Control Freak
Narcissists are control freaks. They believe they must impose their thoughts, beliefs, values, and points of view onto others. They desire to dominate all aspects of the lives of others around them. Narcissists control because for them it is important to have a defense against the risk of receiving narcissistic injury from others. They control others to keep from receiving blows to their ego or self-esteem.
Narcissists Control You Directly
In my personal experience, the more overt narcissists always sought to control me directly by telling me exactly what was on their minds. From the clothing I wore to the way I talked, these narcissists always had an opinion about what they thought I should do, where they thought I should go, and how they thought I should behave and even think. They wanted to control me, and when they could not, I ignited their fury against me. To them, I did not matter.
The opinion of narcissists are the only opinions that matter, and any time that I would speak my opinion, it was like fighting against a force of wind. The energy that narcissists have gone through to exert force against me in an effort to control me has often been overpowering for me. Yet, I prevailed in sticking to my guns just because that was my right and my personality to do so. I might have been considered “soft”, sensitive, and even a pushover, but a pushover I truly was not because narcissists have always asserted that I never allowed others to control me. Plainly put, “you always act like nobody can tell you what to do!” Well, that is because I am a free-thinking able-bodied individual with choices.
Control Freaks From My Past
Growing up in a narcissistic household was quite the challenge because I never felt free to simply exist within my own right. I never seemed to have a free will even though I was apparently born with one. My parents did not necessarily provide “guidance”; they provided rules for me to follow. If I broke the rules, I suffered the consequences. Sometimes, however, rules were often unspoken, and I found myself having to keep up with a lot of rigidity. I could not even chew my food without being told how to chew it. I could not even cry without being told how long I should cry. It was fortunate that I was allowed to breathe.
I never understood how people outside of my family believed they had rights to control me, but for some reason people that I grew to know felt that they could control me. These people would outright tell me things that they thought I should be doing (or not doing). Back then, I called them bullies. With these overt controllers, I have always fought against what I perceived as their need and drive to control my life, my state of mind, and my destiny. If they could not control me, then they would control how others perceived me. I would either fall in line with or become an outcast. I became an outcast surrounded by control freaks.
The audacity of these control freaks is overwhelmingly beyond my capacity to sometimes understand. Although I get it, I sometimes shake my head in awe at how other people believe they have the right to control me just because it is their opinion to believe that they should or can do so. There are quite a few examples of control that I have experienced by the hand of control freaks, but one that always sticks in my mind is the situation dealing with my senior prom involving a classmate from high school. I will call him Grumpy because he always seemed to have a grumpy and negative attitude towards me. He literally behaved as if he hated me, and I never could figure out the reason until I learned about people as controllers.
Grumpy Attempts To Control My Prom Experience
It was the start of my senior year, and I was not even two weeks into the new school year before Grumpy decides that I was going to go to the prom with him. He did not ask me. He told me what I was going to do. I recall my emotions just like it was yesterday. I felt myself grow heated on the inside as if an elevation of my body temperature would indicate that I had a fever. I remember feeling that I could not even respond within that moment, I was frozen in thought. I was speechless. My silence must have given him the indication that I was saying “yes” or at least agreeing to his aggressive suggestion. I was not saying “yes”. I was not saying anything because I was in a freeze, fright, or flight mode. I froze. Over the next few days, I developed severe anxiety.
Grumpy told me what I was going to do. We did not date. We were not ever a couple, and besides classroom engagement activities, we never really even talked to each other. Although I thought he was a nice guy, I did not “like” him enough to have even considered going to the prom with him as his date. I was baffled. I wondered how someone who appeared so quiet and calm had decided that it was in my best interest to do what he said about the prom? He was never on my radar, but friends of mine believed that he was a great prospect after he told me I was going to the prom with him. He had already shared with my friends that I was going to be his future prom date – a prom that was many months away. My friends were actually excited for me. I was not. I was not excited at all. I was stressed and freaking out under the pressure of it all. Grumpy had overtaken my free will.
It may have been no big deal to my friends, but it was a big deal to me. I was barely surviving my life inside of a narcissistic family, and school was a bit of a safe zone for me. I could not allow Grumpy to infringe upon my rights to feel peace in a place that was a calm and safe zone for me. School was all that I felt that I had back then. School was my outlet and how I escaped the pressures of a chaotic home life that even my friends knew nothing about. So each day that I thought about Grumpy’s forced invitation was a day I grew angrier and angrier that he believed that he had secured me as a date without ever even asking my permission. Who did he think he was? He was not the boss of me. He was not my mother or my father. As a minor, only my parents could “control” me, but Grumpy was my age. How did he actually believe that I was going to be his prom date without having a choice? I was not going to allow it.
Days later, I felt that I needed to confront Grumpy, and I was not a confrontational person unless I needed to be. My friends thought that I was overreacting and that it was just a prom date and not a marriage proposal, but none of them were in my shoes. So, it was clear that my friends did not empathize with me. For me, however, it was the principal of the thing. I was not going to automatically like someone who was forcing my hand. In fact, this is the kind of behavior that makes me grow resentful of people. Attempts to control me do not end well for the controller because I will buck against the system of control.
In cases in which I felt that someone was attempting to exert control over me, I would confront the person to regain my power, peace and sanity. So confront Grumpy is what I did. I remember the steep pressure of anxiety that I felt inside my gut. Confronting him had to be done. I could not have a successful senior year with thoughts of his control hanging over my head otherwise. So, I told him that I would not be going to the prom with him, and that I did not appreciate the fact that he bombarded me with his supposed invitation without giving me time to think about my own response. I further told him how I felt disrespected in not being given a choice to say “no”. It angered me that he had just decided that I was going to go with him without having a say in the matter.
Grumpy’s True Colors Come Shining Through
My response infuriated Grumpy, but I did not care. I immediately saw the injury that I had caused him because of the look that came across his eyes. There was a look of fear mixed with rage and hurt altogether. I do not recall feeling sorry for him though, but I did feel a moment of fear because it was a look that I had seen so many times before within my family of narcissists whenever they were planning their revenge against me from bucking their control over me. Momentarily, I recalled a silence between Grumpy and me that signified his feelings.
Then, Grumpy went into hysterics about how I did not think that anyone could tell me what to do. I told him that he was not one of my parents. He had no rights, and I did not appreciate being treated as if I did not have rights. He went on and on about how I would be lucky if anyone else asked me to the prom. I did not care. He further stated that I should have been honored that he asked me in the first place especially so early in the school year. Because I had turned him down, no one else was going to give me a second thought according to him. He could not believe that I was so ungrateful. I was stunned that he was playing the victim, and his portrayal of himself as the victim made my blood boil. Yet, I held my peace and and enjoyed the freeing peace of having addressed him and relieved myself from a stressful entanglement.
Grumpy later sought to enlist my parents’ assistance in coercing me to go the prom with him. This is when I saw “red” as the color of my anger. If I had not already realized the red flags in this situation to start just based on my emotions from it all, his true colors came shining through when I informed him that I was not going to the prom as his date. Yet, his contacting my parents made me realize that he was attempting to have things his way. Neither my feelings or thoughts were any of his concern. This is when I became fearful that my option to say “no” would be taken away from me. He was intent on taking me to the prom, and I was supposed to lie down and let him drag me along. This is when my heart raced at the thought of becoming powerless and forced into a situation in which I did not want to be a wiling participant. Because my parents were controlling, I was really fearful that they would force me to accept Grumpy’s forced invitation to the prom.
Despite my fears, I was prepared to go to war. I was prepared to “wrestle” against the strong forces that sought to control my will. I recall my dad asking me to consider Grumpy’s proposal, but I gave a strong-armed and resounding “no”. My mother mentioned that I might not have another opportunity for a date, but I said that I did not care. After realizing that my mind was made up, that my will would not be coerced, and that my heart would remain unchanged, my dad informed Grumpy that the decision to go to the prom was up to me. My parents chose to stay out of it. After all, I was a senior, and it was my last year under their roof. I really do not believe that they wanted to push me into a corner even though they were controlling parents. Plus, they knew my relentless ability to be headstrong. I do not believe that they were going to allow some outsider to control me either.
Grumpy backed off, and despite actually being asked to the prom by two other people that I also turned down, I still went to the prom. In fact, I was the first female to ever attend the prom without a date in the history of my high school. Back then, going to the prom without a date was called “going stag”. It was simply unheard of back then [that a female would attend the prom without a date], but I really wanted to go and have a good time with my friends even if I was without a date. It was a great decision. Despite shocking all of my friends and teachers about going it alone, I instigated a future trend. Suddenly, it became cool to go the prom without a date because normally most girls would just stay home and miss out because of second hand embarrassment.
Nevertheless, my anxiety over the prom heightened as the scheduled date time for the prom neared. I was going to the prom without Grumpy as my date. However, I made it through the festivities and was able to stay away from Grumpy. As I recall, his behavior was very passive-aggressive towards me. He was angry that I dared to show up to the prom alone. He sneered as I laughed, danced, and took pictures with my friends. He flinched each time I was asked to dance with others as a part of a group. He was enraged as I mingled amongst the crowds and left the prom without attending the “afterparty”. Grumpy had a serious problem. He could not control me, and in that crowd, he could not even control how others saw me. Yet, all the while, behind the scenes, I learned how he micromanipulated in an attempt to get his way. I am so thankful that his schemes did not work.
Narcissists Micromanipulate To Control
Narcissists micromanipulate to control others. According to Hochenberger (2020), “micromanipulations are intentional ways of redirecting the narrative and regaining control over the other person’s thoughts and feelings. These brief comments are made in passing or casual conversation, meant to hit heavy and unexpectedly, and require the victim to go back to the manipulator for clarification. Micromanipulations aim to arouse the sympathy and empathy of the victim and to play out the self-perceived victim role”. The sole purpose of micromanipulation is for controllers or narcissists to – consciously or unconsciously – gain control over others – especially to gain control of their feelings and thoughts.
Many covert narcissists control others indirectly by using micromanipulation as their tool of choice. Their manipulation tactics are often so covert that you do not even realize that you are being manipulated, and therefore, controlled. Covert narcissists control by the power of suggestion or implication. They never quite address an issue head on but are more likely to use alternative situations that insinuate what they want to address with you. For instance, a male narcissistic friend wanted to address the signs of my aging by indirectly bringing it up to me. Instead of telling me that he noticed that I was aging, he used what appeared to be a true situation at the time that I later came to realize what was really being said to me.
While we were in the car together, he mentioned that he had seen an interesting twist in passing with a driver and passenger in another vehicle that we were next to at a stoplight. He said that right before his eyes he believed that he was looking at a young woman, but upon closer inspection, she was aging right before his eyes. He realized that he was looking at a much older woman who gave the appearance of being young. At the time, I did not think anything of it until something else that he said triggered me to remember this particular situation. It was then that I knew that he was letting me know that I am beginning to age right before his eyes. I suppose it was better to not mention it to me directly so as not to come off being rude to me, but I also realized that he was setting the stage of discarding me. I have not heard from this narcissistic friend in quite a while.
Another example of micromanipulation involves a narcissist that I am presently limiting contact with to the best of my abilities before I go no-contact. Death has been the culprit of continued contact however. Just recently, this narcissist had a family member to die. I addressed the narcissist’s text message with my condolences. Then an accidental oops call came along with a series of calls that were instant hang-ups as if there was something wrong with the phone connection. I believe that these were a few subtle ways that this narcissist has micromanipulated to get my attention. Since I believe this narcissist realizes that I have pulled away to bring distance between the two of us, she has managed to use situations involving death to draw upon my sympathies.
In fact, just recently, I received another text message about a mutual friend’s death that I had actually learned about via social media, but the narcissist’s text message was to ensure that I was aware of the information. Since I have been distant, this narcissist wanted to incur my response via a text message. The message sparked my attention and emotion because the the mutual friend was someone whose family I know well. So, I was more inclined to address the text for that reason. The narcissist knew this despite the narcissist not being able to provide me with any different information other than what I had already viewed on social media. Then, once I was drawn in via text, the narcissist proceeded to compete with me on how much information I knew regarding the mutual friend’s life and death. Before I knew it, I was indulged in a full blown conversation that this narcissist controlled from beginning to end.
From this narcissist’s way to entrap me into giving her attention to a host of others, one of the main ways that I know that I am being micromanipulated for the sake of being controlled is by the fact that the narcissist seeks to remain the center of attention for the purpose of getting some type of response from me. If the narcissist realizes that I am distancing myself to the point that I am no longer “present with them”, then the need to micromanipulate becomes strong because the narcissist does not want to lose the ability to control the friendship. Narcissists are control freaks, indeed. There is no other way that narcissists know how to be even if their very lives depended upon it.
Why Do Narcissists Have Such A Need To Control Others?
Narcissists control because for them it is important to have a defense against the risk of receiving narcissistic injury from others. They control others to keep from receiving blows to their ego or self-esteem. In no way do narcissists want to feel like you have the upper hand over them. They want all of your attention, and they will do pretty much anything within their power to gain and maintain your attention. Your attention is their narcissistic supply. Your attention is also how they maintain control. Any time that you treat them as if they are irrelevant and do not matter, then they are narcissistically injured, and they begin to lose control. Their empire of power crumbles beneath them and they look for ways to seek your attention to exact revenge. Either way, they work tirelessly to maintain their façade of power over you by keeping you connected to them until they no longer have use for you. Why? Narcissists are control freaks.
My Voice Unchained 