Betrayal of the bystanders. It is something many of us have experienced. It goes hand in hand with a narcissist's abuse. They make sure they surround themselves with dupes who love a lie.
Which reminds me of what the Bible says in 2 Thessalonians. It talks about those people who have never learned to "love the truth"...the consequences of this are then stated. Because they don't love the truth, they are completely susceptible to delusion. The axiom here is: If you don't love truth you will believe and love lies.
This, to me, is a scary reality. I long ago decided I would embrace truth because the truth is where life resides. Lies may accomplish short term goals, but in the long run living in lies embrace life-destroying effects. The complicit bystanders who lap up gossip like a cat laps cream are exposing their love of lies. They are dangerous to your life. When they are exposed to you as the result of a narcissist's attempt to assassinate your character, your best choice is to put as much distance between the credulous bystanders and your self as possible.
Kathy Krajco has clearly defined the bystanders as she does all topics she addresses. Go have a read. She is condemning the bystanders who actually have personal knowledge and experience of your character. I can hardly imagine that anyone who has stood up to the narcissist in their family has not experienced this "betrayal of the bystanders". Those people who have known you for years, decades, and yet suddenly un-know everything they ever knew about you to believe the complete opposite of what you are. It is a particularly cruel act. One that demands you apply a hatchet to any relationship you had with them. Beware of people who "Drive Under the Influence of a Narcissist" (DUIN). They are as dangerous as the N. They are drunk on lies and not safe for close association.
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I call it double-think, like Orwell's double-speak.
Astounding, really, when the bystanders expect you to believe that yesterday's reality is today's lie, when they tell you that events involving you didn't happen, that you actually imagined it all.
It only makes sense to someone living in a delusion. It follows that the bystanders who betray you to a liar are themselves liars and untrustworthy.
What really hurts is when that bystander is your spouse.
Here's more for you Anna:
http://narc-attack.blogspot.com/2007/08/power-of-suggestion-on-bystanders.html
http://narc-attack.blogspot.com/2007/01/why-narcissists-lie-like-crazy.html
http://narc-attack.blogspot.com/2006/09/youre-supposed-to-pretend-narcissists.html
I completely agree. In some ways these bystanders are almost worse than the narcissists. I feel they're not as paranoid and delusional as the narcissist, yet none of them stand up to the narcissist. No one wants to upset the narcissist and put up with the temper tantrum so they all just appease her.
"What really hurts is when that bystander is your spouse."
I agree it really hurts when my dad and my brother are the bystanders. They even suffered the same things and still they just stand by when I want to end it.
It was a smear campaign with betrayal of several "friend" and family bystanders(who I've actually realized were narcissists) which finally decided me to cease all contact (except letter writing) with my mother. Over several years my mother contacted friends and family (which I asked her on many occasions not to do) and asked questions and seeded doubt. She would take random pieces of information and create a continuing plot geared toward each person she contacted to elicit the response she wanted from the next person in the chain. She asked them not to tell anyone. She was only collecting information. What did she care if some people outright lied, or put their own spin to their answers. It was feeding her need for attention in all those ways we know narcissistic mothers do with their daughters. She convinced friends and family that she was acting only in my best interest.
My point being, narcissistic mothers can fool many people and some of them are quite sophisticated in their manipulations for attention. This whole attack was brought on by several factors 1)My moms retirement from teaching (ie. loss of pupil's adoration). 2)Loss of her mother whom she was never close to but afterwards created quite another picture of their relationship to friends. 3)Moved 300 miles away from us children, and last but by no means least 4) because of having some breathing room I was starting to emerge from beneath her sorcery. Hence, the complicated lengths she went to to keep me under her spell. I;m fortunate that it turned out the way it did in the end. I feel like I've been released from prison although I still feel guilty to stopping contact with her. I just keep reminding myself that I'm not crazy and I didn't imagine it.
Recently, my mother has tried to pull the same stunts with my step=sibling who haven't been brain washed as I was. It didn't go over so well. I told them welcome to my world. I told them not to apologize just to smooth things over as they did nothing wrong and it would only be showing signs of weakness which she would continue to exploit. What bothers me and them the most is their father is so co-dependent to my mother that on an unspoken level their relationship with their father is being held hostage. And so it continues .
So glad you wrote this. So glad you'v kept it up, because it is relevant again and again being an adult child of narcissistic parents. It's happened (sadly and unfortunately) more than one period of my life, because of my mother or father. Even in death, my mother turned "friends" against me. Live and learn and live and learn this lesson over and over. ... Actually, glad you pointed out that the problem is credibility. Don't trust gossips or heck alcoholics (they love a good lie too). And, all my parents friends drink too much.
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