Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Gabben on April 24, 2008, 06:43:07 PM
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The Projection Machine
Narcissists don't just project their faults and failings (character flaws and bad acts) onto you, they also project their feelings, emotions, and beliefs onto you. Actually, "into" you (See Projective Identification next).
The projected beliefs may be beliefs about themselves or beliefs about you or beliefs about anything. In fact, in posing to the mirror of your face, they are projecting their image onto you = their belief about themselves onto you.
The projected feelings and emotions may be positive ones or negative ones that they want to get rid of.
Note that the narcissist projects both positive and negative things onto you. In projecting positive things on you (e.g., his grandiose false image) he is using you as a mirror.
In projecting negative things on you, he is using you as a dumping ground.
Here we focus on the bad, or negative, things narcissists project, their faults and failings in particular.
When narcissists slander and calumniate you, they have two objectives. One is projection, and the other is to muddy a bright spot in your character with whatever slander or calumny they're projecting at you. It's as though any shine on your image diminishes the glow of their glory.
Don't take my word for it: test a narcissist. Praise someone before a group and see what happens. The next day the narcissist launches a smear campaign against that praised person.
This is, of course, the mentality of the rapist, who must tear others "down off that pedestal." The narcissist just does the deed in a non-sexual way.
Now, you'd think it would be hard to accomplish both objectives — projection and smearing — at the same time. But it's uncanny how narcissists manage to do so! It's all in the way they word their "line" on you. They are glib and amazingly adept at killing two birds with one stone: they not only ditch one of their faults, they muddy one your virtues in the process.
Note that in doing this, the narcissist isn't attacking your faults and shortcomings: she is attacking your virtues and accomplishments. Consequently, when she is conducting a campaign of character assassination against someone, the arrows she shoots never hit one of that person's real flaws.
The result is something like Dr. Frankenstein accomplished with body parts. A chimera. The narcissist's false image contains the virtuous qualities in other people's characters, and their images have had those virtuous qualities replaced with the flaws in the narcissist's character. In other words, the narcissist steals your virtues and dumps on you her faults.
In doing so, the narcissist is stealing your identity, pulling an identity switch with you, piecemeal.
Carolyn -- this what you mean, correct? Invasion of the body snatchers!
It's a kind of magic, an illusion created with nothing but words, which can warp perceptions by making anything of anything.
For example, let's say that the narcissist is stingy and that one of your virtues is that you are outstanding for your generosity. She hates the glow of that shiny spot in your character, because it serves as foil to her stinginess, making it more noticeable by contrast. So she muddies your image and glorifies her image by misappropriating your generosity to herself and misappropriating her stinginess to you.
How? She goes around lying about how much she gives to charity and about helping people out all the time. More important (since one must be careful and subtle about boasting), she just makes everything she does sound generous. She also goes around telling lying stories about you, stories that have you being stingy. More important, she makes everything you do sound stingy, however generous it manifestly is. In The Art of Lying I gave an example of how a narcissist can make one $500 purchase sound like payment for room, board, toiletries, cigarettes, and laundry services for twenty years — in order to unsound like a freeloader.
This is what makes narcissists stand out. Normal people do project. They sometimes even smear. But not in such a calculated fashion. In "What Makes Narcissists Different" (in What Makes Narcissists Tick), I enumerated the difference between the way normal people project and the way narcissists do:
· Normal people project when put on the defensive. Narcissists project in unprovoked attacks.
· Normal people don't smear themselves off on just anyone. They wouldn't dream of harming those near and dear. All people are nothing but objects to narcissists, so they smear themselves off on their own parents and children as thoughtlessly as we smear ourselves off on a towel. For no reason other than to cause pain, they will say anything — ANYTHING — about them, without a second thought.
· Normal people are likely to shake themselves off on whoever happens to be near at the moment. So, they sometimes project a flaw off onto someone who actually has it. But narcissists project ironically, accusing those with the corresponding virtue of a vice.
· Normal people stick to slander (which has at least some degree of truth in it), rarely engaging in calumny (lies). When they do calumniate someone, they at least have a natural reason for animosity toward the target. Narcissists are perverted. There is no natural reason for what they do.
· Even when normal people do calumniate someone, they don't go hog-wild and calumniate that person so badly and so widely as to destroy them and ruin their whole lives. Narcissists do go hog wild. They are mental children and therefore as dangerous with their mouths as an angry five-year-old with an assault weapon. This is hilarious!
In fact, a narcissist is most likely to smear off on someone he owes gratitude, because needing help damages his image. So he repays help as though it were an insult. He must devalue it by devaluing the giver of it, as if such a contemptible person is incapable of really helping someone as grand as he.
Unlike narcissists, normal people don't do it because damaging others makes them feel good. In fact, doing this makes a normal person feel ashamed. But it makes a narcissist feel grand.
When it's fully conscious calumny a narcissist is spreading, he just thinks it's funny that people are such idiots that he can get away with it, feeding them ridiculous lines about others. Lines that are preposterous in the light of the target's known conduct. The narcissists I have known all let it show at one time or another that they had nothing but contempt for the people who believed them. I am sure that a narcissist views his success at lying as proof that he is brilliant and that all mere mortals are as stupid as sticks.
Narcissists aren't projecting guilt so much as they're projecting shame. In fact, it may well be that they have no concept of guilt and have it confused with shame. Which is pain.
So this wicked behavior is a way to ditch their pain onto you. It's a psychological painkiller, like a drug, and that's why causing you pain makes them feel good.
Here's an example of a famous smear that illustrates how it works.
The first thing people noticed about Jesus of Nazareth was that, unlike the other prophets, he spoke on his own authority, appealing only to logic, and never prefaced his teaching with "God says…." This is but one of many examples of his exceptional care to avoid blasphemy. He went way beyond custom in this regard. His tremendous reverence for the name of God was his most glaring virtue, because he put everyone, including the prophets, to shame in this.
Okay, so, if you or I wanted to smear Jesus, blasphemy would be the last thing we'd accuse him of, right? Because that accusation would be laughed at as a joke.
Or would it?
Well, whether people would get the joke or not, we're normal, so we'd accuse him of something believable, like being a drunk or something. But that isn't the way a narcissist thinks.
The narcissist(s) in the Sanhedrin who plotted against Jesus went right for that greatest shining virtue of his in leveling the charge of blasphemy against him. They just had to muddy it o'er.
Unbelievable. Yet the people believed it!
And consider the source of this accusation. Look who's accusing him of blasphemy. The Sanhedrin, blasphemously acting in the name of God.
In other words, in the very act, they were projecting the blot of their sin onto his outstanding virtue.
Unbelievable. Yet the people believed it.
Near the beginning of the Spanish Inquisition, a Spanish archbishop or cardinal (whose name I forget) remarked that the accusations leveled by the Inquisition were so widely believed because people are much readier to believe the unbelievable than the obvious. He said a mouthful.
I call narcissists "projection machines." I am convinced that projection is a knee-jerk reflex in them. That is, whenever a moment of self-awareness threatens to let them know a flaw in their character they're revealing or some bad thing they're doing, they instantly go into denial about it (= repress conscience of shame) by projecting the semblance of that flaw or misdeed off onto the handiest scapegoat — usually the very victim of whatever abuse they're dishing out.
How's that for maximum irony? Hence, while hurling a hailstorm of wild accusations at you, you can count of one them being that you are hurling wild accusations at them. Every single time. They can't help it. I think they have been twisting their thinking for so long (since early childhood) that twisted thinking is hard-wired into their brains. I think projection is such an ingrained habit in them that often they're unaware that they're doing it.
Projection is such a reflex in them that they give themselves away by some of the accusations they hurl. For example, if a narcissist says he fears you might attack him physically, look out: he is at least pondering whether to attack you physically. If she says she fears you might get into her bank account, know that she is at least pondering getting into yours. Every single time.
Narcissists aren't the only people who project. But they are different in that they have done it so much for so long that they do it like a machine — automatically, every single time. And they rarely hit one of the target's real faults. Instead the accusation is a joke, smearing one of that person's virtues as a vice.
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This helps tremendously. This explains what is going on with one of my co-workers. She is a lazy slug who is being groomed for management. She pulls some very subtle stuff with me that I have not been able to really get a handle on. She may be a covert projection machine. I know I go home after only two hours with her and feel completely slimy and exhausted.
The really stressful thing for me is that she is a favorite of management and could actually be my boss one day soon the way things are done where I work.
I really gotta get out of there.
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This helps tremendously. This explains what is going on with one of my coworkers. She is a lazy slug who is being groomed for management. She pulls some very subtle stuff with me that I have not been able to really get a handle on. She may be a covert projection machine. I know I go home after only two hours with her and feel completely slimy and exhausted.
The really stressful thing for me is that she is a favorite of management and could actually be my boss one day soon the way things are done where I work.
I really gotta get out of there.
Juno,
The slimy feeling and exhaustion that you feel comes from being around a highly toxic person or an emotional vampire. They take their dirt and sling it at you; it causes you to feel like you have to wipe your psyche off and that can be exhausting as well as draining if they are in constant seek mode.
Repressed emotion has to seep out...it just has to. If it does not come out the healthy way, by re experiencing the pain or directly owning your own behaviors and emotions, just as fear and envy, then this slimy stuff creeps out in subtleties usually targeting the cleaner person...have you ever heard of the saying "mud sticks best to a clean spot?"
She sounds toxic. There is a book called Toxic People...it might be of help to you.
"lazy slug" ........that made me laugh :D
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by re experiencing the pain or directly owning your own behaviors and emotions
Her response to most situations is, "Well, it's not my fault."
I am just far too receptive to these types. And they do seek me out. It is fun for them. I better get that book you recommend. I need some more tools if I'm going to get unstuck. I need a way to tap into my triggers and really connect with them. And I need to survive my workplace until I am in a position financially to leave there.
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Juno -- you sound spot on about the solution.
One thing I learned about myself is that I was unconsciously attracting toxic people into my life. Another good book is Alice Miller's Drama of the Gifted Child. This book just keeps on giving.
There was a roommate who I lived with who was a bully type person. It took a year for me to work through my trigger to get strong enough with my internal boundaries to put up a silent defense or, a silent attitude that she was not going to mess with me anymore. The very week I made my mind up to not take her covert crap, no matter what, was the week she informed me that she was moving out....it was if she unconsciously picked up on my limit and realized that her maneuvers were not going to work with me. Since she could not change me she change her living situation.
One way to get in touch with the underlying issue for you is to ask yourself if the situation reminds you of a childhood memory.
((((Juno)))
Lise
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I'm so glad you brought back this topic, Lise... it was one of my favorites, and most helpful, the first time around and now here it is again, just in time.
"In projecting negative things on you, he is using you as a dumping ground."
Indeed!
I've got the "No Dumping Here" sign posted and won't accept anymore of others' trash, either face to face or virtually.
Thanks again, Lise!
With love,
Carolyn
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Lise, that's just it. The situation reminds me of dozens of childhood memories and of the many people who surrounded me in my childhood with power plays, disrespect, bullying, etc. My sister, my mother, the neighborhood kids, the lack of support from people who should have been loyal to me.
It's all there in this work place situation and it all came to a head for me when this person got hired three years ago. Actually, I finally really figured out what was going on over a year ago after being out of the office for six weeks and then coming back with a fresh eye and the knowledge that part of why I had to go back earlier than expected was I left too big of a hole. I had been picking up the slack and acting as a release valve of sorts for the dysfunction there.
The first two years she was there it was just frustration after frustration. Feelings of betrayal and being dumped on without really having the words or understanding of it. A year ago February was when it was quite obvious.
Since then I've been working so hard on this. Making all kinds of connections with my FOO dynamics. But making the connections logically isn't enough. I'm still very unhappy. And, connections aside, it is still a very toxic atmosphere even for normal people. Many people have told me, get out of there!!!!! But I have run away all my life. I want to do this in a smart way. Financially, etc. Work on my stuff first. So, I don't continue to have the same problems over and over again. But it is so hard. It is so poisonous there.
I just got back from the library and ordered Toxic People. Hope it helps. I have probably a couple of years to go and that person is possibly going to be my boss within that time. The writing is on the wall.
It's such an old story where I work. I work with people in their 60s who say it has always been this way there. Abuse perpetuates itself so well.
I guess I am just going to have to re-feel everything from the past. Damn.
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I think that my next step is to OWN all that is in me--scrupulously. I was afraid to do this b/c I really thought I was "bad". I can see,now, that the "bad" concept was my M's throwing HER unwanted emotions on me ,so she could be "good". It is polarizing the good and bad .
I am just NOW, willing to look inside myself and face what I think and feel.
It sounds "crazy" to me. I never realized HOW blocked off I was from myself.
I was a stranger to myself. Then, I was a prisoner of the outside world to validate me.
It is a set up for misery .
Today, I start my journey ,within.
I do not have to ACT on anything, just observe and face.
Projection comes from throwing the unfaced parts of us on others, as the articles say.
I will let you know how I progress. Thanks for the information, Lise. Love Ami
PS I see that if I want to 'give" to others, which I do, I HAVE to know where I end and others begin. It will make my relationships safe(or safer)
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acting as a release valve of sorts for the dysfunction there.
Could you have been their shame-dumping bag too? It sounds like you are competant at what you do and integrable.
I guess I am just going to have to re-feel everything from the past. Damn.
I hear you..........damn!
I can tell you that it is not has bad as being caught up, or, allowing our buttons to continue to be pushed by toxic people. There is an enormous freedom that comes along with releasing our tears as well as a new vision, new people and places begin to come into our life, seemingly without effort. That is the hope -- no pain, no gain.
I believe in God, not to evangelize, but I do feel that God is the one doing the eyeopening and healing work in you. I've learned that whatever God starts He finishes and He just wants us to be happy, joyous and free.
Continue to hash and reshash your stories here...I'll listen.
((((((Juno))))))
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Is there an opposite of projection? My ex did damaging things to me with her projection, but there was also things she did which were kind of the opposite. She'd project all my good traits onto herself... She'd claim to like everything about me, share all my beliefs, even idolize me at times. At one point she tried to steal my job, my friends... heh... it was like she was consuming my identity.
There are so many kinds of abuse, it seems. What kind of abuse is it when somebody hides their true feelings and tries to tell you everything you want to hear? It was always tough when she told me I was perfect and everything was perfect, when you know there are always things you can work on or improve.
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I think that my next step is to OWN all that is in scrupulously.
WOW -----------WOW....that is so cool. Recall, Ami, the only thing that makes a saint a saint is that they know they are a sinner and that they can say a complete YES to God, not a maybe, or I'll wait, or next year, but they say a complete YES now.
Looking at self is the most courageous and important thing I think we can ever do in this life time.
The voice of fear in our heads says "you dare not look" and the voice of pride in our minds says "no need to look." But those are just blown out of proportion lies we tell ourselves.
For when we do face ourselves we find that pride and fear are just lies....the truth is the goodness and love in your heart.
The more that we can face the spilt off and buried parts of self the more whole we become.
One thing I can say about myself that I really like is that I face myself; I have done bad things and I made major choices in my life out of fear; I have had a huge ego at one point in my life and I have been a hypocrite more times than I can even or ever count. BUT -- I face me...I like that.
The moment I face me and see and own my behavior is the moment I begin to REALLY grow and change. It is the ultimate form of freedom.
A friend of mine who goes into prisons to work with murders and harsh criminals always says that he knows more really free men in prison than in the public world.
Love you,
Lise
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Is there an opposite of projection? My ex did damaging things to me with her projection, but there was also things she did which were kind of the opposite. She'd project all my good traits onto herself... She'd claim to like everything about me, share all my beliefs, even idolize me at times. At one point she tried to steal my job, my friends... heh... it was like she was consuming my identity.
There are so many kinds of abuse, it seems. What kind of abuse is it when somebody hides their true feelings and tries to tell you everything you want to hear? It was always tough when she told me I was perfect and everything was perfect, when you know there are always things you can work on or improve.
Hi Darren,
The opposite as you say, as I understand what you say, is called "Mirroring"
That is what my NSister did to me, as she worked on stealing my Persona. (which was due to Jealousy and dangerous Envy).
I have some information on "Mirroring" which I will post up for you.
This is a good source of information on the subject .... http://www.narcissism.operationdoubles.com/essence_of_narcissism.htm (http://www.narcissism.operationdoubles.com/essence_of_narcissism.htm)
Complete listing of all articles and info ... http://www.narcissism.operationdoubles.com/npd_site_content.htm (http://www.narcissism.operationdoubles.com/npd_site_content.htm)
Love, Leah
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Darren - I call those kinds of people (your ex) "emotional vacuum cleaners". I had an ex like that. So jealous of my accomplishments that he actually tried to sabotage my dissertation writing. Insisted on sitting in the room with while I tried to concentrate when I had specifically asked to be left alone. Constant interruptions. Even tried applying to a doctoral program himself and couldn't get in b/c of test-taking phobia. Drove me to the next town to take my oral exams and left me there. Had no ride home.
Patrick Carnes (Betrayal Bonds) says people who have been abused never learned boundaries 'cuz they were threatened or abused out of them. He says the hardest task and most valuable is to learn to keep "your zipper on the inside".
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Is there an opposite of projection? My ex did damaging things to me with her projection, but there was also things she did which were kind of the opposite. She'd project all my good traits onto herself... She'd claim to like everything about me, share all my beliefs, even idolize me at times. At one point she tried to steal my job, my friends... heh... it was like she was consuming my identity.
There are so many kinds of abuse, it seems. What kind of abuse is it when somebody hides their true feelings and tries to tell you everything you want to hear? It was always tough when she told me I was perfect and everything was perfect, when you know there are always things you can work on or improve.
Oh wow Darren,
She was envious. Envy steals. People assume envy is for beauty pageants but in reality envy is a driving daily force in this world.
Envy envies the good and wants to take it. The envious will see your good and know that they can't be that way naturally they will feign and steal.
If you read the article again then you will see that we tend to project our bad and our good.
She was stealing your identity because she had none and she liked yours.
That is what N saint did to me. She slowly, overtime, stole my friends, my reputation, my wardrobe, my hairstyle, my type of work, my church...etc.
Last summer I was at wedding, N saint was there too, a group of my friends walked into the reception. They erupted in joy shouting "Lise" they were happy to see me and to introduce their husbands to me. Saint was standing near by, I could see her from an angle, this was after I had confronted her about her despise and coldness so she was ignoring me at the reception. As the group of women shouted my name, N saint quickly turned around in reaction as if they were talking to her and seeking her......it was so creepy... it was if she was going to step in for me, into the scene, but then she quickly realized that she was not me.
Lise
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Leah -- I thought you were going into lurker mode...the board was just not safe for you, correct? Or, was that just a pity ploy and a smoke screen?
So what are you doing posting on my threads? stay off my threads and stay away from me - I do not want your toxic crap near me.
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I always wondered what you would call it, but mirroring might be what I'm looking for. "Emotional Vacuum Cleaner" is also a good term =)... I think I found myself sometimes referring to her as an emotional vampire, even though I always respected that she wasn't mentally healthy and attributed it to that.
I don't know always how to respond to what she did, because she was very sick and couldn't help it. But she did do these terrible things. She often did try to sabotage things for me, and its just hard for me to picture the thought process that motivate people to do these things. I can see normal people doing these things, but not on such a large scale. My ex begged me to help her get a job where I was employed, and I finally gave in because I felt sorry for her... despite me knowing all along that it would be a very bad idea. She told people I didn't know what I was doing, claimed to know more about computers than I did, and told people I abused her. I felt bad for her and put up with it because I wanted to help her... I was more than willing to teach her the skills she needed to know, and I was confident she was smart enough to learn them, but goodness... this girl just knew everything there was to know and couldn't possibly learn anything new.
She did do the sabotage thing which I didn't even catch on to. I didn't get it... I mean... I was a bum for most of my life who couldn't get a job or keep one. If there's one good thing that came out of that relationship is that the home life was so bad that I was actually motivated to get a job to escape. For the first time I had a job I didn't dread waking up to and dragging myself to work, and I worked myself from the bottom of the ladder and got to be head of my own department. Its so hard to try and help somebody who needs it when they want to destroy what you've worked for and earned. There was a time though I needed to learn more, to advance myself further... and she just wouldn't allow it. She's always interrupt.
I just don't understand how someone would want to throw wrenches into the gears.
The worst part is just... how she tried to pretend to be the perfect girlfriend. She never said anything mean, always said the nicest things (even though they weren't sincere)... she was just the rgeat pretender.
Its a shame we all had to deal with people like that...
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The worst part is just... how she tried to pretend to be the perfect girlfriend. She never said anything mean, always said the nicest things (even though they weren't sincere)... she was just the rgeat pretender.
Its a shame we all had to deal with people like that...
Imposter's never get angry and never try to outwardly stir conflict. If you get a chance read my ambient abuse thread.
The kind of damage people like N-Saint and your ex do if far more insidious than those that are outright aggressive. Covert aggression is the worst....the pretenders are usually targeting one person in the mist of others while they are pretending to be innocent.
Lise
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The worst part is just... how she tried to pretend to be the perfect girlfriend. She never said anything mean, always said the nicest things (even though they weren't sincere)... she was just the rgeat pretender.
Its a shame we all had to deal with people like that...
Imposter's never get angry and never try to outwardly stir conflict. If you get a chance read my ambient abuse thread.
The kind of damage people like N-Saint and your ex do if far more insidious than those that are outright aggressive. Covert aggression is the worst....the pretenders are usually targeting one person in the mist of others while they are pretending to be innocent.
Lise
Yah, I never met anyone like her. It was quite a shocker to figure out I was being abused for so long and wasn't even really aware of it. I will definately check out the ambient abuse thread. There's so many interesting topics here I can't keep up...
She did do a whole lot of the regular projection, though. I tried my best, but it was just impossible to deal with. Any issue I had, or problem I tried to express to her, it would just get turned around on me. I took my entry level psychology course in college and learned all about projection, but I was never aware that it could be so severe. I pictured it as the guy who had a bad day at work and came home and took it on the dog without being aware... but I guess that is normal projection. I could tell my ex that she did something inappropriate and she would instantly project it onto me. I did it, or its a fault in me. It was kinda scary at times. She could project like a master, but she couldn't ever explain it. As illogical as it sometimes was she couldn't make that connection.
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I took my entry level psychology course in college and learned all about projection, but I was never aware that it could be so severe.
Me neither until I met Nsaint she gave me a whole new perspective on how many potentially warped minds are out there.
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I just love this little tidbit on bullies and projection........
Projection
Bullies project their inadequacies, shortcomings, behaviours etc. on to other people to avoid facing up to their inadequacy and doing something about it (learning about oneself can be painful), and to distract and divert attention away from themselves and their inadequacies. Projection is achieved through blame, criticism and allegation; once you realise this, every criticism, allegation etc that the bully makes about their target is actually an admission or revelation about themselves. This knowledge can be used to perceive the bully's own misdemeanours; for instance, when the allegations are of financial or sexual impropriety, it is likely that the bully has committed these acts; when the bully makes an allegation of abuse (such allegations tend to be vague and non-specific), it is likely to be the bully who has committed the abuse. When the bully makes allegations of, say, "cowardice" or "negative attitude" it is the bully who is a coward or has a negative attitude.
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I just love this little tidbit on bullies and projection........
Projection
Bullies project their inadequacies, shortcomings, behaviours etc. on to other people to avoid facing up to their inadequacy and doing something about it (learning about oneself can be painful), and to distract and divert attention away from themselves and their inadequacies. Projection is achieved through blame, criticism and allegation; once you realise this, every criticism, allegation etc that the bully makes about their target is actually an admission or revelation about themselves. This knowledge can be used to perceive the bully's own misdemeanours; for instance, when the allegations are of financial or sexual impropriety, it is likely that the bully has committed these acts; when the bully makes an allegation of abuse (such allegations tend to be vague and non-specific), it is likely to be the bully who has committed the abuse. When the bully makes allegations of, say, "cowardice" or "negative attitude" it is the bully who is a coward or has a negative attitude.
That reminds me of one of the most interesting little tricks I learned about projection when dealing with my ex-girlfriend. She'd never be honest with me about how she felt about anything... she just told me what I wanted to head. If I did manage to break through those lies and confront her, I was greeted with projection. But, when I gave her no response or no input to go on, I could become aware about what she was thinking because she'd project it onto me. Thats when I found out some scary things, and she'd flip out a bit. She'd accuse me of being psychotic, saying she was fearful that I'd get angry and do mean things to "punish her"... and things so off the wall I wont even mention it. So in a way, once I stopped feeding her things to project, she pretty much told me in her unhealthy way exactly how she felt about herself. Its how I found out that she cheated on me to intentionally hurt me and punish me, and not because she had feelings for other people. Its also how I found out she might be having some kind of psychotic episode. When I didn't react or respond she'd just guess as to what I might be thinking or feeling, and thats when I learned so much about her. It also had the effect of making her projection less hurtful to me, because they were things she thought about herself but she wasn't capable of facing that reality.
Nowadays I'm not so concerned about what or why she did these things, but I am interested in how I do these these things myself. I'd like to be more aware of when I'm projecting. Anyways, its nice to hear other people talking about things that experienced. The people around me just don't tend to get it or understand.
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That reminds me of one of the most interesting little tricks I learned about projection when dealing with my ex-girlfriend. She'd never be honest with me about how she felt about anything... she just told me what I wanted to head.
That is what N's and P's do, fake emotion, they are actors. What amazes me is that they have found the time to construct these lies and lines.
Its how I found out that she cheated on me to intentionally hurt me and punish me, and not because she had feelings for other people.
Nowadays I'm not so concerned about what or why she did these things, but I am interested in how I do these these things myself. I'd like to be more aware of when I'm projecting. Anyways, its nice to hear other people talking about things that experienced. The people around me just don't tend to get it or understand.
She did these things because deep in N and P's hearts is a well of hatred. Hateful people act out thier unconcious fantasies for revenge on those they love the most. Perhaps her parents deeply betrayed her trust and confidence? Perhaps she was neglected and abused at a very young age?
For more on N's revenge:
http://www.ultimate-self.com/the-narcissists-revenge/