Number 1: “This is just how people are.”
When a narcissist says, “This is how people work; this is how the world is,” they are attempting to justify their abusive behavior through generalization. They want you to believe that this is how the world operates in general, and that people are like them—a classic example of projection. They’re projecting their reality onto others and want you to believe that people, in general, are like the narcissist, and you are the outcast—the black sheep—who does not know how the world operates.
Therefore, the fault lies within you, and the blame belongs to you. So, you should change yourself and become better, because the authority figure, whom the narcissist thinks they are, knows better than you. They know how the world functions and operates, and they are now questioning your perception of reality, your learnings, and your skills to navigate the world.
This really messes you up because you start feeling smaller in yourself. You start doubting your learnings; you start abandoning the life that you had built before meeting the narcissist. Everything is nullified; everything is invalidated—right in the moment—as they say, “This is how the world operates.”
You don’t know better. Or you don’t know about this stuff. Or you’re too naive—and things like that. Their claim, basically, is that their judgment is infallible and cannot be questioned, because they know best. They know better than you, and you are the one who lacks insight and understanding.
Read More: 10 Weird Social Behaviors of Those Affected by Narcissistic Abuse.
Number 2: “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
When a narcissist is confronted about something that they did to escape accountability, they feel unimportant. They act innocent, as if they don’t know anything about the topic at hand. They want you to know, or think, or believe in the moment that they hardly have any awareness about the abuse that they put you through, the suffering that they caused you, and that it was purely accidental if it happened or if it was experienced by you.
When pressed to take responsibility, they will shift the blame to their supposed lack of knowledge about whatever it is that you’re talking about. This is an attempt to shift the blame onto you because they do not know what you’re talking about, and then escape accountability in the moment by making you question your recollection of the events, your memory, and your understanding of the situation.
When they do this—when they shift the conversation, when they pretend to be innocent and not know what the thing is that is being talked about—they immediately derail the conversation. They change the subject immediately, and something else is talked about, so that they get the chance to escape responsibility.
They twist everything around; they twist the truth and somehow make something else the issue—something related to you, some mistake that you made—that helps them make you look like the crazy one, and the one who has got it all wrong, while they become the innocent one.
Recommended Book: Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself- By Shahida Arabi.
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