When it comes to dealing with a vulnerable narcissist, people can have lived through some form of tragedy. They might be a victim of abuse, the victim of fraud, or lost loved ones. Life can be hard, things happen, life can come along, crumple you up and throw you back out and when it hits, it hits hard. People do have vulnerabilities. People can have been victims. People can feel victimised. People can look for justice which a narcissist will claim people are seeking revenge. Revenge is to hurt another. Justice is to have peace restored see a wrong done to another being righted.
When someone has lied to you, cheated on you, hurt you, provoked you, or humiliated you, it’s normal to have feelings such as anger, resentment and frustration. It’s normal to feel vulnerable. Some people want to keep quiet. Others want to speak out. However, people who choose to handle these are individual to that person.
A vulnerable narcissist will use their vulnerabilities to exploit another to get their needs met, a narcissist will also use the other person’s vulnerabilities against them to exploit that person, and a narcissist often lacks the ability to take responsibility for their behaviour or feel empathy for how their behaviour affects their loved ones, they don’t care how this hurts those around them.
As a narcissist can seldom control their own emotions, they seek to control others, as they rarely to never take responsibility for their behaviour. They seek to control another’s. As they are insincere, they use other people’s sincerity against them to serve the narcissist.
The nine criteria of which someone would need five of to be classed as having the disorder are.
- A sense of entitlement wanting things their own way.
- Envious of others believing others are envious of them.
- A lack of empathy towards others.
- Exploitive behaviour.
- Arrogant and haughty Behaviour unpleasantly proud of who they are.
- A belief they are special, that sense of superiority.
- Requires excessive attention.
- Grandiose, look at how great I am, or everyone comes and supports me.
- Preoccupation with their ideal, whatever that ideal is to that individual narcissist.
20 signs of vulnerable narcissism
1. Quiet, calm, shy, introverted, they’ll provoke someone into reacting, then play the woe is me, victim, claiming they don’t want a fuss, yet making sure everyone knows how someone treated them. They’ll just take no responsibility for the part they played.
2. Playing the victim oh so well, and they play the victim so well because the narcissist has rewritten history to escape accountability, making out the other person to be the villain, thus believing they are the victim. As a narcissist doesn’t take responsibility for their behaviour, they blame others for any mistakes they make. Therefore their lies become their truths which becomes their beliefs. “If it wasn’t for them.” “If only they hadn’t.” And as they sell themselves and others that story, it becomes their subconscious thought process.
3. Blame shifting. They will not take responsibility for their behaviour. Therefore they’ll always find a scapegoat to blame for their behaviour.
4. Provoking arguments, when narcissists don’t get what they want, they’ll create an atmosphere, yet they’ll still be playing the victim with .”I don’t want to argue with you.” “Why do you always have to cause an argument.” When you want to talk to them about everyday things.
5. Damaging property, they might smash plates, punch walls and doors, yet when called out to a narcissist, it’ll be a case of “if you hadn’t, I wouldn’t.” Someone who does this through reactive abuse would be blaming themselves. A narcissist is always looking to blame another.
6. Projection, The narcissist’s defence mechanism taking their unwanted traits, behaviours or emotions and passing them onto someone else. This is when they’ll come at you saying, “You’re too sensitive, you’re jealous, you’re insecure, you have trust issues.”
7. Gaslighting. Distorting someone’s reality into losing their sanity, so you doubt who you are or what you’ve done, and give the benefit of the doubt to the very person causing you those doubts. With the help of the narcissist’s words, the real victim doubts and blames themselves, while the narcissist avoids any consequence for their actions.
8. Act like they’re listening to you, but they’re only listening to what they can use against you, or they can zone out while they look like they are paying attention. Then when you bring it up later, they’ll claim, “You never said that.” Which gets you into those circular arguments with them. A narcissist will leave out information to cause intrigue in you and then say. “I told you last week you must be losing your mind.” And as we know, we told them something, and they don’t remember, we give them the benefit of the doubt and believe they told us.
9. Extremely negative, when you’ve achieved something, it’s nothing compared to what they’ve accomplished. When you’ve had a bad day, theirs has always been far worse. The fragile narcissist is very woe is me; the whole world is against me.
10. Highly sensitive to criticism, it doesn’t take much for them to sulk or pity play. A Narcissist will take offence to helpful advice. After all, their helpful advice is often sabotage disguised as advice.
11. Holds grudges. They expect people to blame themselves and forget what the narcissist did. However, a narcissist will not forgive another. Even if the other person didn’t do anything, just had a different opinion, a narcissist will not forgive.
12. Substances abuse, not all, but most narcissists have some form of addiction, drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, porn, cheating, however where a grandiose narcissist might gloat and be unpleasantly proud, a vulnerable will play the victim and use their addictions to gain sympathetic attention to gain support, with no intentions of changing.
13. False promises. A narcissist will promise to change, but they rarely do only temporarily to meet a need of their own. “I’ll change with your help.” The vulnerable narcissist will use depression against you, so you fear what they might do if you were to leave them. They might promise things in the future to get their needs met in the present, then when the future inevitably arrives, the narcissist will claim .”I never said that. You must be imagining things.”
14. Pity plays to gain sympathy to guilt-trip others into feeling obligated to help the narcissist.
15. lazy, unable to hold down a steady job, or even if they do have a job, they expect others to take care of them.
16. Double standards. They can make jokes at your expense. However, you’re not allowed to do the same to them. They get to control reality. You don’t. When they’re angry, it’s because they’re right. When you are angry is because you’re crazy. They don’t have to be grateful to you, but you must express eternal gratitude to them. They can ignore you, but you shouldn’t ignore them.
17. Passive-aggressive. A vulnerable narcissist will sulk and they will fall silent. Vulnerable narcissists will come at you, claiming, “You shouldn’t push my buttons. You know what I’m like. You get on my last nerve.”
18. Temper tantrums, narcissistic rage, when they don’t get what they want when they suffer a narcissistic injury, they will blow up out of proportion to the given situation.
19. The silent treatments as they sulk about not getting their own way.
The narcissist’s silent treatment is passive-aggressive manipulation to distort your reality, so they can feel superior and gain further control over you.
The silent treatment is a form of manipulation a narcissist uses to punish and control others.
The fragile narcissist’s silence is their refusal to communicate. It’s when a narcissist will completely ignore someone because the narcissist feels contempt. Due to their personality characteristics of a belief they are special, entitlement, envious, and preoccupied with self, narcissists feel superior and that others are beneath them.
Narcissists deploy the silent treatment to avoid taking responsibility, to avoid discussing things, to evade consequences, to punish those around them, and to break down people’s boundaries. The silent treatment is coercive controlling behaviour. It is a form of psychological manipulation.
20. Guilt-tripping others to get their own needs met. When a vulnerable narcissist isn’t getting what they believe they’re entitled to, they will guilt trip with “If you loved me, you would. After all I’ve done for you.” to get you to feel bad for saying no to them. The only people who don’t respect your boundaries are those who benefit from you having none.
For further information on signs of a vulnerable narcissist click the link below.
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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.
