 |
The words "image," "appearance," and "outwardly" are crucial to understanding the morality of evil. While they seem to lack any motivation to BE good, they intensely desire to APPEAR good. Their "goodness" is all on a level of pretense. It is, in effect a lie. This is why they are the"people of the lie."
M. Scott Peck
M. Scott Peck
By Kathy
Krajco
I am often
amazed at the cavalier attitude of some clinicians and bystanders toward
malignant narcissism. They seem so concerned about how they SOUND that they
have no concern left for what they're saying. Indeed, one wonders if these
people ever hear themselves.
They are so busy trying to sound like nice people that they utter, utter nonsense. The cruelty of narcissistic abuse is lost on them. It strikes no chord of empathy in them. They hear about it and just mouth-breathe as if to say, "What's so bad about that?"
Obtuseness is invincible. They talk like it's a mere irritation or aggravation. They say we should make nothing of it and not be angry over it. For, the simpletons cannot think morally and therefore must have a list of dos and don'ts as a cheat sheet to distinguish right from wrong.
Fortunately, good therapists would never tell you to repress your feelings. They would tell you that there are times when you have an obligation to get angry, and that failing to is sometimes the morally reprehensible thing to do. Just as failing to fight is sometimes the morally reprehensible thing to do.
But they aren't saying that to SOUND good, so they aren't as loud as the phonies are.
You can read what you need to know about malignant narcissism in the comments here. Those by the children of narcissists.
They are anonymous, so they have no motive to lie, and the stuff they tell that their abusive parent did to them is too bizarre to be made up. It isn't the kind of thing anyone would make up. In fact, it's antithetical to the kind of thing a person would make up. You can see that. It rings true louder than the Liberty Bell.
Read these accounts of narcissistic abuse and weep. Read back through.
I really want people who think that narcissistic abuse is no big deal to do that. And those who think that narcissists are not bad people and will be fine if you just give them a hug, a musical instrument, and a puppy.
These narcissist sympathizers who say that their victims shouldn't abandon the poor narcissist, because that will make poor little him or her so saaaaaaad (to be without a host to parasitize) - people who say that need a lesson that will teach them where to place their misplaced sympathy. Let them be told they are dirt every day in every way by someone close to them for 20 or 30 years. Let them have their reputation, career, and marriage utterly brought to ruin by character assassination. THEN let's see if they still think it's nothing.
Then let's see how well THEY are handling the life they've been dealt.
Thinking it's funny to force your child to do something you warn him in advance you will beat him for? Have you ever heard of anything more perverted and sadistic than that?
I have it from a narcissist herself that mental cruelty is her game.
Rushing your husband's funeral so that one of his children misses it? After you DROVE him to suicide? People who hear that without it twisting their guts have an empathy problem themselves.
This must be why they are so callous - they just don’t see what’s so bad about narcissists.
And then the narcissist immediately shacks up with somebody else to give the knife in his or her kids a twist. That one not only appears in the comments here, I know of that happening once myself. In fact every narcissist I have known who lost a mate immediately (as quickly as fleas abandon a dead rat in search of a new host) hopped into bed with somebody else.
That should be a clue about something to clueless narcissist sympathizers. A clue about what other people are to a narcissist.
Driving people to drink? Driving people to suicide? No big deal? I'll wager that many, if not most, people driven to suicide are driven by a malignant narcissist. That's absolute power over someone = the power to make them kill themselves. I know of three narcissists who did this and fortunately succeeded only in driving to drink, and a third who I think did it and did succeed in driving a teenager to suicide.
Not murder? Not WORSE than murder?
Narcissists do this as lightly as you step on a bug. That's what human beings are to them.
And in treating human beings as subhuman beings, they are treating them inhumanly and failing to recognize humanity. Which means they don’t know humanity when they see it? If they were human themselves they would recognize and respect the image and likeness of humanity in human beings.
That's what becoming God has done to them. It was a big fall.
If the abundant evidence about psychopaths is any indication, some narcissists come from happy homes. As for those who don't, hey, if they got even with the parent who abused them, that would be natural. But they deify the abusive parent (as soon as they are out of his or her clutches) and take it out on the nicest, lovingest, most vulnerable and defenseless prey they can find.
Come on, everybody knows what that means. They are BAD people. I don't care if it's against your political religion's doctrine to admit that. It's true.
Narcissists are known for making the most mild mannered, gentle, patient, kind, and unassuming people livid with anger. They are known for making people who never hate, hate them with a passion.
Jeez, do you suppose there could be a reason for this?
This is just common sense. Let the phonies (on the Web and in the clinics and the courts) find some new issue to sound holy on and quit making a farce out of this one. Let them find fault to condemn where it is, instead of where it ain't.
They are so busy trying to sound like nice people that they utter, utter nonsense. The cruelty of narcissistic abuse is lost on them. It strikes no chord of empathy in them. They hear about it and just mouth-breathe as if to say, "What's so bad about that?"
Obtuseness is invincible. They talk like it's a mere irritation or aggravation. They say we should make nothing of it and not be angry over it. For, the simpletons cannot think morally and therefore must have a list of dos and don'ts as a cheat sheet to distinguish right from wrong.
Fortunately, good therapists would never tell you to repress your feelings. They would tell you that there are times when you have an obligation to get angry, and that failing to is sometimes the morally reprehensible thing to do. Just as failing to fight is sometimes the morally reprehensible thing to do.
But they aren't saying that to SOUND good, so they aren't as loud as the phonies are.
You can read what you need to know about malignant narcissism in the comments here. Those by the children of narcissists.
They are anonymous, so they have no motive to lie, and the stuff they tell that their abusive parent did to them is too bizarre to be made up. It isn't the kind of thing anyone would make up. In fact, it's antithetical to the kind of thing a person would make up. You can see that. It rings true louder than the Liberty Bell.
Read these accounts of narcissistic abuse and weep. Read back through.
I really want people who think that narcissistic abuse is no big deal to do that. And those who think that narcissists are not bad people and will be fine if you just give them a hug, a musical instrument, and a puppy.
These narcissist sympathizers who say that their victims shouldn't abandon the poor narcissist, because that will make poor little him or her so saaaaaaad (to be without a host to parasitize) - people who say that need a lesson that will teach them where to place their misplaced sympathy. Let them be told they are dirt every day in every way by someone close to them for 20 or 30 years. Let them have their reputation, career, and marriage utterly brought to ruin by character assassination. THEN let's see if they still think it's nothing.
Then let's see how well THEY are handling the life they've been dealt.
Thinking it's funny to force your child to do something you warn him in advance you will beat him for? Have you ever heard of anything more perverted and sadistic than that?
I have it from a narcissist herself that mental cruelty is her game.
Rushing your husband's funeral so that one of his children misses it? After you DROVE him to suicide? People who hear that without it twisting their guts have an empathy problem themselves.
This must be why they are so callous - they just don’t see what’s so bad about narcissists.
 |
| How Narcissist Sympathizers Help Us Heal (Image courtesy Q1605) |
And then the narcissist immediately shacks up with somebody else to give the knife in his or her kids a twist. That one not only appears in the comments here, I know of that happening once myself. In fact every narcissist I have known who lost a mate immediately (as quickly as fleas abandon a dead rat in search of a new host) hopped into bed with somebody else.
That should be a clue about something to clueless narcissist sympathizers. A clue about what other people are to a narcissist.
Driving people to drink? Driving people to suicide? No big deal? I'll wager that many, if not most, people driven to suicide are driven by a malignant narcissist. That's absolute power over someone = the power to make them kill themselves. I know of three narcissists who did this and fortunately succeeded only in driving to drink, and a third who I think did it and did succeed in driving a teenager to suicide.
Not murder? Not WORSE than murder?
Narcissists do this as lightly as you step on a bug. That's what human beings are to them.
And in treating human beings as subhuman beings, they are treating them inhumanly and failing to recognize humanity. Which means they don’t know humanity when they see it? If they were human themselves they would recognize and respect the image and likeness of humanity in human beings.
That's what becoming God has done to them. It was a big fall.
If the abundant evidence about psychopaths is any indication, some narcissists come from happy homes. As for those who don't, hey, if they got even with the parent who abused them, that would be natural. But they deify the abusive parent (as soon as they are out of his or her clutches) and take it out on the nicest, lovingest, most vulnerable and defenseless prey they can find.
Come on, everybody knows what that means. They are BAD people. I don't care if it's against your political religion's doctrine to admit that. It's true.
Narcissists are known for making the most mild mannered, gentle, patient, kind, and unassuming people livid with anger. They are known for making people who never hate, hate them with a passion.
Jeez, do you suppose there could be a reason for this?
This is just common sense. Let the phonies (on the Web and in the clinics and the courts) find some new issue to sound holy on and quit making a farce out of this one. Let them find fault to condemn where it is, instead of where it ain't.
Narcissists are not bad people and will be fine if you give them a hug, a musical instrument and a puppy.
ReplyDeleteThat's the best thing I've read all day. I know I shouldn't be giggling. But thank you for sharing - there is so much truth in this post it's delicious.
So much truth in this post. I could come up with a real life example for every line written.
ReplyDelete... give them a hug, a musical instrument and a puppy. Haha. It's a pretty funny visual. I can just see the evil miraculously melt away while they play the flute with a puppy in their lap.
Yeah give them a hug, a musical instrument, and a hammer to smash the puppies brains out and they will be fine.
ReplyDeleteI think they would prefer long drawn out torture.
ReplyDelete... the narcissists, not the puppies. Why would they use a hammer when they can torment another being for life?
DeleteMy late MN father committed fraud on my mother's will but then said he would leave everything to my brother and myself in equal portions when he died. Of course he never did anything of the sort, and I'm glad I sued him before he died and at least got out some of my mother's inheritance. My slightly MN brother took him at his word in the mistaken belief that he would eventually inherit everything. In the end my father wound up with a woman who was just as evil as he was. One of their neighbours was horrified at the way she abused him and told me about how she found him with toilet brush bristles sticking out of his arm where she had whacked him. I asked for photos for posterity, I would have had them framed, but sadly she did not take any. He died in a sanatorium for alcoholics a month after his vicious girlfriend had twisted his arm into marrying her. She inherited what was left and bitched to me that she didn't get more. There was no funeral as my beloved "stepmother" had arranged a pauper's burial. I laughed myself silly. The whole story reminded me of William Hogarth's engravings called "The four stages of cruelty". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Stages_of_Cruelty
DeleteDachshund, I checked out "The four stages of cruelty" on Wikipedia, very interesting.
DeleteYour comment made me think that death by toilet brush is a fitting demise for many of them. Literally it makes sense to kill them with a utensil that cleans shit away.
This article here inspired me to write this:
ReplyDeletehttp://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/2014/04/my-brother-grievous-godmother-aunt.html
In the narc directed families EVERYTHING is about IMAGE. And if you upset that image, you are enemy #1 and they get others to join with them quite easily. With the exception of the very few, all I ever heard was excuses for the narcs, even when I was younger and told them about the abuse. In some cases, they saw it and did nothing as well. One thing I talk about this in the article be careful of the flying monkeys, narc mind slaves that slip by because they have a smile on their face, they can be just as harmful to you as the ones who do not bother with the fake smile and phony "nice words".
Hi everyone!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love your blog, Lisette!
I'm 36 years old and JUST found out last week that there actually was a label for my mum and sister. While I am glad that I'm not alone, it is equally heartbreaking to know that others have gone through what I have. But the fact that SURVIVORS of Narcissists are telling the tale is very encouraging. I am still in the shock/denial phase - I can't believe that people can be so evil. Especially people who are my blood. I'm still trying to soak everything in.
I suffer from PTSD which was diagnosed 2 years ago. My emotional pain has manifested physically as excruciating chest pains. The road to recovery has been very very slow and frustrating. I went NC with my sister 4 years ago after her manipulation, character assassination and lying outright to my face about so many issues. She backed me into a corner with no-win situations over and over again and flew in a rage no matter what I did.
Fortunately for me, I have therapists who have validated me (well one so far, anyway - I see my other therapist tomorrow). I asked the psychiatrist at the pain unit if there was a possibility that my sister and mother were MN and his response was "Absolutely! 100%!"
I started a blog yesterday because of a dire need to let everything out. I need to look ahead instead of backwards. I owe it to my wonderful hubby and two beautiful sons.
Hi everyone!
ReplyDeleteLisette, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog. Most of the blogs that I have come across are with regards to N partners, so finding your blog about NM mothers (and I use that term VERY loosely) and NM sisters.
I'm almost 36 and it was only last week that I discovered a label to describe the behaviour of my mother and sister. That they're narcissists. The discovery was totally by fluke while I was researching for a short story that I wrote about an incident with my sister. The feedback that I got from a few people was that the character (based on my sister) was too contradictory and confusing. But that's exactly what she was - she'd be pliant one moment, screaming like a banshee the next and crying a few moments later. My story reflected these contradictions but the readers just didn't get it - probably because they haven't met a person like that and don't know what it feels like to be living in that hellish roller coaster.
I suffer from PTSD due to being exposed to abuse for extended periods of time. I was diagnosed 2 years ago and sometimes I feel that I'm getting nowhere. I have gone NC with my sister for 4 years now. She tried making an entry into our lives again last October via a Facebook private message, but I ignored her. After learning how I have been narcissistic supply for so long, I'm glad that I acted with indifference (by ignoring her) instead of sending her a scathing reply "What do you want to use me for this time?"
So far I think I have been lucky with therapists. As my PTSD has manifested physically in the form of agonizing chest pains, I was referred to the Pain Unit of the hospital where I was a frequent visitor. I had an appointment with the psychiatrist there yesterday and asked him what he thought about my mother and sister being MN. His response - "Absolutely! 100%!" When I was diagnosed with PTSD in 2012, and was seeing a different therapist for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, I got told quite bluntly that NC with mum was the only way I could get better. They told me that I needed to realise that I am NOT going to get any affection from my mother and the sooner I realised that, the better I'll be. I have another appointment with my weekly therapist tomorrow. Will see what she thinks.
After finding out that my NM and NC are capable of such evil and complete disregard for anyone but themselves, I have been reading voraciously about NPD. My husband thinks I'm bordering on being obsessive about finding out all I can! :) I'm still in the shock/denial stage that people who are meant to be my family have no love for me because they are incapable of that emotion. I have started a blog to journal my thoughts, discovery and recovery.
I look forward to reading your posts, Lisette! I love the way you write :)
If your car had a flaw it in that could, for example, cause it to explode at any second, you would get it the hell away from yourself, your house, and anyone you loved.
ReplyDeleteBut do you morally blame the car? Do you treat any attempts to repair it as "exploding car apology?"
There is a contradiction here. Narcissists refuse to change. They will be exactly the same in 30 years. They will respond to no attempts to rationalize with or rehabilitate them. If no narcissist has ever changed, ever, then thinking like this must be outside of their control (even if their actions are not).
But yet you say everything they do is a choice. These two things can not both be true.
Narcissists are dangerous, volatile, destructive people who can blow up at any second. Get them away from children. Get them away from any form of public service. Isolate them completely in extreme cases. No one has the right to suffer abuse because the abuser has a disorder.
But the abuser clearly DOES have a disorder, one that is difficult if not impossible to treat. They are not simply choosing to hurt people out of a place of sane rationality. They're not capable of that any more than they are capable of willful acts of empathetic compassion.
When the shuttle went up like a roman candle back in 86, there were more than a couple of engineers aware of the increased risk of failure resulting from a launch in that kind of cold. But instead of voicing concerns for the crew they crossed their fingers and held their breath. No one held the shuttle responsible for going off like a bomb. And no one held the engineers accountable who knew and let it launch anyway. Which I think is the point of this post. Quit giving Narcissists a pass on their reprehensible behavior.
DeleteLooky Here! A narcissist sympathizer in action.
DeleteAccording to Jim, we should not “blame” the narcissist for hurting people because the poor little ole narcissist’s thinking is outside of their control, and they are not choosing to hurt people out of a place of sane rationality.
News flash, Jim. The narcissist is dangerous precisely because they are mentally in control. Mental control makes them skilled liars and manipulators. It’s what makes them so calculating, so cunning, so devious. Everything they do is premeditated – it takes rationale thought and careful planning to successfully ruin lives while playing the innocent victim. It requires mental agility to pull-off a successful smear campaign and come out smelling like a rose. It takes a shrewd mind to viciously abuse for decades without ever getting caught.
Oh how I wish the narcissists who harmed me were mentally out of control. Then they wouldn’t care what other people think and they wouldn’t hide who they really are and the things they do and I would have the validation and support I’ve always needed.
As for narcissists being dangerous, volatile people who can blow up at any second? In my experience, that’s only true if there are no witnesses present. If the coast ain’t clear, the narcissist remains in complete control. In fact, it’s usually the victims of narcissists who are driven to volatile behavior because the narcissist is a sadist that is trying to make them go crazy.
When the narcissist abuses on the sly and acts like an angel when a witness is present that means he knows what he is doing is wrong. It also means he is capable of modifying his behavior. In other words, the narcissist is making conscious choices.
Narcissists choose not to change because they like hurting and exploiting others. It makes them feel superior. And feeling superior is priority number one to the narcissist.
I place the blame of the narcissist’s reprehensible behavior exactly where it belongs – on the narcissist. From my experience, those who make excuses for the narcissist are trying to justify their own bad behavior.
My family made it to Texas from Europe in the 1860's. They homesteaded a large chunk of land in the county I live in today. If you plotted our standard of living on a graph, there would be a steady increase in the quality of our education and the net worth of each succeeding generation. Until you make it to the 1950's and the time when my mother became an adult. She saw to it that my sister and I never received dental or medical care. Neither of us were sent to college. We were barely fed or clothed outside of what our grandparents provided for us. But my mother always had a new car and never left the house without being dressed to kill. If my father couldn't keep her in style she would loot the savings of my sister and I from our after school jobs. My mothers proclivity for affairs and criminal activity, and that my father put her needs over ours made sure we never really stood a chance of a decent start in life. I calculated the costs of her being tried for a robbery and murder she was involved in in the 1960's In 2010 it was well over a quarter of a million adjusted dollars. If you can imagine the previously mentioned graph my mother achieving adulthood flattened out the increases. Until it crashed in 1996 when my grandmother died and my mother truly had control over the whole boat. In a few short years she liquidated every tangible asset.......down to the graves in the family burial plot and gave it all to her circle of sycophants and partners in crime, anybody who accepted her smear campaign about myself and my sister as the truth. I feel like I might have pulled it out of the fire if my mother had not driven my father to suicide by leaving him for his best friend shortly after he paid for her defense. Crazy is the senile person sitting in your driveway rubbing feces in his hair. A high pressure hose cleans up crazy. For me crazy stops being crazy when the offending act is done cold and with calculation. That is EVIL. I can't see any other way to define it. Evil digs early graves.
ReplyDeleteThis is a better fit for another blog entry, but I'll post it here since this is where new comments are allowed.
ReplyDeleteAs I've read through your posts, what I keep wondering is what is different between your sister and yourself? Why have you chosen open rebellion against narcissism while your sister seems to have fully embraced it? Were your childhood experiences significantly different? I have to assume that your sister was a much a target of narcissistic abuse as you were, seeing as MNs rarely show special mercy for their own kind. Did the two of you react differently to said abuse?
If you have to ask, you clearly don't belong here. You're obviously not an ACON and you've probably never experienced narcissistic abuse. Which begs the question, what are you doing here?
DeleteNarcissists are like Lawyers and Sharks Jim.They extend professional courtesy to one another.
DeleteI find that surprising. I would think a narc's biggest threat is another narc. After all, they can't both be the protagonist, and unlike a non-narc another narc is actively seeking the spotlight.
DeleteThen again, I suppose a shared delusion is more powerful than an isolated one. There's an episode of Kitchen Nightmares featuring "Crazy Amy" and the two owners seem like textbook narcissists, absolutely incapable of acknowledging that their restaurant is anything other than the best in the world no matter how much contradicting evidence is thrown at them.
FYI, I am aware that I have the luxury of looking at this academically. I don't presume to completely understand, or even be capable of it.
DeleteJim, I have the luxury of looking at YOU academically. I completely understand that you're a smug, callous, voyeuristic bystander.
DeleteIf you're looking to dehumanize abuse victims, this ain't the place.
The cruelty of narcissistic abuse is lost on you.
As Kathy Krajco wrote: "Let the phonies (on the Web and in the clinics) find some new issue to sound holy on and stop making a farce out of this one."
That's an oddly defensive answer to an honest question. To answer yours, I have a couple of family members in troubled relationships with other family members and I'm really not sure whether they've crossed the line into full MN. As a result, I'm stuck on how to advise them. I just want to understand more about it in general.
ReplyDeleteI would imagine asking a deer what caliber rifle just blasted his guts out and being defensive about the deer being defensive when asked to go into explicit detail about describing the caliber of bullet it was wounded by, it's muzzle velocity, and the grain weight of the projectile shouldn't come as any surprise. Google: golden child, scapegoat, and splitting, and you will have your answer. Half the stuff you will find on google will be articles Lissette wrote and that are already posted here.
ReplyDeleteI found this blog on Google, looking for information. If you are merely a support group, you should say more clearly that anyone seeking to learn more about what you discuss at length will be insulted and namecalled off your blog.
ReplyDeleteAs you have said, good therapists know that anger is an important part of healing. But it's a step on the road, followed by despair and acceptance. The problem is that the despair part is so horrifying for some that they instead remain stuck in anger for a long, long time.
I truly hope you find peace.
I wonder if Jim goes to sexual abuse sites for academically motivated study and prods the survivors for information on why they were molested.
ReplyDeleteSince when is despair an accepted part of any healthy process? I think JIm gets this shit from psychology for dummies.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly what I was thinking - psychology for dummies!
ReplyDeleteWho goes from righteous anger to despair? Anger empowers. He's got it backwards.
Jim found his way to my blog through a link on the Daily Strength psychology support forum. A simple Google search shows he's a counselor/life coach/therapist who charges $100-$150 per session and accepts cash, credit card and checks. He also does online therapy. He's only on my blog for personal gain.
Jim is a total fool whose misplaced sympathy is with the narcissist. Not one word of compassion comes out of his mouth for the victims of narcissistic abuse. Indeed, he blames the victims for being "stuck" in anger and says they should move on to hopelessness/despair but that's too horrifying for some. WTF?! What's HORRIFYING is this guy has set-up shop as a therapist and people who have been traumatized by narcissists might be going to him for guidance. I suppose convincing the victim to drop their righteous anger and take a step BACKWARDS to "despair" is better for HIM. You can really control and manipulate people when they are feeling hopeless and that's good for business.
He should read Krajco's post again. His obtuseness is invincible.
Oh, and I love the last bit "I truly hope you find peace."
Once again Jim is trying to aggrandize himself. In fact, that's the whole purpose of him being on my blog - to judge us from a position of above. He's not here for information, he's here to treat us like lab rats and to play the expert, and when that doesn’t work he plays the victim and couches his abuse in false concern - "I truly hope you find peace." Translation: I’m okay and you’re not.
Like all abusers, Jim is uncomfortable with anger because anger empowers. He would rather potential "clients" be curled up in fetal position and drooling... that's what makes HIM feel powerful and he uses control tactics like guilt and shame to draw parallels between anger and being “stuck,” “not accepting,” and “not finding peace.” What a crock of shit. Jim, you make a farce out of narcissistic abuse with your lame pop psychology.
It's ironic that a narcissist sympathizer who is also a self-proclaimed healer of abuse reared his ugly head on this blog post.
This is a personal blog written by an adult child of narcissists for adult children of narcissists. What about PERSONAL don’t you understand?
This is not a feeding ground for your counselor/life coach/ therapist agenda. Take your pathological sense of entitlement and go elsewhere.
Be gone Jim. You're a dangerous predator with ZERO understanding of narcissistic abuse and ZERO empathy for the victims of narcissists.
I truly fear for anyone who steps foot in your office.
I also fear for anyone who did not see through Jim’s thinly veiled agenda, they will likely experience more abuse by irresponsible, self-serving and incompetent therapist hustlers.