Some Possible Things to Say to Narcissists (an alternative to the DEEP method)

 (edited with new information at the bottom of the post)

If you must engage with narcissists, these replies may or may not help. 

Sometimes the gray rock method can't work, especially in a divorce where children are involved, so someone dreamt up the "yellow rock method". This alternative runs along the same lines, except it replaces the DEEP method instead of the gray rock method. 

As with anything you want to say to narcissists, it is always good to take these ideas to a domestic violence counselor before proceeding because narcissism can sometimes come with psychopathy and put you in danger of more of their rage, or violence, and escalation of abuse in general. 

Narcissists don't like to feel that their power and control of you is being undermined or slipping away, and they can rage and punish you over that. 

Psychopaths don't like to think that they don't hoodwink you and can abuse you over that. 

So be careful. 

In some circumstances these may work to get the narcissist to respond in ways they are not used to. It also takes control away from them, and gives you more of it. As they try to control what the conversation is about, what you are allowed to talk to them about and deciding when you should be silenced by them, you decide how much engagement you want with them instead by keeping the conversation on topic, making sure it's not just going to be a shaming session about your character (which most narcissists often revert to when they are not getting their way, when they feel minimized, when they feel insecure about how much you can be manipulated by them, when they feel insecure that you're seeing past their carefully crafted image and reputation). 

This method by-passes all of that. 

I found these on Facebook by someone who calls himself "Psychology Scholar". Like all alternative methods, even the "yellow rock method", it was most likely thought up by an average person who had to deal with a narcissist and couldn't do a full DEEP method. 

So let's get into it.

Following is what you can say to bring the conversation to a healthier level. It's not what they are used to, but it might help to disarm their propensity to start drama, arguments, getting their own way, projecting their own personality traits on to you, and keep you from falling into the trap of reacting and feeding them "negative narcissistic supply":

* "That's your opinion. Not a fact."
   This keeps them from assessing based on opinions. It keeps them from assassinating your character (at least in your presence), and getting into a place where they are attacking what ever qualities they think you possess.
     Usually when narcissists attack you, they are unsure about their ability to dominate you and their hierarchical standing is at stake. It takes away their ability to control you, dominate you and hurt you. By making it "their opinion" only, it disarms their ability to put you on the defensive, of getting narcissistic supply via seeing you hurt, and makes them look like "the weak one" because they are operating from opinions and not facts.
     Most narcissists act on opinions anyway, based on their own emotions, so you are making it obvious that you know what they are doing.

* "I'm not explaining myself again."
     This is a type of DEEP method, but you are telling them that your "explaining yourself" has a time-boundary, and that you've stopped, and that you aren't giving them any more of it. 
     They may keep going into all kinds of paranoid fantasies about you, or try to convince you that you need to explain some more because they can't go on "limited facts" (breaking your boundary, which is also a test to see if they can break boundaries with you in general).
     But assuming it doesn't head off into that direction, with the more reasonable narcissists this method can stop them from twisting your words, getting into circular arguments to confuse or confound you, getting you defending yourself, explaining yourself, engaging with them in their argument tactics, and taking what they are saying personally. You just end your part of the argument by saying you are not going to explain yourself again and again, that you've given them enough explanations, and if they don't want to consider what you've said, then that it's up to them, but that you are done with going into it further.
     The less information you give narcissists, the better. They exploit information at some point to hurt you or sabotage you. 
     They may keep their end of an argument going, but if you don't respond, they'll be disappointed, wear themselves out and quit.
     If they bait you to keep you engaged, if you keep saying "I've explained myself and therefore have nothing more to say" then it can deflate them in terms of getting more drama and emotional reactions out of the situation.

* "That's not about me."
     This helps stop narcissistic projection. Narcissists assume you are like them and that your character is based on their own traits. This stops them from doing that if you say it enough and differentiate yourself from them.
     If you list your traits and don't bend to their often negative assessments of you, you can't be persuaded to take on their judgements, and you can make a stand that you aren't going to deal with their judgements either. 
     It's important to note that narcissists love to persuade others of dire flaws, but if you disagree with them, and keep stating some of your "real traits", many of them tend to slink off. When I did this myself in a work situation, the narcissist looked like they were "beaten" at their game of nailing me to their proverbial "self esteem cross".
     This person was stealing, but that's another story. At any rate, I reasoned to myself that the reason this person was trying to mess with my self esteem was to get my eyes off of their own "egregious flaw", and to be in a position of ruminating about "my character flaws", and constantly in a position of defending myself. 
     While they don't like the fact that you are your own separate person without their same dire flaws, and can't be influenced in ways that narcissists like to influence others, it can keep them grounded, that you are indeed a separate person from them, especially if you remind them of that fact. 
     In addition, it can give you some peace. 
     It's also a type of boundary (narcissists don't like boundaries, but it's healthiest for their victims if boundaries are set from the very beginning). 

"You're allowed to be upset." - when they are in a rage.
     This separates their emotion from yours, and is another method to keep narcissistic projections at bay.
     They will be upset if they fail to make you upset or to convince you that they are "the real victim". As in the prior saying, it puts a boundary between your emotions and their emotions. It also shuts down their proclivity to distract you from the fact that their emotions show (not just yours).

"Let's stick to one topic." 
     This can help to stop narcissistic "chaos bombing". Narcissists love chaos and bringing in extraneous matters into their arguments as "me attack, you defend" ploys. It also stops them from psychoanalyzing you, stops them from focusing on your tone of voice or facial expressions, stops them from bringing up your childhood, stops them from trying to embarrass you or bringing up things that they think might help them to shame you and break your self esteem, stops them from escalating an argument. You can walk away and say, "You didn't hear me the first time. I said I only wanted to stick to the subject and I'm not interested in the rest of what you are bringing into this."
     Narcissists like to control conversations and what is talked about, and this puts more control into your hands instead. They may do a tit-for-tat and try to dampen down even more of what is discussed, but it is better than listening to "everything but the kitchen sink" types of arguing styles.
     Narcissists don't know how to fight fair, so in a way it shames them about their propensity to bring in subjects that might normally work for them, but aren't working as far as you are concerned. 
     Warning: this can mean they go to others to smear your name because they can't stand that kind of a boundary. They aren't able to get negative narcissistic supply from you, or more chaos and drama, or more power, more control with a boundary that "sticks to the subject." And they detest boundaries anyway. 
     But again, for the more reasonable narcissists (narcissists without all of the traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder), it can point them in a direction that is more succinct, more about solving an issue (if they want to solve it). 

"I'm not interested in arguing. I'm interested in solutions."
     You flip the game they try to play completely in terms of "winning their own way".
     It does neither party any good if they get their way all of the time anyway.
     They very rarely have a script for solutions except for what will satisfy them, and it might get them thinking about solutions rather than more arguing. Maybe. At the very least, it shuts the arguments they want to have down. It shuts down contempt, It shuts down them using their handy "self esteem" crucifixion tools. It stops you from tolerating the negativity and "playing the victim" that they bring to arguments. 
     It can also drain their influence over you if you can make this method succinct and focus on positive solutions. 

"I'm okay with you not understanding me."
Narcissists won't understand you anyway, and they are not focused on that because power, control and domination are all that they want out of relationships (usually).
     Because they are way more invested in negative judgements about how others act and do things, and in what they think and feel, this lets them know that neither they or you are interested in understanding you.
     They thrive on being admired and obeyed too, and this statement makes it clear that you've given up on admiring and obeying because they don't understand you. You've given up on explaining anything to them any more too.
     Explaining is what exhausts most people when it comes to narcissists (narcissists are not invested in listening anyway), so instead of getting tired, worn down and reactive, it's a way of telling them that you don't give a sh*t as to how they twist the truth, project, blame shift, tell lies and don't listen. 
     Instead of admiring them, you're telling them that you're out of the game they are trying to play at misunderstanding you in order to enact some hostile take-over in terms of creating more perspecticide and negative narcissistic supply around it. 
      Someone who isn't in relationships to understand the perspectives of others is not interested you, in other words. 
     An alternative to this might be "I understand that you don't want to know me or understand me."
     It has been said in many memes, forums and articles that narcissists intentionally misunderstand you in order to manipulate you and to get more information about you to manipulate you. You fall into the habit of explaining yourself where the narcissist gets even more information about you.
     To my way of thinking, I think this is definitely true in situations where they feel they are losing control of others, and has a lot to do with why they erroneously blame with perspecticide, but I really don't think it is true all of the time. 
     Here is an example where they intentionally misunderstand you:
     They are feeling they are losing control over you. You are somewhat financially dependent on them. They want to rock your world by discarding you and withdrawing all financial support. This is done to get you back under their control. They can't figure out what to accuse you of, and to say that they aren't controlling you enough is something they can't allow themselves to say even though it is the truth. So they accuse you of an egregious look on your face (that never happened) they didn't like instead, or that you are thinking critical thoughts about them (perspecticide with erroneous blaming). 
     What they are trying to do in this situation is to coerce you to give them positive narcissistic supply by thinking well of them, and to get back into line where they can control you in a way that satisfies them.
     Here is an example where they are not intentionally misunderstanding you:
     You have returned from a business trip where you got delayed because of bad weather. You spent the weekend in the city where you initially arrived over a weekend. You are accused of staying away too long (on purpose), that it had nothing to do with flight scheduling and bad weather. In fact, they accuse you of having an affair while you were gone. They won't look at the evidence that the airport was snowed in. They decide to punish you by "going missing" themselves. They take up having an affair because they genuinely think you had an affair while you were away from them. Narcissists are often paranoid and they think others are trying to escape them (which can sometimes be true), or hurt them (which tends not to be true), and that they need to punish others in a tit-for-tat way by doing the things they believe you are doing to them. This shows more paranoia, more distrust, more projection than actually trying to misunderstand you. 
     It is often hard for the rest of us to tell the difference to whether narcissists in our own lives are  intentionally trying to misunderstand us or whether they are just paranoid, or into their own paranoia fantasies, projecting, mistrustful, or blindly self serving, or are incapable of understanding us (most narcissists are truly terrible listeners and also cannot get out of a "black and white" mind trap), thus it is hard to tell.
     They tend not to "hear" others very well because of the mistrust of others most narcissists have. 
     At any rate "explaining" in either situation is likely to be exhausting, humiliating, to go nowhere, and often not worth the energy, thus giving up and saying "I'm okay with you misunderstanding me."

IN CONCLUSION
WITH SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT MY OWN EXPERIENCES WITH METHODS

All methods on "how to deal with narcissists" have their issues.

Personally I have come to the conclusion that relationships with narcissists, and even the small progress one gets from these kinds of methods, do not really satisfy any deeper issues with narcissists. If the narcissists are abusive it especially doesn't help because no matter what you do, if they are in an abusive phase, they won't want to give it up and the abuse will escalate.

If they aren't abusive (yet), at best, it keeps the verbal attacks at bay, and that's it, nothing more.

And sometimes the method doesn't even "help" with that, depending on the narcissist. 

What I have found is that the more quiet you are, the more you keep to yourself, the more you put your attention elsewhere, the more bothered they are because they can't control a person doing disappearing acts and not paying attention to them. The more engaged with them you are, the more they take it as an invitation to control and dominate you more and more. 

There is no happy place to sit among the spectrum between engagement and disengagement. I have found that it is always unsettling, always upsetting, with too many "fly-by-your-pants" unstable situations, where nothing works and there is always a negative consequence no matter which way you go.

Eventually you learn to resent the narcissist, or perhaps all narcissists, especially on an emotional level. For those of us who primarily look at the world on an intellectual level, we may not resent them so much as resign ourselves instead to this: "There is nothing that works. I don't want to be close to a person where nothing I do works and where there is that much contempt coming from them. I understand they came from a difficult childhood, but I am not prepared to take up that challenge, and maybe only professional therapists can truly tackle the challenges. I just don't know how to deal with someone who wants to control everything, including most other people."

When a person's main agenda in their relationships is to get power, control and domination, that agenda is not the right reason to be in close personal relationships to begin with. So how can these relationships truly work and thrive?

Narcissists are mostly trying to manipulate you into a sycophantic position and every time they do that successfully, you are growing more and more unhappy, a lesser version of yourself, giving up pieces of yourself, eventually giving up your convictions and personality, disgusted that you've become a sycophant to a cruel, deceptive, unethical tyrant, and sad that you are a robot, and if not a robot, "a rejected piece of trash" they throw out. And there aren't many choices other than those. None of it adds up to happiness, health, peace, feeling loved and in love, feeling trust and trusted - and what's the point of a life of that?

You are either going to fight for yourself and for your autonomy from them, or you are going to go all in on being treated as their a## kisser, and in the meantime gaslighted and insulted while you do so. You are going to be told what you are allowed to discuss, where you are allowed to go, how you're allowed to dress, whom to see and not see, and how you phrase things, and being taught how to please them constantly, dealing with triangulation, insults, sabotage, devaluations, discards and even their sadism in some cases. 

To me, that's all a nightmare I do not want to live through again (or again, and again, and again as that choice clearly is about that). 

To me, any kind of close personal relationship where one person is that dominating is not workable. Any relationship where one person is never open to compromise on any level, or listening, or where the person has to get their way all of the time is not workable. Any close personal relationship that hurts as  much as it does with narcissists is too painful to continue.

I don't want to be around narcissists any more.

This doesn't mean you have to come to the conclusion I came to. You can figure out what is best for you. I don't fault people for trying, and trying, and trying, to the point of obsession and total exhaustion, because I have tried too, mostly through pointless explaining, and a pointless full time lifestyle of "pleasing a narcissist" giving up just about everything that made me autonomous.  

With pleasing behaviors, I found worse outcomes, not better ones.

Same with explaining: in explaining, I found worse outcomes, not better ones.

With pleasing behaviors I found that they took it as an excuse to control me even more and add in insults if I wasn't doing things to "their perfection" - quite painful. A lot of survivors have "drowning dreams" when they get to this stage, and I had plenty of those. 

In explaining, I was trying to bypass their tendencies to put their spin on what they thought was going on. When all I received was more perspecticide no matter how much I tried to get them to listen, it again became pointless. I came to the conclusion that there was absolutely nothing to talk about any more.

With sociopaths, you get to a point of not wanting to engage in lightening speed, because not only do they want to control you, most want to hurt you too (and usually "take" something away from you or use you in some manner).  

With narcissists it goes a bit slower, but ends up in a similar place.

I found the lack of empathy in both narcissists and sociopaths too hard to deal with too. 

I was aware in Kindergarten that when exposed to a lot of other children I was suddenly thrust into their own pain narratives and perspectives. Automatically, seeing a scraped up knee of another child meant that my own knee would burn and ache. And for a long time.

Even when I tried to "will it away".

And even when that child was no longer in my presence.

As I got little older, I tried to stop feeling transferred pain. I tried to "toughen up" as I was told to do by elders, even entreated by other kids to partake in bullying myself, but I was never successful at minimizing the pain others went through, and therefor ineffective at toughening up or bullying with any conviction. I was called a "weirdo" for this HSP trait, more than anything else in my childhood. It made me feel like an outsider, a loner with a lone condition.

It wasn't helped by others I thought I could confide in about it:
"I'm so glad I'm not you! I couldn't stand that!"
"You have to stop that to defend yourself and get somewhere in life! You can't go on like this!"
"Ha, ha! You have to be a weakling then!" 
"You're going to be bullied with that going on!"

As I got older, I wondered how they could have that attitude. They don't want to have the feelings I have because they couldn't hurt people as well as they wanted? What? That seemed to be truly awful, and because I was looked at as being "weak", I stopped talking about it. Only as an adult I found that some other people went through what I did in this regard, and also felt like a freak in childhood. 

In some ways it led me to writing this blog decades later. 

Likewise, in Kindergarten I had burning sensations in my scalp for days when I saw one child try to rip out the hair of another child.

So being around people at a young age who didn't feel any empathy at all, let alone any "transferred  pain" from the pain of others, and who exploited my vulnerability as a child, seemed like a terrible trap, the kind of trap where I didn't know what to do to get out of, though I tried a lot of different methods, ones I made up, and ones others I discovered I used long before they became published methods, and even tried more methods that are not currently popular today.

I have not found any method that truly works wonders with narcissists (or sociopaths, as the latter peppered my childhood more than the former). I haven't experienced anything where you can feel "good", "healthy", and "be at peace" with the outcome. It's always stress, and then more stress, and then too much stress where your whole body has symptoms and the "flight" response kicks in. 

In fact, for me, as long as the other person puts "control" first before empathy, the more the "flight response" kicks in.   

The only thing that seemed to work for me was in adulthood.

I got to know other HSPs and empaths. I gave up on narcissists. I'll let you know, certainly, if I do find something that someone else claims to "truly work wonders" beyond just some sort of "hollowing out" of one's own emotions (self imposed silencing) and dumbing down communications with narcissists to the point of hardly communicating anything at all with them.

In the meantime, the things I mention in this post I've tried for the most part, and haven't liked, and if anything, I preferred the more drastic DEEP method. None of these I'd want to live full time in, only in emergency situations. If it's your cup of tea, "more power to you", as the saying goes. 

What I will ask is if you try this method, or some of what is suggested here, how did it make you feel, and how effective was it? 

(edited on 8/31/25): I actually found some answers as to why the flight response is so strong when people with PTSD come upon others who have no empathy. And having transferred pain, empathy, or emotional triggers and responses when others are in pain is also a PTSD "trait" or "trigger". It's a brain matter. I hope you read that post because it may enlighten you more as to what happens. And it also explains why hoovering for narcissists can be successful for the unaware target. Hoovering for malignant narcissists who generally use coercive control (fear tactics, intimidation, severe punishments for others who are not willing to be controlled) are less able to hoover, and I hope that post explains why.
     To read that post, you can go through this link. 

Is Blatant Favoritism of a Child by a Narcissistic Parent a Sign of Abuse? Comes With a Discussion on Scapegoating

 (edited)

When does favoritism become abuse? To get some answers, I turned to Google Search and Google AI. What I found from Google AI was this (written in dark red):

Favoritism, while sometimes an unintended consequence of personal preferences or rapport, can become abusive when it creates a consistently unequal and harmful environment for those not favored, impacting their well-being, opportunities, and overall sense of worth. 

Here's how favoritism can cross the line into abusive behavior:

In families

Defensiveness and justifications for unfair treatment: Parents who exhibit favoritism may become defensive when confronted about their behavior, offering excuses for the preferential treatment of one child over others.

Unfavored children struggling for affirmation: One child may constantly strive for parental approval without success, while the favored child receives abundant and often undeserved affirmation and privileges.

Creating a sense of entitlement in favored children: Favored children may develop inflated views of themselves, feeling entitled and believing that rules don't apply to them, which can impact their relationships and behavior in the long run.

Diminishing self-esteem in unfavored children: Unfavored children may develop a negative self-image, feel defeated, and struggle with low self-esteem and even depression.

Excessive praise for one child and criticism for others: When a parent consistently praises one child while ignoring or criticizing others, it can create a toxic dynamic where some children feel constantly undervalued.

Negative impact on the favored child: Even favored children can experience negative consequences, such as pressure to maintain a "perfect" image, difficulty with intimate relationships, and feelings of guilt due to resentment from siblings.

Strained sibling relationships: Favoritism can lead to deep-seated resentment and jealousy among siblings, creating lasting rifts in their relationships. 

In the workplace

Undermining meritocracy: When promotions, opportunities, or rewards are based on personal relationships rather than performance, it can demotivate employees and create a sense of injustice, according to Fisher College of Business.

Lowering morale and engagement: Employees who perceive favoritism may feel undervalued and disengaged, leading to decreased job satisfaction and commitment to the organization.

Leading to resentment and conflict: Favoritism can breed resentment among colleagues, potentially causing conflicts and harming teamwork.

Increased turnover: Talented individuals may leave an organization where they feel undervalued and believe they lack fair opportunities for advancement, notes the Global Coach Group.

Risk of discrimination and legal issues: When favoritism is based on protected characteristics like race, gender, age, disability, or religion, it becomes illegal discrimination.

Creating a toxic work environment: Favoritism can contribute to a toxic workplace culture where negative behaviors are normalized, impacting employee well-being and productivity. 

In essence, favoritism becomes abusive when it consistently undermines an individual's worth, denies them fair opportunities, and negatively impacts their emotional and psychological well-being. It creates an environment where personal biases overshadow objective criteria and fair treatment, leading to lasting harm for those subjected to it. 

But why does this happen? What does a parent get out of blatantly favoring one child over another?

For that answer, I turned to this Psychology Today article. Here is an excerpt from the article (again, written in dark red):

What is critical is that all children trust that they are loved and appreciated for what makes them special. Love is unconditional, whereas favoritism is not. Favoritism depends upon children behaving in ways that gratifies parents.

I also turned to Quora and found this:

     Favouritism is in and of itself not abnormal, but favouritism that results in abandonment, comparison, and emotional neglect IS abuse.
     All parents have some slight favouritism, but if they’re actively keeping a child under valued then yes.

The one thing that the answer does not include is scapegoating. If a child is scapegoated, then it can be described as an egregious form of "favoritism abuse" because it is usually a number of family members using one child for blame, blame shifting, silencing and many other kinds of abuse from physical abuse, mental abuse (which includes a lot of manipulation by other family members, especially gaslighting, prejudice and the abuses I write about featured in the right column of this blog and continuing to this page). 

But what do parents get out of it? What could possibly be a positive outcome for them, considering that these kinds of abuses can destroy their child, or at least make them depressed and retreating, and destroy the relationship with their child because what child wants to live a life of defending oneself all of the time, explaining to deaf ears, and in self-protection mode?

You can even see how favoritism could turn ugly, and into a form of abuse by siblings. It might start with the favored child keeping the scapegoat child "out of commission" or it might start with the parent. The parent might try to get the favored child to co-discipline, co-abuse or to be a co-conspirator as a way to support the parent in keeping the scapegoat under-valued, silenced, invalidated and unimportant. 

This is where parental narcissism and psychopathy come into play.  Here is a run down of what a parent might get out of it:

* As a Baiting Technique to get an Emotional Reaction Out of a Scapegoat, and as a Technique to Get All Siblings Fighting for "Favoritism Rewards":
     Narcissists, on the whole, don't like it when they favoritize a child and their other children don't notice, or their other children are too involved with projects, friends, school, hobbies and other activities to care much. Maybe they never liked the favorite child, or they found him to be a liar, or too wrapped up with the parent to have much of a relationship with, or because they find him to be too much of a sycophant and don't respect him because of that (children and adults tend to be disgusted by the sycophantic behavior of others). 
     So in order for the parent to get narcissistic supply (attention), they have to "up" the obviousness of preferring one child over another. 
     Let's say that "upping attention" on the golden child doesn't work either, at least in terms of "the amount" of narcissistic supply they are getting from all of their other children.
     Something has to be more obvious about the favoritism to get their other children working harder for parental attention, approval and affection. 
     What often happens is rewards: the golden child (the favorite) gets more rewards, and most of the other children get fewer rewards to the point where it may even be straddled this way: most rewarded (golden child), sometimes (family mascot), a little less (lost child) and none (scapegoat). 
     Now the children notice this because it is very obvious; it's not just a feeling the parent has of liking one child more, but a downright policy. 
     This may or may not spark competition between all of the siblings depending on whether and how much they are able to win this game, and whether they want to play it. 
     Because of the rigidity of roles, no child other than the golden child wins this game very well. They can either get brutalized by their siblings, especially if "the winning" is unjust, or the hard work of one of the children is overlooked, or if there is any sycophancy involved (and usually there is), if there is any sibling abuse involved, perpetrated by the more sycophantic children (and usually there is), and if the parent always sees their child in terms of these unchanging roles (and usually they do), and if the parent only sees their children as narcissistic supply givers (and usually they do). 
     This is a pretty dangerous game to initiate between children, but often narcissists aren't aware of it, and they don't particularly care either because narcissistic supply from this game always comes first. 
     Where the baiting comes in for the scapegoat is usually in this way:
     Scapegoats give up on trying to win this game or even of participating in it way before their other siblings. And the further they get from the game, the more disgusting it seems to them. Most of them, anyway. The more traumatized scapegoats don't even particularly notice the game; they have always felt more "outside of the family" than in it because of how they are treated: often with contempt. So the thinking here would go more in the direction of: "I'm not part of this game because I could never win it anyway. Mom (or Dad) hate me anyway. This game isn't even appealing to begin with. Everyone is fighting." 
     For those scapegoats who are disgusted by how their siblings are all stepping on each other, and over each other, and fighting with each other to get approval and rewards, these scapegoats start telling of the flaws of the game instead, which enrages most narcissistic parents because they expect their children to notice the game enough to want to compete in it, but not notice it enough where they see any flaws in the game. Also finding flaws in the game is a threat to their parent's ego and grandiose vision of themselves as being an excellent parent.
     In other words, by focusing on "the flaws of the game", it's basically saying their parent is a  "manipulator", which would be true, but narcissists feel they can't be criticized without going into a rage, so into a rage they go, and often abuse the scapegoat over a perfectly healthy response to this dog-eat-dog competition between siblings. 
     Most scapegoats do end up revealing and talking about the game inside and outside the family. There is a reason why scapegoats are often referred to as "the truth tellers" of the family. This would be one reason. And for a family who is living in the bowels of this much narcissism, truth is not appreciated unless there are other siblings who want to drop out of the game.
     So in order for the parent to get narcissistic supply from a scapegoat, they'll have to count on negative narcissistic supply instead of positive narcissistic supplies. Positive narcissistic supplies are flattery, sycophancy, elevating the narcissist's status and power, and brainwashed suppliers. Negative narcissistic supply is baiting a subject into being afraid, hurt, upset, angry, and often stonewalled, insulted, hated and neglected. When narcissists can't feel any positive narcissistic supplies coming from their children, the parent will revert to getting negative narcissistic supplies instead.
     The one thing narcissists don't see is that all of this flattery and sycophancy can be a manipulation, a manipulation between siblings, and a manipulation of the parent in order to get rewards. So it teaches manipulation, and that relationships are transactional. The transactional part is that the child is rewarded for "the right kind of narcissistic supply" or the child is punished for the "wrong kind of narcissistic supply". Once a child adopts enough manipulative behavior, and is doing his own transactions in this way, he's in danger of becoming another narcissist. 
     When it comes to the scapegoat, negative narcissistic supply is achieved by attacking and baiting the scapegoat. 
     The baiting and attacks go like this:
     * starting erroneous arguments and erroneous blaming sessions with the scapegoat. They either pick something they "think" will elicit guilt from the scapegoat, however small, or if necessary, made up.  
     * aggressive emotional outbursts at the scapegoat
     * blaming them when a sibling hurts them ("You brought this upon yourself!" and other sayings ... remember that scapegoating is about blame shifting, taking blame off of themselves and other family members they put on a higher hierarchy and giving it to the scapegoat). 
     * lots of criticism and contempt
     * trying to make the scapegoat feel insignificant, or ignored, or unwanted
     * trying to lecture them about negative traits they are perceived to have (some of them will be made up - common)
     * trying to convince them that they are crazy (gaslighting) and that the only way to be "un-crazy" is to be a sycophant of the narcissistic parent
     * starting smear campaigns about their child which have a little truth to them, but are mostly lies; telling others that their scapegoat child is crazy and should not be talked to or listened to
     * for overt grandiose narcissists, trying to get the scapegoat to say "I have a great parent", and for covert vulnerable narcissists, trying to get the scapegoat to feel sorry for them. Either way, it's a pleading attempt to get the child to focus on the narcissist and the narcissist's feelings rather than on the games the narcissist is playing. 
     * trying anything to get scapegoats involved in the game rather than looking from the outside of it by distracting them with baiting them for negative emotional responses (which, when looked at from the outside, also adds up to being manipulated).
     * for malignant narcissists, sadism and sadistic acts.
     It still does not garner the results that narcissists want. 
     For one thing, all of this contributes to a scapegoat getting traumatized. The more traumatized they become, the more retreating they will do in terms of the parent and the game, the more disassociating they will do, the less they'll want or need approval from the parent in terms of getting any narcissistic supply for themselves.  
     Scapegoats tend either to be not addicted to narcissistic supply for the very reason that they are very rarely rewarded, or they are so vilified, even if falsely, and feel so entrapped in vilification and symptoms from trauma. Some scapegoats go into a radical acceptance frame of mind, keeping their own dreams alive of a better life ahead, or until they feel they can escape effectively. Some of them commit suicide, or have enough suicidal thoughts and trauma symptoms as to be largely disabled by them, mostly manifesting in obvious ways around puberty to age 16 years old.
     Another reason scapegoats feel they aren't dependent on narcissistic supply, is that in contrast, their narcissistic parent may have grown up giving narcissistic supply (or approval or flattery) to their own parent, and got rewarded for it. It's the Pavlov Dog's theory.
     Somehow they got rewarded a lot by someone anyway. 
     This also has a lot to do with why narcissists take criticism so hard (they associate it with being "unrewarded"). 
     For scapegoats, Pavlov's Dog theory doesn't exist. 
     However, for the parent, they don't realize this. Thus they always expect rewards if they flatter their scapegoat, or give them some breadcrumbs as an attempt to keep them in the game, even if they are floating off into their own minds, hopes and dreams most of the time.
     Why would any kind of approval or disapproval work when a parent is so wrong at assessing the scapegoat, including all of the smear campaigns which are even more wrong than anything the narcissist says directly to the scapegoat? It's an eye-rolling event for most scapegoats.
     So a lot of scapegoats, maybe even a majority of them, do not look for approval from their narcissistic parent, nor care whether their narcissistic parent approves or disapproves of them, or is on yet another "bender" of disapproving of someone (and these kinds of parents are always negative on many others in their life too, and often for similar reasons, with lies and false narratives part of the story). 
      Thus the reason why giving or withdrawing narcissistic supply to a scapegoat (and these can be drastic yo-yo events), is because so much is made up about the scapegoat, including traits they don't have, things they don't do, words they don't say, motives they don't have, and fights they did not start. They come away from the experience feeling "not known", and "invisible", with disapprovals that have no impact other than that they are invisible.
     The scapegoat, especially one who has other non-narcissistic adults in their life, is going to come away from a lot of it thinking, "Who cares what my parent thinks!"
     Thus the scapegoat becomes independent minded (the most unaddicted to narcissistic supply in the whole family) and the golden child the most addicted to it. 
     That doesn't prove that fighting a competition game with your siblings is a good idea. 
     Major fail!

* Getting Sadistic Pleasure out of "Disfavoring":
     Sadism can also be described as negative narcissistic supply. The narcissist or psychopath has largely given up getting positive narcissistic supply, so he (or she) counts on negative narcissistic supply: getting someone else upset, or angry, or fearful, or begging, or disgusted, or wanting justice, and the perpetrator making sure it is all in the hands of himself, that only he will control the outcome.  
     Narcissists who don't get much positive narcissistic supply, or have long or frequent narcissistic collapses can go psychopathic (the secondary type of psychopathy, often referred to as sociopathy). 
     When narcissist's shame gets activated, and when they keep falling from grace, they go into a shame-rage cycle. What this means is that when their shame is activated, they rage, unlike the rest of us who feel hurt instead. For the collapsed narcissist, this can take on a more menacing quality: revenge and retaliation, even if their victim is innocent or a seven year old. 
     If the narcissist has no remorse, and shows no empathy for having made you suffer, then they have entered the realm of psychopathic traits or psychopathic personality disorders (often referred to as Antisocial Personality Disorder). 
     Usually signs of sadism mean they get their narcissistic supply from a lot more negative narcissistic supply than positive narcissistic supply, particularly from instilling fear as well as unjustified and unjust punishing of their victims. 
     Sadism can also mean they have given up on getting positive narcissistic supply, and have decided that negative narcissistic supply will do. It's still attention, and the reward centers of the brain can react in a positive way from seeing someone afraid of them or traumatized by injustice. 
     Young male school shooters in their early twenties are usually collapsed narcissists with heavy doses of paranoia. 
     Child abductors and parents who practice false imprisonment and on-going abuse of a child usually prefer negative narcissistic supply too. 
     For narcissists who display both grandiose narcissistic traits and psychopathic traits, they rely on positive narcissistic supply to get them into power (popularity with future faking), and then display negative calloused revenge oriented traits once in power, particularly to anyone who opposes what they are doing, in order to keep themselves in power. "Divide and conquer" is another stand-out trait you will see. 
     In terms of scapegoats who tend to be "unfavored", a parent who gets off on the negative emotions of a scapegoat child is going to have some psychopathic traits. The more obvious the favoritism is to the point of neglecting and abusing the scapegoat, laughing or getting calm when the scapegoat cries over issues of injustice, stonewalling when the scapegoat wants to talk about the favoritism, and in general, any kind of satisfaction that a parent gets out of the suffering of the scapegoat by the favoritism, you can bet that parent has psychopathic traits. 
     Complaining, and telling a parent you are hurt because of the favoritism is not going to do any good; it's how the parent gets their narcissistic supply, your being hurt over the issue. Not only will this not be resolved so that you will feel "less hurt", but the parent will "up" the favoritism, "up" the hurting to new intensities and different forms of it, and then flaunt more favoritism. 
     If that's not a sign of sadism and psychopathy, I don't know what is. 
     In addition, scapegoats who are discarded from their family after they bring up the favoritism issue, and the narcissistic parent is not showing any care or empathy for where their child is or how they are faring after the discard, and is actually acting as though they are really enjoying it, and having fun with it, and laughing about it, and deriding the scapegoat more, has psychopathic traits; you can count on it. 
     The presence of sadism is, unfortunately, a sign the parent is too deep into their personality disorders to change or have remorse at any time afterwards.
     If they want you back (usually many years or decades after they've discarded you - that's the trend of hoovering for narcissists with psychopathic traits), and show remorse, you can almost always count on it being "fake remorse" with more egregious abuse to follow. 
     The only reason for this kind of parent to want you back is because they need to keep you in a scapegoat role, and feel you have escaped it too much for their comfort, or because they feel they need a scapegoat with your qualities (maybe you accepted the scapegoat role in the past more than your siblings are willing to fulfill the role).

* As a Baiting Technique to Mind-control and Brainwash:
     The idea here is similar to the "competition game" with siblings to get narcissistic supply from the parent by fighting with your siblings in order to get it. 
     By the narcissistic parent focusing conversations with the scapegoat on everything that is right with the golden child, and why they favor them so much, they hope to influence the scapegoat to act more like the golden child. They hope that this will mean the scapegoat will be constantly searching for approval and affection from the parent just like the golden child is, constantly seeking positive reinforcement from the parent like the golden child is, letting the parent make all of the decisions for them just like the golden child does, and so on. 
     But this requires that the scapegoat see the golden child like the parent does. But often they don't see the golden child in anything close to the idealized way that the parent sees. 
     Again narcissists indulge in behaviors where the role of the child is way more important than who the child is, and what the child really thinks and feels, so how the parent perceives the golden child can be drastically different than how a scapegoat experiences the same golden child. 
     If the scapegoat experiences the golden child as menacing, duplicitous, disgustingly sycophantic, and/or contemptuous, then it won't work, and rarely does a parent care to know how one child is experiencing another one of their children. The only thing that matters to them is whether their child is acting more like the golden child. 
      So, let us say that no progress is being made. The scapegoat child isn't turning themselves inside out to mimic the golden child. It is the more common outcome. The scapegoat wants to be loved for themselves, not make themselves into someone else.
     This is not to say that there aren't any scapegoat children who mimic, but they aren't common. In fact, I have a post started on this subject, and most of the time if there is mimicking by a scapegoat, it's  because the golden child is exceptionally talented, high-achieving or paraded around by the parent in beauty pageants or some kind of sport. This kind of golden child isn't bullying or menacing either for a scapegoat to want to "be them". This presents a host of other kinds of issues that narcissists don't consider and won't be happy with, but for the meantime, I will leave that discussion to that other post. 
     Anyway, since most narcissistic parents can't seem to make their scapegoat turn themselves inside out to be "just like the golden child", narcissists will always choose the punishing route when their manipulations do not work. 
     So the punishing route is to try to brainwash the scapegoat into thinking that they, the scapegoat, has all kinds of negative qualities compared to the golden child. In other words the parent tries to separate them: the golden child is all that is good, and has all of the qualities that are required by the parent, and the scapegoat is all bad (and crazy too, as all scapegoats are called crazy even when they aren't). 
     This can be a day in and day out experience for the scapegoat. 
     "Oh, here we go again! Your drawings are terrible. Look at your brother's! You shouldn't even try."
     "You're so sure of yourself! Your sister is a lot more humble. Why aren't you?"
     "Another B! Don't show me that when you are just as capable as your sister of getting an A."
     "I always knew you were more stupid than your brother."
     "You don't stand a chance. Your brother is way ahead of you now because you didn't try hard enough." 
     "You'll never be a 'great anything'. In fact, I'll put my money on it that your brother is way more successful in life than you. You're too flawed and disappointing to be great."
     It's ground into them constantly, all of these comparisons and negative judgements. I have listed a lot of the negative comments that scapegoats receive from their narcissistic parents HERE. 
     In a lot of religions, there are clauses to "not judge." A lot of religions were about keeping people in the faith, keeping children in their families, stabilizing society. Judgements tear people apart because they are, in effect, contempt. And of all the four horseman of the Apocalypse (the deciding factor of which relationships will fall apart), contempt will assure that the relationship will not survive. 
     When you are deemed to be so "flawed" that it is the only thing a parent sees about you, and a scapegoat takes those judgements seriously, they interpret it as contempt. They can work on plans to leave or run away. They can and do commit suicide over it too. In fact, suicidal thoughts are more likely than turning themselves inside out to be exactly like the golden child, a golden child they may not want to be anything like. 
     And believe it or not, for the sickest narcissists, suicides are another source of narcissistic supply with more false narratives.
     The other alternative to suicide is the same route I've discussed before: the scapegoat stops caring about whether their parent approves of them or not. The parent's false narratives will assure the scapegoat won't care, and listening to how they are so flawed won't work either if false narratives pepper the story. Plus the contempt will assure a "gone scapegoat" and a "broken damaged relationship".  
     The other thing that narcissistic parents do is, as I've said before, is to try to brainwash their scapegoats that they are crazy and can't understand reality and that they need to follow the constant directions, advice and commands of the parent so that they don't make mistakes. This isn't just relegated to their child's childhood years, but throughout life. The ultimate reason a parent would do this is to have complete control over the child at all times: what the child does, what they say, who they talk to, what they talk about - the narcissistic parent wants to control all of it. Trying to isolate the child from other familial relationships is all part of the agenda, as well as smear campaigns about the scapegoat's mental health behind that child's back. So a lot of betrayal is part of gaslighting a child. 
     Assuming the child gets brainwashed to think they are so crazy that they have no free will, it will damage a child's ability to form a free will, to ward off other predators and narcissists, as well as create the idea that they cannot survive in the world because they are crazy. I go into the issues of gaslighting a child in this post (under the gaslighting category towards the bottom of the page). 
     I'm not sure this is all manipulation either since all narcissists do this to their scapegoat child (it is just one of those weird anomalies that all narcissists with Narcissistic Personality Disorder share). Scapegoats can show symptoms of trauma, and that can be interpreted as "My child is crazy" by a narcissist. 
     But there is something consciously evil and intentional about gaslighting too, because it sounds less concerning and more contemptuous when narcissists are trying to brainwash in this way. They also tend to be abusive of children they deem to be crazy. Also because they are so addicted to power, control and domination, gaslighting provides an instant, easy and fast route to get to a place of absolute dominance and hidden abuse. 
     In terms of favoritism, scapegoats are often compared negatively to the golden child in terms of sanity, in terms of mental acuity, in terms of factual acuity, in terms of mental stamina, in terms of intelligence, and in terms of school grades (falling school grades are often influenced by the trauma of scapegoats). 
     If a scapegoat believes all of this, they know they will never get the positive treatment that the golden child gets because narcissists are typically prejudiced of people with mental illnesses, mental handicaps, children with falling grades, and they like to give their scapegoat children diagnoses and reasons why they are rejectable and a laughing stock because of their minds. 
     It takes only one parent or adult to get a scapegoat child to question why a parent is doing this. 
     Sometimes it's because a parent does not want to continue to parent their scapegoat child. They want an excuse to either abandon parenting or use neglectful parenting, and trying to promote the idea that their child is insane makes it a lot easier to do so.
     Telling everyone that their golden child is absolutely sane keeps their reputation intact because they aren't saying that about all of their children. 
     Whether the child gets brainwashed into thinking of themselves as insane is, again, dependent on a lot of factors. If they aren't called crazy in any other part of their life and relationships, then they feel simply betrayed and unloved instead. If their parent is using it with a lot of false narratives, then it isn't effective either. If the golden child is not a picture of sanity to the scapegoat, that will, again, mitigate the effectiveness of calling the scapegoat crazy compared to the golden child. With enough lies and false narratives by the parent and the golden child, children who are called crazy can either dissociate during those periods, or simply not trust what the parent has to say. 
     Being blamed for things they didn't do (gaslighting a child to think they do things they aren't aware of) will also mean the child won't respect what the parent has to say about them. 
     Many scapegoats don't realize the extent of the gaslighting until they spend most of their time with another adult, or when they go "no contact", or when they are bringing up their own child. 
     There is no reason to call a child crazy, even if it may be true, or especially when it is not true.
     A lot of narcissists like to use it as a form of prejudice and to silence their scapegoats. And they use it to compare them negatively to the golden child. 
     Psychologists think that gaslighting is the most egregious kind of abuse that narcissists do to their scapegoat children. It certainly is the most evil, but it's the kind of abuse that tends to work slowly and insidiously on a child and can be mitigated by other adults who are not convinced the child is insane, so I would still say that the Jekyll/Hyde behaviors of narcissists seem more immediately egregious and dangerous (in other words, trauma symptoms are immediate and noticeable, as well as their own responses, namely flight responses).  

* As a Baiting Technique to Keep Children in Role (the Golden Child as Supporter of the Parent, and the Scapegoat as the One to Carry the Family Member's Own Bad Traits and Motivations):
     You can see this in politics today where the leaders of a party accuse a number of politicians in the opposing party for the traits and activities of themselves. 
     Blame shifting and projection has always been a part of the enormous amounts of political blaming, shaming, shifting blame, hypocrisy and hatred. In fact, blame shifting and projection are seen as useful to staying in power. If something goes wrong, blame the past opposing party's administrations. It is all part of the "political game" as well as part of "political theater". 
     I'm often surprised that it works, at least in the short term, until it becomes an obnoxious pattern that hardly anyone likes.
     If you were to try to insist on co-operation, peace between the parties, reasonable government policies, projects, actions and discourse which takes the needs of all citizens into consideration, you'd probably be a scapegoat. It's like everything one party does has to be opposed in a huge way by the opposite party. It's like the unspoken rule is that the rift has to widen, not narrow.
     Granted there are drastically opposing views in the country, people who want very little government, an incredibly small tax burden, and a simple dictatorship with few, if any, government workers, and people who want big government, lots of safety nets, a compassionate government that helps those in need, and even more democratic solutions that aren't just decided by an oligarch of wealthy political donors.
     Trying to close the rift can set you up to be a scapegoat of one or both of them. Both will insist that you choose sides. 
     Because they find both "not choosing a side" and "choosing a side that is not enough on 'their side'", they will often "bait" you to make sure you stay in a scapegoat role until you choose to be a loyalist (a sycophant with all of the "talking points" of the political party). 
     In terms of the family, the same can be applied. If your parents are in continual opposition and they hate each other as vehemently as the two American parties do, what you say to close the gap won't be appreciated.
     This is why scapegoats often do not want any part of competitions inside the family (between their parents or between their siblings). They are burdened enough by being thrust into the scapegoat role to begin with, and they know they are going to lose no matter which side they choose, or which side they try to entreat to be fair and open-minded, or even just to explain something so that one parent understands the other parent better, or the siblings understand that there is an "opposition game" going on that one or both parents set up. It's the Karpman's Triangle made manifest.
     Usually when there is a Karpman's Triangle in family dynamics, it's a sign of toxicity. The more rigid the roles are in the triangle, the worse the toxicity is, especially for the scapegoat. 
     In terms of the triangle, scapegoats are often accused of being the persecutor (a lie, but it's only because someone wants them to choose sides). Often the push to choose sides puts the scapegoat in the role of mediator (the role of rescuer in the Karpman's triangle), ending up being the victim because the push to compromise and be reasonable is not accepted. 
     Narcissistic parents thrive on opposition, conflict, rifts, chaos and blame shifting (each of these tactics has their own link, by the way). This means they have a vested interest in not resolving conflicts, in not mediating, in not being reasonable and open to different perspectives. Their main agenda is power, control and domination and a narcissistic parent is going to look at mediation and resolving conflicts as "giving up power". It's also narcissistic supply for them, as again, negative narcissistic supply will do.
     For the rest of the family, however, it is crazy-making and traumatic.
     It's why a lot of narcissists are stuck with other narcissists and sometimes even psychopaths in old age because most people do not want to be part of a family of ongoing conflicts and made up chaos, least of all, scapegoats. 
     The end result if everyone stays is that the conflicts stay and widen into all kinds of other issues, usually between the parents and all of the siblings, and why the Karpman's Triangle is always part of family dynamics. As long as narcissists are in the family, the toxic triangle stays. 
     Since narcissists thrive on rifts, conflicts and blame shifting, it stands to reason that they are going to bait someone to keep the rifts, conflicts and blame shifting alive. 
     For narcissists, they engage in new conflicts with their scapegoats as a way to keep the scapegoats engaged, defending themselves, explaining themselves, and taking insults personally. Until a scapegoat  learns the DEEP method or realize that these conflicts are being used for the narcissistic supply of their parent, the scapegoat will usually engage in defending and explaining, until they, the scapegoat, no longer wants a life riddled with constant arguments and baiting by their narcissistic parent.
     Which is to say that narcissists will always create new conflicts for the scapegoat to face if the old ones are not serving them, the parent. So what do narcissists do to keep the conflicts and the scapegoat's defenses and explanations going?
     Bait the scapegoat. Any reaction to anything the narcissist can dig up, even false narratives will do because they are still "narcissistic supply" even if they are negative sources of it.
     This is just one reason abuse escalates. More conflicts are necessary because more narcissistic supply is necessary in terms of the narcissist's way of thinking. 
     Most baiting and hoovers with betrayals usually target the scapegoat of a narcissistic family. "What will upset my scapegoat the most? Why, I think showing blatant favoritism will upset him (or her) the most! In fact, I'll deprive them of almost everything, feed them all of the foods they hate, not give them attention or presents, send them to their room all of the time, while lavishing my golden child with all of the foods he (or she) loves, keeping them at the dinner table, lavishing most of my attention on them, and barely notice my scapegoat exists! That'll teach my scapegoat to give me more positive narcissistic supply! But I'll take them being upset if they can't see me as the best parent that ever lived!" - I'm not sure it is as conscious as this because there is a lot of black and white thinking that goes into scapegoating, so it may be at levels that are sub-conscious, and not be as manipulative as what I wrote  sounds, but there is certainly some manipulation. 
     And by the way, how is a scapegoat supposed to give them more positive narcissistic supply when they are treated like this? It's a type of narcissistic reasoning that seems particularly flawed and out of touch with real human behavior. No one who is sane is going to give positive narcissistic supply to someone who punishes and starves them out in this way; even narcissists wouldn't do it.     

* As an Expression of Hatred and Prejudice:
     There is some research that suggests narcissists are more prejudiced than other kinds of people.
     Having a scapegoat is a kind of prejudice. 
     Whether scapegoating one child or a whole group, the type of actions prejudiced folks take is similar. Narcissists take similar approaches in how they treat people from one narcissist to another. 
     Societal scapegoats are hated; family scapegoats are hated. There is a call to remove societal scapegoats; there is a call to shun a family scapegoat. Narcissists need societal scapegoats to divide and conquer and get more power; narcissists need a family scapegoat for the same reason. Narcissists can't take blame themselves, so when they are blamed, they deflect and have scapegoats to put the blame on instead, whether they be societal scapegoats or family scapegoats.
     Narcissists also tend to go along with a crowd in terms of who to hate. If they are surrounded by Democrats they will hate most Republicans. If they are Republican narcissists they will "go with the flow" with the latest prejudice - at the present time, Latinos, and especially Mexicans and undocumented workers, and in the past they may have hated African Americans.
     If they grew up in a family that rejected and disparaged women of a younger generation, they tend to go with the flow and reject and disparage women of a younger generation themselves. 
     Narcissists don't put much thought into who to hate. They simply hate people who are popular to hate in their given circle. They also hate people who don't agree with them and who don't go along with what they want. They look at others as either loyal to them or disloyal to them (loyal meaning "willing to be mind-controlled") without taking a second look into how disloyal they are all the way around. Narcissists aren't committed to people, to promises or much of anything or anyone. 
     In terms of favoritism, societal prejudice would look like "only whites in our organization". In terms of familial prejudice, "only men in the family", or "only people I favoritize", or "only people who are willing to be my sycophants."
     Most people find prejudice to be disgusting and morally objectionable, and narcissists generally know this. So they try to hide their prejudices and hatreds except with people who have the same views. Many of them sound like narcissistic politicians who like to disparage and insult other politicians from another political party.
     There isn't much difference when it comes to how they talk about their own family members, including their children from how they talk about a political party or leader they oppose.
     Familial prejudices are even more morally objectionable to most other people, so many narcissists make up stories or conspiracy theories to justify their hatred and rejection of their own children or anyone else in their family they don't like. Narcissists tend to be intolerant of a lot of people.
     Positivity about other people is not one of their strong suits. 
     Prejudice can be dangerous when you are the target, particularly when there is favoritism of people who are abusive and threatening towards you, and conspiracy theories (perspecticide) are involved. 

* As an Expression of Conspiratorial Thinking Patterns:
     Conspiratorial thinking often involves getting to the truth of a matter, but when the conspirator isn't  satisfied with the truth, it adds to making more conspiracies. 
     According to Todd Grande, a psychologist, this is most often the case. 
     This means that conspiracy theorists generally have a limited capacity for the truth, and a high capacity for confirmation bias. 
     When I asked Google search and Google AI "Do conspiracy theorists have a strong capacity for confirmation bias?" the answer was yes, with a lot of explanations as to why they do. 
     But what is the psychology of conspiracy theorists? 
     I found this article by Psychology Today on the subject. The key points in the article were these:
     * Conspiracy theories thrive on cognitive biases, mental shortcuts that allow us to make sense of the world.
     * "Proportionality bias," leads people to believe that significant events must have substantial causes.
     * In an environment with high mistrust in authorities, conspiracy theories can flourish.
     In terms of narcissists, they tend to be more conspiratorial than others. 
     While there is not a direct link towards conspiratorial thinking in psychopaths, some research suggests a positive correlation between certain aspects of psychopathy and belief in conspiracy theories. - quote taken from the linked article.
     So seeing that favoritism is both a narcissistic trait and can also be a dark triad trait for which narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism are part of the Dark Triad personality disorder, it stands to reason that the main perpetrators of the kind of favoritism that is abusive and scapegoating are going to come mainly from these two Cluster B Personality Disorders. Plus they are both likely to be conspiracy theorists with confirmation biases. 
     The combination of ingredients here, the conspiracy-type thinking patterns, with personality disorders, and confirmation bias, can also inspire violence and extremist views, making the combination of scapegoating, favoritism and rigid beliefs dangerous for a child, at least in terms of escalating abuse and violence.
     Again, prejudice also plays a role in who is a scapegoat, and familial prejudices play the biggest role, whether that is sexism, cultural differences, political differences, religious differences or racial differences. Who in the wider family is being abandoned, abused, not spoken to, talked about in derisive ways, is being referred to as having either mental health problems or problems with the law (with no facts to substantiate such claims), and what do they all have in common? That will probably lead you to where the family prejudices lie and to who is scapegoated and why they are scapegoated. Are they the young women in the family? Are they the artists in the family? Are they politically the most left-leaning members? Are they the most disabled members? Are they LGBTQ+ or in an inter-racial marriage? Are they wary of authoritarianism? Are they the most independent minded members, members who don't stick with a party line, but who explore different perspectives and statistics (intellectual prejudice)? - all of these are the most common scapegoats in narcissistic families in present times, however it can be almost anything the greater family has decided to fear, hate and reject.
     When we take prejudice, confirmation bias, a penchant to manipulate with black and white thinking about other people, meaning they see people in terms of "all good" and "all bad", the fact that narcissists and psychopaths lie and manipulate a lot to get their own way and literally live in a fantasy world because of that alone, it stands to reason that this would all influence conspiratorial thinking. It also explains why scapegoats can never get out of role without going "no contact" with their families of origin. Being stuck in a scapegoat role for the first 18 years of life is enough for one lifetime. Very few people can tolerate being a scapegoat for much longer than that without heavy consequences to their mental and physical health, the other relationships they are in, and as I've said, it can get dangerous, especially with siblings who are trying to "go along to get along" with an abusive parent. 

The DEEP method for survivors of Narcissistic Abuse

As with every post, I have a "further reading section" below, and a video by psychologist, Dr. Ramani Durvasula. 

Before I get into this method, it is important to know a few things:

* This method can be dangerous under certain circumstances
* Most narcissists want to bully someone in their lives, and usually pick certain victims for certain reasons. The kinds of people they tend to choose are people who are vulnerable or traumatized in some way, people who they feel they can brainwash and fool, people they are already in relationships with who are showing some resistance to their control and domination tactics (who they perceive as recalcitrant or rebellious), people they are jealous of or feel they are in a competition with, people who criticize them (or are perceived to be critical of them). This means that this method may not work in certain circumstances where the narcissist is dead set on bullying you to get one of their agendas met  for power, control and domination, or if they are constantly trying to manage most of your actions and reactions towards them. 
* Narcissists almost always want to escalate abuse, so this method may be ineffectual for those of you in a serious or dangerous escalation process (consult a domestic violence counselor or center before using it). 
* They have very little empathy for others, and the darker narcissists have no remorse if they hurt you, and this technique, unless it is used slowly over time, and is imperceptible to the narcissist, can make them more enraged.
* Narcissists are highly resistant to changing their behavior, so this method will not change them; it is supposed to bring more peace to you however, but that is all.  

One of the first ways that narcissists try to get into our lives is by love bombing us, or trying to charm or flatter us in social spheres. Some start straight in with giving us unsolicited advice (pretending to care about your issues and tragedies -  this gets them into your inner circle, so be careful who you share your most personal hurts and tragedies with: this is how vulnerable traumatized people become their victims). 

They build you up through flattery and idealizing statements. Alternatively, for those who are vulnerable and dealing with tragedies, they attempt to advise and heal you, then they bring you down through devaluation, destruction, and very often through discard. 

Through the flattery, idealizations, and attempts at healing through advice, they expect you to be mesmerized by them, and to feel obligated to them. This is the stage where they over-advise, command, demand and get snippy if you aren't stroking their ego. If you don't spin like a top for them and adopt pleasing behaviors when they are insisting that they are the greatest human being in your life, they rage, devalue you and then do the opposite of what they did before: smash your self esteem and tell you, or show you, that you do not mean that much to them. They can act as though you don't matter to them at all, that you are dead to them (unless you will always be their "pleaser puppet", of course). They try to turn things around so that the relationship between you is 95 percent about them, and what they want, and only five percent about you, if even that. Most often they discard you after they devalue you, but they can also set about trying to destroy you, for not meeting their expectations. Then they smear your reputation and play the victim and move on to someone else they feel will be "easier" to victimize than you were.

Some of them try to get you back. But most often, going back results in worse forms of abuse than the last time. They haven't changed because they "lost you" even if they tell you that. Change takes a long time, and for bullies, a lifetime, but only if they want to change. "They are what they are", as the saying goes. Assuming you don't want to be swallowed back into another round of idealize, devalue discard, this method can work.    

Some exceptions to the trajectory of constant manipulating and bullying with a discard is if they perceive that you may not be as vulnerable to attack as they originally surmised (like if you have more social support or financial hutzpah than they realized), they have been caught being abusive to you by others they wish didn't see it or know about it (where their reputations come under scrutiny), or if they feel you are competition for them but have superior connections or money (like in a workplace and where they might back off). In these cases, they are afraid of how having a bad reputation might effect them. In situations where they are more afraid of you than you are of them, the method works really well. 

Most of us would feel horribly guilty if we exploited people in the ways that they do, but they don't feel guilty because their lack of empathy keeps them from feeling what we would feel. 

Anyone who needs a victim, and anyone who pretends they are a victim (when they actually perpetrate abuse), needs to have special boundaries placed on them. That's where methods and techniques come in (like the DEEP technique). 

It's better to know the beginning signs before we get into any kind of relationship with them, of course, since most narcissists traumatize who they choose to victimize. And there are certainly some signs, and if we are being targeted by them for love bombing, flattery, or unsolicited advice in the beginning, the DEEP technique can put up pretty strong boundaries to keep you safe from their manipulations. In fact, this technique is liable to turn them off, knowing that you aren't impressed by persuasion, and they tend to look elsewhere. 

Beginning signs:

Charm: A great majority of charming people are narcissists. If they are a little too nice to you, and a little too familiar with you (like touch you on the arm, or whisper things in your ear), you may want to back away. People who have been burned by narcissists, put this first on their list as to who to avoid. 

Love Bombing: Coming on too strong, idealizing, too much flattery, too familiar, stands too closely or gazes into your eyes a little too long. They push you to be "swept off your feet" and they are eager to impress you. The best candidates for intimate, long last relationships are actually people who are hesitant, reserved, somewhat shy, not bombastic, and not pushing you to get involved with them or have sex with them. 

They talk about their exes as being crazy.

They often mirror your likes and dislikes. Most often this isn't genuine; it is to pull you in and make you think that you have similar minds, similar perspectives, similar life goals, similar morals, etc. Warning: psychopaths use mirroring even more. 

Arrogant, Haughty, Bombastic: They brag. And they brag in ways that they think will impress you. It can be about how much money they have or travel they have done if they sense that you will be impressed by that, or it can be how many causes they are involved in if they sense that you are an empath. Arrogance is definitely a danger sign. People who are arrogant are usually highly judgmental, unempathetic, and entitled. Watch how they treat waitstaff at a restaurant. They are usually terrible about listening to concerns you raise. If they also start to give you unsolicited advice before they truly know you, or the advice is without considering your feelings, life goals, and the issues that are important to you, consider that they may be narcissistic. 

Competitive Talk: How they were/are better than someone else at the same task. They exaggerate achievements and talents they have, or that they think they have (goes with the above).

Pushy:  Narcissists insist they get their own way most of the time, except in the beginning they are pushy in some ways more than others. Ways that are obvious: pushing you into a relationship with them (trying to go fast), trying to make you believe you are "twin souls" or closer than you really are, getting snippy if you are holding back or reserved over giving them "the right of way" into your psyche or life, pushy about getting you to agree with them. People who aren't narcissists don't push you for information about your personal life, or push you into a close personal relationship. Also, covert narcissists, tend to share very little information about their personal life, but expect you to share everything. Don't share confidences with people who are haughty, arrogant, harshly judgmental, show-offs, pushy, who brag without the evidence to back it up, or anyone who gets angry with you because you aren't sharing everything they demand that you share. 

Secretive: Narcissists tend to be secretive, and have done things they don't want you to know about or to see, but cannot stand being in relationships where others are secretive. They will terrorize you later on if they deem you have secrets from them. If you do find out some unethical things from their past, they tend to diminish them.

If you see a number of these signs in one person, the DEEP method can help you to avoid them, or help to fade out their attention on you. However, as I've said before, there are some dangers, and I state them in one of the aspects of the method below.    

THE METHOD 

The DEEP method is actually spelled D.E.E.P. and stands for "Don't defend, don't explain, don't engage, and don't take it personally".

Basically this technique is for denying the narcissist narcissistic supply and/or getting into arguments with them where they will demean, attack your character, call you names, deny reality, and turn it into a crazy-making conversation to attack, defend and exploit what you have to say to "win" the argument. And then afterwards they usually pretend to be a victim (playing the victim is all about an excuse to get sympathy so that they can attack you some more).

To make it clear, raging can be overt or covert. Covert raging is the silent treatment, interrupting, only considering themselves, gaslighting, stonewalling, punishing and is usually used by covert narcissists, although overt narcissists can use both. 

However, if they are physical abusers, or they have threatened to hurt you (includes hurting you emotionally, socially, psychologically, and via blackmail, not just physically), or they are breaking laws, or touching you aggressively or roughly anywhere on your head or neck, or they rage in your face, or  have sadistic characteristics, the DEEP technique could enrage them more, and you could be faced with a life threatening situation. In the video below, Dr. Ramani does not make mention of that, but from a domestic violence perspective, it is important to know this.

It is always best to go to a domestic violence center or therapist to help you assess the dangers, and ask them if this technique is best for you and your circumstances.

Also psychopathic abusers and abusers who have malignant narcissism have the same traits as the narcissists I talk about in this post, but unlike plain-envelope narcissists, if they hurt you, they will have no remorse. And they often get satisfaction out of being spiteful, vindictive, sadistic and breaking the law without getting caught. Often you can't tell whether they are psychopaths or malignant narcissists unless you know them really, really well (including all of the tactics they use to dominate and control you and hurt you).

The issue of why this can turn dangerous is that part of obtaining narcissistic supply is getting a negative reaction out of you. This can be crying, anger, shock at what they are doing or have done, fear, defending yourself, or pleading. If you don't give them the narcissistic supply they demand, or don't respond to them at all, they can get dangerous. This is why it is always good to know who you are dealing with and professionals who work with domestic violence victims will usually know more about the signs of danger than victims do (victims can also downplay what they are going through for a number of reasons: hope, cognitive dissonance, unaware of the love bombing tactic, and so on). 

I personally prefer Dr. Carter's methods for dealing with the "defend" part of this method, which I go into in the next chapter.

So to get down to why the DEEP technique can be effective, depending on who you are dealing with, here are some of the reasons:

don't defend

If you don't defend yourself, which is what they expect to keep the argument and the trashing of your self esteem going, they feel frustrated. And some of them get nervous. When they get frustrated, they may keep trying to hurt you in other ways that they hadn't thought of just to see if you'll react to that instead, and you just stand there unaffected.

Some narcissists who are lower on the scale (i.e. who don't possess all of the traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder) may feel embarrassed that they attacked you and lead the conversation away from the direction of more attacks, especially if you have some clout socially, but others may escalate. If they escalate, you can always leave. 

One reason why your defenses lead to more of their attacks is that they don't really understand how most conflicts are settled: by talking things out, by being thoughtful about each other's needs, feelings and desires and finding a way between yourselves to please both parties, by talking about resolutions to the conflict which often includes compromise (they hate compromise, or even the suggestion of it!).

Instead they view conflicts as "attack fests" (on your decisions, your character, your mind, your differences from them, your behaviors, and your self esteem). They also think that conflicts mean that they have to "win". Win what? Win you totally over to their perspective, win at controlling what you do (power, domination and control), winning at what their desires are and what role you will fulfill in making their desires come true for their life. So the DEEP technique is to bypass all of that, and by not defending yourself, you are not giving them ammunition to use your defenses for more attacks. 

It is easier said than done. Attacks are pretty unpleasant, and you are going against the grain of defending yourself by letting them tear you to shreds as if you are an onlooker to it. In public this can be pretty unnerving, and in private it can be scary and denies you emotions by giving them free reign to have all of the unregulated emotions that they want to express, while you get to express none. It is a type of suppression which can cause trauma. The more oppression you receive, and the more suppressive your responses are, the more trauma symptoms you will have. So, that is the drawback to this particular part of the DEEP technique.

However, people who have tried this method say that they just go inside their own minds and dream of pretty pictures or something more than the unpleasant situation. Or they observe as a parent would: "My child is having a temper tantrum and I'm just going to wait it out until they calm down." Some people decide their perpetrators are "crazy" or "funny" for going off the rails over so much B.S. 

So it depends on your countenance too. 

Again, if you have PTSD, letting them go off the rails about your character and not defending yourself can be extremely triggering. Consider that this might not be the best relationship to put your energy towards instead. Or perhaps only see them in big crowds, talk about the weather and greatly limit your contact. 

So it takes a person who is calm, cool and collected, someone without PTSD, like a comedian who is playing "the straight" role to the character playing the rage-a-holic gone off the deep end with over-dramatic displays and ridiculous reasons to become so unhinged. Even the silent treatment, the covert version of rage, is quite over-dramatic as it is usually over things that tend to be silly, or small, or just to drum up attention, like they don't feel they have enough power over you, and many of the reasons can even be more inconsequential than that, in the grand scheme of things. The silent treatment is easier to deal with, however, than overt loud raging with pushing, or screaming in your ear, for instance.

Dr. Carter's way is to defend yourself in these ways:
* they try to trash your self esteem or shame you in an angry cruel way: you respond like the adult that you are that you feel fine with the way you are, and that you don't plan on changing. 
* they tell you that you are crazy (the typical gaslighting statement in just about every conflict they have): you tell them that you are perfectly sane and do not plan on continuing this conversation with them.
* they say: "You are so stupid! If you only did it this way then ---": you tell them that you are fine with the decisions you make, period. If they keep goading you about how stupid you are by not taking the road they want you to take, you keep telling them over and over again that you are fine with the decisions you make, with the way you are, and with the way that you conduct yourself.   
and so on ... 

They don't know what to do with that, and every controlling, manipulative tactic they use suddenly becomes "useless" to them. That kind of wall of resistance, and the results afterward, are better, I think,  than being silent. 

In other words, be a person of high ethics and intentions, and not let them teach you "behavior lessons" or talk you into being crazy and stupid (it doesn't make sense anyway when their behavior is often so abusive, threatening, raging, insulting and offensive). 

The defense is always that you are okay with who you are and what you are doing (and if you have ethics, honesty and dignity, you can even be proud of who you are, and their opinions shouldn't effect you). 

If you are strong and confident in what you say, and if you continue to hold the line on it, narcissists are more likely to leave you alone, or lose interest in you. So, in a way, I think Dr. Carter's method can work better to stop the arguments and their baiting you for arguments than not saying anything at all.

Instead of denying them the narcissistic supply by being silent, they know where you stand, and that it won't change. 

The reason why his method may be more effective is because the narcissist can feel challenged by your silence, or egg you on trying to find holes in your armor of silence, whereas if you state good boundaries (that you are not, and will not, be effected by their rages and needs for narcissistic supply), they will quickly leave to find people who are more more willing to give them that supply, who are more vulnerable to being manipulated, who will listen and ponder their words and attacks, and who may even beg them to stop being cruel. Unfortunately we don't wish narcissists to dish out their poison to others, just as we might wish a bright star would not be swallowed up by a black hole, but they are predatory-like in their thinking, and the thing they need to avoid first and foremost, is you.

The rest of the technique makes a lot more sense (and I would prefer it was the "EEP technique", rather than the "DEEP technique"):

don't explain

Trying to explain anything to a narcissist is like this:

Your explanations are going to go through the narcissism mechanisms of their mind, and come out looking totally different, with negative connotations hanging from every part of it, than what you put in. It'll look like a confusing mess. 

On the flip side, if they are idealizing you, anything you put in is also going to look idealized too:

They judge too much on character (and what they think your character might be) way before they look at your words and intentions, so whatever character they think you are, is going to influence what they think of your words to such an extent that it is also likely to come out of their understanding like a confusing mess too. 

This cartoon, found on Facebook, says what I have to say in a pretty succinct way:

 

However, just make that circle of what is understood ten times smaller for narcissists,
and an imperceivably tiny dot for psychopaths!

By not explaining much beyond the usual small talk, you don't have to deal with how they manipulate your explanations to go with what they think your character is. It skips all of that. 

don't engage

 This one makes sense too. 

It should be obvious why you can't reach out to them to engage together to find solutions to the conflicts between you. If you have read my blog, they won't have any part of that, and they will fight tooth and nail from going down that path, and will instead fight dirty to gain superiority over you. They want things "just right for them" even if it means it is not right for you. So, "Let's work out our problems together" is just opening the door to a wolf who has wanted to attack you, and now has the chance to do it. 

The other thing is that if you engage them, it means - to them - that you are weak and a glutton for punishment. Narcissists traumatize people with the exception of psychopaths. Psychopaths can take it because they have different autonomic nervous systems than we do. However one narcissist can even traumatize another narcissist, but it is definitely preferable for them to be in the ring with other narcissists, their heavy-weight equals, rather than with us.

Also they are control freaks, and they like being in the driver's seat making all of the plans about who will see whom, who should talk to which person about which subject, and how so-and-so should "behave", so if they want to see you, they will make it known, believe me. If they are getting narcissistic supply somewhere else, hope that they have met the most attractive seductive co-narcissist on the planet, and they do not come knocking on your door.

If you have tried engaging with them in a good faith effort to work out your differences, and they don't reply, you don't need to keep trying. Let it go unresolved if you can. Most likely it is because they only want things to go their way, including any truces.  

It sets the responsibility of engaging on them. 

It is the best procedure for anyone who is a control freak anyway.   

So not engaging sounds right to me.   

don't personalize

Personalizing what they say to you: all of the negative things they say to you and about you - including insults, all of the controlling things they say to you, all of the micromanaging of your life they try to do, all of the triangulation they try to do to make you feel that you are less than so-and-so (i.e. "You aren't as good as ---"), all of the escalating they do in terms of abuse, and all of the unethical, unlawful things they do aren't your fault. Need convincing? Go here. I'll have a post on why they hate and what they hate about other people in a future post, as this will be another post devoted, in part, to why it isn't your fault, so you can look forward to that. 

Narcissists and sociopaths want badly for you to personalize what they do to you and what they say to you (that it is "all your fault"). So when you don't personalize it, they tend to have a narcissistic collapse (note: the linked article is about "the collapse" as it pertains to public humiliation, however, not getting victims to believe that they, the victims, are at fault, can create a narcissistic collapse too). They haven't been successful in making you their narcissistic supply or scapegoat for rages and bullying. 

If you want to make it clear to a narcissist that they shouldn't go to you for scapegoating and commanding, then not taking what they say personally will get them looking for supply somewhere else. 

Anyway, how can you personalize what they do and say? Look where they are: probably pretty far down on the ethics ladder. Unless they have a lot of integrity, honor and self reflection, how can you take them at all seriously? And by the way, people who are abusive and unethical are usually very, very unsatisfied, grumpy, complaining and punishing about how other people act and behave (but give themselves constant excuses and breaks, of course). 

Instead of taking what they have to say about you personally, why not become aware of just how arrogant, judgmental and prejudiced they are.  Then you can decide whether being as judgmental as they are, as prejudiced and arrogant as they are has any warrant. And make it a years-long study so that you can take a breather from them talking you into things. 

In my view, the only people who are worth listening to about "how you act" are high in morality, honesty and ethics, high in self reflection and understanding nuances of behavioral issues, are kind, patient and truly understand your point of view. They are not controlling, dominating, hypocritical, or have relationships where agendas are the primary focus.

I'm all for "not personalizing" when it comes to narcissists, and finding your true authentic self instead. Not being splashed with their views of you all of the time helps you find your authentic self too.  

Dr. Ramani Durvasula, a psychologist and university professor has this video on the technique:

So, how do people like the D.E.E.P. technique?
Some of the comments below her video
(or if you want to see them yourself on her You Tube channel:
click on video or see my choices below)
Note: each one is a different person:

* Don't Defend. Don't Explain. Don't Engage. Don't Personalize. Being Authentic is hard when you know people are using it against you. But its not forever! Others will see you and the difference in communication and the ability to be you will be night and day! Don't ignore the red flags.

* I think the narcissist must feel very humiliated when they can't rattle you or get you to react anymore. What else do they have when they lose that power over you.

* My therapist told me, "When he starts with his disruption, don't defend yourself. Just look at him and think, this is who he is." It took me a while, but now I get it. Thank you Dr. Ramani for supporting me. I couldn't do it without you. You've changed my life for the better!

* They're so textbook, so, we start a world wide search for someone who 'has not' been called crazy by their narc?

* As I watch dr. Ramani’s videos I realize I made so many mistakes and wasted so much energy while going nuts trying to explain and trying to defend myself in my almost 7 year relationship with my ex narcissist . It’s all so clear now...I was not crazy ! 1 month and counting the blessings !

* Living with a narcissist is like "living in an eternal kangaroo court" OMG so brilliant!

* I don't need the deep technique, I need the "don't start laughing" technique. It's just, ever since I've learned about narcissism and what makes it characteristic, I just can't stop myself from bursting into tears from laughing so hard when they go into narc mode. It's like they all follow a manual or a narc skript and they're so stuck in it that I can't help but laugh like an idiot. I was raised thinking that every single one of us is absolutely unique and then they're just all the same, LITERALLY!!!

* My mom is a grandiose narcissist. When I was younger and tired of dealing with her devaluing phases, I’d just stare at her as she was calling me names and accusing me of doing and feeling things I never did. I was grey rocking and didn’t even know. That made her even more furious. She used to tell me to stop staring her with my “snake eyes”

* Yup, I used to defend myself, try to explain so he could understand me and why I was hurt by his behaviours. I used to engage so we could sort out issues and it was personalised because our relationship was so important to me, I wanted us to resolve and learn from our fights. In the end, I was blamed for my reactions. He discarded me because he was “scared of my reactions” and that I “loved to argue”. Better yet, if we could have argued in his language “he would win and not me”. It was never about winning - for me, it was what I thought was for love.

* Nope, every conversation for these people is about winning. Life is a competition for them.

* I wish I knew this as a child. My mother accused me of terrible things on a regular basis and defending myself caused her to harm me emotionally and physically. Was terrible and scary.

* D.E.E.P. Seeing it, hearing it, practicing it, over and over (40 times and above, I think is the number of repetitions needed to make deep changes) will be such a useful tool to remind me over and over again to not play games with a narcissist. This reminds me of the book entitled “Games People Play”. Thanks as always

* Don't Defend, Explain, Engage, Personalise Deep = the authentic person's response to the narc's DARVO encompassing Deny, Attack and Reverse Victim Offender. Thank you Dr Ramani

FURTHER READING

How to Handle a Narcissist - interview with Dr. Ramani for Health Hackers

RECOMMENDED: Narcissistic Personality Disorder - by the administrators of Health Guide.org
the recommendations are similar to the DEEP technique but have some additions and ways of thinking about situations you may encounter with narcissists (such as arguments, their fantasies, and exploits)

How to Survive a Narcissist When You Choose to Stay - by Anne Blythe, Abuse Literacy, Boundaries and Self Care for BTR.org

How to Communicate With a Narcissist - by the editors of UpJourney with Jerisel Jimenez, LMSW

How to Handle a Narcissist - by Kara Mayer Robinson

RECOMMEDED: 8 Essential Strategies to Survive A Narcissist - Mind Well Psychology, NYC (Mind Well Psychology Center based in New York City at 80 8th Avenue, Suite 600, New York, NY) 

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