With information about health and disorder already available online, identifying a narcissistic personality is becoming easier. Even if the person you’re dealing with has “narcissistic-like” traits like selfishness, grandiosity, thoughtlessness, and so on; or has a narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), at the end of the day, it’s still a relationship with a high health cost for you.
Because I am not an expert, I do not want to go through the NPD details. However, you can learn more about NPD and its various types by reading this article from VeryWellMind.
I believe that regardless of the type of narcissist your friend, partner, or associate is, the relationship is not worth preserving. The difficult part is removing yourself from the relationship or situation. Particularly if you are empathetic, you are a magnet for narcissists who prey on people who are not afraid to be vulnerable to others or who are moved by vulnerability.
In my experience dealing with narcissists in the past (as friends, associates, or potential partners), narcissists are attracted to people who have attributes that they do not have or wish they had.
Read related post: He is Sorry but Not Sorry
When you’re in a relationship with a narcissist, they’ll quickly imitate you by doing the same things you do or being in the same space as you. They will go to any length to change your situation so that they become you and you become them. Their twisted approach to gaining attention will make you feel:
a) inferior
b) left out
c) a steppingstone/door mat
d) all of the above and even more
As soon as you realize you’re in a relationship with a narcissist, you may implement my three-step strategy:
1. Stop sharing your deepest feelings with that person.
Of course, because the narcissist has a sinister way of making you feel like you can trust them (or did they say that if you can’t open up to them, you don’t trust them? ), you’ll start venting to them, sharing your intimate or shameful stories with them. They listen intently, not because they care about you, but because they are gathering information that they can use to degrade you when it suits them or is to their advantage.
2. Determine your weak point and devise strategies to overcome it. It can be eliminated or compensated for by focusing on your strengths.
Narcissists will use your flaws as a way to get through to you. They will base their manipulation tactics on your flaws. Sometimes your soft spot – one of the qualities that make you humane – will turn into a weakness, and you’ll wonder if the goodness in you is actually, a character flaw.
For example, if you have a soft spot for the elderly, this narcissist will remind you of a time when you did not return your old father’s call. The narcissist may claim that you are not sympathetic to the elderly, or they may lecture you about your guilt for that unreturned call.
Meditation can help you to strengthen your inner core
3.Stop relying on or convincing yourself that the narcissist completes you.
The narcissist personifies the “better half” idiom. They take it very literally. They are your other half who is “better” than you are, and you will be unable to function because you are only half of a whole and require them to become whole. So, stop right NOW, and thank yourself later!
If your parent is a narcissist, however, I do not recommend the above approach because this situation requires a different approach! When dealing with some elderly relatives with narcissistic tendencies, I took the approach of continuing to love them while remaining within reach. But I no longer turned to them for emotional or moral support.
You Can Do It!
When there is a lack of healthy openness and exchange in a partnership, it is time to end that partnership. When dealing with a narcissist, an abrupt breakup is required. Under normal circumstances, we would feel terrible if we severed ties with someone. This does not apply to narcissists; even if they initially question your motives, being sentimental about the separation is not in their nature.
Even in the early stages of your relationship, they have already devised an exit strategy from you. They may have already lined up replacements for you if their relationship with you ends. So simply cut the ties. It’s fine.
