Would you like to know the 5 ways the narcissist uses your fears to hook you?  The more we get to know ourselves; know our deepest fears and insecurities and work to bring healing to these parts of ourselves, the less we will be able to be manipulated by others. This includes the narcissists of the world.

Narcissists use our fears and insecurities to hook us,  manipulate and control us. They initially find out about our fears by engaging us in conversation where we allow ourselves to be vulnerable. We share how we feel. We share our fears and we allow our insecurities to be known.

Although this is part of creating intimacy with another human being, our attempts at true intimacy backfire with a narcissist. He or she will draw us out, get us to talk about ourselves and then, at a later time, use what we have shared to gain power and control in the relationship.  We initially believe we are building a deep, intimate connection with the narcissist, but later realize we have built a nightmare.

It is the nature of the narcissist to use our fears and insecurities against us, so the only way to safeguard ourselves against this kind of violation is to “know ourselves” and “trust ourselves” to the point that we take the ammunition away from the narcissists in our life.

Let’s take a look at five ways the narcissist will use your fears to hook you.

Fear of Abandonment.
Many people who are with narcissists have a fear of abandonment that stems from early childhood dynamics. This is a deep core wound that can be easily triggered with an abandoning partner. A narcissist will use the silent treatment, emotional withdrawal, physical withdrawal, flirtatious behavior towards other members of the opposite sex, threatening to leave or end the relationship, compare you to former partners, criticize and find fault you. And use other behaviors that threaten the stability of the relationship and put you on the defensive.Your fear of abandonment may cause you to hold on more tightly to the relationship and try harder to make it work, even though it is the partner’s behavior that is undermining the relationship.

Fear of Loss
The narcissist will build himself or herself up to the point where you may begin to feel it would be a great loss if he or she walked away. They emphasize all their great qualities, and downplay yours. This subconsciously creates an imbalance of power resulting in your feeling “less than” and believing that you are lucky to have this person in your life. Although you may try harder to please the narcissist and get his or her positive attention and approval, the narcissist continues to withhold these goods, which keeps you in a disempowered position in the relationship. The result is often a subconscious belief that the narcissist really is superior and you are inferior. This will likely cause you to hold on tighter to the relationship.

Self Doubt
Self-doubt is a fear that you can’t trust your own inner knowing. The narcissist establishes himself or herself as having superior knowledge, awareness and intelligence and downplays yours. He or she uses gaslighting and brainwashing techniques to keep you doubting yourself and your own reality. The narcissist constantly tells you what you should be thinking or believing and when you try and express your own opinion or an original idea, you are criticized, debunked, downplayed and laughed at. Or….you are flat out told that you are wrong and don’t know what you are talking about. Your reality is constantly invalidated to the point you begin to question and doubt yourself. This keeps you in an inferior position in the relationship giving the narcissist power over you.

The narcissist will seek out ways that you don’t feel good about yourself, whether it is your weight or body image, your intelligence, your success, your beauty, your sexuality, your lovability, your health or any other area in your life where you struggle, and will focus on these aspects of you.

Low Self Worth
The narcissist doesn’t focus on building you up and helping you to feel good about your weaknesses, but rather uses them to take you down another notch, and then another. If for example, you have gained some weight and don’t feel good about it, the narcissist may constantly focus on your weight gain and clearly send the message that he or she feels this makes you inadequate or less attractive. Even if you don’t openly communicate about the areas where you don’t feel good about yourself, the narcissist has radar for your weaknesses and will surely use them against you.

Blaming and Shaming
Since the narcissist never takes responsibility for any of the issues in the relationship, he or she will project his or her issues on to you and blame you for the problems. Whatever negative issues happening in the relationship will be your fault. You will be shamed, or made to feel worthless, as if anything you do just isn’t good enough. The harder you try to “do right by the narcissist,” the more he or she finds fault with you, blames you and shames you.

Over time your self esteem erodes, and you begin to feel like a failure in the relationship. Even if the narcissist, in a weak moment, says something positive or good about you, this is often retracted, and you are reminded of your complete inadequacy as a human being. You are made to feel lucky that the narcissist is even staying with you and often told that nobody else would put up with you.

So these are the five ways the narcissist uses your fears to hook you.

Of course, there are more ways the narcissist keeps you destabilized and doubting yourself and your worth, but these are the primary ways the narcissist will use our fears against us.

The antidote is to face our own fears and be willing to walk through them. We can’t expect to become super confident and feeling great about ourselves overnight, but we can recognize that our fears are only fears and have nothing to do with the truth of who we are.

Our core wounds become the beliefs we hold about ourselves and when we believe something negative about ourselves, we can be easily triggered by others who even suggest we are unworthy, inadequate, unlovable or whatever our core beliefs are.

We need to think of the narcissist as the one who reinforces our negative core beliefs. Someone who truly loves you will want to build you up and help you to feel good about yourself; especially in areas where you feel weak.

We all have weaknesses and character flaws. This is part of our humanity. It can take some time to turn your weaknesses into strengths but it doesn’t help when you are around someone who focuses on “what he or she perceives to be wrong with you” rather than lifting you up and holding you as the beautiful, amazing being that you are.

We need to remember that those who tear us down, rather than lift us up are not on our team. Even if they lead you to believe they are doing this for your own good. Even if they tell you they are doing you a favor by pointing out your flaws because nobody else will.

We have a tendency to be our own worse enemy, until we meet the narcissist. I believe the narcissist is actually a much greater enemy to our well-being than we ourselves are. But this gives us the opportunity to begin to really stand up for ourselves and be on our own team. This gives us the opportunity to lift ourselves up and tell ourselves “I may not be perfect, but I am a good person.”

If you are your own worse enemy and you meet the narcissist, then it is two against one. Both of you are focused on your flaws and insecurities. This is very destructive to YOU. So, you need to turn it around and get on your own team. Start focusing on what you are doing right, what is good about you, and recognizing the lies you have been telling yourself.

Our core beliefs from childhood are lies. They are beliefs we formed from our wounds. When our Mother didn’t give us the attention we needed as a toddler, we may have formed the belief that we just aren’t worth the attention. Initially we soak up and love the attention we get from the narcissist, but then the attention turns negative and aligns with our core beliefs. When attention is withdrawn it causes us to work harder to get that positive attention, which replays the childhood dynamic of trying to get that attention from our primary caregiver.

It is normal for a narcissist to give you a lot of positive attention in the beginning of the relationship and then withdraw it almost overnight, leading you to believe you did something wrong, or are something wrong. This immediately puts you on the defensive, seeking answers as to what you did to cause the shift in the relationship.

What you may not have realized at the time, is that this is how narcissists operate and it has nothing to do with you. Narcissists come on really strong, hook you in and then leave you dangling. This is one of the methods in which they establish control and superiority over you. If you believe you did something to cause the good stuff in the relationship to go away, you will work harder to get it back, which puts the narcissist in a place of power over you. They can decide to withhold or give the goods, depending on their mood, but will lead you to believe it is your behavior that is causing their moods. It’s not.

When you really know yourself and know that your behavior hasn’t changed but theirs has, you can trust yourself and align with the truth. This keeps you in your own power. When you buy into the reality of the narcissist you lose power.

When you stop playing the narcissists games and start trusting yourself, it is the beginning of the end. Because a narcissist can’t stay with someone he or she can’t control. If you become “uncontrollable” you are no longer a match for the narcissist.

Sure, you have to walk through your fear of abandonment and let the narcissist go on to the next source of supply, someone he or she can control. But you will be free.

We have to change our mindset to one of seeing the narcissist leaving as a success and not a failure. This means we are doing something right. We are no longer a good source of supply.

When you are no longer a good source of supply, this is something to be celebrated. It is not a true loss. When you gain yourself and lose the narcissist, you are on the right track. When you have to lose yourself to stay with the narcissist, you are on the dark road to nowhere.

Being able to maintain a relationship with a narcissist is not any great success. Because to maintain such a relationship means you must play the game. The game is always “the narcissist is superior and you are inferior.” You need to know your place, which is beneath him, or her.

If you refuse to know your place you will be punished in some way. If you can’t be controlled, you will be punished.
Have you ever heard the saying “when a narcissist can no longer control you, he will try to control how others see you’?”

One of the ways they punish you is to tell stories and lies about you that have nothing to do with reality. They create a very unfavorable image of you and share this with others. Those who side with the narcissist against you are what we call minions or flying monkeys. They are the ones who fall for the stories and lies. They are the ones who blindly follow the lead of the narcissist. They are the one’s who are now being manipulated.

This is how the narcissist establishes his or her superiority when you have figured out the game. When you figure out the game, it changes. It becomes even more sinister.

The best way to deal with this dynamic is to lay down your end of the rope and stop playing. Let those who take the side of the narcissist, believe whatever they want to believe. It has no power over you other than what you assign it. You can’t allow the narcissistic games to disempower you. You are better than that!

The narcissist can hold a grudge against you forever, so you will need to let go of your attachment to how they treat you or talk about you. You don’t have any control over this. You only have control over how you feel about yourself. Work on this. This is where your power lies.

Remember the saying “the best revenge is living well.” Focus on picking yourself back up and building a life that is true to yourself. Work on loving yourself and only allowing people into your life who lift you up and treat you with the kindness and respect you deserve.

Don’t allow your fears to control you and stop you from living your best life ever. You have everything you need within yourself. You are much more powerful then you have been led to believe you are. Own it! Step into it! Be it!

Don’t’ allow anybody else to ever tell you who you are. Know who you are and stop doubting yourself.

Let go of the fear and walk into the light. Let go of the darkness that belongs to the narcissist. He or she may never be able to leave this darkness, but you can. So walk away! Become a horrible source of supply!

Be yourself! Love Yourself! Know Yourself!