Charlie Brown and the Football

[SaddleBagger]

Hi. I just joined, looking for more insights into my experience with possibly PD loved ones. Particularly my exW. We were together more than 10years and now apart more than 5.
This past year I started journaling. Mostly just my own thoughts/feelings and daily activities. But, every so often I have a memory of my exW that gets keyed so I'll jot these down. Any one of these action by themselves doesn't add up to much but I've now got a large stack of these little gems that when I can see them together I'm like "wow, that was really bad." And the list keeps growing.
However when I hear things that others dealt with I think my experience wasn't so bad. Perhaps I'm just sore over the whole experience and looking for how I can make it her fault. I think there's a grain of truth there, divorce isn't fun and like anyone I struggle with resentment from that period.
Considering all this I just tend to say that my exW has some strong PD traits and I can work well from that standpoint. More importantly work on myself, the one person I have control over.

Here's one behavior that I wanted to get some feedback on. She typically didn't show much care for me but would often ask what I was thinking about. I felt so disregarded most of the time that this felt to me like she wanted to know about me. Now this question would come up at any time. Breakfast,  driving in the car, reading, walking, etc. It never mattered how I answered the question whatever my thought was it would consistently be criticized by her. It took me a long time to understand this pattern and eventually my answer would be "nothing much". This would be criticized too but at least I wasn't having my actual thoughts ripped apart.

This could come in different flavors. Another was when she wanted to give me a special birthday. I was stoked, she seemed open to something more exciting than usual. The day comes and she tells me we'll go anywhere do whatever I like. Sounds like an opportunity to be creative, spontaneous and have a bit of fun together. Any restaurant I chose, town I wanted to go visit, food I wanted to eat had something wrong with it according to her. It was very subtle at first. The place Ichose perhaps wasn't the best place to take kids. Maybe the drive to the town was going to take awhile. But after a full day of this I finally figured out why I was miserable.

Saying anything about this behavior was forbidden unless I wanted to have things flipped back on me, accused of this or that and then get the silent treatment for a week or two.

I appreciate any insights you may have.

[SonofThunder]

Hi Saddlebagger,

NonPD's are just fish in a pond for a drama-hungry PD. What you are experiencing is a lure (bait).  The lure is presented to you and it appears as something you desire to digest, but when you take the bait, you realize it was fake and has a hook in it. 

The motive for the PD in their fishing for your response is to power-feed on drama. When you get a moment, look up the Karpman drama triangle 🔺.  It well describes the triangle role dynamics in which a PD operates in order for them to achieve their larger control goals, such as the (IDD) idealize, devaluation and discard cycle.

The PD's favorite side of the 🔺 is victim. They use the persecutor side to toss you the lure, get you to swallow the bait and then insult you. Once you have taken that bait and commence your JADE (see the toolbox term), the PD quickly moves over to the desired victim role and you become the persecutor. 

That game provides much needed fuel for the PD to feel powerful and in control, which they need to feel good about themselves, and happens over and over, until the nonPD becomes educated and stops dancing around the 🔺roles with the PD. 

SoT

[treesgrowslowly]

Greetings SaddleBagger,

I am so glad you are unpacking these things. I agree with SoT's post above. The person with narc traits will work to lure us into conversations that turn into a blaming and shaming activity for them.

Before too long, the "conversation" is about how we are wrong, dumb, misguided, etc etc...they know better...we don't know what we are doing / talking about. etc.

Why do they do this? Various factors at play here. One point about a person in a narc state, is that they are in a negative state. They have negative mood and negative thoughts running through their mind all day long. I believe this is accurate. I saw it my entire childhood.

So when we converse with them, they can't help but say negative things. This is the state they are in cognitively. If they look out the window and see a sunny day, they say "I sure hope it doesn't rain later, our basement could flood". A sunny day makes them think about the basement flooding...!

I spent my entire childhood hearing negative statements about catastrophes that came into her mind. The sky was always about to fall, and the more I tried to convey a neutral / positive stance, the more energy I'd spend dealing with her.

For example: I might say something very normal: "I'm excited to see that new movie - it looks interesting"

She would reply with something like "It's so expensive, are you sure you are not going to go broke if you always go see new movies. You don't want to end up homeless".

  

And so on, and so on....To the point where, like you wrote, we just give one word answers after a while. Before I ended contact, my conversations with my PD parent were like what you describe- I gave one word answers so I would not have to hear a negative take on whatever I might say.

You mentioned that this stuff was subtle. The more subtle, the better. When I finally learned that subtle forms of narc 'fishing' for supply work best, (for them), I understood why I felt so off after conversations with my PD parent. At the very surface, it looked 'normal'. She was able to have these manipulative conversations with me in public, and no one was the wiser (including me).

The reason they learn how to do this subtle form of PD abuse, is that it can be done openly - it can be done in front of by-standers and the bystander doesn't notice what is really going on. What is really going on is an emotional takedown. The narcissistic person needs to be able to do this while appearing 'normal' to you, and to others.

In other words, if you were to tell a co-worker, "yeah my wife wants to take me to dinner, I just have to pick a place that works for all of us" - the coworker has no clue as to what is really going on. What is really going on is that you have been baited into a no-win situation.

The narcissistic person is manipulative regarding the whole event - the restaurant you choose will be wrong, the kids will be upset - and it will be "all be your fault". Worse for you - other people may naively take her side, believing her that you chose the wrong restaurant, and that you are making her life difficult (now she's in the victim state that SoT wrote about).

The more subtle, the more effective, in terms of narc abuse.

An adult narcissist has had a lot of years to fine tune their approach. Many of them probably had these traits developing in childhood or adolescence. By the time we meet them as adults, they know a thing or two about how to pull people in. I learned this from multiple sources, including Ross Rosenberg's excellent videos.

My PD parent desperately needed people in her life that she could manipulate in the subtle way you describe. She was always seeking out people she could pull in so that she could do what SoT describes in his post above. In her mind, this is how relationships worked. I could not convince her otherwise.

Someone I learned a lot from was Ross Rosenberg. I'll post a video of his in the media area of our forum that has a good section on 'induced conversation'. I had a huge aha moment when I saw this video! It was like Charlie Brown and the football!

The great benefit to unpacking all of this and educating ourselves on narc abuse, is that we realize how little was personal to us.

I personally believe that when someone takes the time to educate themselves on narc abuse, they do not come out the other side feeling worse, they feel better. Through education on narcissism, we can get clarity. We can see that narc in our past was suffering from a chronic, persistent set of traits that were there before we met them. 

I found a lot of emotional freedom came from learning that narcissism is very real, it is a state some people are in, and it is not conducive to healthy relationships. Once you educate yourself on this personality type, you gain a lot of clarity around relationships in general. We don't want to waste our life being a pawn in someone's game - as SoT described above. I applaud your work!

Trees

[LemonLime]

I always forget thet the PD feels most powerful and alive when in the VICTIM role.  It's so weird to me....why would a victim feel powerful?

But it's so true.  They do.

Thanks for the reminder.