Are narcissists aware of their behaviour? Do they know the impact their selfish behaviour has on those around them?
We can make sweeping generalisations based on the research done by psychologists, therapists, survivors and other professionals, also based on the nine criteria of the narcissist personality disorder.
Whether a narcissist is aware they hurt you or not all depends on the narcissist you’re dealing with.
When a narcissist suffers a psychological injury when they feel their sense of entitlement wasn’t met, when they’re envious of another’s possessions, looks, qualities, or Career, when they feel control is slipping, when they feel like they’re being judged, when someone doesn’t agree with them, when they feel like you’re calling them out on things they’re entitled to do, however with their double standards you wouldn’t be allowed to do. A narcissist can suffer a narcissistic injury, and once they’ve suffered this blow to their ego, a narcissist can then seek to hurt the person who injured that narcissist’s ego, who didn’t dance to the narcissist’s tune, didn’t say yes, didn’t have the same opinion as to the narcissist. While the narcissist claims. “I’m not dancing to your tune.”
Narcissists seek to punish those who go against who the narcissist is. They believe people who disagree with them have gone against them, so the narcissist seeks to punish them physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, spiritually, sexually, psychologically, and anyway the narcissist can that will hurt the person. A narcissist can obviously punish another in overt ways or subtlety in covert ways. However, if they punish another, a narcissist will always twist the story that the other person deserved to suffer. Because the narcissist suffered a narcissistic injury, many narcissists use this to justify their unjust behaviour towards others.
You can simply arrange to go out with friends, an everyday thing many people do. The narcissist is allowed to see their friends; however, as they are self-entitled hypocrites, they’ll go all out to make it as difficult as possible for you to see yours while blaming you, and if you dare to go, they’ll seek to punish you while blaming you as in the narcissist’s eyes you shouldn’t have gone, however, if they see you’re not buying into their games they might go for the pity plays of them having a difficult time, they needed your support, you don’t understand them, to guilt-trip you, a narcissist will always seek for ways to put you in between a rock and a hard place, so you’re dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t. If you go, they seek to punish you, making you late, locking you out, falling silent on you and many more.
Once a narcissist has punished someone, the narcissist seeks to gain a reaction, shaming, blaming, judging, criticising, invalidating, downplaying their behaviour and exaggerating your responses, so the narcissist isn’t held responsible for the narcissist’s own behaviour so that they can pass the blame over to the other person.
So yes, narcissists seek to hurt others. When a narcissist doesn’t get their own way, they seek to punish those who didn’t give the narcissist what the narcissist wanted. However, a narcissist will not admit to this, so they quickly shift the blame, or they play the victim to gain sympathetic attention.
When you don’t say exactly what a narcissist wants you to say, they seek to punish you. A narcissist can walk into the house looking at their phone. You can ask if they had a good day, and the narcissist can ignore you. The more you ask, the more the narcissist will ignore you, leaving you ruminating over what you’ve done when you’ve done nothing. The narcissist’s sense of entitlement took a blow, their ability to be rude to you. If you ask what’s wrong, they’ll not tell you; instead, they’ll find a way to blame you. You didn’t answer your phone fast enough at lunch. However, you can not win with a narcissist if you answer your phone quickly enough. Because they want to look at their phone and ignore you, they will, if the next day you don’t ask how their day was, this will criticise the narcissist’s belief they are special. You’ll not be giving the narcissist the attention they believe they’re entitled to, so the narcissist will seek to punish you.
If you’re at a party and talk to someone else, they’ll feel criticism that you didn’t pay them sole attention, so they’ll seek to punish you and gain attention elsewhere, right in front of you, to feel better about themselves, and when you ask them, they’ll accuse you of being “jealous.” Projection of how the narcissist felt why they sought to get revenge on you.
Once a narcissist has brought you down, they’ll often have that smirk on their face and act all calm because they feel like they’ve got one over on you.
This is who a narcissist is due to the disorder’s criteria, envy, entitlement, exploitation, lack of empathy, requiring excessive attention, a belief they are special, arrogance, preoccupied with self, grandiosity, and a narcissist would have at least five of these.
When you go to communicate with a narcissist because they are insincere exploitative people, you won’t get sincere communication with them. Instead, you’ll get the word salad tossed at you because they’re trying to hide the truth from you. After all, they believe you deserve what they’re doing to you because they didn’t get what they wanted. ( no one deserves abuse.)
Due to the criteria, this is who narcissists are. It is their internal dialogue, their thought process, that’s been that way for a long time, you did not cause it, and you can not change it.
With some narcissists, they intentionally set out to hurt you through their conscious thought, with a detailed plan where they seek to destroy you.
With other narcissists, it’s instinctive, through learned behaviour of what works for them, through their subconscious thought, it’s who they are, it’s how they get away with things. How they avoid taking responsibility, how they avoid being held accountable, and how they pass responsibility over to others so the narcissist can avoid the consequences of their behaviour, never learning, never growing, stick to a pattern of repeat.
Narcissists are incredibly entitled people with a willingness to exploit others to get their needs met. Whether or not they are aware, they lack the empathy to care for how their behaviour affects those around them. They only care about avoiding taking responsibility.
Narcissists believe they’re always right, meaning to a narcissist, everyone else is wrong.
If they are aware they know what they’re doing, and you can not help them, they lack the empathy to care.
If they’re unaware of what they’re doing, they don’t believe they have a problem, and you can not help them.
It’s not your responsibility to help those unwilling to learn from their behaviour. It’s not your job to save people who are reluctant to take a look at themselves.
The more you try to help a narcissist, the more a narcissist believes they are right, and the more this enables the narcissist to do their worst.
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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.
Sheesh! I needed to stumble upon this today. I in July my narcissist ex fiancée wasn’t getting his yes’ from me and upon my departure of the relationship he assaulted me. It’s a pretty awful heart wrenching experience I posted my story series in my blog