How To Identify The Narcissist In Your Life

Identifying the narcissist in my life has been a life long journey. I have spent 20 years living with one and then another 20 years trying to figure out if I'm the one who's crazy and delusional. I know many HSP can relate to this situation!

I was manipulated by guilt and my self worth was shot. I didn't have the self confidence to believe that everything I saw, heard and witnessed was horribly wrong. I was bullied into a lifelong silence.

The NPD Narcissistic Personality Disorder is very complex and can be difficult to identify.
There are many shades to NPD. Someone with this personality disorder can also be Borderline (BPD), or have histrionic tendencies.

Highly Sensitive People and empaths are easy targets for narcissists because of our natural tendencies to be forgiving, highly empathetic, and extremely caring human beings.

Narcissists often use our empathy against us. We can spend many years in a state of confusion, humiliation, and low self worth.

We often remain in these relationships simply because we don't realize they are not 'normal'.

Its particularly imporant for HSP to identify the narcissist in their life, so they can prevent suffering for years. Wondering whats wrong with their lives, when their source of toxicity is busy denying, diverting, and minimizing the abuse that we endure.

Once you can identify it, hopefully your self esteem will be good enough for you to make a healthy choice for yourself. These traits can vary in intensity and frequency, of course.

Here is a long list of traits:

-Over inflated sense of self, massive ego, create the illusion that they are superior
-Self centered and self absorbed, vain, attention seeking
-Always preoccupied with the impression they are making
-All interactions with others are shallow, incapable of a deep connection
-Overly confident, no shame, arrogant and impulsive
-Plays games, feels is superior and one step ahead of everyone
-Are very charming and charismatic
-Chronically deceptive, are expert liars and will tell you anything to have their way
-Name drop, seek to impress constantly
-Appear to be extremely generous in public, but go stone cold behind closed doors (Jekyll n Hyde)
-Brag about how special they are, how perfect their family, their child, their job, their...
-Totally believe they are exceptionally smart and extremely sexy
-View their victims as stupid, put down others they consider weak and inferior ie. racist, uneducated, not 'cultured'
-Have total disregard for anyone's needs but their own and are inconsiderate of your time and energy
-Constant need for admiration, adulation and applause
-Refuse to seek help because they know it all, are smarter than anyone else
-Are often physically and emotional abusive
-Talk incessantly about themselves, don't stop to ask a question of others
-Lack empathy and view empathy as a weakness that only others have and consider others as beneath them
-Aren't able to be introspective, lack an inner life
-Deny responsibility, prefer to blame, play the victim if questioned
-Are unable to trust the world and others around them, are very skeptical, fearful
-Pretend to care ie. pseudo empathy
-Have endless convoluted conversations, try to confuse you until you feel you're crazy
-Talk incessantly about themselves, their achievements, their viewpoints, their successes, their beliefs
-Seek out only people who maintain  and enhance their image
-Quickly dispose of people they no longer have use for and treat people like possessions that belong to them
-Have total disregard for authority
-Prone to severe mood swings, anxiety, depression, paranoia
-Are very abrupt at changing from being decent to emotionally abusive, very inconsistent, explosive
-Will do anything to protect their image and reputation
-Make outrageous demands, will manipulate, blackmail and threaten
-Can never be satisfied
-Believe they are smarter, better, more intelligent, more beautiful than anyone else
-Have total disrespect and unawareness of other peoples boundaries
-Good at maintaining superficial associations with people, small talk
-Create the illusion that they are listening, that they care or are a "good person"
-Blind to their own deceptions and cruelty
-Prefer to be surrounded by others who 'worship' and believe them
-Choose partners that are emotionally, physically and financially dependent on them so they can then totally control them.
-Any independent thinking is forbidden if you are in a relationship with them
-Enjoy drama and will fabricate and exaggerate events to invoke an emotional response
-Expect special treatment and recognition, the world owes them

 
Greater awareness and learning to be observant of these displays of behavior gives us freedom and the ability to be less emotionally reactive.

Relationships with narcissists provoke constant anxiety and are extremely depleting, in many ways.

They erode our self confidence and in their course of devaluation, they stoop to low tactics such as shaming, lying, ostracism and innuendo.

The best thing to do is to distance yourself. If you must have contact make sure its only brief. And keep conversation to a bare minimum. Provide no details of your life because any information will be used against you (at a later date!)

Iv written about this subject not because I want to give it too much emphasis. Its already taken too many years of my life. I now choose to completely focus on my needs, what makes me happy, and that I am deserving of good in my life.

I wrote this to help shed light on this toxic relationship dynamic that HSP often find themselves enmeshed in. 

HSP can spend a lifetime trying to please them, help them, or change them. Only to realize that their whole relationship was based on lies.

All you can do is distance yourself, preserve the little self worth they allowed you to have, and start rebuilding your self esteem.

Start practicing the unfamiliar belief that your decisions, feelings, goals, and opinions are of value. You don't need their approval, which they will always withhold to control you.

Begin to surround yourself with people who recognize you, your needs, your ability to deeply empathize, and value you.

Watch Top 20 Ways How HSP Can Recognize Narcissists HERE