Narcissism, rooted in the Greek myth of Narcissus, refers to a psychological trait characterized by excessive self-admiration, a grandiose sense of self-importance, and a constant craving for attention and admiration from others. It involves a preoccupation with one’s own achievements, talents, and appearance, often accompanied by a lack of empathy for others. Narcissism can have a profound negative impact on both personal and interpersonal levels. Individuals with pronounced narcissistic traits tend to prioritize their own needs and desires above those of others, leading to difficulties in forming and maintaining meaningful relationships. Their inflated sense of self-importance can create a sense of entitlement, making it challenging for them to truly connect with others or consider their perspectives. This self-centered focus can also result in a lack of empathy, causing emotional and relational distance, and hindering the development of healthy and fulfilling connections. Ultimately, narcissism can impede personal growth, hinder authentic connections, and generate a cycle of discontentment and dissatisfaction.

This definition encompasses the most apparent form of narcissism, known as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). However, if we broaden our understanding of narcissism as an inherent inability to genuinely connect with others due to being excessively absorbed in our own self-centered bubble, we can identify various other groups of individuals who exhibit narcissistic traits.

For example, in a codependent relationship, one person tends to prioritize the needs and desires of the other to an excessive and unhealthy degree, often at the expense of their own well-being. This can lead to an imbalance in the relationship dynamics, with one person assuming a more caretaking or enabling role. In some cases, the person who exhibits codependent behaviors may also display narcissistic traits. This can manifest as a need for control, manipulation, or an inflated sense of self-importance within the context of the codependent relationship. This form of codependency with narcissistic tendencies can create a dynamic where one person seeks validation and attention from the other while maintaining a sense of control over the relationship.

Actually, most of us display some forms of narcissistic traits when we are triggered by specific individuals or events. These triggers often stem from unresolved past traumas that continue to impact us. While individuals diagnosed with NPD or codependency represent the extreme end of the spectrum, it is important to acknowledge that all of us can display some of these behaviors when we are experiencing emotional distress or unwell. It is a sincere recognition that our behaviors may temporarily align with narcissistic tendencies during such periods.

In the early stages of child development, particularly during the formative years, it is important for a child to experience a sense of being the center of the world to develop a healthy ego. This process is essential for their overall psychological and emotional growth. Here are a few reasons why this is important:

Building Self-Identity: During early childhood, children are in the process of forming their sense of self. By experiencing themselves as the center of their world, they develop a foundation for their self-identity. This allows them to understand and differentiate themselves from others, fostering a healthy sense of individuality.
Autonomy and Independence: Feeling self-important and focused on oneself enables children to develop a sense of autonomy and independence. It encourages them to explore their environment, express their needs and desires, and develop a sense of agency. This fosters their emotional and cognitive development, as they learn to navigate the world around them.
Emotional Security: When young children feel that they are the center of attention and receive nurturing and responsive care, they develop a sense of emotional security. This lays the groundwork for healthy emotional development, trust, and the ability to form secure attachments with others.
Healthy Boundaries and Self-Care: By initially focusing on themselves, children learn about their own needs and preferences. This understanding helps them establish healthy boundaries and develop self-care practices. As they grow, they gradually learn to balance their own needs with the needs of others, fostering healthy relationships and empathy.
Developing Confidence: Feeling self-important and valued helps children develop confidence and a positive self-image. It provides a sense of worthiness, encouraging them to explore their abilities and take on new challenges with resilience and determination.

Healthy narcissism is crucial for a child’s development. For instance, a one-year-old baby’s healthy narcissism is evident when they vocalize their needs by crying to have their parents attend to their physical requirements, such as feeding. Similarly, during the stage commonly known as the “terrible twos,” toddlers exhibit a healthy narcissism through behaviors like tantrums, defiance, and newfound assertiveness, as they explore their growing sense of autonomy and independence.

Regrettably, during this critical developmental period, children are often hindered from expressing this necessary narcissism in a healthy manner. Many of us experienced neglect, absence, disconnection, conditional love, abuse, anger, unsafety, manipulation, or lack of care due to our parents’ own limitations and traumas. It is not about blaming parents; they did their best given their own level of development and understanding. It is a reality that reaching adulthood without some form of trauma is near impossible. If we embrace the concept of the soul’s journey, we may even consider that we intentionally chose our parents, specifically for the challenges they presented (the blueprint of the soul), as an opportunity to work on our karma and evolve as incarnated souls.

As we experience childhood traumas, our inner child can become stuck and cease to develop. Consequently, while our physical body may mature into adulthood, certain aspects of our being may remain akin to a needy Cry-Baby or an angry two-year-old toddler. When triggered, this part of us may manifest through rants and temper tantrums, causing disruption to our environment. We have all witnessed such inappropriate behaviors that appear irrational, crazy, or immature. However, if we observe the same behavior in a young child, it becomes amusing and inconsequential. The person exhibiting these behaviors is not inherently bad; rather, a young aspect of their self momentarily takes over their personality. Unfortunately, this can lead to significant damage and negatively impact their life or career, such as Will Smith smacking Chris Rock at the Oscars. In healthy childhood development, children gradually learn to consider others’ perspectives, develop empathy, and navigate social interactions. However, due to trauma, certain aspects of ourselves remain stuck in earlier developmental stages characterized by narcissistic tendencies. Consequently, an adult displaying narcissistic traits often reflects someone who was not allowed to express healthy narcissism during childhood. A friend once advised me to care for my children during their early years to prevent significant issues during their teenage years. This advice proved to be remarkably accurate. Investing in our children’s well-being during infancy is crucial for fostering responsible and compassionate young adults. It is vital not to dismiss our children, attentively observe their emotions, aid them in regulating those emotions, and derive appropriate meaning from their experiences. Adults must create a safe environment for young children to exhibit self-centered behaviors appropriate for their age. Therefore, one of the worst things a parent can do is to make a child feel guilty for being selfish. This dynamic can lead to the child being prematurely burdened with parental responsibilities and subsequently displaying narcissistic behaviors later in life. This scenario often occurs in large families where older siblings are expected to assume parental roles while still children themselves. Because embracing their children’s self-centeredness may be challenging for parents, nature has made babies, toddlers, and young kids “cute”. Our brains are wired to exhibit greater patience and tolerance towards individuals with a high degree of “cuteness” so as to help us support this most difficult part of our children’s development.

Now, the crucial question arises: What should we do with the aspects of ourselves that have halted development due to trauma and are currently trapped in immature stages?

Healing involves providing our trapped inner children with the opposite experiences they lacked. To resume their growth, they require care, a sense of being valued, dedicated attention, tenderness, and kindness—experiences that may have been absent in their early lives. It is common for many of us to seek intimate relationships for this reason, which often leads to disastrous outcomes. Instead of seeking a life partner to grow and share joyful moments with, and to contribute to each other’s happiness, we unconsciously seek a partner who resembles one of our parents. We hope this partner will provide the emotional nurturing that our original parent may have failed to give us. However, this pattern tends to perpetuate the same cycle of trauma and pain over and over again. Since love is instinctively associated with survival for a child, it explains why we can exhibit destructive or hateful behaviors towards someone we once considered our life partner as the relationship ends, rather than moving peacefully into conscious uncoupling.

Indeed, our blocked inner child requires an experience of healthy narcissism to resume its growth. However, instead of unconsciously demanding it from a romantic partner, a more effective approach involves working with a skilled therapist or coach who can guide us in the process of re-parenting our frozen inner child. This journey involves acknowledging our feelings, identifying our needs, and prioritizing ourselves without guilt or shame when appropriate. It can be as simple as indulging in our favorite food, getting a pet to experience unconditional love, treating ourselves to a spa day or retreat, purchasing a desired piece of jewelry, or exploring a new country solo. However, it often boils down to simpler acts: choosing to rest when tired, seeking solace in nature, meditating in silence with benevolence, understanding, and non-judgment, or journaling to explore our inner world. There are infinite ways to fulfill the needs of our undeveloped inner children, once we tap into our creativity. As we engage in this process, our inner child begins to grow again, thereby transforming all aspects of our lives, particularly our personal relationships. The inner child serves as the seat of the soul, holding the key to our joy and personal happiness.

Allow me to share a recent experience with one of my clients who had consumed hallucinogenic mushrooms as part of a shamanic healing journey. During a distressing trip, he found himself stuck in a vulnerable part of his inner child and decided to call me on WhatsApp. Recognizing the danger of the situation, I sought a quiet space at a friend’s house, even though it interrupted our plans. I settled into the dry bathtub to isolate myself, dedicating the following three hours to validating his feelings, creating safety and security, engaging in deep conversations, and making him feel truly special. Because of the drug and the fear he experienced from his bad trip, his inner child’s narcissism was stronger than his adult’s guilt of taking up my time on a Sunday. As a result, he could enjoy the process of me fully attending his inner child’s needs, which, at that moment, required feeling like the center of the world. I understood the importance of only ending the call when he was ready, regardless of how long it took. In hindsight, this experience brought him extraordinary healing, resulting in increased empathy and reduced self-centeredness. By addressing the genuine needs of our inner children, we enable their growth, leading to the development of more altruistic needs. To conclude the story, when I eventually emerged from the bathroom, my friend had patiently waited for me, and we shared a wonderful afternoon together. He reciprocated the unconditional support I had just offered. This illustrates the workings of the universal law of attraction.

Hence, here lies the paradox: To transcend narcissism, we must relearn how to be “narcissistic” in a healthy manner to heal our inner child. And what precisely is the appropriate narcissism for a fully functioning adult? Self-love. True self-love aligns with spiritual awakening, emanating from the heart and unity consciousness. Therefore, loving oneself in this state is nothing other than loving the entirety of creation, as we feel connected to all beings and everything around us.

French translation below – Article en Français ci-dessous

Rééduquer votre enfant intérieur : transformer le narcissisme en amour-propre

Le narcissisme, ancré dans le mythe grec de Narcisse, fait référence à un trait psychologique caractérisé par une admiration excessive de soi, un sentiment grandiose d’importance personnelle et un besoin constant d’attention et d’admiration des autres. Il implique une préoccupation excessive pour ses propres réalisations, talents et apparence, souvent accompagnée d’un manque d’empathie envers autrui. Le narcissisme peut avoir un impact négatif profond à la fois sur le plan personnel et interpersonnel. Les personnes présentant des traits narcissiques prononcés ont tendance à privilégier leurs propres besoins et désirs au détriment de ceux des autres, ce qui rend difficile la formation et le maintien de relations profondes. Leur sentiment exagéré d’importance personnelle peut rendre difficile une véritable connexion avec les autres ou la prise en compte de leurs points de vue. Cette focalisation sur soi peut également entraîner un manque d’empathie, créant une distance émotionnelle et relationnelle qui entrave le développement de relations saines et épanouissantes. En fin de compte, le narcissisme peut entraver la croissance personnelle ainsi que les relations authentiques et générer un cycle de mécontentement et d’insatisfaction.
Cette définition englobe la forme la plus évidente du narcissisme, connue sous le nom de trouble de la personnalité narcissique (TPN). Cependant, si nous élargissons notre compréhension du narcissisme comme une incapacité inhérente à se connecter véritablement avec les autres en raison d’un emprisonnement inconscient dans notre propre bulle égocentrique, nous pouvons identifier divers autres groupes de personnes qui présentent des traits narcissiques.
Par exemple, dans une relation co-dépendante, une personne a tendance à privilégier de manière excessive et malsaine les besoins et désirs de l’autre, souvent au détriment de son propre bien-être. Cela peut entraîner un déséquilibre dans la dynamique relationnelle, avec une personne assumant le rôle de soignant ou de sauveur. Dans certains cas, la personne qui présente des comportements co-dépendants peut également présenter des traits narcissiques. Cela peut se manifester par un besoin de contrôle, de manipulation ou un sentiment exagéré d’importance personnelle dans le contexte de la relation co-dépendante. Cette forme de co-dépendance avec des tendances narcissiques peut créer une dynamique où une personne recherche validation et attention de l’autre tout en maintenant un certain contrôle sur la relation.

En réalité, la plupart d’entre nous présentent certains traits narcissiques lorsque nous sommes déclenchés émotionnellement par une personne ou un événement. Nous sommes déclenchés parce que nous ne sommes pas complètement guéris émotionnellement, car la plupart d’entre nous sommes encore hantés par des traumatismes du passé. Les personnes diagnostiquées avec un TPN ou une co-dépendance se situent à l’extrême de l’échelle, mais il est honnête d’accepter le fait que nous présentons tous certains de ces comportements lorsque nous ne sentions pas bien.
Dans les premières étapes du développement de l’enfant, en particulier pendant les années formatrices, il est important qu’un enfant ait le sentiment d’être au centre du monde pour développer un ego sain. Ce processus est essentiel pour sa croissance psychologique et émotionnelle globale. Voici quelques raisons pour lesquelles cela est important :

Construction de l’identité : Pendant la petite enfance, les enfants sont en train de former leur sens de soi. En se percevant comme le centre de leur monde, ils développent une base pour leur identité personnelle. Cela leur permet de se comprendre et de se différencier des autres, favorisant un sentiment sain d’individualité.
Autonomie et indépendance : Se sentir important et se concentrer sur soi permet aux enfants de développer un sens de l’autonomie et de l’indépendance. Cela les encourage à explorer leur environnement, à exprimer leurs besoins et désirs. Cela favorise leur développement émotionnel et cognitif, car ils apprennent à naviguer dans le monde qui les entoure.
Sécurité émotionnelle : Lorsque les jeunes enfants ont l’impression d’être au centre de l’attention et de recevoir des soins attentionnés et responsifs, ils développent un sentiment de sécurité émotionnelle. Cela pose les bases d’un développement émotionnel sain, de la confiance et de la capacité à former des attachements sécurisés avec autrui.
Limites saines et auto-soins : En se concentrant initialement sur eux-mêmes, les enfants apprennent à connaître leurs propres besoins et préférences. Cette compréhension les aide à établir des limites saines et à développer des pratiques d’auto-soins. En grandissant, ils apprennent progressivement à équilibrer leurs propres besoins avec ceux des autres, favorisant des relations saines et l’empathie.
Développement de la confiance : Se sentir important et valorisé aide les enfants à développer la confiance et une image positive d’eux-mêmes. Cela leur donne un sentiment de valeur, les encourageant à explorer leurs capacités et à relever de nouveaux défis avec résilience et détermination.

Le narcissisme sain est crucial pour le développement d’un enfant. Par exemple, chez un bébé d’un an, un narcissisme sain se manifeste lorsque l’enfant exprime ses besoins en pleurant pour attirer l’attention de ses parents afin de satisfaire ses besoins physiques, comme se nourrir. De même, pendant la période souvent appelée les “terribles deux ans”, les tout-petits font preuve d’un narcissisme sain à travers des comportements tels que les crises de colère, la défiance et une affirmation de soi nouvelle, alors qu’ils explorent leur croissante autonomie et indépendance.
Malheureusement, pendant cette période cruciale du développement, les enfants sont souvent empêchés d’exprimer ce narcissisme nécessaire de manière saine. Beaucoup d’entre nous avons vécu des négligences, des absences, des déconnexions, des abus, de la colère, de l’insécurité, de la manipulation ou un manque de soins en raison des limites et des traumatismes de nos parents. Il ne s’agit pas de blâmer les parents ; ils ont fait de leur mieux compte tenu de leur propre niveau de développement et de compréhension. Il est en réalité presque impossible d’atteindre l’âge adulte sans avoir vécu une forme de traumatisme. Si nous adhérons à l’idée du parcours de l’âme, nous pourrions même considérer que nous avons intentionnellement choisi nos parents, spécialement pour les défis qu’ils présentaient (la trame de l’âme), comme une opportunité de travailler sur notre karma et d’évoluer en tant qu’âmes incarnées.

Alors que nous vivons des traumatismes pendant notre enfance, notre enfant intérieur peut se figer et cesser de grandir. Par conséquent, bien que notre corps physique puisse mûrir jusqu’à l’âge adulte, certaines parties de notre être peuvent demeurer comme un bébé en manque d’attention ou un tout-petit colérique de deux ans. Lorsqu’ils sont déclenchés, cette partie de nous peut se manifester par des emportements et des crises, causant des perturbations dans notre environnement. Nous avons tous été témoins de tels comportements inappropriés qui peuvent sembler irrationnels, fous ou immatures. Cependant, si nous observons le même comportement chez un jeune enfant, cela devient amusant et sans importance. La personne exhibant ces comportements n’est pas fondamentalement mauvaise ; plutôt, un aspect jeune de son être prend momentanément le contrôle de sa personnalité. Malheureusement, cela peut entraîner des dommages considérables et avoir un impact négatif sur sa vie ou sa carrière comme Will Smith quand il a gliflé Chris Rock aux Oscars. Dans un développement sain de l’enfance, les enfants apprennent progressivement à prendre en compte les perspectives des autres, à développer de l’empathie et à naviguer dans les interactions sociales. Cependant, en raison des traumatismes, certains aspects de nous-mêmes restent figés dans des stades de développement antérieurs caractérisés par des tendances narcissiques. En conséquence, un adulte présentant des traits narcissiques reflète souvent quelqu’un qui n’a pas été autorisé à exprimer un narcissisme sain pendant l’enfance, lorsque cela était approprié à cette étape du développement. Un ami m’a un jour conseillé de prendre soin de mes enfants lorsqu’ils sont jeunes pour éviter de gros problèmes plus tard, à l’adolescence. Ce conseil s’est avéré particulièrement pertinent. Investir dans le bien-être de nos enfants pendant la petite enfance est essentiel pour favoriser le développement de jeunes adultes responsables et bienveillants. Il est important de ne pas négliger nos enfants, d’observer attentivement leurs émotions, de les aider à les réguler et de leur donner un sens approprié à partir de leurs expériences. Les adultes doivent créer un environnement sûr pour que les jeunes enfants puissent manifester des comportements centrés sur eux-mêmes adaptés à leur âge. Par conséquent, l’une des pires choses qu’un parent puisse faire est de faire culpabiliser un enfant d’être égoïste. Cela peut entraîner le fait que l’enfant soit précocement chargé de responsabilités parentales et affiche ensuite des comportements narcissiques à l’âge adulte. Cette situation se produit souvent dans les grandes familles où les frères et sœurs plus âgés sont amenés à assumer des rôles parentaux tout en étant encore des enfants. Bien que l’égocentrisme de leurs enfants puisse être difficile pour les parents, les bébés, les tout-petits et les jeunes enfants sont conçus pour paraître mignons. Notre cerveau est programmé pour faire preuve de plus de patience et de tolérance envers les individus qui possèdent cette qualité d’être mignon afin de nous aider à soutenir cette partie la plus difficile du développement de nos enfants.

Maintenant, la question cruciale se pose : que faisons-nous des aspects de nous-mêmes qui ont cessé de se développer en raison des traumatismes et qui sont maintenant figés dans des stades immatures de développement ?

La guérison implique de fournir à notre enfant intérieur bloqué des expériences opposées à celles qu’il a connues. Pour reprendre sa croissance, il a besoin de soins, de se sentir spécial, d’attention, de douceur et de gentillesse, des expériences qu’il n’a peut-être jamais reçues auparavant. Il est courant que beaucoup d’entre nous cherchent des relations intimes pour cette raison, ce qui se termine souvent par des désastres. Au lieu de chercher un partenaire de vie avec qui grandir, partager les beaux moments de la vie et contribuer à son bonheur, nous cherchons inconsciemment un partenaire qui ressemble à l’un de nos parents et qui nous apportera l’épanouissement émotionnel que notre parent d’origine n’a peut-être pas su nous offrir. Cependant, ce schéma tend à perpétuer le même cycle de traumatismes et de souffrances encore et encore. Étant donné que l’amour est instinctivement associé à la survie pour un enfant, cela explique pourquoi nous pouvons manifester des comportements destructeurs ou haineux envers quelqu’un que nous avons autrefois considéré comme notre partenaire de vie, plutôt que de passer pacifiquement à la séparation consciente.

En effet, notre enfant intérieur bloqué a besoin d’une expérience de narcissisme sain pour reprendre sa croissance. Cependant, au lieu de le demander inconsciemment à un partenaire romantique, une approche plus efficace consiste à travailler avec un thérapeute ou un coach compétent qui peut nous guider dans le processus de re-parentage de notre enfant intérieur figé. Ce cheminement implique de reconnaître nos émotions, de découvrir nos besoins et de nous mettre en premier sans culpabilité ni honte lorsque cela est approprié. Cela peut être aussi simple que de se préparer notre plat préféré rien que pour nous, d’adopter un chien pour vivre l’expérience de l’amour inconditionnel que nous n’avons peut-être jamais reçu de nos parents, de se faire chouchouter avec un soin thalasso ou une retraite spirituelle, d’acheter un bijou que nous avons tant désiré sans attendre qu’un partenaire comble ce besoin, de partir dans un pays que nous avons toujours voulu explorer sans compagnon de voyage. Mais le plus souvent, cela est plus simple que cela. Choisir de se reposer lorsque nous nous sentons fatigués ou surmenés, même si notre esprit nous pousse à travailler plus fort pour respecter une deadline. Aller dans un endroit agréable en pleine nature pour se détendre et trouver la paix. Méditer et s’asseoir en silence en écoutant toutes les parties de nous-mêmes de manière neutre, sans jugement, avec bienveillance, gentillesse et compréhension. Tenir un journal pour en apprendre davantage sur nous-mêmes. Il existe une infinité de façons de répondre aux besoins de nos enfants intérieurs non développés une fois que nous apprenons à faire preuve de créativité à cet égard. En le faisant, notre enfant intérieur recommencera à grandir et, par conséquent, toute notre vie sera transformée, surtout dans le domaine des relations personnelles. L’enfant intérieur est le siège de l’âme et détient ainsi la clé de notre joie et de notre bonheur personnel.

Permettez-moi de partager une expérience récente avec l’un de mes clients qui avait consommé des champignons hallucinogènes dans le cadre d’un voyage chamanique de guérison. Il s’est retrouvé bloqué terrifié dans une partie vulnérable de son enfant intérieur. Reconnaissant l’importance de la situation, j’ai cherché un espace calme chez un ami, même si cela interrompait nos projets. Je me suis installé dans la baignoire sans eau pour m’isoler, consacrant les trois heures suivantes à valider ses sentiments, à lui créer un sentiment de sécurité, à engager des conversations profondes et à le faire se sentir réellement spécial. Grâce à l’influence de la drogue, il a réussi à surmonter la culpabilité de me prendre mon temps un dimanche et à répondre pleinement aux besoins de son enfant intérieur, qui consistaient à se sentir au centre du monde à ce moment-là. J’ai compris l’importance de ne mettre fin à l’appel que lorsqu’il était prêt, peu importe le temps que cela prendrait. Avec le recul, cette expérience lui a apporté une guérison extraordinaire, le rendant plus empathique et moins centré sur lui-même. En répondant aux besoins authentiques de nos enfants intérieurs, nous leur permettons de grandir, ce qui conduit au développement de besoins plus altruistes. Pour conclure l’histoire, lorsque j’ai finalement quitté la salle de bain, mon ami m’avait patiemment attendu et nous avons passé un merveilleux après-midi ensemble. Il m’a rendu le même soutien inconditionnel que je venais de lui offrir. C’est ainsi que fonctionne la loi universelle de l’attraction.

Voici donc le paradoxe : pour transcender le narcissisme, nous devons réapprendre à être “narcissiques” de manière saine et consciente. Et qu’est-ce que le narcissisme approprié pour un adulte pleinement fonctionnel ? L’amour de soi. Le véritable amour de soi est en réalité la même chose qu’un éveil spirituel, car il est basé sur le cœur et la conscience de l’unité. Ainsi, s’aimer soi-même dans cet état revient à aimer l’ensemble de la création, car nous nous sentons connectés à tous les êtres et à tout ce qui nous entoure.

Artículo en español a continuación

Replantear a tu niño interior: Transformando el narcisismo en amor propio

El narcisismo, enraizado en el mito griego de Narciso, se refiere a un rasgo psicológico caracterizado por un exceso de autoadmiración, un sentido grandioso de importancia personal y un constante deseo de atención y admiración por parte de los demás. Implica una obsesión por los propios logros, talentos y apariencia, a menudo acompañada de una falta de empatía hacia los demás. El narcisismo puede tener un profundo impacto negativo tanto a nivel personal como interpersonal. Las personas con rasgos narcisistas pronunciados tienden a priorizar sus propias necesidades y deseos por encima de los de los demás, lo que dificulta la formación y el mantenimiento de relaciones significativas. Su exagerado sentido de importancia personal puede generar un sentimiento de derecho, lo que les dificulta conectar verdaderamente con los demás o considerar sus perspectivas. Este enfoque centrado en sí mismo también puede resultar en una falta de empatía, creando distancia emocional y relacional, y obstaculizando el desarrollo de conexiones saludables y satisfactorias. En última instancia, el narcisismo puede obstaculizar el crecimiento personal, dificultar las conexiones auténticas y generar un ciclo de insatisfacción y descontento.

Esta definición abarca la forma más evidente de narcisismo, conocida como Trastorno Narcisista de la Personalidad (TNP). Sin embargo, si ampliamos nuestra comprensión del narcisismo como una incapacidad inherente para conectar genuinamente con los demás debido a estar excesivamente absorto en nuestra propia burbuja egocéntrica, podemos identificar varios otros grupos de personas que exhiben rasgos narcisistas.

Por ejemplo, en una relación codependiente, una persona tiende a priorizar las necesidades y deseos del otro en grado excesivo y poco saludable, a menudo a expensas de su propio bienestar. Esto puede llevar a un desequilibrio en la dinámica de la relación, con una persona asumiendo un papel de cuidador o facilitador. En algunos casos, la persona que exhibe comportamientos codependientes también puede mostrar rasgos narcisistas. Esto puede manifestarse como una necesidad de control, manipulación o un sentido exagerado de importancia personal dentro del contexto de la relación codependiente. Esta forma de codependencia con tendencias narcisistas puede crear una dinámica en la que una persona busca validación y atención del otro mientras mantiene un sentido de control sobre la relación.

De hecho, la mayoría de nosotros mostramos algunas formas de rasgos narcisistas cuando somos desencadenados por una persona o un evento. Nos desenfocamos porque no hemos sanado completamente, ya que muchos de nosotros todavía estamos acosados por traumas del pasado. Las personas que son diagnosticadas con TNP o codependencia se encuentran en el extremo más grave del espectro, pero es honesto aceptar el hecho de que todos nosotros mostramos algunos de estos comportamientos cuando no estamos bien.

En realidad, muchos de nosotros exhibimos ciertos rasgos narcisistas que aparecen de repente por personas o eventos específicos. Estos desencadenantes a menudo se originan en traumas pasados no resueltos que continúan afectándonos. Si bien las personas diagnosticadas con TNP o codependencia representan el extremo del espectro, es importante reconocer que todos podemos mostrar algunos de estos comportamientos cuando experimentamos angustia emocional o no estamos bien. Es un reconocimiento sincero de que nuestros comportamientos pueden alinearse temporalmente con tendencias narcisistas durante esos períodos.

En las primeras etapas del desarrollo infantil, especialmente durante los años formativos, es importante que un niño experimente una sensación de ser el centro del mundo para desarrollar un ego saludable. Este proceso es esencial para su crecimiento psicológico, emocional, y en general. A continuación, se presentan algunas razones por las cuales esto es importante:

Construcción de la identidad propia: Durante la primera infancia, los niños están en proceso de formar su sentido de sí mismos. Al experimentarse como el centro de su mundo, desarrollan una base para empezar a crear su identidad. Esto les permite comprender y diferenciarse de los demás, fomentando un sentido saludable de individualidad.
Autonomía e independencia: Sentirse importante y centrado en uno mismo, permite a los niños desarrollar un sentido de autonomía e independencia. Los anima a explorar su entorno, expresar sus necesidades ó deseos, y a desarrollar un sentido de agencia. Esto fomenta su desarrollo emocional y cognitivo, ya que aprenden a navegar en el mundo que les rodea.
Seguridad emocional: Cuando los niños pequeños sienten que son el centro de atención y reciben cuidado y atención receptiva, desarrollan un sentido de seguridad emocional. Esto sienta las bases para un desarrollo emocional saludable, la confianza y la capacidad de formar vínculos seguros con los demás.
Límites saludables y autocuidado: Al enfocarse inicialmente en sí mismos, los niños aprenden acerca de sus propias necesidades y preferencias. Esta comprensión les ayuda a establecer límites saludables y desarrollar prácticas de autocuidado. A medida que crecen, aprenden gradualmente a equilibrar sus propias necesidades con las de los demás, fomentando relaciones saludables y empatía.
Desarrollo de la confianza: Sentirse importante y valorado ayuda a los niños a desarrollar confianza y una imagen positiva de sí mismos. Les proporciona un sentido de valía, fomentando su disposición a explorar sus habilidades y asumir nuevos desafíos con resiliencia y determinación.

El narcisismo saludable es crucial para el desarrollo de un niño. Por ejemplo, el narcisismo saludable de un bebé de un año se evidencia cuando vocaliza sus necesidades llorando para que sus padres atiendan sus requerimientos físicos, como alimentarse. De manera similar, durante la etapa comúnmente conocida como “terrible dos”, los niños pequeños exhiben un narcisismo saludable a través de comportamientos como rabietas, desafío y una nueva afirmación de su autonomía, mientras exploran su creciente sentido de identidad e independencia.

Lamentablemente, durante este período crítico de desarrollo, a menudo se impide a los niños expresar este narcisismo necesario de manera saludable. Muchos de nosotros experimentamos negligencia, ausencia, desconexión, abuso, ira, inseguridad, manipulación o falta de cuidado debido a las limitaciones y traumas de nuestros padres. No se trata de culpar a los padres; hicieron lo mejor que pudieron con su propio nivel de desarrollo y comprensión. Es una realidad que alcanzar la edad adulta sin algún tipo de trauma es casi imposible. Si abrazamos la idea del viaje del alma, incluso podríamos considerar que elegimos intencionalmente a nuestros padres, específicamente por los desafíos que presentaban (el plan del alma), como una oportunidad para trabajar en nuestro karma y evolucionar como almas encarnadas.

A medida que experimentamos traumas en la infancia, nuestro niño interior puede quedar estancado y dejar de desarrollarse. En consecuencia, aunque nuestro cuerpo físico pueda madurar hacia la edad adulta, ciertos aspectos de nuestros pueden siguen siendo similares a un niño necesitado de atención o un niño pequeño enojado de dos años. Cuando se nos desencadena, esta parte de nosotros puede manifestarse a través de arrebatos y rabietas, causando disturbios en nuestro entorno. Todos hemos sido testigos de tales comportamientos inapropiados que parecen irracionales, locos o inmaduros. Sin embargo, si observamos el mismo comportamiento en un niño pequeño, resulta divertido e insignificante. La persona que muestra estos comportamientos no es inherentemente mala; más bien, una joven parte de su ser toma momentáneamente el control de su personalidad. Desafortunadamente, esto puede generar daños significativos e impactar negativamente su vida o carrera.

En el desarrollo saludable de la infancia, los niños aprenden gradualmente a considerar las perspectivas de los demás, desarrollar empatía y navegar las interacciones sociales. Sin embargo, debido a los traumas, ciertos aspectos de nosotros mismos quedan atrapados en etapas tempranas de desarrollo caracterizadas por tendencias narcisistas. Como resultado, un adulto que muestra rasgos narcisistas a menudo refleja a alguien que no se le permitió expresar un narcisismo saludable durante la infancia. Un amigo una vez me aconsejó que cuidara de mis hijos durante sus primeros años para evitar problemas significativos durante su adolescencia. Este consejo resultó ser notablemente preciso. Invertir en el bienestar de nuestros hijos durante la infancia es crucial para fomentar jóvenes adultos responsables y compasivos. Es vital no menospreciar a nuestros hijos, observar atentamente sus emociones, ayudarlos a regular esas emociones y darles significado apropiado a sus experiencias. Los adultos deben crear un entorno seguro para que los niños pequeños puedan exhibir comportamientos egocéntricos apropiados para su edad. Por lo tanto, una de las peores cosas que un padre puede hacer es hacer que un niño se sienta culpable por ser egoísta. Esta dinámica puede llevar a que el niño asuma prematuramente responsabilidades parentales y, posteriormente, muestre comportamientos narcisistas en la vida adulta. Esto ocurre a menudo en familias numerosas donde se espera que los hermanos mayores asuman roles parentales mientras todavía son niños. Aunque aceptar el egocentrismo de los niños puede ser desafiante para los padres, los bebés, los niños pequeños, están diseñados para parecer lindos. Nuestros cerebros están cableados para mostrar una mayor paciencia y tolerancia hacia las personas que poseen estas cualidades, para ayudarnos a apoyar esta parte tan difícil del desarrollo de nuestros hijos.

Ahora, la pregunta crucial surge: ¿Qué debemos hacer con los aspectos de nosotros mismos que han dejado de desarrollarse debido a los traumas y que actualmente están atrapados en etapas inmaduras?

La sanación implica proporcionar a nuestro niño interior atrapado las experiencias opuestas que les faltaron. Para reanudar su crecimiento, necesitan cuidado, una sensación de ser valorados, atención dedicada, ternura y amabilidad, experiencias que pueden haber sido ausentes en sus primeros años. Es común que muchos de nosotros busquemos relaciones íntimas por esta razón, lo que a menudo conduce a resultados desastrosos. En lugar de buscar una pareja de vida para crecer y compartir momentos felices, y contribuir a la felicidad mutua, buscamos inconscientemente una pareja que se asemeje a uno de nuestros padres. Esperamos que esta pareja proporcione el cuidado emocional que nuestro padre original pudo no haber brindado. Sin embargo, este patrón tiende a perpetuar el mismo ciclo de trauma y dolor una y otra vez. Dado que el amor está instintivamente asociado con la supervivencia para un niño, explica por qué podemos mostrar comportamientos destructivos o llenos de odio hacia alguien que alguna vez consideramos nuestra pareja en la vida en lugar de pasar pacíficamente a una separación consciente.

De hecho, nuestro niño interior bloqueado requiere una experiencia de narcisismo saludable para reanudar su crecimiento. Sin embargo, en lugar de exigirlo inconscientemente a una pareja romántica, un enfoque más efectivo implica trabajar con un terapeuta o coach especializado que pueda guiarnos en el proceso de ser padres de nuestro niño interior congelado. Este viaje implica reconocer nuestras emociones, identificar nuestras necesidades y priorizarnos sin culpa ni vergüenza cuando sea apropiado. Puede ser tan simple como disfrutar de nuestra comida favorita, tener una mascota para experimentar el amor incondicional, darnos un día de spa o retiro, comprar una joya deseada o explorar un nuevo país por nuestra cuenta. Sin embargo, a menudo se reduce a actos más simples: elegir descansar cuando estamos cansados, buscar consuelo en la naturaleza, meditar en silencio con benevolencia, comprensión sin juzgar, o escribir en un diario para descubrir más sobre nosotros mismos. Hay infinitas formas de satisfacer las necesidades de nuestro niño interior no desarrollado una vez que desarrollemos nuestra creatividad. A medida que nos involucramos en este proceso, nuestro niño interior comienza a crecer, transformando así todos los aspectos de nuestra vida, especialmente en el área de las relaciones personales. El niño interior es el asiento del alma y tiene la clave de nuestra alegría y felicidad personal.

Permíteme compartir una experiencia reciente con uno de mis clientes que había consumido hongos alucinógenos como parte de un viaje chamánico de sanación. Durante un viaje angustiante, se encontró atrapado en una parte vulnerable de su niño interior. Reconociendo la importancia de la situación, busqué un espacio tranquilo en casa de un amigo, aunque interrumpiera nuestros planes. Me acomodé en la bañera seca para aislarme, dedicando las siguientes tres horas a validar sus sentimientos, crear seguridad y confianza, entablar conversaciones profundas y hacerlo sentir realmente especial. Gracias a la influencia de la droga, logró superar la culpa de ocupar mi tiempo un domingo y atender plenamente las necesidades de su niño interior, que en ese momento requería sentirse como el centro del mundo. Entendí la importancia de finalizar la llamada solo cuando estuviera listo, sin importar cuánto tiempo llevara. En retrospectiva, esta experiencia le brindó una sanación extraordinaria, lo que resultó en un aumento de la empatía y una disminución del egocentrismo. Al abordar las necesidades genuinas de nuestro niño interior, permitimos su crecimiento, lo que conduce al desarrollo de necesidades más altruistas. Para concluir la historia, cuando finalmente salí del baño, mi amigo había esperado pacientemente y disfrutamos de una maravillosa tarde juntos. Él me devolvió el mismo apoyo incondicional que acababa de brindarle. Esto ilustra cómo funciona la ley universal de la ley de atracción.

The black widow

January 18, 2020March 23, 2020 / vaillantgicqueau / 2 Comments

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Version de l’article en Français (video in French below)

The black widow is a spider that is well-known for sexual cannibalism. She would sometimes eat her male counterpart after being impregnated. While the idea of devouring your mate may seem terrifying, the idea of eating your own offspring may sound unthinkable, but it has been observed with a number of animal species. Female wolf spiders frequently practice filial cannibalism. Zoologists are assuming they get an energy benefit from this unnatural practice and they might be using it as a source of food when other sources are scarce. This same behavior is unfortunately much more common than we may think on a psychological level with human beings.

Many of us enter parenthood more for unconscious reasons than conscious ones. For example, our parents had children so we feel it is the right thing to do. At a subconscious level, we may want to heal our own childhood by having children of our own. We may be afraid of being alone or need to make our existence meaningful by having offspring that will survive us. In some culture, there is some expectation that children will take care of us during our old age. On a more positive note, we may aspire to have children to experience unconditional love. While it is painful to separate from a romantic partner, time heals everything and we move on with our life. The same cannot be said with children. Children are the flesh of our flesh, and we are never able to move on completely from the loss of children. Conflict with our children torments our soul. On a psychological level, our children reflect our light and shadow even more than romantic relationships. This is why parental relationships suffer a high level of projection. As such, our children are ultimately our most challenging teachers, and often choose to fulfill many of our unrealized dreams.

The ideal parent is able to see the uniqueness of his children, does not project his own unfilled desires and aspirations into them and encourage his children’s development according to their own abilities and desires. The ideal parent brings unconditional love, presence and support to the child so that he may eventually become autonomous and create a life that feels good on his own terms. Parental love should be about what is best for the child independently of what could be best for the parent. This is why we call unconditional love and the hidden purpose of parenthood is to bring us closer to this state of being.

Unfortunately, many of us have experienced trauma and we are far from being an ideal parent. As a result, we suffer a number of psychological ailments such as fear of loneliness or abandonment, depression, disconnection, low self-esteem, scarcity consciousness and many other insecurities. As long as we are not whole and we have not experienced the fire of self-love into our heart to become a sun of our own, the reality is that we are likely to vampirize our children. When children come to this world, they are pure and radiate unconditional love. They are still connected to Source so they easily fall prey to parents that are not whole and will pass on their own traumas to their children. I have a number of coaching clients that had neglectful or abusive parents. They may be scared to revisit the painful memories but they had no choice but to accept the shadow of their unfit primary caretakers. As such, they can move rapidly through emotional healing as they are not trying to protect the ghosts of their painful past. However, I commonly have clients with parents that exhibit narcissistic love. These are actually harder to work with, as it is so difficult for everyone to let go of the idea that they were not really loved when they were the center of attention of their parents. Wires are crossed in these children. The child (or the grown-up adult) is still convinced that he was loved whereas he was actually used and manipulated for the parent selfish motives. It may be difficult to observe and accept as the parents apparent actions only seem to indicate love & care.

This type of narcissistic parental love may be expressed in many ways. Parental narcissism is actually so prevalent that many people may become angry while reading my examples below as these may be the only times where they felt actually loved and cared for. Narcissism is just a mental state that limits us to see only our own reflection and not the child’s uniqueness when we relate to them. Unconditional love is rare and precious, but once we experience it, it is easier to let go of this form of conditional love.

Too much emphasis on school grades

So-called “good” parents are very identified with their offspring school grades. They make sure homework is done perfectly. They get offended if their child gets less than a perfect grade and do not hesitate to schedule a meeting with the teacher in such case. They punish the child emotionally when they get an unsatisfactory grade. Actually, this parental behavior is unhealthy for many reasons. First, it teaches the children that they are loved only upon achieving specific results, therefore they are not worthy as they are. This is conditional love. Additionally, this attitude does not nurture autonomy in children. They work to get good grades to please their parents and not get in trouble with them rather than for their own good. This is programming them to choose a career in the future to please mum and dad instead of choosing a path that is truly fulfilling. Over focusing on school results is a way for parents to avoid their true role as educators. The smarter parents understand the limits of the school system, and coach their children in other areas that is not covered by standard education. They develop their children emotional intelligence, character, compassion, expand their horizons, teach by example, promote their interest in sports and hobbies. While it is important to coach our children to have good results at school, it is far from being a necessary condition for living a successful and happy life. Many parents with low-esteem will use a child with good grades to compensate for their own insecurities and personal sense of failure. If they have one child with good grades and another one struggling at school, such parents will cause deep psychological damage to the child that is challenged academically. This child will feel even more unlovable, unworthy and is likely to resent his sibling. This is setting up the unhealthy dynamic of the Golden Child and the Scapegoat that is well known by therapists.

When extra curriculum activities are used as projective identification

While it is natural for a parent to initiate their children to activities they are familiar with for their mutual enjoyment, there is a healthy balance to reach. I knew a woman who dropped off musical school when she was 16 as her parents had prepared her to become a concert pianist. She refused to play at home for her family and friends as the memories of the pressure of having to play 6 hours a day had been traumatizing. However, when she had a son, she made a point that he would take piano. She would teach him piano from time to time but every session ended with her son’s tears. She was repeating her own trauma through him by giving him the same harsh treatment that she was once the victim. There are some professional athletes that had to endure a high level of projection from their coach parent. The 8 times grand slam tennis champion Andre Agassi went public about his father who put him through a brutal training as a young child. When young Agassi rebelled, his father just shouted at the top of his lungs “You’re a tennis player! You’re going to be number one in the world! You’re going to make lots of money. That’s the plan and that’s the end of it”. Mary Pierce is one of the best French female tennis players of all times. Jim Pierce, her father, once reportedly screamed “Mary, kill the bitch!” at a tennis tournament his daughter Mary Pierce played in. He verbally and physically abused his daughter. His outbursts at events were so bad that the World Tennis Association banned him from attending all tournaments. Many parents use their children to raise their social status vicariously. They use their children to look good to their family & friends. Sometimes, they have something to do with their children achievements but more often than we think, the children’s accomplishment are reached despite the parents’ unhealthy projections. These children feel excruciating pressure from their parents to perform and this is hindering their ability to truly enjoy their sport or activity. They tend to exhibit a lot of stress and anxiety. Failing in the activity would just reinforce the subconscious belief that they are not lovable.

Using children as weapons of war

Unfortunately, children are often caught in loyalty conflicts. In case of high divorce conflict, the narcissistic parent would turn his own children against the other parent. The children are brain-washed to take the alienating parent’s hatred towards the former spouse as their own. These parents are extremely toxic they are putting the child in a position to hate half of themselves. The psychological damage that these children suffer has been well-documented. Even outside of parental alienation, it is quite common for a parent to project their own resentment toward a friend or family member with their own children. One of my clients used to have a very close relationship with her stepdad. However, when the relationship ended the mother manipulated her daughter to behave very harshly towards the stepdad to get back at him. As a result, this young woman has had very unsatisfactory intimate relationships with men as she is very tormented subconsciously with the guilt of hurting someone she loved. The same process of alienation is not limited to the narcissistic parent’s former partner. Loving connections from uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins and friends can be severed the same way.

My daughter as a Barbie doll

If the girl is good-looking, she may be used as an object of self-glorification and unhealthy pride for the parent, typically the mother. She is made to wear pretty little dresses and apparel to become a way to boost the self-esteem of the parent. The daughter is therefore compensating for the mother’s fear of getting old and losing her attractiveness. There is nothing wrong in the action of making our children look good when we can afford it. It is all about the intent behind the action. We need to examine if we have selfless or on the contrary self-centered motives. Because there are so many parents who think their children are so incredibly pretty, many photography agencies are exploiting this parents’ weakness by promising to submit the photo-shoot to modeling agencies. They charge an outrageous price for the photo-shoot but never submit anything. In such instance, the mother is grooming her daughter with the sole intent of getting attention and this is not coming from a nurturing instinct. In another example, a mother felt some jealousy towards her sister. She went over the top to make her daughter look gorgeous before visiting her aunt. The purpose was not a friendly and caring family visit. Her real agenda was to show that she was better than her sister because she had such a lovely, well-behaved and pretty daughter. Good behavior in this mother’s book is synonymous to anything that her daughter does to make her look good, and bad behavior is the opposite. The child’s best interest is never considered. She is just seen as an extension of the mother and any attempt to escape from her control is severely punished.

Children used as retirement and financial support

This is more prominent in cultures that do not offer a satisfactory retirement plan to their citizens. Parents have children so that they may support them financially and even physically during their old age. Parents see children as an investment, and if the child deviates from the plan that the parents have set-up, they are condemned as ungrateful, selfish and unworthy. This is the opposite of unconditional love. Children are geared towards careers that bring more money such as doctors or lawyers instead of following their passion. This way, they will not be a financial burden on the parent but on contrary could contribute to the parents’ materiel well-being in their old age. A friend of mine got a law degree just for his father. When he graduated, he told his father “This diploma is yours, now I am going to do what I like” What a waste of time! A caring parent is preoccupied first and foremost with his child’s happiness, not with the benefits he will draw from his children’s material success. While transactional relationship are required in the field of business, the world of family and friendship is there first to teach us about unconditionality. Real love is about giving without any expectation in return. I have a friend who used to help a lot financially his wife’s parents when they were married. When they decided to separate, she kept the expectation that her ex-husband should keep paying for her parents’ lifestyle. She has been suing her ex husband for the last 5 years for exorbitant child care fees charged by her parents for spending time for their own grandchildren! The irony is that she is also preventing her children to spend any time with their father.

Self-sacrificing behaviors

These self-centered parents are distorting reality to manipulate their children to feel a sense of indebtedness so as to better control them. One of my friends had a mother who had an affair with a young man during their marriage. She told her daughters that he was the love of her life but she decided not to leave their father as a sacrifice to them. In reality, she never had any intention to divorce as she enjoyed the financial stability of her emotionally unavailable husband. The daughters felt terrible as they felt responsible for their mother’s “sacrifice”. Many of these children, once they become adult, become very concerned when they receive anything in a relationship. They are afraid this may be used against them in the future. Some mothers may say they sacrifice having a fulfilling career because they had to raise their children while in fact they were afraid to face the workplace. People should never give out of sacrifice. Either they give from their heart or they should not give at all. I have heard from many grown-up children that they would have preferred not getting anything than feeling guilty because of their parent self-sacrificing behavior. They understand this is just plain manipulation. These parents have the habit of convincing their children that their own selfish behaviors were in fact self-sacrificing. They are just teaching their children that it is wrong to have needs of your own, and the only way to fulfill desires is through manipulation.

The helicopter parent

An helicopter parent pays extreme close attention to a child’s or children’s experiences and problems. This a coping mechanism not to experience their own inner void, self-worth issues and dissatisfaction about their own lives. They oscillate between being over-loving, over-protective or over critical to their children. With their actions, they are depriving their children of their own experiences and are severely limiting the child ability for autonomy. Children raised with helicopter parenting show poor emotional regulation as they are never given the space to handle, process and reflect on their own emotions. Whether they are feeling sad, angry, disappointed or distressed, the parent immediately takes over in solving the situation for them. Hence, they are disabled to handle real-life situations without their parent. The parent is enabling the child’s over-dependency of the parent. If the child is on school trip, the child will insist for example to talk with her mother at night before she is able to fall asleep. This child will continue to call her parent every day even far into adulthood. The child never cuts the umbilical cord with the parent which severely impacts his/her ability to experience life. The parent stays omnipresent and this leaves no space for other intimate relationships in the grown-up child.

The “gift” as a control mechanism

Such parents may give very generous gifts to their children however they may take the desired object just as quickly if the child deviates from their line of conduct. One of my friends had a boyfriend she was madly in love with. He was receiving financial support from his parents, and the parents found that she did not have the appropriate social status for their son. They threatened to cut financial support if he were to stay with her. He broke off with her shortly after. Another one of my friends got a dog when she was a teenager. She adored the dog as she received unconditional love from the animal in sharp contrast with her parents. The mother did not like the fact that her daughter could pour so much love outside of her. She got her husband to tell their daughter that they could only keep one dog because of the size of their house, but because her mother was very attached to her own dog, they would then give away the daughter’s dog. The daughter became so enraged with this decision that she actually became cruel with her mother’s dog. As a result, the dog started to exhibit some dangerous behaviors and they had to part with that dog too. The daughter developed some toxic guilt traumatizing this animal, and had to eventually work through it in therapy. This type of parent shows his or her omnipotence by making clear to the child that he has the ability to give but also to take away. In the most extreme form of this pattern, it is common for satanic cults to make little children attached to kitties before sacrificing the young cat in horrific ways in front of the child months later. This is imprinting the child with a deep sense of powerlessness so that they may be more easily controllable to follow the cult’s agenda. When the child becomes aware that anything they care for may be taken away at any time, they refuse to connect intimately with anyone or anything outside the toxic organization.

Preventing competing child’s intimate relationships

There are some parents that cannot stand if their children may start showing more affection towards someone else than themselves. They have a strategy of “divide and conquer” to stay #1 in their children’s heart or mind. Such parent would criticize the child’s boyfriend or spouse behind their back to ensure the child shows loyalty first to the parent and not to the romantic partner. One of my clients’ mother had left “inadvertently” an open bottle of pain medicine at her house and my client’s dog ate dozens of pills. The dog barely died as a result. Toxic mothers may even get jealous of their daughter’s attachment towards their newborn. In another situation, one mother took away her pregnant daughter’s chair as the latter was going to sit down. As she didn’t notice that the chair has been removed, she fell abruptly and almost got a miscarriage. These parents are very proficient at slandering anyone that may become too close to their child. These could be children, romantic partners, other grandparents, friends, animals or even competing activities that could prevent the narcissistic parent to feel his/her dominance. These parents only know possessiveness because they know no real love in their heart. There is a common pattern in families when the mother becomes jealous of the daughter as she becomes an attractive teenager. This mother would then use her husband to punish the daughter on futile ground. This achieves multiple goals at once. First, it reassures the insecure mother about the loyalty of her husband. Secondly, it antagonizes the daughter towards the father to ensure that the mother-daughter bond stays primary. Another mother would make sure to exhibit all his son’s pictures with his past girlfriends every time a new girlfriend of his would visit. This would make the new girlfriend feel insignificant and create strife in the relationship. The hidden purpose is to ensure that she stays the dominant female figure in her son’s life.

Before we can experience real love, we need to recognize what is not love. Narcissistic love can exhibit many of the attributes of real love: deep care and concern, commitment, gifts, affection and positive compliments. To differentiate conditional and unconditional love, we need to consider if the parent is able to see the child as separate to him, that he possesses his own desires, aspirations and dreams that may be different from the parent. While we come to this world in a state of fusion with our mother, the process of maturation is about recognizing our own individuality separate from our parents as we grow-up. It is also natural to be egocentric and think we are the center of the world as a small child. Problems start arising when we do not develop past this stage because of childhood traumas. Real love stems in complete freedom when we choose to spend time and affection with people we care for. Not because we have to, but because we want to.

French translation below – Article en Français ci-dessous

La Veuve Noire

La veuve noire est une araignée qui est bien connue pour son cannibalisme sexuel. Elle mange parfois son homologue masculin après avoir été fécondée. Si l’idée de dévorer son compagnon peut sembler terrifiante, l’idée de manger sa propre progéniture devient alors impensable. Toutefois, cela a été observé chez un certain nombre d’espèces animales. Les araignées loup pratiquent fréquemment le cannibalisme filial. Les zoologistes supposent qu’elles obtiennent un bienfait énergétique de ce repas contre nature et elles le font d’autant plus que d’autres sources de nourriture deviennent rares. Ce comportement est malheureusement beaucoup plus fréquent que l’on ne pourrait le penser à un niveau psychologique chez les êtres humains.

La plupart du temps, nous devenons parents plus pour des raisons inconscientes que conscientes. Nous pouvons le faire par simple mimétisme de nos propres parents. À un niveau inconscient, nous pouvons vouloir guérir les traumatismes de notre propre enfance en ayant nous-mêmes des enfants, voire même pour combler notre propre vide affectif. Nous pouvons avoir peur d’être seul ou nous voulons donner un sens à notre existence, c’est pourquoi nous voulons une descendance qui nous survivra. Dans certaines cultures, nous comptons sur nos enfants pour prendre soin de nous pendant nos vieux jours et ce également sur un plan financier. Dans l’ideal, nous pouvons souhaiter avoir des enfants afin de leur donner un amour inconditionnel et qu’ils puissent se développer afin d’améliorer le monde dans lequel nous vivons. Bien qu’il soit très douloureux de se séparer d’un partenaire romantique, le temps finit par apaiser un coeur blessé. Cependant, nous ne pouvons pas en dire de même en ce qui concerne nos enfants. Nos enfants sont la chair de notre chair, et nous ne sommes jamais en mesure de guérir complètement de la perte de nos enfants. La blessure persiste et tout conflit avec nos enfants nous perturbe profondément. Sur le plan psychologique, nos enfants amplifient nos aspects de lumière mais aussi notre part d’ombre, encore plus que ne le font nos relations amoureuses. Voilà pourquoi les relations parentales souffrent d’un fort niveau de projection. À ce titre, nos enfants sont en fin de compte nos enseignants de vie les plus difficiles. Ils choisissent aussi souvent de réaliser les rêves que nous n’avons pu réaliser.

Cependant le parent idéal est capable de voir le caractère unique de ses enfants, et ne projète pas ses propres désirs et vocations manquées sur eux. Ils encouragent le développement de leurs enfants en fonction de leurs talents et de leurs propres désirs. Le parent idéal apporte l’amour inconditionnel, la présence et le soutien à l’enfant afin qu’il puisse devenir autonome. Il les aide à se créer une vie heureuse. L’amour parentale devrait se focaliser sur ce qui est le mieux pour l’enfant indépendamment de ce qui peut être le mieux pour le parent. C’est ce que nous appelons l’amour inconditionnel et c’est ce vers quoi nous devons tendre en tant que parents.

Malheureusement, nous sommes loin d’être des parents idéaux du fait des traumatismes que nous avons vécu lors de notre enfance. Par conséquent, nous souffrons d’un certain nombre de maux psychologiques comme la peur de la solitude ou de l’abandon, la dépression, l’indisponibilité émotionnelle, une faible estime de nous-même, la peur du lendemain et bien d’autres angoisses. Tant que nous n’avons pas intégré et purgé tous ces aspects en nous et que nous ne sommes pas capables de nous donner de l’amour, nous sommes très susceptibles de vampiriser nos propres enfants. Lorsque les enfants viennent au monde, ils sont purs et rayonnent d’un amour inconditionnel. Du fait de leur innocence et pureté, ils deviennent les victimes de parents qui leur transmettent leurs propres traumatismes. Un certain nombre de mes patients qui ont eu des parents négligents ou abusifs, ont souvent peur de revisiter les souvenirs douloureux du passé alors que la guérison émotionnelle peut aller d’autant plus vite lorsqu’ils ne cherchent pas à protéger les illusions d’un passé cruel. Beaucoup de mes patients n’ont connu qu’un amour parental narcissique. Il est très difficile pour l’enfant une fois adulte d’accepter qu’il n’était pas vraiment aimé alors qu’il se croyait le centre de l’attention de ses parents. C’est une situation très confuse. L’enfant maintenant adulte veut se convaincre qu’il était aimé alors qu’il était en fait utilisé et manipulé a des fins égocentriques par ses parents. Cela est d’autant plus difficile à accepter que les apparences sont trompeuses, et que les gens extérieurs renforcent cette même image du parent parfait.

Ce type d’amour venant d’un parent narcissique peut être exprimé de plusieurs façons. Le narcissisme parental est en fait si répandue que beaucoup de gens pourraient sentir la colère monter en eux en lisant les exemples ci-dessous car ceux-ci peuvent être les seuls moments où ils se sont sentis vraiment chéris et aimés. Le narcissisme est juste un état de conscience qui nous empêche de voir à l’extérieur de notre bulle et donc de voir le caractere unique de l’enfant en face de nous. L’amour inconditionnel est rare et précieux, mais une fois que nous en faisons l’expérience, il est alors plus facile de cesser de s’accrocher à l’amour conditionnel.

Trop d’emphase sur les résultats scolaires

Ces soi-disant parents parfaits accordent une importance démesurée aux résultats scolaires de leur progéniture. Il faut que les devoirs soient faits parfaitement quite à ce qu’ils les fassent pour eux. Ils s’offensent si leur enfant n’obtient qu’une note moyenne et ils n’hésitent pas à exiger une rencontre avec l’enseignant dans ce cas. Ils punissent aussi l’enfant quand il obtient une note médiocre. Ce genre de comportement parental est malsain pour de nombreuses raisons. Tout d’abord, il montre aux enfants qu’ils ne sont dignes d’amour que par leur performance, ce qui veut dire qu’ils ne peuvent être aimés en tant que tel sans une action qui leur donne une valeur. C’est l’amour conditionnel. De plus, cette attitude ne développe pas l’autonomie chez les enfants. Ils travaillent pour obtenir de bonnes notes afin de plaire à leurs parents et ne pas avoir des ennuis avec eux plutôt que de réussir académiquement pour leur propre futur. Ils vont souvent choisir une carrière qui vont plaire à maman et papa plutôt que d’opter pour une vocation qui leur convient. La pression sur les résultats scolaires est aussi un moyen détourné pour les parents d’éviter leur véritable rôle d’éducateurs. Les parents plus expérimentés comprennent les limites du système scolaire, et aident leurs enfants à s’épanouir dans d’autres domaines qui développent leur intelligence émotionnelle, leur caractère, la compassion et l’empathie, l’élargissement de leurs horizons, et leur intérêt pour les sports et les loisirs. Alors qu’il est important de suivre nos enfants dans leur scolarité, les bons résultats sont loin de leur garantir une vie réussie et heureuse. Beaucoup de parents avec une faible estime d’eux-mêmes utiliseront un enfant qui a de bonnes notes pour compenser leurs propres insécurités et leur sentiment personnel d’échec. S’ils ont un enfant avec de bonnes notes et un autre en difficulté à l’école, ces parents causent des dommages psychologiques profonds en reproduisant la dynamique malsaine et bien connue de “l’enfant parfait” et de “l’enfant bouc-émissaire”. Cela montre non seulement que l’enfant est aimé de façon conditionnelle, mais cela engendre aussi une rivalité destructrice entre frères et soeurs ce qui permet au parent narcissique de renforcer sa toute puissance.

Lorsque les activités extra-curriculaires sont utilisées comme identification projective

Bien qu’il soit naturel pour un parent d’initier ses enfants à des activités qu’ils aiment personnellement, il y a un équilibre à atteindre. Une de mes connaissances avait abandonné le conservatoire quand elle avait 16 ans alors que ses parents l’avaient préparé à devenir une grande pianiste. Elle refusait de jouer à la maison pour sa famille et les amis car elle avait des souvenirs traumatisants à devoir jouer 6 heures par jour et regrettait de n’avoir pas eu d’enfance. Cependant, quand elle eut un fils, elle mit un point d’honneur à ce qu’il apprenne le piano. Elle commença à lui enseigner le piano, mais chaque leçon finissait par les larmes de son fils. Elle ne put s’empêcher de répéter le même traitement dont elle avait été plus jeune la victime. De nombreux athlètes professionnels doivent subir la pression et les projections de leur parent entraîneur. Dans le monde du tennis professionnel, le grand champion André Agassi a rendu public dans son livre autobiographique “Open” les entraînements terribles qu’il devait subir. Lorsque le jeune Agassi se révoltait, son père se contentait d’hurler à pleins poumons « Tu es un joueur de tennis! Tu vas être le numéro un mondial! Et tu vas aussi gagner beaucoup d’argent. Il n’y a aucune discussion possible! ». Mary Pierce est l’une des meilleures joueuses du tennis féminin français de tous les temps. Jim Pierce, son père, avait une fois crié pendant un match en parlant de son adversaire lors d’un tournoi professionnel « Mary, allez, tue-la cette salope! » Il abusait aussi verbalement et physiquement sa fille. Ses explosions de colère lors de matchs professionnels étaient si menaçantes que l’association mondiale de tennis lui a interdit d’assister à tous les tournois. De nombreux parents exploitent leurs enfants afin d’élever leur propre niveau social. Ils utilisent leurs enfants pour se faire valoir auprès de leur famille et de leurs amis. Alors que ces parents s’attribuent le succès de leurs enfants, bien plus souvent que nous le pensons, leurs accomplissements sont souvent atteints en dépit des projections malsaines des parents. Ces enfants ressentent trop de pression venant de leurs parents et cela les empêche de profiter pleinement de leur sport ou de leur activité. Au contraire, ils montrent souvent beaucoup de stress et d’anxiété. Ce genre de comportement parental renforce simplement la croyance subconsciente qu’ils ne sont pas dignes d’amour.

L’utilisation des enfants comme des armes de guerre

Malheureusement, les enfants se retrouvent souvent pris dans des conflits de loyauté. En cas de divorce très conflictuel, le parent narcissique n’hésite pas à retourner ses enfants contre l’autre parent. Les enfants sont manipulés pour prendre en eux la haine du parent aliénant envers l’ex-conjoint comme si c’était leur propre haine. Ces parents sont extrêmement toxiques car ils mettent l’enfant dans une position où il doit haïr la moitié de lui-même. Les troubles psychologiques que ces enfants vont alors développer ont été bien mis en avant par les experts. Il est aussi fréquent que les enfants s’approprient les ressentiments des parents envers un ami ou membre de la famille. Une de mes patientes avait une relation très proche avec son beau-père. Cependant, lorsque la relation a pris fin, la mère a manipulé sa fille afin qu’elle se comporte très durement envers le beau-père pour le punir d’avoir rompu avec sa mère. Par conséquent, cette jeune femme a eu de nombreuses difficultés en couple avec les hommes car elle est restée très tourmentée inconsciemment par la culpabilité envers son beau-père. Ce processus d’aliénation ne se limite pas à l’ancien partenaire amoureux du parent narcissique mais inclut souvent toutes les relations avec les oncles, tantes, grands-parents, cousins, cousines et amis.

Ma fille comme ma poupée Barbie

Si la jeune fille est belle, elle peut être utilisée comme un objet d’auto-glorification pour nourrir une fierté malsaine chez le parent, généralement la mère. On lui fait porter de jolies robes et vêtements afin de rehausser l’estime de soi des parents. La fille est simplement là afin d’atténuer la peur de sa mère à vieillir et de se sentir moins attirante. Il n’y a rien de mal à ce que nous voulons que nos enfants aient le meilleur quand nous pouvons nous le permettre financièrement cependant il faut regarder quelle est la véritable intention derrière nos actions. Nous devons nous poser la question si nous agissons de manière désintéressée ou égocentrique. Beaucoup de parents ont la conviction que leurs enfants sont d’une beauté extraordinaire. Beaucoup de photographes exploitent cette faiblesse en leur promettant de soumettre les photos de leurs enfants à des agences de mannequins. Ils facturent un prix exorbitant pour la séance photo sans jamais rien soumettre à l’agence. Dans d’autres cas, la mère habille sa fille dans le seul but d’attirer l’attention et de se faire valoir. Par exemple, une mère était jalousie de sa sœur. Elle s’assura que sa fille soit absolument superbe avant que cette derniere aille rendre visite à sa tante. Il ne s’agissait pas là d’une simple visite familiale amicale et chaleureuse pour la mère. Sa véritable intention était de montrer qu’elle était mieux que sa sœur parce qu’elle avait une fille si sage et si belle. Pour ce genre de mère, les comportements de son enfant ne seront jugés bons que s’ils vont dans son sens à elle et si elle peut en retirer quelque chose personnellement. L’intérêt de l’enfant n’est jamais pris en compte.

Les enfants utilisés comme un soutien financier

Ceci est plus commun dans les cultures qui n’offrent pas de régime de retraite satisfaisant à leurs citoyens. Les parents ont des enfants afin que ceux-ci puissent les soutenir financièrement et même physiquement pendant leur vieillesse. Les parents voient leur enfant comme un investissement pour le futur, et si l’enfant se détourne du plan que les parents ont mis en place, ils sont sévèrement jugés. C’est l’opposé de l’amour inconditionnel. Ces enfants sont orientés vers des carrières qui rapportent plus d’argent comme médecin ou avocat au lieu de suivre leur vocation. De cette façon, ils ne seront pas un fardeau financier pour les parents mais au contraire pourront contribuer au bien-être matériel de leurs parents âgés. Un de mes amis a obtenu une licence en droit juste pour son père. Quand il a obtenu son diplôme, il a dit à son père « Ce diplôme est pour toi, maintenant, je vais faire ce que je veux » et il commença de nouvelles études dans une branche complètement différente. Quelle perte de temps! Un parent attentif se préoccupe avant tout du bonheur de son enfant, et non des avantages qu’il tirera de leur réussite matérielle. Bien que les relations transactionnelles sont nécessaires dans le domaine des affaires, la famille et l’amitié devraient être basées sur un amour inconditionnel. L’amour véritable est de donner sans attendre en retour. J’ai un ami qui aidait beaucoup financièrement les parents de sa femme quand ils se sont mariés. Ensuite, quand ils ont décidé de se séparer, elle a consideré que son ex-mari devait continuer à payer pour que ses parents maintiennent le même mode de vie! Elle poursuit en justice son ex-mari depuis 5 ans pour payer les frais exorbitants de garde d’enfants réclamés par ses parents pour passer du temps avec leurs propres petits-enfants! L’ironie du sort est qu’elle empêche aussi ses enfants de passer du temps avec leur père.

Comportements pseudo sacrificiels

Ces parents égocentriques déforment la réalité dans le but de manipuler leurs enfants afin qu’ils ressentent un sentiment d’endettement et de culpabilité pour mieux les contrôler. Une de mes amies avait une mère qui avait eu une liaison avec un jeune homme au cours de son mariage. Elle a dit à ses filles qu’il était l’amour de sa vie, mais qu’elle avait décidé de ne pas laisser leur père car elle devait se sacrifier pour sa famille. En réalité, elle n’avait jamais eu l’intention de divorcer comme elle appréciait la stabilité financière de son mari même s’il était froid. Ces pauvres filles se sentaient donc responsables du malheur de leur mère. Un grand nombre de ces enfants, une fois adultes, deviennent très soucieux dès que quelqu’un leur donne quelque chose car ils ne veulent rien devoir à personne à cause du traumatisme lié à leur mère. D’autres mères disent qu’elles ont sacrifié une belle carrière professionnelle afin d’élever leurs enfants alors qu’en fait, elles avaient peur du monde du travail. Les gens ne devraient jamais donner par sacrifice. Il est préférable de ne rien donner si l’on ne peut pas donner de bon coeur. J’ai entendu de nombreux adultes dire qu’ils auraient préféré ne rien recevoir de leurs parents plutôt que d’être constamment culpabilisés. Ils comprennent finalement que tout était manipulation. Ces parents sont passés maîtres à faire passer leurs comportements égoïstes pour de l’abnégation. Ils enseignent à leurs enfants qu’il est mal d’avoir ses propres besoins, et que la seule façon de satisfaire ses désirs est par la manipulation.

Le parent “hélicoptère”

Un parent “hélicoptère” est trop identifié à l’enfant ou s’immisce de manière exagérée dans toutes les expériences et tous les problèmes de l’enfant. Il s’agit là d’un mécanisme d’adaptation afin que le parent ne fasse pas l’expérience de son vide intérieur, de son manque d’amour de soi et de son insatisfaction quant à sa propre existence. Ils oscillent entre des états remplis d’affection, sur-protecteurs ou très critiques vis-à-vis de leurs enfants. Avec leur ingérence permanente, ils privent leurs enfants de leurs propres expériences et limitent la capacité de ces derniers à devenir autonomes. Les enfants élevés par de tels parents montrent de la difficulté à gérer leurs émotions car ils n’ont jamais reçu l’espace nécessaire pour faire face par eux-mêmes aux problèmes de la vie. Qu’ils se sentent tristes, en colère, déçus ou en détresse, le parent prend immédiatement le contrôle dans la résolution de leur problème, et pas toujours à bon escient. Ces enfants se sentent donc perdus une fois qu’ils quittent le domicile familial. Le parent a créé une dépendance excessive de l’enfant. Si l’enfant est en voyage scolaire, l’enfant insistera par exemple pour parler avec sa mère la nuit afin de pouvoir s’endormir. Cet enfant continuera à appeler ses parents tous les jours quand il sera adulte. Cet enfant ne coupe jamais le cordon ombilical avec le parent, ce qui a de lourdes conséquences quant à sa capacité à vivre sa propre vie. Ces parents sont omniprésents, et n’hésitent pas à débarquer à l’improviste dans le domicile de l’enfant une fois adulte pour faire par exemple de nouveaux aménagements comme s’il s’agissait de leur propre domicile ce qui ne laisse par conséquent aucune place pour d’autres relations intimes.

Le « cadeau » en tant que mécanisme de contrôle

Ces parents peuvent donner des cadeaux très généreux à leurs enfants mais ils peuvent reprendre l’objet désiré tout aussi rapidement quand l’enfant s’écarte de la ligne de conduite qui a été tracée pour eux. Une de mes amies avait un petit ami dont elle était très amoureuse. Il recevait un soutien financier important de ses parents qui n’aimaient pas le niveau social de sa petite amie. Ils l’ont donc menacé de retirer tout soutien financier s’il s’entêtait à rester avec elle. Il a rompu avec elle peu de temps après. Une autre de mes amies avait un chien quand elle était enfant. Elle adorait ce chien car elle recevait un amour inconditionnel de l’animal, ce qui contrastait fortement avec celui de ses parents. La mère qui n’appréciait pas que sa fille porte plus d’attention à son chien qu’à elle-même, a mandaté son mari pour dire à leur fille qu’ils ne pouvaient garder qu’un seul chien à cause de la taille de leur maison. Comme sa mère était très attachée à son propre chien, ils ont alors donné celui de leur fille qui en a été très malheureuse. La fille était alors si en colère qu’elle est devenue réellement cruelle avec le chien de sa mère quand ils avaient le dos tourné car malheureusement les comportements pervers se transmettent généralement à la génération suivante. Par conséquent, le chien a commencé à montrer certains comportements dangereux et ils ont dû également s’en débarrasser. La fille a alors développé une forte culpabilité d’avoir traumatisé cet animal et d’avoir fait du mal à sa mère. Une fois adulte, elle s’acheta à deux reprises des chiens qu’elle finit par donner à sa mère. Le deuxième chien fut acheté pour son fils mais elle se plaignit de ses aboiements et le donna également a sa mere qui en fut ravie. Ce n’est qu’en faisant une thérapie qu’elle compris ce qu’elle avait rejoué inconsciemment. Ce type de parent montre son omnipotence en indiquant clairement à l’enfant qu’il a la capacité de donner, mais aussi de reprendre. Dans la forme la plus extrême de ce schéma, il est fréquent pour les sectes sataniques de faire en sorte que des enfants s’attachent à un petit chat avant de le sacrifier de façon horrible devant l’enfant des mois plus tard. Ceci fait naitre chez l’enfant un profond sentiment d’impuissance afin qu’il devienne plus facilement contrôlable par la secte déviante. Lorsque l’enfant se rend compte que tout ce qu’il aime peut être enlevé à tout moment, il évite de se lier profondément avec quelqu’un ou quelque chose. Son isolement est alors utilisé par l’organisation toxique à des fins utilitaires.

Nuire aux relations intimes de l’enfant qui pourraient menacer la suprématie du parent

Il y a certains parents qui ne peuvent pas supporter que leurs enfants puissent montrer plus d’affection envers quelqu’un d’autre qu’envers eux-mêmes. Ils adoptent alors la stratégie « diviser pour mieux régner » afin de rester maître dans le cœur ou l’esprit de leurs enfants. Un tel parent critique donc le petit ami ou conjoint de l’enfant pour que l’enfant continue à montrer sa loyauté envers ses parents plutôt qu’au partenaire romantique. La mère d’une de mes patientes avaient laissé « par inadvertance » une boîte grande ouverte de comprimés pour la douleur. Le chien de ma patiente a mangé des dizaines de pilules et il en est mort. Ces mères toxiques peuvent même devenir jalouses de l’attachement de leur fille envers leurs propres enfants. Dans une autre situation, une mère a enlevé la chaise de sa fille enceinte où celle-ci s’apprêtait à s’asseoir. Comme elle n’avait pas remarqué que le siège avait été enlevé, elle est tombée brutalement et elle a failli faire une fausse couche. Ce genre de parents sont très habiles à diffamer toute personne qui deviendrait trop proche de leur enfant, que ce soit des partenaires romantiques, d’autres grands-parents, des amis, des animaux ou même des activités concurrentes qui pourraient menacer la suprémacie du parent narcissique. Ces parents ne connaissent que l’amour possession et l’objetisation. Il est aussi commun dans ce genre de famille que la mère devienne jalouse de la fille lorsqu’elle devient une belle adolescente qui attire le sexe opposé. Cette mère utilise alors son mari pour punir sa fille pour des raisons futiles. Cela lui permet d’atteindre plusieurs objectifs à la fois. Tout d’abord, cela rassure la mère quant à la loyauté de son mari. En second lieu, elle créé ainsi un conflit entre la fille et le père afin de rester toute puissante. Une autre mère ne manquait pas d’exposer les photos de son fils avec une ancienne petite amie chaque fois que son fils venait avec nouvelle compagne. La nouvelle petite amie se sentait alors insignifiante, ce qui ne manquait pas de créer un conflit dans la relation. Le but caché de cette mère est de veiller à ce qu’elle reste la figure féminine dominante dans la vie de son fils qu’elle ne veut pas partager.

Avant de pouvoir expérimenter le vrai amour, nous devons apprendre à identifier ce qui n’est pas vraiment de l’amour même si cela ressemble à de l’amour. L’amour narcissique peut présenter un grand nombre des attributs de l’amour véritable: la préoccupation, l’inquiétude, l’engagement, les cadeaux, l’affection et les compliments. Pour différencier l’amour conditionnel de l’amour inconditionnel, nous devons nous demander si le parent est en mesure de voir son enfant comme un être séparé de lui-même et de voir qu’il possède ses propres désirs, ses aspirations et ses propres rêves qui peuvent être différents de ceux du parent. Alors que nous venons dans ce monde dans un état de fusion avec notre mère, le processus de maturation de l’enfant veut qu’il développe sa propre individualité au fur à mesure qu’il grandit. Il est bien naturel d’être égocentrique et de penser que nous sommes le centre du monde quand nous sommes petits. Les problèmes commencent lorsque nous ne dépassons pas ce stade infantile en raison de traumatismes affectifs. L’amour véritable s’exprime lorsque nous choisissons en toute liberté de passer du temps, d’aider, de faire plaisir et de montrer de l’affection sans rien attendre en retour. Non pas parce que nous le devons, mais parce que nous le voulons.

Part III: Immature projection-based coping mechanisms

July 5, 2019July 12, 2019 / vaillantgicqueau / 1 Comment

Read Part II – Neurotic defense mechanisms

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While pathological and neurotic defense mechanisms are in the realm of mental illness, immature defense and coping mechanisms are considered “normal” while not optimal. The fact is that 98% of us still have a hurt inner child that is still running the show. We call these coping mechanisms immature because we expect children to display these behaviors. When they are observed in grown-up adults, we may raise our eyebrows and recognize them as a weakness or an eccentricity. We would however never put them in the category of mental illness, or requiring therapeutic intervention as they are so common in every day life. When I meditated on that topic, I found 23 of them so I split them in 4 separate categories to make this blog series more digestible:

Projection-based
Fear-based
Impulsion-based
Ego-based

Projection-based immature coping mechanisms

Projection is a defense mechanism where a person projects his/her impulses, feelings, habits, and/or traits onto someone else and begins to identify his own traits in that ‘someone else’. Projection is so common that it is everywhere. We see in others what we resist to see in ourselves. Most judgments have some level of projection. The closer the relationship, the more likely the projection is, and this is why there are so many projections in intimate relationships. When we receive constructive feedback, it is healthy to see to what extent the person is right about their observation so that we may learn and grow from it. If we do not understand their critique then we can ask questions until we are able to see what they saw in us. This is why brutal personal honesty is so important in this work. However, it is important to see what projection may be in their feedback too. There is no need to share back what we observed unless we feel the person will be able to receive it and learn from it. I talked sbout the philosophical aspect of projection in a previous article.

Projective identification

Projective identification is a type of projection that involves both people. The one person does not use the other merely as a hook to hang projections on. He/she strives to find in the other, or to induce the other to become willingly, the very embodiment of projection. Throughout our relationship, I had a partner who kept repeating a number of complaints she had against me. First, she said that I had duped her into the relationship, promising her a dream that never came to fruition. I accepted this feedback because I was so much in love with her that I displayed unconsciously (and in a codependent way) what she wanted to see to win her over. Also, there were a number of unfortunate hardships that came our way. However, I got to realize that her insistence on being “duped” was projective identification. She suffered from severe separation anxiety and needed her partner to be with her all the time, always focusing on her, basically becoming an object in her reality. She did not know how to function otherwise but carried deep shame about this aspect of herself so felt that she had no other way than “duping” her partners to become her crutch. Additionally, she kept accusing me of putting my needs over hers. I am clear now that it was projective identification. As a recovering codependent, I was learning about my authentic needs and I was starting to set healthy boundaries. In her perspective, her needs were most important than mine so they had to come first. I was not allowed to have needs that would conflict with hers. She was not interested in an equal partnership and she carried some shame about it so projected it on me. She also complained that I had not put any energy into being a stepparent. While I made some efforts and committed to spend one day a week with him, my relationship with her son was not ideal because he felt her mum preferred to spend time with me rather than him (while this came from her separation anxiety) so he saw me as a rival. Also my own trauma in missing my own children lost through parental alienation created a difficult emotional dynamic to attach to my partner’s son. There was also a level of projective identification because she perceived my children as the biggest threat to our relationship so she felt a lot of guilt for not being able to support me through this ordeal. Generally speaking, narcissists will have a lot of projective identifications on codependents who gladly accept all the faults because of their low esteem. Narcissists carry too much shame to see these flaws within themselves so need to project them externally.

Tanking

The concept of emotional tanking may be a bit complex to understand at first. When two people are in an intimate relationship, they are closely connected emotionally. We can visualize that each one of them is represented by a tank with emotions inside connected together by a pipe. So if one of them is repressing emotions, the pressure will be pushed back to the partner who is more emotional, empathic and less repressed. This pattern is typical with repressed brain-centered men married with an emotional woman. Let’s imagine the man is having difficulty with his supervisor and is afraid to lose his job. He does not want his wife to worry so says nothing. She notices something is not quite right so she asks him if everything is all right. He responds he is fine and starts watching TV. All his repressed anxiety « tanks » his empathic wife who suddenly feels very anxious without understanding why. She starts crying feeling sorry for herself. The man gets frustrated thinking « I have enough problems at work and now my wife is acting neurotic for no reason ! ». He asks her with an irritated voice « what’s wrong now ? » which does not help his wife’s state. He is not realizing that his wife is perfectly mirroring his repressed emotions, but because he is unwilling to see this aspect of himself, he is scolding his wife for something he created in the first place. Anyone married to an empath needs to be aware of the concept of tanking. When I was married to Teal, I made that mistake many times. I was trying to protect her from my children custody court case because this was making her very anxious but I repressed my own nervousness in the process which would erupt in her unexpectedly. This is another (selfish) reason why it is so important that we care for our loved ones’ state whether it is our spouse or children. If they are not doing well, they will tank us, especially if we are empathic.

Deflection

In general, deflection means that we are passing something over to someone else in an attempt to draw the attention away from ourselves. I have written about my unfortunate bad habit of deflecting in a previous article. We deflect when we feel ashamed so our ego will deflect the shame back typically to the person who made us uncomfortable in the first place. Because we understand well the insecurities of our partner, it is easy for us to trigger their shame, and get them on the defensive so that we stop being in the spotlight. Our biggest ego fear resides in seeing our own shadows. In order to resist deflection, we need to remember that when our shame is triggered, we have an opportunity for personal growth so we are actually winning. We learn to sit with our emotion, and we take advantage of the trigger to start the process of healing. If our partner is supportive, we do it with them otherwise we isolate to take care of it on our own. If we feel there was an element of projection in our partner that triggered our shame, we let 24 hours pass and find a suitable moment to share our observation consciously with them in a way that does not trigger their shame and benefit their own inner growth. Deflection is often responsible for the quick escalation of argument between people. Taking time for self-reflection will neutralize this unhealthy habit and will require our letting go of the need to be right. For example, let’s say you are at a party and you spend most of the evening talking a pretty girl rather than being with your partner. Your partner then tells you “I really did not feel we were a couple tonight. You were all over this girl” and you respond “What are talking about? I saw how John could not stop following you all evening. Is there something going on between the two of you? Also, the dress you wore is way too provocative!”. When the deflector cannot find an argument, he can always use your own reaction against you. So in this situation, he could also say “Why are you so negative all the time? I am really tired of your constant jealousy. I feel I am suffocating!”

Labeling

While useful in communication for our thinking process, labeling can become a coping mechanism to avoid feeling some unpleasant emotions triggered by other people. In cases of parental alienation, the alienating parent labels the targeted parent as bad, dangerous, irresponsible, hurtful and unreliable so as to encourage the children to abandon and hurt him/her. Because of morality and personal values, a person has to be made bad before we can hurt them. This is a well-known fact in the world of politics. The nazis called the Slavic people underman and the Jews filthy contagious rats so as to dehumanize their opponents before exterminating them. The far right French government of Vichy that was an ally of the nazis during the second World War treated the French resistance as terrorists. In the aftermath of 9/11, the US government made up a story that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction ready to use against the US and that he had ties with al-Qaeda terrorists to justify their invasion of Irak to the American public. However the real motive was to keep control over Middle East oil and preserve the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. These are extreme examples but labeling creates distance between us and the person we label and prevents connection at a basic human level. When we label someone, we shield ourselves from the uncomfortable reflection they provide to us. It is another way to avoid seeing our shadow. It is another attempt by the mind to shut itself from feeling. We can label someone as young to imply they are too inexperienced for us to learn anything from them. We can label someone as irresponsible and lazy so that we do not feel the guilt that we are not helping them. We can also use labels to put people on a pedestal whether they are a celebrity, a successful businessperson, or a spiritual teacher. We idealize them and we cease to see them as a person too. We use the connection to boost our self-esteem by association or to extract valuable information from them. This is why celebrities avoid associating with fans as they feel objectified. Only equal partnerships with a balance of giving and receiving feel nurturing. So we use labeling to connect and disconnect from people independently of how we truly feel about them. Instead we can make an effort to feel the essence of anyone or anything we come into contact whether it is a prince, a beggar, a child, an animal, a tree or even a crystal.

Read part IV – Fear-based immature coping mechanisms

Understanding and Loving the Borderline

August 31, 2018December 2, 2019 / vaillantgicqueau / 23 Comments

3 part series of the dysfunctional dance between co-dependents and borderlines

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Part II – Understanding and Loving the Borderline

In traditional psychology literature, the person with BPD (borderline personality disorder) is seen as a hopeless and dangerous monster. While this disorder poses serious challenges, I have realized that it is just as dysfunctional as its codependent counterpart. This reputation is coming from the fact that PBPD (people with BPD) can be very threatening especially as they get into rage. The codependent is much more covert. He copes, plays the nice guy and manipulates. He is not threatening but we could argue that an exposed danger is safer than a covert one even if it may be more explosive.

This is actually the major difference between both disorders. They both struggle with poor self-esteem, fear of abandonment, loneliness and shame. The codependent copes while the PBPD is unable to cope. The codependent children were able to exercise a certain level of control in their environment because there was a certain level of predictability as they found coping or manipulative strategies that yielded results with their narcissistic parents. For example, as a codependent child, I could get positive feedback consistently from my grandfather and father by having good grades. I could affect my mother’s mood in how I reacted to her food. I could get her attention consistently by expressing strong emotions. The BPBD environment was much more unpredictable so they could never develop strategies to get the attention, reflection and love they were starving for. The BPBD were raised in fundamentally and profoundly invalidating environments. My mother was forbidden to use the light at night at her foster home in order to save money. Her grades suffered and she received criticism from the teachers as she kept receiving mixed messages from her environment. She was instructed to only wear poor people clothes because her foster parent was afraid that other parents might be jealous. At the same time, she was criticized the way she looked by her classmates. She was taught to wash only in the dark, as her body was sinful. A couple of borderline partners I have had would receive constant criticism from their mother and sometimes serious beatings. When they would do very well on an activity or discipline, their mother would get jealous and punish them. When the mother is borderline, it is very likely that the daughter will be a borderline too while the son would become a codependent though it may vary depending on family dynamics. Because of the invalidating and unpredictable environment, the child develops hypersensitivity to already be ready for danger and does not learn how to regulate his emotions. Their emotions go from park to 5^th gear in no time. Contrary to what some experts are saying, I do not believe that BPD comes from chemical imbalance. It is coming from an early childhood invalidating environment that created this psychological condition in them, which then in turn produced the chemical imbalance. This is not a genetic disease though it often runs in the family. It is a behavioral disorder where parents make their children suffer the same way they have suffered in the hands of their own caregivers. This is coming from the fact that they had to create an internal perpetrator to cope with the caregiver they had to bond with. This ego defense mechanism came from the fact that children that were able to bond with their parents had a much higher chance of survival. Children that would wander away from the parents would be a target for predators. For this reason, the parents can never be bad from the child perspective. The children have to make themselves bad rather than the parents otherwise their survival would be at stake. This was learned through millions of years of evolution. It is safer for their survival or at least it used to be in ancestral societies. This is why children make it always their fault when their parents divorce, fight or abandon them. This is coming from our primitive brain.

People who are invalidated will usually either leave the invalidating environment, attempt to change their behavior so that it meets the expectations of their environment (codependent coping mechanism), or try to prove themselves valid by challenging the environment. The borderline dilemma arises when the individual cannot leave the environment and is unsuccessful at changing either the environment or their own behavior to meet the environment’s demands. Sexual abuse is one of the most severe form of invalidation during childhood. The victim is told that the molestation or intercourse is “OK” but that she must not tell anyone else. The abuse is seldom acknowledged by other family members, and if the child reports the abuse she risks being disbelieved or blamed. It is difficult to imagine a more invalidating experience for a child. As a result, clinical psychologists have suggested that the secrecy of sexual abuse may be the factor most related to subsequent BPD. Similarly, physical abuse is often presented to the child as an act of love or is otherwise normalized by the abusive adult. We have a French expression “Qui aime bien, châtie bien” which is the English equivalent of “Spare the rod and spoil the child”. It means that if children are not physically punished when they do wrong, their personal development will suffer. This type of upbringing is likely to create disorganized attachment which is the attachment trauma that most PBDP are suffering from.

Not everything is bad with the borderlines

Because PBPD are so often vilified, I am going to first play the devil’s advocate by stating what is great about them

Because of their hypersensitivity, they can make great artists, athletes or spokespersons. Vincent Van Gogh, Marilyn Monroe, Robin Williams, Brigitte Bardot, Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson, Princess Diana, Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, Whitney Houston, Christina Aguliera, Drew Barrymore, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Mariah Carey, Megan Fox, OJ Simpson, Naomi Campbell, Rihanna, Kurt Cobain and so many more that have inspired us, all have or have had, BPD. Many actually manage to get to the top of their field, as they are able to harness their very intense energy towards a creative purpose. When they are on, they are usually incredibly productive as their internal pain allows them to tap into parts of the brain that we typically have no access to.
They are great lovers. Their rawness, wildness and high-intensity make sex with them an unforgettable experience. They give themselves without restraint and because of their internal torment, they have no hesitation in experiencing the darkness and the ego death that makes love-making so spicy and thrilling. They have a unique way to make their partners dissolve into the act of love with them. The femme fatale is borderline. Some experts say that the PBPD is incapable of love because they are narcissistic however in my experience, the “love bombing” from the borderline is actually sincere that can make anyone melt. Unfortunately, because the PBPD does not have a defined sense of self, the adoration can turn very quickly to violent hate and rejection. I recommend you watch the character of Carmen in the famous Bizet opera to understand this archetype. The 1984 movie with Placido Domingo is one of its most remarkable interpretation.
They are more authentic by default as they lack the ability to cope. They are more spontaneous, vibrant, and alive than the rest of us. “Emotional intensity” means that their emotional reactions are amplified. On the positive side, emotionally intense individuals may experience joy more easily, and thus may also be more susceptible to spiritual experiences. Many of them are charismatic and possess unique charm and magnetism. As such, they can challenge societal structures that do not serve us anymore. Their frankness can disturb and sometimes hurt, but there is often a lot to learn from it.
They are the most ardent defenders of the weak and vulnerable because they are able to feel their pain. Children, animals, minorities and more generally; people suffering, echo into their heart. They often advocate for a change of lifestyle to minimize suffering on this planet. They will take that extra step to make a difference in someone’s life. They are less self-centered than the rest of us when they don’t struggle with their very survival. Brigitte Bardot, the French sex symbol of the 1960s, said when she retired “I gave my beauty and my youth to men. I am going to give my wisdom and experience to animals.”

The truth however is that being with a borderline is difficult, and it is up to some of us involved with PBPD to decide if it is worth it or not. Because of my own childhood traumas, I have been in a mission to create happy and fulfilling relationships with PBPD. As a result, I became an expert in loving the borderline which is nothing else than controlling the uncontrollable. I am single today so these efforts ultimately failed, or maybe succeeded, as I regained my autonomy through this healing journey and that I am now able to help others going similar dynamics.

I adore this video. It is based on an actual email exchange between “Mike” and his abusive, BPD girlfriend, “Susan”. I have had probably thousands of similar types of arguments over the last 25 years. Susan is completely in her hurt emotions and Mike is protecting himself by being rational but he is also cut from his emotions as he feels unsafe. The two people are not connecting and they could argue for hours to no avail. What I have learned the hard way is that when a borderline is triggered, there is no amount of rational discussions that would do any good. At this point, the mind of the borderline is completely controlled by their negative emotions so wise thoughts will be pointless. Matching the borderline intensity through the same intensity is never a good option either. The borderline is an escalator so if both of you escalate the argument, you will just end up killing each other. Staying silent, present and looking at their eyes with compassion is a better option however it would not help them release their internal pain and torment. Unfortunately, it would often just reinforce their shame. We need to understand that PBPD feel really bad about themselves and being so much out of control all the time. So staying in control like Mike even in a loving way will just reflect their own inadequacy.

De-escalate the PBPD with heartfelt validation

This is the magic wand and it works! The first thing to do with the PBPD you love is always heartfelt validation. I am saying heartfelt because the PBPD is very sensitive and will be able to feel right away if your validation is not sincere and mechanical. This will just infuriate her even more (I will use “she” for the PBPD because of my own personal relationship experience however some studies say that BPD is just as common in men than in women). She has a very sophisticated BS detector! So you need to be creative and find a way to validate her emotions in a way that is precise and genuine. It is always safe to start with fillers like “you are right to feel this way, anyone in your situation would feel the exact same way”. This will put her in a state of receptivity and at this point, it is best to use your own experience to show how you can relate to what she is experiencing internally. Validation is so important to the PBPD because she carries intense shame so validation is the way to neutralize it. The PBPD was raised in a very invalidating environment where she learned that there is something wrong about herself and how she feels. She has internalized self-loathing as a coping mechanism and this is creating huge amounts of anxiety in her. Let me give you a couple of examples to how validation works. Let’s start with the easier situation when she got very upset with something that does not concern you. It is easier but still challenging because if you do respond to the PBPD in a specific way, a problem that was not connected to you may become all about you, and how insensitive and uncaring you are. So you are still walking on eggshells.

“ I am such a shitty mum. I am just screwing up this child”

“I think you are a great mum. You really care about your child’s emotional well-being like no one else”

“I can only spend with him one day a week with undivided attention. And I feel so drained by the end of my day with him. I am simply not made to be a mum”

“The quality of time you spend with him is more important that the quantity. The fact that he is always asking for you shows that he really enjoys your time together, and how much he feels you care for him. You are really creative coming up with new projects to do together. It is fun and it is helping his development a lot”

“You really think so?”

“Yes, I believe he is really lucky to have a mum like you.. I would have killed to have a mum like you”

PBPD is feeling better. Get closer, hug and connect. Then she naturally goes on her day.

Let’s say now you are not attuned enough to the PBPD that you love, and say instead…

“Yes. Maybe you could try to find ways to spend more time with him. This could help his self worth and development. It seems like he is struggling”

At this point, you have triggered the shame of the PBPD and a discussion that was initially unrelated to you will become solely about you and the relationship

“If you made more money and if you were not such a loser, then I could spend more time with my son.”

“Why are you attacking me? I was just trying to help you”

“You are also such a lousy stepdad. All the pressure is on me because he cannot connect to you.”

“I am spending a day a week with him and I am putting a lot of energy into him”

“Yes, but it feels like you do not want to be there when you are playing with him. And he is feeling it. You have no desire to be a stepdad. This is breaking my heart when I see other men having fun with him. I just wish that were you. It makes me doubt that we should really be together”

“Why are you bringing this up now? This is really hurting me”

“Our relationship is doomed. You say you love me but you cannot connect to my own child. I should have better listened to my instincts. I keep making the same mistake with men”

“This is too much. I have to leave this discussion”

“Yes, get the fuck out of here. We can never talk together. If you leave this room, you may never see me again”

A couple of things happened here. By expressing what you thought was a constructive criticism to make things better, you have triggered the shame of the PBPD. Shame is like a hot potato so she has to give it right back to you. If you are with a PBPD, the chance is that you are struggling with core shame too so she will find a way to get you triggered too by showing how inadequate you are. If this does not work, she will escalate to trigger your abandonment issues that all codependents are struggling with. What is important to realize is that the PBPD is switching the tables on you for her emotional survival, as she cannot regulate her own emotions.

Inability to regulate emotions

Invalidating environments during childhood contribute to the development of emotion dysregulation; they also fail to teach the child how to label and regulate arousal, how to tolerate emotional distress, and when to trust their own emotional responses as reflections of valid interpretations of events. As adults, borderline individuals adopt the characteristics of the invalidating environment. They struggle to regulate negative emotions, have high sensitivity to negative emotional stimuli and show slow return to emotional baseline. As they feel powerless to regulate emotions internally, PBPD attempt to regulate their emotions externally, typically through unstable relationships. PBPD are well known to engage in self-harming behaviors such as cutting. Someone not BPD does not understand this type of behavior. Cutting hurts so why would someone do something so painful to herself? People asking this question have never been through the emotional hell that PBPD go through on a daily basis. Their emotional pain is so intense that physical pain feels like a release. This also explains why BPDs are such great and intense lovers. Sex allows them to get a break from their internal emotional hell and give them a well-needed release. This is the most positive physical release they can get but they need to feel good about their partner for this experience to be healing. The PBPD goes from park to 5^th gear with her emotions. Once she is triggered, it is going to take a considerable amount of time and energy to bring her back to a calmer state. Another positive way for a PBPD to regulate her emotions is exercising. Running, spinning or any other type of hard physical exercise where she can exhaust herself will help her regulate emotions that went wild. Unfortunately, she often chooses to fight with her loved ones and fix them as a way to get a release. Their codependent partner is their most common way to regulate their emotions and this is why PBPD are often diagnosed with love addiction. This is coming from their intense fear of loneliness. For that reason, they are perceived to be needy, demanding and entitled.

Borderline individuals, more so than most, seem to do well when in stable, positive relationships and do poorly when not in such relationships. My mother has done considerably better since she has been married to my stepdad, a remarkably caring man. They desperately need connection as their attachment traumas make them feel they are unlovable so they hysterically look for external validation to fill their inner void. When you are receiving the tail end of a BPD crisis, it is hard to realize that the person abusing you is desperately looking for love & connection. She was abused herself by her primary caretakers so she had to internalize abuse as love to survive a very damaging environment. When a PBPD has an urge to cut, I recommend giving her an ice cube. This will allow her to experience physical pain in a safe way and that will help her regulate her emotions. You may want to press very hard her forearms to create the same relief in a safe way. Hugging her very hard can be helpful too as long as you are careful not to injure her. You may try to blast rap music and get her to dance with the rhythm. The key is to help her release the very intense self-destructive emotions. Emotions have gone too toxic to be processed internally and they need a physical release. The key is to empower them to find ways to release these emotions in a way that do not destroy their lives and the people around them. Unfortunately, PBPDs are often tempted with destructive ways to release themselves from their unbearable internal torment. Elevated rates of borderline personality disorder (BPD) have been found among individuals with substance use disorders (SUDs), especially cocaine-dependent patients. This population is very susceptible to addiction with illegal drugs. The addiction with legally prescribed opioid drugs is just as dangerous and kill many of them every year. PBPD are prescribed opioid pain medications at increasing and alarming rates. When they do not overdose from these drugs, the prescribed medications weaken their health through their many side effects, increase dependency and impact negatively their functioning. Our mental health system is corrupted and most psychiatrists spend their time prescribing dangerous opioid drugs instead of supporting patients to heal their trauma. We live in a system that promotes dependency over autonomy because it is financially beneficial to key players of the pharmaceutical industry. PBPD are a vulnerable population that is paying the price often at the cost of their lives for these economic choices. New clinical trials are coming out using shamanic medicine with DMT, MDMA or psilocybin to treat populations with PTSD with very encouraging results. As most PBPD suffer from complex PTSD, these treatments offer significant healing potential especially as they are far less addictive than prescribed opioid medications.

suicidal tendencies constant dark thoughts

The most destructive way PBPD attempt to escape their emotional pain is suicide. Research has shown that around 70 percent of people with BPD will have at least one suicide attempt in their lifetime, and many will make multiple suicide attempts. Between 8 and 10 percent of PBPD will complete suicide, which is more than 50 times the rate of suicide in the general population. There is not a single day when PBPD are not contemplating suicide, as the thought of putting a term to their lives feels like a release. Because suicide is always a temptation for PBPD, it is critical that they have strong reasons to keep living such as raising a child, not hurting their loved ones or a personal life mission with greater purpose. Take this meaning away from the PBPD, and they will not hesitate to commit the irreparable. People who commit suicide do not want to die, but to end their pain. This is why it is so important to help PBPD to deal with their emotions in constructive ways.

Hypersensitivity & Overreaction

We discussed previously the positive aspects of hypersensitivity but it also poses some challenges. Partings that would cause to feel antsy may precipitate very intense and painful grief; what would cause slight embarrassment for another may cause deep humiliation; annoyance may turn to rage; shame may develop from slight guilt; apprehension may escalate to a panic attack or incapacitating terror.

Actually much of the borderline individual’s emotional distress is a result of secondary responses (e.g., intense shame, anxiety, or rage) to primary emotions. Often the primary emotions are adaptive and appropriate to the context. The reduction of this secondary distress requires exposure to the primary emotions in a nonjudgmental atmosphere, a validating environment.

I have a friend married to a BPD that is an agriculture expert. Summer is for him the busy season and he leaves the house at 6 AM to return after 10 PM every night. His wife expressed her anguish of having him gone so long. He initially shut her down because he makes most of the family yearly income during this time and he knew he could not change the nature of his work for her. This allows them to have a very good lifestyle and some amazing vacations with the children for the rest of the year. Overtime he learned to stop being defensive and to validate her separation anxiety instead of triggering additional emotions of shame and anxiety. This way, without changing anything around the necessities of his job, his wife is experiencing some manageable anguish instead of completely falling apart. He is avoiding crises, hours long disputes and his wife’s emotional breakdown. By improving his communication, he dramatically improved the quality of their life together around this incompatibility. This is fortunate how they really love each other and they have a beautiful family together.

He would say initially “Why are you upset? Who is going to pay for the mortgage and pay for the kids if I do not work my ass off in the summer? I make in one summer what you make in 5 years. I am tired and I need support instead of having you nagging at me for something I have no control over. Do you think I am having fun working 15 hours a day? Can you stop acting irrational?”

This would trigger her secondary emotions of shame and their dispute would escalate. He would then get even less sleep which would make her feel even more guilty. They were in a vicious circle.

His dialog is now much more different “Honey. I understand I am asking a big sacrifice from you every summer. It is really hard to have someone you love gone so much. Everyone in your situation would feel the same way. I miss you a lot too. I am so impressed how you are able to handle the kids, the house, your job and taking care of me during this critical time. I simply could not do it without you. When the summer is over, I promise to make it up to you. I have planned an amazing vacation for all of us in October.” He also mitigates the pressure by getting some of her family & friends visiting during that time and getting additional household support. With his new communication, no secondary emotions are triggered which makes it manageable.

Borderline individuals are the psychological equivalent of a third-degree burn patient. They simply have, so to speak, no emotional skin. If we touch a burn patient, and they start yelling, we are not saying that they overreact. Unfortunately, we dismiss what is not visible to the naked eye so we make the PBPD reactions wrong. This triggers their shame even more and this causes them to lose their temper on a seemingly trivial situation. PBPD are commonly shamed for their neediness. It is quite unfair, as we would not shame an infant or a cancer patient to be needy. Because we cannot see with our physical eyes how emotionally damaged are the PBPD, we judge them as needy, dependents and drama queens. Because PBPD are in desperate need of other people, they have learned to be creative to get people, and this is why many of them have become great lovers, cooks or entertainers. When faced with limited resources, they use their natural talents and charisma to draw people around them in ways that is more socially acceptable.

They carry deep insecurity and have a constitutional incapacity to tolerate much stress, especially in their interpersonal life. Events that might not bother many people are likely to bother them. They are known to make a mountain out of a molehill. If you love a PBPD, it is critical to learn to love her the way she is instead of attempting to fix her. Any of these attempts will just trigger her shame and makes your life even more miserable. If you love a PBPD, you need to ask yourself if you would stay with this person even if they would never change. If the response is negative, it is probably best to end the relationship. A break-up with a PBPD is very painful however both of you will eventually heal while a relationship where both continuously project their shame into each other is permanent hell. The PBPD can also feel if you are with them by obligation or guilt rather than love.

Impaired Thinking from Overwhelming Emotions

Some of the PBPD I know are highly intelligent however, even with them, the intensity of their emotions is overwhelming their thinking ability. Their hurt, anger and other negative emotions are corrupting the objectivity of their thinking. This is why it is pointless to have a rational discussion with PBPD once they are triggered. Our thinking brain (neocortex) is no match to our reptilian brain because it ensures our survival. Some PBPD are able to be more objective once they come back to a calmer state but most feel too insecure and powerless to consider the reality of their dysfunction. They would rather take the role of the victim to avoid the shame related to their behavior.

PBPDs have black & white thinking or “splitting”. They lack the ability to see simultaneously both the positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole. They tend to think in extremes, interpreting others actions and motivations as all good or all bad with no middle ground. Even when they excel in their professional occupation, they will oscillate between a state where they think they are a fraud, ready to be fired to boasting how good they are. It truly feels as a “split” personality. The same pattern is seen even more clearly with their relationship. Once in a relationship, they idolize their intimate partners, see them as their twin flame, as the best thing that happened to them but once the relationship ends, they demonize them often by making up stories and rallying everyone around them to substantiate their perceived abuse. They refuse to see that they were with the same person at the beginning and at the end of the relationship. It is their perception of their loved one that changed overtime. At the end of a relationship, they frantically discard any sign they ever were romantically involved with their ex in the hope it would take away the pain related to their abandonment and internal sense of inadequacy. They internally wish that their exes fall apart emotionally after the break-up to improve their self-esteem and not face their internal shame of contributing to the separation. This would make them the good guys that tried everything to make it a successful relationship but the partner was simply “too damaged”. It is projection that helps them not to feel abandonment. I knew a PBPD that played mind games with her ex to drive him to the point of insanity. He was still in love with her and coping by drinking alcohol. I could sense below the surface how much she took satisfaction on his addiction. This way, she could easily justify to others the end of the relationship on his dysfunction while she had a large part in it. If you are ending a relationship with a PBPD, do not fall into this trap. Do your healing work and be the first one to get back on your feet. Stay away from the drama and create an environment conducive to your healing. It is part of the psychological make-up of the ex PBPD to get you to sink so that they look good to themselves and others. This is why many PBPDs will continue to harass their exes even years after they break up, and they will use any opportunity to damage your friendships, your career, the connection with your children and your enjoyment of life.

In the treatment of BPD, the therapist would help them see both black and white, and to achieve a synthesis of the two that does not negate the reality of either. PBPD inappropriately attribute all blame and responsibility for negative events sometimes to themselves and other times to others. The goal is to help them to be more objective and to realize that both parties made sincere efforts but also mistakes.

PBPD are constantly catastrophizing, or anticipating disastrous scenarios. They have hopeless expectancies, or pessimistic predictions based on selective attention to negative events in the past or present, rather than on verifiable data. Borderline individuals frequently respond to any relapse or small failure as an indication that they are total failures and may as well give up. Once, I did an awareness exercise with my borderline partner and it was fascinating to watch how she made every stimulus into a negative thought. We are driving on a highway, and she imagines the people that crash at this intersection. She sees a pregnant woman and she feels infertile. I mentioned an exciting upcoming trip and she imagines the plane to crash. Considering the train of thoughts in her mind, I could understand why she was so tormented. As a child, negative focus was their coping mechanism to protect themselves from continuous disappointment, and they bring this destructive mental habit into adulthood. If you forget your cell phone and are coming home late, they will imagine that you died in a car accident about 50 times, and will be intensely angry with you when you show up as you purposely tried to hurt them. They also experience chronic feelings of emptiness and loneliness. The PBPD has a tendency to ruminate about traumatic events over and over again. The rumination not only perpetuates the crises, but can generate new crises whose relationship to the original crises is often overlooked. A PBPD is a bit like an overtired child on a family outing. Once overtired, the child may become upset at every minor frustration and disagreement, crying and having tantrums at the slightest provocation. If the parents focus on trying to resolve every individual crisis, little progress will be made. It is far better to attend to the original problem— lack of sleep and rest. By the same token, it is often more effective to help the PBPD regulate her state first than problem solving right away what she is afraid about. As Albert Einstein said “Problems cannot be solved with the same mind set that created them” so focusing first on improving the PBPD state is sensible.

Narcissism

Any human being in a state of survival stops caring for others, so when a borderline is experiencing an emotional crisis, they may appear narcissistic. It is not so much that they stop feeling others but rather their internal pain is overriding their natural empathy for others. They are naturally quite empathic and compassionate people as they are hypersensitive and feel other people’s pain better than most. However this stops once they get triggered. This is why after they come back to a calmer state, they often experience intense guilt about the harm they caused others during their crises. Or alternatively, they can block their conscience and demonize the other in order not to feel this guilt. However, this type of denial will worsen their mental health.

NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) is different than BPD, however these two disorders originate from attachment traumas. Both PNPD and PBPD have intense fear of abandonment, self-loathing and low self-esteem (covert for the NPD).

For this reason, it is common for PBPD, especially the “successful” ones to display NPD symptoms:

An exaggerated sense of one’s own abilities and achievements
A constant need for attention, affirmation, and praise
A belief that you are unique or “special,” and should only associate with other people of the same status
Persistent fantasies about attaining success and power
Exploiting other people for personal gain
A sense of entitlement and expectation of special treatment
A preoccupation with power or success
Feeling envious of others, or believing that others are envious of you
A lack of empathy for others

In this case, BPD and NPD symptoms will fluctuate in the same individual as different personalities. It is sometimes hard to comprehend how the same person can go from a state where they want to commit suicide, as they feel so completely worthless, to a state of grandiosity where they can get into full rage if others do not consider their superiority. It is simply two sides of the same token where the self feels deeply insecure and unworthy of love. They feel they do not exist or embody evil as they carry an unstable self-image or sense of self and suffer from identity disturbance. Devaluating oneself or devaluating others is in a sense the same thing. This is why so many PBPD have narcissistic traits. They follow a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.

The inability to let go of “being right” in favor of achieving goals is, of course, related to borderline patients’ experiences with invalidating environments. I would often ask my BPD partners if they would rather be right or be loved. This question would irritate them as unmistakably, being right feels the most important thing to them.

Just like with PNPD, when friends, therapists or acquaintances try to share helpful tips or recommendations, they are often experienced as discouraging or as manifestations of lack of love and appreciation. They overact to mild criticism or rejection, so gross that it suggests paranoia or even outright delusion.

Struggling with Accountability

We saw how the step of validating the hurt inner child is so critical as it helps neutralize shame in the PBPD. However if all we do is to dwell on the pain, and identify with the hurt inner child, we will just end up being controlled by an angry, depressed, immature and sometimes mean (internal) little boy or little girl. Recently, a woman posted in a forum how horrible was another woman to get a high margin from her work as a personal organizer, that she felt exploited and decided to go on her own. I praised her for her decision to start her own company but went to educating her on the reality of business not realizing she only wanted validation. She became very angry at me and started personal attacks with a clear intent to hurt. All she wanted to hear was how bad the other woman was and that she should rot in hell. There was no interest in any other perspective and while I made the mistake of not feeling into her before commenting, redirecting her anger to someone else without any self-awareness was not going to support her healing.

The PBPD is often stuck between complete powerlessness and anger, with anger being a higher state. We can think of ourselves as a trinity: inner child, adult and higher self. When we fully identify with the deep emotional pain of the inner child, whether it is loneliness, depression, despair, or anger, it is important to bring our adult and higher selves without abandoning the inner child. The inner adult can bring wisdom and encouragement to the hurt inner child, while the higher self can remind us of our innate perfection and ultimate nature as love. We have to teach all three to work and support each other. Suppressing the inner child is the most dangerous thing to do, as it will manifest externally as tragedy. And I am speaking from experience. The inner child contains our shadow but it is also the seat of the soul and the key in understanding our divine nature. As you dive deeper into it, you will actually meet the internalized aspects of the shadows of your primary caretakers within the inner child. You may be a high-energy successful executive and have a repressed depressed aspect from your mother and a repressed addict from your father side. Under duress, these repressed aspects may take over abruptly to the astonishment of your friends and family. These shadow aspects within ourselves have to be met consciously and ultimately loved for true integration to take place. This is where the step of accountability is so important. It will allow the PBPD to move from anger to sadness with self-awareness, which is where healing actually starts. If the lady mentioned above had gone there, she could have said for example “I am sad that I do not fit into this business world. I am terrified at the idea of finding my own clients and this could involve a lot of rejection. I am afraid to start my own business as the level of administrative complexity overwhelms me”. After experiencing her sadness and fears, she can then naturally move into problem solving.

This is easier said than done. This is why PBPD suffer from inhibited grieving. They have a tendency to inhibit and overcontrol negative emotional responses, especially those associated with grief and loss, including sadness, anger, guilt, shame, anxiety, and panic. For this reason, they are unable to grieve as they compulsively find a way out of experiencing the negative emotion consciously. This is why clinical trials with MDMA or DMT have showed efficacy in treating patients with PTSD. The plant medicine forces them into experiencing the trauma because every resistance is met with unsustainable torment so they have no other option than letting go. Inhibited grieving is understandable among borderline patients. People can only stay with a very painful process or experience if they are confident that it will end some day, some time— that they can “work through it,” so to speak. It is not uncommon to hear PBPD say they feel that if they ever do cry, they will never stop. Indeed, that is their common experience— the experience of not being able to control or modulate their own emotional experiences. They become, in effect, grief-phobic. In the face of such helplessness and lack of control, inhibition and avoidance of cues associated with grieving are not only understandable, but perhaps wise at times. Inhibition, however, has its costs. Borderline individuals are constantly re-exposed to the experience of loss, start the mourning process, automatically inhibit the process by avoiding or distracting themselves from the relevant cues, re-enter the process, and so on in a circular pattern that does not end. For healing to take place, the PBPD has to learn to grieve deeply in order to end grieving. Through accountability, the PBPD needs to confront rather than avoiding the crises they are experiencing.

The slightest touch or movement can create immense suffering for the borderline. Yet, on the other hand, life is movement. Healing, at its best, requires both movement and touch. Thus, the process of healing itself cannot fail to cause intensely painful emotional experiences for the PBPD. The PBPD must have the courage to encounter the pain that arises. The experience of their own vulnerability that sometimes leads borderline individuals to extreme behaviors such as suicidal behaviors. This work is better facilitated when they are surrounded by loving friends, family members or a skilled compassionate therapist. Ultimately, however, they are the ones that need to experience these painful emotions consciously with a slow breathing and a relaxed body. No one else can do this work for them if they are going to learn to regulate their own emotions internally rather than externally. It will feel like at first that they are jumping into the abyss but overtime they will build confidence with this process of healing.

PBPD lack of accountability is often expressed as active passivity behaviors. They have a tendency to passive interpersonal problem-solving style, and not engage actively in solving their own life problems. They make active attempts to solicit problem solving from others in the environment while rejecting all suggestions. This translates into learned helplessness. When they experience intense emotional pain and vulnerability, the PBPD frequently believes that others (friends, family or therapist) could take away the pain if only they would. If they attempt to bring back the responsibility of their emotional state to the PBPD, they will be met with rage as this will trigger the PBPD immense shame of regulating her emotions. Once triggered, PBPD are often unable to distract themselves from the emotion. I had a borderline partner that always wanted to be on the same page. She could not agree to disagree, or postpone the resolution of the conflict to another time. She could not sleep if something was not resolved so intense discussions could go well into the middle of the night leaving us completely exhausted by the morning. When people currently involved with PBPD also fall into the trap of inconsistently appeasing her (basically their matching codependent partner) — sometimes giving in to and reinforcing high-rate, high-intensity aversive emotional expressions and other times not doing so— they are recreating conditions for the person’s learning of relationship-destructive behaviors. For this reason, codependents will make the PBPD mental health worse. They will never incentivize their borderline partners to become accountable too as they benefit from the dependency.

Another trait of PBPD making it hard to step into accountability is apparent competence. They have a tendency to appear deceptively more competent than they actually are. These individuals are typically very gifted and talented in some specific areas so people assume mistakenly a high degree of functioning in all aspects of their lives. As a result, they experience intense shame at behaving dependently in a society that cannot tolerate dependency, so they have learned to inhibit expressions of negative affect and helplessness whenever the affect is within controllable limits. It is hard for a PBPD to step into accountability if they know they are going to be judged and possibly rejected when they share in a vulnerable way their actual limits.

DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) developed by Marsha Linehan is the most effective therapy for BPD that does not involve drugs. It has been called a “blackmail therapy” by some, as patients that do not improve can be let go by their therapists on the basis that “Continuing an ineffective therapy is unethical”. Actually, the real goal is to get PBPD into accountability even if this means triggering their abandonment issues. CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) mostly fail with PBPD because it focuses on changing the patient which is invalidating. On the opposite, DBT is based on the patient’s inherent ability to get out of the misery of her life and build a life worth living. It promotes autonomy and the DBT therapist finds and plays to the patient’s strengths, not to her fragility. The therapist believes in their patients and coaches them in how to resolve the problems themselves.

Reading these two articles on codependents and borderlines may just have increased your powerlessness and anxiety, as you are likely to find some of these aspects within yourself. This is why the third and last section of this series will focus on solutions and how we may be able to heal from these conditions. Actually 98% of the population is struggling with some light or severe form of the 10 personality disorders defined by the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) so we are not alone out there. The same 98% of us have a hurt inner child that requires healing, re-parenting and integration. So we are in an essence a bunch of hurt kids just pretending to be adults 🙂

Read part I – The dark side of the co-dependent

Read part III – Growing and healing together as a couple

The dark side of the co-dependent

August 2, 2018December 2, 2019 / vaillantgicqueau / 14 Comments

3 part series of the dysfunctional dance between co-dependents and borderlines

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Part I – The dark side of the co-dependent

Disclosure: I am not a licensed therapist so I am not qualified to use these terms in a therapy setting. I have however studied this topic very closely as a tool for self-improvement and self-observation. I am just sharing my own understanding and experience on this matter with the hope it may heal your own relationships and help you to love yourself at a deeper level.

My mother was a discouraged borderline and my father was a codependent. My sister is a borderline, my brothers are codependent and I have been on a life long journey to heal my codependency too. Almost all of my intimate partners have struggled with borderline personality disorder. I am hopefully closer to live a more authentic life as I have brought awareness to my subconscious patterns.

I have shared with you in my previous blog how my attachment traumas made me a match to a cult. The same attachment traumas made me a match to dysfunctional intimate relationships. A number of us with personality disorders can actually be high-functioning according to societal standards. You will find many successful CEOs, performers, top politicians that are narcissistic, borderline or active co-dependents. These personality disorders can best be seen in our personal and intimate lives that suffer greatly from these personality disorders coming from childhood attachment traumas.

I can see that my intimate relationships have been plagued with negative core beliefs coming from an early age. Initially, as a young man, because of my own abandonment traumas, I was deeply avoidant as I was convinced to be unworthy of love. I believed that it was just a question of time for my intimate partners to leave me. I would push them away and they would break-up with me, as they felt unloved. I felt unloved and unlovable as a result while these partners would actually deeply care for me. It was a vicious circle feeding self.

Because I felt unlovable as I was, I decided subconsciously that I need a hook for my loved ones to stay with me and not abandon me. I entered a rescuer phase. As a friend jokingly put it, I became “Captain save a hoe”. In my early twenties, I fell in love with an impulsive borderline in a desperate situation. She had a son with a thug in the northern suburbs of Paris. He was a gambler that would still money from her while she did not even have enough money to feed the child. He used the child to control her. He would sometimes take the child out of the balcony of the 20^th floor and threaten to drop him if she did not obey his demands. After I started a relationship with her, my heart broke when I felt the pain of this child. I took many risks to get them out of this desperate situation and we eventually managed to immigrate to the USA together. The relationship eventually ended. I was shut off emotionally past the limerence stage as I continued to focus on external activities to be worthy of love instead of emotionally investing into the relationship. I had no clue that my partner actually wanted to be with me but I felt so unlovable that it seemed like a foreign concept. My partner eventually cheated on me as she was starving emotionally and struggling with her own issues. I felt deeply betrayed and was so confused. How could she leave me after everything I had done for her? As this was not enough, I repeated the exact same experience with a Russian woman and her son a year later. She lived with a violent man who abused her physically. I helped them immigrate to the US as well. Our relationship ended up in the same miserable way and I felt taken advantage, unaware of my own part in the dramas that were unfolding.

These painful experiences made me change my strategy for partners. I felt attracted to stronger and more successful women. However, there needed to be something about these women that was difficult to be with. Something that would keep other men away so that they would not cheat on me. Something that only me could handle so that they would be less likely to abandon me and repeat the abandonment trauma with my mum. The high functioning borderline met these criteria as they share the same abandonment traumas as I did.

Codependents and borderlines are a very common pair. This relationship dynamic allows the codependents to slip into “caretaker” roles, giving priority and focus to problems in the life of the person with BPD (Borderline Personality disorder) rather than to issues in their own lives. No one’s ego likes to see its own dysfunctions as it brings up shame, something especially excruciating for a codependent with a weak sense of self. In these kinds of relationships, the codependent will gain a sense of worth by being “the sane one” and “the responsible one” as he makes the borderline “the crazy one” or “the sick one”. High functioning borderlines are often more narcissistic too. Codependents can provide the narcissist with an obedient and attentive audience that matches the needs of the self-absorbed narcissist. Among the reciprocally interlocking interactions of the pair are the narcissist’s overpowering need to feel important and special and the co-dependent person’s strong need to help others feel that way. Actually, borderline/narcissistic people are only able to create relationships with codependents. A healthy individual with an authentic self could not alternate the roles of perpetrator, rescuer and victim that the borderline requires. Only the codependent can do this as a personality split is required. Their lives together are an endless roller coaster and they alternate control during crises. The codependents submit and weather the storm as the borderlines/narcissists get into their rant or rage. They know however that it is just a matter of time for the borderlines/narcissists to crash. At that time, they can play their favorite caretaker role and get back in control once again. For this reason, it is in the interest of the codependents to worsen and not improve their partners’ mental health. This is a dark side of codependents that only few people understand. This is why they are called enablers. They are enabling and feeding on the most dysfunctional aspects of their partners instead of keeping them accountable for their harmful actions. The borderline is seen in most psychology books as the evil one and the codependent as the good one but the reality is that their shadows are a perfect mirror of each other. The codependent is actually more dangerous as his darkness is more covert. I have worked with many women that had violent and sexually abusive fathers. I have found that they experienced even deeper traumas with their own mothers as they looked the other way and made excuses for their husbands’ behaviors all during the time the abuse was taking place. The child would feel hope as the codependent mother would complain about the father behind his back but felt betrayed over and over again as the mother showed her loyalty to her husband first in her actions. The borderline and the codependent mirror each other attachment traumas, core shame, lack of self-esteem and pathological loneliness. These attributes are directly expressed with the borderline and repressed with the codependent.

Through introspection and the observation of codependents through the diverse communities I have been part of, I have dived deeper into the characteristics of the codependents that I will share with you below. I was able to see the horror of my own psychological make-up through external mirrors and started healing it as a result. I hope you can do the same as you see aspects of yourself in a vulnerable way through the examples below.

No sense of self, low self‐esteem, poor boundaries, absence of conscience

In its broadest definition, a codependent is someone who cannot function from their innate self and whose thinking and behavior is instead organized around another person, or even an organization, or substance. This condition originates from childhood trauma. In the dysfunctional family, the child learns to become attuned to the parent’s needs and feelings instead of the other way around. As a result, the child becomes disconnected from his authentic feelings, as there was no space for the essence of who he is. Codependent people are fixated on another person for approval or sustenance and need to attach themselves to a stronger personality. Poor self‐esteem lowers your expectations of being treated well so we accept the unreasonable demands from our narcissistic/borderline partner with little resistance. Growing up in dysfunctional families, we learn to not trust our perceptions and what we know. We just abide by the narcissist. Most codependents find themselves in relationships where their primary role is that of rescuer, supporter, and confidante. These helper types are often dependent on the other person’s poor functioning to satisfy their own emotional needs and this is the only time they find a sense of self-worth. The codependents cannot believe they can be loved for who they are so they are asking to be given a role where they can be used by their narcissistic partner. They hope to make themselves indispensable through this role so that they would not be abandoned. Their abandonment fears and core shame overpower their conscience so they have lost their inner compass to what is right or wrong. They have delegated it instead to the narcissist, the organization of the substance. As a result, codependents lack authentic and inner accountability. Instead, they do things to stay out of trouble from their partners. They have the feeling to always walk on eggshells as they spend their lives to please their partners and loved ones from the often contradictory feedback they receive externally instead of relying on their inner guidance system that they have shut down to survive their early childhood. Let me give you a couple of examples that I have witnessed personally.

A confidante of a spiritual teacher was asked to lead a group through a process. She started working with the group but in the middle of it, she felt her presence was required next to her teacher so she left without notice leaving all attendees open, vulnerable & incomplete in their healing.

In the cult the Fellowship of Friends, a woman who was struggling raising her child for both financial and emotional reasons asked the narcissistic cult leader what to do. The leader never had children, did not like to be around children and was a sexual predator. He told her to give him for adoption to a couple he designated. Though they were taken by surprise, all parties complied. This left the child with severe abandonment traumas.

A man fell madly in love with a woman but she came from a higher social class. They married and had a child but he compensated his social status insecurity by becoming a workaholic and building/running a successful trucking business. One day, the child died in a car accident. When his wife informed him of the tragedy, he responded he would come after he was done with all his meetings of the day. When he finally came home, he told his wife that nothing could be done, as the son was already dead so life had to go on. The wife left him, as she felt her husband was as sensitive as a cold stone. He later collapsed emotionally and became homeless.

A son visited his dad after not seeing him for 2 years to celebrate his grandmother birthday with him. He spent a day with him then asked to have a walk with him to talk. The father who was afraid that he would get in trouble with his wife (his stepmum) to spend more time away from her encouraged his son to leave right away. The son could not tell him in person that he was getting a divorce with his wife.

As a prank, I showed the most ridiculous video once of an individual portraying himself as a tantric master and I told the manager of a spiritual teacher that she wanted to work with him and invite him to her facility. Though he was conservative and in any other circumstances would have been outraged at the video, he expressed that he was impressed with the tantric teacher and would do the necessary to bring him. I was in complete disbelief that the prank worked so well with no resistance on his part.

A community member of a spiritual teacher fell in love with a woman. He wanted to have children with her but his teacher could not handle having children around him. His teacher required him to continue living with him at the same time. He complied and buried the issue. His girlfriend eventually left him as she understood her family life and her needs would be always second to the whims of his partner’s spiritual teacher.

Enabling the dysfunctional relationship by feeding the partner’s shadows

As we have learned previously, the codependent is an enabler that does not make his narcissistic partner accountable in any way. As a result, the partners’ mental health continue to decline and his narcissistic and paranoid tendencies get worse overtime. While this is true that the narcissists’ natural tendency would be to be comforted in their drama, and have little interest for personal accountability, the codependent enabling tendencies make it much worse. There is a famous quote from Edmund Burke “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. The codependents are these “good men” that do nothing. Codependents and narcissists feed each other false selves as they grow more unhealthy dependency with each other. To survive the dysfunctional environment, the codependent has learned not to challenge the narcissist and on the opposite to play with their shadows to ensure his safety. In return, the narcissist gets addicted to the false validation he gets from the codependent. They both isolate from the rest of the world so that they may not be challenged in their vision of reality. As the borderline/narcissists get more controlled by their addictions, shadows and inflated sense of self, the more they may be controlled by the codependent. Edmund Burke said also “Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver”. Why it is one thing to boost our loved ones’ self confidence, it is another thing to feed their inflated sense of self. By using flattery on his narcissistic partner, the codependent understands he can kill two birds at once. He gains his favor while isolating him from potential rivals. I remember a situation where a follower was shamed for hours by a spiritual teacher and his codependent manager for recommending a change of schedule where another teacher would come on the last day of the program. The codependent manager of the spiritual teacher insisted he was the best of the world so that he had to conclude the program. The spiritual teacher fell for it and went on a rant for hours how this so-called fan could even dare to propose this change of schedule. He was very insecure and insisted for anyone around him to always say he was the best in the world. If anyone would see the value in another spiritual teacher, they would have to face the borderline rage of the teacher that was fueled by the codependent manager. Over time, he developed paranoia for anyone who could potentially compete with him so he got rid of his best disciples, which also comforted the codependent manager who felt insecure with anyone who could have direct access to the teacher. A “royal court” was formed around the teacher that isolated him from reality, and consequently his mental health declined at a rapid pace as his narcissism turned into megalomania.

Denial is prevalent for both the borderline/narcissists and their codependent partners. By staying as victims, they avoid facing their own shame. They both play an elaborate dance to construct a reality that boost each other ego but isolate them from the rest of the world. While the codependent gets rewarded by praise, appreciation, a sense of control, attention and often financial security from their dominant partner, the narcissist gets a sense of security and personal power as their self-concept stays unchallenged. As the pattern amplifies, the chance for this duo to build or maintain any authentic relationship become smaller and smaller. The narcissistic partner thinks he is the one in control however the more their ego get inflated, the more controllable they become by their co-dependent partner that lead the way from behind the scenes. The codependent feeds on the partner’s mental health issues. They may get drown and overwhelmed at times by their partner narcissistic episodes but they know it is just a matter of time for them to regain control as their partners’ steam run out. The narcissist cannot have friends. He can only have employees, followers or fans, basically transactional relationships.

The codependent pattern will encourage the negative behavior “I am serving your father a glass of Whiskey because he needs to relax after a long day” while a more healthy partner will set a clear boundary “If you continue drinking I will have no other choice to leave though I love you very much”. A friend of mine contacted me recently. She broke up with a boyfriend she loved very much because he started being abusive with her. It broke her heart to do it but she knew this was the only way to wake him up. This is the difference between codependent and healthy relationships. The codependent will feed your shadows to be in control and create more unhealthy dependency. Healthy partners will not hesitate to confront you on your shadows even at their detriment. An intimate relationship is the closest mirror we can have. Do you choose to mirror your partner light or darkness? And remember by doing this, you are doing else then mirroring your own light and darkness. By committing to support your partners to become the best version of themselves, you are doing the same to yourself. Codependents choose to do the opposite because of their own insecurity.

The codependents cannot meet their needs directly so they manipulate

This came from childhood trauma. The codependent was simply an accessory to their primary caregivers narcissistic needs. They never received the mirroring they needed to discover their authentic selves. Not only are they unable to meet their needs directly but they are simply completely unaware of their needs. They are actually terrified to figure out what their needs are as this would mean they could be rejected or ridiculed for wanting what they need. It feels so much safer to say their needs do not matter or focus instead on the needs of others. They place a lower priority on their own needs, while being excessively preoccupied with other people needs. For this reason, many codependents learn to be self‐sufficient and to deny their emotional needs, and this is not sustainable. They match perfectly their narcissistic partners that are self-focused on their own needs. If your important emotional needs were shamed or ignored in your childhood, would you not grow up shutting down the feelings associated with those needs? Why would you feel a need if you do not expect it to be filled? It is less painful to deny it entirely. However, no one can un-need what they need so they live in state of emotional starvation and develop manipulation strategies to meet their needs indirectly.

Manipulation through communication triangulation, being double faced, alienation and” Divide and Conquer” strategies

Codependency is more about why and how you do things than what you do. Their actions are often driven by not getting in trouble with their partners instead of doing what feels right according to their authentic self (that they do not know). They rarely perform any action from their heart instead they expect something in return. They have a transactional mind. Codependent parents would often remind children of all the sacrifice they endured to raise them to adulthood. If they want to be touched by their partners, they would offer to give them a massage instead of asking directly for their needs. The massage would not feel good because of the feeling of expectation. And if the partner does not reciprocate, they are then punished emotionally through withdrawal. If they want a night girl out, they would ask their male counterpart if they would be interested to spend a weekend away with his friends. If they would like to bring their parents over, they would encourage their partners to have their parents visit. Once their partners express their own needs, then they feel they are allowed to express their own needs. It is an exhausting way to live life and they are continuously set-up for disappointment. A relationship is not about keeping counts but it is about meeting each other needs in a mutually beneficial way. When someone does not express their needs directly, the probability for someone else to meet these needs go drastically down. Because of their deep shame, they spend a lot of energy justifying why they need what they need. They react often in a passive aggressive way when they unexpressed needs are unmet. I knew a woman that was in love with another woman but she could not face the truth that she was a lesbian. She made herself her caregiver. Once she felt she had leverage by becoming more indispensable, she would threaten she may leave to find the love of her life (often described as a male). This would make the other woman panic however it was obvious that she did not intend to go anywhere. She eventually succeeded in splitting her with her husband by becoming what she felt the other woman really wanted and by showing her the incompatibilities she perceived with the husband the other woman loved. These types of relationship are doomed and I can speak from experience. I have too attracted lovers and partners by pretending to be what they wanted to see. However we can only hide for so long. Once the real us come out, our partners feel duped and they make our lives impossible. A common ploy for codependents interested in a woman that is a single mum is to build rapport with her children. They understand the intense guilt the targeted partner is experiencing from not providing a full-time and caring father to her children. Overtime, however, the single mum often realizes that the new partner never truly cared or had true ownership with their children. And if the man leaves the relationship, there is no interest in maintaining the relationship with the children.

The codependent cannot be trusted because he is double faced. He shows a different face for every different person he is interacting with. He is a people pleaser and adapts his messaging accordingly. I am also guilty to have played the same codependent game with my company executives in the past. A vice president would come to my office complaining about the behavior of another executive that they would consider bossy, disrespectful and unprofessional. I would empathize with her and would confirm the flaws she had noticed in him. Then the other executive would stop by my office complaining about the immaturity and lack of experience about the first one. I would validate the same way, happy to get rapport through opposition. I felt good and important as the rescuer. However I was undermining my management team spirit and cohesion. Then I was acting surprised why these grown-up executive cannot get along and keep fighting! Overtime, they lost trust with me as they could feel my lack of authenticity.

During one of my divorces, I trusted an individual to act as an intermediary of my wife to act on her behalf, as she was too emotional to take care of legal details of the split. He was very nice and amicable with me while I realized only months later, he was disparaging me behind my back as friends made me listen to voice mails he was leaving about me. Instead of making things better with my ex wife, he kept putting oil on the fire to antagonize each other behind our backs. Both she and I felt very thankful to him at the time to act as a mediator as the other party seemed crazy and ill intentioned not realizing he was largely responsible for the increased strife between us through triangulation. The intermediary ended up getting married to my former spouse!

The codependent learned at an early age to manipulate their caregivers to survive emotionally in a dysfunctional environment. They are excellent at identifying the blind spots to the people around them for their benefit. The can place shame on others to manipulate a situation and then use charm to come off caring as their typical fashion to get what they want from others. They are experts in alienation and playing on people fears. They identify a weakness in a rival and makes a crack looks like a canyon while they state how different they are. Sometimes they just make things up and hope they will get away with it. A friend of mine did not know anything about finances so her business manager puts doubts in her mind that her husband was embezzling money to create a rift in their relationship as the manager was in love with her. He also showed her how her husband was a liability to her career while at the very same time he kept complementing the husband on his contribution to her business. The wife fell for it and divorced the husband while she was away from the husband on a business trip while the manager took on the savior role. The manger continued to ensure there would be no contact between them so that she would never figure out the manipulation that had taken place. “Divide and conquer” is the favorite power dynamic of the codependent.

I knew a lady that lived with her best friend and his girlfriend. Both girls used to get along very well. He was very codependent and made his girlfriend feel he cannot fully present to her because of the commitment he has towards his best friend that was also his employer. He made his friend/employer insecure that telling her that he cannot be really there for her because of his relationship to his girlfriend, which he claimed was the most important thing in his life. As a result, the two ladies that really adored each other started feeling threatened with one another.

Addiction

When we did not receive enough nurturing or had your feelings respected, we may attempt to fill this void with an addiction. Addictive relationships or substances serve as a substitute for real connection. Some people are caretakers who hope to receive love in return but are unable to be vulnerable about their own feelings, which is necessary to maintain an intimate relationship.

Many who don’t recognize their needs for support and comfort isolate — especially when they’re hurting. Even with awareness of their needs, asking someone to meet them can feel humiliating.

As a result, many people turn to some addiction. Many of my clients had a codependent father or mother that was alcoholic. I had an uncle that was a gambler to compensate for the lack of intimacy in his marriage. I became a workaholic and the high intensity of running a Silicon Valley business was my own way of compensating. Some men escape in following sports on TV while many women do the same with their soap operas. The options of escape are endless to avoid feeling the lack of intimacy and connection that we are experiencing.

The goal of the addiction is to prevent us from experiencing painful feelings, often originating from childhood traumas. It is critical we allow ourselves to sit with these painful emotions and do shadow work when they come up instead of falling for an addiction to escape. As we experience consciously these difficult feelings, we will start healing and eventually generate the desires to make the necessary changes in our life to create a life that genuinely feels good.

Replaying trauma from childhood

Codependency is often associated with abusive, addictive, or controlling home environments. Or it may be the product of emotional neglect and absence. Any painful experience from childhood has the potential to become a trauma that can affect our present actions. Fortunately, there are many modalities today that can support soul retrieval so that you do not need to manifest into your life the original trauma. I knew a woman who suffered incest from her brutal father all of her childhood. As a child and teenager, she kept fantasizing that mum would leave dad to save her. Unfortunately, mum was very codependent and an enabler to the abuse so the rapes continued into adulthood. She brought that intense desire into her adult self and she became a close confidante to a married woman. The wife had suffered a lot of abuse too in her childhood in the hands of a psychopath. They both replayed their drama and made the husband the bad guy they had to escape from. The husband was ostracized overnight and completely cut from his family. Even months after the separation had taken place, they were still making lists to demonize the poor fellow. The husband was abandoned by his mum when he was a child so this is why he was a match to this experience as well. There are no bad people only people who have been traumatized. If their childhood traumas are not healed, people will have a tendency to replay them in their adult lives. If they are unable to heal, their traums will unfortunately repeat into the next generation, the lives of their children. This is why soul retrieval and trauma healing are the most important thing we will ever do.

Unhealthy dependency instead of autonomy

Human beings are a social species so we need each other to live a good life. There are healthy dependencies and unhealthy ones too. The codependent has the later form of dependency. Their fear of loneliness would keep them in abusive and dysfunctional relationships instead of looking for better options for partners. In a codependent relationship, the codependent’s sense of purpose is based on making extreme sacrifices to satisfy their partner’s needs. Codependent relationships signify a degree of unhealthy “clinginess”, where one person does not have self-sufficiency or autonomy. One or both parties depend on their loved one for fulfillment. In romantic relationships that do not involve children, we need to remember that the individual in the relationship is more important than the relationship. There should be no coercion in such relationships. The codependents need to be committed to put themselves first and accept that it is better to be alone than being with people that are not ready to accept and love their authentic selves. Of course, they first need to figure out what this authentic self is all about. Once they make this step, they will be on their way to create a life that feels good. Thich Naht Hanh said “You must love in a way that the person you love feels free”. To become autonomous is to able to share a life with a loved one without trying to possess or control him/her. We do not need to possess him/her because they live within us. It is not anymore a relationship where two become one, but two become three: the two partners and the relationship. They create a conscious relationship instead of being consumed by it.

How bad can codependency get?

The Selena story

Selena Quintanilla-Perez was an American singer that achieved international fame. Her story was immortalized in the Selena movie starring Jennifer Lopez. As Selena’s singing schedule became more demanding, she came to rely on Yolanda Saldivar, a San Antonio nurse who had founded her fan club in 1991 and was a devoted follower of the band. The family did not realize how much of a sycophant she was. Shy, plain-looking, and eleven years Selena’s senior, Saldivar made herself indispensable, taking on the job of managing the boutiques and eventually becoming Selena’s confidante. Selena had a caring but narcissistic father that was ruling the whole family. As a result, Selena desperately needed a confidante outside her family circle. That’s when Yolanda stepped into her life and made it seem like she was taking care of everything. Yolanda appeared to everyone like someone sweet, like a mother figure. She used to mother people around her and ask, “Do you need anything, m’ijo/a?”. Yolanda managed to gain a lot of importance in Selena’s life. Whether Selena realized it or not, Yolanda became her filter and gatekeeper. Selena had lots of friends working for her at the beginning of her career. Once Yolanda came on board, she got rid of Selena’s friends one by one. Anyone who captured Selena’s attention, she eliminated. After the family found out that Yolanda was taking advantage of her position to steal money, she felt her life was over and shot Selena to death as her life felt meaningless without Selena. By killing her, Yolanda assured that her name would be associated with Selena for eternity.

Wild Wild Country: Osho and Sheela

A recent documentary Wild Wild Country narrates the rise and fall of Osho Rajneesh, a gifted and controversial spiritual leader that set-up a community in the US state of Oregon. Osho’s passion was teaching spirituality and waking up his followers through various healing modalities. He trusted a young and a very ambitious early disciple of his: Ma Anand Sheela to deal with all the material and organizational aspects in creating the community. Osho liked reclusion and long periods of time for meditation and contemplation so he let naively Sheela take more and more power. For a very long time, she was the only one meeting with Osho and through communication triangulation, she was able to dictate all important decisions in the community. People started to fear her. Power went to her head, as she obviously did not have the experience, integrity and wisdom to handle this level of responsibility and decision-making. She created her own group of devotees and instructed some of them to perform unethical actions. For example, he convinced one of her close follower to kill a doctor that she felt was getting too close to Osho. Unbeknownst to Osho, she built a multi million dollar center to spy on all community members. She armed the community, brought thousands of homeless people from all over the country to win county elections and poisoned the water of the nearby town. During this time, Osho was doing a 3 years’ silent. The whole state of Oregon that had been antagonized by Sheela’s actions was on high alert to bring the community down. Sheela was finally arrested but US officials felt it was safer to bring Osho down too. He was arrested too, and suffered such bad treatment in custody that he died a few months later.

These are some of the most extreme forms of codependency and everyone can see how dangerous it can be. Idolatry can flatter the ego but everything is a transaction for the codependent. It is just a matter of time that they will come for their due once the dependency is complete. Every relationship is a mirror and one cannot be controlling in a relationship without being controlled oneself. We eventually receive what we give in a relationship. How do you recognize a dysfunctional relationship from a healthy one? The dysfunctional one puts you down while the healthy one will make you a better human being.

Read part II – Understanding and loving the borderline

Read part III – Growing and healing together as a couple

Guru/disciple relationship dynamics and attachment traumas

July 20, 2018June 28, 2019 / vaillantgicqueau / 22 Comments

German translation of this blog by Silke Lira Blumbach

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My mother was raised in the French foster system. My father was a product of the Second World War and only reconnected with his mum when he was 10. As a result, they suffered from severe attachment trauma and shame. She was a discouraged borderline struggling with depression and he was a codependent that lost his ability to feel. Because my father was mostly absent, I was parentified and developed a fusional relationship with my mother. Both my sister and I could not receive in this family environment the emotional nurturing we needed to develop secure attachment. I coped by being the best at school and in general the best boy possible so I became the Golden Child and started building strong codependent tendencies. My sister struggled to cope in this family environment and became the Scapegoat and started developing borderline tendencies. When I was 9, our parents divorced. Mum could not cope anymore with the emotional unavailability of dad, and left overnight leaving both my sister and me behind to live with her new companion. She was clumsy in explaining to us her departure. At that point in my life, my mum was everything. She was a stay-at-home, we spent a lot of time together and I was meant to fill the emotional void my dad had left. We had a fusional relationship. While it is natural for a 9 year old to be dependent upon his mother, my dependency was even more pronounced, as she was so afraid of being alone. To make it worse, when she ran away, I was left with an emotionally unavailable father. My new stepmother was a petulant borderline. As a codependent, my dad needed to appear as the good guy so played sides instead of fighting for inclusion. As a result, she saw us as a clear threat to her relationship to our dad. This led to a second abandonment where my dad gave us away back to my mum and we hardly saw him after that. This second abandonment was very hard on me as I asked my dad to stay with him. Though he was an absent father, I had developed an intense fear around my mum unpredictability so felt safer to stay with him at the time instead of going back to mum. But he just gave me back to mum without even giving to us an explanation. As a result, my child self developed the core belief of being “bad”, in fact “very bad” for parents not wanting to be with me. And shortly after being reunited with mum, both sets of parents had a baby son. This reinforced how bad we had to be that we needed to be replaced. My goal in sharing this story is not to throw my parents under the bus as I have repeated myself many of their mistakes but to share with the readers how attachment traumas are created.

I coped with the deep core belief of being so bad by becoming a hyper-achiever. I had a bright mind and used it to my advantage to bury my core shame of being unlovable so that my achievements could give me the positive attention I was desperately craving for. To cope with my attachment trauma, all my focus turned into the goal of being admitted to Ecole Polytechnique, the most prestigious engineering school of France. To reach that goal, I worked insanely for the 2 years after high school. I would study until 12:30 AM every night and only give myself Saturday afternoon to bike in the Cote d’Azur countryside. As it was a national exam, I was competing with the brightest and most hard-working students in my age category in France. I became interested in the occult as a short cut to become super smart as I felt being the best was the only way I could be loved. Actually many kids today that are fascinated by the Marvel super hero movies and comics feel very powerless and out of control as they feel unlovable in their present state. I ended up not making it to Ecole Polytechnique but to the second best engineering school of France Ecole Centrale Paris, which was an excellent achievement. While I thought reaching my goal would bring me happiness, the opposite happened. I had lost the goal that was distracting me from my misery. I felt distressed and I could not explain why. I did not feel I belonged anywhere. I started drinking heavily and my connection with women was limited to meaningless one-night stands. I started developing a profound disgust to myself. I had read lots of books from Osho Rajneesh (see documentary Wild Wild West on Netflix) and I enjoyed very much his provocative insights, vast knowledge and wisdom. One day, when I felt particularly miserable and was looking for an answer, I drew a card from his tarot deck. It was the Master card, the 79^th card in Osho’s tarot deck. I interpreted the meaning of this card that I had to find a master because I felt so stuck. Awakening felt like the answer to my suffering. An occult group in Paris was leaving bookmarks in Osho Rajneesh books. It was called The Fellowship of Friends that proclaimed to be a fourth way school following the teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, two famous Russian mystics. Osho spoke frequently of Gurdjieff in his books. I contacted them and after three prospective meetings, I was determined to join to put an end to my misery and isolation.

Cult leader Robert Earl Burton with his followers

At first, my experience in the cult was exhilarating. I felt an intense sense of belonging, I was given a new meaning for my life, I was surrounded with many smart, mature and wise people, my mind was stimulated by new and fascinating esoteric knowledge, my ego was gratified by feeling among the chosen ones and having a direct connection to God (called Influence C in that group), I was developing deeper connections with people and my life became full of new exciting experiences and adventures. Being in a cult at that time was actually an improvement to my state compared to the powerlessness, isolation, addiction and depression that I had been struggling with. Actually, a lot of people go from substance or sexual addiction to becoming fundamentalist newborn Christians, this is actually an improvement too. There is a reason why the 12-step program is so religious.

If you want to better understand the type of cult I joined, you may be interested to watch the documentary Holy Hell on Netflix. Both my cult leader Robert Earl Burton and Michel Rostand in Holy Hell are megalomaniac and homosexual predators. They believe they are fully awakened. They are highly manipulative and believe that it is an honor to be used by them. They are very authoritative and exercise full control over the life of their members. Robert’s group the fellowship of friends was a bit larger than Michel’s as it reached over 3,000 members at its prime time. Robert demanded 10% of every member income, sex from any male member he found attractive (most of them being heterosexual and having no interest to have sex with a man) and compliance to his instructions as he saw himself more evolved than Christ himself.

Michel Rostand cult leader in HOLY HELL (2016)

In most cases unfortunately, a guru/disciple relationship is nothing else than a narcissist/co-dependent relationship. It is a dysfunctional relationship where needs are met in ways that are destructive, manipulative and covert. What is the dynamic of this dysfunctional relationship? Because of their attachment traumas, the co-dependents have developed core shame and believe they are bad and as a result, there are unable to see their own light. They have disown their light and their guru has disowned his shadow. The relationship that they are developing with a narcissistic guru will then reflect their unworthiness and they are therefore a perfect match to their cult leader because of their core belief of being bad. The codependents are attracted to the charm, boldness, confidence and domineering personality of the narcissist. The codependents reflexively give up their power; since the narcissist thrives on control and power, there is an intense attraction between them. The narcissist guru find recruits who lack self-worth, confidence and who have low self-esteem — codependents. Through smart manipulation the narcissist leader is able to conceal his lower motives and maintain an unsullied reputation—at least in the beginning. They are often highly intelligent, possess esoteric information that is very attractive to their followers, and are well aware of mind control techniques. Most use the technique of undermining the follower’s sense of self by subtle criticism or exposing personally embarrassing situations to trigger their core shame—all this in the name assisting the person to transcend ego. They establish their superiority over their followers by claiming super powers that cannot be verified. For example, Robert would claim “I have fully developed higher centers”, “I live in a pure state of presence & being”, “I am omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent”. Anyone questioning the claims of the guru is shamed for lacking faith, devotion or is seen as disruptive for the group cohesion. Because co-dependents have such fear of abandonment, they typically err on the safe side by unconditionally siding with the guru’s views with the rest of the followers. Over time, even as the disciples become aware of the guru abuse, they look the other way, as they understand that the cult leader owns the relationships in the group and any opposition would mean ex-communication, which is perceived as the worst possible punishment for people with abandonment traumas. Once we have accepted the cult as our family, we are stuck. There is another important reason why it is so difficult to leave these dangerous cults. We have disowned our relationship to our Creator, God or Source and believed we are dependent on the group and the cult leader to access it. Leaving the group is then associated with cutting our connection to the divine, which is a deeply entrenched fear in humans. We have been controlled for millenniums by the fear of rotting in hell for eternity. When I announced my departure of the cult to Robert in 1996, he warned me that I would lose my connection to “Influence C” (i.e. God). At the end, I only lost my connection to a demon 😉

I had made the Fellowship of Friends my family, I was part of the cult inner circle, I had adopted the cult beliefs and language, I had very little connection with my blood family. So how was I able to leave it when I was only 23 confronting the cult leader Robert Earl Burton on my last day while so many other more mature, smarter and experienced members stayed stuck there for so many years?

First, I stayed in contact with a French healer Jacques who I intuitively felt had many more spiritual abilities than my guru who claimed to be God on earth. He helped my deprogramming in smart and subtle ways.
I was not completely dependent on the group as I just started a programmer job in Silicon Valley.
I rented a room in a house with an individual that had his own teacher Elias De Mohan, a remarkably psychic man that was not cultish. This again challenged Robert’s claim that he was the most conscious being on earth.
After attending so many Robert’s events, he looked like a parrot repeating the same thing over and over again so I did not feel I was learning anything new anymore.
The cult organization destroyed my relationship with a woman I was deeply in love with and built resentment toward the cult as a result.
I understood how wasteful Robert was with money and I did not want him to do this with 10% of my income now that I had a good job.
However, I think the biggest factor came from my own attachment trauma. I had lost my family already when I was a kid and knew I could survive it. Or maybe subconsciously, I wanted to re-experience the pain of losing my family again for healing purpose. In any case, my own trauma benefited me in this situation.

Most of my friends in the cult ended up only leaving the cult 13 years later after all the abuse was made public through this public blog.

In summary, here is what the cult member gets from the transaction:

The cult member gets his core belief of being unlovable, bad and unworthy validated, replaying childhood attachment trauma. Many co-dependents have learned that they only get loved by being down on themselves and making the other better than they are
The cult member gets belonging & connection with like-minded individuals. He gets a new family (with conditional love)
The cult members gets to experience the divine and higher part of them that they have disowned through the guru
The cult member gets a sense of (false) security through the guru self-confidence, assertiveness, and views on the meaning of life that are simple to understand
The cult member gets new goals and activities so that he does not have to face his own inner turmoil and demons anymore. He is given a new direction that prevents him to dwell more on his/her own misery so feels better as a result. Actually, many of these activities allow the individual to develop his creativity far more than what he was doing in the past. The caveat is that the guru is the one benefiting financially for the disciple newfound creativity, not the individual

These benefits provide enough value to the disciple that they will often surrender their free will, financial resources and even their own body to the leader. Disappointment with the leader, acknowledgement of the abuse will eventually force the follower to re-own his own power and needs, stand on his own feet to live his own life, a more authentic life. At this stage, the follower feels angry, betrayed and intense grief. What was heaven now seems hell. Eventually, they will need to digest this experience in more objective terms for true healing to take place. They feel like a victim but eventually needs to own how their own attachment traumas played a role to be a match to this experience. They will able to take responsibility for joining a cult and forgiving themselves for doing so. Actually, many people are able to create fulfilling and successful lives after a cult experience if they can learn all the lessons that came with it.

Paradoxically, cult leaders hold often even more core shame than their followers. Their shame is so repressed that they can only see it externally through their own disciples. We have to remember that cult leaders and followers, just like narcissists and co-dependents are simply the mirrored repressed aspects of each other. Many cult leaders are hyper achievers to cover up their own sense of inadequacy, and many have developed special abilities to maintain the illusion of personal greatness so that they would never have to face how bad they actually feel about themselves. Actually, both cult leaders and their members are in a state of dysfunctional and unhealthy dependency. The guru deals with his insecurity around that dependency by creating a large narcissistic supply of followers to ensure that his needs would always be met. It is actually harder for the guru to growth and heal as he has completely disowned his shame and buried his vulnerability. Actually, therapists see a lot of codependents but narcissists never come to their office. This is because narcissists can never admit there is something wrong with them while codependents are so good at finding fault within themselves as they have learned to get rewarded and receive love for showing their imperfection to the narcissist. All cult leaders suffered from severe trauma from their childhood that they never healed. Theo Dorpat wrote in his book “Wounded Monster” about the importance of Hitler’s (the most infamous cult leader of all times) childhood trauma to explain his destructive behaviors.

What does the cult leader gets from the transaction?

It feels alone at the top so actually the cult leader in most case does not get belonging or connection. He feels often alone and disconnected from others. They are unable to develop equal authentic relationships with others as they see the world in a hierarchical way. This is why so many cult leaders, especially if they are men, turn into sex addicts. Sex is the only way they can get the connection they desperately need. In general, the cult leader will get his followers to talk his or her love language whether it is act of service, words of affirmation, gifts, time together or touch to fill the void of their pathological loneliness. The bigger the void, the bigger the need for external adoration. The same pattern can be observed with stars and their fans, or with any narcissistic leader and their subordinates.

The leader gets tremendous energy from their followers and it typically feeds their lower shakras because of lack of purity and integrity: financial security with the first shakra, sexual gratification with the second shakra or power with the third shakra. This energy rarely reached the higher shakras because their character has been perverted: the fourth to experience pure love for their followers through service (ex. burning heart of Christ), the fifth to express it creatively, the sixth to lead with vision and the seventh to stay aligned with the rest of creation.

Ego is nothing else than the illusion of separateness. As the ego gets gratified, the identification with the ego becomes stronger and stronger and the connection with the authentic self weaker and weaker. They become sociopathic then psychopathic as their disorder develops. This means that they are able to cut their own unpleasant feelings through rationalization. As a result, they repress their own emotional pain & suffering which now become externalized in the pain & suffering of their followers that have not completely cut the connection to their heart.

Gurus are often high-functioning psychopath that display superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self, lack of remorse or empathy, lack of introspection, cunning behavior, lying, egocentricity, parasitic lifestyle, and more often than not, sexual exploitation. While their followers admire them, their psychological condition is often worse than the people they abuse. Behind close doors, they are deeply tormented and often resort to diverse addictions to shut the door of their own conscience torturing them. Their mental health is plagued with anti-social disorders, paranoia and self-hatred.

What do they need to heal? A collapse of their universe with people turning against them and keeping them accountable for their own actions. In 1996, during the third year at my cult, I went to Russia. The Soviet block had collapsed and there was a lot of interest for spirituality. I start giving there teaching dinners and running large meetings about the group teaching. The women were beautiful and I was falling in love every day. My success went to my head and I was becoming a mini-guru. The cult leader Robert Burton heard from others that I was taking too much liberty and I was reprimanded and fined at my return to the US. They crushed me and this is the best thing they could have done to downsize my ego that had got too inflated. Of course, the fact that he punished me for actions he would do himself behind people’s back did not sit too well for me and acted as a catalyst for me to leave.

Of course, not all spiritual teachers are narcissist or have dysfunctional parasitic relationship with their followers. What is most important for those seeking spiritual guidance is to keep their critical thinking alive as they approach any spiritual teacher. The questions they must ask ourselves are:

Does this teacher walk his/her talk? Does this teacher live by the precepts he/she teaches?
Is the teacher respectful of you? Do they automatically assume you are below them?
Do they have a grandiose sense of self?
Do you feel manipulated in any way by this person?
Do they require zealous, unquestioning commitment and subservience to the leader?
Is questioning, doubt, and dissent discouraged or even punished?
Is the group elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader and members?
Does the leadership induce feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and/or control members?
Do they encourage members to cut ties with family and friends outside the group? Are members encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members?
Does the group use subtle maneuvers to make it difficult for you to leave? Do they punish you if you leave? Are you ostracized if you leave the group?

Once these question are answered to your satisfaction, this somewhat suspicious stance can be relinquished in order to assimilate the instruction you desire, and to create an open-hearted relationship with your spiritual teacher.

	Driving from the USA… on Driving from the USA to Costa…
	Driving from the USA… on Driving from the USA to Costa…
	Driving from the USA… on Driving from the USA to Costa…
	Driving from the USA… on Driving from the USA to Costa…
	Driving from the USA… on Driving from the USA to Costa…

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narcissism

Re-parenting Your Inner Child: Transforming Narcissism into Self-Love

French translation below – Article en Français ci-dessous

Artículo en español a continuación

The black widow

French translation below – Article en Français ci-dessous

Part III: Immature projection-based coping mechanisms

Understanding and Loving the Borderline

The dark side of the co-dependent

Guru/disciple relationship dynamics and attachment traumas