You Are an Object

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.

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Shock Tactics Of The Pathological.

Please bear in mind that not all narcissists are psychopaths, but all psychopaths are narcissists.



Psychopaths/Naricissists all use "shock tactics" , why? because they work! that's why, it enables the psychopath to get what he wants from his victim(s)


They shock you by reacting to a situation in a way that spins your head ,for example: like seeing an apple fall up a tree would or going to shake the hand of someone and they bend down to tie their shoelace at that precise moment you have reached out your hand.

This is to disarm and confuse you pretty much in the way a robber would hit his target on the head before he robs them of their property.


You are for all intents and purposes, intellectually incapacitated, perplexed. the you try and figure out what's "just happened" you are disarmed, because you don't know what is going on. Your mouth hits your chin and you think there must be some sort of misunderstanding, a mistake. So you try to make heads or tails of it and try to smooth it over.


The next thing you know , you have been run over by a speeding freight train. This is called a "Shock Tactic"

Shock tactics prove that seeing isn't always believing, because afterwards you wonder if you imagined it, or think you span must have missed something.


The psychopaths behaviour was so bizarre that you cannot believe it happened especially when he seems to normal a few minutes after the incident.

Denial - that is the typical reaction. to act like it didn't happen. That's what normal people do when they can't get their minds around something. In this case, it's a big mistake, because that is exactly what the psychopath/narcissist wants.

Then it never happened, you see. His crazy behaviour never happened. Really. He never abused you. Really.

Never forget for a moment, that the narcissist "isn't all there": he lives in the Looking Glass, the Land of Pretend, where acting makes it so. Truth has no relevance in that world. It doesn't even exist. The next day he acts like it didn't happen. That's his way of saying, "let's pretend it didn't happen" When you play along and act like it didn't happen, it didn't happen & thus the narcissists slate is clean, and he's not a crackpot.


So it's no wonder that narcissists like shock tactics when they discover how well they work at getting people into denial and Acting Like It Didn't Happen


This is especially true when they hear idiots commenting "Look, today he's acting like nothing happened. Well, okay, he has a terrible temper, but he's basically a good person, because see? he doesn't carry a grudge" the narcissist thinks "Give that idiot an award!"







The Three Elements To A Narcissists Shock Tactics

* Perversity

* Extremism

* Surprise

Perversity in the strictest sense of the word, is , "throughly twisted" In other words, perverse behaviour is not just odd, aberrant , or off course: It is backwards or upside down, the antithesis of what would be appropriate.




A perverted reaction to something shocks us, it is the opposite of what we expected. It also disarms us, because, in our interactions with others, we act with a view to the reaction we can expect in return. For example, you don't tell someone you love them to make them mad at you. If this is the first time you have told that person you love them, you might not know what to expect, but anger isn't one of the possibilities you have in mind. So, when the narcissist reacts with anger, you are stunned!




Usually we do know what to expect , and when we are wrong, there is normally some logical reason for it. for example: Sometimes we get an unexpected reaction because we didn't see the action from the reactor's point of view.




Yet certain behaviours are so universal that we know what to expect even from a stranger with a different language and culture. Or even from an animal. For example: showing love evokes affection. Doing a favour evokes gratitude, appeasement evokes peace.


Eg:

When you try to bring peace to a situation by appeasing the narcissist, he will spit back in your face and rage at you

When you show love to the narcissist , he will push you away

When you do a favour for the narcissist he will not acknowledge it .

The narcissist reacts with hatred , resentment and aggression instead of reacting in what should evoke: affection, gratitude, and peace.



He is vicious, violent (physically or verbally) he is like a child who cannot restrain his own behaviour. The only reign on it is what he thinks he can get away with. So , behind closed doors with his family or a lone employee, he goes over the top in wanton meanness. It makes him feel as unbounded as God.


Lastly, "the element of surprise". His temper flares in a fraction of a second and unexpectedly, for some anti-reason.


The narcissists shock tactics are a device, that's all. This type of reaction is called "An Insult". An insulting reaction for example: You throw water on a fire to put it out...only to have it flare up into a raging fire that vaporizes the water.


In other words, an insult is a blow back reaction, one that flies in the face of the stimulus. A narcissists perverted reactions to things are insults, and they do insult you, they work!. For example: you try to appease him when he gets mad about something, instead of cooling off he does the opposite and flies into a rage over what you just said and attacks you all more vehemently.



The narcissist cannot help but discover at an early age that normal people are taken aback by such absurd behaviour.



Why do narcissists do this? there is only one reason: he wasn't angered by anything in the first place. That is, his anger wasn't a defensive reaction to anything you did. If it were, he would cool off when you try to appease him, because his purpose is achieved. He takes your attempt to appease as a sign of weakness and revs up his engines, getting much madder. His objective is to run you over.



Narcissists are amoral, so since shock tactics get them what they want, they use them. That's really all there is to it. Nothing deep, smart or fascinating about it. Even a dog learns to growl and act ornery if it gets what it wants that way.


The moment you deviate from the narcissists script, he snarls like a dog, in other words: the moment you start acting like his equal or as though you deserve anything. His sudden surliness at such moments is just his way of saying "don't go there." as if he were herding stray cattle back in the right direction. Play along, say or do nothing that contradicts his lies and delusions. it's hard enough to believe them, and you are hurting him if you are not helping him believe them.


Let's say the narcissist has gone off about something. You try to smooth it over by saying, "Oh , come on. Let's not fight. I didn't mean anything by that, really. i'd never want to hurt you"


He gets madder and madder yet.


Why? because that isn't what he wants you to do. You still are not playing along with his script in Pretend. You didn't admit any wrongdoing. What you said to appease him doesn't appease him because it doesn't reflect on him as grand and on you as a guilty , despicable thing.


The narcissist is a mental three-year-old who knows only one trick: "Throw a temper tantrum whenever people aren't doing what you want them to do, and keep throwing it until they get it right"

People are perplexed by off-the-wall reactions to things, they cannot imagine why anyone would do that. Even seeing it happen doesn't quite make them believe it because it's too crazy to really have happened so we go into denial about it.

Normal people would never degrade themselves by behaving in this childish manner, they don't realize that the narcissist is different - a being with a towering ego and zero self respect , who therefore is not above behaving childish, irrationally, or insanely on purpose..... just to get his way with you.

Because he never has to know he's doing that. He can forever not know he's doing that. That's what his Magical Thinking Machine is for.....Playing Pretend.


Parts of this article taken from Kathy Krajco




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Mirror Mirror On The Wall.......Projection

Narcissists project their faults and failings onto their victims (bad character flaws/deeds) , but they also project their feelings, and beliefs onto the victim also.



These beliefs the narcissist hold could be about themselves, the victim or others.

You can think of "projection" as the Narcissist posing in the image of your face, they are projecting (throwing) all those bad flaws, deeds and beliefs about themselves unto you.

These feelings or beliefs might be positive ones or negative ones.










Positive Projection

Projecting positive things onto the victim he is using her as a mirror so the good deeds are "reflected" back unto him. Making him appear as the one who is marvellous, grand, worthy etc (his grandiose false image)





Negative Projection

Same thing - The Narcissist projects his bad deeds, habits, thoughts and belief onto the mirror (The Victim) in order to make her appear that she is at fault and these "Negative things" are hers and not his.


Whilst doing this, the narcissist is in effect using the victim as a dumping ground.








Slandering The Victim


When Narcissists slander their victims , they have two objectives. One is projection and the other is to "dirty a bright spot in your character" with whatever slander they are projecting at you. It's as though any shine on your image diminishes the glow of their glory.

This is of course the mentality of the rapist, who must tear others "down off that pedestal"

Projection and smearing at the same time isn't hard for the Narcissist, in fact it's uncanny how narcissists manage to accomplish it. It's all in the way they word their "line" on you. They are glib and amazingly adept at "killing two birds with one stone"

They not only ditch one of their faults, they muddy one of your virtues in the process.

Note: In doing this, the Narcissist isn't attacking your faults and shortcomings, he is attacking your virtues and accomplishments. Consequently when he is conducting a campaign of character assassination against someone, the arrows he shoots never hit one of that person's real flaws


The Narcissists False image contains the virtuous qualities in other people's characters , and their images have had those virtuous qualities replaces with the flaws in the narcissists character. In other words, the narcissist steals your virtues and dumps on you his faults.

In doing so, the narcissist is stealing your identity, pulling an identity switch with you, piecemeal.












It's kind of magical , an illusion created with nothing but words, which can warp perceptions by making anything of anything. For example: let's say that the narcissist is stingy and that one of your virtues is that you are outstanding for you generosity. He hates the glow of that shiny spot in your character, because it serves as foil to his stinginess, making it more noticeable by contrast. So he muddies your image and glorifies his image by misappropriating your generosity to himself and misappropriating his stinginess in you.


How? he goes around lying about how much she gives to charity and about helping people out all the time. More important (since one must be careful and subtle about boasting) , he just makes everything she does sound generous. He also goes around telling lying stories about you , stories that you are "stingy". More important, he makes everything you do sound stingy, however generous it manifestly is.

An Example: A Narcissist can make one £500 purchase sound like a payment for room, board, toiletries, cigarettes and laundry services for twenty years - in order to unsound like a freeloader or sofa surfer.


Normal people do not project. They may sometimes smear, but not in such a calculated , manipulative fashion.







Normal People Vs The Narcissist




Normal people - Project when put on the defensive

Narcissists project in unprovoked attacks




Normal people don't smear themselves off on just anyone. They wouldn't dream of harming those near and dear.

Narcissists see people as objects and nothing more, so they smear people off to anyone who will listen as thoughtlessly as we smear ourselves on a towel. For no other reason than to cause pain.



Normal people are likely to shake themselves off on whoever happens to be near at the moment. So they sometimes project a flaw off onto someone who actually has it.

Narcissists project ironically, accusing those with the corresponding virtue of a vice



Normal people stick to slander (which has some degree of truth to it) rarely engaging in calumny (lies) when they do calumniate someone, they at least have a natural reason for animosity toward the target.

Narcissists are perverted, there is no natural reason for what they do, they do it because they want to and because they can.




Normal people who do calumniate someone, they don't go hog-wild and calumniate that person so badly and so widely as to destroy them and ruin their whole lives.

Narcissists go hog wild , they are mental children and therefore as dangerous with their mouths as an angry five-year old with an assault weapon





The Narcissist is likely to smear off on someone he owes gratitude to, because needing help damages his image. He repays help as thought it were an insult , a threat. He must devalue it by devaluing the giver of it, as if such a contemptible person is incapable of really helping someone as grand as he.


Normal people don't do it because damaging others makes them feel good. In fact, doing this makes a normal person feel ashamed. But it makes a narcissist feel grand.


When it's fully conscious calumny a narcissist is spreading , he just thinks it's funny that people are such idiots that he can get away with it, feeding them ridiculous lines about others. Lines that are preposterous in the light of the target's known conduct. Narcissists will all let it be known at one time or another that they had nothing but contempt for the people who believed them. I am sure that a narcissist views his success at lying as proof that he is brilliant and that all mere mortals are as stupid as sticks.


Narcissists are not projecting guilt so much as they're projecting shame. In fact, it may well be that they have no concept of guilt and have it confused with shame. Which is pain. So this wicked behaviour is a way to ditch their pain onto you. It's a psychological painkiller, a drug, and that's why causing you pain makes him feel good.


Here is an example of a famous smear that illustrates how it works.


The first thing people noticed about Jesus of Nazareth was that, unlike the other prophets, he spoke on his own authority, appealing only to logic, and never prefaced his teaching with "God says...." This is but one of many example of his exceptional care to avoid blasphemy. He went way beyond custom in this regards. His tremendous reverence for the name of God was his most glaring virtue, but he put everyone , including the prophets, to shame in this.


Okay, so , if you or I wanted to smear Jesus, blasphemy would be the last thing we'd accuse him of, right? Because that accusation would be laughed at as a joke.


Or would it?


Well, whether people would get the joke or not, we're normal, so we'd accuse him of something believable, like being a drunk or something. But that isn't the way a narcissist thinks.


The narcissist(s) in the Sanhedrin who plotted against Jesus went right for that greatest shining virtue of his in leveling the charge of blasphemy against him. They just had to muddy it o'er.


Unbelievable. Yet the people believed it!


And consider the source of this accusation. Look who's accusing him of blasphemy. The Sanhedrin, blasphemously acting in the name of God.


In other words, in the very act, they were projecting the blot of their sin onto his outstanding virtue.


Unbelievable. Yet the people believed it.


Near the beginning of the Spanish Inquisition, a Spanish archbishop or cardinal (whose name I forget) remarked that the accusations leveled by the Inquisition were so widely believed because people are much readier to believe the unbelievable than the obvious. He said a mouthful.


Narcissists are projection machines, I am convinced that projection is a knee -jerk reflex in them. That is, whenever a moment of self-awareness threatens to let them know a flaw in their character they're revealing or some bad deed they are doing, they instantly go into denial about it (Repressing conscience of shame) by projecting the semblance of that flaw or misdeed off onto the handiest scapegoat- usually the very victim of whatever abuse they are dishing out.


How's that for maximum irony? Hence, while hurling a hailstorm of wild accusations at you, you can count off one of them being that you are hurling wild accusations at them. Every single time. They can't help it. I think they have been twisting their thinking for so long (since early childhood) that twisted thinking is hard-wired into their brains. I think projection is such an ingrained habit in them that often they're unaware they are doing it at times.


Projection is such a reflex in them that they give themselves away by some of the accusation they hurl. For example, if a narcissist says he fear you might attack him physically, look out" he is at least pondering whether to attack you physically. If he says he fears you might get into his bank account or spend his money, know that he is at least pondering getting into yours and spending your money. Every single time!


Narcissists are not the only people who project. But they are different in that they have done it so much for so long that they do it like a machine - automatically, every single time. They rarely hit one of target's real faults. Instead the accusation is a joke, smearing one of that person's virtues as a vice.




Parts of this article were taken Kathy Krajco

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How a Narcissist Reacts to a Disaster in Your Life

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Into virtually every life comes disaster. Bankruptcy, serious illness, divorce, getting laid-off or fired, failure of any sort -- you name it, whether through your own fault or not.

How will a narcissist in your life react to the situation?

Add it up: You mean nothing to him or her. You are just an object to exploit for their aggrandizement. They have no human feelings for you (despite the occasional put-on) whatsoever. And now you are more vulnerable than ever.

Now you are down, so expect a kick. Expect the abuse to escalate. Expect them to behave so cruelly and brutally that nobody who doesn't see it would believe it.

From what I've observed and heard, I dare say that this is the mistake everyone abused by someone in their immediate family makes: they expect the narcissist to react to a crisis the way a normal human being would. Your plight would tug on a normal person's heartstrings, even if you were an adversary. So, he or she would let up on you under those circumstances. Yes, even adversaries will let up on you, because they see you are no threat to them under the circumstances.

But a narcissist reacts the opposite way a normal human person does.

In this, narcissists are only following the same perverse pattern they always do: instead of being appeased by efforts to appease them, they react with a rage; instead of being drawn to what evokes sympathy, they abominate it and react with contempt; instead of being grateful for favors you've done them, they react with hatred (for this proof that they are not God Almighty in your helping them). In short, they react backwards to everything. So, why should we be surprised when a narcissist exploits some catastrophe in our lives to malign and abuse us with shocking inhumanity?

The victims of narcissists get blind-sided by this because narcissists are from the planet Pluto. They are NOT acting on normal human premises. So, it's not about your plight: it's all about THEIR ego. So, they see this as NOTHING BUT an opportunity to vaunt themselves on you, period. In other words, they aren't acting on normal human premises; they are acting on narcissistic premises. Those are the premises of PREDATORS. They react to vulnerability the way any predator does = by salivating.

If possible, they will make a big show to the rest of the world of being your savior, while behind closed doors they are beating the you-know-what out of you and trying to drive you to suicide -- just because they know you're trapped in the situation.

As I've often said before, I'm convinced that the only reign on their conduct is what they think they can get away with. And that changes from day to day. Read more!

Narcissistic Rage.

Narcissistic Rage usually occurs as a result of a narcissistic injury, a psychological wounding of the narcissists essential self. Such a blow to his core identity will typically lower his self-esteem and produce feelings of humiliation, shame and rage.

Once the narcissist has suffered an injury he will feel empty, humiliated and so he retaliates by raging at the ones he feel betrayed his false image.


The word Rage often conjures up the image of somebody verbally shouting, screaming or "losing it"

However "Rage" doesn't always indicate the obvious so your narcissist might show his rage in other more covert ways.

The anger engulfs the narcissist with hatred, unforgiveness and the need to hurt others.

Some narcissists work very hard to disguise their anger in order to dish out their rage in more indirect ways.


Here is a classic example of how weirdly fast a Narcissist can go from his rage to normalcy in seconds.

Can he really switch this on and off like a tap? find out by reading Kathy Krajco's blog. Kathy is a freelance writer and her findings on Narcissism are invaluable.


Kathy Krajco covers this video here so please read her thoughts on Narcissistic Rage.





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