Trapped : The Car
Control.
We need to control everything around us. This must be done so we can gain fuel. This must be done because our natural paranoia causes us to need to exert our will on those around us, before they can do so to us and undoubtedly with catastrophic consequences. Only by exerting control can we be sure and satisfied that the order of things will be as we require it to be. We hate to be subject to the control of others. That reminds us of matters which are best left alone.
This need and desire for control causes us to adjust our manipulations so that we can engineer situations where we can achieve total control. Total control arises when we have you trapped.
This concept of trapping you works on several levels. The widest level is within the confines of the Narcissistic Relationship. This is why we regard your entanglement with us as being permanent. We chose you and now you belong to us. You have no say in this of course, why would you when you are not of our calibre? The idea of trapping you continues in terms of the Formal Relationship. This is why we move swiftly to proclaim you as our boyfriend, fiancee, partner, wife and so forth. The application of this labelling is more than just a convenient way of referring to you. We trap you during seduction with the illusion that we create. We trap you during devaluation through the application of our machinations to ensure that you remain stuck and confused. We place traps all around you so they snap close and hold you tight. We get you pregnant, we isolate you from your friends, we make you give up your job so you become financially dependent on us (although we will naturally complain about you leeching off us later on), we stop you seeing your family, we smear people to you and you to them so you are cut adrift from your support networks. On and on it goes the placing and laying of these traps at varying levels so you remain trapped.
This trapping continues within the various stages of the narcissistic cycle. Most often this manifests when we are devaluing you. In keeping with the need to have total control, we want to engineer situations where you are under our control, unable to escape us and thus we can exact our machinations against you and extract what we want from you. To do this, we create Situational Traps and there are many of them which I shall detail to you over the course of various articles, but we shall begin with a Situational Trap which is a favourite of ours; the car.
We will naturally be at the wheel after all the car is ours (whether it might be in your name is irrelevant) and so we have to be the one driving. We choose where we are going, the speed at which we go, the controls of the car are under our charge. You are sat besides us, seatbelt on, buckled in to your seat as the world flashes by. You cannot escape us. You cannot jump from the car. You might unclip your seatbelt and climb into the back of the vehicle, if you are nimble enough, although we will stop you from trying to do that. You are in the hotseat, right next to us and we know it.
You may we well cuffed to a chair in some dingy basement, with a single bright light shining in your face for the interrogation and treatment will be of a similar nature. The journey may have begun pleasantly enough but if this is a trip which is taking place during the devaluation period, all it takes is for your to blunder in to criticising us and then our fury ignites and the nastiness commences. With you trapped we know that we have you all to ourselves. There is nowhere for you to go. With a Mid-Ranger or a Greater, you will be lured into the vehicle purely for the purposes of us being to rely on the Situational Trap. The behaviour which has offended us may have taken place earlier, in some instances days earlier and with plotting mind firing away, we avail ourselves of the opportunity to coerce you to go on a journey with us. It will undoubtedly be under some false pretence; a picnic, a drive to the coast, a trip to the shopping mall. Once you are in, the seat belt is on and the central locking clicks, then you are our prisoner. The smile we wore fades in an instant and the fury which we have kept under control is now allowed to the surface. This enables us to draw fuel form your reactions, your pleading, your questioning, your puzzled expression, the fright in your eyes and such like. We may well have placed your bag in the boot which contains your ‘phone so you cannot call anybody. If you try to reach for your ‘phone, it will be snatched from you and thrown to one side, quite possibly from the moving vehicle as we ensure that you are isolated and trapped.
You cannot go anywhere. There is nobody to ask for help. You cannot move out of this confined space. Thus we have placed you in this Situation Trap which is allowing us to exert complete and utter control over you, enabling us to do as we please, for howsoever long we choose and accordingly, such total control is very much an outcome that we aim for.
When we have you to ourselves in this manner, so begins the unpleasant treatment which is all designed to ensure you remain subjected to our power and for you to give us fuel. There are many different ways we exert this when we have you trapped in the passenger seat besides us and these are some of those ways:-
- Driving at an excessive speed and/or recklessly;
- Slamming the breaks on causing you to jolt forward, then accelerating, then braking hard again, catapulting you back and forth;
- Braking hard when you are about to take a drink so it spills;
- Turning up the music extremely loud;
- Cross-examining you relentlessly about something you have done or not done;
- Administering a silent treatment;
- Telling you at the outset of the journey that we are going somewhere and then driving in a different direction or past the destination and refusing to explain where we are going;
- Assaulting you physically as we drive;
- Driving at night in an unlit area and switching the lights on and off;
- Swerving violently over the road, overtaking at dangerous places;
- Repeatedly insulting you;
- Shouting at you;
- Poking you as we question you.
- Driving into the middle of nowhere in silence, save for a baleful glare that we keep giving you;
- Threatening to drive us both off a cliff and heading towards such an area;
- Threatening to throw you from the car whilst it is moving;
- Circular conversations;
- Lengthy monologues about ourselves which have you bored to tears.
The effect of this behaviour will vary in intensity. Sometimes it is purely to frustrate you because we have not gone to the place that was promised. On other occasions it is to allow us to talk at you and question you so you are made to feel bored or uncomfortable. Then again, the nastiness and intimidation is increased whereby the intention is to terrify you and have you scared witless.
Having behaved in this manner and left you terrified, shaking and scared, we may well purposefully drive into an area where the traffic is slower and there are other cars around to test you to see if you try to escape us or attract attention from somebody else. We will be waiting for you to test our control and if you do, there will be further repercussions.
Repeated applications of this behaviour will eventually condition you to the point that you dread being told that
“We are going for a drive.”
Since you have come to know only too well that it is far more than just going for a drive. It is placing you in a cell right next to us, a cell from which you are unable to move or escape and thus we can apply our twisted machinations against you all in the name of fuel and further control.
You are trapped and it is to drive you insane.
22 thoughts on “Trapped : The Car”
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Jesus. Mary. and Joseph. No clue by now why I am surprised. Horrified. Amazed. And completely astounded once again: how unoriginal, yet grotesquely similar this all is.
the ex used to make comments about causing minor accidents where the other driver would seem at fault in order to claim insurance (“but I won’t because you guys are in the car with me” he would then quickly add), nearly run over pedestrians (he would stop a few times just short of hitting them as they crossed the street and had the right of way) to gain fuel both from them and from myself. He would pretend not to have a clue what had happened when confronted. I thought for certain he was losing his mind at that point and refused to get in the car with him anymore. Looking back on these events and others, his claim of “whatever I think I can get away with, I will do” was the only truth I’ve known him to say out loud. I now know it has limits only to the extent where it would inconvenience him or have a negative consequence to him (going to jail, for example)
My ex did the driving all over the road thing scaring my baby and me. I’ll never forget it.
I once was chauffeured around town by a family friend/potential suitor. He drove a luxury car with a very powerful engine. It was a hot summer’s night, the road ahead was clear, so, he decided to floor the accelerator without forewarning! I got pressed into my seat, it felt like sitting in an aeroplane before take-off. My fellow passengers started to complain, I just thought, “if anything unexpected happens now, at this speed, we’ll all be dead, our bodies ripped to pieces, scattered along the road, to be scraped off the asphalt. And what for?”
Reckless behaviour is not ‘alpha male’, sexy, or whatever they *think* they are conveying. It’s a sign of immaturity.
One narc I dated (not sure if he was a lesser or mid-range but definitely an under educated asshole) used to roll back his moon roof in the car and shoot the gun he kept in his glove box into the air while we were driving. I can remember wondering where the bullets would land. I was scared but more than anything it was deafeningly loud.
I was trapped on the back of his motorcycle. He was driving 100 mikes per hour. Weaving in and out of traffic in las Vegas.
Both ear buds were in and his music was up. I wasn’t to speak to him or nudge him or clank his helmet with mine.
I was at his mercy.
Oh my, now you say it … I had forgotten about the motorbike … 🙁
Reading this has torn open the just scabbed wounds. Every single one of the situations happened to me, on several occasions. Most of the times I somehow managed to jump out of the moving car, whenever he had to go slower due to the traffic. It is torture, I can tell you. I can’t believe I still fall for every hoover he administers and trust him over and over again. Pathetic me.
Dear Mr Tudor,
My narcissist friend was a speedster and had road rage.The inside of his car always smelt a bit off. When my stepdad navigated he deliberately got my mother lost many many times. My uncle used to tilt his car onto its two side wheels along a wharf by the waters edge when I was kid. All these men thought it was hilarious!
No one else was laughing!
Another poignant awareness
Thankyou
Yeppers. Driving fast in rain. Asked him please slow down. Accused me of not trusting his driving etc etc etc
What a bunch of crap !
my Dad – the car, restaurants, holidays. i’m actually triggered by going on holiday at some point during the holiday. it also took me a while to not avoid birthdays, christmas, etc…
Yes it’s all true. Except the list of machinations are not all what I’ve experienced. Just the silent treatments and verbal aggression.
The other two situational traps I can think of are Restaurant, which I mentioned before, and now a new one, Hotel Room.
I had this happen to me on various occasions. They one that sticks out there most is actually from my Mid Range Ex Husband.
It was during a fight and he drove so fast and recklessly while yelling at me at the top of his lungs, then he slammed on their brakes in their middle of the highway..thank god my kids were riding with my mom and the highway was deserted! He was angry because he was “forced” to go to my family reunion. We stayed 15 minutes and then he made me leave…
Jody Allen,
That sounds like an absolute nightmare 🙁 And him thinking 15 minutes of a family reunion is considered actually going to it? Delusional! I’m so glad you aren’t with him anymore.
Often when we were in the middle of nowhere my ex would just pull over on the side of the road and tell me to get out if the car. I cannot believe I was ever with that asshole.
OMG klm, he’d only do that once and I’d make damn sure he paid for it!
This car metaphor reminds me of a thing he said at some point. Something like “we’re in this cozy car and it’s nice but I feel like we’re driving towards a cliff”. Later, when we were on holidays in Rhodes, he wanted to hire a car. He doesn’t normally drive, so has no practice. Anyway, he managed to crash into a car. An empty car in a car park. I know, right. From then on, I always told him I’m not surprised we’re about to crash considering his driving skills. I have never spoken truer words, but was at that point unaware how correct I was, considering his then unknown personality disorder.
This is SICK !!!
If that happened to me once, there wouldn’t be a second time.
The closest I came to that was my ex having a diabetic hypo at the wheel. If someone did it deliberately I’d kick ’em in the balls so hard they’d wish they had driven off the cliff!
I just got your book “danger 50 things you should not do with a narcissist”. After reading this post, I’m thinking getting into a car with one is on the top of the list! 😄
Valid point.
Now this one is actually reversed in my marriage. I love driving and usually insist on being the driver. Several reasons:
1) I have back pain and my car and seat are adjusted already to what’s comfy for me.
2) I am hot natured and do like controlling the AC.
3) I like playing my own music but am flexible and hub takes over at times.
That said, when he drives his car and misses a turn (which is ALWAYS my fault if I was talking to him), he shakes his fists and beats his steering wheel and screams. This is one reason why I do NOT let him drive my car. Ever.
About a year ago we were in my car, still driving on our street, and arguing over whether the trash bag sitting outside at our home would get ants in it. I said it would. He insisted that would NOT happen. That was ridiculous so I asked why he’s so sure bugs won’t get into trash. He said “Fine!!! When we get home we’re going to open up the trash and you are going to go through every bit of it and tell me how many ants you find!!!” I told him that’s ridiculous and that I won’t do it. He said “if you’re SO convinced ants will get in the trash, why do you not want to do it?” I said “Because I’m not invested enough in proving anything to want to dig through trash!” Then I told him “besides if by luck no bugs are in the trash, you will rub my face in it.” He EXPLODED at that point. Said “THAT’S FUCKING BULLSHIT!!! I’ve NEVER done that to you!!!!” He had the most terrifying expression on his face and he said it with such certainty that I almost wondered if he’s right. Because he’s always accusing ME of holding grudges. But he was rabid looking I said “Get out of my car!” He said “fine but that was such bullshit!!! I never do that!!!” I said “get the fuck out of my car” and left him to walk home on his own. It was literally a 5 minute walk and I wouldn’t have done that if we were any further or in a bad area.
But what does that make me?! lol I felt horribly guilty later. He didn’t speak for me for a few days . But I also felt empowered. Guilty AND empowered just alternating constantly. Is it normal to swing between those feelings when standing up to a narc?
Yikes! 😳 That is scary shit, HG! I am glad that never happened to me. I’m going to have nightmares now just from hearing you talk about it. I hope you’re happy. 😩