Stop clicking on stories about “narcissists”
Diagnosing abusers steals focus from survivors
If your Zoom call has poor bandwidth, it’s probably because the internet is currently choked with blog posts about “narcissists” and “empaths”. I don’t know how it began—but, as a therapist whose speciality is helping people heal from harm, let me say that it needs to end.
It’s not that there isn’t a grain of truth in it. And it’s not to suggest that some of the authors don’t have the best of intentions. But, by postulating a cartoonish battle of Star Wars proportions between the monstrous predatory forces of the Narc Empire and their cowering prey, the good-natured Empath peoples, we succeed only in re-victimising survivors and giving their abusers a power that ill befits them. It’s time we stopped categorising people and started focusing on what’s actually happened. Let’s bin the word narcissist and start calling abusers “abusers”. Here’s why.
It’s irrelevant
If someone abuses me, it’s irrelevant whether they are a narcissist or a Nazi. It doesn’t help to get in their head, because what is in their head is irrelevant. Trying to get in your abuser’s head won’t work anyway and will only ever keep you engaged with supplying them. It doesn’t matter how or how much they may have suffered or in what exact way…
