Category: Abuse

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

 

 

Institutional Grooming

Grooming is when a narcissist goes on a publicity campaign to promote themselves as a lovely person, rational, fair and charming.  They will work hard at trying to get the trust of professionals, usually concerned with family courts where alimony, property and custody of children are involved.  They will also groom doctors, nurses, mental health professionals, social workers and anyone else who they consider useful to have on their side.  Grooming is always emotional abuse, always dishonest and always intentional.  The reason that they do this is so that the professionals who have contact with the victim will doubt or disbelieve in the authenticity of what the victim tells them.

In a setting where the abuser and the victim appear together, the abuser will seem cool, calm and collected.  They will lie with absolute confidence and will have their story very well-rehearsed.  If they do not like a question, they will just pretend to have misunderstood or merely change the subject.  They victim on the other hand will have been abused, probably over a long period of time and will be emotionally and probably physically worn out.  They will have been gas lighted to an extent where they might question their own reality and the narcissist will use this to their advantage and can manipulate in a very subtle way that can easily go undetected.  The victim will have been trained that “I might not punish you now for saying something negative about me, but I will punish you later”.  They can convey messages like that one in a fleeting glance, the slightest twitch in their face or by briefly clenching their fist.

Because this threat has been looming over the victims for a period of time they may appear to be incoherent, inconsistent and even openly lying.  The narcissist will throw their net as wide as possible so that the victim will find it almost impossible to get support and any allegations that they might make will be not taken seriously, not investigated thoroughly or simply ignored.  So, teachers, therapists, police, people in sports clubs, churches and charities will all be included. They do this to maintain their desire to have a glowing image, but also because if the victim cannot get support anywhere they are much easier to continue to abuse.  In addition, the narcissist sees this as a game and the more people that they can hoodwink or woo the bigger sense of personal “achievement” they have.

This type of institutional grooming increases the damage done to the victims because they have nowhere to turn.  Hence, they lose trust in their would-be support system and this further isolates them which means that the abuse can continue for longer.  They also lose trust in themselves.

The main core of the emotional abuse will be done when there is no one else around.  So it is the victim’s word against the abusers.  When the victim is exhausted, worn down and confused (abuse always creates confusion), the confident calm abuser might easily look like s/he is the one who is telling the truth.

A narcissist will deny, lie and twist the truth so artfully and confidently that the victim can often be numbed into silence.  They may have blocked out what was said to them on some level and be tone deaf to abuse because it happens so often and can be done in quite a subtle with some of their worst abuse buried in false concern, “I am really worried about you, you really over react to everything.  That cannot be good for your health, I think you need professional help”.  The reality is that we all want to think that our partners or family members have our best interests at heart and it is very painful to realise that they don’t, so we can often interpret their false concern as sincere even if their words contradict their actions and body language.

In a family context one parent can go to considerable lengths to discredit the non-abusive parent.  This type of grooming is always traumatic for the victim with long term consequences for both the abused parent and the child(ren).  It can also come in the form of physical abuse, sexual abuse, drive the victim to commit suicide or a narcissist can murder their victim (it is not common, but it certainly is not unheard of).  To the narcissist other people (including their own children) are just there for their game playing and “enjoyment”, so they do not care about the emotional or physical consequences of their actions and it is very difficult to prove in a court of law since more often than not it is one person’s word against another, courts demand “beyond reasonable doubt” and narcissists are such good actors, it can be very difficult to prove that they did anything wrong.  An added complication is that the abuser can accuse the victim of parental alienation, of turning their children against them.  This is a situation that does genuinely happen where usually a mother will play the victim and complain that she and her children are terrified of the husband, cry and wail about the injustice of it all, when in fact she is the abusive one.  It often boils down to who can put on the best “performance” in front of the professionals.

 

 

 

Grey Rock

Grey Rock is a technique that can be used to stay neutral and unemotional in the presence of a narcissist so that they do not try to extract narcissistic supply from you.  Narcissistic supply can come in either positive or negative form of emotion, either will usually do.  So to remain emotionless, polite but uninvolved and detached is of no “use” to the narcissist, so they will usually (perhaps after a few attempts to get an emotional reaction from you (hook you)) move on to look for a better source. Their attempts can happen on either end of the spectrum, either by being excessively nice, attentive or sycophantic or by being extremely rude, dismissive and critical.

It is a non-confrontational method that implies “It’s not you, it’s me” except that you act it out rather than saying it so that the narcissist can come to that conclusion on his or her own.

When dealing with narcissists it is important to avoid making them envious, if you use the grey rock approach you will fade into the background and therefore their attention will not be focused on you as a potential threat.  Let them know that you are a boring person and have a boring life if they do try to test you for narcissistic supply and do not tell them anything personal however benign as they will use it to draw you in and then use it against you.

If the narcissist gets even the slightest inclination that you might be a good source of supply they will try different tactics to see which one can provoke the best reaction.  Should this happen you can use a technique that is called Selective Grey Rock.  This is where you respond to the issues that matter least to you, it will focus the narcissist on that issue.  Selective grey rock acts as a decoy and prevents the narcissist from pulling you into their drama.

Grey rock works because a narcissist is easily bored and the need constant stimulation to keep their own demons at bay.  That is why they get over involved in other people’s lives and constantly try to create drama, to have an effective drama you need (real or imaginary) actors and an audience.  Feeling involved in this production invigorates them, they feel empowered by directing the play, any kind of response works for them so long as they are the cause of that reaction.

The narcissist is addicted to power and control, they will do anything to divert attention to themselves, they know how much they “need” control and will constantly check to see that you are still jumping through their loops and are not creating any type of side show that they might be excluded from.  The more often we respond to their dramatic behaviour the more reinforcement that we provide.  If we just stay neutral s/he will get upset and probably try harder, if we stand firm and do not react the narcissist well see that we aren’t much “fun” any more and move on.  They may sporadically come back to see if there is any “play” in you, but if you do not respond, the game is over.

Trying to play nice

  • They are completely disinterested in what is going on in your life, they don’t ask questions about you (or your opinion), if they do, it is only a formality, they do not listen to your reply. They will swing the conversation back to them or general gossip as soon as they can.
  • You will only hear from this type of person when they want something from you. The will constantly make demands on you, gradually wearing you down.   They will not ask you to do something outright as that would be a favour, but will repeat time and again the action that they want you to take through oblique comments and manipulation in general.  It is important to stand your ground when they do this, otherwise you will find yourself over facilitating them (if only for a quiet life), once you do this, they will feel superior and like they have “won” and will almost certainly try to push you into doing something else for them a short while after.  The quickest and most effective way to avoid being coerced in this way is to say “no’ I do not want to do that”.  They will try to force you to do what they want by applying pressure, this can be done with aggression, but weakness and vulnerability are other powerful weapons in their arsenal.  They can also use persuasion, “explaining” how it would benefit you by doing what they told you to do.
  • They can also try to physically intimidate you. This can be done by invading your personal space, threatening facial expression “you will be sorry if you do not do as I say”, staring/glaring at you with a false smile or avoiding eye contact altogether but using a low and menacing tone of voice.
  • They do not let you express yourself in any way. They will tell you that your feelings are all “wrong”, as well as your taste – both decorative and gastronomic disguising it as “advice”, they will lie to you and assume an air of authority on subjects that they know nothing about.  They will flatly contradict what you say and a conversation can quickly turn into an infantile “did”, “didn’t” argument, which most adults will quickly back out of.  That is where the phrase “we will have to agree to disagree” comes in handy.
  • The supposedly “nice” person can leave you feeling horrible after you have tried to communicate with them. They do not want you to express yourself, they want to control you and make you see things exclusively from their point of view.
  • No matter how much they say that they are on your side, they are never, never an ally.

The look and feel of abuse

Questions to ask yourself:

  • How do you feel when you are around the other person?
  • Do you feel uncomfortable around this person, restless, edgy, muted?
  • After you have been open and sincere with a narcissist do you feel better or worse – do you feel vulnerable in some way and/or wish you hadn’t told them how you feel? Do you feel vulnerable because you were frank with them?
  • Are you the person you once were and knew? (If you are in an adult relationship with a narcissist). If you live with a narcissist do you have negative feelings around fear of explosive rage and a negative image of yourself.?
  • Is your dominant feeling in the relationship one of fear? Fear of doing things wrong, fear of rage, fear of being punished in some way, fear of being humiliated or sneered at?
  • Try to define how you feel around them to yourself.
  • Do they “dump” on you – make their problems your problems?
  • Do they try to provoke you in some way? Such as trying to make you feel excluded, jealous or zone in on your vulnerabilities?
  • Do you feel better or worse after you have spent time with them?
  • Do they talk about winning or losing where the narcissist is playing the role of both the hero and the victim?
  • Do they apologise if they have upset you in any way?
  • Does the apology sound sincere?
  • Do they put you down and simultaneously build themselves up?
  • Is it all about the other person?
  • Are your needs, wants and desires met (both emotional and physical)?
  • When you admit to yourself that there is a problem and that it needs to be dealt with, are they willing to listen or co-operate?
  • Do you feel physically or psychologically drained when you are around this person?
  • Does this person let you express your feelings, thoughts, dreams and emotions without trying to block your conversation with negative feedback?
  • Do you ever try to have conversations with this person and think “what is the point, this conversation isn’t going anywhere or making sense”, it feels like they are deliberately misunderstanding you or changing the subject to suit them?
  • Does this person tell you things like their job is better than yours, their family is better than yours, they have better friendships than you do? Or start a conversation with “the problem with you is…”
  • Do you find yourself playing the role of parent or guardian, even if it is with your own parents.
  • Do you feel compromised by the needs and demands of the other person and give in to them just for a quiet life?
  • How do you feel about having friends and family over to your house?
  • Do you trust this person?
  • If this person is your partner, do they participate in household jobs?
  • If something bad or unpleasant happens to the other person, do they take it out on you?
  • Do they listen to you if you are emotionally upset or are feeling physically unwell?
  • Does the other person constantly say unpleasant things about other people and always assume that they are jealous or envious of them?
  • Does the other person have fantasies about success, power, genius or beauty that doesn’t manifest itself in anything that they do or have achieved?
  • Do they tell you that they are fantastic a doing certain things, but there is little or no evidence to support their claim?
  • Do they constantly exaggerate their potential, without making any effort to realise it?
  • Does your relationship feel stable, or are you never quite sure “who is going to turn up”?

The wounds that are inflicted through a narcissistic family dynamic

Many people who have grown up in a narcissistic family fully understand how the core wounds that are inflicted manifest themselves.  Many more don’t because the child is confused by the fact that someone who claims to “love” them wants to hurt them and as such they grow up with the message that “love hurts”.

 

The main wounds that are “passed on” are as a result of never being able to champion, celebrate or praise their child, unless that child is a Golden Child, in which case they will be applauded for the slightest achievement.  This in turn will result in very low self-esteem and self-confidence (in the children who have been neglected) on the one hand and a ridiculous sense of entitlement and grandiosity on the other from being over cossetted and praised).

There are some wounds that apply to both children who have been scapegoated and golden children and those are:

 

  • Comparison to others, a scapegoat you will feel that they are not good enough and no matter how hard they try it will not be appreciated. The golden child will be praised for everything and will have a sense of superiority to just about everyone on the surface, however, inside their self-esteem is low and is merely protected by this false persona.
  • You will only be loved on the condition that you comply with the parent’s “needs”, this applies to both types of child rearing, since love and affection are the mainstay of healthy parenting, the child will do anything to get these very limited resources and they will always compete against each other to attain them.
  • Shaming children so that they constantly feel that there is something wrong with them and that they MUST try harder.
  • Infantilising so that their children are never really “allowed” to grow up. They want their children to look to them for guidance at all times, this way they have more control and attention.  Suppression of the child’s development also means that they will never outshine or take the lime light off the parent, it also keeps the child immature so the narcissist can relate to the child more.
  • Feeling guilty for wanting more from you parents and “taking them for granted”. Guilt is a big part of the narcissistic family dynamic.  The will guilt trip you for not being good enough (at school, doing the house work, or as good as other children), they will guilt trip for being too good (showing up the golden child, or drawing attention to yourself) and they will guilt trip you for wanting stuff, “you have a roof over your head, food on the table just think of the poor Syrian refugee children, you are so ungrateful for all of the sacrifices that I have made for you”.

The effects of this sort of “parenting” style on a child are many and all negative.

  • Low self-esteem, lack of self confidence
  • Fearful of doing anything that might draw attention to yourself.
  • Tolerating shoddy treatment from others
  • Physical ailments due to stress and anxiety such as panic attacks, chest pains and depression etc.
  • Feeling responsible for making things “better” for others, minding adults
  • Adopting behaviours that sabotage yourself when you are doing well or feeling happy
  • Feeling guilty when you are enjoying life
  • Addictions in their various forms such as drugs, alcohol, shopping, gambling etc.

When a child does stand up for themselves the narcissistic parent can feel rejected (as the child is not following their “guidance/script”) and this can manifest itself with rage, counter rejection, sadness or an exhibition of extreme weakness and vulnerability so that the child feels like s/he has to protect their parent.  The consequence of this behaviour is that the child might feel pressured to shrink back into a supporting role for the parent and abandon realising their own potential.  Many parents will project the pain that they carried from their own childhood on to their children and will use phrases such as

“the sacrifices I have made for you”

“if it wasn’t for you I would be…”

“you are so ungrateful”

“I had to do … because of you”

“you were/are a mistake”

“I spend my whole life doing things for you”

Our culture will say:

“you are duty bound to your parents”

“your family is everything”

“you owe your mother loyalty and affection”

“there is no love like a mother’s love”

The message to the mother is that “if you don’t love being a mother and love your children there is something very wrong with you”  (no narcissist would ever admit to not loving being a mother, so it has to be the fault of their ungrateful children).

When you acknowledge and heal the damage that your family of origin has exposed you to, you will be clearing a way for healthier and happier relationships, both with yourself and with others.