 The narcissist always does this. Narcissists have a fragile sense of self and low self-esteem. Because of this, they need excessive admiration. They need to get what they want. They will often ignore your boundaries in favor of their needs. They will control you to regulate their self-esteem. To generate a false sense of confidence in their own worth or abilities. To make themselves feel important. To elevate themselves at your expense. When the narcissist first targeted you, they loved bombed you. They showered you with attention. They gave you compliments and praise. They bought you gifts. It made you feel wanted. It made you feel appreciated. But deep down, you knew that something was not right. You just didn't know what it was. As time went by, they began to devalue you. They began to withhold their love and attention. They began to insult you and put you down. They manipulated your emotions. This is when the cycle of abuse begins. The narcissist always forces themselves onto the supply in the beginning. They will do whatever it takes to secure you. They will be whatever they think you want them to be. While knowing that they're not about any of that, and if you ever confront them on that in the future, they will gas like you. They will make you doubt your own memory and perception. When the truth is, they constructed a false character just for you. It was all a game to secure you, to position themselves in your life. This is something that narcissists always do. It will leave you grieving this false character. You may even wish that it could come back. The narcissist will sense when you want their false character to come back. When they think you're onto them, they will bring back the love bombing. They will start complimenting you again. They will be more affectionate. While secretly, they don't feel anything for you. They have no ability to connect to you emotionally. They lack empathy. They have no interest in sharing your experiences. All they care about is themselves. All they care about is their own feelings and needs. They want to pull you into their world so that you can serve them. They have no interest in sharing anything with you unless they can use it to manipulate you, which is why when they feel like you're onto them, they will bring back the love bombing. They will give you compliments and praise. They will say or do anything to pull you back in, although it may not be as intense as it was in the beginning. You may feel overwhelmed by the excessive amount of attention. You may feel suffocated. You may feel trapped. But the narcissist will use this to say that you got cold feet or that you manipulated them. Narcissists cannot give you the space that you need. They see space as rejection. They fear that space will create distance between you and then you will want to leave them, which would then hurt their fragile egos. It would affect their self-esteem. They need you to feel good about themselves. You are their narcissistic supply. If you have space, they fear that you will realize just how much easier life is without them. They already know that they're difficult to deal with. They know that they have difficulty managing stress, which you are then left to regulate for them. They understand that this is not good for you, but they just don't care. Their needs are always the priority. They are self-centered and unwilling to admit fault, but this then limits the possibility of any genuine reconciliation. In a normal relationship, you may argue, but then you will become friendly again. There will be a mutual understanding. You don't get this in relationships with narcissists because they cannot admit their faults. They need to be superior. They need to be correct at all times. They need to be in charge. So while you are being abused by them, you are also the one who is left to apologize to them while they play the victim role. You are left to do this because they pressurize you. They persuade you into falling back by using force or threats. But when you do this, it encourages their narcissistic behavior. It convinces them of their faultlessness. When you threaten their authority, it repeats the cycle of abuse. When the narcissist experiences an upset and event which may seem minor or insignificant to you, it will cause a narcissistic injury which will be followed by narcissistic rage no matter how good you've been to them, no matter what you've done for them up until that point. Once they experience a narcissistic injury, none of that means anything anymore. An upset and event for a narcissist could be something as small as you wanted to spend time with yourself or you having your own ideas or opinions about something or wanting to do something your own way. They see it as neglect or disrespect. They see it as though you're abandoning them or their way of life as time goes by. You will begin to anticipate their responses towards you. You will always be on edge. You will be extremely cautious about your words or actions. The narcissist will repeatedly get upset over the same issue which could be something they've just imagined. They will obsess over any perceived threat. They will seek out some form of weakness or vulnerability within you and then they will use this to intimidate you. They will use it to maintain a state of fear and distress within you until you can't take it anymore, until you finally react to them and that is when the narcissist will switch back into the victim role. They will use your reactive behavior as further evidence that they are the ones who are being abused. They will bring up your defensive behaviors to their abuse as evidence that you are abusing them as though it was the cause of the conflict and because you have empathy and you have feelings of guilt and remorse, you accept the distorted perception and then you try to help them. You try to make things right when they were the cause of the conflict in the first place. You end up giving into their demands. You accept responsibility for things that you are not responsible for because you just want to keep the peace. You want their anger and hostility to stop and when the narcissist sees that this is your response to the conflict, they will take note of it. They will realize that this is a way for them to get what they want. All they have to do is act up for a moment and then you will do whatever they want you to do. They will abuse you until you finally give up and then they will feel empowered. It proves to them that they were right in the first place. In their minds it justifies their behaviors because now they believe that you are wrong but their sense of empowerment will not last for long. It only lasts until the next threat and then the cycle of abuse starts all over again. Thank you for watching. I hope this video resonates with you. Please like, comment, share and subscribe. If you are like the Nate, my PayPal link is in the video description. Coaching inquiries. You can email me at coaching at narksurvivor.co.uk. Thank you for watching and I'll talk to you soon.