Narcissist Sweet / Mean Cycle

This video is an excellent explanation of the narcissist Sweet / Mean Cycle. The Sweet / Mean Cycle is a manipulative tactic used by toxic people to control you. If you fall for the sweet / mean cycle, you will become confused as you diminish yourself, deny your own needs AND work overtime to make the toxic person happy at your own expense.

The Sweet Mean Cycle is a process the toxic person uses to gain control of their victims. The victim is generally someone who has been abused this way growing up who is groomed to give up their rights and be a puppet to external sources.

This intermittent reinforcement of sometimes nice sometimes mean creates a split in the victim's psyche that sucks up energy and causes one to lose their grip on their own identity, worth and value.

IT TAKES 2 TO TANGO
 
The Sweet Mean Cycle is used by the Perpetrator in the Drama Triangle to entangle his or her victim. Once enthralled, these two people dance around in recurrent roles of Victim, Perpetrator, Rescuer. Each wears masks while making the other responsible for their own feelings. Make no mistake. This is a dance on the part of the Perpetrator who uses the manipulative Sweet / Mean Cycle, and the victim who allows it to happen by abandoning his or her self.

This abusive relationship heads downhill fast with the one who has the most power gaining control and benefit. The one who gives his or her power away suffers most.

5 Steps for Protecting Yourself From Future Narcissists

It is not always easy to recognize a narcissist. This is because the narcissist is very charming and flattering and seems to be everything you want in another person at first. When you are swept up in the narcissists lair, you are like a mouse with a lot of cheese in a mouse trap. You just can't resist until the trap snaps and you're caught.

Narcissists are especially adept at picking up on cues that you need something. Perhaps you have unmet needs left over from childhood. Maybe you feel insecure, unworthy, unlovable, or like something is wrong. The narcissist picks up on this and begins to feed you in the ways that you need. He gives you compliments about things you were uncertain about before. He seems to hang on your every word--which really fills your need for attention. She makes you feel she values you, which helps you to feel like a valuable person. When the narcissist is idealizing you, it feels euphoric. It can literally make you high because of the chemical hormones your body secretes.

This feeling of getting your needs met it very short lived. Eventually the narcissist will discard you and it will erase everything. Not only will you be left with the pain of the original feelings of insecurity, but you will be left with the pain that while you thought you were valuable when he or she was loving you, all that was not true. Hence, you are wounded a thousand times and the hurt is very deep.

You must protect yourself from this happening again. I can't promise you it won't happen, but I promise you that you'll get wiser during this process.

Step 1: Face Reality

The first part of healing from the narcissist is to face reality. This is hard to do, but it is the ultimate necessity for getting out of the Sweet / Mean Cycle Trap. Read this article to learn more about Understanding that the Narcissist Doesn't Love You.

Step 2: No Contact

The only way to deal with a malignant narcissist is NO CONTACT.  No contact means NO CONTACT. This means remove the narcissist and all their fawns from your social media accounts. Forget his phone number. Block him from your life 100%. No exceptions. Every time you engage with the narc, he gets an ego boost and you get stabbed in the heart. Put a stop to this immediately. If you contact the narcissist or allow contact, you are the one who is hurting yourself. Stop that.

Step 3: Get Help for Your Issues 
There is a reason you fell for a narcissist. Chances are, you have a narcissistic parent or you're codependent or in some way maligned from childhood development. Maybe you were abused as a child or were raised in a dysfunctional family? Whatever the case, now is the time to get some help for whatever ails you. Seek out a quality therapist who has experience with narcissistic abuse. Unless you get help for the parts of you that weakens you to the narcissist's manipulation, you will be prone to fall for another narcissist and get hurt all over again.
 
Step 4: Fortify Yourself

Now is the time to fortify yourself. This means you need to build ego-strength. You need to fill in the holes within yourself that make you susceptible to the narcissist's abuse and manipulation. You need to become whole in yourself so that you don't need anything that the narc tries to provide. This means you have strong boundaries and you know how to set limits. This means you know how to assert your needs and expect to get your needs met. A whole person does not easily fall for the narcissist.

Step 4: Get in Tune with Your Intuition

Your intuition will tell you who is right and who is wrong. Unfortunately, many of us ignore our intuition completely. If you had difficulties growing up, you may have an intuition that is off the mark. You need to get really strong at paying attention to your inner feelings and instincts as these are a protection against unscrupulous users.

Step 5: Learn to Discern Real From Fake

Real love is sustaining. When someone really cares about you, there are certain words they use, things they say, things they do that make them real. The real person is not perfect... does not say everything just how you want to hear it. The real person will show weaknesses--the fake person will hide weaknesses and show you only what you want to see. Learn to appreciate the realness of others and gravitate to people who are capable of real unconditional love and empathy.

There you have it. The five steps. There is lots involved with these 5 steps, perhaps I'll do a video and more articles on this topic. Would love to hear from you if this article is helpful, or if you have other questions. Follow us on Facebook. Join our Facebook Group and love yourself more every day.

~ Jenna

Narcissists Cannot Validate Consistently

Invalidation is one of the central methods of covert narcissistic abuse. The Narcissist simply CANNOT validate anyone consistently. For the Narcissist to validate your personal truth would be for you to cease being an object; and cease being an extension of themselves. You see, Narcissists see others as objects to be used for their own benefit, not as individual beings. If they validate your truth, it will mean that they themselves do not exist. It is only by pathologically turning others into objects to use and exploit that they experience any sense of self.

Please see my article on Validating Your Truth here.

A Narcissist is programmed (due to developmental trauma) to knock you over, kick you off center, cause you to be confused and not know who you are without them telling you who you are. Also, if the Narcissist were to validate you, then you would be strengthened enough to realize what it is that they're doing. They simply cannot support you in connecting to your own truth because doing so would strengthen your identity (ego) and make you immune to their manipulations.

The child of the narcissist is hurt the most by the invalidation of these predators because the child never gets to learn who they are because the narcissist refuses to mirror the child's truth back to him or her, because doing so would mean that their child is an individual--and that's appalling to the narcissist who wishes to use their offspring as an object, source of narcissistic supply, and an extension of themselves to exploit as they so desire. The child of the narcissist will only be validated when doing so butters them up for later abuse by their mentally disordered parent.

Narcissists invalidate constantly, in fact, invalidation is at the root of almost every form of narc abuse:

• Gas Lighting - Abuse tactic to get you to question your own sanity (truth). This tact occurs in myriad ways; the end result is the questioning of ones own experience and feelings.
• Intermittent Reinforcement - Hot and cold treatment leaves victim confused and bewildered. When in the throws of the high times with the narcissist, one is happier than ever, then when the narcissist shows their bad side, it causes one to feel lower than ever. All this is done to confuse, entrap and disorient the victim so that he or she will be less likely to recognize exploitive behavior on the part of the narc.
• Silent Treatment - The Silent Treatment is a covert form of narcissistic abuse that also includes tactics such as ignoring, relegating to text contact, or any other form of subtle disrespect that is an attempt to punish you for not going along with the narcissists abuse--or offending the narcissist in any way. The Silent Treatment is a giant energy suck because it causes the victim to obsess over the reasons for the silence, and to reverse the energy by trying to get the narc's attention. The Silent Treatment is a covert psychological ambush that renders the victim more likely to be open to invalidation later when the nice narc finally decides you're worth talking to.
• Mimicry - The narcissist mirrors people to make them feel flattered, loved and special, however, the narcissist does not love anyone and doesn't think anyone is special except him or herself. Mimicry is a fake process the narcissist uses to trick you into thinking that he or she cares, and thus causes you to trust, empathize-with and rely on the narcissist even more.

Narcissists will, however, validate you during the idealization stage--or else who would give them their energy? However, as soon as narcissists have taken what they want, or gained the sense of power and control they are seeking, they naturally morph into the invalidating role intermittently, of course, just to keep you from noticing their thievery.

It has been my experience that people who are unable to validate your truth are narcissistic, and potentially malignant narcissists--it all depends on where they fall on the continuum. Still, knowing that narcissists cannot validate your truth consistently is a good way to weed out the takers from the good people in your life who are capable of respect, intimacy and validation.

The Fake Giver

Just when you think you've figured life out, whap! You get slapped up-side the face with a new one--least that's how my life seems to be... I've learned that there is yet another type of person in the world who will trip you up on your way to your life of bliss, and that is THE FAKE GIVER.

The Fake Giver is one who pretends to be a giver, much like the malignant narcissist who flatters during the idealization stage. The Fake Giver pretends to be on your side, like they care about you, like they have empathy, like they have mounds of generosity in their soul, only to grab everything back like a stingy miser once they have you fooled.

The Fake Giver hooks you with the pretense that they care about you. If you're a giver like me, you are prey to people who will use and abuse you using covert tactics where they dangle the carrot of promised return in front of your face. Unfortunately, the return never comes and if you're naive to these types, you may end up with a negative balance of your own self esteem and removed from the path towards your highest good.

The hook is the way The Fake Giver pretends, fawns over you, offers you a ride, likes one of your photos on Facebook, sends you flowers, helps you move, calls every day... These actions are trust points that weaken your defenses and leave you open as easy prey for the unscrupulous pretenders out there.

Just being generous is not enough to prove one to be a Fake Giver. It's hard to decipher who is real and who has an agenda to steal your mojo.

• Overly enamored with you early on in relationship - If it's too good to be true, it usually is.
• Gives and then pulls back - This is intermittent reinforcement. 
• Says things to get you to fall in love with them.
• Gives you products to entice you to purchase something.
• Pretends to be your friend, but has secret agenda.
• Makes offers to make themselves look good, while knowing that you would never accept.
• Buys you gifts or does selfless things for you without your reciprocation. (won't last)

Intermittent reinforcement is a powerful manipulative tactic that is used by The Fake Giver to gain control over his or her victim. They give, give, withdraw, give, withdraw, withdraw, withdraw, give, withdraw. This process makes engaging with them more like a slot machine in Las Vegas than a human to human interaction. You never know what you're going to get. It's human nature to "protest" or turn toward those who turn away, especially when you're in a close relationship. That's how our attachment system is wired. This is the starting point of addiction--addiction to takers and other toxic types.

The Fake Giver uses your love, kindness, compassion, empathy and neediness against you. He or she hooks you with intermittent reinforcement and other manipulative techniques. Before you know it, you find yourself obsessed with gaining the attention of one of these selfish weasels. Learn to recognize the Fake Giver. Start by confronting the lies during the emotional abuse grooming process (early on) to prevent being taken off track.