They "Feed" off your responses

I work with special needs kiddos and once did some contract work in an acute mental hospital for kids. Most of the kids there had some sort of mental diagnosis/problem they were dealing with and needed help outside the regular home and school setting. OCD, anxiety, conduct disorders were the big diagnoses. Especially conduct dusorder and oppositional defiance.

The students were taught by certified teachers during the length of their stay and got family, group, and individual counseling as well until they left to go back home. It was my job to go in and make sure the ones who came from a public school with an IEP continued to get served with special ed. services.

So this is what happened one day: As I sat at a table with one little boy, I had my arm on the table between us. I was talking about how I wanted him to do his work for thirty minutes and then he could earn a sticker or a piece of candy. He seemed to be attending to my instructions as he was looking intently at my face the whole time I talked. That's how I interpreted it: that he had a great attention span.

As I'm giving him my spiel, he sees my arm on the table and starts to pinch my forearm hard. He was still looking at my face all the while. I decide to ignore him and continue talking about what our plan was for the day. For the record, no one else was in the room. He continues to pinch harder and harder and I just kept talking nonchalantly. When I couldn't stand the pain any more, I said in a matter-of-fact tone, "You are pinching my arm." He says, "I know. Does it hurt?" while still pinching me. I said calmly, "Yes, it hurts very much" as he continued to pinch.

Then he got an angry look on his face and yelled, "But you aren't making a face!"

I never looked in his chart at his diagnosis but I think this a sociopath in the making: no empathy for a victim's pain, intentionally hurts others to just see the response on their face, hurts a person when no one else is around to witness it. It appears to me that he did it in search of a facial grimace from me and was angry when he didn't get what he needed. And for the record, this was the most adorable, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, freckle-faced, cutie-patootie you ever saw. His cherubic appearance was so deceptive.

I think there's a lesson for all of us here.

Who does this remind us of? Think of how the narcs behave when we are trying to leave. Or any time they are hurting us, really. They are looking for a response by telling us how fat we are, how stupid, how we can never get anyone else. They find our weak spots and attack those with a white hot intensity. They cheat, they steal, they set us up only to knock us back down cruelly at the knees. Their inhumanity knows no bounds. No actions or words are too cruel for these animals. And they never seem to look like an asshole when we first meet them, do they? The volunteering, helpful "good guy" social appearance; it's all an evil disguise.

I know most of have responded to our hurt feelings with rage and tears. I certainly have curled up into a fetal position and cried at the hands of my narc because I didn't know why he was being so mean and callous.

Unfortunately, this is just what the narc ordered: a grieved reaction to their vicousness.

I'm sharing this in hopes that next time one of us gets a nasty phone call, a rude email, slandered in public, lied about in front of our friends and family, insulted, or otherwise devalued and abused, you remember not to respond. Or at least not to respond emotionally. That's simply rewarding them for their bad/evil behaviors- it's exactly their intent! And that will only ensure that they continue doing this type of stuff.

No matter how hard it is, no matter how much you want to verbally defend yourself against the hate that they spread, my advice is to ignore or react in the most non-emotional, almost robotic tone that you can muster in the face of cruelty.

Chances are, s/he'll up the ante by "pinching" you even harder, but refuse to award them with any of your emotions. They'll get bored eventually and go away.

I hope this story helps someone who is feeling the need to respond to a hateful narc today.

Continue on with the NC!!!