Interesting Psychology Team
Today. Where are we talking about the narcissistic Injury?
What is Narcissistic Injury
the narcissistic Injury is a wound created in childhood. That is an injury to the self. So, the child suffering being mistreated and humiliated.
A critical parent teacher feeling rejected by peers is going to have an emotional injury, a psychological injury to the self now, because that is pretty difficult to quantify the self. How do you quantify an injury to itself? There really is no way of identifying that there’s a wound at all. So the child in this case is often able to protect themselves, using a false self.
but. With regards to this wound, the personality that gets created when there is an injury to the self is one of a defense as one of protective.
Narcissistic Injury and Childhood
now within the case of, the narcissistic, her narcissist, the person, the individual called narcissist, the personality is really created to deflect, to remove accountability and to ultimately remove from these very painful feelings of feeling like a failure, feeling, shame, feeling guilt, and, like nothing like a loser, like a someone who’s not Worthy of being alive or even existing.
these feelings are extraordinarily painful. So the narcissistic wound is, hard to measure outside of the individual, the individual’s emotions, which are always, deniable, whether it’s, the defense mechanism of projection or stuffing down your feelings, reaction formation, The narcissistic shell is essentially a protective mechanism to really protect from these, these injuries, these, these wounds.
So it doesn’t always lead to narcissism having a narcissistic injury. I think this is very profound and important to go into because, A narcissistic injury is healable. You can heal from narcissistic abuse in childhood. The issue is, is that the child, oftentimes as being overwhelmed emotionally and not really necessarily emotionally aware, or even strong enough, again, not calling them out.
Such a reality situation. Ah, they’re just not going to have the bandwidth to fight back and really hold onto that, that true sense of self. So the wound will oftentimes they will succumb to this emotional wound and ultimately their true self will drown in these negative feelings. So a narcissistic injury.
Is what’s referred to when these wounds get tripped up. Now, these ones get tripped up. When a scenario plays out in today in daily life, that reminds the narcissistically injured person of their pain. Now the defense mechanism is really to shut out any memories, any triggers, any wounds, any experiences that.
That are associated with this pain. Now, the problem is, is that because we’re not machines, we can’t just disconnect from part of ourselves. They always come trickling back subtly slowly, whether it’s through a memory, someone around us who is similar to our abuser. Now, when the wound is tripped up, there’s going to be a certain amount of perceived confrontation criticism, or feeling extremely slighted.
Now this is going to cause oftentimes narcissistic rage, narcissistic shame. old memories that are oppressed are going to get triggered. And the narcissist will really start to go into a certain, seemingly demonic, like existence, where they are, everyone’s the enemy. And they, and they absolutely need to punish and hurt anyone who, who dare trip up these wounds.
Now at this point, floating core shame, inner the inner Bruce self. we’ll go into to that defense mechanism, because of these very extremely painful feelings, according to Ross Rosenberg, who by the way is a wonderful, I believe he’s a, is a coach, a drug and alcohol specialist. He is fantastic.
He wrote a very, very good book, highly suggest reading called the human magnet syndrome. He says that the. He discusses, the defense mechanisms that the narcissist goes into and they include denial, displacement, conversion, fantasy, intellectual station, projection, rationalization, reaction, formation, regression, or oppression, sublimation, and suppression.
I’m not gonna go into all those details. Feel free to check them out. The most notable one is the projection, that I can see as being really just almost. Instantaneous and, reaction. Yeah, because, when a person is in a prison active projection mode, that really is that the way that yeah. See their wounds is on the outside.
They don’t see them with them. They see other people as wounded. They’ll oftentimes say, Oh, you’re such a narcissist. They’ll say that. Or they’ll say, Oh, you’re such a, you’re such a, this or that. And oftentimes they’ll be just referring to themselves, but projecting it outward. It seems like narcissists often know exactly what their victims are suffering from or other people are suffering from it.
Really, this is just a projection. The injury has been projected outward, placed onto others who are then considered a perceived threat to be defended against. The irony is, is that they’re really the ones with the injury, but they are protecting themselves against others who are, who have taken on these projections.
And then ultimately the victims get punished because they’re the ones who are reminding the narcissist of their wounds. Nurses cannot take responsibility for their rage. They need the supply, so they won’t apologize. they will apologize oftentimes, but they don’t really just because they don’t want to lose their supply.
They don’t wanna lose it. They don’t want to be abandoned. when in reality they cannot take responsibility for their rage and their actions and their wounds. Victims often feel like they’re walking around, walking on eggshells when they are around the narcissistic abuser, narcissists are extraordinarily critical and hurtful and obviously judgmental towards others.
And therefore victims of narcissistic abuse will find themselves trying to walk around. But really essentially what they’re doing is just avoiding the wound. In reality, the whole personality is designed to protect the wound. So the walking on eggshells is really just another form of protecting the themselves for kid tripping up the narcissistic wound of the narcissist and then getting punished for it.
How to Protect Yourself a Narcissistic Injury
Here’s some tips to protect yourself from, really taking on a projection of a narcissistic wound. And I’m being the object of punishment, of humiliation, of rejection, shame, and guilt, and you name it of a narcissistic abuser. first of all, walk away, you don’t need to defend it, the abuse, the, the behavior of the abuser.
if they trip up and go into a rage and go into a shame-based. Humiliating a tirade that is certainly not your responsibility. And this is tricky when it comes to parents. Cause we oftentimes feel that our parents are our parents and we have to make excuses for them and just suck it up for them. But in reality, we do not, nobody is responsible for someone else’s pain and wounds, do not react defensively.
these projections, these wounds are not yours. They’re given they’re there. A lot of, you know, there really aren’t just. They’re trying essentially in our system, trying to give you them. It’s trying to make you tick of trying to eat healthy. Have you identify with that projection projective identification?
They want you to take on that, that projection, but ultimately speaking, it’s just totally inappropriate until you not, not your wound. and every person who is wounded and needs to take responsibility for their wounds. in addition, this will play into the narcissistic game. If you do. For a second or even a little while take on that identification.
They will, they will see you as weak and they will see you, right. Someone who is more than willing to take on the shame and guilt on a pilot on some never be subject to that. Fine. Your inner wounds with a therapist and own your shadows on your stuff. Because if we don’t own our stuff, we’re at risk of thinking than other people.
First of all, we become very codependent because we give away our power. But also we were at risk of thinking that other people will come along and fix those parts of ourselves. nobody can fix those parts of yourself. Only yourself. You have the power to do that. Nobody else does. So be sure to own your own stuff.
Don’t forgive very easily. Don’t forgive and go back. this is of course, without changing behavior attitudes and, and true healing. If you forgive, you will certainly be playing into the game of the narcissist because they will see you as again, they will see you as weak. They will see you as somebody who is easily able to be taken advantage of, and ultimately you’ll give them another chance.
and, and, you know, don’t go back just cause you want to be. You don’t want to be alone. Being alone is infinitely more. less destructive and being with somebody who absolutely will torment your emotional wellbeing, see, and ultimately see why you’re going back to a relationship where you’re taking on somebody else’s wounds, and almost share, bring the relationship becomes a shared ground to protect it, to, to feed, to really, depend, defend the narcissist.
So the relationship totally gets hijacked. there is no relationship with a narcissist. It really is just a big. Floyd to protect them from, from life and from getting, re-injured see why you’re going. You’re going back to a dynamics like this. Again, it’s not, you’re not a bad person for going back to our dynamics like this, but ultimately speaking, when we have our own wounds, oftentimes we look for other wounded people to play into their dysfunction.
We want to make sure we don’t do that. and, and see what it is about yourself and heal that part of yourself. When you do that, you’re in a much better position to not play into the dysfunction and ultimately set boundaries and walk away and, and heal. Lastly, narcissistic injuries are not about you.
They have nothing to do with you. when they make you feel bad and they make you feel a certain way. No, that this is a ploy, you know, narcissistic abusers, emotional manipulators, emotionally abusive bullies are able to make you feel bad about something that you did not do. That is part of the game. Now it’s your job to.
Make sure that you don’t take on that, that mistreatment, and, and identify with what’s going on, what they’re telling you. And even if you feel those feelings know that those feelings are being given to you, those are being manufactured. Those should be manipulated. Those are being put into you so that you feel bad.
And when you feel about them, Oftentimes, you’ll try to correct it by pleasing the abuser. This again, plays into the dysfunction of the, so thank you so much for watching, hope you enjoy all the best.
