Sabotage is one of the tools narcissists use to tear other people down, manipulate behaviors, and serve their own needs. They’re adept at operating in the shadows and disgusting their true intentions, so their abuse and toxic behaviors go unnoticed or are deemed harmless and unintended. If you have a feeling that you might be dealing with a narcissist who wants to pull you down, watch out for these underhanded strategies that they may use to thwart your success behind your back.
1. Screwing up your plans or schedule
They invite friends over for a hangout on your day off, even though they knew you planned to spend the day resting or visiting your parents. If you complain, they say they forgot about your plans, they just wanted to do a nice thing, or that you’ll be the bad guy if you cancel. They might come up with reasons to make you late for something important, invent an emergency to make you cut a trip short and come home early, or fail to keep promises they know will have a disruptive effect on your plans.
2. Making you seem unstable
They’ll set up situations that cause you to explode or act out of character so they can then play the role of caring mother, friend, colleague, or spouse who has to put up with your misbehavior. They might even twist truthful events or details to make you look bad by leaving out key information that’d explain your actions, causing people to have doubts about your character or emotional state.
3. Hiding important things so you can’t find them
A narcissistic partner might hide your passport when you have an important trip coming up and then help you tear the house apart looking for it, so you end up missing out on that opportunity. A narcissistic colleague might steal important files to make you look back in front of clients, higher-ups, or other coworkers. These behaviors are purposeful ways to sabotage you, and they’re incredibly damaging, Psych Central warns.
4. Spinning stories about how you’re incompetent
One of the ways a narcissist might try to sabotage you when you’re not looking is by telling people stories or misrepresenting facts to make you appear unfit or incapable of doing things right. They’ll exaggerate your forgetfulness or mistakes you’ve made and make belittling comments about your capabilities. They might even directly accuse you of performing poorly at your job or failing at being a good parent, even though there’s no proof of that.
5. Moving the goalposts so you never feel good enough
The only way for a narcissist to feel superior and in control when they can’t compete with your success, is to make your achievements seem less than. While other people are celebrating you for landing a huge client or getting your work published in a renowned publication, they’ll be in the background criticizing how insensitive what you wrote about was, or how getting investor funding should be more of a priority than signing up one new customer. In other words, they want you to make sure any success you achieve is never quite enough and that you should be doing more.
6. “Accidentally” doing things that cause you to lose face
You might be working on a big account and a narcissistic coworker “mistakenly” deletes files that you need to get the job done, causing significant delays or even cancellation of the project. They always leave room for plausible deniability, making it difficult for you to prove that their actions were malicious and not an innocent error, Psychology Today warns.
7. Engineering situations where you have to choose between them and your career
Say you have an important presentation that day, a narcissist may suddenly have a health episode or an emotional breakdown, requiring you to come take care of them. They know you’re studying for exams, but they’d choose that time to ask for your help with something. They’ll start drama whenever they see you stepping into the spotlight or reaching for your goals to distract you from that, hoping it’d lead to your downfall.
8. Depriving you of sleep
I know someone whose ex would try to prevent her from getting a good night’s rest whenever she had something important coming up the next day. He’d play music loudly after she went to bed and pretend she was overreacting when she woke up to complain. Sometimes, he’d act like he needed her help with something urgent when he saw she was getting ready to go to bed or start a fight that lasted all night, ensuring she barely got enough rest. As a result, she’d have to cancel or settle for not being at her best the following day.
9. Launching a smear campaign against you
It’s not uncommon for narcissists to spread rumors about you behind your back. They’ll make up all kinds of stories to gain sympathy and paint you in a negative light. By the time you catch on to what they’re doing and try to speak up for yourself, you may find that your reputation has already been tarnished, and few people believe your version of events.
10. Abusing or destabilizing your finances
A narcissist might promise to invest in your business if you can prove that you’re committed to the idea, but once you’ve rented a space, stocked up on inventory, or satisfied the criteria they’ve set, they pull out of the deal, leaving you to deal with the financial repercussions. In some other instances, they may spend your money irresponsibly, take a second mortgage, make big purchases, steal from your retirement account, keep bills a secret, or get a new credit card in your name and max it out without informing you.
11. Isolating you in social circles
When they see you achieving success or getting attention, their feelings of envy and inadequacy get triggered. The narcissist might respond by trying to engineer conflict in your social circle so that you become excluded or ostracized. They may spread lies about other people, claiming they heard it from you. They could even pay you backhanded compliments or use covert put-downs whenever your name or achievements get brought up or recruit others to mock, bully, shame, or silence you even when they’re not around.
12. Dimming your light so they can outshine you
When they see you getting things they admire or desire, narcissists can get super jealous and go into rival mode, MindBodyGreen explains. They’ll try to attack and diminish the things that make you stand out. If they’re your friend, family, or partner, they might share unflattering photos or stories about you when people are gathered to celebrate you. Your colleague may immediately change the topic or do something to make themselves the center of attention when they see you getting recognition or praise from other coworkers.
13. Minimizing and misattributing their achievements
No matter what you achieve, the narcissist will never admit that you earned it through your force of talent, merit, or hard work. They’ll go about explaining to people that your success is due to chance, luck, pretty privilege, or who your parents are. They’ll keep highlighting external influences that contributed to your success to make you seem inadequate and undeserving.
14. Disclosing your secrets and personal information
All that matters to a narcissist is how they can protect their image while plotting against you and trying to gain control over you or a given situation. They won’t shy away from sharing your struggles and using your insecurities, poor decisions, or things that may have been told to them in confidence against you. Oh, you once had a drinking problem? They’ll find a way to slip that into conversation while talking to your boss.
15. Creating chaos so they can save the day
Narcissistic people are experts at manufacturing confusion and stressful situations to keep you distracted and scrambling. They’ll do and say things to your face to keep you encouraged while they go behind to undermine any progress you’re making. They may even help you find solutions to problems that they created, so they come out looking like the hero, and you’re the person who needed rescuing again.
Enjoy this piece? Give it a like and follow PsychLove on MSN for more!
