Grooming a person, manipulating her into doubting her feelings, generating shame regarding her best qualities, and manipulatively creating dependency are four ways a narcissist destroys a person from the inside out.
The blame-shifting and projection often seen from narcissists is how they direct attention off them and onto someone else. When the narcissist starts to experience a negative emotion or thinks they have been “found out”, they become their most brutal. They enter into self-preservation mode and attack to hurt you.
PharmD. Narcissistic abuse occurs when a narcissist progressively manipulates and mistreats people to gain control over them, creating a toxic environment full of emotional, psychological, financial, sexual, or physical harm.
They start accusing you of being disloyal/lying/cheating/being envious. They are unfaithful, denying their infidelity once you find out about it. A narcissist makes themselves inaccessible to you, never answering your calls, texts, emails, etc. They are always angry with you.
Red Flags When You're In a Relationship With a Narcissist
Downplays your emotions. Uses manipulative tactics to “win” arguments. Love bombing, especially after a fight. Makes you second-guess yourself constantly.
At the end of a relationship, narcissists may become combative, passive-aggressive, hostile, and even more controlling. People with NPD often fail to understand other people's needs and values. They are hyper focused on their egos, but do not account for how their actions affect others.
They will often deploy a variety of narcissistic relationship patterns such as manipulation, charismatic, and exploitational tactics in order to ensure that their own needs and wants are met. As a spouse, you may be the subject of their manipulation and abuse, while your partner treats everyone else positively.
Some common examples of narcissistic abuse include:
When you don't do what an abuser wants, they may try to make you feel guilty or fearful. Insults: Verbal abuse like name-calling, harsh criticism, and other insults are ways for those with narcissistic personality disorder to chip away at a victim's self-esteem.
Silent Treatment Narcissists punish by ignoring. Then they let their victim off the hook by demanding an apology even though she isnt to blame. This is to modify her behavior. They also have a history of cutting others out of their life permanently over small things.
Depending upon the level of narcissistic injury, the narcissist's defense mechanism may lead to assault or even murder. McCarthy (1972) connects narcissism with murder when considering homicidal adolescents.
It's normal to fight with your significant other, but narcissists can be incredibly cruel and threatening in heated situations. This is because they cannot see you as somebody they love, and someone who has angered them at the same time.
Do narcissists know they're hurting your feelings? Someone living with narcissism can be aware they are causing you distress — but knowing and caring are two different things.
Although narcissists act superior, entitled and boastful, underneath their larger-than-life facade lies their greatest fear: That they are ordinary. For narcissists, attention is like oxygen. Narcissists believe only special people get attention.
The narcissist often engages in self-defeating and self-destructive behaviours.
In fact, narcissists are often attracted to strong, confident, and self-assured women. While this may seem counterintuitive, it is important to realize that the narcissistic traits of grandiosity and confidence are really a mask for deep insecurity.
Narcissistic collapse happens when a person with narcissistic personality disorder experiences a failure, humiliation, or other blow to their secretly fragile self-esteem. Depending on the type of narcissist, collapse may look different and happen more frequently.
A monumental weakness in the narcissist is the failure to look internally and flesh out what needs to be worked on. Then, of course, the next step is to spend time improving. The narcissist sabotages any possibility of looking deep within.
Beyond the desire to focus primarily on themselves and be held in high regard by virtually everyone in their lives, people with malignant narcissism tend to have a darker side to their self-absorption. These individuals can be highly manipulative and don't care who they hurt as long as they get their own way.