#1: “I’m too ill, I’m too weak, I’m too helpless to accept any responsibility for my words or my actions.”
Now, this can sometimes look like performing outrageous illnesses, over-exaggerated injuries, or weeping openly in front of their victims. Now, sometimes there may be a genuine health condition, or maybe a genuine physical condition, but it tends to get milked to the nth degree, especially when they’re called out on something. Either that or they just milk it in order to control others.
Remember, unlike their grandiose counterpart, who is very resistant to criticism and can become aggressive, intimidating, even threatening, the vulnerable narcissist is highly sensitive to criticism and tends to play the victim. They react; they behave as if they’re very wounded and helpless. I often think of this as, “Don’t shout at me; I’m not very well.”
Related: 8 Clear Signs You’re Being Used, Not Loved.
#2: “Look at the hurt you cause when you say no.”
Now, this often involves a performance. They point at their face as they weep. They walk around with their knuckles trailing on the floor, saying, “You’ve ruined my life. The world might as well end right now,” and on and on it goes. The things that trigger that kind of behavior could be something as simple as a disagreement, a difference of opinion, or a different preference. When there’s gaslighting involved, it could be that the victim is sticking to their own experience, their own version of reality, and what the narcissist is trying to do is undermine that by showing how hurt and wounded they are that someone else would see it differently, which leads me to the next one.
#3: “Give me what I want, or I’ll suffer, and it’ll be all your fault.”
Now, again, this could involve exaggerated illnesses or sometimes threats to harm themselves. But one way or another, it’s about dumping the responsibility for their well-being, for their mindset, for their happiness, whatever, onto others. The pain that I am in right now proves, justifies how righteous and normal I am. And when it comes to the victim, if the victim has any kind of self-respect, dignity, pays any attention to their own needs or indeed anybody else’s, if they show any kind of autonomy at all, with the narcissist, it’s, “Look at the pain you’re causing me by doing that.” It triggers all manners of distress with them.
And the common excuse that’s often accompanied by this is things like, “It’s not my fault; it’s my anxiety.” It’s like the victim is responsible for easing their anxiety.
Suggested: Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse.
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