The Games Narcissist Play

[piranah]

I am trying to find way out of narcissistic maze of family relationships. i can only say I know myself better now for all the pain and heartache. It is so excrutiating like pulling teeth and then you find that online there are so many narcissists and online is the ideal place for their games. Imagine they do not need to put on a face. Phew wiser now anyway oh so much wiser. Everytime I find a new site dealing with the subject I have to filter it for Sam Vaknin or similar entities. I have a situation where a family narcissist along with a narcisstic ex have managed now to turn one of my son's away from me. It is awful. Any advice how to best approach this? I do not even know for sure alot of the games but I do know that my son now sees me as the manipulator and everything i do or say is twisted. I have given up mostly it seems he has shut down. I have all kind of emails from them trying to get me to hook into the games...... Oh please help me, I am having domestic abuse is the latest trick I sent details of womens aid but no personal info which is what they want. I have changed my email. I try to respond truthfully and honestly but I think when I do they add stuff to the mail and then show others. These are very clever people who socially set up a lot of traps for me to fall into. It is a revenge passive aggressive deal I guess. At worst point I felt suicidal. What ever I said no one believed me. I am not perfect by long shot but they make me out to be some kind of ogre. Once they get to people I can't seem to get any truth out of them. I even thought go to a lawyer to get some kind of injunction out. I believe social gossip can be very hurtful. I would be willing to sit down with a counsellor with them but will not agree to that wonder why! I have just let go but I am scared inside because I know that these family members are not gonna give up unless maybe I show that I am mentally stronger than them. I get low days but truth is important so I am glad that I begin to see the tentacles of manipulation and where they come from. Funny thing is my narcissistic abusers have actually done me a painful forcing me to look deep into my self I now have a chance of living better in long run. i realise it is possible to live without your happiness depending on anyone else. You could lose everyone and still find reason to get up and go out there! As long as your internal narrative is true.

 

[Pierrebxl]

Hi piranah,

"online there are so many narcissists and online is the ideal place for their games. Imagine they do not need to put on a face."

So true. Internet can be a big hunting ground for them. No face, no feeling, nothing, only their words. And usually they are good at language, words manipulation.

"I have a situation where a family narcissist along with a narcisstic ex have managed now to turn one of my son's away from me. It is awful. Any advice how to best approach this?"

That must be really awful. I don't have children so i don't know. Maybe talking frankly to your son? I mean, taking each one of their arguments and conter them by telling the truth to your son (very calmy but firmly)?

"I try to respond truthfully and honestly"

I think this is not a good strategy with Narcissists. I play clever now with the Narcissists in my family. I elaborate strategy and often at the last moment i change everything. That seems a bit "bad" but i think that's the best thing to do with these kind of people. They are at the complete opposite of Truth so why be truthfully with them?

"What ever I said no one believed me. I am not perfect by long shot but they make me out to be some kind of ogre.... I believe social gossip can be very hurtful."

Have you heard of strategic enclosure?

"I know that these family members are not gonna give up unless maybe I show that I am mentally stronger than them."

I think this is true.

"Funny thing is my narcissistic abusers have actually done me a painful forcing me to look deep into my self I now have a chance of living better in long run. "

Yes. And becoming stronger than them and seeing them for what they are: just mean and pathetic creatures.


Hang in here


Hope that helps a bit

 

[Pierrebxl]

Just want to say that my goal this christmas with the narcissists and psychopaths around me will be to use strategic enclosure/cage to be able to see. I really want to see and study the pathological dynamics around me, without being caught in the insanity. I think with the knowledge i gained the past years, i'm more able to understand what's going on now. I think i start to get it.
But what's difficult is what to do "live". I mean, how to act appropriately. That's not easy. I think i'm more able to see but i don't know how to act approprietaly.

And also the use of external consideration. Put myself in the shoes of others and say things that they want to hear, to "help" them because they are machines.

Just wanted to add this.

 

[durabone]

Wow, I had not read this thread before. To me it is very heartfelt, genuine, thank you all for sharing.

I can add this: (did not see in thread)

"Help, I'm in Love with a Narcissist" by Steven Carter (2005)

I found much in the way of operational detail in this book, like some of the things that have been said here. And since knowledge protects, as many said above, I have therefore tried to devise an explanation of what a Narcissist is, so that if I am called on to give an introduction in a verbal conversation - I can do it less than 5 minutes. It's not so easy. I'd like to know what you think?

FWIW (Enjoy):

The few times it has come up, I started out by reminding them who Narcissus is.

So Narcissus if you recall, is stuck on looking at his own reflection. Most of us were taught that he is simply vain. But the very real possibility is that he may have been put down a lot as a child, and/or maybe he is guilty of doing bad things and needs to hide that from himself. His self-admiration in the mirror is in then likey tonic for his pain, and borders on addictive behavior. But what happens when he does so many bad things, or he is so put down, that the old admire-your-own-reflection trick no longer works adequately as medication? Well then he must get what he needs from you!

This last sentence seems to resonate right away with newbies to the topic.

Since I have become convinced lately that this energy exchange is very real, and is likely similar to real physical energy in that 'attention' 'tonic' whatever you want to call it is similarly conserved, I hypothesize that a very real transaction is taking place. Call it food for a metaphor. They gain, you give. Others have said as much in these posts.

[quote author=Corto Maltese]If so, how does one stay wise as serpent and gentle as dove when the daily, or at least twice to thrice weekly interaction with such force of nature is inevitable...any practical advice[/quote]

[quote author= Pierre]I think i'm more able to see but i don't know how to act approprietaly.
[/quote]

Every time I start to give advice while posting anywhere now, I think of anart’s footer words. I think she is spot on with that.

Perhaps a better way to go about things is try and discuss. I feel that the topic of how to co-exist with a Narcissist once you’ve chosen to for reasons of family, community, work, etc. is important, and healthy to discuss. Especially if I buy the hypothesis that an actual energy is taking place. If true, then in many cases balance simply must be sought or the inevitable "energy crisis" will occur. What are some solutions?

I also believe that the Narcissist is an important lesson, as stated by some of you above. And now that I have also seen in myself and others that it possible to walk right through their game (almost) like it isn’t even there, and as a side effect, offer a tiny amount of empowerment to others on the path to doing the same, I am becoming an even stronger believer.

So, here’s some more questions:

If it is true that we all (strike that: most :)) have a code of common decency, say like for co-workers, where we don’t mind telling them that their fly is down, or they had a visitor, etc. then what would we call that? Is it not also possible that the code is so strong that the Narcissist must either practice parts of it - or feign it - just to fit within the order of a social locality?

Say we call it: Common Courtesy; Common Sense; ... I’ll use Common Decency.

(In our hopp”ing” “Eng”lish language, we don’t have the separation between second person formal and familiar as in: zie & du; el & tu; and some other European languages. The point of moving beyond common decency and a public boundary is often shifted to the point of starting to call someone by their first name in English instead of a venerated old device of language.)

Nevertheless, concept introduced and named, I suggest that this strong tradition of Common Decency can be thought of as a victory for STO. Been stated here before! For certain it is tradition that some feel is not to be dismissed lightly.

And so my real question:

If we have chosen to co-exist with a Narcissist, how can we stop them from upsetting the very important apple cart of our Common Decency without promoting or provoking them? And remember! Some feel that also an important part of their offering of Common Decency to others is the slice that they would offer the Narcissist "if he/she were not being such a jerk".

 

[piranah]

hi pierre thanks for reply. Only through the online help from sites like this have I strung my narcissist's games together. No one would believe me who has not been through something like this. I would rather know than remain in ignorance. My son is an adult 21 and so I let him go and I think keeping on trying to get through the layers of game playing will only make him ill. He just doesn't get what is going on he has been stroked by the narcissists for so long all his anger is directed at me and I am the manipulator. It may be best to let go and hope he becomes aware on his own. The truth we discover for ourselves is much more believable I guess. I have other children and if I keep on I will become too depressed to care for them. Just finished reading stephen king book. Under the Dome. Very good message in it. Life is for living and when we are in the narcissist's grip we are not living we are bait we are victims for them to feed on. I have got some good help online and it has indeed kept me sane. I believe you are a danger to the narcissist if you see through his mask he has to destroy you. So indeed telling the truth just puts you out there like a nice juicy titbit. They eat you alive. But if we play games back are we not then becoming narcissists ourself?

 

[piranah]

also I always felt there were watchers.... people you came across who were hyperaware and if they were aware you were aware they were aware...... then you were in danger. This was before I connected my own narcissists together. The common decency thing is important and they play on it to get close to you. Nothing is coincidence when you have one in your life. When you get that off key feeling trust it. But as has been said do not openly react. It needs to be a quiet calm reaction and you do indeed learn from them. I can see how you would rise above and walk through them. It is the knowledge. When you work out who and what they are it is a powerful feeling of safety. You are safe because you see. When you were blind they were leading you.

 

[Pierrebxl]

My son is an adult 21 and so I let him go and I think keeping on trying to get through the layers of game playing will only make him ill. He just doesn't get what is going on he has been stroked by the narcissists for so long all his anger is directed at me and I am the manipulator. It may be best to let go and hope he becomes aware on his own. The truth we discover for ourselves is much more believable I guess.

So true, we can't force anybody to "swallow" the truth, we can prepare it, say it, even put it in the mouth, but in the end, the person needs to swallow on his own. We can't force him.

I have other children and if I keep on I will become too depressed to care for them.

Yes, i think you're doing the right thing by saving your energy to care for you and your other children. I think it's a good choice, especially if you sense that too much of your energy is drained by the interaction with your son. Having an abundance of energy can really makes the difference.

So indeed telling the truth just puts you out there like a nice juicy titbit. They eat you alive.

Wow, love what you wrote; so true again.

But if we play games back are we not then becoming narcissists ourself?

Maybe... The main thing seems to be able to act with them (like being an actor, being in total control without losing energy etc...) but just act it, not becoming a real narcissist but being strong and in fact being in control of the interaction. In the past, they were the leaders, now we are. We take the lead because now we know, we've studied them.

The common decency thing is important and they play on it to get close to you. Nothing is coincidence when you have one in your life. When you get that off key feeling trust it. But as has been said do not openly react. It needs to be a quiet calm reaction and you do indeed learn from them. I can see how you would rise above and walk through them. It is the knowledge. When you work out who and what they are it is a powerful feeling of safety. You are safe because you see. When you were blind they were leading you.

Very well said. I 100% agree.

 

[piranah]

To the narcissist I guess it is not a game. It is a strategic engagement so we need to take the same kind of measures to protect ourselves. Self belief is a powerful weapon. Remember as a child you knew who to pick on or who to not bother with cause they were meaner or bigger than you. The narcissist has not had his or her needs met at a basic level emotionally or has not developed that decency gene. They are still stuck actually thinking that what they are doing is living. I always wondered why murderers or evil people did what they did. It is no use trying to understand from a emotionally stable persons view point. You have to get a look from their out of kilter reality. It is no use treating them as you would a decent human. Like a murderer you cant turn around in a dark alley and go okay mate look I know what you are about to do and it's not on. To turn to a narcissist and offer your truth is like doing just that. What destabilises them is your unpredictability. If they expect you to act this way and you do that way that causes them to pause and in the pause may be you can get ahead. I think we all have narcissistic tendencies. The narcissist comes to enjoy his control. He does not believe that anyone should have free will except for him. Now I am gonna use the duck and cover method to deal with them. Emotionally duck when I feel them close and cover my tracks. They will see me but they won't be able to tell whether I see them or not.
There is evidence that the psychopath/sociopath has a certain charm which is almost hypnotic. He or she is able to stroke people mentally and suggest subliminally a course of action. It is like hypnosis when you are directly in their grasp you do not always see it. They are often very attractive people who learn how to pretend. They make it worth your while to be friends with them when they need your involvement. They do not believe that others have free will.

 

[zim]

The best form of defence is attack and the narcissist knows this all too well. It is one of his most widely used weapons, but he is so good at handling it that you could actually not even realise what it is.

We are accustomed to accusations being blatant, ugly assertions about us and these we recognise with ease. It is the more insidious accusations that catch us off guard and make us lose our balance. The narcissist will use either or both, depending on his end objective.

If he is trying to rattle you, hurt you, undermine you or shock you, there is a good chanc that he will come out with a blatant accusation. "You lied", "you stole", "you're having an affair".

If however he is playing the flip side of the coin, you will get the underhanded accusation that is designed to make you feel guilty and obligated and reduce you to putty in his hands. These accusations are normally said in a rather soulful way and if you breath in deeply you'll catch the distinct smell of burning martyr. Examples of this are, "you don't love me anymore", "you don't do as much for me as you used to" (or a specific variation of the theme), "your dog/cat/book/friend/family/whatever is more important to you than I am". - I think you get the idea.

These are accusations that don't feel like accusations because they are not said with aggression or anger and don't aim so much at what you are doing as what you aren't doing - namely making him the centre of your universe.

The reason that these are so effective is that instead of hooking defensive anger, they hook defensive guilt. A far more powerful behaviour in someone that you wish to control. Now, instead of insisting that he answer your question about where he was last night, you go rushing to the rescue. You feel the desperate need to reassure him that you do love him, he is important and you are so terribly sorry that your existence does not revolve around trying to make him feel good.

He has effectively achieved a few things here: made you feel guilty so that he can now manipulate you into doing for him, changed the subject competely, shifted focus fully back onto himself and made you the lesser person.

When it comes to angry projection though, we are dealing with an entirely different situation. This is the out and out bully. He is deliberately attacking you with the objective of achieving control through fear and anger. There is also a good chance that what he is really doing is manouvering you into a conflict situation. This person wants to have a go at you, but wants to be able to blame you for it afterwards. By provoking an argument, he can achieve that quite nicely.

By the time that the fight finally ends 3 hours later, the chances are that you will not even remember that it all began with you trying to defend yourself against a wrongful and probably very ugly accusation. Even if you did remember, you'd be so exhausted by the awful fight that ensued that you'd be loath to go back and address it to set the record straight.

He has now achieved a number of things. He has intimidated you, he has manipulated you, he has emotionally drained you, he has effectively used you as a verbal and perhaps even physical punch bag and, he has controlled you and further empowered himself.

Well as many of us to me is difficult to accept this situation in my life , but the previous paragraph explains what ALL MY LIFE has succeeded me from my mother to my last husband and the last 7 years have been the worse ones, I have spend a lot of my energy trying to defend myself and kids against a wrongful & ugly accusation. It always make me ask why this people acted like that around me since I was a little girl, my father died when I was just a 7 years old girl then I have been fighting and fighting all my life just to defend myself.

Now I understand all the picture now that ´ve read here. Im exploring and learning with all this incredible information that Laura and others have put here in internet.

There are a tones of material so I think in my mind I can reorganize and see with others " eyes" all the situations in my life, many thanks for that.


Edit = Quotes

 

[Bewildered]

Encountering the C material has been a most remarkable experience for me. I suspect mere words cannot begin to quantify the process that exposure to the amazing subjects found here has started in me. This is not a case of announcing "oh look, a neat-o self improvement system, thank you for the transformation" or "aha, a new and vastly better way of looking at things! I can use it to replace my current one." After spending time engaging in reading recommended material as well as exploring this large forum (I haven't even scratched the surface of either), it is becoming apparent to me that emptying my cup is a phenomenal effort that requires a lifetime commitment. After counting the cost, I can't turn away. It's a challenge...but also, in a very real way, a tremendous relief.

The connections to ponerology and the exploration of psychopathy are particularly poignant in my case. As I have delved into the material found both in the forum proper as well as in the Wave and other reading material, my eyes have been opened to a malignant darkness in my life that for years, I have been unaware of. For you see, all this time, I was convinced it was me. I was the one to blame. I failed to be a good son. I failed to consider her feelings. I didn't appreciate her sacrifices on my behalf. She protected me from a cruel and vicious father who wished I hadn't been born; she deflected all of his anger upon herself. I was the only boy amongst three girls; my father, you see, was upset that I was born male. She had to defend me from him. And I never appreciated this, not ever. If I did, I would not put her through the things I had.

Whenever the family would go out somewhere, we all would end up wishing we were anywhere but there with her. Her meat was always too tough and/or too cold. The wait staff ignored her. Her silverware was filthy. People in the movie theater were inconsiderate and rude. None of us cared that she had the short end of the stick and were privately laughing at her. My father would give her his own steak/pork chop/etc to appease her, and somehow this wasn't good enough either. In fact, nothing was ever good enough for her. At all. She was a martyr, a girl who had given up her dreams (as well as her dream man, something she would always bring up in the 4 hour-long fights she would inflict on my father) in order to make do being the wife of such a loser. She was the victim of his terrible temper. She is my mother.

She raised me to hate my father. He was a monster in my eyes, a violent man who wanted nothing but to tear me down because he despised me. She was my savior. And I believed her, despite the fact that this man never once left a bruise or a mark on me. In fact, he never even attempted to do so...but this was not something that would make itself evident to me until later in my childhood; in my late teens before I broke away and escaped her home. I began to detect the melodramatics of my mother...her histrionics...how everything was warped through her into being all about her...all in the dynamic of her clashes with my father I secretly observed. These were drawn out, exhausting affairs (hours in length) that would leave my father drained and utterly submissive, hiding in a corner by himself.

The truth began to slowly make itself known after I left her sphere of influence...for the first time in my life, I had the opportunity to get to know the man that is my father free from my mother's grasp. What I found amazed me...and brought me to the brink. The abuse he suffered...the unspeakable evil of my mother's vile manipulations...it was only the surface. The pain came in agonizing torrents. It was compounded because he remained with her...he did it because he felt "sorry" for her. I could only imagine the torment he endured...the darkness he resigned himself to...the tears wouldn't stop. We had been denied a relationship even while we lived under the same roof, by a woman who is my mother and his wife! I saw in him a victim...but little did I realize I was a victim, too...and it would take me most of my life to learn this fact. What's worse is my own complicity in that. That's the most difficult part to bear.

My mother is a narcissist. When I read the material regarding Narcissism...from the profile to the behaviors...I was essentially reading a line-by-line description of my own mother.

 

[anart]

It is an astonishing dawning of understanding when we children of narcissists put two and two together. It's also incredibly powerful. Congratulations on beginning to put the pieces together - from here, you can go everywhere.

 

[Bewildered]

It is an astonishing dawning of understanding when we children of narcissists put two and two together. It's also incredibly powerful. Congratulations on beginning to put the pieces together - from here, you can go everywhere.

This seems to be the final piece of a puzzle that at last makes sense of an entire lifetime's worth of this tale, Anart. Not very long ago - in the ruins of yet another disastrous relationship with a narcissist - I at last perceived the pattern of my own victim-hood. I could no longer proclaim, "why me?", for that only applied to my childhood. Escaping her grasp was the first step...and yet I continually found myself in her grasp over and over again, by proxy, through the agency of "persons" that were attracted to me by my vulnerability...and in some dark and twisted way that I acknowledge but yet do not fully understand, I was attracted to them. It was my boyhood all over again, and perhaps this time I could do it right, and please her as I should have pleased my mother...and make amends for the failure I proved myself to be. In a terrifying and chilling way, I was living her narcissism in my own life, over and over again. I overlooked the plentiful warning signs each woman evidenced.

"Why me?" changed to "Why do I?" I perceived a pattern in how I kept on entering relationships with sociopaths, but missing that last and vital piece of the puzzle, I groped in the darkness until I arrived here and found it in the recommended reading material. There is pain - plenty of it in fact - but dwelling in it leads me to "having" something, and that is what I wish to avoid. I want to do something. Emptying my cup seems a good place to start. I need to learn how to do that.

 

[Bewildered]

What strikes like a double-edged sword is the clarity that realizing she is a narcissist sheds on my adult life as a victim. Where I only saw a pattern I kept repeating for "some reason" before, I now recognize as an underlying cause contributing to it. The sword strikes both ways, though, because in my adult life I recognize my complicity in this pattern...thus, I do not think that the term "victim" applies in the slightest way. I wasn't a victim. I just kept making myself one.

 

[truth seeker]

What strikes like a double-edged sword is the clarity that realizing she is a narcissist sheds on my adult life as a victim. Where I only saw a pattern I kept repeating for "some reason" before, I now recognize as an underlying cause contributing to it. The sword strikes both ways, though, because in my adult life I recognize my complicity in this pattern...thus, I do not think that the term "victim" applies in the slightest way. I wasn't a victim. I just kept making myself one.

From here, it can become even trickier. By this I mean seeing not only how one has been narcissistically wounded, but now how the seeds of our own narcissism has unwittingly affected others. How we ourselves can then act out narcissistically towards others in our own lives.

 

[Laura]

Hmmmm... just a thought here: reading about your mother and father and what you experienced, I wonder... a woman can be turned into a complete witch if she is with a man who never supports her emotionally and everything you have described could be about such a situation with the one who is the wolf in sheep's clothing looking like the good guy.

I know. My ex did this to me. The situation wasn't exactly as you describe it, but enough elements were present to make me wonder what was really going on between your parents. Who was really on first there?