Month: July 2018

Talking to children

 

 

Most parents know that talking to their children is vital for their emotional and intellectual development, however, there are very different ways of talking to your children.  They basically fall into 3 groups:

Talking to them

Talking at them

Having a conversation with them

The favourite way of the narcissist is talking “at” their child.  This way they do not invite an interaction or give space for their child to hold an opinion that in any way contradicts their own or to express any individuality/independence.  We know that narcissists are very competitive and so they will often use language that is too complex for the stage of development of their child.  This is so that they can feel “better” than their child by confusing them with age inappropriate language.

An MIT study has shown that children from wealthy families hear far more words than those from poor families.  However, it is not the amount of words that a child hears that is important it is how they hear them that matters.  What matters is “conversation” speak a little and listen a lot, this has been proven to be crucial factor in their ability later on in life for inter human relationships and their ability to socialize make friends and create firm and fulfilling relationships.

The number of words that a parent had didn’t seem to matter at all to the brain development of a child, it was how those words were delivered that was crucial. It was the back and forth delivery that mattered, when a child is allowed to converse with their parents, that child feels heard and this has a huge impact on how their brain develops so as a result it also has an impact on how the child feels about themselves – self-esteem, confidence both personally and socially.  The more a child feels listened to, the more confident in themselves they are.  This has a huge impact on a child in later life as it has a massive impact on their happiness and success.

But that is not where it ends, because having a back and forward chat with your child also helps them to understand what other people are trying to say, which is very different from just listening and as such helps to develop their empathy and in return will help them to develop healthy relationship all through their lives.  This is not just an inter human relationship because it also relates to their relationship with inanimate things which translate into addictions of one sort or another whether it be drugs, shopping, working or fitness.  They are all counter intuitive for healthy inter personal behaviours, if a child does not feel that they are heard for who they or and they do not have a voice they will look for solace somewhere else, somewhere “less dangerous” where they feel “legitimate”.

This is an example of how and why a narcissist parent starves their child of freedom of expression and the consequences of such a loveless “parent”.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

Intimacy with a partner

Intimacy with a narcissist

  • Narcissists prefer second hand relationships, where they can feign intimacy with another person because they have harvested information about them through a third party, but they don’t actually have to have any direct contact.With a narcissist it is always all about drama and in this way, they feel involved but do not feel like they are “under scrutiny/threat” like they would do if they had a genuinely intimate relationship.
  • This “scrutiny” manifests itself as a potential risk to the narcissist as they interpret it as them being judged which could pose a potential threat as the person might not admire/like them or might expose them in some way, other than the image of themselves that they want to project. Which could be seen as narcissistic injury, and can create fear of abandonment or narcissistic rage.
  • There is also the risk that the narcissist could be held accountable for their behaviour and that would be unacceptable and another threat to them.
  • If you have grown up in a narcissistic family of origin, it might well be that it will be very easy for a narcissistic partner to shame you and the easier it will be for them to attack you and the harder you find it to be to defend yourself against their emotional attacks. If you are vulnerable with a narcissist they will be constantly harvesting information to use against you and the more vulnerability or sensitivity you show the more aggressive their attacks will be.  This might cause an emotional flashback and make you want to pull back into your shell (remember that narcissists are cowards and the more they feel they have upset you, the stronger the attack will be)

The more “intimate” you get with a narcissist the colder and more aloof they will get.  This is because they see intimacy as an attack and will start to be abusive to keep you at arms-length, this can happen in three ways:

  • By attacking you directly by using various forms of verbal and other types of abuse
  • By comparing you negatively either directly or by insinuation to other people
  • By moving into a state of emotional unavailability and disassociation after a period of being very keen. They will deny your emotional needs and will tell you how you should or should not feel and will not tell you how they feel themselves – so there are absolutely no foundations in the relationship with which you can work on.
  • The expression “familiarity breeds contempt” is very appropriate here, as the more the narcissist feels like they have “hooked” you, the less effort they make. You are no longer a valued audience and so they will drop the pretence of their projected image and show up for who they really are.
  • Another way that they will avoid intimacy is to put their potential new friend or partner (you) up on a pedestal (in the beginning) and they will categorically deny you any vulnerabilities or flaws and so they will not let you climb down from the limb that they have placed you. This is a very effective tool to avoid intimacy because it manifests itself as admiration but it is really just a means of blocking any emotional connection.

What “normal” intimacy looks like:

  • Your partner does not constantly and consistently lie to you.
  • Your partner can discuss issues in rational terms and not react in instant rage, change the subject or storm off in a huff over something minor.
  • Your partner will listen to your point of view without viewing it as an attack and will aim to come to some sort of mutual agreement.
  • Your partner will not start to slander you in the middle of a discussion.
  • Your partner will consider your emotional and practical needs and will try to support you.
  • Your partner will take responsibility for their actions and behaviour and will make a sincere apology if they have hurt or offend you.
  • Your partner does not try to get revenge if they feel that you have injured them in some way.
  • Your partner will have the ability to ask you for what they need in a clear, honest and direct manner. No “guess what I am feeling” games.
  • Your partner is actively engaged in creating a loving, caring and healthy relationship.
  • Your partner cares about your physical and mental well-being and would not use either any of your vulnerabilities as a whip to hit you with.

 

 

Sex with a narcissist

Sex with a narcissist

Sex with a narcissist is a very “strange” experience.  Narcissists are as true to their disorder in sex as they are in every other aspect of their lives.  It is just another tool that they employ for manipulation and control.

Intimacy with a narcissist does not exist, they are unable to empathise, feel compassion or genuinely love another person so intimacy is only mimicked or completely lacking.  In fact, they see genuine attempts at intimacy from their partners as a form of attack and will recoil from it and then as always when a narcissist feels under attack they will attack back with some lame reason such as “you are so needy” or “why are you always so demanding, you have spoiled the moment” and decide not to have sex after all.  When a narcissist engages in sexual activity they are either making love to themselves, which comes in the forms of using another’s body to masturbate or using another’s body to impress themselves on their own sexual prowess.  The narcissist does not fulfil or feel any need to fulfil their partners needs or desires.  Both male and female narcissists use sex as a means of getting attention and control.

Basically narcissists have three types of sexual behaviour

  • Hyper-sexuality
  • Flushes hot and cold
  • Frigid/no interest

Narcissists are control freaks, seducing someone for them is a game that they just won and a means of exerting their power over their partner.  There are no genuine feelings or sentiments, for them it literally is a conquest, the harder that conquest is the more they enjoy it and the more that they have won “that game”.  To a narcissist the person with whom s/he is having sex with is nothing more than an object, they are acting out a game in their head, there is no commitment, no intimacy and no desire to pleasure their partner (that is not what they are there for). The narcissist has a very shallow personality and only live for attention and admiration of others, but does not feel compelled to reciprocate in anyway, even on a superficial level, only as a means to an end.

To a narcissist sex is not about expressing love, lust, intimacy passion or mutual pleasure, it is a lure to get their prey into a relationship with them, promising amazing passionate sex.  However, since sex for them is exclusively about control and power, they will expect you to ‘prove’ yourself.  Nothing you do will be “nice enough”, “good enough” nor will you ever be able to “do enough” to be able to feed their insatiable desire for attention and self-gratification.  Even if that attention is trying to get the narcissist to “engage” in an intimate way.

Sex for narcissists is a contractual thing.  A give to get arrangement the provision of something they want for themselves.

Narcissists will very often use shame with sex, this again is a controlling mechanism.  So the narcissist may accuse you of being a nymphomaniac, a pervert or a prude.  It doesn’t matter to them so long as you feel uncomfortable.  They can ridicule you, but they will love telling their partners all about their own sexual past and will let their partner know that he or she will never measure up to their previous/other lovers.  They only ever has sex when they want it.  If the partner does not want sex the narcissist will accuse the partner of not loving them, of being unfaithful or frigid/prude.  Sex to the narcissist is merely a tool, devoid of all emotion or authenticity.

Narcissists do not show expressions of love, kindness, tenderness, intimacy or playfulness out of the bedroom and they don’t show it during sex either.  They can fake some of it to maintain control but it is merely a decoy for their abusive behaviours.

If a narcissist is under sexed they will blame the partner saying that they are not sexy enough to turn them on.  If they are over sexed they will blame their partner and say that there is something wrong with them for not being able to keep up with them and imply or say directly that they might need to look elsewhere to satiate their needs and say that their partner is up tight or they might imply that they are so good in bed that it is a talent that is too good not to share.

As a narcissists can oscillate between calling his/her partner a whore or frigid, eventually sex becomes an angst ridden experience for the partner and not at all pleasurable so that the partner may well not want to indulge in the narcissists power games and name calling during “intimate” moments.  Then the narcissist will feel validated in calling them prudish and will not hesitate to point it out usually in a sneering/mocking way.

A narcissist might constantly reference previous partners (real or imaginary) and will do a running compare and contrast commentary – this is not normal in a healthy relationship especially if they use it to discredit you.  They might even comment on past relationships that their partner might have had, and openly deride them for their previous relationships, even if they have never met the partners in question.

Out of the bedroom a narcissist will be the opposite of “touchy feely”, in general they do not like to be touched and have a wide personal space so there will not be much cuddling or caressing.  A narcissist might say “give me a hug”, and that is what they mean, somehow even hugs are not reciprocated, they are taking a hug from you.  If you offer an unsolicited kiss on the cheek, they may well pull back as though you were about to do something nasty, and probably in the mind of the narcissist you were.

WHAT A REAL LOVING RELATIONSHIP LOOKS LIKE 

A loving relationship consists of the following basic elements

  • Trust
  • Intimacy
  • Vulnerability
  • Empathy
  • Respect

Not necessarily in that order.

Trustmeans that you trust your partner to accept you as you are, have your best interests at heart and will not deliberately hurt you. Trust means that you do not feel like you have to guard your back when you are with your partner and you can be open and frank about who you are, your weaknesses and strengths and that what you say to your partner will not be used against you at some later date.

(Narcissists do not trust anyone.  They believe that everyone else is like them and thinks that others are always trying to take advantage, just like they do.  They project their view of the world onto others and this helps them to justify their thoughts and actions)

Intimacyin a relationship is about sharing your feelings and thoughts both good and bad, your faults and insecurities as well as your strong points.  It is about being physically and emotionally close to one another.

(Narcissists see intimacy as an attack on their false persona and will not let anyone get that close. They will attack back so that their partner feels unsafe, guarded and insecure).  Narcissists do not know what they think or feel most of the time, for them attack is the best defence.

Vulnerabilitymeans that someone takes a risk to expose their true self, take off any masks and be open and honest with someone else.

(Narcissists find it impossible to be vulnerable because they have spent a lifetime building up a false persona with a very rigid exterior and to be vulnerable would mean that holes could be made in that facade and that is not a risk a narcissist is prepared to take)

Empathyis about being able to feel other people’s emotions.  It is closely linked to vulnerability because to be empathetic you have to be open and in touch with your own emotions. (Narcissists are completely divorced from their own feelings so they have no idea what so ever what other people are going through and nor do they care or have any curiosity about them)

Respectis when you value or admire another person and have due regard for their feelings wishes or rights.

(Narcissist do not value other people because they are so busy protecting their own false persona, they are emotionally exploitative and abusive and they do not care about anybody else.  They can sometimes mimic false empathy, but this is done only as a means to and end (they want something) and is not genuine in any way.