CAUTION! Whoever Does THIS Secretly Wants to Destroy YOU!
It’s an invitation to dance on the precipice. Narcissists are among us. According to estimates, about six percent of the population suffers from this personality disorder. However, to say they suffer from it isn’t quite correct. It’s their fellow human beings who suffer, not they themselves. Narcissists even admit to it quite freely when asked for their personal assessment of their character. They are in fact proud of the people they are, self-absorbed, egocentric and extremely dangerous for their environment. They also love to manipulate those around them until they almost lose their minds. People with a narcissistic personality see themselves as invincible, infallible and always in the right. As you can see, these dark contemporaries are not easy to live with. The worst thing about them is probably the fact that they enjoy wrapping their victims around their little fingers and then playing their diabolical games with them. We would like to introduce you to the six most cruel and at the same time most typical of these sophisticated games in this article. Because: If you know what the narcissist’s plan is, you won't get involved in his plot anytime soon.
1. Revenge boils at its core.
Actually, it boils in the heart, if you stick to the original quote from Mozart's Magic Flute. A heart in the broader, non-organic sense, however, is something you will search long and in vain for in narcissists. The Queen of the Night is a prime example of a narcissistic personality representing the clear message, if you’re not for me, you’re against me. Anyone who has made an enemy of a genuine narcissist, spurned him, abandoned him, or exposed him as an impostor, will have to prepare for their vengeful wrath. The situation can escalate quickly, especially if pure narcissistic personality disorder is accompanied by clearly psychopathic traits. These lie dormant in most affected people until they are exposed to a slight or rejection.
2. Ghosting.
The cold shoulder, the icy silence, the termination from the personal radar or the deletion from the friends list: Ghosting could be translated in many ways, with the same result every time. What was once lively and perhaps even romantic contact turns into radio silence from one minute to the next. The total news blackout serves narcissists in many ways. It can be punishment for undesirable behavior such as criticism or denial, a method of breaking up without much explanation, or a way of demonstrating the power they want to defend within the relationship at all costs. They literally force their opposite to beg and plead for a revival of the conversation. Unfortunately, this mind game usually works all too well. After all, very few people can simply let things go that easily.
3. Lovebombing.
The other extreme that often precedes ghosting is lovebombing. The term itself speaks volumes. Immediately after getting to know each other, narcissists pull out all the stops to make a good impression on their chosen victims. They literally bombard them with passionate messages, romantic gestures and surprises, expensive gifts and sultry declarations of love. The chosen ones are caught off guard and can hardly believe their supposed luck. The charm and charisma that narcissists are blessed with more often than is of course one of their aces in hand here. This love bombardment goes on until they reach their goal, which might be a relationship, a marriage, or simply knowing they’ve successfully landed the defenseless fish on the imaginary hook. Then any amorous commitment stops abruptly. What follows is the famous interplay of carrot and stick, which can lead to days of passive-aggressive silence in the form of the aforementioned ghosting. For the victims, this is the beginning of a roller coaster of emotions that will soon bring them to the brink of sanity.
4. Relationship in threes.
A lesser-known but nonetheless effective power tool that narcissists take advantage of is the three-person relationship. This third person can have different functions. Sometimes it does not actually exist, but is only invented by the manipulators to keep their victims compliant. She can be a good friend of the narcissist who interposes herself every now and then, apparently mediating between him and his human prey. She pretends to seek dialogue and to be understanding to both sides. In the end, she is a willing enforcer of everything that the actual power man in this structure demands of her. But this so-called narcissistic triangulation can only serve to stir up jealousy in the partner, to belittle him or her and to destabilize the existing structure. Quite incidentally, this raises the game to a new level before it ultimately becomes too boring for the narcissist.
5. Slipping into the victim role.
This is a game narcissists love, strictly speaking they probably even invented it. No matter what goes wrong in their lives, they are always the victims, never the perpetrators, and it is always the others who are to blame. When it comes to professional setbacks, incompetent superiors are always doing them a bad turn and do not appreciate the narcissist’s enormous potential. In a partnership, the other person is always to blame if things don't go as planned. Narcissists have an amazing repertoire of tall tales at their disposal, which they can reformulate into the most abstruse excuses as needed. They have no sense of shame, even if their own grandmother would not believe the fairy tale they tell us. Their spite and impudence are at least as rampant as their wallowing in self-pity as they once again shine in the victim role.
6. Gaslighting.
This tactic is so perfidious and sadistic that English playwright Patrick Hamilton dedicated an entire play to it. The Gas Light is the eponymous model for this very typical narcissistic behavior. Like the flickering of this light, narcissists drive their fellow human beings mad step by step. They flick certain behavioral traits on and off at will, hide objects in the home, and deny the ringing of the telephone or doorbell. Stories are suddenly presented in a completely different way. Their victims' memories are persistently manipulated until they lose all confidence in their own perceptions. The consequences of this are withdrawal from social life, isolation from friends and family, and ultimately being completely at the mercy of their tormentor.
Today’s Conclusion
The only way to win is not to gamble. Even if we know all these behaviors of a narcissist and can already perceive them in new acquaintances, it is anything but easy to escape their crosshairs once they have chosen us. Selecting you from a crowd and placing you on their very personal pedestal is the first step a narcissist takes in the hunt for a new victim. The more difficult-to-penetrate mind games and romantic lovebombing then follow on their heels. Narcissists choose their victims very deliberately. Mostly they are people who have difficulties in dealing with others, do not have a very strong self-esteem and reveal their secrets quite openly right from the beginning. Narcissists find these weak points and target our shadow-self right there.