If you've ever known or loved a narcissist you might agree with me when I tell you that narcissists have this way of being con artists,
they have mastered the con. Over the years of their lives and manipulating the people around them, inevitably
narcissists learn to be manipulative. What's really interesting and frustrating about narcissist is that very often
they hide their true selves, they're so subtle and so pervasive that we don't really even recognize them in the moment.
Today at QueenBeeing.com, we're going to talk about mind games that narcissists play and
exactly what you can do to play back.
So, let's get started. (Closed captioning provided by Athena Moberg and CPTSDfoundation.org)
My name is Angie Atkinson and on this this channel, I offer free, daily video coaching to help you discover,
understand and overcome
narcissistic abuse in toxic relationships. I like to call it toxic relationship rehab.
So if that sounds good to you, hit that subscribe button and let's get going. Before we jump in here,
there are a few things you need to know about narcissist upfront in case you don't already. The first thing is toxic
narcissists have no empathy.
They don't care how they make you feel and because of that they often don't care about any sort of suffering
they've caused to you or anyone else in their life,
but despite the fact that they have no empathy or very little, most narcissists are still experts at
analyzing other people's
personalities and emotions and using them against them and maybe because of that they're really good at putting on a mask
that doesn't show you their true self.
You don't really learn about who they are on the inside until you're almost too close to pull away easily.
What's interesting about those traits that I just described is that each of those is part of a really toxic
cocktail, a recipe for destruction if you will. It's exactly what's required to control other people and manipulate them
without remorse.
It's not easy to recognize these people, especially during the idealization stage of a relationship.
You might even think you've met your soul mate or your guardian angel, really it's a narcissist. So, without further ado
I'm going to share with you seven mind games that narcissists play and why they play those games,
plus I'm going to tell you exactly what you can do to play back and sort of beat the narcissist at their own game.
Number 1; They want to know your life story. When you first meet a narcissist you might find this very charming, because
someone is listening to you and it always feels good to have someone listen to you
and if we're being honest,
none of us really hate talking about ourselves at least not before we're damaged by a narcissist and
often even when we have been raised by narcissists or damaged by narcissists and other relationships,
we are so not used to talking about ourselves that we can find this very
charming, but the narcissist in the early stages of a relationship might want to know everything about you. The unfortunate part
is that later in the relationship, they will begin to use everything about you against you.
So how do you know this is what you're dealing with?. Well, if number one, they don't talk about themselves ever
that's a red flag. I'm not saying they should talk completely about themselves, that's another red flag,
but those who have a good comfortable back-and-forth and share their own thoughts and insights and pieces of their life,
probably pretty healthy. Another thing you can do is look them right in their eyeballs
and if they won't look you right back in the eyes and yet they continue to throw the questions at you
that's a red flag, be aware.
Sometimes they won't even look at you while they ask the questions or they'll look away from you above your head, below your chin,
whatever. One way that you can win this game is to simply start asking questions about them and see how they react or
don't answer the questions that they ask you about yourself and change the subject.
Number 2; They want you to know that they're better than you and they will tell you this in very sneaky subtle ways.
One big red flag of a narcissist is that they always feel superior to other people.
They always want to show off their information and their knowledge,
they want to tell you how many famous people they know or they want to tell you how
expensive their car or house was or they even might lie to you about these things,
they definitely want to seem smarter than you and everyone else around them
and so sometimes they'll throw facts and figures at you about things
you have no concept of, no idea about, they want to seem better than you.
One quick way that you can kind of discover this issue is by simply asking them for source information,
where did you hear that or how do you know that or just ask them for proof or to back up their claims, because quite
honestly
narcissists really don't like it when you ask them to justify what they're saying. One quick way to win this game is to simply ask
them to define a specific word they keep using or just ask them a lot of questions, because they will be interrupted
they don't like to be interrupted.
They want you to be scared and sad. Some narcissists will pull the fear card or they'll pull the
negativity card on you. They'll be rude, disrespectful, they'll speak at the top of their lungs or yell.
They do this in order to control you and to manipulate you into doing what they want.
They try to scare you into doing their bidding. They try to scare you into obedience.
They might even physically intimidate you, they don't want you to feel happy
they want you to feel upset and scared, because they have an easier time
controlling you when you are upset and scared. If you're sad and anxious and nervous and afraid,
well they can easily dig their hooks into that. So, how do you win that game?
This one's a little harder, because of the fact that they play on your emotions directly
and a lot of times they'll make you feel guilty if you do try to overcome it.
However,
if you're dealing with someone who directly
changes the subject to something negative out of the blue or who suddenly becomes
aggressive or it gets really negative really quickly about something,
what you can do is you can
focus on the positive, staying positive,
maybe even try to throw a joke in there and see how that plays out. If they begin to attack you and go
way far the other direction then you pretty much have a red flag there knowing that you're dealing with someone who's toxic.
How do you deal with this
if you're in this situation?
The first thing you do is to pull out your old gray rock tool and you try not to get too upset,
you stay as calm as you can and you don't let him see your negative emotions
if they are able to bring them out of you. The best thing you can do and the thing that will totally knock them off
their rockers is to stay positive and to refuse to feel sad or angry or scared, because what you're doing by staying positive,
trying to stay happy, not giving them negative emotions is you're showing them that they're not in control of the situation.
Number 4; They tear you down.
Narcissists are well known for finding, seeking out, pin pointing and poking at every single insecurity,
you could possibly have, anything at all. If you've always secretly been nervous about the size of your nose,
the narcissist is going to know it even if you had a nose job ten years ago
and they don't know that, somehow they're gonna know you're sensitive about your nose.
It's almost like they could taste it or smell it when they get close to you.
It's one of their favorite forms of narcissistic supply, feeding on your insecurities. It's almost like air to them.
This goes back to number one, when they first met you and they start
asking you everything about yourself in your life and you told them all your deep dark secrets,
this is when they start to use them against you.
Any insecurities that you tell them about, that you reveal to them in any way, they will use it against you as quickly as they are
able to do so. Sometimes it'll be subtle and sometimes it'll be pretty freaking obvious.
They will use your insecurities during an argument. They will throw it into
conversations that you're part of ovrerhearing and
then you might find yourself shutting down and kind of wishing you'd crawl in a hole somewhere,
because everybody suddenly starts looking at you kind of feel sorry for you or whatever.
Here's a really good example of that. When I was married to my ex-husband,
I had been taking a depression medication in order to I guess survive that relationship.
This was brought out in a public forum in front of his entire
family who then of course thought I was crazy for a minute. At the moment this was brought out,
of course I felt humiliated and horrified and this is exactly what this person wanted.
It made him feel superior and good about himself. That's exactly what narcissists are looking for in that moment,
because if other people's
insecurities and flaws are shown and highlighted,
well guess what?, that kind of helps the narcissist hide their own insecurities and flaws. How can you become aware of this situation?
How can you tell a narcissist as doing this to you?
Well,
the first thing you need to watch for is watch their face when you do share an insecurity with them if they suddenly seem all
alive and animated, that's a red flag.
If they do what my ex-husband did and bring them up in front of other people, red flag. If you want to test a person
to see if they are a narcissist or a toxic person, a really easy way to do
this is to make up an insecurity. So for example, let's say you have brown eyes, you could tell this person
you know, I've always hated the fact that I had brown eyes,
I wish I had blue eyes and you could make it a real big deal and say this is a big
insecurity of yours. This is a terrible example, but you get the idea.
Well,
if you play that up enough the narcissist might quickly latch on to that and suddenly be really into everybody who has blue eyes.
My point is tell them you're insecure about something that you're not and see how they react to that.
If suddenly, they seem all excited about life and they have a new found energy,
that's a pretty good sign that you're dealing with the toxic person,because
normal people would either try to comfort you about your insecurities by saying something like are you kidding me?, your eyes are beautiful.
Why would you want blue eyes or
they will just say nothing and move on. The way to win this game is to
be aware ahead of time of the things that you really are insecure about, know what you're insecure about, know what you're not.
Do your very best to work on accepting yourself and the things that you are insecure about on an unconditional level.
Actually, I've done a video about unconditional self-acceptance and self-love. I'm gonna put the link for you right there.
Number 5; Their halo is a shining, as in they act like they could never do anything wrong or hurtful or
dangerous or negative in any way, shape or form. You remember these people are con artists, right?,
they will always, always pretend to be innocent. They will never take responsibility for anything
they've done. In fact, when they screw up they will very often convince you of the reasons that it wasn't their fault and that will
even be true if you actually physically watch them do the act that they're pretending
they didn't commit. Somehow it will be someone else's fault
they did that and they'll convince you entirely of this at least until you get to know them really well.
And then you'll just know that you're not allowed to say the truth as you understand it.
You'll just know that you're supposed to keep your mouth shut and play along with the game. Anytime they mess up,
it will not be their fault or they just won't admit they did it.
So, how can you tell if this is what they're doing?
This is interesting. When you're dealing with someone who has screwed up or done something wrong, something against your relationship or something
they know is going to upset you, very often they will act really, really guilty.
They'll act like someone who has done the crime, but isn't willing to do the time, but at the same time, if you physically saw
them do it, they'll make up reasons and excuses why it wasn't their fault and if vyou didn't see them do it,
they'll make up reasons and excuses that it couldn't have been them.
They will also sort of pretend that they're gonna take responsibility.
They act like the victim and if you explain to them why they're not a victim and in fact
they are the perpetrator or the problem maker in this situation,
they will use that against you and you will be part of their victim game.
They will in fact self victimized by pretending that you have somehow insulted them horribly by saying the truth.
They will use your own words against you to try to get you to believe them. they play on your emotions and do anything
they can to try to get your attention and to turn that attention toward the fact that they didn't do it and they're not
responsible. Anytime, they actually pretend to take responsibility,
they do this in order to manipulate you for some reason,
whether they want you to convince them that they didn't do it or they want you to agree that it's not their responsibility
or they're desperate, because you're about to leave and they're not ready to lose your supply yet. How do you win this game?
This is where intuition comes in pretty strong.
You have to listen to your gut here and if you're smart
you will dig in and find out what really happened without letting them know that you're actually trying to do that.
So my point is tell them what you think they need to hear in the moment so that they don't know that you are going
to find out the truth and then quietly find out the truth and go from there.
Another thing you can do to win this game
if you're still in that relationship is to point out the things they're doing wrong rather than
playing along with the game, if they're innocent.
So for example, if you notice that your narcissist treats someone in their life a horrible way and you know
that person is a decent person, point it out to them and find out why they're doing that
maybe there's a toxic situation
you're not aware of or maybe this person's just a narcissist and you don't want to be in their life.
Don't defend someone you know is guilty, because if you do it now
it will come back later and bite you in the butt.
When you do point out their mistakes also point out what they could have done better.
This will annoy the crap out of a narcissist, but it will also be taken very well by someone who isn't a narcissist.
It's a really good way to kind of sniff them out. The key here
is that a narcissist will become angry if you try to tell them how they could have done something better?
While a healthier person will be more likely to take it as constructive
criticism and do something to try to create positive change in their life if they want to. Just a little side note on that one.
This is something that is going to be touchy for some people because a lot of survivors who are dealing with
CPTSD will be hypersensitive to criticism. Please don't assume that I'm saying that everyone who is sensitive to criticism is a narcissist,
that's not what I'm saying.
What I am saying though is if someone tries to manipulate you or lie to you and tell you a story that you know
isn't true and you call them out on it and then they become hypersensitive to the criticism, you might be dealing with a narcissist.
Number 6; They love to do the twist. They love to twist information. They love to twist the situation to their benefit.
See when you call them out on the bad things they're doing,
narcissists are
incredibly crafty
in fact
sometimes they will take the victim and make them the perpetrator in their story, because the
narcissist loves to play the victim. If they can blame you or someone else for whatever's going wrong, well, guess what?,
they have a way out. Sometimes narcissist will do anything they can to just get you onboard with their story.
Don't let them get away with it. This is something that happens during a smear campaign,
something narcissist do often, especially if you go against them or you go no contact.
They will definitely twist the story and turn you into the bad guy andthemselves into the victim.
So the way that you can find out for sure this is happening in
addition to of course hearing about it through the grapevine as you probably will is to check any
hard facts that you can check. If a person tells you
everybody thinks you're lazy, ask everybody and I don't mean that literally, but you know what
I mean, check with people before you assume that what they're saying is true.
Hopefully other people will do that for you as well. Ask them to be objective in the story
they're telling and see how well they do. People who are narcissists are not capable of truly being objective,
especially when they have an agenda.
They really want to convince you of their side of the story and they will do anything
they can to make that happen.
You can win this game by simply getting your facts and
information straight. Speak to those people that they've been dragging through the mud and find out
exactly, what's really happening.
And hopefully if you're the person in that situation someone will do the same thing for you,
but just a side tip, in case you are someone who's dealing with a smear campaign where a narcissist is tearing you down,
those people who you know won't be on your side, simply ignore those people,
but those people who you think should be on your side,
I would give them one chance to be on your side
and what I would say to them is if you know me, you know
I didn't do those things and if they say well
I think you did those things and you say well clearly you don't know me very well
or as well as I thought you did and I'm really sorry to hear that. Leave it at that and then back away from that
person until this thing blows over, then you might want to re-evaluate
your relationship with them and see if there's someone that you really want in your life
and if it's not something you really care about, feel free to just change the subject and tell them you don't really care about that
situation or you don't have an opinion about it and move on. Finally, Number 4; They are a human pressure cooker intentionally driving you crazy,
intentionally making you doubt yourself, gaslighting,
manipulating, they do this thing where they make you feel so much pressure to do whatever it is
they want you to do that sometimes you actually kind of build up, build up, build up pressure until you suddenly become explosive.
It's almost like reactive abuse. They do this in order to play on your emotions
and of course to make you appear a little crazy, that helps them later.
So, how do you can tell if this is happening to you?
Well,
one of the biggest signs is that if you do have a blow-up and suddenly now the
narcissist is nice to you or they seem really super happy all of a sudden.They will
intentionally ask you questions or ask you to agree to things you might not normally have agreed to.
They do this because they know in that moment it's very difficult for you to make logical decisions,
so maybe you'll spend too much money for them or you will
agree to sell your house when you don't really want to sell your house or something even smaller like they ask you for
$500 to go blow down at the casino
and normally you would never waste $500 on the casino,
but they just helped you out in that situation and helped you relieve your stress, so by all means here's $500, honey.
It's important to recognize this because they really can totally bowl you over with this one.
It's a huge sneaky manipulation technique. So how do you win that game?
Well,
when you do feel
emotional about something, if you have an emotional kind of
explosion and then person who kind of caused that suddenly tries to help you calm down, suddenly
they're your best friend in the whole wide world, everything's fine. Watch out for what comes next, don't just assume
they're telling the truth, don't just agree with anything
they say just because they made you feel less stressed.
Recognize that they're the person that actually caused that stress in the first place and that then they calmed it all down because they use
this as a manipulation tactic.
This is one of the most sophisticated techniques that narcissist will use,don't be scared to call them out about it.
Tell them what you see and what happened, ask them what their intention was, if they don't agree with you and ask them to explain
themselves. Why would you cause me to become upset about this
and then suddenly you want to help me calm down about this and this could be something triggering, like let's just say for
example that the color red
makes you feel sick in your stomach, because some terrible thing was
connected to that as a child and let's say that suddenly you come home one day,
your whole living room is painted red, the narcissist or toxic person in your life might be like oh, oh, I'm sorry,
I forgot that you hated red, I'm so sorry. Oh, calm down lay down in the bedroom, I'll repaint it,
it'll be blue by the time you're done, here something like that.
That's just a kind of an extreme example, but you get the idea.
Just remember that they are the one who triggered that stress in the first place. Ask them why they did it,
tell them you know that they know you hated the color red and when all is said and done don't put yourself in a
situation have this happen to you again. Keep a safe distance from someone like that.
Finally I just want you to remember one last thing. Narcissists never like anybody they can't manipulate,
so the more you educate
yourself about this stuff, the more you become aware of the possible red flags and the ways that you can deal with them the better
chances you will have to avoid toxic people from this point forward. Stay strong,
you deserve better than to be manipulated by someone who claims to love you or care about you.
Alright, now this brings me to the question of the day.
And the question of the day is have you dealt with any of these manipulation tactics, these mind games and which ones?
Share your thoughts, share your ideas, share your experiences
in the comment section below and let's talk about it.
If you want to learn more make sure you take a look at the video
I'm leaving for you right there and it will give you so much more information about this.
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