"Blindsided" - The Anthem of the Narcisissist

I work as a therapist, I watch reality tv, and I’ve known many narcissists in my personal life. If I had a nickel for every time I heard this annoying word…ay, jesucristo. Narcissists will often gaslight you by saying they’re “blindsided” by your confrontation, your boundary, your anger, your hurt, etc… This is a very handy way to put the blame back on you. ‘You should’ve done x, y, or z before saying that!’ ‘How can you do this to me like this? This is out of nowhere!’

Sound familiar?

Really feeling himself until he gets grazed by a vehicle on the road. He screams, “How the f*** did that happen? What the f***’s wrong with you?!”

[Ok, actually, first let me make the disclaimer that I’m probably not talking about you. Many of us can be blindsided, and it’s far more innocent than what I’m explaining here.]

If you’re dealing with a narcissist (or someone with those tendencies) please swat this claim of blindsided away as you would a fly headed straight for your plate. Don’t take it seriously. Don’t contemplate whether it’s true or what you could’ve done differently. Chances are you’ve brought the issue up one hundred times, and it’s as though every time is the first time, as though the earlier conversations never happened.

While it’s probably an unconscious process for them, they have blocked out whatever the issue is because to think about it would mean facing that they did something wrong or something they may need to change. Narcissists have an almost 0% capacity for tolerating (accurate & appropriate) guilt. As such, those conversations you’ve had have been pushed right on out of awareness until you bring it up again.

It is not your job to make them remember 3, 5, or 40 more times. It’s their responsibility to hold on to that conversation you had and do their part to address the issue.

And even if you had never had one single conversation about it, to be “blindsided” is still a stretch.

Let me give an example to illustrate.

I know a man whose wife keeps telling him his reclusive behavior and substance use is causing problems for her and their family as a whole. He pays lip service to the concern, or, more often, he criticizes her for her feelings. He continues as normal. Cut to him ending up in a very life-threatening situation related to his continued patterns/choices, and his wife and children are witnesses. He brushes it under the rug. When wife confronts the issue again, and his closest friends also confront what they’re seeing, he claims he’s blindsided. Really?

OK, now say a conversation had never happened between them. She’d never brought it up. For me, and I know for many of you reading this, if my partner brought major concerns to me and told me how my choices were negatively affecting him, I’d sure as s*** be listening. It would be burned into my brain.

What’s highly unlikely is that I wouldn’t have seen it coming at all. If I’m paying attention AT ALL, I would notice that things aren’t right or that I had a nagging feeling I was messing up somehow. Maybe I was caught up with my focus being elsewhere, but when brought to my attention, I’d admit (begrudingly, perhaps) my partner was right, and I had work to do. I’d be holding myself accountable.

Saying you’re blindsided is tantamount to denial.

That’s untenable in a relationship. I encourage you to have a boundary around accountability. If that person can’t tolerate accountability for themselves, you can expect to have the same patterns repeat over and over and over…

#1 Way to Deal with a Narcissist

It can be summed up in one word: indifference.

Young woman indifferent to the deluge of water coming at her.

Indifference is when we don’t care one way or another about someone or something. For a narcissist, it feels horrible for anyone to be indifferent toward them. What they want most is to be seen and heard and praised. For many of us, others’ indifference would be painful but not soul-crushing; for a narcissist, it feels absolutely crazy-making.

You’re wondering why you’d want to make your loved one, the narcissist, feel horrible? Well, for your own sanity and peace of mind.

I lived with and around very narcissistic family members growing up who teased, mocked, and criticized me (my mother, grandmother, aunt, and uncle — if you’re thinking it’s unbelievable that there would be that many in one family, I agree). If I fought back, it got worse, and I felt worse. And if I let their compliments in, it meant I had to let all the other stuff in as well.

Then I started studying psychoanalytic theory and counseling and became a practicing psychotherapist.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

1. Take every tiny bit of communication from a narcissist with a grain of salt, emotionally-speaking. Whether it’s an insult, a threat, a compliment, or agreement with and support of you, always remember that there’s an agenda behind it. As such, stay as neutral as possible.

2. Stay calm even if you don’t feel calm. Keep your face and voice neutral. My narcissistic patients hate that they can’t read me. If they could sense what I was thinking and feeling, they’d guide themselves accordingly, whether to gain my approval or to provoke me and gain a felt sense of power over me. Staying calm has the added benefit of making sure there’s still room for me to think my own thoughts.

3. Be absolutely ruthless in sticking to the point of the conversation. Be callous. They could distract and deflect by trying to make you feel guilty or sorry for them.

Woman happy to be relentless.

In psychoanalytic circles, narcissists are usually likened to a fragile shell. There’s nothing inside to buffer them against everyday, ordinary ups and downs or the insults and hurts we all suffer.

1. Because of their brittle shell, they will collapse emotionally if they start to feel the hurt or disappointment or disgust at themselves. HOWEVER, do not be drawn into their spiral. It’s temporary and usually leads nowhere; they’re back to their normal grandiose selves as soon as they can feel better or more powerful than you or someone else.

2. You may never know what’s real or true for them. You might think you know, but it’s more likely that you don’t.

3. If you attempt to insult them back, they will feel profoundly powerful at having provoked you and, unfortunately, your energy will be drawn from you, leaving you as the one who feels empty. If we show too much empathy or approval, they immediately take us less seriously, and now we’ve offered something of ourselves that will not be reciprocated. Of course we’re not monsters and want find the empathy for this person in our lives, but it’s all too common that providing empathy to a narcissist comes at a cost to ourselves. We tend to have to negate our views and perspectives in order to provide that empathy and move forward with them.

4. EVERY. SINGLE. THING. they say to you is a projection from their internal world. It has less than zero to do with you. Operate as such.

5. Do your own work on yourself. The more you see and understand and work through inside yourself, the less likely you are to be destabilized and pulled around by a narcissist.

It’s hard work, but if you can wrap your head around it, you’ll gain a lot of confidence in yourself. Good luck.