The narcissist might start by being calm, pleasant, upbeat, and positive. Unfortunately, they are unable to maintain this for very long. They are often easily offended, perceiving innocent comments as personal attacks. They then feel they have been slighted, insulted, or misunderstood. They take offense to it and want revenge for the apparent insult to their person. They might react with rage and indignation. This might result in dismissing the individual or destroying that person's credibility. You then become the target of criticism; remember this is projection to rid themselves of the feeling of being flawed. In their eyes, "you" are now the cause of their shortcomings and deficiencies. This criticism can take the form of nit-picking, harassment, or severe judgment on anything the other person does. They undermine their confidence and self-esteem. This all leads to relationship deterioration. The person affected may feel they are constantly walking on eggshells; fearful of taking any action that might bring on the wrath of the narcissist. At this point, the narcissist will start to find fault with the affected person, devalues them, and discards them when they are no longer of use or become considered unreliable or harmful. This pattern of the idealize-devalue-discard is a very painful, confusing process to go through. At times, the narcissist may abandon the affected person, only to re-idealize them to avoid being abandoned themselves. The affected person is confused by the sudden change in attitude and failure to understand the situation will blame themselves for the problems and try to restore whatever it is that they think was the cause of the rift. This is, of course, futile.
Loss of identity is next, which may cause you to adopt a defensive response to protect your ego. This will be dealt with two options: fighting back and justifying the narcissist, which can lead to further frustration and interaction with the narcissist and is not recommended. More likely would be avoiding shame and distancing yourself from the narcissist. Finally, the continuous games of manipulation can cause victimization and the development of personal traits to protect oneself, to become a narcissist. This is dangerous and a permanent change for identity formation.
Narcissists tend to make all conversations, situations, and time spent together about them. You may end up feeling that your feelings or opinions will never be validated or understood. You merely exist to be their audience or lacking substance 'narcissistic supply'. This form of emotional neglect can cause feelings of hurt, loss, and rejection. Your self-esteem and confidence may also dwindle with constant criticism and judgment from the narcissist. When it is contrasted with endless boasting and praise of themselves, it may make you feel like you are not good enough. Feeling disappointed, confused, hurt, angry, depressed, and having mood swings are the usual feelings when dealing with a narcissist. This may lead to cycles of anxiety and depressive disorders. It is very confusing for someone who is abused by a narcissist and is told he/she is loved, to later find that the 'narcissistic love' is very conditional and never deeply felt, with a lack of real relationship and empathy.
Mental health is a very sensitive dynamic, and so taking care of it is crucial for our well-being. Dealing with someone who has narcissistic personality disorder can damage or affect your mental health.
Without wanting to sound spendthrift, not all abuses are wounds; a lot of them are infrastructures. When you make a house, you lay scaffolding. Think about the mental abuse of bigotry, suspicion, underestimation, threatening; the abuse of discouragement, the abuse of poverty. You can't simply mend the harmed parts, you need to pull down the entire structure and begin once again starting from the earliest stage... I had met disappointment such a large number of times and consistently with disdain. This conduct progressively brought forth unadulterated irresoluteness, an incapacity to accept any demand with no thought of immediate result and advantage to oneself. From that came severe self-censuring once the requests had fizzled; and from that, lastly, outright self-loathing; a horrifying experience. Frost's sonnet is the perfect similitude for the abuse of the man who has been disparaged; when one attempts to escape from beneath, blow by blow and scraps by piece, the mass of gathered rubble and flotsam and jetsam everywhere, from the grave that he is applying to cover his interests and lungs in gloom. The solitary route for this man to never again fall into the snare is for him to fabricate his defensive structure; the counter-influence to his past involvement with the world which constrained upon him the part of whipping kid. For me, this development came to be an entrance into the Academic World-which, in all its overestimation-fills in a position of safety from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
After reviewing the dynamics of what is behind the act of narcissism and how we should cope with it, it should not come as a surprise that setting boundaries is an essential aspect. For anyone dealing with a toxic relationship, setting boundaries and limits is vital in advocating the need for a change or refusal to accept the current issues that are present. In the case of narcissistic relationships, boundaries are seldom kept. If at any time the narcissistic abuser feels they are being held accountable, they will act out in a rage and break the set boundaries. Boundaries are an announcement of what behavior you will and will not accept. They are a way of protecting our values and protecting our limits of what we will tolerate and what we will not tolerate. These must be made internally before being vocalized to the abuser. This will give a clear understanding of when they cross the line. Internal boundaries are crucial to our mental and emotional health, and it is therefore essential to clarify our personal boundaries to ourselves. This is not as simple as it sounds, but it is a learning process, building emotional self-reliance and self-esteem. Boundary setting is a learned behavior. It takes time, practice, and patience. The assertiveness to enforce our limits and boundaries is vital for effectively changing the dynamics of a narcissistic relationship. This will be met with heavier resistance from the abuser, but it is the defining point of taking back your power. Boundaries must be backed up with action. When the line is crossed, some form of action must be taken to enforce that the behavior is not acceptable. This will change the dynamics of the relationship considerably. The abuser is not used to being held accountable for their behavior and will make attempts to manipulate back to the original dynamic. It is essential that the same boundary does not get pushed multiple times. This is showing a lack of self-worth and will not help in changing the relationship.
Narcissism and related problems are on a continuum, and unfortunately, you may find varying degrees of this in many of the people you relate to. With less extreme cases, many of these people can be helped, but only if they can acknowledge the problem themselves. Often, getting them to do this can be very difficult and painful, and only your own acknowledgment of the situation may help you persuade them to seek help. Having said this, in most cases, the best course of action for you is to move on and get involved in healthier relationships. This process is likely to leave you feeling very angry.
When you do something for a friend or family member, do they then turn around and find fault or make it sound like it wasn't good enough? Do they often feel jealous of things in your life, even if you never wanted to hurt them? This can be typical of people with narcissistic motivations. Coming to terms with these sorts of things can be very painful. It can feel like the person has died and often you might find yourself making excuses for them, saying "that's just the way they are" or "they mean well". The truth is, you are involved in a very destructive relationship, and recognition of this is important to moving on.
First, begin to examine your friendships and other close relationships. Are you often the third person? Do you feel undermined or dismissed a lot of the time? Are things on your friends' terms or only when they need you? If you are experiencing any of these problems, this is when your relationships are unbalanced.
