Deflection: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/deflection
The act of attacking or blaming another person rather than accepting criticism or blame for your own actions: Deflection is a psychological defense mechanism.
Deflection: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/deflection
The act of attacking or blaming another person rather than accepting criticism or blame for your own actions: Deflection is a psychological defense mechanism.
I think what she's doing is called externalization. She's not able to recognize and/or tolerate her own internal state and is projecting onto you. Maybe she feels shame for what happened and can't tolerate feeling shame, so she's treating you like you should feel ashamed. All this is arguable though
A Narcissist's Prayer
That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
Is this a real thing? It's pretty funny
It was written by someone called Dayna Craig IIRC.
It's a perfect distillation of narcissist psychology IMO.
Oh I can assure you it's real. But it's easy to see, even trump follows (followed - now he doesn't need to anymore) this logic.
Its not funny if you have a pathological narcissist in your vicinity.
I've read something very much like that but it was called something else, like stages of rationalization maybe.
Reminds me of when we sent a tech out to someone's home to set up a workstation. The wife of the guy getting the workstation backed into his car, and drove off.
After seeing the damage to his car, our tech went to tell the husband, and before he could even say anything the husband said, "my wife hit your car, didn't she?"
It's happened often enough that this guy didn't even need to be told. He knew.
I hate how people use this word for everything nowadays, but it could actually be narcissism.
Very much behavior shown by narcissists, as I understand it.
A narcissist would often do it at an unconscious level. But it could also be psychopathy, where the psychopath completely deliberately lies to gain advantage. In the specific case cited by OP, the mom has no rational advantage of her behavior, so it would be narcissism and not psychopathy.
It's also one of my personal triggers because my mom always did this. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume it was unconscious guilty avoidance as opposed to intentionally lying, but still, I could describe the situation accurately back to her and point out what she did that was wrong (we're not talking about a mistake or accident here, I only brought it up if it was an intentional action that hurt other members of my family) she would always have, "but they did this", or "I thought I was helping, excuse me for caring!"
I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume it was unconscious guilty avoidance as opposed to intentionally lying,
As I understand it, that is pretty much the definition of narcissism. Narcissism is defined by an underlying inferiority complex, which gives the narcissist a mental block preventing them from consciously realizing (and acting on) their own imperfections.
Sociopath
Psychopath
Narcissist
All three of those personality disorders could characterize that type of behavior.
They do something wrong but it's never their fault. It's always someone else's fault.
Christ, that's something my SO would do. And then later deny that the event ever occurred.
Isn't that the definition of "gaslighting"?
"Gaslighting" is a lie told where the victim knows it is a lie. So could be.
But with one subtlety: If the "liar" is a narcissist, then the "lie" is often believed by the narcissist themselves, making it not a lie as such - since "lie" implies they know it is untrue.
That's so specific there has to be a yiddish word for it. IIRC a "schlemiel" is a guy who goes to a fancy dinner and spills his soup, and a "schlamazel" is the guy he spills it on. There has to be a word for somebody who uses scapegoats.
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