blank">dominate and control you</a> </b>and hurt you).<br /><br />The issue of why this can turn dangerous is that part of obtaining narcissistic supply is getting a negative reaction out of you. This can be crying, anger, shock at what they are doing or have done, fear, defending yourself, or pleading. If you don't give them the narcissistic supply they demand, or don't respond to them at all, they can get dangerous. This is why it is always good to know who you are dealing with and professionals who work with domestic violence victims will usually know more about the signs of danger than victims do (victims can also downplay what they are going through for a number of reasons: hope, cognitive dissonance, unaware of the love bombing tactic, and so on). <br /><br />I personally prefer <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/SurvivingNarcissism/videos" target="_blank">Dr. Carter's</a></b> methods for dealing with the "defend" part of this method, which I go into in the next chapter.<br /><br />So to get down to why the DEEP technique can be effective, depending on who you are dealing with, here are some of the reasons:</p><p style="text-align: center;">don't defend</p><p style="text-align: left;">If you don't defend yourself, which is what they expect to keep the argument and the trashing of your self esteem going, they feel frustrated. And some of them get nervous. When they get frustrated, they may keep trying to hurt you in other ways that they hadn't thought of just to see if you'll react to that instead, and you just stand there unaffected.<br /><br />Some narcissists who are lower on the scale (i.e. who don't possess all of the traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder) may feel embarrassed that they attacked you and lead the conversation away from the direction of more attacks, especially if you have some clout socially, but others may escalate. If they escalate, you can always leave. <br /><br />One reason why your defenses lead to more of their attacks is that they don't really understand how most conflicts are settled: by talking things out, by being thoughtful about each other's needs, feelings and desires and finding a way between yourselves to please both parties, by talking about resolutions to the conflict which often includes compromise (they hate compromise, or even the suggestion of it!).<br /><br />Instead they view conflicts as "attack fests" (on your decisions, your character, your mind, your differences from them, your behaviors, and your self esteem). They also think that conflicts mean that <i>they</i> have to "win". Win what? Win you totally over to their perspective, win at controlling what you do (<b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-pursuit-of-power-control-and.html" target="_blank">power, domination and control</a></b>), winning at what their desires are and what <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-abusers-narcissists-and-sociopaths.html" target="_blank">role</a></b> you will fulfill in making their desires come true for <i>their</i> life. So the DEEP technique is to bypass all of that, and by not defending yourself, you are not giving them ammunition to use your defenses for more attacks. <br /><br />It is easier said than done. Attacks are pretty unpleasant, and you are going against the grain of defending yourself by letting them tear you to shreds as if you are an onlooker to it. In public this can be pretty unnerving, and in private it can be scary and denies you emotions by giving them free reign to have all of the unregulated emotions that they want to express, while you get to express none. It is a type of suppression which can cause trauma. The more oppression you receive, and the more suppressive your responses are, the more trauma symptoms you will have. So, that is the drawback to this particular part of the DEEP technique.<br /><br />However, people who have tried this method say that they just go inside their own minds and dream of pretty pictures or something more than the unpleasant situation. Or they observe as a parent would: "My child is having a temper tantrum and I'm just going to wait it out until they calm down." Some people decide their perpetrators are "crazy" or "funny" for going off the rails over so much B.S. <br /><br />So it depends on your countenance too. <br /><br />Again, if you have PTSD, letting them go off the rails about your character and not defending yourself can be extremely triggering. Consider that this might not be the best relationship to put your energy towards instead. Or perhaps only see them in big crowds, talk about the weather and greatly limit your contact. <br /><br />So it takes a person who is calm, cool and collected, someone without PTSD, like a comedian who is playing "the straight" role to the character playing the rage-a-holic gone off the deep end with over-dramatic displays and ridiculous reasons to become so unhinged. Even the silent treatment, the covert version of rage, is quite over-dramatic as it is usually over things that tend to be silly, or small, or just to drum up attention, like they don't feel they have enough power over you, and many of the reasons can even be more inconsequential than that, in the grand scheme of things. The silent treatment is easier to deal with, however, than overt loud raging with pushing, or screaming in your ear, for instance.<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/SurvivingNarcissism/videos" target="_blank">Dr. Carter's</a></b> way is to defend yourself in these ways:<br />* they try to trash your self esteem or shame you in an angry cruel way: you respond like the adult that you are that you feel fine with the way you are, and that you don't plan on changing. <br />* they tell you that you are crazy (the typical gaslighting statement in just about every conflict they have): you tell them that you are perfectly sane and do not plan on continuing this conversation with them.<br />* they say: "You are so stupid! If you only did it this way then ---": you tell them that you are fine with the decisions you make, period. If they keep goading you about how stupid you are by not taking the road they want you to take, you keep telling them over and over again that you are fine with the decisions you make, with the way you are, and with the way that you conduct yourself. <br />and so on ... <br /><br />They don't know what to do with that, and every controlling, manipulative tactic they use suddenly becomes "useless" to them. That kind of wall of resistance, and the results afterward, are better, I think, than being silent. <br /><br />In other words, be a person of high ethics and intentions, and not let them teach you "behavior lessons" or talk you into being crazy and stupid (it doesn't make sense anyway when their behavior is often so abusive, threatening, raging, insulting and offensive). <br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">The defense is always that you are okay with who you are and what you are doing (and if you have ethics, honesty and dignity, you can even be proud of who you are, and their opinions shouldn't effect you). <br /><br />If you are strong and confident in what you say, and if you continue to hold the line on it, narcissists are more likely to leave you alone, or lose interest in you. So, in a way, I think Dr. Carter's method can work better to stop the arguments and their baiting you for arguments than not saying anything at all.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Instead of denying them the narcissistic supply by being silent, they know where you stand, and that it won't change. </p><p style="text-align: left;">The reason why his method may be more effective is because the narcissist can feel challenged by your silence, or egg you on trying to find holes in your armor of silence, whereas if you state good boundaries (that you are not, and will not, be effected by their rages and needs for narcissistic supply), they will quickly leave to find people who are more more willing to give them that supply, who are more vulnerable to being manipulated, who will listen and ponder their words and attacks, and who may even beg them to stop being cruel. Unfortunately we don't wish narcissists to dish out their poison to others, just as we might wish a bright star would not be swallowed up by a black hole, but they are predatory-like in their thinking, and the thing they need to avoid first and foremost, is you.<br /><br />The rest of the technique makes a lot more sense (and I would prefer it was the "EEP technique", rather than the "DEEP technique"):<br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">don't explain<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Trying to explain anything to a narcissist is like this:<br /><br />Your explanations are going to go through the narcissism mechanisms of their mind, and come out looking totally different, with negative connotations hanging from every part of it, than what you put in. It'll look like a confusing mess. <br /><br />On the flip side, if they are idealizing you, anything you put in is also going to look idealized too:<br /><br />They judge too much on character (and what they think your character <i>might be</i>) way before they look at your words and intentions, so whatever character they think you are, is going to influence what they think of your words to such an extent that it is also likely to come out of their understanding like a confusing mess too. <br /><br />This cartoon, found on Facebook, says what I have to say in a pretty succinct way:<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmOaJcJ2YRyUj4-vFFsY8SDTbQ1b3R_r_iLV0g33lJkmqdPUg9CAdQbqVBhkyCm_9lnzY2BklrHQXFVvBIYECBLmwM8Pg-sVozn_6ZN8boSXgIYGllv7Evu0l-ZlbFz1j56tkAFEBUwuwKsIhCTTIEWqCwAFAtdQQrImjklSw0wem3ykU-RQ5za1gN/s378/DEEP%20post.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="376" data-original-width="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmOaJcJ2YRyUj4-vFFsY8SDTbQ1b3R_r_iLV0g33lJkmqdPUg9CAdQbqVBhkyCm_9lnzY2BklrHQXFVvBIYECBLmwM8Pg-sVozn_6ZN8boSXgIYGllv7Evu0l-ZlbFz1j56tkAFEBUwuwKsIhCTTIEWqCwAFAtdQQrImjklSw0wem3ykU-RQ5za1gN/s16000/DEEP%20post.jpg" /></a></div> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; text-align: center;">However, just make that circle of what is understood ten times smaller for narcissists,</span><br style="color: #cc0000; text-align: center;" /><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">and an imperceivably tiny dot for psychopaths!</span><br /><br /></span></div></div>By not explaining much beyond the usual small talk, you don't have to deal with how they manipulate your explanations to go with what they think your character is. It skips all of that. <br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />don't engage</div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"> This one makes sense too. <br /><br />It should be obvious why you can't reach out to them to engage together to find solutions to the conflicts between you. If you have read my blog, they won't have any part of that, and they will fight tooth and nail from going down that path, and will instead fight dirty to gain superiority over you. They want things "just right for them" even if it means it is not right for you. So, "Let's work out our problems together" is just opening the door to a wolf who has wanted to attack you, and now has the chance to do it. <br /><br />The other thing is that if you engage them, it means - to them - that you are weak and a glutton for punishment. Narcissists traumatize people with the exception of psychopaths. Psychopaths can take it because they have different autonomic nervous systems than we do. However one narcissist can even traumatize another narcissist, but it is definitely preferable for them to be in the ring with other narcissists, their heavy-weight equals, rather than with us.<br /><br />Also they are control freaks, and they like being in the driver's seat making all of the plans about who will see whom, who should talk to which person about which subject, and how so-and-so should "behave", so if they want to see you, they will make it known, believe me. If they are getting narcissistic supply somewhere else, hope that they have met the most attractive seductive co-narcissist on the planet, and they do not come knocking on <i>your</i> door.<br /><br />If you have tried engaging with them in a good faith effort to work out your differences, and they don't reply, you don't need to keep trying. Let it go unresolved if you can. Most likely it is because they only want things to go their way, including any truces. <br /><br />It sets the responsibility of engaging on them. <br /><br />It is the best procedure for anyone who is a control freak anyway. <br /><br />So not engaging sounds right to me. <br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">don't personalize</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Personalizing what they say to you: all of the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/10/constant-insults-and-criticism-how-to.html" target="_blank">negative</a></b> things they say to you and about you - including insults, all of the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-pursuit-of-power-control-and.html" target="_blank">controlling</a></b> things they say to you, all of the <b>micromanaging of your life</b> they try to do, all of the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2015/11/abusive-families-who-triangulate-love.html" target="_blank">triangulation</a></b> they try to do to make you feel that you are less than so-and-so (i.e. "You aren't as good as ---"), all of the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">escalating</a></b> they do in terms of abuse, and all of the <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/10/setting-boundaries-for-victims-of.html" target="_blank">unethical, unlawful things they do</a></b> aren't your fault. Need convincing? <b><a href="https://angry-alcoholics.blogspot.com/2022/01/escalation-of-abuse-with-discussions-on.html" target="_blank">Go here</a></b>. I'll have a post on <i>why</i> they hate and <i>what</i> they hate about other people in a future post, as this will be another post devoted, in part, to why it isn't your fault, so you can look forward to that. <br /><br />Narcissists and sociopaths want badly for you to personalize what they do to you and what they say to you (that it is "all your fault"). So when you don't personalize it, they tend to have a <b><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/understanding-narcissism/202202/what-is-narcissistic-collapse" target="_blank">narcissistic collapse</a> </b>(note: the linked article is about "the collapse" as it pertains to public humiliation, however, not getting victims to believe that they, the victims, are at fault, can create a narcissistic collapse too). They haven't been successful in making you their narcissistic supply or scapegoat for rages and bullying. <br /><br />If you want to make it clear to a narcissist that they shouldn't go to you for scapegoating and commanding, then not taking what they say personally will get them looking for supply somewhere else. <br /><br />Anyway, how can you personalize what they do and say? Look where they are: probably pretty far down on the ethics ladder. Unless they have a lot of integrity, honor and self reflection, how can you take them at all seriously? And by the way, people who are abusive and unethical are usually very, very unsatisfied, grumpy, complaining and punishing about how <i>other</i> people act and behave (but give themselves constant excuses and breaks, of course). <br /><br />Instead of taking what they have to say about you personally, why not become aware of just how arrogant, judgmental and prejudiced <i>they</i> are. Then you can decide whether being as judgmental as they are, as prejudiced and arrogant as they are has any warrant. And make it a years-long study so that you can take a breather from them talking you into things. <br /><br />In my view, the only people who are worth listening to about "how you act" are high in morality, honesty and ethics, high in self reflection and understanding nuances of behavioral issues, are kind, patient and truly understand your point of view. They are not controlling, dominating, hypocritical, or have relationships where agendas are the primary focus.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />I'm all for "not personalizing" when it comes to narcissists, and finding your true authentic self instead. Not being splashed with their views of you all of the time helps you find your authentic self too. <br /></div><p></p><p>Dr. Ramani Durvasula, a psychologist and university professor has <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HcU3sdrzU0" target="_blank">this</a></b> video on the technique:<br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7HcU3sdrzU0" width="320" youtube-src-id="7HcU3sdrzU0"></iframe></div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: center;">So, how do people like the D.E.E.P. technique?<br />Some of the comments below her video <br />(or if you want to see them yourself on her You Tube channel: <br />click on video or see my choices below)<br />Note: each one is a different person:</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>* Don't Defend. Don't Explain. Don't Engage. Don't Personalize. Being Authentic is hard when you know people are using it against you. But its not forever! Others will see you and the difference in communication and the ability to be you will be night and day! Don't ignore the red flags.<br /><br />* I think the narcissist must feel very humiliated when they can't rattle you or get you to react anymore. What else do they have when they lose that power over you.<br /><br />* My therapist told me, "When he starts with his disruption, don't defend yourself. Just look at him and think, this is who he is." It took me a while, but now I get it. Thank you Dr. Ramani for supporting me. I couldn't do it without you. You've changed my life for the better!<br /><br />* They're so textbook, so, we start a world wide search for someone who 'has not' been called crazy by their narc?<br /><br />* As I watch dr. Ramani’s videos I realize I made so many mistakes and wasted so much energy while going nuts trying to explain and trying to defend myself in my almost 7 year relationship with my ex narcissist . It’s all so clear now...I was not crazy ! 1 month and counting the blessings ! <br /><br />* Living with a narcissist is like "living in an eternal kangaroo court" OMG so brilliant!<br /><br />* I don't need the deep technique, I need the "don't start laughing" technique. It's just, ever since I've learned about narcissism and what makes it characteristic, I just can't stop myself from bursting into tears from laughing so hard when they go into narc mode. It's like they all follow a manual or a narc skript and they're so stuck in it that I can't help but laugh like an idiot. I was raised thinking that every single one of us is absolutely unique and then they're just all the same, LITERALLY!!!<br /><br />* My mom is a grandiose narcissist. When I was younger and tired of dealing with her devaluing phases, I’d just stare at her as she was calling me names and accusing me of doing and feeling things I never did. I was grey rocking and didn’t even know. That made her even more furious. She used to tell me to stop staring her with my “snake eyes”<br /><br />* Yup, I used to defend myself, try to explain so he could understand me and why I was hurt by his behaviours. I used to engage so we could sort out issues and it was personalised because our relationship was so important to me, I wanted us to resolve and learn from our fights. In the end, I was blamed for my reactions. He discarded me because he was “scared of my reactions” and that I “loved to argue”. Better yet, if we could have argued in his language “he would win and not me”. It was never about winning - for me, it was what I thought was for love.<br /><br />* Nope, every conversation for these people is about winning. Life is a competition for them.<br /><br />* I wish I knew this as a child. My mother accused me of terrible things on a regular basis and defending myself caused her to harm me emotionally and physically. Was terrible and scary.<br /><br />* D.E.E.P. Seeing it, hearing it, practicing it, over and over (40 times and above, I think is the number of repetitions needed to make deep changes) will be such a useful tool to remind me over and over again to not play games with a narcissist. This reminds me of the book entitled “Games People Play”. Thanks as always<br /><br />* Don't Defend, Explain, Engage, Personalise Deep = the authentic person's response to the narc's DARVO encompassing Deny, Attack and Reverse Victim Offender. Thank you Dr Ramani <p></p><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">FURTHER READING</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://healthhackers.org/article-list/narcissism-is-the-new-normal" target="_blank">How to Handle a Narcissist</a></b> - interview with Dr. Ramani for Health Hackers<br /><br /><b>RECOMMENDED: <a href="https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder.htm" target="_blank">Narcissistic Personality Disorder</a></b> - by the administrators of Health Guide.org<br />the recommendations are similar to the DEEP technique but have some additions and ways of thinking about situations you may encounter with narcissists (such as arguments, their fantasies, and exploits)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.btr.org/how-to-survive-narcissist-when-you-choose-to-stay/" target="_blank"><b>How to Survive a Narcissist When You Choose to Stay</b></a> - by Anne Blythe, Abuse Literacy, Boundaries and Self Care for BTR.org</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><b><a href="https://upjourney.com/how-to-communicate-with-a-narcissist" target="_blank">How to Communicate With a Narcissist</a></b> - by the editors of UpJourney with Jerisel Jimenez, LMSW<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/features/handle-narcissist" target="_blank">How to Handle a Narcissist</a></b> - by Kara Mayer Robinson<br /><br /><b>RECOMMEDED: <a href="https://mindwellnyc.com/survive-a-narcissist/" target="_blank">8 Essential Strategies to Survive A Narcissist</a></b> - Mind Well Psychology, NYC (Mind Well Psychology Center based in New York City at 80 8th Avenue, Suite 600, New York, NY) <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">found on Facebook:<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhENtgfZqQ6KbZUbxnfLsMZz29WoXTJFoSuwkDoG0SinkbBIJNjWZ3dTdRomtoyv0dFRQPznW0NKFyI0484Hjy_m2GegJJhgCeTPkwt3Uqq0KN4mv-XOn0dmzd1uNBg6v_FClFHpYzVzkFcTIoPuaAGAQnDpGP78gk0Noespv4Ao5DECXmqZEfEd-i3/s592/Shannon%20Thomas%20quote.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="592" data-original-width="588" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhENtgfZqQ6KbZUbxnfLsMZz29WoXTJFoSuwkDoG0SinkbBIJNjWZ3dTdRomtoyv0dFRQPznW0NKFyI0484Hjy_m2GegJJhgCeTPkwt3Uqq0KN4mv-XOn0dmzd1uNBg6v_FClFHpYzVzkFcTIoPuaAGAQnDpGP78gk0Noespv4Ao5DECXmqZEfEd-i3/s16000/Shannon%20Thomas%20quote.jpg" /></a><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtfrmPB86uCurrM3MG_VEyEATnK-O-hSXhwx3aT2NZD7OBQAfzyzEHbj3iU9e7lUrLh0vhPH4QH0MZIZeRqJWWQbVOyJ6lBDcRAALF8VH0lv3HLd6Xt_bIx4roiEDmkf-FBKiP5SsXv6g_bsqv58IaUZnLsJ8z_4WmxU2qp3F9eHuNcslcdOASzdlG/s500/unforbidden.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="282" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtfrmPB86uCurrM3MG_VEyEATnK-O-hSXhwx3aT2NZD7OBQAfzyzEHbj3iU9e7lUrLh0vhPH4QH0MZIZeRqJWWQbVOyJ6lBDcRAALF8VH0lv3HLd6Xt_bIx4roiEDmkf-FBKiP5SsXv6g_bsqv58IaUZnLsJ8z_4WmxU2qp3F9eHuNcslcdOASzdlG/s16000/unforbidden.jpg" /></a><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTvgTVcKxOD803DQzSwIznuJ8o0O4sF7XXAuyB29SpJAfO7wkgf90fBBf87UcRhFrVvpSa3oB-uk7JkkB_MwuHm2elaC5KUDfvXUKagCGhc6vmH9OrTA5z6U2gCQWtFr2SxjnPZWavjXKGv7kqm_6G7lcJW5ptah5JgdA3uVDlJb5C8Q8yoIFw-IVs/s582/war%20at%20home%20malignant%20narcissists.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="582" data-original-width="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTvgTVcKxOD803DQzSwIznuJ8o0O4sF7XXAuyB29SpJAfO7wkgf90fBBf87UcRhFrVvpSa3oB-uk7JkkB_MwuHm2elaC5KUDfvXUKagCGhc6vmH9OrTA5z6U2gCQWtFr2SxjnPZWavjXKGv7kqm_6G7lcJW5ptah5JgdA3uVDlJb5C8Q8yoIFw-IVs/s16000/war%20at%20home%20malignant%20narcissists.jpg" /></a></div>Lisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06266942951190435796noreply@blogger.com15