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Baiting - Notes of NPD Glossary

宁芙 2020-09-25 14:37:49

(Glossary of Narcissistic Relationships @DoctorRamani)

Tactics Switch

When we think about baiting, let’s think about someone who is finally understanding the narcissistic story, the narcissistic narrative or relationship that he/she stucks in. This person decides to disengage, or they don’t fall for the love-bombing part 10, or don’t succumb to the hoovering.

Narcissists are actually in a single-minded struggle to have one thing in a relationship -- power. They had the power when they love-bombed you. They have the power when they discard you. They have the power when they manipulate you. And they have the power when they gaslight you. It’s very much a primary driver in the narcissistic dynamic. Because nobody likes power imbalances, you might try to take the power back. Thus you don’t engage, you don’t react and you don’t explain. And then what happens? Always, the narcissists will switch up their tactics.

They’re gonna start poking at you and jabbing at you. They may do something like making fun of a physical quality or something else that you’re insecure about:“That dress got a little bit tighter.” “Your sister picked another loser.” “How interesting that your boss didn’t get your evaluation back yet. Hmm, that may not be very good.” They may say these cruel, dismissive and unsupportive things. They may start accusing you of things that aren’t even true, like you are cheating or stealing. They are trying to get to you, just when you set those boundaries down.

Sequecne of Baiting

It’s a normal human instinct to react when you are provoked, especially when someone’s accusing you of something that you haven’t done, when someone is criticizing you about things that you may be particularly anxious about, or may say hurtful things about people you care about. In fact that’s often how a narcissist gets to you.

You may have even learned in trying to manage your narcissist to keep quiet when they insult you. But you can’t keep quiet when they start going after the people that you care about. If you do not understand the narcissistic relationship dynamic, then you’re almost guaranteed that you will have a really strongly emotional reaction to them. You may raise your voice, you may cry, you may yell, you may get really agitated. It’s going to be very clear that you’re upset. You’ll even look a little bit unhinged. 

And then the narcissist steps back with a look of very glib satisfaction, and uses this as the perfect entry point to gaslight you: “What’s the matter with you? You look like you’re totally out of control. You’re crazy. You must have some kind of mental problems. You need to calm down. You’re too sensitive.” They’ll say it with this very even voice just when you become reactive. 

And you literally will believe them and start to feel like there’s something wrong with you. You get so angry at yourself for reacting, because you know better, and now you know what you just did. Sadly you just delivered them a different kind of narcissistic supply. You left the narcissist feeling superior.

 
Now the narcissist is calm as can be, while you’re all kinds of emotionally frosted up, which is a totally appropriate and normal reaction on your part to someone saying terrible things to you. But the narcissists are almost like they’re relieved or they get off, and get the upper hand by being non-emotional, calling you out and then walking away. 

This whole sequence is called baiting.

Baiting is a very common narcissistic technique that often blindsides people. Baiting involves the narcissist of engaging in behaviour that’s designed to provoke an emotional reaction from you. And it tends to be an escalating process. They will keep pushing the envelope and the cruelty of the things that they say, until they get an adequate rise out of you, until they’re satisfied that they rattled you enough.

Here’s an example of what a baiting sequence can look like:

You are just getting a little bit more wise to your narcissist. You’re doing all the things that you’re supposed to do, like limiting your engagement, generally becoming more distant, or your narcissist discarded you. Now your narcissist is trying to hoover you, and you’re not even actually that interested this time around. At that point, the narcissist may reach out. 
If that doesn’t work, they might ask you more pointed questions. 
If that doesn’t work, they may start calling you out for being a jerk or start cursing at you or calling your names. Then they may double down and comment on something that makes you anxious, which are the things they know about you, because they know they’ll set you off. 

Here’s where a narcissist behaviour can be so atrocious, because nothing is sacred. 
You’ve probably shared your vulnerabilities with them and they know this. So they may go after whatever your thing is, like your appearance, your family, your children, maybe a medical condition you may have. And at this point, they may also start hurling all kinds of accusations at you. 
This may even be sort of bizarre stuff from left field. They might say something like: “Oh, so I guess you must be a gold digger, and replace me with a rich guy.” (which is going to be news to you, because that's not true); or they’ll say: “I get it, you’re just too good for your family. You’re ashamed of us and who we are and what we stand for. So you decided to go around town, passing rumours about your pitiful family.” 
So now you’re almost blinded by the gaslighting. It’s like being in a carnival house of mirrors, you don’t know which way to turn. 

When you still keep your cool in the face of this, they may double down again -- with threats: “So, how would you feel about me telling your boss what you really think of him?” 
“Should I tell your sister that I know about that STD you told me she got?” 
or a veiled threat: “You know, what I know sure would be a shame to share it with the world. And you know what? Even if you go after me for saying something, the world’s already gonna know.” 
They are very good at throwing those threats out there and it can be really unsettling. And this is the point, when most people break. They succumb and get back in touch with the narcissist.
If you were in an intimate relationship with someone, the odds are that you did share confidences and trusted information with them. They may actually have some proverbial dirt on you. So you agreed to talk to them, even though you had set a boundary and didn’t want to talk and didn’t want to fall for the baiting. But the narcissist can smell your fear. 
Once you are back at the table, it tends to be business as usual -- invalidation. Basically, once their baiting works, they’ll look at you with contempt: “How dare you think you could avoid me?” 

At the most extreme, if you really don’t crack under any of their baiting, it can even keep escalating into them doing things like filing frivolous lawsuits against you. That might then force your hands to take on the cost of lawyer, or going back to court and asking for more custody and then starting that entire process, or just pushing for investigations. These sorts of things can be costly, time-consuming and anxiety provoking. 
Not all baiting goes this deep or this dark. In most cases, when you’re in any kind of a narcissistic relationship, baiting often takes the form of simply being provoked, or getting provoked by them and giving in to their provocation with a strong emotional reaction.

Core of Baiting

Baiting gives any kind of difficult narcissistic or toxic people a sense of power. You becoming unhinged is a source of power and narcissistic supply for them. It fosters their cold sense of superiority. But keep in mind, that is just so, because they can feel in control again. You got to remember, they’re very insecure. So when anyone starts pulling away from the narcissistic person or a very toxic person, they don’t like the loss of control that comes from someone else calling the shots, and that comes from losing the narcissistic supply that they were accustomed to getting. So the idea that they can get it back through bullying, manipulation and intimidation and all that, that’s really a core of baiting -- to maintain that sense of control.

Baiting can take a lot of forms. There’s lots of things that difficult narcissistic people can do. They can push your buttons. They can be cool about sensitive issues. They can say unkind things about important people in your life. They can make bizarre kinds of accusations about your behaviour, such as infidelity or theft. They may make underhand passive-aggressive comments. Or they may just do anything that they know. After years of studying and learning you, they know what will upset you. It raises that paradoxical and interesting point -- narcissists actually don’t fully lack empathy. They actually really clearly learn and recognize the vulnerabilities of other people. They just exploit them instead of protecting them. It’s sort of the opposite of empathy -- knowing what someone is vulnerable to and using it to hurt them.

So that begs the question --

Why do narcissists engage in bating?

First of all, they love to fight. They are much better at fighting and at antagonism than the rest of us. It’s almost like they’re always uncomfortable, so they always want to be mean and punch and fight.

They are also tiangulaters. They are experts at exploiting chaos for their advantage. Once they bait, and you go for the bait, then they are able to use your anger and other emotions that you express to their advantage.

The limited empathy from the narcissists also means that they don’t stop to think about how they’re hurting you, or if they’re hurting you. In fact, in some ways, they kind of hope they are, because it’s gonna get the rise out of you. Because they lack self-reflective capacity, they can’t stop and think how is their behaviour affecting someone else. They lack awareness of how their baiting is experienced by other people.

So baiting in some ways is a way of projecting and externalizing their inner battles and throwing them onto the world at large, especially those closest to them. But when it’s all said and done, the narcissist is a petty tyrant and a spoiled child.

Knowing is Defense

A good defense against baiting is to know that it’s coming. It is the dark side of what happens when you do no contact or gray rock. Because a narcissist cannot tolerate being ignored, they will bait to draw you out to get your attention and then keep ratcheting it up. Knowing that it’s coming can make it feel less scary. And also if you feel they’re baiting, getting ratcheted up, it is important to get advisors on debt, like people on your team who you may or may not need. But this may include things like attorneys or other advisers that you can turn to for guidance or punt this whole mess to. Narcissists almost always use chaos to their advantage. Under pressure, when you’re drawn into that chaos, it’s harder to get things organized like getting advisors on board. If your situation escalates to the point of threats and dangers, or actions that are dangerous, please contact law enforcement or other appropriate agencies. And also ensure that you speak to some form of legal adviser.

Baiting is one of those patterns that in some small percentage of cases can escalate. And in most cases, baiting does not happen at that level. It really is a form of poking at you to get a reaction out of you. If you can remember that, if you react in an emotional way, you are giving them what they want. If you remember that, it may help you temper your response and make you not want to give them what they want.

Hold on to your commitment to no contact. It is really important to do so, whatever it is, no contact or boundaries or whatever. If their baiting works, and you do find yourself pulling back in, go back to gray rocking, go back to being the robot, and keep the emotion out of your reactions. They’re counting on you becoming all kinds of hysterical. Don’t deliver that to them. It is really important that you stay as cool-headed as possible. It’s really hard. Once you step away, once you disappear, the moment you’re alone, you can cry and yell it out. Just don’t let them see it. Don’t give them that satisfaction.

Do they ever stop baiting? Over time in most cases “yes”. At some point, they’re gonna find new sources of narcissistic supply, and frankly they may just get bored with you. They may just fling you away like a child toy that they don’t want anymore. But that’s not always the case.

Years of enduring this pattern of baiting can really take a toll on your mental and physical health. So you have to make sure that you have support in place to take care of you, and find the right people who can hear you and believe you and can bear witness to the struggle you’re in. And also remember, you have to learn to take care of yourself.

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