They would never admit it, but the narcissist is afraid of you. You are part of their inner circle and can see the flaws they hide from the world. You are someone who has called them out before for their actions and have held them accountable for their own behavior. You are the person who can influence their carefully crafted reality in a way which exposes them as the fraud they are. The narcissist is afraid of you, and that is why they can be so brutal when around you. You are a threat to them, and they can’t risk being called out for their controlling and manipulative ways.
The narcissist must always be in control of everything and everyone around them. This tight grasp on everything is a survival method for them. It is how they protect their unstable senses of self and exposure to feelings of shame which leads to narcissistic injury, and possible narcissistic collapse. Not controlling everything isn’t an option for the narcissist. And if there is someone or something in their life which they feel could impede their ability to control, they will push back by using one of their narcissistic punishment tactics. The narcissist has a deep fear of losing control and then being exposed as a fraud.
They know how much power you hold in being able to tell others they are a fraud. You have so much power because in the eyes of the narcissist, you can single-handedly expose their lies.
Of course, the narcissist would never tell you that fear of theirs; but it is always present. You are their worst enemy because you can be their biggest exposer. Anyone who they view as a threat to them maintaining the façade they have carefully crafted, becomes the enemy. You hold so much power in the narcissist’s eyes, even if you have no intention of wielding that power. Remember, it is all based on what the narcissist thinks and fears, and not based in reality.
Because the narcissist is afraid of you, they need as much of a buffer as possible to prevent the exposure they think is always imminent. This is why they are always in a defensive mode. The narcissist carefully chooses their defensive strategies from their playbook of control. One person, or group of people, they recruit to help them feel safe are flying monkeys. The flying monkeys are people the narcissist can have at the ready to do their dirty work. They actively work in finding people who will side with them and help them enact their controlling ways. The more flying monkeys they have at the ready, the safer they feel.
The narcissist wants you to think they are superior, flawless, and all knowing. The reality, however, is that they exist in a constant state of fear. The possibility that people will see through their façade, or somehow mess up their meticulously planned control of the world around them, is a very real fear of theirs. They would never let you know this, but it is a fear they have every single day. The narcissist uses projection as a defense mechanism. What they project onto you is one of their own fears in themselves they are trying to protect against.
There is no excuse for the narcissist’s manipulative and abusive ways, but it can help you to understand them if you know WHY they act the way they do. When they go silent, rage, or use any of their other narcissistic punishment tactics, it isn’t because of you or something you did wrong. It is completely about them and no one else. Someone or something has somehow impacted their tight control and they scramble to do whatever they can to protect from things spinning out of control to a point they can’t recover from. And during all of this, the narcissist would never admit that is what is happening, and most definitely won’t ask for help. Instead, they choose to target you, the person closest to them, because you are an easy target.
The narcissist is afraid of you because of the power they think you hold in ruining their lives. It will always be someone else’s fault and never theirs, so their fear is valid. They must keep people at a distance to protect themselves against being exposed.