Life With A Narcissist
Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t.
What Happens When You Push Back to a Narcissist
One of the great ironies of Narcissistic Abuse is this. Many family members of narcissists have experienced continual criticism that they are over-sensitive, they take things too personally, they are over-reacting, they are drama queens.
This may be true in that victims are often highly sensitive, highly empathic and accountable people and the narcissist enjoys the sport of poking at the wounds and sensitivities they know their intimate others have. Let’s face it, almost anyone might become reactive when forced to live under the same roof as a narcissist. They can be impossibly mean and difficult!
But it is the narcissist who is really the hyper-sensitive one.
The in-built grandiosity and entitlement of the narcissist or sociopath is so huge it is likely they genuinely experience the most minor of challenges or disagreement as a gross invasion to their superior self-image – a narcissistic injury.
So when they claim on a sworn affidavit or on social media or to their mother-in-law (yes, many really try to get a victim’s own family onside to perpetrate further abuse) that it is their [wife, child, sibling] who is the abusive one – they genuinely believe it to be true in the moment. Their mind must instantaneously deflect blame and attribute it to their poor long-suffering family members – to the point of delusion.
By this I mean that no matter how reasonable, how gentle, how careful and considerate expressions of the following are, the delusional narcissist will experience and describe them as abusive. The narcissist will quite literally experience a “no thank you”, said quietly, gently and calmly, as having been shouted aggressively. They might even go so far as to recall such a banal incident as having included a physical assault that never actually happened outside the narcissist’s warped perception – their protective justification mechanism.
The narcissist will claim the fight/race/election was rigged, rather than accept defeat. They must win at all costs.
The high-spectrum narcissist might experience any of the following as abusive to their inflated egoic entitlement, when we:
Saying “no” to them
Holding a different opinion or point of view
Failing to affirm their gaslighting – when they claim they never said that or that never happened (delusional blame-shifting)
Disagreeing or debating instead of instantaneous acquiescence/obedience/fawning
Displaying indicators of talent, intellect, success or wealth that surpasses his/hers
Choosing to spend our own money in a way that we choose, rather than the way he/she chooses
Declining to answer intrusive or bullying questions
Declining sex when he/she wants it
Asking for care, kindness and consideration or basic understanding from the narcissist
Crying
“Answering back” – that is, defending oneself from his/her attack, criticism, jealousy or paranoid delusions. (This nests in the clinical definition that narcissists are envious of others and believe others are envious of them – a kind of paranoid delusion)
“Disobeying” – that is, choosing to do something a different way or ignore the demands and commands that have been given to (shouted at) the victim on a prior occasion
Reacting with irritation, anger, fear or [insert a normal human reaction here] at their unreasonable demands
Making a decision that affects the family in his/her absence without his/her “permission”
Observing moral or ethical principles he/she doesn’t agree with – for example, refusing to tell a lie or break the law to achieve something the narcissist wants
Engaging in activities or interests that he/she “doesn’t approve of”
Continuing relationships with people he/she “doesn’t approve of”
Failing to prioritise the narcopath’s needs, appointments, activities as being obviously more important than ours
Failing to adequately display gratitude or repay-in-kind perceived ‘kindnesses’ by the narcissist. (I call this, ‘The Eternally Grateful Conundrum’ as no matter how generously we reciprocate or pander to their needs, nothing will ever be enough in the eyes of the narcissist. They thrive on conditional ‘giving’ in order to engender a sense of moral obligation in others).
These narcissistic hyper-sensitivities, alongside pathological dishonesty and Reverse Attribution (sometimes labelled ‘projection’) can be at the bottom of the confusion and distress felt by family members of the narcissist. Responding to a high-spectrum narcopath in a rational, compassionate or agreeable way just doesn’t work. Trying these tactics can send intimate others into a frenzy of dissonance and chaotic attempts to find a way to manage the relationship.
It can cause obsessive negative rumination to the point of unhealthy co-dependency.
I’m sure you can see why?
Another great irony is that any of the behaviours above can also send the narcopath into a frenzy of narcissistic rage – thereby making the narcopath the real perpetrator of the very thing his/her delusional entitlement believes others are doing to him/her! Reverse Attribution in a nutshell (knowingly accusing others of what they, themselves are doing).
This common phenomenon – known as DARVO in Traditional Domestic Violence parlance (Deny, Accuse, Reverse Victim and Offender), is also supported by hidden structural factors of misogyny and sexism that feed the narcopath’s entitlement: both male and female gender role socialisation that stipulates a woman should never experience or express anger; should be compliant, agreeable and compromising; should always acquiesce; should always choose smoothing a situation over and keeping the peace over standing up for herself or others; that women should pretend that their male partner is still the traditional breadwinner and “boss” of the family in public otherwise she will ‘emasculate’ him.
When the narcissist is a woman, things can be even more complicated! Maybe because this particular woman has responded to the above structural ‘rules’ with rebellion to the point of reversing them? Reverse Attribution in play again? I don’t have all the answers.
But I do know this: narcissists are most abusive to those in their innermost circle. They lack the capacity for honest self-reflection, and this makes it almost impossible for them to change their abusive ways when faced with any kind of pushback. Narcissists are also at their most earnest and genuine, with high levels of conviction when they’re lying to you (or a mediator or therapist).
For those in love relationships with a narcissist, the shift from being a person who can do no wrong in the eyes of the narcissist, to a person who can do no right is crazy-making. From being idealised to being devalued and destroyed for no apparent reason, the victim/survivor understandably feels pain that feels like being torn apart.
No-one around the victim-survivor should minimise or disregard this pain. It’s real. It’s traumatic. It has a cause.
Let this be a guide for your decision-making.
© Nicki Paull, 2021
DISCLAIMER: Narcissists are not all male. Using male pronouns to reference the narcissist and female pronouns to reference the victim-survivor is not an indication of the clinical data on gender in narcissism, but rather an editorial choice.
