There can be nothing more irritating than being ignored.  You may have had a positive or negative experience you want to share with someone, but they ignore you.  Or you may have done something they didn’t like so they ignore you to show you how upset they are.   Regardless of the cause, when you are ignored, it can be frustrating because your ability to move past that situation is negatively affected by the other person’s unwillingness to address the issue with you.  You are left alone, trying to figure out how to navigate through this situation. 

While everyone has been ignored, or been the ignorer, at some point, the narcissist is the master at ignoring people.  They have mastered the art of ignoring you as a way to punish for some wrongdoing they believe you committed.   You don’t even need to know what the wrongdoing was for the narcissist to ignore you.  This makes it more frustrating because not only are you being ignored, you have no understanding of why you are being ignored and don’t have the opportunity to talk through it with the narcissist. 

Why do narcissists ignore you?  Put simply, they ignore you to regain control.  The narcissist uses ignoring you as a way to punish for some wrongdoing you committed.  They don’t feel the need to tell you what the wrongdoing was, they just jump into ignoring you as quick as possible to protect themselves from further narcissistic injury. 

When you become a threat to the narcissist’s unstable sense of self, they move into self-preservation mode and ignore you.  The ignoring can be through full on silent treatment where they don’t communicate with you at all, or it can be more defined where they only respond to some things from you and not others. Either way, the narcissist has thought out what will work best for them and uses the manipulation tactic that will most effectively protect against the possibility of further narcissistic injury. 

It feels personal when the narcissist ignores you, but it is really about them.  They are unable to effectively resolve conflict due to a lack of object constancy as well as their fragile senses of self.  For this reason, they must erect a wall around themselves where they can actively control what comes in.  They also need to protect against the loss of anymore supply because that would require them to move further into self-preservation mode and seek out supply.  While the narcissist wants to appear confident and competent, this is all an act.  They require others to feel good about themselves, even if it is gained through abusive and manipulative tactics. 

When the ignoring comes at a time they need to replenish a waning supply, they ignore to devalue you.  Devaluation occurs when the narcissist no longer believes you provide any value to their image or sense of worth. They devalue you to make you feel powerless, so they can feel powerful.

The reason that led to the ignoring from the narcissist isn’t important because the reason often doesn’t make sense to the outsider.  Trying to figure out what you did wrong to be ignored will often be a failed attempt to get into the mind of a narcissist. They do what is best for them at that moment and you may never know what that is.  When the narcissist ignores, try to remember it is about them and not about you, to help you feel more in control of a situation you have no control over. 

At Mindset Therapy we provide mental health services in Texas and Washington from trained professionals, via telepsychology, which allows you to attend the appointment from the location most convenient for you. Visit Mindset Therapy at https://www.mindsettherapyonline.com/ to learn more about the services offered and make an appointment.  Also visit our YouTube page, Mindset Therapy, PLLC, for the Mental Health Minute series that provides quick pieces of information for common mental health issues.