Exposure : During Devaluation

That lightbulb moment has arrived. You know what you are dealing with. At last. You’ve known that what is happening or has happened to you is wrong. You didn’t know why it was happening and you certainly had no idea that you were ensnared by a narcissist but now you do know. You know what he or she is.

In keeping with your empathic traits of honesty, decency, goodness and wanting to seek the truth, amongst other characteristics, you feel that hard to resist pull of wanting to utilise your new found knowledge. You are not addressing the desire to tell us what we are, although that is also pressing, but instead it is that need to tell the world, everybody else,what we are.

I do not mean your close and trusted confidantes. They may well already have reservations about us (even if they do not know what we are) and will need little convincing. Exposing us to them has little impact anyway since we will have most likely regarded them as trouble makers and sought to discredit and isolate them from you already.

This exposure is in respect of telling our family, our friends, our work colleagues, our fellow team members, neighbours and anybody else you can think of.You want to expose us. You want everybody to know the label that describes us and you want everybody to know precisely what that means. You want to detail the cunning seduction, the sudden switch to devaluation, the mind games, the abuse, the push and the pull, the torture, the future faking, the despair, the insidious nature of it, the lies and the lies and the lies.

You want to create a flyer, a billboard, a film ripping that mask off and exposing everything that lies underneath. It is not enough to tell people that we are a narcissist, after all, most people will not understand what that really means. No, what you want to do is give the world the knowledge that we are a narcissist and this means x,y and z. The full horror. The gory detail. You want that spotlight that we crave so often to turn into a searing, burning flame of truthful exposure that causes us to shrink away from its illuminating beam causing us to scuttle away, a pariah, an outcast and a reject. Exiled by your exposure of what we truly are. What sweet revenge, what satisfaction to let everybody know just what we are so that nobody else in the locality falls for the deceit, the fraud and the seductive con-tricks ever again.

Do you do it?

Of course there are those of you, most likely those who have absorbed the knowledge provided to you and whose character leans this way in any event, who would rather focus on using your new found knowledge to get out and stay out and you are not concerned about achieving an exposure.

But what about for those of you who feel this pressing need to expose us to the wider world? What ought you to consider?

To understand what is likely to happen if you take this step, thus you become informed in your decision-making, there are two key questions.

When do you do it?

What type of our kind are you dealing with?

It is safe to say that no exposure really occurs during seduction. Firstly, next to nobody knows that they are being seduced by a narcissist. If you have an awareness following previous entanglements you invariably evade the overtures when they first manifest and get away from the relevant individual. There is no real compulsion to expose in such an instance. For the most part, the individual being seduced has no idea they are entangled with a narcissist and of course, the pleasure of the seduction would put to bed any such thoughts of exposure.

Exposure may be something that springs to mind during devaluation. It is still reasonably uncommon for someone to realise that they are in the grip of a narcissist during devaluation (enlightenment usually appears post discard or in subsequent entanglements following successful hoovers). However, let us take the instance whereby you know the treatment you are receiving is wrong and you have, somehow, been able to learn that what you are involved in is the narcissistic dynamic and this person who you love, but whose love for you has turned to malice, is indeed a narcissist.

It is noteworthy at this juncture that the prospects of exposure still remain slim because even though you may now know who you are dealing with, the emotional infection that has a hold on you, combined with your empathic traits actually fights against exposing that person. You are more likely to want to let them know what this person is in order to try to help them and make things alter. You may not have yet grasped that such a step is futile or even if you have been told this, your emotional impulses are too great and they override logic, so you remain and wish to heal and fix.

Accordingly, exposure during devaluation is uncommon owing to first the lack of knowledge and then even if knowledge is acquired, a failure to apply it owing to the emotional infection that prevails.

Let us assume however that you have gained this knowledge and you are resolute in your desire to expose us to the wider world. Should you proceed when you remain in the devaluation?

The Lesser.  If you expose the Lesser Narcissist to third parties word will reach him. He does not know what he is. Your behaviour is seen as extreme treachery. It is a criticism of him, to other people, those who know him and consider him to be a decent person, reliable and likeable. You will face resistance from those you tell because of the facade. This resistance is not substantial however because there will have been instances of the mask slipping witnessed by others although they will not have attributed it to this person being a narcissist. Instead, it will be linked to fatigue, stress, drink or such like. There is also the potential that you have been smeared by us which damages your credibility. Thus, subject to the evidence you have, its quality and independence, you may not succeed in the exposure anyway.

What you will face however is the inevitable ignition of the Lesser’s fury which will manifest as heated fury. You can expect it to be savage and brutal as you are trying to tear down his carefully created world and leave him exposed in the wilderness. You are likely to be in danger of physical assault, property damage, verbal assaults and a raging fury of a response. Since you have done this during devaluation and thus you will be readily accessible, you will be placing yourself in considerable danger.

Accordingly, if you expose us during devaluation with a Lesser you are risking serious injury and harm. You may succeed in smashing the facade, because people may well link what you say with what they have witnessed previously when the mask slips, but it is not guaranteed.

The Mid-Ranger. Word will again reach the Mid-Ranger of what you are doing. You will face considerable resistance from the facade because the improved cognitive function of the Mid-Ranger, compared with the Lesser, his degree of charm and quiet and easy manner means that those who are subjected to your exposure attempt will struggle to reconcile what you are saying with what they have seen and therefore you will have minimal impact. Of course, the quality of your evidence will have some bearing on this, but it will not be straight forward. You also have the additional obstacle of potentially having been smeared, dependent on how close discard is.

In terms of the response from the Mid-Ranger, his fury will ignite as a consequence of the criticism he sees from your exposure attempt.He will not be able to control this fury. You will be challenged by the Mid-Ranger who will initially plead with you to stop and make use of pity plays, trying to convince you that you are wrong. Remember, he does not know what he is either and therefore will see you exposing his behaviour as plain incorrect and also disloyal. If the pity play does not work, you can expect to see heated fury from the Mid-Ranger. This is one of the few occasions when heated fury is seen with a Mid-Ranger as they tend to use cold fury more often. This is because not only are they facing the loss of their primary source, they are also facing damage to the facade and this pincer movement will push him to heated fury. You can expect verbal assaults, property damage and a calculated campaign of intimidation. Physical violence remains less likely and nowhere near as brutal as that doled out by the lesser.

If you persist, the Mid-Ranger is likely then to withdraw and impose a cold fury against you with silent treatment. Subject to your response, this may actually cause him to withdraw for some time as you are discarded as a consequence of what you have done. The risk of a hoover will also be reduced owing to the knowledge that you have acquired and the raising of the bar in respect of the Hoover Execution Criteria being reached.

Thus with the Mid-Ranger if you expose him during devaluation you will face an unpleasant reaction and you will struggle to affect the facade to any great degree. You will however bring about a discard and a withdrawal which may well provide you with a head start concerning no contact, but you can expect that the reaction of third parties will be difficult to deal with. Many will see you as the villain of the piece, for hurting the Mid-Ranger, for “telling tales” and spoiling, which to the outside, appeared to be a good relationship.

The Greater. What then of the Greater? How will he react and what will happen if you decide to expose him or her during devaluation? The more extensive cognitive function of the Greater combined with his wider networks means that he or she will be aware of your treachery very quickly.

First of all you have little chance of all at affecting the facade. The powers of the Greater will be such that most people will be completely brainwashed to the virtues of the Greater and will not accept what they are being told about us. Furthermore, subject to the proximity of the discard, you will have been smeared and therefore your words will be treated with scepticism (you are portrayed as a habitual liar), patronising sympathy (you have been portrayed as The Fantasist), scorn (you have been painted as The Abuser) or disgust (you have been labelled as The Ungrateful One). Also, since your treacherous exposure will be learned of quicker than in the instances above, the propaganda machine of the Greater will have been wheeled out in order to extinguish your ill-founded gossip and ramblings.

The combination of brainwashing, prompt propaganda response and smearing makes it extremely hard for you to impact on the facade of a greater. Your evidence will have to be extremely convincing and to have been delivered without a smear in place.

Secondly, the Greater will launch a charm offensive with you. You will experience a Respite Hoover and a reinstatement of the golden period. His or her ability to charm, explain, smooth over and assuage your concerns will actually cause your resolve to waver. They will appear so convincing that you will be persuaded to think that you have wrongly labelled them as a narcissist. The Greater knows what he is, but he will not admit it, but he will play to your sense of wanting to seek the truth, to understand to heal by sitting down with you and listening to your concerns. He knows that rather than have you tell the wider world what he is, it is far better to keep it between you and him. That way he causes you to shift your focus so the facade is left well alone. He may even admit he has some issues or problems and asks for your help to address them. Of course this is lip service. The Greater knows that he is better served by not reinforcing the image of being a narcissist through abuse, but better off charming you again and casting your conclusion into considerable doubt. This technique, combined with the return of the addictive golden period and the inherent empathic traits means that you are more than likely to halt your exposure.

The Greater is now fore-warned as to your knowledge. He will maintain a period of respite but will be plotting to smear you into oblivion and then discard you, so that when you try to revisit the exposure post discard you will be doomed to failure in terms of affecting the facade.

Thus, these are the likely scenarios when seeking to expose us to the wider world during devaluation. The follow-up part of this article will explain what will happen if the exposure takes place post-escape or post discard.