Living With A Psychopath - When The Mask Slips.

The Emotionally Unavailable Man

2011-04-20T09:15:00.000-07:00

The other type of emotionally unavailable man is unavailable due to his relationship (or relationships) with another woman (or women). These guys are never really committed to a woman. They don’t see any relationship as necessarily permanent, including marriage - even if they give lip service to being “deeply committed” to the woman they are with at the moment.

In truth, however, they don’t truly value their intimate relationships or take them seriously, because they are merely “playing,” even though engagement or marriage hardly seems like something to “play” at. They don’t take their relationships seriously because on some level - even if subconsciously - they know they can find someone else who will get involved with them if their current affair ends. What else would cause someone to repeatedly play his future like a crap-shoot without really fearing the outcome?

…It is probably because women keep attempting to get close to him that causes him to keep moving from partner to partner or to keep adding partners. He is uninterested in experiencing or is unable to experience deep feelings of connection with anyone. CHECK!

…What is dangerous about emotionally unavailable men is that they are not authentically emotionally responsive. They are emotionally avoidant.

…Some of these men may have a sexual addiction that fuels their pursuit of rapidly revolving, superficial relationships. Perhaps his sexual addiction takes the form of chronic and compulsive pornography use, a pattern that will diminish a man’s normal human responsiveness.

… be aware that [this type of man] will come across to you as a devoted father and husband or as an upstanding citizen of his community. Never discount the possibility that your emotionally unavailable man may have multiple hidden lives (always the case if he’s engaging in clandestine extramarital affairs) as well as being an emotional predator. For example: emotional unavailability, plus life he keeps hidden from you, his wife or his girlfriend, plus the keen sixth sense of an emotional predator, plus a sexual addiction - help these pathological men thrive at attracting serial superficial relationships.

If he is a sexual addict as well he will have a hidden life of endless porn watching, masturbation, voyeurism, and even using prostitutes. Many times these men will cover their perversions with heavy involvement in community politics, their church or synagogue or doing volunteer work. And they will make sure this cover is very visible so no one suspects.

Sexually addicted predators will not stop at you, they will go after your friends as well. They think nothing of telling your friend that you mean nothing to them and that you are possibly “imagining” the relationship. They will tell their wives the same things about you or any other woman they know insisting “she’s jealous of us and is obsessed with me.” They are masterful jugglers of time and people.

…a woman’s availability itself is a deciding factor… “any port in a storm” will provide adequate distraction from the reality of his life.

Womanizers also look for women who will believe their stories about their home life. Very few of them tell women how happy they are at home, how wonderful their wife is, and how they just really want to have extramarital sex with no strings attached. No, that usually isn’t the story line. The story line goes: “No one has ever really loved me, and certainly not my wife. She nags… doesn’t appreciate me… hates sex…”

Women take this hook too often. …they will be able to make him “finally feel loved… listened to… appreciated.” His need is not “once and for all to be loved” as much as it is to get laid, be amused and be distracted.

A womanizer may be highly verbal about his relationships. He may share personal information in such a way that women mistake his sharing for emotional intimacy… He knows well enough that women are empathic to tales of empty and sad relationships…

An interesting point is that almost every woman who told us her story about getting involved with an emotionally unavailable man said it happened at a time when her self-esteem was low. [She] was coming out of a relationship situation that had damaged her self-esteem (such as being abused or even going through a divorce). Women accept far more during times of low self-esteem than they do when their self-esteem is sound. A belief that she doesn’t deserve a whole, satisfying and healthy relationship is a reflection of how low her self-esteem is. If a man gives a woman who suffers with low-self esteem a little attention… then too often she willingly falls [for him].

The emotional predator is as bad as it gets. He qualifies as the pinnacle of poisonous and pathological… He could, in fact, be called the “emotional psychic.” That’s because it’s his ability to intuit and sense a woman’s emotional vulnerabilities that places her at risk. Webster’s defines predatory as “having a disposition to injure or exploit others for one’s own gain"; it defines predator as “one that preys, destroys or devours.” That’s a good summation of this man. Who but the most pathological among us would set out to exploit, prey on, destroy or devour?

He will hone in on your vulnerabilities and read you. If he likes what he reads, he will follow up by luring you into his scary and dangerous life.

Predators have a natural ability for reading women who are lonely, needy by nature, emotionally wounded or vulnerable. The predator also has his antennae up for women who… have unfulfilled needs in their lives. …he figures out how he can squeeze into the vacant space in your life and what you need to hear in order to allow this to happen.

…[they] “sense” which woman will make the best target for them. They don’t know why they have this gift or how they acquired it. …they have been working women over since childhood. A predator’s intuitive sixth sense is untaught. …an adult’s skills can’t compete with his abilities to scam, con and conquer.

…emotional predators also fall into the mentally-ill category, usually under the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder. Most also have hidden lives. When you couple a predator’s natural instincts with a lifetime of skills honed by successfully conning, exploiting and injuring women, you have a man who is nothing short of extraordinarily smooth and capable of horrific dangerousness.

Predators’ motives vary. But you can be sure a predator wants something from you. That is the entire reason for the relationship. …There is something in you that he wants. Maybe “all” he wants is your utter adoration or for you to exalt his ego. …Maybe wants what you can provide to help establish his image so he will marry you (’good family man’). Or maybe …he’s most interested in the pursuit and conquest of a woman… If he is a sexual predator, you are a target, whether it be for consensual sex or rape - depending on whichever way it plays out or whatever mood he is in.

A predator does not “need” the relationship. Early on… the predator is deliberately romantic. Predators are shifting chameleons who can be all things to all women. Predators are smooth as silk. …predators are listeners who will give up very little information until they are sure it will align with your history. …His selection is based on his need and your vulnerability. He knows it’s a matter of matching need with need. The more he knows about your needs, the better he can meet them.

He has a nose for vulnerability, so women who have unmet needs “smell” especially good to him. He seeks women who need men who can “sense and know” them on almost a spiritual level. Since he is good at this, he will appear to know you well - and quickly.

They like women who had absent fathers, angry mothers or neglectful and abusive husbands. Knowing that many women are trained to believe that people are basically good at heart, predators will present themselves as men of honor and virtue…. But because he is a chameleon, he will listen closely to see if you also need a mentor, an adviser on some topic, a spiritual leader, or a male friend.

During counseling sessions I’ve had with men who are emotional predators, some have verbalized their targets. One said,
“I look for naive women. I like a certain vulnerability to her - that she trusts humanity without asking for proof. Maybe she’s been hurt a lot so there’s a “woundedness” to her. That vulnerability makes them believe you, because they need to believe you.”

Another said,
“I like the women who have been pounded down by men and those with childhoods that weren’t so good. They are particularly easy.”

It is important to understand that each predator has developed his own unique style. He has a “type” or two of women he prefers because with those types he has mastered the approach, the dating, and the ‘end.’ He doesn’t have to think very hard if he just uses the profile he’s had success with. One predator may prefer recently divorced or divorcing women because he succeeds at playing that angle with them.

… these guys can show a woman they definitely “get it.” They show you all the attention that the jerks you’ve been with haven’t. They say all the right lines that the men in your past could never verbalize. They are brilliant and insightful about what you need. They seem to know exactly every pain you have suffered.

With more skill than a carnival psychic, the emotional predator can hone in on your every need, sympathize with you in such a way so that you believe you’ve met your long lost soulmate and sweep you off your feet… He’s… more insightful than a therapist. He “knows” you the way no one else ever has.

This guy moves FAST. He’s got to - before you figure out what his M.O. is. Every woman should be suspect of the relationships that seem to be traveling in the fast lane on the super-highway of emotional intimacy. A predator needs to keep you so euphoric with compliments and lover’s talk that you aren’t listening, or paying attention. He is dripping with sincerity and clinging to every word you say. A predator wants to consummate the relationship with you right away, because time is against him.

To move the relationship along and be indispensable to you, he must act helpful, comforting and generous. Since he is working against the clock, he must find out what you need and then meet that need.

While listening to you and observing you, he will glean a lot of information about your hobbies, interests, spiritual beliefs and value systems. He is the original identity thief. He uncovers and uses for his own purposes everything he can about what makes you - YOU. He will find you amazing, beautiful, bright and talented - like no one he has EVER met before. He will align how he portrays himself with your needs and also your interests until you feel like you are looking at your twin.

Finally, another way predators succeed with women is by preying on their compassion. Once a woman is in the grip of a predator, anything can happen.

[Once a woman sees their stories] for the crock they are and bust them for their fake opinions with them, they will try and turn the table and make it seem it was the woman who had emotional problems!

The Modus Operandi of the "Emotional Blackmailer"

2011-04-20T09:08:00.000-07:00

He is too good to be true - He is soft-spoken and polite, he is kind and loves women, he is respectful, he doesn't come on too strong FOR THE FIRST FEW MEETINGS ONLY. He's always on the lookout for a patsy, but he's in no hurry as there's always another one around the corner so he'll take his time in coming on to you.

He'll be there more and more frequently - gazing at you with puppy dog eyes; wanting to know everything about you, asking your advice, making it look like you are getting to know each other and forming a bond.

He will put himself in the best possible light - including lying through his teeth about his ambitions, activities, hopes and dreams.

His seduction techniques are often subtle and well-practiced - It will seem he did nothing to seduce you until you look back and analyze it. He sat and stood close to you, he brushed against you, but it didn't seem to be on purpose.

He suddenly "Turns on the Charm" and turns up the heat - Once you're hypnotized by his sweetness and modesty and respectfulness, he will pounce on you one night and turn into a Mr. Hyde. It "just happened." This is the critical moment to run away, don't let him touch you. He'll leave you breathless wondering what exactly happened. He'll turn on all the charm full force and you'll be wanting him from then on, yet wanting some breathing room. You won't get any. Ever. It won't bother you at first - you'll think he's attentive and ardent.

He starts using the lines technique - Once you're "seeing" each other, he'll be a real swain, discussing how amazing this new relationship is, how different you are from any woman he ever met; and he'll talk about your remarkable beauty and how "alike" you are. He will talk about your "resonance" and describe all the awful women he knew before who didn't want a good man - who wanted someone to abuse them.
All of this is meaningless talk. He uses the same lines on every woman.
He will whine and even shed tears - if you say you have other things to do, other people to see, or want to be alone after seeing him 8 days in a row. He enjoys being abused, so if you scream at him it only makes him feel more secure. He got used to fighting all around him as a child and he equates fighting with love.

He'll start demanding that you "prove your love" - You have become nothing but his prop. He has become your jailer. The key is: he demands CONSTANT proof of your love.

He will "seem" to accept your decision to break up - As the months roll along and you are tired of his constant presence, begging, whining and having unreasonable control of your life, you will decide to break up with him. He will then agree to back off, give you some space, and try to do better.

He'll tell you he has "changed" - No matter how many times you break up with him, he will call you to tell you that he needs you, that he has changed, and he will say it all in a calm voice as if he respects your decision to come back or not. His game is to stay away just long enough that you forget his annoying traits and miss the good parts. But if you agree to even one meeting it will be back to daily visits and demands for constant pampering again.

Getting Rid of the Bastard
The only way to get rid of the emotional blackmailer is when he has found another victim to be his patsy. He will already be courting her while seeing you (he is juggling two or more women per day).

Once he has the new person in his thrall and has nothing to lose by losing you, he will drop you like a hot potato.

He prey's on sympathy, and lives to control - his purpose is to have many women in his control - perhaps one for money and one to scream at him, and both for companionship. He gets a high from controlling people, because as a child he had no control over anything and frequently felt abandoned. This is why the more women who feel sorry for him, listen to him, go out with him, the better he feels and behaves. However, he is telling each of them the same thing: they are the best, the most beautiful, the most like him, he wants to spend the rest of his life with ONLY THEM.

The character of the Emotional Blackmailer
Everything he says or does is for gain. He does nothing for the sheer joy of it, or because he likes people or wants to build a relationship: he is looking ahead to what he can get out of the person: sex, housekeeping, emotional support, someone to listen to him spin his tales of woe, what have you. Loyalty or faithfulness are not in his nature.
He will become vicious and even violent if he is crossed, contradicted, found out, exposed or denied what he wants. It looks exactly like the tantrum of a five year old. That is still his emotional age, although he has the smooth moves of a Casanova down pat.

How Do You Extricate Yourself from the Emotional Blackmailer?
One way out is to cut off all contact. Even email may put you back in his control if you get back into the same pattern of doing what he wants when he wants it. He is a master manipulator who will prey on your sympathy for him as a human being.

Any time spent reasoning with him is wasted - he doesn't hear a word you say. All arguments are circular. If you discuss codependence, he says it doesn't exist, that it's a psychobabble word for two people caring for each other. If he has no answer to your logic he will remain silent and wait for you to shut up, then start with his argument again.

After you have cut off contact, he will stalk you for a while if he doesn't have a replacement lined up yet, but this will cease because it isn't fulfilling enough for him. He NEEDS feedback, anger, someone to scream at him. Any kind of attention pleases him - he is a true masochist who would enjoy being slapped. If you catch him? He will accuse YOU of stalking HIM!

Another way to ditch the Emotional Blackmailer is to turn the tables on him. A man who is so good at manipulating is also easily manipulated to do whatever you want IF you do it the right way. You can be rid of him within a few weeks without avoiding him by doing the following:
Exhibit jealousy and make it clear that you won't share him with anyone else, and you expect to spend the rest of your life with him and have exclusive rights over him. This will make him feel suffocated for a change and he will be eagerly stepping out on you while claiming he wants only you.

Lose interest in doing anything you used to do for him or with him; stop taking him seriously; don't listen to his rants about his job; ridicule his ideas, act bored and make it clear you see him only as a useful decoration. Tell him to grow up, tell him you are well aware of his manipulative games but you like him anyway and demand he be faithful to you. This will scare him and make him step up his efforts with the other women, and he will soon be out of your life.

A Final Note:

Healthy, non-manipulative men:

Don't beg
Don't tell you that you're "the best"
Don't use the lines "if you really love me", or "prove you love me by doing this for me"...
Don't put down their girlfriends or wives (former or current), even mildly
Respect your right to have other online friends
Share all their information with you: address, phone numbers, job, etc. They don't mind if you double check on them for your own safety!

Cyberpath, Predator: Narcissist, Psychopath

2011-04-20T09:02:00.000-07:00

So, at bottom, the nature of the narcissist is the nature of a predator who preys on his own kind. The importance of that fact cannot be overstated. The brain of a predator just does not relate to the living soul of its prey. If you don't believe this, just watch PBS. Watch the behavior, and look into the eyes, of predatory animals while they're making a kill. There's nothing there. They are like machines at that moment. They must be, or they couldn't do it.

In other words, Nature has equipped them with hard-wired circuitry in the brain that takes over the moment prey is sighted when they are hungry. It suppresses what we could observe in that animal only a minute earlier while it was playing with its siblings or a waving leaf on a twig, tenderly nuzzling its offspring or mate. Perhaps it was even grieving over the death of a member of the pack. But that's all gone the moment it sights prey while hungry. Then suddenly it's a killing machine. It likes killing. Nature has endowed it with a taste for killing as necessary equipment for its survival. It even considers killing fun. Which is why we sometimes see in nature killing made sport: Chimpanzees (who don't eat meat) will gang-up on and attack a monkey, cruelly tearing it to pieces and having a blast over its heart-rending cries. Killer whales sometimes play with baby seals like a cat plays with a mouse. Wolves sometimes bring down and eviscerate prey they feed on the guts of till it dies and then walk away. Sorry, that's just the truth.

Humans are animals too and have that same predatory mode. Nature endowed us with it as hunters. It's in everyone. But in narcissists and sociopaths something has gone haywire. They go into this mode against their own kind. And they are permanently in this mode against all their own kind. Why? Because they don't view themselves as of our kind. They are of a superior kind. They think we are here to feed them, just as we think cattle are here to feed us. Correction: we do (or should) treat cattle humanely. We don't relate to them as objects like narcissists relate to us = like we relate to bugs or plants.

Compared to us, narcissists are gods. Alien beings. They can't help it. They are not to blame for feeling this way. Today the prognosis is poor. There is little sign of any real success in treating these people. Those who commit prosecutable offenses are repeat offenders — such as pedophile priests, sexual predators, and serial killers. They get this way as children and demonstrate it by torturing animals or murdering other children on a whim. Though they can't control their temptations, they CAN control their conduct. And this is what competent psychiatric care can really help them with. It can show them better ways to deal with their problems, making them resistant to temptation. In fact, I think it could build in some TRUE self-esteem to counterbalance their self hatred. (Lifelong treatment would be necessary to maintain it though.) And a lion tamer can walk into the lions' den. But they are still wild animals, so he can never be sure they won't give in to the temptation to attack the prey tantalizing them beyond their power to resist. We don't morally condemn those lions for being lions.

And the only thing more stupid and useless than morally condemning narcissists for being narcissists is trusting them. Don't tempt them. Just because a pedophile priest has behaved for the last five years doesn't mean he won't finally lose it and eat another altar boy. Indeed, it's cruel to tempt him daily thus! You wouldn't wave a bottle of whiskey in front of an alcoholic, would you? I don't see what's so difficult to understand about this. Talk therapy and/or punishment isn't the answer with PREDATORS.

We must do whatever it takes to minimize or eliminate their access to vulnerable prey as targets of opportunity. Period. For ever. Indeed, these people will thank us for it. Consider how many of them deliberately get themselves caught just to stop themselves.

Let's get a clue already and stop dangling bait before their eyes. There are many ways to do this: prison isn't the only one. For example, don't let him teach school or be a police officer. Don't give him power over his fellow employees. Don't elect him to be President for Life. Don't let him live off his parents till they die. Don't follow him on a purge to cleanse himself in the Holy Land. And if he steps over the line whack him, so that he thinks twice before doing it again.

And, especially, let's stop passing this curse from generation to generation by subjecting children to narcissistic parents. It takes the consent of the non-narcissistic parent for that to happen. So, just because your mother or father put up with it doesn't mean you should. If we began protecting the next generation today, this accursed cause of a vast amount of both the told and untold human suffering in this world would be gone in 50 years.

by Kathy Krajco

Denial

2011-04-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

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.

By Kathy Krajco

Manipulation

2011-04-07T14:24:00.000-07:00

The way narcissists (and psychopaths) interact with others makes them extremely potent manipulators. How potent? So potent that their powers of manipulation are spooky and seem downright magical.

How does the way they interact with others make them such expert manipulators? Because practice makes perfect, and they have been practicing the art of manipulation in every interaction since birth.

Indeed, in playing to the mirror of your face, that's what they're doing, isn't it? Manipulating you. Everything they say and do is entirely for effect, to get the reaction they want from you. That IS manipulation.

They're regulating, manipulating your reactions. But you aren't like them. Your reactions come from within. So, what are they ultimately regulating and manipulating? Your thoughts. Manipulation is mind control.

Manipulation is a subtle thing. So subtle that we are usually unaware of being manipulated, unless the manipulator blows it and breaks the spell. So, manipulators are putting thoughts into our heads that we think are ours. A very dangerous thing.

Since a narcissist isn't acting on normal human premises, since all he is doing is playing you for the reaction he wants, truth is irrelevant. Truth or lies — it's all the same to him. Whichever works. Usually that's lies.

It would be more correct to say that there is no such thing as truth to a narcissist. Because there is no such thing as truth when playing Pretend. That's why narcissists and psychopaths beat lie detector tests. (In fact, so do many people from "shame" cultures where lying to save face of oneself, one's family, one's tribe, and one's religion is considered morally necessary and expected.)

Psychopaths are known to get so good at manipulating people that, by the time they're teenagers, they routinely fool and manipulate mental healthcare professionals, judges, prison officials, parole boards, and social workers who know they are psychopaths, are on the lookout for attempts to manipulate them, and should be immune to manipulation.

It isn't a matter of intelligence: it's a matter of practice, experience. This is because most of what transpires in interaction happens too quickly to think it through.

In playing to the mirror of your face, the narcissist receives a steady stream of your feedback to the steady stream of words and body language he sends. He continuously reacts to every nuance of it in "real time," if you will. A sideways glance from you might make him alter his choice for the next word in the sentence he is saying. Or his facial expression or tone of voice. Or it might make him take a step closer to you.

So, no matter how cunning a manipulator is, he isn't consciously analyzing your every slight reaction and fine-tuning his act to it. I say that because he can't be. That would be impossible, because no one could think that fast.

He must be relying on a lifetime of experience at this game, reacting habitually in certain ways to certain things he observes in you on the fly. In other words, this manipulation must be rather like the act of hitting a forehand in tennis.

You cannot consciously think your way through the stroke. Too many things are happening too fast. In fact, you will botch your stroke and be lucky to even connect with the ball if you try to consciously think your way through with "Watch the ball ... bend your knees ... keep your arm straight ... keep your head still ... step into the shot ... et ad infinitum." Well, that's exaggerating a bit, because there are only about 100 instructions I could list for hitting a forehand ;-)

You can't think that fast. No one can. So, you must practice that stroke enough under varying conditions to program the unconscious centers of the brain to execute it virtually automatically. When you net your shot or hit it out (provided you note how far off the shot was), your "program" is revised to get the bug out.

This phenomenon is called Natural Learning. It's how we learn to walk and talk.

That "program" isn't just a fixed set of muscle commands from the brain. It's an interactive program like a computer program. Because no two forehands are the same. Yet the more you practice, the better your forehand program, and the more effectively it faithfully produces a good forehand under widely varying conditions. You have only to make the major decisions, such as where and how to hit the ball: speed, spin, and placement. But Natural Learning is so powerful that even tactical decisions become virtually automatic in advanced players. Hence the best players in the world do very little conscious thinking while the ball's in play.

The power of Natural Learning is also illustrated by comparing experienced drivers with young drivers. Young drivers have no experience, so they must think their way through problems. Result? Crash. But with the same problem an experienced driver has no problem. He or she spontaneously makes an intuitive, instinctive move faster than the speed of thought. Result? No crash.

When playing to the mirror of your face, that must be what a narcissist is mostly doing — relying on a lifetime of experience that allows him to react instinctively to every bit of feedback he gets from you. That's how he fine-tunes your reactions into the feedback he wants. Rather like turning the knobs on a short-wave radio.

This is manipulation. And it's occurring faster than the speed of thought, because a narcissist has had so much constant practice at drawing the look he wants that most of his "moves" are virtually automatic.

This is why, I think, narcissists seem like machines with their knee-jerk reactions to things. But those reactions aren't knee-jerk reflexes: they are learned through experience to the point that they become habitual as second nature.

This is also why, I think, we tend to overestimate the intelligence of narcissists, psychopaths, con artists, and other manipulators like dictators who con their way to power. We think they must be brilliant to be so manipulative. But even a stupid narcissist I knew was extremely manipulative. Their skill is the fruit of constant practice at manipulation in every human interaction.

But it doesn't pay to underestimate them, either. That same practice makes them extremely observant and perceptive. Over time that will improve their intelligence, at least some aspects of it.

In fact, they are much more observant and perceptive than they seem. That's because all they're interested in is what they can use. So, though they block out much, what they do choose to see, they see very well. They are interested in your reactions, not you. So, they probably are more aware of how you react to things than you are. But the only information about you they're interested in is what that can use to exploit you. The rest they filter out of consciousness = forget.

So, never think that you are too smart to be manipulated by a narcissist, psychopath, or con artist. You aren't. And you surely can never beat one at his own game.

That's nothing to be ashamed of. It just means that you are an innocent who hasn't spent his or her whole life practicing the black art. So, you won't win that game.

By Kathy Krajco

What Provokes a Narc Attack

2011-04-07T07:13:00.000-07:00

It wasn't till I went no-contact with a narcissist for months that I realized a narcissist is like a disease. Here I was, feeling better. I had been so used to feeling badly that I didn't even realize I was feeling badly anymore. A few months without any interaction with a narcissist and - poof - I'm a new woman!

That's a tough thing to say but true. It's because of what narcissists use you for.

And that's the bottom line: they don't relate to you: THEY USE YOU.

Like any parasite uses its host. Life with with a tick or tapeworm is unwholesome too. Life with bacterial or protozoan parasites is unwholesome. Parasites feed on you and that makes you sick.

There is no cure but to get rid of them.

Otherwise it's like trying to live with hookworm. Drop by drop the constant bloodletting WILL increasingly weaken and sicken you. You are not indestructable. You will eventually die of it.

The narcissists I have known (and quite a few that I have heard about as well) all seemed to instantly perk up like a predator the moment someone was trapped in a situation where they would have to take whatever abuse the narcissist dished out. The moment they sense that, look out. Mr. Hyde comes out.

Over the next few weeks I'll give some anecdotal examples. Here's the first one.

An old narcissist ran a stop light at the end of the block he lived in and hit another car. The driver was unhurt, and like any sensible person, his first concern was to see whether the driver who had hit him was hurt and needed help. On seeing that the other driver, too, was unhurt, most people's anger at some idiot running the middle of a red light and hitting them broadside would start to show. But this driver, presumably on seeing that the idiot was an old man, actually seemed to feel sorry for him. He was very polite and forgiving about it, probably fearing that the State of Wisconsin would take away the old guy's driving license.

Now of course when you have an accident, you must render aid, you must call the police, and you may not leave the scene. In other words, you're trapped. You must just stand there waiting for the police and take whatever abuse this old narcissist dishes out.

That was enough to turn old Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde. The old narcissist blew up and dished out the crass abuse he normally dished out only to people trapped with him behind closed doors. But here he was, in public, in broad daylight, raging at a stranger on the street. The stuff he said was just wild and normally would get any man's block knocked off by the man he was talking like that to.

But, since the offender is old, you must bend over for it. You don't dare even yell back at him or give him a shove to get him to back off out of your face. Because he's old and people are idiots, YOU will be the evil one if you do anything to make him stop spitting and raging two inches off the tip of your nose. Because society gives old people a license to abuse anyone younger.

The laws of common decency don't apply to the aged, and old narcissists capitalize on their license to abuse at every opportunity.

People coming to that intersection didn't see the accident. All they see and hear is the old guy yelling as though HE is the offended party and making it sound as though the other guy was at fault.

This little story is one of the few I know of with a happy ending though. The police officer wasn't fooled. He drove up behind the old guy and saw and overheard. When the old guy turned around and saw the cop – presto chango! – suddenly the Bogey Man Monster was gone and in his place stood a meek and mild poor old man who wouldn't hurt a fly. You know, the old mask switch.

In one split second. A face change so instantaneous that no normal person could pull it off. How intimidating and contemptuous this old narcissist made himself seem to someone he could abuse with impunity, and how sweet and charming he made himself seem to a cop.

Maybe if you have never seen this transfiguration, and if you don't think about what it means, you don't know what it means. But if you have ever seen a narcissist do this, you know what it means. You have felt what it means punch you in the gut. It means that you are dealing with a devil.

You got a glimpse of Old Two Face with his mask off. But there he is now one second later. Beelzebub mocking you from behind that "Poor-little-old-me-wouldn't-hurt-a-fly" mask he now has on.

As I remarked in a comment yesterday, that ain't mental disease: that is just plain diabolical.

And what "provoked" this narc attack? Did the narcissist feel threatened in any way? Was he slighted in any way? He should have been grateful that the other driver was so kind and forgiving, but instead he took this as a sign of weakness and attacked.

It's about time the professionals started making observations instead of divinations. If they do, they will find that what "provokes" a narc attack is nothing but vulnerability.

As in any PREDATOR.

And you can't get stupider than to refuse to believe that some people ARE predators. They attack you to eat you, not because you have provoked them in any way. They target easy prey, not people who offend or threaten them in any way.

The deadheads who can't wrap their minds around this fact should just read the daily newspaper, duh. Don't tell me that people who attack total strangers, like serial killers, rapists and child molesters, are retaliating aganst any perceived threat or offense. Don't tell me that they are poor and NEED what they are stealing to survive. Don't tell me that ANYONE who abuses a CHILD does, or is retaliating against any perceived threat or offense. And show me a malignant narcissist, and I will show you someone who never misses a chance to hit on a child. Just look at the kind of things they do to THEIR OWN CHILDREN. Some folks need to wake up and smell the coffee about malignant narcissists.

One must be willfully blind to unknow that camouflaged predators do live among us.

And of course the narc later makes excuses, saying he was just retaliating against some perceived offense. Narcs are pathological liars, duh, and everyone knows it. So, what kind of fool believes them when they say this without evidence to back it up?

What's more, they lie to themselves as much as they lie to others, so they probably repress knowledge of what they're doing, twisting things to rationalize their unprovoked attacks on others. Only in moments of unwanted self-awareness do they know better. But they instantly repress such knowledge the moment it surfaces.

They don't do what they do for reasons. They do it just to do it. Whenever they think they can get away with it, that is.

You will never be cured of contact with them if you don't face this unpleasant fact about them. They don't love you. They don't love anyone. They can't.

Lamb, you are as lovable as can be, but the Wolf doesn't love you. He doesn't dare let himself love you, or he'd starve. Correction: he does love you – for lunch.

Bully Teachers

2011-04-07T06:27:00.000-07:00

Speaking of teachers, here is something all students and parents should know.

Narcissistic teachers (and weak teachers) use something I call "scapegoat discipline." Believe it or not, they actually target a kid in each section at the beginning of the year. This kid is the selected class scapegoat. Whenever the teacher isn't getting what he or she wants, they start yelling at the scapegoat for something.

The reason is simple: Only one kid gets abused, so the others and their parents don't care.

But all kids are intimidated by the show. In other words, the teacher abuses one kid to control the others. Simply by making an example of the scapegoat.

This is nothing rare. Every schoolyard bully does the same thing. Every brutal dictator does too. The Jews served Hitler in this capacity for example, just as the Christians served Nero.

The abuse of the scapegoat escalates to shocking levels, just the most vicious looks and snarling and contempt you ever saw - way over the top. Truly, anyone who witnesses it should think Teacher belongs in a padded cell, but incredibly these smooth talkers get away with it, year after year.

Of course the kids hate these blow ups. But who do they blame for them? Not the teacher. They are afraid of the bully teacher, so they suck up to him or her. They have nothing but admiring praise for him or her. They blame the scapegoat for always doing something to set the bully off.

So now the scapegoat is a pariah, on top of it all. Anyone who blows that off is devoid of empathy. Kids kill themselves over stuff like that. It ain't no minor matter. And every adult who knows of it is morally obligated to protect any child from it.

It ain't good for your unabused child either. It sucks him into the ganging-up on the scapegoat, which he will have to project his shame for. It teaches him to blame the victim and suck up to bullies. So ALL parents should be concerned when they discover this happening to ANYONE in one of their child's classes.

The gradebook can be evidence in some cases. For, at least in one case I know of, the bully teacher would actually mark the scapegoat on the seating chart the first or second day so she could remember whom to target.

The target seems selected on basis of vulnerability in the cases I know of. He could be a kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Maybe she's a wallflower. Maybe he has been in trouble with the school before. Maybe a kid with no father and drunk for a mother. Whatever.

Weak teachers who use scapegoat discipline always impressed me as slipping into it rather than plotting it. They don't act so terrorizingly crazy when they get mad either. They are just trying to blame their incompetence on having a section "stacked" with "bad kids," so that the constant uproar coming from their door ain't their fault.

They will often target two or three kids in a section (instead of one) to take all the blame. Scapegoat discipline just passes the blame though, it doesn't establish discipline, because the weak teacher can just scream. She can't terrorize anyone. So, the gross unfairness just provokes more disrespect of her than it deters.

By Kathy Krajco

The Narcissist Makes Everyone, Including You, Think that You Are the Dependent One

2011-04-07T06:23:00.000-07:00

Who is needier than a narcissist? More dependant?

Their dependence is the dependence of any parasite on its host. This dependence is the very essence of their so-called "relationship" with you. It is the relationship you have with a tick or disease. That's all there is to it. Nothing for YOU in it at all.

They truly are emotional vampires and probably are the type storytellers had in mind when they invented the story of the vampire. They NEED your blood/suffering. They feed on it. They will die without it.

Why? because it's the only thing that makes their existence bearable. Just look at what lowdown, dirty, rotten things these gutter slimes have done through life. Wouldn't the memories haunt you to the point that you couldn't stand yourself? A character of white trash put it succinctly in a movie about racism once when asked why he treated black people like dirt: "Because if you ain't better than a n*****, you ain't better than nobody."

Narcissists are doing the same thing. Down in that gutter they need to feel better than somebody else. It's the only thing that can make them happy. Because it's the only thing that makes them feel good.

About themselves. For awhile.

As a drink is the only thing that makes an alcoholic feel good. For awhile. No booze – they get to feeling worse and worse until they are dying for a drink. They WOULD die for a drink. They would die for just the few minutes release from feeling so bad that drink will give them.

Same thing with the heroin addict.

Narcissists must constantly resist falling into the abyss - awareness of what a lowdown thing they are. How? By playing a stupid and irrational mind game: they think they raise themselves out of that gutter by tearing someone else down and walking all over that other person.

Ah, what a high they get! They thump their chest and give a Tarzan yell. That's just Tarzan's way of saying, "Look Ma! Ain't I grand?"

They are sucking that person's lifeblood. They are feeding on it. They are bleeding him or her of self-respect.

That's how they get self-respect, by stealing that which belongs to others. For, what they do is so despicable that, for sheer shame, they'd otherwise have to kill themselves. As one narcissist herself put it to me, she'd be one of those suicides who doesn't even leave a note.

So, they play this game to fight off awareness of what a contemptible thing their conduct has made them. It's what keeps them alive = from killing themselves. It's how they live.

And of course doing this just gives them more shameful conduct to bury that way. It's a vicious cycle.

Now, of course, this neediness of theirs, this parasitic dependence on their host, isn't grand. So this fact of their existence constantly challenges their delusions of grandeur.

That's where being a Projection Machine come in. They ward off awareness of their humiliating neediness by projecting the semblance of it off onto their host.

I know one who blew me away some years ago with "but then maybe because I'm so gosh-darned independent I just don't understand people like that."

My jaw hit the ground. She was 40 years old and had never left the nest. She never paid rent. She made more money than her father but never even bought or paid for her own food and toiletries or cigarettes. Yet in her narcissist eyes, she was so gosh-darned independent. The suckling pig didn't need her parents: in the Land of Pretend, THEY needed HER!

Now is that crackpot thinking? Or is that crackpot thinking?

Therefore, never underestimate the power of a narcissist's upside-down and backwards brain to warp the real world into a work of fiction that twists thinking and perception a full 180 degrees!

In fact, here's one bit of advice I will give: notice these farces. They're hilarious. A sense of humor goes a long way toward healing. It also keeps you from falling under the spell of these crackpots.

I gave another example a few days back in How to Kill Your Sister and Get Away with It.

The narcissistic teacher is desperate for attention. Hard to believe, but true: even being a teacher doesn't fulfill her need for attention.

Yet her ego won't allow her to call her sister for someone to talk to. But though she has tried many baits, she can't sucker the sister into calling her or having anything to do with her (though they live across the street from each other). So the pretext of "helping the needy sister" is the only pretext the narcissist's ego will let her call her sister on. Get it? That way the narcissist doesn't need her sister, the sister needs her.

And so the narcissist must dissemble to hide her need for attention. She must make it seem as though the sister is the needy one, the one who needs someone to talk to. For years, she has tried to sucker her sister into reestablishing a close relationship with her. Presumably, the result would be the same as historically it was: the N never condescends to call her sister, but plays her sister like a fish on the line to call her. Then, she doesn't even let the sister get one sentence out about why she is calling: the narcissist has already launched into a three-hour monologue.

Sound familiar?

So, who's the one who needs someone to talk to. Or "AT", I mean?

Games, games, games. That's all narcissists do is play stupid games like this. Narcissists ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS blame the victim by protray the victim as asking for it and even liking it. They always claim that their victims have a martyr complex.

Clue: the martyr complex is thinking you are underappreciated. Oh, woe is you, because things don't get done, or get done right, if you don't do them. So you do, do, do for everyone all day long. And nobody appreciates how you sacrifice for them. Oh, woe is you.

That's the martyr complex, and it has nothing to do with abuse. Nobody wants abuse. How can sensible people believe such a bizzare assertion? Indeed, they refuse to believe known facts that are far more believable than this absurdity. What? Do people just love to believe the bizarre?

This absurd claim that the victim wants it is most shocking in the case of rape. When are people going to learn to quit playing the fool for him or her every time a narcissist opens their mouth?

Narcissists do everything possible about the material circumstances of the relationship to make YOU seem like the needy one and THEM seem like the independent one.

For example, women, beware any man who tries to get you pregnant before marriage. Or, even immediately after marriage. That's a patented trick of these spiders to ensnare you in a web.

Both men and women, beware of any lover who can't stand your family and friends around. Another patented trick to isolate you. The narcissist picks fights on the sly and then comes running to you whining about how mean your family or friend is to him or her. They come running to you telling you that your mother or father or sister or brother or friend said this or that.

Do you hear a snapping sound? That's your lifelong relationship with that friend or family member breaking. You will never know that the narcissist is lying, because you have taken the bait and will stop communicating directly with that friend or family member. That is housebreaking, my friend, otherwise known as con artistry.

Know it when ANYONE has come between you and others and is cutting off direct communication between you two. No one who does that is ever up to any good.

Before you know it, you are isolated and alone in the world. At that spider's mercy. Because you are dependent on the narcissist alone for all that we get out of human companionship.

That ain't nothing. Human beings need love and appreciation. We need it like we need the air we breathe. But if a narcissist has isolated you from the rest of the human race, so that you depend on the narcissist alone for all these things, you are in trouble, baby.

The narcissist is doing that to cut your ties to other important people in your life. Like a cowboy, or a pedator, he is just cutting his target out of the herd. He wants you dependent on him alone for human companionship.

Then all he need do is toss you a scrap now and then. Otherwise, he can do anything he wants to you, and you won't leave.

Yet another example, again one that usually applies to women. So, he got you pregnant several times already. How gallant that he says to quit your job and that he will take care of you. Don't do it, lady! This is another patented tactic of narcissists and other spousal abusers.

When he has burned all the employment bridges behind you, the honeymoon will be over. You'll feel trapped in the web this spider has woven and feel dependent on him.

But in my experience and judging by what I've learned from others, that feeling of dependence on the narcissist is more perceived than real. It's largely due to projective identification = what the narcissist says and does to make you FEEL like a worthless wretch who NEEDS him.

Yes, of course, if you are dependent on the narcissist's income, you are dependent on the narcissist's income. But does that dependence come close to the absolute dependence of this vampire on you for a daily drink of your blood, which he cannot live without?

To him or her, you are nothing but a rat they keep for this purpose - you know, for a vampire's "transfusion" every so often.

This is similar to the phenomenon known as "the kept" woman." Just as some men pay a lot of money to support a "kept woman" for someone to have sex with, narcissists will spend a lot of money to support a woman kept to abuse.

Any drug addict will pay whatever it costs to maintain a constant supply so he is never without a fix. This doesn't make narcissists not niggardly. In all other matters, they are niggardly to the hilt. But when it comes to spending whatever it takes to keep someone handy to abuse, they show how desperate they are. No price is too high, because they NEED that constant fix.

So don't let these pushers get you hooked on their money, life in the fast lane, or anything else they can try to buy you with. It will make you feel dependent on them.

And don't fall for their efforts to brainwash you into thinking YOU need THEM. It's nothing but projective identification.

You CAN walk away, in almost every case.

I'll never forget the moment I realized this. Here I was, clinging to a narcissistic abuser for dear life. I'll never forget where I was and what had just happened when the little voice in my head said, "You need THAT?"

No I didn't. I immediately went out and bought new door locks.

A few weeks later I began to notice how good I was feeling. I was astounded by the fact that, while I was with the narcissist, I had gotten so used to feeling bad, that I wasn't even aware of feeling bad anymore. But now, when I began to feel good, I realized how bad a case of hookworm anemia makes you feel.

Indeed, when you get rid of a parasite, you are getting rid of a disease.

By Kathy Krajco

The Narcissist's Strange Relationship to the World Around Her

2011-04-07T06:22:00.000-07:00

A narcissist has no proper relationship with herself. She unknows the self inside and identifies with something external, her projected image, instead. Hence, NPD has often been called a "disorder of the self."

Now THAT'S a pretty important relationship to foul up. If you don't relate to yourself, how can you relate to anyone else?

Narcissists don't. They relate to other human beings as objects. You know - objects, things to use and ab-use for self-serving purposes. Things that have no rights, no right to be even. Things that have no feelings. Tools.

Until that fact sinks in, you just don't "get" malignant narcissism. You keep acting on the premise that the narcissist has some feelings for you, some conscience. And that premise is all wrong. Based on it, nothing makes sense. Hence you keep pinching yourself and wondering whether it's you or the N that is crazy.

The more I see, the more impressed I am by how a narcissist relates to the world around her. These are just my observations, but they are based on a lifetime of experiences fit together like the pieces of a puzzle - for what that's worth.

It's like she goes around with an artist's pallet and paintbrush in hand, painting over reality here and there, almost whimsically and on the fly, to make it more to her fancy or liking.

I think this is a lot like little children do as their minds and personalities begin to take shape. Their mind becomes a playground. They discover how it can be used to "alter" any reality they don't like. They tend to get carried away in flights of the imagination like Alice in the Looking Glass Room.

To us in the real world, the world Alice is in there behind the Looking Glass looks like this one. But beyond the edges of the glass (our look into her life) nothing is the same as in the real world. (More on this in the book.) In fact, Alice says that it's as different as can be.

She made it that way in flights of reckless fancy, often on a whim, just to make her world more interesting and exciting than the real world.

This reminds one of all the reckless experimentation with LSD and other mind-altering drugs, especially during the 1970's.

Fortunately, children normally attain the Age of Reason, when they develop a preference for truth and reality. Partly, they learn to fear the terrible power of the mind to alter perception and delude itself. Partly, they want to grow up and live in the real world like older kids and adults do.

They still daydream and take off on flights of the imagination. But they clearly distinguish between dreams and reality now. For example, they won't insist that you set a place for their imaginary friend at the table anymore.

The more I see, the more I suspect that narcissists never really made it to that point. From time to time they will say something that betrays their presence in some strange other world.

Ms. Painter does the same thing with the people in her world. She paints over them to make a work of art of them, one more to her liking. In doing so, she reduces them to caricatures. Pay close attention to the way she talks about others, and you will see that.

I am constantly struck by how similar these characterizations are to those of a novelist. In a novel, you don't want your secondary characters and minor characters to distract attention from the main characters, so you deliberately draw what we call "flat" characterizations of them. Caricatures. Often called "cartoons," because they have no depth.

To keep them from being bland and boring, you spice up the hero's sidekick with some eccentricity that makes him entertaining. In fact, in novels where attention is on the plot or whodunit, even the main character (e.g., Inspector Poirot) may be little more than a cartoon with some entertaining idiosyncrasies.

Notice that this is what a narcissist makes of the people she talks about. They aren't people; they are characters. There's a difference, you know. They aren't even realistic characters with depth; they are cartoons, caricatures.

She may describe a person as a "Kris Kringle" one day and as a "b****-slapper" the next though.

Because she is an artist, you see, CREATING and EDITING these cartoons on the whims of fancy, reducing human beings to them.

If you ask her about these people, you will find that she actually knows nothing about their character. How could she? She gets 100% of their attention without giving back any of hers. So, how could she have noticed anything about their real character?

All have but bit parts in an autobiographical work of fiction that is all about her.

Of course the narcissist is shallow too. How could she not be shallow? She doesn't identify with the real person inside; she identifies with the image she paints of herself. Another mere character, not a real person.

This is why a narcissist will be a Nazi one day and a socialist the next. She is just another character she creates. So, she can change that character any time the story isn't going the way she wants.

And she does everything possible to make the world reflect her fantasy. Her fantasy about you. (Through character assassination.) Her fantasy about the past. (By pathological lying.) Her fantasy about herself. (In con artistry.) She couldn't possibly have greater contempt for truth.

Narcissist Sympathizers

2011-04-07T06:18:00.000-07:00

I am often amazed at the cavalier attitude of some clinicians and bystanders toward malignant narcissism. They seem so concerned about how they SOUND that they have no concern left for what they're saying. Indeed, one wonders if these people ever hear themselves.

They are so busy trying to sound like nice people that they utter utter nonsense. The cruelty of narcissistic abuse is lost on them. It strikes no chord of empathy in them. They hear about it and just mouth-breathe as if to say, "What's so bad about that?"

Obtuseness is invincible. They talk like it's a mere irritation or aggravation. They say we should make nothing of it and not be angry over it. For, the simpletons cannot think morally and therefore must have a list of dos and don'ts as a cheat sheet to distinguish right from wrong.

Fortunately, good therapists would never tell you to repress your feelings. They would tell you that there are times when you have an obligation to get angry, and that failing to is sometimes the morally reprehensible thing to do. Just as failing to fight is sometimes the morally reprehensible thing to do.

But they aren't saying that to SOUND good, so they aren't as loud as the phonies are.

You can read what you need to know about malignant narcissism in the comments here. Those by the children of narcissists.

They are anonymous, so they have no motive to lie, and the stuff they tell that their abusive parent did to them is too bizarre to be made up. It isn't the kind of thing anyone would make up. In fact, it's antithetical to the kind of thing a person would make up. You can see that. It rings true louder than the Liberty Bell.

Read these accounts of narcissistic abuse and weep. Read back through.

I really want people who think that narcissistic abuse is no big deal to do that. And those who think that narcissists are not bad people and will be fine if you just give them a hug, a musical instrument, and a puppy.

These narcissist sympathizers who say that their victims shouldn't abandon the poor narcissist, because that will make poor little him or her so saaaaaaad (to be without a host to parasitize) - people who say that need a lesson that will teach them where to place their misplaced sympathy. Let them be told they are dirt every day in every way by someone close to them for 20 or 30 years. Let them have their reputation, career, and marriage utterly brought to ruin by character assassination. THEN let's see if they still think it's nothing.

Then let's see how well THEY are handling the life they've been dealt.

Thinking it's funny to force your child to do something you warn him in advance you will beat him for? Have you ever heard of anything more perverted and sadistic than that?

I have it from a narcissist herself that mental cruelty is her game.

Rushing your husband's funeral so that one of his children misses it? After you DROVE him to suicide? People who hear that without it twisting their guts have an empathy problem themselves.

Which must be why they are so callous that they just don't see what's so bad about narcissists.

And then the narcissist immediately shacks up with somebody else to give the knife in his or her kids a twist. That one not only appears in the comments here, I know of that happening once myself. In fact every narcissist I have known who lost a mate immediately (as quickly as fleas abandon a dead rat in search of a new host) hopping into bed with somebody else.

That should be a clue about something to clueless narcissist sympathizers. A clue about what other people are to a narcissist.

Driving people to drink? Driving people to suicide? No big deal? I'll wager that many, if not most, people driven to suicide are driven by a malignant narcissist. That's absolute power over someone = the power to make them kill themselves. I know of three narcissists who did this and fortunately succeeded only in driving to drink, and a third who I think did it and did succeed in driving a teenager to suicide.

Not murder? Not WORSE than murder?

Narcissists do this as lightly as you step on a bug. That's what human beings are to them.

And in treating human beings as subhuman beings, they are treating them inhumanly and failing to recognize humanity. Which means they don't know humanity when they see it. If they were human themselves they would recognize and respect the image and likeness of humanity in human beings.

That's what becoming God has done to them. It was a big fall.

If the abundant evidence about psychopaths is any indication, some narcissists come from happy homes. As for those who don't, hey, if they got even with the parent who abused them, that would be natural. But they deify the abusive parent (as soon as they out of his or her clutches) and take it out on the nicest, lovingest, most vulnerable and defenseless prey they can find.

Come on, everybody knows what that means. They are BAD people. I don't care if it's against your political religion's doctrine to admit that. It's true.

Narcissists are known for making the most mild mannered, gentle, patient, kind, and unassuming people livid with anger. They are known for making people who never hate hate them with a passion.

Jeez, do you suppose there could be a reason for this?

This is just common sense. Let the phonies (on the Web and in the clinics) find some new issue to sound holy on and quit making a farce out of this one. Let them find fault to condemn where it is, instead of where it ain't.

A Narcissist's Ability to Become a Different Person

2011-04-07T06:15:00.000-07:00

It was about this time of year when a narcissist went away to college as a freshman at the colossal University of Wisconsin in Madison. The next thing her family knew, she was a different person.

She had always been your good, clean-cut, all-American kid in high school. Got good grades. Went to Mass with her parents every Sunday. Was a cheerleader. Took part in athletics. Never touched drugs. Had a steady boyfriend who was himself a clean-cut all-American kid.

But in Madison, with no parents around to see what she did, she went wild. You name it – drugs, sex, riots – she was into it. Didn’t go to class. Partied all the time. Hopped into bed with anyone. As for Sunday Mass – she never went once. When her sister came to visit and expected to go, she announced that she didn’t believe in it.

She didn’t offer any explanation or relate her thoughts and reasoning on this. She just bit off the matter glibly by saying that she didn’t believe in it, period.

All within less than six weeks of coming out from under her parents’ roof.

Get it?

A typical narcissist’s transfiguration. It was like she suddenly was a different person. And The people at school who knew her now wouldn’t have recognized the person she had been just a few weeks earlier.

Anyone not born yesterday knows what happened. Since she could get away with bad behavior now, she did. Instantly she went wild. There was no gradual degeneration of her moral standards. Instead, they simply proved to be nonexistent. She thus proved that she had been a total phony before.

This equates with the frequent report that a narcissist goes wild after the death of a parent who exerted some control over them.

And there’s a warning in it. It means that the only rein on a narcissist is what they think they can get away with. That can and does change with circumstances over the course of life.

And when it does, you may get a nasty surprise. You may suddenly see your narcissist doing abhorrent things you never dreamed him or her capable of.

Simply because the only rein on a narcissist is what they think they can get away with. They have no moral restraint whatsoever. So, when external constraints are removed, look out.

This may explain why powerful narcissists seem worse. They may not be worse: it may be only that they can get away with worse, so they do.

This particular narcissist felt so uninhibited that she took a psychotic break when one of her roommates tried to talk some sense into her. Older students from elsewhere on the floor came running and literally held her down in what they later described in terms that remind one of an exorcism. They then took her to see her older sister in another town the next day, warning the sister that something was wrong with her.

Glibly the narcissist explained it all away to her family by saying that one of the girls’ cousins had slipped her LSD.

What she didn’t tell them is that she had begun a campaign of telling everyone in Madison horrible lies about them to make people feel sorry for her, in an effort to get some rich people who owned a bar on campus to adopt her.

So don’t assume that your narcissist’s assault-weapon mouth won’t be turned on you. Pay attention to what he or she tells you about others and know that he or she is going around saying as bad or worse about you, no matter who you are.

Narcissists and the Language of Babel

2011-04-07T06:06:00.000-07:00

Quite a few years ago, I saw a documentary on TV about batterers. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the program or the expert being interviewed, but what he said I think is self evident to anyone who has ever tried to communicate with an abusive person.

What was it? He pointed out that in arguments between the victim and the batterer (not beatings, just arguments), the victim always argued circles around the batterer, beating him hands down. I mean she whupped him.

They actually captured examples on film, from counseling offices and even from cameras placed in the home.

This should be no surprise. Of course she whupped him to shame. Reason was 100% on her side. He either had to concede her points or be totally irrational and blow back a wall of gibberish and bullshit at her, like a character in a Monty Python skit.

Any fair and rational judge of the debate must award the victory to her, by pinning him on every point.

If you live or work with a narcissist, you know that all you ever get is fallacious arguments from them.

But we get so used to the irrational blather of these people that we grow tired of fielding it all and blasting it by exposing it for the nonsense and gobbdygook it is.

So we need to remind ourselves now and then that the way people use language can be a red flag.

I know of a narcissistic administrator who ordered his charges to do despicable and even illegal acts while remaining unaccountable simply by issuing these orders in the Biblical language of Babble.

What is it? It’s confused language, language that confuses things with what they ain’t. I have given examples of this before, like confusing patriotism with nationalism to make patriotism sound like a vice.

If you examine Babble closely, you see that it is nonsense, language as literally meaningless as the babbling of baby. Just noise. Blather.

Nonetheless, listeners get the message the babbler intends from it. How? Through the power of suggestion. And, as they say, Never understimate the power of suggestion.

It’s bullshit, in other words. What writers call gobbledygook. The chief tool of propagandists. A way of saying things without really saying them. A way shooting a sentence through the forest without nicking a single tree. A way to confuse the listener enough that he or she misses the absurdity in what you say.

It works because we are in the habit of fixing other people’s English on the fly. We must, because we all make errors in speaking even our native language on the fly. We start out a sentence one way, see it won’t work, and change some crucial grammatical element like the number of subject or the subject itself mid-sentence. Our listeners follow what we’re trying to say and correctly interpret the sentence anyway.

Experiments have shown that listeners naturally fill in words you leave out, without even realizing that you have left them out. They correct nonsensical phrases to make sense of them.

When, for example, Radar O’Reily rushes in crying, “Major Hoolihan went to get married to Japan!” we are but momentarily thrown overboard and instantly fix his sentence to “Major Hoolihan went to Japan to get married!”

Next time you’re listening to someone, pay attention to how many times you think, “Huh? Oh, he actually means this” or “He actually means that.”

That’s great. But when a particular person requires you to do too much of that, look out: it’s no accident. It just someone blowing a wall of blather at you.

It’s full of extraneous gobbledygook that makes it hard to follow what they are saying. Characteristically, these people put so many miles between the subject and verb, interrupting the thought with everything but the kitchen sink, that by the time your poor cerebral software gets the verb, it has forgotten what the subject was.

You are supposed to get confused and think, “Well, I don’t understand it but it must make sense.”

No it need not make sense! Run a logic check on everything people say before you let it into your head.

The administrator I mentioned above wasn’t nervous at all before an audience. To the contrary, he was in his glory. And he was perfectly capable of speaking perfect English to an audience when he wanted to. But when he wanted to avoid responsibility for what he was saying, he mangled his sentences; he left words and whole phrases out; he started sentences over so many times in the middle of one that there was no way to make English out of that gibberish. And don’t even get me started on the hints and innuendo. His charges understood exactly what he was telling them to do, though any direct quotes you could have supplied law enforcement authorities were nothing but innuendo and incoherent gibberish.

We see this now even in writing. It’s politically incorrect to expect even the most basic standards in email. Blowhards exploit this green light. When educated people, even writers and editors, cannot get through a sentence of email without some unbelievable spelling or grammatical error, or way-off misuse of a word, look out. They are doing that on purpose, to make it seem as though they typed this with blazing speed and cannot be held accountable for making sense or meaning what they say.

Why? Well, because this is email, Baby. And you know the rules of political correctness about email: we babblers can throw up smokescreens, confuse the issues, cloud the issues, sidestep the issues, and utter Nimrodean nonsense as freely in email as we do in speech. And it’s against the rules for you to call us on it. Ha-ha!”

And that’s why the victim blasts every argument of the abuser to smithereens. All she has to do is take his blather one piece at a time and say, “Huh?” exposing it for what it is – bullshit and irrational absurdity.

Narcissists and other abusers never do have a leg to stand on. Reason is never on their side. They never have even a single legitimate point to make. The wall of blather they throw at you is just an attempt to conceal that. It’s like the inky cloud an octopus exudes to conceal its escape route from a predator.

That’s why communication with a narcissist is impossible. Communication is another thing on that long list of things that the poor babies call “threats” to themselves. So, communication with them is impossible simply because they block it, throwing up this wall of flak to prevent anything you say from getting through.

By Kathy Krajco

Witholding

2011-04-07T06:02:00.000-07:00

Being mentally little children, who feel small and insignificant in a world of giants, narcississts likewise are always on the lookout for an opportunity to make themselves feel important. Like little children they play "Pretend."

For example, I know of a man whose first family moved out on him, and, when another woman and her children moved in, they were overjoyed at the sight of the swingset and the basketball hoop. You could tell those poor kids had nothing and suddenly felt rich.

But letting their delight in these things show was a big mistake. The jerk suddenly stopped mowing back by the swingset, so that the weeds grew so tall around it they couldn't play on it. And he started parking old junker cars underneath the basketball hoop.

It was so obvious -- because that was the only part of the lawn not mowed, and there was no need to park those vehicles right under the basket. Those boys often looked wistfully at it, but I never heard them ask if they could play.

I'm sure I know why they didn't.

Been there. Everyone who's ever lived with a narcissist has.

My mother told me about about a man many years ago, whose sons worked hard all week on the farm (back in the days when they chopped wood, milked cows by hand, and plowed with horses). They had to come and ask him every Friday evening for a little money to spend at the local dance. And he always took off on a long walk out in the fields to make them chase him all the way out there for their pay.

I used to call it playing "Keep Away." Psychologists call it "witholding."

By witholding whatever they know you want, narcissists make themselves feel important. If you are observant of little children, you'll notice they do the same thing. For example, a child can be bored with a toy and about to leave it lay -- till she notices that some other child wants it: then she plays Keep Away.

Never forget that: the narcissist you are dealing with is full grown but every bit the three-year-old, and not a sweet one, either. He or she is case of arrested development, a person still living in that childish world of make-believe where everything is "Pretend." Pretend you're grown up by putting on Mom or Dad's clothes and play-acting "grownup." Pretend you're important by play-acting like you are.

It's a power play too, of course.

I know a woman in whom it's a knee jerk reaction: whenever someone says "Will you...?" or "Can I...?" the first thing out of her mouth is, "You'll have to wait." However long you can wait, she will make you wait longer.

They often have to make you beg or grovel too.

When they see your eyes light on something you want, they look at it and see nothing but a stick to use as leverage on you. It's the Teeter-Totter Game, to make you pray to them for it.

Just think how awful it must be to have to constantly do crazy stuff like that to kill the pain of that deep, down wretched self-concept you must constantly flee into denial of. If they didn't cruelly hurt others, I would feel sorry for them.

Moreover, most of them had brothers and sisters who went through the same thing in childhood but didn't turn out that way.

By Kathy Krajco

What is a "Player"?

2011-04-07T03:17:00.000-07:00

Definitions of a "Player"

There are many different types, but if any of these sound familiar to you, "red flag" them.

Married - The most common type of Player is without doubt the "married" one, but who never tells you he is married. "red flags" to look for - won't give you his home phone number only his mobile (or none), won't give you his address, can only chat to you during the day ("red flag") is talking to you from work rather than from home.

Married, but - 'wife neglects me, no sex life left, should never have married her, can't leave because of kids/ family/ religion' , etc. "red flag" in most cases the only type of relationship you will have will be a "dead end" one. He's looking for a freebie!

Mr. Blowhard - definitely a "red flag" - all he wants is an audience to listen to and believe his bogus stories of danger and bravery, or he has a promising career, brilliant future etc., but all snatched away from him due to an accident or serious injury. He needs your sympathy, and when you get tired of listening, he'll just move on to find a new audience.

Hit & Run Player - another "red flag" usually the guys just practicing or fine tuning their chat up lines. You will probably receive love poems, links to the most romantic places on the net etc. Very easy to believe they really love only YOU.

Body Surfers - These guys are easy to spot. The broach the subject of sex early in the relationship. - They are only looking for sex … phone sex, cyber sex, pictures, videos or real sex.

The Globe Trotter - Single/married players who travel for a living. They usually have a laptop as well as access to computer at home/work. They are looking to find women who live "on their appointed rounds" (easy to find doing an advanced search of profiles). They them IM or e-mail you saying they are intrigued by your profile etc., and how much in common you seem to have. After they have you chatting a few times amazingly they will happen to be in your area next week and could they come and see you. Once hooked they can add you to their visiting list (saves spending lonely nights in an hotel!!).

Mr. Big - They usually own their own business (they use that as "bait" which we are meant to translate as "I'm a good catch". Or they may let it slip early in the relationship that they own their own business, or they claim to be a lawyer, a doctor or other highly-paid professional. Now think about it. The same as us women, men want to be loved for themselves, NOT their assets so this man needs a "red flag" too. Can you really believe that a real Professional man would have the time to hang around in chat rooms.

The Sympathy Dog - He gives you a long sob story and then everyday there is a new crisis in his life. All he wants from you are daily "pity parties" - just don't fall for it.

Then we get onto the more serious Players,the real Con men who can cause you enormous emotional distress, harassment and stalking.

The Control Freak - He will also have a sob story and use your sympathy to manipulate you to get his own way. Stories you might hear - has a bad heart condition, or needs a kidney transplant, has cancer but it's in remission. These supposed afflictions are for the purpose of "control" .. whenever you step out of line, the following reaction will occur: you added to his depression and he's feeling suicidal, he starts getting chest pains, he has to go on dialysis, the cancer comes out of remission. Using your feelings of guilt, he will quickly have you back under his thumb again.

The Guilt Trip Player - If you don't fall for his MO which he has worked so hard on, then he will throw a temper tantrum. You will probably receive an e-mail from a supposed friend/relative informing you he committed suicide, implying it was over you of course. Then this friend/relative will keep contact with you for weeks to come with details of the funeral and how devastated the family is etc. Or you will be told he was in some terrible accident and is dying (and you are supposed to feel very guilty about how you treated him. (Shame on you! LOL)

The Freeloaders - This type of player is looking for financial support. He will woo you and then suggest something like "I love you too much to take you away from your family and friends, but I am prepared to move nearer to you." "Could I stay with you for a bit to check out the housing situation/job situation etc.". Big "red flag" comes to stay with you, has no money, alcoholic, drug addict says he'll change if you will just stick by him, help him out for a bit financially. Once in your home - you will have a real job to get him out again.

The Cyberpaths (Online Sociopaths) - These are the worse of the bunch…. This type always looks for the easy to bait, vulnerable women, widows, newly divorced, women recovering from a recent heartbreak etc. They lurk, using different screen names, in the widows, divorced, Al-Anon or mature chat rooms (40's, 50's 60's) or school reunion sites, political sites or "married but"..... They start out romancing you like a player does, but it's for an ulterior motive; they become obsessive and then they become the online harasser, the stalker, smear you on their way out … or worse.

Also a Cyberpath, the Emotional Hitchhiker - They generally look for their "sheep" in rooms that involve emotional support widows & widowers, divorced etc. (really sensitive vulnerable people). They will start out as being this great and wonderful guy who has also been widowed or divorced and is in a lot of emotional pain. They will use two different screen names (pretending to be two different people) - one who is a man falling in love with you: the other, a man who just wants your friendship. After they have you madly in love with them, then they will fake their own death. You will receive an e-mail from a family member or friend informing you he: died in a car accident, sudden heart attack etc. Then, using their other screen name, they will hear first hand of your reaction: hear all you grief and complete devastation, getting a complete "high" from your emotions. OR they may tell you they just found out they have cancer, terminal - of course and drag it out for six months or se, getting daily "highs" from your sympathies and your heartbreak. When the "highs" start to falter, then you will receive notice of their "very painful" death.

Perplexing Behavior — Backward Reactions to Things

2011-04-07T03:06:00.000-07:00

The reddest red flag is perverted behavior. Leave out the sexual connotation: I use that word perverted because it means "thoroughly twisted" or "turned backwards." Any act can be perverted. Perverted behavior is the extreme opposite of what is called for. This is behavior that goes against nature, behavior that makes you want to pinch yourself.

In other words, it's a surprise, a shock, the last thing you expected.

Like maybe everyone in that classroom was sitting up straight with all eyes riveted upon Teacher and you could have heard a pin drop. Ka-BOOM! He flies into snarling rage at some kid he won't identify as though that kid just flipped him the bird or something.

Or maybe you've been dating him for six months, and he has been saying from day one that he wanted you marry him. You finally tell him you love him. Ka-BOOM! He gets mad and tells you that you don't love him. And demands that you wear your hair a different way. If you really love him, you will, you know.

Perplexing.

In my experience, afterwards you are unable to say what the blow-up was even about. That isn't normal. When you have an argument with a normal person, afterwards you can say what it was about.

Though such off-the-wall flights into rage are the most memorable instances of perverted behavior, they aren't the only kind. In fact, other kinds are more telling.

For example, take a situation that has a nearly irresistible pull on the heartstrings. Imagine that some person in the room is suffering great grief and sorrow and breaks down into tears. Seeing that affects normal people like gravity, attracting them to that person to comfort her or him. But what does a narcissist do? The exact opposite. Remember, she must deny attention to that person, and she can't stand to see anyone else give attention to that person. So, you'd think anti-gravity was impelling her out the door on the far end of that room as she hurries out jabbering cheerily about everything BUT what is going on.

That's what I mean by "perverted" reactions to things — weird, backwards reactions to things. Behaviors that make you feel like you just stepped into The Twilight Zone and need to pinch yourself.

It's always a sign that a person is dangerous in some way. Perverted behavior is characteristic of psychopaths and malignant narcissists. Normal people rarely exhibit perverted behavior unless under extreme pressure to do so, and even normal people are dangerous at such times. For, that's when "normal" people all look the other way to allow things like the Holocaust while pretending that they don't know what's going on.

Inappropriate laughter is an example of perverted behavior. I'm not talking about the inappropriate laughter that sometimes comes from a nervous or self-conscious person, or from people under a great weight of fear, pressure, or sorrow. That's a release, and we understand it. I'm talking about inappropriate laughter that makes you wonder where it came from.

For instance, when the Challenger (space shuttle) exploded on take-off, we saw it live on television. As with the 9/11 Attack, the networks replayed the spectacular footage every two minutes while shocked America got the news and gathered around television sets. One narcissist I know of was so in need of getting his stunned co-workers' attention off the TV and onto himself that he put on a comedy act, parodying what the victims were saying to each other as the rocket plummeted into the sea. Though his fellow workers were scared to death of becoming the object of one of his persecutions, they were shocked at this chilling display of inhumanity and could manage only nervous laughter at the creep's attention-getting jokes.

That happens only when the victims aren't regarded as human beings. Either because they have been demonized by dehumanizing caricatures in propaganda or because the laugher is a psychopath or narcissist.

Other examples of perverted behavior are:

· reacting with contempt to what should evoke sympathy
· reacting with aversion to what should attract
· reacting with anger to what should please (such as finding some mysterious offense in an attempt to suck up)
· getting angrier in reaction to what should appease (Narcissistic Rage)

In short, whenever you see a backwards reaction to something, believe your eyes and ears. Accept this behavior's perplexity and know what you know — that there is something seriously wrong with that person. And don't forget about it tomorrow when he's Dr. Jekyll again.

It's All About Attention - With The Narcissist

2011-04-07T02:54:00.000-07:00

A false image is, of course, a work of art, an idol. And a lie.

A narcissist identifies with this image, not his true inner self. So, all he cares about is his image, not what kind of person he really is. Indeed, the latter has no real existence in his world.

In identifying with his image, he's identifying with an ephemeral figment that has but virtual reality, a purely immanent existence as a reflection in the attention shone on him by others. No attention, no image. No image, no self!

So, no normal person can imagine what it's like living in the mind of a narcissist. Where would their center of consciousness be? Got me hanging. Trying to imagine where your center of consciousness would be if you were outside yourself is rather like trying to picture the physics in the Fifth Dimension: I can't do it.

But we can take what we do know and apply logic to it for drawing conclusions. For example, what would it be like if you weren't always there for yourself? If your experience of your own existence was limited to seeing yourself reflected in mirrors?

You'd be forever posing before a mirror, wouldn't you? In fact, if you looked around and saw all the people/mirrors around you reflecting someone else (i.e., paying attention to someone else) and none reflecting you, you'd experience an existential crisis.

This phenomenon is strangely reminiscent of what happens when game birds hatch and "imprint" on their human caretakers instead of Mother Bird. Something essential never happens in the formation of their "bird mind."

So, it's all about attention. Narcissus' life is a game of monopoly for it all. And people are just mirrors to him.

He won't listen to you: you must listen to him. He won't look at you: you must look at him. Because you are just his mirror. This is no exaggeration: if you grew up in a home with a narcissistic parent, you grew up in a home with a parent whom you never had a conversation with.

There are two things to keep in mind about being someone's mirror.

One is that a mirror is just an object, not a person in its own right. It's there for his sake, like the rest of the furniture, to reflect his image by shining attention on him. In other words, he is the center of his universe and the world revolves around him.

As every mother knows, this is the mentality of an infant. It's natural in infants, who have not yet acquired a personality. We see it throughout nature. It's what makes baby birdies erupt in loud chirping, stick their heads up out of the nest, and stretch their gaping mouths wide — each struggling to chirp louder, stick his head up higher, and stretch his gaping mouth wider than everybody else — every time Mother comes near. This mentality is adaptive in infants. It makes them behave in a way that stimulates Mother's instincts to forget her own needs and see entirely to theirs. And it makes the biggest attention-getter in the nest most likely to survive.

The other thing to keep in mind is that mirrors are all pretty much the same. Narcissus doesn't notice anything particular about any of them because he's too busy maneuvering to get and hold their attention and too busy admiring the important image of him they're reflecting in the inordinate amount of attention he gets from them. Since people are just mirrors to him, he has no more interest in them than you or I have in a mirror we are studying our image in.

And since he has no interest in them, a narcissist has a knee-jerk reflex that tunes people out as background noise. He's too busy thinking of what to say next and too busy admiring how he sounds to hear them. This means that what Narcissus doesn't know about the significant others in his life is both amazing and diagnostic.

And so, narcissism is a mental dis-ease that can run its course to bizarre extremes of self-absorption.

Now let's pause a moment and reflect on what that mirror of attention is. Consider what "attentions" come packaged in it:

For example:

· What do you get in the attention of someone pausing to hold a door open for you?

· What do you get in the attention of someone telling you that you did an excellent job on something?

· What do you get in the attention of a military salute?

· What do you get in the attention of someone listening to how your day went?

· What do you get in the attention of someone visiting you when you're sick?

· What do you get in the attention of someone who comes to see you at the wake of a loved one?

· What do you get in the attention of someone who says "thank you" when you do something for them?

· What do you get in the attention of someone who decides against an otherwise ideal option because it would have an adverse effect on you?

· What do you get in the attention of someone who has offended you and (instead of making nothing of it by pretending it didn't happen) comes to you and apologizes for it?

· What do you get in the attention of someone who puts their arm around you now and then?

· What do you get in the attention of someone who wants to have sex with someone else but remembers that he's married to you and chooses not to risk his marriage to you?

· What do you get in the attention of someone who is interested in your grades at school or the results of your matches on the high school tennis team?

· What do you get in the attention of someone who expresses sorrow and anger over others mistreating you?

· What do you get in the attention of someone who comes to your side when you are in trouble and sticks up for you?

· What do you get in the attention of someone who steps up and lends a hand with some job you're doing?

· What do you get in the attention of someone who asks for your opinion and often follows your advice?

I could go on, but you get the idea. Attention is just a catchall term for many things.

regard
honor
acceptance
appreciation
consideration
comfort
respect
fidelity
affection
courtesy
gratitude
credit
deference
sympathy
admiration
moral support
apologies
trust
praise
cheer
cooperation
encouragement
understanding
help
compassion
empathy
love
goodwill

This is the stuff of human relations, isn't it? All people hunger for these things, especially from those they love. These things are a human being's principle source of gratification and one nobody can thrive without. They are just forms of attention. And Narcissus' life is a game of monopoly for it all.

So he begrudges any of this GRATIFICATION to anyone but himself and steadfastly refuses to PAY the attention the OWES others:

· What do you get from someone walking through a door and letting it slam on you and your armload of groceries?

· What do you get from someone who makes nothing of offending you by never acknowledging that he has done so and apologizing for it?

· What do you get from someone who has no comment about some outstanding achievement of yours, such as authoring a book or winning a regional championship, and instead just acts as though it never happened?

· What do you get from someone who won't salute you?

· What do you get from someone who chooses an option that has an adverse effect on you, even though he has other options that would work as well?

· What do you get from someone never saying "please" or "thank you"?

· What do you get from someone who has nothing to say about others mistreating you, let alone expressing any emotion about it?

· What do you get from someone who immediately exits any room you enter, can't sit still to listen to you for a minute, and just generally acts as though you stink?

· What do you get from someone who shows what being married to you is worth to him by having sex with every other woman in town?

You get the message, don't you? You are nothing. That's humiliating.

Because attention in all its forms is a value judgment. And that's why Narcissus has gotta have it all — so that he gets no end of gratification from your relationship with him and you get none.

That's predation. Parasitism.

For example, he compulsively does his best to make sure that others get no attention in the form of consideration. He must get it all, and others must be treated inconsiderately. That's humiliating. You can run right down the list: Narcissus does likewise with everything on it, every form of attention. All regard must be for his rights and feelings; others' rights and feelings must be disregarded. That's humiliating. He must get all appreciation; others must be taken for granted. Everyone must be faithful to him and betray all others. He must get all the credit for everything, others none. He must get all sympathy, others none.

He acts as though every ounce of this stuff were the last loaf of bread in a starving world that he has just gotta out-compete you for. Even if you are his sweet three-year-old daughter, he won't let you have any, no matter how fat he is.

This is the essence of narcissistic abuse. And when you take a second look at what he's doing, you see that he is denying others their right to be treated as human beings.

So, it ain't no minor matter. Doing this to someone in every encounter, 24-7-365, will psychologically injure anyone. And doing this to your own children is an atrocity.

Ask any addict: He doesn't care how bad you need a fix. He has no regard for the fact that you will die in withdrawal because he's gotta be a pig that has just gotta have it all. Narcissus is like that with his drug, attention. He won't share. He deprives his own children of it.

Doubtless you're aware of how retrograde into childishness this behavior is. Indeed, like a three-year-old, Narcissus is the center of the universe and absolutely certain that he has a right to whatever he wants.

Individuals with NPD assume that other people will submerge their desires in favor of the comfort and welfare of those with NPD. They believe that just because they want something — that is reason enough for them to have it. They assume that others are as consumed by concern for those with NPD as the individuals themselves are; they believe they deserve special consideration from others (DSM IV™, 1994, p. 659) (Millon & Davis, 1996, p. 394).

— Sharon C. Ekleberry, Dual Diagnosis and the Narcissistic Personality Disorder

This "I-want-it-and-I-want-it-now" mentality is normal for three-year-olds, because they have not yet developed a proper relationship with themselves and have not yet come to see others as persons in their own right, with rights and feelings and needs that count.

But your narcissist is willfully forever three. All attention/gratification should go to him because he is dying for it and can't get enough, and everyone therefore just has to let him have it. Indeed, he feels that others are depriving him and stealing from him if they try to get any of it.

This attitude reminds one of the scriptural verse that proclaims that all glory, laud, honor, credit, and gratification belong to God alone. Whom Narcissus obviously has himself confused with.

Think what it means to demand no end of attention/gratification and refuse to let anyone else have any. Showing our regard for others in these ways is the essence of relating to others humanly, not as one would relate to some insignificant bug.

Even if he is fifty years old, inside is a child so immature it would kill him to share this stuff: He's just gotta have it all.

No matter what. No matter how desperately someone needs it, he can't let them have any. Praise someone before Narcissus, and he must tear that person down to deny them any praise. Do Narcissus a favor, and he must deny you gratitude. Need comfort, and he must find you contemptible and therefore unworthy of it. And so on. All to deny others one bit of regard.

By treating others as unworthy of any regard, Narcissus is acting as though they are beneath notice, insignificant and infinitely less important than all-important him. He pays no more regard to them in what he does than you pay to bug you step on while crossing the street. They are nothing; he is everything.

That's humiliating.

This is how he compensates for that demeaning value judgment imprinted on his soul. This is how he edits the shameful image of himself he saw reflected in a parent's disapproving eye. Since that's what made that parent a god, that's what makes him a god.

How does he enact this fiction? By treating you like dirt. And by maligning you behind your back. You could define a narcissist as someone who likes to treat others like dirt and ruin their reputations.

All to bring others lower than him. And he is very low.

This is the game a narcissist plays, in a nutshell. Because he is an emotional imbecile (i.e., mentally of pre-school-age maturity).

The only people he doesn't abuse this way are those he doesn't dare abuse. Or those he can aggrandize himself by association with. Or those he can con and is setting up for a con job. Like psychopaths, narcissists view others as but objects, material to exploit for their own aggrandizement.

By Kathy Krajco

In the Looking Glass

2011-04-07T02:49:00.000-07:00

Recall that another person's attention is a kind of mirror reflecting the image of ourselves we're portraying in the interaction. We all notice when we are making a good impression on somebody. We see it reflected in that person's response to what we're doing and saying. We often adjust our words and behavior to tune that response. People do this in a job interview, for example. They also do this when meeting a potential mate or anyone they wish to favorably impress, such as the traffic cop who just stopped them for speeding or some V.I.P. they're being introduced to.

Playing to the mirror of another person's eye is perfectly normal — under certain circumstances. In fact, it's adaptive. Like scorpions approaching each other as potential mates, or ships at sea or in space, people play this game to smooth the interaction and establish a safe connection.

But we don't like doing this. It's a bit nerve-wracking. And we know it's a game. (See the excellent book The Games People Play by Dr. Eric Berne.) Playing it makes us uncomfortable. And there are limits to how far we will go. We don't mind being civil and friendly or even humble and overly agreeable to avoid topics of conflict and smooth our interaction with a person. But we immediately sense the prostitution in our actions when our hypocrisy sensor goes off. Then our self-respect kicks in. In fact, we prefer the company of intimates and friends — people we can be ourselves with.

Narcissists are different in that they are never themselves. They identify with their image instead. So, they are in game-playing mode 100 percent of the time. And they are not trying to make a safe connection. Or a good impression. The reflection they're playing for is grandiose — not necessarily pleasing, friendly, or good.

For example, if someone looks at you in fear, that reflects an image of you as powerful. Being powerful is grandiose, so a narcissist really likes to see people looking at him in fear. In fact, he'd rather see people looking at him in fear and trepidation than in admiration, because it's grander to be powerful than to be merely admirable.

This is why a narcissist who becomes a dictator becomes a Nero, Stalin, Hitler, or Saddam Hussein. These men were just narcissists capitalizing on the fact that no one could hold them to account for anything they did. So, when they gained absolute power, the angel-faced mask came off, and they concentrated on making everyone just plain terrified of them.

Because that's the biggest ego boost, all narcissists bully and intimidate whomever they can whenever they can. Some don't dare bully and intimidate anyone outside their immediate family. Others go around intimidating everyone in their presence so that a hush falls around them wherever they go, because when people fear to say anything — ANYTHING — he might overhear.

It's amazing how charged the atmosphere around such a person is. The cliché that "the tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife" is no overstatement. You'd swear that any moment somebody is going to crack and scream, "This is crazy! What are we all so afraid of this guy for?" But nobody ever does.

I know of two who did that daily for decades to everyone in their workplace, even their superiors. A normal person would feel terrible if people reacted to his approach that way. But to a narcissist, it's nirvana. Because that's the way people act when God walks into a room.

Notice how abnormal this behavior is. Normal people don't like to see others looking at them in fear. That would hurt and deeply disturb a normal person. So, we almost never behave in a manner to evoke fear. We do that only (a) while engaged in a fight, to persuade the other party that he might as well give up or (b) when we feel threatened and are posturing to avoid a fight by making that other party think twice about attacking. In other words, we use fear-evoking behaviors for an essentially peaceful purpose — to discourage fighting. That's why the moment the other party backs off, the steam stops coming out of our nose and ears.

In fact we see the same thing throughout the animal kingdom: animals are ferocious one second and acting like nothing happened the next.

But narcissists use fear-evoking behavior out of the blue to threaten and thus initiate strife. That's because they have a completely different purpose — to make themselves feel grand by intimidating whomever they can whenever they can (and get away with it).

Unlike us, they don't seem to mind strife. I don't think it's an unpleasant experience for them, like it is for us. In fact, they seem to enjoy it. After all, it gets them what they want. And they don't want to get along; they just want to get their way. They don't want to be liked by anyone; they just want to be obeyed, feared, or admired by others. Like children, they want what they want and they want it NOW. They never think ahead to future consequences.

I'm sure they know that strife is an unpleasant experience for us, one that we try to avoid. So, they menace us with it as a way to say, "If you don't do what I want, I'll start a fight. And how will you like that?"

Manipulation. It works too, doesn't it?

So, the reflection a narcissist plays you for varies greatly. The common denominator is that it always reflects an image of him or her that is grandiose.

Narcissists want you to look at them in admiration, adulation. They want you to look at them approvingly, gratefully. They want you to look at them in awe. Oooh, that's a good one — very grandiose. They want to see a reflection of themselves as magnificent in your eyes. They want you to hang on their every word. They want you to never remove your eyes from them. They want you to reflect their grand importance by carefully discerning and attending to their every need, without them even having to ask for what they want. For, when you wait on them hand and foot, you reflect an image of his highness that is majestic.

Therefore, grandiosity need not be reflected in the mirror of someone's pleased or admiring face. In fact, as every chest-thumping rapist knows, it is best reflected in the outraged, desolate and wretched face of someone who can do nothing to stop him from demolishing her for maximum impact.

That's the victim, but the rapist's reflection in it is that of one who is so powerful as to have such a demolishing impact on her.

It's a rare narcissist who can vaunt himself on just anyone though. So, a narcissist plays different people/mirrors for different kinds of grandiose reflections. He'll play a priest for one kind of reflection, his buddy in a bar for another kind, his boss for yet another kind, and so on. As the narcissist Sam Vaknin explains it, each person in his world is like a different kind of flower that the narcissist (a bee) visits to exploit for a different type of nectar. That's as good an analogy as any.

I knew one narcissist that I wish people could see on a split screen, with his persona in a church compared with his persona in a tavern. The difference was so extreme that the show would be hilarious! If his bar buddy saw him in church and his priest saw him in a bar, neither would believe it could be the same person.

By Kathy Krajco

You Are an Object (To The Narcissist)

2011-04-07T02:45:00.000-07:00

An infant in a crib is unaware of the fundamental difference between people and the other objects that revolve around it in its world. Both its mother and the mobile overhead are just objects to it. It quickly learns that when it cries, the mother-object appears and fulfills all its needs. Ooh, power!

So, it uses its vocal chords as a remote control for the mother-object.

It assumes that the mother-object exists for its sake. It quickly learns how to operate the mother-object. It pushes the buttons on her control panel largely through big demonstrations of displeasure whenever she does not anticipate and fulfill its needs in advance. She is just one object in a world that revolves around it, for it. Mark Twain delightfully reminds us of what we are at this stage of human development:

I do not remember my first lie, it is too far back; but I remember my second one very well. I was nine days old at the time, and had noticed that if a pin was sticking in me and I advertised it in the usual fashion, I was lovingly petted and coddled and pitied in a most agreeable way and got a ration between meals besides. It was human nature to want to get these riches, and I fell. I lied about the pin — advertising one when there wasn't any. You would have done it; George Washington did it, anyone would have done it. During the first half of my life I never knew a child that was able to rise above that temptation and keep from telling that lie.

— Mark Twain

A narcissist remains forever such an infant. His world revolves around him. The people in it are but objects for him to use and control — existing for his sake, not their own. Like levers on a control panel or tools to be damaged through heavy use or livestock to be consumed. There to fulfill his needs and enhance his image. Beyond that, they have no importance. It never occurs to him that he owes them anything in return or that he should consider the effects of his actions on them.

An object has no feelings. It is not a person. It is not even a being in the usual sense of the word. You might grab an object like a screwdriver and abuse it by using it to pry something open, knowing that by using it this way you might break it. But you think nothing of breaking a screwdriver. Damaging that screwdriver is nothing. There are plenty more where that one came from.

The only thing that matters is what you want = getting open that thing you're trying to pry open with the screwdriver.

That screwdriver is of no account. It would be absurd to regard it as a having a right to better treatment. In fact, it has no right to be: it exists for your sake, for you to use and abuse as you please. It's basically just an extension of yourself, a tool, an executioner of your will, not its own.

That's what YOU are to a narcissist.

Narcissists (and psychopaths) just use other people, all other people. Any way they please. In other words, they don't relate to other people. Which is an abbreviated way of saying that they don't relate to other human beings as a human being.

To relate to other human beings as a human being (i.e., humanly), you have to be a human being. You must experience your own humanity and know it. Only then can you recognize the image and likeness of humanity in others and relate to it in them as our common humanity — something we share with all other human beings, even mortal enemies. We relate to it.

Relating to it IS humanity. Otherwise known as empathy. It's what prompts soldiers who were fighting ferociously a minute ago to kneel down and tenderly care for the enemy's wounds. In fact, because the extremity of battle often makes it hard to switch gears the moment the fighting stops, humanity toward the fallen foe was regarded as the Christian soldier's highest virtue. In Italian it is called pieta, which sublimely shows that piety and pity (empathy) are two sides of the same coin.

But ours isn't the only species that relates in a special manner to its own kind. Many species of higher animals do. And it's easy to see why: that's how Nature keeps them from preying on their own kind (as sometimes happens, especially among lower species of animals). Even when they do fight, once one contestant for what they're fighting over backs off, the fight is instantly over and all hostility vanishes.

So, though remembering our humanity in extreme and unnatural situations like combat may be a virtue, normally it's no virtue at all. It's just natural.

But it's a learned behavior.

To illustrate: You've certainly seen a toddler delighted with some chick or puppy or bunny or other cute little animal you place before her. Then, on a whim, she shocks you by grabbing a stick and pounding the poor thing. The look in her eyes is the most shocking part — nothing there but fascination with the effect she's having on it = fascination with its agony.

Picture an adult instead, and you are watching a psychopath or other narcissist.

The narcissist feels entitled, and when he is thwarted, he acts out, just as young children, who are supremely narcissistic, act out. "Think of a toddler raging against an object that won't do what he wants," says [forensic psychologist J. Reid] Meloy. "I have this image in my mind of a 2-year-old squeezing a puppy's feet. He's attempting to control the animal's behavior, and probably deriving some pleasure from that."

— Hollow Men by Stephen G. Michaud

A little child does this because her person-ality isn't fully developed. Her sense of person-hood isn't differentiated so that she distinguishes between your personhood and hers. Between that puppy's living soul and hers. She's so brutal because while pounding Puppy she feels no pain. All she feels is powerful. So Puppy might as well be a nail she's hitting with a hammer.

This is why parents must closely supervise that little child, especially when vulnerable animals or other small children are around, and teach her that other living beings have feelings of their own and feel like she would if someone did that to her. She must be taught to respect other living beings as beings in their own right and to empathize with them.

For whatever reason, psychopaths and narcissists never learn.

How could they? They identify with their image — a work of fiction — not their true selves. So, they don't relate to themselves as human beings. They don't know the human being within. They don't know human being. So, how can they recognize humanity in others? How can they relate humanly to human beings?

The narcissist doesn't conceive herself as of our kind: What god with nothing but contempt for mere mortals does? So, expect no more regard for your feelings from her alien mentality than you should expect from an extra-terrestrial who abducts you to use as a specimen for an experiment. No more than a lamb should expect from a wolf, a mouse from a cat, a baby seal from a killer whale, or a cockroach from you.

In other words, narcissists relate to us as predators do.

And so perhaps they are right: they are NOT of our kind, humankind. For, except in primitive species, predators don't prey on their own kind. Because they identify with their own kind. They like their own kind. That affinity makes predation unthinkable. What use of force we observe among the members of a species is limited to what's necessary to protect individual interests and goes not one step further.

True, narcissists and psychopaths are not the only people who can turn off their humanity. All people can turn it off like a light-switch, thus becoming guilty of inhumanity. In fact, Man's inhumanity to Man is an age-old theme of literature, and history is full of examples of people turning off their human sensibilities en-masse, as during the Holocaust or the Inquisition. What makes people with narcissistic personality disorder (and psychopathy) different is that they have theirs turned off permanently for everyone but themselves.

And everyone means even their own children. Narcissists are as unfeeling toward whomever they abuse as you or I are toward a spike we are pounding with a sledgehammer. This is a hard truth to accept.

The good thing about accepting it is that there is no hating such a person. You can't hate what you can't relate to. You can no more hate a narcissist for being a narcissist than you can hate a snake for being a snake. You don't take it personally when a snake bites you. Don't take it personally when a narcissist does, either. It wasn't you. It wasn't anything you did. You were just there, that's all. Handy.

By Kathy Krajco

Control by Temper Tantrum

2011-04-07T02:40:00.000-07:00

Let's pretend you're a steer and I'm a cowboy. I am peaceable enough when you're doing what I want. That is, mainly, when your behavior is in the direction I want. Due north, toward Kansas.

But when you get out of line, I throw a temper tantrum. That is, I ride my big horse at you, waving that big, attention-getting thing (otherwise on my head) at you, yipping and yelling and making other loud, sharp, threatening noises and whistles at you. I may even brandish my lasso at you. If necessary, I will cut you off. But usually that isn't necessary, because the moment you see me start to act up, you just veer back into the right direction. Due north, toward Kansas.

The fancy name for that trick is "behavior modification," through "negative reinforcement."

It's what you housebreak your puppy with. It works like this: if Puppy does something other than what is wanted, make him miserable. You know, loud noises, scowls, nasty tone, antic and threatening gestures — a temper tantrum. Just make his whole little world totally obnoxious.

When, by chance, he happens to do what you want, give "positive reinforcement" by making his existence pure bliss.

Wouldn't you give in and develop a preference for pooping and piddling outside?

Here's another example, when training Mamma, point at a candy bar in the grocery store. The moment she starts to say "No" erupt into screaming and bawling as loud as you can so Mamma fears that everyone in the store thinks she's beating you.

Then the instant she hands you that candy bar, break off mid-"WAAAAAH!" and burst into the biggest, cutest, sweetest smile she ever saw.

She may be slow, but she'll learn.

Note that the temper tantrum in each case is a put-on. Yes, Cowboy may be a little ticked off at Steer, and you may be a little ticked off at Puppy, but not that ticked off. Your act is just a grossly exaggerated and menacing display of displeasure that unnerves the object and makes him anxious to turn it off and avoid triggering future replays.

Even a spoiled three-year-old child's temper tantrums are put-ons. For, they occur exactly as I described the one above. The spoiled brat switches the temper tantrum on and off in the blink of an eye, with no warm up or cool down. Which means that he isn't that upset over the candy bar: he's just mask switching.

He uses the temper tantrum as a stick to regulate Mother's behavior. The sweet, adorable smile he breaks into when she conforms to his specifications is just a carrot (positive reinforcement) to reward her for being a good Mommy by doing what he wants.

Even infants catch on! They sometimes throw a temper tantrum, not because they're suffering with hunger or a soiled diaper or for any other conceivable reason. They just do it to get attention:

I do not remember my first lie, it is too far back; but I remember my second one very well. I was nine days old at the time, and had noticed that if a pin was sticking in me and I advertised it in the usual fashion, I was lovingly petted and coddled and pitied in a most agreeable way and got a ration between meals besides. It was human nature to want to get these riches, and I fell. I lied about the pin — advertising one when there wasn't any. You would have done it; George Washington did it, anyone would have done it. During the first half of my life I never knew a child that was able to rise above that temptation and keep from telling that lie.

— Mark Twain

This may be hard to hear, but your narcissist is controlling you with a device no more sophisticated than the good old temper tantrum.

Throwing temper tantrums to manipulate your behavior is but an aspect of narcissists doing everything for effect, an aspect of them going through life playing to mirrors so as to get the wanted looks and behaviors in reaction. In other words, remember that this is what he's doing the whole time...

You get the temper tantrum the moment you aren't doing that, the moment you aren't playing along with his game of 'Pretend.' In it he is God. He is the center of your universe as well of his own. You are to be in awe of him, to admire him, to see to it that the King lacks nothing he needs or wants, and to change his diaper regularly.

Since all narcissists do 24/7 is play Pretend, and all they want is for you to play along, they never needed to mature and find other ways to interact with people. So, they just use . . . and use . . . and use . . . and use the temper-tantrum technique. The moment you stray from his script, he raises an obnoxious ruckus.

You know what he wants. If not, keep trying things, like you do with a baby, until you hit on the right thing and the ruckus stops. This is extortion. Give him what he wants, or he won't let you have any peace.

One thing that will push a narcissist's temper-tantrum button for sure is objecting to their abuse. You mustn't do that. You must docilely submit to abuse from God Almighty. In fact, it isn't abuse for God Almighty to treat you like dirt, because that's what you are relative to God Almighty, so quit insulting him by expecting him to treat you as an equal.

By Kathy Krajco

"Responsibility" Wrap: Narcissist Hurts You to Make YOU Guilty of the Sin of Feeling the Pain

2011-04-07T02:31:00.000-07:00

Remember when you were a child and you used to say that "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"?

Even little children instinctively know enough to hide their pain when someone has hurt their feelings. This instinct is good, even when the enemy isn't really an enemy - just a friendly opponent in a tennis match. Don't let the emotional effect on you of bad things show. It encourages the adversary.

But keeping them to yourself doesn't get rid of those feelings, does it?

Children, however, live in very different minds than normal adults do. Like Alice and Peter Pan, they don't distinguish between fantasy and realty, preferring fantasy, where they learn the (delusory) power of magical thinking. In some cases this pretending goes so far as to imagine into existence an imaginary friend, expecting Mom to set a place for her at the dinner table.

So, children have no problem getting rid of unwanted feelings. They just pretend them away. They just pretend their feelings aren't hurt.

They aren't really altering those feelings though. They're just repressing awareness of them to the subconscious and pretending to have other, good, feelings instead.

You can tell, because their behavior is such as proceeds from bad feelings, the repressed ones, not the feelings they pretend to have. In other words, those repressed feelings are still there and having their normal motivational effect on the thinking that controls conduct.

Unfortunately, however, the child is unaware of those buried feelings and therefore unaware of why she's doing what she's doing.

When feelings are repressed, it takes a good deal of of introspection to get in touch with those feelings again, so that you know why you're doing whatever you're doing.

I'll never forget this little exchange between Sister Mary Peter and a budding sixth-grade narcissist who had done something vicious that was totally inexplicable and whose mother was there and totally snookered by the conning brat. Seeing that the mother was willfully obtuse, Sister Peter got blunt...

Sister Mary Peter: Why did you do it?

Narc: I don't know.

Sister Mary Peter: Do you know what we do with people who don't know why they do things?

Yes, people who don't know why they do things are seriously mentally ill. And when you bury your natural feelings, that is what you are doing to yourself. You will soon NOT know why you are doing things.

But narcissists aren't the only people who refuse to grow up and quit clinging to the cherished myth that they can make unhappy feelings go away and make them into happy ones instead. Many people cling to this belief that "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" because I am strong and I have high self-esteem, when really all I have is a habit of lying to myself.

One thing I remember about the Bible is how virtually anything can be "uncircumcised." Like your heart. Your eyes. Your ears.

In fact, according to the Bible, things that are circumcised can suddenly get uncircumcised. Kinda calloused-over with some crusty shield.

So, I had a hard time figuring out exactly what this figure of speech means. But, like a dog with a bone, I kept at it till I got it.

Nothing uncircumcises a head faster than stating the simple, self-evident truth that we cannot control our feelings, that feelings are not conduct and therefore cannot be right or wrong.

Just state that plain truth to many people and you can almost see it happening: that person's forehead suddenly gets thick as a brick. Reason bounces off it like missiles bounce off an Abrams tank

They act like they didn't even hear what you said. They just come back with, "But" and a reply that assumes you can control your feelings and that certain ones are sins.

How's that for being blockheaded? They can't even give you an answer - just nothing but this complete dodge all the time.

Which is absurd. Feelings are sensations, emotional sensations. You cannot alter sensations (except with hallucinatory drugs and hypnosis). If you get burnt, you should feel burned. If you don't, something is wrong with you. If the narcissist punches you in the face, he is responsible for your pain, not you. If he forces you to your knees and shoves your face into garbage he threw all over the floor, he is the one responsible for your anger, not you.

To think otherwise is incredibly stupid. The cause of a sensation is the stimulus that produces it, not the mind of the person who experiences it.

The worst thing about repressing unwanted feelings is that burying them locks them inside. They never go away then! Just as normal physical pain motivates action and then passes, normal feelings motivate action and then pass whether action has been taken or not.

But denied pain paralyzes and then just festers in the subconscious, motivating negative behavior (usually passive-aggressive behavior) like an unseen puppet master. And not just against the abuser - but rather against any available target, people who had nothing to do with the person who abused you. Hence we see many people subconsciously getting even with a parent by mistreating their spouse decades later.

That's crazy.

So, the very premise that codependency therapy rests on is invalid. Manifestly invalid. Of course people swear by it, though. But that doesn't mean that codependence "therapy" works. It just means that they think they have made their bad feelings go away. But they have merely brainwashed themselves and were conned into doing so. Sooner or later the price for doing that will have to be paid.

The pain of narcissistic abuse is sheer torture. I have no doubt that it drives many mentally healthy people all the way to suicide. And often without the narcissist even laying a hand on the victim. It's THAT bad when you're bludgeoned with it day after day after day.

But in my own experience, I found relief when I stopped trying to fight those feelings off. When I asked myself why I was angry, sad, outraged about this or that. When I accepted my feelings as having a valid cause and owning them. I could see that my feelings were a natural human reaction to what had been done to me. I no longer felt like a pressure cooker about to explode. I could bear it. And it got better - just a little better - every single day.

Feelings are nothing to fear. Felt feelings motivate behavior, but they don't rule it. And felt feelings never killed anyone.

By Kathy Krajco

Tuning You Out.

2011-04-07T02:26:00.000-07:00

The brain is marvelously adept at choosing what information to filter out and what to let in. It does not filter out all extraneous information. It lets certain things in to distract us and grab our attention. For example, while absorbed in a book, you may not hear, "Honey, would you take out the trash?" or "Honey, would you get me a beer?" But you certainly will hear "Fire!"

Nature programs the brain to bring certain things, like loud noises, to our attention. Yet we can train the brain to filter certain loud noises out. This enables people living near airports or railroad tracks to sleep through the noise. Indeed, they are unaware of a passing plane or train unless it drives the dog nuts or they are trying to carry on a conversation.

Similarly, we can prime or train the brain to bring certain special things to our attention. For example, we can prime the brain to scan a written page for a word or phrase. We can train the brain to "notice" things others would not. For example, three or four good open-water lifeguards can guard a thousand swimmers (not that I recommend so few!). They have trained their brains to remain alert while focusing on no one, allowing certain types of movement to grab their attention.

Note that the brain does not block out filtered information. It just "represses" it to the level of the subconscious. There, it is processed without distracting us. This ability to collect and subconsciously process information is responsible for Natural Learning. Without it we couldn't do the simplest things like walking or talking. Remember how inept you were the first time you got behind the wheel of an automobile? You'd still be that inept if it weren't for Natural Learning.

Unfortunately, people often abuse their minds by repressing information they shouldn't. Like guilt, unwanted facts, conflicting beliefs, and feelings. Doing this puts them in a trance, a self-induced hypnotic state. It is thought that many people do this twenty times a day. To a slight degree, of course.

But, when they want to, people can practically knock themselves out. This is a phenomenon that must be seen to be believed. It reminds one of the newsreels showing the crowds gazing up at Hitler during one of his fist-pounding rants against Jews. All eyes glazed.

I saw it happen in a room of people scared of a hatchet man orchestrating a backstabbing melee in the mud to divide and conquer. Sitting in a circle, their (repressed) guilt made them so unwilling to know what was going on that none noticed the one picking her nose and eating it right in front of them. Incredulous, I had to pinch myself. I elbowed the one on my left, then on my right, asking whether they noticed. Both gave a little start as if awakened. Then their eyes widened at the sight, and they groggily replied that they hadn't noticed. Then — boom — they went right back under again so suddenly it was as if you'd clubbed them on the head.

Ever since, it has been no mystery to me how people downwind of Hitler's death camps could unsee, unhear, and even unsmell in order to unknow what was going on. Amazing experiments have been done to show that some people can go under so deep they feel no pain from minor surgery without an anesthetic. I don't think this is a mental skill that people should develop.

It is, after all, intellectual dishonesty. Friends don't lie to friends, and if you lie to yourself you are your own worst enemy.

All that repressed information is still there. Whether it's guilt, hatred, knowledge, or whatever. The subconscious mind still processes it. So, it still motivates behavior. For example, a narcissist's repressed feelings of inferiority and guilt motivate his behavior like an unseen puppet master.

It's better to be conscious of what's motivating your behavior. Then you can apply reason, good judgment, and measure to your decisions. Also, at the slightest reference, repressed guilt, knowledge, or feelings can surface to consciousness like a flashback. Narcissists live in constant dread of this. It's like some corpus delicti that just won't stay buried. No matter how frantically they keep shoveling.

Malignant narcissists are masters of this skill. At an early age they begin training their brains to filter out everything but what they want to see and hear and know. Everything but the reflection of their false image in the mirrors around them. In other words, like Narcissus, they are totally absorbed in it 100% of the time. Why? Because, unlike us, they identify with it. They have thus substituted it for their true, inner selves.

The self-absorbed

2011-04-07T02:17:00.000-07:00

a malignant narcissist is fixated 100% of the time on his image. To the exclusion of virtually all other sensation — sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings. In other words, he is absorbed in/by his image.

Our brains are programmed to "learn" what we pay little or no attention to. They adapt over time to filtering this type of information. A good example is background noise. There is probably plenty of background noise in the room you're in right now, but you were unaware of hearing it until I called it to consciousness by mentioning it.

Aren't you glad your brain has learned to filter it out? Otherwise you'd be distracted by every fly that buzzed. You'd never be able to focus on anything, because every passing car on the street outside would distract you.

So, what happens when a person with narcissistic personality disorder willfully remains in a world of Pretend, trying to pay attention only to what he wants to see = his reflected image in others interacting with him? He is fixated on that reflection of his. Preoccupied with it. He deliberately pays little or no attention to anything else — no attention to those other annoying sights and sounds that distract him from his image = false self.

He goes through life trying to put all other things out of his mind as much as possible. Especially things he must pretend are beneath his notice, like you. So, though he doesn't mind watching geese and squirrels when there are no mirrors around, he always willfully blocks out things like the sound of your voice and the sight of your face (all he wants to see is his reflection there, not your face).

Can you see how such a person actually trains their brain to malfunction? He trains his brain to "tune out" that sort of sensory information right along with the sensory information it's supposed to tune out, like the background noise, the picture on the wall behind you, the pressure of his chair on his butt.

The result is that a narcissist is permanently in an almost autistic state of self-absorption. He misses an astonishing amount of what's right before his eyes.

For example, a narcissist often fails to notice even a drastic change in the weather outside. My most memorable observation of this occurred while I was getting hectically blabbed at by a narcissistic woman who thought I should be interested in every mundane thing she had to do that day. A few errands and a trip to the grocery store. Oh, she was so busy, busy, busy and these household chores were so demanding. Especially on this gloomy day in the rain.

My jaw dropped, because we were standing next to a bank of huge windows, showing that the sky had cleared a couple hours ago and that the sun was brilliantly shining.

Over time, it becomes truly hard for a narcissist to focus on anything but the type of information he normally wants. He may go to a drug store, for example, and be unable to focus well enough to find the product he wants among the others on the shelf.

And as for things he really wants to block out, like what other people are saying to him, forget it. Try as he may, he can't tune in that signal well enough to focus on whether they are telling him to get red wine or white for supper.

Tip: Don't say, "Don't get red wine." Don't even say the word red if red wine is what you DON'T want. Just write him a note like you would for a little child, and be done with it.

Joanna Ashmun has noticed the same phenomenon:

I have observed very closely some narcissists I've loved, and their inability to pay attention when someone else is talking is so striking that it has often seemed to me that they have neurological problems that affect their cognitive functioning.

Since the narcissist identifies with his image, his absorption in it is self-absorption. It's like absorption in a book or a computer or television screen. People with good power of concentration can become absorbed in thought. In fact, to some degree, we are always absorbed in whatever we are paying attention to.

Our ability to become absorbed enables us to focus, or concentrate. Great tennis players, for example, report being so absorbed in the approaching ball, that it actually seems to grow larger, filling their field of view. The result is — whack — a beautifully heavy shot right off dead center on the strings.

Our brains accomplish this focus by filtering out 99% of the information they receive and diverting it to areas in unconscious zones. There, it does not distract us. For example, that's what your brain is doing right now with the sensation of your butt pressing down on the chair you're sitting in. Right? You were unaware of that sensation, until I mentioned it. Then it instantly leapt to consciousness. That's because the brain is a relational database that immediately retrieved that information, calling it to consciousness when it was referenced.

By Kathy Krajco

Acting Like It Didn't Happen

2011-04-07T02:02:00.000-07:00

The next day, after taking a crap on you, he is all smiles. And expects you to be, too. In fact, he pulls the projective identification stunt on you to project his cheery mood into you.

Ah, how nice. Your abuser carries no grudge, eh?

If you don't pretend that the person who attacked you yesterday is a friend . . . . If you don't pretend that you have no apology coming . . . . If you don't pretend that nothing has affected your relationship with the narcissist . . . . That is, if you don't act like it didn't happen . . . you are a sinner who doesn't forgive and forget, who doesn't "put it behind you," who "dredges things up from the past." Sound familiar?

This means that, in his home, his whole history of abuse must be washed away by everyone acting as though it didn't happen.

Washed away. Absolution. Swoosh, gone. As though it didn't happen. What does that make of it?

If I held a door for you yesterday, today you can act like it didn't happen. If you thanked me for holding that door yesterday, today I can act like it didn't happen. But if something important happened, we don't act like it didn't happen, do we?

Acting like abuse didn't happen is a lie.

Acting like it didn't happen makes nothing of it.

That makes abusing you nothing. And if it's nothing, it isn't wrong.

And if abusing you is nothing, you are nothing.

Acting like it didn't happen is a statement that nothing happened. That him abusing you is okay. For, it puts abusing you in the same category as thanking you or praising you or kidding you — in the category of things for which there is no penalty = the category of non-wrong things you can do. Indeed, there is no such thing as a wrong deed that carries no penalty.

He doesn't have to patch your wounded feelings. He doesn't have to say he's sorry. He doesn't have to promise never to do it again. He doesn't even have to admit he did it. Let alone that it was wrong.

He has incurred no liability whatsoever. Anyone who says you're morally obligated to forgive him had better clear the cobwebs out of their brain and start thinking for themselves.

By playing along with him in acting like it didn't happen, you are consenting in making abusing you okay. You implicitly give permission to do it again the next time he's constipated.

This is how you brainwash people and break their backs — by forcing them to act like it didn't happen. Especially when you raise them from birth in such an environment.

Imagine having to treat as a friend someone who treats you like dirt. That is acting out a lie.

Imagine having to treat as a true father, mother, spouse, brother, or sister, someone who has a long history of viciously attacking you for no reason. Someone who just needs to take a crap on you every so often. Someone who then feels better and is all smiles the next day, thinking you should be too.

And thus he just flushes his offense away by acting as though it never happened — forcing you to act out this charade for him.

Imagine having to relate to such a hostile enemy as to a friend.

Can anything be more perverted, self-destructive and against Nature?

That is the bending-for-it the narcissist imposes on those trapped with him in his home. If you are, or were, a child who grew up in a home with a narcissistic brother or sister and/or a narcissistic parent, you have my deepest sympathy.

Cyberstalking and Online Harassment

2011-04-07T01:59:00.000-07:00

The Internet is a wonderful place to work, play and study. But don't let that fact make you blind to its down side. The Net is no more and no less than a mirror of the real world, and that means it also contains electronic versions of real life problems. Stalking and harassments are problems that many people especially women, are familiar with in real life. These problems can also occur on the Internet, in what has become know as "cyberstalking" or "online harassment".

If you thought that owning a computer and having an Internet account would make a person considerate and respectful; then think again. There are just as many predators in cyberspace as anywhere else. It is only their methods that have changed. Some predators might harass you by trailing around after you in live channels like lovesick puppies; unable to take NO for an answer and pestering you with email messages. In other cases this harassment may become a systematic campaign against you; where your harasser bombards you with threatening messages of hate and obscenities. Although distressful enough, the situation can even escalate to the point where your harasser traces your home address and telephone number; causing you to face not just emotional distress but also physical danger.

It should come as no surprise to you that the "bad guys" are making use of this wonderful technology to harass people and prey on the innocent. Why wouldn't they? Not all bad guys are street punks with no education. Some are university graduates with computers.

There have been many examples of cyberstalking crossing over to "IRL" stalking (In Real Life stalking). Sadly, those users who have been victims of cyberstalking, tell a similar story: That no one took the harassment seriously until it became "IRL". Cyberstalking can be a devastating experience for a person online. As they discover that the difference between the "Brave New World" of the Internet and the Real World is that in the real world people listen when you tell them you are being stalked and harassed. In cyberspace people say things like "well just turn off your computer". Such incomprehension is common. "You can't be hurt on the Internet - it's just words" is commonly heard and "If you can't handle it, then you shouldn't be online" is another commonly hear comment. The online stalking is just as frightening and distressing as off-line stalking, and just as illegal.

Men and women may be stalked on-line, but statistics show that the majority of victims are female. Women are the minority of the Internet population which means that their attention is generally a fierce competition between male users. This part of the Internet, resembles crude online single bars, with little in the way of politeness. Unfortunately the immediate and relative anonymity of live chat communications facilities enable users to be rude and insensitive. Cyberstalking and online harassment are also much easier to practice than real life stalking. In cyberspace, a stalker can harass their victim without ever have to leave the comfort of their own home, or have any witnesses to the incidents.

One reason for the lack of successful prosecution of cyberstalkers, is that there usually is a lack of sufficient evidence available for the officials to warrant "probable cause" in order to further investigate. Many law enforcement agencies are Internet illiterate, therefore unaware that the problem could and does exist. To date, the only legislation regarding cyberstalking is the Communications Decency Act, enacted by the US Congress on 2-1-96, and is still being challenged in the Supreme Court. The real life, anti-stalking laws deal with actual attacks, and until such an attack happens, are actually very limited in defending yourself, or preventing any progression of the stalker. There is very little done about threats or harassment in the early stages.

Online users are vulnerable to being targeted as cyberstalking victims in three areas.

1) Live Chats (AOL, Yahoo, Skype, Messenger) or IRC (Internet Relay Chat): in which a user talks live with other users. This is the most common place for cyberstalking.

2) Message boards, Blogs, Reunion Sites and Newsgroups: a user interacts with others by posting messages, conversing back and forth.

3) Email box: a user has the ability to write anything and even attach files to the email.

Example: a user enables your email, via live chat or newsgroup postings, then emails you with obscenities, and attaches porno pictures. A common area regarding cyberstalking is at the "edu" sites, which are educational institutes, such as colleges and universities.

One user might know another user personally and interacts on the Internet anonymously, so starting the cyberstalk. One student can enter the Internet as easily as another student, therefore not letting his true identity be known. And since user names can be unknown alias, who would ever know the identity or be able to prove the identity. In such cases, the stalker usually has the ability to trace the victim's phone number and sometimes the address of his victim. Another includes interpreting a posting you may have made on a message board regarding your opinion as an "attack" if it differs from theirs. The stalker then becomes fixated on proving you wrong.

Other forms of online harassment:

1) Unsolicited email
2) Live Chat
3) Hostile Usenet Postings about you
4) Spreading vicious untrue rumors about you (as opposed to telling the Truth at exposure sites)
5) Leaving untrue messages on site guestbooks
6) Impersonation of you online
7) Electronic sabotage, (sending viruses, etc)
8) Threatening phone calls
9) Threatening mail
10)Vandalism of property
11)Physical attack.

There are many precautions that you can take NOW to protect yourself in advance from the unwelcome attention of a cyberstalker. Remember: The goal of a cyberstalker is CONTROL. Your task is to reverse this situation. Keep control of who you communicate with on the Internet. To do this, you may like to consider the advice below. Remember, the time to deal with cyberstalking is before you become a target.

CYBERSTALKING PREVENTION TIPS

If you are being harassed online by a cyberstalker, the chances are that you are not the first person they have stalked. Cyberstalkers, like other predators, are opportunists. They know what they are looking for and how to get it. "Stalking" is a "power" crime, the stalkers has the power to make you suffer and enjoys that power. Stalkers' self-esteem rises when they attack your self- esteem. The more pain and suffering they can cause, the better they feel about themselves. The best protection against becoming a target of stalking is not to reveal anything personal that you might have in common. Often, stalkers are mentally unstable, paranoid, delusional, and extremely jealous, and have extremely low self-esteem. Stalkers may display selfishness, malice, sadism, be very cunning and arrogant. Most are anti-social, and to put it in layman's terms, be a "control freak", enjoying manipulating other people. They crave power over others, and enjoy the type power that hurts other people. harassment is common enough in live chat on the Internet. The three most common ways it can start are:

1) sexual harassment (or innuendo);
2) a flame war (argument that gets out of hand);
3)users that show their technological power by attacking innocent users, channels or even networks.

Those who regularly start flame wars online are rude and obnoxious people, often having poor social and communication skills. Their idea of fun is throwing obscene abuse at another just to upset them. These kind of harassers are often loners who don''t have a companion and their attempts to attract your attention is often clumsy and crude. Care should always be taken when turning the away, as the are highly sensitive to rejection and humiliation, and could cause a vendetta to start against you. Understand that although clumsy and crude in most cases, the stalker is not stupid, they are very organized and usually experienced in their war against you.

Stalking is a form of obsession. The difference between a normal cyber harasser and a cyberstalker, is this: harasser moves on to others and forgets you and a stalkers will come back to stalk you another day.

The Internet enables the stalker, his powers, in most cases, merely a knowledge of the technology is all required to have the ability to stalk another user. Most stalkers, having been rejected desire to instill fear in users, therefore, upsetting the normal enjoyment of the Internet.

Note that educated, smooth talking, responsible people also can be stalkers, appearing to be a perfect gentleman or lady with perfect manners. The major "clue" to cyberstalking, is when the stalker pushes for information regarding you personal life, private life, or life away from the net. Rule of thumb, as it may be referred to is: "NEVER GIVE ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION ACROSS THE INTERNET!"

Online meetings should stay online, the individuals are, in fact, strangers. Online, the physical warning signs usually in the "body language" are missing. Also the clues of personality within the voice and eyes are missing. All there is to determine a personality is the skill in which they type there messages. There is no code of honor in protecting privacy on the Internet. Each user should therefore take steps to protect their privacy online.

1) never specify gender
2) use neutral-gender names
3) change your password often
4) edit your online profiles often
5) review your email headers and signatures often
6) use secure chat programs that do not permit tracking of your isp#
7) use a good chat network
8) use standard names, passive names to as to not draw attention to you
9) use anonymous remailers
10)use an anonymous browser
11)use encryption to authenticate email
12) discuss privacy with your server.

And last: learn your technology. REMEMBER: PROTECT YOURSELF!

Top 10 Relationship Wreckers

2011-04-07T01:56:00.000-07:00

1. Neglecting Your Partner (ignoring, workaholism, addictions):A primary function of a relationship is to provide companionship and to meet each other’s needs. When other activities, interests or preoccupations interfere with our availability, we can wind up short-changing our partner. This can be thought of as absenteeism or being MIA. Taking an inventory and making adjustments in how we spend our time is the first step in correcting this problem. Treat your partner as the important person they are by spending enough quality time together to satisfy each of your requirements in this area and to maintain your connection.

2. Depriving Your Partner (not being attentive, expressive, affectionate, supportive, caring, loving):Being there physically is not enough. We cannot expect our relationship to thrive if we withdraw emotionally for extended periods of time. In order to be fully present, we must be aware of our partner and be willing to show how we feel both verbally and non-verbally. Expressing love though affection and caring behaviors are crucial to keeping a relationship strong and vibrant. Small regular doses of intimacy will usually suffice, and the most important times of day to communicate positively are upon waking, upon reuniting after a long day, and before going to sleep.

3. Dishonesty & Betrayal (infidelity, lying):Most people are aware that the foundation of any relationship is T-R-U-S-T. In no relationship is trust more important than in a relationship between mates, except for a parent and dependent child relationship. Cheating and lying breaks down the basis for a relationship, and often results in its demise. A problem of this nature is serious, and resolving it must be a top priority if the relationship is to survive. Couples counseling is highly recommended in order to facilitate the changes that are needed.

4. Attacking Your Partner (blaming, abuse – physical, emotional, sexual):Aggressive communication is simply unacceptable, especially if the abuse is getting physical. Physical or sexual abuse are deal-breakers in a marriage, and should prompt a permanent separation. The abusive partner needs to get professional help to learn skills in anger management, in order to gain and consistently demonstrate better control over his or her emotions and behavior. Even if the help is sought and progress is made, the risk of recurrence remains high, so in most cases, the abused partner should not return to the relationship. Returning serves to reinforce the abusive behavior, leading to increased severity and frequency of subsequent abuse. Instead, the abused partner should also seek help, and work through issues that have potential to lead one into another abusive relationship. Verbally blaming, accusing, and insulting your partner are less extreme forms of destructiveness, but are not OK either, and assertiveness training can provide the essential skills for healthy communication.

5. Scapegoating (taking your anger or frustration out on you partner):We all know that it’s not right to kick the dog after a hard day at work, so why do it to your partner? Being held responsible for things that are out of our control is the most stressful of conditions, and that is what we do to our partner when we scapegoat them. Rather than hurt the ones you love, do what it takes to meet the real problem head-on, as effectively as you can. If you are unsure of how to address a problem, the strong and mature thing to do is to ask for help and support from trusted sources (i.e., a friend, relative, or therapist).

6. Negativism (nitpicking, nagging, criticizing):In order to have a good relationship, the positives must outweigh the negatives by a large percentage. If negativity is creeping into your relationship, it is like water seeping into walls, eventually weakening the structure. People usually feel good around others who are upbeat and positive, as well as those who help them to feel good about themselves. Bringing a negative spirit into your relationship crowds out the positive. However, pushing aside or neglecting to address real problems is not the answer either, and can be just as harmful to relationship health as dwelling on the negative. So pick your battles wisely, strive to communicate effectively, and practice cooperative negotiation.

7. Gossiping (telling family or friends about your problems but not addressing them with your partner):That’s right, if you are talking about the problems in your relationship with friends or relatives but not working on improving the situation, that amounts to gossip. Gossip is not a productive way to handle problems, and can result in additional problems. For instance, your partner may feel betrayed that you revealed sensitive material to others that cause him or her to be embarrassed or uncomfortable around them. Also, if you promote a negative side of your partner or your relationship, others may get a distorted view, and changes in their attitudes and behavior may follow. Others may remember your conflicts long after you and your partner have gotten past them. Instead, work on improving your communication skills. Turn toward your partner, not away. If you need help, seek out the assistance of an objective third party such as a therapist who works with couples. When it comes to your needs, stop complaining and start asking!

8. Controlling Your Partner (“my way” or else, perfectionism, trying to change your partner, possessiveness):Wanting things to be a certain way and having preferences are completely natural and even healthy. However, when this tendency becomes extreme and starts to encroach on the rights, needs and desires of others, it can cause major havoc. Freedom of will and self-determination are basic needs, and when these are being threatened, negative reactions may include anger, resentment, and/or rebellion. If the need to control is a problem in your relationship, identify the motivations behind it and work towards dealing with those issues rather than acting them out with your partner.

9. Putting Yourself First (self-centeredness, selfishness, entitlement):It’s not “all about me,” folks. Letting one’s self interests take priority in an unbalanced way can be toxic to a partnership. The other person usually winds up feeling deprived, resentful, and unimportant. Furthermore, the more self-involved you are, the more you take your relationship for granted, the less you appreciate your partner, and the more alone you actually are. So if your relationship is slanted in this way, you also lose out, because you experience less of the joy that a true connection brings. You and you partner both get more from the relationship through reciprocity in giving and receiving.

10. Putting Yourself Last (self-neglect, passivity, self sacrifice):Martyrs are seldom happy. More often, they are angry, bitter, resentful, depressed and burned out. This is not to say that you should not consider others and be thoughtful in meeting their needs. But having a healthy relationship involves factoring your own needs and desires into the equation. You teach people how to treat you, and if you act like a doormat, you can’t completely blame someone if they wipe their feet on you. Learn how to stand up for yourself, practice assertive communication, ask and allow others to meet your needs, and take care of yourself as much as you take care of your loved ones.

Source

Betrayal of the Bystanders.

2011-04-07T01:19:00.000-07:00

by Kathy Krajco

Why do we feel so wronged by the people who believe a narcissist's lies about us? There are a number of reasons, but here is one of the biggest.

It's because their credulity isn't innocent. If a stranger believes some outrageous lie about us, we aren't surprised, and we don't feel wronged by them. But if someone who knows us believes that same lie, we feel betrayed. Guess why?
It's because they have betrayed us by believing that lie about us.
For example, if someone has known you for ten years, they see your track record of conduct for the last ten years. In other words, they have seen how you conduct yourself along this way of life we're bound upon.

No, they don't see everything you've said and done. But they have seen a lot. They have seen you react to many various stimuli.

That track record of yours sketches your character in their eyes. This representation of what kind of person you are is based on your CONDUCT (your words and deeds), not on mere hearsay about you.

So no one should be able to come along and tell them JUST ANYTHING about you.

For example, if you are a gentle person, in ten years that will show. Many times. The people you interact with daily will see sample after sample of you reacting gently to things that most others would react more harshly to.

So no narcissist should be able to come along and insinuate that you are violent.

Likewise if you are honest. In ten years that will show. Many times. The people you interact with daily will see sample after sample of you reacting honestly to things that most others would hedge the truth about.

So no narcissist should be able to come along and insinuate that you are a liar.

Likewise if you are sensible. In ten years that will show. Many times. The people you interact with daily will see sample after sample of you reacting sensibly to things that most others would show poor judgment about.

So no narcissist should be able to come along and insinuate that you are crazy and imagining things.

To believe these things about you they have to unknow everything they know about you. That is, they have to unknow you. They have to revise history. They have to erase that track record of yours.

And that track record is your life. They have to wipe it out.

That takes your life.

Which is why they call it "character assassination."

Your whole life goes up in smoke. And a figment of the imagination is substituted for it.

Those people are not innocent. Indeed, check it out: that is the Original Sin.

Eve committed it when she chose to believe that God was the liar, not the slithering sidewinder who snuck up to her and said, "Really? God told you that? That you would fall if you swallowed this stuff?"

Then Adam committed it worse when he swallowed it, too, just to agree with Eve.

The serpent did the same thing to God that the narcissist does to his victims, whom he slanders to discredit. Adam and Eve did the same thing to God that people do to a narcissist's victim when they believe the lie.

The narcissist's lie is always ironic. For the narcissist is out to smear one of your outstanding GOOD QUALITIES with the semblance of one of his own VICES. So, the allegation is always preposterous. No one who knows you should be fooled by it.

Because it isn't believable. They should know better. But they willfully don't. Because the lie is juicy.

And so, there's nothing like a narc attack to show you who your real friends are.

Kathy's Amazing Site

Stop Trolling!! Married Means M-A-R-R-I-E-D

2011-04-06T16:40:00.000-07:00

Married means married, Moron

It's getting to the point where I can't even read those stupid personal ads anymore, not even for fun.

They're loaded with married people, bitching about their spouses, and looking for something "better".

I've got a few things to tell you:

1. "She" is not the reason your marriage sucks. YOU are.

If you spent half as much time paying attention to your wife as you do trolling CraigsList (or other sites) for sex, your marriage would be a whole lot better.

2. Yeah, yeah, we've all heard it a thousand times. You're in a sexless marriage.

First of all, that's probably a lie, because most cheaters are liars too. I'm gonna let you in on a little secret, pal- if your wife isn't interested in sex, it's because you're not offering sex that's interesting. Married guys get awfully boring after a while. They do the same boring thing the same boring way every single time and then -- they expect you to scream like a porn star.

Seriously, you come home from work, totally ignore her while she chases the kids around for 4 hours, makes dinner, does the laundry, blah blah blah, and then you expect her to roll over with her legs open for another session of same-old same-old? When are you idiots going to learn that the best foreplay in the world for a woman is watching you take care of the kids, vacuum the floor, pick up the dog poo in the backyard. Or how about just listening when she talks? You know, it's not that hard to stop thinking about yourself for five minutes and hear what she has to say.

Think about it - way back when, when you were getting your brains ****ed out on a regular basis - what were YOU doing differently than you're doing now? Planning dates, telling her she looked nice, acting like you're happy to be with her? A thousand dollars says if you do that stuff again you'll get the same result.

3. Spare us. Your kids are NOT the reason you're staying married. If you were THAT miserable, you'd leave whether you had kids or not. If you're not getting a divorce it's because YOU DON'T WANT TO. For whatever reason.

At least be honest and don't try to feed people that tired line about staying married for the kids. Contrary to what you think, it doesn't make you look like a poor suffering but honorable victim. You obviously don't care enough about your kids to treat their mother with enough respect not to cheat on her, and you don't care about them enough to spend time with THEM instead of some vulnerable woman who falls for your carefully constructed lies, so cut it out with that crap. (BTW - did you even BOTHER to tell her you're MARRIED with KIDS?)

There is absolutely nothing honorable about putting your **** ahead of your kids. If you really really cared about them, you would get offline put ALL your time and effort and money into saving the one thing that means most to them in the whole world - your marriage and their family. Otherwise you're full of crap.

4. We all know how bored you are. Poor you, someone should really come along to entertain you.

What are you, 12 years old? If you're bored with your marriage, it's because YOU'RE BORING, and have you ever stopped to think that if you're bored, she probably is too? But instead of throwing a temper tantrum like a 2 year old, she's at home cleaning out the lint trap on the dryer and washing kool-aid off the kitchen floor. Yeah, she's having a riot washing your underwear and cleaning up cat puke.

Marriage is hard work. Heck, life is hard work. Grow up and take some responsibility for yourself. You supposedly have a brain, USE it. Put some thought into your marriage and some effort into your life and stop blaming her and being a baby because life isn't fun.

5. You're looking for someone "younger."

Sure you are. You think you look the same as you did when you got married? I'd bet not. Even if you do, you haven't spent the last 10 years having babies (the ones YOU wanted) and sacrificing your body for them. The next time you have to have someone stitch your ***hole together because you just blew a saint bernard out of your ass, then you can squawk. If you ever spend 9 months with your belly stretched to obscene proportions, and manage to look exactly the same as you used to 6 weeks later, then you can whine about how "she's not attractive anymore." Until then, shut the **** up.

You have no concept of what she has sacrificed to give you the children you "claim" to love. You really think she wants varicose veins and stretch marks and a distended belly and saggy boobs? Get real. What she wants is a man who understands and values WHY she has varicose veins and stretch marks and a distended belly and saggy boobs. She wants a man who loves her because she was willing to make those sacrifices with her own body because she loves HIM. Instead, you criticize and go running off with the first perky 25 year old who gives you the time of day. (or the first vulnerable woman who's being ignored by her man or is vulnerable enough in some way that her b.s. radar is damaged while you put the NLP whamma-jamma on her and say "I love you" just get her to spread her legs for you.) Ugh.

6. And finally, if you're cheating on your wife, there's something wrong with YOU.

If you're not happy with your marriage, exactly how do you think screwing some sl*t you barely know is going to fix that? Exactly how is that going to make anyone happy? Have you ever actually heard of adultery or an online affair working out really well for everyone involved? Are you actually stupid enough to think that you're going to be the exception to that rule? If so, you are delusional and you need professional help.

Affairs are disasters - not some of the time; not most of the time; ALL OF THE TIME. Your guilt and trying to cover your tracks will drive you crazy. Someone WILL find out. You will NOT be able to keep up the lies and the deception. And it will all lead up to a disaster of epic proportions, which leads me to Lucky #7.

7. Here‘s what you can expect in the wake of your little ****-fest:

Divorce - this is where you lose everything- your wife, your house, half your income and possessions, possibly your job if you're stupid enough to be screwing around with a co-worker, your kids - EVERYTHING. You will LOSE IT ALL.

Exposure - this is where everyone finds out what a scumbag you are. And they WILL find out. Your boss, your co-workers, your friends, your family, HER family, your neighbors, the parents of your kids‘ friends, everyone at your church. They WILL find out. Why? Because your now ex-wife and/ or ex-girlfriend(s) will tell them. She will probably tell everyone she knows, and everyone you know, and she will feel good doing it. Consider yourself lucky if she doesn't rent a billboard.

Oh, and DON'T try to paint yourself as the 'victim' of jealous or obsessed or scorned women. We all know that's a lie, too.

You lied to your wife and your probably lying to all your girlfriends as well as lying about one to the other. Otherwise, all bets are off. Be prepared.

Your Kids - this is where you totally lose the respect of your kids, and you deserve to lose it. They will realize in pretty short order that you didn't care enough about them to keep your pants on. They will see their mother cry and they will hate you for it. They will end up shuttling back and forth between their home and your apartment, and they will hate you for it. Every time they have to tell someone that their parents are divorced, they will hate you for it.

And God forbid you decide to "introduce" them to your shiny new soulmate/ ****buddy; they will REALLY hate you for that. If your kids are really young, you have a little time before all this hits the fan, but be warned, it's coming. They will forever see you as the moron who broke up or disrupted their family. Even if you stick around - they will know that you can't be trusted, that you are weak and immoral and selfish. And they'll figure it out all by themselves, even if you never talk to them about it. Because your kids are smarter than you are at this point.

And when your new "soulmate" figures out your real agenda, bend over and kiss it goodbye. If all she does is "expose you" after she finds out you ripped her heart out at the root - you should thank her not smear her. It's nothing less than what you asked for.

So, go ahead and whine your pathetic nonsense about how you're a victim and your wife is a horrible shrew. Do your best to convince yourself and everyone around you that you didn't have any choice and your wife "drove you to it." Start with the rationalizations and justifications now; you're going to need a lot of them.

Remember that the best defense is a good offense and start a mental list of all the ways your wife is deficient. Make sure to re-write the history of your marriage so that you can say that you were miserable from the first day. You should have married that OTHER girl (who probably dumped your sorry ***)

Be sure to tell your wife that you love her, you're just not "in love" with her anymore. Deal with your guilt by lashing out at everyone around you.

Above all, take ZERO responsibility for any problems YOU may have that caused you to be such a spineless loser in the first place.

Cyberpaths Website

Abusers Deny or Minimize the Abuse

2011-04-06T16:23:00.000-07:00

Not all abusers are dysfunctional. Many of them are pillars of society. Abusers come in all shapes and sizes: successful professionals, or peripatetic con-artists, affluent or poor, young or old, well-educated or dropouts. There is no profile of the "typical abuser".

Yet, abusive behavior often indicates serious underlying psychopathologies, such as personality disorders (Narcissistic, Borderline, Paranoid, or Antisocial are the most common among abusers). Abuse is often associated with alcoholism, drug-use, and other reckless, addictive, or compulsive behaviors.

Denying the Abuse
Abusers deny the abuse or rationalize it. They tend to shift blame or avoid the topic altogether.

Types of Denial

1.Total outright denial

"It never happened, or it was not abuse, you are just imagining it, or you want to hurt my (the abuser's) feelings"

2. Alloplastic defense

"It was your fault, you, or your behavior, or the circumstances, provoked me into such behavior"

3. Altruistic defense

"I did it for you, in your best interests"

4. Transformative defense

"What I did to you was not abuse - it was common and accepted behavior (at the time, or in the context of the prevailing culture or in accordance with social norms), it was not meant as abuse"

Abusers are concerned with their reputation and image in the community - neighbors, colleagues, co-workers, bosses, friends, extended family.

Forms of denial in public

5. Family honor stricture

"We don't do dirty laundry publicly, the family's honor and repute must be preserved, what will the neighbors say?"

"My spouse/ partner is a wonderful person."
(supposedly the victimized person who exposes them should be an AWFUL person in comparison. NOTE: Usually this is after the abuser has told the victim for MONTHS how horrible, cold, nasty, etc. their spouse/ partner is!)

6. Family functioning stricture

"If you snitch and inform the authorities, they will take me (the abusive parent) away and the whole family will disintegrate"

"You are hurting my/ our -- family/ spouse/ friends by telling"

How to Identify an Abuser
Abusers have alloplastic defenses. They tend to blame every mistake, failure, or mishap on others, or on the world at large. They do not assume personal responsibility, do not admit to having faults and miscalculations, keep blaming others for their predicament. "Look what you made me do!" is an abuser's ubiquitous catchphrase.

The abuser is hypersensitive, picks up fights, feels constantly slighted, injured, and insulted. He rants incessantly, treat animals and children impatiently or cruelly and expresses negative and aggressive emotions towards the weak, the poor, the needy, the sentimental, and the disabled.

Abusers often have a history of battering or violent offenses. They use vile language and infused with expletives, threats, and hostility.

Abusers appear at first to be too eager. They push others to marry him, to conclude a partnership with him having dated or met only once or twice. They immediately embark on detailed and grandiose plans of having children, or making millions, or becoming famous. In a romantic encounter, the abuser casts his date in the role of the love of his life and presses her for exclusivity, instant intimacy, and sex. He acts jealous when she as much as casts a glance at another male and informs her that she should abandon her studies or resign her job and, thus, forgo her autonomy.

Abusers do not respect boundaries and privacy. They ignore other people's wishes, choices, and preferences and are the sole decision makers, not bothering to consult anyone beforehand. They treat their nearest and dearest as objects or instruments of gratification.

Many abusers are compulsive control freaks.

Abusers are patronizing and condescending, overly critical and devaluing. But this behavior alternates with idealization - exaggerating others' talents, traits, power, intellect, wealth, and skills. Abusers, in other words, are unrealistic in their expectations and emotionally labile.

Some abusers are sadists-masochists. They find sadistic sex exciting and have fantasies of rape or pedophilia. They forceful during the sexual act and like inflicting pain or find it amusing. Others "merely" abuse (usually their closest) verbally - curse, demean, call ugly or inappropriately diminutive names, or persistently criticize. Typically, they then switch to being saccharine and "loving", apologizing profusely and trying to appease their victims by buying them gifts.

Many abusers have a specific body language.

"Haughtiness – Physical posture which implies and exudes an air of superiority, seniority, hidden powers, mysteriousness, amused indifference, etc. Some abusers maintain sustained and piercing eye contact but refrain from physical proximity (observe personal territory). The abuser takes part in social interactions – even mere banter – condescendingly, from a position of supremacy and faux "magnanimity and largesse". But even when he feigns gregariousness, he rarely mingles socially and prefers to remain the "observer", or the "lone wolf".

Entitlement markers – The abuser immediately asks for "special treatment". This way, he shifts responsibility to others, or to the world at large, for his needs, failures, behavior, choices, and mishaps ("look what you made me do!"). The abuser reacts with rage and indignantly when denied his wishes and if treated the same as others whom he deems inferior. Abusers frequently and embarrassingly "dress down" service providers such as waiters or cab drivers.

Idealization or devaluation – The abuser instantly idealizes or devalues his interlocutor. He flatters, adores, admires and applauds the "target" in an embarrassingly exaggerated and profuse manner – or sulks, abuses, and humiliates her.

Abusers are polite only in the presence of a potential would-be victim - a "mate", or a "collaborator". But they are unable to sustain even perfunctory civility and fast deteriorate to barbs and thinly-veiled hostility, to verbal or other violent displays of abuse, rage attacks, or cold detachment.

The "membership" posture – The abuser always tries to "belong" while also maintaining his stance as an outsider.

Most abusers always prefers show-off to substance. They are shallow, though claim to have talents and skills bordering on genius. They never admit to ignorance or to failure in any field – yet, typically, they are ignorant and losers. The abuser's self-proclaimed omniscience, success, wealth, and omnipotence as well as his name dropping and false autobiography are easily debunked. His actual condition is evidently and demonstrably incompatible with his claims.

Emotion-free language – The abuser likes to talk about himself and only about himself. He is very impatient, easily bored, with strong attention deficits – unless and until he is the topic of discussion. He is not interested in others or what they have to say. He is never reciprocal. He acts disdainful, even angry, if he feels an intrusion on his precious time.

Abusers are divorced from their emotions. The abuser intellectualizes, rationalizes, or speaks about himself in the third person. Most abusers get enraged when required to delve deeper into their motives, fears, hopes, wishes, and needs. They use violence to cover up their perceived "weakness" and "sentimentality". They distance themselves from their own emotions and from their loved ones by alienating and hurting them.

Seriousness and sense of intrusion and coercion – No matter how good his sense of humor, the abuser is never self-deprecating. This is the outcome of the abuser's sense of grandiosity, his fantasies and delusions, and his confabulation.

The abuser is easily hurt and insulted (narcissistic injury). Even the most innocuous remarks or acts are interpreted by him as belittling, intruding, or coercive slights and demands. His time is more valuable than others' – therefore, it cannot be wasted on unimportant matters such as social intercourse, family obligations, or household chores. Inevitably, he feels constantly misunderstood.

Any suggested help, advice, or concerned inquiry are immediately perceived by the abuser as intentional humiliation, implying that the abuser is in need of help and counsel and, thus, imperfect. The abuser is both schizoid and paranoid and often entertains ideas of reference.

Finally, abusers are sometimes sadistic and have inappropriate affect. In other words, they find the obnoxious, the heinous, and the shocking - funny or even gratifying. They are sexually sado-masochistic or deviant. They like to taunt, to torment, and to hurt people's feelings ("humorously" or with bruising "honesty").

While some abusers are "stable" and "conventional" - others are antisocial and their impulse control is flawed. These are very reckless (self-destructive and self-defeating) and just plain destructive: workaholism, alcoholism, drug abuse, pathological gambling, compulsory shopping, or reckless driving.

Yet, these – the lack of empathy, the aloofness, the disdain, the sense of entitlement, the restricted application of humor, the unequal treatment, the sadism, and the paranoia – do not render the abuser a social misfit. This is because the abuser mistreats only his closest - spouse, children, or (much more rarely) colleagues, friends, neighbours. To the rest of the world, he appears to be a composed, rational, and functioning person. Abusers are very adept at casting a veil of secrecy - often with the active aid of their victims - over their dysfunction and misbehavior.

Psychological Testing of Offenders
In the court-mandated evaluation phase, first it is established whether the offender suffers from mental health disorders at the root of the abusive conduct. A qualified mental health diagnostician administers lengthy tests and personal interviews.

The predictive power of these tests - often based on literature and scales of traits constructed by scholars - is hotly disputed. Still, they are far preferable to subjective impressions of the diagnostician which are often amenable to manipulation.

The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (MCMI-III) tests for personality disorders and attendant anxiety and depression. The third edition was formulated in 1996 by Theodore Millon and Roger Davis and includes 175 items. The Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) is used to spot narcissistic traits in abusers.

The Borderline Personality Organization Scale (BPO) was designed in 1985. It sorts the responses of respondents into 30 relevant scales. It indicates the existence of identity diffusion, primitive defenses, and deficient reality testing.

To these one may add the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-IV, the Coolidge Axis II Inventory, the Personality Assessment Inventory (1992), the excellent, literature-based, Dimensional assessment of Personality Pathology, and the comprehensive Schedule of Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality and Wisconsin Personality Disorders Inventory.

The next diagnostic aim is to understand the way the abuser functions in relationships, copes with intimacy, and responds with abuse to triggers.

The Relationship Styles Questionnaire (RSQ) (1994) contains 30 self-reported items and identifies distinct attachment styles (secure, fearful, preoccupied, and dismissing). The Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) (1979) is a standardized scale of the frequency and intensity of conflict resolution tactics - especially abusive stratagems - used by members of a dyad (couple).

The Multidimensional Anger Inventory (MAI) (1986) assesses the frequency of angry responses, their duration, magnitude, mode of expression, hostile outlook, and anger-provoking triggers.

Yet, even a complete battery of tests, administered by experienced professionals sometimes fails to identify abusers and their personality disorders. Offenders are uncanny in their ability to deceive their evaluators.

The Open Site

Dealing With Control Freaks

2011-04-06T16:19:00.000-07:00

by Thomas J. Schumacher, Psy.D., R-CSW

Most all of you have had to contend with control freaks. These are those people who insist on having their way in all interactions with you. They wish to set the agenda and decide what it is you will do and when you will do it. You know who they are – they have a driving need to run the show and call the shots. Lurking within the fabric of the conversation is the clear threat that if you do not accede to their needs and demands, they will be unhappy.

Certainly, it’s natural to want to be in control of your life. But when you have to be in control of the people around you as well, when you literally can’t rest until you get your way … you have a personality disorder. While it’s not a diagnostic category found in the DSM IV (the therapist’s bible for diagnostic purposes) an exaggerated emphasis on control is part of a cluster of behaviors that can be labeled as compulsive generally characterized by perfectionism, orderliness, workaholic tendencies, an inability to make commitments or to trust others and a fear of having their flaws exposed. Deep down, these people are terrified of being vulnerable. They believe they can protect themselves by staying in control of every aspect of their lives, including their relationships. Control freaks take the need and urge to control to new heights, causing others stress so they can maintain a sense of order. These people are riddled with anxiety, fear, insecurity, and anger. They’re very critical of themselves their lover and their friends, but underneath that perfect outfit and great body is a mountain of unhappiness. Let’s look at what makes control freaks tick, what makes you want to explode, and some ways to deal with them.

The Psychological Dynamics That Fuel a Control Freak

The need to control is almost always fueled by anxiety – though control freaks seldom recognize their fears. At work, they may worry about failure. In relationships, they may worry about not having their needs met. To keep this anxiety from overwhelming them, they try to control the people or things around them. They have a hard time with negotiation and compromise and they can’t stand imperfection. Needless to say, they are difficult to live with, work with and/or socialize with.

Bottom Line: In the process of being controlling, their actions say, “You’re incompetent” and “I can’t trust you.” (this is why you hate them). Remember, the essential need of a control freak is to defend against anxiety. Although it may not be apparent to you when they are making their demands, these individuals are attempting to cope with fairly substantial levels of their own anxiety. The control freak is usually fighting off a deep-seated sense of their own helplessness and impotence. By becoming proficient at trying to control other people, they are warding off their own fear of being out of control and helpless. Controlling is an anxiety management tool.

Unfortunately for you, the control freak has a lot at stake in prevailing. While trying to hold a conversation and engage them in some way, their emotional stakes involve their own identity and sense of well-being. Being in control gives them the temporary illusion and sense of calmness. When they feel they are prevailing, you can just about sense the tension oozing out of them. The control freak is very frightened. Part of their strategy is to induce that fear in you with the subtle or not so subtle threat of loss. Since the emotional stakes are so high for them, they need to assert themselves with you to not feel so helpless. To relinquish control is tantamount to being victimized and overwhelmed. When a control freak cannot control, they go through a series of rapid phases. First they become angry and agitated, then they become panicky and apprehensive, then they become agitated and threatening, and then they lapse into depression and despair.

Repetition Compulsion

Control freaks are also caught in the grip of a repetition compulsion. They repeat the same pattern again and again in their attempt to master their anxiety and cope with the trauma they feel. Characteristically, the repetition compulsion takes on a life of its own. Rather than feel calmer and therefore have a diminished need to be controlling, their behavior locks them into the same pattern in an insatiable way. Successes at controlling do not register on their internal scoreboard. They have to fight off the same threat again and again with increasing rigidity and intransigence.

Two Types of Control Freaks

Type 1 Control Freaks: The Type 1 control freak is strictly attempting to cope with their anxiety in a self absorbed way. They just want to feel better and are not even very aware of you. You will notice and hear their agitation and tentativeness. They usually do not make much eye contact when they are talking to you.

Type 2 Control Freaks: The Type 2 control freak is also trying to manage their anxiety but they are very aware of you as opposed to the Type 1 control freak. The Type 2 needs to diminish you to feel better. Their mood rises as they push you down. They do not just want to prevail; they also need to believe that they have defeated you. They need you to feel helpless so they will not feel helpless. Their belief is that someone must feel helpless in any interchange and they desperately do not want it to be them. The Type 1 needs control. The Type 2 needs to control you.

Some Coping Strategies

1) Stay as calm as you can. Control freaks tend to generate a lot of tension in those around them. Try to maintain a comfortable distance so that you can remain centered while you speak with them. Try to focus on your breathing. As they get more agitated and demanding, just breath slowly and deeply. If you stay calm and focused, this often has the effect of relaxing them as well. If you get agitated you have joined the battle on their terms.

2) Speak very slowly. Again the normal tendency is to gear up and speak rapidly when dealing with a control freak. This will only draw you into the emotional turmoil and you will quickly be personalizing what is occurring.

3) Be very patient. Control freaks need to feel heard. In fact, they do not have that much to say. They have a lot to say if you engage them in a power struggle. If you just listen carefully and ask good questions that indicate that you have heard them, then they will quickly resolve whatever the issue is and calmly move on.

4) Pay attention to your induced reactions. What is this person trying to emotionally induce in you? Notice how you feel when speaking with them. It will give you important clues as to how to deal with them more effectively and appropriately.

5) Initially, let them control the agenda. But you control the pacing. If you stay calm and speak slowly, you will be in command of the pacing of the conversation.

6) Treat them with kindness. Within most control freaks is a good measure of paranoia. They are ready to get angry and defend against what they perceive is a controlling hostile world. If you treat them with respect and kindness, their paranoia cannot take root. You will jam them up.

7) Make demands on them-- especially when dealing with the type 2 control freak. Ask them to send you something or do something for you. By asking something of them, you will be indicating that you are not intimidated or diminished by their behavior patterns.

8) Remember an old but poignant Maxim: “Those who demand the most often give the least.”

Keep in mind that control freaks are not trying to hurt you – they’re trying to protect themselves. Remind yourself that their behavior toward you isn’t personal; the compulsion was there before they met you, and it will be their forever unless they get help. Understand that they are skilled manipulators, artful and intimidating, rehearsed debaters and excellent at distorting reality.

In order to not feel degraded, humiliated and have your sense of self and self worth assaulted, you need to avoid being bulldozed by a controlling lover, boss or friend. When you are caught up in a truly destructive/controlling attachment, the best response may be to walk out. You have to understand that whatever you do will have a limited effect. These people are angry and afraid to let go of you.

Hence, it is your job to let go of them, protect yourself in the process… and grow.

Source

Seventeen Masks/Faces of the Psychopath

2011-04-06T16:09:00.000-07:00

Described below are 16 different expressions of psychopathy, each focusing largely on the psychopath's lifestyle and habitual ways of interacting with other people. Behind each of these descriptions it is assumed that a universal psychopathic structure (characterized by narcissism, primitive impulsivity, along with deficits in emotion, empathy, guilt, and morality) belongs to each type. These type descriptions have been gathered from a variety of sources and amalgamated to form the collection. Most psychopaths are combinations or overlaps of these types:

1. THE LIAR/CONTRACT BREAKER

This Psychopath is a pathological liar who will often lie for no reason at all. He/she is usually skilful at this, but sometimes fails to remember. This P will agree to anything then turn around and do just the opposite. Legal/custody agreements and normal social protocol mean nothing to him/her. Technically, these psychopaths never lie because lying is not a relevant issue for them. The idea or image of truth doesn't exist with the psychopath, so he cannot lie…. there is for him no difference. He says what's convenient, what comes to his mind, but never figures out 'Is that now really true, or not'? There is something in normal people which wants to see the truth and wants to be truthful, but if that internal sense is missing then the word 'lie' is senseless.

A psychopath, for instance, may have gone to the bank and 'conned' the bank manager in order to get money, and what he or she said to the banker in regard to that is not necessarily concealment or lying, it's just 'part of the story' that goes with getting the money, and he does that very well and that's the adapted or successful psychopath. He says what the banker wants to hear and for the psychopath who says it, that's it -there is no truth or lying. The psychopath sometimes has an understanding that other people distingish between lies and truth and will often adjust himself and behave in accordance with these facts. But the 'liar/contract breaker' psychopath completely refuses to recognise the social sense of lies/truth, and lives only by saying and believing "what is convenient" in any given moment.

2. THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC "CLIMBER"

Frequently occupationally-successful, this P will rise to the top in work and social circles. No one knows the hell that his/her family lives through. They are often gifted and intelligent in their chosen field, but must be in absolute control. They will manipulate others to further their ideas. They can be a vindictive bullies in the office. They have no genuine social conscience. Can be suspicious and paranoid. This disingenuous psychopath's behaviour is typified by a veneer of friendliness and sociability. Although making a superficially good impression upon aquaintances, this P frequently shows a more characteristic unreliability, impulsive tendencies, and deep resentments and moodiness among family members and other close associates They are often extremely verbally gifted and charismatic, and everyone may love him/her -- except those who truly know the demon he/she is. This wheeler-dealer will leave others holding the bag.

3. THE SEXUAL PSYCHOPATH

This P will display an impulsive hypersexuality (male or female), and frequently expresses a polymorphic sexual range - eg., pornography and masturbation, promiscuity, homosexuality, and various paraphilias - including possible incestual tendencies and perversions.

The sexual psychopath takes a predatory approach towards his targets, including stalking behaviors. This type may derive his sexual pleasure from a single theme such as serial rape or pedophilia, in which his primary sexual aim will be to dominate, to use, to control, and to subjugate another person (often someone weaker and less able to manage the situation) in the service of a gradiose self. According to researcher Darwin Dorr, "the majority of pedophiles are psychopathic, or manifest a significant degree of psychological characteristics of psychopathy." Of the psychopathic pedophile, Robert Hare writes, 'The number of children who are sexually abosed by parents, other relatives, child-care workers, clergymen, and teachers is truly staggering. Unlike other abusers, many of whom were themselves abused as children, are psychologically disturbed, and often experience anguish about what they are doing, psychopathic abusers are unmoved - "I just take what's available," said one of our subjects, convicted of sexually assaulting his girlfreind's eight-year-old daughter.' For the sexual psychopath, then, all people may be targets, including both the very young and the very elderly, and both genders, who are often targeted for sex without consent.

4. THE EXPLOSIVE PSYCHOPATH

The explosive psychopath is differentiated from other psychopathic variants by the unpredictable and sudden emergence of hostility. These "adult tantrums," characterized by uncontrollable rage and fearsome attacks upon others, occur frequently against members of the psychopath's own family.

Such explosive behavior erupts precipitously, before its intensive nature can be identified and constrained. Feeling thwarted and threatened, these psychopaths respond in a volatile and hurtful way, bewildering others by the abrupt change that has overtaken them, saying unforgivable things, striking unforgettable blows. As with children, tantrums are instantaneous reactions to cope with frustration or fear. Although the explosive behavior is often effective in intimidating others into silence or passivity, it is not primarily an instrumental act, but rather an outburst that serves to discharge pent-up feelings of humiliation and degredation.

5. THE VIOLENT PSYCHOPATH

Especially distinctive is this type of psychopath's tyrannical desires is their willingness to go out of the way to be unmerciful and inhumane. Often calculating and cool, these psychopaths are selective in their choice of victims, identifying individuals who are likely to submit rather than to react with counterviolence. Quite frequently, they display a disproportionate level of abusiveness and intimidation, in order to impress not only their victims but those who observe the psychopaths' unconstrained power. More than any other type, these individuals derive deep satisfaction in creating suffering and in seeing its effect on others. In contrast to the explosive psychopaths, for whom hostility serves primarily as a discharge of pent-up feelings, the tyrannical psychopaths employ violence instrumentally as a means to inspire terror and intimidation. These experiences then become the object of self-conscious reflection, providing the psychopaths with a sense of deep satisfaction. This P has often turns into a demon. Their objective is often watching us dangle while they inflicts emotional, verbal and occasionally physical cruelty. Their enjoyment is all too obvious. He/she may be a sexual sado-maso. Women, children, men, the elderly, (and even animals) - anyone with any vulnerabiliies are his target

6. THE CHARMER, OR "SOUL MATE"

This Psychopath will come on strong, sweep us off our feet, says he/she has the same interests, wants to marry us quickly. This P may appear helpful, comforting by their feigned 'idealization' of us phase, but it never lasts. Jekyll always turns into Hyde eventually. This P is aware that you will be drawn closer by his/her relaxing aura and lack of inhibitions. This kind of P is aware that non-psychopaths are tortured by their usual neurotic compulsions, and doubt's, and guilts, and inhibitions, and that he/she can us offer an atmosphere where we are temporarily free of such tiring emotions (free like the P). When you have this kind of psychopath in front of you it's lovely, it's great, it's relaxing. Nothing feels quite as relaxing as having dinner with this psychopath because then you feel absolutely great and those darned horrible emotional states fall away, especially when having a few drinks with them, it's the greatest thing you can do, and they make you feel absolutely at peace. That's part of their charm, and it's almost as if they are graced with a kind of charisma, which is why so many women and men fall for psychopaths. The psychopath has no inhibitions, and this type can play up to achieve his sexual aims by ascertaining and telling you everything you want to hear. He will talk to a woman who is interested in poetry about poetry. He doesn't care about poetry but he will quote poets. The female psychopath will take a great interest in a man's work and talk to him for hours. She doesn't really care about his work, but will charm him with her interest. They will be romantic, invite you to candle-lit dinners, compliment you, and when they have you hooked they will drop the charm-game for the more selfish lifestyle for which they are well known.

7. THE THIEF OR "COVETOUS PSYCHOPATH"

In the covetous psychopath, we see a distilled form an essential feature of the DSM's antisocial personality disorder, and the ICD's syssocial personality disorder: aggrandizement. These individuals feel that life has not "given them their due"; that they have been deprived of their rightful level of love, support, or material rewards; that others have received more than their share; and that they personally were never given the bounties of the good life. Thus, they are driven by envy and a desire for retribution - a wish to take back what they have been deprived of by destiny. Through acts of theft or destruction, they compensate themselves for the emptiness of their own lives, dismissing with smug entitlement their violations of the social order. They act on the rationalization that they alone must restore the karmic imbalance with which life has burdened them.

For those who are merely somewhat resentful, and for whom some conscious controls remain intact, small transgressions and petty acquisitions often suffice to blunt the expression of more extreme characteristics. For the more severely disordered, however, the usurpation of others' earned achievements and possessions becomes the highest reward. Here, the pleasure lies in taking rather than in having. Like hungry animals pursuing prey, covetous psychopaths have an enormous drive, a rapaciousness. They manipulate others and treat them as pawns in their power games. Although they have little compassion for the effects of their behaviors, feeling little or no guilt for their actions, they remain at heart quite insecure about their power and their possessions; they never feel that enough has been aquired to make up for earlier deprivations. Regardless of their achievements, they remain ever jealous and envious, pushy and greedy, presenting ostentatious displays of materialism and conspicuous consumption. For the most pat, they are completely self-centered and self-indulgent, often profligate and wasteful, unwilling to share with others for fear that they will take again what was so desperately desired in early life. Hence, such psychopaths never achieve a deep sense of contentment. They feel unfulfilled, empty, and forlorn, regardless of their successes, and remain forever dissatisfied and insatiable. Believing they will continue to be deprived, these psychopaths show minimal empathy for those who are exploited and deceived. Some may become successful entrepreneurs, exploiters of others as objects to satisfy their desires.

Here an active exploitiveness, manifested through greed and the appropriation of others' possessions, becomes a central motivating force. The covetous psychopaths experience not only a deep and pervasive sense of emptiness - a powerful hunger for the love and recognition not received in early life - but also an insecurity that they perhaps really are intrinsically less than others, somehow deserving of life's marginal dispensations.

8. THE QUIET PSYCHOPATH

This Psychopath is socially withdrawn, often dirty, unkempt. Odd thinking is observed. This P is occasionally insecure and irresolute, perhaps even faint hearted and cowardly. Psychopathic aggression in this variant, when present, represents a paradoxical response to felt dangers and fears, intended to show persecutors that one is not anxious or weak, and will not succumb to external pressure or coercion. Such craven and cowardly individuals are spineless psychopaths. These personalities commit violent acts as a means of overcoming fearfulness and of securing refuge. For them, aggression is not instrinsically rewarding, but is instead essentially a counterphobic act. Anticipating real danger, projecting hostile fantasies, spineless types feel it is best to strike first, hoping thereby to forestall their antagonists.

9. THE BRAINWASHER

This Psychopath can charismatically charm and manipulate groups of people to achieve his goal. Often found in religion and politics. His goals: manipulation, control, compliance, money, position, attention. He masterfully targets the naive and vulnerable.

10. THE RISK TAKER/THRILLSEEKER

This Psychopath never learns from his past follies. He is doomed to forever repeat bad judgment after bad judgment. Poor impulse control is a hallmark. This type of psychopath often engages in risk taking for itself - for the excitement it provides, and for the sense of feeling alive and involved in life, rather than for such purposes as material gain or defense of reputation. Many of these individuals respond before thinking, act impulsively, and behave in an unreflective and uncontrolled manner. Beyond such simple impulsiveness, however, the risk-taking psychopaths are in addition substantially fearless, unblanched by events that most people experience as dangerous or frightening. In contrast to many psychopaths, whose basic motivations are largely aggrandizement and revenge, these individuals are driven by the need for excitement and stimulation, for adventures that are instrinsically treacherous. They are, in effect, thrill seekers, easily infatuated by opportunities to prove their mettle or open their possibilities, The factors that make them psychopathic are the undependability and irresponsibility of their actions, and their disdain for the effects of their behaviours on others as they pursue a restless chase to fulfill one capricious whim after another. The introverted variation of this type may turn more specifically towards substance abuse - alchohol, heroin, speed, or whater drug - as a way to get his thrills and excitement without the more overt behaviors of the former.

These daredevils are attracted to thrills like lemmings to cliffs. Look for: Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. They will draw you in with: Fun, excitement, and adorable adolescent rebelliousness. They will drain you dry by: Overdoing everything exciting, and underdoing everything else. Thrillseeker P's are the one's you see everyday: Cowboys, cowgirls, day traders, party animals, rebels without a cause, and that one lover you just can't seem to forget. DEFENSIVE STRATEGY: Keep your brain engaged even when theirs are turned off. Especially then.

11. THE PARANOID PSYCHOPATH

This Psychopath is suspicious of everything and everyone. Usually there's no reason. He is terrified of exposure and may be potential dangerous if threat of exposure is imminent. This P will often accuse others of wrong-doing, and will never accept responsibility. It doesn't matter whether he made the mess or not, someone else must take the blame. A master at projection. Their features frequently blend with those of the paranoid personality disorder. They are characterized best by their autocratic power orientation and by their mistrust, resentment, and envy of others. Underlying these features is a ruthless desire to vindicate themselves for past wrongs by cunning revenge or callous force, if necessary.

Left to their own ruminations, they begin to imagine a plot in which every facet of the environment plays a threatening and treacherous role. Moreover, through the intrapsychic mechanism of projection, they attribute their own venom to others, ascribing to them the malice and ill will they feel within themselves. As the line between objective antagonism and imagined hostility becomes thin, the belief takes hold that others are intentionally persecuting them. Not infrequently, persecutory delusions combine with delusions of grandeur; however, these later beliefs play a secondary role among these psychopaths, in contrast to their primacy among fanatic paranoid personalities.

Preeminent among malignant psychopaths is their need to retain their independence and cling tenaciously to the belief in their own self-worth. Their need to protect their autonomy and strength may be seen in the content of their persecutory delusions. Malevolence on the part of others is viewed as neither casual or random; rather, it is seen as designed to intimidate, offend, and undermine the individuals' self-esteem. "They" are seeking to weaken the psychopaths' "will," to destroy their power, to spread lies, to thwart their talents, to control their thoughts, and to immobilize and subjugate them. These psychopaths dread losing their self-determination; their persecutory fantasies are filled with fears of being forced to submit to authority, of being made soft and pliant, and of being tricked to surrender their self-determination

12. THE 'BAD BOY' OR 'BAD GIRL' ANTISOCIAL PSYCHOPATH

This type of Psychopath is considered the archetypical delinquent, openly pursuing a diverse range of antisocial behaviors and often in trouble with the law. The antisocial psychopath is the main type found in prisons, whose availability for psychological testing results in a disproportionate representation of this type in psychopathy descriptions. The American 'Diagnostic and Statistical Manual' (DSM) description of psychopathy is based on this group of offenders, to whom the manual gives the name 'antisocial personality disorder'. Descriptive criteria for this category are as follows:

1. failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
2. deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
3. impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
4. irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
5. reckless disregard for safety of self or others
6. consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations
7. lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another

13. THE USED CAR SALESMAN (OR WOMAN)

The used-car salesman is a metaphor for the psychopath who can sell you anything, even themselves. Unlike the charmer above, this psychopath uses a quick talking 'sales-pitch' to catch people out. Their main techniques are: (a). Do it because you like me - It's easy to like these types. In the short period of time when there is some doubt as to whether you are going to give them what they want, these psychopaths can sprinkle with wit and glow and synthetic kindness. The display usually ends three seconds after you give in, but while it lasts it smells sweet as cherry blossoms on a warm spring day. The main reason that people like other people is that they perceive them to be similar to themselves. These P's usually begin their sales pitch by establishing a perception of similarity. They watch you closely. They ask questions about who you are, what you like, and what you think, and then profess to like and believe the same sorts of things. Unless you are paying attention, their probes and ploys can seem like innocent chit-chat. (b). Do it to reciprocate - These types would have you believe that because they gave you something, you owe them something back. In their view, compliments are like free samples those motherly types hand out in grocery stores. The purpose is not to nourish you, but to get you to buy. (c). Do it because everybody else is doing it - This person will try to convince you that you are 'part of the crowd' or 'are in the group' of whatever craven scheme they are enticing you to join. (d). This offer is good for a limited time only - These individuals know that anything sought after or scarce takes on a value far beyond its intrinsic worth, and will use this knowledge to push your buttons. (e). Do it to be consistent - Being consistent in our behaviors and choices helps provide the important feeling of selfhood. But foolish consistency is the psychological principle that makes manipulation possible. People also try to maintain an internal sense of consistency between their actions and beliefs. This is hard enough to do without careful thought. It's almost impossible with a psychopath trying to confuse your perceptions about who you are and what you believe by making you cross one little line after another. (f) You can believe me, I'm an authority - These psychopaths know that people are likely to do what authority figures tell them. (g). Do it or else - This P knows that one of the main reasons people listen to an authority figure is the fear that they will be punished if they don't. These are just some of the techniques the used-car salesman P will use, but use them he will in a great variety of situations - even with friends and family members, this psychopath will apply his hard sell to get what he wants.

14. THE MURDERER OR SERIAL KILLER

This malevolent subtype is one of the least attractive of the psychopathic variants. These individuals are particularly vindictive and hostile; their retributive impulses are discharged in a hateful and destructive defiance of conventional social life. Distrustful of others and anticipating betrayal and punishment, they have aquired a cold-blooded ruthlessness, an intense desire to gain revenge for the real or imagined mistreatment to which they were subjected in childhood. Here we see a sweeping rejection of tender emotions and a deep suspicion that others' efforts at goodwill are merely ploys to deceive and undo them. They may assume a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude, a readiness to lash out at those whom they wish to destroy or can use as scapegoats for their revengeful impulses. Many are fearless and guiltless, inclined to anticipate and search out betrayal and punitiveness on the part of others. The primary psychopathic characteristics of these individuals blend with those of the sadistic or paranoid personality (or both), reflecting not only a deep sense of deprivation and a desire for compensatory retribution, but also an intense suspiciousness and hostility. Many murderers and serial killers fit this psychopathic pattern. Such persons might be described as belligerent, mordant, rancorous, vicious, malignant, brutal, callous, truculent, and vengeful.

To "prove" their courage, malevolent psychopaths may even court punishment. Rather than serving as a deterrent, however, punishment often reinforces their desire for retribution. In positions of power, they often brutalize others to confirm their self-image of strength. If they are faced with consistent failure, beaten down in efforts to dominate and control others, or finding aspirations far outdistancing their luck, their feelings of frustration, resentment, and anger mount to a point where their controls give way to raw brutality or secretive acts of vengeful hostility. Spurred by repeated rejection and driven by an increasing need for retribution, aggressive impulses will surge into the open. At these times, the psychopaths' behaviors may become outrageously and flagrantly antisocial. Not only do they show minimal guilt or remorse for their violent acts, but they may instead display an arrogant contempt for the rights of others.

What distinguishes malevolent psychopaths is their capacity to understand guilt and remorse, if not necessarily to experience it. Although they are capable of giving a perfectly rational explanation of ethical concepts - that is, they know the difference between right and wrong - they seem nevertheless incapable of feeling it. These psychopaths often relish menacing others, making them cower and withdraw. They are combative and seek to bring more pressure upon their opponents than their opponents are willing to tolerate or to bring against them. Most make few concessions and are inclined to escalate as far as necessary, never letting go until others succumb. In contrast to other subtypes, however, malevolent psychopaths recognize the limits of what can be done in their own self-interest. They do not lose self-conscious awareness of their actions, and press forward only if their goals of retribution and destructiveness are likely to be achieved. Accordingly, their adversarial stance is somewhat contrived and works as a bluffing mechanism to ensure that others will back off. Infrequently, actions are taken that may lead to misjudgment and counterreaction in these matters.

15. THE MORALIST OR SAINT

This Psychopath proclaims his high moral standing, and other people are seen as immoral. He wants justice for society. "Hang 'em high" he says about the murderer on the 6:00 news. These P's may be found in the professions of school teacher, prison officer, religious leader (or devout attendant), manager of an orphanage or hospital for the mentally ill, or similar jobs which require an morally responsible presentation. They may be very quick to exploit corrupt political or social situations as an excuse for being brutal and cruel, political situations like those seen in Nazi Germany, or Apartheid South Africa, which supply a socially sanctioned way to enact their pathology. When this P is not being 'watched', he/she often lies, cheats, schemes, corrupts, abuses, deceives, controls, manipulates, and torments, while portraying himself to be the morally upstanding victim when questions are asked. This P is a consumate image maker and will flaunt all credentials and accomplishments, often bullying his/her family into perfect presentation for the public, in order to reinforce his/her position as a paragon of goodness. Gaining admiration, attention, even glances from others, and evoking envy are central ploys. These 'morally compensated' psychopaths cannot depend upon love because, like all psychopaths, they have a severe deficit in the area of emotion. Instead, their egos work out a moral system which is fool-proof in any and every situation. The result, as paradoxical as it may seem, is usually a well-developed outward morality but one woefully lacking in love. Such compensated psychopaths continually and at all costs uphold moral conventions, fanatically defending their moral systems. Were they to relax the hold on their moral code, the entire structure might well collapse like a house of cards, revealing their psychopathic nature. It is rather like cooking, a poor cook sticks assiduously to the recipe, while a gifted one can change this and that according to a momentary whim. This P's saintliness or rigid morality, then, is a cover for an underlying grandiosity, immorality, and sadistic drive to power typical of many psychopaths.

16. THE CREATIVE ARTIST

This psychopath will choose lifestyles or communities where his immorality is considered a gift. He/she blends in well with other artists, writers, countercultural-bohemians, and revolutionaries. In such circles the psychopath becomes almost indistinguishable from the non-psychopath, and can comfortably seek out victims who are willing to view his pathos as 'misunderstood genius', a person whose insights are wasted on the morally burdened masses.

This Psychopath will trick you into feeling that it is you who are psychologically crippled for following social conventions like decency, respect, restraint, fairness, or justice, and will introduce you to the "liberated" life of untrammeled selfishness, rudeness, impulsivity, and sexual perversity. This type will frequently display the pseudo-intellectual style of a Bohemian. This P:

1) Will spend hours absorbed in painting a single flower. He interrupts his work only to make dramatic sounds of exhaustion and angsty-artistic grunts, demands for water and other sustenance, and frequent sweeps of his furrowed, sweaty brow. When his day's work is done, he proudly displays a painting of his own penis in a lovely shade of lilac, and with petals attached. His painting is generous in its depiction of its subject.

2) Peppers conversations with cultural, literary, and historical allusions, whether relevant or not. Says "ahh" and "hmm" a lot when listening to someone more knowledgable than himself. His favorite partner in conversation is the pre-teen girl, because she cannot dispute his opinions on Nietzsche. Nietzsche does not hang out at the mall.

3) Your favorite subject is--suprise!!--his as well. And he knows much more about it than you. Take feminism, for example. If you consider yourself a feminist, he will let you in on the "real deal" with many artists, will tell you if they are, in fact, good for the image or self-esteem of woman. It goes like this: If he likes someone's work, then they are a feminist; if you like someone's work and he does not, it is only because they make women look bad. This is why "Penthouse" is perfectly harmless--good for women, in fact, because it empowers them sexually; Madonna is bad for women because she traded her feminine curves for muscle, and makes young ladies feel bad about their bodies the way they are meant to be. Which is without muscles.

4) Will invite the family to bond with him over a crossword puzzle, which means that the clues are read to him for him to solve. No help please, you are wrong and will just slow him down.

5) Also likes to bond over "Jeopardy!" which means that he shouts out the answers to all questions before they have been read completely, thus preventing anyone else from participating. If anyone else should get a question which he does not, he will get up to go to the kitchen or bathroom. You see, the reason he didn't get that question is that he was thinking about his snack. He will mutter the answer after Alex has said it, agreeing that the host was correct. The game may proceed. Has never tried out for "Jeopardy!"

6) Is the local King of Lawn Sculpture, which consists of concrete representations made from plaster casts of his body parts. His pride and joy is the forearm and hand with middle finger extended. The significance of this, which even he does not know, is that he is painfully aware of the fact that he is a blue-collar worker with no formal higher education, surrounded by over-educated, well-travelled hippies. And gosh darn they're nice. They can intelligently discuss any academic subject the psychopath raises, but alas, he cannot.

This Psychopath is the literal emodiment of the term con-'artist'.

17. THE ACADEMIC PSYCHOPATH

These psychopaths often work as doctors, lawyers, university lecturers, psychiatrists, specialists, scientists, preists, and in other intellectually oriented professions. Clientele, patients, and students of these P's are often taken advantage of in social, financial, or sexual ways. These types are sometimes schooled in their chosen topics, but a good number are known to fudge their qualifications. Robert Hare reports - "They have no hesitation in forging and brazenly using impressive credentials to adopt, chameleonlike, professional roles that give them prestige and power. When things fall apart, as they usually do, they simply pack up and move on. In most cases they select professions in which the requisite skills are easy to fake, the jargon easy to learn, and the credentials unlikely to be thoroughly checked. If the profession also places a high premium on the ability to persuade or manipulate others, or to "lay on the hands," so much the better. Thus, psychopaths find it easy to pose as ministers, counselors, and psychologists. But some of their other poses are much more difficult to pull off. There are psychopaths who sometimes pose as medical doctors, and they may diagnose, dispense drugs, and even perform surgery. That they frequently endanger the health or lives of their patients does not bother them in the least."

As mentioned above, these P's do not always forge their qualifications, and sometimes do complete their studies in a chosen academic field. But whether formally trained or not, the marking feature of the academic psychopath is the use of formal ideas as a vehicle for interpersonal communication, and a psychic style relying predominately on intellectual functioning. This type has the universal psychopathic-deficits in emotional functioning, but unlike other psychopaths may not cultivate phoney emotional skills to use on others. They may instead degrade emotion as something messy and unreliable, and will rely solely on the manipulative powers of intellectual-authority with the backing of their office.

Most unsettling are the coldly calculated violations of power and trust committed by these psychopathic professionals whose very job it is to help the vulnerable. It is very common amongst these individuals to callously use their positions to take sexual advantage of their charges, leaving them feeling bewildered and betrayed. And if victims complain, they may be traumatized further by a system primed to side with the perpetrating psychologist, doctor, or teacher.

Blog Owners Note: Most psychopaths are a combination of a number of these profiles & traits listed above.

For more on psychopaths go to LOVE FRAUD for eye-opening reading.

When Others Believe Your Abuser

2011-04-06T16:06:00.000-07:00

WHEN OTHERS BELIEVE YOUR (Narcissistic or Psychopathic) ABUSER

Since when is it good to be friendly with bad people? Since when is winking at their wrongdoing a virtue?

Perhaps someone can quote chapter and verse in the comments, because holier-than-thous really deserve to have their religion's true teachings show what frauds their twisting of religious doctrine makes them.

In the New Testament, in Revelations, I believe, in one of the letters to the churches, some holier-than-thou Christians are read the riot act for that very same pretense.

The author unloads both barrels at them with this truth: "Good people are not lukewarm toward evil" it says.

Cowards are.

Loving good is hating evil. And vice versa. Love is an attraction; hate a repulsion. But that is too simple for complex people to understand.

Now I am not saying that we must reject everyone not perfect, for then we would reject everyone, including ourselves. But decent people need no instruction.

There is a point at which behavior becomes predatory and malicious - a point at which one is morally obligated to separate themselves from that person.
You thus take away a bad actor's safety in numbers. You show disapproval. You discourage others from behaving the same way. You comfort the victim by showing him or her that the pain caused them by the bad guy matters to you.

Is any of that evil?

It's just a way of discouraging the harm the bad guy is doing others by showing that you want nothing to do with someone who hurts others like that.

Where is the sin in that, pray tell? Sounds like fine, upstanding conduct to me.

Jesus spoke of this when he said that "indecent conduct" is a special case and justification for divorce even. At the time, the terms "indecent" or "lewd" conduct simply meant "lowdown" or "despicable" conduct of any sort.

And that statement of his, qualifying his disapproval of divorce, is just common sense.

Why? Let's say you are married to a Mafia boss. Is it right for you live in his big fancy house, being waited on by his hired staff? Is it right for you to PROFIT from the crimes he commits and ther damage he does to people?

To the contrary:
it is immoral for you not to divorce him when you find out what he is.
The same people who make a virtue of "accepting" abusive narcissists, relentlessly persecute anyone for any hint of racism or sexism. THAT they won't tolerate. They wouldn't DREAM of tolerating anything politically incorrect like that.

But though they know and believe that the narcissist has brutally abused you, they see no reason to show any disapproval of that.

Hmmm. Whom do they think they're fooling?

They make nothing of that narcissist's abuse of you. They countenance it.

If instead they rejected the narcissist, they would be doing the one small thing they could to get on the right side, the victim's side.

But they abandon the victim and smile in the abuser's face.

Not so holy as they pretend.

by Kathy Krajco

Anatomy of the Abuser

2011-04-06T15:57:00.000-07:00

AND A LOOK AT THE ABUSED MAN

While this paper cannot be a definitive guide to the nature of the abuser, the victims relationship with the abuser and societies part in encouraging gender bias, I hope it will add to the pool of knowledge. It is my hope that, at least a small way, this paper will be an aid towards helping us all understand the nature of domestic abuse and those who perpetrate or encourage it.
- George Rolph. London 2004.

The abusers - Actors in disguise.
First and foremost abusers are actors. It makes no difference what gender the abusive personality is, their primary skill is to emulate normal behaviour in order to disguise their own condition.

I have spoken to many victims of abuse who say that the person they met and fell in love with “gradually changed” into a monster. This is often one of the most confusing and distressing aspects of abuse from the victims point of view. It is also a situation that the abuser will exploit with varying degrees of vicious skill. While it is impossible to be specific on these subjects in every case -- as there are always exceptions to every rule -- careful observation and research have uncovered certain general consistencies I want to discuss here. The question is; what is going on in the abusers mind that causes them to suddenly, or gradually, become abusive to their new partner?

It appears that the abusive personality has learned, by observation and by mimicry of those around them, how to give every appearance of normality and stability for often quite extended periods of time. This means that they are able to convince new partners that they are really charming, wonderful people who should be trusted and are worthy of love and care. This act is easy to maintain in certain social situations and where the abuser has minimal contact with others in an average day. For example, in a work situation where he/she will be in contact with others for a maximum of eight hours per day. Another social situation may be one of casual friendships made in pubs and clubs. Under these conditions the actor (abuser) need only be convincing as a normal person for a minimum amount of time. This is why many friends of the abuser find it hard to believe that the person they think they know could be capable of such barbarity within a long term relationship. In the case of female abusers, this difficulty is compounded by social and political myths that see females only as victims and not as perpetrators.

For the abusive actor, maintaining the act of normality within a long term relationship is almost impossible. The intensity of the time spent in the company of the victim means the emotional strain placed on the pretender, by their need to hide their true selves, becomes too difficult to maintain. The act breaks down and the real personality disguised beneath it rushes to the surface. To the victim, the sudden outbursts of aggression from the previously “loving” and “charming” personality they fell in love with, is both mystifying and deeply confusing. The victim, often still in love with the abuser, begins to make excuses for the abusers behaviour. Mentally sweeping it under the carpet and falsely believing that things will get better in time. This is not difficult to understand. Anyone who has fallen in love knows the huge investment of trust, emotional/mental commitment and selflessness it takes make the relationship work. It is natural for the victim to assume that the other person has made the same efforts as they have and this primes them to accept the abusers excuses and rationalisations of their behaviour.

The abusers self-view.
An abusive personality is fundamentally one of self loathing and even self hate. However, this self disgust is too painful for them to accept. Desperate to “fit in” with everyone else they justify the abusive behaviour they cannot avoid and deny the rest. The denial can be very profound and will drive their negative feelings about themselves very deeply within their tortured psyche. Many abusers are deeply frightened and horrified by their violent outbursts but their denial prevents them from dealing with the feelings that cause them. Therefore, when they lose control and abuse another, there often follows what looks like deep and sincere repentance and begging for forgiveness, only to sink back into the same patterns again later on. Given enough time, even these feelings of regret and remorse will become buried and their emotional attitude to their abuse of others will harden into a cold uncaring outlook. For this reason, I believe it is vital that treatment be applied to the abuser while they still own feelings of remorse and regret. Treatment of the abuser will become progressively more difficult over time as the abuser will lack the necessary need and drive to want to reform.

In order to avoid owning up to what they feel the abuser will project their self hatred onto their victims. Where this occurs it sets up the classic abuser/victim relationship. I will expand upon this relationship later in this document, but for now I wish to return to the abusers view of themselves and its consequences in their lives.

We have seen how the abusive personality often feels about themselves but why does this self hatred come about? There may be myriad's of reasons but there are some common threads that I have noticed in my studies, my experiences of abuse and my observations of abusers. Many of those who become abusers report that they have grown up in abusive homes themselves or, have experienced abuse later on in their lives. When probed about how these experiences have affected them, almost all report feelings of anger and even intense rage that they themselves are frightened by.

To a child growing up in an abusive home, even though the behaviour they are witnessing and experiencing from others deeply disturbs them, they consider it to be “normal.” Its all they know, so for them, this is what normal family life is all about. However, the deep fears and anger raised in them by their abusers have little or no avenue of expression within the home. To become angry, or even show dissatisfaction with their treatment, may very well lead to an escalation of the abuse against them. This fear of retaliation drives the feelings they naturally have about their abusers deep within themselves. The only way to cope with the feelings of fear and anger is to deny and bury them or take them outside of the home in anti social behaviour. *

When the abused child becomes an adult, if they have not dealt with these feelings of rage buried deep within themselves, they are almost certain to resurface within their adult relationships.

Adults have a tendency to recreate what they considered normal in their early life at home, within their own adult relationships. If they grew up in a chaotic and fear filled environment it is natural for them to feel at home within that kind of family dynamic. Subconsciously they may well be building relationships they feel are well known to them and no matter how painful those relationships are, they feel “normal.”

Some abusers are simply psychopaths. They enjoy the feelings of power they have over the victim and may well go on to kill them if early intervention is not forthcoming.

Other abusers simply come to hate their partners over time and instead of leaving the relationship, set out to destroy the other person (and sometimes other people) within it.

All abusers enjoy the feelings of power they have over their victims at some level, but not all abusers are psychopaths. Abusers are often deeply selfish individuals who live in a “me me” world where only their own feelings, needs and desires are important. When the abuser expresses love for the victim it is often not because they feel that love, it is often because they want something from the victim that threats will not get them. My own abuser, for example, would become tender, gentle and kind whenever she wanted me to help her with something she could not manage alone. Afterwards, my efforts to help her would be ridiculed as inadequate.

Some abusers will abuse others by proxy and this seems to be a predominantly female trait. I have received calls to my help line from men who have been beaten up by other men when their abusive female partner has told another man that her victim had expressed a desire to sleep with the attackers infant child, for example. Other forms of this abuse include making false allegations to family members or the state authorities in order to have someone else attack or arrest the victim.

Another form of abuse by proxy is to withhold contact unreasonably from a parent with his/her child. In such a case, the abuser is using the state apparatus to continue abuse after the relationship has ended. This constitutes abuse of the child concerned and the adult denied contact. I also consider false rape allegations that can utterly destroy a persons life to be abusive behaviour that is all too often unpunished by the state.

For those who have experienced abuse in later life but who had relatively happy childhood's there may well be a subconscious element of revenge in their subsequent abusive behaviour. In the case of the female abuser this may be hugely reinforced by articles in women's magazines that portray men as nothing but bad, soap opera stories, dramas, movies, press stories about female abuse victims, and the constant and relentless pressures on women by radical feminist groups to see all men as dangerous and who paint men as predatory violent animals and women as poor victims being preyed upon. Even advertising on the television that portrays men as useless and stupid may reinforce her hatred of males and feed her feelings of the need to take revenge against all men for what one man has done to her.

Such thoughts and feelings are covered by the umbrella term, Misandry. A misandrist is a hater of men. There are many more of these people around than is popularly believed. Many of them are writing the things referred to above or are part of the organisations promoting hatred of men in our society.

Such a scenario is also possible in the case of a male abuser who resents being typecast in these ways by “evil women” and sets out to justify his violent behaviour by seeing himself as some kind of avenging angel. His thoughts and feelings of hatred and resentment towards women are embraced by the term, Misogynist. It is well known there are many of these men around, however, criticising female behaviour is not the same as hating females. An important distinction needs to be made between the two for any rational debate on these issues to succeed. **

* It is interesting to note that over 90% of males in prison come from broken homes, yet societies in the western world actively promote single motherhood as a virtue while discouraging marriage. That this is creating a huge problem for the future and singularly lacking any kind of wisdom should be obvious to all.

** A common defensive ploy of radical feminists is to paint any and all criticism of females as hatred of them and, by so doing, pressure people (chiefly men) into regarding a counter argument as misogynistic in origin and therefore worthy of being ignored.

The victim's relationship with the abuser.
The victim and the abuser have a complicated relationship that is difficult, at times, to define in simple terms. I will do my best here to look at the most common traits of that relationship as I have understood them.

Initially, as stated above, the victim will often have no idea their partner is abusive. (Those who do, and remain in the relationship, may well be attempting to “help” the abuser and this is a very dangerous thing for those with little or no knowledge of abusive personalities to attempt. It is difficult enough for a professional to help an abuser, it is certainly not something an amateur should attempt). As the ability to maintain the act of normality under the constant scrutiny of a close partner breaks down, so the real and disturbed person beneath the act will emerge. The first signs that all is not well may be anything from a slow escalation of irritable behaviour to a sudden explosion of violence.

It is important here to make another careful distinction. Not every act of irritable behaviour or sudden aggression means a person is automatically an abuser. All of us get out of bed on the wrong side sometimes. The key indicator is the frequency with which the behaviour occurs.

The most common indicator that one is living with an abuser will be that individuals need to control everything about the victim. This need to control will become all consuming over time and is common to both male and female abusers. * This need to control others seems to stem from two strong desires within the abusive personality. The first, is a desire to remain hidden and the second, is a desire not to feel inferior. In order to understand these two desires it is important to realise that abusers are deeply fearful people who are terrified of the strong and overwhelmingly powerful feelings raging within them. It is this fear that drives their need to bury those feeling as deeply within as possible and then to deny them when they rush to the surface.

Let us look first at the desire to remain hidden.
Within a close personal relationship it is perfectly natural for both parties to closely examine each others personalities and to explore each others feelings. This examination is what the abuser fears most. To the abuser, such a close look at who they are becomes deeply threatening. They spend their wholes lives hiding their true selves both from themselves and from society. They loathe themselves and often fear their capability for violence. They cannot bare coming under scrutiny and this innocent searching by their partner can often be the trigger for their abusive reactions as they try to halt the exploration of their deeper and hidden selves by using intimidation and/or violence. Yet their need to appear normal drives them to seek out a partner and have a “normal” relationship. **

The desire not to be inferior stems from a different set of unconscious dynamics.

We all remember the bright kid in school who was always picked on for being “the teachers pet.” That child stood out in the crowd and by virtue of the fact the he/she was smarter than the rest, made the rest feel inferior. By picking on the bright kid the others were trying to pull that child down to their level in order for them to lose their sense of inferiority. Unmerciful and constant teasing and/or bullying can force the bright child to conform to the wishes of the rest, and those bright kids who join the pack, quickly find the persecution stops. In a similar way, the abuser tries to drag their partner down to their level. This can be achieved by constant bullying and by a technique I have dubbed, verbal machine gunning.

To machine gun verbally means to fire a constant and rapid stream of accusations and insults without ever giving the victim time to answer any of the points made. These insults will often be projections of how the abuser really feels about themselves. For example; if the abuser feels strong feelings of jealousy towards the victims friends and associates, then the abuser accuses the victim of being jealous of him or her. Again, the abuser may feel inadequate in the kitchen, or driving, and so accuses the victim of being a crap cook or a lousy driver. Whatever the accusations are, they will often be delivered at high volume and in such rapid succession that the victim will be both terrified, confused, outraged and hurt, and with so much going on at once within them, feel totally unable to respond. A sort of mental and emotional paralysis ensues that may eventually lead to the complete collapse of the victim. At this stage the abuser is almost drunk on the feelings of power over the victim and if violence is to occur it may happen at that moment of evil euphoria. Victims have told me that they have seen the abuser “smiling down” at them with sick delight as they have folded beneath such onslaughts.

The reasons why the abuser does not want to give the victim time to answer are twofold. Firstly the abuser has absolutely no interest in the thoughts, concerns or feelings of the victim and secondly, the abuser is not interested in dialogue, but only in control over the victim. In the abusers world view, life is all about the great “ME” and not the little “you.”

The extent of control over the victim can sometimes be very far reaching indeed. I have spoken to many male and female victims who's abusive partners have chosen what food they eat and when. What clothes they wear and when. What times they are allowed out of the house and when to come home. Who they are allowed to be friends with and who they must never see. What time they are allowed to sleep and when they must wake up. When they can see their children and when they cannot. What relatives they can visit and those they cannot. What music they can enjoy. What purchases they can make. How much of their own money they can spend. And on and on.

Abusers who fear a partner may be about to leave them will often run up huge debts for their partner. Some will slander their name in the local community in the hope of stopping anyone else being interested in them. Poison the victim. Send abusive text messages to their phones. Stalk the victim or damage the car to prevent them leaving. Keep the victim from his/her children. Threaten suicide. Accuse the victim of rape or sexually molesting children. Make threatening or silent calls late at night. Destroy his/her property. Keep him/her at home against his/her will. Increase the level of violence. Threaten to kill the kids if she/he leaves. Try to ruin his/her reputation by spreading lies about him/her to his/her family and friends. Threaten suicide. Turn the children against the victim. Find and attack him/her in her new home etc.

All of this behaviour is about control and dominance over the victim. All of it is negative and destructive behaviour. It is unlimited in its creative evil and the two lists above are by no means extensive and neither are they mutually exclusive. Each gender is as capable of these things as the other.

* Indeed, so prevalent is this trait that careful and informed questioning by police officers called to a domestic abuse incident may well quickly illicit who is the real abuser and who is the real victim. Something that many police officers need to understand if they are to ever stop making the wild assumption that all abusers are male and all females are victims.

** This may be why many abuse victims are kind, gentle, loyal and deeply loving people. Most abusers will not seek confrontation with people who may fight back. They want easy targets that they can dominate. For the male and female abuser that will often mean a passive personality type is sought as the next victim.

“Treatment” for victims of abuse to avoid.

The co-dependancy (co-alcoholic) idea was first developed to explain other family members reactions to living with an addict and the harmful effects of those reactions. It is an entirely reasonable idea based on sound research. However, during the 1980`s the definition of codependency was expanded beyond all reasonable bounds, by people looking to make quick money by selling cheap books, to include virtually any form of caring for another. Simply put, this means that any and all caring behaviour is a form of psychological illness unless the person being cared for is the self. It could almost have been written by today's narcissistic element who advocate blaming others for the way we feel while accepting no responsibility for our own actions.

The pushers of the modern codependency therapy system of mock psychology will tell you that as a victim of abuse your feelings of caring for the abuser are wrong. (In fact, they will tell you that almost everything you feel about other people is wrong), but caring for others is not a pathological condition. My advice is to avoid these peddlers of doom like the plague. Being a caring person is not wrong but, excessive selfishness is, and in fact, is one of the symptoms of the abuser.

Robert Westermeyer, Ph.D. Has the following to say about the current codependency “fix all” sweeping book shops and chat shows on both sides of the Atlantic.

“Why would a psychologist wish to criticize the codependency idea? Many people claim to have been helped by codependency books and codependency self-help groups. I don't wish to take away anyone's belief that they are better for having integrated the codependency idea into their lifestyles. But it definitely isn't for everyone. Codependency is a nebulous idea, born not of science but of the gut feelings of counsellors 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. My two primary concerns with the codependency idea are:

The Codependency Idea Pathologizes the Natural Tendency to Care for Others.

The cure for Codependency Mandates Action which is Not Necessarily in Line With Pro social Values.” (Emphasis mine)

He goes on: “A case from several years ago comes to mind involving a caring mother who's 27-year old daughter had been abusing prescription opioids and benzodiazapines for ten years. The daughter finally made the decision attempt a methadone detox, following two months of methadone maintenance. The MD at the methadone clinic recommended that she taper the benzodiazapine, which was Valium (methadone doesn't cover non-opiate drugs). The mother was very invested in her daughter's change efforts and subsequently flew in from out of state to live with her while she detoxed. She agreed to dole out the Valium because the daughter felt that she could not do it on her own without relapsing. The mother hid them in her car and stood watch over her daughter during the first three weeks of her transition. The patient voiced that her mother's presence was imperative for relapse prevention at this time. The mother voiced that it made her feel as though she was finally doing something to help daughter which was panning out. She felt so good about her efforts that she went to an Al-anon meeting. She was literally attacked by three attendees who deemed her behavior enabling and, in addition to deeming her responsible for her daughter's enduring problems with substances, instructed her to go back to her home immediately and let her daughter grapple with her troubles on her own. One said, "She's an adult, and a time comes when you have to let them leave the nest or you're just perpetuating the illness."

Thankfully, this woman had enough conviction and confidence in her values to blow off the advice. Many people don't have this much tenacity to their standards. Many are given such guidance and are left in a complete quandary. The mother's contention was that her daughter was completely responsible for her choice to use or not use. She recognized that her daughter had crippling problems with anxiety and panic and had used the drugs to medicate these states. Though her daughter made the choices, she felt that there was a way she could help her daughter follow through with her motivation to better her life. She knew that if she went back home, her daughter would relapse and that relapse at this point would be devastating to her daughter, who had tried just about every method of quitting imaginable. She fathomed that her daughter might discount the whole methadone choice and revert to prescription drug abuse again.”

With attacks like those above on a mothers need to be involved in her daughters recovery from drug addition, it makes one wonder at times if the psychopaths are running the asylum!

It is a pervasive and disturbing view that relies more on “feelings” than serious research and it is to the medical and political establishments shame that these views have found any credence at all within today's society because they have kept silent in the face of such popularist, false and dangerous ideas.

Instead of buying into these “instant happiness” so-called solutions to modern living learn about assertiveness and ways in which you can better manage the situation you find yourself in.

The best advice that can be given to a victim of abuse is still, get out of the relationship as fast as you can!

Nobody in their right mind likes to see themselves as a victim but the truth is, that until you have broken free from the relationship and overcome the effects of the abuse, a victim is what you are. Once you have overcome the effects of the abuse -- and with the right help, that is almost always possible -- you become a survivor. The ease of transition from victim to survivor will depend entirely upon yourself, the quality of the help you receive if any is needed and the extent to which you were abused. If you wish to cut down on the time needed to recover and be your old self again, leave the abuser as soon as you possibly can.

George Rolph
Founder of No More Silence.
Contact: grolph@no-more-silence.org

When The Abuser is a Police Officer

2011-04-06T15:47:00.000-07:00

Many of the same qualities valued in on-duty police officers can make those same officers dangerous perpetrators of domestic violence. All abusers employ similar methods to control and abuse their intimate partners. Officers however, have an arsenal of skills and tactics not commonly possessed by civilians. Professional training in the use of force and weapons, intimidation, interrogation and surveillance techniques along with the cultural climate coalesce into a dangerous and potentially lethal combination in a domestic situation. Victims face the bias of law enforcement agencies and the legal system, psychological intimidation, and high risk of lethality.

This article examines the dynamics of police-perpetrated domestic violence and how it impacts the victim, the department, and the community. It explores how a police officer's training and professional life contribute to his arsenal of techniques and tactics of abuse. Finally, the article describes in detail the unique dilemma encountered by victims whose abusers are members of law enforcement.

Historical ChallengesDomestic violence is unique in that the parties share a personal, emotional and sexual relationship. By definition, domestic violence occurs within the family and generally within the privacy of the home. Only physical abuse or the threat of physical abuse is against the law. Discussion of verbal, emotional, sexual or psychological abuse is thus often considered irrelevant.

However, domestic violence is not solely about physical abuse. Domestic violence is a pattern of coercive behaviors used to intimidate and manipulate the victim for the purpose of gaining and maintaining control. It is precisely because of the non-physical types of abuse that the physical abuse "works" to control the victim. Talking exclusively about physical abuse takes these acts out of context and makes them similar to assault or battery by a stranger.

This pattern of violence takes place in a confused climate of intimacy and love mixed with hope, fear, isolation and intimidation. It is common for a woman to tell her counselor that she cannot call the police on her intimate partner or have him arrested because she does not want to betray his trust. She defends his character and makes excuses for his behavior. She may take responsibility for the abuse believing that she provoked it. She feels she must protect him out of a combination of fear and love.

Twenty years ago domestic violence advocates were considered radical when they suggested that a woman call the police when battered by her intimate partner.

This notion confronted men's sense of entitlement to dominate and to rule in the privacy of their homes. In step with the civil rights movement, women's right to be safe from bodily harm, even within their own homes, was recognized. States passed laws to protect women from violent husbands and intimate partners, moving domestic violence into the criminal arena.

Some police officers were reluctant to recognize domestic violence as a criminal offense and avoided enforcing the law. Years ago, police commonly told us that breaking up "marital disputes" and "lovers' quarrels" was not police work, but social work.

Many police officers still express frustration when victims call for intervention and then plead with the officer not to arrest the abuser. Police are discouraged by the number of cases in which the victim drops criminal charges. Over time, and with education on the dynamics of domestic violence, most police officers have come to consider domestic violence within the range of legitimate police work.

Current ChallengesThe final obstacle to overcome is police officers' reluctance to consider domestic violence a crime when it is perpetrated by one of their own.

Their strong sense of the police family dissuades them from considering police domestic violence a criminal offense, not unlike their attitude toward civilian domestic violence twenty years ago. Victims of police officers not only challenge the image of the personal family, they challenge the concept of the police family as well.

When domestic violence occurs in a police home, police departments choose to keep the incident a family secret and deal with it in-house. By treating the crime of domestic battery as a private matter or a marital problem, police departments regress to the approach of twenty years ago. The department hesitates to interfere in an employee's private life, and is extremely uncomfortable with the legal requirement to treat the offending officer like a common criminal. The victim, not the abuser, is identified as the traitor. The forces gather to silence her and to protect him.

Misuse of Institutional PowerPolice abusers differ from other abusers only in that they are tougher and more dangerous. They have training, a badge, a gun and the weight of the police culture behind them. Smart police do not hit, slap, kick, or choke their partners. It is not necessary. They exercise their power and control by intimidating, isolating and terrifying the victim. These forms of abuse need to be addressed when the perpetrator is an officer. They are misuses of institutional power — the badge, the gun, the support of the department — and there is the constant threat that he will use them all against her.

Police are trained to walk in and take control of any situation. Their mere presence, voice and stance are used to establish their authority. They learn a full range of information-gathering techniques ranging from interviewing and interrogating to vigilant surveillance. The proficient use of these investigative techniques requires the ability to be manipulative and deceptive.

Training includes much instruction on the use of escalating degrees of force and the use of deadly force. The use of force by a police officer is a serious matter and force is to be used only when necessary to enforce his position of authority. Police know which situations justify the use of force and how to adequately explain it should they have to defend their actions in a court of law.

Tactics of AbuseThe same characteristics and skills that are developed in training to produce competent officers are those that, when used in an intimate relationship, make police officers the most dangerous abusers.

The problem occurs when the officer walks through the front door of his home with the same mind-set he has in his professional life. His sense of entitlement to authority and respect from civilians carries over to his intimate partner. He cannot conceive of an egalitarian relationship. He must always be dominant and in control. Even a minor disagreement is perceived as a challenge to his authority which he will not tolerate. He uses his many finely honed skills and tactics to impress upon the victim that he has total control over her life.

Police officers use professional skills, police equipment, and the mobility of the job to keep their partners under surveillance. They run license plates of her friends and have access to information about anyone with whom she associates. They follow in their squad cars, park their squads or unmarked cars outside the victim's home for hours on end. They install recording devices in the victim's home or on her telephone. They use binoculars to observe the victim's activities from a distance. These methods serve as a constant reminder to the victim that she is always within the abuser's reach. He comes to be seen as omniscient and omnipotent, almost god-like.

The abuser uses verbal intimidation and degradation to communicate to the victim that she has no power in their relationship. He uses words as weapons to embarrass and humiliate her. He screams at her as if she was a criminal on the street — his voice and face changes; he uses vile language. He tells the victim she is no better than the whores and scumbags he deals with on the job every day.

Sometimes the verbal attack is used to provoke a confrontation for which he can then retaliate. If the verbal intimidation fails to gain control or earn the appropriate level of respect desired, the police abuser uses his training in the use of physical force. He then blames the victim for pushing him too far and making him batter her.

Physical abuse in police-perpetrated domestic violence is extremely brutal. It includes punching, choking, kicking, choke holds and body slams as well as techniques that inflict great pain yet leave no bruises or broken bones. He may hold a loaded gun to the victim's head or a fire a shot in close proximity to her sleeping child.

The abuser reinforces the victim's sense of isolation and hopelessness by frequently reminding her that there is no escape. He tells her she can call the police, but asks her who she thinks they will believe — him, or her? He tells her she can leave, but wherever she goes he will hunt her down. She can press charges against him, but she does not have enough evidence or credibility to make them stick. If she does manage to get him convicted, he will lose his job and then she will have no financial support for their children. He threatens that if he loses his job, she will lose her life.

Community Response MissingIf the victim has ever tried to escape before, she knows the truth in what he is saying. The victim knows that he will find her if she goes to a shelter because he knows or can easily find out where shelters are located. Most of her family and friends are afraid of him and afraid to be involved.

In general, the smaller the town, the fewer options she has; and the higher his rank, the fewer people who are willing to help her.

If the woman calls the police, she sees that when the police arrive at the scene and learn that the alleged perpetrator is a police officer, a shift takes place. The responding officers are now responding not to the victim of a crime, but to an officer in need.

Because most police departments do not have a policy addressing police-perpetrated domestic violence, the responding officers, who are the abuser's colleagues, use their discretion in handling the call. The responding officers are likely to discourage the victim from signing a complaint. They urge her to consider his career, to think about all the good things they share, to think about their kids. They assure her that he's a good man and a good police officer, that he's just under a lot of stress. They promise to talk to him off the record and invoke the code of silence. The responding officers do not inform their superiors and life goes on, for the abuser, as if nothing ever happened.

Laws and Policy BackfireVictims must overcome nearly insurmountable obstacles to pursue charges.

Where the victim does press charges, she is accused of being vindictive and going after his job. Obtaining a protective order is perceived as an act of aggression. The victim faces a legal system that is hostile and foreign to her, but is his daily work environment. He knows the system and the players in the system are his acquaintances and co-workers.

The court's leniency with perpetrators who are members of law enforcement has intensified since the passage of the Lautenberg amendment that prohibits anyone convicted of a domestic battery from possessing a firearm. The amendment provides no exemption for police officers even though the performance of their official duties requires possession of a firearm.

The law backfires on the victim because her complaint jeopardizes the officer's career. It is unlikely that losing his job will deter future wife abuse. Most often the violence will escalate because he will blame her for the loss of his job. In some cases the violence will be lethal because the abuser will feel he has nothing left to lose. His job is his identity. Confiscating the abuser's service weapon may protect the department from liability, but it does not protect the victim.

If the victim goes to the department, her complaint is received in a defensive or hostile manner. The victim is perceived as hysterical, exaggerating, or lying. After this initial response to her complaint, the victim reasonably can conclude that the subsequent investigation, should there be one, is often biased in favor of the abuser. The victim does not know where to turn.

When the victim is a police officer, her jeopardy is compounded. Her family, her career, and her life are at risk. She defies everyone's stereotype of a victim and image of a police officer. Her colleagues question her professional competence. If her abuser is also an officer, she is breaking the police code of silence by exposing him. Her colleagues may well turn against her and side with her abuser. Abused officers are often disciplined by the department whether they report or fail to report the abuse.

Confidentiality in QuestionSome departments have an in-house victim advocate. Victims understandably are reluctant to confide in the advocate because the advocate is an employee of the department. The victims fear that their confidentiality will be compromised. For example, a department advocate may deem a breach of confidentiality to be in the victim's best interest. The advocate may decide to breach confidentiality in an effort to cooperate with the department or in response to a conflict between the advocate and the department.

Some departments employ social workers. Their crisis intervention in domestic violence cases frequently includes counseling both the victim and the offender. The same limitations that restrict the effectiveness of a department advocate restrict the effectiveness of a police social worker. The victim is acutely aware that the police social worker and the abuser are co-workers. The daily cooperative working relationship between the social worker and the officers presents a serious conflict of interest and loyalties. It is ludicrous to expect these victims, of all victims, to trust anyone employed by the police department.

In the same vein, many employees refuse to utilize Employee Assistance Programs when they have problems that jeopardize their careers. Employees simply do not trust that their confidentiality will be protected. Domestic violence advocates' concern is that many EAP-referred therapists and social workers lack training in the field of domestic violence.

Misinformation or unrealistic advice could have lethal consequences for all parties involved.

Mandated Batterers' CounselingDepartments could begin to address the problem by mandating abusive police officers into counseling affiliated with a domestic violence program. In Illinois, a certification process ensures that counselors who work with offenders follow a state-approved protocol.

Some police administrators suggest that offenders' treatment would be more palatable to the officers if there were groups exclusively for police officers. Rationalizations for an exclusive group must be closely examined. The primary assumption is that a police officer will be in an uncomfortable, embarrassing, or compromising position if he is required to attend batterers' counseling with civilians with whom he may later have professional contact. Surely doctors, lawyers, ministers and others in the community who attend batterers' groups have those same concerns regarding their personal reputations and careers.

Creating special groups for police officers only reinforces their elite status and reinforces the concept that they are somehow superior to the average criminal offender.

Police abusers differ from civilian abusers only in that they have the advantages of their training, their badge, their gun, and the weight of their tight-knit culture behind them.

This distinction makes their criminal behavior more egregious in that it is a misuse of official power and privilege. Perhaps it would be a good thing for an officer to be in a group with the guy down the street whom he arrested on a domestic violence call. He can see just how similar they are — except for the training, the badge, the gun, and the police to back him up.

Victims and abusers desperately seek ways to remove the burden of responsibility from the offender and to place it elsewhere. For example, the stress of police work, unstable working hours, and frustration with the system are often professed to be the factors that cause police officers to batter their intimate partners. Attributing the use of violence to a chemical imbalance or a personality disorder is also problematic. Alcohol and drug use, stress, posttraumatic stress, poor impulse control, intermittent explosive disorder, and poor anger management are common defenses.

However, these all beg the question as to why they manifest only in the presence of others who are powerless against the abuser. Rarely do we hear of police officers using violence against a superior officer or a judge in a court of law. We must remain focused on the dynamics of power and control in our analysis of police violence, and not be distracted by analysis of stress or anger management.

Confidential Victims' AdvocacyVictims of police-perpetrated domestic violence should be referred to a local domestic violence agency. There the victim has the protection of confidentiality. She knows that her counselor is not aligned with the police department that employs her abuser. She does not run the risk that her advocate will share information with the department. Domestic violence advocates in domestic violence agencies can learn the dynamics unique to police officer-involved domestic violence. Though vastly intensified, the dynamics of power and control are the same as in civilian cases.

An advocate can discuss numerous options with the victim, including the option of informing the police department of the abuse. A victim's desire to inform the department is often based on the hope that the department can somehow hold the abuser's violence in check. A realistic discussion of this option requires knowledge of the department's attitude, policy and procedures. Both a policy and a cooperative working relationship between the domestic violence agency and the police department are essential.

If a woman decides that she wants to talk to the chief, an advocate can act as a liaison and a source of emotional support and advocacy. The advocate works with the victim to set realistic expectations as to what intervention is within the chief's power.

Some victims want the department to discipline the abuser, others want the department to mandate that the abuser receive counseling. The advocate advises the victim that the department becomes liable once the chief is informed. Depending on the severity of the abuse, the chief may terminate the officer's employment. Many times this is not a practical solution for the victim because she and her children are financially dependent on his income. Other times, the victim fears that the abuser's retaliation would cost her life and so chooses to remain silent.

Cooperation EssentialBuilding a support system for the victim ideally includes assistance from the chief of the involved department. I met with police chiefs in our suburban area. They assured me that they do not condone the abuse of police power and privilege demonstrated by abusive police officers, nor do they wish to bear the liability for an abusive officer in their department. We discussed the risk to the victim in coming forward, what action the department would take to protect the victim, and what action the department might take to hold the officer accountable.

I informed them of the advantages of having a domestic violence agency, independent of the department, provide information and counseling to victims of police officers. We discussed the prevalence of police-perpetrated domestic violence and whether there is need for a formal policy and procedures in responding to officer-involved cases.

Impact on CommunityThere is serious impact on the community when police officers gain a reputation for getting away with domestic violence. The media have exposed many cases in which little or nothing has been done by police departments or the criminal justice system to hold the abuser accountable or to protect the victim. This breeds skepticism and distrust of the police in the general public, and affirms the worst nightmares of the victims. Abusive police officers are validated in their belief that they are above the law.

When I speak to community groups about our program, it is clear that members of the community are very concerned that the same police officer who terrorizes his family could respond to a domestic violence call in their own family or neighborhood.

It greatly disturbs their sense of safety when they learn that complaints are made by victims and the department looks the other way because the perpetrator is one of their own. When people doubt the integrity of the police officers in their community it undermines the effectiveness of the police and puts all citizens at risk.

We have grave concerns regarding how police officers who commit the crime of domestic battery respond to domestic violence calls in the community. Obviously, their attitude may be less than appropriate in dealing with either party. Moreover, a police officer who is sympathetic to an abuser may not adequately protect a victim, projecting his own beliefs that women exaggerate the danger.

An officer who feels he is unjustly restrained by court order from contact with his wife or children may feel that other men are also unjustly sanctioned. That officer may be reluctant to enforce a protective order. Another potential problem is that police officers frequently testify in criminal cases against civilian abusers. We fear that testimony may be tainted due to personal bias when the witness is himself an offender.

ConclusionMost police perpetrators' greatest fear is the loss of their job. A department's policy and attitude may be the most influential factors in deterring police domestic violence. Police departments have a responsibility to their employees and their employees' families to confront this problem. Domestic violence is not a private matter in any household. It is a crime. The claim that society is holding police officers to a higher standard is clearly unfounded. Officers are sworn not only to enforce the law, but to abide by it.

Source

Passive-Aggressive Behavior

2011-04-06T15:44:00.000-07:00

Passive-aggressive behavior is the expression of anger indirectly. This happens because we got the message one way or another in childhood that it was not OK to express anger. Since anger is energy that can not be completely repressed it gets expressed in indirect ways. This takes the form one way or another, overtly or subtly, of us acting out the battle cry "I'll show you Iíll get me.": As a kid I was very angry at my mother for not protecting me or herself from my father - but it was not ok to be angry at my mother so I was passive-aggressive in various ways. One was to not show any feelings.

By the time I was 7 or 8 I was being cool in a passive-aggressive response to her attempts to be close to me I would not let her touch me, I would not show happiness if something good happened or pain if something bad happened. I would just say "it's ok" no matter how much it wasn't. I also "showed" her and my dad by not getting the type of grades as I was capable of getting in school. I have spent much of my life sabotaging myself to get back at them.

Passive-aggressive behavior can take the form of sarcasm, procrastination, chronic lateness, being a party pooper, constantly complaining, being negative, offering opinions and advice that is not asked for, being the martyr, slinging arrows ("whatever have you done to your hair", "gained a little weight haven't we?"), etc. If we don't know how to set boundaries or will go along with anything to avoid conflict, then we often will agree to doing things we don't want to do - and as a result we will not be happy doing them and will get back at the other person somehow, someway because we are angry at them for "making" us do something we don't want to do.

A classic scenario is being asked where you want to eat and saying "oh, I don't care, wherever you want to" and then being angry because they take us somewhere we don't like. We think they should be able to read our mind and know we don't want to do whatever. Typically, in relationships, one partner will ask the other to do something and the person who can't say "I don't want to do that" - will agree to do it and then not do it. This will result in nagging and scolding which will cause more anger and passive-aggressive behavior.

The way to stop being passive-aggressive is to start being honest (first of all with ourselves), having boundaries (the more we get in touch with our inner children the more we can have boundaries with the angry ones that are causing us to be passive-aggressive), saying no when we don't want to do something. It is easier said than done. On one level what we are doing is recreating our childhood dynamics of being criticized by our parents.

It is because at our core we feel unworthy and unlovable that we have relationships - romantic, friendship, work - where we will be criticized and given the message that we are bad or wrong. Because we don't Love our self we need to manifest people outside of ourselves that will be our critical parent - then we can resent them, feel victimized, and be passive-aggressive. They are in fact just a reflection of how we treat ourselves internally. The more we can learn to defend ourselves internally from the critical parent voice the more we will find that we don't want critical people in our lives."

Source

Abuser Red Flags/ Victim Red Flags

2011-04-06T15:37:00.000-07:00

We believe that we have identified some of the "early warning" signs that we missed in ourselves and our abusers. Note that the abuser can be male or female; the victim can also be either male or female. Not every behavior listed below will be exhibited by a single individual. However, you may want to question your relationship if you find that a large number of these behaviors appear in yourself or your partner.
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Abuser's Behavior

Watch out for these behaviors in your partner. Members of my support group believe that these are warning signs that this person may be an abuser. Note that the abuser can be male or female.

Jealous of time or resources you give others.

Gets angry if you spend "too much time" with friends, family, or children.

Insists that it is "a bad time" to talk to family on the phone.

Feels that resources are "wasted" if given to children.

Gets angry if you do favors for other people or give them things.

Would rather throw something away than give it to someone else.

Is disinterested in or feels threatened by your personal desires or goals.

Finds your hobbies boring, pointless, unproductive, or a waste of time.

Is uncooperative about attending parties or events that interest you.

Picks a fight or creates a crisis just before an event that is important to you.

States or implies that your interests should not interfere with spending time with them.

Is rude or inconsiderate of others in a self-centered way.

Insists on discussing something with you while you are trying to read or watch television.

Expects you to be the one who answers the door or telephone.

Expects you to drop what you are doing when summoned.

Interrupts others while talking on a consistent basis.

Will not act to accommodate others' convenience or comfort.

Won't go outside to smoke

Will not turn down TV or radio while others are talking.

Is unconcerned and unapologetic if rude behavior is pointed out.

Does not respect your right to make your own decisions.

Insists that your decision "affects them" and therefore should be a "joint" decision.

Gets angry or hurt if you don't take their advice.

Criticizes or questions the wisdom of decisions that you make without their input.

Considers their own logic or intellect to be superior to all others.

Insists that their way is the "right way".

Claims that their arguments are based on logic or sound evidence and that yours are not.

Places no value on decisions made based on feelings or intuition.

Believes that any opinion you have is invalid, illogical, hysterical, or selfish.

Is completely intolerant of any criticism of their own behavior.

Is confident that their employer and/or employees are all defective somehow.

Considers your friends to be idiots.

Extremely opinionated and critical of others

Racist or sexist.

Dogmatic about behavior in others.

Unwilling to tolerate opinions that differ from their own.

Has double standards for behavior.

Is rude to your family.

Dislikes your family.

Has "trouble" at work.

Is chronically unemployed or changes jobs frequently.

Explains employment set-backs as some sort of victimization.

Believes that their boss treats them poorly.

Believes that their co-workers are working against them.

Disregards laws or social customs that interfere with their own goals or pleasure.

Sees no point in observing holidays or giving gifts.

Is disinterested in following family or religious customs.

Believes that people who work hard for a living are "suckers".

Is scornful of the government or the "system".

Uses illegal drugs.

Is very concerned about their public image.

Treats you better in public than in private.

Gets angry at you if they believe that you have somehow made them look bad to others.

Brags about you or your accomplishments to others, but never compliments you in private.

Attempts to make you jealous or insecure

Threatens to leave you.

Hints or states that they have other lovers waiting on the side.

Compares you to previous lovers.

Admires strangers and compares you to them.

Tells you that no one will ever care about you the way they do.

Is jealous and suspicious.

Accuses you of infidelity.

Insists that friends of the opposite sex are trying to seduce you.

States or implies that you got a job offer or interview because of your appearance.

Doesn't want you to take part in an activity or outing because you might meet someone else there.

Rushes the relationship

Pressures you to move in together.

Pressures you to have sex before you are ready.

Proposes marriage early in the relationship.

Does not respect your privacy

Reads your diary or journal.

Opens your mail.

Goes through your drawers and desk.

Manipulates others to achieve their goals

Uses guilt trips.

Does things that are dishonest or illegal.

Attempts to coerce you into doing things that make you uncomfortable.

Threatens suicide or homicide if you don't cooperate with them.

Lectures you endlessly until you agree.

Is easily angered at others who interfere with their activities.

Engages in "Road Rage".

Reactions are out of proportion to level of inconvenience.

Impatient

Is intolerant of children or animals.

Will not get up to feed or change the baby.

Is unwilling to have pets or children because of the mess or inconvenience.

Shows preferential treatment between children (especially "natural" vs. "step" children).

Believes that children don't deserve the level of treatment or support as adults.

Insists that THEY are the victim in the relationship.

Accuses you of being selfish, rude, self-centered, uncooperative, etc.

Claims that you are the one undermining the relationship.

Accuses you of not loving them or not caring about them.

Threatens suicide or homicide if you leave them.

Lack of empathy

Inability to put themselves in another's shoes.

Unwilling to provide comfort to others unless "blame" clearly lies elsewhere.

Makes minimal effort to care for others when sick or injured while complaining about the inconvenience.

Cruel to animals.

Considers donations to charity a waste.

Unable to acknowledge or respond to pain in others/ or you that is not clearly visible.

Turns up TV when you have a headache

Insists on spicy food when you have an upset stomach

Expects you to help with chores when you are feeling sick.

Tears down your self esteem and erodes your confidence.

Tone of voice unreasonably deriding or scornful for the situation.

Questions your ability to do simple things.

Asks you to make a decision and then rejects your decision. Often asking you to decide over again.

Accuses you of being overly sensitive to criticism.

Calls you names.

Criticizes you openly.

Interferes with or attempts to control your career.

Pressures you to quit or change your job.

Thinks that your employer interferes with your marriage.

Thinks that your co-workers/employer/employees are defective somehow.

Attempts to resolve conflicts you have at work for you.

Seeks to "help you" with your career, and is upset if you don't cooperate.

Attempts to choose your job or work projects for you.

Punishes you or threatens to punish you for "misbehaving

Strands you somewhere.

Gives you the "silent treatment".

Yells at you.

Lectures you.

Believes that a "discussion" about your relationship is more important that any other obligation or activity.

Makes you late to work or social activities because they want to discuss something.

Picks a fight with you at bedtime and then won't let you go to sleep for hours.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Victim's Behavior

Watch out for these behaviors in yourself. Members of my support group believe that these are warning signs of low self esteem
and behaviors that set you up to be abused.

Fear of failure, and extreme insecurity about your own competance

Try hard to conceal or downplay any mistakes you make.

Are afraid to be seen as stupid, lazy, or weak.

Feel that you are "supposed" to be able to handle a situation or task.

Fear that others will think less or you if you quit.

Believe that no excuse is good enough for a mistake you have made.

Willing to overlook other people's flaws or mistakes.

Believe everyone else but you is perfect and has a good reason for making a mistake.

Believe that you can help others "live up to their potential".

Not trusting your own judgment.

Feel as though your opinion is not as "worthy" as someone else's.

Find a "logical" argument to disregard your "inner voice" or gut feeling.

Assume that criticism you receive from others is valid.

Need another person's input before you can make a decision.

Not feeling that you deserve to be treated well.

Are willing to go to great inconvenience and trouble to avoid causing someone else inconvenience.

Don't want to appear "demanding" or to be considered a "trouble maker"

Assume that if someone treats you poorly then you must have done something wrong.

Expect and accept criticism when you have completed a task.

Are unwilling to be disruptive to the relationship.

Avoid discussing issues that you fear will upset your partner.

Are unwilling to break off a bad relationship because you don't want to hurt your partner.

Secretly wish that your partner would die, move away, find someone else, or offer to leave the relationship.

Allow others to make most decisions.

Let someone else make all the decisions with no input or discussion from you.

Allow others to talk you into a decision you don't like.

Make a decision to please others rather than yourself.

Choose a course of action because you don't want to hurt a particular person's feelings.

Find it easier to "go along" with others decision rather than stand your ground.

Hide behind "womanly tasks" like cooking, etc. - rather than dealing with reality.

Behave as though you agree with others, even when you don't.

"Parrot" someone else's opinions or behaviors.

Keep quiet when you disagree with something

- Allowing someone to think by your silence that you agree with them even if you don't.

- Thinking that the subject is not worth an argument.

Act to "protect" others at your own expense.

Won't break up with a significant other strictly to avoid hurting their feelings.

Avoid saying what you want or need to say because you don't want to hurt someone.

Accept blame that is not yours to protect someone else.

Giving up things that are important to you to please others.

Give up hobbies or activities that aren't shared or approved of.

Give away or sell precious momentos because they "clutter up the place".

Keep photos or momentos in storage rather than display them because your abuser doesn't like them.

Isolate yourself from all people other than your abuser.

Allow friendships with people your abuser dislikes to wither away.

Visit or call family less and less because your abuser dislikes them.

Spend less time with friends, family, or co-workers because it "takes too much time".

Never go anywhere without your abuser.

Conceal your abusers behavior from others.

Believe that others "wouldn't understand" why a situation or behavior is "justified".

Are embarrassed that you allow yourself to be treated this way.

Have been asked or coerced by your abuser to not tell.

Are afraid of being accused of "making them look bad".

Take responsibility for things that are not your responsibility.

"Help" resolve other people's conflicts by acting as mediator

Apologize for things that OTHER people did.

"Cover" for people who are not handling their own responsibilities.

Accept more than your fair share of blame in a conflict.

Apologize just so that the fight will end, not because you think you did something wrong.

Fix, clean up, or conceal something done by someone else to avoid being accused of having done it.

Attraction to authority figures.

Attracted to the smart, self-confident, powerful people.

Attempt to prove your worth to them.

Are thrilled if they "bother" to notice you.

Assume that their advice is sound.

How Psychopaths View Their World

2011-04-06T15:34:00.000-07:00

Most psychopaths are very arrogant and cocky. However, when charming a potential victim, they say all the "right" things and make you believe they are kind-hearted souls; not always, but often enough.

The truth is, psychopaths are not altruistic and do not really care about friendships or ties. Guggenbuhl-Craig states that they are very talented at appearing much more humble than the average person, but are hardly so. Some are also able to feign concern about the lower classes and profess that they are on the side of the underdog, the poor, and so forth. A psychopath may claim, for instance (if he's from a low socio-economic class), that he dislikes rich people intensely, but at the same time, he will inwardly yearn and envy what they have. He is like the narcissist, desiring to reflect a false image of himself through his possessions. Among his possessions are included human beings: girlfriends, wives, and children. Some psychopaths can even very fond of animals (contrary to the common viewpoint), but still view them as objects in relation to themselves.

The psychopath is filled with greed inside, relating to the world through power, even though, as I said, on the outside he can claim to be on the side of the disenfranchised or the downtrodden. I knew one who liked to repeat phrases such as "they have to stop keeping my brothers down" but he didn't mean a word of it. He was actually a racist. The psychopath can also often identify himself as a revolutionary.

On the flip side, the psychopath also often paints a picture of himself as the downcast anti-hero (his "own worst enemy type") and some like to see themselves as lone-wolves. The psychopath may even claim he is sensitive and profound, but inside he is nothing but emptiness and greed. Whether or not the psychopath is aware of his behaviour is something that is often debated. I do believe that psychopaths usually know exactly what they are doing, although others suggest that psychopaths are "born, not made."

I believe that psychopathy is primarily genetic. A son with a psychopathic father often will be psychopathic as well, especially if the father was abusive and/or abandoned the family as well.

As mentioned, psychopaths often claim to settle for second best (being their own worst enemy) and then think they deserve better. This may be manifested in the way they seek power -- either through money (i.e. material goods), manipulation and/or treating people as objects. By enacting such behaviours, the psychopath is also trying to "get back" at society and the world, in order to gain retribution. They will spend their entire lives doing this, whether they are rich or poor, or whatever their social background may be, although studies have shown that they often come from an impoverished or lower socio- economic background and/or social status. (In one of Dr. Donald Black's studies, many of the men were "overwhelmingly white, blue collar, lower middle class, and married, and most had not graduated from high school.". (Let me add, despite Dr. Blacks' studies, psychopaths can still exist in any social class. Do not be misled). I also wanted to point out that I will be using "he" and "him" for the term psychopath throughout this website; let it not be forgotten, yes, female psychopaths exist as well; however, according to the Sixth Edition of Abnormal Behavior, printed in 2000 by three male professors, David, Derald, and Stanley Sue, the rates do differ by gender. Included in their excellent text is a report by the The American Psychiatric Association that the general estimate is 3% for men, and less than 1% in women [Personality Disorders and Impulse Control Disorders, 238].

What is very disturbing about psychopaths, besides their sense of special entitlement, is the complete lack of empathy for normal people, for "antisocials (psychopaths) seem to lack a conscience, feeling little or no empathy for the people whose lives they touch...the antisocial effortlessly resists all regulation, unable to see beyond his self-interest or to adopt standards of right versus wrong.".

Not all psychopath are uneducated low-class misfits. Some of them are quite handsome and have good careers, and use this all the more to their benefit. Take a look at Ted Bundy; my friend's mother once went on a double-date with him and claimed he was the nicest person. His mother said he was the "best son any mother could have." Bundy was also apparently quite good-looking, which made him even more dangerous. So not all psychopaths are derelict, low-class, high school drop-outs, there are many who also work in professional occupations; the fact remains that there are just more psychopaths who come from impoverished backgrounds than not.

Also, not all psychopaths are calm, cool, and collected. Some of them appear strange or odd, and their behaviour can be eccentric or unusual. I believe this is what can confuse victims most often. Psychopaths often appear [see pictures here]: intense and "electrifying". Do not be misled if someone appears harmless, "foolish", or seems offbeat. An "angelic" visage can also often fool people. Just picture John Wayne Gacy in his "clown costume" as he entertained children as one example. Another example which someone on the "Victims of Psychopathy" board came up with was Bill Clinton and his "goofy" yet loveable demeanour (so is Clinton really a psychopath? Many believe he is).

A psychopath (he was diagnosed anti-social) I knew used the harmless cover-up quite well. Everyone thought he was very funny. I did too, at first. Then, little by little, I realised there was something "not right" about him. At first his seemingly harmless pranks were charming, but after a while, he became more of a nuisance and disrupted our work environment, which created havoc and tension between employees. I've learned, a psychopath can use these disguises for his own hidden purpose.Regardless of race, social class, or occupation, however, the psychopath is dangerous to society, for "the nature of ASP (psychopathy) implies that it wreaks more havoc on society than most other mental illnesses do, since the disorder primarily involves reactions against the social environment that drag other people into its destructive web...The despair and anxiety wrought by antisocials (psychopaths) tragically affects families and communities, leaving deep physical and emotional scars..."

There is much to the psychopathic personality which is baffling and disturbing. 1 in about 25-30 people are psychopathic (also known as sociopaths or anti-social -- the correct title being psychopath.) Since the majority or them are men, I wrote this site in part, to warn women about the dangers, especially women online, which I believe is a favourite "new medium" which appeals to psychopaths. I have personal experience with this subject as well. This is because "antisocials (psychopaths) are not just characters in our fictional or true-life entertainments. They are family members, friends, co-workers, neighbors, or strangers we may encounter every day." .

Pamela Jayne, M.A., writes that "30% of men are sociopathic." If about every three out of ten men I may meet are psychopathic, I would assume this is not something to take lightly. According to these statistics, that would mean every three out of ten men and maybe every one out of ten females. The truth is, we do not really know exactly how many individuals are psychopathic; however, there seems to be a rise in the prevalence of psychopathy and that is why some claim that numbers are higher. Dr. Black claims that psychopathy leads right behind depression, along with schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder, which is an astounding fact.

How Abusers Break You Down

2011-04-06T15:21:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the tactics abuser's use to hurt you... to take you down and keep you there. How many do you recognize?

Verbal Assaults: Berating, belittling, criticizing, name calling, screaming, threatening, excessive blaming, and using sarcasm and humiliation. Blowing flaws out of proportion and making fun of you in front of others. Over time, this type of abuse erodes your sense of self confidence and self-worth.

Domination: The abuser wants to control your every action. They have to have their own way, and will resort to threats to get it. When you allow someone else to dominate you, you can lose respect for yourself.

Emotional Blackmail: The abuser plays on your fear, guilt, compassion, values, or other "hot buttons" to get what they want. This could include threats to end the relationship, the "cold shoulder," or use other controlling fear tactics.

Gaslighting: The other person may deny that certain events occurred or that certain things were said. You know differently. The other person may deny your perceptions, memory and very sanity. It is this act of abuse which makes you begin to think you are crazy or losing your mind.

Unpredictable Responses: Drastic mood changes or sudden emotional outbursts. Whenever someone in your life reacts very differently at different times to the same behavior from you, tells you one thing one day and the opposite the next, or likes something you do one day and hates it the next, you are being abused with unpredictable responses.

* This behavior is damaging because it puts you always on edge. You're always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and you can never know what's expected of you. You must remain hypervigilant, waiting for the other person's next outburst or change of mood.

* An alcoholic or drug or sex abuser is likely to act this way. Living with someone like this is tremendously demanding and anxiety provoking, causing the abused person to feel constantly frightened, unsettled and off balance.

Abusive Expectations: The other person places unreasonable demands on you and wants you to put everything else aside to tend to their needs. It could be a demand for constant attention, frequent sex, or a requirement that you spend all your free time with the person. But no matter how much you give, it's never enough. You are subjected to constant criticism, and you are constantly berated because you don't fulfill all this person's needs.

Constant Chaos: The other person may deliberately start arguments and be in constant conflict with others. The person may be "addicted to drama" since it creates excitement.

Source

Narcissism 101

2011-04-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

So you're a psycho and you want to advance your studies? Take Narcissism 101.

Here's a course outline:

1. When your supply runs low - how to get an interim supply, having safe sex, getting a free ride (includes love-bombing women, seeing hookers & bragging about it, and manipulating friends, mind control, seduction and using the net to "be anyone they want you to be")

2. How to find a victim - includes loads of internet dating, hooking the co-worker, using a friend or parent, trolling online for new & old targets (reunion sites, linkedin, facebook).
(Prostitutes when you want or need are o.k. - they "don't count'. Actually nobody 'counts' - only YOU!)

3. Checking their emotional state - includes psychological profiling. (depressed, alone, divorced, sick, abused, lonely, naive, religious, they believe there's good in everyone, etc...)

4. Finances - how to find a mate with cash, a good income, and property - in case you need someone to take care of you when you screw up. Repeatedly.

5. How to bait them - includes dressing for success, tips on pouring out your tales of woe, how your wife/ S.O. doesn't understand, you don't get enough love or sex, your job is mean to you, your parents abused you... list is endless.

6. Getting them to move in with you - includes how to get their cash and property put into your name, how to write a prep, finding a lawyer, drawing up wills, getting life insurance. Berating them so they keep trying to prove themselves by doing all the chores & heavy lifting will be included.

7. Early stages of living with them - includes going easy at first , etiquette, manners, calling the your 'soulmate', effective use of the word 'love', taking financial control, how to plan your marriage.

8. Managing your mate - includes isolation, brainwashing, coercion and persecution techniques that have a proven track record, plus how to fake a loving relationship and your OWN sanity while around them. Also, you will learn all there is about emotional terrorism.

9. Divorcing your mate - includes lists of lawyers, how to hide your accumulated wealth, having a back-up supply, projection, rallying support of family and friends.

10. Smearing your ex or ex-friends who are on to your game is important - threats, intimidation, bullying or posting lies about them online go hand-in-hand with calling them "crazy, a bitch/ bastard, stupid, obsessed with you, stalkers, scorned, jealous" and telling people they "can't let it go" after you've destroyed their life & crushed their spirit.

11. Moving on with your life - includes analyzing your situation, finding a new source, and getting your house in order all over again.

12. Find new source. Don't get help. Find new source. More than one is preferable.

The only requirement is a sick mind and a complete emotional void.

-anonymous

Projection

2011-04-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

by Kathy Krajco

Projection is a new name for an old thing, scapegoating. In this section I just explain it in general terms, with examples. In the next section, we zero-in on how narcissists project and what is unique about the way they do it.

Projection. We find it everywhere. Which should be no surprise. It's actually the oldest trick in The Book. Really. The Serpent pulled it on Eve in the Book of Genesis when, in the very act of lying to Eve, he accused God of being the liar.

Here's how the story goes. The serpent had just suggested that Eve eat the Forbidden Fruit, and she replied that God told them not to because eating it would bring about their fall. The cunning serpent said, "God told you THAT?"

Slick, eh? In the very act of telling a whopper, the sneaky snake left-handedly called God a liar, through the power of suggestion. Thus the Prince of Lies pulled an identity-switch with God.

Moses ritualized a demonstration of projection in the Book of Leviticus as the prescribed rite for the annual Day of Atonement.

In this "atonement" ritual, all the people had to come forward, one by one, and make the scapegoat (a perfect yearling firstborn male to represent someone unblemished and with great potential) take their sins away from them and onto himself. How did they do this? By accusing him of their sins and laying the blame on his head. Then they had to purge themselves of him and make him atone for their sins. How did they do that? By chasing him away into the desert until he gave up trying to follow them back home, and then deserting him there. Which was the sentence worse than death = doom, because he would slowly die of thirst.

One hardly thinks they enjoyed doing this. Would you?

Wouldn't you instead get Moses' message? More powerful than a sermon, eh? Wouldn't you hang your head a little, thinking, "Jeez, are we that transparent?"

But never underestimate willful obtuseness' power to get things exactly backwards. Soon, people had done just that. Instead of being duly shamed by this ritual reenactment of how they "cleansed" and "saved" themselves (from justice) by scapegoating those who have the most to lose and are the least deserving, they decided that this ritual meant that this despicable behavior is the right thing to do! the way to cleanse yourself of sin!

How convenient.

They didn't get it later, either, when John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth came along and said: "Read our lips: To cleanse yourselves of your sins, don't punish an innocent scapegoat for them! Just R-E-F-O-R-M. Too complex?"

People still managed to just anti-get the message yet again, deciding that this meant they should graduate from animals and sacrifice these two men as the scapegoats to die for/of (in scripture you have this double entente, because the word used can mean either for or of) their sins.

So, then St. Paul gave it a shot. He really tried to make people see that they'd better quit acting stupid and projecting, instead of repenting, their sins. In his letter to the Romans, he basically put it in the plainest terms possible — those of a threat that asked, "Just whom do you think you're fooling?"

You — who steal — preach that other people should stop stealing. You — who commit adultery — preach that others should stop committing adultery. You — who commit sacrilege — preach that others should stop being idolaters. — Letter to the Romans, Chapter 2, verses 21-22
How's that for letting the self-righteous know that you know all their finger pointing is just projection/scapegoating?

Ah, but obtuseness is invincible, and twisted thinking can make black white. So, again this simple message went in one ear and out the other. All three peoples of that Book (Jews, Christians, and Muslims) still got it exactly backwards. They all say that the blood of the innocent victim on them "cleanses" them of their sins.

Projection. We see it everywhere. It's a kind of baptism = a mud bath people give their betters, by rubbing themselves off on them. Here's how it works.

Got a guilty conscience? If so, you've certainly been tempted to say to yourself, "I'm not so bad." To prove that, you must look around for an example of someone who's worse. Then you can say to yourself, "Aha! I'm not as bad as So-and-So."

But guess what? You didn't pick a So-and-So who really has that fault and has it worse than you. You picked someone with very little mud on his name, someone who looks cleaner than you, if possible, someone who has the corresponding virtue instead of that fault.

We're all tempted to pull this stunt. Some of us do, and some of us don't.

For example: If you're stingy, look for someone with a reputation for generosity, because generosity in your neighbor puts your stinginess to shame by serving as a foil that (by contrast) makes your stinginess more noticeable. Then smear your vice off on him. Tell everybody that he's stingy. Make everything he does sound stingy.

Thus you kill two birds with one stone: you rid yourself of your stinginess and him of his generosity.

Not. But looks are everything, and Truth doesn't matter, and this fraud makes you look good by comparison with him. Ah, cheating is much easier than freeing yourself of sin the legitimate way, by repentance.

You can see why narcissists highly prize this device called "projection" and become expert in it.

Projection. We see it everywhere. For example, guess who's favorite portrayal of the President of the United States is as "a Hitler" or "even worse than Hitler?" You guessed it, the Germans. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder did it in campaign speeches to turn the tide and get elected. And guess whose favorite and constant characterization of Americans is as "arrogant?" You guessed it, the French. Projection.

Once you catch on to projection, you do recognize it in a vast amount of the badmouthing you hear.

Magicians call this trick "misdirection." With one hand magicians misdirect our attention so we don't see what they're doing with their other hand.

Finger-pointers do the same thing. They direct people's attention (critical attention, negative attention) away from themselves and what they're doing by accusing someone else of doing the same, or essentially the same, thing. Thus they make themselves seem like people who never would dream of doing such a thing themselves — while in the very act of doing it.

Pointing the finger at others is a red flag of malignant narcissism.

The worst examples of this that I personally know of happened in schools. In one case, a teacher (a malignant narcissist in a private school) took indecent liberties with, and sexually abused, pubescent boys he lured into his home while his wife was at work on the night shift. It was later discovered that many people knew that he invited boys to his home on Friday nights. But nobody had seen anything wrong with that. Over time, many school employees had caught him in his classroom alone with a boy — behind a closed, sometimes locked, door and in the back where neither could be seen from hall. Nobody had seen anything suspicious in that. Many people knew this teacher had an explosive temper that he often had to make excuses to a berated student for, but nobody had seen anything abnormal in that. In fact nobody saw anything inappropriate in the inappropriately patronizing and intimate relationship he had with his students. Even when it came between them and their parents.

And nobody thought anything of it when, every few years, he seized any opening in a conversation to pop off with "What? Are you the only one around here who doesn't know? He likes boys," referring to some unmarried teacher. One unmarried teacher after another.

Thus he play-acted the part of his anti-type, a man who was abhorred by homosexual child abuse = certainly NOT the type who might do such a thing himself. Though people saw plenty to view with suspicion in that unmarried teacher, nobody saw anything suspicious in the accuser failing to cite any evidence or report these allegations he was so sure of.

They didn't even see anything suspicious in the accuser glomping onto that unmarried teacher to become his best friend. Even when his doing this became a glaring pattern.

Indeed, every single unmarried teacher who came to that school got assassinated by this, his best friend. And nobody thought anything of it! Satan polished his halo by being a pillar of his parish, a lector and lay communion distributor. And he got away with this for over fifteen years.

A serial killer is less cruel. He doesn't betray a sacred trust by doing it to people who have every good reason to trust him. And even if he tortures them, he doesn't doom his victims to a life-sentence of torture in Hell.

Notice that the "innocent" people he fooled ain't innocent. They committed the Original Sin, believing an obvious lie just because it was juicy. Like Eve.

To wit: It flew in the face of reason for her to think God might be lying. He was her creator. He provided everything for her and Adam. Which means that he had proved he wanted what was good them. He denied them but one thing, telling them that it was for their own good. So, what was she thinking? She had every good reason to believe that he was telling the truth.

Moreover, what credibility is there in a stranger who slithers up to you like a sidewinder? Why not doubt the serpent — someone she had no reason to trust?

Bottom Line: God has high credibility; serpent has about zero credibility. So, Eve wasn't honestly fooled: she just liked serpent's version of the world better, because it made her able to be as God. Adam's reason for swallowing the lie was even worse: he just did it to agree with Eve.

In other words, to please her he prostituted his mind to her. And thus political correctness was born.

Narcissists and political character assassins are dangerous precisely because people do this. If, say, you have known someone for 10 years, you know a lot about him. Doubtless, you have seen his honesty tested and seen that he proved to be an honest man. So, nobody should be able to slither up to you tomorrow and tell you he's dishonest. If you buy that, you are betraying that honest man. To believe that lie, you must annihilate history and 10 years of evidence to the contrary. You are not innocent.
Here's an example of the finger-pointer being guilty of the moral equivalent: Mr. Self-Righteous union-busts to keep the workers in his shoe factory so poor they go barefoot — and shows moral indignation in loudly condemning his neighbor for "muzzling an ox trampling the grain." He gets all fuzzy looking if you try to explain to him that he's doing the same thing, only worse. That's because he views rules, not as guidelines to be followed, but rather as red lines to catch other people with one toe over so he can condemn them. So he ignores the spirit of the law and obsesses over the letter of it.

Here's another example of projection that camouflages guilt for the moral equivalent. It also shows that even religious institutions are guilty of projection to polish their image.

The Catholic Church points the finger at mothers who have abortions, saying, "What kind of mother does that?" Okay, that position on the issue is reasonable, and it is the type of thing religion is expected to express its opinion on. But why does the Church harp on abortion when it has so little to say about countless other issues?

What issues? Well, for example, why don't we hear the Church crying out against Catholic dictators who mass-murder and torture their own people? You never hear a peep out of Rome about that. Why does the Church declare women who have abortions excommunicated but not these Catholic dictators? Why didn't it condemn the Irish Catholics in the IRA murdering Protestants? Why doesn't it cry out against the Catholic Mafia? Why doesn't it stop taking money from gangsters and burying them as Catholics in good standing? Why don't we hear the Church crying out against the scourge of child-beating and wife-beating, anti-Semitism and other bigotry, drugs, sweat shops, union-busting, exploiting undocumented migrant workers, and so forth? Why don't we hear it preaching against slander and character assassination? Why is it obsessed instead with just gays and women who have abortions?

The answer is obvious. The Church points the finger at others only for "sins" of which IT is guilty. This deflects attention for those sins off itself and onto others. Damage repair for the Church's image. Not to mention misdirection like that of the teacher in the example above.

The Church goes to great lengths to portray an image of itself as our "holy mother," virtually fusing its image with that of Jesus' mother. The harping on abortion is just part of that act. All this holy motherhood posturing tends to make us forget what Holy Mother Church has done to her own children.

Recall how truculently she has waded through her children by the tens of thousands throughout history. She aborted the lives of countless of her children — throughout the 900 years of the episcopal and monastic inquisitions and now by allowing predatory priests and other religious to sexually prey on countless more of her children. She has stonewalled justice, intimidated victims who seek it, and protected criminals — spiriting them off to Rome or to a distant school or parish for a fresh set of unsuspecting prey.

And to be fair, the Catholic Church certainly isn't the only religious institution guilty of using the pointed finger for misdirection to get our attention off its own sins and act like the opposite of what its conduct makes it. In fact, it does at least have something officially on record against many other evils: religious preachers of other denominations don't even seem to know that the other great evils exist.

Paul was in line with the ancient Hebrew scriptures. Scripture has a name for the spirit in which people point the finger at someone crying, "Look what they're doing! It's evil!" The name of that spirit is satan, which means the "finger-pointer," the "name-slayer" (slanderer, character assassin), the "prosecutor/persecutor," or the "accuser." In some places (e.g., the Book of Job) they also call this spirit "the policer of the world."

So, projection is everywhere.

The worst thing about it is that mud sticks best to a clean spot.

I'm sure that people who do this think they're clever, but it's childsplay. Send a muddy child into an unsupervised schoolyard and wait to see what happens. He will rub himself off on every cleaner, smaller child he can find, until they are all crying and he looks good by comparison.

Looks good by comparison. Those are the all-important words. The hypocrite makes himself look good by comparison with others. He does that the easy way — by smearing himself off on others to make them look bad. This is the root of envy. Which is NOT a rare motive for what people say about others. It's an all-too-common motive.

Warning Signs of an Abusive Personality

2011-04-06T15:13:00.000-07:00

Something's just not right in your relationship, and you can't put your finger on it. So here's some help. If your mate is displaying a combination of these behaviors, then you may have a potential batterer on your hands.

1. A PUSH FOR QUICK INVOLVEMENT:
Comes on very strong, claiming, "I've never felt loved like this by anyone." An abuser pressures the woman for an exclusive commitment almost immediately. Wants intimacy immediately.

2. JEALOUSY:
excessively possessive; calls constantly or visits unexpectedly; prevents you from going to work because "you might meet someone"; checks the mileage on your car.

3. CONTROLLING:
Interrogates you intensely (especially if you're late) about whom you talked to, and where you were; keeps all the money; insists you ask permission to go anywhere or do anything.

4. UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS:
Expects you to be the perfect woman and meet his every need. Idealizes you to the point that you will never meet that reality.

5. ISOLATION:
Tries to cut you off from family and friends; accuses people who are your supporters of "causing trouble." The abuser may deprive you of a phone or car or try to prevent you from holding a job. Tells you not to tell certain people about your relationship or him.

6. BLAMES OTHERS FOR PROBLEMS AND MISTAKES:
The boss, you -- it's always someone else's fault if anything goes wrong.

7. MAKES EVERYONE ELSE RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS FEELINGS:
The abuser says, "You make me angry" instead of, "I am angry" or, "You're hurting me by not doing what I tell you." Less obvious is the claim: "You make me happy."

8. HYPERSENSITIVITY:
Is easily insulted, claiming that his feelings are hurt when he is really mad. He'll rant about the injustice of things that are just part of life.

9. CRUELTY TO ANIMALS AND TO CHILDREN:
Kills or punishes animals brutally. Also may expect children to do things that are far beyond their ability (whips a 3-year-old for wetting a diaper) or may tease them until they cry. Sixty-five percent of abusers who beat their partner will also abuse children - emotionally, verbally or physically.

10. "PLAYFUL" USE OF FORCE DURING SEX:
Enjoys throwing you down or holding you down against your will during sex; says he finds the idea of rape exciting. Kink or sexual things you are not comfortable with are pushed, begged for repeatedly.

11. VERBAL ABUSE:
Constantly criticizes you, or says blatantly cruel hurtful things; degrades, curses, calls you ugly names. This may also involve sleep deprivation, waking you up with relentless verbal abuse.

12. RIGID SEX ROLES:
Expects you to serve, obey and remain at home.

13. SUDDEN MOOD SWINGS:
Switches from sweetly loving to explosively violent in a matter of minutes.

14. PAST BATTERING:
Admits hitting women in the past, but says they made him do it or the situation brought it on.

15. THREATS OF VIOLENCE:
Makes statements like, "I'll break your neck," or "I'll kill you," and then dismisses them with, "Everybody talks that way," or "I didn't really mean it." If he has come this far, it is time to get help, or get out!

Only a couple of these need to be present in a personality for them to be a potential abuser.

Abuse Sanctuary

How Abusers Stage Their Returns

2011-04-06T15:08:00.001-07:00

While the smooth talk that it takes to get an abused spouse to take them back varies from person to person, there are five major "strategies" that seem to cover most of the wide range of tactics used by abusive partners:

The Honeymoon Syndrome
Also known as "Hearts and Flowers", this can include any bribe that will get you to return - and the sooner the better. Common bribes include promises to get therapy, promises not to be violent again (even after a long history), and even calculated doses of praise for you; saying things like "I know I don't deserve you, but if you'll take me back..."

Super Parent Syndrome
This is a very common ploy, especially if your partner has neglected the children in the past. An abuser might promise to start being a good parent, or might remind you how good they already are with the children. Many victims stay in abusive relationships because they believe that it's better for the children, but children are more aware than we give them credit for - and they know that abuse is occurring.

In healthy parenting, children get to see both parents working together toward positive interactions for the whole family. When you stay with an abuser for the sake of the children, you are really slowly destroying one half of their parenting system - yourself - thus robbing your children of the true and healthy "you" that SHOULD be in their futures and replacing it with the you that continues to be abused over time. Additionally, children depend on you to be able to do your job where they are concerned. This means they expect you to nourish them, protect them, and properly socialize them. Part of protecting them not only means DIRECTLY protecting them, but also protecting their protector - YOU. Finally, a parent will always be a parent - even in the event of seperation or divorce. A truely loving parent will continue to be a truely loving parent regardless of the shape and structure of the family. So before you cling to the promises of super parent abusers, consider carefully what is really in the long term best interests of your children.

Revival Syndrome
"I have been going to church every Sunday since you left." "I have accepted religion into my life." That's great, but so what? The real question is: has the violence stopped? Don't believe that just because someone spent an hour with their butt in a pew on a Sunday morning that violence and other abuse can't still be right around the corner. If you look at the massive amounts of literature directed at faith groups teaching them how to identify and respond to abusive relationships in their congregations, you'd quickly realize exactly how many "god-fearing" persons abuse, rape, beat and murder their partners. Even pastors! (Oprah did a great show on domestic violence featuring a pastor who murdered his wife of 22 years because they argued over money and his unwillingness to get treatment for depression.)

Sobriety Syndrome
Whether it's drugs or alcohol, abusers have a higher incidence of substance use than the general population. Most substance-using abusers know that they have a substance abuse problem, or, they are aware that YOU believe they have a problem, even if they are in denial themselves. In the panic of facing losing their relationships, many will suddenly "see the light" and swear to you that they'll never touch it again. You'll want to hear it. You'll want to believe it. You'll want to support this effort. And you should! BUT...don't just hear the words and breathe a sigh of relief. Actions speak louder than words and substance abuse and addiction is one of the hardest things to overcome by oneself.

Withdraw from chronic alcohol use, heroin, cigarettes and even caffiene can cause vomiting, nausea, paranoia and other unpleasant symptoms. When an abusive partner opens the door to getting sober, stick your foot in that door and help them to get MORE help - encourage them to talk to their doctor, to join a support group, to get substance abuse therapy, etc. Counseling, support and therapy for substance abuse problems will address underlying problems and issues and help abusers to substitute healthier behaviors for their destructive coping mechanisms. Unless and until you see a substance using abuser actively participating in sobriety with OUTSIDE HELP, don't fall for just the promise! (this applies to sex addicts as well - PSYCHOLOGICAL/PSYCHIATRIC help is a MUST with an addiction!)

Counseling Syndrome
This is both a tactic to get you to stay and a tactic to maintain control and intimidation. On this web site and others, you'll hear over and over again that abusers don't just stop their behavior without assistance to overcome issues and replace destructive behavior with healthy ones. Therapy is no exception.

Friends, family, pastors and even abusers might suggest couples counseling to you. Although they may have the best of intentions, couples counseling is NOT the solution to combat the behaviors of an abuser! Many abusers actually like the idea of couples counseling because it means that THEY don't have to take responsibility for their actions- instead, they get to drag you in as part of the problem. With your abuser sitting next to you in a counseling session, you are not emotionally free to say what you think without fear of repercussion, without the abuser twisting your words, and without them trying to coach you along as what to say or not to say. Safe, effective and appropriate counseling for batterers and abusers must be done WITHOUT the victim present. Batterers must take responsibility for their actions, must understand and admit that THEY have a problem and be dedicated to the self-examination process to make positive long term changes possible.

Couples counseling to combat domestic violence SOUNDS like a great idea, but it's false advertising and can prolong and expand the emotional abuses that already exist.

Buy Outs
The problem with all of these things is that in no case, no way, no how, does ANYTHING excuse or "make up" for the fact that a partner batters you! If you donate a million dollars to charity, it doesn't give you the right to go out and shoot someone. Similarly, don't fall into the trap of letting a partner BUY their way out of violence in the relationship. Unless and until a battering partner owns up to their responsibility and gets some outside help to change their behavior, your relationship, your children, and your family are neither healthy nor SAFE.

Source Abuse Sanctuary

The Sexual Relationship with a Narcissist

2011-04-06T15:01:00.000-07:00

The sexual relationship with the narcissist is most peculiar. Narcissists are exhibitionists and sex is just one further means of being admired to her or him.

Intimacy does not exist and you will frequently feel used. The narcissist will demand that you subdue yourself. Your own sexual preferences will be boycotted or twisted.

Narcissists have a strong tendency to sexually abuse a partner and sometimes children. Here is a list of SOME of these abusive behaviors (these are not true in all cases; nor do ALL have to be present for it to be NPD):

* You are prohibited from masturbating or feel good about your own body under the threat of punishment

* You are being made to watch porn although you don't want to

* You are not allowed any sexual gratification yourself

* The narcissist pretends to be sexual (desirous) for you but is after her/ his gratification only

* Your sexual past is being torn apart or made fun of

* You are being told that all you want is sex (although you know this is not the case, however sex is central to the narcissist)

* The narcissist instigates sex (like telling you erotic things and sending you pictures or emails which are sexual) but then decides last minute that nothing is to take place; or simply demands abusive sex

* The narcissist abuses you while you are asleep (sleep rape)

* You are being raped (coerced verbally or emotionally - includes "I love you") on a regular basis

* You are feeling humiliated and yet the narcissist claims that (s)he has been humiliated

* The narcissist finds it funny when you get hurt and enjoys it when you get hurt, this can be physically or emotionally

* The narcissist instigates and turns everything into a sexual game

* The narcissist demands prolonged sex way above the limit you can handle nor want to

* The narcissist tells you that you want to have sexual relations with everybody -- although the narcissist has a strong tendency to flirt with others and to be infidel

* You are being told off for the fact that you were flirting with someone although you are not flirting at all

* The narcissist makes fun of your sexuality in front of others (e.g. you have a small penis or small breasts)

* The narcissist demands sex when you make it clear that you don't want to

* The narcissist has to try out everything possible

* The narcissist is an exhibitionist and will want sex in public and dresses inappropriately at home and or elsewhere
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

There is another form of sexual abuse with Narcissists (and other Pathologicals). In fact, so I believe, it is the most common one, and hence it took me so long to get it. This form of abuse comes in four stages:
* Firstly, the victim will be forced to reveal her or his sexual preferences and experiences to the perpetrator.

* Secondly, the perpetrator will condition the victim to direct her or his entire sexuality towards the perpetrator. At this stage, the sexual relationship is intense.

* Thirdly, the perpetrator reduces the intensity of the sexual relationship dramatically, so that the victim is in constant sexual need. (Sexual Hyperarousal)

* Fourthly, the perpetrator grants inproper sexual gratification in order to maintain the sexual need of the victim. Now, the victim, who is (sexually) dependent on the perpetrator, can be humiliated, manipulated and used.

Dr. Ludger Hofmann-Engl

Chameleon Group

28 Signs of An Abuser

2011-04-06T14:49:00.000-07:00

1. Unemployed or Underemployment.
Underemployment is not necessarily an objective phenomenon; it may be the subjective response to the man's failing to meet his own expectations. Educational and occupational attainment frequently is less than wife's, such status discrepancies are painful even should the husband bring home a higher salary.

2. Emotional Dependency.
Emotional dependency on the spouse is usually not recognized or understood, but is expressed through demands for constant reassurance and gratification. This may explain in part why spouse abuse often begins during wife's pregnancy.

3. High Investment in Marriage.
Wants to preserve marriage at any cost and will go to great lengths to do so. In the event of separation or divorce, tends to immediately replace lost spouse with a new partner.

4. Boundaries.
Violates your personal space.Intimidates you by getting too close. Touches, pinches, grabs you against your will.

5. Quick Involvement.
Sweeps you off your feet. Love at first sight. "You're the only one for me." "I have to have you." "I think about you all day / all night" Desperately pressures you for a commitment so you're engaged, sleeping together in less than 6 months or living together in less than 12 months.

6. Controlling Behavior.
Controls where you go, what you do, with whom and for how long. Controls money and money decisions, won't allow you to share expenses or refuses to work and won't share expenses. Protective to the point of controlling. Says he's angry when you're "late" because he "cares." Takes your car keys, won't let you go to church, work, or school. Won't let you drive.

7. Jealousy.
Angry about your relationship with other men, women, coworkers, even children and family. This insecurity and possessiveness causes him to accuse you of flirting or having affairs, to call frequently or drop by to check up on you, even check your car mileage or have you followed.

8. Abusive Family of Origin.
Was physically, sexually or emotionally abused as a child or witnessed spouse abuse. He sees violence as normal behavior, a natural part of family life.

9. Low Self-Esteem.
Guards his fragile sense of self by acting tough and macho. Pumps up his fragile sense of self with sex. Imagines you threaten his manhood. Damages your self-esteem, demeans your growth, demands your silence.

10. Alcohol/Drug Abuse.
Abuses alcohol/drugs, tries to get you drunk, berates you if you won't get high.
He may deny his drug problem and refuse to get help. Don't think you can change him or that alcohol/drug abuse causes violent behavior. They are two separate problems.

11. Difficulty Expressing Emotions.
Unable to identify feelings and express them directly and appropriately. He may say he's "hurt" and sulk when he's really angry.
He displaces anger at his boss or himself onto you. Blame Shifts; he's never responsible for what happens.

12. Blames Others for His Feelings or Problems.
Believes others are out to get him and he's the victim. Blames you for everything that goes wrong. Will say "You make me mad," "You make me happy," "I can't help getting angry" to manipulate you. Holds you responsible for his suicidal or self-abusive or sexual- acting-out behavior.

13. Hypersensitivity.
Quick temper, unable to handle frustration without getting angry, easily insulted. Will "rant and rave" about minor things like traffic tickets or request to do chores.

14. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Seems like two different people with mood swings from nice to explosive. May change his behavior around the guys. May be very sociable around others and only abusive with you.

15. Unrealistic Expectations.
Very dependent on you for all his physical and emotional needs ("You're all I need"). Expects you to live up to his ideals of a perfect partner, mother, lover, friend.

16. Rigid Gender Roles.
Expects a woman to stay at home, serve and obey him. Gets angry if you don't fulfill his wishes and anticipate his needs.
Speaks for you. He thinks it's OK for men to keep women "in line" by force or intimidation.

17. Rigid Religious Beliefs
Justifies rigid sex roles and the physical/emotional/sexual domination of women and children with strict or distorted interpretations of scripture.

18. Disrespect for Women in General.
Ridicules and insults women, sees women as stupid and inferior to men Tells sexist jokes ("dumb blond", "PMS" jokes).
Refers to women in derogatory or non-human terms ("babe", "chick", "fox", "bitch") or as specific parts of anatomy
Sees women only as sex-objects, uses prostitutes or has affairs De-values women's accomplishments and work, acts like women are second-class citizens.

19. Emotional Abuse.
He may ignore your feelings, continually criticize you and call you names like "fat, ugly, stupid" curse and yell at you belittle your accomplishments manipulate you with lies, contradictions, and crazy-making tactics humiliate you in private or public
Uses sarcasm and says it's 'humor.' regularly threaten to leave or tell you to leave, keep you awake or wake you up to argue or verbally abuse you.

20. Isolation.
An acquaintance rapist will try to separate you from others to a secluded spot.
Batterers will try to keep you from working or attending school, move you to a rural area, restrict your use of the phone or car.
He'll try to cut you off from men, women, family and children by saying "You're a whore," "You're a lesbian," "You're tied to your parent's apron strings," or "You're spoiling the kids."

21. Reliance on Pornography.
Rapists, child molesters and men who sexually abuse or rape their wives or other women often have an abundance of pornographic literature, internet bookmarks, magazines, or videos. They may want to involve you in their interest by photographing you or taking you to pornographic movies or shops. They may coerce you into doing things sexually you are uncomfortable with or wouldn't normally do and then say that you "liked it" or "asked for it."

22. Sexual Abuse.
Refuses platonic relationship if dating uses "playful" force in sex uses sulking, sympathy or anger to manipulate you into having sex emotionally coerces or forces you to have sex or hurts you during sex demands sex when you're scared, ill, tired or
starts to have sex when you're asleep, drunk, or unable to give consent.

23. Cruelty to Animals, Children, or Others.
Teases, bullies, abuses or harshly punishes animals, children, elderly, disabled weaker people or other women. Is insensitive to others' pain. Tortures or kills pets to feel powerful or hurt you. Threatens to kidnap the children if you leave. Punishes or deprives the children when angry at you. Punishes the children for behavior they're incapable of (whipping a 2 year-old for wet diapers).

24. Past Violence.
Any history of violence to "solve" problems. Justifies hitting or abusing women in the past, but "they made me do it." Friends, relatives or ex-partners say he's abusive (Batterers beat any woman they're with. You didn't cause it and you can't control it or cure it).

25. Fascination with Weapons.
Plays with guns, knives, or other lethal weapons, threatening to "get even" with you or others. Tells you he knows how to kill someone and/or how to hide bodies; or that he has 'friends' who will 'take care of you'.

26. Threats of Violence.
Any threats of physical force to control you or make you do something should be taken seriously. He may threaten to hurt you or your family. Non-batterers do not say things like "I'll kill you" or "I'll break your neck" or "I'm out to get you now."
Posts threats or defamatory material about you on the internet.

27. Breaking or Striking Objects.
Punishes you by breaking loved objects, terrorizes you into submission (If he doesn't want you to be a student, he may destroy school books or break lamps). Non-batterers do not beat on tables, punch holes in walls, destroy furniture, throw objects at you to threaten you. The message is "You're next! You're just an object I can control and I can break you like our china."

28. Any Force During an Argument.
Hurts you in anger or in "play", pushing , shoving, pulling, grabbing you by the collar, holding you down, restraining you from leaving the room, slapping, punching, hitting, kicking, or burning.

This cycle of violence is followed by a "honeymoon" period, then an escalation of tension and more violence. The episodes of violence will get more frequent, more intense, and will not stop on their own.

ONE OR TWO of these traits is ENOUGH to consider him ABUSIVE!

Source