Wanna hear a joke? (Part 1)

Why did the narcissist cross the road? Because they saw a boundary line in the road and knew they had to cross it. 

Narcissists, narcissists, narcissists, it has been a buzzword for the last few years. Someone annoys you, they are a narcissist, someone challenges you on something you have done wrong then they are a narcissist.

As a result of this happening, in my opinion, it has allowed the actual narcissists to get off the hook and continue their reign of terror because the masses no longer know who is the true narcissist and who isn't. I’ve had the unfortunate “pleasure” of dealing with a narcissist or two during my lifetime and anyone who has been on the receiving end of a narcissist will tell you that it’s a lot more than someone annoying you. For example it's a lot more than your manager annoying you because they told you that you need to improve your performance when you know it's bad. Yeah, if this is the reason why your manager is annoying, then sorry to break it to you but they aren’t a narcissist.

What is narcissism? 

You can come across a narcissist in any aspect of your life. It could be in a romantic relationship, a marriage, a friendship, a neighbour, at university or at work. Any area of your life that involves communicating with people, you could come across a narcissist, directly or indirectly. 

Narcissism is a personality disorder. Its official term is Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The Mayo Clinic, which is the world’s largest non-profit medical group defines it as a “mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence, they are not sure of their self-worth and are easily upset by the slightest criticism".

"A narcissistic personality disorder causes problems in many areas of life, such as relationships, work, school or financial matters. People with narcissistic personality disorder may be generally unhappy and disappointed when they're not given the special favors or admiration that they believe they deserve. They may find their relationships troubled and unfulfilling, and other people may not enjoy being around them. Treatment for narcissistic personality disorder centers around talk therapy, also called psychotherapy”.

Narcissists lack empathy. Narcissists actually have a fragile self esteem therefore they need constant praise and validation. They will happily exploit and take advantage of someone to achieve their own goal. Then there is the well known narcissistic rage. Any criticism, no matter how small, is met with intense anger.

According to The Mayo Clinic, symptoms include: 

• Have an unreasonably high sense of self-importance and require constant, excessive admiration.

• Feel that they deserve privileges and special treatment.

• Expect to be recognised as superior even without achievements.

• Make achievements and talents seem bigger than they are.

• Be preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate.

• Believe they are superior to others and can only spend time with or be understood by equally special people.

• Be critical of and look down on people they feel are not important.

• Expect special favours and expect other people to do what they want without questioning them.

• Take advantage of others to get what they want.

• Have an inability or unwillingness to recognise the needs and feelings of others.

• Be envious of others and believe others envy them.

• Behave in an arrogant way, brag a lot and come across as conceited.

• Insist on having the best of everything, for instance, the best car or office.

• Become impatient or angry when they don't receive special recognition or treatment.

• Have major problems interacting with others and easily feel slighted.

• React with rage or contempt and try to belittle other people to make themselves appear superior.

• Have difficulty managing their emotions and behaviour.

• Experience major problems dealing with stress and adapting to change.

• Withdraw from or avoid situations in which they might fail.

• Feel depressed and moody because they fall short of perfection.

• Have secret feelings of insecurity, shame, humiliation and fear of being exposed as a failure.

How does it develop?

Like with most things, it starts early in life and trauma is involved. Children brought up in extreme environments such as neglect or abuse, or the other end of the spectrum, being spoiled which creates a sense of entitlement may develop narcissism for protection. Basically there was too much criticism or too much adoration, which did not actually match the child’s reality. This type of parenting creates a fragile sense of self in the person that they feel they need to protect. An example of too much adoration is parental figures spoiling children by telling them they are superior.

It is believed that genetics can also play a part. If there is an ancestor with narcissistic traits then it can be passed down the bloodline. I have another blog post about generational trauma, called “It can end with you” and how it can affect our genetics, which relates to this.

NPD

In the UK, Psychiatrists and Clinical Psychologists can diagnose people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), however the issue is that people with narcissism have such an inflated ego of self that they don’t think they need to seek help for a mental health condition because their actions don’t cause distress to themselves, only to others. 

They see themselves as superior, without flaws, therefore they wouldn’t dream of seeking help from a mental health professional. They would actually look down on people with diagnosed mental conditions and judge them negatively. If they do have therapy it is usually for a secondary issue, like depression, or they are forced to have therapy by a mental health team. As a result, the vast majority of people with symptoms of narcissism never get diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. 

How they trap you

There must be a narcissist handbook that is secretly handed once they pass some secret initiation because they follow the same pattern! Unfortunately their victims all see the same pattern of events:

1. Love bombing and mirroring: First they have to hook you in before you see their true nature. In a narcissist’s world they have to be the most important person in your life, even if you aren’t the most important in theirs. They do this in two ways. 

   
   

   Firstly by love bombing you. This happens early in a relationship or friendship. The narcissist will shower you with A LOT of praise to make you feel that you are really special to them. They may also give you lots of affection and gifts. This gives you a rush, thinking that you mean so much to someone. 

   
   

   The second way they hook you is through mirroring you. Basically this means that they become a mirror image of you but it’s not sincere because, for example, they see you as a role model. It’s actually sinister just to get an “in” into your life and get your trust quickly. They do this by studying your desires, fears, vulnerabilities and a big one, your secrets. They then pretend to share the same interests and values as you. You then think this as all too good to be true. If it is a new romantic partner you will think that God has finally answered your prayers and sent your literal other half. If it's a new friend then you will think you have finally met your twin from another mother.

   
   

   This all happens in a very short time of you knowing them, so we aren’t talking over a period of years. Everything is rushed so you are connected to them before you see the real them. So this can mean having a child with them, moving in, marriage or saying “I love you” in a shorter time than usual.

2. Trauma bonding: I run a workshop for women solely on the topic of trauma bonding and this area is in-depth and could be a blog post on its own. However, a short summary of trauma bonding is the attachment an abused person feels for their abuser, in this case the narcissist. It is a vicious cycle of abuse which can happen in a friendship, family dynamic i.e. parent and child or friendship. Once they have hooked you in and got your trust with love bombing and mirroring, it moves on to trauma bonding. After love bombing, the further stages of trauma bonding are:

   • Criticism: The narcissist criticises you so much that you start to blame yourself, even though you have done nothing wrong. Remember all those secrets you told them during the love bombing stage, yeah they will use them against you during this stage to shame you.

   • Manipulation: The narcissist will defend their behaviour by gaslighting you, by making you think you are exaggerating or even imagining the toxic behaviour towards you. They’ll also play the victim by creating a sob story so you start to feel guilty for raising any issues. The narcissist may also start smear campaigns against you with your friends, family or work colleagues, there is more on this later. They may also control your finances, make you share their debt, all so it’s harder for you to leave them.

   • Resignation: After repeated incidences of abuse whether it’s emotional, verbal or physical and being gaslit or made to feel you are the bad person, you resign to the fact that this will be your relationship or friendship. You decide it's easier to just put up with this and become a people pleaser.

   • Distress: After resignation, you start to feel psychological distress. The symptoms can include numbness, not knowing who you are anymore, withdrawing from people and places and for some develop suicidal thoughts. You may eventually try to leave. 

   • Repetition: At this point the narcissist realises that they have gone too far, not because they care about you. No, it’s because people may start to notice and figure out what is going on, or you might leave them, end the friendship or go no contact with the narcissist family member. Therefore, they start giving you fake promises about changing or future plans and trips that will never happen. They go back to love bombing so you think they have finally changed, spoiler alert… they haven't. The narcissist then repeats the whole trauma bonding process again and again and again.

How they avoid consequences

Now if there is one thing that a narcissist is good at it’s avoiding the consequences for their actions. They do this in two ways and these are by using DARVO and Flying Monkeys. It is important to understand these tactics so you can spot if they are being used on you or someone you know. These aren’t just used in romantic narcissistic relationships. They are also used in friendships, families and work dynamics. 

DARVO

DARVO stands for Deny, Attack, Reserve Victim and Offender. So if you confront a narcissist they will deny that the criticism, abuse or incident even happened. It will be a bare faced lie and they will feel no way in doing this. They will then attack you by questioning your motives, your character and your credibility. Then they will reverse the victim. This means you are no longer the victim in their narrative, you are now the bad person. Finally the offender, who is the narcissist, now becomes the victim and you will be left wondering how all this even happened!

This is emotional abuse designed to confuse you and make them avoid any consequences. 

Flying Monkeys

Remember when I said I would come back to how a narcissist uses your own family, friends or work colleagues as part of the manipulation. Well they do it through making them their “flying monkeys”. If you have ever watched the Wizard of Oz then you will remember that the wicked witch had evil Monkeys with wings. They did what she told them to do. They were tasked to get Dorothy and her ruby slippers for the witch.

The psychology world has adopted the term flying monkeys to now mean people who enable the behaviour of a toxic or narcissistic person. The flying monkeys do this by taking part in smear campaigns to make you look bad and the narcissist look good. They may also harass you or spread lies about you to others. They may also get information from you with the sole purpose of feeding back the information to the narcissist. 

The flying monkeys won’t just be friends of the narcissist, the narcissist will also befriend your friends, get close to your family and over time plant seeds into their head that you are the problem, that you lie and the narcissist is the real victim. These people then become flying monkeys. All this planning is done, so that when you eventually build up the courage to tell someone, you thought you could trust, about how the narcissist really treats you the flying monkey will remember that the poor old narcissist warned them that this would happen. As a result, the flying monkey doesn’t believe you and tries to defend the narcissist. This makes you feel even more alone and isolated. 

If you work in a toxic environment, with toxic managers or colleagues then you will find flying monkeys there too. 

So this is a brief run through of narcissism. To prevent this post turning into the length of a book! (which it really could happen when it comes to narcissism). I’ll pause here. When you are ready, read part 2 which explains how to deal with narcissists and how to protect your mind, body and soul from them.