Sources of Disloyalty Accusations
These accusations of disloyalty come from a few places. I’d say, first of all, they come from good old entitlement on the part of the narcissistic person. Narcissistic people feel entitled to all of your time, your thoughts, and your life. So, if you attempt to exert yourself as something separate from them, well, then you’re being disloyal to them. In addition, narcissistic people do not take responsibility or accountability, and they’ll often project blame for their bad behavior onto other people.
Calling you disloyal for what they characterize as breaking ranks when all you were doing was maybe drawing their attention to something they did that was harmful or something harmful that was happening in a relationship, a family, a workplace, or a friend group means not only do they not have to take responsibility, it’s also a gaslight.
Being accused of disloyalty when you are calling them out on a problem makes you the problem. Since enablers and other people who might be benefiting from or comfortable with the status quo of the system are often more interested in keeping the system going than protecting people within it, the narcissistic folks often get to keep on keeping on, and you get to be viewed as disloyal.
Disloyalty as a Tool for Control
This accusation of disloyalty is a tool for squelching individuation. How dare you be you? How dare you do something you want or need? Using that big disloyalty word can shut that down. You’re doing something for yourself, and it can keep people stunted and stuck in a version of themselves that works in the relationship, the system, or for the narcissist, but is not your true self. This whole disloyalty universe is often what keeps everyone in the system locked into limiting, stunted spaces until you finally get it and can make steps toward setting yourself free.
In any kind of group system, call it what you will: workplaces, families, this whole loyalty thing can get dark. Since, in many systems, at least for some time, the narcissistic person is the one with a lot of the power, the narcissistic person is always going to reward the most loyal person, even if that loyalty means that, to earn the narcissistic person’s designation of you as loyal, you have to throw other people under the bus.
Triangulation and Betrayal
This can feel uniquely cruel in families, where you may, for example, share a confidence or a secret with a family member and even tell them about something that was hurting you. Instead of protecting you, they run to the narcissistic person so they can be the loyal one, stay in the glow, and receive the indulgences of the narcissistic person.
Now, the narcissistic person may view you as even more disloyal, and you have been harmed. Now you’re being betrayed by someone in that system, family, or workplace, whom you thought you could trust. Now that this issue, whatever it is, has been shared, the harm to you in the system may even be worse.
This volleying and jockeying for power and getting the narcissistic person to notice them is a core of triangulation: everyone in the family or workplace kissing the proverbial ring, trading on anything to stay close to the narcissistic parent, the narcissistic patriarch, matriarch, whomever, getting that protection, being viewed as loyal, and magnifying the harms of the narcissistic person through the system. If you have ever been betrayed in this way, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
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