I don’t offer advice lightly, and when I do, I really want you to pay attention.
More often than not, my top message from people all over the world is always:
How do I make the narcissist in my life weaker?
By disarming them! Well, that’s the short answer, anyway. The longer one would involve telling you how. And hey, lucky for you, that’s exactly what I plan to offer today!
Knowing how to do it without saying a word will see you winning, trust me.
Disarm? Wait, what?
You heard me. Did you think it wasn’t possible to disarm them? That’s probably down to your experience of them and how they come across as the most unstoppable force of nature there is.
But that’s not true, and I want you to know it. In fact, it’s easy to disarm a narcissist, but all those years of loading them up with weapons, you may have forgotten this was possible.
“What do you mean, Alexander?”
I’m glad you asked.
Victims don’t realize they’re loading their abuser up with weapons, but they do. Every day in some way, there’s a power you hand over to them and they take it.
It’s all going to plan, they’ll think. And they’re right. Those plans are drawn up so well, you won’t even be able to take a peek and get a sniff of insight.
Stop reacting
How to intervene with these plans?
How to change the dynamics of your entire relationship as you know it?
How to shock the narcissist?
How to disarm them?
All without saying a single word?
The answer is simple.
You stop reacting.
Even as I write that, I write it with a smile. It’s a satisfying smile, because I already know and see the face of the narcissist as you literally shut your emotions down and leave them hanging, waiting for the usual.
And by usual, I mean:
- Tears
- Shouting
- Begging
- Feeling even lower than you did before
- Agreeing
- Refusing
- Giving in
- Questioning
- Snapping
Over the years you’ve probably asked yourself, “Is there a better way than this?”
There is! And now you’ve found it.
They want you…
Angry! My goodness, do they want to see you shout and scream? Yes!
They love it when you raise your decibels in order to be heard, because to them it’s as if you are coming from a place where you feel unseen and unappreciated.
So the yelling? They goad and goad you into a corner, where eventually you inevitably just bite back.
Suddenly, you’re to blame for being the unreasonable one. You’re to blame for being unkind or uncaring; the worst person in the world. It’s all your fault… (we know it’s not!)
Defensive! You would never dream of being purposely hurtful! Why would they think that?
You fight your side of events because you like to prove others wrong. You are a good person, and they’ve misunderstood you again. Narcissists love to see you try, they really do.
Emotional! “Are you crying? Seriously? Do you know how pathetic you look right now?
You’re not getting any sympathy from me!” Or maybe it could be, “I’m so sorry.
I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’ll never do it again. I hate to see you hurting like this.” Whatever your emotion, showing you have some is enough for the narcissist to know they’re getting under your skin in some way. Win win for them!
Now’s a good time to check in with you and ask you what your standards are in a relationship.
If you’re looking actively for somebody to be with who ticks the above boxes, you need to probably reach out and get some professional support. If you don’t, you need to remember that the next time any of it happens to you.
What this all means
Control! That’s what it means. This is all about controlling you. Every time you give them what they want, you’re subtracting a part of you from yourself.
You can’t keep subtracting, because eventually you’ll end up in the negatives.
That’s why so many victims feel like they’re slowly losing their mind. They are. Because they’re losing themselves.
Don’t do it!
Stop reacting. And yeah, I’ll hand it to you; it takes real practice in order to get it just right.
It doesn’t feel normal to withhold what seems so natural within you, but you have to for your own sake.
The moment you…
Stop engaging will be the moment you start to take back what’s yours. It’ll feel strange at first because you have so much dynamic programmed into you. You act this way, they act that way, and that’s just the way it is.
Except that isn’t how your story ends.
Your story ends with you being in charge of how you react. It’s possible.
- Take a moment before you do what you’d normally do, or say what you want to say in the heat of conflict.
- Understand exactly what the narcissist is trying to do to you.
- See where this kind of scenario has taken you mentally and physically in the past.
- Remember how exhausted it made you feel, and how long it took to recover from it all.
There’s always the good old concept of gray rock. Learning to respond minimally where you’d normally jump in and give them everything they wanted is key to handing yourself back the controllers.
And you know, you’d be surprised how quickly the narcissist tires of you. You’re boring. You give them nothing. You don’t engage.
That doesn’t make you boring, it makes you a genius” You refuse to get riled where you once would have lost the plot or been emotionally dysregulated to the point where they thought it was the best day ever.
It’s a sign of growing up and growing tired of the narcissist’s games.
Your silence is louder than the narcissist’s manipulation
I think that’s what people forget. When you’re tangled up in narcissistic abuse, it feels like nothing could possibly be more powerful than the narcissist’s manipulation.
It seems to grow over everything else, leaving it helpless, but that’s not the case.
In reality, there is a far more powerful weapon; that of your silence.
What can the narcissist do when you refuse to make a noise? No matter how much they try to provoke you, they get nothing in return. Where can they go from that? What is possible next?
Nothing. There doesn’t need to be a single word said for you to gain that upper hand.
I don’t want you to feel as though this isn’t a choice, either. It’s a choice for every single victim out there who feels like they need to take back control.
You can either be silenced by the narcissist, or silence the narcissist.
Which one will you pick? Which one gives you a better life? Which one allows you to take charge?
It’s something to think about the next time you want to disarm a narcissist.
And remember, anything in your past is now irrelevant. You can choose a different approach for a different outcome.
