Narcissistic Abuse (+Story)

Narcissistic abuse is a mind hack to take control of the victims sense of reality in order to control the victims feelings!

It is very hard to convey what narcissistic abuse does to the mind of the target. Narcissistic abuse is like a mind hack.  Usually, when people try to understand what it might be like to be abused, they imagine or assume that they would still have their own mind and their own opinions to consult,  but it is exactly there that the attack happens. Right at the core.
The cracks in a persons boundaries, that make this mind hack possible are: self doubt and  (quite likely) a core wound of loneliness from childhood abuse.

Richard Grannon - "Effects of Narcissistic Abuse"

In this video Richard Grannon explains the worst effect of narcissistic abuse on the victim.
It is the taking away of the victims sense of reality or of a sense of what is really happening.

---

Can a Story Help me Understand Narcissistic Abuse?

In the next section I'll introduce a children's story titled "Why the owl behaves as it does". The entire story is a very good metaphor for narcissistic abuse. It will help you get a very good sense of the following important things in narcissistic abuse, in a relatively short time. 

The important things to understand are:

-narcissistic abuse is a mind hack

-the narcissist needs narcissistic supply to feed off

-because of his addiction to narcissistic supply, he seeks to control the source of the supply, which is the victim and establish a power position over the victim

-the abuse can happen because the victim trusts and looks up to the abuser, as their friend, lover, or someone who is on their side

-the narcissist is a con artist, a liar and deceiver

-the narcissist is able to see and then pray upon a victims vulnerablility or blind spot

-other people generally watch the abuse happen without understanding what they are seeing and without helping the victim

- the narcissist gets stronger, while the victim gets weaker

This is because the victim is giving the narcissist real love, which is like wholesome food, whereas the narcissist is giving the victim something fake-junk food. Emotional highs based on nothing real, manufactured by the narcissist giving the victim whatever it takes (illusions, false promises, lies, exaggerations) to make him/her feel good and get the victim emotionally addicted to the narcissist. This is like junk food, which makes a person feel good, is addicting, but it is not nourishing.

-the pain caused by narcissistic abuse is immense, because the narc feeds off the victims negative emotions (which he knows how to manufacture in the victim !) as negative narcissistic supply

-one way out of narcissistic abuse is when the pain caused by the abuse is greater, then the pain of facing or recognising the blind spot, that the victim couldn't see/recognise earlier e.g. the recognition that their parent is emotionally abusive in exactly that way. 

-the victim did not choose the abuser, to abuse him/her in exactly the same way he was abused in childhood, because it was familiar to him.
The victim was unable to keep the abuser out of his life, because of the blind spot to it and because the narcissist is a cunning deceiver.
The abuser chose the victim, because he was able to pray upon him/her. The narcissist chooses very empathic people as victims.

-the vulnerability doesn't have to come from childhood abuse. The vulnerability can be e.g. loneliness and self doubt, anyone who is unable to see through the narcissists game can become a victim.

The story 'Why the owl behaves as it does'

This children story will not mention narcissism or narcissistic abuse. However it contains elements of narcissistic abuse that were highlighted above. As you read through it, see if you can recognise the items above in the story and how it illustrates covert narcissistic abuse. I've added some questions below that can help you spot narcissistic abuse in the story.

Ted Hughes - Why the Owl Behaves as it does

Did you focus on how the owl's lies were able to change the birds sense of the reality - that they think they are living in. Did it contrast with the actual reality?

The birds start to follow a false map of reality.

How did a predator mess with the victims sense of reality using lies and deceit, to his own benefit?

How did the disorienting and confusing of the victims' mind and sense of reality keep them helplessly trapped in the abuse?

How did they get out of the abuse?


Please take some time to think through these questions, before reading any further.

---

A closer look at the story:

What is owl doing and why? How does he do it?  What is the false map of reality? How do they get trapped in that false reality? What does "the darkness" symbolise? Why don't the rabbits help? 

What is Owl doing and why?

Owl is setting up a situation of power and control, to enable him to feed off the birds.

To get narcissistic supply from the vicitm.

"Owl was fuller than he had ever been in his life",

while the birds get just enough crumbs to keep them going. The Narcissist will do this with "love". It is called spoon-feeding. It means giving just enough "love" to keep the victim from leaving and from waking up to the fact that they are in an emotionally abusive relationship.

Narcissistic abuse is all about garnering narcissistic supply. Narcissists have a void inside them, which they try to fill with positive or negative narcissistic supply. They are feeding off the victims emotions. At first the good emotions (during the idealisation phase) and later on in the relationship the bad emotions. Both the good and the bad emotions feed them. This is why some people refer to them as emotional vampires.

Owl sets up a situation that enables him to feed off the birds.
The narcissist sets up a structure of power and control over the victims feelings and extracts narcissistic supply from the victim.

How does he do it?

He spots their weaknesses and vulnerabilities and exploits them. 

"Owl can see in the dark." Owl has cold empathy. This is a special ability that narcissists have to spot other peoples vulnerabilities.

What is the false map of reality?

The false map of reality are wrong beliefs, that lead to a wrong perception of reality.

Owl has made them believe, that they are dependent on him, that they need him, when really he is the last thing they need.
He has convinced them that he is acting in their best interest and is their friend, when he is acting only in his own interest and is their enemy.
He has convinced them that he cares about them, when he actually has zero empathy for them.
He tells them he is looking after them, protecting them, providing food for them, when really he is feeding off them and they are supplying him with what he needs (narcissistic supply),
while the birds can hardly sustain themselves and are starving and miserable on what owl gives them.

He broke all his promises and pretended it was circumstantial and that he couldn't help it.
He betrayed them and their trust.

How do they get trapped in that false reality?

They get trapped the minute they let owl guide them. When they have been convinced that owl knows better and that they should follow him.

The victim gets trapped, when he/she stops trusting his/her own perceptions and intuition of what is going on and what is happening. 

A person may notice the negative behaviour, but not be able to believe himself/herself, that he/she is actually right and ought to take the negative behaviour seriously.

That is the moment they go down the rabbit hole. 

To go down a rabbit hole, according to the free dictionary by farlex:

To enter into a situation or begin a process or journey that is particularly strange, problematic, difficult, or chaotic, especially one that becomes increasingly so as it develops or unfolds. (An allusion to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.)

The birds have a blind spot when it comes to abuse (the dark).

They don't rely on their own perceptions, their own intuition, when it comes to the dark, they rely on Owl leading them and telling them where they are. This enables Owl to confuse their sense of reality until they are so confused, they think dusk is dawn, west is east, night is day, day is night and here is there.
Not being able to see in the dark is their biggest vulnerability and Owl exploits it. 

Not being able to see abuse clearly. Not being able to push it back on the abuser and say no, it's not me (a flaw or fault of mine), it's you. 
Narcissists are unhappy with a person and angry with a person, if they are not providing them with enough narcissistic supply. The message the victim picks up is that something is wrong with them, but they don't know what.

A victim may have been primed or gaslight for narcissistic abuse, by a narcissistic parent, who has already done the work of teaching the person not to trust his/her own intuition/gut feeling about what is going on, but instead rely on and believe the abusers version of what is going on.

What is the darkness ?

Darkness as a metaphor for abuse.

The darkness that the birds close their eyes to and even completely forget about, can be seen as a metaphor for abuse.
It is the emotional abuse a person suffered in childhood. The person was unable to fully recognize the abuse as abuse when they were a child and this stays with them even later on in life.

This is a defense mechanism, because the child needed to feel loved and it is also the effect of gaslighting.

"They had been doing this (closing their eyes to the darkness) for so long, they had forgotten what the dark was."

This is a person who has been trained over the years into the belief that abusive behaviour is not that, but normal or ok behaviour.

If a person cannot see the original childhood abuse as abuse, it leaves them open to the same kind of abuse by someone else later on in life, because they cannot reject this behavior as abuse. The same defense mechanism that was helpful for the emotionally abused child, is now a danger to the adult.

"Owl thought about this..." 

Owl plunges them into even more darkness, they are too afraid and unable to look at the darkness until the pain from Owls abuse is utterly unbearable. Owl has zero empathy. To get out of the unbearable abuse they have to look at, recognize and face the original abuse. "They have to open their eyes in the dark." They have to do this at a time, when they have been utterly drained of happiness, strength and energy, by the new abuse. At a time when it is the hardest, most scary and loneliest time to do it. They do it, "see the light" and can see through their abuser and save themselves.  It is an extremely painful process. 

This is an example of covert narcissistic abuse. It is covert, because the victim sees the abuser as a friend, as a good person and therefore cannot protect himself/herself. Covert narcissistic abuse is extremely damaging and can lead a victim into deep despair. Overt abuse in contrast is a much more straight forward thing.

Why don't the rabbits help?

They see the abuse, but they do not observe it ! This is the big problem !
The rabbits represent the normal people in the surroundings.

HG Tudor, Knowing the Narcissist - "Blind or stupid?"

---

The story is a metaphor for narcissistic abuse and especially for the kind of real life manipulation of a target which is described and explained in this video,
with the purpose of securing a source of narcissistic supply - by gaining control over the victim and his/her feelings - and then destroying it, once they are done with it. A narcissist treats people like an appliance or an object.

Assc Direct - The Process Of Manipulation From A Narcissist

Short summary of the main points of this video:

Step 1: trust, illusion (=anestesia, artificial feelings)
Step 2: surgery, dissecting, getting deep into your psyche, information gathering process, looking for weakness
Step 3: experiment: pulling on strings, seeing how well it all works
Step 4: now, they know it works, they’ve attached all the strings, now you’re a puppet

Objective: To secure narc supply and destroy it, once they are done with it.
Reason: jealousy, envy, rage built up in them.

Quote from the video:
"...Narcissists are always giving themselves away, initially in the beginning, if your paying attention, they always tell on themselves. It's just that we overlook it and we wonder deeper and deeper into Alice in Wonderland - la la land as some people call it - and once you've been taken there sometimes it's hard to find your way back and this is why so many individuals who went through this process, don't know how to get out of it..."