What Happens When You Accuse the Greater Narcissist?
I wrote previously about the situation where you tell a lesser member of our kind that you know what they are and how they react to it. What then of the response of those of us who belong to the greater school of narcissism? How do we react when you tell us that you know exactly what we are?
Those of us in the greater school possess three attributes which are relevant to this matter. Awareness, intelligence and malice. We know what we do. We know that this is regarded as wrong by other people (although we are always able to justify our behaviour when considered from our perspective) and we know that our behaviour hurts people but again it is entirely acceptable because we matter and you do not. We are superior and our sense of entitlement allows us to do as we please. We also do not possess the burden of guilt, remorse or compassion and therefore the effects of our behaviour cause us no trouble. There is no moral compass to guide us or hinder us. We may also be aware of exactly what we are, a narcissist. This is not always the case but we do know that we do is considered as abusive. We are intelligent enough to realise that the accusations of abuse fit with what is regarded as abuse, but we are also intelligent enough to know that we must engage in this behaviour because it is necessary to the preservation of our existence. The inherent tension that might exist between choosing to abuse someone and the impact on our existence is one whereby the need to exist will always outweigh the downsides of abusing someone (which are few when looked at through our world view. You would feel “bad” for hurting someone, you would be concerned about how this would affect you relationship or your friendship, you would worry about how others would view you, you would be concerned if it involved the authorities, your employer, your church and so forth. These concerns are much reduced in our world).
You may not realise that we are a narcissist but you do know our behaviour is abusive. Should you label us as an abuser and in support of this contention list the various instances of our behaviour, how do we respond. Our reaction is not subconscious and immediate like those of our lesser kind. We do not respond in a knee jerk reaction. We know that we are abusive and your labelling of us as such initially has two reactions.
The first is that we fear that we are losing control. Control is hugely important to us because we want you doing everything that we want and nothing that we do not want in order to ensure that you provide us with fuel. Our machinations and manipulations are all designed to gain and maintain control. Much of this is achieved by you remaining oblivious to what is happening to you or mitigating its effect by blaming yourselves (which we aim to achieve) or making excuses for us (again, something we aim to bring about). If you do not truly understand what is happening to you, you remain paralysed in this confusion and you will not do anything about it. You will not challenge us, you will not try to escape us, you will not shut off the supply of fuel. Accordingly, we need to keep you bound to us and compliant. This requires control. If we think that our control is being challenged, is slipping or is being eroded then we must establish it and do so quickly. I will return to how this is done in a moment.
The second reaction is that your moment of enlightenment that we are an abuser (or even worse you actually know we are a narcissist) is one of wounding. You have found us out. You have seen through us. You have worked us out. The potential loss of control is troubling, this being found out is terrifying and damaging. You have wounded us because you have criticised us. By telling us that you know what we are, we have failed in maintaining the state of confusion, bewilderment and ignorance. You have pierced the veil. We are mightier than you, superior to you and better than you, how can it be that someone like you has managed to unravel what we are? What else are you capable of? Who might you tell? We have failed. We hate failing. It reminds us of things we have consigned to the darkest recesses of our mind and now you, you hateful, treacherous, disloyal bitch have done this on purpose. You have done this after everything that we have done for you, because you want to hurt us don’t you? This failure to keep you in the dark amounts to a massive criticism of us. This in turn ignites the churning fury that is always there beneath the surface. This ignited fury will mean we either withdraw, unleash cold fury or unleash heated fury.
Our awareness of what we are actually makes us more vulnerable to the accusation of “I know what you are, you are an abuser, a narcissist” than those of our lesser or mid-range brethren. We are far more susceptible to being wounded by this outing. Our awareness equates to a weakness.
All is not lost for us of course. Our intelligence means that whilst we know what we are and we are wounded by your awareness and accusation, we are not without the means of addressing it. Our intelligence allows us to deflect and deny. We will utilise these twins to fight back, applying our considerable minds to deny what you have said. We will challenge your evidence, deny its existence, twist it around, pull it apart, change the subject, focus on something different, blame-shift and project. Powered by our heated fury this onslaught will be brutal and sustained as we fight to regain control. We will batter you into submission so that you become frightened, upset, angry or frustrated and thus you will give us fuel. Our further manipulations will allow us to regain control as you shrink back from our vicious words. Everything will be thrown at you in order to stop the wounding, regain control and gain the required fuel to power this defence mechanism.
If the situation is one where we cannot risk heated fury then we will issue a flat denial and engage cold fury by subjecting you to an icy and prolonged silent treatment, either of the present or absent variety.
If really necessary and this is of the last resort, we will withdraw to escape your wounding and find solace with another who will provide us fuel to repair the gaping wound that you have ripped in us. We will remain away from you for some time as we recover and enjoy the fuel from other sources as we recuperate. We will return of course because there is a score to settle and more fuel to draw from you, but for now that will have to wait.
We will also engage our energies, once we have gained more fuel (either from you if we unleash our heated fury, from you and others if we unleash cold fury and from others if we withdraw) in rolling out a smear campaign against you. Now you know what we are and we know you know, we need to ensure that this pollution does not spread elsewhere. We will up our seduction of other sources so that they like us all the more and ensure we spread poison about you so you are not believed if you try to tell other people that you know what we are.
Finally, the third attribute comes into play. Malice. The mid-range of our kind would withdraw and seek fuel elsewhere and be done with you for some time until a hoover of positive fuel through a Benign Hoover takes place. The mid-range of our kind would unleash heated fury or cold fury to stabilise the position but then would engage a Respite Hoover or a Preventative Hoover aimed at playing down what you know, restoring the golden period for a while so you focus on that and not this new knowledge or to prevent you leaving us armed with this new knowledge. The mid-range narcissist would do all of this to try and diffuse the situation and prevent it being brought up again. This does not apply to those of us who are of the greater variety. You must be punished for your terrible offence against us. Your transgression must be addressed. Your treachery must meet with a consequence. Once we have established control again and recovered from your awful wounding of us then you will be subject to a malign and brutal campaign as punishment for what you have done. This will happen if you remain with us in a relationship. It will happen if you have tried to escape us. We want to rain hell fire down on you in order to punish you for your disgusting behaviour. This is our right. This is our entitlement. This is how we respond.
You may know what we are, but if you are dealing with the greater of our kind, you may reflect on whether you really ought to make it known to us.
29 thoughts on “What Happens When You Accuse the Greater Narcissist?”
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I left my greater, without a word after 25 years….I did however leave a well written letter detailing what I had learned about him and what he was. He retreated immediately, new primary supply, currently smearing me and I still give him nothing. I abandoned social media so he knows nothing about me and my life now. He has attempted a couple of times to contact me about irrelevant things…..for anyone brave enough to dismiss one of these kind….stay strong, it can be done xoxo
Thanks for your quick response.
I am as you described a super empath… always been aware of it.
I always knew the path the relationship with the Narc was going, I actually communicated to “him” what he was doing, i tried to kept it stable… but in the end i did not tire, did not fade out… but as you describe went “nova”.
Will the Narc and the friends leave me be now?
His friends are not my friends, so i am of no concern of any smear campaign …
I believe he is a coward and ran away, do mid range Narcs run away?
No, you will not be left alone but you can do much to maximise your prospects of being left alone by implementing a robust no contact regime.
Been No Contact for a few months now. No sign of them.
after 3-4 months do they tire? is this over?
No.
Hello HG, I’ve ended a 8 month relationship with i believe to be a mid-level Narc. He was very good at creating confusion. I figured him out, he had several “friends” and in the end, i chose to reject his sexual advances, and call him out in an email listing all his lies, setups and deviant behaviors. I don’t think it was expected.
I blocked him in every way after the communication. He sent his best friend to contact me, she tried to set me up to respond by sending a cute photo of a monkey (off all things), then a second txt. The third text said she had just found out why i was not responding ( a lie ). She is now blocked as well.
Did i cause a wound? I know Narcs don’t really “feel”… but i believe i may have been the first woman to tell him what he is. . .
You did.
BW
If you find the time, read the article below, it explains all the feelings that the narcissist has and I found it very helpful.
https://narcsite.com/2017/09/27/five-myths-about-the-narcissist/
I remember tHiNg, making a fist, shaking it in disgust as he accused others of contempt and malice, often. He actually used those words. Ah hello….pot to kettle..
The only greater I’ve ever been with never ever showed wounding in the moment. He would smile. Not an arrogant smile. Not a big smile. But sometimes years later he would bring up a sound bite of what I said in a moment when everything was seemingly fine. “Remember when you asked if I was grooming my next victim?” His face would go from adoration to stone. Just that made him so mad. Out of all the nasty things I said to him, that, of all things, made him so mad. They never forget.
Because I’m morbidly curious…how did Lennox find out? And what did he do to make you trust him enough to be okay with him knowing?
I gave the doctors permission to tell him. I do not trust him but I saw an advantage in him knowing.
Maybe trust was the wrong word. I meant what makes you certain that he’ll never blow the lid of the whole facade?
He is too loyal to do that and he owes me.
Thank you for your morbid curiosity, Petals. That is how I get most of my answers.
I confided to close girlfriends, what I had discovered about him based on his consistent behavioural pattern. I said that he was not a simple bachelor or even a sxx addict as I thought at first when I slowly started to understand that he was not a normal guy who was just being a bit bachelor-type because of his great looks (that was what I thought in the beginning). I was then completely outraged of my discoverings at the time, while also totally deep in love with him and in deep with his manipulations and so therefore had conflicting feelings and I just did not know where to go with my feelings and this knowledge. I wish I had kept that knowledge to myself even if in good faith since close girlfriends, but I was fairly new in the field and did not know as much as I know today.
Because what happened then was that in some way, this knowledge had been passed on to him, but absolutely not by means of me telling him. I always instinctively knew that I should keep a low profile towards him at least, of things I learned. However, I learned the hard way, that when it comes to him you can never trust a girl, and to never mention his name, because risks are that the girl know someone who knows him and maybe even themselves are sleeping with him too. It was when saying his name to girlfriends, that I learned indirectly about how he never seemed to let go of any girl so that in this case even a girl from high-school (the one I happened to sit at a table with) would be in the loop somehow and have feelings for him even if living with another man. That is as powerful and skilled as he is. As far as concerns my knowledge of his disorder, as mentioned I kept it to myself vis a vis him. But so then he one day, suddenly out of the blue when we were meeting, started to make this speech, in his usual and – typical for his disorder – anecdotal way (he hardly NEVER speaks in specifics only if to ascertain his superiority in different ways over me, when it comes to skills or other or when manipulating):
‘… about ‘a guy’ (ie him) ‘who easily could take a girl home from a club because of his good looks’ and then when she saw his big nice apartment and then his great car, she would really like to be his girlfriend’ and then ‘when he told her that he was a psychopath she STILL would like to be his girlfriend’ – and that is when he paused and looked at me, smiling as to evoke the trust in me to come up with a sincere reaction (he is HIGHLY skilled in being manipulative). I was listening to this speech of his, not knowing what would be coming next, and as soon as he mentioned the word psychopath, I tried to keep a pokerface and come up with no reaction, but I guess I could not help smiling in some stupid way and he saw that because he smiled further, because that was his clue that it was true that I had said it or knew about him. I for sure wish I had never had confided my observations to those girls even if close, but I have also come to realise that I have been monitored in different ways both physically and electronically – so who knows what came first the girls or the monitoring – but I can at least recommend to only confide info of this nature to not only close but only extremely close and long-term friends. I believe he is a greater N based on all of his behaviour since and in particular when taking into account the last year. I for sure wish I had never spoken to anyone about it. Not telling him was not even enough in this case.
I must confess; malice is an excellent emotion and it is one of my favorites.
Well, now I know that my ex is a Greater. In many ways he doesn’t fit the profile but he is extremely intelligent and behaved this way when I finally figured out two things – that he was emotionally abusive (he had been verbally abusive for years) and that he had a secret life as a gay man.
There was no hoover, only a vicious gaslighting and smear campaign. It’s been three years since it all started falling apart and my children still don’t know the truth. Perhaps they never will and, in fact, for them to know the truth they would have to feel the excruciating pain that I feel. No caring mother wants that.
So maybe it’s better to let them and their children think he’s a wonderful man and that I’m suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness for accusing such a great man of terrible things.
Yet, in my heart of hearts, I want him outed and humiliated. I want vindication. But I will never do it myself because my children would hate me for it. So, I”m hoping for karma, for it to happen naturally as he gets older and can’t keep the mask on all day.
i have not time to tell him anything..i am too busy with my life..i dont care about unquality person.
by by
I enjoy knowing and not telling.
It is surprising that a Greater Narcissist would care much or be wounded if anybody discovered and/or confronted him/her about their narcissism. A Greater’s confidence should be so high that calling out such a discovery would not be in his/her mind incredibly significant.
That confidence means that the opponent should not work it out and therefore if they do then it wounds to realise we have not been as effective as we want to be.
No wonder every little thing I say/do seems to upset midrangers. I can’t pretend that they are something they are not and they can’t deal with me seeing thru their façades. Once they know me fairly well, I don’t even have to say anything to irritate them. Probably just seeing me is enough. This has never been a problem with the greaters I’ve known. They seem to find it amusing and it adds a level of fun to the games they constantly play.
I feel like I’ve had a satori moment. But it’s a sad one. There’s really no hope I can ever be friends and have enjoyable conversations with my Moron in Munich, is there? He will always perceive criticism anytime we interact since I can not pretend that he is all the things he wants to be, but isn’t. In a way, I have become a mirror for him, but I’m reflecting back his real self that he can’t stand to see or acknowledge.
I’ve been thinking of him as “Pas Assez Bien” for the last year and a half. That just the truth, isn’t it? He’s just not good enough.
I don’t think my exhusband ever hid what he is. I remember being shocked as bits and pieces were revealed when we were first dating, but he was always proud of his intelligence and manipulations. I think he was different because of the awareness in his family. The awareness and acceptance of narcissism is probably why he has never pretended to be someone other than he is – no golden periods for anyone.
I do remember when I first accused him of abuse. He looked at me like I was crazy and stated flatly that there was no such thing as emotional abuse. His reaction was much like your description with cold fury and disdain. I dont think there ever was any smear campaign, but then all his family knew what we both were.
He never seemed particularly malicious to me, but then maybe I was just used to it. I do know that my FIL would step in whenever I must have looked extra worn down. He would talk to my husband and things would get better for me for several months. My FIL was a rough and scary man and my husband was afraid to cross him. I always wondered what his dad threatened him with.
Hello, HG. Do most greater narcissists have a college education? Do most of them hold administrative positions or own their own business? Am I wrong in thinking they are almost always very successful people?
Many of us are university educated but it is not a pre-requisite. Some may hold very high up administrative functions – for instance senior positions in our civil service or indeed have their own business, but it would be a significant undertaking. We are invariably successful people, yes.
Is it possible for a Greater not to be successful career wise?
Like, not even be interested in one? Highly intelligent – artistic type – writer – musician etc.
Possibly, more likely to be UMR.
I was with greater of your kind, I knew it at the end , I told him . I don’ t care about his destroying campain . I will never be with him for the rest of my life. No mattee what it takes , He makes me sick