Mind-reading
A narcissist will expect you to be able to read their mind.
Of course, as far as a narcissist is concerned, you are exactly like them. They have no concept of other people being different than them with different personalities and different wants and needs.
They don’t need to articulate what they want or need, you’re just expected to know.
This is why there are so many struggles with a narcissist, because they don’t understand that you can’t read their mind and you are not like them.
If you don’t read their mind, then you are punished for it. They either rage at you, give you the silent treatment or are passive-aggressive.
So, the next time you try to guess what they want, but you get it wrong. And it goes on and on.
A narcissist doesn’t communicate.
Conversations are the opportunity for them to demonstrate their superiority, be it their perceived higher intelligence, or how they can manipulate you into confusion, frustration, anger or defending yourself.
It gives them the chance to feel superior emotionally.
They don’t care, and if you show them that you do, or that their actions hurt you, it gives them an ego boost. It’s what they live for.
You can be sure, that whatever you tell them, the greater your emotional reaction, the greater chance they will do it again.
A narcissist feeds from your emotions.
So, the bigger the drama, the more they hurt you, the more trouble they cause, the greater hit for them.
The more you are emotionally invested with them, the greater ability for this high they get from your emotional reaction.
A parent, who consistently rejects and makes you feel not good enough, gets a huge rush when you try again and again. It will never be enough.
If a narcissist refuses to articulate what they want from you, it gives greater opportunity to cause drama and chaos.
You’re most likely to get it wrong, and then they can berate you for it. It gives them the perfect opportunity to unleash all their abuse.
Of course, it’s your fault. And you’re made to feel it, deeply.
It’s not their fault that you got it wrong because they didn’t articulate themselves.
Somehow you get caught up in their drama, somehow you take the blame. Even though it is solely their responsibility to make it clear what they wanted and needed.
There’s a pattern, often repeated.
It’s so easy to get caught up in their whirlwind of chaos and not see the situation for what it is.
This is another way in which the narcissist uses the fact that you care about them.
Your desire is to sort out an issue or to have a decent relationship because you care about them.
Misunderstandings are deeply troubling when you feel that you’ve hurt someone you care about. Especially when you were trying to deepen your connection or sort out things that were upsetting you.
For the narcissist, none of it is about sorting out the issue or deepening your relationship.
It’s all about creating the maximum amount of drama for the greatest amount of attention and energy from other people.
Expecting you to be able to mind-read, is just another one of their tactics to keep you at a disadvantage.
They know that you can’t do it, but it doesn’t mean that they won’t use it against you.
If you raise an issue with them, then they use your inability to mind-read against you. It makes everything about them.
They will launch into a long list of all the things you did ‘wrong’, the times when you didn’t read their mind.
There you have it, in an instant it’s gone from you having an issue you wanted to raise, to being all about them. And you feel a deep need to defend yourself or explain yourself.
This is when they have you exactly where they want you. The more you dig in and justify, argue, defend or explain the more energy they are taking from you.
If they want a really good hit of energy and attention from others, they will bring other people into the argument.
It leaves you reeling, feeling confused and frustrated.
How to deal with it
The only way to counteract their tactic of expecting you to mind read, is to not play their games.
Once you’ve been reeled into their drama, your precious energy is being taken from you.
So, the best thing to do, is to expect them to articulate what they want or need. And if they don’t they risk not getting what they want, and tough on them!
If they try to create drama, they can only create it if you go along with it. Simply stating, ‘You should have said what you wanted’ and walking away is enough. They won’t like it, though!
My experiences
The delivery room
When I had my son, my mother and father came to visit to ‘help’. I had to be convinced to let them come, that should have been my first warning!
It was an early morning trip to the hospital on the morning of my son’s delivery, and we told my parents we were going.
Labour was a long time with a lot of waiting.
Just before going into the delivery room, my mother sent my husband a text demanding to see her grandson. He hadn’t even been born yet!
There was no concern for me, her message made me cry just before I went into the delivery room.
Being overtly nasty like that was rare for my mother, and when I reflect on it, I see what it was all about.
She wanted to be in the delivery room with me.
But it had never occurred to me.
We simply didn’t have that kind of relationship, not after all that had happened since I’d got pregnant. My father had been vile and she’d gone along with it.
Of course, she never asked me, or articulated her desire.
Instead, she took it out on me passive- aggressively with her message.
I am sure, she also talked badly about me because I ‘refused’ to let her in the delivery room with me. She would have told whatever lies she could to make me look bad to other people.
We never spoke about it. She never told me that was what she wanted, but I see it clearly because I know how she worked.
During my pregnancy, our relationship was irreparably damaged and within three years of my son’s arrival I was no contact with her and my father.
The purse
This was my mother in-law, who treated my father in-law like her skivvy.
‘I want my purse’, she said, there was never a please or thank you from her.
Off he went, like the well-trained slave that he was.
There was even a family joke that he was ‘Alfonse’ the Italian waiter, he waited on her so much.
When he returned, he handed her the purse.
‘Not that one,’ she whined, ‘the green one. Of course I want the green one. What are you thinking?!’
Of he went again.
As he went off, she turned to us and said ‘I think he’s getting dementia, you know. He’s much worse than he used to be.’
In this simple exchange, she made my father in-law feel like crap by punishing him for not reading her mind. She also used it to undermine him, behind his back, by saying that he was getting dementia.
I don’t know how he put up with her.
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Originally published at https://comebackbrighter.com on April 26, 2022.