Reblog: Explaining how to tell true from fake victims

For outsiders, it can be hard to tell which is the narcissist and which the victim:

I bet my poor priest had this problem when Richard and Tracy went up to him a year and a half ago, before I had a chance to, and told him who knows what lies.

I heard Tracy’s indignant whispers, and thought I caught “self-righteous” as well.  I know they also persuaded some girl I didn’t know, “Chia,” that I was somehow falsely accusing them and being awful to them.

I also remember the smear campaign they conducted against Richard’s friend Todd, whose only crime was to try to help Tracy, and who then got mad at her when she continuously fought him and accused him for hours over it.

They got people–even me–thinking Todd was crazy.  But when I examined closely what really happened, I discovered that Tracy was lying to everyone.

I also remember two of my exes smearing me as well, telling their friends and anyone who would listen, lies about me.

But I found a blog post which sums up quite well in a series of bullet points, how to tell a true from a fake victim.  For example:

Let’s examine the traits of a well-trained pathological liar, a narcissist; with a history of duping others and manipulating to avoid responsibility vs a credible, honest, albeit “emotional” target of the narcissist.

….TRUE VICTIMS experience the grieving process. Shock. Denial. Anger. moving all the way through [to] acceptance.

Whereas a FALSE VICTIM will appear to get over the emotions of the experience rather quickly. They don’t appear to dwell, (ruminate / obsess) over the “abusive” experiences.

….Narcissists as FALSE VICTIMS don’t change a damn thing about their behavior. They don’t seek help. They don’t look over their shoulders. (Unless they’re paranoid about karma catching up with them) They don’t have trouble sleeping at night or difficulty breathing at times. They aren’t afraid of you in the ways they’ve claimed to be afraid.

They don’t hang out in support groups. They don’t share their stories with other survivors. They don’t endure the traumatic symptoms of PTSD.

TRUE VICTIMS can’t survive than by any other way than REACHING OUT for support. Seeking validation, seeking therapy, GOD, or other “SAVING” modalities is a revelation of our TRUE, inner state.

We’re shocked, scared and hurt. We give back and share our stories with others. We try to warn the next victim out of fear that the narcissist will victimize others.

We have the ability and show true empathy for other survivors because we KNOW what the abuse from a narcissist feels like. We KNOW how confusing it is. We don’t take the experience lightly, nor the feelings of those who’ve suffered this lightly.

TRUE VICTIMS become very involved in their own therapy. They are motivated by hurt, anger, fear and determination to never be made a victim again, and thus pour themselves into learning about their own behavior, vulnerabilities and areas in need of improvement. A narcissist believes it’s everyone ELSE that needs to change.

….The narcissist isn’t at home tending to their self-care and reading every tidbit of information regarding recovery they can get their hands on. They’re out meeting new dating partners, out selling themselves on websites for dating, flirting, laughing and gayly enjoying a life not fettered by consequences.

The article is here, from After Narcissistic Abuse: Will The REAL Victim of Narcissistic Abuse Please Stand Up

Some of my blog posts may seem disjointed at times; they also may seem quite sure of terms like “narcissist” and “abuse”….But keep in mind that:

–It took me several years to sort things out, starting in 2008.

–Initially, after we broke off the abusive friendship in 2010, my venting was done through vague Facebook posts and a private list of grievances.

–I knew there was abuse, but knew nothing about borderline or narcissistic personality disorders.  I think I came across this through Sam Vaknin’s website.

–It took me months to even begin to write a germ of a story on my website, which started as simply a few paragraphs on my page about abuse.  It wasn’t meant to be a novel-length account, but just a few paragraphs.  But it just kept building and building.

I wrote e-mails to friends and posts on Orthodox forums with basic descriptions, but to really sit down and write a narrative describing everything that happened?  I just couldn’t, not at first.  But once I began, it took many months after that to finish it.

–It took months of searching the Net for help, finding various blogs with other survivors, and writing down my experiences, before I could even figure out what the heck just happened, or stop blaming myself or feeling guilty.

My abusers yelled and screamed at my husband and me, online or off, while we tried to get them to calm down with my apologies.  I was the one left a puddle of emotional mush, while my abusers just went on with life and didn’t bother to even apologize.

Yet when they found my website and blog and I told them to leave me alone, they went to my priest and who knows how many friends (I found some interesting hits from various places on my blog), and cried “victim.”

They even wrote to me crying “victim,” poked fun at me for still being upset over what they did and not wanting to see them, treated me like what they did was nothing at all and I should just get over it.

Then they proceeded to force themselves in my face, coming to my church and shoving up behind me in the communion line, breathing and snarling down my neck, smearing me to my priest, then persisting in following my blog no matter how often I told them to go away or blocked them.

Do they sound like the victims to you?  Am I the one bullying them, as they claimed?