Our emotional reactivity is the biggest weapon a narcissist is using against us. Our emotional reactivity, our emotional reactions, are essentially the bullets that we keep handing over to the narcissist to shoot us with.
It’s important to understand that the narcissist is not confused or just angry – he or she is manipulative. He or she wants us to react. He or she is doing everything deliberately. He is hiding his deranged mind behind a calm and composed persona. He or she is passive and covert aggressively hammering our triggers to make us react, to make us look crazy, to shift blame onto us.
In this video, I explain all that you need to understand and internalise to really make this shift in your understanding.
If you want to beat a narcissist, you need to think like one. You must develop the ability to act strategically.
I share a couple of techniques that might help you get your emotional reactivity in check so that we can stop losing in the battle with the devil.
Hi! Just watched your video (first time I did), and could really connect to what you said.
Trying to feel positive all the time, even in the presence of those who devalue and discard you feels contradictory most of the times, a ‘why am I feeding pearls to pigs?’ kind of moment. So the letting the universe take care of it – by returning the dark vibe – while not being the karma sounds brilliant (and damn logic, if you ask me).
But their reaction is really like you describe – you can see them feeling the rug being pulled under their feet! A month or so ago, tried to have a constructive, scientific talk with my kryptonite, confronting her gently but firmly with all of it. Guess what happened – immediate silent treatment followed by discard… it surely wasn’t the expected result.
With the help I’ve been getting from acquired knowledge on NPD (Quora, Medium, your articles) feel like light has been shed and most doubts have been cleared.
One day at a time. Been having a lot of healthy fun! Thanks again.
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Hi, thank you for watching my video and thank you for your comment. I always appreciate to hear that people find what I do useful, it gives me a lot of motivation to continue.
What you are describing is very typical for the lower functioning narcissists I think, the more reflexive ones. My mother is one such narc – every time I try to open some sensitive issue or erect some boundaries, she either throws a tantrum or gives me silent treatment. A few months later she comes asking me why am I not in touch with her, to which I respond that the last time we talked, she ended the conversation and gave me a silent treatment, and she reacts by ending the conversation and giving me another silent treatment. Then there are the more sophisticated, calculated narcs, they play the game much better, these could try to persuade you that you are making everything up etc… Anyway, I hope you are successfully removing yourself from your cryptonite…
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It’s hard not to react emotionally to a narcissist’s taunts because they know exactly what button to push to make us react the way they want us to.
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I have never said that it’s easy. I personally used to be the queen of emotional reactivity but you either tackle it or be a victim forever – forever being played by every narcissist that crosses your path. Just by understanding that they are doing it deliberately and that by reacting you are like a puppet on their string, you should be motivated enough to break through this. And there are strategies you can use to reduce the reactivity and to return their covert attacks in a way that makes them expose themselves.
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That’s true. Like you say when you understand what they are doing then you can adapt your response. Once I knew what he was doing, then it was easier not to respond too emotionally. Thank God I don’t have to deal with this anymore.
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I think it’s a skill one will use in life – you can meet narcs at work or in various settings and they can make your life as miserable as the ex. Especially at work it’s dangerous because if you let them make you look like crazy it can have really bad consequences. I met too many and had to learn it all the hard way…
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