Can I trust my own mind and my own instincts?

Can I trust my own mind and my own instincts?

Back when I first started in therapy, way back when I was less than 30 yrs old, I remember the therapist saying to me, over and over, 

"Your instincts are good and you are seeing what you see. You must learn to trust your perceptions". 

Often, in families where there is a secret that is being guarded, and even in a family where there ONCE was a secret that was being guarded, the tendency is for children to be conditioned to doubt their own feelings and perceptions. This is a mechanism that works to keep the "secret" hidden from the outside. When you are repeatedly told that you did NOT see what you thought you saw...you did NOT hear what you thought you heard...you are "imagining" what you felt and sensed...it becomes increasingly difficult to determine what is real.

To me, this is similar to a memory that you are not quite sure was not a dream. You begin to assume that your mind cannot be trusted...become convinced that it is better just to remain silent than to be told, one more time, that you are imagining things.

Sometimes this environment is created in a sincere desire to shield a child from trauma...but more often it is done out of selfishness or due to a severe dysfunction within the family.

In the aftermath of this, even decades after, despite years of therapy, there is always the tendency to question what you are perceiving, how you are handling day to day issues and whether what you are perceiving is REAL. The more difficult that perception is for others to believe, the greater the tendency for us to revert back to thinking that we just MIGHT truly be insane.

Narcissistic Abuse and Perception

We are all aware, or have heard someone say, that the abuse dealt out by a narcissist is often COVERT. I think that is one thing that damages us most.  Often there is no blatant "physical abuse", no bruises or broken bones....often there is not even obvious verbal abuse, no screaming, no threats, no ranting.

What there IS, is worse than these. There is a constant insinuation that no one else is sufficient, no one else in the household is important, no one else MATTERS. There is the complete domination of the soul and spirit by someone who sees us ONLY as props in their play. Props that cease to exist or function when they are not present...props with no needs, no rights, no importance except in the needs we fulfill for THEM.

There is a constant, high level, stress caused by the eggshells we walk on in an attempt to keep from upsetting the ONLY person in the house that matters. There is the absolutely, excruciating and completely illogical FEAR of making the narcissist angry and the terror of the retribution you know will follow. Not physical retribution but the crushing psychological retribution that most people cannot fathom.

People who do NOT live with the narcissist see NONE of this. Attempts to communicate what is happening in the home are met with disbelief and denial. In many cases, the victims are perceived as anything from manipulative liars to completely crazy and delusional. The narcissist ALWAYS protects his/her public image at any cost. They will throw ANYONE under the bus to keep that shiny image. They will tell any lie and harm whoever they must in order to appear to be the hero of the house... the martyr, the long suffering victim, the giver, the perfect husband with a substandard wife, the perfect father with ungrateful children, the perfect son with an insane mother, the perfect employee with an unreasonable boss, the perfect Christian with a substandard church, the perfect friend with undeserving peers.

In their play, they are always the solid, upstanding, perfect party who is surrounded by uncaring, substandard, ungrateful and incompetent people on every side. 

"If everyone would just do what I said...their lives would be SO MUCH EASIER!" 

They seek to be, and DEMAND to be, the director of their own private play...moving people around at their will and controlling each emotion, each action, every move. In order to accomplish this they MUST take away those players "will to fight", self-direction, feelings of self-sufficiency, self-confidence and their external support system. To accomplish this they will stop at nothing.

This they do to their spouses, family members, in laws, friends, children and anyone else who is in the play that is their life. If you are not an important actor in this play, you are worthless and the narcissist seldom expends much energy on those people. 

Those are the people on the outside, the ones who cannot see, who do not believe and who visit even more destruction on the victims of narcissistic abuse. 

Among those people are those who have been trained to continue the abuse for the narcissist when they are not present. 

These accomplices are often the final factor in a victim reaching a breaking point. When so many people are telling you you cannot trust your perceptions, that you are crazy and that the MONSTER who is terrorizing you is actually "a really good person" and that you "should be thankful to them for being so good to you"

you realize that you have NO ONE...

there is no escape, no one to help. You are truly alone. 

Only people who have been there can understand the depths of that hell.