Are you a narcissist?

• An obvious self-focus in interpersonal exchanges
• Problems in sustaining satisfying relationships
• A lack of psychological awareness (see insight in psychology and psychiatry, egosyntonic)
• Difficulty with empathy
• Problems distinguishing the self from others (see narcissism and boundaries)
• Hypersensitivity to any insults or imagined insults (see criticism and narcissists, narcissistic rage and narcissistic injury)
• Vulnerability to shame rather than guilt
• Haughty body language
• Flattery towards people who admire and affirm them (narcissistic supply)
• Detesting those who do not admire them (narcissistic abuse)
• Using other people without considering the cost of doing so
• Pretending to be more important than they really are
• Bragging (subtly but persistently) and exaggerating their achievements
• Claiming to be an "expert" at many things
• Inability to view the world from the perspective of other people
• Denial of remorse and gratitude

Evil is evil, playa!

Sometimes, evil does not translate into violence or murder. Sometimes, evil can be difficult to detect. It can be masked by charm and flattery, and it is often perpetuated by pathological lying, projection, and various other mind games.

The excuses we tell ourselves...

1. "Maybe it is all in my head":

Lets see:

I used to be happy, have friends, attended family functions, stayed up late, could make decisions on spending (even if wrong), go out and do things, make whatever I wanted for dinner and stack the cupboard any which way I liked. Nope...not in your head.

If you feel nervous before arriving home, wondering if it is ok to heat up a frozen entree or feel the need to get permission before communicating with other humans...it is not in your head.

You have yourself a problem, masquerading as a loved one.

2. "(S)he wouldn't go that far"

Please think again. Yes, they will go that far...possibly even farther. A narcissist in rage mode is capable of quite a bit:

Alienating the kids.
Emotionally abusing those near and dear.
Leaving you homeless.
Accusing you of crimes or abuse.
Having you arrested.
Stealing the money.
Destroying property.
Ruining your relationships.
Getting you fired.

3. "Maybe if they get some help or medication"

Nope. Probably not going to happen and if by chance you do manage to convince them to walk into a therapist office you can expect one of the following:

1. They feel they do not need to go because everything is ok with them.
2. They will feel that the therapist doesn't know what they are talking about.
3. They will convince the therapist that it is you with the problem.
4. They will feign interest while continuing to harass and abuse you in secret.

4. " I will stick it out for the kids sake"

You can stay and tell yourself that you will put up with anything for the kids sake but here is an important truth you should be aware of:

There is no guarantee that they will.

You could put up with years of gaslighting, devaluing and cruel emotional games and then one day unexpectedly find yourself facing homelessness, custody of your children being taken away and false allegations of various abuse. All while your ex has shacked up with a stunning twenty four year old super model or a wealthy corporate executive who bought into her tales of your neglect or worse.

When a narcissist leaves you it is often on their complete terms:

They move the money.
They hide the financial paperwork.
They prepare evidence and a case against you.
They build up a strong support network.
They tear you down emotionally.
They assassinate your character.

All while you try to keep the marriage going or simply put up with the abuse. One day you are shuttling kids to soccer games or working long hours and the next day you are discarded like yesterdays garbage.

----

Copy/pasted. This is beyond creepy.

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.

Gaslighting 101 - Pierce The Darkness contribution

Gas lighting is a form of brainwashing.

Simply put gas lighting is a form of brainwashing that is meant to make one doubt one’s own beliefs, thoughts, and perceptions. It is a method that narcissists employ with great success to control those close to them. Gas lighting however is somewhat difficult to execute successfully because it essentially demands that others change their basic core beliefs and replace them with those of the gas lighter. Most people vigorously defend their beliefs and become quite resistant unless properly conditioned beforehand. These techniques are not unlike those used by religious cults to brainwash new members.

Gas lighting therefore to be effective usually starts off gradually and grows slowly and incrementally over time as each new hurdle of resistance is in turn overcome. The gas lighter must be consistent and regular in reinforcing their message that you are wrong and they are right. In order to successfully gaslight someone a narcissist will carefully pick and then groom that target for some time before actually initiating the techniques needed to sway their intended target.

Gaslighting 101: Techniques revealed - Denial

There are a number of different methods used to gaslight someone. One important method is Denial, examples of Denial are:

"I never said that" , "You are imagining things", "You are always accusing me"

It is simple but effective. Don’t underestimate its power.

Gas lighting 101: Techniques revealed – Confiding supposed secrets

Another common technique employed is confiding what others supposedly think about the target. Imagine a girl meeting a group of friends to go out dancing and one friend who is jealous of the attention a particular friend usually get in such outings tells this person that some of the other girls think she ruins their chances meeting guys by saying stupid things. This plants a seed of doubt in the targets head that the gas lighter hopes will grow and multiply. In order to be effective it should be realistic and not too extreme…the idea is to plant a shred of doubt and let the target grow it internally into something bigger.

Gas lighting 101- Techniques Revealed – Disorientation

In this technique the gas lighter hopes to create a sense of disorientation that will make the target question their own memory. Examples of this are:

1. Switching around meeting times and appointments. 2. Meeting at a different location and then denying it was wrong. 3. Moving objects from one location to another.

Gas lighting 101- Techniques Revealed – Playing up your fears

In this technique the gas lighter simply hopes to awaken the targets own fears. Examples of this are:

1. “If I leave you will be homeless and broke.” 2. “You will never meet someone else.” 3. “You will lose everything.”

Gas lighting 101: Techniques Revealed – Questioning what you believe

Another method of gas lighting involves questioning the target. Examples of this are:

1. “Are you sure you want to do that?” 2. “Why are you doing it that way?” 3. “Wouldn't it be better if you did it this way instead?”

- 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.

Onward & Upward

...we each had heard many of the same exact lines from our exes, the exact same behaviors and spent just as long trying to figure this stuff all out. Narcissism happens, and it happens to men as well as women. The same lack of empathy, the same cruelty, the same walking on eggshells. We are all much more alike than we are different. 

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.

WTF

In case you forget!

Female Narc

It is a common misperception that male narcissists are more aggressive in general than female narcissists.  In fact, both sexes are equally narcissistically aggressive, but it is displayed differently.  From a descriptive analyses approach, the male narcissist is seen to be “overtly aggressive”.  That means that he acts out physically violent interactions, (such as hitting, yelling, threatening body shaping etc), whereas, the female narcissists are more likely to use “relational aggression” (RA).  Distinct from male physical aggression (where acts are meant to harm another person’s physical well being), female relational aggression is a covert means of harming others through damage of social relationships.  This is likely to be acted out through emotional violence, (i.e. manipulation, threats, purposefully silent treatment, spreading rumors, telling others not to engage with someone, talking about their victims to others etc).  This behaviour harms others through damage (or the threat of damage) to relationships or feelings of acceptance, friendship or group inclusion.

This subtle art of emotional devastation is acted out every day by narcissistic women everywhere.  Regardless of whether it is in the home, the workplace, or in community settings, this bullying behavior pervades all of the female narcissist’s relationships.  This type of aggression uses the threat of social isolation to hurt the victim, and its advantage resides in the value the victim places on belonging to a family, school, workplace or other group. As the female narcissist have no corresponding fear of social isolation, they do not value relationships, and therefore perceive themselves as having nothing to lose one way or the other.

Another factor that helps to keep narcissistic females off the radar is the fact that their victims (both male and female) are more likely to remain silent about female relational aggression then they would be about male physical aggression.  Male overt physical aggression has the advantage of being better understood by everybody, and instantly recognizable to the victim (and observers), whereas covert relational aggression is often very hard to identify or explain.  Often the victim is at a loss to identify the psychological abuse that they are experiencing.  The female narcissist is also very clever not to show her rage to witnesses, however when she gets her victim alone she will become absolutely malevolent.

Having said that however, when it comes to narcissism generally, both males and females are Dr. Jekyll’s and Mr(s) Hyde’s, and both are equally emotionally abusive and treat others as a means to an end.  I for one would welcome further research on female narcissistic relational aggression, and have it entered into the DSM V in order to simplify a diagnostic criterion.

"Bazinga!"

Narcissists don't want to really help people and they certainly do not want to challenge a real bad guy because that could mean actually getting hurt! So they create bad guys out of safe people who they think won't challenge them because the narcissist is looking for an easy win that will allow them to shine.

They just make up stuff about their victim; voila, instant bad guy! The glory-hound narcissist will also deliberately overreact in public to perceived insults and 'crimes' to appear strong but they will only do so when the person they are confronting seems non-threatening.

For the narcissist to play the part of hero effectively, they expect their victims (the chosen bad guys) to follow their rules. You have to let them win. You have to act scared. You have to be cowed as they rage at you. You have to apologize. You have to admit fault even when you are not wrong. You have to be defeated because they have to win and that means you have to lose. You must lose face. You must lose ground. You must lose period.

That is why it is very common for narcissistic people to have their favorite bad guys that they attack and accuse on a regular basis. They aren't as eager to confront the unknown. They might misjudge and have real fight on their hands. So they train people in their lives to be the bad guys; people they have constant access to; people they can brainwash.

So if you are with someone who always makes you the bad guy no matter what you do and no matter how hard you try, you are most likely being used by a narcissist.

Fixers

Lol...yerp.

Mentally disordered individuals use projection. Narcissists are some of the most adept at actively projecting what they are onto their targets. They are constantly and consistently full of accusations and criticisms, with their claims that YOU are doing exactly what THEY are doing - the definition of projection. They will lie to you but you will be called dishonest. They will cheat on you with a vengeance - but YOU are the cheater and sex addict. Start investigating their actions or questioning their accountability, and you are going to get the finger pointed at you for being sneaky, causing trouble, jealous and making up stories. Try to have a rational conversation with them - perhaps describing something hurtful they have done, NO WAY - because that makes you an abuser. You can't give them anything but glowing admiration - negative feedback will start their raging at you. You will be constantly criticized and severely and then called oversensitive if you show any feelings about it. When they say something, it's law and written in stone -- and you don't know what you are talking about --- EVER!!!

LOVE DOES NOT HURT

You can say the most loving words with sarcasm and silently communicate contempt through body language, rolling eyes, sighs, grimaces, tone of voice, disgusted looks, cold shoulders, banging dishes, stonewalling, cold shoulders, etc. There are dozens of ways to be emotionally abusive.

In some respects, emotional abuse is more devastating than physical violence, due the greater likelihood that victims will blame themselves.

If someone hits you, it's easier to see that he or she is the problem, but if the abuse is subtle - saying or implying that you're ugly, a bad parent, stupid, incompetent, not worth attention, or that no one could love you - you are more likely to think you’re the problem.

Emotional abuse is more personal than physical abuse, more about you as a person, more about your spirit. It makes love hurt.

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

Imagine that!

Says magic isn't real...then engages in magical thinking.

Without Narcissistic Supply – the narcissist crumbles, like the zombies or the vampires one sees in horror movies. It is terrifying and the narcissist will do anything to avoid it. Think about the narcissist as a drug addict. His withdrawal symptoms are identical: delusions, physiological effects, irritability, emotional lability.

Narcissists often experience brief, de-compensatory psychotic episodes when their psyche is disassembled – either deliberately in therapy or following a life-crisis accompanied by a major narcissistic injury.

These psychotic episodes may be closely allied to another feature of narcissism: magical thinking. Narcissists are like children in this sense. Many, for instance, fully believe in two things: that whatever happens – they will prevail and that good things will always happen to them. It is more than a belief, really. Narcissists just KNOW it, the same way one knows gravity – directly, immediately and surely.

The narcissist believes that, no matter what he does, he will always be forgiven, always prevail and triumph, always come on top. The narcissist is, therefore, fearless in a manner perceived by others to be both admirable and insane. He attributes to himself divine and cosmic immunity – he cloaks myself in it, it renders him invisible to his enemies and to the powers of "evil". It is a childish phantasmagoria – but to the narcissist it is very real.

Poisonous parasite.

Psychopaths poison minds—that is their greatest skill. After they sink their claws into you, they begin to twist your words and manipulate your mind. You will never again experience someone who so carefully manufactures your every thought. Once you are free from their calculated games, you will be horrified to discover how deeply you were triangulated against perfectly good people, and led into a constant state of negativity & anxiety. And when the parasite is gone from your life for good, your free-will slowly returns as the false reality finally comes crashing down. You realize it was not you and the psychopath against the world—it was only the psychopath against you.

Cockroaches

Keep in mind, that whatever you do know about the psychopath, it is only the very tip of the iceberg. There are many more things below the surface that they have done and are capable of that you will never know about. You will never discover or understand the complete depths of their depravity. The memories that already make you sick are nothing compared to what you don't know. Their lies and schemes are like cockroaches. Where you see one or two, there are thousands more you can't see.