Narcissistic abuse: who is the real victim?

Posted on September 23, 2018 by luckyotter

I’ve noticed the way the Trump administration is constantly “blaming the victim,” and the way they never take responsibility for their own terrible and abusive actions that hurt real people. Not just that, but they usually paint themselves as innocent victims and use rhetoric that makes it sound as if the real victim is the perpetrator. They project their own evil onto the victim and often use flying monkeys (in a government, a flying monkey can include state run news, TV pundits, and other propaganda generators) to smear or destroy the victim’s reputation or credibility. This is a form of emotional and mental abuse common in families run by sociopaths and narcissists and, as we are seeing, it also happens in sociopathic regimes like the one we’re currently living under.

There is an acronym called DARVO in the narcissistic abuse community (DARVO = Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender). Narcissistic abuse survivors are all too familiar with this method of mental abuse and emotional manipulation. It surprises me that more of them don’t see it happening in the Trump administration, when it’s staring them right in the face, but there are abuse victims who actually unconsciously identify with their abusers and this could be an example of that.

There are many examples of DARVO in this administration (it would take a whole other article to name all of them), the most recent one being the GOP ganging up on and blaming a rape victim of trying to “ruin the life of” and making a victim of a “model citizen” (Brett Kavanaugh). In general, women are held in very low regard in this regime (especially if they are not white), and are usually blamed by the patriarchy for anything that happens to them, including rape. These hateful, entitled men seem to think a man who sexually abuses a woman or even a child (Roy Moore) is just “doing what men do” and it’s the female’s job to somehow stop him, or that she somehow “led him on.”

In this authoritarian regime which emboldens and encourages toxic masculinity and misogyny, men are painted as poor innocents who simply cannot control their sexual urges. Never mind that forcible sex, rape and molestation have nothing to do with sexual desire and is all about power and control. If it cannot be denied the rape or sexual abuse was wrong, the woman is blamed for not reporting it in a timely enough manner. But there are many reasons a woman or girl may not report sexual abuse or may wait many years to do so: shame and fear of retribution being the most common reasons. According to the patriarchy, the man is never to blame. It is always the woman’s fault.

Franklin Graham, the dominionist son of Billy Graham (what the heck happened to Graham’s kids anyway? Billy was not a lunatic) even went so far as to say Kavanaugh “respected” his victim by “not finishing.” Wow. A real man of God. He probably thinks it’s okay to rape young girls because that’s what men did in Old Testament times. Now the corrupt GOP are trying to silence Dr. Blasey Ford and ram Kavanaugh through for the SCOTUS seat in spite of abundant evidence he is not a man of good character. They are trying to excuse what he did to Dr. Blasey Ford as normal behavior for a teenage boy, even though it is not at all normal. When I was in high school, no boy with any moral compass would ever hold a girl down while forcing sex on her and cover her mouth to keep her from screaming (and have a friend turn the music up to drown her out), and if he did, it would become a police matter (if she ever reported it).

In light of these developments and the real peril women are in under the Trump regime (we may lose all our rights and freedoms should this nomination go through and if the GOP wins the midterms), I’m reblogging this article I wrote about distinguishing victims from their abusers (it can be hard to tell, if the abuser has convinced you they’re the victim)

Lucky Otters Haven

Narcissistic abusers are great at charming people they want to impress, or those people they want to get on their side. When they have targeted an individual for abuse, they will stop at nothing to turn their friends, colleagues, even their families against them–and it’s not at all uncommon for them to claim that THEY are the ones being abused. The process of using malicious gossip and lies to turn people against the victim is called triangulation and is well known in the narcissistic abuse community. Most of us who have been targeted by narcissistic abusers know all too well about triangulation and its close cousin, gaslighting. Both will be used in conjunction with each other to turn the victim’s potential allies against them, effectively isolating them and ripping away any support systems they could use later.

Those who have been turned against the victim by the narcissist are called

View original post 1,349 more words

How DARVO could prove which of us is telling the truth (reblog)

Posted on July 16, 2017 by luckyotter

darvo

This is a good article I reblogged from Nyssa’s Hobbit Hole. I think this information about determining accountability is not only useful on a personal level for those of us who have had to deal with narcissists, but as a useful way to decipher who are the real liars and truth-tellers in the current political mess we’re in. Narcissists and sociopaths use all kinds of tactics such as gaslighting, smear campaigns, and playing the victim while making the real victim the “enemy.” Of course, in our current political situation, both sides accuse the other of the exact same things, so it can be hard to determine who are the real victims and perpetrators. Personally I think a quick determination of who are the real liars and truth-tellers can be made by observing who protesteth too much and which side acts more aggressive. This can also be applied to dealing with people on a personal level and is very effective if you’re paying attention.

I have left Nyssa’s links in place. Her ongoing tale about narcissistic abuse by two former close friends who sunk to new lows by stalking her blog is riveting and educational.

How DARVO Could Prove Which of Us is Telling the Truth

By Nyssa McCanmore, Nyssa’s Hobbit Hole

DARVO refers to a reaction perpetrators of wrong doing, particularly sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior.

DARVO stands for “Deny,, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.” The perpetrator or offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the confronting, and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim into an alleged offender.

This occurs, for instance, when an actually guilty perpetrator assumes the role of “falsely accused” and attacks the accuser’s credibility or even blames the accuser of being the perpetrator of a false accusation. –Jennifer J. Freyd, What is DARVO?

While re-reading this article on Shrink4Men, I came upon a section which hit me as proof to my readers (who can read Tracy and Richard‘s bizarre, intimidating and remorseless e-mail to me in the “Now I’m Being Stalked” post, and how they’ve been trying to stalk and intimidate me online and off for the past few weeks) of which of us is telling the truth:

Of course, not everyone who denies wrong doing is engaging in DARVO. Many partners and exes of abusive women are accused of things they didn’t do or of things that never happened.

Naturally, when this happens, you deny the accusation and perhaps feel a little (or a lot) bewildered. How do you know if an individual’s denial is the truth or an instance of DARVO? Freyd (1997, pp. 23-24) proposes:

“It is important to distinguish types of denial, for an innocent person will probably deny a false accusation. Thus denial is not evidence of guilt. However, I propose that a certain kind of indignant self-righteousness, and overly stated denial, may in fact relate to guilt.

I hypothesize that if an accusation is true, and the accused person is abusive, the denial is more indignant, self-righteous and manipulative, as compared with denial in other cases.

Similarly, I have observed that actual abusers threaten, bully and make a nightmare for anyone who holds them accountable or asks them to change their abusive behavior.

This attack, intended to chill and terrify, typically includes threats of lawsuits, overt and covert attacks, on the whistle-blower’s credibility and so on.

The attack will often take the form of focusing on ridiculing the person who attempts to hold the offender accountable. The attack will also likely focus on ad hominem instead of intellectual/evidential issues.

Finally, I propose that the offender rapidly creates the impression that the abuser is the wronged one, while the victim or concerned observer is the offender. Figure and ground are completely reversed. The more the offender is held accountable, the more wronged the offender claims to be.”

Please click on this link to read the full article.

15 insane things I’ve been accused of.

Posted on May 17, 2015 by luckyotter

I’m no longer too upset about the uprising against me and this blog by several ACON bloggers last week. In fact, now I’m finding some of their half baked accusations funny. Here are some of the more outrageous ones. I think there’s entertainment value here because they are based on nothing. Its as if they were just pulled out of the air to “prove” how evil and ignorant I am.

1. I am a narc hugger.

2. I care more about the narcs than about abuse victims.

Response to #1 and #2. If you have a child who may be a narcissist (as I do), you are going to want desperately to believe there might be a cure. However, I don’t think malignant narcissists can be cured. I’ve already stated my case on this matter repeatedly (neither of these statements are true), so that is all I’m going to say about this.

3. I am a paid shill of Sam Vaknin and probably give him BJs on the side too.

4. Sam Vaknin brainwashed me to feel pity for narcs.

Response to #3: I have to admit I almost fell on the floor laughing reading this. I have never met the man. I was a big admirer for awhile (I still think his work has validity but is flawed), but there was never anything other than the occasional quick email and they were very impersonal at that. I was never paid or given any other form of compensation to use his material and as for the second thing: um, no. He’s a married man and being that he lives in Macedonia and I live in North Carolina, USA, would make that a little difficult anyway.

As for #4, have you actually read his material? Vaknin does not pity narcs. He is very pessimistic about the possibility of a cure. He does write about his own experiences as a child and I suppose those could make you feel sorry for him, but if anything, he is very anti-narc, even though he readily admits he is one.

5. I am a narcissist and a sociopath.

6. I am brainwashing others to join my “cult”.

Okay, now these are funny, especially the “sociopath” and “cult” accusations. They don’t deserve a response.

7. I’m the only ACON blogger who ever suggested some narcissists can be treated successfully.

The only one? really? I highly doubt it.

8. My site gives people computer viruses because of all the pop up ads.

I certainly hope not. I don’t think this is true though. I am part of WordPress’ WordAds program so I can possibly make some income from this site. Making money is certainly not my primary motive and never has been. I’ve made a total of about $70 since January, so I’m hardly getting rich off this blog. Would be nice if I could, but that hasn’t happened.

9. I deliberately try to confuse people so they won’t know about my “agenda.”

What the hell does this even mean? Now I’m confused. What sort of “agenda” are you thinking I have?

10. I have no right to have an ACON blog because I have a Cluster B disorder (BPD).

Oh, really? BPD is often a result of having been a victim of narcissistic abuse. (For that matter, so is NPD.) Anyone who has been a victim of abuse has the right to have a blog about it, regardless of their mental disorders. However, this isn’t strictly an ACON blog and I do write about other things too. Also, Borderlines aren’t Narcissists. They don’t all lack empathy. Go do your splitting to a log.

11. I can’t possibly be an Aspie. I’m using that to seem harmless.

I may not seem like an Aspie online, because the Internet is the way I communicate best with others. This is true of many Aspies. In real life, I am quite shy and awkward and have a lot of trouble reading social cues. [EDIT: Since I wrote this, I have found out I do not have Aspergers–Avoidant PD +BPD + INFJ type can mimic Aspergers–but at the time I was pretty sure I did so I wasn’t using it to seem “harmless”]

12. I am trying to be “cool” and “popular.”

Hardly. But why am I suspecting a little pathological envy with this remark?

13. I stole someone’s article.

I merely linked to the article in question, but since the person whose article I linked to hates me, that makes me a thief. Part of the objection was that I posted the link on the same day the article went up. Maybe that was bad etiquette (WordPress bloggers don’t mind this), but it was hardly stealing. (The link to the article has been removed.)

14. I was never a victim of abuse at all.

Bullshit. Read the links under “My Story” in the header.

15. People who comment on my blog are “too friendly.” ACON bloggers and victims should act more wary of people. Therefore I must have ulterior (dishonest) motives.

This is one of my favorites. What the hell is wrong with being open and welcoming? Am I supposed to just ignore comments or be nasty to people? Blogs like this one are sometimes the only places where you can find like minded people who you feel like you can trust. I understand some victims are wary of people even online, but that doesn’t automatically mean my motives or friendliness is dishonest.

I need to set the record straight, for all the good it’s going to do.

Posted on May 8, 2015 by luckyotter

Several ACON bloggers over at Blogger are VERY upset with me right now. It all started with the article I posted last week about not bashing all narcissists. I won’t bother to link it here. Most of you who follow this blog have seen the article and have been following the ensuing drama.

Somehow now I’ve become a “narc sympathizer,” but not only that, they say I’m hurting victims of abuse and dismissing their experiences. That is simply not true at all. I feel that the person that initially read the article and posted about it on their blog didn’t read it carefully. Heck, even the title was missing the word “all” which does change the entire context of what I was saying! (she finally made that correction but it’s too late — the damage is done).

I’m so sick and tired of this whole stupid drama and just want to move on from it and forget it ever happened. I am sure others would like that too. Maybe I shouldn’t have posted that article at all, but at the time I saw no reason not to. I had no idea it would be as triggering and upsetting to some as it proved to be. If I knew it would be that triggering, I probably would not have posted it, or at least mulled it over a few days before making a decision to post it. But heck, it’s my blog. Why should I not be allowed to post an opinion on my blog, even if it’s not a popular one????

All because of that article, I’ve read the following things written about me on several other blogs: I’m a narc sympathizer; I’m trying to be “popular,” I’m trying to be cool, I’m a narcissist, I’m flirting with evil, I don’t care about or have empathy for victims of abuse, I am trying to SILENCE abuse victims (?!?), I’m trying to get people to forgive their abusers, I only care about the narcs.

But that’s not all! Now it seems I’m a thief too. Okay, I need to explain how THAT got started. About a month or two ago, I linked to an article written by another ACON blogger–because I liked the article. Yes, it is true that I linked to it on the day it was posted (I understand that was part of the objection). That was probably bad manners but I didn’t know that at the time I linked to it. I stand corrected. I did NOT copy the article here, nor did I take credit for it. I credited the author and I wrote a nice intro. To read the article, you must click on the link and will be taken to that blogger’s page. How is that stealing? If anything, it should have brought the blogger more hits. Why is it such an issue?

Here at WordPress, we reblog each other’s posts all the time. I guess reblogging a Blogger post is bad etiquette. (sorry, I didn’t know!) If that blogger wants me to remove the link to her blog, she can simply ask and I will happily do so. Really, I didn’t think it was hurting anyone and if it were me, I would have been flattered. But no, I’m being accused of STEALING the article, because I can’t think of original ideas of my own (“riding on other people’s coattails” was how someone put it).

Let me set the record straight on THAT too: I have original ideas and plenty of them, but there are some days I’m simply too tired or time-pressed to write an original article so I’ll reblog someone else’s. I ALWAYS give credit. Word Press bloggers don’t mind this; we do it all the time. Other bloggers here have reblogged my articles. They don’t ask for permission first. It’s pretty standard form. Whenever I get reblogged I get a notification (pingback/trackback) if it’s a WP blogger. I guess from now on I must only reblog WP bloggers’ articles because at Blogger, this appears to be bad form.

I just saw a comment from another blogger accusing me of favoritism because I didn’t provide a link to her blog in my blog roll. She said that I probably think I’m “too cool” to provide a link to her blog. No, that’s not it at all. I do not think I’m too cool. I didn’t provide a link to it for the simple reason there are far too many ACON blogs for me to include every last one. It was an oversight, that is all. It was not a personal slight in any way, shape or form. I apologize to this person if she took that as a slight, but I’m sure she doesn’t want me to link to her blog now anyway, since now I’m one of the “narc sympathizers” or even a narcissist myself.

I feel like I’ve been unfairly maligned, demonized, accused, and attacked. Words I never said are being put in my mouth, my original message was twisted into something completely different than what I was actually saying, things are being assumed about me that simply aren’t true, and now there’s a hate campaign against me, at least at Blogspot. People I thought were friends have turned against me and have apparently joined this hate campaign. Maybe they want me to take this blog down. Sorry, but I won’t do that.

I just don’t understand why if some people don’t like a blog or its author, just don’t follow that blog? Why pile on and bully the blogger? Isn’t abuse something we are all trying to get away from? Am I attacking other bloggers here? Have I started a hate campaign against anyone? NO I HAVE NOT.

All this coming from people who are abuse victims themselves, people who KNOW what it’s like to be shunned, ignored, mistreated and bullied. People who are supposed to have empathy. Why the need to scapegoat me and this blog, just because they disagree with something I wrote-and didn’t read the article right in the first place? I’m a victim just like they are, have been through the hell of growing up with narcissist parents and being married to a psychopath. I am not a “friend of narcs.” What I have experienced this past week is very hurtful and very damaging. In fact, I’m afraid it’s setting me back in my recovery. Do they feel any empathy at all for the way all this makes me feel? Do they CARE? I wonder about that.

Sorry, but I’m not taking this blog down. No one is going to silence me. I am so tired of some people making wrong assumptions and putting words in my mouth and attributing ill intentions to me and this blog just because they disagreed with something I wrote a week ago. This ABUSE and GASLIGHTING has gotten way, WAY out of hand and just. will. not. stop.
Do these people care how I feel at all?

I just want to move on and post about other things. I’m so sick of the drama. I’m sick of having to rehash the fallout of that article over and over and over. I am sick of constantly feeling like I’m on the defensive.

This blog was the one place I felt safe. It was the one thing that made me happy in my otherwise unhappy life. Now I don’t feel safe blogging anymore. I have no where else to turn. Somehow I must have the courage to keep pressing on and not let haters terrorize me back into my small joyless life where I have no voice at all.

Please, to those of you who keep pressing this issue, can we please just let it drop now? If you can’t feel compassion for the way your treatment of me is making me feel, can you please just ignore me and not visit this blog anymore? I won’t post on your blogs or say anything else about the matter. I just want this to be OVER already.

ETA: It’s gotten worse.
One of the flying monkeys wrote this to mock this rant.
http://rumblestripq.blogspot.com/2015/05/spring-time-for-hitler-and-germany.html
It was followed by this comment from the author:
“If any litigious individuals want to fuck with me, get familiar with the term summary judgment.”

This is beyond cruel and unusual. I had no idea the hatred was this severe or the individuals involved this malignant.
I also read a comment saying my writing makes no sense. It just doesn’t stop.