Wednesday, January 28, 2009

You've Been Had

This is what untutored online "experts" specialising in "Narcissism" and "Psychopathy"say:

We are nurturers and we often find that we have traits of co-dependency. Also, issues with Dependent Personality Disorder (Echo Personality Disorder) and even masochism traits among members, are not uncommon on NPD forums and websites. Additionally, we may have been raised in homes with severe and serious abuse.

Our recovery is long. Difficult. We learn about NPs and as we journey
along, we learn a lot about ourselves. We usually take 2-4 years in
revovery in the 'normal' situations. That's for the strongest of us. Anyone
with dependency issues is going to take longer.
~ femfree

^^^

The above profile of the victimised is not supported by anything known to psychology. By what authority does the poster make these assertions, when the poster has absolutely no background in psychology?

1. It is assumed that co-dependency is a reality for the victimised which means that, in effect, they have enabled their own abuse.

2. Nurturing is perceived as a flaw, extreme. This view implies that we are "N-magnets" attracting those who want to be cared for and that we can't help ourselves in caring for them.

3. "Echo Personality Disorder" does not exist. It is not even a gleam in the eyes of the psychiatrists who make up the DSMs. Nor are Dependent Personality Disorder and this ignorant excuse for revictimising the victims (Echo PD) interchangeable as constructs (if EPD were, indeed, a valid construct).

4. "masochism traits are not uncommon" on NPD forums and websites? This has far reaching and potentially damaging implications for the victimised and how they perceive themselves. I'd like to see the research and stats on this. And by what authority does this poster make this assertion?

5. What is an "NP"? There is no such psychological construct known to any legitimate mental health practitioner.

6. It is a statistical fact that anyone recovering from a break up, especially a divorce, will need about 2 years to recover. How is this different for survivors, if the unsupported statement about recovery time is true?

Imo, caveat emptor,/i., "let the buyer beware"

I, personally would not want to entrust my psyche to someone unaccountable for their words. Someone who tells us how defective we are. Someone who operates from ignorance.

This kind of stuff is more likely to instill apprehension about ourselves and about others, and it does impede true healing, IMO. It's a prime example of pathologising the victim.

More here: Narcissism and Deceitfulness

6 comments:

Unknown said...

whooooohaaaaaa! thank you, thank you, thank you... for a quite a while I really thought there was something wrong with me, for 'having been had' or to put it in his words; having been a 'convenience' without knowing it. But reading your blog and "What makes narcissists tick" has made me realise that I just happened to be with one hell of a motherf**ker who messed with my mind but in fact never 'dominated' me the way he wanted to, which simply led him to throw me on the junk heap. Devasted self-esteem of course... but i'm doing better and can start to see him for what he is; an evil monster.

NRipped said...

Liselotte, Thank you for your comment. All I have to do is change the gender from him to her, and its SPEAKS LIBERATING VOLUMES to me...
Thank you again - it keeper !!

Anonymous said...

I see nothing wrong with what was said in the original poster's comments. I think it is true that Co-dependency and masochistic tendencies exist in many who are abused in relationships, especially if we've been trained by early childhood experiences to see abusive behaviors as "normal." This does not place blame on us for the behaviors of the Narcissist/Psychopath. But the truth is that we have to take some personal responsibility in order to heal from damaging relationships, and often times our boundaries need to be strengthened so that we learn to cut our losses without accepting responsibility for the abuser's harmful words and actions.

Why do some people find it hard to believe that abused people have their own character flaws that allow them to stay in unproductive situations? All human beings have a Shadow, and I can say that my own experience with a N forced me to face many of my own unresolved personal struggles from my family-of-origin that trained me to be more tolerant and caring when such loyalty with an abuser is not earned or deserved.

We are adults and need to leave some situations rather than try to change an abuser. Yes, the abuser is wrong, but we also have to draw lines when we know someone is taking advantage of us, unless leaving at a certain point would put us at greater risk of harm.

By the way, I am a licensed psychotherapist and recovering co-dependent, and I personally think that too many of us women let men get away with inappropriate behaviors rather than holding them accountable early on so that either they are forced to deal with us better or we make a decision to leave a relationship.

Examples: 1) If a man cheats, many women want to blame the "other woman" rather than confront their man who is the real source of the problem -- there will always be many potential people to cheat with, so women are foolish to hold other women who do not personally know them more accountable than they are willing to hold their own man; 2) Some women feel entitled to be taken care of by a man (children should be taken care of, of course) and do not invest in their education and career planning in case a relationship ends; 3) Women who continue to give men their hard-earned money also have to ask themselves what they get in return (a sense of security or control over the man?) when they do not require the men in their lives to maintain a job just like they (the women) have to work to earn a living -- unless children are involved.

Of course, anyone can be manipulated, so we all should be careful not to deliberately hurt others. In a perfect world, it would be great if no one was bad, but the reality is that all people are flawed. Some do severe damage to others -- Ns and Ps. Yet, decent people can do damage to themselves when they look to someone else to "save" them and make all things right in the world -- something that romantic fantasies encourage women to buy into. For any choice to depend on another human being when we are able-bodied adults, there are trade-offs.

Women who expect men to take care of them financially have to get real and know that men may expect them to relinquish a lot more control than they may feel comfortable doing in situations like these.

In some ways, my experience with a N forced me to realize I need to check my own assumptions and romantic notions. It is my responsibility to pay attention more to someone's behavior than their words.

If I get involved with someone, it is my responsiility to still maintain my sense of self and make life-affirming choices regardless of the routine pressures a man may try to enforce on me (life-threatening abuse is in a different category, of course). That is the best self-defense against trying to "fix" a lost soul as the Ns and Ps of the world are.

Unknown said...

Anonymous:

Regardless of how you split the hairs, in effect you are blaming the victim when you attempt to compare relationships with the disordered to 'normal' relationships and apply the same criteria to behaviour. We all have areas we could work on, but that has nothing to do with the total mindfuck that is the N or psychopath. Your argument makes the same mistake that anyone who has not intimately encountered an N does.

Moreover, codependency has already been addressed on this site, as a non starter when it comes to abusive relationships. The simplest explanation, that Ns cannot be "handled" or related to, that there is no flaw in the other that brought up the N behaviour is something that people often refuse to accept. It's much easier to apply a known albeit mistaken model or the expected self-examination than to simply accept that there are people on this earth that are more than just "damaged", but whose very presence is damaging.

Anonymous said...

Well said! I have long been appalled by people's glib use of the term 'Co-dependence' and have had a gut reaction against it's use, instinctively feeling that it is at it's best misleading and at it's worse denegrating and harmful [thank you for confirming those feelings, I have just read your discussion of so called co-dependency].
All too often there is subtle [or not so subtle] blaming of the victim as if it were not possible for one person to harm another without their 'consent'. These attitudes simply play into the hands of society's many abusive members and allow them to continue to make excuses for their behaviour. I have been tempted to blame myself on many occasions for becoming a victim and all it has done is to undermine my self esteem further. To tell or imply to a person that they are responsible for the abuse is exactly the kind of tactic used by an abusive person in the first place to keep their victim defenceless and destroy their self esteem. At the same time it gives the abuser another excuse and even justification for what they do, something I am sure they are more than happy with. In their minds if it's their victim's fault it can't be theirs can it !!??

Marianne said...

My ex thinks I am slandering his name and even telling me that I was the abuser....I can not tell you what a mirrored image all of this is of my relationship with him. I did not know I was being abused until he had me arrested and I had to go to anger management coure, the teacher asked if I was being mentally/verbally abused. I did not think so at the time, but now I think of how stupid I am to fall for someone like this. He blames me for not having a relaionship with his family, expecially his daughter. Even though she only knew he does not even care about her. I am having a very hard time getting over the fact that he abandoned me during and after my second back surgery. He just threw me away like yesterday's garbage. Now, he is married to someone who is a pathological liar and cheater. I hope they beat each other up because you know she is going to cheat with married men only, even her friends' husbands and he is going to control he. They belong together. But he will be back after they break up.