Oh No, Not I!
It is fundamental that we remain unaccountable for our actions. Not only is it the case that we believe we are entitled to complete immunity for what we say and do, occasioned by our innate superiority, we also believe it to be necessary for us to be able to gather fuel as often and as effectively as we do. If we were slowed down by having to make meaningful apologies, explain ourselves, account for what we have done and accept responsibility for the consequences this would absorb time that would be far better spent in the pursuit of fuel. Hampering us in such a way would result in us becoming weaker since we would not be able to gather as much fuel as usual. It is therefore necessary, so we remain sleek, effective and light of foot, for us to never be concerned about accountability and also to never allow responsibility to rest with us. As with many of our machinations, this approach also allows us to gather fuel in itself by the imposition of blame on others, usually you and the astonished and outraged emotional response which then flows from this staggering act of walking away scot free. As ever, words are our best allies when it comes to throwing off the attempt to make us assume the mantle of responsibility. Here are five of our favourites.
- What do you expect me to do about it?
I regularly brag about how brilliant and special I am. That I have many talents and if I so chose I could remedy many situations within moments, but notwithstanding this being the stance that I adopt to the world at large, I am not going to do that with you. Not a chance. I am not here to pick up the pieces after you, although I expect you to do so for me repeatedly. I can do as I like and you are obliged to make good the damage that I cause – collect the broken pieces of crockery, apologise to the shell-shocked friend after an outburst, try to solve the financial headache that we have left. If you have caused a problem, and let’s face it, it is always your fault anyway, you cannot expect me to do something about it. I am above such menial tasks. I have important and bigger things to attend to. Such as? I don’t have to explain myself to the likes of you. If I caused the problem (which in reality is usually the case) I am not going to do anything about it.
- Deal with it.
That’s the way it is and you had better get used to it. This haughty declaration is par the course for our sense of entitlement to do as we please. We bulldoze through everything and you just have to put up with it. You can’t walk away; we will not allow that to happen. Issuing this barked instruction at you is an effective way of upsetting you. It is telling you that you are useless and you should just be getting on with the situation rather than complaining about it. You shouldn’t be complaining; you should have already guessed that you needed to sort the situation out. Don’t ask me for help because I just do not have time for this mickey mouse nonsense.
- You caused this to happen.
We like to maintain that we act with the omnipotence of a god but how many times have you found that you have somehow caused something to happen so that it would suggest that you exercise the powers of a deity? My late arrival was down to you. My failure to remember something was caused by you. My infidelity for the sixth time was wholly as a consequence of what you have done. At its most brutal this declaration is issued without any explanation as to why it is that you caused the problem to arise. We say that it is the case therefore that must be right. Does this exchange seem familiar?
“Why is that the case?”
“It just is.”
“But why?”
“Because I say so.”
Other than our kind, who comes out with such assertions bereft of reality or explanation? That’s right, children. That tells you all you need to know about our mentality when we accuse you of being the one who has caused the problem. If you are “fortunate” enough to be given some kind of explanation it makes perfect sense when viewed from our perspective, although it will not from yours. That is deliberate. We want you to feel astonished, bewildered and annoyed at our sheer audacity to make the connection between our wrongdoing and your causation.
“If you were more loving I wouldn’t go elsewhere.”
“What do you mean by that? I couldn’t be anymore loving towards you.”
“Oh that’s right, deny it is anything to do with you and make me about to the bad person.”
“Well, it is you who had the affair.”
“Caused by you.”
“How?”
“I have already told you and if you cannot accept that then there is no point continuing with this conversation.”
You get no answer no acceptance of blame. All you get is a tenuous (in your world but not ours) explanation as to why our wrongdoing is all down to you.
- Why do you have to spoil everything?
A cousin of the third shirking above but with an added layer of blame. In the above example, you have caused the problem although you may not necessarily have intended it. With this statement we are telling you that not only is the problem not of our doing, it is your fault and guess what? You meant to do it because you are such an awful and horrible person. Our rampant paranoia causes us to believe that you are out to get us, to topple us and that you are plotting to unseat us as a consequence of our behaviour towards you during devaluation. This is why whenever anything goes wrong you are the architect of that misfortune as you have purposefully set out to cause a problem for us, driven by your innate nastiness and jealousy.
- Why do you make my life so hard?
Poor us. Put upon by you and your terrible behaviours. This is often thrown at you when you begin to wise-up to our manipulations and either through choice or out of sheer exhaustion you are no longer and engaging with our provocations and machinations. What we are actually saying to you here is, “Why do you make it so hard to extract fuel from you?” Your failure to play ball and do what we want is causing us to expend more energy in order to get the negative fuel from you and in accordance with our outlook as a victim, you are doing this on purpose. We need to get that fuel and you should be helping us, not hindering us, no wonder we lash out at you as we do because you are horrible and you make our lives far more difficult and hard than you should or once did.
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This is all so familiar.
Oh yes the ex narc, used all of these and more, he was so good at escaping accountability. I at great concern for my teen daughter, she reminds me of her father as she too blames everyone for anything and everything, it is quite shocking. I am now implementing defenses I have to use on my ex with her, it’s all very sad that I did not prevent this while she was younger, tell me HG, is it too late for her?
I was not at the height of my powers as a teen, which tells me that you may be able to ameliorate the effects.
We can be having a normal evening watching tv and out of nowhere she will bring on the tears, and begin to accuse whom ever is the target at that moment of being “mean” out of nowhere. Or she will say something rude again out of no where and begin to stir the pot, and then deny she did anything. She is always saying I didn’t say anything I did nothing that person is just mean. She will all of a sudden say “You hate me don’t you?” She will say this out of the blue about anyone, her friends, her dad, her brother, me and so on. She will deny she says things for example I told her how much I appreciate she had said she loved me recently this is not usual for her. She looked straight at me and said I never said that, I would never say that to you. I often just say ok and carry on, I know she is trying to bait me. I constantly have to go gray rock on her, because she is constantly looking for reaction. I keep telling myself, to be a good example, to guide and teach by not acting out in unhealthy ways myself and hope this will steer her, but I am prepared this may not work, it breaks my heart, but at the same time I protect myself from the drama and the chaos she seeks, just like her dad.
Whilst my narcissism was definitely there during my teenage years, it was still being fashioned and honed, like an unwieldy superpower if you will and this is why you may have the outbursts. Of course, such behaviour may just be her finding her identity during her teenage years and this is done through pushing boundaries, testing barriers, trying to make sense of the world which at times may seem unfair. I know from discussions I had with my sister and brother, they experienced feeling at “odds” with the world, but I knew it was not on the same scale as what i felt. I also saw how they behaved and it was nowhere near what I did. My behaviour would seem like outbursts at times, but often it was deliberate and calculated. I knew I had this “power” and I wanted to test it out.
Thank you HG. It is very difficult to discern if a young teen is developing into a narcissist just as you described it is normal to test boundaries at this age. There are 2 things I do know. One, her father nurtured her brother as the “golden child” often making comments like, “why can’t you be more like your brother?” ever since she was small. The interesting thing was her brother is adopted by her dad, my son with another man. Two, he has called her a little “monster” since she was very young, yet would tell her brother to take care of her, or be the example he was older so cater to her or “give in” etc. She has clearly been the scapegoat of our family.. She has been the one in the family from a very early age to express every emotion under the sun, and to do so whenever and wherever, so naturally became the family crux, “if she wasn’t so difficult everything would be perfect”.
Now that the divorce if done and over and she has had time to live with just her dad and return to me by her choice, I have noticed a pattern. The longer periods she has without visiting her dad the better she gets and her attitude in general stays more positive. As soon as she visits her dad and comes home after a weekend it’s as if a switch has been turned on and she becomes nasty to everyone in the house all over again. It can take a several days to a few weeks to recover, and sometimes that is disrupted again in the midst of it, from more visits.
So I guess I don’t know if I am dealing with the effects of a narcissist father’s influence and her own suffering that or if she is developing as one herself, for she can clearly show no empathy and lack complete concern for other’s and be rather honest about that, she says she doesn’t care what other’s feel all the time.
This is a familiar pattern. She is dealing with the effects of a narcissistic father and there is a risk, although since I am not party to all that is happening one cannot say with any certainty, that her defence mechanism to this treatment will be to become one herself. Evidently your influence will diminished that risk. It is the situation as described in the article Save the Children, CC.
Thank you HG, I will have to check that article out again. I have done some more research since I wrote my last comment and I have learned that in a teens brain there is still so much being developed including the ability to have empathy, and it takes time it’s an actual physical process. This gives me hope that she may be in the normal range of the spectrum.
Mr. Tudor, that’s a very powerful statement. Do you mean CC can impede her daughter’s narcissism? Is there a way to reverse the traits when the child is still young? Or can she just prevent her from accelerating to a higher level? Would you say you were at mid range during adolescence and then graduated to a higher?
I don’t think it can be reversed, but purely on my own development, I recognise how my skill and manipulations accelerated at a particular age and therefore it seems logical to me that they might be arrested although not reversed.
Did you lack tact as a teen, my daughter has no shame and acts horrible around grandparents, family friends etc. She doesn’t have much “charm” or “seducing” skills going on, she abrupt rude, spiteful, accusatory, and explosive. She has been getting “better” at self control and her outbursts last shorter and don’t escalate as they once did, since she has been with me again and not living with her father.
Can narcissists lack the charm? Or could she be suffering something else?
I could be very direct at times. I also knew when to be circumspect or when it was expected so I did not do so, going for the direct approach for the purpose of gaining the greater reaction. Yes, narcissists can lack charm, this is most evident in Lessers. They tend to keep the beast in check during the golden period so there is not much charm in evidence CC, it is in short supply and is refusing to stretch. The Mid range and of course the Greaters are the ones who have far more charm.
Ha! Well No. 2, as you know was one of JN’s favorites to tell me. Good times there.
I’m curious though, about 3 and 4. My last go around with him 2 weeks ago, he said repeatedly that I “ruined it” being him following through to see me again because of my mouth and my conspiracy theories.
You say this stems from rampant paranoia that one is out to get you and crush you. He had never used that verbiage with me before.
Was he projecting? Is he really paranoid I’m piecing more and more about him together?
The paranoia is there.
Hmmmmm…what do you gauge? Enough paranoia that I’m too much work for him now? Or do you think he’ll reappear again with his usual 4-6 week pattern again?
He will get fuel elsewhere and return later.
Jeesh! He beat you to your reply, emailing and asking if I made it back safe from my trip a few minutes ago. Well, that’s settled.
Lol
He refuelled promptly but wants some Hoover fuel too
Must have been some real low grade cheap fuel if the turnaround was that quick.
My ex-wife is a narcissist and it is truly mind-blowing to have a conversation with her. If I didn’t know who she truly is, I would get really pissed. For example she accuses me of her getting angry when I don’t agree with her and I don’t just obey right away. Also she gets angry at me if she wants something and I ask for any explanation. She says it is enough for me to know when something happens but she doesn’t need to explain herself to me. She feels so entitled to special treatment. I don’t understand how she can maintain her career with such a poor social skills.
Hello Bandit, your lack of comprehension at her maintaining her career is a frequent question from victims. The answer is, is that she presents a different person in her workplace to the one she presents to you. Hence she can maintain her career because she adopts a façade there.
Reblogged this on MARSHALL W THOMPSON, SR.
Amazing. My N always told me he simply didn’t have the energy to waste on me explaining things! That I wasn’t giving him what he needed any longer. I was suddenly incapable. Never understood until just now. Nons just don’t communicate with those words.
Thanks HG!
Hi HG,
My name is Katie.
I have been reading up on a huge assortment of your books which I’ve purchased and have read through over the past 4 months now and I want to thank you for being so kind to explain things. I don’t know where I’d be right now if it weren’t for the understand I’ve gained now because of your honest and forthright explanations you give in your books.
I was wondering if there was a private forum that I could ask you a few things that have me stuck with the end of my 7 year relationship with my ex Narcissist.?
I’ve tried to find one but can’t seem to do so…. I’m not even sure you would have time or do so free of charge but either way can you let me know?
I’d really appreciate it.
Thank you for your time,
Katie
Hello Katie, thank you for your kind words, I’m pleased you’ve found my work useful. If you email me at narcissist1909@gmail.com we can discuss.
I know they say all narcissists cheat but my exN would always warn me that he’d go else where to get what he wanted if I didn’t provide it the way he wanted. He had me conditioned well. I don’t think I heard that threat in 3 years prior to me leaving.
Mine,at the beginning, said he would mess around if he didin’t get his. Then practically in the same breath, would say “you know I don’t mess around” then “there’s nothing wrong with any two people doing what they like”.
Then “you know I don’t mess around” and “my ex stayed over I didn’t even know she was there!”
Then “you know I don’t mess around” and “but I might as well if you accuse me so often”
“But I Love You Honey” at the end of each mind game. Every affair that I discovered was agony. Despite the warnings
.His favorite way of avoiding accountability was to say “Oh Honey I really wish I could do something, anything for you, I am just too poor/sick/upset!”. Very seductive guilt inducing statement.
Perfect excuse for a Victim N. One to add to the list lol.
I think I am evil in that department… don’t give me what I want, fine I will do it right next to you.
I must admit, though, it got me in serious trouble with my exN before. He actually accused me of cheating because I wanted him. I will not play that game ever again.
It gets complicated. All the while mine was playing those games and cheating he DEMANDED fidelity yet stopped any physical affection with me using health as an excuse. I understand people have a right to pursue what they need when an N is abusing them, but they are so good at the mind f****** and turning the tables. Good riddance to mine!
I am lucky in that aspect, I can only recall a week in our entire relationship he played that game with me… I do not know if he cheated, while it has crossed my mind that wasn’t even my concern. You are right, they are like acid and totally f***** with the mind.
So lets have a little song sesh… here is a little love to all of the N’s in our lives… because at the time, this is how they make us feel:
HG
Is there away to spot a Narc who is on a dating site. Is there red flags within there profile?
the younger generation uses many of these sights and I am reading more and more about how dangerous they can be. I think anyone is vulenerable but those in there 20’s are so much more. Thanks!
Hello SII, I have several pieces scheduled for posting which address this. Different profiles for different narcissists and the red flags to be aware of from the profile.
As always your ahead of the game! Thanks! I look forward to reading and sharing those posts!!
You are welcome, I think you will find them interesting.
SII I can send you directly to one I know is a narc. Diagnosed NPD. What site on you on? He is still up and running. I am not longer on the sites but I have my spies. >