A myth is often a story told based on past events leading to beliefs that might not necessarily be true.
Some common beliefs shared about narcissism which doesn’t apply to all narcissistic people are.
Myth number 1. They have no emotions.
Narcissists do experience and feel emotions. Unfortunately, the feelings they do have are often dominated by negative emotions. They think of power, control, dominance, anger, annoyance, rage, disgust, boredom and loneliness. They also feel shame, jealousy, envy and hatred. Aggression, malaise, contempt and greed. It’s in these emotions that make them so ruthless towards others.
Their negative emotions take over their emotions, such as empathy, happiness, joy, sadness, regret, guilt, remorse or love.
They understand and can mimic positive emotions and mirror back those positive emotions. Some are a lot better at faking feelings they do not have on a genuine level, as they want others to echo back to them those emotions they’re lacking within themselves.
It’s usually in the idealisation stage they feel positive emotions as they gain attention. Yet, as these are often feelings from external sources to the narcissist, so they don’t last, and as soon as they perceive attention to be falling away from them, outcomes their envious face, their anger and rage.
Myth number 2. The narcissist misses you.
They do not miss you. They do not miss anyone. They miss the attention and the emotional response you provided them, they miss the belongings you purchased them, or money, home and cars that you provided, or helped them to achieve, they missed your good traits that they could copy and pass off as their own to others.
If they discard you, they decide you are no longer meeting their needs, and most will already have a new source of supply waiting. When the new isn’t meeting their needs, they may come back to you and try to hoover you, not because they want you, but because they believe the new isn’t meeting their needs, and now you can.
If you leave them, most will come for the grand hoover as they’ll miss what you can provide them, a home, money, traits and emotions.
Myth number 3. You reacting and getting angry at them makes them angry.
They’ve actually usually done something in order for you to react to make themselves feel better so they can blame you, done something to hurt you, because they felt hurt or criticised by you, so they’ve baited you into reacting, and once they know they’ve gotten to you, they feel better, so they can make you feel all those negative emotions they feel, so they can put themselves back in control and feel powerful again. You falling silent on them does not affect them or infuriate them. It doesn’t cause them psychological pain in the way it does you. Often if they have someone else feeding them attention, they don’t care, and if they don’t have other sources of attention, they’ll just understand they need to try a new form of manipulation on you. Most know that our positive emotions mean we find it hard to go no contact and treat them how they treat us, so they will up their games, to lower your guard and claim positive or negative responses from you.
Myth number 4. They hate being alone.
They need to surround themselves with people and often cross over partners or have more than one available. In one sense, it’s true, as they can feel loneliness if no one is meeting their needs. As they need people for attention, yet if they are getting them met by friends or family, they can be alone while they meet someone new, although they’ll not want to wait too long, as long as they are getting their needs met by someone, they do not feel lonely when alone, and they can enjoy their own company as with social media, they can be alone yet be in touch and search for the next target they can manipulate.
Remember being alone and being lonely are two different things for people with the disorder and those not on the disorder.
You can be with someone and feel so alone, and you can be alone and not feel lonely.
Myth number 5. They have a conscience.
They do not have a conscience, especially the narcissistic psychopath. They can only think of how a situation can benefit them or would look badly, on them. Narcissistic people only think of their needs, and they only think of themselves. They can act like they have a conscience if it meets a need, and they believe that person is expecting the narcissist to have a conscience, so they will act it out to meet a need from the person who expects them to have one. They will only ever pretend to have a conscience to fool those around them. If they had a conscience, they would not be able to do, what they do, time and time again.
They exploit people. They feel entitled to exploit people. They lack empathy to care for those they exploit, especially in those they are envious of. They’ll happily walk away from those they hurt when they no longer have a need for them, without a glance back, unless it meets a need of their own.
Myth number 6. They all have a high self-esteem.
The vulnerable narcissist often feels entitled, but as they believe the world doesn’t agree with them, they often have low self-esteem. People with high self-esteem are usually happy within themselves and their own abilities. They don’t need to seek validation and attention from others. After a narcissistic relationship or being raised by a narcissist can leave our self-esteem in shatters, this does not make you a narcissist. Looking for validation of your thoughts, feelings, and what you have been through does not make you a narcissist. You can have low self-esteem and help others to feel validated, learn who you are, build your confidence back up, learn who you can help and who to walk away from. A Narcissist is arrogant, believing themselves to be superior to others and going around destroying others to feel better within themselves.
You are only ever in competition with yourself. Only you define yourself.
Myth number 7. All narcissists have low self-esteem.
Those who are incredibly arrogant towards others that feel entitled have high self-esteem that they’ve taken too far, often believing they are entitled. The grand act the classic grandiose narcissist puts on the world usually agrees.
Myth number 8. You have to love yourself in order to be able to love someone else.
Some narcissists are very In love with themselves, and often they go around destroying others.
Yet people who’ve come out of a narcissistic relationship are often left with anxiety and depression. However, they can be insecure in a relationship if they haven’t healed past wounds. They still genuinely care for others and want to help others, so even if they are only just starting to work on themselves, they can make wonderful partners with time and patience as they don’t want others hurting as they do.
Taking care and learning to love yourself is great, as when you’re at your best, you can give your best but all people have bad moments and bad days, but not all people abuse others when having a bad moment. Narcissists Abuse People when having a bad moment or not.
Myth number 9. They all cheat.
Some narcissists can and do maintain a sexually exclusive relationship. Yes, the majority do cheat on their partners and often have a few intimate partners that they are cheating on at the same time. Most go after your friends, family or neighbours. Not all do. However, some go for people you don’t know, and some can and do stay faithful to their primary target. Just like no one falls in love faster than a narcissist who needs somewhere to live, although, with the majority, this is the case, some do have their own home and convince people to sell up and move in with them, to take them down that way. Not all narcissists are cheaters, and not all cheaters are narcissists. However, as many are exploitative, they will cheat you out of your dreams, hobbies, family, friendships, health and wealth.
Myth number 10. No empathy.
They lack in emotional empathy, meaning they can not put themselves in someone else’s shoes to feel how that person would feel. They often have cognitive understanding, meaning they can think empathetically, meaning they can see how something would make you think so that they can guilt trip you, pity play and intimidate you, so you feel guilty or fear to give in to their demands, they just don’t have the empathy to care how you feel.
Self-help.
When around negative or toxic people, we become conditioned to think certain ways, act certain ways. Negativity breeds negativity. The first step in recovery is distancing yourself from negative people with no contact or limited contact. You can not change them, and it’s a big enough job changing ourselves.
Then working on your own mindset, undoing all that negative programming takes work and effort from yourself. This becomes easier when you change the “I should do this.” To “I must do this.” And find reasons to make it a must.
If we can find reasons to stay, we can find reasons to leave, and if we can find reasons to be depressed, we can find reasons to be happy.
Think about what you truly want from your life, start writing down what you truly want from your life, feel the emotions you would feel if you already had what you wanted in your life, take the first step today to take you into the right direction to achieve what you want.
First thing in the morning, if you wake thinking about outside problems, your day tends to head that way. Stop yourself and think about how you want your day to go, feel how you’d feel if your day goes right for you, imagine and feel, love, joy, happiness within you. Think about things you do have that make you happy, that you are grateful for.
Then last thing at night, as you close your eyes for sleep, when those negative problems filter into your mind, consciously move them back out. Those negative thoughts are connected to your emotions. Those negative emotions make it much harder to rest adequately. When you’re in your bed, you’re in your bed. Whatever happened in the past is now your imagination. It’s no longer real. Yes, it happened. Yet, it’s not happening in the present, so learn to use your imagination to work for you, fall asleep thinking about all the things you have achieved in that day, something you perhaps need to learn from, and what you could do to make the outcome better for you in the future. Then start imagining the future of your dreams, whatever that future is for you. Dream it, believe it, feel it. Then get up the next day to work on achieving it.
You can, and you will.
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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.
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