Psychopaths cannot change.

Psychopathy is incurable and untreatable. They do not want help, because they believe themselves to be superior to "regular" human beings. You do not have to worry that they're a changed man or woman, because they're not. They may give off the illusion of "goodness" in order to maintain an image of normalcy, but like anything else with a psychopath, it's all manufactured. They are incapable of seeing other human beings as unique individuals deserving of love & kindness. All they see is pawns on a chess board. Someone who is capable of abusing you (with silence, gas-lighting, cheating, and pathological lying) is not also capable of suddenly being a decent human being because they found a better partner. These qualities & behaviors are indicative of a serious personality disorder, not temporary symptoms a bad relationship.

Calling all idiots!

Mr. or Ms. Narcissist is successful in controlling others because if they aren't they simply move on to someone else or groups of someone else's. The non players are side stepped, ignored, avoided or vilified as the case may be...everyone else is left to serve as their useful idiot.

Oh honey, let's not "fight"...play along like the way I treat you is COMPLETELY NORMAL!

I didn't catch the signs at the beginning of the relationshit (intentional) but they were there in retrospect. One of the biggest was all the testing.

"Can I upset you?
How far can i push an issue?
Will you yell? Will you punish me back?
Will you brood?
How vicious can I take it before you react? Before you leave?
What happens when I do something you love or hate?
Test, test, test.

Oh honey...lets not fight. I simply want to know what I can get away with before I start training you."

Covert Narc Training - Once you're brainwashed:

You are less capable than you ever thought you were. Forget that job in accounting or degree in psychology...your skills in counting or understanding the human mind will slowly be eroded, replaced with their fears, doubts and worry and deferred to the expert with their natural intuitive powers of intelligence and experience. Your JesusMahatmaMotherTheresaGandhi knows more than you and any other twelve thousand people and will be happy to guide and remind you of how much practice you STILL need.

You need to seek therapy, they'll say.
You need to find Jesus, they'll say.
You need to go to rehab, they'll say.
You need serious help, they'll say.
You are hurting this family, they'll say.
You are selfish and blind, they'll say.

I only want you to be a better person. Look at all the people I have convinced of your invalidity! See! It's not ME, it's YOU.

I'm only trying to help you. You can't help it. You just have a problem. You just have a disease. God can help. Counseling can help. I just want to live a long life with you! I am just trying to help you help yourself. Poor baby. It must be hard having that disease. I will be here for you, I just need you to show you care about our family by getting the help you so desperately need!

But be very clear: YOU are the one who needs help. You're an idiot if you think anything else.

They can't bear the mirror, but they can't stop looking into it and projecting onto you.

Control. First a little here and there. Then it is what color toothbrush you should buy and how best to use the toilet, what kind of pants you should be wearing.

When they socialize it is holy...when you do it is never with the right people or for the right reasons. Family will be portrayed as meddling, close friends as interring or bad influences and everyone else either beneath you, poor or lame. Never should you be left alone with others either. If by chance you are allowed they'll want a full briefing of what transpired.

Notice that each of these previous posts have an agenda behind them: control, isolation, unbalance, devaluing, etc.

It took time to slowly drip feed these abuses to you and it took time for you to doubt your perceptions, feel like crap and get lost in a cloud of fog. This is when it's easy to slide into drug or alcohol abuse to start to cope with the confused devastation and cognitive dissonance you are experiencing. It didn't happen overnight and it was likely subtle...it could and does happen to anyone! Do not spend a single moment questioning how this could have happened to you because it happens to people of all stripes, backgrounds and education.

...You know what the creepy thing is? I (Denise) didn't write this...this is copy pasta from another unfortunate soul who fell in the Narc trap. THEY ARE ALL THE SAME: Zombies.

- Pierce The Darkness - (Excerpt 1)

Relationships with narcissists are unidirectional and transactional. They take and you give.

A narcissist that tires, gets bored or feels you will leave, attack or hurt them though will act first to try and remain in control. They will often seek to punish and make you pay. They will use the kids, take all the money, destroy your relationships, assassinate your character, try and have painted as the aggressor and quite possibly have YOU arrested or committed for abuse, false crimes or mental instability. Many people will believe the allegations or at the very least be unsure. Do not make the mistake of staying for the kids sake and think that the worst that will happen is that they will merely abuse you. They can do much more than that.

You can stick it out with a narcissist and if you continue to provide them with emotional supply, comfort and support they might let you stay. They will over time want more and more though and they will also give you less and less.

People are tools for narcissists...means to an end. People are either useful, not useful or a danger to be avoided, punished into submission, pushed away or destroyed. People are objectified. Those closest to them exploited, used and controlled. Everyone else is put to a use. Some in small ways, others in large.

Do not think that a narcissist is only the slick guy at the bar picking up every lady walking by either. Your narcissist could very well be dressed in high heels and skirt as well. It might be the respected PTA mom, pastor at your church or the towns most respected businessman.

For extra brutality, add a beatdown section.

I have more respect, hope, and love

for the man who beat the crap out of me in drunken rages

stalked me for 18 months when I left him and went into hiding

attempted to murder my quadriplegic boyfriend 

and is now in prison for the next 16 years, with a lifetime no-contact order

than I do for you. 

Because he has a heart. He can FEEL. He feels regret. 

And he is man enough to sincerely apologize.

And he works hard to make his life right for his son.

Your crimes are worse because they aren't against a grown person

You slaughter your own children

without apology.

without so much as a single glimmer of recognition for your depravity. 

The world is safer with him here, and you in his place.

Alone, in a 8x8 cell, until you finally realize just how brutal 

your cuts to their souls really are. 

& how

You will be held to the highest standards and not allowed barely an in of fault.

The narcissist on another hand will act or do pretty much as he or she wants laughing at you privately as they deny any wrongdoing or unreasonability.

They will get away with murder while you have the book thrown at you for the most insignificant things.

Expect this and simply do the best you can...you and I know the truth.

Sound Familiar?

Male targets of narcissistic abuse may experience partners that:

Yell and scream
Threaten them and try to induce fear
Insult and demean them; tell them they are not worth the trouble
Socially isolate them
Lie or withhold information
Treat them like a child or servant
Control all the finances
Beat them down emotionally, and then tell them they have no spine

Controlling and emotionally abusive behaviors perpetrated by narcissistic women may include:

Falsely accusing or threatening to accuse a man of assault on them or their children
Threatening false sexual abuse claims
Threatening to take away custody of the children
Threatening to kill themselves or others
Making the man feel like "he's crazy"
Minimizing the abuse; blaming the victim of the abuse
Playing mind games
Making the man feel guilty
Falsely obtaining a restraining order or injunction
Withholding affection
Stalking

Feelings the victim of a narcissist may feel:

Feeling edgy all the time
Feeling you can't do anything right
Feeling afraid of the narcissist and what they might say or do
Doing or avoiding certain things in order to make the narcissist happy
Lying to avoid the wrath of the narcissist
Feeling they deserve to be hurt
Wondering if you're crazy
Feeling emotionally numb, helpless or depressed
Feeling like committing suicide

Pity for the Boot Licker?

Narcissist's don't have "friends" they surround themselves with Syc·o·phants and other boot lickers.

/ˈsikəfənt,-ˌfant/

1. a person who acts obsequiously toward someone deemed as important in order to gain an advantage 
2. a servile self-seeking flatterer 

What would you call the people that cling to narcissists despite evidence to suggest that they will be used, exploited and abused?

Because They are SO MATURE

Confidence: Zero

Narcissism encourages envy and hostile rivalries, where self-esteem supports compassion and cooperation.

Narcissism favors dominance, where self-esteem acknowledges equality.

Narcissism involves arrogance, where self-esteem reflects humility.

Narcissism is affronted by criticism, where self-esteem is enhanced by feedback.

Narcissism makes it necessary to pull down others in order to stand above them.

Self-esteem leads to perceiving every human being as a person of value in a world of meaning.

Why Narcissistic Parents Overly Connect to Their Children

Narcissistic parents want their child’s performance to reflect on them. The reasons for this are complex. Parents may be trying to compensate for what they believe are their own shortcomings. They may rely on their child’s success to bolster themselves up. In doing so, they are failing to see their child as a unique and autonomous individual. They refuse to recognize that their child is separate from them, with their own thoughts, feelings, and desires.

A narcissistic parent tends to focus on or almost “feed” on their child’s accomplishments. They often do this, because something is lacking within them. They may try to use their child to fill an emptiness they feel within themselves. Parents with full lives, in which they have many interests, close relationships, and passions, often offer more to their children than those who give up everything to be with their kids. Though they do this in the name of love, they don’t realize that their conception of love is actually skewed.

People often confuse love with emotional hunger. Parents who think they are giving their children love by showering them with constant attention are failing to see how much they are pulling on or draining the child. When a person feels a “need” or “longing” for their child, it can be a red flag that they are taking more than they are giving in the relationship. If a parent feels their child is “filling up” a part of them, for example, that they are their sole source of joy, it can be a further warning that they are experiencing emotional hunger toward their child. Love is an offering of encouragement, support, and affection. Emotional hunger provides just the opposite.

Empathy is Gone.

Lack of empathy is one of the most striking features of people with narcissistic personality disorder. It's a hallmark of the disorder in the same way that fear of abandonment is in borderline personality disorder.

"Narcissists do not consider the pain they inflict on others; nor do they give any credence to others' perceptions," says Dr. Les Carter in the book Enough of You, Let's Talk About Me (p. 9). "They simply do not care about thoughts and feelings that conflict with their own." Do not expect them to listen, validate, understand, or support you.

Never let a narcissist determine your self-worth. Narcissists lack empathy and the ability to validate others, so don't trust them with sensitive information or sharing important achievements because they won’t treat it with the respect it deserves.

Pity the Narcissist. Arrogance doesn't inspire sympathy or compassion. But at the end of the day, when you think about it, pity may be the only emotion evoked by someone who is so desperately in need of constant compliments, attention and validation.

Source.

Confusion is Insurance.

Victims or targets of a narcissistic personality leave the interaction, feeling Baffled, confused, and SELF BLAMING.

It is more often that a target of a narcissist will seek out therapy, often complaining to the therapist, that they suffer a general malaise and dis - ease with their lives; wondering what is WRONG with them.

As a person begins to understand the dynamics of a narcissistic personality, they begin to not only feel the relief that the problem is NOT themselves, as they've been blamed or encouraged to believe, but rather the presence of a personality disorder in the person they've been so baffled by.

With knowledge, comes POWER. The power to walk away from and establish boundaries to reclaim your identity, as narcissists are the CONSUMMATE identity thieves. Often taking what they want from a person they view as an 'OBJECT' and then leaving them in the dust and destruction of the chaos they caused in that person's life.

Source.

Sheep Attire

Often, a narcissist who is unaware or unwilling to come to terms with the mental deficiencies they possess will convince themselves that *they* are actually an Empath - someone who has an acute or highly developed sense of empathy. In actuality, a narcissist has a severe lack of empathy and is only ever attuned to their own emotions and needs, but they believe they are the expert people-readers, always expertly attuned to the emotions and needs of other people. What a narcissist is actually tuned into is the survey of vulnerability or fortitude in those around them. The narcissist only gives their emotional love to those they believe are worthy...which means to those who do not see, or confront them too deeply about the mental crimes that they commit against others. The narc can sense people who see beyond the excellent fake exterior that they work hard at portraying, and they will immediately sense the threat to their mask being revealed and start a campaign to assassinate the character of the person that they feel threatened by.

A Narc believes they have the right to other people's belongings, other people's personal liberties, and they believe they know the how and why of almost anything - especially in regards to their victims/targets. They will lie relentlessly while claiming arrogantly that their perspective is supreme and if you perspective or feelings disagree, then you need to be fixed, and they are perfect. They believe they have the right to demand from you whatever they want, while also getting off on deciphering what it is that their victim wants/needs and if they can, working to siphon off the victim's ability to have their needs or wants met. This gives them the sense of power and control they believe they have the right to have. They convince themselves that they have the right to power and control over you because they are the smarter, better, or more responsible. They work to put you down and convince *you* that you are not adequate, and they tend to victimize people who they "intuitively" glean as being easy to dominate - at least for a long enough period of time to feed the Narc's need to feed on the weaknesses of others (narc supply). Once the narc realizes that they can receive an easier or more supply of emotional and mental submission from another victim, they will discard the current victim and tell the victim that it is their fault that they are being left. Narc's never take responsibilities, and apologies are feigned and superficial, if they are ever said at all.