One of the reasons I share so much about narcissism is that I have met people who have endured similar things as myself that shaped their lives, even debilitating them at times.
I know of a woman who experienced much heartache in her life because of her family dynamic. The disrespectful treatment led her into sin to comfort herself, and then after becoming born-again it led her to investigate why people treat one another in these ways. She quickly found out that sin was not the comforter she thought it might be. Satan wanted her to destroy her life, he had been working to this end way back when she was a child.
When the woman became born again all the anger and frustration left her, causing her to feel sorrow for those who abused her but even better than that gave her hope that she could remove the offenders from her life without guilt or shame. She need not turn to sin, she could turn to Christ.
It was the devil's desire to cause guilt and shame in the woman to derail any sense of love or kindness in her life. Sadly, she took the bait and fell into sin, but God gloriously saved her and brought her out.
If any of you have experienced the devil's work in your life to cause you to lean into your fleshly sinful desires, know this; God can take you out as He took the woman out. He can also prevent you from going into sin when you turn to Him for help.
We cannot blame our sin on anyone but ourselves, but we can admit we allowed the devil to use wicked people to influence us. It was the woman’s desire to live a different life than the way she was raised that brought her out. But as a non-believer she didn’t know how to accomplish this, in despair she gave up and gave in.
There was an ache in the woman’s soul so intense that she turned to sin instead of to God. She had no example in her family home of godliness even though they all attended church. There was no love or kindness there, only ridicule and bullying. The rules of conduct were in the home without the love. The hypocrisy of the people in the home soured her to the rules.
The woman was one of those children whose mother encouraged the brothers to disrespect her through many covert means, mostly by example. Her mother mocked everything she said and did regularly.
The brothers learned from their mother that the woman was not worthy of respect and did the same thing the mother did. The woman is 70 years old and to this day her brothers mock, demean and ignore her whenever she is in company with them.
They must have shared their views with their spouses because even the spouses who never knew the woman began the same treatment of her when they married her brothers.
It is amazing how far-reaching the leading narcissist taught by example that the daughter is not worthy of respect and kindness. We have entire cultures of narcissists now because it is really true the sins of the fathers lead down to the third and fourth generations. Deuteronomy 5 tells us that training by example is powerful and will cause generations to fall into the same sin over and over again. The saying; “more is caught than taught” carries much weight.
The woman’s mother used to say mean things like: "your father loves you better than me", when she was only about six years old. What is the daughter of such a young age to do with that?
The woman’s mother wanted her to feel bad about having a good relationship with her father. That was her first clue that her mother was jealous of her, working continually to cause the daughter to fail in life and to divide the father from her.
The woman’s mother loved how inferior the daughter was because of the sin in her life. Instead of talks of kindness to bring the daughter back to a righteous life there was a sort of glee that came over the mother at the fallen state of her daughter, loving her superiority over her daughter she reveled in the fall of her daughter. The mother made no attempt to show love and kindness that might heal the devastated daughter.
When she became born again and was no longer failing, she became successful in life but her mother ignored the daughter’s accomplishments as did the brothers also. The woman recalls that her father pretended not to see anything and in later years he began to treat her disrespectfully too as though someone was convincing him of something, or perhaps he hated that she had become born-again.
The woman recalls, that at age 10 her mother and father were having a terrible fight that was causing her to cry bitterly, she went to her brother's bedroom for solace and they told her to get out wanting to have nothing to do with her problem. Then her mother came to her room to tell her all the bad things about her father, he saw it and came to the daughter's room to tell all the bad things about her mother, each trying to win the daughter to their side.
The fight escalated to the point that the little girl became hysterical, screaming that they should stop only to have each one blaming the other for causing the daughter to be hysterical, escalating the problem even further. No one at any time consoled the daughter, they only used her to fight more bitterly and then told the daughter to get away for screaming at them to stop. The daughter was seen as disrespectful for screaming at the parents but the parents never considered their terrible fight and drawing in the child as anything to apologize for later. The father and mother reconciled but the pain of the daughter was never acknowledged. This and many other things in their daughter’s life with the family left lifetime scars that had to be worked through on her own.
Sadly the mother passed along these same attitudes to the grandchildren. Because the daughter’s mother treated her disrespectfully in front of the grandchildren they thought something was wrong with their mother and they too took on the attitudes of the grandmother toward their own mother.
When the daughter asked her children what was wrong they denied they acted in a disrespectful manner toward her. They prefer their father, as did her extended family, working to make him think something was wrong with her too.
Before that the family thought they had convinced the husband of his wife’s inadequacies as a human being, making the mistake of becoming blatantly rude in front of him, helped to open his eyes a little wider to their antics. They thought they could get away with more blatant forms of disrespect when they were convinced her husband would agree with them.
The woman felt sad for them because all it would take is some love and kindness to have a lovely relationship but their choice was ugliness, splintering the family, no one is close to anyone else in the family, since "one-upmanship" is the goal of everyone in the family, they think it is funny to joke fight all the time. Perhaps they didn't like their sister or daughter because she didn't engage with them, she hated the negativity and pride exhibited. The daughter was looking for love instead of praising their attitude of superiority.
The woman has gone no contact, only seeing the brothers every couple of years at her home, she does not go to their homes and is never in groups with them. They tend to feed off of each other, the daughter’s parents are dead but the brothers and their wives continue the same bullying that the mother did. The woman found it to be wiser to only meet with the family on her turf, in her home, and only one couple at a time, no groups. Mostly the daughter stays away, there seems to be no purpose in feeding their contempt for her through contact.
The woman prayed for them for years but has stopped because she does not want to think about them and the past. God remembers all her past prayers, so now she has left them with Him.
Do not be afraid to tell your stories to those who might be helped. Those who love you will understand and those who hate you will hate you no matter what you do, so let the Holy Spirit lead and never feel shame or guilt over sharing with those who might be helped.
What is the answer to all of this? It's quite simple really, trust in Christ and feel free to have boundaries no matter how others choose to respond. Those who don't like the truth being exposed will go away, that's a good thing, and those who have offended might actually see themselves and repent. But mostly you will be protected from the same tactics that have been used against you in the past. They no longer have power over you, Christ is your power.
James 4:7
“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Isaiah 55:7
“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon”
