How Narcissists Sell You A Dream to deliver you a living nightmare.
Some tactics a narcissist might use to win you over in the beginning, and some examples of phrases they might say to you.
A narcissist will hook you in with the promise of who they make themselves out to be. Then once that trauma bond is formed, they show us who they can also be, causing that cognitive dissonance within our minds.
1. Songs. A lot of them like to use songs because they have lack empathy, so they don’t get those same emotional feelings towards the music that we do. Often it doesn’t have the same effect on them. However, they pay close attention to the words.
In the beginning, they will connect us with these songs to moments in our lives they choose, and when we finally break free from them, those songs have an emotional attachment to us, which create a stronger memory. So when we hear those songs, it reminds us of those fun times, in the beginning, triggering our emotions.
The narcissist’s use of songs isn’t two people creating memories together, as it can be within a healthy relationship. It’s a narcissist mirroring what they’ve seen in the movies, what’s worked on exes in the past. All actions and gestures, expressions and words are done simply to draw us into their games so they can exploit us.
2. They mirror us. They have a default setting to mirror us. They will copy our body language. We will not even notice them doing it. They will talk the way we do. When we speak slowly, they will, if we pause, they will when we speak fast, they’ll do that too, getting a deeper connection with us without us even knowing.
3. Words they use. They may use sentences like “I’ve never met anyone like you before, ” “you’re different to the rest, ” you’re special, ” and “I’ve never felt this way about anyone.” often very soon into the relationship, creating that fast involvement.
There is manipulation with whatever a narcissist does and especially in the way they do this as they learn about us. To see what our strengths and weaknesses are so they can use them against us further into the relationship.
To the narcissist, those sentences are just instinct in them. There is no genuine meaning behind them; it’s not because they love or care. It’s to make you believe they love and care.
4. They like all our likes and dislike all our dislikes. They have everything in common with us. They will happily agree with our likes and dislikes in the beginning.
Why do they do this?
To match us, so we believe we have so much in common with each other, so we feel understood by them like no one has ever understood us before. It’s easy to like and fall in love with those who like everything we do and dislike the things we dislike.
Everything they do at the beginning is to manipulate us into believing we’ve found the one. No one will ever be as perfect for us as narcissists sell themselves to be. They really enjoy how much attention we give them, how we adore and admire them, and how we believe we’ve met the one—the smile on our face when we see them when they surprise us by bringing us flowers or a gift. How we cook for them, clean for them, wash their clothes for them, fix their car for them. They’ll also help us with this in the beginning. All the positive response you give them just confirms they are right to manipulate us some more.
No gifts, activities, songs, words of affirmation or messages are done towards you out of love. They don’t get a real sense of joy out of doing these things. Although they have learned to mirror and mimic how others look and act when they do these things.
5. Taking us out, to dinner, going to the cinema, bowling or sport is just further manipulation by a narcissist so that they can use it against us further into the relationship. “Don’t you remember when? After all, I’ve done for you.” They believe they are special and enjoy the attention we give them.
We do things because we get joy from the experience, we enjoy other people’s company to share activities we enjoy with each other, and connection, understanding, and happiness. None of this matters to a narcissist unless they are getting some form of attention from it.
Everything they do in the start is simply to manipulate us into falling in love with someone who is not truly who they claim themselves to be.
6. Always by our side. In the beginning, they want to spend as much time as possible with us because we have something they want. They may send us lots of lovely messages when they are not with us. Call us on their work breaks. Turn up at our work, and want to chat with us even when they or we are using the bathroom.
The more time we spend with them, the more accustomed we become to them being around, the less we see our friends and family, and the harder it is to cope during their first of many manipulative silent treatments.
7. Once we are unwittingly addicted to them. They change the game. They can start to show us their other side; just how toxic and hurtful they can genuinely be. When they first do something because of the idealisation stage, when they begin to devalue us, we are left wondering what happened and where they went, and what we did wrong, they will then twist and manipulate us some more. They love the silent treatment claiming that we hurt their feelings, so we think it’s us and not them, we doubt ourselves and believe we did something to make them act that way towards us. If it weren’t for us, they wouldn’t have done that, which then makes us apologise and work harder to please them, to get that person we fell in love with back. They raise our expectations in the start to lower our boundaries and our standards in the devaluation while we give them more and more of us, we slowly learn to accept less and less from them. Then if we wake from the trance they put us under if they fear abandonment, that we may leave if they’ve not got a backup plan, they’ll pull us back in, with the intermittent reinforcements of the idealisation stage again, the lies of those gestures and dates again. So the cycle begins.
During devaluation, the phrases you may hear are.
“I do for those what those do for me.”
“If you tried, so would I.”
“You’re making me this way.”
“It’s who I am.”
“Deal with it.”
“That’s just like you.”
This is all just further manipulation to train us to walk on eggshells and do as they say, to get us to work harder to please them because we have empathy and care for them and the relationship. The more our self-doubt starts to set in due to their gaslighting, the more we question our behaviour instead of their gaslighting, and they will keep on manipulating us any way they can, even with gaslighting sentences such as.
“I need you to help me.”
“You’re crazy.”
“you’re too sensitive. “
“Don’t you remember how good we were?”
“I’ve had more relationships than you, so I know. “
“That makes you look stupid.”
Then during the discard.
“I’m the best you ever had “
“You’ll never find someone like me.”
“You’re a mess. No one will ever love you.”
“You did this to yourself. “
They want to send us crazy and make us look crazy, so they can tell everyone around them and us that we are the crazy one.
They will do everything they can to make us doubt and blame ourselves.
When we escape, it often gets worse. When we break free, it’s like all hell breaks loose, as no one throws a bigger tantrum than a narcissist whose losing control of someone else’s mind.
This is why no contact. Or limited, none emotional contact is needed when children are involved grey rock.
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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.
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