7 Stages Every Narcissist Goes Through in Their Life

Stage number two is the birth of their false self. As they get older, they completely abandon being authentic and focus entirely on putting on a show. They study what gets them praise and copy it perfectly. They start burying their real emotions and replacing them with calculated reactions that get them what they want. Guilt, shame, and vulnerability all get buried deep down in place of those real emotions. They cultivate charm, arrogance, and the need to control everything around them. Their authentic self fades into the background, silenced, forgotten, and buried under this carefully crafted image they present to the world. At this point, you need to understand they start camouflaging; they start shapeshifting. That’s when the mirroring act begins. They become exactly what you want them to be. They copy others and acquire a ton of skills to fool people into thinking they are kind, compassionate, or a certain type of person who they actually are not. It’s a show. They do not have a self that can experience life for real. They keep moving from one situation to another in search of a high that they never truly experience, or if they do, it doesn’t last long.

Stage 3: The High of Validation

Moving on to stage number three, the high of validation. This is when they get their real taste of power. Romantic partners fall for their act, friends believe their performance, and teachers praise them. The narcissist realizes just how much they can get by pretending to care and by copying what emotional depth looks like. They become completely addicted to admiration. Praise becomes like a drug to them; attention becomes as necessary as oxygen. Anyone who does not supply that constant validation gets discarded or treated terribly. They cannot function without that steady stream of people telling them how amazing they are. So they become parasitic, heavily depending on the people they think depend on them. Without this praise, without the supply, they won’t be able to make it another day, which is what keeps them in the chase. They’re always looking for some kind of distraction, which is how their addiction takes birth as well. There is always going to be some sort of addiction present in a narcissist that you’re dealing with. The narcissist turns into some type of addict. Maybe they are addicted to attention, needing a lot of people to praise them. Perhaps they are a sex addict or a drug addict. There is always an addiction present when there is a narcissist.