4. Negating what makes sense to you.
Another tactic then that they’ll do is they’ll negate to you what makes sense to you. So if you say, “Well, I like it this way,” or “This makes sense to me,” or “This is my opinion,” they’re going to go straight into the, “Let me tell you why that’s wrong” kind of mindset. As part of their breaking you, they’re very willing to argue, and their anger when they start going into the argumentative mode can be very ugly, which is their way of saying, “If you want to come against me, I’m going to make you pay emotionally, and I’m going to make it miserable for you.” That’s how they think.
In addition, sometimes they may not be openly argumentative. Sometimes they’ll go into a passive-aggressive style of engaging with you, and they’ll just be so impossible to penetrate and get near and to talk with. And then finally, if you become argumentative and reverse toward them, then they’ll point and say, “See, this proves how broken you are. This proves how no good you are.” And it’s their way of trying to keep you off balance.
5. Stonewalling, absurdly defensive.
Another of their tactics is that they’ll go into the stonewalling mode. Narcissists can be absurdly defensive, but somehow their defensiveness is tied to, in their mind, your dysfunction. And so you cannot penetrate them. They won’t listen. They won’t give any kind of credence at all to what you have to say. They always have a justification for who they are, and they want you to justify who you are, but it’s never going to be good enough.
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