The False Exaggeration of the Victim
We would struggle without those twin helpers of exaggeration and embellishment as we make our mediocre achievements impressive and our decent accomplishments spectacular. Good for all occasions, a healthy and liberal sprinkling of exaggeration makes us far more appealing and alluring. Embellishing what I have done ensures I look far better than you and means that I remain the superior individual. Like salt and pepper at meal times, exaggeration and embellishment are never far from our kind. We make everything bigger, better, bolder, brighter and more brilliant. We love to magnify and multiply in order to convey just how great we are, yet, generous souls that our kind are it would not be fair if we did not allow you an opportunity to be seen to exaggerate and embellish, to make a mountain out of a mole hill and blow things out of proportion. Of course, when we provide this opportunity to you, it has none of the self-aggrandizing effects of our behaviour for ourselves but it used as an opportunity to make you see hysterical, unreliable and someone who is trying to pin the blame on us unfairly. We use exaggeration to inflate what we are but also as a means of attacking you. Here are twenty examples of using exaggeration and embellishment to undermine you.
- You are hypersensitive
- You are over-thinking what has happened
- You read too much into what I say
- You are paranoid
- You are seeing things which are not there
- You are making that up
- You have to be melodramatic don’t you?
- You aren’t that ill really.
- You are over-reacting.
- You are making a fuss over nothing.
- You have lost your sense of perspective.
- You take things too far at times
- You are going over the top with this now
- You press the panic button too soon
- You are making something out of nothing
- You are responding in a disproportionate manner
- You are getting over excited about this
- You are losing your sense of proportion
- You are putting two and two together and making eight
- You are jumping to conclusions
When you hear these comments being made by us, you should become aware that we are using such a comment to deflect what you are saying by trying to trivialise it by suggesting you are exaggerating its effect or importance. The use of phrases such as these are stock tells by us that you have landed a blow against us and we need to reduce its impact promptly. The easiest way to do this is to not only diminish the import of what you have said but then to make you question your own behaviour by making the conversation about you, rather than us. This will also provoke you by frustrating you. You are being denied the opportunity to advance your agenda and this will increase your emotional response. This not only gives us fuel, it also means that you lose sight of your point as you are derailed by conducting the discussion in a logical fashion as you are pushed by us into the territory of emotion. Once emotion has taken hold of your thinking we are far abler to exploit this to our advantage. Recognise these comments and understand their significance when you are engaging with our kind so you are able to withdraw from or neutralise their effect.
81 thoughts on “The False Exaggeration of the Victim”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
O M G….. did HG actually type “ah fankyooo!”, yes, he did! I am very muchly amused, delighted, in fact 🙂
Windstorm – I know it’s not meant to be humorous but I laughed when I read this:
“I just accepted that I was crazy and abnormal, embraced it as part of my uniqueness and ran with it. Since that felt like armor to me and tended to piss them off, I’d say that landed blows too. Lol!”
I know it came about in a negative way for you but, similarly, I’ve found ’embracing my uniqueness’ can be used as armor as well…sometimes when I have found that I start to care too much about what people think about me – to the point where it begins to hinder me in accomplishing what I need to get done – I just say “Fuck it. Let them just chalk it up to the fact that she is a ‘crazy artist’…”
I get a lot more done that way.
WhoCares and WS
Yeah, it pisses them off because they can’t control you. Be the mavericks you were meant to be and fuck everyone else.
Aww, thank-you K!
You are pretty unique yourself – and we all appreciate your awesome ‘uniqueness’!! <3
My pleasure WhoCares, and thank you!
Actually K, I take it back again. I just remembered reading here about the people that were hurt by Mid-Rangers. I now think that Mid-Rangers can be compared to Satan too. That was an ignorant comment on my part. In fact there was a family in our town destroyed by a Somatic Mid-Ranger. They were high school sweethearts and the Somatic seduced the wife. She was filing for divorce and one night the narc was taunting the husband who happened to be a cop. The husband lost it and shot the narc at his shoulder. The three of them tried to fight over the gun but the narc left both of them to run away. The husband then shot his wife and then turned the gun to himself and killed himself. That narc was definitely Satan in my book.
K, that’s a good way of putting it. Satan’s minions. Thankfully for me, none of the narcs that I encountered can be compared to Satan. They are either too dumb for their own good Lessers or Mid-range brats. I don’t think that a Greater would ever be interested in living in the cute little hillbilly county that I live in the California foothills. We just don’t have enough population to supply them with fuel to be high functioning. We don’t even have enough population to have a Target here. So I should never have to worry about encountering a Satanic narc. Just a Despicable Me type of narc with their little yellow minions.
I have gotten all 20 of these repeatedly all my life from my mother, my Pretzel, sons and other family narcs. Nice to know that meant I was constantly landing blows!
Eventually I just accepted that I was crazy and abnormal, embraced it as part of my uniqueness and ran with it. Since that felt like armor to me and tended to piss them off, I’d say that landed blows too. Lol!
I read this article again and I don’t know why it triggered so much anger in me. When I first got in this entanglement, comments like these were so confusing and hurtful. This is where the guilt and self doubt starts. “Am I really to blame?” “does he really think these things of me?”
Now that I recognize what he is doing I can see the conversations in my head. He inserts one of these comments and and it’s like hitting the brakes at high speed. I literally gasp in mid convo. “Are you kidding me? Are you seriously going to end any chance of a logical conversation here?” Conversation over, he wins. It’s infuriating!
I love how you describe it as derailed HG. I’m always amazed at how self aware you are and how you can lable our emotions when you can’t feel them. I always say it’s impossible to assign words to what I’m feeling but you do it brilliantly.
Thank you, when you are as clever as I am and have a thirst for knowledge, being a keen observer of behaviours means one learns a lot of very useful information.
Ah, spoken like a true narc.
The observing has become one of my main clues.
Haha clever indeed. The evidence is in what you write.
You are never getting over “that event” (affair)
Every time I talk to a narcissist it’s like I just dropped acid. Constant contradictions. Even as simple as someone insisting on holding the floor verbally and then seeming to know my thoughts when I’ve said nothing. My first clue to narcisstic thought process is that I feel frustrated like I need to stab myself in the brain with anything I can get my hands on. Next step, walk away.
I’ve always had the unfortunate habit of being accepting. And emotionally generous. And deeply caring. To an N those qualities are due to some outside factor not attributable to MYSELF at all. All of my amazing pieces that make me unique now prove his/her worth- they are either amazing themselves or otherwise owed (victim), male OR female, female is an equal issue. Done with that.
And all the Ns negatives are somehow ascribed to me. On top of the fact that they manage to somehow believe that they make any sense at all and nearly always see themselves as different. I teach my kids to walk away from tricks as much as I can and evidence so far is that they seem to be treated well by people, which indicates maybe narcs don’t bother and they draw mostly honest peers (I have seen the N kids, they are there, one tried to use wealth and I had to coach my daughter to pay attention and not jump in). I hope for the best.
Now that I am able to make better sense of patterns it’s gotten so much easier to just ignore. And my decisions are to place my wellbeing first. It’s just a trick where the rules are set up that the other person “wins”, often after they’ve ascertained you fully give a shit, so forewarning is imperative and luckily I’m finding the whole thing yawn worthy. I’ve seen a couple of times commenters mentioned that they thought the N was just stupid before they learned about narcissism. My ability to see way more than even shades of gray is fucking lost, like that I can like and dislike things about a person simultaneously. Not worth my sanity though, ignoring that stuff makes my life so much lighter it’s unbelievable. And it’s not even hard. I remove myself or they get bored in a matter of days. There are so many other things to pay attention to that feel nice. I felt ALL of it before, that’s not new, I just more frequently questioned doing the right thing or how to understand. Also I’m very open minded. There is not nor ever will there be genuine appreciation. Sexiness probably still a challenge, but
1. still awesome of ME to notice and appreciate
2. Plenty of sexy non n people, I can now differentiate
Even a little simplification lightens the load, small influences can be life altering, for good or bad. I’m being so careful what energy to feed. I want the wrong things to slide off, whether that’s whole people or no. It’s nothing but an energy drain in the truest most basic real sense, nothing more, that is in fact the purpose of it.
Sorry long, but on this topic I think, thanks HG I’m grateful.
“The use of phrases such as these are stock tells by us that you have landed a blow against us and we need to reduce its impact promptly.”
Important to remember. I don’t need to fix it.
“Recognise these comments and understand their significance when you are engaging with our kind so you are able to withdraw from or neutralise their effect.”
NunyaBiz
I wrote you an appreciative comment about your post. It seems to have disappeared.
I love what you’ve written here, and you could have your own TEDtalk. It would make the perfect keynote speech at a private girls’ school graduation ceremony.
I could see the next Miss Universe reading this as her winning speech. Good boundaries, some personal peace, then world peace.
Caroline, thank you! Your compliment is the antidote to my complaints in my post. I am happy to be working on straightening my mind, and I’ve mentioned on here that I’ve done some CBT recently, some therapy as well. My feeling of randomness is reduced, I’m also lucky to have had a great counselor. I enjoy your posts often (I believe I have “liked” them).
I especially love the intelligent women on here (and men as well, very much). It’s just such a relief to speak with people who can think in shade and nuance and don’t turn each phrase into a paler, more two dimensional, over-simplified version of itself. I really can think three seemingly different things at the same time. And good boundaries aren’t a criticism of someone else. And most people should be fine with them, so that’s a big indicator of another issue.
I think it can be hard to balance between being gullible and not being cynical, which I thought I was doing but really needed to fine-tune my application, the blog helps a lot. A little daily stress reduction adds up. Sometimes I can grab at stuff without being mindful about what I want to trade.
World peace!
Nunya biz
“I think it can be hard to balance between being gullible and not being cynical,”
True words! I have a hard time walking that line. I tend to err on the gullible side, but I’d rather that than cynical. Cynical reminds me too much of my narcs.
Same here, WS. I’d rather have an open-minded innocence about me and I don’t want to kill that. My more assertive/aggressive side likes to have fun though.
The other really important thing about cynicism that I try to hold in mind….
it is a filtering tool used exclusively by the conscious mind, so it works in BOTH directions- a protection against false information and manipulation, but also too much filtering removes true information. I’m way too greedy for understanding to overdo it. I agree narcs overdo via black and white thinking, it creates areas of blindness, which is part of the frustration. I think it can create false confidence, but also some helpful confidence.
HG, if you choose the pictures for your stories, are you the photographer or graphic designer of them?
No.
Are they stock photos that you buy?
Kel and Mommy Pino
You may find this comment helpful.
HG Tudor
SEPTEMBER 6, 2018 AT 18:07
I describe what I require, a minion offers me choices, I make the final selection. Pleased you like them.
https://narcsite.com/2018/09/05/a-question-of-trust-8/#comments
Thank you K!
You are awesome as always!!
My pleasure mommypino! And thank you.
K, can you tell me, would the word ‘minion’ be used in a normal conversation (like you mean a worker), or is it meant to be denigrating?
2SF
My MMRN was the only person that I knew, before narcsite, who used the word: minion. Yes, it is denigrating.
2SF
I’ll throw my two cents in: saying that someone has minions is more of a joke. Implying that the person is a type of “super-villain,” since that’s the type of person who has “minions.”
Minions are low-paid or unpaid workers who are used and unappreciated. Most people would not like to be called a minion, although, some of us refer to ourselves as minions meaning we work for some entity that takes us for granted – like the government or a narc.
WS
I am not bothered by the word minion but I can understand if others don’t like it.
K
I’m not bothered by being called a minion either. I believe in calling a spade a spade. “Je suis bien dans la peau”. Im comfortable with Reality. I don’t deny her existence and she doesn’t slap me in the face. 😝
WS
Ha ha ha…I know, right. I like what you wrote about reality; it’s so true.
K and Windstorm, thank you for your explanations! xx
I wasn’t sure if I should add this to the conversation, but I used to call my narc sister’s codependent bestfriend as her minion. I didn’t know that she was a narc before but just as an observation of how loyal he stayed with her despite how poorly she treated him. Now I think the proper name for him is a lieutenant.
mommypino
I still use the word occasionally and I always think of Satan and his minions when I use it.
K
I wouldnt know anything about it, but didn’t they make a kids movie about Minions? Cant be that bad.
NarcAngel
Yes! Love those Minion movies!
Windstorm – it took me a while to warm up to the Minion movies; seemed like a whole lot of nonsense to me at first. Then I realized it was Sandra Bullock doing the voice of ‘Scarlett Overkill’ – and I just get a kick out of imagining her face while doing that voice. I had never pictured her in such a role but she is fabulous as a villainess!
Plus – after a while – Bob, Stuart and Kevin kinda grow on you…
Hey Windstorm – love your seasonal avatar!
(Initially, without zooming in, I thought maybe the red colouring in HG’s new avatar had been something seasonal…but nah, swim shorts…red suits you HG – wait though, isn’t white your favourite colour?…um, nevermind. That isn’t a family-friendly mental image I’m having…white is never a good colour for swimwear…unless you *want* attention!)
It’s tangerine actually.
HG, can we see more of you for Christmas?
You might get an elbow I suppose.
We shall all be familiar with your joints by Christmas. If I get a vote, I choose the hip joint please Sir.
Talking of hip, why did the hipster burn his mouth on the pizza? Because he ate it before it was cool. Boom-tish, ah fankyooo!
Thank you for the joke HG! Your talents are numerous. Free entertainment at Narcsite. What a fun place to be.
Clap. Clap. Clap. So funny HG!
Why did the Hipster leave his oceanside mansion?
It was too current.
Very good – I’m using that.
You’re welcome.
Tangerine, hmn? Is that from *your* ‘perspective’?
Ha ha, no that is what is says on the product label when I bought them.
Um, okay…did you buy those off the internet then? Can’t trust those internet descriptions… (Because the only citrus-variety of fruit I know of – that is even close to *that* colour would be blood oranges.)
Or you *did* play with your filters to both enhance your tan and the “tangerine”, as you call it..;-)
No I walked into the Superdry store, picked them, bought them, wore them. Bish bash bosh.
“Bish bash bosh”
I didn’t know that was a general British saying – I’ll have to remember that…thought it was just a shunting game from Thomas and Friends..
NarcAngel
I do think of the innocuous yellow minions, too, but after twelve years of catholic school the devil comes to mind quite often. The nuns used hell as a scare tactic but it didn’t work with me. I was referred to as “a bold one”.
K
Oooh! That is dark! I’d never thought of Satan’s minions. I think more along the lines of the dumb little yellow minions in Despicable Me – more cartoonish and unaware. Lackeys more than henchmen, although they are all minions.
MommyPino
In my opinion, lieutenants are just a type of minion. Really, to a greater narcissist, everyone in their life is pretty much viewed as some sort of minion, or at least that’s how it seems.
NarcAngel, that’s exactly what I was thinking when I was calling my sister’s loyal bestfriend, a minion from Despicable Me. Always just happily and contently doing what she wants. He’s blind to all of her faults. He’s the only person who was like that to her.
K, actually I take it back. There were times that I honestly thought my Lesser mom was so evil. But she is a Lesser and didn’t have any minion. I think Lessers can be Satanic too but not the Mid-rangers. Mid-rangers are just really needy, arrogant, entitled and annoying. But I don’t think that they will go out of their way to destroy anyone except for smear campaigns.
mommypino
Most lower Lessers have small fuel matrices so they may not have a minion(s). My lesser parents were very violent so I thought they were evil, too. Mid-rangers are passive aggressive and malice takes energy and planning so you won’t see many malign mid-rangers.
Do you know if the cop was a narcissist?
‘Minions’ as a term is used for comedic purposes 2SF, not in any serious way in normal conversation. Since Gru and his minions have been part of popular culture, we use it more.
‘Minions’ also has connotations of peasantry, and serfdom, or indentured slavery, as it was during the middle ages when the feudal system was in place. This was before the Black Death plague swept through the world, and the value of an individual life began to have some currency.
This was the beginning of the average person striving to have some basic human rights.
Currently we refer jokingly to minions, but if Austen Powers had just come into popular culture through movies, we’d instead jokingly refer to HG residing in his Evil Lair.
Which he does, of course.
Actually the hollowed-out volcano on a pacific island is being refurbished, so I am ensconced in an alpine retreat at present overseeing the construction of a very, very cold naughty step on the side of Mont Blanc.
Enjoy your trip HG. The Mont Blanc (and area) is beautiful! Been there many times. Do come visit me on your way home 🙂 xx
It would be a pleasure.
😙 I’ve put the Beerenburg 🥃 in the fridge for you, just in case xx ⛷🏂☃️
HG
Re: Frigid naughty step
Thanks for the heads up. Maybe K can knit me a seat cover when shes finished retrieving articles for MB.
I feel so bad! If memory serves, I was typing my request super fast this morning and it came off bossy. Please forgive me K. You see, the shower water was running and I was in a rush to join the party.
MB
It was just a tease about minions MB.Don’t put any stock in it.
I knew you were teasing NA. No worries
Ha ha ha…I don’t think you are bossy MB.
NarcAngel
Ha ha ha…I am currently knitting myself a pair of socks and I am in the archives taking notes. Nothing on the pub fight yet.
How’s this for a seat cover?
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/25/c1/d0/25c1d047c830b23e322dc623c3d83395.jpg
Hahaha. Gross! But then I asked for it didn’t I? I thought something with flames or perhaps the Boss’s face to keep me warm, but if blue is all you got…it’s the thought that counts. Thank you.
NarcAngel
Try pretending that this is the Boss.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0219/4430/products/Crochet-Maggie-Weldon-Designs-Santa-Toilet-Cover-PA953_580x.jpeg?v=1375731527
Ha! Well who could resist that mustache ride?
NarcAngel
Ha ha ha…thanks for the laugh. I really needed it; I was having a cranky moment.
NA
Ha ha after I read HGs comment my first thought was oooooohhhhhh NA is getting a new naughty step for Xmas. HG does think of us and what gifts best suit us……
Twilight
Haha, I’ve been doing pretty well staying off that step lately. HG is good by me with his gift of this blog and all that he does in securing his legacy and that indirectly benefits me. Which is a good thing, because as you know – they do believe they’re the only gift we need. I remember early on in the blog I remarked that it would be hell to be in a secret santa with HG lol. I’d probably get that quasimodo frothing dolphin statue.
I wish you a wonderful holiday Twilight.
Narc Angel
Thank you!
I wish you a wonderful, joyous holiday!
HG has given a gift of freedom and understanding to many, I have often wondered what could be given to a man who has everything….something he has never experienced before if he so chose.
Caroline, I don’t know anything about Gru and his minions, nor about Austen Powers or Evil Lair, so I’d have to look that all up before I’ll fully understand your comment. I get a picture of ‘minions’ though. Thanks Caroline xx
Omg HG! Don’t know who you’re hanging out with, but Love the sassy side of you and the jokes!
K, the cop in my estimation was an empath. And his wife was a dirty empath with high narcissistic traits. It’s crazy how HG’s articles can be so accurate. I have only met the cop in person once or twice and but only as part of his work when I was working at the bank. I bet he was a carrier empath. He had kind eyes and was quiet. While they were in the process of divorce he was still helping his wife doing errands for her. He had to take a leave because he was having depression. Their kids in college also went back home to be with their dad because he was so heartbroken. The morning before the tragedy happened, he fixed his wife’s car and the narc drove his wife to his house to pick up the car. The narc was really showing off to the cop that the woman is already his by lots of PDA. Then the night it happened, the cop followed his wife to the narc’s vitamins store and the wife and the narc were inside but the store is already closed, it was after business hours. Then he knocked and asked if he could talk to both of them. But they didn’t let him in and the narc mocked and taunted him. And that escalated everything.
HG
You do get an awful lot accomplished!
Do you have to stop stroking the white fluffy evil cat while you’re on the evil phone?
There are other activities too that require two hands. Must be quite a challenge getting through the evil to-do list.
Ha ha!
Icey naughty step!
Only one step then?
Do we take it in turns?
You won’t get me on it.
I’ll be skiing.
21. You are hijacking my meaning
22. You are reacting.
23. You are being impulsive.
*Projection! Projection! Projection!
These comments are so frustrating. Derailed describes it perfectly. I’ve learned to end the conversation when he inserts one of these comments. Anything said after will be a bunch of word salad and ill end up wanting to bang my head on a brick wall.
True, Mercy.
We need these statements to trigger our empath emotional response auto-cut-off valve. And blank expression activator.
I’m practising the very thing.
It has a high difficulty rating, but I will achieve mastery.