The narcissist always feels out of control of their life. They must protect against narcissistic injury, experiencing shame, being called out, or exposed for the fraud they are. They have spent their entire life creating a façade that they are superior and all-knowing and must protect this false image to prevent narcissistic injury. The narcissist is acutely aware that at any moment they could be found out for the fraud they are. This makes them feel out of control because they are at the mercy of the world around them. For this reason, the narcissist will try to exert their control over anything and everything. When you are in a relationship with a narcissist, either dating, friendship, parent-child, or work, the narcissist will control you in an attempt to keep control in their life.
Today, I will discuss some ways the narcissist controls you. When you can understand it is about control for the narcissist, you can learn ways to respond that don’t further their need to control you. For each of the control methods I will discuss, everyone does them at some point in their lives. However, the narcissist relies on these control techniques as a way to manipulate and belittle people. They use the control to gain the upper hand, while continuing the charade that they are superior to others.
The first way a narcissist controls is through baiting you. When the narcissist baits, they pull you into their games by placing you into a position where you feel like you have to defend yourself. The narcissist likes to see you struggle and will invite conversation where you feel you must defend yourself. When you feel uncomfortable, the narcissist feels better about themselves. The narcissist will say emotionally charged statements that upset you, and then when you are upset they will act innocent and say you are too sensitive or can’t take a joke. When the narcissist baits, they say or do things they know will upset their partner with the intention of getting a response. This then allows them to take the victim role when you get upset.
Another way the narcissist controls is through their word salad. Word salad is a mix of words that don’t seem to make any sense. It is a stream of thoughts that are confusing, and you can’t form a response to because you don’t understand what is being said. The word salad consists of circular arguments, projection, and gaslighting. The narcissist is a master at word salad. They will hurl accusations at you to place you on the defensive, but because the statements don’t make any sense, you aren’t really sure what you are defending. The narcissist has effectively created conflict, which is something they thrive off of because it helps boost their narcissistic ego. And, there is no way out of the conflict because the narcissist will just use more word salad to further confuse you.
The narcissist will also control through gaslighting. When the narcissist gaslights you, they attempt to alter your reality by telling you something didn’t happen the way you remember it. When you are exposed to gaslighting long enough, you question your own reality and you lose trust in your own thoughts and feelings. I have discussed gaslighting in more detail before, but for today I will mention that gaslighting is a form of control the narcissist uses because when they can have you question your own thoughts and feelings, then they can better manipulate you and this allows them to control you.
The last form of control I will discuss today is changing the subject. When you are trying to talk with someone about a topic and they change the subject, this is dismissive and makes you feel like you don’t matter and your words aren’t valued. The narcissist will change the subject when you want to talk because this allows them to be in control of the conversation. This doesn’t happen only with topics they don’t want to discuss. It can happen for even topics YOU want to discuss. The narcissist controls conversations as a way to ensure you feel as little about yourself as possible.
The narcissist has many ways in which they control, and I covered only a few today. The goal of narcissist control is to have a tight grip on the world around them so that they can make it feel predictable to them as a way to avoid narcissistic injury. The problem is, they will put down whoever gets in their way and they think only of themselves. The narcissist is self-centered and their control is just one more way they show they care only about themselves.