Imagine being on a date and the gorgeous-looking guy or girl starts by telling you about themselves….

“I have no empathy, I think of myself as pretty much equal to God. I’m very entitled because I’m extremely special, I enjoy manipulating people. I have zero faults in me, I lie a lot, I expect special treatment all the time, oh, and I crave admiration, and attention and expect you to give me that at all times. I love nothing more than to talk about how great I am and of course, I can’t live without compliments. I love to criticize people so you can absolutely expect me to do that to you too. I’m an expert at making you doubt your own emotions, thoughts, and opinions and I know exactly how to make you feel like you’re going crazy. I can have excessive mood swings so of course, you must adjust to that. You already know this, I’m always right about everything so you know where to turn when you need advice. If you ever try to break up with me, I will throw a complete tantrum, make you feel guilty as hell, and threaten you so that you stay by my side always no matter what. I get bored easily so in case you bore me and you’re of no use to me I will leave you without warning because I don’t care about you or your feelings. You always have to apologize to me because like I told you I’m always right about everything which means you are always wrong. If you don’t apologize I will give you the silent treatment, get violent with you, shame you, guilt you, and basically make you feel like absolute shit inside until you apologize. I love doing that by the way, it’s so much fun!”

Still want to go out with this person? No?

Well then, you should start thinking about what you’re doing in a relationship with a narcissist because this is how they are.

If you can relate to anything this person just said about themselves, keep reading. This article focuses on narcissism. So that you can know what you need to look out for. Let’s start with 6 traits that can be found in a narcissistic person.

1. Lack of empathy

Empathy is all about having the willingness to understand another person’s emotional experience. For example, if your friend is feeling really sad or upset over something, showing empathy to your friend can look like offering him/her soothing words such as “I see you’re upset, do you want to talk about it?” or “It’s going to be alright, I’m here for you”. Basically, you try to help them, because you want to and because you care.

If you are living with a person who lacks empathy, it can cause you a lot of harm. Because lacking empathy is a form of emotional abuse. Not being able to show empathy is abusive. Because that means you have to live with a person who doesn’t know how to care for you, or show you compassion or love. Without love in marriage, friendship, or parent-child relationships, what is the point of being in such a relationship at all? If you are not feeling loved, you are already feeling miserable because of that.

A lack of empathy in narcissism means they don’t care about you. That is dangerous. Because the narcissistic person does not care if they hurt you. The only time a narcissist will use empathy and act caring towards you is if they need something from you. It’s only an act, a tool of manipulation in order to get something from you. They do not know how to show empathy in a loving, healthy, and natural way. They only know how to use it to manipulate you, trap you into a relationship, control you and make themselves look good. Can you change them? Can you make him/her feel healthy empathy? Unfortunately no, you cannot. It’s also not your responsibility to change anyone. This lack of empathy is part of how narcissists are and they don’t think they have any faults, so there is nothing to change according to them. Don’t waste your time and energy trying to change a narcissist.

2. Grandiosity

One client of mine (let’s call her Cindy) has a parent who is a narcissist. Cindy’s father is a clearcut narcissist and has emotionally and physically abused Cindy since she was a kid. When confronted with this, Cindy’s father responded that he has never ever abused her in any way. He also said that he most definitely is not a narcissist and that Cindy must have been brainwashed by her therapist. He also added that he is the best father anyone could ever have and that everything he has done has been for her own good. He thinks Cindy is being very ungrateful.

This type of talk and thinking is another hallmark of a narcissist. Cindy who was at the time becoming aware of the traits of narcissism understood that this was wrong. She also remembered many times when her dad had bragged about what an incredible father he is and how perfect his parenting style is. This is something Cindy today feels disgusted by. She cannot believe how he actually thinks he is anything even close to a good parent.

He also had specific rules on how to physically abuse (he calls it discipline) his children and in what way to abuse them so that they don’t get seriously hurt but just enough to make them terrified and always comply with his demands. He found absolutely nothing wrong with his methods, in fact, he thinks he is a genius and would love to share these methods with other parents.

He constantly compares himself with other parents because he thinks he is superior to them all in every way possible. He feels that he is the best, better than everyone. No one can measure up to him, he might as well be equal to God himself. In other words, his behavior is characterized by excessive boasting, a clear overestimation of his own abilities, and a belief that he is somehow superior when in reality he is abusive, toxic, obnoxious, self-centered, and dangerous. Especially to his own family as we have seen in Cindy’s case.

If you think this is an exaggeration, it is not. This is actually how grandiosity works in narcissism. It is in fact horrifying to know that these kinds of people get to raise any children at all. Not only is it illegal to physically or emotionally abuse anyone it should also be a crime to brag about doing so! This behavior is disgusting. Abuse in any form is very harmful to your mental, psychological, and physical well-being.

3. Entitlement

*Rolling my eyes*….

Narcissists also have very low self-esteem, which can be hard to believe at times, and due to this, they need a constant flood of attention and admiration from others. They may become very upset if they are not treated like royalty because they think they are equal to royalty and should be treated as such. Narcissists feel entitled to special treatment, meaning it’s their right to be treated as special. This could go like “What is wrong with you? You know you are supposed to call me every single day! Don’t you care about me anymore? And why didn’t you answer when I called you this morning?”. Many of my clients suffer from narcissistic parents who act very entitled and expect their children (adult children) to call their dad/mom so they can feel better. In other words, these parents only want their children to call so they can get their own needs fulfilled. They don’t care about their children’s needs.

4. Insecurity

Behind the evil facade (and fake affectionate facade) narcissists are actually very insecure from within. This is one of the reasons that they crave an excessive amount of validation, attention, compliments, and admiration from as many people as possible. Without this, the narcissistic person can feel very irritated, moody, and angry. Because validation, attention, praise, and admiration are the narcissist’s energy supply. Also, it’s never enough for a narcissist. This is why they often feel “empty” and can go into full-blown rage, tantrums, and other dysfunctional behaviors.

5. Manipulation and Threats

Taking advantage of you and others is another key trait of narcissism. So if you can recognize the feeling of being “used”, manipulated, tricked, or fooled it’s very important you be aware that this is a common way for them to get what they want. They don’t mind it, because like you just read they lack empathy. Manipulation is incredibly hurtful. If you are the victim of this kind of manipulative behavior, know that it’s ok to feel pissed, sad, exhausted, fed up, and/or anything else you are feeling. Because it can make you feel all of those things and more.

Sometimes you may even feel sad for your parent and even this is their way of manipulating you. When you feel sad for them, they get pity from you and that’s just one type of attention they feed on. If your parent is narcissistic he or she can also use threats as a way to manipulate you. For example “If you don’t talk to me, I will never forgive you” or they will give you the silent treatment until you apologize to them. It doesn’t matter if you were in the right because they always think they are right, just like in our dating scenario example.

6. The Abuse Cycle of the Narcissist – Love bombing, Devaluing, and Discarding

This is another very toxic way a narcissistic person gets what they want from you. This particular stage doesn’t always happen in all narcissistic relationships but in many it does. Let’s take the example of dating again. Say you are dating a guy (just for simplicity’s sake I’m using the example of a guy here, it may well be a girl) who is very actively pursuing you. He sends flowers, he calls you every day, he falls in love with you instantly and tells you how much he loves you and how he can’t live without you.

He also wants to spend an excessive amount of time with you, for example staying on the phone for more than 5 hours, and refusing to hang up because he just can’t get enough of you. He may ask you to marry him faster than you thought (or frankly were even prepared for), he is obsessive about you but tries hard to make it look as if he is doing it because he loves you so much. It may seem to you as if he really must have fallen in love with you in a way he has never fallen for anyone before, but I’m going to break it to you.

This is not love. This is unhealthy.

If you haven’t already started feeling overwhelmed by all this unhealthy amount of attention it’s going to get worse. He will start getting angry if you don’t answer his messages in a timely manner. Why didn’t you answer me? Where were you? With who? Why? Don’t you realize I need you? Why don’t you make time for me? You should be there for me always because I love you so much, I can’t be a second without you. He may want you to stop spending time with friends and family and stop doing activities that matter to you.

Why does this happen?

Because you are the narcissist’s supply of attention, admiration, pity, and energy that he needs from you. He wants you all to himself because you are his immediate access to his emotional supply and needs. The love bombing (grandiose display of affection) is a tactic to attract you in order to trap you. Once he finally has you trapped in his net he will start sucking out your energy, self-esteem, self-respect, and even your sense of identity. This is the horror cycle of abuse through love bombing, devaluing, and discarding, and many times it goes back to love bombing again.

Devaluing

Devaluing is the second stage of the narcissistic relationship. Now that you are all in he knows he’s got you trapped. He will start to devalue you because the more you feel bad about yourself, the better he will feel about himself. His self-esteem will grow as yours shrinks.

It’s awful but this is how narcissists operate. He will also devalue you if you try to set boundaries with him. The devaluation includes ridiculing you, making you doubt your own memory, shifting the blame on you, forcing you to prove him wrong, name-calling, making you promises he doesn’t intend to keep, lying, and calling you stupid for thinking in a certain way, etc. On top of this, he will always deny that he is devaluing you. Asking a narcissistic person for an explanation or confronting them about anything is only going to harm you even more than you already have been harmed. You must remember that his disorder makes him UNABLE TO understand himself, so how will he possibly explain to you what he is doing? He DOES NOT have the capacity to admit his mistakes so how will he possibly be able to change?

Allowing yourself to be harmed in the name of love isn’t love…

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