Is It Narcissism, A Traumatized Nervous System, Neurodiversity, An Abundance Of Unearned Privileges, Or All Of The Above?

A Trauma-Informed Understanding Of Nervous System Fragility & Its Impact On Relational Behavior

In this essay I wrote a while back about “nervous system privilege” and how to handle relationships when one of you has a very traumatized nervous system and the other doesn’t, I took to heart the advice I got from a friend whose husband has a severe trauma history, when she does not. She helped me see the traumatized nervous system as a kind of neurodiversity, a marginalization she lacked, with her relative nervous system regulation as an unearned privilege resulting from her reasonably safe, happy childhood.

She considers trying not to be ableist in the face of her partner’s traumatized nervous system part of her activism and social justice, anti-oppression work. As part of her allyship to those with traumatized nervous systems, she tries to grant her partner some slack when his very fragile nervous system causes him to behave in ways that can feel hurtful to her. She knows he can’t really help it, and she realizes he’s not capable of self-regulating his easily overwhelmed nervous system the way she can self-regulate hers, at least not yet. He’s in therapy, so he’s actively working on it, as is my partner, who also has a severe trauma history.

While her partner doesn’t identify as neurodivergent, she perceives the severely traumatized nervous system as a kind of neurodiversity, which makes sense to me. We know from the neuroscience of polyvagal theory that the vagus nerve doesn’t properly myelinate in people with severe attachment wounding who don’t get their infant needs for connection with the caregivers adequately met. When caregivers are terrifying rather than nurturing, nervous system development is hampered and the brain and peripheral nervous system simply don’t grow normally. The result is a very neurodivergent nervous system, compared to someone who got their attachment needs met and had the opportunity to grow a neurotypical nervous system, complete with a well myelinated ventral vagus nerve that can allow for easier relational connections. (This wonderful video created by The Trauma Foundation explains how the traumatized nervous system makes relationships difficult beautifully and sensitively.)

As my partner and I have been finishing up the manuscript for our next book about the health implications of narcissistic abuse, we’ve been trying to tease these things apart as best we can. Because it’s confusing, isn’t it? As someone who’s been trying to be a social justice ally on social media since 2008, and as someone with all the unearned privileges except being male, I’ve witnessed and been victimized by white fragility, male fragility, social class fragility, and other fragilities that arise when you challenge people’s unearned privileges. I’ve also perpetrated microaggressions and noticed my own fragility when I feel attacked by people who are trying to school me into being a more sensitive ally.

I feel a lot of compassion for people who have hair trigger fragile nervous systems because of extreme trauma. But what if those people also have a lot of unearned privileges and are fragile in the face of criticism because they’ve been part of all the dominant groups and haven’t had to develop the thicker skins and resilient nervous systems marginalized people are forced to develop?

How can we discern the difference between the behaviors associated with nervous system fragility because of a traumatized nervous system and the behaviors classically associated with narcissism, like gaslighting, DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender), invalidating someone’s feelings, lacking empathy, projection, and displacement?

I want to be inspired by my neurotypical friend’s attempt to be an ally to those with nervous system fragility. But when you’re on the victim end of someone else’s fragility, regardless of the cause of the fragility, it freaking sucks. While I might have a more neurotypical nervous system, being gaslit or being on the receiving end of blame-shifting kicks my own nervous system beyond my window of tolerance, and then I’m flooded too. Whether on social media or in real life, I just cannot tolerate being gaslit, having my reality denied, having my legitimate and appropriate feelings minimized and invalidated, being blamed when I’m actually innocent, and having my attempt to speak up about something that hurt me hijacked by someone whose nervous system kicks into the typical narcissistic defenses at even the slightest hint that they’re being criticized.

When I’m dealing with people high on the narcissism spectrum, which happens often because of the business I’min, it feels like the defensive parts kick off before I even get one sentence out, suggest a correction, give feedback, or speak up about something that hurts me. It’s like whack a mole with the narcissistic defenses before I’ve even finished trying to get my Non-Violent Communication right.

“When you invalidate my reality, I feel betrayed, confused, and scared that I’m going to lose my mind, and my need to be seen, heard, validated, and have my feelings empathically legitimized goes unmet. My request is that you stop gaslighting me and validate at least my feelings, even if you can’t validate my perspective or my story.”

Only I get cut off before I finish “When you invalidate my reality…” And then it doesn’t feel fair to call me ableist if I’m expecting someone else, who might be neurodivergent because of trauma, to actually listen to me rather than cut me off and launch right into gaslighting and blame-shifting. Like, wait. What about accountability? What about my needs and the safety and justice needs of my own parts?

This cycle is a frequent event in my work. Even the people who are the most respected experts in the field of traumatology often get caught up in this loop with each other, since it’s often their trauma that got them interested in trauma to begin with. But let’s say someone gaslights me the minute I begin to register even the slightest protest in even the mildest way. Let’s say they deny what I know to be objectively, provably true and real. Am I ableist if I refuse to tolerate being gaslit?

Let’s say we do the inevitable postmortem later, and whoever initially gaslit me might cop to whatever was previously being gaslit. Maybe they even apologize retrospectively. They won’t cop to the gaslighting, but they’ll admit that maybe I had a right to be upset about whatever we’d been fighting about. When this happens, I tend to have this very compassionate part of me kick in, when I realize I honestly don’t believe that this trauma survivor, who is almost always a cis, white, hetero male but also a survivor of severe trauma, is capable of calming himself down when he feels even the slightest critique, no matter how gently it’s delivered. I have parts that have given up even trying to have an empathic conversation, in the moment, with a cis, white, hetero male trauma survivor. That’s how hopeless I feel. But does that make me ableist?

I was hashing this out with some IFS therapist girlfriends of mine. And one of them sent me this Instagram video made by Loren Krenn, a man trying to unpack why men get defensive. He goes even deeper into the subject here. While I don’t believe this is a gender issue, and both men and women can have traumatized nervous systems that cause them to be instantaneously defensive, the sentiment of his share is worth repeating.

Loren Krenn says:

“Why do men get defensive? Because we try to avoid feeling like a failure. Yes, defensiveness is a coping mechanism to avoid feeling shame, inadequacy, feeling unworthy. We’ve been conditioned as a man to believe that when a woman expresses her upset about something or gives us feedback about something we do that doesn’t make her feel safe, that it means we’re a failure. And then we become defensive because we don’t want to feel that unworthiness and inadequacy. But the paradox is we invalidate her emotions. We push her away. And this in turn will make us feel even more like a failure. Defensiveness is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the antidote is ownership. Healthy masculinity is about taking radical ownership.”

(If you struggle with dynamics like this, we’ll be unpacking these confusing dynamics with healing intention and a desire to support all parties involved in the new online continuity program we’re launching February 10 called LOVE SCHOOL. Learn more and join us twice a month on Zoom for LOVE SCHOOl here.)

I get that if someone was beaten any time they weren’t living up to some impossible standard of unrealistic perfection growing up, if their nervous systems kick off into fight, flight, freeze or fawn the minute they feel like someone is telling them they’re anything less than 100% perfect, and if that stressed nervous system then leads to instantaneous activation of the narcissistic defenses, then how is a neurotypical person supposed to respond or react without being accused of being ableist?