Characteristics of Malignant Narcissists

Characteristics of Malignant Narcissists

The complete Treatise can be found at Harpy's Child

1. Everything she does is deniable. There is always a facile excuse or an explanation. Cruelties are couched in loving terms. Aggressive and hostile acts are paraded as thoughtfulness. Selfish manipulations are presented as gifts. Criticism and slander is slyly disguised as concern. She doesn’t want to have to do this, but she only wants what is best for you. She only wants to help.

Because her abusiveness is part of a lifelong campaign of control and because she is careful to rationalize her abuse, it is extremely difficult to explain to other people what is so bad about her. 

She’s also careful about when and how she engages in her abuses. She’s very secretive, a characteristic of almost all abusers (“Don’t wash our dirty laundry in public!”) and will punish you for telling anyone else what she’s done. The times and locations of her worst abuses are carefully chosen so that anyone who might intervene will not hear or see her bad behavior, and she will seem like a completely different person in public. She’ll slam you to other people, but will always embed her devaluing nuggets of snide gossip in protestations of concern, love and understanding (“I feel so sorry for poor Cynthia. She always seems to have such a hard time, but I just don’t know what I can do for her!”) As a consequence, the children of narcissists universally report that no one believes them (“I have to tell you that she always talks about YOU in the most caring way!).

2. She favoritizes. Narcissistic mothers commonly choose one (sometimes more) child to be the golden child and one (sometimes more) to be the scapegoat. The narcissist identifies with the golden child and provides privileges to him or her as long as the golden child does just as she wants. The golden child has to be cared for assiduously by everyone in the family. The scapegoat has no needs and instead gets to do the caring. The golden child can do nothing wrong. The scapegoat is always at fault. This creates divisions between the children, one of whom has a large investment in the mother being wise and wonderful, and the other(s) who hate her. That division will be fostered by the narcissist with lies and with blatantly unfair and favoritizing behavior. The golden child will defend the mother and perpetuate the abuse by finding reasons to blame the scapegoat for the mother’s actions. The golden child may also directly take on the narcissistic mother’s traits and tasks by abusing the scapegoat so the narcissistic mother doesn’t have to do that herself.

3. She makes you look crazy. If you try to confront her about something she’s done, she’ll tell you that you have “a very vivid imagination” (this is a phrase commonly used by abusers of all sorts to invalidate your experience of their abuse) that you don’t know what you’re talking about, or that she has no idea what you’re talking about. She will claim not to remember even very memorable events, flatly denying they ever happened. Nor will she ever acknowledge any possibility that she might have forgotten. This is an extremely aggressive and exceptionally infuriating tactic called “gaslighting,” common to abusers of all kinds. Your perceptions of reality are continually undermined so that you end up without any confidence in your intuition, your memory or your powers of reasoning. This makes you a much better victim for the abuser.

Narcissists will gaslight routinely. The narcissist will either insinuate or will tell you outright that you’re unstable, otherwise you wouldn’t believe such ridiculous things or be so uncooperative. You’re oversensitive. You’re imagining things. You’re hysterical. You’re completely unreasonable. You’re over-reacting, like you always do. She’ll tell you that you need treatment for your mental problem and she will talk to you when you’ve calmed down and aren’t so irrational. She may even characterize you as being neurotic or psychotic.

Once she’s constructed these fantasies of your emotional pathologies, she’ll tell others about them, as always, presenting her smears as expressions of concern and declaring her own helpless victimhood. She didn’t do anything. She has no idea why you’re so irrationally angry with her. You’ve hurt her terribly. She thinks you may need psychotherapy. She loves you very much and would do anything to make you happy, but she just doesn’t know what to do. You keep pushing her away when all she wants to do is help you.

She has simultaneously absolved herself of any responsibility for your obvious antipathy towards her, implied that it’s something fundamentally wrong with you that makes you angry with her, and undermined your credibility with her listeners. She plays the role of the “concerned” mother/sister so perfectly that no one will believe you.

 4. She’s a liar in too many ways to count. Any time she talks about something that has emotional significance for her, it’s a fair bet that she’s lying. Lying is one way that she creates conflict in the relationships and lives of those around her - she’ll lie to them about what other people have said, what they’ve done, or how they feel. She’ll lie about her relationship with them, about your behavior or about your situation in order to inflate herself and to undermine your credibility.

The narcissist is very careful about how she lies. To outsiders she’ll lie thoughtfully and deliberately, always in a way that can be covered up if she’s confronted with her lie. She spins what you said rather than makes something up wholesale. She puts dishonest interpretations on things you actually did. If she’s recently done something particularly egregious she may engage in preventative lying: she lies in advance to discount what you might say before you even say it. Then when you talk about what she did you’ll be cut off with “I already know all about it…your mother/sister told me... (self-justifications and lies).” Because she is so careful about her deniability, it may be very hard to catch her in her lies. The more gullible person may never realize how dishonest she is.

To you, she’ll lie blatantly. She will claim to be unable to remember bad things she has done, even if she did one of them recently and even if it was something very memorable. Of course, if you try to jog her memory by recounting the circumstances “You have a very vivid imagination” or “That was so long ago. Why do you have to dredge up your old grudges?” Your conversations with her are full of casual brush-offs and diversionary lies and she doesn’t respect you enough to bother making it sound good.

On the rare occasions she is forced to acknowledge some bad behavior, she will couch the admission deniably. She “guesses” that “maybe” she “might have” done something wrong. The wrongdoing is always heavily spun and trimmed to make it sound better. The words “I guess,”  “maybe,” and “might have” are in and of themselves lies because she knows exactly what she did - no guessing, no might haves, no maybes.

A Narcissistic mother and sister will say whatever feeds their purpose of the moment, without regard for the truth, so when the purpose shifts, the Narcissist mother and sister must contradict their past statements. This contradiction may occur within the context of a single conversation, or even a single sentence.

5. She manipulates your emotions in order to feed on your pain. This exceptionally sick and bizarre behavior is so common among narcissistic mothers and sisters that their family members often call them “emotional vampires.” Some of this emotional feeding comes in the form of pure sadism. She does and says things just to be wounding or she engages in tormenting teasing or she needles you about things you’re sensitive about, all the while a smile plays over her lips. She may have taken you to scary movies or told you horrifying stories, then mocked you for being a baby when you cried. She will slip a wounding comment into conversation and smile delightedly into your hurt face. You can hear the laughter in her voice as she pressures you or says distressing things to you. Later she’ll gloat over how much she upset you, gaily telling other people that you’re so much fun to tease, and recruiting others to share in her amusement.  She enjoys her cruelties and makes no effort to disguise that. She wants you to know that your pain entertains her.  She may also bring up subjects that are painful for you and probe you about them, all the while watching you carefully. This is emotional vampirism in its purest form. She’s feeding emotionally off your pain.

A peculiar form of this emotional vampirism combines attention-seeking behavior with a demand that the audience suffer. Since narcissistic mothers and sisters often play the martyr this may take the form of wrenching, self-pitying dramas which they carefully produce, and in which they are the star performers. 

6. She is insanely defensive and is extremely sensitive to any criticism. If you criticize her or defy her she will explode with fury, threaten, storm, rage and destroy. It’s easy to provoke her wrath because she takes everything personally and any attitude short of constant emotional and physical availability is perceived as a slight. If you’re short with her because you’re exhausted and depressed, she has to have it out with you over your “hostility.” If a toddler shouts “I hate you” at her she gets angry and punitive. If you refuse her nosy request to let her read the letter you got she shouts about how unappreciative you are and how hard she has it. She has no sense of perspective or separation and she can’t let anything go.

7. She terrorizes. All abusers use fear to control their victims, and your narcissistic mother/sister used it ruthlessly to train you. Narcissists teach you to beware their wrath even when they aren’t present. The only alternative is constant placation. If you give her everything she wants all the time, you might be spared. If you don’t, the punishments will come. Even adult children of narcissists still feel that carefully inculcated fear. Your narcissistic mother/sister can turn it on with a silence or a look that tells you she’s thinking about how she’s going to get even.

Not all narcissists abuse physically, but most do, often in subtle, deniable ways.  It allows them to vent their rage at your failure to be the solution to their internal havoc and simultaneously to teach you to fear them. You may not have been beaten, but you were almost certainly left to endure physical pain when a normal mother would have made an effort to relieve your misery. This deniable form of battery allows her to store up her rage and dole out the punishment at a later time when she’s worked out an airtight rationale for her abuse, so she never risks exposure. You were left hungry because “you eat too much.” You always went to school with stomach flu because “you don’t have a fever. You’re just trying to get out of school.” (She resents having to take care of you. You have a lot of nerve getting sick and adding to her burdens.) She refuses to look at your bloody heels and instead the shoes that wore those blisters on your heels are put back on your feet and you’re sent to the store in them because “You wanted those shoes. Now you can wear them.”  (You said the ones she wanted to get you were ugly. She liked them because they were just like what she wore 30 years ago). The dentist was told not to give you Novocain when he drilled your tooth because “he has to learn to take better care of his teeth.” (She has to pay for a filling and she’s furious at having to spend money on you.) Unlike psychopaths, narcissists do understand right, wrong, and consequences, so they are not ordinarily criminal. She beat you, but not to the point where you went to the hospital. She left you standing out in the cold until you were miserable, but not until you had hypothermia. She put you in the basement in the dark with no clothes on, but she only left you there for two hours. 

Narcissistic mothers also abuse by loosing others on you or by failing to protect you when a normal mother would have. Sometimes the narcissist’s golden child will be encouraged to abuse the scapegoat. Narcissists also abuse by exposing you to violence. If one of your siblings got beaten, she made sure you saw. She effortlessly put the fear of Mom into you, without even touching you.

8.  She’s exploitative. She will manipulate to get money or objects she envies out of other people for nothing. This includes taking from all family members.

9. She projects. This sounds a little like psycho-babble, but it is something that narcissists all do. Projection means that she will put her own bad behavior, character traits and flaws on you so she can deny them in herself and punish you. 

10. She is never wrong about anything. No matter what she’s done, she won’t ever genuinely apologize for anything.

11. She manufactures “no-win” situations. In the classic “no-win” scenario, the narcissist’s family member is manipulated into a corner and then presented with a demand that they do something degrading, humiliating or painful in order to please the narcissist. Any response other than complete compliance triggers retaliation. As always, the payoff for your mother/sister is the elicitation of painful emotions. Whether you subject yourself to her degradation or you fight back and end up subjected to shaming, threats and blaming by the narcissist, you will experience a sense of helplessness and fear, and those emotions are very satisfying to the narcissist. That feed is also augmented by the pain she elicits by undermining, insulting and demeaning you and, as the scene winds down, by blaming you for the entire event. These scenes are great fun for your narcissist mother/sister, for whom they are exciting and entertaining as well as satisfying, and who gets to feel as though she has been very clever. She commonly has an attitude of pleasure and excitement throughout, which she will make no effort to hide. The family members of narcissists often describe the “little smile” she had as she played out the no-win scenario. She wants you to know how much fun she’s having and how much she loves your pain. There is no betrayal more wounding than knowing your own mother/sister/daughter is reveling in the pain she deliberately caused, nor any emotion more delicious to your narcissistic mother/daughter/sister than your sense of shock and misery that she is hurting you deliberately and for fun.

12. She blames. She’ll blame you for everything that isn’t right in her life or for what other people do or for whatever has happened. Always, she’ll blame you for her abuse. You made her do it. If only you weren’t so difficult. You upset her so much that she can’t think straight. Things were hard for her and your backtalk pushed her over the brink. This blaming is often so subtle that all you know is that you thought you were wronged and now you feel guilty. Your brother beats you and her response is to bemoan how uncivilized children are. Your boyfriend dumped you, but she can understand - after all, she herself has seen how difficult you are to love. She’ll do something egregiously exploitative to you, and when confronted will screech at you that she can’t believe you were so selfish as to upset her over such a trivial thing. She’ll also blame you for your reaction to her selfish, cruel and exploitative behavior. She can’t believe you are so petty, so small, and so childish as to object to her giving your favorite dress to her friend. She thought you would be happy to let her do something nice for someone else. 

Narcissists are masters of multitasking as this example shows. Simultaneously she is 1) Lying. She knows what she did was wrong and she knows your reaction is reasonable. 2) Manipulating. She’s making you look like the bad guy for objecting to her cruelties. 3) Being selfish. She doesn’t mind making you feel horrible as long as she gets her own way. 4) Blaming. She did something wrong, but it’s all your fault. 5) Projecting. Her petty, small and childish behavior has become yours. 6) Putting on a self-pitying drama. She’s a martyr who believed the best of you, and you’ve let her down. 7) Parentifying. You’re responsible for her feelings, she has no responsibility for yours.

13. She destroys your relationships. Narcissist mothers/sisters are like tornadoes: wherever they touch down families are torn apart and wounds are inflicted. Unless the father has control over the narcissists and holds the family together, adult siblings in families with narcissistic mothers and sisters characteristically have painful relationships. Typically all communication between siblings is superficial and driven by duty, or they may never talk to each other at all. In part, these women foster dissension between family members because they enjoy the control it gives them. If no one communicates except through the mother/sister, she can decide what everyone hears. Narcissists also love the excitement and drama they create by interfering in other’s lives. Watching people’s lives explode is better than soap operas, especially when you don’t have any empathy for their misery.

The narcissist nurtures anger, contempt and envy - the most corrosive emotions - to drive families apart. While her children are still living at home, any child who stands up to the narcissist guarantees punishment for the rest. In her zest for revenge, the narcissist purposefully turns the siblings’ anger on the dissenter by including everyone in her retaliation. (“I can see that nobody here loves me! Well I’ll just take these Christmas presents back to the store. None of you would want anything I got you anyway!”) The other children, long trained by the narcissist to give in, are furious with the troublemaking child, instead of with the narcissist who actually deserves their anger.

The narcissist also uses favoritism and gossip to poison her childrens’ relationships.  

The scapegoat sees the mother as a creature of caprice and cruelty. As is typical of the privileged, the other children don’t see her unfairness and they excuse her abuses. Indeed, they are often recruited by the narcissist to adopt her contemptuous and entitled attitude towards the scapegoat and with her tacit or explicit permission, will inflict further abuse. The scapegoat predictably responds with fury and equal contempt.  After her children move on with adult lives, the narcissist mother and daughter make sure to keep everyone apprised of the doings of the others, passing on the most discreditable and juicy gossip (as always, disguised as “concern”) about siblings and other family members, again, in a way that engenders contempt rather than compassion.

The end result is a family in which almost all communication is triangular. The narcissist, the spider in the middle of the family web, sensitively monitors everyone for information she can use to retain her unchallenged control over the family. She then passes that on to the others, creating the resentments that prevent them from communicating directly and freely with each other. The result is that the only communication between anyone is through the narcissist, exactly the way she wants it.

Narcissists: Making Others Do Their Dirty Work

By Linda Martinez-Lewi, Ph.D.

Narcissists beneath it all are cowards and phonies. Despite their psychological shallowness they perpetrate tremendous damage on other human beings—emotional, financial, mental. Pernicious lying, deceptions and manipulations are part of their psychological dna. For most narcissists their image is uppermost in their minds at all times. How they appear to others, how many followers they are accumulating, how much praise and adulation they are receiving and how wonderful people believe they are—these are their touchstones. I have communicated with many of those who were married to narcissists who were stunned by their partner’s ability to maintain a pristine public image while privately causing severe trauma, emotional distress and even terror to members of his/her family, business partners, etc.

Narcissists who succeed in the world preserve their pristine images by having favored members of their tight inner circle do their dirty work. Whether it is bringing down a business competitor by stealth and intimidation, using corps of attorneys to break down a former spouse who is asking for child support and custody arrangements, narcissists find the best follower, the most devoted—to carry out their malicious goals. I have had contact with many of their victims, especially their discarded and broken spouses, partners and children. The damage that they do is immeasurable. Part of the insidious problem is that the current culture rewards narcissistic behaviors–“I’ve got mine; the hell with you.” The narcissistic style of acting superior, being over-entitled and a laser focus on outward appearance and “image” has become pervasive in many stratas of our culture today.

Those who have survived the narcissist and are prevailing by moving forward with their lives despite all of the pain they are suffered, deserve our deep respect and empathy. These individuals are real. They come without facade, artifice or hidden agendas. Visit my website: www.thenarcissistinyourlife.com.  

Good, to the point article. Narcissists do recruit others to do their dirty work. It’s surprising how many so-called professional women in positions of authority are so willing to pile on with the MN abusers. Methinks they must be up to no good, and acting in collusion with the sociopath for their own personal gain.

This is how I found out that my dad died - thanks to the scumbag lawyer who has made a fortune taking advantage of a "vulnerable" Estate. I guess after all the money the sociopath sent your way; you owed her a "favor."

I was just informed my dad died.... by a lawyer!

Malignant Narcissist Sister Strangling Me Through Triangulation

The first time malignant narcissist sister tried to strangle me to death I was about 8 years old and she used a skipping rope. Her plan was foiled by an oncoming car that came to a screeching halt. Just as the man got out of his car, she dropped the rope, stuck her nose up in the air, and with an indignant “humph” quickly marched into our cousin’s house. She fled the scene of the crime without an ounce of regret or guilt. I was left gasping for air and struggling to untangle the rope she had tied around my throat. The driver angrily lectured me for playing in the street.

The fact that malignant narcissist sister didn’t express any remorse for trying to murder me wasn’t the worst part. Even her crazy glazed-over eyes that were getting a noticeable drug rush from choking me to death wasn't the worst part. Even the fact that she was visibly enraged that her plan to kill me was foiled wasn’t the worst part. The worst part and the most glaring sign that she was extremely dangerous was what happened next.

I nearly died, and not only was I distressed, I was truly frightened. I needed to tell someone what she had done to me - an adult, a parent, any authority figure. I needed someone to believe me and protect me. Malignant narcissist sister needed to be taught a lesson or she would try to kill me again. I knew telling malignant narcissist mother what happened would be useless. She didn’t care if I was dead or alive. She screamed at me every day “You have no right to live!” and “I’m going to annihilate you!” So she certainly wasn’t going to punish malignant narcissist sister for trying to end me. Malignant narcissist mother would have blamed me for my sister’s violence and punished me for complaining. The only adult that might listen to me and believe me and maybe even punish my psychotic sibling would be my dad. He was the only parent that expressed a modicum of affection toward me and malignant sister knew it.  

What I witnessed when I walked into my cousin’s house, where a family get together was in progress, stopped me dead in my tracks. At the age of eight, I watched a sociopath in the making continue on her quest to strangle me, this time through triangulation.

Malignant narcissist sister almost never paid my dad any attention. In fact, she never had much respect for him. She was always her mother’s minion, so she held him in the same contempt malignant narcissist mother did. He was MN mother’s scapegoat - the bad guy, the one she could blame for everything. But this day was different. He was useful to her.

I stood in the entrance of the living room and witnessed an over-the-top display of malignant narcissist sister’s manufactured love and adoration for her daddy. She was hugging him, joking around with him, fawning over him, holding both his hands and swinging them back and forth. In short, this 10 year old master manipulator was flirting with him and seducing the hell out of him with a whirlwind of narcissistic supply. He was beaming. Never before had the daughter who demonstrated nothing but cold indifference toward him shown him so much attention.

At 8 years old I knew the end result even before it was confirmed: She got to him first. Beat me to the punch. Blocked the kick. Framed me and set me up to take the fall for her crime.

As soon as malignant narcissist sister had finished her performance, I walked up to my dad and before I could explain how she tried to (strangle me) he cut me off and said, “Yeah, your sister told me you got in trouble for playing in the road and the guy driving the car really gave it to you.” Then as a sadistic smirk curled across his lips he said, “You need to be more careful.” And just like that he brushed past me and walked away smiling. 

Absolutely nothing has changed. Malignant narcissist sister is still playing the innocent victim while behind closed doors she is trying to drive me to an early grave or a hospital bed. She is totally capable of physical murder and there's nothing stopping her from using my dad's money to hire a "professional" to take a hit out on me. Maybe she already did. It wouldn't surprise me if her and her seedy thug accomplice dabble in the dark web. What's frightening is malignant narcissist sister sees her attempts to kill me using covert psychological violence as her right. Hell, I'm the only person who knows her game well enough to expose her as the dangerous psychotic she really is. Her psychological violence landed me in a hospital 8 years ago, and she seems to be obsessed with finishing me off by strangulation by triangulation. 

Triangulation can occur in any relationship but it is very common in a relationship with a Malignant Narcissist. It may happen at home, at work, with friends, or within a family of origin. An abuser/narcissist will pit you against any other person she can get to engage in her "victim-playing," who is willing to serve the role she assigns.

She may also temporarily adopt the role of Persecutor to assign blame or Rescuer to maintain control of her image. In the end, this travel around the triangle is how she dumps shame and finds someone to blame for her misery. If there is always a role to play there is always a way to escape responsibility by shifting the position on the triangle. 

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Control by Triangulation:

If all else fails, the abuser recruits friends, colleagues, family members, the authorities, institutions, neighbors, any third party – to do her bidding. She uses them to cajole, coerce, threaten, stalk, intimidate, offer retreat, tempt, convince, harass, communicate and otherwise manipulate her target. She controls these unaware instruments exactly as she plans to control her ultimate victim. She employs the same mechanisms and devices, and she always dumps her props unceremoniously when the job is done.

Another form of control by triangulation is to engineer situations in which abuse is inflicted upon her target. Such carefully crafted scenarios of embarrassment and humiliation provoke social sanctions (condemnation, opprobrium, social exclusion and shame) against the victim. In this instance, society becomes the instrument of the abuser. By clever seduction, through words and posturing, she entices her pawns to do her dirty work for her. Unaware... and being persuaded by the narcissist's rendition of truth, they take up her cause and her right and align themselves against the one she controls.

The malignant narcissist creates perpetual triangles around the one she desires to systematically destroy. She sees through these eyes with no empathy - that perpetuate constant, residual torment, for her victim. Claiming that she is being tormented by her victim, she creates rescuers who then torment her victim, thinking they are protecting her from the "bully." Doing this through her family members, associates and whoever she can entice, she remotely views her operation like a director of a movie. In other words, she will frame a picture and put her secondary narcissistic supply in that frame - the borders always being the shape of a triangle and the picture within being a distorted truth she propagates.

Usually, the claims she makes of her victim are the truth about herself and while hiding behind her victim, she will spin, doctor, and gaslight until she gets her desired result. Defamation of character and destroying the credibility of her victim is her goal. She convinces her pawns that the true victim is the persecutor and she is the victim. The naked eye cannot see this game of illusions and that is why she is able to engage others in her web. They do for her what she orchestrates in secret.

Both the Persecutor and Rescuer are on the upper end of the triangle. These roles assume a “one-up” position over others, meaning they relate as though they are better, stronger, smarter, or more-together than the victim. Sooner or later the victim, who is in the one-down position at the bottom of the triangle, develops a metaphorical "crick in the neck" from always looking up. Feeling “looked down upon” or “worth-less than” the others, the Victim usually rebels.

Starting Gate Persecutors (SGP's), on the other hand, delude themselves into believing they are victims in need of protection. This is how they can so easily justify their vengeful behavior: “They asked for it and they got what they deserved for questioning me," is the way they see it. Their core belief might go something like this: “She/he is on to me so I need to get her before she exposes me.”

This attitude sets-up the malignant narcissist to think that she must strike out in order to defend against inevitable attack, even when there is no attack.  Self-defense against the malignant narcissist’s psychological violence is, in her self-absorbed eyes, a threat.  She sees the victim as a threat to herself, and believes that the victim will possibly expose her hidden true self to her rescuers. The victim may or may not have threatened the SGP, but the chance of being 'found out,' by those looking from the outside...the picture projected is the SGP's denial ploy. She is afraid that the real picture will be seen by all. She cannot face exposure or the reality of what she is doing and must project what she perpetrates. Ultimately there is no regard for anyone here, for all player's involved are her pawns.

Therefore, the victim stands no chance of recovering in this triangulation. Convincing her rescuer(s) that her victim is persecuting her, the narcissist is able to trap the rescuer(s) in her web. And the rescuers all become persecutors for her...while believing they are rescuing her.  

The rescuer(s), unaware of the narcissist scheme, become persecutors of the [true] victim. Believing the perpetrator's deception, they do her bidding and become an extension of her. Without regard for the true victim, they have become her right hand, and very likely, the hand(s) that strangulate her victim. The smugness of the narcissist becomes more intoxicating to herself, in her superiority to manipulate all. How brilliant she feels in the evil she has masterminded. Feeling disdain, for even her rescuers, she is loyal to none. She feeds on her own view of being above all those she puppeteers.

Inevitably, the victim will do one or more of the following:

1. Strike back, in defense and self-preservation.

2. Further submit to the abuse, thinking it must be their fault.

3. Try to negotiate and convince the rescuer(s) that the narcissist is the persecutor.

4. Flee the triangle(s) and leave the relationship.

Another Term for Triangulation is Proxy Recruitment:

Proxy Recruitment is a way of controlling or abusing another person or establishment by manipulating other people into unwittingly 'backing up,' the abuser or "doing their dirty work" for them.

Description: The goal in proxy recruitment is to gain the upper hand in a relationship or in a conflict by getting other people involved. This often takes the form of the perpetrator engaging others to" help" through innuendos, false accusations, smear campaigns or distortion campaigns in which the victim is portrayed as an abuser.

Proxy recruitment can be an extremely powerful way of establishing control over another person. It forces the victim into a defensive posture - justifying or denying their own behaviors to friends, family, neighbors, acquaintances and authority figures. It often attempts to reverse roles in the eyes of others - casting the abuser as the victim and portraying the victim as the abuser. It deflects attention away from the real abuser and provides cover or justification for further abuse to occur.

Proxy Recruitment is much easier if the abuser assumes a position of authority. The infamous narcissist will project herself as an authority figure, speaking as though the victim is incompetent or inferior in judgement. 

Proxy recruitment isn't just the domain of people with personality disorders. It is a universal reaction to recruit allies when engaged in a conflict situation. However, it becomes abusive when the truth is misrepresented or the recipient is being hurt.

Those recruited will partake of the abuser's plan, thinking they are doing the right thing. The narcissist abuser undermines the recruited to demise the one she objectifies. Objectification is when the narcissist reduces the one she controls to an object, having no feeling or empathy for the one she degrades. She influences those around her to objectify the victim as well. Presenting herself as though she is the one whose perception is the only credible one, she masterminds the demise of her victim by using whoever she constitutes will execute her purpose.

Proxy recruitment or triangulation is a form of gas-lighting, otherwise known as covert abuse. It is so covert that unless your eye is trained to recognize this mode of operation it can go unnoticed. This is extreme malignant narcissism - the kind of narcissism that has the ambiance of a murderer per say. I call it "the narcissist web of triangulation by strangulation." She strangles the victim through the hands of her rescuer(s).

The narcissist's denial is what makes her the monster...The victim may be screaming out in pain, yet somehow these persecutors twist a whole series of events to flatter themselves in the eyes of their rescuers. The victim being left no defense and no one who understands what literally is transpiring is murdered, hypothetically speaking. There is a slow killing of the mind and soul in progress. Picking up the pieces of their lives is difficult after this conditioning and most times, in these cases, the persecutor will have taken away all their credibility.

If they cannot paint them as a liar because the victim's character does not lie, then the narcissist will paint their victims as unstable, lacking in judgement, mentally delusional or "damaged goods." The unseen goal, even many times to the narcissist is death to the victim's individualization.

Hence, no matter what the victim does to be heard or believed, the very people who could have intervened don't simply because they have become persecutor(s) themselves. The reality here is that the outsiders join in the narcissist's parade of neutralization/traumatization of her chosen sufferer.

The Sociopath Takes What Doesn't Belong to Her

I write you this letter to explain something to you. You have a serious personality disorder whose very symptoms, paradoxically, may leave you unaware that you have it.

Or, you may be “aware” of your disorder in an “intellectual” sense but consequent to your disorder, you lack appropriate alarm and shame over its expression.

People who do not have your disorder, if they were told they had it (and of its nature), would feel extremely unnerved and shamed to hear this feedback.

You, on the other hand, neither feel nor react with expected levels of uneasiness to learn of your disorder. Your reactions, expressing either calm indifference, an attitude of smug superiority or, alternatively, extreme irritation and indignation, add credence to the diagnosis.

You were probably not “born” with this disorder, but it’s also probable that you brought a biological tendency to it whose eventual emergence your upbringing probably encouraged or elicited.

Your disorder is called a number of different names that can be confusing, among them sociopath, psychopath, antisocial personality disorder, malignant narcissist, and more informal names. Although there may be some useful distinctions between these terms, the confusion they produce probably exceeds the usefulness of these distinctions.

More important are the common elements between them which describe a similar phenomenon – a human being like yourself who, while intellectually aware of common standards and laws of “right and wrong,” nonetheless grossly, chronically violates the boundaries and integrity of others with deficient remorse, deficient empathy, a deficient sense of accountability and, typically, with an attitude of contempt, or indifference towards the experiences and suffering of those you’ve violated.

You might recognize yourself in this description, but you may not. If you do, as I’ve suggested, your recognition of yourself as having this disorder will not produce an appropriate response.

But if you don’t recognize yourself from this description it’s likely to be a function of more than just your denial. Rather, your failure to see yourself, truly, as a sociopath probably reflects to an extent, an aforementioned feature of your disorder: I refer again to your deficient empathy as a consequence of which you are actually incapable of feeling more than superficial, transient concerns about, and remorse for your hurtful impact on others.

It is possible that hurting others is a primary goal but it’s also likely hurting others is a byproduct of your primary aim (and lifelong pattern) of taking something from others that doesn’t belong to you.

In other words, you may or may not intentionally seek to hurt others, but in either case your condition leaves you depleted of normal, inhibiting levels of compassion, sympathy and empathy towards others.

Your disorder has other essential features. The reason you can take from people, steal from them – their property, possessions, money, their dignity, sometimes their lives – and suffer so negligibly, if at all from your abuse of them, is that you do not respect them.

Your condition fundamentally leaves you with a characterological disrespect of others.

You view the world as a competition ground for gratification. People around you are thus players in this metaphorical drama; players from whom your principle inclination is to take, cajole, exploit and manipulate whatever it is that will leave you, not them, in a more comfortable, satiated condition.

You feel that your gratification – your present security, status, satisfaction and entertainment – takes precedence over everyone else’s. Your gratification is simply more important than anything else.

In your mind, you are entitled to the gratification you seek – in whatever forms you presently seek it – even when it costs others a great deal of pain towards which, as we’ve established, you bring a disordered lack of empathy and concern. This is a very twisted notion – specifically, the conviction that your gratification and its pursuit are virtually your inalienable right – a notion that supports the rationalizing of the chronic expression of your abusive, exploitative attitudes and behaviors towards others.

Finally, this makes you, your organized Crime Ring, and any accomplice who carries-out your “assaults” a remorseless violator of innocent people.

In an effort to put a stop to your destructive acts and mitigate injury to others, I am willing to get you help for your severe mental problems.

I have booked you an appointment at the department of criminal psychology at UBC for a formal “diagnosis”, but as you may or may not know, your disorder is notoriously unamenable to known “treatments." 

A more viable option to protect others from your criminal behavior and escalating psychological violence is for you, and your partners in crime, to live out the rest of your miserable days in a cage.  

I will continue to pursue every opportunity available to make sure this happens. 

Source: Steve Becker

Malignant Narcissists Are Batshit Crazy!

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Malignant Narcissist, Covetous Sociopath, Bully, Liar, Slanderer...

It doesn't matter what you call them: malignant narcissist, covetous sociopath or bully. They are one and the same. They are all predators who target people that provoke in them a desire for something they have, or for something they are. The covert power game and systematic destruction of another who put puts their wretched selves to shame is sport for the malignant narcissist. They excel at it. They’ve been practicing since birth. It gives them a thrill and makes them feel alive. That is why malignant narcissists are unsafe for human interaction, period.  If you have been targeted by a malignant narcissist and they have access to you, they will try and destroy you: that’s their nature. It's not complicated. Run like hell.

Having two narcissists as parents was no picnic (they divorced long ago). Though sometimes I feel lucky that they both weren’t malignant.  Unfortunately, my sister made up the difference. She is a malignant narcissist like my mother and I have had a target on my back since birth. Not one, but two dangerous predators working as a team have been hunting me all-my-life. Malignant narcissist sister tried to kill me twice (that’s another post) and MN mother slipped me a note - twice - that suggested I should commit suicide (that’s another post).

I’ve stayed out of reach of these two dangerous predators for 20 years and yet they still managed to stalk me and wreak havoc on my life over the phone, online and through email. Truth be told; that's the main reason I'm blogging on the subject of malignant narcissism - those two crazy bitches, and others who are exactly like them. Take it from someone who has been there: If you've been targeted by a malignant narcissist – particularly a family member – you will NEVER be safe in their sphere of influence because they will never stop trying to destroy you.

If the malignant narcissist can extract information from anyone, and I mean anyone, who is in contact with you, they will. They will create a smear campaign over the most innocuous slice of your life. For example, you tell Bob that a car rear ended you; the malignant narcissist knows that you’re in contact with Bob, and even though the malignant narcissist doesn’t have a relationship with Bob, she calls him now and again just to see if she can dig up dirt on you – that’s how brazen and predatory the malignant narcissist is. The blood thirsty malignant narcissist manages to pry this tiny tidbit of information – about a minor car collision - out of Bob. The malignant narcissist then concocts an elaborate pathology of you based on a 5 second mention of a fender bender. She spreads her work of fiction far and wide in order to generate a negative view of you in everyone’s eyes. Remember:  the malignant narcissist is ravenous; she hasn't had her supply since you went no contact; she is irritable and aggressive and is chomping at the bit to destroy you by any means possible.  

If the malignant narcissist can’t violate your mind directly, the next best thing is to dirty up other people’s minds with bad thoughts of you. This is achieved through lies, slander, false rumours, undermining, creating doubts and suspicions and by encouraging and manipulating people to withhold information and spread misinformation.

Don’t think for a second that sharing an innocent piece of information such as being in a fender bender is harmless – it isn’t. Any information about you is ammunition for the devious malignant narcissist and it will be used to attack you. That’s why it is so important to sever all lines of communication that are open to your abuser. Even if you don’t care what her cohorts and copycat abusers think, she’s still getting a power rush out of the game. And the worst part: the slimy bitch will malign you all under the pretense of “concern”. It’s enough to make you sick. She puts on a schmaltzy performance as a "caring" person; meanwhile, behind closed doors, she’s plotting your destruction. And, the brain dead 'pod-people' buy her act. What a joke! It's no surprise that narcissists surround themselves with imbeciles.

No wonder people are taking to the internet to expose the truth. Narcissistic abuse is not only an assault of a person’s human dignity; it’s a never ending cycle of re-victimization by an abuser who literally gets high and mighty through the process of your destruction. In short, narcissistic abuse is an assault on a person’s human dignity by those who have NO dignity – that is an outrage!

Malignant narcissists are disgusting, filthy, reprehensible creatures. They are violent mental and emotional rapists, and as such, they think like rapists. A rapist knows that they are dirty. They are secretly ashamed of themselves for their perversions. So, in order for the mental rapist to feel clean, they must dirty up their victim. That’s where spreading rumours, lies and slander comes in.  But we all know that slander is just projection. So, whatever LIES the vile narcissist is spreading about you, is actually the TRUTH about the narcissist.

Unfortunately, most people are easily duped into swallowing the narcissist’s load of crap. Female narcissists are masters at manipulating people through their emotions, beliefs, attitudes and perceptions. Malignant narcissist sister once said to me with a spooky giggle, "It's so easy to use the power of suggestion on Dad." Creepy, eh? There is underlying sinister intent to everything she says and does.

Another thing that people don’t get is that the narcissist needs NO reason to be hostile to their target. Normal people attack for natural motives like revenge or retaliation. Not so the narcissist. They simply attack people who possess something they want. For the narcissist believes that everything belongs to her, and if someone has a little of it, then she's not getting all of it. Pathological greed, entitlement, and covetousness are what makes the malignant narcissist a dangerous predator. They are forever out to take, keep from, destroy and besmirch whatever they can get their grimy paws on: be it your job, you home, your relationships, or your reputation.

It is sheer malevolence to want to damage the most valuable possessions of another. It is sheer malevolence to be hostile to others getting what makes them happy and feel good about themselves. And, it is beyond sick to have ill will toward people who aren’t harming you, have never harmed you, and have never threatened to harm you. Malignant narcissists are pure evil. Just look at who they target: vulnerable children, people who love them, family, and the innocent.

Convicted criminals who steal out of necessity, or shoot someone who tries to fight them off in a robbery, or commit murder out of anger or for revenge are better than the malignant narcissist. The criminal isn’t a threat to anyone else because he doesn’t go around wishing to hurt others or see harm come to them. But the malignant narcissist does - in every waking moment of her sad, sorry existence. The malignant narcissist is a pestilent, disease spreading low-life and the driving force behind her predation is insecurity, greed, entitlement and covetousness. Remember; she's not normal. She's incapable of acquiring positive attributes for herself, so she must take from others to even the score. 

The malignant narcissist's spiteful envy compels her to steal from you and she wants to make damn sure that you are severely harmed in the process.  This clandestine power game is priority number one, and all of the malignant narcissist’s energies are devoted to it.  The objective is POWER, CONTROL, and DOMINATION and she will stop at nothing to win. Causing the downfall of others gives her pleasure and victory means disempowering the target to a state of suffering and loss while aggrandizing herself. So sad, that the pathetic little narcissist must resort to such tactics but she knows no other way, she's abnormal: socially, morally, emotionally and psychologically retarded. 

However, beneath her extreme treachery, the malignant narcissist is still able to project an "image" - albeit campy and over-the-top.  So, when people don’t incite her jealous rage, she lays on the smarmy charm thick with a spoon and slyly uses those dimwits to spread vicious rumours about her victim. All the while, maintaining a false front as a well-meaning, do-gooder. Blech! That is precisely why these sickos - particularly women - can continue harming people. Why is the average person so dense? Narcissists are lousy actors.     

Malignant narcissists love their perverted sport, and they never want the game to end. It's all they have. Let's face it; their lives are sad, so very sad.  Take away the narcissist's only reason for living – to hurt others. Don’t be their play thing. Stay Far Far Away.