THE NARCISSIST'S CULT

Narcissistic abuse confuses a person's sense of reality 

Narcissists are not just "very selfish"  or "mean" all the time in an obvious way.

If they were, it would be quite easy to avoid narcissistic abuse. They are very "nice" at the beginning (the Idealization Phase) and their niceness, is customised to what the target is looking for.

It is more accurate to think of a narcissist as someone who is like a cult leader or a movie director, recruiting people around them to be like actors in the fake reality of their life-movie or to join their one person cult as cult-members.

The way people get drawn into cults and the way people get drawn into narcissistic abuse is very similar. 

A child of a narcissistic parent is put into the narcissistic parents cult or movie from birth onwards and it is a difficult and life changing achievement for a child of a narcissistic parent to fully escape this "cult" and system of false beliefs and all the projections and manipulations, not to mention the self-doubt and learned lack of trust in their own perception of things.

The narcissistic parent, or the narcissist in general is like a one person cult, because they also recruit the people of the surroundings to participate in creating a false reality.

The narcissist presents a false facade of him/herself to the surroundings and at the same time slanders the scapegoat child to those people of the surroundings who will listen and be taken in by that.

The narcissistic parent needs the child to feel and to be a certain way, to soothe the way the narcissist feels.

The narcissistic parent will use the child for whatever it is, s/he needs to use the child for. 

The Scapegoat

Instead of dealing with his/her trauma and bad feelings, the narcissist creates a false reality and scapegoats their child or spouse into carrying the narcissists emotional baggage for them.

The narcissist makes someone else live their trauma for them and feel the same bad feelings they have inside.

Someone else (their partner/ their child) has to feel the way the narcissist needs them to feel, so that the narcissist can feel a little better and soothe his/her bad feelings.

The narcissist is unable to feel happy, so s/he does not like to see their child/spouse happy.

A sense of power is the narcissists internal reward system.

The scapegoat child should feel the way the narcissist feels, or worse, so that the narcissist can say: "that's you, not me".

The scapegoat child is there for the narcissistic parent to live out all their frustrations and fury, which the narcissistic parent didn't dare express to their own narcissistic parent.

In addition,  the scapegoat child is not supposed to have any achievements, which the narcissist doesn't have. If the narcissistic parent can't prevent the achievement, they will at least take away the child's feeling of success.

It's one thing to read an article about how a narcissistic parent puts the child into a false reality, because the narcissist needs the child to be or to feel a certain way, but it's quite another thing to really fully appreciate what that means.

The movie the Truman Show is an example of a person being placed in a false reality from birth onwards and being held there, by manipulation and deceit.

Truman is unaware that he is actually in a TV show, surrounded by actors who are under the controlling influence of the director of the show.

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A narcissist is like a one person cult or like the director of a movie

The people who the narcissist can influence into treating the child/partner a certain way are recruited, like actors in a show or like cult members to be part of the child's life. The others are banned.

This is done directly, by controlling the child's environment: the choice of friends, the choice of school, doctors and even psychologists and indirectly, by influencing the child's way of perceiving things and viewing people or events. Encouraging or sabotaging connections to certain people.

The movie The Truman Show, demonstrates what this is like and how hard it is to get out of this false version of reality.

Link to the video on youtube edited by Federica Lentiggini EN 

Being the child of a narcissist is like being in a cult or movie without knowing it, where reality and facts are twisted to suit the narcissist's agenda and other people are recruited to either be a part of this one person cult or be banned from it.

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Most of the movie is about the main character trying to find his way out of the fake reality he has been placed in and is being kept in. He discovers inconsistencies, things that don't add up and he draws logical conclusions from these events. The more he probes, the more he discovers.

To free himself he has to be willing and brave enough to face the pain of the extent of the betrayal that is coming from everyone he loves and even from his so-called best friend, who looks him straight in the eye and tells him he would never lie to him. He has to be willing to be all alone, before he can rebuild a different life for himself.

 link to the youtube video:"Last thing I would ever do, is lie to you" - The Truman Show

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Bravery eventually leads him out of the false reality, out of the narcissists cult, as the punishments and the manipulations to keep him in his place increase.

link to the youtube video: The Truman Show movie scene - "I'm being spontaneous"

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Getting out of the narcissists fake reality and those wrong beliefs, is a completely life changing achievement for the victim of narcissistic abuse.

Developing trust in your own judgement and intuition, despite the narcissists attempts to create self doubt, is the way out of narcissistic abuse.

Self Isolating

Narcissists get other people to do their bidding for them, by putting certain wrong ideas about the victim into the heads of other people or by outright slandering the victim.

One of the reasons a victim of narcissistic abuse might self isolate, is because it can seem to the victim as if everyone else was helping the narcissist and betraying the victim. Everyone around the child was either actively supporting the narcissist like cult members or like the actors in the Truman Show, or was watching the narcissistic abuse happen without intervening or powerless to intervene or without observing it as abuse, like the TV audience.

So it can seem like everyone was "in on it".

This is also because the people who did speak up for the child, were banished and sometimes punished by the narcissist or simply couldn't stand to be or stay around the narcissist.

A victim of narcissistic abuse might feel like they don't really like people in general and not know why they feel that way.

Flying Monkeys

Inner integration - Flying Monkeys  (The Narcissist's Tool for the Smear Campaign)

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Power, Trauma and Lack of Compassion

The director of the show is causing serious trauma to Truman (when he has him lose his father at sea) and there is a cold lack of compassion, for what he is putting him through.

He is enjoying the power of controlling not only Trumans surroundings, but also the way he is supposed to think and the power of controlling his emotions.

Video on How Narcissists Treat Their Children

The Little Shaman Healing 

This is an excellent summary on how narcissists treat their children. Narcissists use their children for whatever it is they need to use them for.

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