The 5 Reasons The Narcissist Devalues You
You will be familiar with the fact that one day you are cock of the walk and the next day you are a feather duster. You are atop the pedestal and in a flash you have been thrown from it and you are lying in the dust as we stand over you berating you. The sudden switch from hero to zero, from princess to pauper, from “good person” to “bad person” is perhaps the most confusing, bewildering and upsetting part of our behaviour. People cannot comprehend why they were being feted as the love of our life on Monday and then by Tuesday they are the devil incarnate. It is something which causes (and of course we want this) victims of our nefarious behaviour to cling to us in order to get an answer, to receive an explanation and some kind of reasoning which will allow them to make sense of what has happened. They are unlikely to accept it, the emotional hold of the seduction and the golden period prevents acceptance of this sudden fall from grace for a very long time, but if you are able to understand why it happened, you are able to move yourself forward with greater speed than you would otherwise. Our reasons may appear illogical to you based on your world view but at least you have some reasons and that is more than you would usually ever receive from our kind as we plough on with your devaluation offering no cogent or realistic explanation for this sudden switch. I am not explaining why we devalue you (fuel, control, reinforcement of our need for superiority and self-worth). I am explaining what is it that makes us love you then hate you in the blink of an eye. What causes this sudden change, this 180-degree swing, this volte face, this switch? You will be given no answer or if you are they will not be anything to do with the real reason why we suddenly idealise you then devalue you. These false reasons are wheeled out to make you remain all the more, pursuing an elusive point as we continue to drain you of negative fuel until we decide you are to be disengaged from. Thus, here are the five reasons that are the triggers for the devaluation.
- Stale
The fundamental reason for seducing you is to gather your potent and positive fuel. In the beginning and for some time afterwards we are invigorated by this precious fuel that you supply to us. We are reliant on it, we want and need it and we marvel at the fuel you provide us. This may last months or it may even last years dependent on our demands and your ability to fulfil them. Your complacency however causes the fuel to become stale to us. You may not regard yourself as having done anything wrong. We understand that according to your view of how a healthy and mature relationship should progress that after a dizzying, honeymoon period the relationship moves to a deep-seated position where that initial buzz of excitement has faded to be replaced by something long-lasting, substantial and fulfilling. Should you appreciate your relationship with us with this mind set, it results in us seeing you as complacent. You may regard it as a natural and understandable, indeed potentially necessary progression. We do not. Your failure to admire us in the way you once did (or at least the manifestation of this admiration), your demonstration of love, adoration and such like becomes lessened. You may not think that you love us any less but it is the way that appears to us that matters. This change manifests as complacency to us and it makes your fuel become stale, less potent and this in turn threatens to weaken us. In order to defend ourselves we must immediately switch to the devaluation and extract the negative fuel from you which will power us to the extent we want and demand.
- Disobedience
Our sense of entitlement, inability to recognise and respect boundaries and huge need for control means that we have to have you do what we want. This control arises through the application of the incentive, the carrot approach, when we have seduced you and the golden period is in play. Through the application of wonderful and loving behaviour we cause you to do what we want by providing fuel and carrying out our wishes. We have delighted you and you want to please us in return. We provide you with the love you desire and you respond by complying with our requirements. When you stop submitting to this benign control then we will switch and commence the devaluation. You may, when viewed objectively by others, be correct in not doing what we want, taking an alternative course of action and doing something else but to us that is irrelevant. You are challenging our control and this cannot be countenanced. In order to stamp out this uprising before it gains traction and undermines our careful operation that has been constructed to control you and gain fuel from you, we must tighten our control, remove the dissent and increase our grip on you. This is when the devaluation begins. We move from benign dictator to malign tyrant.
- See Through
If we apprehend that you are working us out. If we perceive that you have been influenced by another source and you are joining the dots. If we gauge that you are beginning to realise what we are and what we are doing, then we must strike first in order to shock and awe you into submission once more and dispel your fabrications. You may well be right but we are not going to accept you being right. We will switch to the devaluation in order to unleash all those manipulations which will confuse you, drain you and most of all make out that it is all your fault. We have done nothing wrong other than love you with a perfect love and instead you have brought this on yourself through your lies about what we are and your treachery. We cannot allow you to unmask us and therefore we will assault you with a frenzied devaluation which gives you no option other than to try and defend yourself so you lose sight of your goal of seeing through us. We will make you feel guilty, cruel and heartless in the hope of tapping into your empathic traits so you stop what you have been doing and concentrate on putting things right between us, mending the relationship and showing that you care. The commencement of the devaluation when you are uncovering what we are is a massive distraction exercise designed to protect us and harm you.
- The Hoover Opportunity
This is not a hoover against you. Instead it is the opportunity which suddenly arises to hoover a predecessor. This person may have been dis-engaged from and moved away from our sphere of influence or they have escaped and done likewise, but now something has happened whereby they have come back into our sphere of influence. The promise of that sweet and powerful hoover fuel will outweigh the positive fuel that you are currently providing us with. The prospect of getting this hoover fuel means that we want to focus our attention on the predecessor and hoover them. We will not get shot of you, not yet, because that will leave us in in-between primary sources of fuel. Instead, we commence the hoover to seduce again your predecessor and thus because they have appeared on the horizon they make you look like the less desirable option. This causes us to question why we are with you, to regard you as a mistake and therefore we switch to devaluing you as we begin the seduction of them once again. Should the hoover fail, expect the golden period to be reinstated for you, with another sudden switch. Should it succeed and we begin to tie the predecessor back to us once more with the hoover fuel beginning to flow, you can expect the devaluation to worsen as you hurtle towards being dis-engaged from.
A sudden switch to devaluation may indeed herald the fact that a predecessor has appeared on our radar and we are hoovering that person at your expense.
- Total Control
You are aware that we want to control you. This is fundamental to the dynamic between us. Yet, as a further example of the double standards that we engage in we want to control you and if you disobey us we will commence your devaluation but furthermore if we believe we have obtained total control over you then we will similarly commence your devaluation because we know that you will do anything that we want and we will just use you to validate ourselves in the event that other, more exciting prospects do not fuel us during the course of the day. You become relegated to the reliable and dependable, because you are actually doing precisely what we want, but through our warped logic, this equates to you no longer being special. Thus we need to make you special to us once again and we do this through devaluation. We will not cast you aside when we have achieved total control, not at all. This state of affairs brings with it considerable benefits but they will now be channelled through the filter of devaluation and not idealisation. It is symptomatic of the bizarre (when judged from your perspective) logic we apply that when you finally do the very thing we want, we turn against you and begin your devaluation.
How do you deal with all of this? The short answer is you cannot. Any of these five reasons may suddenly apply without warning and your devaluation starts. You cannot avoid it and you could not avoid it. You did nothing wrong, but you did everything wrong from our world view. There is nothing you can do to avoid this happening, because once the trigger happens, the devaluation will follow. The thing you can draw the greatest solace from however is that in knowing this is how we are, in knowing that there was nothing you can do or you could have done to have changed the outcome, you at least now have this knowledge and through it you can attain freedom from the doubt, uncertainty and sheer bewilderment of wondering why it happened.
23 thoughts on “The 5 Reasons The Narcissist Devalues You”
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HG what are the traits of a person you wouldn’t want to manipulate into your life I need a way to repel your kind ?
You cannot alter your own traits, you must reduce emotional thinking, keep it low and thus you will respond with logic having learned to see the red flag of our kind, so that you will act on those red flags.
Thank you HG I can’t believe it’s nearly a year ago since I read this the first time I have definitely reduce my emotional thinking about other people I no longer carry the responsibility of guilt for the people’s emotional thinking i’m very solid in what I think about myself now I know my worth and it’s far greater than what I was allowing in my life I can’t say that I won’t slip up but I’m definitely armed with knowledge of a narcissist
You are welcome.
Veronica, I’ve been thinking on this, here are my thoughts:
they get bored really easily if you just don’t react (because it isn’t YOU they are interested in, it is fuel– what a disappointment, oh the potential, but I digress). Sometimes easier said than done, but that’s ok imo. It seems to me that even reduced reaction is better than nothing, so just putting in awareness and effort is enough and exercising some self-management and healthy boundaries- unless someone decides to really maintain conscious effort, which is rare but could be the case in situations already entangled and dysfunctional. In a new situation they’d have to be motivated to manipulate you in particular. That would be more likely with someone more intelligent and also has continuous access to you and has reason to be focused on you. Most of them don’t know what they are, so just let them talk, act, compete, express
such as: “I am the Lead lead coordinator of the middle management cohort of very true factual organization of mostly better than you.”
(You can adjust that to fit romantic, social, familial dynamics etc…)
and keep your reactions and responses to a calm minimum and be sure to say a simple and easy “no” to things you really don’t want to do and then the bouncing off of each other dynamic is negated completely and they’ll bounce off someone else. If the person isn’t jabbing at you there is no need to feel anything but your usual kindness toward them, you just can’t buy into whatever dynamic they are setting up, maintain your own perspective and your own “world” unless someone is genuinely adding something valuable.
(As HG says, lowering emotional thinking).
Red flags, as HG says, are all over the blog, some being mirroring/copying, lying, inconsistency of behavior (bait and hook turns into something else), disparity between words and feelings, inability to empathize, any type of faking feelings or understandings, circular logic, guilt trips, creation of unnecessary and imaginary hierarchies, excessive black and white labels and judgments…..
I think this kind of approach is good for talking to normies and E’s and people with regular N traits anyway, it doesn’t really matter to me to diagnose someone I get no pleasure of it, I want to alter my behavior by identifying my reactions and boundaries. Since I have altered my thinking I am more able to let go of control issues, enjoy positives, and let go of interactions comfortably that weren’t meant to be- acquaintances are fine and nice as well. For myself these things are important, I think not because I’m some kind of idiot or an exceptional pushover, but because I have traits that make me amenable to being patient and then I have traits that make me feel dysfunction, emotional distress, guilt, self-questioning, optimism more than most people would bother with. At least that’s my theory.
Nunya, all great advice. I think it’s important to have boundries set no matter who you are dealing with. There is no need to diagnose someone if we shut them down before they are able to sink their teeth in. As long as we defend our boundries we should be safe. It is when we become more intimate with someone new that the real danger occurs. This requires faith and trust. Something that most of us no longer give freely after being subject to narc manipulation. I’ve lived most of my life narc free. I can very easily let someone go that has wronged me. I don’t have time for that in my life. Unfortunately I have not been able to apply this to my romantic involvements. Next time will be different though. Now I’m aware and it won’t happen again.
I just realized I said next time as if I believe there’s going to be a next time. Like a relationship beyond BS. This is new for me. Hmm good things are happening to me today.
“good things are happening to me today”
I love that, Mercy.
I totally agree, romantic areas are the most difficult, and also the further along in an interaction, the more difficult. My aim in early boundaries is to bore them away from me because proper care, love, protection, affection- doesn’t waver from me not providing fuel, reaction, status, validation- so I only suffer some mild disappointment. That I can handle. Once I’m involved it’s more than just ripping off a bandaid, I feel genuine pain when I lose love and respect for someone and prefer to avoid it and it’s too hard.
I am on an intentional sex and relationship hiatus though. But even so, I can reverse that if the right empathic person were to motivate me. I like to think in the right circumstances two people being fully engaged and responsive could be just joy.
Yeah, “sink their teeth in”, the best protection is not to feed the wrong dynamics to begin with.
I try to remember, the subconscious mind doesn’t deal in negatives, so by challenging a projection too much I am only making it real. Hg does also say something about stating your disagreement once to let that truth be known and that’s it.
Nunya,
“I try to remember, the subconscious mind doesn’t deal in negatives, so by challenging a projection too much I am only making it real”
This is an interesting statement and give me alot to think on. I had to write it down so I can read more on the subconscious mind. I do agree that we tend to create negativity (that may not exist) in our own minds.
NunyaBiz
This deserves its own TED talk.
Mercy
You’re a treasure.
Caroline,
Well thank you dear, you just made my day!
Caroline, ha! Some of those speakers are so compelling and charismatic and educated ; ) haha.
Actually thank you for reminding to watch them, it’s been awhile and they can be very motivating (speaking of creating thing with our minds).
Mercy, I have had a few experiences over the last six years or so that I would consider spiritual landmarks. They are very special to me. One of the first ones was that I was given a real vision of my subconscious self and now I can feel it as a part of me at all times.
The experience helped me understand very practically and viscerally how suggestion and hypnosis (and perception) work and I should read more but I greatly appreciate the work of Carl Jung, including anything in the areas of archetype and shadow work, synchronicity, addiction (Yes! which he viewed as a spiritual malady, I view it as an attachment disorder and not at all exclusive to substance abuse, I have to read further to see where he goes with this), spiritual awakening (I have experienced some aspects very overwhelmingly), kundalini, collective consciousness, etc…
My personal experiences tend to validate the things he put forth as functionally (and amazingly) accurate and perceptive so I think it is a great direction to go. I do believe there is a literal spiritual gateway to greater understanding and that the experience of that from one individual to the next has enough similarities that there seems to be an underlying “blueprint”- meaning that to an extent, while different for everyone, it can be explored via a sort of a map just as a chair can be built with a diagram and materials.
Eh, too bad I’m a bit ADD, focusing my time is a challenge or I’d be reading a book right now written by someone who could teach me something. Now you have both inspired me to watch ted talks on these topics if I can find something.
Incidentally, on the topics of synchronicity and archetype/shadow work, I do consider HG to be a significant figure and my timing of reading his work is on my course as I am open to it and it is not coincidental, as I doubt it is for anyone here. It is up to individual choice, cognition and awareness to make use of what we see and how. That is the beauty of the individual that I think the narcissist misses.
I 100% agree thank you
“Any of these five reasons may suddenly apply without warning and your devaluation starts. You cannot avoid it and you could not avoid it. You did nothing wrong, but you did everything wrong from our world view. There is nothing you can do to avoid this happening, because once the trigger happens, the devaluation will follow. The thing you can draw the greatest solace from however is that in knowing this is how we are, in knowing that there was nothing you can do or you could have done to have changed the outcome, you at least now have this knowledge and through it you can attain freedom from the doubt, uncertainty and sheer bewilderment of wondering why it happened.”
One day, I promise myself, I will know this! There will be no more doubt!
I appreciate this revelation, no matter how many times I must read it, as it provides me peace of mind. Thank you HG! Hope you are well!
You are welcome and yes, I am excellent well and thank you for your kind enquiry.
Hmmm, I would say that situations 1 thru 4 applied as well as adding a potential new source (or sources) of supply to the picture. Number 3 being very prominent in our relationship as well as not trusting him or giving up total control to him also being prominent. I love to travel, love long drives, have a GPS in my car that came as the best birthday gift ever back in 2010! I will go anywhere because all I have to do is hit ‘where to’ and select ‘go home’ and no matter where I am in this vast countryside (mountaintop, river valley, back road, remote area, strange city), the good satellites will take me home. I cannot tell you how many times we literally argued about me bringing my GPS along for the ride when we hopped in his truck. Trust me T (that’s what he called me), I KNOW where we are going, I KNOW how to get there, I’ve never been lost, you don’t need to bring that, why must you bring that, I FORBID you to bring that. All of which I would stubbornly shoot down and bring it anyways, setting it up on my side of the vehicle. It is not a matter of knowing where you are going, I don’t have an issue with that. Personally, I like the visual over view, the estimated time of arrival, the ability to check and see how far we are from certain places, and as I have traveled a lot, I have also saved points of interest in there (which bring back positive memories when I see them pop up on the screen). I’m sure he would have been most satisfied if he could have destroyed it for me.
Nope, I don’t trust the lying, cheating, unfaithful, scheming, two-faced, gaslighting, goal post moving, smearing, projecting, boundary violation asshole! Not one single bit (and he gave me all the information to find it out because he was lousy at hiding it).
Hi, I’m Terra….the most recent crazy ex and I relish being crazy, thank you very much 🙂
I also appreciate every word that His Greatness writes; eye opening knowledge, affirmation and information to move forward and leave this scum behind!
********ohmmmmmmm*********
Hi HG!!
Nice to have you back. You wrote that your trip was highly effective. Does that mean it was very fuel filled?
No, but there was plenty of fuel as ever.
I’m glad you’re well fuelled. You seem like you are in a good mood! Wait… pls don’t tell me your good mood is frm devaluing someone you big bully!!!
#EverythingcomingupacesforHG
One of HG’s pick up lines:
“Do you like that movie ‘Must Love Crying’? I mean ‘Dogs’, ‘Must Love Dogs’ “