Narcissistic Baiting…Who Knew This Was a Thing
Raise your hand if you’ve never heard of Narcissistic Baiting. Okay. My hand is up too. While I experienced this, pretty much daily, I had NO IDEA there was a name for it and that this very thing happened to other people. It blows my mind every time I learn that I am not alone in what I went through. The trauma, abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, and what is apparently called, Narcissistic Baiting.
Narcissistic Baiting is when the narcissist instigates you. It’s when they do something that they know is going to trigger a response. You have become so frustrated with all of the lies and manipulation and constantly being told something is wrong with you or that you’re forgetful or that you are just simply, not good enough. So, these days…it doesn’t take much to get a reaction. They know this, and are ready to watch you rage.
The baiting could take any form really, it’s essentially them doing something they know will evoke a negative response. My ex would accuse me of saying or doing something negatively towards him and tell me how inappropriate it was or how I shouldn’t have said or done something to “belittle” him in front of our kids. He would text me to let me know how he didn’t appreciate me “belittling him” or “contradicting him” …something that would be absurd. And I would take the bait. Hook. Line. And Sinker.
I would go off on him, via text, about how horrible of a person he is. How he treated me and the kids. Anything I could say (text) to let him know how not okay I was with him always accusing me of things I didn’t do. Essentially, I would LASH OUT. Enraged at his pompous authoritative attitude and how he was the one constantly belittling me and speaking down to me and controlling our kids and me.
After about 20 years of marriage, I realized it was possible that he had narcissistic personality disorder and began researching. I started documenting things. I started writing down significant situations overs the 21+ years I had known him. I tried to unravel the chaos that had become my life. I had no idea just far down the rabbit hole it would all go.
Those text messages, of me lashing out…he’d use those for his flying monkeys (the people who think he is a saint and can do no wrong and believe him when he tells them I’m the crazy one) and narcissistic enablers (the ones who would explain that maybe if I’d get help we could make things work). He always knew what he was doing. He knew that when I finally figured out who he really was, he would be able to save his masked facade by making ME out to be the villain as he portrayed the poor abused victim. “Look at how she’d curse me out, ” “Look at how horribly mean she was to me, ” “Look what I had to endure all these years just trying to stay and make our family work all while working hard to support her and our children.” Let the insanity and lies begin….
Let me be clear…
There is NOTHING wrong with lashing out when you have been abused. When someone abuses you, you have every right to try and defend yourself and protect yourself from them further damaging you. All of the flying monkeys and enablers are going to support your narcissist no matter what. They will believe anything this person says, because they too are being manipulated by them.
Here’s the thing…
You know what happened to you. Everyone close to you knows what happened to you. God knows what happened to you. And anyone who chooses to believe the narcissist over you, you really don’t need in your life anyway. This has been a hard truth for me. His family was my family for over 24 years before divorcing. Having to realize that some of those people would accept his lies, despite knowing he had a 3+ year affair, knowing he had addictions, and was a pathological liar…having to realize that my life can not move toward healing with people like that in my life has been a hard truth to accept.
I went through years of trauma and abuse, suffer ptsd, have triggers and took 2 years of weekly counseling to restore my health and wellbeing… and anyone who can’t understand or chooses to support the abuser, the man who takes NO responsibility for what he did to me and our children, isn’t someone who will be in my life moving forward.
It’s okay to discard toxicity from your life.
