To win, they try to dominate, bully, deceive, demean, humiliate, and hurt others. For that, they use certain common and predictable tactics that include but are not limited to arguing in bad faith, lying, denying, deflecting and attacking, gaslighting, and intimidating.
Arguing with a narcissist can be extremely difficult — people with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) feel very little empathy for others and are often manipulative. They may use tactics like turning the blame on you, gaslighting you, and resorting to disrespectful behavor.
Those who live with narcissism may find it difficult to hold positive and negative feelings for someone at the same time. As a result, things may get heated in an argument. You may experience insults, put-downs, and even mocking behaviors, like laughing as you express hurt.
Many Narcissists say provocative and nasty things to get a response from you. Usually they do it because they feel angered or insulted by something you have done and want to start a fight. Or, they may be anxious or angry about something else entirely and are taking it out on you.
If they aren't trying to blame you for the issue at hand, they will blame someone else. A big part of this is the narcissistic obsession with winning, which can be manifested by unrelenting arguing, vindictiveness, deceit, manipulation, and pleasure when others lose.
A monumental weakness in the narcissist is the failure to look internally and flesh out what needs to be worked on. Then, of course, the next step is to spend time improving. The narcissist sabotages any possibility of looking deep within.
While reacting to criticism or offense with upset and irritation is normal, any mild negative remark can trigger feelings of rejection for the narcissist. Their response will be far beyond a typical level of anger. The first line of attack might be brutal shouting, screaming, and ridiculous accusations against you.
Want to know the best way to win an argument with a narcissist? Don't get involved with one in the first place! Narcissists love a good brawl; it helps feed their narcissistic supply. And they always fight dirty.
Narcissists enjoy picking fights with others because negative confrontations give them an opportunity to validate their grandiose self-perception by creating scenarios where they can invalidate, devalue, degrade, humiliate, and dehumanize others, while simultaneously victimizing themselves.
Explosive narcissistic rage often appears completely unprovoked. Such outbursts usually appear highly volatile where the person on the receiving end of the rage is met with physical or verbal abuse. Sometimes the person can damage others with their angry outbursts, either physically or emotionally, while in their rage.
In general, it may involve intense emotional reactions and a tendency toward vindictive behaviors, but it could also lead to depression and withdrawal. Narcissistic collapse isn't a permanent occurrence once it happens. Typically, the emotional pain will decrease and the person may return to feeling their usual.
They will use various manipulation and abuse tactics like name calling, mocking, bullying, triangulation, minimizing, character defamation, berating feelings, trolling, obscuring the issue, deflecting, gaslighting, guilt-tripping, provoking, unreasonable criticism, nitpicking, or plain verbal abuse all to make you feel ...
Narcissists are highly sensitive to criticism or any perceived threat to their self-image, and they will go to great lengths to protect it. If you criticize them or challenge their dominance, you will trigger a defensive response.
Narcissists have an excessive need to be in control of their environment and other people and feel entitled to their unconditional attention and admiration. When these needs are threatened, their reaction is often extreme and they either become enraged or passive-aggressive.
They can know they're hurting your feelings, but as long as it elevates their status, they may not care. Someone living with narcissism does cry. They can feel regret, remorse, and sadness. These emotions, however, don't often have roots in empathy.
Narcissistic rage is different from other forms of anger in that narcissistic rage is disproportionate to the perceived slight; it's as though the person has a hair-trigger response. It's completely out of proportion to what provoked it and often takes the other person by surprise.
Tease, ridicule, and shame them mercilessly for not trying to figure out right from wrong, instead, pretending to have it all figured out. Stay calm, even friendly, to the person cowering inside their absolute narcissistic fake infallibility cloak. Stay light, even humorous.
Narcissists use the volume and tone of their voice to subconsciously establish dominance. They do this through two extremes. One way is to increase the volume by yelling, screaming, and raging.
Although narcissists act superior to others and posture as beyond reproach, underneath their grandiose exteriors lurk their deepest fears: That they are flawed, illegitimate, and ordinary.
Narcissists have a fragile sense of self-esteem and are threatened by anything that challenges their beliefs about themselves. Criticism, rejection, empathy, and accountability are all things that narcissists hate and find difficult to tolerate.
Victims of narcissist abuse syndrome may display signs of emotional abuse, physical abuse, psychological abuse, verbal abuse, and domestic abuse. Victims in abusive relationships experience emotional and sometimes physical damage.