Malignant Narcissist Father: Human Extension, Soul Destroyer, Cause of Mental Illness

I saw Shine when it was released theatrically back in 1996, and to this day, I never forgot the final line of the film.

Standing over his malignant narcissist father’s grave, David is asked by his wife, “What do you feel?”

He answers, “The thing is. I feel nothing.”

When I saw Shine, it had been about six year since I last saw my malignant narcissist mother, and I knew I would never see her again.  Her toxic anger that she had projected into me was slowly dissipating. My body no longer reverberated at the very thought of her.  I knew that time would eventually heal me and release her Demon for good. All I had to do was to stay away from her - forever.  I was starting to “feel nothing.”  I pictured myself standing over her grave and reciting the line from the movie.

I didn’t know what malignant narcissism was when I saw Shine.  All I knew is that I identified with the story. When I saw the film it enraged me.  I wanted to stick my hands in the movie screen and strangled the father.  However, when I watched it recently, I saw it as a very hopeful film; almost triumphant.  As fragile as David was, he made the decision to escape enslavement of his abusive father and ultimately found acceptance, real love and a real family.  Never underestimate the strength of the non-narcissist child’s soul. The poster of a liberated David says it all.

The story of David Helfgott’s relationship with his father is a very good example of a malignant narcissist parent as “human extension,” “soul destroyer,” and “the cause of mental illness.”

The film opens with an adult David’s first intelligible ramblings being, “It’s a lifelong struggle to survive undamaged and not to destroy any living, breathing creature. The point is, if you do something wrong you can be punished for the rest of your life.”

What David is referring to in “doing something wrong” is making the decision to defy his father and go to The Royal College of Music in London. This reminds me of Conrad, who in the film Ordinary People,  says to his psychiatrist, “You just do one wrong thing.” The “one wrong thing” being surviving the boating accident while his brother, “the golden boy” drowned.  here

Conrad is tormented with guilt because he exists. His reaction coincides with the malignant narcissist mother’s mantra: “You have no right to live!”

David is tormented because he salvaged his self. His reaction coincides with the malignant narcissist parent as human extension: denying the child a right to a self.

The film Shine jumps back and forth from young David, to adult David, and teenage David. We see David as a young piano prodigy wowing the crowd while he plays at a music competition. A man remarks, “That boy is great. He’s really good.” David’s father proudly replies, “That’s my son.”    

Early on we find out that David’s father was a victim of his own narcissist father and has carried on the family pathology. When he was young he saved up enough money to buy a violin and his father smashed it, and denied him music lessons. Throughout the story he tries to make up for his childhood deprivation visa vie exploiting and sacrficing David. Sadly, he never transcended his relationship with his own malignant narcissist father; he merely survived it by becoming evil himself.

David’s father is a ruthless tyrant who tells him, “Always win. Always win. You’re a lucky boy. Say it, very lucky. One day you will make me very proud. Next time what are we going to do? We are going to win.”  

When David wins a prestigious music competition, his father shouts, “We won! We won!” The use of the word “we” indicating that his father doesn’t see his son as separate from himself. Also, he always refers to David as my David which indicates ownership.

When David gets an invitation to study at America’s finest music school his Father in enraged. Although he drives his son to succeed, he is spitefully envious at the attention he receives. He wants David to succeed but on his terms: he does not want David to separate from him and lead his own life.

The narcissist father is self-absorbed and his feelings, needs and wants are the most important thing. What’s right for his son, what’s best for his son is insignificant. He continually undermines David's development as a person because it threatens him.

He denies David the opportunity to go to America telling him, “You are lucky to have a family. I won’t let anyone destroy this family. I am your father and I know what’s best.” David’s father says to his wife, “What has he suffered? Never a day in his life. What does he know about families and my mother and father?”

David’s father constantly pulls the “family” guilt card on him. First, by making David pay for the abuse inflicted on him by his narcissist parent, and next by laying claim to David’s soul. “Family” simply means ownership to a narcissist. His father rules the roost and everyone revolves around him. His wife is nothing more than a voiceless slave and his daughters are just pieces of furniture.

David’s father terrorizes him and uses fear to control him and this manifests in David lacking self- confidence and being an incredibly anxious teen that still wets his bed. However, despite David’s fragile state, he is noticeably angry at his father's refusal to let him study piano in America. What follows is a disturbing scene of emotional incest where David’s father cuddles him and says, “David my Boy, it’s a terrible thing to hate your father. You can’t trust anyone, but I will always be here. I will always be with you forever and ever.”

When it comes to the malignant narcissist; a child's healthy reaction of anger to unjust treatment is perceived as hatred toward the offending parent. Naturally, it's always about the poor, hard done by narcissist. The child's assertion of their self-worth makes them feel bad. 

Also, with a narcissist parent there is perverse, engulfing, manipulative “love” to perverse, controlling hatred and abuse. There really is no in between: it goes from one extreme to the other which indicates that their idea of “love” is merely control and manipulation. And, should you fail to follow their script to the letter, apparently you "hate" them. The child's total compliance and absolute obedience means loves; any assertion of will, independence, or self, means hate.  The narcissist parent's emotional level remains in a perpetual state of infancy.

David eventually receives a scholarship to attend the prestigious Royal College of Music in London and this accomplishment incites his father’s jealous rage. He laughs at David and says to him, “So you just think you can do as you please? I am your father who has done everything for you!” He then beats David.

“So you just think you can do as you please?!”

Now this is a very familiar line. I was accepted into a special programme in high school that malignant narcissist mother continually lorded over me.  She constantly threatened to deny me of the opportunity. Some seven years after high school, she screamed over the phone, “You get to do whatever the hell you want!” I asked her what she meant, and she screamed, “You wanted to be in that programme in high school and you got to be in that programme!”

That was the last time I ever spoke to malignant narcissist mother. It was clear that not only was she insane but that she would forever remain bitter, spiteful and envious of my claim to a right to a life.  Needless to say, she abandoned her family - without a trace - during my year in that high school programme.

Behold; the perverse hypocrisy of the malignant narcissist parent: they abandon their parental responsibilities; no one, and I mean no one, takes them to task for the unconscionable act; and in their sick mind, the child "gets to do whatever the hell they want!" Hmm, projection much? The words: "Bat Shit Crazy" come to mind.

Back to David… His father tells him, if he goes to London, “You can never come back to this house again. You will be nobody’s son. The girls will lose a brother. You want to destroy your family?!  My David, if you go, you will be punished for the rest of your life!”

David claims his self and walks out the door. Hurrah!!

Again, I have heard this exact line, “If you leave now, you can never come back!”

Translation: I am a malignant narcissist parent, and you belong to me!  How dare you live a life of your own! My dreams were smashed and now I'm going to smash yours! Don’t you understand what family means?! It means ownership! You belong to me! If you refuse to relinquish your soul to me, you will be cast out into the world with nothing and no one. I will destroy you!

Early in the film an adult David mutters in one of his incoherent ramblings, “Perhaps, I haven’t got a soul? Daddy says, I haven’t got a soul.” Well, Daddy tried to sacrifice his son's soul in an effort to preserve his own narcissistic delusions.

The malignant narcissist parent is perversely willful. They ruthlessly pursue having their own way, all-the-time.  Absolute control is priority number one. Never think for a second that “the chosen one” has it good. For beneath the surface, they are but an empty, soulless puppet hanging by the strings of a controlling narcissist parent. They get what they deserve – psychological enslavement.

The malignant narcissist parent is insanely defensive and if you defy them in any way they will explode in fury, threaten, storm, rage and destroy. Taking ownership of your own life provokes their wrath. They are rendered impotent by a child who exercises their right to self-preservation. further, their bitterness over the child's "perceived" defiance eats away at them like a cancer.

So, David walks out the door and heads to London. The next scene shows his dad “vaporizing” him, a la George Orwell’s 1984. He sets fire to all of David’s scrap books, articles, and keepsakes. This also happened to me. I too was “vaporized” by malignant narcissist mother.

In London, David begins to shown signs of mental illness. He sends his father letters but his father doesn’t respond. During an intense recital he has a mental breakdown and is hospitalized and given shock treatment. He returns to Australia and telephones his father who hangs-up on him.

The malignant narcissist parent is callously indifferent to the child's welfare. They don't care at all if the child is sick, well, alive, or dead. The fact that David is all alone, ill, and homeless is insignificant. His father's only concern is winning the war he has waged on his son's soul.

The child is always better of without the malignant narcissist parent in their life. Had David's father allowed him back into the inner sanctum, he would have destroyed David completely.

We then see David living an adult life in a psychiatric hospital. It is never clear what mental illness he suffers from. He is described as having a complex disorder, and living in his own world. It is clear that all his nonsensical ramblings are all about his father’s destruction of him.  In the hospital, he rambles, “It was a battle ground. A war zone. It just destroys everything. It really does.”

It seems David’s father actually got so far into his head that he took over his thoughts to the point of mental illness. Shock therapy – that was administered to David – is about erasing memories; wiping the slate clean if you will. Obviously, shock did no good in getting David’s father out of his head.

So, David survives in the world, battling the ever present demons of his father’s abuse but eventually through the kindness of strangers finds acceptance for who he is, as well as love, and family.  He befriends a woman who owns a local restaurant, plays the piano for her patrons and eventually marries her good friend. A newspaper article is written about him: “David Shines. Remembering when…” His father reads the article and goes in search of his estranged son.

He arrives at David’s apartment and tells him, “You are a lucky boy David. No one will love you like me, no one. Do you realize what an opportunity you have here? When I was a boy, I bought a beautiful violin, I saved for this violin. Do you know what happened to it?” David is repelled and turns his back to his father. He pauses, realizing that his father has not changed, and he replies, “No. I have no idea what happened to it. What happened to it?” With that, David's father realizes he no longer has control over his son and walks out the door. David watches from his window as his father disappears into the night.

It’s a subtle, yet powerful scene of an adult child of a narcissist taking a stand and not giving in to the repetitive brain washing pattern of the abusive parent. By refusing to acknowledge his father’s violin story, David was letting him know that that chapter is over, and he had moved on. However, David’s narcissist father had not moved on. Indeed, he was forever stuck in the past, as most malignant narcissist parents are. They never change, they never grow as people, and they never get over that moment when a child "defies" them. In some kind of ironic twist of justice, the child’s exertion of independence ends up controlling them for the rest of their lives.

And so, David finds redemption. He embraces his passion for music and creates a loving family for himself.

And as the film draws to a close he says;

“I am here. And life goes on and you just have to keep on going. You can’t give-up.”

Malignant Narcissist Parent as Soul Stalker

According to Law: 

Criminal harassment, more commonly known as STALKING, is a crime. Generally, it consists of repeated conduct that is carried out over a period of time which causes you to reasonably fear for your safety (mental, emotional, psychological, physical).

Individuals who stalk may possess one or more various psychological conditions, from personality disorders to mental illness. Most individuals who stalk are engaging in obsessional behaviour. They have persistent thoughts and ideas concerning the objects of their attention.

According to Dr. Frank Ochberg, Harvard trained MD and trauma expert:

The victim of a narcissist is traumatized. There are biochemical changes in the body and structural changes in the brain. Thought patterns change, memories are lost, immune system strongly affected, brain cells die, there is chest pain, muscle pain, feelings are intense and emotions are chaotic.

According to malignant narcissists:

"Why the the hell should we have to act a certain way?! Hurting and humiliating others makes us feel good. Why can’t you just obey us and let us have our drug?!”

Every malignant narcissist I’ve known is EVIL, and every malignant narcissist I’ve known is a STALKER, and every malignant narcissist I’ve known should have a police record. If it was a different kind of world; I would sue their asses and slap them with the label they are so richly deserving of - CRIMINAL.

SOUL MURDER does not happen overnight: it is an unrelenting pattern of criminal behaviour involving the stalking and systematic destruction of the victim’s soul - a person's essence. In the case of malignant narcissist parents; it’s a lifelong pattern of abuse committed against a child.  

Malignant narcissist parents are very patient and very persistent in their quest to gradually insinuate their influence on a child’s thinking so that they may gain control of the child’s life and destroy it. In fact, they will do whatever it takes to create a false bond just to gain entry.  Keep that in mind if you have given a malignant narcissist parent the old heave ho and they are trying to slither their way back into your life – they will do anything or say anything to trick you into believing that there is a bond so that they can access your soul for destruction. Think of them as a Trojan Horse that will intrude and invade your inner life with bad thoughts.

Malignant narcissists sell a piece of their soul with every evil choice they make so by the time they reach adulthood they are soulless creatures - COMPLETELY EMPTY.  Since they lack a soul, they want to make sure that others are without one. And, there is no better ‘other’ to target than a child: as the purity of a child’s virtues puts them to shame. Further, the high they get from hurting an innocent child is a hell of a lot more intense than the one they would get from targeting a world-weary adult. This is why malignant narcissists stalk their own children; that and easy access.

Malignant narcissist parents also stalk their children’s souls in order to be human extensions - to live vicariously through them. Either way; the malignant narcissist parent gains in the transaction of the child's soul. They drain the child (kill life in the child), and leave them hollow (without a self) so that they can fill the child with themselves: be it as a dumping ground for their own toxic waste; or as a vessel to live their narcissistic fantasies through.

A few years ago I read a book by Marie-France Hirigoyen called Stalking the Soul: Emotional Abuse and the Erosion of Identity.  I found the book validating. The writer has a very compassionate approach toward the victim of narcissistic abuse/soul murder, and for the most part, does not attempt to get inside the victim’s head – she gives them the respect they deserve. Instead, Hirigoyen focuses on the abuser and looks at what may be going on in their sick minds.

As I read Stalking the Soul, I took point form notes of all the parts that helped me. So, In an effort to treat the soul stalking, soul murdering malignant narcissist as the pestilent, parasitic piece of shit that it is: I’ve decided to fire off an exhaustive summary of Stalking the Soul and weave in some quotes from M. Scott Peck’s, People of The Lie – that way we can invade the malignant narcissist's head space, and take a look at what's going on behind the vacant stare.

Soul Stalking - Soul Murder:

This lack of love in certain families, is a systematic destruction that batters a child and makes them want to die, it’s not simply an absence of love but an organized violence that the child not only endures but internalizes, to the point where he shifts the violence exerted upon him into self-destructive behaviour. (Stalking the Soul)

Evil people, refusing to acknowledge their own failures, actually desire to project their evil onto others, it is no wonder that children will misinterpret the process by hating themselves.

If evil people cannot be defined by the illegality of their deeds or magnitude of their sins, then how are we to define them? The answer is by the persistence and consistency of their sins. While usually subtle, their destructiveness is remarkably consistent. (People of The Lie)

Victims become dangerous adversaries when they begin to articulate what they have intuitively understood. The abuser then must SILENCE the victim.

Outright hostility later replaces ill will or malevolence if the victim reacts and tries to rebel. This is the phase of emotional abuse that has been called “psychoterror.” At this stage, any means or methods will be used, sometimes including psychical violence to destroy the designated victim. (Stalking the Soul)

Instead of destroying others they should be destroying the sickness in themselves. As life often threatens their self-image of perfection, evil people are often busily engaged in destroying and hating that life. (People of The Lie) 

The Malignant Narcissist as Stalker:

Stalking the Soul -

• They have not matured and come into their own and they jealously observe those who have. Faced with their own emptiness, they try to destroy the happiness around them.
• Prisoners of their own inflexible defense system, they can’t bear to see freedom in others. Unable to physically let go and enjoy themselves, they attempt to prevent others from natural pleasures.
• They undermine simple relationships because of their inability to love.
• Abusive narcissists need to triumph over and annihilate others in order to feel superior and accept themselves. They must destroy to find affirmation.
• Their critical sense is highly developed, so they spend a lot of time criticising everyone and everything; this allows them to feel all powerful.
• Their driving force in envy and their objective is taking over. To envy is to covet and to feel spiteful irritation at the sight of the happiness and the advantages of other people. We are dealing with an abusive mentality based on a perception of what the other possesses and they lack. The envious one is sick to see the other with material or spiritual benefits but he is more anxious to destroy than to acquire them for if they were his, he wouldn’t know what to do with them. Humiliating and disparaging the others suffices to make up the difference.
• What abusers envy most is the other’s life. They want to dampen the vitality and enthusiasm of the people around them. Their deficiencies are shown up by the desires and vitality of the other. This is why abusers often chose as their victims people full of energy and love of life.

The evil attack others instead of facing their own failures. Spiritual growth requires the acknowledgement of one’s need to grow. If we cannot make that acknowledgement, we have no option except to eradicate the evidence of our imperfection. (People of The Lie)

The Malignant Narcissist’s Denial of Responsibility:

It is not their sins per se that characterize evil people; rather it is the subtlety and persistence and consistency of their sins. This is because the central defect of the evil is not the sin but the refusal to acknowledge it. (People of The Lie)

Stalking the Soul -

• Because they have no real subjectivity abusers consider themselves not responsible. They are as absent to others as they are to themselves. They’re never there for you. They aren’t even there for themselves. Abusers constantly deny reality, down to minute incidents of daily life.
• Stalking and attacking others is a means of avoiding pain, sadness and depression.
• Because they are not completely autonomous and are dependent on others, they stick close to people and fear separation. They refuse to acknowledge the devouring nature of their “clingy” behaviour which could lead to a negative perception of their own image – this explains their abusive conduct toward an overly kind and solicitous person.
• Because they feel impotent, abusers fear the power they imagine others to have. They therefore ascribe to them, in an almost delirious and crazy sense, a malice that is only a projection of their own malevolence.
• With the hatred projected onto a target (that soon becomes prey) it calms inner tension; this allows the emotional abuser to act pleasantly in the outside world.
• This explains the astonishment, or even denial, of people who learn about the abusive actions of a close relation who had previously only shown his positive aspect. 
• The evidence of the victim, seen in this light, hardly seems credible.

So there you have it – a peek inside the head space of the malignant narcissist. When I read this for the first time I felt mildly vindicated because the information confirmed what I had already intuitively sensed: that the world of the malignant narcissist is incredibly bleak.  Though, I would never pity them because they always appear to be doing just fine.

In People of The Lie, Peck touches on this “appearance”.

Who is to say what the evil suffer? It is consistently true that evil do not appear to suffer deeply. Because they cannot admit weakness or imperfection in themselves, they must appear this way. They must appear to themselves to be continually in command. Their narcissism demands it. Yet we know that they are not truly on top of things. Their appearance of competence is just that: an appearance. A pretence. Rather than being in command of themselves, it is their narcissism that is in command, always demanding, whipping them into maintaining the pretence of perfect health and wholeness.

The narcissists I've known always have made a show of how productive and busy they think they are. They also like to pathologize everyone around them while claiming to be high functioning. In fact, the sicker the narcissist, the thicker they lay on the pretence of health and wholeness. It’s rather satisfying to know that they are slaves to their narcissism.  No wonder they hate life and love in others - life and love equal freedom and they are prisoners of their pathology.

As Peck writes:

While evil people are still to be feared, they are also to be pitied. Forever fleeing the light of self-exposure and the voice of their own conscience, they are the most frightened of human beings. They live their lives in sheer terror. They need not be consigned to any hell; they are already in it.

This is something I try and remember. I have heard the terror and panic in the voice of a malignant narcissist who found out there was a witness to her crimes. I watched as she scrambled to pull off the most elaborate post-abuse cover-up, worthy of a Hitchcockian thriller. She telephoned people she had never even met and spread vicious rumours and lies about her victim in an effort to bury her crimes. Her main concern was NOT the evil deeds she had committed, but what complete strangers might find out about her behavior - for behavior always reflects a person's true character. 

I have seen proof positive that malignant narcissists are“the most frightened of human beings.” They are completely paranoid, not only by what their wisp of a conscience may reveal to them about themselves, but by what others will think of them. The live in holy terror of their narcissistic image being smashed to smithereens. It's as if the loss of their false self would kill them, for they don't have a true self. 

The evil are pathologically attached to the status quo of their personalities, which in their narcissism they consciously regard as perfect. I think it is quite possible that the evil may perceive even a small degree of change in their beloved selves as representing total annihilation. In this sense. the threat of criticism may feel to one who is evil synonymous with the threat of extinction. --- Ernest Becker, Escape from Evil.

When it comes right down to it; malignant narcissists are the weakest, most cowardly and most petrified creatures on the face of the earth. Once they know that you’re not intimidated by them, and that you’re on to them, and that they haven't snuffed-out the fight in you, they live in sheer terror of you… and that to me is a little piece of justice because they should be afraid - the victim holds the power of EXPOSING THE TRUTH.

Who's in control now narcs?!