Don't Narcissists Care About Hurting You?

 

"Mom Does Not Love. The Things Not Said"

Do narcissists care about hurting you? No. 

Is the reason why narcissists don't care about hurting you have to do with their lack of empathy? Yes.

Is the reason why narcissists dont care about hurting you have to do with their inability to form deep connections and sometimes prioritize your feelings over theirs? Yes.

Is the reason for narcissists' inability to have empathy for you have to do with atrophied parts of the brain, particularly the anterior insula and prefrontal cortex? Yes. 

When you feel distressed, do narcissists interpret your feelings as a nuisance for them? Yes (or a burden, an imposition, or inconvenience). What this link reveals is that your distress fails to trigger a comforting response from them, so you often feel alone with your feelings, that they aren't important to the narcissist. 

   What this link also reveals is that they can also respond with anger or invalidation to your pain. Common responses are also dismissal and minimization, blame and playing the victim so that your attention reverts to them. 

Do narcissists sometimes punish you for feeling hurt? Yes. Reasons why include feeling they are being criticized (narcissists are typically emotionally highly dysregulated, often with rage and indignation, when they feel they are being criticized resulting in narcissistic injury), a feeling that they are losing control of what you do, what you say and how you express yourself which can also trigger narcissistic rage in them, especially if they feel it is hurting their ego or challenging their superiority or ego-inflated narrative, and if you feel hurt because of something they did (because narcissists refuse to be held accountable for anything). 

What are types of punishments narcissists indulge in when you are feeling hurt by them? From the link: they escalate hurting you more as opposed to comforting you. They often stonewall or give you the silent treatment. They often gaslight and then blame-shift. They withold affection. They guilt-trip. They bait you to try to get you to react with anger or shame so that they can call you "the problem". 

What are types of punishments that malignant narcissists indulge in when you are feeling hurt by them? From the link: They often escalate abuse to regain dominance. They do the same kinds of things run-of-the-mill narcissists do, but they tend to be much more destructive, weaponizing everything they think they can, to get you to stop talking about being hurt by them. Escalating rage is common and dangerous in the hands of malignant narcissists.  

Do narcissists ever do double-takes later in terms of abusing you because you felt hurt by them? No. From the link: They are not capable of it because they do not make a point of being perceptive of your perspectives and why you might feel the way you do, plus they don't want to consider it because they find remorse and double takes as a weakness which would compromise their feelings of superiority. 

When you feel you can no longer tell a narcissist how you feel, working out resolutions is not possible. What that link reveals: meaningful dialogue about how you feel requires respect from the other person, and narcissists do not respect people who are hurt by them - they will not consider their own accountability, or any form of perspective-taking to understand where you are coming from. You will get blame-shifting, lack of empathy, and a competition where the narcissist will make it clear that they have to win at controlling you and controlling the narrative, and that your being hurt by them is trying to control them to feel guilt, and a "flawed perspective" of their intentions, the former being another "gaslighting attempt". 

Do narcissists understand that they hurt others, even egregiously? Yes, but they just don't care, and they refuse to react to the harm they cause in a way that is helpful or healing. From the link: they justify hurting you. They put up defenses right away, failing to recognize or verbalize any harm they have caused you. They minimize the impact. They often tell you that you are "over-reacting" or are "too sensitive" or that "your perceptions are flawed" (a type of gaslighting). They may rewrite the narrative and blame you for being hurt by their actions. Some narcissists pretend at feeling remorse to hoover you back or to get you from leaving, but most often they don't mean it. In fact, they refuse to feel any remorse if they feel they can get away with it, and instead of feeling remorse, they may escalate abusing you if they think you are trying to make them accountable. "You need to be punished", "the consequences are --" and naming something that will hurt you, threats to take something from you, would be signs, but that tends to be a malignant narcissist's or sociopath's way as run-of-the-mill narcissists are more careful not to label their punishments, threats, consequences, retaliations, abuses, rages, smear campaigns, discards and silent treatments as punishments, or desires to hurt you, so that they can deny they punished you or tried to hurt you at all if they want you back in the future - it is the ultimate gaslighting and hoovering trick: "Why would you ever think I'd want to punish you or hurt you!? Who do you think I am? You must be crazy to think that!"
   They have little to no capacity to respond in a healthy manner to you being hurt by them, and eventually discussing how they treat you becomes unproductive, if not dangerous for you.  What that link reveals: you are never likely to get an apology and any abuse, punishment or retaliation that you are receiving as it relates to them hurting you is likely to escalate. 

How do covert vulnerable narcissists act when you tell them they hurt you? What this link reveals: Covert vulnerable narcissists overreact to criticism to the point where even mild constructive feedback is perceived as a "humiliating, ego-shattering attack". They can also perceive a criticism as an "absolute rejection." However, most people don't know this because narcissists feel so free to criticize others. 
   How they deal with criticism is different from the way grandiose overt narcissists operate. So it becomes impossible to talk to covert vulnerable narcissists about the slightest hurt or issue you've received from them without severe consequences. Some of those consequences include the DARVO tactic, passive aggressive consequences like the silent treatment, deliberately feigning forgetfulness that it's your birthday or other holiday event, or deliberately slacking on promises they made to you, feigned helplessness, feigned victimhood to avoid accountability, guilt-tripping, trying to make you totally responsible for their moods, the attacks they perpetrate, and their well-being.
   Covert vulnerable narcissists operate from a victim mentality, and the more covert narcissists hurt you, the more they play the victim. This manipulation is to get you serving them, just as it is with all narcissists.
   The manipulation tends to work remarkably well, especially since most people are likely to get into "a rescue mode" and are empathetic. However, it does not work long term, especially as you begin to realize they use the victim card any time you have an issue with their behavior. It becomes more like "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" (seeing the manipulation behind claiming they are a victim). 
   However, they actually really do feel victimized in the moment when you have trouble with their behavior or put boundaries in place, however if they are highly critical of others, they don't believe they are doing any damage to the other person - or they believe it is justified, a pre-emptive self protection, or a justified retaliation for any resistance you may have to their control. 
   With malignant vulnerable narcissism, there tends to be a marked bully-victim cycle as well as a more sudden shift from "nice" to "punishing", from calm to blinding rage, more sadistic consequences for the slightest sense that you may be criticizing them or putting up a boundary, quite a bit more projection (blaming you for all of the sins they commit), and since many of them are violent, they can go from being violent towards you to victim stances ("Why don't you help me?", "Why don't you care about me?"). Malignant vulnerable narcissists can be dangerous.
   It can be hard to tell the difference between vulnerable narcissism from malignant vulnerable narcissism because they both act covertly, but the differences are spelled out HERE. The main way to tell the difference is that there is an element of cruelty, sadism and a definite punishing retaliatory mindset to the malignant type. At any rate, it can be exhausting trying to figure out what type they are without counseling or without researching the different types. If you feel they are trying to punish you or destroy you in some way (career, financially, self esteem, in belonging to a common family or friendship group, or resorting to crimes to hurt you), you are probably dealing with the malignant type (and no, malignant narcissists do not, and cannot change - the chances for "genuine" change are extremely, extremely  low - if they attend therapy, they are likely to revert back to the way they were before with new tools for more destructive behavior).
   Therefore, talking to any form of covert narcissist about anything interpersonal does not make sense, and especially talking about how you feel, or how they have hurt you. We do make mistakes sometimes because we don't always know we are talking to narcissists, but if you get a strong reaction and a victim mentality, you can usually make a bet it is due to covert vulnerable narcissism or malignant vulnerable narcissism, and decide how you will discuss things going forward. 

If a narcissist cannot hear you or treat you with respect after hurting you, who do you talk to? What the link reveals: Mental health practitioners, specialized support groups, trusted friends or family members. 

Is the only thing that keeps narcissists from hurting you more is their image and reputation? Yes, but it is not the only thing that holds them back. What that link reveals: Image and reputation management often come first and are part of every narcissist's obsession, but they also don't like losing the steady stream of narcissistic supply and the role you supply. If they hurt you too much, they realize they will lose you and the control of what you say and reveal about them, and since they are terrified of shame and the exposure of their abusive rageful side, they often opt to not go too far into hurting you. For some narcissists, fear of legal and financial repurcussions can also be part of the picture. 
   Having hesitations about hurting you is not part of a sociopath's make up however, so if they deeply and swiftly escalate hurting you, they are likely to have some Antipersonality Disorder traits. And note: narcissists can go sociopathic, especially if they are deeply enabled by others. One way you tell if you are dealing with a malignant narcissist (a person with both narcissistic and socopathic traits) is that they get narcissistic supply out of raging, frightening, and threatening you, and they tend to show sadism in either speech or deeds. They also let you know they hate you and that you deserve the worst treatment if you do not follow their orders. 
   In other words, be careful, as not all people who show the major traits of narcissism hold back on hurting you, especially if they feel their reputation, as well as the control and domination they have over you, is at stake. 

Narcissists don't care if they hurt their children either, right? Right. What that link reveals:
   Some of the hurt they cause to their children is intentional, and some of it is unintentional. The unintentional hurt they cause comes from being unempathetic, extremely self centered, and egocentric.
   Affection is given as a reward for compliance, and not for who the child is.
   Children feel they are only loved when they perform duties for their narcissistic parent.
   Narcissists will still balk at accountability when their child is hurt, and the narcissistic parent will still alter reality (gaslight their child), blame-shift, mock or rage at the child for being hurt.
   This often means that a child's safety, emotional needs and a child's milestones and accomplishments are often ignored unless the parent can use the milestones and accomplishments to make themselves look good and infallible to others.
   The consequence for a child being parented by a narcissist is that they often feel their feelings and emotions are invisible to their parent, and that they must sacrifice these parts of themselves to serve to their parent. What this link reveals: children often try hard to suppress their emotions and authentic selves, or adopt a "false self" to feel safe with their parent. Note: adopting a false self or mirroring the narcissist's opinions, abuse tactics, ways of relating, and prejudices can create narcissism in the child.
   Children also often adopt hypervigilence and fawning to keep safe.
   They also often feel trauma bonded with their parent too.
   Chronic attempts to reach the parent's perfection standards in deeds and emotions causes deep anxiety, and if they find they can never please their parent, they can develop CPTSD. Once a child develops CPTSD, suppressing emotional expression effects the nervous system and can produce either dysregulated emotions ("emotional storms"), living with emotions alone, dissociation, or emotional numbing (unreactive). 

How about narcissistic leaders of nations? Do they care if they hurt their own populace and the populations of other nations? Not really. What that link reveals: They look at it as "a necessary byproduct or collateral damage in the pursuit of their personal goals." 

How about if you tell a narcissist that it won't make your relationship better to punish you? Will they think about what you said? No. What that link reveals: It will rarely lead to changed behavior or self reflection. They typically believe you need to do the self reflecting, and change your behavior because they look at themselves as "the superior" in most relationships (i.e. the one who controls, dominates, is in charge of telling you what to do, and defining what the relationship is and what they determine are your responsibilities towards them, and any deviation from that is looked upon by them as "your moments of insanity or incompetence" or insubordination).
   They are not out to build a healthy relationship. They are out to control you, and if you tell them that they will make the relationship worse by punishing you, and the trust you have in them disappear, they will use what they know about you in this regard to inflict more pain. 

If you ask the narcissist kindly not to punish you or hurt you, what do they usually do? What that link reveals: they rarely stop the behavior. Instead they view your request as a vulnerability and will generally use DARVO and gaslighting tactics, plus increase the punishments (they look at the request as a boundary you are trying to set with them, and it can lead to narcissistic rage and narcissistic injury, as they feel entitled to control you - as in the scene above, the superiority complex they have assumes that they have a right to control you and dominate your decisions, even about personal boundaries).
   Obviously this can be a major issue for us if they are a malignant narcissist who is a domestic violence offender, a criminal narcissist, a paranoid narcissist who believes everyone is out to either compete with them or hurt them, and narcissists in public offices. 

What do narcissists think they get or achieve when they hurt other people? What that link reveals: They hurt other people to regain or maintain control of you, and to restore their self esteem.
   However, psychologists Dr. Ramani Durvasula and Dr. Les Carter have remarked in their videos that they hurt you to make themselves feel they are better than you, that by making you feel worse, they feel better in comparison. Narcissists are always in some sort of competitive frame of mind, so if they feel better than you do, even if they had a hand in making you feel worse, they feel they have won a "happiness competition". This is also referred to in psychology circles as a "zero sum game". 

Do narcissists ever put in the effort to stop hurting others? It is extremely rare, so no, on the whole they do not. What that link reveals: If they try, it's never really a genuine and sustained effort. They have litlle motivation to change because of their defense mechanisms, lack of emotional empathy, and because they are often deeply enabled by people around them. They also believe they will always get their own way, and that they have the upper hand in most situations. 

Does a narcissist hurt a lot of people during their life? Yes. What that link reveals in terms of who gets hurt the most: romantic partners and spouses, their children, their siblings, and their co-workers. Most narcissists know they cause pain and distress to others, but their makeup is such that they almost always prioritize their own satisfactions and desires over the well-being of others. 

Is it wise to try to leave narcissists who punish you for feeling hurt by them? Yes. What that link reveals: Even though narcissists cannot communicate about issues regarding their hurting or abusing others without resorting to negative reactions like rage and punishing (narcissists know they hurt others, but they aren't in the habit of ever admitting it), leaving narcissists over issues like this can present dangers.
   Initiating a split takes careful planning (I usually suggest domestic violence services to assess the dangers of the particlar person you are trying to leave, like whether they are the malignant brand, and the types of things you should take with you when you leave, as every person's situation is different). Narcissists can't even admit to themselves that they drove you away because you were continually hurt by them, instead resorting to smear campaigns like: "She left because she's crazy and a constant basket case", or "He left because he's selfish and never cared how I felt" (which is a type of DARVO), or "She left because I got tired of listening to her problems". They will never recognize the pain they caused you verbally, but if you return, they will punish you for leaving over the pain you felt (image preservation takes precedence). In other words, they thought you should "shut up and endure the pain without complaint". 

How about when it comes to narcissists feeling pain over something you did? Do they expect you to care about causing them pain when they don't care about causing you pain? Quote from Google AI: "Yes, narcissists expect you to care about their pain while ignoring yours."  Another quote from the same article: "They often demand that you prioritize their feelings, validate their struggles, and comfort their distress while giving up your own." - says it all.

After I came across the answer to the last question, I personally am done with this section, but you are free to pursue your own questions.

SOME FURTHER REPERCUSSIONS OF
NARCISSISTS NOT CARING IF THEY HURT OTHERS
APART TO WHAT IT DOES TO THEIR REPUTATION
AND THEIR ABILITY TO OBTAIN POSITIVE FORMS OF
NARCISSISTIC SUPPLY

What I have written in the previous section mainly has to do with narcisists in relationships with spouses, partners, and children, but when we take this into other types of human-to-human contact, it presents a serious problem. For instance:

* Let us say that a narcissistic person causes a serious car accident. They may not care enough about the occupants of the other car enough to call an ambulance. They may instead, be focused on trying to make the accident appear to law enforcement to be the occupants of the other car at fault entirely.  

* Another situation: A narcissist with sociopathic traits (a malignant narcissist) rises to power and starts an invasion of a neighboring country. Since he does not care about hurting other people, and since with the sociopathic traits he doesn't particularly care what it does to his reputation either, he commits war crimes by killing civilians, even children and babies. 
   However, he does care a great deal if people want to hurt him, so he kills people who he fantasizes want to kill him.
   He has a bunker built that he and his comrades can hide in. Eventually, the war ends because there are too many casualties. The soldiers either defect to the other side or march home despite what some of their commanders tell them to do. In fact, even the commanders start marching home at some point, refusing to fight for the malignant narcissist. 
   Most of the public wants the malignant narcissist out of power. When he is caught in his bunker, he acts like a victim and cries for mercy. 

* Another manifestation: A narcissistic person in the heat of an argument kills his mate in a rage. He didn't mean to kill her. He just wanted to hurt her (and frankly, he went too far in hurting her because his narcissism means he doesn't care if he hurts her). 
   He feels persecuted when a judge holds him accountable. 

Narcissists aren't just bad for their mates and families. They can be parasitic in society. 

FURTHER READING:

Do Narcissists Feel Guilty About Abusing Loved Ones?

It can be hard for people to realize how shallow narcissistic love is. - by Elinor Greenberg for Psychology Today

3 Phrases Narcissistic Partners Use During Conflicts

Words that let them withhold empathy, inflict guilt, and shift blame. - by Erin Leonard, Ph.D., for Psychology Today

SOME VIDEOS ON THIS TOPIC:

Do narcissists know they hurt you? - by psychologist, Dr. Ramani (You Tube)

Proof narcissists KNOW their behavior is unacceptable - by psychologist, Dr. Ramani (You Tube)

Unbound: Why Narcissists Need to Hurt You - by psychologist, Les Carter for Surviving Narcissism (You Tube)

The next two videos are from a Facebook public account (called "No More Narcissists"), and require you to sign into Facebook to see them, but they explain a lot of the issues you will encounter succinctly: 

4 Reasons Why Narcissists Feel Nothing After Hurting You

5 Insane Behaviors That Instantly Identify a Narcissist

FOUND ON FACEBOOK:

Is Blatant Favoritism of a Child by a Narcissistic Parent a Sign of Abuse? Comes With a Discussion on Scapegoating

 (edited)

When does favoritism become abuse? To get some answers, I turned to Google Search and Google AI. What I found from Google AI was this (written in dark red):

Favoritism, while sometimes an unintended consequence of personal preferences or rapport, can become abusive when it creates a consistently unequal and harmful environment for those not favored, impacting their well-being, opportunities, and overall sense of worth. 

Here's how favoritism can cross the line into abusive behavior:

In families

Defensiveness and justifications for unfair treatment: Parents who exhibit favoritism may become defensive when confronted about their behavior, offering excuses for the preferential treatment of one child over others.

Unfavored children struggling for affirmation: One child may constantly strive for parental approval without success, while the favored child receives abundant and often undeserved affirmation and privileges.

Creating a sense of entitlement in favored children: Favored children may develop inflated views of themselves, feeling entitled and believing that rules don't apply to them, which can impact their relationships and behavior in the long run.

Diminishing self-esteem in unfavored children: Unfavored children may develop a negative self-image, feel defeated, and struggle with low self-esteem and even depression.

Excessive praise for one child and criticism for others: When a parent consistently praises one child while ignoring or criticizing others, it can create a toxic dynamic where some children feel constantly undervalued.

Negative impact on the favored child: Even favored children can experience negative consequences, such as pressure to maintain a "perfect" image, difficulty with intimate relationships, and feelings of guilt due to resentment from siblings.

Strained sibling relationships: Favoritism can lead to deep-seated resentment and jealousy among siblings, creating lasting rifts in their relationships. 

In the workplace

Undermining meritocracy: When promotions, opportunities, or rewards are based on personal relationships rather than performance, it can demotivate employees and create a sense of injustice, according to Fisher College of Business.

Lowering morale and engagement: Employees who perceive favoritism may feel undervalued and disengaged, leading to decreased job satisfaction and commitment to the organization.

Leading to resentment and conflict: Favoritism can breed resentment among colleagues, potentially causing conflicts and harming teamwork.

Increased turnover: Talented individuals may leave an organization where they feel undervalued and believe they lack fair opportunities for advancement, notes the Global Coach Group.

Risk of discrimination and legal issues: When favoritism is based on protected characteristics like race, gender, age, disability, or religion, it becomes illegal discrimination.

Creating a toxic work environment: Favoritism can contribute to a toxic workplace culture where negative behaviors are normalized, impacting employee well-being and productivity. 

In essence, favoritism becomes abusive when it consistently undermines an individual's worth, denies them fair opportunities, and negatively impacts their emotional and psychological well-being. It creates an environment where personal biases overshadow objective criteria and fair treatment, leading to lasting harm for those subjected to it. 

But why does this happen? What does a parent get out of blatantly favoring one child over another?

For that answer, I turned to this Psychology Today article. Here is an excerpt from the article (again, written in dark red):

What is critical is that all children trust that they are loved and appreciated for what makes them special. Love is unconditional, whereas favoritism is not. Favoritism depends upon children behaving in ways that gratifies parents.

I also turned to Quora and found this:

     Favouritism is in and of itself not abnormal, but favouritism that results in abandonment, comparison, and emotional neglect IS abuse.
     All parents have some slight favouritism, but if they’re actively keeping a child under valued then yes.

The one thing that the answer does not include is scapegoating. If a child is scapegoated, then it can be described as an egregious form of "favoritism abuse" because it is usually a number of family members using one child for blame, blame shifting, silencing and many other kinds of abuse from physical abuse, mental abuse (which includes a lot of manipulation by other family members, especially gaslighting, prejudice and the abuses I write about featured in the right column of this blog and continuing to this page). 

But what do parents get out of it? What could possibly be a positive outcome for them, considering that these kinds of abuses can destroy their child, or at least make them depressed and retreating, and destroy the relationship with their child because what child wants to live a life of defending oneself all of the time, explaining to deaf ears, and in self-protection mode?

You can even see how favoritism could turn ugly, and into a form of abuse by siblings. It might start with the favored child keeping the scapegoat child "out of commission" or it might start with the parent. The parent might try to get the favored child to co-discipline, co-abuse or to be a co-conspirator as a way to support the parent in keeping the scapegoat under-valued, silenced, invalidated and unimportant. 

This is where parental narcissism and psychopathy come into play.  Here is a run down of what a parent might get out of it:

* As a Baiting Technique to get an Emotional Reaction Out of a Scapegoat, and as a Technique to Get All Siblings Fighting for "Favoritism Rewards":
     Narcissists, on the whole, don't like it when they favoritize a child and their other children don't notice, or their other children are too involved with projects, friends, school, hobbies and other activities to care much. Maybe they never liked the favorite child, or they found him to be a liar, or too wrapped up with the parent to have much of a relationship with, or because they find him to be too much of a sycophant and don't respect him because of that (children and adults tend to be disgusted by the sycophantic behavior of others). 
     So in order for the parent to get narcissistic supply (attention), they have to "up" the obviousness of preferring one child over another. 
     Let's say that "upping attention" on the golden child doesn't work either, at least in terms of "the amount" of narcissistic supply they are getting from all of their other children.
     Something has to be more obvious about the favoritism to get their other children working harder for parental attention, approval and affection. 
     What often happens is rewards: the golden child (the favorite) gets more rewards, and most of the other children get fewer rewards to the point where it may even be straddled this way: most rewarded (golden child), sometimes (family mascot), a little less (lost child) and none (scapegoat). 
     Now the children notice this because it is very obvious; it's not just a feeling the parent has of liking one child more, but a downright policy. 
     This may or may not spark competition between all of the siblings depending on whether and how much they are able to win this game, and whether they want to play it. 
     Because of the rigidity of roles, no child other than the golden child wins this game very well. They can either get brutalized by their siblings, especially if "the winning" is unjust, or the hard work of one of the children is overlooked, or if there is any sycophancy involved (and usually there is), if there is any sibling abuse involved, perpetrated by the more sycophantic children (and usually there is), and if the parent always sees their child in terms of these unchanging roles (and usually they do), and if the parent only sees their children as narcissistic supply givers (and usually they do). 
     This is a pretty dangerous game to initiate between children, but often narcissists aren't aware of it, and they don't particularly care either because narcissistic supply from this game always comes first. 
     Where the baiting comes in for the scapegoat is usually in this way:
     Scapegoats give up on trying to win this game or even of participating in it way before their other siblings. And the further they get from the game, the more disgusting it seems to them. Most of them, anyway. The more traumatized scapegoats don't even particularly notice the game; they have always felt more "outside of the family" than in it because of how they are treated: often with contempt. So the thinking here would go more in the direction of: "I'm not part of this game because I could never win it anyway. Mom (or Dad) hate me anyway. This game isn't even appealing to begin with. Everyone is fighting." 
     For those scapegoats who are disgusted by how their siblings are all stepping on each other, and over each other, and fighting with each other to get approval and rewards, these scapegoats start telling of the flaws of the game instead, which enrages most narcissistic parents because they expect their children to notice the game enough to want to compete in it, but not notice it enough where they see any flaws in the game. Also finding flaws in the game is a threat to their parent's ego and grandiose vision of themselves as being an excellent parent.
     In other words, by focusing on "the flaws of the game", it's basically saying their parent is a  "manipulator", which would be true, but narcissists feel they can't be criticized without going into a rage, so into a rage they go, and often abuse the scapegoat over a perfectly healthy response to this dog-eat-dog competition between siblings. 
     Most scapegoats do end up revealing and talking about the game inside and outside the family. There is a reason why scapegoats are often referred to as "the truth tellers" of the family. This would be one reason. And for a family who is living in the bowels of this much narcissism, truth is not appreciated unless there are other siblings who want to drop out of the game.
     So in order for the parent to get narcissistic supply from a scapegoat, they'll have to count on negative narcissistic supply instead of positive narcissistic supplies. Positive narcissistic supplies are flattery, sycophancy, elevating the narcissist's status and power, and brainwashed suppliers. Negative narcissistic supply is baiting a subject into being afraid, hurt, upset, angry, and often stonewalled, insulted, hated and neglected. When narcissists can't feel any positive narcissistic supplies coming from their children, the parent will revert to getting negative narcissistic supplies instead.
     The one thing narcissists don't see is that all of this flattery and sycophancy can be a manipulation, a manipulation between siblings, and a manipulation of the parent in order to get rewards. So it teaches manipulation, and that relationships are transactional. The transactional part is that the child is rewarded for "the right kind of narcissistic supply" or the child is punished for the "wrong kind of narcissistic supply". Once a child adopts enough manipulative behavior, and is doing his own transactions in this way, he's in danger of becoming another narcissist. 
     When it comes to the scapegoat, negative narcissistic supply is achieved by attacking and baiting the scapegoat. 
     The baiting and attacks go like this:
     * starting erroneous arguments and erroneous blaming sessions with the scapegoat. They either pick something they "think" will elicit guilt from the scapegoat, however small, or if necessary, made up.  
     * aggressive emotional outbursts at the scapegoat
     * blaming them when a sibling hurts them ("You brought this upon yourself!" and other sayings ... remember that scapegoating is about blame shifting, taking blame off of themselves and other family members they put on a higher hierarchy and giving it to the scapegoat). 
     * lots of criticism and contempt
     * trying to make the scapegoat feel insignificant, or ignored, or unwanted
     * trying to lecture them about negative traits they are perceived to have (some of them will be made up - common)
     * trying to convince them that they are crazy (gaslighting) and that the only way to be "un-crazy" is to be a sycophant of the narcissistic parent
     * starting smear campaigns about their child which have a little truth to them, but are mostly lies; telling others that their scapegoat child is crazy and should not be talked to or listened to
     * for overt grandiose narcissists, trying to get the scapegoat to say "I have a great parent", and for covert vulnerable narcissists, trying to get the scapegoat to feel sorry for them. Either way, it's a pleading attempt to get the child to focus on the narcissist and the narcissist's feelings rather than on the games the narcissist is playing. 
     * trying anything to get scapegoats involved in the game rather than looking from the outside of it by distracting them with baiting them for negative emotional responses (which, when looked at from the outside, also adds up to being manipulated).
     * for malignant narcissists, sadism and sadistic acts.
     It still does not garner the results that narcissists want. 
     For one thing, all of this contributes to a scapegoat getting traumatized. The more traumatized they become, the more retreating they will do in terms of the parent and the game, the more disassociating they will do, the less they'll want or need approval from the parent in terms of getting any narcissistic supply for themselves.  
     Scapegoats tend either to be not addicted to narcissistic supply for the very reason that they are very rarely rewarded, or they are so vilified, even if falsely, and feel so entrapped in vilification and symptoms from trauma. Some scapegoats go into a radical acceptance frame of mind, keeping their own dreams alive of a better life ahead, or until they feel they can escape effectively. Some of them commit suicide, or have enough suicidal thoughts and trauma symptoms as to be largely disabled by them, mostly manifesting in obvious ways around puberty to age 16 years old.
     Another reason scapegoats feel they aren't dependent on narcissistic supply, is that in contrast, their narcissistic parent may have grown up giving narcissistic supply (or approval or flattery) to their own parent, and got rewarded for it. It's the Pavlov Dog's theory.
     Somehow they got rewarded a lot by someone anyway. 
     This also has a lot to do with why narcissists take criticism so hard (they associate it with being "unrewarded"). 
     For scapegoats, Pavlov's Dog theory doesn't exist. 
     However, for the parent, they don't realize this. Thus they always expect rewards if they flatter their scapegoat, or give them some breadcrumbs as an attempt to keep them in the game, even if they are floating off into their own minds, hopes and dreams most of the time.
     Why would any kind of approval or disapproval work when a parent is so wrong at assessing the scapegoat, including all of the smear campaigns which are even more wrong than anything the narcissist says directly to the scapegoat? It's an eye-rolling event for most scapegoats.
     So a lot of scapegoats, maybe even a majority of them, do not look for approval from their narcissistic parent, nor care whether their narcissistic parent approves or disapproves of them, or is on yet another "bender" of disapproving of someone (and these kinds of parents are always negative on many others in their life too, and often for similar reasons, with lies and false narratives part of the story). 
      Thus the reason why giving or withdrawing narcissistic supply to a scapegoat (and these can be drastic yo-yo events), is because so much is made up about the scapegoat, including traits they don't have, things they don't do, words they don't say, motives they don't have, and fights they did not start. They come away from the experience feeling "not known", and "invisible", with disapprovals that have no impact other than that they are invisible.
     The scapegoat, especially one who has other non-narcissistic adults in their life, is going to come away from a lot of it thinking, "Who cares what my parent thinks!"
     Thus the scapegoat becomes independent minded (the most unaddicted to narcissistic supply in the whole family) and the golden child the most addicted to it. 
     That doesn't prove that fighting a competition game with your siblings is a good idea. 
     Major fail!

* Getting Sadistic Pleasure out of "Disfavoring":
     Sadism can also be described as negative narcissistic supply. The narcissist or psychopath has largely given up getting positive narcissistic supply, so he (or she) counts on negative narcissistic supply: getting someone else upset, or angry, or fearful, or begging, or disgusted, or wanting justice, and the perpetrator making sure it is all in the hands of himself, that only he will control the outcome.  
     Narcissists who don't get much positive narcissistic supply, or have long or frequent narcissistic collapses can go psychopathic (the secondary type of psychopathy, often referred to as sociopathy). 
     When narcissist's shame gets activated, and when they keep falling from grace, they go into a shame-rage cycle. What this means is that when their shame is activated, they rage, unlike the rest of us who feel hurt instead. For the collapsed narcissist, this can take on a more menacing quality: revenge and retaliation, even if their victim is innocent or a seven year old. 
     If the narcissist has no remorse, and shows no empathy for having made you suffer, then they have entered the realm of psychopathic traits or psychopathic personality disorders (often referred to as Antisocial Personality Disorder). 
     Usually signs of sadism mean they get their narcissistic supply from a lot more negative narcissistic supply than positive narcissistic supply, particularly from instilling fear as well as unjustified and unjust punishing of their victims. 
     Sadism can also mean they have given up on getting positive narcissistic supply, and have decided that negative narcissistic supply will do. It's still attention, and the reward centers of the brain can react in a positive way from seeing someone afraid of them or traumatized by injustice. 
     Young male school shooters in their early twenties are usually collapsed narcissists with heavy doses of paranoia. 
     Child abductors and parents who practice false imprisonment and on-going abuse of a child usually prefer negative narcissistic supply too. 
     For narcissists who display both grandiose narcissistic traits and psychopathic traits, they rely on positive narcissistic supply to get them into power (popularity with future faking), and then display negative calloused revenge oriented traits once in power, particularly to anyone who opposes what they are doing, in order to keep themselves in power. "Divide and conquer" is another stand-out trait you will see. 
     In terms of scapegoats who tend to be "unfavored", a parent who gets off on the negative emotions of a scapegoat child is going to have some psychopathic traits. The more obvious the favoritism is to the point of neglecting and abusing the scapegoat, laughing or getting calm when the scapegoat cries over issues of injustice, stonewalling when the scapegoat wants to talk about the favoritism, and in general, any kind of satisfaction that a parent gets out of the suffering of the scapegoat by the favoritism, you can bet that parent has psychopathic traits. 
     Complaining, and telling a parent you are hurt because of the favoritism is not going to do any good; it's how the parent gets their narcissistic supply, your being hurt over the issue. Not only will this not be resolved so that you will feel "less hurt", but the parent will "up" the favoritism, "up" the hurting to new intensities and different forms of it, and then flaunt more favoritism. 
     If that's not a sign of sadism and psychopathy, I don't know what is. 
     In addition, scapegoats who are discarded from their family after they bring up the favoritism issue, and the narcissistic parent is not showing any care or empathy for where their child is or how they are faring after the discard, and is actually acting as though they are really enjoying it, and having fun with it, and laughing about it, and deriding the scapegoat more, has psychopathic traits; you can count on it. 
     The presence of sadism is, unfortunately, a sign the parent is too deep into their personality disorders to change or have remorse at any time afterwards.
     If they want you back (usually many years or decades after they've discarded you - that's the trend of hoovering for narcissists with psychopathic traits), and show remorse, you can almost always count on it being "fake remorse" with more egregious abuse to follow. 
     The only reason for this kind of parent to want you back is because they need to keep you in a scapegoat role, and feel you have escaped it too much for their comfort, or because they feel they need a scapegoat with your qualities (maybe you accepted the scapegoat role in the past more than your siblings are willing to fulfill the role).

* As a Baiting Technique to Mind-control and Brainwash:
     The idea here is similar to the "competition game" with siblings to get narcissistic supply from the parent by fighting with your siblings in order to get it. 
     By the narcissistic parent focusing conversations with the scapegoat on everything that is right with the golden child, and why they favor them so much, they hope to influence the scapegoat to act more like the golden child. They hope that this will mean the scapegoat will be constantly searching for approval and affection from the parent just like the golden child is, constantly seeking positive reinforcement from the parent like the golden child is, letting the parent make all of the decisions for them just like the golden child does, and so on. 
     But this requires that the scapegoat see the golden child like the parent does. But often they don't see the golden child in anything close to the idealized way that the parent sees. 
     Again narcissists indulge in behaviors where the role of the child is way more important than who the child is, and what the child really thinks and feels, so how the parent perceives the golden child can be drastically different than how a scapegoat experiences the same golden child. 
     If the scapegoat experiences the golden child as menacing, duplicitous, disgustingly sycophantic, and/or contemptuous, then it won't work, and rarely does a parent care to know how one child is experiencing another one of their children. The only thing that matters to them is whether their child is acting more like the golden child. 
      So, let us say that no progress is being made. The scapegoat child isn't turning themselves inside out to mimic the golden child. It is the more common outcome. The scapegoat wants to be loved for themselves, not make themselves into someone else.
     This is not to say that there aren't any scapegoat children who mimic, but they aren't common. In fact, I have a post started on this subject, and most of the time if there is mimicking by a scapegoat, it's  because the golden child is exceptionally talented, high-achieving or paraded around by the parent in beauty pageants or some kind of sport. This kind of golden child isn't bullying or menacing either for a scapegoat to want to "be them". This presents a host of other kinds of issues that narcissists don't consider and won't be happy with, but for the meantime, I will leave that discussion to that other post. 
     Anyway, since most narcissistic parents can't seem to make their scapegoat turn themselves inside out to be "just like the golden child", narcissists will always choose the punishing route when their manipulations do not work. 
     So the punishing route is to try to brainwash the scapegoat into thinking that they, the scapegoat, has all kinds of negative qualities compared to the golden child. In other words the parent tries to separate them: the golden child is all that is good, and has all of the qualities that are required by the parent, and the scapegoat is all bad (and crazy too, as all scapegoats are called crazy even when they aren't). 
     This can be a day in and day out experience for the scapegoat. 
     "Oh, here we go again! Your drawings are terrible. Look at your brother's! You shouldn't even try."
     "You're so sure of yourself! Your sister is a lot more humble. Why aren't you?"
     "Another B! Don't show me that when you are just as capable as your sister of getting an A."
     "I always knew you were more stupid than your brother."
     "You don't stand a chance. Your brother is way ahead of you now because you didn't try hard enough." 
     "You'll never be a 'great anything'. In fact, I'll put my money on it that your brother is way more successful in life than you. You're too flawed and disappointing to be great."
     It's ground into them constantly, all of these comparisons and negative judgements. I have listed a lot of the negative comments that scapegoats receive from their narcissistic parents HERE. 
     In a lot of religions, there are clauses to "not judge." A lot of religions were about keeping people in the faith, keeping children in their families, stabilizing society. Judgements tear people apart because they are, in effect, contempt. And of all the four horseman of the Apocalypse (the deciding factor of which relationships will fall apart), contempt will assure that the relationship will not survive. 
     When you are deemed to be so "flawed" that it is the only thing a parent sees about you, and a scapegoat takes those judgements seriously, they interpret it as contempt. They can work on plans to leave or run away. They can and do commit suicide over it too. In fact, suicidal thoughts are more likely than turning themselves inside out to be exactly like the golden child, a golden child they may not want to be anything like. 
     And believe it or not, for the sickest narcissists, suicides are another source of narcissistic supply with more false narratives.
     The other alternative to suicide is the same route I've discussed before: the scapegoat stops caring about whether their parent approves of them or not. The parent's false narratives will assure the scapegoat won't care, and listening to how they are so flawed won't work either if false narratives pepper the story. Plus the contempt will assure a "gone scapegoat" and a "broken damaged relationship".  
     The other thing that narcissistic parents do is, as I've said before, is to try to brainwash their scapegoats that they are crazy and can't understand reality and that they need to follow the constant directions, advice and commands of the parent so that they don't make mistakes. This isn't just relegated to their child's childhood years, but throughout life. The ultimate reason a parent would do this is to have complete control over the child at all times: what the child does, what they say, who they talk to, what they talk about - the narcissistic parent wants to control all of it. Trying to isolate the child from other familial relationships is all part of the agenda, as well as smear campaigns about the scapegoat's mental health behind that child's back. So a lot of betrayal is part of gaslighting a child. 
     Assuming the child gets brainwashed to think they are so crazy that they have no free will, it will damage a child's ability to form a free will, to ward off other predators and narcissists, as well as create the idea that they cannot survive in the world because they are crazy. I go into the issues of gaslighting a child in this post (under the gaslighting category towards the bottom of the page). 
     I'm not sure this is all manipulation either since all narcissists do this to their scapegoat child (it is just one of those weird anomalies that all narcissists with Narcissistic Personality Disorder share). Scapegoats can show symptoms of trauma, and that can be interpreted as "My child is crazy" by a narcissist. 
     But there is something consciously evil and intentional about gaslighting too, because it sounds less concerning and more contemptuous when narcissists are trying to brainwash in this way. They also tend to be abusive of children they deem to be crazy. Also because they are so addicted to power, control and domination, gaslighting provides an instant, easy and fast route to get to a place of absolute dominance and hidden abuse. 
     In terms of favoritism, scapegoats are often compared negatively to the golden child in terms of sanity, in terms of mental acuity, in terms of factual acuity, in terms of mental stamina, in terms of intelligence, and in terms of school grades (falling school grades are often influenced by the trauma of scapegoats). 
     If a scapegoat believes all of this, they know they will never get the positive treatment that the golden child gets because narcissists are typically prejudiced of people with mental illnesses, mental handicaps, children with falling grades, and they like to give their scapegoat children diagnoses and reasons why they are rejectable and a laughing stock because of their minds. 
     It takes only one parent or adult to get a scapegoat child to question why a parent is doing this. 
     Sometimes it's because a parent does not want to continue to parent their scapegoat child. They want an excuse to either abandon parenting or use neglectful parenting, and trying to promote the idea that their child is insane makes it a lot easier to do so.
     Telling everyone that their golden child is absolutely sane keeps their reputation intact because they aren't saying that about all of their children. 
     Whether the child gets brainwashed into thinking of themselves as insane is, again, dependent on a lot of factors. If they aren't called crazy in any other part of their life and relationships, then they feel simply betrayed and unloved instead. If their parent is using it with a lot of false narratives, then it isn't effective either. If the golden child is not a picture of sanity to the scapegoat, that will, again, mitigate the effectiveness of calling the scapegoat crazy compared to the golden child. With enough lies and false narratives by the parent and the golden child, children who are called crazy can either dissociate during those periods, or simply not trust what the parent has to say. 
     Being blamed for things they didn't do (gaslighting a child to think they do things they aren't aware of) will also mean the child won't respect what the parent has to say about them. 
     Many scapegoats don't realize the extent of the gaslighting until they spend most of their time with another adult, or when they go "no contact", or when they are bringing up their own child. 
     There is no reason to call a child crazy, even if it may be true, or especially when it is not true.
     A lot of narcissists like to use it as a form of prejudice and to silence their scapegoats. And they use it to compare them negatively to the golden child. 
     Psychologists think that gaslighting is the most egregious kind of abuse that narcissists do to their scapegoat children. It certainly is the most evil, but it's the kind of abuse that tends to work slowly and insidiously on a child and can be mitigated by other adults who are not convinced the child is insane, so I would still say that the Jekyll/Hyde behaviors of narcissists seem more immediately egregious and dangerous (in other words, trauma symptoms are immediate and noticeable, as well as their own responses, namely flight responses).  

* As a Baiting Technique to Keep Children in Role (the Golden Child as Supporter of the Parent, and the Scapegoat as the One to Carry the Family Member's Own Bad Traits and Motivations):
     You can see this in politics today where the leaders of a party accuse a number of politicians in the opposing party for the traits and activities of themselves. 
     Blame shifting and projection has always been a part of the enormous amounts of political blaming, shaming, shifting blame, hypocrisy and hatred. In fact, blame shifting and projection are seen as useful to staying in power. If something goes wrong, blame the past opposing party's administrations. It is all part of the "political game" as well as part of "political theater". 
     I'm often surprised that it works, at least in the short term, until it becomes an obnoxious pattern that hardly anyone likes.
     If you were to try to insist on co-operation, peace between the parties, reasonable government policies, projects, actions and discourse which takes the needs of all citizens into consideration, you'd probably be a scapegoat. It's like everything one party does has to be opposed in a huge way by the opposite party. It's like the unspoken rule is that the rift has to widen, not narrow.
     Granted there are drastically opposing views in the country, people who want very little government, an incredibly small tax burden, and a simple dictatorship with few, if any, government workers, and people who want big government, lots of safety nets, a compassionate government that helps those in need, and even more democratic solutions that aren't just decided by an oligarch of wealthy political donors.
     Trying to close the rift can set you up to be a scapegoat of one or both of them. Both will insist that you choose sides. 
     Because they find both "not choosing a side" and "choosing a side that is not enough on 'their side'", they will often "bait" you to make sure you stay in a scapegoat role until you choose to be a loyalist (a sycophant with all of the "talking points" of the political party). 
     In terms of the family, the same can be applied. If your parents are in continual opposition and they hate each other as vehemently as the two American parties do, what you say to close the gap won't be appreciated.
     This is why scapegoats often do not want any part of competitions inside the family (between their parents or between their siblings). They are burdened enough by being thrust into the scapegoat role to begin with, and they know they are going to lose no matter which side they choose, or which side they try to entreat to be fair and open-minded, or even just to explain something so that one parent understands the other parent better, or the siblings understand that there is an "opposition game" going on that one or both parents set up. It's the Karpman's Triangle made manifest.
     Usually when there is a Karpman's Triangle in family dynamics, it's a sign of toxicity. The more rigid the roles are in the triangle, the worse the toxicity is, especially for the scapegoat. 
     In terms of the triangle, scapegoats are often accused of being the persecutor (a lie, but it's only because someone wants them to choose sides). Often the push to choose sides puts the scapegoat in the role of mediator (the role of rescuer in the Karpman's triangle), ending up being the victim because the push to compromise and be reasonable is not accepted. 
     Narcissistic parents thrive on opposition, conflict, rifts, chaos and blame shifting (each of these tactics has their own link, by the way). This means they have a vested interest in not resolving conflicts, in not mediating, in not being reasonable and open to different perspectives. Their main agenda is power, control and domination and a narcissistic parent is going to look at mediation and resolving conflicts as "giving up power". It's also narcissistic supply for them, as again, negative narcissistic supply will do.
     For the rest of the family, however, it is crazy-making and traumatic.
     It's why a lot of narcissists are stuck with other narcissists and sometimes even psychopaths in old age because most people do not want to be part of a family of ongoing conflicts and made up chaos, least of all, scapegoats. 
     The end result if everyone stays is that the conflicts stay and widen into all kinds of other issues, usually between the parents and all of the siblings, and why the Karpman's Triangle is always part of family dynamics. As long as narcissists are in the family, the toxic triangle stays. 
     Since narcissists thrive on rifts, conflicts and blame shifting, it stands to reason that they are going to bait someone to keep the rifts, conflicts and blame shifting alive. 
     For narcissists, they engage in new conflicts with their scapegoats as a way to keep the scapegoats engaged, defending themselves, explaining themselves, and taking insults personally. Until a scapegoat  learns the DEEP method or realize that these conflicts are being used for the narcissistic supply of their parent, the scapegoat will usually engage in defending and explaining, until they, the scapegoat, no longer wants a life riddled with constant arguments and baiting by their narcissistic parent.
     Which is to say that narcissists will always create new conflicts for the scapegoat to face if the old ones are not serving them, the parent. So what do narcissists do to keep the conflicts and the scapegoat's defenses and explanations going?
     Bait the scapegoat. Any reaction to anything the narcissist can dig up, even false narratives will do because they are still "narcissistic supply" even if they are negative sources of it.
     This is just one reason abuse escalates. More conflicts are necessary because more narcissistic supply is necessary in terms of the narcissist's way of thinking. 
     Most baiting and hoovers with betrayals usually target the scapegoat of a narcissistic family. "What will upset my scapegoat the most? Why, I think showing blatant favoritism will upset him (or her) the most! In fact, I'll deprive them of almost everything, feed them all of the foods they hate, not give them attention or presents, send them to their room all of the time, while lavishing my golden child with all of the foods he (or she) loves, keeping them at the dinner table, lavishing most of my attention on them, and barely notice my scapegoat exists! That'll teach my scapegoat to give me more positive narcissistic supply! But I'll take them being upset if they can't see me as the best parent that ever lived!" - I'm not sure it is as conscious as this because there is a lot of black and white thinking that goes into scapegoating, so it may be at levels that are sub-conscious, and not be as manipulative as what I wrote  sounds, but there is certainly some manipulation. 
     And by the way, how is a scapegoat supposed to give them more positive narcissistic supply when they are treated like this? It's a type of narcissistic reasoning that seems particularly flawed and out of touch with real human behavior. No one who is sane is going to give positive narcissistic supply to someone who punishes and starves them out in this way; even narcissists wouldn't do it.     

* As an Expression of Hatred and Prejudice:
     There is some research that suggests narcissists are more prejudiced than other kinds of people.
     Having a scapegoat is a kind of prejudice. 
     Whether scapegoating one child or a whole group, the type of actions prejudiced folks take is similar. Narcissists take similar approaches in how they treat people from one narcissist to another. 
     Societal scapegoats are hated; family scapegoats are hated. There is a call to remove societal scapegoats; there is a call to shun a family scapegoat. Narcissists need societal scapegoats to divide and conquer and get more power; narcissists need a family scapegoat for the same reason. Narcissists can't take blame themselves, so when they are blamed, they deflect and have scapegoats to put the blame on instead, whether they be societal scapegoats or family scapegoats.
     Narcissists also tend to go along with a crowd in terms of who to hate. If they are surrounded by Democrats they will hate most Republicans. If they are Republican narcissists they will "go with the flow" with the latest prejudice - at the present time, Latinos, and especially Mexicans and undocumented workers, and in the past they may have hated African Americans.
     If they grew up in a family that rejected and disparaged women of a younger generation, they tend to go with the flow and reject and disparage women of a younger generation themselves. 
     Narcissists don't put much thought into who to hate. They simply hate people who are popular to hate in their given circle. They also hate people who don't agree with them and who don't go along with what they want. They look at others as either loyal to them or disloyal to them (loyal meaning "willing to be mind-controlled") without taking a second look into how disloyal they are all the way around. Narcissists aren't committed to people, to promises or much of anything or anyone. 
     In terms of favoritism, societal prejudice would look like "only whites in our organization". In terms of familial prejudice, "only men in the family", or "only people I favoritize", or "only people who are willing to be my sycophants."
     Most people find prejudice to be disgusting and morally objectionable, and narcissists generally know this. So they try to hide their prejudices and hatreds except with people who have the same views. Many of them sound like narcissistic politicians who like to disparage and insult other politicians from another political party.
     There isn't much difference when it comes to how they talk about their own family members, including their children from how they talk about a political party or leader they oppose.
     Familial prejudices are even more morally objectionable to most other people, so many narcissists make up stories or conspiracy theories to justify their hatred and rejection of their own children or anyone else in their family they don't like. Narcissists tend to be intolerant of a lot of people.
     Positivity about other people is not one of their strong suits. 
     Prejudice can be dangerous when you are the target, particularly when there is favoritism of people who are abusive and threatening towards you, and conspiracy theories (perspecticide) are involved. 

* As an Expression of Conspiratorial Thinking Patterns:
     Conspiratorial thinking often involves getting to the truth of a matter, but when the conspirator isn't  satisfied with the truth, it adds to making more conspiracies. 
     According to Todd Grande, a psychologist, this is most often the case. 
     This means that conspiracy theorists generally have a limited capacity for the truth, and a high capacity for confirmation bias. 
     When I asked Google search and Google AI "Do conspiracy theorists have a strong capacity for confirmation bias?" the answer was yes, with a lot of explanations as to why they do. 
     But what is the psychology of conspiracy theorists? 
     I found this article by Psychology Today on the subject. The key points in the article were these:
     * Conspiracy theories thrive on cognitive biases, mental shortcuts that allow us to make sense of the world.
     * "Proportionality bias," leads people to believe that significant events must have substantial causes.
     * In an environment with high mistrust in authorities, conspiracy theories can flourish.
     In terms of narcissists, they tend to be more conspiratorial than others. 
     While there is not a direct link towards conspiratorial thinking in psychopaths, some research suggests a positive correlation between certain aspects of psychopathy and belief in conspiracy theories. - quote taken from the linked article.
     So seeing that favoritism is both a narcissistic trait and can also be a dark triad trait for which narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism are part of the Dark Triad personality disorder, it stands to reason that the main perpetrators of the kind of favoritism that is abusive and scapegoating are going to come mainly from these two Cluster B Personality Disorders. Plus they are both likely to be conspiracy theorists with confirmation biases. 
     The combination of ingredients here, the conspiracy-type thinking patterns, with personality disorders, and confirmation bias, can also inspire violence and extremist views, making the combination of scapegoating, favoritism and rigid beliefs dangerous for a child, at least in terms of escalating abuse and violence.
     Again, prejudice also plays a role in who is a scapegoat, and familial prejudices play the biggest role, whether that is sexism, cultural differences, political differences, religious differences or racial differences. Who in the wider family is being abandoned, abused, not spoken to, talked about in derisive ways, is being referred to as having either mental health problems or problems with the law (with no facts to substantiate such claims), and what do they all have in common? That will probably lead you to where the family prejudices lie and to who is scapegoated and why they are scapegoated. Are they the young women in the family? Are they the artists in the family? Are they politically the most left-leaning members? Are they the most disabled members? Are they LGBTQ+ or in an inter-racial marriage? Are they wary of authoritarianism? Are they the most independent minded members, members who don't stick with a party line, but who explore different perspectives and statistics (intellectual prejudice)? - all of these are the most common scapegoats in narcissistic families in present times, however it can be almost anything the greater family has decided to fear, hate and reject.
     When we take prejudice, confirmation bias, a penchant to manipulate with black and white thinking about other people, meaning they see people in terms of "all good" and "all bad", the fact that narcissists and psychopaths lie and manipulate a lot to get their own way and literally live in a fantasy world because of that alone, it stands to reason that this would all influence conspiratorial thinking. It also explains why scapegoats can never get out of role without going "no contact" with their families of origin. Being stuck in a scapegoat role for the first 18 years of life is enough for one lifetime. Very few people can tolerate being a scapegoat for much longer than that without heavy consequences to their mental and physical health, the other relationships they are in, and as I've said, it can get dangerous, especially with siblings who are trying to "go along to get along" with an abusive parent. 

Creating a Blame Free Home (and why abusers and narcissistic people prefer a blame-filled home and the effect of that on victims)

A lot of blaming in a family can create hurt feelings, rushes to judgment, sometimes or often getting it wrong, siblings ratting on each other in anticipation of a punishment from a parent, siblings pretend-blaming just to get the upper hand with a parent (to get the parent to think of them as "the angel" and their sibling as "the devil"). What is worst, a lot of blaming can very often turn into "This is my son who is always good", and "This is my daughter who is always bad" (called splitting and "black and white thinking" in psychology terms).

Most families don't get to the point of splitting because they see value in all of their members. But blaming and trying to figure out who is right and who is wrong is not fool-proof by any means. Most people cannot even decipher lying. So, it doesn't make much sense to play the blame-game in a family (especially one with competing siblings, or siblings who do not get along) unless there is a fool-proof way of knowing who did what and when, and why, and there isn't.

Not only that, but the household can "sound" like a lot of blaming:

"Who left the cap off the toothpaste again?"
"Who left their cup on the table?"
"Who forgot to turn off the light in the bathroom?"
"Who left their toy truck on the stairs?"
"Who put matches on the coffee table?"
... and so on ...

The problem, also, with a lot of blaming in the home is that it can easily turn into shaming. "You did it! And therefor you are bad!"

I can tell you that teachers (of which I am one) are not allowed to shame children (it is school policy) because of the damage it can do to a child. By not shaming, and by not looking at children in "good and bad terms", you give each child the same consideration. Each child will get the best of you. Each child is considered on their own terms and not on how they stack against other children.

A child's self esteem is good for the nation and it is good for the child. "Children are the future" and the best way to provide the child, the family, the community and the nation with citizens with skills, intelligence, kindness, respect and a community spirit is to help children be all that they can be. If children are constantly blamed and shamed they cannot be all they can be because shaming will take over their internal dialogue. It is a good way to destroy your child (and a lot of children who only hear negative things about themselves do commit suicide, or if they think there is a softer place to land, run away).

While some things can interrupt a lot of a parent's blaming and shaming, such as the juxtaposition of another parent (or a teacher, or a grandparent, or an aunt or uncle, or anyone) who thinks the child is wonderful, the two opposing forces can create confusion in the child, at least for awhile. There is nothing like two grown-ups battling it out with one of them insisting the child is terrible while the other one is insisting the child is wonderful, and all of the reasons why and why not. When small children hear these fights, they tend to sit down, cry and plug their ears.

It would be like being in sports and one referee insisting you should be out of the game altogether because of your skills and lack of ability to think of other team mates, and the other saying you won the game fair and square with a tremendous amount of mastery, team work and competence.

A child is likely to go with the person who adores him and sees him as "a winner", but also who he respects in terms of morals, modeling and integrity. It is often why a child can succeed in an abusive home, even wildly succeed. Someone believes in the child, and no matter how much shaming and/or bullying goes on, somehow the child plugs away at his studies regardless.

Teachers, I believe, should be the people to reverse shame as much as they can for all students. And if teachers can do it, then parents can do it too.

Since shaming isn't allowed, blaming makes very little sense unless there are no other alternatives at hand.

In my own life, students who were disinterested in school, who had low self esteem, who were either highly allergic or somewhat allergic to authority, I tried to focus on what they were good at, and even put what they were good at as examples in the front of the classroom.

Rebelliousness, and a distaste for authority, can, and often means, that something went wrong with a grown-up (actions against the child). They might not have been taught; they were being hurt instead. What could have gone wrong with an authoritarian? Sometimes it is shaming.

Children know when adults are fair and unfair, when they are just and unjust, when they are being used and not used, when they are being erroneously blamed just so the parent can rage. Children also know that siblings see it all and act accordingly. These children also know how upstanding their own parent is (and even when there is a rampant amount of hypocrisy).

When you get a lot of unfairness, "using" a child, disrespecting a child, rejection of a child's abilities, erroneous blaming, then you often get a rebellious child (and believe it or not, rebelliousness is a healthy expression; it is when they shut down, become very depressed and give up that it isn't healthy).

So being an art teacher, I tried to bring out the rebelliousness in terms of the art they created. Very often rebellious students create art where the school is a prison, or the lunchroom is run by the Gestapo, or the school sports field is full of bullies trampling on one another (and once in awhile they focus on the home too), all of it run by awful authoritarians. They are trying to get attention that their situation feels bad, that there are chinks in the armor in terms of the school being an upstanding institution.

That is what rebelliousness is about after all: discussing the weaknesses, the need for improvements, the need for rights and justice, the hypocrisies, the drawbacks to authoritarianism (which, let us face it, there are many). Very often rebels see situations before anyone else and they can become "the canaries in the coal mine."

Scapegoats of families, scapegoats in schools (being mob-bullied and authority figures either ignoring it or making it the victim's problem to deal with), scapegoats of the workplace - all scapegoats can be triggered (trauma or PTSD triggers) by authoritarianism because authoritarianism is seen as something that will hurt them rather than help them. If authoritarianism has hurt them a lot, they will avoid anything like it in their future. That doesn't leave a lot of jobs open to them when they graduate from school.

In order to help students who are allergic to authoritarianism is to actually root for them, even to show them respect.  And certainly not blame or shame them (they probably had enough of all of that already). We are all capable of valuing some types of rebellion, surely. The rebellion of school being a prison is not something to ignore because of the numbers of students who see it that way (more than you would think). Human beings are not all going to become "yes-men", and that is a good thing. Rebelliousness is not a disability. There are usually very, very good reasons for it, something happening along the line in childhood that made them disrespect authority (why adults should always be working on their own integrity when there are children about).

So the challenge, for a teacher or other adult in the child's life, is to direct rebellion in constructive ways rather than destructive ways.

I did demand that some of my rebel students who were "upsetting others" stay after school (and yes, that is authoritarian, but my motives weren't to be authoritarian, but to work with their rebelliousness in a positive way). Most of them tried to weasel out of being kept after school too, which is predictable, and something to expect.

But what I tried to focus on was, first, the art itself, and second, on what they might want to do after graduating in terms of work.

Often they wanted to work for themselves, which is also expected of rebels.

The arts, whether it is a hobby or a full time job, is a great place to be a rebel. Rebels are particularly creative; they know how to express their causes; the arts tend to be a non-authoritarian environment.

So they expect to come in after school to be blamed and shamed and told their art is no good, but instead leave with some ideas for outlets for their rebellion, including the art they want to do.

I can tell you that life is a lot easier working with rebellion than against it. If you respect them and what they are trying to say, they will respect you as a teacher too. And they will know you are on their side and rooting for them.

That can be translated to parenting too.

Rebels often make the biggest impact on society: Jesus, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Spartacus, Nelson Mandela, William Wallace, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, and so on ... These people became much more well known and respected than the people who tried to keep them down. Again, we can't all be "yes men" and "that's a good thing".

But, you might say, if it wasn't for all of the blaming and shaming, we wouldn't have rebels to begin with, and we wouldn't have progressed, as a species, and as a nation, in our treatment of each other. The Americans who came here in the beginning were scapegoats and rebels, for the most part, and they wrote a constitution that addressed a lot of the injustices they were facing in other countries. "Cruel and unusual punishment" was one of them. We all benefit from that being addressed in our Constitution today: there are no more torture chambers, and there are mostly good attempts at fair trials too (erroneous blaming is thrown out, blaming on speculation is not considered, confessions while being tortured are not acceptable ... although "the system" always needs fine tuning: the "Black Lives Matter", The Child Victims Act," the Supreme Court decision that presidents are not above the law, and the "Me Too" movements in recent times show the flaws).

To keep a family from falling apart from disrespect, over-rebelliousness, speculative justice, and all of the "who done it" nonsense that families can devolve into, the idea of a blame-free home is to focus on the issues rather than on making it personal.

The idea of a blame-free home in which to raise children, first came from the work place, in particular, how to deal with slip-ups, costly mistakes, situations that put other members at risk, etc.

In the medical community, the blame-free environment was adapted first to deal with medical mistakes. The way it was used was that the people in charge began looking at what was wrong with the teaching, methods and protocol, rather than being punitive towards a medical worker, most of whom were trying as hard as they could not to make a mistake.

The problem is that when the mistakes of an individual are pointed out too much, it becomes personal ("Something is wrong with that worker!"). They found that medical workers were trying to hide their mistakes instead.

And they found that even if a worker left, the next one was often making the same mistake.

Personalizing mistakes can create a lot of anxiety in a worker, and activates the amygdala (fear, flight, fight, avoid), rather than highlighting all of the issues around which mistakes happen. When a worker is going around afraid of making a mistake, they often make more mistakes.

This phenomenon is illustrated pretty well in Keeping Up Appearances (a comedy show about a self-involved grandiose narcissist called Hyacinth), where Elizabeth is invited by Hyacinth for a cup of coffee. Elizabeth is often a nervous wreck when she visits Hyacinth. And Hyacinth doesn't make it easy on her. Because Elizabeth's anxiety levels are so high, her hands begin to shake, and the coffee cup shakes, and she spills coffee on Hyacinth's floor or table every time. But, each time Elizabeth goes to Hyacinth's she thinks it will be different, that she can be in control of her own nerves, put up boundaries against Hyacinth's narcissistic entitlements, that that it will be the first time she doesn't spill coffee. But it never works out that way.

This is how you can make more mistakes when mistakes are blown up to huge proportions by others in the work place too.

This is also how scapegoating can begin to happen in a work environment, and how one scapegoat can replace another in terms of "who to blame" when the original scapegoat leaves. Toxic work environments always need a scapegoat.

When other medical workers were interviewed about someone else's mistake, they mostly said they might have made the same mistake in the same situation, thus the need to look at the problem in its entirety, rather than using the convenient blame-game, which turns out to solve problems a lot less efficiently.

"Blame the process, not the people" became the motto. In an environment where processes are looked at more than people, workers will admit to mistakes much more readily too because they look at the work environment as a learning environment open to better measures, rather than a punitive one.

Since then the medical establishment has fine-tuned some of this so that it isn't totally 100 percent blame-free any more, but mistakes have weighed far more on the blame-free side of issues with workers than on the blame-filled side. Minimizing blame also keeps workers co-operative. Any time you introduce blaming (especially with shaming), you will set up an environment that has vulnerabilities, fierce competitiveness, scapegoating and workplace bullying, the latter being the most egregious. But you can see the natural progression of how it can be a series of mistakes, turning into scapegoating, then turning into workplace bullying.

Good parents are usually open to a lot of different perspectives, experiments, different ways of doing things, different ways of seeing things, and even go to therapy, or send squabbling siblings to therapy together. They are not attached to blaming as a "correct style" that is some right of passage sent down to them by their parents, and must be passed down the next generations, or a tradition made in stone (and possibly producing generational toxicity, like passing a poison from one generation to the next).

Authoritarian families have an Achilles heel in the way that they often become abusive, and split down the middle in terms of their children's loyalties. Authoritarian work places also have the same Achilles heel.

Anyway, creating a mostly-blame-free home (and a more peaceful one) can be done if your children haven't gotten to the point where they are dangerous towards one another. If they are dangerous, and the sibling rivalry is out of control, the family should be in counseling together.

If you are at a point of trying out a blame-free home, here are some tips: 

This mother figured out a way to work towards a blame-free home by doing this instead of trying to pin-point an at-fault child (from the article, How To Stop Sounding Like An Owl & Create A Blame Free Home by Tina Louise Balodi for "Kids in the House"):

... I would see a pencil on the floor and instead of saying “Who left this sharp pencil here on the floor,” I’d say, “Safety Violation.” Immediately, they looked around to see what I was referring to and picked up the pencil and put it away.” That was it, worked like a charm. It also made it not personal. I didn’t have to decide who did it and why. It is possible to achieve the same outcome that we desire by describing and observing an action or behavior rather than placing blame on who did it ...

There are a lot of good points in that article. Here is another one:

They will learn to clean up by seeing you do it. “You can say, it’s time for dinner and I see all the awesome artwork tools still here and papers all over. Can you come tell me if you are finished creating so we can set the table? Can you help me decide what is trash, recycling, or you still need for your project?” It is completely possible to speak to our loved ones without one ounce of attack or criticism.

As a teacher, tasks like handing out art supplies took up learning time. So, I had the tasks be a community activity: 

"Who is going to help me hand out the scissors?"

"Who is going to help hand out the glue bottles?" 

... and so on ... 

A lot of them raise their hands wildly. Some of them never raise their hands. In that case, I asked in a compassionate way:
"You seem so quiet back there. Would you like the chance to come forward and pass out all the art we were working on yesterday?"

Co-operation becomes the goal to work towards at all times in a classroom situation. And most of them become inspired by what other students are doing.

I found it was also useful not to put kids in any kind of hierarchy; i.e. "most talented", "best at drawing" etc. While I liked putting up the best work, it didn't always fulfill goals at motivating others. If I could put up a "good work" instead of "the best work" done by a student who was deemed by classmates "not to be the best at art" and focus on what was "going right", it tended to motivate not only the student, but other classes that came in.

"'So and so' did that drawing? Wow, I've somehow got to do better!" I could hear the competitiveness, but I also very much liked to shake up the leaders' constant grip at the top too (usually they strive to be at the top of every class, not just art class, and while they got the grades they deserved, they were not always featured on the board).

If you want siblings to get along, they should be looked at as a team, as equals, as real people with real feelings, and not as competitors, or puppets. Competition will tear their relationship apart, and also tear the family apart. It may seem counter-intuitive, but that is what we see in terms of the parental expectations and promotion of competition between children, that it can lead to more fights, more destructive behavior towards each other, not less.

Your children are not "really yours" anyway. They aren't your workers, or your pleasers, or your future parents, or your nodding heads in-agreement-with-everything-you-do-or-say, or your chances to make your dreams come true. They aren't even there to prop up your self esteem. If you had good parents, you will know this already. You will also be fully adult in that you will not even think to look to your kids to boost your self esteem. They aren't capable of it anyway, because they are too busy growing up and figuring out how they will survive, and thinking about their place in the world. 

If I can get 25 - 30 kids to co-operate, a home should be able to get 2 - 10 of their kids to co-operate too.

The first part of getting kids to co-operate and enjoy the togetherness and friendship that it brings is to stop the blaming and shaming.

When problems arise, think of other creative ways of dealing with the problem other than attacking.  After a lot of trials, it should come naturally to you, and I would bet you see better results.

WHY DO NARCISSISTS (AND ABUSERS IN GENERAL)

PREFER A BLAME-FILLED HOME

Normal families aren't going to be able to relate to this, but this is what happens when blaming is off the charts, and when the parents don't know how to control situations other than to abuse their children.

In many ways, abusive families do the opposite of what healthy loving families do.

On the agenda of most narcissists (and abusers in general) is controlling you, your actions, your words, your appearance, and sometimes even your thought processes and emotions. They cannot control you all that well unless they are blaming you. 

In fact, the more blamed you are (especially mixed with invalidation and perspecticide), the more abused you are ... that would be my bet. Invalidation, perspecticide, blaming and shaming go together like peas and carrots in abusive relationships. 

Blaming is huge, and part of everyday life in a home with a narcissist or sociopath in it (the kinds of people most likely to abuse their kids). 

Not only that, but your mistakes are blown up to gargantuan proportions. However, their standards for perfection for you are different than they are for themselves. Hypocrisy is the great fault-line when it comes to abuse, and how you can tell, from the very beginning, if you are in an abusive home or not. The more hypocrisy the "authorities" display, typically the more disordered they are, the more abusive they are, or will become.

And if that wasn't enough, most narcissists and sociopaths are into erroneous blaming and punishing too.

But, wait. That isn't enough for them either. All of the blaming is done to get to a place of shaming, and trying to get you to feel ashamed so that they can convince you that you are too flawed to treat well, or to love, or to deserve (deserve respect, deserve a peaceful home, deserve consideration, deserve to be heard, and so on). The shaming gets pretty severe for most of them since abuse escalates.

The reason for all of the shaming is to try to convince you that you are so flawed that they need to dominate you and tell you what to do all of the time. If they can convince you that something is seriously wrong with you (crazy or stupid), then they can starve you of love and use these tactics:

* You aren't as good as (someone else: sibling, cousin, friend, lover, new boyfriend, etc), called triangulation. They love triangulation so much that they are at it most of their waking hours: pitting people against each other, making you go through someone else to talk to them, using some other person as the fall guy for when they slip up or their image is being scrutinized in public (they typically try to draw others in to do battle against you and to shame you further). If you are new to the subject of narcissism, if you see this tactic being used, this would be a good time to create distance and to keep your whereabouts, dreams, ambitions, etc to yourself.

* Enmeshment: Everything you do in your life and the people you associate with has to go through them. (I have yet to do a post on enmeshment, but when I do, I'll put the link in).

* Smear campaigns: People are constantly told that you are crazy at the very least. They want others to have doubts about you so that they can have more control and influence over you and them, and the perceptions of all of you. You are basically not allowed to have the same closeness and status that they have with those same people. Smear campaigns damage the relationship between parent and child, but they don't care. Narcissists and sociopaths have very little capacity to care how anything effects their child.

* Isolate you: So you won't have anyone else to go to. They will be the only person in your life (who they deem truly cares about you). It is their way of gaining complete dominance and control of you, or so they believe. However, they never feel they have enough control and dominance which is why most narcissists become abusive. They think that abuse will get you in line with everything they want. But in order to to get you isolated enough for them, they will be trying to play with reality. For instance, you didn't really hear them say that (you must be imagining things again, you must be imagining that they have ill intentions towards you even ... you aren't really being bullied, "you're just too sensitive") which is where gaslighting comes in:

* Gaslighting: Typical phrases of gaslighting are:
- "You're crazy!"
- "Oh, there you go again!" - when you are upset by something they did.
- "It's not that big a deal" or "You're making a mountain out of a molehill" when they have done something to hurt you (translation: hurting you is no big deal to them)
- "You know what you did wrong! You mean to tell me that you just don't get it!"
- "You're too sensitive."
- "It's too bad your mind, is, well ..."
In fact you are deemed to be so crazy and unhinged that when they are hurting you, isolating you, talking trash about you, and are so claustraphobic and in too much of your life and space with their enmeshment (to convince that you can't tell that they are actually helping you instead of hurting you): that is the real agenda behind gaslighting you.
Since they need to take over telling you what you are really experiencing, feeling and thinking so that they can gain even more control over you, they are going to be indulging in as much invalidation and perspecticide as they can muster. Which brings us to the ultimate gaslighting kind of treatment:

* Perspecticide and invalidation: of your experiences, thoughts, feelings, health and well being is necessary for them so that their agendas always come first. They deem you to be so crazy, in fact,  that they need to tell you that what you are feeling is NOT what you are actually feeling. In fact, the arguments about your feelings, thoughts and perspectives will be escalating in intensity and in number of arguments. They will insist that what you are feeling is what they say you are feeling. It gives them control over your feelings, thoughts and experiences, and puts them in charge of telling you everything you are going through on all levels. But still, this is not enough domination and control for most of them. They are still way too insecure that you might believe someone else's words and agendas over their own, and God forbid, have self esteem. Your self esteem is not something that most narcissists and sociopaths can deal with. They are still way too panic-ed and insecure for any hint of that. They want you super, super vulnerable, super destroyed, super hurt, impressionable, gullible, down on your luck, down on your knees begging them to stop hurting you, grieving and traumatized enough to be desperate (so that they can take advantage of your desperation and use it for domination again).
   In order to produce this constantly desperate human who will do anything, anything for them just to get some little breadcrumb (aptly called "breadcrumbing" by domestic violence counselors) to relieve you from their pain.
   In fact, at some point if you are not following their commands, even if they are incredibly self destructive to you, they will be:

* Punishing you: Punishing you can take many forms. The common ones are:
- the silent treatment (purposely ignoring you, pretending you don't exist, sometimes waiting for you to be desperate enough so they can dominate you again)
- not allowing you to do x, y, and z
- more smear campaigns (usually as damaging as they can make them while still trying to make them seem believable)
- physical blows
- false imprisonment
- financial abuse (the sudden withdrawal of money or help)
- refusal to help you when you need to be helped (medical, disability, contact number for a person in your common family, etc)
- more shaming (trying to bring shame upon you through other people, other people's judgments, trying to convince you that you are isolated and that no one likes you or loves you, calling up your boss or spouse to try to get them to hate you too, and so on)
- enlisting co-bullies (called flying monkeys in psychology circles) to help them do their dirty work on getting you down and under their domination again
   The premise behind punishing you is that if they hurt you, you will behave in the manner that they want you to behave. It's rather simplistic: if you whip a horse, will it behave? If you hit a dog, will it behave? If you hit a human, will the human behave? After all, let's not forget that Mr. or Mrs. Narcissist or Sociopath has deemed you to be so flawed, even when you are a full adult when "punishing" should be over and done with in terms of lessons, they can't. Remember they have invalidated you, so you can (and often are) seen as less than human.
   In fact they hope that they are so good at all of these maneuvers that they can be Dr.Jekyll to everyone but you (you get Mr. Hyde instead). And because they seem so gracious and kind to everyone else, often going overboard, people who know them think you must be one ungrateful b$tch or b#stard. The end result is that you will be living in a nightmare:

* Splitting (psychology term meaning two-sided, it is all or nothing, black and white thinking, my way or the highway, etc), which includes Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde behavior among so many other things. All of the splitting and the temper tantrums, punishing behaviors and tactics, constantly maneuvering to call all of the shots (except them being afraid they aren't calling the shots enough in your life) adds up to walking on eggshells day and night:

* Expecting you to walk on eggshells: fearful of when the next blow-up will be and what will trigger them to become abusive. Typically the way they want you to walk on eggshells is to be:
- fearful
- anxious of when the next episode will be
- fawning to make them less volatile, angry and "off their nut"
- there is no stability in your world: your job is to regulate their temper, their angry outbursts, their desires to punish you for your seeming recalcitrance to their commands, to be compliant, and to sometimes keep them from smashing up your property and your body
- they don't want you to have a peaceful, non-volatile, non-argumentative, non-abusive, non-roller-coaster life, or a blame-free shame-free environment because they feel they can't control you enough if you have that. So they try to isolate you and damn you to a world where you are always complying with them, agreeing with them, regulating them, being willing to be damaged and punished by them, defending yourself and then agreeing with them in arguments when you are accused by them, feeling trapped by them, and so on.

Such an awful cocktail for their victims, isn't it?

But the reason why they do it is all for the end-game of complete domination and control of you. They are way too insecure to live without the constant time-soaking blood-soaking agenda of power and domination over others.

For most of us, that is a turn-off and we will head for the hills (children can't, so they develop unhealthy coping strategies instead). But with the exception of grandiose narcissists, their narcissism is not so easy for most of us to spot. We can be in a relationship with them, and it will creep up on us and then attack when we are most vulnerable.

Covert narcissists, in particular, use a combination of victim-hood (pretending to be a victim to draw people in to help them, though some have some real victim-hood in their past, but typically not even close to what they are espousing, and often claiming to be the victim of people who they have abused, including their own children ... and we wonder why some children do not respect their parents), getting information from you without revealing much about themselves, mirroring (i.e. espousing the same interests and dreams that you have), and a lot of triangulating to socially isolate you.

I will be talking about different kinds of narcissists in another post. But, suffice it to say that all of them are dangerous, whether emotionally, psychologically or physically, and all of them continually practice dominating you to get you into a more and more compromised, subservient  and vulnerable position. And the way they start this process is to blame you for a little of this and a little of that while complaining to others about you behind your back.

If you make explanations for the way you do things, and your way of thinking, they will start in the beginning by lecturing, sometimes with scoffing and some haughtiness, then they will eventually graduate to trying to take over the conversation or moderate it. The next step in the graduation process is getting angry with you (with or without the lecturing), until they feel comfortable with you enough that they will rage at you and become verbally abusive. They will also typically tell you that you are making them rage, however, realize that they do not rage like that in public, so they are very capable of politeness in all kinds of situations when it suits them.

It all adds up to an incredibly unstable life for victims.

HOW VICTIMS REACT
TO CONSTANT BLAMING
(note: this focuses on abusive families,
but may be helpful to see the extremes of it in terms of how children cope)

If you are a victim of child abuse and an adult now, some domestic violence therapists will suggest that you get over the legacy of your child abuse and the symptoms it brought you by adapting a blame-free home with your mate and/or new family.

The reasoning behind it is that if you grew up with blaming (which you probably did if you were from an abusive home), it can cause a lot of anxiety to be re-living all of the who-done-its and being jumpy over mistakes, whether there will be gaslighting, whether there will be all of the tactics I talked about in the second portion.

Just hearing blaming can set off the alarm bells in your head.

The typical way that victims react to a lot of blaming is to fawn, fight, take flight, freeze or avoid. 

In the beginning, the perpetrator of all of the blaming (usually turned to erroneous blaming over time) usually calls the shots in terms of which of these four will be acceptable to him or her. 

Victims are likely to fawn at first, especially if they are vulnerable in some way. Vulnerable might mean people who are young and innocent, disabled, grew up with child abuse, grew up with poverty, etc. They will be willing to fix what ever is wrong just to bring stability back into their relationship and back into their lives with the perpetrator.

Most fawning with abusers is very unhealthy for the target because in most cases the target is sacrificing their mental and physical health to do so. A family member (or family members) aren't meant to be cowering, being pressured, being a target of rage and abuse, putting the narcissist's feelings and opinions, desires, etc, first at all times.

Fawning can keep you safe from abuse, but that is the only good that it does.

Most targets know that the abuser expects his target to fawn, but most abusers wouldn't be caught dead fawning (at least to their victims). So all of this is very much role-driven and hypocrisy-driven by the narcissist (and while roles are common and a must for them, their targets, for the most part, want to get out of role, even when they are fawning).

But not all abusers want fawning targets.

Some of the reasons they might not want one include:

* they want to use you as a scapegoat instead
* they look at family members as business partners, which most of the do (you are either in their  business, even if it is a business of "breadcrumbing" rewards - it is usually an "all or nothing" situation too, in which you are all in or all out, totally accept their terms or you're outside completely, and so on)
* they find your style of fawning sickening, or not believable
* they only want one or two fawners and you're not good at it
* they only want fawners they can count on 24/7, who will consistently "do as they are told"
* you're too (talented, smart, beautiful, successful, happy, etc) to be a good reliable fawner. Let's face it, fawners who are insecure, not driven, not ambitious, not successful, easily brainwashed, child-like, who can easily be put in second place by the narcissist and be dominated, who go along to get along, are the best bet for the narcissist in terms of a fawner (or so most of them think ... I get to why not over the long term).

Anyway narcissists and sociopaths think that people from happy families, or a trauma survivor, or someone seriously down on their luck, or an empath, or anyone they deem to be vulnerable and sensitive, will make the best fawners, including their own children, but there are so many reasons why they won't be, and I cover why briefly in the post.

The best fawners are criminals, other narcissists, and other sociopaths. Not kidding. They know how to fawn like a pro, without being personally or emotionally effected by false narratives, constant lying, splitting, gaslighting, excuses, Machiavellian thought processes, and other immoral behaviors. They keep their eyes on the prize and everything else is just an annoyance which they cover up with false smiles and a lot of flattery.

The problem with a person who is insecure, not ambitious, not successful, easily brainwashed, a wet dishrag, etc, is that they are disabled in some way. There is a reason they are not passionate about something in their lives, and why they are not acting as full adults, or want to act as full adults. While they fawn, they are also usually too sensitive and vulnerable for the narcissist's or sociopath's disciplinary actions, punishments, retaliations, vindictiveness, and their slave-master mentality. Dishrags serve until they either become disabled by the demands put upon them (remember: they are not ambitious), or they are scapegoated, or they get so handicapped and paralyzed by trauma that they cannot function as the narcissist's robot any more. They aren't particularly equipped to deal with a lot of blaming either, and either cower or self-destruct.  

The perpetrator will either accept the fawning from an individual or they won't (as a honeymoon period in the cycle of abuse). This means he sometimes accepts it for a period and then doesn't ... and then does again, then doesn't. The more drastic these cycles are, the more trauma you will experience.

If he doesn't accept the fawning for a period of time, usually it is for one or more of these kinds of reasons (what they say to you or how they treat you):

* the apology isn't good enough

* the overture isn't good enough

* the overture isn't up to snuff because you have been told that you owe him much, much more

* unless you "behave yourself" (mostly "behave yourself" is left open to interpretation - and notice how narcissists and sociopaths talk to their spouse as if they are a child who needs to learn lessons -  at any rate, most of us know that "behave yourself" means "you must be under my control; I must dominate you"). The consequence for not letting the perpetrator dominate you is that you will be punished

* it is time for you to get punished good and hard (you have been let off too many times)

* you aren't good enough (he can do better than you: he tries to make you out to be a sacrifice and a "project" instead of an equal human being, and can point to someone else as being better than you are)

* the silent treatment

* treating you with ice cold disregard or invalidation

* if you are a child of the narcissist, or a spouse who is financially dependent on the narcissist, or a child who is being paid for sex (for rich pedophiles who leave victims a tip), this is when they use "the ungrateful phrase"; i.e. they have decided that you are ungrateful for what you have received from them and therefore deserve to be punished for it (i.e. to be in pain for not complying with the fuzzy terms of your perpetrator).

The problem with the punishments and all of the tactics (lecturing you, blaming, shaming, triangulation, gaslighting, splitting, expecting you to walk on eggshells, invalidation, smear campaigns about you, isolating you from support, attacking when you are most vulnerable and then playing the victim to avoid accountability) is that this becomes synonymous with authoritarianism in the eyes of the victim. In other words, the victim will always remember that authoritarianism hurts.

The punishments plus all the tactics create a lot of trauma in their victims.

If you get your leg caught in an animal trap in tall grass, not only will other animal traps cause anxiety, but so will tall grass. If it happens a lot, people start to begin to avoid all tall grass.

It is not much different when it comes to authoritarianism. People who have been hurt by authoritarianism again and again will avoid it. Depending on the trauma, anything authoritarian-sounding can create panic.

Some survivors say they cannot tolerate anyone commanding, pushing, forcing or persuading them. They can't take lecturing. They can't take attacks of any kind. This can be true for soldiers as much as child abuse victims because commands are what caused the hurt, and then the trauma.

As far as child abuse is concerned, gaslighting becomes totally intolerable. So does splitting. So does someone trying to isolate them. All of the tactics, and flash-backs about the tactics, in fact, become traumatic. A lot of PTSD reactions also happen on a physical level: stomach, heart, head, muscles, sleep, nightmares, so it isn't like a little anxiety that goes away in a couple of hours. It is an onslaught of feeling really, really ill and disabled. It can be so bad that some survivors go so far as to say that a single minute around their parent triggers them so much that they don't want to see their parent again.

So all of the ambitions to hurt the child in order to get the child to comply, does the opposite from what the parent wants. The child becomes too "disabled" to comply.

If the child is hostage to the parent, then dealing with it all becomes unhealthy: trying not to feel because feelings make you miserable (and sometimes becomes part of the personality called Alexithymia), getting addicted to substances (because the mind filled with anxiety and feeling hurt is a terrible place to live in), trying to self-destruct in some way to have the pain and anxiety end, or conversely becoming more aggressive to ward off authoritarianism - these are not uncommon.

The most severe manifestations of PTSD can cause the inability to talk or respond, which is actually contrary to what an authoritarian dictator wants.

This is why abusers (including abusive parents) often have to move on to another source of narcissistic supply. They know their target is becoming disabled, and they are not really getting what they want anyway, so they look around for another sycophant (sometimes another one of their children who they feel they can mold more easily). Or a friend (especially one who will buy their "victim stories" and "how much they love their children ... or spouse").

FURTHER READING

* Walking the Punitive / Blame-Free Tightrope - by Becky Miller, MHA, CPHQ, FACHE, Executive Director, Missouri Center for Patient Safety, and Revee Booth, BJ, Communications Specialist, Primaris
The article discusses the Just Culture Model.
excerpt:
   Before 1990, health care was a highly punitive field. When mistakes were made, they were the fault of the individual. Fear of retribution caused mistakes to go unreported, and the opportunity to expand our knowledge about errors was lost ... 

* Sustaining A No Blame Environment - staff at Michigan Tech

excerpt:

Over and over we revisit the phrase of “Blame the process, not the people,” and how this concept plays such a big role in Continuous Improvement ...
   ... Put the spotlight on the process, not the people– The very first thing to do is to stray away from blame by asking the reason why a person did something a certain way. Stop searching for who did what wrong. Instead, invest time and energy dissecting a process and seeing in what ways it allows for ambiguity and mistakes. You must turn away from the idea that someone did something wrong, but rather look at that the process as wrong and that there’s an opportunity to correct it ...
   ... Respect a (person)’s capabilities– In order to have a blame-free environment, you must have respect the person, this includes respecting a persons capabilities. If an outcome is not desired or expected, searching for someone who is “guilty” is not respecting them in their role, nor is it respecting their capabilities to perform in their job. It is jumping to conclusions that they are inefficient or not “up to snuff.” When you look to the process first when there’s an issue, you are letting others know that it is not them and that you trust their capabilities ...

* Creating A Blame-Free and Gossip-Free Work Environment - from The University of New Hampshire

excerpt:

Imagine a workplace without the constant stressors of blame and gossip. The concept is easy to understand, and hard to make a reality. But once accomplished, the workplace is safe and productivity and motivation increase. Employees feel comfortable to bring up concerns and become increasingly proactive addressing issues. It doesn't matter who is to blame. What does matter is that what's not working gets fixed. When the environment is not punitive, employees are much more willing to own up to mistakes and take responsibility when something goes wrong.

* The following article is about improving the work environment through minimized blame. A blaming environment creates cover-ups, inauthentic behavior, anxiousness about "not being perfect" (an emotion that can create more mistakes rather than less of them), and even scapegoating. The premise here is to solve problems rather than to assign blame. Leaders have to take charge of this environment:
Why Blame Stalls Improvement & 5 Ways Leaders Can Create a Blame-Free Environment - by Tracy O'Rourke

excerpt:

Model the Way
   This can be tough for some leaders, but the message will go a long way! If leaders share some of their own mistakes and show that exposing mistakes can lead to innovation and process improvement, then leaders are modeling the way. If leaders share that they are taking calculated risks and ask others to share how they are doing the same, this can encourage others. If leaders promise they will no longer search for the guilty and they follow through, employees will begin to believe that things will be different! These can be great examples of leaders modeling the way which paves the way for employees to follow.
   Reducing blame in an organization can seem monumental, but with a focused effort from the leadership team and willingness to change behaviors and actions, it can be done!

* How to Create a No-Blame Work Environment - staff at AMN Health Care Services

excerpt:

   Nurses are patient advocates. As such, we need to create a culture of safety in which cooperative teamwork, staff empowerment and the development of a "no-blame" work environment provides a framework for safe practice.
   Eleven years ago, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report entitled: To Err is Human: Building A Safer Health System. This report fundamentally changed the way in which the healthcare profession assigns blame when medical errors occur. Essentially, this report concluded that medical errors are mostly caused by faulty systems rather than individuals. This shifts the blame from the individual to the environment and has led to many improvements in methods and technologies over the years ...

Toxic Families: Ignoring These Things Will Cost You - by David McDermott
excerpt:
   When a victim does begin to realize that things are not right, it's usual that they go looking for information to try and understand what is going on. They may consider their abuser to be a controlling mother, a bullying brother, a strict father, an abusive uncle or an emotionally unavailable parent. These terms may be accurate but they may not give the full picture.
   Several studies have found a very high incidence of personality disorders among abusers. In one study of court ordered therapy for spousal abuse, upwards of 80% of abusers were found to have a personality disorder. In other words, they were psychopaths or narcissists. If your toxic family member is a psychopath or a narcissist, this is very different from someone who is a bit controlling. It changes everything ...
   ...The toxic elements of toxic families are very often psychopaths and narcissists and dealing with these types requires a different set of rules. If you try and manage the situation using the normal, polite rules of society, you will lose. It's that simple, because they most certainly are not using these rules.

   He goes on to say something which always should be remembered:

   - They have one set of rules for themselves and a different set for everyone else. These rules are apt to change without notice.
   Part of the problem for children growing up in abusive families is that they grow up with a sense that feeling hurt inside every day and being abused is normal:If someone is 25 when they are recruited into a cult they have 25 years of experience before the cult. When they leave, they have those 25 years of normality to use as a reference. This makes it easy to compare and contrast both periods of time. People born into toxic families do not have a 'before' with which they can compare the years of abuse. They often have to learn that many of the behaviors that they are so used to are actually abusive and unacceptable.

How To Stop Sounding Like An Owl & Create A Blame Free Home - by Tina Louise Balodi for "Kids in the House"
(I talked about this article in the post)

There’s Always Someone to Blame: Wisdom from Brene Brown - by Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. for Psych Central

Curbing the Blame Game and Getting Rid of Excuses - by psychologist Henry Cloud for "Focus on the Family"

note: should only be used when the siblings are fairly civil, and you want to minimize conflict between them, not when sibling abuse is present

Are You a Target of Blame for a Narcissist? (Here are 7 tips for getting out of their crosshairs) - by Bill Eddy LCSW, JD for Psychology Today

11 Ways Narcissists Use Shame to Control - by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC for Psych Central

Why Does Your Narcissistic Partner Always Blame You? (Learn why your narcissistic mate blames you unfairly and how to handle it) - by Elinor Greenberg Ph.D. for Psychology Today

Note: this article comes with some ideas on how to avoid "the blame game". However, it only works if your narcissist has no sadistic or vindictive impulses and punishes. "The blame game" with "punishments" is hopeless.

excerpt:

... when anything is amiss, they quickly blame someone else. If you are their lover or mate, you are the one that is likely to be blamed—no matter how farfetched this seems ...

... Because narcissists’ inner guiding voice is so critical and harsh, narcissists try to avoid all responsibility for anything that goes wrong. In order to avoid self-hatred, they project the blame onto someone else. If they do not successfully shift the blame, then they may find themselves drowning in a pit of self-loathing and shame ...

How Narcissists Blame and Accuse Others for Their Own Shortcomings - by Darius Cikanavicius for Psych Central

How Narcissists Play the Victim and Twist the Story - by Darius Cikanavicius for Psych Central

Five Ways a Narcissist Comes Unglued - by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC for Psych Central

Sibling Abuse - from the University of Michigan (Michigan Medicine)

Sibling Maltreatment: The Forgotten Abuse - by Mark S. Kiselica and Mandy Morrill‐Richards for "Journal of Counseling and Development"

(see citing literature for articles)

Sibling Bullying and Abuse: The Hidden Epidemic (Often labeled rivalry and ignored, sibling bullying and abuse cause real trauma) - by Darlene Lancer, JD, LMFT for Psychology Today

Sibling Sadists Versus Schoolyard Bullies (Equal at last!) - by Jeanne Safer Ph.D. for Psychology Today

When Siblings Disagree About Whether They Had a Toxic Parent (Who's right about Mom and Dad? A closer look at family dysfunction) - by Peg Streep for Psychology Today

You Started It! 10 Mommy No-Nos that Fuel Sibling Rivalry - a CBS News article (click the arrows on right to be taken to the other nine). The headings are these, but the explanations are in the article (note: these "dos and don'ts" only work for non-abusive sibling relationships; if there is sibling abuse and you are teaching them to work it out on their own, the abuse will escalate):
1. Mistake: Comparing Your Kids
2. Mistake: Asking Who Started It
3. Neglecting One-on-One Time
4. Mistake: Worrying About Fairness
5. Mistake: Encouraging Tattling
6. Mistake: Not Noticing When They Are Getting Along
7. Mistake: Praising One in Front of the Other
8. Mistake: Always Blaming the Older Child
9. Mistake: Being too Quick to Intervene
10. Mistake: Expecting Harmony