When narcissists know YOU know

Interestingly, at this phase of the relationship, it becomes even more miserable, and the narcissistic person will act out even more. It’s as though you have peered into their insecurity and figured out their game, and they don’t like that. When people start to gray rock, you can almost graph it. It looks like a roller coaster – the narcissist’s rage will increase for a while because they aren’t getting the same fights out of you. The bait isn’t working. Remember, they need you to take the bait and behave in an unhinged way, so then they can say, “Oh, somebody’s all worked up,” and they can feel better about themselves. So, they start getting meaner, up, up, up the roller coaster.

They start insulting your friends or family; they start going after things about yourself that they know are triggers for you. They may make fun of your job; they may make fun of your cooking. It starts getting more and more toxic. You didn’t think it was possible, but it is. But if you could stand your ground and not break, get to the top of that roller coaster, the narcissist will actually start to deflate. In some cases, they’ll get bored, but they’ll deflate. However, on your way to this destination, the top of the roller coaster is a world of abuse, anger, and rage. So, if you thought it was bad before, when you finally start to get it, somehow, they sense it. For all of their lack of empathy, people with narcissistic personalities are tremendously attuned to their worlds but from a very egocentric perspective. They’re always monitoring for threats; they’re always looking for that person who looks at them the wrong way. They don’t believe that they’re ever shown the respect they believe they deserve; they feel like they don’t get enough validation for all their greatness. They notice the shifts, and they notice that people are onto them. There is a point for every narcissistic person when they recognize that they have gone a bridge too far, that they really, really pushed a person to the breaking point, and that other person they push finally shuts down. This can actually be quite impactful if it happens, for example, at work or with a lower-stakes person. The narcissistic people take the people closest to them, like family and partners, for granted, so they may not notice it there, but the idea that someone out there in their world, like their work world or something, doesn’t think well of them, actually really activates their shame.

Once they recognize that people are starting to see it and are starting to kind of walk around the narcissist as though the narcissist is unhinged, that, in essence, they sort of feel like they’re being kind of handled by other people. They don’t like it because, again, it activates shame, but now they’re in a catch-22 because, at some level, they kind of know they’re unhinged. So, it’s a big, strange circle. And at that point, if you’re in a relationship with them, you may slowly work your way to indifference.

Continue reading on the next page

Sharing is caring!