I recently met a client who is about to undergo a meeting with someone who has previously caused them some emotional trauma and chipped away at their self-confidence. It is hard to sometimes acknowledge that someone in our lives might do this, but the reality of this world is that there are those who will use psychological warfare to get under our skin and manipulate us. The real issue here is that we just do not want to believe it! Emotional abuse is hard to spot and sometimes even harder to acknowledge. It was hard for me to acknowledge that at certain times in my life, I was manipulated by those who Narcissistic intent. I did not want to admit that someone with my skills and qualifications could be taken in and deceived by a Narcissist, but the truth of the matter was that it happened to me and on more than one occasion. I was very lucky after a while; I saw the behaviour for what it was and dealt with it and the Narcissist in question and they never bothered me again. You could say that my eyes are wide open these days and I spot behaviours and call them out. I know of the horrors of this world and the depths that people will go to in order to achieve their goals. But this is not the same for everyone and there are those people, who will still want to believe that there is good intent in everyone and bad people do not exist. The fact of the matter is that they do exist and find it easy to hide behind our good nature and the lies and excuses that we make for them. Within the movie “The usual suspects” there is a line that goes “The biggest trick the devil ever pulled is making people believe that he did not exist”. Well, this is true of Narcissists, they do not wear a badge that says Narcissist and have you ever met a person who owned up to being one? No, of course, you have not and never will, they will deny their existence out of hand, just as easily as they will deny us our self-esteem and own reality.
You have to call someone out in your own mind as the person they really are, it will not serve you in any way to mask and disguise their nature. The problem is that we just do not want to believe that evil exists, as it makes our world seem a little colder and darker and also we have to acknowledge that we at some point in our lives may have to deal with the real evil of a Narcissist. But denial will not protect you and will only serve as a veil for them to draw ever closer to you. The world is not all bad and most people are decent and opening our eyes to the horror of Narcissistic behaviour in our own world, will not destroy us; it will actually make us much stronger.
I have recently written a book about Narcissistic abuse and I have called it “Monsters Live Among us”, as you will be aware it is also the name of this blog. The title came out of a therapy session I conducted with someone, who really struggled to believe that someone in their lives was a manipulative and Narcissistic character. Despite them disclosing all manner of horrific emotional manipulations that this person had repeatedly inflicted upon them, they still struggled to believe that this person was bad. I eventually said to my client “I am sorry, but monsters live among us” and it is a fact of life that they do. There is both good and bad in this world and there is also evil.
You have to remember that most Narcissistic people will reframe themselves as a victim and their actions as innocent and this is always more palatable for us to believe, as it resets our mind and we can then go back to thinking “oh it is ok they are alright really”. We have to be honest, really honest about those people in our lives who have repeatedly hurt us and given even the slightest chance will do it again.
There are many posts about spotting Narcissists and Narcissistic behaviours and the signs to look for if you suspect that you are being abused. There is however one sign that will always serve you will. This is a huge neon sign that you are being abused and that sign is, you are reading this blog post! If you are reading this post on your tablet or phone, then you are looking for answers and validation to your suspicions and you probably already know the truth.
We do not always feel that we should be honoured for spotting poor behaviours, as we are told to look for the good in everyone and to be positive. Well, there is a time to look for the good and to be positive, but before we get to that stage we need to open our eyes and see the reality of our world first.
Always remember when attempting to spot someone’s real character, judge them by their actions and not their words. If you do this, then you will quickly see those around you for who they really are.
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