How do narcissists respond to being called out? Badly is usually how a narcissist will react to being called out. Most people don’t enjoy getting called out on their mistakes. Genuine people can feel ashamed and humiliated and learn not to repeat. Narcissistic people feel entitled to do as they please and feel offended that you dared to question them. With a narcissist, we often believe we’re calling them out on a mistake in the hopes they’ll recognise and change. This doesn’t happen. They realise they must be more careful around you, as it wasn’t a mistake. It’s who they are. A narcissist believes you’ve turned against them. Therefore they need to protect themselves from you. Where we can think, they’ll recognise, accept responsibility, feel remorseful, apologies and not repeat, as we would. We often don’t realise they’ll blame and shame us, and we’ll be the ones apologising and making it up to the narcissist for the very things they did to us. Calling a narcissist out always backfires on us. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t, so just how do narcissists respond to getting caught.
Firstly a narcissist might play nice, find ways to excuse their behaviour, such as their childhood, they didn’t realise it was confidential, or justify, you weren’t paying them enough attention. They can promise to change, claim it’ll never happen again, and accuse you of misunderstanding them.
If those don’t get the narcissist off the hook, the narcissist could deny all knowledge while being supportive of your overactive imagination. Claiming it wasn’t them. They weren’t there. It never happened. Accuse you of being obsessed, having trust issues, being too sensitive or jealous. Usually, these are the very feelings the narcissist’s actions have provoked within you. Therefore you question your perfectly valid emotional reactions to their behaviour while they gaslight you to get away with their actions.
If you choose to pursue the conversation as you don’t feel happy with the answers they’ve given, a narcissist could start trying to shut down the conversation by changing the subject, then accusing you of changing the subject when you try to get back to the original point, the narcissist’s projection where they’re accusing you, often in a calm manner, of what they’re doing to you, which is often extremely frustrating, causing that resentment and anger to rise in you, the more you pursue, the narcissist might talk over you, interrupting you, try to get your point of view across a narcissist will accuse you of interrupting them, raise your voice they narcissist will tell you to calm down. React out of sheer frustration, and a narcissist will claim, “See, there’s no talking with you.” The narcissist could just simply state, “Do we have to talk about this now?” as you do, the narcissist will accuse you of ruining their day, always spoiling everything, and creating arguments, as nothing ever gets resolved with a narcissist, there’s no good time to call a self-entitled person out, who just sees you as the problem.
No one throws a bigger tantrum than a narcissist getting shown facts and evidence of something they definitely did do.
E.S.
A Narcissist will go all out to provoke a reaction out of you so that they can blame everything on you. Narcissistic people thrive of reactive abuse as that’s all the evidence they need that you are indeed the one with the problem, and as you take responsibility for your behaviour, you feel bad and try to make amends with them, giving the narcissist the attention they believe they’re entitled to, while getting away with their behaviour.
A Narcissist will look to scapegoat you, to blame and shame you. Not only do they blame and shame you, but they also set the reality to match their narrative. Their behaviour gets you on the defensive, and then they undermine you at each and every turn, causing those negative feelings within you that the narcissist can use against you to get you questioning and doubting yourself, often with the narcissists brainwashing of “after all I’ve done for you.” Or victim plays “How could you of all people think that of me.” To make you feel bad. The narcissist might leave a letter out in full view, go to a narcissist with that evidence. They might threaten you with. “You opened my mail. That’s illegal. I could call the police on you.”
Guilt-tripping is another go-to for a narcissist. Instead of taking responsibility, the narcissist will go all out to make you feel guilty and ashamed, “I thought I could trust you.” “This is the thanks I get for trying to help.” Thus you feel bad and start trying to make them feel better, not recognising it’s only making you feel worse.
If you fail to take the narcissist’s bait and continue to pursue it, the narcissist might begin to rage out at you. To a narcissist, it’s one rule for them and another for you, so you’re not allowed to raise your voice or throw things out of sheer frustration, yet a narcissist, out of desperation, will go all out to intimidate you while blaming you. “Look what you made me do.” In the narcissist’s fit of rage, they might damage property, then claim. “At least I didn’t hit you.” Like you’re supposed to be grateful. If you lose it and damage property, you feel remorseful and can’t understand what’s happening to you. A Narcissist will simply blame you.
If you fail to abide by the narcissist’s demands and continue down your line of questioning, the narcissist might become physically violent towards you, restraining you, pulling your hair, slapping, spitting, punching, and strangling, for which they’ll blame you. “You know what I’m like. You should have left me alone.”
Then the narcissist will fall silent on you to get you ruminating and chasing them, while the narcissist licks their wounds love Bombing a new supply leaving you isolated and alone.
When you have facts and evidence, you have all the proof you need. Confronting a narcissist with this information just puts you in psychological or physical danger, make a choice to walk away and no longer play, no contact or limited contact and grey rock, safely as narcissistic people don’t like losing control and will often up their games, to regain control over you.
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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.
