people silencing victims to protect those gianosed with NPD
this is 50% rant, 50% raising an actual issue in our society
i was raised by a narcissist and very predictably, my first relationship also was with a narcissist.
the other day i left a comment in one community sharing how teaching victims that it's bad to "take things out of the house" and tell people about the fights you have in a relationship etc etc is a very common narcissistic tactic, which i know because i was raised by a narc and then dated one, and the longevity of the abuse was owed very much to the fact that i was not talking about it with anyone, and thus not even knowing it IS abuse.
my comment was deleted by mods for throwing pop psych terms around and that i cannot say someone's a narcissist unless they were officially diagnosed. which is insane because anyone who's ever dealt with a narcissist knows they will NOT go to therapy unless they are 1) doing it maliciously to manipulate you in couple therapy or 2) are there for a very different reason. not a single narcissistic abuser ever goes hey, should i go to therapy to check if maybe i am one?
but from dealing with them your whole life and learning specifically all the symptoms of narcissistic abuse you get a pretty good idea that something that was done to you systematically, almost destroyed you, and perfectly fits the bill - is pretty sure THAT.
i messaged the mods about it and that this logic is incredibly harmful, because a big part of the power of narcissistic abusers comes from the fact that their victims don't understand what this is. so raising awareness, posting about the ways it can happen, pointing out patterns - is an incredibly important thing.
i was told by the mods that "i am throwing people under the bus who were diagnosed with NPD and aren't acting bad". so we are literally denying people the right to speak about their experiences just on the off chance it offends someone - that is wonderful.
i haven't personally met a person who is diagnosed with NPD and is handling it and is not harmful to others, but i very much believe they exist, and i doubt they would mind victims of narcissistic abuse speaking up and calling it narcissistic abuse. no one ever villanizes people who don't harm others - same as with some other mental health issues, like ADHD, i am not diagnosed with one but i fit the bill on a lot of things. i do not mind someone saying "hey both my colleagues who had adhd are always so late and it messes with my workflow", because no doubt it was true + if i am not late, it is because i took care and accountability to not be late and learn how to work with this, even though it's messed up and hard for me. so i'm not offended by this because everyone who knows me know i'm rarely late and when i am, i make up for it.
tl;dr : i completely do not get this rhetoric, it seems incredibly harmful and out of touch, made to protect people diagnosed with NPD who would rather go around saying "you saying a narcissist harmed you is harmful" instead of going to therapy and working on themselves.
