This blog is about learning to understand all of our feelings and learning to consciously face, feel, and experience all of our feelings within the context of our own childhood.
Everything we become and everything that happens to us is connected to childhood. Not every victim becomes an abuser, but every abuser was once a victim of abuse. These are facts. Violence is not genetic; it’s learned.
https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2014/08/a-dance-to-freedom-book-reviews.html
Research suggests that narcissistic rage and vindictiveness are commonly exhibited when a narcissist takes offense to something that someone did or said.2,4 Because narcissists often think only of themselves, they tend to take things personally and get offended in situations most people wouldn’t be bothered by. The more sensitive a narcissist is to criticism, the more likely it is they’ll become mean, vengeful, and vindictive.3
2. They Hold Grudges & Harbor Resentment
Vindictive narcissists are known to have a hard time letting go of anger and resentment, and may hold grudges against people for things that happened long ago. It’s almost as if they’re mentally ‘keeping score’ of every slight, critical remark, or joke made at their expense.3,8,9 They may blow up in the moment and still harbor resentment. Other times, they appear aloof or unbothered while inwardly plotting their revenge.3
3. They Are Usually Angry or Upset With Someone
It’s not unusual for a vindictive narcissist to be angry or upset with someone. They may even share their frustrations with others and rehash the reasons why they are irate. If you’re dealing with a vindictive narcissist, there’s a good chance that they are always mad at someone, as vindictive behavior is mainly driven by anger.1 Partners of vindictive narcissists often feel like they can’t do anything right, are constantly being criticized, and that their partner is continually upset with them.2,5
4. They Blame Everything on Someone Else
A refusal to accept accountability is a telltale sign of narcissism, but may be more prevalent in narcissists with a vindictive streak.2,3,7 Projecting blame onto someone else (even if they’re innocent) serves many purposes for a vindictive narcissist. One is that it allows them to dodge personal responsibility for anything they may have done wrong, further protecting their egos. Painting someone else as the ‘bad guy’ provides an excuse to target and retaliate against the person.4
5. They Don’t Know How to Work Through Conflict
Poor emotion regulation and impulse control are at the core of NPD, making it difficult for them to remain calm enough to ‘fight fair.’ Immature defenses, fits of rage, and vindictive acts are most obvious during conflicts and disagreements.2,3,4 Because vindictive narcissists are easily upset and unable to express themselves peacefully, they tend to either explode, storm off, or shut down during conflict. This also means that most of their disputes are unresolved, which may partly explain why they hold grudges and plot ways to get revenge.4
6. They Have a ‘Get Even’ Mentality
Vindictive narcissists have a ‘get even’ mentality and keep score of when someone has upset or offended them, often with a long list of names attached. Being unable to regulate emotions, take responsibility, resolve conflicts, or find empathy and forgiveness for others means getting even is the only way to let go and move on.3,4
7. They Weaponize Information
When people make the mistake of sharing their secrets, insecurities, and sensitive ‘intel’ with a vindictive narcissist, they usually end up regretting it. After collecting this information through charm, manipulation tactics, or other dishonest means, a vindictive narcissist commonly weaponizes this information. They may use it to blackmail, control, or threaten someone; or they may use it in a smear campaign designed to ruin someone’s career, life, or reputation.2,3,5
8. They Belittle Others to Feel Bigger
Vindictiveness is sometimes believed to be an indication of severe narcissism, especially because it’s closely tied to antisocial and abusive behavior.4,5,6 One may this may be exhibited in daily interactions is belittlement. A vindictive narcissist will often put people down, give back-handed compliments, make cruel remarks, or say and do things to make others feel small (especially when they’re feeling small themselves).2,4
9. They Have a Mean & Sadistic Side
The more severe a person’s NPD is, the more likely it is that they’ll behave in ways that are cruel, dishonest, and even abusive. These antisocial tendencies can show up as a lack of empathy, callousness, or cruelty.6 The most psychopathic narcissists may even enjoy causing pain and suffering. These sadistic tendencies can be a sign that someone has both antisocial and narcissistic personality disorder (called malignant narcissism). This is also known as ‘Schadenfreude,’ a German term referring to the pleasure of hurting others.
10. They Use, Abuse & Then Discard People
Extreme narcissists are unable to form close, healthy, and lasting relationships with other people.2,3,5 They usually view relationships in a transactional way, strategically trying to charm and con their way into the inner circles of people who have things they want. This could be fortune, fame, power, status, or valuable skills or personality traits that can be exploited. Once they’ve acquired their target or found a new and ‘better’ alternative, vindictive narcissists quickly end the relationship and move on to their next victim (aka narcissistic discard).
Causes of Vindictive Narcissism
Narcissistic personality disorder is believed to be caused by a combination of genetic, environmental, and social factors. Certain research suggests that some people with narcissistic and antisocial personalities have abnormalities in parts of the brain linked to empathy, emotional intelligence, and impulse control. Others may be at higher risk for NPD based on their personality type and temperament.8
While these predispositions and genetic factors may play a role in NPD, studies suggest that childhood trauma is one of the main contributing factors to the disorder. Extreme parenting styles and attachment trauma in childhood are highly common in narcissists. For example, both excessive praise and extreme physical or emotional neglect in childhood make someone much more likely to develop NPD as an adult.8
Triggers for Vindictiveness in Narcissists
Both overt and covert narcissists can be vindictive, but research suggests they may have slightly different triggers and motivations for seeking revenge. According to one study, ‘narcissistic rage’ (the projection of anger onto others) in covert or vulnerable narcissists is often triggered by abandonment issues and insecure attachment styles. In overt/grandiose narcissists, triggers are commonly centered around competition, achievement, and failures that threaten one’s ‘God complex.’2
In both subtypes, the triggers for vindictive, angry, and defensive behaviors usually involve an ‘ego wound’ that results in feelings of shame, humiliation, or insecurity.2,3 Many psychologists believe that vindictiveness is a defense mechanism used to boost one’s self-esteem and regulate emotions when feeling insecure or threatened. It’s often tied to other immature defenses used by people with NPD like projection, denial, idealization of themselves, and devaluation of others.4
Examples of triggers for narcissistic rage and vindictiveness include:2,3,4,8
Being challenged, debated, or disagreed with
Being told “no,” rejected, or denied special treatment
Feeling envious, insecure, or threatened by someone viewed as ‘competition’
Being told what to do by an authority figure or someone in a position of power
Hearing critical or corrective feedback about themselves or their performance
Feeling embarrassed or humiliated, especially in front of others
Having someone hold them accountable for their actions or mistakes"
DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse, Victim, and Offender) is a tactical maneuver manipulators use to groom individuals, and, indeed, entire social groups. It involves controlling people’s perception of events through a specific sequence of actions. Those who experience the DARVO process often feel disoriented as the perpetrator of abuse actively revises the facts and distorts the truth. By crafting a fictional narrative that bears no resemblance to reality, they sow seeds of doubt. Bystanders, regrettably, accept the manipulator’s lies as truth. Meanwhile, the recipient of the abuse becomes a scapegoat and a target of vilification.
What is DARVO?
DARVO is an acronym for Deny, Attack, Reverse, Victim, and Offender. It is a defense mechanism used by manipulators when they are confronted for their actions to evade accountability. DARVO is a fusion of gaslighting and blame-shifting. The term was first presented in a 1997 article by Jennifer J. Freyd, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon and founder of the Center for Institutional Courage.
"The goal of an abusive individual is to gain or maintain power by whatever means possible or else to mask his own incompetence.
In order to accomplish this, he must get rid of anyone who impedes his progress or sees through him."
Stalking the Soul: Emotional Abuse and Erosion of Identity by Marie-France Hirigoyen, page 71
“Authoritarian personalities are ones that “kiss above and kick below”, in other words, they are loyal to their leaders, but will attack those of lower rank. They also protect their “in-group” and attack the “out-group”. Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) personalities, on the other hand, tend to be those who lead the authoritarians, they are more interested in being on top.”
Elon Musk was corrupted in childhood, and money made it worse. He is a great example that money alone doesn't save anyone from their emotional prisons.
There’s a truth most people refuse to see: abuse and manipulation are not signs of strength. They are symptoms of psychological injury. You cannot mistreat others and find peace within. Every grandiose claim, every show of power, every attempt to craft an image of brilliance or benevolence is compensation — not fulfillment.
This is how emotional imprisonment works. A malignant narcissist can win every award, own every company, and accumulate every trophy — and still wake up every morning inside a cavern of emptiness. No one escapes that. Not money. Not fame. Not influence. Not adulation. Not technological “miracles.” Nothing.
Real happiness comes from self-integration — the ability to be honest with yourself about your shortcomings, your pain, and your past. It comes from empathy, from truth-telling, from accountability, and from growth.
A narcissist, by definition, has severed those capacities:
They avoid emotional reality.
They defend their self-image at all costs.
They use others for supply, not connection.
They are strangers to remorse.
That’s not power. That’s emotional starvation with a megaphone.
Their punishment is their own irreconcilable interior life — a life lived in defense of a mask.
The Latest Epstein Files and Elon Musk
The recent release of the so-called Epstein files — over 3 million pages of previously sealed documents from the U.S. Department of Justice — has sent shockwaves through global power circles. Among the revelations are emails showing that Elon Musk was in contact with Jeffrey Epstein and discussed plans to visit Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean in 2012 and 2013. These communications involved conversations about logistics and social gatherings, and show Musk repeatedly inquiring about timing and arrangements, despite later public denials of any involvement.
This isn’t a small footnote. The island associated with Epstein isn’t just a remote destination — it’s a symbol of exploitation and secrecy tied to one of the most horrific criminal networks in modern history. The fact that Musk’s name appears in these correspondences, and that earlier denials are contradicted by the record, speaks to a deeper pattern of image control over reality.
It’s not a legal verdict. But it is a psychological one: someone who fears the truth more than they fear disgrace is someone for whom truth is a threat — not a foundation.
Why Wealth Can’t Buy Psychological Freedom
You can lie about your intentions. You can cultivate adoring fans. You can dominate media narratives. You can rewrite history on social platforms. But you cannot rewrite your inner life.
When narcissistic behavior is sustained by repression, it becomes compulsive:
You gaslight because you cannot face your own contradictions.
You launch public campaigns because private truth terrifies you.
You accuse others of what you most fear in yourself.
You create enemies instead of self-reflection.
No billionaire lifestyle can fill the emotional void that results from a fractured self.
The Core Misconception About Narcissists and Intelligence
There’s a persistent myth that narcissists and sociopaths are intellectually superior. That they are cunning masterminds who play life at a higher level. That’s romantic ignorance.
Intelligence grounded in reality is fundamentally different from calculated manipulation.
An empath — someone rooted in real experience, capable of abstract thought, and capable of genuine creativity — can outmaneuver a narcissist in every way. The difference is that the empath doesn’t do it because they don’t derive pleasure from harm. They act from truth, not compulsion.
“…as long as our pain remains repressed we will unconsciously and compulsively do to others what was once done to us.” — A Dance to Freedom, p.118.
A narcissist’s actions are not strategic genius — they are defensive reactions to unprocessed pain.
The Real Punishment Isn’t Scandal.
It’s never being able to stand yourself in silence.
A narcissist’s punishment isn’t losing face in public. It’s living their whole life unable to sit with inner truth. They cultivate power to avoid introspection. They seek admiration to avoid abandonment. They manufacture narratives to avoid reality.
And in the end, all the money in the world can’t save you from yourself.
Elon Musk’s presence in these files isn’t merely a news headline. It’s a reminder that power without self-awareness is a prison — gilded, but still a prison.
The Billionaire’s Prison: Why Elon Musk’s Billions Can’t Buy His Way Out
A new batch of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails has been released, and once again, the name of the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, appears in the cache. The details are damning in their banality: cordial messages, logistical planning for visits to Epstein’s private island, friendly back-and-forths about parties and helicopters.
The public reaction is a familiar cycle: shock, outrage, demands for explanation. Musk will likely offer a technicality, a deflection, or an attack on the media. The cycle will continue.
But for those who understand the deeper machinery of the human psyche—the machinery so brilliantly mapped by Alice Miller—there is no shock here. Only a profound, tragic recognition. We are not looking at a scandal. We are witnessing a live autopsy of a soul trapped in an emotional prison of its own making, proving that all the money, rockets, and AI in the world cannot purchase a single key to freedom.
The Epstein Files: A Mirror, Not a Surprise
The emails show Musk not as a victim of Epstein’s overtures, but as an active, friendly participant. He asks about the “wildest party.” He coordinates schedules. This contradicts his previous, vehement public denials. This isn’t just a lie; it’s a symptom.
For the narcissistically wounded, image is everything. The false self—the grandiose, visionary, tough-talking titan—must be protected at all costs. Any evidence of poor judgment, moral compromise, or association with “creeps” (a label he eagerly applied to others) is an existential threat. It threatens to expose the wounded, powerless child within who still seeks validation from powerful, domineering figures. So, the evidence must be denied, the narratives controlled, the critics attacked. The emails are not evidence of a crime; they are evidence of the compulsion to re-enact a childhood dynamic—this time with a financier of abuse, a grotesque father figure offering entry to a world of ultimate, transgressive power.
This is the core of the trauma loop: the unhealed child within the adult, endlessly seeking to resolve an old wound by replaying it on a grander, more destructive stage.
The Blueprint of the Prison
Musk is not an anomaly. He is the most visible current example of a universal blueprint written in childhood:
The Wound: A childhood under the thumb of a cruel, domineering, or emotionally absent parent (Errol Musk, by his son’s own account, was a man who “could take a person out”). The child’s authentic self—with its need for love, safety, and unconditional regard—is crushed.
The Armor: To survive, the child builds a false self of grandiosity, hyper-competence, and emotional detachment. This self believes it is special, above the rules, destined for greatness. It is an escape pod from pain.
The Fuel: This false self runs on external validation—admiration, wealth, power, victory. It is a black hole of need, mistaking the awe of millions for the love it never received.
The Re-enactment: As an adult, the individual unconsciously recreates the dynamics of their childhood. They become the punitive authority (Musk’s “hardcore” demands, mass firings) or seek out powerful, often toxic, authority figures to defy or appease (the complex dance with figures like Trump, or now, the revealed rapport with Epstein).
The Projection: Unable to face the shame and inadequacy within, they aggressively attack these flaws in others. Musk calls Bill Gates a hypocrite for Epstein ties. He attacks “woke” culture as weak. He projects his own moral compromises onto the world, punishing it for the love his father withheld.
Mars, AI, Twitter—these are not visionary projects. They are multi-billion-dollar re-enactments. They are attempts to build a world he can control, a home far from where he was hurt, a platform from which he can command the fatherly applause he never got. Every “go f*** yourself” is the cry of a boy who felt powerless. Every rocket explosion is the sound of a multi-million-dollar tantrum.
The Iron Cage of Wealth
This is where the ultimate tragedy—and lesson—lies. Society tells us wealth is the ultimate salvation. Musk’s life is the screaming refutation.
His billions have only funded a larger, more spectacular prison. They allow him to:
Build literal rockets to flee emotional gravity.
Buy the world’s megaphone (Twitter/X) to control the narrative.
Surround himself with sycophants who call him “awesome” while enabling his worst impulses.
Insulate himself from the consequences that would force ordinary people to self-reflect.
The money doesn’t heal; it amplifies. It turns a personal trauma loop into a global force. His unprocessed rage becomes corporate policy. His need for control reshapes public discourse. His denial of personal truth fuels disinformation. The child who couldn’t escape his father’s house now tries to make the world into that house—and we are all living in it.
The Liberating Truth He Flees
The path out of this prison is not a vertical climb to greater wealth or power. It is the horizontal, inward journey that Musk, and so many like him, are pathologically equipped to avoid.
It is the journey I have mapped in A Dance to Freedom. It requires:
Stopping the escape. Ceasing the compulsive workaholism, the grand projects, the noise.
Turning toward the pain. Feeling the legitimate, volcanic rage and bottomless grief of the neglected child he once was—not deflecting it onto employees, ex-partners, or the public.
Directing the hatred to its true source. Understanding, as Alice Miller wrote, that repressed hatred deflected onto scapegoats can never be resolved. It must be felt toward those who caused the wound, in the safety of one’s own conscious awareness.
Trading the false self for the true one. Discovering that self-worth comes not from changing the world, but from being authentic in it.
This is the work that requires courage no rocket can provide. It is the work his wealth makes him less likely than ever to do. It is easier to fantasize about making humans a multi-planetary species than to face the lonely, single-planet child inside.
The Choice We Witness
Elon Musk stands as our era’s starkest lesson: Weaponized trauma is the most destructive force on Earth. It is more powerful than any rocket, more influential than any algorithm. It can privatize the stars while leaving the human soul in chains.
His story is not one of genius, but of a gifted child who built a fortress of gold and silicon to keep himself out. The Epstein emails are just another brick in that wall, another glimpse of the man playing with moral fire, trying to feel something—anything—other than the old, frozen pain.
The billionaires, the “visionaries,” the titans of industry will not save us. They are the ones who need saving from themselves. Our only task is to recognize the blueprint, refuse to be collateral in their war with ghosts, and do our own emotional work.
For no Mars colony, no AI god, no amount of money will ever fill the void where a safe and a happy childhood should have been.
Liberation begins when we stop feeding the machines of our own repression.
The Prison of the Narcissist and the Freedom of the Empath
We often think of punishment as something external—consequences delivered by the world or by those we've wronged. But what if the most severe sentence is not imposed from the outside, but lived from within? What if the ultimate punishment for a life of manipulation, exploitation, and emotional cruelty is simply… having to live that life?
This is the stark reality for the malignant narcissist. Their punishment is their existence: a perpetual confinement in an emotional prison of their own making. They may walk through life adorned with the trophies of status, power, and public admiration, yet they are forever shackled to a hollow, rotting core.
The Architecture of the Inner Prison
The narcissist's prison is built from the very materials they believe will grant them freedom: a false self. This persona is meticulously constructed from external validation, stolen supply, and manufactured superiority. As the insightful passage reminds us, "You can’t concentrate on external things and status symbols and be happy."
The warden of this prison is a profound, disowned emptiness—a "rotten core self" severed from authentic connection and growth. The narcissist spends every desperate moment trying to manage this shaky false self, mistaking the admiration of others for self-worth and mistaking control for peace. But genuine happiness, which springs from a strong, integrated sense of self and decency, remains perpetually out of reach. The result is a life of quiet—or sometimes roaring—desperation.
The Compulsive Rhythm of Life Inside
But a prison is not defined by its walls alone, but by the relentless, painful rhythm of life within it. This is where a darker, more addictive cycle takes hold.
The narcissist’s behavior is not merely calculated; it is often compulsive. As noted in my book A Dance to Freedom, "as long as our pain remains repressed we will unconsciously and compulsively do to others what was once done to us."
Hurting others, diminishing them, and exerting control becomes more than a strategy—it becomes a painkilling drug. It’s a temporary, addictive balm for that inner void and self-hatred. This is why they can perform "good acts" in the public eye with one hand while stealthily destroying lives with the other. The public charity is a brick in the prison wall (building their false image), while the private cruelty is a hit of their addiction, a futile attempt to quiet the pain of inhabiting that prison.
They are not just unhappy; they are addicted to the very behavior that ensures their misery will continue. This is the tragic loop: a childhood wound of repression demands the repetition of harm, which deepens the inner emptiness, which demands more harm. It is a wasted life, chasing a cure that is, in fact, the poison.
The Empath's Awakening: Seeing the Walls and Walking Free
This is where the empowered empath becomes, as one article powerfully stated, "a sociopath’s worst nightmare." It is not through revenge or superior manipulation, but through seeing the prison for what it is and choosing freedom.
The empath’s journey is the inverse of the narcissist’s. Where the narcissist flees inward to a false self, the empath does the courageous work of facing their own repressed pain with awareness, breaking the cycle of compulsion. This self-knowledge is their ultimate power.
The enlightened empath realizes:
· They are not inferior. They are grounded in a reality the narcissist must deny. This grounding provides a monumental intellectual and strategic advantage.
· Their morality is not weakness. It is the source of their true strength and the foundation of real connection, which the narcissist can never have.
· Self-protection is self-care. Using creativity to set boundaries, deflect manipulation, and remove oneself from the game is not cruelty. It is the act of a free person choosing not to enter the other’s prison.
The Final Sentence
So, what is the narcissist's punishment? It is waking up every day as themselves. It is dying having never truly lived, only performed. It is the devastating realization, in fleeting moments of clarity, that all the status symbols were worthless, and all the manipulated admiration was a lie told to an empty room.
Meanwhile, the empath who has done the work walks in the difficult, messy, but authentic world of feeling. They build happiness from within, based on growth and integrity. They are free to connect, to love, and to create.
The narcissist dies in their cell. The empath, having refused to be imprisoned, lives. In that truth lies the deepest form of justice—and liberation.
The choice is never about changing the prisoner. It is always about recognizing the prison and deciding, steadfastly, to remain free.
As Alice Miller wrote: “If we hate hypocrisy, insincerity, and mendacity, then we grant ourselves the right to fight them wherever we can or to withdraw from people who only trust in lies. But if we pretend that we are impervious to these things, then we are betraying ourselves.” Alice Miller -- Free from Lies: Discovering Your True Needs page 55
"The unconscious compulsion to revenge repressed injuries is more powerful than reason. That is the lesson that all tyrants teach us. One should not expect judiciousness from a mad person motivated by compulsive panic. One should, however, protect oneself from such a person." Alice Miller -- Breaking Down the Wall of Silence page 82
"1. They’re Easily Offended
Research suggests that narcissistic rage and vindictiveness are commonly exhibited when a narcissist takes offense to something that someone did or said.2,4 Because narcissists often think only of themselves, they tend to take things personally and get offended in situations most people wouldn’t be bothered by. The more sensitive a narcissist is to criticism, the more likely it is they’ll become mean, vengeful, and vindictive.3"
Triggers for Vindictiveness in Narcissists
Both overt and covert narcissists can be vindictive, but research suggests they may have slightly different triggers and motivations for seeking revenge. According to one study, ‘narcissistic rage’ (the projection of anger onto others) in covert or vulnerable narcissists is often triggered by abandonment issues and insecure attachment styles. In overt/grandiose narcissists, triggers are commonly centered around competition, achievement, and failures that threaten one’s ‘God complex.’2
In both subtypes, the triggers for vindictive, angry, and defensive behaviors usually involve an ‘ego wound’ that results in feelings of shame, humiliation, or insecurity.2,3 Many psychologists believe that vindictiveness is a defense mechanism used to boost one’s self-esteem and regulate emotions when feeling insecure or threatened. It’s often tied to other immature defenses used by people with NPD like projection, denial, idealization of themselves, and devaluation of others.4
Examples of triggers for narcissistic rage and vindictiveness include:2,3,4,8
Being challenged, debated, or disagreed with
Being told “no,” rejected, or denied special treatment
Feeling envious, insecure, or threatened by someone viewed as ‘competition.’
Being told what to do by an authority figure or someone in a position of power
Hearing critical or corrective feedback about themselves or their performance
Feeling embarrassed or humiliated, especially in front of others
Having someone hold them accountable for their actions or mistakes."
Yes, they just care if they can use us for whatever they want from us.
Yep! I'm done with these types of people, family or not.
For a few narcissists in my life, I went from grade "A" supply to backup supply. I'm done with these types of people. The moment I get a red flag, they might have grown into full-blown malignant narcissists, I check out.
Yes, engaging with them is a total waste of time.
No, you can't! Don't waste years of your life trying to help them like I did. Run as far as you can from these vindictive, evil people.
Remove them from your life and go live your best life.
Big mistake!
Yep! People need to wake up. It's about power and enriching themselves.
narcissist's grandiose fantasies being at odds with their reality
Toxic shame: A state of being where shame
becomes a core part of a person's identity
Shame-based lives: Many narcissists live
their lives in a state of shame, but they won't admit it
Shame can be a helpful emotion that helps people adhere to societal norms. However, when shame becomes toxic, it can lead to psychological issues.
Toxic shame can be created when a child is forced to adapt to a narcissistic parent's needs, and is not allowed to be their own person. This can lead to a child internalizing shame, which can become a baseline for how they function.
Some ways that shame can create a narcissist include:
It's easier to have a mask
It can be easier for someone to have a grandiose mask than to face their inner turmoil.
Looking down on others
Narcissists can look down on others so they don't have to imagine anything wrong with themselves.
"...when shame becomes a state of being that it becomes toxic.
The narcissistic parent will tactfully shame others so that they will put the narcissist first and obey the narcissist’s every demand to avoid more shame."
Narcissists base your character on the way you react to their abuse. If you fight back then you are abusive. If you do what they did to you, you are vindictive. If you show them the way they have been treating you, then you are petty and childish. The only reaction a Narcissist wants is blind acceptance. They could say and do whatever they want, and you have to let them without any opposition. If you don't react the way that they want, then you are the cause and the reason for the conflict.
Narcissists are like toddlers trapped in an adult body.
This is why they have so many tantrums and behave like children.
The narcissist has trained the entire family, by example, how to treat you. Once you have been labelled as the bad one, you are fair game for siblings, spouses, children, relatives, even family friends to pick on.
A narcissist will neglect their partners, friends and children in multiple ways but gladly help a coworker, neighbor, or stranger. Why? Because it's all about their image and getting praise from others. They save their abusive behavior for behind closed doors or when they are no witnesses.
Yes, it's the public that sucks. Until society involves we will just have two choices to choose from: pure evil and the lesser evil. So until then I will keep voting for the lesser evil.
Totally off topic! Has nothing to do with narcissism! Just enteristing to know from where these American's sayings come from!
"Narcissists don't want honest relationships, they want cheerleaders. They want people who always give them the right. They want blind loyalty. They want unconditional acceptance, no matter what they do. As long as you don't question anything they do, or give them the wrong on anything, they might just leave you alone. But watch out, if you disagree with them, or go against them in any way. In their eyes, this is the deepest betrayal. And it never goes unpunished. Narcissists are spiteful and vindictive." Yes, I know!
"Empathy without boundaries is self-destruction. Unconditional love doesn't mean unconditional tolerance. You gotta train your boundaries to be stronger than your soft heart and your mind to be stronger than your feelings. Otherwise, you'll be drained. So be kind and take no shit."
Once a person has grown into a full-blown malignant narcissist or evil, they are intentionally using their manipulative tactics to keep you hooked and stuck with them in their emotional prisons. They know precisely what they are doing. No, they don't learn from experience; they just keep playing their wicked games until they die. Run 🏃♂️ from these people as far as you can.
I grew up in Portugal surrounded by people with NPD. In 1981, I escaped to London when I was 22 and then to the US when I turned 25 years old. In the US, I got involved with a very charismatic and charming young man. His off-and-on love bomb kept me hooked for 10 long years. I have been free since the year 2000. Coming to accept that people try to undermine you, sabotage you, and try to destroy you is done intentionally and on purpose is hard to come to terms with. But once you accept evil people really exist, you never again ignore red flags, and never again, these people can manipulate you with their wicked mind games.
I came to learn how malignant narcissists or pure evil people really exist after I published my book A Dance to Freedom: Your Guide to Liberation from Lies and Illusions, and how much they hate the existence of people they can't control and manipulate. Since the publication of my book in 2014, I have been the target in the workplace of 4 psychological warfare. Once they know you see them as they really are and not how they like you to see them, you get a target on your back and they will gather all the forces at their command to try to destroy you. And it gave me proof that it was done intentionally.
Yes, they try to punish me for refusing to play the role they like me to play in their twisted dramas.
But the beauty of being an autonomous, free adult able to stand alone on my own two feet is that I can walk away and never look back. Now, when I'm the target of psychological warfare, I know right away who the director that starts it all is.
Walk away, don't react. Your reactions are what they want, and that's what gives them power.
"How Does Reactive Abuse Work?
Reactive abuse is an in-the-moment reaction to mistreatment from another person. When a victim reacts, the abuser uses this reaction to impart further abuse in the form of blame-shifting. The abuser will transform into a victim themselves in an attempt to make the victim view the situation in a different way and believe a different reality from the one that’s actually being lived. In this way, reactive abuse is often seen as a form of gaslighting, which is the emotional manipulation of a victim.
Why do Narcissists Use Reactive Abuse?
Ultimately, abusers tend to see reactive abuse as a ‘get out of jail free’ card. It acts as a form of justification for the behaviors that they exhibit towards another person. They know that they are abusive, but they use a person’s reactions as a valid reason for those behaviors. In many cases, an abuser will exaggerate the extent of the victim’s reaction, minimizing their own behaviors to make them appear victimized.
The real ‘value’ in reactive abuse for abusers comes in the fact that it can prevent many victims from coming forward, speaking up, and asking for help. Victims begin to believe that they are, in fact, to blame. This can make them scared to seek help, fearing authorities will believe the abuser and create consequences for the victim. Over time, victims begin to feel more and more trapped in a relationship. They feel they cannot leave and may start to form trauma bonds with their abuser."
Yes, narcissism is all about creating illusions to deceive, control, and manipulate.
Narcissists want money to have power over others.
Narcissists don't respect anyone! But they want others to respect them.
Exactly! I was captive for 10 long years. I have been free for 25 years.
Run from these people as far as you can.
Yes, many narcissists love a challenge. That's why I became a target of malignant narcissists after I published my book A Dance to Freedom: Your Guide to Liberation from Lies and Illusions.
I agree. If people grow in different directions and don't share the same values, just walk away. Life is too short to waste with people who don't grow with you and just want to pull you back into their emotional prisons. It doesn't matter if they have NPD or not.
