❂ How she interacts with groups. This is easiest to see, yet incomplete. It is a good place to start. You can see Mallory’s narcissist mask, how she charms and bullies the others. You should always watch the others' responses. Mallory is the one controlling things. She may be active in the group. Or, passive, ignoring the group to break their mood. She triggers, they respond.
❂ How she interacts with individuals in public. Again, easy to see yet incomplete. You will see Mallory’s narcissist mask again. More, you can see the other person’s mood and body language. Do they look lost in love? Desperate yet frustrated? Silent and broody? Quiet and subdued?
❂ How she interacts with individuals in private. This is the best data, and also the hardest to get. It takes time and luck. Mallory is paranoid and secretive. Technology can help, if you have the skills or can find someone to help you. Or, you may talk to Bob and Alice and get their stories. These will be selective and distorted, yet useful.
❂ How she interacts with you. If you are in a relationship with Mallory, the data is all there. Your view is selective, rationalized, and distorted. It is still worth taking notes. Your journal becomes a long term memory. It lets you capture conversations or events that are so unreal you soon forget them.
The Resistance
The goal of Inhibit is to block Mallory’s patterns of behavior. The abusive bond is a curious thing. Even though one party seems in control, the other must cooperate. This is the "enabling" we see in psychopathic families. When Mallory is in a marriage with children, her spouse often acts as enabler. He excuses Mallory, hides conflict from outsiders, and tells the children "it is normal."
Individuals enable their abuser when they normalize the situation. In my Paper Cup story, every time Alice resets and repairs the cup, she is trying to make things "normal" again. This is how she enables Mallory.
To inhibit is to disable, making it more and more costly for Mallory to rule. Inhibiting works both in solitary relationships, and in group settings.
We can break down Inhibit into separate actions. Each of these addresses a different aspect of Mallory’s behavior. I’ll summarize these:
❂ Redefine the Narrative. Mallory depends on her false Narrative. You replace her broken promises with a more accurate model of your relationship.
❂ Fix the economics. Mallory depends on you refilling the cup every time she demands it. You stop doing that, and staunch the loss of money, time, and other resources.
❂ Collect evidence. Mallory depends on privacy, your poor memory, and your forgiving nature to distort history. You repair that by keeping a journal and collecting material evidence against her.
❂ Provide subtitles. Mallory depends on her charm and fluid lying to confuse others. You prevent that by explaining to others what Mallory is doing, and why, as it happens.
❂ Create consequences. Mallory depends on your fear to escape serious consequences. You train her to understand you are willing and able to create real problems for her.
Redefining the Narrative
I explained in Attack and Capture how "every psychopathic relationship has the same structure. At the heart, Mallory places a core of lies and promises… The Narrative." To untangle your relationship with Mallory you must decode and redefine the Narrative.
It can be difficult for so many reasons. The Narrative usually has elements of truth. These are small, yet real, and Mallory uses them to push through larger packages of lies. They’re hard to discredit because we so want to believe.
Let me give some examples of Narratives, to draw you a clearer picture:
❂ Mallory has caught Alice in a relationship. He tells her over and over, "you are naive and over-sensitive, and you overthink." He shakes his head with concern: "You need professional help." The first part may be true. She accepts that and finds it hard to challenge the rest. He succeeds in undermining her and keeping her dependent on him.
❂ Mallory is taking money from Bob, using sex and emotional violence to keep him hooked. The Narrative is, "you want me because I’m a difficult woman. Surviving me makes you a powerful man. Keep giving me expensive gifts and I will be yours." The first statement is true. What follows is false. Mallory is cheating on Bob, wasting his money, and will leave him as soon as she can move to a wealthier contact of his. She is not the trophy. He is.
❂ Mallory has convinced Alice to become her house slave. Alice works for free and Mallory bullies her into thinking this is normal. The Narrative is, "I paid to bring you to this country. I am now your family and you must do what I tell you to. Obey and I will protect you." Again, the first statement is true and the rest are lies. Mallory will abandon Alice on the street without papers or money as soon as she becomes too large to lock up.
❂ Mallory has convinced Bob to join his project. Bob is working unpaid and Mallory demands more and more from Bob. The Narrative is, "this is an important project. You are serving humanity. I am your glorious and infallible leader. If you suffer, that is normal." The first statement might be true. Mallory is good at finding causes. The rest are lies. Mallory will steal Bob’s work, drain him, and blame him for any failures.
❂ Mallory has convinced Alice to move in together. She invests her savings, and they plan expensive renovations together. The Narrative is, "this is our house. You are investing in our future. I will be a loving and caring husband. If I’m sometimes moody, it is your fault." Again, a truth followed by lies. Alice will go bankrupt before she wakes up. Mallory invests little if anything, and has cheated on her nonstop.
To untangle the Narrative, there is a small yet powerful mantra that you use. You repeat this to yourself whenever you look at past, present, or planned events. The mantra is: "Mallory is lying."
Not now and then. Not maybe. Almost always. You must assume that every statement Mallory utters is false. He may sometimes tell the truth. That is accidental and irrelevant. When it mattered, and often when it did not, he lied and lies and will lie.
This takes practice. We tend to assume innocent till proven guilty. You need the opportunity to watch Mallory as he talks to you, or others. You feel his sincerity like a warm glow. You hear his words. You watch his face. Now you repeat your mantra: "Mallory is lying."
You may ask why he is lying, or how he can lie so well. There are answers, which I’ve already provided. He lies to bully people into accepting his authority and to deflect blame. He isn’t inventing, when he lies. Instead, he is the sincere teller of a story that happens to be false.
The power of this mantra is that it forces Mallory to work harder. It works especially well in a group. Mallory’s aura of sincerity is like a diamond: hard yet fragile. If you can prove a single lie, then you can teach others the same mantra. From then on, the Narrative starts to fall apart.
If you are alone with Mallory, you must put yourself outside the Narrative to see the lies. This is difficult. You must want nothing, and believe nothing. That means switching off all the responses that brought you to this place. It means accepting that you have lost your investments. It means there will be no more sex, no money, no power.