Category: Effects of narcissistic abuse

Narcissism and suicidal feelings

If you come from a narcissistic family of origin or have had a narcissistic partner, suicidal feelings are “normal”.  This is because you have been drip fed poison about yourself over a long period of time, interjected with acts of “kindness”.  The acts of “kindness” were performed simply to keep you doubting yourself. In reality the narcissist wants to destroy you because it gives them sadistic pleasure and makes them feel strong. They invalidate everything that you do or take credit for it themselves.  If you come from a narcissistic family of origin you will have been caught up in a system (more than one person), that has constantly devalued you.  This only adds to the confusion that you will be experiencing, one person could be wrong – but all of them?

What the narcissist is out to achieve is to murder your soul.  To attack your personality because they do not have one.  They do it by choice not by accident, they know how to behave but they choose not to (all you have to do is notice the difference in how they behave publically vs privately).  They get away with it in part because you project good intention on to them where there is none, even if we think that they are “up to something” it is our incredulity, politeness and our cultural mores that keep us stuck (such as you should respect everyone, being vulnerable and open is a “good” thing, don’t judge people and universally trust everyone until proven otherwise)

A narcissist might well speak of you in glowing terms in public and at the same time demean, humiliate and abuse you behind closed doors.  This is an inverted smear campaign designed to discredit you if you say anything about their abuse.  They are extremely paranoid and their fear of exposure makes them capable of anything, even murder.  That sounds very melodramatic but when you are dealing with someone who has no conscience there are no limits to what they will do.   They do not see you as a sentient human being, merely an object for them to feed off, provide drama and entertainment for and generally make them feel more alive inside their emptiness.  Being offensive and crippling others self-esteem just makes them feel powerful.  Another really unpleasant thing about narcissists is that the nastier you are to them the more respectful they will be to you.  So if you are abrupt and uncooperative with them they will simply see you as a bad source of narcissistic supply and move away.

No matter how strong a person is, there is no way that they could stay strong under a constant vicious, vile and sadistic attack like that.  It is no wonder that sometimes you feel filled with a sense of utter despair, unloved (and unlovable), and helpless.  The reason for this is that you were looking for love where there is none, you were told that they love you, but a narcissist notion of love is to draft someone else into their service.  The minute that doesn’t work for them, that person will be totally discarded like an empty wrapper, the only time you will hear from them again is when they want something from you.  It is not your fault that a narcissist treated you the way that they did.  In fact, it has nothing to do with you at all, it could have been anyone with a kind and trusting nature that they felt they could push around.  Knowing that does not take away the pain or scars that they have inflicted but it is a good starting point to take back ownership of your life and to become the whole and beautiful loving person that you were always intended to be.

To do this you have to do a few things:

  • Work on creating stronger boundaries
  • Realise that no one has the right to tell you who you are, what you are thinking or the motives behind an action or decision that you took
  • Realise that you are being lied to constantly with only a light dusting of truth to make their lies seem credible
  • Know that they will say bad things about you behind your back, there is nothing you can do to prevent that (they can do it about anyone) authentic people will see through their smoke and mirrors
  • It isn’t personal, it is an extension/function of their personality disorder
  • Try to remember who you were when you were a young child, before people tried to mess with your head
  • Keep a journal
  • Show compassion to yourself
  • Be careful (judge without being judgemental i.e. is this person a good fit for me, my strengths and my weaknesses) about who you let get close to you

Loneliness

 

Feeling of loneliness after no contact or even while you are still in a relationship with a narcissist can seem overwhelming at times.  You can be surrounded by people but still feel utterly alone and harboring all the raw emotional pain that goes with loneliness.

Escaping loneliness is much more difficult that you might think or that others might think it could be.  The route out of loneliness is not just a matter of buying a new dress and going to a party or joining a book club.  It creates profound psychological damage which is why narcissists are so keen on isolation as a manipulation tactic and is a self-perpetuating cage that can prove very difficult to break free from.  Loneliness distorts our perceptions and a narcissist will encourage these distorted perceptions.  So if you get invited to an event by someone the narcissist will say “So and so told me that they don’t really want you to go, they were only being polite” the reason they do this is that an isolated and lonely person who believes that people care for them a lot less than they actually do, are much easier to control.  You might feel that the toxic “relationship” is the only one that you can cling on to and if you let go you will drown.  That is exactly what the narcissist wants you to think.  You doubt our even long standing existing relationship as the narcissist tries to get into them and either deride the relationship or try to become more important than you are in that relationship.  You can often push away the very people who you could reach out to because of self-doubt and having social anxiety because you don’t know what to think or who to trust anymore.  Social encounters tend to be about the weather and finish as quickly as possible, instead of having a good old chat.  The brevity of these encounters means that connection with others is minimal. Which sends the message that you are “not interested” in talking to that person.  A lonely person’s body language and facial expression can also give off the same “stay away from me” vibe.

To break the habits around loneliness you have to be proactive, it isn’t just a phase that will pass if you don’t do anything about it.   You have to decide to take certain steps to calm the anxiety of moving out of your isolation and if you are still with a narcissist they will strongly discourage it. So, don’t tell your narcissist what you are going to do, where you are going to go or who you are going to meet. Take baby steps at first meet someone for coffee (one person at a time) instead of going to a party or a crowded club. Arrange to meet somewhere you already know with someone who you were close to in the past and haven’t seen for a while.  Remember why you enjoyed this person’s company and the things that you did together and recognise the fact that this other person probably has a very busy life too and it might not only be you.

If you feel anxious about making contact send an email or a text message with a more proactive message than “we must meet up sometime” because that means the intention is there but it might never happen, give a time scale to show that you mean it.  When you are out, smile at people, make a comment on how beautiful someone’s baby is and engage with the people around you.  After your meeting check how you feel, you will probably feel fantastic – remember that feeling and use it as encouragement to do the same again very soon.  If you slip and tell the narcissist you met someone for coffee don’t let them know that you enjoyed it.  Shrug it off and seem indifferent.

This is a hard leap to make in the beginning but once you realise what has happened, why and that your perception of how others see you has been distorted by the narrative the narcissist fed you and as a result of that, your self-imposed isolation, you can push out of your cage (at your own pace) and begin to enjoy life and other people again – you won’t regret it.

 

 

Projection

 

 

One of the most difficult things to understand in a relationship with a narcissist is their projection of their own dysfunctional behaviour on to you.  This is particularly difficult and painful if you happen to be a child of narcissistic parent(s) because before you are developmentally mature you are being told some really toxic information about who and what you are, because you “trust” your parent you believe them not realizing that they are projecting all the thing that they do not like about themselves on to a very small, vulnerable and suggestable child.  A narcissist has no boundaries so they will even consider a baby to be “bad” if they cry or won’t go to sleep.  Narcissists are not problem solvers so they will never consider why a baby is crying and what could they do to remedy the situation, they will just think that the baby is doing to annoy them and will give them their “just punishment” by ignoring them, putting them out in the garden or yelling at them (narcissistic rage).

Once that child becomes able to talk the narcissist parent will start to name call such as telling the child that they are selfish (“think of all the sacrifices I made for you”), always looking for attention (“You are so needy, will you give me some space”), a horrible child, truly ghastly child, they will threaten abandonment, call them liars (if a child dare to mention that the parent’s behavior is less than perfect (such as favouritism) the will swing around and say well “if you were nicer to me I would be nicer to you” or plain “don’t be so stupid”, or that they are a failure.  On a rational level the child knows that they did not do or are not what they are accused of being, but because they are hostage to their parent(s), there isn’t any way out. As a result the child either numbs out completely or becomes highly reactive and hyper sensitive trying to anticipate the parent(s) needs before they do.

What is actually happening here is that the narcissist cannot tolerate the feeling of shame that s/he has so they project their behavior on to you to protect their own very fragile sense of self and make you believe that it is your fault.

With regard to adult relationships the narcissist will try to make you feel like you have just found your soul mate (be it a lover or a new friend), that you have so much in common – you like the same everything from values, food, film, music, books and holiday destinations (what could possibly go wrong?).  They will put you on a pedestal and will admire everything about you in an exaggerated way.  The thing is that when you try to climb down off the pedestal, they won’t let you.  So when you admit weaknesses or vulnerability they will totally invalidate what you said because s/he needs you to be perfect to reflect/mirror their own “perfection”.  They believe that you are going to save them from themselves by being this perfect person that they have created in their heads and “make it all better”.  When they realise that you are not going to make them feel better about themselves, the mask of the false self, slips and their true damaged self emerges.  They don’t realise that feeling better about themselves cannot be sourced externally. This also is a dynamic that happens between parents and children, the parent thought that children would make them feel fulfilled and fill the emptiness that they have inside them, but the children don’t, they have their own needs (that will never be met) and therefore have failed the parent aka “bad, selfish, horrible and needy irritants.

Because you didn’t make the narcissist feel better about themselves they will consider that you just didn’t give enough admiration, money, love, attention and praise.  There are a number of manipulation tactics that they will use to “make you try harder” such as narcissistic rage, silent treatment, never appreciating anything that you do for them, name calling and gaslighting etc.  The once adoring partner/friend turns into a monster and they will go to extreme lengths to hurt you and everything about you will annoy them and will be “wrong”.  They will criticise the way you look, the way you cook they will rant and rave at the way you speak until finally you feel like you are walking on eggshells and will tip toe around them just “to keep the peace”.  It is at this stage that the person who is involved with a narcissist will deny their own self of sense of self explicitly to avoid the wrath of the narcissist for just being.  Anyone with any sense of self left will leave the relationship at this stage (and will have to acknowledge that a smear campaign will be mounted against you always – because the narcissist is never in the wrong).  This is especially hard since the abuse did not come from you and other people will not see the dynamic and like Eleanor Rigby

Waits at the window, wearing the face
That she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

With a narcissist, it is for absolutely everyone else.  The less they know a person the harder they try to keep their mask on.  So narcissists will often perform amazing acts of kindness to complete strangers and neglect and ignore their own family.

Because the narcissist cannot even consider/contemplate their own inadequacies, terrible behaviour and psychotic turns they have to make it be someone else’s fault (projection) and who better than their nearest and dearest because they can abuse behind closed doors and anyone else would just walk away (anyone who wasn’t carrying their own narcissistic childhood wounds).

A narcissist will not take responsibility for their own horrendous behaviour therefore in their mind it has to be someone else’s fault.  They can flatly deny that something happened at all or someone else “made them do it” and they absolutely do not care who they might hurt in the process.  They cannot bare the fact that they feel so empty inside, they constantly compare themselves to others which makes the insatiable gossips and are riddled with envy, jealousy and the constant need to “put other people down” either by going after a person’s reputation, making up lies or by name calling.  All of this negative activity makes them feel better than/superior to everyone else, but only in the very short term.  Inevitably it has no long term feel good feeling, they know what they are doing and it only fuels their feelings of shame and unworthiness, because they have been behaving like this since childhood, acting out comes to them on automatic pilot, they have done it before they realise what they are doing and the damage just adds to their shame which in turn has to be projected on to someone else.

One of the most confusing thing about this kind of behaviour is that a narcissist can blame someone for something when that person wasn’t even present when a situation occurred (that the narcissist refuses to take responsibility for) the narcissist will loudly claim that another was responsible and that poor unsuspecting person will be completely confused when others start to behave in a hostile way around them.  You need to realise that their projection onto you was not your fault and you were not selected because you were weak, you were selected because either you don’t know what they are saying to you behind your back or because you won’t confront them out on their amoral behaviour, you know it isn’t going to get you anywhere and will only make them even more vindictive.

Einstein said that the most dangerous people are those who believe in their own lies.  So it is with narcissists they will look you straight in the eye and tell a complete lie.  With most “normal” people you can tell if they are lying/fabricating or exaggerating too much, because they look a little uncomfortable.  Not so with the narcissist they are extremely comfortable with their lies, because if their lie backfires on them they simply flatly deny that they told it and make up another one.

In synthesis, projection is all about a narcissist blaming someone else for their own psychotic, vindictive, cruel and pathological behaviour.  It is a very immature and deceitful way to behave but at this stage I hope you realise that there is absolutely no point in expecting any other type of behaviour from a narcissist and remember once a narcissist always a narcissist if they have done it once they will do it again.  Don’t be lulled into a false sense of togetherness with a narcissist, they are only being “nice” as a means to an end.  It is only a matter of time before the mask slips again.

 

 

 

 

Emotional Abuse

  • Every time you are devalued by them, it is designed to make them feel better about themselves at your expense
  • Every time you are humiliated in front of other people it is to discredit you in the eyes of others, to weaken your support system
  • Every time your opinion is disregarded or actively attacked, it is to attack your mental well-being and trust in yourself and they are absolutely indifferent to the consequences
  • Every time they gaslight you it is an attempt to make you feel like you are irrational and are losing your mind
  • Every time they nag you until you concede to their “way of thinking” they are trying to break your spirit with a thousand cuts
  • Every threat is designed to terrorise you
  • Every sexual encounter is aimed at humiliating you
  • Every narcissistic rage is to make you fearful of more aggression
  • Every time they judge you, it is to make you feel small and insignificant
  • Every time they give you the silent treatment it is to let you know that you are not worthy of their attention
  • When they sneer at your friends and family it is to isolate you from your support system so that they can mess with your head without being challenged
  • When they blame you, they are making you take responsibility for their bad behaviours
  • When they lie to you, they are hiding their true self from you
  • When they intimidate you it is because they are completely out of control themselves so that they have to control another person to make themselves feel stable (when they are anything but)
  • When they interrogate you, they want to make sure that you are not up to all of the dubious activities that they are indulging in
  • When they forget stuff or rewrite history, they are denying you and your memories/your reality
  • When they are passive aggressive it is another ploy to make you question your intuition and rational thinking
  • When they tell you that no one could love you as much as they do, they want to imply that you are “unlovable”, but since a narcissist has no idea of what love is…

Ignoring

  • This is when a parent does not respond to their infant’s/child’s needs, or a partner does not recognise the needs of their other half. This can take the form of
  • Failure to acknowledge significant events (birthdays, graduations, job promotion)
  • Lack of attention to interests
  • Planning activities for child/partner without their consent
  • Trying to force child/partner into inappropriate role as care giver
  • Denying health issues
  • Sneering at friends
  • Physical abandonment
  • Not letting the other person make decisions about their own life
  • Being rude to visitors so that they stop calling
  • Complaining about time spent with other people

Rejection

  • Constant criticism
  • Shouting at the child\partner
  • Name calling
  • Deliberate humiliation
  • “Joking” about weaknesses/insecurities
  • Inappropriate age appropriate treatment of child/adult
  • Pulling back if “other” offers appropriate signs of physical contact or affection, so that if you go to kiss them they will physically pull away from their partner/child
  • Body shaming – too something fat/thin/short/tall/grey haired/
  • Physical abandonment – not taking care of their partner/child when they are physically sick or for example letting their teenage walk home at night alone because they can’t be bothered to collect her after a party

Frightening

  • Teasing to the point of total humiliation
  • Verbal abuse
  • Threatening abandonment – either divorce or leaving a child behind somewhere unknown to them
  • Destroying precious personal objects

Isolating

  • Telling a child/partner who they can be friends with
  • Limiting the interaction with other people
  • Sneering at friends that they don’t like/threaten them
  • Not allowing social interaction with peer/interest groups
  • Being overtly rude or hostile to visitors to the point that they feel uncomfortable and stop visiting

Exploiting

  • Giving a child responsibility that are age inappropriate such as minding younger siblings, taking care of parents emotional needs or doing too much house work
  • Giving a child jobs that are too demanding and stressful for them
  • Excessive demands of money from partner/child
  • Refusal to participate in the “shared” responsibilities in the relationship
  • Making excessive demands on a child’s/partner’s free time
  • Offering child’s/partner’s time and energy to a third party without asking
  • Giving child’s/partner’s things to a third party to make the narcissist look generous
  • Refusal to listen to what the child/partner says
  • Demanding that their partner earns more money and then complain that they are never at home
  • Over spending of partner’s money without consent
  • Applying for jobs in other places without discussing it with their partner
  • Arranging holidays without consulting their partner

 

 

Golden Child

The narcissistic parent(s) have one or more favourites in their family unit and these are called the golden child(ren).  This child can do no wrong will be highly protected and cossetted and decidedly more cherished and praised than the other off spring.  They will always receive the bulk of the resources within the family, such as food, attention/affection, respect/privileges and often the vast bulk of any inheritance.  The golden child will be protected so long as they do exactly as the narcissist parent wants (these wants will very often not be vocalised, so the golden child will be constantly on high alert looking for subtle cues that will alert them to what they “should be doing”).  The constant threat of demotion, makes that child hyper vigilant of the activities of his siblings and will often act as a go between for the parents needs to ensure that every member of the family is putting the parents needs before their own.  This is called trauma bonding, the golden child can see how the other siblings are treated and will do anything s/he is asked (told) to do to maintain their privileged status.

The parent will also insist that all other members of the family take care of the golden child’s needs and do nothing to upset them.  This could be anything from getting into an argument or out-shining them in any way (at school/sport/career/seeming to be more popular etc.).

The way the golden child pays the narcissist parent back (as a narcissist never does anything that does not have a personal gain) is to protect the parent’s reputation at all times.  Totally discrediting any criticism that might be levelled at her/him and will attack any sibling that might have the audacity to voice some negative feeling towards them.  The parent will encourage this hostility between the siblings because it makes them easier to control and means that they will not gang up on them.

The golden child will have inherited privilege and attention, but they know that they have not earned it.  Often it is because they are simply the first male child in the family who has shown no special talents but they have been elevated into a position of privilege because of their gender.  This makes the golden child extremely defensive and aggressive about protecting his/her realm.  At the same time, they have an external veneer of entitlement but their behaviour belies their confidence.  If challenged for example they can be reduced to tears, have a temper tantrum or storm off.

Being a golden child often makes the cossetted child morally corrupt as they think that everything is their birth right, they are quite capable of stealing, fraud and infidelity.  The parent who favours the golden child  will continue to protect them with a completely exaggerated ferocity right into adulthood and probably until the day that they die.

 

Bad babies

Narcissistic mothers can label their babies as being “bad”.  The reason for this is because the narcissistic mother will not give the emotional support that a baby needs this will make the baby feel very unsafe and might cry a lot to try to get their mother to respond to them in a loving and caring way.  The fact that the baby is crying a lot of the time annoys the mother because she thinks that it makes her “look like a bad mother” and she will blame the baby rather than try to understand what the baby needs.

She will not look at her baby and see a little bundle of joy and innocence reaching out to have their needs met in the only way they know (by crying), she will project intention on to the baby and think to herself that they are only crying to “make her feel guilty”.  There are other reasons why a narcissistic mother thinks her baby is bad:

  • She will see the baby “competing” with her for attention
  • She will resent the lack of sleep
  • She will feel that the baby is taking her for granted
  • She will resent the routines like feeding, nappy changing and bedtimes
  • She will see illness of any sort as a form of bad behviour and to annoy/make her feel guilty
  • Narcissist are all about their needs and to have to focus on her baby is an exhausting and tiresome investment of time, energy and effort. It is also relentless the baby has needs every single day and cannot be put in the toy box when she gets bored with it.
  • She also has to spend a lot of energy into training the baby that her needs come first, and that any deviation from this attention will be punishable. To do this she has to intimidate, break the will, brainwash, bully and silence her baby.
  • The narcissistic mother can often breast feed for too long because having a baby feed from her provides comfort to the mother and it means that the baby is more dependent on her. It also means that the baby is less able to self soothe and therefore remains almost exclusively focused on the mother.  Breast feeding for too long also makes the baby easier to control because the mother can threaten abandonment and no mother = no food and is therefore a death threat which in turn will make the baby very, very reactive to the mothers needs and demands.