20 Deflections of a Lesser Narcissist
The lesser of our kind is a creature of instinctive reactions and knee-jerk responses. In common with all our kind, he or she must always avoid blame and swerve accountability. Denial is often used by the Lesser Narcissist to achieve this with a blunt rejection of the comment that you have levelled against him or her and if you persist you will invariably find yourself on the receiving end of some heated fury in order to beat you down from asking your questions and apportioning blame. The Lesser Narcissist will offer denial with little or no supporting evidence. It is not a topic for discussion any longer. The lesser will also engage in the art of deflection. He or she does not think carefully being launching these phrases and comments in a bid to deflect the nature of your questions and accusations but rather they are an immediate response. Indeed, they will often appear to be raised out of context, appear to be non sequiturs and even almost nonsensical. They are not to the lesser. In his world these are instinctive responses which he or she has to come out with on order to deflect your questioning of them. Your questioning creates unease and discomfort and the lesser will issue these phrases from a stockpile he or she keeps. They lack the higher function to think of a high-calibre response which brings about deflection but instead utilise these phrases below in a “one size fits all” approach. They will be hurled back at you, often with venom attached, a standard response to what you are saying to the Lesser Narcissist. Expect to hear them may times in the course of your dance with the lesser. He is not capable enough of conjuring up new ones and relies on these “old faithfuls” to deflect the force of what you are trying to achieve. The deflection at this level works usually by causing disbelief and confusion on your part. You like everything to make sense. You like things to follow an order and be logical and therefore these stock responses will make you stop in your tracks as you try and figure out either what is actually meant by them or if you understand the thrust of the comment how on earth they are applicable to what the discussion is about. This is the beauty of these deflecting comments for the Lesser Narcissist. He cannot think up clever or articulate responses but he does not need to because there are just as effective in halting you in your tracks. They may not always result in your behaviour being questioned (as is more the hall mark of the deflecting comments of the Mid-Ranger of the Greater Narcissist) which then takes the conversation of discussion in a different direction. These comments however fulfil the aim of stopping the discussion going in the direction it was and indeed cause it to veer off at an improbable tangent into the reams of confusion and bewilderment. That does not matter to the lesser, as long as the attack, the criticism and/or the questioning stops goes elsewhere and his accountability remains unaffected. So long as your response provides him or her with a fuel, the comment need not be magnificent or well-constructed. Here are twenty stock deflecting comments used by Lesser Narcissists.
- You’re nothing special yourself you know.
- Why do you have to use dictionary words with me?
- I’m not stupid you know. Why do you have to make me out to be stupid?
- I don’t care what other people do, they are idiots for thinking that way.
- You’ve been reading too many books.
- You think you are so clever don’t you?
- Why isn’t my dinner ready?
- Been listening to her again have we? I can always tell when you to two have been talking.
- Can a man not get some peace in his own home?
- You sound like your mother.
- I’m going out.
- Why aren’t you ready?
- You should know your place.
- You talk too much.
- You never listen to me properly.
- Never mind me, what have you been up to eh?
- I know what you’ve done.
- You can’t judge me.
- Fancy words don’t make you right you know?
- Since when did this house become a court room?
11 thoughts on “20 Deflections of a Lesser Narcissist”
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Reading up on different kids of narcs makes me mentally weary. I dealt with (my perceptions), a greater ex husband, a mid range overt father-in- law, a possible greater dad, a mid range mom, a blustering, ranting lesser little brother and two sisters with some pretty strong narc traits. No contact with them has brought my stress level way down. My self esteem was in the gutter, but is quite improved. So many broken people out there. Oh, and the family interactions were interesting.
Dear Mr Tudor,
After reading your articles to Mr Bubbles I can confirm his dad was definitely a lesser. Complete arsehole! We just thought he was a huge bully, had a big chip on his shoulder, ordered everyone around and everyone owed him. He was in the military and went AWOL so many times he received a courts martial.
Mr Bubbles was the eldest out of 4 brothers …. he left home at 16.
He can relate very much to the above statements.The dad would hit his mum, Mr Bubbles threatened him ….. very nicely and quietly … and the dad stopped. Mr B tried to get his mum to move out into a nice unit he had, but she said, he’d find her and probably beat or kill her. She suffered a miserable life and the bastard outlived her. When I came on the scene, I thought I could do my empath thing and fix him ….. big mistake ….. Mr B did warn me not to. The bastard came to the hospital just as I had given birth to our first born and started a fight with me …. I rang Mr B in tears. We didn’t see him after that, only his mum, on the quiet. He purposely cut Mr B out of his will. Mr B is the total opposite and I think the dad was jealous as. Mr B could never please his father not matter what. Mr B was a professional and very respected by all.
Your articles have encouraged Mr B to open up a little bit more about his dad ….. he’s been extremely reserved in the past and buried it deedly …. so a very big thank you Mr Tudor
You are welcome Bubbles.
#11 is very familiar to me – “I’m going out.”
I grew up repeatedly hearing my father yell at my mother, “That’s it. I’m leaving!”, followed by her dissolving into a puddle of tears which scared my sister and I into crying as well.
One day when this happened, my sister did not cry and said with a straight face, “He’s not leaving. He’s coming right back.”
My father just stood there stupidly at the front door, holding the leash of our little poodle who was waiting for her walk around the block..
That’s funny, HG.
The last one rings true for me – “Since when did this bedroom become a courtroom?” An ex said to me, “if I knew this was going to be The Spanish Inquisition, then I wouldn’t have wanted to see you tonight.”
Hilarious …. what the f do you answer to that ?
Sorry but they can be creative sometimes even if the repertoire of their intent is limited to controlling and hurting us.
#11 is so familiar to me – “I’m going out.”
I grew up repeatedly hearing my father yell at my mother, “That’s it. I’m leaving!”, resulting in her dissolving into a puddle of tears, followed by my sister and I.
One day, my sister did not cry and said with a straight face, “He’s not leaving. He’ll be right back.”
My father’s response was to stand there stupidly at the front door, holding our little poodle’s leash as she waited for her walk.
Just to breath the same air….lowest of the low.
Well said. F’n well said Omj.
I have so many stockpile responses for ‘education is disobedience’
M’y lesser Narc would always say .. you gonna have to lower your standards…
Yep I did for 2.5 years – hoovered after 23 years – he was an idiot before and still is … lower your standards … lower your standards…. no f … way!!!
I have been low enough with him
He was the most annoying of all my Narcs – there was no residual benefits for me none –
Compare to other narcs – my standards were very low already to just breath the same air as him.
If there is one Narc I truly despise and look like really dirt … that is him … s real piece of muddy shit !!!
Feels good 🙂
He is really the one who has left me an aftertaste I can’t describe. My standards could not have been lower …
“lower your standards”
– that’s a perfect translation of their stock phrase “Manage Your Expectations”
They want to get you into the no-standards-zone, because it means – no boundaries and no self-esteem. Their own self-esteem is feeding off of yours. It’s the sociopathic trait of exploiting others, which is why they hate the social contract of basic decent conduct, and as that contract is unspoken it’s pliable and they will bend it right back in a steady process.
The reason why we can get so far into it, i even deluded myself that it was just challenging playfulness – is because it’s that much harder to assert your boundaries in a weaker position, kind of like trying to arm wrestle someone who is leveraging amazingly stubborn force of will to bring you down – when your arm is already at a close angle to the ground. You can just be amazed at how you got there, but you’re surviving within hostile conditions. This reminds me of my matrinarc’s favourite stockpile phrase: “it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt”, when us kids cried over something.
Survival triggers limbic brain responses, which is to freeze under a flood of stress hormones. I have intimate awareness of that because it became a permanent brain feature of mine.
It doesn’t matter if your life is under actual threat if your body thinks it is. You can also get addicted to resolving the conflict, because of how intermittent lovebombing in combination with hostility works: we’re frozen and become reliant on the positive dose to get us out of the freeze, but the dose is delivered unpredictably so we can’t form stable boundaries around our feelings so they never get resolved, we’re stuck in a limbo of internal chaos. Human predators don’t have to consciously plan all of this, it’s an evolved instinct.
The important thing to know is that the lovebombing is also a hostile devaluation, it’s another way to blitz boundaries, so you need to realise you don’t want the dose – even if your body craves it.
What i find helpful here is understanding their levels of energy function independently: how a lesser can lose energy if you don’t play the passive subordinate position they have worked you into. Narcy sent me a travel ticket by mail, but i never accepted the ‘silent’ invitation, so he continues to be silent.
I was triggered (due to reasons above) and went into a state of expecting his rage – but i now think it’s more likely that he has withdrawn to restock his fuel reserves. Lessers have a lot of chaos in their lives that they try to fix with rigid structures and magical thinking. There’s only so much fantasising about how successful you are, before you have to deal with the necessary.
We can forget how little this has to do with us, because we’re dealing with our own inner turmoil.