The Narcissist’s Projection Game: I Know You Are, But What Am I?

I know you are, but what am I? The projection game. Narcissists love to assign others their character defects. In fact, it is almost like an attack of the body snatchers- people who want to switch places with you, so that you can be the bad guy (them) and they can be the good guy (you). It’s a mind-fuck.

When you first meet the narcissist, they will latch on to you. They come on hard and heavy. They will watch, listen and learn to find out what you’re all about so that they can match your vibration and gain your trust. They love the things you love. They aim to make you feel happy and understood. They claim a similar background and similar goals for the future. Of course, you assume all of this to be true.

Later, when their mask persona starts slipping and the narcissist starts acting differently, picking fights, making insensitive comments, lying, disappearing, etc., you are very confused. This seems so unlike them. What has happened?

Being the compassionate, empathetic, loving person that you are, you begin to ask questions. You want to communicate, to understand, to help to heal whatever has caused this sudden shift.

Your beloved narcissist minimizes his change of behavior, makes excuses, or insists that you misunderstood. This is the beginning of the end of the relationship as you knew it. Gaslighting becomes the norm.

The narc continues his push-pull behaviors, keeping you in a state of uncertainty. The more you try to discuss your feelings or the relationship, the more he insists that everything is just fine. You are wrong, confused, misguided, or crazy.

At first, he will likely try to soothe you with lies. He will plead with you to believe him over any and everyone else, even yourself. If your gut keeps telling you that he is up to something, he is. You want to believe the best. You are hoping you are wrong, just over-thinking, just need some sleep, and you will once again see your handsome shining prince. Except you don’t. Because he doesn’t exist.

A combination of factors will likely lead you to investigate his claims of who he is and what he’s about. You hope he is being honest, but something in your gut keeps nagging you. You want to prove yourself wrong and chalk it up to your own stinkin’ thinkin’. By now, you’ve already begun taking the blame, questioning yourself for doubting him. You want to be wrong. You want him to be your knight in shining armor.

But things don’t add up. He begins to slip more and more into an unstable partner. He’s not where he says he will be. He doesn’t answer your calls. He doesn’t show up when he says he will. He lies to your face, and you know it. He screams at you, or worse, when you question him.

Despite his denial, you know something is not right. Your confusion turns to bewilderment and frustration. The more you try to resolve the issue, the more he turns the blame toward you, as his behaviors continue.

He accuses you of doing the exact things that he is doing. He is no longer trying to pretend he is just like you. Now, he is trying to convince you, and everyone else, that you are him. You are the liar, the cheater, the abusive one. He uses your words against you. He provokes fights with you so that he can leave and blame you, citing that you are crazy and argumentive, while you are actually feverishly defending yourself or trying to come to a compromise.

There is no compromise with a narcissist. It is their way or no way. They love drama and have serious control issues. They don’t want a happy healthy relationship. They live for chaos. They like to watch you squirm, cry, or yell. Like bullies, narcs get an emotional payoff when creating conflict, confusion, and chaos.

In a way, they do get you to sink to their level. Narcissistic abuse changes you. You begin to feel angry, hurt, and anxious. You try like hell to resolve the problems; to get back to where you once were, but to no avail. They come and go as they please, with no concern for you.

You’re always fighting. Everything that you try to discuss gets shut down or turned around on you. He continually says that you are the problem. However, you know that if you were creating the strife, you would fix it. But since you’re not, you can’t. So, you’re just miserable now, amid the narc’s abusive ‘I’m rubber, you’re glue’ game.

When you have exhausted your efforts with dead-end conversations and earnest attempts to save the relationship, you will call it quits. You will give him an honest account of your feelings and seek to have a respectful breakup because you are emotionally exhausted and can’t do it anymore.

This is when your deranged narcissist will revert to a version of the love-bombing phase. Mind you, he will not take accountability. There will be no solution to the problems that caused the breakup. Rather, he will continue to minimize, deflect, and divert the attention off of him and onto others who must be messing with your fragile state of mind. He tells you how much he loves you and you accept him back.

It won’t be long until he continues his game, only now he has more ammunition. He knows exactly what the problems are because you have stated them clearly, in a hundred different ways, on a hundred different days. He uses your honesty and vulnerability against you.

He begins to smear you, to your face, and also behind your back to others. Any way that you expressed the challenges in the relationship during your whole-hearted discussions with him, he now claims are his challenges with you. He goes right back into the ‘rubber-glue’ game, only with more force. He is earnestly trying to convince you, himself, and others that you are the problem.

Conversations go nowhere. He is adamantly punishing you for god-knows-what; for having feelings, for expressing hurt, disappointment, concern. He enjoys hurting you and he wants to keep doing it, but he doesn’t want the blame. Narcissists don’t ‘feel bad’ for their ways. It is your job to feel bad.

Narcs want to behave terribly, deny it, then completely turn the situation around citing that you are the terrible one. They have no desire to stop treating people badly. Because in their minds, they are never the terrible one; you are. Anything that they have said or done to you, they claim you said and did to them.

Narcs love to add insult to injury. They love the mind-fuck. It makes them feel powerful. It gives them permission to treat people like shit, then switch places and claim you treated them like shit. They will never admit it. You will never get any empathy whatsoever. You have effectively turned into their scapegoat. Close the door on the narc, lock it, and go no-contact. You are not them.