How Your Emotional Thinking Causes Excuses
THIS IS A KEY ARTICLE IN TERMS OF BOLSTERING YOUR UNDERSTANDING.
The fact for so long you had no idea what you were dealing with resulted in you engaging in an anticipated behaviour. This behaviour is one which we regularly rely on in order to keep you in the dark. I have made mention of the various traits which we look for in those who make the most useful victims to us.
One of those traits concerns your ability to try to find the good in everyone and everything. This is a typical empathic trait and along with all of the others which you possess causes you to flare up on our radar when we are seeking an excellent primary source. Your desire to see good means that it obscures your ability to see the bad or perhaps more accurately, to accept the bad.
This is how your emotional thinking once again cons you and causes you to fail to see what is really happening, how you make excuses for the behaviour. Your emotional thinking craves the interaction with us, it is selfish and wants to experience all of the ‘good’ which flows from us and to convince you to ignore the bad. Your emotional thinking does not want you to acknowledge what is really going on and exit the relationship.
Your emotional thinking wants to gag logic so it cannot be heard and cause you to overlook the bad in the hope of recovering the good once again. Thus, your emotional thinking will make you issue excuse after excuse for what we do, so you remain invested in the relationship with us.
Accordingly, your emotional thinking continues our control of you. It is those who are empathic who suffer from this effect from their emotional thinking. They are convinced to consider their action as selfless, a reflection of how they wish to see the ‘good’ in people, how they make allowances and are tolerant – but when you are ensnared with our kind, all that is happening is that you are being prevented, by your own emotional thinking, from seeing what is truly happening and this is to your detriment.
Of course, at the time it is happening, you cannot see it happening because your insight is impaired by the emotional thinking. Occasionally, logic might just make itself heard (only to be ignored) as you notice that a certain behaviour is not acceptable but your emotional thinking rises once again and swamps that logic before it can gain a foothold in your mind.
Emotional thinking whispers that excuse for you and it is easier to accept that than go along the rocky road of logic. Thus, your emotional thinking keeps you blinded to the truth and it is only later when you have been punched in the face by the gauntlet of brutal honesty that you finally pay heed to logic and with hindsight realise how you have been conned. It happens over and over again and is all because of your emotional thinking gaining control of your thoughts.
This is something we desire because it prevents you from truly recognising what it is that is happening to you once your devaluation has begun. We of course love to operate from a position of plausible deniability, we court ambiguity since we enjoy and need to twist and turn in order to achieve what we want.
If you saw everything as stark and clear as I now describe our machinations to you, you would be more inclined to escape us and bring about that unwelcome cessation of our primary source of fuel. It would also make it harder to apply those hoovers when we wish to return you to the fold and have you engage in our cyclical endeavours once again.
We present you with the truth of what we are on a repeated basis but although we offer it up in front of you, we never let you see it clearly. We draw a veil across certain elements, apply a smoke screen, obscure some parts and distort others. The reality is there before you.
It is evident and plain but because of the way in which we purposefully manipulate you, you are unable to see it. It is akin to us pointing out a ship on the horizon. It is obvious for us to see but when we hand you a telescope to gain a better look at this vessel, the lens has been smeared with something which distorts the view, or we place our finger over part of the lens blocking your view.
The consequence of this distortion is to prevent you from truly seeing what we are. This in turn means that you are unable to form a clear and coherent view of the person which has taken hold of you. This becomes infuriating for others who we have not been able to drag into our façade, but who recognise full well what we are.
These observers tell you what you are dealing with. They may be circumspect to begin with, hoping not to offend your sensibilities but over time their increasing exasperation causes them to come out and say it straight. Yet, such candour rarely finds favour with you because you do not like to be told something about someone as wonderful as us (or at least someone who was wonderful).
You do not like to think that the golden period has gone. You do not like to be deprived of the idea that what you once had will never come back or even that it did not exist to begin with.
Most of the reasons why you think like this is as a consequence of our manipulative behaviour, which further foes to underline that it is not your fault. Even your desire to see the good in people is not your fault either. That is who you are. We know that and we exploit it. It is our fault again but of course in the midst of the battle that we engage in with you, we will never admit that anything is our fault. That will never do.
Thus, your view of us is obscured and because of this you will always issue excuses to explain away our behaviour, our words and our actions. You make these excuses time and time again, to others and to yourselves.
You believe these excuses because this is how you think and you have been led towards this train of thought by the schooling you have received at our manipulative hands and mouths. You also utilise these excuses to continue to convince yourself that the unsavoury elements of our behaviour are just an aberration, on occasional blip in respect of an otherwise magnificent person.
Your charity is amazing and naturally most welcome for through this blinkered approach you divest us of responsibility for the things we do, something which aligns with one of our many stated aims. You prevent yourself from examining further the reality of what has now ensnared you and the repeated application of these excuses keeps you in situ.
We want you to utilise these excuses. We want to hear them. We want them said to us and to others. Your excuses frustrate and alienate those who are against us, your excuses support out manufactured façade and most of all they ensure you deny to yourself that which is directly before you. Here are twenty-five of those such excuses. You will have said them and probably more than once. Understand that each time you utter one you have issued a further death knell for your prospects of escaping us.
- He is just tired; it makes him snap.
- He doesn’t mean it, not really.
- You don’t have to pretend with me, I just want you to be yourself.
- He has a lot on his mind at the moment.
- Work is particularly stressful for him.
- He sometimes has a bit too much to drink, but hey, who hasn’t been there?
- I think perhaps I am too harsh on him at times, it is my fault really.
- He is in a bad place but he will come through it.
- He is a complex person; you don’t understand him like I do
- It is just the way he is; I have got used to it.
- I know it seems bad but he does so much that is lovely; this is only a small part of what he is like.
- Nobody knows him properly, that’s why you think bad of him.
- He is a popular guy so he is always going to have women hitting on him.
- He has a temper, I know, but that’s part of what he is and it’s not for us to change him.
- I need to be more supportive and then he will be better.
- He’s not well at the moment but I will help him get through it, you will see.
- You’ve only heard one side of the story; he is not like that at all.
- Yes, well, his family would say that about him to cover up what they did to him.
- All he needs is to be loved and I am the one who is going to do that for him.
- You don’t know what you are saying anymore, it is okay, I do understand.
- It was a one-off, it won’t happen again.
- I know it was wrong but this time he has promised that he won’t do it anymore.
- You don’t understand the way that me and him are together.
- You are just jealous of what we have. Why can’t you be please for us, for my sake?
- I’m sorry, it was my fault.
Sound familiar?
To understand the origins of emotional thinking, how it operates and most importantly what you can do about it, obtain The Addiction – Triple Package
48 thoughts on “How Your Emotional Thinking Causes Excuses”
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My biggest stumbling block was probably my excuses for my own behavior; excuses for not blocking. Leaving avenues of communication open just left me a sitting duck for more of the push-pull behaviors, and I’d get dropped on my head eventually, every time.
Finally blocking, sad as it made me, was a necessary step to finally being on the path to be set free. I’m also finding that the information here sinks in much better when I don’t have an avenue of communication open (and by leaving things open, I was wasting so much time playing little head games with myself). Having him blocked, and the reality that’s been sinking in since I did that, that things are really over- there’s grief, but also relief, knowing a huge bullet has been dodged.
You make reference to other people being able to see it and the person involved just can’t see it. What if nobody around you sees it? Can they have everyone fooled?
That could happen but would be unusual. There is usually at least one person who sees there is a problem, they may not know it is narcissism, but they recognise something is not right.
When “my” narc started to ensnare and love bomb me, I immediately realized that “hey, there´s something not right”, but couldn´t point my finger on it. I totally underestimated it, I “smelled” Cluster B but first I excluded NPD because of his facade: “so nice, so humble, so loving and caring”.
At that time I would NEVER have thought of a narcissist! I remember googeling “love bombing” and the first thing I found was “narcissists” but I thought “THAT CANNOT BE”, I thought narcissists are loud, extroverted, successful, but DEFINITELY not humble, introverted and shy. I totally misread the signals and thought I was dealing with a person who has BPD. Well, I thought, for being “just friends” it´s not that bad.
Of course I hadn´t heard of Mid Range Narcissists ever before. I thought narcissists are ALL like the Greater School. I totally underestimated it. I was sure this person is definitely mentally ill, but …..what is it? I knew, it must be definitely a personality disorder.
When I received my first Silent Treatment, I just went: WTF??? Never ever had heard of something like Silent Treatment before and never ever had experienced that of course. It was just WTF and anger! How the heck can a person do something like this?! This is cruel! This is mean! Those were my thoughts.
It was just after my first attempt to escape and the Grand Hoover when I thought: “Heey, wait a minute!! Narcissists do that, don´t they?” and still was not sure cause “my” narc is an Angel with a Dirty Face and the facade covers the perfectly the REAL DEAL 😉
I think the problem is that many people think of narcissists in a stereotypical way. I think when many people hear “narcissist” they think only of the Greater school. I did that too and I´m really super glad that I came here and found your books so now I know exactly what I´m dealing with – and that is not really pleasant. 🙁 🙁 Definitely not what I would call a “good person” 🙁 🙁 🙁
I was fully engaged with my narcissist while reading/learning about narcissism. That was before I found my way here after the relationship had come to an end. But, for all that I honestly didn’t see what I was in the middle of at the time. For well over a year I was dipping my toe in the waters of understanding before it became apparent I was ensnared by a narcissist. And I also brought it up in conversation with him!
He should have just confessed … it would have made both our lives easier.
Same my last narcissist is very educated comes across a bit shy, charming and genuine at first but I did know narcissists can be like that still I didn’t want to believe it ,devaluation and discard made me open my eyes and face the truth about what he is. I personally think this type is the worst type because they blend in and are usually really liked and respected by most people ,they know how to show you what you want to believe, then cut you down. I am sorry that you had to go through that and I hope you can heal from it , try to remember it is more about them than you .
“My” narc is “very spiritual”, “religious”, he´s the “good guy next door”. But you can tell from his eyes and his facial expression that he´s mentally ill. I knew he is mentally ill but ….what the heck?! I agree with you, Veronique, that those are the most dangerous types of narcs. They come across “so nice”, “so humble”, “so shy” and as I know now, “mine” used EXCESSIVE Pity Play to ensnare me because I´m a caring person. He knew that I´m always ready to help the poor, the disabled, the “loosers”, the hungry, the challenged people.
Hey, guess what: Of course he´s a “looser” 😉 What else? 😉 “The shy, the introverted who has always been so unlucky with women”. Yeah! Sure! 😀 😉 BULLSH…!
He´s a typical Angel with a Dirty Face, a middle mid range type A elite narc! That´s what he is! All they want is fuel, control, character traits and residual benefits!
Narcissists suck! 😉
HG, I understand all you say in relation to the illusion of romance. However I lived and breathed my Narc for 2 years. I was there and experienced these fake expressions of “love”. But one thing I can’t shake: how you can fake pupil dilation, how can you fake that physical reaction (I don’t mean sexual) in your body and your touch when you look at us? Surely you must feel something for these obvious physical changes to happen? What is this? What are you feeling apart from a desire for fuel? Or are these physical responses due to fuel overload?
You are correct, it is the manifestation of the effect of fuel. Of course, victims do not realise that this is what it is when they are ensnared and therefore apply their own world view and understandably but incorrectly conclude it is the narcissist showing love etc.
Dear HG: as a lover of strategy, I need your guidance. I have recently been revisiting Revenge (don’t ask). In your master-mind experience, is it more efficient to focus on one consistent, pervasive offense, or better to scatter different attacks on several angles? I am inclined towards the former as I aim to cause significant psychological harm on one particular weakness. But I’m all ears. Yours, SP.
I need to understand who the opponent is, your relationship with them and evaluate the level of your ET before advising further and therefore to ensure you address this with maximum efficacy, SP, I recommend that you organise a consultation.
I understand, it would be ideal but right now it’s nearly impossible for me to discuss these issues with liberty, I’ll have to wait for a more appropriate environment. The opponent is the same idiot, being an UL somatic I don’t think it’s hard to identify weaknesses. HG, I read in the intro of Revenge that lessers cannot be somatic and mine definitely is. If anything is clear about him is his cadre. How is that possible then?
Lessers can be somatic, hence the outcome of your NDC, SP.
Great article, HG. The only emotion to have for narcissist, sociopath, psychopath is pity and indifference.
Thank you MGM, but strike pity from the list.
Hi HG,
Thank you. This article was extremely helpful in understand why we keep accepting bad behavior. In my case, the relationship isn’t romantic, but society, and family members, keep telling you that you are *suppose* to keep family in your life. So you’re pressured to keep allowing bad behaviors and most family members don’t care because it’s not happening to them.
It’s a long road to travel to realize that nobody, related or not, has a right to treat you poorly or in an abusive fashion. It’s a long road to travel in life to finally believe you have value and should be treated reasonably.
Cheers,
Well stated, hopeless.
Exactly H.G.! Perfectly described! Even though I exactly know now WHAT I´m dealing with, it´s super hard to really grasp it. My ET is still tempted to fall for the facade! So, I always have to tell myself “It´s only the facade, it´s only the facade”, and then I read here again, or re-read one of your books and listen you your awesome Narc-Detector tape again. What also helps is taking away the wrong focus – I´m practicing that now. Even though I´m only a NISS, he´s invading my brain!!! This person is capable of really completely invading my brain!! Hoovering and love bombing like there´s no tomorrow! I always have to remind myself: “This is fake! This is not real! He´s not a friend! He only wants one thing: FUEL!”
You know, I´m starting to realize the truth and but my ET is preventing me from FULLY realize it because I feel incredible disgust! And anger with myself. And shame! I feel ashamed and disgusted of myself because I fell for this bullsh….! I think my ET doesn´t want me to believe the whole truth, gotta take small steps: …slowly…
Hi Leela,
I have asked this in another thread (but can’t find it) and was wondering if you are able to go no contact ?
From what I remember you said you were married, I was wondering if you’d had the opportunity to discuss your hurt feelings involving this friendship with your husband ? I know a lot of people dont enjoy being this vulenarbale, but it sounds like your narc was perhaps providing an “emotional” support in a way your husband wasn’t during a hard time in your life (isn’t that just like a narc ! Haha. Such bastards lol)! My thought is … by discussing this with your husband it will put the focus back on your marriage and the connection to your husband may strengthen.
If I’m WAY off I honestly apologize. I’m only going off the tiny amount of knowledge I have on this site. I clearly don’t know you in real life and don’t have enough information to give advice.
Dear Empath,
you´re 100 % correct! The narc found this teeny tiny little “hole”. My husband is normal, no empath, no narc. Average. I had a hard time in my life and the narc saw this opportunity to ensnare me. He was the oh-so-good-friend who offered me help and mental support. I was happy to make a new friend, not knowing WHAT I was dealing with. 🙁 Because he´s a Mid Ranger Type A, I didn´t immediately recognize what he is. I knew there must be some kind of mental illness there but couldn´t point my finger on it.
The first time I noticed that he could be a narcissist was when I experienced massive hoovering after an argument and I wanted to escape. When he was hoovering I thought…”Heeeey, wait a minute!!! Narcissists do that, don´t they??” It was then when I first realized that I could indeed be dealing with a full blown narc!
Of course my husband and I talked about that and for several reasons I can just go minimum contact. But I have now enough knowledge to be able to deal with this piece of sh…..! I don´t see him often and when I see him from time to time, I can deal with him and keep emotional distance.
I’m so happy to hear you discussed it with your husband. I think a lot of people do not give their marriage enough credit to make it through some of these more difficult and vulnerable conversations. Being with a normal can be difficult for empaths at times (I was with one for a very long time as well… did not receive the emotional support I needed).
I hear shame in your reasoning for getting ensnared by this narc. A) because you said it above and B) I have carried that same shame with myself.
It’s a burden. That shame. But it’s not your fault he identified a need you had and exploited it for his own benefit. Hang in there.
Yes! I feel shame, especially for my emotional thinking. You know how hard it was to gasp, to believe WHAT this person REALLY is??! Still struggling a bit with that, still struggling to believe that there is NOTHING good in this man. Not a teeny tiny little emotion in him is positive, this is a man full of anger, rage, fury, hatred, envy. ALL positive emotions are faked! And they looked so REAL!
I´m just starting to really get and realize WHAT he is and I really could just thr… up!
DISGUSTING! 🙁
…and you know what??? When he started the love bombing I was SICK (I have a mental illness too). I was sick and under heavy medication!! What a dirty piece of sh….! 🙁 I got sick and weak and THEN he didn´t think twice! He struck! Boom! I really could p..ke! 🙁
Sorry! I´m just starting to realize WHAT hit me! Sorry for the cursing but I feel anger and disgust. 🙁
Leela:
No, that’s what they do.
I was severely depressed after my mother died. This guy in my reenactment group kept inviting himself over, saying inappropriate things on chat, etc. My NY friends figured out something was wrong because, as one out it, “you know how to tell people where to go and what to do when they get there; you rode the subway here!” They knew it wasn’t like me to be intimidated. I wouldn’t let him come over, and I hadn’t been to an event in a while, but he was apparently involved in multiple activities, and I was afraid he’d turn everyone against me, because this is the Midwest and I’m a NY actress and therefore obviously a slut, anyhow I was the Weird Kid in elementary school so it’s always my fault, right?
It wasn’t til later that I found out he was showing up at some women’s residences, even when they were known to be in relationships, that there were defaulted storage Iocker and possible inside job burglaries associated with him, that (as I had discovered, with a little googling), he had been tried in an organizational court for his behavior in another region of the organization, and that a completely different reenactment group got ripped off on some WWII miniatures he sold but never delivered.
It’s a lonnnng saga (though it might be fun to post relevant correspondence, along with analysis of all the Red Flags I’ve learned about here), but the basic lesson is even if you don’t like or trust a narcissist, you can feel emotionally overwhelmed. They can still do damage, without having to charm you.
Oh oh, Empath! My answer got somehow stuck! So just briefly: Yes, my husband I discussed my great dissapointment. During my bad time my husband accidentally overlooked how BAD it really was (he´s “normal”, no empath, no narc), so there was the teeny tiny little hole for the narc to sneak in and play the “oh so best friend who is there for me”. Because it was not obvious that he´s a narc (he´s a passive-aggressive elite Mid Ranger type A), I realized it too late. My great dissapointment in fact lead me to do research and then I found my way here 🙂
Dziękuję
HG…. do you think the cold hard truth is that romance is non existent ? That it’s something invented by your kind in order to captivate people both on and off screen ? …. Romance is but a notion. A fictional idea, no different then sci – fi. Or an action novel/film. I think so… sometimes the truth hurts.
Correct.
Bummer. I guess this means I will just have to fall in love with myself !
Well, that is what we make happen.
Haha ! Yes. But I meant with no man in my life… and enjoy my own life and my own company. And stop concerening myself with finding “the one”…. since that’s non existent anyways !
Noooooooooooo!
There is no romance, no love, no friendship with narcs. All they want is FUEL, they just use and abuse people and in order to do this they lie like there´s no tomorrow! Everything: romance, connection, love, friendship …. is ALL only an illusion when it comes to a narc. Period!
I don’t think it’s just narcs though… my thought is the idea of romance in itself is nothing but a concept. So that would explain why normals are not good at providing it haha. And a reason some of us think they are boring, because who doesn’t want to be the leading lady in their very own romantic – tradegy ?
I’m hoping normals are at least able to be complimentary on a geniune level though, and interested in activites together on a geniune level. I think I could be satisfied with that.
Definitely, romance is a social construct and varies according to era and culture.
I think romantic gestures are nice on occasion like once a year lol
But narcissists go over board with it in the beginning to the point where is almost comical, at least to me.
I believe a narc creeped into my inbox recently talking about “beautiful damsel” like this is the 1600’s. It’s sickening.
Accurate
They go TOTALLY overboard! “My” narc sometimes mixes up some stuff while Love Bombing and the word salad that comes out is hilarious! 😀 😀 😀 Or he actually wants to give a backhanded compliment but the words somehow mix up and it´s so hard not to burst into LOUD LAUGHTER! 😀 😀 😀
My ex used to do the most..
Everything I said or did he’ll be calling me a “queen” “goddess” “prophetess” etc
He even tried to compare us to Adam and Eve..
I assumed that he was naive and inexperienced but turns out he was a whole narc clown
Witch:
He just wants to unlace your bodice.
@violetta
There’s a lot of narcs that would unlace my bodice, that’s the problem
The cold hard truth is that no one comes to a site like this for relationship advice. Not saying this site isn’t informative, but relationship wise, no, not helpful
And yet, the evidence contradicts your comment Pamela. Not that I am surprised.
I would have to disagree. This is by far the best relationship advice I have ever come across as it pertains to empaths. And I also gained the knowledge that I am an empath here. A lifetime of being both raised by a narcissist and entering into narcissistic relationships as a consequence meant a whole new world opened up for me here in terms of understanding the relationships I had entered into and why. There is no site – and I’ve been to a few for advice – that can top the insight I have gained here. It is just not comparable. And most people who venture here have been badly wounded in relationship. It’s the only place to come for relationship advice as far as I’m concerned.
Correct.
Thought you were going away. Again.
Yes said most of those the worst thing is that I had myself convinced that they were true it’s easier to believe it because facing the idea that they didn’t love me or that I really don’t matter is a painful truth that leaves a massive whole in place of what I wanted to believe
I’m taking this one to the bank today:
“it is not your fault”
It’s not your fault, it’s not your fault.
(That’s in response to the three Mea Culpa’s I stated here yesterday)
I like to say “mea minima culpa.” The fault wasn’t that grievous.