If you haven’t read part one, you can do so HERE
Sometimes I write articles from the third-person point of view, as I put on my life coach “hat.” I take myself out of the article and write as if I am coaching a new client or talking to a stranger. Then, sometimes, life (and God, I believe) throws me curve balls so that I can grow and share what I have learned with you through personal experiences.
If you check out YouTube this week, you’ll see a new video posted about shame. I’ve seen a consistent trend among toxic people in 2020, regardless of any narcissism. Most enjoy using shame to hurt me or others. By the way, I am pruning those people from my life before 2021 is upon us.
Shame is the heaviest emotional tool used by narcissists to project their self-assassination onto you or me. Shame hits us where it hurts because it’s calling out perceived deficiencies in our character.
This week I had a friend offer his opinion of some trials I am going through. This “friend” said he did this out of love, but I clearly heard shame in his words. He told me that I needed to grow up and let go of my past. The funny thing is that the past he was referring to started two weeks ago and isn’t over yet. My father is recovering from open-heart surgery, and I am healing from caustic remarks my mother, the narcissist, said when I traveled to another state to care for my father. (Mom told me she wished I had never been born.) I’ve let most of the pain go, but isn’t it okay that I am still stinging a little from her words two weeks later? That I am worried because I haven’t seen my father in this much pain – ever? I think so. For me, a little acceptance, encouragement, and love go much farther than shame as a support mechanism.
Unfortunately, shame can last weeks, months, years, or decades if we let it. When the narcissist or anyone else shames us, we carry around their voices in our heads. It’s like a podcast is on repeat in our brains when we feel like we don’t measure up.
There are a few things that you can do to alleviate the effect shame has on you.
- Don’t take it personally. The narcissist is projecting their insecurities on you. This isn’t about you.
- Remind yourself the truth is the opposite of what the narcissist told you. For example, if the narcissist says you can’t do anything right, you do many things almost perfectly! If the narcissist says your hair looks terrible, it most likely looks the best it has ever looked!
- Tell yourself to let it go. Their cruel words are not a reflection of you. Say to yourself, “Stop it. I am not talking to myself that way today.”
- Extricate yourself from the relationship. If the relationship is too toxic for you, don’t do it. I told this friend that I didn’t need friends like him in my life. I need support and effort made toward understanding, not criticism.
Shaming may increase during the holidays as the narcissist grows more tense and frustrated. Narcissists don’t embrace the holidays like the old Andy William’s song, “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” For the narcissist, the holidays can be hell because the holiday isn’t all about them!
Last week I addressed some mental exercises that you can do to hit the reset button and survive the holidays. Here are some more suggestions that can help you. These are ways to protect yourself emotionally by physically removing yourself from the situation.
- Decide how long you can stay for a holiday visit and stick to that plan. Perhaps you previously would visit the narcissistic parent for two weeks. If two days is all you can take, then stay two days. Tell the family you can’t make it work this year. Offer no excuses, or if you have a legitimate one, lean on that. You need to take care of yourself. Why dive into the shark tank longer than necessary? They are lucky you visit them at all!
- Have an escape plan. If things grow unbearable, have a plan to leave the toxic atmosphere for a few minutes or the entire holiday season. Have a friend you need to check on. Maybe things blow up at work.
- Take a break for a few minutes. Walk the dogs. Take a plate of cookies to a neighbor. Go outside and call a friend. Just get away from the toxicity. Then you can reenter the situation with a better attitude and more armor.
Finally, remember that the holidays are almost over. Be kind to yourself until they are. You’ve got this. You are the opposite of the shame you’ve endured. You are worthy. You are loved. And you are enough.
If you are interested in online counseling, Dr. Carter has a sponsor who can assist. As the need is there, please seek the help you deserve: https://betterhelp.com/survivingnarcissism We receive commissions on referrals to BetterHelp. We only recommend services that we trust.
I am sorry that happened to you. I am sorry your mother said that. I am sorry someone interrupted your processing of so hurtful a thing to be said to you in so unfeeling and ungracious a manner.
Thank you for making your life about ministry to others in what you do to share with others. Here and elsewhere where you give of yourself.
Your ministry helps to stop, think, and put up a boundary line that says, “No. I am not receiving those words and deeds as an assessment of me.”
I hope you remember you are appreciated and hold many words of love and encouragement in your heart this season.
Great, helpful article Laura! Once we (the community here) start to figure out about their particular type(s) of Narcassist, the lightbulb turns on. Then we learn it is NEVER going to get better… and we start to make our exit plans. When someone finds the strength to truly cut off or “prune” these people from their life – it can be overwhelmingly sad & hard. However, once you do that & recognize these awful, hurtful people faster, it becomes easier. We all need to be mindful to surround ourselves with kind, supportive people & let the Narcs move merrily on their way to their next supply/ victim. I for one, have had enough abuse & that’s exactly what it is. Thanks again & Merry 🎄 to you & Dr. Carter.
I received my holiday shame gift from the recently departed husband. He thought he had disguised it well by writing “apology” in the email subject line. I had a lot of trepidation about opening the email and I considered just deleting it. I wish I had. There was an apology, alright. But the apology was so out of character for him, I am certain someone helped him write it (the new girlfriend would be my guess). There were a few words of apologizing (for introducing his new girlfriend to Facebook before we told most of our friends and family we were separating. Facebook was how I found out he had a girlfriend only a few weeks after he moved out. And in his apology he blamed her for his facebook posts “she posted about me, so I posted about her” SMH!). He continued with a paragraph of blame and shame (“you know why I left you, it was all your fault and you did this and you did that, but that’s okay because this is the kind of person you are”). Wow! I guess he told me, huh?
Thankfully, I was able to recognize this behavior for what it is after having watched lots of Dr C and Laura videos. Reading this email hurt me, but I was able to quickly identify where the hurt was coming from and how I can change how I feel about his email and myself. I got over it quickly. And best of all, I didn’t feel any need to respond to him and defend myself. It just doesn’t matter anymore what he thinks of me or how he sees our 20 year marriage. I know who I am and I know what I did and didn’t do. And I have taken full responsibility for my actions (poor boundaries, enabling, not holding him accountable, my reactions) and apologized to him. And he has not done the same.
Thank you Laura and Dr C. You do amazing work and have helped me immensely these last few months.
Very helpful article! I just went through a difficult weekend visit with my narcissistic son. I was so irked with him I walked off and forgot my camera. Now I am stuck going back. God help me.
I just want to express my heartfelt gratitude and love to Dr C, Laura, and all of the dear members of our Surviving Narcissim community 🙏💖.
I am so sorry, Laura, for the emotional pain you are experiencing now, as a result of your mother’s words and actions. I have felt that pain of my mother never loving me (she doesn’t know how to love anyone), and her extremely vicious and hurtful actions toward me (and it always seems to be at exactly the times when I really needed her to step up and be supportive!). It is a bitter pill to swallow, knowing that the people who are “supposed” to love you never will. But I am glad that I finally understand the truth of who and what my mother and my sister are, so that I can protect myself (I no longer have contact with either of them).
I have to say, with everything that has gone on globally this year, and also with me personally (health challenges & injuries, dealing with sadness/grief, and generally working through “issues”), I find myself this holiday season feeling a pull toward reaching out to those family members I have let go. I am really feeling the void in my life of not having a family, and not having many real friends I can rely on. But I know that contacting them would be disastrous to my mental and emotional health!
I wish all of us peace, wellbeing, and love this holiday season & always 🙏💖