The Eggshells Of Offense
Walking on eggshells with a narcissist is difficult at best. The eggshells themselves are nothing more than tiny landmines that can explode and project onto you at any given moment. Usually, these eggshells contain some type of narcissistic offense that you might not even have a clue exists with a narcissist.
A narcissist can be offended with just about anything that you do or say. Sometimes the offense occurs without your doing anything. Your breathing can be an offense to a narcissist, and I am not joking nor being sarcastic when I say this. You are damned if you do and most certainly damned if you do not.
A narcissist can take hold of an offense with a strong grasp and never let go. You may often not know that a narcissist is holding an offense against you because there are sometimes no indications of this. Yet, at the same time, there will often be signs of a narcissist’s offense.
Usually, an offended narcissist is angry. Sometimes the anger is just below the surface and cannot be readily detected unless you pull back a layer or two. Sometimes, you might notice that a narcissist is irritable without a seemingly logical reason. Other times, you might detect irritability and annoyance within the tone and sound of a narcissist’s voice.
The silent treatment is another indication that a narcissist has taken some type of offense against you or even someone else. In fact, any tactic that a narcissist takes against you is usually the result of some offense they harbor and nurse. The offense could be for a number of reasons but mainly a narcissist might be offended simply because you are not bowing to the control of their agenda.
However, you may not always be the culprit of a narcissist’s offense. The offense might even be just a projection onto you. Most often, a narcissist will internalize that you have done something that has offended them even if you were defending yourself. Truly, there is never any rhyme or reason to a narcissist’s offense. A narcissist is most often offended by something all the time.
Holding Onto An Offense Like A Narcissistic Injury
A narcissist holds onto an offense like a narcissistic injury. In fact, an offense to a narcissist often is a narcissistic injury, and a narcissist does not take a narcissistic injury lightly. The longer a narcissist holds an offense, the angrier a narcissist becomes until at some point there is a raging explosion against you.
I have experienced this rage countless times from different narcissists. They had all silently withheld an offense against me, and when I confronted each one to enquire what was wrong, I came to learn that the offense was almost always an old and longstanding one. It was not even something that happened recently but something that was held onto from a long time ago that they never addressed with me.
Whenever I would seek the reasoning behind their withholding this information from me, each of these narcissists basically said the same thing … that they thought I knew I had offended them. Mind you, I am quite intuitive and highly sensitive to things and people within the environment. There are times when I am more sensitive than others – hypersensitive even, but there have been too many occasions that I have missed causing a narcissistic injury to a narcissist, and most often those injuries occurred to them even when I meant them no harm.
After recognizing my faults in those situations, I would always immediately apologize, but that apology was a lot too late for the narcissists. Even though they might have accepted my apology, I could always tell that they still held a grudge against me. The only thing that would suffice to them is me applying for and paying to them some heavy penance of my company. Basically, my penance would be in the form of giving them even more supply – supply that I was often too tired to give them.
Forget About Your Offenses
The interesting thing is that a narcissist will be quick to omit any offenses caused against you. All that you should be concerned about is how much you offended the narcissist. There is never any reciprocity, and if you call them out on it, then you are portrayed as the villain. In fact, you will become more villainized as the narcissist continues to nurse their offense against you.
Forget about your offenses. They do not matter as long as a narcissist is holding an offense of their own. In fact, a narcissist will use the offense you caused against them to counteract the offense they caused against you no matter how current the offense. It is crazy! You will never get an apology or any acknowledgment that they even caused you an offense without some lame excuse. Yet, all the while, a narcissist will expect an apology from you.
A narcissist holds an offense like a narcissistic injury because an offense injures them in ways that the normal person cannot imagine. There is no reasoning with a narcissist no matter how old the offense, and almost no apology you give them will ever be acceptable to them. Even if the offense is never mentioned to you or if you never have an idea that you have offended a narcissist, you will forever be held accountable for their injury. Believe that because it is true.
My Voice Unchained 