Monday, March 31, 2008
A narcissist I knew found herself taking a Basic Studies course, Speech 101, during her sixth year of college (when her mother finally forced her to graduate).
She told me that the other students (freshmen and sophomores) were naive. That they took things for granted and — well, it sounded like she was saying they thought life a piece of cake. Kinda like the American Dream: if you do your best, do things right, and play by the rules, you will succeed and live happily ever after.
So, for her first speech, she thought to wise them up by showing them that they shouldn't be so carefree. In that speech she told them that they should take nothing for granted, that no matter who you are, you can have "it all taken away." Just like that. Overnight. Your job, career, your friends and family — everything.
And through no fault of your own. No matter how good a person you are. No matter how well you do what you do.
I naturally thought she was referring to the possibility of some great catastrophe, such as war, destroying lives.
But she glossed over that and zeroed-in on what she called "everyone's deepest fear," character assassination. She said that, behind your back, anyone could spread lies about you that would completely destroy you. By doing this, that person could take away everything you had. He or she could make you a social outcast, taking even your loved ones away from you. The devastating power of the lie could put you on Skid Row, where you would end up at the bottom as a rag-picker or a bag-lady. And there was nothing you could do about it.
For, you might as well be one, because, by treating you like one, they're perceptions were relentlessly making you one.
Deep down inside, she said, everyone knows this, and that it is "everyone's deepest fear."
I had to admit that she was right. I didn't yet know that she has NPD, but now I see that she was wising me up (= worrying me) too, by telling me this.
Even those who believe in God don't claim that he enforces his rules to maintain law and order. He allows destroyers to destroy to their hearts' content. Only in the next world is supposed to get around to punishing violations of his rules (though by then it's too late, so I don't see what for ;-)
Return to Table of Contents
View 11 Comments
Echo and the Narcissist
What Makes Narcissists Tick
The Poor Narcissist Feels Threatened
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Let's take a look at this line that narcissists aren't really bad, that they lash out at you because they feel "threatened."
This idea begs the question "Threatened in what way?" and "Threatened by what?"
If you're the victim of a narcissist, you know that this "threatened" excuse is a farce, because the narcissist attacks precisely when you are anti-threatening him or her. Like when you are trying please them, when you are saying you love them, when they are already mad at you and you are trying to appease them, when you try to get them to listen to you.
WHAM – you expect the normal reaction to these friendly behaviors, but what do you get instead? The PERVERTED reaction of an attack. It's a shock tactic that takes you aback and makes you have to pinch yourself.
What on earth have you done to "threaten" the poor narcissist?
Let's look at the last example – trying to get her to listen to you.
By doing that, you ARE "threatening" her, I'm afraid. Yes.
Correction: No, you are not threatening her; you are threatening the imaginary her, the bogus "her." You're threatening her delusions of grandeur.
ANY honesty or reality does. Remember that she is a mental child playing Pretend, and she wants all her playmates to play along. That means you are supposed to follow her script. You are supposed to act unworthy of her attention or regard. When you don't play that part, she stomps her little foot at you and gets mad, throwing a temper tantrum to be so obnoxious that you give in and do what she wants.
In her self-deluding game of Let's Play Pretend, she is so far superior to you that you are beneath her notice, at the relative level of some worm or bug with respect to her. Something divine her should look down her nose in contempt at.
And, you had better act the part or she will go off at you. But here you are, acting like she owes you her attention. In other words, you're acting like God Almighty's equal.
Oh, how horrible an insult to God Almighty!!! Shame on you! You - a mere bug, a mere worm - are "threatening" her majesty by treating her as your equal! Quit "threatening" her delusions of divinity, you mean and naughty person.
The same is true for the example of telling her you love her, for in a profession of love is an implicit call for love in return. Oh, what a horrible attack on her godhead with respect to a mere bug, a mere worm like you! You are treating her as your equal. What an insult!
So, don't let the addle-headed know-it-alls confuse you. You are not threatening the poor narcissist. The narcissist is just a pervert = someone who perverts the course of logic to pervert reality. Hence, she pervertedly views love or affection or any call for engagement from her as its very opposite = a "threat."
Her Perverted Thinking Machine is not your fault or your problem. It's her fault and her problem. She is not really threatened by you acting like her equal.
In other words, she isn't fighting back against any injury or threat: she is just an aggressor targeting vulnerable prey. That is, she's abusing you to feed her ego.
To blame you for what she does to you, by saying that that you are thus "threatening" her, is as crazy as it would be to blame a lamb for "threatening" a wolf by running away when the hungry wolf feels a need to eat said lamb.
But the so-called experts cannot seem to get it through their thick heads that there is a fundamental difference between fighting others and eating them – between fighting and predation. Though they Play Pretend that they are the only ones qualified to express an opinion on the matter, they are actually the least knowledgable and qualified, because they know nothing but what they have read in speculative essays by others just as ignorant and whatever lines narcissists on their couches have fed these collective speculators. Both individually and collectively they have almost no experience with real narcissists, let alone any real-world experience with them. And they haven't even solicited information from victims of narcissists. So, how could they possibly know what they are talking about?
Trust your own observations. Reason from facts to conclusions, not backwards, and you will learn what you need to know.
All animals occasionally fight others (including others of their own species) when those others cross boundaries to threaten their interests in some way. You can tell when this is the motive, because the moment the aggressor backs off the fighting stops, and everybody's cool again.
Why? Because when you feel threatened, your motive is to repulse the threat = self-defense. Once you have accomplished that mission, you are done.
But when your motive is to destroy the other, the other party backing down or trying to appease you has the opposite effect. Then it's a sign of weakness that just emboldens the attacker to pour on the attack more furiously than ever.
That's why when an animal attacks to eat another, it doesn't stop till it has ripped that other to shreds. That's what human predators (like psychopaths and other narcissists) do to their prey, as well.
The only way to avoid "threatening" these perverts is to just get and stay far away from them.
Return to Table of Contents
View 14 Comments
Let's take a look at this line that narcissists aren't really bad, that they lash out at you because they feel "threatened."
This idea begs the question "Threatened in what way?" and "Threatened by what?"
If you're the victim of a narcissist, you know that this "threatened" excuse is a farce, because the narcissist attacks precisely when you are anti-threatening him or her. Like when you are trying please them, when you are saying you love them, when they are already mad at you and you are trying to appease them, when you try to get them to listen to you.
WHAM – you expect the normal reaction to these friendly behaviors, but what do you get instead? The PERVERTED reaction of an attack. It's a shock tactic that takes you aback and makes you have to pinch yourself.
What on earth have you done to "threaten" the poor narcissist?
Let's look at the last example – trying to get her to listen to you.
By doing that, you ARE "threatening" her, I'm afraid. Yes.
Correction: No, you are not threatening her; you are threatening the imaginary her, the bogus "her." You're threatening her delusions of grandeur.
ANY honesty or reality does. Remember that she is a mental child playing Pretend, and she wants all her playmates to play along. That means you are supposed to follow her script. You are supposed to act unworthy of her attention or regard. When you don't play that part, she stomps her little foot at you and gets mad, throwing a temper tantrum to be so obnoxious that you give in and do what she wants.
In her self-deluding game of Let's Play Pretend, she is so far superior to you that you are beneath her notice, at the relative level of some worm or bug with respect to her. Something divine her should look down her nose in contempt at.
And, you had better act the part or she will go off at you. But here you are, acting like she owes you her attention. In other words, you're acting like God Almighty's equal.
Oh, how horrible an insult to God Almighty!!! Shame on you! You - a mere bug, a mere worm - are "threatening" her majesty by treating her as your equal! Quit "threatening" her delusions of divinity, you mean and naughty person.
The same is true for the example of telling her you love her, for in a profession of love is an implicit call for love in return. Oh, what a horrible attack on her godhead with respect to a mere bug, a mere worm like you! You are treating her as your equal. What an insult!
So, don't let the addle-headed know-it-alls confuse you. You are not threatening the poor narcissist. The narcissist is just a pervert = someone who perverts the course of logic to pervert reality. Hence, she pervertedly views love or affection or any call for engagement from her as its very opposite = a "threat."
Her Perverted Thinking Machine is not your fault or your problem. It's her fault and her problem. She is not really threatened by you acting like her equal.
In other words, she isn't fighting back against any injury or threat: she is just an aggressor targeting vulnerable prey. That is, she's abusing you to feed her ego.
To blame you for what she does to you, by saying that that you are thus "threatening" her, is as crazy as it would be to blame a lamb for "threatening" a wolf by running away when the hungry wolf feels a need to eat said lamb.
But the so-called experts cannot seem to get it through their thick heads that there is a fundamental difference between fighting others and eating them – between fighting and predation. Though they Play Pretend that they are the only ones qualified to express an opinion on the matter, they are actually the least knowledgable and qualified, because they know nothing but what they have read in speculative essays by others just as ignorant and whatever lines narcissists on their couches have fed these collective speculators. Both individually and collectively they have almost no experience with real narcissists, let alone any real-world experience with them. And they haven't even solicited information from victims of narcissists. So, how could they possibly know what they are talking about?
Trust your own observations. Reason from facts to conclusions, not backwards, and you will learn what you need to know.
All animals occasionally fight others (including others of their own species) when those others cross boundaries to threaten their interests in some way. You can tell when this is the motive, because the moment the aggressor backs off the fighting stops, and everybody's cool again.
Why? Because when you feel threatened, your motive is to repulse the threat = self-defense. Once you have accomplished that mission, you are done.
But when your motive is to destroy the other, the other party backing down or trying to appease you has the opposite effect. Then it's a sign of weakness that just emboldens the attacker to pour on the attack more furiously than ever.
That's why when an animal attacks to eat another, it doesn't stop till it has ripped that other to shreds. That's what human predators (like psychopaths and other narcissists) do to their prey, as well.
The only way to avoid "threatening" these perverts is to just get and stay far away from them.
Return to Table of Contents
View 14 Comments
Cruel and Unusual Punishment
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Sometimes I think that the worst torture one could devise for these freaks would be to lock them in a room all alone for about three days. After about an hour, they would probably have their socks on their hands like puppets, just to have someone to lie to.
Return to Table of Contents
View 24 Comments
