The Narcissist's “Bag of Tricks”: Let's Have a Brief Look Inside: The creed of the magician is to keep their routines a closely guarded secret and only an “inner circle” will get a glimpse of what lies behind the magic they perform. The Narcissist would make a great magician, since their greatest interest is in deception, however there is a problem. To be a successful magician requires someone to be focused, committed and devoted to developing your skills and the average narcissist doesn't have that degree of dedication to anything. The narcissist's brand of magic frequently doesn't go beyond dime store trick kits, and that is adequate, since most people don't expect normal adults to engage in trickery and deception in everyday life. The narc's disguise is simply the fact that they appear to be an adult and have the appearance of acting like one. Now on to the narc's “bag of tricks”. You were never aware of this bag of tricks, since it is the narc's most prized and carefully guarded secret. No, not even their most intimate partner will ever be told of the presence of this bag or even be aware of it's existence. This bag contains all of the tricks the narc has honed and developed over their lifetime and it is their emergency kit, it contains their owner's manual, their bible, a clear cut exit plan in case of emergency, and all of the weapons to defend themselves, their various knives, guns, you name it (these are figurative or possibly literally present and available). Inside that bag is a cache of souvenirs or “trophies” of past conquests that always reminds the narc of the power he had over others right before discarding them. The clear reminders of his “superiority”. The specifics and details are different for every narc, but let's look at some of the common items normal people (in this case, I myself) have discovered inside the bag of narcissists. Those items the world now knows about, due to sharing. To their credit, some self-aware narcissists have actually opened up their bags and revealed much of what was inside to the outside world. So here is a brief description and list. This is not intended to be a comprehensive “lexicon of narcissist methods and materials”, but one should be written and distributed and should be constantly revised, when there are new discoveries of what lies inside these evil narc's minds. In the interests of brevity, I will describe a handful of the many traits I have personally discovered in that bag. I could go on for an hour boring you with the details. A whole book could be written on the contents of this bag. I will define the following terms using my personal encounters on the front line of narc abuse. Lengthy and detailed definitions and descriptions of the following “tools of the narc's trade” can be found on the internet and other sources so, again, I will provide only brief descriptions using my experience as a guide. 1. Gaslighting: You and the narc experience an event in real time, then one day later, or some other time in the future, when you comment on the occurrence, the narc insists the event either never occurred, or that it occurred totally differently than the way you recollect. Not just minor differences, a TOTAL rewrite of the event. The narc is adamant about their version of the occurrence and is not open to discussing the possibility that your version has any validity. Result: you, the victim, begin to question your own sanity. If you have any reasoning skills, you soon realize that these disagreements about what occurred in the past only occur with the narcissist, not with other people you interact with. If you spend enough time with the narc, even when you present them with solid evidence that an ongoing dispute occurred the way you recollect it, the narc refuses to believe and holds on to his version. 2. Re-framing: The narc will take a statement that you made, then recite almost verbatim what you said, the key word here is ALMOST, and make your words have a totally different intent and meaning. Example: You love the narc and one day want to marry them. The narc knows of your intentions, but makes it clear to you they aren't interested in marriage at the moment. They just want to live together. You tell your friend “I have every intention of marrying that woman”, meaning that you know she doesn't want marriage, but you will do whatever it takes to prove to her you are worthy of her hand in marriage. The narc is then told this by your friend and the narc turns the statement into: you said “we intend to get married”, making you, the victim appear to be crazy and living in an unrealistic fantasy world. A whole page of more examples could be given. 3. Deflection: You confront the narc on an issue that needs to be addressed in the relationship and then they change the discussion into an argument unrelated to the conversation you intended to have. This is done so seamlessly that years of these events can go on without you even realizing it and never noticing why no issues can ever be resolved despite your best efforts. 4. Speaking as an authority on a subject they have no comprehensive knowledge of. I had the unique opportunity to be working with my narc partner and one day she literally began talking to me about a subject I had training in. The conversation she had with me sounded like it was authoritative, but was literally pure, illogical nonsense with no coherence. The narc was literally trying to tell me that what I was doing was wrong and correcting me with this incoherent diatribe. I told her in the politest and gentlest and most diplomatic way possible that she didn't know what she was talking about. World War 3 would be easier for me to hear about than reliving the aftermath of that reaction. I learned NEVER to question the narc or correct them again. 5. Lying: This is the narc's most prized possession, they take much pride in their ability to lie and deceive others. While the rest of society has spent their whole lives avoiding dishonesty, and eliminating lying in their lives as much as possible, the narc has gone the other direction and taken the opportunity to hone their lying skill to a high art. The partner who is our victim, will certainly notice some evidence of half truths and “white lies” that are obvious and may even be “cute”, but the victim will never even be able to conceive of the level and number of lies in the relationship as well as in the narc's life in general. The narc is so dedicated to lying that the narc has devoted his life to lying. Perversely, this is probably the only thing the narc has ever made a 100 percent commitment to and the narc would never put in jeopardy his most prized relationship with his true life partner,- the lie. The narc has remained very faithful to his or her partner the lie, and the lie has always been reliable to the narc, all other relationships are expendable, but never the relationship with the lie. Only after a breakup and analyzing the situation and examining the facts of what really went on in the relationship does the victim even just begin to comprehend the total scope of the lying that took place. However, the sad reality is that what the victim can discover is only the tip of the iceberg of the narc's life of lies. 6. Unjustly accusing the victim of the very thing they, the narc is doing. This is almost a pre-emptive strike or smokescreen, if you will. The narc uses a secret recipe of gaslighting, deflection, dramatic acting, false injury, etc., to achieve this trick and they can be quite adept at it. A solid example in my life is disloyalty. There was ample evidence of the narc not being loyal to me with a number of different people having excessive importance to the narc and in multiple cases their needs were more important than mine. The narc then accused me of being disloyal in multiple different instances, all of which were unfounded. Here is one example: because I wouldn't betray a friend who had been loyal and faithful to me for over 14 years, I was called disloyal. The actual disloyalty of the narc in our relationship was far greater than I ever could have imagined and was incredibly shocking to me when I found out. This whole thing began with the narc flirting with someone 5 feet away from me right at the time she was preparing her intricately planned discard. This was the ultimate in disloyalty. The true scope of her disloyalty was discovered only after the relationship ended and I began scrutinizing every aspect of the relationship, trying to understand what went wrong. 7. Taking anything that is important to you, for example, a cause you are working on for public awareness, and reading all sorts of intentions that do not exist into what you are doing and then putting a permanent label on you. Here are some examples. My opinion paper on “the new con game” (you can see at blogspot) was continually referred to as a “Manifesto” as if I were Ted Kazynski, the unibomber, and intended to do harm. That was my current thinking, and I am not even sure if I believe all of that any more. It was simply a distillation of what I had currently been studying. If I were to publish that paper now, I would need to do more research and always be willing to change my opinion. The narc didn't see it, but now I understand that this treatment is the modus operondi for a narc in the devaluation phase. Because I believe in Christianity, I was immediately labeled a “homophobe” and the narc actually started trying to tell me that I was discriminating against those people in my life, ABSOLUTELY not the case. I have never been anything but kind and compassionate to these people, any displeasure with them came from personal encounters, unrelated to their lifestyle. Trying to have a discussion and explain what I was doing fell on deaf ears, the narc placed the undeserved labels on me and didn't want to be confused by an explanation. I will leave it at that. Only now do I realize that I was being prepared for the slaughter, otherwise known as the sudden discard performed to be as painful as possible for the narc abuse victim. Bottom line, the narc was going to turn me into an undesirable person and beginning to build a case that they could refer to as to why the relationship ended. All of my videos on narcissism have come from a combination of learning from others and interpreting my personal experiences in the light of the new knowledge I have gained. I sometimes wonder if it is useful to personalize the descriptions, because this struggle is NOT about an individual, it is about giving insight that can be applied by others to help their situation. I have gained from both personal accounts and general knowledge and I hope this video has been of help. No one could come up with the bizarre, warped scenarios that occur when in a relationship with a narcissist. No one person will ever fully crack the narc code or credo, since each narc, although reading from the same script is an individual. Each of us has our own bizarre tale to tell. A nightmare that was lived in real time and in real life. Looking back on it I get shivers down my spine. I actually loved and was intimately involved with an inhuman beast that was sucking the life force out of me and even when I was aware of the situation, I only wanted to return for more victimization. Thank you as always for watching. Your comments are welcomed.