Reactive Abuse, What Is It? And, Why Do Narcissistic People Rely On It?

“Retreat, rethink and only respond if you need to do so. “

Even the best of people have their own limits. Those who are genuine, kind, generous, loyal, and loving people have their limitations. We are human, after all. When people chip away at you, push all your buttons, use all your insecurities and weaknesses against you, and send you into a state of fear, anxiety and depression, most people react to try and release all the stress, heartache, pain and emotional build-up, only this then ends up with us feeling worse, as we are left feeling like we are to blame, guilty, and more lost from who we indeed are.

Definition of reactive abuse.

Reactive abuse happens when someone who’s been abused, by mind games and Coercively controlling behaviour, either physically or psychologically, reacts to their abuser, standing up for themselves, either by screaming, shouting, slapping, spitting, throwing things, either throwing insults with the words or lashing out physically. That’s all the abuser needs to then blame it all on the one they’ve been provoking.

Why do narcissists use it?

A narcissist will provoke you to get a reaction from you so that they can blame it all on you.

From their reactions, the real victims often then believe they are at fault. The narcissist will only ever tell their side of the story to others in the smear campaign, the one where you looked bad, what you did to them, what you said to them. They’ll not tell people the lead-up to what happened. It’s just further manipulation for the narcissist to play the woe-is-me victim to those around them and make you feel like you are in the wrong and need to apologise.

Abusers love the reactive abuse as it’s proof in their minds that the person who reacted is unstable and crazy, that the one who’s reacted is mentally ill. They will use it against you for years to come. Narcissistic people rewrite their own history. They change the stories they tell themselves. They are never accountable. They say so many lies they often believe their own lies and reality, and they will use reactive abuse against you for years to come.

They have been known to.

Install cameras in the home, and edit footage.
Film reactions and show others.
Edit their messages out and show others.
Call the family to come help calm you down.
Call friends to come and help.
Give you the silent treatment before a special occasion, then when you arrive, they are good, and you look grumpy.
Threaten you.
Take people to the doctor to get you on antidepressants.
Call the police.

At the start, it’s often the innocent party who usually makes excuses for the narcissist’s behaviour and is often left blaming themselves. A narcissist might do this but in another twisted, manipulative way. Where the actual victim might say, In the beginning, “If I’d have not done this, then they wouldn’t have done that.” Or “They are tired.” Things like. “I’ve not been at my best.” A narcissist will say. “I did all I could. They just abused me.” Or “I tried to help. They are crazy.” A narcissist will always play the victim or the hero, yet never the villain for years to come.

Ways they will cause reactive abuse? First, they bait, provoke, then gaslight, project and blame shift.

Narcissists will bait. A narcissist uses baiting to provoke an emotional response from us so that they can have the power over our emotions and, ultimately, over our thinking so that they can further their control over us. Baiting is used to make people feel:-

Scared.
Guilty.
Responsible.
Anxious.
Hopeful.

Which makes it easier for the narcissist to manipulate them further.

They will provoke, prod and chip away at you.

They will start an argument out of fresh air.
Say backhanded insults.
Use your insecurities against you.
Ignore you.
Lie to you.
Change events on you.
Triangulation with other people.

Say obvious hurtful things.
Say subtle hurtful things.
Upset the children.
They upset you in any way they can.
Threaten you.
Threaten family and friends.
Provoke intrigue.
Provoke jealousy.
Fail to answer a question.
Fall silent.
Falsely accuse.
Walk away humming.

Then when you get upset, they will escalate the situation until you snap. You’re then left feeling bad for lashing out, saying hurtful things, being angry, and you apologise and do your best to make it up to them. Even though you know, your reactions were wrong. You end up blaming it all on you, not paying attention to the part they played.

We can not control what they say or do. Even when the relationships are over, we can, however, learn to control our reactions.

Narcissists trick you into it.

The worst part is, your reactions are your reactions, fooled or not, and we have to own up and take responsibility for our own actions as that’s something they are incapable of and one of the many things that separate us from them.

Who started what is irrelevant? If you are with someone who brings out the worst in you (even the most caring people have a breaking point.), a narcissist will argue with anyone and everyone if you’re behaving out of character around certain people, if they bring out a side you don’t like about yourself, it’s time to break free.

They will trick you into reacting so you are fully aware you are not perfect. ( no one is.) They will threaten to tell others that you are not happy with your own behaviour as it’s not like you. They know you feel worse about yourself; they wear you down slowly over time, so you no longer feel good enough. You lose your integrity and stay trapped in the cycle of abuse.

Gaslighting is an insidious form of psychological manipulation where the abuser gets the target to question their own reality and sanity, and they will gaslight you with things like.

“You’re just insecure.” If you think they are cheating.

“I was only joking.” They were not, but to escape accountability and pin the blame on you, they’ll claim “you can’t take a joke.”

“It didn’t happen like that.” It did, but they want you to forget what they did.

“You’re losing your mind.” Again so you think you’re going crazy and blame it all on yourself.

“I never did that.” They did. They just want that part wiped from your memory.

Gaslighting is done so the narcissist can claim you didn’t see what you did or didn’t hear what you did. Have a feeling that you don’t. They didn’t say what they said. You didn’t say what you said. They told you what they never told you to convince you of the narcissist’s reality and not your own.

Projection is a defensive mechanism commonly used by abusers. They are defending themselves against unconscious traits, beliefs, and actions to escape accountability. It’s a combination of blame-shifting and gaslighting, distracting the target from what is really happening while getting the target to blame themselves. Things like. “You started it, accusing me.” then “who knows what you’ve been up to.” or. “If you didn’t talk down to me, you’re always having a dig at me.”

Blame shifting is when the narcissist has done something wrong. Then they dump all the blame onto the target to avoid any feelings of remorse or shame and also to escape accountability. They will play the victim, downplaying or avoiding what they did and making what you did to be far worse. They bring up your tone of voice or how you spoke down to them, as they know you have a caring, emphatic side. They will guilt trip or pity play. There could be the accusations, covert ” If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t.” To the overt ” You hit me, you abused me. I did nothing wrong.”

After provoking a reaction from you, where you’d like to communicate with them, some will go into the silent treatment, either the one where they stick around ( the present silent treatment.) or where they disappear. (Ghosting.) They want you to beg and plead for forgiveness. Silent Treatment is psychological torture and causes great pain to the brain. You’re left looking to yourself as to what you did wrong and how you can make it up to them, and when you do, they’ll bring back the intermittent niceness as a reinforcement to your mind that you were wrong. They were right, leaving them to believe their realities and you questioning yours.

This all leads to cognitive dissonance. The target ends up full of self-blame, self-doubt, feeling like they are the narcissist, feeling unworthy, feeling grateful, that the narcissist who’s a bully and a con artist will take you back, changing who you are time and time again to please them, trying to help them while you slowly lose who you are. When you can see different realities, one that matches your beliefs and another that is continuously being rewritten on you, it’s hard to see it while you are living it. It takes time to work it out once you break free.

Suppose you’re still with or around someone who brings out the worst in you when you think. “This isn’t me, and this isn’t how I behave.” That’s when you have to take note of the people you are surrounding yourself with and change something when you’re not true to yourself and when you are constantly questioning yourself. Your own integrity, this is what narcissistic people want. They want you to be confused, to feel like you’re going crazy, to keep you out of reality and in their reality, unfortunately, most become in such a trace that by the time they start to wake up, they are trauma bonded, scared, or don’t have the means to leave, plenty have left scared, got out safely, left with nothing and are living much happier lives, it’s all taking that first step, make a choice for you, for your health, wealth and happiness, change one thing at a time, and it’ll change everything for you.

What can you do?

If you can no contact, get out safely and go no contact.

If you are still with them, or for whatever reason can not go no contact, have children with them? Is a boss? (If you can change jobs, do.) or would mean cutting other family members out, respond, do not react. The best method is the three R’s, Retreat, Rethink, respond, and only respond if you really need to. Keep your response to the point, say it once and do not let them take you off-topic. Avoid being alone around them, and avoid spending too much time around them.

Stop the blame game, it’s the past. It’s irrelevant now. Blaming keeps it in the present. You need to focus on the here and now and create new visions and dreams for yourself; holding onto anger and resentment, guilt, pain, and regret will only harm your future. Let it all go for no one else other than you. Learning all about the disorder, who they are, and why they do what they do, gives you a better understanding of healing and how to handle ones in your life on the low end of the spectrum, also how to avoid them in the future, you also need to focus on building your life back up, to who you want to be, and how you want to live.

https://betterhelp.com/elizabethshaw (Sponsored.)

How narcissists provoke emotional reactions from you.

Click the links below to join, Elizabeth Shaw – Life Coach on social media, for more information on Overcoming Narcissistic Abuse.

The online courses available by Elizabeth Shaw.

For the full course.

Click here to sign up for the full, Break Free From Narcissistic Abuse, with a link in the course to a free, hidden online support group with fellow survivors.

For the free course.

Click here to sign up for the free online starter course.

To help with overcoming the trauma bond and anxiety course.

Click here for the online course to help you break the trauma bond, and those anxiety triggers.

All about the narcissist Online course.

Click here to learn more about the narcissist personality disorder.

The narcissists counter-parenting.

Click here for more information on recovery from narcissistic abuse, and information on co-parenting with a narcissist.

Elizabeth Shaw is not a Doctor or a therapist. She is a mother of five, a blogger, a survivor of narcissistic abuse, and a life coach, She always recommends you get the support you feel comfortable and happy with. Finding the right support for you. Elizabeth has partnered with BetterHelp (Sponsored.) where you will be matched with a licensed councillor, who specialises in recovery from this kind of abuse.

Click here for Elizabeth Shaw’s Recommended reading list for more information on recovery from narcissistic abuse.

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The Best Method To Put A Narcissist In Their Place. )Understanding Narcissism) #narcissist

The Narcissists Stare.

The narcissists stare.

When you first meet a narcissist in the love-bombing stage of the relationship, you may believe they have the most loving and caring eyes. Their gaze into your eyes is often mistaken as intense or a feeling of nervousness as they gaze into yours asking all about your likes and dislikes so they can match these and mirror you, to reflect back exactly what you want to hear, if you’d like to get married, they’ll want to get married, if you like the movies, they’ll like the movies, they get to know your dreams, and they claim they want them to, we don’t recognise their gaze into our eyes is making us feel uncomfortable because they’re manipulating us.

Narcissists mirror how people act and behave, but if you pay close attention to their eyes, they can not fake how their eyes look, how they truly feel, or how their eyes make us feel. Unfortunately, when we are unaware, we often mistake our feelings of unease around them as nerves.

In the Idealisation, they have a way of holding your gaze and mirroring it by using actions and words. We mistake the creepiness for intensity, often creating a deep connection.

Yet after a while, a narcissist can no longer maintain their Admiration face. Their envious face comes to the surface, and their eyes begin to change.

In the devaluation, when they are shaming you, they can look at you with contempt as though we are worthless or beneath them, as they are shaming us. We can feel like we are worthless and mistake their contempt as pity, believing they care and want the best for us, especially with their gaslighting words of, “Do you think you should do that.” Or “I’m only trying to help you.” So we doubt ourselves and not the narcissist.

When you ask them a simple question, they can look at you with hostility. That once seemingly caring person suddenly becomes unfriendly and unapproachable as they devalue you through many intimidating methods. Trying to communicate with them can leave you walking on eggshells in fear of them.

When you question them about something, with evidence of things they actually did do, their eyes can seemingly turn black and cold as they look at you with malice as they feel threatened that fear they might be exposed, often why they try to provoke you into reacting so they can convince you that your reactions to their actions are the problem when it’s their actions that are the problem.

When they look at you with extreme hate, often because they feel entitled and superior, so when things don’t go their way, they can feel intense rage and anger, their look of pure hatred is something out of this world, and it chills you.

Sometimes when you look closely into their eyes, there seems to be nothing there. They have an empty gaze, or a strange stare, that chilling look they give you that chills the entire room and your soul. If you carefully look into their eyes, there is a kind of void in there, that before you know and understand it, you put it down to someone who’s just going through some stuff, yet deep down, there isn’t anything truly there, other than hatred, anger and Envy.

When they’ve caused you so much pain, when you’re heartbroken, a narcissist will sit and watch you cry with a glint in their eye, no remorse for the pain they’ve caused you, no apology. Instead, they blame you for feeling how you do. A narcissist is never wrong and doesn’t see themselves as the problem. If you see them during the smear campaign, they can have that glint in their eye with a smirk on their face. That duper’s delight, as they’re manipulating those around you to question your character or reputation and the narcissist believes they’re getting away with their behaviour.

As you get further into the relationship, you notice just how empty their eyes are, yet with the games they play, you can not work it out. You don’t see it for what they indeed are until your out and work it all out. Then you understand what your instincts were trying to tell you at the time.

The saying that people’s eyes are the window to the soul, which in one way means eyes are the window to someone’s true intentions or true emotional state of mind. Whatever emotions narcissists are feeling, you are seeing within their eyes. That blank stare is when they feel nothing, empty. That intense stare in the love bombing is the duper’s delight as they manipulate. That contempt is because they believe they’re better than others. The malicious stare is their anger, their hatred with a passion as they seek revenge. As they believe you’ve scorned them, they believe within themselves that you deserved whatever horrific thing it is they did to you.

When a narcissist feels threatened in some way, fear of exposure, fear of failure, fear of abandonment, their pupils can dilate as a natural reaction to the fact they feel threatened, that with their anger and rage can be an extremely scary and intimidating look, as there seems to be nothing there, it can be hard to feel empathy when you’re afraid. Therefore a narcissist who feels threatened, is angry, and lacks empathy is someone you need to move away from safely.

Their stare of pure hatred at the time it is exceptionally unsettling and frightening. It’s incredibly unnatural, and like the person you believed them to be, has vanished. You’re left with that body and a person you simply do not know, as their emotional state has gone to pure hatred.

That’s because the person you thought they were was you. They were simply mirroring your dreams, hobbies, passions, likes and dislikes, then selling them back to you as though they wanted them to, then when their admiration face slips, their envious face appears revealing who they indeed are.

For more information about understanding and overcoming narcissistic and emotional abuse, click the links below.

https://overcoming-narcissist-abuse.teachable.com/p/break-free-from-the-narcissist

(Sponsored.). https://betterhelp.com/elizabethshaw

The narcissist’s smirk.

The narcissist’s eyes.

Click the links below to join Elizabeth Shaw – Life Coach on social media, for more information on Overcoming Narcissistic Abuse.

The online courses are available by Elizabeth Shaw.

For the full course.

Click here to sign up for the full, Break Free From Narcissistic Abuse, with a link in the course to a free, hidden online support group with fellow survivors.

For the free course.

Click here to sign up for the free online starter course.

To help with overcoming the trauma bond and anxiety course.

Click here for the online course to help you break the trauma bond, and those anxiety triggers.

All about the narcissist Online course.

Click here to learn more about the narcissist personality disorder.

The narcissists counter-parenting.

Click here for more information on recovery from narcissistic abuse, and information on co-parenting with a narcissist.

Click here for Elizabeth Shaw’s Recommended reading list for more information on recovery from narcissistic abuse.

Rules To Deal With Narcissistic People, Rule 9, Actions Speak Louder Than Words.

Rule 9. Actions Speak Louder Than Words.

Actions speak louder than your words, however when around a narcissistic person, you want to keep both to yourself. When around a narcissist you want to hide your genuine intentions from them, as whenever you explain anything to a narcissist, they’re going to twist it and turn it to their advantage, you don’t want to disclose any information to a narcissist about your thoughts, feelings, opinions, or your ideas as a narcissist is going to extract these from you, then at some point use them all against you.

It’s very difficult to control our tongues when people are trying to claim we have feelings we do not have or accuse us of having intentions we don’t have, however when it comes to dealing with narcissistic people, your best response, your best line of defence is no response, no defence leave them to it, they’re only going to believe what they want to anyway, as soon as you get into that conversation with a narcissist, they’re going to draw you into non-productive arguments, leaving you feeling, confused, frustrated, angry, leaving you wide open to their personal attacks on you, as you’ve usually, at some point, unwitting fed them all the information they need about you, that they are, at some point going to use against you. When it comes to dealing with narcissistic people, you need to guard your attention and use the less is more approach, the less information you give them, the more chance you’ve got of protecting who you are as a person.

When it comes to dealing with a narcissistic person, you have got to watch their words, and guard your attention around their words, as their words rarely to never match their intentions, and their actions rarely to never match their words, the more you explain to a narcissist about yourself, the more they’re going to take that to mirror you, to future fake with you, to sell you something you’d like in your future, so they can get their needs met in the present. The more you talk to a narcissist, the more they’re going to use what you tell them to seduce you, to influence you into believing and trusting within them, to love bomb you, to gain your admiration, to gain your trust, and on the flip side of that, the more information you give to a narcissist, the more they’ll use that information to coercively control you, to put that fear into you. The more you tell a narcissist about the things you care for the most, the more they know they can use these things against you, as these are the things you’ll most passionately defend, the more you tell a narcissist the hobbies you enjoy, the more a narcissist will go all out to sabotage these hobbies for you and take them away from you. The more information you feed a narcissist about who you are as a person, the more a narcissist will use that information against you, to either seduce you or punish you.

With a narcissist’s words, they’ll lie about their intentions, lie about what they want to distract you from, and lie about what they’re actually doing to you.

A Narcissist will come at you with their false sincerity, so you believe you can trust within them. A Narcissist will come at you with that false compromise, so they can use that compromise against you later down the line, with all those, “remember when I did that for you.” Or so the narcissist can look good to those around them, and when you say no, the narcissist will play the victim of how hard it is to deal with you!

A Narcissist will happily play vulnerable, so you empathise with them, so you feel sorry for them, feel bad for them, show them compassion, and help them out, narcissistic people do this to gain attention and to hide the fact, they are using vulnerabilities that often aren’t even their own, they’re what they did to others, they are using these to exploit your kindness, to exploit your compassion, to exploit your willingness to help others, however, more often than not, it’s what a narcissist did to another, yet, they sell it to you as the other did it to them, so you naturally take a disliking to the person the narcissist is claiming hurt them because you are led to believe the other person hurt the narcissist. The narcissist’s words rarely to never match their true intentions, it’s just their words come before their actions so we are led to believe in them, and then their actions fool us, later on.

What a narcissist accuses others of, is often a confession as to that narcissist’s real character.

Watch your own words around a narcissist, and do not disclose personal information to them, you might have already done so when you didn’t realise who they were, what they were or what they were really doing, however, there’s always a fresh day to start a new approach, to start a new way, so guard your attention around a narcissistic person, as when you stop openly giving them information, a narcissist will use many manipulative mind games to try and encourage you to disclose information to them, guard your information, as the more you explain to them, the more a narcissist will use those very explanations against you.

Never reveal your intentions to a narcissistic person, do not explain anything in detail to a narcissist, explain to yourself, demonstrate to yourself, do not give a narcissist that information about you, do not demonstrate to a narcissist as tempting as it might be, how capable you are of doing something, narcissistic people are incredibly envious people, so if they see you doing well for yourself, they’ll either come back for the hoover, to suck you back into their games, to treat you like dirt and discard you all over again once they’ve taken what they were envious of from you, or they’ll find a way to sabotage it for you. When a narcissist doesn’t know what you’re doing, they can’t prepare their attacks on you, they can’t stop you, and they can’t sabotage you, as they don’t know what you’re up to.

Don’t tell a narcissist your thoughts, feelings or opinions as they’ll use these against you. They’re going to accuse you of overthinking, being too sensitive or incapable of doing something, a narcissist will plant those seeds of self-doubt within you, to stop you. A narcissist will go all out to manipulate your emotions to best serve themselves.

If you tell a narcissist something personal about yourself, a narcissist will deliberately disclose this information to third parties, especially those who gossip, or they’re going to threaten to disclose this information to others to coercively control you, into not doing something you wanted to do, or doing something for them you don’t want to do. Do not disclose personal information to a narcissistic person, if you already have done so, you’ve got to come to terms with that, come to peace over your insecurities or vulnerabilities, the information you’ve provided them, and you have to learn to be open to your own mistakes and violations so the narcissist is unable to use them against you, in future don’t disclose anything to them.

A Narcissist is going to go all out to invalidate your thoughts, feelings and opinions. A Narcissist will go all out to prove you’re in the wrong so you doubt yourself, blame yourself, question yourself, so that they never have any consequences to their actions and they can control how you think and how you feel, by subtly planting those seeds of doubt within your mind, if a narcissist knows your plans, they’re going to go all out to sabotage these plans by changing plans on you, if a narcissist knows you’ve got something planned, that they don’t want you to do, they’re going to put as many obstacles in the way as possible to sabotage those plans for you, if they don’t know what you are doing they can not sabotage those for you. Or if a narcissist believes your doing something on another day, they’re trying to sabotage that day, and not the actual day, as they don’t know when the actual day is.

Guard your words around narcissistic people, do not give them the information for them to use against you. Narcissists are incredibly envious people so they will go all out to ruin events for other people, if the narcissist doesn’t know about them, they struggle to ruin them.

If you share a child with a narcissist, and we can all be stubborn, we can want to celebrate with our child on their birthday, narcissists know this and they’ll use it against you, just plan to celebrate another day, the child’s birthday is then no longer over in one day, and the narcissist can’t ruin your plans. The same when it comes to celebrating your birthday, a Narcissist will go all out to ruin your birthday. Treat yourself and treat yourself to doing something on a day the narcissist knows nothing about. Choose a day after your birthday, so when your narcissistic friend, parent, partner, siblings etc tries to spoil your birthday on your birthday, you can focus on what you’ll be doing after your birthday that the narcissist knows nothing about. If you make arrangements with a narcissist they’ll go all out to break these arrangements on you, and they’ll find a way to blame you.

If you’re going somewhere a narcissist will lose things or hide things on purpose to stop you, if they don’t know you’re going somewhere, they’re not going to have the ability to realise they need to hide your car keys before you leave. As they don’t know you’re going, yes it seems manipulative, however when it comes to dealing with a narcissist you’re not doing it to manipulate them, it’s to protect yourself from their manipulation, if a narcissist knows you have plans, they’ll go all out to create an argument to put you in a mood before you go.

When it comes to using these methods they’re not for long-term use, they’re temporary measures put in place around a narcissistic parent, sibling, friend, or ex. Or if you need to co-parent, Limited contact, avoid giving any information about yourself.

Narcissists draw you into those non-productive arguments because they then feel like they’re important to you, like you care about them, they feel special as you’re giving them your attention and time, and they feel like you matter. So by no longer arguing back, you’re showing by your actions that you’re no longer interested in their words. However, a narcissist wants to interpret this in their mind is on them. When it comes to you, you’ve got to recognise that you no longer want to be drawn into non-productive arguments with them, leave them to it, and focus on the things you can do in your life. Not explaining to a narcissist renders them insignificant, it proves to you that you’re no longer willing to give them information about yourself to them, that they can use against you. However a narcissist wants to read your unwillingness to communicate, defend or explain yourself to them, is on the narcissist, if they want to accuse you of being selfish, stubborn, or awkward, that is on them, they can think whatever they want about you, you need to prove to yourself by your actions, that you’re no longer willing to explain yourself to them, especially those people who always use your thoughts, feelings and opinions against you. instead, you’re going to explain to yourself why you need to calmly walk away from them, and prove to yourself that what they’re saying about you isn’t true.

No longer waste your time, once you’ve stated your point once, leave then to it. If you’re dealing with court situations, state your point once, in a kind tone, engage in conversation via messages, leave any arguments, don’t insult, stick to the point and save all messages. Stick to the original point, to prove how they are the ones unwilling to communicate.

A Narcissist rarely to never will answer your questions, at least not directly, however, they’ll demand you answer theirs, and often you can get them to show this via messages. You can ask them something important and they’ll ignore you, or they’ll go all around the houses to avoid answering that question, they can ask you something, and you can give them a direct answer, however, if it’s not the answer they want, they’ll keep asking you, they don’t accept it, they keep pushing until they get their own way, keep giving them the same answer.

Be boring, when dealing with narcissistic people be as boring as you can, so if you’ve got a family event and you’re going to be dealing with a narcissist and you don’t want to seem rude, talk about whatever the narcissist finds boring, anything a narcissist finds dull go overboard discussing that, so if they’re not interested in cars, talk about cars, if they’re not interested in gardening discuss that, if they ask you’re what your doing, say “Nothing much.” Be as boring to the narcissist as you can so they’re no longer interested in you.

Do not let a narcissist know your intentions, when they don’t know your intentions they can not prepare their defence to attack you, you must learn to become unpredictable to those who once knew your every move while learning to predict their moves.

Stop being open with narcissistic people, and keep a blank expression when talking with them, a narcissist will go all out to mislead you with promises of changed behaviour, mislead them by changing your behaviour around them, no longer giving them any information, keeping yourself to yourself, when it comes to dealing with a narcissistic person, when it comes to dealing with a narcissist, your actions speak louder than your words, so by no longer playing their games, you’re no longer interested in their games, if a narcissist wishes to up their games you have got to guard your attention and stand your ground, you’ve got to be careful around a narcissistic person, always be careful around those who lack empathy.

https://betterhelp.com/elizabethshaw (Sponsored.)

Click on the links below to join, Elizabeth Shaw – Life Coach on social media for more information on Overcoming Narcissistic Abuse.

The online courses are available by Elizabeth Shaw.

For the full course.

Click here to sign up for the full, Break Free From Narcissistic Abuse, with a link in the course to a free, hidden online support group with fellow survivors.

For the free course.

Click here to sign up for the free online starter course.

To help with overcoming the trauma bond and anxiety course.

Click here for the online course to help you break the trauma bond, and those anxiety triggers.

All about the narcissist Online course.

Click here to learn more about the narcissist personality disorder.

The narcissists counter-parenting.

Click here for more information on recovery from narcissistic abuse, and information on co-parenting with a narcissist.

Click here for Elizabeth Shaw’s Recommended reading list for more information on recovery from narcissistic abuse.

Rules To Deal With Narcissistic People, Rule 8, Never Trust The Narcissist.

Rule 8, Never Trust A Narcissistic Person.

Narcissists lull you into that false sense of security, they will seduce you into trusting them, to leave you feeling frustrated, angry, irritated, annoyed and confused. Every time you think you can trust them, they’ll use that trust to exploit you, every time you think you can be kind to them, they’ll take advantage of your kindness, every time you think you can compromise with them, they will take advantage of your capabilities to compromise with them, every time you try to forgive them they’ll take advantage of your forgiveness. When it comes to dealing with narcissistic people, give them an inch and they will take a mile.

When you enter the water with sharks, if you’re unaware that sharks are in the water, you might go out for a swim, yet once you realise the sharks are in, you get the hell out of that water, and you stay out.

When a narcissistic person, breaks a promise, breaks your trust, breaks an arrangement, a commitment, or an agreement, that is our warning that this person might not be the most reliable of people, might not be the most trustworthy of people. It’s fine to recognise we’re entering the danger zone, like when there could be sharks in the water, although it seems there aren’t any today, once one is spotted the beach is closed for safety. However, if we give a narcissist a chance, just like if we enter that water with sharks in there is a good chance we could get bitten, so if we give them a chance we need to be prepared that they might let us down again, and if they do that’s our lesson that it’s who they are as a person. If you choose to give them another chance, which is very easy to do with manipulative people, because they twist the situation to their advantage, just like those sharks who lay just under the surface, so you don’t see them coming, once we see the shark we try to get out of the water, once we see the narcissists games, once we recognise them, once we see who they are and what they do, we need to then learn to step away and not give them a third chance because if we give them a third chance, they are going to take advantage of our kindness, they’re going to take advantage of our forgiveness and then we’re going to be frustrated, hurt, annoyed, irritated, numb, feel dumb, anxious or angry, and the narcissist feels smug.

Never trust a narcissist as they will exploit your trusting nature. They will exploit your kindness, your compassion and your forgiveness.

It gets tricky with narcissistic types, as when you step away from them, they’re going to go all out to guilt trip you into feeling like you’re the one with the problem, feeling like you’re the one whose bitter, you’re the one whose jealous, hung up on your past, being awkward, selfish or stubborn, you’re the one who is holding grudges, so they can manipulate your emotions to work in their favour or get others to judge your motives and not their behaviour.

Narcissists aren’t honest people, they will make a false promise, they’ll future fake with you, they’ll offer you something in the future to get their needs met in the present, or to distract you from what they’ve done to you, by getting you to focus on a future event to give you that false hope, and when the future hits, they’ll fail to deliver, claim “I never said that.” or because you did this, they’ll no longer do that. They turn it into being your fault as to why they failed to deliver. When you first meet people, take things slow, get to know them for who they are, and not who they sell themselves to be. When they’ve already broken numerous promises on you, at some point you learn to never trust them again.

You’re going to develop trust issues around those with lying issues.

A narcissist might try something, you say no, and they could reappear three years later to try again. A narcissist where you can not go no contact with might come back years later asking you for something, as it’s been a while since you last saw them, you might be willing to help. As with genuine people you can compromise, however when dealing with narcissistic people, it’s always going to benefit them, they’ve always got that underhand game going on that you know nothing about, so even when three, five, ten years pass, do not agree to a narcissist’s false promise, because they’re playing a game. Narcissists are dishonest, they only make a promise to you, in order to gain something from you.

You should never trust a narcissist who is coming with a compromise as it’s usually a false compromise they might compromise now and again to give you that false sense of security, so when they get you with the big things, you compromise with them, only for them to take advantage of you.

Narcissistic people are not sincere people, you can not compromise with the insincere, they will take advantage of your ability to compromise, they will take advantage of your agreeableness, and they will take advantage of your willingness to communicate with them, narcissists offer that false compromises to get what they want from you, and once they’ve got what they wanted from you they will change the game on you, it’s all well and good compromising with genuine people. However when somebody goes back on their word, that’s our warning, when they go back on their word again, that’s our lesson that it’s who they are as a person, and if we give them another chance they will take advantage. Narcissists are incredibly exploitative people and they feel entitled to exploit you, and they lack empathy to care for how their behaviour affects you, they tend to have the empathy to manipulate your emotions to work in their favour.

Never compromise who you are as a person for somebody who will not compromise with you.

Never trust what a narcissistic person says about another person, narcissistic people go all out to slander those around them, untrustworthy people, narcissistic people are not a reliable source of information, especially if you can not get the full story, if the narcissist is warning you to not speak to those people that they’re talking so poorly of, so that you can not get the full story, both perspectives, to draw your own conclusion, especially if the narcissist isn’t giving you both points of view, if the narcissist doesn’t take any responsibility for the part they played, instead they lay all the blame at the other parties door. Some narcissists might be honest about the things they’ve done, yet claim they’re a changed person. “Yes I’ve cheated in my past, I’ve got that out of my system, I’ve matured, and I’m ready to settle down with you.” If someone is a changed person, take it slow and make sure they’ve changed. Narcissistic people will come back to you after cheating on you, claiming they’ve seen the light, they’ve changed, remember the more you forgive a narcissist the worse their behaviour gets. Never trust a narcissist, when they claim they’ve changed when you’ve forgiven them in the past, they just learn how to get away with it and they do it time and time again, as soon as they’ve got what they want from you they revert back into who they are. Narcissists change on a temporary basis to meet a need of their own. While they get their needs met, they don’t learn to change permanently.

Narcissistic people slander people, they discredit people’s character and ruin people’s reputation, they gossip about others, as the narcissist doesn’t want to be held accountable for their own behaviour, they don’t believe they’re responsible for their toxic behaviour, why they shift the blame, and they’re going to go all out to avoid consequences for their actions, to avoid disciplinary action for their behaviour, and one sure way a narcissist does this is by passing the blame onto someone else, by smearing another person, narcissistic people are never to be trusted, they’re not reliable sources of information, if you’ve been there in the past, and they’re smearing someone else’s name, they’ve already done it in the past, they’ve already lied in the past it’s who they are.

Never trust a narcissist’s apology, not all narcissists apologise and those who do it’s a false apology, to get what they want from you, and usually done in a method to blame you, narcissistic people don’t recognise what they did, instead they blame someone else, they don’t want to be held responsible, they’re not remorseful they lack the empathy, and they don’t want to repair the damage, therefore if they believe they can get what they want by offering a false apology, they’re going to turn around and say, “I’m sorry but if they didn’t.” “I’m sorry but if you hadn’t.” “I’m sorry if.” “I’m sorry you didn’t pay me more attention.” “I’m sorry I thought we were a team, what’s yours is mine.” They’re always going to look for a way to twist it to make you the one who ends up feeling bad and making it up to them, for the things they’re doing to you. False apologies are done simply to avoid consequences for their actions. Just because someone is open about their past mistreatment of others, doesn’t mean they’re a trustworthy person, it makes them a person who is happy to gloat about how they’ve hurt others. We can often mistake what they are saying. “Yes In my past, I did this.” to being honest and think we all have a past, we should give them the benefit of doubt, narcissistic people rely upon you giving them the benefit of doubt. Yes, we’re all capable of making mistakes, with narcissistic individuals this is a ploy to exploit you, to get that leverage where they can influence you into trusting within them and you can never trust a narcissistic person. When meeting new people, take it slow, and get to know them for who they are, not who they sell themselves to be, if someone has made a mistake, and says yes I did this, and they’ve never done it again, they show genuine remorse, then they might have made an error in judgement, when it’s a repeat pattern of behaviour, it’s who they are, they are as a person, they’re not going to change for you, they will claim they will change for you, and when someone claims they’ll change for you, don’t trust them, because people have to be willing to change for themselves, not for other people. We can all use other people as leverage as our reason to want to change, however, we have to have the capability to change for ourselves, which narcissistic people lack because they don’t see themselves as the problem and believe everyone else should change.

Narcissists are not reliable people, they’re some of the most inconsistent people you could ever meet, and you shouldn’t trust inconsistent people, as you’re never going to know where you stand with them, narcissists tend to lack the empathy to care about others, they have a complete disregard for other people’s boundaries, they see other people’s beliefs and values as a challenge, they have no respect for others people’s values, they’re incredibly disrespectful people, they do not compromise, they only offer that false compromises, false promises, to get their needs met, once their needs have been met, they’ll go all out to frustrate you, to blame you as to why they didn’t hold up to their end of the deal. When they don’t hold up to their end of the deal that is on them not you. Your holding to your word is on you. So don’t compromise with those, who are going to blame you for why they backed out of the deal.

Avoid those who make you feel responsible for everything they do wrong.

Narcissistic people tend to expect eternal gratitude for the things they do for you, they will constantly guilt trip you “after all I’ve done for you, to get their needs met by you.

Narcissists believe they’re always right, your opinion has got to match theirs if it doesn’t you’re wrong, and they’re either going to go all out to embarrass or humiliate you, or they’ll pity play with those, “you never take my side.” “You never agree with me.” They might devalue you, insult you, or intimidate you, narcissistic people always have to be right, they only want to see their points of view, yours are irrelevant to them. Once a narcissist has made their mind up, they made their mind up, and they lack the cognitive reflection skills to go back and check what happened, they’ve created their reality and that reality to them is a fact. Narcissistic people are very untrustworthy people, they tend to just go around gossiping about all others, usually because they’re envious of others, fear exposure by others, or they’re wanting to destroy others, if someone makes a mistake a narcissist will latch onto this and tell as many people as they can, to pull them down to feel better about themselves.

When it comes to narcissistic people, recognise that you can never trust them, as soon as you try to trust them, they will break this trust and blame you for having trust issues, to escape taking responsibility for the things they’re doing to you, once you recognise a narcissist never trust them again, as once you catch a narcissist lying to you, they’ll never trust you again.

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