narcissists, sociopaths and abusers: why is there so much lying, deceiving, rewriting history, secrets and false narratives?

Note: this is the first entry to this post and discusses studies on lying and deception, who deceives, and common lies and deceptions. I will be discussing the effects on victims and the expectations of upholding false narratives for abusive people in other posts.

In order to understand this post, most abusers tend to have Cluster B Personality Disorders (and sub-categories such as Grandiose Narcissism, Vulnerable Narcissism, Malignant Narcissism, and so on), or active addictions. Please see this post to understand what abuse is and who it is perpetrated by.

In many ways, this is a follow-up to my last post on invalidation and persecticide. That is because lying and false narratives wouldn't be possible without narcissists and sociopaths engaging in the on-going practice of invalidation and perspecticide.

I discuss lies, deceptions and false narratives in two separate posts, and use the same links for "further reading" in both posts. Each post will have different videos, however.

STUDIES ON LYING AND DECEPTION
AS IT APPLIES TO THIS POST

what we know about how easy it is to tell who is lying and who isn't

Studies have shown that narcissists and sociopaths believe they can tell who is lying more than the general population, that their perceptions about who is lying and who is not lying is superior to others. But actually, they are significantly less able to tell when a person is lying. Narcissists and sociopaths also falsely accuse more than the general population. They also invalidate other's experiences and feel "right" about doing so. They also accuse other people of lying much more than the general population.

Your average person without a personality disorder has a 50/50 chance of deciphering whether they are being lied to or not. 

Therapists, police officers and judges often feel they are best at being able to decipher lies too, but it is still only a 50/50 chance.

Where there is a slight advantage in being able to tell whether a person is lying is in people who have pronounced extroverted qualities; i.e. people who spend an extraordinary amount of time relating to others and to the public, who do not feel comfortable alone (i.e. become anxious and vulnerable), who are described as friendly, outgoing and "sunny". These people tend to be community and family oriented too. Note: sociopaths, psychopaths and narcissists can also be extroverts, but the difference here is that they are not usually described as "sunny" because they criticize others, make fun of others, try to dominate others in conversation and decision-making and they try to hurt others. With sociopaths, psychopaths and narcissists there is an underlying darkness, grandiosity, persuasion, and sometimes intimidation, where as your typical extrovert (the one who has no personality disorder) tends to talk well of people, and indeed almost all people. Why they have an uncanny ability to better decipher who is lying and who is not compared to others may simply have to do with being in the presence of others a lot, as well as being interested as to who others are. Some examples of typical extroverts would be Tom Hanks, Oprah, Bob Hope and Rosie O'Donnell. Some fictional characters who are extroverts who tell constant little white lies would be Robert Petrie of The Dick Van Dyke Show, Frankie Heck of The Middle, Louise Jefferson and Edith Bunker in All in the Family, Rachel Green of Friends and Leverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney of Laverne and Shirley.

why are narcissists and sociopaths quite a bit less

capable of being able to tell who is lying and who is not

Several theories exist (shortened version):

On narcissists:

* the narcissist feels threatened in terms of their value to or dominance over another person: In this instance, the narcissist's natural proclivity would be to gain power and control (or to win something) over another person. If the narcissist feels "less than" someone else in terms of importance, stature, power, control, intelligence and sanity, they are likely to shame the other person, whether publicly or privately. When narcissists are exerting a lot of shame tactics on someone, or feeling an overwhelming amount of shame themselves, they are also likely to devalue that person. An aspect of devaluation includes "believing" that the other person is lying.

* the narcissist feels most comfortable with flatterers and sycophants: this might mean that the narcissist would tend to "believe" that the person doing the flattering and fawning is a truth-teller.

* the narcissist feels most comfortable with people who are blindly loyal: this might mean that the narcissist would tend to "believe" that the person who is "showing" the most loyalty to them (whether the loyalty is fake or real) is a truth-teller. However, King Henry VIII, who was most likely a malignant narcissist accused his most loyal sycophants as being the least loyal, especially later in life, so "most loyal" is not always a fixed perception in their minds. 

On sociopaths:

* the sociopath has grown up in an environment where a lot of lying and unethical behavior has taken place: this would mean that he perceives that people lie most of the time, and therefor cannot feel he can rely on someone telling him the truth. He concludes that people are lying most of the time.

On both narcissists and sociopaths:

* Both narcissists and sociopaths rely too heavily on these things to tell who is lying and who is telling the truth:
     Note: all of these have been deemed to be unreliable factors in being able to tell who is lying (discussed further in the post with sources), but narcissists and sociopaths tend to put a great deal of stock in them regardless: tone of voice, facial expressions, hostility, averted gaze, rolling eyes, anxiousness at being confronted or interrogated, defensiveness (I have put up more links to professional resources and studies about this on my post about punishments over facial expressions, vocal tones and glances).
     Note: all of these have been deemed to be unreliable in being able to tell who is telling the truth, but narcissists take these into consideration more than the rest of the population: an air of confidence, seeming to be sincere, seeming to be generous or kind, a "take charge" personality, overly assuring, seeming to be respected by others, seeming to be thoughtful.
     Narcissists and sociopaths tend to rely on these belief-based perceptions of theirs quite a bit more often than the general population, which is one reason, when they are committing crimes, they can be caught by investigators posing as "one of them".   

* Part of being able to tell who is lying and who is telling the truth means, for both narcissists and sociopaths, that they will be perceiving lies as the truth, and the truth as lies more than the general population. 

what we know about who lies the most

People who lie the most tend to be people with high levels of Cluster B personality traits. The people who lie the most out of the Cluster B spectrum tend to be sociopaths, psychopaths and narcissists with some Antisocial Personality Disorder traits (malignant narcissists).

People who lie the least tend to be empaths, i.e people who have pronounced empathetic qualities.

Some active addicts can lie quite a bit too. They tend to do it in stages, according to how long they have been an addict. In the beginning they may lie about whether or not they have "used" (or in the case of active alcoholism, whether they have been drinking, and how much they have been drinking). Then it tends to graduate to other issues in their lives, where they might tell others how their kids are doing (even if they have not seen their kids in years), and then they can get to a point where they adopt false narratives for absolutely everything that is going on in their life. 

what we know about the difference between what sociopaths and narcissists

lie about and what the general population lies about (shortened version)

Narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths tend to lie to hurt others, to make people feel bad, to make people feel "ashamed" or "different" or not part of "their tribe" or "their ranking in the pecking order", to make people feel sorry for them, and to redirect fault (when they are at fault) on to others. Studies have shown that people with these kinds of personality disorders lie in this way, on average, at least three times a day or more. 

People without personality disorders lie for the opposite reasons: not to hurt anyone, not to damage another person's self esteem, not to make someone feel bad or unwanted or "not beautiful" - what we would describe as white lies. For instance, another person asks you if you like their outfit, but you say "yes" even though you don't like it. You do it so that it doesn't hurt them or break their self esteem - this would be an example of a white lie. Studies have shown that most average, normal, working people tell one white lie a day, or every other day.

Empaths tend to tell white lies when they feel bad. In other words they may say they are "fine" when they actually feel hurt, bad, sick, injured, unhappy, abused, frightened, etc. so as not to bother or inconvenience other people with their problems. Child abuse victims may also lie about how they feel to keep safe and not trigger their abusive parent into a rage. You can probably surmise that narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths can be deadly to empaths.

Some of the studies I have talked about can be found here and below in the "further reading" section.

typical phrases that narcissists and sociopaths use when lying to partners

This comes from research by Baskin-Sommers, Krusemark, Ronningstam, Ford, King, and Hollender.  However, I am using a Psych Central article by Shahida Arabi who cites the same researchers in her article titled, 12 Of The Most Common Lies Sociopaths And Narcissists Tell, Translated Into Truth. She list the phrases as follows (but the whole article is worth reading):

1. "I would never lie to you." (- my note: very common and typical of sociopaths)
2. "He or she was obsessed with me."
3. "I was hanging out with friends." (- my note: when cheating)
4. "I am just so busy right now."
5. "It’s crazy how much we have in common." (- my note: a general sign of love bombing and mirroring)

6. "I miss you and love you. Just checking in." (-my note: a sign when they want to see if they can hook you into another round of honeymoon followed by abuse)

7. "Cheating is morally wrong." (- my note: they will say it to others, but not live it themselves)
8. "They mean nothing to me. You’re my one and only." 
9. "My ex was so dishonest and toxic."
10. "I’ve moved around a lot – I love to travel." (- my note: typical of sociopaths)
11. "I used to be a player, but now I am a changed man or woman. Now I want a meaningful relationship and a life partner."
12. "I am truly sorry, I really am. This is not who I am."

the most common false narratives that narcissists and sociopaths use

They inflate their IQ scores. Very, very common. Sometimes they inflate the scores to such an extent that it is beyond the scope of the test. They will also be competing with others in terms of how high their IQ scores are. If they are given an IQ test by a psychologist or psychiatrist, the scores are usually much lower than the narcissist or sociopath originally espoused. The narcissist or sociopath then tells the psychologist or psychiatrist that they weren't feeling well that day, or distracted. 

In general, they will be telling false narratives which put them in higher positions than others: that they are more intelligent than others, that they are more truthful than others, that they are more thoughtful and caring than others, that they are more skilled than others, that they are more stable and sane than others, and sometimes (if they think they can get away with it) more talented too, though narcissists and sociopaths typically are not creative individuals.

They refer to their exes as crazy, unstable and in need of psychiatric treatment. Malignant narcissists and sociopaths also refer to their exes as dangerous. All of this is pretty much a given because narcissists and sociopaths gaslight and use projection consistently in their relationships and once they are outside of those relationships too. 

When you are discarded by the narcissist or sociopath, you will be deemed crazy and unstable too.

If they have an estranged, or rejected, or ostracized child (which most of them do whether presently or in the past), they will say the same things about their child too: crazy, unstable and in need of psychiatric treatment - and sometimes dangerous as well. They sometimes say their child is evil too, especially if that child has been abused in the family system.

If they are a cheating narcissist or sociopath, they will be telling stories that their present spouses or past spouses cheated.

If you are a child who is being abused by a family member and told you are a liar by your narcissist or sociopath parent, the reason why they don't take it seriously and scapegoat you instead is because they are projecting that you are using a false narrative on them (that is because they use false narratives and don't believe others are not using them in the way they do). This is why you can't get protection, justice and validation for your suffering out of a parent who is a narcissist or sociopath, and why they reject you afterwards instead: because they assume all people are as unethical as they are, and falsely accuse people as much as they do.
     It is hard to understand, and many children in these positions feel as though their parents are just trying to hurt them by invalidating, excusing, scapegoating, doling out injustice, playing the victim, and rejecting, and that may be true in some cases since they really only care about their own pain and opinions, and how issues effect them and their reputations. But some of your pain may be mitigated if you train yourself to see them as projecting, then their insensitive horribly unempathetic responses make much more sense.
     In addition, if they reacted quickly without proper investigation, hearing you and others' out, then consider that projection is very, very likely to be at play. Impulsive reactions of invalidation, scapegoating and rejection over their child being abused is not something normal parents do.
     Also, perspecticide and invalidation are very, very common among narcissists and sociopaths when it comes accusations of abuse in the family, and especially anyone they idealize or have put higher in stature. This happens in business too, with narcissistic and sociopathic bosses where a person lower in stature brings a grievance or allegation against a worker in a higher position. If the company is mindful of laws, justice and keeping abuse out of the workplace (which they have a lot more to gain in terms of keeping the company running well), there will be investigations, interviews, other authorities will be brought in (like a psychologist, union president, mediator, lawyers representing each side, and so on), and a file kept with a written statement. However, if the boss is narcissistic or sociopathic, an impulsive judgement will occur and you will be encouraged to leave. In a really unethical businesses, you will be dismissed over a trumped up charge. It is very much like that in a family too. Many, many child abuse victims are also victims of trumped up charges. It is extremely common to the point where it should be expected in a family with child abuse in it.
     Narcissists are also so sure that their judgments and beliefs are "the truth" (even without a single investigation), and superior to anyone else's. If they do have doubts, they will be extremely sensitive to anything that might tarnish their reputations, and will usually try to "word salad" their way out of being wrong about their accusations, but that is usually only if they are being investigated themselves by an authority they deem can damage them. They won't just start showing mercy towards their child of their own accord.
      In general, their beliefs take precedence over investigations, truth, facts, others' experiences, corroboration, even if they weren't there to witness. This is not something that normal parents do.
     Also, when presented with your suffering over the abuse of a family member, they tend to take sides, and it depends on who they have put into which role, not on facts. This is also something that normal parents do not do.
     The problem for children who are in situations where they are being abused is if the parent has taken the side of the abuser (most narcissistic and sociopathic parents do), is that the abuse will escalate. If there is not another parent who will protect and mitigate the victimization, it can escalate very fast. The way abused children deal with abuse is to fawn or fight or disappear or avoid.
     Underage children will often fawn if their parent is abusing them in addition to another family abuser (to stop being abused or scapegoated by two or more people). But in the process they are blackmailed into denying or ignoring the truth. So children in this position can, and do, invalidate their parent for pushing false narratives. The abuse will usually escalate, so that eventually they will have no choice but to leave their families.
     If you are hostage (still underage), fighting brings more danger.
     If you disappear, you are without a family, and many child abuse victims take that route eventually and reason that their families have either little or no value in terms of "belonging", especially if they have been marginalized and invalidated for so much of their childhood through abuse. They are especially likely to reach that conclusion if there are a plethora of false narratives where they were victimized.
     If you try to stay quiet quiet and avoid, it buys time, but that is usually the only advantage.

If they are unethical in other ways, or break the law, they will sound like salesmen, and try to convince you that they are the most lawful, ethical people that they know. If they tend to swear a lot, but are in front of an authority figure who could impact their life, they will appear as though they never swear. They will be spending a great deal of time and words on why they are upstanding, trustworthy people who always put other people's needs first, and never lie. If they are in business and offering services and give you a rock-bottom price for their service, this is another sign that they may be unethical. With small jobs, do not give a down payment. For large jobs, the standard is one third down, a third half way through and a third upon completion. Make sure you have a contract without small print that "taketh away" and that it is a standard common contract. It is always best to go with contractors you know, or that your neighbors know and have worked with.

The other very common false narrative is the blame-shifting maneuver: if they are cheating, they will try to convince others that their spouse cheated instead. If they stole something from someone, they will try to convince others that they were stolen from instead. If they lie about something, they will try to convince others that they were lied to instead. Almost all narcissists and sociopaths play the victim, and they usually do it in this way. 

While these are the most common false narratives, they will be telling all kinds of false narratives whether big or small, throughout their lives with the twist that other people are cheaters, liars, crazy, stupid, criminal, emotionally unstable and out for an agenda.

In conclusion, most of their false narratives are about showing someone else in an unfavorable light while at the same time trying to boost their own character.

future faking

Narcissists and sociopaths use future faking a lot in close personal relationships. Future faking is lying with a broken promise or a promise that never materializes. 

Common future faking:

* the narcissist (or sociopath) promises that if you send him to school, he will support you going to school or financing a business you want to start. The promise never materializes.

* the narcissist (or sociopath) promises you that since he has been caught at cheating that he will never cheat again, and that he is (and will be) one hundred percent devoted to you. You find out after several years he has been cheating the entire time.

* the narcissist (or sociopath) promises you that he or she will never abandon you again (they are known for abandoning their close personal relationships), but when you fall on hard times, he or she abandons you yet again (typical: read my post HERE about that)

* the narcissist (or sociopath) tells you that you will never have to worry about finances for the rest of your life, and in fact, you can quit your job and have a child. After you quit your job and you become pregnant, he abandons you for another woman.

* the narcissist (or sociopath) promises that he will make all of your dreams come true. But not one of them ever materializes.

* the narcissist (or sociopath) promises that if you attach yourself to him or her that all of your dreams will come true. In fact, none of your dreams come true, but the nightmares do come true.

I link a video below about future faking and how to not fall victim to it from psychologist Dr. Ramani Durvasula. 

blame shifting

Note: not all blame shifting is a lie, but it can be, which is why I have included it.

When it is in the context of lying, it goes something like this:

* They abandoned you, but they tell stories to others that you have abandoned them

* They hit you, but tell others that you hit them (very common in sibling abuse)

* They cheated throughout the marriage, but tell others that you cheated on them instead (very common in marital abuse)

* You tell them that you are hurt by them and they never address it, and instead they go into how much you hurt them instead

Blame shifting is so insidious, common and teflon-like when it comes to narcissists and sociopaths that you will often feel frustrated by the experience, like you are talking to a brick wall. If they feel cornered into recognizing culpability, they will just keep blame shifting until you are exhausted with the tactic. They use blame shifting to protect their fragile egos and it will take precedence over any truth. This is why you can't talk to them about anything of import: your feelings, your thoughts, your experiences, your dreams and what you are suffering through and from. The incentive and addiction to lie and blame shift in order to not be culpable of anything will take precedence over any bond. It is one reason why they abandon close personal relationships, and devalue/discard instead of working on them.

gaslighting

In gaslighting, the perpetrator is not only deceptive but tries to make you believe that the deception is the truth. The most common way they do it is to try to convince you that your perceptions aren't right, or that your mind isn't right (i.e. that you are crazy or stupid).

Gaslighting is a bit more evil because it is about playing with your mind and perceptions so that they can control the narrative, and control you. Some of the statements they use include "You are unhinged", "You are in need of psychiatric care", "You can never get things right", "You're too sensitive" (usually after they have provoked you to react), "I never said that" (even when they did). At the same time they will be telling you need to be isolated from others (or in a psychiatric hospital or mental institution) so that you do not make a fool of yourself. They will use any label and any tactic that paints you as "less than" when it comes to your mind.

According to Psychology Today article, "11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting" by psychologist Stephanie A. Sarkis, P.hD.:

Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality.

She goes on to explain common gaslighting phrases and techniques in the same article:

They tell blatant lies.
They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof.
They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition.
They wear you down over time.
Their actions do not match their words.
They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you.
They know confusion weakens people.
They project.
They try to align people against you.
They tell you or others that you are crazy.
They tell you everyone else is a liar.

In child abuse, parents who gaslight children use all of these tactics and more. Hiding toys in secrecy and then putting them back in the child's room is a typical gaslighting strategy of narcissistic and sociopathic parents. 

Others are listed in this Psych Central article, Gaslighting: How a Parent Can Drive a Kid Crazy by mental health counselor, Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC. The way a parent who gaslights is by doing it in increments, gaining trust and then taking things away:

Establish trust.
Push the boundaries.
Gives surprise gifts.
Isolates from others.
Makes subtle statements.
Projects suspicions onto the child.
Plants seeds of imagination.
Attack and retreat.
Takes advantage of the victim.

Gaslighting is a given when it comes to narcissists (and sometimes sociopaths too) and primarily done to people who they deem to be vulnerable to suggestion, vulnerable to being taken advantage of, vulnerable to someone taking over their lives via power and control, vulnerable to believing lies, vulnerable enough to accept lies because of dependency, and in general, people they feel are beneath them in terms of intelligence, sanity, stature and finances. This would include their own children too.

For more information on gaslighting, go HERE.

word salad arguments

Word salad arguments indicate a conversation that is about dodging, diverting, distracting, deflecting and blame shifting in order to avoid culpability. Narcissists and sociopaths are known for arguing with others about how perfect they are and at the same time accusing others of how imperfect they are through smear campaigns or slander. In some instances it is also about re-framing stories and experiences so that the altered versions make the personality disordered person look good or better than the person who they want to make culpable.

For more on word salad arguments with an example, go HERE.

making themselves look like victims

Covert narcissists (termed vulnerable narcissists) and narcissists with sociopathis traits (malignant narcissists) commonly try to present themselves as victims of the people who they abuse.

Not only that, but they use situations that they are guilty of. For instance:

* They tell others that you were giving them the silent treatment when they actually gave you the silent treatment (initiated it).

* They tell others that you are a narcissist when they actually have all of the traits of narcissism.

* They tell others that you broke a promise when they broke a promise and initiated the breaking of promises and commitments.

* And most evil of all is that they often tell others that their spouse was cheating on them for their entire marriage when they were actually the one cheating during the entire marriage.
Some things they typically do after the dissolution of their marriage because they had an affair:
After the break up with their spouses, narcissists usually have a quick re-marriage, affair or cohabitation with a lover  right after they have split up from their ex, so that is just one sign of many as to who was actually cheating, although some of them know that it looks suspect, so they cover it up by saying that their ex was violent or crazy and that their new lover was protecting them - very common - so the truth has to be achieved through interviews, adultery in the divorce papers, and other kinds of investigation, not with assumptions of who you might believe or who is more likable or sad).

Pretending to be a victim is a given when it comes to narcissists and sociopaths. It takes the focus off of how they treated the other person (they tend to focus on how their victims react to their abuse as justification for why they are victims). They hope it also gets them out of any self reflection or any culpability and puts all of the blame 100 percent on their victims (blame-shifting).

stealing

Many narcissists and sociopaths will try to steal any evidence that you may have which makes them culpable or looked at as "at fault", even if they are only "partially" at fault. They are very invested in 100 percent "victim-hood", so that even partial guilt is usually not acceptable to them.

They also don't want their sycophants ever getting news that they are to blame in any way so that they can keep blaming their targets instead for the state they are in.

You can guard against it by always scanning copies of documents and any correspondences. Send them to yourself (and let them live on the server), keep a number of hard copies on and off site, give a copy to your counselor and people closest to you, and if you are keeping a record on them with the police, take the documents to the police too.

If you share documents which show their culpability, be aware that they may become extremely retaliatory (yes, they are that invested in appearing to be a 100 percent victim - being a "believable" victim also makes it much easier for them to continue to be a perpetrator and putting all of the blame on you).

Many also steal things that mean a great deal to you (to hurt you), but that is for another post.

In general, stealing evidence is deceptive and part of lying because it tries to paint the truth as something else. If they cannot steal evidence it does not make gaslighting, fault-finding, harsh judgments and smear campaigns very easy because evidence has a way of countering it.

In most situations where evidence is being collected and tactics like gaslighting, fault-finding, smear campaigns and "getting people to believe" the narcissist's or sociopath's perspectives, expect that the narcissist or sociopath will no longer want to talk to you or have you in their life. You are too much of a liability to the image they try to present to others as "always more right than others, always more perfect than others, always more intelligent than others, always more of a victim than their victims". 

IS THERE ANY WAY TO DETECT LIES?

Note: body language has been proven to not a good indicator of a lie. Looks of shame can appear on the faces of truth tellers as well as liars. Shame can also be an indicator of child abuse or of being among many authority figures who got compliance with demands through shame. In the case of child abuse, the person was shamed throughout childhood, and not because he or she lied, but the shame became embedded in the personality. Shame can be an indicator of feelings of low self esteem and low sense of self worth. Also gaze aversion is not an indicator of lying either, and for the same reasons. Gaze aversion can also be an indication of feeling uncomfortable, of being shy and introverted, of not being comfortable with other people, of preferring not to be part of most conversations, and so on. So none of these should be used to detect lying. 

Lie detector tests are also not a good indicator of lying either. Anxiety levels can go up or down for a number of reasons. For instance, psychopaths tend to pass lie detector tests because they have entirely different autonomic nervous systems. The article I have linked to in the paragraph explains why they are flawed.

Since facial expressions and lie detector tests are not an adequate way to decipher whether a person is lying or not, the best way to detect lying is deciphering a history of lying, broken promises, future faking, using perspecticide and invalidation a lot in close personal relationships. Serial cheating can also be a sign, especially if pathological lying was part of it. An unempathetic view of the partner's suffering or depression over the serial cheating can be an indication too.. A history of lying is an indicator that someone has more probability to lie in the moment. 

This means you have to know the person fairly well. 

Keeping an eye open for inconsistencies to stories, exaggerations, their need for power and control, and how much they put other people down while aggrandizing themselves in the stories they tell can be some indications that you are dealing with someone who plays with the truth.

Because narcissists and sociopaths are vague when they tell lies, if you have any doubts, ask them to elaborate and give lots and lots of details. In other words, always encourage an extensive narrative where you have many details on record.

Some other signs:

* They tend to tell lies in a concise, simple and vague manner where possibilities are left open. There are words and options that are left open, so that they can be retracted or reinterpreted later on. Phrases like "might" or "may" or "I think so".

    They do not give too much information in a communication, staying close to the truth but with some deviations, embellishing stories without verifiable research or information, telling a plausible story but embedding it with the truth and lies in equal parts.

* They tend to prefer to lie face to face rather than in written or recorded statements.

* They tend to exaggerate

* "An assumption of power":  they don't have the power that they espouse that they do

* Fabrications: they make up experiences which are used to protect them and the lies they tell. For narcissistic people, the lies tend to be stories where they are either the heroes or the victims.

* They tend to operate in the world through "a life of concealment"; i.e. "secrets" and clandestine experiences. In order to keep people from knowing the truth, they will often pit people against each other (overly criticize, insult, smear campaign so that each party hates the other party, or is suspicious of the other party) and make up stories about others in order to hide the "life of concealment". Because of this, they also tend to have a private self and a public self, where the private self will cause embarrassment to their public self if the private self is ever leaked by someone else (which it often is). The "life of concealment" also means punishing or hurting others who have revealed "their private self".

* They practice lying to get better at it. They also try to memorize their made up stories. They also tend to feign feelings when they tell lies (gaining acting experience).

 * They tend to tell their children both blatant lies and truthful stories but embed those stories with lies so that they can see if they can win at:
     - the "lying game"
     - the "blaming game" (i.e. the child accepts the blame even though it is known to both parties that he is not to blame, that it is a lie that the child is to blame) - this is done to see how far the child will go to stay in his parent's good graces
     - to see how vulnerable and gullible to lies the child is
     - to see how far the parent can lie until the child will not accept a fantastical lie
     - to see if the child will protest if a blatant lie is told
     - to test the loyalty of a child if he is fed a great number of lies embedded in truths
     - to test if he can manipulate the mind of the child into hating his siblings or other parent through false narratives, made up stories, lies and half truths
     - to test if the child can be manipulated to do something for the parent based on a lie
     - to test the child's intelligence and ability to decipher lies and false narratives that the parent tells
     - to see if the child will agree to the parent "reading minds" or "reading thoughts"
     - to test how much rage, withdrawl of love and care, and threats the child will withstand from the parent to accept the lie as a truth 
     - to see if the child will agree to have a low self esteem based on lies the parent says about the child's character and intentions (where perspecticide and lying go together)
     - to see if a child is vulnerable to looking at his parent as "the authority" on nearly everything, even if so much of what the parent says is a lie
     - to see if the child will "go along to get along" with the parent no matter how many lies are told, even if the child is not worshiping the parent, but the child still wants acceptance enough to "go along"
     - to see if the child will uphold all of the parent's lies and never leak them to anyone (the "trust game" that abusive parents like to play with their own children)
     - in the case of infidelity, to see if the child will go along with the infidelity, the lies about the infidelity to the other parent, and the affair of the parent without a reaction or a protest from the child (another loyalty challenge game) ... also will the child normalize infidelity and disloyalty in such a way that it benefits the abusive parent?

As you can see, children are used as guinea pigs to see what and how much the narcissist can get away with in terms of lying, disloyalty, abuse, affairs, expecting the child to uphold lies without feeling anything contrary to what the parent wants the child to feel, keeping the parents lies from leaking, agreeing to lies and false narratives in order to be accepted by the parent, and so on. And we wonder why so many abused children have trouble in school, or with trust in adults ...

* The best indicators for pathological lying is knowing whether the person is exhibiting personality disorders in the Cluster B spectrum. Use of charm, invalidation, perspecticide, gaslighting, low or no empathy, mirroring your interests, and all of the tactics to the right (the column listing abuse tactics here on my web page). We know that the overwhelming number of narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths lie, and that deceiving others is part of their disorder and their personality.

SO HOW DID THEY GET TO BE LIARS

WHO PRESS OTHERS TO ACCEPT THEIR FALSE NARRATIVES?
AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOUR RELATIONSHIP GOING FORWARD?
CAN THEY CHANGE?

They are capable of change but an incredibly high percentage do not want to change and downright refuse to change. The general rule is to be very wary of pronouncements of change (especially if they are emotionally and psychologically abusive). Here is why:

The answer often lies in their childhood. Usually something was traumatic enough where they did not feel they could be their authentic selves and tell the truth. Perhaps their parent lied a lot, abused them and tried to convince them they were the perpetrator instead of the victim (that the child made the parent abuse the child). Or they watched on the sidelines while a sibling became a scapegoat and where that scapegoat was lied about and lied to. If the scapegoating was done without any push-back, they will feel they can do it too, with the same results.

At any rate, the parent molded them in this environment of lies and half truths, and if the lies weren't believed, where there were many, many consequences, excuses and more lies. Deceptions became part of the family dialogue.

Pathological lying and rewriting history tends to take place in authoritarian families (where you are often punished for not going along with what a parent expects of you, and the lies the parent wants you to believe), in families where marital infidelity (cheating) is the norm, in crime families where revenge fantasies are played out and where lying is used to extort money, power and things from others, in alcoholic families where the truth is such a slippery slope because the parents are so inebriated that they don't know what the truth is because they are in black-outs so much of the time and hide their alcoholism by making events up, where children can be viewed as an inconvenience that keeps the parent from drinking and where the consequence of that is child neglect, where there is family incest, and where there is generational family abuse and violence. Lying and pointing the finger at others is seen as needed to stay safe, because culpability, even if tiny, has extreme consequences, especially in an authoritarian family. Lying is also used to keep a family reputation intact, or some of the members enmeshed with each other.

The more these things are prevalent in the family home, and the more the child is expected and blackmailed into conforming to the lied version of stories, the more the child will accept lies, lying, and dis-empowerment. There is a good likelihood that some of the children will take up lying themselves. The golden child might lie about his siblings to stay on his parent's pedestal, the scapegoat might lie or agree to lies to stay safe, the mascot might lie about his family being wonderful when it is actually dysfunctional and abusive, and instead be led into looking at "the family as a comedy of characters", and the lost child might lie just to stay out of the turmoil and embroilment so that he can keep his focus elsewhere, and away from the family dynamics.

The problem is, lying and blaming others can become a run-away train, used in all situations where the child and adults do not feel comfortable or safe, and where the truth won't be believed any way. In authoritarian families in particular, the parents decide what the truth is, who is telling the truth, what truth or lie will protect the parent's reputation and image the most, which lie or truth will protect the parent's authority over the children the most, which of the children is expendable in terms of keeping the lies going and the appearances up, and so on.

On top of it all, there is the double bind (which I have yet to publish): a child is expected to uphold lies that his narcissistic or sociopathic parent wants him to uphold, while at the same time insist that the child tell the truth at all times, and then when the child tells the truth, the parent decides he is not telling the truth, and punishes the child. This kind of no-win "double bind game" is particularly used on scapegoats in a family.

This can turn into:
When the golden child lies, he is deemed by the parent to be telling the truth.
When the scapegoat tells the truth, he is deemed to be lying.

Remember that in the beginning of this post I said that there were studies done that show that sociopaths and narcissists are the least likely to be able to tell who is lying and who is telling the truth among the general population. A lot of this accounts for why they see the truth-teller as a liar and why they see the liar as a truth-teller. When you put children (and people in general) into roles, you are even less likely to be able to decipher who is telling the truth and who is lying. When you make impulsive judgments, even more ability to see the truth is taken away from you.

So lies and the truth are based on what the narcissist wants them to be.

The authoritarian parent tells the family what lies have to be accepted as the truth and what truths have to be accepted as lies in order to be a member of that family.

When the child grows up, he either rebels against lies and lying, or of upholding false narratives (which usually means he gets scapegoated) ... or he upholds it all and uses it for his own benefit in his own relationships and life (which usually means he gets a golden child status, even if he is manipulating his own parent in this way eventually, which he usually does: remember that it is "a way of life", not just some random slip).

Agreeing to go along with lies or not agreeing to go along with lies has an either/or component to it in the abusive authoritarian family, and terrible consequences for the children who have to decide what to do with all of these lies and false narratives ... including how to respond, how to look at lies and false narratives, whether to accept the lies and false narratives as they are or to question their validity, or reject them, whether it is a good way to live or a bad way to live, whether worshiping a parent who lies, smears, gaslights and tells false narratives is making them sick and anxious or whether it intrigues them as to how much the parent gets away with it, whether to go on with the family tradition of lying including punishing their own children for not accepting family lies, or whether to give up the family tradition altogether (which will most likely mean that the child will not have a close relationship with the parent who lies).

If your spouse is a pathological liar, he or she most likely came from a family like this. He adapted to lies in his family, and then took up lying himself, and was rewarded for both by the parent.

So if you are a spouse of someone like this (someone who repeatedly lies and feels little remorse), think about how he, as a child, was rewarded for it. Parental reward is absolutely huge for a child, and molds him and shapes him into being what he is today. Lying, if it is pathological, is like a drug addiction. It seems to him to have more benefits than losses.

Does he care about his lying causing you pain? No, because he grew up in a family where lying was not confronted, or at the extreme end, condoned. The child doing the confronting a lie was punished and scapegoated (usually), not the liar. So it is ingrained in his being that lying and false narratives bring him great results, sometimes rewards, will be condoned by the parent, with no consequences.

The consequence of his lying is that you are in pain, but one of the reasons he doesn't care about your pain is because to him, you act like the pathetic scapegoat in his family - yes, abusive families see scapegoats as pathetic, stupid and crazy, and are called those things repeatedly. The scapegoat is usually invalidated, his feelings don't matter to anyone in the family (and the parent tries to teach the other children in the family to ignore the scapegoat's feelings and then eventually the scapegoat altogether). That is why your feelings don't matter. He has been taught to be aneasthetized to others' pain. The scapegoat is also punished and/or rejected when the scapegoat confronts the parent about the parent's lies, so to him, lies are reward-able and the truth is punishable.

If your partner is a narcissist or sociopath like the parent who taught him to lie, he will parrot the parent: to blame and blame-shift any culpability on to you, that somehow something was wrong with you that made him lie. Or he will be gaslighting you instead: you better believe in what he is telling you or else you will be punished, after all he is your spouse and spouses are loyal (even though you have caught him at cheating). And most of the time the blame shifting escalates and gets worse in all kinds of situations.  As long as you are in pain, you are deemed to be pathetic, stupid and crazy, just like the one in his family who was abused the most.

He was taught to be unempathetic, cruel, blaming and gaslighting by a parent who did that to one of his siblings, or to the other parent, or both, and now he has taken what he learned from the abusive parent and is doing it to you.

If your partner or spouse grew up witnessing a lot of physical abuse in tandem with emotional and psychological abuse, and he is using all of the other tactics narcissists and sociopaths use, expect him to be physically abusive as well.

This is why it is not to your benefit to stay in a relationship with an individual like this, no matter how many affairs he is flaunting (which he does to make himself look desirable and worth competing for), no matter how many self esteem crushing things he says to you (which he hopes will make you believe that you are barely worthy of him because he has so many other ladies around for the taking), and no matter how much money and leisure he flaunts. None if it makes a bit of difference if you are trapped in an abusive controlling relationship where he calls all of the shots and shows no empathy for anything you go through.

Many children who have parents who are narcissists and sociopaths feel like they have been through a war (the only difference is that war is at home instead of on a battlefield, and the things they are fighting for are a voice, consideration for their feelings, compassion, respect, dignity, justice, an even hand, some choices in situations that are effecting them, a right to live without abuse or excuses about abuse, the right to have their own perspectives without being invalidated, the right to be consistently loved like other children, the right not to be pitted against a sibling by their parent, the right to non-retaliating or sadistic parental responses, the right to make decisions about their own lives without severe parental consequences, none of which they get if they have an NPD or ASPD parent). Do you think you can do any better than their children? And if you have children with people like this, your children will be living in a sea of lies, made up stories, often affairs that effect them even more than they effect you, and they will be emotionally scarred and punished depending on how they respond to lies. You will have to make the decision to protect your children. If you do protect your children, expect your spouse to rage, to be vindictive, to threaten divorce, rub affairs in your face, call you crazy and unattractive, and punish you and the child you are protecting. If they get the feeling that they cannot control you and how you relate to your children, they will usually put you through the nastiest divorce and custody battles that they can muster. If you stay, your children are likely to be blackmailed, pitted against each other, continually abused or abandoned, and anxious. Before you get in deep, please consider that these people are usually not worth competing for (the "competing" will never end anyway, and they pronounce themselves judge, jury and lawyer); they aren't worth reasoning with; they aren't worth having children with; and they are rarely even worth going to therapy with (because they will be lying to the therapist too, trying to enlist the therapist to co-bully-blame you, and putting on their charming Dr. Jekyll face, which are just additional lies you will have to deal with even if the therapist sees through the lies) ... "what glitters isn't gold" by a long shot. Receiving a flattering kind of love bombing from them, being good in bed or having a few interests in common isn't worth the nightmare you will have to endure.

IN CONCLUSION

In the next section (yet to be published) I talk about different ways people respond to being lied to, and how a lot of lies and false narratives in close personal relationships effect both victims and perpetrators. It even effects the brain functioning of both perpetrators and victims. I also discuss the common responses therapists suggest to deal with pathological liars (even ones who may be a sibling, a parent, or a spouse).

It is much too long to go into in this post, thus the need for another post.

The next two videos are highly recommended by Lisa Romano:

"What Happens When the Narcissist Knows You've Figured Them Out"

"Narcissist Pathological Liars/Deception and Shift Blaming/They Can't Tell the Truth"

This next one is by therapist Les Carter called
"A Narcissist's 3 Selves: Public, Private and Secret"
It's the secrets and the inability to discuss their own emotional issues
that give their narcissism away:

This next one is by psychologist Dr. Ramani Durvasula
who specializes in narcissism and relationships with narcissists
entitled "What is 'Future Faking'? (Glossary of Narcissistic Relationships):

Why are abusers, narcissists and sociopaths rejecting, violent and offended by facial expressions, glances and your tone of voice - my own post (with lots of research, experiments and studies on the topic). A lot of battered women are victims of this.

8 Common Narcissist Lies (Be on the lookout for these, before you’re exploited!) - by Preston Ni M.S.B.A. for Psychology Today

7 Gaslighting Phrases Malignant Narcissists, Sociopaths and Psychopaths Use To Silence You, Translated - by Shahida Arabi for Psych Central

12 Of The Most Common Lies Sociopaths And Narcissists Tell, Translated Into Truth - by Shahida Arabi for Psych Central

6 Toxic Arguing Techniques Used by Narcissists and Manipulators - by Darius Cikanavicius, Author, Certified Coach for Psych Central

Narcissists Promise You Everything, but Fail to Deliver (Who is the real “crazy ex” when a narcissist’s relationship falls apart?) - by Suzanne Degges-White Ph.D.

How Narcissists Use Future Faking to Manipulate You - by Darius Cikanavicius for Psych Central

“The Fix Is In”: How Narcissists Spin Your (Possible) Future Problems To Make Themselves Look Good - by Lenora Thompson for Psych Central

How Narcissists Pretend to Impress, Manipulate, and Use You- by Darius Cikanavicius for Psych Central

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

How Narcissists React to Information About Narcissism - by Darius Cikanavicius for Psych Central

8 Toxic Ways Narcissistic Mothers Emotionally Abuse Their Children - by Shahida Arabi for Psych Central

5 Things Sociopathic Parents Hide Behind - by Jonice Webb PhD for Psych Central

The Number 1 Way to Become Less Vulnerable to Narcissists and Sociopaths - by Jonice Webb PhD for Psych Central

Psychopaths are unable to love their own children — here's why (Experts say that narcissists, psychopaths, and sociopaths do not have a sense of empathy) - by Lindsay Dodgson for the UK publication, Independent

9 Signs Your Mom Might Be A Sociopath - by Carina Wolff for Bustle

What It's Like To Have A Parent Who Is A Sociopath (If you are the child of a sociopathic parent, I understand how tough it is) - by Brianna Wiatrak for The Odyssey Online

Narcissists & The Art of Future-Faking - by Zari Ballard for the Narcissistic Partners and Relationship Agenda website

The Fifty Future Fakes - by H.G. Tudor for the Knowing the Narcissist website 

What is the difference between gaslighting and lying? -from Quora

excerpt:

Gaslighting goes a step further as it is deception and telling lies. The intention isn't only to hide the truth but to outright deny things that the other person has experienced ...

I’ve counseled hundreds of victims of gaslighting. Here’s how to spot if you’re being gaslighted. - by Robin Stern, counselor, for Vox

Gaslighting: A Sneaky Kind Of Emotional Abuse - by Mary Elizabeth Dean for Better Help

excerpt:

Gaslighting is one of the most difficult types of emotional abuse to recognize. Most kinds of emotional abuse are easy to spot if you can look at the situation rationally rather than emotionally. Someone puts you down constantly, criticizes every move you make, shames you, blames you, calls you names, refuses to show you affection until they get what they want, punishes you, or keeps you away from friends and family - all in an attempt to control you. These are more obvious forms of emotional abuse.
Gaslighting is different, though. Instead of abusing you in obvious ways, the gaslighter controls you by manipulating, hiding, and distorting the facts of your situation. You become confused and disoriented because the gaslighter has caused you to doubt your sanity. Being controlled by someone else is never easy. Being gaslighted is especially hard to deal with simply because it's such a sneaky form of abuse. The person who gaslights you wants to control you, just like with other types of abuse. They just don't want you (or anyone else) to know they're doing it.

The Secret Façade of the Vulnerable Narcissist - by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC for Psych Central

The Secret to Spotting Subtle Narcissists - by Craig Malkin, Ph.D. for Psychology Today

The Nightmare of a False Accusation - by John Amodeo, Ph.D. for Psych Central

The Quandary of Being Falsely Accused and How to Deal with It - by John Amodeo, Ph.D. for Psych Central

Separating the Narcissist’s Delusion from Reality - by Sarah Newman, MA, MFA for Psych Central

4 Behaviors That Unmask Narcissists - by Peg Streep for Psych Central

5 Reasons Why Keeping Family Secrets Could Be Harmful - by Suzanne Handler, MEd for Psych Central

The Power of Secrets (They divide people. They deter new relationships. And they freeze the development on individuals) - by Evan Imber-Black for Psychology Today

Family Secrets (A therapist's guide to telling the truth — and healing) - by Evan Imber-Black, Ph.D., the director of the Center for Families and Health at New York City's Ackerman Institute, and the author of "The Secret Life of Families" for Good Housekeeping

Five Ways to Recognize a Toxic Family - by Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D. for her own website

Toxic Family Secrets: Did you grow up in a home where there were toxic family secrets? - by Josephine Ferraro, LCSW for her own website

An area of psychology massively under catered for: both a thorough understanding and analysis of covert narcissistic personality disorder and covert exploitative tactics and specifically how to treat the type of devastating long term complex trauma and damage to an individuals psyche this kind of invisible abuse can cause. - by Richard Grannon, Life Coach

 Lenora Thompson of Psych Central in her article, 4 Truths for ACONS (Adult Children of Narcissists):
excerpt:

... from the tender age of six, I was expected to tattle on myself. Not just when asked either. To be proactive on confessing anything and everything wrong (including the stuff I now realize wasn’t wrong) I had done, said, felt, thought to my mother.

Then she lectured and/or punished me.

By any yardstick, that upbringing would be enough to turn anyone into a first class deceiver. A pathological liar.

But it didn’t. I’m still honest to a fault. That’s to my credit…not theirs.

Narcissists Never Talk About What They Did to Hurt You, Only How You Reacted - by Gerald Sinclair for Awareness Act
excerpt:

Narcissists are some of the worst people to have a conflict with because instead of working through the issues you’re both facing with one another, the narcissist closes off drastically. Instead of owning up to what they did to upset you, the narcissist will push your buttons until you explode and then act as if you reacted in an extreme manner over nothing.

invalidation and perspecticide: why narcissists and sociopaths use it and the effects on their victims

In abusive families invalidation and perspecticide are part of a toxic brew of tactics that members have to live with.

Why do narcissists and sociopaths do this to their family members, where did the practice come from (usually their childhoods: an authoritarian family), how it effects their family members, and how it is implemented will be discussed in this post. At the end of the post, there are the usual links to corroborate what I am saying and for further knowledge and reading.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INVALIDATION
AND PERSPECTICIDE IN ABUSIVE FAMILIES

Invalidation in the context of the abusive family is a broader term and encompasses not only invalidating the feelings, thoughts and perspectives of others, but can encompass invalidation of experiences, critical thinking, the need for a member to find the truth, the need for trying to find safety in or out of the family, and even go into the invalidation of responses and interactions with others. In many cases, it even goes as far as to invalidate a person in the family, in whole or in part. 

And in fact, when there is so much invalidation of so much, you can almost count on it graduating into invalidating the entire person eventually.

Perspecticide is more specific: invalidation of feelings, thoughts and perspectives. It can be about the invalidation of experiences too, especially in the context of how they are felt, what thoughts they generate and the perspectives that are being generated.

Both perspecticide and emotional and psychological invalidation is considered to be abuse in close personal relationships. When parents do it to children, it falls under two umbrellas: child abuse and child neglect.

The problem for children, especially, is that for many abusive parents, they invalidate one child little by little, like chiseling away at the child, until the whole child is invalidated (rejected). I discuss this later in the post.

WHY NARCISSISTS AND SOCIOPATHS INVALIDATE
(and use perspecticide on) FAMILY MEMBERS AND/OR THEIR PARTNER

On narcissists:

Children, a spouse or other members who are invalidated, tend to be either partially rejected (when they talk, no one listens, or they are "talked over" or "re-interpreted") or rejected in whole (divorced, shunned, ostracized, told to stay away, given the silent treatment, etc.). 

One of the reasons why invalidation and perspecticide tend to be a run-away train in abusive families is because of the narcissism itself: "I am right; they are wrong", "My perspectives and beliefs are the truth; theirs aren't", "What I believe should take on the most importance; I don't care what they believe and they should never be important", "I have to have my way in the beliefs and perspectives department; they can never persuade in that way", "What they say doesn't matter, only what I think matters to me", and so on. Their minds are more like pressure cookers where the lid is on so tight that they don't want any other feelings, thoughts and perspectives in there other than their own. This makes them highly prone to projection and discounting what others say to them.

Narcissists and sociopaths who tend to deal with problems and issues in a family through invalidations, tend to also foster an environment of rejection. Children are estranged, sibling relationships aren't close, there are children who are deemed to be "all good" and others who are deemed to be "all bad" and there are reasons the narcissist isn't close to either one of them (though on the outside it would seem the closeness was with who the narcissist or sociopath deemed to be the "all good" child). In general, there isn't a lot of listening going on, and it all tends to get passed down the generations so that the new generations are acting like the older generations in their relationships.

Besides the lack of authentic bonding, suspicions are commonplace among members. Members are afraid of each other and each other's intentions, members show a lot of signs of stress, feeling "unseen" and "unheard", and these families can graduate into alcoholic families, authoritarian families and crime families.  "People pleasing" is often a major focus and "an either/or" too: you are going to totally please the narcissist or sociopath or you aren't; you are going to do all that you are told to do or you will be rejected entirely; you are going to become all that the narcissist or sociopath dreamed of in a child (idealized) or you are going to be rejected altogether (scapegoated); you are going to become the ultimate spouse and do what the narcissistic or sociopathic partner tells you to do or to think, or you will be rejected entirely.  

Narcissists especially tend to use black and white thinking, "It is all or nothing", "You agree totally with me or you don't agree with me at all", "You are for me or against me", "I am all good and you are all bad", "You are always at fault and I am never at fault" (called splitting in psychology terms).

They are much more prone to divorce, estrangement and dissension than other kinds of people. In other words, the invalidations take on a kind of extreme severity. So it is important to remember that the invalidation and perspecticide of certain family members are not only belief-based and fantasy-based, but most often due to splitting (the psychology term again) as well.

In essence, it is devaluation (from the wheel of abuse: idealize, devalue, destroy). It begins as a devaluation of someone else's feelings, thoughts and perspectives. Then it tends to escalate into: experiences, how they live, how they conduct themselves with others, their interests and ambitions, their spiritual or religious beliefs, their dreams and desires, their businesses and so on.

It starts with criticisms first:
"Why would you want to do it that way. The way it should be done is -"
"I can't believe those are your thoughts! You heard that somewhere else."
"I'm disappointed in you. Why dream about xyz instead of abc?"
"Why would you want to work in that profession?!"
"Your clothes always look terrible on you!"
"Why do you say it that way? Why not say it -"
"I don't envy you. I wouldn't want to live like you do."
"I can't believe you feel that way! You should feel cdfg instead!"
"Why would you put a pie there? It belongs here!"
"Wow, you are stupid! Can't you ever think right about anything?"
"I'm so sorry! You need mental health counseling!" - usually referred to as a faux apology.

In other words there is an on-going nastiness so that they feel they are on top in the stature department and you are on the bottom. In other words stature and getting you to think of their perspectives as better than your own becomes significantly more important than the truth or of seeking for the truth.

When they have ground their subjects down and can no longer hear what their subjects are really going through, thinking and feeling, the last step in the devaluation stage is that the entire person is invalidated. Usually the sum of all of the criticisms and invalidations mean that you have been reduced down to nothing except whether you put their perspectives first as the absolute truth or you don't.

If you do not, you become invisible to them, and they complete the invalidation by rejecting you. This is where the silent treatments come in, the ghosting, the shunning, the ostracizing, the marginalizing, the incredible lack of empathy.

There are exceptions to this, of course, and that is where their paranoia comes in. They actually do not want you to show or to tell anyone that they invalidated you (rejected you) because they have decided what you are feeling, thinking and experiencing, so they have to vilify you with even more lies. Lies pile on top of lies and graduate to smear campaigns:
"(My target) is a liar."
"(My target) is crazy." - called gaslighting.
"(My target) has an agenda."
To you: "I know you better than you know yourself" - common, and a sign of narcissism (and psychopathy).

The other exception is that, say, they want you back, and have to concede that they are not "all knowing" and "all powerful" and "know more than you" - or they feel they have to pretend they are not as grandiose as they are presenting. Wanting to come back to you is not because they find value in you (always remember they have invalidated you and will probably always believe you are expendable). They do it so that they do not have to experience either family or societal disapproval and fall-out.

Many survivors report that they feel picked at and picked apart in every aspect of their lives. When the narcissist starts invalidating their person-hood (their sanity, their intelligence, their feelings and thoughts about events) it has gone too far. Either targets will see their perpetrators as insane for touting themselves as "mind readers", or the targets sometimes feel they have to give in or pretend to keep their narcissist happy (i.e. out of going into a rage, out of hurting them) or they question whether the narcissist is as right about their own character as the narcissist is espousing. In the third situation, what the narcissist says will directly effect the self esteem of the target.

One reason a narcissist keeps trying to toy with your self esteem is so that the narcissist can be in charge of the narrative. But it is no secret that narcissists' narratives are almost always half truths, only part truths, or all lies, take your pick.

While targets are getting picked apart with ever more invalidation of everything that is meaningful to them in their lives, the narcissist on the other hand, can't even take a "perceived criticism" as though they, and only they, have a right to criticize others!  

Being continually invalidated by a narcissist can mean that the narcissist is invalidated by others in the end. Some examples of what targets say about narcissists:
"All they care about are their own perspectives."
"They think my feelings are their feelings."
"Only their feelings are important in the relationship while mine aren't!"
"I'm exhausted from all of the profound hypocrisies over criticisms."
"Why are they always trying to replace my perspectives with their own and then try to convince me that their perspectives are mine? As if theirs are some ultimate truth sent down by God!"
"I can't deal with a person who has to be right all of the time and who thinks everyone else is wrong."
"They tout themselves as more important and smarter than anyone else! I'm not seeing it. Frankly I think the arrogance is a huge blind spot and a big sham of theirs to get us to bend to their every whim."
"You notice when you disagree, they always get into a rage, or a snippy silent treatment or play the victim. They are so incapable of hearing any other perspective than their own. I just can't work with that kind of narcissism."

Part of the problem is that narcissists are not known to grow. They stay fixed in their way of seeing and operating and it tends to breed exhaustion, depression, anxiety and disgust in their targets. If you are a child or a spouse, it is likely to breed a good deal of pain too, at least in the beginning until you figure out what you are dealing with - either through therapy, or googling phrases they are known for, or through a friend or self help group, or through trying to understand their "Dr Jekyll Mr. Hyde personality", and "pathological lying". The phrase narcissism keeps coming up over and over again. Once you are educated and on to them, this is when the divorces and child/parent estrangements come in.

If you stay, the profound lack of self reflection in the narcissist often means a one sided relationship where you will be giving up who you are for their narcissistic supply needs. Narcissistic supply can mean them having affairs on you, or stealing something, as much as demanding accolades and degrading "services".

After so much time of being pressured to see events, situations and people the narcissist's way, most targets are accustomed to good listening and seeing other people's perspectives in other relationships because they have been required to do that by the narcissist.

That is where a narcissist's desire to have dominance in the perspectives department has serious shortcomings. It stunts the ability to have intelligence and enlightenment, keeps your mind in your own environment of filtering people through agreeing with you or not agreeing with you, believing in what you believe and don't believe, and so on. When narcissists lie about events and people (which most of them do), it stunts them even more (at some point I will go into this further in another post, because it stunts brain functioning in them). When they invalidate others with black and white thinking, incrementally it creates more stunting of their growth. It can escalate to the point where only one or two aspects of a person are visible to a narcissist (and most often based upon the narcissist's needs).

A lot of people report that they feel like they are talking to a child when they talk to a narcissist. Might this be a reason why?

Narcissists tend to practice the cycle of abuse more than sociopaths or narcissists who have sociopathic traits. So they tend to come back to their targets after awhile unless they are totally engaged with a new source of supply: "I got you all wrong! What have I done?!" or anything they think of in terms of overtures. 

Invalidation and persecticide has everything to do with why narcissists put their own children into toxic roles too, not just other people in their lives, including why they have a favorite child and an unfavorite marginalized child. I will be discussing why further in the post.

On malignant narcissists (narcissists who have antisocial personality traits) and sociopaths (antipersonality disorder):

With sociopaths (and malignant narcissists), it is not black and white thinking per se as to why invalidation and perspecticide are used, although they can and do have splitting tendencies too. It has more to do with "they want what they want" and will use anything to get it, including manipulating you into the extremes of "all bad" or "all good" and hoping that your self esteem will take a hit in the process.

The reason why malignant narcissists (and sociopaths) like it when you have a compromised self esteem, is that they think that you will feel that you can't do any better than your relationship with them, that you are "stuck" with them. Believe it or not, a lot of targets get sucked into a lot of "I'm not good enough for anyone better than them, I don't deserve (add your own insecurity), I have to settle, I must have done something really bad in a past life to deserve all of this, I am probably lucky even though I am in a state of absolute misery with this person." I think I can train you to get out of this thinking, but it takes us out of the scope of this post. But realize it is common, since abusers try to work very, very hard at getting you to tie your own identity to their opinions of you. Also realize that narcissists and sociopaths are constantly manipulating you to have this kind of internal dialogue with yourself so that they can get power and control over you (i.e. dominate you).  

The main difference between how run of the mill narcissists use invalidation and perspecticide and how malignant narcissists and sociopaths is that sometimes the target will be punished, depending on how enraged the malignant narcissist or sociopath is.

Targets will be punished for the way the malignant narcissist (or sociopath) sees things. And ... targets will be punished for not seeing events and expressions the way the malignant narcissist or sociopath sees them. 

The differences:
With run of the mill narcissists: "Don't think you can fool me! I know what you were feeling! I can read you like a book!"
With malignant narcissists and sociopaths: "Don't think you can fool me! I know what you were feeling! I can read you like a book! And you are in so much trouble now! How dare you! Just for that, I'll ---" - and then the threats and punishments come in to play.

If you are dealing with your average narcissist, there will be very little reasoning. You won't be able to tell them it is not reasonable for them to tell you what you are feeling. They won't want to hear it. But you can still get away with rolling your eyes to some degree, for instance. They will take your rolling of eyes as criticism of them, and they may predictably respond to any perceived criticism with anger or rage. They may even argue as to why they are right and you are wrong.

Contrast that with the malignant narcissist and sociopath: there will be no reasoning. They are so sure of their opinions and positions that you won't be able to talk them out of it. It's not that they don't want to hear it; they won't hear it. They are that full of themselves. In fact, if you try to talk them out of being petty and unreasonable, the rage will escalate because they are really insistent that their narrative is the only narrative. They actually do not like arguments with people they deem inferior to themselves: they want you to comply. And the way they try to get you to comply is to hurt you. There is also the sociopathic stare.

NARCISSISTS AND SOCIOPATHS WHO PUT THEIR CHILDREN INTO ROLES:

HOW EACH CHILD IN EACH ROLE EXPERIENCES PERSPECTICIDE

AND/OR INVALIDATION
(this has something to do with how they ended up being so invalidating
which I cover in the section afterwards)

Children who come from abusive homes will notice that the parent tries to control the narrative of what goes on in the family. If events start popping up that the narcissist doesn't like, they handle perspecticide and invalidation in these ways (examples):

* a child complains of incestuous experiences she or he is experiencing. Reaction: "Incest is not part of this family and any child who speaks of it will be ostracized." Alternatives to ostracism: punishment via isolating the child from interacting with other family members or from having friends (can mean false imprisonment or homeschooling too). Other alternatives: "My child is a liar or crazy or evil or doesn't understand, etc ..." The more egregious abusers will be sadistically punishing.

* a child complains of sibling abuse. Reaction: "Sibling abuse is not part of this family and any child who speaks of it will be ostracized." The alternatives are the same as above.

* a child who sees his parent cheating: "You didn't see that." "It isn't what you think it is." "How dare you accuse me of cheating!" "You are not to tell anyone else of this or you will get it from me! Do you hear what I am saying? As far as you are concerned, this never happened. Do you hear me loud and clear?" 

* a child announces he is gay: "We are good Christians and we don't accept homosexuality in this family. If you are going to live like that, live on your own. We will never condone your lifestyle!" "This family is not a gay family. And you aren't either. You have just been talked into it." "Why would you want to be gay? You were much more in love with (a girl you dated) than this man!" - this one is a perfect example of perspecticide in that the parent is not asking the adult child how he feels, but is instead stating his child's feelings as facts. 

* a child lets it leak that his parents are alcoholics, and that they drink in the morning, at lunch and every night too: several martinis, a bottle of wine at dinner, and then chase it down with after-dinner drinks afterwards. He complains that his parents neglect him and his siblings because they focus their lives around drinking: "We aren't alcoholics! A few drinks every day does not make us alcoholics!" "Who told you that! Who do you think you are, disrespecting your parents and spreading rumors!" "Why are you lying?" "I have nothing to say to you for the position you have put us in! And now CPS is knocking on our door! How dare you spread such lies!"

* a child announces he is going to college, even though the parents have told him that he is going to stay in the family trade business: "You aren't college material. You are not smart enough. Who told you that you are smart?" "We brought you up to be in the family business. We did not bring you up to defy us. And now you want to defy us and let us die alone! You meant to hurt us! Okay, so how much money do you want?" "You don't need a college degree to work in the business. We did not give you permission to go into another field. And now you think you are smart, I suppose. You think you are hot shit!" "You knew this would hurt us and that's why you did it! Don't defy us or we will let you go forever."

Besides replacing the truth with a lie (to protect their image or their family's image), notice how controlling this all sounds too. 

So narratives become about power and control, creating a false image rather than about the truth. Or asking questions of their children to gain better understanding. In fact the truth, especially in authoritarian families, can be some kind of amorphous slippery slope that changes shape depending on what the narcissist(s) or sociopath(s) want it to be.  

Also when you lie a lot yourself, you expect other people around you to be lying - narcissists and sociopaths use projection because they really aren't thinking about their child: their child's words, their child's perspectives, their child's dreams, their child's autonomy. Their child, instead, is someone that is an extension of themselves, someone to control, and if it means applying false narratives (like lying) and threats to keep the underage as well as the adult child in the "controlled state" that the narcissist or sociopath wants, then so be it!

The roles:

Scapegoat:
When an abusive parent who is narcissistic or sociopathic has a scapegoat child, which most of them do if they decide to be a parent at all, they invalidate any good, honest and empathetic qualities in their scapegoat. Since scapegoats aren't heard (talked over, diminished, ignored, etc), and the narcissist tries to program a false narrative into the scapegoat with their own projections, it looks like this: you are deemed to be all bad even if what you think, feel or do does not comply with their false narrative. A lot of scapegoats say that they work very, very hard to please without much, if any, reward from the parent. There is a reason for this, and again, I'll be touching on it in another post. Anyway, the parent deems the scapegoat to be deserving of ridicule, shame, blame, derision, insulted, gang bullied, to be the "fault-bearer", to be ignored, to be stonewalled, and to be dominated and talked down to by family members.
     The invalidation here is much more insidious than other family members. The abusive parent always invalidates the scapegoat's sanity (called gaslighting). That is a given. They invalidate the child's experiences. Then they invalidate the child's feelings, thoughts and perspectives. And finally they often invalidate the scapegoat altogether, as a person. Shunning, the silent treatment, stonewalling, isolation from familial belonging, false imprisonment and telling other family members not to talk to the scapegoat are common among narcissists.
     The scapegoat gets the most egregious abuse, but they often feel free to live life on their own terms as adults.
   

Golden Child:
When an abusive parent who is narcissistic or sociopathic has a golden child, which most of them do if they decide to be a parent at all, the golden child is the abusive parent's way of setting up an agent that has all of the qualities of the parent, both good and bad. The golden child is groomed to please the parent at all times, and to be enmeshed with the abusive parent. The enmeshment will be rewarded with flattery, gifts, idealizing and praise. If the golden child fails at pleasing the parent, then the parent will shut off the rewards and display extreme disappointment instead.
     The golden child is both parentified and infantilized. It is not uncommon to hear baby talk between the golden child and the parent. It is also not uncommon for the parent to ask for advice on how to treat the other children (treating the golden child like a co-parent).
     Golden children are predominantly groomed to take on the parent's perspectives: how others in the family are to be viewed, of the scapegoat deserving abuse, of them deserving a preponderance of the family resources, of them deserving a preponderance of power and control that other members are not allowed, of them deserving to be placed on a pedestal.
     A lot of golden children are so enmeshed that they take on the parent's personality. They can also be the object of parental incest, both emotionally, psychologically and physically. At the very least, there is a lot more physical touching and coercive touching (not necessarily sexual) than children receive in normal families.
     A lot of golden children end up to be the only ones who have a relationship with their parent when the parent is old, even when the parent has many more children.
     Where the invalidation comes in for the golden is that any deviation in personality, perspective or autonomy from what his parent desires can mean scorn and lectures and an insistence on the parent getting his way. The invalidation also is noticeable in terms of autonomous decisions, especially when it comes to a mate (a sign of emotional incest).
     Because the golden child is groomed to please the parent at all times, the golden can create a false self to please the parent, meaning he can be two-faced. Lying to the parent is done to keep some part of himself autonomous from the parent, however small. This creates a dilapidated authentic self that is never fully developed.
     The invalidation can be as severe as what the scapegoat experiences, however the scapegoat always knows that they are not loved for themselves. The golden child, because of the constant love bombing, never really sees that they are not loved beyond their enmeshment with their parent, though most of them see it if they "buck the system" in terms of what the parent wants from them.
     Over half of golden children become narcissists themselves, though the parent won't necessarily know it unless they stick a spy camera somewhere and see a Jekyll and Hyde personality. Some golden children also experience claustrophobia because they are always the "go-to" child when the parent needs narcissistic supply (and narcissistic supply needs can quickly overwhelm a golden child since, in many cases, the parent has eyes only for him - the other children tend to take a significant back seat). The relationship often becomes "too close for comfort" for a golden. A nervous laugh, over-ingratiation, baby talk, talking to the parent as an authoritarian as though the parent is the child, and fraud can be seen in golden children who are feeling overwhelmed by their parent's needs. Goldens can feel unsuccessful, stunted, held back from their dreams (even when they are receiving a lot of money from the parent), lonely (from not having a relationship with their siblings) and have survivor's guilt about their siblings. Winning the sibling rivalry game that the parent has set up can either create entitlement to always be first (inside the golden), or guilt that they are receiving unmerited rewards when their siblings are receiving no rewards.
   
Lost Child:
When an abusive parent who is narcissistic or sociopathic has a lost child, which they do if they have one of the children take on the scapegoat role, and another to take on the golden child role, the lost child embodies all of the fears of the narcissist: that you have to pretend not to notice the abuse or who is getting hurt by the abuse, that you can't speak out about the abuse, that you need to be quiet when someone else is being abused, that you need to not be interested in emotional subjects or in having an emotional or reactive nature, that you cannot take part in family issues, that you are better off being distracted by things, objects, interests and projects.
     The Lost child is the forgotten child, the one who goes off to read in a corner, the one not interacting in the family drama, the quiet one, the one who wants to get away, the one who uses the freeze/avoid response and finally the flight response to the abuse going on around him.
     The authoritarian quote of "children should be seen but not heard", the lost child would be the model child in that situation. If he tries to get out of the role, typical responses are:
"That's not like you to behave like that."
"Why would you want to be like (scapegoat child) and be in trouble with us all of the time?"
"Acting this way just isn't you. You are always so quiet. Why speak up now when we have punished (scapegoat child)? Do you really want to be in the same boat?"
"I've had enough! Go to your room where you always go!"
"You're too smart to get into this conversation with us! Surely you see the consequences!"
"I really don't want to hear what you have to say! After years of not speaking up, do you think I care to hear what you have to say now?"
"I know you feel left out, but you've always been more interested in (such-and-such a project) than in being part of the family."
     This is all very manipulative in terms of keeping the child quiet and in the role.
     In terms of invalidation, it is about not only invalidating the child's perspectives and reactions, but invalidating their developing emotional natures too, so that they have no real understanding of how to be intimate with a partner later on. Emotional subjects are scary subjects, so they are ignored. A lot of partners who end up with a lost child from an abusive home do not understand why this lost child seems allergic to discussions having to do with themselves or their joint children.
     Some lost children have the opinion that they aren't emotional, that they are pragmatic instead. They also tend to describe themselves as loners. They are often self-driven to the point of working too hard. Since they are not allowed to have a fight reaction like the scapegoats are allowed to have, they deal with emotional issues by escaping.
     The problem for the lost child is that they often end up as the scapegoat (once the original scapegoat has left, and most scapegoats do). When they were the lost child, they were able to escape into their own projects and fantasies. Now all of a sudden they cannot.
     In addition, they were groomed to desensitize to the scapegoat and the scapegoat's issues.
     So when they are put into the scapegoat role and their parent is starting to pick fights with them, or denigrate them, they have very few defenses to work with that will result in a healthy outcome. They have also been told that it isn't like them to get into arguments, to be emotional, or to get involved in family disputes, and that they shouldn't try it unless they want to end up like the scapegoat. Plus they have also already seen how the arguments with the original scapegoat were no-win double-bind arguments.
     So lost children tend to take the flight reaction: staying quiet about their plans to leave, leave without telling anyone where they are going, or if they are still young, trying to hide until they can fully escape. Lost children are the most prone to suicide. When they do decide to commit suicide, many of them do it without saying a word to anyone.
     Stuffing emotions like anger and hurt can create mental health problems, and physical problems, or autonomous reckless behaviors that puts them at high risk for dying.
     So in a way, they are invalidated in terms of their emotions and presence. The invalidation of their entire selves is both inflicted by the parent and adopted by the lost child.

Mascot:
When an abusive parent who is narcissistic or sociopathic has a mascot, which they do if they have one of the children take on the scapegoat role, another to take on the golden child role and another take on the lost child role, the mascot embodies the illusion that the family is a happy, fun, endearing family with a few quirks and a few quirky members. Putting a child in this role might seem necessary if you want to hide abuse in a family, i.e. put a face or mask on it and make one child show how wonderfully fun the family is.
     So the mascot is encouraged early on to be cute and endearing. Everything they do is funny, from the little drawings they make, to the way they eat at the table, to the words they make up. It is a way for the whole family to be distracted from the abuse and the toxic power games going on by the narcissistic parent.
     Basically their role is to advertise. The advertising goes something like:
     "We're a good family. Look how happy this member is! The problem is with (the scapegoat)."
     "We are a cheerful family! We have a few problems like everyone else, but (our mascot) can tell you how happy he is!"
     If he gets out of role the typical responses are:
     "But you're always so good-hearted and funny. Why the sad face? Cheer up!"
     "It's not like you to be upset or to cry. You have always been so good at cheering yourself up, and everyone else."
     "What can possibly be wrong? You know what a happy family this is! And you're mostly happy in it! Why would you ever stick up (for the scapegoat)!"
     "Tell our neighbors that everything is fine here! You know how to do that! Just be your ingratiating happy self!"
     "Tell a few jokes to the Jones's when they arrive! Then you won't be so focused on (such-and-such) a dysfunction!"
     "When can we see your happy self again? We miss that so much!"
     In his own way, the mascot practices fawning (and is expected to fawn), and flight (the flight response here is getting away from being targeted by getting out of upsetting family issues and abuse by being funny) and freeze/avoid. The freeze/avoid response is very much like the lost child's, but instead of projects, the mascot's project (dictated by the parent, molded by the parent and pressured to be accepted by the child) is to be fun, funny and uphold the family image.
     A lot of comedians have admitted to being from either cold overly mannered families where perfection was overly emphasized or from toxic abusive families. Comedy was a way to deal with all of it, but underneath, many have spoken out about how depressed they really were.
     The problem with a child being put in this role is the same for the others: only one type of expression is allowed, and being a proper mascot also means advertising the family as functional even when it is not. Like the golden child, the mascot is applauded for acting, and for not having an authentic self. The only emotion not invalidated is happiness and fun; the rest are invalidated. So the mascot can be as stunted in emotional growth, in emotional expression, and in emotional literacy as the other children. On the inside, they can be deeply depressed. Even suicidal.
     Why the depression? Imagine being in a war and seeing destruction everywhere around you. You are not allowed to grieve or say anything about it. You have to act happy and funny even when the bombs are falling and you don't feel like it. That's a lot of burden to put on an underage child.
     When mascots get put into a scapegoat role (which they will eventually if the scapegoat[s] leave, which they often do), the mascot will be picked on, and will be encouraged to argue and fight the no-win fights that the other scapegoats were expected to fight. Even the humor will be attacked. So the survival strategy of providing fun and humor will be taken away. So while they take their humor outside the family in order to survive in the world, they see that it no longer works in surviving in the family, so the family can have another "no contact" child, or yet another suicide (depending on how the other scapegoats survived through their ordeals).

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND OF WHY SO MANY ABUSERS AND NARCISSISTS

PRACTICE INVALIDATION AND PERSPECTICIDE

Abuse, which is what being invalidated is, is primarily passed from one generation to the next. If the abuser doesn't have children to abuse, it gets directed in other ways. That's where you come in if you are a spouse or partner.

Note: children tend to break away because they feel that situations with narcissists are "no win" situations. "No-win" is the right term because in survivor forums, they feel they are always in a game with their parents of "lose-or-win." A lot of it is based on roles that narcissists and sociopaths put everyone in their lives in, including their own children. If a child feels their situation is "no-win" except for diverting strategies (fawn, fight, flight, and freeze/avoid, which basically comes down to the same strategies that therapists recommend, the fawn response being finding subjects or words that will please a narcissist, flight being "no contact", freeze/avoid being "the gray rock method", and fighting touted by most therapists as being too dangerous and "no win" to indulge in). 

     When therapists leave out the fight response (or rebellious response), which is the safest way to go so it is understandable why they do not recommend fighting or arguing ... except that scapegoats who fight for their equal rights and defend themselves, and do not allow the narcissist to totally dominate them or insist that the scapegoat define his own character the way the narcissist does, find that defending themselves gives them the strength to survive after the narcissist discards and destroys. I will be getting to why in another post.

     Scapegoats are not allowed to fawn or gray rock all that much by the abusive parent ... because to the parent their child is "acting out of role/character" and this is when the scapegoat is goaded, prodded and bullied - to get them to argue with the narcissist. 

     The truth is that many scapegoats do so much better than their siblings especially if they do not let their parents' insults effect their self esteem (which is what fighting-to-defend means). Of course, in the context of the family, the fights are no-win with the parents (often because of double binds - which I will discuss in another post), but it doesn't stop the scapegoat from continuing the fight, even if it is just running to the local domestic violence center or the police, or joining other survivors, or leading movements to stop child abuse.

     Scapegoats who are devalued by narcissists often devalue the narcissist too (another type of fight reaction, though they often do it for different reasons: pointing out hypocrisies, lies, under-handed dirty tricks, broken promises, their lack of integrity).

So if you are their spouse or partner, you too will be either devalued or destroyed if you try to get out of role. Your role will be different than these child roles, but like them, you go from being highly valued (like the golden child) to not valued at all (like the scapegoat), and it can happen in the blink of an eye because of the splitting. 

In a way, invalidating can also be a gaslighting technique (abusive tactics tend to overlap), especially if the invalidation is about:

* you can't do things right

* you are too crazy (or the narcissist claims they can't listen to you because you are too crazy)

* you are too spacey

* what is wrong with your mind?

* why can't you think straight about anything?

* why are you disagreeing when Mr. or Ms. narcissist is so right?

* What's the matter with you? Are you deranged or stupid?

* you aren't acting right: you're supposed to be cheerful and do everything that is asked of you.

* something has changed about your moods or your mind; you aren't the person the narcissist thought you were (where splitting comes in)

* insistence that you need to see a psychiatrist, be in a mental institution, because your mind isn't the way it used to be

* given mental health diagnoses

* and generally invalidating your experiences (and the emotions and thoughts that arise from your experiences) in hopes that you will allow the narcissist to describe your experiences instead, and try to convince others that their narrative is the true narrative, with or without your permission (where trying to isolate you and smear campaigns come in)

The majority of abusers come from authoritarian families. In authoritarian families, children are expected to put their parent's feelings first (and often while squelching their own). Most authoritarian families are male-dominated as well, which means that male children will have precedence over female children in terms of resources and priorities. This is often upheld by both men and women authority figures in the family.

You can see why this model can enable and produce a lot of abuse in it. 

The famous quote of authoritarian families is: "Children are to be seen, and not heard", the ultimate in invalidation of the child being able to express himself or herself genuinely. 

So the invalidation and the abuses around invalidation goes in stages from children "being seen and not heard", to being invalidated when they are heard (which is where arguments come in), to being invalidated because they are arguing (where parents try to get the child to conform to the parent's views), and sometimes to being abusive/punishing if the child expresses emotion, opinions, thoughts, perspectives, experiences and beliefs that the parent either does not like or feels their authority is in jeopardy.

* Advice turns into coercion - because parents deem themselves to be the ultimate authorities.
* There are mixed messages about disclosure and non-disclosure - as long as it comports with what the authoritarian parent wants to hear.

Being interrupted, being told "I don't want to hear it," being stonewalled, arguing on top of one another, dominant sorts of statements ("You never were very good at deciphering the truth, poor thing" as one instance) and the silent treatment are all instances of invalidation in close personal relationships.

The reason why the authoritarian family often breeds abuse, mental health issues and criminality is because there are only two roads for children: to comply, or not to comply. Either road has terrible consequences for the children, and for the whole family (I will discuss in a future post).

Children learn from example first. So if the parent is very, very controlling and dominating, the child will either bend in conformity (approve) or lean away in rebelliousness (disapprove). The benders and the rebels will usually be put into "all good" and "all bad" categories too.

While most psychologists and therapists see golden children becoming narcissistic the most among siblings, it doesn't necessarily mean that all golden children become narcissistic, or that only golden children become narcissistic. There are a lot of factors that go into narcissism, but one of the leading factors (that most psychologists and therapists can agree on) is some part of the upbringing where a child is being exceptionalized.

If your partner or spouse acts entitled (but at the same time is hypocritical), exceptionalism, another narcissistic trait, is at the core of why. His or her parents practiced making their child too exceptional too often, and now it has gone to their head. The dopamine in the brain got tied to who will treat them exceptionally before the brain was fully developed instead of who will treat them normally (with constancy, civility and respect, and putting siblings on an equal level).

When I talk about normalcy, I am referring to what we see in other families who are not abusive:
* constancy in the flow of love, in treatment, in care, in regard (contrast that with narcissistic treatment: the love is inconstant, the treatment varies drastically and often does not make sense or is tied to whether the child is providing narcissistic supply to the parent, the care and regard for the child is spotty and often falls under child neglect because the parent's interest in the child ebbs and flows)
* give-and-take (you are both people, and therefor both have equal weight in a mutual discussion, not based on whether you are treating them with exceptionalism, that they deserve more than you do, a problem with abusive parents, and with authoritarian families)
* love that is constant (i.e. doesn't flip between love and hate or love and discards as we see in love bombing: it is not based on whether you are treating them with exceptionalism where if they don't feel you are treating them exceptionally enough, they turn the love off)
* working through issues in a civil, dignified and respectful manner (i.e. that you are both open, relaxed and want to solve a problem for both of your benefits, and not conditional upon whether they are getting their way because they deem themselves too exceptional to not get their way)
* intimacy in talking and sharing (i.e., just talking and sharing without advice, patronizing statements, judgments, mind games, tenseness, or over-emphasizing opinions, and not conditional upon whether they are dominating you in some way via exceptionalism)
* trust (i.e. you both submit to trusting one another with the good faith that your trust will not be sacrificed or broken, and not conditional upon whether they will be trustworthy towards you in terms of conditions: breaking or keeping promises as long as they feel exceptionalized by you, regarding you with validation as long as you validate them more than you validate yourself, and so on).

When their brains are being wired by parenting that is primarily and overwhelmingly either rewarding or punishing/hurtful (and going back and forth between these two drastic extremes), the child learns to split too, and to associate dopamine only with exceptionalism, whether that is making the parent feel exceptional, or whether that is making the child feel exceptional (most of it is about making the parent feel exceptional, and being rewarded for it by the parent making the child feel exceptional).

Programming the brain in this way leads to tragedies in relationships, and can lead a child to only seek reward, not intimacy.

Also, if the parents were known to punish their children with invalidation/ignoring because the parent decided the child was not validating the parent(s), then there is often a lot of fear in the child too, another emotion that can wreak havoc with a developing mind and emotions. In effect, the parent is retaliatory against their own child, so the child has to develop coping strategies (most of which only work sporadically and dependent on how the narcissist feels at any given time, and perceives events - walking on eggshells strategies).

One of the primary definitions of narcissism is "validation-seeking" (the article I have linked is well worth reading). I would beg to argue that along with that validation-seeking is trying to get other people to see them as more exceptional than other people too. When they aren't getting validated, and not told they are exceptional, they become angry and enraged instead. The rage is a sign of entitlement, but it is also a sign of blaming.

They blame you for not giving them what they feel they desperately want and need: that drug tied to their dopamine levels (that they think they deserve), and the drug is: "You are exceptional." When they feel that you are withdrawing that drug from them, they think you mean to hurt them, gravely so. And you will notice that if you flatter them, the rage is somewhat diminished (but often comes with: "Don't try that again" threats, which is to let you know that they will not control their rage towards you).

To most of us the rage doesn't make sense, but if you are aware of the reward/punishment extremes of their childhood, and how their developing brains must adjust to it, it makes sense.

The problem is that their entitlements to exceptionalism are never regulated, so many narcissists are abandoned in the end. The problem for the people around them is that "being exceptional" means calling the shots in your life (not acceptable as they know your life a lot less than you know your life). And because they are so insecure, they often sabotage your life and well being even when they say they have the best of intentions.

Like an alcoholic, the search for narcissistic supply is going to come first and foremost over any relationship, over any kind of healing in your relationship, over any kind of education about their condition, over everything. Expect it. And just as an alcoholic has to make the choice of whether to drink or not, the narcissist has to assess whether they will keep treating people the way they are known to treat them. Neither kind of addict will change unless things get pretty bad for them (usually).

If they feel they aren't getting enough narcissistic supply from you, they will go elsewhere, and also use that other person to gang up on you.

If they are malignant narcissists (narcissists with sociopathic qualities), they will punish you if they think you are not looking at them as an exceptional being (i.e. more exceptional than others). This blackmail will often mean that they are looked at as less exceptional, and this is where their blind spot is. They are unable to see how blackmailing and arm-twisting will not get them what they want, especially in close personal relationships.

If anything, a lot of survivors focus on, and try to remember the worst part of the narcissist so that they won't get sucked back into a relationship with them again. And there is usually plenty to choose from between their lies, broken promises, lack of empathy, callousness, triangulation, the attention-seeking things they do like boycotting your wedding or some other event, or if they are a partner having an affair with your best friend, the destruction they wreak in your life as well others lives, inability to self reflect (and blame instead), inability to understand others (because they are so focused on blame and projection), and the inconsistency.

It's the inconsistency and swinging wildly between love and hate which really takes a toll on survivors (and which survivors tend to have the longest memory about).

Some of the extremely rare narcissists who have woken up will admit that they tried to disable "their loved one" to such an extent so that that their loved one would never leave them. It happened to Lisa Romano.

When we look at the last section where I talked about children being put into roles, the children can all be deemed to be exceptionalized (except, perhaps, the scapegoat) according to role:

* The golden child can be exceptionalized by being a mirror (a mini-me version of the parent), is put highest on the pedestal in terms of rank and of importance, is favoritized, is deemed to be good at being told what to do, how to act, how to conduct themselves, told what to believe, told who and who not to talk to, and in the case of malignant narcissists and sociopaths, told who and who not to abuse (or in parent's terms, who "to punish").

* The lost child can be exceptionalized in terms of his projects and distractions being of the highest importance, so lost children can and do put work, being solitary, having the autonomy to be with their projects, above everything else.

* The mascot can be exceptionalized in terms of his humor and fun, and showing the best possible "mask" to outsiders, and rewarded for it as well. If you don't laugh, or don't feel like laughing, the lack of exceptionalization in this area can turn mascots into depressives.

* The scapegoat is not particularly exceptionalized as he is invalidated to such an extreme, but if we were to go out on a limb, the exceptionalization might be in the realm of being willing to argue or disagree with the parent even when it is a "no-win" argument (an abusive parent, again, will not feel exceptionalized unless he or she feels they are "winning" the argument against their scapegoat). So scapegoats can go out into the world being disagreeable or fighters, whether that is for good causes or bad causes.
     My own experiences with this is that scapegoats don't have to feel exceptionalized, but a rare number possibly do.
     This is perhaps where a very insecure boss who rules with an iron fist comes in: he tells himself he will never be put in "the down bullied position" ever again so overcompensates by being ruling and dictatorial to finally get the upper hand he never had in childhood.
     Many scapegoats work themselves to death, hoping that the world will see them as "exceptionally talented" or as an "exceptional worker who never quits" or as "exceptionally intelligent" or as "exceptionally moral and on the right side of issues" and so on.
     They have also been raised to believe that exceptionalism is what to strive for, rather than in a balanced life with intimacy, vacation time, restful sleep, etc.
     But will a scapegoat who has been invalidated on steroids while growing up, use it on others? Very doubtful. I haven't known about a single case except second hand in one lone instance: someone talked to me about their boss and how he was beaten, bullied and ostracized as a child, and now is a terror who fires an unprecedented number of good workers. So it happens, I suppose, if rarely, and probably blindly too.
 
To conclude this section:

Narcissists feel entitled to use perspecticide and invalidation because, most likely, they grew up seeing their own parents use it a lot, within an authoritarian-style family. They were also taught to de-sensitize towards the scapegoat, so they are unempathetic when you cry out that invalidation is not nice, that it hurts, that it isn't fair, that it is hypocritical (since they want validation all of the time), and that it is dysfunctional. "Talking to a brick wall" is very much how you will feel if you try to talk to your partner or spouse about invalidation (or any abuse tactic). They were rewarded for being unempathetic when they saw their parent(s) being invalidating towards another sibling in their early home life.

HOW INVALIDATION AND PERSPECTICIDE EFFECTS US

For children, as I have mentioned before, it means their parent taking over the narrative in terms of what the child is experiencing, feeling, thinking, and believing. The child is rendered without a voice.

This means that the child cannot have his needs met by the parent. Depending on how much of it is going on, it can mean child neglect on every level: physical, emotional, psychological, learning, safety, etc. 

Some instances:

* "Mom, I'm hungry." Invalidating answer: "No you're not. You just had food an hour ago." 

Continued: "That was just a cracker." Invalidating answer: "I don't want to hear another word of this."

* "Mom, I'm being beaten up in school by a gang of boys." Invalidating answer: "What did you do to deserve it?" or "What did you say to them that made them do that to you."

* "Mom, grandpa sneaks into my bedroom every night to play doctor with me. I don't want to play doctor!" - sexual abuse. Invalidating answer: "How dare you say something like that about your own grandfather! He would never do that! Little liar!"

* "Mom, I feel sick." Invalidating answer: "No, you don't. You're faking it." - typical for scapegoats.

* "Dad, (my brother) is hurting me. He's always finding an excuse to punch me. My guts are so sore from being punched there." Invalidating answer: "Boys will be boys! Just slug him back!" 

Continued: "But he's stronger than me. I don't want to do this any more." Invalidating answer: "You're a sissy then. Is that what you're telling me?"

* "Dad, I'm feeling sad. I don't want to go that party." Perspecticide answer: "No, you're not. You are angry and you are going to go, and that is all there is to it. Put on a happy face." - teaches a child to be inauthentic if it is done a lot.

If you grew up with a lot of this (weekly or daily basis), no, it is not normal by a long shot. It is definitely a sign of either substance addiction in the parent, or a Cluster B personality disorder.

The more invalidation and perspecticide there is, the more invisible the child will feel, and the more it will define his character if he is not rebelling against it (thus how a scapegoat develops). In retaliation, the parent will be even more invalidating to fight the child's rebelliousness. As the parent tries to render the child more and more invisible and invalid (why the silent treatment and stonewalling develop in dysfunctional parents to cope with rebelliousness) to the point where the child is basically rejected. 

Some children will accept the rejection, and some children will not accept the rejection, only to be rejected again. Parental rejection is usually cyclical and is not something that goes away magically. It is a pattern (cycle of abuse), and used for issues large and small. It is especially used for scapegoating. Rejection over the parent not being able to control the narrative, is retaliatory parenting, period. 

Rejection and being retaliated against does a lot of damage to a child, and to the relationship between parent and child. The child's main relationship to the parent will be filtered through the child's fear: they will not look to their parent for love, care or comfort, for truth, for reasonableness, for safety, for stability and constancy, for acceptance -- all the things we associate with a good family. The child will also be seen as not not seeing the parent as an exceptional being (except in the way that the parent gets away with hurting the child over and over again) - so the parent feels insulted by that instead of working towards being a better parent. The main way that the parent is viewed is "Scary, inconsistent, subject to rage at any moment, is out to hurt me and destroy me."

A child's identity, even if he gets away from his parent, will probably always be dogged with some insecurity about his own identity and character. That is particularly true if the invalidation was severe and had some sort of rejection attached to it - one reason why therapy is necessary if you are ever going to heal properly. Rebelliousness and enforced boundaries or separation are healthy reactions to not being cared about by your parent.

Some thoughts that run through a child's mind who has been molded by invalidation:
"No one cares what I have to say. Why speak up about anything?"
"It's not like anyone notices me."
"I'm not really lovable. I'm not loved for myself."
"My world is always being rocked."
"I can't seem to focus. I don't know who I am." - a sign of PTSD from childhood abuse
"I don't know what I'm good at after a childhood of being told I'm not good at anything."
"Why would that person want a relationship with me?" - a sign of being taught "You're not good enough" or "You're reject-able."

And of course, there is ongoing rebellion. Some of these are healthy rebellions and some are not.

Instances of unhealthy ones:
* being an addict (from a parent who invalidated or devalued your mind - gaslighting, or played with your perceptions)
* unable to hold down a job (from a parent who invalidated or devalued your abilities and strengths)
* unable to focus on a line of work (same as above - can also mean PTSD)
* unable to define yourself or keep track of your affairs (the result of a parent who tried to dominate how you handled your affairs)
* unable to keep from rebelling in every job you have (again for being gaslighted and told you were incompetent and the only way to be competent is to be controlled by your parent or family of origin
* getting into abuse relationships (familiarity, the inability to know that you deserve better, being treated with invalidation by your parents so that you normalize it so that when other abusive people invalidate you, you won't think anything is wrong: it's just par for the course).
* becoming a ruthless boss (where people will listen to you and be scared of you instead ... it will not break the cycle - it is abusing power)
* not taking care of yourself when you are sick or not taking your illnesses seriously (from a parent who told you that were "faking it" when you were sick)

Instances of healthy ones:
* not letting your parent(s) define you (getting into professions that defy their expectations of you and their beliefs about you)
* public speaking, writing, teaching, performance occupations (rebelliousness about "not being heard")
* adopting or being adopted into a "family of choice" (not being willing to endure abuse just to "belong" to a family, choosing people who are compassionate towards others)
* being ethical and reasonable (being rebellious about what you grew up with: the unethical treatment of abuse)
* not allowing abuse in your personal life or private life (rebelling against what you grew up with and using self-care to be a more functional adult to those around you who are counting on you)
* treating people fairly and not abusing power (rebelling against what you saw while growing up)
* fighting for new laws for child abuse victims (rebelling on a national scale so that no one will be able to do what your parents did without legal repercussions)

For partners who are enduring invalidation and perspecticide (and the devaluation that goes along with it), realize that there is so little hope that your partner will change. At least this will help you to figure out what you want to do with your life.

All of the same kinds of internal dialogues can start happening in you too as they do for child abuse victims:
"I must not have anything relevant to say if I'm not being heard."
"I'm not lovable. At least the love switches on and off in drastic ways." (a sign of splitting in your abuser, and the unregulated emotions that characterizes most abusers)
And so on ...

The thing to remember for partners is that if you have children with these people, the children are likely to be treated like the children I have written about in this post.

With narcissists, it is always about counter parenting rather than co-parenting (it's a competition, in other words, and you undoing the damage they keep doing to others in the family). You may be on the defensive a lot, your children will be acting out, some of your children will need your protection, and in the end, when your spouse isn't getting all of the say and control over you and the kids, they will put you through affairs (again, it's their ambition to be dominant and exceptional - and you will be deemed "wrong" for not seeing them as exceptional and dominant as someone else sees them), and then a nightmare divorce and custody battle can ensue - most of the time narcissists put you through the most damaging divorces and custody battles that they can.

Partners can have very low self esteem after being with a narcissist. The pent up thoughts and emotions can also make you feel un-well, if not sick. Invalidation can create physical symptoms like stomach upsets, headaches, an inability to sleep, and a lowered immune response. The "mental tapes" of the same scenes replaying over and over again, the insults, the shock over the lies, broken promises, smear campaigns and callousness can effect you for at least seven months or usually much longer (these are PTSD symptoms, which again will be triggered every time you have to deal with your ex over the kids).

Talk to a domestic violence counselor, but these people are generally not good to put trust into, invest a lifetime with or to have children with. Don't try to "win" them if they are at the devaluation stage as it feeds their dysfunction and they get worse and treat people worse as a result.

When you are an adult, you have more choices to get out, even if you have to get out slowly for financial reasons, or because you are afraid. A domestic violence center can usually help you with strategies and a good long-term plan, and dispel your indecisions about leaving because "he is sometimes loving" (it's normal to want to deny the splitting and danger that is happening in your relationship, but it can also be very damaging to you, emotionally, psychologically and physically).

In conclusion:

See the many helpful articles and the video below at how invalidation effects you and what you can do to change how it effects you:

further reading:

Narcissists, Sociopaths and Abusers: Why is There So Much Lying, Deceiving, Rewriting of History, Secrets and False Narratives? - my own post (and kind of a sequel to this post)

What Really Happens in a Controlling Relationship (The harsh reality of "perspecticide" in a coercive control relationship) - by Lisa Aronson Fontes Ph.D. for Psychology Today

Perspecticide: Erased by Your Partner (The harsh reality of "perspecticide" in a coercive control relationship) - by Lisa Aronson Fontes, Ph.D. for domesticshelters.org

Manipulative people brainwash their partners using something called 'perspecticide' — here are the signs it's happening to you - by Lindsay Dodgson for Business Insider

Perspecticide: The “brainwashing” technique used by manipulators - by psychologist,
Jennifer Delgado for Psychology Spot

6 Signs That You May Be A Victim Of Perspecticide - administrators of Apost

What is Invalidation? 5 Things You Shouldn’t Say - by psychologist Jamie Long

Understanding Invalidation - by Karyn Hall, Ph.D. for Psych Central

Invalidated Child: Invisible Adult - by Jonice Webb, Ph.D. for Psych Central

The Narcissistic Mother: One of the Most Frightening of All Personalities - by Carmen Sakurai, Certified Cognitive Behavioral Coach and Advocate for Victims of NPD Abuse for Psych Central

discusses invalidation

How Society Gaslights Survivors of Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Psychopaths (A Guide for Therapists, Law Enforcement and Loved Ones) - by Shahida Arabi for Psych Central

Narcissistic Invalidation: No Likes, No Dislikes, No Emotions, No Opinions, No Nuthin’ - by Lenora Thompson for Psych Central

Narcissistic Invalidation: Even Your Tastebuds Are Wrong! - by Lenora Thompson for Psych Central

Invalidation: Marco Pierre White claims “I didn’t make Gordon Ramsay cry. That was his choice to cry.” - by Lenora Thompson for Psych Central

3 Ways Malignant Narcissists Destructively Condition You to Self-Sabotage - by Shahida Arabi for Psych Central

discusses invalidation

Childhood Trauma: Overcoming the Hurt of Invalidation - by Sarah Newman, MA, MFA for Psych Central

Childhood Neglect and the Impact of Invalidation - by Sarah Newman, MA, MFA for Psych Central

11 Lasting Effects of Invalidating Parents - by Audrey Sherman, Ph.D. for Psych Central

19 Lasting Effects of Abandoning or Emotionally Unavailable Parents - by Audrey Sherman, Ph.D. for Psych Central

Invisible, Powerful Childhood Emotional Neglect - by Jonice Webb, Ph.D. for Psych Central

Don’t Rely on Others to Validate Your Feelings - by Sharon Martin, LCSW

Invalidation: I Refuse to Have This Discussion! ("When we invalidate people or deny their perceptions and personal experiences, we make mental invalids of them. When one's feelings are denied a person can be made to feel crazy even when they are perfectly mentally healthy" - R.D. Laing, MD, psychiatrist) - by Adelyn Birch for Psychopaths and Love

Emotional Invalidation: A Form of Emotional Abuse - by Sharon Martin, LCSW

It’s Time to Stop Giving Unsolicited Advice - Sharon Martin, LCSW

What Is Psychological Invalidation? How It Happens And Its Effects - by Jenny Chang

The Painful Effects of Emotional Invalidation - from Emerging From the Dark Night website (for children of abuse)

22 Things I Do Now Because I Experienced Emotional Abuse as a Child - from the Mighty.com website

How to Stop Being So Controlling and Accept Uncertainty - by Sharon Martin, LCSW

Controlling Your Partner Is Illegal, But Not in the U.S. (British victims are better protected from their controlling, abusive partners) - by Lisa Aronson Fontes Ph.D. for Psychology Today

When Every Boy Is Guilty, Every Girl Becomes a Monster -- by Sarah Hoyt

Excerpt:

The girls? As with my son’s harassers, there might be no remedy for them. Not unless they hit bottom, realize what they are and decide to change. And very few people do that. Once you realize you can control others and force them to dance to your tune, few people ever step back. Few people can. And chances are, never having been taught to examine their actions or be self-reflective, these girls, now women, will never even be able to realize they’re not perfect.

Burning Coals of Emotional Abuse: Minimizing, Invalidating & GasLighting - by Shenandoah Chefalo for ACEs Connection

Emotionally Abusive People Brainwash Their Partners By Using ‘Perspecticide’ – And How To Spot The Signs It’s Happening To You - Texts From Last Night

Are You Invalidating Your Partner – Without Realizing It? - by Suzanne Phillips, Psy.D., ABPP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nOtBrSMzf4

From Dr. Les Carter:

"7 Steps To Winning The Narcissist's Invalidation Game"

Lisa Romano quote:

quote by Andrei Lankov

artwork by me: