So far, we’ve spoken about Coercive Control but never brought up Narcissism and attempted to compare the two. When we discussed Rowan Baxter in our first post on the Hannah Clarke case, we referenced Nikki Brooks, Hannah’s best friend, who mentioned on the Hannah’s Story podcast that the wife killer was a narcissist.
We didn’t think much of it until we started discussing the situation with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. It took us a while to realise what the former actress was doing to her royal husband; she uses Coercive Control while also being a narcissist.
If you’ve followed Project Fangirl for a while, you’ll know Meghan Markle is a grade-A narcissist. All she does is think about herself while controlling Prince Harry through touch, words, and expressions that push away his self-confidence.
So, our goal for this post is to determine whether Coercive Control and Narcissism are separate or cut from the same cloth.
Let’s begin by looking at Narcissism and what we know about it.
Narcissism: What Is It?
According to a psychological dictionary entry, narcissism is defined as selfishness, a lack of empathy, and involving self-entitlement.
This describes people like Meghan Markle and Rowan Baxter down to a tee. Both lack empathy and believe they are entitled to have whatever they want, and they’re both selfish. Prince Harry could be thrown in there as well because he believes because of who he is (i.e. The King’s son) that, he’s entitled to whatever he wants and is selfish but has some form of empathy, but not all the time as he has no empathy towards his family, amongst others. However, he doesn’t have all the significant tell-tale signs of narcissism.
Coercive Control: What Is This?
Moving onto Coercive Control, here’s one way to define it: domestic abuse in which a perpetrator subjects a partner or family member to controlling, threatening or humiliating conduct.
An example of this would be Rowan Baxter subjecting Hannah Clarke to mental abuse, where he would call her fat and tell her to exercise when she was already incredibly fit. Another example would be when he forced his toddler son, Trey, to take an ice bath and laughed when the child screamed. He also threatened to kill himself several times. He used coercive control on his first wife by threatening to kill her if she ever left him.
If you look at Meghan Markle, her coercive control tactics were similar. Firstly, she made women at an event laugh at Prince Harry. Secondly, she threatened to kill herself and their then-unborn son if he didn’t conform to her narrative of victimhood. Thirdly, she isolated him from his friends of decades. Then turned him against his family, so he’s making untrue accusations about them in books and interviews.
Blurred Lines Between The Two
Now, we’ve two questions. The first is: is it possible that both coercive control and narcissism are the same thing? The answer to that is no, they’re not the same. However, they do have one thing in common: control.
A narcissist is all about themselves and will attempt to keep the attention on themselves. Coercive control is about doing everything in one’s power to make the target feel weak and dependent on the perpetrator. The word Narcissism, just for the record, is derived from Narcissus, a character in Greek mythology who fell in love with his reflection.
Essentially, narcissists like Meghan Markle and Rowan Baxter don’t care about anyone else but themselves. They’ll belittle anyone they consider a threat. In Markle’s case, she goes after anyone who is universally liked, such as her number one target: her sister-in-law, Catherine, the Princess of Wales.
As for Rowan Baxter, he went after anyone better than him at anything. One story mentioned on the Hannah’s Story podcast was when there was a CrossFit event, and he joined Hannah’s team despite everyone else not wanting him there. He failed to qualify for competitions and was notorious for calling people better at something than he was “cheats” when they had more talent.
Finally, the second question is whether someone can be a narcissist and use coercive control simultaneously; the answer is yes, it is possible. Markle and Baxter have shown it is entirely possible.
