People like to tell those who’ve been
in narcissistic abuse that it was their fault.
This is natural.
It’s the human way of self-assurance
that it could never happen to them.
We all know the familiar feeling that we’re to blame for being hijacked by one of these monsters. Most people around us don’t understand what’s really happening…we don’t understand what’s happened! But there was one thing I knew for sure: it wasn’t my fault. It had nothing to do with me. My time was spent finding out how it did happen. Who – or what – was this!? Not all people seek real answers…
Recently I read a new reason to blame yourself for falling into a sociopath’s hands in a Psychology Today article. It blithely summed up the ancient phenomenon of predator and prey by saying, “…your life script issues and unmet relational needs…” are the cause.
Did you know you have life script issues? And please tell me which human in 2022 on this earth does not have unmet relational needs? We’re online, in Zoom meetings, on Instagram, and in Facetime calls rather than face to face with most anyone. But: how does this give another human permission to deceive us, and make use of us for their personal gain?
Experts Don’t Always Know
Have you heard…? This happened to you because you allowed it? [eyeroll] Did someone tell you that you need boundaries and if you had them, this would not have happened? [B.S. buzzer sounding.]
Seething over here. Just pretty much annoyed is what these absurd articles and ideas. Perhaps my reaction is due to unmet relational needs.
Let’s be real, it’s due to the fact that these kinds of shallow, pop-culture and book-taught perspectives cause more pain and harm. THey are missing the boat and taking us down the wrong river at the same time.
They bring little clarity or hope to those who are making efforts to understand what happened and recover and restore their lives.
There is resolution and full restoration.
What is recovery for you?
Doomed
This article goes on to say, near the conclusion, “…If you don’t resolve your script issues you will never be able to handle a narcissist or anyone else for that matter, and will always be an easy target for skilled manipulators.”
People study these hijackings from a psychology textbook or at a $15,000 week-end seminar in Barbados..Let’s see how they’d handle an actual entrapment by one of these demons. The title of the article, “Are You Spiraling Into Narcissistic Abuse?” though attention grabbing, is off-track.
No offense to the author of the article who in her heart of hearts wants to help. but that’s like asking, are you spiraling into rape? 🙄 These are crimes. Not relationships. The beasts we were stunned by and drawn into are the fraudsters, the users, the pathological creatures. We’re in what we think is a relationship with someone we thought was normal and will discover is not. – We aren’t aware of spiraling anywhere bad: or we wouldn’t!
Breaking Up wIth Evil
Breaking Up with Evil: Escaping Coercive Control on Amazon
Five women’s true stories of being ensnared hauled through the confusion, lies, fear, and pain, and breaking away.
Told in their own words, they leave nothing unsaid. Find validation and see new glimpses of the truth as they share their stories… Stories that could be any of ours.
Let’s Dissect This Malarkey Fruther
I’m going to dissect this malarkey. “…If you don’t resolve your script issues you will never be able to handle a narcissist or anyone else for that matter, and will always be an easy target for skilled manipulators.”
Script issues: That’s a new one. I’m not 100% sure what that even means… But shall we add it to the list of reasons why it’s our fault and our fault alone that we fell into the spell of coercive control as normal human beings?
The List of Why It’s Your Fault: 1) codependency 2) low self-esteem 3) doormat syndrome 4) too nice 5) no boundaries 6) in denial 7) your picker is broken 8) you were abused in the past 9) stupidity…. And 10) “script issues”.
Just Handle That “Narcissist”! a.k.a. Handle That Sociopath
So let’s look at this a bit more: “…If you don’t resolve your script issues you will never be able to handle a narcissist or anyone else for that matter, and will always be an easy target for skilled manipulators.”
Never Be Able To Handle a Narcissist: Hmm… because we’re supposed to be able to handle, tolerate, and oh, I don’t know, maybe live with or even change a “narcissist” – aka a sociopath…? What is she saying?! – Because we aren’t lion tamers it’s our fault if a lion rips our leg off?
There is no “handling” a “narcissist” (read sociopath). – And by the way did you notice that we’re supposed to handle other people as well…? – Isn’t that an absurd kind of thinking? Where’s the messaging now about: “you can’t change other people”? And “trying to fix someone else is co-dependency”?
Narcissistic Abuse Unwound: The Podcast
Always Be a Target
What’s next…? “…If you don’t resolve your script issues you will never be able to handle a narcissist or anyone else for that matter, and will always be an easy target for skilled manipulators.”
An Easy Target: It’s you, dumb-dumb. This happened because you’re being an easy target. That’s like saying, it’s your doing because you’re alive, breathing, have a life, and wanted love.
Or that you allowed and attracted it because you had hopes of a great life. If you wouldn’t have wanted that, had your script issues resolved, and knew how to handle a narcissist, this would have worked out. Sigh… Looks like unless you get those script issues under control, you might as well paint a target on your back. And your forehead.
The real skill that is useful in avoiding sociopaths is in knowing it wasn’t about you. And in knowing how to recognize them from 50-paces and sidestep them. That’s handling a sociopath. We can learn that perception and skill.
I would guess, by these vapid words, that the author of this scary article does not have this skill. – I’d wager a sociopath could hijack her right in her office.
The “Manipulator Is Skilled”
Want more…? Okay: according to this article since the skilled manipulator… will always get us then by implication – we’re unskilled, and maybe dumb, and have script issues, and so are an easy target because we’re too nice… and blah blah blah.
Skilled manipulators… Okay so let’s really set the record straight. “…If you don’t resolve your script issues you will never be able to handle a narcissist or anyone else for that matter, and will always be an easy target for skilled manipulators.”
Just how “skilled” are these mentally limited and devoid-of-humanity creatures? These are people with a part of the normal human brain missing. Is that a skill? The narcissistic sociopath who lies and makes use of other people does learn at an early age that their behavior isn’t what mom and dad want to see. So they begin to hide it. That’s a survival skill that kicked in. We all have those.
Every Rat and Cock Roach Learns How to Get Cheese
So, like any kid – or a naughty puppy, for that matter – the “malignantly narcissistic” (that’s a sociopath, folks) kid picks up the ability to hide most of the bad things they do. It’s instinct rather than skill. Do they get good at it…? kind of. But not really: or we wouldn’t be here!
Not for one second does that kid understand why what they did is perceived and deemed by their parents as “bad”. Not a single-solitary adult sociopath knows why we think the things we consider bad behavior are thought to be bad behavior by us. They cannot comprehend our conventions, our concerns, or our emotions.
And quite unlike a normal kid or a puppy, the sociopath-kid does not care why. They think they themselves are aces. They just want to do whatever they want to do. They’d rather slit their baby sister’s throat than share their cookies with her. It’s how they’re wired. It’s instinct. And then as within any living entity, their own survival is a stronger instinctive impulse, so they pick up from their parents’ horrified reactions to the behavior to tamper it. To lie about it. To do when no one is looking. To toss blame somewhere else. To appear angelic and innocent. – This is a lifelong situation. This is the only way they can function.
They figure out how to say words mom likes, “I’m sorry mommy. I don’t know why I do it.” And then go steal the neighbor kid’s bike. Or a cat and skin it alive for fun.
Sorry for that, but this is real. – These kids grow up to hunt the rest of us and take our cookies.
Connection and Normal
This thing that lets us as gorgeous normal beautiful emotional humans walk into the trap of a “narcissist” a.k.a. sociopath is elusive. It’s invisible. It’s a quality they possess that’s innate – inborn – if someone is a sociopath.
We regular people who are too nice, are born with a compulsion to connect. We can’t stop it. It’s automatic. This ability to trust and connect and care and bond is how we survive. Literally. Think about how you got a job you loved.
You came across as trustworthy in the interview. You bonded with the CEO’s assistant over your shared and mutual love of Gerber daisies that were sitting on her desk. – You were genuine, sincere, and vulnerable. You were honest and: you needed and wanted a job. Remember how nice that was? That’s how we do it.
Coercive Control
So, the difference is the person with the missing parts of their brain can’t do any of this. The way they were born leaves them without the ability to connect. So, they mimic the appearance of a connection in order to get things they want and need.
Additionally – and here’s the biggie: inside of them is this extra oomph. This extra touch of charm. It’s mother nature’s way of giving them a chance to survive because they can’t do it by connecting.
They have this thing that draws people to them. It’s coercive control and it’s there doing its magic from the first hello. – Drinking that Dixie cup of Kool-Aide comes later, but from moment one, we’re doing things we wouldn’t have normally done.
Right away we might shift our schedule around to spend even a moment with them. Immediately, we’re weak in the knees, and confusion slides in. – That’s how you know you met a sociopath. – But by then, you’re hooked.
Everyone Needs Reassurance
These hijackings – this life-invasion-smash-and-grabs are very scary. Very scary being in them and- believe it or not – more scary from the outside. People who love us and strangers alike, watch this or hear about it later, and cold, wet fear shivers up their spine.
People like to tell those who’ve been in narcissistic abuse and coercive control that it was their fault. This is natural. It’s the human way of self-assurance that this nightmare in hell could never happen to them… This surreal bizarro-world ruins people’s lives and tears people up mentally, emotionally, and “maybe even financially”, as the Psychology Today article said.
This is normal. When these hijackings are not understood, this is natural and to be expected of the person who doesn’t understand. It’s their instinctive way of feeling safe themselves. This is natural.
Conclusion
This is as good as the Psychology Today article’s advice gets… in this bit at the end, her last line: “Just believe in yourself and don’t look back.”
That snip has a drop of accuracy. Please believe in yourself. You are still there. Though you feel broken, you are not. With the roller coaster of contradicting feelings and thoughts and wondering and asking and wanting and doubting… you’ll be okay.
All of that, all those memories of conversations – those are what we use to resolve, decode, recover, and restore. – I do this with people all over the globe daily in one-on-one recovery sessions.
You Are Magnificent
Know this: there is nothing you did to cause this. You have every right to be exactly as you are. Every dream, failure, yearning, or unmet relational need is uniquely yours and not a crime or personality defect, or disorder.
They, those life-stealing, pathological users, are the criminals. You are awesome. And gorgeous inside and out.
Now, that that’s off my chest, I hope you can make yourself a nice Sunday… and maybe bake a nice dessert to go with dinner. – Or just have dessert for dinner! – Whatever you want, whatever you need is okay.
Here’s to REAL True Love and Happiness!
Time to Thrive!
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