The seeming fashion for labelling people toxic, narcissistic etc

[mylunareclipse]

If that makes you feel better why not but make sure you realize that doesn't necessarily make it accurate. You can have tendencies or traits without the actual disorder.

I agree. I will never know. It doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is how this person related to me in that time that he was in my life. That's all. And to get him out of my life. But I am trying to say that this can be important for the people who were abused, to label the behavior. If you've never experienced it before, it's very confusing. My husband and one of my Ts and this forum are perhaps the only times I have even used the words narcissistic in terms to this person. It just was important for me, so that I could recognize the behaviors as they happened, and not fall for them.

 

[Gs172003]

I agree. I will never know. It doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is how this person related to me in that time that he was in my life. That's all. And to get him out of my life. But I am trying to say that this can be important for the people who were abused, to label the behavior. If you've never experienced it before, it's very confusing. My husband and one of my Ts and this forum are perhaps the only times I have even used the words narcissistic in terms to this person. It just was important for me, so that I could recognize the behaviors as they happened, and not fall for them.

I wish you luck.

 

[mylunareclipse]

Thank you @Zoogal
Good luck to you as well.
I just remembered that for many years I was too terrorized to even mention what he did in case he found out. But anyhow yes just remembered that when I have occasionally talked about what happened I just say that I was bullied, I don’t even mention the word narcissism. That was just for my own healing.
Feeling invalidated I guess is such a trigger for me
Off to yoga for now ??‍

 

[ChildofGod]

I also feel attacked for my past, for my abuser. I didn't ask for that. For me it's the behaviors not the stigma that affects me the most. Our realities and perceptions are different from each other.

 

[Ronin]

I am sorry.

Fair enough & no apologies owed :) To me its mostly academic at this point, but I understand you have more difficulty and dont mean to cause you distress.

Thanks for the discussion & enjoy your yoga. :)

 

[DharmaGirl]

I try to not quote other people and "attack" them. This is an easier/more straight forwards way of posting my opinion.

When I quote people and respond, I am directing my response to what they said. I never attacked you. We were discussing the labeling of narcissism, and I quoted you to respond to what you said. Many people here do this. You took this to mean I was invalidating your trauma, that is your issue. I wasn't invalidating your trauma, as many people have pointed out, including myself, and you continue to attack me for my opinion on the use of the word narcissist. Again, I didn't say or infer that this was about your trauma. You decided that is was about your trauma. I'm not going to apologize for how you misinterpreted what I said. I'm not responsible for you taking it out of context.

I am not going to go back and point fingers at different people or see who said what but I felt dharmagirl was unfairly spoken to.

Thank you, @Mee, and everyone else that tried to explain I wasn't attacking her.

I am trying to say that there is no way for me to ever find our if this person is NPD or not, I will never have access to their psychiatric diagnosis.

I wasn't asking for proof. I was referring to the topic of the thread, which was "The seeming fashion of labeling people toxic, narcissistic etc". Because of what you thought I was inferring, you gave yourself permission to attack me several times, to tell me how to apologize to you, which I was not doing since I didn't say or infer your abuse was not real, and would never say that to someone.


You reacted badly to something you thought I meant. That is your responsibility. If you were triggered by that, that is also your responsibility. We don't have trigger warnings here because we don't know what will trigger someone else. I suggest you print out this whole thread and pick it apart with your therapist.

I am showing you respect by explaining that I didn't mean what you thought. Several times. You continue to feel like you were attacked. This is YOUR issue. You weren't attacked. Period. I don't know how I can make myself any clearer. Stop attacking me. You are doing to me what you perceive I did to you. Stop. You aren't the only one here with trauma.

 

[mylunareclipse]

? @DharmaGirl
We are just gonna have to stop this conversation here has gone too far.
We don’t know each other that well and not sure what’s happening here.
Something is making us trigger/go at each other.
I wish you peace.

 

[Teasel]

Sounds like a good idea :)

 

[New]

So if someone constantly uses a term like 'awesome' etc in their normal language it starts to detract from it's regular meaning.

I say this all the time. ?. My phone automatically pulls it up while typing but I also use emojis a lot and it annoys some people. I do it to reflect my mood because moods can be lost when sending messages to people versus speaking to them.

Does that bother you as well? Just curious and not trying to be argumentative. I have friends who have told me they are annoyed by emojis and too much use of certain words so I’m just trying to understand. Thank.

I just don't understand why it's so difficult for people to accept that some of us might have been abused by sociopaths/narcissists etc. Does not mean that all narcissists are abusive, nor that all abusers are narcissists.

First I want to say I’m very sorry for all the abuse you suffered and I believe you.

Second in my opinion and I could be totally wrong.... I think the ones you feel are not accepting your post may have been either diagnosed with this or know someone who has.

I know you stated it does not mean all narcissists are abusive. But maybe they have had an experience with being labeled incorrectly and it caused damage to them or someone they knew so they commented and it appeared both sides took it personally.

(I don’t think any of you intended to hurt anyone and I hope you all have peace with it now. )

The reason I think this is because when I was let go from my job my boss told me everyone was afraid of me. (I think most knew I was raped and had PTSD) This hurt me so much because I would never hurt anyone.

But for this very reason I didn’t tell and still don’t tell people I have it because of the general stigma tied to it which is that people think you are dangerous.

I must say I don’t know much about people with NPD or a narcissist other than what I’ve read and I’ve learned a lot from reading this. I’ve always assumed all narcissist were abusive so shame on me.

Sending gentle hugs to all if accepted.

 

[Mee]

@Faith Andrews . That raises a really good point. Lots of victims are dismissed as ‘crazy’ or ‘self involved’ or indeed narcissistic. During my breakdown weeks absolutely an ex friend said ‘it’s not all about you’. I was shamed at my selfishness and started to try to rectify it when in actual fact I needed MORE self interest , a bit more gumption and less caring about what others said.

But yes, if i are seeing others as a negatively ascribed label; do I risk making their trauma worse? Missing crime done to others?

( being told we are frightening/ selfish etc is often manipulative and /or a cultural/societal control thing too.... ). It can be controlling of reactive abuse of can be done to emotionally manipulate, as part of gaslighting etc.

 

[New]

( being told we are frightening/ selfish etc is often manipulative and /or a cultural/societal control thing too.... ). It can be controlling of reactive abuse of can be done to emotionally manipulate, as part of gaslighting etc.

Very true. When my boss told me everyone was afraid of me I felt so bad. I had worked there for many years and had many friends who never told me I scared them.

I spent a long time worrying about what I did to scare them. I finally asked one of them about it a year or so afterward and was told it wasn’t true.

My T worked with me on it and we think he was lying. He did and said several things that were very emotionally manipulative and abusive that I didn’t see for years.

 

[Mee]

I am so sorry that was your experience. I also really appreciate how conscientious your post was. ?

I am also going to say that I have spent more time than I’d healthy looking at the ‘negative behaviour patterns’ of those i felt unsafe around; and for me that’s very much a part of my PTSD - a paranoia, an attempt to put it down to an ‘illness’ of someone else’s because then it makes the world safer : ‘normal’ people don’t do that. Well, I don’t think that’s true either. ‘Normal’ people sometimes hurt others unintentionally, or otherwise. That’s why we say ‘being human’ . We are flawed.