Riposte Grenades
There are occasions when you have been on the receiving end of one of our conversational narc grenades which has been thrown at you as we then walk away from the ensuing carnage, sucking up the fuel and marvelling at our own brilliance. There will of course been times when you wished that you had something which you could lob at us in order to make some kind of impact, a comment or a gesture which does not take much effort but manages to land a blow on us. The problem is, until such time as you have received the benefit of my mentoring I should imagine that your responses to your particular narcissist have been along these lines:-
Shouting and hurling insults at us as you lose your temper
Crying as you call us as many names as you can think of
Throwing something at us with a yell of frustration
Banging a door shut in annoyance
Telling us what you think about us as you bristle with anger
Of course as avid students you will know that all of these responses and more besides have no impact on us other than to provide us with fuel. You can call me as many insults as you can think of but if you do it as you scream at the top of your voice in anger or with tears spilling down your cheeks, the savage words merely fuel me. Now, for the purpose of extracting more fuel and providing me with something to go and complain about to other people (thus gaining more fuel and smearing you into the bargain) I will provoke you even further. Once you have lost yourself to emotion, we will keep pushing, prodding and provoking in order to make you deliver even more fuel to us. We will feign that we are hurt, we will pretend to be angry in response, we may even mimic being frightened of you. It is all fabricated and is just designed to draw more fuel. Accordingly, you should not respond in this fashion. Instead, when deploying these ripostes, you must do so without showing any emotion. If you do, the intended effect will fail. If you do these without expressing any emotion you will not provide and fuel and the effect will be that we will feel criticised and this will wound us. Be aware that when wounded our fury will be ignited. This may mean we withdraw, we may unleash a cold fury (silent treatment) or a heated fury (insults, violence) and therefore you should proceed with caution. You are best performing these ripostes when you are departing so you are leaving your own empathic riposte grenade behind to explode and wound us. In some instances, departure may not be possible and therefore you need to consider carefully the type of narcissist you are with and their likely reaction to criticism. Caveat out of the way, here are the ten critical ripostes for you to use against your narcissist.
- Point and Laugh
Point at us and give a hollow laugh. A slow, hollow laugh which is repeated will provide no emotion. Alternatively, point and just say “HAW ha” in an exaggerated manner, akin to the Simpsons’ character, Nelson Muntz. We will not know why you are laughing and the fact you are pointing at us but giving what is a derisory laugh will feel like a significant criticism to us.
- “You are big on emotion, low on substance.”
We like to think we are important and of considerable substance. You are the emotional one, not us, even though of course we are the ones which thrive on your emotional attention. To suggest we are emotional (when of course we have a limited range of emotions) implies that we lack control. To suggest we have no substance (which hints at our need to adopt the characteristics of others and also impugns our importance) adds to the criticism. The Lesser will be wounded by the suggestion of being emotive and unimportant, The Greater, knowing what he is will be wounded by the massive hint at knowing what we are, alongside the suggestion of lacking control and lacking importance. A double whammy.
- Feign sleep when we are talking
There is no emotion in closing your eyes and emitting a gentle snoring as you are sat down or lying down and we embark on one of our lengthy monologues. Once we realise you are not paying attention the criticism will wound.
- “I have to be elsewhere.”
If this is said without emotion you are telling us that our presence is not magnetic and commanding enough. Make your exit and leave us to our ignited fury at this wounding remark.
- “Jim has one only his is better.”
Useful for when we are crowing about some material possession. “Jim” may be somebody known to us both or you may make him up, the key thing is to point out that whatever we have, then “Jim’s” is better. It may be that his is a nicer colour, or his if larger, faster, more spacious, tougher, more durable. Whatever it is it will wound us. You can even keep rolling out the fictional Jim on repeated occasions and it will soon dent our crowing and have us wounded.
- “I wasn’t listening; can you repeat what you said please?”
You should always be listening to us. We are important. Any suggestion that you are not amounts to a criticism and if you actually tell us that you were not doing so, then it is even worse.
- Fall asleep when we are having sex with you
To impugn our Olympic sexual mastery in this way is a massive criticism. It need not be full sexual intercourse either. If you are touching us, drift off or vice versa. Best used with a Mid-Range as they tend to go off in a wounded sulk rather than erupt in a rage.
- “It is just not that interesting to me.”
Any suggestion that we are dull or boring when we are demonstrating something to you or regaling you with our latest tale of brilliance will constitute a wounding criticism.
- “Let me know when you have finished.”
This can be applied to so many different activities. We expect you to either be a willing and enthusiastic participant or a delighted spectator. If you make this remark when we are showing off about something and then walk away we will be wounded by this criticism.
- “No that does not make sense.”
Remember how frustrated you become at our circular conversations and inability to understand the point you are making? Well, this is your chance to turn the tables. You probably do understand but by suggesting we are not articulating ourselves clearly when delivered without emotion will amount to a criticism. We may try and explain again. If so repeat the comment. You can then walk away as our fury ignites and no doubt we insult you for being stupid and thick but who is the one who has just been wounded?
24 thoughts on “Riposte Grenades”
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HG, how about, “Careful. Your mask is slipping.” Or is a riposte grenade still better?
Grenade.
Dear Mr Tudor, you do not only have a certain sense of humor, all of your writings are extremely witty, exhilarating beyond the dark implications, brillant, charming, ironic, and so on…
Consoling!
Chapeau! Compliments!
Ursula Rhys-Corell from Germany
Thank you Ursula, I appreciate your compliments and do keep reading.
My energy levels around draining people are low. When my narcissistic in-laws used to deliver one of their two-hour-long nonsensical, boring monologues, I used to fall asleep on the couch. They hated it and told my husband to take me home. Number 3 (feigned or not) really works.
I tried the second one. He said I’d known he was shallow from the start. It’s like he took pride in his shallowness.
It seems the only thing that wounded him was ignoring him.
Hmmm. I’ve done a few of those and didn’t even realize the impact, lol. One of his last statements to me was, “I’m so over this and I’m not getting attached to you again”. Translation???
Maybe he meant he did not want to spend any more energy trying to get fuel from you, Exhausted. Congratulations!:-)
These are brilliant. Thank you, HG!
Saying ‘whatever’ really worked for me.
Show no emotion or leave when provoked?!? Oh dear Lord! The very thought of it gets my heart pounding.
You ask too much of me Mr. Tudor. I shall remain in your remedial class for a very long time. ❤ your emotionally avid pupil
When asked if he did a certain thing, mine gave the following replies at intervals while I just glanced at him after each denial and then looked away:
1. No, I don’t think so.
2. No, I didn’t.
3. I’m sure I didn’t.
4. I KNOW I didn’t.
5. I don’t know what to say to you. After number 5, I walked away because I knew he was lying. He never raised his voice but his voice pitch got higher. Number 5 was said with disgust but he didn’t raise his voice because others would have heard. I wish I had known about the replies you listed here. He didn’t get much from me, right?
Sounds like he did not.
I did all of the above and was brutally discarded shortly after
And you are not right in all points. When I yelled at him on the telephone and suddenly interrupted my telephone call he had an accident with his most loved car half an hour later. He was on this way to a secondary “soulmate”. That weekend he did not meet her. On Monday he called me and told me about the accident. I only said slowly : “Don`t put the blame on me, when you are not able to drive a car. (He is an excellent driver normally) Wow, three blows at one stroke! He damaged his loved car, he could not see the beautiful woman and he was told he cannot drive. I am a nasty child, I know.
Well, I used six of these phrases or behaviours, I did not know how much I wounded him. So, I got more blows against him than I ever thought. What a nice surprise.
Being in a relationship is not about winning or losing, it’s about growing.
But if you fake it there can’t be anything.
Sometimes we get hurt, that’s true but that only means the relationship matters to us and has the potential to help us grow.
In all your posts, HG, there is always something that makes me laugh. In this one, when you said “fall asleep during sex, I giggled. In another article you said “you like music? Do Re Mi, etc”. You might not mean to, but you say funny things.
Thank you Colette. It is intentional. I do have a sense of humour.
What if you were to call out the narcissist on who he really is. Like give gave him a mindfuck from hell. Saying you know he’s just a little brat with mommy issues who gets patted on the hard to shut him up.
That he/she will never fill up that empty void inside them and that despite their efforts to destroy us, they couldn’t control us, that we were stronger and saw through their bs. That eventually everyone will see them for who they really are and that they will die alone and miserable hearing the laughter of their victims each night as they fall asleep.
That despite of them we are still stronger and now even more aware of hoe much we love and can be happy. Something they will never gain because mommy and/or daddy royally screwed them up.
Wouldn’t that send them away screaming and crying, scared out of their minds to ever return or retaliate.
Just curious
More than likely the manner in which you said all of this would be fuel.
Some of our kind would just suck the fuel up and laugh at you.
Some of our kind would just suck the fuel up but respond in an angry or hurt manner in order to draw more fuel from you since they are scenting blood.
Hi, nice post. I’ve just found your site and it’s quite interesting. I don’t have a close relationship with any narcissists but I’ve certainly seen them around. I’ll keep these tips in mind just in case this changes in the future.
One question I still can’t figure out is WHY this all is necessary. You will probably say “because I need fuel”.
I personally have quite a lot of what could be considered narcissistic traits and relatively few emphatic ones. But I do not need the attention of other people, positive or negative, to gain energy, feel powerful, etc. I really don’t understand why a supposedly superior being would need to rely on others for their own feelings of power and satisfaction.
I know I’m superior to others in many ways. I don’t need any external validation.
Is there a way you could “ween” yourself off the need for fuel and thus reach a place like this? Or is it completely impossible for your kind? If it is possible, I would suggest doing it. It’s a good way to live. Thanks for reading.
The difference is you have some narcissistic traits and some empathic ones.
I have very strong narcissistic, anti-social traits but no empathic ones.
Thus I need fuel because of the way that I am. You do not need it because you only have the traits, you are not a narcissist.
Thanks for the compliments.
Hello HG Thank You For Being You. … some thoughts about your “kind”.
(pardon my english)
You people, simply came to earth in this incarnation for playing one of the most limiting games a physical incarnation has to offer in this universe and therefore is very very interesting for others to watch. The creation of a reality where an entity can feel so disconnected/unloved from source (God/Light/Love etc) that this entity really believes (has forgotten), that it has to operate mainly from the three lower energy centers of the human body (survival/instinct).
Your “kind” like our “kind” came this time to earth for the tremendous experience of not feeling source energy / loved / fueled.
That’s a very very powerfull act in itself (speaking in terms of how low entities can go and are still able to find their way back into the light) and this evolutionary process is very interesting for many other extra terrestrial races watching us right now.
Most entities incarnated here at this time to leave duality concepts slowly but once and for all behind. (majority of the human race)
Your main “job” in this life HG, is to be who you are by helping people realize (the hard way) how easy they are distracted/distract themselves from their own goals in life by failing to give attention to themselves.and by this not living/discovering more of their potential as a human being.
We can find the same distracting or narcissistic principles in what we all identify as “the system” which we all created for this learning experience.
And same goes for /Religions/Education/Politricks/Entertainment/Media
The Narcissist job so to speak is like a subtle wake up call for the human race (because without knowing what we as people truly don’t want in life we would never know what we truly want in life individually and collectively)
There maybe will be electronic devices available in the not so distant future, that will help people activate the upper energy centers of the humany body for true balancing of frequency/energies. Most likely this planet and all inhabitants will be balanced (more or less) within the next 20 years due to the “light” frequency shift … shining in all dark corners of the human collective through each individual. The very fact your blog exists is a clear indicator for this. You are changing like everything is changing all the time.
We are all simply learning how to love and understand ourselves more breath by breath moment by moment.. This planet will experience something like a total makeover within the next ten years.
The end of the “narcissistic systems”
So Much Love