What You Need to Know about Baiting and Narcissism Recovery

are you going to take the bait?

If you were raised by a parent with narcissistic traits, or if you know someone with narcissistic traits, you’re probably very familiar with baiting, even if you’ve never heard the term. Baiting—deliberately saying or doing something you’ll find upsetting in some way—is a tool people with narcissistic traits use often.

Given how often baiting happens, it’s not surprising the internet abounds with information about the types of narcissistic baiting. I don’t disagree with the internet that there are many types of baiting. But because what type of baiting you'll experience can be hard to predict, it makes more sense to me to recognize baiting as a tool that people with narcissistic traits commonly use, and know how to address it. So, let's take a look at baiting and narcissism recovery, so you can be prepared!

What is baiting?

Baiting, regardless of the type, is ultimately about power and control—one of the six tenets of narcissistic behavior. The aim of baiting is to refocus you away from how you think and feel, and instead, get you focused on what the other person is saying. Then, your focus becomes how the other person thinks and feels.

Once you stop thinking about how you think and feel, and focus instead on what the other person is saying, they are controlling the conversation. And because the things people with narcissistic traits say and do tend to be hurtful or fear-inducing, it can be hard to manage your emotions.

So, rather than trying to figure out what kind of baiting you’re dealing with, it makes more sense to ask, “Do I feel like I’m losing power or control?” if your answer is yes, check to see if you’re being baited. Here are a few common examples of narcissistic baiting:

• “I heard something about you at the party, but I guess you don’t want to hear it.”

• “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never done that.”

• “You’ve never loved me. If you loved me, you’d care about how I feel.”

• “After all I’ve done for you, I can’t believe you’re not willing to do this for me.”

• “I heard from one of our friends what you did. I can’t believe you did that. Do better next time.”

• “I don’t want to talk to you until you apologize for making me angry/hurting my feelings.”

  
  

Why learn to recognize baiting?

It doesn’t take long to go from feeling calm to feeling angry, hurt, scared, or guilty when you’re engaging with someone with narcissistic traits. This is especially true if you were raised by a parent with narcissistic traits. The person who was supposed to keep you safe was actually unsafe. You learned early in childhood to be alert for danger, and that makes it easy to be triggered by baiting.

In addition, as mentioned, there are many types of baiting. Baiting is often accomplished using other narcissistic tools, like displacement, projection, and King/Queen Baby. It may be helpful to identify exactly what’s happening, but it can get complicated trying to identify what’s happening when you’re engaging with someone with narcissistic traits.

Being able to quickly identify baiting allows you to immediately take steps to keep yourself emotionally safe. If you’re being baited, just recognizing “This person is trying to bait me…and I’m not going to take the bait!” creates some emotional distance between you and the other person. From there, you can start observing what kinds of tools the other person is using. That way, you can address the situation effectively, from a place of calmness.

How do you learn how to recognize baiting?

Instead of memorizing the different types of baiting, I have a simple (but challenging!) suggestion: When you engage with your person with narcissistic traits, stay connected to whether you are in emotional balance.

Engage from a place of feeling calm and confident, whether you’re about to read a text or engage in person. Then, as you engage, notice how you’re thinking and feeling.

The entire point of baiting is to upset your emotional balance, whether the intent is for you to feel angry, sad, fearful, or guilty. So, the antidote is simple. If you’re losing emotional balance, you’re probably being baited. It’s up to you to get out of your feelings brain, and back into your thinking brain. That way, you stay safely in your circle of control—where you belong!

What to do when you’re being baited

Sometimes clients tell me there’s no way they can be calm dealing with their person with narcissistic traits. I agree that it’s challenging! However, it can be done. Here are some suggestions to help you identify and address baiting as soon as it happens:

• Do your own therapeutic work. If you feel fearful thinking about dealing with your person with narcissistic traits, consider working with an attachment therapist, preferably one who specializes in narcissism recovery.

• Have reasonable expectations. Never expect your person with narcissistic traits to act like an emotional adult. They are unable to do so once they are out of emotional balance. Expect them to use displacement, projection, denial, gaslighting, etc., and you’ll find it much easier to stay in emotional balance when they do.

  
  

• Have appropriate boundaries. You can expect that your person with narcissistic traits will have immature giving boundaries and lack empathy. They will say and do hurtful things with no regard for your feelings. That means you need to have excellent receiving boundaries, so you aren’t affected by what they say to you. Likewise, you’ll need strong giving boundaries, so you aren’t saying and doing things you’ll regret later.

  
  

• Be aware of your personality type. For people with a moving toward personality type, the challenge here is remembering, always, that not everyone shares your belief that if you’re nice to them, they’ll be nice to you. If you have a moving away personality type, not everyone shares your belief that independence and detachment create safety in relationships.

  
  

  In contrast, people with a moving against personality type, which is the personality type necessary for narcissistic personality disorder, are focused on how they think and feel, and on meeting their wants and needs. They don't believe they should be nice so other people will be nice to them. Nor do they subscribe to the notion of independence and detachment as a way of creating safety. It's unrealistic to expect other personality types to be like you!

• Avoid overexplaining. When possible, ask a question if you're asked a question. For example, if your person with narcissistic traits says, “You’ve never loved me. If you loved me, you’d care about how I feel,” don't try to explain all the things you’ve done that prove how much you love them. Instead, consider a question like “How long have you felt unloved in our relationship?” or "When did you first start to feel that way?"

  
  

• Notice and manage your anger. There are two basic types of anger: constructive anger, and reactive anger. Constructive anger is calm, because it’s grounded in love. If you’re feeling calm anger, you recognize something is wrong in some way—it’s untrue, unfair, unjust, etc. But you stay connected to your circle of control, and you recognize the situation is happening to you personally, but not because of you personally.

  
  

So, you are clear-minded, and you can see that unfair and unjust things happen all the time, to everyone. You don’t take what’s happening in the moment personally. And you feel confident that whatever happens, you’ll handle it, and if you need to, you’ll ask for help, and you’ll get the help you need.

In contrast, reactive anger is fear-based. Reactive anger can start off as irritation, annoyance, or frustration, then become fury or rage. If you were raised by a person with narcissistic traits, it makes sense you feel fearful when you encounter untrue, unfair, or unjust behavior. It’s highly likely you encountered this—often—in your childhood. And not only did these things happen, but the person who was supposed to protect you and guide you through these situations might have been the person making these situations happen! You were left alone to parent yourself through the situation, and the person who should have been your safe person was your abuser.

That said, reactive anger—acting out of fear—rarely works well, and often backfires. If you allow it, the person with narcissistic traits will bait you until you get angry and lose control. Then you end up looking like the problem! It makes more sense to stay connected to your anger, and if you notice it coming up, address it quickly, so you stay calm.

These tools work on two levels. First, they require you to be in your thinking brain, instead of your feelings brain. And second, they make it clear to your person with narcissistic traits that they’re not getting to you. You’ve decided to take charge of your emotional balance, and you’re not going to allow them to walk right into your circle of control and decide how you should think and feel.

If it seems impossible to learn how to identify baiting and stay calm when it happens, and especially if you get out of emotional balance just thinking about their person with narcissistic traits, I urge you to work with a therapist. An attachment therapist (ideally, one who specializes in narcissism recovery) can help you learn how to see, hear, and care about yourself, so it’s easier to stay in balance when you’re engaging with someone with narcissistic traits. You deserve a lifetime of health and happiness!

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