The Penny Has Dropped and the FOG Has Cleared: Unmasking the Crazy-Making Conflicts Created by Our Muslim Narcissists and Their Flying Monkeys
Bismillah ir-Rahmaan ir-Raheem. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds.
Have you ever wondered why contact with certain people leaves you emotionally, mentally and physically drained? Maybe it’s your spouse who contributes very little to the marriage, is convinced of the opposite and criticises as well as disparages much of what is so important to you or maybe it’s your boss or colleague who relishes giving orders, expects sacrifices that he or she is unwilling to make and loves to claim all the glory for success but refuses to accept any responsibility for failure. Maybe it’s a selfish, spoilt in-law who sadistically takes pleasure in trying to control family members and even in splitting them up or possibly it’s an ungrateful child who continues to scrounge off his or her parents’ hard work while giving back very little in return yet still always expecting more. These may be different scenarios but a common thread runs through all of them: that these people don’t seem to care about the devastation that they cause in people’s lives and that no matter what you say you can never seem to get through to them. If this conduct is accompanied by crazy-making behaviour like gaslighting (denying, accusing, misdirecting and lying etc. to shift the blame on to you), raging, giving silent treatments and projecting (where they deny flaws in themselves and accuse you of their faults, weaknesses, shortcomings, mistakes and misfortunes) then you may be dealing with a narcissist.
This article is dedicated to everyone who has been left bewildered by their contact with such people: people who leave you questioning and agonising over your intentions, your version of events and even your own sanity while they get on with their lives, seemingly without a care in the world. Dealing with the stress caused by narcissists on a regular basis can cause anxiety, insomnia, depression and even PTSD so it’s worth taking a step back in order to make sense of all the madness that they bring into your life.
As there is a continuum of narcissism (starting from healthy self‐esteem) most individuals have some narcissistic traits, but high levels of narcissism can be manifested in a pathological form as narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). This has been described as ‘a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others [1]. According to psychotherapists, some of the traits of narcissists are arrogance, envy, entitlement, exploitation and bad boundaries [2]. Nevertheless, some people who have elements of pathological narcissism may have areas of their personalities that are characterised by generosity towards others [3].
Consequently, narcissists may be popular and come across as charming, charismatic and confident, even paying you compliments. However, for those who are in close proximity to them, this ‘idealising’ you phase can sooner or later move into the ‘devalue’ phase which may at first be in the form of subtle little digs at you that you may not even initially notice. At this stage they may pick at your vulnerabilities which you exposed to them during the idealisation stage and use gaslighting, projection, lack of emotional or physical intimacy and introducing a third person into the relationship (such as a ‘flying monkey’ as mentioned below) to make you feel insecure or to help with smear campaigns against you, leaving you feeling unconfident in your relationship and with the nagging feeling inside that you went from being a team together to rivals. The reasons why they do this are complicated and varied but in different ways relate to putting others down so that they can somehow feel better about themselves or as the saying goes, “Some people try to be tall by cutting off the heads of others.” The final stage is to ‘discard’ you if they feel they have no more need for you but be warned as they may try to suck you back in with what is known as ‘hoovering’ only to begin the cycle again [4].
Trying to convince others that you and they may be dealing with an extremely narcissistic person, however, can be extremely frustrating because narcissists usually mainly hurt or harm those close to them so others either haven’t seen the ‘mask’ slip or have dismissed the ‘red flags’ when it has. Also, some narcissists are helped by, in popular psychology what are known as, flying monkeys [5]. These are people who, much like the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz who the Wicked Witch of the West uses to do her dirty work, act on behalf of the narcissist (usually for an abusive purpose), defend the narcissist, make excuses for the narcissist, hide the narcissist’s failures and bail them out of the catastrophes that they manage to create due to their lack of care or share incompetence, or they bully or manipulate others to pick up the pieces for them. Pointing a finger at one person means you end up pointing a finger at others too, which leaves you looking like the guilty party. Some flying monkeys are simply brainwashed so they believe that you are bad whereas others have the narcissist’s back while knowing how immoral and wrong they are. If you want to avoid, unintentionally, becoming a narcissist’s flying monkey then it is important that when you are given information about someone that you “verify it, lest you harm people in ignorance, and afterwards you become regretful to what you have done” (Qur’an 49:6).
Also, unless you realise what sort of people it is that you are dealing with you may become the narcissist’s enabler. Enablers try to avoid confrontation and conflict or try to appease the narcissist by not challenging the abuse or setting boundaries and by giving them what they want, so that the situation doesn’t get worse [5]. They are usually stuck in the narcissist’s FOG in which ‘fear, obligation or guilt’ prevent them from breaking free. However, as an enabler you end up ‘reinforcing and prolonging the dysfunctional controlling hierarchy in the relationship and unwittingly becom[e] an accomplice in your own entrapment’ [5]. If you do try to break free by trying to set a fair and healthy boundary then, like a bully, the narcissist can become angry, mad and vengeful, even unleashing their flying monkey to put you in your place or to smear your reputation.
Some possible causes of narcissism have been put forward and, from the environmental factors, they include having an extremely pampered childhood or an excessively harsh one [1] due to insensitive parenting, excessive criticism, abuse, trauma, extremely high expectations or neglect [6]. Although these causes are mentioned in the context of narcissism in the West and mainly among non-Muslims, unfortunately, among our ummah in the West it is also all too common to hear about spoilt third generation migrants (possibly even the younger siblings in the second generation) and even a quick search in YouTube reveals a whole host of ‘funny’ videos on the opposite: the overly strict Arab/South Asian etc. father or parents of the second generation born in the West or abroad. Contrary to what is suggested by the comedy sketches as well as the laughing and applauding audiences, the consequences of such parenting are far from funny if the child grows up to become a narcissist. In fact, the repercussions of excessively harsh parenting may be far worse than we currently consider them to be and could explain the complicated marital issues that even practising, middle aged spouses keep facing that, despite the advice of family, friends and scholars, are particularly difficult to resolve. Certainly, our beloved prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) taught us to show mercy and love to our young ones which can be seen in the narrations about the boy and his bird, young girls playing with dolls and kissing the forehead of your children but he also taught us to be firm in disciplining them when the need arises, such as when encouraging them to pray, as well as teaching them manners like eating from directly in front of them when presented with a platter of food. These are beautiful, balanced examples and nothing like the two extremes mentioned above: excessive adoration or excessive criticism.
Finally, I would like to urge Muslim scholars, psychologists and psychiatrists to work together to help us understand this issue from an Islamic perspective and to aid narcissists and their victims as our beloved prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) advised us to help the oppressor (exploiter) and the oppressed (exploited). Furthermore, narcissism is a personality disorder and not a disease so can the knowledge from Islam that for all diseases there is a cure be applied to it? According to western psychologists, the main treatment for NPD is ‘talk therapy’ (psychotherapy) as there’s no specific medication to treat it but there are uncertainties regarding its success rate. Also, narcissistic traits such as arrogance and envy are characteristics that Allah Ta’ala warns us against in the Qur’an, so is the solution to be found in dawah, dhikr and du’aa’? Can the people of knowledge mentioned above, please, also create more awareness, among our ummah, of narcissistic traits as well as the role that flying monkeys and enablers play in prolonging the suffering that narcissists cause them, their spouses, children, families, friends and colleagues and advise us on how to raise our children correctly in order to stop the cycle and help put an end to all this madness.
Walhamdulillaahi Rabbil ‘Aalameen (October 2018)
Source: www.protectyourthaghr.wixsite.com/home
Notes:
[1]: https://www.mayoclinic.org
[2]: Hotchkiss, S., & Masterson, J. F. (2003). Why is it always about you?: The seven deadly sins of narcissism. Free Press
[3]: Gabbard, G. O., & Crisp‐Han, H. (2016). The many faces of narcissism. World Psychiatry, 15(2), 115–116
[4]: https://www.psychologytoday.com
[5]: http://outofthefog.website/
[6]: https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/causes-of-npd
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