Is it Contagious?
Image by Darwin Vegher
Dealing With Fear that We are Behaving Just Like the Narcissist in the Aftermath
This blog is written for female survivors of male perpetrators.
Abandoned victims, already shocked and confused by the double messages and sudden personality change, can really get into a frenzy when they start Googling and discover the uncanny descriptions of narcopathic behaviour that match their own experience. Many survivors report freaking out over the changes in their own behaviour borne of the need to protect themselves and start to question, "is it really me that is the psychopath or narcissist? Is it catching?"
These concerns about contagion need to be addressed because they feel real.
Behaviour stemming from the fight/flight/freeze response to shock is automatic behaviour, over which we have little control. With PTSD, we might feel that we don't recognise ourselves. And others - particularly those who are quick to judge - might not recognise us either. We all might easily mistake this change in behaviour for the sudden personality change we witnessed in our disordered partner when the mask of the psychopath or narcissist dropped.
It is not. It is trauma behaviour. It is neurosis that can heal, not a character disorder that is incurable.
Self-centredness.
The preoccupation with our own pain that makes us continually want to tell our story so as to understand and be understood is not deeply embedded narcissism. It is the same instinct that drives a cat or dog to continually lick its wound. It is OK to tend to our own wellbeing whilst under attack or in the aftermath. This form of 'selfishness' is nothing like the self preoccupation and utter self referencing of the narcopath.
He genuinely believes he is perfect and has likely led us to believe we are deeply flawed over months or years of devaluing cohabitation. Our pain needs our attention. Our trauma symptoms deserve our attention. We need to find a way to silence unfair accusations of selfishness or indulgent self-pity by our internal or external critics. We need to be compassionate with ourselves.
This self-focus is a natural part of narcissistic abuse recovery.
Disbelief. (Did I imagine it all?)
The knowledge that we were more kind, more forgiving, more tolerant and made more investment in this relationship than in any other is not a delusion, but likely extremely well founded. Conscientious vulnerable types capitulate to psychological manipulation with more and more 'agreeable' behaviour in an attempt to restore the homeostasis of the 'ideal' union that created the narcopathic bond in the first place.
We are not imagining things. His gaslighting taught us to doubt ourselves. We are not now lying to ourselves, even as others doubt us. It is not unreasonable to expect a return on behavioural investment instead of the callous attack we got. We are not the creep his smear campaign makes us out to be. Nor are we the worthless thing he made us come to believe we are.
A narcopath can never reciprocate the moral investment his targets make. He is amoral. For someone with a moral conscience, psychopathic behaviour IS unbelievable. Until we come to understand it.
Anger.
The anger or rage that might arise from the discard and destroy phase is nothing like the seething passive aggression or explosive anger of the psychopath. Our betrayal was profound and real, and anger is a natural response to having been scammed by a dishonest cowardly human parasite. His anger is a response to the smallest insult to his unrealistic conviction that he is so special and different that he must be treated with the reverence and respect of a Demi-God.
We were like a chained animal in a cage responding to being continually poked or worse. The rage will pass when we have NO CONTACT and the wounds heal.
Difficulty accepting blame.
Our conviction that we were not to blame or did nothing a reasonable person could view as a deal-breaker is not the justification and deflection of the narcopath. Even if we lost our temper or answered back or used the wrong tone of voice (!), the healthy contrition of apology, make up sex and will to change are nothing like the cycle of abuse that we have endured with the narcopath. Our contrition is genuine.
His is never real, but just the mimicry of further manipulation. Victim-playing. We are nothing like him! We made mistakes, but we are not to blame.
Inauthenticity (faking it til you make it).
Our culture demands that we wear a mask of 'normality' to engage in day-to-day social activity. People don't like it when we express our anguish and despair. It's too challenging. Too uncomfortable. So we can adapt to the disapproval of others by adopting an inauthentic persona just to survive. Share our distress only with those we find trustworthy or not at all. In the same way an animal hides its limp so as not to appear weak to predators.
This inauthenticity is not the same as the mask of a narcopath, which is a cleverly constructed persona designed to hide his predatory nature. Mr Nice Guy - the last person anyone would suspect of being an abuser. A mask he wears almost permanently from the boardroom to the bedroom. Until he runs out of puff. Until the wearing of it is no longer necessary as he extracts the last drop of usefulness from his prey. The two masks are nothing alike.
Dumping people.
Our need to protect ourselves from further hurt by pushing people away is nothing like the callous disregard of the narcopath who discards people when they are of no further use to him. Break-ups challenge loyalty in our friends and family. They reveal hidden grudges and suspicions in those around us. Finding out who is really on our team and who we can really trust is a part of any break up.
People pleasers might easily find that they are surrounded by takers and users. Add to this, the clever impression management and smear campaign of the narcopath, and the recipe for toxicity in our circle is complete. The necessity of avoiding people and situations that have been poisoned by the narcopath's lies is a matter of self-preservation. It is real, not imagined. And it is probably better to be safe than sorry.
Our trust has been deeply violated and needs room to recover. The trust pendulum will stop swinging eventually.
Silent Treatment.
Setting a boundary with our abuser by going NO CONTACT is not the same thing as the silent treatment he dished out to us during the devaluation phase. By not returning calls or answering emails from our manipulative ex, we are keeping the wolf at bay. We are acting out of healthy self-preservation to prevent ourselves being drawn back in to his exploitative deceptive game.
The ghosting, silent treatment and other withholding behaviours he used were about making us sad angry isolated and confused, or punishing us for questioning him. We go NO CONTACT to save ourselves from psychological slavery to a man who wants to destroy us. Not the same thing at all.
Holding a grudge.
Being unable to forgive is an extremely painful experience and there is an expectation in our Judeo-Christian-derived culture that we must do this. We know that even when we tried to mend a rift and offered genuine contrition to our narcopath, he continued to blame us and punish us beyond reason. The inability to forgive we might now struggle with is not the same thing as the ruthless vengefulness of the psychopath.
We might want to forgive, but find we cannot. The psychopath’s malicious punishment of us is based in a disordered view of what constitutes an injury to his narcissistic ego - complete invalidation of us as human beings. Therein lies the difference. There can be no mutual acceptance of responsibility or 'closure' from which a healthy friendship might emerge.
The most important act of forgiveness needed after narcissistic abuse is self-forgiveness.
Victim status.
We have been victimised. There are no two ways about it. The feeling of being weak, defeated and broken are not the result of a personal flaw but of having to bear too great a weight for too long. Read the case studies. This is what malignant narcissists sociopaths and psychopaths do to people – particularly women, who continue to love and forgive way longer than they perhaps should have with hindsight.
The feeling of being trapped in a snare is the very real result of dealing with a manipulative liar who is exploiting us and our whole lives for his sick gratification. With every day of NO CONTACT, we move from feeling like a victim, to being a survivor.
The narcopath’s victim act is just another manipulative weapon to gain support and sympathy in order to shift the blame.
Telling People About the Abuse. (A smear campaign?)
Wanting other people to know the truth of what we’ve endured, wanting to expose his foul character publicly, and even wanting revenge are normal natural responses to being bullied. We struggle against our darker urges. The narcopath gave in to his a long time ago.
When we tell people about cheating, lying, stealing and slandering, we are telling the truth. We know what happened behind closed doors, and one day the truth will be integrated whether others believe us or not. We will no longer need their validation.
For some survivors, the urge to tell the story to anyone who will listen can go on and on for months or even years. Take care not to rely too heavily on your allies to listen. Seek professional help.
Telling our story is nothing like the narcissist’s smear campaign based on exaggerations, fabrications and projecting his own behaviour onto us.
We want to be heard. He wants to destroy us.
Retaliation (Am I the Abusive One?)
So we lost it and called the narcopath a liar, a cheat, a thief, or milder name-calling like dishonourable, cad or lacking in decency. We threw the second punch. His treatment of us provoked such rage and confusion that we didn't know which way was up anymore.
We lost control of our emotions and did or said things we came to regret. Maybe we stupidly pointed out the fact that we had found his character described in psychology literature and we realise he is a narcissistic sociopath. Or our burning compassion for his next host drove us to reach out and warn her of his pattern of abuse.
And he punished us with unfathomable vindictiveness.
Weigh it up. Which is worse? Lying or telling a liar they are a liar. Cheating, or telling a cheat they are a cheat. Stealing, or accusing a thief of thieving. Slander, or defending oneself against dishonest character assassination. It’s not helpful. It’s a tad wrong. But it’s not the crime our shame tells us it is.
We were the victim of vile and vicious behaviour from someone we loved and trusted. We couldn't handle it with wisdom and patience, grace and good manners. Of the two sets of behaviours, the lying, cheating, stealing and slandering are the worst by a long shot.
Stop any post-separation maladaptive behaviours and forgive yourself for throwing the second punch!
ENDNOTE:
In any case, if you are thinking you might have a character disorder, that is already strong evidence that you haven’t. A malignant narcissist or psychopath believes they are perfect (superior), disguises this belief under a mask of humility, and gives himself permission to treat women (and other lesser beings) as objects that supply his ego and public image. He never questions his righteousness, and if challenged, will never admit to any wrongdoing – either to others or to himself.
The narcissistic aftermath might also include the healthy survivor responses of guilt, regret, remorse and contrition:
Guilt being the honest acknowledgement of our own wrongdoing.
Regret being the feeling of sadness that a goal, ambition or solemn vow wasn't fulfilled.
Remorse being forceful pangs of guilt for having hurt others.
Contrition being a genuine undertaking not to make the same mistake again and adjust behaviour so as to ensure that we don’t.
(Shame being the oft unhealthy and unrealistic belief that we are a bad person because we did a bad thing - a different story).
Dark Triad types are incapable of any of this. The character disordered narcopath is shameless, guiltless, remorseless and without regret (unless they are exposed), and continue to believe they are essentially a 'good person' despite all evidence to the contrary. A psychopath is without conscience.
©Margot MacCallum
BOOKS ON HEALING FROM PSYCHOLOGICAL AND EMOTIONAL ABUSE
Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse, Shannon Thomas, MAST Publishing House, 2016
Psychopath Free (Expanded Edition): Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People, Jackson Mackenzie, Berkley, 2015
