Narcissists put you down at every opportunity. They have such a huge ego and staunch belief in their superiority that often they end up overestimating their own abilities and intelligence. When narcissists think they are good, it directly translates to the narcissist underestimating you.
If you’re intelligent enough and have the perspective to see this flaw in the character of the narcissist, you can exploit it to your advantage. When a narcissist underestimates you, you will be able to see right through their schemes and strategies.
You may find this unbelievable. All this while, you have been under the impression that the narcissist is extremely cunning and calculating. Why would they try to deceive you with such simple and easy-to-spot tricks? To understand narcissistic abuse, you need to understand narcissistic traits and how the mind of a narcissist works.
Though they are crafty and evil-minded, they have such complete belief in their capabilities and cleverness that they become oblivious to the flaws in their schemes. Like a young child, they’ll try to trick and cheat, with complete assurance of not getting caught.
Their puffed-up ego is to be blamed for this. They feel smug, superior, and complacent. They never consider the eventuality of being discovered.
As the victim of narcissistic abuse, you can exploit this character flaw if you’re smart enough. The trick is to act normal and allow the narcissist to think that they’ve fooled you. Then, you can do your own scheming and pull off a coup over the narcissist when they least expect it.
This article focuses on this particular character flaw of a narcissist. Here you will find how you can take advantage of the situation by keeping your ears and eyes open and your brain ticking. In this article, you find a list of things that happen when a narcissist underestimates you.
5 Things That Happen When a Narcissist Underestimates You
If you pay enough attention to the methods and workings of a narcissist and how they carry out narcissistic abuse, you would be surprised at how simple a trick they use and how easily they keep you under their control. You would be like, “Oh my God! Why did I fall for it?”.
But if you think that you can spot their simple tricks and strategies easily, you’re fooling yourself. Because of the devastating effect that narcissistic abuse has on you, you might be expecting something more intelligent and sophisticated. You might easily miss their simple maneuvers.
So, if you want to take this route to bring down the narcissist, it would help if you don’t underestimate them.
Let’s see how you can trap a narcissist who underestimates you.
1. You gain courage.
The narcissist has been working on you for a while now and conditioned you well enough to obey their wishes and commands without a murmur. They have such complete hold over you that they will never expect you to have the courage to fight back or leave them.
On your part, you can continue to play the role of a demure and obedient partner to keep the narcissist satisfied. This way, you can keep them under the false assurance of your consent and acquiescence. All the while, you can gather your strength and courage to put up resistance or break free.
This strategy will help in keeping the narcissist off your back. As long as they are not wise to your plans, they will not do anything special to keep you down. You can expect only the regular stuff from them.
The only way you can subdue a narcissist is by taking them by surprise. Stunning and shocking them into silence should be your strategy. When you are ready to spring your surprise on the narcissist, ensure that you are fully prepared for the showdown.
If you can manage to shock them, you are gaining the upper hand and taking control of the situation, at least for a while. Make sure that you escape the narcissistic abuse before they come to their senses and gather their wits to retaliate.
2. They give you respect.
You must be asking, “Am I reading this right?”
It’s true. When you manage to beat a narcissistic personality at their own game, you may end up earning their respect. Just remember that this is a possibility with some narcissists sometimes. This may not always work.
When you manage to outwit a narcissist, they may not immediately accept that they have been outsmarted by you. Their first reaction would be to throw a fit or lash out at you. If you are well-prepared for this, you may be able to stand your ground and not give up your advantage.
A narcissist raving and raging can best be equated to a toddler throwing tantrums. They may do things that have no logic or reason or something utterly ridiculous. They may have tried this kind of narcissistic abuse with you in the past and it must have worked. So the narcissist would be confident that they can use the same strategy on you again.
However, now, you are wise to the workings of a narcissistic personality and not going to fall for their tricks. You can just be quiet and watch the show with patience. Ultimately, when they have gone too far, they will get tired of it all and decide to give up and give in.
They will realize that their acts have no effect on you and will not work. They can no longer manipulate and control you as they did earlier. Their narcissistic traits have lost their edge and no longer work with you. They develop respect for you.
3. They start fearing you.
When a narcissist underestimates you and you retaliate, they realize that they cannot use their narcissistic traits and play their dirty tricks on you as you are wise to their strategies. They accept that you have gained perspective and become enlightened. Since you are showing the strength, resolve, and resilience to fight back, they understand that their game is up.
Despite your winning this round, the narcissist would still want to continue the relationship, hoping to regain control over you with new tricks. However, unlike earlier, they won’t be smug and self-assured anymore. In fact, they will start fearing you, though they will do their best to hide this from you.
You managed to expose their lies and scored a decisive victory over the narcissist. Though they don’t want to, the narcissist will grudgingly admit your win. At the same time, they will be concerned about your future moves. Will you decide to leave them? Or use this against them?
Now the mental tussle is between you and the narcissistic personality on who’ll win the next round. Even though you’ve exposed your strategy and intelligence, you can still keep up the pressure on the narcissist and keep them subdued. On the other hand, the narcissist will be more careful about fooling and tricking you in the future as their narcissistic awareness tells them that you are intelligent.
You can have the upper hand in the relationship if you play it out right. Put just enough pressure to keep them in check but not too much to make them explode in anger or make the narcissist ruin your life.
4. You gain power and strength.
Now, narcissistic awareness drives home the point that they cannot walk all over you or deny you things like they used to do earlier. As they cannot live without you, their narcissistic supply, they will do anything to keep you with them. That makes you the dominant one in the relationship. You are now in a position to call the shots.
However, this arrangement may not last for long. Because their narcissistic traits don’t allow them to play second fiddle in the relationship forever. Maybe for a short while to gain your confidence or to keep you happy. But at some point, their true character will make a comeback. Now, with you ready to fight back, the scene can get quite ugly.
The relationship may survive for some more time, but ultimately, it will die a natural death. Either of you will decide to move on.
5. They will find a better victim and leave you.
Once you reveal your strength and power, you stand exposed. You’re no longer of use to the narcissist. You are not a good narcissistic supply anymore. The narcissist may take some time to recognize this and start searching for a new narcissistic supply.
A narcissistic personality can survive only by feeding off a narcissistic supply. With you showing the will to fight back and the narcissist fearing you, they have no hope of controlling or manipulating you in the future. So, you’re worthless as a narcissistic supply.
Their narcissistic traits may not allow them to easily accept defeat or give up control over you, even after all this. But when slowly the truth dawns on them, they will start searching for a better narcissistic supply. Once they manage to trap someone, they will leave you.
Final thoughts on when a narcissist underestimates you
When a narcissist underestimates you, you may work in the background gathering forces to spring a surprise on them. Before you make your move, you should ensure that you are fully ready for what happens next. You can expect a good fightback from the narcissist to retain their control over you.
If you can stand firm and hold your ground, you can manage to escape the stranglehold of narcissistic abuse without too much hassle. Most probably, they will leave you once they trap their next victim.
It cannot get better for you than this.
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