Abuse and Step Families

(Warning: this post has a few swear words in it, and is not appropriate for children)

Abusive step parents will have many of the same qualities as abusive parents, with the exception that abusive step parents tend to adopt specific types of abuse more than others (which I cover in this post).

As with abusive parents, you live and die in the hearts of your stepparents if they are abusive, in terms of what you can do for them, rather than what they can do for you in terms of helping you realize your potential in the world, focusing on the positives of your personality, and enjoying you as your own autonomous being. If you are liked because you serve them, and disliked because you don't serve them, this is one sign that you may have an abusive step parent. Another glaring sign is that they use their biological children to fight their battles for them, against you.

Children who have abusive step parents and/or abusive step siblings often feel marginalized, and they have a hard time defining what their family is and where they belong. Abusive biological families have factions, estrangements and scapegoats (in general), but when abusive families are also blended, these tendencies seem to increase dramatically.

While my post on abusive parents will apply to step parents, there are some types of abuses that step parents adopt more than biological parents. At the end of the post there is a list of some of them.

But first here are some major differences:

One difference is in the case of incest. 1 out of 6 underage girls are victims of incest by their stepfather, while 1 in 40 are victims of incest by their biological father.

Incest, in general, tends to go up dramatically in blended families. The incidence of inappropriate sexual behavior towards biologically unrelated children and step inlaws of all types tends to go up markedly as well.

The rate of a male stepparent murdering his stepchild is 40 to 100 times higher than it is for a biological father. Ostracism rates are even higher in blended families.

About 40 percent of first marriages -- and 60 percent of second marriages -- end in divorce. When both spouses have children from a previous marriage, the divorce rate is 70 percent.

Another difference is that the risk of parental favoritism among children goes dramatically up in step families, often based on what a step child can do for the stepparent.

According to this New York Times article entitled "Genetic Ties May Be Factor In Violence in Step families":

... stepfamilies are at much higher risk than are traditional families. For example, Dr. Martin Daly and Dr. Margo Wilson, evolutionary psychologists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, found that the rate of infanticide was 60 times as high and sexual abuse was about eight times as high in stepfamilies as is in biologically related families.

''We demonstrated a very large excess risk to stepchildren, an increase of thousands of percentage points,'' Dr. Daly said in an interview.

Wow, thousands of percentage points; that is phenomenal!

The New York Times article cites genes (as in the male lion kills off female's lion cubs from a previous male lion in order to mate with her and dominate through his genes -- a true fact). The article says that humans act in the same way because, biologically speaking, they are animals too.

At the bottom of this article I have put in many links as to why child abuse is more prevalent in blended families (most cite "the boyfriend problem" of single mothers).

While genes and the boyfriends who only want a relationship with the mother and not with the child may be two factors contributing to abuse being thousands of percentage points higher than in biological families, psychologists also have other theories about why children are so often abused by step parents and it has to do with the Cluster B Personality Disorders. People with Cluster Bs have a penchant for idealizing, devaluing and discarding their marriage partners when they feel they need more narcissistic supply (validation that they are desirable), or when they feel they are losing dominance in the relationship. So they end up as step parents. Let me state my case in the following way:

People with Cluster B Personality Disorders can have a proclivity to abuse, and more importantly, to have extra-marital affairs, even many affairs. As they have these affairs, and keep discarding their old loves for something shiny and new, they will tend to have more than one spouse during their lifetime and may end up with your parent (thus becoming your step parent).

Cluster Bs are much more likely to want to bust up a marriage too than people with normal constitutions. Their motivation is narcissistic supply and to see how far they can go in inserting themselves into the object of their affections lives. Will the married object of their affection let them into the marital home? Will the married object of their affection let them do damage to their present marriage with their spouses? Will the married object of their affection let them have sex in the marital bed that they share with their spouse? Will the married object of their affection let them dictate how his or her non-biological children are to be treated? Will the married object of their affection let them dictate the terms of their divorce with their present spouse, even to the extent of trying to ruin their present marriage partners financially? Will the married object of their affection let them steal from the marital home or move out all of the furniture and valuables when their spouse isn't there?

People with normal constitutions tend not to want to get into relationships with married women, or married men, and even if the attraction runs so deep as to be irresistible, not to want hurt anyone, let alone the kids. In other words, they are not likely to want to have sex in the marital bed. Insisting on being in the marital home and in the marital bed is not a good sign and shows a profound lack of empathy, and even sadism. People with normal constitutions generally feel racked with guilt or at least disturbed by a double life if they indulge in extra marital affairs, Cluster Bs not so much. 

Victims of child abuse often end up with Cluster Bs for mates too (not a conscious choice). Victims of child abuse are usually abused by a parent with a Cluster B personality disorder.

Also, one Cluster B also often ends up marrying another Cluster B. This is because people who have Cluster B personality disorders grow up in abusive homes (even when they are not the target of abuse, some of the children from abusive homes learn to normalize abuse and use it aggressively in their own relationships when they become adults). Abuse is multi-generational, so another Cluster B is going be very familiar to them, "just like home".

To demonstrate, let us say that your sibling is a male golden child of your narcissistic mother. She favoritizes your brother, and condones your brother "disciplining" the other children. After awhile, the "disciplining" turns into sibling abuse, which the mother also condones because "discipline" and abuse look the same to narcissiststic mothers (because these mothers have also been brought up in abusive homes). This is how scapegoating happens in families: she and your brother scapegoat you. In this case, let us say that you, the scapegoat, are artistic, that you love to take care of sick animals and nurse them back to health, and you are more sickly than your siblings. This is the make-up of the typical family scapegoat, by the way.

When the golden child grows up, and he tries to find a mate, he looks for someone either like his mother, or like you, the scapegoat. The reason he might marry someone like you is that he feels he can wield power and control over his wife and keep her in a subservient shamed state of being, working hard for him, like his sibling scapegoat. He basically marries her to dominate her in every way. But soon he tires of his scapegoat wife (as most narcissists do -- narcissists really do not like or respect empathy over the long term; they see it as an inferior quality). So his next wife is more likely to resemble his mother. And like his mother, his new spouse will support him in his bullying of others. Who will be the prime candidate for helping him and supporting him in the bullying process? Another Cluster B, probably another narcissist just like his mother! When two narcs are the parents, child abuse is highly likely, as well as scapegoating, and what is more, it goes unchecked (because there is no biological empath mother in the picture any more). His own family will resemble his own birth family with one plotting fawning golden child and at least one scapegoat.

The scapegoat that this golden chooses among his own children is likely to have similar characteristics to the sibling he used to beat up: artistic, empathetic, with medical problems or someone who generally gets sick more often than people in the general population. He and the narc step mom take delight in threatening the child, making the scapegoat feel shamed and unwanted, and they do what all narcs do: triangulate and hope that the scapegoat will want to compete with his sibling. Read Shakespeare's King Lear or my post on Karpman's Triangle as to why this does not work as the narcissist wants it to work.

This is also a good example as to why abuse and narcissism are multi-generational.

So for this next segment, I want to backtrack to the pairing of an empath with a narc and how a toxic step family situation can evolve:

So let us say that a man who is an empath is married to a woman who has narcissistic personality disorder. As I've mentioned, narcs like empaths too because they think they can dominate and exploit empaths. The narc-empath pairing is usually not long-lasting because of the disparity of values and morals, but they can be paired long enough to have children.

So, this couple has two children. They are their biological children. The two children have some safety from the abuse of the narc mother because of the empath father. However, the woman, because of her disorder, searches for narcissistic supply by having many extra-marital affairs. She also does not like her husband interfering in the discipline of her children because narcs insist that they dominate and micro-manage everyone in a household.

After awhile, her husband, who is an empath, cannot emotionally connect with or deal with a wife who has affairs (narcissists do not care how their spouses feel or what they are going through), so the husband files for divorce.

His wife (soon to be ex), cannot stand that she is being rejected, and feels her entitlement to have affairs and a husband at the same time is being taken away from her. She suffers tremendous narcissistic injury and feels that her world of many lovers and admirers is contracting and falling apart. Narcissists are also exceptionally immature (they practice the silent treatment and threats to get their own way as a ritual in relationships, for example) and they are also obtuse about seeing or knowing the perspectives of others, so when they feel rejected or their narcissistic supply is drying up, they punish and retaliate against their former spouses. This is what this wife and mother sets out to do to her ex-husband. 

However, to effectively hurt her husband, and appear to have dominance over her husband, she needs exceptionally punishing flying monkeys, and right away (no, they don't come in the form of empaths who want no part in hurting others). So who loves the idea of hurting others? Who is going to be best at helping her seek revenge and punish her ex? Who is going to wine her and dine her at the chance to be chief punish-er? It's the sociopath.

Sociopaths love situations where they are being asked to threaten and seek revenge, and they are notorious bullies. They also seem to share feelings of superiority with a narcissist because they typically talk about other people in a haughty manner in humorous condemnations, which gets the narcissist laughing about her ex husband, seeing him as a fool and unworthy of her graces and sexuality. 

"Why would you want to be with a depressed man? You deserve so much better!" -- a sociopath would say because they don't understand why a person would be depressed over a marriage dissolving. They are devoid of a range of feelings.  

Sociopaths also like being around narcissists because of the narcissist's penchant for aligning themselves with others. Sociopaths are loners and lack many, many social graces. The narcissist helps them achieve access to "the narcissistic supply world" -- basically the world of people, and people pleasing through love bombing and mirroring, especially those with prestige, or money, or the public eye, or who are movers and shakers in causes. 

So, in this situation, the sociopath becomes the step parent. Sociopaths are exceptionally horrific parents (see my post HERE about that), and they are ten times worse to their step children. Unless they can get a step child to be a total Cinderella or exploit them sexually, they are of no use to the sociopath at all. In the end, most sociopaths try to convince their narc spouses that they are not getting enough narcissistic supply from these children and the children should be discarded. Or they try to convince the narc spouse that children need to be punished for not doing what they want at all times or for being ungrateful, and set out to torture with physical abuse, sexual abuse, shunning or false imprisonment. And guess what? The biological narc parent often falls for it.

Then the father who is newly divorced sets out to find a new mate too. Maybe not right away as empaths tend to isolate and get depressed after the dissolution of their relationships. The problem is that his self esteem is in the gutter, he has a proclivity to obsess about the past (to try to understand why he became a target of abuse from his narc ex), he has insecurities about himself as an attractive man who can attract real love. The reason why this is a problem for him is because narcissists and sociopaths are attracted to a person who is reeling and depressed from a failed romance or marriage. If he talks about his ex and how he was wronged, they are going to zoom in and love bomb him. They want someone who has low self esteem because they think they can push the person around to do what they demand.

So, the stepmother is another narc. In effect, he is with the same kind of person. That is because the laws of attraction are such that unconscious familiarity is a deciding factor in choosing another mate, especially someone who has never received counseling for the abuse, or studied what Cluster B personalities are about (and why I am writing this blog: to help you avoid the pitfalls of ending up in another abusive relationship).

Here are typical ways an abusive narc step parent behaves (in this incidence, I am using an abusive step mother, though the abusive step father has many of the same traits): 

- There is obvious favoritism of her biological children over his. When all of the children are in the house, she insists that her biological children have treats, beds, are provided for exceptionally well, while her step children can just eat what is served to them, sleep on a cot in the basement or out in the barn (for instance).
- She ignores her step children while listening to her own biological children when there are family disputes and discussions
- She constantly complains about her step children or her husband to her biological children, trying to set up a pattern where her biological children either ignore or reject their step family.

- She uses her biological children to bully her step children. This is done so that her children will dominate her step children, and to get what she wants from the step children, and to marginalize them (i.e. creating a hierarchy) -- called triangulation, demeaning roles, smear campaigns and mobbing
- When your parent dies, she empties the house of pictures of her step children, and only puts up pictures of her own children
- She makes it known that her biological children always come first
- She has an affair with someone in your family, or with your husband, or sibling, creating a divided family where she can take control
- You are the step child, and she invites your spouse to dinner and answers the door in her negligee or naked
- You are her step-child, and she tells your spouse how handsome he is, and/or asks him how he likes sex, or whether he takes Viagra
- She enjoys watching her step children fight and compete for her

- She threatens to leave her husband (your father) constantly, but her husband is an old man and he doesn't want to risk losing more money, another house, another spouse, etc, so he adopts a fawning attitude (i.e. lets her get her way all of the time to avoid another fall out). 

- She exploits your father's money and talents

- She gives her step children the silent treatment
- She tells her step children that she married your father for his money or social connections
- She tells her step children that she has control when it comes to your parent, and that if they don't accept that, they will be kicked out.
- She lets her biological children stay in the household for a half a summer, but insist that his children leave after a day of visiting

- She is rude, dismissive and invalidating
- She tells you or shows you that she could care less about you or your feelings
- She uses things you tell her against you (especially in smear campaigns), or to manipulate you
- She is jealous of you and competitive
- She rarely listens to you when you talk
- She is incapable of negotiation (she either bullies you or commands you or runs to your blood parent or other "authority figure" when she doesn't get her way)
- She is incapable of talking things out, insisting that she is right about everything
- She rejects you without explanation, and you don't understand why
- She steals from you
- She rarely, if ever, takes your needs and wants into consideration
- She scapegoats you
- She is jealous of you and of her step children in general, and tries to compete with you for your father's love and attention
- She tries to get your father to put her kids first, and his own children last
- She tries to isolate your father from you and your siblings
- She tries to prejudice you against your own sibling
- She tries to prejudice you against your own father
- She tries to prejudice each one of the children, whether biological or step in order to divide and conquer all of the siblings
- She tries to find excuses to keep her step children away
- She complains bitterly about being excluded from your family events, but has no trouble excluding you from her family events (hypocrisy)
- She does not confer with you when your parent is ill
- She tries to convince your blood parent that you are ungrateful (or that you will always be ungrateful, and therefor need to be rejected or spared)
- She makes up stories and lies about you, or greatly exaggerates, in order that your parent reject you or let her take over raising the children, or talking to the children
- She tells you that she hates you
- She demonizes you and tries to paint you as evil
- She makes it known that she has never loved you, and that she will never love you
- She unfriends you on facebook when she doesn't get her own way, or to show you that she has never had any regard for you
- She throws away or sells things you have made for her, or gifts you have given her
- She expects you to fawn all over her, and makes it known that she will accept no other behavior from you
- She talks about how you are indebted to her for things she paid for when you were a minor, or educational expenses for college
- She insults you and calls you names
- She refers to you as an insult name with your blood parent (i.e. "that thing", "it", "your bastard child", "that ungrateful piece of crap that you call your child", "your bone-headed child", "your sniveling piece of shit", "your eternal child", "your worthless child", "your serpent child", "your insane child", etc)
- If she is sexually abusive, or one of her relatives is sexually abusive towards you, she tries to convince your blood parent that you either asked for it, or that it never happened and that you are making it up in order to get rid of the step-parent and her family
- She makes fun of you, your interests, your weight, your clothes or some other thing that is of great import to you
- She tries to get her biological children to make fun of you in the same ways she makes fun of you
- She tries to discount your interests and way of life on a consistent basis

For abusive step fathers (particularly those with Cluster B personality disorders), it tends to be along the same lines except that they can be much more flirtatious and sexual with their step children and step inlaws. They can be much more verbally abusive  as well, especially in the way of name-calling and derisive remarks (including criticizing weight, attractiveness and types of reactions, including facial expressions).

These are just some common examples. Abusiveness is a trend, and is accompanied by a myriad of abuses. It is not a once-in-a-great-while event. To qualify as an abuser, your step parent has to be acting out a few of these instances on a consistent basis. 

So to get back to our story about the empath father who ended up with another narc spouse:

When she finds out that her husband's daughter is the sole trustee to his estate and trust, she threatens her husband and tells him that if she and her own child are not put on his trust as trustees too, that she has a good mind to leave him. So he capitulates and puts his wife and step-child on as co-trustees, creating a "two-against-one situation" for his daughter after he dies.

When he dies, the other trustees, the step mother and step sister, spend their time trying to remove his blood daughter from his trust with frivolous lawsuits (yes, it happens more than you think). They do not work for the beneficiaries of the trust (which are his own children); they work for themselves. They try to exploit the trust for their own gains by hiring an attorney to harass her and in order to take over the entire trust.

Also, they want to sell the common house, so they try to get the daughter who inherited her father's half of the house off of the deed, or off of her part of the ownership.

This sets up a situation of continual and escalating abuse of the step children starting from when her father re-married, and ending in his sickness or death when her father can no longer protect her. Remember: child abuse is life long, even from an abusive step parent, no matter what that step parent promises or says.

In the meantime, when the two children of the narc mom and the empath dad grow up, they also become divorcees. Divorce also runs in families. They also marry people with Cluster B personality disorders. That is because even children will marry what they know. So, in turn, their children become targets of a disordered step parent as well. 

That is how abuse happens, why it passes down through generations, and why abusive step families make the family ten times more toxic. They will either try to disappear the step children with erroneous allegations, exploit them, or try to turn them into fawning serving Cinderellas.

Certainly there are good step parents too. The difference is that a good step parent will put ALL children on equal footing (as in the Brady Bunch). They don't try to exclude step children from family events or from feeling a part of the family. In other words, they consider their step children to be as much their own children as their biological children. They care about their step children's feelings, experiences and perspectives without trying to negate them and render them unimportant, or less important than their biological children's perspectives. They are exceptional listeners and warm towards their step children. They try to comfort and care for their step children when their step child is sick, injured, hurt or crying. They take part in the lives of step children who are under age, or visit their grown step children of their own volition and interest, without prodding from the biological parent. They talk lovingly about their step children. They donate to their step children's educational needs and experiences. They attend their step children's functions: graduations, wedding, baby shower, and the like. They tell their step children they love them on a consistent on-going basis. They initiate hugs and bedtime stories.

When your biological parent dies (the one to whom your step parent is married to), they comfort you, and continue to invite you to family events and still consider you one of the family. 

Step parents who do the opposite (reject, constantly demean and ridicule, call names, do not listen to the cares and concerns of their stepchildren, triangulate, laugh derisively about their stepchildren in front of their biological children, blatantly favoritize their own children over their stepchildren, no longer consider you part of the family when your biological parent dies) -- watch out!

One problem with abusive step families is where the family resources go. There are a lot of threats and coercion around wills, estates and trusts.

For instance, an elderly man falls sick and his wife wants to inherit his property. She might say to her sickly husband, "I'm the one who took care of you all of these years! I'll abandon you if you do not put me on as the sole beneficiary and executor!" So then when he dies, his estate eventually ends up going to his step children instead of to his biological children.

A lot of golden children in narcissistic families arm twist their parent to make them either the primary beneficiary or the sole beneficiary, and the executor to their estates. This often works because narcissists think in black and white terms (almost all narcissists have a favorite coddled loved child and a disfavored, sometimes rejected, unloved scapegoat, or several scapegoats depending on how many scapegoats go "no contact"). In this case, the family resources get passed down to the golden's children, while the scapegoats' children are not part of the family resources -- very, very common as I see this over and over again in forums for child abuse survivors.

If an abusive step parent (and their family) are heavily featured as executors, beneficiaries or trustees, they most likely got there through coercion, threats and pleading ("please me -- or else").

Also, do your children a favor and do not make them co-trustees or co-executors with an unloving, neglectful, self serving, threatening, penchant-for-cheating step parent or step sibling. If your spouse does not treat your children in totally exemplary form and is not all-inclusive (i.e. does not treat them like their own children), do not put your children in positions which will undermine their power and self esteem, or expose them to any more abuse, marginalization and favoritism from their step family.

If you are divorced from a narcissist, get therapy for the depression before going into another relationship. Don't talk to anyone new about what you went through with your ex until you really, really know them -- years down the road. On your first dates, don't slouch, look depressed, jut out your lower lip and talk about how wronged you were in your last marriage (this will attract narcissists and sociopaths by the boatloads). Walk upright and tall, with complete confidence, even if you don't feel like it (this will keep narcissists and sociopaths away from you).

Walking upright and confident will also help you to regain confidence after your self esteem has been shattered because it is a way of talking your mind and body into self-assuredness. Remember: narcissists and sociopaths love people whose self esteem is in the gutter, wronged people, people who are facing injustice, people who have been abandoned and scapegoated by their family, people who went through a divorce with a cheating spouse who "got everything", people who are angry at their ex (sociopaths will tell you that they will help you to seek revenge, and narcissists will pretend to be really concerned for you, love bomb you and tell you that you are their soulmate, and want to know every single detail of what went wrong), so you have to do your best not to look like prey to them, even in public (your appearance and gait).

Sociopaths and narcissists also like whirlwind romances. They are forceful, charming, can't accept "no" for an answer, want to move fast to get your willingness or commitment, only have eyes for you (in the beginning of your relationship, then they discard you later on). So take every potential dating relationship very, very slowly, even "molasses slow". Narcissists and sociopaths hate it when you withhold commitment and say "I'm not ready to make that next step yet" or "I put the welfare of my child first." They especially hate to move slowly on sex.

If you see signs where a potential mate is self serving, punishing, rude, arrogant, dismissive, has to get their own way, pressures you into a relationship, presses you into an extra-marital love affair, suggests sex in the house or bed you share with your spouse, wants to seek revenge against your former spouse, is unfeeling towards others, pressures you to do things which you feel might be detrimental to your children, stalks you, does not respect the sanctity of other people's marriages (i.e. has a reputation for cheating on his or her own spouse), has an estranged child or children, and is not warm and loving towards children, do not make them your child's step parent or you will create a nightmare for them (and for yourself too). 

Always think in terms of a mate as "best for my children first", then they will probably be good for you too.

IN CONCLUSION:

There is a lot that can go wrong in blended families even in the best of circumstances (when incest, abuse and rejection aren't part of the picture). There are differing traditions, differing parenting styles, and even morals can be ever so slightly dissimilar as to cause many, many problems between a step parent and a step child. It takes a lot of talking, a lot of understanding, a lot of growth on both sides, a lot of time one-on-one, a lot of tolerance, and a lot of patience to work through these differences.

When you have a spouse who is incestuous (towards your child or your child's spouse or your child's own children), or who is abusive, or rejecting, or practices parental alienation (is negative about a parent whom your child loves), you will probably be estranged from your child sooner or later. The bond your child has to the step parent is only as good as the step parent's willingness to accept your child as part of their family, to show patience and show autonomous interest and love towards your child. Yes, it is up to the blood parent and the step parent to bridge the gap as your child did not ask for a blended family.

Most children show signs of depression and grief, which can be severe, over their blood parent's divorce. If you subject them to the abuse of their step parent, they are highly likely to be resistant, recalcitrant, and you are asking them to take on more than they can bear. It is not unusual for children to look at a step parent as an intruder, so in order to keep the feelings of "intrusiveness" at bay, you, the blood parent, should be promoting inclusiveness on both sides, as well as politeness, harmony, understanding and caring as much as possible, otherwise the situation will turn into a nightmare. 

By the way, autonomous interest should sound like this: "I miss my step daughter! I'd love to go see her! I'm sure you miss her too! Let's go!"

A high number of children will prefer to live with the parent who is not re-married (i.e. where there is not a step parent figure in the picture -- yet) -- expect it!

Inclusiveness means the step parent renouncing the words and actions that divide: dismissiveness, invalidation, marginalization, insults, being harshly judgmental, hatred, constant lecturing, displaying arrogant know-it-all behavior, making their step children feel as though they do not belong, using their blood children to bully their step children, describing their step children in derisive ways to their blood children, dividing and conquering, favoritism, jealousy, demeaning Cinderella roles, demonizing, smear campaigns, the silent treatment, ostracizing your children by a step parent, the step parent giving your children severe punishments, and all of the other tactics abusers use that I have talked about in this post, and in the general blog.

When you turn a blind eye and put an abusive spouse first, you are destroying your child, their self esteem, your own bond with your child, and the child's sense of belonging to a loving family. I cannot under-estimate the trauma children go through when they live through their parent's divorce, especially if it is contentious, and then when you heap on a highly abusive step parent to their trauma, a step parent who could care less whether they have a relationship with your child or not, and is only in the relationship for you, the mate, you are asking too much of your children.

Children show love when they are loved by their step parent. When they are rejected and unloved by their step parent, do not expect your children to accept or love them in return. It is up to the parents to set the standards, and that means how the parents act, not what they say ("actions speak louder than words").

I will be writing future posts on how to handle unloving step parents, incest in the step family, rejection and ostracism by the step family, the step parent and wills, estates and trusts, the alcoholic step parent, Jane Eyre as the scapegoat child of an abusive step mother, and toxic Cinderella roles in the step family.

further reading: 

Family Structure Variations in Patterns and Predictors of Child Victimization -- by Heather A. Turner, PhD, David Finkelhor, PhD, and Richard Ormrod, PhD, University of New Hampshire

recommended: The Child Abuse Crisis: The Disintegration of Marriage, Family, and the American Community -- by Patrick Fagan

Are Stepchildren at Higher Risk for Abuse Than Biological Children?  -- from the GoodTherapy.org website

Cinderella Effect -- from Wikipedia

Child Abuse and Other Risks of Not Living With Both Parents -- by Martin Daly and Margo Wilson

excerpt:

Both abuse and police apprehension were least likely for children living with two natural parents. Preschoolers living with one natural and one stepparent were 40 times more likely to become child abuse cases than were like-aged children living with two natural parents.

The “Cinderella Effect”: Elevated Mistreatment of Stepchildrenin Comparison to Those Living With Genetic Parents -- by Martin Daly & Margo Wilson Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour McMaster University

Stepfamily Statistics -- from The Stepfamily Foundation
its blog is worth looking at too. 

Children At Higher Risk in Non-Traditional Homes -- from The Associated Press (NBC News)

Children At Higher Risk in Non-Traditional Homes (Abusive-Boyfriend Syndrome Part of Broader Trend, Experts Worry -- from The Associated Press (NBC News)

edit (9/7/2019): Court docs: Stepmom killed Gas City girl over charm bracelet. Abuse, confinement marked her last hours. - news report from Indy Star

more on this case: Skylea Carmack: Autopsy confirms girl found dead in shed was strangled as stepmom remains jailed for her murder - from Crime Online 

  

Risks of Child Abuse and Neglect Based on Family Structure -- by Wayne Stocks for the Divorce Ministry 4 Kids website

Child Maltreatment and Family Structure -- by Adam M. Tomison

Recognizing and Understanding Emotional Child Abuse -- from the More For Kids website

Current Knowledge About Child Abuse in Stepfamilies -- by Jean Giles-Sims for the Marriage and Family Review, Volume 26

Is the ‘Cinderella effect’ the reason why stepdads kill their partners’ children? : WHY do so many stepdads abuse and kill their partners’ children? This provocative theory suggests they just can’t help turning evil -- by Andrew Koubaridis

Narcissistic Stepmothers—Taking Dad Away -- by Linda Martinez-Lewi, PhD

Narcissistic Stepmothers–Ultimate Nightmare for Stepchildren -- by Linda Martinez-Lewi, PhD

It's Heresy to Say it, But Having a Step-parent Can Wreck a Child's Life -- by Frances Childs for U.K. publication, The Daily Mail

Stepparent Abuse? -- from the Dr. Phil Show

Parenting in the Real World: Shocking Statistics -- from the Dr. Phil Show

Stepfamily Statistics -- from The Stepfamily Foundation

Link Between Family Structure and Child Abuse -- from Marripedia website

In 'blended’ families, it’s the children who lose: Elderly parents who have remarried can unintentionally disinherit their children -- by Allison Pearson for The Telegraph

Repeat After Me: A Workbook for Adult Children Overcoming Dysfunctional Family Systems -- by Claudia Black, PhD (book)

Raising Children in Blended Families: Helpful Insights, Expert Opinions, and True Stories -- by Maxine Marsolini (book)

Building the Bonds of Attachment: Awakening Love in Deeply Traumatized Children -- by Daniel A. Hughes (book)

Memoirs of an Invisible Child -- by Kelly Walk Hines (book)

5 Things to Know About Step Families -- from The Blended Family Network website

YOU CANNOT ‘BUY’ YOUR STEP CHILDREN -- from The Blended Family Network website

How to Improve your Stepfamily Relations -- from The Blended Family Network website

Are you in an Abusive Relationship? -- from The Blended Family Network website

Blended Family Issues -- from GoodTherapy.org website

Help for Blended Family Issues -- from GoodTherapy.org website

From the forums: Blended family molestation... -- again, not uncommon

Letter to My Abusive Step-Parent Who Broke Me -- by Lulajanebay

fulfilling life goals after being a cast out scapegoat

art by © Lise Winne

available for sale here

I have been reading Lenora Thompson's articles for awhile and I usually respond to them, and we often have discussions about each of them. The reason why? I'll tell you.

Lenora writes for Psych Central and the Huffington Post about being the child of narcissists. She is a self-proclaimed golden child (an only child) to what would seem to be helicopter parents, parents who, according to her, would not let her grow up. You can read her stories in the articles. She has many, many articles on how she felt stifled and imprisoned by her parents, how every decision she wanted to make was superseded by her parents' decision-making, how she felt she was being groomed to please them at all times.

Every abusive family has a golden child (favored and coddled) and a scapegoat (unfavored and picked on, and often rejected). That's just a fact of life when you have Cluster B personality disordered parents who put their own feelings and dreams first, and expect their children to put their parents dreams and feelings first too (no, that's not how it is supposed to work, if you are wondering).

When she and I talk, I give her the scapegoat versions to her stories. They tend to be drastically different, opposites. But not all of the time.  Sometimes we find only nuanced differences between the golden versions and the scapegoat versions.

I have been working on a side project full of scapegoat stories (which I plan on publishing some day). This is just a teaser.

Sometimes she feels the scapegoat is so much better off than the golden child, other times she sees how painful being a scapegoat is.

So what is a common thing that scapegoats and goldens share, since most of the time there is such a huge disparity between the two roles? And let us not forget that these are roles -- they were thrust on us by parents or caregivers (usually) at a young age, perhaps even when we were pre-verbal, rather than how we define ourselves.

Gaslighting would be one of the things that golden children and scapegoats have in common. But the nuances are these:

Gaslighting of a golden child would be: "Oh, she's a little crazy, but we love it! So creative! So full of life and wonder! So cute when she does that, isn't she?" Gaslighting of a scapegoat would be "She's our crazy one. Yes, she's creative, but she has so many problems! We just can't deal with her any more! She should be put away, but that's not how the world works these days." The first one is to get strangers to admire their offspring, hoping they can cover up the abuse with great accolades and admiration and the image of being perfect parents of a lovable crazy child; the second one is to get strangers to reject their offspring before that offspring spills the beans and exposes the abuse and the parent's image.

But who is kidding who? Golden children are just as capable of exposing abuse as scapegoats are, such as in Lenora's case. Goldens often feel so suffocated and burdened by their parents that they feel spiritually squashed, emotionally squashed, physically squashed, developmentally squashed. It is claustrophobia on steroids. Goldens have been brought up to be pleaser puppets. They can't say anything at all that doesn't please their parents, and after awhile, don't even try to challenge that coding (except maybe through their own very private thoughts which they don't dare to share with anyone ... until they can't stand it any more). This is not what life is meant to be, to be an eternal child with no choices and no dreams, and only to be thinking about your parent's thoughts, feelings, dreams and image (let's not forget their image!). Our spirits really have a hard time with being shoved into Stepford child roles (after The Stepford Wives).

I see her point of view. Love is super conditional whether you are a golden child or a scapegoat. For the golden, it is totally reliant on people pleasing and competition with your sibling (if you have a sibling). The golden feels he cannot be anything else, and be safe from the abuse he sees being hurled at everyone else.

I feel sorry for the golden child in my own life who has to live this way and give up his own dreams, who is called to do it constantly, who has to be careful and terrified over everything he says, and walk on eggshells. He has been groomed to compete with his sister on everything (for the parents divide-and-conquer strategies), and since the sister gave up on the competition and left the family, he has to provide ALL of the narcissistic supply now. There are no more roles left, in fact, no other siblings to take up the lost roles. He will have to fulfill them all. And if something doesn't suit his parents, he will have to endure a barrage of shaming, temper tantrums and insults -- as though he is still a little boy who needs to be reprimanded. If he sees rage, he'll have to pretend he didn't mean what he said. He'll have to stir up a pot of excuses, fast talking, fast thinking, taking things he said back, explaining that he didn't mean what he said, saying things like "It was just a stupid comment. I agree with you" even when he might not want to agree with them, asking how to make it better, giving word salad explanations for every little hurt feeling they have that they blame on him, or on his wife, all with the most syrupy apologies. He will have to have no convictions about anything. Interests? No, too threatening. Opinions? No, he's required to have their opinions. A career? No, not one that will take time away from his parents. A sister? How dare he think to have a relationship with his sister when they have anointed him the golden child! How dare he even think about his sister!

He will have to constantly ameliorate them (and make no mistake about it: he is expert at ameliorating -- as if that is a good thing to be).

I have seen him in 24 hour rages when they aren't around, and then turn it all off like a switch and be sticky sweet with model vocabulary and wit. That's a good life??? Talk about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde! He has to "go along to get along" with hair-trigger parents. That's not love! They don't love him!

And worst of all, he seems to have become another Cluster B, full of phony faces and charm just to get through life. I believe the swearing, rage-ful, disrespectful, laugh-behind-their-backs, deriding-of-others personality is really who he is, although that may be a cover-up for how scared, vulnerable, sensitive and sweet he really is. Who knows, but it is all so sad. The worse part of it is that he does the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde because his parents squashed him, wanted him to be their daily pleaser. They spoiled him rotten, favored him over his sister, and tried to convince him that his sister was at fault for any rage he felt. "Take it out on her, not us!" they cried. Because, you know, all narcissists are perfect, and they can't hear otherwise, and what they did to him has to be taken out on someone, after all ...

So one of the things Lenora and I were talking about had to do with living our dreams, and how she had to put that off for so long (required to be the daily pleaser: don't forget!). Any way, here is my response to this article by Lenora about living your dreams after having them squashed by narcissistic parents for most of your life:

I'm always thinking of the scapegoat part of this story, Lenora.

The thing about scapegoats is that they are onto their NMs or NFs earlier than anyone else. If we are given the scapegoat role in our family, we're the canary in the coal mine. That's why we are scapegoats: we see the evil, we hear the evil, and we speak about the evil we see and hear. How dare we speak about it, right? How dare we want to make that better for all children of the household? 

And the first thing they do about it is try to shut us up and shut us down emotionally. However it doesn't work because we still see, hear, etc ... so we are punished for it instead. The "punishments" for seeing, hearing and knowing are brutal, let me tell you. They are so unethical, unjust and severe as to encode us with traumas and triggers. In fact most "other" family members don't want to acknowledge what we go through because it scares them half to death. So they only "watch" the abuse in horror on the sidelines, perhaps try to tell themselves it is not so bad and that it is "normal" in some way, hoping it doesn't happen to them. 

In fact, they are rarely singled out for abuse until we leave. And we have to leave if we are to survive. When we leave for good to fend for ourselves, the narcissists adopt another scapegoat. They always do; they always feel they have to in order to keep any kind of potential bad image they might acquire away from THEM. 

So eventually we are no longer alone when the new scapegoat appears and says to us, "I went through it too! I'm so sorry!"

But the difference between us and the golden child is that a parent or caregiver trying to disable us and our dreams by severe punishments and THE BIG BAD SILENT TREATMENT does not get internalized within us (well, a lot of us). It may get internalized in the beginning, but for many of us with long term "no contact" or living our lives autonomous from their opinions? Not at all. I think most scapegoats can attest to not feeling much shame at all over being given the silent treatment. Why? Because it almost always is over a myriad of silly excuses like a look on our face they didn't like (as though we should have a facial complex JUST FOR THEM), or because we refused to be their full time Cinderella to our brothers and sisters (as though we should really WANT that for ourselves), and a number of equally bizarre "reasons". They grasp at the most desperate of straws to make a scapegoat. 

They do this scapegoating for THEM, because THEY feel threatened by the truth and by exposure. The more they abuse, the more desperate they are to hide it, the more they absolutely NEED some sort of  scapegoat!!  All people who see, hear, and speak of what they see and hear must be scapegoated in their eyes ... except, wait! Doesn't everyone tell of what they are about behind their backs? Aren't all people in their lives just ass-kissing back-stabbing two-facers? 

So they get ultra paranoid.

The reason why a lot of us scapegoats don't internalize their mediocre dreams for us is because we never "really" try to please them. Ever. We know the cost is too high, and nothing will be good enough. We may pretend at it at times because not every battle is worth it, and we want some peace, just like they pretend to love us, all the while slandering us to everyone they can, and throwing us away to the wolves and casting us as "crazy people".

We aren't supposed to please them anyway: they assigned the scapegoat role to us, the role that can never please them NO MATTER WHAT. We find, unlike the smooth fast talkin' always-make-an-excuse goldens, that there is no smooth fast talkin' for us to adopt. What we say, what we do, is ALWAYS vilified. So we give up on pleasing them, and decide to please ourselves instead, and we go for our dreams. 

That's one big difference between a golden child and a scapegoat child.

We HAVE to go big for our dreams to survive without a family, support, and familial approval. So many of us put our dreams first, in fact, and a lot of us (the ones who don't stay in the matrix of the abusive family to get beaten down again and again), are pretty satisfied with where we end up. There are times we might be taken in by the hoovering of our parents or caregivers, but for the most part we are cast out at pretty young ages. Try 15 as opposed to 30 or 40 for you goldens. 

Sometimes there are narcissists along the way who try to trip us up, or stalk us, or slander us, and other tactics. That can set us back. But we also have been able to get back up from being knocked over since childhood when our parent or caregiver was doing it.

The reason our abusive parent always goes for tactics such as hooverings and punishments is because narcissists hate our successes. Yes, I believe that. 

How dare we be successful when they have tried so hard to beat that out of us, when they have worked so hard to smash our self esteem and make us lower our heads in shame our whole lives! They can't stand that their mediocre dreams are only about narcissistic supply: spreading lies, gossip, covering their tracks, panicking over "not covering their tracks ENOUGH", fear of exposure, trying to convince others that they are model citizens who love their children when they don't, trying to keep all of these false identities and false motives together and trying to remember which false identity went with which person, and which lie and wild tale they told to whom, trying to think of top-of-their-heads excuses as to why they are estranged from their children, and continue to be, trying to think of shamings of their children that will stick like glue and permanently damage them -- what a life! 

And to compensate for a life of boredom that selfishness, insulting of others, discarding important people and unfulfillment inevitably produce, they create drama. How? Rejecting or picking on another empath from their lives, or two or three or four. "Yes, let's do that so that we have no empaths when we are sick and old!" Now isn't that the dumbest thing ever? 

So instead they find themselves surrounded by other narcissists or sociopaths when they aren't feeling well. Who envies that?

So glad we are not them and that we pursue dreams that are actually meaningful and worthwhile, while they muck around in the putrid swamp of "trying" to manipulate people all of the time. Good luck with that agenda, eh?

love bombing by narcissists and sociopaths

Note: when I talk about narcissists and sociopaths (Antisocial Personality Disorder), I am talking about the clinical condition in the DSM. See my post on what abuse is and who perpetrates it HERE.

Here is an excellent article about how narcissists groom people to believe they are soul mates.

In this post, author Alex Miles describes the love bombing manipulative tactic as:

... initially carried out through excessive phone calls, text messages, emails, the constant desire to be in close contact whether virtual or physical and the desire to be connected almost every moment of every day ...

... Love bombers are masters at flattery; they will constantly be telling their target how much they adore them, how beautiful they are, how funny, talented, special, precious and any other sweet nothing they can think of. Love bombers will make their partner feel as though they are the only person in the world for them, telling them how grateful they are to finally be understood, what terrible previous relationships they had, how they have found the love of their lives and that they are for-sure certified soul mates ...

Love bombing by narcissists and sociopaths is fraudulent because it is designed to draw a person into a loving, trusting relationship without the intentions of making the relationship loving or trustworthy. Love bombing for narcissists is about obtaining narcissistic supply (attention, flattery and power and control over people) and for sociopaths it is about obtaining IOUs (guilt trips, control, exploitation, extortions, blackmail, and either brutal shaming kinds of discards or vengeful retaliations over the sociopath's need for absolute dominance and sadism in the relationship).

The fact that it is a fraudulent set-up can deeply wound and shock its victims.

You will know that the love-bombing-idealizing-"can't-live-without-you" person is a narcissist or sociopath if they suddenly switch off the love, i.e. stop the behavior without warning and become hyper critical, rejecting and prickly instead. In addition, the reasons for stopping the flow of love with silent treatments and criticisms won't make sense, as most people with normal constitutions know that genuine love cannot be so easily turned off like a faucet. In fact, the person who professed to love you so madly becomes cruel, edgy, dismissive and sometimes even seething. At its core, love bombing is about psychological splitting.

Narcissists and sociopaths do this to see if you will try to please and placate them (i.e. the victim giving the perpetrator what they want).

In fact, the cruelty gets worse and worse over time (sometimes in a short amount of time, sometimes over years) to see how many and what kinds of excuses, lies, gaslighting, degradation, bullying and dodging the victim will endure before backing away and breaking free from narcissistic or sociopathic bonds. In that way, victims are treated like lab rats where the scientists amp the voltage on the electricity on the rats to see how much pain they will withstand while still accepting bonding with their electrocutors.

In fact, real life (without the rats) reveals that victims of child abuse will typically endure the pain the longest and at the higher levels with their partners because they were taught by their abusive parents to normalize abuse. That is a classic textbook fact that has been studied extensively. It puts them in considerably more danger than people who come from normal supportive families.

If the victim came from a very protective normal family with a lot of inter-generational support, the victim will exit the relationship early on, much earlier than the victims of child abuse, thereby surviving the incidents much better.

Narcissists and sociopaths do not necessarily know these facts, so their experiments with amp-ing up the pain and cruelty on their victims, and figuring out when to enact their discards are purely for self serving, trauma bonding purposes.

The cruelty of love bombing followed by a discard feels very much like date rape. The trauma from the experience is extremely similar in duration and in terms of how it feels for victims. In other words, they accept the relationship (or date), and are brutally treated and abused (or raped) by their perpetrator.

However in terms of society's attitudes, date rape is taken much more seriously where an arrest can made, and where the staff at a hospital can help intervene to get the victim the help she (or he) needs.

With brutal love-bombing-idealization, devalue, discard treatment from a narcissist or sociopath, the victim has no real support from any kind of authority unless he or she goes searching for it. Traumatized victims tend to self-isolate, so it is often very hard to get the help needed. This puts victims at an extreme disadvantage in terms of feeling safe from their perpetrators compared to date rape victims.

If the love-bombing-idealization, devalue, discard treatment came from a parent, the trauma is even more pronounced than it is between partners because it is in a children's DNA to trust a parent to care about them, at least when they are still a child. Love bombing and idealizations from previously abusive parents should never be trusted. Parents love bomb their children out of their own insecurities: this is very common when the child is not sticking to the role the narc parent prescribed (highly successful scapegoats and failure criminal addicted goldens are highly challenging for a narc parent and love bombing gets them back into their children's lives to get the roles straightened out, or so they hope). Children who are in the public eye may make previously abusive rejecting parents highly uncomfortable where love bombing seems like the perfect antidote to avoid the fall-out of being exposed. Children who are highly successful in law or law enforcement may also make abusive parents uncomfortable enough to love bomb. These are all highly manipulative and untrustworthy, but many children fall for love bombing (at least once), if only to have a relationship that they have never had with their parent, a loving relationship. Most will eventually find out that the love was not real at all.

Why narcissists use love bombing:

The love bombing maneuver is the first move in a narcissist's bag of awful tricks and one he (or she) is most comfortable with and provides the most satisfaction in terms of obtaining narcissistic supply. It is gratifying to the narcissist that it often works, and that victims are so easily susceptible to it.

It most resembles seduction, but it is more insidious if only because there is a brutal ending to the seduction.

The targets chosen for love bombing tend to have low self esteem, are uneasy about their own decision-making capabilities, are susceptible to being talked into things, are highly empathetic, seem gullible, and were most likely groomed in childhood to believe they deserved abuse and/or abandonment (and are therefore love starved). They might have also been taught as children that they didn't deserve boundaries of privacy either (therefore were/are open to inappropriate interrogations and enmeshment). They may not, as children, had any true ownership and decision-making power over their own toys, projects or clothes.

The narcissist can find that indecisive, insecure empaths bend to his will a lot more easily than other types of people, so that is why they are chosen. Adult children of child abuse are hand-picked by narcissists and sociopaths as soul mates because they seem like the easiest targets to persuade -- in all kinds of ways. One reason why narcissists and sociopaths feel that victims of child abuse are their soul mates is that they think that the victim of child abuse will put the narcissist at the center of their world and attention, just like the target put their abusive parent at the center of their world when they were growing up. The narcissist slowly inserts the power and control into the relationship, like a poison, including making decisions for the victim. They try out making their "soul mates" walk on eggshells first, then perhaps a little love starving or silent treatment here and there, taking away friends and family slowly and deliberately too (isolation), testing gaslighting strategies and trauma bonding strategies after that, and eventually when they have their victims into a state of bondage and confusion, they explain away the abuse with blaming, blame shifting, confusing flipped tales, deflections, nit picking, projection, lectures and dodging (in other words, word salad arguments). This strips the victim of autonomy, thinking for himself and control over his own life, the same way the parents took these things away from the victim when he (or she) was a child.

In fact, the abusive partner tries to groom his lover into a child-like marionette for himself.

Effective cult leaders love bomb in order to obtain new recruits and getting people to worship them.

Why sociopaths use love bombing:

Sociopaths use love bombing in order to get what they want from the other person. They don't demand flattery and adulation so much as exploitation. They want to get as much as they can for as little as they can. They use what ever power they have at their disposal to get more out of a situation than they give.

Sociopaths are notorious for price bargaining and expect IOUs over any kindness or mercy at all. In the movie "Shelter", about the homeless in new York City, a man lets a homeless woman sleep on a hard concrete boiler room floor in a building so long as she provides him with sex (the sex is demeaning and sometimes brutal as well). There is a power imbalance, and the man uses his power over the desperate homeless woman who is caught outside in a raging snow storm with nowhere to sleep for the night, and exploits the situation for his own gratitude: it is typical sociopathic exploitative behavior with a degrading IOU attached to it.

Obviously this scene has nothing to do with love bombing, but a sociopath may think love bombing is necessary if he wants something from someone with more wealth or social prestige. Love bombing is also used on people who can get him out of jail or prison. He might feel love bombing is necessary to get co-operation for a revenge of some sort. Love bombing might be necessary to take advantage of a situation which the sociopath thinks will provide him with a life of little work, more relaxation, more leisure, more wealth. Power is sought for its own sake, not for the sake of an empathetic vision, though the sociopath might pretend he is an empath to get into a position of power (and later try to stage things, trump up conspiracies, create confusion and chaos to solidify his power).

While sociopaths can try to work up the same kinds of gaslighting and trauma-bonding strategies over their victims that narcissists use, sometimes they take control right away, making a person hostage.

Sociopaths take the path of least resistance to get what they want and love bombing is used only when the sociopath feels it must be used to obtain one of his desires (usually at the expense of the other person).

Love bombing is used for conquest only.

Sociopaths tend to work alone as much as they can. They rarely trust others. They also tend to think that everyone is too stupid to pull off the effective manipulative maneuvers that they deem they are superior at.

How to tell if the love is real or not real

It is sometimes really hard to tell if the love and soul-mate pronouncements are real or not real. The best way to tell is to study the traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder (another link) to see if the person love bombing you has any of the traits of these personality disorders, though it is hard to tell in the beginning.

In the meantime, you may want to figure out if all of the love-of-my-life pronouncements are for-real or a scam (before you get hurt). Here is one way to tell:

On narcissists:

Narcissists can't stand any kind or amount of criticism:

The love bombing will stop for narcissists if they feel at all criticized by you, or if they feel slighted in any way, or you want to take the relationship really slow. Love bombing is also likely to stop when you are comfortable with them, and under their control. If you really want to find out whether you are having a whirl-wind romance with a narcissist, criticize them over something minor (perhaps about creativity, boundaries, respect, empathy, anything that narcissists tend to lack) and see if they blow up at you, or get distant, insulting and rejecting. They cannot stand to be seen as a regular person with flaws. While normal people will bristle over being criticized, and can feel hurt, narcissists will either go on the attack, or feel so wounded and hurt that they will withdraw from you and try to make you feel insecure about their love. You will quickly get the feeling that they cannot handle criticism at all, in any kind of normal way.

Narcissists tend to lack creativity. They tend to be very formulaic. So, if you are going to criticize them, how they could improve one of their projects with creativity, would be the area to try out the experiment. Watch their expressions.

Narcissists can't stand boundaries and the fact that you think about other people or things other than them:

The other thing that narcissists hate is boundaries. One of the reason they love bomb you and appear to have the greatest sympathy for you is to break through your boundaries and get to know what makes you tick.

Narcissists have a track record of idealize, devalue, discard cycles in their relationships and they pretend they are victims in their past relationships:

Right off: real victims go to therapy, and they are usually in therapy for a long time, and often with other survivors, and they usually get diagnosed with PTSD. They usually read a lot about abuse and have an understanding of the subject. Note: do not confuse therapy with couples counseling which narcissists are sometimes willing to do. We're talking domestic abuse counseling, narcissistic abuse counseling or trauma-related counseling.

Narcissists almost never go to therapy unless their reputations are on the line from public exposure, or they don't want to lose narcissistic supply from a lover or spouse, or they are court-ordered. Narcissists blame others and try to suck in others (empaths) for sympathy for their pretend-victim status.

Narcissists also tend to take up other relationships (especially with their victims' rivals or best friends -- anything that hurts the target) very quickly after a relationship has broken off. They also tend to take extravagant vacations and cruises, or go on expensive shopping sprees, or buy luxury items after the dissolution of their relationships, whereas normal people tend to isolate themselves and get depressed. Real victims also tend to get very skittish about getting into new relationships after they have been victimized and tend to want to go very, very slow: in other words, they are generally NOT the love bombing types of people.

So, if your date (or new friend) has a lot of victim stories, find out if they have gotten treated in therapy for it and how long (get proof). Find out if they just left a relationship (big red flag as real victims don't go hunting for a new relationship or love bomb a new person right after a breakup). Dig into their past to find out if they leave victims behind or if they were victimized because they were groomed to take abuse as a child (child abuse). Are they a scapegoat of their family, or are they a golden child? If they are a scapegoat, they are more likely to be real victims. If they are a golden child be aware that over half of golden children grow up to be bullies with entitlement issues (making them primed to be a narcissist).

If there are also signs of idealize, devalue, discard in their past relationships, you are probably dealing with a love-bombing narcissist who manipulates people.

Narcissists are glib and arrogant:

Most narcissists pretend they are experts and superior at everything and that you need to listen to their expertise, advice and lectures. They also tend to be charming. They give a little too much advice. They pretend to be interested in all of the same things you are interested in (mirroring), but they act as though they have superior knowledge of those interests.

They ask way too many questions of you while not revealing even a tiny fraction of those same subjects about themselves. Do not mistake this manipulation tactic as their being interested or enthralled with you.

On sociopaths:

They are also a Cluster B like a narcissist, so there are some similarities, but the difference is that they don't necessarily go into a rage when you criticize them, they don't have the kind of abuse cycles that narcissists do (they tend to discard you for good and move on to other prey), they don't like societal attention or detection, they tend to fib quite a lot more than narcissists, and they tend to be even more exploitative than narcissists.

Sociopaths look very uncomfortable when a conversation topic turns to empathy.

Watch their facial expressions or boredom when this topic comes up. Rarely will they look engaged or look people in the eye when this topic takes a dominant place. Mostly they look away. If they do engage, they will not be in agreement with an empathetic view-point. Sociopaths are into punishments, retaliation and they make "they deserve what they had coming to them" kinds of statements.

Sociopaths hate it when you want to slow things down

That is because they want what they want, and they want it NOW! The more you slow things down, or show them that they aren't any more important than others in your life, the less they can overtake you with their own agenda. Sociopaths are not good at wait ... and wait .... and wait.

Sociopaths aren't attracted to you when they feel that knowing you is of no benefit to them:

If you think that the person you just got to know is a sociopath, and you want him to disengage, appear really boring, to have nothing that will be of interest to him (finances, connections, compassion for his plight, sex, anything you can think of). Giving back any gifts is also a pretty good idea. Dressing down is another good idea. With sociopaths, you have to appear confident in yourself and your boundaries. They like easy prey, and if you make it clear that your boundaries are firm, that you are surrounded by protection, and that you have nothing to offer them, they usually go away unless they are totally obsessed with you.

If you are an empath, pretend NOT to be an empath. They target empaths by the boatloads for abuse.

If they are obsessed with you, or keep trying to contact you when you have said "no", or they want to make an example of you, call the police (with evidence). Sometimes criticizing them and/or exposing them will usually make them back off too. They may want to retaliate because of the actions you take, but they usually won't if you make it very clear that there is absolutely nothing about you that is of any use to them, including any ego boosts or reciprocity of feelings, and that you are surrounded by other people who love you and protect you.

Also making it known that you don't keep secrets, especially theirs, can work too.

Sociopaths generally insult others a lot (it is their favorite pastime), and especially behind their backs in long cynical, if sometimes humorous condemnations, so if you insult them a little in return, especially if you are the opposite sex, that is a language they understand. Make sure not to get taken in by their escalations of bigger and bigger insults: you just want to send them the one-time message to back off and leave you alone.

Generally, it is not a good idea to insult anyone (it is a form of verbal abuse), but if done right, and once, it can also be one of the few ways sociopaths understand that there is nothing in the relationship for them. Contempt, disgust and disapproval are emotional-type boundaries that tend to work so much better on sociopaths than, say, telling them how hurt you are by their actions and their complete lack of empathy, why you need to be left alone, why you can't seem to tolerate their particular personality or ways of doing things. The former usually gets them going off in another direction, whereas the latter keeps them coming back at you.

Making it very clear that you won't be taken in by ANY love bombing at all, no matter how much they try, and showing disgust about it and them may be a good idea when it comes to the sociopath.

Sociopaths leave a trail of victims who no longer want to associate with them.

That is because the wounding, threats and betrayal that sociopaths do is great.

If you talk to the sociopath's victims, they usually complain of the sociopath's need for pathological control. Sociopaths don't give up on a "punishment" or other sanction/maltreatment unless they have what they want from you. Sociopaths are also noted for using medications, mind control, cult-like persuasion, brainwashing, forced addiction to alcohol or drugs on their victims, threats, staged incidents, re-telling of the events or feelings of others, scare tactics, or some other penance to control their victims.

"You should never have done that" or "said that" is a typical phrase of the sociopath if and when you look into their past, tell of a past incident you don't like that they were part of, or even contact someone from their past.

If the sociopath has children, most of them try to get out of child support payments at some point during their lives whether they are rich or poor, so that is another sign. In general, sociopaths like to break agreements, promises and boundaries.

All sociopaths tend to be sadistic in some way. They get off  on hurting or punishing others who do not go along with their agendas. They particularly enjoy the punishment of animals and small children. So look into their past for these signs.

Sociopaths have very few, if any, close friends.

Love bombing of a child after the child has been discarded (estranged, shunned, punished by ostracism by a narcissistic or sociopathic parent for a few years):

When narcissistic and sociopathic parents love bomb their estranged children to try to get them back in the family or back into a role again, it is called hoovering. I have yet to do a post on hoovering, but basically it comes down to love bombing with the idealize, devalue, discard cycle of abuse (the idealization stage being the love bombing stage).

Children are often not especially valuable sources of narcissistic supply. Most children do not idealize a parent beyond ten years old. The reason why is that they were meant, by biology, to grow up and move away to start their own families. They are also not good supply because they know too much about their parent, and are usually onto them even when they don't say so. Information within a family is so porous and leaky that the narcissist is more likely to be dealing with shame and depression in the long run, especially in old age, if they try to turn their children into narcissistic supply.

But narcissists are bold and brazen, and most try to make their children into supply anyway, just for the hell of it. They overwhelmingly use triangulation, gaslighting, trauma-bonding, parentifying, infantilizing, perfectionism and word salad arguments as their main on-going weapons against their own children.

Estranged, ostracized, shunned, rejected children are very, very common for narcissistic and sociopathic parents. It is usually the family scapegoats that are left out of the family. In contrast, it is so extremely rare for the rest of the population to treat children the way that abusive parents do. If narcissists or sociopaths are ever exposed about their abuse, they can meet with dismissal and derision from society (and this is when the tear-soaked "I have sinned" public displays come out, along with the love bombing of the children they dumped).

So, as you can see, making children into narcissistic supply for the narcissist has many drawbacks.

Some of the reasons why parents hoover (love bomb) has been talked about earlier, but if you are trying to look for signs to keep from getting into a relationship with a narcissist or sociopath, the following are better tell-tale signs of hoovering children:
* one sign of narcissists and sociopaths is that they are estranged from at least one of their children. This is usually the scapegoat child. They absolutely need a scapegoat to keep the bad deeds they do to others from being exposed and attributed to them, so they adopt one of their children to take all of the blame for their deeds instead. This is the big reason perpetrators pretend to be the victims of their scapegoat estranged children. However, children who are estranged don't make very good garbage cans for blame. Cluster B disordered parents cannot blame someone who is so far outside of the family that no one knows where he lives or what he is doing, has no contact with anyone in the family, so hoovering here and there becomes the way of continuing to effectively scapegoat, especially if there are any eyes on the situation.
* when the golden child is not satisfying them enough, isn't giving them the narcissistic supply they demand -- and they demand A WHOLE LOT, so it is not uncommon for friction to arise with the golden at some point and for an ostracized scapegoat child to be hoovered back in to challenge the golden
* when the golden child dies and all that is left is the scapegoat, so even if the scapegoat has been discarded for years, the narcissist will usually try to hoover the scapegoat back in to take the golden child's place
* the narcissists or sociopath are publicly exposed or they feel they are in danger of being exposed and rush to love bomb their estranged child to keep the child "from talking" (hoping the child will display loyalty to his parent in return for parental love bombing)

Love bombing sentences to estranged children:
* "I always loved you. You are my child, but you didn't see it, so we spent all of those years apart."
* "I really wanted to know you better, but you seemed more comfortable not having a parent in your life."
* "I wanted you back in my life, but you never came back to apologize like I expected you to."
* "I'm not a perfect parent. I make mistakes. So, I asked you to leave and not contact me. Big deal! Get over it! Now I love you! So accept it!"
* "I made a mistake. I really wanted to know you, but (golden child) was so much more persuasive and loving towards me."
* "You and I weren't getting along then, but I loved you the entire time you were gone, so we should just forgive and forget the past."
* "We didn't have the same perspectives. But sometimes perspectives change. And now I see value in you where I didn't before."
* "I thought our relationship was too damaged to fix. So I didn't try. But now I see that it wasn't damaged because my love for you carried on through the years when you were absent."

This is all manipulative B.S. and word salad by the way, and indicative of the honeymoon stage in the cycle of abuse. Narcissists and sociopaths so rarely change their behavior or views that they cannot be counted on to be trustworthy. These kinds of statements show absolutely no awareness, empathy or love of any kind. The only sign of them wanting to really change into a loving human being instead of an abusing or rejecting one is their desire for total rehabilitation (i.e. a commitment to learn about their condition from professionals, reflection into their past and the childhood abuse they endured and genuinely wanting to stop it from continuing down through the generations, on-going therapy with a domestic violence counselor, anger management classes, a commitment to child abuse causes and the healing of its victims, etc). Even if they do all of this, which is extremely doubtful, they can never entirely be counted on in terms of telling the truth about loving their children in any on-going, promise-laden, empathetic way (or their grandchildren either). "A leopard never changes its spots" should always be heeded, I believe, and if they totally surprise you that they have changed (it takes years and years), then they have done themselves a service whether the people around them can put stock in it or not.

With sociopathic parents therapy doesn't make sense because they will take what they learned for more abusive "tricks and tactics". I'm not a believer in sociopaths transforming into anything other than double-trouble sociopaths, with even more sadistic games up their sleeves.

Children of abuse or abandonment should always have their guard up at all times -- my philosophy. If you have PTSD, trying to have a relationship with your abusive parent again or even seeing them, may make your PTSD soar and get so much worse. It's a case-by-case basis. I personally would never share intimate personal details about your life with them under any circumstances.

For more on how narcissists and sociopaths treat their children, you can go to the following posts:

* Narcissists and Children -- my own post
* Sociopaths and Children -- my own post
* Psychopaths are unable to love their own children — here’s why -- by Lindsay Dodgson (this is a good article, however the research on the role of the Golden child is from only one source, and woefully inadequate and inaccurate -- from all of my own studies and research the conclusion is that half of golden children become ultra-empaths and half become bullies/Cluster Bs: see favoritism in the family ... in another post I address why there are two drastically differing Goldens: the empath golden child and the bully golden child).

* The Dysfunctional Ways a Family Protects a Narcissist -- by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC, for Psych Central (note: this article has to do with narcissists who stay in one marriage. Cheating narcissists, huge enmeshed families, and broken families with step parents change the dynamic Ms. Hammond talks about quite a bit -- there is actually more hope for breaking the tradition of domestic abuse being passed down the generations when step parents and inlaws enter into a family like this).

Following love bombing by a narcissist or sociopath, there is usually a discard phase, as I have mentioned:

The reasons for discards are spelled out by Dale Archer, M.D. in this Psychology Today article:

1. The devalued partner no longer supplies what attracted the love bomber in the first place. Seeing his partner as exhausted, broke, depressed, or less attractive, the bomber discards her for someone shiny and new.

2. The devalued partner gets fed up and starts pushing back, demanding reciprocity for sacrifices or defending boundaries, making it clear she refuses to be manipulated anymore. Feeling exposed, the love bomber discards his non-compliant partner for one who doesn’t yet see behind his mask of phony perfection.

3. The love bomber uses the discard as part of the manipulation, fully planning to reconnect in the future. Think of it like devaluation on steroids. He disappears, sometimes without warning, leaving the victim feeling devastated and confused. Then days, and sometimes months later, he reappears, out of the blue, professing undying love and promising to change. Curiously absent in many cases is an apology. Instead, the return is a test of his power and control, a challenge to see if his discarded partner can be conned into another round of abuse. If so, the cycle repeats.

Whether the discard is followed up with a honeymoon phase, largely depends on whether the partner can be honeymooned back into the relationship. If there have been a lot of rounds of the abuse cycle, most partners realize it is a bad habit and start to separate, at least emotionally first. Love does not mean a cycle of idealizations and discards, and most everyone knows that.

For children, the situation can be quite different. While disordered parents expect a round of idealizations and discards with children too, their plans for a cycle of abuse go awry in a way that they don't for partners.

For young children who are discarded, it means going off to live with the other parent or guardian who will have quite a lot more influence than the narcissist (the narcissist can find that love bombing does not work at all on children they want back, that children feel high levels of anxiety and distress with a parent who discards, leading to life long estrangement).

For adult children, a parental discard means spending a lot more time with their own families or peers, which is the natural order of life anyway. The difference is that in normal families, parents have some input, and their input is welcomed and appreciated. Adult children of rejecting narcissistic parents do not want the input of their parent because the adult child does not want their own children to be exposed to experiencing idealizations and discards. This is the main reason for permanent estrangements (note: this does not come from a professional study; it comes from my own observations in forums for survivors of child abuse. Protecting their kids from grandparent discards or watching the grandparent discard is by far the predominant and overwhelming reason for permanent child-parent estrangements).

Children also experience the love bombing/discard experience differently than partners. Most adult children state (from forums again) that they felt that the experience resembled being brought up a mountain (love bombing stage) and then being shoved off of a high cliff once at the top (discard phase). In other words, it was just too painful to repeat again. Many children of narcissistic parents experience discards during the worst points of their lives too (major surgeries, major illnesses, being diagnosed with a life threatening disease, the death of their other parent, losing a child, etc). Parents like this do their discards during traumatic times for a reason: it has to do with the parent trying to get their child to trauma bond with them and trying to grab more power when you are vulnerable, which I will cover in another post.

For more on how narcissists apologize in order to love bomb discards, you can read the following post by psychologist Alexander Burgemeester: The Narcissist and Apology.

Always remember that love bombing is abuse!

Author Dale Archer, M.D. spells out the reasons why love bombing is abuse in the same Psychology Today article:

The important thing to remember about love bombing is that it is psychological partner abuse, period. When one person intentionally manipulates and exploits another’s weakness or insecurity, there’s no other word for it. Love is not about controlling who you see or what you do.

Healthy relationships build slowly, and are based on a series of actions, not a flood of words. Love bombers are experts at talking, but when held accountable for their words, they tend to lash out. It’s normal to feel confused, or betrayed, and the urge to make excuses for the love bomber is strong, because they’ve worked hard to tie your self-esteem to their good opinion. And that’s what makes this cycle of idealization, devaluation, and discard so devastating. Love bombers exploit the natural human need for self worth, and turn it into shame, regret, and self-loathing.

Further reading:

Love Bombing: Have You Ever Been the Target? - Spot the Warning Signs of Love Bombing Early and Recover Faster with These Tips -- by Dale Archer M.D. for Psychology Today

Love bombing -- from Wikipedia

** recommended: What It Means When a Narcissist Says “I Love You” -- from the narcissist's point of view (posted by Athena Staik, Ph.D.)

Love Bombing: A Seductive & Manipulative Technique. -- by Alex Miles

** recommended: 5 Ways to Disarm a Love Bombing Sociopath -- from the True Love Scam Recovery website

The Secret Language of Narcissists: How Abusers Manipulate their Victims. -- by popular author, Shahiba Arabi

** recommended: How to Tell the Difference Between Narcissistic Love Bombing and Healthy Romantic Interest -- by Angela Atkinson from the Queen-Being website

Exposed! 11 Lies Love-Bombing Narcissists Tell -- by Kim Saeed

Love Bombing – When It’s Too Good To Be True -- by Melanie Tonia Evens

The sociopath’s “discard” is soul destroying — you learn your “soul mate” is pure fabrication designed to con, exploit, and hurt -- by O.N. Ward from the Love Fraud website

Love Bombing -- from the Dating a Sociopath website

5 Reasons Narcissists Can’t Have Intimate Relationships; No. 3 Is The Main Reason -- by Amanda Greene

What it is like to date a narcissist -- by Kerri Sackville


How and Why Narcissists Are Highly Skilled Abusers -- by Julia Hall

10 Signs You’re Putting Other People on Pedestals -- by Lenora Thompson for Psych Central

Avoiding Toxic People: Gas-Lighting & Love-Bombing -- by Támara Hill, MS, LPC for Psych Central

11 Things NOT To Do With Narcissists -- by Dan Neuharth, PhD MFT

5 Scientific Secrets to Handling a Narcissist -- by Eric Barker (note: the first bit of advice is NOT about how to handle them). The real crux of how to deal with them comes later: it means walking away, starving them of narcissistic supply, not hiring them for jobs, not listening to their "expertise", not getting involved in romantic relationships with them, not trying to parent with them, not getting involved in projects with them, not believing what they have to say, not trying to be close to them, not interact with them, etc -- in conclusion: just walk away).

One trait or behavior does not make a sociopath – look for a pattern of traits and behaviors -- by Donna Anderson

How Cults Work -- by CultWatch (discusses Love Bombing -- a very similar technique to narcissists and sociopaths in terms of how they try to isolate you from family and/or friends)
 
Sex and Aural Energy ("I always say, never sleep with someone you wouldn't want to be" -- part of the article)

How To Tell If Your Partner Truly Loves You -- by Katie and Jay Hendricks

NEW ARTICLES SINCE PUBLISHING

recommended: What Is ‘Love Bombing’? (Grand romantic gestures in the early days of a relationship could be sweet — or a sign you’re dating a narcissist. Here’s how to tell the difference, according to experts.) - by Gina Cherelus for The New York Times 

from SwanWaters.com: