The Dozen of Dismay
You are people of emotion. Not only do you experience a wide range of emotions, both good and bad, you experience emotion frequently. Your emotional output is heightened, intense and superior to that of “normal” people. You allow emotions to govern you, you are very much in touch with them and you will struggle to keep them under control, masked and hidden. These qualities which apply to the empath, super empath and co-dependent in increasing amounts make you the ideal targets for us. This is for two reasons. The first, naturally, is because your copious emotional output amounts to delicious and potent fuel for us. Our lifeblood. You are necessary to sustain our existence for it is through you that we are able to gain a sense of existence, your fuel powering what we are, what we wish to portray and that which we wish to banish. Fuel is the most important factor, but it is not the sole factor. The second reason why we require such emotional individuals to connect with (and especially in the role as intimate partner primary source) is that your emotional condition allows us to exert control over you. The exertion of control allows us to maintain our sense of superiority. This superiority allows us to paralyse you and keep you in this emotional state. Thus the cycle continues until such time as the emotional output drops below that level which is acceptable to us. By ensuring that you remain emotional, we prevent you from seeing the reality of what is happening to you. We ensure that your decision making is not borne of cool, hard logic. You are prevented from moving forward. You are prevented from escaping us. This is why so much of our manipulative behaviour is focused on provoking emotional responses from you. For fuel and for control. We must control our environment if we are to exist and this means controlling our appliances, including you as primary source.
As with so much of the narcissistic entanglement, the preservation of an emotional state is achieved through steps which we take but also as a consequence of traits which are particularly evident in your kind, as compared to normal people. These actions and traits combine through our daily interactions. They permeate everything that we say and do. Our manipulation relies on the existence of these items in order to maximise their effect and keep you in an emotional state. These actions and traits exist in the entanglement between my kind and your kind so that the dance continues, the hold is maintained and the emotion pours forth. We look to apply these actions in all our manipulations. We look to capitalise on these traits in you. Together there is an effective combination which ultimately creates your dismay and thus the emotional state we crave in you. There are twelve of these actions and traits; six from us and six from you.
- Generalising. We use this to maintain our superiority and belittle you. By generalising we make it sound as if we are the ones who can do no wrong and you are the ones who are always in the wrong. Thus we will make comments such as: –
“You never tell me that you love me.”
“I always am the one who has to sort things out.”
“Everybody thinks that you are horrible to me.”
“You never let me do what you want.”
Such broad brush and wide-ranging allegations are issued with total conviction in order to have considerable effect on you.
- Future Prediction. You are apt to base what you think the future should be based on what has happened already. This invariably means that because you have experienced the joy and wonder of the golden period that you expect that the relationship should continue in a similar vein in the future and thus you have a raised (and ultimately unrealistic) expectation by placing your hopes and decisions on the past rather than the present.
- Past Transgressions. We revel in raking up the past about you in order to suggest that you have done something wrong. If you have committed some wrong in the past (whether it is minor or major in nature) we are always able to remember it and we will keep digging it up. We never bury anything dead. We will also invent past transgressions which we perceive you to have committed, after all, you are not doing what we want, you are no longer idealised and therefore you must have done something wrong, yes? These inventions will be vague and amorphous in nature.
- Black and White Thinking. A dizzying and disorientating response to the perceived criticism which you hurl at us repeatedly so that you will be hero one moment, then zero the next. We do not operate in the grey when it comes to our view of you and others. You are either white or black. Then white again. Before becoming black once more. Often in the space of minutes.
- Closed Mind. We operate with a closed mind. We know best. We know the right things to do. We do not listen to anybody, least of all you, because you are a traitor, a moron and a fool. This prevents us from dealing with your challenges and heads off any sensible and credible suggestions you may happen to make about a situation which might undermine our sense of superiority
- Catastrophic Thinking. You engage in this as a consequence of an inherent nature to be like this but we engender and cultivate it through our conditioning of you. Since our responses when devaluing you are disproportionate (from your perspective) you then become used to the fact that when something goes wrong, it will go very wrong indeed. This causes you to always assume the worst which increases your anxiety and emotional responses.
- Irrational Fear. Again as a consequence of the mind games that we play with you, you find yourself second-guessing, questioning and obsessing over everything that is said and done which result in your acquiring an irrational fear. You will find something to worry about in the slightest remark or expression. Once upon a time you will never have done so, but your entanglement with us causes this to happen and with it the emotion flows.
- Projection. We project repeatedly by accusing you of doing the very things which we are guilty of ourselves. This is an instinctive response by us and is not only a form of defence but it also causes you to be put on the back foot as you seek to justify your own behaviour and find yourself bewildered to be accused of the act yourselves. Your response is one of astonishment, amazement, upset and annoyance. All good for the emotional quota.
- Blame-shifting. Another stock behaviour of our kind borne out of our need to avoid culpability for anything, which accords with our sense of entitlement. Thus it is always somebody else’s fault. Usually yours. This allows us to castigate you and causes you to react in a similar way to when we project.
- Never Looking Back. We are too busy driving forward to contemplate our navels and mull over events. We do not operate in this manner, but you do. Your propensity to reflect, consider and assess means that you dwell on matters for too far long and in so doing you paralyse yourselves.
- Mea Culpa. Not only do we blame you for everything you also engage in blaming yourself. You need to find answers to why things happen and if we are blame-shifting and rejection any suggestion that it is down to us, you then have a habit of accepting that you must be at fault somehow. It gets worse however. You do not just shrug and accept you are to blame, but you beat yourselves up trying to figure out what it is, spending time and energy working out why you are at fault.
- The Fixer. Your desire to fix everything, to heal and make good, means that you cannot walk away readily from situation where you would do well to do so. Instead you remain in the firing lane, in the furnace, in the midst of battle as the manipulations continue and with it the increased emotion that follows.
A dozen reasons. Six from us. Six from you. Twelve acts and conditions which result in your continued emotional state.
27 thoughts on “The Dozen of Dismay”
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I would just do my job so “taking a bullet” for someone could be part of that…but part of the job. We would banter.
Let’s walk the city together.
I clock in with this ESTP-T. I took this test months ago.
Hey Everyone *whistles loudly*
Attention. I am a ENFJ or SURPRISE a ENFP. Whaaat you say? Yes my score on judging is only 3% so the answer received was “Because you appear to have marginal or no (3%) judging over perceiving, characteristics of more than one personality type apply”. I knew I had a multiple personality. Oh and in case you did not notice, I am an extrovert! Who knew? 😎💙
Superiority as you describe only exists in your wishful thinking, HG! This makes me a little mad!! Only a coward needs to control someone else to feel safe!! There is authority in kindness: why can you not lead with gentleness instead of force?!! They would follow you just as willingly. Nothing long-term is achieved with force: I hope you will understand that one fine day!!
After narcissistic abuse, and on our paths to healing, we are very much in tune with our emotions BUT we do not let them govern us ANYMORE. That is why educated empaths are a narc’s worst nightmare! Nothing makes me more proud of our kind than to know they did not destroy us! They made us stronger, wiser and more powerful than any narc could ever hope to be: because we are complete human beings, able to heal ourselves, able to love (fuel) ourselves and others. Due to the abuse we suffered, we are very much capable of the same ruthlessness we had experienced, and we may strike with full force if absolutely necessary. But we rise above that, we choose to be better than that, we choose to move on and find purpose in protecting and healing others. I am so proud of our kind…
Power exists to be wielded Matilda otherwise what is the point of having it. When I was younger, I considered a career in the police and indeed obtained a place on their accelerated promotion scheme. The attraction of having the power of the state backing me up was huge, unfortunately the pay was not so I decided against it.
No, TRUE STRENGTH comes from having power but not using it against the innocent! You are not attacking your equals, this is never a fair battle. You are descending on the beautiful who have no idea what lurks beneath. Makes it utterly despicable.
As a police officer, you would have had the state backing you but only within the limits of the law. You consider yourself to be above everyone else, and certainly above the law. How would that have worked out, I wonder! 😀
You are more cut out to be a lawyer (always needs to win regardless of right or wrong), a hedge fund manager (playing with other peoples’ money and not taking any responsibilty for a crash), a stock broker (ah, nothing better than the rush on the trading floor, gets the adrenaline flowing), or a business consultant (40% knowledge, 60% self-promotion and delusions of grandeur).
A colleague of mine once worked in a law firm, where they would have regular competitions going on. The prize usually was a bottle of wine, or something similar. And she would recall how these psychos would use every dirty little trick in the book bar cutting eachother’s throats to win. Because winning is everything apparently. What they do not *grasp* is the bigger picture! That is a cognitive deficit in cluster B types. The bigger picture!! They are so busy winning that they do not even ask themselves if it is worth winning, if it matters! Made me laugh. And if one was clever, and wanted to teach them a lesson, one could even go so far as to feed them false information to throw them off the track or to turn them against eachother. Then, one would sit back and watch them destroy eachother. Now, that would be a interesting case study, live and in colour! 😀
I wanted to be an LEO, HG. Lmao should we have been partnered together. Could you imagine? Not a rhetorical question. What would a day in our job be?
I would be Dirty Harry and you the new partner who runs the greater risk of getting shot. You’d take that bullet for me wouldn’t you 1jaded? I daresay the patrol car banter would be entertaining.
BTW…isfp still. The Adventurer. Last two are very on the fence between t and j.
In the States most law inforcement jobs are mediocre in pay, BUT in some areas there is much to be gained in obtiaing contacts, special favors, and lucrative “side jobs”. It’s all under the guise of effective law enforcement. It can’t be breaking the law if a cop does it, can it? Also, the uniform is a fuel magnet. Ns of every level are employed in law enforcement. For those empaths that like to play S&m games, check out your local police department.
You have covered the relationship between a narcissist and empath well… doesn’t matter if it is intimate, friend or family. I can read each number and immediately recall my thoughts and feelings when I encountered the actions or reactions whether it was from my ex or myself.
Ladies, I tested as an INFJ but recently I have shifted to ENFP-A. 🙂 Remember you are supposed to take the test as we do have a tendency to shift our emotions! 🙂
dragoncreeper…I wasn’t always an INFJ. It’s in my older age that I’ve become more empathetic, more complacent, but I plan to transform yet again. Thanks for the reminder.
I wasn’t either, I found myself taking this test again towards the end with my exN and found myself an INFJ…. It’s been 6months now and I’ve changed yet again! 🙂 I think we are constantly changing because of life and the paths we take but as long as we stay on the right path! There is absolutely everything right with love and compassion! 🙂
Very interesting, HG. In this post you clearly describe me, my kind. The delicate nervous sometimes fearing kind. (Many of us have some dominating toxic parent or sibling.)
But his new supply who is an old friend of mine, is more direct; she initiates, asks him out, drives him around in her car, says great things about him in an decisive way, etc
I think that to her, your post about Positivity applies much more than this post.
Even though I also got caught by my positive thinking and hopes.
From your works HG, I can understand the splitting more now and why it triggers based on other’s reactions. I am just grateful that you are able to share it with the world so they can understand as everything you say resonates truth.
Thank you Sarah.
Your writing is always so amazing that even if I’ve read the post or book before it is always breathtaking if not more … If I could describe one person perfect in this world that would be YOU dear G.
Hello, Mrs. Linton. Confirming your infj theory. Guilty as charged. I noticed this consistency as well. I wonder if I could change that though and, as HG often reminds us, start allowing hard facts and logic to drive my decisions and not my feelings and emotions. Very best to you!
Mrs Linton
I am also an INFJ
Mrs Linton
I am also an INFJ
Now I see why my mother picked on me uniquely and above all others in my family. I am an infj on th MBTI as so many of you on this blog will be. Do let me know guys if you know if you are as it will confirm the theory as infj is the most empathic of all the types. The rest of my family are thinking types so I was screwed for emotional button pressing. Forty plus years I have spent trying to find out why she picked on me and now I know. Finally. That’s amazing. I need that to sink in. She must have loved making me cry the bastard.
Thank you doesn’t do it justice. It’s going to be a doddle staying NC now!
You are welcome Mrs Linton.
Mine was INFP.
Mine is ENFJ
ISFP here.
INFJ. Interesting observation…
I’m infp, my mid elite, said He was infj