Projection

by Kathy Krajco

Projection is a new name for an old thing, scapegoating. In this section I just explain it in general terms, with examples. In the next section, we zero-in on how narcissists project and what is unique about the way they do it.

Projection. We find it everywhere. Which should be no surprise. It's actually the oldest trick in The Book. Really. The Serpent pulled it on Eve in the Book of Genesis when, in the very act of lying to Eve, he accused God of being the liar.

Here's how the story goes. The serpent had just suggested that Eve eat the Forbidden Fruit, and she replied that God told them not to because eating it would bring about their fall. The cunning serpent said, "God told you THAT?"

Slick, eh? In the very act of telling a whopper, the sneaky snake left-handedly called God a liar, through the power of suggestion. Thus the Prince of Lies pulled an identity-switch with God.


Moses ritualized a demonstration of projection in the Book of Leviticus as the prescribed rite for the annual Day of Atonement.

In this "atonement" ritual, all the people had to come forward, one by one, and make the scapegoat (a perfect yearling firstborn male to represent someone unblemished and with great potential) take their sins away from them and onto himself. How did they do this? By accusing him of their sins and laying the blame on his head. Then they had to purge themselves of him and make him atone for their sins. How did they do that? By chasing him away into the desert until he gave up trying to follow them back home, and then deserting him there. Which was the sentence worse than death = doom, because he would slowly die of thirst.

One hardly thinks they enjoyed doing this. Would you?

Wouldn't you instead get Moses' message? More powerful than a sermon, eh? Wouldn't you hang your head a little, thinking, "Jeez, are we that transparent?"

But never underestimate willful obtuseness' power to get things exactly backwards. Soon, people had done just that. Instead of being duly shamed by this ritual reenactment of how they "cleansed" and "saved" themselves (from justice) by scapegoating those who have the most to lose and are the least deserving, they decided that this ritual meant that this despicable behavior is the right thing to do! the way to cleanse yourself of sin!

How convenient.

They didn't get it later, either, when John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth came along and said: "Read our lips: To cleanse yourselves of your sins, don't punish an innocent scapegoat for them! Just R-E-F-O-R-M. Too complex?"

People still managed to just anti-get the message yet again, deciding that this meant they should graduate from animals and sacrifice these two men as the scapegoats to die for/of (in scripture you have this double entente, because the word used can mean either for or of) their sins.

So, then St. Paul gave it a shot. He really tried to make people see that they'd better quit acting stupid and projecting, instead of repenting, their sins. In his letter to the Romans, he basically put it in the plainest terms possible — those of a threat that asked, "Just whom do you think you're fooling?"

You — who steal — preach that other people should stop stealing. You — who commit adultery — preach that others should stop committing adultery. You — who commit sacrilege — preach that others should stop being idolaters. — Letter to the Romans, Chapter 2, verses 21-22
How's that for letting the self-righteous know that you know all their finger pointing is just projection/scapegoating?

Ah, but obtuseness is invincible, and twisted thinking can make black white. So, again this simple message went in one ear and out the other. All three peoples of that Book (Jews, Christians, and Muslims) still got it exactly backwards. They all say that the blood of the innocent victim on them "cleanses" them of their sins.

Projection. We see it everywhere. It's a kind of baptism = a mud bath people give their betters, by rubbing themselves off on them. Here's how it works.

Got a guilty conscience? If so, you've certainly been tempted to say to yourself, "I'm not so bad." To prove that, you must look around for an example of someone who's worse. Then you can say to yourself, "Aha! I'm not as bad as So-and-So."

But guess what? You didn't pick a So-and-So who really has that fault and has it worse than you. You picked someone with very little mud on his name, someone who looks cleaner than you, if possible, someone who has the corresponding virtue instead of that fault.

We're all tempted to pull this stunt. Some of us do, and some of us don't.

For example: If you're stingy, look for someone with a reputation for generosity, because generosity in your neighbor puts your stinginess to shame by serving as a foil that (by contrast) makes your stinginess more noticeable. Then smear your vice off on him. Tell everybody that he's stingy. Make everything he does sound stingy.

Thus you kill two birds with one stone: you rid yourself of your stinginess and him of his generosity.

Not. But looks are everything, and Truth doesn't matter, and this fraud makes you look good by comparison with him. Ah, cheating is much easier than freeing yourself of sin the legitimate way, by repentance.

You can see why narcissists highly prize this device called "projection" and become expert in it.

Projection. We see it everywhere. For example, guess who's favorite portrayal of the President of the United States is as "a Hitler" or "even worse than Hitler?" You guessed it, the Germans. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder did it in campaign speeches to turn the tide and get elected. And guess whose favorite and constant characterization of Americans is as "arrogant?" You guessed it, the French. Projection.

Once you catch on to projection, you do recognize it in a vast amount of the badmouthing you hear.

Magicians call this trick "misdirection." With one hand magicians misdirect our attention so we don't see what they're doing with their other hand.

Finger-pointers do the same thing. They direct people's attention (critical attention, negative attention) away from themselves and what they're doing by accusing someone else of doing the same, or essentially the same, thing. Thus they make themselves seem like people who never would dream of doing such a thing themselves — while in the very act of doing it.

Pointing the finger at others is a red flag of malignant narcissism.

The worst examples of this that I personally know of happened in schools. In one case, a teacher (a malignant narcissist in a private school) took indecent liberties with, and sexually abused, pubescent boys he lured into his home while his wife was at work on the night shift. It was later discovered that many people knew that he invited boys to his home on Friday nights. But nobody had seen anything wrong with that. Over time, many school employees had caught him in his classroom alone with a boy — behind a closed, sometimes locked, door and in the back where neither could be seen from hall. Nobody had seen anything suspicious in that. Many people knew this teacher had an explosive temper that he often had to make excuses to a berated student for, but nobody had seen anything abnormal in that. In fact nobody saw anything inappropriate in the inappropriately patronizing and intimate relationship he had with his students. Even when it came between them and their parents.

And nobody thought anything of it when, every few years, he seized any opening in a conversation to pop off with "What? Are you the only one around here who doesn't know? He likes boys," referring to some unmarried teacher. One unmarried teacher after another.

Thus he play-acted the part of his anti-type, a man who was abhorred by homosexual child abuse = certainly NOT the type who might do such a thing himself. Though people saw plenty to view with suspicion in that unmarried teacher, nobody saw anything suspicious in the accuser failing to cite any evidence or report these allegations he was so sure of.

They didn't even see anything suspicious in the accuser glomping onto that unmarried teacher to become his best friend. Even when his doing this became a glaring pattern.

Indeed, every single unmarried teacher who came to that school got assassinated by this, his best friend. And nobody thought anything of it! Satan polished his halo by being a pillar of his parish, a lector and lay communion distributor. And he got away with this for over fifteen years.

A serial killer is less cruel. He doesn't betray a sacred trust by doing it to people who have every good reason to trust him. And even if he tortures them, he doesn't doom his victims to a life-sentence of torture in Hell.

Notice that the "innocent" people he fooled ain't innocent. They committed the Original Sin, believing an obvious lie just because it was juicy. Like Eve.


To wit: It flew in the face of reason for her to think God might be lying. He was her creator. He provided everything for her and Adam. Which means that he had proved he wanted what was good them. He denied them but one thing, telling them that it was for their own good. So, what was she thinking? She had every good reason to believe that he was telling the truth.


Moreover, what credibility is there in a stranger who slithers up to you like a sidewinder? Why not doubt the serpent — someone she had no reason to trust?


Bottom Line: God has high credibility; serpent has about zero credibility. So, Eve wasn't honestly fooled: she just liked serpent's version of the world better, because it made her able to be as God. Adam's reason for swallowing the lie was even worse: he just did it to agree with Eve.


In other words, to please her he prostituted his mind to her. And thus political correctness was born.


Narcissists and political character assassins are dangerous precisely because people do this. If, say, you have known someone for 10 years, you know a lot about him. Doubtless, you have seen his honesty tested and seen that he proved to be an honest man. So, nobody should be able to slither up to you tomorrow and tell you he's dishonest. If you buy that, you are betraying that honest man. To believe that lie, you must annihilate history and 10 years of evidence to the contrary. You are not innocent.
Here's an example of the finger-pointer being guilty of the moral equivalent: Mr. Self-Righteous union-busts to keep the workers in his shoe factory so poor they go barefoot — and shows moral indignation in loudly condemning his neighbor for "muzzling an ox trampling the grain." He gets all fuzzy looking if you try to explain to him that he's doing the same thing, only worse. That's because he views rules, not as guidelines to be followed, but rather as red lines to catch other people with one toe over so he can condemn them. So he ignores the spirit of the law and obsesses over the letter of it.

Here's another example of projection that camouflages guilt for the moral equivalent. It also shows that even religious institutions are guilty of projection to polish their image.

The Catholic Church points the finger at mothers who have abortions, saying, "What kind of mother does that?" Okay, that position on the issue is reasonable, and it is the type of thing religion is expected to express its opinion on. But why does the Church harp on abortion when it has so little to say about countless other issues?

What issues? Well, for example, why don't we hear the Church crying out against Catholic dictators who mass-murder and torture their own people? You never hear a peep out of Rome about that. Why does the Church declare women who have abortions excommunicated but not these Catholic dictators? Why didn't it condemn the Irish Catholics in the IRA murdering Protestants? Why doesn't it cry out against the Catholic Mafia? Why doesn't it stop taking money from gangsters and burying them as Catholics in good standing? Why don't we hear the Church crying out against the scourge of child-beating and wife-beating, anti-Semitism and other bigotry, drugs, sweat shops, union-busting, exploiting undocumented migrant workers, and so forth? Why don't we hear it preaching against slander and character assassination? Why is it obsessed instead with just gays and women who have abortions?

The answer is obvious. The Church points the finger at others only for "sins" of which IT is guilty. This deflects attention for those sins off itself and onto others. Damage repair for the Church's image. Not to mention misdirection like that of the teacher in the example above.

The Church goes to great lengths to portray an image of itself as our "holy mother," virtually fusing its image with that of Jesus' mother. The harping on abortion is just part of that act. All this holy motherhood posturing tends to make us forget what Holy Mother Church has done to her own children.

Recall how truculently she has waded through her children by the tens of thousands throughout history. She aborted the lives of countless of her children — throughout the 900 years of the episcopal and monastic inquisitions and now by allowing predatory priests and other religious to sexually prey on countless more of her children. She has stonewalled justice, intimidated victims who seek it, and protected criminals — spiriting them off to Rome or to a distant school or parish for a fresh set of unsuspecting prey.

And to be fair, the Catholic Church certainly isn't the only religious institution guilty of using the pointed finger for misdirection to get our attention off its own sins and act like the opposite of what its conduct makes it. In fact, it does at least have something officially on record against many other evils: religious preachers of other denominations don't even seem to know that the other great evils exist.

Paul was in line with the ancient Hebrew scriptures. Scripture has a name for the spirit in which people point the finger at someone crying, "Look what they're doing! It's evil!" The name of that spirit is satan, which means the "finger-pointer," the "name-slayer" (slanderer, character assassin), the "prosecutor/persecutor," or the "accuser." In some places (e.g., the Book of Job) they also call this spirit "the policer of the world."

So, projection is everywhere.

The worst thing about it is that mud sticks best to a clean spot.

I'm sure that people who do this think they're clever, but it's childsplay. Send a muddy child into an unsupervised schoolyard and wait to see what happens. He will rub himself off on every cleaner, smaller child he can find, until they are all crying and he looks good by comparison.

Looks good by comparison. Those are the all-important words. The hypocrite makes himself look good by comparison with others. He does that the easy way — by smearing himself off on others to make them look bad. This is the root of envy. Which is NOT a rare motive for what people say about others. It's an all-too-common motive.

The Controller Part 2 - When Love Is A Four Letter Word.

By Roger Melton MD

Love is a two-way street when two people know how to give it and receive it. But to Controllers, it's a dead-end freeway.

Love, to them, is simply a means to an end. It is a vulnerability to be exploited. Obedience equals love in their minds, and each type of Controller seeks to achieve his version of "love" in a way tailored to his style of control. The Sadist's version of "loving" control is as distinct as a tarantula crawling across an angel-food cake. Love, to him, is the terror in his victim's eyes.

To the Sociopath, love is the thrill he gets when you've finally taken his bait, he's yanked on the line and the hook is buried deep in your heart. Love, to him, is the look of stunned bewilderment and dread your eyes reveal when you realize it's too late to run.

To the Borderline, love walks between the blades of an emotionally double-edged razor, which swings and slices between emotion-soaked heavens and hells. "Love," to the Borderline male, often ends in the cemetery. Almost half of all batterers and stalkers are Borderline.

If someone with a Borderline Personality Disorder attempts to draw you into a relationship, there is a very simple, concrete way to know it. Pay attention to your stomach. Even though he may initially seem sweet, attentive and empathic, you will likely perceive a subtle tightening in the pit of your abdomen, like a small rock you've suddenly noticed in your shoe-barely noticeable, but there.

Listen to that rock, because it is the voice of instinct, and it's trying to tell you something. Listen to your fear and start scanning for an incoming missile. The Borderline is often a tough target to initially confirm, but close attention to his attitudes and behaviors and an emotional position of calm neutrality can help you confirm his threat-potential. And if Borderline is confirmed, get out of there before it's too late.

But if too late has happened, and you are already involved with a Borderline Controller, you have experienced far more than the pinch of a small stone in your gut. You've been engulfed in an insane, hyper-emotional ride where spewing sheets of scalding lava alternate with warm, soothing baths of emotional saccharine. Life itself will have become a series of whipsawing emotional extremes, between his clinging adoration and hateful spite. The hallmark of this pattern is that "just when things seem to be going well," and he is treating you best, he suddenly turns into a perverse version of Air Jordan and you're the ball. Slam-dunked would be a mild way of describing the receiving end of this intensely emotional pounding.

He was just treating you like a goddess. He was being so sweet and attentive. Maybe he was even telling you how wonderful you are. Then, in the sudden twinkling of a diabolical eye, he's treating you like you've become a "bitch-on-wheels." And you don't know why.

He accuses you of everything from insincerity to infidelity, and your mind scrambles to discover what you just said or did that's setting him off. He keeps saying it's you, and is so intensely convinced that it is you that it's hard not to believe him. Later, after his firestorm of vindictiveness has died down, you might realize what triggered him. You did not respond "right" to his compliments, or scratched your nose in the midst of his adoration, or maybe you just burnt the toast that morning or were two-minutes late coming home from the office. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. There will always be something - apparently innocuous to you - which will abruptly stoke his raging fire again. And again and again, round and around, until your spirit and soul are finally ground into fine, despondent grains of charred debris, and your mind eventually looks like a Tokyo china-shop after a 9.0 earthquake.

Maybe he never physically beats you. Or maybe he does. Or maybe he never will. But you never know. He is stunningly impulsive and unpredictable. But he always assaults you emotionally, ripping into every fiber of your being with verbal vindictive, threats and accusations. Being keel-hauled over a coral reef is a cake-walk, compared to a Borderline's torment.

The only thing predictable about such a Controller is his extreme unpredictability. It is only after you become intimately snared into him that you discover the soul-grinder that lies waiting to strike. Until then, you may even find him amazingly attentive, sensitive and empathic to your every need. He can initially appear to be completely non-threatening. That is why it is critical to learn how to identify this type of individual, because there is a high probability that brutally sociopathic or sadistic-type personality disorders may hide behind his appealing camouflage of muted sensitivity. When borderline, sociopathic and sadistic disorders combine with a narcissistic disorder, a particularly deceptive and dangerous Molotov cocktail of character pathology results. Iraq's Saddam Hussein appears to totally manifest just such a combination. And there are many minor Saddam's already prowling the streets, workplaces, bedrooms and boardrooms of America.

A Borderline Personality Disorder is a master at transforming other's sympathy into pity. In terms of being vulnerable to borderline-manipulation, anyone that is capable of compassion, protectiveness or love can be easily deceived by a Borderline. If one of these extraordinarily deceptive individuals attaches himself to you, and you are particularly prone to confuse pity with love, then you might as well go skin-diving with ether in your scuba-tanks instead of oxygen. A relationship with a Borderline can be like swimming along a stunningly gorgeous coral reef, surrounded by a school of smiling piranha. The scenery may look divine, but you may be dinner.

Early detection of borderline characteristics can be very difficult. Clinical experts on this personality disorder commonly advise interns and colleagues to avoid treating more than one or two of these types, because treatment can become intensely confusing, persistently crisis-oriented and volatile. I know of several former clinicians that left successful practices because they could not learn to identify and deal with borderline patients. It was not that individuals who solely possess this type of personality disorder are necessarily physically violent, but they are geniuses at generating emotional and psychological chaos in people who get too close to them. The frenzied emotional-madness that characteristically runs riot inside of these individuals has an uncanny way of getting inside of those nearest to them.

Over a century ago, psychiatrists discovered this phenomenon and labeled it a folie deux, or "folly of two." It was observed that spouses often took on the symptoms of their psychotic partners. When the psychotic partner was removed from the home and hospitalized, his spouse's symptoms vanished within two weeks. The same phenomenon often occurs today when someone is in a relationship with a Borderline Personality Disorder. It is like becoming infected with emotional-malaria. One moment you're burning with fever. In the next instant your teeth chatter like chilled jackhammers. But if you learn the subtle, early clues to recognizing a potential Borderline, you can avoid your own trip to the sanitarium.

Particularly sensitive and adept therapists often describe a typically paradoxical reaction, commonly experienced by most people when first meeting someone who is Borderline. While feeling gently or tenderly drawn toward him, there is simultaneously an almost inconspicuous sensation of a vague knot in the pit of the stomach, as mentioned earlier. A more general description might be that a person feels that he or she too quickly likes someone and feels a faint sense of unease or dread toward him at the same time.

If you experience such mixed sensations when first meeting anyone, ask yourself why you simultaneously liked him so quickly and felt uncomfortable. If it's difficult to answer either question, put your radar system on high alert and scan closely the next time you meet him. If he is Borderline and has locked onto your sympathetic nature, that next encounter may not be too far away.

Without the presence of other personality disorders, someone who is Borderline tends to rapidly move toward developing a dependent relationship with those who show them interest and sympathy. An early sign of this dependency can be recognized by a rapid increase in contact, initiated by the Borderline, and a sense that such an individual has an uncanny ability to read you better than a blind man reads Braille.

Even though you can develop a very sophisticated form of personality-detection radar, it will never be as subtle or fine-tuned as a Borderline's. They have what seem like high-grade, instinctually built-in personality detection systems, comparable to extremely sophisticated phased-array radar systems used in the military for detecting high-speed, small ballistic projectiles, like the cruise missiles used to attack Iraq during the Gulf War.

This system appears to be purely instinctual in Borderlines, because they do not seem conscious of its presence or the information it gives to them, even when this ability is pointed out to them. Generally, this eerily unconscious quality seems to pervade everything about them. In a very basic sense, they do not know who they are. This is one of the most unnerving aspects about them for people who get too close.

If you ask a normal person on January 1st to describe themselves, he or she can give a fairly detailed description of what they think, feel and believe about the things that are important to them in life. Ask the same question, six months or a year later, and you will get almost the same answers. But if you ask a Borderline that question at noon today, the answer may be completely different by dusk, and will possess an indistinct, blurry quality, as if someone is drawing a picture of himself in mud. Or, depending on whom they are with, they may give two completely different pictures of themselves to two different people, ten minutes apart.

In mental hospitals, these are the patients who generate intense conflicts between staff members, unless those members understand what they are dealing with. One psychiatrist diagnoses him as schizophrenic, another labels him manic-depressive and a third believes he is a hypochondriac. A family therapist thinks he just has a "boundary problem," a psychiatric nurse thinks he's only neurotic, the vocational rehabilitation counselor admires his creative potential and a psychiatric aide thinks he's full of shit. The only people who know his true identity are the other patients. To them he is the master chameleon who can change his psychological appearance on a dime. He is the fox who fools the hunters. But who'll listen to them? They're not "professionally licensed."

What can be especially disturbing to others about this chameleon-like "change-ability" is that Borderlines are oblivious to what they are doing. They are not consciously making-up these different identity versions of themselves. They just do it reflexively, as if they run on some instinctually eerie automatic-pilot.

Many psychological theories exist to explain this eerie process in a Borderline - from theories on "object relations" to "dissociation." But staying around a borderline Controller long enough to discover the cause of his strange attitudes and behaviors increases the probability of becoming his victim. Hesitation allows time for him to develop an attachment. And attachment can prove deadly, especially if a borderline disorder combines with another of the personality disorders prone to physical violence. Even if you only become involved with a solely borderline Controller, though, be prepared for a nightmare journey. You're in for an emotionally blistering E-Ticket ride in Relationship Jurassic Park.

Regardless of how a Controller with a Borderline Personality Disorder can alter and tailor his appearance to deceive others, he still presents with a clear and characteristic personality pattern. This pattern usually emerges in three stages or roles: Vulnerable Seducer, Clinger and Hater. These stages cycle and often swing wildly from one role to the next, but through drawing a picture of how these stages appear, a basic portrait can be loaded into your developing Controller-detection-system.

At first, a Borderline male may appear shy, vulnerable or "ambivalently in need of care." This is the first clue: beware of men who feel like lost puppies. If you experience an urge to take him home and feed him, don't- especially if you are in an emotionally needy state. But if you can't stop yourself, then avoid a future feeding frenzy on your soul by making a careful scan for the following reactions and characteristics as you enter this spirit-eater's lair.

In the beginning, you will feel a rapidly accelerating sense of compassion for whatever painful plight he has gotten himself into, because he is a master at portraying himself as the "victim of circumstance." But listen closely to how he sees himself as a victim. As his peculiar emotional invasion advances upon you, you will hear how no one understands him - except you. Other people have always left him because of their "insensitivity." He is always being betrayed, just when he starts trusting people. But there is something "special" about you, because "you really know me."

It is this intense way he has of bearing down on you emotionally that can feel very seductive. You will feel elevated, adored - almost worshiped. And you will feel that way quickly. It may seem like a great deal has happened between the two of you in a short period of time, because every conversation is so intense, and his attention is so focused on you. But if you're paying attention, you will feel his adoration by the third date, or sooner. Initially, it feels like an invisible army of sweet, chocolate ants is subtly infiltrating you. But the invasion may be hard to notice because it feels good, just as the Trojans must have felt good when they towed the Trojan Horse into their city, only to discover it filled with Greek Berserkers bent on destruction and conquest. Heed the warning that Cassandra gave to Troy's King Priam; "Fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts." But it's difficult to say no to a gift from the gods, especially if you have already tapped one too many dry relationship-wells.

Here is a man who may look like a dream come true. He not only seems to make you the center of his attention, but he even craves listening to your opinions, thoughts and ideas. If you have never experienced a man treating you like this before, it can seem like you have really found your heart's desire. But like anything that seems too good to be true, it usually is. While you may think you're about to enjoy the tasty pleasures of a Mr. Goodbar, Mr. Goodbar is about to take more than a taste out of you. And borderline men emotionally eat their women whole.

Once he has successfully candied his hook with adoration, he will weld it into place by reeling in your attention and concern. His intense interest in you subtly transforms. He still appears to be interested in you, but no longer in what you are interested in. His interest becomes your exclusive interest in him. This is when things begin to feel "uncomfortable." Your thoughts, feelings and ideas fascinate him, but only when they focus on his problems. You can tell when this happens because you can feel him "perk-up" emotionally whenever your attention focuses upon his feelings and conflicts. Those moments can emotionally hook your compassion more deeply into him, because that is when he will treat you well - even tenderly. That's why, if you confuse pity with love, you'll believe you're in love with him. Especially if your maternal instinct is strong and rescuing is at the heart of your "motherly code." Following that code results in the most common excuse I hear as a therapist, as to why many women stay with borderline men, ".... But I love him!" Adult love is built on mutual interest, care and respect - not on one-way rescues. And mothering is for kids. Not grown men.

But, if like King Priam, you do fall prey to this Trojan Horse and let him inside your city gates, the first Berserker to leave the horse will be the devious Clinger. A master at strengthening his control through pity, he is brilliant at eliciting sympathy and identifying those most likely to provide it-like the steady-tempered and tenderhearted.

The world ails him. Physical complaints are common. His back hurts. His head aches. Peculiar pains of all sorts come and go like invisible, malignant companions. If you track their appearance, though, you may see a pattern of occurrence connected to the waning or waxing of your attentions. His complaints are ways of saying, "don't leave me. Save me!" And his maladies are not simply physical. His feelings ail him too.

He is depressed or anxious, detached and indifferent or vulnerable and hypersensitive. He can swing from elated agitation to mournful gloom at the blink of an eye. Watching the erratic changes in his moods is like tracking the needle on a Richter-scale chart at the site of an active volcano, and you never know which flick of the needle will predict the big explosion.

But after every emotional Vesuvius he pleads for your mercy. And if he has imbedded his guilt-hooks deep enough into your conscientious nature, you will stay around and continue tracking this volcanic earthquake, caught in the illusion that you can discover how to stop Vesuvius before he blows again. But, in reality, staying around this cauldron of emotional unpredictability is pointless. Every effort to understand or help this type of man is an excruciatingly pointless exercise in emotional rescue.

It is like you are a Coast Guard cutter and he is a drowning man. But he drowns in a peculiar way. Every time you pull him out of the turbulent sea, feed him warm tea and biscuits, wrap him in a comfy blanket and tell him everything is okay, he suddenly jumps overboard and starts pleading for help again. And no matter how many times you rush to the emotional - rescue, he still keeps jumping back into trouble. It is this repeating, endlessly frustrating pattern which should confirm to you that you are involved with a Borderline Personality Disorder. No matter how effective you are at helping him, nothing is ever enough. No physical, financial or emotional assistance ever seems to make any lasting difference. It's like pouring the best of your self into a galactic-sized Psychological Black Hole of bottomless emotional hunger. And if you keep pouring it in long enough, one-day you'll fall right down that hole yourself. There will be nothing left of you but your own shadow, just as it falls through his predatory "event horizon." But before that happens, other signs will reveal his true colors.

Sex will be like a rocket ride on the Oblivion Express. Anyone who can be so instinctually tuned in to reading your needs and manipulating them can also pinpoint your g-spot with the fine-tuned skill of a Swiss jeweler cleaving a diamond. It will seem wonderful - for a while.

The intensity of his erotic passion can sweep you away like a strange destiny on the blue sea of august, but his motive for lusting upon you is double-edged. One side of it comes from the instinctually built-in, turbulent emotionality of his disorder. Intensity is his trump-card. But the other side of him is driven by an equally concentrated need to control you. The sexual pyrotechnics, while imposing, are motivated from a desire to dominate you, not please you. And, after a while, too much of a good thing might actually be too much, to the point where you feel like buying an arc-welding kit and forging your own cast-iron chastity belt. Or perhaps his erotic intensity will be there in a more cunning way. A borderline-sociopathic patient once described this "way," as if he had just invented the light bulb. Little did he know that thousands of erotic Edisons had already preceded him.

Shortly after he had seduced and married his third wife, a Controller named "Tom" developed a calculating and classically "I hate you-I love you" borderline way of sexually controlling his woman. Since he knew that the marked conscientiousness of his wife's character made her particularly loyal, he was certain his method of erotic control would work because, no matter how much she desired sex, she would never seek it with someone else. This was the key to his method, and his way of making her feel simultaneously responsible and guilty for her own desires and his cunning manipulation of them.

Knowing that he had control of her loyalty, he would "work" her sexual longing by timing its gratification. He would do this by turning her on, then losing interest by feigning "a tough day at the office," "a sore back," or some other pretext. All the while, his borderline instinct for reading her level of sexual frustration watched and waited, until he could tell that she was in a state of carnal gridlock. Then he released the laser intensity of his loin-lions upon her now fever-pitched libido and gratified her to the nth-degree.

To increase the agonizing effect of this cycle upon her, he added two more factors of frustration. He initiated the first by catching her while she secretly masturbated. And when he caught her, he always feigned outraged and agonized sexual betrayal. This ratcheted up her sense of guilt even further. Then - just to twist that ratchet one last click - he dropped using excuses like tough days at the office and sore backs for one that was a psychological coup de trompe' of controller manipulation. He started accusing her of sexually abusing him!

He had completely succeeded in deceiving her into believing that she was manipulating poor, erotically-exhausted him. And he had gotten her to cling to him! Once a Borderline Controller has succeeded in this kind of sexual "trick," or in other less genital manipulations, the Hater appears. This hateful part of him may have emerged before, but you probably will not see it in full, acidic bloom until he feels he has achieved a firm hold on your conscience and compassion. But when that part makes it's first appearance, rage is how it breaks into your life.

What gives this rage its characteristically borderline flavor is that it is very difficult for someone witnessing it to know what triggered it in reality. But that is its primary identifying clue: the actual rage-trigger is difficult for you to see. But in the Borderline's mind it always seems to be very clear. To him, there is always a cause. And the cause is always you. Whether it is the tone of your voice, how you think, how you feel, dress, move or breathe - or "the way you're looking at me," - he will always justify his rage by blaming you for "having to hurt you."

Rage reactions are also unpredictable and unexpected. They happen when you least expect it. And they can become extremely dangerous.

If a Controller is solely Borderline, his rages may remain verbal. You might be ducking a lot of dishes, glasses and other breakables, or the occasional airborne frying pan or flying cutlery set. But do not deceive yourself into believing that he is not directly aiming any of these missiles at you. Sooner or later one of them will "just happen" to hit you-or the kids, the cat or dog. And his excuse will be, "It was an accident," or "I didn't mean to hit you," or the ever-classic "Why didn't you duck?" - Not, "Why do I act so insane?"

With a Borderline, there is also the danger that one of these rages will precipitate or be precipitated by a temporary or long-lasting psychotic break. If this happens, a scattered state of rage may instantly become a precisely aimed attack, with you fixed in the cross-hairs.

If you sense any explosion coming, or one has already begun, leave. Do not try to "reason" him out of it. Immediately grab the kids, cats and dogs and get out now. Don't worry about what the neighbors or anyone else will think if he chases you outside. "Witness statements" to the police can help if you need to file a restraining order.

While there is never a guarantee that a solely borderline Controller will become physically violent or not, they will always become verbally, emotionally and psychologically abusive. Just keep one simple fact always in mind, regardless of whether a Controller is borderline, narcissistic, sociopathic or sadistic: Whenever any of them are criticizing characteristics in you, they are making autobiographical statements about themselves.

Blame is their way of unloading their character defects onto you. Listen closely to the hateful things they say to you about you. You are listening to verbatim descriptions of their character defects. This is extremely important to remember, especially in the midst of verbal attack. These are the only moments when you will hear the truth about the man who lies concealed behind the steel wall of his personality disorder. But never point that fact out to him. If you do, it may be the last time you see him alive. But not because you're still around to know he's not dead.

The Cycle of Abuse

In my own little slice of the world, this is what I have observed and learned from other victims: there is a cycle of abuse that does manipulate the victim into behaving in ways that seem strange to outside observers — as if they are "asking for it."

And since people love to blame the victim (it's a kind of "whistling in the dark" to assure themselves that no abuser will ever sic on a strong person like themselves), they leap to the conclusion that this is so, that the victim is "asking for it." But in the cases I know of, it never was.

In fact, this behavior is the reaction of normal people to abuse. Many perfectly normal people get trapped in the cycle of abuse. The victims of narcissists behave exactly the way the victims of all torture and brainwashing do, exactly the way all hostages do.

We see it in the Stockholm Syndrome, named from an incident in which hostages took the side of their captors and clung to them! All hostages exhibit symptoms of the Stockholm syndrome. Since the Middle Ages, inquisitors and torturers (executioners) have known and capitalized on this bizarre phenomenon in the hapless victims at their mercy. All the tortured cling to the torturer for dear life. Who else can they appeal to? Before you know it, the victim is offering him- or her-self to abuse in an effort to appease the tormentor! Yes!

It's like throwing an attack dog a bone to save your leg = a desperate effort to offer the abuser anything — anything — he wants in hopes of reaching his cold, cold heart.

The Abominable Inquisition understood this phenomenon and deliberately exploited it to break the victim's back with the unbearable shame the victim feels at being reduced to doing such a self-degrading thing. But the KGB proved that you needn't even lay a hand on the victim to reduce him or her to such an abject state of submission. It's famed method of mentally breaking people deliberately accomplished the same thing (in about one month) to establish mind control.

Why do normal people do this under duress? What else can they do? You're taking right-side-up people and putting them in a pervert's upside-down world. You're taking people acting on normal human premises and having those reactions play right into pervert's perverted premises.

The abuser always makes the victim totally dependant on him before he starts abusing. So, what is the victim going to do? She has no choice but to try to soften a stone-cold heart. This is nothing but appeasement. The helpless have no other option.



We see this happening on a massive scale today in the bizarre efforts to appease the Islamofascist mobs and terrorists the world over. "Don't make them mad! Don't think badly of them for what they do. Apologize for making them abuse us by making them mad at us. Blame ourselves for everything they do to us. Bend over for it with a smile. Suck up. Then maybe they will soften and like us and stop abusing us."

Pass me the puke bucket, please.

The West has no excuse for such cowardly appeasement, because the West isn't helpless. The western nations are just unwilling to stop squabbling among themselves, get real, and unite against a common enemy (a problem the West has had since the Fall of the Roman Empire).


But the victims of narcissists often are helpless.

And even when they aren't, when they can and do try to fight back, some holier-than-thou comes along and says it's a sin. Then the whole world gangs up and jumps on the victim's back saying, "Yes, stop it. Stop fighting because that's a sin."

Who has a strong enough backbone to stand up under that? This merciless suppression of any effort at self-defense breaks the victim's back. Then these same holier-than-thous turn around and say, "See? She just takes it. So, she likes it. She's asking for it. She's codependent."

Perhaps they are the ones who need their heads examined, not the victim they thus play Catch-22 with.

How is she to take being "IT" in this game of "being damned if you do and damned if you don't?" How does one wrap a sound mind around it? Is there anything more her spouse and society could gang up and do to drive her crazy? It is no wonder that this universal oppression depresses her.

Then we blame the victim for that too. Because God made women to smile all the time.

It is not natural for a person to take abuse. Our instincts prompt us to fight or flee. By "flee" I mean abandon the abuser, which usually means divorcing him. By "fight" I mean strike back to hurt the abuser so he has some reason not to abuse you again — fear that you will bite back.

But society blocks this common sense in our genes by infesting our brains with a virus — the stupid idea that divorce or fighting back is wrong. Especially when her abuser goes around putting on an Academy Award act of how hurt he is, and all the bystanders buy it to deck themselves out in their nicey-nice act.

Of course he's hurting: the poor big baby doesn't want to lose his combination punching bag and Mamma.

Yes, society is getting involved and on the wrong side. What choice does society leave the victim? She must choose whether to (a) be a bad person or (b) bend over for it.

Every person's most precious possession is her self-concept — the picture of herself she carries inside, the image of herself as a good person. People will do anything to preserve it. They would rather die than lose it or have it taken from them. So, she usually chooses to go against nature and be a good girl = put up with the abuse = keep turning the other cheek.

But it's a Catch-22, for then we say she is a bad person anyway — for thus "asking for it." Now we say she's codependent and has a martyr complex.

But I see no self-masochism in this victim, do you? I just see a normal human being in Catch-22.


What is Catch-22? It's the English translation of the Italian phrase for the 22nd "malbowge" ("evil pouch/pocket") of Nether Hell in Dante's Inferno. That's the lowest pit of hell, the place where the treacherous, the traitors, get to experience their sin on the receiving end. It's where Dante put Judas priests, the likes of people who invite a family to dinner and then lock them in a tower to starve to death, as well as Julius Caesar's "friend" Brutus, and of course Judas Iscariot.


I think it was the prophet Ezekiel who got really sarcastic in rebuking those "from whom there is no peace" for thus pursuing her in this never-ending attack "crying, 'Peace! Peace!'" So, her abuser tramples her and then the bystanders pile on. First by society's taboos against fighting back and then by blaming the victim for docilely submitting to abuse. When everyone gangs up on her like this, how can she not be overwhelmed by that tidal wave? What is she to do?

We know the answer. Instead of curing her by eliminating the cause, oppression, we drug her with Prozac.

And so the cycle of abuse rolls on. Like a steamroller. Over her most precious possession, her concept of herself as a good person.

The victim will feel shame for bending over for it, to the extent that he or she failed to resist as much as possible. So, the victim must never be condemned for fighting back.

But, come on, knuckling under to abuse isn't the same as liking it and wanting it. Normal people may knuckle under. But only sick-in-the-head people could like it and ask for it. So, my hunch is that cases of codependence in narcissism are either rare or never occur.

But by mobbing the victim like everyone around her does:

· jumping on her for fighting back or wanting to leave him

· then jumping on her for just taking the abuse instead

· then jumping on her for being depressed

· jumping on her for complaining

· jumping on her for saying anything about it

· jumping on her for anything that doesn't amount to acting like it ain't happening

· by thus PERSECUTING her...

...the "nice" people around her often do what the narcissist couldn't = break her back. I mean that morally. They demoralize her, making her what they say she is, mentally ill.

For that, their future home is Malbowge 22. (It's very cold there. Very, very cold.)

And so, both the deliberate abuse of her mate and the ambient abuse of the phony bystanders often do mental damage. The resulting mental disorder is described by the Medieval legal and theological term "reduction to a state of victimhood," because it was actually a judicial sentence executed so as to bring it about. It was the ultimate punishment of an age that laid awake nights thinking of ways to make punishments worse.

But remember that a mental disorder is not a personality disorder. In fact, both individuals and society wound us all, and most people suffer from some mental disorder at some time in their lives. For the most part, those who do not make matters worse by abusing their minds with lies, live normal lives. They get over it or manage it on their own. Not so with personality disorders. Since we don't blame veterans for suffering post-traumatic stress, we shouldn't blame the abused for suffering reduction to a state of victimhood.

Source

Witholding - The Psychopath/Narcissist As A Spoiled Brat.

By not giving you what the narcissist knows you want, he can make himself feel important. This is called "With holding" for example: A child can be bored with a toy and about to put it down when he notices that some other child wants it, then he plays "Keep away" by keeping the toy to himself even though he is bored of it or finished playing with it.


If the other child happens to plead for it, he just becomes more and more determined to keep the toy away, clutching it tightly to himself and yelling "NO"








The narcissist is a fully grown person but every bit the three-year-old, and not a sweet one either.


This stunt is a power play too, of course. For example: When someone says "Will you...?" or "Can I..?" the first thing out of his mouth is "You'll have to wait". However long you can wait, the narcissist will make you wait longer or they will often make you beg or grovel for what you want also.


When the narcissist sees your eyes light up on something you want, they look at it and see nothing but a stick to use a leverage on you. God Almighty wants to make you pray to him for it.



Narcissists do this with every aspect of your needs or wants. These can be your sexual needs/wants, money, attention, conversation etc


If a narcissist finds out what you like , he is sure to take it away from you. For Example: You tell the narcissist you love going to the movies, from that point on you notice you never go to the movies together again.


Why does he do this? Because he wants the whole world to revolve around him and his wants and needs. He doesn't give a flying fig about yours.


Many victims of narcissists have told me that the narcissist would ask them what they wanted for a birthday/christmas present and to write out a list, on the special day in question the victim found that absolutely nothing she asked for on the list was chosen. In fact some victims have been given as a gift something the narcissist knew she didn't want.


Sometimes he punishes by withholding what he knows his partner wants most, affection, attention, companionship, children, sex, money, his presence, whatever will cause her the most distress. Sometimes his reaction to criticism or whatever else he is punishing is so extreme that his partner never dares do it again and tiptoes around his delicate ego.


These sadistic acts are his way of punishing them for not being docile, obedient, admiring and adoring as he expects them to be in view of his uniqueness, cosmic significance and special entitlement.


Withholding (the silent treatment), countering (refuting or invalidating the spouse's statements or actions), discounting (putting down her emotions, possessions, experiences, hopes, and fears), sadistic and brutal humor, blocking (avoiding a meaningful exchange, diverting the conversation, changing the subject), blaming and accusing, judging and criticizing, undermining and sabotaging, threatening, name calling, forgetting and denying, ordering around, denial, and abusive anger.


During periods of frustration which are brought about as a result of their needs not being met narcissistic people will certainly make you aware of your inability to meet these needs. Such as with holding or the "silent treatment" , sulking, discussing things they know upset you or behaving in ways they know you find hurtful regardless of whether or not they are related to the frustration he thinks you have "caused"


If their frustration stems from their own inability to meet their wants and needs e.g. not getting a promotion, losing at sport, receiving criticism for work they have done etc. the frustration is usually transferred onto the people they interact with (often their nearest and dearest)


The Narcissist can with hold anything he wishes. Like Gareth Rodger did, he can use the silent treatment, switch his phone off , refuse to talk , then blame shift or project this back onto me and leave me with the guilty feelings.


He wants you to take what he offers and be satisfied with it even if it isn't what you asked for or is inappropriate. In other words: He will give you a gift he knows you hate but expects you to praise and adore him despite this fact.


It all amounts again to ..self, self self with the narcissist.


You can try with holding your (the victim) own attention, physical closeness and gifts, but playing and stooping to the narcissists level just to "teach him a short lived lesson" or "A short lived lesson he will ignore anyway, then punish you for inflicting upon him" is a bad idea.


Or you could try and show no interest in things you really are interested in, you can bet your bottom dollar the narcissist will then give you the things you want, but it's a backwards-ass way of doing things and why should you tolerate it!


Kick the dirty dog to the kerb where he belongs and never look back. The only way to get away from the narcissist is to abandon him.


Parts of this article were taken in part from Kathy Krajco

Accepting The Psychopaths Blame To Preserve The Relationship.

Here’s a theme I think we can relate to: Your partner (a male in this example, strictly for convenience’s sake)—a narcissist, or perhaps sociopath—blames you for his misery, bad moods, bad decisions, frustrations, dissatisfactions, disappointments and underfulfillment.

From his perspective, if he cheats on you—or deceives and betrays you—you will have deserved it, because you will have been responsible for the discontent that necessitated his violating behaviors.



Geez how many times do I remember Gareth saying the following and doing the blame shifting game? so many I lost count


-"I won't ever have a savings accounts living with you"

- "It's your fault if you can't live on £40 a week for 4 people, you don't shop smartly enough"

- "If you loved me you would do this/that"

- "I can't go on any holidays if you do this/that"

- "If you can't do this/that I won't be happy"

- "I thought you wanted me to be happy?"


etc etc



As someone once put it to me:


"First of all, you know this guy is a real sicko. (Gareth) Seriously, he is creepy enough to be in a Halloween movie so you know anything that comes from him is not going to be good. Because of his pathology, he does not think he has done anything wrong. In his mind, he has put all the blame on you and sees your blog and exposure of him as unjust. Just remember, XXXXXX, they are ALL this way. As EOPC reminds us--every last one of them is exactly the same!! So you are not experiencing anything out of the ordinary when it comes to these psychopaths."


I just wish I had realized his pathology at the time of our relationship



Remember he feels entitled to have what he wants; he deserves what he wants, when he wants it; and if he’s frustrated, it must be someone’s fault.

Someone must be blamed, and you, his partner, will be his odds-on choice to own his blame.

It’s amazing how often we accept, against our better instincts, the narcissistic/sociopathic partner’s insistence that we are responsible for his infinite emptiness.

We do so for many reasons, but the one I’d like to stress is this: If we don’t accept this responsibility, his blame, we seriously risk losing the relationship.

Ongoing relationships with abusive, contemptuous partners require just this kind of Faustian contract: To preserve the relationship, however desecrated it is, I will accept your blame. For the sake of not yet losing this relationship, I will continue to entertain, if not own, your constant assertion that there is something in me—something deficient and insufficient—that explains your mistreatment and disrespect of me.

To say it somewhat differently, so long as we’re not yet ready to jettison a destructive relationship, a narrative must be constructed to explain our decision to stay. The narrative, as I suggest, often goes something like this: I am to blame—I —for my partner’s debasing attitudes and behaviors. I must be to blame, otherwise I’d leave.

The narrative is rational, but false. It’s a false narrative (in the back of our minds, we may sense its falseness), but it’s the only narrative under the circumstances that can explain, and seemingly justify, our continued tolerance of our partner’s nonsense.

A couple I spent some time with recently (clinically) illustrated this point well. The husband, Harold, was one of the most transparent narcissistic personalities I’ve ever seen. He’d recently ended an affair with a colleague (justifying the affair as a function of his right to pursue the fulfillment his spouse, Julia, wasn’t supplying).

Interestingly, about eight weeks into their courtship, Harold began offering up undisguised, alarming displays of his narcissism in general and narcissistic rage specifically. Julia was highly disturbed by each of these displays. All left her thinking, “This isn’t right. I should end this thing now, before I get deeper in. He shouldn’t be treating me like this. I shouldn’t be tolerating this.” But while recognizing these alarming warnings, she was already too deeply invested in her vision of the relationship—and Harold—to end it.

A dozen years later, not much has changed. Julia has a beautiful child and, in Harold, a spouse who’s conformed entirely to his early, advanced billing—he is demanding, often hostile and passive-aggressive, easily and constantly disappointed, blaming (of her) for the emptiness that leaves him constantly wanting, and prone to secretiveness.

Julia caters to his moods and demands in order to avoid eliciting the ugliest manifestations of his hostility (whose emergence threatens everpresently to scare and traumatize her).

But it’s no secret how Julia, with her high intelligence and striking emotional maturity, continues to justify her decision to endure what’s been Harold’s 12-year assault on her emotional safety and dignity.

She has owned the blame for his discontent, disappointments, and acting-out.

Just as soon as she’s ready to disown this falsely ascribed (and tacitly accepted) responsibility, she’ll find herself without a reason to accept the conditions of—and indignities associated with—Harold’s personality disorder.

At that point, the leverage will be hers—Harold will either have to shape up (unlikely), or she’ll be genuinely prepared to ship him out.

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