Bust the Myth of Compassion for Bullies

This is another short video, from Kevin at The Royal We, that got my attention. This is because I was stuck, for a long time, in having compassion no matter what abusive people did to me! It sure sounds stupid now to me. But I was stuck in a trauma, fawn (submit) response after surviving decades of both narcissistic and family scapegoating abuse (FSA). Trauma keeps us stuck.

EMDR trauma focused therapy, with a seasoned therapist, got me unstuck. I now enjoy the feeling of being assertive. I do not tolerate abuse from other people. Along the way, I was taught the myth that ‘hurt people hurt people”. As Kevin says, many people are hurt people who suffer horrible backgrounds. But, they don’t become bullies. I agree. I have been hurt deeply and repeatedly and did not turn into a bully. It is a choice if one wants to bully and hurt other people. Worse, we can become evil through a long series of choices:

Bullies often had zero discipline and no consequences in their upbringing. So, they feel entitled and empowered to do and say whatever they want. They don’t care. Our current societal institutions make the problem worse. We are taught to have compassion for these bullies. When we have compassion, we give the bully the message that we will tolerate bad behavior. Thus, the bullying will continue and get worse.

There is an epidemic of bullying. We can’t rely on institutions, such as public schools, churches, workplaces, and families to change their beliefs and policies on bullying. The burden is on us to adjust with how we see bullying so we deal with it when it happens. Rather than having compassion for bullies, we can feel disgusted so we figure out how to make it go away.

Normally we feel revulsion toward those who bully. Revulsion is a God-given feeling so that we get away from evil. Kevin uses a stronger word – “passionately hate” those who bully and I understand. When I was being stalked, abused, and harassed by the sociopath, and our children’s lives were at risk, I had intense feelings. I started saying I “love him enough not to kill him”. This is a dangerous reality because sociopaths are out to destroy. I had no time to care about his “hurt” feelings. The Steve sociopath taught me what evil truly is and to feel pure revulsion for such depravity.

Four Basic Common Characteristics Among Bullies

Kevin gives us the following characteristics:

• arrogance in which they put other people down. They are haughty and look down on other people,
• lying to intentionally hurt someone. They lie, cheat, and manipulate and then say ‘it wasn’t me, I didn’t do anything’ to get out of trouble for what they actually did,
• hostility which is unprovoked. They are full of rage especially when they believe they have a right to rage because of the “hurt” they experienced in life. They feel entitled to do whatever they want when there is no accountability,
• planning and scheming to do bad which is a definition of evil

Empaths need to learn this lesson. We do not give bullies more permission to hurt both us and other people by having compassion for them. We stop making excuses for bad behavior. Instead, we hold them accountable.

Boundaries and Assertiveness

I have changed my ways. For example, I recently had out of control neighbors who caused property damage to plants via their son and their dog. I contacted the townhome association and let them know my concerns. I did not want to get law enforcement or the city involved at that time. I was disgusted but did not want to be unfriendly. Even so, I decided to post a “KEEP OUT” sign in my yard to hopefully keep them away from plants and trees. I also put up a small fence to protect my tree from dog urination and defecation.

I’m sure they didn’t like it. The boundary was more important to me, to protect my plants, than their feelings. The keep out sign disappeared. I immediately purchased another sign and put that one up in my landscaping. The next morning, the old sign was laying by the new sign. Hmmm…harassment from the bullies?

Other neighbors were frustrated or fed up with the neurotic dog running unleashed in the neighborhood. One neighbor told the owner she will “kill” the dog if he urinates on her new landscaping. Both of us made it clear that enough is enough. Meanwhile, the dog owner wanted to talk and be civil. Obviously, the game was to keep manipulating to avoid accountability.

Compassion and forgive and forget, I’m assuming, is what the bullies hoped for. Instead, facing the disapproval of neighbors may have got their attention. Hopefully, the rumor is true that the owner is installing an electric fence for their neurotic dog. In other words, I no longer fall for the game playing of bullies. It feels good to simply stay away from bullies who only use, abuse, lie, and do not genuinely care about other people.

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/assertivenesstraining-12704883626794-phpapp01/95/assertiveness-training-2-728.jpg?cb=1270470406

Unconditional Love Will Not Change a Narcissist

We learn what we live and we live what we learn. I learned, as a child, to submit to both a malignant narcissist and an enabler. I lived with domestic violence, alcoholism, and family scapegoating abuse (FSA). FSA typically causes children to survive with a trauma fawn (submit) instinctive response. Most children who experience FSA develop CPTSD (Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder). As children, our instincts kick in and help us survive dangerous environments.

As an empath, I practiced being understanding and patient. I learned to people please and was too nice for my own good. The survival pattern nearly destroyed me. I awakened but not until after I suffered too much for too long.

Therefore, I can say with confidence that being too nice, loving unconditionally, will NOT change the narcissist-sociopath. It will only give the message to evil doers that they can continue their abuse with no accountability. It is a recipe for self-destruction of the empath. Those who are abusive think that those with empathy are weak. They think empaths are fools when we forgive and forget and keep tolerating their abusive behaviors.

It is a hard lesson for empaths to learn. In my experience, this is because it is hard to understand that people exist who enjoy hurting other people without remorse. It is a lesson that must be learned because we have more people than ever, on planet Earth, who are character disordered. In other words, evil flourishes on this planet, when there is no accountability, especially while we lack a competent justice system. Evil flourishes when we are taught by religion to forgive and forget or when new age teaches there is no evil and that we need to look to the good.

I hope others will not tolerate bad behavior as I did. If you need support to learn assertive behaviors and to implement boundaries, find a seasoned trauma informed therapist who understands narcissists and sociopaths. In my opinion, individual trauma informed therapy is the best money one can spend rather than self-destructing in a relationship with someone who is evil. Love is healing in the right relationship but not with a narcissist-sociopath.

Clarice, in the video below, recommends indifference as the best emotion when dealing with a narcissist who refuses to change. “Exposing the Narcissist with Clarice”:

Raw Power

Raw power, to me, means that we stand in personal power. We exercise our Divine birthright to be treated with respect. We make a firm decision that we will no longer tolerate abusive behavior in our lives. We walk away if other people mistreat us and refuse to stop what they are doing.

The End Game in the Narcissistic Family Regime

I am experiencing a new tactic from the narcissistic family regime. The new tactic was deployed over the 2022 holidays. The new tactic was deployed after I declined a family gathering and after stating that everyone needed to be responsible for their part in family conflict. It was my attempt to set limits, end hoovering, anger and harassment, and put blame back on scapegoaters. I then got narcissistic rage in an email response all the way from a brother-in-law in Canada who called me the narcissist.

After years of healing from trauma, I am able to be more assertive. I clearly stated that none of the family conflict would have occurred if the family would have taken anger and revenge out, on the Steve sociopath, rather than put victim blame on me. I was assertive with simple truths and the family hates it. (I am cautious to respond and usually am gray rock. But, this time I wanted closure and simple truths). Deep down, they are hiding in fear and they have all gone silent as their new tactic. They are no longer hoovering or attacking. Of course, I have blocked the Canada attacker. It is peaceful for me though they believe they are punishing me.

It seems like a simple “I’m sorry” to me and maybe ask ‘what can I/we do to rebuild’ is in order. We are running out of time for rebuilding. One of my parents passed approximately ten years ago. My other parent is elderly and ill. This dismal reality and the narcissistic family’s silence is the end game confirmation that these people are determined to scapegoat to their graves and do not care about rebuilding. It is a confirmation of how entrenched the narcissistic family regime is in their dysfunction.

Similar to Shared Psychosis, Cult System, They Drank the Kool-Aid

The following short video, by a mental health professional Rebecca C. Mandeville, LMFT, CCTP, confirms this end game. This therapist states that these families are similar to a cult system. They have been inoculated into the narrative of the narcissistic control person. It is the narrative they grew up in. They “drank the Kool-Aid” in order to stay in good graces with the narcissist/sociopath. They are not reality based because they believe a false narrative. For them, it’s similar to a shared psychosis which they all agree to.

They are a closed system of persons who will not take in new information. They cannot hear what the truth-teller scapegoat has to say. This therapist warns us that it is dangerous to reengage with these families unless they are able to acknowledge how the scapegoat has been mistreated. She warns not to meet with these family members unless it is in a therapist’s office. Over the years, she has witnessed clients get attacked and retraumatized if they meet without protection from the scapegoaters. It is going to a place where “angels fear to tread”.

In her clinical experience, she says it is rare for these families to see the light for how they’ve caused psycho-emotional abuse and that they are scapegoating. If we use the word abuse, with these people, their brains will flip over. It’s a systemic malfunction which has nothing to do with who the scapegoat truly is. The scapegoat is the one who is the most psychologically healthy family member because he/she wants an open, healthy system which takes in new information.

After decades of torture, their silence gives more time for me to heal. I am seeing how evil seems to run in families. They are stuck in scapegoating with no remorse while they continue their family mobbing and blaming me for everything they possibly can. I say ‘walk away and protect myself first and foremost. Stop making excuses for them’.

There is Definitely Hope With Therapy

The following is a true story I read on Quora. The story is told by Kristen, a recovering covert somatic Narcissist/INTJ. She reveals the generational curse of personality disorders, in her family, and tells who chose recovery and who did not. Her mother chose recovery and became “one of the most mentally sound persons” Kristina has ever seen in spite of BPD. Excerpts to her hopeful story are as follows and include my emphasis of hope in red:

“My maternal grandparents were shit parents. Like, total shit. Don’t get me wrong- I loved and adored them. But they were shit parents nonetheless. My maternal grandfather was an overt malignant narcissistic sociopath (diagnosed), and one-time head of one of the FBI’s top three most notorious gangs. My maternal grandmother was a covert narcissistic sociopath (undiagnosed, but Cluster B personality disorders run rampant in my family, and I know enough to confidently say this based on her behavior and the kind of person and parent she was), not to mention notorious gangster’s wife (side note- she was actually worse than he was). My mother suffered a never-ending cycle of physical abuse, neglect, mental/emotional abuse, and endless bouts of sexual abuse (not from her parents, but as a byproduct of their constant neglect). Add drug addiction and manufacturing to the list, it’s just a bad mix all around. My mother is a recovered borderline (BPD).

My mother, being a disordered parent and not knowing of her disorder until she had grandchildren of her own, struggled with many issues whilst raising her own children. She was far better than her own parents, but struggled to maintain holding herself together while parenting. My sister and I suffered in many ways because of it, and grew up with serious issues of our own, but still began the race further along than she did. We also came from two Cluster B disordered parents.

When my daughter was about a year old, my mother was finally diagnosed as a borderline. She spent years in different types of therapies, countless hours of research and reading nearly every book on BPD she could find. She is now one of the most mentally sound people I have ever seen, despite being a disordered individual.

My father was not as proactive. He would never come to accept his disorder, never receive a diagnosis or help, but would offer his own observations over the years along with little tidbits of helpful advice. My first thoughts were, “Oh that’s rich coming from the original Gestapo himself,” as I rolled my eyes (he is where I learned most of my disordered behaviors). I thought, “Why couldn’t you have figured that shit out when I was a kid?”

Later, it occurred to me that perhaps, even at the most disordered time in his life, maybe he knew the ways in which he had gone wrong. Maybe he saw his patterns repeating themselves, and maybe pointing them out to me was his way of trying to atone as best he could after so many years of damage done. Perhaps that was his way of helping me see the patterns repeating yet another generation, and that may have been the best he could possibly do at that time.

My grandparents believed they did the best they could with what they were given. It may not have been their actual best, but they believed it was; and that’s the key, really. They truly weren’t aware they could do better in the deep throes of their extreme disorders.

My mother did the absolute best she could with what she was handed. As soon as she was diagnosed she became as proactive as she possibly could. She figured it out sooner than her own parents.

My father did not become proactive in dealing with his disorder. He left mere weeks before his only grandson was born, and has never looked back on his family since.

Then there’s me- having figured it out sooner than my grandparents did, sooner than my own parents did. I’ve figured it out before my children are fully grown. I am learning and recovering a little more every day. I am working on it more every day. I’m hoping that at the current trend, my own children will have it figured out before they have children of their own.

I come from a HIGHLY disordered family. I also come from a family that has managed to heal an extreme amount of pain and damage in a mere couple of generations, in spite of and despite being so highly disordered.

So there’s definitely hope.“

https://www.quora.com/profile/Kristen-Alexander-49

 

“Change the course of your parenting today and change the course of your family history for generations to come.”

https://us13.campaign-archive.com/?e=00a1af2b9e&u=eff4e316c9f4c4d3499b3f26e&id=06febdca05

Ten Helpful Scapegoat Recovery Affirmations from Rebecca C. Mandeville, LMFT, CCTP

https://www.scapegoatrecovery.com/2023/02/11/scapegoat-recovery-affirmations/

https://www.scapegoatrecovery.com/introduction-to-family-scapegoating-abuse-recovery-ebook/

Coming to Terms with Evil in Parentage

“To come to terms with evil in one’s parentage is perhaps the most difficult and painful psychological task a human being can be called on to face.  Most fail and so remain its victims” (M. Scott Peck, M.D., People of the Lie, pg. 130).

It takes a long time, experience, reflection, validation, and research to understand family dynamics. As a young adult, I initially lived in denial, surviving trauma, and repeating patterns learned in childhood. After harsh experience, extensive research and studies in higher education, I recognized that how we live today is connected to our developmental years. I decided I no longer wanted to blindly submit to the will of parents when I recognized toxic and painful behavioral patterns in family of origin.

I had to identify what I learned from parents. It was far easier to identify dangerous, violent behaviors and stay away from physical violence. It was much more challenging to identify covert, destructive, and dishonest behaviors in those who are emotionally abusive. The covert behaviors are subtle and disguised with decades of gaslighting which makes it feel nearly impossible to identify. As children, we want to and need to believe our parents genuinely care about us while we are young and dependent on them for survival. As we mature, we want to believe they genuinely care until we suffer one disappointment after another.

Standing alone and needing clarity, in a scapegoating family, pushed me to be strong by naming the problem. I needed protection from gaslighting and aggression. So, I persisted with seeking truth until I achieved breakthroughs with identifying evil, anti-life behaviors. I conclude, it is a most difficult task to see reality of evil in parentage. I now see codependency, denial, scapegoating, massive manipulation, and traumatic bonding rather than genuine love. I see untreated personal and spiritual issues rather than genuine love.  I see spiritual natures which are evil and dark rather than compassionate and honest.

Recent Attacks:

With the recent attacks from family members, I felt triggered and either fought back with facts and/or blocked the aggressors. I recognized the group bullying and smear campaign. Though I had provided feedback to family, about decades of scapegoating, no family member cares. That is the way the narcissistic family regime rolls. They feel entitled to dump their anger on one person and have no guilt nor shame about bad behaviors. The scapegoaters talk behind my back, hear only one side of the story, feel superior, and despise me.  They pretend they have godlike perfection, self-deify, and never apologize. They continue with their public mask of being a happy, loving family with no relationship problems.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1469899009714805&set=a.1453851051319601

I gathered some quotes from M. Scott Peck, M.D.’s book People of the Lie, The Hope for Healing Human Evil:

People who are evil attack others instead of facing their own failures” (back cover)

“We become evil by attempting to hide from ourselves (pg. 76)

“The longer we continue to make the wrong decisions, the more our heart hardens; the more often we make the right decisions, the more our heart softens-or better perhaps, comes alive”.

“We become evil slowly over time through a long series of choices”(pg. 82).

“Humanity is locked in a titanic struggle between the forces of good and evil between God and the devil.  The battleground of this struggle is the individual human soul.  The entire meaning of human life revolves around the battle” (pg 37).

“All adults who are mentally healthy submit themselves one way or another to something higher than themselves, be it God or truth or love or some other ideal” (pg. 78)

“Emotional sickness is avoiding reality at any cost.  Emotional health is facing reality at any cost”.  

“Evil kills life or liveliness.  Goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness.”  

“Evil seems to run in families” 

https://www.azquotes.com/quote/422990

It is our responsibility to break the pattern and pass on healthy behavioral patterns to future generations.  

“Whenever there is love, there is healing.” pg. 44)

Love is the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.

From my perspective, with witnessing the epidemic of narcissism in this world, I believe we need a wake-up call.  I think humanity is currently going through a huge shaking. We may need a huge shaking, a wake-up call, so humanity rises out of depravity and narcissistic self-absorption.  

https://www.azquotes.com/quote/357946

Self-Defense

Self-defense and self-protective boundaries are critical for an empath. As an empath, I lived a lifetime of suppressing feelings and needs in order to survive toxic male violence. As a female, I was taught to “be nice”, to nurture, and to deny anger. I eventually learned that socially accepted masculine and feminine roles, in the patriarchal, social engineering, brainwashing matrix, enabled toxic males to abuse and dominate and oppressed females to be submissive and victim. When toxic males strive to dominate, they use verbal abuse and worse! Yulk!

These quotes, from Patricia Evans, got my attention!

“Don’t ever delude yourself into thinking that you should have the ability to stay serene no matter how you are treated. Your serenity comes from the knowledge that you have a fundamental right to a nurturing environment and a fundamental right to affirm your boundaries.”
― Patricia Evans, The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize it and How to Respond

“In a verbally abusive relationship, the partner learns to tolerate abuse without realizing it and to lose self-esteem without realizing it. She is blamed by the abuser and becomes the scapegoat. The partner is then the victim.”

“Verbal abuse is a violation, not a conflict. There is a definite difference between conflict and abuse. In a conflict each participant wants something different. In order to resolve the conflict, the two people in the relationship discuss their wants, needs, and reasons while mutually seeking a creative solution. There may or may not be a solution, but no one forces, dominates, or controls the other. Verbal abuse, on the other hand, is very different from a conflict. If we describe verbal abuse from the standpoint of boundary violation, we would describe it as an intrusion upon, or disregard of, one’s self by a person who disregards boundaries in a sometimes relentless pursuit of Power Over, superiority, and dominance by covert or overt means.”

“The victim of abuse is taught to believe that although she is hurting, she shouldn’t be, or that she is in some way responsible. From childhood, she is conditioned not to understand her feelings and so not to recognize the truth. This truth is that she is being abused and blamed for the abuse (as if it could be justified) and for feeling bad about it (as if her feelings were wrong). The typical partner believed the abuser’s denial and so became frustrated and confused even while she searched for answers. Unable to reach clarity and understanding, the partner was left with feelings of inadequacy and confusion. If her mate was not wrong, if he was not lying, if she did take things wrong, then she could believe only that “something must be wrong with the way she was — how she expressed herself, how she came across, or possibly with her feelings and experience of reality itself.” Thus the doubts of childhood rose up once more. She kept her mind open to what she might hear that would reveal what was wrong — why she suffered. She became, therefore, the perfect victim.”

Controlling People

“Controllers think differing ideas and views are personal opposition to be rejected and destroyed” (Patricia Evans).

Controlling people feel entitled to get their way without considering the needs of the other person. They typically are impulsive and react with irritability and anger in order to control other people. They lack insight and compassion with being sensitive to the feelings of the people they attack. It is imperative that empaths learn how dangerous Planet Earth can be especially as we experience an epidemic of narcissistic control dramas:

https://www.verbalabuse.com/controlling-people-book-by-patricia-evans/

Four Control Dramas From the Celestine Prophecy:

James Redfield, author of Celestine Prophecy, suggests that we create control dramas in order to get energy from other people:

1. The intimidator control drama is the most aggressive and uses anger and threats to create fear:

https://www.celestinevision.com/control-dramas/

2. The interrogator control drama is aggressive and steals energy by criticizing, judging and asking intrusive questions:

https://www.celestinevision.com/control-dramas/

3. The aloof control drama steals energy by walking away, acting reserved, and/or using silent treatment:

https://www.celestinevision.com/control-dramas/

4. The poor me control drama is the most passive and steals energy by using guilt trips and getting people to feel sorry and responsible for fixing problems:

https://www.celestinevision.com/control-dramas/

Five Protective Strategies for Empaths

As empaths, we need to listen to gut instinct. We need to emotionally detach when we are feeling sensory overload. We need to be assertive rather than always putting the needs of other people first. We need to be ready to use visualized lion or jaguar energy when caught in situations with controllers:

• shielding visualization
• define and express relationships needs
• establish energetic boundaries at work and home
• prevent empathy overload
• jaguar protection meditation

5 Protection Strategies for Empaths

Sociopaths Love Empaths

Empaths provide a feeding frenzy for controllers i.e. sociopaths. Sociopaths thrive if empaths keep trying too hard to please them and/or to emotionally connect with them. When I was young, I did not know. I did not know there are some people who cannot genuinely give and receive in order to create a supportive, mutual, and compassionate bond. I did not know that some people thrive from stealing energy, using control dramas, and destroying other people. I did not know what evil truly is. Sociopaths passionately hate empaths when they lose narcissistic supply because the empath figured out the sociopath’s stealing energy game plan of destruction and even death. Empaths learn to STAY AWAY from the sociopath!

Giving and Receiving Energy

The sociopath will never experience a successful, genuine relationship of care and respect. The empath, however, can. We can learn to exit our control dramas and, instead, share energy with one another. The movie, Celestine Prophecy, is helpful for learning how we try to control others and how we can, instead, experience mutually supportive relationships:

When Self Defense Becomes Kinetic

I used to hate violence and studied non-violence, by Marshall Rosenberg, to avoid control dramas. However, I have learned there are times when violence cannot be avoided. This is because some people have no conscience, they enjoy hurting and destroying other people, and they go to great lengths in order to get what they want. They lack empathy for others.

These criminals destroy our health, abduct our children, exploit us financially, take away our freedoms, use tyranny and treats to dominate, and they have agendas to depopulate the human race. It appears that we are all currently learning what evil truly is on this planet. We are all seeing the need to fight back or be destroyed. We are seeing the need to speak up or be trampled upon. I now believe that we can do all we can to keep our lives peaceful and in harmony with others. But, there is a time when evil is so barbaric that only self-defense and military might is essential:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4c/4c/dd/4c4cdd37994fd69e8b719657660a17b4.jpg

“In general, when you respond to verbal abuse, speak firmly and clearly, stand or sit straight and tall, hold your head high, look the abuser in the eye, and breathe deeply, letting your abdomen expand with the intake of air.”
― Patricia Evans, The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize It and How to Respond