It’s not wrong, it’s just pointless.
The narcissist thrives on attention and drama. It doesn’t have to be positive attention such as praise and worship, it can also be fights and negativity. As long as they feel that they are getting a reaction out of you, that is the ‘nugget’ that will keep them engaged. They will keep poking you with a stick as long as you keep yelling ‘ouch’. If you take the stick and poke them with it, that’s still a connection and they still consider it a ‘win’. They can even take you poking them with a stick and create a nice ‘victim story’ for themselves that will attract even more narcissistic supply from others.
The other thing to remember about narcissists is that they are not mentally or emotionally equipped to see ’cause and effect’ as it relates to their behavior. A narcissist could show up hours late, hung over, and unprepared to work every day for a month and when she or he finally gets fired, they will concoct a fantasy story about how the boss was ‘jealous’ of their talent, or how the boss wanted to sleep with them and got turned down (this never happened, it is just a thing inside the narcissist’s mind), or a jealous coworker lied about them to get them fired…they are absolutely incapable of drawing the connection between their poor behavior and the consequences for the poor behavior. In fact, they are just incapable of self reflection of any kind.
So, if you have had enough of the narcissists mistreatment and abuse, hitting them back lets them ‘win’. Walking away and ignoring them for the rest of your life is the only way you can win. If it helps, think of the narc as a big pile of wet manure—if you kick it, the manure will not suffer, you will just get crap on your shoe. Not worth the effort. Just avoid them.
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Editing to add: Posts tagged 'quora' were originally my answers to peoples' questions on quora.com. They were monetized but I am giving them away for free here.
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