Currently, there are five active narcs (narcissists) in my life. Although I may not be a licensed clinician to give diagnoses to clients, I can make judgments based on what I know and clearly see about people with whom I have personal relationships. According to The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5), a person must meet five out of the nine criteria to clinically classify as a narcissist. Well, I hit the jackpot of narcissistic lotteries because all five of the active narcs in my life exhibit at least five (if not more) of the nine criteria. However, I am still getting to know two of the people and often find myself going back and forth about the narcissistic traits they display. So, even still, I am gracious, and I do give people the benefit of doubt because we can all display narcissistic traits from time to time.
Narc One
Needless to say, I have known all five of these narcs long enough to know that I have cycled several times over through the phases of narcissistic abuse with them. I am currently in the idealize stage with two narcs. The first of the two is the narc I have known the longest, and with whom I was previously in the discard phase (and actually happy to be) for several weeks. This narc has only cycled back into the idealization phase with me because she needs allies that stand behind and support the story of her current life drama. She currently idealizes me because she actually considers me to be on her level of education about narcissism. So, I am the best candidate to bounce and glean information from for discussions about narcissists she claims to be currently dealing with in her life.
Now, please tell me how this actually works when I am the one who schooled this first narc about the topic of narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder. Until me, she had not even heard the terms before. Plus, I schooled her hoping she would see a mirror of her own reflection because she is a covert malignant narcissist. I thought by not directly calling her out as a narcissist and indirectly helping her by giving her knowledge about what I had learned that she would see herself. BUT NO! She sees everyone but herself as a narcissist and even projects narcissistic character traits onto me while attempting to mirror and steal my qualities. Nope! My plan backfired; she does not see herself as a narcissist. She actually sees herself as an intuitive and highly sensitive empath! (Girl bye! She has not one ounce of empathy! Not one ounce!!!!)
This is the narc that actually was the premise for my beginning to extensively and intensively study the character traits and behaviors of past and present narcissists in my life. Ironically, after years of cognitive therapy to work on finding balance in my life with my ongoing battle with depression, this narc cycled back into my life after a five year discard away from me. Prior to the discard, our last interaction had me surely believing we would never speak again. Yet, she came back into my life after what she called reflective consideration for change and restoration. Hmm … yeah, okay.
Once she was back in my life, though, I quickly became aware of her narcissistic traits – traits I remembered from our past together – traits that I somehow managed to override, excuse away, and blame on her personal life struggles at the time. After a five year break from her, she had not changed at at all but appeared worse with the narcissistic traits. Her traits affected me so badly until my therapeutic sessions were monopolized with conversations about this narc’s crazy behavior. Problems with her had eclipsed my problems with depression. This narc had become my number one topic and focus, and you know how narcs love attention! I could not even get proper therapy.
After I realized my expensive sessions were being spent talking about this narc as a primary problem in my life, my former therapist suggested that I complete a case study on her. After all, my former therapist believed that I might gain more insight into the reason this narc was in my life, the reason behind the narc’s narcissism, and the reason I needed to develop more practice in writing case studies since I was working on a degree in the area of mental health and personality disorders. So, I created a docu-journal for documenting this narc’s narcissistic behaviors as well as documenting my experiences as this narc’s victim. Well, that docu-journal is filled with years of stories, and I am still writing long after ending therapy with my former therapist! But I’ve gotten off topic.
Anyway, this current narc is back to idealizing me but in a half-idealize-and-discard-phase (if this makes sense). She has to keep me in her life some way while at the same time grooming her new narcissistic supplies (the new friends that have come into her life that will become her next victims). She is love-bombing me just enough with platitudes of gratefulness for my friendship and continuing to speak as if we have some fantastically strong bond. From oversharing details regarding her current life drama to contacting me more frequently as if to seek my advice (which she only accepts if there are benefits for her), this narc really believes I am back on cloud nine with her. She obviously does not see the silver lining where I have fallen from the cloud with my parachute trying to make a safe landing away from her.
Yet, I continue to speak to her. I even speak about my desire to “door slam a narc”. Before finally settling on the painful conclusion that she is a narcissist a few years back, we had already formed what I perceived as an incredible bond and “friendship”, and this bond gave her access to knowing about other people with narcissistic traits in my life. So now when I talk about “door slamming a narc”, she knows that I have reached my final stage in dealing with a narc’s craziness just before I cut the narc from my life.
Once in a while, she will check herself when she thinks that I am door slamming her, and that is when she returns to me with the idealize phase – after she realizes that I have not maintained communication with her in a while. Of course, she blames me for not keeping contact, and does not accept any responsibility for the fact that she puts me on the discard shelf for better narcissistic supply. Although right now, things are different. After a long period of realizing that we have not talked, she reached out, and the idealize phase is back.
As usual, this narc only figures out cues because I react in a way that is like a narcissist’s narcissist. In other words, I keep myself at an emotional distance while mirroring back to her what she shows me. I honestly do not have the emotional reserves to continue with her games. For instance, if a narcissist stops communicating with me, then I let them stop. I do not fight it. I do not pass go with them. I do not pursue them for contact. Like they do me, I also do not actively communicate with them either. As a matter of fact, I inwardly hope that the narcissist never has the desire to communicate with me again, but I am just not that lucky. They always eventually reach out.
When this narc cycles back, we are back to our “friendship” like there was never any separation – with her filling me in on the magnificent details of her life while asking me less and less about the details of mine (that she always seems to either yawn through with boredom or fall asleep without ever hearing me). Even still, I will keep an emotional distance while I push my own hints through to this narc friend that I am preparing a narc in my life for my personal door slam. I even know when she’s on to me that it’s her because she will pump up her idealization tactics. What a load of bull!
With this narc, however, I always find that I learn the most about narcissistic personality disorder. Besides the familial narc in my life, this narc is one of the most craftiest and most covert narcs I have ever met. Her ways are insidious, and she has so many people fooled by a personality that she compacted together from pieces stripped from the personalities of different people she knows. This probably sounds absurd, but I do not feel that I am supposed to door slam her just yet. That time will surely come though. I already know it will. I am not sure she knows though. Nevertheless, when that time comes, she will be on the other side of oblivion because once I slam the door shut on a friendship, the door is closed for good.
Narc Two
The second narc that has me in the idealize phase is someone I have known for almost two years. My first clue to the possible sign that he might be a narcissist is that he actually told me that he was an expert in knowing how to manipulate others when it came to his work. Obviously, I should have run at just hearing the word manipulation, but I was taken by his charismatic demeanor, flair for life, and quirky sense of humor. In a sense, I developed a crush on him because I find his personality so magnetic, but it did not take very long for me to snap out it.
The second clue to a possible sign he might be a narcissist is the way he blankly stares at me with eyes that appear dark and emotionless. Sometimes his eyes do not appear to be even looking at me but actually peering into me as if he is plotting something based on what I have said to him. I assume that after spending time together, we managed to become friends. I did not even see that happening as it felt that prior to first talking to him, I did not even know he existed, and then after talking to him, I wondered where he had been all of my life. This is yet another clue to me that a person might just be a narcissist by the quick way in which the person enters into my life almost out of nowhere.
In getting to know this narc, I found that he can often be an extremely moody, insecure, and sensitive person. I actually pegged him as an empath because of his high sensitivity and seeming concern for others. In fact, another mutual friend of ours who knew more about him at the time spoke of experiences with him in which he had displayed a very sensitive, empathic side. This same friend also told me that his moods tended to fluctuate daily – to the point that she viewed him as having more than one personality. At first, this was a cause of concern until I learned that he was a heavy pot smoker at the time. According to him, his time around me influenced him to quit smoking pot. Is that a idealizing tactic to get me hooked? Yes, probably so, but I no longer smell the residue odor of pot on him either.
Looking back, I made several assessments regarding this narc friend. I based my assessments on what our mutual friend said about him. I also based my assessments on his behaviors with me. That is my usual thing … assessing people who come into my life and checking how their traits align with the traits of a narcissist since narcissists have been so frequent within my life. Anyway, the mutual friend also claims to be very intuitive and stated that there is no indication that my narc friend is actually a narcissist.
Well, all I can say is that this mutual friend is not very intuitive. I have now spent far more time getting to know him that the mutual friend, and his traits push him over the narcissistic line. He exhibits behaviors that are quite questionable to me regarding narcissistic personality disorder, and he has me in the idealize phase after passing through a few cycles with him within almost the past two years. Based on his behaviors, I am adding more information into my docu-journal about narcissistic personality traits. I must say that males and females have similarities and differences in the way they exhibit these traits and in the way they treat their victims in each phase too. Furthermore, this narc’s treatment of idealizing me is somewhat the same as the female narc’s treatment of me but also different.
With the male narc friend, there is the area of “romantic attraction” that I have had to be careful about because there is definitely an affinity for him (and he acts like he has an affinity towards me). In my heart of hearts, however, my heartbreaking experiences with two male narcs has kept me sane enough to not cross that line. Currently, we remain friends and his only benefit from me is having someone to talk to as he calls “an actual friend”. This is why I sometimes go back and forth as to whether he is a narcissist because in a lot of ways he does not relate with me in the same way as most narc males have with me in the past. The idealization phase with him has come with his excessive love-bombing by flattering me with attention, acts of kindness, and oversharing of details about his personal life. As his friend, he claims to appreciate my honesty and insight and has actually heeded my advice in a lot of areas of his life which two males narcs that I have known from the past never did.
Yet, his mood swings can be exasperating. I often feel like even in this phase of idealization I give to him more than I receive from him. In the same token of listening, I often feel that he doesn’t hear me, but then later he will do something that surprises me and makes me wonder if he actually does listen to me. I get the “men are from Mars and women are from Venus” vibes every time we talk. I am constantly having to clarify something he says to make sure I do not misinterpret what I hear him say. If I do misinterpret what he says, it might lead to him having a narcissistic injury as has happened in the past. It is literally like we are speaking the same language but speaking it so differently in meaning because we do not always understand each other.
In addition, most narcs do not self-reflect when they relate to me. From my experiences, narcs never accept any accountability at all. This narc friend actually says when he is wrong and apologizes, but on the flip side, he also gaslights by saying that he never said things that he clearly did say because I heard him. Plus, he’s great at playing himself as the victim in all the stories that he tells me regarding his problems. I would sincerely love to give him the benefit of doubt, but on a good day he displays four of the character traits of narcissistic personality disorder and on bad days he displays five of the nine narcissistic traits even if inconsistently. Perhaps he is not a narcissist and just has narcissist traits, or maybe I should look into his character traits as being more borderline. I do not know, but I have experienced certain situations with him that were reminders of things that have happened regarding other narcissistic people too.
Furthermore, I just do not come to the conclusion that a person is a narcissist fairly easy. It has taken me years to accept that fact about narc one from today’s post, and I have known her for approximately 15 years not including the five years of her momentary discard of me. Simply calling a person a narcissist is not fair just because we might find their personalities difficult to live with.
Narcissistic personality disorder is a real mental illness and causes real pain and suffering to its victims but then even more pain and suffering to those affected by the victim’s narcissistic behavior traits. When I speak in terms of “victim” in the previous sentence, I am literally speaking of the person with the disorder itself because the narcissist does suffer even if it is not a conscious realization. I know that many people who are around them do not believe they suffer, but I know that they do. I have seen some of their suffering first hand, and I will devote a post to this in the near future.
Anyway, the two narcs with whom I am currently experiencing the idealization phase have had me in this stage for about two months. With narc one, there are times of momentary discard or times where we are not talking because of day to day events in our own lives. Narc two is heavily interacting with me. So this idealize phase with him is fairly fresh because I have been an available friend to hear him and help him with various projects.
With both narcs, I am often aware when the devaluing phase is on its way based on subtle hints to me about things the narcs do not like about me, comments they make to incite me to jealousy and envy, comparative comments they make to instigate triangulation with others, or micro-facial expressions and body language they make that indicates that I have somehow given them a narcissistic wound.
Narc one uses all of these tactics when it comes to devaluing me and narc two consistently uses micro-facial expressions and body language. I find that I am “reading” micro-facial expressions and body language often in an effort to have open dialogue about what is the matter with them. It can be quite annoying because I often feel like I am dealing with immature adults who have regressed even further in their mental development.
Nevertheless, I work with these narcs in the idealize stage while it lasts while preparing myself for the next phase. I take the idealize phase to strengthen and suit up myself with heavy armor. I know that the next phase is a preparation in learning to wrestle against the onslaught of hurling insults, walk on shards of broken eggshells, and surf the waves of escalating conflict. The next phase is the devalue phase of narcissistic abuse.
Stay tuned …
My Voice Unchained 