Narcissists rewrite history to escape accountability

Narcissists rewrite history to avoid accountability. You are not crazy. 

This quote resonates because abusive individuals manipulate reality to maintain control and make us doubt ourselves.

Remember that abusers target strong people who empathize deeply—this is part of their control strategy. They twist narratives to escape responsibility while making themselves victims—a tactic that keeps them in power over us.

In relationships with such individuals, we often feel stuck as they reject our perspectives and create an alternate reality where they're always right. It's crucial to recognize this pattern as intentional gaslighting designed to undermine our trust in ourselves.

Transcript

Hello, and thank you so much for being here. Before we dive into today's episode. I'm gonna go over. A few ways that you could get in contact with me. And a few things that I would really appreciate which I don't usually ask for, but if you like this podcast if you could rate and review on whatever platform you're listening, that would help a attend.

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And now that I've gone through all of that fine print, I as always Thankful that you're here. And today, I wanna talk about something that I posted on Instagram because it became, like, the most... Shared post I've ever had, and I think for good reason. But earlier last week, I posted Something that I I honestly feel like Posted before, but the post said, narcissist rewrite history to avoid accountability. You are not crazy.

I'll read it again. Narcissist says, rewrite history to avoid accountability. You are not crazy. And if you don't follow me, you can at emotional abuse coach on Instagram. But when this post really started getting shared a lot and commented on.

And, you know, people responding to and asking me questions. I started to think about why. Why does this 1 hit us so far? And I think it's really important because I think a lot of us get stuck with a narcissist or an abusive of person because... It is crazy making.

And often, I prefer to say abusive person because all narcissist are abusive, but not all abusive people are narcissist. So if even if I reframe this quote, abuse the people rewrite history to avoid accountability, and they do make us feel crazy. And a lot of the times, 1 of the first steps in realizing that you were not crazy comes, after we allow our minds to go through all of it. The torture what happened, why did it happen? But they set it like this.

And I should apologize for this, and I should do that, and we get so wrapped up in what our role was and what the story was, and it's a story was even real. And on top of that, how our story can be so far apart from theirs. Or at times actually makes it worse because our version of the story versus their version of the story is usually not focused on what's focused on is only theirs and then we feel like we're not taking accountability. And honoring their story. And before we know what we've gone around in a circle and end up not even remembering what the issue was in the first place.

I know for me, I didn't know what was right or wrong anymore. And so I think that quote kind of sums it up. It's that they rewrite history. To avoid actually taking responsibility, accountability and ownership for what they did. And so what do they do instead?

They become the victim. They are now the victim because their version is true. And of course, they're not wrong. Why would they be wrong? Why would they have to show up differently?

They feel you are wrong and because in their eyes. You are, not in reality, but in their perspective, because they want to be in control that's their perception of reality. And so when they do this, what they are doing is challenging the way in which we see the world. It is gas lighting. They're challenging the way we perceive how things happen to us, which usually go along with what actually happened to us.

Our reactions, our feelings. But if they saw what we see, they would be horrified. If they have they had a soul. So you always become the bad guy in the story because again, they rewrite the history. And this is a real fear for a lot of us because abusive of people target people that they can control.

They target people that they envy. They target empathetic people, they target strong people. They target women and men. That have their shit together so they can leach right off of it, they target people who care about how people feel most of the time. Right?

Because, like imagine 2 narcissist together, 2 abusive of people together that abuse in the same way. Like, it that would be it toxic overall volcano. They would just, like, burn each other down. They wouldn't neither 1 would ever be in control. They wouldn't get any supply out of that.

And, of course, all the toxic behaviors, and I'm the last person. In the world to say that I don't have any. I do. We all do. But I'm not sitting here rewriting history and avoiding accountability.

We get stuck reeling because now there's this new story. And now if we challenge perspective. Now we're doing something wrong because they can't say effective They they get into the cycle of, like, saying that we can't say that they're gas lighting us because now we're changing their perception. It's crazy making, and that's the intent because that's how they maintain control. It is crazy making on purpose.

I think that's the part that a lot of us don't get is that it is crazy making on purpose. 1 of the comments on that page or on the post was that from someone saying that they started to record, conversations because they kept being told they're were wrong. And so now the person can't rewrite history. If it's recorded, all they do. I've seen it done, but I've also been there too and it is so hard.

This is definitely a sign of abuse that you're being abused when you feel like the only way you can understand if conversation happen the way that we believed it happen is if we record it. And I am gonna be front with you. I absolutely did this in the past because I started to feel crazy. And there was this 1 time there was this 4 hour conversation I had and listened back to a few times my therapist to listen back to, and I needed to listen to it to know that I was not crazy. I needed to listen to it to actually see it for what it is.

But even with that, even if they knew you did it, they will take evidence and say that it's not true or the the problem is is the way that you're listening to it. And it's amazing how much they can twist words, that are even written in text email. They'll say things like you mean this and you're like, no I didn't. I'm like, yes, you did. Like, no I didn't.

And it kinda goes on and on and on until... You have no idea what you said? They rewrite history to avoid accountability. And often, this is the place where we get really stuck because we're operating in these relationships based on how we would act in a healthy relationship. So they shift blame.

They try and make themselves appear better than they are, and they recreate this pedestal that we've probably had them on, but now they're putting themselves on. To protect their ego, they cannot be wrong. They know they're wrong, but they can't accept it. And so they bend and twist the truth, and then they start to believe a new false truth as if it already happened because it put them in a better light. And therefore, we are left feeling like the crazy 1.

And now here we are, and we continue down the cycle, of arguing about things that don't actually even exist. And on top of that, talking to someone who doesn't really exist because that person the person that is projecting all the stuff on to us, we don't see them as they actually are, and they don't see themselves as they actually are either. They see us how they want to. And if we saw them as they actually are, we would see that they're trying to change the way that that we see ourselves. Because who they are is someone who will stop at nothing to manipulate the reality in the world that they want because they don't see us or treat us as a person.

1 of the things I did when I was healing was asked myself? What would does a secure person do? What would a healthy person do? A healthy person rewrite history to escape accountability? Does a healthy person tell me my perceptions are wrong?

Does So healthy person change narrative? Does a healthy person live in victim mode and victim mode from a narcissist. Doesn't look like a typical victim mode. It's like, a hyper aggressive. I am the victim the world is against me.

Everybody hates me. Can't you see I'm It's a healthy person act that way. A healthy person takes accountability, which is why the quote resonates. With so many people, because you are not crazy. You take accountability for the things you do and the things and often things you don't do and the abuser is likely telling you that you don't ever take enough accountability.

But that's not who you are. You are someone that likes to see things in a fair way, and you've been hurt and you've been bruised and you've been hurt so badly that you don't even know what left and right is half the time, and that's all you want. Right is to be able to see things clearly. How much would you give in order just to know and be able to trust your own perception. And that's why you're here.

You are here because you want to understand your reality? Instead of having a healthy conversation with your partner to be able to see where you are misaligned or you aligned to figure out the repair. Your partner is instead, spending more time, focusing on how they don't have to take accountability for what happened. They don't have to work on the relationship, which means the relationship actually doesn't progress at all. It just remains in the cycle of abuse.

Their control is what progresses, not the relationship. It constantly puts them in a superior position be because their version of reality is what we see is accurate, and yours is not. And over time, if gets more and more inaccurate to the point that you don't even believe your own reality. And so how many of us get to this point in the podcast and are like lie to I don't trust myself. How do I trust myself What do I do I can't make a freaking decision?

I don't know. And of course, there's strategies that we can lean into to begin to un gas ourselves. There's actually an episode I have about this and all. Tag it so you can easily find it. But sometimes I think we have to take a step back and let some of these quotes really sink in and ask ourselves what is happening.

I think there is another important part of this whole puzzle that might help you. And so I'm gonna do a quick diversion because I think it's important. The in the book, why does he do that inside the minds of angry controlling men, Lu Bankrupt? Says essentially that abusers take away our right to feel feelings. It's a right that's reserved only for them.

Says and I think that's a really deep quote and a really deep idea because if you think about it, it's true. Feelings are reserved just for them. When you have feelings, they claim you're over reacting, they claim you're being dramatic. When they're angry, that's a feeling. Isn't it, but they feel like that feeling that anger is justified.

They might not even call it a feeling, they might just say it's anger. When they're pissed, when they're pushing a perspective, That's them. Those are feelings. But how many times does an abusive said you don't be mad? Don't be sad.

You're not really mad about that right. Why do you feel that way? Can be done crying now. Can you just not be mad? Oh, you're upset.

They take away our right to feel? So not only are they rewriting history of events, but they're also naming what and when we can feel feelings and yet. We are the ones that wonder for crazy. And I haven't talked that much on this podcast at least about how the narcissistic or abusive person makes himself into a victim. But I definitely think that needs to be a future episode because it's another element of why this is all truly crazy making.

And that is what it is meant to do. It is meant to throw us off because if you think about it, it's like the manipulative person hurts you, but then if it hurts, it makes you mad. If you end up getting fed up, If you finally find your way to leave, They're like, oh, now you hate me. You're so mad at me. You're so angry.

You left. So now they're the victim. Had a lot of episodes I'm here about different variations of what this looks like. And how it comes up, but just to be clear, there are a lot of reasons why they do it. None of them are healthy.

And maybe we need to look at why? What are they avoiding? Where what causes them to do this? And this is not so that you can feel bad for them. This is so that you can see it's not you.

It's not your fault. So They do this because they don't wanna to deal with chain. Na is rooted and shame and rooted in fear vulnerability. And it's like, really addressing the shame. They rather throw it anybody than actually deal with it.

They will throw anybody under the bus. They will throw them in front of the bus. I have an episode with then Taylor that talks a little bit more about shame and addressing why they avoid shame that I think would be really helpful. And I'll tag that in the show notes too. In 1 way that they avoid the shame is by projecting it on to you.

They take their feelings, put them onto to you and then blame you for feeling them or making them feel that way. They also might feel guilty. And you know, I always wondered, you know, when they discard us, do they ever feel guilty? They might feel guilty, but then not feeling the shame prevents them from actually, feeling the guilt, and avoid the accountability around feeling guilty by just projecting it back onto to us, because it's our fault. Sometimes I think about does this person see us as a person?

Because a person doesn't really discard another person. Right? Nobody ghosts a fiance. Nobody leaves a relationship after 05:10 years, 1 year, 7 months and not say anything. A person who loves us wouldn't just discard us like a person if they actually saw us as a human being, but they don't.

So and a healthy person wouldn't want a relationship to end and let the other person just sit around with a bunch of question marks if they actually cared about them. And 1 way they must not actually see us as people is because they're running so far away from guilt that they'll project any blame onto us because keeping us in that other space of not a true human being, not worthy of feelings, releases them of all guilt that they would have to feel because they've convinced themselves that we deserve it. They are also in severe severe denial that they wouldn't could do anything wrong because that would challenge their very big ego. But if they're a victim, it doesn't challenge their ego, because then other people lift them up. And I think a lot of this comes back to control.

And I've been talking about this more and more that they are always needing to be in control. And it's not as simple as like, oh, They just wanna be in control. There are control freak. It's like they need to be in a place of power over you. They need to be in a place of power over you all the time.

They need to be in control or even the illusion of control. So even if you have a powerful perspective active, even if your perspective is right. They still need to be in control of you, and it's sick and it's madden, active but I think it's... I think it kind of brings us back to the quote in the first place that the rewrite history to escape accountability. They're not rewriting history because they know how it actually went.

They went and hit their rewriting history to maintain power over us. Because if they're in control of the perspective, if they're in control of the story if they're in control of the history then we are always wrong, so it's still power over, and we feel crazy And then they tell us we're crazy, most of the time as well. So we feel it. And then this person that we have put all our feelings on are also telling us we are crazy. And now all of the decisions in the way that we at...

They interact with us is because they think we're crazy because they told us that we're crazy. And so the cycle never stops. The cycle of abuse just goes on and on. And this is why people like me will say they won't change because we're saying that... In order for them to change first, they need to start with taking accountability for how they show up But they don't look on how they're showing up.

A healthy person, who wanted to change these behavior. At first healthy person someone have these behaviors. But if somebody wanted to change every... These behaviors, they would have to look at this and say, I don't wanna do this anymore. I don't like this.

They would not be okay if we rewrote history. Actually, they're not okay with our actual version of history most of the time. And we are rewriting history, in their perspective because we're writing it as to what actually happened and challenging their beliefs of what they're saying did happen or their projection of what happened or what their claiming did. And they're not even okay with that. They're not okay with us having a perspective.

So where do we exist in this at all? And what can you do? What can you do if you're in a relationship where somebody continues to rewrite the history and rewrite events and retail events based on their belief system. And you are stuck in the cycle. And right now, you might say well, Jessica, I'm challenging their perception.

And I'll say this. There is not 2 sides there's not 2 sides of a story in an abusive relationship. There's usually 1 based on facts. And there's 1 based on pure perception, and gas lighting. And I've told the story before, and I'm gonna do it again, because I do think that it's a good example, but A few years ago I was supposed to hang out with my boyfriend at the time, and we had a plan to do a certain thing that he wanted to do that was in his neighborhood.

It did require me to clear my work schedule for that evening to be able to do it, but he had been asking and it was something that felt like it was important to him. We live close by in theory, but during traffic, it's not very close and city living. I... 15 minutes can easily turn to 40. So I text when I leave text when I get there, text that I can't find parking, it took longer and no I texted before I left 2, and I'm not getting any answers at all, Nothing.

And I said to myself, okay. Maybe he's in the... Shower. Maybe he went out for a second. Maybe he's talking to somebody, maybe he has a work call.

Like, I'm... You know, going through, like, oh, do all these things that could be and I'm getting a little anxious because it's like, oh, well, he hasn't responded. I hope everything's okay. I had a key to the apartment so I open the door and he's asleep. And so I go in and I gently wake him up, and I'm I'm a little freaking out a little bit.

Because I could tell. He's not ready to go, out it showered, and I was a bit in panic because of all the time I took to get there with all the trapped and all the parking and all of this. And all of that, we were already late. And so now we're triple late and I'm there, and I'm like, and this was towards the end of the relationship, which I think is important. I was like, I I'm gonna get blamed for this aren't I in my head.

I'm totally gonna be blamed for this. And so I hate waking people up. It's I'm sure I have some sort of trauma around that at 1 point I'll explore, but I wake him up and I go. And he goes, why do you... What what what is your face like that?

And that's the first thing he says, And I'm like, be talking about. He goes, why is your face like that? I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about, and he's like, I'm like, I don't know. I was scared to wake you up, but I don't know. And I didn't expect you to be asleep.

I thought we were gonna go. And, thinking in my had head, why am I trouble. And I'm like, I'm sorry. Shay now Have woken you up. And he's like, no.

No No. You should have. And I'm like, okay. Well, like, do you wanna go take a shower? I don't know what you need.

And the day before of this, we actually removed a couch from his apartment, so I just went... I turned around to give him space. I went... Go sit the stairs and that were, like, in his home, I started answering emails on my phone just trying to give him space and go also, I'm a disaster in the morning when I just wake up, like, I need time. And so I'm like, 1, I'm gonna try and keep the peace.

I'm gonna go here and stay calm and do something productive that gets me out of the way. But you can very clearly see him already walking on egg shells. I was walking on egg shells as I walked into that apartment. And me today wouldn't do that. This is not my dream.

You know, this is not this is not ideal. I also believe that in healthy relationship if somebody wants to do something then, like, They'd wake up and be like, oh, shit. Gotta go. I'll be right out. I'm so sorry.

But I was afraid, and I kept wondering why am I so afraid. And he just would not stop focusing on my facial expressions and then It turned into why am I sitting over there, and I start thinking through, like, all of the, like, why is this all on me right now? And then he looks over at me and he's, like, you're being weird. And I'm like, I'm not being weird, And then he's, like, you threw out the couch... Like, you threw out the couch yesterday.

I no... Like, I just wanted to give you space and he's like, well, why would you sit over there and not over here and I was like, because you... I'm... Again, trying to give you space. I'm trying to keep myself busy, and then this 1 on while the shower is running and he never got into it.

And this whole thing ended up being about my face, my negativity and how I was showing up? And why do I was complain about parking? And if I tried so hard to make a event beat for there for him, why do I care? The he's tired, hit a long day. I was like okay, Why you cancel then?

It was never and I'm sorry. There was never I didn't plan on falling asleep. It was never, like, I'm sorry we missed it. It would and in this book, there's essentially a point that... And if this person is really going to change.

That's something that he's going to mean to do is to be able to understand that He can no longer think that you are the problem. That they do need to take responsibility that your version of reality is actually what's what the truth is. Maybe even that they have to accept your truth as the truth, and that you're gonna choose to accept your truth as the truth because we trust that you're not the 1 who's maintaining power over and trying to control Else you wouldn't be here. And that's an important part of the puzzle. It's a really big important part of the puzzle because essential theme of somebody who avoids accountability, is that they need to start with the process of grappling with their responsibility for their actions.

And this is on page 262 of the book, but it says, 1 of the essential themes in the change process for a destructive partner is his in process of grappling with his responsibility for his own actions. He will continue and probably for a long time, have a great deal of inner dialogue in which he's arguing with himself that you cost him to behave the way that he did and you have exaggerated the problem. 1 way that you can get an indication that the wrong side is winning the internal debate. Is if he is keeping emotional distance from you and making excuses not to be close. And what what they're really saying here is that, like, then that person resent you from having to be better.

Therefore. Punishing you for calling you out on on their issues. Therefore, making you feel crazy for having feelings at all. Everything sort of goes back to this. And so really at the end of the day.

This quote, I think resonates with so many people because we're all whether it's coworkers workers, family, friends, lovers, partners, Fiance, husbands, wives, We are done wanting to feel crazy, he would be here. If you didn't not want to feel crazy anymore. You're not crazy. Some of the steps I do think are understanding what's going on, so you can d it, but there's a lot of beginning to un gas yourself, and get really clear on what your facts are. It doesn't mean that we lose compassion, but it does mean that we...

There's stop letting others, tell us what our reality is. If you need support, you can reach out to me, at jessica at jessica coaching dot com. That's my email address. You can find me at emotional abuse coach on Instagram, and my website, emotional abuse coach dot. Com.

If you need support, please reach out.