Many people class baiting as something a narcissist will do when you put up a boundary. Still, baiting can happen at any point within a relationship with a narcissist. It can happen with narcissistic friends, family, partners, parents, bosses, or whoever the narcissist is or was in your life.
A narcissist uses baiting to provoke an emotional response from us so that they can have 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, jealous, resentful, angry, responsible, anxious, and even hopeful, which makes it easier for the narcissist to manipulate them further.
If a narcissist feels threatened in some way, they feel a need to pull someone else down to feel better within themselves, as the narcissist will blame the other person for threatening them, real or perceived, the narcissist can be triggered by the narcissist feeling, disrespected, shame, rejection, embarrassment, humiliation, fearing abandonment, etc. causing narcissistic injury, leading to narcissistic rage, leading towards the narcissist abusing others, this can be sexual, emotional, spiritual, mental, physical, financial. The narcissist will use the other person’s weaknesses and go after those, as this hurts us the most. When we get defensive and justify ourselves, explain ourselves, fight back. The narcissist will continue to get us going, so the narcissist can blame us and play the victim leading to us feeling bad, the narcissist gaining attention as we work harder to please them, fawning to their behaviour, blaming ourselves and walking on eggshells around the narcissist, which confirms in the narcissists mind it was our fault, it’s never your fault, abuse is abuse, and there is no excuse.
A narcissist will love bomb, that fast involvement, flattery, those excessive gifts, to bait people into a relationship, especially if they feel their needs are no longer getting met in the relationship they are in.
A narcissist will intentionally taunt someone to anger another by saying or doing things to annoy, hurt or upset them to taunt them deliberately. To hook, trap or entice someone and getting someone to do what the narcissist wants them to do.
A narcissist will set the environment to cause you to stress, anxiety, irritability, frustration or intrigue.
A narcissist will do all they can to get you feeling out of sorts, to get you to justify, defend or explain yourself to them, and they will use your explanations against you to get you into a mood, so they can blame everything on you, to escape accountability for the things in which the narcissists actually do
The narcissist will cause intrigue. They will keep secrets from you. They will hide where the money goes, they will cause that intrigue, they will give bits of information, or they will lie by omission to cause us to question them. They will claim “they don’t want to argue.” When they mean is, they don’t want to discuss the things that they do, or they will say, “don’t you trust me.” If you ask them about something you know they’ve done to make you feel guilty, so they can get away with their behaviour, while we are left questioning our reactions to their behaviour. They will say things such as, “why do you need to know? I never said that, or I knew you’d act like this.” To keep us confused and help them escape the consequences of their actions.
They will throw around false accusations to get us to react. To cause reactive abuse, they will use the things that matter the most to us, so we defend ourselves to deny or justify to them most passionately.
They will provoke fear. They will intimidate, isolate, slander, be aggressive, or subtly “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” and obvious threats “, if you do this, I’ll.” to cause that fear within you.
A narcissist will future fake those false promises to give you false hope in the future to control you in the present by using your future against you. They will claim they want the same things and offer you those same things, whatever it is that’s important to you. When the future arrives, they’ll blame you for themselves not delivering, then get you to work harder to please them by offering more future faking.
They will breadcrumb you. They will deliver on some promise, just enough to keep us living in the hope that if only we change, they will be the person they sold themselves to be.
Narcissistic people will guilt trip. They will use our compassion our empathy against us to break down our boundaries. They will pity play and blame shift to coercively get us to work harder to please them.
Narcissists will flirt with others in front of you, or they’ll talk highly of another in a way that brings you down, to create those feelings of jealousy when you go to have an adult conversation with them, as they lack the empathy to care for you. They’re doing these very things to control your emotions, and you they’ll tell you. ” you’re jealous, you’re insecure, you’re hung up on your past.” Again so, you question who you are, doubt your thoughts and feelings and not their very behaviour that’s making you feel the way you do.
They will humiliate, shame or blame you in some way. Then when you stand up for yourself, they’ll claim they were “only joking.” Or that you “you can not take a joke, you’re too sensitive, stop being so serious.” They are testing your boundaries by getting you to question your reactions and not their toxic behaviour.
When you do stand up to them, they can rage, or fall silent, to either confuse you, intimidate you into conforming to them or get you to chase them and conform to them.
With a narcissist, it’s all about power and control. It’s hard to spot. At the time, when we are living it, it’s hard to get our heads around it, and it’s hard to break free from it, however breaking free is possible, and it’s one of the best things you’ll ever do, even if it doesn’t feel like it when you first start breaking free and working on you.
Learning the narcissists’ baits helps us to recognise their manipulative behaviour, see what game they are playing and stand firm on our boundaries. We can retreat, rethink, and only respond if we need to do so. We can often see which baiting tactic they’ll use next.
How to handle.
It’s so easy to react and want to defend ourselves; it’s incredibly easy to overlook their toxic behaviour, and make excuses for their toxic behaviour, especially when we are the ones left saying,” They’re not that bad.” ”It doesn’t happen often.” ”It was my fault because.” ”They are my parents.” ”It’s my best friend. I grew up with them.” ”who would employ me.” ”What about the children.” These are often limiting beliefs that keep us locked in a relationship we shouldn’t be in. These are lies the narcissist fed us when we have to say,” It doesn’t happen often.” it shouldn’t happen at all.
Even when we are out, we can want to stand up for ourselves and let them know Who they are in the hope they’ll change into the person we want them to be, which, even if they could change that person, is the illusion. Who they are is the person who lies, cheats, lets us down and hurt us.
We have to remember they have a disorder. The more we react, the more we give them attention, the more we give in to their demands, the more control they have over our minds, and the more it reinforces to the narcissist that they are superior, they are entitled to treat us how they want, and they are in control.
We can retreat, we can rethink and become more mindful of seeing their games for what they are, and then only respond if we need to do so.
Please do not take what they say or do personally. Their opinions of you are not for you.
When you’re being baited, when they keep coming after you with the game after game, you must practice Self-care and look after yourself as they are energy draining. It can negatively affect your mental and physical health, and also have people to talk to the understand the unbelievable yet, believable behaviour of a narcissist.
Baiting.
Reactive abuse.
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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.


