Escape from Narcworld

Narcissistic abuse destroys lives — awareness stops it from spreading

I don’t recall taking a two week break from posting essays since I started my first blog back in 2003, so this is the longest I have been away from my keyboard in over twenty years. On Saturday I arrived back in the UK after an extended trip to the USA, having had many learning experiences on the way. I laid my weary head on 21 different beds since my departure in mid-September, so it has been quite an odyssey. I am extremely grateful for the many kind-hearted patriots who provided comfort and support over the past three months of constant upheaval.

Looking back over the past four years (since Covid deleted our old normality), I can see at least half a dozen personal relationships where I (and others) have been subjected to abuse of some kind. Some instances are of a criminal nature, but most are “merely” immoral. The thread that joins them is narcissistic abuse, a subject I knew little about until recently, to my own detriment. We live in “Narcworld” where selfish behaviour is widely enabled and rewarded, especially in an institutional context. Awareness empowers us to see the traps, reject the offer to participate in such abuse, and escape its cycle.

I am not a psychologist, sociologist, or criminologist, so take this summation of narcissistic abuse (and abusers) lightly; it is personal reflection, not a textbook reference. The essence of narcissistic abuse is that the abuser has suffered some form of early life setback that resulted in arrested development, especially the failure to detach properly from the mother in infancy. As a consequence, the abuser has constructed an idealised false self that has to be sustained at all costs; it is not that they love themselves too much, but rather that they do not know love at all.

Defence of this false self, devoid of humanity, becomes the overriding priority in their life. The false self-image is paired with a false narrative that supports it. To maintain this fantasy world the narc requires a “supply”, which compensates for their own lack of identity. This victim is preferably an empath, and one with some kind of trauma that makes them vulnerable and lacking proper boundaries. The empath then provides the emotional energy and attachment to society that the narcissist lacks, and the abuser can “feed” off the negative emotions of their victim, until they are finally emptied of their life force.

The narcissist may be your spouse, parent, boss — the more intimate the relationship the greater the power for an abuser to bind themselves to their target. The same excuse that paedophiles use — “the victim wants this and enjoys it” — is often deployed. There are overt and covert narcissists, with somewhat different dynamics, but the same outcome. There is no effective treatment for this disorder, and any seeming hope of reform is you being “breadcrumbed” into continuing to enable the abuse. The only lasting resolution is for you to go “no contact” and completely extricate yourself from the abuse situation.

When I started to become interested in the ills of the world many years ago I looked at the role of psychopaths, and their culture of pathocracy. While psychopathy is one helpful lens through which to view the loveless, it is not the only one. There is an ontology of malignant and dark personalities. I wish that I had been taught this in place of Latin poetry at school, as it would have saved me much pain and misadventure over my life! To locate narcissistic abusers we have to contrast them with psychopaths and sociopaths, even if there is overlap:

• Psychopathy (diagnosed via Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised) often involves cold, calculated manipulation for personal gain or amusement. Psychopaths might engage in more direct abuse, sometimes physical or financial exploitation. They are often detached from society.

• Sociopathy (Antisocial Personality Disorder) might involve a more chaotic, less calculated approach to breaking societal norms, with some capacity for attachment or group loyalty. Sociopaths might have more erratic abusive behaviour with less predictability.

• Narcissistic Abuse (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) focuses on maintaining a false self-image via supply of admiration, where the abuser might not necessarily lack empathy but rather disregards it for self-aggrandisement. They may appear to be respectable members of society, integrated into social normality.

Narcissists specifically target emotional and psychological vulnerabilities to feed their ego, often through cycles of idealisation (love bombing), devaluation, and discard. There is generally a single source of that narcissistic supply, and hence a solo target of abuse. To anyone else, the abuser appears normal, even laudably upstanding. It is the absolute disbelief of others (that this person is a monster in private) that protects them. The target of abuse is painted as “the problem”, and takes all the blame in the community. That is why this is one of the most wicked forms of abuse, as it lacks even the notional honour of physically assaulting someone and clearly being the cause of the bruises.

Narcissistic abuse generally involves the isolation of the target from all other forms of support, which can involve removal of their solo career, supportive church, and sympathetic friends. The abuser will take control over personal travel, monitor communications, and prevent access to financial resources that might allow escape. This leaves the target “supply” as a husk of the person they once were; self-harm, suicide and addiction are common themes. In the final “discard” cycle the abuser removes the target from their life, via some final outrage that severs the connection, so they can move on to their next victim.

The preferred tool of the narc to subjugate their victim is “reactive abuse”. The abuser goads their target constantly until their victim “snaps” and lashes out. The victim is then labelled as crazy and out of control, and is smeared among social circles by the abuser, justifying further isolation and abuse. Their sense of reality is so perverted that others will come to comfort the abuser for the behaviour of their victim in response to the abuse! This form of abuse is Satanic in that it involves being a false accuser and endless opponent; all narcs are Godless as they cannot love. The victim’s screams of agony at constant betrayal can even be used in court against them — as evidence of them being unfit and disordered. Narc abuse is truly wicked.

Narcissists will construct a fake history to cover up their past misdeeds. You cannot trust any of their life story, but you can depend on it involving them being the victim of all kinds of wrongs by others, omitting their own role in creating those situations. When confronted about any present or past misdeeds, the narcissist will engage in the DARVO pattern to avoid accountability: Deny their action or its impact; Attack the victim and gaslight them it didn’t happen; Reverse Victim and Offender to swap roles. This leaves the victim reeling, and uncertain of what is real. The insanity of the narcissist is endlessly projected into their victim, driving them mad.

The other noteworthy behaviours of narcissistic abusers are:

• Triangulation — where they coordinate with other abusers and enablers, even those they despise, in order to attack the victim by overwhelming their defences.

• Hoovering — in an attempt to draw the victim back in should they distance themselves from the abusive environment, set healthy boundaries, or seek escape from the abuser.

• Character assassination — where the narc will smear the victim socially and in public, in an effort to discredit them, and prevent others from believing the victim’s tales of the abuse they have suffered.

Narcissistic abuse is akin to fifth generation warfare, in that the goal is to make the target unaware that they are even engaged in war. “Wear the face covering to stop the virus” is the same pattern as “Put on the emotional mask to stop the exposure of the narc’s lies”. Narcissistic abuse only perpetuates for as long as we are oblivious to it, or turn a blind eye. As soon as everyone knows that putting on a bacteria-filled face mask is psychological warfare, not healthcare, its effect is eliminated. The same is true for narcissistic abuse: we escape it through education.

“My people perish for a lack of knowledge!”

How to deal with this silent epidemic of spiritual horror? I have found it helpful to run written communications from abusers through AI, and ask it to analyse what they are saying through the lens of narcissistic abuse. AI is emotionless and unaffected by the accusations flying around. It will point out the reframing of reality, the one-upmanship, the inversions. It has been sad to realise that those I had believed were allies, and who loved me, actually have no care for me and no real interest in me; I am just a walk-on part in their internal drama. Escape from Narcworld is a J-curve of grief, as we detach ourselves from many unhealthy situations so that we may heal. Better to be genuinely isolated in a healthy place that to feel isolated in unhealthy company.

Once we have identified the narcissistic abusers in our world, we have to distance ourselves, ideally by disassociating from them. This is not always possible, as we have entanglements and obligations that may prevent it. The particular vulnerability many of us face — myself personally — is the weaponisation of our own children against us by a trusted but godless narcissist, who turns them against the morally righteous parent. Looking back, I was lax in allowing a narcissist access to my own offspring, and have paid a heavy price for it. Someday that story can be told, along with others of narc abuse in my vicinity, to educate others about the dangers. Narcs pose as protectors when they are predators.

I now better understand the role of immersion, communion, and deliverance in protecting us from narcissistic abusers. If someone is unwilling to submit to divine will (via immersion) then they are worshipping something other than Creator. The body of the church is not its priesthood, but the people, and we have the power to excommunicate those who sin but refuse to be morally accountable and repent, a hallmark of evil and narcissism. A narcissist will also evade deliverance, as whatever demonic spirits inhabit their empty shell dislike the idea of moving on. My framing of Christianity (the spiritual philosophy, not the institutional hijack) is that it offers the best available antidote to a society built upon narcissistic abuse.

There are also societal responses we can undertake to protect ourselves. Narcissists, being loveless by nature, are drawn to legalism, and like to set the rules in order to break them themselves — while weaponising them against others. In a court setting, this reversal of victim and offender is liable to result in the trashing of constitutional rights, such as free speech (gag orders that hide crimes), due process (making the victim prove their innocence), equal protection (with double standards for the narc and victim), privacy (via surveillance and tracking), and fair trial (withholding evidence or manipulating witnesses). Executive Order 13818 is a key tool in discouraging judges and attorneys from playing narcissistic abuse games with people’s lives, persecuting the faithful and righteous using false pretexts and colour of law.

In summary, narcissitic abuse is the “nano scale” form of totalitarianism, performed at a household or family level. Just like with tyranny, it depends on a false logic and false morality; it denies a God-given objective truth and moral order. Narc abuse is enabled by a series of societal institutions (e.g. legalistic marriage licenses that bind victim and abuser) and mechanisms (e.g. anonymous social media that allows libel without recourse). A free society is not one where everyone can do whatever they like, as that is Narcworld, and a license to abuse without limit. Genuine freedom is where our collective spirit submits to sacred principles; we escape Narcworld by eliminating worship of ourselves.

A Liliaceae, not an Amaryllidaceae.