Narcissistic people can be some of the most self-entitled, exploitative people you could ever meet, and with their lack of empathy, they can be some of the most hurtful people you could ever meet. With their admiration seeking face, they can treat you better than anyone ever has, then with their envious face, treat you worse than anyone ever has while refusing to take responsibility for their behaviour, often leaving those around the narcissist confused, frustrated, anxious and feeling like they’re to blame.
No contact is always the best approach to dealing with narcissistic people. However, this isn’t always possible. There are several rules to deal with narcissistic people, and one of those is less is more.
You do have to remain vigilant and careful around those who lack empathy as there’s no low they won’t go to get one over on somebody or get back at someone if the narcissist can create an opportunity to do so.
When dealing with that narcissistic family member, you might see at a family event, that narcissistic person within the friendship group, the narcissistic Co-worker, or narcissistic ex that you share children with, we have to find the right coping strategies to deal with them. However, those coping strategies have to be in place depending on the situation you are in. Your safety must come first.
When it comes to dealing with narcissistic people, less is more in so many ways.
The less time you spend around them, the clearer your thoughts will become, the kinder the words you speak to yourself, the more peace you will have, the better the ability to think for yourself, and the happier you’ll become.
The less you defend yourself to them, the less they be able to frustrate you, and the more clarity you’ll get. When around offensive people, it’s effortless to want to defend ourselves to them, getting drawn into those no productive arguments which a narcissist will often be claiming “I don’t want to argue.” When what they’re meaning is they want to state their point, and you do not have one, the more you state your point, the more a narcissist will wind you up, the less you respond, and the sooner a narcissist will leave you alone because they’re not getting the supply of attention from you.
The less you argue with them. The more peaceful your life will get. This isn’t easy. When narcissistic people become incredibly offensive, it’s easy to become defensive and argue our point to them; however, they’re not listening to our points, at least not understanding them. They’re listening to use our points to get us going all the more so they can claim, “I told you I didn’t want to argue with you.”
The less you respond to them, the more chance you have of them leaving you alone. When a narcissist is provoking you, it’s time to step away and see the situation in its entirety. Recognising what they’re trying to do and no longer playing into their hands. One of the best lines of defence against a narcissist is knowing who you are and leaving the narcissist to think whatever they want.
The less you explain to them, the more control you’ll have of your own thoughts. The less you explain, the more you’ll be able to regulate your thoughts and feelings, as the less the narcissist will be able to use your explanations against you.
The less you excuse their behaviour, the more you’ll see their true character.
The less you provide for a narcissist, the more they’ll move away from you because they’re no longer getting what they want from you.
The less they know about you, the more likely it is they’ll leave you alone. Narcissistic people are incredibly envious people, so if they see something you have that they want, they’ll go all out to take it from you, either to exploit you for it or sabotage it so you can’t have it. Tell them about a job interview they’ll hide your keys to make you late, an achievement they’ll take the credit for, special occasion they’ll destroy it. The less a narcissist knows about you, the less opportunity they’ve got to hurt you and the more freedom you’ll have.
The less a narcissist knows about you, the better for you. Narcissistic people use any information about you against you, whether that’s to discredit your character in their smear campaigns so you can’t expose their true character, or if they’re using your compassion to guilt trip you, your past to intimidate or threaten you, the things you tell a narcissist in secret they’ll use to keep a hold over you. A narcissist will use your personal information against you, so they can further their advantage over you.
Narcissistic people seek excessive attention, so the less attention you give them, the less praise you give them, and the less admiration you give them, especially to their negativity, toxic, hurtful behaviour, the more your thoughts, feelings and opinions will become clear.
Narcissists use the silent treatment to punish you. Genuine people who enjoy open communication and learning about each other, who can empathise with others and show compassion learning how something might hurt another, so if they’ve unintentionally hurt someone they can learn not to do it again, narcissistic people are not interested in this type of communication, they’re interested in getting their own way, and when they’re not getting their own way they can fall silent on you, give you one word answers, so they don’t have to explain or justify their actions to you, the narcissists silence negatively impacts us, as the more they refuse to communicate the more we feel less than, we question and doubt ourselves, chase them for answers, the more we ruminate about them, the less we care for ourselves, the less a narcissist communicates the more we analysis and question everything, because the narcissist is silent towards us, the more we think about them, the more we question and doubt ourselves, the more we try to open communication up with the narcissist. The more we start explaining ourselves to them, giving them information that they will at some point twist and use against us. Narcissistic people fall silent when they don’t get their own way. As you’re left overthinking, a narcissist will then accuse you of overthinking or tell you to stop overthinking. As they’ve put you in a place of overthinking, you think they understand you, not recognising it’s them doing it to you.
We have to learn to have more control and respect their silence. The less communication from them, the more easier it becomes to free ourselves from them. We should respect their silence and stop communicating with them. It can go against every grain of who you are why it’s challenging, yet it’s can also be so freeing. Often when you don’t chase a narcissist that’s fallen silent on you, they’ll leave you be, dents their ego chasing you. The more self-control we develop over our voice, the less control a narcissist will have over us.
Speaking less to a narcissist giving a narcissist less information, so we have more control over our voice, our thoughts, feelings and opinions. When your opinions don’t match those of a narcissistic person, they’re not interested in your perspective. They’re interested In invalidating you, chipping away at you, provoking you for not readily agreeing with them, or playing the victim of “you just don’t understand me. You always take their side.”. Narcissists are only interested in proving themselves right by going all out to make out you’re wrong. If you disagree with a narcissist there’s no point going further into the conversation with them because they’re only listening to the parts of the conversation they can use against you.
A Narcissist will cause intrigue. One way they do this is to leave out information. Then why do you call them out. They claim, “I didn’t tell you because I knew you couldn’t handle it. I knew you’d react like this.” A narcissist will bait you into non-productive arguments. They will gaslight you, blame you, shame you, project out onto you or fall silent on you. A Narcissist will go all out to provoke feelings such as anger, resentment, bitterness, confusion, frustration, jealousy, guilt, pain, sadness and many more negative emotions within you, so when a narcissist doesn’t get what they want from you, they might go all out to guilt trip you, “after all I’ve done for you.” To guilt trip you into either doing something for them that you don’t want to do or asking something of them that they once promised to do. This is when we have to recognise they’re guilt-tripping us. The more we try to explain ourselves to them, the more the narcissist feels their control is slipping away, and the more a narcissist will provoke you into reacting so they can discredit your character to protect theirs. Once they have your reaction, a narcissist will stand back and say, “what’s wrong with you? Are you having a bad day?” As a narcissist wants to provoke pain within you that they believe you have caused them.
The more you try to communicate with a narcissist, the more they use this communication against you. The less you communicate, the less they have to go on to hurt you.
When a narcissist isn’t getting their own way, so they start accusing you of being selfish, awkward and stubborn because the narcissist wants you to question and doubt yourself, to feel shame and blame yourself, to give in, so the narcissist gets their own way.
Never compromise who you are as a person to compromise with those who are unable or unwilling to compromise with you. Compromise is good when it’s mutual. Nothing is ever mutual with a narcissist. The more you stand by your values, the less frustrated you’ll be, the less resentful, and the more freedom and happiness you’ll feel.
When a narcissist claims you feel something you don’t, or your emotional reactions to their actions are the problem, instead of giving them more, recognising they don’t care for your feelings and give them less, narcissists crave attention when they’re not getting it they move on. Some will double down. However, the more you stay true to yourself, the less they get from you, the sooner they leave you alone, they’ll still blame you, that’s a choice that they make, it’s nothing to do with us. It is not up to us to change what another thinks about us. It’s not up to us to change how someone perceives that reality. If we can communicate with someone great, get others thoughts, feelings and opinions, see each others point of view, gain a greater understanding of one another great, if they’re unable to communicate on a genuine level it’s too late, they’re not interested, only in themselves and getting their own way.
Narcissists seek to punish you when you don’t go along with what they want from you.
When dealing with narcissistic people, less is more. The less you deal with them, the more you’ll be able to live a happier, more peaceful life.
So when it comes to dealing with narcissistic people, less is so much more.
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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.
