A World Beyond Narcissism
Premium articles on narcissism and other cluster B types. Find freedom and personal power through knowledge of psychology and the practice of spirituality.
The Narcissist’s Secret Pact With Death
Ring around the rosie,
A pocket full of posies.
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down!
There’s something about this nursery rhyme which has always fascinated me. Its origins remain unknown, with one long-standing interpretation linking it to the Great Plague of the 17th century.
There is no solid proof of the rhyme’s ‘bubonic’ roots, yet I don’t believe that matters very much. If the symbolism points to something deeper which helps us make sense of difficult truths, then all the better.
In the Plague interpretation, the ‘rosie’ alludes to the colour of the rash caused by the illness, while a ‘pocket of posies’ was what people carried around to ward off the ‘bad smell’ and keep them safe. ‘Ashes’ refers to the burning bodies, and ‘we all fall down’ symbolises the masses dying everywhere.
Needless to say, the Great Plague is long gone. Covid took many of our loved ones from us, yet it had vastly different characteristics to previous pandemics. We may need new nursery rhymes to symbolise our experience of forced vaccinations, haunting isolation with endless binge-watching, and eerily abandoned airports and city streets.
However, there is a context where I feel this nursery rhyme is still apt, and that is when describing a narcissist. So let’s reimagine this classic, and see if we can draw new meaning from it to serve us in the 21st century.
Ring Around The Target
There is something unsettling about ‘Ring Around The Rosie’ being popularly connected to mass death while also being a game played by children.
On the playground, children hold hands and sing the lyrics while moving in a circle, with the climactic collapse coming at the last line. There is a sense of joy to this game, of celebrating the cycle of life, with each game ending in ‘death’, before the inevitable rebirth. In this regard, the meaning is quite beautiful: Death is not the end.
Yet we might also interpret this rhyme as a cautionary tale for narcissists. And rather than death not being the end, what if death was in fact the point?
With this in mind, let us break down the lyrics as follows:
Ring around the rosie: ‘Rosie’ comes from the French word ‘rosier’, which means rose tree. This rose tree offers gorgeous flowers while also having thorns along its stems. We can look at the narcissist’s target as someone with wounds (thorns) who offers something of value to the narcissist (flowers). These flowers represent vibrancy, optimism and energy. They represent life, which the narcissist looks to convert into narcissistic supply. As a result, the narcissist runs metaphorical circles, or ‘rings’ around the target (the rosie), looking to entrap them in their narcissistic realm.
A pocket full of posies: Posies are bouquets which the narcissist offers the target to disarm them. This represents the narcissist’s attentiveness, flattery and charm during the idealisation phase. They offer the target a ‘bouquet’ as a swooning lover might.
Ashes! Ashes!: After the idealisation phase, the devaluation begins. The narcissist syphons their repressed trauma into the target via abuse while extracting narcissistic supply, turning the target’s inner life into ashes.
We all fall down!: This line is self-explanatory. ‘Falling down’ alludes to the target’s life spiralling into depression, destitution and decay.
Yet we need to take a closer look at the word ‘all’ in that last line. Does this not imply that both the target and the narcissist experience a downfall? Doesn’t the narcissist always come out on top?
A Cremated Relationship
There is something ritualistic about a narcissistic relationship. The idealise-devalue-discard cycle seems to repeat over and over, just like in the playground game of ‘Ring A Rosie’. When the narcissist and their target ‘all fall down’ after the discard, the narcissist gathers new ‘posies’, i.e. grandiosity, and seeks out a new ‘rosie’ (target) to circle.
In cases where the relationship lasts decades or a lifetime, the devaluation phase is drawn out indefinitely, as the narcissist’s partner gradually withers into spiritual and emotional ashes. That is, even if the narcissist remains physically in your life, they always emotionally abandon you, leaving the relationship in a perpetual state of decay and mundane routine.
Yet no matter what, discard or not, the result is the same: A howling nothingness.
The Eternal Return
Rituals play an enormous role in human life, even when we have little understanding of their deeper purpose.
‘The Eternal Return’ is an idea proposed by the historian Mircea Eliade to explain the meaning behind the ritualistic behaviours of religious man throughout human history. Eliade argues that by replaying specific behaviours in a particular order, a person can return to a ‘mythical age’. That is, they can go back in time to an event which shaped their existence in a significant way.
Eliade speaks of linear time as being ‘profane’, while ‘sacred’ time is circular, wherein an event infinitely repeats through being acted out again and again. ‘Profane’ time can feel meaningless, such as living in a state of constant boredom where ‘nothing happens’. Sacred time, on the other hand, centres on a specific point where something extraordinary happened.
If we were to lose connection to such ‘uncanny’ or ‘holy’ events, then life would once again lose its meaning, and we would return to the pointless expanse of linear time, where the seconds tick but nothing changes. Sacred time provides a much-needed ‘break’ in linear time, bringing with it radical transformation by a force beyond our usual world. Rituals are how we revisit these significant occurrences, which could have brought utter destruction, or led us towards transcendence and growth.
A Reason To Return
Rituals take us back to a state of chaos, to a time when our world came into being from a state of flux. In such cases, something unexpected and transcendent happened. The Big Bang. The death of Christ. The end of World War II.
The Key Difference Between An Overt And Covert Narcissist
The overt narcissist is the easiest to spot. By definition, they take up all the space with their assertiveness, extroverted nature and apparent confidence. So it is natural that they come to be synonymous with narcissism. However, hiding behind the stage, lurking in the shadows, is the ever-quiet, low-energy covert narcissist — the Robin to the narcissist’s Batman, who secretly harbours grandiose plans to take Batman’s place.
Here we see the two sides of the same coin. Grandiosity is one of the traits common to both the covert and overt narcissist. Both believe they are infinitely powerful and capable. However, there is one subtle diversion. One has aligned themselves with the instinct toward life, the other with the deathinstinct.
To Know The Narcissist, Follow The Shame
The overt narcissist dances and prances over their shame, the covert narcissist dwells in it permanently. If you challenge the overt narcissist’s power, they will deflect, repel, ridicule and fight their way out of feeling their shame. The covert narcissist, on the other hand, has no power in the world, save for the fantasies they harbour in their mind. Unlike the overt narcissist, they were never championed and encouraged to shine. Their sense of curiosity, wonder and light was crushed immediately, leaving them drowning in shame, which eventually formed as the permanent, deadened state known as toxic shame.
Why It’s So Difficult To Communicate With A Narcissist
Because of their personality structure and relational paradigm, a narcissist makes communicating with them feel like a treacherous, uphill climb — or even downright impossible.
In a personal relationship, healthy communication involves the following elements:
Open-Heartedness: When speaking with someone, you should welcome their emotional experience into your heart, empathising with and truly absorbing the experience they are conveying through their words.
Shared Humanity: Through channeling empathy and allowing space for the other person to express authentically, you find opportunities to share in their humanity. Good communication involves deep attention paired with emotional attunement. Sometimes it involves simply sitting with the other person’s heavy emotions for a moment. Other times it means taking delight in the other person’s experience and being happy for them without needing validation.
Mutuality: Nobody dominates the floor. Each person is afforded the emotional space and attention to share, yet possesses the emotional intelligence to know when to stop and invite the other person to contribute. Ultimately, this achieves far more than balancing who gets to speak. By allowing the other person to contribute, your perspective is enriched, which awakens new insights and ideas, which then feeds into the other person when their turn comes. This form of synergy spirals upwards, creating a bountiful exchange which evolves each person’s way of thinking, widens their perspective, and enriches their soul.
Are Narcissists Impulsive?
Like holding a beach ball underwater, a narcissist can never take their eye off the ball (pun intended), lest their shame and grief bounce to the surface for all to see.
Holding down a proverbial beach ball full of toxic shame, rage and prolonged grief is an exhausting, full-time job. The narcissist achieves this in a myriad of ways, including indulging in grandiose fantasies of how amazing they are or will be, convincing others of how amazing they are or will be, and of course, coercing others to give them adulation and attention. All of this creates narcissistic supply, which is the force holding the beach ball down inside the subconscious.
Are Narcissists Powerful?
When Toto pulls back the curtain in The Wizard of Oz, the ‘Wizard’ is revealed to be an ordinary man, who the whole time was projecting out a ‘powerful’ version of himself using a machine.
How many targets of narcissistic abuse were mesmerised by the narcissist’s world, by their unshakeable conviction, confidence and seemingly endless reserves of energy? How many then peeked behind the curtain of the narcissist’s false self, shocked to discover an inner child filled with shame, fury and desperation?
It would be easy to dismiss narcissists as grifters of the soul, people to be identified and avoided. Yet their impact on the current zeitgeist is undeniable. Endless books, articles and videos have flooded the market, aiming to shed light on this phenomenon. For many targets of narcissism, the focus has become an obsession. Narcissism has preoccupied the minds and destroyed the lives of millions, mobilising a significant chunk of humanity. Is that not power?
Why Narcissists Flip-Flop Between Wanting & Not Wanting You
Narcissists feel empty inside due to extreme emotional neglect. They were never seen or mirrored for who they authentically were. Every time they expressed an authentic part of themselves, they were either shamed, ignored, ridiculed or attacked. Eventually, their True Self, at first gushing with life, dried up. This brought them face-to-face with death, with the abyss inside. Nobody can connect with someone who is dead inside. So the narcissist created a false self, which was fuelled by their imagination. That is, the narcissist dissociated from reality and dwelled in a fantasy-induced world.
The reason a narcissist flip-flops between wanting you and not wanting you is because you are a part of that fantasy-induced world.
The Lurking Danger Of The Aware Narcissist
Narcissism is like a computer program with a predictable set of rules.
It starts with a dissociated, imaginary construct of the mind known as the false self, which compensates for a traumatised, shame-bound core. No matter what, a narcissist needs to constantly fuel this false self with narcissistic supply in the form of adulation, attention, sex, material goods or being served.
To fill the gaps in their dissociated reality, the narcissist gaslights themselves and others to form a Frankenstein truth, all in a desperate attempt to come across as ‘sane’ and ‘normal’.
A narcissist bonds with an idealisation rather than a real person, and when the real person infringes on the narcissist, the narcissist devalues and tosses them away. This cycle repeats infinitely until the narcissist dies or gives up on relationships, or the world gives up on them.
The narcissist hoovers old flames and friends when supply is low, and picks fights to get an emotional rise from you so they can better manipulate you.This list of ‘programs’ goes on and on.
When a narcissistic personality forms in early childhood, consciousness is effectively lost. The narcissist’s awareness and their True Self remain trapped in the pitch-black basement of the false self. Meanwhile, the false self hijacks the ego, and takes over the job of interacting with the world, cutting out the True Self in the process. Rather than the ego working in tandem with the wisdom and instinct of the True Self, the false self plays its rigid and predictable narcissistic programs. All of this is unconscious, and the narcissist remains on track for an equally predictable and miserable ending.
That is, however, until they awaken.
When A Narcissist Loses Their Mind
I once found myself having a conversation with a narcissist about the authentic Self and the human mind. They seemed genuinely curious, so I explained the process of detaching from the ego and instead directing your conscious awareness further inside.
The Narcissist’s Lifelong Villain Arc
A villain arc is used to describe a period of time after tragedy strikes a person’s life, leading to them becoming selfish and self-centred to cope with their trauma.
The simplest example of a villain arc is after a breakup, where a person isolates themselves and undergoes extreme self-improvement. Think break-up beards and style changes, gym memberships and solo travel.
A villain arc is intended to process pain by setting harsh boundaries. It is a space to work on oneself to restore self-esteem, to ‘hate the world’ so that one’s rage at being betrayed can be released without doing others harm.
What Makes A Narcissist Irresistible
Before you got mixed up in a narcissist’s dystopia, you laid eyes on them — and found them irresistible. I would propose, however, that it was not the narcissist’s physical attractiveness which lured you in, but rather that the attraction was Oedipal.
Most targets of narcissists have parents who exhibit Cluster B personality disorder traits. The parent might be a textbook narcissist, or a textbook borderline with pronounced grandiosity, or a borderline with a narcissistic overlay. In some cases, the parent might be malignant and psychopathic. At the very least, the parent will exhibit codependent and controlling traits.
Does A Narcissist Know They Are A Narcissist?
The road toward a narcissist knowing they are a narcissist is treacherous, with many twists and turns.
First, there needs to be a spark of awareness. Most narcissists would never bother to learn about narcissism and narcissistic abuse. They might simply know that narcissists brag and think bigly of themselves. The narcissist may admit that perhaps they are like that, but will reason it away: Sure, but what’s wrong with confidence? they might say. Lots of people brag about themselves. Better than being a quiet loser.
As knowledge of narcissism and Cluster B personality disorders spreads through the masses like wildfire, many narcissists might have been called a narcissist by their ex-lovers, friends or family. With this come microscopic cracks in the narcissist’s consciousness, and an awareness of narcissism as a concept breaks through.
Maybe the narcissist runs across an article, or searches up the topic. On the other end of the scale, a narcissist could be a therapist or in the field of mental health. They know all of the terminology and concepts. They might be well-versed in Freud, Jung, Kernberg, CBT, DBT and so on.
Yet no matter what path they take, all a narcissist has at this particular stage is cognitive knowledge about narcissism, and a far-off suspicion that they could be one.
The Narcissist’s Narcissist
The more we learn about narcissism, the more tangled the web becomes. We know there are covert narcissists who lurk in the shadows. We probably do not know they are narcissists. How then can they?
Furthermore, covert narcissists typically fall prey to overt narcissists in a two-person, codependent hierarchy, becoming unadulterated, pure narcissistic supply in the process. If they read up on narcissism, the covert narcissist will quickly see themselves as the victim of narcissistic abuse. Over time, as they delve deeper into the topic, they become more and more convinced of their victimhood. Their narcissism was buried deep to begin with, now another pile of rubble has been tossed on top.
Are All Narcissists Evil?
There is a lot of talk online that narcissists walk around showboating, manipulating and thinking about evil deeds all day.
When you look at the Cluster B personality disorder map, you find that the reality is far more complex. Narcissists with psychopathy do have premeditated and malicious intent. They’re called malignant narcissists. Narcissists with a borderline core have empathy, and only cause harm because of their fear of abandonment and emotional dysregulation. Histrionics just want to be noticed and desired. That is, each ‘narcissist’ can be driven by different motivations.
What Lies Within A Narcissist’s Core
Those who fall for a narcissist’s charm tend to become dazzled by what lies on the outside. An overt narcissist usually appears to be high-energy, passionate, infinitely fascinating and confident. They tend to be well-dressed, have impeccable posture and body language, and always know the right things to say.
Covert narcissists, on the other hand, exude mystery and wonder. They say only what needs to be said, and exhibit a quiet curiosity in you. They may be calm, intelligent and have certain unusual quirks to their lifestyle and past which draw your interest.
Overt narcissists are brilliant at keeping you distracted in the peacock formations of their outer false self. Covert narcissists have a harder time maintaining such a frame, and along with their air of mystery, they draw your curiosity within, raising the question: Who are you really?
Crossing The Threshold Of The False Self
Narcissism, above all, is a compensation for what is lacking.
The building blocks for a fully-formed True Self are warmth, nurture, safety, encouragement and acceptance. It is in this acceptance that a person demonstrates their love for you, having seen you at your most authentic, yet loving you nonetheless. This loving witness is what the narcissist lacked in their childhood, and it left them with a howling sense of terror, shame and self-disgust.
13 Ways A Narcissist Shames You
Along with fear, shame is the narcissist’s ultimate weapon. They use it to crush your self-esteem and make you maleable to their influence.
A narcissist might shame you in the following ways:
Strive always to be in control: This can be as simple as impatiently snatching the broom from you when you’re sweeping and doing the job themselves. Refusing to relinquish control or to allow a person to learn at their own pace makes them feel incapable of ‘getting the job done’.
Use condescending stares/eye rolling: A patronising look can communicate a message like “I’m doing you a favour just by tolerating you and allowing you to be around me”.
Snicker and laugh at your weaknesses: That all knowing laugh when you make a mistake communicates how amusing you are in comparison to a person who wouldn’t make the same error. Quite often, the mistake is not even a mistake, but a snicker at something you simply did a different way to how the narcissist would do it. Not uncommon still is being laughed at even if you did something correctly, just to make you question yourself and think the narcissist knows something you don’t.
How Narcissists Always Manage To Land On Their Feet
Soon after the discard, the narcissist seems to immediately move on to the next person without a hitch. After shaming and shattering a person’s self-esteem, the narcissist shows no remorse. The narcissist violates others, taking what they want, then moves on with little impact to their own life. While others exhibit the wear and tear of life, and buckle under the weight of their emotions, the narcissist seems as calm as a Spring day. How do they manage this?
To understand why narcissists seem to land on their feet every time, you need to separate the realms of reality and story.
Why A Narcissist Gets Jealous
Narcissists experience jealousy in relationships uniquely, and is driven by how they see and internalise the people in their lives.
In short, whether a narcissist experiences jealousy or not depends on:
The Narcissist & The Art of Persuasion
At the heart of every narcissist, behind their elaborate false self which can fool almost anyone, lies a timeless methodology. Coined by Aristotle over two thousand years ago, the ‘three pillars of persuasion’ have remained a universal blueprint for influence, and are outlined as follows:
Ethos (Appeal to credibility)
To have ethos is to project competence, divinity and authority. How a person dresses, their body language, their expression, and their ability to demonstrate success and status all come together as ethos.
Think Adolf Hitler. He tailored his appearance and body language to create the impression of authority, showing abnormal discipline in honing his image. He rarely faltered in public, maintaining perfect posture and controlled body movements. The illusion of greatness had to be seamless and absolute. Hitler also touted his war record as proof of his bravery and loyalty to his country.
Kim Kardashian is another example. She has dedicated herself absolutely to her image, surgically sculpting her body and perfecting her movements, posture and behaviour to create the illusion of divinity and perfection.
Ethos is potent. It persuades without making demands. In the uninitiated mind, the presence of a person of apparent strength, beauty or competence demands submission.
4 Reasons A Narcissist Says No To Sex
Having your partner withhold sex in a relationship can be particularly painful. It leaves you feeling unwanted, unworthy, and even repulsive. The question then arises:
Why? What is wrong with me?
In a normal relationship, a candid conversation can often dispel doubts and recreate the intimacy required to restore the sexual relationship.
In the case of narcissists, the landscape is very different. Sex creates vulnerability, and vulnerability is anathema to the narcissist. If you enquire as to what is going on, they might gaslight you or blame you for it. This can leave you frustrated and looking elsewhere for answers.
Some reasons why a narcissist might withhold sex are:
1. Punishment
You have offended or hurt the narcissist, and they want to express their anger in the form of punishment. They want you to feel the pain they feel, and this has a sadistic edge to it. It especially happens with malignant narcissists and narcissists who have a psychopathic overlay to their personality. Quite simply, they want revenge, and they know that withholding sex creates immense hurt in you. They want you to feel undesirable and repulsive. That is the point.
2. Cerebral Narcissism
The narcissist is in a cerebral phase, and sex does not interest them. A narcissist does not necessarily enjoy sex, they only use it to get their partner attached to them, or, in the case of a somatic narcissist, to gain narcissistic supply.
A Deep Dive Into The Narcissist’s False Self
The ‘false self’ is a concept which lies at the core of narcissism discourse, yet is rarely thoroughly explored. In some ways, it is as ambiguous and difficult to define as the True Self.
I’ve contemplated the false self for years, both as an idea and as it might exist in myself, which often spurs feelings of resistance. This internal pushback provides the first clue about the false self: It does not want to be exposed.
So what is the false self hiding?
To Know What Is False, Reveal What Is True
Let’s begin by considering the True Self and the Ego.
The True Self is your internal blueprint. It is your universal and ancestral potential, which is compelled to contribute to the game of evolution by expressing its energy in the world. The True Self contains your emotions, your instincts, your nature, your drives and your archetypes, such as the warrior, the diplomat, the sage and the lover. The True Self allows you to express energy in the world in fascinating forms, from the capacity to assert your strength, to your ability to lead others, to finding clever solutions to problems. Yet the True Self has no mind and no eyes. For that, it needs the ego.
The ego is your representative in the world. It analyses, judges and makes decisions aimed at what it deems to be in your best interest. The ego determines which actions will keep you safe, nurtured and prospering in life. It also alters how you interact with others, customising your personality in different contexts to better get your needs met. You might be submissive and appeasing, aiming to soften others into supporting you. You might be hard and aggressive instead, hoping to force cooperation. If you judge someone as ‘inferior’ or detrimental to your standing in society, you might grow contemptuous and detached, looking to avoid being negatively influenced by them.
When isolated, the ego seems like a cold and greedy tool of manipulation — which is precisely what it is. The ego is a tool of the mind which evolved as a needs-meeting machine. Yet a world driven by ‘machines’ leads to exploitation and ruin. Humans are motivated by much more than their basic needs. Purpose. Beauty. Meaning. Love. Belonging. Connection. Joy in being. These are just some of the authentic qualities which are beyond the ego. To function in a way that is beneficial to humanity, we need a healthy ego which allies itself with the True Self.
Harmony Within, And Without
A healthy ego aims to accurately read our inner reality i.e. the mysterious designs of our True Self, while harmonising it with outer reality i.e. what the world demands of us.
The True Self is indeed a mysterious metaphysical organism, with each person seemingly born having a unique ‘nature’. A person’s temperament is driven greatly by their True Self, along with what they are drawn towards and what resonates with them. Some people are warriors by nature, craving the challenge of conquering and shaping the world according to a higher design. Others are thinkers and philosophers, able to access hidden realms and share their discoveries for the benefit of mankind. Some are abrasive by nature, others are healers.
When a person has a regulated nervous system, has successfully attuned to their True Self, and possesses an understanding of how reality and the world work, then the True Self can better actualise. Such a person intimately knows and accepts their nature. Armed with a healthy ego, they go about negotiating their place in the world.
Unless, of course, they carry complex trauma, in which case their trajectory is vastly different.
The Wounded Ego
Developing an ego capable of guiding the True Self towards actualisation is a delicate process. It requires skilled and wise parenting.
A child begins life in an unadulterated, authentic state, with an emerging ego thirsty for knowledge. Along with explaining to the child how the world works and how to act in it, the healthy parent empowers the child’s True Self in various ways.
The Five Weaknesses All Narcissists Have
If you ever wondered what it would be like to spend a day in the shoes of a narcissist, look no further. Here are five weaknesses all narcissists have that cause chaos and pain in their lives:
They’re Addicts
Because their entire sense of self is predicated on a constant stream of narcissistic supply, the narcissist is effectively an addict. Deep down, they crave attention, adulation and services. Without it, they would be met with a horrifying existential angst, and be faced with the spectre of their underlying trauma and toxic shame.
While on the surface the narcissist might seem calm and in control, it only takes an extended period of indifference to them or abandonment to turn the screws and reveal their true nature.
Since they are so reliant on narcissistic supply, the narcissist is susceptible to being buttered up. Act helpless in front of them, compliment them and do as they say, and they can’t help but play the saviour and give you their time.Being the doorway to their supply is the best way to control them, taking that supply away is the best way to thrust them into crisis and chaos.
They Live In A Fantasy World
The narcissist has a hard time truly seeing others and interacting with reality. They have gaps in memory, they see people as they want them to be, and they overlook important details. This leads to a lot of dysfunction and frustration, as the world they see is an illusion, and does not respond how they expect.
How To Spot A Narcissist Early
From the obnoxious person at a social gathering, to meeting a narcissist while dating, to the manipulative ex who leaves you with lifetime scars, the term ‘narcissist’ is an umbrella term which can leave you asking: How can you spot a narcissist before it’s too late?
As many targets of narcissistic abuse can attest, this question often leads down a rabbit hole which challenges everything you thought you knew about people. Yet learning to spot a narcissist early is a crucial skill in avoiding narcissistic abuse.
Spot A Narcissist By The Things They Say
What the narcissist says can reveal their agenda, even when it seems like what they are saying is mundane or even nice.
Some phrases the narcissist uses and their hidden meanings are:
I like you: Usually said very soon after they meet you. This only means that they feel they can draw narcissistic supply from you.
I never…: This is followed by something which raises their perceived worth in the eyes of others. Examples are: ‘I never have to line up’, ‘I never fail a test’ or ‘I never get rejected’. Everyone lines up for things, occasionally fails tests, and gets rejected, so such statements only act as ways to put dents in your self-esteem.
Why do you…?: ‘Why do you dress like that?’ ‘Why did you pick that colour?’ and so on. These phrases are intended to destabilise your sense of Self and make you question your decision-making.
You’re cute: 2-year-olds are cute. This phrase only acts to remind you that you are submissive to the narcissist.
How The Narcissist Makes You Feel
Of all the narcissist’s traits, it is crucial to consider how they make you feel. Signs you are dealing with a narcissist include the following:
A Burning Feeling Of Shame
Shame is an unpleasant emotion. At its mildest, it is a slight ache in the chest and a loss of vigour. At its most potent, it physically deflates you — your head sinks into your shoulders, your shoulders slump, and your body crumples.
Shame emotionally stunts you — your brain feels foggy and sluggish, you question yourself, you lose heart and you hold back your feelings and opinions. It’s an emotion that reduces your mental capacity — you draw a blank and can’t think or come up with any ideas.
If you spot this happening to you when in the presence of a certain person, it could very well be a sign that they are a narcissist who has been slowly wearing down your self-esteem.
Shame is one of the most powerful emotions the narcissist exploits. It is the emotion of worth which drives a person to redeem themselves.
The narcissist’s strategy around shame is two-fold. Firstly, they act shameless by avoiding accountability, talking themselves up, and denying any fault or wrong doing. By constantly framing themselves this way, the narcissist sets themselves apart from the other ‘flawed’ person.
Secondly, the narcissist shames their target by ridiculing them, pointing out their flaws and questioning their choices. This puts them on the back foot and causes them to feel inferior.
A Dull Sense Of Despair
One of the signs that you have a narcissist in your life is the ‘endless treadmill’ dream. In this nightmare, you are trying to catch someone or obtain something, but you never quite catch it.
A relationship with a narcissist is just like chasing a unicorn. You fight and scramble to connect authentically, yet you never quite get it.