No more bending YOUR beliefs to try to help, fix, or understand them! Whatever that Narcissist has said to you that has deeply hurt you or wounded you is NOT a real observation, it was your vulnerabilities that you shared with them when you trusted them. They twisted, tweaked, and distorted these vulnerabilities to use against you, define you, and gain control over you.

From my Book – Greg Zaffuto – Author – From Charm to Harm and Everything else in Between with a Narcissist!

Narcissists are masters at putting a spin on the truth, using extreme manipulation, and playing mind games to get what they want. They play to win and get the rewards from the investment they put into scamming a new person, then it is a matter of functionality and survival in their world to avoid detection of who and what they really are, so they destroy all the evidence or basically the person they abused! That in itself says a lot because they obviously know what they do is WRONG! They are VERY poor losers and if they don’t completely win they will react in a fit of rage and terrorize the person they are already victimizing. The only way for any person to win is to not play in any of their games once you realize the truth of how disordered and dangerous they are. Unfortunately, they don’t play fair in the first place and they trick you in and drag you into their delusional game to get WHAT THEY WANT!

Everyone to the Narcissist is in reality their opponent, UNFORTUNATELY nobody realizes that they are playing a game with the Narcissist and that is where the Narcissist gains the advantage or has the upper hand! The Narcissist is playing this game for themselves so they can deflect you from seeing the reality or avoiding the truth about what they really are – they DO NOT self-reflect, they self-DEFLECT. They do this with the expectation that they won’t have to take responsibility for their behavior. Narcissists do not take responsibility for their own actions instead they deflect by blaming, shaming, projection, denial, etc. You will do what you have always done-forgive the Narcissist, make excuses for the Narcissist’s behavior, claim the Narcissist couldn’t help themselves because of a bad day, or justifying their destructive behaviors through your empathy and love AND that will ultimately fail you completely.

You bend and bend until you almost snap in half when you try to give them the benefit of the doubt. It keeps you in a cycle that deflects away from their reality and distorts YOUR reality in turn and puts the burden onto and into you and becomes your new normal. You never have an opportunity to be an individual, nor see how they are actually pulling the wool over your eyes because of the MANY levels of confusion and diversion they use to process you into that role with them. They are betraying every aspect of your life and you are too busy babysitting their every whim and trying to fix things once again. They know how to confound and confuse their targets/victims, as well as condition and manipulate them through their temper tantrums, anger, rage, managing them down, or punishing and silencing if you don’t play exactly the way they want you to! You HAVE to stop wanting to play the ‘game’ with them and eventually they WILL run away to find a new playmate and that is the miracle that will actually save your life.

The Narcissist is a master of FAKE emotions and empathy with a phony façade and life to match. They appear to take you in, care about you, understand everything you are experiencing, and they appear to genuinely put themselves in your shoes to understand “YOU” with acceptance and unconditional love. They observe and react with that resounding smile, approval, and unconditional care and love. All of this causes you to let your guard down and truly believe there is a genuine give-and-take in your relationship and a love that exists that is just for you. It is overwhelming to meet someone that is so much like you, so connected to your thoughts, and so reactive to meet your every need that you BELIEVE in them completely. BUT once they gain your trust they will pounce on you. They wait until you are perfectly comfortable with them and your guard is completely down or even perhaps having a low moment in your life and now the time has come to manage you down and to control you to manage the business at hand or secure the supply they came for.

What would you do if you were completely void of love and empathy, how would you interact in the normal world? Without emotions or the ability to bond you would have to control people to trap them into your defective world so you could essentially fit in and get/take what you need that you can’t accomplish on your own. Narcissists perfectly execute an emotional and psychological attack on their victim because their purpose is to wear you down, to humiliate you, and make you feel small and inferior and dependent on them OR again control. A Narcissist is not going to allow you to have feelings for YOURSELF and they are going to make you believe you are selfish and wrong for wanting ANY attention. There is no such thing as YOUR needs or individuality and they basically erase your personality bit by bit. They want what they want, and they have invested their time to mold you into a viable source of supply. Narcissists do not tolerate individuality because people are objects for them to use as they see fit. There is nothing more here than their agenda coming to fruition and you have to understand that THIS IS ALL IT WAS. Predator after their prey using camouflage to hide the truth to trap you – or that façade and mask. The simple truth is that a person that cannot relate to emotions or empathy cannot relate to another human being in the smallest way.

A Narcissist ALWAYS loves to make you feel that YOU are crazy, especially if you try to confront them, make them accountable, bring up past issues or behaviors, or expose them when they are doing something appalling or lying. Basically, YOU are told that you have an over active imagination, you don’t know what you are talking about, they have NO idea what you are talking about, or that you are simply making things up to cause problems and all of this is done to deflect from the reality of WHO THEY ARE. They’ll tell you that it is obvious that YOU are the one who is crazy (and tell you that everyone around you agrees with them about you being crazy). FURTHERMORE, they will claim not to remember any of these events, even flatly deny that they ever happened, and will NEVER accept the possibility that they might have forgotten. Your perceptions of normalcy and reality are continually undermined so that you end up without any confidence in your own intuition, memory, processing your thoughts, or reasoning, AND constantly confused. The Narcissist is a master at spinning everything and deflecting to remain in control and keeping you vulnerable – this defines control!

The Narcissist will up the game to include destroying your soul, your ego, your accomplishments and any belief system you have to completely manage you down to feeling worthless. The way the game is played is for them to try to turn everything about you and everything you do, into a complete failure. The Narcissist has the reasoning of a child – but they act out like a controlling, demanding, and demeaning parent (more so toxic). No matter what your real age, you are never allowed to reach a viable emotional age with them especially one that allows for your individuality or growth with them – this is especially evident in children that were raised by a Narcissistic parent. You will always be treated like a stupid child, a bad child, a silly child, etc., and you will always be reprimanded and put in your place to honor them completely and NEVER question them! Consistent managing down is what all of this amounts to!

Everything with a Narcissist is competitive and every life situation is a competition that requires “one-upmanship”, to beat their opponent. It always involves a “payoff” for the Narcissist that is ALWAYS about them getting something or extorting everything they can and devaluing and hurting you somehow too. They feel superior within their ability to con, control, and destroy. Again, their delusional world is like a battleground with them against us because everybody and everything is a threat – be it real or perceived. They keep track of real AND imaginary things they believe you do, have done, or might do. It is a reactionary relationship with them, BUT you are the one that always has to explain your every word and action to them and made accountable when you are not serving their every whim and need! This is how they condition you and this is what they want – to CONTROL YOU.

Lastly what supports their lies is complete DENIAL. It is important to recognize that the Narcissist will never acknowledge that any games are being played AND the important point here is that it is up to YOU to stop playing. There is absolutely NOTHING you can do to fix them, the situation or heal them! You will always be told you are wrong, they are right, and that you are in need of some serious help. You can’t get them to acknowledge or take responsibility for their words or actions because they will always say they didn’t do it or it never happened. They have to or else face real accountability and retribution for their actions and then their gig would be up, so they deflect with more lies, more manipulation, and punishing, silencing and abusing you! They will destroy you completely to avoid exposure.

The main point here is that what I described is a Narcissist and how they abuse. They are not fully functioning human beings. They do not connect on ANY level with human beings except to use them as supply. We can describe this as a superficial relationship, but it goes far beyond superficial because it is a toxic and destructive relationship that will completely drain you and disable you and your belief system. Your responsibility is to get your ‘ah ha’ moment and understand that they are the defective ones that emotionally and psychologically inflicted some deep wounds that have severely affected your psyche. BUT that is where you start on your road to recovery. There is another type of healing that involves your personal emotional wounds that the Narcissist sourced out and used against you. Healing involves you and only you closing all of those wounds permanently through your personal journey or recovery!

Whatever that Narcissist has said to you that has deeply hurt you or wounded you is NOT a real observation, it was your vulnerabilities that you shared with them when you trusted them. They twisted, tweaked, and distorted these vulnerabilities to use against you and define you. They were so supportive in the beginning, but that was also to gain your trust and the knowledge of your weaknesses to use against you. You opened up your amazing heart along with all of your wounds and gave them the opportunity to find any and all of your weaknesses AND they were looking for them.

They DO NOT have the ability to understand pain, sorrow, being vulnerable or apply empathy – they only want access to your weaknesses to use them against you or to CONTROL you. This is what we have to heal within us or those weaknesses that they have constantly pointed out because they are real and within us and now they have made them come to the surface so much so that we lost our worth and trusting our own reality. They are master game players and used their keen perception to always be on top of their game. They took these weaknesses and embellished them to even make you think you were mentally ill and even fear yourself and your way of thinking. It is a very sick game that these Narcissists play, BUT it is a game that requires other players and you have to totally opt out of participating! They will attack you at any and every level they can, even making fun of you physically and they can be VERY cruel! You will ask why and how they can do this – well again because they have no empathy, no care, no connection, no bond, no morals, and no love for any other human being – they are personality disordered AND they were after something and that is your complete answer. Please internalize and KNOW this! ALSO, please understand that you still ARE that amazing person, and this was situational or abuse and you will recover with knowledge, education and support. No/minimal contact to start out on your journey to recovery! Greg