The Difference Between Narcissists and Those With Antisocial Personality Disorder: Narcissists Feel Shame and Regret for Hurting Others Even When it Doesn't Have to Do with Empathy, and Antisocial Personality Disordered Do Not

this is part of the series on Shaming

In one of my last posts, I was challenged in the comments section about whether narcissists had any shame, and from there I felt that I needed to write this post, and to feature other posts by other authors and researchers (below), that differentiate between Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder. 

In fact, as the title suggests, that's where the dividing line is between the two disorders: Narcissists can feel quite a bit of shame, and can even feel much more of it than other people, and their tactics and abuse don't help them diminish their shame, which increases their shame even more, but the Antisocial (i.e. sociopaths and psychopaths) don't feel regret or shame at all when they hurt other people.

Or they might feel it a little when they are being incarcerated, but it's more like they'll be telling themselves that they committed some act of abuse "stupidly" and that they'll plan it out better next time.  

Why is this significant? Because people with Antisocial Personality Disorder are quite a bit more dangerous and menacing. These are people you should not directly confront - they will never accept, or even hear with an open mind, what you have to say about their behavior. They don't care what you have to say, and they don't have the empathy to care if they hurt other people either. For most of these folks, empathy died for them in their childhood. There are a number of factors that go into why their empathy is so dead, but to keep this post relatively short compared to others I have written, I will be focusing on the difference between them and the narcissists.

One major difference is that they aren't driven by morals or ethics. While your run-of-the-mill narcissist may be low on ethics, most of them don't commit crimes against others, while the Antisocial Personality Disordered folks have no ethics at all, and are likely to be dangerous and hurt people with impunity, with no regrets because of that fact. They are driven by self-serving agendas always, period, and as simplistically as I stated it. Most of them are basically con-men or con-women through and through, exploiting who ever they think they can exploit with as little effort as they think is necessary. They don't care what other people are going through at all. 

In order to make it easier to talk about the Antisocial Personality Disordered types, I will refer to them as psychopaths. Why? Well because Antisocial Personality Disorder has subtypes: primary psychopaths and secondary psychopaths. To confuse you more, secondary psychopaths are often referred to as sociopaths. Primary psychopaths are born with their disorder, and have different autonomic nervous systems (which boils down to the fact that they don't feel fear or trauma when confronted with dangerous situations or of being overwhelmed by the enemy in a battle) and sociopaths are much more influenced by home life and the environment they grew up in, but have the same autonomic nervous systems as the rest of us have. 

Then there are sub-categories of sociopaths, mainly the functional sociopath and the dysfunctional sociopath, but even there, psychologists keep coming up with even more subcategories. 

And to confuse you even more, there is a brand of narcissist called the malignant narcissist. Malignant narcissists have a combination of Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and Antisocial Personality Disorder. They aren't likely to feel much regret or shame either if they hurt other people, though they may pretend to. And that's the problem; they are big pretenders, and they can appear very, very functional except for their rages, manipulations and very commanding, demanding natures. It is hard to tell the difference between malignant narcissists and the psychopaths, and sometimes the difference between malignant narcissists, the run-of-the-mill narcissists, and to some extent, one of the sub-types of Borderline Personality Disorder. Malignant narcissistic traits tend to stand out more than run-of-the-mill narcissists, and like the psychopaths, they don't feel much remorse for hurting others (they tend to engage in domestic violence, some crimes and bullying) and they over-react to anyone who questions their self-appointed superiority and grandiosity with incredible amounts of rage. 

Even with malignant narcissists, there are subcategories: the overt malignant narcissist, the covert malignant narcissist, the vindictive narcissist, the sociopathic narcissist, the dark triad, the dark tetrad, and the dark empath.

In some of my explanations, including the malignant narcissist, I'll be calling them psychopaths. For the malignant narcissist, it's not all that accurate to proclaim them psychopaths, only that they have psychopathic tendencies to a large or small degree, depending on the person. However, like purely psychopathic individuals, they do have traits and proclivities to do harm to others.

But I'm trying to simplify it so that you can be aware of the differences between them as opposed to the run-of-the-mill narcissists who do carry around quite a bit of shame inside them. 

THE DIFFERENCES
(simplistically covered)

Narcissists: primarily ego driven. They put enhancement of their ego above just about everything else and anyone else. A need to appear perfect and superior to others. High need for power, control and domination in personal relationships, a high need to be in powerful decision-making situations or professions. 
Tends to be emotionally abusive or dismissive of anyone who stands in their way of their agendas, including people in their personal lives.
Fairly charming. 
Feels shame and regret, but not in an empathetic way. The shame and regret comes from people finding out that they are not who they are making themselves out to be. It is expressed more as paranoia, and rage at the person who exposed them (so that the person doesn't expose them further).
While you can't appeal to them to be empathetic and to care about the feelings and life situations of others, you can appeal to them in terms of how what they are doing might destroy their reputation since they are reputation oriented. 

Psychopaths: primarily driven to take from others by force, or to bully people into submission. Some psychopaths only target people who they think are "easy" or who they deem to be weak: children, women, the disabled, the elderly, etc. 
Exceptionally charming. 
Feels no shame or regret. They are so driven to take from others, or over-power others, that regret would short-circuit their ambitions. Their attitude is that people are to be used. 

Malignant narcissists: a combination of both agendas.
If male, tends to be domestic violence offenders and child abusers. Very menacing and cruel if they don't get their way. 
Exceptionally charming, two-faced, Jekyll/Hyde personality, can fool others easily, can act the part of being fawning to get what they want.
It is very rare for them to feel shame or regret. Attaining power, control, domination, wealth, and an air of superiority is so overwhelming that they rarely, if ever, consider the feelings of others. If someone tries to get them to consider the feelings of others, they may rage like a narcissist, or punish and get violent like a psychopath. 

THE CHILDHOOD BACKGROUNDS
AND BELIEF SYSTEMS THEY ADOPTED
(simplified)

Narcissists grew up in traumatic environments where there was a lot shaming and blaming going on, and there was likely to be emotional abuse in those environments too, as well as emotional neglect at the very least, if not other forms of neglect. In other words, they tended to have a narcissistic parent with authoritarianism at the center.
     Now narcissists can be plenty exploitative of their children too, just like the psychopaths, because of entitlement issues. Both disorders display entitlement.
     But narcissists are driven by different ambitions than psychopaths. Their ambition is to be thought of as a "superior being" compared to other people around them, to be thought of as "special" with special attributes that only other special people can decipher. Narcissists want to be spoiled with constant praise. They feel they need to compete with others in terms of who can win at beauty or handsomeness, who can win at arguments and debates, who can win at "wealth games", who can win at "head games", who can win at "phoniness" (most of them believe others are as phony as they are), who can win at fooling others, who can win at work through work place bullying, or triangulation, or sweet-talking a boss, and who can win at being thought of as the most charming upstanding citizen, who can win at being thought of as a victim if they don't get their way in their relationships.
     Narcissists are basically in competition all of the time. They wake up with manipulating others in mind, and they go to sleep with thoughts of manipulation in mind too. They don't like the thought of "letting things be". The agenda, in other words, is primarily social: looking and acting superior, trying to get people to listen to them with baited breath, getting lots of positive attention. It is exhausting for the narcissist to put up this front all the time, especially in front of people or children who they deem to be weaker or voiceless compared to themselves. "The mask" falls, and they become abusive to take off steam, especially if they feel that their superiority is being questioned, and they worry that they'll get caught at being abusive, at being phony, that people will see their perfection and superiority as phony too, and that they might have to deal with community shame. 
     Narcissists in their early environment were much more likely to be expected to "fawn to power and control." If you watch them carefully, they will be exceptionally fawning to anyone who has wealth, popularity, fame, and who they believe is "superior" to them. Whereas, they will tend to be abusive to children, the disabled, females, people in poverty, people of a minority race or religion, people who have weight issues, and so on, especially in their close personal relationships. They are very dependent on societal disenfranchisements to tell them who they can pick on and who they have to look up to.
     And because they fawn to power, and were expected to fawn to power when they were children, they expect others in their close personal relationships to fawn over them too when they insist on being dominant and bully others.

As I said above, the psychopath is driven by different agendas. Again, they are con-men through and through, and usually learned to take from others or to impose themselves on others in their childhood environment.
     They tend to grow up in environments where parenting was spotty, or neglectful, or where they had to parent themselves. While some of them are taught ethics, it may have been a situation that was inconsistent, or where the rest of the environment was not particularly ethical (growing up in environments where there is gun violence, war, little adult supervision, a lot of crime, and so on). 
    They can also grow up to be a golden child, where anything they do is enabled, including hurting other people, or being violent.  
     Malignant narcissists and psychopaths tend to be very, very exploitive of children especially, expecting them to do things which take away a child's maturation process, and their dignity and individual selves, to serve the parent. They must be a pretty close version of a mini-me version of their parent to not be abused. The malignant narcissist or psychopath has the fantasy that they are a tyrant king or queen, and that their children are to be either submissive little helper servants or to be abused (and they more or less infer or say outright: "take your pick").
     For malignant narcissists, it is to make their children into narcissistic supply, to puppet them into spouting unequivocally that their parent(s) are "the grandest of the the grand", the all-superior, the all-knowing, the all-wonderful, all-superior beings. And they must promote the idea that they are the all-helpful doting parent(s) too. Or again, the child will be punished. It kind of reminds me of the Turpin family who were unchained and put in matching outfits in public and to smile for the camera, even though they were being starved, lying in their own excrement and abused at home.
     The malignant narcissist who tends to want both social acceptability and to exploit others (having others do work for them while taking credit for it, lying about workers in the workplace to get them fired so that no one will stand in their way of getting to be the boss's only reliable and knowledgeable source, winning a race by disabling their opponent, the extremes of being brought up by a narcissistic parent who put competition before anything else) will manipulate others through terror and rewards to take control of the narrative, to get others to believe them.
     Neither the malignant narcissist nor the psychopath are interested in child welfare, "good practices in parenting 101", treating children with dignity and respect, treating them in age-appropriate ways, encouraging their own personalities and interests to come forward, and unconditional love (they wouldn't even know what this is, and if they did, they wouldn't want it anyway - a mind set on exploitation can't love unconditionally).

Narcissists and malignant narcissists manipulate their children and grown children through rewards and punishments as a way to temper the behaviors and speech of those closest to them, particularly compared to those they feel hierarchically superior to.

I have talked in other posts about how fawning is incredibly unhealthy and traumatic, especially when the fawning is done because of the threats, punishments, blackmail, silent treatments, coercive control, and other forms of abuse by narcissists and malignant narcissists. It is particularly traumatic for children because children learn over and over again that they have to fawn to abuse, any abuse. With normal healthy families, children are taught to have good boundaries and self respect instead, to keep safe, to leave people who abuse. Narcissists teach their children the opposite, and many children are even exposed to narcissists who expect them to apologize to other abusers. They are also at risk of other predators: child molesters, rapists, kidnappers, child abductors and child murderers.  

In the case of the two kinds of narcissists, note that rewards are not benevolence. Benevolence is giving because someone needs help, or is hurting, or is overwhelmed with a life situation, and it requires empathy. Rewards are a manipulation: "I'll reward you for x, y, and z , but if you slip up, the rewards go away." In other words, it's transactional and dependent on something: for scapegoats, whether they can be used for blame, shame and abuse in return for rewards, and for golden children, whether they can uphold a perfect, superior image of the parent (this is what they are rewarded for). Narcissists learn early on that people, and especially young children, can be manipulated and molded very easily with the reward/punishment tactic, and they use it for the entire life of that child, into old age if necessary. This can and is of detriment to themselves, and often their images are at stake because of it too, so there is a backfire built in to all of it. Rewards and punishments are used by them for self-serving purposes only, and not for their children.

In contrast, psychopaths tend to manipulate through terror primarily. They also tend to choose victims who they deem to be more powerless than others, who are hurting, vulnerable or alone than others because they feel they are easier to prey upon, and get things from. They aren't going to reward if they can, at all, help it. They don't care about impressing unless they feel they have to in order to exploit, and take advantage of. 
     Their agenda also tends to be less about shaming than just taking, unless they are malignant narcissists. In contrast, run-of-the-mill narcissists love to shame because their agenda is more social than material, to appear as someone to worship, look up to, to have power and control so that they don't ever have to fawn to power and control themselves as they did as children. They get the feeling that power and control is all that matters. 
     Psychopaths get the feeling that only money, material things, property and forcing themselves on others are all that matter, and that they don't have to work for them because others who work are an easy mark. "They have too much and can share, so I will take ..." 

In fact, all narcissistic, malignant narcissistic and psychopathic parents will have a "me first" agenda and attitude when it comes to how they relate to their children. The psychopathic parent will just be more "me first" than the others (i.e. all of the time) than narcissistic parents.
     If you are a child who grew up with any of these parent types, you are either going to be a "hurting mess", feel trauma-bonded and imprisoned by your parent, and have trauma symptoms, or you are going to have the coping skills of another Cluster B, one being another "rewarded" immature narcissist who fawns to power, and abuses the powerless.

One reason why psychopaths become so dangerous is that they believe that by hurting others, or threatening others, that it will bring the reward of submission of the other person they are abusing every single time. They don't think of any other ways to deal with others other than to "charm and harm." And if they don't get submission, they keep hurting the other person, and escalating the pain that the other person is in, more and more and more, sometimes to the point of outright torture. 

We see this in leaders of countries who invade other countries without provocation too, who commit atrocities in order to make a population submit (i.e. fawn to being overtaken). 

They don't worry about accountability, or of getting caught, or paying for their aggressions, or even concern themselves with a societal reputation because they are so arrogant and really do believe they will never get caught, ever. They believe they will get away with their abuses and terrorizing over, and over, and over again, indefinitely. Some of them play "catch me if you can" games and cat-and-mouse games with police to assure themselves they will never be caught, that they can even win with law enforcement hunting them down, surveillance, DNA evidence, and teams of agents brainstorming where and when they will make their next move.

Likewise, tyrannical invading psychopathic leaders who commit atrocities also do not believe they will ever be held accountable either, that they can wear any opposition down. Most will always believe they have more power and destructive capabilities than anyone who confronts them.

But it is also their arrogance and the feeling they have rights to aggress upon people, and their property, that cause them to make blunders. 

Here is an illustration of what can go on:

The psychopath: "How can I get money and material things, and wealth, and servitude from this situation? How can I fool people out of what they have?"

Malignant narcissist: "How can I get money and material things, and wealth, power, control, domination, and most of all, most everyone's attention on me, and get the admiration from the rich and powerful? How can I make others serve me to these ends? What connections do I have to have, and how much do I have to lie about my status to ensure that this happens? How much lying do I have to do to remain on top at all times, or at least give the appearance that I'm on top? How much blame-shifting and gaslighting do I have to do to keep my status as 'top dog'. How much fawning do I have to do to the rich and powerful? How much threatening of the peons do I have to do?"

The run-of-the-mill narcissist: "How can I get attention, admiration, get to be known as a superior likeable charming person who would never harm anyone or compete with anyone? How can I get power, control and domination over others? How unselfish do I have to appear to be? How much of myself do I have to hide, how much fawning do people expect of me, how much do I have to reveal about myself to get what I want, how much empathy do I have to pretend to have, how many people do I have to lie to, how many people do I have to pretend to be empathetic towards, to be accepted as one of them, how many people do I have to reward for putting me on a higher hierarchy or pedestal, how many people do I have to discard or hurt to get what I want?" - you can see that this kind of narcissist would care a lot about how other perceive him or her, and why they are vulnerable to shame and regrets, and why the other two types aren't as much.

The shame and regrets, by the way, have nothing to do with empathizing. It has to do with their standing in social circles and in society, and how much their standing is rising or falling. They feel they cannot manipulate people if it is falling.

One of the reasons your plain envelope narcissists hate their scapegoats is because scapegoats are usually not so quiet and they know first hand that the grandiosity is false, and that there is an abuser underneath. Some of them do not have the incentive to stay quiet either. They know that no one ever had a law changed, or helped the abused, disenfranchised and downtrodden by being quiet. They know they aren't going to help themselves by being quiet either. Societal changes, in large part, mean going against what narcissists and psychopaths want, and are getting away with, and getting rid of their loopholes including coercive control, corporal punishment of children, silencing the opposition to abuse, and reducing or eliminating assault weapons (mass murders are overwhelmingly committed by young collapsed narcissists, malignant narcissists who are negative on others and have significant prejudices, malignant narcissists who also have other personality disorders like Paranoid Personality Disorder, obsessed psychopaths, and Paranoid Schizophrenics, none of which can easily be detected, even the paranoid schizophrenics because most of them don't get symptoms or show mental illness until their twenties at the earliest). 

Anyway, the narcissist, the malignant narcissist, and the secondary psychopath learned in childhood (from it being modeled by a parent or other authority figure) how to be this way. The likelihood that they will pass this down to at least one child is very high. 

This is very simplistic, but when I get to adding to the list of the rest of the Cluster B personality-disordered (I only have the primary psychopath at the present time), I will talk much more about how childhood influenced them.

BREAKING THE LAW

All of the types I mentioned will break traffic laws, and they tend to be obnoxious entitled drivers. Speeding, going significantly over the speed limit cutting other cars off, making dangerous moves like going from a third or fourth lane to make a quick exit on to an exit ramp, speeding on bumpy country roads where there are children and farm animals, aggressive driving, and blaming accidents on other drivers is usually par for the course, especially when they are in their twenties, thirties and forties, but it tends to still be their mode of operandi when they are older than that too, if less so. 

Run of the mill narcissists tend not to break the law when it comes to hurting other individuals. They are rarely violent, choosing to use emotional, psychological, proxy, and financial abuses to achieve their ends. If they are accused of abuse, they will usually tell others that their victims are crazy. When it comes to breaking the law, they will break laws that won't incarcerate them. Instances are: carrying illegal drugs, going swimming on beaches that have "No Swimming" signs, smoking in designated "no smoking" rooms, jay walking, purposely ignoring "no trespassing signs", nude swimming on beaches that are designated for swimsuits and families, the smaller illegal activities and crimes in other words.
     When they abuse, it is usually ego driven. They want flattery, even when other people are having issues with them. 
     They tend to be hypocrites, and will not treat others the way they demand to be treated. 
     They are "terrible listeners" because everything you say will be filtered by them in terms of how your message will influence them, what it will do for their ego and what it won't do, what is in it for them, and some childhood background issues: not believing in the truth because the truth was not practiced in the childhood home, not believing in what you say because they are so agenda driven to get power and control and figure everyone around them is too, and so on. So whether you are silenced by them, or whether they listen to you, they aren't going to hear what you have to say regardless, even if you try to get them to understand you. They live in their own reality, and they also don't care what you have to say beyond how things effect them. If you feel like you are talking to a dense brick wall, it has to do with the narcissist's selective hearing.  

Male malignant narcissists tend to be domestic violence offenders. They get in your face, they rage in your face, they grab you, they can push you around without your permission, and otherwise aggress upon you in a physical manner, which very often leads to physical attacks: punching, tripping, slamming you into the wall, and so on. They think that if they are in enough of a rage or angry, that they have a right to act in this manner even though it is against the law and you are both adults.
      If they do commit domestic violence and are confronted by authorities, their favorite thing to say is: "She made me do it."
     Some of them engage in false imprisonment or trying to isolate you from the empathetic people in your life. If they can't do it through persuasion, they will try to do it financially, or disabling your car, or losing your keys on purpose, and other kinds of motives to keep you in some sort of state of bondage to them.
     If this is a partner relationship, they are very suspicious of you, where you go, what you tell others, if you are trying to escape, if you might be thinking of an affair, and so on. This is especially true if they have had affairs on a partner themselves. Malignant narcissists cheat on you as a way to ensure they have another love relationship to go to if you aren't acting like a puppet, or if you leave. It's just one way they like rubbing your nose in the fact that they don't need you as their partner, that you aren't special.  
     Child abuse tends to be more severe than the run-of-the-mill narcissists too, with child exploitation, lots of gaslighting, absurdly long and pointless silent treatments and infantilizing lectures (lectures meant for a child much younger than the child is), and "child discipline", a lot of it lasting well past childhood, and almost always accompanied by shaming, and verbal abuse. Tearing down a child's self esteem is mostly part of the picture too with at least one child (usually their designated scapegoat child).
     Children are often "silenced" when the malignant narcissist does not want to hear anything that is not in line with how they want to see things, and what they want to believe, or that alters their perception of other people or phenomenon. They like to be the authorities on speech and knowledge, and that goes for what "the truth is" too, even if what they believe or are spouting isn't the truth. This is one reason they are prejudiced, either on a personal level against a number of people, or on a societal level. It tends to be both, each influencing the other.   
     Like all narcissists they insist that they appear faultless, except with a capital "F". They will not tolerate being blamed for anything, even when they commit illegal acts. They can and do react with violence to being blamed, especially if the one confronting them is their child or partner. You are "supposed to" believe what they want you to believe, and you are pressured via rewards and punishments to go along with their beliefs in every facet of life. And we wonder why therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists tell their patients to get away and stay away from malignant narcissists as soon as they can.
     The "you have to's" don't end there, however. Malignant narcissists also often tend to be micro-managers, and don't ask you permission to be that, even if you are both adults. They just aggress themselves upon you in that way. "Take out the garbage! Do this, do that!" If you counter them, they go into a rage. Let's say that you feel sick during one of their micro-managements, they are likely to shout, "You aren't sick! Get out there and do it now!" - and from that you can also tell that they don't deal with reality. They make it pretty clear that they can't deal with excuses, no matter how relevant the excuses are. 
     They are bullies, using their status, or power to order you around. If they fail miserably at ordering you around, they treat you with contempt or violence or a discard. 
     This means that relationships with malignant narcissists aren't really relationships. They are a drill sergeant or terrorist ordering you around, and for you it is a test of endurance only, until you either break from the trauma bond, or if you leave, or if you call authorities. 
     It is common to have trauma symptoms or PTSD if you relate to malignant narcissists in any long term way.  
     They very rarely confess their wrongs unless there are some social benefits for them in doing so. For instance, some of them start channels on You Tube because You Tube pays them if they have enough of an audience. But aside from that, most of them do not admit to any wrong, and if anything, will blame their victims time and time again.
     They tend to break other laws and codes of conduct because they are also driven by what psychopaths are driven by, plus what narcissists are driven by. If they have more psychopathy than narcissism, they will insist that joint property be theirs entirely, or mostly, and if property or money belongs to others, they will insist to themselves that they have to have it. They don't have the ethics to care how these attitudes effect others, or the empathy to care how it effects others either. They'll say things like, "All that you care about is stuff and money!" (showing projection of how they behave) or "You need to stop thinking about what you've lost and enjoy life!" (trying to persuade you not to notice what they are taking from you).
     Home invasion is not out of the question for malignant narcissists, even though it carries huge risks. It's part of the psychopathy part of malignant narcissism.
     On the world stage, malignant narcissists love to invade other countries, including invading citizens' houses, and taking their belongings and farm land. It's usually a "bloody war" where they try to take over as much as they can by killing as many people as they can too. If they succeed, they are often on to invading the next country on their list of "places to own". They really feel that this will catapult them into a "great memorable leader status."   
     They have little to no regret for hurting other people, believing that people should fawn to their authority. They will keep hurting others if they feel they can get away with it, depending on how much psychopathy they have compared to narcissism.
     They also won't care too much what their reputation is if the psychopathy is more pronounced than their narcissism. One way to tell is if they are more "loner" than wanting to be around others, and to impress others.  

Psychopaths are a lot like malignant narcissists, except that they don't really care about their reputations that much, unless having a reputation can help them acquire more property, wealth, sex and material things. Either way, they tend to be more secretive, master-minding plans to achieve more and more wealth. They are extremely driven to take from others, and to get others to serve them, with the more functional psychopaths using more societally acceptable means to get there, and the more dysfunctional psychopaths resorting to petty theft, and sometimes graduating to home invasion, grand larceny, burglary, assault, aggravated assault, rape, etc. 
     It's hard to get people to part with their money, children, property or things without crimes being committed. So the functional psychopath has thought of ways around those loopholes. And what profession attracts functional psychopaths the most?
     Venture capitalism. There are a lot of psychopaths who are venture capitalists. When big companies fail or start to falter, one of the reasons they start to falter and fail is that they have capital shortages. The owners or CEOs of these companies look to venture capital firms to keep the company going. But most often, venture capitalists try to take them over and force huge "discount sales" of inventory to raise cash. In some instances they sell merchandise at such a discount that it costs more to make the merchandise than what they are selling it for. Then the venture capitalists have a liquidation sale and close the business. The venture capitalists walk away with millions, and occasionally billions. 
     And all kinds of sectors are played with to enrich a few while destroying otherwise sound and needed businesses, and can include loaning institutions, housing, consumer goods and supplies, banks (credit default swaps, quantitative easing, and other tactics including lobbying for less regulation) ... in other words, the emphasis is on money much more than on society, relationships, and taking care of relationships.
     All psychopaths sacrifice relationships, and even benefits for the society they are living in, for an insatiable appetite for more money and property for themselves.
     So many of the shows out today glorify psychopaths including The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Billions, and Yellowstone to name a few. I really liked Outlander until the main character, a man in this case, was tortured and raped over a few episodes by a psychopath. Television is actually so flooded with shows about psychopaths, and their sadistic acts, that you can't possibly watch all of them, even if you wanted to. And in those shows, the victims are barely considered, barely a character. Even if we look at history shows like Ken Burn's The American Buffalo on PBS, it is likely that psychopaths killed the herds down to only 27 buffalo from hundreds of millions of them through what is now known as The United States (murder and making money are very much a psychopath's calling - they don't have ethics; they don't have compassion or empathy; they don't care who it effects or if it leaves people starving; they are always going to justify taking in ways that are purely destructive, and in this case their excuse for such destruction was "to solve the American Indian problem" - horrible!).
     How can featuring and glorifying psychopaths to the extent that our media companies are, going to  lead to peace, such that invasions are intolerable, that school shootings and other mass murders are intolerable, that money mixed with murder is intolerable? Are we becoming numb to what psychopaths do to us and just accept them and their deeds forever?
     On a personal level, psychopaths threaten or practice egregious forms of abuse against their siblings while at the same time spouting false narratives about their siblings so that the parents will believe the psychopath is the victim, and leave their entire inheritances only to the psychopath. They tell bosses false narratives about anyone who they feel threatened by, in terms of dedication and talent, so that the boss is left with no one but the psychopath to lean on in making sure the business runs smoothly (but it won't). They steal money from businesses if they can get away with it. As bosses, they are tyrannical and expect people to be total puppets. They tend to fire a lot of people. They tend to be divorcees unless a spouse lets them order them around. They try to make everyone except themselves seem like money grubbers, only obsessed with what they can gain out of a situation, because they are like that.
     Psychopaths rarely tell the truth about anything because they are so focused on "getting something" out of every situation that truth is inconvenient to that ambition. 
     Are psychopaths charming? Yes, they are, probably a lot more than any of the other Cluster Bs. But again, whether it is charm or harm you are getting from them, every single conversation and encounter is going to be "me" oriented, or it is going to be fluff or fawning that they feel they have to endure until they can get "the goods". 
     
You can see why the secondary types of psychopaths might be produced by narcissistic parents who try to exert power and control via constant rewards and punishments. The rewards and punishments don't end in childhood either. 
         

LYING

Run-of-the-mill narcissists primarily lie about things that will prop their ego: that their IQ is higher than it actually is, that their school grades were more admirable than they actually were, that many men asked to marry them when only two of them did, that they received awards for good citizenry when they actually didn't, and so on. 
     They are going to be lying for ego-related reasons. 
     And they will hate and often reject anyone who finds out otherwise. This is how narcissists are exploitive. They demand flattery, and if you don't give it to them, you're "out". However, they are hyper-critical of others, and often like breaking the self esteem of others. Go figure. That kind of entitlement is part of the disorder, and everyone who is close to them will see it eventually. 
     They will lie about what great parents they are, and sometimes manufacture events that never happened. Often they put down their spouse, even when they aren't an x, to make themselves look like the hero in every situation. 
    They can't stand to be in any kind of relationship where the other person isn't flattering them constantly, or at the very least, isn't doing enough to prop them up into some superior position, whether that is at work, at home giving them power and control over you, or in their friendship circles. 
     They are so focused on that, that hardly anything else really matters to them, even their own children and spouse unless their children and spouse are acting like the flattering marionettes they were trained to be through rewards and punishments. 
     These standards were probably multi-generational. Children of narcissistic multi-generational families aren't valued or loved for intrinsic reasons (i.e. for who they are), only for extrinsic values (whether they can make the family look good, whether they have admirable professions, whether they are wealthy, whether they flatter authority figures, and so it goes down the generations).
     Most narcissistic families are also authoritarian families who tell the younger generations what to do with themselves and their lives, what to say to whom, and who to accept and not accept in terms of their relationships, and it is life-long, even if it is not in the best interest of the member. If the member doesn't go along with the authoritarian, and tries to explain why it is not a good idea (perhaps they are being abused by another family member, or do not want to be part of the family business), they can be marginalized or ostracized to teach them a lesson as to what happens if they don't go along with what an authoritarian wants, including a false narrative that an authoritarian is trying to get many others to believe. Very unhealthy, very heartbreaking, if not totally toxic. 
     So budding narcissists who are still children learn that they have to be "special" and "superior" because of those circumstances, or they won't be accepted or acceptable, thus all of the posturing, lying about their credentials, lying about how much money they have, lying about how prestigious their job is even if it is not, lying about being good friends with whoever is rich and famous, pretending to be much more than they actually are. They were not accepted by an authority figure for themselves in childhood, or their sibling wasn't, so they try to be accepted through distortions, false narratives and outright lies. 

     Narcissists are quite vulnerable to psychopaths, as psychopaths can, and do flatter them to get what they want. And since narcissists are known to need a lot of flattery, and reward for flattery, they can be caught unawares when they "get taken" and the psychopath leaves them high and dry.  
     They tend to lie less than the other two types I discuss next, however. 
     

Malignant narcissists lie out of habit to get what they want socially and in terms of wealth and property. 
     Again, it depends on whether they are more narcissist or more psychopath as to what they will lie about. 
     One favorite phrase of malignant narcissists and psychopaths is "I would never lie to you." 
     Since they are such phonies (while tearing up people behind their backs), they sincerely believe that everyone is a phony, and they often accuse others of being phonies. 
     Thus no one can get very close to them because "no one is home" in terms of them having a reliable personality type. They have drives certainly, but they use others' personalities and mirroring to get what they want. As children, they may have felt that they had to do it to survive, and when it worked to get them what they wanted, they kept using it. 
     Flattery won't necessarily work on malignant narcissists; they don't trust anyone. However, they may not show their distrust. 
     It is possible that malignant narcissists grew up in a similar style to run-of-the-mill narcissists, but I bet you anything that someone in that environment was being threatened and terrorized, whether it was another child or their other parent.
    To illuminate your understanding of malignant narcissists and their ties to how secondary psychopaths grow up, the dysfunctional types of psychopaths usually are exposed to quite abusive, traumatic, crime-ridden, or war-like environments, so this would be the added element to the way run-of-the-mill narcissists grew up. Perhaps they felt they needed to steal food, or others' belongings to sell.
     Secondary functional psychopaths can grow up in environments where "money is everything" to the point where how you attain it can be unethical. For instance, they commit white collar crimes. Or they are 22 when they inherit money, and they buy a slum apartment building and live off of the income and become quite wealthy from other people's poverty. The poverty, of course, would be blamed on the tenants solely, rather than looking into whether the culture or society contributed to it. They become anaesthetized to the suffering of others, and they learn to be unempathetic in all relationships to the suffering of others. 
     Malignant narcissists lie to aggrandize themselves, to sully the reputation of others, to get money, property, power, control, and domination over others. And they tend to lie a lot. They lose people in the process of doing all of this and move on to the next person to take advantage of them without remorse too, and without empathy for the next person's life they have destroyed. 
     Malignant narcissist men are known for committing domestic violence, and even if they have put someone in the hospital they will lie about how their partner fell down the stairs, or crashed into a tree, or hurt themselves in some manner, anything to keep from being accountable. 
     They use people, lie about people, lie to people, all with a lot of deadly charm. They can sadistically laugh at everything they are getting away with, and do. They can come across as huge fawners, flatterers, sensitive little boys or girls who cry for show when others have had enough, whereas when they are with people who they deem to be weak, they act like terrorists, bullies, tyrannical bosses, micro-managers, and insulting contempt-filled megalomaniacs, and in close personal relationships can graduate very fast into being physical abusers. 
     They don't have regrets about hurting other people because they have been brought up in a hierarchical way where the weak get abused and the powerful are the abusers. If they think they can get more power, control and wealth by being a bully, they will keep escalating bullying to get ever more power, control and wealth. Again, it doesn't matter how they get it; it only matters that they attain it.
     That's why they don't care about anyone but themselves: their whole system is about getting rewards from bullying and disenfranchising, period, by pretending and lying to get others to go along with them, including how to get help bullying others. 
     On the larger scale, this is why malignant narcissistic tyrannical leaders can go into another country and commit atrocities. It only matters that they "get" what ever property and wealth that exists in the countries they invade. They do not care about the people, or populations they destroy in the process, not even the number of people they are hurting and traumatizing - the psychopathy part of them gets off on the acquiring of other people's property and territory, and the narcissistic side believes they will be worshipped and held up as great fearless forceful leaders who got their country more territory, more wealth and who crushed a population of rebels. 
     And all of how they "get" it is based on lying about the people they are invading, and false narratives to soldiers in the trenches as well as their own country-men, and self aggrandizement that is left from their deeds. 
     Like the run-of-the-mill narcissists, they will only listen to fawning sycophants and flatterers. 

As for the psychopath, the loner types of psychopaths who don't trust people who flatter, or who fawn ...  These psychopaths know they aren't trustworthy when they fawn, so they don't trust others who fawn either. 
     "What are you trying to do here!? Are you trying to get something from me?!" - this is how some of them think, if they are flattered. So if you flatter someone and get an aggressive hostile response, consider that they may be a psychopath. 
     The dysfunctional psychopaths can be loners and tend to be alone when they plan their misdeeds or crimes because they assume they aren't liked. 
     Dysfunctional secondary psychopaths tend to grow up in abusive homes, and in crime-ridden neighborhoods, or in full time traumatic situations. Often there is very little parenting, ethics aren't enforced or introduced; it's like a free-for-all where they do what compels them to do. Without an adequate background of care and concern for their well-being, or the well-being of others that the psychopath is pursuing, they are going to choose the easiest path to obtaining money, wealth, and property. 
     The more functional psychopaths, however, who grew up in financially stable situations, but who were neglected or ignored in other ways, can also grow up with the feeling that they can do anything that compels them to acquire wealth, or what ever they want including sex by force. They are also not likely to grow up with ethics either, or they were modeled unethical behaviors so much that they don't care about how their behaviors impact others. 
     They also lie and plan to obtain what ever it is they want to attain, no matter what it does to the lives of others.  
     Because they are so singularly driven to exploit, if you confront them, and try to stop their aggressions towards others, they will project it all back on to you and use shame, contempt, rage, manipulation, abuse and sometimes even violence to get you to stop confronting them. Any time you  confront a sociopath, you will "pay" (as in their revenge against you) for having confronted them, challenged them, or questioned them and their motives. You are not supposed to see their motives or agendas, so their retaliations will be pretty extreme. 

That is all I have to say on this subject for now. I will discuss fawning to abuse more in other posts, as it causes much more trauma than other forms of trauma reactions ... It is necessary to know about in terms of healing, in terms of holding those who traumatize accountable for causing it, and hold politicians accountable for passing laws that protect its citizens from violence and abuse, so that we can all live in a world of more peace and empathy.

The further reading section below goes more thoroughly into the differences. The posts in the "recommend" categories explain some things that I have not covered in this post.  

FURTHER READING

Recommended: Sociopath Vs. Psychopath Vs. Narcissist: What Is the Difference? - by  Hailey Shafir, LCMHCS, LPCS, LCAS, CCS, and reviewed by Rajy Abulhosn, MD for Choosing Therapy

My note: this is a thorough article, and more importantly tells you how to deal with people with personality disorders: avoid, talk about "information" types of topics, choose public spaces, stay off of personal topics, etc. 

Recommended: Narcissist or Psychopath—How Can You Tell? (We hear the terms all the time, but what is the difference?) - by Joe Navarro, M.A., and former FBI Counter Intelligence Agent, reviewed by Jessica Schrader for Psychology Today

Recommended: Is There A Psychopath, Sociopath, Or Narcissist In Your Life? How To Know - by Brianne Hogan for the Scary Mommy website (includes interviews with Sterlin Mosley)

Recommended: Sociopath vs. Narcissist: What's the Difference? - by Elizabeth Plumptre, medically reviewed by David Susman, PhD for Very Well Mind

Sociopath Vs. Narcissist: Understanding the Difference - by Renee Skedel, LPC and reviewed by Kristen Fuller, MD for Choosing Therapy

Basic Differences Between Psychopathy & Narcissistic Personality Disorder [Part I] - by Rhonda Freeman, Ph.D. for Neuroinstincts

Married to a Narcissist or a Psychopath? - by the administrators of Rich in Relationship

Psychopath, Sociopath or Narcissist — How To Spot The Difference (No — they’re not all serial killers the way they are portrayed in movies.) - by Kim Mia for Medium.com

Antisocial Personality Disorder - by the administrators of the Mayo Clinic

How to Tell If Someone Is a Psychopath - by Laura Dorwart and medically reviewed by Michael MacIntyre, MD for Very Well Health

Recommended: The #1 Myth About Psychopaths and Malignant Narcissists: What People Get Wrong About These Types - by Shahida Arabi, MA, for Psych Central

Recommended: Why psychopaths cannot love their own children, according to a psychologist - by Lindsay Dodgson for Business Insider

Real-life psychopaths actually have below-average intelligence - by Jessica Hamzelou for New Scientist

How to Stay Mentally Strong When You're Dealing With a Psychopath at Work (Working alongside a toxic person will take a toll on your psychological well-being. These strategies can reduce the damage.) - by Amy Morin for Inc.com

8 Common, Long-Lasting Effects of Narcissistic Parenting (What happens when you live in the shadow of a narcissistic parent?) - by Craig Malkin Ph.D., reviewed by Kaja Perina for Psychology Today

Narcissistic Obsession with Attention (The most important person in the life of a narcissist is the narcissist.) - by Kristy Lee Parkin Ph.D., reviewed by Gary Drevitch for Psychology Today

Narcissistic Men and Their Mothers (Why selfish mothers tend to raise selfish sons.) - by Berit Brogaard D.M.Sci., Ph.D, and reviewed by Kaja Perina for Psychology Today

Subtypes of psychopathy: proposed differences between narcissistic, borderline, sadistic, and antisocial psychopaths - by by Carolyn Murphy and James Vess

Why Shaming Your Children Is Not Effective, How Narcissists Respond to Feelings of Shame, What You Can Do if You Are an Adult Child and Your Narcissistic Parents are Still Playing the Shaming Game, and How to Start Healing from a Lifetime of Parental Shaming

THIS POST IS PART OF SERIES ON SHAMING
the first post is: shaming from abusers, narcissists
the second post is: How Shame is the Core Struggle of Most Narcissists. How it Gets Dumped Onto You, and How They Try to Harvest Regrets and Shame From You. Does It Work For Them?
the third post is this one
a fourth post will show how an environment of shaming, blaming, perspecticide and fawning can produce narcissism
a fifth post will follow on the connection between shame and rage in narcissism
and probably a sixth post too, which will focus more on the trauma aspects

Shaming is a type of abuse that narcissists and sociopaths use to get you to do what they want or demand, and when used in a close personal relationship, it is to get you trauma-bonded to them. 

Shaming will cause trauma in children, whether it is used directly against the child, or whether it is observed (a caretaker or parental figure using it on one child in front of another child). 

Most of what narcissists do is to serve their power and control needs through manipulating others and events. They especially do this to spouse, children, and their adult children, putting them in roles which serve their needs. When their desires aren't met in these manipulations, they generally take the road of hurting the spouse or children. 

Children experience shaming as painful, and if used throughout their childhood, they will develop trauma symptoms. People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder have many other traits and tactics which cause trauma to just about everyone, except primary psychopaths who are trauma-resistant, so with the combination of these other traits, it is highly, highly likely that most people will come out scathed if they are in any kind of close personal relationship with a narcissist. 

You may not notice the trauma symptoms right away, but they will start to appear little by little until your system is totally disabled by the symptoms. It is the reason why domestic violence counselors, psychologists who specialize in Cluster B Personality Disorders, and psychiatrists urge patients who are dealing with narcissists to either go "no contact" or "gray rock". Note that the gray rock method is not effective for scapegoat children of narcissists; however, it can be effective if your parent puts you into any other role aside from that one (the scapegoat role means that your parent is out to hurt you and blame you for things that are not your fault - most scapegoats end up without their family of origin, and no, there isn't anything you can do about it yourself ... I explain why later in the post). 

The reason why shaming is so damaging to children has been written about extensively. For one, enough shaming can "wipe out" their budding personalities, their budding interests, drives and ambitions, as well as their self esteem (self esteem is necessary in order to grow into a full functioning adult). It tends to delay emotional and psychological growth as well, and in some cases it can cause brain damage. The child is being pressured to put their attention on the parent first and foremost, and definitely in terms of what the parent wants from you (and the minefields that the parent sets up to hurt or reward a child again and again, often with no other choices than those two choices, however remember that whether you are hurt or rewarded is not your choice; it is in the parent's hands totally). This upbringing causes child neglect at the very least, as it puts more emphasis on denying the needs of the child in favor of the parent's, but most often it is not effective discipline at all. Children get the sense that they aren't liked, loved, cared about, that their existence isn't appreciated, and that they are being forced to supply all of this by other means, so they develop coping strategies that narcissists do not like, and do not care to understand. 

Here are some posts out of many as to why shaming children is not effective (note, my own writing continues after):

Why Shaming Your Kids Isn't Effective Discipline - by Jennifer Wolf and medically reviewed by Carly Snyder, MD for Very Well Family
     This article goes into what shaming does to children, and how it leads to the destruction of the relationship between parent and child. Here is an excerpt:
     ... Not only do you lose considerable relational equity, but shaming kids in public or online also tears down trust and self-esteem. At the same time, it zaps your child's motivation to engage in the very behaviors you're trying to encourage.
     ... What If You've Already Publicly Shamed Your Kids?
     Let's get real. You might be reading this and thinking, "Oh no! I've already done this." Now's your opportunity to apologize. Your kids need to see that you're human and willing to own your mistakes. So even if you're experiencing a degree of remorse that makes it extremely difficult to initiate that conversation, make it happen.
     My note: I agree that apologies go a long way, but if you have apologized for it before, and you keep doing it, your apology will only go so far in mending your relationship. Apologies are difficult for narcissists since they prefer to stick the person they have a conflict with, with "all of the fault". It is more likely to compound the rift. 
     The article also goes into words parents should avoid, how to address your child's behavior without shaming, phrases you should avoid (the following are taken from the article, although the article has explanations for each one of them: "You're such a bad girl", "You're just like your mother (or father)", "I don't know why I even bother with you", "I should ship you off to live with dad (or mom)", "I'm so tired of dealing with you"), how to influence your kids' behavior without shaming (and using these phrases instead: "I'd like you to tell me what happened", "What did that feel like for you?", "What could you have done differently?", "What will you do next time?", and "How can I help?")
     The article is worth reading and studying, especially if you've been shaming your kids, and you see absolutely no improvement from it (it is doubtful you will). 

Some other articles I found along these lines:

Think hard before shaming children - by Claire McCarthy, MD, Senior Faculty Editor, Harvard Health Publishing for The Harvard Medical School
excerpt:
     “Do you really want to go out looking like that?”

     “You let your teammates down during that game.”

     “Why can’t you get good grades like your sister?”

     “Why do you hang out at home all the time instead of going out like other kids?”

     “Why are you crying? It’s not that bad.”

     As we blurt out such things, we usually don’t think of them as shaming. We think of them as something that might help our child recognize a problem — and perhaps motivate them to change. We think of them as constructive criticism.

3 Dangers of Shaming (How shame leads to only bad consequences.) - by Dianne Grande Ph.D. for Psychology Today
excerpt:
     ... Research has shown that common problems linked to the shame experience include proneness to anxiety and depression. In particular, studies have shown a link between shame and social anxiety disorder as well as generalized anxiety disorder.
     Another way in which shame has been shown to harm the self is apparent in the association between shame and addiction. For some individuals who are susceptible to addictive behaviors, the addictive substance is used to numb the intense and painful negative feelings, including shame.
According to Internal Family Systems theory, the use of the substance may be the mind’s way of trying to protect itself from intensely painful emotions that might otherwise lead to suicide (Schwartz, 2020). This also may become a self-defeating cycle when the abuse of substances is in itself experienced as shameful behavior, possibly leading to more self-numbing through substance abuse.
     For narcissistic individuals, shaming them goes this way (from the article):
     ... For some individuals, the immediate sense of being flawed or of being unlovable is so painful that it cannot be acknowledged and corrected through rational self-statements. The defensive response is to put the blame on someone else. “It can’t be my fault; it must be your fault.” This pattern was explained in the recent post by Carol Lambert. Clearly, this type of reaction, if habitual, can be very destructive in relationships. ... 
     Violence and shame (from the article):
     ... Possibly the least well-known consequence of shame is its connection to violence. While most of us occasionally react to feelings of shame with either self-directed criticism or other-directed criticism (blaming), the most unstable and emotionally vulnerable among us react to feelings of shame with violence. A violent reaction may be self-directed or outwardly directed. Both are primitive and potentially deadly responses. According to research by Brene Brown, shame is highly correlated with both bullying and suicide, in addition to the consequences noted above.
     When shame leads to violence directed at others, those harmed may be close family members. They may also be complete strangers, as in the case of mass shootings that have tragically become so common in daily news. This is not to suggest that shame is the only motivating factor in mass shooting incidents; rather that it can be one of the factors. ... 
     A note here of my own: studies have shown that many mass shooters have significant narcissistic traits, and narcissism has been associated with feelings of deep shame (my post about narcissistic shame is HERE, the one on mass shootings will be published soon, I hope - or check back HERE for when it is published).
     In the meantime, here is a clue as to why narcissists can become violent if they think you might be unhappy with them or critical of their behavior: 
     This aggressive behavior in response to shame was studied by Donald Nathanson (2008) and labeled the “attack-other response.” Feelings of shame, including low self-esteem and a self-perception of being defective, are so intense that the person feels themself to be in danger. In effect, anger is used as a weapon to hurt the person(s) who triggered the feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness.
     Another note of mine on this part of the article:
     However, the triggers may be real and may not be real. "Triggers" are a PTSD word and concept. A soldier, for instance, can be triggered by a certain look on someone else's face, because the look was one that someone else used when they were being held at gunpoint. PTSD works in such a way as to bring back the memory when they see someone else with that expression. The memory can be so vivid that the PTSD'd individual may feel that they are back in the war again, and react the way he would in war: by hurting, damaging, injuring or killing, and not kidding. If the soldier was trained to kill the enemy so as not to be killed himself, this may be the reaction to the flashback, though exceptionally rare, even if his life is not in danger in any way during the moment. Hurting or killing someone in a PTSD flashback is something most of us have heard. The proliferation of guns without a lot of mental health background checks can create this sort of horrific ending too. So we would say that a soldier who is back home and having an emotional flashback based on how someone looked at him would be an unreal situation: the soldier is not in danger, even if his brain is telling him that he is. 
     What contributes to it is that PTSD keeps you in a hypervigilant state, so you have sleep disturbances: light sleep where any noise or dream can create a startle response where you wake up with your heart beating wildly, plus nightmares through the night. It can be so bad that you only get 2 -3 hours of "disturbed sleep" maximum, or you are up for three days with no sleep, and then crash on the fourth day, then up again for another three days, and so on. 
     Lack of sleep has been known to create hallucinations. So the "facial expression" of someone else can be interpreted by the soldier as "the enemy soldier is about to shoot me! I have to shoot him first!" It would be like having a "waking dream", where the PTSD'd person is going around half asleep and half awake, and in a heightened state of defense and hypervigilance against attacks to take his life. 

This is not to say that people with PTSD have violent or aggressive reactions when they get triggered, but narcissists do, especially the covert brand of narcissist and malignant narcissist. They are fighting a war all of the time against being shamed as a child, something I will be discussing further in the post. 

For most child abuse survivors, they adopted one of the trauma responses: fawn, fight, flight, freeze, or avoid (and a lot of times it is all 5 of them in varying degrees, and depending on the situations they are in). Abusive parents want, and try to mold the child to give the fawn response at all times during bullying and shaming sessions, but it is very dangerous for the child, and creates situations where the child will fawn in just about every situation with any perpetrator and with any predator (until they have a sense of their own power and that they have choices - situations where they can decide not to put up with it). Their very lives are at stake, and if we look at what fawning does to the brain, to the emotions, and how it gives them PTSD and generalized anxiety disorder, it destroys the child little by little emotionally, mentally and physically, especially if they have gotten to the point of suicidal thoughts (suicidal thoughts are extremely common for abused children who have both PTSD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder).

Besides shaming being bad for children physically, mentally, and emotionally, it's not the ethical thing to do to a child by their caretaker by a long shot. Trying to mold them to accept shaming, wipes out their ability to defend themselves adequately in any situation. 

It's kind of like they need to be re-wired when they are fawners. Many seek therapy after going through a couple of disastrous or abusive relationships where they are expected to fawn in those situations too.  Counselors in the domestic violence field, and trauma counseling are the most sought. The re-wiring is necessary to stop the fawning. In the end, it means not having abusers in your life, being able to tell who is likely to be abusive and who is not, which is one reason why, when parents are shaming, humiliating, being abusive or being unethical (like lying about you), it will end the relationship between the parent and child. 

You can't be going to trauma therapy, spending thousands of dollars on it, and getting pressured or threatened by parents to always be fawning, or endure a punishment ... You might as well flush your money down the toilet. 

In counseling with a domestic violence counselor,  you are being trained against fawning when people are disrespectful and aggressive towards you on any level. You learn the channels of self defense, including what laws, and law protection can do for you. 

It's the process of saving your life from any more predation and the continued degrading of your emotional, mental and physical health, or of being attracted to substances like alcohol or cocaine to keep from dealing with the horrible reality of the situation. It means you aren't spending your life being a reactor to abuse any more.

But first, the reactions of narcissists to shaming:

NARCISSISTS REACTIONS TO SHAMING 

When we look at narcissists, they grew up in a situation or situations where there was usually a lot of shaming going on, and usually a lot of "trash talking" about other people too. Possibly there was bullying too. And possibly there were perfection standards that were not reachable, or were weird or unattainable, or they were bullied and taught to treat the bully as a "superior being", or in ways that were hurtful, shameful or humiliating to the child. 

Growing up in an environment with a lot of shaming and trash-talking going on, even if it is not directed towards you, is traumatic for any child. For all intents and purposes, shaming is the emotional equivalent to bombs, arrows, bullets, landmines and invasions. There is rarely a good outcome to it where children either repeat what was modeled to them (i.e. where they can become another narcissist), or they become so overly fawning that they are used by other narcissists, psychopaths and human predators. 

Covert vulnerable narcissists react very similarly to being blamed and shamed as a soldier with PTSD would react, however they tend to "get rid of" (via a discard) of anyone they feel shamed by, again whether it's really happening or whether they are dealing with a PTSD trigger.

Overt grandiose narcissists react to shame as if they are only entitled to praise. Grandiose narcissists tend to grow up more on a pedestal than being bullied, where they are praised constantly, even when it isn't justified, or when they are being cruel or selfish, and where someone else in the family is constantly being disparaged. People who do this - whiten one child's motives, and blacken another child's motives - is called splitting in psychological terms. One child gets the nice Dr. Jekyll part of the parent; the other gets the mean, cruel Mr. Hyde part of the parent.  

Splitting is usually the result of a personality disorder: Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and Antisocial Personality Disorder (the cluster B personality disorders). The latter two also put their children into roles most often for life (one golden child and one scapegoat, which exacerbates the splitting in the parent, makes it a stubborn trait of the disorder that is about impossible to dis-lodge by anyone, even by the most trained therapists, even when faced with many tragedies because of it). They just cannot let go of the feeling they have one child who is all good and the another that is all bad, even when presented with a lot of other views. 

It's part of the disorder.

They could even be shamed about splitting by their own parents, and they might act out the part that they love both of their children, but when they are behind closed doors, they go right back to their "all good/all bad" views of their own children. And it presents a real challenge to social workers. There aren't enough foster parents around to re-parent the narcissists' "abused, all bad children". 

And what makes a child look "all bad" to them aside from the dictates of the disorder?

A lot of reasons why scapegoat children are chosen by narcissistic parents is because one child makes them feel ashamed of something, and it can be just because the child exists, and I'm not kidding. 

Narcissists are exceptionally jealous, and if the scapegoat is naturally beautiful (which narcissistic Moms and narcissistic Dads have trouble with, for different reasons), has a lot of empathy (something narcissists lack), a lot of talents (something that narcissists can lack because they are a lot more focused on narcissistic supply, negative workplace gossip, triangulating workers against each other, and competition baiting, money and power grabs, than work, or talent), has a lot of authentic friendships (something else narcissists lack too - their friendships tend to be shams with a lot of lies and arm-twistings such as you might expect from politicians to get "group think" policies going), then it's the jealousy of the parent which keeps the child in a scapegoat role. 

Narcissists are always in competition, even with their own children. 

Both kinds of narcissists go through a shame-rage spiral when they feel criticized (i.e. shamed). But if you notice, covert vulnerable narcissists are "hypersensitive to criticism", whereas grandiose narcissists are just "sensitive to criticism". The rage they experience when feeling criticized or shamed is still off-the-charts for both, and rage, in general, over feeling shamed is part of the disorder. 

The shame-rage spiral is a post I'll be publishing soon, but I thought this post was necessary to understand that post. 

Anyway, narcissists don't deal with shame in healthy ways, and they either rage at, or rage about, or punish people who they think are trying to shame them. But first, they try to give what ever they feel ashamed about to you so that they can feel free of accountability and responsibility. If you refuse to take the blame or the shame, they rage again, and then feel shame again. The shame and rage spiral  down together, one feeding off of the other, and their ethics tend to spiral down with it all too. It is why they tend to get more abusive (escalating), not less so, and more desperate with trying to shame you by proxy once you have let them know that you can't deal with their escalations of abuse: smear campaigns and co-bullies (flying monkeys) are the most common. 

The more unethical they are, the less people want to relate to them. There is nothing to say to them any more at a certain point, which causes them more shame, and more aggression, until they are even further down in the moral dumpster. Then they play the victim once they are in a sorry enough state, which is even more immoral. Then they become ashamed of that. So this gives you a pretty good idea of how the spiral starts and where it goes. 

It has been proposed in psychology circles that covert narcissists may very well have PTSD, which would explain their incredible reactions to being criticized or of feeling shamed by others. The way they deal with their PTSD is to be aggressive unlike most of us (i.e. they develop the "fight" response as the result of feeling ashamed). But for them, they go to war against you. The more aggressive or punishing they are as a result of feeling shame, the more they are on the darker end of narcissism (more Antisocial Personality Disorder traits). And they can be dangerous because they are not in control of their emotions; they are very over-reactive, not just ultra sensitive to criticism, which explains why they rage so much, often discard relationships over it, blackmail over it, insist they dominate over it, and abuse others over it. It is referred to as "the mask falling", i.e. their false self starts disintegrating before your eyes and you are left with Hyde-like reactions and often an evil type of personality as well. 

They do make it very clear that they don't want to be criticized, ever, which makes relating to narcissists tough because they ask you to lie to them by omission if you have an issue with them. Actually, there is no winning this because they will most likely give you a double bind: "Don't lie to me or omit things you want to say to me, but don't bring up any issues you have about me either." Double binds are "no-win" situations and it is a sure recipe for more of their raging. 

So what started out to be one minor criticism of them (activation of shame), or may have only been interpreted as a criticism, they can retaliate by shaming you x 1,000. Getting as many flying monkeys as they can to shame you is one tack they take. Ostracizing or abandoning you is another and is also primarily about shaming you. Comparing you to others (in a negative way) is an extremely common add-on for narcissists too, which is supposed to seize your brain with humiliation and shame also. Then of course, they must criticize you themselves, and weigh you down with guilt for every single issue between you, even if they reframe those issues with false narratives and lies. Gaslighting is also a form of shaming: "You are SO crazy and you are so incapable because of it! In fact you should feel humiliated for being crazy and not seeing reality the way I see it!" - gaslighting is absolutely about shaming every time it is used. 

And of course, there is so much more than this that they add, and keep adding. So maybe it isn't retaliation by shaming x 1,000. Maybe it is a lifetime of shaming you in whatever ways they think will work to their benefit in trouncing you with more shame.

It can get to the point where every interaction with the parent is about that parent humiliating the child in some way. The parent insisting they are superior and the authority over a grown adult child is shaming in and of itself (which is to say that continual infantilizing via lectures are just more shaming). 

In art renditions, the scapegoat is weighed down with a heavy pack on his back (all of the things on his back are representative of the sins of the tribe), and of course, the scapegoat is sent out to the desert to die without food, water, and weighed down with all of the things the tribe finds shameful within themselves. Not being able to take shame, but dishing it out in spades would be one of the sins loaded onto the back of the scapegoat. 

And are we surprised that children walk away from this, that mental health professionals tell these patients not to take the narcissist's shaming tactics seriously (because it means that the narcissist can't take any shame themselves and they have to give it to you instead), that your symptoms are never going to be met with empathy and compassion because all that the narcissist cares about is retaliation and shaming, and that to heal you, you should go "no contact"? 

So what they can't take (criticism or activating their shame in any manner whatsoever, even a tiny amount of it), they do constantly to others and about others, without fail.

Hypocrisy and abuse always go together, fist in a glove with spiked knuckles. And hypocrisy is also the first sign you get that they are unethical. How hypocritical and unethical they go tells the tale of how disordered they are in their narcissism, especially if they go as far as sadism (which shows they probably have the malignant brand of narcissism, and have no remorse in hurting other people - these people can shame and hurt people all day long and sleep well at night). 

Now when they shame, they expect their children to absorb it like a sponge, and even insist on it, and to not act like them (use the trauma response of "fight" at all, and not to be in the least rebellious about being shamed like the way the narcissist acts). They insist that their children be docile, polite little sycophants to the narcissistic parent's out-of-control rages with a lot of impoliteness and abuse. Some narcissistic parents will even insist that their children act like sponges for other abusers too.

Most abused children do end up as fawners or as freezers. That is why they end up with crippling symptoms eventually. And what do narcissistic parents do when their child has crippling symptoms? They pile on more abuse, retaliations for not acting like a perfect sycophant (which children with PTSD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder cannot do anyway - both disorders keep them from doing so). 

THE IMPLICATIONS FOR CHILDREN
LIVING THROUGH THIS

Fawning, more than any other response, will get you terrible symptoms faster and be harder to treat the more you are absorbing shaming and abuse.

The trauma response of freezing is what happens when you get to the point where you either feel totally powerless in the situation, and/or when PTSD symptoms start to manifest. 

Now why would any parent want their child to freeze and get symptoms over them raging at them or shaming them? 

Normal healthy parents don't even get to this stage, and they don't need scapegoats or even want them the way narcissistic and alcoholic parents need and want them. 

The fact that narcissists have no empathy for their children, whether those children are fawning or freezing, is one reason why narcissists who gain ever more power can be so dangerous. Their ways of dealing with people in the world around them is to be aggressive, and to aggress upon, and to be so threatening as to get ever more fawning and freezing out of others, even though they would never do that themselves, even when they are on the world stage, such as a leader of a country.

Most narcissists on the world stage and in politics are invaders, the ultimates in aggression, as well as being triangulators and spouting false narratives. 

And that should tell you what narcissists are about in their ultimate form. 

A parent who has invaded their children and put shame and lots of unfounded unjust blame into them, that child will always manifest with trauma responses, and have trauma symptoms. In order to get those arrows out of the child, the child needs to be placed most often on a diet of "no contact" or "very low contact" with that parent, so that the arrows can be removed, and so that the slow process of healing can begin, and so that no more arrows will be shot into the child. 

Yes, it is a win-lose war for narcissists about who can come out on top in terms of who shoots the most arrows of shame. And therefor a game too, with game plans on how they are going to trash your self esteem even if you are on the sidelines or gone, trying your best to live your life in peace. They don't want you in peace; they want a war based on their terms and even knowing that they have the overwhelming advantage over you. It's the elephant fighting the ant in many of these situations, and most ants will go underground or skittle away. 

Which is to say that fawning is really unnatural, mostly only something human beings do in the animal world. Fawning is the response to kings and queens, to being a slave, to being deemed unimportant unless you are serving. 

Parenting is supposed to be about entrusting the parent to take care of children, their physical needs, intellectual needs via school, but also doing the best by them emotionally and mentally. Getting them to be fawning during times of out-of-control rages, during abuse, during being insulted a lot, during gaslighting, is not good emotional care by a long shot. It is the opposite of good care, and the fact that many fawning abused children get horrific symptoms is proof of it. 

And the other problem is that trying to get you into fawning positions takes place even when you are an adult too, even when you are 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70 years of age. It never ends. And to keep you from being independent of their coercive controlling tactic of trying to force you to be submissive and fawning, they will withdraw love, make every attempt to withdraw others' love and attention too, withdraw family belonging, withdraw money and keep you out of the Will, to make every attempt to make it plain that your independence from fawning has no place in their life or the lives of other people you both know.

Yes this tactic is coercive control, and is likely to be illegal in most, if not all, states in the U.S.A. soon. It is now being reviewed in the states of New York and California. It is illegal in almost all of Western Europe. It means that narcissists will have a much more difficult time being who they are and using coercive control than they do now on the most vulnerable members of our society. 

Anyway, good parenting never means becoming a king and queen of your children where you can tell them how to serve you and your entitlements and rages, and how to be good little servants at all times to your needs for narcissistic supply.

Parentifying roles are bad for your relationship with your children as well. The way children become capable full adults able to support themselves is by pursuing their own interests. It doesn't mean you shouldn't be teaching them some practical lessons and assigning chores, but if they are balking a lot, it will not do any good to force them or threaten them, and particularly shame them (for having interests? - trying to make them take on yours? Not a good idea). 

In terms of healing, I think I've made it clear why having rageful abusive parents who can't live by their own standards in terms of shaming is pointless to try to fix or deal with any more, and why your healing should be done without their influence, comments, threats, and voice of disapproval in your head (of course they are going to disapprove of your healing - remember always that their agenda is to have you fawning always and forever, and in more refined ways, to get you to be the "fawniest of fawners" as Richard Grannon likes to say, so getting their voice out of your head any time it appears is necessary for a lot of survivors: telling the voice: "Go away!" - it does work after enough times). 

Also the hypocrisy should create some disgust in you if you have ethics yourself, and if it doesn't, then consider that you have normalized hypocrisy being okay for parents, but not for children. Also consider whether you want to change it to not being normal at all (most parents, as I've said before, do not act this way). 

The problem with fawning as a child to a parent's or caretaker's abuse, hypocrisies, shaming, rage-full-of-projection, and dangers is that a lot of fawners take fawning into other relationships with abusers too. 

There are children who do fawning like narcissists do it, who only fawn to people with more money, more status, more power than they have, but talk about them with derision behind their back, and reveal little about themselves to these higher-on-the-hierarchy people that they want to pretend they are the "fawniest of fawners" to.  

That's what seems to happen: the pretend fawners who are much more likely to become narcissists, and the real fawners who are likely to become victims of narcissistic partners and receive more abuse in marriage as well as in business. If you refuse to be more and more fawning, you will meet the same end as you did in childhood with your narcissistic parent. 

The best way to avoid narcissists is to stay away from people who are overly charming (especially those who charm people to their faces but deride them behind their backs, any Jekyll/Hyde behavior), people who are hypocrites, people who are arrogant and constantly interrupting, and anyone who displays a lack of empathy. Some good people with PTSD get to a point where they don't feel anything, not joy, not sorry, not even empathy, so as with all things, it's important not to be absolute about it, and to keep enough of a distance for up to two years. Most narcissists show their true colors before a year, with the exception of the "I-plan-attacks" kinds of narcissists who can wait for two years to show their true colors. 

However, the lack of empathy is the strongest indicator. To tell if the empathy is real or fake, you can go to THIS POST. But even there, there are no absolutes as you will read, which is why time and not rushing into anything is on your side. 

Also beware of the pro-social narcissist, which Richard Grannon explains nicely in his video, The Nice Guy Narcissist | 14 Traits. I have been around this kind of narcissist myself, and it is extremely, extremely challenging and traumatizing, to say the least. He was a nice guy narcissist with all of the traits that Richard Grannon lays out, plus all of the traits of Malignant Narcissism, plus a significant drinking problem indicative of the middle stage of alcoholism. Awful. If anyone traumatized me the most in my life, it was this individual, and it only took 4 months to happen. If I could put up the biggest warning sign for anyone, it would be this type of individual that Richard Grannon describes. As far as I can see, it means boundaries set by police. I talk further about this at the end of my post. 

Also, if this was me, I would go to domestic violence counseling with a certified domestic violence counselor, one who has experience with perpetrators and victims. Marriage/relationship counseling and mediation counseling is a disaster to go to with anyone who is highly manipulative and abusive behind closed doors, and many survivors end up in worse shape than they did before. Consider that abusive relationships are not really relationships; they are about one person trying to coercively control and hurt another person. It's never been a two-way street, and it never will be, which is why it is not really a relationship. It's one person giving into another, and it's about fawning, or being expected to fawn, to all of the shaming the narcissist does over, and over again without relief and without end. 

If it is a relationship, it is deadly, with way more dangers and symptoms than most people can handle. I do believe, over time, that it can degrade your morals and ethics too (who hasn't lied to a narcissist or a dangerous person just to keep safe, for instance? ... Who hasn't gotten really angry at them after being raged 100 times by them, and being baited?). So it's no good.  

If this was me, I would listen as much as I could to the counselor as I could, and stop listening to the perpetrator as much as I could too. Abusers are extremely manipulative during this period, and you don't want to get talked into things by them any more. In healthy relationships, luring and persuasion is not necessary; relationships feel a lot better without that. Abusive relationships mostly feel bad, and you get symptoms around them. Listen to what therapists say about cognitive dissonance in particular (which is how we put ourselves in danger over and over again), and about triangulation and gaslighting. Know that most abusers will promise things like "I will never do this again" - but they either don't mean it when they say it, or they are incapable of keeping promises (usually both). Again, they can't deal with shame in a healthy way, and most narcissists do not go to therapy to get more healthy, so breaking the promise and raging is likely to come up again if they feel at all shamed again in their life.

A list of domestic violence counselors in your area can usually be found at your local domestic violence center or domestic violence shelter. You can also get, in some instances, some limited free therapy and legal advice at either one. 

Not allowing yourself to be abused and saying no to abuse is only part of the picture because the brain has a way of storing traumatic events that make you feel that you are in continual danger, just like you were when you were with your perpetrator. And some of it is based on reality: stalking, stealing, home invasion, getting other people to attack you is part of the way that offenders keep trying to make you feel you are in danger, and keep adding to it to put you in constant turmoil. Abuse escalates always.

And for all of that, you need police investigations, recording what has happened with police, and police protection, plus a good home security system with cameras, preferably cameras from different kinds of manufacturers (even police will tell you that you should do this). 

You need to do what you can do to keep from being attacked again, and police have the best advice for that.  

Remember that narcissists do everything they can not to be shamed even one more time by you, and so you have the right to protect yourself from the myriad and continued onslaught of attacks and deep betrayals they keep giving you (retaliations x 1,000). They usually want separation from you for not fawning. You can have separation from them, including stringent boundaries to keep safe from attacks on all the tactics and people they use for these ends (and I bet you'll get attacks coming from all kinds of directions - and some of them break the law to attack you, especially the not-too-brilliant people with criminal mindsets). 

PTSD, hypervigilance, a rapid heartbeat, and all of the symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder are normal responses and normal symptoms when you are enduring people attacking you from all the angles narcissists and sociopaths love to use. 

However, if you have all of your protections in place and your home and life is peaceful (at last!), and you still feel a lot of symptoms (PTSD and/or Generalized Anxiety Disorder), and you haven't experienced any danger from attackers for several years, if this was me, and I could afford it, I would also go to a trauma therapist.  

In trauma therapy, you learn that your trauma symptoms are explainable by the events you lived, and how the brain functions in keeping those trauma experiences alive and practically branded into your brain (like a never-ending, if somewhat healed, wound, or nightmare) in your psyche. Vagus Nerve exercises and EMDR are usually highly effective, especially if your PTSD and/or your Generalized Anxiety Disorder are through the roof. How effective they are has to do with how traumatized you are, how bad your PTSD or Generalized Anxiety Disorder is, whether you have disassociation experiences, whether you have substance addictions (common for trauma patients), or whether you have other kinds of addictions not related to substances, and your usual coping mechanisms for dealing with trauma. And I bet anything that hypervigilance, sleep disturbances and nightmares are still part of the picture and the hardest to resolve. 

A lot of the approach of trauma therapy is not focused on what you did (not "Why did you stay in an abusive relationship so long and even go back? Don't you know that abusive relationships escalate? Why would you do something so hair-brained?", but the opposite). The approach is: "What did you live through?" This is even the approach to alcoholism. They aren't going to say, "How could you go to rehab 38 times, spend your parent's money to do so, and not come out with good results?" In fact, all kinds of therapists, not just trauma therapists, have learned that this doesn't work. It increases the shaming. Even alcoholism is treated as: "What kind of environment did you grow up in?" And studies have shown that most alcoholics grow up in environments that are traumatic. There is a direct correlation between alcoholism and trauma, and alcoholism and child abuse environments (another link and another link), even if they weren't the ones who were bullied. 

And I'm pretty sure a number of you will be asking if narcissism is one of those "What have you lived through?" conditions too? Yes. But you cannot treat your attackers. Even showing them empathy opens up a lot of lines for you to be attacked by them again (yes, they even exploit your empathy for continued attacks). The people that they should be going to are therapists - someone who specializes in treating Cluster B Personality Disorders, or who specializes in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, anger management classes, and possibly Schema Therapy (it sometimes helps them), plus a host of other therapies if needed including Dialectic Behavior Therapy and Trauma Therapy.

But it is not for you to suggest or to be at all involved unless you can do a family-wide intervention (a hard thing to pull off with narcissists especially - they are more likely to walk out and say they never liked any of you anyway). Be aware that most of them don't go to therapy because they are happy blaming and dumping all of their problems on to whoever they have adopted as their scapegoats (usually one of their children, an ex, a sibling, and one of the workers in their place of employment).

If they think it is easier for them to always believe someone else is at fault for everything they do that causes them to be angry, rageful, discarding, bullying, envious, depressed and attacking, they reason they don't need any therapy.

If they believe they can talk you into their anger, rages, discards, bullying, competitiveness, depression, broken promises, instability, inability to feel empathy, and attacking fests are always your fault, which they really do believe they can talk you into, then they feel they don't need therapy either. 

They do find out eventually that this won't work, but in the meantime, they live in a fantasy world about this. 

Either way, this is not of your concern. Your concern is to get healthy, to address all of the debilitating symptoms, to figure out who you are and discover all of your talents outside of the narcissists shadow, and to find a peaceful way forward. PTSD does and can get worse, so it is critical to re-wire and get on a healing path. 

For a lot of survivors of narcissistic manipulations, therapy is a god-send. 

As far as a new social group after you go no-contact or the narcissistic parent has discarded you, which many survivors find they want and need, fellow survivors and obvious no-B.S. empaths are also a god-send. For me personally, this is when my life felt like it was being put back together, and put back together in a way that was better than before. I noticed that a lot of my new relationships were with people who were a lot like me, in dress, in hair, in what they lived through, what their interests were (and the arts tended to dominate). A lot of survivors of narcissistic abuse are artists: what a great find and revelation!

I noticed, most of all, that my sleep improved, and it was always disturbed, even as far back as when I was a three year old child living in my first home, an apartment building. I had constant nightmares about being picked at and slowly eaten alive by crows more than once. I remember the nightmares more than I remember specific events, though I do remember how the apartment was laid out, that the stairs were in the center of the building, that there were four apartments in our unit, that our bathroom was long and skinny with the sink closest to the door, that clothes were hung out on a line outside my bedroom window, and that my parents' friends with a girl near my age lived downstairs on the opposite side of the building (kitty corner, via length, not width). 

My nightmares increased afterwards in our new home, to the point where it was often impossible to sleep except in the beginning hours. 

It finally told me what I needed to know: "what I lived through".

Every symptom that I had could be attributed to what I lived through, which didn't diminish the symptoms right away, but at least I knew where they came from and I could name them, and categorize them, and file them away, and not be confused or think about them as much, which, in and of itself, helped in diminishing them (except when they were needed - which I explain in the next chapter). 

For instance, I found that when I was around narcissists who weren't criminals, I always experienced headaches, and sometimes mini flashes of dizziness. Narcissists can be fun, and they can have an acerbic wit, and I did have fun sometimes when I was with them on a jaunt, but I would always come home with a headache, exhaustion, feeling unheard or silenced in one way or another, and those flashes of dizziness. It wasn't a good feeling, no matter how much I laughed, no matter how light-hearted I was, no matter how much I believed I had a good time. 

Around the criminal types of narcissists, I experienced high anxiety and a feeling that my head was buzzing (as if nerves could "buzz" in your head like bees). 

I tend to stay away from people now who give me headaches or where I get that "buzz" anxiety feeling. And usually those symptoms are dead-on accurate in terms of who I find they eventually are. I will not be pushed into relating to people I don't want to relate to either. Because my own experiences and system are way better detectors than anyone else. Most of us are not good detectors of toxicity and toxic people, especially people who are enchanted with any narcissist, and I have been led astray too by all kinds of do-gooders as well as people who liked seeing me being in traumatic situations, but now I have to rely on symptoms to clue me in. I have also tested some flying monkeys of narcissists' I know (ones who I have some respect for) just to see where their detection abilities are: not so good. It convinces me even more that I need to do this on my own terms. 

So symptoms are not always a bad thing: they are our warning systems not to get too close, to keep our guard up, and definitely not to fawn. 

There are other things I have done to heal, and to be on a healing journey in general, and I may share some of those anecdotes in the future. But the ones I have listed here are the major ones.  

I would say that finding out who you are without narcissists' constant comments and shaming is one of the first steps to living a better life. I'd bet you'd find you are a kinder person than you ever thought (narcissists have an agenda to always paint you as unkind, selfish and unhinged which you can't find out is untrue unless you separate from them completely, even when you have other people in your life constantly countering what the narcissist says, which, in my case, I did have - my father, my spouse, and other people who knew me well ... yup, I still wondered whether narcissists were telling the truth about me, and now I don't). You can find you are way more sane and able than the narcissist painted you as too (again, most narcissists will paint you as insane so that you put your decision-making in their hands and so that they can continue their power, control and isolating agendas). And you can find that you are way more talented and ambitious than you thought you were too (narcissists keep trying to make you feel too inept mentally, emotionally and physically to reach career and lifestyle goals). - As so many psychologists say, "Don't take what they have to say personally; take it as their disorder speaking through them." 

Finding out who you are and what you are capable of is one of the joys in life, and if that is being strung up and hobbled, break the chains of the trauma bond to experience what life truly has to offer. 

Most of all, realize what shaming does to children, and don't pass it down to the next generation.  

Shaming Children Is Emotionally Abusive (Children respect those who respect them.) - by Karyl McBride Ph.D. for Psychology Today

Parental Shaming vs. Encouragement (What feels better, works better.) - by Steven Stosny, Ph.D.
excerpt:
     ... Encouragement tends to evoke cooperation, almost as consistently as shaming evokes resistance. ... 

How to Avoid Shaming Your Child – And Keep Strong, Loving Boundaries - by Karen Young, psychologist, for Hey Sigmund

Shaming Children Leaves Scars on the Brain that Adversely Affect Emotional Health - by Jennifer Fraser, PhD. for Emotional Intelligence Magazine

Why Shaming Your Children Doesn’t Change Their Behavior - by Rachel Tomlinson, Registered Psychologist for Baby Chick
excerpt:
     Shaming kids is not a great discipline tool. It can be easy to slip into shaming comments out of frustration. You want to try and get some kind of response or reaction from your child. Or perhaps it was the way you were parented. You might say things like:
     “You’re such a liar. I can’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth.”
     “Why are you crying? It’s not that bad!”
     “All you do is whine and complain. You’re being annoying.”

When Parents Publicly Shame Their Kids - by Susanna Schrobsdorff for Time Magazine 
excerpt:
     The story was so disturbing, it instantly became the latest parable of punishment in the digital age. A dad in Tacoma, Wash., filmed his 13-year-old daughter with her long hair cut off and piled on the floor around her. She was being punished for sending a boy a racy photo. “Man, you lost all that beautiful hair,” says his voice in the background. “Was it worth it?”
     That video went viral–especially after news spread that within days, she had jumped to her death from a highway overpass. Outraged YouTube viewers called for the father to be criminally prosecuted. There were headlines all around the world: Teen commits suicide following father’s public shaming.

The Real Problem With Publicly Shaming Your Kids - by Elizabeth Flora Ross for Yahoo News
excerpt:
     ... Dr. Shefali Tsaberry, author, speaker and clinical psychologist, is not comfortable with the shaming of children in any manner for any reason. She describes shame as toxic. “[Shame] creates disconnection, a betrayal of trust. Shaming never works. Connection is the only way.”
     Katie Hurley, LCSW and author of “The Happy Kid Handbook” agrees.
     “Parenting has never been easy, and parents today are navigating new territory,” Hurley says. “It’s difficult to say what triggers one parent to take to the Internet to shame a child for‘misbehavior’ while another confronts the issue in the safety of the home, but there does appear to be a combination of anger and control beneath the surface of these posts.”
     Children of all ages make mistakes. Trial and error is the business of growing up, and they can’t get it right every single time. Shaming them, online or just in person, causes significant damage to the parent-child relationship. The parent-child relationship should focus on unconditional love and trust.

What’s the Best Way to Discipline My Child? - HealthyChildren.org, The American Academy of Pediatrics
excerpt:
     As a parent, one of your jobs to teach your child to behave. It's a job that takes time and patience. But, it helps to learn the effective and healthy discipline strategies.

     Here are some tips from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) on the best ways to help your child learn acceptable behavior as they grow. ... 
     ... Verbal abuse: How words hurt. Yelling at children and using words to cause emotional pain or shame also has been found to be ineffective and harmful. Harsh verbal discipline, even by parents who are otherwise warm and loving, can lead to more misbehavior and mental health problems in children. Research shows that harsh verbal discipline, which becomes more common as children get older, may lead to more behavior problems and symptoms of depression in teens. ... 

Such a Shame: A Consideration of Shame and Shaming Mechanisms in Families - U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs
excerpt:

     This paper focuses on shame in the family context and how the shaming of children is a core component of child abuse and its effects.
     ... Although shaming by a parent toward a child is important for the development of certain positive qualities in a child, toxic shaming occurs when it is performed for the benefit of the parent rather than the child. This occurs when the parent uses shaming toward the child as a regulator of self-esteem in the parent, as a means of managing past suffering, and as a means of controlling the child. The key feature of excessive shaming is emphasis on the failure of the child in the eyes of the parent, accompanied by turning away and conditional love. The most severe consequences of shaming are self-attack, the disowning of the self, and the splitting of the self. ...

     

Child Shaming: How We’re Ruining Our Own Children’s Future - by Swati Reddy for K8 School 

Hidden Damage: Understanding the Toxicity of Shaming Children - from the administrators of Empathetic Parenting Counseling 

"Good" Children - at What Price? (The Secret Cost of Shame) - by Robin Grille and Beth Macgregor for The Natural Child Project (article discusses research on the subject)

Child Shaming Quotes - Google

Break the Shaming Cycle - by Dena Landing for Esme
excerpt:
     ... Shaming can take the form of telling your child that he’s careless because he knocked over a chair, associating a onetime action with a negative character trait. Parents engage in shaming in an attempt to control their children’s behavior, but it can have lifelong negative consequences.
     Why is shaming so damaging?
     Shaming your child creates an environment in which she feels like she can never make a mistake. Because children naturally want to avoid being shamed again, they begin to fear ever doing anything wrong, which could lead them to avoid challenges or new situations. ...

Raising Resilient Kids in a Fat Shaming World - by Judith Matz, LCSW for NationalEatingDisorders.org

Why body shaming children is a strict NO. Read about the adverse physical and mental health consequences (Fat-shaming children and adolescents is becoming a common phenomenon. Worryingly, it can lead to serious psychological consequences. Read on to find out why) - by Team Parent Circle for Parent Circle

Shaming Kids: Good Parenting or Not? - by Ronit Baras for Family Matters, Practical Parenting Guide
excerpt:
     ... Shaming kids is a form of bullying
     Shaming kids is an act of bullying. Bullying is picking on someone else’s weakness. This is what parents are doing by shaming children. They pick on their kids’ greatest weaknesses (e.g. the fear of being ridiculed, or the fear of being disrespected). ... 
     ... The fear of punishment can only go so far

The fear of punishment can only go so far. Nobody misbehaves for the sole purpose of misbehaving. Unaddressed, the real reason for their behavior will make them do it again. For example, no person on earth has stopped speeding after being caught speeding once, because the need to speed has not changed!

     The fear of pain can only last so long. ... 

Shaming Children So Parents Will Pay the School Lunch Bill - by Bettina Elias Siegel for The New York Times 
excerpt:
     ... On the first day of seventh grade last fall, Caitlin Dolan lined up for lunch at her school in Canonsburg, Pa. But when the cashier discovered she had an unpaid food bill from last year, the tray of pizza, cucumber slices, an apple and chocolate milk was thrown in the trash.

     “I was so embarrassed,” said Caitlin, who said other students had stared. “It’s really weird being denied food in front of everyone. They all talk about you.”

     Caitlin’s mother, Merinda Durila, said that her daughter qualified for free lunch, but that a paperwork mix-up had created an outstanding balance. Ms. Durila said her child had come home in tears after being humiliated in front of her friends.

     Holding children publicly accountable for unpaid school lunch bills — by throwing away their food, providing a less desirable alternative lunch or branding them with markers — is often referred to as “lunch shaming.” ... 

10 Reasons Why We Need To Stop Public Shaming Of Kids - by Fiona Peacock for BellyBelly
excerpt:
     ... Your child needs to be able to trust you, to know that you love her unconditionally, and to know that she can come to you with any problem for help. By shaming your child, you’re burning that bridge. Your child simply isn’t going to seek you out for help, support and guidance again for fear or publicly humiliated. ...

Reduce Shame: 21 Things Your Child Needs To Hear (Is your child stuck in the “I’m a bad kid” cycle? Caregivers can reduce the effects of shame, using these phrases to remind your child that they are seen, known, and loved.) - by Nicole Scwartz, LMFT, for Imperfect Families

Why Shaming Kids For Bad Behavior Doesn’t Work - by Tricia Gross for ABC News, San Diego
     ... Researchers have found that chastising, belittling and punishing children to make them feel bad — shaming them, in other words — might do more harm than good.
     The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has a strong stance on the benefits of effective discipline, which refers to respectful discipline applied in a consistent, firm, and fair way.
     AAP research shows that yelling at or shaming children is minimally effective in the short-term and ineffective in the long-term. The organization states that doing so puts children at a higher risk of adverse behavioral, cognitive, psycho-social and emotional outcomes.
     Similarly, Claire McCarthy, MD, senior faculty editor of Harvard Health Publishing, states that there is a fine line between criticizing and shaming a child. McCarthy notes that shaming kids can cause issues with self-esteem. They might come to believe there is something inherently wrong with who they are or that they are not capable of changing. ...

Why Shaming Kids Doesn’t Work Long-Term - by Heidi Rogers for HeidiRogers.com

Stop Shaming Kids - Sign here! - by Lori Petro, Amy Bryant, & Robbyn Peters Bennett #StopShaming Kids Petition HERE
From the site:

     Child maltreatment constitutes all forms of physical and emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect, or exploitation resulting in harm to the child’s health, survival, development, or dignity. Clearly, publicly shaming a minor is an abuse of power and a form of child maltreatment. To protect the basic human rights of children, we ask that Facebook and other social media sites establish parameters which prohibit public shaming of minors via photo/video and allow users to flag “suspected child maltreatment,” and/or “bullying of a minor.” Please help us make Facebook and other social media sites safe for our children.

The Toxic Effects of Shaming Children - by Rebecca Eanes for Creative Child

Are You Teaching Your Kids To Body-shame? - by Ashley Brantley for bcbstnews (News Center of Tennessee)

How To Reduce Your Child's Exposure To Shame - by Rebecca Eanes for Generation Mindful
excerpt:
     Shame eats away at a child’s core emotional need to feel loved and connected, leaving them feeling small, unworthy, flawed, and unacceptable. As we learn to heal our shame wounds, we give our children chances for a healthy and happy emotional life. Here are 3 shame-free discipline tactics. ...

Are you food shaming your child? It’s time to stop! - by Ginny Jones for More-Love.org

10 Ways You're Accidentally Shaming Your Toddler - by Dina Leygerman for Romper.com

excerpt: 

     Toddlers are incredibly complicated humans. After the first year of remarkable milestones, they start growing into their own personalities and focusing on mastering specific capabilities. Toddlerhood is also the time when kids start testing boundaries and learn the power of their actions and words. While it can be exciting for both parents and kids, it can also be frustrating and difficult for both. It’s no wonder so many of us parents don't realize we are shaming our toddlers. In the end, it seems, those of us in charge of toddlers must walk the thin line between teachable moments and losing all of our damn self-control. ... 

For an opposite view on all of this, here is this article:  Danielle Smith: Public shaming of children is sometimes justifiable - by Danielle Smith for Global News 
excerpt:
     A Windsor, Ont. mother who took to social media to publicly shame her misbehaving kids got more than she bargained for.

     She didn’t expect the posting to go viral or for people to misunderstand her intentions. Her post showed a picture of her kids walking seven kilometers and  carrying a sign that said, “being bad and rude to our bus driver, mom is making us walk.”

     She said she had them carry a sign because she lives in the kind of community where people would stop to offer a ride and she wanted her boys to learn a lesson. It went viral, with 28,000 people reposting the image and giving it a thumbs up. But, she also received death threats and was reported to Children’s Services. ...

Another opposing view from most of the experts listed above: What is the Deal With Shaming Parents in Our Society? - by Mercedes Samudio, Shame-Proof Parenting and EMDR for Parents for Shame Proof Parenting
excerpt:
     ... To all the parents and families who chose to hit, yell, or discipline their children the best way they know how this video is for you. ...

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