If you see a lot of blame-shifting and an inability to be accountable, this is perhaps the #1 sign that you are dealing with a narcissist.
In this post I talk about the blame-shifting maneuver used by narcissists to avoid accountability for their actions, and why they are not likely to go to therapy to work out issues in their relationships.
Usually when you meet or know someone who is trying very hard to avoid accountability, or who tries to put blame for what she or he has done on to someone else, you are probably dealing with a narcissist. Whether they are high on the scale of narcissism (Malignant Narcissism) or low on the scale (Grandiose Narcissism) depends on how much sadism they display. Malignant narcissists are going to be obviously sadistic.
WHY NARCISSISTS BLAME-SHIFT
There are many reasons why narcissists blame-shift and these are just some:
* so they won't feel they have made mistakes, or that they have faults, that they are above the faults and mistakes of the rest of us, so in order to avoid faults and mistakes sticking to them, they have to put them on someone else (that's where you come in)
* because it feels better for them if someone else takes the blame
* it is easier. They don't have to think about about a thing, especially about who is accountable for what, and who is to blame; it will always be you (or someone who they determine is most weak or expendable, who they feel won't hold their feet to the fire)
* because they grew up with caretakers or siblings who blame-shifted, and saw how easy it was and how unaccountable they were
* because it's what is best for them in terms of how they feel: it feels better to them if they are the blamers and you are the blamed, if they are the criticizers and you are the criticized, if they are the punishers and you are the punished, if they are the abusers and you are the abused, if they are the abandoners and you are the abandoned. Blame-shifting is just another "bad bag" they want you to carry. It is also about the narcissist enforcing demeaning roles where their self entitlement is at the core of the roles.
* because they feel there are never any advantages to them in working out interpersonal problems. They think that the only satisfactory feeling they will have is to be in charge, and to be in charge of who is blamed.
* because it helps them feel like authoritarians (very powerful and in control of the situation!): you are the lowly worker who makes mistakes, and they are the high authoritarian who needs to teach you how to be fault-less just like them, and to not mistakes. They want to be in a position where they call the shots and you follow the orders, where they are the boss and you are the little worker (role playing is very common for narcissists because all that it requires is lazy black and white thinking where they don't have to use their intelligence). Blame-shifting is how they feel in charge of the blaming.
* because it is too hard and takes too much time to compromise and to think of others' feelings. It's so quick for the narcissist just to blame shift the fault on to you and move on to other things.
* because it fits into a prejudiced belief system they have like: all women are bad, all men are conniving and ruthless, all children are selfish, all drunks are violent, "all children should be seen but not heard" (an authoritarian family phrase), and so on.
* because they feel like they can talk you into "you brought this upon yourself". They feel like they can talk you into anything being your fault just for their benefit: i.e. "if you really loved me, you would take the blame for everything I want you to take the blame for!"
* Because they think they can get support for passing the fault on to you.
* Because they think they will win at this, that their lies that you are at fault will win out over your truths and indignation.
The other reason why narcissists blame-shift has to do with not reaching "The Age of Accountability", which for most of us starts around the age of ten. Some of us re-visit trying to get out of accountability during teenage years, particularly if we are experimenting (staying out late at night and blaming it on our friends, drinking and pretending we are dizzy instead, denting the parent's car by running into a parking meter while we were trying to park and pretending the dent was there before we took the car). Normal parents will also know that during teenage years, that a lot of teenagers will be trying experiments to get out of accountability.
Saying "I'm disappointed in you" is all that it usually takes to get your teenager back on track if you constantly make efforts to keep your integrity clean.
Unless you avoid accountability yourself, children will usually not want to disappoint you. Showing them that you are on morally higher ground than they are when it comes to accountability helps them to have a goal to reach; i.e. wanting to show accountability for their actions so that you will be proud of them.
People in general feel a lot more comfortable talking about their mistakes and personal flaws if they are in environments where mistakes mean "learning experiences" and flaws are "just human". Mistakes just mean how to do things better the next time, and how to do the right moral thing the next time. Focusing on issues of how to avoid the mistake, and how to avoid the kind of shame that makes you want to lie, is something I bring up in the post about avoiding a blame-filled home with all of the "who-done-its".
Basically that post is about de-personalizing mistakes (like running into a parking meter), and figuring out how to avoid the mistake the next time. In other words, the conversation is about "ideas" rather than blaming (the blaming being: "What's the matter with you?! Are you stupid? You can't tell when there is a parking meter there? What do parking spaces have? They have a meter! Wow, you really messed up this time!"). Instead it is: "Well, I might not be able to let you take the car the next time until I can teach you how to avoid a parking meter. Let's make a date for that."
Most kids will respect parents who are on high moral ground and who want to work with you to make sure you grow into a healthy, moral, good hearted adult and where mistakes can be seen for what they are: a learning experience.
What happens with narcissists is that they grow up in emotionally toxic environments where mistakes are blown out of proportion, sometimes way out of proportion. The way you tell how toxic the environment is if there are super long lectures (about how running into a parking meter hurt your parent, that it damages personal property, that it costs "x" amount of dollars, that teenagers "never" understand what kind of impacts they are making, that teenagers feel entitled and never guilty for ruining other people's property, that maybe you, the teenager, intentionally ran into the parking meter just to hurt your parent, how much the car means and that a dent is a sign that you don't care about the car and therefor it becomes a target for other people to dent up or run into with their car ... it goes on and on ...), hours of shaming you about it (like in the example in this paragraph), and then punishments over it (the one mistake means you are never given driving permissions again and are grounded for four weeks). The more sadistic the punishment is over a mistake like that, the higher on the scale of narcissism the parent probably is.
Anyway, this is the kind of home narcissists grow up in, the kind of environment where mistakes are completely intolerable (there are exceptions which I explain later). Constantly focusing on "mistakes" and pointing them out endlessly, expecting perfection from their kids that they would never expect from themselves (hypocrisy) makes a lot of children anxious, and especially hypervigilant. These children feel like home is a minefield of rage and abuse, where if they make the wrong move or mistake their parent will go into a "punishing rage" and possibly even a "sadistic rage".
Some kids in abusive environments are aware enough to know something is wrong (especially if the parents are very obviously hypocritical, having a "do what I say" policy rather than a "do what I do" one) and if they have enough exposure to another parent or caretaker who doesn't act this way. Some kids also know that things aren't normal at home if they spend a lot of time with other families and none of what they are experiencing is going on in these other families.
But some kids normalize abuse. These kids can be your potential narcissists. They will not admit to, or see, anything wrong with blame-sifting at all, with intense blaming and shaming sessions over mistakes. The way the parents are acting is seen as perfectly standard behavior. The parent's rage is passed off as the fault of some other person in the family, perhaps one of their siblings, or an aunt or uncle, or a neighbor, or a delivery man who delivered the wrong item and the parent went into a rage they apparently couldn't control (it being the delivery man's fault for upsetting their parent, for instance).
Believing that their parent's rage is always someone else's fault is the road and style of thinking that potential narcissists go down (the children who learn to have narcissistic responses like blame-shifting).
What makes this insidious is that in many ways these children get rewarded for narcissistic responses (in the case of blame-shifting, they get what they want and they avoid the endless lectures, punishments and/or abuse from their parent from tattling on someone else, or lying about how someone else ruined their clothes, for instance, or lying about how some kid started a fight and that they were just responding. With enough practice with blame-shifting and lying, these kids can get away with a lot, especially if the parent tends to go on beliefs more than on investigations, which narcissistic parents tend to do.
Going on beliefs sounds like:
"My child would NEVER do that! How dare you! We raised him (or her) right!" - they take it as a criticism of them if you tell the parent, for instance, that their child pulled another child off the monkey bars and punched that other child.
Some parents pull children out of a school, or a friendship, if someone other than their child will not take the blame.
Remember: narcissists are arrogant, and they think they are pillars (they idealize themselves), and they often insist on dominating the narrative (which means they have to invalidate the truth they are given), and that they are good, good parents who would NEVER bring up a child who would do that! It's one reason why classrooms and school buses now have cameras. Too many parents are acting this way these days.
You can see that when blame-shifting is condoned by the parent, and used to back up the child, that the child will never grow out of this. The child, in fact, is rewarded for blame-shifting.
Investigative parenting sounds like:
"I will look into this. I'd like to talk to my child, to you and to anyone else involved so that I can assess the situation accurately and see what needs to be done. I'm open to solutions from you about what needs to be done too. Perhaps some therapy sessions are in order." They aren't invested in confirmation bias (as opposed to narcissists who use confirmation bias in many, or even most, of their interactions with other people - it is that fixed opinion and putting people into roles that narcissists are so famous for). Investigative parents know their child is separate from them, and that children need guidance to do the right thing, to learn empathy and compassion from adult modeling, and to learn how to be accountable for the mistakes they make.
But there is another road that potential narcissists go down. Because the rage the parent expresses is so off-the-charts to a vulnerable child who knows nothing about narcissism, and especially if the child has severe hypervigilance around their parent, and they see their parent blame-shifting a lot and making other family members accountable (and themselves always unaccountable), they normalize that behavior: i.e. that it is perfectly fine to have a scapegoat in your life to use as your garbage can for blame and blame-shifting.
This translates into: "when the parent goes on the attack against me, I will say that my sibling (or uncle, or aunt, or friend, or the family dog) did it instead". In other words, these kids learn to blame-shift at a very, very young age, taking lessons from their parent who has modeled this for them, and it becomes a habit they can't break, thus their inability to reach the "Age of Accountability".
To make matters worse, a blame-shifting narcissist-to-be child is often idealized and spoiled: "Oh, he (or she) is just like me! How wonderful!"
Once they reach adulthood, the constant never-ending blame-shifting ruins their relationships (and all of the ruined relationships are the other person's fault in their eyes, of course - even seen as 100 percent their fault). What was a survival strategy in childhood becomes a huge destructive force in other people's lives by the time they reach adulthood. It is also why they resort to gaslighting (putting pressure on another person to make something false, or a lie, appear to be the truth). Gaslighting is a nasty abuse that is extremely damaging to the adults in their life, and even more destructive to their children (the movie, "Gaslight", which I have critiqued HERE is a perfect example of what it is - scroll past the "Mommy Dearest" review to find it).
You can't really discuss issues and problems with a narcissist who sees everything as your fault, and themselves as perfect, and will blame-shift every relational problem on to you. If you are married to a narcissist and he or she is beating up the children you have in common, your narcissist partner will still be trying to convince you that it is your fault for why they are beating up the children.
However, all of their desperate efforts to blame-shift, gaslight and avoid accountability does not mean you should take or excuse this behavior. People who blame-shift EVERYTHING, even where accountability might land on their shoulders instead of on someone else's, can get dangerous. You can often tell how dangerous and punishing they are by criticizing them about a little thing. Big reaction? Small reaction?
I bet at the very least they rage, perhaps insult you and mount a huge defense about why they don't deserve the criticism, or why what you criticized them about is your fault or someone else's fault. Full blown narcissists care a great deal, even way too much, about their image as an infallible character who never, never makes a mistake, or who has any imperfections, and never committed a hurtful act or sin in their entire lives.
Blame-shifting is why narcissists never reach emotional maturity. Emotional maturity is an ability to take a criticism without raging, being able to self reflect, being able to empathize with others, being able to understand other people's perspectives, and yes, the ability to admit when they are accountable.
Before I move on, I mentioned that narcissists grow up in toxic families. Usually at least one of their parents is or was somewhat narcissistic or greatly narcissistic. Or it could be they were alcoholics or drug addicts (blame-shifting is sometimes used to keep eyes off of their alcoholism and "relationship neglect" - they can display some narcissistic traits). It's possible their parent was sociopath, or a psychopath too. However ...
... If the narcissist you know has a consistently loving family, no estrangements with members, and the family does not seem in the slightest to be authoritarian, or a family full of narcissists or alcoholics, the narcissist you know may be a psychopath instead (psychopaths have many of the same characteristics as narcissists and alcoholics: this link takes you to my article on primary psychopathy).
RESOLUTION OF RELATIONSHIP ISSUES IS IMPOSSIBLE
WITH SOMEONE WHO CANNOT TAKE ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THEIR ACTIONS
AND CONSTANTLY BLAME-SHIFTS
Resolution of issues is very important to people who are not narcissists, sociopaths or psychopaths.
Resolution looks like this:
- How can we resolve this so that both of us feel good with the outcome?
- How can we understand each other?
- What can I do better?
- What can you do better?
- Openness to discussion of different approaches
- How do we reach a peaceful resolution between us?
- How do we reach peace between us?
- How does the behavior of each of us make us feel, and how can we resolve this?
- And most important: what kind of past baggage are we bringing into this relationship and the emotions we are feeling (from childhood, from a bad relationship)?
- Do we trust each other to make a commitment to work on this and create some policies?
- Do we trust each other enough in terms of "the best of intentions" so that we can work together?
- Are we spending too much time blaming and defending ourselves rather than looking at a resolution to the problem? Should we be focused on understanding first, trying to brainstorm a resolution ,second, and try to focus on the fact that we love each other and don't want to hurt each other, the fact that we have the ability to work this out, and the real picture of what is happening? Are we capable of moving beyond blaming and defending and getting to a resolution?
Run of the mill narcissists believe that resolution of issues means creating another honeymoon in the cycle of abuse (the cycle being honeymoon/reconciliation, calm, tension building, explosive incident - over and over again). After an emotional explosion or abuse, they come back, or start calling us. They know we are hurt so they make promises that they will never explode, or abandon, or abuse again. They might even cry and give us gifts so that we know we are valued, and that they are sincere in their promises to make things better the next time. But ... things don't get better, and they explode or abuse yet again.
This kind of cycle can go on for years, and no matter what you do, the cycle is stronger than all of your actions and words. The partner blows up because "This is a different issue!" or "You didn't do this perfectly enough this time!" or some other reason. Narcissists often do not like peace (it is boring to them), so they drum up arguments, create drama by picking at you (erroneous blaming), and try to get attention on themselves by creating a crisis.
They also do it to manipulate and to gain power and control. What better way to get you to do what they want than to be constantly playing with your emotions, creating situations where they can predictably make you cry one minute, then make you angry another (preferably in front of other people so they can shame you and make you look like "the bad guy"; i.e. to blame-shift all of their crap on to you), and to reconcile with you (after they hurt you - to see how much they can get away with it, how much they can break promises and can count on you overlooking the broken promises, to see how much blame-shifting you will tolerate, to see whether you will take them back yet again - very manipulative!).
The best thing for them and for you is not to take them back again. However many people go through quite a few of these cycles before they realize these cycles will not end under any circumstance.
However malignant narcissists (vindictive, sadistic narcissists who have Antisocial Personality Disorder traits in lesser or greater degrees, depending on the person) do resolution of interpersonal issues a little differently.
These narcissists typically expect apologies (and even groveling) from you. If they get the sense that you are resisting from apologizing to them, they punish you. The punishments are usually these:
- financial abuse
- downgrading you as an animal species (rat, pig, skunk, snake, sloth, b$tch, @ss, black widow spider, etc.) and treating you as though you are one
- threats and naming the consequences for you not fixing the relationship the way they want it fixed
- withdrawing love as punishment
- withdrawing validation (that you even exist - "You are dead to me!" is often the expression used)
- smear campaigns to others about your character
- trying to convince themselves and others that you are 100 percent at fault
- lies about you
- trying to isolate you from others
- attempting to use others to shame you, and giving you the cold shoulder (prejudice and hatred of you)
- "It's my way or the highway!" behavior (rigidity)
- "You never were good enough for me!" words or behavior (arrogance)
- Inability to care about your feelings, the pain you are going through or even the C-PTSD you have developed from years of their callousness and abuse if you are their spouse or child (they will often show they are pleased they hurt you instead)
- making a case to others that they are a victim and that you are the perpetrator (a kind of blame-shifting that is dizzyingly immoral and unethical, but they don't care!)
- often: false imprisonment (especially if they feel they can get away with it)
- often: stealing. It can be money, but generally they are things that mean a lot to you like memorabilia (where the sadism comes out), personal papers and records, or evidence that will make it seem they may be held accountable for something. Photo stealing is the most common. If you have children between you and the narcissist, they will take every photo of your children and leave you none. And by the way, photos can be scanned and reproduced, but malignant narcissists don't that (another sign of sadism).
- often: destroying your personal property or gifts you have given them. If they are higher on the Antisocial Personality Disorder spectrum, they can also destroy your pets and kidnap your kids (or at the very least, do anything in their power to turn your children against you). This goes for malignant narcissists who are your parents as much as it is for a malignant narcissist spouse. They can even destroy you.
In other words, all issues between the two of you are deemed to be 100 percent your fault, have to be resolved 100 percent by you, the resolutions have to be 100 percent acceptable to them (or else!), or they will make you suffer! They will keep upping the amp on your suffering until you capitulate. That's not a resolution, but it's the only resolution they will accept ... or know (because they don't accept any other kind - it's a 100 percent blame-shift too).
If you want to have a little chuckle over this, you will often hear them say they don't understand why you, and other people they have treated this way, leave them! Seriously! ...
Of course, it is dark humor, but it shows how delusional they are.
And that's the problem with having a profound lack of empathy and the inability to self reflect: the ineptitude at being able to understand issues like this. They will discard people if they perceive a criticism coming from you, but they expect others to go through all kinds of heavy-handed abuses and retaliations like the ones I described above, and in the end, they expect that person to also create some sort of conciliatory environment for them, not for both of you.
With that much arrogance and sadism, and that many lies about your character, and that much entitlement to receive an apology after they have done so much destruction to you and your life, why would anyone want to apologize to them other than as a strategy to calm down the narcissist in order to plan a good escape?
BUT IS IT POSSIBLE FOR THEM TO CHANGE?
OR WILL THEY ALWAYS BE BLIND TO WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO YOU
AND KEEP BLAME-SHIFTING?
I will explain what that "But ..." means, but first I want to discuss why it is highly unlikely they will change.
The most immovable part of their character is lack of self reflection, blame-shifting and not taking accountability for their actions. It is what keeps their narcissism in place. It is like the pillar that keeps the bridge up. If you take away the pillar, the bridge would fall down. The same goes for their narcissism.
Instead of a pillar, I would call it a crutch. It is what they use when they are impulsive, and it is what they use when they plan things out to say to you (Machiavellianism). It's automatic for them. If you ask them to stop it, they won't. I talk from personal experience about this too, and believe me I have tried.
I have seen a lot of videos from survivors of abuse (over 20 at least) make an attempt to talk to their narcissist. One video was an hour long, and I sat through the whole thing just to see if there was any hope of something, or a glimmer of understanding from the narcissist. Nope. In every single one of the videos, the blame-shifting maneuver was used over and over by the narcissist for every single issue that was brought up - without fail. In fact, there were zero times I saw any kind of statement like: "I understand what you are saying," "I'm sorry, honey!" - it was relentless. In fact, most of these videos show the narcissist interrupting the survivor to blame-shift. They don't want to hear anything more: they just want to get the blaming going in one direction, towards their target, and to keep it going. In the end, the blaming took over the entire conversation. All the narcissist wanted to talk about was blaming. And predictably, the survivor either rolled their eyes, walked away or went silent.
What these survivors were asking for and expecting was not at all unreasonable. Meeting half-way is a reasonable request. Asking them to care is reasonable. Asking them to stop the blaming and to look at their part is reasonable. Asking them to stop trying to tear down your self esteem or to stop the insults is a reasonable request. Asking them to be part of a resolution to figure out what is the best resolution for both of you is a reasonable request.
In a healthy normal relationship you can have this. And you will also be respected. With narcissists, you can't.
You can see that blame-shifting is unhealthy. And if it is not totally apparent, think of it this way:
Your issue is that you have a bad ear ache, your throat is sore, and you are not getting over it, so you go to the doctor to see if he has any ideas and can help you.
But as you begin to explain your issue, he interrupts you and says, "I can't help you! This is your fault! It's up to you to make this better!"
This is basically what we deal with when we are dealing with a parent or partner who is a full blown narcissist: we go to them with an issue we are having with them, and we want to get it resolved and instead of resolution, we are blamed instead. The narcissist says, "I can't help you! It's your fault! It's up to you to fix this!"
So, I need you to think of this as an addiction they can't give up, and refuse to give up. Try it yourself: find an issue, go to them, and when they blame-shift, ask them politely to stop blame-shifting and work on the resolution with you instead. Did they stop, or did they keep going with more blaming? Let me know in the comments.
Blame-shifting and a refusal to take accountability for their actions is the cornerstone of all narcissists and probably more of a stand-out elemental trait than the ones typically attributed to narcissists.
If the narcissist is continually abandoned by others, there is a better chance of this changing. Believe it or not, the more hard core narcissists (malignant narcissists) have a better chance of waking up because they will be abandoned by others a lot more than other kinds of narcissists. These people are too difficult and traumatizing for most people. The covert narcissist and the grandiose narcissist will sometimes feign giving up the blame-shifting for a moment or two just to get you back into the cycle of abuse again. However, even if most people cannot handle malignant narcissists, most psychopaths, sociopaths and other narcissists can handle them, especially if there is something to gain (like money or power). Psychopaths, sociopaths and other narcissists may recognize that narcissistic characteristics are going on within each other, and start a war with each other, so there is a tiny chance of enlightenment by seeing their behavior in others, perhaps worse behavior than they display. But again, there is still only a tiny chance of enlightenment because they will most likely separate before they really wholly experience it. They would have to be entrapped in some way.
In terms of malignant narcissists, there are two kinds: one of them was or is the golden favorite child of a narcissistic caretaker and therefor super entitled to receive special treatment. The other was egregiously abused or neglected by a narcissistic parent.
The golden favorite bully child is not going to become enlightened. They have been groomed since they were young children to believe that someone else except them is always at fault, and that they are perfect. You will know they feel that way too, because they are usually grandiose about it: "I deserve more than you because of x, y, and z." They were molded at a very young age to be malignant narcissists. That kind of molding is nearly impossible to break because the "You're special" and "You're more special than others" kinds of messages are in their psyches in everything they do, and in every encounter they make. They avoided the abuse that their siblings got by believing this. That belief carries them throughout any and all adverse conditions, even wars and invasions. They can be quite fierce and they often don't care if they hurt other people. They feel bullet proof, and they may even voice that belief.
The other kind of malignant narcissist who was egregiously abused as a child has more of a chance of enlightenment (if he doesn't self destruct). They are children who adopted narcissism to survive, to use as a defense mechanism, a kind of wall of indifference and emotional numbness in order to survive. Still becoming aware is very, very rare. They have more to gain by trying to understand, certainly, which is why a few go down that path.
Psychology professor Sam Vaknin who has studied narcissism for decades is one of the enlightened ones, and I encourage narcissists who may read this blog to go to his YouTube for answers instead. This blog is more for survivors of narcissistic abuse.
But be aware that studying it for decades may have a lot to do with why he "gets it". Like many child abuse survivors, he admits that he has not healed, and that awareness and healing are not necessarily synonymous or synchronized. He still has C-PTSD symptoms of impending doom, on-going sleeplessness, feeling he has no identity beyond the one he has constructed himself from scratch, and that the possibility of being hurt again is so prevalent in his mind that he feels he has to be alone much of the time.
The child abuse he endured was severe - and severe may be an understatement because in his case it was off the charts.
He reports that some narcissists can modify their behavior in therapy so that they aren't as destructive to themselves and to others, but mostly they use therapy to gain narcissistic supply and learn how to manipulate people in a way that is more evolved, learned, educated and acceptable to potential victims, parole officers or other sources of narcissistic supply. Narcissists can learn about how other people experience and view their narcissism, but they only understand it on a cognitive level, not on an emotional level, and with the "emotional level" missing (which is where empathy and a lack of blame-shifting would make them aware), they are not "aware enough" in a way that will ever be totally acceptable or fulfilling to most people who have a full range of emotional depth and capacity. The narcissist will always feel on "the outside" of loving, understanding, compassionate, emotionally rich environments and interactions. In order to feel they are fitting in, they have to act.
The acting is why victimization happens: a human being with fully developed emotions (the non-narcissist) assumes the narcissist is speaking the same language, and has an authentic depth of feeling instead of an acted out one. Sometimes it is not until you are discarded that you realize that they don't and never did have real empathy for you or a healthy range of emotions. The way we find out is that a lot of us are discarded over something I call "little nothings", perceptions of theirs, often not based in reality. But in truth they are based on something: looks, actions or words which are perceived by the narcissist to threaten their grandiose sense of self. If the grandiose self is not upheld, they feel they cannot dominate or control you, that you will abandon them for being a false actor and imposter.
Most narcissists, however, react by attacking and discarding you if they perceive that their grandiose self is threatened, which actually has the effect of making them less grandiose, less idealized, less of a master of a manipulator of your life, and too untrustworthy to be in any kind of dominant position in your life again, especially if they pull out all of the stops at hurting you. Survivors get to the point where any lure by the narcissist is seen as just "more smoke and mirrors".
Vaknin reports that narcissists will fight "fervently" against being labeled with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but once they know they have it, they will accept it, especially if their lives are in shambles. And he also says he has seen narcissists want to change, and be really sincere about it, especially if his or her life is empty of relationships, or meaningful communication with those around them, but that the rate of recidivism is too high for their victims to take stock in it.
But, having said that, he says that behavior modification is more possible to achieve for malignant narcissists than other kinds of narcissists. He believes healing from childhood wounds is nearly impossible. And it is the wounded un-idealized self that he experiences when everyone has left him. Once he can gather people or former victims around him again, going back to being the way he was before is like an addiction: he still wants the power and control, even when it caused destruction before, even when it caused destruction of his entire life. In a way, narcissists don't know how to live without it because they have manipulated people for a long, long, long time, back to when they were children (in order not to be abused) - note: this last sentence is my insight, and not his, though his insights are reflected in the rest of the paragraph.
He said that if he were to characterize his life as a narcissist, he said that sadness is the pervasive take-away of most of his experiences. He also describes his real self as a desert (perhaps as a child who was obliterated and blown away by his parents), and that he also obliterates that child by replacing it with a false self of grandiosity and narcissism.
If you want to see how child abuse produces narcissism in some people, I suggest you watch his video, "How I Experience My Narcissism: Aware, Not Healed". It is worth seeing the whole video if you have the time (an hour long). While he does not talk very much about why he wanted to hurt so many other people in his life, and what he got out of being sadistic, though he does admit it many times, he does talk about why the construct of a false powerful omnipotent "front" has kept him alive.
But you will also notice how he talks about what he went through more than what he put other people through. While the self awareness is commendable in a narcissist, and should absolutely be the first focus (to understand how childhood impacted their present behavior), it cannot go without switching the focus to what other people went through as the result of the behavior.
Many therapists do not want you to understand how narcissism develops because they want you to be safe, to live fulfilled lives without the narcissist nipping at your heels for ever more narcissistic supply, power, domination, isolation tactics, smear campaign tactics, and most of all, more abuse and sadism. If you feel too sorry for them, and understand the full scope of their suffering, it is believed that your empathy will draw you back in, and that you will drown with them, especially if you are the child of a narcissist. There is the insistence in the domestic violence community of therapists that you need to experience life outside of the family prison of narcissism to heal. Also if you go back to them, malignant narcissists will want to punish you egregiously for abandoning them or accepting their abandonment of you (this is also one of their no-win situations). In other words, you are supposed to fight for their validation and acceptance in their eyes. And that is what is beyond unhealthy, and dangerous, especially when it comes to malignant narcissists.
For malignant narcissists who aren't in the slightest bit aware of what they are doing and never go to therapy (most of them do not go to therapy), it is even more dangerous. They would not even get what survivors feel if they watched Sleeping With the Enemy every day for a month. They would be trying to plan out the abuse differently from what the perpetrator did instead.
Even Sam Vaknin has said repeatedly through most of his videos that abusive narcissists should be abandoned. Always.
BUT WHAT IF THEY GO TO THERAPY?
CAN'T A PROFESSIONAL HELP IN THIS SITUATION?
WOULDN'T A THERAPIST KNOW HOW TO HANDLE THEM?
The reason why they refuse to go to therapy is because they are invested in this tactic. They can't use this tactic if a therapist is asking questions like:
"Why do you think it is up to your (partner or child) to do all of the compromising, while you show no ability to compromise?" And if this is a child: "We are supposed to model what we want our children to be. How are they supposed to know how to compromise when we don't show them how?"
"Why do you think it is okay to expect others not to criticize you, when you are not only criticizing others, but insulting them to this degree, and hurting them? Why do you think you deserve special treatment in this regard?"
"Have you considered how she (or he) might be feeling about being blamed all of the time? Is this a healthy way to interact?"
"Are relationships a one-way street for you, or a two-way street, and how can you help make yours a two-way street?"
If they are heavily addicted to using the blame-shifting tactic, which most of them are, and never take accountability for their actions, they are going to find therapy intolerable.
A lot of people describe therapy with a narcissist as:
- one trip to the therapist's office
- the narcissist looks enraged or frightened at being asked questions like this, that they have the attitude that it is beneath his or her dignity to take this sort of harsh treatment (being critiqued by the therapist), and either sits there looking dangerous, or leaves before the session is over
- you both go home afterwards and the narcissist rages at you (calls the therapist names, calls you names, says if you believe what the therapist believes, then you are an incredibly sick person)
- then abuses you (the abuse is worse than before you went)
There are alternatives, of course, but this is the most common.
Communal narcissists may stick with therapy as a means to get a better reputation ("I stuck it out in therapy, so I'm not a narcissist", "I have good intentions in my relationships. I went through therapy", "No one can tell me I don't work on my relationships" and so on). They may still be trying to put the blame on the other person (in ever more "clever" ways instead of the ways they used to do, where the therapist might not detect - it becomes a "cat and mouse game" for them), altering the truth, and charming the therapist, and trying to put all of the attention on themselves, playing the victim, and playing a little psychological fencing game (perhaps trying out-therapize the therapist), but, on the whole, their reason for going is to be socially accepted.
But for the most part, therapy for narcissists usually only happens if it is court-ordered.
Some narcissists who are on the lighter part of the spectrum, and are not "full blown" (i.e. does not have every single one of the traits) may want to go because they recognize they have the traits, and others recognize they have the traits too, and they are losing relationships and respect. Be aware that only one quarter of one percent of narcissists take this route. A lot of them quit. And the recidivism rate is high.
Which should tell most of us that they want, or feel they have to use this tactic, no matter what it means for your relationship (narcissists don't form or feel deep attachments to others: people are usually expendable to them, and they usually have "replacements" lined up - another reason they feel they can use this tactic, because if you won't accept their blame-shifting, maybe someone else will).
Most survivors who go to therapy with a narcissist end up going by themselves, especially if they are finally feeling some validation from the therapist. Suggested therapies usually include therapy with a domestic violence counselor and therapy with a trauma specialist.
My own view is that instead of trying to get this one particular narcissist that you know to go to therapy to mend the fences, and trying to get them to stop using this destructive tactic is to spend time in trying to get laws passed instead (there is now a movement afoot to get laws passed that make coercive control illegal - Hawaii has already passed a bill, and California is considering one). Children, especially, need laws passed which offer them more protection from tactics like this (and all of the others pertaining to narcissistic abuse found in the right column - the traits and tactics - on this blog).
WHAT DOES THEIR BLAME-SHIFTING DO TO US?
I will be writing more in depth about this, but for now, I write a shortened version:
- It makes us feel unseen and unheard. Most narcissists like the silent treatment to solve their interpersonal problems, and the more you want to be seen and heard, the more they give you the silent treatment. It is also used when they want you to accept 100 percent of the blame and you are refusing to do it. Don't take this personally.
Being seen as constantly or 100 percent at fault all of time is obviously unreasonable and self-serving. Most narcissists are not able to accurately assess other human beings anyway (although they think they are brilliant at it ... they are brilliant at being able to judge who is most vulnerable to abuse, and that is about it). The reason why they cannot assess other human beings accurately is that they cannot self reflect on how they impact other human beings.
When they discard people as a way to deal with interpersonal problems, that doesn't help them understand anything either. So, you will feel unseen, that their assessments about you are not true and are unjust, and that you can't do anything about it, which brings on:
- It makes us feel frustrated. It is like the relationship between you is severely truncated, that it is not allowed to grow out of roles. Every time you try to work out a problem with them, that stubborn wall of blame-shifting is there. It won't go away, no matter what you do.
- It makes us feel depressed. People who are treated unjustly, flippantly, made to feel guilty for something they are not responsible for, and as just another discard in their long line of discards do get depressed.
The depression will be deemed by them to be your entire fault, so even this gets no recognition or validation. However, the "hurt-er cannot be the healer" when it comes to narcissists, as Dr. Judy Rosenberg has stated many times.
- You feel used, like only a toy for the narcissist to manipulate, and part of manipulating you is the narcissist trying to convince you that it is all your fault. They won't take any other perspective than that one. They are determined to put you in the role of "the flawed one" and themselves in the role of the "unflawed one".
Dr. Ramani Durvasula describes narcissistic love as "utilitarian love" (the toy works or it doesn't; and if it doesn't work, maybe they need to whack it a few times to make it work in the way it used to work when they were idealizing it, and if nothing works, they throw it away).
Sam Vaknin describes narcissistic love as a kind of mechanized love, where people are viewed as not much different from machines. It is a similar concept.
For my readers who are healthy individuals, we know that most of our love experiences don't look like this. Love bombing is the kind of love narcissists use.
Children who grow up in "it's-all-your-fault" environments experience blame-shifting as trauma. They aren't learning resolution skills. They are stuffing their feelings; they are hurt and expected to self-soothe; they are confused as to why their parent cannot look for the truth (where most everything is belief-based), and to be fair, reasonable, just, and empathetic.
Living in a cauldron of lies, constant blame-shifting as being just one of the lies, is not healthy for anyone, let alone children.
taken from the video):
1. "It's all your fault."
2. "What do you want me to do about it?"
4. "You're over-reacting."
6. "That wasn't my fault."
7. "If you hadn't _______, I wouldn't have ________"
8. "Why did you have to spoil everything?"
9. "Why do you have to make everything so difficult?"
10. "That's just like you."
11. "You're selfish."
12. "You need help. You need a mental evaluation."
by psychologist, Les Carter:
by Dr. Ramani Durvasula:
by Dr. Roberta Shaler for Help With Toxic Relationships:
by Lisa A Romano:
by Dr. Todd Grande:
The Verbal Vomit of the Psychological Abuser: Projection and Blame-Shifting - by Andrea Schneider, MSW, LCSW for Psych Central
Why do narcissists shift blame onto the victims? - a Quora article
business relationship article: Toxic: Dealing With a Culture of Blame - by Todd Henry for Accidental Creative
business relationship article: Unethical behaviour at work may reflect a blame culture with little trust or integrity - by Sara Bean for Insight
