Child mistreatment: a family tradition

Once we have identified the dynamics of compulsive repetition, we will find it in all families where children are mistreated. Frequently the kind of abuse exercised on children has a long history. The same patterns of humiliation, neglect, exertion of power, and sadism can often be traced back over several generations. To evade the horror this involves, we keep on dreaming up new theories.

Some psychologists suggest that the sufferings of their clients derive not from their own childhood but from the histories and problems of distant ancestors that they attempt to resolve with their illnesses. Such theories have a palliative effect. They save us from having to imagine the sheer hell these clients went through in their youth, and they spare us indignation. But much like the genetic fallacy, this is in fact nothing other than an attempt to escape the painful reality of the matter. It is absurd to interpret genocide or the increase of violence, say in present-day Iraq, [Now Ukraine] as a consequence of destructive genes. Why should so many people with destructive genes have suddenly been born in the era of Hitler or Milosevic? Yet many intellectuals believe implicitly and unhesitatingly in such explanations. They subscribe to the notion of intrinsic evil to spare themselves the pain involved in admitting that, whatever justifications may be trotted out to disguise such violence, the real reason why numerous parents torment their children is unconscious hatred. But this is the truth. And once we decide to look it in the face, there are real benefits to be gained from that decision. It enables us to forsake the medieval belief in the devil ("rogue genes").

The chain of violence is shown up for what it is, and we realize that we can do something to break that chain. Sadistic parents do not fall from the skies. They were treated just as sadistically in their childhood, there is no doubt about that. To assert the opposite is to evade the simple fact that in the formative years of their lives tormented children suffer not only one death, like a murderer's victim, but countless psychic deaths and tortures at the hands of the people they are dependent on and cannot find a substitute for. The German news media recently reported the death of a seven-year-old girl named Jessica, who was starved to death by her mother and only weighed 18 pounds when she died.

The press was horrified, and there was a funeral ceremony for Jessica, with flowers, candles, and fine words, as is appropriate in such a case. All over the world dead and unborn children are loved and mourned for. But the sufferings of living children are persistently trivialized. Neither at the ceremony nor in the press did anyone ask how a mother can leave her child to starve, how she could look on imperviously as the little body wasted away, why there was no feeling of compassion, why she left the child alone in her torment.

It is hard for us to imagine such sadism, although we are only sixty years away from Auschwitz, the place where millions were intentionally starved and left to stare certain death in the face. But neither then, nor later, nor today has there been any inquiry into the question of how people become so sadistic. How were they brought up, how were they deprived of the capacity to rebel against such wrongs, to recognize their parents' cruelty, to defend themselves against it? Instead, they were taught to approve their parents' sadism in all its forms.

And this succeeded so completely because children want to love their parents and prefer not to look the truth in the face. The truth is too awful for these children to bear, so they avert their eyes. But the body remembers everything, and as adults, those children unconsciously and automatically rehearse their parents' sadism on their own children, on their subjects or employees, on everyone dependent on them. They do not know that they are doing to others precisely what their parents did to them when they were in a state of complete and utter dependence. Some may suspect the fact and seek therapeutic aid. But what do they find?

Therapy: neutrality versus partiality

When I trained to be a psychoanalyst a great deal of importance was attached to the analyst's neutrality. This was one of the basic rules considered since Freud to be self-evident and required to be strictly observed at all times. At that point, I had no idea that there was any connection between this stricture and the compulsion to protect the patient's parents from any kind of blame. My colleagues seemed to have no difficulty maintaining their neutrality, they appeared to have no interest in empathizing with the torments suffered by a beaten and humiliated child exposed to incestuous exploitation.

Perhaps some of them had been the victims of such cruelty. But in their training, they were themselves treated with the neutrality demanded by Freud, so they had no opportunity of discovering the pain they had been denying all along. To be able to break with that denial, they would have needed not a neutral therapist but a partial one, someone who sided unequivocally with the tormented child and displayed indignation at the wrongs done to that child before the client is capable of doing so.

The point is that at the outset of therapy most clients do not feel any indignation. Though they recount facts that invite revulsion and indignation, they have no sense of rebellion, not only because they are dissociated from their feelings but because they do not know that parents can be any different. My experience has repeatedly shown me that my genuine indignation at what clients have been through in their childhood is an important vehicle of therapy.

This becomes especially apparent in group therapy. Individual members of the group may tell us calmly, possibly even with a smile, that they were locked in a dark cellar for hours if they dared to contradict their parents. This will arouse a murmur of horror among the other members. But the person telling the story is not yet capable of such feelings, they have no basis for comparisons. For them this treatment is normal. I have also met people who spent years in primal therapy and who had no difficulty in weeping over the sufferings they had been through in their childhood. But they were still far from feeling any indignation at the incestuous exploitation or the perverted ritual beatings they had suffered at the hands of their parents.

They believed that such inflictions are a normal part of any childhood and that the simple re-discovery of their former feelings would heal them. But this is not always the case, and certainly not if the strong attachment to their unconscious parents and the expectations they have of them continue to subsist. I believe that this attachment and these expectations cannot be resolved as long as the therapist remains neutral.

This has struck me in my discussions with therapists working quite correctly with their clients on access to their emotions but still subject to the idealization of their own parents. They could only help their clients when they had been encouraged to admit their own feelings and consequently to express the indignation aroused in them, as therapists, by the perversions inflicted on the clients by their parents. The effect of this is frequently very striking.

It is like clearing away a dam that has been blocking the course of a river. Sometimes the therapist's indignation will quickly release a veritable avalanche of indignation in the client. But this is not always the case. Some clients need weeks, months, even years before this happens. But the open display of indignation on the part of the therapist as a witness ultimately sets off a process of liberation that has previously been impeded by the moral standards upheld by society.

This unleashing of emotion is due to the free and committed attitude of a therapist able to show the former child that it is legitimate to be scandalized at the behavior of one's parents, that EVERY FEELING INDIVIDUAL WOULD BE SCANDALIZED, WITH THE SOLE EXCEPTION OF THE PERSON WHO HAS ACTUALLY BEEN THIS TORMENTED CHILD. My remarks on this point may be understood as an attempt on my part to write a prescription for therapists, advising them to develop feelings of indignation so as to help their clients achieve this breakthrough. But that would be a major misunderstanding. I cannot advise someone to have feelings they do not have, and no one can possibly follow such advice.

However, I assume that there are therapists who are sincerely indignant when they hear of the scandalous behavior of their clients' parents. It is entirely possible that some of them believe that they should not give expression to this indignation because in their training they have been told that this must be avoided at all costs.

From Freud's school of thought, they may even have learned to regard their feelings as "countertransference," i.e. as a mere "personal" reaction to their clients' feelings. This way they have accustomed themselves to avoiding the perception and expression of their own feelings, their simple and eminently understandable response to cruelty.

The general tendency to evade feelings of indignation is understandable because this feeling can easily spark off a perception of childlike impotence and memories of a time when some of us were hopelessly exposed to the sadism of adults and unable to defend ourselves.

The fact that despite all my efforts I myself am still not entirely free of this instinctive evasion was brought home to me recently by a letter from one of my readers. She wrote that her daughter was working for an emergency telephone service for the victims of the ritual mistreatment of children and had found out that in isolated cases children had been forced to kill babies. This reminded me that in my book Banished Knowledge I had written that the tortured child believes it has killed the baby in itself when it is forced to lie or to hold its tongue. But in perverted and sadistic rituals, it now becomes apparent that children may be literally forced to kill babies, in the same way as they are sometimes forced to torment animals.

It is understandable that we should prefer not to hear about these things and to regard people who engage in such practices as monsters. But as we are increasingly confronted with terrorist violence, we cannot afford to demonize perversion and close our eyes to the way in which people who practice such sadistic rituals were turned into sadists in the first place. The production of perversion goes on unhindered. And if we do not learn to understand the connections and prevent parents from the exercise of their perverted upbringing rituals, then humanity is ultimately doomed to be wiped out by its own deeply rooted ignorance. Alice Miller

From the article: Taking It Personally: Indignation as a Vehicle of Therapy

Read more: http://www.alice-miller.com/articles_en.php?lang=en&nid=54&grp=11

Someone reenacted his childhood drama with me

Most people treat me nice and respect me, but someone young in his twenties, that, works for his father, this week he unconsciously reenacted his childhood drama with me, and unconsciously showed me how he was treated as a small child. These situations are never pleasant! I still don’t handle transference very well!

http://www.alice-miller.com/articles_en.php?lang=en&nid=116&grp=11

I know this person has his eyes closed and is not ready to open his eyes to these psychological mechanisms, so trying to explain these psychological mechanisms to him, that does not want to see, I would be putting myself in a frustrating situation, we cannot make someone -- to open his eyes -- that do not want to see and the best thing we can do for ourselves is to let it go and walk away to avoid continuing to be their poison container or scapegoat.

Sometimes, we tolerate the destructive patterns of others, because we are afraid to lose them, not understanding that tolerating them will cause us to lose ourselves. 

Interesting that someone send me a private e-mail sharing her experience and letters she wrote to Alice Miller. I thought I had read every letter written to Alice Miller, but somehow I missed this one.

Alice Miller’s answer below explains the plight of this young man:
S: ""Pain is the way to the truth. By denying that you were unloved as a child, you spare yourself some pain, but you are not with your own truth. And throughout your whole life, you'll try to earn love. In therapy, avoiding pain causes blockage. Yet nobody can confront being neglected or hated without feeling guilty. "It is my fault that my mother is cruel," he thinks. "I made my mother furious; what can I do to make her loving?" So he will continue trying to make her love him. The guilt is really protection against the terrible realization that you are fated to have a mother who cannot love. This is much more painful than to think, "Oh, she is a good mother, it's only me who's bad." Because then you can try to do something to get love. But it's not true; you cannot earn love. And feeling guilty for what has been done to you only supports your blindness and your neurosis."

This passage sounded like me before I had the courage to condemn my mother of her treatment of me. I never liked how she hit me as a small child and yelled at me when I was older, but I felt that I had to stay loyal to her anyway. These conflicting feelings bothered me so much that I decided to ask Alice Miller for some advice. I wrote the following e-mail early last year:

Dear Ms. Miller,

I read some of your articles stating that sometimes it is best to distance yourself from an unrepentant parent since depending on him/her for love and security is childish and that an adult is free to engage in relationships elsewhere. I feel that doing this would make me feel better and free, but I have a problem.

On one hand, I am still angry at my mother for the harsh discipline she brought me up with and that she lectures me as if I'm a naive child. (I'm planning on living in an apartment within a few months.) I'm going on twenty-one for crying out loud, and she acts as if I live in a bubble. (Examples include "there are people that you can trust and people that you can't trust") Well, duh! I don't easily trust people anyway. And if I have any issues during my time living on my own, I should come straight to her. (As if I'm not supposed to seek out any other options.)

On the other hand, though, she said that she would help me with expenses for the apartment since I'm still in college and I'm saving money. She is pretty ill, (she has to take her blood pressure every day, medication, etc.) She also wants me to help her with her schooling because she is planning to go back to school and I agreed.

While distancing myself from her would be better for me, I fear that telling her that she abused me would make her sicker. I appreciate the good things she did for me, yet the bad things she did still burn in my memory, and I won't forgive her as long as she feels justified for what she did to me. I also fear that my older siblings would hold a grudge against me and say that I didn't appreciate her and that our father is the real abuser. (My dad abused my mother, brother, and to a lesser extent my sister. I was told that I was his favorite. My parents separated when I was three years old, and divorced when I was eleven. Even after they separated, I visited Dad every now and then until I was eight. I didn't see him again until last year. He told my siblings and I that he was sorry for what he did in the past and is working on improving himself. He stopped drinking excessively and is working on getting back into our lives. My siblings and I still talk to him on the phone. I still don't feel ready to have a close relationship with him, but I'm giving him a chance. I'm not sure how my sister feels about him, but my brother and Mom still have a grudge against him since they knew him the longest. I find this odd because at least he's trying to change, and they know what abuse is like, yet they both support corporal punishment.)

My mom was raised by her grandmother because her mother died when she was ten years old. My mom told me that her grandmother was very strict such as locking up the fridge until it was mealtime and making her and her siblings iron sheets. I assume that my great-grandmother also used corporal punishment on her. Yet, my mom doesn't seem ashamed of her upbringing and hails her as a goddess. Maybe that's why she's so sick now. (I'm relating to your phrase, "The Body Never Lies"; I couldn't agree more.)

Anyway, should I tell her the painful truth and risk worsening her sickness and having my siblings mad at me or is there another option?

SR

Here was her response:

AM: Your dilemma is absolutely understandable in your age. If you read The Body Never Lies you know that dependency increases hatred. But maybe you need more time to make your decisions. Try to listen to your feelings and to take them seriously.
--------------------------------//-----------------
I was disappointed with her answer at first because it wasn't what I wanted to hear. After doing some thinking though, I realized that it did me no good to stay close to her while having mixed feelings about her, too. A week after seeking advice from Ms. Miller, I had the courage to write and send a letter to Mom to tell her my true feelings about her. The letter can be found HERE

I am now thankful that Ms. Miller didn't tell me what I wanted to hear because the truth is better than wishful thinking.

I think that you mentioned sending Oprah these letters back when you were in that anti-corporal punishment group before you left. (By the way, I left, too, back in March. It's sad that even noble groups like that one hold on to illusions.) You stated that Oprah either ignored the letters or deleted them or both. This is more evidence that she wants to deny her pain and it's dangerous that she encourages her followers to do the same.

I'm sorry if this is a bit long-winded, but I couldn't limit my response to your post to a few sentences like I usually do. Anyway, keep up the good work. I feel that you are picking up where Ms. Miller left off.

Posted by Schiavonne on Thursday, July 01, 2010 - 7:35 AM

Dear S, Thank you so much for writing and sharing your letters to Alice Miller and your Mother. I enjoy reading very much, they brought tears to my eyes, it’s a joy to see a young person like you with so much courage to see and feel. 

You said: “ Anyway, keep up the good work. I feel that you are picking up where Ms. Miller left off.” 

This is the biggest compliment anyone could ever give me. Thank you. I will never be able to fill the shoes of Dr. Alice Miller, I am dyslexic and I drop out of school in the seven grade, so expressing myself does not come easy, I will never be able to articulate the knowledge I feel and shared with Dr. Alice Miller like she did, but you can be a sure that I will try to carry her torch everywhere I go and as far I can go. 

Some people get annoyed that I quote and mention Alice Miller’s work a lot, but she is the only person I know that articulates what I see and feel so well, the only reason they get annoyed is that the truth we are putting in front of them is too much for them to bear. 

I read a lot of self-help books before I read Dr. Alice Miller’s books and after reading all those books I always felt there was not quite right and I needed to search further. Not until I read and digested Dr. Alice Miller's books did I feel I was hearing the whole truth at last and no longer needed to keep searching, finally, I had found all the answers to my questions and I no longer felt alone with my perceptions, it was liberating. 

I am amazed at these so-called “educated” smart and very articulate people, especially on TV, but are not able to see these psychological mechanisms, and me, that I was considered to be stupid, and mentally challenged while I was growing up and I dropped out of school in the seven grade can see so clear. Now looking back I think everyone, especially my teachers, try so hard to make me feel stupid because they felt threatened by my authenticity and courage. 

Congratulations on your courage to see and feel our world is in desperate need of more courageous young people like you.

Time the most valuable resource

I have been saying for a very long time that time is the most valuable resource.

And that's why I don't want to waste any longer -- one more minute of my life -- with people that are -- chasing illusions -- and living a lie --  without the courage -- to open their eyes to see -- and feel their own painful truths.

Most people are compulsively and unconsciously looking for scapegoats to use as poison containers to temporarily and superficially alleviate their own unresolved repressed emotions of the child they once were. 

I refuse to be anyone's scapegoat.

I didn't need science and research to know that time is more valuable than money. 

-------‐--------//‐-------------

Science says the more you give out, the happier you’ll be (hint: it’s not money)

Giving time to others is a simple way you can get more out of your relationships, and it’s a key feature of emotional intelligence, the ability to understand and manage emotions. Let’s explain why time is more valuable than money, what research will say about giving your time, and how it can help you feel happier.

Steve Jobs famously said, “The most valuable resource we all have is time.” Of course, he was right; There is always more money to be made. But time is limited. Once he’s gone, he’s gone.

That’s why it’s so important to live with intention when it comes to spending your time. In an age when everything seems to be struggling to get your attention, it’s all too easy to pass the time in ways that you’ll regret later. In return, when you share your time with others, you make them feel appreciated. This leads to stronger and deeper relationships… which in turn leads to a greater sense of shared happiness.

There is research to support this.

https://getaboutcolumbia.com/science-says-the-more-you-give-out-the-happier-youll-be-hint-its-not-money/

Drugs and the Deception of the Body:

 Excerpt from the book The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Hurtful Parenting by Alice Miller from Chapter 13, Drugs and the Deception of the Body:

As a child, I had to learn to suppress my entirely natural responses to the injuries inflicted on me, responses like rage, anger, pain, and fear. Otherwise, I would have been punished. Later, at school, I was proud of the skill I had developed in controlling and restraining these feelings. I considered this ability a virtue, and I also expected my first child to achieve the same kind of discipline. Only after I succeeded in freeing myself of this attitude was I able to understand the suffering of children who have been forbidden to respond to injuries in an appropriate way and to engage with their emotions in a benevolent environment, so that in later life they can take their bearings from the feelings they actually have, rather than fearing them.

 Unfortunately, there are many people who have been through the same thing as I have. Unable to display their strong feelings as children, they have no real experience of them, and later they sorely miss this experience. In therapy, some of them succeed in locating and experiencing their repressed emotions. Then they are able to turn them into conscious feelings they can understand on the basis of their own life history and that they no longer need to fear. But others reject this course because they cannot or will not confide their tragic experiences to others. In our present-day consumer society, such an attitude is widespread. It is considered the done thing not to display one's feelings, or only in exceptional cases, after the consumption of drugs or alcohol. Aside from that, feelings (one's own and those of others) are something to be jeered at. In show business and journalism, the art of irony is a well-paid commodity, so it is possible to make a great deal of money with the suppression of one's feelings. Even if one ultimately risks losing all contact with oneself and merely functioning as a mask, an "as if" personality, there are always drugs, alcohol, and other substances to fall back on. Derision pays well; money is no object. Alcohol helps to keep us in a good mood, and stronger drugs do so even more effectively. But because these emotions are not genuine, not linked up with the true story of the body, the effect is bound to wear off after a time. Higher and higher doses are required to fill up the void left by childhood.  page 139.

 Drugs do not always have the function of freeing people from dependency and maternal constraints. Sometimes legal drugs (alcohol, nicotine, prescribed medications) are used in an attempt to fill the void left by the mother. 

The child was not given the nourishment needed from her and has found no substitute for this in later life. Without drugs, this gap can literally express itself as a feeling of physical hunger, gnawing away at the stomach, which contracts in response. Probably the foundations for addiction are laid at the very beginning of life, as is the case with bulimia and other eating disorders. 

The body makes it clear that in the past it urgently needed something, something withheld from it when it was a tiny baby. But this message is misunderstood as long as the emotions are ignored. Accordingly, the distress of the small child is erroneously registered as present distress, and all attempts to combat that distress in the present are doomed to failure. As adults, we have different needs, and we can satisfy them only if they are no longer coupled with the old needs in our unconscious minds. pages 145-146.

We can identify the causes of our sufferings

 "Truly attempting to understand the child within means acknowledging and recognizing its sufferings, rather than denying them. Then we can provide supportive company for that mistreated infant, an infant left entirely alone with its fears, deprived of the consolation and support that a helping witness could have provided. By offering guidance to the child we once were, we can create a new atmosphere he can respond to, helping him to see that it is not the whole world that is full of dangers, but above all the world of his family that he was doomed to fear in every moment of his existence. We never knew what bad mood might prompt our mother to expose us to the full force of her aggression. We never knew what we could do to defend ourselves. No one came to our aid; no one saw that we were in danger. And in the end, we learned not to perceive that danger ourselves.

Many people manage to protect themselves from the memories of a nightmare childhood by taking medication of some kind, frequently of an anti-depressive nature. But such medication only robs us of our true emotions, and then we are unable to find expression for the logical response to the cruelties we were exposed to as children. And this inability is precisely what triggered the illness in the first place." -- Alice Miller

 Above excerpt from the article, We can identify the causes of our sufferings by Alice Miller

http://www.alice-miller.com/en/we-can-identify-the-causes-of-our-sufferings/

Saying the truth or being loyal

Dear Alice Miller,

feel free to publish this letter on your website if you find it interesting.

In your post "Barbara's Forum 2", you write that instead of understanding you received personal attacks. I am sorry to hear that, because I was personally attacked as well. Like you, I was attacked after I criticized IFS therapy (in my forum). Why did I have to be attacked? Because I expressed disagreement with a person I was supposed to be "loyal" to?

Criticism is important when we work to find the truth; Sometimes, this truth is more important to me than "loyalty". It is not possible to have one's own opinion and to say that everyone is right at the same time. There is a difference between the truth and lies, and you have shown in numerous examples that the body also knows it. No postmodern philosophy or eclectic naivete can change this basic fact of life. The truth is not always easy to accept, of course. It is often painful and unwelcome. Besides, it makes us mad when someone else points a finger and says "you're wrong". But what if he is correct?

You were attacked personally because you "dared" to criticize and to break your "loyalty" in order not to betray yourself and your convictions. Some people obviously thought that this was reason enough to try and punish you. To me it was familiar, because this is what my mother did whenever I dared to question her versions of the truth: to punish me, to try to belittle me.

This was the dictatorship I grew up in, like so many other readers, I am sure. Certainly, this is how my persecutors' mothers had done to them in childhood: punished them for criticism. What other reason can there be for their behavior? Seemingly free from their mothers, they fight their scapegoats in the name of freedom. They were taught that to criticize is a crime against humanity, and that they have to always smile with agreement, unless they are treated with the most brutal sadism possible. They were told to keep their opinions to themselves because it is rude to disagree. Such people's rage is understandable. Every child needs her parents to appreciate and listen to her opinions. What is less acceptable is their behavior and hypocrisy as adults. Norman.

AM: I agree with you. Fortunate are the few children who can express their criticism, who are listened to, taken seriously, and understood by their parents. They receive a precious gift for their whole life. But for most of the children saying the truth meant mortal danger.

They are often brutally punished simply for saying frankly what they feel and think. As adults, they often use the same means as their parents used before, without being aware of what they are doing. They are blindly attacking everybody who questions their traditional "opinions" given by their parents. Their children can't do anything else than to obey and staying loyal. Only adults can take legal action if it comes to criminal harassment or severe defamation.

http://www.alice-miller.com/readersmail_en.php?lang=en&nid=2275&grp=0908

Poisonous pedagogy

"Poisonous pedagogy is a phrase I use to refer to the kind of parenting and education aimed at breaking a child's will and making that child into an obedient subject by means of overt or covert coercion, manipulation, and emotional blackmail" From the preface "The Truth Will Set you Free" By Alice Miller

The mistreated and neglected child is completely alone in the darkness of confusion and fear. Surrounded by arrogance and hatred, robbed of its rights and its speech, deceived in its love and its trust, disregarded, humiliated, mocked in its pain, such a child is blind, lost, and pitilessly exposed to the power of ignorant adults. It is without orientation and completely defenseless.

Its whole being would like to shout out its anger, give voice to its feeling of outrage, call for help. But that is exactly what it may not do. All its normal reactions, the reactions with which nature has endowed it to help it survive, remain blocked. If no witness comes to its aid, these natural reactions would enlarge and prolong the child’s sufferings. Ultimately, the child could die of them.

Thus, the healthy impulse to protest against inhumanity has to be suppressed. The child attempts to extinguish and erase from memory everything that has happened to it, in order to banish from consciousness the burning outrage, fury , fear, and the unbearable pain – as it hopes, forever. What remains is a feeling of its own guilt, rather than outrage that it is forced to kiss the hand that beats it and beg for forgiveness – something that unfortunately happens more than one imagines.

The abused child goes on living within those who have survived such torture, a torture that ended with total repression. They live with the darkness of fear, oppression, and threats. When all its attempts to move the adult to heed its story have failed, it resorts to the language of symptoms to make itself heard. Enter addiction, psychosis, criminality.

If, as adults, we nevertheless begin to have an inkling of why we are suffering and ask a specialist whether these sufferings could have a connection with our childhood, we will usually be told that this is very unlikely to be the case. And if it were, that we should learn forgiveness. It is the resentment at the past, we are told, that is making us ill.

In those by-now familiar groups in which addicts and their relations go into therapy together, the following belief is invariably expressed. Only when you have forgiven your parents for everything they did to you can you get well. Even if both parents were alcoholics, even if they mistreated, confused, exploited, beat, and totally overloaded you, you must forgive them everything. Otherwise, your illness will not be cured. There are many programs going by the name of “therapy”, whose basis consists of first learning to express one’s feelings in order to see what happened in childhood. Then, however, comes “the work of forgiveness”, which is apparently necessary if one is to heal. Many young people who have AIDS or are drug-addicted die in the wake of their effort to forgive so much. What they do not realize is that they are trying to keep the repression of their childhood intact.

Some therapists fear this truth. They work under the influence of various interpretations culled from both Western and Oriental religions, which preach forgiveness to the once-mistreated child.

 Thereby, they create a new vicious circle for people who, from their earliest years, have been caught in the vicious circle of pedagogy . This, they refer to as “therapy”. In so doing, they lead them into a trap from which there is no escape, the same trap that once rendered their natural protests impossible, thus causing the illness in the first place. Because such therapists, caught as they are in the pedagogic system, cannot help patients to resolve the consequences of the traumatization they have suffered, they offer them traditional morality instead.

In recent years I have been sent many books from the United States of America describing different kinds of therapeutic intervention by authors with whom I am not familiar. Many of these authors presume that forgiveness is an indispensable condition for successful therapy. This notion appears to be so widespread in therapeutic circles that it is not always called into question – something urgently needed. For forgiveness does not resolve latent hatred and self-hatred but can cover them up in a very dangerous way.

I know of the case of one woman, whose mother was sexually abused as a child by both her father and brother. Reared in a convent, this woman learned “the blessing of forgiveness” by heart. She continued to worship her father and brother without the slightest trace of bitterness. 

While her daughter was still an infant, she frequently left the child “in the care of” her thirteen-year-old nephew, while she went blithely off to the movies with her husband.

While she was gone, the pubescent babysitter indulged his sexual desires on the body of her baby daughter. When the daughter later sought help in psychoanalytic counseling, the analyst told her she should on no account blame her mother. Her intentions had not been bad, she was told. She had had no idea that her babysitter was routinely abusing her child. The mother, it seems, was literally clueless. When the child began to develop dietary disturbances, she anxiously consulted a number of doctors. They assured her that the disturbances in her eating habits came from “teething.” Thus, the gears of this forgiveness machine were functioning almost perfectly – and, at the expense of the truth and the lives of all concerned. Fortunately, they don’t always function as well.

In her highly creative, remarkable book THE OBSIDIAN MIRROR: AN ADULT HEALING FROM INCEST (Seal Press, 1988), Louise Wisechild describes how she succeeded in deciphering her body’s messages and communications, and thereby her feelings, so that she was gradually able to free her childhood from repression. This took place in a successful therapy involving bodywork and written accounts of her experiences. Gradually, she discovered in detail what she had totally banished from consciousness: that she had been sexually molested by her grandfather at the age of four; that she was subsequently abused by an uncle and finally also by her stepfather. 

A woman therapist was willing and brave enough to work with her on this horrific journey of self-discovery, in spite of the manifest torture to which the patient had been subjected. Nevertheless, even in this most successful therapy Louise sometimes felt that she should forgive her mother. On the other hand, she strongly felt that this might be wrong. Fortunately, the therapist didn’t insist too much on this point. She gave Louise the freedom to follow her own feelings and to discover that it was not forgiveness that made her strong in the end. Helping the patient to resolve the guilt feelings that had been imposed upon her – the ultimate purpose, presumably, of therapy – doesn’t mean to burden her with an additional demand, a demand that could only serve to cement those feelings of guilt. A quasi-religious act of forgiveness can never resolve patterns of self-destruction.

Why should this woman, after showing her concern for her mother for thirty years, forgive her crime, when that mother had never made the slightest effort to see what she had done to her daughter? On one occasion, as the child, rigid with fear and disgust, was forced to lie under the heavy , male body of her uncle, she caught sight of her mother in the mirror as she approached the door. The child hoped to be saved, but the mother turned and disappeared. When Louise was an adult, she heard her mother say that she could only cope with her fear of that uncle if her children were around her. When the daughter tried to discuss her rape at the hands of her stepfather, her mother wrote her that she never wished to see her again. Even in many such blatant cases, the pressure to forgive, which effectively prevents the chance of a successful therapy, is hardly seen as the absurd demand that it is. It is just this common pressure to forgive that mobilizes old fears in the patient that oblige him or her to believe such an authority. What can it possibly achieve, except a quiet conscience for the therapist?*

In many cases much can be destroyed with a single, fundamentally wrong, confusing sentence. That it is well anchored in tradition and has been implanted in us since our earliest childhood only makes matters worse. What is involved here is an outrageous misuse of power , by which therapists are wont to ward off their powerlessness and fear. Patients, for their part, are convinced that the therapist holds this view as a result of the incontrovertible evidence of experience and so believe this “authority”. They cannot know-and it is almost impossible for them to discover-that what this claim in fact discloses is the therapist’s own fear of the mistreatment suffered at the hands of his or her parents. How are patients meant to resolve their feelings of guilt under such circumstances? On the contrary , they will simply be confirmed.

Preaching forgiveness reveals the pedagogic nature of some therapies. In addition, it exposes the powerlessness of the preachers. In a sense, it is odd that they call themselves “therapists” at all. “Priests” would be more apt. What ultimately emerges is the continuation of the blindness inherited in childhood, the blindness that a real therapy could relieve. What is constantly repeated to patients -until they believe it, and the therapist is mollified – is: “Your hate is making you ill. You must forgive and forget. Then you will be well.” But it was not hatred that drove patients to mute desperation in their childhood, by alienating them from their feelings and their needs. It was such morality with which they were constantly pressured.

It was my experience that it was precisely the opposite of forgiveness – namely, rebellion against mistreatment suffered, the recognition and condemnation of my parents’ misleading opinions and actions, and the articulation of my own needs – that ultimately freed me from the past. In my childhood, these things had been ignored in the name of “a good upbringing,” and I myself learned to ignore them for decades in order to be the “good” and “tolerant” child my parents wished me to be. But today I know: I always needed to expose and fight against opinions and attitudes that I considered destructive of life wherever I encountered them, and not to tolerate them. But I could only do this effectively once I had felt and experienced what was inflicted on me earlier. By preventing me from feeling the pain, the moral religious injunction to forgive did nothing but hinder this process.

The demand for good behavior has nothing to do with either an effective therapy or life. For many people in search of help, it closes the path to freedom. Therapists allow themselves to be led by their own fear – the mistreated child’s fear of its parents’ revenge – and by the hope that good behavior might one day be able to buy the love their parents denied them. The price that patients have to pay for this illusory hope is high indeed. Given false information, they cannot find the path to self-fulfillment.

By refusing to forgive, I give up my illusions. A mistreated child, of course, cannot live without them. But a grown-up therapist must be able to manage it. His or her patients should be able to ask: “Why should I forgive, when no one is asking me to? I mean, my parents refuse to understand and to know what they did to me. So why should I go on trying to understand and forgive my parents and whatever happened in their childhood, with things like psychoanalysis and transactional analysis? What’s the use? Whom does it help? It doesn’t help my parents to see the truth. But it does prevent me from experiencing my feelings, the feelings that would give me access to the truth. But under the bell-jar of forgiveness, feelings cannot and may not blossom freely.” Such reflections are, unfortunately, not common in therapeutic circles, in which forgiveness is the ultimate law. The only compromise that is made consists of differentiating between false and correct forms of forgiveness. But therapy requires only the “correct” form. And this goal may never be questioned.

I have asked many therapists why it is that they believe their patients must forgive if they are to become well, but I have never received a halfway acceptable answer. Clearly, they had never questioned their assertion. It was, for them, as self-evident as the mistreatment with which they grew up. I cannot conceive of a society in which children are not mistreated, but respected and lovingly cared for, that would develop an ideology of forgiveness for incomprehensible cruelties. This ideology is indivisible with the command “Thou shalt not be aware” and with the repetition of that cruelty on the next generation. It is our children who pay the price for our lack of awareness. Our fear of our parents’ revenge is the basis of our morality.

However, by means of gradual therapeutic disclosure that dispenses with bogus morality and pedagogy , this misleading ideology can be stopped. Survivors of mistreatment need to discover their own truth if they are to free themselves of its consequences. Moralizing leads them away from this truth.

An effective therapy cannot be achieved if the mechanisms of pedagogy continue to operate. It requires recognition of the damage caused by our upbringing, whose consequences it should resolve. It must make patients’ feelings available to them-and accessible for the entirety of their lives. This can help them to orientate and be at one with themselves. Moralizing appeals can result in barring access to this self-knowledge.

A child can excuse its parents, if they in their turn are prepared to recognize and admit to their failures. But the demand for forgiveness that I often encounter can pose a danger for therapy, even though it is an expression of our culture. Mistreatment of children is the order of the day, and those errors are therefore trivialized by the majority of adults. Forgiving can have negative consequences, not only for the individual, but for society at large, because it can mean disguising erroneous opinions and attitudes, and involves drawing a curtain across reality so that we cannot see what is taking place behind it.

The possibility of change depends on whether there is a sufficient number of enlightened witnesses to create a safety net for the growing consciousness of those who have been mistreated as children, so that they do not fall into the darkness of forgetfulness, from which they will later emerge as criminals or the mentally ill. Cradled in the “net” provided by such enlightened witnesses, these children can grow to be conscious adults, adults who live with and not against their past and who will therefore be able to do everything they can to create a more humane future for us all.

It has already been scientifically proved that weeping caused by sadness, pain, and fear not only causes tears to fall. Stress hormones, which lead to a general relaxation of the body, are also released. Of course, this cannot be equated with therapy. Nevertheless, it is an important discovery that should find its way into the treatments used by therapeutic practitioners. So far, though, the opposite has been the case. Patients are given tranquilizers to calm them. What would happen if they began to gain access to the causes of their symptoms! The problem with medical pedagogy is that the majority of those involved, the institutions and specialists, in no way wish to know why it is people become ill. The result of this denial is that countless chronically ill people become permanent residents of our prisons and clinics, while billions are spent by the government on keeping mum about the truth. Those affected must on no account realize that they can be helped to understand the language of their childhood, thereby truly reducing their suffering or even relieving it altogether.

If we had the courage to confront the facts about the repression of childhood mistreatment and its consequences, this would be possible. One look at the specialist literature on the subject, however, shows just how lacking such courage is. By contrast, the literature is full of appeals to our good intentions, all kinds of noncommittal and unverifiable advice, and, above all, moral preaching. Everything, all cruelty endured in childhood, is to be forgiven. If that doesn’t do the trick, then the state must pay for the lifelong care and treatment of invalids and the chronically ill. But with the help of the truth, they could be cured.

It has now been proved that though repression may be crucial for a child, it should not necessarily be the fate of adults. A small child’s dependency on its parents, its trust in them, its longing to love and be loved, are limitless. To exploit this dependency, to deceive a child in its longing, confuse it, and then proceed to sell this as “child rearing” is a criminal act – a criminal act committed hourly and daily out of ignorance, indifference, and the refusal to give up such behavior. The fact that the majority of such crimes are committed unconsciously does not, unfortunately, allay the calamitous consequences. The abused child’s body will register the truth, while its consciousness refuses to acknowledge it. By repressing the pain and the accompanying situations, the infantile organism averts death-its fate, were it to consciously experience such traumatization.

What remains is the vicious circle of repression: the true story, which has been suppressed in the body, produces symptoms so that it could at last be recognized and taken seriously. But our consciousness refuses to comply, just as it did in childhood – because it was then that it learned the life-saving function of repression, and because no one has subsequently explained that as grown-ups we are not condemned to die of our knowledge, that, on the contrary , such knowledge would help us in our quest for health.

The dangerous teaching of “poisonous pedagogy” – “Thou Shalt Not Be Aware Of What Was Done To You ” – reappears in the methods of treatment practiced by doctors, psychiatrists, and therapists. With medication and mystifying theories they try to influence their patients’ memories as deeply as possible, in order that they never find the cause of their illness. These lie, almost without exception, in the psychic and physical mistreatment and neglect suffered in childhood.

Today, we know that AIDS and cancer involve a drastic collapse of the body’s immune system, and that this physical “resignation ” precedes the sick person’s loss of hope. Incredibly, hardly anyone has taken the step that these discoveries suggest: that we can regain our hope, if our distress signals are finally heard. If our repressed, hidden story is at last perceived with full consciousness, even our immune system can regenerate itself. But who is there to help, when all the “helpers” fear their own personal history? And so we play the game of blindman’s buff with each other-patients, doctors, medical authorities-because until now only a few people have experienced the fact that emotional access to the truth is the indispensable precondition of healing. In the long run, we can only function with consciousness of the truth. This also holds for our physical well-being. 

Bogus traditional morality, destructive religious interpretations, and confusion in our methods of child rearing all make this experience harder and hinder our initiative. Without a doubt, the pharmaceutical industry also profits from our blindness and despondency. However, each of us has been given only one life and only one body. It refuses to be fooled, insisting with all means at its disposal that we do not deceive it. …

*I have slightly revised the last two paragraphs for this revised edition after reviewing a letter from Louise Wisechild, who provided me with more specific information about her own view of her therapy.

https://www.alice-miller.com/en/concerning-foregiveness-the-liberating-experience-of-painful-truth/

NARCISSISTS DESPISE WEAKNESS

The older I get, the less I feel the need to be included, understood or accepted.

"Narcissist v. Sociopath

A Narcissist sees others as a means to validate his existence. The less validating you are, the less use you are to a Narcissist.

A Sociopath views others as entertainment. The less entertaining you are, the less use you are to a Sociopath.

Both the Narcissist and the Sociopath need to dominate and control others. They will both exploit you with no remorse and have no conscience. My advice? Do not validate the Narcissist and do not entertain the Sociopath. Stay clear of them. Once they suck you in, it is hard to get away. Avoid them both at all costs and if they manage to bring you into their den, run like hell." Lisa E. Scott

"IT IS VERY RARE THAT A SURVIVOR OF NARCISSISTIC ABUSE IS NOT LEFT COMPLETELY FINANCIALLY OBLITERATED." 

"Dark Truth: Emotion for a narcissist equates to fuel. They want to hear you getting irritated. They want to get you annoyed. They want your voice to rise and see the tears of frustration welling your eyes. When they see this, it makes them feel so powerful."

"Does the narcissist's description of YOU actually make a good description of the narcissist? Welcome to the wonderful world of PROJECTION."

"THEY ARE PREDATORS

They seek out compassionate, trusting good hearted human beings, and then mimic those qualities.

Like parasites, they are their strongest when they have a healthy host.

And then slowly, they use their victims love to destroy them from the inside out.

But unlike parasites, they don't do this for survival.

They do it for fun/entertainment in order to temporarily alleviate the twisted state of living in contempt, envy and boredom."

"Narcissists are not what they pretend to be .... They are what they hide.

"Open minded people don't care to be right, they care to understand. There's never a right or wrong answer. Everything is about understanding."

"The narcissist believes they are the authority that determines reality. To them, your facts are meaningless and your logic offensive."

"Why? Narcissists Do Not Go To Therapy Narcissists spend their lives, repressing the insecure parts of themselves. They are constantly seeking narcissistic supply, to feed that insatiable need to be superior and the best. The false self is powerful, strong and omnipotent. If they decide to go to therapy, in their eyes, they perceive that to be an admittance of weakness, and that there may be something innately wrong with them. There is no way a narcissist is going to allow that to happen. They live their lives, trying to avoid that very thing. They need to believe there is nothing wrong with them, and they are In fact, superior and amazing human beings. It is extremely difficult convincing a narcissist to go to therapy, and if they do end up going, they have been known to be, dishonest and manipulative with the therapist." -Maria Consiglio

"A TOXIC PERSON never changes. They change victims and blame everything on everybody else. They can't see the wrong in their actions, but always find time to find them in yours."

"Relationships with narcissists only last for as long as you're willing to put yourself last."

"A narcissist will do what it takes to maintain control over you.

This intensifies when you leave.

They do this through various ways. They will try and cripple you financially, they will isolate you from any support system they perceive to be a threat. Be prepared and have a plan in place!"

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." CARL JUNG

"Before you attack her, know that she is built for this shit. She's stronger than her demons. She's been played, stabbed, cheated on, taken advantage of and left crying and ribbed on the cold floor. Her name has been dragged through the dirt a number of times, and everytime she picked it up and came out clean. She passed the worst moments of her life alone. You see, she's self made. She's built for war, and pain shaped her the best, you can't destroy a woman like that."

"When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion" -- C.P. Snow.

"They don't lie to you because the truth will hurt your feelings. They lie to you because the truth might provoke you to make choices that won't serve their interest."

"DYING DOESN'T SCARE ME WHAT SCARES ME IS lS LIVING IN AWORLD RUN BY EVIL PEOPLE. WHO CONTROL THE DESTINY OF OUR CHILDREN"

"Narcissists only surround themselves with people who enable their behavior, ignore their behavior or encourage their behavior. Anyone who tries to hold them accountable will be accused and blamed of the exact things the narcissist is guilty of. And the people who know the truth, will remain silent. THE ENLIGHTENED TARGET"

"Narcissists are not sick. They are evil. They are selfish. They are liars. They manipulate you to serve their interests. They do not deserve a second chance, and they will never change.

Sounds harsh? Good! Because the way they will destroy your life is even harsher."

"NARCISSISTS DESPISE WEAKNESS 

One day my client came in, angrily proclaiming, "You will never believe what's happening?" "I helped my brother when no one else did. No one else in the family cared, they turned their backs on him. I went with him to all his appt. and everything he needed to try to fix his situation. And no matter how cruel everyone was, I was always there trying to be his strength. Things eventually got better for him. And unfortunately things took a turn for the worst for me. I started to have some difficulty in my life, because of my narcissistic husband. Everything started falling apart. My narcissistic family turned against me as usual. And guess who was the leader of the pact? MY BROTHER! My brother turned against me, no remorse, no obligation to the only person who was there for him. You see my brother is a narcissist too. I had hoped that me being there for him would of maybe influenced a change in him, I could not have been more wrong. I feel so betrayed. I am so sad. I don't deserve this. And I am so angry! What horrible horrible people!"

Narcissistic Individuals don't feel obligated to anyone. They do what is best for them, regardless of who they hurt. 

The brother saw his sister in a position of weakness, and had no respect for her. She was depressed and having a really hard time functioning. She started having panic attacks and went to the emergency room a few times. Her brother looked down on her. Narcissists hate weakness. They don't have compassion or empathy for the person suffering. What they have is contempt." Maria Consiglio

"Why did they try to destroy you?

Because the darkness in them recoils from your light.

Their empty heart resents your abundant love, and their strange hunger feeds on the pain they cause.

Your resilience enrages them. Despite doing their worst, they could never break you.

They hate you because they are something monstrous, and you are nothing like them." John Mark Green // Reasons Why

There is no such thing as a "mutual friend" with an abuser. If they're still friends with the abuser, they cannot be your friend. If they are in contact with the abuser, it puts you at risk and you should not be in contact with them.

IS NARCISSIST PERSONALITY DISORDER

Permanent? Yes.

Treatable: No. 

Can help? No.

Can it be fixed? No. 

Will it always be bad? The abuse will always return.

Can I make it better? No. 

What if its ME? It isn't.

What about the good times? The good times are a tool to keep you hooked.

"Some children in a narcissistic household detect how the selfish parent gets his needs met by the other family members. Those children observe how manipulation and using guilt gets the parent what they want. They emulate the narcissistic parent and develop a false self, use aggression and intimidation, and bully the other siblings and other parent in order to get their way. Those children become narcissists themselves."

"Imagine growing up treated as if you're hard to love... later realizing you were the most worthy of them all... finding you've been surrounded by toxic people full of self hate who gained light by by putting out yours. An insight that makes you invincible"

"The only time a child of a narcissist receives any attention is when it is "showtime". When narcissistic mom is presenting herself as "super mom." There are the impeccable photographs of the perfect family. The children stand their with glued on smiles and empty frozen eyes. They are wearing their best clothing and mother has made sure that everyone she knows will have this image of her family."

The Black Butterfly

"NEVER SAY THIS TO A NARCISSIST

"You're lying!"

"You're a narcissist."

"You're wrong!"

"You use people!" "You hurt me!"

Narcissists are built to destroy those who call them out, so don't. Close the book in the relationship instead and move on!"

"NARCISSISTIC ABUSE

I think the only ones who could understand this type of abuse is other people who have gone through it. Because if it didn't happen to me, I would of never accurately understood it. It feels earth shattering when the mask comes off, and they are so cold, so cruel almost gruesome at times. It is so difficult to accept that none of it was real. You feel traumatized, and really shaken up. It's like waking up from a bad dream, to a nightmare. Especially if you dealt with a covert narcissist, who appeared so good and humble, even kind and compassionate, only to find the devil at the other end of the mask. its so difficult getting used to the depth of their cruelty, and their ice cold hearts. The shock does not wear off easily. At least it didn't for me." Maria Consiglio

"THEY HATE YOU

They hate you, they hate you because they need you. Narcissists are very needy people. That's why when you walk away from them, you are completely exhausted. They need your energy. But they resent that. They resent needing you to survive, so they punish you. You can feel the hatred sometimes pouring out their pores. Crazy part is you don't know what you did. What did you do to make them hate you so much? You didn't do anything, they just resent giving you that much power. They never want to admit just how very important you are to them." -Maria Consiglio

"Psychological murder, or pernicious abuse is form of violence. It is one that goes unnoticed. A crime that is enabled by society. It goes unrecognized but it exists.

The perpetrators operate on an extremely covert level.

It happens behind closed doors, without anyone even being aware of who the victim is-the real victim.

There is no trail of evidence and no one has ever been convicted of it yet but the truth is that pernicious abuse is something that can and does have a life-changing or life-ending effect, not just on the victim, but also on a broader spectrum. Pernicious abuse can initiate someone to commit acts of covert psychological murder, unfortunately, unrecognized and virtually unquestioned.

A covert narcissistic abuser has the potential to commit murder without leaving a trace behind, even morphing into a martyr, a victim."

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2015/02/stalking-soul.html?m=1

"You know what your problem is? You're smart. Too smart. You over think, because your mind moves at a million miles a minute.. You're sad, because you're not fooled by the world like everyone else. You don't get along with most people, because they just don't look at things the way you do. You think you're dumb, because you're smart enough to know you don't know everything. Your problem is you're too smart. And that's not a problem at all." Unknown

I don't know a single person in this world I would like to switch places with! I have created a little heaven on earth for myself!

"TO THE REBELS This is for ones that see the through the deception and lies. That actively resist tyranny and live a life which is lead by their own intuition and heart. They are owned by no one.

To the brave Women and Men who courageously risk their reputation and relationships to stand up for what they believe in. Although they may be courageous, they are also selfless, intuitive, and conscious. They care. They love. They fight. Not only for their freedom, but for everyone's freedom.

To the rebels of the world. KEEP ROARING!!"

"WHY YOU SHOULDN'T BE JEALOUS OF THE NEW SUPPLY!

THERE IS NO HAPPILY EVER AFTER. EVER. THERE IS NO TRUTH, LOVE, WARMTH. HONESTY. FIDELITY, RESPECT, CONSIDERATION, RECIPROCITY OR GENUINE BOND. THERE IS ONLY FILTH. TOXICITY, CYNICISM, CONTROL, MANIPULATION, CHEATING, TRIANGULATION. PASSIVE AGGRESSION, COMPETITION. INSECURITY AND ENVY. A LANDFILL. THE NARC WILL NEVER BE ANY DIFFERENT TO HOW THEY WERE WITH YOU! WHEN THE MASK SLIPS"

"Pathological narcissists get away with their abuse because those who haven't experienced it cannot wrap their heads around the possibility such cruelty exists. Because the truth sounds insane. That's because it is."

"TIPS FOR DEALING WITH A NARCISSIST

Don't argue with them.

Don't engage with them.

Don't defend yourself.

Be indifferent.

Be grounded.

Be emotionless."

"Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power - not because they don't see it, but because they see it and they don't want it to exist."

"MALIGNANT NARCISSISTS DON'T CHOOSE LOSERS. THEY CHOOSE YOU BECAUSE THEY WANT THE QUALITIES THAT YOU HAVE, THE ONES THEY ARE LACKING, THAT THEY WILL NEVER HAVE."

"Narcissistic Individuals Buy Into Their own Masks.

Covert narcissists for example think they are really good people. They buy into their "humble demeanor" There is a delusional aspect to narcissism, there has to be for them to believe they are perfect or superior. They rationalize all the bad things they do. They find a way to blame you, or make it your fault, or believe you deserve it. That is how they could live with themselves. Especially covert narcissists, they can't imagine being looked at as anything

other than wonderful people" -Maria Consiglio

"5 REASONS WHY NARCISSISTS ARE SO DANGEROUS

Narcissists are dangerous because they destroy and corrupt the Victim's self-identity, self-concept, and self-worth. The Victim no more identifies him or herself and takes years to rebuild their personality. Going through narcissistic abuse is the total annihilation of everything a person has ever known. The gaslighting, projection, cognitive dissonance, future-faking, love-bombing, false-promises, eroded boundaries, inability to empathize, and mind-fuckery are all enough to drive one crazy.

Narcissists are true parasites. The only reason they stay with you because they need supply and need to feed on you. They see you as an object.

• Lack of meaningful remorse or guilt-to the point of complete indifference. They leave a trail of destruction wherever they go.

. They take pleasure in their Victim's pain. It gives them a sense of being in power and control. Emotional Abuse"

"Empaths be like:

I don't just listen to your words. I listen to your use of words, your tone, your body movements, your eyes, your subtle facial expressions. I interpret your silences - I can hear everything you don't say in words." - Unknown

"The high narcissists get from hurting an innocent child is a hell of a lot more intense than the one they would get from targeting a world-weary adult. This is why narcissists stalk their own children; that and easy access. Malignant narcissist parents also stalk their children's souls in order to be human extensions-to live vacariously through them. Either way; the malignant narcissist parent gains in the transaction of the child's soul. They drain the child (kill life in the child), and leave them hollow (without a self) so that they can fill the child with themselves: be it as a dumping ground for their own toxic waste, or a vessel to live their narcissistic fantasy through."

"Most normal people have a narcissistic tendency as well as an altruistic one. However, the narcissist is the one end of the scale and the altruist on the other. While the altruist gets a kick out of helping others, the narcissist gets a kick out of hurting others. The altruist wants to raise others to their level and enjoy the familiarity they see with themself in the person, the altruist has helped and shares the happiness. On the other hand, the narcissist wants to drag people down to their level and enjoy the familiarity they see with themself in the person they have hurt and the shared misery." ~Dr. Ludger Hofmann-Engl 

"The narcissist's life is a huge lie that is wrapped up with a huge bow to look like it is an amazing gift to all man and womankind! They have to process a great deal to keep their dysfunction at bay and protect themselves from exposure always having to look over their shoulder because in time life WILL finally catch up with them and expose them with the truth of what they REALLY are. If they can get away once more they will try, they are very adept at escaping exposure and accountability with more lies. But age will also slow them down as well as KARMA and there will be nobody there for them to abuse for supply and that will destroy them. Let them meet their own future AND destiny."

EVERYTHING YOU SEE ON TV IS A SCRIPTED PERFORMANCE WITH THE PURPOSE OF SHAPING YOUR WORLD VIEW TO BENEFIT THE POWERFUL INTERESTS RUNNING THE SHOW.

"What kind of narcissist is the most dangerous?

A covert narcissist is the worst kind of narcissist there is. Like a stealth bomb, you can't see them coming until they have left their destruction.

Covert narcissism is one of the most extreme and damaging forms of narcissism that you can encounter. The thing that sets these narcissists apart is their highly defensive nature and being emotionally vulnerable, seemingly without any exterior trace of the planning and plotting in which they engage. Unlike other forms, the covert narcissist is like a stealth bomb-they come without any warning and destroy everything in their wake."