Narcissists have to be “Winning” every interaction

This is true of all 4 narcs I’ve had the displeasure of being subordinate to.

KDouche would say, “We need more” a vague and maddening sentence that didn’t make sense given the facts. There was no more, and I had established that by showing him I had included every detail. And he knew that. But he had called me out (probably without reading or any kind of research) so he couldn’t admit his mistake. He had to “win” even though there was no more I could have included, and we both knew it. I kept asking what other piece of information he wanted, and he just repeated, “more.” He had to have the final say, and nobody was winning.

Jogre is an example of how narcs will even hurt themselves in order to “win” over you. I got an audit. I showed on the workflow how this was actually processed correctly. Audits count against the whole team, so you don’t want them, and your team leadership should rebut incorrect ones. Everyone’s bonus check is impacted by audits. But Jogre hadn’t initially read/understood so instead of submitting my audit and the steps I showed, she had to one-up me in order to “beat” me. She refused to submit the rebuttal, even though the audit was shown to be incorrectly applied. And even if it hadn’t been-what did she care?! It was MY audit. So I took an audit, and the team was marked down. Because Jogre had to show she was better than me. We both lost (when we didn’t have to) so she could “win” against me.

Instead of genuinely trying to help me be a better processor, it was almost like MNarc was trying to show how much smarter and more capable she was. Which I already knew. She had been in the market a long time so had all the “tribal knowledge” and she was promoted to supervisor. But she made “helping” me into a competition between us. It wasn’t enough to reach the correct answer at the end of a claim. MNarc had to micromanage every click. If I looked at a different screen than she did (same info) it was a problem. If I sped over non-applicable boxes in the workflow quickly, and she didn’t understand how I had “jumped” from there to here, I was “wrong” and confused. If I followed the workflow, but MNarc didn’t agree with the workflow, I was dumb and the workflow needed amending. It wasn’t helping, she was trying to knock me down and elevate herself. And that was the point-she had to prove to me that she was the best and I sucked.

Because I wasn’t yet a target, I got to see a little behind the curtain with MenNarc. She saw everything as a power play, and was constantly guarding hers. I’m not sure she realized that most people weren’t thinking in that same way. Because she angled to be the most powerful in every situation, I think she thought everyone else was intentionally trying to “win” too. She could lash out disproportionately to prove her power and was resentful with people (that she perceived) who tried to take the power. I had never thought about power dynamics so much!

And MenNarc always spoke about losers. Everyone was a loser to her. Don’t be a loser. Somebody didn’t go to college-loser. A friend got divorced-loser. Someone moved into a trailer-loser. People were very specifically categorized to her: Winners, losers, nobodys. I did not want her to see me as a loser! And when I didn’t get accepted into vet school, that was one of my biggest disappointments, knowing MenNarc now thought I was a loser.

She would always advise me to “play the game” when I had an authentic reaction. She thought I should “schmooze” people more and tell them what they want to hear–even if that’s not how I felt and not what I was going to do. I never really felt comfortable with that, and couldn’t really bring myself to be phony.

Going into every interaction like it’s a game or competition is exhausting. I don’t know how the narcs do it! Thinking ahead, trying to guess the problems before they occurred, trying to be as unthreatening as possible, gets old. And I honestly hope I never have to deal with a narcissist again. The winners and losers mentality alone takes up so much mental space.