The compassionate narcissist isn’t a narcissistic person who has suddenly found empathy. They are a narcissistic person who will pretend to be care about something in order to exploit someone.
In general, narcissistic people lack empathy for those around them. They only care about themselves. However, they will happily use the struggles of those around them in order to create further conflict and chaos and disorder within the world to meet an agenda of their own.
The compassionate narcissistic person more covertly acts like they care in order to gain sympathetic attention, admiration or play the victim when people take a stand against them.
The compassionate narcissist would look like they are protecting someone or look like they’re protecting a religion, a culture, a race, a belief, a gender, often by attacking the very people who don’t, then playing the woe is me victim who’s been attacked when the very people they’re attacking call them out, with claims such as “I’m only trying to help.” Or “it’s only because I care.”
By means of protecting, they’re often falsely accusing or attacking those they’re envious of, to divide and conquer, to isolate people, to stop others from having a voice, to make it so society isn’t allowed to disagree with them. If they do disagree with them, they face dire consequences, often stopping people from speaking out against them.
Narcissistic people are going to use others’ compassion in order to gain enablers to their side and gain flying monkeys to do their dirty work for them to attack other people for them, as the more they can get their flying monkeys to attack others for them, the more they keep their hands clean, then due to the shame of the flying monkeys behaviour the less likely they are to speak out or live in fear of the narcissist if they do speak out against the things that the compassionate narcissist is claiming to be protecting.
However, they’re not protecting in order for that positive sum game where there is a win-win situation for all parties and trying to get other people to see the perspectives or the different points of view, to live and let live. They’re not looking for understanding. They’re looking for compliance with the religion, the cult, the culture, the race, the gender, the belief. They’re looking to gain everybody to agree with them. They’re looking to turn everybody against those who don’t agree with them, and they’re looking to shut down those who don’t agree with them, so they can control the narrative, create conflict, and look like they’ve been a reasonable person in it all. Anyone who calls them out for what they’re actually doing, which is exploiting the religion or culture, race, belief, or gender to meet their own agenda, the narcissist will morph into the victim of how people are attacking them, gaining sympathetic attention from those around them, often meaning they get away with their hurtful and destructive behaviour, even if people in that religion, culture, race, gender or belief, disagree with the narcissist, call that narcissistic person out, The narcissistic person will just morph into the role of victim and claim “after all I’ve done for you it’s only because I care.”
Narcissistic people don’t care for anyone other than themselves. They just use other people to exploit other people to gain the attention or admiration that they believe they’re entitled to they don’t care they just don’t want other people to know they don’t care.
The compassionate narcissist is a typical school playground bully who will go all out to attack someone who they are envious of or who isn’t living up to that narcissist’s standards, isn’t living life on the narcissists terms, or they’re trying to isolate and make the scapegoat, then as soon as that person stands up to the narcissist the narcissist goes telling on that person to all those who will listen, snitching on the very person the narcissist is attacking as the narcissist morphs into the role of the victim to gain sympathetic attention so that nobody dares ever speak out against them. They rule through fake compassion, through coercion, through threats or through fear, yet they do it in a way where they seemingly look like they care so nobody believes that they could be capable of such hurtful and destructive behaviour.
The compassionate narcissist is actually a very, very poor listener. They only listen to the bits of information that they can actually use against you; however, if the information doesn’t serve themselves, they are not interested they are highly sensitive to criticism. Now we can all be sensitive to criticism, especially when someone has put us down. There is also a thing such as constructive criticism; however, a compassionate narcissist is not going to look for constructive criticism. Instead, they’re going to take it as a personal attack on them, and they are going to seek to attack you, and as they lack empathy, there is no low they won’t go to punish you. Looking to win and to win at all costs to you. They’re looking for you to agree with them. The second you disagree with them due to their arrogance, they’re going to seek to put you down, and they have the victim mentality, so you can’t speak up against them as their enablers, and flying monkeys come along believing they’re helping them by attacking you.
Yet they are so grandiose in themselves that they fail to recognise this within themselves they will not admit fault. They will just go and accuse somebody else of hurting them.
You can’t win with those who seek to outdo you, those who you can’t say no to. Narcissists aren’t interested in your opinions. They’re interested in your agreeableness, and when you don’t agree to their demands, they seek to destroy you.
The only way to win a narcissist is to carefully remove yourself from their life and go no contact.
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.
Someone’s narcissistic partner is someone else’s narcissistic parent, boss, coworker, parent, friend or child. Narcissists only change their manipulation depending on who they are around. They do not change out of the disorder. It’s who they are. There are many signs someone in our life is toxic; however, as they’re also manipulative, they often gaslight our reality, so we don’t see these signs. In hindsight, red flags are wonderful full things; however, when we don’t have an awareness of what these red flags are, we don’t know what we don’t know, so we don’t understand what these signs are. Here are ten signs of a toxic narcissistic person within your life.
1. They are Hypocritical.
Narcissists can be some of the most hypocritical people you could ever meet. Common rules just don’t seem to apply to them; however, those same rules will apply to those around them. The whole do as I say and not as I do, what’s yours is mine and what’s mines my own. Narcissists tend to be incredibly self-entitled people who believe they can have what they want. When they want with whoever they want, they often have a grandiose belief that they are superior so deserve to do as they please without consequences for their actions.
One of the most confusing things about a narcissist is they don’t treat you badly all of the time.
A Narcissist will happily take your money but very unwilling to part with their.
Narcissistic parents don’t purchase things for their children out of the willingness to care for the children they created. They purchase things for their children to use those very items against their own children.
A Narcissist that will happily spend money on you, will then happily use that against you. “What about when I.” To get you to do something you’d prefer not to do. They’ll purchase a mattress for your bed. Then when move straight in with someone new, all cosy in the new supply’s bed. They’ll want that mattress back off you.
If you know how to cut hair, they’ll expect you to cut hair, yet if they know how to cook your favourite meal, they’ll not cook it, unless they want something in return from you, and you’ll usually have to do the return favour first, while they forget they ever promised to do anything for you.
A Narcissist will happily use your stuff, often claiming it’s theirs, but not be forthcoming in loaning theirs, or returning yours. You’ll have to chase them for that. If they do return, it’s often damaged in some way.
As narcissistic people are more than capable of treating you so well when they want something from you, when the narcissist seeks to punish you, as you don’t recognise you’re being emotionally abused, often you’re the one left, blaming, questioning and doubting yourself and not their mistreatment of you.
2. They create competition.
As narcissistic people can be some of the most envious people you could ever meet, they’re usually laying the bait to create some form of competition for themselves to win at the expense of those around them because they often lack the empathy to care for who they hurt.
A narcissist will create competition between themselves and others. They’ll purchase a new car just to say, “I bet sams doesn’t have this feature.” to feel better about themselves.
A young grandchild can innocently ask, “how come you only have one car.” because that child’s parents have two, for the narcissist to respond, “at least I have five bedrooms and not two.”
A narcissist will create competition between others so they can stand back and watch the show.
A narcissist will create competition between others “sam would do it for me.” to get people to compete for the narcissist’s attention.
Whatever competition they create, a narcissist creates to win.
Narcissists aren’t competitive to become better than they were yesterday, growing confidence. They are competitive where they seek to pull others down to feel or look better themselves, the narcissist’s arrogance.
3. They are Controlling.
Narcissists seek many ways to control others.
They monitor your outings, accuses you of things you haven’t done, cause arguments before you go out, or arguments when you get back, so you no longer want to bother going out or doing things for you, keeping you busy, so you don’t have time for your own hobbies. Play you off against friends and family, putting you in the middle and making you choose, often lying about what friends and family have said about you.
They control your money. Either not working and using yours, or letting you believe it’s a good idea for you not to work then them not giving you enough, yet not allowing you back into work.
They will guilt trip you, triangulate you, shame you, and pity play to get you to break down your boundaries and do things you don’t want to or wouldn’t normally do.
They will damage property, from punching doors to smashing items up.
They can never let you have the last word, even if that means them sulking off and giving you the silent treatment.
They invalidate you, call you names, call you crazy, insecure, sensitive, put you down in obvious overt ways. “You look fat in that.” or covert means. “Are you really going to wear that?”
They use anger to intimidate you or silent treatment into punishing you if you don’t give them what they want.
They don’t compromise. They always have to be right, always claiming that they know what’s best for you.
4. They shame you.
Narcissists exploit others to meet a need of their own. They might judge you, criticise you, shame you, blame you. They’ll claim it’s all your fault. “What would you do without me.”to leave you feeling like you’re not enough.
5. They guilt trip.
A narcissist might lack empathy for you. However, they know how to use your compassion against you. “If you loved me, you would.” what about me.” “After all, I’ve done for you.” to get you to do something for them, however, as they are extremely hypocritical people. If you say to them after all, I’ve done, as they’ve usually trained you to bend over backwards to help them, while they do very little for you. They will throw it all back in your face. They can use it on you. You can not use it on them, the narcissist’s hypocrisy shining through.
6. Vulnerability.
A narcissist will happily play the victim to exploit your compassion to meet their needs. They might come across as really open and honest with you when what they’re truly doing is using your empathy against you. You might feel comfortable being vulnerable with them initially, as a narcissist wants to get to know all about you so that they can use your vulnerabilities against you later down the line. However, once they have you, you can no longer be vulnerable with them. Now it’s a case of “you’re too sensitive.” “you’re overreacting.” “it wasn’t that bad.” try to share your news, good or bad, due to their competitiveness, seeking that external validation which at times we all can, seeking that attention, a narcissists bad news will be far worse than yours, their good news, far better than yours, they just can’t seem to be happy for you. It’s never about a two-way conversation to show they understand you. It’s to bring the attention back onto themselves.
7. Require attention.
Narcissists often require excessive attention if they can not get this attention through adoration and praise. If a narcissist doesn’t want to go all out throwing you the best party ever, expecting eternal recognition and praise, they’ll go all out to destroy a party for you while blaming you. If you call them out, they’ll come at you with things like. “Oh, I knew it would be my fault. I forgot you were perfect.”
8. Not listen to you.
If a narcissist isn’t interested, doesn’t have something to gain, they’ll happily ignore you. If they don’t want to answer a question, they’ll stonewall you, a narcissist will withhold attention, affection and support to punish you for things you haven’t even done, and a narcissist will go all out to gaslight you into doubting and blaming yourself, working harder to please them, not recognising what they’re doing to you.
Narcissists lack empathy, so when they fall silent on you, and you go and beg and plead with them, they get a twisted kick out of it. They enjoy the attention. They feel like they matter; however, your feelings do not matter to them.
9. Ignore healthy boundaries.
No one throws a bigger tantrum than a narcissist whose losing control over someone else mind, who is not getting their own way, who is getting shown facts and evidence of something they definitely did do.
A narcissist will ignore healthy boundaries. The more you try to say no to them, the more they up their games to get what they want from you. They don’t accept you’re no. They see it as a challenge to win. They’re going to start creating things, so they can start winning.
10. Nothing is ever their fault.
Narcissists will not be blamed. To them, it’s not their problem, it’s not their fault, they didn’t do it, they don’t say sorry because narcissistic people often believe other people made them do the hurtful things they do, they don’t take responsibility, they refuse to be held accountable, and they try to pass any consequences off onto those around them by blaming those around them.
As narcissists will not be held accountable for their behaviour, they don’t change their behaviour. They just learn new ways to manipulate to get away with their behaviour.
Click the links below to join Elizabeth Shaw – Life Coach on social media, for more information on Overcoming Narcissistic Abuse.
For 1-2-1 Coaching with me, email @ beyourselfagaintoday@gmail.com
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 Click here for BetterHelp. (Sponsored.) Where you will be matched with a licensed councillor, who specialises in recovery from this kind of abuse.
As narcissists are the masters of the self-entitled hypocrites, they often honestly believe it’s one rule for them and a completely different rule that suits the narcissist for those around the narcissist.
Narcissists unfairly expect others to follow their rules while they fail to follow their own rules. Often finding logical fallacies to justify their behaviour, or lying and denying their behaviour while bringing up something you might not have even done, to get you to defend and explain yourself to them, so they don’t have to explain themselves to you, the narcissists whataboutism. When the narcissist claims, “what about when you?” Yet when you bring up something they actually did, the narcissist will fire back. “Oh, I knew you’d blame me. You’re never wrong, are you.” again, to get you on the defensive while the narcissist plays the victim.
Narcissists are incredibly self-entitled, always putting their own needs first while they project, accuse you of being selfish, stubborn and awkward, and accuse you of making it all about you to deflect that they think it should all be about them.
A narcissist is a hypocrite. They’ll put on whatever face they need to exploit another, their admiration face to lull people into a false sense of security, or their victim face to exploit people’s compassion, their hero face to gain adoration and their envious face to make others feel bad for having something the narcissists doesn’t.
Here are 15 signs of the narcissists double standards.
1. Wanting things fast, taking things slow.
Anything a narcissist wants they want doing yesterday, their grandiose sense of entitlement often means they lack patience. They expect to be served first. If they want to go somewhere, you need to be ready. If they need a roof over their head, they’re stopping over and never leaving, before you know it they’ve moved in. Yet if they promise you something in the future to get their needs met in the present, you’re expected to wait patiently if they promise to look into buying a home together, yet they already have one with someone you know nothing about. It’ll always be a tomorrow away as they come up with some justification to stall you. “When I get this pay rise, when you get that job.” As rational people can say these things and mean these things, reasonable people can show compassion and understanding when others say them, not realising that when a narcissist says these things, they’re exploiting.
2. Breaks agreements, demands action.
A narcissist will happily arrange to do something with you. Usually, their false promises to get their needs met by you in the present moment. Once their need has been met, they’re no longer interested in the promise they once made to you. Suddenly it’s a case of gaslighting as the narcissist comes at you with, “ I never said that.” “you’re imagining things.” or “if you hadn’t.” to justify why they’ve broken a promise by blaming you, to get you to question your reality and not the reality they’re creating for you. Yet they expect you to drop everything and serve them as and when they need serving, and if you don’t, they’ll try to guilt-trip you with. “After all I’ve done for you.” “if you loved me, you would.” as a narcissist doesn’t respect your no, they expect compliance.
3. No one can accuse them, happy to accuse others.
No matter what goes wrong in a narcissist’s life, whatever they haven’t got, whatever they’ve done to another, to a narcissist, it’s never their fault. It’s always someone else wrongdoing as the narcissist looks for a scapegoat Claiming, “if it wasn’t for them. Some people have all the luck. If only you hadn’t.”
When around those who don’t think they do any wrong, they’re going to be looking for someone else to take the fall, yet if you let a narcissist know they lied to you, they’ll still blame you. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d act like this.”
A narcissist will happily point out others flaws, weaknesses, mistakes, wrongdoing. Still, they’ll be hell to pay if anyone points out any of theirs, from the narcissistic rage to the narcissist’s silence.
4. They can humiliate you, While you’re not allowed to call them out.
A narcissist will happily shame, blame, criticise, ridicule, and mock you, any insecurity you have, any vulnerability, any weakness they’ll use against you to hurt you, in the home or in public. Yet, if you innocently ask them about something, in front of another, that you didn’t know they lied about, they will insult you, blame you, shame you, rage out at you or fall silent on you.
5. It’s ok for them to react to you, you’re not allowed to react to them.
A narcissist is allowed to react. You can have a simple conversation that they don’t want. Just asking a narcissist if they’re ok can set them off the wrong way, and they’ll find a way to blame you for it. “You know what I’m like. You should know when to leave me alone.” Yet when you’re confused, hurt, upset, and emotional and react to them because they’re provoking you, humiliating you, not communicating with you, they’ll suddenly be all happy, stand back like nothing is wrong and ask, “what’s wrong, with you.” “what’s your problem.” “ you’ve got mental issues.” As they believe they’re allowed to fall silent on you, rage out at you, yet you’re not allowed to shut down on them, not allowed to get emotional around them.
6. They can be vulnerable with you, You can not be vulnerable with them.
A narcissist is more than capable of acting all vulnerable to you, playing on the woe is me to exploit your compassion, gain sympathetic attention, telling you what they did to others while making out it’s what others did to them, to gain you onside to get you to dislike another, to become an enable in the narcissist’s abuse of another when the narcissist smears someone’s name to you, they gain sympathetic attention to exploiting both of you.
In the beginning, they can give you a little too much information, and they can ask too much, influencing you to open up to them.
Yet once in a relationship, they’ll no longer be interested in your feeling. They’ll expect you to be interested in theirs while they downplay yours. They’ll expect you to be supportive of them while they’re no longer supportive of you.
They will point out their bad day, what’s going wrong for them, who is against them, and expect you to pick up pieces for them, yet when you try to discuss yours, they’ll play it down “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad, guess what happened to me.” or “do you think you are overreacting? when this happened to me.” as they turn the conversation back onto themselves so your feelings never get heard. If you try to continue, the narcissist might say, “its always about you.” as they project what they’re doing to you, making it all about them onto you, so you feel like you’re not listening to them, when they’re the ones not listening to you.
A narcissist will happily dump all their feelings onto you. Then when you try to explain yours, they’ll accuse you of overreacting, being too sensitive.
7. They expect to be able to do to you,What you shouldn’t do to them.
A narcissist will happily be secretive leave out information. When you call them out, they’ll claim, “I already told you, how can you of all people not remember.” or they’ll tell you where they are going just leave out who with, you might get to a point where you avoid telling them as they sabotage you doing the things you enjoy, invalidate friendships. when they find out you’ve not told them they’ll never trust you again, but they expect you to trust them. You can tell them what you’re doing, and they’ll claim “you never told me.” so you feel narcissistic when you say. “I did, can you not remember.” knowing you can say these things makes you doubt yourself all the more when they say them to you.
When a narcissist accuses you of doing something you’re not, that’s a big red flag.
8. They expect you to do for them, What they’re unwilling to do for you.
A narcissist expects you to share information with them that they’re unwilling to share with you. They’ll expect to know all about your finances, yet when you need to know about theirs, they’ll not tell you. “What do you need that for.” they’ll want to know where you are, but you’re not allowed to know where they are. They expect you to drive around after them, but they’re unwilling to drive around after you. You must drop everything for them, but they’ll not drop anything for you unless there is something in it for them.
9. Betray your confidence while expecting you to respect theirs.
A narcissist expects you to keep their secrets, not share what they tell you, yet they will happily use against you what you tell them in confidence against you, claiming “I didn’t know you didn’t want them to know.” or “what if your friend knew about.”
You might not break a narcissist’s confidence, yet they’ll never trust you. A narcissist will happily break yours and then expect you to get over it.
10. Expects you to forgive them, will not forgive you.
A narcissist will blame you for any and all of their wrongdoings, and they’ll expect your forgiveness. Yet they’ll not forgive you for the things they did to you, and they seek to continue to punish you. The more you forgive a narcissist the worse their behaviour gets.
11. They’re never wrong, you’re always wrong.
No matter what a narcissist does wrong, it’s never their fault. They will lie, deny, shame, blame, or anything other than admit fault, as nothing is ever their fault. They’re always going to be looking for a scapegoat to blame. Not only are they looking to blame you, but they’re also looking for you to make it up to them for the very things they’re doing to you.
12. They will not apologise to you, Yet they demand you apologise to them.
As narcissists don’t think they’re in the wrong, they often see no reason to apologise. If they see they’ve done something to you, they often find a reason to blame you so that the narcissist can remove any feelings of shame. Therefore if you’re unlucky enough to get an apology from one, it’s going to be “I’m sorry you, I’m sorry if, I’m sorry but.” as they twist everything onto you, they don’t recognise themselves as doing wrong, narcissists don’t feel remorseful, and they don’t wish to repair the damage their behaviour caused. Instead, they want you to make it up to them for making them hurt you.
Some narcissists will pass the blame over to you by stating, “I’m sorry, you know what I’m like.” and they will expect you to apologise to them for what they’re doing to you.
13. They will not change, but they expect you to change.
Narcissistic people are very reluctant to change. “You know what I’m like.” They’ll change their partners, their friends, their lies, and their manipulation. They change into the person they’re exploiting to sell them an illusion of who the person would like them to be. They don’t change for the better. Often, the more we try to help them, the worse their mistreatment of us gets. Yet they’ll expect you to change, stop going out with your friends, stop seeing your family, stop your hobbies, and no longer have an opinion unless it matches the narcissists. Walk on eggshells to serve them because they don’t think they should serve you. No give and take with a narcissist. Narcissists only give so they can take.
14. They can have an opinion, you can’t.
Narcissistic people can have an opinion, and you must agree if it’s controversial, if they’re putting someone else down, if you speak up, if you voice an opinion that differs from theirs, even if it’s just another perspective, a narcissist will come at you with. “I knew you’d take their side.” “You never agree with me.” They might then sulk. They might ask a question, and you think it’s about having a two-way conversation to reach a mutual understanding, agree to disagree, yet a narcissist will twist your words and say, “See, I knew I was right, so you agree. “
15. They can treat you like a stranger, you have to abide by them.
A narcissist will treat you very differently in the home than how they treat you outside the home. They can treat others with kindness and compassion, often leaving you questioning if it’s something you’ve done, it’s nothing you’ve done, it’s who they are. Narcissists manipulate others to get their needs met, often because you can feel uncomfortable in the home and begin to act differently around different people, to which a narcissist will then accuse you of being nicer to others than you are to them, the narcissist’s projection, leaving you to doubt and question yourself and not what they’re doing to you. A narcissist expects you to drop your friends and family for them, yet they’ll drop you for a complete stranger.
16. They can race ahead of you, but you must wait for them.
A narcissist will happily steam ahead of you. Some take it to the next level and hide from you, then stand watching you looking for them. When they suddenly reappear, the narcissist will have a go at you for losing sight of them, mock you, “keep up slowcoach.” “Wow, if this were something you wanted to do, you’d race ahead.” And when it is something you’d like to do, if you want to stop and look at something, they’ll move on. If you’re rushing to get somewhere, they’ll slow down with those gaslighting phrases of “what’s the rush.” So again, you’re left questioning yourself and not them. They always have to be two steps ahead of you in whatever you do so that they can keep control over you.
Click the links below to join, Elizabeth Shaw – Life Coach on social media, for more information on Overcoming Narcissistic Abuse.
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.
“A narcissist’s silent treatment isn’t because you hurt their feelings. It’s manipulation to cause you psychological pain so they can further their control over you.”
The silent treatment is another form of psychological manipulation the narcissist uses against others. It is another form of emotional abuse to keep power and control over you, to avoid taking accountability for something they have done, avoid responsibility for their own actions. To maintain their dominance over you. It’s used to punish you for something you have or haven’t done. They believe you are beneath them, and they want to do it, so you conform to their demands.
The silent treatment can last for hours, days, weeks or months. Some people do this because they are genuinely hurt and unable to speak. When they do feel able to talk, it’ll be a two-way conversation. A narcissist uses the silent treatment to punish you. They want you to conform, and there is no give and take.
The silent treatment makes us feel invalidated, powerless, invisible, confused, intimidated, guilty, angry, frustrated, hurt, lonely, depressed, anxious and insignificant.
What silent treatment does to us?
1. The silent treatment hurts the brain, as it triggers pain pathways. Emotions triggered by the silent treatment engages the same part of the brain as physical pain does. The silent treatment hurts. Psychological, emotional pain hurts more than physical pain. If you try to remember the pain when you broke a bone or burnt yourself, any physical pain you have suffered, you know it hurt at that time. Yet, you can not remember the pain, thinking about memories of emotional distress, it hurts until we heal it, and that takes time and work from us, when we connect our emotions to a memory, whenever we think of that memory, it brings us back to whatever feeling we felt at that time.
Sometimes we have to change the meaning to memory, so the memory no longer has a hold over our feelings.
2. We love company, and we are designed to communicate with others. They know how cutting you off hurts deep, as one, of many narcissist’s worst fears is to be ignored, why many want you to chase them when they fall silent on you, however, we should respect their boundary of silence and leave them until they’re willing to communicate with us, yet this can criticise the narcissists need for excessive attention, why you can not win with a narcissist, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
3. It damages our brain. Your short term memory and decision making skills are lowered as it temporarily shrinks your hippocampus, the part of the brain that houses our thought process and grows our amygdala, the part that houses our emotions. With long term abuse, these might stay shrunk and enlarged. Until you get out and start working on yourself, these can be healed.
4. We want to belong, so it hurts, especially when those who are supposed to love and care no longer wish to know Or speak to us.
5. We blame ourselves and look for reasons for what we have done to cause it, blame ourselves and apologise. Make excuses for their behaviour.
The worst thing about excusesis within our minds. They are extremely valid.
6. We can become angry and aggressive, so they do it so when we then act out in anger, they blame us for the problems, with their projection and blame-Shifting.
7. We become addicted, as they can play nice when you up your game to help them, they might reward, reinforcing in your mind it was your fault, so you try harder to please them, for them to bring you down again, you end up continually seeking how to gain their approval, walking on eggshells around the narcissist, to avoid the silent treatment, slowly losing who you are, while they gain further power and control over you.
8. We reach out to them as it hurts our emotions, the mental pain is draining on us, and we want it to end. The narcissist takes this as winning, and they can keep it up for as long as they please as they don’t have that emotional intelligence.
The three types of silent treatment a narcissist will use.
The present silent treatment. Where they stick around and ignore you, or stop including you. This is used, so you become hurt, confused, angry and upset that they are ignoring you, insecure that they are not including you. To get an emotional reaction from you to them.
The absent silent treatment. Where they just disappear on you, but you can still message and call them, they might not reply. This is used, so you become fearful, confused, upset, concerned and worried about them and your relationship.
The ghosting. This is where they vanish entirely, their phones are off, or you are blocked, social media shut down, or you’re blocked. No way of contacting them at all. This is usually if they are with a new target, but not always. This is used so you do all you can to get answers and closure. You might reach out to their friends and family. This can help with their smear campaigns against you.
The reason they feel a need to use it.
1. You’ve refused to break down one of your boundaries.
2. You’ve criticised them in some way, most often unintentionally.
3. You’ve not done something or refused to do something for them.
4. When you’ve confronted them over something they don’t want to accept responsibility for.
5. You are no longer filling their needs.
6. They’ve drained you, you need help and support, and you can no longer help them.
They go into silent treatment to break down your boundaries, to get control of you and get you to conform to their demands, to get you to beg, plead, apologise and chase them, to react so they can blame us, to confuse us, so they keep power over us.
We then chase them as we want to end the pain, end the silent treatment, not realising we are giving them what they want. They want you to feel beneath them and work hard to please them.
Remember, they don’t think how we do. They are not looking for compromise. They are looking dominance and control. They are seeking that apology to confirm in their minds they are wrong. They are right. With the attention you give them, they believe they are important.
They don’t have the emotions, and they lack the empathy to care for your thoughts, feelings, fears or tears.
What you can you do?
1. Remember, You don’t need their approval or validation. It’s helpful for others to Validate you. You don’t need it. Your value comes from within. Genuine people will value and respect you.
2. Observers don’t absorb. Recognise it, see what they are doing, don’t look inwards for answers, see this is their problem, that they only do to hurt you.
3. If they want to be silent, they are entitled to be silent. You are allowed to respect their boundary and leave them to it, remember you’re not the problem, look for what they are trying to achieve in doing this, what they want or need from you and don’t give it to them.
4. Focus on yourself, turn inwards and find things you love, lift yourself up, find genuine people to connect with, most importantly, connect within yourself. Think about what you need. No, you don’t need them to help you. They are the ones who are hurting you, exercise, meditate, yoga, go for a walk, watch an uplifting movie, read a good book.
5. Do not get in touch, do not call or message, focus on yourself and doing things you love.
6. Do not let them know it’s bothering you.
7. Remember, if the silent treatment hasn’t worked, they might up their game. Observe their patterns of behaviour, don’t absorb.
8. Remember they have insecurities, shame and fears, instead of dealing with those within themselves, they want to project or provoke you to pass those feelings onto you, you can not help as they don’t see a problem within themselves, you can, however, help you, instead of putting your time energy and effort into them, put it into you.
9. Don’t go to them for answers, and they will not tell you what you want to hear. You are just adding fuel to the fire, and they want you to do this. They’ll wait until you find a reason for what you did wrong. Give yourself the answer, and this is who they are. They are unwilling and unable to change. However, you can leave them be, become wiser and stronger and learn what behaviours you’ll no longer accept for others.
10. Become at peace within yourself. Don’t let others take you down; remove negative people from your life. Saying no to someone over something you don’t like is a significant deal-breaker.
Remember, you are worth so much more than living with these kinds of people in your life. They can try to play games with you if you stop playing and start focusing on yourself. They will find someone else to play with.
Click on the links below to join, Elizabeth Shaw – Life Coach on social media, for more information on Overcoming Narcissistic Abuse.
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 withBetterHelp(Sponsored.) where you will be matched with a licensed councillor, who specialises in recovery from this kind of abuse.
