Narcissistic Personality Disorder

The narcissist ruins lives.  But you might be so drawn in by their manipulative tactics, you don’t realise how messed up your life has become.  I spoke with Nicole Bigelow, Narcissistic Personality Disorder Abuse Expert and Coach to drill down on the most important things we need to know when uncovering a narcissist.

There are two main types of narcissists.  Overt and Covert. 

An overt narcissist is the type that walks into a room and loves attention. Usually they are loud and boisterous.  They make themselves known. ‘Here I am world!’  It’s the woman who loves being the center of attention. She can work a room. She’s very charming and obvious about it. It’s the guy who thinks all the women want him and he’s a charming Don Juan.  That’s the overt narcissist.

The covert narcissist is a lot harder to identify because they’re quieter and more passive aggressive in their manipulation techniques. They’re the shy narcissist. This is the guy that is going to make you feel bad about yourself without really letting you know he’s doing it.

They’re highly manipulative.  He’ll say things like ‘are you going to wear that today?’ and when you question why he’s asking he’ll say ‘I thought you wanted me to let you know when you look fat’.  It’s disguised in a way that makes you believe they have your best interests at heart, but really it’s a degrading manipulation technique to put you down and make you feel terrible about yourself.

They’re always the victim.  They will tell you a huge sob story. And when you decide to leave a covert narcissist, they’re going to exploit that situation and make everybody around you believe it was you abusing them.  They will degrade your reputation to make themselves appear to be the victim.

They will lie and run a huge smear campaign and leave you with a terrible reputation. And people believe them because who does that? It’s a hard thing for people to recognize that somebody would totally make up how this relationship ended just to make themselves look good.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder 9 Facts

1. Narcissists Are Selfish

A narcissist is so selfish they’re willing to sacrifice other people to get what they want out of any situation.  They are manipulators and we don’t see them coming because they don’t walk around with a sign saying’ I am a narcissist or a sociopath’.

And because of Hollywood, we have this idea that a sociopath is someone standing behind the door with a knife and we don’t realize that sociopaths and narcissists are just people whose thinking is disordered or pathological, which means diseased. They actually do not think clearly.

2. Narcissists Don’t Need A Diagnosis

We get so caught up in this idea that I need to diagnose my spouse or my boyfriend, or my boss. I need to know if they’re Narcissistic or not. No, you don’t. What you need to know is how they are affecting your life.  Are you bothered deeply by this person’s behavior? Is this person hurting you in a manner that you cannot tolerate? That is the question you should be asking yourself.

How is this affecting my health? How is this affecting my mental state?  Am I so miserable that every day I get hives just thinking about going to work, because I know my boss could potentially be in a terrible mood and verbally abuse me in front of my co-workers? And so you’re scared to death and now you’re taking antidepressants.

That’s how you need to think about it.  Is this person abusive? And if they are, then you need to take action to protect yourself.

MOSAIC WEIGHTED BLANKETS

3.  Narcissists Are Manipulative

It’s natural to want to hyper focus on the narcissist, but we don’t have control over the narcissist. We only have control over ourselves.  So we must be educated and aware and alert to danger. We have to be in tune with our bodies. Our bodies are designed to keep us safe.

Being around a narcissist doesn’t feel good. And that’s because your subconscious is designed to pick up on when you are in an unsafe situation. That is why we get gut feelings or instincts that something is wrong. But what we generally do is ignore those thoughts or those feelings, and we push them down and think, ‘oh, I’m just being hypercritical’. Or ’I’m being defensive’. ‘I’m wrong’. ‘Maybe I’m off’.

But always go with your gut feeling, because that’s your instinct telling you something is wrong. Pain and discomfort is a signal or a sign. Don’t ignore it. In fact we are the only species that ignores those bodily signs. Only humans keep on going and try to reason and rationalize that it will all be okay.  But, it might not. And you need to take heed and listen.

When you grow up in an abusive family arrangement, you are taught not to connect to that part of yourself or to listen to your gut instincts, because you’re not allowed to have an alternate opinion to your parent. You may have been abused or chastised every time you tried to access that part of yourself. So you’re trained early not to listen to what you innately know.

Ask yourself, ‘Am I a responsible person in listening to my own body cues? Do I respect those triggers and their validity?’

The first time I met my ex partner face to face, I can see now how my body told me right away ‘no, this is a bad idea’. But I disregarded those feelings because I wanted it to be wrong.  I wanted this to work. So I overwrote that inner knowing because I didn’t want to believe it. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I didn’t like that message. And if you proceed anyway, you’re gonna cry later.  If you keep going when you know it’s wrong, you’re not going to like the consequences two years, three years, five years down the track.

• My Mother Had Narcissistic Personality Disorder

4  Narcissists Are Charming At First

A narcissist is going to be super charming right from the beginning. This person will make you feel really, really good in their presence. They are going to smother you with flattery. They use flattery and lies to seduce their victims.

If you meet someone who is schmoozing you, some red flags need to go up and a realization that something is wrong here because normal, healthy people don’t treat other people that way. Generally with new people, we take the time to get to know each other, but that’s not the way it works with the narcissist.

They will say “oh my God, we’re best friends. I love you”. You’re the most amazing thing they’ve ever seen. ‘I’m so excited about you. And I can’t wait to get to know you’.

They’re just going to smother you with flattery. And if you’ve not had that attention before, that flattery is going to feel really good. You are going to lap that up because it’s filling a void inside you.

5.  Narcissists Groom You

The narcissist grooms their victims. They spotted you long before you were aware of them and they are asking themselves, what does this person need? Are they lonely? Are they a widow and miss having somebody in their life? They might watch and stalk you online.

But when you meet, you think ‘oh, I just ran into this random guy and he’s really interested in me.  This is going to be something great’. Beware. This could be a predator who stalked you out in advance. And if he shows up at your door and smothers you with attention, you have to ask yourself, ‘what does this person want from me? And why is he being so nice?’

This is called love bombing.  In a love interest situation, they’re going to be texting you all day long. They’re going to want to be around you 24/ 7. It will be an immediate enmesh into your life. And that’s not a healthy person. Healthy people don’t behave that way. Whenever you meet anybody, give yourself time to let them prove to you who they are and whether you can trust them with intimate details about your life before you start letting them into places where they could actually exploit you. Be wise.

Observe people and within a very short period of time, people will show you who they are loud and clear. If you watch, you have to be willing to accept what you find. Like Maya Angelo says, ‘when people teach you who they are, accept it, believe them’.

6.  Narcissists Abuse Behind Closed Doors

Narcissists abuse behind closed doors, not in public. Everyone else who has had experiences of this person will not support your position when you try to tell them, ‘they’re abusive’ because their experience with that person is quite pleasant.  

Nobody else has seen the abuse because the narcissist is very good at hiding it.  They’ve had lots of practice hiding who they really are. This will have you second guessing your perception of reality because no-one believes you.

7.  Narcissists Have A Lot Of Ego

There’s a lot of ego with a narcissist. From their perspective, they are a traumatized child themselves. They’ve possibly dealt with a narcissistic parent and a codependent parent growing up.  They were most likely abused themselves, and never evolved or grew up emotionally. They are still operating from the emotional perspective of a toddler.

If you’ve ever tried to reason with a toddler or tell a toddler they can’t have icecream for breakfast, it doesn’t work.  They just want what they want in that moment. And that’s how the narcissist thinks too. I just want what I want and you better give it to me or we’re going to have a problem. They’ve figured out techniques to get you to give them what they want.

They cannot self-reflect, because they have super tiny fragile egos. They’ve created a hard outer shell to protect themselves and inside they are a vulnerable child, lost and hurting. They’ve decided ‘I don’t ever want anyone to humiliate me or make me feel this way ever again’.  ‘I’m going to put on this hard outer shell, and I’m going to be the bully now, and I’m going to get people before they get me, and I’m never going to trust anybody or let them see my true self’.

8.  Narcissists Believe They Are Perfect

When you go to a narcissist and ask them to change, or you bring up a point of difference, don’t ever insinuate the narcissist is not perfect because they will  immediately find a way to either attack you or make it your fault.

Their brains are actually hardwired to find a logical explanation for why you are responsible for what’s happened, no matter what it is. And they will come up with a logical explanation and they will believe that explanation. And they will try to convince you that you are the problem. They will not entertain any idea that they’re not perfect.

9.  Narcissists Are Miserable On The Inside

The narcissist is really very fragile. It’s the grumpy old man next door who rages at the kids if they accidentally touch his grass. Why is he that violent? Because he’s suffering inside.  He’s hurting because happy people don’t hurt other people.

They just don’t. They’re not motivated to treat people poorly.  Narcissists are miserable on the inside and they’re always looking for the next thing to make them feel alive again.  To make them feel good. To fill up that dark void within. That’s why they’re always discarding or cheating or being abusive. They need constant excitement because they’re trying to hide the true pain that lies inside them.

Nicole Bigelow is a Narcissistic Abuse Expert and Coach who works with survivors of Narcissistic Personality Disorder abuse through programs and support groups.  You can connect with Nicole HERE and on Instagram HERE