Number 5: “I don’t remember saying or doing that.”
If you’re trying to hold them responsible in a given moment for something that they said or did, they will outright deny it—if the conversation wasn’t recorded or if there were no witnesses present. Why? Because they have to turn things around, they have to justify their abuse to themselves and to you.
They would say something like: “I don’t remember saying that. What are you talking about? Why are you making it up? I didn’t use those words. Why are you putting these words in my mouth? I never said that; I never did that.”
All of these are excuses to twist the situation, even when they know better, even when they clearly remember they said it or did it. Acknowledging that they said it or did it would mean they have to take responsibility for their actions, and that would mean being accountable for everything they’ve done in the past or will do in the future. That could also mean the potential loss of supply, which they do not want to suffer from.
They want to keep you in the trap, and the best way to do that is through ultra denial—denial of the situations, denial of the experiences, denial of the words that came out of their mouth, and denial of their actions.
They really persuade themselves with this delusional, alternate reality: “I didn’t do this. I did it because she or he made me do this,” and so on.
Suggested Book: Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse.
All of this puts you in a tight spot. You basically start questioning your sanity, your memory, your recollection of events, and ultimately, they escape responsibility and get away with their actions. They keep lying because, of course, you’re the crazy one who is misremembering things. So why would they even think of changing themselves?
In a nutshell, they use these tactics only to evade responsibility, only to make you look like the crazy one, and to gain control over the situation—and maintain it—because that lets them get their way and keep abusing you, which ultimately leads to more and more supply.
All of this really destroys you as a narcissistic abuse survivor because you lose grip over your sanity and your reality, which is changed and manipulated into a version that is more acceptable to the narcissist.
If this happens to you, you need to know that you are not alone in this experience, and it takes time for your brain to shift and come back to real reality. You need to know that your perceptions—whatever you thought, whatever you believed and felt about them—were the real reality. Even though it was questioned, even though they changed it, twisted it, and shifted it, they did it for the purpose of keeping you under their thumb.
Your understanding was the real understanding.
Read More: 5 S£xµal Secrets a Narcissist Doesn’t Want You to Know.
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