When Your Abuser is Your President
A lot of us are feeling off-kilter and there’s a good reason for it
One of the ethical guidelines governing psychologists is that we are not supposed to diagnose people whom we have not evaluated. The rule is well-intended, but it is ill-suited to the times that we find ourselves in. Throughout the 2016 presidential campaign season, I felt its shortcomings acutely. Psychologists and other mental health practitioners felt barred from warning the public that the Republican candidate was, at minimum, a narcissist. I hoped, then, that the American Psychological Association would reconsider that rule, that it would allow an exception for public figures, especially those whose high visibility via reality television and social media provided enough evidence of symptoms to offer a reasonable diagnostic hypothesis.
At the end of December, as many of us lamented the incoming administration, I was busy trying to get in twenty hours of continuing education to renew my license (remind me not to miss the annual psychology association conference again). One of the workshops that I chose focused on narcissism and psychopathy. Throughout the six-hour course, it became clear to many of us that the incoming presidential administration would put all of us in a relationship with a narcissistic-psychopathic abuser. But this wouldn’t be the same relationship as the 2017-2021 administration; it would be worse. We have yet to reach the 100-day mark of this 47th presidential administration and we’re already feeling the worse.
If you’re feeling destabilized, chronically exhausted, moody, and anxious, you’re not alone. If you feel like you’re constantly debating people, like your relationships are fraying, you’re also not alone. The goals of a narcissistic-psychopathic abuser’s behavior are to induce cognitive dissonance and to turn people against each other. That’s why the daily media circus is so important. This president (both the elected one and the unelected one) is exceptionally skilled at saying and doing outrageous things that are meant to upset our equilibrium, get us arguing, and sometimes even get our attentions focused in one direction while he’s doing something equally heinous somewhere else. Disequilibrium is the goal.
What Are the Signs that We’re in an Abusive Presidency?
There are some common relational dynamics for narcissistic-psychopathic abusers that are pretty obvious in this president and his cabinet of deplorables:
Predatory trolling and luring: They use artifice and feigned empathy to attract others who are vulnerable to their influence and make them think they have similar interests, beliefs, and values (like a rich man convincing a bunch of poor and working class people that he’s one of them).
A manufactured persona: Their core self is deeply damaged and they hide it behind a mask, engaging in a lot of opportunistic impression management to craft a self-image of a happy, successful, and confident person with limitless potential (“I’m the best president ever”).
Constantly shifting interests and relationships: Because they don’t have a real sense of self, they constantly redirect focus as new opportunities present themselves. They also leave relationships when they get bored, turning on people so that they can seek out a new narcissistic supply. They love-bomb new targets, creating a flood of oxytocin that makes their targets feel happy even as they are being cut off from other relationships and ungrounded from reality (kind of like being giddy about legislative changes that will hurt you).
Poorly integrated communication: They use language as a weapon of self-defense. They do not answer questions or, alternatively, they answer with unrelated information. Instead, they deflect, project, criticize, and emphasize conspiracy theories, rumors, and phobias.
How We Care for Ourselves and Each Other
So what do we do? That’s the hard part. What works for other narcissistic-psychopathic relationships doesn’t work when the abuser is the president. Still, some of the advice that therapists give clients in these types of relationships might be helpful here.
We have to understand what we are facing, to see the pathology for what it is. This means that we need to have realistic expectations and views of the nature. Positive thinking is not going to do the trick. Neither will politeness. We need to have realistic expectations and views of the nature, pervasiveness, and chronicity of the harmful behaviors that are coming from this administration, including coercive control and gaslighting, etc. This is how we recognize who is in the danger zone and who needs protection.
We need to be careful to differentiate this from other types of dysfunctional relationships. Resist the tendency to “both-side” this thing or to act like it’s just a normal problem with government. People will want you to think that the problem is polarization or divisiveness or an erosion in civil discourse. Those are definitely problems, but they are not THE problem. They are simply symptomatic of a larger issue, which is the flagrantly abusive, aggressive, human-rights-violating behavior and legislation of the president and his supporters.
Prioritize safety from this administration and its supporters, not community or dialogue with them. Do not waste energy on trying to educate or change the abuser. Stop trying to appeal to their empathy; they have little to no capacity for it. Resistance and separation, not collaboration, are the only strategy. This is hard for Christians, whose belief in redemption makes them particularly susceptible to being taken with the charm of narcissistic predators. Many Christians like to think that everyone is redeemable if we are just nice enough and pray hard enough. That is not how this works.
Learn to choose between evils. That is often the best choice that we have when dealing with this type of predator. This type of psychopathology is evil. It’s the type of evil that starts wars. But too often, we don’t want to recognize it for what it is, which makes it harder to fight.
Why This Second Time Feels Worse
I remember the feeling of 2017-2021. Each day I woke up and immediately grabbed my phone to look through news apps, wondering what fresh hell I was waking up to. This time feels worse. And that’s because it is worse.
Narcissistic psychopaths have no motivation for a humane ending to any relationship because they don’t value relationship except as a means to their own ends. But because their relationships are so volatile, they often return to former relationships. And herein lies our problem: if the survivor takes them back, they become even more abusive, sometimes violently so. The thinking is along these lines: “You saw how evil I am and you took me back anyway. Now I can really show you who I am.”
We keep saying that the guard rails are off because Congress is not doing its job. In truth, it was the people who re-elected him who started dismantling the rails.
New Series Coming in April
Next week, I’ll be posting a guided meditation. Then, I’ll be doing a series on the practices that are sustaining me during this time.
How are you feeling amidst the constant political onslaught? What’s sustaining you? Leave a comment and let us know.
Dr. Chanequa, as always thank you. I just pointed out some of these issues the other day and the fact that I would not be engaging with people who support him, nor people who want to help me understand the various people groups I named (racists, self hating Black/brown people, and “Christians”) who voted for him because I understand already. My self care practices during this time is not allowing myself to be “consumed” with their every move, because I do understand the psychology of it. I limit my news sources to those I deem most credible at this time. Meditation practices, devotional practices and prayer and being a safe place for those looking for one. Thank you for your ministry.
GIRL!!!!! THIS!!!!!!! It feels like being in a toxic-ass, abusive-ass marriage with a narc all over again!