It’s Not Me, It’s You!: How Narcissists Get What They Want and How to Stop Them

By Karyne E. Messina

Bullies, bad bosses, human traffickers, and mean girls all manipulate their victims without lifting a finger. This sinister form of mind control is known in the psychoanalytical community as projective identification and blame shifting. Many millions of Americans suffer from this kind of abuse, but they don't have to anymore--escape and healing is possible. It's Not Me, It's You! How Narcissists Get What They Want and How To Stop Them will guide readers on their path to exiting toxic relationships and provide tangible, actionable solutions.
It's Not Me, It's You! is for victims of psychological abuse and provides tips and tools to both fight the pain and to heal. Throughout the text are stories based on representations of the thousands of patients author Dr. Karyne Messina has helped in her practice as a licensed psychologist. Some examples involve actual people, like musicians and businessmen, and the details of those cases are based on public records that are cited throughout.
Healing from the pain inflicted by narcissists is possible. It's Not Me will help you realize that you're not to blame and that you can take steps towards a positive and healthy life lived on your own terms.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Jul 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666799422

Karyne E. Messina

Dr. Karyne E. Messina, EdD, is a licensed psychologist and psychoanalyst at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis and is on the medical staff of Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. She maintains a full-time practice in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and is the author of three books on the psychology of manipulation.

Book preview

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The Me that Matters

What do bullies, bad bosses, abusive romantic partners, mean girls, and pimps have in common? They all manipulate their victims through a silent maneuver. In this process, they cast off or deny something they don’t like about themselves while attributing the behavior or attitude to another person.

This sinister behavior pattern allows abusers to control their victims through persistent verbal attacks. There is usually no physical pressure to submit: this kind of control is possible through the invisible power of projective identification and its cousin, blame-shifting.

Projective Identification and Blame-Shifting

Projective identification is a defense mechanism that propels a person to get rid of aspects of his or her personality while attributing the unwanted, intolerable characteristics to someone else or another group of people. This manner of negotiating with the world is often out of the person’s awareness—it is an unconscious defense mechanism that allows someone who is experiencing unpleasant thoughts or feelings to dispose of them. Though an unconscious response, this does not excuse the behavior.

Blame-shifting is similar, but the difference is that shifting the blame to another person is most often a conscious act. In other words, when blame-shifting is in play, whoever is exhibiting this behavior is usually aware of it. It can be employed to distract or to manipulate.

Many of us are stuck in toxic relationships, whether we are suffering under the relentless yoke of a bad boss or enduring abusive treatment at the hands of a domestic partner. This book will guide you on your journey towards healing and independence by examining real-world situations of projective identification and blame-shifting, alongside tangible solutions that can help you make positive changes.

It’s Not Me! is for victims of psychological abuse. It provides an arsenal to fight the pain and to heal. Throughout the text are stories created from actual cases; they are representations of the thousands of patients I have helped in my practice. Some examples involve well-known public figures, like musicians and businessmen, and the details of those cases are based on public records, which are cited throughout.

Healing is possible, and here you will find the tools to do that, which include: scripted dialogues, self-assessments, guided journaling activities, and further resources so that you can plan precisely how to take back control of your life. More resources are at www.karyne-messina.com.

This book is for you or someone in your life who may be suffering from this kind of abuse. As such, I have striven to avoid as much jargon as possible and rely on good, clear English.

Taking control means setting boundaries, and I will show you how.

Are you ready?

Let’s get started by examining what this behavior is and how you can identify it.

A Force You May Not Recognize

All blame-shifters and people who employ projective identification suffer from an inability to deal with their own feelings and attitudes about themselves. Their discomfort leads to a desire to dispose of these thoughts and feelings, but how do you do that? Projective identification and blame-shifting are the unconscious and conscious acts of dumping or shifting those negative feelings onto someone else.

On one level, the process works: the person doing the blame-shifting or projecting briefly feels better, and in some cases, the recipient senses something is off but isn’t quite sure what the issue is. When someone is acutely uncomfortable with a feeling, thought, or behavior, he or she projects—or shifts—it onto a target, claiming it was the recipient’s idea, not one coming from the blame-shifter.

Sound tricky? It is. This exchange is elusive and can stealthily enter your life without announcing its presence. It involves the act of dumping negative thoughts, feelings, or ideas onto someone else, oftentimes without the perpetrator or recipient realizing it. What is clear to the perpetrator, however, is that certain behaviors result in desirable outcomes (an abusive boyfriend gets his girlfriend to stay home; a bad boss sucks extra work out of her associates), which reinforces the behavior pattern.

As the perpetrator continues to project onto another person, the victim becomes acutely aware that something is wrong. This person starts to believe these nasty untruths and may begin to feel guilty or bad. In other words, the receiver thinks the perpetrator is right.

Bullies often engage in this behavior. Imagine a bully calling someone a loser. Most often, bullies are victims of abuse themselves—perhaps someone in the bully’s life has called him or her a loser. Rather than finding a positive or constructive way to deal with those feelings, the bully shifts those negative feelings to someone the bully has targeted as the ideal recipient of his or her negative thoughts. The person called a loser may feel confused at the outset, but before long, the victim believes the bully is right. When this occurs, the victim is identifying with the thought or feeling that the projector sought to dispel, resulting in the bully gaining unprecedented power over how the victim thinks or feels.

If this all sounds like a form of mind control, that’s because it is.

Melanie Klein’s Discovery

Let’s travel back in time for a moment to when this phenomenon was first studied and given its name. Coined by psychoanalyst Melanie Klein in 1946 to describe an unconscious process that happens in infancy, it was later expanded to describe a type of defense mechanism that occurs in adulthood. Projective identification refers to a defense mechanism that is used when someone doesn’t like something about themselves and projects those feelings or thoughts onto others. Think of the mean girls phenomenon, where a group will gang up on one girl for no outwardly obvious reason—that’s projective identification or blame-shifting.

Figure

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: Melanie Klein

Projective identification is a process that allows a person to get rid of some aspect of his or her personality that is intolerable. In the process, this quality is projected onto you.

The projector—the abuser in a relationship—feels like the bad feeling is gone once the blame is shifted to the victim. This feeling is temporary, but the abuser feels better, while you, the victim, feel hurt, useless, or stupid.

The victim/recipient of unwanted thoughts often feels stunned after the first occurrence of blame-shifting. There may be confusion at the outset: You may wonder why you feel this way. Perhaps nothing happened—it’s all in my head, you think.

Remember: Abusers are repeat offenders. and eventually, the victims believe what they hear, giving the abusers total control over what the victims think and believe.

Figure

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: The process of blame-shifting

How It Feels

Projective identification and blame-shifting happen quickly and in stages. It goes something like this: A person who is acutely uncomfortable with a feeling or thought in some circumstance feels the need to get rid of it. When this occurs, he or she will shift it to someone else. The receiver of someone else’s projected thought feels that something odd has occurred but doesn’t know quite what it is. The blame-shifter, on the other hand, feels relief. Blame-shifters often fantasize about keeping track of the receiver as a way to stay connected to the dispelled thought, but it is a way for the blame-shifter to monitor or control the receiver. The blame-shifter may, on a subconscious level, feel as though he or she shares one mind with the recipient. In these situations, the recipient of the blame begins to feel that making decisions is impossible—as though someone else is controlling their thoughts.

Now that you’ve read about the various stages of this phenomenon, do you think you have ever experienced any of them?

Whether you shifted an unwanted thought or feeling onto someone else or have been the recipient of this phenomenon, write a few sentences below reflecting on the experience.

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Understanding This Behavior Is Important to Ending the Cycle of Abuse

Projective identification and blame-shifting can ravage one’s sense of self as well as relationships because the dictates of one person can stifle the thinking of another person. The recipient feels as though he or she has been invaded by someone else who has projected unwanted and intolerable aspects of him or herself onto the receiver. In the psychoanalytical community, this can be referred to as a one-mind process, because the person who takes in the projection is not a willing participant in the exchange. It is as if the projector believes the victim should think as he or she thinks.

Tools to Manage the Abuse

Refusing to accept blame for things you have not done is the first step to regaining control of your life—a life that has been altered by false accusations. Requiring abusers to take responsibility for what they say and do will also help you take back control.

Essential to the healing process is cultivating awareness that you have been blamed for something you did not do. When you realize projective identification is occurring, take a moment to mentally process the event. Recognizing and naming the process while refusing to accept what has been imposed on you can be a powerful step towards regaining personal power. Whether through looks, gestures or spoken words, targets of blame can make it clear that what has been attributed to them is not theirs. It belongs to the abuser.

If the abuser can realize the problem resides within, it is possible for a two-minds process to emerge—essentially, allowing both abuser and victim to recognize the other as a separate person with separate thoughts. It is a mental decoupling of sorts. This shift can set the tone for a healthy way for people to interact and communicate.

Steps You Can Take to Stop Projective Identification and Blame-Shifting

•Stop being the target by giving back what has been. Refuse to allow the projector or blame-shifter to accuse you of what he or she has thought, felt, or done. To do this, you must let abusers know that the negative thoughts and accusations sent your way do not belong to you. This behavior often reflects character traits in the abuser, not the victim.

•If you recognize that someone is shifting blame to you for something he or she said or did, do not accept their version of the story. Hold on to your truth. This will help you maintain a sense of self instead of falling down the slippery slope of eventually believing the abuser. Turn the responsibility back to the source, where it belongs.

•Set limits with people who shift blame. Refuse to engage with them as long as they insist you have done something you know you did not do.

•Some people respond to written, informal contracts that state what you will and will not do. If you know a projector or blame-shifter who responds best to written declarations, write down what is and is not acceptable to you.

Key Points about Projective Identification and Blame-Shifting

•It is a thought or idea that comes from another person;

•It usually involves an accusation hurled at you;

•It’s often a surprise for the recipient;

•Eventually, you can start to believe what your abuser is saying about you;

•If the person is currently in your life, chances are he or she is trying to control you;

•This type of person tends to hang around you to make sure what was shifted is still as he or she sees it, as one of your problems.

•There is help. You can take back control of your life. Keep reading to find out how to do that.

Giving Back the Blame [Journaling Prompt]

How can you give back projections or blame attributed to you for things you didn’t do?

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Rewrite someone else’s version of you that you know isn’t true. For example: Your boyfriend thinks you are lazy, which you know is not true . . .

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How can you set better limits for yourself? List four ways you think you can accomplish this goal.

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Write down what you would like to say to someone who shifts blame to you.

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The Story of Brittany and Alex: Projective Identification or Blame-shifting in Action

Alex didn’t always abuse Brittany. When they first met, Alex showered Brittany with gifts and praise, but once the honeymoon was over, the mask came off and the gloves came out. The real Alex emerged—a petty, selfish, and authoritative manipulator.

Many years after escaping the relationship, Brittany wondered in a one-on-one therapy session where it went wrong. Brittany recalled an outing to celebrate a girlfriend’s birthday. She had a great time but decided to leave early since she told Alex that she wouldn’t be out too late. She even called him when she was on her way home. Her heart-rate quickened when Alex didn’t answer the phone. Brittany grew increasingly anxious and picked up the pace. As she approached the front door, she noticed that the lights were out, so she entered the home as quietly as possible, assuming Alex was asleep. But there was Alex, sitting on the sofa in the dark. Before Brittany could say a word, Alex grabbed her purse, opened it up and threw everything on the floor while calling her a stupid, trashy tramp.

Stunned, Brittany went numb. Alex had pouted and raised his voice to her before when he was angry, but this behavior was new. To make things worse, he ranted that Brittany robbed him of everything he’d ever had in life. Totally perplexed, Brittany sat down on a pillow Alex had thrown on the floor. She was shaking. The ranting turned to yelling and screaming. Brittany felt like she was in a fog but still tried to figure out what led to this outburst. Finally, after what felt like hours, Alex went to bed. Brittany remained on the floor, stunned, heartbroken, and confused. Slowly, her mind filled with self-doubt:

Had she been out too late?

Did she spend too much time with her friends?

Should she have stayed home rather than going to her girlfriend’s party?

Brittany’s normally buoyant self-confidence was fading fast.

In the days that followed, Brittany felt guilty about upsetting Alex. She vowed not to go out with her friends at night anymore. Alex seemed to gloat about his win and said that if she were smart, she would make sure to obey him.

As time passed, Brittany cut her friends out of her life and did everything with Alex. She hardly left the house anymore unless he came with her or if he gave her express permission. This only seemed to empower Alex, who became more domineering, controlling, and demanding. He became obsessed with being the powerful one in the relationship. Eventually, the harsh words became physical wounds, and Alex began beating Brittany for nearly any infraction. Even as he hit and belittled her, Alex told Brittany regularly how lucky she was to have him—though outside observers would say otherwise.

Sadly, Brittany’s story is not unique; the cliché of the abusive husband and his long-suffering wife is well-worn. But it does beg the question as to why women stay in such relationships. Brittany wasn’t ready to leave until many hard years had passed. When the situation was at its nadir, Brittany believed that she was flawed and therefore the root of the blame—it was her fault that she was so awful. Alex beat her to punish her and to show her how terrible she was. Clearly, this was not true, but in Brittany’s mind, it was.

She must have known she deserved better. Deep down, she did, but the persistent emotional degradation took its toll. Being told constantly that you are worthless will wear you down, and Brittany was no different.

Alex built and then maintained his control over Brittany through projective identification. Alex noticed something about himself that he didn’t like—perhaps that he was lazy or untrustworthy or had no friends. Rather than deal with those feelings constructively, he disposed of them by blaming Brittany for being useless and worthless. Shifting the blame worked, but the fix was temporary. Alex kept tabs on Brittany so that he could control her and, on an unconscious level, keep track of his unwanted feelings about himself.

Alex unconsciously pressured Brittany into behaving in a way that fit his idea of her. Brittany initially responded by doing what Alex wanted, which fueled the abusive pattern. She obeyed until she found the strength to speak with a professional and realized that she could take back her life. It wasn’t easy, but she did it.

What happened between Alex and