The "My Ex is a Narcissist" Zeitgeist
While I appreciate that popular psych has put out into the world many useful topics for public discussion, consumption and evaluation, I think very often people are mislabeling and misrepresenting some of these frameworks in trying to create popular content around it. You do not have an avoidant attachment style if you want to be careful in dating, if you with one person are open and ready to jump in, but perhaps with another are running for the hills because they seem untrustworthy. That is normal. Every person experiences grief and sadness, but it is not always to the point of disorder and depression. Life is anxiety-inducing by nature. You don't necessarily have anxiety. Some of what you are feeling is in fact normal.
The latest one of these is the "My ex is a narc". While I think society has groomed men to be very self-serving and use women as objects, I think there's nuance here. People can be selfish or be concerned with themselves in a way that doesn't cross into narcissistic personality disorder territory . There is a difference between what I would call the colloquial narcissist, a person who is conceited self-absorbed but not necessarily harmful, than a person with patterns of behavior that skew towards NPD. From my favorite- self procclaimed and actually diagnosed narcissist.https://www.instagram.com/reel/CpOCTpTjOJ6/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
People with traits that mirror narcissistic personality disorder have a very specific pattern of behavior. Those with narcissistic personality disorder believe that they’re superior to others and have little regard for other people’s feelings. But behind this mask of ultra-confidence lies a fragile self-esteem, vulnerable to the slightest criticism.” This can come out in many ways. I knew someone with NPD who would routinely slight people in his circle, judging and needlessly bringing up who they thought was anxious, crazy, an idiot, casually insulting people who deeply cared about him, out of a sense that they somehow didn't possess these flaws or that the flaws they did possess were somehow better than those of his friends. They can be extremely self-centered, centering conversations around themselves or interests, using the other person's responses as a way to piggyback and pivot the conversation back to them. They ask little questions about you and engage in conversation in a way that allows them to dominate. They seek validation. Again this has a lot of variances, whether it's romantically, never managing to stay single for any meaningful stretches of time, needing to take center stage in their friend groups, trying to impress people through humor or grandiosity. Often times these are just ways for the narccissistic person to feed their ego. Covert narcissists in particular often seem extremely humble, showcasing what is a deep sense of shame. And thus are harder to spot than the overt narcissim. However, narcissism is , as Brene Brown calls it, one of the most shame-based of the personality disorders. Narcissists, despite the public appearance of confidence, are full of shame and insecurity in who they are.
It can be difficult being in relationship this kind of person, particularly when they are lacking awareness or aren't working on these traits. NPD impairs functioning in multiple areas — identity,authenticity, self-direction, empathy, and intimacy. All of which can cause extreme difficulty in relation to other people, but in ways that are outside of the normal range of self-centeredness or conceit. I'm posting as a resource a really great and expansive list of what relationships with narcissists looks like and what narcissistic abuse really comprises. Props to William Gorder who has done quite a bit of research on this topic . I've added a couple of comments to his findings. https://qr.ae/prDEPk
What are the symptoms of narcissistic abuse? Well here are a few: You are being covertly manipulated. (I want to add the caveat here, that master manipulators do not need to devising diabolical plans to manipulate you. We often think of a manipulator as a conniving mastermind. Often times, they can be acting is such extreme self-interest, that they manipulate your sense of reality through lying or deception. What they may do our of protection or prioritization of their comfort and self can often lead them to manipulate you by withholding truths that would otherwise impact your decisions to engage with them. I personally find this to be an issue of consent. You consent fully if you are not fully aware of the circumstances that you are actually taking part in)
Since it is covert you are not meant to notice that you are being made to do something you otherwise would not have against your own self-interests. Since you are in this pickle that means you were not familiar with the tactics and how to identify and resist them. Therefore the easiest way to tell is to ask yourself some of these questions.
Your mood depends entirely on the state of the relationship, and you are experiencing extreme highs and lows.
Your joy at finding love has turned into the fear of losing it. Your feelings have moved from happiness and euphoria to anxiety, sadness, and depression.
You're unhappy in the relationship and uncertain about it much of the time, yet you dread losing it because of you're blissfully happy with it every now and then
You feel like you're responsible for ruining the best thing that ever happened to you, but you're not sure how
Your relationship feels very complex, although you don't know why. When talking to others about it, you might find yourself saying, “It’s hard to explain. It is really complicated”
You continually obsess about the relationship, analyzing every detail repeatedly in a desperate attempt to “figure it out”. You talk about all the time to anyone that will listen. It doesn’t do any good.
You never feel sure of where you stand with your partner, which leaves you in a perpetual state of uncertainty and anxiety
You frequently ask your partner if something is wrong. It feels as if something is wrong but you don’t know what it is
You are frequently on the defensive. You feel misunderstood and have the need to explain and defend yourself.
You seem to have developed a problem with trust, jealousy, insecurity, and overreaction during this relationship which your partner has pointed out to you on many occasions. [ Big highlight here here is developed. These were likely not traits you had in any sort of troubling fashion before].
You feel ongoing anger or resentment for someone
You have become a detective. You scour the web and social media for information about your partner. You feel a need to check their web history, texts or emails. When they are not home you feel the need to verify their whereabouts. [They lie to you. Their behavior is confusing, so you're often trying to understand what exactly is really going on. You turn into the Hardy Boys trying to figure out what's going on]
You feel you don’t truly know how to make your partner happy. You try hard but nothing seems to work, at least not for long. You used to make them very happy and you are not sure what has changed.
Expressing negative thoughts and emotions feels restricted or even forbidden, so you try to keep all those things to yourself. You feel frustrated about not being able to talk about the things that are bothering you.
You don't feel good about yourself like you did before the relationship. You feel less confident, less secure, less intelligent, less sane, less trusting, less attractive or in some way “less than” you were before.
You always feel you are falling short of your partner's expectations. You feel inadequate. [ They will often say things to point out the inadequacies that they see in you. They will continue to move the goal post in order to make you feel like you are constantly failing and aren't good enough. It's a bad way to be]
You often feel guilty and find yourself apologizing a lot. You continually try to repair the damage you believe you have caused. You blame yourself for your partner pulling away from you. You can’t understand why you keep sabotaging the relationship.
You carefully control your words, actions, and emotions around your partner to keep them from withdrawing their affection again
At times you erupt like an emotional volcano filled with anger, frustration, and even hostility. You have never acted this way before and vow it will stop, but no matter how hard you try, it keeps happening.
You do things you are not really comfortable with or that go against your morals, values, limits or boundaries to make your partner happy and keep the relationship intact.
You feel your partner needs to dominate the relationship
You feel your partner does not understand your needs in the relationship.
You find yourself trying to explain basic human emotions and concepts to and adult. You feel the need to make them understand. [ I once sent an ex an article on how to care about others. Like at a basic human level. He literally did not understand that being around another human being doesn't mean that you care about them. And that you have to consider other people's feelings when you do things . It was that bad]
You feel your giving nature is being exploited or that you are being taken advantage of
You feel taken for granted
You feel you need them far more than they need you
You feel trapped with no clear way out.
You find yourself checking with your partner and unable to trust yourself or your judgment when making decisions.
You feel they have more control over your emotions and feelings than you do
You feel something bad will happen if you don’t do what they want
No matter how much you do for them they make you feel like you haven’t done enough.
They intimidate you with their mood or anger. { BIG One. Part of the CPTSD causes extreme fear, fight or flight etc. which stems from the fear you felt in the relationship due to their intimidation, mood flips, outbursts of anger constant criticism and lack of safety they provided you.]
You feel you can’t do anything to change them
Even when you do please them it doesn’t last long
You feel you are working way harder at the relationship than they are.
Other Common symptoms and things to look for:
You find yourself isolated from friends and family and support to appease or please them.
You find yourself more and more emotionally dependent on them for validation.
You seem to be expected to do all the chores and housework/cooking (I'm going to add emotional labor to this)
They want to be served ( I have so much to say here, weaponized emotional incompetence, lack of effort beyond the bare minimum)
They are hypocrites ( We all are sometimes, but this is to the point that there is almost always a dissonance between what they say and what they do, what they say they believe and what they actually do.)
They won’t apologize or accept accountability. For those variants that can, it is very infrequent and you have a hard time accepting it because it does not feel sincere (because it isn’t).
Their actions don’t match their words
The same problems come up over and over. It goes in circles. Nothing is ever resolved or forgiven
They act differently around others than with you. Like two different people. [I promise this will be the strangest thing you will ever experience. Witnessing this in real-time will make you feel like you are losing your mind because it is such a strange way to exist. You will see the person flip a switch in real-time wondering how they can just treat you completely differently and undoubtedly worse than everyone else. It's very very weird and it's not a subtle shift. It truly is night and day . Almost like watching a person go into low power mode before you. This is a key trait of narcissistic relationship ]
They treat you like a child. (Many factors can contribute to this, but you will especially feel this if you're in an age gap relationship. They are also weaponizing the power distance between you, infantilizing you as a show of their dominance)
At the beginning of the relationship you were never apart, and you felt they were your “soul mate”
You are constantly drained and exhausted.
Trauma Bonded You find yourself putting up with things you never would have in any other relationship but cannot detach or leave and so find yourself unable to hold your boundaries so they stampede over them and chip away at them. In other words, you are addicted and trauma bonded. You can answer yes to the questions I went over in this answer: William Gorder's answer to How can you tell if you are trauma bonded to your Narcissist? PTSD/CPTSD You are suffering for the symptoms PTSD or CPTSD that I covered in this answer: [ Yup , here I am.] William Gorder's answer to What are the symptoms of PTSD when healing from narcissistic abuse? You feel an “Intense” love or chemistry with them, that keeps you from leaving. You have confused love/intimacy with addiction/intensity/abuse. [ For people who have been abused in childhood, this is even more intense as we often grew up having to love people who abused and mistreated us. We have learned to exist in a place of dissonance where love and abuse coincide] Check this answer here: William Gorder's answer to How can you tell the difference between a traumatic bond and being in love with a narcissist? You find yourself implementing defense mechanisms like: Cognitive Dissonance : Through your unconscious mind, you justify doing things you otherwise would have considered wrong, make something seem more or less important than it really is, create new reasons for doing something that goes against better judgment and denies, ignores or avoids information that conflicts with already accepted beliefs. This is a defense mechanism for handling trauma to cope with restoring some semblance of equilibrium to your life. [ I'll add there's cognitive dissonance in not being able to understand the dual natures of your partner]
Magical Thinking and Pollyannaism
Despite rationale or evidence to the contrary, your naive childlike mind wishes to have a happy ending so you find yourself thinking things like:
There must be some good in them, nobody is all bad
They cannot possibly be that manipulative [ sadly yes]
They are just a product of their upbringing [ that's also true, but trauma is not an excuse to harm people]
They can change [ You will ask for better treatment, beg for apologies and honesty, and you will unfortunately be hurt again in both familiar and new ways.]
If I love them better it will get better [ It won't, they'll just keep doing it]
They don’t want to hurt me, they just need help [ If your partner has compulsions towards hurting you, at some point you must recognize that they, regardless of whether they want to or not, they are simple going to. They are comfortable doing so. This is who they are.]
They didn’t mean it [ They did.]
Things will get better [ Rarely do they]
You show symptoms of NVS (Narcissistic Victim Syndrome). Some of these may not manifest as noticeably until discard. [ Yes and empathy is what allows you to be sucked back into the cycle of empathizing with them and lowering your defenses. You also need to recognize that they don't empathize with you]
I say this all to say sometimes your ex is selfish. Sometimes your ex is just dumb or lacks emotional intelligence at a staggering level. However, that does not mean he's a narcissist. Asshole may be a more accessible and fitting term. There's a pretty big and extensive list of behaviors or phenomena when referring to dating people who are on the spectrum for NPD. Diagnoses are best left to therapists with a deep understanding of DSM5 criteria. So just be mindful of your language and realize that there are people who are going through a lot of extensive therapy to heal from this kind of experience.
But if you have gone through this , I'll share this video that I found really helpful.
