It’s Only The Wind
It is fundamental to the method by which we are able to exert our control that we maintain a heightened state of anxiety, in you. When we keep you on edge you are unable to function properly. You are not in a position to challenge what we do, either in your own mind or by confronting us. We want you on tenterhooks and feeling uncertain. One method by which I would achieve this would be the use of sudden noises. I would choose a moment when the other person is sat quietly, perhaps reading a book or watching television. The house is quiet and I can see that you are relaxed. I will exit the room and perhaps go upstairs where I will slam a couple of doors or stamp on the floor and then return to where you are.
“What was that bang?” you ask as I enter the room again.
“A bang?” I answer with a quizzical look on my face.
“Yes, there was a loud bang from upstairs, did you not hear it?”
I shake my head and watch as you frown.
“I am sure I heard it, like something hitting the floor.”
I shake my head again.
“No, I was just in the kitchen but I did not hear anything.”
I sit down and watch as you get up to explore and try and find out what the source of the noise was. You will not find any evidence that will help you in your quest because I stamped on the floor above the living room three times. There is nothing broken or damaged which would give you some clue as to what has happened. You return to your seat puzzled at this noise and resume the task you were engaged in. Throughout the day I intermittently make sudden noises, loud and designed to make you jump. I slam some doors, bang on the floor when upstairs and let the sash windows bang shut. Each time I deny hearing the noise as you pad about the house trying to find out what the source of the sudden noise was. I can see that it is getting to you. You are wandering around, peering about the house in an earnest fashion as if expecting some intruder to be stood there banging two pieces of wood together. You keep asking me if I have heard anything. On each occasion I deny it. I never let you catch me generating the noise and each time I am trying hard not to laugh as you keep asking me whether I have heard the noise. You question whether it is the neighbours but I point out that they are away for the weekend. I continue with this campaign through the night, slipping from the bed and making something topple over so you wake up with a start. Sometimes I wake up and shout out loud and then pretend to be asleep as you grip me, frightened by the sudden noise. Every time I feign ignorance and then begin to demonstrate irritation towards you because you keep waking me up and disturbing my sleep. By the following day you look terrible. You have barely slept, left on the edge by these intermittent noises which take on even greater sharpness and effect in the dead of night. I continue to cause these sudden bangs and crashes and always deny hearing them. I point out that you must be hearing things and the fact you look exhausted shows you must be having some kind of psychotic episode. You keep on asking me how I have not heard anything but every time I shake my head and deny hearing these noises. I pretend to show that I care by holding you and suggesting that it might be something outside or it was only the wind as it blew past the house, slamming a window shut or knocking over the outside bin. This causes you to go to the window and stare at the bin which has not moved. You do not accept these natural explanations so I begin to suggest that it is down to you being tired and perhaps you should take some time off work but you will not agree.
“Perhaps we have a ghost?” I suggest and watch the colour drain from your face at this suggestion. I then shift to making a noise in front of you.
“That was you,” you declare as you jump in your seat.
“I know it was, I was just checking that your hearing was working okay. It obviously is.”
“But I keep hearing noises and you don’t?” you protest with a look of bewilderment.
“I know, you keep saying, perhaps you should see the doctor?”
You feel ragged and drained so you agree. I accompany you, discharging the obligation of caring partner as I sit and listen to you explaining what has been happening to the doctor. I confirm you are hearing things and the doctor wonders if you are suffering from depression and suggests monitoring the situation. You ask for something to help you sleep and I concur with the suggestion. It is all getting noted down in your records and is providing evidence that I can refer other people to in order to build this picture that there is something seriously wrong with you, that you are prone to imagining things which is all helpful in creating the picture that you are losing your mind. I continue with the behaviour, creating slams, bangs and crashes throughout the day and night until you return to the doctors begging for more medication with my supportive self, nodding away next to you. Little by little your sanity is becoming eroded by this campaign of torment and you lean on me all the while, thankful for my support and oblivious to the fact that I am the source of your anxiety. I try to soothe you, offering explanations that come from a natural source as I continue to give you a look that you are stark, staring mad.
“It is only the wind,” I tell you yet again but you look out of the window and see the branches are not moving as you sink into a chair holding your head in your hands.
19 thoughts on “It’s Only The Wind”
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“Empaths remember… it will always be something.”
Jess, I couldn’t agree with you more.
This is super creepy HG. A great example of crazy making just for its own sake. Empaths remember… it will always be something.
My mother would pull stunts like this, quite often, when she remarried my stepfather. Even though I was the intended target she’d involve my stepfather in it and he’d buy it hook, line and sinker. I’d see through it, but he’d take whatever she’d claim and run with it, never questioning the absolute ridiculousness of it no matter how insane, outlandish or illogical it was. My mother lapped it up, sometimes laughing at me in kind of mocking “ha ha” way behind his back when he was out of her field of vision, but I could see her. For whatever reason it never occurred to him he was being toyed with, even though he’s had a lifetime of abuse with narcissists far worse than my mother.
At one point in my late twenties I moved back home for a year after breaking up with a boyfriend I was living with and my mother started right back up with this bs the day I moved back in. The first day…
My mother’s uncle (a narc and pedophile) lived with us when I was very little and I would hide in the dark and make ghost noises, slam doors and clomp around on the second floor to make him think the house was haunted. At times, I could be quite mischievous.
K
That’s funny! Well he was an abuser of children he deserves whatever he gets!
realitysetsinnn
He used to play spanking games with my older sister when she was little, yuck. My mother and father left us home alone with him so they could go out drinking and I remember pretending to be a ghost, making boo noises, what a riot!
Hahahaha that’s just too funny! Wonder what he thought lol…and yes YUCK! I think I would want to play hide and seek lol….only he wouldn’t find me till parents got home lol!!!!!!!
Hi Realitysetsinnn,
I had the same thought! It reminded me of my son. He was a notorious prankster! It was April Fool’s Day for months. And always followed by a big belly laugh! As far as I know, an adult has not done this to me.
Hilariously evil
It would also remind of a child playing pranks on his mother. Like once I played a prank on my mom at the age of 12. I was in ceramics class and I had some left over brown clay and I got the idea to play a trick on her with it. So we had a cat and when I got home from school and she was at work, I rolled the clay into a long 12 inch cylinder and coiled it up and put it right on top of the kitty litter. So when she got home I was in my room and she came rushing towards my room saying Tonyaaaaaaaa…..and I yelled out yeahhhh???? And she said where’s the cattttttt???? And I was like…..I don’t knowww????!!!!! And she was all worried and then I couldn’t take it anymore I busted out laughing and told her what I did! Yeah the mind of children can be like that.
That’s fun! The other day I played a prank on a person of the office next door, who I beleive is a Lesser.
She gets early every day so she can grab a coffee on the Espresso machine which is reserved for students (not staff). Whenever I’m around, I just lock up the door so the machine doesn’t run out of ingredients when the students arrive. Nevertheless, with her inflated sense of entitlement, she just played the victim, and made a speech about how sore ther throat was so she was in desperate need of a hot beverage. Instead of only saying “Sorry, I can’t” I decided to play with her ego and replied “Sure! Here, you can grab all coffee and tea as you want. Personally, I don’t understand why so many people of the cleaning staff and trainees love this machine. Obviously, none of them had ever tried a decent coffee or went inside a Starbucks store. As for me, no coffee whose price is less than $10 is worth me drinking it. ” She turned pale, then red, then purple and returned to her office empty handed! I am laughing up to now.
If it was me….I would wonder why my partner was lying to me. I would know it was him and could see through the fakery easily. We would have never made it to a doctor because I would never go as far as to think I was the one losing my mind, not from just loud noises. Plus if it was only us in the house and every time I heard the noise he was out of sight….I would totally catch on to that. Now if I was 9 years old that might be different but yeah not at my current age no way. I would also start to wonder all about what was wrong with him that made him try and fool me like that. I would be looking at him thinking….wow this guy has some strange kinda issues. Wonder if he needs to see a doctor. Lol
My narc is long distance but he often made me feel like I was losing my mind in other ways (rather than creating fake noises to disturb me).
I know this is off topic here but I am wondering if you would ever do an article about long distance relationships with the narc.
It’s in hand.
I look forward to reading it when it comes out.
Thank you.
Sounds like something a paranoid lesser narcissist would do. The one I knew would do silly stunts like the mentioned above. Too bad for him I didn’t fall for it. Mental illness does not run in my family. However, it does in his.
LOL
I had a Lesser, he wouldn’t do this, he wasn’t ‘clever’ enough to perform any gaslighting, because this is a shrewd form of manipulation. Oddly enough, mental illness runs in both our families.