On Internet message boards, people claiming involvement with narcissists ask, "Must I leave him?"
Whenever I hear this question, I get two ambivalent urges at once. One is to reply, "Yes! Yes! A thousand times, yes!" And the other is to reply, "What the heck kind of question is that?"
Notice that the grown children of narcissists don't ask it. The mates of narcissists do.
Typically, when adults realize that a parent who troubles them is a malignant narcissist, they react to discovering that the relationship never was a mutual symbiosis, but rather a parasitic one in disguise. Their words convey a deep sense of betrayal. And relief — in the knowledge that it wasn't their fault, that something is wrong with their parent, not them. In their words it goes without saying that they will break this hostile and predatory relationship that is so hurtful and harmful to them.
So, what's with the mates of narcissists? Often the thrust of their reaction is complaint about how wronged they are. Then they ask, "Must I leave him?"
To some extent, this difference is to be expected, because the relationship between parent and child is different than the relationship between lovers. And it is much older — a lifelong, virtually unbreakable relationship of blood, not a mere recent contract like marriage. We can expect the children of narcissists to take some things for granted about them that the mates of narcissists find hard to accept. Yet, there is the same abysmal betrayal in both experiences. And the same liberating justification. So, why do the reactions of many mates seem so peculiar to the children? Why do they often lack reaction to that betrayal and liberation?
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Echo and the Narcissist
What Makes Narcissists Tick
Why People Ask The Question
For one thing, I suppose they are not all really mates of malignant narcissists.
Some could be lying or imagining things. People are more likely to wrongly claim that a spouse is a malignant narcissist than that a parent is one. Doing the latter goes against nature and is the last thing anyone wants to believe about a parent. Also, it is hard to imagine circumstances in which there would be much, if anything, to gain by falsely accusing a parent. But there are untoward motives for wrongly claiming that a spouse or lover is a malignant narcissist.
Also, many perfectly normal people behave narcissistically at times (especially in retaliation for Narcissistic Injury) and even have some narcissistic character traits.
For example: Though a malignant narcissist will certainly do this, not every man who buries his nose in the newspaper to deny his wife attention is a malignant narcissist. If he is not, the problem in this relationship is a problem in a normal human relationship. If he is a malignant narcissist, there is no human relationship. She just thinks there is.
And it's not hard to tell the difference. Here are three ways to do so:
· Remember that NPD is a pervasive pattern of thinking and behavior. If this guy is a malignant narcissist, he does the same thing a thousand ways — in every conceivable way at every opportunity. If his wife is likely to call him on this insult, he delivers it subtly, both to preserve deniability and to put a more formidable wall between them than the newspaper. Why? Because it would kill him if she got one bit of attention from him by telling him to put down that paper and answer her. To guard against that, a real malignant narcissist doesn't enter the room until the food is served, and he leaves it the moment he is finished eating.
· Remember also that malignant narcissists are perverse. So, if this guy is normal and she complains that he makes her feel bad, he will soften. But if he is a malignant narcissist, he will go the other way: he will go for the jugular by being cruel and then heap insult on injury by making her out to be hurting him.
· Lastly, remember that malignant narcissists view all as but objects and therefore do not have a human relationship with anyone, even their own children. So, if this guy is a malignant narcissist, he is an emotional vampire even to his children. Normal people cannot conceive of hurting the self-esteem of their own children.
Indeed, that guy with his nose in the newspaper may be thus reacting to a malignantly narcissistic wife. One who demands 100% of his attention 100% of the time. She is a jabberbox to keep him from getting in a word edgewise so that she need never pay one bit of attention back to him.
And so, you can't tell from a post on a message board whether it is from the mate of a malignant narcissist or from a malignant narcissist projecting and whining about being denied the total attention he demands.
It is no wonder that the mate of a normal person with narcissistic traits asks, "Must I leave him?" For, the answer is obviously "No." Yet all she hears is "Yes!" from people who know what makes narcissists tick. It is also no wonder that a narcissist fantasizing that she is being denied the ego gratification she deserves asks, "Must I leave him?" For she can't. She is a parasite, and he is her host.
But there's no reason to think that all who ask this question are either exaggerating or are narcissists themselves. In fact, unless their accounts are fiction, some apparently are being abused by narcissistic mates.
Yet, please pardon me for being brutally honest: the question seems stupid to those who know what makes narcissists tick.
So, why do intelligent, informed people ask it?
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Some could be lying or imagining things. People are more likely to wrongly claim that a spouse is a malignant narcissist than that a parent is one. Doing the latter goes against nature and is the last thing anyone wants to believe about a parent. Also, it is hard to imagine circumstances in which there would be much, if anything, to gain by falsely accusing a parent. But there are untoward motives for wrongly claiming that a spouse or lover is a malignant narcissist.
Also, many perfectly normal people behave narcissistically at times (especially in retaliation for Narcissistic Injury) and even have some narcissistic character traits.
For example: Though a malignant narcissist will certainly do this, not every man who buries his nose in the newspaper to deny his wife attention is a malignant narcissist. If he is not, the problem in this relationship is a problem in a normal human relationship. If he is a malignant narcissist, there is no human relationship. She just thinks there is.
And it's not hard to tell the difference. Here are three ways to do so:
· Remember that NPD is a pervasive pattern of thinking and behavior. If this guy is a malignant narcissist, he does the same thing a thousand ways — in every conceivable way at every opportunity. If his wife is likely to call him on this insult, he delivers it subtly, both to preserve deniability and to put a more formidable wall between them than the newspaper. Why? Because it would kill him if she got one bit of attention from him by telling him to put down that paper and answer her. To guard against that, a real malignant narcissist doesn't enter the room until the food is served, and he leaves it the moment he is finished eating.
· Remember also that malignant narcissists are perverse. So, if this guy is normal and she complains that he makes her feel bad, he will soften. But if he is a malignant narcissist, he will go the other way: he will go for the jugular by being cruel and then heap insult on injury by making her out to be hurting him.
· Lastly, remember that malignant narcissists view all as but objects and therefore do not have a human relationship with anyone, even their own children. So, if this guy is a malignant narcissist, he is an emotional vampire even to his children. Normal people cannot conceive of hurting the self-esteem of their own children.
Indeed, that guy with his nose in the newspaper may be thus reacting to a malignantly narcissistic wife. One who demands 100% of his attention 100% of the time. She is a jabberbox to keep him from getting in a word edgewise so that she need never pay one bit of attention back to him.
And so, you can't tell from a post on a message board whether it is from the mate of a malignant narcissist or from a malignant narcissist projecting and whining about being denied the total attention he demands.
It is no wonder that the mate of a normal person with narcissistic traits asks, "Must I leave him?" For, the answer is obviously "No." Yet all she hears is "Yes!" from people who know what makes narcissists tick. It is also no wonder that a narcissist fantasizing that she is being denied the ego gratification she deserves asks, "Must I leave him?" For she can't. She is a parasite, and he is her host.
But there's no reason to think that all who ask this question are either exaggerating or are narcissists themselves. In fact, unless their accounts are fiction, some apparently are being abused by narcissistic mates.
Yet, please pardon me for being brutally honest: the question seems stupid to those who know what makes narcissists tick.
So, why do intelligent, informed people ask it?
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Codependence
Conventional wisdom says that many ask Must I leave him? because they are "codependent" or "inverted narcissists." That is a fancy way of saying that they are gluttons for punishment, that they get some masochistic pleasure out of being abused. The line is that they seek out narcissistic mates. In other words, they are mentally ill themselves.
There is such a thing as the "martyr complex." But it doesn't apply to an abusive relationship with a narcissist. A person with a martyr complex isn't really abused and doesn't seek real abuse. He or she likes to imagine themselves abused and portray themselves as abused. There's a big difference between that and seeking real abuse!
Yet the victims of narcissists are relentlessly re-victimized (for the sin of having been victimized) by this irrationale for blaming the victim called "codependence." Not only is it unresearched psychobabble masquerading as science, but by now, everyone should know that any explanation that blames the victim should be viewed with healthy skepticism. Why? Because it is anti-logical.
Remember that society used to blame the victim for rape, racism, and every other form of abuse. Different forms of blaming the victim pass in and out of vogue, but blaming the victim is as old as the Bible (illness or misfortune was punishment for sin) and goes on forever. It starts in the schoolyard and continues in the workplace.
Every time the big guy hits on a little one, everyone agrees that the little guy "asked for it." Nobody ever asks, "Now why would he do that?" For, they readily believe that the little guy is so stupid or crazy as to have poked his finger into that big guy's eye. But if you try to say that the big guy just attacked without being provoked, they never fail to skeptically ask, "Now why would he do that?" See the double standard?
Some things never change: anything to blame the victim. Anything.
Here's how this codependency "theory" (pseudoscience) goes: If you have a relationship with a narcissist, your parents abused you as a child and you now subconsciously try to control your narcissist through cunning enabling behaviors to make him or her abuse you, too.
In "The Codependency Idea: When Caring Becomes a Disease," by Robert Westermeyer, Ph.D.:
This popular construct is shunned by research psychologists and behaviorally-oriented clinical psychologists particularly for it's lack of empirical support. The allure of codependency is demonstrated by the sales of books on the topic (the only resources on codependency come from self-help sections and fluffy journals). Millions of codependency books have been sold over the past ten years. ...codependent, or co-alcoholic, was originally defined in the late 1970s and early 1980s to help families and spouses of individuals with alcohol and drug problems. ...The idea was that the caring behavior manifested by family members and spouses actually "enabled" the addict to continue using. ...Unfortunately, from the mid eighties to the present, the codependency idea has become bastardized, and with each new self-help book the symptoms of codependency mount. It is literally impossible for anyone walking the planet, with a fourth grade English reading capacity, to finish one of these books and not consider the possibility that he or she is a codependent. ...Not only is all caring manifested by the spouse of an alcoholic deemed pathological, but the very act of compromising one's needs to aid a loved one is now deemed symptomatic of a progressive disease processes, a relationship addiction. [...]
I've read a fair amount of what the popular press has bequeathed upon us regarding the codependency idea. The three books I scrutinized the most were the most popular. ...Below is my understanding of these authors' conceptualizations:
Codependency is a progressive disease brought about by child abuse, which takes the form of anything "less than nurturing." Codependency is epidemic (maybe all of us are codependent) and defines a vast array of psychological and physical symptoms. The caring manifested by codependents is an unconscious effort to keep repressed pain at bay, and the codependent actually contributes to the addictive behavior of their loved ones by enabling. Enabling keeps the loved one addicted so the codependent can go on caring to gain a sense of self worth. Recovery from codependency requires drastic attitude and lifestyle change (Detachment) and a lifelong commitment to the 12-step regime.[...]
Codependency is a nebulous idea, born not of science but of the gut feelings of counselors and frustrated lay people. It's black and white requirements for recovery, though seeming reasonable on the surface, are not in line with empirical research and have dangerous implications with regard to the most human of attributes, caring.
See also: Scott O. Lilienfeld, Ph.D., Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice
The past several decades have seen a virtual explosion in the use of controversial and poorly studied psychiatric labels, such as codependency, sexual addiction, road rage disorder, infanticide syndrome, parental alienation syndrome, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and Munchausen's syndrome (factitious disorder) by proxy (see Mart, this issue). Although some of these labels may ultimately be shown to be predictively useful, many are of undemonstrated validity (McCann, Shindler, & Hammond, in press). Nevertheless, such labels are commonly invoked by mental health professionals as scientific explanations of problematic behavior and are introduced by them into courts of law with increasing frequency. In still other cases, there are serious concerns that some psychiatric conditions (e.g., dissociative identity disorder, known formerly as multiple personality disorder) are being substantially overdiagnosed in certain settings.
Saying that a mate reluctant to leave a narcissist is codependent ignores the countless ways that normal people can end up in a crucible, through no fault of their own.
For example, much of what we know about narcissism has come from families in which the poisoned fruit ripened during the last fifteen-to-twenty years. These families were formed after World War II, when there was a shortage of men, and women alone could not support themselves. Doubtless, many women settled for husbands they would not settle for in today's world. Divorce was both financially unfeasible and taboo. Also, if a woman has a narcissistic father, she has no way of knowing that all men are not like that. She has been raised to view his dissatisfaction with her as her fault and to put up with being treated as inferior. She also has feelings abused from early childhood. Bruised feelings. So they are more sensitive than most people's feelings. Narcissists target women like this as easy prey because their self-esteem is easy to puncture.
Narcissists need not be exceptionally intelligent, but they are exceptionally experienced, because they have been playing this game since childhood. So they are diabolical. Therefore, unless a narcissist is manifestly brilliant, he is bound to be underestimated and thought incapable of cunning and duplicity. It is amazing how little suspicion he arouses as he goes to great lengths weaving a web that traps a mate by isolating her from other people and making her financially, socially, and emotionally dependent on him. Then suddenly the honeymoon is over.
Plus, there is such a thing as the cycle of abuse.
Return to Table of Contents
There is such a thing as the "martyr complex." But it doesn't apply to an abusive relationship with a narcissist. A person with a martyr complex isn't really abused and doesn't seek real abuse. He or she likes to imagine themselves abused and portray themselves as abused. There's a big difference between that and seeking real abuse!
Yet the victims of narcissists are relentlessly re-victimized (for the sin of having been victimized) by this irrationale for blaming the victim called "codependence." Not only is it unresearched psychobabble masquerading as science, but by now, everyone should know that any explanation that blames the victim should be viewed with healthy skepticism. Why? Because it is anti-logical.
Remember that society used to blame the victim for rape, racism, and every other form of abuse. Different forms of blaming the victim pass in and out of vogue, but blaming the victim is as old as the Bible (illness or misfortune was punishment for sin) and goes on forever. It starts in the schoolyard and continues in the workplace.
Every time the big guy hits on a little one, everyone agrees that the little guy "asked for it." Nobody ever asks, "Now why would he do that?" For, they readily believe that the little guy is so stupid or crazy as to have poked his finger into that big guy's eye. But if you try to say that the big guy just attacked without being provoked, they never fail to skeptically ask, "Now why would he do that?" See the double standard?
Some things never change: anything to blame the victim. Anything.
Here's how this codependency "theory" (pseudoscience) goes: If you have a relationship with a narcissist, your parents abused you as a child and you now subconsciously try to control your narcissist through cunning enabling behaviors to make him or her abuse you, too.
In "The Codependency Idea: When Caring Becomes a Disease," by Robert Westermeyer, Ph.D.:
This popular construct is shunned by research psychologists and behaviorally-oriented clinical psychologists particularly for it's lack of empirical support. The allure of codependency is demonstrated by the sales of books on the topic (the only resources on codependency come from self-help sections and fluffy journals). Millions of codependency books have been sold over the past ten years. ...codependent, or co-alcoholic, was originally defined in the late 1970s and early 1980s to help families and spouses of individuals with alcohol and drug problems. ...The idea was that the caring behavior manifested by family members and spouses actually "enabled" the addict to continue using. ...Unfortunately, from the mid eighties to the present, the codependency idea has become bastardized, and with each new self-help book the symptoms of codependency mount. It is literally impossible for anyone walking the planet, with a fourth grade English reading capacity, to finish one of these books and not consider the possibility that he or she is a codependent. ...Not only is all caring manifested by the spouse of an alcoholic deemed pathological, but the very act of compromising one's needs to aid a loved one is now deemed symptomatic of a progressive disease processes, a relationship addiction. [...]
I've read a fair amount of what the popular press has bequeathed upon us regarding the codependency idea. The three books I scrutinized the most were the most popular. ...Below is my understanding of these authors' conceptualizations:
Codependency is a progressive disease brought about by child abuse, which takes the form of anything "less than nurturing." Codependency is epidemic (maybe all of us are codependent) and defines a vast array of psychological and physical symptoms. The caring manifested by codependents is an unconscious effort to keep repressed pain at bay, and the codependent actually contributes to the addictive behavior of their loved ones by enabling. Enabling keeps the loved one addicted so the codependent can go on caring to gain a sense of self worth. Recovery from codependency requires drastic attitude and lifestyle change (Detachment) and a lifelong commitment to the 12-step regime.[...]
Codependency is a nebulous idea, born not of science but of the gut feelings of counselors and frustrated lay people. It's black and white requirements for recovery, though seeming reasonable on the surface, are not in line with empirical research and have dangerous implications with regard to the most human of attributes, caring.
See also: Scott O. Lilienfeld, Ph.D., Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice
The past several decades have seen a virtual explosion in the use of controversial and poorly studied psychiatric labels, such as codependency, sexual addiction, road rage disorder, infanticide syndrome, parental alienation syndrome, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and Munchausen's syndrome (factitious disorder) by proxy (see Mart, this issue). Although some of these labels may ultimately be shown to be predictively useful, many are of undemonstrated validity (McCann, Shindler, & Hammond, in press). Nevertheless, such labels are commonly invoked by mental health professionals as scientific explanations of problematic behavior and are introduced by them into courts of law with increasing frequency. In still other cases, there are serious concerns that some psychiatric conditions (e.g., dissociative identity disorder, known formerly as multiple personality disorder) are being substantially overdiagnosed in certain settings.
Saying that a mate reluctant to leave a narcissist is codependent ignores the countless ways that normal people can end up in a crucible, through no fault of their own.
For example, much of what we know about narcissism has come from families in which the poisoned fruit ripened during the last fifteen-to-twenty years. These families were formed after World War II, when there was a shortage of men, and women alone could not support themselves. Doubtless, many women settled for husbands they would not settle for in today's world. Divorce was both financially unfeasible and taboo. Also, if a woman has a narcissistic father, she has no way of knowing that all men are not like that. She has been raised to view his dissatisfaction with her as her fault and to put up with being treated as inferior. She also has feelings abused from early childhood. Bruised feelings. So they are more sensitive than most people's feelings. Narcissists target women like this as easy prey because their self-esteem is easy to puncture.
Narcissists need not be exceptionally intelligent, but they are exceptionally experienced, because they have been playing this game since childhood. So they are diabolical. Therefore, unless a narcissist is manifestly brilliant, he is bound to be underestimated and thought incapable of cunning and duplicity. It is amazing how little suspicion he arouses as he goes to great lengths weaving a web that traps a mate by isolating her from other people and making her financially, socially, and emotionally dependent on him. Then suddenly the honeymoon is over.
Plus, there is such a thing as the cycle of abuse.
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The Cycle of Abuse
In my own little slice of the world, this is what I have observed and learned from other victims: there is a cycle of abuse that does manipulate the victim into behaving in ways that seem strange to outside observers — as if they are "asking for it."
And since people love to blame the victim (it's a kind of "whistling in the dark" to assure themselves that no abuser will ever sic on a strong person like themselves), they leap to the conclusion that this is so, that the victim is "asking for it." But in the cases I know of, it never was.
In fact, this behavior is the reaction of normal people to abuse. Many perfectly normal people get trapped in the cycle of abuse. The victims of narcissists behave exactly the way the victims of all torture and brainwashing do, exactly the way all hostages do.
We see it in the Stockholm Syndrome, named from an incident in which hostages took the side of their captors and clung to them! All hostages exhibit symptoms of the Stockholm syndrome. Since the Middle Ages, inquisitors and torturers (executioners) have known and capitalized on this bizarre phenomenon in the hapless victims at their mercy. All the tortured cling to the torturer for dear life. Who else can they appeal to? Before you know it, the victim is offering him- or her-self to abuse in an effort to appease the tormentor! Yes!
It's like throwing an attack dog a bone to save your leg = a desperate effort to offer the abuser anything — anything — he wants in hopes of reaching his cold, cold heart.
The Abominable Inquisition understood this phenomenon and deliberately exploited it to break the victim's back with the unbearable shame the victim feels at being reduced to doing such a self-degrading thing. But the KGB proved that you needn't even lay a hand on the victim to reduce him or her to such an abject state of submission. It's famed method of mentally breaking people deliberately accomplished the same thing (in about one month) to establish mind control.
Why do normal people do this under duress? What else can they do? You're taking right-side-up people and putting them in a pervert's upside-down world. You're taking people acting on normal human premises and having those reactions play right into pervert's perverted premises.
The abuser always makes the victim totally dependant on him before he starts abusing. So, what is the victim going to do? She has no choice but to try to soften a stone-cold heart. This is nothing but appeasement. The helpless have no other option.
We see this happening on a massive scale today in the bizarre efforts to appease the Islamofascist mobs and terrorists the world over. "Don't make them mad! Don't think badly of them for what they do. Apologize for making them abuse us by making them mad at us. Blame ourselves for everything they do to us. Bend over for it with a smile. Suck up. Then maybe they will soften and like us and stop abusing us."
Pass me the puke bucket, please.
The West has no excuse for such cowardly appeasement, because the West isn't helpless. The western nations are just unwilling to stop squabbling among themselves, get real, and unite against a common enemy (a problem the West has had since the Fall of the Roman Empire).
But the victims of narcissists often are helpless.
And even when they aren't, when they can and do try to fight back, some holier-than-thou comes along and says it's a sin. Then the whole world gangs up and jumps on the victim's back saying, "Yes, stop it. Stop fighting because that's a sin."
Who has a strong enough backbone to stand up under that? This merciless suppression of any effort at self-defense breaks the victim's back. Then these same holier-than-thous turn around and say, "See? She just takes it. So, she likes it. She's asking for it. She's codependent."
Perhaps they are the ones who need their heads examined, not the victim they thus play Catch-22 with.
How is she to take being "IT" in this game of "being damned if you do and damned if you don't?" How does one wrap a sound mind around it? Is there anything more her spouse and society could gang up and do to drive her crazy? It is no wonder that this universal oppression depresses her.
Then we blame the victim for that too. Because God made women to smile all the time.
It is not natural for a person to take abuse. Our instincts prompt us to fight or flee. By "flee" I mean abandon the abuser, which usually means divorcing him. By "fight" I mean strike back to hurt the abuser so he has some reason not to abuse you again — fear that you will bite back.
But society blocks this common sense in our genes by infesting our brains with a virus — the stupid idea that divorce or fighting back is wrong. Especially when her abuser goes around putting on an Academy Award act of how hurt he is, and all the bystanders buy it to deck themselves out in their nicey-nice act.
Of course he's hurting: the poor big baby doesn't want to lose his combination punching bag and Mamma.
Yes, society is getting involved and on the wrong side. What choice does society leave the victim? She must choose whether to (a) be a bad person or (b) bend over for it.
Every person's most precious possession is her self-concept — the picture of herself she carries inside, the image of herself as a good person. People will do anything to preserve it. They would rather die than lose it or have it taken from them. So, she usually chooses to go against nature and be a good girl = put up with the abuse = keep turning the other cheek.
But it's a Catch-22, for then we say she is a bad person anyway — for thus "asking for it." Now we say she's codependent and has a martyr complex.
But I see no self-masochism in this victim, do you? I just see a normal human being in Catch-22.
What is Catch-22? It's the English translation of the Italian phrase for the 22nd "malbowge" ("evil pouch/pocket") of Nether Hell in Dante's Inferno. That's the lowest pit of hell, the place where the treacherous, the traitors, get to experience their sin on the receiving end. It's where Dante put Judas priests, the likes of people who invite a family to dinner and then lock them in a tower to starve to death, as well as Julius Caesar's "friend" Brutus, and of course Judas Iscariot.
I think it was the prophet Ezekiel who got really sarcastic in rebuking those "from whom there is no peace" for thus pursuing her in this never-ending attack "crying, 'Peace! Peace!'" So, her abuser tramples her and then the bystanders pile on. First by society's taboos against fighting back and then by blaming the victim for docilely submitting to abuse. When everyone gangs up on her like this, how can she not be overwhelmed by that tidal wave? What is she to do?
We know the answer. Instead of curing her by eliminating the cause, oppression, we drug her with Prozac.
And so the cycle of abuse rolls on. Like a steamroller. Over her most precious possession, her concept of herself as a good person.
The victim will feel shame for bending over for it, to the extent that he or she failed to resist as much as possible. So, the victim must never be condemned for fighting back.
But, come on, knuckling under to abuse isn't the same as liking it and wanting it. Normal people may knuckle under. But only sick-in-the-head people could like it and ask for it. So, my hunch is that cases of codependence in narcissism are either rare or never occur.
But by mobbing the victim like everyone around her does:
· jumping on her for fighting back or wanting to leave him
· then jumping on her for just taking the abuse instead
· then jumping on her for being depressed
· jumping on her for complaining
· jumping on her for saying anything about it
· jumping on her for anything that doesn't amount to acting like it ain't happening
· by thus PERSECUTING her...
...the "nice" people around her often do what the narcissist couldn't = break her back. I mean that morally. They demoralize her, making her what they say she is, mentally ill.
For that, their future home is Malbowge 22. (It's very cold there. Very, very cold.)
And so, both the deliberate abuse of her mate and the ambient abuse of the phony bystanders often do mental damage. The resulting mental disorder is described by the Medieval legal and theological term "reduction to a state of victimhood," because it was actually a judicial sentence executed so as to bring it about. It was the ultimate punishment of an age that laid awake nights thinking of ways to make punishments worse.
But remember that a mental disorder is not a personality disorder. In fact, both individuals and society wound us all, and most people suffer from some mental disorder at some time in their lives. For the most part, those who do not make matters worse by abusing their minds with lies, live normal lives. They get over it or manage it on their own. Not so with personality disorders. Since we don't blame veterans for suffering post-traumatic stress, we shouldn't blame the abused for suffering reduction to a state of victimhood.
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And since people love to blame the victim (it's a kind of "whistling in the dark" to assure themselves that no abuser will ever sic on a strong person like themselves), they leap to the conclusion that this is so, that the victim is "asking for it." But in the cases I know of, it never was.
In fact, this behavior is the reaction of normal people to abuse. Many perfectly normal people get trapped in the cycle of abuse. The victims of narcissists behave exactly the way the victims of all torture and brainwashing do, exactly the way all hostages do.
We see it in the Stockholm Syndrome, named from an incident in which hostages took the side of their captors and clung to them! All hostages exhibit symptoms of the Stockholm syndrome. Since the Middle Ages, inquisitors and torturers (executioners) have known and capitalized on this bizarre phenomenon in the hapless victims at their mercy. All the tortured cling to the torturer for dear life. Who else can they appeal to? Before you know it, the victim is offering him- or her-self to abuse in an effort to appease the tormentor! Yes!
It's like throwing an attack dog a bone to save your leg = a desperate effort to offer the abuser anything — anything — he wants in hopes of reaching his cold, cold heart.
The Abominable Inquisition understood this phenomenon and deliberately exploited it to break the victim's back with the unbearable shame the victim feels at being reduced to doing such a self-degrading thing. But the KGB proved that you needn't even lay a hand on the victim to reduce him or her to such an abject state of submission. It's famed method of mentally breaking people deliberately accomplished the same thing (in about one month) to establish mind control.
Why do normal people do this under duress? What else can they do? You're taking right-side-up people and putting them in a pervert's upside-down world. You're taking people acting on normal human premises and having those reactions play right into pervert's perverted premises.
The abuser always makes the victim totally dependant on him before he starts abusing. So, what is the victim going to do? She has no choice but to try to soften a stone-cold heart. This is nothing but appeasement. The helpless have no other option.
We see this happening on a massive scale today in the bizarre efforts to appease the Islamofascist mobs and terrorists the world over. "Don't make them mad! Don't think badly of them for what they do. Apologize for making them abuse us by making them mad at us. Blame ourselves for everything they do to us. Bend over for it with a smile. Suck up. Then maybe they will soften and like us and stop abusing us."
Pass me the puke bucket, please.
The West has no excuse for such cowardly appeasement, because the West isn't helpless. The western nations are just unwilling to stop squabbling among themselves, get real, and unite against a common enemy (a problem the West has had since the Fall of the Roman Empire).
But the victims of narcissists often are helpless.
And even when they aren't, when they can and do try to fight back, some holier-than-thou comes along and says it's a sin. Then the whole world gangs up and jumps on the victim's back saying, "Yes, stop it. Stop fighting because that's a sin."
Who has a strong enough backbone to stand up under that? This merciless suppression of any effort at self-defense breaks the victim's back. Then these same holier-than-thous turn around and say, "See? She just takes it. So, she likes it. She's asking for it. She's codependent."
Perhaps they are the ones who need their heads examined, not the victim they thus play Catch-22 with.
How is she to take being "IT" in this game of "being damned if you do and damned if you don't?" How does one wrap a sound mind around it? Is there anything more her spouse and society could gang up and do to drive her crazy? It is no wonder that this universal oppression depresses her.
Then we blame the victim for that too. Because God made women to smile all the time.
It is not natural for a person to take abuse. Our instincts prompt us to fight or flee. By "flee" I mean abandon the abuser, which usually means divorcing him. By "fight" I mean strike back to hurt the abuser so he has some reason not to abuse you again — fear that you will bite back.
But society blocks this common sense in our genes by infesting our brains with a virus — the stupid idea that divorce or fighting back is wrong. Especially when her abuser goes around putting on an Academy Award act of how hurt he is, and all the bystanders buy it to deck themselves out in their nicey-nice act.
Of course he's hurting: the poor big baby doesn't want to lose his combination punching bag and Mamma.
Yes, society is getting involved and on the wrong side. What choice does society leave the victim? She must choose whether to (a) be a bad person or (b) bend over for it.
Every person's most precious possession is her self-concept — the picture of herself she carries inside, the image of herself as a good person. People will do anything to preserve it. They would rather die than lose it or have it taken from them. So, she usually chooses to go against nature and be a good girl = put up with the abuse = keep turning the other cheek.
But it's a Catch-22, for then we say she is a bad person anyway — for thus "asking for it." Now we say she's codependent and has a martyr complex.
But I see no self-masochism in this victim, do you? I just see a normal human being in Catch-22.
What is Catch-22? It's the English translation of the Italian phrase for the 22nd "malbowge" ("evil pouch/pocket") of Nether Hell in Dante's Inferno. That's the lowest pit of hell, the place where the treacherous, the traitors, get to experience their sin on the receiving end. It's where Dante put Judas priests, the likes of people who invite a family to dinner and then lock them in a tower to starve to death, as well as Julius Caesar's "friend" Brutus, and of course Judas Iscariot.
I think it was the prophet Ezekiel who got really sarcastic in rebuking those "from whom there is no peace" for thus pursuing her in this never-ending attack "crying, 'Peace! Peace!'" So, her abuser tramples her and then the bystanders pile on. First by society's taboos against fighting back and then by blaming the victim for docilely submitting to abuse. When everyone gangs up on her like this, how can she not be overwhelmed by that tidal wave? What is she to do?
We know the answer. Instead of curing her by eliminating the cause, oppression, we drug her with Prozac.
And so the cycle of abuse rolls on. Like a steamroller. Over her most precious possession, her concept of herself as a good person.
The victim will feel shame for bending over for it, to the extent that he or she failed to resist as much as possible. So, the victim must never be condemned for fighting back.
But, come on, knuckling under to abuse isn't the same as liking it and wanting it. Normal people may knuckle under. But only sick-in-the-head people could like it and ask for it. So, my hunch is that cases of codependence in narcissism are either rare or never occur.
But by mobbing the victim like everyone around her does:
· jumping on her for fighting back or wanting to leave him
· then jumping on her for just taking the abuse instead
· then jumping on her for being depressed
· jumping on her for complaining
· jumping on her for saying anything about it
· jumping on her for anything that doesn't amount to acting like it ain't happening
· by thus PERSECUTING her...
...the "nice" people around her often do what the narcissist couldn't = break her back. I mean that morally. They demoralize her, making her what they say she is, mentally ill.
For that, their future home is Malbowge 22. (It's very cold there. Very, very cold.)
And so, both the deliberate abuse of her mate and the ambient abuse of the phony bystanders often do mental damage. The resulting mental disorder is described by the Medieval legal and theological term "reduction to a state of victimhood," because it was actually a judicial sentence executed so as to bring it about. It was the ultimate punishment of an age that laid awake nights thinking of ways to make punishments worse.
But remember that a mental disorder is not a personality disorder. In fact, both individuals and society wound us all, and most people suffer from some mental disorder at some time in their lives. For the most part, those who do not make matters worse by abusing their minds with lies, live normal lives. They get over it or manage it on their own. Not so with personality disorders. Since we don't blame veterans for suffering post-traumatic stress, we shouldn't blame the abused for suffering reduction to a state of victimhood.
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Bad Reasons
There are also some bad reasons for sticking with a narcissist. Maybe he's rich and she likes the lifestyle. There are mothers who, to keep their trophy mate, selfishly betray their children to abuse by him. More of them should go to jail for "failure to protect."
Then there is the woman who sticks with a narcissist under the illusion that she can win his stupid game. Let's call her the Game Player. (You can read about The Games People Play in the book of that title.)
This is how the game starts: She naturally reacts to the narcissist's Wild Act by trying to put the brakes on him. She does this by drawing two red lines: one at adultery and one at physically beating her or the children. Her abuser comes to a screeching halt at them both. Oooh, power. She gets this power rush because she thinks she is controlling him. She likes it. It is a pain-killer for her battered ego. She wants more, because she has a score to settle. So, there's something in it for her too. She tries to beat this control freak at his own game.
To justify playing the game for her own ego gratification, she doesn't dare know that she has a serious problem. No Problem becomes her middle name. So she doesn't dare be aware that his behavior is downright bizarre. Then she needn't reveal to her parents, siblings, and friends that her husband is cracked. For, they would be abhorred at what goes on privately in that house and think she was a bad mother for not getting her kids out of there. They would not let her unsee the psychological scars he leaves on them.
The game's the thing. She doesn't take it seriously. He will not say he loves the children, will not show any affection for them, will not take any interest in them, and will not pay any attention (except negative attention) to them at all. Unless he is the type of narcissist who lives vicariously through a child he makes a tennis star of, he treats his children as though they don't exist. In any case, they never achieve the status of persons with him. If they try to hijack his attention, he lashes out at them viciously for it.
Yet she expects them to grow up normal! She will even say, "Must I leave him? I want my children to grow up in a home with two parents!"
Well, lady, they are not now living in a home with two parents.
Her two red lines discourage him from doing anything that would leave evidence that could be discovered by the outside world. She rationalizes them as fulfilling her responsibility.
That's absurd. Her red lines only ensure that what a monster he is will never be discovered by the outside world.
So, he gets to psychologically abuse everyone to his heart's content. Narcissists prefer this more deeply wounding kind of abuse anyway. It destroys self-esteem more effectively than physical abuse. They usually are tempted to physical violence only when frustrated in their attempts to land moral blows...and when throwing a terror tantrum just to scare anyone standing up to them. So a narcissist is quite content in a crucible with a game player.
The poor kids have to take it, but Mother can play. And so she and her narcissistic mate manipulate each other like wrestlers locked in mortal combat for the rest of their lives. They hold another round of the same fight every day. He keeps pushing her button to start it. He does it in a Drive By. Then he leaves her to stew and to imagine himself the victim. She plays right into his hands by punishing him with the silent treatment, never learning why it doesn't make her feel like the winner.
Everything is a power play. Like a narcissist, the more she loses, the more determined to win she gets. She never learns that one must be twisted to beat the twisted in the twisted game they play. No wonder she becomes narcissistic herself (though she does not suffer from NPD). No wonder she fails her kids.
If she asked the adult child of a narcissist for advice, he would urge her to get her children away from her husband. Not only are one or more them likely to suffer from NPD, but those who grow up normal will grow up sorely lacking in self-esteem and plagued by self doubt. Not something any responsible parent allows to happen to her children.
So, there are some of the reasons why intelligent, informed people ask, "Must I leave him?" Some of these reasons are quite understandable, and some are deplorable.
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Then there is the woman who sticks with a narcissist under the illusion that she can win his stupid game. Let's call her the Game Player. (You can read about The Games People Play in the book of that title.)
This is how the game starts: She naturally reacts to the narcissist's Wild Act by trying to put the brakes on him. She does this by drawing two red lines: one at adultery and one at physically beating her or the children. Her abuser comes to a screeching halt at them both. Oooh, power. She gets this power rush because she thinks she is controlling him. She likes it. It is a pain-killer for her battered ego. She wants more, because she has a score to settle. So, there's something in it for her too. She tries to beat this control freak at his own game.
To justify playing the game for her own ego gratification, she doesn't dare know that she has a serious problem. No Problem becomes her middle name. So she doesn't dare be aware that his behavior is downright bizarre. Then she needn't reveal to her parents, siblings, and friends that her husband is cracked. For, they would be abhorred at what goes on privately in that house and think she was a bad mother for not getting her kids out of there. They would not let her unsee the psychological scars he leaves on them.
The game's the thing. She doesn't take it seriously. He will not say he loves the children, will not show any affection for them, will not take any interest in them, and will not pay any attention (except negative attention) to them at all. Unless he is the type of narcissist who lives vicariously through a child he makes a tennis star of, he treats his children as though they don't exist. In any case, they never achieve the status of persons with him. If they try to hijack his attention, he lashes out at them viciously for it.
Yet she expects them to grow up normal! She will even say, "Must I leave him? I want my children to grow up in a home with two parents!"
Well, lady, they are not now living in a home with two parents.
Her two red lines discourage him from doing anything that would leave evidence that could be discovered by the outside world. She rationalizes them as fulfilling her responsibility.
That's absurd. Her red lines only ensure that what a monster he is will never be discovered by the outside world.
So, he gets to psychologically abuse everyone to his heart's content. Narcissists prefer this more deeply wounding kind of abuse anyway. It destroys self-esteem more effectively than physical abuse. They usually are tempted to physical violence only when frustrated in their attempts to land moral blows...and when throwing a terror tantrum just to scare anyone standing up to them. So a narcissist is quite content in a crucible with a game player.
The poor kids have to take it, but Mother can play. And so she and her narcissistic mate manipulate each other like wrestlers locked in mortal combat for the rest of their lives. They hold another round of the same fight every day. He keeps pushing her button to start it. He does it in a Drive By. Then he leaves her to stew and to imagine himself the victim. She plays right into his hands by punishing him with the silent treatment, never learning why it doesn't make her feel like the winner.
Everything is a power play. Like a narcissist, the more she loses, the more determined to win she gets. She never learns that one must be twisted to beat the twisted in the twisted game they play. No wonder she becomes narcissistic herself (though she does not suffer from NPD). No wonder she fails her kids.
If she asked the adult child of a narcissist for advice, he would urge her to get her children away from her husband. Not only are one or more them likely to suffer from NPD, but those who grow up normal will grow up sorely lacking in self-esteem and plagued by self doubt. Not something any responsible parent allows to happen to her children.
So, there are some of the reasons why intelligent, informed people ask, "Must I leave him?" Some of these reasons are quite understandable, and some are deplorable.
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Begging The Question
But what the heck kind of question is that? Must I leave him? What business is it of ours? Must I give you good advice when I won't experience the fruit of it? Hmm. Then I can experiment on you with my advice. If it causes a catastrophe, what's that to me?
I mean that anyone who has no stake in a matter should have no say in it. People who are not in the same boat with you always have ulterior motives for what they say you should do.
How can I say that for sure? Because someone without an ulterior motive would respect the fact that your marriage is none of their business. Therefore, the type of person you can trust to guide you is also the type of person who won't want to. Only if this person is close, will he even be willing to talk with you about it. If he is close, he may help you think the matter through so you can identify your options and determine whether your mate really is seriously mentally ill. But he will be loathe to tell you what to do. Only fear for your physical safety would compel him to urge you to leave your spouse.
In contrast, those who jump at the chance to tell you what to do are often people just trying to sound like nice people. So, these sounders sound like the milk of human kindness flows by the quart in their every vein. But notice that there's not one drop of common sense in it. They're serving themselves, not you. You can tell because they are always politically correct and do much more talking than listening. They are just posing in a mirror. So, their advice is as worthless as hot air.
Your situation is unique. Most people cannot comprehend, let alone appreciate, your predicament or the consequences of either staying with, or leaving, your "N." So, they cannot weigh all the criteria that must be weighed in your decision.
For one thing, if your spouse is a malignant narcissist, it may be dangerous to abandon him. Women have been murdered for doing that. The longer you have been together (= the less able he is to find a replacement), the greater the risk. That risk must be carefully assessed and steps to protect yourself carefully planned. You need tips from people who know what they're talking about, not moralizing opinions.
Also, it's easy for me to say that you should get your children out of that home. But it's not so easy for you if that would doom them to life in poverty.
On the other hand, the abuse is usually the kind that leaves no physical bruises. When described, it loses much in the translation. Only people who have experienced it sense how black it is and appreciate its devastating impact. Typically, others don't appreciate it at all and think you should just put up with these mere "annoyances" for the rest of your life.
Moreover, some things sound fine until they happen to you. Then suddenly the veil falls from your eyes and you see what's wrong with them. For example, men often see nothing offensive in the way they treat women — until they are treated that way. Again for example, people see nothing wrong in one man dying for everybody else's sins — until they are punished for someone else's sin. Yet again for example, people think a man praises God when he crawls out from under the rubble of his house after a tornado and thanks God for sparing him — until someone they love dies in the rubble of the house next door.
So, most people have no idea what you are going through and therefore are in no position to offer advice.
Moreover, there are a host of practical considerations.
Other people cannot appreciate your isolation and all its ramifications. If you leave the narcissist and people find out what happened in that home, they will not think well of you for allowing it so long. Are you prepared for that? Why did you let him come between you and your family? (Gulp.) Are you prepared to eat crow? What are you going to say to your parents and siblings about it now?
More important, being all about his image, a narcissist's top priority is to "come out smelling like a rose." Narcissists have been through upheavals before and know just how to do that. Plus, they have practiced character assassination since childhood. They often fool a woman's own family into believing that she is the demon in the affair. In fact, victims usually complain that their relationships with everyone are destroyed so that they lose their family, extended family, and circle of friends. This is usually a consequence of a break with a narcissistic sibling, but, as far as possible, it happens in a break with a narcissistic mate as well.
And it can cost you custody of your children. Your career. It can make you unemployable, largely because one of the lies he spreads about you is a lie every narcissist spreads about his or her victims. You can guess it by remembering that a narcissist is a Projection Machine. Yup, you guessed it: that you are the crazy one, not him.
My advice is to first find out for sure whether your mate really is seriously mentally ill or is just behaving narcissistically in certain circumstances. If he does not suffer from NPD, the relationship might be salvageable. If he does, there is no relationship salvage. What you took for a relationship is just a shtick for him to club you with. In other words, you are married to someone who isn't married to you.
Even before you decide what to do, collect evidence in case you need it someday.
Most important, give appropriate weight to the psychological welfare of your children. The saddest thing in the world is how this disease passes from generation to generation in families, spreading pain and suffering greater than which there cannot be.
Return to Table of Contents
I mean that anyone who has no stake in a matter should have no say in it. People who are not in the same boat with you always have ulterior motives for what they say you should do.
How can I say that for sure? Because someone without an ulterior motive would respect the fact that your marriage is none of their business. Therefore, the type of person you can trust to guide you is also the type of person who won't want to. Only if this person is close, will he even be willing to talk with you about it. If he is close, he may help you think the matter through so you can identify your options and determine whether your mate really is seriously mentally ill. But he will be loathe to tell you what to do. Only fear for your physical safety would compel him to urge you to leave your spouse.
In contrast, those who jump at the chance to tell you what to do are often people just trying to sound like nice people. So, these sounders sound like the milk of human kindness flows by the quart in their every vein. But notice that there's not one drop of common sense in it. They're serving themselves, not you. You can tell because they are always politically correct and do much more talking than listening. They are just posing in a mirror. So, their advice is as worthless as hot air.
Your situation is unique. Most people cannot comprehend, let alone appreciate, your predicament or the consequences of either staying with, or leaving, your "N." So, they cannot weigh all the criteria that must be weighed in your decision.
For one thing, if your spouse is a malignant narcissist, it may be dangerous to abandon him. Women have been murdered for doing that. The longer you have been together (= the less able he is to find a replacement), the greater the risk. That risk must be carefully assessed and steps to protect yourself carefully planned. You need tips from people who know what they're talking about, not moralizing opinions.
Also, it's easy for me to say that you should get your children out of that home. But it's not so easy for you if that would doom them to life in poverty.
On the other hand, the abuse is usually the kind that leaves no physical bruises. When described, it loses much in the translation. Only people who have experienced it sense how black it is and appreciate its devastating impact. Typically, others don't appreciate it at all and think you should just put up with these mere "annoyances" for the rest of your life.
Moreover, some things sound fine until they happen to you. Then suddenly the veil falls from your eyes and you see what's wrong with them. For example, men often see nothing offensive in the way they treat women — until they are treated that way. Again for example, people see nothing wrong in one man dying for everybody else's sins — until they are punished for someone else's sin. Yet again for example, people think a man praises God when he crawls out from under the rubble of his house after a tornado and thanks God for sparing him — until someone they love dies in the rubble of the house next door.
So, most people have no idea what you are going through and therefore are in no position to offer advice.
Moreover, there are a host of practical considerations.
Other people cannot appreciate your isolation and all its ramifications. If you leave the narcissist and people find out what happened in that home, they will not think well of you for allowing it so long. Are you prepared for that? Why did you let him come between you and your family? (Gulp.) Are you prepared to eat crow? What are you going to say to your parents and siblings about it now?
More important, being all about his image, a narcissist's top priority is to "come out smelling like a rose." Narcissists have been through upheavals before and know just how to do that. Plus, they have practiced character assassination since childhood. They often fool a woman's own family into believing that she is the demon in the affair. In fact, victims usually complain that their relationships with everyone are destroyed so that they lose their family, extended family, and circle of friends. This is usually a consequence of a break with a narcissistic sibling, but, as far as possible, it happens in a break with a narcissistic mate as well.
And it can cost you custody of your children. Your career. It can make you unemployable, largely because one of the lies he spreads about you is a lie every narcissist spreads about his or her victims. You can guess it by remembering that a narcissist is a Projection Machine. Yup, you guessed it: that you are the crazy one, not him.
My advice is to first find out for sure whether your mate really is seriously mentally ill or is just behaving narcissistically in certain circumstances. If he does not suffer from NPD, the relationship might be salvageable. If he does, there is no relationship salvage. What you took for a relationship is just a shtick for him to club you with. In other words, you are married to someone who isn't married to you.
Even before you decide what to do, collect evidence in case you need it someday.
Most important, give appropriate weight to the psychological welfare of your children. The saddest thing in the world is how this disease passes from generation to generation in families, spreading pain and suffering greater than which there cannot be.
Return to Table of Contents
Denial
Most people who get involved with a malignant narcissist do eventually decide to break away. At some point, they sense that, to survive as a person, they must. This often takes a very long time, but that is no reason to say that they are gluttons for punishment. A glutton for punishment never breaks away. So we must be careful not to judge too quickly. Denial is a powerful thing, and it is instinctive in traumatic situations.
Though I am less prone to denial than most people, I had an unforgettable experience with it many years ago. I was on a flight from Paris to Rome, and the security was much tighter even than it is today. Everything got X-rayed and thoroughly hand searched, including your person. You probably would not believe me if I told you all the things that happened without me allowing myself to know what was going on.
The more reality tried to impose on my consciousness, the more into a haze I went. I was in the boarding line for three hours before I gave in and looked up at the sign that said this flight was ultimately bound for Tel Aviv. My heart landed in the pit of my stomach. The people in that endless line behaved differently than Europeans. After nine days in Paris, it felt good to be among people like this, whom I felt must be mostly Americans. But now, for the first time I let myself see and looked around. Their hushed, almost whispering voices were not speaking English. And every twentieth man was bearded and dressed as an orthodox Jew.
But even that did not bring me out of denial. I kept whistling in the dark, to think this was probably routine and that there was no danger. The loaded plane then baked on the runway for several hours — I lost track of time. I didn't come out of denial until long after the cargo hold had been emptied, all the baggage re-searched by hand, and reloaded. Not once, or twice, but three times.
Denial is a slippery slope, so even that did nothing but accelerate me deeper and deeper into it. That's because every time a thought acknowledging reality managed to form, you quickly repressed it in denial to keep whistling there in the dark. I didn't come out of it until the plane had sat on that runway for so long you thought terrorists were in the cockpit and negotiations were underway. Not till the silent tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife and everybody was about to explode. (You were afraid to move or talk, for fear that everybody would attack you and tear you to pieces with their bare hands, thinking you were a terrorist.) The teenage girl in the seat behind me threw up for sheer fright and was comforted by two old men.
Then a young mother held up her one-or-two-year-old son at arm's length, obviously in some silent gesture that all understood. She made him giggle with delight for us. The center of all that silent attention, he held out his arms to be an airplane for us. To this day, whenever I recall that moment, I utterly break down into sobbing tears.
It changed my life. At the time though this vision just stunned me. Back into my senses. That's because I suddenly realized that people wanted to kill this child for being.
As if stuck by a hot poker or something, I turned around with a little voice in my head angrily asking, "Why? Where are they? Where are the bastards?" It was as though a gigabyte of understanding downloaded all at once. "Humph," I thought, sitting back in my seat, "Figures! They're hiding! Cute! But I'll be damned if I'll be afraid of the people I can see!"
Why did I think that? Because when I came to my senses I noticed someone's invisible finger on my button and snatched back control of my mind. That's why I suddenly could think straight enough to know whom to hate.
I am too ashamed to share what I had been thinking before that, as half-formed thoughts repressed just would not stay down, despite my denial, and kept surfacing to consciousness on me. But I will say that the terror tactics had me fearing those innocent people around me, not the unseen terrorists.
To this day, I am both ashamed and amazed at how backwards terror had made me think. Because they were dangerous to be around, the other passengers were the "dangerous" ones in my mind, not the unseen terrorists. What a toxic thought. Imagine how it made me view them.
And there is a very short step between fear and hatred. One takes it in a heartbeat.
Terror made me want to distance myself as far as possible from every Jew on the planet. And if there had been a terrorist in sight I would have wanted to kiss his feet, trying to suck up by showing him that I hated Jews too.
Yup, I was blaming the victim, viewing the targets of terrorists like Canadians and Europeans view Americans today. Yup, if we saw a bunch of sheep blaming the attacked one while making excuses for the wolf and even being friendly with him, we'd know they're crazy. But terrorized human beings NEVER fail to do just that.
Sure, those stupid sheep think that if they suck up to him, he'll like them and not eat them too. But we know that's too stupid for even a dumb animal to think. Yet, terrorized human beings NEVER fail to think just that.
I liken this crazy, backwards thinking to the true story of some children caught on a railroad trestle bridge when a train came. Observers said that, if they had done the natural thing — if they had run to the nearer end of the bridge, away from the train — they would have reached safety. But like deer in an automobile's headlights, their terror made them all run right into the onrushing train.
Truth is stranger than fiction, eh? That's how backwards terror makes people think, and narcissists use terror tactics.
Terror isn't fright. Terror is a darkened state of mind. Terror is your head buried in the sand. Indeed, the very word terror comes from the Latin word terra, which means "earth" and comes from this ancient figure of speech. Terror is that underground state of mind otherwise known as denial — fear of facing facts. In terror, you're on automatic pilot, acting on thoughts you repress to the level of the subconscious. Therefore, those thoughts can be absolutely absurd without your realizing it.
So, beware denial. It's a dangerous state of mind. A narcissist's shock tactics and terror tactics drive you into it. But don't go there. People in denial don't think straight. They think and do the most inexplicable things because denial compels them 180 degrees in the wrong direction. If I had not been deep in denial I would not even have boarded that plane.
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Though I am less prone to denial than most people, I had an unforgettable experience with it many years ago. I was on a flight from Paris to Rome, and the security was much tighter even than it is today. Everything got X-rayed and thoroughly hand searched, including your person. You probably would not believe me if I told you all the things that happened without me allowing myself to know what was going on.
The more reality tried to impose on my consciousness, the more into a haze I went. I was in the boarding line for three hours before I gave in and looked up at the sign that said this flight was ultimately bound for Tel Aviv. My heart landed in the pit of my stomach. The people in that endless line behaved differently than Europeans. After nine days in Paris, it felt good to be among people like this, whom I felt must be mostly Americans. But now, for the first time I let myself see and looked around. Their hushed, almost whispering voices were not speaking English. And every twentieth man was bearded and dressed as an orthodox Jew.
But even that did not bring me out of denial. I kept whistling in the dark, to think this was probably routine and that there was no danger. The loaded plane then baked on the runway for several hours — I lost track of time. I didn't come out of denial until long after the cargo hold had been emptied, all the baggage re-searched by hand, and reloaded. Not once, or twice, but three times.
Denial is a slippery slope, so even that did nothing but accelerate me deeper and deeper into it. That's because every time a thought acknowledging reality managed to form, you quickly repressed it in denial to keep whistling there in the dark. I didn't come out of it until the plane had sat on that runway for so long you thought terrorists were in the cockpit and negotiations were underway. Not till the silent tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife and everybody was about to explode. (You were afraid to move or talk, for fear that everybody would attack you and tear you to pieces with their bare hands, thinking you were a terrorist.) The teenage girl in the seat behind me threw up for sheer fright and was comforted by two old men.
Then a young mother held up her one-or-two-year-old son at arm's length, obviously in some silent gesture that all understood. She made him giggle with delight for us. The center of all that silent attention, he held out his arms to be an airplane for us. To this day, whenever I recall that moment, I utterly break down into sobbing tears.
It changed my life. At the time though this vision just stunned me. Back into my senses. That's because I suddenly realized that people wanted to kill this child for being.
As if stuck by a hot poker or something, I turned around with a little voice in my head angrily asking, "Why? Where are they? Where are the bastards?" It was as though a gigabyte of understanding downloaded all at once. "Humph," I thought, sitting back in my seat, "Figures! They're hiding! Cute! But I'll be damned if I'll be afraid of the people I can see!"
Why did I think that? Because when I came to my senses I noticed someone's invisible finger on my button and snatched back control of my mind. That's why I suddenly could think straight enough to know whom to hate.
I am too ashamed to share what I had been thinking before that, as half-formed thoughts repressed just would not stay down, despite my denial, and kept surfacing to consciousness on me. But I will say that the terror tactics had me fearing those innocent people around me, not the unseen terrorists.
To this day, I am both ashamed and amazed at how backwards terror had made me think. Because they were dangerous to be around, the other passengers were the "dangerous" ones in my mind, not the unseen terrorists. What a toxic thought. Imagine how it made me view them.
And there is a very short step between fear and hatred. One takes it in a heartbeat.
Terror made me want to distance myself as far as possible from every Jew on the planet. And if there had been a terrorist in sight I would have wanted to kiss his feet, trying to suck up by showing him that I hated Jews too.
Yup, I was blaming the victim, viewing the targets of terrorists like Canadians and Europeans view Americans today. Yup, if we saw a bunch of sheep blaming the attacked one while making excuses for the wolf and even being friendly with him, we'd know they're crazy. But terrorized human beings NEVER fail to do just that.
Sure, those stupid sheep think that if they suck up to him, he'll like them and not eat them too. But we know that's too stupid for even a dumb animal to think. Yet, terrorized human beings NEVER fail to think just that.
I liken this crazy, backwards thinking to the true story of some children caught on a railroad trestle bridge when a train came. Observers said that, if they had done the natural thing — if they had run to the nearer end of the bridge, away from the train — they would have reached safety. But like deer in an automobile's headlights, their terror made them all run right into the onrushing train.
Truth is stranger than fiction, eh? That's how backwards terror makes people think, and narcissists use terror tactics.
Terror isn't fright. Terror is a darkened state of mind. Terror is your head buried in the sand. Indeed, the very word terror comes from the Latin word terra, which means "earth" and comes from this ancient figure of speech. Terror is that underground state of mind otherwise known as denial — fear of facing facts. In terror, you're on automatic pilot, acting on thoughts you repress to the level of the subconscious. Therefore, those thoughts can be absolutely absurd without your realizing it.
So, beware denial. It's a dangerous state of mind. A narcissist's shock tactics and terror tactics drive you into it. But don't go there. People in denial don't think straight. They think and do the most inexplicable things because denial compels them 180 degrees in the wrong direction. If I had not been deep in denial I would not even have boarded that plane.
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