Why Do Narcissists Hurt People?

Being around a narcissist in your life, you’ll know just how hurtful they can be if the narcissist was your parent or partner, you’ll know just how painful the experience is, both during the relationship and with most when you finally stand up for yourself and break free, all hell seems to break loose, we can not work out what we did so wrong for someone to not care about us and want to hurt us so badly. It can be devastating and soul-crushing.

When people are at their best, most often even under stress, they can act rationally and with kindness towards others. Those who’ve been in an abusive relationship will know they have their own limits. When pushed to those limits, you might react negatively. Then when you do, you are blamed for all you do, self-doubt and self-blame creep in. Making it harder to be at your best, you become mentally, emotionally and physically sick with long term abuse from Silent Treatments, gaslighting, blame-shifting, projection, financial abuse and sometimes physical abuse.

When you’re around negative, hurt and sick people, you often end up feeling hurt, getting physically unwell and becoming extremely negative.

People are hurting so badly in the world because something or someone hurt them that they then go around hurting others and blaming all others for what’s wrong within themselves. They walk around destroying people.

Then there’s those who hurt, accept the part they played, accept anything they did wrong, embrace their vulnerabilities, forgive for themselves, heal and help others improve.

Most people on the narcissistic personality disorder are somewhat predictable; they live their own lives like Groundhog Day, going from one relationship to the next, idealisation, devalue, discard, hoover and repeat. Most are not devious. Narcissist psychopaths and narcissistic sociopaths are the more devious types of narcissistic people. Those narcissists on the low end of the spectrum are not particularly devious. Once you know the signs, it’s easy to become a narcissist detector and weed them out of your life.

Why do they hurt people?

They have a lack of empathy. Empathy is humans ability to identify with another person’s thoughts or feeling so that we can respond appropriately. Empathy is when you can think about how you would feel if something terrible happened to someone. A narcissistic person most often can simply just not have the compassion to see what another person is feeling, and they just don’t understand it.

They have little to no guilt or remorse. Without that empathy, they don’t feel bad when they hurt someone. They can see how others would perceive them, so they do carry shame. However, they quickly remove this shame by blame-shifting it onto others, projecting their own thoughts and feelings into others, then telling stories to those who do empathise of how badly they were treated as they’ve learned this gets them attention. Often believe their own stories as reality.

They don’t have to attachment to others. An attachment system is usually formed in early childhood with a baby and its primary caregiver, either this never happens, or something happens to them in childhood that they turn to fight mode to protect themselves cutting of their attachment, healthy emotions like joy, happiness and love to protect themselves, meaning on a deep level they can never truly commit with others.

They lack a conscience, meaning they are unaware within themselves of the actual differences between right and wrong, they believe they are special and superior, and rules don’t apply to them.

They lack object consistency. This is usually formed around the age of 2-3, meaning they develop aside to caring for others even if they are not around that person at that time. Those of us who have this means even when someone hurts us, we can still care about them. A narcissist at any moment can just stop caring if their needs are not being met.

They lack whole object relations, and they are unable to see that others have good and bad qualities, that humans are not perfect and come with flaws. So once they realise they don’t like something about someone else, instead of seeing them as perfectly imperfect, with different thoughts and feelings, who make mistakes, they see them as damaged and hurtful and just don’t care enough or have the ability to understand and find a middle ground.

Most narcissistic people are players. However, they would like to be loved and settle down, as they lack in the above, they are unable to do so. They see others in black and white.

Perfect, they are pleasing me right now.

Flawed, you are damaged goods right now.

Narcissists deep down are hurt, souls. Deep down, they have their own insecurities, they feel inadequate, and like they don’t belong, because of how they treat others, they do not trust others so believe they need to get in their first, also because they need to escape accountability. They do this by rewriting history into their own reality; some often then believe others have hurt them. They tell their lies, so often they no longer know what to trust.

As their inner selves are so damaged and they try to keep it hidden, they put on that admiration face that they show to the world around them, as this isn’t their whole selves, the other side, their envious side, sometimes rise to show who they indeed are.

As a narcissist blame shifts and projects, they can not turn inwards to recover. They genuinely believe all their problems are other people’s fault and not their own doing.

They need to be above all others to prove to themselves how significant they are. They need to be admired by others to keep their low self-esteem hidden, this is why they need attention from all others, and if it’s not done correctly, their true inners selves rise up, and this is when you witness their variety in temper tantrums to get their own needs met, which if you’ve been around one for long enough you’ll know this is impossible, as most don’t honestly know what they are, or even who they are, they cannot fill their own needs and wants up as they don’t understand what they truly need and want, they are incredibly envious and jealous of others especially those who are happy as it’s something they can not do, they don’t understand even happy people have down moments, yet as they know within themselves, happy people can manage those times and find their way back up, without the need of others attention or harming others.

Most people are not capable of going the manipulative lengths narcissistic people do, however, when a narcissist is using everything they can to make you, sad, lonely, confused, hurt and angry, even good people can react, not all do, you might have done or said things that you are not proud of, those who do often feel guilty for doing so, which a narcissist will then twist it around and blame you.

When they feel criticism from another person’s actions that inner rage sets off, as they lack in having a conscience, object consistency, empathy, guilt or remorse, they simply do not care for the pain they inflict on others, only the pain that person has caused them even if it was unintended by the other person, their anger and resentment towards those who go against them is a far superior emotion than one that people with empathy experience.

Their anger and rage at the moment towards others releases that inner trauma, as they haven’t healed their inner selves. This means it’s only ever a temporary release of the actual pain they carry. Then they feel shame, twist it onto the other person and the pattern of their own doom and gloom life repeats.

They genuinely do idealise people. At the start, they believe you are special and will look after all their needs, put yourself before them, which most people, through the manipulation, often end up doing, they saw greatness in you that they could take advantage of for their own needs.

As relationships carry on and you hit the compromise stage, narcissists just cannot accept this as they believe everything should be done their way and only their way. They only understand their own needs. They can not relate to other people’s needs.

They also create a false reality of who you will be and how life will go, then when things don’t go exactly as they planned when they realise you have vulnerabilities and flaws like all people so they will use them against you and start to devalue you.

You are left wondering where that loving person you first met went, and through all their manipulation, the silent treatment, gaslighting, their project and blame-shifting, you are often left thinking it was down to you and work harder to please them. As they usually give you intermittent reinforcement by them playing nice and becoming that person you met again temporarily, this confirms in your mind that it was you at fault. ( it was never your fault, you are a kind, loving person who just gave your love to the wrong person.)

They put you under a trance, where you can no longer see actual reality and no longer know who you are, either they put you too far under so you can no longer help yourself, let alone give them their needs, or if you start to wake up, they will then look for someone new and often discard you in horrific ways, to try and crush you some more.

As narcissistic people are disconnected from their true selves and do not turn inwards to see their real faults to heal, they are disconnected from other people.

Brené Brown,

Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.

Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Honesty and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weaknesses.

This is something narcissistic people can not do. Therefore they can not truly connect on a deep level with others as they are never true to themselves; they lie to themselves and those around them.

They are not accountable and do not hold themselves responsible for their own actions, so even they themselves can not relate to their true inner selves to heal their own faults.

We are all human; we all make mistakes; there are those that simply will not and can not accept this, then those you can turn inwards and learn from past mistakes.

As they rely upon their false self and can’t truly connect with others and care, they can easily walk away when it suits them and pull you back in when it suits them. Any reactions you give, sadness’s, tears, hurt anger, just makes them feel superior, then if you beg and apologise, this makes them believe they were correct and also makes them feel superior. Their ego is all that matters to them. They will destroy people’s lives, taking jobs, homes, friends and family, to back up their false story’s when they smear your name, to lap up the attention they then receive from others, the actual victim gets left broken to pick up the pieces, while the narcissist moves on to destroy someone else.

It’s nothing personal, and you just do not matter to the narcissist. They just saw greatness in you that they could use up to fill their own needs and spit you back out.

You can not help these people. You can, however, help yourself.

Learning about narcissists is one way to recover so you don’t go back and so you don’t get too deeply involved with one again.

At the same time, you need to work on healing yourself and becoming who you indeed are, being kind to yourself first, understanding that you matter to yourself and to good caring people.

Often after a narcissistic relationship, once we are out and start to learn about the disorder, most of us, with all the selfie blame, they doubt the things we did in situations we didn’t realise the real implications of. We are left with guilt and remorse, also shame for allowing ourselves to put up with things we should have never put up with. Leaving us disconnected from true reality and our true selves.

You are not a narcissist. Just because you spent time around one, and they projected all their negative traits onto you, does not make you a narcissist.

What you did at the moment was it through good intentions?

How you reacted? Was it because someone used something against you?

Think about what did you genuinely do to deserve that treatment?

Did you love them, care for them, help them, take care of their needs before your own, empathise with them, make excuses for them, pay the bills for them, walk on eggshells to please them? This is not narcissistic. This is a kind, loving person trying to do their best to help another. Unfortunately, as narcissistic people cannot be honest within themselves, they can not be supported or saved by you, they will only ever bring you down, no matter how strong you are, they are incapable of a genuine relationship as they have a disorder, it’s who they are, they perceive others with as their true selves, they are only capable of a relationship with the type of relationship they have within themselves, we see in others and love others in the way we truly know in ourselves, why you are a good person as you gave it your all and they took advantage of you. You can, however, help yourself now.

Narcissistic people see others as manipulative who are trying to control them, so they do their utmost to manipulate and control first, making them feel superior to others. They can not relate to their true inner feelings. They can not relate to others when it comes to empathy. They are incapable of putting their own shoes on, so they can not put themselves in another person’s shoes.

They go around hurting and punishing others for hiding away from their own insecurities. They punish you because, in their minds, it’s all your fault they feel how they do. They have deep anger and resentment towards others. No matter how good you are to them, they can only focus on the negative.

A narcissist psychopath or sociopath works. Differently, psychopaths are born, and they just do have the thought process to relate to others feelings. A sociopath is made through their own childhood trauma.

Tony Robbins human needs, love and connection, growth, uncertainty, certainty, significance and contribution, a narcissist cannot fill these up in a positive way on a permanent basis, so they repeat the cycle of their life and fill them negatively when you meet three of these needs you become addicted, narcissists meets all six through their actions towards others. Therefore they are addicted to the way they live.

When we haven’t healed within ourselves, that’s when our own problems can become a more significant issue. We have to matter to us.

We have to turn inwards and back to who we indeed are, we have to lose our pride and ego of all the pain and suffering we went through, we have to step out of that woe is me victim mindset, and start thinking more, I am good enough, I do deserve better, I am wiser and stronger than I was before.

We have to lose the addiction to the narcissist and become addicted to something else, something positive, filling our human needs up in good ways, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable first within ourselves, remove feelings of the guilt to our past, remember to learn from it, take the lesson and let that guilt go.

We have to start to reconnect with our true selves, treat ourselves how we want to be treated, and only allow others to treat us how we want to be treated, raise our own standards and stand firm on our individual beliefs, which are ours. They are for us, good people will understand them as you Understand others, we don’t have to agree with others, and when we don’t have to accept them as our own, compromise is excellent if it’s with someone who is also capable of agreement, give and take.

Learn your triggers, note them and heal them.

Create new routines for you.

Set boundaries with others for you.

Put the actual reality of the past in your mind, then start to live in the present and let the past go.

Create new dreams for you and take those steps to achieve them.