Narcissistic Baiting
Popular wisdom suggests that when it comes to toxic relationships, ending the relationship is the only way forward to be healthy and self-protect. Often in my work with clients, this is a set-up as there are many relationships that are simply impossible to fully extricate ourselves from A narcissistic parent for whom we need to care for in their elderly years, an ex-spouse with whom you have shared parenting responsibilities, a boss, or a workplace bully are often a fact of life and simply ending the relationship will not work. Simply put…not all relationships are so easy to opt-out of.
So what should we do when we are continually triggered by a parent who never misses an opportunity to idealize your sibling while devaluing you, or constantly triggering you to feel less than? How do we cope with a partner, ex-spouse or boss who knows just how to provoke an intense emotional reaction from you?
What is Baiting?
Deliberately Poking at You
The narcissist has learned over time how to trigger and provoke you. In romantic relationships they have learned where your vulnerabilities are and don’t mind exploiting them in order to gain ground. Baiting will keep you in constant chaos, off-balance and keeps you engaged in trying to win-them back to an earlier phase of relationship in which you were idealized.
When the narcissist pokes at you, they want a big reaction from you. A narcissist will turn the tables to make you look bad and to validate their negative view of you, while you are being devalued, set-up or manipulated. They might make statements that you are “crazy” or “stupid,” even though they have clearly provoked you by triggering you in the place that you are most vulnerable.
In a work situation it may be that your boss uses passive-aggressive statements that may idealize a co-worker while disparaging you or making not so subtle threats that you are not able to handle the job.
Playing the Victim
Narcissists will often hook their supply by getting their partner to feel sorry for them and make them feel responsible in some way for their happiness. People who have co-dependent tendencies, are highly sensitive, empathic, or have abandonment trauma issues are the most vulnerable to this tactic.
Threatening, Intimidation and Fear
Do you fear the narcissist in your life? Possibly, threats are implied and never overtly stated. A prime example of this is in a high-conflict divorce in which the narcissistic parent has made threats such as “When he gets older, I’m going to make sure he knows who you really are.” People will stay in marriages out of fear of losing their children, fear of smear tactics, fear of false accusations.
False Accusations and Projection
The narcissist will accuse you of things that will make your head spin. You will go to great lengths to convince them that they have misunderstood. You can’t understand how they don’t see or hear you. You wonder what you have done wrong that this person who loved you so intensely in the beginning of the relationship, now sees you in such a negatively light.
Here is an example of a false accusation/projection in a relationship:
Your partner accuses you of constantly looking at your phone, texting someone inappropriately and cheating. Although there is no basis for this accusation, the narcissist is adamant that you are cheating. You go to great lengths to convince the narcissist that they have misunderstood, even offering your phone for the narcissist to see for themselves who you are speaking to. They won’t hear of it and the abuse continues.
Narcissists often projection their thoughts, fears, anger, actions and insecurities onto you. In other words, they may be engaging in the behavior that they are accusing you of. The narcissist often has difficulty being faithful in relationships as they are constantly on the lookout for narcissistic supply, which means people outside the relationship.
Tip: When the narcissist accuses you of something seemingly out of the blue randomly they may actively engaging in the very behavior that they are accusing you of. Often this is the narcissist playbook.
Dangling a carrot and creating false hope
The narcissist knows that you have lived on false-hope and empty promises for some time. They will dangle something you want, whether it’s a commitment from them or promise of change in some way. They are astute at changing their behavior to get you to doubt your perception of what is happening. This is what makes their behavior so confusing. This is often the hook that continues long after the devaluing phase of the relationship.
How to respond to baiting by the narcissist
Step 1 – Recognize what’s happening. It’s important not to react to fall victim to the baiting trap
Step 2 – Do not react defensively. Learn to respond vs. react with statements that are seemingly neutral, however you are not actually taking responsibility for what is happening.
Use non-emotional statements such as:
“I’m sorry you see it that way.”
“We’ll just have to agree to disagree.”
You might be asking…why should I apologize? Why shouldn’t I explain my position? The reason is because the narcissist isn’t looking to resolve the disagreement and they are in no way listening to your protests or well-intended attempts to clarify. Their goal is to keep you off balance which is where they gain power and control over you. You are not really apologizing for yourself as you know better and are on to the game. Your goal is diffuse the abuse to give you time to get away from the narcissist when the baiting and psychological abuse begins.
Step 3- Doing your own healing work
This is where the real work begins. Once you understand that you will not be able to change the narcissist the healing begins with you. Understanding your patterns and beliefs around relationships, boundaries is crucial to ending the cycle of abuse and moving on. Issues such as codependency, abandonment trauma or being a highly-empathic person can be a set-up for certain types of exploitative relationships. Figuring out where you have learned to overinvest in this type of partnership is a big part of your recovery.