I remember as a teenager, rushing home from school to watch my favourite soap operas, from The Bold and the Beautiful to Days of our Lives. I remember being captivated by the exquisitely woven stories of triangulation and other narcissistic tactics as the scripts played out.

 

Year after year, I was engrossed in the scheming and lying and cheating, the undermining, and the planned cruelty.

 

Eventually, there came a time when I sat up and thought to myself, hang on just a moment. If John Black (remember him, always wore black had the piercing stare) from Days of Our Lives only went to Marlena and asked directly if XYZ were correct and in what context the information was framed, and had they discussed this like healthy functioning adults, none of the whole next seasons would be possible.

 

In what was a flimsy storyline, to begin with, there would have been no story at all. With a narcissist, it is weak but a carefully told story that is the enticing hook that draws the innocent bystander into this new drama.

 

One deliberately misdirected lie by one of the cast members sends John Black charging into the sunset (or storming off angrily) and heroically (even coming back from the dead a few times) doing something that takes at least another 20 episodes for the rest of the cast and storyline to unravel, based on this false, unverified, but oh so believable, lie.

 

A much older me got a humorous kick out of switching the sound off and watching the soap operas this way. The long lingering stares, the body language, the open-mouthed, stunned amazement at some comment or another, the tears and the tragedies shaking out of the supposed story, silently, like an old movie, all taught me a valuable lesson. Narcissists are master drama creators. They make a lot of noise and when they are weaving the soap opera script of your life. Your own instincts, beliefs, values and what you know to be accurate, get drowned out in the noise they make around you. You scramble to unravel the story that the narcissist is authoring with ample amounts of deflection and misinformation or only just enough information, mixed with a tiny taste of truth and blame.  

 

For those living or dealing with a narcissist, this should feel somewhat familiar. It feels like you are stuck in someone else's soap opera, and you do not know your lines because you've never been given the script.

 

Triangulation is when you are deliberately played against someone else or even a few other people by the narcissist. The objective of triangulation singles you out and it shames you and isolates you. This is done for the narcissists' cruel entertainment, or to gain narcissistic 'food' from you. Narcissistic 'food' can be your hurt feelings, any kind of control over you, monetary gain, or anything else they think that they can squeeze out of you.

  

The Soap Opera of Triangulation.

 

Every soap opera has the same dynamic that makes them diabolically funny. The characters go around in circles, questioning themselves and their lives. One devilish character – whom we love to hate – directs the 'traffic' of information to make this dynamic work.

 

Tragically, in real life, for thousands and thousands of people worldwide, this dynamic is not so funny at all.

 

It takes more than two to tango when it comes to narcissistic scheming. In fact, the more people on the dance floor, the better for the narcissist DJ. He relishes changing the tune often, abruptly, and purposely. This is to create maximum confusion, and it is always the narcissistic DJ in control.

 

When you are being triangulated by a narcissist, it is a traumatic and heart-wrenching experience that will make you question every aspect of your own being. People you thought you knew or trusted treat you differently. You are unsure if you've said something to offend them, but don't even have the right questions to ask.

 

As a viewer, to have all the answers at my fingertips is so easy. Yet so hard when I am in the tumultuous grip of one of these triangulations myself and cannot find my own way out. Why is it so hard to recognise and remedy when you are the direct target of a triangulation? The answer may lay in how it is set up to start with.

 

How does the narcissist set up the Triangle?

 

It starts with sweeping statements about you said as 'truth'. An all-encompassing put down 'verified' by several their flying monkeys. (Who are frequently also victims and often wholly unaware they are being used in this way), or so the narcissist will tell you.

 

Probably, they have spoken to just one person, who already supports them. Someone who have reaffirmed their picture of you, and therefore made it valid that you are the bitch/bastard/stupid/mindless/crazy person, or whatever label they use.

 

All these machinations are designed to leave you questioning yourself endlessly. The narcissist will decide, who gets what specific tidbit of information, to elicit a very definite response from the person/s they are triangulating you with. To guide that person into thinking about you in a specifically designed way, and the other way around, to guide you into a belief that 'everyone' thinks you are what narcissist is calling you, or accusing you of.

 

Table of Contents

Series Info

Your Channel