Are you involved with a Narcissist?

The fact that you find yourself asking whether you are in any type of a relationship with a narcissist points to one of the fundamental issues of being involved with a narcissist—chaos and confusion. It is much easier to know when you are in a relationship with some other types of people. If you are involved with an alcoholic, it probably will not take you long to figure that out. If your partner has severe depression, you will probably be aware of it fairly soon into the friendship/relationship. But discovering whether or not you are in any type of friendship/relationship with a narcissist can be a whole lot trickier. Our society uses this term loosely, but it is a very real personality disorder with diagnostic criteria for mental health professionals. Your friend/family member/partner may be outgoing, charismatic and charming at first, or to the outside world. If they happen to be more of a vulnerable narcissist, you may feel you are providing a vital purpose in life by being their emotional support – helping them solve their problems and fixing life for them. It can feel really good to be a caretaker for a narcissist during the early stages—fulfilling a need in you to caretake, and then you begin to get drawn into patterns of distortion. Care-takers seem magnetized by taking care of others; they get emotionally involved in other people’s problems, may spend money outrageously on others, and help others to the point of exhaustion. The caretaker will not get their own needs/wants met, nor be mutually cared about in this relationship. Someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder cannot handle criticism. If we are honest, most of us do not like to be on the receiving end of criticism. However, someone with narcissistic personality disorder is VERY intolerant of anyone else expressing negative emotion and is unable to cope with criticism – they will blame, deflect, and not accept responsibility for their own behavior. Feeling like they are on the receiving end of a critical comment likely will cause major conflict and you may end up keeping quiet - feeling like you are walking on eggshells. This is ALWAYS a red flag in a relationship! They put themselves first. A person with narcissistic personality disorder will always put their own needs first. They lack empathy towards you and continue in their negative behaviors even when you have communicated that you are upset. You may find yourself exhausted and ignoring your own needs in order to fulfill the desires of your narcissistic person. A person with a narcissistic personality disorder has very contradictory behavior that may be very confusing to you. You start to question the validity of your own needs and opinions (gaslighting is a huge issue). Fear is a constant companion for the care-taker in the advanced narcissistic relationship, trying to cope with irrational demands and sudden outbursts of anger. If you are in this situation, please seek the help you need to get healthy. We are here to help you.