The Silence of the Wolves – Part 2 – Wicked Games

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Wicked Games

I have two female “frenemies” in my circle that are narcissists. One frenemy is more covert than the other. They are both similar in the way they execute their narcissistic traits but also very different. One thing they have in common is the way they play their wicked games. Their games are not fun for me and are always one-sided with them mainly being the players against me. I have had to be both discerning and watchful when it comes to their wicked games.

The current wicked game they are both playing with me almost simultaneously is their use of the silent treatment against me. Their continuous use of this narcissistic tactic of silence against me causes me to wonder if the end of my relationships with them [separately] is near. Their silences against me seem to be occurring more often over what I see as frivolous immature reasonings on their behalf. Yet, at the same time, what I see as a reason may not be their primary reason at all since both are rather covert in their explanations of their issues against me as well as covert in their methods of instituting their punishments against me.

I call these women frenemies because I once viewed them as friends until I realized that they are actually my enemies. Since I now know they are narcissists after spending considerable time with them long enough to identify their narcissistic traits, I know for certain that they are not my friends. They only choose to be friendly to get from me what they want, and what they want is for me to adore them, worship them, provide them with narcissistic supply, and go along with their hidden agendas. Even more, I have come to realize that they both individually seek my destruction. They do not care about me and seem to harbor bitter resentment against me for reasons I do not even need to understand even though I have sought to understand them.

Simply put, these women are malignant covert narcissists, and they have shown me that they are wicked within themselves. Individually, they have personalities of contrast compared to my own even though they constantly talk about how we are all the same. They each claim to be empathic, loving, and so similar to me to the point that it makes me wonder why I just do not mesh with them the bulk of the times that I am around them being that they believe we are so similar. I could never be around them both (collectively), and neither of them are friends with each other. They do not even know each other. Yet, their narcissistic personalities are so much alike that I am often able to draw parallels to how their negative behavior traits are the same.

The Silent Treatment

Currently, I am dealing with each narcissistic frenemy as it pertains to their use of the silent treatment against me. The silent treatment is a narcissistic tool used by narcissists to manipulate and control their victims to get them to do what they want them to do. The silent treatment is also used by narcissists to punish their victims for not doing what narcissists want them to do. The silent treatment is a tool with many uses with the ultimate goal of ensuring that victims fall in line with narcissists’ agendas.

I will refer to one of the narcissistic frenemies as The Identity Thief because she has always desired that her and me be in unity regarding everything we do even though it is obvious that we are total opposites. From the time I met her up until now (a little over 20 years), she has insisted that we are so much alike when I have never seen this nor do I see this now. Yet, anything that I do, she does too. At one time, I felt like she was literally becoming me because she copied me so much. It was both frustrating and infuriating for me because I realized that I no longer wanted to share anything with her about my life without her always trying to steal my shine. (More on her as a separate case study later.)

Needless to say, I have had to carefully navigate around her everchanging moods and activities. When she has moved along within the narcissistic abuse cycle and has landed in the discard phase of me, I am always grateful because it means that someone else is occupying her time. When there is less of a chance that I have to deal with her, I am elated because it means that I do not have to deal with any of her narcissistic games. Currently, she is obviously trying to balance the new narcissistic supply she acquired in another unsuspecting person all while she attempts to hold onto me. Yet, somewhere within me, I believe that she knows that I am coming to my wits end with her, and I believe she is coming to her wits end with me too. I believe that the end of this so-called friendship with The Identity Thief is near. I desperately want it to be near for sure.

Right now, The Identity Thief is silent with me for two major reasons. One reason she has given me the silent treatment is because she has been angry because of something I did not offer to her that I discerned that she wanted from me but I would not give to her. The second reason she is reacting to me with the silent treatment is because I called out her passive-aggressive and negative behavior towards me. I exposed her because she is always passively-aggressively deals with me and can never ever take me saying anything to her without becoming offended by what I say. She finds so many ways to come against me using underhanded insults, snide remarks, and combative statements. She has the attitude that I should not dare have a differing opinion, idea, or thought than her, and if I do say something independently of her (which I most often do without hesitation) and it does not line up with something she has taken the time to research or something that she can immediately bash me for if I happen to be right, then she will waste no time concocting a way to basically try to punish me with the silent treatment.

Since I last called her out in a rather round about way that highlighted negative and toxic behavior that she displays, she has been silent. She has been silent for at least a week. I see this as different from the silent treatment. I see this silence of hers currently as a way for her to regroup for the next time she attempts to punish me for giving her a narcissistic injury. All the while, I have peace. I already know that there is really no use in riding the bull with her, but since I am already involved in a rodeo of sorts with her, I might as well show her what I am working with.

The Identity Thief is no dummy, but neither am I. I shut her down by calling out behavior in a respectful yet indirect way, but there is a growing agitation within me that wants to shut her down for good by simply cutting off all contact from her. Why do I choose to stay in this situation? (More on this later too.) For one, I always feel as if I need to come to the end of myself before I cut a person off. I always feel like I need to come to the place where I am fed up and could care less. Believe me when I say that I am there, but I am carefully watching and waiting for the next move.

As far as the other narcissistic frenemy, I will refer to her as The Sinister Minister. She even calls herself a minister. So, by allowing her to enter my life, I thought I was getting a safe friend in her until I realized that she was not safe at all. She is a narcissist – a spiritual narcissist. She uses spirituality to portray herself one way when she is totally the opposite of the way that she presents herself. I have literally seen her persona turn on and off right in front of my eyes. Unless her family within her household has seen this about her, then most people are totally unaware of the façade she presents. I have seen and heard her insecurities but in the most subtle of ways. In fact, it is in the same way I have seen the appearance of mostly all narcissists that I have known subtly display their insecurities to me. (More on this in future post.)

Needless to say, The Sinister Minister, takes the silent treatment to a different level. Over time, I noticed how her silent treatments happen in spurts. She cannot seem to handle dishing out her silent punishments against me unless she does so in a rapid fire manner. Her wicked games happen swiftly. She has realized that long spans of silence against me do not work and are not very beneficial for her because I do not genuinely care if she goes without talking to me for long spans of time. She quickly realized that one silent punishment she enforced upon me for a little over a week did not bother me at all as I responded to her after the fact about all the things I did as I lived and enjoyed my life with her not being in the picture. She was furious, and although she did not display her fury in my presence, I could clearly see and hear it as her body vibrated as if to contain itself from an inner explosion.

Now, The Sinister Minister tries to punish me with quick silences. In fact, The Sinister Minister is the narcissistic frenemy that frequently calls me for phone conversations. This is the narcissist who has absolutely no phone etiquette when it comes to me. (See my previous post on Phone Etiquette.) This is the narcissist who finds tactics to use against me while on the phone. Phone conversations with her have been the basis for my training to actually “hear” different narcissistic cans of arsenal being opened with all contents of narcissistic punishment unleashed against me. The Sinister Minister has no chill. Her quick silences are strange because it is her version of a shortened type of silent treatment with the purpose of having instant effects.

For instance, The Sinister Minister often calls me when it appears to me that she is too preoccupied to even talk to me. I do not even know why she bothers calling me when she cannot even give full attention to a conversation with me, but then I realize that her preoccupation breaks into our conversation so that she can throw in moments of planned silences against me. She frequently finds ways to always interrupt me from talking or expressing myself. She will frequently cut me off or conveniently have other calls that interrupt us. I also find that she is always out and about running errands when she decides to call me so that it would seem logical that interruptions are going to happen such as others talking to her because she is ordering food at the drive-thru of a restaurant, because she is inside the bank taking care of transactions that require her focus to be on someone or something else, or because she is out shopping and conveniently runs into people she knows and must have a conversation with even though I am on the other end of the phone. Yet, I know that all of this is preplanned so that she can control the conversation and conveniently cut it off. It just so happens that she always conveniently cuts me off when I am talking.

The other thing with these instigated silences with The Sinister Minister is that if she happens to call me while I am busy, I can actually tell that it bothers her. If I tell her that I need to call her back or if I do not answer her call and text that I will call her back, she will give me an immediate backlash of her silent treatment. It is almost a given that she will do this every time I am too busy to take her call. I am not even being rude to her intentionally when this happens. I may be on a call with someone else or simply unable to take her call in the moment, but I will always know when she is angry with me about it because she will reciprocate my actions back to me. If I return her call, she will text me that she will call me back. Yet, she never does call me back. Instead, she waits until the next day to talk to me. Then when she finally calls me back, she will make up some excuse as to why she did not call me back. Usually, I take her excuses with a grain of salt. Her excuses usually always involve a sick loved one or a tragic circumstance that was beyond her control. Although I cannot prove that she is not lying to me, I do not always believe her. I often feel as if she is just repaying me with her morbid type of backlash because I did not comply with her desires. I know instinctively when she is angry with me and is repaying me for not being available for her even though I never make any qualms about her never being available for me.

As of late, this has been the method that The Sinister Minister has used to attempt to subdue me and punish me with silence. It is quite comical actually, but it is often frustrating as well. I never even call her. In fact, I wonder if she has even noted this fact. I never actually call her unless I am returning a call to which she always replies with a text that she cannot talk at that moment. I do not get bent out of shape about it in the same way that I discern that she does, and for anyone who believes that I might be exaggerating, I would have to say that you will have to take my word about it because I have experienced the same types of wicked game plays with The Identity Thief as well. If narcissists cannot control the conversation, they will kill the conversation with induced silence. Then, when they believe they have brought about the suffering they intended to inflict upon me or they realize more than likely that I was actually not bothered, they contact me.

More often than not, I am not bothered by the long silences of narcissists. I am an introvert, and I crave silence and downtime especially when it concerns interactions with narcissists. I do not care if narcissists contact me. I do not care that they give me the silent treatment. I am not bothered by their wicked games anymore in this area. I go on about my business and reflect on how much less drama there is in my life when they are not bringing their drama to me. The incessant chatter of narcissists is often a nuisance for me anyway. Yet, in thinking about all of this, I realize that without these two narcissists, I would not have any immediate friends nearby in my life. Yet, ironically, these two women are not my friends now. So, I really need to go ahead and just sever the ties with them. To be honest, I have been feeling on the brink of closing the door on both of them by simply blocking all contact with them and not saying a word. In fact, I have been so tempted to just block them during one of their induced silent treatments against me to give them a taste of what silence without me is really like. I think I am just waiting for the discard phase to occur organically so that I can cut the chains that bind me.

For the record, though, I am tired of the wicked games that narcissists play. Their use of the silent treatment has worn very thin on me, and I no longer care about their motives of operation. I need peace and silence, and I need them to institute a longer silent treatment against me so that I can finally sever the cords that make it difficult for me to simply walk away. Maybe that is a passive way for me to deal with them by waiting for change, but I am tired. I am very tired. I will keep you posted on what happens. Until then, stay tuned for more of my experiences with narcissists and narcissistic abuse.