The Narcissist Manipulates – 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.
21 thoughts on “The Narcissist Manipulates – It’s Only The Wind”
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I’m in a hotel right now, and first thing — doorhandle comes off. Concierge / reception guy tells me first, I should move to a room on the ground floor, it was better, I was like — impossible?? Later he finds a room right next to the elevator on the same floor (4th), and THEN tells me, “ah, no, groundfloor is much more noisy”.
That all solved by now, today another hotel clerk tells me “those signs for the code to open the gate have been there the whole time”, while they had definitely been there only from tonight, and I didn’t get out this morning at first. Also said, there never had been a problem with the internet, while it kept breaking off again and again last night.
Long story short: .. that (gas lighting) happens everywhere, a lot, and people get away with it, especially in environments, where they can. Like, clearly, the staff in this hotel isn’t exactly trained to be honest and respectful of guests.
Along the same lines of this, I find the Lesser is doing this without a spoken word. I’ll see little clues that he is around IG posts that look benign to everyone else but I feel are directed at me. I begin to oh it’s just my ET but somewhere in my gut I know they are for me. Somehow his name always coming up in a conversation with my friend. I begin to think Lori you are reading way too much into this stuff. He doesn’t even speak to you and has you blocked on most channels. I even make a post here about feeling like he’s lurking though not a word and then not even an hour after I made that post he unblocked me from one of his profiles. It’s a fake that I and navy of our friends know is him.
I have a question HG. Do you ever feel some energetic connection with any of your victims in that you sense them or they sense you even though there had not been a spoken word ? And if so, do you find this more prevalent with a codependent due to heightened sense of a codeoendents ability to know others needs ?
What do you mean Lori, that I sense the ‘presence of the victim’? If so, no.
Yes sorta. Hg do you feel some sort of energetic connection as in you might know when they are near or thinking of you without any real physical evidence of that?
It seems to me that there is some sort of energetic connection between the Narc and the codependent and I’m wondering if it’s because both of a heightened sense to people’s needs and reactions. Kind of like how disabled people have heightened senses. After all we are talking about two people who have an emotional disability. Do you think that this kind of energetic connection occurs ?
I ask this because I have had this happen with both narcs. Narc 1 I had seen or heard of or from in 13 years and then one day I thought of him and just like that a week later he appeared after 13 years. Narc 2 Mr Lesser I haven’t spoken to in a year yet I see things that I feel are for me. I mention it to other who think I’m reading into it and just like that he unblocked from a profile he knows I will know is him and he’s now changed things on it so I will in fact know it’s him. He has not unblocked me from hid “real” profile is this a passive or active Hoover ?
No.
Heavy wind does frighten me, but I love to hear thunder.
I hope you are well today.
I think it would be highly valuable for you to give situational, behavioral litmus tests for your readers to quickly assess, off the bat, what type of narcissist they are dealing with. Your classifications have been highly valuable to me.
It turns out that I have interacted with every type, the lesser one being the one that caused me the greatest damage. It wasn’t until he passed away that I felt finally relieved of my empathic duty towards him.
Some narcissists do commit suicide. His existential pain was torturing him and his lack of self-awareness meant there was no hope. He was, as you depict, a slave to his defense mechanisms. It was painful to witness the viciousness of his self-annihilation.
It occurred to me that if you are in fact a person with correctly diagnosed NPD generating this material and, the gatekeeper of the comments received, it would be helpful if I disclosed my interest in your material. You can deduce the rest I’m sure.
I am the daughter of a Greater one. My mother is high on the narcissist scale as well, though she is mostly benign and the persona she clings to is one of generosity and goodwill thankfully.
I’ve locked horns with just about every type, level, and flavor of this personality imbalance in my personal and professional life.
If you were to categorize me within your primary functional framework, I would fit the Zenith Empath bin.
The truth is my primary driver. I can smell, taste, hear, and feel bullshit like a highly tuned sensor. It’s both a blessing and a curse to see emotional power plays and exhausting to counter them.
My primary empathic weakness and strength is my need to solve and understand. Self mastery for me therefore is to learn to assess the value and risk of employing this part of me, and strengthening the “let go” muscle when the risk is too high.
Thank you for entertaining that long caveat. On to the meet of the matter.
There is a mostly benign mid-range narcissist in my life that I cannot employ my knowledge and skills to discard a la Super Nova.
[That flashlight/candle metaphor you used is on target. Well done! I love metaphors. They are…. shall we say… extremely satisfying.]
Not because I am unable to, but because I have a vested interest in refraining from doing so. Furthermore, neutralizing him isn’t good enough. His behavior must slide more towards the empathic side of the scale and it’s my DUTY to make it happen. My time is limited. My investment is full.
Your material unveils the underlying operating system so that I can empathically work within its strengths and limitations to make that shift happen while appearing to not be trying to do it. Exhausting child’s play to me but it’s sometimes the dirty work that needs to be done for the greater good.
Thank you a million times over for your courage and self-knowledge. My thoughts on labels and archetypes have percolated, so I’ll share them soon.
Ones like these are difficult to read and difficult to even somewhat like you HG.
I’m not sure how you will take this next comment… but I just have to say… that look you give your victims as if they are “stark mad” that is the same look that appears on my face while reading content like this… except… it’s directed at you. You do realize this behaviour makes YOU the crazy one… not your victim right? And I wonder how your kind feels about that label. And if as a greater… you understand that type of behaviour makes you “stark mad”
I get that you don’t care. It’s of no bother to you. But that is the truth.
My other comment is of the building of medical records. that information private. Doctors aren’t going to go around flashing around medical records to your friends and family to prove your point. So it would have to be the victim brining it up to family and friends which is highly likely they would, so I understand how that could work.
I once was with someone who I considered a normal… who would use the excuse “I didn’t hear it” and “I don’t know” a lot in conversation. Drove me crazy… I sometimes wonder if he was a narc.
So very insidious, yet brilliant!!😮😱
HG,
a) can it be a calculated manipulation, and if yes with which intent, when someone:
asks me how I was enjoying the city (at the moment), where I am going to be next week and the week after that?
If that persons should know perfectly well because I had told that person repeatedly that date, and was also messaging about what I have been doing this week (which obviously involved being at home still).
Is that a manipulation, and to what end??
b) If that person was a mid range narcissist, that could be done instinctively? (And how? could it? be instinctive??).
c) That person claims to be under a lot of stress – – would you personally think, if it was a “friend” of yours: oh yeah, that person has a lot on her/his mind, it was simply a mistake?
d) How would you react personally?
Thank you.
1. It is unlikely to be because if it was a calculated manipulation it would be a Greater and a Greater would not ask in this method with clear evidence which undermines the question. It may be instinctive calculation from a Mid Range or Lesser Narcissist.
2. If it is a manipulation it is being done to control you.
3. Yes it could be instinctive. It is instinctive because he does not consciously plan it.
4. It could be a mistake, but if it is a narcissist making this claim it is a Pity Play and also being done to lend plausibility to the original question if you have later challenged that person ‘Why are you asking me, you know full well, I have already told you.’
5. How would I react to what?
Thank you, HG.
1. I don’t see how this controls me. ?
5. How would you react if someone of your secondary sources would ask you how you liked being in the city, you won’t be visiting for another week, when you had told that person.
It would depend on whether they were painted black or white as to how I responded to this Challenge Fuel.
I watched the Movie “ Gaslight’
last evening
To HG:
Greetings
So would Ingrid Bergman’s character Paula be: a regular Empath? Culturally she accepts, she is her husband’s fragile property. Paula also wants to be a valued wife and Honor-please her husband.
Husband: Narcissist traits for sure.
Does a good job all the cycles for total manipulations and control. He is willing to kill for a tremendous, covert, jewel theft. Sociopath? likely a psychopath?
Hello Shaunn, I have not put them under the Tudorscope so I am not in a position to state.
Great movie.
It was interesting to reflect on this one… because although the narcissist never did this particular type of “spooky” thing to me (or ever directed any “You’re crazy” type stuff at me), I think it’s solely because he knew that wouldn’t work on me. However, he did/does do a rather weird “spin-off” version of this to create anxiety, which he apparently knows I’m susceptible to…
He sets me up to worry about him, in pretty convoluted ways. Then when I show appropriate concern, he “ups it” even more (in fairly dramatic fashion), so that I become increasingly worried about him… then when I show that worry, he acts like I’m being ridiculous/overreacting, and he gets a Kingly attitude about it. I’m guessing he gets both extra attention + power (taking me down a notch) from this. He’s not the type to want pity (or even sympathy really), so this has always thrown me off.
Super weird behavior…But I can at least see it now. However, back when I was in the FR, his “Worry about me!/Why are you worried about me?” gig would give me low-level (in the back of my mind) anxiety, and it’d even make me question myself as overreacting, which is not typical of me… then it would cause me to later chastise myself for being worried about him to begin with!
Another piece to the puzzle…and it helps.
Were there mysterious noises in the cabin last weekend HG?
Knott.
Ha!
I’m glad to hear it HG. That would be a bad sign.
Is this something you’ve actually done? I have a hard time with it being true.