I wrote this while noticing i was spending too much time reading up on the vast amounts of information about narcissists and not finding as much about the partners of narcissists. I want to focus on me more and started with the part of me i know best, sadly enough, my reflective self......can you relate?
And thank you to Guest 46 for providing the narcissist how to to whom my echo responds in this exchange.
How to be abusive, a step by step recipe:
1.If you need to feel better, find someone and demean them. This works great with those closest to you, since they have already been conditioned. You may also be dismissive or insulting at will. If you can put them down while being clever and subtle, it is even better. It keeps them off balance. Push their buttons, you know exactly where they all are. You may even want to "act nice" while you do this. This is particularly effective if completely unprovoked and "out of nowhere." Remember, it's all about You getting what you need!
[1]How to be abused, a step by step recipe:
If I need to feel better, someone else better feel need. I have entered a silent contract to meet the needs of others first, needs that they are entitled to and that they don’t need to express because it is my job to intuit their needs. I am so insightful! Did his stomach growl? I EXIST! I have gotten used to the sound of my own voice as there has not been an answer in so very long that I ceased to require conversation. I just need a canyon wall to bounce off of. Unlike the wall I do make a sound and yet it is an endless cycling sound as permanent as the wall unless I STOP and hear my false self: the endless pleading for him to love me, for the wall to resist me so that I don’t have to find a mate to converse with because how could I? I don’t exist really. Someone who really exists might notice that I don’t. And someone who really exists is just an intellectual concept to me, a vague notion. What I know and am familiar with is co-nonexistence. [/b]
2. Deny that you did it. You may want to act self-righteous, act as if it is their fault. Tell them that they are too sensitive, or that that is just like them to feel that way. Be outraged that they would accuse you of such a thing after all that you have done for them. Tell them that there is no need for them to ruin your life. Puff up and try to make them feel bad for even questioning you. Pull rank. Play games. Whatever you need to do to keep control of the situation.
2b. It didn’t really happen. Did it? Please tell me so I can be sure. When you are self righteous I don’t like it and at the same time I marvel at your indifference. If I could be like you I wouldn’t want to need you to need me. At least I could fake it better. I need you to confirm my voicelessness. I need you to bounce off of. I am soooo sensitive that I will put my ear to your wall and listen like a human stethoscope to the faint beating of your heart. That was your heart, a heart I heard right? I know I am nothing. You are right about that. Pull rank please because at least you have one and I will have a place by default. The sound of my own voice coming back to me depends on your resistance. You confirm my absence, my selfless self.[/b]
3. If this fails, use their own guilt against them. Fog the issue with their own fear of you that you instilled since the beginning. Make them question thier own judgement, (this will be easy because of all your prior work). Use their sense of obligation or family loyalty. Never, never underestimate the power of Guilt! You will find this to be very useful. You can make an adult question their own thoughts despite a lifetime of evidence to the contrary! It's unbelievable, really, but it works. Most of them have been so brainwashed they can't believe you would do this to them and thus they will allow you to keep doing it. How great is that?!
3b. If I turn from the wall I feel guilty because the wall needs me. It must need me. I am omnipotent in my weakness and without it I am a threat to those who could maybe love me one day. I can be as weak as anyone needs me to be, I must be weak enough to be loved. My weakness had to be strong enough to serve my keeper. Almost at first sight you noticed that fear that I had of you, a fear I had long before I met you. I fluttered around your indifference like a moth to a flame. You were so bright and I just wanted to follow you. And I did and you noticed I had tagged along. No harm, no fowl. It worked for us both. I needed to follow you. I will fog the issue of my fearing my needs by focusing your strong resistance to my neediness. You just stayed where you were and I turned your direction in order to hear myself. And when I asked you for something you punished me swiftly. After all, for the first date or two I asked for, expected, needed nothing! You didn’t ask about my needs and I didn’t tell. Now I was changing the terms of the agreement. When you punished me I almost left you. But, frankly it was either you or silence. The menu from which I made choices was very short. I am accustomed to being alone and to tuning out the absence in others voices so I figured it is mine or nearly none at all. We share that either or, life or death perspective. My voice said I was guilty and your wall reverberated my statement. You proved my non-existence exists. I am successful! ! I am strong enough to be weak because I know I am guilty of killing love when I am strong enough to need and be needed. My parents told me so! The strength of my weakness is what allows me to be with you. I will not survive without you so I must be as weak as you need me to be to stay.
4. This is the most important step of all - Make them think that they are responsible for your actions! Take no responsibility whatsover. This is the key that makes the whole thing work! (Warning - If they really get this, and begin to believe in themselves, you are sunk)
4b Wow! I am being blamed! If I am responsible for you then I guess I could have some power and place in the world after all. I exist if only as the shadow, the dark contrasting underbelly of your brilliance. I EXIST. I am sorry I enlisted you to be the bully that keeps the lack of me in my place.
5. Repeat at will - It will always make you feel better and give you what you need! Happy Abusing, and remember - It's all about YOU!!!
5b Remember, it is all about them! Good and bad, it is all about them.
PS - The above will not work if they have figured out that you are in fact responsible for your own behaviors. If they begin to understand that you are deliberately using their own sense of fear, guilt, and obligation, they will begin to see the Truth and the above will not work any longer! Be Forewarned!!
PS – the above will not work if I figure out that I do not have to live alone with only my own voice – I can truly get to know another for who they are and I can hear their voice and I can recognize the meaning of their words and the emotion in or not in their words and all other voices besides my own are not punitive and punishing and I AM WRONG to let a repetitive reflection pass as a real person just because I am scared a real person doesn’t exist in myself or in others.
