We all have had those relationships, that leave us feel empty and entirely used up. They are often linked with poisonous persons that seem to have walked into our life and have no intention of leaving it.
If this is valid for you, it is possible that you are dealing with a narcissist.
A narcissist is someone that is self-centred, manipulative and selfish to extreme levels and has no sense of empathy.
Your relationship with them is one based on your humiliation, and you being used to achieve their goals, without realizing it before it is too late. Sounds familiar?
Here’s how to tell that a narcissist has entered your life.
Clue #1 The Masks
Narcissists are often very careful not to reveal their actual personality. We talk about people that show kinds of emotions exactly what are expected to, but often don’t mean. They would give you forced laughs and be seemingly sad when you need them to be. Seeing their true reactions could be nearly impossible.
Clue #2 The Triangles
Third parties would often be involved in your relations, when a narcissist wants to demonstrate their correctness. And this would happen often.
Imagine a situation, where you disagree and you are right, and give some serious arguments about it. At this point a narcissist would use a technique knows as triangulation – s/he would involve a third person into the argument. This person would, of course take their side, but meanwhile s/he would be talked up in front of you, while in the same time your self-confidence would be crashed using a word- bullying of a kind.
In the end, you would feel so bad about yourself, that you would only want to exit the argument, even by admitting a non-existing defeat.
Clue #3 The Blame
A narcissist would blame others for all their faults. Starting with small things, like their bad mood, finishing with obvious mistakes, made by them – they would never admit it and would always place the blame on someone else.
Clue #4 The Doubt
One of the narcissists’ worse techniques is to make you doubt yourself. They achieve this effect by creating a bubble of negativity all around their “victims”.
If you share something personal with them, you often could find your secrets told out and with a critical attitude, too. Soon not only the person you shared with thinks that you are wrong, but a whole lot of people the story has been told to. And gradually you find yourself agreeing with the crowd – it’s all your fault, what were you thinking?!
Clue #5 The Gaslight
Another “tool” pointing to a narcissist person would be the gaslighting. This psychological technique suggests manipulating a person by making him/her insecure about his/hers own memories and small parts of reality around them.
A narcissist would not hesitate to use it against everyone around in order to achieve his/hers goals.
Clue #6 The Phases
Your relationship with a narcissist will probably go through several phases.
First, you would be idealized, flattered and made feel loved. This is known as the love-bombing phase.
Next, you would be devalued by the other – the manipulation often includes criticism, demonstrations of love and then of hatred, pointing out that you are not the best choice, ecs.
In the end, the specialists say, a narcissist leaves. But never quietly. There would be scenes, blames, humiliation, involved third parties – in general, a lot of drama, that would probably scar you emotionally for some time.
Clue #7 The Chain
Narcissists don’t chose certain people on purpose. They act the same way with everyone in their life. So don’t be surprised, if in time you find out that someone else has suffered the same attitude from this person. Also, don’t feel like you have been used for some special reason – it is not your fault, it is their poisonous personalities, functioning this way.
If you find yourself involved with a narcissist, the best advice is to put an end to this relationship as fast and painless, as you can.
The prospect of it becoming something beautiful is virtually non-existent.
