You can trust a narcissist to always lie to you.
What Narcissists say and what they actually mean are often two very different things. Their actions rarely match their words. Their words rarely match their words. However, they always seem to find the right words to excuse their hurtful behaviour and gaslight us into believing their lies over our reality.
The phrase they tell people are common phrases that many says, however, the intent behind the narcissists are often hidden in those words and what they truly mean something very different,
They say. “ I love you.”
Love has various meanings. For most, it’s a strong emotional bond, a strong attachment or attraction, unselfish kindness, compassion, loyalty, being respectful of another, being vulnerable around another, care and look after each other, an intense feeling of connection. An acceptance of another, unconditional love.
When it comes to a narcissist, it’s conditional love. They lack the empathy to care, so their love is more of envy. They are interested in something we have and use love to exploit us to meet a need of their own. Narcissists feel they are entitled and have a strong desire to take what they want when they want it.
They are just using their version of the word love to control us. They don’t love us. Not in the same way we love them. Where were are passionate about them, they a passionate about something we have. Narcissists love that our love means we make our life all about making it work with them. They love how we shower them with attention, make them feel special, solve their issues, relieve their pain, fix their problems, put a roof over their head, make them feel better about themselves. They love how we take time for them and not ourselves, how we make their happiness our responsibility, often through their gaslighting, they love how we provide for them. They love how they can devalue us, make us feel their shame, watching us feel unworthy and insignificant to try harder to please them. When a narcissist says I love you, based on the traits of their disorder and the meaning behind those traits they mean, they love how we live by and respect their rules. They love what we do to please them or what we provide for them, emotionally and materialistic. They do not love us for who we are. With a narcissist, there are always conditions attached to their love. People have to earn their love through doing as a narcissist says. Narcissists lack the empathy and object consistency to love us for us. For who we are as a person, it’s all about what you do for them.
Remember those who love you would not continue to hurt you and let you down when you love someone you don’t want to cause or see them in pain, only allow those to treat you in the same way you treat others, find a safe way to walk away from those who continue to let you down. Practice loving yourself for who you are. Own your insecurities we all have them. They are nothing to be ashamed of when we acknowledge ourselves for who we are. Others can not use our insecurities against us. When someone tries to blame and shame you for their behaviour, time and time again, they don’t care for you.
They say, “It’s not all about you.”
They mean. You need to make it all about them. Don’t do what you want to do, do what they think you should do, don’t pay attention to your wants, needs, passions, dreams, hobbies, goals, desires, give all those up and shower the narcissist with attention. Narcissists believe they are entitled to have everything their own way. They require excessive admiration. They believe they should be in full control of their life and yours. They don’t see life doesn’t work this way. They believe they are special and deserving of all the attention. They can not handle you being the centre of attention. They get envious of others success and wish to invalidate others achievements to make themselves feel better. If you ever mention your needs that they don’t care for, they’ll make you feel guilty and ashamed of having these needs. Narcissists mean I’m the only important one, and you’ve got to learn that your needs and who you are as a person do not matter. They mean “it’s all about me.”
Remember, It is about you. It’s about others too. If you are not happy about something, you have every right to change it. It’s your life; you don’t need to hurt people by walking away from those who hurt you. You’ve most likely tried all you can to help them and have been left a shell of your former self. Now is the time to take care of yourself before you take care of others. This is not to hurt others. This is to be at your best for those who deserve you. Kind, caring people do exist. Those who continue to treat you with disrespect they don’t deserve your respect, your time and attention, so respect them for who they are and safely walk the other way to them. The oxygen mask on the plane, you should always put it on yourself, so you’re at your best to help others. Narcissist put in on themselves and run off with everybody else just in case they run out.
They say. “I’d never hurt you.”
Most people wouldn’t say this, those who do it would be sincere, and they wouldn’t hurt you. Narcissists often use this one, then repeatedly hurt you, They’re not going to hurt you while they idealise and love bomb you to get their needs met, or they’ll try to make sure you don’t find anything out. They lie through omission.
While you take care of them, while you shower them with attention, everything seems alright. However, it’s not OK. Behind the scenes, a narcissist intent is very different. When they say they’ll never hurt you, they mean, while you meet their needs, all will be well. However, it’s always caught 22 with a narcissist and what met their needs one day will not be the next. You can never win with a narcissist. When you stand up for who you are, most will go all out to devalue you until you do as they say again.
Narcissists often play a game with one hand that you can see, to keep you confused, to distract you from the game they’re playing with the other hand that they don’t want you to see.
Remember only you define you, and as hard as it can be to see when someone is hurting you so much, gaslighting you so much. However, you are in control of your reality, emotions, so finding the methods that work for you, those who continue to hurt you, are not for you.
”You made me do it.”
They mean it’s your fault for whatever went wrong in their life, it’s your fault for whatever went wrong in your life, that they themselves are perfect and do no wrong, if they hurt you, to a narcissist who lacks empathy, you made them do it.
If people are unable or unwilling to see the pain they caused others, they don’t care for the hurt they caused. Yes, people can manipulate people into doing things; honest people would hold themselves accountable even when it’s not their fault. Dishonest people hold others responsible and never themselves.
”After all I’ve done for you?”
They mean you need to do something for them. We often feel grateful when others do things for us, as narcissistic people use this against us to guilt-trip us into ignoring our own needs or feeling selfish and rude if we don’t do something for them.
Often if we step away from the situation, we see they’ve actually done very little. Even when they have done, if you yourself don’t go around doing for others expecting in return, then if someone has done for you, you don’t owe them anything, yes in life relationships are give and take, in a job we give out our time to earn money to pay the bills, mutual understanding at the start, In a relationship narcissists lead us into a false sense of security that they want the same things we do, to further down the road exploit and use those very things against us, narcissistic people are only will to give in order to receive, where you often give in order to be kind and help others feel good.
”I don’t want to argue with you.”
They either want to avoid the subject entirely, so you can not come to any form of understanding, compromise or outcome about the things that need discussing, they might want to divert attention away from something they’ve done with the subtle, covert threat of I don’t want to argue as we might have witnessed their rage in the past, so when they say this, we feel unable to express ourselves, walking on eggshells to please them. If we continue, they turn it into an argument to avoid the original topic of conversation, then blame us for the argument.
Remember, if someone is unwilling to communicate with you as you would them, they’re not someone you want to be communicating or explaining yourself to.
They say. “You are so jealous and insecure.”
Narcissists often bait those around them into feeling jealous in order to triangulate, gain attention, get people to work harder to please them. They enjoy seeing you compete for their attention when they flirt with others. That makes them powerful and wanted. They do all they can to make us feel unworthy. We know they’re flirting. They’ll do their best to manipulate us into thinking it’s not really them that we imagine it. That we can never do anything right, and they’ve got us doubting our feelings and not their actions or words.
Remember, you don’t deserve someone who lets you down, are never indeed there for you, and who continues to hurt you. You deserve someone who you trust, who is honest, open, caring and kind like you.
They say, “You have trust issues.”
They would never genuinely admit it to you, narcissists are very untrustworthy people, as they need to exploit others to meet a need of their own, even though they have possibly shown us many times by betraying us, in various forms, lying, cheating, saying they’ll do one thing and doing another. They love the power and control they have over us with their words, making us doubt ourselves and questioning our own reality and sanity, living to work harder to please them, doubting our own instincts. When you need to trust your instincts and know a narcissist will deny anything, even with facts and evidence against them.
Remember, your instincts are telling you the truth; you will have trust issues around those who have lying issues.
They say, “ you’re overthinking or overreacting”
You have perfectly normal thoughts about their behaviour and normal reactions to their countless lies. The narcissist doesn’t want you to wake up and smell the coffee; they can never let you catch on; they don’t want to be seen for who they indeed are. They want to make us doubt ourselves in every way, and they’ll do all they can to make us feel like the bad guy and make us feel guilty for things they’ve done to us, so we work harder to please them, we trust their words and not own thoughts and feelings. They reap all the benefits while you work so hard to make it up to them and please them forever, doubting them while slowly losing who we are.
Remember, you were given a mind to think for yourself and how you want to believe. If something bothers you, internally process it and take action to change it, so it no longer bothers you, even if that means walking away from those who continue to let you down and walk away from you when you needed them the most.
They say. “That never happened.”
With a narcissist, it most likely did. Kind people can say this to a narcissist who’s lying to smear our name. Narcissists say this as they don’t want people knowing the truth about them, narcissists don’t want others thinking wrongly of them, they don’t want people to see what’s truly happening, they want us and those around them to live by their rules.
Remember your truths, no matter what others say. If you know it happened, then it happened. If you’re still around them, keep a written diary until your mind sees clearly that their actions don’t match their words.
They say, “You don’t have anyone other than me.” Or “No one will love you.”
They often mean this because they’ve usually removed anyone important to you in your life. They either divide and conquer to isolate you or cause so much stress we isolate ourselves. So the narcissist can be in control, the only one who has power over your life now. Of course, people love you, but narcissist doesn’t want you to wake up and realise that. They want control over you, and they want you doing as they please to earn their love.”
Remember, you are worthy, and you are loveable. That love and happiness start from within. You need to detach yourself from negative, toxic people who bring you down, so you can discover what you enjoy in life, what you love about you, the right people will be there for you and love you for who you are.
They say, “ you’re oversensitive.”
They enjoy getting people to question their emotions and not narcissist’s actions. The narcissist makes people feel worse, which makes them feel better, they love the power you give to them, and they enjoy taking advantage of our kindness and hearing us explain our intentions to them while they take us off-topic, twist your words and watch us lose who we are. Narcissists get a weird kick out of how they make us feel horrible when they mention something they did to hurt us, yet they will have turned it all around to be our fault somehow. They often show a smirk on their face as they watch the pain, sadness and disappointment on your face.
Remember you are you, and no one defines you, sensitive or not. That’s who you are, and being sensitive means you have feelings for yourself and others, and good people will respect those feeling.
They say, “ I’m sorry you feel that way.”
A narcissist isn’t sorry for how they made you feel. They don’t have the emotional empathy to care for how you feel. They are just saying this so they can continue with their abusive behaviour while escaping taking any form of responsibility for the things they do. Narcissists are only ever sorry that they got caught, they feel no need to apologise, but they will say,” I’m sorry you.” meaning they are not sorry for what they did. They are feeling sorry for themselves that they are being made to apologise for things they believe they are entitled to do. They will always turn it onto you. They don’t care for others emotions or how others feel. They only care about what they can get from people.
Remember, if someone continues to hurt you, and they don’t change their hurtful behaviour towards you, they don’t care for you. This is just further manipulation.
Why their lies seem so believable.
Narcissists create reasonable doubt within us, and we have the burden of proof, what they say sounds fair, it could be true, there could be grounds for some truth behind their gaslighting statement, so we don’t recognise they are indeed gaslighting us, we feel uncertain of our emotions, judgment, perception or intentions as they’re gaslighting us to confuse us, yet what they say sounds reasonable, often we have no proof, we feel the burden, a responsibility to trust them, a heavy heart, a feeling like we have duty to trust them, as we often don’t have evidence to support our argument and when we do, they gaslight us with reasonable doubt, into questioning our instincts, our memories, our reality and not their behaviour.
Gaslighting is psychological manipulation where the narcissist uses many manipulation tactics to distract us from the truth so they can further their manipulation and exploit those around them to get their needs met.
Narcissists tell countless lies to cover their own tracks. In their mission to be perfect, they often forget the tails they’ve spun when we call them out on something they promised yet failed to deliver. It’s a case of ” I’ve never said that.” they did. They just don’t want you remembering they did, or they believe their own lies so much they become even more convincing in telling them to others. Narcissists will often divide and conquer to isolate you from support, so you only have them for the reality checks, even if they haven’t isolated you, not wanting to open up to others from those feelings of shame that the narcissist’s devaluation has placed within your conscious mind, fear of judgment, or not being understood, added words from the narcissist of ”Who would believe you.” and enables saying ”I’m sure they didn’t mean it.” or ”you know what they’re like.” ”I’m sure it not that bad.” then, with the added obvious or subtle threats a narcissist throws in, it’s a terrifying, confusing place to live and a difficult place to escape from. With reactive abuse, when the narcissist baits us into such a confused emotional state, we might fight back, then the narcissist acts all calm and asks,” are you ok.” or accuses you of going crazy, all lies to keep us further confused. Reactive abuse can make us fear speaking out, as we often blame ourselves as we understand our behaviour was wrong, and this can end up making you feel like you’re the narcissist. If you have empathy for other people, you are not.
Remember if someone lacks in genuine empathy towards you if they act entitled if they exploit others, if they have a repeat pattern of toxic behaviour, no matter what they tell you, they only seek to harm you if they are physically abusive of you or not if they try to control your life you need to remove yourself from their life safely.
People on the narcissist personality disorder spectrum believe they are special, preoccupied with unlimited creating their ideal at the expense of others, arrogant to think they’re always right, entitled, self-centred hypocrites, they expect. Many demand others to give them everything they want. While doing the bare minimum in return, they are hard to spot in society. They covertly, meaning hidden, go around hurting others, then covering their tracks as they are the masters of manipulation. They are masters of words and lies. Narcissists use lies and manipulation so well that even when their actions don’t match their words. We often doubt ourselves and not them. Many a narcissist could possibly pass a lie director test, as they rewrite history to escape accountability. With little to no cognitive reflection skills for their lies, over time, their lies become their truths, while those around them who think empathetically and have emotional empathy end up extremely disorientated and drained, trying to look for the good in those who continue to show them their worst, primarily due to the narcissists gaslighting words.
Narcissists Lies are incredibly effective. Most healthy people tend to try not to lie in the first place. When they do, the guilt they feel will often make them admit to it, apologies for it, learn from it and not do it again, so when a narcissist lies and continues to do so, often with the lies that you wouldn’t even think was a lie like “I love you.” And the more they repeat this, the more we believe this even when their actions don’t match their words, often as most narcissists, be it a boss, a parent, a friend, whoever they are in your life will idealise you at some point, or they will offer intermittent plays of idealisation, they’re not cold towards you all of the time, so when they say “I love you.” we believe that they do. Then when narcissists do hurtful things towards you, and you start to wake up from the lies. Your instincts are screaming at you, they come back at you with the play nice, and the more your mind finds it easier and less painful to believe their continued lies, excuses and them blaming and shaming us than recognises the painful truth, not realising as we’re being gaslighted away from our truth to live in the narcissist’s pain.
The blame-shifting, so we question ourselves,” If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t.” and their future faking to give us hope, their ”what about .” so when they bring up the past, we feel rude for bringing up the present, and those guild trips, ” after all I’ve done for you.” when often if we stand back and think clearly they do very little other than hurt us. As they continue to blame and shame us for their toxic behaviour so we can not catch our thoughts, then they will tell us what to do right when we get it right, they’ll deliver some promises, or claim we did something wrong for them not to deliver, or promise something in the future to distract the pain of the present. To keep us living in hope while they blame our pain that they caused on us.
When in or coming out of a relationship with a narcissist, we can doubt everything around us and everyone. We can feel judged, silly and stupid. You’re scared to tell people in case we sound crazy. You are not crazy, now is the time to rebuild yourself and cut negativity out of your life. You are not silly, crazy or stupid just because one person manipulated you. You just love. You are kind. You can always change things for yourself. You can move on. You may have anxiety, and you can heal your anxiety also. You may have CPTSD. You can overcome this.
This is all normal, after this kind of relationship. You are not alone in how you feel. People out there do understand and have been through similar, learning to trust yourself again, and listen to your very normal and reasonable feelings, remember who you once were, or who you’d like to become. You might have had your subconscious thinking and mindset retrained. Now you need to work on you to retrain your mindset for you, change negative thoughts to positive thoughts, trust who you are, know everyone’s allowed an opinion if you disagree, move on no harm done, you can work on yourself, some can recover with self-taught research, others with support groups, therapists and EMDR treatment, it’s finding the right coping strategies for you, then using them to work for you. The best relationship you can have is one with yourself. So work on yourself today, tell yourself you can do this, and you so will. Love you for you.
Life isn’t always easy when we go easy on people that make our life hard; life becomes hard; when we work on ourselves, life becomes easy.
You can, and you will.
How narcissists steal your trust.
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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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Cognitive Dissonance.
Gaslighting.
Cohesive control.
Mind games.
