Author Topic: How to be abusive 101  (Read 2143 times)

Guest46

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How to be abusive 101
« on: September 04, 2003, 02:30:11 PM »
How to be abusive, a step by step recipe:

1.If you need to feel better, find someone and demean them. This works great with those closest to you, since they have already been conditioned. You may also be dismissive or insulting at will. If you can put them down while being clever and subtle, it is even better. It keeps them off balance. Push their buttons, you know exactly where they all are. You may even want to "act nice" while you do this. This is particularly effective if completely unprovoked and "out of nowhere." Remember, it's all about You getting what you need!

2. Deny that you did it. You may want to act self-righteous, act as if it is their fault. Tell them that they are too sensitive, or that that is just like them to feel that way. Be outraged that they would accuse you of such a thing after all that you have done for them. Tell them that there is no need for them to ruin your life. Puff up and try to make them feel bad for even questioning you. Pull rank. Play games. Whatever you need to do to keep control of the situation.

3. If this fails, use their own guilt against them.  Fog the issue with their own fear of you that you instilled since the beginning. Make them question thier own judgement, (this will be easy because of all your prior work). Use their sense of obligation or family loyalty. Never, never underestimate the power of Guilt! You will find this to be very useful. You can make an adult question their own thoughts despite a lifetime of evidence to the contrary! It's unbelievable, really, but it works. Most of them have been so brainwashed they can't believe you would do this to them and thus they will allow you to keep doing it. How great is that?!

4. This is the most important step of all - Make them think that they are responsible for your actions!   Take no responsibility whatsover.  This is the key that makes the whole thing work! (Warning - If they really get this, and begin to believe in themselves, you are sunk)

5. Repeat at will - It will always make you feel better and give you what you need! Happy Abusing, and remember - It's all about YOU!!!

PS - The above will not work if they have figured out that you are in fact responsible for your own behaviors. If they begin to understand that you are deliberately using their own sense of fear, guilt, and obligation, they will begin to see the Truth and the above will not work any longer!  Be Forewarned!!

rosencrantz

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How to be abusive 101
« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2003, 02:52:16 PM »
LOL - love it.  My mother was your star pupil, I believe!!  ;-)
"No matter how enmeshed a commander becomes in the elaboration of his own
thoughts, it is sometimes necessary to take the enemy into account" Sir Winston Churchill

Acappella

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how to be abused 101
« Reply #2 on: September 04, 2003, 07:55:56 PM »
hey 46th guest i posted this and your post was part of the inspiration....i wrote this while noticing i was spending too much time reading up on the vast amounts of information about narcissists and not finding as much about the partners of narcissists.  I want to focus on me more and started with the part of me i know best, sadly enough, my reflective self......can you relate? :?: And thank you to

How to be abusive, a step by step recipe:

 :twisted: 1.If you need to feel better, find someone and demean them. This works great with those closest to you, since they have already been conditioned. You may also be dismissive or insulting at will. If you can put them down while being clever and subtle, it is even better. It keeps them off balance. Push their buttons, you know exactly where they all are. You may even want to "act nice" while you do this. This is particularly effective if completely unprovoked and "out of nowhere." Remember, it's all about You getting what you need!


 :( [1]How to be abused, a step by step recipe:
If I need to feel better, someone else better feel need.  I have entered a silent contract to meet the needs of others first, needs that they are entitled to and that they don’t need to express because it is my job to intuit their needs.  I am so insightful!  Did his stomach growl?  I EXIST! I have gotten used to the sound of my own voice as there has not been an answer in so very long that I ceased to require conversation.  I just need a canyon wall to bounce off of.  Unlike the wall I do make a sound and yet it is an endless cycling sound as permanent as the wall unless I STOP and hear my false self: the endless pleading for him to love me, for the wall to resist me so that I don’t have to find a mate to converse with because how could I?  I don’t exist really.  Someone who really exists might notice that I don’t.  And someone who really exists is just an intellectual concept to me, a vague notion.  What I know and am familiar with is co-nonexistence.  [/b]

 :evil: 2. Deny that you did it. You may want to act self-righteous, act as if it is their fault. Tell them that they are too sensitive, or that that is just like them to feel that way. Be outraged that they would accuse you of such a thing after all that you have done for them. Tell them that there is no need for them to ruin your life. Puff up and try to make them feel bad for even questioning you. Pull rank. Play games. Whatever you need to do to keep control of the situation.

 :( 2b. It didn’t really happen.  Did it?  Please tell me so I can be sure.  When you are self righteous I don’t like it and at the same time I marvel at your indifference.  If I could be like you I wouldn’t want to need you to need me.  At least I could fake it better.  I need you to confirm my voicelessness.  I need you to bounce off of.  I am soooo sensitive that I will put my ear to your wall and listen like a human stethoscope to the faint beating of your heart.  That was your heart, a heart I heard right?  I know I am nothing.  You are right about that.  Pull rank please because at least you have one and I will have a place by default.  The sound of my own voice coming back to me depends on your resistance.  You confirm my absence, my selfless self.[/b]

 :evil: 3. If this fails, use their own guilt against them. Fog the issue with their own fear of you that you instilled since the beginning. Make them question thier own judgement, (this will be easy because of all your prior work). Use their sense of obligation or family loyalty. Never, never underestimate the power of Guilt! You will find this to be very useful. You can make an adult question their own thoughts despite a lifetime of evidence to the contrary! It's unbelievable, really, but it works. Most of them have been so brainwashed they can't believe you would do this to them and thus they will allow you to keep doing it. How great is that?!

 :( 3b. If I turn from the wall I feel guilty because the wall needs me.  It must need me.  I am omnipotent in my weakness and without it I am a threat to those who could maybe love me one day.  I can be as weak as anyone needs me to be, I must be weak enough to be loved.  My weakness had to be strong enough to serve my keeper.   Almost at first sight you noticed that fear that I had of you, a fear I had long before I met you.   I fluttered around your indifference like a moth to a flame.  You were so bright and I just wanted to follow you.  And I did and you noticed I had tagged along.  No harm, no fowl.  It worked for us both.  I needed to follow you.   I will fog the issue of my fearing my needs by focusing your strong resistance to my neediness.  You just stayed where you were and I turned your direction in order to hear myself.  And when I asked you for something you punished me swiftly.  After all, for the first date or two I asked for, expected, needed nothing!  You didn’t ask about my needs and I didn’t tell.   Now I was changing the terms of the agreement.  When you punished me I almost left you.  But, frankly it was either you or silence.  The menu from which I made choices was very short.  I am accustomed to being alone and to tuning out the absence in others voices so I figured it is mine or nearly none at all.  We share that either or, life or death perspective.   My voice said I was guilty and your wall reverberated my statement.  You proved my non-existence exists.  I am successful! !  I am strong enough to be weak because I know I am  guilty of killing love when I am strong enough to need and be needed.  My parents told me so!  The strength of my weakness is what allows me to be with you.  I will not survive without you so I must be as weak as you need me to be to stay.    



 :evil: 4. This is the most important step of all - Make them think that they are responsible for your actions! Take no responsibility whatsover. This is the key that makes the whole thing work! (Warning - If they really get this, and begin to believe in themselves, you are sunk)

 :(  4b Wow! I am being blamed! If I am responsible for you then I guess I could have some power and place in the world after all.  I exist if only as the shadow, the dark contrasting underbelly of your brilliance.  I EXIST. I am sorry I enlisted you to be the bully that keeps the lack of me in my place.

 :evil: 5. Repeat at will - It will always make you feel better and give you what you need! Happy Abusing, and remember - It's all about YOU!!!

 :(  5b Remember, it is all about them!  Good and bad, it is all about them.  

 :evil: PS - The above will not work if they have figured out that you are in fact responsible for your own behaviors. If they begin to understand that you are deliberately using their own sense of fear, guilt, and obligation, they will begin to see the Truth and the above will not work any longer! Be Forewarned!!

 :( PS – the above will not work if I figure out that I do not have to live alone with only my own voice – I can truly get to know another for who they are and I can hear their voice and I can recognize the meaning of their words and the emotion in or not in their words and all other voices besides my own are not punitive and punishing and I AM WRONG to let a repetitive reflection pass as a real person just because I am scared a real person doesn’t exist in myself or in others.

mary

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How to be abusive 101
« Reply #3 on: September 04, 2003, 11:20:14 PM »
As I read this I see so many truths or personal experiences.  I have been voiceless have pulled away into myself to protect myself.  I look at what I have learned and try to understand how I got here.  What  made me so weak that  I would marry an N.

As I first learned about N in my husband.  I hated myself.  Now I am getting passed that.  Now I am trying to learn to handle life differently.  I know things will never be "normal",  never nice,  never comfortable.  I am sure all will always be manipulated...or at least he will spend the effort trying. :roll:

I get tired just thinking about what life has been like.  How could I let myself sink into this  strange world I am in?  It is like I have created a fantasy existance.

One thing I have learned from this list is that N's are all very much the same and you are so very right...it is all about them!
 :?

rosencrantz

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How to be abusive 101
« Reply #4 on: September 05, 2003, 05:57:24 AM »
And I see my father in Echo's description.

So who am I?  One...or the other...?

I am the ricochet between them!!!

I see my H in that description, too.  And that makes me the reluctant N - reincarnation of the Nmother-in-me.  But H adds to the mix his N-father-in-him and I complement that with my mashochistic Echo.

They (the same-sex N-parent) say to us 'Be like me' and also 'Be my foil'.

I am astonished at the complications we have to unravel.

Mary, I don't think it's about being weak - not at all.  I think 'they' are just as weak as we are - maybe weaker.  It is lack of knowledge plus fear, guilt, shame...we're all just trying to survive.  We're all victims...and at the same time we all hold the power.  Giving 'them' what they need gives us a massive amount of power even if we don't realise it!  But they probably do, and that makes them even more afraid.

But if we wield this amount of power maintaining the status quo - then I guess that means we have the poower to gradually create change, too.

If I believe in me then I will hold my ground, not in stubborness but with love, kindness and forgiveness.  If I believe in me then I will no longer be a masochistic punchbag and I'll still be standing, I'll still be smiling,  I'll still exist, I'll still be functioning, when 'the other' thinks they've knocked me down.  

And I'll either be the mirror that weakens their defences until they determin to be true to themselves (and me) or I'll walk away and find a better way.

R
"No matter how enmeshed a commander becomes in the elaboration of his own
thoughts, it is sometimes necessary to take the enemy into account" Sir Winston Churchill

Anonymous

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What does the reflection see?
« Reply #5 on: September 05, 2003, 06:42:22 PM »
I am new to posting, thank you Rosencrantz for pointing out these responses.

I just tried to use the quote function and don't see any indication that it worked so when i post this their may be a quote box in a weird place! :oops:

By the way in my, "his stomach growls" , comment I meant to also write that all it takes is a grumble and i notice he is hungry.  I'll prepare a great meal!  Has he had his vitamins?  Did he drink water...etc.  I have subconsciously prided myself on filling his needs as i intuit them.

Mary, you said "I get tired just thinking about what life has been like. How could I let myself sink into this strange world I am in? It is like I have created a fantasy existance. "  I sure respect your courage to expose yourself to yourself and to us.  Who, but a narcissist, wouldn't see that as strength?  Even strength, especially strength needs to rest too though.  I am beginning to exit my fantasy world (at least that one  :lol: - yiiiish i hope that is the last one  :roll: )and writing out "my voice" I felt I now will hear it so much faster - I got it out where i could take a good long look at it and not forget its face, that sound again.  My goal is to hear that voice loud and clear & replace it and to give and receive support for REGAINing energy by enjoying a more real world.  The fantasy became worse than anything the real world can dish out.

I had self hate long before I met J.  When I met him I don't believe I was hating myself and yet I was still very doubtful of myself, of my independence and my worth, or i would not have dated him so long, not to mention get married.   I was trying to feel out loud in my post that it isn't really just about them and how I buy into focusing on him.  I was trying to be the voice that has been in my head and that responds to the n. tactics.  
 
Rosencrantz, "So who am I? One...or the other...?"  Isn't it soooo true that to be with a narcissistic type I, we must share some values with him and some perceptions of the world?!  He will bully THE threatening world out there while I will hide from THE threatening world out there.  That scary worldview is something J. and I share.  He just fools and attacks it while I bow out sheepishly.  

One difference is I am not scared of my internal world to the extent he is scared of his.  (I can quickly trace the origins of that difference looking at our different backgrounds.)  My willingness, ability and desire to face my weaknesses, navigate through them and finally see the humor in it is a source of strength.  I am no superhero, thank goodness!  I am beginning to feel that if i had to be stricken with a fear of one world or the other I kind of have an advantage in being more frightened of the external world and less so of my internal world because in a sense at least i have a voice even if i am currently tossing it at a wall.  I have a me.  Quite and hidden but there.  He only fears the outside world less because he has a false internal world designed to manipulate the danger and that is like personal mutiny, attack from inside.  I'll take fending off a pirate that i've let board my ship over selling my soul in return for avoiding attack any ole day. least I do have a me and empathy.  

"They (the same-sex N-parent) say to us 'Be like me' and also 'Be my foil'. "  Yes.  We are in a way the center of their universe.  If only while we are in the room.  We define them and they define us.  And the circle/chain reaction is formed.  As you described so well in your power/fear dance description.  Round and round and round we go.

 "But if we wield this amount of power maintaining the status quo - then I guess that means we have the power to gradually create change, too. "

Yes!  

Since I started reading up and reading these posts and writing out my echo voice I have really gained self-respect for myself and strangely I am feeling so very much more compassion for J.  I was beginning to absorb his punishing tendencies and try to use them on him.  My heart just wasn't in it and i wasn't any good at it anyway. I was becoming a geeky abuser while he was the stealth cool man Luke!  He even said I was too obvious in my anger and he took delight in words that sounded ambiguous so that he could say them and marvel at how someone wouldn't know he was insulting them.  Still, as uncalculating and sophisticated as i was i was still having spells of intense anger, hating to look at him.  I had an even harder time concentrating on myself as a result.  I understand his vulnerability and fear much better now.  

He may get to know himself, the man behind the mask.  He may not.  I understand that he is just like the wizard of OZ and I am like dorothy.  We are both small in different ways.  One thing is for sure, the tornado has stirred up my reality and home will never look the same! As Mary noted.  

My focus is going to be on me getting to know the woman behind the man behind the mask and then helping myself take a giant step outside into the cruel, crazy, beautiful world.  Perhaps the narcissist needs to focus in and the echo, this echo, needs to stop listening to herself try to contact him and focus my/her voice outward.  How IRONIC!  Maybe I'll post under a new name next time! Like HelloWorld?

Acappella

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Woops. That last post was me, EHCO not logged in.
« Reply #6 on: September 05, 2003, 06:44:30 PM »
:oops:

CC

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How to be abusive 101
« Reply #7 on: September 06, 2003, 09:45:36 AM »
Hi all,

First, Echo, I wanted to let you know that I appreciated your clever response to Guest 46's How to Be Abusive.  I appreciated #46's post as well, finding it amusingly appropriate, however the response post actually made me take it more seriously because I saw it from my own perspective.  Some of the posters here are so poetic and philisophical and able to articulate these things well on paper.

I saw my reactions to my mother, mostly. but I did also see things that I do with my husband - which obviously was LEARNED from my original dysfunctions with Nmother. Like Rosencrantz, I believe I must richochet between the two.  And I think my husband does too.  Coming from N mothers, we are both codependent, to a degree, and both engage in some of each.

I feel encouraged that even as I see myself in some of these scenarios, I look back over the past couple of years of recovery and see that my H and I have identified some of these things, and have been able to acknowledge them when they are happening.  There is hope, if your spouse is willing to communicate.  We have discussed things as they come up and are both determined that we don't want to repeat patterns. The awareness is there even though we still slip into negative behaviors sometimes.  It makes a big difference, because if we hurt each other,  we take responsiblity for it in retrospect - and understand and discuss HOW and WHY it happened.  I think its the first step - maybe at some point we will actually be able to stop dead in our tracks before engaging in the abuse.  

Rosie, I think you might be able to get to this point with your H, since he is already agreeing to read those books... I am optimistic for all of you.  Our generation (give or take a few years, I don't know everyone's ages here), as a whole, is much more psychologically aware than our parents.  I think the healing in our marriages begins with us.  If we begin to respond differently when our spouses push our old rage buttons, they will undoubtedly, by default even - respond differently as well.


Peace to all, and thanks again for the reflections.
CC - 'If it sucks longer than an hour, get rid of it!'

genuine

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Re: How to be abusive 101
« Reply #8 on: November 05, 2005, 05:29:52 PM »
I love this, I might send this to a few people so they can recognise their own behaviour tee hee
The more you depend on forces outside yourself, the more you are dominated by them.

Tracy

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Re: How to be abusive 101
« Reply #9 on: November 05, 2005, 11:04:18 PM »
[I get tired just thinking about what life has been like.  How could I let myself sink into this  strange world I am in?  It is like I have created a fantasy existance.


I cant believe what I am reading.  I didnt know that others have experienced the same as I have.  I had completely built a fantasy world.  A perfect family imagie.  I worked hard to keep that image and made my kids try to keep it too!!!  Poor kids got to a point they wouldnt support that imagie any longer.   I have been in therapy for awhile now.   I had so many ways of copeing with everything.  I retreated into myself.  I had a comfortable place I could go to .  I think that in a few more years without intervention I might have stayed there.  My kids have suffured the most.  The toll on them is so sad.  Such a horrible thing that N parents do their children.  We have all been in therapy.  Nhusband thinks. that we are all crazy!!!  He thinks he is the only sane one in the family.  I kid you not...  How did I do this to myself...and to these kids.   He has been cruel to all of us.  Stupid me I always felt so sad for HIM that I wasnt good enough.  I was too fat.... when I lost to 125 that was too fat.  He wanted me to weigh 118.  When my hair started turning a little grey he didnt like being married to someone with grey hair.....always I was a little embarassing for him.  Never just right.  I could go on and on.  I cant believe I let myself live like this and accepted the guilt.   He would walk by my childrens room and look in and in disgust say "You will never amount to anything"...."you are lazy"....  I didnt even know that was going on until we started therapy.   I am angry.  Not just at him but so angry at myself.   I am angry for my kids and what this has done to their lives.
They had my love always but their dad was tearing away at them all the time.  How could I have brought us to this!!!!  I still just feel sick when I see what I have done....letting myself fall prey to this and not protecting my kids...but I didnt realize...I didnt understand.
It was all for him.  We all existed to put him first.  We existed to listen to him.  Praise him.  It was all for him. :x