Satan always tries to stir you up, manipulate and control you in an unguarded moment and you are most unguarded as you are just coming awake. I can wake thinking about something I don’t even care about any longer. He tries to set the mood for your morning as turmoil and remembered resentments. It used to work marvelously on me and I could spend an entire morning journaling resentments rather than collecting the dew of the morning.
It’s no surprise to me any more to see that covert narcissists use the same tactic of catching you in an unguarded moment to get a concession or promise or agreement to something they want. This will sound unfair to some I’m sure but that tactic seems to me to skew heavily female. I’m not saying there are more female CN’s than male, just that this PARTICULAR tactic seems to skew female. Think along the lines of a woman catering to her husbands’ stomach with a nice meal, waiting until he is full, relaxed, drowsy from carbs and unwinding on the couch before she approaches him with a beer and the suggestion of new kitchen countertops or a big area rug and new chair. And no, using that tactic does not mean your wife is a CN and it helps to know that CN is a scale and we all use some of the tactics at times to try to get what we want. A man can use them because he wants a new car rather than countertops. It’s just….seeing someone is in an unguarded and pliable state and then putting forth your petition.
To be an actual and full blown CN, using the tactics has to be persistent and pervasive over time and involve flying monkeys and involve destroying truth tellers, usually mentally and emotionally, but steal, destroy or murder are the goal. A good Bible story to show a CN is the one of Herods wife and daughter. She sent the daughter (her flying monkey) to please Herod with a dance after he’d feasted and drank and was relaxed and unguarded and got a concession/promise from him that he later regretted but felt he couldn’t extricate himself from. She didn’t want new countertops, she wanted John destroyed, murdered, because he told the truth about their marriage and CN’s HATE the truth. She didn’t technically murder John because a CN can ALWAYS wipe their mouth and say no one has caught them cheating or doing anything wrong. That’s what the “covert” part means.
It’s hard to see that someone you love and care about does evil, never has your best interests in mind but only their desires, and most often hates you - to see they are a full blown and diagnosable CN. The tactics we all employ at times to get our way are a part of the useless way of life/“conversation” we have been taught by our parents. God hates them. He hates manipulation.
