Ever come across someone who’s just about the worst kind of person alive? They’re manipulative, mean, condescending and it seems like they’re undermining you at every turn. Hell, I bet that just described your ex, didn’t it? Well, congratulations… you’ve found yourself in the clutches of a narcissist, sociopath or psychopath.
These are toxic individuals, who live for control to ultimately exploit, demean and hurt their partners, family members and friends. They’ll do just about anything to fuck you up and bring you down, then they’ll use distractions and arguments to walk away from the blame of turning your life into shit. So how exactly do they do it?
This is how.
Gaslighting
Coming from a movie from the same name, ‘Gaslighting’ is a manipulative tactic that is one of the most insidious and common tactics out there, as it works hard to distort and erode your perception of reality, making you question your ability to trust in yourself and consequently, you don’t know if you’re justified in claiming abuse.
When you’re told that something didn’t happen, that you’re imagining things or being called crazy, starts to break you down to the point that you might even start gaslighting yourself to protect your sanity and reconcile any cognitive dissonance you feel between what you truly knowto be right and what you’re being told. A manipulative person will convince you not to trust yourself and that your confusion is a dysfunction on your end.
To avoid this, you need to ground yourself in your own reality; write things down, tell a friend or have a support group in place, that can reaffirm and reiterate that you’re not crazy and validate you and your experiences. That takes their power away.
Projection
A sure sign of a toxic relationship is when a person is chronically and habitually unwilling to see their own shortcomings and avoid being held accountable for them. Instead, they’ll blame you for everything. This is projection; a defense mechanism that displaces responsibility of one’s negative behaviour and attributes them to someone else.
While we all might do this from time to time, a true narcissist will be psychologically abusive – instead of just avoiding their flaws and imperfections and placing them elsewhere, they’ll be unusually cruel and malicious in dumping those traits on others. They’d rather avoid any attempts at self-improvement and a true sociopath will instead insist that you seek help.
Narcissistic abusers will play the blame game, putting the onus on you or the world for their problems, and you start to wonder if they’re right. They’re not.
Save yourself the trouble and don’t try to ‘project’ your compassion or empathy on a toxic person, and down own their negativity either. In fact, if you share your conscience and value system onto others, you’ll be ripe for exploitation. Narcissists have no interest in self-insight or change, so it’ll be a waste of time to try anything. Just walk away from their cesspool of negativity and dysfunction and go live your positive life.
Nonsensical Conversations from Hell
If you think that a narcissist is capable of thoughtfulness and rationality, you’ll be in for a surprise. Any topic that is breached with a toxic person will end up in an orgy of mindfuckery and disorientation.
Malignant narcissists and sociopaths love to use word salad (a random assortment of non-related words), circular points, ad hominem arguments, projection and gas lighting to disorient you and get you so off track that they’ve essentially confused the shit out of you. If you disagree with them, it’s important that they discredit, confuse and frustrate you, to ‘win’ the conversation, and make you feel guilty for being a human being with your own thoughts, feelings and emotions. In fact, the entire problem behind the conversation is you.
There’s no limit to how far they’ll go, when you disagree with one little thing. If they say the grass is blue and the sky is green and you disagree, they’ll argue you stupid, attacking your entire existence, family, career and lifestyle choices. Once you’e questioned their omnipresence and omniscience, you’re a bug to be psychologically squashed.
Therefore, the best way to avoid it, is to not engage in the drama and give them your energy. Don’t supply them with fuel for their narcissism, just hang onto it for yourself and know that they’re fucked up and not you.
Blanket Statements and Generalizations
On the plus side, malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths aren’t always intelligent masterminds, they can also be intellectually lazy. Hence, they’ll generalize and try to group things together to avoid taking time to consider a different viewpoint. They don’t like nuances in an argument, they hate multiple perspectives and they’d love to just place a label on you and walk away.
On the grand scheme, generalizations and blanket statements invalidate experiences that don’t fit within their worldview, and they work to reassert their control of the status quo. They revel in sweeping assumptions of classes, races and situations.
These everyday micro aggressions can manifest themselves in toxic relationships, by turning things around on you with their projections. They’ll claim you’re too sensitive all the time, and always dissatisfied and sad. They’ll ignore the real issues at hand and be all too happy to wave a broad brush once and walk away.
If you’ve got yourself up against someone who’s comfortable in generalization-land, just hold on to your truth and understand that it’s all shades of grey; not just black and white.
Deliberately Misrepresenting Your Thoughts and Feelings to the Point of Absurdity
When your fragile psyche falls into the hands of a narcissist or sociopath, any differing opinions, legitimate emotions and lived experiences get reframed into character flaws and evidence that you’re irrational. It’s the classic case of twisting words against someone to further serve their purpose. For example, if you were to tell your toxic friend that you’re unhappy with the way they’re talking to you, and they put words in your mouth, saying things like “but you’re so perfect?” or “you’re saying I’m an asshole?” when all you’ve done is share your feelings. This invalidates your right to have thoughts, feelings and emotions, and gives you a sense of guilt when you attempt to establish boundaries.
There’s also a popular form of diversion and cognitive distortion that is known as “mind reading. This is when toxic people presume to know what you’re going to say and jump to conclusions based on their own triggers, delusions or fallacies. Most of all, they’ll put words in your moth and twist your intentions around, then have the gall to never apologize for it. They’ll instead think of you as toxic, rather than themselves.
When this happens, all you need to do is state to them “I never said that,” and walk away. They can’t make shit up if you’re not giving them anything. This should set a firm boundary, and prevent them from manipulating your opinions for their own interests.
Nitpicking and Moving the Goal Posts
In most cases, criticism isn’t all that bad, as long as it’s constructive. When it turns destructive and is full of personal attacks and impossible standards, then it becomes degrading and demoralizing. These ‘critics don’t want you to improve, and will nitpick, pull you down, and scapegoat you until you submit. Abusive narcissists will use a logical fallacy called “moving the goalposts,” where they ensure they’ll be perpetually dissatisfied with you. No matter what evidence you give them for your success or worthiness, they’ll set up another unreasonable standard or demand more proof. They’re never happy with what you give them.
If you have a successful career, they’ll ask you why you’re not a millionaire and driving an expensive car with a big house. If you completed your first marathon, they’ll ask why you didn’t do it faster. It’s all about making you seek the narcissist’s approval. If you don’t meet their expectations, you’ll start to feel unworthy and and by pointing out your failings, they hope you’ll fixate on your flaws and weaknesses, and continue the loop of working for their approval.
Instead, remember that they have no power over you, and that the goalposts don’t matter.; you didn’t set those and they don’t define you. Validate and approve of yourself and remember that you are enough.
Changing the Subject to Evade Accountability
When it comes to narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths, sometimes, it’s like dealing with a toddler with ADD. Also called the “What about me?” syndrome, it’s when someone will digress from the actual topic into a different issue to avoid accountability. Let’s say, for example, you’re going to say something about their neglectful parenting. They’ll avoid the comment and bring up something you did 7 years ago. By challenging the status quo and trying to segue into a different issue, they’re turning your comments, feelings and opinions back onto yourself.
If this happens, treat them like a toddler, using the ‘broken record’ method, and keeping up with your facts without being distracted by their ‘alternative facts.’ Keep on trying to get back to the real issue and call them out on their diversions. If that doesn’t work, just leave them to debate amongst themselves.
Covert and Overt Threats
When narcissists abusers and other toxic people feel threatened that their sense of entitlement, superiority and grandiosity is being impinged upon, they’ll lash out.
While, on one hand, they’ve set unrealistic expectations that you can never live up to, they set no limits on themselves and will go to any length to assert their dominance and divert you from your right to have your own identity and perspective, by reminding you that there will be consequences. For them, any challenge to their authority will result in an ultimatum and a “do this, or I’ll do that” implied threat.
If you find yourself being threatened, this is a red flag of someone who has a high degree of entitlement and no plans of backing down. You should take them seriously, document those threats and report them. It might not be anything actionable, but as long as they’re on record somewhere, the system can do the rest.
Name-Calling
To a narcissist, anything that is perceived as a threat, gets the full, nuclear treatment; as in, it’s gets blown out of proportion in an extreme way. In their world, they can only ever be right and anyone who disagrees creates a narcissistic injury to their sense of self. Unlike the rest of us, however, this injury doesn’t diminish them, or slow them down, but fuels their sense of superiority. But just because they’re feeling superior, doesn’t mean they won’t stoop to the lowest common denominator and start using name-calling when they can’t think of a more sophisticated way to micromanage your emotions. Name-calling is one of those things that will degrade you, insult your intelligence, make you question your sense of self and validity and change your perception about your appearance. It also invalidates your right to be a separate person with a right to their own perspective.
Despite the fact that this sounds like a schoolyard tactic, it’s not. Adults all over the world resort to name-calling to criticize and demoralize. When they can’t make a headway into your opinion and change that, they’ll take you on personally.
Just remember that this is their last resort; they have nothing else. When it comes down to using names as a weapon, they’re deficient in higher level reasoning and methods. Tell them you don’t tolerate it, but don’t join in on the mud-slinging. Take the high road.
Destructive Conditioning
It’s the mission of toxic people to associate your strengths, talents and happiness with abuse, frustration and disrespect. They’ll do this by sneaking in covert and overt-put downs about your best qualities, your passions and your ideas. Once they sabotage your goals, ruin celebrations and events, they’ve got you. Much like Pavlov’s Dogs, they’ll train you to hate the things you’ve once loved, and fear anything that’s outside of their realm control. They do this because they want to divert attention back to them, and how you’re going to please them. Anything that isn’t about them, or outside their sphere, they’ll ruin. By doing that, they ruin you, making themselves the centre of your world.
Narcissists are generally and naturally envious of anything that could come between themselves and you, and your happiness represents everything they can’t have and can’t give you, so they don’t want you to even possess this emotion and just be dependent on them. If you were to learn how to be happy outside of them, get validation, love and respect from somewhere else, you undermine their power.
Whether it’s words or fists, this is the pinnacle of narcissistic abuse.
Smear Campaigns and Stalking
When it turns out that the narcissist can’t control you, they’ll then seek to control those around you, and how they perceive you. They’ll change the narrative so drastically, that they’ll become the martyr and you, the toxic one. Smearing your reputation is the first strike in an attempt to sabotage your reputation, and if you don’t have a support network to fall back on, you’ll be forced back into the toxic relationship.
Whether it’s just smearing your to a person or a group, it becomes isolating, and when you don’t know what’s being said about you, there’s no way to counter those ‘alternative facts.’ While they become the victim, you become the aggressor. The more you do to try to rise above and correct the perceptions, the more you reinforce the stories told about you. The more they abuse you, the more you prove them right.
While this sounds like it’s an impossible situation, there’s ways to get yourself out. Stay mindful of your reactions and stick to the facts. Document everything; all the harassment, cyberbullying and stalking and you might need a third party to go between the narcissist and yourself. Don’t fuel the flame and their tactics should burn out.
Love-Bombing and Devaluation
There’s a fine line between what narcissists do and what supposed professional ‘Pick-up Artists’ do. Both seek to devalue someone’s self esteem for their own goals. They’ll bring you up and pump up your self-esteem, then shoot you down. In relationships, narcissistic abusers will devalue their exes to their new partners, saying mean and nasty things about their ex-partner, before they start in on the new one, and the cycle repeats again. When it comes to relationships, when they come on too strong and all of the ones before you were crazy, you need to know that it’s, in fact, they who are crazy.
So to avoid the crazy, if you suspect that the person is toxic, take things slow and be mindful of what they say/do. It’s all about how they treat others, that’ll determine how they’ll treat you down he road.
Preemptive Defence
When someone over-stresses the fact that they’re a “nice guy,” that they’re “trustworthy” and you should just love them that very instant, alarm bells should go off. You don’t need to believe someone is credible until they prove it to you. Toxic and abusive people overstate their ability to be kind and compassionate and don’t understand the concept of building trust. Instead they’ll “perform” levels of joy, sympathy and kindness at the beginning of a relationship to dupe you, then drop the mask at a later date. Then what you’ll find is a callus, manipulative sociopath.
Keep in mind that genuinely nice people don’t need to persistently show off their positive qualities – their actions speak volumes, and they know that trust is a two way street that requires reciprocity.
So when someone is too upfront with their positives, know that they know that you’ve got no reason to trust them, and they desperately need it to start worming their way into your life.
Triangulation
When a narcissist starts to bring in the opinion, perspective of suggested threat of another person into the dynamic, it’s called “Triangulation.” This validates the abuser, invalidates the victim’s reactions to the abuse and it can manufacture dangerous love triangles that will leave you insecure and unhinged.
Whether it’s a stranger, co-worker, ex-partner, friends or even family, adding jealousy to the equation is a destabilizing move that hurts your self-worth and may deflect your attention from their abusive behaviour and into a false image of them being more desirable. It’s manipulation, pure and simple. Then, when you start questioning yourself, your opinions and your worth, you’re being broken down and reduced to a blank slate for the abuser to rewrite into their image.
If you sense that you’re being ‘triangulated,’ realize that there’s a good chance that the other part of the triangle is in the same boat as you; everyone is being played by one person. You can also ‘reverse-triangulate’ by gaining your own support from a third party that’s not under the narcissist’s influence, thereby validating you.
Bait and Feign Innocence
For some, the power in a narcissistic relationship is the ability to bait and goad someone into a confrontation to tear them down, then sitting back to revel in the damage. It can start small, but know that they are “baiting” you into going down the rabbit hole. They know your insecurities, what shatters your confidence and the topics that open old wounds, and they’ll use this knowledge to maliciously provoke you. Then, once you’re truly and royally fucked, they’ll stand back and as you “are you okay?” and say that they “didn’t mean to agitate you.” This faux innocence is meant to catch you off guard and sucker you in even more, making you think that it was all your fault. It’s not – this was all planned.
As long as you know yourself enough to know when you’re being baited, you can avoid engaging them all together. When you hear provocative statements, name-calling, hurtful statements and generalizations, you know that they’re aiming to push all your buttons. Slam the fucking door and step away. Take your time to respond and don’t get baited, no matter what.
Boundary Testing and Hoovering
Narcissist, sociopaths and other toxic people are always testing boundaries to see how far they can go and how much they can push. The more violations they can get away with, without getting caught, further emboldens them to keep pushing. This is why survivors of emotional and physical abuse often experience more severe trauma when they go back; it escalates.
Abusers are exceptionally skilled at ‘hoovering’ their victims back with sweet promises of change, fake remorse and empty words on how they’ll do better. Then they escalate instead. To the abuser, this boundary testing is a punishment for someone standing up to them, and their just desserts for coming back to them. To a highly manipulative person, there is no compassion or empathy, only consequences. This is all they understand.
Aggressive Jabs Disguised as Jokes
It’s extremely covert, but narcissist are excellent at making secret malicious remarks at your expense. They’re usually dressed up as “just jokes” so that they can get away with saying appalling things. Then, when you get outraged at such an insensitive, harsh remark, they accuse you of having no sense of humor, that you just don’t get the joke.
Except the joke is that they’re getting away with it. There’s a smirk and a contemptuous gleam in their eyes when they say that shit to you – it’s like a predator that plays with its food. An abuser gains pleasure from hurting you and getting away with it – after all, it’s a joke, right? This deflects from the cruelty of the act, and paints you as humourless and far too sensitive. In this moment, they’re got you right where they want you and will start to ‘gaslight’ you.
It’s at this point that you need to walk away and drop the jokes altogether.
Condescending Sarcasm and Patronizing Tone
If jokes don’t work, then you’ve got the other end of the spectrum; patronizing tones and sarcasm. When it comes to toxic people, how they use their voice is a key tool in their toolbox. When both parties are engaged, sarcasm can be funny, but if only one person is playing the game, then it’s a way to manipulate and degrade you. And if you react, you’re “too sensitive.” If you argue, then you’re faced with temper tantrums, treated like a child and talked down to, which can lead you to self-censor yourself and never voice your opinion. Then the abuser has less work to do, since you’re keeping yourself in line.
If you’re faced with a condescending demeanour or tone, call it out firmly. You don’t deserve to be spoken own to, or made fun of, nor should you silence yourself because the other person isn’t really ready to hear your truth.
Shaming
One of the go-to phrases for a toxic person is “you should be ashamed of yourself.” While, non-toxic people can use this too, in the ands of a sociopath and a narcissist, it takes on a different resonance. This is an effective way of targeting a behaviour that might challenge a toxic person’s power. It’ll wear down on your self-esteem, and diminish your accomplishments. They’ll use your own wounds against you, and shame your about any abuse or injustice you’ve suffered as a way to retraumatize you. If you survived childhood abuse, they’ll shame you into thinking you deserved it or brag about their normal, happy childhood.
There’s no reason to reveal any past traumas to anyone until they’ve earned that right, and even then, be sparing with what you share. You never know who’s going to use it against you.
Control
Most importantly, narcissists are all about control. They want to isolate you, maintain dominion over your life and micromanage ever facet of your life, and they rely on your emotions to do this.
This is why abusive narcissists and sociopaths are able to manufacture conflict out of thin air, to keep you off-balance and off-centre. They’ll fight over irrelevant things and rage over perceived slights. They’ll emotionally withdraw, then become false-warm. They chip, and they peck and they wear away your psychological safety until very little of yourself remains.
This is how they control you, the more they control your emotions, the more they control you. So the next time you meet someone new and they’re pulling off some of these tricks, you know what you’re in for and you can work accordingly to avoid becoming the victim of a toxic individual.
Because they could be anywhere and anyone, and could be keeping their eye on you.
You never know…
H/T Thought Catalog
