Misadventures with Angry Alcoholics, Bullies and Narcissists: mirroring

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Wednesday, August 16, 2017

love bombing by narcissists and sociopaths

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why narcissists use love bombing:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why sociopaths use love bombing:

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

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

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

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

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

Love bombing is used for conquest only.

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

How to tell if the love is real or not real

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

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

On narcissists:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Narcissists are glib and arrogant:

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

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

On sociopaths:

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

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

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

Sociopaths hate it when you want to slow things down

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sociopaths have very few, if any, close friends.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Always remember that love bombing is abuse!

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

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

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

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Do people who have been brought up to abuse and be terrorists have a choice in their behavior?

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

contact: LilacGroveGraphics (att) gmail.com)

I made this cartoon, but on this topic, despite what I have portrayed here, I have no idea!

But, I do have some thoughts on the matter.

If a child is brought up in a home where bullying of his scapegoat sibling is condoned by his sociopath or narcissistic parent, are his emotions and brain more or less permanently wired and conditioned to see that sibling as inferior and a convenient target to abuse? This topic might be good for a researcher to explore.

Some research has been done about parents who raise abusive narcissistic children. According to this article in the Washington Post, researchers Brad Bushman of Ohio State University, and Eddie Brummelman, a post-doctoral researcher at Holland's University of Amsterdam and Utrecht University, discovered that narcissism develops from being treated as superior to other children by parents. Here is an excerpt:

"I've been studying aggression for about 30 years ... and I've seen that the most harmful belief that a person can have is that they're superior to others. 'Men are better than women, my race is better than your race, my religion is superior to your religion.' When people believe they're better than other people, they act accordingly."

He and Brummelman wrote in this paper: "Narcissistic individuals feel superior to others, fantasize about personal successes, and believe they deserve special treatment. When they feel humiliated, they often lash out aggressively or even violently."

Let us take a look at the Kornegay family again as an instance of an allegedly over-valued child and an undervalued child living in the same household (I have talked about them before in many other blog posts). The golden child 16 year old son was allowed to discipline and abuse his 15 year old sister (who was kept in an empty room with a locked door with only a blanket and a bucket to pee in). Keeping her in a locked room is how she was punished by the parents, and the 16 year old was just following their orders, and believing in them about his stature (as being entitled and more favoritized than his sibling). The 16 year old was allowed to discipline and punish her in any way that he desired, especially when his parents were off on trips (which included verbal, emotional, physical and sexual abuse, including depriving her access to a bathroom, a kitchen, or any emotional or mental stimulation).

Could it be argued that the 16 year old was conditioned to believe he was doing the right thing, so that he always felt he was in the right no matter how much abuse he instigated? The impetus for his abuse was to control the scapegoat, to discipline her, to keep her contained and imprisoned so that she would accept her low stature, so that she would stop complaining and stop fighting for her freedom. Even as an adult, even with exposure to a doctrine in the greater society that bullying and abuse is wrong, would he have really believed that it was wrong, especially if his parents told him he was not wrong, ever?

The problem with reactions to abuse in the present day is that many family members (cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, children and siblings) often have the attitude that familial abuse is a private matter that should be decided within the family, and that it does not concern them, and that they should stay out of it. They often also condone and take part in abusing scapegoat(s) too, especially if the authority figures of a family can convince other relatives that the scapegoating and isolating of their family member is necessary, if they can convince others that the scapegoat(s) are crazy and/or bad and/or deserve abuse. So the bullying becomes a nightmare for the victim. It is a wonder that suicide rates aren't higher (most prisoners live on self-generated fumes of hope for awhile, including victims of abuse, so that may be the reason for why suicide rates aren't higher).

Abusive families can even have liberal agendas. Some of these families espouse being against domestic violence, but not when it comes to their own homes and how they punish their children. They will say that terrorism is evil, that the people in those organizations are bigoted and ignorant, but when it comes to their own child, they are bigoted and treat them like a slave or an outsider, i.e. as "not good enough", or only good enough to bully. I have heard abusive people even say "these terrorists should" automatically and magically "wake up to the fact that violence is not the answer for our species or the planet," and yet at home they partake in violent aggression and scapegoating of a child or other family member.

The truth is, they may not deserve a peaceful world or a peaceful life if they can't make it happen in their own homes with their own families. Perhaps they can't stop the tide of violence and abuse in their homes any better than the terrorists can stop acts of terrorism, acts of war, and taunting towards nations, races or ethnically diverse groups.

I generally refer to the kinds of hypocrites that talk of peace, but condone family scapegoating, as the "they should people". These are folks who go around and say, "They should be stemming violence at these rallies", "They should do something about our neighbor selling drugs", "They should be patrolling our streets more often", "They should let women have the choice about what to do with their own bodies", "They shouldn't be giving food stamps to just anyone; there needs to be an application process which is heavily vetted" (and guess what: in order to get food stamps there is a lengthy application process and it is heavily monitored and vetted, but some of these people don't care that they made factual errors .... the more important part of their message is the they part, the theys being those amorphous authority figures that are in charge of decisions and laws making the world and civilization a certain way). And, of course, I always love: "They should be doing more to put an end to domestic violence" (and yes, abusers say it with a straight face, and even go into detail about how they need to pass better legislation for victims, and it is shocking to hear it!).

One of the reasons why most abusers cannot tolerate therapy (only one quarter of one percent enroll in domestic violence therapy voluntarily -- most domestic abuse offenders who go to therapy are court-ordered), is that they are deathly afraid of shame and their own hypocrisy. Instead of dealing with shame and hypocrisy, they take the tack of blaming their victims instead: the he made me do it desperate and not-believable explanations and defense mechanisms. The reason why they run so fast away from their victims, giving them the silent treatment and spending an inordinate amount of time smearing their victims' reputations, is to make sure that they will not feel any shame at all for what they have done, or their part in it. It is simply easier for them to get rid of their victims (and yes, this does and can include their own children), and to pretend that they are the victims instead, and lie, manipulate and make up stories, all in order to keep the big bad shame monster away from them. Everything is sacrificed so that they do not have to own up to how they treated, and still treat others.

Eventually their narcissism grows so sick and so deep and so entrenched that they actually get happy and smug that they have hurt so many people and, most of all, gotten away with it so many times. They can be extremely bitter old people whose narcissism and abusiveness has gotten much worse -- the overwhelming trend.

Many abusers insist that ending a relationship with their victim, and subsequently living with the constant paranoia at being found out about their true natures is much more preferable than working things out with their victims. If you know of parents who ostracized their child over something trivial (like breaking a vase by accident, or of not being available for babysitting for a week because they had rehearsals for a school play, or of breaking a curfew once, or of unintentionally hurting their parent over a sentence), then this is what is going on, partly. The other part of the picture is that they feel ostracized children will be learning "Don't you ever cross me, or else" kinds of lessons that abusers are famous for. They also believe their ostracized victims should be making amends to them, giving into them, trying to ameliorate the ostracism by behaving ("behaving" often meaning willing to tolerate more and worse abuse just to be a member of the family).

If they take their ostracized children back without their children doing the beg, the plead, the "please forgive me" dance, most often it IS NOT because they feel badly about abusing their child, it is purely to save face. Most of their friends and family know that ostracizing a child who is normal, out in the workplace without addictions or a criminal record, or pursuing an education, is usually about toxic parents that abuse. Sometimes the narcissists are caught at a lie, or making up a story, or their children are speaking out, or their children or a spouse runs into one of the narcissist's friends and tells the horrible story of what the parent did (and it can't be covered up with a lie because so many people are telling the same story), that is the point where the narcissists try to do damage control, because their reputations are at stake. Even if they feel they can cover their tracks, they know people will be looking at them suspiciously. A child talking about favoritism and sibling abuse is a nightmare enough (and many scapegoats of narcissistic parents get ostracized for even making mention of the subject), but a child talking about child abuse is their worse nightmare!

This happens even on a larger scale.

Etsy, a large publicly traded company who hosts mostly sole entrepreneur sellers of handmade, fine art, supplies and vintage, seemingly couldn't stand all of the bad press in major publications that resulted in many, many sellers speaking out against the company. The company muted so many of its sellers in its public forums from even hinting about Etsy's arbitrary rules about what constituted handmade (and the company's hypocrisies in this regard). In fact, it was argued by many of the sellers, that the venue gave certain sellers who were, in effect, "forum flying monkeys and cupcakes" who went along with every Etsy policy and change, no matter how bad, preferential treatment (favoritism) in the way of features, front page exposure and top press exposure. So, thousands of sellers were muted in the forums and banned from the site for talking about these issues. So, many of these sellers tried another avenue: they banded together to speak out against Etsy in major publications instead, including The New York Times, Newsweek, Regretsy, and many others. This, in turn, caused Etsy to lose credibility with both sellers and buyers, and their business started floundering. Shortly afterwards, Etsy set up "seller teams" which were open to even the muted sellers, but were "private" from buyers and potential sellers, in order to contain the dissension and complaining within its own company (this was the cynical view by many of its sellers, anyway). The sellers' favorite phrase, in fact, within these teams was that "Etsy would prefer us to piss and moan inside the tent, so long as it stays in these private teams, than outside the tent where all of the world can see it and the big publications can run with it."

I think families do this with their ostracized abused members eventually too, and for the same reasons.

So, the ostracized member is most often NOT taken back into the family for the right reasons (love); they are taken back because the shunned member is embarrassing to them and creating embarrassment about them as well. It is rare for narcissists to take back ostracized children unless their child is getting uncomfortably successful for them (they have had the attitude that their scapegoats aren't supposed to be successful, after all; they are supposed to be poor, hungry, hurting, groveling and grieving) or unless their scapegoat is giving the family a bad rap (this can especially be of concern if there are other ostracized members and in-laws who see the evil, hear the evil, and speak about the evil they saw and heard, i.e. backing up the scapegoats with the same stories about abuse).

So, if you are being taken back into the family fold, look at the circumstances of your return first. I would bet it has to do with exposure. I would also bet the furthest thing from these abusers' minds is loving. No, if anything, it is how to be ever more clever so that they can get away with more underhanded not-as-easily-detected abuses, abuses that are nauseatingly transparent, as retaliation over their abused members exposing them. It is probably about hiding the abuse better too. Remember: most abusers don't go to therapy voluntarily, and they never admit to hurting others (unless it is for show).

Licensed therapist, Josephine Ferraro, wrote an excellent piece about why clients who feel shame end therapy sessions abruptly (and mostly she talks about victims of abuse carrying around shame, so you can imagine why perpetrators cannot stand living with shame in therapy for even a milli-second).

So anyway, many liberal families who abuse their children act just like Etsy in this regard. They believe in liberal causes like Civil Rights, Women's Liberation, health insurance for all, peace, safeguarding democracy, Domestic Violence awareness (possibly to hide who they really are), but live a duplicitous life by abusing their children, or a child, mercilessly behind closed doors.

Which brings me to my next question:

If a child is brought up in a terrorist organization and taught to kill infidels or the citizens of neighboring countries with a lot of military and weapons training, does the child have any real choice when he becomes an adult? Can he really think that terrorism is wrong and have the forethought to know that terrorism brings devastation to those who are targets of terrorism and those who practice terrorism? If all he knows is that infidels or the citizens of another country are inferior to him and must be killed, can his mind really entertain other, more contrary thoughts? Is he really capable of moderate, reasonable thinking and reactions? What if he is assured everlasting life, twenty virgins, a place in the leadership for his terrorist activities? Does he feel he has anything to lose by being a soldier of his organization's righteousness?

If there really is no choice for children who have been raised to be golden child bullies and abusers and/or golden child soldiers of terrorist organizations, it means that the brain is more of a computer than an explorer and researcher, more intransigent than investigative.

Even Christ realized that the people who were executing and torturing him did not know what they were really doing ("forgive them for they do not know what they are doing" -- Luke 23:34). His persecutors were taught to hate and torture. He realized the executioners job was just a job, that there was no real enlightenment or understanding behind it. Indeed, none of the people who put Christ to death really knew Christ or made a rational, understanding, unbiased decision. Even though Christ's doctrine has been out there for 2,000 years and counting, most people, I am convinced, still do not understand him and his word. Too many people have twisted his words and intentions, such as "thou shalt not kill", as justification to kill. They think that Christ would make exceptions, that he might order killing in a just war, or order abuse in a troubled household. They think that Christ would condone violent actions in some situations rather than oppose them.

Are you kidding me? Nothing, absolutely nothing, he said condoned war, abuse or terrorism. How arrogant to think that he would rubber stamp all of the wars, or the present war, in his name! One thing about arrogance is that it can turn people into narcissists and sociopaths who think they are better than their victims.

It is my contention that Christ, even with followers, was a scapegoat for irrational rage and hatred. And did we human beings pay for it! And we are still paying for it as one war after another, after another, after another, with no rest for the earth and its living creatures, is instigated for the sake of religion.

I believe that most scapegoats come to the conclusion that Christ did: that people do not know what they are doing when they hate. And believe me, scapegoats can go through feelings of anger and hatred just as much as the perpetrators do, but they don't let it take over their heart and their thinking (usually). They can be especially angry over all of the injustice they are put through, but their reactions in dealing with their anger are night-and-day different from their abusers (usually). Unlike the haters who torture others as a pastime or job they think they are entitled to perform, and where obtaining new narcissistic supply for their hatred is just part of their game plan, the scapegoat leaves the field of battle because he does not want to feel hatred. It is my contention that he does not leave the battlefield because he is hated; it is because he does not want to feel hatred, and to be living in battlefields. He already knows that the hatred that is being lobbed at him over endless inconsequential controlling tactics from his perpetrator(s) is irrational. The real issue is that scapegoats do not want to resemble their perpetrators at all: they just don't want to go around in life filled up with hatred, scheming retaliations, letting hatred define all of their movements throughout life the way perpetrators do. Most scapegoats, I have found, are most interested in doing work that helps others. They might pursue legal avenues, restraining orders and the like, to keep perpetrators from seeking any more ways to hurt them, or from hurting others. In other words, it is not a measure for revenge, but a setting up of boundaries. Unlike perpetrators, other people are not an obsession: scapegoats don't tend to think about "people manipulations". Survivors don't want to spend their lives being punitive, petty and "stupid" carrying around hatred in their bodies, minds and souls. They know first-hand what the perpetrators of hatred do to victims who are hated, so getting hatred out of the body and soul can be the primary focus and motivation of setting up boundaries and going "no contact" to safeguard against any more abuse. These are good reasons for going no contact, unlike narcissists who use the silent treatment. Narcissists silent treatments are about manipulating people and punishing those people who refuse to be manipulated. Going no contact, however, is a response to abuse, a protection from abuse, and a protection from one's children learning from abusers, and being around manipulation and abuse.

So scapegoats and refugees of violent dictatorships seek ways to avoid the abusers and terrorists: they leave their families; they leave their countries. They move to places where they can live in peace and not be tortured. Most scapegoats come to the realization and conclusion that hatred, lack of empathy and lack of deep rational thinking (stupidity) are one and the same.

Hatred is blind. Once hatred takes hold (overwhelming the emotions to the point where it takes over its host with irrational decision-making), perhaps that is when the brain becomes incapable of new ideas. A moderate ordered peaceful mind and the "thinking" that is required to make situations peaceful, is deeply compromised to make room for all of that rage. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that I believe that narcissists generally and often experience so much rage that it is the only thing left in their minds, hearts and bodies: it has completely and utterly taken over them to the point where nothing else can be felt, and no other thought can get in. These aren't generally people who solve problems or compromise, so it must be. Instead, they make many more problems for themselves, as well as for others. And they never have a creative solution to an interpersonal problem they are encountering with another person. The silent treatment or attacking is the only thing most of them understand and use. Which is to say, their method of solving interpersonal conflicts and issues is quitting (they are, by and large, quitters in areas of their lives that are not working out exactly as they want, not just in relationships). So, it would stand to reason that their systems are mostly full of rage and hatred.

Hatred is myopic, hard hearted, unpopular and throw-back. It is emotional, and not thinking. It is irrational, and not expansive or enlightened. It's bed-fellow is often fear, envy, selfishness, greed and anger. There is a reason why Jesus, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, William Wallace, Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, Crazy Horse, Spartacus, Mandela and Moses are looked upon with reverence.

When we are taught as children to hate (whether it be a sibling, a race, or group of people), and taught to view them as outsiders who need to be punished, abused, ruled and isolated, are we risking the longevity of our own species? I would say yes, but this is a blind guess, not backed up with research.

These are important questions. The answers lie not only in education, but whether we have an ability to fight terrorism, bigotry, enslavement, family abuse, unnecessary wars, school bullying in an ever-crowded world with ever-more need and ever-more diversity. It is not a matter of who comes out on top and survives, it eventually becomes a matter of survival altogether, for all of us.

Further reading:

Erroneous Blaming and Erroneous Punishing is Abuse! -- my own post about how many abusers take their own perceptions of someone else's thoughts and feelings, and use it to punish. I believe this is at the heart of terrorism too, where people's skin or a religious persuasion is used as an excuse to start a war (punish)

Toxic family values stem from Great-Grandparents life experiences -- from the Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Flying Monkeys -- Oh My! blog

Further reading on the present political climate in terms of narcissism, scapegoating (bigoted policies) and abuse:

America's Agitator: Donald Trump Is the World's Most Dangerous Man -- from Spiegel Online International, a German publication

Some Excerpts:

* On his narcissism:
Those who have experienced this man's temperament know just how thin-skinned and aggressive Trump can be when criticized or provoked, and how mercilessly and excessively he pursues revenge.

* On his scapegoating:
Racism has since become a core element of his campaign, but it has only intensified in recent months. At first, Trump was only talking about the need to stop illegal immigrants. Only when he realized that this was what got him the most applause did he become more radical. In June, he said that Mexico is "bringing drugs, crime and rapists" to the United States, and that he would "build a great, great wall on our southern border," and "I will have Mexico pay for that wall!" He also announced that he would deport all 11 million illegal immigrants within two years.

* On his belief that he is superior (a "golden child", god-like) ... note: narcissism runs in families and is passed down through the generations:
But what worried him the most, says D'Antonio, is Trump's belief that he is genetically superior to most people in the world. In all of their conversations, he notes, Trump kept returning to the notion that by virtue of his birth, he is simply better than other people ...

... His son, Donald Trump Jr., shares his father's conviction. He said he was a firm believer in the concept of breeding, in "race-horse theory." Then he pointed at the ceiling with his finger, in the direction of his father's office. "He's an incredibly accomplished guy, my mother's incredibly accomplished, she's an Olympian, so I'd like to believe genetically I'm predisposed to (be) better than average."

* Lack of self reflection, the worst quality of narcissism:
His biographer talks about the dark sides of Trump's self-absorption. "Trump lacks any self-irony, any form of critical self-perception." The entire family is like that, he explains. When he tried to joke with Trump's children about their father's penchant for gold and glitter in his buildings, none of them understood what he was getting at. "They don't notice when something is ridiculous," says D'Antonio. "This is the most telling characteristic of the entire Trump clan: the persistent denial of reflection."

* Enlisting bullies to take care of people who disagree with Trump's views:
Almost every evening, Trump goads his supporters to shout down protestors or throw them out of his rallies. He often ridicules these individuals from the lectern. If one of them happens to be on the heavy side, he pokes fun at "that fat guy," which fans interpret as a signal -- that Trump won't mind if they get a little physical with the protester ...

... A study by pollster Matthew MacWilliams shows that what Trump's supporters have in common, more than anything else, is the desire for authority. MacWilliams asked people whether they preferred a respectful, obedient and well-behaved child or an independent and curious one. Those who tend to favor the former are seen as being authoritarian. Trump was the only candidate strongly favored by the respondents with authoritarian ideas.

* Trying to win over voters by making wild promises that are not spelled out, the main strategy being making arrogant statements and insulting his fellow Republicans, Jerry-Springer-show-style:

Never before has the grand, time-honored Republican Party been as helpless and hapless as it is right now. The party's leadership had sought an establishment candidate like Jeb Bush or the younger Marco Rubio. But Trump?
"We are in total chaos," says Peter Wehner, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush. He says the Republicans are already divided and that a Trump candidacy could spell the end of the Grand Old Party. When Wehner talks about Trump, it sounds as if he's referring to the head of some dictatorship. "Trump is erratic. He is emotionally unstable, has authoritarian tendencies and a certain cruelty. He is a toxic figure, a demagogue. Trump would cause a lot of damage to the Republican Party. If he won the nomination it would be a hostile takeover. We must prevent it."

* Name-calling and verbal abuse (comparing refugees and migrants to animal species like snakes, pigs, rats, spiders, etc), another narcissistic trait not too endearing:
Bush, to his credit, never compared migrants to poisonous snakes -- something Trump did recently at a rally in Pensacola, Florida. Later that night, Trump addressed what has been one of his favorite topics lately: Europe's refugee crisis. "Just talk to the folks over in Germany," he said. "Europe is being destroyed."
When he puts on his reading glasses, the audience goes quiet. "Just listen to this," he says, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket. He printed out the lyrics to "The Snake," an old soul hit from Al Wilson. The song is about a snake, half frozen from the cold, that asks a woman to be let inside. The woman takes pity on the animal and holds it to her bosom, upon which the snake bites and poisons her.
Trump reads the lyrics aloud passionately, as if he were auditioning for a role. "Oh, shut up silly woman," he says, imitating the snake: "You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in." The crowd cheers. They're over the moon. Trump just stares back at them. "We're gonna get bit."

A Washington Post Article on a scientific study about child rearing that predicts voters for Trump -- voters for Trump overwhelmingly want children who are "obedient" and do what they are told by authoritarian figures, as opposed to parents who want children to develop into thinking autonomous personalities with their own interests, insights, perspectives and trajectory.
Note: most victims of abuse prefer the latter, and raise their children that way too, because we have been scorched and burned too many times by the former. The problem with authoritarianism is that "authorities" who are abusive and inflammatory are a nightmare to those who live or think differently from the authoritarian figure. Dictators are so rigid in their prejudices against those who are "different" that it creates an immediate dichotomy: the "for" group and the "against" group, what revolutions are made of. In a country like the United States, known for its diversity, having a dictator who is inflammatory, bigoted and intolerant of other viewpoints will be a disaster for so many people.
I would bet that Trump, in the long run, will be remembered as the most hated president we have had in U.S. history. I will also predict that he goes down in history as being a ruthless dictator who tried to overturn democratic procedures. Trump believes he will be great for the nation and proclaims this over and over (and people latch onto his rhetoric and promises instead of his policies); however, just because Trump believes it, doesn't make it so.

Another article on Trump as narcissist by Bobby Azarian

Another perspective on why people who believe in authoritarianism are, by-and-large, voters for Trump by George Lakoff

In contrast, here is an article from CNN and Reverb Press that quoted Bernie Sanders, talking about his religion (and it is decidedly non-narcissistic, against bigotry, against looking at scapegoated refugees who are trying to run away from war and ruthless dictator as a problem):
Again, quote by Bernie Sanders:
Every great religion in the world -- Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism -- essentially comes down to: "Do unto others as you would have them undo to you" ...
... The truth is at some level when you hurt, when your children hurt, I hurt. I hurt. And when my kids hurt, you hurt. And it's very easy to turn our backs on kids who are hungry, or veterans who are sleeping out on the street, and we can develop a psyche, a psychology which is "I don't have to worry about them; all I'm gonna worry about is myself; I need to make another 5 billion dollars." ...
... So I believe that when we do the right thing, when we try to treat people with respect and dignity, when we say that that child who is hungry is my child ... I think we are more human when we do that, than when we say, "Hey, this whole world, I need more and more, I don't care about anyone else." That's my religion, that's what I believe in."

I am not sure who this cartoon was made by (I found it on facebook).
If you know, please contact me and I will give credit here for this
insightful cartoon:

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Mirroring and narcissistic, psychopathic love and war. Soul mate? Not so fast!

name of cartoon: "Psychopathic Mirroring"

image is © Lise Winne

2015

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

contact: LilacGroveGraphics (att) yahoo.com)

Narcissists and Sociopaths use mirroring in order to draw people into relationships. They also use mirroring during arguments.

For the sake of convenience, I sometimes use the word "psychopath" to cover many Cluster B disorders, including the worst kinds of narcissists, sociopaths, malignant narcissists and individuals who plan elaborate cruel deeds directed at others.

In order to draw someone else into a relationship, the psychopath is looking for someone to endow him with narcissistic supply (i.e. to identify him as someone worthy of paying attention to). I thought the definition of narcissistic supply by Sam Vaknin (a writer from Isreal diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder who wrote the book Malignant Self Love among others) best explained it:

To the narcissist his "achievements" can be imaginary, fictitious, or only apparent, as long as others believe in them. Appearances count more than substance, what matters is not the truth but its perception.

The opening to his book reveals why psychopaths might need to mirror others:

What is a personality disorder? When the personality is rigid to the point of being unable to change in reaction to changing circumstances - we say that it is disordered. Such a person takes behavioral, emotional, and cognitive cues exclusively from others. His inner world is, so to speak, vacated. His True Self is dilapidated and dysfunctional. Instead he has a tyrannical and delusional False Self. Such a person is incapable of loving and of living. He cannot love others because he cannot love himself. He loves his reflection, his surrogate self ...

... He feeds off other people, who hurl back at him an image that he projects to them. This is their sole function in his world: to reflect, to admire, to applaud, to detest - in a word, to assure him that he exists. Otherwise, the narcissist feels, they have no right to tax his time, energy, or emotions ...

... NPD is a pernicious, vile and tortuous disease, which affects not only the Narcissist. It infects and forever changes people who are in daily contact with the Narcissist. In other words: it is contagious. It is my contention that Narcissism is the mental epidemic of the twentieth century, a plague to be fought by all means ...

Mirroring becomes the path to intimacy for the psychopath. I'll demonstrate using "PS" for "potential supply" and "Psycho" for "Psychopath".

PS: I love making pottery on the potter's wheel. If I can get through my job, that is what I find to be most enjoyable when I come home from work!

Psycho (with intense, smitten look): I love making pottery too! Pinch pots! Yes, I learned that at summer camp! But I'd love to learn the potter's wheel just to be close to you!

PS: Wow! That would be great! You're really interested in learning how to do this?

Psycho: Of course! When do we get started? Tomorrow?

PS: What about your interests. Tell me what interests you.

Psycho (looking uncomfortable): Why don't you tell me what interests you! I'd much rather see if we are compatible.

PS: Well, I like restaurants off the beaten path. Like Indian restaurants, Mexican food, Greek food. I'm not one for all-American fare. I like light meals, you know?

Psycho (reaching for her hand to hold): I'm exactly the same way.

As first meeting turns into weeks, the psychopath seems to want to spend all of his free time with you. It is like a whirlwind romance where he only has eyes for you. He'll probably call constantly, boasting to his friends about his "new love", telling you that all his other "loves" were nightmares and how sweet you are in comparison, how much different you are, how much better you are than all those others. He'll seem to have all the same interests and views that you do (politically, spiritually, emotionally, interests ...). He may cuddle up to you and say things like "a penny for your thoughts..." to gain more intimacy and knowledge about you. He'll want to know everything he can about you (he is a lot more interested in all of your deepest thoughts, feelings and desires -- and he seems intensely focused on you in a way that he doesn't exhibit towards others -- and in fact, he seems rarely distracted from you). He'll be concerned about every one of your little aches and pains, baby-ing you when you get sick, maybe have dinner ready for you when you get home. He may always want to sit close to you, perhaps a little too close, touching you and bringing you in for hugs and hand-holding, perhaps eat off the same plate, feed you, service you sexually. Indeed, psychopaths aren't reserved about touching (they want you to know that you have such a powerful effect on them). They may have their arms around you as much as possible (to melt your heart towards them).

In fact, many victims report that psychopaths seem so perfect at first, an amazing dream that has come true, someone they have been waiting for their entire lives, a soul mate. In fact, many psychopaths make the pronouncement that you are their soulmate within a very short period of time (whether within weeks of dating, or just after a few months).

And mirroring the other person is how they get you hooked in.

According to this post, thinking you have found your soul mate is the first sign of a psychopath.

Some of the other signs are posted on this blog post (but for the sake of brevity, some signs include any kind of boasting where they paint themselves as better than others, where everything that has gone wrong in their other relationships is the other person's fault, where they want something from you that will make another person jealous ... there are many others, but that is a start).

Many psychopaths have experience mirroring with charm and intense gazes, and they see that it works wonders for them, so they use it again and again on different victims. It is the way to make the biggest impact on other people's lives: everyone they draw in will probably believe in their soulmate pronouncements.

It is a lot of work for them initially, but the point is to draw you in enough so that they can begin to get what they are after through their association with you.

But they also want to make an impact in other ways too. Most psychopaths draw you into being their soulmate to exploit you for something. Perhaps they want your money, or status, or for you to be their slave and helper ... there is always some ulterior motive other than being in the relationship with you because they enjoy your company and value your views, thoughts, emotions, experiences, personality, interests, opinions, autonomy, decisions, relatives, friends, social circle, cultural background and work ethic.

In fact, most psychopaths will very slowly and carefully begin to show you that they don't value any of these parts of you, and they will try to strip you of it all, little by little, and piece by piece, over time. They do it first through giving advice, perhaps lecturing you a little, putting on some pressure here and there, pointing out where you might be indebted to them. They might infer every now and then that you don't know what you are doing, hoping that you will lean on them for advice. This may eventually turn into an ultimatum or two, if they think they can get away with it, if they think you are hooked into them enough. They are constantly testing the waters to see what they can strip you of, how much they can intimidate you, how much they can use you.

What ends up happening in the end is that you have no voice in matters which concern you. In all abusive relationships, victims have very little voice, or no voice. They begin to be reprimanded for having a voice (i.e. "that's stupid", "that doesn't make sense", "we aren't doing it that way; we're only doing it this way", "I don't care what you think", "I'm not going to listen to this" -- and so on). They start to talk to you as though you are a child who needs to learn lessons or has to be scolded. They might lean into you to give you a lecture, interrupt you, shout over you or point a finger at you as though you should be ashamed of yourself. They make it known they will intimidate and humiliate if they don't get their way. Victims quickly understand that the relationship doesn't exist to serve both people's needs; it only exists to serve one person's needs.

When victims discover they are being groomed to accept blame, abuse, threats and being controlled, the abuser can actually feel betrayed by the victim's discovery. They know that the person will not make good narcissistic supply, because they cannot be fooled any more and they aren't acting like a marionette. So either the perpetrator discards the victim right away, or they try for guilt trips, attacks, guilt-shifting, diversion and confusing the issues before resorting to a discard.

How do abusers do this? they mirror here too. Almost all abusers, when confronted, will blame instead of talk reasonably about issues. Abusers are especially known for blame-shifting, a kind of mirroring, at least in terms of duplicating the confrontation aspect. Everything the abuser is accused of, rather than thinking about it and trying to come up with a resolution, he counters it in some way, trying to thrust "fault" onto the victim. Abusers often accuse victims of what they are guilty of.

Eventually the relationship will turn into a kind of arrangement where the psychopath will expect his other half to have the same thoughts, agendas, motivations, feelings, etc, that he has. Indeed, the more the partner can mirror the psychopath, the more happy the psychopath will be. However, even here the mirror can't be a perfect replica, and any deviation is seen as a flaw (and flaws by nature, will mean that to the psychopath that he is the superior being, and that therefor you must bend to his will, a thought process that also is too common among suicide bombers and other kinds of terrorists).

According to this post in The New York Times by Tara Parker-Pope:

If you’re in a relationship with a narcissist, you eventually discover you are there to revolve around them and to serve them. You can only imagine the shock that happens for people when they get seduced into something they think is the best thing that ever happened to them and it turns into this kind of relationship ...

... If you divorce a narcissist, it’s not going to be a normal divorce because if you leave the narcissist, they never get over it. They seek revenge, and the court system is an incredibly great platform for a narcissist. That’s where they can just continue the battle with the partner and continue to seek revenge, and that’s what happens.

The PBS mini series The Widower follows real-life sociopath/psychopath and murderer Malcolm Webster, which I found to be particularly accurate in terms of how narcissists and psychopaths act in terms of charm, presenting a false face with false intentions, control, abusing people who don't go along with them, how they manipulate people and how they try to destroy people who either fight against being dominated and abused, or otherwise challenge them or show autonomy.

The series portrays Malcolm Webster as a charming but ultra controlling manipulator who uses, and then punishes women who are doing, saying or thinking anything he deems to be independent of his control. He meets most of these women in the medical field, a field which is brimming with empathy-style personalities, ones who psychopaths and narcissists love to target.

In all cases, he tries to convince the women that he found his ideal soul mate in them. He particularly moves in on women who have money. As his real-life wife, Felicity Drumm, stated in this Wikipedia article, he was "very extroverted, likable, funny, amusing person to be around, he was good company." She tells her story, including how plausible he sounded in his explanations, including his need to be on her bank account book, and why she was sleeping too much (he was drugging her) in this UK Daily Mail article here. His third major woman, Simone Banajaree, stated that Malcolm Webster ..."was so caring, so attentive, he would open the car door for me, make sure that perhaps dinner was ready when I came home from work. You couldn't have wished for a better person ... 'A real charmer' would sum him up very well. But he seemed an honest kind of guy as well."

Like a lot of victims who have a hard time trusting and moving beyond the experience of being betrayed, Simone Banarjee, also did too (read here).

Read an interview with all of the major people who were taken in by him, here.

When these women didn't agree to all of Malcolm Webster's agendas and accept him as the authority figure of their lives, they were often drugged, and their murders planned.

The difference between a sociopath and a narcissist is that a sociopath can break the law and kill, but not always, and a narcissist will do everything he can to hurt and destroy a person without breaking the law, but not always. Sociopaths are capable of not inflicting physical damage or killing especially if they are getting closed in by law enforcement, and narcissists are capable of killing especially in domestic violence situations-gone-wrong.

As has been stated, psychopaths operate under the premise that their "victims" confer and agree with them at all times. They charm and sweet-talk victims. They demand complete loyalty, help and submissiveness, often without giving it in return. They bend the truth to garner attention, sympathy, accolades or lovers. They experiment manipulations and they continually test their victims for loyalty. But they are hypocrites when it comes to them being loyal: they always seem to have another supply/victim ready in case things don't work out with their present victim. They are mostly incapable of sharing the power and decisions with others. They idealize, devalue and discard victims, though narcissists will generally do it through rejection, silent treatments, shunning or mobbing, and sociopaths will generally do it through threats, false imprisonment and harassment, and sometimes through physical injury, destroying property, drugging, staged accidents and/or murder. They pursue victims by putting their victims on pedestals ("I love you more than anyone I have ever met ... you're better than ---") or convincing them that they are a soul mate (they mirror the other person's likes, dislikes, interests, style, concerns and act like the perfect lady or perfect gentleman to gain access). They are intensely ardent and pile on the flattery. The mirroring is their way of establishing an intense connection (while working on getting the victim reliant, dependent, hopelessly in love and loyal to them, while also continually working at getting victims to accept guilt and punishment if the victim should ever dare to act or think autonomously).

As has been stated before, psychopaths can seem like ideal lovers, parents or siblings, and they can be charming, outgoing and more affectionate than other people. They love bomb everyone who they want to influence. They can also sound more plausible than their victims because they are expert liars. They also know how to put on the tears and play the victim or casualty of a tragedy to garner sympathy.

For instance, narcissistic mothers are notorious for trying to garner sympathy for having an insane child (a child that behind closed doors she is actually abusing, a child that "acts crazy" only because the child has PTSD from the abuse). Narcissistic lovers might try to garner sympathy for having a clumsy ill spouse (but behind closed doors that spouse is actually being beaten and is ill from the stress of walking on eggshells). So there is this dark side to psychopaths who charm others: they are ultimately takers, they seek to get something out of a relationship with their victims whether that be money, possessions, service, sympathy or notoriety. Getting something out of someone else always means a lot more to them than the relationship itself.

Once they are exposed as takers, liars and shams, they feel a need to devalue their victims in order to preserve themselves so that they can move on to the next supply/victim they have idealized in their minds. While they can sometimes move on with ease and plausibility, eventually their deceptions and using others can catch up to them. While they think they are careful in planning evil deeds, they often count on a premise: that their victims won't want to live without them (for narcissists) or that their victims will be too afraid to challenge them (for sociopaths). Either way, they are not as good at covering their tracks as they think they are. Again, reference the mini series The Widower to see how police eventually brought Webster to justice.

Lying becomes so second nature to narcissists and sociopaths that they use it in too many situations, too often. Malcolm Webster pretended he had leukemia, something he could easily get caught at, and which made little sense in terms of getting the girl. These personality disordered types eventually get caught by the many, instead of by the few, leaving behind too many victims, with too many cover-ups and over-explanations for them not to fall under notice.

When challenged by a victim as to why they acted so cruelly, they will mirror there too (projection). If they rejected you, they will often say, "No, you rejected me!" and list all of the times the victim got called into work, or decided to play golf with a friend, or anything that can be construed as rejection. If they stole something from you, they will say something like, "We know you are the real thief in this relationship." If they beat you up, they have been known to inflict bruises upon themselves and call the cops to confuse law enforcement as to who the real victim is. If you ask them not to bring up certain subjects, they will want the same. Mirroring in this way is meant to confuse authorities, but also to confuse victims (ultimately it is a form of gaslighting). It is their way of trying to get away with abuse, to get the authorities off their tail, and to get their victims compliant, apologizing to them. They also hope and even demand that their victims owe them something for being so disloyal, for not going along with the agenda of being abused and tortured.

Mirroring/projection is typical of school bullies too. As a teacher and mandated reporter, I am required to report all situations where someone is being hurt, even if it is difficult to tell who the real victim is. All abusers have immature mentalities when it comes to feeling entitled to hurt someone else. "He hit me first!" "No he hit me first!" "I told him to leave me alone and he won't leave me alone!" "I tell him to leave me alone all the time! He always comes around! He wants to join my group, but I tell him we don't like him!" And so on. Mirroring/projection doesn't end just because a person is 60 or 80; the psychopath probably learned as a child and they continue to use it -- unless they have become one of the enlightened few (unlikely).

Why do narcissists mirror?

There are many theories.

One has to do with "the lost self." Narcissism passes down through the generations, so narcissist parent terrorized the child, then that child became narcissist 2 who terrorizes their children, and so on, and so forth ...

As a child, in order to survive abuse, the budding narcissist had to sublimate his real self in order to please his narcissistic parent. This is why narcissists are so inept at self reflection, because they don't know who they are. They only know who they are by a role they were taught to play by their disordered parent. They were often expected to be perfect, and to perfectly execute demands put upon them. If the children weren't acting as the parent required all of the time, they would either be humiliated or punished. Many of these kinds of children wore themselves out trying please a parent who was impossible to please. They wanted to receive the kind of love and caring they saw in normal families, only to be spurned, chastened, degraded, given the silent treatment for long periods and unjustly disciplined.

They were constantly shamed if they didn't do what their parents wanted, which included taking on an identity their parents wanted them to have. Shame became an intolerable emotion for them, because it usually came in tandem with severe reprimanding and penalty, perhaps snubbing, disdain and extreme forms of isolation unless the child behaved the way the parent deemed acceptable. So narcissists do anything they can to avoid feeling shame. This is why they can't take criticism and why they go on the attack if they feel they might be criticized: attacking is a way to slough off any shame. It is like a game to them: when feeling attacked or shamed, attack back and try put the shame on the other person instead, a disgusting, neanderthal reaction, but one that was learned in childhood.

The sibling relationships were probably dysfunctional as well. When the parent was terrorizing sibling 1, sibling 1 pointed the finger at sibling 2 to avoid being abused. All siblings were expected to serve their parent and compete for their parent's love instead of having a mutual caring respectful relationship with each other. Children were probably not allowed autonomous thoughts, interests and perspectives without constant interference and demand from the parent. So, in order to have an identity, they either adopted their parent's identity (mirroring: becoming another narcissist, usually a golden child role), or they became repulsed by what was being expected of them, having little respect for how their parent behaved, being willing to become rejected by the parent to pursue their own dreams and loving relationships, living separately or independently from the parent (black sheep, scapegoat), or they became sullenly quiet (lost child), or they tried to entertain their parent (comedian). These are also roles typical of alcoholic families.

If there is only one child in a narcissistic family, the child vacillates between being a scapegoat and a golden child, depending on the parent's whim. If there are two children, one becomes the golden child and the other a scapegoat.

When children mirror the narcissistic parent, the child, of course, becomes another narcissist. They take the identity of that narcissistic parent into all of their other relationships, and parent their own children in the same manner. The theory goes that the child became narcissistic to survive abuse by showing the parent that they (the child) was just like them. Narcissists like to be flattered, so what better way to do that than to adopt all of the parent's likes, dislikes, interests, thoughts on issues, perspectives, personality and agendas. The child does anything to avoid being looked at as a separate individual with separate perspectives, dreams and thoughts to avoid being punished and ostracized. The child is sometimes used to help the parent bully the other children into compliance. The child does anything to avoid feeling ashamed and humiliated, as they feel they would never recover from the trauma. The child does anything to avoid responsibility in his relationships, so fibs and points the finger at others, starting in the early home with his siblings.

The budding narcissist is actually the weakest of the children because he is not willing to take a stand against the parent's power and control agendas, to do what is right and moral, to search for his own perspectives and identity instead of the inferior subservient one his parent thrust on him, to treat others with integrity, justice and respect instead of adopting the parent's craven abusive plans and behaviors.

So, if you notice you are being mirrored by a potential sweetheart or someone who was mean to you in the past: watch out!! There is usually a narcissist or sociopath behind that mask! Take a lot of time (and I mean a lot!) to see if that person's interests are really theirs or if they've just adopted yours to get into your life to use you and abuse you. Look at their past relationships, see how their parents behave, see how they resolve conflicts before committing yourself.

In many folk songs, lovers who mirror and pretend to love are called "mockingbirds".

Here is one such song called "The Mockingbird's Voice" by Claire Lynch (from You Tube):

More on Abusers Blame Victims for What They are Guilty Of -- coming in a future post.

Further reading:

Mirroring -- from Wikipedia

How the Narcissist Projects His or Her Behavior Onto You

How Bullying Works: Projection and Scapegoating

Psychopathic and Bullying Projection

Adult Bullies -- in the workplace

How Narcissists Use Mirroring to Lure in Victims -- as sales technique

a general article about narcissism, why they are arrogant, abusive and mirror others

How to Spot a Psychopath -- from the Psychopaths and Love blog

WHAT THIS BLOG IS ABOUT

research, writing, art, illustrations and cartoons about abuse, bullying and narcissistic disorders in terms of what it means for the victim and perpetrators

I also explore alcoholism as it relates to anger management issues

I am a mandated reporter in the state of NY. This means I report signs of bullying and domestic abuse to authorities

I am a former art teacher. My goal is to get an MSW and to be an advocate for survivors of child abuse, spousal abuse, incest, scapegoating and school bullying.

advocate of CoDA, ACOA and Alanon

my purpose is to help others

Blog table of contents below, but I suggest reading the featured blog post first below to understand what abuse is and who it is perpetrated by

Disclaimer: do not use these posts to treat any condition; please see a professional therapist or psychologist.

SCAPEGOATING IS MOB BULLYING:

"The purpose of the scapegoat is to pass responsibility onto someone else. Usually this person is unsuspecting at first and agrees because they are trying to get along with others. This technique of passing the buck is very common with narcissists, sociopaths, and addicts. Narcissists can't allow their ego to be tarnished by an error. Sociopaths do it for the sport of it."

~ Christine Hammond, Licensed Therapist

ARTICLES I RECOMMEND:

1 Toxic Families who Scapegoat

2 The Role of the Family Scapegoat in Dysfunctional Families

3 The Narcissistic Conspiracy: Scapegoating, Smear Campaigns and Black Sheep - How Narcissistic Groups Bully Their Chosen Victims

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