Why Do Narcissists Bring up the Past? (4 Insightful Reasons)

One of the reasons that having a healthy conversation with a narcissist is almost always impossible is because of their tendency to bring up the past.

As a general rule, narcissists bring up the past to exploit your insecurities and vulnerabilities, to avoid taking responsibility for their actions, and to devalue, shame, and guilt-trip you. 

In this article we are going to help you grasp a comprehensive understanding of the reason that narcissists bring up the past but that’s not all.

They Bring Up the Past to Exploit Your Insecurities and Vulnerabilities

Unfortunately, narcissists are very good at identifying and exploiting your insecurities and vulnerabilities. 

This is because of a manipulation tactic called mirroring. 

In this context, mirroring refers to a narcissist’s ability to absorb information about someone’s identity and use that information to create a falsified identity that the person being mirrored can relate with. 

For example, imagine you are having a conversation with a narcissist and end up telling them that one of your parents passed away when you were young. 

They could mirror you by saying, “I don’t want to take anything away from what you just told me but one of my parents passed away when I was young too. I just wanted you to know that I know what it feels like.”

Over time, these types of interactions manipulate the person being mirrored into feeling heard, understood, and valued. 

Because of this, they open themselves up completely to the narcissist, and subsequently, share their deepest insecurities and vulnerabilities with them.

It is very common for narcissists to take advantage of this information by bringing up the past later on in the relationship.

For example, imagine you told the narcissist in your life that you were really insecure about your body because of the bullying you experienced in school.

A few months later the narcissist says, “I’m not attracted to you anymore. You have such a disgusting body, I can’t even look at it anymore.”

This would be an example of a narcissist bringing up the past to exploit your insecurities and vulnerabilities. 

They Bring Up the Past to Avoid Taking Responsibility for Their Actions

One of the clearest manifestations of a narcissist’s emotional immaturity is their refusal to take responsibility for the negative consequences of their actions. 

If they do something that turns out to be positive, they will be the first to celebrate it.

But the second that their actions have a negative consequence, they deploy an array of manipulation tactics to avoid taking responsibility for their actions.

One of the most common manipulation tactics that narcissists use to avoid taking responsibility for their actions is bringing up the past.

There are two variations to this.

The first is called bringing up past contributions. 

The second is called bringing up mistakes that you’ve made in the past.

Bringing up past contributions is a form of guilt tripping in which someone reminds you of favors they performed for you in the past.

For example, imagine that you are having an argument with the narcissist in your life and they say, “I can’t believe you have the guts to argue with me about this. Don’t you remember when I did (blank) for you? Where would you be without me?!”

This would be an example of bringing up past contributions.

Bringing up mistakes you’ve made in the past is a form of guilt-tripping in which someone reminds you of something you did wrong in the past.

For instance, imagine that you are having an argument with the narcissist in your life and they say, “I am not going to sit here and be yelled at by someone who did (blank). How stupid are you? Don’t act like you are perfect, we both know what you’ve done.”

This would be an example of bringing up past mistakes. 

It is common for a narcissist to bring up the past to devalue and shame you.

This is because narcissists struggle with a tremendous amount of painful thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

You see, deep down narcissists feel unlovable, ashamed, unwanted, inadequate, worthless, and weak. 

Unfortunately, because of their low emotional intelligence, narcissists can’t manage these thoughts, feelings, and emotions on their own. 

So, to protect their emotional stability, narcissists project them onto others.

Projection is a defense mechanism that occurs when someone takes a part of their identity that they find unacceptable and places it onto someone else. 

For example, John is a married man and he is cheating on his wife. Instead of taking responsibility for his actions, he projects them onto his wife by accusing her of cheating.

Now, narcissists are constantly looking for ways to project their painful thoughts, feelings, and emotions onto the people that they abuse.

But when it comes to bringing up the past, narcissists tend to stick to devaluation and shaming tactics because they address the painful thoughts, feelings, and emotions that they have about themselves.

What do we mean? 

We just mentioned that deep down narcissists feel unlovable, unwanted, ashamed, inadequate, worthless, and weak. 

As you can imagine, these types of thoughts, feelings, and emotions generate an overwhelming amount of shame and feelings of inadequacy. 

By shaming and devaluing you, narcissists are able to figuratively point their finger at you and think to themselves, “I’m not the unlovable, unwanted, inadequate, shameful, worthless, and weak one, they are.”

This is projection. Here are a few examples of what we are talking about.

Devaluation: When a narcissist treats someone as if they aren’t important, they are devaluing them.

For example, imagine you are trying to get an apology from the narcissist in your life because they hit you and they respond by saying, “Didn’t you cheat on your ex-boyfriend? I’ve always known that you’re a piece of sh*t. I couldn’t care less what you have to say right now. Leave me alone.”

This would be an example of bringing up the past to devalue you.

Shaming: When a narcissist purposely does or says something that makes another person feel ashamed, they are shaming them.

For example, imagine that you are having a conversation with the narcissist in your life because they cheated on you and you want an explanation. 

They respond by saying, “I cheated on you because you don’t love me. You used to be so fat. I had to drag you to the gym just to lose weight. Yeah you lost it, but I did most of the work. How could someone who doesn’t love themselves enough to get in shape love another person. Yeah I cheated. What else was I supposed to do?!”

This would be an example of bringing up the past to shame you. 

It is very common for narcissists to use devaluation and shaming tactics to bring up the past.

It doesn’t matter how far back it is, if a narcissist can make you feel as badly about yourself as they do about themselves, they will bring up the past because it allows them to project their painful thoughts, feelings, and emotions onto you.

They Bring Up the Past to Guilt-Trip You

When a narcissist guilt-trips someone, it means to make them feel guilty, especially in order to induce them to do something.

It is very common for narcissists to bring up the past when they are trying to guilt-trip you. 

A Quote From One of Our Community Members

“One of the ways that my ex-husband kept me trapped was by using guilt-tripping to stop me from leaving him. The sob story was always the same. He would tell me stories about how his mother divorced his father when he was young. 

When I would try to escape, he would just compare me to his mother and use other manipulation techniques to make me feel guilty. Guilt was the only reason that I didn’t leave sooner. – Abby

How to Protect Yourself When a Narcissist Brings Up the Past

As a general rule, restraining yourself from engaging in meaningful interactions with the narcissist is the best way to protect yourself when they bring up the past. 

What does this mean?

Well, a meaningful interaction is any interaction that gives the narcissist access to your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and/or needs. 

For example, imagine the narcissist in your life said, “Do you remember that time you accused me of lying about (blank).”

This would be considered a meaningful interaction.

If you engage in a meaningful way here, the narcissist could gain access to your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and/or needs. 

They could also use this opportunity to bring up the past and manipulate you.

But if you decided to restrain yourself from engaging in this interaction, they wouldn’t gain access to your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and/or needs.

This makes it much harder for them to manipulate you.

So, how can you restrain yourself from engaging in a meaningful interaction with the narcissist in your life? 

There are many different techniques that you could use but some of the most popular ones are the Gray Rock Method, Yellow Rock Method, and No Contact Method.

The Gray Rock Method 

The Gray Rock Method is a form of communication that you can use to protect yourself from abuse and manipulation.

To use the Gray Rock Method you have to restrain yourself from engaging in meaningful interactions with the abusive or manipulative people in your life such as narcissists, flying monkeys, or narcissist enablers.

As we mentioned before, the term “meaningful interaction” refers to any interaction that gives the abusive or manipulative person access to your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and/or needs.

For example, in the previous section we told you to imagine that the narcissist in your life said “Do you remember that time you accused me of lying about (blank).”

As you know, this would be considered a meaningful interaction. 

To use the Gray Rock Method in this situation, you could say something along the lines of, “Mhmm. I can’t talk about this right now.” And then walk away.

The Yellow Rock Method

The Yellow Rock Method is a form of communication that you can use to protect yourself from abuse and manipulation.

Just like the Gray Rock Method, the Yellow Rock Method occurs when you restrain yourself from engaging in meaningful interactions with abusive or manipulative people.

However, when you use the Gray Rock Method, there’s a possibility that you could come off as cold, uncooperative, immature, and arrogant.

For example, in the previous section we told you that a Gray Rock response could be, “Mhmm. I can’t talk about this right now.” And then walking away from the situation.

To those around you who don’t know why you are using the Gray Rock Method, this response could come off as cold, uncooperative, immature, and arrogant.

In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be anything wrong with coming off as cold, uncooperative, immature, and arrogant when you are protecting yourself from an abusive or manipulative person.

But unfortunately, this world isn’t perfect and abusive/manipulative people are very good at portraying others in a negative light. 

So, there are some situations where you should try your hardest to not come off as cold, uncooperative, immature, and arrogant.

This is where the Yellow Rock Method comes in. 

When you use the Yellow Rock Method, your approach to dealing with abuse and manipulation is much more professional and respectful.

For example, imagine that you are in the middle of a custody battle with the abusive/manipulative person in your life. 

They send you the following via text:

“Hey I just wanted to let you know that I know that you have started drinking again. The kids come to my house crying and hungry because you are drunk all of the time. I understand this divorce is hard but can you please not take it out on our kids?”

A Gray Rock response to this message would be no response at all. 

But you can’t afford to come off as cold, uncooperative, immature, and arrogant in the middle of a custody battle because you could lose custody of your kids!

To prevent this from happening, you could use the Yellow Rock Method by responding with the following:

“I do not feel that these misrepresentations warrant a response and I see no purpose to this text message other than to increase conflict. As such, I am noting my objection and your attempts to portray me in a negative light are noted.”

This is a brilliant response that protects your thoughts, feelings, emotions and needs, and you don’t come off as cold, uncooperative, immature, and arrogant. 

Generally speaking, the Yellow Rock Method should be used when coming off as cold, uncooperative, immature, and arrogant could have a negative impact on your life or the life of your loved ones. 

The No Contact Method

The No Contact Method is a strategy that you can use to protect yourself from abuse and manipulation. 

To use the No Contact Method, you must end all physical and psychological forms of contact that you have with the abusive/manipulative people in your life. 

This may look like:

• Not responding to their text messages or phone calls.
• Not agreeing/promising to meetup with them or to stay in touch.
• Not checking up on their social media or keeping tabs on their posts.
• Not gathering information about their lives through your friends.
• Not spending your time talking about them.
• Not accepting gifts or favors (no matter how tempting) from them.
• Not listening to music you associate with them.
• Not digging up old photos that you have with them.

No Contact Method is an extremely effective way to deal with abuse and manipulation.

---

Disclaimer

This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for clinical care. Please consult a health care provider for guidance specific to your case.

References:

Howard, Vickie. “(Gas) lighting Their Way to Coercion and Violation in Narcissistic Abuse: An Autoethnographic Exploration.” Journal of Autoethnography 3.1 (2022): 84-102.

Levin, Lana. “Understanding narcissistic abuse.” Mental Health Matters 8.3 (2021): 32-33.