I don’t care who you are; you have no right to treat me like that

One word tests, typifies and guides all relationships. One word is the sieve through which we can sift the motives, words and actions of all who pass through our life. One word, alone, will give to us the power of discernment, so no longer will we live in wonder as to when a wrong relationship will ever be made right.

Do we allow behaviour in our culture, or in our family, that excuses disrespectful and boundary-breaking behaviour? Is a person really allowed to get away with whatever self-absorbed behaviour they feel like without being held to some account?

No. That is the simple answer. Applying our “no” is the harder matter, for there are bound to be vigorous protests made as a result. Let it be.

The word is not “boundaries,” though I would suggest that when the word is invoked, boundaries are the sensible conclusion. Narcissistic behaviour demands boundaries.

There’s the word! Hidden in the last sentence, albeit in a different context.

The word is demand. Wherever there’s a person demanding anything of us, that’s a red flag right there. People can make specific demands, or they can behave in demanding ways, and of course it’s not unusual when both are employed; a specific demand spoken in a demanding way. How much worse when the behaviour of a particular person is consistently demanding?!

There are many situations where a family member, a partner, a co-worker, even a boss might overstep their side of the boundary. Let’s face it, anyone who wants to relate with anyone in a positive and loving way will always seek to know where the boundary is and take care not to cross it. Occasionally we may feel for the boundary and slightly overstep, yet we would respond in humility when we’re cautioned—if we’re not a demander.

The demander has an entitlement mentality and they feel they’re entitled to behave as if existing boundaries are non-existent or don’t matter. They may know they’re there or they may not care that they’re there. It certainly isn’t the case that they don’t know. 

The demander isn’t someone who demands on the odd occasion; they’ve come to be characterised as demanding. Even as they enter the room, or we’re aware they could enter the room, we’re on tender hooks, walking on eggshells around them.

The demander is never happy even if we bow to their demands. They insist upon winning a battle where nobody wins. It’s their way or the highway, and everyone has to adjust because they refuse to look at the incredible baggage they carry.

The demander even seems set on crashing through new boundaries that for us become new frontiers of indignity and arrogance. Is it their intention to upset us? I think many times it’s a yes. Somehow in all this there is the desire within the demander to say, “See, look how THEY responded negatively!” We will be gaslit for enforcing our own boundaries.

He only thing that works in the relationship with a demander is boundaries, and we know when the boundary is effective because we feel their heat, whether subtly or bold.

Anyone who demands of us, especially with incredulous consistency, ought to be quarantined. And yet, it is all too familiar that the person we want to be protected from will often be the one we must accommodate.

But not without boundaries.

Now, I do realise that all this needs to be highly nuanced. If we’re serious about loving everyone in our midst that includes the narcissist. We love them best with graciously firm boundaries, for their own good, if not ours and others’.

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

Hiding behind the good doesn’t minimise the harm already done

I don’t know what it is about some people and institutions, but when a scandal breaks, some hide behind the good that has been done in order to minimise the fallout created.

When the supporters are mobilised to protect such a person’s “good name,” I don’t know about you, but it always wreaks as inappropriate to me. If there’s a scandal, let the facts settle, and get the independent thinkers and real authorities (where appropriate) involved.

The best organisations and people have nothing to do with partiality and conflicts of interest. If a matter can’t be settled with all the facts laid out, there is something wrong.

Let the cards fall where they will and don’t allow people to tread all over a crime scene, not that we’re talking only crimes. This is just solid business and life practice.

Then there’s the issue of those who have done incredible things in their careers and ministries but are alleged or known abusers. What happens when a scandal breaks?

In one scenario, the abuser’s integrity—yes, that’s an oxymoron—has them fall on their sword, which is great (especially for victims of their assaults) when it happens. This usually happens when their guilt is clear cut.

But another scenario is all too predictable; the cover up is attempted, which involves the cranking up of the propaganda machine, and where there is a flurry of communication and alliances mobilised for a battle; to “save the ‘wronged’ leader.”

This kind of thing does victims significant damage. The victims are re-traumatised as their names are implicated in a “smear campaign.”

I know some reading this may have a bias toward believing that false reports are common, but I believe through over twenty years involved in incident reporting that people just don’t report what is destined to demand massive courage from them without the allegations having threads of strong truth about them.

In some circles, and particularly some (not most or all) church circles, where “God must be on the side of the leadership,” counterattacking allegations is seen as their right. That is skating on thin ice.

What occurs is the army of “friends” that are mobilised against the allegations cites the tremendous good that has been done, all the while forgetting that it DOES NOT MATTER how much good any of us does if there are serious immoral, unethical and illegal practices involved.

How is it possible that “good Christian people” can go into bat for a person with a stellar record who has also abused minors? Or, had “affairs” (i.e. in real terms, clergy sex abuse) in their time in ministry? Or, spiritually abused congregants or staff? Or, been involved in financial misconduct or another legal breach? The list goes on.

Nobody can vouch for a husband who looks impeccable but whose wife finally calls him a horror. Whatever you say to his defence is immediately disqualified because it’s irrelevant in a situation that involves what only his wife and family can see. How can anyone call her a liar, a mischief or (worse!) a Jezebel? To call anyone a Jezebel for calling time on an abusive marriage is itself an abuse—spiritual abuse.

We can well understand the shock, horror and disbelief we feel when someone who was seemingly above reproach and so full of integrity has to answer serious allegations of misconduct. The fact is nobody is beyond temptation, no matter how good they seem. It shouldn’t surprise us, but it does, simply because they vowed before God never to do such things!

This principle is the same in all those places where the person has no doubt blessed people, but where secret liaisons become coherently well known. A litany of witnesses compels the fan club to be quiet. And even a single witness deserves their hearing. If the person is innocent, let the facts stand in the person’s defence. Otherwise, stay quiet.

No amount of good covers for even a single incident of significant wrongness. And where there is such wrongness, repentance must meet the level of the wrong done. And it ought to be the victims who have a say about when the repentance demands mercy.

~

There is an old saying attributed to Warren Buffett: 

“It takes twenty years to build a reputation and only five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”

Indeed, if only we walk daily with that reality in mind, that’s the “fear of the Lord” that drives integrity, because integrity doesn’t come from within us without depending on God.

Integrity comes from being truly accountable before God, and that makes us stand up and take notice of wise voices and truths everywhere. Integrity doesn’t lean on its own understanding.

Photo by Road Trip with Raj on Unsplash

Blessed are the courageous, who nurture a relationship with their pain

We all have pain. If we face it and feel it, and it doesn’t floor us, we have the opportunity to bear it. But if we feel it and it’s unbearable, and we must turn away from it, our act of turning away reduces our capacity for life, and the healing process continues to remain a future possibility. 

There is certainly a process in being sanctified through pain. And that can take a very long time. Indeed, I would argue that that bearing pain that cannot be reconciled is the ultimate faith, hope and courage. Those who bear enduring pain exemplify Jesus. 

… the gospel is indelible hope in the presence of pain.

We may wonder, though, how a good God and pain can fit together in the same sentence. But as soon as we realise the Bible documents how Jesus overcame it all, even as pain threatened to swallow him whole, we are shown the key for whatever pain we patiently (or not-so-patiently) bear. Let’s make no bones about it, pain is a crushing reality.

Of course, we must qualify pain. It’s such a broad term.

I think of it as anything that occasionally or continually threatens our wellbeing. Many people have chronic physical pain they live with 24/7. Others bear a situational pain, for instance, trauma survivors when they’re triggered or when they’re anxiously hyper vigilant about the potentialities of triggering events. Whenever we struggle with our mental health, we’re in pain. The past can be full of fragments of unreconciled pain. The future could be so bleak as to manifest to the present moment the pain of depression. That kind of darkness is as unfathomable as the deepest grief.

Being human at least involves what we call existential pain—a pain we experience in being human and in being alive. It’s the mix of fears, sadness, limitations, uncertainty, thought of death and other harms, and concerns for love and loss, amid the confusing wonder of life.

In the realm of existential pain is the bearing of the eventual frustrations that press upon all our lives. There is also the regularity of bearing moments we would prefer were over already. How few moments are true bliss! Yet, hope abides as we hold out for the notion of comfort. As humans, we are cravers of comfort.

I know and admire many people who bear either an unusual kind of pain or an extraordinary amount of it. Honestly, I marvel how they do it.

~

The truth of the matter is we all have a thorn in the side, that Paul said God allowed to prevent us from becoming conceited (See 2 Corinthians 12:7-10). It’s only those who sense they have no debilitation who are proud. Anyone encumbered by some manifestation of pain is humbled by their experience. And humility, we know, is to be prized, so we can value the role of pain, even if on the other hand we despise its presence in our lives and in the lives of our loved ones.

An elderly couple my wife and I know from our church have inspired us greatly to this end. Recently, the wife who was in her 80s died of cancer; a very painful battle. 26 years previously she had such a debilitating stroke it left her with the use of only one arm, and the rehabilitation process, to begin with, took several years. She lived a quadriplegic existence. Her husband has battled chronic pain all his life, yet he diligently cared for “his precious love.” The enduring image we have is of their smiling faces despite the pain and impairment they have borne continually for decades. They pray for everyone else, and I’ve never received more encouraging emails from anyone than them. They have prayed for my wife and I and our family continually for all the years we’ve known them. They ooze gratitude and thankfulness. Yet, there’s the reality of their pain. They’re real about it, but they don’t dwell on it. Out of their thorn in the side comes a courageous humility that would not be there otherwise.

~

Blessed are those who nurture a relationship with their pain, for theirs is a kingdom that endures and eventually overcomes. These don’t look like overcomers in the world’s eyes, but their attitude to life commutes courage for the fear that would otherwise cripple them.

15 situations where apology is unwise and possibly even dangerous

Apology is a big deal to me. Besides spending a lot of my life coaching people on the when and how of apology, I find that God is forever honing my daily practice; so necessary is it for relationship maintenance, intimacy and trust.

But there are definitely times when saying sorry is ill-advised at best, or downright dangerous at worst:

1.         When we know from past behaviour patterns that the other person will automatically assume that our apology equates to us taking 100% responsibility for the matter at hand. Our apology is more safely made when we’re dealing with someone we can have constructive dialogue with, who will also be open to discussing, in due course, what was their fault.

2.         When we’re not yet solidified in taking 100% responsibility for OUR contribution to the conflict. Whilst we take zero percent responsibility for their contribution, we must own one hundred percent of the contribution we made.

3.         When we’re not prepared to make the changes required that a good apology demands. Too often apologies are said that appear to us to be sincere, but still fall flat. If we apologise, we’re really saying to the other person that we know what we did was wrong and that we won’t do it again. It is fair and reasonable for the other person to expect change. We would expect change if roles were reversed. Nobody wants bad behaviour that’s been apologised for, repeated.

4.         When our apology may trigger something in them that would be bad for them. Sometimes people aren’t ready for our amends. We may be perfectly willing to make our amends, but the wisdom of Step 9 of the Twelve Step program is making amends is not about us. We pray for an opportunity when making our apology would only be a blessing to them; that it would not wreak further damage. This takes discernment.

5.         When we haven’t yet thought through the apology; when our level of reflection is superficial, we may find ourselves caught out in a very insincere situation, where they could duly ask, “Is that it? You don’t really understand, do you?”

6.         When you bear absolutely no responsibility for the conflict. In other words, abuse. Now, be careful here, because some abusers would use this to gaslight their victims into, “You incited me!” Uh-uh, when someone has been abused it would be inappropriate to take the other person’s responsibility.

7.         When we’re not yet prepared in our hearts to forgive. It’s sad to say, but very important to realise, forgiveness is not that simple. It involves nuances of mercy for a person or situation that in many cases requires a process of heart work. If we begin to apologise, but for some reason cannot yet forgive the other person for their contribution, that conversation could well backfire and make matters worse.

8.         When we’re not ready to receive their rebuttal or their rejection of the apology. Making apologies is risky business. It’s not for the faint-hearted. Indeed, it takes a lot of godly sincerity to say sorry well. Part of this sincerity is deciding beforehand that the apology, however well meant it is, may well be rejected, and it is infinitely better to plan to be open-minded and open-hearted enough to see their point(s) and to be able to journey with those points. Indeed, extra steps may well be demanded, and those steps could well be justified. The worst-case scenario is there may be no way back; they may write us off. We need to be prepared for this as a possible eventuality.

9.         When they ‘accept’ of our apology, but still refuse to forgive us. Yes, this happens a lot. They accept our apology, and they’re “just fine,” except we know by their distance that trust is not restored, and they may even say this. If we’re not prepared for this, it wouldn’t be a good idea to apologise yet.

10.      When our apology comes preloaded with conditions. This is the most basic error anyone can make. If our apology uses the words or concepts of ‘if, but, and maybe’ we stand on troubled ground. “I’m sorry, but if you hadn’t done this, I wouldn’t have done that… sorry; maybe don’t do this again, because you can see how it made me react…” Conditional apologies betray the word ‘sorry’ even in the act of ‘apologising’, and what equates to victim blaming ensues. Apologies must be unconditional. If we can’t yet ‘stay sorry’, we’re not ready to say sorry.

11.      When we’re not equipped with all the information. Sometimes we think we know what we did wrong, and we feel ready. But what if the other person brings up something we hadn’t considered, and it blindsides us. We must go into the conversation expecting to hear what we hardly expected to hear.

12.      When there’s a compound apology to make. This rarely happens, because those who don’t apologise for an initial infraction usually don’t then apologise for their abject denial that made matters infinitely worse. But, let’s explore it. It’s that time when someone did something they didn’t own up to and, in denying any fault, it made matters infinitely worse. If we’ve engaged in behaviour that requires an apology for one behaviour that we have for some extended period denied, this compound apology is very complex, and mediation help is advised to be sought to ensure the person being apologised to isn’t further traumatised. Refer to point 4 above.

13.      When we haven’t thought through the possible requirements of restitution—how we will make right of the wrong done. This comes in at least two forms: the restitution we’re prepared to make or are about to offer AND their requirements of us in order to make proper restitution. We really need to think through the issues of what we’re prepared to do before we make our apology.

14.      When an apology might significantly change a relationship dynamic with a loved one. We always need to understand that even our deeds of goodness can be used by the enemy to create dissension and division. This is about anticipating the fallout. If anyone could become distressed by an apology we’re about to make, it would be wise to engage in dialogue with these loved ones or significant others first.

15.      If, at any time, our apology carries with it the demand of being trusted again. Apology is all about throwing ourselves upon the mercy of the court of a person’s opinion, and much of the time opinion is very difficult to predict. Having apologised, we can demand nothing.

I acknowledge the principles of peacemaking ministry, PeaceWise, in this article.

Seeing the subtleties within unseen abuses is crucially important

This is one of those issues you don’t see until you see it, yet when you do see it, you then cannot unsee it.

The subtleties at play in unseen abuse—the visible effects of abuse are the tiniest tip of the iceberg—are difficult even for trained people to see, but thank God, once we begin to notice them an ability to discern them is aroused in us. Unfortunately, we probably need to have had some personal experience to understand how it happens, its impacts and effects, the nature of personal trauma, etc.

Unseen abuses are not just the tiniest tip of the iceberg as far as range of abuses is concerned. The real worrying thing is that this is also about prevalence. There is much, much more unseen and subtle abuse going on everywhere right now and historically than we would want to know. Again, it’s personal experience that highlights how common this is. Suddenly, the light is switched on within us in terms of the criminality of minds that we see quite commonly in all our communities.

Those who really don’t care to care, who are aberrantly selfish (Christian or not), who have no desire to project a nice guy/gal image, again, are the tiniest tip of the iceberg. It’s the one with the nice guy/gal image who is getting away with murdering their partner, work colleague, etc, slowly (taking Jesus literally) who is a more prevalent problem. The former is obnoxious and it’s obvious they’re not interested in relating with others. The latter, however, are malevolently motivated and impression management is part of their guile. This actually adds a huge additional dimension to the abuse, because their cunning can leave us feeling helplessly imprisoned. Then add to this the nature within such a person who CANNOT see, and therefore has no hope of recovery.

Seeing the subtleties within the unseen abuses is often even a hard thing for trained eyes, but in this #MeToo and #ChurchToo day, there is much more information in general circulation, which helps.

If someone indicates they don’t feel safe in a relationship or they declare to us that they feel they’re being abused, we must listen. We must be bold enough to open safe space for them to share, but without any sense of coercion, because that in and of itself will make the person feel unsafe and too vulnerable. We do not want to add to their anxiety or trauma.

It is more important to listen and to say safe supporting and particularly general things in the conversation, like, “no abuse is acceptable,” and “everyone has a voice,” and “relationships should not hurt.”

If we were to badger someone we feel is being abused into telling us what is happening, we too would be harassing the person who may well be dealing with a lot already. It would be better to build a support base for them that involves listening and availability—“I’m here if or whenever you want to talk.”

Listening in agreement

If they do begin to open up, it could simply be a case of listening in agreement before venturing into the territory of “what now?”—in other words, trained and skilled support for referral. Don’t assume your pastor is equipped. It would be better to put them in touch with people who already specialise in abuse support.

Listening in agreement is important, because the narrative within the person being abused is very often a mixed up or messed up one. They may know they’re being abused, but they may also underplay its severity, especially if it’s been going on for some time and has become normal. They may have some warped sense that they’re partly (or wholly!) to blame, when in fact they’re blameless for being cruelly treated. They blame themselves and battle with guilt usually through another subtle form of abuse: gaslighting. They’re made to feel they’re blame-worthy; that they’re the problem or even part of the problem—“if you didn’t do this, I wouldn’t do that,” for one example. Of course, this is a lie.

Listening in agreement, against what we might think, is actually what abuse victims are not expecting to experience, even if they desperately want and need to be understood.

Seeing the subtleties within unseen abuses is crucially important. Anyone in the vocation of helping people needs this discernment if they’re not to add a dimension of harm to the lives they’re trying and are entrusted to assist.

It is also important to see that people are abused usually in more ways than one.

If there’s a subtlety of financial or social abuse there, there will be other abuses, too. Spiritual abuse underpins much of it, as perpetrators coerce significant doubt into their victims. It’s not unusual for survivors of abuse to resonate with every kind of abuse. And it’s not that victims need to list a litany of types of abuse to be believed.

In every visible abuse, there is much unseen abuse going on.

And even when there are no visible marks or indicators of abuse apparent, significant harm and trauma is occurring wherever there is unseen abuse occurring.

Portrait of a sociopathic narcissist

The Allan Parsons Project song, Eye in the Sky, is the portrait of sociopathic narcissist. Take a look through the lyrics bolded below and hear the narcissist speaking:

Don’t think sorry’s easily said…

They won’t say sorry and won’t accept your apology. The very feeling and action of repentance is repulsive to a sociopath. Your apology will backfire on you and they would rather laugh than admit they’re sorry.

Don’t try turning tables instead…

The sociopath is very well awake to any thought anyone has to manipulating them, and they will see even genuine, transparent efforts to relate with them as efforts to swindle them. Because they’re super manipulative, they expect everyone else is, so they exist in a world that is hypersensitive to being duped. They doubt acts of integrity especially. It’s a no-win situation. Act with veracity and that can easily backfire.

You’ve taken lots of chances before, but I’m not gonna give anymore…

The victim of narcissistic abuse is the one taking lots of chances just being in the relationship; they’re the ones, as it would appear, who take all the risks in remaining trauma bonded. The narcissist says they’re “not gonna give anymore” as if they’re the only ones who have given anything. This is an abhorrent lie and is the exact opposite of the truth. Only the victim empath partner has given, and they’ve given everything. They’re worn out in the giving.

Don’t ask me
That’s how it goes
Cause part of me knows what you’re thinkin’

The key deception that the sociopath engages in is the act of mind control—to give the illusion that they have mental and emotional mastery over their combatant, sorry, partner. “Part of me” suggests they’re so masterful that only part of them needs to focus on this, because it’s so easy to “know what you’re thinking.” This is a cruel hoax.

Don’t say words you’re gonna regret

What rhymes with “don’t say words you’re gonna regret” other than, “I will never forget”? Anyone close to the sociopathic narcissist runs the real risk of crossing them. They do that and they’re marked for life.

Don’t let the fire rush to your head

A key dimension of gaslighting is taking small matters, and sometimes even things that don’t exist, and pretending they’re a thing or that they’ve happened, when they aren’t or haven’t. Gaslighting is a practice that causes even the most confident person to doubt themselves.

I’ve heard the accusation before
And I ain’t gonna take any more

If the narcissist is accused of anything, they’ve already seemingly thought their way out of it. They’re completely at the ready. They won’t be trapped, and if anything, any attempt that they see is an attempt to entrap them will backfire horribly.

Believe me
The sun in your eyes
Made some of the lies worth believing

This is cruel. They’re always saying “believe me” in such a way that it would appear a heinous crime if you didn’t. The sun in our eyes is their ploy to distract us so their lies are worth believing and may well be believed, to the incredulity of those of our loved ones looking on. They may say, “How on earth are they so hoodwinked?”

Now look at how absolutely chilling the chorus is:

I am the eye in the sky
Looking at you
I can read your mind

The sociopath is the puppeteer with their eye in the sky. Everything must be within their control. They’re forever “looking at you,” reminding you, whether vocally or silently, “I can read your mind.”

I am the maker of rules
Dealing with fools
I can cheat you blind

Wow. It’s like reading the narcissist’s mind. They make the rules and they enforce them. They only play by their own rules and those rules change on a whim. The narcissist genuinely thinks that everyone other than them and their loyal purple circle are fools; they can cheat anyone blind, which means they can cheat someone without that person even knowing it.

And I don’t need to see any more
To know that
I can read your mind, I can read your mind

The narcissist doesn’t need to see anymore; they’re supremely confident that their first glimpse is a great judgement and pigheadedness is their forte. They don’t remain to be convinced that they can read our minds. And isn’t it so creepy when we get the idea that people think they can KNOW that they’re reading our minds. The truth is nobody can read minds.

Don’t leave false illusions behind
Don’t cry cause I ain’t changing my mind

Tears don’t affect narcissists because they have no gauge for empathy and sympathy sickens them. Empathy would confuse them if only they had the capacity to feel, but they don’t.

So find another fool like before
Cause I ain't gonna live anymore believing
Some of the lies while all of the signs are deceiving

The narcissist says, “Try another fool, just not I, because everyone’s a fool compared with I.”

Photo by Shashank Sahay on Unsplash

The narcissist is the ‘the boy who cried wolf’ who gets away with it

Aesop’s version of the fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, is so legendary that we might not see how scarily applicable it is to our everyday world, and especially today where narcissists play with their empaths like cats do with their balls of wool.

Try this for size. Think of the phenomenon of being called to a crisis once, and you’re hyper alert. Nothing comes of it. The next time it happens, you spring to action, but it’s not quite the fright it was initially. Finally, it happens a third time; well, we’ve been here before.

There is a conditioning that the clever (pathological) narcissist engages in.

The first time he abuses you, you’re horrified. It was once too often! But he worms his way back into your life, because he knows you love him. And, of course, there’s something very special about this man! (Narcissists embody everything that is ‘very special’—i.e. in the worst of ways.)

The second time he abuses you (it is so strange to even say this), it feels just as bad, but somehow the act is normalised. It’s horrific, of course, but incredibly we normalise it.

The third time, two polar opposite things happen, that just messes with your mind and heart. Your mind says, “He’s gone too far,” but your heart cannot see through his act; “He’s just so pitiable,” and the excuses to cover for his criminal behaviour run counter and in direct opposition to the truth you know—that IT MUST STOP. NOW.

The boy who cried wolf, as the fable would have it, came up against a town’s folk who would not believe him on the third occasion. The boy who cried wolf was forced to learn a very hard but dear lesson—for anyone who could learn. Notice that it took a whole town united. The narcissist gets away with it because he targets individuals.

Our narcissist refuses to learn. Indeed, in a world according to him, everybody else has learning to do, especially if they have the audacity to oppose him.

The narcissist conditions his empath to keep giving him more chances. He plays on their empathic strength, undoing it, because deep down he hates anyone having a strength that loves so unconditionally, that trusts unequivocally, and that can live sacrificially.

He keeps crying wolf. He keeps traumatising his empath. And he keeps getting away with it, until on the 62nd attempt, bruised and battered psychologically, the empath, still dazed by the confusion that can only indicate the subtleties of gaslighting, says ENOUGH!

BOUNDARIES. She draws up boundaries. But she herself will need the help of others—a town united—to enforce them, because she is wrapped around his little finger.

The most confounding of all situations is where the narcissist has convinced his empath that he is an empath—he’s got such depth of insight, and he feels and communicates with such charismata. Little does the empath know that all along their narcissist has been feeding. On them!

He’s a masterstroke of crying wolf and getting away with it every single time. Even when he’s supposedly being punished, the punishment itself he uses to woo his way back. This is covert mind control, for the narcissist well knows the empath cannot stand punishing anyone.

No matter how big the problem gets he manages to creep right back into the life of the empath. Only by becoming like him can she get away from him. 

At least as far as he’s concerned, she must be applauded for having the strength to be rid of him for good. If she’s wise, she’ll get help. She’ll get good counsel, she’ll listen, and she’ll apply it.

Some of the best advocates seem over the top; they aren’t! For these kinds of problems, we must become mercenary, and this is particularly a problem for Christians who feel they must be nice. For people who are diabolically unable to love there can be no mercy.

Jesus wasn’t nice with narcissists. They were the only ones he treated with unashamed disdain. But, because we’re not Jesus, we won’t have his wisdom, strength, humility, and ability to discern their guile, to do battle in the very arena the narcissist was made for in this skirmish.

The commonest thought we have when it comes to dealing with narcissists is that we’ve got some kind of control. Not against a tyranny of maleficence we haven’t. We underestimate what he’s capable of to our peril.

What we must do is look at the evidence that our eyes see. We look at the law. We face the concreteness of the facts at hand. We are honest about feeling controlled and manipulated. You see behind the lack of physical abuse (if battering isn’t present) to see how he emotionally, verbally, socially, financially and spiritually abuses you. We see how quickly he is defensive. We note how quick he is to get us to doubt what even our own eyes and senses know to be facts. We recall his diversions. We see his aberrant neglect that indicates it’s all about him. Through what the mind knows we act.

Photo by Heather M. Edwards on Unsplash

It’s time to acknowledge the lasting impact of grief and trauma

We truly have no idea about many things until we have lived those things. Like grief. We can talk about loss until the cows come home, but until we’ve experienced the irreconcilable stuckness of grief that cannot be changed or impacted we really don’t know what we’re talking about—indeed, what we’re talking about is a departure from one life into the entrance of another, and it is stark the contrast.

Any “grief” that is a temporary sojourn before normality arrives soon enough isn’t grief in the way many of us have come to know it.

Loss occurs for many reasons. It’s not just the death of a loved one. It’s divorce. It’s being scapegoated. It’s career loss or redirection. It’s relocation against one’s will. It’s anything we didn’t choose that has a lasting impact.

Trauma has a lasting impact. It’s like the lady I rendered first aid to nearly ten years ago, where I gave expired air resuscitation. I breathed for her for twenty minutes before sprinting half a mile for a defibrillator in office shoes. Little did I know it at the time, but that kind of action, with adrenalin coursing through my arteries and veins, caused me to react physically for two full weeks after, including a constant headache, stiffness in the neck, blurred vision, muscular spasms, etc.

I did not know this woman (who later died) and yet the act of trying to save her caused a lingering trauma, that thankfully only lasted a few weeks. This is not the kind of lasting impact that true PTSD and C-PTSD survivors face constantly or intermittently through their lives—the effects of their trauma manifests in a way that changes their lives from those moments of trauma forth.

If you’ve been changed by grief or trauma—or by whatever you’d choose to call it—and that change has lingered long enough for you now to know there is no going back, you know what I’m saying is true.

Let me validate your experience. You’re not weak, nor are you less than Christian. 

If you’ve been so hurt that full forgiveness still seems so far off, even when it was a long time ago, don’t assume you lack grace. The gift of a different perspective is still on its way. Don’t stress.

If you struggle to trust, there are reasons you struggle to trust, and God doesn’t condemn you one iota—God understands your struggle, your effort, your journey, your pain. Your struggle to trust is based in the strength of logical reason. It’s not a simple fix.

If you cannot control the tears, the pain within you is real, it is valid, it hurts like hell, and all the more it shows you as an empathic lover of goodness who grieves what is lost because anyone with a heart would. Those with big hearts feel pain all the more acutely. Your inability to control your sorrow is because you are so full of loving tenderness, which is such a godly trait.

If you struggle with the cycles of anger, sadness and guilt, and still cannot reconcile all the myriad fractures in your relationships, this is for reasons of reality. Let’s not fob you off as being less-than. You’re amazing that you try so hard to integrate love and relationships so perfectly you’re bound to fail because you’re human.

What all of this has taught you is this. There are few simple answers to the complex questions of life. You’ve become guarded around clichés for good reason. Your wisdom has been sharpened, and your discernment piqued. You’re not the same, and even though you’d have what you had back in a heartbeat, you are somehow a person better equipped for now and future, but that isn’t in terms that the world would see.

Through you enduring your pain, you’ve been prepared for something out of this world. That reality is coming to all of us sooner or later. In the meantime, empathy and compassion are the gifts of lasting relevance you’ve received as compensation for what you went through and continue to endure.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash