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

by Ramani Durvasula

Whether through encouragement of or applause for unapologetic narcissistic behavior, or by silently ignoring the issue, the world is in on the enabling game.

If moving forward seems difficult, it’s not about you not trying hard enough; it’s about trying to heal while you remain in broken systems.

The presence of multiple vulnerabilities magnifies your likelihood of trauma bonding, self-doubt, and self-blame. Healing means understanding this. You can’t go backward and change your backstory, but you can remain attuned to and aware of these vulnerabilities and histories.

Moving and doing things quickly means we often aren’t intentional or discerning, so finding ways to practice slowing way down may also help you with discernment or paying attention to when your backstory may be quietly drawing you into something unhealthy.

how you assess new people and how you manage yourself with the existing people in your life. Being discerning with new people means watching their behaviors unfold and learning how they respond to stress, receive feedback, and respect your time, then acknowledging that data instead of justifying unhealthy and unacceptable behavior.

Checking in with yourself is a great discernment exercise. Pay attention to how you feel after you spend time with narcissistic people in your life—emotionally, mentally, physically, even energetically.

You may have had the belief that to forgive is divine but have come to learn that to discern may be transcendent.

Hard as it may be, try to break these instincts by doing the opposite of what you usually do. For example, sitting on your hands and not fixing things or forgiving or giving a second chance.

When you feel guilty, ask yourself, “What did I do wrong?” And then the follow-up question is, “If someone else did this, would I feel they were doing something wrong?” Journaling about this can be useful, and reflecting on how your backstories and roles may magnify this sense of guilt and how it plays out in your different relationships can help you to start pushing back on it.

By digging deep and exploring these patterns, you start excavating your authentic self—not the version that was shaped to cater to the needs and preferences of the narcissistic people, but the actual you.

The scorpion and the narcissist have a similar ground game. Despite the charm, flattery, promises, and false reassurance, the narcissistic person will not change, and they will sting you.

Seeing the narcissistic relationship and behavior clearly, not being surprised by the gaslighting and invalidation, and being resolute even as the narcissistic abuse continues but with realistic expectations and the benefit of knowing this is not going to change allow you to slowly cut the trauma bond, ease up on the self-blame, and clarify the muddy waters of confusion.

Acceptance doesn’t just mean seeing that the person’s personality and behavior are not going to change, but also that this will not be a safe space or a relationship you can rely on.

But you aren’t damaged just because you were in a narcissistic relationship, and you aren’t somehow less than because your parent was a narcissistic person or you are with a narcissistic partner. Seeing the narcissistic behavior doesn’t make you “bad” but rather quite courageous. To clearly see and accept a pattern that is painful to acknowledge yet be willing to make realistic choices and protect yourself is the height of fearlessness and resilience.

others. I have talked with people who said that once they really accepted, they no longer waited for empathy, compassion, or respect from the narcissistic person.

That’s why radical acceptance if you leave or end the relationship is a two-step process: First, you must accept the unchangeability of narcissism and narcissistic abuse. Second, you must accept the process that will unfold after you leave.

These relationships are strangely consistent. Even the hot and cold, good days and bad, charm mask and rage mask are actually predictable to the extent that you know they are going to happen. That makes realistic expectations rather straightforward.

go back to the laundry list of qualities that comprise a narcissistic person and the behaviors and patterns we observe in these relationships: variable empathy, entitlement, grandiosity, invalidation, dismissiveness, rage, manipulation, and gaslighting.

Entering a tiger’s cage has an inevitable outcome, but if you really want to pet the tiger because you think it’s just a misunderstood cat, go in and see how it works out for you.

As a therapist, I have often been the memory storage for clients navigating narcissistic relationships and have gently reminded them of events from the past when they doubted themselves.

Discovering who you truly are and accepting yourself may be the strongest radical acceptance tool you have, because the more you know and accept who you are, the more you don’t sacrifice and subjugate yourself.

Try asking yourself the following questions: What do I like about myself? What don’t I like about myself, but really can’t change or don’t want to change? What don’t I like about myself and can change? What am I about? What matters to me?

The grief raised by a narcissistic relationship is quite unique, and these relationships are about the loss of opportunities, hopes, aspirations, narratives, instincts, and sense of self.

In some ways, grieving the living is far more difficult than grieving the dead.

It’s grief for your life, the life you hoped to have, and moving through that takes time.

While in the relationship, you may also experience ambiguous loss,[1] described as loss that is ongoing, unresolved, and unclear. It’s akin to the loss a person experiences when they have a family member or loved one with dementia—the person is there, but they are not there.

Leaving a narcissistic relationship may mean grieving the hopes you had for the relationship and the good days that were very real, as well as the time and parts of yourself you lost in the relationship.

The grief of narcissistic abuse is consistent with something called disenfranchised grief,[2] which is grief that is not acknowledged by others or socially sanctioned and supported as a loss or grief experience.

The betrayals and distortions that can keep you stuck in rumination call for you to dissect those experiences. My guidance is to divide these experiences and recollections into episode, context, and feeling.

Once again, holding space for multiple truths, painful as it is, is essential to moving through this process of grief.

Narcissistic people rarely genuinely apologize, face meaningful consequences for their behavior, take accountability or responsibility, or meaningfully acknowledge your pain. As a result, narcissistic relationships can feel deeply unjust—you get hurt and psychologically wrecked, and they get to move on with their lives with little insight into the damage they wrought.

Radical acceptance of the injustice is part of this process—it is not fair, I cannot change it; I can, however, chart a different and authentic course forward and learn from this.

Grief Rituals

Healing is an act of resistance, defiance, and rebellion. It requires a commitment to breaking out of long-standing cycles of self-blame and away from the existing narratives from the world at large.

The ubiquitous nature of the narcissistic personality style and the fact that society rewards it means that you will continue to encounter it—in potential partners, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, or parking-lot bullies.

Gaslighting isn’t lying, nor is it just a difference of opinion. It’s designed to confuse you and undermine your autonomy and sense of who you are.

Checking in daily with yourself can help you start to trust your reality and experience, and it can be part of a mindfulness routine. Ask yourself questions out loud: How do I feel? How was my day? How is my energy level right now? Try to do this three times a day.

more in tune with your reality and get off autopilot. Gaslighting is only possible when you are not firmly in touch with what you know about yourself.

The other person will likely still verbally come at you—gaslighters don’t just stop—but just a few episodes of disengaging will help you hone this skill. It’s normal to feel sick as this happens and completely depleted when you walk away. Get yourself to a place you can be alone to sit, breathe, and recalibrate.

Being narcissist resistant means forever maintaining realistic expectations and girding for the inconveniences that will follow.

Think of your inner critic as a part of you that may be trying to protect you from failing or getting hurt (not in a nice way, of course). For instance, you may listen to your inner critic and not apply for the new job and, voilà, you won’t get hurt if you don’t get it.

In a sad sort of way, your inner critic is trying to get ahead of the narcissistic voices in your life and attack you before they can, though it also blocks you from actually seeing yourself clearly and may foster self-blame.

Talk to your inner critic. If you have some privacy, do it out loud: “Hey, inner critic, I get it, you are trying to protect me, and thank you, but I am an adult, I got this.”

The fallout of narcissistic abuse, like other forms of relational trauma, is most potently held in your body. Close your eyes and envision your most painful narcissistic relationship. As you breathe and reflect on this relationship, pay attention to where these feelings are experienced in your body and what they are.

Early in your relationship you may have fought because you didn’t understand what you were dealing with, but the fight response typically doesn’t work well in a narcissistic relationship. You would have better luck punching a snarling tiger in the face than trying to win an argument with a narcissistic person.

More commonly, you may also flee by distancing or dissociating from your emotions or from yourself while in the relationship (feeling a more narrow range of emotion, no longer expressing needs, feeling like you are watching this relationship happen to you without really being connected to it, numbing yourself through work, food, or alcohol).

The other F, freeze, occurs when something threatening is coming at you and you can’t find the right words to say, scream, or move your body.[2] In the face of someone who is dominating, bombastic, grandiose, arrogant, or critical, you may find yourself completely tongue-tied and awkward, and after the interaction think, I wish I had said this or I wish I had done that.

The freeze response can foster shame and self-blame, because you may feel as if you are partially responsible, have let yourself or others down, or are foolish or weak for not responding. Remember, you aren’t choosing to freeze. Their behavior, not your natural response, is what is unacceptable.

Enduring narcissistic abuse, especially during childhood, means feeling on edge most of the time. You may live in a state of chronic tension, waiting for the narcissistic person’s explosive rage, manipulation, or threats of abandonment.

Reflect on your narrative about any activating situations you are in and ask yourself the following questions: What do I think will happen if I speak up? Is the person dangerous? Have they been invalidating in the past? At those times, take a minute, breathe, and connect your narrative to your SNS and the perception of threat.