Why doesn’t a narcissist understand your point of view?
Apparently, you can communicate with anyone, which is accurate. We can open our mouths and talk. We can send an email, send a message, we can discuss our feelings, our wants, our needs, and our opinions, and for most of us, we can listen to others, have a two-way conversation, and work through any disagreements together by communicating, compromising, mutual understanding, and respect and compassion for those around us, however as most of you know, when it comes to communication with a narcissist, you might as well talk to a brick wall. Most of the time, you’d probably get a better response.
So yes, you can communicate with a narcissist. The problem is they lack in the understanding of others to communicate back. They can only listen to you if it’s something they want to listen to.
Cognitive thinking skills play a massive part in communication with a narcissist.
Cognitive thinking is a process we learn when we acquire knowledge through life’s experiences. Cognitive thinking allows us to gain understanding, so we can comprehend, think, process, learn, remember, pay attention and apply incoming information, narcissists often lack in cognitive thinking skills, or they use negative cognitive thinking skills.
Cognitive reflection.
Always being right, as a narcissist most likely lacks in cognitive reflection skills, meaning once they’ve made their truth up, they can not look back and reflect. They’ve made their minds up that they are correct and all others are wrong. Narcissistic people continuously try to prove others wrong with various manipulation tactics. To a narcissist who always believes they are right, being wrong is unimaginable for them. They just can not and do not get it. They will go to extreme lengths just to prove they are right. Why there is simply no point in explaining yourself or arguing with a narcissist, they simply can not and will not see your point of view. Know your truths, and leave them to it. We are wasting our breaths trying to explain ourselves to a narcissist. They are not going to suddenly turn around and say, ”you know what, I think you are right.” instead, they will go to any extreme to make you believe that you are wrong, or they’ll leave you full of anger and resentment.
We must learn that we don’t have to participate in every argument we are invited to, especially those who are unwilling to listen to others’ perspectives.
Being right to them is more important than others’ feelings that. With the narcissist’s lack of Empathy means for us going against what a narcissist’s truth is, which can lead to devastating consequences for us. Sometimes why, when they are Gaslighting us, they do it so well, as to them, it is their reality and their truth, and they shall not be swayed. To most narcissistic people, “They didn’t say that.” And “That never happened.” To them, “You are being sensitive.” And “You are the one going crazy.” In their eyes and minds, it’s their truth, often why The Narcissists Smear Campaigns Against You are also done with such truth-telling lies. Yet because you are open to opinions and ideas, you can understand people make mistakes. Their gaslighting then makes you question yourself, blame yourself, and as you care, you then forgive them for their wrongdoings. Why, when you are Walking On Eggshells Around A Narcissist, doing as they please, they can treat you so well. You then start to blame yourself all the more when they start miss treating you, as reality is showing you how good they can treat you. Yet, the reality is also showing you just how wrong they treat you, yet When You Ask A Narcissist A Question over something that you believe them to be wrong about. They believe they are right. They will go to great extremes to prove themselves right and prove you wrong—causing that Cognitive Dissonance within your mind over the mismatch of realities and beliefs that you are now living under the narcissist’s spell.
Cognitive reasoning.
Black and white thinking. A narcissist has no grey area. To them, it’s either good or bad. There is no room for mistakes or errors in judgment. To them, it is all or nothing. They can only see things as either good or bad, as they themselves must be perfect. They place all blame onto others for situations or problems they might have caused. Without cognitive reflection, they can not look back to see what might have led up to a bad situation and with their lack of empathy, they can not see how someone else might be feeling. Most have cognitive empathy so they can think how someone else would feel, yet, without emotional empathy, they can simply not put themselves into someone else’s shoes to feel or care how they are making someone feel.
This is why most will Project all their failures and faults onto others, as to them they are entitled. They are superior, any mistakes made or any achievements missed, they will place that blame onto someone else. Being around this on a continued basis leaves us feeling like we are at fault, as all the projection is slowly drip-fed into our minds. Also, why we are somewhat too forgiving as we can see the good in them often with all the blame-shifting when the bad comes out? We are led to believe this to be our fault. It is never your fault.
Cognitive distortions.
The blame game. Those on the disorder blame all others for anything that is wrong with their own lives, meaning they are unable or unaware of what actions they’ve taken towards others, the mistakes they have made, so they can not make changes as to who they are as they simply do not see themselves as the problem.
With all the manipulative Blame Shifting Phrases Of A Narcissist, we go the other way and start to blame ourselves for everything, when in reality, not everything is our responsibility or our fault. With their Triangulation and Silent Treatment, we begin to look at ourselves to see what we’ve done wrong and how we could be better. This is good news, as this means you have the ability to reflect, to look at past mistakes, learn from them, grow from them, and changes them. The biggest lessons here is to learn who we are, to learn the behaviour we will and will not accept from those around us, learn our own worth, learning to let go of those who only seek to steal our joy, and no longer looking to always blame ourselves, taking responsibility for what mistakes we have made, and passing those we did not back to the rightful owner. Self-awareness is vital.
Change. A narcissist does not see why they need to change. As they have a disorder, it’s who they are. Most often, they can not see their own faults. They can only pass them on to others and therefore see all their own problems as to being caused by those around them, believing others need to change to suit them, again the gaslighting Of “If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t.” And most genuinely believe that if you hadn’t, they wouldn’t; however, most often, you haven’t actually done anything wrong, they will find something, anything you did, then they will magnify this to put the blame on your door, they will provoke you, to get a reaction out of you, so that they can blame it all on you.
With us, as we are slowly manipulated into their negative ways of thinking, it infects our minds. Yet, with their gaslighting, projection, blame-shifting, arguments, silent treatments and the rest, we are led to believe it’s us that needs to change. Our minds are led to think this is true, as they often offer intermittent times where they play nice, and magnify something we did to deserve them being nice to us, so we are left changing who we are time and time again to attract their nice side and walking on eggshells to avoid their nasty side. In truth, they have a disorder. It’s who they are. You did nothing to cause it, there’s nothing you can do to change it, and there’s nothing you can do to control it. You can, however, learn who they are, what and why they do what they do, and learn how to handle them, why you don’t need to defend yourself to them, and why you don’t need to change for them. No one deserves this treatment. You did nothing wrong. Trying to help others is good. Just help those who are willing to be helped and leave those who only want to bring you down.
No empathy.
Compassionate empathy, when we can think and feel how another is feeling, then we become extremely moved to help them in any way we can. This is the empathetic ability narcissists lack entirely in, and what can keep us trapped in a narcissistic relationship no matter who that narcissist is within your life, friend, family, members, boss or partner. We can think about how they feel, feel how they feel and are moved to helping them, why even the grandiose narcissist might pull out the victim card to pull on all your empathy and get their own needs met. Also, why they can hurt you so badly and just walk away? They can not think and feel about how you might be feeling. They have detached their emotions and simply do not care, especially if their own needs are being met elsewhere. They just see no more need for you within their life. Yet if you’re not giving them what they want, they feel anger towards you, and as they can have cognitive empathy, they know exactly what your weaknesses and vulnerabilities are, they will use them against you, to hurt you, as they are throwing a massive tantrum to get their own way.
Narcissists potentially have a negative empathy, and they might actually have empathy just different from those who genuinely care about others. Where they can see the empathy in others, they use others’ empathy to manipulate, to take people down, to find the empathy in another towards them and use it against them to meet their own needs. Once those needs are no longer getting met, they seek to destroy. They use people’s caring, the empathetic side against them, just like their negative emotions, so that they might have the cognitive empathy. Yet, they can only use it to see another’s empathy as to what they can gain, what vulnerabilities they can use against someone to manipulate. Finally, they don’t have the emotional empathy to actually care about what the other might feel. People with understanding can still feel anger and rage when they are provoked by others on the things they care about the most. Narcissistic people can pick up on others’ empathy, on what others genuinely care about. Instead of using positive empathy to connect in a positive way, to help others out to lift others up, they use what people care about the most to hurt other people the most, so they can manipulate others to meet their own needs.
So how can you communicate with a narcissist?
The best advice is don’t go no contact, leave them to live their life, and you go live yours, yet, this isn’t always possible.
How to communicate with the narcissist to get your point across correctly without an argument. If you still live or work with a narcissist or someone that’s not a narcissist but has some traits, or you’ve left the narcissist, they’ve left you and especially if you’ve got children together, this is the best way to deal with those arguments they try to cause oh so often.
Narcissists love to draw you into none productive arguments to gain whatever attention and emotion they can from you. It’s just programmed into them, from manipulating you, to controlling you, getting a reaction from you, spoiling your day, to their opinion is correct and no one else’s matters.
They only care about themselves. It’s a case of it’s my way, and nobody else matters.
There is a way to communicate with a narcissist. If your opinion is different from there’s, they will want to argue and fight.
First, knowing what’s going on in their own head. The more knowledge you have about how they think, to them, it’s all about them, and you’re in the wrong. If they did something wrong, of course, it wasn’t actually them. They’re not accountable. It’s you that made them act that way. They believe they are better than everyone else.
With a narcissist, it’s all tactics and gameplay. Anything and everything they do is to keep them in control of those around them. They will get control with persuasion and manipulation with their tone of voice and the words they use. All else fails. They will go to silent treatment and /or violence. They are stubborn and have a closed mind if it’s of no benefit to them. They simply do not care. The worst thing you can do is argue with them. They love the emotional reactions you give them. To them, it’s a game of I’m winning, and they’ll keep going. You can not win an argument with a narcissist by arguing with them. As to them, their opinion is correct, and they’ll go whatever way they have to. So you believe them.
To us, an argument or disagreement isn’t to win. It is getting the point across and staying true to ourselves. We understand people have other opinions. Narcissists do not, so they will happily keep it going. As they understand you’re going against them.
If you think you can go to a narcissist to explain your thoughts or feelings, why you’re doing something, why what they did has hurt the children, believing you can explain it to them, it’s not going to happen, they’ll either see criticism which they hate, or they’ll just not think your opinion matters as they’re always right. They believe they are superior, and no one will be able to change their mind. The narcissist has low empathy toward others. So if they have hurt you or your children, they don’t care. They don’t see it. They just feed off your attention, positive or negative.
A narcissist only thinks their own way, and they will never take others’ opinions on board as to them if it doesn’t match theirs. You are wrong. They don’t want or need to understand others. They also hate to think you feel competent within yourself. Whatever you think, say or do that doesn’t match the narcissist. They just believe you are an idiot, and they’re going to go all out to make you feel like one.
You have to remember when you’re trying to discuss anything with a narcissist. You are, in effect, talking to a toddler, not getting their own way. Toddlers’ language and understanding aren’t fully developed when they’ve been caught red-handed doing something they shouldn’t. Most toddlers, like all narcissists, will lie or deny all knowledge when you are asking a toddler to do something they don’t want to do. They can strop, sulk, stare you out, and play the waiting game to see if you give in Before the toddler does. When you say no to a toddler, where they haven’t learned to control their emotions, they can scream the house down, they can stop whatever they are doing, sit down wherever they are and not move, waiting to see just how far they can push you and how you will handle it, and toddlers can try many methods to see if they can have their needs met until they learn and develop as they grow, how to handle their emotions they right way, most often you can not reason with a toddler you reward a toddler for good behaviour and punish for bad.
Level up is one method used to communicate with a narcissist. To get the right outcome, narcissistic people live for attention. Take that attention away. Like toddlers, they might act out to receive some. Yet, the longer you give no reaction to their negative behaviour, the more chance you’ll have of them either leaving you alone and finding attention elsewhere or playing nice to receive your attention. At that point, give them your attention, not too much, just enough for them to learn how you will and will not be treated. This isn’t easy. You have to be in a good place. You have to learn who you are and have great control or know how to deal with your emotions. Otherwise, you get sucked into their games again.
So how to deal with a narcissist is how to deal with a toddler.
1. Reward good behaviour. Make sure you compliment them for good behaviour, so if your parent starts being nice to you. “I’m so pleased we are getting along.” When your adult child is speaking to you again. “I’m so pleased we are talking again.” When your ex arrives on time to pick up the children. “Thank you, the children, and I really appreciate you.” Then when they are late. “The children were far happier last week when we kept to our arrangements, could we try to keep that in future, or would you mind letting me know, so I can pre-warn the children as they are really excited when you are coming and, they are pleased to see you.”
Yes, this is extremely difficult. You have to focus on the long term gains and not the short term pain of being nice to someone who treated you so wrong. You have to detach your feelings and focus on the outcome when you are left with no choice but to deal with these people. Using the term ”we” often help as they see others as an extension of themselves.
2. Do not react to any of their negative behaviour. This only makes them do it all the more, as kryptonite is to Superman, no reaction is to a narcissist, and at the start, be prepared for them to up their games. If you need to seek protection orders, some are dangerous. You do need to move away from.
Genuine people don’t want or like manipulating others. However, the best way to communicate with anyone is to do so in the way that they communicate with you. Knowing that they understand on their level and lowering yourself to their level, no, don’t fight back, don’t argue back, don’t threaten back, this just pulls you further in, leaves you with resentment, and it’s not who you are. It’s a case of when they don’t get their own way, they fall silent and await you to beg. When the narcissist does something to hurt you, stay silent, process your emotions, not to get them to beg, to have your own peace, trying to discuss is pointless, they are not listening to how you feel, a narcissist is used to you making it up to them, so often when you fall silent, they will either up their games to get a reaction out of you, they will leave you alone, or they will start to play nice. When they start to play nice, acknowledge them, don’t bring up why you did whatever you did, they are not interested, attention, they live for, so you have to leave what they did in the past. Yet don’t get drawn in. Remember, they will not change. They will not genuinely care for you. You are doing this not to please them. You are doing it for a calmer life.
They reward, and they punish. This is how they communicate, so rewarding when they are acting nice, no reaction when they are acting negatively. It’s not easy. It is possible.
If they are an ex, some might try getting back with you. If you are at the start, this isn’t easy when you’ve only just Finished sleeping with them, so working on your trauma bond so you don’t get sucked back in, also stick to your boundaries No means No, don’t put yourself in a situation you would struggle to get out of, so don’t let them in your home. Try to keep all meetings for children in public, try to keep as much communication as possible via message and email.
Don’t insult them. Yes, this is hard as narcissists can take the slightest thing as criticism. If they try taking you off-topic, bring it back to the original point.
Don’t try to get them to see your point of view. Yes, two healthy people can discuss, know your point and let them think whatever they like.
The words they use, they understand, “I’m sorry you feel that way.” One they like to use when they are not happy they are not getting you to do exactly as you please, that’s when you would use. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
Observe their behaviour, and it’s an easy way to see how they work and what game they might try next. ( don’t absorb.) Remember, what they do is never out of love, compassion, or caring about others. It’s all for them to look good and win. Once you know what they are doing, it’s easy to step out of their game.
The best thing to do is distance yourself from the narcissist and learn to love yourself for yourself. Knowing your reasons come from a good place and a kind heart, and if the narcissist doesn’t want to understand that, it’s not your problem. Trying to explain yourself to them only leaves you frustrated. Remember, only you define yourself, and others’ opinions of you don’t matter.
Knowing you are in control of yourself and taking back control of yourself, that you do not need to explain yourself to those unwilling to listen. When we explain ourselves to a narcissist, they use it against us.
Rules To Deal With Narcissistic People.
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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.
Why they find it so hard to compromise.
Excellent ex
Excellent explanation. Thank you your validation. I love your blog, so refreshing. Narcs are the worst.