The dynamics of spiritual attack in narcissistic abuse

Beyond the labels, the intentional exercise of power that generates spiritual abuse—an attack on one’s psychological being—is narcissistic abuse.

What happens when we encounter a form of mind control that oppresses our psychological being?  We face what is intended to become, and usually does become, a spiritual attack.

Spiritual Abuse, in Conflict, Confirmed by Spiritual Attack

Narcissistic abuse is both prevalent and subtle.  Many people who have experienced it may have no idea it’s even happened to them.  Once we see it, however, especially as it manifests in abuse against ourselves, we cannot unsee it anymore.  We’re not likely to notice it occurring to others unless we have first faced (and seen and tasted) it ourselves.

The most twisted of abuse pits the victim’s loved ones against them as the enemy, as the narcissist pulls the strings in an effort to destroy an otherwise functional family, usually because of an outrageously seething jealousy.  The victim usually doesn’t see it until it’s too late.

We may see it through a bout of spiritual attack brought about by conflict.

The narcissistic abuser may be expressly overt, not hiding their malevolent intent as they sneer.  They may also be covert in both intent and expression.  The latter are a bigger concern, though the former is scarier.  How much worse could it be to be gaslit in the presence of a smiling assassin?  Well, possibly the angry blaming type!  Either way...

The covert variety of narcissist plays by a spirit of confusion.
Their game is to keep their prey on the hop.
They come out to ‘play’ in conflict.
They take no responsibility, ever.

~

Now, the only check we might make is to ensure we’re not denying the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

But we may well be encouraged to know that if we’re already Spirit-sensitive—in other words, we regularly demonstrate the fruit of repentance—God is already with us and for us.

Indeed, God may give us the sense of being attacked as divine confirmation through discernment that we’re under the attack of abuse.

The Personification of Spiritual Attack

This is the personalised experience of the denigration of our soul.  It is usually founded upon, but not limited to, the white anting of our identity.  It is usually as insidious to most people as it is toxic.  The damage caused and created is systemic, encompassing our entire being.  Little wonder such attacks are felt physically, mentally and emotionally.

The dynamics of narcissistic abuse that cause spiritual attack can result in desperation of being, panic attacks, and existential despondency, to name just three.

Wherever the attacks are absorbed into us, and we take on the weight of those accusations (and we may call them accusations, because they come from the enemy, Satan), the eventual result is a plummeting, and there’s only one destination the enemy has in mind for anyone trying to do God’s work—the abyss.

The abyss is that place, like hell, where there’s nothing; no hope, no direction, no purpose, and definitely no love.  We can know we’re under spiritual attack when, in the moment, we are completely devoid of hope, direction, purpose, and love.

Where there’s no hope, no direction, no purpose, and no love, we are in the forlorn land of the absence of God—as a spiritual experience.  Dimensionally, this is a dark place and a dark time.  Anyone who knows God can experience this.

Even though the truth of the matter is that God is ever-present, we cannot experience God’s Presence.  Effectively, for the moments we endure spiritual attack, God is out of reach.

Agent of the Enemy

Let’s not forget, that in this context, it is because of human hands, human words and human actions that we face this crisis of spirit and faith.  But we know, biblically, that we do not war with flesh and blood.  It’s in the spirit realm that the cudgel of war originates, and it’s in the spirit realm that we are attacked.

The propagator of attack is someone who will use malevolent means to bring us undone.  They who are not for us are against us.  And we need to be particularly aware of those who say they love us when our spirit within detects the opposite motive.

We can know with some certainty that the experience of spiritual attack within conflict is a direct sign of narcissistic abuse.  And sometimes this spiritual attack is unknowingly deflected onto others who would assist the victim so the narcissist can be enabled.

~

Bear in mind that the presence of spiritual attack in conflict can be a sign of narcissistic abuse.

Photo by Michael Mouritz on Unsplash

Never underestimate the power of a few words, a smile, a timely hug

Desperate texts, despairing phone calls, anguish written all over a person’s face.  I’ve seen it all.  I’ve received many over the years, and I’ve also instigated concern at times in those who care for me.

One thing that doesn’t surprise me is the power of a small thing underwritten in empathy.

Any of us may discount what we can do in alleviating someone’s pain.  But when we’re on the other side, plunged deep into the abyss, we know just how important and profound a simple, kind gesture is.

Sometimes it’s a word, and it can literally be one word, usually with a tone denoting the sincerest care.  Actually, I know from experience, it’s almost the least amount said that has the most supportive impact.  It’s an opportunity to be present in the listening, and the more we resist saying anything, the more someone will FEEL cared for.

There’s almost nothing a smile cannot accomplish in a tense situation.

I recall being at a state league basketball game and pacifying a heated exchange between one of our fans and one of the other team’s officials.  All I did was get between them, smile, and affirm them both!  That’s it.  Within seconds I could feel both responding to the calm I endeavoured to bring.

Smiles work in shopping centres, in queues, on the road, and elsewhere, so long as our heart is smiling. And that’s the secret.  It’s kindness that offers a smile when everyone’s frowning.  A smiler knows they can bring peace even in angry and violent situations provided they’re prayerfully kind.

If you notice the snippets of text messages and emails in the image, you’ll see that these are all normal, albeit there is desperation in some of them.  These are all parts of messages that I possess.  I didn’t even have to look far.

If you think about the sorts of messages you receive or send, you may agree.  Desperation is part of our human condition.  We have the opportunity to harmonise the threatening moods of desperation to make a place of safety both for ourselves and the others we care about.

Hugging is something that is also underrated—at least for those who feel safe being hugged, and for those who feel comfortable giving hugs.  Long lingering hugs punctuated with purity are completely non-sexual and affirm our deepest needs for acceptance and belonging.

Can you imagine how powerful an interaction of listening and appropriate (for the person being cared for) physical presence is?  So simple and profound.  The less we do, the more impact we have, if we truly care.  Somehow God does all the work.

There are people we know—not least ourselves at times—every single day who could do with an encouraging word, a listening ear, a smile, a hug.

The more we pray for opportunities to do these things, the more we’ll notice situations needing our help, and the more God will have people pick us out.  It is an enormous privilege to be trusted enough to help.

I can tell you now, I’ve faced such desperate situations emotionally and spiritually that God has shown me how common and how brutal desperate situations are.  Help is desperately needed.

How are you feeling being you today?

Hello. If it would be okay to ask, how have you been today? Or, how do you think your day might go? Have you connected with yourself and given yourself the chance to breathe, to be silent, and to be at peace with your circumstances and who you are?

Sorry for all those questions. I think though that we all have an opportunity, each and every day, to come into the presence of the most special person alive as far as we ourselves are personally concerned. We can only serve and be of help to others, properly and adequately and sufficiently and safely, when we have sought that most intimate connection, a communion, with us, ourselves.

How are you feeling in your relationships? You might be preoccupied by one relationship. You may be sad because you’re not being respected. Or that might make you mad. Or both, which is commonly felt.

Perhaps it’s a particular person or kind of relationship that you’re burdened by. 

Or, it could be you’re overjoyed by something that’s happening. You may not even be able to contain yourself.

Maybe there’s something that’s a growing concern for you. Something gradually gnawing away at you.

You could be perchance unsure what to make of a circumstance or offer or opportunity.

Change may be being foisted upon you. Perhaps it’s loss. You may feel so out of control. It’s horrid.

You may be feeling weak, or fearful, sad or mad, or a combination of all these feelings, maybe to the point where you’re confused and overwhelmed with just how to feel.

That’s okay. To sit there in silence, or to lay or stand, not knowing what to do or how to do it, even though it seems totally confounding, is worthy of a smile, or a “Yes! It does hurt.”

To know that our emotional realities at times are beyond all reason, unfathomable, that they enter the realm of mystery, to sit there and accept it, is the grandest maturity.

I mean, who does that? Who can? You can.

How many people can do that—just attempt to feel glad in an inexplicable pain—not mad or sad—even if in our gladness we’re saying, “Come and sit with me, madness and sadness, for you have a right to be here, welcome just as much as gladness is.”

This is being real about how we feel. It may seem that we’re being courageous, but it’s simpler than that. Honesty is the profoundest simplicity, and it is always the most intimate of experiences, worth ever fragment of miniscule pain we might feel in the second we face it.

How are you feeling today? You know that this question is important. If we cannot start our day, or end it, or ask ourselves at any time—asking this kind of question—who do we really give ourselves permission to be?

If we didn’t allow ourselves that freedom, we would make our own choice to be less free than what we could be.

You know how important you are. As important and as valuable as anyone who’s ever lived or will live, just as everybody else is.

Be you today and enjoy the fact that only you can be you, and nobody else can be.

Say, “Be free to be truly me... today... all my days.”

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

The thoughtful peacemaker

The media coverage on the recent bushfires that swept through many parts of eastern Australia highlights the challenges for us in this social media age.  The Prime Minster being lambasted on the one hand, and all manner of heroes heralded on the other.

I recall being caught up more than once reading the hashtag haranguing.  Each time I noticed my emotional response rise.  I started to experience grief, sorrow, shock, anger and disappointment—sometimes all at once.

Then, because I’ve been focusing in Hebrews, I felt God nudge me to this:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.”
— Hebrews 12:1 (NIV)

I hadn’t even finished the first verse, and I saw what God wanted me to see.  Suddenly, I saw what is eternally relevant—all those witnesses in Hebrews 11.  After I meditated on this verse, I dove into the commentaries; the “witnesses” are urging us on, just as fans urge athletes they go to see!

These champions of faith who have run their race urge us on to run well and finish ours in faith.

Throw off everything that hinders

Then the word “since” struck me.  It then occurred to me that the writer to the Hebrews is giving a massive hint on how we are to live by faith.  Because we have so much heavenly support, and because we know what we need to do to be right with God (i.e. live by faith), the writer is imploring us to do what we need to do as a result: “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.”

In the context of all manner of issues that sadden us or get us irate, rightly or wrongly, this verse reminded me there was something more important.  “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone,” as the apostle Paul says in Romans 12:18 (NIV)

Getting to the heart of all issues

Again, I had to acknowledge that while my emotional responses may often be right, if there’s anything peacemaking principles teach me, it’s that my heart covets many desires. Not all these honour God. Even the ones that do honour God are often tainted in my demanding my desires be met the way I want them met.

Social media and current affairs often reveal our hearts.  We also have our biases to contend with. And yet here is my favourite Bible prayer of Psalm 139:23-24 (NIV): 

“Search me, God, and know my heart;    test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Every time I read this prayer, I’m reminded of how quickly my desires become demands.  It reminds me how quickly I judge people and situations when I’m in that mindset.  The redemptive pathway reminds me to be honest about the things I desire.  What I cannot necessarily have, what I cannot control, even if I would demand it, I must genuinely grieve.

The inside job in peacemaking

We can all assume that peacemaking is interpersonal.  But I’ve found even more so it’s intrapersonal as we relate with God in truth.  God works within us so we can be thoughtful peacemakers.

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Unsplash

The fruit of the Gentleness, a blessing to one and all

My wife has often counselled me in the act of speaking to our son; “Lower your voice,” and it works a treat. She noticed me interacting with older children at the school I work at; “Your voice is softer, lower, slower... calmer... and they listen!”

Then we recall an Australian children’s show called, “Bluey,” where the youngest character is overwhelmed by her father’s enthusiastically rough play—Bingo the pup learns to yelp when she’s had enough. I’m coaching my son to tell me when I’m being too loud. But truly, he needs me to regulate my own volume.

You see, I’ve had people behave loud and angrily with me, and it seldom works. Boisterousness never works on sensitive souls, unless they’re in playful moods, and let’s face it, none of us are playful all the time.

I’ve very often not only been put off by brute force, it’s often left me feeling intimidated—that is I’m left timid in response, and nobody gets anything out of a person who is relegated to timidity.

I’m not ashamed of being able to be intimidated. It’s cause and effect. Just because we’re intimidated doesn’t mean we’re weak. It means the person who intimidated us missed the mark.

~

Gentleness is a sacred gift that proves its truth comes from love.

Being gentle in all we say and do comes from a quiet centre.

If only we can be gentle with ourselves, not judging ourselves, resisting our own condemnation, quashing the temptation to feel guilty for any number of things, then we can be gentler for others.

If we can be gentler with ourselves, we can be gentler with others so that they, too, could be gentler with themselves.

There is more to gentleness than we realise. To be genuinely gentle, we truly need to be empathetic, which is to be understanding, and not only of others, but more truly and more centrally understanding of ourselves.

If we have no empathy for ourselves, or in other words if we do not understand and accept ourselves, how on earth can we have empathy for other people in order to endeavour to understand and therefore accept them?

Whether we like it or not, we need to feel safe in our own skin first, and that’s nothing about selfishness—it’s about safety.

I don’t know about you, but my belief is I cannot fully understand and accept myself apart from Christ. I’ve tried many other ways prior to coming to Christian faith. None of them worked. The only thing in my experience that works is a message that doesn’t rely on my goodness, but that which rests on God’s grace alone.

Having found the secret then to being understood and finding ourselves acceptable i.e. in Christ, we come to be at peace with ourselves, and, having sensed the power for love in that, we therefore then want others to experience that same peace which is power for love.

We may ask ourselves, if God understands us and accepts us, who are we not to?

This is the most penetrating question. Anyone who lingers on such a question should assuredly come to find that if God never condemns us, who are we if we do?

Let me finish where I started.

Gentleness is ever the gift to every single living thing. To be gentle is also a gift to us, as direct benefactors of the gifts of self-control, patience and peace.

A prayer as simple as breathing for a blessed life

Let me suggest a rhythm of life
that will work for one and all,
because by the reality of circumstance
this life is one of call.

This life, if you haven’t already discovered it, is about motive, purpose, a reason for being. If we don’t have that, we really don’t have anything. But the central motive, purpose or reason for being is not about doing, it’s about BEING.

Here is a new way of living that has helped me, and I’m sure it may help you.

I call it a life of praying by the metaphor of breathing...

... inhaling is our relationship with God, and
exhaling is our relationship with others.

You might ask, “Where does my relationship with myself fit in?” We, in our inhaling and exhaling, are present throughout the process—it is OUR life, to enjoy the fruit of good clean air from the living Lord as we inhale, so others can enjoy good fruit from us as we exhale what was purified air.

Let me explain this by example.

This is a rhythm of prayer as simple as breathing in and out.

INHALING PRAYER

I open my Bible and so often this happens. Almost immediately the words begin to speak into my spirit. Most people who have a relationship with God will resonate with what I’m saying. Somehow, even as I open the pages, with my relationship with God, the words as I read become a balm that God uses to restore my soul.

This is but one example of breathing in, because in opening the pages of the Bible, I find it is like inhaling the very air that I need to breathe, rather than opting for any number of toxic sources of literature, image, sound or vision, or stimuli, that I could otherwise imbibe.

Breathing in or inhaling is very much
the careful process of stewarding one’s heart.

I think many of us know just how tenuous this life is, especially in social media circles. It can feel so hard to guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, because at every turn it seems, there are attractive morsels we begin to munch on, that inevitably and later on we find were actually bad for us. If we didn’t realise this in time, this imbibing of fast spiritual food had a devastating impact on our soul. It clogged up our system, and we regretted having ingested it.

Inhaling the right things, the things of God, is essential for the spiritual life that has its purpose in being blessed by God to be a blessing.

We cannot be a blessing FOR God if we
haven’t already been blessed BY God.

EXHALING PRAYER

Having inhaled what we know for sure and certain in our spirits is from God, we therefore know with full confidence we will bear good fruit as we exhale in the prayer that pertains to our relationships.

Just as much as we all deserve the joy and the blessing of relating well with our fellow human beings, God gives us this capacity to make our contribution, relationally with others, simply by the way we have sown into our own relationship with God.

Having inhaled and having been fed on good food, we are now more than well situated, poised and satisfied, to sow well into our relationships, because God has sown well into us.

This process of sowing well into our relationships—living at peace with all as far as it depends on us—is what we can call exhalation by prayer.

~

As simple as life can be, and for so many of us life is just not simple, a prayer as simple as breathing, or by living the metaphor of breathing for prayer, we have a simple way forward.

A simple way forward has this blessing about it: every hope and every purpose is achievable.

Photo by Jace & Afsoon on Unsplash

By their fruit you’ll know them – two stages of deception and, if you get a confession, a faking of repentance

Let’s discuss a character now. Whether they feature in a marriage, in the broader family, in a church, or, heaven help us, in leadership, or elsewhere is immaterial. Wherever they go they carry the potential for destruction. Their heart is set on deception, and as Diane Langberg points out, this is founded on a heart that is self-deceived.

The fact that they think they can get away with deception before the One who sees and knows all should leave us all incredulous. That they kid themselves in their self-justification, proving their action is narcissistic, defies any sense at all. Who would bother to even try to “outsmart” the Lord of glory? Only the one who does not believe!

In their being deceived—for who would knowingly go ahead and put their head on the eternal chopping block—they have no defence. And if they knowingly mete out abuse, as most deceivers do—i.e. deliberately—they hold God in contempt. But there is no defence in them heaping a blessing on themselves when they say, “I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way,” (Deuteronomy 29:19).

Two Stages of Deception

The first stage has been set out above—the decision beforehand to go one’s own way and to make of oneself one’s own god. Narcissists make themselves into their very own idol, which is a self-deception.

The first deception, then, is the narcissist’s agreement with themselves that they believe falsely is right; that other people are to serve their purpose, rather than them, themselves, serving with diligence God’s purpose for their lives. They are self-deceived.

The second stage deception, then, is the product of the thinking of the narcissist; that other people exist for their own personal gain. Their purpose in God has been contorted. Rather than God being served, theirs is a deception that they themselves are to be served while holding up the façade that they’re serving God. They deceive others.

Two situations occur as an outworking of this spiritual crazy-making: 1) they get away with it on this earth (for they sure won’t get away with it in heaven!), and 2) they do get caught, and they either a) deny it all and continue to run and not face the destruction they caused, or b) they contrive a “repentance”. Few, if any, narcissists ever recover, and that would take following through with a PROGRAM of recovery—for the full effects of recovery to stick.

So, let’s look at repentance through the Langberg quote. First of all, fake repentance and then genuine repentance.

The Hallmark of Fake Repentance

Two indicators that Langberg quotes are red flags straight away: “words and tears”. Let’s look at why words and tears are signals of a fake repentance.

Words are words of promise, of feigning contrition, and of deceiving their way out of doing the real work of repentance. Anyone who wishes to minimise their recovery will NOT recover. “I’m never going to do it ever again... you wait and see; I’ll show you and everyone that I’m a good person... God will transform me!” and myriad other things. Words are cheap and the more words of promise we hear from them ought to lead us to be more suspicious of the repenting person’s true heart.

Then there’s tears. All of us who are compassionate souls are suckers for the waterworks. And narcissists who are clever (sociopaths) are very well adept at getting the chin to quiver and getting the cheeks wet. Tears are a red flag, especially when they correspond with words of promise. 

The Genuine Shape of Repentance

Continuing the theme of tears, those tears of regret and of no defence are another matter entirely. True contrition can certainly be teary, yet with no defence, just an earnestness to put things right, and to that end, a commitment to a program of behaviour change ensues where they do not look back.

The best repentance I ever saw was from those who turned their lives around in AA. Admittedly, these usually had very dramatic recovery stories, but what cannot be lost is what we can see about the depth to which AAs go in their repentance.

They don’t just stop drinking. As if that were the only problem they have! No, AAs are trained that drinking is just the tip of the iceberg. Abusive behaviour for a narcissist is just the tip of the iceberg.

To recover from narcissism, there must be an admission that there is grandiosity about themselves, that they feel entitled to exploit people and situations for their own gain, and that they bear no empathy. There is a heart problem in that there’s the proclivity for the deceptiveness of heart.

All of us hate facing the deceptive nature of our hearts, but the irony is, we only get better, and are safe for others, when we face our deceptiveness, our hidden motives and call them for what they are. Narcissists are incapable of doing this. Only the person who can face their narcissism—because it’s a spectrum and we’re all on it—is not narcissistic, for they honestly repent of the characteristics of narcissism. The one who barks angry denials that they have “no narcissism whatsoever” is the one who cannot bear to repent, and these, front and centre, are usually the most hopelessly committed to their narcissism.

The only hope is a PROGRAM of repentance, because the changes to be committed to are lifelong changes. What true narcissist is going to submit humbly to an enduring process of repentance for transformation?

The crisis of identity hidden in anxiety and depression

Having suffered anxiety and depression enough to know, I was astounded to face a new reality in my most recent bout of the blues. At the end of the year, tired in the mind and harried in different directions, I wrestled with my reality, and began to tussle for a way back.

It felt like my spirit had lost its peace; my soul had lost touch with its silence.

I couldn’t understand how or why I had descended so quickly—from functioning and feeling well to being caught up in a whirlwind of exhaustion, in a matter of days it seemed, much to the point where I felt I couldn’t even help myself.

Ah, at least I knew who could! But finding my way back to God, from that disconnected vantage point, felt next to impossible. And that was the clue I needed to face.

As I took myself offline and began to allow myself to rest, I soon also took myself off to retreat. Back to nature. As I allowed the plethora of information and concerns to float away into the ether, something I’d lost touch with somehow returned.

It was in the silence and solitude, through my reading, and through the Spirit’s massaging of my soul, that my mind sprang alive ever so gradually, and what I call “the stream of eternal truths” started flowing into and through my psyche again!

But there is something I can saw as I meandered from the cognitive freeze to the thawing:

I discovered that, sometimes when I’m not myself,
I feel like I’ve never been myself.

Let me say it a different way. When we’re anxious or depressed (or both!), just by example, we may feel like we’ve never been anything or anyone—like we feel like nothing. That is to say, we know we’ve had times of mental health and vitality, but it seems that those experiences are not only irredeemable, but impossible now to access, and not just that, but we may be shut out of all knowledge of these positive experiences of being. As if they never existed in the first place, though somehow, somewhere deeper within, we do know.

It’s as if these positive realities never were.

That—as a thought—
is a lonely, scary concept!

This is a scary place to be in, especially when we consider that most of the time, we’re completely unaware this is occurring. Times like these, we’re in a state of being that is locked out of the very rooms that would be key to our escape back into normality. And we may not even be aware!

Yes, my reality has sometimes been that the flow of the stream of eternal truths has not only stopped flowing, it’s as if it never was.

Therein lies the genesis of a crisis of faith, because though we know God, it’s more like we KNEW God, or worse, NEVER knew God, because our present has lost touch with our past.

I’ve had this occur to me several times, and sometimes it’s occurred for weeks (but never to date for more than several months).

You know something’s wrong, but you have no idea what it is or how to get back.

For those helping those with mental illness, it pays to be aware of this dynamic. To understand that it’s not only possible but probably likely that a spiritual assault has occurred—and NOT centrally because the person’s been disobedient. Often these things occur because we’ve been TOO obedient. In that, we’ve been too available to others in terms of our time and/or lack of boundaries.

Spiritual helpers bring calm and gentle encouragement, not challenge, well at least not straight away. Or, perhaps the best challenge is one that redirects a person’s focus onto what will be an encouragement—like encouraging them to slow down.

Empathy is most crucially needed. And many times, it’s empathy for two that the helper brings, because people battling anxiety and depression often can’t access empathy for themselves for the self-loathing they’re bombarded with. And that’s no poor reflection on them! It’s just what is. Anyone can find themselves in the depressive mindset, because once we’ve been there we see how humanly available such a mindset is.

What do we do when we find ourselves in these dire straits?

We must give ourselves time. We must enter a process of change. Environments of silence and simplicity and few stimuli are needed. We start to observe what we’re telling ourselves. We reject all self-talk of rejection. We redirect doubts of worth in the direction of thoughts of praise. In many ways, these are elements of trust that we put in place by faith. We open ourselves up to the Spirit’s inquiry. We expose our spirit. We do all this in the trust that God will restore our soul. And we remind ourselves that we ARE. Just as much valued of God as anyone ever was!

Connection with our identity is crucial for mental health.