Sanctuary for the Abused

Friday, December 09, 2022

The Differences Between A Sociopath And A Narcissist

by Learus Ohnine

When we try to analyze the people we cross paths with in society, it is possible to misinterpret our analysis for lack of a better understanding. For those who have crossed paths with a sociopath and a narcissist (on separate occasions), it may seem like there is little to no difference between the two when in fact one can be mistaken for the other. Both are considered to be social terrorists, however, there are distinguishing characteristics that would imply neither of them are one in the same. Therefore, I would like to explain briefly the differences in character between these two personality disorders…

A Narcissist will

often let you know up front what they’re about.
They will tell you grandiose stories of themselves of either their accomplishments (real or fake) or of their associations with important people (real or fake).
They generally do not tell these stories for any other gain than to hear praises.
They have an unquenchable desire to be admired, worshiped, and adulated with no real gain from those that respond to them in this way other than to feed their own ego.
They need to be the center of attention at all times in any social gathering.

A Sociopath will

NEVER let you know up front what they are about, because they wear a mask to hide their true identity.
They will tell you grandiose stories of themselves of either their accomplishments (real or fake, but mostly fake) or of their associations with important people (real or fake, but mostly fake).
They generally tell these stories to appear as a “good person” to gain trust and as a cover-up for their ulterior motives.
They have the same unquenchable desires as the Narcissist as a result of the power and control they gain over their victims.
They do not care to be the center of attention at all times in any social gathering unless doing so promises to earn them more unsuspecting victims.

Here’s a few more brief distinguishing characteristics:

A Narcissist can occasionally have a conscience. A Sociopath has no conscience whatsoever, nor do they have any remorse for hurting others intentionally.
A Narcissist can occasionally be constructive. A Sociopath is always destructive.
A Narcissist’s world can be built by their own hands. A Sociopath prefers their world to be built by someone else’s hands.
A Narcissist is self-deceptive. A Sociopath is socially deceptive.
A Narcissist needs admirers. A Sociopath needs victims.
A Narcissist lacks empathy in the form of belittling, name-calling, and defaming another’s character. A Sociopath lacks empathy in a criminal or physically violent way.
A Narcissist exploits themselves in a grandiose manner. A Sociopath pretends to be someone who they are not to hide their hidden agendas.

Both think they are superior to anyone and everyone, both think they deserve special treatment, both process the world differently, and both play to “win”. However, it is possible for both personality traits to be combined into one, which is called a “Narcissistic Sociopath,” and is more dangerous than the two of them separately.

SOURCE

From what I know: All Sociopaths are also Narcissists. Not all Narcissists are/or become Sociopaths.
One can be a Narcissistic Sociopath but NEVER a Sociopathic Narcissist. The spectrum only moves one way. - Barbara

Labels: blame shifting, deception, destructive, female, male, narcissist, no conscious, no empathy, predator, psychopath, smear campaign, sociopath, victim

shared by Barbara at 4:00 PM 0 comments

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

shared by Barbara at 12:42 AM 1 comments

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 21-22

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.

SOURCE

Labels: blame shifting, hypocrite, lying, narcissist, pathological, projection, scapegoating, smear campaign, sociopath

shared by Barbara at 12:06 AM 5 comments

Narcissists are Projection Machines

by Kathy Krajco

Narcissists really know only a few tricks. One happens to be projection, and they practice it so much that it becomes second nature. Hence narcissists love to commit character assassination by calling the party they're tearing down (to look better than) the narcissist. A joke.

Where is the character assassination coming from? Where is the inflated measure of self importance (grandiosity) coming from? Where is the envy coming from? Where is the grandiosity shamed by needing the other party's help? Where is all the dissing and denigrating coming from? Where is the rage over nothing on a regular basis? Where is the dehumanizing charicature coming from? Who's making all the wild accusations?

That's yer narcissist. Every time. Always a living, breathing Projection Machine. Your first clue? He or she is trashing somebody else.They just cannot get the difference between true greatness and grandiosity. You can tell them a million times that grandiosity is a gross overestimate of importance and greatness. They always get it exactly backwards and accuse the great one (like the great leader or the great inventor or the great builder or the great nation = America) of being "grandiose". It is too complex an idea for them to comprehend that you are not grandiose because you are important: you are grandiose because you're a piss-ant who thinks they're important.

Never expect narcissists to comprehend that.

And who cares more about their fellow human beings than those who spend their blood and treasure saving them? Those who make a virtue out of looking the other way while dictators mass murder their own people would have us think that sacrificing your blood and treasure for others is the very opposite of what it is. They characterize it as, of all things, "selfish" and "brutal".

And the punch line is that they characterize their looking the other way as the "humanitarian" behavior. They keep a perfectly straight face while saying this! They call that (of all things) "loving peace."

Enough to make the head spin.

There is just enough room in the skull for the brain to get twisted all the way around backwards and upside down. All you have to do is arrive at your desired conclusion first, and then think backwards to justify it.

People who just think whatever is popular today will swallow it whole without ever noticing how absurd your "reasoning" is.

SOURCE

Labels: blame shifting, character assassination, crazy-making, defamation, delusional, lying, narcissism, narcissist, pathological, projection, slander

shared by Barbara at 12:03 AM 4 comments

Lies Abusers Tell Their Victims

The following is a long list of lies, threats, and insane statements that abusers make in order to keep their victims in line, and in order to keep the blame away from themselves and the abuse cycle going. Note that many of the following do in fact happen -- threats of violence are often carried out, sometimes the police do come, and so on. Sometimes, lies do come true, for victims of abuse.

You're just taking it wrong.

I wouldn't hit you if you weren't so bad.

We could make this relationship great if only you would work harder.

You made me lie by not making it easy to tell the truth.

I only lied to you because I knew you'd be hurt if you found out the truth.

Your mother/sister/My wife won't give me this, and I/men need it.

If you tell anyone about this, I will stop giving your mother her child support and you/she will be homeless and starving.

If you tell, the police will come and take me away.

This is normal in Europe -- I'm doing this so you can be more sophisticated than your peers.

If you don't, I'll do it to your sister/brother.

You know you like it; what are you trying to get from me by resisting?

You're really tense; I can help you relax.

Let me make you feel better.

This is how you show love to people.

Children have to do what their parents tell them.

All [insert your least favorite group here] are going to hell.

If you can be sexy enough men will like you and you can go far in life.

You can make a lot of money as a prostitute.

All you're interested in is sex. That's all that most (teen-agers/women/men) are interested in.

You're not good for anything else anyways so you might as well use what you are good at.

You own nothing, not even yourself. In my house, you are mine.

Your asking not to be touched isn't a good reason for me not to touch you.

In my house you will do what I want you to.

If you tell, I'll kill your cat/dog/child/mother/father/friend/coworker.

I bought you X, but you owe me because you didn't earn it.

You will ruin our lives.

You're going to be the death of me.

You're going to grieve the loss after I leave you, but not the loss of love -- you're going to feel the loss a junkie feels when she can't get a hit.

I'm finally committed to you. That's why I have to leave you.

I can't live without you.

I know you better than you know yourself.

I was/am the parent/spouse/teacher/authority figure; therefore I know better than you.

This is going to kill your mother/father/teacher.

If you do this, nobody will ever talk to you again.

Your mother/father/sister/spouse wouldn't understand.

You're special, and this is our special secret.

Only true "friends" can be like this.

This is going to teach you about how to handle those horny teenage boys/girls who will be after you.

I have no one else to talk to.

You're the only one who really loves me.

You're too sensitive. I'm sick of you being so hypersensitive all the time!

Why are you so negative?

You're not sorry. If you were sorry, you wouldn't have said it.

You're bad. You're worthless. You're ugly.

You shouldn't feel that way. You shouldn't think that way.

I never did that. It never happened. You're just making it up.

Up to you. If you want to.

I can't believe how selfish you are.

You're self-centered, lazy, and irresponsible.

You shouldn't let it bother you.

That's just the way your [abuser] is. You shouldn't let them bother you.

I'm sick. I need help.

You know I love you/ have feelings for you/ care about you.

What are you mad at me for? I stopped drinking/beating you/abusing drugs, didn't I? What else do I need to do?

I wouldn't tease you if I didn't love you so much.

For a smart person, you sure do some dumb things.

You just remember what you want to remember.

Don't talk about your experience with my drinking/drug use/abuse/sex addiction because it will embarrass me.

Don't tell anyone about this. It's our little secret.

I'll kill you if you tell.

If you tell my spouse/significant other about us, he/she will kill themselves. And it will be your fault.

You'd be a lot prettier if you wore makeup.

You'd be a lot nicer if you weren't such a bitch.

He/She/They are lying/making it up/planted that stuff you found. They are jealous and want to ruin what we have.

I wouldn't do this to you if you weren't such a dirty, bad little girl/boy.

I wouldn't do this to you if you didn't like it.

You're a slut.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself!!
(NOTE: This is one of the most deadly things a person can ever say to a child.)

You only get what you deserve.

You have to forgive your abuser. You have to forgive me. It'll do you good if you forgive me. That's really the best thing for you.

I only have your best interests at heart.

This hurts me more than it hurts you.

Why are you so stupid? Why are you so snotty? Why are you so hard to get along with?

Why are you so [insert random meaningless accusation here]??

That's not what you meant. I know what you really meant.

You're overdramatic. You're obsessed.

You made me mad. You provoked me. You made me do it.

I'm not going to talk to you until you apologize.

Your feelings aren't important. Your opinions don't matter. I'm the only one who can be right. I'm the only one who can have feelings and opinions. I'm the only one who counts.

I never treated you that way. You imagined it. You had a wonderful childhood /adolescence/marriage/relationship.

You shouldn't feel like you were abused, because we gave you everything. You're so ungrateful. For all I have to put up with...

You're antagonistic. You're argumentative. You have a way of making people angry.

I can't be nice to you because it wouldn't work.

I can't ask you politely to do something because you wouldn't do it.

You never... You always...

You're just overreacting. You're just making a big deal out of nothing.

You're rude. You're uncooperative. You're unkind. You're just not a very nice person.

Boys don't cry.

Nice girls don't dress that way/have sex/yell/go anywhere alone.

Never hurt anyone's feelings. If you do, you're bad.

Go to therapy as long as you like, but when will you be done?

If you talk about your feelings, you're just whining. That's all they do in those support groups, anyway. They just sit around wallowing in self-pity.

Friends can't be trusted. Your friends are evil.

You're not sensible. You don't think things through.

You're ridiculous. Where did you get that crazy idea?!

Did [random suspect person] put you up to this?!

You're the Good Daughter/Wife/Girlfriend.

You're the Bad Daughter/Wife/Girlfriend.

You just need to try harder. You just need to stop letting your feelings get hurt.

Of course I love you. I wouldn't do this to you if I didn't love you.

Just because I have other partners doesn't mean I'm cheating on you.

Go ahead. Go out with your friends... and leave your family home alone!

You only like history because you're obsessed with the past. Why can't you look to the future, like me?

What's wrong with you?

You don't deserve to be forgiven. I only treat you like this because you deserve it.

I wouldn't treat you this way if you didn't need discipline.

I wouldn't keep dumping you if I didn't have to. I wouldn't keep dumping you if you didn't hurt me so much.

I wouldn't have left you if you weren't so awful.

I'd treat you better if you just tried harder.

It hurts me to love you.

I'm only doing this for your own good.

excerpted source

Labels: abusers, addiction, adult children of narcissists, blame shifting, coercion, emotional, evil. predators, lies, psychopath, sexual, verbal abuse

shared by Barbara at 12:15 AM 6 comments

Phrases Abusers Love to Use

Bullies all seem to have read the same phrase book. Compare notes with other victims of other bullies and abusers and you will think they're describing your life and the things that you get to hear on a regular basis.

"You make me feel …."
I can not make you feel anything, nor am I responsible for anything that you may be feeling. If I am doing something specific that bothers you, then be specific and we'll discuss what I am doing and why you respond with those feelings.

If you want me to make you happy, forget it. It is way beyond my capabilities to orchestrate your emotions.

"You never .."
Never is a big word. Do you mean that out of the 7354 mornings we have woken up together I have not once made you a cup of coffee? Do you mean that out of the 7475 days that we have been married I have not once listened to anything that you have said to me? No? Then please define "never".

"You always .."
This is just as bad as "never". Both are absolutes that are impossible to address in any realistic way. It is also a highly offensive exaggeration that is designed to put you on the defensive.

"You don't understand me"
For a bully this is a classic cop-out that is part of the "blame shifting" package. For a narcissist it is a deeply held belief.

Let's start with the common bully. By telling you that you don't understand him it implies that you are not performing up to scratch. First of all there is the underlying demand that you must understand him fully and secondly there is the silent accusation that you are failing and need to try harder. The onus has shifted from him squarely onto you.

I don't know about you, but I have a hard enough time fully understanding myself sometimes. It is unrealistic to expect someone else to always understand you. They are not in your head. They are not in your heart. They have not lived through and assimilated your lifetime's junk.

If someone doesn't understand me it is either because they simply cannot relate to my experiences and inner processes, or it is because I am doing a lousy job explaining. One is the result of their own life experiences and the other is the result of my ineptitude. Neither gives me cause to hold them responsible.

When it comes to the narcissist, the same rules apply - you cannot understand anyone 100%. However, the dynamic is a little different. The narcissist believes that he is so unique and special that nobody can possibly understand him. He believes that this is a large part of all his life's problems. He is surrounded by inferior beings and it gets really tiring to have to constantly stoop to such a low level just to maintain a source of supply. However, he is such a magnanimous superior being that he exercises immense tolerance and patience, despite the perpetual frustration and despair it causes him.

Finally, when he is saying, "you don't understand me" what he is really saying is that you are not allowing him to get away with something, he is feeling cornered and he just wants you to shut up and let it go now.

"You don't care"
This obviously also includes, "you don't love me" or "you don't love me as much as I love you" and a host of other phrases that are designed to make you jump to assure him that he is wrong.

Pure emotional blackmail and a really nifty catch-22 for you. Unless you now go out of your way to try to disprove the statement, you will in fact have proved it. It is a real "damned if you do and damned if you don't" set up.

Even if you give it your very best but slip up on the smallest thing, you have proved him right. You can't win, so why twist yourself in knots in the first place?

Love is an emotion or choice for the giver and an act of faith for the recipient. How does anyone prove an emotion? - This is exactly what they want you to realise, because then you will also have to conclude that the only way to prove it is by your actions - lots of them - all the time - to perfection. Exactly what they want.

"You provoked me" along with "you made me …"
The saddest thing about this is how often it works. The victim gets turned into the abuser and the abuser gets off without an ounce of accountability. The victim even ends up apologising for causing the abuser such agony that he was forced to abuse her in the first place.

"Oh honey, I'm so sorry that I made you hit me".
"Oh daddy, I'm sorry that I made you so mad that you hurt your hand on me".
"Oh darling, I'm so sorry I hurt you so much you went and had an affair"

Nobody makes us do anything. They can bully us, provoke us, motivate us and sorely tempt us, but in the end we are the ones in control of our own bodies and our own actions. Nobody else.

"I have the right "
I know that there are female bullies and female narcissists as well, but this particular stock phrase seems to be more pronounced in the male persuasion, mainly because they have the odds on their side before they even begin.

We live in a male dominated world and although it is slowly changing, the attitude is deeply ingrained. As men, they automatically believe that they have certain irrefutable rights, like the right of ownership and dominance over women and children. Unfortunately many religions support and encourage this view, or are interpreted to support it by the very same males who stand behind the pulpits. - One of their rights being to interpret and enforce religious precepts and principles.

So having this "God-given" right to total control, it is no wonder that they believe they have the right to say what they want, demand what they want and do what they want.

While bullies may still have some hope, the narcissist is way beyond it. If he is religious, then he honestly believes that he holds a favoured position with God and that when he speaks, it is as good as God Himself speaking.

The main purpose of invoking these different rights is very simply to strip you of all yours, or at least to convince you that you had none in the first place. He now has absolute power to control you and you can do nothing - because it is his divine right. Are you going to argue with God?

If you are living with this particular dynamic, please google "christians and abuse." It may salvage both your sanity and your faith.

Tied in with this absolute right, it would follow then that phrases like, "you're lying" or "you will" and "you won't" come so naturally to them. Right along with these come all the religious scriptures that they have at the ready, all bringing you instruction directly from God himself that you are to submit to, obey and all but worship the man in your life, whether dad, husband or boyfriend. I have even seen brothers using this against their sisters.

I am not anti religion. I am however anti abuse and exploitation in any shape or form.

These claims to rights are no more than base-level manipulation, blackmail and the abuse of power in order to exercise dominance and control over the life of another.

I have focused on men here and therefore need to reiterate that they are not the only guilty ones. I have in fact seen women come into power and become more abusive than any male I have ever encountered. I have also seen abusive mothers and abusive wives, so I am certainly not excluding the female gender from this evil.

Abuse is not gender specific, it is power driven. The thing that makes it worse with men is purely these supposedly inbuilt rights that they believe are genetically encoded and therefore absolute. The structure of most societies sadly supports this as well, making men far more prone to being abusers than women.

SOURCE

Labels: always, blame shifting, gender, guilt, manipulation, narcisissts, never good enough, pathological, rights, sociopaths, stock phrases

shared by Barbara at 12:11 AM 4 comments

Do Narcissists KNOW?

"Do narcissists know what they're doing is wrong?"

"Do narcissists know they hurt you?"

"Do narcissists know they're doing bad things?"

"Do narcissists know what they do?"

Do... Narcissists... Know?!

This is by far the most common question asked about narcissists [ ]. Everybody wants to know if narcissists are aware of the pain they're causing, and whether or not they know their behavior is wrong.

People feel very differently about someone who chooses to do something hurtful that they know is wrong and someone who isn't aware that what they're doing is hurtful or wrong (or who doesn't do it on purpose).

Let's say you and a friend are jogging side by side when his foot catches yours and trips you up accidentally. He apologizes, asks if you're all right, helps you up and tells you he didn't mean it. You forgive him without a second thought, and you say it's okay.

But what if you were running alongside a competitor in a road race, and they tripped you to get ahead? You'd feel very differently about this person tripping you up than you felt about your clumsy friend, wouldn't you?

If a two year-old pushes another child down the stairs, we feel very differently about the toddler than we'd feel about a 12 year-old who did the same.

If a developmentally delayed person gets upset and yells at someone, we don't have the same reaction to that as we would to someone of average intelligence who does it.

We clearly have different expectations of - and responses to - people who do not truly know the pain they cause or at least do not cause it intentionally.

Narcissists do know wrong from right. If they didn't, they wouldn't hide their unfair actions like they frequently do. If you ask narcissists whether it's fair play to cut someone off in traffic or take credit for someone else's work, they'll easily be able to tell you it's not right. And if they do either of those things, they will attempt to hide the fact that they've done it. This is because they do know it's wrong, and they don't want to lose the admiration and respect of others who will think less of them for having done so.

However, the diagnosis of pathological narcissism involves the presence of insufficient empathy. Even though narcissists do know hurting someone's feelings is wrong, they still aren't capable of really empathizing very much with (and therefore, caring about) the person being hurt.

So when narcissists need an ego fix, they do what they know is wrong (like putting someone down), largely because they lack the empathy that should stop them. Then, because they are aware that what they did is wrong and that people will think less of them for it, they cover it up so they won't have to pay the consequences. (Narcissists don't like consequences. Those are for little people.)

So narcissists will do insensitive things to get their narcissistic supply, because they both want it so badly and because there's no empathy to make them feel for the people they're being unkind to. Then, because they are aware it's wrong and that it makes them wrong, they cover it up and (perhaps sometimes unconsciously) deny it, gaslighting and projecting their way out of responsibility so that nobody, including themselves, will see them as imperfect for having done it. (And if you see them as imperfect, then you're a serious problem, because as long as you're there to remind them they're not perfect, they'll have to think about the concept, and they just plain won't.)

So...

Do narcissists know they hurt you?

They know you're hurt, but they don't feel your hurt.

Do narcissists know what they're doing is wrong?

They know what wrong is, and they may do it, but they cannot accept the concept of being a person who does anything wrong, because that means they're not superior and perfect. So narcissists vehemently push away the information that they've done something hurtful. They do know what a hurtful act is, and yet they have to deny that they did it.

Narcissists use a number of different ways to deny their hurtful actions (and to try making you deny it along with them so you'll stop complaining). Blaming others, gaslighting, labeling someone who complains about them cruel, lying, making excuses and playing the martyr are a narcissist's typical responses. Whatever it takes to stop all recognition (by them and you) of the fact that they were inconsiderate can be expected.

So yes, narcissists are aware that they've hurt your feelings and that it's wrong, but they just cannot accept that knowledge. They deny it to prevent narcissistic injury, and desperately want you to deny it as well. And usually, they deny it so quickly and so habitually that it doesn't even register in their consciousness before the excuses and protests are given out.

Typically, when told they've hurt your feelings, a narcissist's denial takes the forms of insisting you're not hurt, or that you shouldn't be hurt, that you're wrong to be hurt, that they didn't hurt you, that you're too easily hurt, and that you shouldn't complain because they're hurt worse. Narcissists

FROM THIS WONDERFUL SITE (click here)

Labels: abuse, adult children of narcissists, blame shifting, gaslighting, hurt, lack of empathy, narcisissts, narcissism, pain, pathological, psychopathy

shared by Barbara at 1:26 AM 8 comments

Blaming the Victim

The most common emotional responses to sexual harassment, verbal & emotional abuse, battering, on & offline stalking, coercion & manipulation and rape are guilt, fear, powerlessness, shame, betrayal, anger, and denial. Guilt is often the first and deepest response. Anger may arise only later; this is not surprising, because as women we often have no sense of a right to be free from these kinds of violence.

What victims are told to believe: "If anything goes wrong, it must be our fault."

We may feel guilty about violence done to us because we are taught that our job is to make men happy, and if they aren't, we--not they--are to blame. Many of us heard from our parents, "Boys will be boys, so girls must take care"--the message being that we can avoid unwanted male attention if only we are careful enough. Blaming the victim releases the man who commits violence from the responsibility for what he has done. Friends or family may blame the victim in order to feel safe themselves: "She got raped because she walked alone after midnight. I'd never do that, so rape won't happen to me" or "She knew what she was doing when she went out with him/ started a relationship with him."

WOMEN ARE NOT GUILTY FOR VIOLENCE & ABUSE COMMITTED BY MEN ON OUR BODY, IN OUR MIND, AND SPIRIT. THIS VIOLENCE HAPPENS BECAUSE OF MEN'S GREATER POWER AND THEIR MISUSE OF THAT POWER.

(We have used the male gender for the abuser - yours may be female!)

Labels: abuse, blame, blame shifting, blame the victim, guilt, narcissist, power, projection, psychopath, shame

shared by Barbara at 12:15 AM 10 comments

The Elements of Power & Control

The Power and Control Wheel

Using isolation. One of the most effective ways to begin to overpower another person is to keep her from having contact with others. By systematically severing her relationships with family, friends, and co-workers, the batterer insures that his victim has little support. He becomes her only point of reference, thereby defining and controlling her world. Batterers can isolate their partners in a variety of ways, from excessive jealousy to restricting their access to education and jobs or controlling where they go or with whom they spend their time. For women with disabilities, lesbians, older women, immigrant women, or others who are marginalized by mainstream society, isolation takes on an increased potency.

Minimizing, denying, and blaming. Batterers often minimize or deny the abuse, or they blame their partners for provoking it. He may minimize the severity of her injuries, or outright deny that he caused them. Unfortunately, "victim-blaming" is prevalent in our society. Sometimes abusers play mind games with their victims trying to make them feel crazy. Often violent behavior towards women is justified by saying things like "she asked for it" or "she needed to be put back in her place." In so doing, the blame and accountability shifts from the abusive behavior of the batterer to the "weakness" of the victim.

Using children. Using children is yet another way that a batterer can instill feelings of guilt and incompetence in his partner, making her feel like a "bad" mother. Some batterers will force children to turn against their mothers, or will threaten to take the children away if the victim were to try to leave. There is also evidence that in homes where there is abuse towards the mother, there is an increased likelihood of abuse towards the children. Girls whose fathers batter their mothers are 6.5 times more likely to be sexually assaulted by their fathers than are girls from non-violent homes.

Using male privilege. In our patriarchal society, men are often raised to believe that they have been given the right to be dominating and aggressive. Being "tough" and "in charge" are accepted and expected as part of one´s manhood. It is all too often the case that batterers use this gender imbalance as a justification for violent or controlling behavior.

Using economic abuse. By controlling and limiting a woman´s access to financial means, a batterer can assure that his victim will have limited resources if she has thoughts of leaving. She may have to turn over her paycheck, leave her job, or account for every penny spent. Too often women have to choose between staying in an abusive relationship or being thrust into economic ruin or poverty.

Using coercion and threats. Threats are used to control by creating intense fear that can paralyze the victim's ability to act or keep herself constantly on guard in an effort to protect our lives or well-being. Some common threats are suicide, threats to kill her or the children, threats to damage property, etc. The victim may also be coerced into acting in ways that contradict her values, such as prostitution or fraud.

Using intimidation. Abusers will often commit terrifying acts in order to keep their partner in a state of continuous fear. This may include smashing things, killing pets, harassing friends and family, setting fires, driving recklessly, suicide and homicide. Intimidation periodically reinforced with assault, makes violence a daily part of the victim´s reality and, therefore, makes her easier to control.

Using emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is the most common form of control and can often exist in relationships where there is not physical battering. This includes put-downs, insults to the victim´s intelligence and abilities, name-calling, etc. In so doing, the batterer systematically breaks her spirit and self-esteem. She may begin to feel as if the abuse is her fault or that she must deserve it.

These forms of abuse are used in multiple combinations. Constant violence and criticism leaves women uncertain, humiliated, and much easier to control.

(while this was written in the Male, your abuser may well be Female)

Labels: blame shifting, coercion, denying, economic, emotional abuse, intimidation, isolation, minimizing, misogyny, narcissist, psychopath

shared by Barbara at 12:32 AM 6 comments

10 WARNING SIGNS OF WORD SALAD

by Peace

This article is from a later chapter of the Psychopath Free book (click to view on Amazon).

When they’re feeling threatened or bored, psychopaths will often use what’s called “word salad” in an attempt to keep your mind occupied. Basically, it’s a conversation from hell. They aren’t actually saying anything at all. They’re just talking at you. Before you can even respond to one outrageous statement, they’re already on to the next. You’ll be left with your head spinning. Study the warning signs, and disengage before any damage can be done:

1. Circular conversations

You’ll think you worked something out, only to begin discussing it again in two minutes. And it’s as if you never even said a word the first time around. They begin reciting all of the same tired garbage, ignoring any legitimate arguments you may have provided moments ago. If something is going to be resolved, it will be on their terms. With psychopaths, the same issues will come up over and over again—why are they so friendly with their ex again? Why are they suddenly not paying any attention to you? Why do they sound so eager to get off the phone? And every time you bring up these issues, it’s as if you never even had the argument in the past. You get sucked back in, only to feel crazy & high-maintenance when they decide “I’m sick of always arguing about this.” It’s a merry-go-round.

2. Bringing up your past wrongdoings & ignoring their own

If you point out something nasty they're doing—like ignoring you or cheating—they’ll mention something totally unrelated from the past that you’ve done wrong. Did you used to drink too much? Well then, their cheating isn’t really all that bad compared to your drinking problem. Were you late to your first date two years ago? Well then, you can’t complain about them ignoring you for three days straight. And God forbid you bring up any of their wrongdoings. Then, you are a bitter lunatic with a list of grievances.

3. Condescending & patronizing tone

The entire conversation will have this calm, cool demeanor. It’s almost as if they’re mocking you, gaging your reactions to see how much further they can push. When you finally react emotionally, that’s when they’ll tell you to calm down, raise their eyebrows, smirk, or feign disappointment. The whole point of word salad is to make you unhinged, and therefore give them the upper hand. Because remember, conversations are competitions—just like anything else with a psychopath.

4. Accusing you of doing things that they themselves are doing

I mentioned this in the previous section about psychopaths putting you on the defense. In heated arguments, psychopaths have no shame. They will begin labeling you with their own horrible qualities. It goes beyond projection, because most people project unknowingly. Psychopaths know they are smearing you with their own flaws, and they are seeking a reaction. After all, how can you not react to such blatant hypocrisy?

5. Multiple personas

Through the course of a word salad conversation, you’re likely to experience a variety of their personalities. It’s sort of like good cop, bad cop, demented cop, stalker cop, scary cop, baby cop. If you’re pulling away, sick of their abuse and lies, they will restore a glimpse of the idealize phase. A little torture to lure you back in with promises of marriage and children. If that doesn’t work, suddenly they’ll start insulting the things they once idealized. You’ll be left wondering who you’re even talking to, because his personas are imploding as they struggle to regain control. Our beloved administrator, Victoria, summed this up perfectly: “The devil himself was unleashed in a desperate fit of fury after being recognized: twisting, turning, writhing, spewing, flattering, sparkling, vomiting.”

6. The eternal victim

Somehow their cheating and lying will always lead back to a conversation about their abusive past or a crazy ex. You will end up feeling bad for them, even when they've done something horribly wrong. You will instead use it as an opportunity to bond with them over their supposed complex feelings. And once they have successfully averted your attention elsewhere, everything will go back to the way it was. No bonding or deep spiritual connection whatsoever. Psychopaths cry “abuse”—but in the end, you are the one left with nothing.

7. You begin explaining basic human emotions

You find yourself explaining things like “empathy” and “feelings” and “being nice”. Normal adults do not need to be taught the golden rules from kindergarten. You are not the first person who has attempted to see the good in them, and you will not be the last. You think to yourself, “if they can just understand why I’m hurt, then they’ll stop doing it.” But they won’t. They wouldn’t have done it in the first place if they were a decent human being. The worst part is, they pretended to be decent when you first met—sucking you in with this sweet, caring persona. They know how to be kind & good, but they find it boring.

8. Excuses

Everyone messes up every now and then, but psychopaths recite excuses more often than they actually follow through with promises. Their actions never match up with their words. You are disappointed so frequently that you feel relieved when they do something decent—they condition you to become grateful for the mediocre.

9. “What in the world just happened”

These conversations leave you drained. You will be left with an actual headache. You will spend hours, even days, obsessing over the argument. You’ll feel as if you exhausted all of your emotional energy to accomplish absolutely nothing. You will have a million pre-planned arguments in your head, ready to respond to all the unaddressed points that you couldn’t keep up with. You will feel the need to defend yourself. You’ll try to come up with a diplomatic solution that evenly distributes the blame, and therefore gives you both a chance to apologize and make up. But in the end, you’ll find that you’re the only one apologizing.

SOURCE (check out this great site!)

Labels: blame shifting, circular conversations, condescending, confusion, excuses, narcissist, patronizing, psychopath, schizophasia, sociopath, word salad

shared by Barbara at 12:01 AM 6 comments

INSIDE THE MIND OF A SOCIOPATH

Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern of the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken. And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools. Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless. You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience that they seldom even guess at your condition.

In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to the world. You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences, will most likely remain undiscovered.

How will you live your life? What will you do with your huge and secret advantage, and with the corresponding handicap of other people (conscience)? The answer will depend largely on just what your desires happen to be, because people are not all the same. Even the profoundly unscrupulous are not all the same. Some people - whether they have a conscience or not - favor the ease of inertia, while others are filled with dreams and wild ambitions. Some human beings are brilliant and talented, some are dull-witted, and most, conscience or not, are somewhere in between. There are violent people and non-violent ones, individuals who are motivated by blood lust and those who have no such appetites.

Maybe you are someone who craves money and power, and though you have no vestige of conscience, you do have a magnificent IQ. You have the driving nature and the intellectual capacity to pursue tremendous wealth and influence, and you are in no way moved by the nagging voice of conscience that prevents other people from doing everything and anything they have to do to succeed. You choose business, politics, the law, banking or international development, or any of a broad array of other power professions, and you pursue your career with a cold passion that tolerates none of the usual moral or legal encumbrances. When it is expedient, you doctor the accounting and shred the evidence, you stab your employees and your clients (or your constituency) in the back, marry for money, tell lethal premeditated lies to people who trust you, attempt to ruin colleagues who are powerful or eloquent, and simply steamroll over groups who are dependent and voiceless. And all of this you do with the exquisite freedom that results from having no conscience whatsoever.

You become unimaginably, unassailably, and maybe even globally successful. Why not? With your big brain, and no conscience to rein in your schemes, you can do anything at all.

Or no - let us say you are not quite such a person. You are ambitious, yes, and in the name of success you are willing to do all manner of things that people with conscience would never consider, but you are not an intellectually gifted individual. Your intelligence is above average perhaps, and people think of you as smart, maybe even very smart. But you know in your heart of hearts that you do not have the cognitive wherewithal, or the creativity, to reach the careening heights of power you secretly dreams about, and this makes you resentful of the world at large, and envious of the people around you.

As this sort of person, you ensconce yourself in a niche, or maybe a series of niches, in which you can have some amount of control over small numbers of people. These situations satisfy a little of your desire for power, although you are chronically aggravated at not having more. It chafes to be so free of the ridiculous inner voices that inhibit others from achieving great power, without having enough talent to pursue the ultimate successes yourself. Sometimes you fall into sulky, rageful moods caused by a frustration that no one but you understands.

But you do enjoy jobs that afford you a certain undersupervised control over a few individuals or small groups, preferably people and groups who are relatively helpless or in some way vulnerable. You are a teacher or a psychotherapist, a divorce lawyer or a high school coach. Or maybe you are a consultant of some kind, a broker or a gallery owner or a human services director. Or maybe you do not have a paid position and are instead the president of your condominium association, or a volunteer hospital worker, or a parent. Whatever your job, you manipulate and bully the people who are under your thumb, as often and as outrageously as you can without getting fired or held accountable. You do this for its own sake, even when it serves no purpose except to give you a thrill. Making people jump means you have power - or this is the way you see it - and bullying provides you with an adrenaline rush. It is fun.

Maybe you cannot be a CEO of a multinational corporation, but you can frighten a few people, or cause them to scurry around like chickens, or steal from them, or - maybe, best of all - create situations that cause them to feel bad about themselves. And this is power, especially when the people you manipulate are superior to you in some way. Most invigorating of all is to bring down people who are smarter or more accomplished than you, or perhaps classier, more attractive or popular or morally admirable. This is not only good fun; it is existential vengeance. And without a conscience, it is amazingly easy to do. You quietly lie to the boss or to the boss's boss, cry some crocodile tears, or sabotage a coworker's project, or gaslight a patient (or child), bait people with promises, or provide a little misinformation that will never be traced back to you.

Or now let us say you are a person who has a proclivity for violence or for seeing violence done. You simply murder your coworker, or have her murdered - or your boss, or your ex-spouse, or your wealthy lover's spouse, or anyone else who bothers you. You have to be careful, because if you slip up, you may be caught and punished by the system. But you will never be confronted by your conscience, because you have no conscience. If you decide to kill, the only difficulties will be the external ones. Nothing inside you will ever protest.

Provided you are not forcibly stopped, you can do anything at all. If you are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune, and you have a special talent for whipping up other people's hatred and sense of deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people. With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and you can sit back safely and watch in satisfaction. In fact, terrorism (done from a distance) is the ideal occupation for a person who is possessed of blood lust and no conscience, because if you do it just right, you may be able to make a whole nation jump. And if that is not power, what is?

Or let us imagine the opposite extreme: You have no interest in power. To the contrary, you are the sort of person who really does not want much of anything. Your only real ambition is not to have to exert yourself to get by. You do not want to work like everyone else does. Without a conscience, you can nap or pursue your hobbies or watch television or just hang out somewhere all day long. Living a bit on the fringes, and with some handouts from relatives and friends, you can do this indefinitely. People may whisper to one another that you are an underachiever, or that you are depressed, a sad case, or, in contrast, if they get angry, they may grumble that you are lazy. When they get to know you better, and get really angry, they may scream at you and call you a loser, a bum. But it will never occur to them that you literally do not have a conscience, that in such a fundamental way, your very mind is not the same as theirs.

The panicked feeling of a guilty conscience never squeezes at your heart or wakes you in the night. Despite your lifestyle, you never feel irresponsible, neglectful or so much as embarrassed, although for the sake of appearances, sometimes you pretend that you do. For example, if you are a decent observer of people and what they react to, you may adopt a lifeless facial expression, say how ashamed of your life you are, and talk about how rotten you feel. This you do only because it is more convenient to have people think you are depressed than it is to have them shouting at you all the time, or insisting that you get a job.

You notice that people who do have a conscience feel guilty when they harangue someone they believe to be "depressed" or "troubled." As a matter of fact, to you further advantage, they often feel obliged to take care of such a person. If, despite your relative poverty, you can manage to get yourself into a sexual relationship with someone, this person - who does not suspect what you are really like - may feel particularly obligated. And since all you want is not to have to work, your financier does not have to be especially rich, just relatively conscience-bound.

I trust that imagining yourself as any of these people feels insane to you, because such people are insane, dangerously so. Insane but real - they even have a label. Many mental health professionals refer to the condition of little or no conscience as "anti-social personality disorder," a non-correctable disfigurement of character that is now thought to be present in about 4 percent of the population - that is to say, one in twenty-five people. This condition of missing conscience is called by other names, too, most often "sociopathy," or the somewhat more familiar term psychopathy. Guiltlessness was in fact the first personality disorder to be recognized by psychiatry, and terms that have been used at times over the past century include manie sans délire, psychopathic inferiority, moral insanity, and moral imbecility.

This excerpt is from: "The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless vs. the Rest of Us" by Martha Stout Ph.D. (Broadway Books, New York, 2005, ISBN 0-7679-1581-X).

Martha Stout is a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School and elaborates on the tales of ruthlessness in everyday life based on her 25 years of practice as a specialist in the treatment of psychological trauma survivors.

SOURCE

TEST: HOW TO SPOT A SOCIOPATH

Labels: blame shifting, characteristics, conscience, harasser, martha stout, moral insanity, no guilt, no shame, psychopath, rewriting history, secrets, sociopath, sociopathy, stalker, unscrupulous

shared by Barbara at 12:18 AM 1 comments

If They Might Be A Narcissist?

RUN!!!!!!!!!

CHARACTERISTICS of the NARCISSIST and others with Cluster B Personality Disorders

1. Self-centered. His needs are paramount.

2. No remorse for mistakes or misdeeds.

3. Unreliable, undependable.

4. Does not care about the consequences of his actions.

5. Projects his faults on to others. High blaming behavior; never his fault.

6. Little if any conscience.

7. Insensitive to needs and feelings of others.

8. Has a good front (persona) to impress and exploit others.

9. Low stress tolerance. Easy to anger and rage.

10. People are to be manipulated for his needs.

11. Rationalizes easily. Twists conversation to his gain at other’s expense. If trapped, keeps talking, changes the subject or gets angry.

12. Pathological lying.

13. Tremendous need to control situations, conversations, others.

14. No real values. Mostly situational.

15. Often perceived as caring and understanding and uses this to manipulate.

16. Angry, mercurial, moods.

17. Uses sex to control, manipulate. Sex is objectified - NO REAL CONNECTION.

18. Does not share ideas, feelings, emotions.

19. Conversation controller. Must have the first and last word.

20. Is very slow to forgive others. Hangs onto resentment.

21. Secret life. Hides money, friends, activities.

22. Likes annoying others. Likes to create chaos and disruption for no reason.

23. Moody - switches from nice guy to anger without much provocation.

24. Repeatedly fails to honor financial obligations.

25. Seldom expresses appreciation.

26. Grandiose. Convinced he knows more than others and is correct in all he does.

27. Lacks ability to see how he comes across to others. Defensive when confronted with his behavior. Never his fault.

28. Can get emotional, tearful. This is about show, getting caught or frustration rather than genuine sorrow.

29. He breaks woman's spirits to keep them dependent.

30. Uses threats & intimidations to keep others close to him.

31. Sabotages partner. Wants her to be happy only through him and to have few or no outside interests and acquaintances.

32. Highly contradictory.

33. Convincing. Must convince people to side with him.

34. Hides his real self. Always “on”

35. Kind only if he's getting from you what he wants.

36. He has to be right. He has to win. He has to look good.

37. He announces, not discusses. He tells, not asks.

38. Does not discuss openly, has a hidden agenda.

39. Controls money of others but spends freely on himself.

40. Unilateral condition of, "I'm OK and justified so I don't need to hear your position or ideas"

41. Always feels misunderstood.

42. You feel miserable with this person. He drains you.

43. Does not listen because he does not care.

44. His feelings are discussed, not the partners.

45. Is not interested in problem-solving..

46. Very good at reading people, so he can manipulate them.

(though we have used the male gender, your narcissist may be female
they only need to have a few of these characteristics to be narcissistic!)

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Labels: abuse, blame shifting, lying, manipulation, miserable, narcissist, profiler, projection, secretive, selfish