Excuses and the Narcissist

They avoid accountability at all cost

Photo by Jonatán Becerra on Unsplash

Narcissists can’t give you a straight answer. Their game is to avoid being held accountable for anything. You can tell they are up to something if they won’t answer a simple question. Their inability to give an answer is your clue that they are planning something or avoiding being held accountable.

A common tactic is for them to use “we” when they are letting you know what they will be doing. Using “we” gives them a way out of anything in the future. One way the narcissist I have to communicate with does this is through email. Example: “We will be taking the children to Disneyland out of state for three days” They can simply blame anyone but themselves since “they” weren’t the only ones doing the thing.

Once you know someone is a narcissist you can start studying their patterns to see how they avoid accountability. It’s very similar to a lying child and should be easy to see when you can begin to believe they really are just giant children.

Narcissists portray themselves as perfect. In their minds, that means they never do anything wrong. If they avoid accountability by keeping what they do a secret, never giving a straight answer, and always having a scapegoat to take the fall they can remain “perfect”. This is part of the reason having a constructive conversation with them is so difficult. They aren’t interested in personal growth and will spend the whole discussion running in circles from your concern. They literally turn into the dog chasing its tail to get out of an uncomfortable situation. Or maybe we end up like the dog chasing its tail? Either way, you can see how this would make a sane person feel insane.

Another way for them to avoid accountability is to hide what they do. They are masters at keeping secrets. Does anyone in their life even know what they do on a day-to-day basis? If they hide even their innocent actions from you they have more to fall back on when you try to find out why they didn’t come home until midnight. They can reference…