How a narcissist thinks, and how you can BREAK the BUBBLE and HEAL them
Granted, they say you can’t cure narcissism, and it is certainly not easy, but there is hope, especially with one you cannot get away from someone like a family member. You must understand their thinking before you can help them break free from their own illusions, though. And, you may need some compassion toward a person who makes you feel nothing but ANGER and RAGE.
They believe ALL and ANY form of attention is safety and control over one’s own fate.
It is a mistake to think narcissists are after attention. Normal people want to be admired; narcissists don’t care about admiration. Normal people ASSUME narcissists must go after admiration, but they don’t. They want safety and security. They are like abandoned children, and they will do whatever they must to get someone to look after them. It doesn’t matter how you get attention, as long as someone grabs you by the scruff of your neck and makes sure you’re taken care of and taught some manners, maybe, does it? Therefore, they’ll pick a fight, they argue, and they’ll shit on your dinner plate if that’s what it takes to feel like someone cares.
As you have acknowledged THEIR existence, it must mean you care about them.
A narcissist has a mind of a baby – they believe you view them as such. A precious, cute, adorable, no matter what they’re doing. They cannot imagine that a GOOD PERSON would leave them by the roadside if they can help them. Narcissists** seem to be quite blind to the expectations of an adult, but they don’t want to be responsible for adult things. They don’t think they can be held to the expectations of an adult person. They also believe you see them in the same light: helpless, innocent to all of their grimes – if they did something bad, it was your fault for not watching them, wasn’t it?
If you seem to want attention, they believe you either want help or are offering help, too.
They see themselves as the center of attention, like a child in the company of adults. They’re there to delight you, yes, but they’re also there to be protected and watched over. They also know there are other children around, too, and if you seem to be asking for attention, to them, it means you’re competing over care and help or offering care and help, one or the other. If you mention you’re a life coach or similar, they’ll assume you’re offering free love and care.
They thought “Narcissism” was a good thing
If they accept the label “narcissist” to mean them, they also think that it’s the label people use for privileged people. The important people. The ones that get to be looked after. Therefore, they also think that calling one person a narcissist is also a compliment: “Don’t worry, you’re a narcissist too!”
Negative attention – good, positive attention – bad.
A narcissistic logic is interesting. If you get negative attention, it means you still have precious time to be a child, right? If you get positive attention, it’s time for you to grow up and take responsibility.
And THAT is why Amber Turd is still smiling in 2024 like she won the god damned lottery.
Come again? Elitists have unnecessarily poor self-esteem?!
When rejected by someone, a narcissist will conclude they have poor self-esteem. Rejection, to a narcissist, means that they’re REJECTING THE OFFER TO BE A PARENT. That must mean that they don’t believe they can be responsible for a darling child, or are not worthy of care and love themselves.
They may also assume that celebrities and the like are terribly insecure, because they have to go through all that work to get people to care for them. This is also the reason why celebrities are overtly pampered – that’s what narcissists think they want and are more than willing to give them – as a narcissist can also be a care giver, if they have a strong enough self-esteem for it.
Narcissists** make great corporate whores, but not why you think
Fear is the driving force of a narcissist, not ambition. Therefore, it makes sense to them that they need to work real hard to get any care at all. They may believe wealth and status brings safety and care – celebrity style. “Once I’m at the top, I’ll be rewarded with a warm bed and a good meal a day.”
They seem jealous of the attention, too, which makes sense
If attention = love and admiration, therefore, narcissists don’t want other people competing over that attention. They don’t understand how you can LOVE PEOPLE while you’re not hundred percent focussed on them at all times. They will also think that whoever you focus on the most is who you love the most, even if all that attention was negative and argumentative. EVEN IF you and your spouse tried to get an uninvited person out of your marital bed, they still think that the fact both of you are now fully focussed on the intruder, you’re both LOVING THEM rather than about to MURDER THEM.
They may believe that when they get you angry, you fear they will be the needier child and you’re jealous of the baby sibling that is trying to gain extra points by being the more pathetic one and you, being a bit older, now have to give up on the love and care that you got used to.
Basically, a narcissist is stuck in a sibling rivalry thinking, and can also consider their own children as “the older child” without much of a stretch of their imagination.
“You don’t love me, you only love yourself” to a narcissist means “you’re not paying enough attention to me”
So, when you tell a narcissist “you don’t love me, not really”, it to them, means “you’re not paying enough attention to me.” You’re not taking good care of me.
Therefore, when you accuse a narcissist of not loving you, but wanting you for your money (or opportunities or such) they believe what you’re saying is that if they want to be cared for by you, they need to also care for you… which is true, but they may think you have a lower self-esteem than what makes sense, given that they’re only a baby…
They copycat you, but not because of what you think
You know how a great friend would shave their head when you have cancer. They’d want to make you feel less of a freak and that you can grow your hair back together. THAT is a narcissist showing you love. And it is TRUE LOVE. However, if they go as far as to pretend they too has cancer, you may think they’re doing this for attention. They are not. If they LOVE YOU, that is not what motivates them.
Narcissist who loves you wants to distract others from your ILLNESS, which is a negative thing. They want you to escape attention when you need privacy to heal. They will also do it, if you claim you are “special” and have “unusual talent” like, let’s say, you’re a strong psychic, and they’ll start pretending so are they so that YOU wouldn’t have to GO SERVE THE NEEDS OF THOSE OTHER PEOPLE who need you because they assume you’d only want to stay with them. If you both seem like ‘hacks’ they assume that the audience will lose their interest in you, and you get to go back to showing love and care to each other only.
They want their friends and family to know they are THE SAME or willing to PRETEND TO BE the same, so you will feel less like an alien in your own group of people. They may also want to destroy your career so that people wouldn’t depend on you – which to them is a negative thing and a stressful way to live a life.
Incredibly, beauty doesn’t matter to a narcissist
Even though narcissists have noticed that beauty gets you attention and thus care, they don’t care what YOU look like as long as you give them all the attention they crave for. They may feel stressed about using beauty as the way to gain attention tho, as beauty fades and they know it. They want to find someone who gives them attention regardless, so many narcissists AIM to being ugly in order to get LASTING attention, and to gain the attention of people who will love them despite.
Beauty, to a narcissist is a self-confidence thing. The less you believe yourself to be worthy as a child, the more you try to get attention to your beauty and sexuality and start “paying” for love and care with sex and beauty. They want to show you they’ll love you despite your looks, not knowing that to an aesthetic person, even one’s own beauty is a source of joy and has nothing to do with wishing to be cared for in the same manner as narcissists do.
A narcissist doesn’t care how you feel: They KNOW how you feel deep inside… Fearful.
Now, here comes NARCISSISTIC EMPATHY: They don’t have to ask or listen to what you feel, because they know it already: you feel fearful. The more people expect you to take responsibility, the more they assume you fear it. They may try and take the responsibility from you – to share it – because they feel it’s a lot to bear for one person. In doing so, they appear jealous, but they’re actually trying to help.
Narcissistic Celebrities
And here’s the kicker. Narcissists** make horrible celebrities. They cannot ACCEPT ATTENTION FROM PEOPLE THEY DON’T LOVE. It means people they don’t love are demanding love and care from them, and they don’t like it. They feel being a celebrity is a negative thing, something that is forced on a person who was unlucky enough to be born impressive-looking.
Narcissists** don’t want fame, unless they are terrified of being forgotten on the road side (maybe because they did something awful and think everyone hates them). They absolutely think fame is a sacrifice, not a privilege, and they’d rather be anything but famous. That’s why they also worship famous people, because they feel compassion toward them for having had the misfortune to be born impressive.
The narcissistic feeling of abandonment
Narcissists** fear abandonment. It is the source of all related disorders; borderline, histrionic, and Machiavellian personality disorder. Same thing, different strategy. There is another way to cope with the fear of abandonment; serving others. “If I’m a really good child, people will love me and care for me, too. If I keep bringing them food, if I go missing, they’ll come looking for me.”
Note that a normal person doing nice things is a joy to them, or it’s a necessity, but then there are narcissistic people in the droves of people seeking help, too… “If I look the most pathetic of all the pathetic, surely someone will eventually take notice.”
Why narcissists will have a nearly empty dating profile?
To a narcissist, writing a dating profile would be INCONCEIVABLE. The logic here is that a narcissist would consider it to be a sign of low self-esteem and desperation if you had to WRITE about how good you are, what a great partner you’d be… When a photo should do you fine.
The other reason is that a dating profile is basically an admission that they don’t have a coach yet. Therefore, they also don’t have set-in opinions or “special needs” as they see a full profile to be stating. Any personal preference is, to them, like a special needs profile, and as such must be a massive a turn off.
Projection
Narcissists** project a lot. “If I feel X, you feel X.” They don’t seem to have any room of consideration to another perspective. If I feel admiration, you must feel admiration, too, since you have paid attention to my existence. Because you paid attention to my existence, it must mean you either ARE LIKE ME or WANT TO BE LIKE ME. To do you a favor, they will PRETEND you already are like them, and IGNORE or photoshop all notions to the contrary. They will make a public statement that you’re a wife-beater, if they find it to be sexy: All that attention you gave her, you know. “I will hide the fact you didn’t dare to demand my full attention because you had such a poor self-esteem.”
Verbal and written communication, to a narcissist, means you have poor self-esteem. It means, to a narcissist, that you have to EXPLAIN YOURSELF and MANIPULATE EMOTION IN OTHERS in order to feel NOTICED enough. Which is, up to a point, true, you DO need to get something across, and in that sense, you’re not getting enough attention, but to a narcissist, them simply RESPONDING to you, or LOOKING AT YOU while you talk should be enough attention to last you a lifetime. They don’t care about your words, as I said, all you’re TRYING to convey with any communication is that you feel admiration toward them and insecurity near them. Why else even communicate?
Feelings are just a win or a lose.
Feelings, to a narcissist, are somewhat of a… Mystery. They like them, and they don’t really care WHICH feeling they are feeling, as long as they’re strong. Therefore, they cannot truly tell a difference between different emotions, it’s just basically “I feel something, it’s good/bad – react by declaring victory/crying.” They basically only WIN or LOSE, and all other feelings are somewhat… Well, in one camp or the other.
IF a narcissist is giving you too much attention
If a narcissist is giving you too much attention, you have to demonstrate to them how you already have someone who cares for you. It doesn’t have to be a spouse, in fact, a close family member is best, a friend is second best. If you want to avoid narcissists when you go out, ALWAYS go out with your brothers or sisters, and if you don’t have any, find someone who will pretend to be one. A narcissist will know you “need noone.” You will also do very well with a large group of loudly laughing friends to keep narcissists away, but you’ll also need to be good at inviting new people to join you when you see someone interesting.
If a narcissist is after your man or your girl…
If you notice that you have a friend who is ALWAYS interested in YOUR intended, pick a fight with someone you think they might actually be able to marry and make it OBVIOUS. Like pick a fight over nothing much, and act as if you were annoyed that they don’t give you attention. Or that you REALLY want their attention. Then, stay away for a while, and watch your narcissistic friend think THIS PERSON is the most capable care taker, one that you chose to take care of you…
They’ll want that person for themselves. (Pick wisely.)
Pretend as if you don’t care when they succeed – as in… Pretend pretend you don’t care. This will show them you’re not TOO sorry they got the good one, but it gives them a little victory.
Narcissism is only a communication problem
It seems that narcissists are toddlers whose body has grown up before their mind has. You may have to explain things to them like you’d explain to a beloved child what these different gestures and actions mean, now that you understand what they think they mean. Hopefully, before they become a problem.
Use phrases like: You are doing the wrong thing here. This is WRONG. Remember they are trying to catch your attention so you’d teach them, therefore, if you don’t like a behavior, ignore it, or teach them what it is that they need. Ask them what it is that they need, and don’t buy their first answer. (It has nothing to do with their pronouns.)
If you need to get along with them, treat them like a child. Absolutely no sexual attention, nothing romantic, just keep in the mindset you’re talking to a child or a teenager. (Try to figure out HOW old they are, and adjust your attention accordingly – and notice that the mental teenagers are getting a little sexual, and you need to have a strategy as to how you feel about it.)
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*) Term changed after this post was originally written. Fractions of old terms may exist elsewhere in the post. Read about term updates.
**) Narcissists are Young Souls left alone to survive and they're doing their best. Their emotional age ranges from 3 to 17 -year old. The younger, the more severe the narcissism.
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