I only realized it when I saw the words written down. When my father, in a completely unfounded way, insisted "we were obviously neglecting our daughter, depriving her emotionally and turning her into a mentally unstable person. We kept her in a prison where she was lonely and deprived," he wasn't talking about us. Of course. He knew nothing about our parenting. He was talking about himself and what he must have known, on some level, that he was doing to me.
Gotta love projection. It's the only way we can get information about narcissists, as they lie so much about themselves and factual history. It's through what they accuse others of that we can understand how their minds work.
I love projection, too, for the same reasons you stated:D When I'm unlucky enough to be with an N, and they're talking smack about someone else, I have to fight hard to keep from laughing out loud, because they are clueless that they just told me a "secret" about themselves:D
ReplyDeleteNs lie constantly, and that's helpful to know, but you're still left without any concrete information about what they are up to. When they slip into projection mode, I'm onto them like a bloodhound...and they are completely oblivious, which suits me just fine;)
Knowing about Ns and projection, is helpful even when you're NC with FOO. Though I'm No Contact with my N parents since Sep. 2009, I have no difficulty figuring out what my NF is saying about me to other people. He's always projected his own bad traits onto people he blacklists, like me, one of two family scapegoats...so, let's see: selfish, mean, oversensitive, stupid, disrespectful, money grubbing, ungrateful, unreasonable, stubborn...
Yeah, an excellent source!
ReplyDeleteSo, my father is cold, cruel, selfish, neglectful, snobbish, avaricious, never satisfied, oversensitive, ungrateful, always has to win, difficult, argumentative, hurtful. Whaddya know? All true. And I might actually NOT be all these things :D
This is an interesting observation. I have watched all these behaviors but hadn't made the connection that the one time the Ns tell the truth about themselves is when they are projecting their bad traits to someone else. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteAah, projection. It relentlessly twisted my guts all around before I figured it out. It came from my rage-prone, golden-child, narcissistic sibling. Oh, the misery back when I just couldn't put my finger on it. It was so eerie, and so maddening. Do they KNOW they're doing it? I used to think GCNSib did, because she is very intellegent, and I thought it was her way of trying to blame me FIRST for what she sensed I might say to her- so that I would lose the right to say it. Maybe not, though, maybe she did do it in that unconscious N way, because, hey, after all, to herself she IS an absolute perfect human being capable of no wrong.
ReplyDeleteI still wonder, though, I can't help it...
typo or braino, one of the two, and what irony to boot:
ReplyDelete*intelligent
:D