Living with a narcissist in your life is extremely traumatic and painful, as they can treat you so well yet treat you so hideously.
They can be cruel, calculated, abusive, gaslighting manipulators that only care for getting their own needs met, exploiting others or devaluing others to meet a requirement of their own, with a lack of empathy to care for how this affects those around them.
They can not love anyone, at least not, in the same way, those with compassion and empathy can. A narcissist will destroy your self-esteem, your reputation, your support system, your family, your hopes and your dreams. They will destroy everything in your life. They will take what they can. After all, they feel entitled to do so and destroy what they can not have because they feel envious that they don’t have it.
You are everything that they are not and something that they can never be. You are kind, caring, compassionate, empathetic, loving and giving.
You did not cause it. You can not control it. You can not change it.
Your kindness can not help a narcissist, and they can not be saved with your loyalty. As they don’t want to recognise their own wrongdoings, to them, any mistake they make is your fault, you can only help those who want to help themselves. Narcissists wish to help themselves to your stuff, to your dreams, your hopes, your hobbies, your money, your friends and your family, then they want to take those very things that are important to you away from you. Narcissists often fear abandonment, they fear exposure, and they are insecure. To mask this, they’ll do all they can to make others dependent on them, blame others for the very things the narcissist is doing, bringing others down to feel better about themselves. People with empathy always want to help those around them. With Narcissists, they will just pull you under with them.
A few things for you to remember if the narcissist is still in your life, to remind you that they will never ever change. They are incapable of change. In order to change, people have to be aware of themselves and be able to self-reflect. Narcissists just blame all others. Therefore they will always go around in circles playing their games, and they do not know any other way to act. This also helps if it’s a work colleague.
The narcissist will always use you with significant manipulation as they are abusers.
They don’t see other people for people or care about other people’s feelings. To a narcissist, people are just stepping stones to get what they want. If you stop listening to their words and only their actions, all they do is use people to get what they want. Talk badly of others. Gossip about those around them bring others down. This will never change. It’s who they are. They believe themselves to be better than others.
A narcissist only sees people as an extension of themselves. So they are unable to see others as having their own wants, needs, opinions and beliefs.
To a narcissist, other people are just an appliance to them. Where you see a tap. You think of it as an object that will serve the purpose of getting water. We don’t know the tap as having feelings, wants or needs of its own. We use it for what it was created for.
With a narcissist, they see people as those appliances to serve their needs, from getting attention to getting emotional reactions. Positive when the narcissist is love bombing with their admiration face, and negative when the narcissist is envious and seeks to devalue and destroy, from the narcissist wanting others’ money to power and control. To make up for what the narcissist lacks. Whenever you unwittingly let them, and you have something they want, they will continue to use you. It makes them feel intelligent, powerful and superior, using manipulation to get one over on others.
A lot of us view them as people who we can help, especially those narcissists who play the victim. So remember, they can not change. You can not help them. It’s a waste of time trying to help them. They are either incapable or do not see a problem within themselves, so they do not want to change. As to them, everything is always someone else’s fault. To a narcissist, you need to change.
A relationship with a narcissist will never be about give and take; many think they misunderstand and try in vain to explain to a narcissist to teach them about compassion and Compromise. They are not interested in that, as they are only interested in themselves.
The narcissist does not want to be equal. They want to win, and they want to win at any cost to you. They want all the power and control; they want to be first always.
When in a relationship, if you try to be independent or put forward your views, the narcissist sees this as an extreme threat or criticism to them. They will manipulate, they will abuse, and they will go after your reactions so they can blame your reactions to escape taking accountability for the things that they do once you are back under what they perceive as their control. You will be attacked for daring to have feelings and thinking your opinions matter.
These are not just selfish people. Yes, selfish people exist, yet they will love and care about those around them. Narcissists are self-entitled, exploitative, envious people with a belief they are above others and a lack of empathy to care for those they hurt.
A narcissist can act as if they care. They can love bomb, idealise. If you pay close attention to how they treat everyone, you will see they can only truly ever care about themselves. If you’ve been with a narcissist, you will know just how destructive they can be.
If they can not control to get what they want from another, they go all out to destroy another person. If you have children, they will use them to try and achieve this.
”Narcissists do no co-parent. They counter-parent. They do not care for the damage they cause to their own children’s minds so long as they are getting at you.”
Never react directly to a narcissist. Instead, focus your time and attention on validating your feelings, as a narcissist is unable to do this. They will only ever provoke feelings you didn’t know you had. The narcissist doesn’t see themselves as a problem. They will feel powerful if they are getting reactions from you. So even if they are still getting to you. Do not let them know. They are not interested in what you have to say, just your emotions and reactions.
A narcissist will always twist your explanations. They’ll always turn your feelings against you.
If they feel they need to compromise for someone else, it’s a massive problem for them. If you bring up your needs and feelings around them, they will project this back onto you as it’s all about them. A narcissist will gaslight you with.” It’s not all about you.” To get you to feel guilt, drop what you’re doing and make it all about them. Narcissists only feel validated when they can control and be more powerful than those around them.
Everything a narcissist says is a lie, a scam, a manipulation. A narcissist can be very charming and manipulative and will do all they can to hold onto you. Because of this, it’s tough to say no. Often, people don’t even realise they are being abused.
If they think they are losing you, or they’ve lost you and still need you for something. Suddenly they will see the light, and they will manipulate with their False Apology. They say exactly what you want to hear to use it against you, and they will crank up that charm. It’s all fake to get their needs met again. This is all An Illusion. All they have it’s their false self, lies and manipulation.
If and with many, it’s a big IF they apologise for lying again, they will use “ I’m sorry you, I’m sorry but, I’m sorry if,” I’ll let you fill the rest In as you’ve probably heard one of many, these apologies are made to pass the blame over to you. If they tell you they’ve seen the error of their ways, it’s all lies and manipulation. As soon as you forgive them, they change again. They will then claim you forced them to apologise because of what you did to them. They will twist events so that you are either lying, confused or, in fact, and you are the abusive one. If you stand up to them on this, they will fly into a rage to get control of the situation.
Along with you, “ what are you doing” they will manipulate it all back around onto you. They only apologise because they wanted to resolve the situation, and you made them. This is why you left, thinking you were the crazy one. You are not. Narcissists gaslight you into blaming yourself. If you were the toxic one, you wouldn’t have the empathy to care and want to help them. They don’t care if you catch them red-handed or if they’ve lied thousands of times before. They only want their needs met.
If apologising doesn’t work, they will switch the tactic to denial. “ you’re stupid.” “You’re crazy.” “You’re controlling.” Etc. If that doesn’t work, they’ll make out you’re attacking them. They will say you lied because “ they can not do anything right.” “ they can not make you happy.” When that doesn’t work, they may melt down to guilt you. Or rage to frighten you. If that doesn’t work and they still don’t get any response from you. They may take a few days, weeks, months or years. They will try to come back and start again at the beginning with that false projected apology.
They will go around in circles with this while you are saying no, as they are never accountable for anything they do. It will always be someone else’s fault. They just want to control everyone with these tactics to achieve what they want. They will use the silent treatment, projection, gaslighting etc., to achieve their own wants.
The only coping Strategy a narcissist has is to spread their misery onto others to feel better about themselves. I often wonder if the narcissist hopes to get that Freaky Friday moment and have a personality swap with those close to them. They can see the emotions those around them have. Yet, they can not feel them. At least not in the same way you do, narcissists get pleasure out of your pain, joy from your misery. So are they hoping to offload all their bad into you, in the hope they manage actually to escape themselves. People with empathy are just everything a narcissist can never be. Narcissist wants to absorb all the emotions of others while passing over all their bad traits to the other person. They want to control and dominate others, to strip them of their good qualities.
When they lie and smear other people, they are actually trying to convince themselves that the other person is wrong, that they are a hero for trying to help them and putting up with them for so long. With all the lies they tell and never being accountable, they no longer even know their own truth. They’ve actually manipulated their own brain into thinking how they do, so they can simply never see the damage they cause to others. As to them, it is all your fault.
If they make others crazy, they are not the crazy ones. If they make others weak, then they are powerful. They can only take from others. They can not give. In the beginning, they take everything from you by mirroring you. They suck you in with flattery only because they need it back. They project all their negativity onto others. As soon as they are called out on this, they see it as to why you are doing it to them.
They will never acknowledge within themselves what they do, and they will
Always be looking to deflect onto you.
Even the narcissistic psychopath that can have an idea of what they are. See, you like the problem of having emotions and being weak.
Narcissists actually enjoy hurting others, as they hate themselves so much. They get a kick out of making others feel bad.
Always remember a narcissist lack the empathy to care. They can not love in the same ways those who have a greater ability to care for others love another.
Now is the time to focus on you and your healing, self-care, building yourself back up to who you want to be, building friendships with those who do care, overcoming your anxiety, trauma bond and CPTSD, creating new routines, new hobbies, new passions, new dreams, you can. You will build yourself back up into precisely who you want to be.
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Elizabeth Shaw is not a Doctor or a therapist. She is a mother of five, a blogger, a survivor of narcissistic abuse, and a life coach, She always recommends you get the support you feel comfortable and happy with. Finding the right support for you. Elizabeth has partnered with BetterHelp (Sponsored.) where you will be matched with a licensed councillor, who specialises in recovery from this kind of abuse.
Video for why they’ll not let you go.
Good piece. I think the bit about if you can imagine them drinking Redbull all hyped up when they speak then that’s an indicator is especially true. However, I have met several narcissists (sadly) and they always talk about costing up in the sofa tgthr etc, mainly because narcissists are usually having sex with multiple partners and so want to keep the sex between you (as that and self affirmation is all they’re after) secret!
Thank you, Sadly I’ve met a few too, they are very good at talking the talk, they are unable to walk the walk.