In order to understand what this post is about, I invite you to get acquainted with what the DARVO tactic is through this link. The short version is that it is a type of blame shifting, but the narcissist reverses the victim and offender so that you are cast in their eyes as the perpetrator and they, the victim. It's also a distortion of reality in that they want to be seen as the victim (when they are not), and want to see you as the perpetrator (when you are not).
It is attributed to people in the Cluster B spectrum of disorders as a common manipulative tactic.
So do most narcissists actually feel like a victim when they DARVO? The answer, on the whole is yes. And it may not necessarily be a manipulative tactic to deny reality. You can decide from reading this post. The research is surprising.
However, there are also some nuances.
Let me explain it for this day and age:
It's the opinions of victims of narcissistic abuse in forums that narcissists feel like victims when they use a DARVO tactic, though the root of the narcissist's feeling is psychological self protection and a defense than an outright objective reality for them. In other words, they react as if they are incensed that they would ever have to take accountability for any hurt or wrong they commit towards others.
But can victims of narcissistic abuse really tell what is going on inside a narcissist's brain? I don't think so.
Then there are the professionals and research studies which should help answer this question with a lot more authority.
But what did they find?
It was mixed. And it was in the context of interviews.
So I'll share a few and tell you why I numbered them at the end of the post, and also tell you why I think a post like this is important.
1. Some people who were diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder said that they talked themselves into being victimized.
2. Some of them said they "may have provoked" another person, but forgot how they did it, and all of the details of the conversation, and then were only aware of "the terrible responses" that they received afterwards which always seemed out of proportion, too strong, too emotional, and therefor unjust.
3. Some said they always feel like a victim in relationships they are in. They said they never got the feeling that the other person was on the victimized end of conflicts. They described what they were going through as an unbearable pain.
4. Others said they mostly felt like a victim too, but that they were aware that they "might have provoked it" by criticizing another person, or going into a rage they said they couldn't control, or being toxic in general. They down-played it as "not being that important", that these emotional outbursts they do are forgivable because they are good people, and that people want to be close to them because they are superior, generous, successful, good looking. After they provoked the other person and got a reaction that they didn't like at all (such the other person pulling away), they said that the reaction caused an enormous amount of pain, panic and feelings of worthlessness. But the fact that they felt worthless made them feel angry because they didn't feel they deserved to feel that worthless, that the other person must have "made them feel worthless on purpose" and that the person needed to see that they were a lot better than worthless, even perhaps, the best person they'd ever had in their lives, that no one else could measure up. So as the anger grew, the feelings of being treated unfairly grew, and they sought some sort of revenge, or some sort of audacious response like "How dare you make me feel this way!" Sometimes they felt like they couldn't confront the other person because it might make them look bad to others in their group, and pulled away themselves, convinced they never wanted a relationship with someone so stupid in their lives.
5. Some said they always know the DARVO tactic is a manipulation and a defense, but often one that is impulsive and full of deeply uncomfortable, uncontrollable anger and too many negative emotions to deal with. They said they didn't know how to cope with the strong emotions, and to relieve the flood of emotions that they knew they didn't deserve, they felt sure it had to be someone else's fault, otherwise they wouldn't feel so bad.
6. Some said they were perfectly aware that they were not victims, but couldn't stand to be accountable for anything. They said that accountability was not in their lexicon, and rarely a good idea to admit, that accountability was for suckers, losers and put a person in a lower status, i.e. "not winning". It might mean they'd lose their status to admit anything like that.
They might lose the victim, but before the specter of losing them seemed like a big possibility, they would try to talk the victim into being accountable again because they were great at talking people into things. It makes them feel powerful that they can convince people.
They also used the opportunity to convince many others too that they were the true victim so that if an opportunity arose, they would have the backing of so many believers and that most victims cannot fight off a whole army that put them first before the victim.
Also when others believed them, the reaction of belief gave them the same belief as the group had, and the true right to claim they were the one and only victim. They'd make it clear to the victim that they had a lot of backing and that they'd be foolish to challenge them.
If the victim could be talked into it too, then "problem solved!".
If they couldn't convince the victim or other people, they felt completely helpless and powerless, and that the only way to relieve it was to try again and again to make the victim accountable. If they still got push-back, they'd refuse to even acknowledge the victim to teach them a lesson.
7. Others said they used the DARVO tactic as a manipulation and defense because "others always used it too", so they felt they had a right to use it too, and because they were always smarter, because they "won" the conflict almost all of the time; i.e. they "got their own way", it was okay to use it.
If they didn't "get their own way", it could cause pain, but they'd get angry and the pain would go away.
They felt enraged that the other person was trying to persecute them into believing things they didn't want to believe about themselves.
Why angry? Because they assume they are superior to other people at most times, but then if they are getting criticized instead, or when someone else is hurt, angry or accuses them of something, it seems like a mere fantasy they, and the victim has dreamt up.
If they start to question their own opinions and feelings that they may not be so superior after all to everyone else, their self esteem takes a huge nose-dive to the point where they feel "they are nothing, nothing special, nothing of note." In some narcissists it produces suicidal feelings - it's what a narcissistic collapse can be all about.
They blame themselves, and the world, and especially people they are close to for letting them think that they are great when maybe it isn't true.
It makes them so extremely enraged, in fact, that they feel it is necessary to lash out and give others a taste of the medicine they are feeling - which means making another person feel bad about themselves, and feel invisible to them, accusing them, giving them a sense of what having a terrible self esteem is, what having absolutely no power and ability to sway opinions feels like, retaliating in the way they feel retaliated against. The only thing is that they keep doing it until the other person gives in, or leaves, not realizing that it is destroying their relationships.
In those instances, they sometimes feel they have to DARVO again so that they feel "they are not, and never will be, at fault, or that powerless again" and will always gain superiority over the person or people again. In other words, the DARVO tactic is used mainly to gain superiority, and to feel "righteous" in their feelings of superiority.
If they can convince others it is always the victim's fault, the intense anger goes away. If not, the feelings of shame are intolerable for them and often the shame turns into extreme forms of anger in the blink of an eye. They become full of resentment and even vengeance they feel they cannot control, especially if the other person does not accept the fault.
If they get to a point where they feel they cannot talk other people into being the true victim, and the victim refuses to believe it too, they get both severely depressed and uncontrollably angry that they want to hurt people.
But before they take action on that, they tell themselves over and over again "that the person doesn't mean anything to them and never did, that they are horrible for making them feel that bad, and that some day they'll get theirs!"
Then they ruminate on the best way to "make them disappear" from their life, and this is where discards and the silent treatment comes in. They hope the victim will realize they need to be at fault or the relationship will not continue
For malignant narcissists, that vengeance often turns into violence, sabotage, sadism and other crimes.
8. For the narcissists who most always see themselves as victims in a conflict, for some of them, they don't even understand why others do not want to be controlled by them. They feel they are superior, with a superior brain, with superior looks and social charm, a superior social standing, superior enlightened perspectives, superior at getting people to do what they want, while you and everyone else, as they see it, and believe it, is to varying degrees inept, stupid, crazy and not "quite good enough", to the point of "Why wouldn't you want to be controlled by someone who is superior to you?"
The way they'd word it is: "You should feel honored that I'd want to take care of you! You should be honored that someone with a superior brain would even be interested you! You should be honored that someone who is a lot more together than you are would want to be with you and to help you out!"
(My note on this kind of narcissist: we know that narcissists have an idea of how you're feeling, but lack the desire to care or delve into more understanding about it, and many of them cannot see much beyond their own projections - projecting who they are on to you. Most of them have no clue as to what normal human reactions are either, and it is rare to see them having an interest in human psychology, what causes trauma in others, thus they can't fathom why you'd want to get away from them ... except believing that you're stupid and/or crazy to see how great they are.
The reason I think these are important to know about is that from my own research, and poking around at forums of narcissists, these are all legitimate.
One of the reasons I decided to cover this subject is that it is the prelude to my post on the shame-rage spiral, a post I hope to publish this month where most of these prior perspectives repeat in some way.
Most people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder use DARVO, so it's just part of "the human behavior" element of their particular disorders. In fact, if you meet someone who DARVOs and blame-shifts, you are probably dealing with someone with a Cluster B personality disorder. Most of the rest of population doesn't use DARVO because they don't get their self esteem from narcissistic supply, power, control, and feelings of greatness and superiority to others - that link tells why. In fact, these kinds of thoughts and feelings are off-line for the rest of the population, not perceptible in themselves or others, until they study the Cluster B personality disorders and realize what is going on with someone in their life who cannot seem to respond to uncomfortable subjects except to compulsively blame-shift.
The rest of the population does not have these drastic highs and lows in terms of their ego and their self esteem either. If all that narcissists think about in terms of relationships is power, control, domination and narcissistic supply, which most do, then it makes sense that if there are drastic changes where they don't feel as powerful, or their self esteem feels shattered, that they'd feel deeply depressed.
For the rest of us, self esteem is mainly derived from "right action", ethics, compassion, work well done, working in ways that are helpful or needed, how we conduct ourselves when relating to one another, how we bring up our kids, whether we are good citizens, and most of all, our ability to take accountability when we slip up, make mistakes, momentarily lose our morals or ethics, or momentarily lose our ability to understand others and their perspectives. Slipping up also means an opportunity for growth, where we try to better ourselves, where we try to understand others, and tr better our communication and compassion styles.
Narcissists don't do that and many people have the opinion that they are stuck in the same perspectives (forever), and the same ways of relating, that they don't evolve, and in the meantime, their outmoded styles and views make them "difficult people" - that link is worthwhile to read because it says that some narcissists are able to change a little in old age (perhaps a baby step, and through various therapies like Schema therapy), but people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (the diagnosis, people who have all, or almost all of the traits), tend to become even less adaptable (often going through old age with something called "narcissistic mortification").
The rest of us do not generate our self esteem from other people, with the exception of some children who grow up with a parent who wants their child to have big insecurities (and usually the parents who want their children to have big insecurities are parents with Cluster B personality disorders).
Very little can be achieved by trashing someone else's self esteem - look at how narcissists behave. These are not people most of us want to emulate. Children who help, or copy their parent in wrecking the self esteem of other children in the household can become narcissists themselves - how does that achieve good in the world, or even in the family, or teach anything of value?
And then the children who are the victims of constant self esteem bashing aren't going to fare all that well either: they are frequently saddled with depression, anxiety in the way of hypervigilance (walking on eggshells), and trauma symptoms, some of them quite severe. If they don't realize that all of the bashing is based on their parent's low self esteem and insecurities, their parent's need for superiority and power, their need for negative narcissistic supply, some of what happened to this child in childhood can carry them into adulthood (like setting their sites very low in terms of what they think they deserve in terms of a career, making a living, and the choice of a marriage partner). Unless the world needs a lot of disabled children with bashed up self esteems, and children estranged from their families, and children who are low-balling their ambitions, and children who are trying to make it on their own because they view their families as dire enemies, and rightfully so, is that good for society?
And note here: some children actually realize what they've been put through before they reach adulthood. They can start to question their parent's motives for why they want a child or children with low self esteem when they hear too many lies, too many distortions of reality, too many assumptions about what they, the child, thinks, and feels, and experiences, and too many conclusions that don't add up (common). Or there is a family member, or other parent who alerts them as to what is really going on, who has the "power of insight" (also common). Scapegoats of families are the most likely to be aware from at least one of these two sources.
These days, it's less of a guessing game. A child or pre-teen can Google "Why does my parent always try to make me look bad, but themselves look great even though I'm the one who is hurt by them?" They can now learn they are a scapegoat as soon as they are able to read and have some sort of vocabulary where they can understand concepts that are being presented to them. It's how many pre-teens and teenagers are learning they are the scapegoat of the family. And DARVO is certainly a type of scapegoating except that it doesn't always involve the same person.
However, scapegoats also realize that when their self esteem is recovering from a combination of realizations, it becomes a huge challenge for the narcissistic parent, and the scapegoat receives even more self esteem bashing. - that link says the usual things about how to handle it, i.e. "think about 'no-contact'", "anchor yourself in your own reality and don't allow the narcissist to alter it", "go on an 'information diet' where you don't share what you are experiencing, feeling or thinking with the narcissist so that it diminishes attacks" and "consider the JADE technique". That's all well and good when you are an adult and have some means to escape, but it isn't great when you are a child. The result is that many child scapegoats go along to keep the peace by "dressing down for Mom", or "down-playing success for Dad", or "nod in agreement" when they really don't want to, but do it to keep the peace.
But the question remains: That's a good way to experience childhood? That's a good way for parents, siblings and children to behave and relate to each other in families? And what good does it do for society?
Narcissists apparently need it to regulate their self esteem and moods. And guess who is in charge of that job? The family scapegoat child, of course, and the siblings who yell at the scapegoat to regulate (i.e. "Why did you say that? Now she's in a bad mood and hating all of us! It's your fault!"). In terms of the "moods" part of the link, it's a survival technique, often used by scapegoats who are aware enough of what is going on with their parent to know what and won't keep the parent emotionally regulated. It fits into the "fawning" category of trauma responses (the other major ones being fight, flee and freeze).
SOLUTION FOR MOST NARCISSISTS
And note: in the following text, I'm talking about overt grandiose narcissists and covert vulnerable narcissists here, not malignant narcissists.
So, here goes:
The DARVO tactic can lift a narcissist's self esteem, and temporarily help them avoid "the excruciating pain of accountability" (and believe it or not, they actually do register it as deeply painful - they aren't like the rest of us in this way ... and a narcissist can even feel suicidal or long term chronic emotional distress if many people in their life won't accept the narcissist's blame-shifting tactics).
However, the fall-out for them is that most people do not like the narcissist's faults or bad deeds shifted on to them and think it is audacious, cruel, unnecessary and bad form to try to do it (people do not like blame-shifting, and being held accountable for another person's deeds, or their traits).
So the narcissist usually meets resistance there.
If people have the sense the narcissist is trying to retain or gain power, control and domination, people, especially adults, do not like having someone dominating them or having control over them.
So the narcissist usually meets resistance there.
If the narcissist is having an ego crash, and wants to reassert dominance through the DARVO tactic to regain it, most people don't want to be put in that position either.
So the narcissist usually meets resistance there too.
And what happens after all of this? (and note: this is going to sound redundant, but the difference is that there are links in this paragraph this time). It puts the narcissist back into the dungeon of pain, with feelings that they aren't so superior after all, and they entertain the possibility that maybe they are even worthless. And of course, all of this pain, and feeling powerless is not tolerable for them, and they start to feel that they don't deserve "this much pain" (link, and another link, and another link). I mean, how could they feel superior and then someone comes along and makes them feel inferior? It doesn't seem fair to them. And because they feel they don't deserve it, that they are more meaningful than they are made out to be, the pain of accountability starts to turn into feelings of rage, and vengeance starts overwhelm their thoughts, and make them feel temporarily better, more powerful, gradually putting them back into their superior state of mind, and more able to act on the vengeance they feel is mounting inside.
To them, rage and vengeance make them feel powerful. - what the Google AI article points out is this (largely taken from many research articles on narcissism, and put forward for the general public by people like Dr. Ramani Durvasula's writings and videos and Dr. Les Carter and his videos on the subject ... another link):
"Acting out through aggression, smear campaigns, legal harassment, or manipulation allows them to swap a terrifying feeling of inner weakness for a temporary sense of dominance."
So what do they do with making someone else accountable for "the mistake" or "the fault" or "bad deed" they did?
They either go back to the original person who would not accept "the blame shift" and try to talk them into "why" it is necessary that they accept the blame and also to take on the added responsibility for making them feel hurt and worthless. If it's still not working, they use as many gaslighting techniques as it takes to get the other person to accept the blame.
If they still don't take the blame, narcissists often resort to abuse tactics, sometimes many of them all at once, or they do a discard and talk themselves into the other person being worthless. Typical phrases you hear are "I never liked them anyway", "I never cared about them anyway", "I never thought they were ever good enough, and not worth much to me anyway", "And now they've ruined our relationship", "And now they can sit in what they've done to me. I hope it's excruciating."
And you can see from the last two quotes here is that they like to re-write the narrative so that you're 100 percent at fault for not taking on blame or traits that do not belong to you.
And since people don't like false narratives, and do not like being in the company of people who adopt vengeance as a coping mechanism for inter-personal conflicts, and don't like being abused, and don't like feeling "forced" to take on the blame and traits of the narcissist, most people tend to retreat from the narcissist, or go "no-contact" with them, or refuse to talk to them (because narcissists will often act as if nothing happened when they deeply hurt another person).
So, the narcissist tends to lose people and the power they used to have, the very relationships and power they are trying to protect through the DARVO tactic.
What happens is that they go back to feeling shame, then rage and thoughts of vengeance appear, and the whole cycle starts again, even if they feel helpless to act on the rage. It can live within them for years, where they make plans to hurt the victim in other ways - note: the obsession for revenge is especially dominate in vulnerable and malignant narcissism.
However, some people are not capable of backing away or leaving them. For instance, children are trapped with them, so they have to have other coping mechanisms for dealing with this much force, and this much abuse, and this many smear campaigns, and this much "discard" ... although children do not go through a discard as much as compensations for it: "getting the invisible treatment" where the parent "offers zero emotional warmth, validation, or genuine interest, reducing interaction to cold logistics or criticism" - quote from Google AI, Other tactics in that article point to "parentification": where the parent leaves the child to take on the responsibilities of the household, child care and adult burdens. Some narcissistic parents create a villain narrative about their child: "they cast the child as 'difficult,' 'defiant,' or 'ungrateful,' engineering constant conflict". Some provoke the child into leaving: "they push the child until they act out, rebel, or distance themselves. This allows the narcissist to flip the script and claim the child abandoned or rejected them, playing the perpetual victim to friends, family, or the court system". Other narcissistic parents "withhold money, praise, or basic necessities unless the child serves a specific narcissistic need (such as complying with strict control)". Some "provide their child with the bare minimum required by law or social norms to avoid looking like a neglectful parent, while completely detaching themselves from the child's emotional well-being and care".
This is an awful amount of coercive control and punishment to deal with for a child, so they usually cave in and accept the blame-shift just to survive the situation.
This tends to create a habit, and cyclical pattern in the narcissist, that they can always count on shifting fault and accountability on to this one child. This is how scapegoats are created in a narcissistic family (the scapegoat is almost always a child too).
This has an enormous cost for the child and the entire family. For one, they have to keep the vengeance and rage from their parent from re-surfacing, so they often become "the person who has to regulate the narcissist's emotions and self esteem" by sacrificing the truth, producing narratives that don't hurt their parent's ego, and scapegoating themselves (sometimes for real, and sometimes in "pretend fashion"). Often other family members put them in that role too.
However there is much more fall-out than this. As I said, it effects everyone in a narcissistic family system, and either the kids implode, or the narcissist does, depending on how the trauma bonding is playing out, who has trauma symptoms and who doesn't, how many members have adopted narcissistic traits themselves, depending on the kind of support that is coming from other adults inside and outside the family system, and all of the variables that can push the family to be more toxic, or less so. And sometimes, believe it or not, the forces at work that pull the family into less toxic behaviors can actually increase the toxicity of the narcissists themselves and even make them more dangerous than they were previously. Again, any interruption to their control produces rage, or an escalation of abuse.
Avoiding implosion, keeping narcissists emotionally regulated, and ego regulated often is expected of the family and becomes an enabling system much like alcoholic families have. It tends to branch out into trying to keep the family from having a cruel, heartless, broken reputation. It usually does not work over the long run. It's actually normal for narcissistic families to reach a chronically implosive state without the narcissist or anyone else being able to stop it, also known as "the critical mass of dysfunctional families".
I hope to continue to describe in more detail of what all of this feels like on the receiving end in another post, especially for the family members who have been stuck in roles by the narcissist that they never wanted, believed they deserved, or asked for.
CAN'T THEY SEE THAT IT IS HYPOCRITICAL TO EXPECT OTHERS TO TAKE ON FAULTS THAT DON'T BELONG TO THEM
IF THEY CAN'T DEAL WITH IT?
It's basically about two Cluster B's trying to out-do each other in mutual destruction.
Neither one is willing to feel pain, accountability, or think in a way that is a deep self observational dive into the workings of their own mind and emotion, or understand how others might react to them, so it becomes like a war, with each of them trying to out-do the other with massive amounts of destruction.
In the meantime, they wear out everyone else around them, unable to step back from the war, even if it's an embarrassment to the whole family to have this rogue member out to destroy "the family reputation", a reputation that the narcissist would normally care about if the person was someone else besides them.
Do people side with one or the other narcissist when two narcissists are at war with one another? Or do they chastise them for having a war? It depends. What that link reveals is that some narcissists are able to recruit enablers, and some of them threaten and coerce family members into enabling them to win, and some people choose "the lesser of two evils", and some others choose "the safer narcissist". What that link also reveals is this (excerpt, quote is in burgundy):
As for whether they can see the hypocrisy ... Absolutely not, even if every single person around them sees it that way. What that link reveals is this:
There is no psychological insight, and no yearning to explore psychological insight as protecting their ego, control and power come first always, even as they are destroying their reputation and the power they hold over others, and ultimately the ego they are trying to protect from criticism by being so hypocritical.
This double standard doesn't make sense to the rest of us, that's for sure. And it shouldn't make sense to them either because most people generally view people who indulge in hypocrisy with deep distrust, resentment, and moral disapproval. Thus their ego crashes over that.
Of course, if you explained this to them, they would have another narcissistic injury and rage over it, and start hurting other people just for noticing the hypocrisy. But I'd bet anything that is why most people abandon narcissists. It's just a fact of life that hypocrisy causes reputation damage to the people who use it, and for people to develop a distrust and disapproval of them.
So my particular feeling is that there are several reasons for it. The first is that the panic of losing narcissistic supply and power is so over-powering, that thought, logic, and self reflection about why it is happening is not taking place at all; their feelings and impulses are taking over. Narcissists are known to have dysregulated emotions, and as far as I'm concerned, it seems that cognition and introspection disappear and emotions and impulses take over. What that link reveals is this: "When overwhelmed, narcissists often attempt to regulate themselves by destabilizing the nervous systems of people around them—creating conflicts or picking fights to shift the emotional burden onto others." - quote from Google AI.
I thought this Psychology Today article by Julie L. Hall, in particular, had the best answers and insight as to why they stay stuck in patterns and hypocrisies like this, and keep spinning them to their own detriment, and why they cannot see their way out of them.
The other ingredient going on, I think, is the core personality trait attributed to narcissists: "a belief that they are entitled to special treatment" (from the Diagnosis and Statistical Manual that psychiatrists and psychologists use to diagnose). The fact that they use the DARVO tactic and automatically expect people to take accountability when the narcissist would never do it in similar situations is definitely a sign of "entitlement to special treatment".
One other aspect is that narcissists see people as tools, as extensions of themselves that they can use in what ever way benefits them.
The other part to this is that since narcissists seem so similar in this way across the board, it seems like they are possessed in a similar way that people with alcohol use disorder are often described as acting possessed (possessed by alcohol in that case). Granted there are scientific explanations for an alcoholic's behavior in the same way that people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder have. But realistically, how many narcissists are out there who don't DARVO?
however, it seems uncanny, from the perspective of regular everyday people, that narcissists are all so alike. I remember reading a forum where someone said, "It's like they all caught the same disease, went to school and studied how to use all of the same awful manipulative tactics, and on top of that, believe that somehow the rest of us who don't have this disorder are expected to put ourselves in harm's way to serve them and raise up their ego. A lot of them are so rageful, destructive and violent, that to take care of them, and the issues they have, is to deny our own reality and health since so many of us get sick around them, deny that we matter except to serve them, to deny our own hurts to serve their hurts, and at the end of it all, we have nothing to show for it except debilitating trauma symptoms, and more rage from them because our symptoms are not serving them in the way they want."
As far as the DARVO tactic is concerned, most people view it as a narcissistic moral weakness with cowardice and selfish ends. Most people don't understand why narcissists don't want to grow, evolve and stop using tactics that hurt other people, and eventually themselves since people will only excuse these transgressions for only so long.
Is it any wonder that scapegoat children (who are saddled with all of the narcissists in a family using them for blame-shifting too) often develop autoimmune diseases and heart issues sooner rather than later? The human body is not meant to be in this much of a highly stressful environment for years on end without some serious health repercussions. And children have immune systems that are still "in the development stage", and even migrating out of the thymus gland and into T-Cell regeneration, lymph nodes, spleen and blood stream. A lot of trauma can disrupt a child's developmental immune system - that link says "profoundly effect".
Anyway, #4, from the last chapter, is the most common way most narcissists do the DARVO tactic, and if you re-read all of the other ways narcissists feel and why they did what they did, it is mainly a variation on #4. My only question on some of these was: Can narcissists really forget what they said and only ruminate on the responses they receive? It seemed far fetched. But apparently they can dissociate, although clinical observations note mixed opinions on whether this is a conscious choice or an automatic defense mechanism - it's an interesting topic if you love Psychology research.
"The narcissist will accuse you of exactly what they’re doing behind your back"
- by No More Narcissists (channel run by clinical psychologist, Alexander Burgemeester)
