Warning Signs of a Narcissist

Narcissists do not come with a  warning tattoo on their forehead.  They do come with a deeply limited repertoire of behaviors and interaction styles that are not glaringly obvious yet are present from the beginning. 

When you get that feeling that it is too good to be true IT IS.  Normal /typical people with healthy boundaries are never as enticing, dramatic, interesting or as “easy” to develop a rapport with as narcissists.  Healthy, normal people do not merge, mirror or create facades that leave an intense and instantaneous desire to spend more time with them very early on. 

People with healthy boundaries do not dive into new relationships and therefore healthy relationships in comparison with one with a narcissist/sociopath/psychopath (or combo), seem to pale in the romantic comparison to the whirlwind, “love at first sight”, early day feelings we experience with a narcissist.   The initial intensity we experience with a narcissist cannot be replicated with a healthy person as healthy people have integrated egos and fully developed super-egos (conscience the place where empathy comes from).   

Healthy people are not desperately seeking targets, new sources of supply, therefore they do not present with the urgency, intensity or overblown initial feelings of desire to connect, that a narcissist presents. 

You never truly connect with a narcissist as their motivation for being in the relationship is not the same as the motivations of a healthy, fully integrated and developmentally on track, person.  In fact, you do not connect with a narcissist any more then you connect with a toaster oven, telephone pole or Kermit the frog.  It is not possible to make a connection with a person who lacks the human traits (empathy, integrated ego and much more). 

The connection that you feel in the beginning is the love bombing they hurl at you in order to sign you onto the role of target.   They are highly skilled at mirroring back to you, the person that you wish for them to be. This is not hard for them.  Since they have no actual person behind the persona/mask/show they present, they have a lifetime of experience of transforming themselves into whoever the target wishes for them to be.  It’s a show, a parade, an illusion, a masquerade.   All of those things, when it comes to matters of he heart are more enticing then a typical, safe, healthy encounter with a new potential partner.

 Behind this masquerade of perfection lies absolutely nothing.  Do you really want to be with a person who wears a mask of sanity, a mask of mirror and changes that mirror for each new person they embroil as a target?  They have as much ability to be kind and caring to you as a Sesame Street Puppet, a toaster oven, telephone pole or the sofa.  Would you get upset if Kermit the Frog called you names and discarded you?

In healthy relationships two people connect and share the human experience of interdependence, love, compatability and friendship.  In a relationship with a narcisssist ….what relationship?  Can you have a relationship with Kermit the Frog or another puppet or show?

In the beginning their fanatical job of hiding their false self combined with the distraction of mirroring their target add some good old- fashioned love bombing they are not so easy to spot.  The trick is to not become emotionally attached to the love bombing.  If someone is catering to your human desire to connect, feel loved and providing you with extreme attention before it is logically the time to be doing that….no good can come of it.  

When you are being love bombed, catered to or have become the star of his show when you don’t know him that well…. It looks like  Mr.

Right is going turn into Mr. Fright.  If we pay attention closely and are open to the sometimes painful reality that Prince Charming is full blown alarming.  

Here are some of the beginning phase things to be aware of.  They all do the same 12-14 things, they are THAT limited.  

1.   There is often some long and complicated or confusing story (lie) about their current romantic  status.  They have a girlfriend but at the same time they don’t or they are in it for some reason that’s incoherent or it’s over but not over…you get the idea.  There are many different versions of this same story.

Honorable men (the world is filled with them) ddo not sort of have a girlfriend or are otherwise involved with a woman who has no idea that they are on the prowl as they are out with you.  Honorable men do not seek the company of women outside of whatever relationship they are already in.  Men with integrity, confidence and who have empathy and are decent do not seek new girlfriends when they already have some person in their life who they refer to as “girlfriend” yet can not define either the actual status of this relationship aside from using this weird and identifying the situation in a way that is simply not normal.  Tip:  Get to know them better or worse, become their girlfriend and you will be the one who is oblivious to the antics when they are seated across from the next potential supply explaining your relationship with them in a way that is mystifying, unsettling and degrading to you and the relationship you think you have with them.

If you are looking for happiness and a healthy friendship or relationship it starts with seeking honorable characteristics in a person.  To do otherwise is going to set you off on the journey to horror.  Nip it in the bud when you get the bullshit, long stories about other women unless you want to be one of them.

2  In the getting to know you stage they will ask direct and many questions about your romantic past and present yet when it’s your turn to learn about them you will quickly find that they provide no timeline or coherent history of their dating past.  In part this is due to the fact that narcissists run with harems and hang onto sources of supply for as long as they are able to, weaving in and out of their lives as it suits them therefore with boundaries this blurred even they may not have a handle on the timeline.  At the same time that they actively dodge simple questions providing you with no actual information, they will expect and potentially demand to know the details of your dating past.  Be careful.  Giving them names in the beginning sets them up for calling your X’s and embroiling them in smear campaigns later….Not that it matters as normal people do not operate like this and smear campaigns are a distinct and bizarre characteristic of narcissists.  Normal people do not call your contacts with questions, information or other ruminations about you, it’s not how the world works and it makes them look insane and reveals who they are.  They truly do not know how the world works and are easy spot as they all do the same weirdo stuff that healthy people just would not even consider doing as it’s not how the world works and makes them look the crazy they are.

Honorable men who are integrated and whole are capable and willing to answer questions about their past and will do so without lying, omission or bizarre zig-zagging of the entire topic.  Neuro-typical men are not as interested in your dating past.  Unlike narcissists their relationships end with appropriate closure therefore they do not fear you are secretly dating everyone you ever dated, potentially all at the same time as that thought is not inherent in their behavior as it is with a narcissist who has closure with no one and strives to control and dominate as many sources of supply as possible and doesn’t let something standard like an agreement to be monogamous, marriage or children interfere in their self centered and primitive behavior that is also unsafe, disgusting and reprehensible.

3.    Often they will disclose something undesirable about themselves that is surprising or shocking.  They do this to test or feel out whether or not you are open to unusual, uncommon or outright horrendous behavior.    If they tell you they have a history of problems with the law, incarceration, fighting, crazy or psycho X girlfriends or brag about being a social chameleon or having family members with these same issues, this is warning sign and not something that is secondary to how cute, charismatic, funny or engaging they are.   Any admission of having undergone psychiatric testing, being diagnosed as character disordered, incarceration, one or more X girlfriends referred to as psycho all negate how charming, attractive, funny or engaging they present.   It is time to walk away and not look back when they admit to antisocial behavior.  There is nothing funny about being above the law.  Furthermore sharing this type of information early on indicates poor judgement and the logical reasoning skills of a child under kindergarden age.

4.  Love bombing.  Love bombing or the flattery, attention, gifts, focus or pedestal they put you on in the beginning will be extremely short lived if you refuse to participate.  There are misconceptions about love bombing.  It’s not possible if you refuse to participate.  When they are bombarding you with texts about how wonderful you are watch how quickly they end or take a strange twist if you interrupt them with some topic of seriousness or otherwise shift the communication from a flattery fest into something more serious.   The love bombing will stop dead in its tracks if you interrupt it by introducing some other topic or ask them why it is that they find you as desirable as they do.  THEY HAVE NO REASON aside from striving to embroil you in their agenda in which you are the target, you give supply, they pull you into the game only to devalue you and discard you once they are certain they can repeat the same cycle. 

 When they are love bombing you ask them “why” they feel the way they do.  That will put and end to the flattery and attention you are receiving if you are honest with yourself and mildly insightful.  When asked why they feel the way they do they are unable to answer the question and will shift the topic, make up a bizarre answer or otherwise reveal right then and there that there is no logical explanation for it.

They feel nothing toward you (nothing like what fully integrated adults feel, they feel excited to have a new supply, target,  person to control but not what typical people feel in the beginning stages of a relationship.  This is because they do not have empathy, the trait that enables us to successfully navigate alls social interactions and the prerequisite for having a moral compass, accountability and ability to connect with other people in a way that is meaningful versus their way which is to use people for their own agenda) and are using you for personal gain.   People are interchangeable to a narcissist.  They may favor some sources of supply over others however they do not attach in the way that healthy adults attach and can easily discard a person they have previously declared to have loved tremendously without feeling anything at all.  

They therefore do not need to learn about or experience your positive attributes as the only ones that matter to them are the ones that are directly helpful to them.  They cannot exactly tell you that they find you admirable because you hoist their social status, give them credibility or seem vulnerable and easy to control.  When asked why they feel the way they do they will toss you some flowery adjectives that make very little sense as they don’t know you well and never will.  They are not capable of recognizing you as anything more than an extension of them.  Therefore they will answer the question awkwardly then quickly jump back onto the flattery.  After asking them to elaborate the love bombing will feel shallow and empty.  Sorry the fun is over.

5.  Their words are not backed up with actions.  When they are future faking and claiming they hope to marry you, intend to do many things with you in the future,  pontificate about the life you will have together in several years, it feels choppy and false.  They do not introduce you to their significant people, family or request to meet yours.   At the same time that they are claiming they wish to have a future with you nothing in their behavior progresses to the stages of intimacy that you experience with a normal person.  They are secretive and deceptive yet demand that you be upfront and disclose information about yourself.  For instance they may request to know your whereabouts but never share theirs.  They may set up a dynamic in which they disclose nothing to you so that you ask nothing of them.   In a normal relationship when people are close enough to be intimate they are also close enough to share their whereabouts.   It’s absolutely illogical to be having sex with someone who you think is your soulmate but at the same time are not close enough to know what they did the night before.

A narcissists is filled with the words that you want to hear however those words do not represent their actions.   If you want to know how someone feels about you or how much they value you, do not listen to their words and simply watch their actions and you will quickly see exactly where you stand with them.  A narcissists words and actions do not match.

 

 6.  They push your boundaries.  Narcissists do not like sharing or competition.  They are often quick to create situations or structure in the relationship that no normal person would create and they don’t care whether you want to subscribe to their choice/dictation or not.  They are quick to set up rules, terms, conditions and do not allow for a natural progression of friendship and love.   In quickly asserting that they are your soul mate, you are the best thing that has ever happened to them, it is too easy to be drawn into their trap of you being loyal, available and eventually a possession of theirs which later leads to isolation as they will seek to consume your time, thoughts, focus which disables you from interaction, focus attention to other people and more importantly sets up the stage of their reactions to you becoming too important to you.  When they shift out of love bombing and onto devaluing you, it is only possible as they got you into a situation in which you isolated from your people and yourself and are overly dependent/influenced by their view of you.  By drawing you in with love bombing and promptly asserting themselves as the most important influence/person in your life they are setting you up to fall apart when they begin the stage of devaluing you as you have relied too heavily on their perceptions of you, have grown accustomed to and are reliant on their unyielding attention, focus and adoration.  They later rip this away from you as you enter into the stage of “devalue’ which precedes the “discard” stage.  It doesn’t end there.  After discarding you they come back around and start up the whole cycle again.  This gets played out in many different ways and is not always obvious to even mental health professionals.  It is obvious to people who study and research character disorders and domestic violence specialists. 

7.  NO FOUNDATION IS BUILT.  In normal healthy relationships a foundation of trust, friendship, loyalty, honesty and respect is developed over time.  There is no short cut to building the foundations of a healthy relationship and anyone who tries to persuade you into short cuts has an agenda that is absolutely not in your best interest.  Narcissists do not have the skill set to have healthy relationships and therefore jump right onto what they can do,  pull you into participating in their own agenda.  Their agenda is to get supply from you as that is what holds together the glue of their mask and fuels their false self.  They cannot exist without approval from others as they have no internal mechanism to self regulate or create positive self esteem which is understandable as there is no true self and instead the mask they create.  

If you feel scared or worried about leaving them early on, remember they are as realistic and as complete as big bird and you are not afraid of big bird.  Unlike big bird the longer that you are exposed to them the more damage they can do so the sooner you get out, preferably before sharing too much with them as any information you give them is used to later harm you, the better.

 Always be true to yourself.  We all want to love and to be loved.  This is normal and positive and makes the world a happier place.  By understanding your own desires and being able to tolerate the disappointment of potentially being duped early on, you avoid the absolute bedlam these characters create later on and save yourself the chaos, being terrorized, stalked, harassed, subject to smear campaigns, financial demise, tedious litigation later on down the line.  It is much easier to avoid falling prey to a narcissist in the initial stages, you can heal and manage your disappointment more easily and recover quickly.  Letting in a narcissist is a guarantee of discomfort at best, but sadly more likely the demise of your physical and emotional health years later after emotional torture and having sustained being terrorized and isolated.  Please be careful and cautious, follow your instinct and remember that you are a gift.  Any person who tells you that you are a gift should be able to tell you exactly why and if they can’t it’s because they are not seeing you as the gift that you are but have an agenda to use you as a source of supply to fill the never ending void that is their life.