Um... YWL?

REBUKE: ITS FOR THEIR OWN GOOD

By Rev. Renee Pittelli

SPEAK UP FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES, FOR THE RIGHTS OF ALL WHO ARE DESTITUTE. SPEAK UP AND JUDGE FAIRLY: DEFEND THE RIGHTS OF THE POOR AND NEEDY -- Proverbs 31: 8-9

DO NOT HATE YOUR BROTHER IN YOUR HEART. REBUKE YOUR NEIGHBOR FRANKLY SO YOU WILL NOT SHARE IN HIS GUILT -- Leviticus 19: 17

MEN OF PERVERSE HEART SHALL BE FAR FROM ME: I WILL HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH EVIL. WHOEVER SLANDERS HIS NEIGHBOR IN SECRET, HIM WILL I PUT TO SILENCE;

WHOEVER HAS HAUGHTY EYES AND A PROUD HEART, HIM WILL I NOT ENDURE NO ONE WHO PRACTICES DECEIT WILL DWELL IN MY HOUSE; NO ONE WHO SPEAKS FALSELY WILL STAND IN MY PRESENCE. EVERY MORNING I WILL PUT TO SILENCE ALL THE WICKED IN THE LAND: I WILL CUT OFF EVERY EVILDOER FROM THE CITY OF THE LORD -- Psalm 101: 4-5, 7-8

REBUKE: (v) TO CRITICIZE SHARPLY, TO REPROVE SEVERELY; TO REPRIMAND.

(n) AN EXPRESSION OF STRONG DISAPPROVAL

“SON OF MAN, I HAVE MADE YOU A WATCHMAN FOR THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL: SO HEAR THE WORD I SPEAK AND GIVE THEM WARNING FROM ME. WHEN I SAY TO THE WICKED, ‘O WICKED MAN, YOU WILL SURELY DIE,’ AND YOU DO NOT SPEAK OUT TO DISUADE HIM FROM HIS WAYS, THAT WICKED MAN WILL DIE FOR HIS SIN, AND I WILL HOLD YOU ACCOUNTABLE FOR HIS BLOOD. BUT IF YOU DO WARN THE WICKED MAN TO TURN FROM HIS WAYS AND HE DOES NOT DO SO, HE WILL DIE FOR HIS SIN, BUT YOU WILL HAVE SAVED YOURSELF AS SURELY AS I LIVE, “ DECLARES THE SOVEREIGN LORD, “I TAKE NO PLEASURE IN THE DEATH OF THE WICKED, BUT RATHER THAT THEY TURN FROM THEIR WAYS AND LIVE. TURN! TURN FROM YOUR EVIL WAYS! WHY WILL YOU DIE, O HOUSE OF ISRAEL?” -- Ezekiel 33: 7-9, 11.

Wow, the Lord can’t make it any clearer than that! If ever we had any doubts that God wants us to take a stand and speak up against evil, this passage should remove them. The Lord tells us that WE SIN when we remain silent about wrongdoing. God tells us that we are doing an offender a FAVOR by rebuking her. Offenders themselves may not see it that way, but quite frankly, their opinion doesn’t matter.  

Although we hesitate and sometimes don’t know quite what to say, rebuking a wrongdoer isn’t really that complicated. Rebuke is simply making a statement directly to the offender. It is saying to him, “What you’re doing is wrong, and I don’t condone it”, or “What you did was wrong, and you need to be accountable for it.”

Rebuke is not condemnation, rebuke is CORRECTION. It is teaching, pointing someone in the right direction, showing him, by our disapproval of his behavior, what is appropriate and acceptable. When we rebuke, we are warning a wicked person. We are giving him a chance to change his ways and save his soul. God WANTS him to turn from evil. He does not want anyone to continue sinning and be condemned to hell. Therefore, he assigns us a divine mandate to REBUKE when we see evil being committed.

So why are we so reluctant to speak up? Maybe we never thought of it as being on a Mission From God before. Yet, that is what it is. Our mission is to turn as many souls to the Lord and away from the devil as possible. And rebuke is the God-given tool by which we will do that.

Unfortunately, few wicked people, or “fools” will turn from their sin, but the Bible tells us that righteous people will appreciate our rebuke and heed us. By rebuking, we can help good people to see the error of their ways, avoid destructive or hurtful behavior, grow in the Lord, and walk more closely with God.

REBUKE A WISE MAN AND HE WILL LOVE YOU,. INSTRUCT A WISE MAN AND HE WILL BE WISER STILL; TEACH A RIGHTEOUS MAN AND HE WILL ADD TO HIS LEARNING -- Proverbs 9: 8-9.

HE WHO REBUKES A MAN WILL IN THE END GAIN MORE FAVOR THAN HE WHO HAS A FLATTERING TONGUE -- Proverbs 28:23.

FLOG A MOCKER, AND THE SIMPLE WILL LEARN PRUDENCE: REBUKE A DISCERNING MAN, AND HE WILL GAIN KNOWLEDGE -- Proverbs 19: 25.

THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGINNING OF KNOWLEDGE, BUT FOOLS DESPISE WISDOM AND DISCIPLINE -- Proverbs 1:7.

This is a Biblical version of “You can’t win them all”, but we’re still supposed to try.

Rebuking is different from setting limits or boundaries. We set boundaries on FUTURE behavior, but we rebuke PAST or PRESENT behavior. We usually rebuke ONGOING behavior, but we might also rebuke a one-time offense which caused pain for us or someone else.

Many times rebuking goes hand-in-hand with setting boundaries. After we have rebuked an offender for something they have already done, or are doing on a continual basis, we then set limits on what we will tolerate from then on. The rebuke is the first step in letting someone know that their actions or words are unacceptable and will not be condoned. The boundaries are the next step, to make clear what is or is not acceptable in the future. Rebuking can be described as “speaking the truth in love”. BOTH TRUTH AND LOVE are equally important.

Being loving does not mean that we cover up, whitewash, avoid, or deny speaking the truth. And telling it like it is does not mean we are not loving, although offenders will often try to make us feel guilty for doing so. Speaking the truth is stating, quite simply and clearly, what the offender has done, that his behavior is unacceptable, and what the results of his actions or words were, including pain inflicted on someone else. Since we did not cause the pain, describing it and stating the facts is nothing for US to feel guilt over.

Speaking the truth plainly does not mean we cannot do it with love. We need to at least start out with a spirit of reconciliation and the hope of resolving the problem. Whether this is possible or not is not solely up to us, but will depend upon the offender’s reaction to our rebuke. Our only obligation is to live in peace with others.  

However, God realizes that it is not always possible to live in peace with everybody because it does not always depend on US, and we need to realize that, too. We are not responsible for an abuser’s negative reaction to our rebuke or his refusal to listen to rebuke. We are only responsible to rebuke him in the first place. If he refuses to repent and change his ways, our responsibility ends and we are released from any obligation to continue the relationship under those circumstances. In fact, at this point, the Bible tells us to have nothing further to do with him. Rebuking with love does not mean we must be passive, wishy-washy, reluctant, or even calm when we rebuke.

How we approach rebuking an offender has more to do with HIS nature than ours. We need to adapt our approach to the offender’s personality and character. With some people, we will need to take a mild, although firm, approach, because anything stronger will overwhelm or devastate them. These people are usually not chronic abusers, as chronic abusers usually have much thicker skins, but are perhaps thoughtless or inconsiderate. Blasting them with both barrels would be very hurtful and counterproductive. We may wind up doing far more damage to the relationship than the original offense did.

Approaching them in a calm, laid-back manner and with a spirit of cooperation will give us the best chance for restoring the relationship to one that we can all be happy with. This is the best possible scenario, where everyone involved acts out of love, so that everyone’s feelings can be validated and hurtful behavior will stop.
Unfortunately, at the other extreme is the malicious abuser - the one whose behavior is outrageous and destructive - the one who betrayed you - the psychopath who couldn’t care less about anybody but herself- the one who makes your life, and probably everyone else’s, a living hell. This is not the type of offender you pussy-foot around. You are never going to get anywhere with such a person by being gentle and low-key. You will probably have no choice but to raise your voice just to be heard. This is the time to break out the big guns, make sure your rebuke is very strong, and make your disapproval of his behavior loud and clear. Allow yourself some righteous anger, and allow that anger to show.

Now none of this means that you don’t love your relative anyway - indeed, you are putting yourself through all this turmoil just to make your relationship better. It simply means that your relative’s stubborn, stiff-necked, or unloving nature makes it necessary for your rebuke to be powerful. Anything less, and this abuser will just steamroll right over you, and nothing will be accomplished at all. I smile when I try to imagine one of us having the courage to call even downright wicked people. It seems we try so hard to voice our complaints about someone’s mistreatment the “peaceful” way, even though that rarely gets us anywhere with true abusers. One way of looking at it is that with some people, you might as well prepare yourself because there is no way, no matter how nicely you try to approach them, that you are not going to wind up in a big fight anyhow. This is THEIR doing, NOT yours.

Getting all huffy and insulted and starting an argument when you try to reason with him is an abuser’s way of diverting your attention from the real issue, so he can avoid having to apologize or agree to any change in his behavior. In fact, if he’s really good at his little act, he’ll wind up getting YOU to apologize for upsetting him! This will also guarantee that in the future, you’ll be reluctant to ever again bring up anything else you might need to get resolved with him.

YOUR challenge, on the other hand, with a “professional” abuser, is to turn the tables on his strategy, and to make the confrontation so unpleasant for HIM that HE’LL be the one who is reluctant to rattle YOUR cage again. If you succeed, there actually is a chance that you’ll be able to resume a reasonably pleasant relationship with this person, because, if nothing else, at least he’ll have some respect for you and hopefully be more careful about ignoring your boundaries in the future. 

If you can get him to censor what he says and does around you in the future, your interactions will at least be tolerable, should you choose to continue in the relationship, and whatever it takes to accomplish that should be tried. Again, although it is not the first and best choice, you can still love your relative and rebuke her severely if her own hard-hearted nature makes it necessary. When rebuking a fellow believer, by all means, point out what the Bible says about his behavior. 

It is very important to lovingly show him how his sin will separate him from God. The one you are rebuking may very well believe you are not being loving, and may accuse you of “harshness”, “attacking” her, etc. But just because she feels unloved at this particular time, does not mean it is true. You can tell her you are sorry she feels that way but that doesn’t change the fact that what she did was wrong and you do not accept it. Such a reaction is the result of her own pridefulness and the shame she feels at being confronted with her unacceptable behavior. Rather than learn from your rebuke and repent, she chooses to try and turn it around to make YOU feel guilty for speaking up to her. An abuser’s negative reaction does not mean we are wrong for rebuking her. Her reaction really doesn’t matter. It is not our job to make her happy at the price of turning a blind eye to her wrongdoing. 

Our only obligation is to be obedient to the Lord and stand up and confront wickedness as he has told us to do. Here are some examples of rebuke in some common situations. First, I have given the mild version (A), and secondly, the more forceful version of these examples (B), for when the milder versions won’t work. These are just examples of dialog to demonstrate how rebuke might sound. The possible situations which might call for rebuke are endless and it is impossible to give exact examples to cover every circumstance, but I hope to give you some ideas as a jumping-off point:

(A)It was wrong of you to keep that money when the clerk gave you too much change. What if it comes out of the clerk’s pocket? You need to give it back.

(B)It is dishonest of you not to return that money. That’s stealing! Since when are you a thief? I’m ashamed of you!

(A)You embarrassed me when you told Aunt Marge about my marital problems. You broke a confidence and now I feel as if I can’t trust you anymore. (

B)How dare you tell anyone my personal business? It’s not your place to talk about me to others. If I want anyone to know my business, I’ll tell them myself!  

(A)I know you don’t realize this,, but your behavior is inappropriate and your judgment is poor when you’ve been drinking. So you cannot be with my children if you’ve had a drink.

(B)Being drunk in front of the kids is totally unacceptable! You are never to drink in their presence again!

(A)I don’t like it when you raise your voice to me. Let’s stop this conversation now and pick it up again after we’ve both calmed down.

(B)I am another adult, not a naughty child you think you can yell at. From now on, you will address me with respect, is that clear?

(A)Maybe you didn’t mean to hurt Sally’s feelings, but what you said to her sounded a lot like criticism. I think you owe her an apology. (

B)Sometimes you say very hurtful things and you need to keep that in check when talking to Sally. No one really wants to hear your criticism. You need to apologize to her for what you said,.

(A)Let’s try and make our get-togethers enjoyable for both of us. I don’t want to spend our time together listening to you evaluate me, so please stop.

(B)If you are going to be judgmental of my life, then you need to keep your opinions to yourself. What I do is none of your business!

(A)How could you say that about Ellen? You know that’s not true. You need to go back and set the record straight.

(B)Why did you pass malicious gossip around about Ellen? You are a liar! She never did what you said, and she never did anything to deserve such treatment from you. I will not let you get away with hurting her reputation. You need to go back and admit to everyone that you just made it up!

(A)You know, Joe, you can’t always have what you want when you want it. You need to be a little patient.

(B)You know, Joe, you seem to think you’re the only one who’s waiting for this. Stop being so selfish and wait your turn like everybody else!

(A)Mom, sometimes you have to take other people’s wishes into consideration.

(B)Mom, you are being very demanding and selfish. It’s not all about you. Try to have a little consideration for somebody else for a change.

Sometimes, there are situations in which the behavior is just so wrong that a mild rebuke would be inappropriate. These are times we need to be direct and tell the offender in plain language that he is WRONG! Only forceful rebuke fits certain circumstances:

You used my apartment to cheat on your wife? How dare you involve me in your adultery! I will not be a party to this. Give me my key back now- you’re not welcome here anymore!

I know you beat Jessie up. Your behavior is deplorable. You need psychiatric help! Stay away from me and my family!

No, I’m not your friend since you were convicted of child molestation. I don’t have friends who are child- molesters! I have to have SOME standards- What’s next, serial killers?

How can you have anything to do with Jim now that he’s in prison for raping your daughter? That’s disgusting! As long as you continue to support the pervert who raped your own child, I will have nothing to do with you!

You stole money from your sister?! That is disgraceful and despicable! What kind of lowlife are you?

Mild or forceful, rebuke of a truly wicked person has little chance of actually working. The Bible tells us not to bother rebuking fools who will not listen. The point of rebuke is to correct and help turn from sin those who will listen, and to at least stand up to the evil of those who will not. The Lord’s judgment is righteous and perfect and all who continue in their evil ways will be punished. Our job is to rebuke wrongdoers, for their own sakes, and to try to influence them to repent. But God does not tell us to try forever - once we have given an offender fair warning that his behavior is wrong, then if he remains stubborn and continues in his sin, we are to give up and let him be. The Lord will deal with him after that.

HE WHO HEEDS DISCIPLINE SHOWS THE WAY TO LIFE, BUT WHOEVER IGNORES CORRECTION LEADS OTHERS ASTRAY -- Proverbs 10:17.

HE WHO LISTENS TO A LIFE-GIVING REBUKE WILL BE AT HOME AMONG THE WISE. HE WHO IGNORES DISCIPLINE DESPISES HIMSELF, BUT WHOEVER HEEDS CORRECTION GAINS UNDERSTANDING -- Proverbs 15: 31-32.

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THOUGHTS

STILL SMEARING ME?

CASUAL CRUELTY

Dominance, power, and having followers are very important to the psychopath's need for total adulation and control. Psychopaths absolutely bask in adulation, many using pity, in a most conniving way, to get the attention that they need. 

Sometimes the way a psychopath asserts his control is done subtly. The psychopath often plays jokes and tricks on others to humiliate them or to assert dominance. Sadly, many are mistaken about the typical psychopath. A psychopath is not always looking for money or sex, quite often, he or she is merely interested in taking you along for a ride. I

 also do not believe that psychopaths always know that they are hurting you. A psychopath behaves the same way with everyone. Most of them take pleasure merely in playing the rouse, and not much else. A psychopath has no interest in your inner emotional state because they themselves have no empathy. They merely enjoy "pulling one over" on people.  

A psychopath cannot truly love and therefore cannot become obsessed with another individual. They are too egocentric, narcissistic, and lack emotional connection to any other human being.  

The central theme of Don Juan's (the psychopaths's) seductions is not even the sexual enjoyment, but playing the trick... While he gives no real love, though he is quite capable of inspiring love of sometimes fanatical degree in others...  

Again, this quote from Gordon Bank's work, "Don Juan as Psychopath," reveals that the psychopath is mostly interested in playing tricks with his prey, almost in a playful way. To the psychopath, such things are not really big deal, while for the victim, however, it becomes a rather big issue indeed. Many of the victims of psychopaths enter therapy as a result of this. 

Many victims believe themselves to be flawed after an experience with a cyberpath. Some of them are harassed by the family and friends of the psychopath, which makes matters worse. He is motivated primarily by the need to dominate and humiliate either the person he is 'taking' or, very often someone connected to another person with whom he is involved.

Psychopaths relish in another's humiliation, which may appear to us as a certain, perverse quality. They take pleasure in what we find obscene, because they are not like other people, they have no true connection to anybody, and are incapable of feeling real love. Messing with another person's emotions and life is merely a way to pass the time, pulling one over on you is fun and enjoyable.  

Most of the crimes psychopaths commit, tend to be "crimes of the heart" and/or "casual cruelty", they are cruel, manipulative people who leave a trail of broken hearts and often broken lives behind them.  

Again, most psychopaths are common liars and predators. Do not be fooled by someone who tells you that there is such a thing as a "harmless liar." A liar is never harmless. A person who lies should never be trusted, and once you find out they've lied to you even once, it's time to break it off. Once having drained what they can from one source, they turn to others to exploit, bleed, and then cast aside; their pleasure in the misfortune of others is unquenchable. People are used as a means to an end; they are to be subordinated and demeaned ...the pleasure they gain from their ruse often flags once the rewards of deceit have been achieved.  

Before long, their true unreliability may be revealed as they "stop working at" their deception or as their need grows to let others know how clever and cunning they have been A psychopath may keep you hooked for as long as they need your narcissistic supply. Once you start getting "wise" to them, however, or once he or she begins to tire of you and find that your narcissistic supply is becoming inadequate, you will soon find out, through some subtle manuevers, that your absolutely "perfect" future mate is nothing but a charade.  

SOURCE


2010-07-10 16:32:21 
I just got of a relationship with a Psychopath: I was devastated at first because he was charming. However, now that it is over everything that he did is starting to reveal itself... Wow, was I fooled. 

I know it is not my fault. I am ok and thank God this happened before the long walk down the aisle...

VALIDATION

Thank you -- thank you to the people who sent me these things over the years to help me move forward with my life. I have moved forward but will always have a deep ache in my soul. 

   

Imagine you are a narcissist. Remember also that you have this unbearable pain inside, the pain of unbearable shame. All your life you have felt like you're inferior, not up to standards, worthy of contempt. But you keep awareness of that at bay by playing pretend that the opposite is true = that you are god and that the rest of humanity (except for the very special people like you) are dirt beneath your feet.  

So, 99% of the time, that's what you think you are - a god. It's self delusion. But every time someone treats you like an ordinary man or woman and as their equal, worthy of your consideration and respect, they are challenging your precious delusions of superiority.  

You HATE that! Because every time they relate to you as a man, they are NOT relating to you as a god. And that makes those true feelings you have repressed surface to consciousness on you.  

You must stop that from happening. So, in terror, you instantly attack anyone who says or does something that reminds you that you are not God. Like a three-year-old playing Pretend with her friends, you stamp your foot and yell (in so many words), "NO! You're not supposed to say THAT! You're supposed to say THIS!"  

You thus train the people around you not to say or do anything that conflicts with your delusions of superiority. That is, you train them to play along with your script in your game of Pretend. But you cannot stop everything from happening that calls your true feelings to consciousness. And they are too painful.  

So, you go berserk with the pain whenever they start to surface, wildly doing anything you can to instantly repress them to the subconscious again. I often liken this subconscious-burying behavior to someone frantically shoving dirt on a corpus delicti to keep it buried in one of those old horror movies. You will do anything - ANYTHING - to prevent a moment of self awareness! Because you have this dark, unutterable terror that it would kill you. Really, you are that frantically afraid of seeing your true self in a mirror. So, you are playing Pretend 100% of the time. 24-7-365.  

You pretend that you are not lowdown by pretending the antidote = pretending that you are a god. And you pretend that you are a god by treating others like dirt.  

You pretend that you are not amoral by pretending the antidote = pretending that you are a saint. And you pretend that you are saint by portraying others as sinners. And so on and on and on and on. Bottom Line: You kill your pain by causing others pain. (In other words, like a three-year-old, you pretend that you can transfer it to others.) You glorify your image by trashing others' image. In other words, you exploit people, brutally as unfeeling and inhuman as a psychopath about the pain and damage you are doing to them by this. You thus make others bleed just to maintain your delusions and keep you from knowing yourself as you are.

Others must bleed so that you can feel good, so that a moment of self awareness doesn't make you just kill yourself. Is that not exactly what the predator thinks? The wolf thinks the lamb must bleed so that he can eat and live. The wolf thinks that this is what lambs exist for - to feed HIM. And that's what predators, like sexual predators, emotional predators, child predators, pyschopaths, and other brands of narcissists think other people exist for = to FEED them.  

To kill all human sympathy in themselves (which would make it impossible for them to do what they wanna do), they just pretend that others are inferior beings, like bugs. Hence they don't relate humanly to their human victims. They relate to them as but objects 

By projecting it onto others. But what if you get into trouble for doing these things? What if you end up before a judge or in a psychiatrist's office? What if the neighbors find out and start looking at you askance? 

Remember, you do everything solely for effect, to get the reaction you want out of these people. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what you will do. You will just switch masks. Now you put on your "victim" mask. Your "Who-poor-little-old-me?-I-wouldn't-hurt-a-fly" act. What better place for the devil to hide? Now you whine about what a wretched childhood you had. Now, so that people don't realize that you are just a predator who attacks any vulnerable prey in sight, you say that the victim hurt your poor, poor, tender feelings and that you were just lashing out in self defense.  

What happened to your God-act?  

You just put that away for the time being, because it won't get you what you want from people under the current circumstances.  

Besides, it's funny. Your own private inside joke. People don't have NPD; NPD has people.

 

Narcissist Personality Disorder does not leave such concrete evidence around like empty bottles, mysterious car dents, drunk-driving charges or visibly injured spouses. No, it feeds on the less concrete aspects of our lives. Damage is visited upon the people around NPD sufferers, and the behavior of the NPD sufferer is explained away using countless plausible rationalizations. To help my own understanding, I have come up with a metaphor for the disorder and the person who is afflicted by it. The metaphor is one of a puppeteer (the disorder itself) and a puppet (the person with the disorder). Let's explore the puppet metaphor to help understand how Narcissistic Personality Disorder works. The puppet metaphor illustrates what I believe is the salient challenge of NPD for those people around it: you think you are dealing directly with a person, but you are not. Instead, you are dealing with someone under the control of NPD. Here is what I have read about and experienced first hand. Narcissistic Personality Disorder sufferers:

• Lack the ability to empathize. They can fake it on and off, but if you have enough exposure to the person, eventually you will see this pattern clearly. They may show zero emotion when hearing news of, for example, deep suffering of huge numbers of people.
• As psychiatrist Thom Hartmann says, they "Kiss up and Kick Down", meaning they are incapable of having truly healthy relationships. They regard other humans as a kind of resource to be used for their own ends.
• Loathe themselves. Extensive research shows that NPD is rooted in denied love at the very early stage of the sufferer's life, and they spend the rest of their life devouring others in a futile attempt to fill this void.
• Go from incredible highs to deep lows. When they are high, they might not be able to stop talking. When they are low, they struggle to say good morning.
• They fly into a rage at the slightest provocation on some days. And at other times, they seem impervious even to the most brutal attack. They might stay awake all night wrestling with a single innocuous thing you said to them the day before, and then launch at you the next day with some bizarre logical conclusion of it.
• When you challenge their behavior, you may quickly move from Friend to Enemy. Sufferers of NPD think in black-and-white terms. You are either "with them or against them".
• Ultimately, they are at the center of the universe. Just like an alcoholic, they will risk a lot to get their next fix.
• Their relationships with newcomers go through three stages that I have identified: (1) Enchantment to (2) Disenchantment to (3) Contempt.
• NPD starts early and its sufferers have over decades developed an impressive range of dis-empowerment skills, from "you are being too sensitive" to talk about a person being a "good person" or a "bad person". (Who are they to judge!).
They are masters at setting one person against another, and they construct a culture of distrust and hostility.
• They always believe they are right.

From what I have read, NPD sufferers rarely get clinically diagnosed, let alone treated. I can understand that. Just imagine waking up with the notion that you might be afflicted with this condition; you would have to build your life from scratch, even if you did believe treatment were possible.

There are plenty of people out there who have suffered at the hands of an NPD sufferer, and extensive research has been done to be able to identify it. The Internet is awash with anecdotes, life stories, remedies and the results of research. It is called a disorder because something is broken, not because something is unusual. Don't let others convince you that the person is just "a bit quirky" or "has a bit of an edge".

At least be honest with yourself. It doesn't matter what they say, and it also doesn't matter what I say. You have to work it out. Give it time and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, if you are exposed to it in someone in whom you have personally invested, will hurt you. It's a slow nibbling-to-death process. First, you're attracted to this striking person because you seem to have so much in common with them, and striking they are, as they weave a web around you. They know exactly how to get attention - they've been perfecting it all their lives.

What's really happening is you are being prepared for dinner. Their dinner. And you are but one of their side-dishes. They never counted how many little folks like you they have consumed over the years. A spider doesn't count the flies he eats and he has no feelings for any ofthem. The fly is just dinner; that's his place in this world. When you have a relationship with a sufferer or NPD, you are the fly.

The preposterousness of what I have just said is one of the reasons NPD gets to go on giving for a long, long time. Few will believe until they personally get punched in the face by it. And by that time, they've moved on to new willing victims.

NPD destroys relationships, trust, and whole families, yet still gets to continue in full swing, for a long time. There are no empty bottles to point to, no dirty syringes, or unexplained bruises on someone's arm. A person under the control of NPD can behave perfectly normally one moment, just like the puppet sits quietly in the puppet chair while the strings remain loose, then unexpectedly and suddenly turn on you as if you had committed some great crime against them.

The Puppet Knows he is a Puppet

I believe that a person under the control of NPD know that something is wrong; that something is very wrong. Often, and perhaps this is their real curse, such a person if very intelligent. They are good at working things out and they know something is definitely awry - but they are just the puppet, not the puppeteer - so it continues. Still, like so many human issues, ones "higher self" knows.

The Nice Man, The Bully and the Friend.

Imagine a chap by the name of Joe Smith. Joe shares a flat with a bully by the name of Biff. One evening, Joe is entertaining a close friend in the living room and Biff in the kitchen overhears something Joe's friend says in the living room. Biff immediately takes grave offense, storms into the living room in a rage and verbally abuses Joe's friend who gets up to leave because he is deeply hurt from the unexpected verbal assault. Joe sits there in shock about what has just happened.

Biff goes upstairs to sleep it off while Joe gets to pick up the pieces, apologizing profusely for his flat mate's outrageous behavior, perhaps even descending into a degree of denial about it all. Joe is just a regular guy like you or me, Biff is the ever controlling NPD he suffers from, and Friend is anyone Joe has a relationship with. NPD is like an unpredictable flat-mate. It might leave the sufferer alone for periods of time, days or sometimes weeks, but it always returns. Just when it looks like it's not really there anymore, it marches into the room and beats your friend up.

NPD will try to invalidate the feelings of those it hurts

"You're too sensitive" is a common attempt at invalidation used by a person under the influence of NPD. They try to invalidate what you are feeling because you are "over-reacting" to what has happened. Ironic, really, because the person under NPD begins the emotional encounter with an overreaction in the first place.

They know how to invalidate the feelings of others. This is why the Puppet metaphor fits so well for a person under NPD. You think you're talking with a reasonable person. After all, they've got that great degree in physics or medicine - they must be open to reasonable debate, you think. Wrong. When you try to reason with them, you will get yourself caught up in their puppet strings, and if you are not careful, will get sucked into their whole messy psycho world. That is, if you care. That is, if you have empathic skills.

Lack of Empathy - the signature of a person under NPD

Somewhere in their past, a person under NPD was left out in the cold. They were neglected in some way that left them hurt and feeling abandoned. Not usually in a physical sense, but more likely in a way that suggested they were unworthy of love. It is normal for a baby to think they are the center of the universe. It is normal for a seven year old not to fully connect with the teary-eyed adults surrounding the casket of their grandfather. But babies and kids grow up. They grow to learn the emotion of empathy; they grow to take on the adult burden of supporting others in the community, the family and the relationships around them. Persons under NPD are blind to empathy. Sure, they are masters at faking it, but they just cannot feel it.

They know how to make themselves look like they're connecting, complete with speeches from the heart and teary-eyed funeral visits. But they are in the game from themselves alone. When you get that about people who have the disorder, you begin to understand just how vulnerable you really are when such a person is close.

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hhjagr@mail.com  2007-05-22 17:07:21 - 
Predator. He gives men a bad name. Yes, you did wrong but in your situation he provided a sympathetic ear and then used you. He has temerity to complain and blame. Puts you in the hospital? Now he's mad you speak out? What I wish to say you might delete 

yopkow@.com 2007-05-22 09:10:10 - 
You got taken for a ride. And now he's mad you're being truthful? Has he even attempted to talk to you? Guess this is what happens when you use someone like a sex toy and they turn out to be a human being.

[OrthoNana]]> zbb55@.com 2007-06-09 04:09:11
 Didn’t he say in The Story of Gridney he was “dropping it”? He has the nerve to say you went absolutely nuts? And now he posts your IP online? thats dropping it? Is he kidding? '
This YWL is certifiably nuts. He’s out for blood. Be careful.

knwlha@.com 2007-07-10 19:22:30 - 
My GOD were you used girl! U S E D! And now you try to stop the harassment. you tell his wife (which probably ended his “fun”!) you help the cops and get them not to prosecute him And he does this? LOSER!

halela@.com 2 2007-07-10 22:18:38 - 
Are you going to post about this **** posting your IP on his blog to further his lies that you're some sort of stalker? When it was him who stalked YOU after he traumatized you, to every support group on the net you were on where you poured your pain out about what he'd done! 
He’s peeved you've put this all out there isn’t he? 
Are you going to tell about him and his buddies killing your Blog Carnival posting simply because he hates you for being truthful? Or him & his buddies putting gay porn on your blog? How about him deleting more of his hooker postings the minute you put the link on this site, as if it never happened? 
Why doesn’t he go back to junior high were his behavior belongs? You are really being an angel about it all and showing a lot of tolerance and compassion. Too bad he doesn’t deserve any of it.  

eovxue@.com  2007-07-09 17:59:28 - 
The word that comes to mind here: EXPLOITATION. You were EXPLOITED And now this YWL or whatever he’s calling himself has the nerve to be angry that you are telling the truth and putting it all out there. Unbelievable.

nuntiagratia@.com 82009-08-24 12:45:55 - 
I'm trying to recover after 17 years with an NPD. The part where you describe inside the mind of an NPD made me scream in anguish. I left him 8 months ago but there is not enough awareness where I come from. Had a string of therapists...the last one asked me what I might have done to save the marriage...it left my already fragile self-esteem even more battered. It's hard to recover without professional help :( The last thing he did was turn my brother on his side. He still visits my elderly mother regularly. Everyone believes he's so sweet. 
He's done a recovery course for perpetrators and people admire him for it and yet when i talk to him on the phone he's as abusive and menacing as ever. It's like he added some more polish and learnt some new jargon from the course which is further enhancing his act.

GOING TO START POSTING HERE AGAIN

Over the years I have lost track of the emails I have gotten about this blog. They fell into 3 categories:

• Thanking me for talking about what happened to me because it validated their experience(s) with their alleged Narcissist or Socio/Psychopath
• Telling me about their experience with Yid with Lid re: his blog or in person. 100% of what they told me validated the pattern of pathology I identified in his treatment of me after all my therapy, clinic stay and C-PTSD management work with counselors.
• Begging me to start posting here again because they needed more validation for their own pathological relationships

I decided to start doing the last. Not because there is anything at all left to say about Yid with Lid. Nor am I interested in 'stirring it all up again.' But I am going to do what was requested. Use this story to continue to educate others about this sort of destructive interpersonal pathology, how it works, and that it is in NO WAY the fault of us victims! My friend Kathy Krajco, who wrote EXTENSIVELY on Narcissism passed away in 2007. Her insightful writing is deeply missed but I will use some of what she'd written about a Pathological's traits, rather than what I consider to be the obtuse DSM-V description. Eight red flags of narcissism as listed originally by (now deceased) Kathy Krajco:

1. puts on a conspicuous display of goodness and kindness
2. damages the images of most others
3. has a history of past upheavals
4. is hated for mysterious reasons by people close to them
5. exhibits unnatural and perplexing behavior -- backwards reactions to things
6. is a control freak, trampling privacy/boundaries
7. is extremely self-absorbed
8. has a hostile reaction to attention and credit given others

I will post about these Eight Red Flags in the context of what Yid with Lid did to me to illustrate the pathology, as well as more as I identify it. I hope this helps someone with their ongoing healing, as it has helped me. I have spent the last couple years working towards getting my counseling degree to be able to help the thousands of victims of these types of men. Their pain is mine - and the effects are profound. We may never be the same - but we can move forward. 

 "Whosoever saves one life, saves the world entire." - Talmud