10 Things Influencers and Educators in the Narcissistic Abuse Industrial Complex Won't Tell You
Because Supremacism...
Narcissism is not the root nor cause of relational abuse and trauma.
Abusive relationships mirror oppressive systems.
The root of relational abuse and trauma is colonialism, and its toxic legacy of systemic oppression, subjugation, exploitation, exclusion, coercion, and the hereditary delusion of supremacy.
Being abused by someone doesn’t mean you are intrinsically non-abusive.
You could be abused by one person, while also being abusive to a different person, or people.
“If you don’t recognize the built-in biases in yourself and the structural biases in your systems—biases regarding race, gender, sexual orientation—you can’t truly be trauma-informed… To be excluded or dehumanized in an organization, community, or society you are part of results in prolonged, uncontrollable stress that is sensitizing. Marginalization is a fundamental trauma…a truly trauma-informed system is an anti-racist system.” ~ Dr. Bruce Perry in What Happened to You?
The discourse on “narcissistic abuse recovery” ignores and dismisses the negative impacts of personal and structural biases within their survivor resources and spaces that exclude the realities and experiences of survivors of systemic oppression.
The discourse on “narcissistic abuse recovery” is a red herring to distract you from the discourse on systemic oppression so you don’t disrupt the system.
The Narcissistic Abuse Industrial Complex is an enabler of the system.
The “narcissist/empath” binary is a lie. We all cause harm. We can all be abusive. The more attached we are to believing that we never cause harm, the more harmful we actually are…because it will be impossible for anyone to bring our harmful behaviors to our attention without the risk of our denial, invalidations, gaslighting, rage, collapse, or abandonment.
Genuinely empathetic people don’t stay silent about racism, fascism, or genocide.
And genuinely empathetic, truly trauma-informed therapists and educators on abuse, trauma, and healing don’t exclude, ignore, or devalue the abundance of research and expertise on abuse, trauma, and healing produced by survivors of racism, fascism, and genocide.
Anti-racism and Collective Liberation education is essential for understanding and healing through relational abuse and trauma, and for developing a higher capacity for empathy, mutual recognition, moral engagement, discomfort, critical self-reflection, accountability, and post-traumatic growth.
A person’s narcissism might cause them to *want* to be granted more comfort, consideration, convenience, and control than others, but it’s the SUPREMACIST SYSTEM that deludes *certain* people into believing they are *entitled* to it, and into believing that they are *protected* from accountability for whatever harm they might inflict on others in their pursuit of all that comfort, consideration, convenience, and control.
Supremacism deludes people into believing they are either *superior* to others due their unearned privilege and power in the world, OR that it’s acceptable to *strive* for superiority and to anchor their entitlement to that superiority in whatever privilege and power they *do* have as compared to the person they’re abusing.
Dating people who are unaware of, and unwilling to learn about and discuss, their unearned privilege and power, and the ways they could be harmful to you with that privilege and power, does not make for safe nor liberating relationships.
It’s entirely possible, and absurdly common, for a person to receive a whole Ph.D. in Psychology without learning anything at all about relational abuse, systemic oppression, intergenerational trauma, epigenetics, neuroscience, or somatic healing.
References:
Cadet, A. (2024). White supremacy is all around: Notes from a Black disabled woman in a white world. Hachette Go.
Fromm, E. (1947/1965). Man for himself: An inquiry into the psychology of ethics. Rinehart.
Hill, M. T. (2025). Heal your way forward: The co-conspirator’s guide to an antiracist future. Row House Publishing.
Menakem, R. (2017). My grandmother’s hands. Central Recovery Press.
Taylor, S. R. (2021). The body is not an apology: The power of radical self-love (2nd ed.), “white supremacy delusion.”
Winfrey, O., & Perry, B. (2021). What happened to you? Conversations on trauma, resilience, and healing. Flatiron Books.
You are attacking the comfort narratives people use to avoid self-examination.
And you are saying the “narcissistic abuse” industry sells those comfort narratives.
That’s a bold, thoughtful critique not a dismissal of abuse, but a reframing of how we talk about it.