How to Spot a Dangerous Man

Here is an excerpt from the article, " The Three Rs of Accountability ", at Luke 17:3 Ministries. Many offenders are fond of saying, “But I didn’t mean it that way” or “I never meant for that to happen” . BUT INTENT IS NOT THE ISSUE. RESULTS ARE... ...Everybody makes mistakes. Where most of us begin to lose our patience is with those who never LEARN from their “mistakes”- this tells us that these are not really “mistakes” at all, but rather ongoing patterns of behavior. If something is truly accidental or inadvertent, an accountable adult has no problem sincerely apologizing, doing whatever he can to fix the situation, and moving on. Mature adults do not have a problem apologizing for errors in judgment, or innocent mistakes that caused harm to others. There is no guilt or shame attached to a truly unintentional offense. Those who feel guilty and ashamed avoid taking responsibility. One who did wrong deliberately, selfishly, or with malicious intent will be ashamed whe...

What follows below is my dissection of my sister's "apology" email. This was an exercise I did within a day or so of sending her my response since I was still turning her statements over and over in my mind. The only way for me to put it to rest was to completely pin her down onto paper. It worked very well to that end. My hope is that my dissection of this non-apology will be helpful to someone who is dealing with something similar. My comments are in bold print. ************************************************************* My Dear Sister, I am so sorry that my last response offended you. She is apologizing for my feelings-- which means nothing. My feelings are not something she has control over. She can only control her own feelings and her own actions. So apologizing for my feelings is like apologizing for the sunrise. Meaningless, stupid and condescending. Why condescending? Because of the presumption of power over me that it assumes. It isn't necessarily ob...

Six days later sister received my response. I make a reference to "EQ" in this reply. There is a pop psychology term called Emotional Quotient....it is usually referred to as "emotional intelligence". My sister likes to think of herself as emotionally intelligent. I'm the book smart one and she's the emotionally intelligent one according to her. All the evidence I can reference from my sister's history and mine would reveal that she's not only average on the IQ scale, she's not got a high "EQ" either. I think she has confused her ability to manipulate, lie and bamboozle with being emotionally intelligent. Getting people to give you what you want can't be the only measure of "EQ". What follows are the last words I have "spoken" to my sister since April 20, 2006. She made a tentative contact last December that I wrote about here : Dear D, Some things have become very clear to me in the wake of your ap...

One of the main reasons I'm sharing this exchange of emails between my sister and me is because she is a slippery fish. Her tactics tend toward the subtler side; her non-apology a work of art. I'm hoping by exposing her tactics that it'll help someone out there who is trying to deal with a similarly slippery fish. If you're new here, the "Labels" section of this web page has a category of "My Sister" which contains a history of my sister and myself going back to before she was born. The " last straw " event occurred within the email exchange I am now sharing. The first exchange of emails is here . The next parts of the exchange are here and here . I had never before thought that I would ever ax my sister out of my life. I had assumed that arm's length would be a safe enough distance. The turmoil in my emotions as I was assaulted with my sister's manipulations, lies and smooth words was worse than what I went through with my ...

In light of my sister's upcoming "apology" email that I'll soon be posting, I hope ya'll will check out this cynical take on non-apologies. I added it to the "links" section of this blog and it is titled " How NOT to Apologize When You Have Seriously Fucked Up ". It is a work of brilliance.

The fifth form of narcissistic non-apology described in this article is that of deflecting blame. I doubt you've lived this long unscathed by this mighty diversion tactic. This section of the article is comprised mostly of a description of an event with a psychotherapy trainee with more guns in his arsenal of self-defense (because of his psych training) than even the average narcissist. You can read their example for yourself. As you read, notice that the false premise of the narcissist is one of complete and perfect self-sufficiency. It is this unrealistic goal, this idealized sense of the world and themselves, that underpins their inability to either sincerely thank someone or to truly apologize. Both states, apologetic and gratitude, require a belief in humanity's interdependency; that we need each other and that none of us are perfect. The narcissist ascribes to, as the article described it earlier, "a sinless, needless self-concept". If you have dared ...

You'll probably recognize this diabolical little form of non-apology if you've ever managed to really corner a narcissist with their bad deed(s). When they are caught with their pants all the way down around their ankles they will often resort to this form of non-apology which can appear like they are going completely belly-up. Beware of being fooled by this one. You need to stay observant. First, here is a quote from the article on " Denial of Remorse & Gratitude " that I've been serially visiting. All emphasis mine: We have noticed the tendency for narcissistically vulnerable people to engage in a kink of ritual self-castigation in the wake of an undeniable or unrationalizable failing toward someone. This is a process even more elusive than explaining, and harder to distinguish from true apologizing ... ...In the case of a person with a narcissistic character disorder, ...

Another version of a non-apology... What jumped out at me as I read this article from Contemporary Psychoanalysis was how many versions of non-apology I would get in one interaction with either my sister or my mother. In the process of one "apology" they would use every one of the iterations of non-apology defined in this article. I had to get into my forties before I could start to recognize that these women had never apologized to me for anything in all my life. I went through this recently with my sister. She had pulled one of her stunts and I called her on it in no uncertain terms. She waited for a couple of weeks and then sent me an email with her "apology". Oh, it was a grand attempt. What she didn't anticipate was how transparent her explaining, blame-shifting, appeals to her perfect intentions, etc. were to me. I nailed her between the eyes with my rejection of her "apology" and told her we have no relationship as far as I'm conce...

Appealing to Good Intentions I long ago quit accepting "good intentions" as an apology finding myself completely irked by what was obviously a defense and not an apology. I hadn't quite come to understand what precisely was happening when this kind of apology was being given...the "repair of their inner self-concept, not the mending of the feelings of those in their external world". It is so obvious once stated. Keep in mind that one can receive or dish out any of these iterations of a non-apology without being a full-blown narcissist. Yes, a person who gives any of these non-apologies is certainly "narcissistically defended" at the moment they do this, but if the person you're dealing with consistently issues non-apologies then you have reason to suspect a malignant narcissist rather than just a momentarily defensive human-being. Narcissistic Pathology of Everyday Life: The Denial of Remorse and Gratitude

Why the narcissist can't say "I'm sorry" or "thank you" in a way that feels real to you.... I found this article extremely helpful and insightful so I'm going to continue to comment on some of the content here. There seems to be in all of us a disposition not to acknowledge how much we need others. Similarly, we all seem to have some fundamental discomfort admitting to mistakes and failures..... For the purpose of this essay, the aspects of the grandiose self that we wish to emphasize includes its being without need and without sin. A transaction will be considered as essentially narcissistic insofar as its main goal seems to be the shoring up of a sinless, needless self-concept. There follow some examples of everyday behavior suggesting the unconscious operation of a grandiose self-representation, followed by a discussion of ...

or how the narcissist makes you the problem There is an interesting article published in 1990 in a psychology journal that I'd like to reference in this and upcoming posts. Parts of the article are more interesting than others so I'll summarize some of them in my own words. The parts of this article that I plan to highlight here on my blog are those concepts that I've personally seen and experienced. If I've seen and experienced it, then it is likely you have too. One of the concepts this article visits is the subject of criticism as used by the narcissist. One of the terms this article uses is "narcissistically defended person". What this means is that the person is either a narcissist, or they have adopted narcissistic defenses even if their over-all personality can not be classified as someone with NPD. So, some of the behaviors can be seen in a person who can not be reasonably classified as having the full-blown disorder of narcissism. But, I'm...