By Kat Wilkins
Narcissistic Systems: Perpetrators, their Protectors, and their Prey (Part 2: The Path Forward)
In the previous post we spent time describing the pattern that plays out when onlookers come to the defense and protection of an abusive person and ignore or even attack the victims. If you’re reading this and have not yet read Part 1, please consider going back and reading that here first.
So now that we’ve explored the three main roles of perpetrator, protector, and prey, what does recovery look like? I have some ideas and thoughts to offer based on each character’s unique challenges and situation.
Some of these thoughts come from my training and decade-long experience as a trauma therapist. Some come from my personal journey of navigating through this kind of abuse.
As you read on, please remember that these are just ideas; there are certainly many paths to recovery, and everyone’s journey will be different. No one can put a timeline or agenda on your healing.
An Invitation
When I wrote this article and the outlines below, I imagined it as a kind of invitation much like a paper invitation you might receive in the mail for an event. There are guidelines, like, say, the dress code, theme or what the weather will be like for the event. But you get to choose what you do with it –how you respond, whether you attend, and how you might dress or what you might bring, as well as how long you stay. Similarly, I hope that you see the ideas written here as an invitation where you get to choose how you engage, what you take, and how it might guide you.
Disclaimer to Readers
Before I share some of these possible paths to healing, I want to acknowledge that this is hard work. It takes immense courage to walk through the pain, harm, and darkness. It’s simple to give recommendations; the act of actually taking any of these steps in your life requires patience, bravery, and a whole lot of support.
A Word to Survivors
As I sit here typing this, I’m thinking about each of you who will read this, especially victims (or “survivors,” if this word is preferable for any of you). I feel deep gratitude that I get to say some things to you, and the weight of this opportunity to help you step into compassion and healing. Thank you for being here, and for spending time with these words and thoughts. I also feel such tenderness toward you for your courage to be here, now, today. I hope you know that even reading these words, you’re embodying honesty. I’m imagining that you’ve been through so much. Your body has had to carry much. There aren’t a lot of guarantees. But as I picture you and what you might be carrying as you read this, here are a few promises I hope I can share with you:
You can’t do this alone. The harm that has been done to you in a community requires a (probably different) community as you heal. Can you think of even one person who is a safe, compassionate presence for you? Perhaps you consider saying to that person in some way, “thank you for being my friend. I’m going on a tough healing journey. Would you be willing to support me in _____ way?” Support systems can include friends, family, colleagues, medical providers, therapists, and so on. I offer periodic abuse recovery groups and would love to see if this might be a good fit for you. Contact me about potential groups here.
You are not alone. Even if you can’t think of one person to be a safe supportive presence, I want you to know that there are others like you, who are enduring unimaginable pain and longing for wholeness. One option for connecting with other survivors is to join a cohort with Broken to Beloved, an excellent nonprofit.
You are worth loving. It’s ok if you don’t believe this. I’ll believe it for you.
There is immense wisdom in you. My years of working with clients has convinced me that our bodies inherently know when things aren’t right – and how to heal. One of my favorite forms of trauma treatment is EMDR, which harnesses the ability your body already has to heal, but gives it the space and safety to be able to do so. Reach out to me to see if you may be a good fit, or to read more about EMDR here.
The Path Forward
Below, you’ll read lists of what recovery or healing might involve for each category we’ve discussed up to this point. Please keep in mind that they are not exhaustive, but merely starting points and suggestions. I hope they are helpful for you on whatever journey you’re on.
If some of it is hard to read, I hear you. If this is you, consider taking a few deep breaths. Take care of yourself and please only take what is helpful for you. Leave the rest. I hope some of these words can meet you where you’re at.
The Prey (victim-survivors)
The abuse wasn’t your fault. It’s some of the very best things about you –your kindness, goodness, tenderness–that were taken advantage of by your abuser. Your abuser likely used favoritism and flattery at times to earn your trust and prevent you from feeling free to confront him. This is common.
Take as much time as you need. There is no shortcut around the process of healing. As mentioned above, no one else gets to put a timeline on your recovery.
Your story is worth listening to. Gabor Mate said that “trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.” Empathetic witnessing means holding your story/experience without rushing to fix, solve, minimize, bypass, or shame you. Consider who might be an empathetic witness to your story (this can include a therapist).
Your body is worth listening to. Your body carries in you all the things you’ve been through. Trauma gets stored in the body and can present in symptoms such as depression, anxiety, hypervigilance, flashbacks, self-doubt, shut-down, anger, inflammation, chronic pain, and more. Healing often includes reconnecting with the painful parts of being a body and learning new and safe ways of being with yourself and attuning to your own experiences. Explore more about how embodiment is necessary in trauma recovery here.
You don’t have to be perfect. Making mistakes doesn’t validate the harm that was done to you. Nothing can excuse the abuse you suffered. You will stumble and struggle–and that’s ok.
All parts of you are welcome. Living in the narcissistic system likely meant that parts of you weren’t safe to be seen and known. Healing can include meeting or re-meeting all the parts that you had to disown in order to belong for a time in that orbit.
The Protectors (who defend the narcissist)
Begin the work of naming the harm done to you in your past. As trauma begets trauma, so does healing beget healing. The more you’re able to bring light and healing to the dark shameful places in your story, the more natural it will be to transmit kindness and care to others instead of transmitting your pain, reactivity, and harm. This is trauma work, and should be done with great care in the presence of someone trained and equipped to hold it with you.
Listen to the ones you’ve harmed. They are the best people to tell you what repentance, taking ownership, and perhaps even reconciliation should look like. Don’t demand that they engage with you – but don’t let that stop you from taking ownership. Doing this well will require managing your own reactivity and learning to be a listener. Be a listener to victims of all kinds of abuse. Read reputable experts on topics of abuse. Practice empathy for all kinds of people who have suffered abuse. Get professional help as you try to do this. Be slow, gentle, and curious.
Develop the ability to self-reflect. Honestly ask yourself, “what have I done?” without defaulting to either pole of defensiveness on one side or self-loathing on the other. This means grounding in the wise adult part of you that knows that everyone makes mistakes, and it’s not only possible to take responsibility, but also can be freeing rather than crippling. This step will most likely require the help of a good therapist or knowledgable mentor.
Look with curiosity at the why of your complicity. What was it about the situation that made it simpler, safer, easier to side with the perpetrator? What benefits did you gain by siding with power? What would it have cost you to stand up with the victim against the harm? What in your own personal life story would help you more deeply understand your harmful actions or failure to take a stand? As you do this work, be curious about your own wounds or unmetabolized shame that may have led you to (or contributed to your staying in) the orbit of the abusive person as an ally: was it a need for belonging, power, to be seen, to feel important? Narcissists prey on these needs and use them to rally enablers around themselves. It will be helpful to be curious about the interdependent dynamic between you and the narcissist. What needs did you try to meet through your relationship with the narcissist in some way? These questions must be asked with deep compassion, probably alongside a safe person, such as a therapist.
Take responsibility for the harm you caused, and its impact. Own the ways that you became responsible for harm by taking the side of the abuser, and further victimizing the victims. This is truth-telling to yourself, which might be the beginning of other forms of truth-telling, and thus, a step of healing. This means being curious and courageous. You will need a village of kind, patient, compassionate, but honest and brave people to help you do this because there will be times you feel you can’t even stand up under all the weight of what you’re facing.
The Perpetrator (Narcissist)
This one looks different from the previous two, simply because a narcissistic perpetrator won’t be influenced or swayed by a list like this. It may be wishful, fantastical, magical thinking that moved me to even consider trying. So, instead, I’d like to mention just a few things I wish the narcissistic abuser from my story could hear me say. Here goes:
I’m really angry at you. And that’s okay. But one day, if we ever meet again, and you’re ready to take some ownership, I hope I can welcome you with warmth and weeping and grace. Not because you deserve it, but because I want to be a person who lives like that. For myself and my integrity, I will keep doing my own work that enables me to hold the tension of “what you did was unconscionable” with “I can still long for goodness in agony, beauty in devastation, truth over terror, justice for the vulnerable, and change for the unchangeable.”
I want so much more for you. Living with the armor you wear, the poisonous darts you throw, terrified of being found out–this is a really sad existence. I wish you could experience the warmth of vulnerability, empathy, and connection. The freedom of being your true self, and of being loved underneath all the thick, prickly, toxic skin you wear.
You needed to be cared for too. Your enablers should have held you to a higher standard, and showed the courage it takes to speak truth to power. They could and should have helped minimize the damage that you caused. They bear a huge part of the responsibility for the harm. They utterly failed you and that’s not right.
The Narcissistic System
Just as harm happens in a system (whether it’s a family, institution, church or organization), so the healing must include the system as well. Here are some ways a system that has become narcissistic might work to heal:
Start by listening. Listen to the people who have been harmed. The people you’ve written off as “bitter” or “difficult.” Listen to writers and speakers who are well-trusted within the abuse survivor communities (see footnote 6). who have studied abuse and its impact on survivors and systems. Hire an outside expert to assess your system, and give them access to everything. No secrets.
Publicly take ownership for the systemic harm. Be direct, specific, and do not dismiss or minimize the harm that has been done. Do not coddle or make excuses for the perpetrator.
Identify the sickness in the system: patterns of reactivity, including conflict, withdrawal, and triangulation. This will need to be an outside job; the people within the system are too close to assess it accurately.
Practice transparency and humility as a whole. You lose the right to institutional privacy when you violate the vulnerable.
Provide care for victims and other members. Freely give access to resources, therapy, and systemic healing.
Begin a process of reconciliation and reparations. Go overboard in generosity and compassion. There is no such thing as being too kind, generous, or compassionate.
Know that working toward systemic health never stops. It’s a long-term process that requires intentionality, patience, and creativity.
As I conclude these thoughts, I think back to the scenarios at the start of the first post in this series. The suffering victims who are left alone and confused about the harm done to them, and why no one seemingly cares or sees. If you’re one of those, I hope some of these words have helped you–even in your bones–feel seen and heard.
Your abuse wasn’t your fault. I’m so sorry about the things that happened to you. You deserved so much better.
On my own healing journey from spiritual abuse, I’ve come to see a lot of things differently. One of those is prayer. While I used to see prayer as more or less talking to God about specific things, I now tend toward a wider, broader definition–that prayer can include a big whole-bodied longing for something such as justice and healing, and a trust that my Creator knows the words I’m not sure how to speak. Perhaps all of the words above are a prayer. At times as I wrote these words, I’ve felt in my body a wild, shaking, crying for justice. At other times, it’s felt more like a surrender of things I have no control of. Mostly, it’s been a still, quiet tender ache for you, the victim, the survivor–the displaced, distressed, disenfranchised, disheartened, downcast, and downtrodden.
As I pray in this way, through these words, I find comfort in the belief that the abuse I endured, and the abuse you’ve endured, aren’t something our Creator ever wanted for us. Perhaps because of what you’ve gone through, particularly if it was done in a religious institution or in the “name” of God, this may not resonate for you. That’s ok. Remember, the healing journey will look different for each one of us. You are allowed to be exactly where you’re at. I’m so grateful to have gotten to share these things with you. Thank you for being here. Wherever you are on your difficult journey, may you know that your pain matters, that you’re worth listening to, and that you’re filled with wisdom and the capacity for healing. May that give your body the space to breathe in a little deeper at this moment. Please reach out if I can support you in your journey forward.
Notes:
(1) In a foreword written by Gabor Maté for Peter Levine, In an Unspoken Voice (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2010).
(2) Wade Mullen, Chuck DeGroat, Diane Langberg, Laura Anderson, Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer are just a few worth mentioning.
(3) Organizations such as GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in Christian Environments) or Pellucid Consulting can be hired to make organizational assessments. For families, consider hiring a systems therapist (hi!) who has experience working with narcissistic family systems.
(4) The book Pivot by McKnight & Barringer, describes a lengthy process of developing and maintaining healthy systems, particularly in spiritual settings.
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Kat is an Orlando-based trauma therapist who specializes in spiritual trauma, narcissistic abuse, and complex trauma. Her clients have taught her that pain can be a pathway to healing. She offers trauma intensives and telehealth therapy, as well as consultations for individuals or organizations. Read more about Kat here.
Kat can be reached at katwilkinscounseling@gmail.com
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