Narcissists have a way of treating you better than anyone ever has, yet worse than anyone ever has, leaving you even more confused about who they are and what’s happened to you, living in hope they’ll be the person they claimed themselves to be, and in desperation walking on eggshells in order not to set them off. Yet, no matter what you do to try and please them, it never seems enough.
When it comes to a narcissist, without any seemingly rational reason, they are fast to go from one minute seemingly treating you so right, too, suddenly treating you so wrong, while you’re trying to work out what’s happened, what’s upset them, what you’ve done wrong this time.
As narcissists turn on their admiration seeking the face when they are seeking attention and turn off the envious face to hide their negative side, then off their admiration seeking face as they feel envious or criticism, they can turn silence or rage towards you in an instant, as they split from good, bad, black, white, never any in-between or a grey area, while they take all the credit for their and your good, and pass all the blame for their and your mistakes, as to them that’s your bad and not their problem.
A narcissist can go from seemingly knowing you better than anyone ever had, enjoying all the things you do, loving you so much, wanting all the same things as you, to suddenly finding yourself unable to communicate with them, no matter how hard you try, how many different ways to try to state your point, explaining yourself, asking them what’s wrong, they just don’t seem to get it, as they switch from seeming loving you so much, to hurting you so badly, from hating you to then loving you and straight back to hating you,
One minute you can be sat with them, a conversation filled with fun, laughter and happiness, then one wrong move and they’ve changed right in front of you, leaving you feeling hurt, confused, frustrated, angry and Sad, constantly swapping from pleasure to pain. Emotional highs to emotional lows, all while you’re trying to work out what’s happening, doing your best to please them, so their admiration face comes back out, creating that trauma bond, cognitive dissonance, anxiety and rumination within you.
One minute a narcissist is great, full of smiles towards you, planing the perfect future with you, the next without warning they rage at you, those devaluing comments, insults, criticism, judgment, claiming you have feeling you don’t have, or the feelings you do are in some way wrong, those glares, those sulks and those silent treatments.
Suddenly gone is all the affection, attention and support, and all your left with is horrible silence or anger and aggression.
The trauma it causes our emotional and psychological health at the speed at which they change how they are towards us leaves us in bewilderment, confusion, frustration, full of fear and questioning so much about ourselves and what we did wrong, often through fear. The trauma bond we become trapped within the cycle.
One minute you’re chatting away, even laughing, the next they are raging, invalidating, or they fall completely silent, which then leaves us asking them.” What’s wrong?” “ Have I done something to upset you? How can I help?” Which they often respond with a response that makes no sense to us at all, their word salad, their denial deflection, projection, blame-shifting, gaslighting, or with no response, just more silence, Leaving us questioning, what just happened? What did I do?
Narcissists will always find a way to blame us, so we work harder to please them while gaining further control over us. They often gaslight us to convince us that our emotional reactions to their behaviour are the problem, distracting us from the fact their behaviour is the problem.
One minute you can be taking nicely with them. Then next, out of nowhere, they raise their voice and outcomes a barrage of verbal abuse, leaving us trying to defend ourselves, explaining ourselves, justifying ourselves to them, all while we are left wondering, what just happened?
When you ask them to get clarity of the situation and what’s just happened, it just seems to irritate them all the more. The more we try to understand them, help them, the more it seems to escalate the situation. We want to help. We want to understand what’s happening. While they just want to provoke us all the more.
They can say, “That’s just like you.” “No one understands me.” “Deal with it.” “ you should know what’s wrong.” Just before they punch a wall, smash a plate, throw their food, slam a door and stomp off with the narcissist’s incredible sulk and the silence, expecting us to clean up after them, they’ll then come at you with. “If you hadn’t.”
So why without reason to you? Do they change so incredibly fast?
The narcissists black and white thinking, known as splitting, is their common defence mechanism, leaving them with an inability to bring together positive and negative qualities. They think in the extremes of everything is all good to everything is all bad with no middle ground.
The narcissists splitting causes difficulty in them maintaining healthy relationships, as they either see someone as pleasing them when we are doing everything they want us to do, and everything is all good. However, when a narcissist isn’t happy that’s someone else’s fault, you don’t need to do anything wrong, however as a narcissist is unhappy, that’s your fault, and to them, you’re wrong.
With a narcissists self-defence mechanism, as they see themselves as perfect, above others, to remove any feelings of inner shame for their negative behaviour, they project onto those around them or bait others into reacting to them so that narcissists can split, they can see themselves as the victim or the hero, while they smear you to be the toxic one, they’re not interested in the bigger picture, they’re interested in creating an environment of they are right, and you were in the wrong, that self-entitled hypocrite, they don’t make mistakes however when they do that will be your fault as to a narcissist you make all the mistakes, why they believe you should make it up to them for the things they do to you, why they gaslight with such truth-telling lies as many believe their lies.
Our view of relationships, communication and reality, are so completely different from that of narcissists.
They’ve just manipulated us into a false reality. Through their love-bombing idealisation, future faking, for us to now live in their false reality of, which is both nightmare and fairy tale, they take us into the false reality that is the narcissists’ world.
What happens to us when around a narcissist makes no sense, yet as we try to understand them and make sense, it keeps us trapped, yet it makes complete sense to a narcissist. Why?
With a narcissist, they might suddenly remember something you said two weeks ago that criticised them in some way, and they will have flicked the switch at that time, as they’ve been reminded in some way, they flick it again. Then their rage appears to draw more attention and emotions from you, or they could simply believe you weren’t giving them enough attention, you exposed a negative behaviour of theirs, you didn’t put their needs before theirs, you didn’t listen to how they like their meal prepped, the time they wanted to eat it, you might not have been laughing hard enough at their joke, you didn’t laugh loud enough. Therefore, you failed to provide for the narcissist, failed to provide whatever they felt entitled to at that moment. They take this as a criticism and a challenge. You may have complimented them on one thing, but, as you didn’t compliment them on what they wanted, you should know what they want, so they again they feel criticised and take it as a challenge,
However, opening up about how they feel would mean being vulnerable, admitting to you and themselves that they’re not perfect, that they have insecurities. They only want to play the victim if they can exploit someone. They don’t want to show weakness as to them. They’re not weak. You are. Often we have no clue as to what’s caused them to react towards you. They’ll not have a two-way conversation to communicate how they feel. No, they’ll just reduce us to tears and gain those emotional reactions that way. Also, to gain more power and more control over us.
Because of their narcissism, they’ll shift and alter, depending on how they feel in that moment and what they take as a criticism. We did well for them last week might not work next week, as it’s nothing to do with what we do and everything to do with who they are.
Splitting is their self-defence, and they have to do it fast, confuse you, gain reactions from you, blame you, criticise you, to feel better about themselves, get control and power over the situation and over you.
You were never the problem, it did not start with you, and it’ll not end with you. You can break free and move into a much happier life.
Why do narcissists argue?
Stop explaining to a narcissist.
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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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