drerinwatsonI’m sitting by a woodstove while the sun glistens off several feet of crisp white snow outside my window. The dark days of winter are hard, but days like this – where the outside world is postcard-perfect – make having four seasons (almost) worth it.
It’s the time of year when you start to think maybe you might be able to come up for air. When survival mode begins to unfold into something more aligned with recovery. The sounds of birds chirping is the call of healing; the birth of a new season brings forth the birth of a new you and with it, new energy, inspiration and hope.
These are the moments where we glimpse ourselves – our REAL selves – ever so slightly. The real selves that got abandoned, obscured, or completely buried under the rubble of the narcissistic system. We feel the light peeking through the overcast clouds and it reminds us of ourselves; our hopes and dreams and gifts. Reminds us of who we were before we had to deny our existence in order to submit to someone else’s. And we find the courage and call to emerge authentically.
But how did we get so lost in the first place?
In my last newsletter, I introduced the concept of “narcissistic training” to explain the brainwashing, manipulation, and “grooming” that the narcissist uses to maintain control of the entire narcissistic system.
I shared how this training infiltrates our minds and becomes the soundtrack to our self-talk; often belittling us and keeping us small, scared, insecure and compliant even when we are well and far away from the system itself.
This week I wanted to expand on the concept of “Narcissistic Training” to explore how you were “trained by the narcissist” to deny yourself – your full identity and being – in order to better serve them and the Narc Machine. Narcissistic Training after all isn’t just about your belief systems, it’s about how those belief systems inform the choices you make and the ways you show up (or don’t show up) in work, life, and relationships.
Proxy Existence: Trained To Turn Away From Yourself
I had a client years ago who told me they became a specialized surgeon because “the only worth they knew how to access growing up was achievement and status based”. Their enjoyment and passions never factored in (they wanted to be an art historian). The grief over the loss of the life and dream that could have been is what drove them to therapy.
Narcissistic Training teaches you to never, under any circumstances, do or pursue the thing you love and want. To pursue your own path indicates that you have “independent thoughts” which is threatening to the “group think” necessary to run the Narc Machine. Growing up in such a machine, you learn that your path and purpose isn’t about you, it is about how you contribute to and keep the machine going. And the way you are taught to do that is to reflect well on other people. The surgeon’s path made the parent look good and in doing so, my client was able to maintain the safe rotation of the machine. This is the origin of people pleasing.
My client was never told to get a medical degree. It wasn’t an overt expectation in their family. And yet they knew implicitly what earned them acceptance. And they pursued it because earning that acceptance took up the space where emotional connection and celebration of who they really were and what they really wanted, was absent.
That’s the sneaky thing that makes catching narcissistic systems challenging; The expectations of compliance are silently provided and covertly enforced. In the absence of genuine love, care, and belonging, we just know how to achieve approval. In the absence of actual self-love and identity, we learn how to approximate feeling good and having a purpose/identity. My client followed a path that was built around concrete measures of success, adoration, status and achievement. It worked for them because there was never any guessing. Guessing is dangerous in a narcissistic system because there’s no margin of error.
The idea of concrete pathways towards “success” is compelling for anyone trying to survive a Narc Machine. Everyone in the machine is chasing a proverbial carrot, scrambling over each other trying to find ways to actually reach out and grab hold of it. But since no one can ever grab hold of what isn’t actually on offer, everyone always falls short. So everyone remains in perpetual motion; working, working, working but never achieving or getting anything. The machine operates off of this inertia.
My client’s path reminded me of my own academic career: You get the grade, you get the scholarship, you get the publication, you get the prestigious teaching position, you get the title. You get something. Instead of chasing a moving target.
“Achievement” is a much more satisfying outcome than having the love you really want dangled in front of you, but just out of reach.
Feeling Life Through A Filter
When you experience abandonment trauma and attachment wounding due to narcissistic systems and/or scapegoating you go through life feeling everything “by proxy”. The medical degree was my client’s proxy. They couldn’t feel whole, so instead they felt successful. They couldn’t feel pleasure, so instead they felt achievement. They couldn’t have an identity (of their own), so they earned a title.
When I got my doctorate I remember feeling a similar sense of “achievement relief” but it was followed swiftly by emptiness. What now? What’s the next metric? What if this isn’t enough?
I knew by then nothing would ever be “enough” to satisfy the narcissist. Because it was never about me in the first place. There was nothing I could ever do – nothing anyone can ever do – to fill their insatiable void of loneliness, emptiness, self-loathing and pain. But I wondered if it would be enough for me? Would achievement be enough to fill my void where love and connection should have been housed?
Having a doctorate – or a medical degree, or fame – is an indication of our qualifications and training, but it is not who we are. It is not our substance. For me, the title is the side piece to the lived experience, insight, and the vulnerability that I share with the world. The training helps me package it and use my insight to help others, but it no longer fills the void where I used to deny my own existence in order to survive.
Substance Over Survival
The most dangerous thing a scapegoat can do (growing up, and now) is acknowledge, inhabit, and show their substance. The most “off limits” thing anyone stuck in a Narc Machine can be is whole, autonomous, independent and the captain of their own life.
This is because everyone in the Narc System needs to play a role. And every role has specific rules. These rules and roles go back to the need to “reflect well on others”: By fully denying yourself in favour of performing a role that fulfills other people’s needs and happiness, you can achieve an image of “family perfection”. Not only does your compliance make the Narcissistic parent look like a good parent, but the illusion of a perfect system means that outsiders are less likely to question the health of that system. The plausible deniability is built right in.
Roles are important: The scapegoat, the narcissist, the golden child, the pawn, the flying monkey, the bystander, the enabler and so forth are each governed in specific ways to ensure the regular and predictable operation of the Narc Machine. Any deviation from those roles and rules sets the machine askew and everyone has to work in overdrive to get it “back on track”. Since everyone’s “identity” is wrapped up in those roles, it can feel like annihilation if the machine falls apart. This is why when a scapegoat exits the narcissistic system, the system often implodes and everyone’s toxicity ramps up in order to get the scapegoat “back in line”.
As we move forward in life, adopting roles (such as titles, jobs, or habits) instead of identities is a familiar way to “not step out of line”.
Self-Policing As A Main Method Of Narcissistic Training
Narcissistic System Abuse often goes unrecognized because one of the most crucial elements of “Narcissistic Training” is also the most covert: The Self-Policing. The backlash that is experienced whenever someone drifts away from the Machine’s rotation is often so strong, so terrifying (for example: the loss of an entire family), and so pervasive (aka lifelong) that we begin to police ourselves back into the machine even when no one else is explicitly telling us to “get back in line”. We force ourselves to get back in line, and we deny ourselves – all while the narcissist and the system around us watch. Narcissistic training teaches us to do their dirty work for them. After a while, the Narcissist doesn’t need to say or even hint that you are “hard to love” or “not good enough” if you are now telling yourself those very things using your own internal voice.
I think of Narcissistic System Abuse like Jeremy Bentham’s nineteenth-century model of a Panopticon (yes, hold on to your pants I’m about to go very academic on you). The panopticon is a prison structure whereby inmates are housed in cells that are open to a central tower. Therefore they are surveyed at all times by an “all-seeing authority” which may or may not be physically present at any given time.
Bentham’s idea was this: Individuals in the cells are constantly confronted by the central tower that keeps them “under surveillance”. However, since they cannot ever know whether a guard is present in the tower or not, they cannot know whether they are being truly watched at any given moment or not. The goal is simply that they must feel and believe that they are being watched at any moment. As such, the individuals “self-police” because the feeling of being under authority and assessment at all times is so omnipresent. Furthermore, individuals in cells cannot meaningfully interact with other individuals as those individuals are also constantly policing their behaviour in accordance with the possibility that they are under scrutiny too. Every interaction therefore would become a facade of genuine connection and exchange.
The purpose of this type of prison system was specifically to maintain order and preserve the structure of power in the system. It relied on the premise that people would internalize the “authority” of the central tower and police themselves in the same way that the authority would police them, even with no actual policing happening.
Psst…Nerdy like me? Here are my references: Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1977) or if you’re more into a synopsis, check out this overview from Purdue.
The parallel of Narcissistic System Abuse is obvious: In order to maintain the narcissistic system/machine, the players (family members, coworkers, bystanders) need to believe that they are under assessment at all times (and therefore, there could be consequences at any time). They need to know that any negative assessment has immediate and tangible impacts on their safety, belonging and survival in the system. Initially, the assessment comes from the central authority (the Narcissistic person whom they want the love, care and affection from) and later comes from the rest of the players in the system – aka other “inmates” who perpetuate the policing that the authority figure doles out. In other words, everyone keeps everyone in line in order to stay safe themselves. Over time, each person internalizes the “Narcissistic Training” and polices themselves.
What Does Self-Policing Sound and Look Like:
Telling yourself “I’m not good enough for xyz” or “don’t even bother trying”
Believing you have to work harder to “earn” people’s friendship/attention/approval
Not dating people you want to date because you think they are “out of your league”
Not speaking up at work, in relationships, or around friends for even simple things like “I want to eat at this restaurant” or “I’m in the mood for a quiet night in”
Constantly saying “Sure, whatever you want” or “I’m up for whatever”
Often thinking, feeling or saying “I don’t know”
Over-apologizing
Feeling immense guilt whenever you do get your needs met, when someone compliments you or apologizes to you
People pleasing and inability to say no
Not having or enforcing boundaries, or making boundaries too broad and accommodating
Over-empathy: Picking up on and analyzing people’s vibes, tone, micro-facial expressions or body movements and adjusting behaviour accordingly
Trying to keep the peace instead of speaking the truth
Doing the emotional labour for everyone you interact with (“playing therapist”, coddling them, or shifting your emotions and expressions so you don’t upset them)
Staying quiet, small or spending hours crafting an email or text to ensure it won’t annoy/offend/upset/anyone
Not excelling at your job or at school because of imposter syndrome (aka “everyone is better/smarter/more qualified than me”)
Not taking care of yourself and your basic needs (ignoring cues to eat, sleep, warm up, take breaks, go to the bathroom, cry etc.)
Suppressing feelings of anger or turning it inwards
Feeling unwell all the time/ being in crisis as the only “safe” way to get affection
Feeling helpless like you need the system and can’t survive on your own
Chronic negative self-talk and perfectionism
Overachieving in work or school to receive the “safety” of accolades
Living “by proxy” (in other words doing what is “right”, but never feeling happy or whole)
Chronic anxiety about doing things “wrong” or making the “wrong” decision or inability to make decisions at all (even simple ones)
Adherence and reverence to authority without question. Fearing “getting in trouble”
Love addiction (for example needing a “love savior” instead of forging genuine connections)
Understanding “intuitively” that when a parent says “You know we love you, right?”, they aren’t actually expressing love, they are looking to you to gratify and revere them (“Of course I know! You’re so loving!”)
Denying your gut feelings about most things (including knowing that what the Narcissist offers isn’t love and doesn’t feel right, but not being able to question it for fear of backlash)
Not knowing who you are, what you want, what you feel, and what you need (“What am I interested in? What are my hobbies? What is my personal style and tastes? What do I look for in a partner?”
Chronic anxiety and depression, feeling numb, going through the motions/living on autopilot
Fearing joy/pleasure or feeling guilt when joy happens. Feeling undeserving of goodness
Self-Abandonment As Survival
Certainly, this is not an exhaustive list, and all of these examples are things most everyone can experience from time to time. But if you experience more than a few of them, or they persist chronically or across multiple areas of your life, it is possible you are experiencing self-abandonment. Self-abandonment is a survival mechanism borne out of being denied access to a safe, supportive, nurturing, validating, loving, and affirming system that enables you to develop an identity, resilience, and independence.
It’s important to understand the mechanics of Narcissistic Training and self-policing as I have outlined in this article because to assume Narcissistic Abuse or Scapegoating is mere “family bullying” or “child-hating” is to completely misunderstand and simplify the entire legacy and impact of the abuse.
These simplifications can lead to misdiagnoses, ineffective treatments, or further (unintentional) harm and re-traumatization by feeding off survivors’ fears, thus keeping them trapped in their feelings of pain, anger, and abandonment. These narratives can become so oppressive that the pursuit of justice, truth, and accountability ends up obscuring – and even getting in the way of – any meaningful recovery.
Understanding the system’s operation is also crucial because it explains exactly how so many people get away with Narcissistic System Abuse (NSA). To put an end to NSA on small and large scales, we need to understand exactly how the self-policing creates loopholes for the system to shirk truth, accountability, and responsibility, which further fuels the betrayal and injustice traumas experienced by victims and survivors of NSA and scapegoating.
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If you are interested in understanding these loopholes further, stay tuned. I am currently working on an article that will cover how these loopholes are created, enacted, and enforced. The article connects the concepts of reactive abuse, plausible deniability, the “identified patient”, and how a victim’s healthy and normal reactions to chronic toxicity can get misinterpreted (even in therapeutic contexts) in ways that can cause increased harm. To be notified when this post is available, please join my newsletter.
Thank you for being such a receptive audience to my attempts to untangle and explain the vortex of toxicity so that we can create more effective supports and treatments. My goal is always to help others reclaim their lives, identities, energy and confidence.
