Blind or Stupid
We love to triangulate. Three is the magic number. You, me and someone else or something else. Another victim? A competitor? A loyal lieutenant? A fresh prospect? An imaginary individual? A threatened event? An inanimate object? There are so many combinations of triangulation that are available to us and each has their own advantages and rewards for their application for us. In this equation there will always be us, there will always be you and then there will be third party.
One of our effective manipulative triangulations involves the “normals”. These are people who are neither empathic or narcissistic but people who are generally decent, sensible and largely kind who may be supporters of yours, they may be members of our façade but whatever they are they are not you and they are not us. These are the people who you turn to when you can no longer stand what is happening to you. When you cannot understand what is going on.
When the confusion becomes overwhelming. When you begin to sense something is not quite right. You turn to these normal in the hope of them helping you, understanding your plight and/or offering some insight. This is rarely achieved because you are met with responses which leave you wondering whether the person you have just spoken to is blind or stupid. Here are ten instances of this in action.
- I don’t believe it
Victim – “He is horrible to me, he never lets me do anything on my own anymore, he shouts and calls me awful names.”
Normal – “Really? I just can’t see Nigel behaving like that, he is always so lovely and friendly whenever I see him. I cannot believe he would do that.”
- Are You Bringing It On Yourself?
V – “I am sick of him controlling me. I try and assert myself, you know, lay down some boundaries, but he is always telling me to shut up and calm down and doing what he wants without any consideration for me.”
N – “Well you have always been feisty my dear, maybe you are provoking him and that’s why he is behaving that way. I don’t mean to be unkind but you do have a bit of temper you know.”
- Not This Again
V- “He has done it again. Disappeared. I have been ringing him on the hour every hour and he won’t answer. I don’t know what it is. I mean, everything seemed okay when we got up this morning, he smiled and asked me if I wanted a cup of tea (cue detailed analysis of every word and interaction thereafter)
N – Glazes over, thinks to themselves “Not this again. I am bored of hearing this. They will be talking again by tomorrow. She worries over nothing.”
- I Feel Sorry for Him
V – “So he did this, then that, then this again and he always does this you know. He is horrible, Horrible I tell you. I don’t know what to do. Oh he did this as well and some more of that.”
N – Thinks to themselves “I feel sorry for him putting up with someone so neurotic as her. No wonder he clears off for a few days, probably needs the peace and quiet.”
- Someone Is Exaggerating
V – “No word of a lie, he locked me in the bedroom and threatened to burn the house down with me inside and I heard him laughing as he said this to me. I am so scared of him. He keeps threatening to kill me. He rings me at work and comments about how my brakes are dodgy and laughs and puts the ‘phone down.”
N – Thinks to themselves “Sure he does, nobody goes on like that, I do like my friend but she is something of an attention seeker. Every other day there is one of these stories.”
- I Don’t Think So
V – “So he said that if I didn’t do it he would tell everybody in the church that I was sleeping with the vicar and he would post pictures of me on the internet.”
N – “Who Norman? No way, he is such a solid and respectable man. I don’t think he would ever do anything like that. No, I have known him years, he would never do anything like that.”
- He Did Say She Was Crazy
V – “He hides my purse so I cannot go out, he tells me what I can and cannot eat, he won’t allow me more than a minute in the shower and stands watching me while I wash. He follows me around the house and keeps staring at me, I can even feel him watching me when I manage to slip out for a while. I know he is following me.”
N- Thinks to themselves “It’s just as Neil predicted. He said she was losing her mind and coming out with all these fantastic stories. He is genuinely worried about her and I can see why now. Poor thing. Poor him too.”
- Ups and Downs
V – “He sometimes doesn’t speak to me for days on end. He just sits and sulks and ignores me. It is horrible. I hate it.”
N- “Oh that’s just men for you. They all do that at some point. It’s part of the ups and downs of being in a relationship, just ignore it and get on with your day, he will soon come round, you will see.”
- Don’t Involve Me
V- “Hi it’s me, can I come round to see you. I need to talk to someone. He is doing it again. He has spent the last two hours shouting at me and throwing plates around the kitchen. I am sick of this, I cannot cope.”
N – “I’d love to help but I er, have an appointment. Look I have to go; I will call you later” – I’m not getting drawn into their domestic dramas I have my own life to look after.
- I Haven’t a Clue
V- (After lengthy description of a catalogue of odd and strange behaviour) “So what do you think, what should I do? I cannot go on like this.”
N- “I don’t know what to say really, I can’t work out why he would be lovely with you one week and then awful the next, it does add up. Perhaps if you sat down together and tried to work things out.” (I haven’t a clue what is going on here.)
Not once does the “normal” turn to you and say,
“You are being abused by a disordered person.”
Or
“You have been ensnared by a narcissist.”
Instead when you describe the behaviour to a “normal” you are met with one or more of the responses detailed above. We know this will be the case. We know it will leave you hurt, bewildered and lacking the help and insight you so desperately need. Why do people respond like this?
- Lack of knowledge. Fortunately for our kind few people really know what we are and what we do.
- We don’t walk around with a sign around our neck stating “I am an abusive narcissist”. We blend in. People think the psychopaths and sociopaths appear like some crazed axe-murderer. We do not.
- People although kind are not empathic like you. Therefore, there is a limit to the time and resource they will apply to assisting you. People are inward looking and care more about their own lives than yours.
- The façade. Our charm and magnetism has people believing us to be wonderful and decent people. That façade is hard to shatter.
- Your coping abilities are eroded and you are worn out. This makes you appear unhinged, hysterical and thus in keeping with the image that we have spread around that you are The Crazy One.
- A Quiet Life. People do not like conflict. They want people to get on and do not want to become involved in other people’s problems.
- Behind Closed Doors. People always take the view that there are two sides to every story. They will listen to you but they will think there is likely to be some explanation which means it is not as bad as you are making it out to be. You are provoking the abuser, you are making it up, you are being too sensitive and taking things the wrong way. The “normal” thinks life may be different behind closed doors.
- People want other people to get on and therefore in order to try to preserve the peace they will suggest that the behaviour is not as bad as has been suggested and pressure the victim to go home and sort things out, unaware it is not something that can be sorted out by having a chat and a cup of tea.
- The tales of abuse and awful treatment seem far-fetched that the “normal” cannot believe them. They have no experience of it and combined with the existence of the façade just cannot see how someone could behave in this way.
All of this results in you trying to persuade people without success which becomes all the more frustrating and distressing for you. Naturally, we know fine well how people will respond to your protestations and the lack of understanding and knowledge about our kind allows us to blend in, move freely around and continue to behave in this manner with impunity. You are left wondering if the listener is blind or stupid. They are not stupid. But they are blinded to what we really are.
Just like you were as well.
34 thoughts on “Blind or Stupid”
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Thank you all for your response !
And thank you HG !
If it weren’t for you,i would be chronically foaming from the mouth right now !
I am lucky to have two friends who completely understand. One of them realized what I was dealing with during my escape. The other just listened and said, oh, a psychopath. Most of the rest still dismiss my comments about his disorder. They make a joke of it.
ava101,
You are not alone. I have never been able to clear a smear, not a single one. Watching friends distancing themselves from me, giving me the ST in solidarity with the narcissist in the group hurts.
Dear HG 🙌
This never happened to me because I don’t associate with normal people. I know what I can say to who!
I’ve smeared the one who choked me to so many people, at least 7, in great detail.
One literally thinks he’s Demonic among other things and said he’ll punch him in the face, the empath friend who knows him messages me on a regular basis asking how I am, another friend said he likely has full blown NPD, one friend counsels me in depth and says lots of negative things about him because she’s met him, one friend said his balls should be slowly severed and she consoles me regularly.
I’ve always had great success! With the LMR Somatic I told zillions of people. I cried accidentally in front of customers, and they came back with flowers and chocolate for me! I’ve only ever received total support! I’m so lucky.
I said it before, but experienced that again just recently: In addition to the ex-narcs attempts at isolating me, I have lost friends that way, because I simply couldn’t trust them anymore or they were even taking his side.
When one is in the middle of that confusing situation, doesn’t want to believe it all oneself, and then people one turns to to help clarify what’s going on are exactly like described by HG, that’s the worst, and so disappointing.
I keep thinking, wow, how fortunate some poeple are, if they have never encountered such behaviours themselves, and really have no clue. But they can’t listen and respect what people tell them? They think all psychological thrillers, etc., have no base at all?
I was a bit sad yesterday, reading a short article in a Swiss newspaper online, on a study which said “women want to see narcissists after a first date more often than other people”.
Article was so superficial and misleading, yes, they quoted at least one psychologist who said that one must differentiate between a NPD and someone with narcissistic traits. But that study was like, “people who described themselves as narcissists” and that women found them great. No mention at all of the fact that a true narc would never describe himself as such. …. And that one wouldn’t necessarily see anything wrong at the first date.
So, comments to that article were …. so saddening. A few had good comments and obviously insight, also obviously most often out of first hand experience. 🙁 Others just the usual phrases, about what they think narcissists are and that it was all ridiculous.
If only more people would finally comprehend, but the media doesn’t make it easier.
Also just finished a stupid novel … describing the ex-boyfriend (ex, because he took off with another woman) fully with narcissistic traits, but in the end having him repent, and changing his life, because he had had a wake up moment, **lol** …. so, doesn’t help either.
i was so full of myself and unwiling to admit that i failed, that even when i lost 16 kg in less than 2 months and could spend 3 or 4 days unable to eat or sleep, i was still managing to convince myself that i was ok, and i refused to tell anyone anything, and even got irritated when asked if i’m ok.
in my case, i really brought it upon myself, because when i told my mother and friends what hapend nobody doubted me.
Liza,
I can relate to your comment. I also felt like I couldn’t tell anyone what was going on. I’m glad the people you were able to talk to believed you. In my case they didn’t. I finally let the owner’s of the company know what was going on, but his facade was too good. Plus when I talked to the owners, the lieutenant was always on the other side of the door eavesdropping pretending to be there for more work orders.
I also lost a lot of weight, even though I was stuffing myself with junk food. I could eat 5 king sized candy bars in one sitting with no results. My metabolism was through the roof in my hypervigilant state. I even went to the doctor thinking something was terribly wrong. I was trying not to drop below 100 lbs. (45.5 kg.)
He didn’t seem to be concerned about my weight loss. His IPPS and IPSSs were all morbidly obese, so I think it was all about his sexual prowess. He would often state “I’VE never done that before”. It was more about how he could maneuver me into any position or be able to perform holding me up when there was no surface or wall to support us. It was all about him. He also triangulated me with his IPPS about weight issues.
I did end up losing my job. He didn’t. Nobody
believed me. wish I had discovered HG months ago. Then I would have had the strength to leave that job on my own terms.
GH,
My heart goes out to you .
I quit my job to work from home and I hate it .
I wish I would have discovered HG’s blog sooner or I wouldnt have quit . I would have been out there at least in society.
Hugs to you xoxo
Gypsy Heart,
i’m sorry that you had to lose a job, it is indeed more difficult to deal with such a situation in a proffetional setting, i mean my family and friends are by definition people who are in “my team” , it is not the same for a boss or coleagues, if they are not here to witness it, even if they are not ill intentioned they couldn’t take the risque to fire someone over false accusations.
may be it was a good thing that you lost the job ( i know it is upsetting, especialy in the begining ), now at least you don’t have to deal with him.
Pati and Liza,
Thank you. It actually was like a huge burden had been lifted off my shoulders when I no longer had to work with the narcissist, just wish it had been on my terms. I hope sharing my experience helps others come to the conclusion that it is better to move on to another job rather than go up against a narcissist.
GH , you did the right thing and you did what was logic. Good for you! Hugs xoxo
HG, I really like this article. It goes to show you the lack of knowledge that people have .
I do agree that people do not like to get involved in people’s problems either .
Plus no one will believe you especially when the person is well known to society as a good EGG.
It’s all about Fascade.
Dear HG, is there a chance you will one day develop a Normals Detector; or a more broad range detector to evaluate if the person in question is an Empath, a Normal or a Narcissist, who would then, depending on results, be subjected to existing EDC or NDC?
The NDC or EDC will determine if someone is a normal.
The NDC and EDC determine normals also.
HG ,have you ever been in a relationship with a Normal as IPSS,or IPSS?
No.
So you obviously target only Empaths makes sense .
Closing your eyes is not the same as being blind. And yes, i had my eyes closed as well.
Amen and Thank you, HG!
My “normals” were female therapists
When a therapist acts like a ”normal” it’s probably a narc.
vandenboss, I’m not so sure. They seemed to drinking the Social Worker/Justice/Feminist koolaid.
Well, wait . . . yes, I guess that might make them narcs!
”They seemed to drinking the Social Worker/Justice/Feminist koolaid”
It sure does makes the chances very high lol,i know the type all too well!
Mental health care is very much a hunting ground for these types of mid range ”peacekeepers.”
Next time record your conversation, that’s what i did. Only from the past year, 3 out of the 6 therapist i talked to were abusers.I even,positively,diagnosed a psychiatrist with narcissism.Not too bad, if i may say so myself 😉
Fair observations.
vandenboss, nice work!
For me, I am hoping there is no “next time,” especially in terms of seeing useless therapists, who often end up assigning me lame self-help books anyway.
Since reading HG’s material and applying it in not only romantic situations, I’ve felt no need or desire to “talk” to someone with a degree in mental healthcare.
It’s so true vandenboss about those in MH. I have one friend who works in MH. A mid (MMR) who thinks he’s a greater. He knows about Ns through his work. I absolutely love discussing my sister (an UMR) and some of the things she has done to me. He displays cognitive empathy (in a very robotic manner) and the things I tell him my sister does, he also frequently does some of these things too. On occassion (not always) he recognises that I know they are an indicator of being an N. When he is consciously aware he explains them away, “Oh I only did that because xyz”
I really know I shouldn’t but I literally can’t help myself, it amuses me hugely.
alexis,
When you’re not in”it,” narcs certainly can provide plenty of entertainment value!
Yup, I keep my distance in all circumstances where I can/need to and I do very much enjoy the entertainment value.
Even pre knowledge of Ns, certain Ns provided it to me and many others.
I wonder how they’d feel if they knew the scores of people who simply laugh about them behind their backs
I hear that. Plus the female therapists that he went to see . They became people he triangulated me with.
Oh, yeah, he sort of did that with me, but in a positive way, if that’s even possible.
She would stick up for me in his sessions. He would tell me about it. His behavior would change for the better, for a good while anyway. Things went downhill after he stopped seeing her (he felt his therapeutic purpose was fulfilled). I wonder if he was receiving similar advice as Dr.O’s to HG.
No matter. I’m glad he stopped seeing her. I’m glad things went downhill. I’m glad my female therapists were useless. I’m glad I’m no longer living in a love-is-the-answer la-la-land. Thank you, HG.
You are welcome, Lisk.
Blind to the truth 😢