In this context, a Word Salad occurs when a narcissist strings together a bunch of random words and phrases in an attempt to confuse and manipulate you. The narcissist will use Word Salad as a way to dodge responsibility, bury you in verbal diarrhea, and gaslight you into doubting your own reality.
The term word salad was originally used to describe disordered speech and thought processes of people who were psychotic. However, over time, this term has been used to describe speech patterns of narcissists in which they say things that are contradictory and inaccurate as a way to confuse you.
The term “word salad” refers to a circular language tactic used by one individual to ensure that talks never end positively for the other. It is a technique for exerting influence over another person's views or ideas, emotional response, or access to information.
A word salad, or schizophasia, is a "confused or unintelligible mixture of seemingly random words and phrases", most often used to describe a symptom of a neurological or mental disorder. The term schizophasia is used in particular to describe the confused language that may be evident in schizophrenia.
This type of association, observed either in spontaneous speech or in the word-association test, goes from one word to another word via a not overtly spoken intermediate word. One of Bleuler's examples is wood-dead cousin. At first glance, this association appears to be a complete word salad.
Word salad occurs when a person's ability to organize their thoughts and communicate them in a logical, coherent way is impaired. Word salad can be caused by a variety of mental health conditions. In some cases, word salad can be an effect of a medical condition such as delirium, a medication side effects or drug use.
Anxiety disorder can cause many problems, including getting words mixed up with speaking.
“Word salad” is a term used to describe a severe form of disorganized thinking and speaking. It occurs in people with serious psychiatric or neurological conditions, such as dementia, bipolar mania, brain injury, or schizophrenia.
Wernicke's aphasia is sometimes referred to as “word salad” because speech tends to include random words and phrases thrown together. Wernicke's aphasia results from damage to Wernicke's area of the brain. Wernicke's area is a part of the brain that is responsible for language comprehension.
Wernicke's aphasia causes you to speak in a jumbled “word salad” that others can't understand. Broca's aphasia leaves you with limited language. You might only be able to say single words or very short sentences. But others can usually understand what you mean.
Signs of Narcissist Gaslighting
They may try to make you feel like you're overreacting or being too sensitive by saying things like, “You're being paranoid,” or “You're imagining things.” They might also try to control what you do and who you see by trying to isolate you from your friends and family.
A monumental weakness in the narcissist is the failure to look internally and flesh out what needs to be worked on. Then, of course, the next step is to spend time improving. The narcissist sabotages any possibility of looking deep within.
Disorganized speech typically arises from abnormal thought processes. A person engaging in disorganized speech might quickly jump from one unrelated topic to another, engage in incoherent “word salad,” repeat things another person says back to them, or appear to be speaking with nonexistent entities.
Derailment (loosening of associations): spontaneous speech with marked impairments in topic maintenance. Incoherence (word salad, schizaphasia): severe lack of speech cohesion at the basic level of syntax and/or semantics within sentences.
The origin of the word "salad" is the Latin herba salata, or "salted greens." Its adoption is believed to have grown out of the ancient Roman habit of dipping romaine lettuce in salt.
React with empathy and respect.
A narcissist thrives on conflict, and will take control of the conversation as soon as you get defensive or try to fight back. Instead, you can take control by making empathetic statements about the situation, which will help the narcissist calm down.
Keep Up The Image. One of the best ways to subtly outsmart a narcissistic person is to keep up your image as a straightforward person who doesn't take any nonsense from anyone. No narcissist likes tackling this kind of person as they are harder to manipulate and fall into the charm trap, they like setting.
In narcissists' efforts to avoid blame, they often combine several fake apologies at once, such as, “I am sorry if I said anything to offend you, but I have strong opinions. Maybe you're too sensitive,” or, “I guess I should tell you I am sorry. But you know I would never deliberately hurt you.