SEE · Volume One

The Exposure Questions

All nine categories

Every exposure question from Chapter 3 of The Power Moves, all nine categories, with when to ask each one and what to listen for. Empathy, accountability, consistency, entitlement, self-reflection, criticism tolerance, reciprocity, pattern recognition and reality testing. The safety check comes first.

Companion library, Volume One. Every exposure question, all nine categories, with a short note on when to ask each one and what to listen for. The printed chapter, Chapter 3 of The Power Moves, carries the Master Question and two questions from each category, and it carries the reasoning behind every one of them. This page is the list the workbook sends you to. The questions marked In the book keep their printed numbers; the rest continue from there.

Before you use any of these

The safety warning at the top of Chapter 3 of The Power Moves, as the book prints it.

CRITICAL SAFETY WARNING: READ THIS FIRST

Before using any questions in this chapter, assess your safety situation. These questions can trigger narcissistic rage if the person feels exposed.

Safety Hierarchy: Ask Yourself First

This is a rule of thumb, not an instrument. It has not been validated, it does not score anything, and it cannot tell you whether you are safe. What it can do is slow you down before you use a question that might cost you. A domestic violence advocate can assess your situation properly, and they do it free and confidentially. The numbers are at the front of this book, under “If You Are in Danger Right Now.”

Safety Level Description Can You Use These Questions?

RED Any history of physical intimidation, threats or violence, or a pattern of control, or you are planning to leave NO: focus on safe exit first

YELLOW Living together, no history of violence, and no pattern of control over your movements, money or contacts Use selectively, in calm moments only

GREEN You’re physically safe, not living with them, and have support nearby Yes, use with awareness

Why control counts as much as violence. Most of the danger research turns on coercive control and on separation, not on whether someone has hit you before. A relationship can have no history of violence at all and still be one where the first violence arrives when you start to leave. If someone monitors where you go, what you spend, or who you talk to, read yourself as RED regardless of what has and hasn’t happened physically.

If you are in RED:

Do NOT use these questions; they can trigger dangerous escalation

Prioritize a safe exit. When the Pattern Becomes Physical, printed after the first chapter, carries the lethality markers and tells you who to call first

Talk to a domestic violence advocate before you do anything else. They will do a real risk assessment with you, which is a different thing from the table above

If you are in YELLOW or GREEN:

These questions are for your own clarity, not as confrontation tools

You don’t need them to see themselves for you to see them clearly

Use them to confirm your perception, then act on what you learn

If you live with them, use these only in calm moments, never mid-argument, never in front of children, and never to confront. If a question gets rage, you have your answer: stop, do not ask a second one, and leave the room. Rage is the end of the exercise, not a reason to continue it

Safety Level	Description	Can You Use These Questions?
RED	Any history of physical intimidation, threats or violence, or a pattern of control, or you are planning to leave	NO: focus on safe exit first
YELLOW	Living together, no history of violence, and no pattern of control over your movements, money or contacts	Use selectively, in calm moments only
GREEN	You’re physically safe, not living with them, and have support nearby	Yes, use with awareness

On this site, the numbers the book points to are on the crisis resources page. If you are in danger right now, go there first, and come back to this page another day or not at all.

And a bad answer proves nothing. Being caught off guard, ADHD and other executive-function differences, anxiety, trauma, depression, and growing up somewhere that admitting fault was expensive all produce the same blankness. What separates narcissism from those is never one answer. It is frequency, range, direction, and whether the person ever comes back to it.

How to use this list

Choose three categories, not nine. Pick the ones that match what you are actually unsure about. The table below says when to reach for each.
Sprinkle, don’t interrogate. One or two questions over months, casually placed. A list asked in one evening gets you a performance, not an answer.
Put it in your own words. A question you would never say out loud is one you will never ask. Exercise 3B in the workbook is where you rewrite them.
Listen to the shape of the answer, then notice your body afterward. One strange answer means nothing. Watch for the return: whether they come back to a fumbled question an hour or a week later.
Keep what you learn for yourself. The answers are for your own decisions. They are not evidence to lay out, and not a label to hand anyone.

The Master Question

In the book.

“When’s the last time you were wrong about something and nobody had to tell you?” Then, once they have answered: “What did you do differently after?”

Ask it in a quiet room, with no audience and nothing riding on the answer. You are listening for three things: whether anything comes at all, whether they found the mistake themselves, and whether anything changed. Ask it twice, months apart, before you make anything of a blank.

The Nine Categories

Category	What it tests	Reach for it when
1. Empathy	Whether you exist as a person to them	Your feelings keep turning into their problem
2. Accountability	Whether they can own a specific harm	Every conflict ends with you apologizing
3. Consistency	Whether the story stays the same	You keep doubting your own memory
4. Entitlement	Whether the rules apply to them	They expect exemptions nobody else gets
5. Self-Reflection	Whether there is a self under the image	Everything about them feels like a performance
6. Criticism	Whether they can hear feedback	Any feedback, however gentle, becomes a fight
7. Reciprocity	Whether anything comes back	You give and it never returns
8. Pattern Recognition	Whether they can see their own history	Every ex, friend and boss was the problem
9. Reality Testing	Whether you can ever be right	You cannot remember the last time you were

Category 1: Empathy

Empathy can be learned as a performance, so a fluent answer here proves little on its own. What counts is whether the care survives inconvenience, stays on you, and shows up when nobody is watching.

1.1 “What do you think that was like for them?” In the book. Ask after they tell a story where they were wronged. Listen for whether they can step into the other person’s side at all, or whether the question becomes you taking sides.

1.2 “How do you think I’m feeling right now?” In the book. Ask in a difficult moment, when the answer is plain to anyone paying attention. A guess that gets checked (“You seem frustrated. Are you?”) is attunement. A confident wrong answer, with no interest in whether it is right, is worth noticing.

1.3 “When was the last time you were wrong about someone, and how did you find out?” A real answer has a name in it and a correction attached. Listen for nothing at all, or a story that turns into the time someone misjudged them.

1.4 “What’s something you admire about [person they’ve complained about]?” This asks them to hold good and bad about one person at once. Listen for nothing, or a compliment with a knife in it.

1.5 “What do you think I need from you right now?” Ask when you are struggling. Listen for something specific they are willing to give, or for the question handed straight back to you.

Category 2: Accountability

Almost everyone reaches for an explanation in the hot minute: I was provoked, you misunderstood me, I didn’t mean it like that. The test is whether the explanation can ever be set down, a week later, with nothing at stake.

2.1 “What’s your part in this?” In the book. Ask once things are calm again, never in a hot room if you live with them. Listen for a specific contribution named and then left alone. A flood of self-blame that ends with you comforting them is not the same thing.

2.2 “If you were completely wrong about this, how would you know?” In the book. Someone who can be wrong can tell you what would change their mind. Listen for a pause and a real answer, or for a flat “I’m not wrong.”

2.3 “Can you tell me about a time you really hurt someone, and what you learned?” Listen for three things: that harm happened, that it cost them something to know it, and that anything changed. Watch for the harm that arrives with a reason welded to it.

2.4 “What’s the worst thing about you?” Most people’s answer is ordinary. Listen for a flaw that is really a virtue in costume (“I care too much”), or for the question turned back on you.

2.5 “What would your ex or former friend say was the reason things ended?” Listen for whether the other person is allowed to have a case at all. What gets said about them may be what gets said about you.

Category 3: Consistency

When a contradiction surfaces, you do not have to do anything with it. Ask, listen, note what you heard, and let the conversation move on. It is information for you, not a case to prosecute.

3.1 “You said [X] earlier, but now you’re saying [Y]. Help me understand?” In the book. Ask it once, in a tone with nothing riding on it. The second time it becomes a charge, and the conversation turns to your memory. Whatever comes back, take it and move on.

3.2 “How would [mutual acquaintance] describe what happened?” In the book. This puts a witness in the room. Listen for how fast the witness gets discredited, or how firmly you are told to keep other people out of it.

3.3 “Tell me again about [event they described differently before].” Ask for a story you have already heard. Real events come back with small natural variations. Notice if their role grows more heroic or more wronged with each telling.

Category 4: Entitlement

These show whether the rules that apply to everyone else apply to them.

4.1 “Do you think the same rules should apply to you as everyone else?” In the book. Almost everyone says yes. Listen for the “yes, but,” then watch for a month and compare the answer with the life.

4.2 “What would you do if someone treated you the way you treated them?” In the book. Ask later, in a calm moment, after they have been harsh with someone. Listen for whether the reversal lands, or whether the same treatment becomes an outrage when it points their way.

4.3 “What makes you different from other people who [did the same thing]?” For when they have done something they criticize in others. Listen for whether they can see the parallel or insist their situation is completely different.

4.4 “Why do you think you deserve that more than other people?” Ask later, calmly, about a specific exception they took, not while it is happening. A sincere, detailed answer about why they are owed more is the one to take seriously.

Category 5: Self-Reflection

Introspection is harder to fake than empathy. These ask whether there is a person underneath the achievements.

5.1 “What do you like about yourself that has nothing to do with what you DO or what you HAVE?” In the book. The exclusions are the question. Listen for a long pause, or an answer that loops back to status by a longer route.

5.2 “How have you changed in the last five years?” In the book. Describing growth means admitting an earlier self was worse. Listen for “nothing has changed,” or changes that are all external, like a promotion or a house.

5.3 “What are you most afraid of?” Listen for a real fear or for “nothing.” If the question comes straight back to you, do not answer it with anything you would not want used against you.

5.4 “When you’re alone with no distractions, what do you think about?” Listen for whether anything in the answer happens inside the person, or whether it is all work, plans and people who wronged them.

5.5 “What would you want people to say about you at your funeral?” Do not ask this of anyone who has talked about suicide or threatened it. Otherwise, listen for whether the imagined eulogy is about how people felt with them or a list of what they achieved.

Category 6: Criticism Tolerance

This category has the widest false-positive rate of the nine. Plenty of people handle criticism badly because nobody taught them how, or because feedback once cost them something real. Two things separate that from a defended pattern, and both take months: whether they come back to it later (“I didn’t take that well, say it again”), and whether their tolerance changes with the rank of the person giving it.

6.1 “Can I give you some feedback about something?” In the book. The question itself is the test. Listen to the response before you have said anything: open, or already defending.

6.2 “What feedback have you received that was hardest to hear but turned out to be true?” In the book. Listen for a story told against themselves, or for feedback that arrives with its rebuttal attached.

6.3 “What would someone who doesn’t like you say about you?” Most people can do a fair impression of a critic. Listen for whether every explanation puts the fault in the critic.

6.4 “If I disagree with you, how do you want me to express that?” Listen for a short, usable answer. Then notice, over time, whether the method they give you is punished when you use it.

Category 7: Reciprocity

These ask whether anything flows back toward you.

7.1 “Do you remember the last time you asked how I was, and what I said?” In the book. Ask it lightly, as a real question. “I always ask” tells you little on its own; what comes after it is the answer.

7.2 “If I needed something that was inconvenient for you, would you do it?” In the book. Then check the answer against the record. You already know what happened the last three times it was inconvenient.

7.3 “What have you done to support me lately?” Listen for specific, recent examples, or for “what have you done for me?”

7.4 “What do you think I need that I haven’t asked for?” Noticing is attention paid in advance. Listen for something specific to you, or for an answer that describes what they need.

Category 8: Pattern Recognition

These map a history instead of a single moment. A history of abusive partners is also exactly what a survivor’s story sounds like; the difference is whether they can see any part they played in the ordinary endings, and whether what they describe is specific or just a label.

8.1 “What happened with your last three close relationships?” In the book. The best question for someone new. People tell this story willingly. Listen for a mixed account, or for every ending being the other person’s fault.

8.2 “What do the people who’ve left your life have in common?” In the book. Listen for whether they can find themselves anywhere in the answer.

8.3 “Who’s the villain in your life story?” Most people hedge. Listen for a villain named at once, and for whether that person was once on the other list.

8.4 “Is there anyone who’s hurt you that you’ve forgiven?” Listen for forgiveness traded for something, or an old wound described with fresh rage a decade on.

Category 9: Reality Testing

These ask whether there is any room for you to have been right.

9.1 “Can you name three things you did wrong in our last conflict?” In the book. Ask later, in a calm moment, never during the conflict. A first push back is ordinary; a fair person comes back to your question.

9.2 “Was there ever a time I was right and you were wrong?” In the book. Listen for a memory handed over easily, or for one hedged until it means nothing.

9.3 “What’s something I do better than you?” Any bad answer can be a bad day. What you are noticing is whether they have ever, in your hearing, said you were better at something that mattered.

9.4 “What’s the most unfair thing you’ve ever done?” Listen for something small that they still feel, or for the question turned into the most unfair thing done to them.

What to do with what you hear

You cannot question someone into self-awareness. You can only clarify reality for yourself. If the same answers keep coming back over months, the book’s advice is to stop explaining yourself, stop waiting for acknowledgment, trust your perception, protect your energy, and plan any exit with support. “I am not sure yet” is a legitimate place to stop.

If a question ever gets rage, that is the end of the exercise. Stop, leave the room, and use the crisis resources page if you need someone to talk to about what happened.