How do you respond to a narcissistic person asserting a false claim with intense authoritarianism? You speak the truth even if your voice shakes.
We had a comment from a reader today and were duly informed that all our information and literature was wrong about Narcissistic Personality disorder. The reader insists she is sure because her ex-boyfriend refused to admit he was a Narcissist but she insists that because he refused to hop to and meet her needs 24/7 that that meant he had NPD. Unfortunately, that’s not the way using the word Narcissist works, folks — like an insult.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a very specific personality type. It is not an illness, defect, or disease. It is a stand-alone personality type grouped under the DSM5 classification heading Cluster B.
Read more about WHAT IS NARCISSISM, What is a Narcissist, and the difference between Narcissism and Narcissistic Thinking here before reading further if your feathers are already ruffled.
This was our response to the reader. Normally we would not share something so personal in a public forum, but since we routinely see statements and assertions being shared as fact on the forums insisting nonsense like what this person is striving to put forward, we wanted to go on record asking real victims, and we thought it appropriate not to try to redact our statements while creating a post that preserves anonymity.
To that end, we are posting a letter our staff writer Anonymous Jones had to share with a “confused” reader (in the hopes of rescuing both them and what is likely to be a traumatized ex from them doing themselves or anyone else further harm). Our intent in sharing is to help all abuse victims from falling prey to people sharing phony intel as truth. Entitlement-thinking based Narcissistic Abuse of another person using the word ‘NARCISSIST’ like it’s being brandished like a weapon is simply a bad habit for any person, culture, or community to do.
Here are our thoughts on why with a very sincere request to the reader in question to stop posting attention-seeking commentary aggressing other people on the board — our own mods and staff writers included. Keep in mind there is a long history of the person posting red-flag comments that indicate Covert Narcissism is likely to be present, yet the person insists that everyone they victimize is responsible for forcing them into the position of having to do it:
Dear Reader —
Are you SURE You are not projecting the disorder onto a person who may benefit from a therapy situation? A traumatized EMPATH can do some real damage as well… and a person with C-PTSD who has been abused by a control freak will present aloof or distant to avoid re-traumatization. If you left him because you were unhappy, then keeping it about leaving because your personal needs were unmet is advisable. We just need to correct the aforementioned blanket statement about people who actually HAVE Narcissistic Personality Disorder so as not not mislead other readers.
MOST NPDs will tell you there is not a damn thing wrong with them because technically speaking there isn’t. They have no “illness” and are not diseased, stupid, or mentally deficient. They have a personality type that follows specific patterns and biological limitations with regard to emotional experience.
Victims have a problem with their behaviors because we are victimized by them and do not like figuring out it happened. That’s OUR ego. They are abusive without remorse. Our upset and frustration IS their social success. For that reason, because they are motivated by COMPLETELY different human emotions that go against the norm because they come from a point of competitive egocentrism, they succeed in meeting their own Maslow’s pinnacle of self-actualization.
Victims seldom have success self-actualizing in any sphere other than being victims. Hence the very real need to accept personal responsibility for choices and stop blaming others for not meeting OUR needs as valid humans. It’s an NLP re-framing shift of sorts, but one that puts Cluster B in a reality check spectrum of it’s own in such a way that traumatized people can learn to relinquish the need to blame or control.
For these reasons, we would have to ask that you continue academic pursuit of information related to the topic of NPD and Narcissistic Abuse rather than jumping on the bandwagon so many people seem to follow. Forum posters mobbing people with Cluster B because they are angry and actual Cluster B Covert Narcissists who get off psychologically and emotionally on infiltrating Narcissistic Recovery groups online will intentionally plant false information that seems right on the surface but actually isn’t.
We’re sorry you seem to have been duped or misled into believing false information about Narcissists and encouraged to use the term in such a way that it’s punitive. It’s a mental health classification — not an insulting, ridiculing, or pejorative term. It’s also a word used throughout various periods in history to reference different personality traits common to a unique, small number of people that writers have used to paint a portrait of personality type in various pieces of historical literature.
In an effort to help you off the wheel of Narcissistic Abuse — meaning the power and control cycle that keeps both victim and abuser bound to a process — we’d lovingly like to suggest you stop thinking about NPD and Cluster B people as the source of your problems.
Just because a person fails to meet your social or emotional needs does not mean they have a personality disorder. Just because they don’t like or agree with your politics or support your religious belief does not make them mentally ill. Blaming other people for a lack of happiness in yourself and seeking constant attention and validation from others is likely to leave you nothing but feeling emotionally frustrated. For that reason alone we discourage ANY reader from ranting about what someone else did, thinks, or does and we try and keep the focus on developing self-awareness of trigger issues first.
If your partner was not responsive to your needs or demands in a timely fashion or up to the performance standards you would have liked, how did that make you feel? What did you try to do to set healthy boundaries and self advocate? What did you do before the situation to let your partner know your needs and expectations? Did you give your partner a clear opportunity to successfully meet your needs by specifying exactly the emotional attention award you were seeking — or was how to succeed with you left in the mystery?
Getting angry when a partner is slow to communicate or is trying to avoid being ridiculed and shamed for not being “good enough” is Narcissistic Abuse of a target. We wish we could tell you that you are doing something else when you start raging and hurling insults at a partner, but we cannot. Victims can be verbally abusive to Abusers as well — YES. But a victim venting out of frustration while seeking support and begging is simply not the same thing as a childish abuser hurling insults because they said jump and their preferred scapegoat target forgot to ask how high or jump high enough.
Please do consider taking personal responsibility for creating happiness and the lifestyle you want without badgering others for attention and following up by tirading against them trying to launch a smear campaign by name-calling. It’s rude, does nothing to help YOU move forward with your social and emotional progress, and when false assertions are put in public view on a community forum the words cause other true victims to be misled, thereby extending abuse to them.
While we love having you as a reader, we have to give a final warning that we are going to have to start hiding malicious and persecutory commentary you’ve been leaving on our page. Impulse control issues are common to those with narcissistic affectations, so we understand that not flaming us for saying these things to you might be hard.
We get it.
But protecting our readers from Covert Narcissists and gaslighting assertions like “Narcissists are sick and require therapy and medication” or “Narcissists refuse to admit that they think they are better than other people” is something we feel we have to do for the health of the community at large.
To that end, we respectfully request you stop leaving flames against Narcissists and comments that undermine other members of our community. If you personally attract people who you feel are narcissistic into your life, self-reflection time is in order to help you figure out and understand your own forensic psychology roots of your propensity to surround yourself with people who score high on the NPD spectrum or who — in your estimation — are not meeting up to your social and emotional needs for compliance or mind reading when and if you issue orders.
Respectfully,
Anonymous Jones
Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Specialist — flyingmonkeysdenied@gmail.com
Standing up to a Covert Narcissist acting under deep cover is never fun but sometimes one must sacrifice their own emotional safety and comfort to set the record straight and to try to help save them from themselves.
Here’s a handful of links that can help you make the determination whether or not YOU yourself are using the phrase Narcissist in such a way that is abusive:
- What is Gaslighting
- What is Doublespeak
- Covert Narcissism: Hidden Character Revealed
- Selfies and Narcissism
- Why do toxic people name call, bully, and try to shame?
Actual abuse victims seeking to heal from toxic shame are encouraged to seriously think about reasons why they themselves feel ashamed or believe they are at fault for causing their Abuser to abuse. Be mindful of who is allowed in your inner circle, noting that the 5 people you spend the most time with are those you are most likely to emulate in lifestyle and thinking pattern.
When such a circle includes housemates, life partners, and family members as much or more than casual friendships made as social and professional acquaintances, the long-term effects on everyone’s conscience can be truly pervasive when and if one or more of the people suffer from an actual personality disorder.
Since at least 6% of the world’s population meets diagnostic criteria for NPD classification, it’s likely that out of every 100 people you meet, 6 will have a full-blown personality disorder. But chances are their friends and family may suspect something is off about them but they will never have a clue the person has actual Narcissistic Personality Disorder. That’s not because the NPD people won’t look you right in the eye and tell you why they deserve special treatment.
On the contrary… people with narcissistic personalities thrive socially and emotionally due to the ignorance of their victims. People who are willingly allowing themselves to be abused because they have been given bad moral guidance from Enabler predecessors to overlook, justify, or somehow excuse abuse are people who from their youngest ages have fallen for gaslighting schemes concocted by people who support abuse.
Stop throwing the word ‘Narcissist’ around like an insult. It’s a medical label.
Using it any other way IS verbal, psychological, emotional, spiritual, and “mental health” abuse.
Posting such a letter this way on an academic forum for reader’s reflection — why would we bother to take the time?
We are simply duck hunting baby ducks… hoping that a few of you will wake up to having been brainwashed into thinking according to toxic presumption patterns. People who are capable of rational thought and empathy are likely to understand our loving intent. They are also capable of changing their internal locus of psycho-social and emotional behavior in such a way that they learn to think collaboratively (rather than competitively) with other people while learning to stand on their own two feet as individuals.
Those who are narcissistic at heart? Anyone who reads this post and gets mad or feels the need to personalize should do a quick assessment of their own grandiosity.
We wish you well but are totally okay with you NOT reading our page or Facebook community posts further. In all actuality, we would be quite pleased to have you flame us to all your family, friends, and followers, however.
Why?
Because there is no quicker way to get the information about Covert Narcissism or Sociopathy out to victims than to have word you are offended or insulted by our reflections come straight from the guilty and mean-spirited horse’s MOUTH.
Bottom line, there are far more NICE people in the world than there are monsters. For that reason alone, we feel comfortable saying that Narcissistic Abuse — whether being enacted by an Abuser who abuses on purpose or by a person who abuses because they had no idea they were doing it — is something to be clearly identified, pointed out, and in the future avoided.
