SIX SECRETS ALL NARCISSIST KEEP.
By: Khalif Barkhadle
Digital Journalist
Published On: 2nd February 2024
Today, we’re diving into a topic that can help you understand narcissistic behaviour better. You might have heard the word ‘narcissist’ before, but do you know that they have secrets? Secrets that they don’t want you to discover. These secrets are like keys that unlock the mysteries of their actions.
From secret relationships to secret lives, if you’ve gotten close to a narcissist, there’s no doubt that you have uncovered some secrets. But there are at least six secrets that all narcissists keep, and they don’t want you to find these out. So in today’s article, we are going to reveal those secrets so that you can be armed with the best knowledge to deal with these difficult personalities.
So whether you’re dealing with an overt or a covert or vulnerable type of narcissist, you can bet that you’re going to recognize these secrets in some way. Like I said, they are secrets, so they’re hidden. But even if you don’t know about the secret, you’re going to notice how it manifests in your relationship. So as we go through, please do let me know in the comments if you recognize any of these secrets and if you have any other secrets that you’d like to share. Let’s get started!
1. They are essentially walking a tightrope.
Narcissists are always close to exposing themselves. So I know that a lot of you out there are kind of worried about how to expose the narcissist, and really, this honestly is the best way to do it, is to let them do it themselves. When you are hiding your true self, when you are living a false persona, it’s going to be very easy to knock you off of that, right? So that’s what’s going on with narcissists. Imagine how exhausting it must be to be a different person when you’re at work when you’re at church, and when you’re at home. When can you truly be yourself? And the answer is when you have nothing to prove. And a lot of narcissists will feel like they have nothing to prove around their partners or their families until a partner or a family member threatens to expose them in some way.
If you threaten to expose a narcissist, they are very likely to go on the attack. And this is when you’re going to see any gaslighting, manipulation. You’re going to see that heightened. And the danger in this is that they’re good at it. So they might get to you. You never want to play the narcissist’s game. I mean, you may feel like you do, but it’s not going to work out as well for you because you’re not a narcissist. You are a person who has some level of empathy. So if you want to know what a narcissist is all about, if you’re at a point where you’re getting ready to leave, you’re not going to want them to know it because this is the time when they’re going to try to manipulate you. And their manipulation can come in many different forms, and it can be very believable.
So if you’re at this point, instead of trying to push their buttons to expose them, just sit back and watch and keep a journal of all the manipulation, all the lies. This stuff is still going to be going on. But when they think that you don’t have them figured out, they’re probably going to be a little bit more obvious about it. When they think that you’re buying into the act, when they think that you’re on the hook, they’re probably going to get a little bit sloppy. So this is the time to pay attention and to make a record of what’s going on.
2. They don’t understand love.
If you’ve ever been loved before and you’ve also gotten involved with a narcissist, whatever kind of relationships these were, you know that it’s very, very different. A relationship with a narcissist is going to be very intense in good and bad, and it’s also going to be very chaotic. And if you find this appealing, you probably have experienced narcissists before and you may have confused addiction and codependency and chaos with love. And this unfortunately fits perfectly with the way the narcissist loves. The narcissist’s so-called love is just intensity, is all it is. It’s chaos, it’s intensity. And if you don’t know what you’re looking at, that can make it feel like you need to be this with this person. So ultimately, if you’re ever feeling like you are addicted to a person like you do not have the strength to walk away from a person, that is a relationship to look very closely at, to see what’s going on there.
3. They need you to care.
Apathy is like a kryptonite to the narcissist. And one of the worst things that a narcissist can feel is insignificant. They need you to feel significant, and they need to feel significant to validate their false persona. So they are going to act like they don’t care about you all day, every day. But they need you to care about them. And the reason why they’re acting like they don’t care about you is to get an emotional reaction out of you. And that’s also the reason why they’ll push your buttons. So if you start acting like you don’t care, that’s when they’re going to start to try and push your buttons.
So do whatever you can to suppress those emotional reactions because when you share an emotional reaction with a narcissist, essentially what you’re doing is you’re opening the door. You’re opening the door to deeper levels of yourself and essentially letting that narcissist in. Keep the door closed by keeping your emotional reactions in check, and the narcissist will have a lot more trouble finding ways to hurt you.
4. They don’t see you as any worse or better than anyone else.
Really, narcissists kind of hate everyone, and everyone is on the same level, and they’re just kind of above them. The only exception is when they’re actively idealizing someone, and that someone could be you. So this is going on: they may think that you’re better than someone else, or if they’re triangulating you with someone else that they happen to be idealizing, then they, at that moment, may think that that person is better. But that’s the only exception. And narcissists do very much triangulate when they don’t care about any of the players involved.
The reason narcissists triangulate is simply to hurt you, to get an emotional reaction out of you, to get you to try harder for their affection. So don’t fall for it, even if they are idealizing someone else, It doesn’t matter because it’s not going to last. And when they’re trying to triangulate you, essentially putting someone else above you, and this happens in family situations where a narcissistic parent will triangulate children against each other. Sometimes it’s one child exclusively, and sometimes the person that is on the pedestal changes from moment to moment.
In reality, this is all manipulation, and the narcissist doesn’t care who’s the best or who’s the worst because everybody’s the same in their eyes. It comes from a deep loathing of themselves because how we see the world around us is a reflection of what’s going on inside. And this, on the flip side, is why self-love is so important because when you truly, truly love yourself, you’re going to see love reflected in the world around you.
5. They can be vengeful and seemingly loving at the same time.
This is something you’ll see if you have caused a narcissistic injury, a deep narcissistic injury, and the narcissist feels like he or she needs revenge against you. And also, that could be in the form of a discard. So you may have discarded the narcissist before they had a chance to discard you. And this causes a deep narcissistic injury. And this causes the narcissist to not just seek revenge but need revenge. So this is one of those things that most people can’t do. You can’t just turn it on to hurt someone.
Think about it. Think about how truly wicked that is, to pull out all the stops to make someone believe that you love them, to make someone feel good and safe, only for the purpose, for the sole purpose of pulling the rug out from under them and hurting them. That is not a normal thing to do. That is not something that an emotionally healthy person does or can do. If you have empathy, that is going to be something that is so incredibly difficult for you to do, even to a narcissist, even to someone who’s hurt you. It is that wicked.
6. You actually kind of intimidate them.
Narcissists, like I said, they are always walking that tightrope. They don’t want to be exposed. And if you’re close enough to a narcissist, anyone who’s close enough to a narcissist is going to be very threatening to them because this person is going to be close enough to see who they are and that gives them the power to expose them. So kind of like a bully on the playground, when the narcissist is afraid of someone or is threatened by someone, what do they do? They lash out. They try to take the power away from that person before that person can hurt them. Ultimately, they try to get that person under control. And they do this through gaslighting, manipulation, and eating away at your sense of self.
So if you are dealing with a narcissist, if you have a narcissist in your life right now, this is something to keep in mind, that they are threatened by you. And that is why they are attacking you. This isn’t to make you feel bad for them or try to sit down and have a heart-to-heart like, ‘Hey, listen, you don’t need to be threatened by me. I’m not going to expose you.’ None of that is going to work. What will work is kind of the opposite, like I said, removing your emotional reactions and trying your best not to push their buttons. It’s sometimes impossible to avoid, but if you can avoid actively trying to do it and just sit back and see how they act, how they manipulate, gaslight, way they talk in circles, make note of all of this.
And if you’re ever in a position where you have to expose the narcissist, where it’s the best-case scenario, maybe it’s a court case or something of the sort, you’ll be prepared. And they’re also less likely to be ready for the smear campaign. So those are the six secrets that all narcissists keep.
