The National Narcissist Abuser
What we can learn from survivors
Living under the 2016 and now the 2025 eras returns survivors to the traumatic memories and experiences of the past.
I was married for 17 years to an abusive Baptist minister. I was able to get advanced degrees in communication and counseling in order to figure out what was going on. I have blamed myself for 10 years, tried to get him to get help for 10, and took 3 years to get my ducks in a row to leave with my three children.
When TRex kidnapped the children from their previous parents in his first term, I learned then that people who seemed to be very nice actually agreed with his terror campaign. That there were several hidden “flying monkeys” around me. (“Flying monkeys” is the term used for those people who collude or cooperate with the abuser. Christian Nationalists is a party of flying monkeys.)
So my heart goes out to women especially who have never had direct experience with narcissistic abusers. They do not recognize the game. They are still in the shock stage. They hop from dismay to outrage and stay in the chaos invented for them. Recently a woman in a church group expressed her anger at someone’s accusing Budde of speaking because the church gets money. All the churches could get money under Trump the first time. The GOP has pursued making profit from tax money since Reagan in the name of deregulation and privitization. They weren’t winning elections legitimately so they galvanized evangelicals and Catholics together over abortion hysterics. Church building campaigns exploded during the first term. Giving money to churches is just a payoff for votes.
What she didn’t know how to deal with was the projection that is a standard tactic. Whatever is true of the abuser is leveled as an accusation on the other person. So if you want to know what they are doing, look at what they accuse others of doing. It used to be called hypocrisy.
Learning to reframe, relabel and take back control of your mind and heart is essential in getting free of these abusers. Unfortunately our national media outlets have escalated attention on them as if they were normal, credible, and legitimate people to be in office.
The gamesmanship take a lot of work to learn. I shared the process of emerging from the seven levels of confusion in my self-help workbook, Redemption from Biblical Battering. It’s basicallly cult tactics, as has been pointed out, and they started after Reagan. The woman suffering alone in her marriage, however, believes she is the only one. The woman in a church is told to just do more. Nationally they want all woman hostages in abusive relationships: no friends, no reproductive health care, no money not controlled by the husband, no education. Bondage. Family values can hurt.
So nationally we need to be able to recognize the cult and not be shocked. We need nationally to learn how to cut the game. Normal conversation, sharing of views, agreeing to disagree - all play into the game. AOC and Jasmine Crockett know this.
The steps must be taken together since avenues of normal prevention have not been implemented. In other words, just as with the financial regulations that were not implemented in 2008, backbones were missing. Backbones were bought off, beginning with Citizens United being allowed by the Supreme Court. It was a slippery slope that is now a landslide. All abusers start with little subtle tests of boundaries until it is the landslide we are in now. Too late for a finger in the dam.
The progression on those who have “always voted Repubican” or “I am following my pastor” is as follows: Dedication, Devotion, Delusion, Denial, Despair, Determination, Deliverance, and Development. You are now not yet out of Denial. Level 4. Some are still in Level 3.
The levels are
Is it abuse? Yes
Do we deserve it? (How did you vote in 2024?)
Is It God’s Will? No
Can we help him? No
How do we defend ourselves?
Should we stay? No
How do we get out?