Having empathy for abusers?

[FedUpWithAbuse]

It's actually a problem to empathize with abusers, because if their behavior is persistent, pervasive, and malicious, and they lack empathy, the most ideal response would be to feel equanimity, and that's the ideal. I think sticking with your own general code of ethics, as best you can, being reasonable to the best of your ability and accounting for changing and difficult circumstances with them is the best you can hope for.

They're responsible for their own behavior, and for correcting it. There's a lot of people that make mistakes, I've made plenty, but the thing about people who persistently and pervasively abuse, they don't have any sort of self accountability, and they literally try to destroy people. If I accidently hurt someone or have a bad day, I don't go try to then keep hurting them over and over in order to torture them.

[JLS]

I feel the language is a problem, the terms empathy or forgiveness evoke this feeling of poor them, a feeling of having to accept their behaviour and that it's all about them.  As you say Fedupwithabuse that persistent and pervasive abuse is more than a bad day. It does destroy people and leaves them with CPTSD.

I only think that in finding that compassion for them was what helped me to see it was their issue to fix, not mine, I finally understood I couldn't fix it or heal it.  Then finding that compassion for me is what helped me to go NC.  I had long believed that I had to fix it or try to fix it or that I was somehow at fault for the current misunderstanding, or my behaviour was causing part of the problem, so I kept trying to heal the relationship.  Seeing how my mother probably got to how she was, was the one thing that made me realise that she was the only one who could fix herself.  My compassion for myself is what led me to ask her or me and I chose me.

I could respond with equanimity but the abuse would still occur.  At some point I had to ask myself what about me?  In the end it simply wasn't worth it to stay and continue receiving more abuse. However, in walking away the guilt isn't there because I am able to separate her stuff from mine.

There are numerous ways to get to the point of self-compassion but I feel what is trying to be communicated is not for the abuser but for the person trying to heal. 

[Just Kathy]

Anyone can obtain a license and call themselves a 'childhood trauma coach'; it essentially comes down to the amount of time and money one is willing to invest. Think of it like this: many people call themselves 'doctors,' but only a few are qualified.

The old saying goes, opinions are like assholes—everyone has one. If this coach insists on spreading the misleading idea that "only hurt people hurt people." There's a chance this coach might either have a personality disorder and/or be an enabler, inadvertently keeping people trapped in cycles of abuse.
It's best to distance yourself from this kind of harmful rhetoric and this asshole! Consider finding a more knowledgeable and supportive coach who understands the complexity of these issues and doesn't oversimplify them. Moreover, it's not true that all abusers were once abused—some people are simply 'evil.'

You don't give yourself enough credit! You know what's up – what the score is when you wrote: PD people CAN discern between right and wrong; they know what they are doing to us IS bad, abusive, terrible. And yet, they choose to abuse us because hurting us is not a concern to them. Their main concern is feeding their ego and securing that narcissistic supply daily/often enough. So, why should I have empathy for someone who's doing this?

It's important to prioritize empathy for yourself above all. You wouldn't look at a rattlesnake and feel sorry for it, knowing full well it's dangerous and could potentially kill you. You wouldn't say, "Poor rattlesnake, it's got itself out in the sun and might get sunburned. That rattlesnake eats mice and rabbits because it was abused when young! I need to feel sorry for it and help it. I should help by moving it under that tree. I'll pick it up with my bare hands." That kind of thinking puts you in danger. Similarly, when dealing with toxic people who have hurt you, it's crucial to protect yourself first and foremost rather than risking further harm by trying to 'help' or 'change' them because you have 'empathy' for them. Wrong!

You wrote: I am mature enough to give myself empathy WITHOUT having to give empathy to people who are purposely trying to hurt me and take advantage of me. Sure, I don't mean harm to them, I pray for their peace and for them to have a good future (without me in it) but trying to understand them and give empathy for what they're going through is NOT a prerequisite for healing.

I think you have a good handle on what you need!  You are a better person than me.
Growing up was incredibly tough for me. I endured a lot of neglect and abuse from my family. My mother had Borderline Personality Disorder combined with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and my father exhibited traits of a vulnerable and covert type of Narcissism. My estranged sibling also struggles with severe personality disorders, showing traits of both Borderline and Narcissistic Personality Disorders, with a tendency towards psychopathy.

Moreover, I feel robbed of a chance for closure because my parents have passed away.
Even when they were alive, I couldn't confront them to express how their actions and decisions profoundly hurt me and continue to affect me to this day. Sometimes, I had in-person, one-on-one's with them, or I called them up and told them, "Hello, Mom and Dad. Remember what you did? It really damaged me, and I'm still suffering." Nor could I point out how the advice they gave me all my life led to continual chaos. I never got the chance to tell them that they played a significant role in the struggles I've faced from the very beginning of my life.

I feel deeply cheated because, even when my parents were alive and I confronted them about their actions, their responses were dismissive and passive-aggressive. For instance, whenever I brought up his failings, my father would smooth his hair back with his hand, shrug his shoulders, and cough nervously (his self-soothing ritual) before saying, "Well! I did the best I could do!" It was as if my pain and suffering—and my desire for him to acknowledge the harm he caused me and our family—meant nothing to him, like water off a duck's back.

What hurt me was it became clear that they would never take responsibility for their actions.
These people never take responsibility for their actions – never! So, how can you give someone 'empathy' for the harm they caused if they didn't do any harm to you?

Given this, the most I can aim for is to feel indifferent—I can't find it myself to forgive or love them. The concept of 'loving my enemies' is beyond what I can embrace right now. The best I can do is not to waste my limited energy hating and letting my anger fester.  If I let my anger fester or if I continue to hate them, it damages me multiple times – first their original abuse – then afterward when I remember them and the pain I suffered.  If I cut off my negative emotions and invest that energy in helping myself – I WIN!

I hold a firm belief in an afterlife. Maybe this place right now is the closest to hell some of us will ever get.  Now, I never pray that my parents go to hell- I don't want them there – I really don't want anyone there.

But if I ever get to heaven, given the severe difficulties I faced with my parents, I often find myself praying that if, by any chance, they are in heaven, then I hope heaven is immensely vast. I wish it to be so expansive that our paths never cross again. This way, I can find peace and solace in eternity, free from the pain of our past encounters. When I die, my parents are the last people I want to come for me.

Back to you: Get rid of that 'coach' and find someone else! This coach has a faulty foundation—ONLY hurt people, hurt people. With a faulty foundation, the whole program is based on a lie and leads you down the wrong path, and the destination will not be one of healing self-respect and self-esteem.

[KD5FUL]

If I am being completely honest, I have a tremendous amount of empathy for my Undiagnosed Narc parents.  My heart aches for their experiences that I know about that were painful and transformative in their past.


However that doesn't negate my need for them to take accountability nor does it excuse their harmful behavior. I think it is okay to FEEL empathy for them, as long as I can set and enforce boundaries to prevent them from causing further harm.


The thing I struggle with is exactly that --- sometimes my empathy for them causes me to not enforce my boundaries properly. 

[Queenfrog]

I think "empathy" is a tricky word and "compassion" is better. In Buddhism we aspire to have compassion for all beings. "All" means "all" and the key word is "aspire." If it were easy to do this, we would all be bodhisattvas. (I hope it's Ok to bring up Buddhism here. It can be seen as a system of psychology rather than a religion.)

One basic form of meditation is called lovingkindness ("metta"). First you hold lovingkindness for yourself, then for a loved one, then for a neutral acquaintance, and then for a difficult person. Having compassion for a difficult person does not mean becoming their victim. Quite the opposite. There is a concept called "idiot compassion" that warns us away from this. It is more compassionate - toward both yourself and the other person -- to maintain your boundaries than to feed into the PD person's dysfunction.

Most of us don't have the capacity to practice empathy without discrimination, i.e., to feel the feelings of people other than those with whom we feel safe and close. I'm not ready to aspire to that, myself, but it is a skill ascribed to my favorite bodhisattva and my favorite teacher. In this regard, the wisdom teaching is to take on only what you have the emotional capacity for, and no more.

You must take care of yourself first. I think that if you aren't ready to practice compassion for your abuser that is OK. Practice compassion for yourself and investigate your feelings. A therapist ought to show more skill and nuance than to just tell an abused person to have empathy for their abuser, even though that suggestion does reflect an important insight.

[JustKathy]

All abusers were abused and some suffered horribly and he kept talking about what THEY went through.

Yikes, no. I have to disagree with this coach. Being abused does not make someone become an abuser themselves. Everyone in this forum was abused by a narc, and we're here trying to help one another heal and be better people than they were. We made a conscious decision to heal from our trauma rather than continue the cycle.

I've had therapists (actual therapists, not life coaches) say similar things to me and it was my cue to walk away. As far as I'm concerned, being an abusive parent is a conscious decision. If you were upset by hearing that, I'd walk away from that life coach.

[mary_poppins]

All abusers were abused and some suffered horribly and he kept talking about what THEY went through.

Yikes, no. I have to disagree with this coach. Being abused does not make someone become an abuser themselves. Everyone in this forum was abused by a narc, and we're here trying to help one another heal and be better people than they were. We made a conscious decision to heal from our trauma rather than continue the cycle.

I've had therapists (actual therapists, not life coaches) say similar things to me and it was my cue to walk away. As far as I'm concerned, being an abusive parent is a conscious decision. If you were upset by hearing that, I'd walk away from that life coach.

100%

[j.banquo]

I have tons of empathy for my uBPD mother, and it is what causes me to allow her to keep emotionally abusing and manipulating me. Empathy for her physical pain, her loneliness, the stress of aging, imagining how she must feel inside with BPD, how horrible... So, no. I would very much like to stop having empathy for her.

Understanding is fine. I even recognize that she did much better than her mother did, and I am thankful for that.

[Marianne]

Empathy got me in major trouble. And my kid.

I think I like the "put your own safety mask on first" rule here.

You get yourself and kids out. First. Then you heal enough to be independent. Second. Then you can start to empathise. I can see how it would be healing. In that particular order. With non-psychopathic abusers.

[My New Life]

I think having a heart of forgiveness and empathy is a beautiful thing.  I also think having one, kept me in a toxic relationship for over 50 years with an uNPD parent.  I finally decided enough is enough; and allowed non-forgiveness to act as a scab, keeping the NPD parent away from me. 

Healthy people appreciate people with empathetic hearts and a spirit of forgiveness.  Abusers use these qualities as weapons.

I am suspicious of anyone, who places responsibility on the shoulders of the abused to not only heal and grow past the pain, but maintain empathy and forgiveness for the abuser.  It feels like a heavy-handed design to allow abusers to continue abusing.  I know that I forgave and forgave and forgave.  Each time, I forced myself to forgive and wipe the slate clean.  And each time, it allowed the abuse to continue.  I wish my parent well.  But will keep the scab of non-empathy and non-forgiveness between us.  It is not safe to do otherwise.

[Rebel13]

I saw this yesterday and I thought some of you might be interested in Emma's perspective on this topic: Homeostasis: Understanding Family Trauma.

[Marianne]

I didn't read all the posts.

I can have empathy now, for the abusers I went no contact with. Long ago. Whose abuse has stopped. I processed it enough to know for a fact they were the perpetrators. And I was not to blame, except for staying when I should have left. The boundary is clear. And I feel no pull anymore. I rarely think of them. Which is when empathy is good and safe. Imho.

There are also people I cannot break away from. Empathy sucks me back into codependency. And into placing their interests above mine and my sons. In that case. Empathy is harmful.

[JustKathy]

I saw this yesterday and I thought some of you might be interested in Emma's perspective on this topic: Homeostasis: Understanding Family Trauma.

Thank you for sharing this, Rebel. I watched several of her videos. They were really helpful.

[Marianne]

That short little movie was helpful. I still hate how they literally kept me ill. But this makes it understandable.