This novel is a real chance to understand what narcissistic abuse can FEEL like
The House on the Strand
by Daphne du Maurier
This novel is a brilliant presentation of what narcissistic abuse feels like.
It is essentially describing the transferring of one persons trauma onto someone else.
In the story the main character gets bound to a person from the past who needs him to witness, to live and to suffer his trauma. Step by step he transfers his trauma onto the unsuspecting main character, while the main character is helpless to intervene or to change anything.
The program is running and he cannot change the events, because he is in a false reality and these events have all happened in the past.
This is exactly what narcsissitic abuse is about and the novel gives a sense of how awful it is to go through it. A victim of narcissistic abuse may even have a PTSD breakdown at some point from the emotional abuse.
The main character feels helpless, yet drawn into the situation, and becomes emotionally addicted to going back again and again to the fake world, hoping to fix it and to heal it, or caring for the people involved. As the situation gets worse, his addiction to it increases ! He cannot leave it alone, because it begins to feel more real to him than reality and because of the intense feelings of this world. He re-experiences some of his own traumatic events and feelings from his own life, and that makes it feel more authentic to him than his real life does.
Ghost story
The story in the novel is a ghost story and has nothing to do with narcissistic abuse on the surface of it.
The story creates certain feelings in the reader, which are very similar to the feelings a victim of narcissistic abuse suffers through. The main character suffers through a situation that creates the same kinds of feelings that narcissistic abuse does: feelings such as emotional addiction, feeling powerless etc.
The main character becomes emotionally addicted to a situation in which he is being
forced to live someone elses trauma.
He stops living his own life and gets drawn into (re-)living the "ghosts" past traumas. He is forced into an alternative reality and into living through all the emotions of the other persons (the ghosts) trauma. He is completely powerless to change the course of events and every time he tries to, he gets kicked out of that other word and suffers severe side effects of withdrawal symptoms.
He is drawn into that world, because he has a desire to help and his caring and compassion.
The other thing that really addicts him to that world, is that the emotions he re-lives in that world are very similar to some inner wounds he himself has. He is able to feel and live some of his own strong feelings, which are repressed inside him and he usually doesn't get to express them in his real life. Some of the events in the ghost world are a reflection of what he himself is going through emotionally and he is able to live out those feelings in that world.
Narcissistic abuse
In narcissistic abuse the victim gets emotionally addicted. The victim is invited by the narcissist to experience some feelings which the victim is used to denying himself/herself (like e.g. trusting someone else) or is used to repressing.
Also the victim is used to other people overlooking some bad feelings that are there inside the victim (like e.g. loneliness).
This is not always the case and anyone can fall pray to a narcissist, but these are some of the cracks that may let a narcissist in.
The narcissist is very good at spotting other peoples vulnerabilities. This is called cold empathy.
The victim gets addicted to the emotional high s/he gets from the narcissist at the beginning when the victim gets to live out some feelings the victim usually denies himself/herself and then is trying to get that high or smaller highs later on. This is when the victim gets strung along, by hope that things will eventually turn around and turn out well.
In narcissistic abuse the victim quite often has a desire to help the narcissist. The narcissist uses the victims love and trust against the victim and dumps all the narcissists bad feelings and traumas into the victim and essentially hands over his/her own emotional baggage to the victim and gets the victim to carry that baggage for the narcissist (scapegoating) and to live the narcissists traumas for the narcissist. The narcissist puts someone else lower than where the narcissist is emotionally and that makes the narcissist feel a little better. The narcissist maintains his false grandiose self image and doesn't take responsibility of his/her issues.
So the victim ends up in a situation, where the victim is emotionally addicted to a situation which is actually getting worse and worse, more and more abusive.
The victim is strung along by
1. hope (hope that things will turn around and hope that the victim will get to feel those good feelings again, which the narcissist enabled the victim to feel at the beginning)
2. a desire to help the narcissist overcome his/her issues
3. trying to work out what is going wrong
4. confusion and reality twisting.
What Narcissistic Abuse Feels Like
Either way, if you've experienced narcissistic abuse yourself or not, it's an interesting read, to see how someone is dragged into the emotional addiction to a situation, that isn't getting better, but is getting worse. The main character can't extract himself from the situation, but keeps on going back, trying to fix things and hoping for a positive outcome.
Everyone's experience of narcissistic abuse is unique, but there are certain feelings that are typical for narcissistic abuse.
Some of these feelings are:
emotional addiction
a very strong trauma bond
obsession with trying to work things out or figure things out
chasing the "carrot on the stick", malignant hope (being strung along hoping for a positive outcome) desire to help
feeling of helpless and powerless
feelings of isolation
feeling that things are unreal
shock
upset
confusion
feeling very strong emotions
feeling and living someone else's (the abusers) pain and trauma
The main takeaway here is a real chance to understand what a victim goes through and is put through on an emotional level during narcissistic abuse.
This is not an intellectual exercise.
Try to just feel it.
The Narcissists Double Bind
Richard Grannon - The Blind Maze and the Double Bind of the Narcissistically Abusive System
A victim of narcissistic abuse can suffer such severe stress symptoms from being in a position where nothing they say or do seems to alter the abuse or the course of the preset pattern of narcissistic abuse, yet they are emotionally addicted to the abuser, that it is not uncommon for a victim of narcissistic abuse to suffer a CPTSR breakdown (CPTSR: Complex post traumatic stress reaction)
(or CPTSD as its usually called, but the D suggests disorder and it isn't a disorder, it's a reaction, so now some people are changing the D to an R)
Explaining the Parallels Between the Story in This Novel and Narcissistic Abuse
In the story Magnus (Magnus is latin for "great") is the narcissist, who puts the main character through all the emotions of narcissistic abuse. The narcissistic abuse itself is represented, by what the victim goes through in the unreal, past world Magnus sends him to.The False Map of Reality
Magnus gets the victim addicted to visiting another world. This world is a different version of the real world, that seems very real. The victim is now following a false map of reality, which is extremely dangerous for him. A false reality is what a victim of narcissistic abuse gets pulled into, with all the lies, the gaslighting, etc. Narcissists are like a one man cult who want their targets to join them in their false reality. It is very confusing and the main character gets more and more confused and less able to distinguish between reality and the abusers reality.
There are many traumatic events and emotions the victim goes through in this ghost world of the past, but the trauma just bonds him more into wanting to go back, wanting to help and hoping for a positive outcome.
The unreal ghost world of the past Magnus gets the victim addicted to, is like a metaphor for narcissistic abuse itself.
His feelings during the adventures in that other world especially his emotional addiction to it, his increased absorption by that world and his obsession with it are all part of what narcissistic abuse FEELS like.
He goes through many emotions and experiences in that world: love, fear, frustration, shock, desire to help, the helplessness because he can't really help, he can't even interact, the betrayals he witnesses, and the slow distruction of love, by two people without empathy.
It also makes the reader understand how the emotional addiction slowly gets worse, how gradually more and more of the victims thoughts, time, attention, and energy are sucked away and how he is slowly taken over. He is no longer controlling those things himself. All his attention is gradually focused on the other world with not much attention left for his wife Vita (Vita is latin for "life"), his own life and his own needs. He is spending all his energy and time in that world and less and less of it in the real world, living his own real life and solving his own problems.
Narcissistic abuse is like being manipulated and forced into living someone else's trauma for them.
One of the worst things of narcissistic abuse is the projection of the narcissists own bad feelings into the victim. (See devalue page)
The narcissist wants someone else to live his childhood trauma for him/her.
A narcissist is like a one person cult. So the abuse is all about being pulled into (or banished from, if you don't adhere to their rules) that one person cult. It's a false reality, with it's own rules.
The main character gets pulled into living, experiencing and feeling someone else's trauma.
Getting pulled into a false reality
following a false map of reality
experiencing feelings of isolation
helplessness to change the course of events
He can't change or influence events, but follows someone around who can.
he keeps on hoping
The hope is for two people who love, to be free to love each other. This hope strings him along and keeps him coming back.
emotional addiction to the alternative reality. This alternative reality has the appeal of having strong emotions (good and bad) in it. It is exciting and intense.
getting trauma bound to that world. The more bad things happen in addition to the good things, the more strongly he is pulled back to it and the more he thinks about it. The more obsessed he gets with it and the more he wants to help and try to change things.
He is forced to experience and re-live the slow and systematic destruction of love by two narcissists who exhibit a complete lack of empathy.
In the process of being slowly pulled in and forced to live someone else's trauma, his own old wounds and his own childhood traumas get opened up.
After a time, it seems the characters and the events in the past unreal world are enacting his own suppressed feelings and childhood traumas. It seems, being able to feel, to live and express his own deep emotions and traumas is a big part of the pull he feels towards that world.
He gets confused and the confusion gets worse as he becomes unable to distinguish the real world and the false world, which begins to feel much more like it's the real world.
When he tries to intervene or influence events, he is banished from that world and suffers hangover/withdrawal symptoms.
Wanting to help, getting obsessed with helping, forgetting his own needs and his own life to the point where he is not making urgent and important decisions in his own life, while following that false map of reality, becomes very dangerous for him: He is trying to help in a situation, where he has no power to intervene. The events are preprogrammed to happen that way, since they have already happened in that past world. He gets banished and suffers withdrawal symptoms, if he tries to intervene, or change the course of events, so he gets conditioned into accepting helplessness and into submitting to a passive role.
Similarly narcissistic abuse follows a preset pattern.
This process of emotional addiction is gradual and while it is happening he regularly thinks he should stop going back, yet he is unable to resist the pull of that world and gets more and more emotionally addicted to it.
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