Most people who’ve been around a narcissist question themselves and believe that they’re genuinely going crazy, that the narcissist will be the only one to “put up with them.” That they should be grateful for everything the narcissist does for them, Narcissist’s play many mind games that causes cognitive-dissonance within our minds, so we believe we are the one with a problem, not realising the narcissist is the very person causing our self-doubt and causing our problems.
Cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance is a state of mind when your own thoughts are conflicted. When your beliefs, realities or thoughts are being contradicted, as the narcissist leads you to believe one story, then delivers another that contradicts the first belief, causing psychological, mental stress within your mind, that stress releases cortisol which is addictive in itself. Yet to reduce the mental stress of the reality that’s so painful, your mind chooses to believe the less mentally stressful idea to relieve yourself of the painful thoughts leading you to downplay the narcissist’s abusive behaviour. How do narcissists do this?
Gaslighting.
Gaslighting is one of the more common forms of narcissistic manipulation. Yet, when we are unaware of what this is, it isn’t easy to see it happening to us while it is happening, however with more awareness, once we know, we can see it a mile away.
Gaslighting is psychological manipulation to distort someone’s reality, to make someone doubt themselves and reality so much they feel like they are going crazy, often by the very person who’s sending them the way, with the narcissist saying. ”You’re crazy.” so that we doubt ourselves and doubt our reality all the more.
Future Faking.
To give us false hope. The narcissist’s future faking is where the narcissist will use the future to get their needs met in the present by getting us to focus on the future promise that they will not deliver to gaslight us by selling us an illusion of something that was never meant to be.
Future faking is to hide things from us to distract us from the reality of what’s genuinely happening; they will promise something, and then when they don’t deliver on that thing, if we question them about it, it’ll be a case of. ” I’m sorry if only you.” to blame you for things that you possibly didn’t even do. Future faking is to sell you that hope that if only you did something, they would do something for you, to make you feel gratitude, so if they promise you something, then don’t deliver. You ask them about it, they will come up with something they have done, or they will gaslight you into believing they did something they didn’t. They will say. ”what about when I.”
Projection.
Psychological projection is a defence mechanism used by a narcissist to defend their own ego against their own negative qualities, by denying the existence of their own inner faults and placing them onto others. A way to deny theirs and our reality A way of denying something they have done and passing the blame for their behaviour, thoughts or feelings onto others. They can be projecting thoughts, flaws, emotions, characteristics, actions and feelings that they don’t like within themselves.
Narcissists project to escape accountability for their own actions, thoughts or feelings by passing the blame over to someone else. A narcissists projection is often a mix of their manipulative Gaslighting and their manipulative Blame-shifting. As they go all out, distracting you from the truth, as they do their best to cover the truth with their distorted lies, as they hide the reality of their toxic, hurtful, negative behaviour from you. At the same time, they get you to doubt and blame yourself and take on the responsibility of the narcissist’s actions, they get you to defend yourself to them for how you think or feel due to their hurtful ways, so they escape accountability, so they remain in control, and so they get away with their actions time and time again, while slowly sinking you further under their trance.
Blame–shifting.
To avoid taking responsibility for their behaviour, switching the crazy-making behaviour over to someone else. When anyone confronts a narcissist or tries to set boundaries with a narcissist, the narcissist will change the whole focus onto the other person. So the narcissist can escape taking any form of responsibility for their actions by placing all the attention and blame onto the innocent party.
Narcissists do this with ease as they lack the empathy to care, they believe they are always right and are oblivious to how their behaviour affects others, only how peoples reactions might affect the narcissist, they refuse to listen to others, refuse to admit fault, and to the narcissist, any pain you’re in is your doing, any pain the narcissist is in will also be your doing.
They make others feel guilt by blaming those around them so that the narcissist can remain in control. They exploit peoples feelings to punish people, to bring out the worst in people, to take advantage of people for their own gain.
Divide and conquer.
To create doubts in your mind about the intentions of those around you. A narcissist uses divide and conquers to break down relationships of those around them, to pull people away from support, so people can not learn the actual reality and expose the narcissists lies.
It’s used, so you become weaker as you lose not only your support network but through their many manipulative methods, you lose your trust not only in others but also within your judgment of others, becoming fearful of judgment. Hence, you become too afraid to speak to those around you about what’s happening to you. Divide and conquer helps the narcissist isolation of you.
Isolation.
Insolation. The state of being in a place or feeling alone, leading to feelings of loneliness, depression and anxiety.
Narcissistic people isolate you from others, so they have more control over you, as you only have them left to go to for reality checks. They will invalidate your thoughts, feelings and efforts, so you feel unworthy, so you never feel enough, and become unable to trust in others with a narcissist’s many manipulation tactics, including triangulation, where they play people off against each other to divide and conquer, they will put you down, so you work harder to please them, they will cause arguments, so you walk around on eggshells trying your personal best not to set them off. They do it so the narcissist is the only person you can turn to for support, not understanding they are the ones trying to destroy you. Once you’re isolated, it’s easier for them to intimidate you.
Intimidation.
The main reason a narcissist uses intimidation is, so you fear them, meaning you will conform to their demands out of fear. They also use it to manipulate you and cause you more confusion within your own mind, with subtle threats that make you wonder if it’s a real threat? If they’re messing around? If they will act on this threat or leave it be? They do this on purpose, so you are worried about the threat, but at the same time, you don’t want to make a fuss, or you also fear if you speak out, or to other people, they not believe you, they might think you’re overreacting, as the narcissist will tell you and others, “You’re too sensitive.” “You’re overreacting.” or things like “You are imagining things.”
You are not overreacting; any threat should be taken seriously, and you do not imagine things if it happened it happened.
Invalidation.
So the narcissist can take our self-belief and our self-worth, leaving us with self-blame and self-doubt.
Invalidation is when your thoughts, feelings, opinions, weight, shape, Job, hobbies, dreams, relationships, it can be severe as everything about who you are and what you do is rejected, ignored, criticised and judged, by the narcissist.
Invalidation is another form of the narcissist’s manipulation to take control of us as we slowly fawn to their demands through their invalidation of us. Narcissists use invalidation to put us down, so we don’t achieve, and they can feel superior.
When we are invalidated over a prolonged period of time, especially if it was our parents, but it can be by siblings, friends, teachers, partners etc., we begin to lose trust in our own thoughts and feelings. We lose faith in our own abilities, we end up with low self-esteem, full of self-doubts and often people-pleasing, so others don’t feel the pain we do. We begin to second guess everything we do and what those around us do, thinking everything is our fault, as even their manipulative gaslighting and blame-shifting invalidates our experiences and invalidates our reality. Invalidation makes us feel shame for being our true selves, for having feelings; it makes us close down who we are, for fear of being invalidated.
Self-help Recovery.
Creating your inner confidence and self-validation, so you observe others negativity and don’t absorb it. Confidence is not something anyone just has; it’s something they create for themselves.
Not everything is positive; try to find the positive in everything.
Start speaking up for yourself, no more I don’t mind, unless you genuinely don’t about that thing, start doing what you’d like to do for yourself.
Stop worrying about offending others, be tactful, yes, be humble, yes, but don’t deny yourself the truth of who you are; with good intentions, there is no wrong way or right way.
Face your fears head-on and overcome them one by one, not easy; start with the small ones; if it’s smiling at a stranger, keep doing it; when people start smiling back, it lifts you up, then looks for the next fear.
Dress how you want to dress, raise your head high and walk tall, dress to impress yourself.
Compliment others, genuine compliments, raising others up actually helps raise yourself up.
Focus on the good, things to be grateful for, look for something you have achieved.
Look to others for inspiration that has been achieved, and they are human just like you; they will have had their ups and downs, perhaps different to yours, yet they’ll have had them; if they can do something, you can too.
Ignore the haters; they are not for you.
Make sometime each day to sit and reflect, give yourself credit for things you have achieved, progress made and something you are proud of.
Know within yourself; you have a right to feel how you feel, accept how you feel in the moment, learn to recognise the emotions and what they are teaching you, work through them.
Don’t allow frustration to let you feel shame; we all slip up, we all make mistakes, then our minds look for. “This always happens to me.” Or. “It’s going to be a bad day.” I knew I couldn’t do it; no point trying.” We then spiral into depression, most often left with these feelings after a narcissistic relationship. Remind yourself that you are human; if Thomas Edison felt that way, he wouldn’t have invented the light bulb. Instead, he said. “I haven’t failed; I just found 10,000 ways it didn’t work.” Tell yourself to go again, you can, and you will.
Find your strengths and skills and work to create brighter things.
Some people believe having confidence makes them narcissistic, with good intentions towards others. This simply isn’t true; a narcissist has the arrogance and tries to build themselves up by destroying others; kind people build themselves up by helping others.
Remember, there is a difference between a confident narcissistic negative person. Their confidence is actually arrogance, as they believe they are better than all others.
Being an Empathetic, confident person means you have learned to be certain within yourself and your abilities.
Remember to beat any narcissist at any game. We have just to stop playing.
Gaslighting.
Future faking.
Projection.
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The narcissists counter-parenting.
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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