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

by Ramani Durvasula

Narcissistic folks can dish it out but they cannot take it. When you give them even the mildest critique or feedback, you must be prepared for rapid, rageful, and disproportionate reactions, and it can be doubly confusing because they will frequently retaliate by criticizing you in far harsher terms.

Narcissistic people cannot manage their emotions.

Narcissistic folks are motivated by dominance, status, control, power, and the desire to be special.

NPD is a paradoxical illness that may harm the people the narcissistic person interacts with more than it harms the narcissistic individuals themselves.

a narcissistic parent does not love bomb a child. However, the child will grasp onto idealized moments that will alternate with periods of devaluation and detachment, which the child will attempt to offset by being “better”

Experiencing an invalidating childhood creates a relationship template that consists of hoop-jumping to earn love, feeling guilty for expressing your own needs, and believing that abuse and invalidation are a part of a loving relationship, as well as having the fear and anxiety that arise from not being able to foster healthy attachments. In addition, the alternation between good and bad days means that such cycles not only are normalized but also that self-blame for those cycles is carried into adult relationships.

for those with trauma-bonded cycles that began in childhood, deeper trauma-informed therapeutic work is essential. The childhood cycles can create a tighter trauma bond that is more primal and difficult to break, but regardless of where it begins in your life, these are challenging dynamics.

The message in these families is that you need to earn love or be a source of narcissistic supply to your parent to keep their love, or you are judged on the basis of what you can do for the narcissistic family member.

You can just phone it in to your toxic relationship and bring your A game to your safe spaces.

Being open is not just about the conditions of your life but about you and the possibility within you. It’s a loosening of a rigid script and a detaching from the idea that there is only one path for you. There are infinite paths within you,

You must process the losses in order to create the space in which you can cultivate yourself and healthier relationships and life.

You can remarry after a narcissistic marriage and have the experience of a healthy adult relationship, but there is no second attempt at childhood.

the grief following the death of a narcissistic person can be complicated. Over the years I have worked with many survivors who used the confidential space of therapy to share that they were relieved after the death of a narcissistic person, and that relief brought a cascade of emotions, especially guilt, shame, and even the sense that they were a bad person for having those feelings.

Even after the narcissistic person passes away, their voice can linger within you for a lifetime. Healing means you still need to do the mindful work of facing that distorted voice down,

Many of you may find that, for years, reading or seeing news stories and documentaries of injustices that aren’t even related to you can bring up negative emotions.

trust in your own subjective world—your

Find a picture of yourself as a small child and, just one time, imagine telling that little you that you are foolish, or too sensitive, or damaged. This will not be easy to say to an image of a small child. That little you is the same spirit as current you—when you speak badly to yourself now, it’s as though you are speaking to that child (and may also be the way that child was spoken to all those years ago).

The true act of rebellion is to live a life that is not a response to them but a life as an authentic person with wants, needs, aspirations, mistakes, strengths, vulnerabilities, hopes, and feelings that are completely yours.