Red flag #3: The martyr tone.
The third red flag is the martyr tone. It’s sorrowful and heavy, dripping with self-pity. This tone is carefully crafted to make you feel like you’ve let them down or that their suffering is somehow your fault. And that’s exactly what the narcissist wants. A pop culture example of this is Annie Wilkes from Misery. Her tone is sorrowful, indignant, and always loaded with emotional manipulation.
Recommended Book: Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself- By Shahida Arabi.
Red flag #4: The raging tone.
The fourth red flag is the raging tone. This tone is loud, aggressive, and packed with hostility. The goal of this tone isn’t to communicate; it’s to shock, overwhelm, or terrify you. Narcissists know that most people will do whatever it takes to avoid further conflict, so they use this tone to intimidate you into compliance or silence. While it’s highly manipulative because it gets them what they want, this voice isn’t carefully crafted. It might sound like anger, but underneath, it’s driven by fear—fear of losing their grip on the situation.
Over time, this can condition you to tiptoe around them, constantly trying to keep the peace and avoid triggering another outburst. A pop culture example of this is Logan Roy from Succession. He uses rage to intimidate and dominate, showing just how far he’s willing to go when he feels threatened.
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