Category Archives: comments and replies

Narcissistic injury.

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incrediblehulk

I am keeping my promise to remain 100% honest about everything on this blog. It’s my journal, and I’m going to continue to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. If that bothers people, they need to get over it or go read someone else’s blog. This is my blog and my life, and I will censor nothing that goes on in my mind.

Last night I insulted Sam Vaknin. My insulting him was unintentional and probably clueless, but he was angry enough about it to block me on social media and tell me to fuck off. Those were his exact words. Fuck off.

It wasn’t even me that insulted him. Well, not directly anyway. One of my commenters who frequents this blog made a sort of joke, seemingly at Sam’s expense (or at least I took it as a joke, which is why I approved the remark). I wasn’t actually sure if the jab was directed at me or at Sam. See, I’ve spent my whole life being paranoid and not knowing how to take jokes or how to respond to them (being Avoidant and socially awkward has a lot to do with this, plus having been bullied as a child has made me wary of snark and jokes made at my expense).

This joke was no exception. I was unsure about how I should react to it. I spent a long time trying to decide how to respond or if I should respond. I considered not approving the comment. Sometimes it’s just hard to know what is the best course of action when it comes to things like that.

I thought it over and over in my usual obsessive way, and when I weighed things out, it seemed the best course of action would be to go ahead and approve the comment, “like” it, and respond to it with a “LOL.” I want to be seen as someone lighthearted, a person who can take a joke (because I wasn’t sure if the comment was actually directed at me). I value this member’s opinions and her friendship. She also has an amazing blog. So I reasoned that her remark, no matter who it was directed to, must be all in good fun and a simple “LOL” would be harmless and would hurt no one.

Apparently not. I had no idea Sam would react so badly to my joining in with another commenter in “making fun of him” and failing to defend him from what he felt was “abuse.” Apparently that’s what he expected of me? I can’t say about the other commenter’s feelings, but my intention wasn’t to make fun of him at all, just try to act lighthearted and hope no one would be hurt or insulted.

But you can’t please everyone. If you go out of your way to please one person you are bound to upset someone else. Running a blog sometimes can be difficult. You are required to respond to comments in a way that engages conversation but doesn’t run people off or anger them. Sometimes you have to call them out on bad behavior or issue warnings. And you are going to insult people sometimes. People are going to disagree with you. It can’t be helped.

But when you’re dealing with a narcissist, even an educated and insightful one like Sam, you have to walk on eggshells. I refuse to walk on eggshells for anyone. I’ve had enough of that crap from all my IRL narcs. I still feel guilty about insulting him by proxy though, because I just hate making anyone feel bad.

I want to apologize to Sam, but I know I shouldn’t so I won’t. Because I didn’t really do anything wrong. At worst I made an unwise decision about someone else’s comment, but any normal person would be over it by now. To any normal person it might have even been funny.

I hate making people angry. Probably because I grew up in a household filled with seething anger, open hostility and constant discord. Anger scares someone like me. Of course it’s not realistic to expect a narcissist to not be easily upset and angered. They are incredibly hypersensitive about themselves. They hate being insulted or made fun of more than anything in the world. Still, it never occurred to me something I didn’t think was a big deal would set him off and make him think I was his enemy (I’m not).

Narcissists have no sense of humor (my mother was a perfect example of a narcissist with zero tolerance for any jokes or criticism at her expense, no matter how mild they were). Narcissists cannot laugh at themselves. I have never known one narc who can. What made me think Sam was any exception?

I admit Sam’s blocking me and telling me to fuck off really bothers me, because I was enjoying his input here and he was being so nice to me. It was a shock to find his angry epithet toward me today. It was a Jekyll and Hyde moment. I was gobsmacked.

I have a phobia about making people angry because during my childhood, it seemed all I ever did was make my narcissistic mother angry, and in my marriage to a malignant narc, if I breathed the wrong way it set him off into a narcissistic rage. Like Barack Obama, I try too hard to please everyone, and wind up pleasing no one. In this case, my decision to approve the commenter’s remark and reply with an “LOL” was a bad call, I guess.

But with a narcissist, sooner or later they will show their true colors anyway, so it probably was just a matter of time before it happened.

I’m not sure what the best action to take is now. It’s probably wisest to just ignore him and no longer feed his narcissistic supply by posting any more articles about him, at least until this blows over (if it ever does–I don’t know if Sam holds grudges but most narcs do).

I don’t think I really need Sam anymore for this blog to be a success. I appreciate and am forever grateful for the jump start he gave me in gaining more visibility, but I can continue the momentum on my own now without his help. I still respect Sam’s brilliant mind and his writings, but today he showed me his true colors as the malignant narcissist he actually is. It was a wake up call. I had my doubts before about the malignancy of his narcissism (maybe because I didn’t want to believe it); now I have no doubts whatsoever.

The stages of becoming malignant; moments of clarity

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I just received this comment under the currently spiking article (linked in the previous post).

jamcomment
Click to enlarge.

I’ve embellished my reply into an article because this was such a fascinating issue to me.

Becoming Malignant
Malignant narcissists who became that way later in life by making an evil choice (such as making a genuine deal with the devil, becoming involved in the dark arts, or committing a heinous crime against their will, such as in war, may not be entirely seared and the real self can occasionally shine through. But they can’t leave the darkness without an almost supernatural force of will. They may know they’re this way and may even hate it and suffer, but THEY CANNOT LEAVE THE DARKNESS once they’ve made that choice. It’s like they already died and went to hell (I’m not sure I believe in a literal place called Hell, but I think you know what point I’m making here).

The Infection.
Malignant narcissists are incredibly dangerous because they can infect you with their sickness. They can literally rip out your soul and replace it with emptiness and blackness. A formerly good person can also become MN themselves if they associate too long with an MN abuser. There are several stages to this process. It doesn’t happen immediately. It’s very insidious.

Here is the machinery of evil:

1. The Honeymoon: The MN love bombs the intended victim with charm, fake love, gifts, and kindness so they learn to trust them.
2. The MN will pretend to agree with everything the victim says and seem empathic. What’s really happening is the opposite. The victim already trusts the MN and has been partly brainwashed already, so whatever the MN says, the victim agrees with and think it was themselves who thought it
3. The MN changes and his games become cruel and anything but loving. The honeymoon is over. The blatant mindfuck begins.
4. Over time, the spirit of the abused breaks down. They begin to feel like they’re worthless and the insane and abnormal begins to seem normal.
5. The MN abuse becomes worse. They make it impossible for the victim to escape, using various means and separating them from friends and other loved ones, often through turning everyone they both know against the victim through the MN’s lies, gaslighting, and triangulation. The victim becomes isolated and thinks they might be going crazy and start to doubt their own reality. If the victim has figured out the MN has turned everyone into their flying monkeys and started a campaign against them and try to call out the MN, they will be told they are crazy or imagining things. The classic psychological horror movie “Gaslight” shows this process so well that the term “gaslighting” was named after it. At the same time the victim realizes they have become entirely dependent on the MN.
6. This is the make or break moment. The abuse escalates into abject, intolerable cruelty. The victim may begin to fight back (this is the point at which a person can still leave the relationship before their soul is destroyed). If they don’t fight back they will succumb even further and are doomed, because…
7. As a defense mechanism, the victim begins to identify with the MN. This is known as Stockholm Syndrome. It’s the only way they can cope with what their life has become and the pain they are undergoing at the hands of the MN. They begin to collude with the MN.
8. Once they collude with the MN (even if it’s to insure their survival or the survival of others like their children), the transformation is complete. The victim, newly turned MN, can never go back. As they age they will keep getting worse.
9. The MN who infected the victim at this point will probably leave and move on to his or her next victim. There is nothing more he can with the first victim.

I got to Stage 6. Thank God I didn’t get any further along than that. Once I began to identify with my abuser(s), it might have been too late…

I’m getting mega chills writing this. This is scary stuff. But it’s real.

Moments of Clarity
On the other side of the equation, the opposite could happen (the MN turning good), but it’s far less likely than the first scenario, which is all too common. If it does ever happen to an adult, it’s extremely rare.

Even the most malignant narcs have these bizarre moments of clarity. They don’t happen often. It’s kind of spooky because it’s like all of a sudden they have another personality, but it’s fleeting. It’s as if they wake up for a second and even their look changes to a different, more human one. It’s very, very weird. I’ve seen it myself. It’s a moment that could change them if they really wanted help. Usually it passes too quickly unless God steps in. A really good therapist might be able to get through if the narc presented themselves for therapy, which they sometimes do (when they’ve lost all their supply and have sunk into depression).
Still, we can’t delude ourselves into thinking they will get better. The vast majority will not. In fact they grow worse with age.

I’m reminded of a scene in “The Shining” (the book, not the movie), where Jack Torrance (the possessed father) comes out of his trance for a second or two and tells his son Danny, “RUN! Get away from me, I love you!” Then he goes back into his murderous rage. It was incredibly creepy.

New page: rules for commenters

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I thought it was time to post a few rules to make this blog the best it can be, and the commenting experience positive for everyone. This page can be accessed in the green bar in my header.
https://otterlover58.wordpress.com/rules/

Comment from a narcissist who wants help

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smashingmirror

I found this comment under this post today from a commenter called KWWL who says he/she has NPD. I think it speaks for itself.

KWWL says:
December 15, 2014 at 11:33 pm (Edit)
This is really a great article. And gives me hope for myself. See, I am a narcissist. For years, I was in denial that it was a disease, I almost thought it was good trait to have, to brag about. I never realized how much damage this illness has done to me as a person or to those I love or have loved. As the article foretells, I hit rock bottom this year and for months sat around blaming everyone else for everything–the end to a great relationship, the loss of a great job, not continuing my education. Typical narcissistic behavior. But for some reason, I came to a conclusion that in order for my life to get better and stay better, I had to look back on life without hurt, without bias or anger or anything else other than calm emotion. When I did, I saw the problem–the common denominator–me. Even still, I wasn’t sure why I did some of the things I did. So I read, researched analyzed, analyzed some more. I did a lot of soul searching. Being a narcissist (and having a few other mental issues) has led me to behave in ways that have been severely destructive in life. To me and to others. Most narcissists are in denial they even have an illness but like many other narcissists who are no longer in denial that they have an illness, I found that I used my illness as a “license to kill”. As I said earlier, it was almost something I was “proud of” except for narcissists, myself included, we don’t have pride; we have validations that boost the low self esteem and ego of our true self. When I realized some of the damage I have caused, I was no longer “proud” of it, I was ashamed of it. I knew then I had to seek the root of it and in my case, the narcissism is a mask for a low self esteem that I developed in childhood–a torturous hell at the hands of a tyrant for a father. These are issues I know I have to work on as well. I can’t just say, “I’m a strong person and I’m over it and it doesn’t affect me anymore” as clearly it does for one and for two, I’m not a strong person–I’m weak. I need a lot of work on myself and it’s something I have to stick to; I can’t allow myself to ever get to a point where I believe “I’m cured” as there is no cure for this. There is only treatment and bettering. It’s a long road ahead but I’m in it for the long haul. I ask no pity from anyone though. As an adult, it’s my responsibility to seek help.

My reply:

KWWL–thank you so much for having the courage to speak up here. I don’t know how old you are but you sound quite young but yet your writing is very mature and insightful. much like Sam Vaknin’s (who I am sure you know about). Regardless of your age, it’s incredible to have so much insight if you have NPD. I think insight could be a key to overcoming this disorder. You already have suffered narcissistic crisis and it does sound like you are still in that “vulnerable” depressed, anxious state that follows it. I will say prayers for you (I do not know what your spiritual beliefs are) that God finds a way to get rid of your “demons” and show you your true self.

You also seem to have a lot of shame about having this, which is one step away from having a conscience. You COULD just be bluffing here and this could all be BS (after all, you are a narcissist) , but I have a strong feeling you are being absolutely honest here. Please keep posting–it’s always great to read well written, civil posts from people from”the other side.” 😉
To understand something is to know it, and to know it is to not be stupid about it (I made up that quote lol)

I am also taking the liberty to repost this comment in my next post. Sure, this might feed your narcissistic supply so maybe I shouldn’t do that, but I think it’s interesting enough and well written and stands out because it’s coming from the “enemy” so to speak.