When a narcissist realizes that you are fully onto them, there is not much left for them to do, as it no longer benefits them to play the nice card. It becomes clear that you do not care enough for them to play the victim card. Basically, there is now no emotional connection they can use to manipulate you, which means you are no longer useful to them. However, it does not mean they will leave you alone. Although they may not be able to manipulate you, they may manipulate others around you to affect you on some level.
The unfortunate truth is that many narcissists do not move on straight away to their next victim. They usually have multiple victims at the same time whom they are trying to destroy. Narcissists are very vengeful and spiteful, so their list of victims is always growing. It does affect them when they have lost out on a source of supply.
Whether you have avoided contact, set firm boundaries, actively avoided the narcissists, or even called them out on their manipulative ways, the narcissist knows when their emotional games have come to an end with someone. There are only a few things left for them to do. Today, I’ll discuss three different ways narcissists manage people they can no longer manipulate or control.
Depending on who you were to the narcissist, they may have done one or even all of the different things. Their reactions are based on the fact that you were viewed as a major threat to the narcissist. When someone is too strong or wise to the workings of the narcissist, it makes the narcissist very uncomfortable. Their fears and insecurities kick into overdrive, and they have to find a way to minimize those fears and insecurities once more.
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Therefore, one of the first things a narcissist would do when they realize you refuse to be manipulated is devalue you. This can take many forms. The narcissist may try to embarrass you or set you up for embarrassment. They will gossip, slander, or carry out full-blown smear campaigns to devalue and discredit you as an individual. Their aim is to isolate you and get others to turn their backs on you. In the mind of the narcissist, if they cannot control you, they refuse to let you just get away with it and carry on with your life. This is why, if they can destroy any existing relationships you have, they will. Even though you have managed to secure your defenses and they’re not able to affect you directly, there may still be others around you who are not as strong or as wise to their attacks, and the narcissist can use them against you. The whole purpose is to lower your credibility and support. The narcissist wants you to fall out of favor with as many people as possible so that they will not believe you if you ever try to warn them about the narcissist.
The next thing a narcissist tends to do with those they’re not able to manipulate or control is become highly competitive. They may not be able to control you, but they can try to exceed you. The narcissist is on a mission to prove that they are still better than you in some way. As a result, they will constantly compare their lives with yours, hoping that you fall upon difficult times because the narcissist wants to have a bigger house, a flashier car, a more attractive partner, and a more progressive career than you. If you have one child, they will want to have at least two to stay ahead of you. They will fake success and put themselves in debt to give the impression that they are living a better life than you. Everything is a competition when the narcissist is no longer able to manipulate or control you, and faking happiness and success is a normal thing for them to do anyway. But it is important for the narcissist to see or feel that they are doing better than you are.
The final option for the narcissist when they can no longer control or manipulate someone is to ignore or distance themselves from this person. Sometimes it hurts the narcissist too much to be around someone who has escaped their grasp and whose life they are not able to affect in any way. The narcissist would prefer to waste no more time on someone who can clearly see through their BS. People like this make the covert narcissist very uncomfortable, so in these instances, the narcissist moves on to brighter pastures where they can find new people to manipulate and control, as it is too risky being around someone who can potentially expose them.
In conclusion…
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In conclusion, it is important to remember that control is everything to the narcissist. When they are not able to manipulate someone, that is a lack of control, and the narcissist is very unlikely to just accept it and move on. They usually want to attempt to destroy your reputation on their way out or work in the shadows to take away what you have. They refuse to leave people unscathed. The narcissist will never be at peace with those who have gotten away. Vengeance will always be on the cards for narcissists. They just need the opportunity. That is why we should never give them another chance to get close to us.
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