After detailing some of the mind games that we narcissists use against you, it leads us to the inevitable question: Why are we doing this? I dare say some of you will be tempted to answer:

“Because you are all predators.”

While this is understandable and accurate (when viewed from your point of view), it will not provide you with any insight into the workings of our minds and behaviors. Accordingly, I will expand on why we use mind games comprehensively.

15 Reasons why narcissists use mind games to take advantage of you

1. Fuel.
   The obvious one is the first correct one to be considered. Mind games are applied to the dynamic between you and us in order to elicit an emotional reaction from you and thus get fuel from you.

Whether you feel upset, distraught, frustrated, upset, or angry as a result of the games being played, all of this is fuel that we will easily drink up.

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2. Control.
   We are a control freak. Our environment should be beholden to us. We have to control everything around us in order to ensure our continued existence, to receive fuel, to reduce and eliminate risks, and so on.

By subjecting you to mind games, we are able to achieve this need for control, since you have become so caught up in it, you remain paralyzed by its effects as you try to determine what is happening, rather than knowing it for what it is and walking away from it. who are they.

3. Future planning.
   It is a common consequence of entanglement with our species that you will be labeled insane once you are neglected or run away, as part of a smear campaign. Mind games create such a state of mind within you that it becomes easy enough for us to point out your behavior during the devaluation, your behavior after the carelessness/escape, and prove that you are indeed deranged.

There are very few people who can actually resist the prevalence of mind games and not be affected by them in some way, and many people are left at the end of their rope creating the appearance of being “crazy”.

4. Interface management.
   By engaging in games we control you are seen as theatrical and playful, where we are cool and fun for everyone but you and get people to form a negative view of you, this allows us to manage and maintain the interface.

We have a group of assistants and fellowship members who consider us all respectful and nice, which makes your life a little more difficult in terms of trying to convince people of who we really are.

Related: Mind Games Narcissists Play With Your Head: How They Control You

5. Promote superiority.
   We operate from the perspective that we are superior to everyone around us, especially you. By engaging in games where we are able to pull the strings, make you upset and angry and exercise control, it allows us to confirm that we are indeed superior to you.
6. Self defense.
   Many of the mind games we participate in are because we need to defend ourselves from being challenged or criticized.

Hence when we anticipate, deny, deflect, and shift blame, even though there may be a collateral benefit in terms of how it affects you, the main reason to engage in this behavior is to protect ourselves by rejecting blame, preventing your challenge, and counteracting criticism.

7. Burnout.
   In any situation, you respond to it most effectively when you are comfortable and able to think in a clear way. Posting mind games exhausts you causing you to lack clarity and experience low resistance and less willpower.

This means that you are less likely to try to escape from what you are doing and much more likely to accept doing what we want.

Related: She Is Not The One: 10 Glaring Signs Of A Toxic Girlfriend That You Shouldn’t Ignore At Any Cost

8. Plausible denial.
   By working within the remnants of speech, gestures, and actions, we are often able to maintain our being vague and amorphous. This allows us to manipulate you further but also serves an incredibly useful purpose in denying that we have engaged in such behavior, at first, especially with a third party.

If we are challenged, for example, by someone in authority, we can point to the lack of evidence or turn it into the word of a calm, reasonable person against an insane, confused, and noisy person.

9. Impact.
   The impact of emotional and psychological abuse is always more difficult for the victim to deal with than physical abuse. While physical abuse is understandably unpleasant, the insidious nature of mind games means that the victim cannot comprehend what is happening, cannot be sure if they are being subjected to a mind game (being punched is unmistakable), and cannot understand why they are involved. Treat it this way. No doubt you’ve heard the victims say,

“I would have preferred to be physically abused than psychologically tortured.”

That someone would choose to be physically injured instead underscores how devastating the impact was.

10. Unable to detect.
    Besides plausible denials, the fact that a bruise is a bruise and therefore raises questions. It is very difficult to quantify the effect of mind games. Yes, someone might come across as stressed, anxious, hypervigilant, terrified, etc., but there is always the possibility that we might suggest that they are laid down and/or related to something else.

It is difficult to do this with physical abuse (although not impossible). Some people do not allow themselves to see the effect of mind games, preferring to keep them hidden from other parties.

Related: 11 Lessons I Learned From Living With A Narcissist

11. Erosion.
    If you have a broken arm, you can still work. You can use your other arm, you can walk places, talk, hear, see, and so on. Mind games naturally influence what controls and governs everything you do.

By exhausting your mind, we are able to tire you, causing your resistance to weaken and preventing you from acting in a way that might help your escape from us.

12. Bidding.
    Applying mind games by achieving wear and tear as described above means that you are in fact being “thickened” for further manipulations that will be applied against you with maximum effect.
13. Empathic weakness.
    As someone with empathic traits hence why you are being targeted by us, you are more prone to these types of behaviors. Mind games work especially well against you as a result of your traits such as honesty, decency, truth-telling, need to understand, willingness to help, and your emotional reactions.
14. Quest.
    Some mind games end up making you try really hard to please and do things for us with the added benefit that naturally arises from this.
15. Strength.
    This only applies to the larger narcissists because the lower or mid rangers are not aware of the true extent of the application of mind games. Greater narcissists enjoy applying it to treating someone this way, warping their world, making them jump and move at their word, leaving them gasping for steam and having no idea how or why this happened to them.