There are some strange things I’ve noticed narcissists do that aren’t usually mentioned as symptoms of their disorder, but seem to be common enough perhaps they should be included as additional criteria for NPD.
If you know someone who does only one or two of these things, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a narc, but if they do several of them regularly and also seem to fit the more well-known criteria for NPD, these things could be red flags to watch out for.
1. They don’t blink when they look at you.
Some narcs have a penetrating, predatory gaze. If a person of the opposite sex looks at you this way, you may take it as sexual interest (and it could be), but watch carefully: if they do not blink this could mean they are sizing you up as prey. Whether they blink or not, if their stare makes you squirm, get away. Listen to your instincts.
2. They interrupt you or talk over you constantly.
If someone only seems to care about what they are going to say next, and don’t even seem to have heard what you said, suspect a narcissist.
3. Whatever you tell them is really all about them.
If you say something to them about yourself, rather than acknowledge you, instead they always relate it to back something that happened to them. The Roz Chast cartoon above illustrates that well. You do not exist.
4. Their eyes look flat or dead.
This is a “dead” giveaway and those eyes usually belong to someone high on the spectrum–a malignant narcissist or a psychopath. Get away from this person. The above photo of psychopathic murderer Jodi Arias shows how flat and dead their eyes can look.
5. They sometimes act psychotic.
All malignant narcissists are bat shit crazy, and their delusions can rival those of someone with schizophrenia. In fact, narcissists denied supply over long periods of time or who have suffered a severe loss can in fact become psychotic. Schizophrenic-like neologisms and nonsensical conversation that sounds like word salad isn’t that uncommon in a malignant narcissist living in mortal fear of losing their “mask of sanity.”
6. They have dramatic, unsettling mood swings.
Narcissist mood swings (mask switching) can be so sudden and inexplicable you may think you’re dealing with someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). For example, a narcissist mother can seem to be happily playing with her child and suddenly, for no discernable reason, start screaming at or hitting the child.
7. They are bad sports.
They will act like babies if they lose a game. I remember once seeing a grown man in his 40’s get so angry that he lost Monopoly that he picked up the game board and tossed it across the room, while everyone looked on in horror. If they can’t win, they will ruin the game for everyone else.
8. They have dark interests or like things that make most people uncomfortable.
Narcissists, especially high on the spectrum, walk on the dark side and this shows in their obsession with things like the occult, mass murderers, the Holocaust, or weapons. They may listen to dark music such as death metal or watch slasher movies. Many people are interested in these things, but a malignant narcissist or psychopath, even if they put on a mask of being an upstanding moral citizen, usually have a secret hobby or interest in something dark or evil. They may not talk about it in public, but they have one.
9. They can’t let nature take its course.
If a woman has had an excess of cosmetic surgery including too many facelifts, she is probably a somatic narcissist living in mortal fear of aging.
10. They have an affected way of speaking.
Dahhhh-ling, this can manifest as a fake foreign accent, or just a speaking voice that sounds fake and affected, as if they are acting on a stage. It comes off to others as more annoying than glamorous though.
11. They use exaggerated mannerisms, facial expressions, or speaking voice.
Like actors in silent movies, who used exaggerated expressions and mannerisms to make up for fact they couldn’t speak in those films, some narcissists (probably because they can’t feel emotions the way normal people can) overact to the point of being rather hilarious. This is also common in people with Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD), another Cluster B disorder that’s been speculated by some experts on personality disorders to be a somatic form of narcissism and is far more common in women.
12. They have conversations with themselves.
I’ve heard many a narcissist talk to themselves–and actually answer themselves back. Does this mean they are insane? Do they hear voices in their heads? Or are they practicing what they might say to someone in a hypothetical conversation ahead of time (remember, everything they do is fake, so they might have to pre-plan how they will respond to others in advance). Who knows? I just know it’s weird as fck. My ex used to do this all the time–in front of a mirror too.
My primary intent for this blog is NOT to make money. It’s not as if I can make a living at in anyway right now. I also love doing this so much I’d do it for free forever. Hell, I’d PAY to do this! (Hopefully Comcast doesn’t get its way in this whole Net Neutrality fight and turn the whole Internet the way TV has gone, where you’d have to pay Comcast to be able to access your usual websites. That would suck so hard, especially for those of us who are…financially challenged.)
But my dream is to be able to quit my regular job and blog and write for a living. I made $20 last month ($46.85 total from January – March) by running the one big ad that appears under the first article. (I do not get to choose which ads are run or their placement, but I do have the option to remove anything I think is offensive). Because this blog is growing fairly quickly and I have decided to run additional ads, I should start making more money from this now. It probably won’t be enough to enable me to do this for a living right away, but it’s a step in the right direction.
I must confess I don’t care for the look of the additional ads, which now appear above the title of this blog and along the top of the sidebar (for the small ads) and another large one under the second article. I think it makes the blog look a bit tacky and cluttered. I certainly hope it doesn’t make loading this site slower.
Please let me know if you are having any problems with the addition of the extra ads, or if it’s slowing down loading for you. I’m not sure if anything could be done about that if it is a problem, but I would like your feedback anyway.
Again, I apologize for the cluttered look but after giving this a lot of thought, I decided it was worth it if there’s a possibility I could make a living doing this.
Sigh.
I can’t get rid of them.
Today I thought I died and went to narc hell.
My narcissist sperm donor has finally moved into his own place. I’d been storing a lot of his crap in my house (for no charge) since I kicked him out over a year ago. Many times I felt like just hauling it all to Goodwill but he kept begging me not to so I didn’t. Of course any attempts to collect financial compensation for storing his crap were met with deaf ears or excuses.
So anyway, today he came over to pick up his stuff. I had most of it packed in bags and boxes for him so he wouldn’t have to stay long rummaging through my house. I didn’t want him to invade my boundaries, but of course asking a narc not to invade your boundaries is like asking a mosquito not to bite you. They are every bit as annoying as a mosquito too.
He kept walking from one room to the next, trying to take things that weren’t his or that had been both of ours but I wanted to keep. I had to negotiate with him over at least 20 items, including the little bit of wall art that I have, and the few decorative items in the living room. He kept trying to take my little white Buddha that sits next to my bamboo plant in the kitchen. I finally convinced him why I needed to have it (“it makes my plant grow”–it really does!) He wanted to take my geodes off the kitchen sill. I wouldn’t let him have them.
He was here for two hours, wanting to go through EVERYTHING, opening every drawer, rummaging in the closets for things I might have missed (there was nothing of his left), even pawing through all the stuff in the medicine cabinet, the cabinet over the toilet, and the kitchen. I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough.
But no, this wasn’t all. I didn’t just have one narc following me around the house going through my stuff–I had TWO! My annoying narcissistic roommate was following us around too. Any time I have company she is ALWAYS out of her room, making sure she’s noticed and hijacking the conversation with her inane blabber. She followed us from room to room, talking nonstop about nothing as usual and asking an awful lot of questions that were none of her business. I finally told her I was stressed and I would prefer she didn’t follow us around asking questions, so she went back in her room (sulking, of course), but 5 minutes later was out again, saying she was “just getting some air.” The nonstop talking resumed. I just tried to ignore her but it was hard.
The ex didn’t take much besides what I had packed, but dealing with him being here and pawing through my belongings felt like a huge violation of my boundaries. Meanwhile being yabbered at nonstop by my idiot narcissist roommate was another type of boundary violation. Even my ex was getting irritated with her.
Can you imagine being in your own home followed around by two narcissists, one who wants to rummage through (and possibly take) your belongings, and another who never shuts the hell up?
After he left (finally!) I was so exhausted I had to take a long nap. They just suck everything out of you. Like vampires.
At least my house feels like mine again and I have a lot more room for my OWN stuff now.
Here was one of yesterday’s search terms: vomiting after seeing ex.narcissist begging me back
Really now? The narc’s begging you back actually made you puke?
But yes, I can definitely understand it though.
Sometimes those over the top emotional displays when you take away a narc’s source of supply by leaving them are pretty nauseating to say the least. I don’t know if it’s “acting” or desperation or what, but I know it’s not “love.”
I remember back in my 20s, witnessing the incredible reaction of a malignant narcissist boyfriend when I finally worked up the courage to tell him I was leaving him.
This was a verbally and sometimes physically abusive man who treated me like dirt most of the time, made fun of me, tried to turn my friends against me, and cheated on me as well. I had waited far too long to disconnect from him. I honestly didn’t think he would care that much because his behavior was anything but that of a man in love. In fact I thought he’d probably be relieved I was letting him go.
But oh, I was so wrong. SO wrong about that.
When I told him I was leaving, this narcissistic jerk literally exploded into the loud, violent, gasping, wracking sobs of a very young child, torrents of tears and snot pouring and mingling together on his fire engine red face while he begged me through choking sobs not to leave him. He actually was gagging. I don’t think I have never seen an uglier crier than him at that moment. It made me feel sick to see this, and I actually did feel vaguely nauseated. I felt no empathy for him at that moment. I just sat there with my mouth hanging open, not quite believing what I was seeing.
Then to make matters even worse, he kept telling me over and over how much he loved me and couldn’t live without me (my bullshit detector was at full volume). Then he begged me to hold him too, but I just…couldn’t. Ew. I felt myself recoil in disgust. God, I felt so repelled by him. It wasn’t even because of his over the top (and rather gross) emotional display, but because I knew all those tears he was shedding “for me” were really just for himself. They were an elaborate act. Maybe not fake, because no one who wasn’t really hurt would be able to cry like that, but they were manipulative tears, meant to “win back” me as his source of supply. This love-bombing loser should have gone into the movies–he would have won an Academy Award for that incredible performance.
I knew he never loved me, and true to form, two weeks later he found a new girlfriend source of supply.
I’m doing this a day early because the weather was so gorgeous today and who knows about tomorrow. One day doesn’t make a big difference, so here’s this week’s photos.
It’s starting to look a lot like early summer for the most part.
I was cleaning out my hall closet under the stairs today (it was a disaster, believe me) and had a brilliant idea. My narcissistic roommate has, as usual, been annoying me all day, following me around like a needy puppy and asking her usual nosy questions. (For what it’s worth, things have gotten better. She’s actually trying to respect my boundaries and with my daughter out of the picture–she didn’t like her–things have been a bit more peaceful).
View of the acceptably organized closet after I bagged up stuff to throw away or give to Goodwill:
EEK! Whathehellisthat???!!!?
The second photo leads us into the way I plan to have some fun with Roomie later. While I was tossing things into black garbage bags for Goodwill, I found this hairy spider from a couple of Halloweens ago. His wire legs bend into all different positions. I know my roommate goes in this closet a lot (even though there is nothing of hers in here anymore–maybe she goes in there to change her masks) so I decided to give old Spidey a perch on the wooden clothes dowel.
DEARGODINHEAVENWHATHEFCKISTHATTHING?!?!?!?!
I can’t wait to see how she reacts when she finds Spidey there waving at her.
AAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHH!
Maybe…just maybe I’ll even act all innocent and sweetly smile and say,
I have no idea what you’re talking about. You MUST be imagining things. Perhaps you need to see a psychiatrist?
Here is a hypothetical letter written from the point of view of a narcissist’s True (lost) Self.
The advice given here by the True Self is almost the polar opposite of whatever their False Self would tell you. That’s because their False Self is a lie and isn’t who they really are, even though they may have been wearing this mask for so long they can never access their True Self without enormous difficulty or even at all.
Always follow the advice of their True Self, no matter how much they protest and rage, unless you want further abuse. It’s actually the best thing for them if they ever decide to look in the mirror past the lies they show the world (and may have come to believe is the truth)–and of course it’s best for you.
Letter from a Narcissist’s True Self:
Dear Victim,
I have lied to you about nearly everything. I am not sorry for this behavior because I cannot empathize with you. I chose narcissism so early in my life that I never had the chance to develop a conscience or the capacity to feel remorse or empathy for the way I hurt you. Still. I know it’s wrong on an intellectual level. I just cannot feel your pain. Sometimes I wish I could, but I can’t.
I became a narcissist because as a child I felt too vulnerable. I was sensitive. I felt too much and most of it was painful. I was made to feel like I was nothing, a nobody. I was hurt, betrayed, abused, just like you. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t loved, or why I was treated with contempt and like I didn’t matter. I was also was never given a good example of how to become a good person. I never had anyone to model in a positive way.
Life was so painful for me I had to do something about it. Something drastic. I had to become strong and never show weakness again, because my weakness was killing me. I was trained that being a sensitive person who feels compassion and remorse, a person who can love others, is a weak person. I know that isn’t really the case, but it was how I was trained. I was so young that I couldn’t see how wrong that might have been.
I reached a point where I had to make a choice. In order to survive, I had to sacrifice my humanity. I didn’t want to do it, but I felt like I had to. I didn’t want to be hurt anymore. I had to sell my soul.
In order to sell my soul, I had to shut you and everyone else out. I couldn’t allow myself to feel too much. I couldn’t allow myself to be sensitive anymore, and that meant I could no longer allow myself to love anyone, feel anyone else’s pain or joy, or feel sorry if I did something wrong.
I had to don this mask that I wear, which is a lie. In order to keep that lie intact, I had to treat others badly. I had to diminish you to prop my false self up. I had to hate you in order to “love” the mask that I show the world, because if I didn’t continually prop myself up by making you feel bad, my mask of lies might fall off and expose the real me, a powerless and vulnerable child which I had to protect at all costs, even if it meant destroying everyone else around me. I am a bully but inside I know I am nothing. I act like I love myself but I really hate myself. I only love the mask I wear. I abuse you to protect that mask.
You can never get through to my true self because the lies I tell are nearly impenetrable. I have lied so often and for so long that I myself have come to believe my own lies. I am a walking lie. That is the truth.
I will never let you get close to what I really feel. I don’t even know what I feel anymore. Most of the time I feel nothing, because a lie has no feelings. But try to destroy my protective armor, and I will try to destroy you. If I must go down in flames, I am going to take you with me. I will rage and abuse you. I will gaslight you and tell you the most horrific lies about yourself.
I may seem nice at first or when I feel like the supply you give me is threatened or you may leave. I know how to get others to trust me–by acting like a nice person. I am good at acting like a nice person but I can’t feel a nice person’s emotions. It’s hard work to act nice, because that’s a lie too.
When you begin to trust me, I will start abusing you, because I must keep you at arm’s length and keep my mask of lies intact at all costs. Both the niceness I show you and the asshole I become are both lies. I cannot even access who I really am. I have forgotten. I just know that my true self is there, somewhere, and I can never, ever, let you meet them.
If you mirror back to me too much of the truth about me–if I become aware that you KNOW this mask I always wear is a fake–I will attempt to destroy you or cut you out of my life. I cannot afford to have the truth about myself revealed to me. Nothing terrifies me more than facing the truth about myself so I have dissociated myself from it. It scares me so much to realize how evil I have become. It hurts me so much that I had to choose this fake self because of what was done to me. I hate being evil. I really don’t want to be this way but I will never, ever admit that. I cannot ever show you or anyone in the world how weak and vulnerable I really am. But deep inside, I know I am.
I am still an infant. I never grew up. My emotional and moral development was arrested when I was just a very young child, so I only have the emotional maturity of a child that age. That’s why I can’t care about you. It’s why I must always have my way. Can a two or three year old care about YOUR feelings? Of course they can’t, and like a toddler, I can’t either. I am like a mentally challenged person, only my retardation isn’t mental, it’s emotional and moral. I’m emotionally retarded.
It’s hard work keeping up my false self. I am paranoid and defensive all the time that I will be discovered and exposed. It’s enormously stressful to be a narcissist. It’s stressful and often painful, and I know I have sacrificed the ability to ever feel real happiness in order to never be hurt again.
But still, I hurt all the time. You can hurt me very easily. The only way I dare show my hurt is by projecting it back onto you through my abuse and through my rages. I’m a bully because I always hurt so much. But I can’t hurt FOR you, only for myself. I cannot afford to hurt for you. I’m too busy always licking my own wounds and trying to keep the lie going. I will hurt YOU if I must to keep the lie intact.
As I age, I may soften a little but most likely I won’t. I could even become worse. Don’t wait for me to change because I most likely never will. Once I chose this life, there was no going back. I chose darkness and once that’s done, there is no going back to the light. I sold my soul and there’s no way to buy it back, but through the grace of God himself.
If you care about yourself (because I can never care about you), you must leave now. Don’t play my games. Ignore me and act like I don’t exist. Being treated like I don’t exist is the worst thing I can imagine, but if you care about your own survival it’s what you must do. I will destroy you if you don’t. Heed my warning.
There’s even a small–a very small–chance that your abandoning me and taking away the supply I get from you could make me take a look in the mirror for the first time at the lost child I left behind so long ago. If that happens, I will be in so much pain I may seek the help I need. Don’t count on it though. Even if I ever seek help, once I start feeling too much pain I will probably leave counseling. Feeling that pain is too terrifying. It’s easier to abuse my own mind (and yours) by keeping up the masks and lies.
Here is a song that describes me well.
Don’t wait for me to change. I won’t. Don’t play my games. Even if I rage, hold your ground. You’re stronger than I am. I will never let you know I know this. Don’t fall for my lies.
Better yet, leave now. Keep your soul intact. Don’t allow me to turn you into a shell of what you used to be or worse, a person like me, even though it’s what I want.
So much truth in all of this. I have seen all of these lies up close and personal. The one “You are responsible for the way you feel” when they have just said something hurtful to you REALLY hit home with me. And of course the way they gaslight, gaslight, gaslight and always try to make you feel like there’s something wrong with YOU.
If you’ve found yourself in the unfortunate company of a Narcissist, you’ve undoubtedly discovered their innate ability to lie without missing a beat. Narcissists lie for a variety of reasons, but the main reason, while immature, is simple. If he or she lies and gets away with it, they interpret this as their being clever and superior to others. In short, it’s a means to demonstrate how brainless others are. A sincere and honest person is viewed by the Narcissist as a weak chump who deserves to be manipulated.
Wondering if your significant other could be a Narcissist? Read the following list of their favorite lies to determine if your partner fits the mould.
“I can’t imagine my life without you.” (or, “I’ve grown so attached to you”, “You’re in my blood”) – Sadly, victims of Narcissistic abuse believe their partner really cares about…
Lucky Otters Haven 