One of the staples of a narcissistic relationship is gaslighting by the narcissist. The narcissist acts in a way where you question your own reality and your own decision making and you start to feel crazy. You confront the narcissist to discuss the situation, and they deny everything. They twist their words so that the situation occurred exactly as they described, and it is not open to discussion with you. You are left feeling baffled as to how they can not only tell you that you are wrong, but at the same time pretend like nothing happened. Why would the narcissist pretend like nothing happened even when the evidence suggests otherwise?
In order to understand the inner workings of the narcissist, you must remember that all roads lead back to the narcissist. They focus only on themselves and what they need. How they impact others doesn’t matter to them. Their effect on others is not something they are capable of considering due to their lack of empathy. The narcissist has a fragile sense of self and must always protect against feelings of shame or people finding out they aren’t the superior, all-knowing person they want you to believe they are.
To prevent narcissistic injury, the narcissist will blame shift, project, and lie to divert attention from themselves and onto someone else. They will avoid responsibility taking at all costs because this will lead to the feelings of shame and narcissistic injury they put so much energy into avoiding. When someone takes responsibility, they are accepting they played a role in an action. Their actual involvement could be true or false, but the person is willing to take responsibility as a way to resolve the situation and/or move past a conflict. No matter what has happened and what role the narcissist played in the event happening, they will continue to deflect or outright lie.
This is where the narcissist pretends like nothing has happened. It can be infuriating because you feel crazy for thinking something did happen or invalidated in your emotional experiences for the thing that happened that the narcissist denied. The narcissist gaslights or rages as a way to get your attention off of what was happening. They are masters at acting as if everything is normal.
The narcissist needs to pretend nothing happened so that you start to believe that is true. If you believe nothing has happened, then you won’t bring it up in the future. The narcissist doesn’t like confrontation because that places them at risk of being exposed in the lies they live. To avoid confrontation, they pretend nothing has happened to a point where you think it is possibly true.
The narcissist also pretends like nothing happened so that they can do it again. To admit fault means that people will usually apologize for their behavior and tell you they will not behave in that way again. The narcissist would never choose to refrain from a behavior in the future because they must continue to have all means of control available to them. So, they will pretend nothing happened to avoid responsibility taking and avoid the need to say they will not behave that way in the future. The narcissist will never shut a door to possible control and manipulation in their life.
So, if the narcissist has convinced you, and others, they have done nothing wrong, this allows them to do it again in the future. This maintains the pattern of control and manipulation that defines the narcissist. It contributes to the crazy-making with the narcissist because you question everything, including your own thoughts and feelings. If you know something happened and the narcissist tries to tell you otherwise, step away from the interaction and don’t try to convince the narcissist what you say is true. They are not interacting with you to understand your viewpoint, they are interacting with you to try to convince you of theirs so they can behave the same way in the future. The most effective way to handle the narcissist is to not engage in their crazy making and to force them to find someone else to convince of their lies.