why narcissistic abuse can hurt so much

name of art: "Effects of Child Abuse"

image is © Lise Winne

watercolor, ink and graphics, 2015

(for questions regarding use of images or to contract an image for your next article

contact: LilacGroveGraphics (att) yahoo.com)

People in healthy relationships work out differences by adopting these practices: "I am sorry." "I forgive you." "I want to understand what happened." "Let's work it out." "I want this relationship to work out, so let's talk it out." "I'm trying to understand where you are coming from." "Do we understand each other? I think that is what is most important right now before we hammer out a solution." "I know you are hurt, but I honestly didn't mean to do that." "I love you. The love is so much stronger than either of our agendas. So I hope there is a compromise we can both live with." "I'd love to resolve this with you so that we are both mostly satisfied, even if we can't be all satisfied." "This is a relationship. That means both of us have to be heard and considered." "You are so precious to me. I would love to work this out with you." "We can resolve this."  "I'm so glad we can talk things out." "Let's make up!"

Most relationships fall into that category. It's what most people expect when they are in new relationships too. Which is why it throws a lot of us off guard when we encounter narcissists.

There is a huge difference in the way conflicts are approached when you are with a narcissist.

Narcissists work out differences by going on the attack. They have reprimanding sessions. Their favorite phrase is "You have a vivid imagination." Other attacks include: "I always knew you were crazy!" "I would never say that!" "It's your fault." "You are to blame for ALL of this!" "You know what's wrong with you? I'll tell you!" "You need to learn a lesson!" "I don't care if this relationship works out or it doesn't. I just don't want to hear any more." "If you say one more thing ..." "You need to apologize!" "I'm not going to dignify that with an answer!" "If that's the way you feel, I'm warning you! You'll pay for it!" "I'm sorry you feel that way." (coldly). "You're better than that!" "Wow! You need to get a grip!" "Ha! Ha! Guess what? I don't care!" "You're a spawn of the devil!" "How dare you!!"

Big difference!

And this is not all! Narcissists love (and I mean LOVE) the silent treatment as a weapon. Every time you want to talk normal, in a healthy way, you are met with a barrage of more reprimanding, blaming, stonewalling, patronizing, insults, goading and the sulking silent treatment unless you say exactly what the narcissist wants to hear. Except you'll never know what they want to hear because they are notorious for saying, "It should be obvious!" or "As if you didn't know!" They think everyone should read their minds! So, it is a guessing game. If you don't get the guess right, they just give you more of the silent treatment. It is more indicative of how three year olds act when they do not have good communication skills and want an adult to understand what they are feeling and thinking at all times.

If that wasn't enough, they also expect you to apologize when they've abused you. You are supposed to feel that they can't help but be abusive, that you have to give them a different set of moral standards than they give you. They think that all of their abusive tendencies are because it's someone else's fault and because everyone else except them is flawed and is deeply provoking to the narcissist. That is why they are personality disordered: their view of the world is that they are perfect and no one else is, so everything that goes wrong, even if it goes a little wrong, the blame has to go away from them and onto someone else. When they feel someone is to blame, they retaliate in the most destructive way they can, and feel their victim deserves it. They are teflon people with huge egos.

They have been known to be totally shocked and surprised when therapists tell them they are not so special, that they are not better than others. They have also been known to be just as dumbfounded  when they've committed a crime and told they are as culpable and responsible for it as anyone who commits the same crime.

So, the result is that you can't work things out. The narcissist doesn't want to work things out; all he (or she) wants is for you to realize that your stature is lower than his, that you don't deserve equal treatment or to be considered, and that he has a right to belittle you, berate you, lecture you, insult you, dominate you, enslave you to his agenda and abuse you.

In the meantime, you are expected to walk on paper thin eggshells so that he doesn't attack you further.

People who have been brought up in normal households, mostly walk away from relationships with narcissists. Their parents have taught them good boundaries and what respect and understanding sounds like. When you grow up with addicted, neglectful, traumatized, psychologically disordered, abusive, borderline, narcissistic or sociopathic parents, your parents never taught you good boundaries, and your radar for sensing toxicity in a potential partner is compromised. Additionally, if you have been brought up as the scapegoat (where blame for everything that goes wrong in the family is heaped on you), or shaming (which is emotional abuse designed to make you feel worthless) or to feel you are flawed, then your guilt about it can override your boundaries. This is how narcissists slip into your life. Once they are in your life, they wreak havoc, bring misery and trauma, and they can even destroy you. And then you have to figure out how to safely extricate yourself from them (and make no mistake about it, safety is a big concern as perpetrators escalate violence when their target is just leaving, or right after the target has left).

The trauma is what is hardest to get over. Your "We can work it out" healthy attitudes are taken advantage of, stepped all over, and in the end, crucified. "We can work it out" in effect is met with an implied "You are crap! How dare you not capitulate to me!" or "How dare you criticize me!"

"We can work it out" should only be met with "Yes, we can work it out." If it is anything other than that, you are probably dealing with a toxic disordered person.

For a list of cluster B personality disorders that practice abuse and domestic violence go here.

To understand why narcissistic silent treatments are abuse and can cause trauma in their victims (C-PTSD), go here.

To understand why most abusers do not want to change the way they behave, go here.

If you think that you won't be abused if you do everything your abuser wants at all times, and that you are willing to be saintly and altruistic, think again and go here (abuse tends to escalate no matter what, and especially if you become docile, passive and don't fight for yourself).

Most abusers attack you on many levels: verbally, emotionally, and sometimes physically, by triangulating, by raging and blaming, by expecting from you perfect execution of words and feelings that they approve of, through gaslighting, through blame-shifting and projection, through gossip and smear campaigns, through isolation tactics, through denouncing your feelings, through financial abuse or underhanded financial competition, through erroneous blaming, through any kind of injustice they can think of, through hypocrisy, and finally by pretending to be the victim of you. If your parent is abusive, they will most likely be playing nasty favoritism games between you and your siblings too, in addition to all of these attacks. If you are married, they are most likely putting you through love triangles. And if all of this is not enough, they get a gleeful attitude, a bounce in their step, a happy smile, which they try to make known to their target (victim) in any way they can -- in other words they "get off" on being abusive and getting away with abuse.

sign #1

Hopelessness coupled with the trauma of having been abused, is why it hurts so much. Depression, sadness and internalized anger are often the outcomes.

I found this on Peace's facebook page (he has written a number of books under that pseudonym):

remember children:

alcoholic family wheel of abuse

ALCOHOLIC FAMILY WHEEL OF ABUSE

drawn, configured, written and conceived by Lise Winne

© 1/30/2014

inquiries: lilacgrovegraphics (att) yahoo.com

The way this wheel works:

It starts on the red and then goes around and around until the victim

starts a new life after experiencing the grey part of the circle a number of times. 

If all family members get help, it increases the chances for a better outcome. 

This wheel was inspired by the cycle of abuse wheel (which is almost always portrayed as between two people). I go a little further than that for the alcoholic family and include all of the enablers in the wheel. 

Alanon is basically a program for recovery. When you are in recovery and learning to cope, you realize the coping methods can be used in your other relationships as well (including any toxic family members, co-workers, anyone). 

"When you're living with an alcoholic, it's ALL about them" is what I remember hearing in my first meetings by some of the attendees.

True, but....

Other people (and family members around the alcoholic) can be just as toxic as many alcoholics, even people who are sober. They can pick fights, send you a barrage of insults and labels, reject you for no apparent reason other than to see what kind of rise they'll get out of you, play with your emotions to see if you'll grovel or to see how valuable they are to you, pit people against each other, play nasty favoritism games, threaten and intimidate you, tell you that you're making mountains out of molehills when you're hurt, and so on. Some sober people can be as controlling, deceitful, angry, threatening and self centered as many alcoholics.

What I have witnessed with crazy, controlling, abusive, provoking, rejecting, upsetting families is that when a family member attempts recovery (through a program like Alanon) and they start setting up healthy boundaries or of challenging other members to stop a blame game (for instance) the other family members always seem to want to drag the person who is trying to be more healthy about communications back into the dysfunctional fray again.

Someone I know likened it to a bucket of crabs. If one attempts to get away, then the other crabs try to pull it back in again. Ugh...

"My whole family is about sick forms of communication: telling each other what to do every second of their time together, attack-then-defend situations at every turn, unsolicited advice, everybody's a busy-body, everyone is trying to take control, manipulate and teach someone something, everyone is talking over each other and not listening, then there's the jostling for alliances, power and betrayals which cause a lot of hurt, fighting and gossip, and then there's the abusive, self centered alcoholic at the center of everything," a woman told me, looking exasperated. Exactly. Most alcoholic families seem to be like this. 

By the time most people come to Alanon, they are in extreme pain from all of this nonsense. Many have been shunned from their families as a tactic to get them back in line again. A lot of Alanon members adopt each other as their new family, just so they can have some form of deep, respectful communication with people who are serious about working on themselves, who want real love without a myriad of conditions, so that they can enjoy fulfilling relationships somewhere in their lives. Many Thanksgivings and Christmases are planned with the adopted Alanon family members. I notice many are polite to their biological families, but keep them at arms length. The arms-length approach often takes their biological families seven years to accept (ouch! ... but until then, there is often a silent chasm -- the family often steps up the shunnings and insults, the cold hearted replies and rejections, the nitpicking criticisms and on-purpose hurtful acts). No one seems to like a person who is changing. Everyone wants them the way they used to be, even if the way they used to be was a person in an excruciating amount of pain with no voice and very low self esteem. What happened to the quiet malleable one we could mold? What happened to our meek little mouse we could insult if they got out of line? they ask. The sicker family members will insist on malleability, submission, drag-in-the-mud communications and dirty politics no matter what is at stake or for how long. They want the family member who is taking the brunt of all of the abuse to remain silent.

But silence in a situation like this is never golden. Every time the victim goes back to a dysfunctional abusive alcoholic family, it gets worse for them.

Shunnings in dysfunctional alcoholic families are as common as women in third world countries who are brutally raped being shunned by their families and stoned by their villages. It's the western version of it...