See the Behavior, Not the Excuses

Those of us who may have once had difficulty loving ourselves, raised by narcissists, are dependent on the opinions of others, and are people pleasers who feel the need to gain outside approval have a tendency to let abusive people off the hook too easily. We do this by our own internal thought processes. We make the abuser okay. We make the manipulative person okay. We make the narcissist okay to ourselves by making excuses for their behavior rather than seeing the behavior for what it is and taking care of our own interests.

I did a video on "Making Excuses for the Abuser" a week or so ago. This is a follow-up to that video.

Here is a list of examples:

Linda was rude to me the other night, barking orders at me and not letting me finish a sentence because she's a very intense person and she'd had 2 glasses of wine and all her friends around, so she was excited.

Behavior: Linda was rude to me the other night.

________________

Mark started yelling at me the other night while we were cuddling because he has issues. His mother abandoned him as a child and his ex-wife cheated on him. 


Behavior: Mark started yelling at me the other night for no reason.

________________

Kendra stood me up on my birthday because her phone was broken and she had to work late.

Behavior: Kendra stood me up on my birthday.

________________

Amy insulted the guy I am going on a date with, because she's jealous that she doesn't have a date.

Behavior: Amy insulted the guy I am going on a date with

 ________________

My husband just yelled at me to mop the floor, because I am not a neat person and he is.

Behavior: My husband just yelled at me to mop the floor.

 ________________

My best friend will only talk to me via email after midnight because that is the only time that is convenient for her.

 Behavior: My best friend will only talk to me via email after midnight

 ________________

My mother neglected my needs and allowed me to be abused when I was a little girl because she was so young.

Behavior: My mother neglected my needs and allowed me to be abused.

________________
 
The reason why a person offends you, harms you, manipulates or abuses you does not have anything to do with you. You are not responsible for other people and the reasons why they do what they do to you. You are only responsible to yourself for what you allow other people to do to you. If you are mistreated, it is your responsibility to set boundaries and limits to keep yourself safe and intact.

When you consider the reasons why someone does something and and place more value on the excuse than on the crappy behavior, you are giving too much to the other person and abandoning yourself. There are a few phrases to describe this behavior:

• Over Giving
• Codependency
• Over empathizing
• People Pleasing
• Approval Junky
• Doormat 
• Self Abandonment  
• Care Taking

There is no excuse to justify actions that are harmful to your being. You cannot get out of responsibility to protect yourself. You cannot rightfully take care of someone else at your own expense; if you do, you will end up harming yourself in the process.

It is your job, your right, your responsibility to take care of YOU and to make sure that the people in your life are respectful to you. If a person refuses to respect your boundaries and continues poor treatment and you continue to allow it without taking up for yourself or leaving, then things can only get worse. Your self esteem dies a little more each time you make other people's needs more important than your own.

In a perfect world everyone is out for everyone else. Everyone has empathy. Everyone is selfless and not out for themselves. In a perfect world, it would be okay to put others ahead of yourself. But this is not a perfect world! We live in a world where there are a lot of disordered people who want to manipulate you, deceive you, control you and gain the upper-hand in relationship with you. This is why it's crucial that you take care of yourself. This is why you must defend your identity by defending your right to be treated with respect at all times.

If you feel guilty for taking care of yourself whenever someone has a good excuse for mistreating you, then that is misplaced guilt. That means you are out-of-your own business. That means you are care taking another grown adult and colluding with that person to treat yourself disrespectfully. Why not feel guilty for allowing YOURSELF to be mistreated? Why not feel guilty for not setting boundaries and for sticking around someone who annihilates your sense-of-self?

Look at the behavior without clouding the situation with the reasons why another person is doing what their doing. You are not responsible for other people. You are only responsible for you. Take a stand for yourself and require that other people treat you with respect, or else. You can't give yourself away any more. It hurts too much.

Love Bombing

Love Bombing is a very common tactic used by narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths and other toxic individuals to lure a victim into trusting him or her and gaining power and control over the victim's life. Love bombing can occur in lovers, friends, family--anywhere you find a narcissist or toxic person. Examples of love bombing include any of the following types of behaviors...

• Texting you all the time
• Telling you you're their soul mate.
• Putting you in the same context as their long-term ex or ex husband or wife.
• Wanting to take you out.
• Liking everything that you say or do.
• Being over all crazy about you.
• Doing favors for you, going out of their way for you.
• Be extremely passionate sexually.
• I feel like you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen their whole lives.
• Being selfless while focusing totally on you.
• Progressing the relationship quickly.
• Future faking. (Making comments about a future that never happens...)
• Sweeping you off your feet.
• Promising you everything you've ever wanted in a relationship.
• Professing to be your best friend.
• Rushing to have sex, move-in together, get married.
• Sending you letters, emails, texts professing love and devotion.
• Being constantly available to you.
• Selflessly meeting your needs.
• Seeming to think you're the most beautiful thing in the world.
• Wanting to spend every moment with you.
• Tying up all your time on the phone, via text or in person.

Love Bombing is a tactic for brainwashing people. This tactic is often used by religious groups to recruit new members. Love Bombing is a cult-favorite and very disoriented for the victim. The victim feels flattered and overwhelmed by all the attention and adoration he or she gets from the love bomber. The Love Bomber is merely a sheep in wolves clothing... What originally feeds this victim will eventually feed off of her.

How Does Love Bombing Work?

Love Bombing works in the following ways to disorient, overwhelm and over-take the victim's normal thought processes:

• Causes the victim to feel flattered.
• Promises a needy victim the love he or she never got before.
• Isolates the victim from friends, family, etc... because focus is on Love Bomber.
• Causes the victim to ignore red flags because he or she is so intrigued by the constant flow of attention.
• Causes the victim to emotionally depend on the love bomber.
• Causes a feeling of reciprocity in the victim which makes him feel obligated to pay back the kindness of the love bomber in the future. 
• Incites the fantasies of ideal love / fairytale love in the victim which ultimately become a trap.
• Cause victim to trust the love bomber.
• Take the victim off track from their own internal guidance system.
• Cause the victim to believe that the love bomber truly cares.
• Cause the victim to disbelieve negative behavior of the love bomber which will come eventually.

The Problem with Love Bombing

The problem with love bombing is that it is not real. Sure, it would be great if another person would come along, sweep us off our feet, tell us we're the greatest person on earth, and give us the 24/7 unconditional love we missed-out-on as a kid. Yes, that would be nice... and we CAN get that kind of love, but not from a stranger. The kind of love the love bomber promises to fill is the kind of love that you can only give to yourself. You've got to love yourself the way the love bomber is pretending to love you.

Plus, the love bomber is so taken by you, that he MUST eventually give up the charade. It's not healthy to have someone so attached, attracted and dependent on you. Eventually, this person who is all over you will swing back the other way and become the opposite toward you. This is where things get painful for the unaware victim of love bombing.

The Results of Love Bombing

If you are taken away by the love bombing tactics of the narcissist, you're in for a very hard fall. These disordered people gain your trust, promise you the sun and stars, then drop you in mid air from an airplane without a parachute. You hit the ground. Kerplunk! It hurts! The key is steering clear of love bombers in the first place... Or, making sure you don't put all your eggs in this love bomber's basket to begin with. Also, allowing people to unfold over time instead of allowing them to rush you into a relationship or friendship before you're ready.

The Love Bomber is attempting to brainwash you by meeting all your needs and being super-attentive towards you. He or she subconsciously knows that they are hijacking your internal judgment system. Eventually, when she is done and has what she wants from you, she will discard you like a piece of trash. This is a very common tactic of the narcissist. To discard you. This is part of the Sweet/Mean Cycle.

Once you are hooked on this narcissist, it's too late. Your judgment is thwarted. Your identity is stolen. You get your sole source of feeling good from this person who once loved you, but is now treating you with disdain. The toxic process of devaluation includes these types of behaviors:

• Ignoring your texts.
• Not texting you anymore, or reaching out to call you.
• Not wanting to see you anymore.
• Withdrawing from the relationship.

These tactics are control tactics that narcs use to exact narcissistic supply from their victims. These tactics are also signals to your subconscious that you're doing something wrong and that you need to change what you're doing to please the narcissist. These tactics also teach you that something is wrong with you... (especially if you already have issues with this negative core belief to begin with). 

After the love bombing phase, you begin to see that it was all an act. This person didn't love you or care about you at all. You were simply taken for a fool and then you're stuck with an awful, painful mess of sorting through how you gave yourself away to a liar. This is where healing can begin.

Confronting the Liars In Your Life

One of the most pivotal processes in recovery from codependency, narcissistic abuse, childhood trauma, depression or mental illness is to confront the lies in your life. Through therapy I learned that many things I believed about myself and others were untrue. It was only after I discovered the truth for myself that I was able to see things clearly. The truth is the healing balm for whatever ails your soul, this is true.

Today I want to discuss confronting lies on a more granular level. Confronting the liars around you. Confronting the lies that other people tell you. Most of the people who read my work are people who are hurting, who have been abused, used, harmed and hurt their whole lives. We are on a journey to recovery, a journey to finding ourselves... 

In the process of finding ourselves, we must discover who we are not. We must also analyze the intricate interactions of our lives to figure out where and how we are deviating from our own personal truth. Believing the lies of others, or going along with lies without question damages your integrity, leaves you open for exploitation and takes you off your path to your Highest Good.

Personally, I've been screwed over by liars and manipulative people. I've been abused, exploited and harmed repeatedly. Why? It's because of the child abuse I endured from age 0-7 years. I was not taught to protect myself against unscrupulous blood suckers. In fact, I was trained to PLEASE these vampires instead. Talk about inside/out, upside/down. It has taken me a long time to sort out the ways I make myself vulnerable to those who wish me no good.


How do Lies harm you?
Why do you believe the Lies?

What is a Lie?

A lie is a falsehood (the opposite of truth) that someone else uses in order to get something from you without you knowing it. A lie is NEVER GOOD. Any time you recognize that someone is lying to you, it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to call them out so as to protect the integrity of your True Self.

Types of Lies

Lying is diverse. A lie can be anything...

• A promise to do something...
• Flattering you...
• Leaving out important facts...
• Telling you things that are not true about themselves...
• Faking empathy, compassion, care or concern...
• Alluding to the potential of meeting your needs...
• Making up stories...
• Being 2-faced...
• Sharing untruths about feelings...
• Saying they don't remember (selective memory)...
• Promising never to do it again...
• Not telling you who they were with...
• Leading you to believe they are one way when they are not...

 A lie is deception... yet, I've noticed a little nuance in my interactions with others... It seems that I tolerate and welcome lies from other people without question.

I was always taught not to confront others. As a child, I was taught that everyone else was right and I was wrong, which left no room for a lesson in assertiveness and confrontation when appropriate. Today, I noticed recently, that I tend to "go along with" lies that others tell me without stopping, trusting my truth and confronting the liar directly. Well, that's all about to change.

Healing and growth comes in spurts; for me, I've had to build myself up from utter demolition. Sometimes it takes granular work like this to lay hold of your personal truth and stand guard over it like a mother with her cubs. I am my own responsibility.

People will lie to you as long as you let them. If you don't confront another in their lies, their lies will continue. Some people don't play fair. They're all about power and control. People who are kind, compassionate, empathetic and naive falsely assume everyone is like they are... they can't fathom lying to gain advantage, so the thought that someone else would do it never crosses their minds. If you're a good person, you may not see what hits you--that's why good people like us need strong boundaries and assertive confrontation skills to keep our spirits from being thwarted by the lying serpents in our midst.

Not confronting a liar in your life can lead to DIRE CONSEQUENCES. Looking back on all the times I've been hurt by narcissists, emotional blackmailers and takers, I can see it all started with a series of lies. Had I taken a stand and confronted these people upfront, I would not have been so easily veered off the path of my personal truth.

Lies are meant to capture your attention and energies that should be moving toward your HIGHEST GOOD, and draw them for the sole benefit of the liar himself/herself. Lies are used because they work. It is relatively easy to tell a needy person everything he/she wants to hear and get them to forget who they are, where they're going and why they're here. If you want to protect yourself from abuse in the future, it's crucial that you start standing up to EVERY LIE you encounter. You cannot operate from your truth if you allow yourself to be corrupted by lies.

Who Lies to you?

Anyone can lie to you, in fact, I bet you can find lies all around you if you pay close attention. Get yourself a journal and start recording the lies you encounter from others day-to-day. Lies come from everywhere--especially if you never confront those who lie to you...

• Children
• Spouse
• Clerk at Store
• Date 
• Parents
• Siblings
• Best Friend
• Boyfriend/Girlfriend
• Neighbor
• Therapist
• Television
• Government
• Media 
• Church
• Cults 

You name it! People all around you may potentially lie to you or tell you something that has the potential to alter your behavior in their favor, all the while not intending to follow-through, or expecting you to require them to.  In the civil and criminal courts, this is Fraud.

I'm not trying to turn you against your loved-ones, I'm just trying to get you to confront any and all lies in your life because going along with those who lie to you is like living your Life in the False Lane (definitely a good title for an article).

Why Confront a Liar? 

Confronting a liar is a mental boundary that will help you to stay centered in your truth instead of lead astray from your highest good... If someone lies to you, that person is trying to put one over on you. It may be your child. This doesn't mean they are evil, it means they need to be confronted. You cannot allow people to lie to you no matter how difficult it is to confront the bullshit.

How to Confront a Liar

Liars come in all shapes and sizes. Not all liars are slithering serpents that Adam and Eve discovered in Eden. Some liars are your cuddle partners, your fiance and even your best friend! How do you confront these "little white lies" and omissions in your life? Here's a list of tips:

• Listen to what other people are telling you. 
• Clarify the statement when someone tells you they'll be doing something for you.
• Request confirmation of promises and facts.
• Ask questions around the lie (this lets them know you're not gonna fall for it). 
• Listen to your inner voice when it tells you not to believe what another is saying. 

Whatever you do, don't gloss over a lie and pretend you didn't notice it. These lies you gloss over form a giant clump from which you can be foisted from your self protective stance. A lot of lies can eventually topple you over completely. People can lie their way into your life, your bank accounts, your marriage and your bedroom. Put a stop to it as the keeper of your own soul. No more lies!

Why worry about the feelings of someone who is lying to you??? We must be much more concerned about the victim to the abusive lies, and that person is YOU. You are valuable and you deserve to be told the truth and you're not falling for bullshit lies.

• You're not trying to sell me anything? Hmmm... Are you sure you're telling me the truth?
• You're not going to Hawaii next month? Why did you tell me that you were?
• If I join this group I will make a lot of money? How much money? Is there a chance I won't?
• You didn't mean to allow your dog to bite me? Wow. This is a new habit your dog just learned?
• How much do they love you at work? Are you really a shareholder?

People who will lie to you are people who want something from you. Anytime you're considering a new relationship, or new transition, be on the lookout for liars. Liars prey on the needy--strong, independent people are not likely to fall for the lies of the liar. Only people who are weak and feel insecure about confronting lies will end up victims of exploitation from everywhere around them.

Start watching for lies, confronting lies and setting boundaries accordingly. Do not tolerate lies. Do not stay with someone who continues to lie and violates your boundaries. Stick with the truth so YOUR TRUTH can flourish and outshine on every lie.

Understanding Manipulation

When people manipulate you, they do it consciously. Manipulators are not on the defensive, but rather, on the offensive--attacking you.

Manipulation Tactics Part 2: Rationalization / Excuse Making

Manipulators obstruct values of social interaction. They also use power and control as weapons to get what they want. Manipulators make rationalizations and excuses.
Rationalization is the person saying that they hear that you don't like the behavior, but they're not going to change. When an abusive person is called out and they rationalize their behavior, no matter how convincing, what they're saying is that I hear what you're saying, but I'm justifying that I am doing is okay even if it's not okay.
When it comes to a wrong behavior, there is no excuse. A disturbed character will make a case to try to still look good, and manipulate you into accepting their excuse.

Manipulators rarely answer a direct question. They're good for putting you on the defensive, making you feel like a bad guy for confronting them.

Why Manipulators Manipulate

Why Manipulators Manipulate

Great Audio of "Why Manipulators Manipulate" by Melanie Tonia Evans

Why Manipulators Manipulate

Notes on Melanie Tonia Evans talk:

If we are around manipulation, and we continue to hang around to receive it, then we have to go into maladaptation. We have to change our own levels of authenticity when we're involved in that, and that absolutely undermines our self worth. If you are aligned and solid in your truth and your authentic self, you would not be hanging around with someone who manipulates you (such as a narcissist or other manipulative person).

When you're on the battle field with a manipulator, you have no choice but to become someone you are not because your true self is under constant attack.

An essential truth of life is, we need to be very aware of the levels of consciousness that people have in your life because if you are intimately connected with people or spending a lot of time with people, what happens is that your levels of consciousness start balancing out and meeting. Either your consciousness is going to meet those people's levels, or they're going to drag you down to their level of consciousness.

The only way to raise your level of consciousness is to take responsibility that "I am creating my own life."

Manipulation is a way to play out unhealed wounds. Manipulation occurs from core wound / core belief of unworthiness without manipulating external circumstances. Comes from place of lack, outside yourself.

The only place worthiness can ever take place is within your own inner being, regardless of the conditions outside of you. We never have control of conditions outside ourselves. We only ever have control of our own beingness, and how that beingness is manifesting itself through us.