Narcissists Need Scapegoats

Kitanya Harrison
Narc Alarms
Published in
3 min readJun 2, 2021

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Photo by Nandhu Kumar on Unsplash

Nothing is ever a narcissist’s fault. Self-reflection precedes genuine accountability, and narcissists can’t do that work, because their whole lives are constructed around protecting their severely damaged egos and masking their low self-esteem. You can’t wrestle with a false self-image in a meaningful way. As a result, narcissists need scapegoats to shoulder the burden of taking responsibility. They are experts at passing the buck. Narcissists often recruit a group of confederates and enablers (called a “harem”) to serve their needs. The harem usually includes a designated scapegoat the narcissist uses as a dumpster for all the bad feelings that arise when anyone tries to hold them accountable. At some point, everyone around the narcissist will be scapegoated. The moment when they’re first thrown under the bus is when targets may begin to cotton on that something isn’t right in their relationship with the narcissist.

I wanted to talk about scapegoats in a different context, though. Being in a relationship with a toxic person can change people in ways they don’t expect. There’s a way narcissist’s deficient characters infect the people around them, because our perceptions of the world are shaped by the people we spend time with and who have influence over us. Constantly responding to toxicity (even to resist it) can make someone toxic too. I think scapegoating is an area where targets are particularly susceptible. It’s never a good feeling to be told you’ve fallen short. The tactics narcissists use (particularly love bombing) can create a pattern where someone else is always scapegoated for their targets’ failures. It’s why some targets’ standards lower precariously, and they stagnate after the narcissist enters their life. It can happen shockingly quickly, particularly if there’s a gaslighting harem around to make the floor of the low standards seem like a ceiling of achievement.

Ironically, the narcissist often becomes the target’s scapegoat after the target realizes they’re abusive. Narcissists’ unrelenting envy makes them sabotage their targets, and their grandiosity and inability to relate on a genuinely human level means they don’t care where the lines are, so they’re constantly overstepping. They’re easy to blame. They’re also tough to get rid of. Inertia and familiarity can be difficult to overcome, particularly in relationships with covert…

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Kitanya Harrison
Narc Alarms

*squinting in Nanny of the Maroons* | Read my essay collection, DISPOSABLE PEOPLE, DISPOSABLE PLANET: books2read.com/u/mBOYNv | Rep: Deirdre Mullane