Mx. Luna Corbden 🐸

From the archives. A way to spot red flags of a covert abuser who is talking the talk:

Malignant narcissists will hide behind the values that their subculture believes will protect its members. On the left, it's feminism and anti-abuse rhetoric. We believe those values protect us, so the abuser will hide behind those, even preach them loudly to others. On right, it's family values, which serve the same purpose for them. Those are values of protection. The worst covert abusers are either feminist- or family-values guys.

#AbuseCulture

Jul 8, 2023 at 8:11pmWeb
Show thread🏳️‍⚧️ EliJul 8, 2023
@corbden Is this post about abusers, or about folks with personality disorders? Narcissism isn't a stand-in for abuser and using it as such just demonizes people with personality disorders.
Show threadMx. Luna Corbden 🐸Jul 8, 2023

@eli I've seen this criticism going around and as a victim of a certain type of abuse, it frustrates me. It's one reason I put "malignant" in front of it, to allow for benign narcissists.

It's awkward when the very traits that qualify a person as NPD also happen to be destructive behaviors that take on a certain pattern. It robs victims of that particular kind of abuse (it IS a very particular kind) of our ability to talk about what our abusers had in common, and help people spot those patterns in order to avoid them.

There are abusers who are not narcissistic. I mean, we ought to have some empathy for those kind of abusers, too. But no way I'm letting either category off the hook for patterns of malignant behavior. If the very thing that defined them weren't also incredibly destructive, as in, my entire life was destroyed and I still haven't put myself back together after nearly a decade, I'd agree with you.