Concept: While secret digging, narcissists often seek the most valuable information from victims—past traumas (childhood ones are particularly valuable) and life goals. This provides information on a victim’s triggers (i.e., those scenarios or behavioral patterns that remind the victim of the past trauma and cause them to relive the stress of the trauma) and wants. Triggers will allow a narcissist to design behavioral patterns to deliberately put their victim into a near-instantaneous state of heightened anxiety.

How this leads to greater control over a victim: The heightened stress creates an intense discomfort and a willingness to capitulate to demands to ease the disturbing conditions. If the narcissist is called out on this behavior, pleading ignorance is likely to work, given the insidious nature of their attack and the assumed moral limits another would have on intentionally doing this.

Examples:

1. A husband notes that whenever he stands over his wife and stretches his hands upward, her eyes widen, and she starts breathing heavily. Realizing that this is the stance her past attacker took, he recreates this pattern every time she refuses a request, which usually reverses her decision.
2. Whenever Harry’s wife wants something, she talks in a childish voice, knowing it makes him recall his neglect-filled childhood and, therefore, more likely to comply out of gratitude for the attention that he lacked then.
3. Ruthie knows her son can never say no when she says, “Oh, your poor mother worked herself to the bone to raise you, and all I want is a day with my son, and you can’t give that to me.” After she says this, he cancels his plans for his wife’s birthday.

Advice: If anyone more than once makes you feel like you did when you experienced trauma, question whether this is deliberate. If you can’t easily dispute the idea, it’s probably time to think about how to leave the relationship. Someone with any moral boundaries could never perform this act.

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