How do you know you are with a Narcissist?

Time to run from the fangs

Well, that is something that needs expert experience. And when we get into any relationship, we typically do not possess that much of any experience whatsoever, leave apart having expertise at it. Let’s accept it, everybody is no psychopath detector! To topple that with a disgusting mistiness, ‘Love is terribly blind’ and no speck of light filters through its iris! So that means, when you are in a relationship, you simply do not notice the small and big red colored flags that your partner flutters in front of you. It is definitely more peaceful to stay in blissful ignorance.

Not with Narcs! So stay alert to the slightest signs. Here are a few ways you can make out that you are getting hitched up with a Narcissist. I am dividing the entire process in 3 stages, ‘The Adoration’, ‘The confusing Degradation’ and ‘The Final Discard’. Read them, determine which stage you are in and leave, no matter which stage you are in! These people cannot house strong long-term relations.

The Adoration

• The beginning of the relationship with a narcissist would be better than any other relationship in the world, better to say, too good to believe.
• You would be conferred with gifts, dates, compliments, what not! Possibly even a marriage proposal within the very first few weeks!
• You will always feel a craving to stick to your partner. When I say stick, I mean it in the literal sense. In my case, i used to have butterflies in my stomach even when I was away from him!
• You will be used to receiving ‘I love you hon!’ and ‘I miss you baby’ and ‘I wish you were here with me’ and all such comments hundreds of times a day through messages (I wish mobiles never existed, in my case).
• You will feel an obliging desire to return these compliments and saying, not because you want to say them just as many times, but because he would be upset if you don’t!
• You will get thorny remarks from your friends that you are getting lost in love to the point of ignoring them. (The narc actually wants to keep you away from your immediate support system and isolate you in the long-term).
• You would feel that things are going extremely quick but would not be in the position to handle them, in a nutshell, you start losing power and honestly, do not mind that. In fact, you would be loving to see the Narcissist take hold on your life.
• You would often hear sayings like…..’Your life is no more your’s darling! Its mine!’, ‘I have never met someone as charming as you are! Why couldn’t you meet me earlier?’, ‘My ex was just your opposite. Even remembering those times gives me jitters’, ‘You know something, I have always been the giving one in my past relationships’ and many more self-pitying of them!
• You would feel you are the only special one who can give happiness to this man! (Nothing could be further from truth… They manage to find love just from anyone).

The Confusing Degradation

• One fine day, you would start getting list of suggestions about what all you should do to get better.
• You would start thinking, may be you have become a bit too fat and a bit too old for your partner and you honestly need to implement his suggestions.
• You will find yourself changing your lifestyle.
• Your Narcissist partner will start having problem with you talking to your immediate network (You might think that is a part of any possessive relationship, but trust me, it is not!)
• The number of complaints would start increasing and most of them will actually be baseless. Nevertheless, you would be expected to apologize even when you are not the one at fault.
• If you do not behave submissive, you would be exposed to extensive periods of silent treatment. If you are the one who has initiated these silent treatment episodes, you would expose yourself to wrathful taunts and abuses.
• When you finally decide to leave the relationship after getting frustrated with the repeated insults, your partner will apologize ( invariably always, he would never actually feel sorry). The ‘sorry’ would never align itself with his body language and there would always be a hidden taunt about it.
• You will still feel the urge to forgive and move ahead with the relationship, after all, which relationship does not have its ups and downs?
• But the cycle will repeat itself and every time, it gets all the more abusive. Some people also report having been subjected to physical abuse.
• Suddenly, you would question yourself whether this was the same person who never grew tired with singing praises about you! But then you are always willing to forgive, because somewhere you yourself feel addictive to his charismatic presence.

The discard

• All the narcissist requires, is a source of supply for his false self. When he has spent quite sometime with you, he would have drained a lot of energy out of your soul. As such, he would be hunting out for better sources full of life.
• Slowly, the abuses would become unbearable and you would find yourself believing that you are the most ugly thing on the planet.
• You would have lost all contacts with your support system and would feel utterly isolated.
• You would start keeping unwell. Most cases end up with a severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder attacking the victim.
• You will find your Narcissist partner openly flirting with other women on your face and then blaming you of restricting his space.
• Blames would increase to the point where you would be blamed for even being born!
• Then one fine day, an extraordinarily huge silent treatment period will commence, wherein, you would feel utterly suffocated and your partner will be grooming his next source with the energy that he has sucked out of you.

Although known as the discard phase, no narcissist completely discards his victims. He might not stay in contact with you, but he would never formally break up! That always keeps a space for him to come back to you in the future when he falls short of narcissistic supply. Victims tend to be groomed in such a way that they stay completely confused about the situation even after years of no contact. So that gives the narcissist an advantage to come and pitch his point again and restart the vicious cycle.

Many people have taken 40-50 years to come to know that they have been living with a narcissist. That is not justice to the victim! I mean that is like spending an entire life running after a mirage, no one deserves such a ruthless run! It is much better to escape with a ‘No Contact’ notice.