If somebody can't take responsibility, should it be forced onto them?
We are a product of our environment and our circumstances.
When you are surrounded by things that pull you down and when you are sabotaged perpetually you eventually become what everyone tells you that you are. You eventually believe it because all of the evidence around you points to that being reality and when you are someone that carries that internal shame from childhood then you are far more likely to accept this as the truth than someone who has a strong sense of self, strong sense of being and knows what they are worth.
This is what makes narcissists vulnerable and invulnerable at the same time. The pathological ones have already grappled with this when they were a kid and they opted for rewriting life into a fantasy story that has them as the star and nothing that they do can be held to them for accountability. They simply deny reality and replace it with their rewritten one because it’s more pleasant for them to digest regardless of how fictional it is.
The vulnerable narcissists (not the pseudo definition but meaning truly vulnerable in this context) are not vulnerable narcissists at all as they don’t have this protective mechanism of denial and so when you surround them in this environment and they already believe on some foundational level that they are defective then at some point the seed of belief will start to grow into a way of thinking when you feed it the constant reassurance that it’s correct and that you are defective and worthless.
So, someone who has that seed of shame in them and doesn’t have the narcissistic adaptation of rewriting history will be vulnerable to their environment where if they are saturated in this perpetual reassurance that their inner voice is correct then they will inevitably believe it and at that point they will turn on themselves as well. This is the true root of suicide. If you hate yourself as much as the outside world does then at some point you are going to agree that you should no longer exist and you’ll punish yourself for doing so. That is, unless you have enough narcissism to be unable to kill yourself for selfish reasons at which point then you’re stuck in self loathing and that can only be soothed with drugs and alcohol .
The solution is to get positive feedback introduced. When you have been subjected to such negative feedback for so long it may seem scary or like you need to repel the good feedback when you finally do start getting it. It may seem unnatural and like someone is playing you but, if you start to hear it enough you’ll start to be able to rebuild your self worth and when you start saying positive things about yourself that will start to reinforce that outside message that you do have value.
When your core belief is that you are no good and your outside world hammers you with that endlessly then the minute you side with that inner voice and you side with that outside world you’re going to be lost. The only cure is to reverse it and to do that you need to change the people who are killing you into people that are building you up. You need not to have a malignant narcissist pull you apart but you need someone who isn’t sadistically charged who will prey upon your weaknesses like that as you are open minded which, is only a good thing when you aren’t immersed in the toxicity of a malignant narcissist . Open minded means you are flexible and are able to change your position on things but it also means that you take what the outside world says seriously. This for a person with an internal shame is your undoing when you are saddled with a sadist.
The sadistic malignant narcissist will continue to have a life draining and soul sucking effect on you until you are able to identify who they are, what they are doing, and how they are doing it because they will always smile to your face and work in the background to create these life draining situations. They are cowards at heart so you'll likely have to dig pretty deep to identify who it truly is but in the absence of that you’ll find a sickened individual that enjoys building you up to tear you down over and over again so that they can feel superior in some way. It’s truly the pinnacle of weakness though as they can never show themselves nor can they own their behaviors, nor can they fight with any honor.
This is because they are truly narcissists and they have told themselves a story that says you deserve it, that what they are doing is a superior way to fight because it doesn't unnecessarily expose them to any threat of danger, and they kid themselves that it makes them superior as manifest by their intellect. In the end, anyone that can’t own their own actions openly is a coward. I the end, it’s not intelligence that allows them to harm you it’s their ability to hide in plain site and artificially apply friendliness to someone that they hate. It’s just fakeness that allows them to function, that and societies pathological desire to never hold anyone villainous accountable and for them to never get involved. It’s the key sickness in the world and it allows these malignant narcissistic types to thrive.
In the end, I believe that if you are the one that has to live through your consequences in your life then your punishment is already being exacted onto you. You have to live the consequences of your decisions so that gives you a pass in the accountability department because the very function of living is holding you accountable as you live through those consequences. No, it’s the judgers and those that feel entitled to sentence you to some punishment for something the judge has no authority or say over that are the ones that need to be held accountable and show some responsibility. It’s those that think they have some right to hammer onto people until they share or are aligned with the value system of that judge.
It’s those judges that need to be held accountable because they put sentences on other individuals that have life altering consequences at times, and they have no authority or legitimacy to be rendering judgment let alone some sentence on someone else.