What Is Moral Injury?

Understanding how our own values and empathy led us into the snare of the manipulative narcopath

This blog is written for female survivors of male perpetrators.

One thing that characterises Narcissistic Abuse from other toxic behaviours is the repeated stealthy violation of our core values. These values bond us to our abuser(s), at the same time as their violation causes us great pain. We are torn. This kind of injury is what is meant by a moral injury. Here are a few of those:

Trust: was used as a way of taking advantage of us. If our suspicions were aroused, he douses them quickly with, “Don’t you trust me?” making us feel defective for not trusting the one person in our lives we ‘should’ be able to trust – our partner. He can then conduct his covert affairs feeling confident that we won’t violate his privacy (read his diary, check his text messages, question his spending from joint accounts or any other detective work). We are made to feel we have to trust him even though we already know we don’t (cognitive dissonance).

Loyalty: was used to shame and manipulate us. Since loyalty is so important to us, accusations by the narcopath of disloyalty (remember his pathological jealousy?) can have the effect of making us try harder to prove our own loyalty in the hope of strengthening the relationship bond. We looked past red flags and boundary violations, tolerated his womanising or fraudulent behaviour, bent our own rules in the interest of our core value of loyalty. At the same time, we forgave his disloyalty, believing the empty promises, oaths and vows – because they articulated our own values back to us like a mirror. He used his cognitive empathy* to do this (understanding how others think and what is important to them).

Openness, honesty and accountability in love relationships: was used as a way to manipulate us. Our sharing of shameful secrets, past mistakes, traumatic memories and the things that matter to us most was not treated with compassion, respect and confidentiality. Rather this intimate self-disclosure was used as emotional blackmail and/or to shame us by denigrating our character in ‘jokes’, gossip and sworn affidavits.

Integrity (doing what we promise to do): was used to place huge demands on our time, energy and financial resources. This kept us on a treadmill of effort and exhaustion, which weakened us and diverted us from seeing the manipulation. Conversely, we were continually exposed to him breaking promises, toxic amnesia, and gaslighting;  and him having integrity with other people but not us– creating thousands of small wounds to our deeply held beliefs.

Belief in gender equality: was used as a way to support him financially, keep a roof over his head and food in his belly. It was possibly used to coerce us into doing other traditionally ‘male’ domestic duties in addition to the traditionally ‘female’ undervalued domestic work that is invisible to the entitled male eye.

Respect: was used conditionally. That is, he appeared to give respect in public, but withdrew it in the home; having no respect for our personal boundaries, personal space, belongings, money, physical and mental health challenges, friends, colleagues and family. He used anything of ours that was useful to him and disposed of what wasn’t.

Being loving, caring and supportive: was used as a way to push our moral boundaries. He would lie, cheat, break the law or spread false gossip, knowing we would always choose protecting him over exposing him. This behaviour then had us in a semi-permanent state of moral dilemma. Our own values coerced us into behaviour that created shame in us.

Moral integrity: was used as a way of keeping us subservient to his needs and rules. If he knows we won’t ever stoop to lie, cheat and steal ourselves, then it is easier to keep everybody in the dark about his covert behaviour. Discovering what has been going on under our moral radar can become a cause for horror or traumatisation after he has discarded us and during the lengthy abusive divorce.

Assertiveness: was flipped around. If we tried to assert ourselves, we were accused of being crazy or abusive ourselves. Over time, we became more and more subservient to him through his persuasive or coercive control.

Belief in the goodness in every person: kept us blind to his manipulation. He justified his toxic behaviour and we chose to believe him. He persuaded us of a good intention behind every foul violation. We became complicit in his crimes against our own humanity. We were coerced.

Kindness: was twisted around to feed his envy or jealousy. For those of us whose narcopath was a sadistic or Machiavellian psychopath, we have experienced cruelty from him like from no other person. He took pleasure from causing and witnessing our pain, fear, or anguish; and yet he may have appeared to be kind to others (especially fans or strangers), lowering our self-worth even more. Our kindness to others stirred feelings of jealousy or rage in him, which he likely expressed by punishing us or the object of our kindness and care (like pets or children).

Generosity: was used to bleed us of everything we had. He played on our innate generosity with our time, energy and finances. Always promising to return the favour one day, we trusted him and gave him the shirt off our backs. He reciprocated by abandoning us and burning our lives to the ground.

Empathy in Narcissists and Psychopaths:

*Cognitive empathy (developed in narcopaths) is the ability to identify and understand another’s mental state or perspective.

They recognise a number of stimuli that helps them predict how another will THINK.

Affective empathy (absent in narcopaths) refers to the feelings and sensations we get in response to someone else’s emotions.

They do not recognise another person’s EMOTIONAL STATE or respond with the normal ‘resonance’ (when others around us are afraid or in despair, we usually begin to feel some of their pain).

So they can tell you exactly what you want to hear, and lie unconscionably without feeling even slightly uncomfortable emotionally. Psychopaths, can learn to fake affective empathy by mimicking. So they can pretend to share the excitement or sadness that their behaviour has brought about, while getting gratification from their manipulative power and confirmation of their human superiority.