Snappishness is used to intimidate those who disagree, causing them to become off balance and off guard, leaving them to back down when there was no reason to or when the point that was made was valid and proper.
Snappishness is a sign of anger inside the one who does it. There is pending rage all the time ready to pounce at the slightest perceived provocation. I say "perceived" because often there is nothing wrong with what has been said, it is only seen as an attack because of the insecurity of those who must be agreed with in order to function in a conversation.
We do not snap or rage at those we love. Love does not interpret a disagreement as a fight. When we love someone, we value their right to express themselves and their right to their own opinion. We also even enjoy the differences when they are not sin or rebellion.
Another tactic of those who are hiding inside themselves is to refuse to answer a simple yes or no question. When there is silence rather than openness, it is an indication of someone who will not admit they may be wrong.
A yes or no answer, in the mind of the person being asked, is a giving away of their power. Since everything is a competition that must be won, the person asked must not allow the questioner to win, so they remain silent as if to say, you are not worthy of an answer. This makes them feel they have their power back. However, what non-responsiveness really does is reveal they were wrong and cannot admit it.
The rolling of the eyes is another tactic to demonstrate contempt to those who wish to discuss a matter to resolve it.
Non-verbal communication can be denied but speaks loudly to those who are the target of such covert demonstrations. It communicates, "your unworthy of respect", "you are stupid", it fosters a frustration in the target, the purpose is to goad the target into a negative response so the perp can further abuse.
Know-it-alls, often use these tactics when they are wrong. Instead of discussing a matter to resolve it, which requires open, honest and attentive communication, they would much rather play games to hurt their target emotionally.
As a child I lived with this kind of covert abusive tactic regularly. I have an older narcissistic brother who was the golden child of the family. In the eyes of our parents he could do not wrong.
This brother used a tactic that was effective in upsetting others while pretending to "just be kidding." He would poke me in the arm, I would say stop it, he would poke again, I would say stop it and the third time he poked me I would yell at him to stop. His response was, "see how you are, you are out of control." I was not out of control, I was just defending myself, but he used my adamant response to get him to stop, as an excuse to accuse me of irrationality.
Sadly, my mother would see me angry and crying and tell me to pull myself together I was acting like a baby, while never chastising my older brother for picking on his sister.
The saddest of all is that this brother never stopped doing that. He continued to poke at me, not physically, but emotionally, every time we were together even for a short time, he would find a reason to insult me about something. One time it was that I was "too dressed up", I was not, but that was his way of mocking me, to make me feel stupid.
Every encounter with my brother down through the years has been this way. He used to say, "you are too sensitive", when I told him it was mean and rude. Instead of feeling ashamed for hurting me, he made me to be the silly one. There was never a kind word for me on any level, only put downs.
When I began to study the phenomena of narcissism to discover what on earth I was living with all my life, I realized I was not the one doing stupid, bad or mean things, it was him and others in the family who defended him. The psychological community calls the facilitators "flying monkeys." They see what happens but fail to see that he was the one causing the trouble, I should just stand there and take it or I was accused of being foolish.
The frustration was high for a few years when other family members elevated him as special, not knowing how he treated those he chose not to respect.
When someone defends their mean behavior instead of feeling ashamed they hurt someone, we know there is a deep spiritual pride problem. When the abuse continues over many years, we know they enjoy demeaning and mocking those they feel don't measure up to themselves. OR, those they don't want to be measuring up.
Many people who have gone through this kind of emotional abuse for many years, have the sense they must be a bad person for someone to pick on them all the time, so they become withdrawn lacking confidence. They have been trained to believe they have no value and their feelings and desires are stupid.
I have a personality that questions things, when I see something happening that doesn't make sense I can see who the problem is pretty quickly, but many victims of these people are held back from their full potential in life because they are so beaten down, they feel they cannot get back up. I am here to tell these people, you can get back up, when you begin to realize you were not the stupid one, then you can recover from this abuse.
It is only through prayer and consulting with the Holy Spirit that can bring a victim out of the filthy mire of abuse. When we no longer care if the narcissist changes, move on to healthier more genuine relationships that we can heal.
Sadly, there are "Christian" people I have met who are just like my brother, he claims to be a Christian, but the evidence of the fruit of the Spirit is lacking. He has a lot of Bible knowledge, thinks he is wise but often gives wrong or bad advice because he is so worldly.
Galatians 5:22-23
"22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."
When we sense a complete lack of empathy and kindness in someone, it is a clue that they may not have the Holy Spirit they claim to have, they may be unsaved. I cannot imagine someone walking in the Spirit that can act so cruelly without being convicted and ashamed by that Spirit.
Those who must demean others to elevate self are being used of the devil to diminish the work and life of the one who follows hard after Christ. These are the kind of people who will invite you to the family gathering so you will see them ignoring you. They have no interest in you, their only interest is in showing you how insignificant you are to them.
These same people who mock and demean are continually denying the value of those they target. They cannot validate them on any level, to do so is to make their target equal with them or even above them and they just cannot have that.
This phenomena of narcissism is growing exponentially as we are nearing the very "end of the end" in this world. Most people who call themselves "Christian" are not obeying very much of the Bible, but they will say they are Bible believing. This is when we realize our culture is more about words than it is about substance.
2 Timothy 3:1-5 tells us we would encounter this, God's word comfort us, it helps us not to retaliate, but rather to move away from contact with these kind of people.
2 Timothy 3:1-5
“Difficult Times Will Come”
3 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these."
Notice the last verse of this passage, "avoid such men."
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