Month: March 2018

Integrity

Narcissist’s actions rarely match their words, they are inconsistent and change their minds, opinions and dreams/desires on a regular basis.  For those who are involved with narcissists it can be very frustrating to try to work out where they are coming from, you keep trying to make sense of their behaviour and project “sense” onto them (even if it seems far fetched).  You are invested in making their behaviour seem “normal” so you try to “fill in the gaps”.  However, the gaps in their behaviour will become too big to fill and you will realise that everything that you do for or with a narcissist is in vain.

Their complete lack of integrity and consistency means that you realise that you cannot trust or depend on them in any way.  They make and break promises without remorse or feeling guilty and then they will turn around and blame you for the fact that they broke their promises.  So, you lose trust in them, but we feel guilty about that because that is not how you “should” view your family members, partner or friend, so there must be something wrong with you.  It is frustrating, self-depreciating, exhausting and you have been emotionally abused, it is not your fault, you just didn’t think that anyone could be this way.  Not knowing that some people can behave this way leads to further abuse, such as.

  • You feel responsible for cleaning up their mess
  • You will clean up their mess without complaining or pointing out the error of their ways.
  • You try to show what the problem is by setting an example.

The narcissist is preying on you at this stage, they will try to make you feel that it is you who is crazy and is being irrational

  • The narcissist does not want to be accountable or cooperative as they see it as a loss of power and control and that which sets them apart as being special and more entitled than the rest of the human race. They will very often tell you that they deserve special treatment due to their wonderful talents, beauty and intelligence.   Because what they say is so exaggerated and extreme, you might think that they are joking, they are not, they are very serious.
  • If you expect a narcissist to do something they will be twice as elusive because they see “being expected to” as being taken “advantage of”, so helping with house work or working as part of a team (unless they are the leader) is completely beneath them as they see that they deserve special treatment and mundane tasks are for lesser mortals to execute.

The word integrity means being whole, entire and undiminished.  This is the antithesis of what a narcissist is.  They are confused, fractured, have different sets of rules for themselves and everyone else and different behaviour depending on who they are talking to.  This means that they have very little self-awareness of their thinking and behaviour so they can do anything they want without feeling bad about it.

  • If you come from a narcissistic family of origin this type of behaviour can feel “normal” because you have kept making excuses for those who are supposed to love you and we all have a deeply ingrained desire for love and intimacy.
  • You are a bit innocent and you cannot believe that someone would treat another person in this way. You feel like there must be a more complex dynamic that you are just missing it.
  • You try to justify their behaviour to yourself with self-talk such as “there must have been some reason for them to behave that way”, “if they feel that strongly about it” they don’t feel that strongly about “it”, they feel strongly about getting their own way.
  • The narcissist has massive gaps in their psyche so they cannot understand the effect that their behaviour has on an integral level, they judge everything on their own limited emotional landscape which is anger, envy, hurt and self -righteous indignation. Any expression of emotion that they manage to evoke in someone else is a win for them.

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.

 

 

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.

Narcissists are attracted to empaths

 

Narcissists are attracted to Empaths

Narcissists are holding on to some emotional childhood trauma that they have not healed, as a result of this they feel unloved, unlovable, unworthy and are constantly seeking attention and validation.  The empath has the ability to truly feel and see the narcissist’s pain and very often will try to heal or eradicate it for the narcissist.  In the beginning the narcissist will be grateful for the attention and act like the feeling is mutual to keep the flow of attention and care coming.  However, if the empath is not aware of narcissistic personalities they will not realise that narcissists are takers and there is no limit to their capacity to take they are a bottomless pit.

They will draw on the energy and life blood of the empath (as well as their finances, self-esteem and any other resource the deem to serve them).  This is very confusing for the empath because they will project their own good intentions on to the narcissist where there are none and they will be confused by the fact that the narcissist’s actions are not in sync with their words. Initially they will not realise that the narcissist is completely insincere and that the more they love, care and give to the narcissist the more powerful and controlling the narcissist will become while they are simultaneously diminishing their own strength.  Narcissists will violate boundaries and the more the empath permits this lack of respect (by making excuses for them) the more the narcissist will be disrespectful.

When the empath starts to lose power and control, the narcissist will blame them for their behaviour and the empath will look inside to find out what is “wrong with them”.  This is exactly what the narcissist wants to happen and will constantly reinforce the “there is something wrong with you message”.

This “game” is absolutely exhausting for the empath and the fatigue and stress that the empath feels will almost certainly manifest itself in physical symptoms such as insomnia, over or under eating, confusion and lack of memory etc. Which only adds to the confusion and sense of going crazy.  They will also wonder what they did to turn this once “loving”, affectionate and attentive person into this cold, emotionless and critical being.

Once the narcissist has started on the abuse trajectory they will not change.  They might go back to the person you first met from time to time, but this is a manipulations tactic to keep you where they want to and to make you try harder.

If you think that you are in a relationship with someone who is a narcissist the only thing that you can do is move away from them.  If you cannot physically for some reason, you have to protect yourself from them emotionally.  Find out as much as you can about the condition and put your shields in place and don’t ever let your guard down to them again.  The narcissist will see the empath as being weak for being so loving and giving, they will never show any gratitude and will blame the empath for their own bad behaviour