Month: March 2018

Good Child Syndrome

A lot of us have “Good child syndrome”, I made the phrase up (I thin), what I mean by it is “Give your car to your brother/sister”, “You tried to defend yourself and you hurt the feelings of your golden child sibling”, “look after little Tommy”, “don’t talk back to mummy or daddy”, “do as you are told” “mummy/daddy is always right”.  If you grew up in a narcissistic family of origin these were not requests, they were orders and the child was forced to comply no matter how uncomfortable, potentially dangerous or humiliating the situation was, the child had to obey because they were voiceless growing up in a narcissistic family of origin, dissidence was severely punished – this is what I call “good child syndrome”.

We take this conditioning/brainwashing into adulthood because we were forced to obey or parents, otherwise there would be severe consequences.  We take more abuse from others than most would tolerate, we think that “no” is a mean word and so we are reluctant to use it and it is easy for us to get sucked into other people’s dramas.

It happens when no matter how hard you tried as a child you were never good enough.  If you did what they wanted you to do, they either raised the bar or dismissed your achievement as insignificant, either way a child wants to get the approval of their parent(s) and will try even harder but it never happens in the narcissistic family.

Society will tell you “to look for the good in people”, “to be open, honest and frank” with your partner, family and friends, to share fears and insecurities as it is that very vulnerability that makes people feel connected.  You will be told that love is the most important thing in life and to love your family (unconditionally) and friends.    WARNING This “advice” will not end well if you are dealing with a narcissist in or outside your family. Love to a narcissist is all about control and power, if you grew up in a narcissist family you will have learnt that love hurts, love leaves you voiceless and love is all about the eradication of your own needs and dream in order to serve another.

If your family of origin has narcissists in it, they do not love you.  It is a hard one to take in, but it is important to register this fact (even though they will tell you they love you, look at their actions not their words).  It is therefore a futile exercise to try to get them to “love you back”.  What they want from you is not love, they want your resources, your energy, attention, time and money.  Going back to the same source and looking for love again and again is not a good idea because it simply isn’t going to happen.  You have to decide what you want from your “relationship” with your family members and proceed accordingly.  This might mean “no contact”, “low contact” or accepting the status quo as it is and implementing damage limitations.  The decision is yours and yours only and if one approach doesn’t work you can always change tactic.  The important thing is that you protect yourself and put up healthy boundaries.

In romantic relationships, we are told by society to have the courage to open our heart to others, to trust other’s good intentions and to believe that the other person is committed to doing the best s/he can for you and others.  This simply isn’t so with narcissists.  They will tell you that their intentions are impeccable and beyond reproach but that is a lie and we can very often find ourselves very involved before we realise that we have been duped.

There are a few things that are necessary to understand here:

  • If you have been raised by narcissistic parent(s) your needs will not have been met, and nor will your requests have been listened to or acted on. It is highly likely that you stopped asking people to do things for you a long time ago.  However, you cannot expect people to know what you want, so tell other people what you want and closely monitor what they actually do, not what they say they are going to do.
  • You will probably have very low expectations of others and will probably feel that if someone does or gives you something that you have to “pay it back with at least 100% interest”. Again, that is the contract that your narcissist parent(s) brought you up with and it is not healthy.
  • Accept in a partnership that as individuals, you do not have the same appetites for different things. This could be sex, food, socialising, the need for “down time”, time spent on a hobby and so forth.  If your partner does not want to socialise as much as you do, it is not necessarily a snub, it is just that s/he is not as gregarious as you.  However, if your partner does not want to do anything with you, you find that you have no core beliefs/values in common or more importantly the values the they said that they held true don’t stand the test of time – that is a red flag.
  • If the relationship feels uneasy or skewed in some way, but you cannot quite put your finger on it, trust your instinct it is probably right, even if you cannot put a label on what it is telling you. You will have been brought up thinking that “what I want doesn’t matter” and since it has been so ingrained in you, you might not even see it as a problem.

Trust issues are considered by many to be a weakness, a lack of generosity and in some way a failing, that will make you feel miserable and constantly dejected and untrustworthy yourself.  That is a common pop psychology take on it.  The reality is that a certain amount of caution is a really healthy thing.  You would not march up to an animal that you had never met before without any discretion.  So be discerning without being suspicious.  Use your judgement without being judgemental.

We are told to serve others and be kind whenever you can.  This is also a very dangerous concept around narcissists because they will take advantage of this and take whatever they can get and give little or nothing in return, if they give something back, no matter how small, they will see it as a purchase, either to encourage you to keep giving or to pay off their “debt” to you.  Society will tell you that “you should not give to receive”, but with a narcissist you have to be very careful that you are not giving and giving because they will never stop taking.  It is up to the giver to decide when they have been given enough.   A narcissist will suck you dry and then walk away without the slightest bit of remorse when they see that you have nothing left to give them.

So examine how much of you “good child syndrome” habits you are bringing to your adult relationships (not just with partners but with friends and family too) and check your relationships on a regular basis to see if you are being pushed around and being disrespected.  The more you let people disrespect you (the more tolerant you are of their bad behaviour) to more they will push at your boundaries.  Your responsibility is to yourself first and don’t beat yourself up about this, you were repeatedly taught the same lesson over and over again that you want doesn’t matter.  You were a great attentive child and you just learnt a very unhealthy lesson too well!

Criticism

No one likes criticism, it is part of human nature, sometimes even constructive criticism can cause us to feel defensive.  However, when a narcissist is criticised, even slightly they become hyper defensive and aggressive and will flip any criticism back on to the person who criticised (or allegedly criticised them) and will say things like “well you’re a”, “you did…” “s/he is just jealous or crazy”.  If they even anticipate that you are going to make some sort of comment about them they will try to shut-you-down or will leave the room.  They cannot bare to see their image of themselves as anything less than 100% perfect, as though even a tiny chink in their armour would bring their whole false persona tumbling down.

Like all people who are very sensitive to criticism they are very vocal, boorish and insulting to and about others.  They do this so that they can feel “better than” those around them.  In other words, they push other people down to buoy their own selves up.  With such a rigid and relentless self-defence built up around them, they are never able to let anyone get close to them.  At the same time, they will “assume” knowledge and intimacy with people that they have only just met.  This comes from having only a very minimal level of self-awareness and so they will assume that to know very little about someone else is to know all. This perceived image of others, like their image of themselves is constantly changing depending on their mood, what they have eaten, who they are with and probably the weather too.

When they are being criticised or think that they might be, they don’t feel safe and go into hyper vigilance mode.  Narcissists frequently do not know the difference between criticism and being teased (due to their poor sense of humour and inability to engage properly with others) so teasing them might garner the same aggressive/sulky reaction.  Usually if someone teases it is out of a sense of fondness for the other person.  Not so with the narcissist they tease to humiliate, taunt and embarrass others with absolute loose abandon.

Narcissists also perceive having different values or taking a different stance from them in a discussion as a form of criticism.  If they do not flare up with narcissistic rage they might easily shift their point of view to the position that you took at the beginning of the disagreement and will say “but that is exactly what I said at the beginning” and proceed to treat you like a fool.  When you realise that you are dealing with a narcissist there is absolutely no point in trying to follow their line of argument because there usually isn’t one.

Always having to be “right” is a defence mechanism for the narcissist, they have to protect their very fragile and insecure egos at all times, which is why they go crazy if anyone questions (or even pulls a funny face at) anything they said or did.  If someone expresses a doubt about them, it could turn into self-doubt and that is something that they are not going to risk.  In other words, attack is the best method of defence.  If they realise that their positon in an argument is not holding up, they can haul in an arsenal of defences such as to attack the other person on an issue that you were not even talking about, blame someone or something else, start to talk gibberish, yelling and not letting the other person talk, lie, contradict themselves or storm off in a huff.  If you are regularly exposed to this type of behaviour you will learn “not to go there” as it is a futile and embarrassing exercise.  Which is exactly the result that the narcissist wanted.  They will feel like they have “won” the argument.

It is the very lack of substance to what they say and the emptiness of content that epitomises a narcissist.  They can and will say anything without checking themselves or considering the verity or effect of what they are saying.  It is as though they are in a constant state of survival mode so they are shape shifting all of the time and this will happen all day every day.  (We all do this to some extent, but with a narcissist it is extreme).

 

 

 

No Contact

No contact is the only route for some people to take after being in a relationship with a narcissist, whether “partner, lover, family member or friend”.  When we realise that what we “loved” about the person was who they said they were and fell in love with their potential rather than their “true” selves we will probably start to move away.  A narcissist will react in anger at any sign that people are not convinced by their false persona any more, and who inevitably take steps towards distancing themselves from them.  They will try to force their sources of supply back into the positions that they have allocated them.  This can often come in the form of obsessive, invasive and threatening behaviours – which are designed to coerce and intimidate you “back into your place”.

There is absolutely no point in trying to reason with a narcissist at any time, but especially when they are trying to force you to bend to their will.  If you doubt your instinct that you should leave them ask them “Why do you love me, what makes me special to you?”  Take mental notes and pay extreme attention to the answer to this question, it might provide you with many answers (as painful as they may be) because more often than not the answer will be focused on the narcissist and not on you.  The best solution for you could be no contact.  No contact means you don’t answer phone calls, text messages, emails or little “love” notes that might be sent to you to lure you back.

It is possible that if you are living separately from the narcissist they might hang around outside your door, follow you after work or send you messages saying things like “I know where you were last night”, just to let you know that s/he is stalking you.  This is overt intimidation/abuse and designed to frighten their victim into submission or to disrupt their life as much as possible.  If a narcissist feels your fear they will consider it a win and that will make them feel better about themselves.

A narcissist’s “love” is their own fears and insecurities projected on to someone else, who will try their level best to make it “better” for the narcissist who will use lies, manipulation and faux “love” terms to keep you trying harder.  However, if you are reading this, you probably know that what they promise is never going to happen.  Like big babies, they just want you to take care of them and put a veneer on so that everything looks all right.  They will let you know that whatever you do it will never be “good enough”, the harder you try the more they like it and they will keep raising the bar until you are exhausted and feel like all of the life is being sucked out of you.

Low Contact is a phrase to describe a way that you can keep in touch with a narcissist in your life, on your terms.  This could be a family member, where you don’t want a huge bust up, but you do not want to play the role that has been “allocated” to you by the family, or it could be with an ex-partner, where you have to co-parent children together.  The terms for low contact do not have guidelines, only you can decide what works best for you.  Once you have clarified those boundaries in your own head, the challenge is to stick to them.  If, for example, the person that you are going low contact with is a family member, and they were over involved in your life prior to now, they may well behave like a thwarted lover.  You might well be subjected to histrionics, a smear campaign and them recruiting flying monkeys (real or imaginary) to attack your reputation and isolate you from other members and friends of the family.

A narcissistic mother will be very experienced at pushing your buttons, she may summons you to her house with pleas of not being able to cope and to try to make you feel guilty for not jumping through her loops, but it is important to stay strong and hold your ground.  It is hard at the start, but it gets easier as time goes on.  If an ex-partner is trying to force you in to being more reactive and involved, low contact works well. If you are parenting together or have to sell a property, avoid phone calls and text messages.  Write clear and concise emails stating exactly what you expect and what you are going to do in any given situation.  Text messages are too vague and can lead to misinterpretation, phone calls rely on memory – and can very easily be distorted.  So email, don’t get involved in the unrelated stuff.

Another way to go low contact is to withdraw emotionally.  This means:

Don’t react to his/her questions about you (they are trying to harvest information for leverage at a later date)

  • Don’t react to their probes, and there will be many
  • If they tell you sob stories about themselves, suggest that they seek professional help, that you do not feel qualified to help them. This is called grey rock and there is a section on this in this blog.

If it gets too intimidating, you can get a court order to tell them to stay away

Even if you go no contact and you move house or country, the narcissist can still try to influence the way that others perceive you through smear campaigns, lies and behaving like they were the victim.  This can be unnerving because you don’t know what they said about you.  That is something that you just have to let go of, because you cannot control what people say about you or what they believe and you might sense a shift in some of your relationships with people you know.  However, if they believe the narcissist they never really knew you in the first place.

Acquaintances who believe the narcissist who has gone on a smear campaign about you, might stop inviting you to social events or give you funny looks.  This will probably make you feel a bit paranoid for a while (understandably so), but a narcissist cannot maintain their mask indefinitely and eventually they will expose their true selves.  Narcissists use friendship as a means to an end so if they see that their smear campaign doesn’t affect you maintaining the “friendships” with others it will not be worth the effort.

Critical Thinking

 

Wikipedia states that:

Critical thinking, also called critical analysis, is clear, rational thinking involving critique. Its details vary amongst those who define it. According to Barry K. Beyer (1995), critical thinking means making clear, reasoned judgments. During the process of critical thinking, ideas should be reasoned, well thought out, and judged.[1] The National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking[2] defines critical thinking as the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skilfully conceptualizing, applying, analysing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.’

Narcissists are incapable of critical thinking because they are constantly shifting their point of view according to who their audience is.  Because they live in a fantasy world where they are the best, most intelligent and most beautiful, they have to be able to shrug off any data that in any way contradicts their self-image.  This means denying facts, dismissing opinions of others or distorting reality to fit their “reality”.

Being capable of critical thinking is not to be confused with criticism.  Narcissists are highly critical of others they will attack anyone who they do not idolise them for no reason other than the fact that they “need” to feel superior.  They make wild judgements and assumptions about others or situations on very little or no evidence, they will say things like “so and so looks terrible today, so they must be taking drugs/have a hangover”. They will not even consider that that person might have been awake all night with a sick child, have relationship problems, have a parent who is dying or just died.  They will immediately jump to the most negative conclusion possible.

This level of criticism from another would send a narcissist into a complete tail spin.  Even if you say something like “please don’t borrow my stuff again without asking, I find it annoying when I go to look for it and it is not there” you will meet with a number of possible responses such as:

  • “It wasn’t me/I didn’t” (denial)
  • You said I could (you are in the wrong)
  • You never complained in the past (you are being unreasonable now)
  • “Is it going to kill you if you cannot find you X for five minutes (minimising you position and feelings on having your things being taken a twill)
  • “What is wrong with you? Why are you being so possessive/cranky/demanding (you are wrong and you look a little crazy for objecting to me taking your things)
  • “Well you borrowed my X the other day”, you say “yes but I asked permission” narc says “what difference does that make, I still couldn’t use it while you had it” etc. etc.

The narcissist will file your objection as criticism and will actively set about getting back at you for daring to suggest that they are anything other than perfect.  This means that you could be subjected to the silent treatment or they could set about constantly putting you down in small and subtle ways or go on a smear campaign against you either way it is abusive behaviour.

After they have insulted you, ignored you, called you every name in the book plus a few they invented to hit on your personal vulnerabilities they will feel much better about themselves, so you should be happy about that for them.  If you stay away from them because of their abusive behaviour you are insulting them.  Their thinking is “I am feeling better after dumping my rage and insecurities in a vile, aggressive and irrational way – we should all now be happy because I am feeling better”.  If you do not present them with a false smile or neutral facade (narcissists are not interested in sincerity), they will go on the offensive again.  In this way the narcissist trains the person who s/he abuses to back down unless they want the argument to go on for longer and the punishments for not backing down to come off side when they are least expected. In other words, constantly walking on eggshells and not defending themselves for the sake of a peaceful life.

A narcissist thinks exclusively in black and white, good or bad.  Since their objective is to have a sparkling image of themselves (for themselves) anything that tarnishes their sparkle is a huge threat because if it is not perfect, then it has to be the opposite, the opposite to perfect is not imperfect it is something much worse like awful, horrible or disgusting.  To be imperfect is to be human and the narcissist finds the very things that make us human such as imperfection, emotion and connectivity completely repugnant.  They have to maintain their own image at all costs which is why they are so selective with the data that they choose to process and their readiness to rewrite history time and again depending on their agenda at any given moment.

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Healthy communication

 

There are loads of different communication styles.  There is no right way or wrong way.   However, there are healthy ways and unhealthy or unhelpful ways to communicate.  There is a common misconception that the way that you communicate is dependent on what you say.  No matter what your communication style is, the way that you listen to the other person is far more important than what you say to them.  Listening is hard work and it takes effort because you have to move off your own perspective and try and see a situation from someone else’s point of view.  This takes empathy, imagination and determination to get to the root of what someone is saying. It also means that you have to shut up and give the other person the freedom and space to express an opinion that is different to yours and in some cases may even offend you.

It means that you have to concentrate on what the other person is saying.  If this person has very diverse opinions from yours, it will take more energy to understand their point of view.  This does not mean that you accept their point of view it means that you understand where they are coming from in a tourist kind of way.  One effective way to let the other person know that you are following their train of thought is to restate what they have said or give a synopsis of what you think they said.

The literature says that about 55% of our communication is non-verbal.  Non-verbal cues cover body language, facial expression and pheromones, most people are unaware of this sort of communication so it goes unchecked.  It is very important and it is important to educate yourself on these signals.

Narcissists are not touchy feely people, if anything they see touch as an invasion (this does not relate to sex, where they violate boundaries), in everyday stuff like meeting and greeting.  It is very important to register how non-verbal cues “make” you feel when you meet someone because they are usually indicative of how that person treats others.

Narcissists do not communicate in a healthy way because they are so self-absorbed and are so lacking in empathy that they cannot see another person’s point of view.  They also have no curiosity about other people so they do not ask questions and if they do they do not listen to the answers.  They always have “no go” areas i.e. topics that they refuse to discuss, the way that they avoid talking about “sensitive” issues is to start to talk absolute nonsense so that the conversation has to end.   In short having a conversation with a narcissist is very like trying to have an adult conversation with another adult and being constantly interrupted by a petulant toddler.

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