Why do they keep on attacking?

But why when all I do is offer love, forgiveness, understanding, etc does s/he continue to disrespect, not appreciate, devalue, attack and hurt me? How come they can or will not reciprocate what has been given to them?

Simple. . . it is in his/her nature. It is what toxic people do, they attack, because they enjoy it because it is in their nature.

Have you heard about the story, The Scorpion and the Frog or The Scorpion & the Fox?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu44zAcqnXg&NR=1

The only way to out fox a scorpion is to have NO CONTACT with it.

When I googled this story about the Scorpion I noticed there were different versions of the same story all ending the same way. While the Scorpion stayed the same, its targets, the one it attacked varied from a frog/toad, turtle/tortoise, fox and swan. It reminded me of WoN that while we have individual differences are attackers remain the same, they attack because it is their nature.

I also came across the story of The Scorpion and the Swan and found this very interesting blog,

which confirmed to me that it is not only the projected lies that toxic people tell us, but even more importantly it is the lies we project onto the toxic person. Yikes! It is about the lies we tell our Self about the toxic person and about ourself that we are strong enough to handle the deadly sting of the Scorpion.

There was a Swan at the edge of a river and a scorpion approached asking the swan if she would kindly give him a ride to the other side of the river on her back. The swan said "no, you are a scorpion, you will sting me and I will die." The scorpion assured the swan that he wouldn't do that, all he wanted was a ride to the other side and he promised she was safe with him. So the swan gave in and allowed the scorpion to climb upon her back. She swan to the other side and just before reaching the shore the scorpion stung her and jumped to safety. As the swan was sinking, slowly dying from the poisons she asked the scorpion why he broke his promise and stung her. The scorpion said "I'm a scorpion, that is what I do."

Ernie asked me why I believed that the swan allowed the scorpion on her back. I said it was because she was denying her instincts. He said it went deeper than that. So I asked Ernie to explain. He said the swan was projecting her swan like qualities upon the scorpion.

There is that word "projection" again. When we come to understand narcissism we find that narcissists are masters at projection. They take the dark qualities within themselves and project them onto those who love them. But we don't often think about our own projections. We just as easily project our goodness upon the narcissist in our lives and then we fall in love with the good qualities in ourselves projected upon the other. We see the narcissist (scorpion) as someone who is empathetic, caring, loving, concerned, compassionate and honest, because this is who we are. The narcissist gladly owns our projections and gives us his dirt. We get accused of being the very thing we eventually come to see in him.

I remember being accused of being selfish, greedy, uncommitted, angry, bi-polar and a host of other things that left me questioning whether or not this was really true. The most difficult thing was that he really seemed to believe it. He believed he was the pure one and I was the one poisoning his reality with my impurities. But once the veil was lifted and I could see through the narcissistic Web of Illusion I could see that who he accused me of being was never the truth about me.

One thing I notice with many of my clients is that they just can't believe the narcissist in thier lives was capable of doing the things he/she did. It is so out of character from the person they believed him or her to be. The ending of the relationship is almost always traumatic because the "swan" learns she has been deceived. She trusted the narcissist and believed in him and is shocked at his sudden change in behavior. She is shocked that he has no feeling about her sinking and drowning and just hops off as if nothing ever happened. She gave him her life! She believed him when he said he would never sting her. And now he laughs in the face of her pain and disbelief. "Stupid swan!" He says as he hops off! "I can always count on their goodness to get what I want."

If I were to imagine the rest of the story I would say the swan sunk down to the bottom of the river only to find the bodies of all those beautiful swans that came before her. She was not the first, nor would she be the last. Because it is the nature of the scorpion to sting.

http://www.narcissismfree.com/swan-and-scorpion.php

More detail on the Swan and Scorpion can be found at the link above.

Wait a minute folks there is more to this story is not over yet! The Scorpion has a hard thick out shell and aside from his belly full of poison which supplies his deadly tail he is completely hallow inside which gives him the ability to remain at the very surface rather than to sink to the depths of devastation like the beautiful swan who is a very solid creature. What the Scorpion fails to realize is that the beautiful swan while covered in complete darkness has the spirit of the Phoenix and will rise born again and even stronger than before because now she has the ability to soar. Meanwhile the Scorpion filled w/deadly toxins is being destroyed from within. He is devolving and deconstructing during each attack until he implodes and self-destructs because he had no substance to keep him afloat and he has no spirit to be born again. Any decaying remains of his life becomes food for the scum of the Earth. His life becomes utter waste while the majestic swan soars to new heights where the sky is her only limit.

Now for another interesting story which I can really relate to which is analogous to why I escaped the KoN. The story is called, The Farmer and the Viper. Have you heard of it?

"The Farmer and the Viper" is a fable often attributed to Aesop. Of ancient origin, it appears in several West African and European sources as well.^[1][2] The story concerns a farmer who finds a viper freezing in the snow. He takes pity on it and picks it up and places it within his coat. The viper, revived by the warmth, bites the farmer. The farmer cries out that he should have seen it coming.

In some versions, the farmer brings the viper home and his children go to pet it. The viper gets ready to bite the children when the farmer cuts off the viper's head.

The moral is that "kindness is wasted on evil".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farmer_and_the_Viper

I relate to the Farmer because I thought I was strong enough to handle the attacks of the Viper/Momster -- however when I realized the harm that having a Viper in the house was to my child I had no problem Letting Go of the dangerous Viper. I noticed ambient abuse towards my child from the Momster regarding "forgetting" about her birthday gifts when she gave all the other grandchildren gifts. If the Momster simply "forgot" then she would remedy the situation which she never did and in fact made it worse by blaming me for not allowing her to visit more w/my D. Nothing but lies to support her evil behavior. This attack against me and my D is undetectable by many people, but those who have Nparents know how they do the "Set-Up". They do something so cunning, sneaky insidious & subtle that when we call them on it, we look like we are just being "too sensitive or taking things the wrong way" I decided I was not going to let the Viper do a more overt and obvious attack against us, in addition to the Last Straw Moment, My H and I decided time to prune these toxic roots and start a healthy family tree free from the KoN.