Narcissists Attack Your Conscience

This video sums up so much to me.  This is a video that spoke so much to me, that I have watched it three times. Smakintosh is right about the narcissist's moral darkening. He is right when he says, "They attack our very consciences." This is completely true. I think the narcissists do know that something is missing in them and that they hate the "light" and "conscience" in others. Remembering my parents yelling at me for being "too sensitive" as a child, by then they were trying to stamp out the flicker of goodness and a conscience within me.  I understand what he means too about this being difficult to express in words.

Spiritually, I had these thoughts as a child, knowing I was different in my core from my parents. I knew I lived among dark individuals who saw the world in a completely different fashion. Destroy or be destroyed. I wanted to help people. They saw this as offensive. I was nothing like them.

Clear consciences are something narcissists hate. They live in the darkness of seared conscience. They do not want good people around them. If anyone is "good", they want to make them bad just like themselves. They do want people to be the same as them-- moral degenerates who live for self gain.

My mother attacked my conscience. My father did as well. I was even told I was not to have my own beliefs a few times which I refused at a very young age and brought forth more of their anger.  Smakintosh is right about how narcs prop themselves up as people's moral authorities. My mother definitely is seen as such within my dysfunctional family. She is seen as the moral authority not God to those people.  It is crazy how everything is tested and judged according to HER standards. I watch both siblings living as slaves to these standards, still seeking to please "Mom". Everything is done with the idea of her watching them and her pleasure or displeasure. What about pleasing God?

Abusive parents will tell you that you are wrong a million times and elevate themselves above you, where they are always right and you are always wrong. This is something they do to people where they will try to separate you from your own conscience and intuition. They try to train you in thinking what they think and believe is above what you think and believe.  They do extreme spiritual damage to individuals.. I believe this is one way they gain so much control over entire groups of people. Exploration, discovery and introspection and spiritual yearning is stamped out under many a narcissist's foot. 



See: The Nature of Evil and NPD Families.

Physical Abuse From Narcissist Parents

WARNING THIS ONE MAY BE TRIGGERING: Description of physical abuse.

It is good Narcissist Survivor dealt with this topic. It's a heavy one but meaningful one in that many an ACON has faced physical abuse. I have detailed some of mine on this blog but not all of the physical abuse I faced. I was physically afraid of both parents until I grew large enough around age 15/16  to fight back and even then I remained in psychological terror. While therapists did not warn me about narcissistic personality disorder, and going no contact, I put myself in therapy by age 18 knowing my parents had both been very physically abusive. My experiences included being locked in a room and shoved in there forcibly, being shoved, my hair pulled constantly, my head taken and knocked against another child's head usually of my brother, being punched in the arm hard, being slapped and general beatings where there would be multiple slaps or hits from a belt. I don't have "A Child Called It" stories to tell, even my upper middle class parents knew, a broken bone or burn or obvious abuse in one of their children requiring a hospital stay might mean an end to their career but my abuse was severe enough.

The worse abuse for me however beyond the general emotional coldness and terror, was when my father would literally just about "drown" me in the pool. He would tell others, he was "teaching me to swim" but it was anything but. Real learning doesn't occur in fear.  The house that had locks on the doors when they locked me inside the bedroom also had an above ground swimming pool and that swimming pool for me was the stuff of nightmares. We lived there from the time I was 1 to around 7 years old. Most of the pool abuse was when I was around 4-5 years old.

 He would push and hold my head under the water, and throw me in the deep end and I would thrash about. I was not being taught to swim in any loving or even a more hardcore Dad way, there was no holding my arms out or allowing me to hang on to him to practice swimming but tortured for his pleasure. This was not encouragement or even trying to build confidence but enjoying my fear and distress.

 I remember coughing and being unable to breathe and the bright blue water as my head went under multiple times and my ears immediately plugged up. I have memories of having my head held under, and I'd fight and me being in object terror wondering if I would die.   It got to the point where when it was summer and my family went out to this pool, I would hide in the house. I would shake in fear, hoping that day my father or mother would leave me to my own devices in the house instead of dragging me out.  Aspie melt-downs for me were few and far between but this was a guaranteed one. Even when we went to his parent's house in another state, their above ground pool scared me too. No relative stopped his bad behavior, but would laugh and mock me. I stayed far away. I remember the terror of swimming pools.

 I had nightmares about this still and a life long fear of deep water. I never could swim in deep water. I'm too disabled now but even in my late 20s, these rules applied.   At age 12, I would go with friends to swim club but stay in the shallow end. No parents were there, so I felt calmer. My high school teacher was able to coax me into the pool and she allowed me to learn to swim in shallower end-4 feet of water dog-paddling and general "swimming", knowing I had health and other problems but there was no way I was going to put my head under or go into water that went over my head.

My father would pinch me in the side and do other things like literally kick me in the butt with his foot and then laugh. "You need a good ass-kicking." and then he would kick me. This was done in front of others as well. My mother would laugh and sneer and say "Yeah she does". Many boundaries were crossed for a young teenage woman when you have a father pinching you.  One sick thing my father did, was hit me on the side and other various places on my body and then tell me that he had given me a "love-tap". The more I think about this, the more grossed out I am. This happened for years. The whole phrase sickens me. He had a very screwed up view of "love."

My brother who lives today in denial though he admitted that he had a final mid-teen show down with my father where he proved he was too big to beaten anymore, had major physical abuse from my parents. My father slapped and knocked me around enough, but my brother even got it more. His denials today bother me, as he makes excuses for my abusive mother, but I have memories over my brother being locked in his room, and terrorized and beaten for getting a C average in school. My father never spent time with him helping with his schoolwork but somehow thought getting smacked around would bring higher grades. There too was the giant blow-outs when fistfights and scuffles would ensue between my father and brother. He would scream about his tools and throw them at both of us. If one was misplaced or we didn't rake the leaves correctly, he would throw heavy metal wrenches in one of his rages. We were fortunate never to get knocked out but were always on our toes.

My mother's present husband asked me a weird question once. The week before my brother had visited and got in a fight with his ex-wife on the phone and had screamed and cursed so violently, my mother's husband was in shock. He asked me, "Was your father abusive?". I said, "Yes he was, he had rages and abused us all the time." Too bad my mother entered the room. I didn't have time to tell him my mother took part in all too. I doubt he would have believed this about her. It's probably better I didn't say anything more.

I sometimes wonder what that guy thinks now with me disappearing but he never tried to contact me. He is my mother's puppy and another one in thrall. I wonder if all the shopping and big house, is worth being yelled at every minute? The last time I was there, she screamed at him 15 minutes about finding the right part in the basement for an extra coffee maker.

My mother had far less hot rages like my father but would egg on the abuse. It was rare that she would tell my father to calm down. If anything she set things up for him to go off like a firecracker and to start rampaging through the house as soon as he got home from work. "Did you know what these two kids did today?" Remember she always protected Mini-me so it was us two never my sister.

She would use him as a weapon against us and he played the part beautifully. Sometimes when his rages got so immense, she knew he may cross the "hospital" line, such as giving my brother a black eye, she would quell things down but that was rare. I used to be relieved when my father went away on business trips. In late high school he had a business seminar that was 6 weeks long and I was relieved. My mother was still a problem but the physical threat was far lesser. Her enforcer was gone. When I was a teen I wanted my parents to get divorced figuring one at a time was easier then the united narc front. I envied kids with divorced parents.

Her physical abuse was using the belt when we were younger and siccing my attack dog father on us but when we got older, she would slap me hard as a teen. This was humiliating.  She would also pull and shove me whatever way she wanted. She had no qualms about doing it in front of others. No one ever defended me either. She would play beleaguered martyr, "I have no choice but to keep her in line".

A hard slap would come if I dared to disagree with her or spoke back on anything. Most of the time I was trying to stay out of way and sinking into the woodwork in high school, but sometimes if I left a dish in the sink or couldn't find the right lid for a Tupperware bowl, I better watch it, because a back handed slap would come out of nowhere. Sometimes these smacks would make my ears ring and my head hurt.  At times she did the hair pulling too and throwing things.

I put an end to her slapping when I was 16 or 17, she tried to backhand me in the kitchen and I grabbed her wrist, and said "You are not going to hit me anymore". She went off to scream to my father about me grabbing her, I had fears of them getting me arrested for my self defense, but I was shaking with so much rage, they both backed off. I had the same experience too with my father, who tried to punch me in the arm and I said, "You are not hitting me anymore". I was big enough and strong enough to physically defend myself.

Writing this stuff down helps me put things in perspective. I really did live in a mad house which I managed to escape. I really was surrounded by wicked people who today live in denial of their misdeeds. In one latter letter to my mother, I brought up my father's rages, she would not admit the part she played in it all but told me, "Your father had a lot of problems". My brother told me my father once apologized to him for the abuse but I never heard any such apologies.

No one should live in such abuse. ACONs know especially if they are physically abused, they have to spend years fixing and establishing the boundaries that were crossed, dealing with the PTSD, and many other issues that can arise from physical abuse.

I have thought about the day, my father threw paint cans at me as I left the house and went on my first no contact.  I was an adult. It occurred to me years later, I could have filed a complaint. There probably were marks and paint left in the drive way from the thrown paint cans to prove it. As Narcissistic survivor says, yes if you are being abused tell someone, if young a trusted clergy member, counselor, etc. Adults too, make a stand. No one has the right to hit you. It is against the law.

As I mentioned in the shoveling article,  part of my healing now, is no more blaming myself. I was a child and not responsible for what was done to me. What they did was wrong. I did not choose it. I was not a "bad" child and neither were you. They purposefully chose abuse.

Quit Listening to the World

Shoveling Out the Bad to Bring in the Good

I am learning to be more self referencing as I mentioned in one article. What do I mean by self referencing, it means I am holding my thoughts, beliefs and values first. Many Scapegoats often are told they must please others at any cost. This can set up a bad precedent in that the world becomes a weight on the scapegoat's shoulders. I'm tired from carrying it. Does this make sense?

Why is no contact feeling "hard" lately? I don't miss the ingrates. I feel relief. However an empty hole is standing where a family should be. I have funny dreams lately, in one dream, I have this nice aunt, she is around 15 years older and we sit at the table drinking tea. She loves me and I love her. The dream progresses with us having nice conversation. Not all my dreams are nightmares but that one was kind of funny to have. What did it mean? The imagination of the family that should have been?

There's no family for me. Queen Spider took them all away. She took away even my family I could have formed via her medical neglect of my health problems and treatment of my Aspergers.  I don't miss them, but I grieve not having a family very deeply it is intertwined with reaching my late 40s and knowing no family of my own will exist either. It seems everyone "has a family" and while I thought I could deal with the childlessness easier as I got old, it has only gotten harder as everyone's formed families all bloom like a flower.

My classmates and others are becoming grandparents now, and this is only more painful looking at the lives and blessings they have. I try to remind myself even Job got his family back in heaven but this is some major pain I am carrying and do not know how to deal with. There's no books on ending up 40 something and without a family, career or other things that are supposed to make you an accomplished adult. I sometimes want to warn today's young voluntary childfree [I was involuntary] people.

Ok, I understand you do not want children and everyone is to make their own choices but go in it clear-eyed. The price goes way beyond avoiding the dirty diapers and disciplining, there's empty voids where your future grown children will be standing or your grandchildren one day. Of course the child-free movement is growing because the world has made it so hard to make a living, that if you can't take care of yourself as a 20 or 30 or 40 something, how are you going to take care of someone else?

Lately,  I have faced a few people telling me to "get over" over the grief.  Going back to the self referencing though I'm tired of squeezing my emotions and myself to please others. I need to feel what I feel, and what I feel is grief and sadness. I can't help it. These were feelings I repressed for years as I tried to  hopelessly make things work with the narcissists.

 However, in a way they are right, in my mind, I am telling myself too, "You need to move on", "You need to not think of them", "You need to do something with your life and get focus". So even as a friend yesterday tells me, "you need to get over it" and "move on". I said back to her, "I want a good life, isn't the best revenge living well?" I still plan to warn about narcissists, but I need to heal too.

I want to be happy and make others happy too, but how it is accomplished? This is where I feel frustrated as I wrote in the "Why is My Life So Rotten" article? Here I face some of my shortcomings borne out of health things I can't control and I have sat back and thought about what things will make me happy and change things for the better. Of course one isn't to just live life to make one's self happy but also follow integrity and God's Will.  What makes me happy, those are bright spots, like doing photography, or short day trips, or other explorations in life. The best thing I can do is go find a happy life free of narcissists, and go and accomplish some things and be who I was meant to be. Can I have 20 years back? I need more time. LOL

I dream of things I would love to do. Even a trip or two would be so nice, to photograph some scenery, to do and see NEW things, but I feel tethered by an ankle, the ball and chain called Pay your rent and bills. We paid our bills this month and the insurance will be paid once, he gets 30 dollars in freelance, but there's nothing left. Maybe less responsible people throw caution to the wind and go out there and carpe diem [seize the day] and all that stuff but it doesn't work if you are looking at homelessness once you are back from your great hurrah! I want better for my husband too. If you love someone it pains you to see them suffer and see their life crumble. It happens to him, and it hits me.

Of course part of me is thinking "Oh my! you have the family in your comic, you are talking about them there too!" and then I sit down have one of those Aspie moments of wondering what I am doing and how I am doing it. However I believe in that project, it's like here, trying to sound a warning but with some humor in that project. I know I need to DO more and complain less but then I get thwarted on the doing end of things--fatigue, money, housebound, money lacks and then complain. It's not a good spiral. One gets stuck in a rut. My husband says, "you do a lot more then you know".

Maybe with time, I hope God leads me to a better place. My healing is taking some intense time here. I have fear and other things to face. What does God want for my life? What do I want for it? Surely something has to change for the better. I do follow the philosophy, that one should do what they can but there are a lot of things outside of our control. 

Maybe with time and healing away from the narcissists, I hope my ability to be happy will grow.  I blame myself for far too much. There is something inside me I have only begun to chip away at where I feel like it was all my fault and that I could have done something to make things not turn out the way they did. It wasn't my fault, I know this intellectually but I need to make it internal. 

I hope my ability not to blame myself for the bad things that have happened to me or even not being able to have children will grown. I hope I will gain more clarity and focus in life in trying to get it together. Maybe with time around more healthy people, I will learn more ability to have contentment. Maybe I will learn how to manage things in a more healthy fashion. I want free of the clouds of depression and lost hope. While I have hope of heaven can hope for one's life on this earth be regained?  It is a struggle. 

I don't want to prove myself to anyone anymore. I want to put what God thinks of me first. I'm done trying to scramble for crumbs, and now maybe at this late age, I will grow into myself. I'm tired of feeling sad, and oppressed and cast down because of narcissists who filled my head with a bunch of crap. Now is the time to shovel it out. Can I? I hope and pray so. I need things to change. 

The Social Rules I Break!

1. Never talk about anything too negative or intense or intellectual.

Aspies cope by analyzing things, this means fully facing reality and dealing with the way life really is.  Smiling stoicism is not our natural setting. It is our suck it up and avoid getting beaten up default setting among strangers. It's hard. Why are things like this? Sometimes the human world seems like it is run like the animal world, and if any individual exhibits any weakness, they are pecked to death like in the chicken world.

One thing I notice some neurotypicals get into, is that one is never to share or display pain or vulnerability. Maybe there is the good reason for that for self protection from narcs but it helps the narcissists rule, because no one has the ability to talk about anything real. Sometimes, I feel like I have to censor myself constantly around some neurotypicals. One thing about our society is the powers that be want the serfs to smile and not cause trouble. Don't help them out. No one is feeling their feelings. No one's crying and patting heads in the American Hunger Games.

There is some scary stuff happening in our society where talking about troubles means you are a bad person. New philosophies are teaching people that anyone who has bad things happen to them is at fault. The Bible admits that life is full of tribulation. The graveyard whistlers don't want to admit that poverty or bad things can happen to them so they want you to shut up so they can shut their eyes to the human pain around them and play their video games or live in fantasy. A lot of our world now is manufactured around Roman "bread and circuses" and well, no one is supposed to be bawling their eyes out in the circus or discussing the stampeding barbarians outside of the tent.

You are to keep the smile on at all times. I can see emotions becoming a thing of a past in our growing narcissistic world. All emotions but anger and glee will be canceled out. Watch an old movie sometime and notice a few people cry in there, or feel loss. Men of the 1950s have no problem speaking of romantic love. People cry. You will know that the emotional landscape has been extremely altered even since the 1980s. Us Aspies are outsiders and are viewing this stuff. An old Aspies sees these wide changes, while many within the heating up pot are clueless.

Aspies are being really oppressed by the appearances oriented society we have now, where we are told to hide any bad stuff. However it goes deeper then this, there is a severe anti-intellectualism now in our culture. If you are an intellectual in America, you are written off as a "nerd". I remember this started sometime around the 1980s with the "Revenge of the Nerds". Only weirdos and social ingrates sit around and talk about history or obesity conspiracy. While I can explore theories and topics with many Aspie friends and maybe one or two good-minded neurotypicals, the majority of neurotypicals seem angered by intellectual forays. You can even avoid religious and other topics and discuss a neutral one, and still manage to anger a few people without meaning too. One Aspie incredible joy is intellectual banter and discovery, so it gets very sad that around some neurotypicals, this joyful part of our personality is to be suppressed. I know among my family, discussing any intellectual endeavors fell flat. The most neutral thing pissed them off. They seemed bored, wanting to show something off instead.

 I want to dive deep into the ocean, while many neurotypicals are telling me to stay in the puddle, and splash. Am I too intense? Maybe. I like humor, jokes and funny movies like anyone else, but I feel so repressed at times. Often in the world, I am this very quiet person. I learned long ago opening my mouth got me in trouble more often then not. Sometimes I bounce between "just being me and letting the chips fall where they may" and running back to the corner to hide. I can't handle having endless enemies and fighting endless battles. I like blogging because I can talk about things openly.

2. Maintain your Status.

Status is too important to to many out there. I don't feel like playing the king or queen of the mountain games.  If I had money, all of you know, I would not going to spend it on a giant McMansion in the suburbs with a double sink and granite counters in the kitchen. Boring!  Aspies usually are bored to death via competition. It bores us or troubles us. We derive no joy from smashed up opponents on the ballfield. I never wanted to destroy anyone else to get their bennies or climb to the top. Status to me seemed a useless thing but it is so important in our world. Sometimes I have told Asperger friends my theory that a lot [not all] of neurotypicals operate according to status. Many of their mental and emotional battles are hierarchy maneuvers that a great deal of energy is dedicated to.

Whose on top? Whose on bottom? Who cares! Sadly here too, with our growing narcissistic society this has only grown worse. The narcissists want to be in charge and want control. One thing that will happen to Aspies is sometimes they will get thrown under the bus, because they may be a threat to someone's status. Every little Aspie remembers the people in school who would be nice to you in private but pick on you in front of the bullies. Going back to the pecking chickens again, group status and dynamics have some really poison attributes to them. This is how conformity is demanded and expected and any "stand-outs" smashed down with a hammer.

Our entire world world is based on status, and well this is one reason some Aspies may really suffer. While we want to be left alone in peace and just want to do our jobs in the work place, this doesn't happen. The games and drama to establish the social order and status seem never ending. I always had the thought before, if all these narc and social pecking order games were ended, that society could advance somewhere more decent. You would have your flying cars and cured diseases because Marge and Sally and George and Henry would be busier working and innovating rather then fighting, backstabbing and reporting each other to the boss.

 There is always someone who is going to have a higher grade point or or more money. Aspies are more loner types. We do not feel like playing the "Big Cheese" or selling ourselves. Perhaps this is  a bad thing and why too many Aspies who lack sellable savant or computer skills, end up broke. The world sometimes feels like a bunch of screaming matches where the narcs are on the stage screaming "Look at me, dammit!", the non-narc enablers in the audience and some of us decided to leave the theatre while being sick of it all. A lot of status seeking is empty to the Christian and those with a more spiritual mind-set, but as I look out in the world, that is what so much of it is about.

                               [source]

3. Conform in dress, opinion and thought.

I'm failing that one big time. As I age, I realize there are many people who simply aren't going to like me for the opinions I hold. There are times in life where I have found out someone has flat out hated my guts. These are people I never had one argument or debate with in my entire life. How did this happen? They hate me because I'm different.

 Surprise, Surprise! Us Aspies can offend some neurotypicals just by just being ALIVE! If you are Aspie trust me it will happen. I know I'm not politically correct, and everyone's cup of tea, but one thing Aspies have to develop is a thick skin, especially if you are going to fly all your weirdo flags. People either love you or hate you when you are an Aspie. There are many times where I am simply hated for breaking some social rule I don't know about. I try to be nice, so wasn't rude to anyone. Sometimes just being me is enough to make this happen. Sometimes it is because I simply do not conform.

I have noticed too many people's opinions all match now. There are the independent thinkers who don't fit in the Republican or Democratic box, but have you noticed over the last 30 years people started to match their official demographics. I've had people get mad at me for things they thought I believed based on demographical assumptions.

Don't get me started on dress. I noticed someone wrote that manufacturers had streamlined the clothes for the global market, and that is why fashion creativity for the average person died on the alter of expediency. I'm old enough to remember different styles and colors and patterns. People get mad sometimes now if you don't dress like them. If you see a person with an individual style, don't lose them, it means something today.

The herd expects too much conformity now. You think the 1950s were the conformity society, they couldn't beat the 2010s. While they advertised fake freedom and "choices" for the masses via entertainment, actually the screws got tightened down more.

There is a reason weird Uncle Charlie or Aunt Lucy could still get some kind of job 50 years ago but sit unemployed now. There's a reason it feels so hard to make friends. I get this complaint from non-Aspies. There's a reason going to work at the office feels like a session of mental gladiators and a back-stab fest. Something is really wrong. The cultural rules have grown tighter and tighter and life I would say has gotten tough for the Aspie in this way, even if there is more discussion of disability rights and cultural awareness on the surface level.

Herda

Get out of the Box

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