If your eyebrows are raised at the prospect of a day dedicated to narcissistic awareness, I am sure you are not alone. If you are thinking I don’t have time for this nonsense. I have some sympathy. In fact until I woke up to a few things, I would have been among the first to scoff. This is not surprising as it would seem most narcissistic abusers have perfected the art of presenting the world with one face, whilst showing a completely different one to the targets of their abuse.
Who The Hell Are You – Madison Avenue
To the world they are often ultra obliging, the person who can always be counted upon to step up when there is a need. Their target sees a completely different side-subtle and not so-subtle digs , put downs and overt abuse can leave them totally shell-shocked. The victim feels doubly abused, not only are they enduring the cruelty of the narcissistic person, they are constantly listening to comments from others about the kindnesss, helpfulness etc of their abuser.
If a person appears to be an island of sanity in a sea of damaged people, things may not be all they appear. Of course there are some wonderful people who genuinely do seem to be surrounded by chaos not of their own making but occasionally it might be worth asking yourself what (or who)s the common factor in the lives of all these struggling people in a problematic situation?
Here Clive Boddy illustrates this concept in a corporate context.
I disagree in that it is my experience most of these characters do not do things as obvious as yelling. It is the victims who frequently end up yelling and then being depicted as the crazy one, A good example is somebody who surreptitiously moves things around and then accuses you of being disorganised or forgetful!
Ostracism
Another bullying tactic at work is ostracism. My ex frequently complained of feeling ostracised at his last job(The job which I had begged him to leave,) He complained for example that others would be loaned equipment etc and he had felt he was not getting a fair share of the pie. However the whole time I have known him he has nearly always complained of being overlooked at work and his former work had eventually dealt with a tree which was dangerous in our garden. I have a photo of a huge tree limb which had come down in our garden right in the spot where we had used to place the children’s paddling pool!
(I am used to being ostracised, I have usually just moved on. My son was devastated by being ostracised as was one of the other boys from their class, I was once told by a counsellor that it was unusual that I was unusual for being unbuffered for being ignored, I just have a higher 💩 threshold than most but even I eventually blow.
She had told me of a study where they had three plants, One they spoke kindly to, one they berated and one they had ignored. The one they had ignored had been the most adversely affected. All teachers have children we miss, especially when we are dealing with a group of high-conflict individuals and have a large class but my daughter had been totally overlooked by her last teacher at her previous school despite often achieving more in favour of another girl!
See Also:
https://familytreeourstory.com/2022/08/04/anti-british-racism/
https://familytreeourstory.com/2023/03/24/the-perils-of-gum-trees/
Conclusions
That is perhaps the concept at the core of Narcissistic Abuse Awareness Day, encouraging people to take a second look at the people and situations in their lives and questioning some of their assumptions.
For further information on World Narcissistic Abuse Awareness Day.
Deliberate Narcissistic Abuse is the worst thing you can do to somebody and will be taken extremely seriously.
You must be logged in to post a comment.