THE VERY ESSENCE OF A NARC'S PSYCHE IS HARDWIRED
to show the following characteristics:
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behaviour)
Pathological lying
An adversity to criticism, humiliation or reprimand
An excessive need for admiration and control
A lack of empathy, remorse, love and compassion
A sense of entitlement
Envy
Interpersonal Exploitation
A disconnect between what they say and do
A sense of exclusive superiority over others
Arrogance and disdain
THEY OPERATE IN PLAIN SIGHT
They walk amongst us and live along side us in our everyday lives.
At their very complex core is a False Self and A True Self.
The True Self of a Narc is desperate not to be exposed and is actively denied by themselves.
The False Self is a mixture of disguises, characteristics and traits which mimic and imitate others.
The Narc's life mission is about ensuring, no matter what it takes, the cultivation of their False Self and the total denial of their True Self.
To succeed in their life mission they require connections with others for one reason only: Narc supply.
Narc supply is the oxygen they breathe, drawn from positive feedback and any negative reaction that makes them feel powerful or in control.
Wired differently, their emotional terrain runs contrary to how we as humans instinctively treat others.
TRAUMA
Loss of your sense of your own self.
Mistrusting your take on reality and your own memory.
Doubting your judgement and perception.
The undermining of your mental stability.
Being told that the trauma, abuse and injury you've experienced aren't real.
Suffering a sustained attack on your sanity.
Questioning what's really true.
A diminished sense that you have a right to be heard and understood.
Finding your thoughts and feelings are not accepted or acknowledged.
Confusion, perplexity and disorientation.
An extreme sense of anxiety and threat.
Feelings of inadequacy permeating all areas of your life.
A sense of hopelessness and isolation.
Fear of speaking out or expressing your views, hopes or feelings.
TRUTH
GASLIGHTING
This is the insidious and systematic psychological technique used by Narcs to subtly manipulate reality to intentionally target the victim's mental equilibrium, self confidence and self esteem to the point where the abused no longer trusts their own thoughts, feelings, memory or perception.
Gaslighting is at the core of a Narcs' actions, strategies and behaviour.
At its heart are manipulative mind games which are deliberate and continuous.
Truth is totally denied or distorted.
They weaponise what is near and dear to you.
There is a disconnect between what they say and what they do.
Conversation is deflected to undermine their victims' sense of reality.
They use ongoing reinforcement of their perceptions, views and what they want.
Information is fabricated to suit their agenda.
They employ repeated denial of the reality of their actions and behaviours, and yours.
'Word salad' is a form of gaslighting. It is the signature method used by the Narc for brainwashing, to foster a loss of trust in the victims' reality and in their sense of self. It includes blaming, denial, projection, shaming and aggression. Word salad is recognisable through circular conversation and repetition, lack of logic, sweeping generalisations, use of words that are disjointed or unrelated to context, and contradictions. The Narc uses word salads intentionally, to manipulate and control others by inducing confusions and mind fog in their victims. Central to the technique of word salad is the Narc's belief that everything is a matter of competition; this fuels their relentless need to prove their victims wrong about everything. At its heart is the negation of actual and unquestionable facts. The tactics of word salad is deflection, using inappropriate and illogical verbal or behavioural responses in order to throw the victims off balance. The word salad is designed to destabilise their victims into submissiveness and compliance.
TRAUMA
You were made to feel you had no right to your own perspective, feelings, passions or thoughts.
Your right to be an individual, your autonomy, was stolen.
You were left physically alive but left feeling emotionally dead and erased.
You lost your ability to have choices.
You were put down, intimidated and shamed to help you to be a 'better person'.
You were accused of things you didn't do, and yet what they do is kept shrouded in secrecy.
You are constantly made to feel they are superior to you - they are 'up there' while you are 'down there'.
Nothing you do will ever be enough. They claim to know what is best for you and that it is for your own best interests that they make decisions for you.
Feeling entrapped in a world of confusion, contradiction and fear.
A slowly dawning realisation that you have been subjected to chronic manipulation, deception, betrayal, abuse and extreme devaluation, none of which you ever consented to.
Alienated, you felt you were going mad, as others could not see what was going on. To them your chains were invisible.
The growing awareness that your life was being hijacked, your independence stolen and your connection to the world you once knew, lost.
The humiliation as your time, whereabouts, online activity, and financial affairs are monitored and who you see and where you go are controlled.
TRUTH
COERCIVE CONTROL
This is a pattern of psychological and emotional behaviours that a Narc uses to gain control and power over another person by taking away a person's freedom, strip away their sense of self, remove their autonomy and eliminate their human rights.
Narcs utilise coercive control through threats, intimidation, manipulation, humiliation and isolation.
The Narc's patterns of behaviour associated with coercive control are designed to isolate and render the victim slowly dependent by gradually hijacking the victim's life and their connection to the world, creating a sense of fear and being bound by invisible chains.
Control and power are executed by the Narc by stripping away the freedoms of their victims, slowly and almost imperceptibly, so that they become accustomed to their subjugation. Narcs build hope and then remove it to crush their victim's spirit. The Narc creates an environment where their victims feels trapped and limited.
Coercive tactics are carried out as incremental steps over time to ensure the victim is unaware of the process being used against them or of the personality changes taking place within themselves, as the psychological abuse impacts on their critical thinking abilities, their free will and ultimately their human rights.
As the Narc's coercive tactics control, exploit and manipulate, their victims live in a state of constant fear and menace, deprived of their human rights and liberties.
TRAUMA
Realising that you have gone from your partner's soulmate to someone insignificant without knowing why.
Feeling betrayed by the Narc, who seemed to 'love you like no other' but has torn your sense of self and your life apart and discarded the pieces without remorse.
Reconciling the cruelty and malice of the actions inflicted on you by the Narc, who takes no responsibility for them and adds insult to injury by projecting the blame on to you.
Previously a valued, appreciated and trusted member within your professional role, finding yourself on the receiving end of a set of abusive tactics that cripple your self confidence, alienate you from your colleagues, and in constant anxiety about how tenable your position is - whether, in fact, you will even be fired.
Seeing the love of your life now appears to loathe you, is aloof and cold, inattentive and indifferent, for no apparent reason.
Experiencing the mental trauma caused by the Narc first placing you on pedestal as you are complimented and flattered to excess, then making the pedestal feel unstable through the use of subtle and insidious devaluation, interspersed with moments of sweetness; thrown off the pedestal as the Narc blocks you, blanks you, disappears, and subjects you to silent treatment and rage.
Knowing that you related to the Narc authentically, honestly, trustingly, even lovingly where personal relationships are concerned, only to discover and understand that for the Narc you were an object to be exploited, your only role was to serve their every need, and that they related to you for purely functional, self-serving reasons.
Seeing that the person you believed, trusted, respected, admired and within a personal relationship loved, has over time attacked and eroded your sense of self; demeaned and destroyed your spirit; extracted whatever they wanted, needed or desired from you; and that their modus operandum was only ever to distort, deceive and exploit you for their own ends.
Realising that your vulnerabilities, confidences, insecurities, desires and achievements shared openly and trustingly have been taken by the Narc and used as ammunition to attack and control you psychologically.
Understanding that they are intent on destroying you, even after you have been discarded or disengaged.
Seeing that when trying to resolve conflict with the Narc to reach a mutually beneficial outcome, you are met with a lack of collaborative or compassionate engagement.
Hearing that you are always wrong: wrong about what the issue is, wrong about what happened, wrong about how you feel and what you think, when you try to have a two-way open and constructive discussion.
Suffering the 'mind madness' of trying to make sense of their nonsense: listening to someone make a statement one second and in the next sentence deny they ever said it; watching the Narc undertake an act, only to pronounce that it never happened; showing them irrefutable proof, only for them to assert that it wasn't them.
Trying to navigate a life where you are constantly ridiculed, belittled and shamed.
Experiencing the confusion of raising a concern with the Narc, only to find yourself defending yourself constantly throughout the conversation.
Finding yourself repeatedly trying to explain basic human emotions, character and experiences to the Narc.
TRUTH
IDEALIZE DEVALUE DISCARD
This is the traumatic abuse cycle of the relationship pattern that the Narc follows. It can take place over years and at times switches between phases in a matter of hours and even minutes, going from a perfect scenario to a nightmare. This cycle can repeat numerous times, creating a whirlwind of emotional destruction.
The idealisation phase is about obsession and domination; this serves only the Narc's needs and comes with an agenda. The intention of this phase is to ensure the victim trusts and bonds to the Narc, but for the narc the victim is an object to be abused. They will present characteristics intended to charm and disarm until their victim is hooked. They mirror their victim's deepest values and interests to create an illusion of common ground and connection. The victim is their study, and every personal piece of information shared by the victim will be weaponised against them over time. The victim is placed on a pedestal constructed of deceit, illusion and calculated intent. The Narc's charming false self is in overdrive.
The devaluation phase is about manipulation, disempowerment and control. It dances a destructive tango with idealisation, ensuring the victim walks around on eggshells, and is designed to make them doubt themselves, to strip away their self esteem, cause deliberate confusion and make them challenge their perception of reality. Invalidation underpins this stage and is used to obliterate a victim's sense of self, then implant negative and false beliefs and ideas in their heads and create a dependency on the Narc. The Narc's true intentions surface as they communicate to their victim how unimportant they are to the Narc. The Narc insidiously, covertly and overtly devalues their target through both actions and words, ensuring their victims feel undermined, dependent, anxious and insecure. Silent treatment becomes commonplace, as the Narc ignores the victim for long periods and 'ghosts' them by disappearing without explanation. As the Narc's abuse escalates, trauma bonds are formed.
The discard phase occurs when the victim is no longer fulfilling the self-serving role the Narc assigned to them. The Narc has got all they wanted from their victim, has potentially secured new targets, and now moves on without a care. The Narc's answer to healthy and valid requests for compromise, reciprocity, empathy, integrity, honesty and boundaries is to abandon their victim and dispense with them.
During and after discarding their victim, the Narc may attempt to hook the victim back in, opening up communication once again in order to manipulate and control them afresh.
TRAUMA
You are accused of doing and being all kinds of things that you know you would not do and are not.
Labels are attached to you by the Narc that have no bearing on the truth.
You try to reason with the Narc, upholding the truth, only to be met with punishment.
You are made accountable for the abuse you receive, and are made the cause of it.
You experience a continual struggle to get the Narc to act like a decent and 'normal' human being.
You feel desperate to get them to take accountability for their behaviour and to address it in a healthy and transparent way.
You deal with threats, as blame is projected by the Narc, leaving you feeling under constant threat.
TRUTH
PROJECTION
This is the emotional and psychological abuse used by a Narc to manipulate their victim into thinking they possess the negative qualities, motives and traits that are at the heart of the Narc's own pathology.
Narcs project their own faults and behaviour on to those around them, to avoid being held accountable.
They manipulate their victim into thinking they possess the negative characteristics that the Narc totally refuse to take responsibility for.
The methods they use to project are varied: they will fabricate and distort what their victim said or did as proof.
They take a truth and misrepresent it with lies, while holding these up as facts.
They will ensure that their true self is not seen and that how they operate is not revealed.
They claim the positive characteristics and achievements of others as their own.
They will shift blame by projecting who they are and what they do onto their victims.
They take elements of truth and weave them into a narrative that discredits the victim, supports their own lies and the 'false self' they present, and pushes every button to provoke a reaction from the victim.
TRAUMA
The pain of someone who professes to care, love or respect you turning on you and treating you like the enemy.
The loss of trust and the betrayal you feel towards those in your support network who have sided with your abuser.
The destruction of your reputation and your ability to work and pursue a career.
The trauma of knowing that even though the relationship with the Narc has ended, their aim is to continue to make your life hell.
The psychological nightmare as you wrestle with their lies, exaggerations, half-truths and false allegations.
The devastation as the Narc employs their strategy to destroy your life, and your identity.
The realisation that no-one and nothing is off limits to the Narc, as they take a wrecking ball to your life.
The shock and trauma of false allegations being made about you to authorities in the law and to corporate managers that oversee discipline.
The loss of hope as counsellors, police, judiciary and managers fall for the Narc's constructed narrative.
TRUTH
THE SMEAR CAMPAIGN
This abusive tactic is a form of manipulative sabotage, intended to keep the psychological trauma ever-present for the victim while ensuring the Narc controls the narrative, is not exposed, plays the victim, all the while supplying the Narc the fuel of abusing the victim that they thrive on.
It is the intentional, systematic and vindictive propagation of fraudulent information about the victim.
It is designed to undermine the victim's reputation, slander their character and further isolate them.
The Narc spreads misinformation, instigates rumours, abuses private information, sabotages the victim's relationships with others, falsifies documentation and slanders the victim's name.
No one in the victim's social, professional or personal circles are off limits to the Narc as recipients for the smear campaign.
The Narc will depict their victims as the aggressor, while they play the victim.
They will methodically abuse their victims privately, then intentionally provoke a public reaction, while remaining calm, in order to convince their target audience their victims are to blame.
This starts prior to the devaluing stage. Because the Narc's biggest fear is exposure their abusive behaviour will also continue long after the victim has walked away.
TRAUMA
You are accused of actions and behaviours that you don't have the capacity to think about, let alone execute.
You lose people who are important to you and whom you would ordinarily be able to reach out to in hard times, as they turn away from you and believe the word of your abuser.
Your reputation is shredded and your character assassinated within your networks of family, friends, community and associates, as the Narc implies you are unethical, unstable, paranoid and irrational.
Your emotional security and support networks are totally undermined.
You are pitted against false situations and people, making you believe that you have failed to meet with your abuser's expectations, making you feel worthless.
TRUTH
TRIANGULATION
This is a tactic used by the Narc to inflict emotional and psychological abuse by proxy. The Narc recruits a people or organisations to do their bidding, pitting them against their victim, in order to 'divide and conquer'. These third parties perpetuate abuse on the Narc's behalf. They are sometimes referred to as Flying Monkeys after the characters from the 'Wizard of Oz' who acted on behalf of the wicked witch. Flying Monkeys are enablers and supporters of the Narc and are used as human weapons to attack the victims. The primary purpose of triangulation is to cause pain, insecurity, isolation and confusion in the victim. This tactic creates discord and opposition in the victim's circle, thus ensuring the Narc's domination.
The Narc will attack, discredit and abuse their victims by rallying people or systems as reinforcements; these Flying Monkeys play a key role in normalising the Narc's pathology and behaviour.
Flying Monkeys facilitate or turn a blind eye to the Narc's abuse and willingly fulfil the Narc's intentions.
They play a crucial role in aiding the Narc's isolation of their victims.
Recruitment of third parties ensures the Narc keeps themselves blameless and above disapproval or criticism.
As supporters, they defend the Narc against negative or critical accusations, ensuring the Narc's reputation remains unblemished.
The Flying Monkeys feed the Narc's pathological and limitless need to feel powerful and worshipped.
Triangulation is carried out by the Narc covertly and deceitfully; through the Narc's mastery at manipulation, many enablers don't realise they have been recruited into this role.
The amoral deception required to recruit people or organisations to do their bidding comes easily to the Narc, due to their pathological makeup.
The Narc's ability for pathological lying, Oscar winning acting, fabricating stories, feigning victimisation, manipulating facts and stigmatising their victims all ensure the hooking of Flying Monkeys.
The Narc aims to keep their victim distracted and confused; the tactics of triangulation ensure their targets are on guard, unhappy and unsettled.
Triangulation shores up the Narc's false persona through compartmentalising people. This keeps their lies hidden from one person to the next.
The Narc will ensure he or she is surrounded by those who reflect back to them admiration, giving them positive and affirming attention.
Even within the safe space of couples therapy, Narcs can triangulate their victims, convincing the therapist that the victim is the aggressor, and thus re-traumatize the victim.
TRAUMA
The torturous merry-go-round of thoughts in your head as you try to understand that the person who claimed to have loved you, also abused you.
You find yourself grappling to come to grips with the reality of your experience and an acute need to rationalise contradictory views, in order to find and understand causality and logic for the behaviour of your abuser.
The realisation that when you have tried to have a two-way, open, respectful and constructive conversation in order to reach mutually beneficial outcomes, you are met with a mentality that is neither collaborative nor compassionate.
The mental torture and exhaustion that results from trying to find clarity while the Narc is intentionally distorting your version of reality.
In order to reduce your anxiety, survive and protect yourself, you rationalise and deny the Narc's behaviour, even defend their behaviour to others and justify your reasons for accepting the abusive situation you are in.
Your self-worth deteriorates and you experience chronic self-doubt.
Hyper vigilance becomes you modus operandum; you become attuned to the moods of the Narc, finding ways to avoid or deflect the next meltdown, round of abuse or moment of rage.
TRAUMA
TRUTH
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
Cognitive Dissonance plays an integral part in the Narc's campaign of abuse. It is a distressing and emotionally destructive mental state where an individual finds themselves simultaneously holding two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values. In order to resolve this inner conflict the individual is motivated by the need to resolve the contradiction and to look for reasons that one set of beliefs is true over the other, by creating a differing belief system, or questioning their grasp on reality. They are driven to rationalise and change their attitudes, beliefs, values and actions in order to reduce the dissonance they are experiencing. As the Narc's weapon of choice, it causes catastrophic damage to the psyche of the abused.
Through this weapon of choice the Narc causes a catastrophic breakdown of established beliefs and self-knowledge of the victim's psyche, an entire disintegration of clarity.
Narcs are skilled operators in causing cognitive dissonance; they engage in 'word-salad' characterised by circular monologues, repetitive conversation which lacks logic, consisting of sweeping generalisations and the use of words that are unrelated to context and contradictory in nature.
Cognitive dissonance paralyses the victim's sense of agency.
The abuse is very covert, such that the victim is the only person privy to the abuse, and the outside world has a benign perception of the abuser - thus cognitive dissonance ensues for the victim.
The Narc holds a dominant belief that they are 'more than,' so their mind is never driven to answer the question 'why'; whereas for the abused, sense making, the human need to find meaning in our existence and experience, is never more acute than in the face of the trauma the Narc inflicts when their actions and behaviour create cognitive dissonance.
The Narc relies on cognitive dissonance to carry out their campaigns of abuse, because those who support, befriend and enable them can't believe that this person who presents as charming, humble and caring could be responsible for the abuse they carry out - even when presented with hard evidence of the abuse.
TRAUMA
Children & Young Adults
The confusion and hurt of being affirmed, loved, praised, then devalued, criticised or ignored over and over and over again.
Knowing or wondering whether your diaries, emails and texts are constantly being read.
Your friends are vetted, flirted with or related to as a 'pal'.
You pay a high price for seeking out healthy independence.
The mental exhaustion brought on by jumping through hoops as you try to please the Narc and double guess their wishes and needs.
The feeling that you are being pitted against friends, colleagues and family members as the Narc plays others off against you.
The trauma of loosing trust in your own perception of reality.
The mixed messages that mess with your mental equilibrium as you are shamed behind closed doors when you achieve, and then praised for the same achievement when the Narc has an audience they want positive attention from for themselves.
TRUTH
Narcs are obsessive students of psychological warfare, and they have an arsenal of weapons at the ready. A Narc destroys victims from within and their malignant, self-serving and unethical behaviour cascades through any context they oversee from their position of control and power. The context within which the Narc's abuse pervades and children are caught in their psychologically destructive net can be on any scale from one-to-one, among a family, more widely societal or organisational. In all contexts the Narc attacks a child's emotional and social well-being. The relationship between a Narc and children is full of confusing contradictions for the child.
A Narc will subject a child/young adult to all of their abusive behaviours at the same time as viewing a child as an extension of themselves, as not being separate to them.
A child/young adult is required to subjugate who they are as an independent, unique person to the desires of the Narc: this means that a child should want what a Narc wants, should be who they want them to be and should do what they want them to do.
The demands on a child/young adult by a Narc come from a place of pure self-interest; the Narc has no ability to view things from the child/young adult's perspective.
A Narc will violate the boundaries of a child/young adult.
Over-identification with a child/young adult means that the Narc finds it very difficult to tolerate anything within a child/young adult that is different to how they want them to be.
Illnesses can be denied, or used as a tool to gain sympathy and attention from others.
Children and young adults are not immune to the Narc's cycle of abuse of 'idealise, devalue and discard'; they are subjected to praise and attention, then subtly criticised, withdrawn from and put down.
The Narc will gaslight the child/young adult, and lie to them, to the point at which they stop trusting their own perceptions of reality. This is deeply pernicious to a young person.
Triangulation is executed so that children are played off against other children. Children are assigned roles either as the ones who can do no wrong, or the ones who can do no right, or the completely unseen and unheard one. Guilt and responsibility sit heavily on the chosen, 'golden' child.
The Narc expects adoration, so the child/young adult learns to subjugate their own needs to please the Narc.
A Narc's feelings for a child/young adult do not stem from care, empathy or love, but rather from a position where all relationships are transactional, exploitative, entitled and conditional.
They will never have the child/young adult's best interests at heart.
CORPORATIONS & GOVERNMENTS
Narcs are drawn to positions of power, prestige and standing - climbing the ladder to gain the position, status, money and acquisitions they believe they deserve and are entitled to.
Self-serving, unethical, malignant and lacking in integrity, their destructive behaviour cascades through organisations, institutions or businesses and becomes legitimised, shaping the culture and behaviour of those who work in them.
People to them are not 'human beings', they are tools to be used and abused for their own ends. Rewards, promotions, marks of appreciation, affirmations and 'gifts' are used as manipulative tactics, ensuring individuals feel indebted, grateful and favoured. The real intentions of such tactics are to ensure payback in loyalty, gratefulness, affirmation and support. Put simply, such individuals will be expected to meet the every need of the Narc and secure their will.
The duplicitous nature of the Narc's personality means they present publicly within their environment as a benign personality, while bullying and abusing their targets behind closed doors.
Narcs are pathological liars who feel no shame, resulting in acts of dishonesty and a total lack of integrity. They believe they are superior and entitled and thus not subject to the same set of rules or norms as others.
They regularly interchange scapegoats with golden employees to keep everyone on their toes and to ensure their workforce feels divided - 'divide and conquer' is at the root of this tactic,
making the workforce far easier to control and manipulate.
The Narc's abuse cycle of 'idealise, devalue and discard' is the same when it targets individuals in the workplace, institutions and organisations. When Narcs hold positions of power within governments or charities, their abuse can impact on society at large.
During idealisation the Narc's target will be 'seduced' through flattery, charm, pretence at loyalty, compliments, praise, ensuring they feel valued, appreciated, special, even a part of the Narc's 'inner circle', granted special consideration and attention. To gain a victim's trust the Narc may 'befriend' them, telling them secrets and intimate details of the Narc's personal life. Such disclosures will be falsehoods and for one purpose only, to manipulate the target to open up to them. At this stage anything their targets tell the Narc in confidence will be used against them later, when they discard them. During devaluation a target's vulnerabilities will be weaponised against them; comments they make on social media may be criticised; set up to fail tactics will be utilised; Narcs will find fault with what they do and say; the target's professional development will be sabotaged; the Narc will deny things they said and did, making the victim out to be liar or fabricator; and third parties that have been groomed and primed by the Narc will be pitted against the victim. During this phase a common tactic is the 'everyone' phase, as the Narc tries to convince the target that everyone agrees with a negative opinion of you. Those who are not targets will continue to believe the Narc's 'false' persona that he projects to the world. Once the victim is no longer of use to the Narc (because they no longer give Narc supply), they will be discarded. In a work environment this could mean being fired ensuring their position is compromised.
The Narc in the work place leaves destruction in their wake as they prioritise themselves and their career. They create toxic work environments, undermining morale, destroying and dividing teams and societies. They can change the companies, societies or countries they lead. Individuals who voice a narrative that does not align with the Narc will be silenced; submissiveness and subservience rewarded - this ensures a culture of division develops where the opposing sides are pitted against each other; opposition, cynicism and apathy start to corrode unity.
The Narc will not take responsibility for their actions, but will deflect the blame; they will not apologise, as they can't allow themselves to be seen as wrong or be held accountable in any way.
The Narc has no respect for, commitment to, or appreciation of the endeavour, team work or skills required for the positions of power, wealth and success that they feel entitled to, so will achieve these through immoral and illegal means.