Sanctuary for the Abused
Friday, March 25, 2022
THE GRAY ROCK METHOD OF DEALING WITH NARCISSISTS, SOCIOPATHS and PSYCHOPATHS
(the term 'psychopath' is used here but can be interchangeable with narcissist or sociopath)
When dealing with malignant narcissists, psychopaths, sociopaths, borderlines, drama queens, stalkers and other emotional vampires, it’s commonly advised that no response is the best response to unwanted attention. This is often true and No Contact (the avoidance of all communication) should be used whenever possible.
There are some situations however, when No Contact is not feasible, as in when you share child custody with a psychopath. As another example, if you are being stalked by an ex, a restraining order can infuriate the unwanted suitor, and refusing to respond to him or her is seen as an insult. They might become convinced that they can MAKE you respond and in that way satiate their need for power over you.
Furthermore, many of us have tried to end a relationship with a psychopath several times, only to take them back, each time. They turned on the pity ploy and the charm, and because we didn’t understand that this is what a psychopath does, we fell for their promises to change. They know all of our emotional hooks. For them, it’s easy and fun to lure us back by appealing to our emotions. But a psychopath can’t change. In fact, when you leave a psychopath, he becomes determined to punish you even more severely for thinking you could be autonomous.
Even if we don’t take them back, the most dangerous time for a person is when they first break up with a psychopath. The psychopath feels rage at being discarded. Losing control or power over a person is not just a narcissistic injury for them; they feel profoundly empty when their partner leaves them — even if they had intended to kill their partner. The reason is because they have lost control. Psychopaths need to feel in control at all times.
For all these situations, we have Gray Rock.
What it is:
So, how do we escape this parasitical leech without triggering his vindictive rage? Gray Rock is primarily a way of encouraging a psychopath, a stalker or other emotionally unbalanced person, to lose interest in you. It differs from No Contact in that you don’t overtly try to avoid contact with these emotional vampires. Instead, you allow contact but only give boring, monotonous responses so that the parasite must go elsewhere for his supply of drama. When contact with you is consistently unsatisfying for the psychopath, his mind is re-trained to expect boredom rather than drama.
Psychopaths are addicted to drama and they can’t stand to be bored. With time, he will find a new person to provide drama and he will find himself drawn to you less and less often. Eventually, they just slither away to greener pastures. Gray Rock is a way of training the psychopath to view you as an unsatisfying pursuit — you bore him and he can’t stand boredom.
What it’s for:
Making a psychopath go away of his own volition is one application of Gray Rock. One might say that Gray Rock is a way of breaking up with a psychopath by using the old, “It’s not you, it’s me.” excuse, except that you act it out instead of saying it and the psychopath comes to that conclusion on his own.
Another reason to use Gray Rock is to avoid becoming a target in the first place. If you find yourself in the company of one or more narcissistic personalities — perhaps you work with them or they are members of your family — it’s important to avoid triggering their ENVY. By using Gray Rock, you fade into the background. It’s possible they won’t even remember having met you. If you have already inadvertently attracted their attention and they have already begun to focus in on you, you can still use Gray Rock. Tell them you are boring. Describe a boring life. Talk about the most mundane household chores you accomplished that day — in detail. Some people are naturally lacking in dramatic flair. Find those people and try to hang around them when the psychopath is nearby.
If you must continue a relationship with a psychopath, Gray Rock can serve you as well. Parents sharing joint custody with a psychopathic ex-spouse can use Gray Rock when the ex-spouse tries to trigger their emotions. I acknowledge that any threat to the well-being of our children is overwhelmingly anxiety provoking. Here is where Gray Rock can be applied selectively to draw attention away from what really matters to you. In general, show no emotion to the offending behaviors or words. The psychopath will try different tactics to see which ones get a reaction. With Selective Gray Rock, you choose to respond to the tactic which matters least to you. This will focus the psychopath’s attention on that issue. Remember, the psychopath has no values, so he doesn’t understand what is valuable to us — unless we show him. Selective Gray Rock shows him a decoy.
When protecting our children, we can take a lesson from nature: Bird parents who have fledglings are known to feign a broken wing when a predator is in the vicinity. They fake a vulnerability to detract the cat’s attention from their real vulnerability, their babies. In this example, Selective Gray Rock fades all emotions into the background except the ones you want the predator to see.
A psychopath is easily bored. He or she needs constant stimulation to ward off boredom. It isn’t the type of boredom that normal people experience; it’s more like the French word, ennui, which refers to an oppressive boredom or listlessness. Drama is a psychopath’s remedy for boredom. For drama, they need an audience and some players. Once the drama begins, they feel complete and alive again. They are empowered when pulling the strings that elicit our emotions. Any kind of emotions will do, as long as it is a response to their actions.
A psychopath is an addict. He is addicted to power. His power is acquired by gaining access to our emotions. He is keenly aware of this and needs to constantly test to make sure we are still under his control. He needs to know that we are still eager to do his bidding, make him happy and avoid his wrath. He needs to create drama so he can experience the power of manipulating our emotions. As with any addiction, it is exhilarating to the psychopath when he gets his supply of emotional responses. The more times he experiences a reward for his dramatic behavior, the more addicted he becomes. Conversely, when the reward stops coming, he becomes agitated. He experiences oppressive boredom and he will counter it by creating more drama. If we stay the course and show no emotions, the psychopath will eventually decide that his toy is broken. It doesn’t squirt emotions when he squeezes it anymore! Most likely, he will slither away to find a new toy.
The Gray Rock technique does come with a caveat: psychopaths are dangerous people, if you are in a relationship with one that has already decided to kill you, it will be difficult to change his mind. He may already be poisoning you or sabotaging your vehicle. Take all necessary precautions. In this case, Gray Rock can only hope to buy time until you can make your escape.
How it works:
Psychopaths are attracted to shiny, pretty things that move fast and to bright lights. These things, signal excitement and relieve the psychopath’s ever-present ennui. Your emotional responses are his food of choice, but they aren’t the only things he wants.
He envies everything pretty, shiny and sparkly that you have and he wants whatever you value. You must hide anything that he will notice and envy. If you happen to be very good looking, you need to change that during this time. Use makeup to add bags under your eyes. If you aren’t married to the psychopath, any money or assets he covets should disappear “in a bad investment decision” (consult with your attorney on this). Your shiny sports car has to go, get a beater. If you have a sparkling reputation, anticipate that he will or has already begun to slander you; therefore, don’t allow yourself to be put into any compromising position or pushed into erratic behavior. The reason he wants to take these things from you, is not necessarily because he wants them for himself, it’s because he wants to see the emotions on your face when you lose them. He wants the power trip associated with being the one who took them from you. By preemptively removing these things from his vision and not reacting with emotion at the losses, you continue to train him with the idea that you are the most boring person on earth, someone he would never want to be.
Origin of Gray Rock:
In 2009, I left my psychopathic partner after 25 years, but I didn’t understand what was wrong with him. I sat in a sushi bar, lost in confusion, when a tall, athletic man introduced himself. To my own surprise, I instinctively poured out my story to him. This complete stranger listened to my story and then he explained to me that I was dealing with a malignant narcissist. He advised me, “Be boring.” He told me that his girlfriend would come home each night, begin drinking and become abusive.
They were both professionals who traveled in the same professional circles. He knew that she would stalk him if he broke up with her and he didn’t want to risk the slander and drama which could leak out and damage his professional reputation.
His solution was to be so boring that she would simply leave him. He declined to go out on evenings and weekends. He showed no emotional reaction about anything, no interest in anything and responded with no drama. When she asked if he wanted to go out for dinner, his reply was, “I don’t know.” After a few months of no drama, she simply moved out.
Why is it called Gray Rock?
I chose the words Gray Rock because I needed an object for us to channel when we are in an emotionally charged situation. You don’t just practice Gray Rock, you BECOME a Gray Rock. There are gray rocks and pebbles everywhere you go, but you never notice them. None of them attract your attention. You don’t remember any specific rock you saw today because they blend with the scenery.
That is the type of boring that you want to channel when you are dealing with a psychopath. Your boring persona will camouflage you and the psychopath won’t even notice you were there. The stranger in the sushi bar showed great insight when he advised me to “be boring.” He struck at the heart of the psychopath’s motivation: to avoid boredom.
In nature, there are many plants and creatures that show us how to survive in a world of predators. Among others, birds feign injury to protect their babies and mice play dead until the cat loses interest.
Both of these tactics can be useful and they can be channeled when applicable. Yet, it’s difficult to calculate each and every move that a psychopath will make and to determine the best course of action each time. Instead of trying to out-think him, channel the gray rock. This simple, humble object in nature has all the wisdom it needs to avoid being noticed, it’s boring.
Copyright © 2012 Skylar
SOURCE
Labels: child custody, child support, co-parenting, coparenting, drama, focus, gray rock, grey rock, narcissist, psychopath, response, sociopath
Wednesday, March 16, 2022
WHY DOES IT TAKE SO LONG TO GET OVER A NARCISSIST OR PSYCHOPATH?
by Peace
book, which is available on Amazon!Relationships with psychopaths take an unusually long time to recover from. Survivors often find themselves frustrated because they haven't healed as fast as they'd like. They also end up dealing with friends & therapists who give them judgmental advice about how it's "time to move on".
Whether you were in a long-term marriage or a quick summer fling, the recovery process will be the same when it comes to a psychopathic encounter. It takes 12-24 months to get your heart back in a good place, and even after that, you might have tough days. I certainly do!
The important thing here is to stop blaming yourself. Stop wishing it would go faster. Stop thinking that the psychopath somehow "wins" if you're still hurting. They are out of the picture now. This journey is about you. If you come to peace with the extended timeline, you'll find this experience a lot more pleasant. You can settle in, make some friends, and get cozy with this whole recovery thing.
So why is it taking so long?
You were in love
Yes, it was manufactured love. Yes, your personality was mirrored and your dreams manipulated. But you were in love. It's the strongest human emotion & bond in the world, and you felt it with all your heart. It is always painful to lose someone you loved - someone you planned to be with for the rest of your life.
The human spirit must heal from these love losses. Regardless of your abuser's intentions, your love was still very real. It will take a great deal of time and hope to pull yourself out of the standard post-breakup depression.
You were in desperate love
Here's where we branch off from regular breakups. Psychopaths manufacture desperation & desire. You probably worked harder for this relationship than any other, right? You put more time, energy, and thought into it than ever before. And in turn, you were rewarded with the nastiest, most painful experience of your life.
In the idealization phase, they showered you with attention, gifts, letters, and compliments. Unlike most honeymoon phases, they actually pretended to be exactly like you in every way. Everything you did was perfect to them. This put you on Cloud 9, preparing you for the identity erosion.
You began to pick up on all sorts of hints that you might be replaced at any time. This encouraged your racing thoughts, ensuring that this person was on your mind every second of the day. This unhinged, unpredictable lifestyle is what psychopaths hope to create with their lies, gas-lighting, and triangulation.
By keeping them on your mind at all times, you fall into a state of desperate love. This is unhealthy, and not a sign that the person you feel so strongly about is actually worthy of your love. Your mind convinces you that if you feel so powerfully, then they must be the only person who will ever make you feel that way. And when you lose that person, your world completely falls apart. You enter a state of panic & devastation.
The Chemical Reaction
Psychopaths have an intense emotional & sexual bond over their victims. This is due to their sexual magnetism, and the way they train your mind to become reliant upon their approval.
By first adoring you in every way, you let down your guard and began to place your self worth in this person. Your happiness started to rely on this person's opinion on you. Happiness is a chemical reaction going off in your brain - dopamine and receptors firing off to make you feel good.
Like a drug, the psychopath offers you this feeling in full force to begin with. But once you become reliant on it, they begin to pull back. Slowly, you need more and more to feel that same high. You do everything you can to hang onto it, while they are doing everything in their power to keep you just barely starved.
Triangulation
There are thousands of support groups for survivors of infidelity. It leaves long-lasting insecurities and feelings of never being good enough. It leaves you constantly comparing yourself to others. That pain alone takes many people out there years to recover from.
Now compare that to the psychopath's triangulation. Not only do they cheat on you - they happily wave it in your face. They brag about it, trying to prove how happy they are with your replacement. They carry none of the usual shame & guilt that comes with cheating. They are thrilled to be posting pictures and telling their friends how happy they are.
I cannot even begin to explain how emotionally damaging this is after once being the target of their idealization. The triangulation alone will take so much time to heal from.
You have encountered pure evil
Everything you once understood about people did not apply to this person. During the relationship, you tried to be compassionate, easy-going, and forgiving. You never could have known that the person you loved was actively using these things against you. It just doesn't make any sense. No typical person is ready to expect that, and so we spend our time projecting a normal human conscience onto them, trying to explain away their inexplicable behavior.
But once we discover psychopathy, sociopathy, or narcissism, that's when everything starts to change. We begin to feel disgusted - horrified that we let this darkness into our lives. Everything clicks and falls into place. All of the "accidental" or "insensitive" behavior finally makes sense.
You try to explain this to friends and family members - no one really seems to get it. This is why validation matters. When you come together with others who have experienced the same thing as you, you discover you were not crazy. You were not alone in this inhuman experience.
It takes a great deal of time to come to terms with this personality disorder. You end up having to let go of your past understanding of human nature, and building it back up from scratch. You realize that people are not always inherently good. You begin to feel paranoid, hyper-vigialant, and anxious. The healing process is about learning to balance this new state of awareness with your once trusting spirit.
Your spirit is deeply wounded
After the eventual abandonment, most survivors end up feeling a kind of emptiness that cannot even be described as depression. It's like your spirit has completely gone away. You feel numb to everything and everyone around you. The things that once made you happy now make you feel absolutely nothing at all. You worry that your encounter with this monster has destroyed your ability to empathize, feel and care.
I believe this is what takes the longest time to recover from. It feels hopeless at first, but your spirit is always with you. Damaged, for sure, but never gone. As you begin to discover self-respect & boundaries, it slowly starts to find its voice again. It feels safe opening up, peeking out randomly to say hello. You will find yourself grateful to be crying again, happy that your emotions seem to be returning. This is great, and it will start to become more and more consistent.
Ultimately, you will leave this experience with an unexpected wisdom about the people around you. Your spirit will return stronger than ever before, refusing to be treated that way again. You may encounter toxic people throughout your life, but you won't let them stay for very long. You don't have time for mind games & manipulation. You seek out kind, honest, and compassionate individuals. You know you deserve nothing less.
This new found strength is the greatest gift of the psychopathic experience. And it is worth every second of the recovery process, because it will serve you for the rest of your life.
If you're worried that your recovery process is taking too long, please stop worrying. You've been through hell and back - there is no quick fix for that. And what's more, when all is said and done, these few years will be some of the most important years of your life.
SOURCE
Labels: blame, brainwashing, dopamine, gaslighting, infidelity, love bombing, narcissist, psychopath, recovery, sociopath, triangulation
Friday, March 11, 2022
Common Traits of Stalkers
It is extremely important to be aware of the following traits of stalkers. These will alert you to the possibility that a potential suitor or even a friend or acquaintance could become a stalker.
Stalkers will not take no for an answer.
They refuse to believe that a victim is not interested in them or will not rekindle their relationship and often believe that the victim really does love them, but just doesn't know it and needs to be pushed into realizing it. As long as they continue pursuing their victim, the stalker can convince themselves they haven't been completely rejected yet.
Stalker often accuse their victims of stalking them or others.
Stalkers display an obsessive personality.
They are not just interested in, but totally obsessed with the person they are pursuing. Their every waking thought centers on the victim, and every plan the stalker has for the future involves the victim. Ask yourself this. Is the person totally involved in and completely overwhelmed with pursuing someone who has no and never will have any interest in him or her?
Along with obsessive thinking, they also display other psychological or personality problems and disorders. They may suffer from erotomania, paranoia, schizophrenia, and delusional thinking. According to Professor R. Meloy, "these stalkers have rigid personalities and maladaptive styles. These disorders in themselves are very stable and not treatable." There are drugs to treat certain specific mental disorders, but stalkers, when given the choice, seldom continue with their medication or treatment.
Stalkers are above average in intelligence and are usually smarter than the run of the mill person with mental problems.
They will go to great lengths to obtain information about their victims or to find victims who have secretly moved. They have been known to hack into computers, tap telephone lines, take jobs at public utilities that allow them access to the victims or information about the victims, and even to travel thousands of miles and spend thousands of dollars to gain information about or find their victims. Stalkers many times use their intelligence to throw others off their trail.
Most stalkers don't have many relationships outside the one they are trying to re-establish or the one they have imagined exists between them and their victim.
Stalkers don't display the discomfort or anxiety that people should naturally feel in certain situations.
Normal individuals would be extremely embarrassed to be caught following other people, going through their trash looking for information about them, leaving obscene notes, and other inappropriate behavior displayed by stalkers. Stalkers, however, don't see this as inappropriate behavior, but only as a means to gain the person's love.
Stalkers often suffer from low self-esteem, and feel they must have a relationship with the victim in order to have any self worth.
Preoccupations with other people almost always involve someone with weak social skills and low self-esteem.
Few stalkers can see how their actions are hurting others.
They display other sociopathic thinking in that they cannot learn from experience, and they don't believe society's rules apply to them. Most stalkers don't think they're really threatening, intimidating, or even stalking someone else. They think they're simply trying to show the victims that they're the right one for them. To the victims of stalking it is like a prolonged rape.
Stalkers, like rapists, want absolute control over their victims. They don't regard what they're doing as a crime, or even wrong. To them it is true love, with the exception that the victim doesn't recognize it yet. With enough persistence, stalkers believe they will eventually convince the victims of their love.
Stalkers many times have a mean streak and will become violent when frustrated. How violent? Often deadly.
The above traits remind us that much of stalking involves harassment and annoyance, but never forget that stalkers can also be extraordinarily dangerous. Believing that their victims love and care for them, stalkers can become violent when frustrated in their quest for this love.
Although the majority of cases do not end in murder or grave bodily injury, enough do every year that victims should never brush aside the possibility. Victims of stalking should never take the crime lightly, no matter who the stalkers are or how close they have been emotionally.
Look carefully again at the traits below and be wary if someone seems to fit these:
- Won't take no for an answer
- Has an obsessive personality
- Escalating behavior - such as threats or cyberstalking
- Above average intelligence
- No or few personal relationships
- Lack of embarrassment or discomfort at actions
- Low self esteem
- Sociopathic thinking
- Has a mean streak
Labels: abuse, anxiety, control, cyberstalking, delusional, harassment, sociopathic, stalkers, stalking
BLAMING THE VICTIM
by Kathy Krajco
The first thing the victims of narcissists need to know is that they are not to blame.
Not one bit.
In other words, he didn't get mad because dinner was was late. She didn't blow up because you are "too this" or "too that." You didn't "ask for it" by speaking up and saying that you deserved some attention and respect.
The narcissist attacked you just because you are there, period. Don't you have a right to be there?
Let's get real. Narcissists think they have a right to punish you just for being the way you are. Think, don't you have the right to be the way you are? Do you have to be some character in the narcissist's fiction that conforms to his or her specifications?
Does that make any sense? That's as hateful as the crime against humanity of attacking people just for being a certain KIND or nationality.
The narcissist attacks because he or she is a predator, period. Predators attack any vulnerable prey that crosses their sights, period. Therefore, the prey is NEVER the one bit to blame.
It would make as much sense to blame a sheep for getting attacked by a wolf. So what if the wolf says, "I attacked her because she is an obnoxious sheep!" What idiot falls for that line? Yet narcissist sympathizers are doing precisely this and are therefore being irrational.
The narcissist attacked just to do it, and he or she attacks any prey they have some unfair advantage over. They never pick a fair fight. They are bullies, period.
They do it to vaunt themselves on others. It gives them a high. Like as in a high from a hit on drug.
Does this mean you are a saint? Of course not. Does it mean you have never said or done anything in an argument with a narcissist that you should regret? Of course not.
You are like a bank teller who gets shot in a holdup. You are totally innocent of getting shot. Don't let the sloppy thinkers like narcissists and their sympathizers convince you that you are to blame because you were rude, or because you were embezzling, or because you are a drug addict. All that is irrelevant TO HIM SHOOTING YOU.
Of course you should change those things about yourself, but the "intellectual" clowns who make out your character flaws as justifying abuse of you are complete idiots unable to see the relationship between cause and effect.
Being late with dinner is no excuse for the narcissist to attack you. Being "too this" or "too that" for his taste is no excuse for the narcissist to attack you. Demanding decent and respectful treatment is no excuse for the narcissist to attack you.
I don't care how "threatened" any of that makes the poor, twisted narcissist feel. His perverted feelings are HIS problem, not yours. The Narcissist will never run out of twisted excuses to irrationalize his attacks on you, so get off the guilt trip. His perversity is not YOUR vice.
Narcissists attack you just to do it. You are therefore 100% innocent of your victimization. Blow off this absurd "It takes two to Tango" crap.
Doubtless, you will discover that there are certain things you should stop doing. Good. Now you wise up and stop being manipulated in ways that play right into the narcissist's hands. Now you cannot be victimized.
THIS is how you stop being a victim.
But foggy-headed idiots (like those espousing the ridiculous co-dependence theory) try to claim that you stop being a victim by pretending that you have never been made one. That's crazy.
That is magical thinking, like the narcissist's. You HAVE been made a victim. That's a FACT, like it or not. And "victim" is not a dirty word. Though being a victim is nothing to aspire to and is something to avoid, being a victim is NOT a sin. It is nothing to be ashamed of. To the contrary, the most innocent are the most unsuspecting and most easily victimized ... until they have learned the hard way not to assume that other people are good. And these foggy-headed idiots who blame the victim should be able to see that. (Maybe if they stopped thinking in buzzword-laden slogans, like robots, they would.)
You stop being a victim by wising up so that you are never again victimized. It requires nothing beyond COMMON SENSE to realize that.
In some cases, the narcissist has stolen something of value from you, like your job or reputation - something you have every right to get back from the damned thief. You stop being a victim when you win justice and get it back, period.
SOURCE
Labels: attack, blame, blame shifting, blame the victim, blamers, codependence, codependency, excuses, manipulation, narcissist, psychopath, smear campaign, sociopath, trauma, victim blaming
Thursday, March 10, 2022
Who Gets Targeted
by Kathy Krajco
Like all predators, narcissists target the vulnerable.
Many things can make a person vulnerable. Being smaller than the narcissist. Having less power in the company. Having dangerous enemies. Having a bad reputation. Being defenseless in any way. Being gentle. Being too moral to get as down-and-dirty as the narcissist does. Loving the narcisist makes you very vulnerable. Being the narcissist's benefactor also makes you vulnerable. (That's because we love those we sacrifice for, because to do otherwise would be to devalue ourselves. We also have good reason to expect goodwill from those who owe us gratitude, so we are trusting -- totally blind-sided by their malice.)
A narcissist targets the small, defenseless, or gentle because he can have the most powerful effect on them. It's more fun to bash something small to smithereens than it is to just dent something big. So your narcissist gets the strongest power rush from abusing the small, defenseless, and gentle.
Hence, for example, he feels best when viciously snarling at his tender four-year-old daughter, because that eviscerates her, whereas it would only wound his wife.
If you carry this anti-logic to its conclusion, he makes himself God almighty by stomping an ant. Right?
Wrong. A baby can stomp an ant. Even a puppy can stomp an ant. Demolishing an ant requires no great power. But destroying a city does. Yet every bully on the planet cheats by destroying something small and then thumping his chest as if that proves him mighty.
Sun Tzu, in his ancient treatise On the Art of War, notices the same thing about bullies:
To lift an autumn hair is no sign of great strength; to see the sun and moon is no sign of sharp sight;to hear the noise of thunder is no sign of a quick ear.Yet every narcissistic bully makes the same egregious error of logic. That blasts to smithereens the myth that narcissists are exceptionally intelligent. To the contrary, only a moron makes such an egregious error in logic.
Yet, a minute later, while he's filling out his tax return, the moron is suddenly intelligent enough to do it right.
Therefore his moronhood of a moment ago was just willful stupidity, wasn't it? And who is stupider than somebody who thinks it smart to be stupid?
The Intelligence of Narcissists and Whom They Target
Labels: abuse, abused, narcissist, pathological, psychopath, sociopath, targets, vulnerable
Friday, March 04, 2022
Projection
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 21-22How'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.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.
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 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.
SOURCE
Labels: blame shifting, hypocrite, lying, narcissist, pathological, projection, scapegoating, smear campaign, sociopath
Wednesday, March 02, 2022
Hate the Abuser, Not the Abused!
By: Dorothy Lafrinere
Abuse is the most horrible attempt at power that I have ever researched! This is why:
The shame that is felt by an abused person is so deep that it takes years to unfold, then years to put in a safe place. Some never get that far. They turn to drugs, alcohol, and even eating disorders that tear their physical being apart. Some even repeat the same actions that were done to them with, their spouses or children.
Definition of Shame: "the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another." In the issue of abuse, shame is what the victim is left to deal with and live with forever.
An abused person can turn their guilt towards their abuser to free themselves of that horrible feeling, but they are still scarred by shame. They continue to suffer in a torture that is far worse than the actual abuse they have experienced. To feel powerless and unable to stop the abuse, is just the beginning of the after effects of the horrible shock that their mind has had to deal with. To know and to fear that it will occur again and again, and that they are just one step away from crying out for help, but cannot, is another part of the shame that haunts them.
Most abuse victims do not understand that it is not their physical self that has undergone the abuse. The mental abuse is what hurts so much. It's just a means to an end in the abusers mind. It's a green light, so to speak, for them to enter. The abuser will use that to feel the power that is being seeked through abuse. And also to take away your power, thus leaving you powerless. By making the abused person feel powerless, their emotional well-being is tortured. That is where the abused needs to start to repair themselves, in their mind. They need to focus on their emotional wounds first and foremost. Only then can the healing process begin.
I really want to stress here that the abuser made sure that you are in a NO WIN situation and that all the aces are in their hand. There is not one thing that you could have said, thought, or done in preparation for this horrible attack.
You are NOT at fault.The entire demeaning, emotional attack was way out of your hands to stop. The abuser used a very detailed plan in regards to what steps would get you at exactly the right time and with what method.
Many victims will seek out professional help. Some victims wait until they have already tried many, not so healthy, ways to escape the reality of the abuse period. Some never even get that far. They are the ones that give in to the pain and elect to erase themselves. (suicide).
A very important thing that all abused victims should HEAR me say is that your abuser has put a lot of energy and thought into their plan. Their plan was to delete you of all power and to make them "The All-Powerful". You had NO chance, even before the beginning of your abuse. Have you ever said that you would rather endure physical pain than to have the mental agony eat you apart? That is what an abused victim feels with every breathe they take.
The abuser will use any tricks to corner its prey, such as coercion, weapons, surprise attacks, and an age difference whether it be younger or much older victims. Abusers have even been reported using their power in their job title, or position as landlords. Male abusers may hold financial security over their victims head as a threat in order to keep them from leaving and seeking help outside the home (prison). Men, in general, are more capable of using violence than women. This fact alone places women as an easier target for abuse.
Victims of abuse go through many different emotions through out their existence, after the abuse, and even during. They tend to:
-Think only negative
-Think with two minds
-Be quick to assume outcomes
-They are constantly comparing themselves to others and usually putting themselves down
-They feel sorrowful for everyone around them, continue to nurture a resentment emotion, feel the need to always be holding someone responsible for their pain or vice-versa
-They allow low self-esteem to control them, thinking that in some way if they keep themselves down, they will be forgiven for their guilt.
The same guilt that comes from the shame of their nightmare.
Shame is a very controlling emotion. It's an emotion that your mind can rid itself of. You must stop judging yourself. Hate the abuser, hate the actions, and hate the ways that you feel from the horrible experiences that you have survived. Hate that you did not kill that bad person, hate that someone else did not hear your cries for help, hate that you were the chosen victim, hate that you did not wake up and it was all a very bad dream. Hate all that and hate it hard.
Now, separate that hate from the hate that you feel for yourself. Scream at the hate that you feel inside. It is that hate that is keeping you weak. With that weakness, shame, guilt, self doubt, and self-hate are being allowed to toy with your mind which is totally abusing your life now. Can you see what has happened now? You, in fact have become the abuser to you. The one thing that you hate so much is in you now. As quickly as you can say "STOP", do it. Stop abusing you. Stop allowing the past abuse to rule your life. Laugh at it, kick at it, spit at it, call it the worst names you can think of. PLEASE, PLEASE , JUST STOP HURTING YOU. Love you, hug you, know that you are SPECIAL, and that you are not the abuser. You were the victim, the innocent person in a NO WIN situation. You can do it. Have faith in you. It's time to change the chapter in your book and write a much sunnier, happier chapter. You are the author of your book of life. You can change the page. It is in your hands to do.
Build your self-esteem so that you can stomp out your fears, anxieties, and anger. I will look forward to reading your new book. Please feel free to share with me your story, so I can appreciate your book of life. There are also others that may gain strength through your book. Abuse is not acceptable, nor is it human. Please stop the abuse!!!
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"Domestic violence causes far more pain than the visible marks of bruises and scars. It is devastating to be abused by someone that you love and think loves you in return. It is estimated that approximately 3 million incidents of domestic violence are reported each year in the United States." - Dianne Feinstein
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About the author: Dorothy Lafrinere Owner/Operator Website- http://www.womensselfesteem.com
Weblog- http://www.justblogme.com/
Dorothy Forum- http://womenselfesteem.proboards29.com
email- dorothy@womensselfesteem.com
Labels: abuse, control, domestic violence, power, self esteem
