It’s a defensive adaptation and a great many of them are good people that do-good things. It’s just that they have a perfect storm of blindness and sensitivity that causes them to need to not feel like a victim at all costs. So, if they do then an eye for an eye means you’re going to end up hurting. The problem is if you didn’t mean to hurt them — they are technically hurting someone that didn’t even know that they had done anything wrong. This is especially true when it comes to any instances that are caused specifically because of hypersensitivity.

They can’t feel powerless like a victim, and they can’t stand it when people (specifically their mate) see them as total garbage. There is a very sad and tragic element to their fate. Yes, their actions are of their own volition, but they believe you did them real wrong when they act. They don’t typically first strike, It’s reactive. It’s just reactive in a way that you may have no idea what they are reacting to because no one else would have reacted like that. That’s what takes people by such surprise.

There are a huge portion of over achievers that donate entire wings to hospitals that are narcissists. They can do some incredibly good things for the community. It doesn’t matter why they do it, it matters that they do it. Besides, who truly does everything in life or anything in life selflessly? Very, very, very, few — so if they need a gala event to open up the hospital wing and they pumped 20 million into it I say have at her — everybody wins.

Relationships in life are all about learning how to communicate with other people in a way that your message gets heard and understood — this includes incentives or motives for communication. Everyone has something different that they need or want in order to be on side. If you find that then anyone can be your ally or friend.

I don’t make excuses for people’s behavior, but I do try to understand the driving forces behind it.

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One of the thing the narcissist will do is analyze your weak points and then they will systematically use those weak points in statements that seem innocuous to other people but, provide you with an emotional gut punch.

There are two types of narcissists. There are the ones that perform these gut punches impulsively as a means of bolstering their self esteem but then there is a malignant kind that will use it calculatedly against you to break you down.

It’s subtle how they use these tricks. They will keep you locked in with the prospect of getting something you really, really want and the longer you’ve invested trying to meet these conditions to achieve this goal the more you are being trained to be complacent with abuse.

The narcissist looks to make you the perfect mate. One that they can mistreat and even physically abuse without any fear of you going anywhere. They will use a mix of tactics to make you emotionally dependent on them and addicted to this intermittent reinforcement and these cycles of up and down categorized by hope and let down.

They like to build up your hope where you feel like you are finally getting somewhere and then they level you with the reality that you are no closer to achieving your goal than you were 6 months ago.

They want you to waste your time. Your time wasted trying to achieve your goal is going to make it harder for you to leave. Your time wasted is going to drain your resources and leave you stuck in a position where you have no hope but to beg them for help and then they really have you.

They will continue to dangle that carrot in front of you indefinitely and you will never achieve your goal as they will make sure of that. Why? Because the longer you try the more complacent you become to the emotional abuse they are putting you through. Soon, you won’t even notice how shitty they treat you and how you are the only one putting any effort into the relationship.

They just extract from you and they take and they take and you’ll never get anything back from them.

They are blood sucking whores and you’re only option is to drop them like a bad habit before you are so emotionally enmeshed that it is impossible for you to leave and they have complete control over you.

Run, run, as fast as you can before you can’t escape the narcissist woman.

When you lack object constancy and whole object relations and have an impaired ability to empathize then you are left with infatuation. This is the rush of the relationship when nature hooks you up with some of the best and most addictive drugs for a brief window. Usually long enough to ensure that a baby is on the way (pre-birth control) and then those chemicals fade away.

They get that same rush as a neurotypical. They aren’t like psychopaths that lack the oxytocin receptors, so they get the rush and the excitement like most other people. Only the object relations issues create a problem. With the rush of the chemicals gone the late nights and the magnetic draw to each other lifts and normal life sets in. Only, when you are not physically present with them that bonded feeling that they have when you are there is no longer present.

They feel nothing when they think of you in terms of emotional connection. So due to their limitations around empathy and this inability to hold a realistic and stable image of who you are they cannot love in the same way that other people can. It becomes transactional and about what you provide them making them feel good. If you remove what you provide, they have no feeling for you anymore.

So, during the infatuation stage - you bet. You are the magic elixir that soothes the pain of the existential void within them. They feel normal and happy and on top of the world due to nature’s drug high so absolutely you seem like their soul mate. That lasts as long as the chemical high lasts.

Manipulation - that really sets in when actual love should be setting in. By this point they don’t have any of that chemical high anymore and they are getting annoyed with you. You are probably standing up for yourself a bit more and there are more fights than ever. You are not going according to their script. Cue manipulation.

The manipulation is to regain control over the relationship. It will get worse and worse until it’s full out emotional abuse. The more control they gain the less respect they have for you and they see your tears as weakness. You become dehumanized and far below them and if you don’t like the abuse you should leave - so you must like it. That is how much their perspective will change from the beginning to the end.

Bear in mind these are generalities and there are people that are narcissists in this world that do not emotionally abuse and ones that take pride in trying to do the right thing. People are individuals first and narcissists second so it’s not a one size fits all deal. Generally, however, what I have laid out is how it goes. I am not a professional

I have a slightly different take on this one than most people. Usually, people believe that narcissists think that they're God's gift to the earth which they do create that aura around them. They do talk like they believe it and they do act like they believe it.

So as a result, people believe that why narcissists react so horribly to the rejection of a romantic interest is because they cannot accept that somebody wouldn't want them. I believe it's the other way around.

I believe that for the vast majority of narcissists their fear of rejection is rooted in their childhood. They are actually hurt when they're acting this way because it actually touches a core wound of theirs around rejection. It touches that wound around why they actually have low self-esteem and don't believe in themselves. This is the true reason why they can't let it go.

The other ones are the ones that are so grandiose that they actually believe their own press. They don't care if you walk away. To them that just made you unworthy and inferior. This would have just begun a valuation cycle that ended in disgust for you.

No, the ones that can't let it go can't let it go because it touches on a core wound. It touches on their vulnerability and their very first rejection. It's a form of abandonment anxiety.

Where the crux of this is though is that narcissists tend to be able to rewrite history in their heads. So, they will fabricate a reason why you are the cause of their pain and depression. They will look at the evidence and they will see that there is truth to all of the evidence, but they will look at it in the worst possible context for you and the best possible context for them. In doing so they commit to memory of version of events that has you responsible for their current plight.

It's a process of looking at what evidence is available that proves their case and then their narrative will embrace those truths but in a context that is absolutely atrocious for you, and they will believe it, because the evidence is there. It just might omit some important facts and perspective of yours.

So, the root of them and their actions after a rejection are based on abandonment trauma or a form of it. It comes from a childhood core wound of not being good enough for their caregivers as they were. All literature supports the fact that they have an underlying low self-esteem. I don't know why people think that anything that they do is the result of them thinking that they're better than anybody, it's as a result of them lashing out because of their vulnerability being hit.

Everything comes down to an avoidance of pain and a desire to never be made a victim. They don't ever want to be a victim. So, with their skewed perspective and maybe with a touch of sadism they will make sure that they are the winner. They will make sure that you are the one that has less than because they will not ever be okay with feeling like someone took from them and left them helpless to affect change.

That is their core wound and that is what they will defend to the dying breath. It literally feels like they are dying because when their rejection occurred it was at a point where they were literally at risk for dying. It activates that fear and self-loathing they got from that experience. Narcissism is a defensive adaptation it just has a very offensive defense.

The long-term damage of never giving approval

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Often, you’ll hear of people talking about their narcissistic mate and how tied that person was to their family. There is some irony in the fact that they bend over backwards for the very people that made them narcissists. Their lives are significantly broken, and they seem to have no loyalty to anyone except that family of origin.

A decade ago, I dated a woman who was professionally diagnosed with NPD. She was plagued by a shadow that she couldn’t come out from under which, affected every aspect of her life in very big ways. The shadow was the shadow of her father as she still feared his disapproval so much as an adult, she arranged her life around it.

She grew up in a wealthy family where the parents displayed no real empathy, no real love, no real closeness — just high expectations, constant put downs, and an unattainable standard that she would never be able to achieve.

The sad thing is — she was born inherently normal. Being subjected to the life she had been had given her the expectations that she should be the top tier executive type but with the toolset of someone who was perpetually in a state of PTSD like anxiety.

As an adult, everything revolved around her father’s approval. She wouldn’t date anyone that didn’t seem like they were on their way to being a successful millionaire entrepreneur, so she would pass on anyone that didn’t seem like they were hugely successful. Her father’s approval meant everything and when she didn’t meet the expectations of him, she would nearly come apart. This is when you’d really see the NPD side of her kick in as she needed to offload the blame because the failure with the father’s expectations were too much for her to bare.

Another woman I dated was the same way with her mother. She was a grown adult who had done well and was successful, but she absolutely refused to try to do any type of project on her own. She had zero confidence she could do it and when she did try something she would not rest until her mother said it was a good job.

So ingrained is the desire for approval from these hyper critical horrifically damaging parents, that as an adult they seemed like children when it came to thinking of facing the disapproval of their parent.

It’s a testament to the critical nature that the parents treat their children, it explains why they have to appear perfect and like they are flawless, and sadly is a pattern that they repeat with their children because they have no clue that what they are doing is extremely unhealthy for them and their family.