It's Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People

by Ramani Durvasula

I use the term antagonistic relational stress to describe what happens to survivors of these relationships, and I prefer to characterize the behavior of the psychologically harmful person in my clients’ lives as antagonistic, which is a broader and less stigmatized term than narcissistic.

I have read descriptions of therapist-training programs that pushed back on clients who believed their families or relationships were toxic, or believed clients who came into therapy to talk about manipulative relationships were simply whining.

I have worked in organizations where gaslighting was the preferred mode of communication, and I witnessed the most toxic people be enabled by the systems they worked in, to the detriment of the best and brightest in those places.

To understand that it is a basic human right to be seen and to have your own and separate identity, needs, wants, and aspirations expressed and recognized.

The personality susceptible to the dream of limitless freedom is a personality also prone, should the dream ever sour, to misanthropy and rage. JONATHAN FRANZEN

For example, a selfish person will choose the restaurant they want, but a narcissistic person will choose the restaurant they want and tell you they had to do that because you are too dumb about food to choose one.

Narcissistic people often seem perpetually bored, disenchanted, or contemptuous if things are not interesting and engaging enough for them.

The descriptor narcissism will reflect a personality style and not a clinical diagnosis.

Bipolar disorder is completely distinct from narcissism; however, it is not unusual for a person to have co-occurring bipolar disorder and narcissism,[13] a combination that can result in the grandiosity persisting long after the manic episode has passed. Irritable mood is often a presenting characteristic of depression, and irritability is a quality observed in many narcissistic people. While we know that narcissism and depression are associated,[14] it is not uncommon for the depression observed in vulnerable narcissism to be so pronounced that the therapist misses the narcissistic patterns, so even as the depression improves, the narcissistic patterns mean ongoing victimhood, irritability, and apathy.

Many narcissistic people commandeer mental health explanations for their chronically invalidating behavior as a more excusable explanation, and then will still not enter treatment to address their behavior.

Milder narcissistic abuse may feel like being taken for granted and being chronically disappointed, while at the severe end we may witness violence, exploitation, stalking, and coercive control.

Rather, they’re dealing with moderate narcissistic abuse: systematic invalidation, minimization, manipulation, rage, betrayal, and gaslighting with periods of “normal” and “good” thrown into the mix.

Being overreliant on other people’s feedback to determine how you are feeling. Giving long preludes before you say something. Feeling compelled to put all communication in writing as “proof.” Giving in and going along to get along. The DIMMER Patterns Dismissiveness, invalidation, minimization, manipulation, exploitativeness, and rage

I remember hearing an interview with a woman who had been in a very narcissistically abusive relationship. The uninformed interviewer asked her, “Why didn’t you just leave?” I cringed at the question because it felt like she was blaming the woman for staying. The woman had a sharp retort: “Why aren’t you asking the question of why he is an abuser?”

To replenish your bandwidth, you need to engage in what I term realistic self-care. This isn’t spas and massages and positive affirmations; this is recognizing when you are feeling depleted—when you have fatigue, brain fog, physical exhaustion, self-doubt, difficulty making decisions—and then giving yourself a minute. It may mean that you put down

your email for a while, order in for dinner, take a walk, go to bed early, let the dishes sit in the sink, or call a friend.

If you choose to stay, reflect on how you talk to yourself and the ways you view yourself. When you stay, you are staying in something in which you are devalued, so valuing yourself and healing are not consistent with staying and may even be mocked by the narcissistic person and others in your system.

The marginalization of those who are less resourced means that folks with less money are more likely to be gaslighted and invalidated by all kinds of systems, including health care, justice, and law enforcement.

People who have less power in their families, relationships, and the world at large learned long ago that their emotions are often not tolerated or permissible.

Simply recalling the things that happened in the relationship misses the one part of the story that is all yours: how you felt when it happened. Connecting to these feelings can break cycles of rumination, foster discernment, and allow you to be more present and self-compassionate.