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Enabler Is Your Enemy, Snake in Your Grass

Uploaded 12/15/2022, approx. 2 minute read

And this is the topic of today's video.

Enablers.

Enablers are not your friends, they're your enemies.

My name is Sam Vaknin, I'm the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited, and I'm a professor of psychology, believe it or not.

As I said, enablers are often mistaken for friends when in reality enablers are your worst enemies.

Enablers encourage your self-destructive behaviors. Enablers aid and abet your suffering. Enablers amplify any self-harm or self-harming conduct.

Enablers are there to participate in your self-defeat and self-destruction, to egg you on, to provide you with the tools and instrument of your self-annihilation.

A true friend would never hand you a loaded gun knowing that you may be suicidal, but an enabler would do exactly this.

An enabler would have sex with your girlfriend at your request, aware all the time that this will cause you excruciating pain. An enabler would ply their alcoholic or junky friend with drinks or drugs. An enabler would encourage a shopaholic to shop even more.

Would encourage a workaholic to work even more. An enabler would go on retail therapy sprees with a shopaholic.

An enabler would induct you into bed company, hoping for the worst outcomes.

Beware the enabler.

Enablers are charming. They're smiling. They're solicitous. They're intelligent. They pose as your best friends. They bring you anything and everything you want.

You want alcohol, it's there. You want drugs, it's there. You want them to have sex with your girlfriend. They oblige. They're always at your beck and call. They're always available. They're always there to cater to your needs, especially express needs.

But they're snakes in your grass. They're dangerous people, unbounded, mentally ill.

People who derive pleasure from inflicting pain. Enablers are actually sadists.

You have been warned.

Okay.

If you enjoyed this article, you might like the following:

Best New Year Resolution: Fake Friend Out!

Getting rid of fake friends is essential for personal well-being, as they often act as enablers and undermine your self-worth. True friends support you during difficult times and celebrate your successes, while fake friends capitalize on your vulnerabilities and rejoice in your failures. Weak people pleasers, often mistaken for kind individuals, can be particularly harmful as they lack boundaries and may betray you to gain approval from others. Ultimately, removing toxic relationships from your life is crucial for maintaining your mental health and happiness.


Weak People Pleasers? Walk Away!

Weak character is often associated with unreliability and instability, leading individuals to engage in reckless and antisocial behavior due to their inability to assert boundaries. People pleasers, in particular, may enable the self-destructive tendencies of others, often mistaking their submissiveness for kindness or empathy. This weakness can stem from conditioning by needy parents or mental health issues, resulting in a cycle of self-loathing and harmful behaviors. Ultimately, it is advised to distance oneself from such individuals to protect one's own mental health and well-being, as their actions can lead to further victimization of those around them.


Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers

Narcissistic mothers often fail to recognize their daughters' autonomy, treating them as extensions of themselves and conditioning their love on the daughters' compliance and performance. This dynamic leads to insecurity and co-dependency in the daughters, who may feel they must earn love and fear abandonment in their adult relationships. As adults, these daughters may perpetuate unhealthy patterns, remaining in toxic relationships and sometimes becoming inverted narcissists who exclusively seek out narcissistic partners. Alternatively, some may develop counterdependent traits, rejecting authority and intimacy while projecting an image of self-sufficiency and superiority.


Giving Narcissist Second Chance

Narcissists do not provide closure in relationships and will stalk, cajole, beg, promise, persuade, and ultimately succeed in doing the impossible to get you back. The narcissist will cast all interactions with you in terms of conflicts or competitions to be won. If you have resumed contact because you are manifestly dependent on the narcissist financially or emotionally, the narcissist will pounce on your frailty and exploit your fragility to the maximum. Ultimately, the narcissist will write the inevitable cycle of idealization and devaluation.


Fake, Narcissistic - or True Friend?

Self-destructive actions can be tolerated by fake friends, who offer unconditional respect regardless of behavior, while true friends respect you based on your actions. Trust from a true friend is conditional and earned, whereas a fake friend claims to trust you unconditionally. True friends provide honest reflections of reality, while fake friends only reflect your own image back to you. The motivation behind a true friendship is genuine love, whereas a fake friendship is often driven by self-interest and ulterior motives.


Mourning Yourself After Narcissistic Abuse

Grief can become pathological when it extends beyond a year, leading to prolonged grief disorder (PGD), which is characterized by an inability to move on from the mourning process. This condition can manifest in various forms, including grief over lost relationships, jobs, or even fantasies, and often results in a constricted life where individuals feel stuck and unable to find joy. Narcissistic abuse can exacerbate this disorder, as narcissists create an environment where victims experience idealized self-love and unconditional love, only to withdraw it later, leading to profound grief and a sense of loss of self. Ultimately, the prolonged grief experienced by victims of narcissistic abuse is not just about the loss of the narcissist but also about mourning a part of themselves that has been altered or lost in the process.


You Could Be a Flying Monkey, too!

Anyone can unwittingly become a narcissist's flying monkey, serving as an extension of the narcissist's influence without realizing it. Narcissists manipulate those around them through their convincing narratives, drawing people into a shared fantasy where they become defenders of the narcissist. This dynamic can lead individuals to support harmful behaviors and even adopt narcissistic traits themselves. It is crucial to remain self-aware and question whether one's actions and alliances may be contributing to the perpetuation of narcissism.


Victim of Narcissist: Move On!

The narcissist lives in a world of ideal beauty, achievements, wealth, and success, denying his reality. The partner is perceived as a source of narcissistic supply, and the narcissist pathologizes and devalues them to rid themselves of guilt and shame. Moving on from a narcissistic relationship involves acknowledging and accepting painful reality, educating oneself, and gaining emotional sustenance, knowledge, support, and confidence. Forgiving is important, but it should not be a universal behavior, and no one should stay with a narcissist.


When YOU Discard the Narcissist FIRST

When a person discards a narcissist before they have the chance to devalue and discard them, it can lead to either narcissistic injury or narcissistic mortification, with the latter having more severe and lasting effects. The narcissist may perceive the discarding individual as a rejecting maternal figure, triggering re-traumatization and potentially leading to emotional dysregulation or reckless behavior. Following the discard, the narcissist experiences separation anxiety and seeks to restore object constancy by either hovering or stalking the individual, attempting to reconcile the dissonance between their internal representation and reality. Ultimately, the narcissist may reframe the situation to maintain their self-image, either by claiming they caused the breakup or by portraying the other person as malicious, while simultaneously seeking a replacement to fulfill their disrupted shared fantasy.


Narcissistic Parents Possessive: Envy, Destroy Their Children, Offspring

Narcissistic parents, particularly mothers, often perceive their children as extensions of themselves, leading to feelings of betrayal when the child asserts independence or deviates from the parent's idealized image. This perceived betrayal can result in the mother transforming the child into a persecutory object, prompting aggressive and punitive behaviors aimed at suppressing the child's autonomy. The relationship is characterized by emotional manipulation, guilt induction, and control mechanisms that prevent the child from developing a separate identity, ultimately leading to a cycle of dependency and dysfunction. As adults, children of narcissistic parents may struggle with insecure attachment styles, repeating unhealthy relational patterns, and either becoming codependent or developing narcissistic traits themselves.

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