It Could Never Happen To Me (Narcissistic Abuse)
Image by Yoann Boyer
Disbelief & Why The People Around You Don’t Get It
Maybe the most pervasive ingredient in the soup of intolerance and victim blaming that confronts victims of narcissistic abuse is the foolish - but all too common - human belief that such suffering would never happen to them.
There are so many paradoxical twists in every tale of narcissistic abuse. And one of them is felt by most victim-survivors at the receiving end of a narcissist’s cruelty. Disbelief. That is the lingering sense that this “shouldn’t be happening because I was more kind, more compassionate, more compromising, more self-sacrificing, more generous and forgiving to the narcissist than to anyone in my entire life. How could they turn and attack me?”.
Annihilation just isn’t a fair return on such an investment!
With one apparent human injustice piled on top of another - as narcissistic abuse is - the phenomenon of people (including therapists) who don’t get it or don’t believe it feels like being judged as guilty when one is innocent. Blamed for a thing one didn’t do because of another common assumption that both parties share responsibility for relationship breakdown.
If that were always true, there would be no victim-survivors, no perpetrators, no repeat offenders, and no coercive control laws popping up all around the world!
It’s not only the narcissist’s charming, glib and charismatic false persona that convinces people it must be the victim’s fault. It’s also this common human conviction that exploitation and manipulation would never have happened to them personally. Ironically, this might be true.
People who have never had a bonded relationship with a narcissist might be better equipped to recognise toxic behaviours. They might have been schooled at a young age how to spot a fake or a bully from fifty paces. These people were raised to recognise red flags of toxic people. They were raised to understand healthy boundaries. They were raised to fight their own corner. Such people were unlikely to have a narcissistic caregiver in their family histories.
Children of narcissists have no such conditioning. In fact, the opposite applies.
Many victim-survivors have grown up beside a caregiver who is incapable of prioritising a child’s needs over their own, essentially leaving the child to parent themselves. The narcissistic caregiver is an oxymoron (contradiction in terms). Children of narcissists develop all sorts of maladaptive coping mechanisms for withstanding covert abuse. They have a higher tolerance and lower recognition of abusive and/or toxic behaviours.
They learn that their own emotional experiencing is taboo (especially male children). They learn that fighting only brings more pain and punishment, so acquiescence becomes the automatic path. They learn that in order to receive any validation or support from the narcissist, they must “be a good girl or boy”. This usually means ensuring that their own decisions and behaviour are first and foremost about how their ‘narcissistic caregiver’ overlord will react - continually second-guessing the narcissist and building their own character around such unwritten rules. They can learn helplessness.
These are precisely the kind of bonds that become commonplace and invisible in children of narcissists, and make them especially vulnerable to re-encounters of the manipulative kind.
Another driver that keeps these invisible unhealthy neural pathways intact is the common Western cultural belief that life is about the pursuit of happiness. We can mistakenly pursue wealth, power, fame and other hollow ideals because of our culturally validated conviction that these things will bring us happiness, when in fact, the opposite is true! These things are temporary fixes, with the ultimate goal of happiness remaining as a carrot dangled in front of us requiring more and more of the same to get a fleeting instantaneous hit of elation.
But back to the title of this blog. For people without experience of manipulation and exploitation by an intimate other, ‘getting it’ (narcissistic abuse) is nigh on impossible. Support comes to the survivor, not necessarily from their family or lifelong friends, but from other people who have suffered in the same way. It comes, not from psychology professionals who have studied Cluster B disorders and think they have a handle on it, but from therapists and healers who have gained a deep understanding of the matrix of abuse through their own lived experience of it.
Moral injury and breakdown of the nervous system is now better understood in veterans and first responders. But moral injury from what your partner did to you? Come on! You must be weak, stupid, or worse - narcissistic yourself - to have “allowed” such a thing to happen! People who don’t get it will never get it. Because underneath their judgement of the victim, is their belief that it could never happen to them.
Let me assure my readers and listeners, high-spectrum, high-functioning narcissists are so screwed up that they could break down the most competent, kind, intelligent and resilient individuals! You were targeted for exploitation, not because you were weak and foolish, but because you represent everything the narcissist is not - and vis a vis, WANTS. You are likely precisely the opposite of a disordered character.
You are the opposite of a pathological liar.
You are the opposite of someone who puts their own needs so high on the list that the needs of others are irrelevant.
You are the opposite of someone who puts their own needs high above any concept of what is morally or ethically right or good.
You are the opposite of someone who is motivated by greed and power.
You are the opposite of someone who has zero empathy and therefore is largely incapable of compassion.
You are precisely the opposite of a person who triangulates others in order to turn them against a person.
You are the opposite of someone who blames others rather than finding cause in their own behaviour - in fact you are likely a master at blaming yourself before you see malicious intent in another!
You are a GOOD person!
That is precisely why you are suffering so much! Because narcissistic gaslighters have an uncanny ability to challenge our deepest core values about what is good, just, fair and right. People who have never had their deepest ethical values twisted around and used to trap them in a matrix of deceit and exploitation will never get it!
Let them believe it would never happen to them. Let yourself grieve for the loss of fair-weather friends and family. Let those who are blind and ignorant and doggedly want to stay that way by blaming you - go on their way! You have new friends and allies, a whole new you waiting for you in post-traumatic growth.
From the pits of despair, your human spirit will prevail! You will emerge from this darkness with the wisdom and compassion to move through your life - not in the pursuit of happiness - but in the pursuit of what is true to you! Whether your new life is simple, quiet and solitary or vibrant, bright and expansive - you will bring to the world an authenticity, a courage, a resilience that will propel you forward.
Happiness will be the side-effect!
© Nicki Paull
