Living Behind the Veil

I'm often asked what I wear in Afghanistan and what it's like to wear a veil. It's freedom. Freedom to have a bad hair day, freedom to arrange my chadar to conceal the curve of my breasts and backside, freedom to not be an expatriate for a little while. It means freedom to hide even on the street from the Afghan men's eyes which seem to strip me naked.
When I relax my shoulders and walk less purposefully, less confidently, my eyes downcast and covered by sunglasses, I pass for an Afghan woman. I hear the men whisper in Dari, "Is she a foreigner or local woman?" I chuckle but am silent. On the street, I'm also a free target....freely exposed to groping, sexual innuendos whispered to me as a man bicycles by, free to have stones thrown at me, freely seen as no one's wife, daughter, sister, mother, friend, or boss. I step inside my gate, and remove my chapan and chadar. Now I'm someone's boss, motherhood returns to me as little steps run to greet me, and I receive a kiss from my adoring husband. Now I'm free to his loving and gentle eyes which know and enjoy my curves, free to once again be under the protective umbrella of being a wife, mother, friend, colleague, boss, niece, sister, daughter, woman.

Monday, October 3, 2016

Layers of Fig Leaves: Profile of a Narcissist

Sadly, an evilness causing great woundedness to many people is narcissism. Awareness of narcissism, the profile of narcissism, and patterns of abuse and wounding, as well as skills for de-escalating responses to narcissists helps cut through the fog and crazy cycle of narcissism.

The following are highlights from a variety of resources, many are secular, but interestingly, the secular approach intersects quite often with those who are Christ-followers.

Definition of Narcissism
"As I have said in a previous article (Lopez De Victoria, 2008, para. 3), “narcissism, in lay terms, means that a person is totally absorbed in self. The extreme narcissist is the center of his own universe. To an extreme narcissist, people are things to be used."

Narcissism Begins With Significant Emotional Wounding (Quote from Lopez De Victoria)
It usually starts with a significant emotional wound or a series of wounds culminating in a major trauma of separation/attachment. No matter how socially skilled an extreme narcissist is, he/she has a major attachment dysfunction and massive abandonment issues.

The extreme narcissist is frozen in childhood. He/she became emotionally stuck at the time of his/her major trauma of separation/attachment. In my work with extreme narcissist patients I have found that their emotional age and maturity corresponds to the age they experienced their major trauma. This trauma was devastating to the point it almost killed them emotionally. The pain has never totally gone away and the bleeding is continuous.

Protective Barrier of Narcissism (Quote from Lopez De Victoria)
In order to survive, this child had to construct a protective barrier that insulates him/her from the external world of people. He/she generalized that all people are harmful and cannot be trusted. The protective insulation barrier he/she constructed is called a false persona. He/she created a false identity. This identity is not the true person inside.” With the creation of a false person the real person inside practically disappears. As he/she grows older, the false person hardly knows that real person any longer.

Difference between Cunning and Smart - Narcissists are cunning
The narcissist usually starts the fight, and their apology can be mistaken as empathy and love. The romantic notes of apology are cunning and manipulative so as not to get caught. Narcissists are incredibly cunning - the inversion of wisdom. But in relationship with others, they have issues of attachment disorder, abandonment issues, and severe rage and do not know how to get close to another. 

Romantic Relationship with a Narcissist:
The women who have gotten out of narcissistic relationships and are making you tube videos consistently talk about this: 
  • Honeymoon/Idolize Phase
  • Devalue Phase
  • Discard Phase
Is There Some Relationship Between Demonic and Psychological Treatment?
There seems to be alignment between therapists and the lay people teaching about this, that therapy doesn't work, ESPECIALLY if the narcissist bamboozles the therapist.  The Therapist MUST recognize the narcissist and deal with him/her.  Often the Narcissist knows how to respond with humility, shame, and the right words while in session, but in the car, turn back into the monster they really are. Therapy tends to make a bigger, empowered monster. The therapist/treatment often helps the narcissist blame the victim as the primary problem, the one who is reacting irrationally.

The Catholic, Protestant, and secular sources tend to all agree that there is very little that seems effective with narcissists. Narcissists and co-dependents cannot be worked on together. They must be treated separately.

However, what would happen if a Ministry of Reconciliation approach was applied to a narcissist? Is it even possible to have a narcissist admit to lies and the truth that they are NOT such an incredible person? I would be interested to know if this approach can work, but the challenge is to get to the actual truth, because the layers of fig leaves are so thick.  It's hard to get past all the layers of false self to the real self.

The descriptions I've heard of rage of narcissists, my own experiences with narcissists, as well as reading about narcissism is that it sounds quite demonic. Secular people around the world talking about narcissism and their experiences with these people are "evil", "scum", "have nothing to do with them."

The Narcissist Is the Idol aka They Con the Church
They can be pastors, ministry leaders, respectable people who in the car or the privacy of the home fly into rage at the smallest trifle, who have sexual addictions, substance abuse, and are secretly totally failures and ashamed of themselves. They are like a house that is being eaten by termites. After awhile they will not be able to stand up. One of their final acts is to shun those who will not bow to the image they project. They themselves are the idol and they want to kill those who stand in their way and don't "bow" to their projected image. They are filled with rage.They cover with spiritualized fig leaves to try to deflect attention from themselves.

Helpful Resources

Articles

Book
Dr. M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil 
Henry Cloud, Necessary Endings, Chapters 5-6 
Aydin Guner, The Devil in I 
Aydin Guner, Behind the Mask: An Introduction to Covert Narcissism
I haven't read these books by Aydin Guner, but he does have a youtube video here:  he also uses the word "evil" and "stay away for them."

Youtube:

Narcissist Devalued Me
50 Symptoms of Narcissistic Abusers - an excellent raw video of a therapist sharing his personal experiences with a female narcissistic (fiance); not for minors; not entirely from a Christian viewpoint despite quoting from Acts

Break the Crazy Cycle
  1. Sometimes we have to totally disassociate from the relationships with the narcissist until we can get enough strength to respond with healthy responses and have time to heal. 
  2. Have a "functional" person listen to your side of the phone call, so that you can get feedback on how you are responding/interacting. 
  3. Separate all finances from the narcissist and do not have any other physical/financial ties to the narcissist.
  4. When you begin to break out of victimization, expect to be totally discarded or publicly shunned. 
  5. Develop a support network to help you walk on a daily basis back into the light of normalcy and healthy interpersonal interactions. 
  6. Understand that there is almost no success in the few Christian treatment programs in North America. There is little hope for the person you love.
De-escalating Responses
  1. Recognize you cannot out-power a narcissist so don't respond with the same energy, power, and negativity as them. 
  2. Agree with what you can agree with without defending yourself or catering to the narcissist's demands. 
  3. Choose the fewest amount of words to respond to the narcissist. 
  4. Side-step by choosing a soft and generic response that disarms them. 
  5. Do not respond to words they use, whether spiritualized or not. Jesus taught we always know the truth by the fruit we see in their lives. No fruit = no truth = no change, so have as little to do with them as possible. 
  6. Break off contact with them as much as possible. Don't react, but choose when you will respond to them on your timetable, NOT theirs.
It's really hard to choose the de-escalating response, because we are sick and tired of being accused, of assumptions being made and our character slandered, misunderstood, taken out of context, seen as "less then" the narcissist.  We want to be violent and hurtful back. Simply, we want revenge.

Narcissists are people, they are human, they are made in the image of God. But it is possible even for those who call themselves Christians to be demonically possessed with deep attachment disorder. Henry Cloud's book gives a clear guide based on his study of Proverbs on discerning those who are evil, those who are fools, and those who are wise.

Jesus'\ commands us to "love our enemies", because when the narcissist is someone close to you, someone you ought to love but who acts like your enemy, it is in reality much harder to love them, and much easier to love those who are clearly enemies, like the taliban or isis.

Breath in and breath out with the saints of 2000 years, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful to me a sinner."