The Narcissist Corrupts : Honesty
There are many traits which are inherent to those who are of an empathic nature. You possess these traits; this is why you were picked by us. These traits are used by your emotional thinking and corrupted by the narcissist so they are used against you.
These traits are regarded, in your world, as laudable traits to have. These traits however make you vulnerable to us. They cause us to be attracted to you in the first instance and the existence of these characteristics means that they are ripe to to be exploited by us. These traits are good traits to have but because of us they become polluted, desecrated and exploited.
You cannot lose these traits. They are as much a part of you as your skin tone and eye colour. They define who you are. You may, unusually, try to rid yourself of them but you cannot. It would be like trying to rip out your own heart and still live. These traits are infused within you. For the most part you will be pleased you possess these characteristics, thankful that they assist you and define you, separate you from being one of us. You ought to be aware however of what these sins are so you know what it is that causes us to home in on you and furthermore how it is that we exploit these sins for our own benefit. With that knowledge you will be able to look to protect the relevant characteristic and ensure it remains intact and is not attacked, shredded or fed upon by us.
The first of these traits is the empathic sin of honesty. James E Faust said of honesty,
“Honesty is more than not lying. It is truth telling, truth speaking, truth living and truth loving.”
This aptly demonstrates how honesty is at the core of how an empath behaves. You utilise this honesty in everything that you do. It governs how you interact with people, how you speak to people and most of all how you conduct your intimate relationships. I am not suggesting that this empathic trait makes you a saint; you will not be above pocketing the excess change if the cashier hands you back too much money or refraining from telling a friend that the outfit they think is wonderful does not really do them too many favours. Your honesty is tempered with discretion and being circumspect when you identify that a lighter touch is required. You understand when being too honest with another is not appropriate. Nevertheless, honesty is of huge importance to you. You regard it as a fundamental factor of your character to act with honesty, both in terms of those you deal with and especially in respect of yourself. This core of honesty and its repeated application to your every day outlook in life makes it ripe for exploitation by us.
The exploitation commences at the seduction. When you engage with people, you have a tendency to allow your emotions and traits to be seen by all. You do not hide the way you feel. You do not operate from behind a mask (not like others you may know of) nor from behind a curtain. You do not cloud your dealings and operate in a shadowy manner but rather you exhibit who you are from the outset. This is of no consequence when you are dealing with your fellow empaths or even the normals but it becomes especially dangerous when you come into our sights. Not only do we have a heightened ability to sense the traits which matter to us, you aid this because your honesty means that you have all your characteristics on display. Just like a proud shopkeeper displaying his wares in a pristine shop window, you exhibit (but you do not flaunt) your inherent traits for the world to see. This means that your empathic and class traits which are so important to us when we target our victims are out in the open because of your honesty. You have an honest default setting. It is akin to having no privacy settings on your social media so that whoever takes an interest in you can see everything about you, everything that you have ever posted, where you live, where you have been, your photographs and so forth. This default setting is important to us as it makes our task of identifying you so much easier. When you are demonstrating those empathic traits through your honesty, they are highlighted, prominent and readily identifiable. Accordingly, if you keep wondering why you always seem to attract our kind, it is because your honesty is causing you to stand out to us.
Your honesty means that you engage with people without an agenda, without suspicion and providing them with the benefit of the doubt. This honesty of approach means that you fail to see those red flags which are fluttering during the seduction and that you fail to hear the blaring klaxons and see the flashing red lights which signal that something is amiss. You operate in an honest way and this causes your thinking to be framed so that you expect and assume that the person you are dealing with is honest towards you. This honesty takes you into the territory of gullibility. Add to this that we are of course not being truthful with you in the way we engage during the seduction and you have little chance of avoiding what we are doing; seducing you and doing so effectively.
The inherent honesty which you possess also means that you tell us how you feel and you will do so early in our interactions with you. Since we are engaged in love-bombing you at the outset it is nearly impossible to resist telling us how wonderful it feels and that you have fallen in love with us. Your early declarations in this regard are wanted and expected. Hearing this allows us, along with seeing the relevant indicators, to know that our seduction is proving successful and that you are being embedded. Gaining such knowledge is important for us in terms of ensuring that we have the level of fuel that we want but also in terms of allowing us to bind you closer to us, for instance by asking to borrow money or by moving in together. Your honesty results in your telling us what you are thinking and feeling, which in turn gives us the green lights we require.
Your honesty makes you transparent. You cannot hide anything from us and most importantly of all, you are unable to hide your feelings from us. Thus you will always struggle to hide your joy, your delight, your ecstasy, your pain, your tears, your annoyance and your agony from us. This emotional honesty is fundamental to why we engage with you. This means that the fuel you provide to us is purer that any which might come from another source. Yes, the “normals” will provide us with fuel through being happy to see us, through praising us or annoyed at being messed around by us. Even our own kind will provide fuel to another member of the brethren through exhibiting jealousy, annoyance or anger, but in both these cases there is an absence of emotional honesty which is prevalent with you as an empath. Your emotional honesty creates a fuel which is pure, free from toxins, devoid of pollutants. It is not masked, it has not been shrouded or clouded in some way, as is the case with normals and most certainly with our kind.
By being emotionally honest you ensure that your fuel is the best of all types and naturally this is why we are drawn to you, sink our teeth into you and start to drain you of all that sparkling and pure fuel.
Your honesty makes you a target to begin with, it makes you an easier target to latch onto and the reward of this pure fuel means we want to keep hold of you and keep returning to you to feed on it.
The matter does not of course end there. Your empathic sin of honesty generates further problems for you once the devaluation commences. We are dishonest. We are habitual liars, practitioners of deceit and operate through a skewed lens of fraudulent intent. When we engage in these dishonest practices it mortally offends your innate honesty with the consequence that you respond by providing yet more fuel. This offence to your honesty combined with your honesty drives you to want to make us see the lies that we so readily allow to fall from our deceitful mouths, to have us address our mendacity and recognise what we do. This only serves to bind you to us further.
The honesty you have with your self also means that you have a capacity to be introspective and the consequence of this is that you regularly self-flagellate by blaming yourself when you can find no other answer to our behaviour. The narcissistic perspective and our toxic logic, which are invariably a mystery to our victims means that you fail to understand why we do and say as we do. Your honesty causes you to look inwards and you blame yourself. This fulfils our desire to remain unaccountable and increases the weight of the burden of our engagement with you, upon you. Your honesty causes you to accept blame either where it does not lie with you or in a greater proportion that for which you are culpable.
Your honesty of dealings also prevents you often of speaking of the devaluing abuses outside of your relationship with us. At first, that may seem a contradiction, but you would feel dishonest if you spoke about them to others without informing us first of your intention to do so. You, by this stage, have learned that it is a safer course of action to suffer in silence rather than speak out to us and in turn you will not speak of what is happening to others, not until the pressure has become too great or more likely once you have been discarded by us.
The enduring love you experience for us, or more accurately, your addiction as a consequence of our infecting you, means that when those hoovers come post escape or discard, you are unable to shroud or hide how you truly feel and once more you light up like the brightest beacon. You signal to us that your love (addiction) remains and thus there is yet more fuel to gather and that you are so susceptible to our machinations to pull you back into our grasp once again, be that to extract fuel or to commence the Formal Relationship once again.
We know you are honest. It shines from you and we identify it from the way you conduct yourself and what you say when we target you at the outset. Not only is the identification of this trait confirmation that you possess one of the many traits that we look for, it also confirms that certain actions will succeed and certain responses will take place.
It is often stated that honesty is the best policy. It is certainly a policy that we endorse. It is an enduring trait of the empath and one which we will corrupt in order to control you and keep you controlled.
22 thoughts on “The Narcissist Corrupts : Honesty”
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This is an intriguing paragraph:
“Your honesty of dealings also prevents you often of speaking of the devaluing abuses outside of your relationship with us. At first, that may seem a contradiction, but you would feel dishonest if you spoke about them to others without informing us first of your intention to do so. You, by this stage, have learned that it is a safer course of action to suffer in silence rather than speak out to us and in turn you will not speak of what is happening to others, not until the pressure has become too great or more likely once you have been discarded by us.”
I’ve often wondered what kept us from speaking out about the abuse we suffer at the hands of the narcissist. I’ve often thought it was embarrassment or shame. It’s shameful to have to admit someone is abusing you. The reason for that, I believe, is that we consider we are at fault, or the reason for the abuse taking place. Our empathic and introspective nature lends us to blaming ourselves for our ills. First and foremost..
It’s possible that we would feel dishonest, and also disloyal, to speak ill of the narcissist, or share what is only our secret for the moment. The narcissist may renege on his/her bad behaviour, and that is what we hope. What we hold close to our hearts may yet reveal an understanding or truth we are seeking. Change may yet materialise.
If only what we saw is what they could become.
Do you have one of these on loyalty, HG?
Hi LET, in my own experience, I didn’t even realize I was being manipulated and abused. I was in complete denial. I don’t feel like I was protecting him because I was embarrassed or ashamed. Although that’s how I feel now. But before I knew he was a narcissist, I didn’t even feel a need to protect him. I just was in complete denial. I didn’t even recognize it was abuse. Both of my daughters, on separate occasions said to me he was a narcissist and I didn’t believe them. I actually even defended him and told them not to speak about their father that way.
Its all conditioning. The narcs in our lives have conditioned us to behave and react in a certain way and we don’t even realize we’re doing it. It just has become second nature to us. The more I delve into learning about narcissism the more I realize how deeply narcissism has affected me. It has affected in ways I never would have imagined 4 years ago. It has encompassed my whole entire being.
I think of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett. All Jada had to do was look at Will. That’s it. And he got up and took care of it. Its puppet mastery at its best.
Leigh, great point, I wouldn’t have called it or recognized it as abuse either. I would’ve defended him had someone else tried to call it that. But no shame or embarrassment either, because of the denial. Until the end when it was too crazy not to be embarrassing, but that was a whole different thing.
Hi Leigh,
You make a good point, and often we don’t recognise what the narcissist is doing as abuse. We are conditioned, especially as ACONs to accept our experience as the norm. I’m glad you pointed that out as it’s very important to understand. It’s also interesting how you came to the defense of your husband in the circumstances. That’s the reality or outcome of the conditioning you mentioned. Questions are asked about why the non-narcissistic parent didn’t leave the narcissist and you help provide one of the answers. They may even go so far as to defend the narcissist, not realising they are ensnared.
My comment was more focused on HG’s take on the honesty of the empath, and how the narcissist corrupts that by ensuring we don’t speak up due to that trait – the reason for me saying I’ve thought in the past it was shame and embarrassment that held me back. Like the empaths we are, we take things back on ourselves. That’s being honest. The need and desire to self-reflect. How have I brought about this situation?
We also can’t expose the narcissist. That would be dishonest in terms of the loyalty we sense towards them.
I shared a perspective on Will Smith some time ago which expressed an understanding of how an empath could be so beaten down by a narcissist they could take such an action. Puppet mastery, I agree, and at what cost to the individual and to others? The only way to begin cutting those strings is to hold the individual accountable. That is for their sake as well as others.
LET, oh yes, I see what you’re saying now. Since we often thought that we caused the abuse, we felt embarrassed and ashamed about that. Why would we want to talk about something we caused? Maybe about 7 years ago or so, I started questioning how everything could be my fault. I still didn’t see the abuse but things didn’t add up. Even then, I only spoke with one person about it.
LET says, “The only way to begin cutting those strings is to hold the individual accountable.” That sentence hit me. I really think you’re on to something here. I’m gonna let the sentence resonate for a little bit. I know my husband is a narc. But do I hold him accountable or do I give him free pass because I see no point because he’s a narc?
Hi Leigh, I was thinking allowed the abuse. Thinking we caused it or “simply” allowing it was embarrassing for me and my ET used that to keep me in place. We’re can be our own worst enemy sometimes.
This is really good point, AV. Again its our ET conning us! Our ET convinces us to feel embarrassed that we caused or allowed the abuse and subsequently we keep quiet about it. Son of a bitch! Thank you for pointing that out. That one flew right over my head!
Hi Leigh, glad I helped you with that!
Leigh, you got it in a nutshell:
“Since we often thought that we caused the abuse, we felt embarrassed and ashamed about that. Why would we want to talk about something we caused?”
Said it better than I did 🙂
We keep it to ourselves, partly because it doesn’t make sense, and then partly because we blame ourselves. It’s almost like our honesty is turned against us – that’s a true corruption of this empathic trait.
I’m glad my last sentence resonated with you. That one was directed more at the victim of the narcissist who is reacting to the narc’s influence by treating others badly (e.g. Will Smith/Harry). If we call them empaths, my sense is they then get a free pass in terms of their behaviour. This bothers me. You don’t get a free pass because you’re an empath. You get called out, and as an empath you respond accordingly, by reflecting and hopefully becoming more aware of how your behaviour is affecting others. There’s still a choice to be made, but the remit of an empath is not to play victim. In that case, I’d be more inclined to think ‘narcissist’. Part of the problem I have with Harry.
When it comes to your husband, I’m not sure calling a narcissist out helps with anything. It probably just feeds into their desire for fuel. I’d err on the side of knowing what he is and planning how best to escape, or limit any interactions that draw you further in, Leigh. He will never be held accountable – no narcissist ever is – and the blame shifting on his part will just heighten your ET.
I think as we absorb more information, we become more ready to do what we need to do and defend ourselves against the narcissist. If escape is on the cards, then that is my wish for everyone here.
LET, I agree. There’s no point in calling a narcissist out on their behavior. The more I thought about it the more I realized they don’t do accountability so what would be the point. That’s why the only option is to Get Out Stay Out. Staying just makes it a lose lose situation. If you continue to do for the narcissist, they win by getting a residual benefit. If you hold the narcissist accountable, they win because you’ve provided fuel. GOSO is the only way.
Thinking about Harry and Will makes me sad. Their minds have been hijacked by the narcissists in their lives. I think about myself and before I knew and how often I would protect my narc husband or come to his defense. At some point, they may gain clarity. When and if they do, its highly likely they’ll be consumed with regret about the way they handled things. I know you’re right and they shouldn’t get a free pass but I can’t help but give them one. They don’t see the puppet strings so how are they supposed to cut them?
LET, another comment that is really great, so relatable. I would add a reason to the list of why we don’t speak to others of what’s happening, week besides they one that HG addresses is Why Can’t They See it Too?. For me, the idea that telling someone what was happening would mean that I would be forced to face what was happening and then be forced to change it. Even to admit the truth at that point wasn’t likely. The idea of changing it, overwhelming. Paralyzingly so. I think for me this was the biggest reason I didn’t tell anyone, to face the truth was terrifying.
AV, this is interesting. I agree that there are different reasons in different stages of the relationship. Before I knew of my husband’s narcissism, I didn’t talk about it because I was in denial. Then when I found out what he was, I still didn’t talk about it because like you said, the idea of change was overwhelming. Change for me in general is terrifying. Now add into the mix that I would have to change my whole entire life and that thought paralyzed me. Now that I’ve had time to process it, I still don’t want to talk about it because, I’m pissed at myself and embarrassed I’ve stayed this long. Narcissism really does suck!
Yes it does suck! Don’t let your ET use your frustration with yourself or your embarrassment to keep you there longer. Not worth it.
I know, AV. My ET is sneaky. It has conned me more than I care to admit.
Same here. I hate my ET.
AV, another great point. The odds against us can be overwhelming, both in the sense of the need to change what is happening if we finally admit it, and “Why Can’t They See It, Too?” maybe makes the point of how we convince others that the ‘street angel’ is really a ‘house devil’ … another reason not to tell. How can we share honestly when no one else is likely to believe us? We all know who ends up the bad guy in that situation.
There are so many interesting points about honest and how that trait affects the empath which I’d never even considered.
LET, yes, honesty affects so much, so much more than I had realized until recently also. I have not been honest with myself or anyone else in these relationships. Not with my parents or my ex’s. The conditioning, that I couldn’t trust my own perception, helped lead to this lack of honesty of course but now that I’ve become aware of it, how deeply ingrained it is, it’s a massive undertaking to try to change it and I see how it ties to many things that keep me vulnerable to being ensnared again. I have to believe it can be done but my ET is always trying to get me to believe it can’t. So there it is, a two-fold battle. I so don’t want to have to be honest, it is scary, it is unnatural for me, it is work, hard work. But it is also dishonest and I can’t live with that, now that I know. So I either change or I stay right where I am. At least that is a choice I get to make for myself. But good grief, what an awful choice.
AV, it’s a really difficult choice sometimes, being honest with ourselves.
How completely the narcissist corrupts this trait as we seek to protect them while we remain vulnerable.
They gaslight us into being dishonest with ourselves and with others.
Definitely a battle that can’t be fought effectively until our eyes are opened to how it came about, and then the choice, as you say, is ours.
It’s hard to change the habits of a lifetime.
Yes, so many moving parts to it and the really sad part is that I only recently realized this was my (changeable) part in the whole fiasco. There are likely others also but this is the biggest one at the moment. I feel like I need to slow everything down, way down, for a period of time to really focus on this, being honest with myself and everyone around me. It is easy with my kids, I think with them in many ways I’ve always been honest. Not regarding their dad though. Not regarding my life with my parents. Those are things I have felt would only hurt them to know. But lately I’ve started to wonder if some of those things should be shared. Not everything of course, but some that would help them know me better. This honesty issue is one I will share, it pertains to me, but to share it some other things will likely come out also. I have to think about how to handle that. Anyway, sorry for the long comment. Thanks for the chat, it’s been really good.
Oh, yes, and it just dawned on me that there were different reasons at different stages of the relationship.
Hmmm… haven’t read that. Very good text. I relapsed several times and my thoughts ran away.
Honesty – there’s nothing I can do about it.
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“Do you have to be so damn honest?!” – I heard from my mum a few weeks ago when she found out that I refused the promotion (for completely different reasons – I would have to show gratitude and lower the current level when my whole body was screaming not to do it).
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There is another problem with honesty. Non-narcissists fear it. They confided in me so many times, after a few weeks-months-years of knowing me, that at first… they were afraid of me 🙁
Narcissists don’t give a shit, they take what they want. And they gets.
Joa I don’t think non-narcissists fear honesty. I am assuming you mean normal people who don’t have too little or a lot of (or too much) empathy. It seems to me that they look at a situation practically and work out when honesty is required and when it’d be better not to use it. They don’t enjoy lying like greater narcissists do or do it almost unconsciously to further their aims like the mid rangers and lessers. They probably focus more on what will bring the most positive outcome for overall, for those they like or love, for themselves and then for others. It’s not selfish, it’s just….practical.
If anything they fear bad consequences that could come from truth telling and it’s probably a fairly reasonable fear, or a practical fear, because telling the truth does not always improve a situation.