Projection: whatever you say I am, that's what you are

Trying to make a narcissist see the error of their ways is an intensely infuriating, pointless and ultimately ineffably self-defeating exercise. Every caring suggestion, accurate observation, justified accusation or constructive criticism either bounces straight off them or is met with seething, formidable anger and defiance. Typically, a narcissist will also do one of two things: project (blame-shift) or deflect (avoid the issue/change the subject).

Example: I confronted my mother (just once, in my twenties) about the fact she used to hit my sister and me. She did this frequently, and sometimes severe enough to make marks on our skin. Firstly, she minimised the physical violence ("it was just discipline; lots of parents smack their children; my mother smacked me, too"), then the blame was projected ("you were such difficult children; I was under so much stress after your father left... I was on my own, living with two rebellious teenage girls!")
Note: we were not difficult. We were not rebellious. And as I have said before, even if we had been, would that justify how she treated us? Even she knows the answer to that.

Narcissistic rage is a common reaction if the narcissist feels threatened, cornered or attacked - or even just simply irritated to the point of lashing out. (I was extremely good at irritating her. Usually I didn't even have to do or say anything to irritate her - my existence alone was enough to provoke her.) My mother's worst rages only ever took place behind closed doors, so whenever I have described her to others as violent, terrifying and volatile, her 'friends' assume that I am the one with a screw loose. To them, she's a diminutive, kind, spiritual old lady who goes out of her way to spread 'love, light and healing' to the deserving people of the world. (This is her 'brand', and yes, as you might imagine, it sickens me to my very core. And no, I am not, and have never been, one of those 'deserving people'. She has instead vomited out all her 'hatred, darkness and suffering' onto me and my sisters, so most of my enduring memories are thus of a person who is the exact polar opposite of the one my mother pretends to be.)

So, this leaves me, and every other narcissistic abuse victim, with a bit of a dilemma. When the person abusing us is going great guns with a smear campaign (trying - and all too often succeeding - to convince everyone that we, the victims, are actually the bad guys), how do we rise above that? How can I prove that I am not the narcissist, that I am not the toxic one, the psycho, the abuser? How can I prove that I am telling the truth?

The simple answer is: I can't. And merely by reacting with (natural) outrage and hurt to my mother's innumerable cruelties and lies - the wholly understandable act of attempting to defend myself - I risk showing myself up as unstable, unreasonable, maladjusted, crazy. I show myself up as everything she claims I am. Therefore, I have made the decision to not defend myself. Why should I bother? There's no point. I know my mother's game. I know the things she does, and I know the things she says, and the insincere, pseudo-maternal way in which she says them. I know the credulous people who uphold her heinous lies as gospel truth.

These people admire her. These people admire someone who I KNOW is a liar, a hypocrite and a child abuser.

So, I know that none of them really know her; certainly none of them has a clue what deliberate, sadistic psychological torture she has inflicted on her daughters while unashamedly parading herself as some kind of model mother.

And I now know what motivates her, and even more importantly, I know what terrifies her. This means I finally have the power, I am no longer the weak, eager-to-please, viciously exploited, downtrodden daughter, and this is why I know, with absolute certainty, that I will never hear from her again. She has no hold over me any more. None. She does not want what she can no longer control. She has no use for me any more. Sadly, I was only ever a 'thing' to her, a thing to be used and abused. Never a person, a human being, someone to relate to and connect with, much less a daughter to be loved and cherished. Perhaps that is the most tragic aspect of the NPD mother: the impossibility of perceiving your child as a human being... an awesome, loveable, unique human being.

What an incalculably massive loss for her. For both of us.