The Idiot Wind
You often hear people talk as though the only victims of narcissists are a certain type of people - weak people, who more or less ask for it and attract narcissists like magnets.
That's stupid, and I wish these stupid people would plug in their brains, because a smart monkey probably knows better than that. By far, the greatest number of victims are the children of narcissists. They "attracted" their narcisstic/predatory parent like a magnet, eh? Well, yes they did, by being vulnerable with easily hurt feelings. Shame on them!
You know, like the wolf - who goes for the tender lamb instead of of the grisly ram. Wolf is no fool.
Another large class of victims are people who did nothing but have the misfortune of working with a narcissist and doing a better job than him or her. They get their reputations and careers destroyed. They "asked" for it too, eh? They "attracted" the predator like a magnet simply by failing to be mediocre like the rest of the crabs in that bucket. Right?
Ah, the Idiot Wind.
No doubt, since narcissists demonstrably go for easy prey, they must also seek out people whose feelings can easily be hurt. I have no doubt that they will prefer to target someone with low self-esteem unless an option with high self-esteem would be a feather in their cap or of greater use some other way.
But look what the idiots are saying. They are making out emotional vulnerability as some sort of flaw that makes the victim deserving of abuse! DESERVING of it.
That makes vulnerability morally equivalent to a sin.
But that isn't the end of the idiocy. This vulnerability is to BLAME for the abuse.
That's ass-backwards: they have the vulnerability being to blame, not the predation. Look at the relative weight given this flaw of vulnerability in the victim as opposed to the predation of the abuser. It's plain to see what idiots think is the worse sin.
This is just the old "Bad-things-don't-happen-to-good-smart-people-like-me" superstition. That's why they blame the victim: they want to make-believe that it can't happen to them. And when it does, they deserve exactly as much sympathy as they gave.
I have known many people of low intelligence who use their heads far more and are far smarter than these idiots, some of whom have PhDs and MDs.
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14 Comments:
Spot on as usual Kathy.
However, I worry that you are "preaching to the converted". I think that it is only those who have been the victim of an N, who then go on to learn all about this condition, who can really understand. When you try to explain to those who have not had the "benefit" of this experience, they just don't get it. The N's are too good at disguising their condition and appearing normal.
That is why your website and blog are so important, it is a place where the victims can find others who understand.
Thank you for all your hard work
this might be a strange question-and it is only half baked,but i gotta ask it cuz its not going anywhere just sitting in my head-so here goes...why is it my N hasn't attacked for a while ? i can feel him getting close to it once in a while-but he suppresses it. why ? i know there may not be an answer-but i need help pondering. jt
It could be that he fears repercussions. (That would be good.) It could be that he's waiting for the right moment to deliver maximum impact. It could be that he's cooking up something...or is vulnerable himself in some way right now.
thats what im thinking too. sometimes i describe it like "i hear ticking" as in 'time bomb'. it FEELS like a spring being (slowly) tightened down. its okay intellectually when i know its idiot N stuff--but its also tiring waiting for the train to hit.and--anyone knows springs can be very dangerous when they finally wing back...Explain please the idea that it would be good that he fears repercussions. thanks. jt
oh-and also-how can i prepare myself for 'my end of it'? jt
if he's waiting for the right moment to deliver maximum impact (in fact sometimes he actually 'takes the breath' to speak and then doesn't say it as though 'he thought better of it' WHATEVER 'it' may be ?!!--amusing when i am strong, annoying when i am tired- stupid game playing !!!) but- if i can remember that is what he may be doing-timing- im afraid if i am in the right mood i may laugh at him- but if he gets lucky and times it when i am tired distracted or he does find a soft spot with a poisonous dart- its still gonna hurt and i don't want to be that vulnerable. i do feel like he is 'cooking something up'(i think i may have even mentioned it here)(yea- with what i've called the mr. rogers act) although i really dont know what it could be that he's 'up to' but i do recognize some paranoia in me. and you know what- if its just cuz he is feeling vulnerable i am actually scared. hmmm. what does that reveal ? jt
aaaand- jt night :) the reason i came on tonight in the first place was cuz something just happened that affected me deeply. i guess its no secret that i think my H is a phony!?! i wasnt going to say anything about HIM but one of my children thought i was GOING to and got really offended- when i caught on and explained what i was INTENDING to say they backed off. it was WEIRD. jt
I spent 2 1/2 years married to a narcissist . The most evil person I have ever personally encountered. And, everything he did and still does , he does it in the name of the Lord.
This man ,after our divorce, went on to marry another woman (within 7 months) and is using the exact same tactics he used on me ...and its hard for me to come to grips with the fact that nobody else seems to see this but me ! Why is it that no one else see's the strong similarity in what he's doing ? My question is , can you expose a narcissist for everything he's worth ? Is that a wise thing to do ? I would love for all the truth about him to come out into the open....but without having to drag myself through all the hideousness all over again.
At times I think, "just let it all go"...and "let God sort it all out and judge him". Then ,at other times I think I have a duty to warn others , especially the woman he's now married to . Any idea's ?
Also, the only difference in his new wife and myself , is that he is keeping her "long distance"...they haven't lived together in the past two years they have been married !!!! She will live with him for a couple weeks and then vice versa. So, maybe she can't see his true self...she isn't around him long enough like I was...dealing with his'freakishness' 24/7.
Anyway, Kathy, your website and blog are so imformative and so VERY right -on ! THANKS !
I was always under the impression that people have made it clear that abuse can happen to anyone at anytime, and that no one is immune.
But, what about people who get into patterns of such relationships? I think that's what the "experts" are referring too. They're not just talking about a one time bad relationship or one crappy job situation, they're talking about people who some how end up constantly going from one bad situation to another. It can't be just bad luck.
Still, there is NO justification for abuse/bullying and as soon as people stop accepting the excuses, the more targets the abuser/bully will run out of.
Abusers/bullies FIND a reason, targets are damned no matter what(if not fat, then too thin, if not shy, then annoying, etc), and that's really all there's to it. Look at the movie, "Ever After", Danielle was a strong willed girl, but she was targeted anyway. You can bet it happens in real life. Abusers don't respect strength.
Course, you could say to simply NOT be a "tender lamb" and become a gristly ram or wolf, but like I said, abusers/bullies FIND a reason or other tactics(like cheating through lying or "set ups"). That is, if they haven't found an "easier" mark.
I know myself I was raised by a narcisstic mother. Two women I fell in love with turned out to be narcisstic too and some 'friends' also.
I only see some pattern afterwards cause I didn't knew about narcissism so I didn't recoqnise it.
My own explaination of this pattern is, that I was used to this behaviour by my mother.
I always tried to get some love and interrest from her. Never realy got it offcourse but if you donn't know you keep longing and trying. You cann't accept it cause you donn't understand what is going on.
I think, cause it didn't work on my mother I also projected this longing later in life on women and 'friends' who paradoxely looked like my mother, still trying to get this love from them.
Which didn't work also offcourse.
In my case I think unconsiously this longing drove me to repeat the relationship with my mother through others who looked like her.
Trying to find what I never had.
In this way I was attracted and vunerable to these people I believe and they recoqnised it in me.
Only by becoming consious I was able to brake this pattern. This was when I learned about NPD.
I know now that I still have to be carefull about people whome I'm attracted to cause I think I was a kind of programmed to instinctively go to them and used to tolerate them. In some way it feels save also. It's what I know so well. It's maybe like a sheep being raised by a wolf; although you learn later that they are dangerous and they donn't relate to you, you keep getting attracted somehow and aren't as affraid as you should be.
It's only by becoming consious of it that I could brake the circle I believe.
I wonder how many victims of narcissists are raised by a NPD-parent.
Has this been studyed?
I believe it's realy a precondition that makes one vunerable to become also a victim later in live.
Maybe you have an anwser Kathy?
Gerard
I don't think there have been any studies. (Diagnosis is so unreliable that the only PD survey made left NPD out.) But it is widely said that the children of Ns often marry an N.
In addition to the explanation you give for why this might be, there is the possibility that the children of Ns are likely to be the kind of people Ns target for lovers. The children of Ns often have low self-esteem and feelings that can easily be be hurt. They have been subjected to conditional love, so they aim to please. If you're like that, you might as well wear a bull's eye for every bully in town.
I know that I was targeted by an N when I was in college. That was the wackiest courtship there ever was. He'd come to see me every weekend. There'd be this fight (over what I never could tell) every Sunday night. The whole production was a monologue by him, because I could never make enough sense of what he was saying to argue back.
Then he'd spend the whole week lamenting to my mother how broken up he was about the whole thing - whatever it was. I don't know whom he was fighting with, because it sure wasn't me.
I didn't believe a lot of the bizarre things he told me. But, when you grow up in a home where abnormal behavior is accepted as normal, you tolerate it in others, not taking it seriously as a sign that something is seriously wrong with that person.
When he finally got me to tell him I loved him, his response was, "No you don't!" How did he know? "Because if you loved you'd...you'd...you'd...quit smoking! Yes, that's it, you'd quit smoking. If you love me you must quit smoking!"
He had never cared that I smoked before.
I cocked my head to one side and said, "What?"
Out the door he stormed and all I thought was "Good riddence." It was Sunday night you see - time for his weekly blow up. And I wanted off that merry-goround.
I feared getting stuck in a marriage like my mother's. So, you see, it can work both ways.
This was a great post! It also made think instantly about this guy:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/22161502/
Can you say predator? And go look at the message board and the people saying that women ask for it, including HIM!
I heard the sucking sound of narcissism just watching the video.
Again, good post Kathy
Thank you. And thanks for that link. Here it is activated:
Today 22161502
I didn't have time to examine the whole program: I just read enough to make sure it wasn't spam or political propaganda. But I found it fascinating and hard to tear myself away from. I agree, the red flags of narcissism were going off like fireworks on the 4th of July.
This is the kind of thing we need more of from TV, something that has disappeared the last few years.
How chillingly calculated his method is!
Hi Gerard,
I am at a forum for women with ex N partners (in the Netherlands). As far as we figured out all of us had N. mothers, that is why for us N. behaviour is somehow normal. We all married quite young and were obvious vulnerable for N.'s. It feels save!!!!!
Since I know about NPD. read all I could find about it and most certainly thanks to Katy with her very clear visions, it is very strange but I can spot one from a distance. The difference is, there is no attraction whatsoever anymore, on the contrairy it's working on my laughing muscles ore I'am getting sick instantly. In both ways I move very very fast and leave them far behind.
I think knowledge is the Key-word.
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