Cainists go into adulthood expecting everyone to take care of them in the same way their parents treated them—adored, admired, praised and applauded for everything he thinks or does regardless of merit. He is special, the sun who sees the planets revolving around him, and he comes alive when the attention is solely on him. In adulthood, the Enabler, now this person who must be his all-compassing parent, must speak positively about him at all times, spread his ideas as gospel, and immerse him with compliments both privately and in public.
If she contradicts, questions or resists him, however gently, he’s enraged. His abrupt anger and later devaluation of the Enabler hinges on basically three actions or in-actions: (1) Not seeing how special he is, (2) Exposing a truth that he wants hidden, or (3) Questioning his authority. Once angered by what he perceives as disloyalty, he abuses, humiliates and diminishes her in a myriad of ways.
He might exaggerate her faults and makes fun of her in front of others. Out of the blue she might be accused of being stupid, pathetic, weak, and wrong. Or tell her and others that she lacks ambition, vision, understanding and insight. By now, he has discovered her Achilles heel and strips her of power by attacking her weakness to harm her or deprive her in whatever way he can. He withholds what he thinks she wants and needs, or dumps an overabundance of what he knows she doesn’t want. A common frustration tactic is to argue with everything she says to prove she’s wrong and he’s right. She can’t win ever. And these hotbed accusations are acted out with high-intensity anger and disgust. Indeed, he spins into an unparalleled bully, doling out fury and humiliation like an errant fire cracker.
As a source of attention and admiration, the Enabler becomes Cain’s ally overvalued by him. Missing that, she morphs into the enemy and instantly devalued by him. He will criticize her not only for considering a thought of her own that is in opposition to his, but now he also blames her for his bad choices. I recall one such person making a dim-witted comment, then pretending I had made the remark, not her. She laughed over the comment, calling me a “dumb blonde.” I was stunned the way she twisted the situation to remove the mistake from her palette and blame me. When I pointed out that she had made the remark, she quickly turned her attention to another matter as if the incident never happened. One should never underestimate how a pathological person can turn the tables to make the Enabler look wrong so he can look perfect and then refuse to deal with the truth when it’s pointed out to him.
Once an Enabler has goofed up, it takes an exceptional idea or action on her part to change or elevate Cain’s image of her again. Now she is in the devaluation phase. She could be ostracized for months. In fact, she will need to adore, applaud, idolize, even worship him for whatever time limit he sets down, before he acknowledges or accepts her into the fold again. And probably never into his inner circle of close confidants. He blames her, and she blames herself. It works well for him until the Enabler says enough already.
Initially, I could do nothing wrong in the cainistic church. The minister would seek me out, sit alongside me at meetings, listen to my opinions, and repeat them from the pulpit as if my ideas were his ideas (steal them). But the first time I disagreed with the inconsistencies at the church—and there were as many as flies at a picnic—I was devalued faster than a car driven off the lot. From there, I could do absolutely nothing right and was bad-mouthed as insubordinate, unhelpful, and disloyal.
Being approved, then disapproved takes a heavy toll on a person’s emotions especially a perceptive people-pleaser in a church where one hopes to feel safe. Once I stepped over the invisible imaginary line, I was either at the height of bliss or the cavern of torment, banking on his approval or disapproval of me. And that is how he treated everyone, depending on whether they agreed or disagreed with him.
When someone failed to do his bidding, he often used the “silent treatment” to punish violators. Depending on my offense, there were days or weeks or months when he rushed past me, eyes fixed straight ahead, pretending he didn’t see me. One time I stopped him midway through his sprint out the sanctuary and said “Can we move past this?” Whenever Cain or the church staff refused to deal with an issue, they habitually answered, “We just want to move past this,” inferring that they didn’t want to remain stuck in negativity. The real meaning behind the words was that they wanted to overlook the issue and get off the hook without retribution.
Of course, different rules applied when Cain devalued someone. Now, he wanted to clutch his resentments close to his heart, needing “time” to process his emotions. Truthfully, I wondered if he had ever read the story of the Prodigal son—a parable demonstrating how the father received the return of his wayward son with open arms because his love, like God’s love, never changed. This cainistic charlatan preached that we were to demonstrate God’s infinite ability to forgive on a daily basis, but he couldn’t forgive. He drew more pleasure from setting people aside or punishing them for their slip-ups than forgiving them. His arrogant, self-absorbed cainistic personality was in opposition to the homilies he preached.
In fact, a cainist in the ministry will eventually grow disillusioned with the idea of God and devalue Him like he idolizes, then devalues every relationship in his life. But he continues the pretense because being a man or woman of God affords him authority and superstar power with his parishioners. The church is his source of cainistic supply, bulking up his insatiable ego. Even when he engages in misogynous behavior, worshipers are reluctant to confront him based on his position of authority. They comply because they are afraid to do otherwise. He’s the alpha and omega. He’s Billy Goat Gruff to the trembling trolls terrified to cross the bridge to truth. It’s the Cain and Enabler Complex on a mass scale rather than the one-on-one connection.
The Narcissistic Cain and Enabler Complex 