For The Sake Of An Argument
Would you like to know what is going through my mind when we argue? Thought you would.
I do enjoy an argument. I love to start a squabble, a contretemps and escalate it to a quarrel through to an altercation, a fight ! By now I am sure you have realised that the reason I do this is twofold. First, I am provoking an emotional reaction from you which gives me fuel. Secondly, it enables me to put you in your place and control you by being abusive towards you. I keep it within the realms of stinging and barbed verbal abuse but there are those of my brethren who do like to let their fists do the talking. That is not my style but we cannot shy away from the truth of what is being done in the name of “a discussion”.
I know from experience and also from reading numerous comments and observations that you regard arguing with me akin to banging your head against a brick wall. You cannot understand the stance we adopt in an argument. Surely we must recognise that what we are saying makes no sense? Do we not realise that our position lacks logic? I will endeavour to enlighten you. I recognise two types of argument. The first is created by me. The second is created by you. What they both have in common is you are at fault.
In the first type I generate an argument out of nothing. You find this disorienting and confusing. In fact,I will often do this after we have just done something delightful together (throwing you from a height is all the more delicious – see Get Ready To Drop). I will invent some offence (why did you just look at that man across from us, when you did not) or I will seize on something utterly trivial (thanks for taking that last drop (and it was a drop) of the sauvignon blanc). I will level the accusation at you. You will at first be stunned because everything was going swimmingly. You will then be perplexed as my accusation is either untrue or so minor to be negligible. Why is he getting so het up over nothing? Indignance will then rise inside you as your inner self questions whether you are just going to sit and take this unjust accusation. I am shouting at you now and you either run away or fight back. It might go something like this.
“Oh thanks for taking the last of the wine, I wanted that. I have hardly had any.”
“Sorry? There was only a drop left.”
“But you didn’t ask me if I wanted it did you?”
“I didn’t think to, there was just a dribble.”
“You didn’t think? That’s the trouble with you. You never think.”
“Oh come on, besides you’ve had plenty of wine anyway.”
“Are you saying I have a drink problem?”
“Woah, where did that come from?”
“You. You are always doing this. You do something selfish and then turn it into an attack about me. Just because you cannot stand for someone to point out when you have done something wrong.”
“Good God, what are you talking about?”
“That’s it, try to dismiss me when I am making a valid point.”
“I only poured a drop of wine into my glass. It is not big deal. Here, if it troubles you so much, have what is left in my glass.”
“No, it’s too late. The damage is done. You are trying to make light of when I am pointing something out to you.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Oh I am ridiculous am I, well that’s rich coming from someone who drinks a bottle, at least one, a day.”
“Where do you get that from? No I don’t.”
“Yes you do. I am concerned about your drinking, have you ever considered getting some help?”
And on it goes.
When I start an argument like this I am not interested in proving what I am saying is correct. I am already right in my mind. You should note that ‘right’ and ‘correct’ are not necessarily the same thing. The whole purpose of this type of argument is for me to upset you and turn an otherwise pleasant experience into a horrible one. This is about exerting control so that you become wary about upsetting me. Next time you will always ensure you offer to pour me a glass of wine before tending to yourself for fear of causing an argument. Of course,, the next time I will be arguing about how you took the last profiterole instead even though I had eaten five more than you already.
The second type of argument is where you level a complaint or accusation at me. Invariably what you say is correct and you have valid grounds for raising it. You will also do so in a calm and level-headed fashion because that is your style. When you do this I do not hear what you are actually saying to me. The validity of your argument is meaningless to me. The piece of paper that documents your point may as well be written in Sanskrit for all the notice I will take of it. All I hear is you criticising me and I hate that. I absolutely hate it. How dare someone like you, who is inferior to someone like me, have the audacity to suggest I have done something wrong. I do not hear your words, I do not see the video recording you are playing back, all I hear is an unjust and scathing attack on me. Your words are drowned out by the raging fire that surges through me. The noise of the flames renders me deaf to your cool logic. I will deflect, deny and launch my own attacks (usually predicated on inventions) in order to beat you back. I am not interested in the correctness of what is being argued about. I am only interested in stopping the burning sensation I feel from your criticism and to do that I have to extinguish you. This is when I lose control and lash out. I will hurl savage insults at you and I will smash items of property (in my mind I am smashing you, just another object in front of me when I do this) and some of my kind will engage in physical violence. You will try to make me see that I am wrong (any healthy person would do this) and you are utterly flabbergasted as to why I cannot see what you are saying to me. Now you know. I cannot see because of the fiery rage that has erupted.
How do you deal with me in these two types of argument? Well, I am saving that information for another time. In the meanwhile, see if you can piece together that ornament I just have hurled against the wall.
25 thoughts on “For The Sake Of An Argument”
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“The second type of argument is where you level a complaint or accusation at me.”
I used to do this and he said he hates it. Does he hate it because it’s challenge fuel?
Correct.
Thank you.
Btw, after having an audio consult with you, my admiration for you has multiplied. You are absolutely brilliant in the field of narcissism. You are so aware of the intracicies within, it is astonishing. Me, being borderline, cannot analyze myself to the extent to which you, as a narcissist, can analyze yourself and your kind. You really have a gift. And you are using it to empower pple. Thank you frm the bottom of my heart.
I already knew you were brilliant in the field of narcissism, but the way in which you readily understood and explained my personal situation and the intracicies involved in the dynamic i was in, is what was astonishing to me. There is always something new to learn frm you. I will be having more audio consults because they are helping me more than my psychiatrist or my therapist has. Again, thank you.
You are welcome Jenna, I am pleased you find them so useful to you.
As a super empath I always fought back sometimes having the last word . I think very quickly so the next response would come faster than he could come up with an excuse. This would cause frustration and of course after every argument he would give me the silent treatment and I would always cry because I hated to argue in the first place. This was the same song and dance over and over and over again until finally I decided I wasn’t going to argue with him despite what he said. Now I realize that he was getting no negative feel. Just curious if he was getting no negative fuel for me what he didn’t get the negative fuel from his IPSS? I know that they need the contrast.
Great article HG🌸🌸
The first it doesn’t usually take long to recognize what is happening, I decide if I am going to continue, if so with added emotion to the mix. If not I will stare at you for a moment then walk away.
The second, you have just found yourself in a firestorm,
That is the thing about fire, it has a life of its own, it needs fuel and oxygen, Remove the fuel the fire dies. Lower the oxygen, the fire still burns yet becomes controlled once again.
Once everything is back in control, one must make the decision to stay or go.
They never change, and if they decide, it will be on their terms.
Thank you HG, the live stream, the blog, your books and of course your consultations. In each one of these areas I have seen many changes to so many, for myself you have brought more depth to my awareness. My fear thou is I am one of your kind, then you reminded me I am not.
You have shown me, even some dreams are worth believing in.
I am out of here, got fireworks to play with, food to cook, and a gathering to attend, and now my emotions are all over the place.
You are welcome.
What weirds me out is he was always adamant he hates fighting. But then he provoked me and gave me the silent treatment. He was never loud or anything like that, once he raised his voice and I laughed because it seemed sooo ridiculous and he said “see, you like it when we fight and when I lose my temper”. This obviously wasn’t true, I just found it so funny how he lost control.
But most of the time, he acted like he hated to argue and like it was my “negativity” that led to fights. There were many times where he thought I was “bitching too much” (his words) and he said “ok, time for you to get a drink”. I never drank as much as when I was with him hahaha.
“…How dare someone like you, who is inferior to someone like me, have the audacity to suggest I have done something wrong….” that staggering arrogance that pushes the narc into fury is characteristically psychotic to us ‘normals’ and is the narcs downfall; the narc may ‘win’ the argument but he/she has no sense of reality. Narcy would instigate a row on a near daily basis. I recall one time when he claimed he’d spoken to me and I’d ignored him. The truth was that he hadn’t spoken to me at all, but as I am quite deaf, he could use that as an excuse to punish me. Stupidly, unaware of his NPD, I tried to reason with him which resulted in him wrestling me to the floor and dragging me out of his home… Whole scenarios like this were played repeatedly, every manufactured argument based on fabrication to validate his ‘superiority’. In the end, there was no respect for him, just extreme exhaustion and hate…
I guess the ‘fire’ you refer to, HG, causes a sensation not unlike pain when a wound is poked very hard and there’s a perceived need for a N to lash out to protect him/herself? Just curious as trying to see things from Narcy’s perspective. 🙂
In effect yes.
Thank you HG. I enjoyed reading this blog and I look forward to the next installment. TQ.
You are welcome Scout.
Excellent, as always HG!!!
Thank you.
I do look forward to how to deal with this “mind fuckery” as soon as possible..thx
Banging my head on a wall…
More like slapping myself so much across the face like a phsycho just to end the torment of the mind fuckery.
An understandable response Helen.
Just when I start to relapse and think I may be wrong about him, you prove once again how right I am I in my “diagnosis” of my ex- monster. In the most recent devaluation phase, I began noticing that he would start arguments out of thin air, over stupid things, and hang on to them as viciously as a dog with a bone. On the way home from a particularly enjoyable trip, he started a major argument over something from my past. Later when I asked him why, he told me that he did it on purpose, because it helped him to forget the good times we had on the trip. Come to think of it, now I don’t remember them either.
Lisa, that is very important : ” It helped him to forget the good times…” So he can create the distance again to avoid any kind of attachment.
Question: this post proves that you really think that you’re in Love with the New person, hoping she’s The one. But other Times you say that you publish pics on Social media with The New Source jest to punish The previous one which proves that you’re fully aware that you’re only using this new person. Where’s the logic HG ? How can you think you’re in love and be aware that you’re manipulative?
But the difference is Nat that most of our kind do not see it as manipulative. Most of the behaviours they do not notice are manipulative and then they are configured to deny, deflect etc when it is suggested that they are being manipulative. Where there is calculation, we see the outcome as necessary and justified, for instance you need to be punished. The publication of pictures on social media by the narcissist does not equate to using that person (in the mind of the narcissist) therefore there is no contradiction. The narcissist is infatuated with the new IPPS (believes he loves her) and because the old IPPS needs to be punished or is causing problems, then there is publication on social media also, this is not seen as manipulative.
Reading that took me back to the utter frustration I felt when he did this….which was almost daily. It was usually by email which only served to make matters worse as I desperately tried to make things better and only succeeded in making things worse. Or so I thought! But in reality I wasn’t doing anything wrong and my attemts were futile. Carefully crafting my response so he couldn’t misinterpret what I’d written. Fiifty emails a night would fly back and forth between us until he decided he’d had enough fuel and complain of chest pains from all the stress I was causing him.
Then came the silent treatment. After a few days I’d drive past his house just to check if there were any signs of life, fearing he’d had a heart attack.
His ex before me said she had to leave him for her own sanity, that she just couldn’t reason with him and had been sorely tempted to write and warn me about him. But I wouldn’t have believed her. You have to experience such crazy making madness to believe it.
Now that has brought back memories of 2 incidents and now I totlying comprehend.
As for that ornament HG, you thought I liked it but I did not. It’s yours to tidy up! Goodbye I am off out with the sane humans.
Banging my head against a brick wall! Yep, I can relate to that. Sometimes during an argument I just stare at him and think “Are you really this crazy? Are we really having this argument?” but then frustration takes over and I unleash. Fuel given on a silver platter.