How a Narcissist Exploits Your Emotional Wounds
A narcissistic parent knows exactly how to inflict shame on their child.
It starts from their child’s birth; the narcissist installs a deep sense of shame.
Perhaps they do it by subtle means, such as cold body language, or a cool tone of voice when they don’t approve of something.
Or they could be more obvious by shouting, calling their child names or telling them they are bad.
Whatever the narcissistic parent’s method, the child takes on the belief that they are bad.
As the child grows, their mistakes and errors are used against them by the narcissistic parent.
This becomes their ‘proof’ of how bad their child is. These mistakes will be constantly brought up to remind the child of their shame.
Other people will hear of these things, a part of the narcissist’s smear campaign against their child.
The narcissist keeps a grudge list, which will be all the transgressions the child has made against the narcissist since the child’s birth.
It could even begin before the child is born, a narcissistic mother listing the ways she suffered during her pregnancy or delivery.
No matter what their child does, these grudges will never be forgotten or forgiven.
At every opportunity this list of grudges will be used by the narcissist to get their chid back under their control. No matter their child’s age.
Children raised by narcissists don’t know forgiveness, love or understanding.
These things are never demonstrated to them.
Being raised by a narcissist means a childhood of no love or support, not just from the narcissist but from the rest of the family.
The family are tied in with the toxicity, with each family member looking out for themselves, even the narcissist’s partner.
The needs of the narcissist are the family’s only concern and focus.
Children’s needs are neglected, this could include even their basic needs.
Certainly, their emotional or psychological needs are ignored by the narcissist. Their other parent may ignore their children’s needs, choosing to focus on the narcissist instead.
Being the scapegoat of the family, means you are the target for all the contempt and nastiness of each family member, with the narcissistic parent’s encouragement.
The narcissist and the family dump all their crap on the scapegoat.
However, it’s done so cleverly, sometimes very subtly, so that scapegoat doesn’t understand the truth of the dynamic.
Being told, or made to believe, from birth that you are bad goes deep.
The scapegoat believes (subconsciously) that they deserve this treatment from their family. They believe this because they been manipulated into believing that they are a bad child and a bad sibling. Ultimately, they believe that they are bad.
The narcissist encourages the scapegoat in their belief that they are bad. It makes their child vulnerable to their abuse, a perfect target for their vitriol.
The scapegoat child doesn’t know any different. But they are also aware throughout their childhood that they are dependent on the narcissist for survival.
Often this continues into adulthood, even though the child may be fully independent from the narcissist.
This shame button installed by the narcissist is their weapon of manipulation.
If their child is behaving in a way that the narcissist doesn’t like, it doesn’t take much prompting from the narcissist for the child to change. The narcissist’s child learns to read the clues from the narcissist at a very early age because their very survival depends on it.
Shame is a very uncomfortable feeling, and the immediate response is to try to soothe the feeling as quickly as possible.
The narcissist depends on this, once they’ve triggered the shame, they’ve got their child back under their control.
The child will do whatever the narcissist wants, because they assume that it will relieve their feelings of shame. Even if it’s to their detriment or something they don’t want to do.
Over time and with various life experiences the narcissistic parent finds more and more to shame their child for.
However, their true power is their ability to trigger that shame. But if you process that shame, or do something to heal it, then the narcissist loses their ability to shame.
Other narcissistic people
Narcissists are very adept at sussing out what people’s weaknesses are.
In whatever capacity you know a narcissist, they would have established your pain points to exploit.
When first meeting you, they would have worked out your unhealed parts, and then they will use this information to manipulate and control you.
With a narcissistic partner, it could be that a previous partner was unfaithful to you.
If you’ve healed from this, it wouldn’t be something that a narcissist could use against you. They only use it to abuse, if there’s still some pain there.
However, if you’ve not healed, it will be the way that they crawl into your heart. With fake promises and acting the part of the loyal potential partner, they will convince you they are good.
Then once they have you where they want you, emotionally (and perhaps financially) reliant on them they will use your pain against you.
They may play games and fake affairs, or actually have affairs with other people and call you crazy when you call them out on it. Or else they will accuse you of having an affair, whilst it’s them carrying on.
Whatever your unrecognised and unhealed pain the narcissist will exploit. All that changes is the way that they can use it against you.
A narcissistic colleague will use your unhealed pain to their advantage.
It may mean getting you to do their work for them, badmouthing you to colleagues or your boss or undermining you if you hold a higher position than them.
The more you play along with it, because you are a participant in this too, then the longer it goes on.
The same with a narcissistic friend, they will use your pain.
It could be that you feel lonely, in which case they will exploit it to pull you close. Then they will use it to make feel isolated and alone, and entirely dependent on them. Then you are the perfect target for their abuse.
Anyone who is narcissistic sees other people’s pain as an opportunity to exploit.
To start with they use it to reel you in, whilst they pretend to be what you want, someone to heal their pain. Then with time they use it to abuse.
The more you can recognise, process and heal from your shame, the less the narcissist has to latch onto and exploit.
It’s the shame that you feel that gives them the opportunity to abuse you.
University Drop Out
I felt a great deal of shame because I dropped out of university.
I would justify it to myself, I was lonely and suicidal and left with no choice but to go back home to my parents.
Sometimes I would consider confiding in my father the reasons why I dropped out. But something always held me back.
My father used every opportunity he could to remind me that I had dropped out.
He would introduce me to people saying, ‘This is Clare, my daughter, she dropped out of University after she cost me a fortune.’
Then I knew that even if I told him about my experiences towards the end of my time at Uni, it wouldn’t make any difference. He didn’t care about how I felt. And he certainly wouldn’t stop using every opportunity to remind of my failure.
In fact, the chances were he would do it more knowing that he was causing me pain.
The only time he stopped doing this was after I graduated.
Now I realise that he was exploiting my pain and shame at failing at university. If I had processed that, he wouldn’t have been able to use it against me.
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Originally published at https://comebackbrighter.com on July 5, 2022.