Their secret is that they feel insecure and are needy. This is why they must, at all costs, feel powerful and in control. Once you realize this, it explains their entire personality and abuse. They act as if they're needless and judge their partners for their needs and feelings.
The cause is likely complex. Narcissistic personality disorder may be linked to: Environment — parent-child relationships with either too much adoration or too much criticism that don't match the child's actual experiences and achievements. Genetics — inherited characteristics, such as certain personality traits.
Narcissists hide who they are by managing their influence.
Due to projective identification, your feelings can reveal how abusers really feel and, in many cases, how they were treated as children. Narcissists hide their secret behind their abuse and bluster, their braggadocio, and their arrogance.
Exploiting Others. Many narcissists do not relate to others—they use them. Narcissists utilize charm, power of persuasion, or manipulation to force people to give in to unreasonable, one-sided demands or surrender their boundaries. The narcissist views this as winning and another way to feed their ego.
Although narcissists act superior to others and posture as beyond reproach, underneath their grandiose exteriors lurk their deepest fears: That they are flawed, illegitimate, and ordinary.
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.
Key points. A partner's low emotional intelligence can impact your sense of self. A robustly and rigidly defensive partner may lack the emotional capacity to relate in healthy ways. Narcissistic partners rarely say things like "What I did was insensitive and I apologize," or "I would be mad too."
Most narcissists enjoy an irrational and brief burst of relief after having suffered emotionally ("narcissistic injury") or after having sustained a loss. It is a sense of freedom, which comes with being unshackled.
Narcissists thrive on getting attention, feeling special, and having control.
We demonstrate that narcissism in children is cultivated by parental overvaluation: parents believing their child to be more special and more entitled than others. In contrast, high self-esteem in children is cultivated by parental warmth: parents expressing affection and appreciation toward their child.
Narcissists believe that they and their needs are special and take precedence over those of others. This core is made up of arrogance, self-involvement, and entitlement. In fact, entitlement is reportedly the most toxic element in relationships.
Most recent theories have focused on the link between narcissism and negative childhood experiences, such as physical or sexual violence, neglect, or rejection [10,11].
A narcissist views themself as better, more special, and more deserving than others. They tend to have a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), which is marked by grandiose thinking, an inflated ego, lack of empathy, and a need to be admired by all.
Narcissists are highly sensitive to criticism or any perceived threat to their self-image, and they will go to great lengths to protect it. If you criticize them or challenge their dominance, you will trigger a defensive response.
Ignoring them does it best. They love attention. It's fuel for their fragile ego and they need it to feel important or valuable. Cutting off your attention is one way to reduce their narcissistic supply.
Simply put, anything that jeopardizes their basic needs for superiority can quickly irritate them. If you want to know how to infuriate a narcissist, you can look no further than giving them nothing. But you can also stand up for yourself, set boundaries, and refuse their gaslighting strategies.
Empathize with Their Feelings
It is extremely soothing to Narcissists when you demonstrate that you understand and empathize with how they feel.
More than a dozen studies exploring whether or not narcissists can change have now been conducted… and they all point to the same conclusion: encouraging narcissists to feel more caring and compassionate reduces their narcissism… If narcissists are approached in a gentler way, many seem to soften emotionally.