Blind or Stupid?
We love to triangulate. Three is the magic number. You, me and someone else or something else. Another victim? A competitor? A loyal lieutenant? A fresh prospect? An imaginary individual? A threatened event? An inanimate object? There are so many combinations of triangulation that are available to us and each has their own advantages and rewards for their application for us. In this equation there will always be us, there will always be you and then there will be a third party. One of our effective manipulative triangulations involves the “normals”. These are people who are neither empathic or narcissistic but people who are generally decent, sensible and largely kind who may be supporters of yours, they may be members of our façade but whatever they are they are not you and they are not us. These are the people who you turn to when you can no longer stand what is happening to you. When you cannot understand what is going on. When the confusion becomes overwhelming. When you begin to sense something is not quite right. You turn to these normal in the hope of them helping you, understanding your plight and/or offering some insight. This is rarely achieved because you are met with responses which leave you wondering whether the person you have just spoken to is blind or stupid. Here are ten instances of this in action.
- I don’t believe it
Victim – “He is horrible to me, he never lets me do anything on my own anymore, he shouts and calls me awful names.”
Normal – “Really? I just can’t see Nigel behaving like that, he is always so lovely and friendly whenever I see him. I cannot believe he would do that.”
- Are You Bringing It On Yourself?
V – “I am sick of him controlling me. I try and assert myself, you know, lay down some boundaries, but he is always telling me to shut up and calm down and doing what he wants without any consideration for me.”
N – “Well you have always been feisty my dear, maybe you are provoking him and that’s why he is behaving that way. I don’t mean to be unkind but you do have a bit of temper you know.”
- Not This Again
V- “He has done it again. Disappeared. I have been ringing him on the hour every hour and he won’t answer. I don’t know what it is. I mean, everything seemed okay when we got up this morning, he smiled and asked me if I wanted a cup of tea (cue detailed analysis of every word and interaction thereafter)
N – Glazes over, thinks to themselves “Not this again. I am bored of hearing this. They will be talking again by tomorrow. She worries over nothing.”
- I Feel Sorry for Him
V – “So he did this, then that, then this again and he always does this you know. He is horrible, Horrible I tell you. I don’t know what to do. Oh he did this as well and some more of that.”
N – Thinks to themselves “I feel sorry for him putting up with someone so neurotic as her. No wonder he clears off for a few days, probably needs the peace and quiet.”
- Someone Is Exaggerating
V – “No word of a lie, he locked me in the bedroom and threatened to burn the house down with me inside and I heard him laughing as he said this to me. I am so scared of him. He keeps threatening to kill me. He rings me at work and comments about how my brakes are dodgy and laughs and puts the ‘phone down.”
N – Thinks to themselves “Sure he does, nobody goes on like that, I do like my friend but she is something of an attention seeker. Every other day there is one of these stories.”
- I Don’t Think So
V – “So he said that if I didn’t do it he would tell everybody in the church that I was sleeping with the vicar and he would post pictures of me on the internet.”
N – “Who Norman? No way, he is such a solid and respectable man. I don’t think he would ever do anything like that. No, I have known him years, he would never do anything like that.”
- He Did Say She Was Crazy
V – “He hides my purse so I cannot go out, he tells me what I can and cannot eat, he won’t allow me more than a minute in the shower and stands watching me while I wash. He follows me around the house and keeps staring at me, I can even feel him watching me when I manage to slip out for a while. I know he is following me.”
N- Thinks to themselves “It’s just as Neil predicted. He said she was losing her mind and coming out with all these fantastic stories. He is genuinely worried about her and I can see why now. Poor thing. Poor him too.”
- Ups and Downs
V – “He sometimes doesn’t speak to me for days on end. He just sits and sulks and ignores me. It is horrible. I hate it.”
N- “Oh that’s just men for you. They all do that at some point. It’s part of the ups and downs of being in a relationship, just ignore it and get on with your day, he will soon come round, you will see.”
- Don’t Involve Me
V- “Hi it’s me, can I come round to see you. I need to talk to someone. He is doing it again. He has spent the last two hours shouting at me and throwing plates around the kitchen. I am sick of this, I cannot cope.”
N – “I’d love to help but I er, have an appointment. Look I have to go; I will call you later” – I’m not getting drawn into their domestic dramas I have my own life to look after.
- I Haven’t a Clue
V- (After lengthy description of a catalogue of odd and strange behaviour) “So what do you think, what should I do? I cannot go on like this.”
N- “I don’t know what to say really, I can’t work out why he would be lovely with you one week and then awful the next, it doen’ts add up. Perhaps if you sat down together and tried to work things out.” (I haven’t a clue what is going on here.)
Not once does the “normal” turn to you and say,
“You are being abused by a disordered person.”
Or
“You have been ensnared by a narcissist.”
Instead when you describe the behaviour to a “normal” you are met with one or more of the responses detailed above. We know this will be the case. We know it will leave you hurt, bewildered and lacking the help and insight you so desperately need. Why do people respond like this?
- Lack of knowledge. Fortunately for our kind few people really know what we are and what we do.
- We don’t walk around with a sign around our neck stating “I am an abusive narcissist”. We blend in. People think the psychopaths and sociopaths appear like some crazed axe-murderer. We do not.
- People although kind are not empathic like you. Therefore, there is a limit to the time and resource they will apply to assisting you. People are inward looking and care more about their own lives than yours.
- The façade. Our charm and magnetism has people believing us to be wonderful and decent people. That façade is hard to shatter.
- Your coping abilities are eroded and you are worn out. This makes you appear unhinged, hysterical and thus in keeping with the image that we have spread around that you are The Crazy One.
- A Quiet Life. People do not like conflict. They want people to get on and do not want to become involved in other people’s problems.
- Behind Closed Doors. People always take the view that there are two sides to every story. They will listen to you but they will think there is likely to be some explanation which means it is not as bad as you are making it out to be. You are provoking the abuser, you are making it up, you are being too sensitive and taking things the wrong way. The “normal” thinks life may be different behind closed doors.
- People want other people to get on and therefore in order to try to preserve the peace they will suggest that the behaviour is not as bad as has been suggested and pressure the victim to go home and sort things out, unaware it is not something that can be sorted out by having a chat and a cup of tea.
- The tales of abuse and awful treatment seem far-fetched that the “normal” cannot believe them. They have no experience of it and combined with the existence of the façade just cannot see how someone could behave in this way.
All of this results in you trying to persuade people without success which becomes all the more frustrating and distressing for you. Naturally, we know fine well how people will respond to your protestations and the lack of understanding and knowledge about our kind allows us to blend in, move freely around and continue to behave in this manner with impunity. You are left wondering if the listener is blind or stupid. They are not stupid. But they are blinded to what we really are.
Just like you were as well.
50 thoughts on “Blind or Stupid?”
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10. “He doesn’t act that way with meeeee”. Nope, you’re special – you really are a beautiful, intelligent, vibrant princess – it’s not that he’s bought you out with his flattery & attention. I, on the other hand, am an aggressive, negative femi-nazi who doesn’t know how to treat men. Save me from his harem!!
My friends told me to leave him because he would become silent for a few days following intimacy. They did not understand how much i loved him.
Is it strange that I’ve responded the same way as the normals my whole life? Only a person who has been through this would know what a narc is.
My blinders are off!!!! I can see perfectly.
Don’t waste your time or breath trying to explain anything that went on in your relationship.
When you are blinded, manipulated, and brainwashed you don’t listen to the “normals”. I thought they were the crazy ones.
HG’s conversations above are very accurate.
Me, a supernova. Only know this through education now. My very close friend, a doormat. Although she has had no education other than what I can tell her. (When she tells me things about him I believe her!) Her boyfriend, a narc NO DOUBT, but unsure yet what school. Thinking he’s a GL.
He has triangulated her and me. (I warned her this will happen). Now he has discarded/silent treatment’d her for 3 weeks. We have regained our friendship.
Question please HG: when he comes back hoovering (she doesnt belive he will), how will he respond to finding this out? Whatever type of narc he is, I cant imagine he is going to be happy. He knows I study this subject (hence triangulation no doubt). Do you think my friend could be in any real danger HG?
Thank you as always.
He will look to divide you again since he will regard you as an interfering threat. Time for her to build her defences. Send her to Tudor University so she can use the hiatus to her advantage. You can expect to be smeared when he returns.
Thanks for responding HG. I see your point, and thought so myself. Just needed your confirmation. My intention is most certainly to direct her to HG University, but can only do that when she’s out of the fog of denial. For her to totally accept, is like her agreeing she has no brain. Its insulting to her own intelligence.
This is going to be a long road Im thinking….
Its almost impossible to understand the near constant
machinations of this type of character. Frankly the info on
this website has been the best at helping me to understand
the depths of betrayal and abuse I was subjected to.
When I tried to put some distance between us, getting stronger
and turning a blind eye to his constant travels, etc. that’s when
things really got nasty. When you have kids you can end up
very very trapped and no one seems to understand the
danger of divorcing a narc and ongoing trauma of trying to
protect your kids when your’e forced to coparent with them.
The thing I’ve said to my daughter and to others is when they are being funny with you it means they don’t understand. If they don’t understand they haven’t been through it. That in turn is good. I’m glad they don’t understand. They have been saved of the horror. I’m happy with that x
I just never know what to reply then. My best friends manage at least to say that they can’t say anything really. But an aquaintance of mine e.g. made lots of replies like ‘but you’re here now and alive”, or “we just need to laugh at our trauma”, or started with stupid coaching phrases when not asked for any coaching, like ‘how do you see yourself …’, ‘you can learn from this experience’,…. Another so-called friend completely ignored what I said about the behavior of my ex-narc, and said that nobody could hurt me without my consent and that I needed to change myself. Anothersaid that could never happen to him because of his healthy ego.
I agree, it’s good for them that they don’t know what they are talking about, but I never know how to respond to well meant advice which feels like a form of verbal violence, too. Especially when they think they know better and kind of say that they would have coped better or wouln’t have let anyone behave that way. And then not believing what I say about pre-meditated acts, brain chemistry and addiction.
AVA101
The tempation is to want to warn and educate others but it sounds that youve discovered people dont want to hear it. They also dont know how to respond to something that lets face it-sounds insane. In future if you find yourself explaining and you get resistance, maybe all you can say is: I hope it never happens to you and you are made to feel like I do right now. Then walk away and pray to whatever deity you choose that they find the biggest uneducated Lesser loser out there. Oh wait……my StepNarc is dead lol.
HG ,this post resonates with me almost more than any other of your posts that I’ve read so far. People don’t understand the extend of the damage done unless they have been through it themselves. The suggestions from friends to ‘put it behind you’, ‘forgot about what happened’ etc are well intentioned but demonstrate a total lack of comprehension about the level of distress caused . Most people are conflict avoidant so don’t want to take sides. Their understanding of a narcissist is someone who posts a lot of selfies on social media and is a bit vain but there is no notion of abusive manipulation, gaslighting, stonewalling etc That’s what I used to think too. I am infinitely better informed now, sadly… I reckon that becoming an amateur world expert in narcissistic behaviours is a skill shared by many of us who have been subjected to the toolkit of delights from your kind once we figure out what we are actually dealing with. Could form a strong team for a TV quiz show – your starter for 10 on gaslighting, specialist subject projections and blameshifting, and let’s see if it’s up there on the pointless board, triangulation …nope, you hit the jackpot with that one contestant!!
Allo
HG, what do you think about COLD THERAPY that Sam Vaknin talks about ? It seems very interisting …
Hello The Bridge, you will have to expand on what that is for me, is it do with isolation?
You always can find out 😉
That has something to do with nyquil right? Or is it cryogenics?
😂
ABB
I think its when you watch one of his videos that leave you so numb and cold that you fade to black and forget your trauma.
Oh you mean like a Narcissist/empath wedding video. Got it.
So true! I was blinded. Not until I personally experienced it did I get it and I’m a trained professional in mental health. It is truly insidious and a form of brainwashing of both individuals and masses.
Thank you HG, I am indebted to you…..and as much as I hate to say it, my ex as well. Now I see.
No problem Indy the Marcher.
INDY!
Welcome back. Trust your trip went well?
Hi NA!
Thank you, it did. No words can describe these times. The march feels a century ago. I am engaging in peaceful protest and political action (contacting legislation etc) (and lots of learning on the topic since it is not a strong area for me to know how it all works). Looking into the need for therapists in Canada lol especially if it all goes as badly as it seems. I’m honestly heartbroken for the country and angry. I am a fighter first and I’m hoping I’m over reacting, tho honestly I do not think I’m far off from what might come. I’m not a conspiracy person or a doomsdayer and I’m legitimately seeing the warning signs.
Those that are pleased with what is happening in the US can laugh and poo poo, it’s cool, I am hoping I’m wrong. I’m feeling shaken.
I did have some fun tho lol…perhaps I’ll find myself a strong soldier to protect this spirited yet scared Indygirl. How are you doing these days NA? I’m digging your PM up there…Mr man bun hotty. 😂
INDY THE MARCHER
Well theyre all Ns to a certain degree and he is surely more overt but lets give him a bit of room and see what happens. That will givevme some time to finish the second house in case you border jump looking for a rental lol. Ours is too far the other way-roaming around the world meeting celebrities and shaking hands when he has real work to do. We should be working on our fleet of canoes in case Trump starts something so he best land home soon. Man buns are gross.
NA,
Haha, I’ll hang in there 😂 I must say though you’re p.m. is much hotter than our potus. Save me a canoe girl 😉
Did you go looking for Dudley DoRight? Trudeau *sighs*
I like a man in uniform, what can I say? And, if he is brave and smart too, shoot….triple threat! And if I can get dual citizenship status, sighhhhh. I girl has to plan for the apocalypse ya know 😉
Apocalypse planning is best left to some Hill Billies in West Virginia. (Ever see the documentary The wild and wonderful whites of west virginia? Eat some brownies and die laughing)
Canadians. They are way to nice to blow a zombies head off. Just lookin out for you my friend. Now gimme a brownie!
Hahahahaha ABB. No I haven’t. Sounds hilarious.
Regarding my favorite country in the whole wide world, Canada….I think NarcAngel could take a zombie or two! And Bloody Elemental would eat a few zombies for lunch, raw. I think they are both Canadian. Gotta be hard core to survive that cold. Though, I do think you are correct, Dudley Do-right is not what I need right now. Air Mails a chocolate hippy bar 🙂
Indiglowsky,
You are correct. N.A. & B.E. are some tough chicks. Cran-apple spillin’ fur lined bra wearin’ she devils! They are great.
INDYGLOWSKY
I aint afraid of no Zombie! Zombies are just Canadians who didnt have a proper winter coat. Theyre just lookin for a place to warm up and get a donut but you Americans keep blowin their heads off when they get close enough to ask. Not very neighbourly.
NA,
Sweet Canadian Zombies, eh? I like Dunkin, not Duncan 😉
Indy
Indy, The Spunky Marcher, good to hear of everything you’re doing. You are not overreacting. I am surrounded by people who have been gravely impacted by his rulings. I am affected as well. These people are brilliant, successful, contributing members of this great nation. I’ve witnessed so many tears and heartbreak in just the last few days. Lol and week 2 isn’t even over yet.
More fun is to come.
Indy,
I could put in a good word for you with our PM. My family has ties to his family going back a while. There is a picture of me being held by his mother Margaret during a family vacation. I was only about 3 at the time and Justin – well, let us just say he is older than me by quite a bit 🙂 – but he is in the background with his brother Alexandre.
He is incredibly sexy and I do enjoy watching him in action. He is one of our kind, though to a much lesser degree.
And just to clarify – I do not eat zombies, Indy, I create them.
I much prefer the pound of flesh I sink my teeth into to be warm, still beating when possible. 😉
Oh BE, I would be so indebted to you. I can learn Oh Canada on a dime! Are you a youngster, BE? He’s my age! But married **shucks**
Just saw new pics released on booty shots in a well tailored suit. **fans self** I personally think Canada is releasing them to make the rest of us feel envious, particularly your southern most neighbors LOL
Yeah, you are right, silly me, zombie would not be refined to your standards! Some politician tartare, perhaps?
Maple Syrup Loving Indy
Indy,
Do yourself a favour and Google Trudeau boxing. There is a gorgeous gif of him flexing while being weighed in.
You can thank me later. 😉
I am young but I do quite enjoy older men.
BE,
***Melting in a puddle of drool***
Too good looking for his own good. Of course he has narcissism in him. Those looks and a politician? At least he promotes liberal beliefs, then he is all good with me. Hahahahhaha!!!! (Waiting for someone to throw shapes at me)
😉 Indy
Indy,
I prefer him with the longer hair. I also quite like the Haida raven tattoo.
I will send you some maple syrup and you can fantasize about pouring it all over his body. Cannot get more Canadian than that!
BE!
Girl, I am from Vermont! I got that maple practice down and if it will make me Canadian, I am all for that fantasy. Though, I must confess, I tried it with my ex-husband (for real, things get dull in VT), and it was quiet sticky and such a mess!
Well, that is what long, hot baths were made for Indy.
True! Especially when going through that “food phase” of the relationship!
ouch. every one. I always ask myself that question.
Well it IS hard for normals to grasp that if it is as bad as you say and you are an adult with options, that you would still be with the cad and going on about him/her instead of taking action. Thats why they dont care to listen or believe. Especially if they have offered assistance or suggestion previous and it was met with….yes but…. It comes across as being addicted to drama. And really, if you were honest with yourself, isnt that the case? Drama and hope. That is why the smear campaign is so easy. With billions of men/women in the world why would you be labouring away with this one? so it must be you is the rational thought. Ah…..rational.
I have never been addicted to drama. I am the least dramatic person you might find. I avoid gossip, I stick to myself. I can go long hours and days without talking to anyone. It is people WHO ARE addicted who project this and assume that you are addicted, too. Attached to hope, though, yes. A friend said I was like a fly to the drama … ah no. It was was/is the most painful thing I have been through in a long time. I was addicted to wanting answers. Addicted to hope that I didn’t dream the whole nightmare. S
SARABELLA
Well Narcs are all drama, so if you are remaining with them while addicted to hope then it stands to reason you are addicted to drama. Them being the drama. You can play with words all you want but people just see it is not healthy and you stay. They do not think oh what a noble thing that she is doing trying to help him. They see he is drama and you are addicted to him and thats why you will hear things like your friend said. Yes addiction is painful. So is the truth. Im always struck by how angry Empaths get at people who are not abusing you but showing you what is happening to you yet save their understanding and patience for their abuser. No people do not understand it and they shouldnt, CAUSE ITS FUCKED UP.
Narcangel:
You clearly need to reread what HG wrote. It hasn’t penetrated your consciousness. No, I am not addicted to drama. I was fighting my away from him after 3 months. I am not a ‘for lifer” like many people are. You miss the point entirely that HG was making. I “stayed’ because I have had a pretty fucked up life and he somehow new intuitively I needed someone, one person, from my past to come back to my life and tell me they were sorry. That is all he represented. He was the very first person I ever fell in love with. But I was a kid. And it was huge. Only, he was never who I thought he was not only then, but who he is now. And that was painful, really, really painful to give up some part of my entire life… for the lies of a Narc? But I NEVER stay with abusers for long. Where this narc was concerned, my disappointment was so huge, so incredibly huge, I couldn’t let it go. I wanted so hard to believe he meant he was really sorry. He never was. He lied about it all. My situation isn’t unique, nor is my pain. But if this gives you any clues, when I was 23, I spoke to a career counselor about some dreams I had. I shared some of my life story. You know what she said? You have experienced things people will never experience in their life, and you are just 23. That was my first clue that something about my life story was really extreme and really off. I have given up hope. And given up that he cared. And given up pretty much everything. I have nothing left to give away from that story except that was a most profoundly painful life experience. It will stay with me for the rest of my life. But I was fighting for my survival after 3 months. Ask HG where that puts me…. not in any sort of angry victim empath.
SARABELLA
I assure you I read it correctly but I read it again just for you. Same result. The examples given show the victim speaking in present tense-they are still WITH the narc and going on about it which is where I note the victim (who if they now know and still remain have become volunteers) loses all credibility with the friend or notmal. You said your friend noted you are like a fly to drama and also point out that you never stay with an abuser for long indicating this is not an isolated incident. I am glad if you are no longer with him. Then you will have to explain to them no longer and hopefully never again because you will know what to look for and what to avoid. It is not important that they understand-how could they. Its only important that you do, so if you continue to give the narc anymore airtime it just enforces in others that its you that has the problem. I have been with them so I know of what you speak. I am talking about people who have never been involved with one and how they view us. Especially when we talk about them yet are still imvolved.
PS: They dont care to hear about it post escape either.
NarcAngel
Yes, it is given in the present tense. And then he has a list of numbered reasons why it’s so. Because normal people really have no idea that it’s something much more extreme. So if someone is truly trapped, it may not be that they are addicted to the drama, it just appears that way on the outside, they just do not have the information and outside help to have their experiences broken down and a real plan of escape explained. They haven’t been able to identify all the mental abuses that have been put in place to paralyze them. And yes, it is because of this lack of understanding that support and credibility is withdrawn. And why many victims end up dead.
For me, my first blatant experience with gas lighting was when I was abused by a family member. A witness denied it happening when it was clear it had. And when I tried for help, it was further denied. Family rejected me. My narc mother spread the story as a smear. These were my life experiences that made me very vulnerable because it wasn’t until 20 years after that experience did I ever understand the impact of that event. It broke some part of my thinking and left me vulnerable. But my vulnerability was not just do to being empathic, it was because I never had understood what had happened to me when I was far to young to decode it on my own or prevent the effects of that kind of abuse on my thinking.
My friend said that about one relationship that she knew of. I don’t actually know her in real life. Another dumb online friendship. But she said enough things that now I suspect a whole lot of ulterior motives and that most likely, she was talking about herself. But I haven’t had too many of these kinds of people. Just a few. One was a narc for sure, looking back, but I don’t think so malignant. I read journals I wrote where i nailed it on his behavior, only I didn’t have a word for it nor did I have the context for the devalue/discard part. But this narc, he is malignant. Deeply malignant and that is what I didn’t understand. But I think I do now. I wasn’t even ‘with him’ but he still managed to cause a whole lot of damage. And it was only my desperate need for truth, what HG talked about, that kept me around, not because I like drama. The drama was the byproduct. The truth seeking the cause. But… 🙂 I did get my truth. Wore the narc down enough that he told me the truth and exposed to me how he was nothing but a lie.
But now I know… never look for truth from the abusers. You won’t find it there. Only more abuse.
Thank you for this site. I’m so deep in this right now. N and I have been in a relationship for a year, but I am married, so I haven’t given him all my time. We started wth all the lovebombing in the world. I have a binder of love letters. He wanted me to leave my husband, move in with him, help with my kids, the whole 9. He briefly dated someone, which I knew about and had encouraged due to my situation, but he ended it when he wanted us to be serious, about 4 months ago. Or so I thought. The devalue, revalue cycle has been happening for the past two months and I eventually found out that he was seeing this girl again. He wouldn’t open up about it, so I contacted her to let her know about me. Turns out he had never stopped seeing her. Cue the discard. And she stayed with him even after all the salacious details I told her – the proposals, the gifts, he even got a tattoo for me while the two of them were together. He started speaking to me again a few days later and is now doing the fake apprehensive “not sure if I can trust you” but willing to at least be “friends with benefits” all while speaking to me less and making me do the work to win him back. He even admits that the other relationship won’t work but it’s a “safer bet” since I am married. We have not been together in two weeks but we did make loose plans for tomorrow but I will still have to do all the chasing to even make sure that happens. We had a few ok conversations (he responds best to me being in front of his face) and they all end with touching or kissing, even though he loves to punctuate it with “I’m just not sure it feels right after what you did” or “I don’t want to just use you.” What on earth am I to make of this? Is he keeping me around as back up since this other one obviously isn’t as strong as he would like it to be? Should I walk away and hope he hoovers in response? We work together, but we don’t have to see each other every day. I know he’s a fraud, but I would like us to continue the sexual relationship. He also is going through a divorce and plays the role of traumatized ex because she left (smartest thing she ever did.) I am so lost. I know I should count myself lucky, but I really want to keep it going until my rational brain realizes that he is a useless drain and waste of time.