Passive Aggressive Wife

I saw a post from @furiousgoldfish where a narc had lashed out at a survivor with the line “you wouldn’t call it depression abuse”.

& I just realized -

One of the things that makes narcissists so sensitive to any kind of criticism is because

they can’t separate “insult”/criticism intended to seek accountability from a personal attack.

They see in black and white -

‘either you perfectly, unconditionally adore me or you loathe me with the fire of a thousand suns’

So if you acknowledge they’re a narcissist,

they don’t hear “your behaviour is toxic and you need to stop”...

they hear “you are evil because you are a narcissist and you are abusive”.

They don’t see room for change - they see a concrete definition of who they are / who they assume they must be to you.

They hear it as a personal attack, not a criticism of their behaviour (because they don’t see those things as separate).

It’s not that survivors are evil for calling it narcissistic abuse - it never was.

It’s that they think they’re either worthless or the most important in the world,

either evil or pure perfect hero/heroine,

either perfectly normal or an abomination...

They don’t see the shades of silver & grey, the “your actions are bad but you’re capable of good”.

It’s not that depressed people never lash out in potentially toxic ways, it’s that usually they realize that behaviour isn’t their identity & that they can do better, in a way narcs don’t.

That doesn’t mean they’re in the right to lash out -

but for survivors, it often helps us to understand, because for a narc everything is personal

& when they attack you or demand understanding, they make it sound like you’re ungrateful, cruel, lacking empathy, crazy, etc.

so we feel like it’s personal, because for them it always was.

So here’s something that might be reassuring & helpful if you want to spread knowledge about narcissistic abuse.