You Are Not Guilty of Your Feelings

If you point out that people cannot control their feelings and that they therefore cannot change them and that feelings therefore cannot be a sin or a character flaw of any sort, you always get some holier-than-thou coming back with "Yesbut...feeling angry (or whatever) is a sin."

What can one do to get through a three-foot-thick forehead? It is impervious to reason. Reason just bounces off it like that, because such people have no respect for it.

Never feel guilty about your feelings!

Woops, an oxymoron. You don't feel guilty about your feelings; you feel ashamed of them. That is because shame has nothing to do with guilt. Shame is something others put on you. Whether you deserve it or not.

So, never be ashamed of your feelings! There is no guilt in them. Anyone who judges you for your feelings is the one doing something to be ashamed of.

I say this also to naricissists. Narcissists, you have abnormal feelings, but they are not your fault. They are an effect of the disease. Victims, you have normal feelings, and they are not your fault. They are an effect of the abuse.

Aside to those who think what I say conflicts with religion: Think again. Look it up. Abraham finds that God judges by CONDUCT. Conduct is words and deeds. Feelings are not conduct. And the word "faith" in that book means what it used to mean = what we now mean by "good faith" = simple honesty, sincerity, fidelity to truth and one's word = something even an atheist can have. Only within the last few hundred years has abuse and misuse of the word faith warped it into meaning a "list of religious beliefs." Indeed, when you compare various versions of scripture to see how many way a given passage may be translated, you start to see how misleading current translations can be.

Emotions are just psychological feelings. Like physical feelings they are triggered by stimuli. We have no control over this process. If you touch a hot stove, you feel burnt. If you get put down, you feel insulted. The stimulus is the cause. So, it makes no more sense to blame you for how a narcissist's abuse makes you feel than it does to blame you for smarting when he or she punches you in the nose.

I just don't see what's so hard to understand about that.

This doesn't give the victims a carte blanche to go off and react to abuse in any way they want. Indeed, the narcissist's abnormal feelings are no excuse for his conduct, either.

We must all make sure our emotions don't control our conduct. We must temper it with good judgement and moderation.

When there would be no witnesses, narcissists don't. That's where they incur guilt.

True, injured feelings are more easily hurt. Just as a wound is more sensitive than uninjured skin. So, the victims of narcissists must realize this. Get away from the source of constant re-injury, and you won't find that your feelings get easily hurt anymore. And your anger (emotional pain) will eventually pass.

See On Your Feelings.

Is there hope?

The fact that you want to help a narcissist -- to "save" him or her, as it were -- is a manifestation of your good nature and of your true love for the fictional character you thought was a real person.

It takes time for the simple truth that narcissists are predators to sink in. I mean that you can "know" a thing cerebrally and yet not really KNOW it. It hasn't sunk in enough to make you clear out contradictory assumptions and beliefs yet. Frankly, it takes some mental deprogramming.

So, if you have recently realized that someone in your life is a narcissist, it is no wonder that you are still thinking that you can change him or her, that you can get through to them, that you can help them.

They DO have feelings -- for THEMSELVES. And our ability to empathize makes us feel sorry for them. They really do suffer with this disease.

But make no mistake: their bouts of pain are few and far between. They are "drugged" with narcissistsic supply most of the time. They are high on it and they feel fine. Because they are making someone else miserable.

You feel sorry for the damaged little child inside the narcissist -- not the demon that ate him or her and now possesses them = the work of art, the fictional character, standing before you. THAT is diabolical, sadistic, malignant, and predatory. The proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing. THAT has no feeling for anybody. It ain't human. It would be the first to tell you so: it is a god. It has nothing but disdain for humanity, in any sense of the word. No sympathy is appropriate or even possible for THAT. Because it is a predator. It eats humans.

Hence our conflicted feelings, which are actually just feeings for two different beings confused.

In the comments you can see a sharp difference between those who've recently found out about narcissism and those who've been there. Those who've been there are absolutely pessimitic about ever getting through to a narcissist.

Even those who say that sometimes the best choice is to not leave but rather find some way to draw red lines within the home that keeps the predator at bay. Even THEY don't think you can help the narcissist.

Both groups just have to accept each other as they are at this point in their seperate lives. What I like about this community is that you all do that. It makes for a peaceful and informative resource.

The problem with narcissists is that they won't stop abusing their minds. They won't stop willfully unknowing the truth. They'd rather die. They won't stop thinking absurdly (such as by thinking they exalt themselves when they stoop to the despicable level of abusing the defenseless). They'd rather die. They won't stop altering "their reality" by deluding themselves. They'd rather die.

It's as simple as that. They aren't the only people who mess with their minds. But they are the only people who still do it 24-7 as a little child does, living in a fantasy world so that their personal narrative is a complte work of fiction. They are the only ones who would rather die than stop doing it.

Consider what all they'd have to admit to themselves if they did. Could anybody bear to confront such a reality about themselves? It's the proverbial "demon at the door."

It's what keeps them on that runaway freight-train ride, what prevents them from ever coming clean. And so we see the bizarre phenomenon of people shovelling faster to dig themselves out of the hole they've dug themselves into. Crazy, but it happens all the time. And not just to narcissists.

Bottom Line: when people would rather die than stop doing something, they won't ever stop doing it. No matter what. They are obdurate.

But we each have to see this for ourselves. No one can just teach it to you: only experience can. And that is as it should be. If it were easy to convince you that narcissists are beyond help, there would be something wrong with you!

So, wherever you are in this process is fine. You may still want to try. You may still hold out hope against hope. Just don't mess with YOUR mind: try to face facts squarely every step of the way on your journey.

Why do some narcissists thrive on an audience to perform for and others hide what they're doing?

A recent commenter asks:

why do some Ns thrive on an audience to perform for and other Ns hide what they're doing?

I'm posting because this is an important and perplexing question, one that causes musch of the confusion about narcissism. But I'm posting off the top of my head here, because I haven't much time right now. I also talk about this on the main site in The Narcissist's Style.

The answer depends on the situation. Narcissists calculate how to get the most of their drug out of what they do. Lee Harvey Oswald wrote in his diary something intriguing in his reason for taking up communism (at the unbelievable age of 15). Did he give an ideolgical reason? No. He viewed becoming a communist as "the key to his environment." The key to HIS environment.

In other words, becoming a communist was the best way he could think of for a kid in his life situation to get attention/NS. If he had been another kid, he would have needed to find a different key to a different environment.

Every narcissist's environment is different, so every narcissist's style is different. Though they all are after the same thing, they each need and develop their own custom strategy to achieve it.

Take for example a malignant narcissist who is a dictator, like Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, or Josef Stalin. Do they really need to hide what they're up to? No, because nobody can hold them to account. They bully entire nations the way a weak narcissist bullies his pre-school-age children. That's the ultimate fix of grandiosity.

Notably, in rising to power, dictators DO conceal their dirty deeds. They work hard at getting people to think they're good. Only when they feel secure does the angel-face mask come off. Then they go for The Big Fix, an orgasm of Narcissitic Supply (NS) = having people obsequiously crawl to him and grovel before him, courting his favor. To make people do this, they start showing off their ogrishness to intimidate and frighten people like Beelzebub.

So, as their environment changes, their strategy changes.

I think it always depends on the situation. When a narcissist cannot get positive attention (admiration), he or she will settle for the next-best thing, negative attention. Hence some narcissists commit crimes to get attention. Lee Harvey Oslwald looked for somebody important to assassinate for attention.

Usually, however, narcissists show off what a terror they are only to the VICTIM, in the dark, behind closed doors. Why? Because they don't dare get a big audience. They don't dare permit any other witnesses to what they do for the Big Fix whenever possible. To everybody but the lone victim, they wear an angel face to dissimulate their selves so no one will believe the victim about them.

Why? Because they'd be generally abhorred if people knew what they really are. Nobody would want anything to do with them. They'd be shunned. No NS in that.

But when nobody can hold you to account (as, for example, if you are Saddam Hussein), you can be as flagrant a bully as you want. Result? People don't shun you: they come crawling up to you to kiss up to you! No better souce of NS.

Are narcissists psychopaths?

Are narcissists psychopaths (i.e. Suffering from Antisocial personality Disorder)? I'm not knowledgeable enough about psychopathy to have a set opinion, but I tend to lean toward the view of the increasing number of those who see no real difference between these disorders.

The reason I lean that way is because I feel narcissists are capable of ANYTHING. The basic mentality seems the same, that of a predator. The psychopath is after the same thing as the narcissist. Our stereotype of the psychopath though just pictures him as going about it in a different way than the stereotypical narcissist.

A well-kept secret: Con artists, predatory priests, rapists, serial killers, wife beaters, incests, child abusers, animal abusers, bully bosses in the workplace, ruthless dictators, religious false messiahs (e.g., Jim Jones) - all are generally narcissists doing their thing. In different ways. But all are predators who view others as objects. All are sadistic. All are after the same thing.

Some say that narcissists have a conscience and psychopaths don't. I'm not so sure about that. In fact, I don't think a lack of conscience is exclusive to either of these types. Otherwise, for example, how could the vast majority of Europeans have gone along with, and been complicit in, the Holocaust? They weren't all psychopaths, were they? Anyone can turn their conscience into an unconscience anytime they want. They just conveniently unknow that what they're doing is wrong. That's just unforgivable, not psycho.

The difference is that the mentally deranged have their conscience and empathy permanently shut off, toward EVERYONE. I mean the entire human race. To paraphrase Jesus of Nazareth, they are the ones who will even hand their own child a poisonous snake when the child asks for food. That's exactly what a narcissist does (even a doting one), and don't try to tell me that anyone who does that has any conscience.

I think differences between narcissists and psychopaths may be an illusion. It's easy to see how authorities could be mislead.

We get most of our knowledge about Antisocial Personality Disorder from studies of violent criminals in prison. Researchers and psychiatrists know much more about them than they know of patients they see in clinics on the outside. So, they aren't going entirely on self reports of criminal psychopaths. They can compare the self reports of prison inmates with fact to detect lies.

For example, this article tells of a Canadian researcher who studied criminal psychopaths. If for example, the prisoner said he loves his family, the researcher checked to see how often he had contacted them. If he'd had no contact with them, the researcher noted the information as evidence of lying, not evidence of love for his family.

That doesn't happen when the narcissist on your coach says he loves his family. In narcissism, psychiatrists are relying on the self reports of pathological liars trying to pass for normal.

Of course they claim to have a conscience! But that's no reason to believe that they do.

Narcissism is fundamental to Antisocial Personality Disorder. Even calling NPD a "milder" form of it doesn't make much sense to me. You don't judge the severity of mental illness by the legality of the conduct it causes, let alone the severity of the criminal sentence involved.

What? A person is a just narcissist till he murders someone? Then he has a more severe disease than he had yesterday?

In that article Psychopaths Among Us, we learn from a leading researcher, Robert Hare, that the vast majority of psychopaths commit no criminal offense and many more have but haven't been caught. They are all around us.

...we now understand that the great majority of psychopaths are not violent criminals and never will be. Hundreds of thousands of psychopaths live and work and prey among us. Your boss, your boyfriend, your mother could be what Hare calls a "subclinical" psychopath, someone who leaves a path of destruction and pain without a single pang of conscience.

That estimate of hundreds of thousands is for Canada! Imagine what it would be for the United States or the European Union!

They're the charming predators who, unable to form real emotional bonds, find and use vulnerable women for sex and money (and inevitably abandon them). They're the con men like Christophe Rocancourt, and they're the stockbrokers and promoters who caused Forbes magazine to call the Vancouver Stock Exchange (now part of the Canadian Venture Exchange) the scam capital of the world. (Hare has said that if he couldn't study psychopaths in prisons, the Vancouver Stock Exchange would have been his second choice.) A significant proportion of persistent wife beaters, and people who have unprotected sex despite carrying the AIDS virus, are psychopaths. Psychopaths can be found in legislatures, hospitals, and used-car lots. They're your neighbour, your boss, and your blind date. Because they have no conscience, they're natural predators. If you didn't have a conscience, you'd be one too.

So, the distinction between narcissism and psychopathy is pretty hazy. Is it real? Frankly, I doubt it.

The Grandiosity Is a Side Issue

I do not understand why authorities generally consider grandiosity to be the chief character trait of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I have never heard a reason for this, and I cannot imagine one. Unless, of course, it is the grandiosity of the narcissist on their couch that irks a psychiatrist most.

But that's no reason to consider it the most important thing about him or her.

Frankly, I view grandiosity as one of the less important aspects of NPD. It seems to me that it is just an irrationale, an excuse to "justify" the narcissist getting what she wants. She says, "I want it and I want it now, and I should have it, no matter how much it hurts you, because I'm infinitely more important." Whack.

In other words, she thinks she's so important ONLY because deluding herself thus is the one way she can irrationalize what she's about to do to you.

Just like a three-year-old, right?

So, the grandiosity is a RESULT of the fundamental problem, not a cause. It would be more appropriate to consider childishness the most important characteristic of NPD.

And most of the narcissists I have known, or know of, did NOT come off as grandiose. Indeed, they hid it well and came off as anything but -- beneath a glib veneer of false modesty and even the "common-man" act to portray themselves as just your "regular guy." Their grandiosity is subtle. Like Mr. Hyde, it only comes roaring out in the dark, behind closed doors, when they're stomping and bullying somebody who can't fight back.

Once you're aware of their grandiosity, you can spot it in the things they say and do that betray an exaggerated sense of entitlement. Once you check up on their tall tales about themselves, you find that they are charlatans and liars who haven't done or achieved what they say they have. But most people don't see what the narcissist does in the dark; they don't notice the little things that betray an exaggerated sense of entitlement; they never check up on the tall tales.

And otherwise, all that grandiosity stays carefully hid behind the mask.

Another thing that mystifies me is why authorities almost never mention the desperate and avaricious need for all available attention. Here's an example from the main site in Getting It All:

An automobile is one place a narcissist can abide those near and dear, because they can't come between him and the only thing he will pay attention to, the road. To keep his passengers from paying attention to each other, he can bust any conversation they try to have by flying into a road rage. He is so compelled to make them stop talking to each other that he can seldom tolerate their talking long enough to find some ostensible excuse. Hence, they usually can't even tell which other driver he is supposed to be mad at, though it probably goes without saying that it's for the usual offense of "cutting him off." To get their attention off each other, he yanks the vehicle around, making reckless moves. Naturally, his passengers fall silent and shift their attention to him and everything he could crash them into.

Sneaky, eh? By the time narcissists are adults, they've learned a million tricks like that to hijack all available attention. This all-consuming need for ALL available attention is most evident in the lengths a narcissist will go to deny others present any regard or attention. And, if narcissists cannot get it all, they sulk off because they literally cannot stand to be in a place where anybody else is getting any attention! Haven't psychiatrists noticed this yet?

This addiction to attention is far more important than grandiosity. It lies at the heart of the disorder. For, the attention of others is the narcissist's mirror. She's glued to it, because she IDENTIFIES with her reflected false image in it...in this profound disorder of the self.

That's what causes all the other ramifications of NPD. The narcissist spends her whole life improving that false image, by association with the high and mighty and by vandalizing the images of all others so that hers looks good by comparison.

In other words, she tears others down to exalt herself. This is the mentality of the rapist.

Dissimulation

Dissimulation. It's an unusal word, but I think it's the only word that exactly describes the narcissist's tactic to con people. He or she dis-simulates their true self. They act like the antithesis of what they are.

At Sanctuary for the Abused, we get an example of what I mean in the child molester:

Some tell people they think child molesters should be shot, while others work very hard to present themselves as a concerned citizen and pillar of the community.

Which reminds me of a wise man (Jesus of Nazareth) who said that people who perform good works to be seen doing them deserve no credit for them.

Why do child molesters do this? To Block the Kick in case any child tells on them.

How better to dissmulate a child molester than to make sure everyone hears you expressing outrage about "those people" who molest children? Better yet, put it on thick by becoming an activist against child abuse in your community. Yell a lot about how you think child molesters should be shot.

Laughing up your sleeve the whole time.

Indeed, what better disguise is there for a child molester than the habit of a priest who gets to be called "father"?

Dissimulation. It isn't brilliant: a six-year-old is smart enough to think of and play this trick. It's just so low that it comes in under most people's radar.

I give another example of dissimulation in this account of the narcissist who put on an extravangant show of love for her dying mother -- only to show her true colors when nobody was around to see how she treated her dying mother.

Acting Like It Didn't Happen

Acting like it didn't happen, and getting you to act like it didn't happen, is the most diabolical dirty trick in the narcissist's bag of dirty tricks.

If you don't, she will accuse you of "dredging up the past," which is a sin, you know, because you must "forgive and forget."

Even though the offender doesn't admit what she did. Let alone that it was wrong.

Neither does the offender show remorse. What for? since she neither admits that she did it nor that it was wrong. And if she isn't contrite, why should she refrain from doing it again?

Amend the damage she did? What damage? It didn't happen. Hey, even if she ruined your professional career by calumniating you all over town to paint a perfect picture of herself and call it you, she isn't required to repair any damage.

Does the offender offer you assurances that she will never do it again? Hah! Why SHOULD she?

Look again: She hasn't been required to admit what she did, let alone that anything she did was wrong. She isn't sorry/contrite. Quite the contrary: today she is happy as a lark, as though her rage yesterday relieved a bad case of constipation. She incurred no liability, so she pays no price (YOU pay the price for what she did) and isn't held accountable to make amends and repair the damages. So, why should the offender offer any guarantees that she won't do it again? Do WHAT again?

Bottom line: she did nothing wrong = she has every right to do it again. By forgiving the unforgivable, you gave her a carte blanche to.

And before holier-than-thous start regurgitating pious slogans and scripture at me, I challenge them to consult their own theologians on this matter. For, they agree with me 100%.

Notice what's missing there. All the elements of a thing called "repentance." It isn't strictly a religious term: it is just as essential in a secular context. (More on this here at the Main Site.) Without repentance on the part of the offender, there can be no reconciliation between the offender and offendee. A state of war/hostilities still exists, because the attacker attacked, and without assurances to the contrary, PRESUMABLY will attack again.

Hence the existing state of hostility.

What? You must treat someone you know is going to attack you as a friend? We TRUST friends. We must trust an enemy? You must tolerate an enemy in your home? You must be vulnerable to an enemy by allowing her into a close enough relationship with you so that she can get personal information about you? You must let her within arm's reach? You must let this predator near your children? Let's get real!

You are nuts if you don't keep that threat at bay and far away from you, deterring her by threatening hostile action in return if she ever crosses the line.

That's not only the only sane thing to do, it's in accordance with Natural Law, and it's your human right to self defense and self preservation and the pursuit of happiness.

Which just goes to show why honesty is the best policy, as the saying goes. By acting as if it didn't happen, you are acting out a lie. It DID happen. And you are not only lying about that, you are lying about the very nature of your relationship with the narcissist: you are portraying it as a friendly relationship when it is a hostile one, a predatory one in which you are the prey.

No sheep is stupid enough to associate with a wolf as though a state of peace exists between them, so why are people pressured to associate with a narcissistic abuser as though a state of peace exists between them? That's not only stupid and crazy, it's a lie in deed.

Why lie?

A forthright enemy, adversary, or opponent is respectable. A treacherous one = one who acts out a charade of being on friendly terms with you, is contemptible human sludge. This is the con artist, the snake in the grass, the parasite, the traitor = the malignant narcissist = the scum of the earth.

But Wait -- It's a Catch-22

Yes, though you MUST resist and refuse to act as though it didn't happen, you CAN'T. For, as I pointed out in my previous post, it's a Catch-22. Why? Because a narcissist FORCES you behave as she wants you to. To do this, she exploits the decency, goodwill, and humanity in you to FORCE you to act as if it didn't happen.

Time and time and time again. A thousand times, she erases yesterday's assault on you by forcing you act today as though it didn't happen.

How? By simply throwing a temper tantrum if you don't.

That's it. No brilliant grand strategy -- nothing but the old temper-tantrum tactic of a three-year old.

And it works. Because narcissists are three-year-olds and are relentless. They are weird people who don't mind fighting all the time. In fact, they enjoy fighting and therefore PICK fights. Fighting is a release for all that pent up rage inside.

Thus they bludgeon you into acting like it didn't happen by just throwing a fit if you don't. They NEVER quit insisting that you act out their charade for them. If you refuse to act like it didn't happen, they punish you by abusing you even worse. That's nothing but negative reinforcemnet, like we train a dog with. If you contradict their lies, they just repeat them one billion times to have the last word. They NEVER quit, because Narcissists are from Pluto and LIKE fighting: it's an opportunity for them to land blows on you.

They NEVER tire of it. To the contrary, they THRIVE on it. The narcissist is a three-year-old spoiled brat who will erupt into a temper tantrum the moment you depart from her script and fail to act like it didn't happen. That's the stick she herds you with.

She has a lifetime of practice at these temper tantrums. Like a three-year-old, she deliberately makes her temper tantrum as obnoxious as possible, so that you can't stand the sight and sound of it. She makes faces, becoming an obnoxious, loud, irrational, raging, orgre. To keep you from making a point, she emits a wall of Nimrodean nonsense to bounce everything you say right back in your face. To keep you from getting in a word edgewise, she emits a blast of noise to drown out your voice and shout you down. To revise history, she repeats her lie about yesterday one billion times if necessary, like a three-year-old, to get the last word. All these devices have but one end: to block your every attempt to communicate with her in order to REASON with her.

She thus behaves so repulsively during one of her fits that you will do ANYTHING to avoid being assaulted with the sights and sounds of one -- especially that wide-open maw of hers.

So, what are you going to do? Fight all the time? Fight every single day for the rest of your life? Or give in and let the brat have her way? We eventually do give in and just "act like it didn't happen" to have some peace. Why? Because, like every spoiled brat, she can carry on for an hour, whereas you are outraged and silenced in less than a minute. Because you can't bring yourself to stoop to such undignified behavior. Because YOU have some self respect. She doesn't.

So, what are you going to do? Fight all the time or give in and act like it didn't happen?

I don't know. All I know is that there is no such thing as peaceful co-existence with someone suffering from NPD. (Exception, another narcissist can get along with one. But that is a marriage of convenience between two people who fear each other, scorpions who form a mutual non-aggression pact.)

Some people have apparently managed to occupy a household with a narcissist by separating within it = by drawing the battle lines within it. Lines the narcissist dare not cross. They force her to leave them alone by showing that they have teeth and claws too, and won't hesitate to use them on her.

That may be the best choice in some cases. But, when at all possible, a better life is life free of the burden of the parasitic narcissist. She is a disease. It's better to cure a disease by getting rid of it than to merely control it. So, when possible, the solution is to kick the narcissist out of your life.

Don't feel guilty about this. In fact, this is the only thing you can do that MIGHT help her. It might bring on a narcissistic crisis and thus force her to face facts and seek psychiatric care.

But then again, it might not.

On the other hand, ENABLING the narcissist will surely lead to her only getting worse, never facing facts, and never seeking psychiatric care.

So, it's better to take a chance on action that might do the narcissist some good -- even if it's a long shot -- than to continue enabling her and thus ensure her doom.

SHE is responsible for what she is, not you. You can't fix her. In fact, as prey, you are the LAST people in the world who can have any good influence on her. That takes professionals, strangers, people she cannot hurt.

All you should feel morally obligated to do is nothing that encourages her to get worse. In other words, all you should feel morally obligated to do is to stop enabling her.

The rest is out of your hands.

Catch-22

IF I had rhymes both rough and stridulous,
As were appropriate to the dismal hole
Down upon which thrust all the other rocks,

I would press out the juice of my conception
More fully; but because I have them not,
Not without fear I bring myself to speak;

For 'tis no enterprise to take in jest,
To sketch the bottom of all the universe.

-- Dante Alighieri, The Inferno

Imagine that just yesterday, the malignant narcissist in your life abused you. He or she flew into a rage at you. Maybe they beat you. Maybe they spread vicious lies about you. Maybe they deeply wounded one of the children. Whatever. They attacked you, or a loved one, and treated the victim like dirt.

Now today the narcissist walks into the room acting as though it didn’t happen.

What are you to do?

Are you to act as though it didn’t happen, too?

Ah, “forgiveness,” right? Wrong.

What if the person who had attacked you was a stranger on the street? If you come upon him again today, are you going to act as though it didn’t happen? Are you going to treat him like you trust him? Like you have nothing against him? Like he is a good person?

Of course not! He attacked you, so you are going to relate to him as a known enemy. You are going to keep your distance from him. You know he is a predator, so you have a hostile attitude toward him. You must, for there is no such thing as a friendly attitude toward an enemy out to do you harm.

And isn’t a predator in your own home even more dangerous? Why do you have to trust him with access to you, when he has proved that he will use that access to attack you? That’s as absurd as thinking you must open your front door to anyone who demands admittance.

And if you behave today as though nothing happened yesterday, aren’t you acting out a lie? Aren’t you falsifying the relationship that exists between you and the narcissist? It’s a predatory, parasitic one, but you are acting as though it’s a friendly and mutually beneficial one.

And aren’t you ENABLING the narcissist to erase what he did yesterday? To annihilate it?

He will even talk as though it didn’t happen. He will say things that contradict the facts of the past. Are you going to let these lies pass?

If you don’t – if you contradict them – he will throw a fit, a narcissistic temper tantrum – until you shut up and let him have the last word. Which will be to deny that it ever happened.

And you don’t like fighting all the time, do you? You want peace. You hate the temper tantrums, because they’re as obnoxious as any spoiled brat’s temper tantrums. Like a three-year-old, he is deliberately as obnoxious as possible with them to make you prefer to let him have his way than to put up with that obnoxious, irrational, fit he throws to herd you the direction he wants.

But if you let his lies pass and act like it didn’t happen, you are committing treason against yourself and your children. For, you have just absolved him of his sin. You have “washed it away.” It didn’t happen.

Which means that he didn’t do anything wrong when he did it, so he has a carte blanche to do it again tomorrow.

And tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.