When you’re trying to come to terms with differences between you and that narcissist, you may be the kind of person that asks questions but you don’t really make declarations. Now, what I mean by that is you can say, ‘Why do you have to talk to me in that tone of voice? Or don’t you understand that I had this going on and why can’t you just work with me and coordinate?’ You’re asking questions. And then they can go all day long with all sorts of justifications. And typically, it’ll be something that will immediately invalidate you and shut you down. And that’s fuel for their soul as opposed to you making declarations. ‘Here’s who I am. This is what I believe.’ And then you stick with it. They like the person who just asks those professional questions because that feeds their narcissistic bent.
Read More: 10 Signs of a Person Suffering from C-PTSD Due to Narcissists.
Again, I’m going to go back and underscore, narcissists are on the prowl. They’re constantly gauging you and trying to figure out who are you and how strongly can I gain an inroad into your life. And I’m hoping that you can decide, ‘I don’t want to provide fuel for that manipulative exploitive person.’ So there are a couple of thoughts that I want to close with here today. And that is, I’m hoping that as you pick up on a person’s strong narcissistic bent, you can drop your outside-in approach toward problem-solving.
A Book: Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men.
Now, what do I mean by that when I say ‘outside in’? The outside-in thinker has convinced themselves if I can get you people out there to act correctly and if I can get you people out there to understand me, then my inside is going to be okay. Instead, let’s take an inside-out approach. I’m going to have an inside that says I’m okay with me, and I can have my firmness and I can have my calmness and I can have my deliberations in my independence. And if you out there don’t understand that, then I don’t take my cues from you. I’m an inside-out. My inside determines what I’m going to do out there, not the other way around.
What that means then is you can have a sense of firmness and directiveness and it doesn’t have to be mean, but it’s something that you hold onto. And you don’t feel the need to justify who you are. Being you is quite sufficient. So when the narcissist either says or implies, ‘Here’s what you need to do’ or ‘I have spotted something on the inside of you that’s going to make me feel good,’ I’m hoping that you’ll be able to respond, whether openly or just within yourself, ‘I’m going to be the one that decides that. I don’t exist to feed your needs. I’m not going to fill your tank. My job is to be the healthiest me that I know to be.’
Read More: 9 Tactics a Narcissist Uses to Break You.
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