Perhaps our culture’s most pressing concern at this moment in human history is identifying and protecting against severe narcissistic disturbance in individuals. The malignant narcissist (the narcissist with multiple features of sociopathy) in a position of power is a formidable destructive force, whether on a personal level affecting an entire family, or on a governmental level capable of affecting an entire nation and indeed the welfare of our global existence.
Efforts to counteract this destructive force seems to be gaining ground as stories and educational information in our contemporary dialogue are focused on helping people to recognize the danger signs and the insidious dynamics of narcissist abuse. In the personal arena, more and more people are empowering themselves with educational resources and support people that help restore their sense of sanity and resilience. Hopefully, we will also awaken in time to marshal our efforts and protect our hard-fought gains towards democracy and our precious planetary ecology that houses our collective human family.
Marie-France Hirigoyen, author of Stalking the Soul: Emotional Abuse and the Erosion of Identity, emphasizes a potent and salient point: the person caught in an emotionally abusive relationship must first extricate herself from the abusive relationship before she can begin the healing and growth process. While the complex nature of these scenarios rarely allows for a clear-cut exit, the point she makes here deserves to be highlighted – the longer a person has been exposed to the depleting dynamics of narcissist abuse, the more difficult it becomes for the victim to recognize and disengage from the abuse.
We could also apply this same equation to our collective health and identity as citizens of a democratic society. The following description is from a chapter in my second book, in which I summarize Hirigoyen’s potent descriptions of the four stages of abuse and the deteriorating impact involved in each stage.
Today the term “gaslighting” is perhaps the most popular concept discussed on the web that parallels Hirigoyen’s stages of emotional abuse. For readers not familiar with the term, gaslighting derives from a famous 1940’s movie called Gaslight about a sociopathic husband who slowly drives his wife crazy by undermining her confidence in her capacity to know what is real.
Similarly, Hirigoyen’s four stages of abuse offer much-needed insight into the insidious erosion of the victim’s core sense of self.
- First, the abuser initiates behaviors designed to destabilize and disorient the victim. These behaviors, to name just a few, involve: repeated boundary violations, revisionist descriptions of events and agreements, repeated lies, innuendoes, criticisms that are aimed at the person’s confidence in the reliability of her own emotional reactions and her own perceptions of outer reality. Hirigoyen gives an apt description of this type of behavior. “Rather than using a direct lie, the abuser initially employs a mix of innuendo and unspoken hints to create a misunderstanding, which he will subsequently exploit to his advantage.”
- Second, the abuser seeks to further destabilize and disorient the victim through behaviors intended to instill self-doubt. The narcissist abuser introduces the element of control to paralyze his partner by putting her in a situation of flux and uncertainty. He may insist on agreements that are fundamentally disempowering yet not so extreme initially as to call attention to the extremity of the demand – for instance, asserting that he has a right to know where his partner is at all times. While it is normative for intimate partners to generally know the whereabouts of each other in a given day, it is excessive to expect that partners account for their day in an hour-to-hour report. The relentless and forceful application of control is just one mechanism among many that can be utilized to keep the partner in a state of emotional flux, thereby instilling a progressive potential for self-doubt.
- Third, the abuser seeks to completely immobilize his victim in pursuit of gaining total dominance. The narcissist’s voice increasingly dominates the codependent’s thoughts. Her inner dialogue becomes progressively preoccupied by the struggle to defend herself as she attempts to recover from her emotional hurt and anger. Unwittingly, she becomes a participant in her own self-negation. Her attempts to defend herself only cause her to lose ground to a kind of psychological no-man’s land. Indeed, like the movie Gaslight, the sheer relentlessness of the narcissist abuser’s toxic criticisms are often enough to undermine the strength and resilience of the person who is in regular and intimate contact with the narcissist.
- Finally, the abuser seeks to isolate his victim in order to “write his program,” so to speak, over the weakened and depleted identity of the victim without the threat of intervention from healthier people. Due to her state of emotional depletion the codependent is in dire need of outside intervention and reality checks from supportive and healthy individuals who can assist her to break the patterns and extricate from these toxic behaviors. Unfortunately, the narcissist has often alienated the codependent from her own support system (family, friends, and healthier individuals in the codependent’s social milieu). Additionally, the narcissist may employ the “stone wall” dynamic – the refusal to talk with the codependent, which further intensifies her sense of isolation and helplessness.
Any degree of this kind of treatment in an intimate, family, business, or social relationship is enough reason to reach out for support and help from a professional outside the system where these abusive dynamics are in play. Additional sources of support might be healthy family members, friends, support groups, spiritual mentors, colleagues, and so on. If the professional support person does not seem to appreciate, validate, or “get it” about what you are experiencing, then give yourself permission to move on and find another therapist. Online resources are also additional vital sources of information and validation. So, don’t limit yourself to just one source of support. You deserve the much-needed nourishment and validation for the restoration to your sense of self!
In the next blog we will discuss the importance of identifying the primary triggers for violence and the potential measures for self-protection. In the meantime, if you are presently concerned for your physical safety, please consider consulting a professional at a women’s shelter and begin the process of learning what you can do to protect yourself. You will also find more information regarding these issues in my second book, Discovering the Healthy Self and Meaningful Resistance to Toxic Narcissism.