I thought that I could see people the first time as who they are. I always believed people show you who they are the first time, yet a Narcissist personality is very cleaver at manipulation and blind siding you, trust me they never show their real selves in the first meeting, they present a false front to entrap you into believing their first show is who they are.
Upon interviewing for a potential flatmate, I thought I had chosen the right person, she answered all the questions and her body language seemed right also, yet the agony was to come within a week of her moving in, she had no boundaries and was treated me as though I was not important, and I was the subtenant, not herself. I had good intentions with her as my new flatmate, but I couldn’t think like a narcissist and as a result, I was played like a fiddle. As the few weeks went by I felt like I was run over and being run over by a Mac truck daily.
As you read on, I will explain some of the mind games Narcissists play, then you will become aware of the signs to look out for so you can make your way clear because then I am hoping you won’t be pulled into their games and lose yourself. By knowing their games, you can adjust and make corrections and move on.
Narcissists are manipulators, they love to figure out where your weak spots are and see what your vulnerabilities are so they can place you in a position where you do their bidding, which is called Narcissistic supply, this is where they want you. Narcissistic people do not care what you think or feel, if you wind up feeling hurt or angry in all the defense or disgusted, they think like, hey that is your problem and if you say you make me feel like your behavior is creating this in me, they say, don’t put that on me, they never take responsibility for themselves, but they will continue to keep playing games.
I have figured out seven games a narcissist will play, and I want you to figure out how to respond to these, so you don’t continue on to play on your end of the equation.
Now the first mind game is:
1: I want you to learn how to trust me:
They can appear friendly and interested in what you have to say and curious, they ask questions about who you are and what you feel, what you are up to, they may say some very supportive things to you, and you will think this is really nice. They entice you to be open. You talk to them about who you are and how you feel, and they say, tell me a little bit more about you, In a healthy relationship that is exactly what we want, but with the narcissist, it is a mind game. See what they are doing is getting you to pour out your heart and be open but notice they never do it in return towards you, if they do it is of a suitor nature. The Narcissistic wants you to pour out your heart because they are taking notes so they can start to figure out and where your needs are which is going to come and bite you in the butt later on, this is why they take notes to use against you later on.
First off these kinds of people start out being very nice, trusting, friendly and honest and are on your team.
2: They begin to establish an upper hand over you:
Once they bring you in and make you presume, they are friendly, nice, and trusting and on your side, you will notice a certain criticism starts to creep in, why did you do it that way? or I don’t think you should do it this way, or I am right and you need to listen to what I have to say, I can do that better than you, or I know more than you because I know it all. They might not say it this way, but that is how they come across. As you get to know the narcissist you will realize they are very self-confident and they have inflated confidence and correctness and if you try to speak in anything different then it is like “ Oh I don’t need to listen to you” in my case she just interrupted and she spoke to me loud drowning out what I had to say, Their motive is to say just listen to me and then they drop back to game number one. Their thinking is like this, well just pay attention to me because I look at life a whole lot better than you ever can and the average person out there, you are just going to have to trust me., because I know it all. In my case with the now ex-flatmate, she always said she knows it all and was not interested in listening to anything I had to say because her reply was I know that, she even knew of the course I was doing, funny because it's kept private by the creator because you have to pay for it, but she already knew it all.
3: They install fear into you:
The third mind game they get to play with you is as you get pulled more and more into their confidences, they begin to install fear into you, They love and like it when you fear them, now they can be very stubborn, they can be very judgmental, they offer strong emotions and some of that criticism they started out with becomes hurt and anger and then when you get to the place of , if I tell them about this or that about me, your truths then they will blow up at me, you then become increasingly calculated, so you disregard your preferences and just do as they want you to do. I found myself doing this within two weeks of her moving in and my gut told me it was not right, so you just do as they want so you don’t need to deal with all the negatives of their personality of correctness. I have talked with people myself about this and they are confident people who have told me to just forget about it because if you show your uniqueness then it will create more problems than they are worth. This is the fear implanted on the inside of you where it becomes a part of their response style.
4: They will sabotage you behind your back:
See as they get to know you and your friends, your tendencies is a part of their game to keep them in their superiority because they like to isolate you from your friends because they don’t want you to have allies or supporters, see the narcissists will like to speak about you without you even realizing it, and it never flattery, e.g. say in a friends dinner party and one of the friends says something nice about you, but the narcissistic says , well I know you are impressed by what he/she did, but behind the scenes there are quite a lot of things that you just don’t know, they then go into a story of how you may have made a mistake or blown up or you said something about them, and in doing so they are trying to keep people from having too much of a strong confidence in you. Why? Because that keeps them in the Narcissistic “Superior Position" sabotaging people in their relationship with you keeps them elevated and keeps you beholden to them and you will have fewer and fewer people that understand you because the narcissist is tripping it all up to suit their narrative of control.
5: They find your flaws and hold it against you:
See many times as their trust me mentality, you might go so far as saying, a few years ago I made a mistake or I had a blunder and I have never told anyone, but I kind of blew it, trust me they seem in that moment of you trusting to tell them this that they are very understanding of this, however later down the track when they need to score some points they will come back and recall the flaw, they say I know who you are, I know what your character is like and you are not nearly as good as you think you are. They say remember when you told me this two years ago, and they will go fully into it. Then you realize when you recall what you said that you thought they were coming from a loving and supportive nature, yet this is no the way they work. When they say talk to me about who you are, it is of not of real interest to them because it is a game, they are collecting data on you and if you think they are forgiving of you, think again because their motive is I have so many more cannon balls that I can shoot at you, is their only objective.
6: They will portray themselves as the victim:
They really need too come across as blameless, someone who has very good intentions, so if they make a mistake or miscalculation then they often, instead of them saying oh! yeah I blew it, they often say, if something negative didn’t happen to originate from me, the reason is that this person over there did it to me, and they made me do it, They often say “ I would never have made this mistake if this other individual had done their fair share of the job, so they just go into a blame game, they really have to have someone they can pin down to shift the blame away from themselves and pin it onto someone else and that person if often you.
7: They turn life in a duty of obligation.
They turn your life into a long list of rules and regulations, It is the imperative thinking, you must, you have to, you have got to, and then when you say you don’t want to do things because I have to, they will double on that you just have to anyway, so they come at you that life is a regulatory mindset “and they get to write the rules”
Now as you come to recognize the games of the narcissistic, you will realize they want you to lose your uniqueness and you need to be under their clutches and “be what I tell you to be”
Now some points to save you:
Do not give them the reaction they want, I decided to listen but ignore, I choose to go blank and say nothing, she soon said oh I am rambling, and you are not interested what I have to say, then she became moody, I lived with the mood swings of this adult disobedient child. Now remember they want you to be afraid, they want you to fear, they love that you walk around on egg shells, they love you feeling angry because in their minds they can say, yeah, look at the way you are acting, they use your fear anger against you which steers the situation away from them form being in the wrong, "transferred blame shame relocation plan" You need to learn to deal with the narcissistic with calmness and be steady, don’t give any ammo to them whatsoever in a defensive manner. If you feel like you want to punch them in the nose, remember it is handing over the control to them and they become the victim like they love. I say do not play their game, but it is OK to be confrontable sometimes and always be reasonable, let them know that you are onto them with what they have going on, so it is OK to say, I don’t like the way you handled this, or you misrepresented me, you say no outright and make sue you hold your ground., you must be willing to call them out, and say this is who I am and this is what I believe in and claim your strength.I know you might say, I can’t do that, but you need to so you can hear yourself say it, Remember they want to strip you of your dignity and standing up for yourself you are saying “I see myself as a dignified person”
I want you to also never go down the being pulled into the useless arguments, state out your preferences and when they want to try and drag you into an argument, then just say I have stated how I feel, and I have nothing more to say, stick to saying nothing more. You need to get to the point where you need to let your "Yes be Yes and your No be No" Narcissists want to keep you in doubt, disarray, and confusion about who you are, I am hoping there is inside of you a mindset that says, I see what you are up to, I see your games and I choose not to participate in your games, I will stand my ground on my Yes and my No, I am comfortable with who I am.
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