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

by Ramani Durvasula

We had to make sense of the confusion and explore why they were blaming themselves for something they didn’t do or feeling guilty when they were doing nothing wrong.

Their experiences, perceptions, and reality itself were regularly challenged. They were blamed for the problematic behavior of these people in their lives. They felt lost and isolated.

We are deeply curious about these charming people who seem to get away with so much bad and hurtful behavior with so few consequences. We are compelled to understand why they are ostensibly so successful and why they do what they do. As much as we may not like narcissism, we glorify people with these personality styles—they are our leaders, heroes, entertainers, and celebrities.

But what about the lion? What about the person whom the hunter goes after or harms?

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 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.

The only thing you need to understand about narcissism is that in almost all cases this personality pattern was there before you came into the narcissistic person’s life and it will be there after you leave.

Instead of learning to think differently about the person, it’s time we started learning about what constitutes unacceptable and toxic behavior.

To become aware that instead of thinking differently about yourself, it’s time to start thinking differently about the behavior of someone whom you love or respect but who is also harming you. To finally be told, clearly and definitively, that you were never going to be able to change another person’s behavior. All of this was like turning the house lights on and the gaslights off.

Narcissism is about a deep insecurity and fragility offset by maneuvers like domination, manipulation, and gaslighting, which allow the narcissistic person to stay in control. The variable empathy and lack of self-awareness mean that they do not stop to consider the harm their behavior is creating for other people.

The middle of this spectrum—with enough bad days to take a toll and enough good days to keep you hooked—is where many people are stuck, and that “moderate narcissism” is where we will focus.

Narcissistic people need validation and admiration, and this need motivates much of their behavior.

Their moods can turn rather dark, and they can become irritable, resentful, sullen, and aggrieved when they do not get the validation or supply they feel entitled to.

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.

When the narcissistic person is well regulated, feels they are in control, and has sufficient narcissistic supply—for instance, work is going well, they are getting compliments, they are in a fun new relationship, or they just got a new car—they may be less antagonistic and more pleasant.

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

The confusion comes from the narcissistic person going between charming, fun, and charismatic, or at least normal and regulated, to abusive, sullen, and enraged.

Narcissistic people believe that they are special, must be given special treatment, can only be truly understood by other special people, and that the rules should not apply to them.

The dance between the narcissistic reactive sensitivity to feedback, their need for reassurance and chronic sense that they are a victim, and their shame and subsequent rage at having these vulnerabilities reminds us of the essence of narcissistic relationships: you can’t win.

Narcissistic people cannot manage their emotions. They don’t know how to express them because that would be too shameful and vulnerable, and so they cannot regulate them.

Relationships exist largely for the narcissistic person’s benefit and pleasure. They aren’t interested in the give-and-take that a healthy relationship requires, or in the needs of others.

Narcissistic empathy can also be performative—to look good to other people, to win someone over—and it can also be transactional, mustering it to get what they need from someone else. This can feel really galling because it shows you that they know that empathy is valued but they may only deploy it as a tactic.

Narcissistic people are skilled shape-shifters and chameleons. They have an uncanny ability to camouflage themselves, get close, and then behave badly.

The moderate narcissist offers enough good days to keep you invested and enough bad days that hurt you and leave you utterly confused.

Because they are aware enough to know that their behavior is inappropriate, they do it out of sight of others, which can leave you with no support. As a result, they are often a devil at home and an angel in the street.

People will see a relatively composed and charming person in public, which is a complete disconnect from what you are experiencing in private.

Vulnerable narcissists can be oppositional and argumentative, and asking them to do anything can feel like trying to compel a teenager to fold the laundry.

Communal narcissists also occupy spiritual and cult-y spaces where they can pontificate about self-improvement and positivity,

We regularly use personality terms to describe people—introverted, humble, neurotic—and yet the term narcissism is met with stronger reactions.

For this reason, it’s important that we use this term correctly, sparingly, and judiciously, but it’s also important that we do call these traits, patterns, and behaviors by their proper name.

Narcissistic people can manage their behavior. They may lose it in front of others they’re close to (e.g., family members), but generally not in front of “high-status” people or new people whose validation they desire.

There is minimal research supporting the outcome of sustained clinically significant narcissistic behavioral change, so let’s keep it simple and recognize the likelihood that the narcissistic people in your life are probably not going to be the exception to the rule.

Jordan’s story illustrates what narcissism does to other people. His father’s personality translated into behavior that harmed his family. His father’s rage, entitled behavior, unrealistic expectations that his family simply be an audience for his validation-seeking behavior, the ridicule and the contempt—all harmed not only Jordan but his mother as well. This behavior is called narcissistic abuse.

In addition, there is typically the maintenance of separate behavioral repertoires by the narcissistic person (prosocial and gregarious in public while behaving in an antagonistic and manipulative manner in private, unobserved settings with partners, family, or others from whom validation is less valued). In other words, narcissistic people make you feel small so they can feel safe.

One way to understand narcissistic abuse is to consider the question, “What does the narcissistic person need?” The answer is control, domination, power, admiration, and validation.

Sustained gaslighting causes you to question reality, and it qualifies as emotional abuse. Gaslighting can include denying events that occurred, behaviors that were engaged in, experiences you are having, or words that were said.

Over time this can feel dehumanizing because anything you bring up is written off as unimportant or is simply not attended to, and it can slowly feel like you do not exist. The experience of dismissiveness and invalidation can occur gradually, and what initially may feel like a difference of opinion can evolve into a large-scale brush-off.

There is a hypocrisy to the minimization: when something happens to the narcissistic person, they feel entitled to it being as big an issue or feeling as they want, but they will diminish the same experience in you. Minimization may even put you in harm’s way, particularly when narcissistic people minimize your health concerns, which may result in a delay in getting support or treatment.

The narcissistic person’s rage may be the most frightening aspect of narcissistic abuse. Narcissistic people feel entitled to their volatile and reactive rage, which is often activated by shame. If you trigger their feelings of inadequacy, they will often target you with either overt aggression (yelling and screaming) or passive-aggression (stonewalling, giving you the silent treatment, showing resentment).[4] They might then feel shame about their show of rage because they actually do know it’s not a good look, so they’ll blame you for it, and the whole cycle begins again.

Rage is the clearest behavioral manifestation of narcissistic abuse, and one that takes a tremendous toll on you.

The control extends to isolation. Narcissistic abuse often consists of the narcissistic person criticizing your family, friends, and workplace, and when you are with those people, the narcissist will behave in a manner that is insulting and rude. A narcissistic person may also tell you falsehoods about people close to you so you question their loyalty and friendship. The result is that you slowly have less contact with people you care about, or those people just no longer come around. The more isolated you become, the easier it is to control you.

Narcissistic abuse always entails blame shifting. Nothing is ever their responsibility or their fault because for a narcissistic person to take responsibility or accept blame means having to accept that they are accountable and imperfect.

In intimate relationships, it’s your fault they cheated. With narcissistic parents, it’s your fault they didn’t get to achieve their dreams. With narcissistic adult children, it’s your fault they can’t hold a job.

Narcissistic people can argue like lawyers, finding cold and logical justifications for behaviors that hurt you just so they can win the argument.

Shaming and embarrassing you is an unconscious way for the narcissistic person to eliminate their own shame by pivoting it to someone else.

A classical element of the disagreeable aspects of narcissistic abuse is to overwhelm you with word salad. This is when a person says words that don’t really mean anything (e.g., “I see my goals being me, and myself for growth and the world”) or a bewildering barrage of words that come at you and bring up multiple random things from the past.

This means that narcissistic abuse is also about deprivation—of intimacy, time, closeness, attention, and love. The relationship consists of you perpetually dropping a bucket in an empty well, and every so often you bring up some water, but by and large it’s a whole lot of empty buckets.

Breadcrumbing is a dynamic whereby the narcissistic person in the relationship gives less and less, and you learn to make do on less and less, and even express gratitude for it. This may be a gradual process, or it may simply have always been a dynamic in the relationship and you learned to make do with very little from the very beginning, which may be an extension of adjusting to the deprivation established in childhood relationships.

The relationship became more and more about her defending herself and trying to be more and more perfect, simply to avoid his rage. She wondered what she was doing wrong, what she could be doing better.

During love bombing, a toxic approach-and-avoidance cycle may also get established. The narcissistic person may engage in lots of contact, then disappear. Or if you hold back from reaching out, they will keep trying to contact you, and then once you reach out, they’ll go quiet for a while.