Blaming the Victim of Narcissism
The first thing the victims of narcissists need to know is that they are not to blame.
Not one bit.
In other words, he didn't get mad because dinner was was late. She didn't blow up because you are "too this" or "too that." You didn't "ask for it" by speaking up and saying that you deserved some attention and respect.
The narcissist attacked you just because you are there, period. Don't you have a right to be there?
Let's get real. Narcissists think they have a right to punish you just for being the way you are. Think, don't you have the right to be the way you are? Do you have to be some character in the narcissist's fiction that conforms to his or her specifications?
Does that make any sense? That's as hateful as the crime against humanity of attacking people just for being a certain KIND or nationality.
The narcissist attacks because he or she is a predator, period. Predators attack any vulnerable prey that crosses their sights, period. Therefore, the prey is NEVER the one bit to blame.
It would make as much sense to blame a sheep for getting attacked by a wolf. So what if the wolf says, "I attacked her because she is an obnoxious sheep!" What idiot falls for that line? Yet narcissist sympathizers are doing precisely this and are therefore being irrational.
The narcissist attacked just to do it, and he or she attacks any prey they have some unfair advantage over. They never pick a fair fight. They are bullies, period.
They do it to vaunt themselves on others. It gives them a high. Like as in a high from a hit on drug.
Does this mean you are a saint? Of course not. Does it mean you have never said or done anything in an argument with a narcissist that you should regret? Of course not.
You are like a bank teller who gets shot in a holdup. You are totally innocent of getting shot. Don't let the sloppy thinkers like narcissists and their sympathizers convince you that you are to blame because you were rude, or because you were embezzling, or because you are a drug addict. All that is irrelevant TO HIM SHOOTING YOU.
Of course you should change those things about yourself, but the "intellectual" clowns who make out your character flaws as justifying abuse of you are complete idiots unable to see the relationship between cause and effect.
Being late with dinner is no excuse for the narcissist to attack you. Being "too this" or "too that" for his taste is no excuse for the narcissist to attack you. Demanding decent and respectful treatment is no excuse for the narcissist to attack you.
I don't care how "threatened" any of that makes the poor, twisted narcissist feel. His perverted feelings are HIS problem, not yours. Like Osama bin Wanton, he will never run out of twisted excuses to irrationalize his attacks on you, so get off the guilt trip. His perversity is not YOUR vice.
Narcissists attack you just to do it. You are therefore 100% innocent of your victimization. Blow off this absurd "It takes two to Tango" crap.
Doubtless, you will discover that there are certain things you should stop doing. Good. Now you wise up and stop being manipulated in ways that play right into the narcissist's hands. Now you cannot be victimized.
THIS is how you stop being a victim.
But foggy-headed idiots (like those espousing the co-dependence theory) try to claim that you stop being a victim by pretending that you have never been made one. That's crazy.
That is magical thinking, like the narcissist's. You HAVE been made a victim. That's a FACT, like it or not. And "victim" is not a dirty word. Though being a victim is nothing to aspire to and is something to avoid, being a victim is NOT a sin. It is nothing to be ashamed of. To the contrary, the most innocent are the most unsuspecting and most easily victimized ... until they have learned the hard way not to assume that other people are good. And these foggy-headed idiots who blame the victim should be able to see that. (Maybe if they stopped thinking in buzzword-laden slogans, like robots, they would.)
You stop being a victim by wising up so that you are never again victimized. It requires nothing beyond COMMON SENSE to realize that.
In some cases, the narcissist has stolen something of value from you, like your job or reputation - something you have every right to get back from the damned thief. You stop being a victim when you win justice and get it back, period.
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19 Comments:
Kathy,
Thank you for this post.
My N friend would do really cruel things to me, and then act innocent, or play dumb ie.- "Really? I didn't know that if I didn't water the flowers in your yard in August while you were on vacation that they would die! I know you asked me to do it, but I was busy-I do have a job you know."
It was as if he sat around thinking up ways to be a bastard. Another incident that came to mind, one afternoon he stopped by for coffee. We were sitting in my kitchen, I had mentioned that I had just bought the tablecloth on the table. I loved it, and had been eyeing it but it was on the pricey side. That morning I happened to see it in another store and it was on sale. He lit a cigarette and I noticed he was tapping it a little harder than usual. An ash fell on the tablecloth, burning a small hole in it. He brushed it with his hand, and said, "Sorry."
I had something I liked a lot, and he deliberately ruined it. Because it was there, because I was there. Just because.
I ran into him for the first time in five years a few weeks before Christmas. I said hello, and excused myself. He just stood there like he was expecting a catch up conversation- like nothing had happened! Believe me, I have learned my lesson. I cut off all contact, he doesn't know where my child goes to school, where my husband works, the names of friends I have made since, my phone number or my email address. I have made it very clear that I know he is a snake, and he needs to slither away.
Reading this has saved me. Thank you so much.
Kathy,
I just found your blog - and checked out some of your links.
Thank you so much for your site.
A cop had played the manipulation and with-holding game with me for 4 years - and you described him perfectly.
(I wrote about him in January on my blog, on a post titled 'Every Lie He Ever Told me'.
Thanks to this site and others like it, I can stop questioning and blaming myself and realize it wasn't all my fault - but that I was being played by a master.
And being able to see clearly/understand it all, helps me heal. Thank you again.
Well said, Kathy. Well said.
Hi Kathy,
Well, this was certainly a thought provoking post!
My adoptive dad is the full blown narcissist. My adoptive mom was garden variety self-centered, domineering and did not tolerate my lame attempts at independent thought, opinion or action.
However, she constantly berated me for not being tough, like her, or standing up for my rights and being constantly taken advantage of. So when I read your post, I thought...exactly!...she blamed me for a basic personality type that she herself had helped create! When I finally did leave home (at 22 to go away to college), she cut me off and wouldn't speak to me for several years.
As for co-dependence and narcissist parents, I think it doesn't work because while I get why some pro's might try to frame it that way, the parent-child relationship is too unique, too tipped in the balance of the older parent, that it can't be a "co," as in a romantic relationship. The "training" in my case began very early with regards to comforting and giving attention to my full blown n-father. It's not like I ever knew of any other way to EXIST or be in a parent-child relationship. My job was to listen.
So, I'm new to this part of "it." Are there lots of therapists out there talking about co-dependence?
Blow off this absurd "It takes two to Tango" crap.
AMEN Kathy!
Some of the exposed predators go into full-frontal attack mode against us and their victims once they're exposed. That "2 to tango" quote is common - they other is "they knew it was just a game & they played it with me" Click here for more
One of our victims wrote the following on her online journal about the destruction her cyberpath visited on her - Click here for that
We tell victims all the time - NOT to listen to the "experts" who tell you to "drop it & move on" We have a bigamy victim right now trying to get her bigamist conman arrested - and the therapist is telling her to "JUST MOVE ON!" WT???
Take back your dignity & your soul. Tell the truth. Stick to it and do not allow the narcissist to use your silence to further cover up their misdeeds.
As one victim told us "I am not NOTHING. I am NOT a thing. I am a person."
Yes, they are real cowards. They never fight straight. Cause they know they'll never succeed that way. It proofs also they know who they are and what they do. And it proofs they know their targets are often strong when they start their campaign of destruction.
That's why they often start with just small devaluations and critisism. Just to slowly weaken you. That's why they slowly start bringing doubt amongst your friends and family about your good character.
That's why they make sure you'll never know about what's happening untill it's too late.
That's why they finish you off after they broke you and everything around you.
Then leaving the scene totaly to avoid any confrontation with what they have done. Real dirty cowards.
An example of collective malignant narcissism I think is what happened to the yews.
You can see all the tactics used in this.
A narcissist named Hitler started the campain by slowly bringing down their good name. Then turning it in bad. Then in awfull. Then he made them rats who had to be wiped out. All his fellow narcissists jumped in when they saw the coast went clear and the power was on their side.
Like predators they jumped on them.
Weakening them further by taking all their rights and blocking every way to escape.
Like sheep then they gathered them and brought them to the slaughterhouse to finish them off.
Trying hard to keep it all secret all the time they proofed they knew what they were doing all the time and they would hang for it if they ever got caught by normal humans.
When the normal humans at last stopped them the chief N cowerdly killed himself with many others. The rest fled like flee. The ones that got caught diddn´t show remors. They just did their job or obeith orders. Sick.
Yes, the yews were victims for sure. They were not to blame in any way. They were just vulnerable prey for a bunch of narcissists who chose to make them their targets. No codependency or whatsoever. That would be ridicouless.
As in any case a narcissist targets a person to be his prey.
They are sick evil cowards and they know exactly what hey do.
The blame is all on them.
Gerard
Yes Kathy, it's in fact always the same story, the same tactics.
Once you see it clear and can read the signs (= red flags)it's not that difficult to see through.
The problem is it's evil with a good mask. It makes advantage of the simple prejudices of people. It makes advantage of anything that can serve as a mirror to their delusions of grandiosity.
Especialy when people can serve as trampled bugs who believe they deserved it, to mirror their delusion of superiority.
That's a hell of a victory!
The general believe in the basic good of all people does the rest to help them doing their misdeeds.
It's a terrible pity (not exactly the right word I think..)that -just like me- people first have to encounter the evil of a narcissist to finaly see that it's true:
the worst evil exists behind good, impressive, holy and so on; masks.
Gerard
Gerard, thanks for mentioning that example. It is a perfect example on a massive scale.
They attack to feed their ego on delusions of superiority and use character assassination to make the victim out to have asked for it. Every time.
I don't think Europeans or Americans can take the example of Holocaust lightly.
In fact, the Spanish Inquisition had pulled the same stunt (to seize the property of ethnic Jews). Hitler capitalized on antisemitism endemic in Europe for many centuries, just as an individual narcissist capitalizes on prejudices. Like prejudices against women = they are "too emotional" and tend to "imagine things" and "get all shook up" = they are not reliable witnesses. The same with prejudices against children, which pedophile priests exploit to discredit the victim.
I saw a narcissist in the workplace exploit prejudice against the handicapped, older employees, and even unmarried people = "they're all homosexuals and perverts who prey on children, you know."
Just as the schoolyard bully picks on the kid with thick eyeglasses, every narcisst targets the most vulnerable prey, exploiting social prejudices against this or that kind of person in the bystanders that they con - prejudice against blacks, Americans, or whatever - even prejudice against political conservatives or young men who drive pickup trucks.
The targeting of Jews though has got to be the most pernicious, because it never ends and is so horrendous. One need only read the newspapers in the Arab and Persian press to have one's stomach turned with the same old vicious and ancient lies. "The Jews are taking over the world and have evil intentions and eat sacrificed babies and blah, blah, blah replete with dehumanizing caricatures in cartoons that make vicious animals of them, not to mention the known-bogus 'Protocols of Zion.'"
As ever, the persecutors attack to feed their ego on delusions of superiority to this other group of people, and then they commit character assasination to make out the victim as an enemy having asked for it that the ATTACKER is just "defending" himself against. In their eyes, just like the rapist, the victim is always to blame. And the stupid bystanders buy it every single time. Soon the victim doesn't dare raise a hand in their own defense without getting condemned by the Harpies...who are strangely silent about what the attacker does.
This doesn't mean that Israel (or any indivudual victim of malignant narcissism) has never done anything it or they can't be criticized for, but it does mean that they are not one bit to blame for the undying effort to demonize and destroy them. On THAT, the main issue, they are 100% innocent.
And all it takes is common sense to see that.
PS, Gerard's second comment actually goes AFTER mine.
I revised the original to clarify something and add the last paragraph, so he was responding to the original version, which I deleted.
ah,yes, society's phenomenon of victim blaming. It's nothing short of perverse when you peel away the layers and analyse what it's about.
Walking away, ignoring, not taking sides, sitting on the fence, takes 2 to tango. All of these examples are actions that enable the evil to continue, unabated. It reinforces the perpetrators.
Worse still are those counsellors and others that say, 'What did you do to aggravate him?' Oh puhlease!
Hi Kathy
I never imagined in my wildest dreams that my former veterinarian is a narc. Found out when it was too late. I never knew about npd either. One of his followers whom he used to hurt me further thinks he’s a god. Yes this persons true colours were revealed when I sought assistance, & yes I had known this person for a few years & she turned on me, used me as well, another wolf in sheep’s clothing. I discovered that this vets abuse is widespread, & this vet also has dedicated followers, suppose he needs them to support his crimes. Who is going to believe the abused, we’re just angry because we lost our pet, that’s his story. I made an official complaint, vet responded with lies & twisted everything to make me look the badie. Complaint was dismissed. This vet took advantage of my circumstance & hastened the death of my pet, telling me lies the whole way. When I look back I can see that he fed off my pain & even encouraged it. It seems that veterinary abuse is widespread too, just google for the horrors, I wonder how many are narcs or just some other misfortune was met.
Anger at losing a pet, more like grief stricken. Anger emerges when you see the deception of what one has done to you.
Have also discovered that mil is a narc too. (They seem to be coming out of the woodwork here.) They do kick you when you are down & when you are happy makes sure you know she’s not. She is in the coward phase, have not seen her for about year, & she only lives down the road, although she does send fil over & we just send him right back. The outlaws moved to our town, & now I’m sure it was just to create trouble in her most subtle & sneaky way.
Thank you for your blog & all the info about narcs. Comments from other readers experiences is also good, one does not feel so alone. The narcs I know have many of the traits you have described & there’s been lots of ah ha moments accompanied with all sorts of other emotions.
ebony
Yep, just like the time the N blameshifted and said, "I didn't give the baby a cigarette lighter; my husband did, and it's your fault because you didn't tell him not to." So, she sat there and watched him give my baby a cigarette lighter, did nothing, and this was my fault. In typical N logic, the perpetrator is the victim and vice versa.
Of course, she was in a phase of doing everything she was told not to do, so telling her not to do something meant she would do it right away. Not around my child!
you are 100% right and that hit me like a torpedo. I guess somehow unconsciously we tend to try to lay some of the blame on ourselves-- our minds are so clouded with abuse we can't separate what from what. It's confusing, what with all the gaslighting and slights of hands, the projection.. but that is the whole unabashed truth.
Kathy Wrote: You stop being a victim when you win justice and get it back, period.
Sometimes, it is impossible in practical terms to get justice. Here is an example:
I was politely attempting to clarify what "the rules" were with a clerk and was abused by another customer in a government building. In consulting with management over it, I was informed that I was correct all along and the clerk who created the drama was wrong and was being sent to be re-educated (=rewarded).
I asked about the abuse and was told that it was my fault. I was incredulous and asked why the clerk, who had all the authority to stop it just stood there and allowed it to happen in front of everyone? I did not start it, nor use physical force and had just kept repeating to my attacker, "this is none of your business, please leave and wait your turn," how could this be? I was told that she had done an "investigation" with the other customers who had been there in the building that day and they said that I had brought it on myself. I said that I would take this to the police (he had physically prevented me from getting away from him), could I please have the names of these people? No, that would violate confidentiality then asked her to save the video surveillance, but no, there wasn't any, or so she claimed. I ended the call with my last question; since you have let this person off scott free, what makes you assume that YOU will not be his next victim? I was very upset and angry over this and not being able to get justice makes it worse. What really rubs it in is that although I will have nothing to do with this organisation, I still have to pay local taxes that fund this bureaucrazy.
No, I don't believe that anyone deserves to be abused by an N or anyone else, but perhaps this may be what it takes to make these idiots who look the other way wake up to themselves.
-Cassandra
To 12:47 Anonymous,
That is passive aggressive behaviour. I call it the "oops, sorry" game. My dad, the enabler to N mum is passively aggressive, but I do not think that he is an N in the overt sense. This makes me wonder if this cluster of personality disorders don't have a common thread, or whether there are less obvious forms of NPD or if one might lead to another? One thing I know is that my father is just as personality disordered as my mum and theirs was a marriage made in hell.
What my example points to is that the "innocent" enablers may not just be turning a blind eye. Or if you are a subtle N, what better way to wreck havoc while appearing "saintly" than standing behind an overt N.
This describes PAPD:
http://www.schrodingers-cat.org/dd/papd.htm
Kathy wrote: the "intellectual" clowns who make out your character flaws as justifying abuse of you are complete idiots unable to see the relationship between cause and effect.
Indeed. Closely related are the lawyers representing N clients who do not keep to their side in a contract. Instead of respecting a foundation of the law, they will abuse it and attack you in an attempt to bully you into acquiescing or at least distracting attention from their clients own deeds.
-Cassandra
"I ended the call with my last question; since you have let this person off scott free, what makes you assume that YOU will not be his next victim? I was very upset and angry over this and not being able to get justice makes it worse. What really rubs it in is that although I will have nothing to do with this organisation, I still have to pay local taxes that fund this bureaucrazy."
Thanks for that example, Cassandra, because it is so typical it makes an excellent example. Maybe we should stop calling the victims the "enablers" (and thus "codependent") and start calling the "innocent" bystanders that.
As it's often said, evil triumphs when (so-called) "good" people support it by failing to oppose it.
You are going to like THIS ONE, Kathy.
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