CW for vague references to methods of abuse, ableism/saneism.
It is quite genuinely so saddening watching the "narc abuse" crowd position themselves as the "true trauma survivors", as if people with NPD aren't living with a chronic trauma disorder too.
You can be staunchly anti-abuse without throwing other Disabled people under the bus.
Renaming existing forms of abuse- such as emotional, mental, financial and physical abuse- as being under this broad, nebulous label of "narcissistic abuse"- does not help trauma survivors find genuine support. A lot of the people peddling "narcissistic abuse" as a concept are financially motivated to convince you it's a real phenomenon. They're exploitative- and ironically, manipulating you and capitalising on your (very real!) trauma.
Your trauma is real. Your pain is real. Your hurt, anger, confusion (and frankly any emotional responses you're having) are real. You do have trauma. You didn't deserve what you went through. All of this is true. And it's not "narcissists" who are the sole perpetrators of these abusive tactics.
The (really tragic) reality is that anybody is capable of abusive behaviour. Especially because we live in a world that encourages everyone to exploit each other. Many of our societies are deeply rooted in bigoted, exploitative systems of oppression. Many of us live under capitalistic, white supremacist and colonialist systems. And nobody gets to escape that without first learning (and often internalising) that we as a society are encouraged to oppress each other.
What this is trying to say is; it's not just one (statistically small) group of evil mentally ill people who perpetrate abuse. Abusive tactics and patterns are societally encouraged. It is not the tiny percentage of NPDers who are abusing people; abuse can be perpetrated by literally anyone with the capacity to cause harm to others.
It's a nice fabricated idea that "if we just get rid of the evil mentally ill people, we will be rid of abuse". But that's not true. You can't shun a group of (also highly traumatised) Disabled people and then expect abuse to just... Stop occurring. You can't armchair diagnose every abusive person as a narcissist and then call it a day. We have to actually combat the systems that enable abuse.
Ableism won't save us from abuse. It won't dismantle oppressive systems. It won't tackle discrimination (because you're contributing to it by weaponising psychiatric labels and demonising other trauma survivors).
If you aren't willing to look at the root problems that are enabling abuse, and instead just pick a scapegoat to pin everything on? That's not preventing abuse. That's not protecting survivors. It's just (often wrongly) armchair diagnosing abusers with a mental illness and then saying that the solution is to shun them. You don't fix problems by ignoring the core issues- and then socially isolating anybody that mirrors the issues that you're ignoring.
And no, this post isn't written by someone with NPD... Saying all of this as someone with CPTSD, who has been abused enough to develop a complex dissociative disorder, and doesn't have NPD.
NPDers are not the enemy- you don't fix a problem by ignoring it and then reframing the issue as "mentally ill people's fault".
Again- your trauma is real. Nobody is saying you weren't abused. If you know you were abused, then you were abused. That's something nobody else can decide for you. Your trauma is real. And it isn't the fault of some sinister collective of inherently abusive mentally ill people. Those things exist at the same time.
Please, please take this as a sign to talk to a fully qualified therapist, peer support worker, trusted friend or another willing & safe person (that doesn't buy into ableist pseudoscience!). You deserve better than an echo chamber of disinformation. You deserve supports and safe spaces that help you process your trauma and the world around you.
We aren't enemies. We aren't.
