2. Projection.
Projection is the phenomenon of a person literally assigning to you the attitudes, behaviors, and character traits that they do not like, cannot accept, or acknowledge about themselves. And the truth is we all do this to some degree until we become aware enough and do enough of our own shadow work that we do it a lot less, catch ourselves when we do and consciously choose to arrest the behavior. And therein lies the problem when we’re talking about narcissists and the phenomenon of projection.
First of all, they lack the fundamental capacity for honest self-reflection. And although you may hear them pay lip service to do the work, they actually see no reason to do any real work on themselves. They also tend to carry a lot more in their subconscious disowned shadow than the average empathic human. So, there’s a lot more stuff to project subconscious that may be. This is one way the narcissist unburdens themselves from the heavy load they carry in terms of subconscious or semi-conscious, fear, insecurity, feelings of guilt, shame, inferiority, deep self-loathing, and other unresolved issues and traumas. They don’t have the ability to confront, re-experience, process, and heal.
How projection works is rather than acknowledging, and owning their stuff, and doing their own work, they projected onto the nearest highly empathic target. And the family scapegoat knows exactly what I’m talking about because those of us who were cast as the family scapegoat have had a lifetime of this starting in early childhood.
A Book: Will I Ever Be Free of You?: How to Navigate a High-Conflict Divorce from a Narcissist and Heal Your Family.
The narcissist will accuse you of thinking, doing, and being exactly what they themselves are thinking, doing, and being. If they know deep down that they lack personal integrity and self-respect, they’ll either accuse you of the same or they’ll accuse you of thinking that they lack personal integrity and self-respect even if that’s the furthest thing from your mind. They’ll project that disowned part that they can’t accept or acknowledge about themselves onto you.
Here’s what you need to know about projection. The more high voltage and disproportionate the attack, the more intense the name-calling, the more bizarre the accusations, the more you can be sure it’s a confession. The louder they yell, the louder they scream in their fit of rage, the more you can be certain that they are fully talking about themselves, whether they consciously realize it or not, that is exactly what’s going on.
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