How narcissist’s use baiting to get an emotional reaction and why they use it

One of the common narcissistic tendencies is baiting. Narcissistic individuals love getting attention – because attention is narcissistic supply, and it confirms to the narcissist’s ego that he or she is valid, alive and exists.

Because a narcissistic personality is a constructed False Self,this ‘idealised version of self’ requires constant validation. What this means is the narcissistic personality cannot just ‘be’, and does not have the resources to bepeaceful, happy or content.

The narcissistic individual needs energy from people - for them to acknowledge that the narcissist exists, and reflect back to him or her that the narcissist is in fact the centre of their Universe for better or for worse.

If a narcissistic individual is not receiving attention, then the narcissistic tendency (in fact essential need) it to procure narcissisticsupply – and the narcissist will use any tactic necessary to gain necessary attention.

Othernarcissistic tendencies include the need to ‘anger dump’. The narcissist projects his or her self-annihilating inner pain onto others – in order to receive temporary offload from this pain. Whilst doing this the narcissist gets to fulfil two emotional functions – get some emotional relief by projecting and assigning his or her wounds on to someone else, and also the ability to gain a great deal of significance (attention) whilst doing this (narcissistic supply).

Because the narcissisticindividual has already hooked the people that he or she projects on to – these people generally don’t look after themselves sufficiently enough to flee the scene. They generally stand and argue, fight for sensibility, compassion, integrity and decency, and are significantly distressed and adversely affected by the narcissisticindividual.

Narcissistic individuals are experts at baiting to gain emotional reactions– simply because they are experts at gaining necessary supply. Baiting may include a cryptic text after a period of No Contact –something to get people’s heads ticking and make contact as a result of having to know the answer. The narcissist may out of the blue make a horrible commentin order to get a reaction. In fact the narcissist will use any tactic to bait someone, gain attention, and extract narcissistic supply.

Anarcissist’s emotional survival requires ‘baiting’ – which includes manipulating, or pathologically gaining energy through any means possible, without boundaries or conscience in order to gain energy - to try to feel some ‘worthiness’ and ‘existence’.

The one thing that a narcissistic individual cannot tolerate is being ignored. This is the ultimate ego wound to a narcissist. However, even when a narcissist is ignored, true to form, the narcissist will carry on and create other necessary sources of narcissistic supply to compensate for this ‘void’.