Abuse – Page 5 – Narcissism and how to survive it

Misogyny and Misandry

Wikipedia states that Misogyny means:

Misogyny (/mɪˈsɒdʒɪni/) is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Misogyny can be manifested in numerous ways, including sexual discrimination, hostility, male supremacist ideas, belittling of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification of women.^[1][2] Misogyny can be found occasionally within ancient texts relating to various mythologies. In addition, various influential Western philosophers and thinkers have been described as misogynistic.^[1][3] In 2012 the Macquarie Dictionary (which documents Australian English and New Zealand English) expanded the definition to include not only hatred of women but also “entrenched prejudices against women”.

Wikipedia also states that Misandry means:

Misandry (/mɪˈsændri/), from the Greek misos (μῖσος, “hatred”) and anēr, andros (ἀνήρ, gen. ἀνδρός; “man”), is the hatred or dislike of men or boys.^[1][2] Misandry can manifest in numerous ways, including sexual discrimination, denigration of men, violence against men, or sexual objectification^[3] of men. The word “misandrist” was first used in 1871.

If you were born into a narcissist family of origin, it is quite likely that you will have experienced either misogyny or misandry at some level. This can come about for several reasons such as the narcissistic mother grew up in a family where females were considered “less than” and so the power within the family dynamic was with the males. Since narcissists like to affiliate themselves with perceived sources of power, giving males preference over females in some families was “automatic”.

If on the other hand a narcissistic mother was brought up having been treated “less than” by her brothers and her parent(s), she might treat her own male child with disdain and neglect in order to “compensate” for being deprived of opportunities in her own life and/or focusing all of her attention exclusively on her daughter(s) to “make up” for the lack of opportunities and hardship she suffered.

This is a message that you can be given at birth or while still in the womb if the sex of the child is known before birth. If a narcissistic mother is disappointed by the sex of her child she will not bond with it or mirror it. She might wear the baby on her hip like an accessory but she will deprive the baby of all emotional nurturing. One of John Bradshaw’s healing affirmations is “It is okay to be a girl/boy”, it is surprising how strongly that sentence resonates with some people.

If your gender has been a disappointment to your parent(s), they most likely will treat you with contempt and will criticise and humiliate you because you were born the “wrong” sex.

Narcissistic mothers will very often be very jealous and envious of their daughters from a very young age (something that an infant simply cannot understand), especially if she is “daddy’s girl”. It works the other way too, fathers get envious of their sons if the mother leans on him emotionally to the exclusion of her husband.

The reason that parent(s) will “partner” their own children is because they are very emotionally immature, so it is easier for them to relate to a child who has the same emotional maturity that they have instead of an adult. Narcissistic parents try to infantilise their children so that they do not out grow them emotionally and because they are easier to control if they haven’t grown up.

If the narcissistic mother wanted female children she can often foster dislike of men in her daughters by acting like she and her daughter are the same age and “best friends” and can often confide in her daughter about the difficulties she might be experiencing in her marriage and talk about her husband in derogatory and demeaning terms. She does this to try to get reinforcement that she is right about the way she treats males. It is an over generalisation of the “rule”

Both parents male and female will be in direct competition with their same sex off spring so they will disregard practically everything that that child achieves. They start to compete when the child is at a very young age and they will not acknowledge anything that the child achieves from a drawing, learning how to ride a bike to getting a degree or Phd. Nothing is ever good enough for them. The result of this is that the child will feel invisible, they will have low self-esteem and will probably suffer from anxiety, depression and possibly addiction later on in life

Narcissists and the happiness of others

Narcissists do not like to see other people being happy, they have a pathological envy towards people are happy because they are deeply unhappy themselves behind their false persona. They have no genuine sense of self and they cannot feel the intensity of emotions that happiness, joy and love are, it actively annoys them to see it in others and will frequently do what they can to destroy it. Narcissistic parents do not like to see their children play happily together, they will split them up and punish one or all of them for their “disobedience” of the narcissist’s script. They will also destroy a game that a child is playing happily on their own by sending them on an errand or giving them a job to do.

Narcissists are extremely paranoid, so if they hear their children laughing together they will automatically assume that they are laughing at them and will barge in on their children if full rage mode. They are the same with any group of laughing people but their reaction to a public situation is far more tempered.

They do not like it when people sing to themselves or along with the radio they will sneer at you for being “out of tune” if singing alone or will either turn the radio off or turn the volume up to drown the singer out if you are singing along. Their excuses are always something like “I have a headache” or “I love this song and you are ruining it for me”.

The same goes for dancing, if you dance they will jeer at you and tell you that you are “making a fool of yourself”, “everybody is looking at you because you look ridiculous”. In general, narcissists have quite a stiff posture as a form of control, so it upsets them to see people dance about for the sheer enjoyment of letting themselves move to the rhythm of the music.

Narcissists find absolutely no pleasure in celebrating the happiness of others at birthdays, promotions, weddings or the birth of children and nor do they enjoy convivial company of others. They will deny their children birthday parties, but insist that family celebrations are held at their house so that they can be the centre of attention or at least the central reference point. When they hear of other people’s promotions or achievements they will probably say the right thing, but their tone and body language will belie their words. This is because genuine happiness comes from the ability to know what happiness is on the inside and a narcissist does not. They will like being with other happy people if it feeds his or her narcissistic supply, otherwise narcissists do not like to see other people engaged in any pleasurable activity. So they will sneer at things that you create and will try to destroy your pleasure in it or literally destroy the object itself if it is a material thing. For example, they might refuse to eat a delicious dish you just cooked because they say they don’t like the flavour or put too much salt in it when no one is looking to destroy it for everyone. They might laugh at a hobby you have by saying it is immature, too expensive or a waste of time.

Narcissists will also assume a knowledge superior to yours of all of your friends even if they have only met them for five minutes or they will deride your relationships and the people involved, they will try to get you to justify it by saying things like “what do you see in him/her? S/he is awful/so boring/so trashy etc.”. They are quite happy to make up false rumours about a person with whom you are starting a new relationship and will endlessly say “I have heard that s/he is a… (something bad)” if you ask them where they heard the rumour they won’t be able to remember or will say something like “everyone knows that”. In general, they will question your instincts and try to erode your confidence in your relationships by sneering at them. They are just putting your relationships down to feel better about themselves because narcissists do not have intimate relationships with anyone because they cannot afford to due to their constant shape shifting and the preservation of their false persona. If a narcissist feel that someone is getting too close, they will often completely shut that person out. Alternatively, if they see the person as good supply (someone who is superficial and not going to ask too many probing questions) they may well try to force their way into your relationships by arranging dates with them or calling them (after insisting that you give them their number) behind your back, buying them presents and assuming an inappropriate intimacy that just isn’t there but is quite flattering to the new target. They will then probably go on a smear campaign against you once they have hooked your friend.

This is a warning signal/red flag:

If you are dealing with a person who wants to destroy your pleasure in the little things in life, discredits anything that you do for yourself (or people other than them), never finds your happiness a source of joy, tries to break up fun times with others (not them) you can be pretty sure that you are dealing with a narcissist. People who have the ability to love get excited and gain energy from other’s happiness – narcissists hate it and will do everything that they can to destroy it.

Morality

Morality to a narcissist is a code of ethics that they want others to employ when dealing with them. It is not the same code that they employ when they are dealing with others. Narcissists believe that they do not have to abide by the same rules as everyone else because they are “superior and above all that”.

Narcissists know that they are amoral and when they get caught committing a minor misdemeanour they will giggle about it like a naughty child who just got caught stealing a biscuit, they think that they are being quite cute/clever. If they get caught committing adultery, they will flip the blame back on to their partner by implying that it was somehow the partner’s fault that they “needed” to be unfaithful. If the same thing was done to them they would automatically react with a visceral narcissistic rage.

Narcissists don’t care that they are morally bankrupt because like in all aspects of a narcissists life, they think that they do not need to conform to the ethics that they expect others to adhere to, and especially when they are personally directly involved. It is their ridiculous sense of entitlement that “permits” them to commit outrageous immoral acts and since they do not have a conscience they do not take responsibility for their own actions or feel any remorse what so ever. The only “remorse” that they might feel is if they have damaged their public image it will not be because they have treated another person in an abusive and immoral way.

At the same time, they will be outraged by those who do defraud the system for personal gain in the same way that they do. They might be vocally horrified that someone is putting family holidays on their expenses account but they might be committing some far greater crime, but because it is the narcissist, it is perfectly acceptable to them.

The nature of their immoral acts covers the complete range from murder, financial fraud or theft, lying, cheating to abusing their own children and other people. Frequently they will not react in any way when they get caught and they may even get furious for having their game ruined and try to punish anyone who dares to expose them.

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.

Signs that you have been abused or are being abused by a Narcissist

You are unsure of yourself. Do you find it difficult to make decisions? Constantly refer to other people for validation or before you do something (when you never did this before?) The reasons for this are three fold a) the narcissist does not want you “to get ahead” and be successful in whatever you do, as they see this as an injury to their own self-image. B) a narcissist will always blame someone else for everything, if you are in a relationship with a narcissist then you will be the obvious target, c) a person is much easier to control if they are confused and fearful of making the “wrong” decision. This demeaning and destructive behaviour works slowly and over time you wake up wondering why you have no energy and have completely lost the fight to defend yourself (and maybe even get out of bed). The narcissist will take absolutely everything away from you that they can. Your social support network, your money, your confidence and self- esteem. When they have done this they will be pleased with themselves because in this broken state you are much easier to control and they will see this as a victory.

Confusion is an inevitable by-product of abuse. You will feel violated and doubt yourself at the same time. Your reality will constantly be denied and they will not engage in open and frank communication. If you say that you are not “happy” with the situation, they will go on the offensive and tell you that you are depressed, you are too sensitive, you need to go to therapy or do something, but it is never their fault. They will not work together with you to find a solution/compromise, on the contrary they will work against you. Any disharmony in the relationship with a narcissist will always be the other person’s fault and they will let you know either directly or indirectly that they are wonderful person for staying with such a crazy person like you. For example, they might tell someone else that you are being “really tough to tolerate at the moment”, but they will stand by you, even though they know very well that they are the source of your anguish. This is a double win for them because a) the other person sees them as a loyal and caring partner, b) they get to continue to abuse you, knowing that everyone thinks that they are great, and won’t believe you if you try to set the record straight (you are the one going through mental health issues after all, not them!)

They also believe that they are being magnanimous for pointing out your flaws to you so that you can change and become the better person that they deserve. They create all of the rules for you, but they are for you alone, they do not abide by any of them. They have the freedom to do whatever they want to whoever they want even when it means hurting others (including their own children).

You cannot pull a narcissist up on their behaviour for three reasons a) they will flatly deny that they did what they did b) you will get a counter “attack” with narcissistic rage or c) take your constructive criticism and flip it right back at you “no you are…”

Arguing with a narcissist is futile because they will not stick to the argument, they do not argue/discuss to find a solution to a problem, they argue to “win”. The techniques that they employ to do this are irrelevant to them no matter how nonsensical or illogical they are.

The person on the receiving end of this type of abuse will know instinctively that there is something “wrong”, but might not know what or why. Most people if they have been accused of a certain type of an annoying or inappropriate behaviour will go off and introspect (even if they are defensive at the time of the argument), a narcissist will not. They will not listen to what you say and they will firmly place the blame for their behaviour somewhere else, anywhere else, it is just never their “fault”. This is not just the behaviour of a small child who denies stealing biscuits, it is more pathological than that. They don’t just deny what they have done, they want to hurt the person who has suggested that they were culpable of a wrong doing, either by a smear campaign, gas lighting or some other means, this is narcissistic abuse and they are relentless in the pursuit for “winning” their “game” (like hurting the person who confronted them, preferably destroy them). This can literally go on for years.

If you have been subjected to narcissistic abuse either at a family of origin level or in adult relationships it may well be the case that you disassociate from your feelings. So if someone is overtly shouting abuse at you and you don’t react. You don’t tell them to F**k Off and you don’t cry or cringe either, you just stand there, speechless, it is only when you get to some place that you feel safe that your emotions emerge. This might serve you in the short term, but in the long term it has been proven to decrease your ability for healthy psychological interaction and function. It often happens that the person who is being abused by narcissists exhibits symptoms that the narcissist “should” own, such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, suicidal thoughts etc., this is because you are taking on the “stuff” of a narcissist. You didn’t earn it, they projected it on to you and expect/ insist that you own their negative thoughts about themselves and the world in general. It is very, very stressful being around a narcissist.

Scapegoat

The opposite to the golden child is the scapegoat. Scapegoating is a serious dysfunctional family problem. It is when one (or sometimes more) members of a family are picked out to be blamed for everything wrong that happens in a family, even if they had nothing to do with the event, this is called projection. The narcissistic parents will completely violate the boundaries of this child and project everything “bad” that happens in the family on to him/her and force them take on the blame for collective family problems (even though the scapegoat in the family might only be 3 or 4 years old). They will force other members of the family of origin to do the same thing to ensure that the scapegoat does not find any support from any other member of the family.

There are different reasons that one child is singled out, they might be too independent and noncompliant, the child might be too different from the parent, they might be sensitive and emotional, remind them of a relation they did not like or they might just be weak or vulnerable for some reason and therefore easy to bully. Children of narcissistic parents are often very angry with their parents simply because they are not doing their job as protector, carer and provider, but at the same time are extremely interfering and controlling. This generates a lot of anger and resentment and since children of narcissistic parents know that there is no point in getting angry with their parents, that anger has to be deflected/projected onto someone else. It is classic bullying, “I am hurting, I cannot hurt the person who is hurting me, so I will attack this small vulnerable person instead and that will temporarily make me feel better, more in control”.

The narcissistic parents of a dysfunctional family will actively encourage the other children in the family to redirect the anger that that is held for them onto the scapegoat child. The parents will lead by example by taunting and hurting the scapegoat child. This is called mobbing or flying monkeys. All members of the family are affected, the scapegoat will learn that they are at the bottom of the pile and are a dumping ground for all. The dynamic of a “good” child and a “bad” one can continue into adulthood. Aggression, the use of force against another human being is always present in scapegoating it can be through rudeness, humiliation, rage or constant negative feedback. The target of scapegoating feels wrongly persecuted and disempowered because whatever they do they are always wrong. If they are good they are bad and if they are bad they are bad too and even if they are paralysed with fear of doing something wrong – they are still wrong.

These roles have been assigned by the parent(s) and have little or nothing to do with the individual themselves. The scapegoat is probably selected because they are the easiest to bully and manipulate. It is not their fault, they didn’t do anything wrong, but they are raised thinking that they just stumble from one self-made atrocity to the next, without ever knowing what they have done wrong.

If one of the siblings feels inclined to stand up for the scapegoat, the family will swing in and let that child know that it is not acceptable behaviour to support the scapegoat and will threaten punishment for offering support as that would destroy the structure or the dynamic of the family that the parent or now collective “family” has deemed “acceptable or correct”, so the system is self-policing.

Any external defence of the scapegoat will probably bring more punishment on to the scapegoat as the parent will see that the scapegoat has done something to make her/him look bad in public and that is a punishable offense. The scapegoat child was more than likely just being a child but the parent(s) will project their “adult” malevolence onto the child and punishment will inevitably ensue.

The whole sick dynamic is really a form of emotional incest or rape. The scapegoat child will be blamed and held accountable for the parent(s) emotional well-being and will also be denied a childhood.

A narcissistic parent will NEVER support the scapegoat child. It will not matter what happens, whatever the evidence of having been mistreated, the narcissistic parent will always take the side of the other person. S/he will say things like “you must have done something to deserve it”, “how can you be so selfish, you have hurt that person’s feelings” (if you defend yourself), “well of course they ripped you off, you look like an idiot”.

So how can you tell if you are a scapegoat?

You are held responsible for family problems that you have nothing to do with.
If you defend yourself, you are disbelieved or incur rage from the family unit in one shape or another.
Some family members are actively encouraged to be verbally, emotionally or physically abusive to you, while the other members of the family do nothing to defend/support you.
There is constant projection, a family member shouts abuse at you and then you are accused of being hurtful.
You are afraid of being “successful” as you know that it will incur the collective wrath of the family, so you deliberately under achieve. To succeed at something is a source of toxic shame.
Constantly being accused of being the sick, bad, addicted member of the family.
Being treated with distain or hostility by your family, being excluded from family communications only being told what is going on when they want something from you.
Any achievement will be belittled, ridiculed and rejected (sometimes punished).

So how do you survive this craziness? Scapegoats often have huge issues around trust and feeling safe in relationships so are susceptible to flight, fight or fawn. This all comes from childhood trauma.

So how can the scapegoat break the spell?

You need to know where you have come from and distinguish what you were told to believe, rather than what you do believe.
Get back in touch with yourself, there is an indestructible core inside of you all of the time, re-connect with that person. S/he might be as young as 4 or 5, this person is referred to as “your inner child” in the literature. This young person is very precious and has been subjected to a lot of abuse If you come from a narcissistic family, recognise the fact that you could be taking on generations of neglect/abuse etc. Don’t let your family use you as their dumping ground.
Get back in touch with who you were when you were little, that is the true you.
Don’t try to appease the scapegoat family, collectively or individually, it is in none of their interests to let you move out of the role that they have given you – so don’t try, it is not worth it, it will only trigger more pain.
Don’t ever expect abusive family members to be anything other than abusive family members. Once an abusive family member always an abusive family member.

SO HERE IS THE DIFFICULT PART

The word is “no”, don’t say yes to everything that they “ask” you to do.
If someone treats you badly within your family, call them out on it.
Don’t treat your interaction with your family as a means to an end.
Take into consideration what your family have told you about yourself in your role as scapegoat, acknowledge the fact that what they have told you is projection of their own pain and problems.
Trust your instincts, listen to that little voice that says “this is not fair” and let them know that you are no longer prepared to take on their abuse.
You have been the family punch bag and the bad feelings and opinion that you have about yourself are not “real”,
Write down what you know to be true about yourself without looking for validation from outside of yourself.
Don’t try to look for the validation of your abusive an uncaring family, friends and co-workers
Don’t look for apologies, they will still blame you
Call people out when they are disrespectful and point back
Accept that you will never have a healthy relationship with people who treated you as a scapegoat
Treat yourself with kindness care and compassion
It will take time to learn how to take care of yourself, but it is do-able and well worth the effort

Narcissists will set you up to fail, they can do things like give you something and then publically accuse you of stealing it, tell you someone’s secret and say that everyone knows about it, so that when you mention it to someone else it makes you look like a malicious gossip etc. They do this because nothing is ever their fault but they know that they cannot randomly blame everyone as that would lose them favour, so they carefully select someone(s) to take the blame for whatever they do and will work diligently through lies a deceit to make sure that everyone believes them. The scapegoat in a lot of cases isn’t aware of stuff that has been attributed to them but notices that certain people treat them with hostility.

A few precautions:

Don’t be alone with a narcissist if you can avoid it, they won’t abuse you if there are other people around, if you are in company and they ask you to leave the room with them, make your excuses.
Don’t accept presents or stuff from them (if a narcissist gives you something they consider it a purchase)
Don’t believe anything that they say (until you have had validation from another source)
Be aware that you are probably being manipulated at all times
Don’t look for appreciation or gratitude because you won’t get it (unless it is in a public setting but it will never be sincere)