One day, you woke up and realized that you have changed how you present in the relationship.
Before, you were never afraid to ask for anything, and now, you notice that you’ve stopped.
Now it’s all quiet. You manage on your own, you don’t ask for help, you take care of your needs because you know you can’t rely on the narcissist for any of it.
Beyond that, this quietness has meant you’ve learned to need less and less. You even want less. Anything to stay small and just get by.
How has it got this far? Because the narcissist has trained you to stop asking for anything. Here’s how.
#1 They Have Taught You That to Ask Is to Put Yourself in Danger
When you first meet the narcissist, they will have made asking for help feel safe to you.
This was during a time where they were learning everything about you they could, including what you love.
Eventually, these things would have been used against you and withheld, which proves all along that there was a motive to their interest in you.
It wasn’t about you, it was about a sick goal they had to make it difficult to ask for anything at all.
Needing reassurance started to feel complicated. Right at a time you needed it, you’d have been told you were too needy or insecure to figure it out yourself.
If you requested a little time together, you’d hear that familiar sigh that made the air around you change immediately.
No, it shouldn’t feel this way. Relationships aren’t supposed to be uncomfortable, they’re supposed to be consistent.
You’d have felt as though you were putting the narcissist out if you spoke up, so you found it easier to just be quiet and stop asking.
#2 You Got Smaller in Order to Adapt
Nothing happened to your needs; they were still there, like everybody. You wanted to be loved, you wanted conversation, you wanted connection.
These are basic foundational aspects of any healthy relationships, and shouldn’t be held against anybody who asks for them.
As your needs were expressed, you were fed the narrative that they came at a cost, without those words being directly used.
Over time, that meant you talked yourself out of them. You sat silently and alone trying to rehearse in your mind how to ask for things and preempt the narcissist’s reaction so you could try to make the conflict as less as possible.
You became an expert in picking the right moment, and even when you thought you’d got it down to a tee, you still managed to get it wrong.
Nothing you did was right, so you shrunk yourself and became as invisible as you could.
#3 This Level of Abuse Was Pre Determined by the Narcissist
There’s nothing random here. Narcissists tend to work out a path for themselves, and scatter the same patterns along it as they walk.
Wherever they go in life, they act the same way, hurting people with identical tactics.
Anything that makes them feel as though they are not the center of the universe will not be tolerated, which means any abuse you receive was always a part of their plan.
Simply by existing, you are competing with them. Your needs never mattered, and never will, and you can hope and wish for that to change until you are blue in the face, but it won’t alter the outcome of your relationship.
If you left them today and they met somebody new, the same thing would occur in that relationship, too.
You are not unfortunate or unlucky in your timing with them, you’re just one person in a long line who will meet the same fate.
#4 Patterns Develop Over Time
There’s never any one big lesson when it comes to narcissists. Instead, there are a million different ways and times they will train you to stop asking for a thing.
They’ll roll their eyes at you when you speak up. They will withdraw their emotions so they don’t seem approachable and you back away.
The instinct you were born with will start to rewire, and the comfort you reach for will be less and less appealing, because you know it comes with this hefty price tag.
The narcissist will teach you that if you ask for anything, you’d better be ready to brace for impact, because they won’t want to give it.
These are patterns that, over time, will be the focal point of the relationship.
You’re always looking to somebody who is refusing to help you, or give anything to the relationship that is deemed the minimal, and you’ll never get it.
#5 What About You? What Do You Want?
We get to talk about your needs now in that safe space you crave. What do you want? I guarantee your answer isn’t some crazy, high maintenance relationship.
You just want to feel loved and valued. You want your needs to be validated and reciprocated.
This is natural, and a desire that becomes so lost when you involve yourself with a narcissist.
Learning not to ask for anything simply means you stop consciously thinking about what you want.
Soon enough, before you’ve even finished a thought, you shut it down because you know what the outcome will be.
For you, it’s safer and less dramatic to just carry on with life as normal and keep quiet.
The narcissist loves that part of you, because it’s a part that they know they’ve had a huge hand in controlling.
But the truth is, you’re allowed to want and need, and that doesn’t make you needy by nature.
Being quiet is your way of surviving a relationship that you should be thriving in.
This isn’t some kind of Bear Grylls challenge – it’s supposed to be mutual love and affection, but it’s turned out to be purgatory.
#6 When You Are Small, Expect a Small Life
Acting small will give you the small life that you don’t deserve. You didn’t ask for it, yet you felt as though it was your only option for a peaceful day to day.
That’s the common thread for all narcissistic relationships; you enter it as your own person, and you leave it feeling like a shadow of who you used to be.
What comes with a small character? A small life. The dreams you had for yourself pass you by, and you don’t reach out for them because you don’t want to look greedy.
You feel lucky to just have a roof over your head and the bills being paid, and anything else no longer stays on your radar.
Is that a way to live? Absolutely not. But it’s how victims of narcissistic abuse end up over time, and as your needs lessen to nothing, the narcissist’s needs increase, and you find yourself working day and night to meet them.
You’re taught that this is where your focus should be. You’re told to work hard at pleasing them, and even when you do, it’s never right.
This is all trained down to perfection, and why you lose yourself in their abuse.
