The game ends when someone wins by playing the last card of their “pay-off” pile. Suits (the normal order of things and\or common societal rules) are irrelevant in the game. The cards are arranged from low to high with the Kings being wild. This is a kind of competitive patience (solitaire) game for two players. You can be penalized for breaking the rules, even if they chose not to tell you the rules. They are the king or queen and, therefore, always win the game. The most important part to remember about this game is that no one can know the rules except the king or queen.Įither the king or queen gets to make up rules as they go along they don’t have to tell the other players the new rules and they can change the rules whenever it suits them. You don’t get to have face cards and if you do get an ace, it’s only worth one point. Even if you are 50 years old, you will still be treated like a child (a stupid child, a bad child, a silly child, etc.). In this popular game, you’re not allowed to ever reach the emotional age of 21.
Double points are earned when they manage to put all blame for anything bad onto the other player. The way the game is won is for them to try to turn everything about you, and everything you do, into a complete failure.Įxtra points are given when they can take all the credit for anything good that has ever happened and put it all in their own pot. This is a really fun game that all narcissists like to play! It involves destroying your soul, your ego, your accomplishments and any belief system you have that does not agree with their beliefs. Your perceptions of reality are continually undermined so that you end up without any confidence in your own intuition, memory, or reasoning. This is an extremely aggressive and infuriating tactic called “gaslighting”, a common technique used by abusers of all kinds. They will claim not to remember even unforgettable events, flatly deny they ever happened, and will never entertain the possibility that they might have forgotten. They’ll tell you that it’s obvious that you are the one who is crazy (and tell you that everyone around you agrees with them about you being crazy).
The game goes like this: you are told that you have an overly active imagination, you don’t know what you’re talking about, they have no idea what you’re talking about, or that you’re simply making things up to cause problems. This is a favorite game of narcissists…YOU are called crazy anytime you try to confront them, bring up past issues or behaviors, or expose them when they’re doing something appalling.
Narcissists perfectly execute an unexpected psychological pounce their purpose is to grind you down, to humiliate you, and make you feel small and inferior. He will suddenly tell you about his extraordinary new career move, a luxurious trip that he’s taking, or a huge shift in financial status that will make you feel even more diminished. These acts cause you to let your guard down just when you think there is a genuine give-and-take in your relationship, he pulls a fast one on you-a “gotcha”- most often when you’re at a low point. He appears to take you in, appears to understand what you are experiencing, and appears to genuinely be able to put himself in your shoes. The narcissist can be a master of phony empathy. He will either drop the person like a hot potato, try to punish the person, or run away. He then realizes he has no one to play with anymore. You can stop catching the ball and put it back in the narcissist’s court by setting boundaries and making him aware of his actions. To get away from them (or expose them), you always have to keep an eye on the ball i.e., their actions and motives for playing their games with you. The narcissist is a moving target and you are always on the firing line. Narcissists hope that by not taking responsibility for their own actions (by using blaming, shaming, projection, denial, etc.) their partner will do what they have always done-forgive the narcissist, make excuses for the narcissist’s behaviour, claim the narcissist couldn’t help himself because he was having a bad day, and so on.