Why Does He Seem Like a Different Person?
It is accurate to state that we operate in three essential states. There are varying degrees within those states, differing levels of intensity which are affected by factors such as the type of narcissist that we are, what we require from you, the level of empathic individual you are as well as several others. Nevertheless, there are three basic states. The first, as you would expect, is the golden setting. We are at our most wonderful, most brilliant and most loving when in this state. This always appears during our seduction of you and we will reinstate it from time to time and often when we hoover you in order to suck you back in and keep you hanging on to us. The second is the dark setting when we instigate our devaluation of you. This dark setting allows us to deploy our various machinations against you, a variety of different of manipulations as the abuse begins and we make your life particularly unpleasant. This requires effort and energy on our part and whilst we will be rewarded with fuel, a certain degree of application is required to use these manipulations against you. When we unveil our dark setting it is upsetting and confusing but often you will find some reason to explain our behaviour. It is usually the wrong reason but you will find one nevertheless as you like to understand and have a reason to explain why someone is behaving in a certain way towards you – you decide we are stressed, tired, hungover, in need of affection or perhaps you are unduly harsh on yourselves so that you, in that usual empathic manner, blame yourself for the behaviour we have meted out against you. Perhaps you did not listen when you ought to have done, perhaps you should have realised that we wanted to go out tonight, or that we would not want chicken for a second time this week.
There is a third setting and this often proves more confusing that our unpleasant dark setting. This setting might be regarded as a neutral setting, somewhere between the golden and the dark, but it is not. This setting is on the road to the dark setting and is closer to that than the golden. This particular setting is the stranger setting.
There will be times when we do not wish to apply considerable energy to our continued devaluation of you, but the devaluation must continue. It may not be as harsh, since there is no shouting, no violence, no insults and such like. It is not the golden period because we show no affection, we do not do things for you and we do not exhibit any of the charm that once flowed so readily from us. During this stranger setting we are neither wonderful nor awful but we behave like someone who doesn’t really know you and you are certainly left feeling like you are dealing with somebody else.
If you telephone us we will not dole out a silent treatment and ignore your repeated calls. We will not answer in less than a ring and speak to you with affection and enthusiasm, instead we answer and engage in a monosyllabic conversation. It is like drawing teeth. We confirm that nothing is wrong and you may think there is but we have not responded angrily or harshly. We have not accused you of anything, we have not labelled you in some way but the conversation is flat. It is as if our personality, whether golden or dark has vanished and left almost an automaton in its place. We function, we talk about our day but with little detail and certainly no enthusiasm. We ask questions of you but they are polite and perfunctory as if we are just going through the motions. There is no nastiness, no backbiting or sneering. It is difficult to process because it is not nothing, that cannot be the case because we are talking to you, but it feels like nothing.
We may call around to see you but it feels like an inspector has called around. We sit, we decline a drink that you offer us and we answer your questions without offering you anything much in return. Where has the charmer gone? Where has the monster gone? Who is this stranger that looks like us, sounds like us but is not behaving like us? You cannot accuse us of being unpleasant but it feels unpleasant because you are dealing with someone you do not recognise. Any questions about what is wrong with us are politely answered and you are assured there is not a problem, but we seem lifeless. You flatter us, compliment us and whilst we accept them there is no spark of interest, there is no response.
Why are we like this? Why is this being done? Why do we seem like someone else? It is as if we have been abducted by aliens in the night and replaced with a robot which is neither wonderful nor savage but is frustratingly something else. This third setting occurs during the devaluation period. It is not a respite from devaluation as that is the golden setting once more. It is clearly not the dark setting as that is the rolling out of nastiness and abuse. This third setting is an indicator of the calm before the storm. Whilst there are occasions where we might switch from golden to dark setting in the blink of an eye, this third setting is used when we wish to conserve energy in readiness for unleashing a particular savage next stage in the devaluation as we will move to the dark setting and crank it up to eleven. You are not cruising along being driven by fair winds, nor are you being thrown up and down buffeted by a storm, instead you are becalmed or moved along by a weak breeze. This is the time we are girding our loins, gathering information and plotting. The switch of functions to the organisation and scheming of what is to come, along with the intense outpouring of energy required to sustain the vicious intensifying of this devaluation means we adopt this near automatic state. You may not ever see this happen dependent on the nature of the narcissist you have become entangled with, but when you do, you should be aware that a storm is brewing and not just any old storm but a supercell storm of savage and damaging proportions. This is a warning.
30 thoughts on “Why Does He Seem Like a Different Person?”
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Is there a way to redeem yourself from the “stranger” stage? If you are the one to cause this devaluation I would assume not.
Hello Lori, you can try and provide positive fuel with greater intensity and this may work if you have tailed off in your obvious appreciation of us, but ultimately it is down to us.
I am dealing with this stranger setting right now. I feel like he treats me like a stranger every day when I see him in a professional setting.. this feeling and the silence has been going on 2 months now. What kind of storm does a mid range passive aggressive N take part in? I’m curious because mine is a very calm and quiet man on the exterior. He has never yelled at me or physically abused me. What should I be expecting next?
My reaction towards this ST is neutral, I give it right back and pretend I don’t know him as well.
This post is so helpful to me. Victim N’S neediness and demands have suddenly disappeared and N is calm and content which is saying something for a victim N.
I suppose he thinks it is a gift to abandon me whilst procuring care elsewhere. I am supposed to celebrate the detachment but it feels like a slow windup to a heartless discard. What frightens me is that this was preceeded by a powerful and agonizing hoover. I cannot imagine how it could be worse. I hope to keep my distance or better “run away run away” like the crusaders in Monty Pythons Holy Grail when they encounter that savage bunny.
Just a minute I am collecting some coconut halves for you to bang together.
Yes, 50,0000 points of pure fuel
Ha ha you are learning
Please release your books “Unmasked, The Creature” as soon as possible. Thank you
What am I bid?
What i am thinking about: may be (?) These 3 phases (golden, devaluation, discard) all (ALL) relationships have?..
I mean between 2 “healthy” ppl as well, not only when a narcissist is involved.
The only difference that in normal relationships it comes naturally with a time vs with narcissist everything is planned in advance and happen in a very concentrated way
What do u think?
No it is not planned. We do not plan the happening of the devaluation, you cause it. We may well plan further acts DURING the devaluation but you are responsible for starting it.
Do you think that devaluation occurs in a “healthy” relationship? That strikes me as something mutually exclusive.
I think there is always a period where the shine wears off, even in a healthy relationship and I suppose this could be called ‘devaluation’? I think the difference is the pattern. In a healthy relationship, this ‘taking off a pedestal’ would be replaced by something like respect rather than be the prelude to abuse.
I believe it is also the part of the relationship where contentment and deeper love set in. Eventually life throws it’s curveballs. That’s where being partners and truly supporting each other comes into play. Not vanishing.
And this was
Freightening 😨😨
Nevertheless very good to read… Captivating. I read 3 times
I have. And I will.
Jolly good, there is a backlog so there will be an initial delay in replying.
I have read all your books, this article is not in any of them! Are you writing new books? If yes, what they talk about?
Hello and thank you for reading. Yes I am writing new books which cover a variety of subjects. Up next is Defender. I also have books in progress which cover all four of the different cadre of narcissist (4 separate books), Exorcism (deals with conquering the obsession and ever presence) Matrinarc, Unmasked, The Creature, Little Acorns, Little Boy Lost, Bolthole, 24 Hours and Trigger – there are others planned beyond these.
Wow 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 look forward to all of them.
Thank you
Have you found where some of the different scenarios or questions your readers have presented here have helped give you material for any of your books? (Not counting “Ask the Narcissist”, since you solicited those).
Some phrases have proven useful in terms of triggering facets of my life for the purpose of writing articles.
Haha…like “Deal with it!”
I would like to correspond with you, away from the blog.
I am not sure if you`re open to that or not.
By all means you have seen my email address?
Oh god do I ever know this stage. It’s recognizable to me. This last time in my diary I wrote,” it’s beginning “. This last time this phase lasted two weeks, then one treacherous week of devaluation and a quick unannounced guilitine style finish. Nothing announced, he was just out again.
It’s unbelievable how after a good time away from him I can tell myself MAYBE he is NOT as bad as I think, maybe I was wrong, he’s not REALLY a narcissist after all.
It’s such a nightmare life I’ve gotten myself into with him.
Goosebumps.
Because it is very strange behavior and even before I read the part about it being a warning of something much worse to come, it already read like exactly that. Absolutely chilling.
And something we have in common, though not really for the same reasons (I don`t think). I act like that with people when I am on he verge of cutting them out of my life or when I have become tired of them.
And I always, always tell people, the minute it appears I have stopped caring; the moment I seem absolutely indifferent to anything and everything, that`s when you need to worry.
I am absolutely stunned by just how much I am learning about myself from you. And maybe a little bit frightened (I have to say that, don`t I)……
Indeed you do.
The “calm before the storm” is what I call it when my mother goes into that neutral, or stranger, setting, and yes, it IS a warning of what’s to come. I’ll admit that I use the word “Fine” in the phase before I have a blow up of epic proportions (if asked, I’m “fine”, the weather’s “fine,” meeting for a coffee tomorrow instead of this afternoon is “fine”) everything is fine” until/unless something or someone forces me to say more than that one word and then HOLY FUCK, everybody’s going to get it (IT being the full extent of my wrath) for not taking the warning.
My last discard response was of the 3rd, however it was odd because it was not an intense devalue. It was the final, but it didnt feel intense. It was more shocking that he Hoovered me only to tell me he didn’t want me anymore. The most bizarre discard – it made no sense. The one prior to that was the monster he was absolutely horrific in how he spoke to me and ended it. This is the one I wrote a blog about.
So I do wonder why he acted that way and not the most horrendous the last and final time. Both were painful of course. But the last was odd, because he was exact to what you said. Flat. No emotion. Then the moment I had a voice it crashed down and he said that he no longer wanted me i his life and to get over ‘this’ and him…and that was the last we spoke.
Was it to let me know it was the ‘final FINAL’ curtain drop? It was a one two skadoo. And really made NO sense as to why he even returned. Im guessing because he wanted to hear me cry? I only know that whenever I said “No worries, karma will get you” he’d backpedal and say “OK lets be together but Im going to hurt you, Im doing you a favor – youll thank me for this one day”
All too bizarre