Narcissistic perverts. “We live with someone who keeps saying ‘I love you, I hate you'”

The two women had already met without ever really getting to talk. However, their meeting is obvious. Anne Parillaud (Cesar Best Actress 1991) Nikitaby Luc Besson) published in April and successfully The abused (1), a transparent and raw work on the destructive passion through which the psychic mechanism of the narcissistic pervert is hammered with fascination and terror.

On the same topic, Andrea Bescond prepared with her husband Eric Metayer. To madness (2), a breathless telefilm about the descent into hell of a woman who dangerously manipulates her companion. Three years later Tickles, which broke the taboo of child abuse, this film, which is carried by Marie Guillen and Alexis Michalik, this time wants to free the word about the psychological impact. And try to answer these questions: how does a person become a victim? Why do we become executioners? How does a toxic relationship develop? What does the court do?

Madame Figaro. – Why are you interested in, and have written for one, directed for another, this subject which is so fancied but so misunderstood, which is a narcissistic perversity?
Anne Pariseau. – Suddenly it was a necessity, and it was vital. I also realized later that I had written not the book I wanted, but the book I needed. The unconscious was the guide and I did not try to tame it. There is something monstrous about writing, precisely because one releases one’s monsters, one’s flaws, this. terra incognita and all its darkness. This is what spreads across the page, and of which I was the first witness. I asked myself first. where is all that I release from? And I understood the obvious. there were traumatic events, there were abuses, which lead me to write 400 pages on that topic today.
Andrea Bescond. – In my life, I have been through difficult stories, but not of this kind. On the other hand, as a child victim of sexual abuse, and then having studied all the mechanisms surrounding that abuse, talking about narcissistic perversion was important. Because we are in a dominance system here that will be enforced within the couple, but will inevitably affect the children. It’s all so connected. When you have been abused as a child, sometimes there are two possible ways: to remain in the position of a victim or, conversely, to reject this position of a victim. Become the attacked or the aggressor. It’s all obviously unconscious, it’s never a career plan.

How and why do we become victims? Are there easier prey, or even victim profiles? Do we have to torture ourselves to feel alive like your character Adele? The abusedAnna:
PA- To understand, you have to start from childhood. At the age of 3, 4, 5 or 8, the child cannot imagine that the parents do not love him or behave badly. So when this happens, we think it’s our fault that we have a problem. We will grow up with this idea that we have no value and that we cannot be loved by others. So, the first person who takes an interest in us, the slightest attention that is shown to us, will upset us. Unfortunately, because we’re given no benchmarks, it’s often the wrong person in the first place. Narcissistic perverts are predators who sense vulnerability from afar and rush into that gaping hole of lack of love and self-esteem. They are the beings who are finally going to outlive us, even if they outlive us in the wrong way.
AB- When a child grows up being verbally, psychologically, or sexually abused, it becomes their routine. This fear, which the adults put at the basis of his progress, he will try to confirm it everywhere in his life. Waking up with fear in the pit of her stomach will become her normality. If we remove it, he is lost. When Adele says in your book, Anna, “I must suffer to exist,” that’s exactly what it is. There is almost a comfort in being mistreated afterwards.

“It’s a devastation of impairment, complete isolation, family and financial.”

A narcissistic pervert, “he’s not just an idiot»To use the expression of your film, Andrea is the one who destroys little by little. What is he looking for? How does he do it?
AB- It wreaks havoc through devaluation, total isolation, familial and often financial means. Financial dependence is fundamental because it becomes more difficult for victims to leave when what awaits them outside is too unstable. In to madness We highlight the paradoxical instructions inherent in this effect. Damien keeps telling Anna that she’s talented, but she snorts that she’s really pretty but would be better if she were a few pounds lighter while giving her chocolates… Right, narcissist. degenerate. He puts you in a blender and you lose your logic. And the more you lose it, the more powerful it becomes.
PA- You can compare him to a vampire. He remained a child, he did not grow up, he was not allowed to grow up, he has no inner content. It is an envelope that has been completely emptied of love. He suffers from it and will notice a prey that has love. He will bite the contents, assimilate and feed from it. He will destroy it by emptying it, dehumanizing it. It is interesting to note that we only know the narcissistic pervert through the victims. He, and this is part of the pathology, does not consider himself sick and therefore does not seek treatment.

It is destroyed by devaluation, total isolation, familial and often financial

Andrea Bescond

Today we see it all too well To madness-, justice is still very weak. What to expect, despite everything, and also from the police?
AB- Currently there is what is called “restorative justice”. (an area of ​​dialogue that is likely to offer stakeholders an opportunity to meet to question their actions, editor’s note). But, in fact, aggressors all apologize to their victims and often start over afterwards. Until we cure these people that psychiatrists have forced them to delve into their childhood to find the defect, it is useless. On the other hand, what is expected is a real sexual prevention program from kindergarten, right from kindergarten. For children to learn what their bodies are and especially intimacy. In college, romantic relationships should also be addressed, with well-defined concepts of respect, charity, mutual pleasure, consent. But that requires political courage…
PA- We need a ministry, a real ministry for children, in France. It is not a secretariat. Along with all that, it means psychological support.

In both of your stories, behind the predator, there is a mother, cruel or absent. Is it constant?
AB- The mother is such a strong affective representation that it has a significant impact on the construction of children. Narcissistic perverts always have an emotional flaw somewhere. There in our works we talk about this defect of motherly love. In to madness the mother is frankly very condescending to her son. But I believe that narcissistic perversion is more complex than the desire for revenge on a son.
PA- When a mother educates her sons, it is important that she realizes that they are future men. Men who go to other women. We know that there are absent mothers who create an emotional rift, and others who encroach on the emotional field so much that their son cannot properly turn to other women.

When a mother educates her sons, it is important that she realizes that they are future men

Anne Pariseau

Sexuality is also everywhere in both of your works…
AB- Assuming there are far more narcissistic evil men than women, power is always exercised through sexual dominance. This is the case with all forms of male dominance.
PA- First, there is the confusion that is planted in the abused child’s mind, that sex equals love. Existence then passes through intercourse. In my novel, I did not hesitate to describe the sex scene in detail, even if it was meant to be garbage raw, violent, because sexuality in a perverted relationship is not practiced in the same way as in a normal relationship. Victims are emotionally numb beings. And in order for this armor to burst, it needs very strong things, excesses, because if it remains wise or simple, nothing happens, it is not strong enough, not powerful enough. As long as it’s not too strong…

“He drains the victim of his vital substance”

At what point? “it gets too loud»right?
PA- At the moment when the suffering becomes unbearable, when the need to be with this other is overcome for the first time. There, suddenly, there is awareness, not of what is happening, but of suffering. And this is the time when there can be a breakup, a request for help, or a person who manages to open your eyes to what you are really going through.

How to explain the immobility of the victims who end up trivializing the violence, blinded, unable to see the horror? What are we ultimately dealing with? Why are we staying?
PA- There is a very telling example of a frog immersed in boiling water… When it comes into contact with hot water, its survival instinct is such that it finds the strength to escape. But if you immerse him in cold water and gradually raise the temperature, he will take a long time to realize that he is being burned, and when he finally does, he no longer has the energy to jump out of the pan… Victims of narcissistic perversion. have such an ability to adapt to pain that before they realize that it really hurts, they are already well depressed. And then there are these paradoxical messages, we live with someone who keeps saying “I love you, I hate you.” In weakened individuals, the moment “I love you” reappears after “I hate you,” we become so addicted to it that we prefer it to nothing. Rather that than emptiness. These paradoxical messages make a person unable to make a decision.
AB- We are almost in a state of mental death. The goal of the narcissistic pervert, whether consciously or unconsciously, is to drain his victim of his vital substance.

(1) The abusedauthor: Anne Pariseau, Éditions Robert Laffont.
(2) To madnessBy Andrea Besconde and Eric Metayer, with Marie Gillen, Alexis Michalik, Ahmed Silla, Nicole Ferroni… Airing this Tuesday, September 6 on M6.