For anyone who has had issues with a narcissist or other toxic individual, it is evident that they love to fan the flames of discord. Oh, they’ll smile and try to hide the bellows behind their back, but they’re definitely keeping that fire nice and hot when no one is looking.

When a narcissist chooses a scapegoat (or sometimes more than one), within a family, workplace, or other environment, they then need to continue the narrative against that person at all costs. Without the continuation of this false narrative they have created against their target(s), the entire system upon which they bolster their fragile ego, is at risk of collapsing. This is especially true when they feel that their control is being threatened. Some examples of this may be an enabling parent showing kindness or some other form of positivity towards a scapegoated child, or it could be a scapegoated individual in the workplace who is having a friendly chat with a “flying monkey” co-worker in the lunchroom. Narcissists in particular can’t allow those types of things to happen because it goes against the picture they’ve painted of their target, and they also don’t want to risk people having a discussion about them and discovering the truth.

When toxic people feel threatened, they react with more manipulation and aggression. Basically, they start what is known as a smear campaign. They call their enablers to action through more lies, negativity, and exaggerations about their targets. They ramp up their alleged role of victim in their twisted game where they are, in fact, anything but victims. And their enablers naively jump to their defence and (in their minds) heroically rescue them from such horrible behaviour. Most of the time, enablers and flying monkeys don’t even attempt to hear anyone else’s side of the story. They flat out believe the nonsense they’re being fed. In my experience, some enablers will also return to scapegoating the narcissist’s target simply to bring an end to the ranting and raging. What they truly believe is anyone’s guess; their goal is simply to find a (usually temporary) reprieve from the toxic person’s thunderstorm. Overall, though, toxic people will pull out all the stops in an effort to maintain their control and position within their environment. Those false narratives are the very foundation of the protection of their egos. If they couldn’t triangulate and place blame on others, then they might ultimately be asked by their enablers to face accountability or, even worse, be forced to honestly evaluate themselves and engage in introspection. To a narcissist or other toxic individual, that would be a fate worse than death.

So if we’re the scapegoat and we recognize, based on the behaviour of others, that the narcissist/toxic person in our life has been frantically pumping those bellows and turning up the heat against us, even though we’re typically left in the dark as to what has been said, what can we do? Well, that varies by individual. One method that people find useful is to not JADE; that is, don’t Justify, Argue, Defend, or Explain. Yes, that’s a challenging task. No one wants to have lies floating around about them, and it’s human nature to want to JADE. But another more viable option is to simply live our lives and let our behaviour speak for itself. And in all honesty, silence speaks volumes, people. It truly does. There will always be enablers and flying monkeys. That’s just a fact of life. It lies with us to decide how much we will allow those dynamics to create negative personal impacts for us. Yet another option is to learn to let go of or distance ourselves from people who don’t see us as we truly are, but, rather, choose to believe the tales being spun about us by toxic people who are all about being in control and actively working to destroy relationships that they feel threatened by. Even though it’s easy to feel trapped within toxic systems, and we’ve often been trained to feel that we’re permanently stuck, helpless, and lacking any control over our own lives, we do have choices as to how we react to toxicity and dysfunction being aimed at us. We truly do have power. Remembering that fact and feeling empowered by it is half the battle.

Until next time,

Heather ~Natural Clarity Coaching~ naturalclaritycoaching.com na********************@***il.com Natural Clarity Coaching on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter