So do narcissists have chronic feelings of "it's never enough"? Yes.
So do narcissists have trouble feeling gratitude? Yes.
And do narcissists also feel that there is not enough gratitude going in their direction too? Yes.
And does the narcissist's penchant for feeling that others are ungrateful towards them disturb the peace in relationships? Yes.
In fact, if a narcissist is concentrated on how ungrateful you are, you will never be enough for them. What the link reveals is the following: They will chronically focus on short-comings that they perceive in you. They will constantly be moving the goal posts in terms of what is acceptable to them in terms of what you give and how much you give. They will constantly be nitpicking and criticizing what traits that they perceive in you to make you work harder for them. They will make it clear that you have fallen from grace in their eyes.
It will become clear at some point that a reciprocal relationship is no longer possible, that a relationship with them hinges on their own satisfaction without ever taking into consideration your satisfaction. In fact people are looked at by narcissists as only utilities to fulfill their own desires. Narcissists also have a lot of trouble with the concept that you are your own person and not just their servant, or flatterer, or caretaker, or another extension of themselves that will do what you are told by them, or what ever role they want you in. In fact their role-wishing can take on such gargantuan importance to them that they really can't see who you are beyond whether you are fulfilling them in the role they assigned to you.
Once they put you in that role, the role that they think will satisfy them, what ever reciprocal relationship with you that you thought you had with them dies, either a fast death or a slow death.
After the initial love bombing stage, they feel they have "got you" and then feel comfortable with their usual critical, judgement self: they start to nitpick and ignore you a little at a time. The nitpicking is about "finding flaws", "I wouldn't do it that way", "Why would you do things that way when you aren't 'supposed to'?", "I'm in charge."
In fact, your days with them can get filled up pretty fast with their "supposed to's", their perfection standards, their demands and commands, their seeing lots of flaws in you and others, their needs and wants, their judgements, their not getting enough out of other people, their negative assessments of others, their suspicions that they aren't seeing the truth when other people talk and that only they can decipher it (a lot of narcissists believe other people lie to them), and believe that everything that goes wrong for them is always yours or someone else's fault: they believe they are perfect and that no one else is and any sense that they may not be perfect will cause them to rage and retaliate against others, especially for vulnerable narcissists which most narcissists become as they get older and narcissistic supply dries up.
A lot of this is a brain matter and an ego matter for them.
You can read about the brain matter HERE. But to give you a short run-down:
They have several areas in their brains which are atrophied that make them insular in their thinking styles that the world revolves around them and their needs, and that relationships are meant to benefit them only (i.e. they are not likely to see your perspectives at all or very clearly, or even care what they are). The major issue is that they have very, very little empathy and many have none at all. Because of these issues, it is pretty clear to me anyway, that they have a major disability and really can't handle conversations that have any kind of emotional component to them, including intimate details of your life which they will use against you (intimate details about your life are none of their business anyway).
And the other issue is that narcissists have a dysfunctional ego that is only pumped up through external validation, but otherwise is fragile, easy to break, shame-based. They try to hide their fragile self esteem issues with a grandiose "false self" and display incensed anger if you so much as think you can criticize them, though they will see criticism even when there isn't any - especially the vulnerable types of narcissists, malignant narcissists, narcissists with paranoid personality disorder (comorbidity is common), and narcissists with alcohol use disorder.
To keep their ego from collapsing and living in a constant state of delapidation which can cause extreme low self esteem, depression, and sometimes suicidality, so they put people in roles that feed them narcissistic supply to keep their self esteem up and steady, and even fat when they get lots and lots of flattery and seem extremely arrogant. In other words, they look to other people to provide narcissistic supply. Raging and punishing others is when narcissistic supply is running low (like if your focus is somewhere else other than them, or if you disagree with them on an issue, or you're not performing the role they have assigned you to perfection).
Let's say they have assigned you to do the laundry (however they will assign you to do much more than that for them, sometimes downright unethical "jobs" like demand that you hurt other people). If you are idealizing them, or too attached to them, you can find yourself doing a lot of things you would not normally do, and that you know is "ethically" or "morally" challenged. However, we'll take laundry as the first sign of their dissatisfaction.
So the way the "never enoughness" might work for laundry over time is in these ways:
* You didn't do the laundry on time
* You didn't fold them the way they like
* There are too many creases in their shirts
* You didn't go to the dry cleaners fast enough like they told you to do for the meeting they have in the evening. If you tell them the dry cleaners were overwhelmed and wouldn't have the clothes ready until the next day, the narcissist either doesn't listen to you or rages "You need to tell them to put a 'rush on it'! What is the matter with you!? You can't do the simplest tasks?!"
* Their shirts are constantly getting wrinked on the hanger. Even if you iron them, you're supposed to constantly monitor them to see if they need ironing again.
* Their socks smell moldy. Don't you know they need to be taken out of the bureau and go in the dryer every now and then to kill the mold?
* "You're the most incompetent person I've ever met when it comes to everything, even laundry!"
- Notice that they can't take a bruise to their own ego, but expect you to perform and please them to perfection when they bruise your ego. Hypocrisy is very much the interpersonal dynamic you are going to receive from narcissists, especially if they think they are superior to you (however feelings of superiority, are again, only generated by outside validation, and if you're not a good enough "validator", they will make life miserable for you).
In order to receive that validation, they often feel they have to paint your character in extremely negative ways (i.e. lie about you), so that if you challenge them, others that are supplying them will look at you as the perpetrator and them as the victim, which is often the opposite of what is actually happening, as we know.
Trying to manipulate you into thinking that you're incompetent at most everything is a gaslighting move, by the way. The unspoken message is: "You're incompetent, so I must take control of how you do things and tell you how to do things. If I can convince you that you're incompetent, or crazy, or stupid, you'll always be inferior to me, and be reliant and dependent on me, at which point I can call all of the shots."
So it's their way of keeping a steady source of narcissistic supply going towards them. They secure that supply by isolating you. They talk you into a co-dependent relationship with them to keep the supply even more constant. But then they get more and more negative on you, and punish you or "go cold on you" if and when you rebel against these kinds of narratives. They don't care if you're competent in many areas of your life because as far as they are concerned, you need to be talked out of competence, and what better way to do it than to wear you down by insinuating that you are crazy and/or stupid and that only they know "what competent looks like".
The problem with narcissists going negative on other people is that the results are unpredictable, and narcissists are worse than just about anyone in predicting because they don't have a good grasp on who other people are, what their defenses are, if they'll attack back, if they are another narcissist who will be just as vengeful as they are. They take great chances with this, and they are not prepared for the unpredictable outcomes and consequences.
If they can't convince you that you are incompetent, they might look for other sources of narcissistic supply (which can involve cheating if you are married to them). But again, who they cheat with and how the cheating wilmanifest is not well-thought out. It's an impulsive decision made over narcissistic supply.
In terms of "going negative on you" and taking big chances with their reltionships, is only part of how they get into their "never enough" mindset.
One other way they get there is by focusing on the negatives of other people besides you.
And are they really so negative about other people behind closed doors? Yes, absolutely.
There are several reasons they do this: they are constantly comparing themselves to others to cover up their own insecurities, flaws and fear. If they feel threatened by someone's popularity, they go negative on them hoping it will cut down on that person't popularity. If they fear someone is more successful than they are, and to maintain a sense of superiority (even if most others do not see them as superior), they often feel they need to sabotage them by going negative on them. Narcissists also tend to think that constant negative, comparative talk will brainwash others to their way of thinking about who is suuperior, who has more clout, and who people should believe and follow. It's in the link.
And talking themselves and other people into how inferior, intolerable and awful most other people are (compared to them - as comparisons rule these diatribes), is also how they get to a place of "never enough". The lack of gratitude about others would follow, of course.
The other way they get there is that they demand ever more power, control and domination over you, which for most people, is intolerable and an impossibility when the demands get to a certain point and where you are losing everything about you to serve them. They will punish you on this too, and sometimes it works in terms of you working harder for them, and other times it doesn't and you walk away.
They become used to people walking out on them over time, and can adopt a calloused attitude about it ("Ack, he was never good enough for me anyway!") and compensate for it by love bombing someone else almost right away to see if they can get the kind of narcissistic supply they used to get from you.
If they can't find the narcissistic supply you used to give them, they tend to "hoover" you back (love bomb you until they can get you back into serving them again via the role they gave you before, although they will not necessarily say it out loud). Just about all attempts that narcissists make to "win you back" are either to get you back in role to calm their insecurities and to feel they are "on top again", or to sabotage you for living better than they thought you might live.
If you stay or go back to them, they become concentrated on just about everything you do and don't do, what seems terribly flawed about your character and what they can "barely live with" when it comes to your character, and whether what you are doing is pleasing them enough (and it probably won't be), whether it is competent enough for them (they will tend to focus on incompetencies much more than on what you are doing right), whether there are any flaws in what you do (and you would be right to think they will find flaws in just about anything and everything you do). Narcissists tend to be controlling, often very controlling to the point of micro-managing.
Being ultra-controlling and micro-managing is not showing gratitude for who you are, and in fact it is showing an incredible amount of ingratitude and "You're not good enough" signals.
The excessive supervising often leads to unrealistic standards of perfection besides, and puts so much focus on them and what they want from you that you begin to feel invisible in the relationship. These are not people who can "live and let live".
So they begin to feel plagued by unfulfilled desires in their relationships, so much so that for many narcissists it (again) means cheating on you, or smear campaigns to see if you can "do as they say" out of a challenge of being replaced by someone else. Or they might try to embarass you in front of others, and in order for them to stop embarassing you, you pony up and serve them the narcissistic supply they demand. Or they begin to abuse to see if they can "scare" more duties out of you, or they harass you endlessly if you have no escape route ... they follow you around so that you do things "perfectly" the way they taught you to do them.
And in the meantime, this sets the relationship back in terms of both mutuality and in healthy discourse. In fact, the unhealthy discourse will make you feel unhealthy physically and mentally (usually) and give you symptoms. One of the first symptoms you might have is anxiety and restless sleep patterns.
Eventually you may have so many symptoms that you blank out on what they are saying (especially if they are in a "commanding" frame of mind) and experience them as being traumatic. In fact, most people will experience narcissists as traumatizing eventually.
Narcissists tend to put people into chronic stress, by being commanding, demanding, being highly critical and judgemental, rageful, unpredictable, disloyal, uninterested in you as a person (using you as a utility for their own uses), predatory, abusive, abandoning you at times when you need their support, and always trying to turn your focus to them and what they are going through instead of on your own self care.
What ever issues you are going through in your life will either be ignored or they will try to put your focus back on them again. For covert narcissists, however, they will want to hear all of the details of your life without sharing the details of their own life. This is done in order to gauge how to control, manipulate you and punish you with the information you have provided them with about your vulnerabilities and weaknesses.
Narcissists are really not built for relationships. They view them as "I am the commander; you are the wind-up doll" - which I demonstrated above.
It is not realistic.
To contrast to this, you may also notice that other people in your life actually care about you. They care to listen to your perspectives. They care as much about you as themselves. Most people want and enjoy compromise; narcissists don't. Most people take time to understand your perspectives; they don't. Most people enjoy peaceful discourse; they don't, and usually escalate conflicts besides. Most peole are not particularly demanding or commanding and enjoy you for who you are (and don't constantly put pressure you to change your personality, interests, ambitions, and concerns to fit what they want).
People who have empathy and compassion find you plenty competent, plenty loveable, plenty "enough", especially if you are fairly even tempered, show ethics, are fair, and a good citizen.
When you are with narcissists, especially if it is becoming "exclusive", you will eventually be and feel starved of all of this.
When there is this much contrast between normal relationships and relationships with narcissists, most people are going to think when they are in a relationship with a narcissist, "Something is wrong here. This is not what I experience with most others" or "with my other parent" if the narcissist is one of your parents, or "with my best friend" or "with my spouse" or "with my family" if they came from a functional family. So, like the people who come to this blog and other blogs like mine, you are going to want to know why, and what makes the relationship with the narcissist feel "abnormal", and uncharacteristically anxiety-ridden, exhausting, depressing, anger-inducing, fear-inducing, traumatic, making you feel introverted, protective, and unhappy - one of these feelings will dominate.
There are two exceptions where people might perceive a relationship with a narcissist as "being normal":
* Child abuse victims. Child abuse victims are more at risk from being in a relationship with a narcissist, and their physical and mental health is more at risk too.
* If you're hardly ever allowed to see other people by the narcissist. Many narcissists try to isolate you. If they don't have control over who you see, they will tend to criticize those relationships or people in your life instead, and compete with them, and get them to walk away from you with false narratives, until they "have you to themselves".
Narcissists will expect you to be totally loyal to them eventually, and furthermore, they expect you not to question their own loyalty towards you (it's in the link) - also unrealistic.
Eventually, the relationship becomes a codependent relationship or a trauma bonded one.
They will be monitoring everything you do: how you talk to them, which phrases you use, how to use "proper phrasing", how to bring up topics, what topics to talk about, wat topics they will allow and which ones they won't, how to present yourself to others, how to please them with the words you speak, what to do when you're not pleasing them, and so on. And you'll also probably notice that you are never pleasing them enough.
In essence they take on micromanaging you eventually, and sometimes right away. In so many ways, this has to do with why they love bomb, devalue you and discard you in the relationship. In micromanaging you, they are going to find plenty of the way you do things flawed. This is not exclusive to you. They will act this way towards anyone they think is inferior to them, or beneath them.
Once your system can no longer tolerate them, you are likely to withdraw. At first it may be mentally. Let's say they are in a rage. You may find yourself freezing (an involuntary trauma response) instead of fawning or rushing around trying to please them. You may find yourself eventually blanking out, not hearing them when they rage (a PTSD response that you also have little control over).
And if you start going to others to talk about what you are going through, or retreating to a room, or feel happier with someone else, they are likely to rage about how ungrateful you are. Narcissists are known to call others ungrateful, especially people who do not live up to their expectations. What is possible, in terms of performing for the narcissist, is also not do-able in any long term way, especially if people in their lives have "crossed the rubicon" into trauma symptoms, and traumatic reactions, or full-fledged PTSD.
Don't expect narcissists to have any empathy for your PTSD, or get counseling to learn how to keep you from getting triggered or blanking out. Again, they prefer to abandon people who show illnesses, trauma, or anything else that does not put them into your main focus.
I would even say that if a narcissist is concentrated on how ungrateful you are it is usually based on how well you can perform for them and follow orders. It's simply not possible to have any kind of healthy relationship with them going forward. It will always effect you negatively (symptoms, freeze responses, blanking out, sadness and depression). The relationship will also chronically center around them and their perspectives: how you aren't enough, how what you do is not enough, how you're not reacting quickly enough to their demands, how you're too incompetent for them, how you're stupid because you don't adopt their perspectives and get talked into things they expect you to agree with, which will make the symptoms and freeze responses worse.
Some of this and more would have something to do with why narcissists find it very hard to feel gratitude.
how the attitudes manifest with their children and spouses
(short explanations):
* In narcissistic families, the narcissist(s) usually assign underage children roles which are meant to serve the parent. There is usually at least one golden child, perceived by the narcissist(s), to "do no wrong" and a scapegoat child to "do no right", which most often comes from black and white thinking and Jekyll/Hyde personality traits and for many other reasons which I explain in the rest of the post. Anyway, the scapegoat child serves as the not good enough child, where the narcissist(s) can take out all of their negativity, aggressions, hatred and prejudice onto one child so that it won't look like they are child abusers to outsiders because not all of the children are abused, just one of them is. False narratives are also attributed to the scapegoat (all scapegoat children are called "crazy", "inept" and "liars" to outsiders at the very least - even though in most cases it isn't true, but for narcissists it creates the illusion that they are great parents because not all of their children are complaining about abuse and neglect).
* Narcissists can also scapegoat a spouse, especially narcissists who threaten divorce or separation, and when they are having affairs. They make it clear to their spouses that their spouses are expendable, or they engage in abuse and threats to get their spouse to "do as they say". They also try to get others to perceive their spouse as "crazy", "inept" and "liars", just like they do with their scapegoat child - some of this is done to get the spouse to do more for them, to work hard for their approval, to give in to what the narcissist wants on all conflicts and disagreements. If the spouse is not acting according to the "perfection standards" that the narcissist expects, the spouse also becomes not good enough as far as the attitudes of a narcissist is concerned.
So, let us say that the narcissist discards the spouse and the child. Perhaps it is a discard scheme meant to intimidate or threaten both of them into agreeing to give up any personal power to the narcissist (to let them make all of the decisions), and to "give in" as far as letting the narcissist get their own way and controlling all decisions and situations. And by the way, this is called coercive control which is illegal in some European nations including the U.K. and is illegal (so far, as of this writing) in a number of states in the USA, with more states likely to follow suit.
It is common for narcissists to use coercive control and will likely get into legal hot water in the future for using it.
In the meantime, many narcissists still use coercive control to keep creating an unequal power balance between them and someone else, and to frighten others through threats into giving them that.
However, discards are not necessarily understood to be coercive control unless threats are used, intmidation is used, abuses are used (such as financial or emotional abuses), or if the word "punishment" is used to describe the need for the narcissist to discard. Hoovering can, in some cases, be part of a coercive control tactic that went "wrong" or "not according to plan".
So let us say that a spouse and a scapegoat child takes the discard to mean a permanent separation, but the narcissist didn't.
Narcissists who do fake discards to get more power and control usually can't stand people who take the discard as a permanent situation, or take it be too traumatizing to deal with.
Let's say the spouse has been through three other discards with the narcissist and the narcissist got worse after each discard, more coercively controlling, more abusive, terrible to live with. The spouse has, by now, figured out that going back means worsening conditions.
The child also comes to the same conclusion after only one time because they know they have been hated, isolated and sabotaged since they were 2, and it has never gotten better. There has been very little affection, very little respect, so little caretaking when they were a child that they virtually had to take care of themselves at ages where it is very difficult to know how.
Both the spouse and child have come to the conclusion that the relationship with the narcissist brings too much trauma, drama, depression, negative narcissistic tactics, crazy-making arguments, and is not a good enough relationship to pursue with this many negatives.
So what happens in these situations is that narcissists become incensed, tell both of them that they are ungrateful, and then go on to smear campaigns to hurt them both (narcissists are known for tit-for-tat games).When the narcissist feels angry that neither the child or spouse came crawling back begging the narcissist to take them back, the narcissist wants to hurt them.
Don't forget to take into consideration that "discards" are rarely understood because narcissists do not tell others why they are being discarded, and if they give you a hint that it's about coercive control and punishing, who would want to go back with those conditions? - it's obvious in those situations that the narcissist doesn't want you back because of love - they want to gain more power.
So they try to hurt their own spouse through smear campaigns in these ways generally:
For male narcissists: False narratives are often about their wife becoming a "total nut job", hysterical, maniacal, a demon, out to hurt him and the kids, eternally jealous of him, threatening (usually weilding something that could be construed as a weapon) and controlling.
For female narcissists: They seem to pretend their husband or ex is a domestic violence offender - very common. Also brutish, angry, raging, extremely demanding of "traditional roles" (falsely telling others that their husbands did nothing while he made her into a cleaning, cooking, caretaking servant with no let-up). Some of them falsely spread rumors about their ex being a sex offender too.
These are common ways of how they try to hurt their own children through smear campaigns:
Mothers who scapegoat a daughter: They've probably already told many others that their daughter is "crazy" (very, very common among daughters of narcissistic mothers that it is a given). But instead of calling a daughter merely "crazy" after a discard, the way the false narratives escalates is to call her "so crazy that she should be institutionalized". The other false narratives are that she's "become dangerous in her mental illness", and an addict, a prostitute, homeless - in other words, it's a full-on assault of her reputation which could otherwise be discounted if anyone dared to look into it.
Mothers who scapegoat a son: They are likely to call their sons crazy too, if less so, and do not portray them as dangerous schizophrenics as much as a daughter even though men are more likely to get schizophrenia than women, and get it at an earlier age. Other ways they tell false narratives about a son: "moocher", "always has his hands out for more money", portraying him as a drug addict with no motivations to get a job, "uninterested in girls", "a loser", "a loner", "self centered", "too effeminate and sensitive".
Fathers who scapeoat a son: Often call them "girls" or "girly" or "such a girl", "unmanly", "a weakling", "a pansy", "a chicken", "a coward", "a communist". They also often accuse scapegoat sons of stealing, "mooching", being a "blockhead", a "dweeb", of bucking authority, of being ornery (when they might just be defending themselves from their father's onslaughts), of being "no good" and "not worthwhile".
Fathers who scapegoat daughters: Usually don't like women except as silent slaves who follow orders. Often there is verbal abuse and physical abuse involved too. They usually portray their daughter as "extremely difficult", "never does what I tell her to do", "gets involved with losers", "never realized how good she had it until I told her to leave", "thinks art, dance, music and writing poetry will save her sorry a** from getting a real job!", "crazy like her mother," "extremely messed up", "will never get another cent from me as long as she lives!", "too headstrong, selfish and crazy or me to deal with."
These come from gleaning forums, by the way.
So if the narcissist is practicing coercive control to get more power and betting on a discard to get it, they end up without a child or a spouse instead. Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Not. But this is a common outcome.
Does it bother a narcissist? Yes, unless they feel that the narcissistic supply they are and were given in the past by the child and spouse was never good enough to begin with and will never be good enough or like that again. ... As if narcissistic supply should determine whether a relationship should survive or die. This is how narcissism starts to look pretty loony - or the polite term would be not of sound mind.
The other thing is that once these kinds over-the-top aggressive false narratives and smear campaigns start, just to hurt their own spouse and their own child, they are even more likely not to return to the narcissist.
No one in their right mind would ever want to return to someone who likes to hurt them, especially in this way. Even a narcissist wouldn't return with someone doing that to them. It doesn't look like parenting, let alone good parenting, and it doesn't look loving spouse behavior either. Major fail.
Note: this is a brief explanation as to what happens. The "deeper dive" into this topic follows.
First of all, do narcissists show ingratitude in their relationships? Yes, even profound ingratitude (the phrase "profound ingratitude" part comes up in the link, and entitlement is also discussed in that link).
I have written about how narcissists often feel that other people don't feel enough gratitude towards them, but actually, one of the traits of narcissism is not having gratitude themselves. As with empathy, they are quite low on feeling gratitude about the hard work that others go through to please them, to take care of their ultra sensitive feelings, to walk on eggshells around so many emotional subjects that narcissists can't handle. And how are people treated who do all of this for them? They are often raged at to do better, lectured, given the silent treatment, or they discard people altogether, or spend an inordinate amount of time criticizing others, especially people who disappoint them (often permanently without any rumination or self reflection, especially their scapegoats and exes). They complain about their exes to new sources of narcissistic supply to condition them into being controlled "pleasers" (it is also in the links provided in this paragraph). They also often play the same script over and over again, abandoning people over small matters and situations that shock most people who come to know about it and the circumstances that preceded it.
Most narcissists feel that if people aren't pleasing them, they aren't of much use.
So that shows ingratitude, as well as the often swift, cruel discarding of other people that narcissists are known for when they deem a person "useless", "not enough", even children and spouse. They do not talk out issues between you. They reject or demand instead. That also shows a lack of gratitude, as well as lack of understanding that people aren't just puppets.
How do narcissists express a lack of gratitude? Here is a Google AI version of that answer copied here in dark red (note that Google AI uses articles in its search to come up with answers, so you can also see the articles on this phenomenon through the Google AI link):
Narcissists express a lack of gratitude through entitlement, criticism, and a lack of empathy. They often believe they are owed whatever they receive, viewing favors as their due rather than as acts of kindness. This can manifest as dismissing or belittling efforts, finding fault with a gift, or failing to acknowledge the other person's efforts at all, often due to a lack of empathy and a belief that they are superior.
Specific ways they show a lack of gratitude:
* Believing they are owed everything: They have an inflated sense of entitlement and feel they deserve whatever they receive, so they don't feel a need to be thankful.
* Criticizing efforts: They may find fault with or belittle what was done for them, even if it was a gift or a significant effort, because they see it as not good enough.
* Lacking empathy: They are often unable to put themselves in another's shoes and consider the effort or feelings of the person who helped them.
* Expecting constant validation: While they don't express gratitude, they often expect it from others for their own actions, as their self-worth is dependent on external validation.
* Using "gratitude" manipulatively: When they do say "thank you," it is often a manipulative tactic to get something else or to gain admiration, rather than a genuine expression of thanks.
* Erasing good deeds from memory: They may unconsciously deny or "forget" the kindness or favors done for them to avoid feeling indebted or to maintain their self-image.
* Expressing dissatisfaction: They may vocalize general dissatisfaction, criticism, and complaints, making it clear that they are rarely content, even with gifts or help.
Often this leads narcissists into a kind of depression, a state of unfulfillment, disappointment, blaming others for the state of their lives and failures, attitudes that are more indicative of vulnerable narcissism like: "No one noticed that I was great. Why did that promotion go to that other person when I was the best worker they ever had? If I hadn't had children, I would have been great. I sent my (scapegoat) to college, and then we become estranged because she's ungrateful. My husband could never see that I was the best wife he ever had. No one treated him better than I did." - it becomes an endless complaint fest where they are great and everyone else is at fault for not recognizing their greatnesss. Grandiose narcissists can become vulnerable narcissists when enough failures in work, relationships and their dreams of a controlling, powerful, superior persona and the lifestyle that goes with it fails. It can also come with a narcissistic collapse where they look outside themselves (blame others) for why these dreams of being all powerful and all influential fail.
"Nothing and no one is ever appreciative enough of me" is the victim mentality they adopt, but also the way they show ingratitude for how much others do for them.
In terms of blaming others for relationship failures, most people would respond, "You can't find fulfillment and happiness in relationships if you only see other people as narcissistic supply, as utilities and puppets, and as a means for you to gain power, control and domination, and attempt to keep your victims quiet when you abuse them. It won't work."
What they are doing at work is probably similar, so they don't get the promotion, and sometimes get fired.
They won't admit these failures are their fault. It's why, when they are successful at hoovering you back into a relationship with them, they start with the same sort of criticizing and insulting, the same attempts at power over you that they did the last time, the same isolation tactics, the same intimidations, the same smear campaigns and isolation tactics, and the same abuses which they expect you to keep even more of a secret the second time around, and will deny if it sees the light of day. They don't feel anything works for them except these tactics and they are incapable of learning anything knew because they feel their intelligence and their way of doing things, even these awful practices, make them superior to others. And also because their brains are such that they aren't focused on any other perspectives other than their own.
Not seeing or understanding your perspectives at all, including not understanding why you would balk and leave them again over these same tactics, and having arrogance about how these tactics will work if they just escalate them some more, is a bit like the blind claiming they can see better than most others can see you.
It's delusional.
If they weren't so insensitive, so ruthless, so arrogant, and actually had compassion, ethics, were right about their judgements of situations and of other people, stopped deflecting, stopped blame-shifting, stopped the arrogance, and denounced evil, they would be a lot easier to serve. But the cruel and abusive qualities they adopt, which tend to be universal between one narcissist and the next, point to traits that most of us cannot respect. Most of us become profoundly disillusioned eventually, and aren't swayed by their self promotions.
However, I think it's also important to understand that narcissists are also deeply disabled. While I discussed that earlier in the post, I get into a little more towards the end of the post.
WHY "NEVER-ENOUGHNESS" EVENTUALLY
BECOMES THE NARCISSIST'S NARRATIVE
AND FALL FROM GRACE
If they were elected in a democracy, they won't be satisfied with the amount of power that they have. They will do anything to gain more of it, including trying to convince others in government and the whole population that they should be a dictator for life.
If they are invading other countries, the attainment of one country will never be enough. They will invade, or want to invade, other countries too. They will constantly be building up their military and armaments. If they feel they cannot win a war in the usual way, taking out soldiers, war machines, and the supports that keep a military going, they will take to terrorizing the citizens of the nation. They will commit atrocities and genocide.
Neither kind of narcissistic tyrant will be able to handle criticism, and will want to imprison, torture, or kill people who criticize them. To them, criticism without extreme forms of punisment keeps them from subjugating and dominating others. They will constantly be making it clear that there will be consequences for criticizing them or policies which wreak havoc and unnecessary suffering upon a nation. They will also be trying to isolate a citizenry from foreign influences and lifestyles. They won't tolerate anyone who wants a better life than the one they are getting.
This is what happens on a grand scale, and you can see that they never feel they get enough flattery, enough attention and enough prostration from others. They will act like a king and play the victim when a nation is getting restless and no longer believes in his promises and can't stand to hear him talk any more, or the population is getting tired of the brainwashing and false narratives, getting tired of the fake promises that their lives are getting better under the tyrant's watch and control, getting tired of the un-earned grandiosity and arrogance they keep bombarding the airwaves with.
Despotic narcissistic tyrants rarely make international diplomacy and deals better for their natin. They rarely make their nations more prosperous. They rarely follow through on their campaign promises. They rarely listen to their citizens' complaints. They rarely do much of anything except aquire more wealth, more power for themselves and boast about accomplishments that are a figment of their own imagination. But if truth be known, they have probably not done any more than that their whole lives and really do not know how to do much of anything else other than to boast and acquire more wealth, power for themselves because it is all they have ever done.
They usually fail at brokering any more power deals which benefit them more than they benefit others. The focus of their lives has been about getting more, and more, and more, and more, starting when they were kids or when they first became an adult.
So the lust for the subjugation of others, along with getting constant attention, power, control and domination is never going to go away, and will never feel fulfilled.
When they happen to fail at any of these ambitions, or they feel they are not getting enough, they start playing the victim: "I am too great to have lost that deal without someone else sabotaging me! Someone must be sabotaging me!" "I am too important to be thrown out of office! They're jealous of me and my power and wealth, so they did this to me just so they could usurp it all for themselves!" "No one knows as much as I do. No one is going to pull the wool over my eyes!" "The media always indulges in fake stories to get more viewers, so I decided the state should control the media!" - all narcissistic tyrants do this because, again, they can't tolerate criticism or in-depth investigations. A free press is not controllable, and it is ultimate control that they want.
You can't boast about things you didn't do if a media is constantly fact-checking your assertions.
It's not much different on a personal level. Narcissists want to control the narrative of what happened, and they will lie in order to do it. They want you to subjugate yourself to them or deal with horrific consequences. They have spent their lives trying to get more wealth, more pampering, more service, more power, and for most narcissists that has to keep going forward into more and more wealth, more pampering, more service, etc. ... not less of it.
When they become unable to obtain those goals, they have a narcissistic collapse and blame others for that collapse. "They couldn't stand that I was better than them!" "They couldn't stand that I was so much better than them at obtaining power, so they wanted to take it away from me! Fine. I hope they rot in hell for it!" "If people had seen my potential, I would have done great things, but they couldn't see how great I was. Their failure." "People should have never doubted me or critized me. They are terrible for what they did. They never deserved me." - this is all a covert vulnerable narcissist's style of thinking, not something I've made up.
When they get to this stage, it is hard to listen to because it becomes their main obsession. "I was once great, but now I'm nothing" is the feeling they want to avoid, so they try desperately to reassert themselves as powerful figures and get back on top again using the same power and control tactics they did before, the same boasting, except this time punishing more severely, surrounding themselves with only loyalists and sycophants who will follow any orders at a moment's notice. They will be more ruthless. More cunning. Not show their hand as much, perhaps.
And is this the kind of person we want in our lives? Probably not.
So these kinds of narcissists might have to pretend to show empathy. At least until they are back on top again, calling the shots.
But even winning people back, winning people who like their perspectives and oration, winning people who they can brainwash, winning people from dishing out meager prizes, winning people with a grand and powerful persona will probably not work indefinitely because they also become seen eventually as "not enough" by others: faking promises, not loyal to the causes they espouse, not really who they say they are, hypocritical, faking empathy, spreading unjust smear campaigns, retaliation-minded, not willing to do any of what they preach, creating attention through chaos, being abusive when they don't get what they want, and so on.
This is the "real person" you will feel stuck with in the end, not the flattering love bomber they presented themselves as in the beginning, if they manage to get you stuck and under their control in the first place.
Some narcissists expect people closest to them to do the dirty work of intimidating others, of breaking the law for the narcissist, not willing to "Mommy" them enough, and on and on and on. They become disillusioned with most people eventually and trying to find that "pie in the sky" person who will do absolutely anything and everything they want has to become the next ambition after they've fired or discarded you, or that last person that had limits and finally said "No. I can't do that for you."
Once you realize you've been with a tyrannical narcissist and that they don't change and actually get worse because of their need for more power grabs, especially if they have too much already, with a lot of enablers, you're probably going to "automatically" start separating from them (i.e. start to feel a flight trauma response).
The more sycophancy a narcissist gets, the more they believe that the ultimate in sychophancy still exists somewhere, even in you if they push and punish you hard enough.
If we don't want to be part of fulfilling these desires of theirs, I would say that we have a right to back off. They won't think it is your right to back off and they will try to shame you over it, or try to get you back in role, but if you've "seen too much" and know what you're dealing with and what it means (more escalation of abuse or wearing you down and intimidating you so that they can get more power over you), you aren't going to want to go back.
Most people do not have good experiences with narcissists, so it is fine if you feel like you can't deal with them either. It's perfectly normal even if they try to convince you that it is not.
Most narcissists come from families of other narcissists and their enablers, and so you may not get along with many of these family members either. You may get the message that "You are expected to capitulate and how dare you if you don't." Narcissistic families are full of hierarchies, and if they all agree that you are on a lower hierarchy where your mental health, concerns, physical health, your skills and work history, need for family support, and the way you do things is of less importance than most other family members, they will also try to make sure that you remain in the lower part of the hierarchy.
I've said in other posts that this "fixed" kind of hierarchy tends to be life long. It can start in childhood and continue throughout your whole life no matter if you achieve greater success than any other family member, or more wealth, or more education, it will still be the message you receive, whether covertly through innuendo or overtly through directness.
And by the way, I have found in forums that if you are highly self sufficient, wealthy and successful in a narcissistic family system that they put at the bottom of "value", they will often try to sabotage you because your success does not go with their vision of you being low and insignificant in the hierarchy, and if you ask for help if you are in poverty, they won't help because they need you to stay in the lower hierarcical spot they have assigned you.
If you are rich and successful, you are deemed to not be poor "enough" for their comfort, and if you are poor, they will tell you that you are "lazy" and not "good enough", not "useful enough", not "competent enough" to get out of poverty and refuse to help you so that you stay lower or lowest in the family hierarchy.
Since this post is about "never enoughness" and narcissism, you get this "never enoughness" from narcissists in terms of these hierarchies: you're "not enough" if you surpass the poverty life they want for you (where they will want to sabotage you), and "not enough" if you're in poverty (because they look at people in poverty as "not hard-working enough", "not ambitious enough", not grateful enough for the people who give them some help, rather than victims of circumstances.
The advice I've seen from therapists who pipe in on these discussions is to never talk about or reveal much, if anything, to narcissists about your work life, your financial statuses, your success, things you are buying, or conversely what you cannot afford, and to keep to subjects like the weather, and how they are feeling, and to keep conversations short and change the subject or go to the bathroom if they are trying to "fish" for information about you. It is also why most therapists tell you to only be around them in crowds where it is easy to slip off and talk to someone else.
In other words, they suggest "keep graduating narcissists slowly and constantly to the outside of your life".
Personally, I have done what is suggested, but I have also told narcissists off and challenged them too. No matter what, both styles, whether you imperceptively, silently and slowly withdraw from them, or whether you tell them off and challenge their grandiose perceptions of themselves as controllers and dominators, you are usually going to pay a heavy price full of challenges to your boundaries with what ever methods you decide to use. Narcissists are boundary busters (because others' boundaries are a challenge to their grandiosity) and they generally don't respect the word "no", but after trying so many methods, and observing how the methods worked, I would say the method that gives you the most peace and the least amount of intrusion and anger from them is to stop talking about anything of substance and move slowly out of their lives.
However, I had to see for myself which methods worked best and how the methods made me feel afterwards so I would understand first-hand what the benefits and down-sides were. I do think peace is of utmost importance to achieve after you have been with a narcissist, which is why I believe the method of slowly retreating, being quiet and not sharing anything of import, and finally getting out altogether, is the best method. They will still be uncomfortable with this, and there is likely to be some push-back when you stonewall them from getting information, but it insulates you a lot better from their most destructive tactics. Hopefully they will think your personality changed as the reason for why you are acting "different".
They will still see you as "not enough" no matter what, even this method - and if you've gotten to a point where you want to spend as little of your time with them as possible, you probably won't care if they think of you this way.
If they are committing crimes or threatening you, you can go to the police and a domestic violence center to get help in protecting yourself.
To get back on track with the families of narcissists ...
Some narcissists come from alcoholic families and while those families can be less about power and control, and who is of more importance to them (hierarchies), alcoholic families are so chaotic that there isn't much holding the family together. However, alcoholic families are also known to put their members in roles where they expect certain behaviors and duties because of the roles. But the messages are different: "How dare you not enable!" is more of the message of alcoholic families rather than "How dare you not capitulate!" You might not get along with members of an alcoholic family either because of how they perceive your ways of enabling and co-dependency, and that's okay because it gives you an exit out.
If you are part of an alcoholic family, or a narcissistic family, or an alcoholic/narcissistic family, what should you do? It's entirely up to you, but here is where I may bring a little enlightment (?):
I will say that the most difficult of families to belong to because there are higher rates of criminality in these families and often members with antisocial personality disorder are narcissistic/alcoholic families. They also have much higher rates of incest and child abuse than any other kind of family.
When I put in "should you divorce such a family?" into a search engine, the answers that popped up didn't say yes, but the articles primarily focused on taking safety measures, determining how much suffering you were enduring, plus naming some of the trauma symptoms you might be experiencing including depression and anxiety, determining if there is any change of the behaviors of family members (more kindness, or more abuse?), determining how much children were suffering in the system, and ways to seek help: legal help, boundaries, documentation, therapy, preparing for challenges from your family, and prioritizing safety.
When I asked the same question and put in the word "abusive" into the question such as Is it best to divorce a narcissistic/alcoholic abusive family? the link brought me to articles, including a Google AI answer, that were mostly about safety protocols with very little discussion on "determinging your suffering", or "determining if your children are suffering", or if you have "symptoms" - no, it just went right into ways to find safety and strong boundaries.
In terms of "never enough", very few people are going to be having very many positive experiences in this kind of family, if any, as they are usually full of neglect, unsafe for children, and can be particularly dangerous (especially if you are considered to be less useful and less valuable, i.e. on a lower hierarchy than other family members).
These are also the kinds of families where "never enough" attitudes are born.
These kinds of families often demand that children take care of grown up's needs, and even pressure them to serve the adults of a family. If children aren't valued beyond that, which they won't be because of the narcissism component, and the children are depressed, anxious, getting trauma symptoms and are resentful growing up, some of what that depression, anxiety and resentment is doing to their brain is going to effect standards of whether they, themselves feel good enough (families like this tell children they aren't good enough or do good enough things for the adult members of the family).
Often where you find elders treating children as though they are not good enough children, you find that they, themselves are not good enough at taking care of children. They are not doing a good enough job at it (probably not if a child is caring for elders than the elders are not taking care of the children). Furthermore, a lot of these kinds of children are forced, largely, to take care of themselves, whether the family is in the practice of rejecting members they find not to be good enough, or if if there is abuse (child abuse usually comes with child neglect - emotional, social and family neglect if the narcissist can pull it off without objection, and then they graduate to more neglect as time goes on). Injustice can also be a form of child abuse and neglect, which is what scapegoats experience. Not being heard, and largely being ignored is also a type of child neglect.
All of this, in turn, becomes a not a good enough environment to spend the first 18 years of your life in.
You can see the constant drumming of not good enough in these families also becomes the constant theme. And this is how budding narcissists adopt the not good enough attitudes (i.e. ingratitude towards children), passing these attitudes on to another generation, and why it would keep going generation after generation, with some caveats: the members have to show they tolerate never enough attitudes, and the constant criticisms, complaints and insults that stem from them. In this day and age, Gen Z is not tolerating it or wanting it.
Anyway, narcissists turn their not good enough childhoods into entitlement when they become adults. They insist that people better pony up and give them a better environment full of attention and caretaking they did not get, perhaps better quantities or healthier foods than they got in childhood too, more power and domination than they got in childhood because their needs or real personalities were largely ignored, or they were shamed ...
Since narcissism is much more of a golden child outcome than it is for other children in a family, they were probably spoiled in some way at the same time, so they know what "better attention" and "getting needs met" looks like more than other children in the family who are only aware of the downsides of attention because they are getting negative attention and criticized instead, often without "let up".
They may also see their sibling as "not deserving" as a parent might see that same sibling. Some golden children are two-faced Jekyll/Hyde personalities with Eddie Haskell syndrome. In that case, the Golden Child being rewarded will not be respected by his siblings. Parents can experience headstrong children who don't listen to them or retreating children who blank out (dissociate) on them when this is the case.
A psychologist I recently came across has said that she believed all personality disorders were probably a result of people who wanted to be "re-parented again, the right way", but instead of getting that re-parenting, they developed a personality disorder instead to compensate for the neglectful or abusive, or war-inflicted, or crime-ridden, or extremely anxiety provoking "not good enough" childhood environments they grew up in. This would include the Cluster A, Cluster B, and Cluster C personality disorders.
It seems right to me (note: I have researched the Cluster A personality disorders and Cluster C personality disorders, not just the Cluster B personality disorders), and it was a great eye-opener because I knew of families where members were afflicted with many of these kinds of personality disorders, mental illnesses and/or substance abuse disorders, all with a number of estranged members in them (within one family, that is). Most of the estranged members seemed better off, more sane and put-together than other members of their families - that was what I observed, anyway. And because research articles on many personality disorders and mental illnesses come with descriptions "of possible child abuse" as one of the causes, it seems so likely that environments with child abuse is a main culprit in personality disorders, but I'm unsure about the mental illnesses because they don't necessarily pop up in or near childhood and can even appear late in life. At any rate, most mental health practictioners know there is a "personality disorder" trend at the very least in alcoholic and narcissistic families.
I'd say that where you find "estranged members" in families, you find families with these not good enough for me narratives. And the not good enough for me narratives will largely be about other people, especially members. And where you get members of a family who are spouting not good enough narratives you usually see that these families are full of substance addictions, mental illnesses, personality disorders, high amounts of prejudice (especially against girls and young women) with high amounts of chaos and instability, and very little peace. Children cannot really live in high stress environments with so few interludes of peace without it effecting their physical health, mental health and personalities, if they have any personailty at all after childhood, beyond just a bundle of reactions to the stress.
Then there are the PTSD'd members. PTSD is not a "personality" disorder; it's just a "plain" disorder that anyone exposed to abuse, violence, or war can get. So these families usually have members who are diagnosed with PTSD too, especially the estranged members.
And isn't that something? To reject and estrange children and adults who have PTSD?
But for these families, it is common, or at least ongoing professional studies and research is pointing that way.
Anyway, the members who have PTSD from growing up in a not good enough highly stressful environment who are deemed not to be valued members by their families will probably be estranged at some point if they aren't already. They will be getting a lot less attention, told to keep quiet constantly, isolated from others in the family, and treated as though they don't belong way before they are silenced, told they are useless, and completely rejected (not just a little at a time like in childhood). They are also thought to be "not good enough" after being completely estranged because they are not contributing to the family any more when when estranged.
If they made the decision themselves to be estranged to work on healing their PTSD and the miserable symptoms they are bearing, they are often smeared because the estranged member put "healing" above "working hard for family acceptance, family approvals and family belonging".
Having PTSD in and of itself, is going to be interpreted as a "not a good enough person" for any narcissist, and especially narcissistic/alcoholic family members because PTSD is not "useful" or very utilitarian, after all, and it's an embarassment for them. They may be asked, "How did that child get PTSD?" "Are their family dynamics that contributed to it?" "How come we didn't ever meet that child?" "How come you've been estranged from that child most of your life?" "How come you didn't visit that child when they were in the hospital? What was the reason they were in the hospital anyway?" "Did they have PTSD when they tried to commit suicide?" "Is the estrangement something you wanted or something they wanted?" - in order to keep from all of these embarassing questions (for them) they sweep the issues and the child away from them, and either give oblique answers, lie outright, tell a panicked story that won't reveal they wanted to hurt their kid, or refuse to discuss it - and then when the PTSD'd member knows of these reactions, the parents become scary "not good enough" parents.
So estrangement continues.
Most people with PTSD have families who support them, and try to understand what will help them to heal. And healing is faster with family support. Peace is the main ingredient that will help someone with PTSD heal.
Narcissistic/alcoholic families refuse to do that. They want the chaos, and upsetting situations, and to make membership in the family unsure.
In fact, rejecting, cruel, narcissistic/alcoholic families who discard their members over "you're not good enough" themes, or are prejudiced against people with PTSD (very, very common), only surround themselves with parentifying types of children. That is what I have noticed.
The outcry would be: "You're not allowed to have PTSD and be a member of this family!" - even though PTSD and its symptoms are largely involuntary and get worse in a narcissistic/alcoholic family environment, often turning into C-PTSD.
Whether PTSD or personality disorders are the worst outcomes of these types of families is yet to be determined, but I bet not a single member comes out of a narcissistic/alcoholic abusive role-insisting family unscathed, without developing C-PTSD or a personality disorder. It's way too chaotic, unstable, stressful, head-achy, stomach-achey, anxiety producing, nightmare inducing, with too many stuffed emotions to be even slightly healthy for growing children with growing brains and growing personalities, distorting and disrupting those channels of growth endlessly.
It also has to do with why narcissists are immature in their reactions, even baby-ish, because they too experienced constant disruptions into maturity.
And the "never enoughness" attitudes that come out of these families? Some of them are valid like the "not good enough childhood", and some of them invalid like "You're not good enough because you have PTSD, and blank out over everything, even when I give you orders!!"
Either way, it greatly contributes to more and more cult-type member thinking that almost everything is intolerable accept people like themselves who have their same perspectives, same beliefs, same attitudes towards others. Almost everything else and everyone else is threatening and "not good enough", most situations, most practices, most members who are struggling, sick, disabled, etc, even members who are resisting even the tiniest amounts of authoritarian control. Outside suggestions to tolerate differences between members are even thwarted. They'd rather continue in hate speech and have estranged members - after all, never-enoughness can never die.
When members in these kinds of families are deemed to be "not good enough", they are very rarely listened to. They are rarely appreciated enough to be invited to be part of family events. They are not cared about enough to be comforted. They are deemed to not be worthy of affection or familial belonging. They are deemed to not be deserving of possessions (their belongings are often taken from them, stolen, or destroyed on purpose by rageful family members). They are rarely taken care of properly when ill, dying, have an accident, are abused outside and inside the family.
They are not cared about in general for hardly anything they are living through.
If that is not narcissistic ingratitude, I don't know what is.
You can bet on it that this will be effecting a new generation of members who are deemed to be "not good enough children" too, complete with lots of the same kinds of neglect, serving elders, all of themplagued by "not good enough childhoods".
"Intolerant" and "intolerable" defines abusive narcissistic/alcoholic families. This is in stark contrast to other kinds of families who not only tolerate family members, but love and care for members too.
Families full of trauma in them will find so many normal people, normal situations, so many normal life experiences, intolerable to them, thus developing the over-the-top prejudices of others, the constant criticisms, shaming and trash talking about other families and types of people.
At this point I suspect that attitudes about almost everything in life "not being good enough" for narcissists comes not only from traumatic childhoods full of unrealistic expectations and neglect, but also from a brain issue, or a passed down atittude. Maybe all of it.
For those child abuse survivors who got to know other families other than their own, like functional loving families up close, I bet you were amazed at how wonderful families can be. And I bet you were transformed by those experiences to raise children "the right way". Peace and love are possible.
AND UNDER-APPRECIATE THEM
So why do narcissists feel others are ungrateful towards them?
Part of it has to with the fact that narcissists' opinions of others has to do with projection - that is also a very, very common trait among all narcissists. They are really not particularly grateful for any relationships they are in because they don't ever feel they have enough power, control and domination over others, their be-all and end-all when it comes to all relationships. This means that many narcissists, particularly vulnerable narcissists, feel the influence they have over others is mostly perceived by them to be lacking.
They also feel they never get enough narcissistic supply out of others. Positive narcissistic supply is constant flattery, constant sycophancy, constant agreeableness to what they want, and negative narcissistic supply is getting a constant emotional reaction out of of you (the emotional reaction meaning, to them, that you care about how the narcissist is acting, the criticisms and false narratives they are spreading about you, the hurt they are trying to inflict, those kinds of negative narcissistic supplies). If narcissists don't feel they are getting enough positive narcissistic supply from you, they will often do a total about-face and try to get negative narcissistic supply from you instead.
And is there any truth in people feeling ungrateful towards their narcissist? In some obtuse off-beat sense, yes, and the last section before the "further reading section" goes into some of the "whys". But to say that people are ungrateful towards narcissists, especially narcissists who devalue and discard people, which most do, also by-passes the real issues of dealing with narcissists. People don't express the kind of gratitude that narcissists expect for a host of reasons and the explanations are in the link.
The reasons why others don't experience feelings of as much gratitude as narcissists expect (and "expectation" is the real path to tunderstanding this issue) is because dealing with narcissists is complex, and has less to do with ingratitude and much more to do with the anxiety, depression, being controlled and dominated by a cruel unempathetic narcissist, being negatively manipulated by the narcissist, being silenced or given the silent treatment by the narcissist, being judged by the narcissist (often wrongly judged), a feeling you are constantly being criticized or gutted for your own traits and self esteem and autonomy, being disrespected for having healthy boundaries and diplomatic intentions (as narcissists are known to criticize others excessively, and even insult others excessively).
In many cases, people often become traumatized by narcissists.
Narcissists are traumatizing especially when you can't give them the attention they want, and when they rage over not getting their own way which can happen if their victims are already under stress.
For narcissists who try to do power grabs at times when you are going through other traumatic experiences (common for them), it is especially likely you will experience enough trauma to develop PTSD (and as I've said in the section above, a person with PTSD will not feel "good enough" for a narcissist or narcissistic family to deal with).
Narcissists tend to respond to people in their lives who are going through stress, illness or traumatic situations by withdrawing from them. This can include the silent treatment, telling you that you are too sensitive and dramatic, trying to get attention back on them by all means necessary (narcissistic supply), and sometimes doing a total discard of you because they are sick of waiting around for the narcissistic supply and try to find others who will supply it (these tactics are in the link).
When narcissists don't see you recovering fast enough from stress or trauma for their tastes, they will often play the victim and cry "ungrateful" when people are too exhausted and in too much pain to deal with them and it is often in tandem with a discard. Most people offer kindness and support during times of stress in your life, and generally they offer kindness and support in relationships in general, and especially for people they deem to care about; narcissists don't.
Thus, most of us tend to think as any human being would: the narcissist "doesn't care about me." We would be right to think that way. It is uncommon not to think that way.
But narcissists understand very little about human behavior, and how most people react so they won't understand this. They understand how to manipulate people, sort of, and that's about it, but even that gets more and more ineffectual when the "other person" starts to see the pattern of a narcissist's selfishness, cycle of abuse or discards (the cycle of abuse), in addition to the gaslighting and blame-shifting. When that happens the narcissist is back to not understanding why you are walking away from them because they put themselves first and assume that you do too.
At best they understand enough to excuse themselves of these actions and make them your fault, but never beyond that.
The fact of the matter is that narcissists don't care about others. The primary reason they are in relationships at all is to manage others.
Abandonment during times that they don't care about you is common, and then if you don't complain about their abandonment, they can come back when you can give your attention to them again. However, this is a good reason for why it is not healthy for you to take them back, even if you are temporarily abandoned, especially at a traumatic time. And it isn't good for the narcissist either: narcissists learn they can abandon you any time they want to, and you will still take them back. Taking them back again and again tends to add to your trauma, not take it away.
Abandonments when you are going through hard times is also selfish, self centered, and proof of a "fair weather friend".
And the worst part of all of this is that you will probably be put back into role by them again, serving them and their demands.
After being abandoned? It doesn't work over the long haul.
This is to say what they miss is the utilitarianism of roles, not the people who they put into the roles. Maybe it is best if AI robots start inhabiting the world after all - they may be a perfect companion for narcissists.
Anyway, it is common for people who are in pain to try to excise or heal the thing that is causing them pain and narcissists cause a lot of pain to others. Many therapists are likely to suggest leaving the narcissist especially if there are significant forms of emotional abuse or physical abuse, or threats, or scapegoating by the narcissist.
Furthermore, if a relationship is painful or has abuse in it, it is not a healthy relationship, and it is never likely to be healthy because abuse escalates and rarely de-escalates. For narcissists this is especially the case because of the lack of empathy (and lack of empathy for them is very much a brain issue, an emotion which can never be felt by them, or expressed genuinely, or "grow back").
Because of the lack of empathy and general brain atrophy in people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, as well as the high proclivity for people with this personality disorder to abuse, when a narcissist starts to abuse you, they will not be likely to give up the abuse or de-escalate it.
You are likely, instead, to become useless to them again.
Because narcissists have such a hard time expressing gratitude themselves, there is a much bigger reason for why they think others have ingratitude for them too: projection (in fact they use it frequently and excessively - again, it is in the link provided). Narcissists also try to grab what ever guilt trip they can to insist that you are accountable for the problems in the relationship or the demise of the relationship.
If you'll notice, narcissists just happen to use the "ungrateful" phrase when you are pulling away from them, excercising autonomy or not doing what they demand.
Perhaps they use it in hopes of re-establishing power and control over you again (hoping that your guilt will be activated inside of you enough to do what they want). Maybe for many narcissists the "ungrateful phrase" works for them, or at least gets many people feeling shame and guilt - a link to: narcissists also excessively use shame and guilt to get others to feel obligated. However they can't deal with guilt or shame themselves without feeling victimized. What this means is that they will always be sticking you with accountability, and expecting that you work hard for them, and it is rarely repciprocated, especially as it concerns their definition of ingratitude.
Seeing as how it is so difficult for narcissists to feel gratitude for much of anything, and especially for other people, even their own spouse and children, and especially since "the discard" is so common among all narcissists which is a type of ingratitude, you can decide whether you're going to respond to a narcissists' accusations that you're ungrateful.
Another issue to think about: It is a common tactic for narcissists to accuse you of being ungrateful when they feel they are losing control of a situation. Cited reasons (found through the link) include wanting to gain control, avoiding accountability, provoking an emotional reaction, a perception that you're not providing enough narcissistic supply, and trying to make you doubt yourself (distorting reality by insisting you have feelings of ingratitude towards them when you don't, typically referred to as gaslighting).
If you go to a therapist because you're in pain, and a therapist suggests you are in a relationship with a narcissist by the information or evidence you provide (mainly through their own correspondences with you), the therapist may tell you, more or less, all of things I have said in this chapter, that the ingratitude that the narcissist thinks you feel is about projecting their feelings of ingratitude on to you, that it is a type of shaming to get you motivated to care how they perceive you, thus get you motivated to oblige them in what ever way they want (i.e. to help them re-assert control over you).
Because so many of the judgements of narcissists are control-oriented and domination-oriented, plus projecting and gaslighting, there isn't much "you" in their judgements and accusations. Instead of you trying to figure out why they accuse you of certain motivations or feelings, and letting the narcissist's narrative overwhelm you, or put you on the defensive, you may instead be instructed (by a therapist) to watch what the narcissist accuses you of to glean what their intentions are towards you.
Obviously if they are accusing you of being dangerous (which is likely to be about projecting their own "dangerousness", or that they need to protect themselves from you, or if they are indulging in smear campaigns that you are a danger to them, that is a huge red flag that you are probably in danger from them. It's quite a bit more dangerous than being accused of ingratitude, which is certainly unpleasant, and often much more about them, but not a threat.
Seeing their smear campaigns as projection is always a good idea in my view. I have paid for not realizing the "projection aspect" of smear campaigns in my distant past.
Some NPDs (the narcissistically personality disordered) can also have Paranoid Personality Disorder (about 36 percent of them). These folks are so suspicious of others that distrust is pervasive most of the time (and again that has nothing to do with you; that has to do with the combination of the personality disorders - you cannot "be nice" or "positive talk" them out of their paranoic fantasies and motivations).
Despotic tyrants who invade other nations and "punish" citizens who object to being invaded usually have both of these personality disorders, often in addition to Antisocial Personality Disorder and machiavellianism. The reason why they are inclined to "punish" citizens, is for disloyalty (in other words, these kinds of narcissists feel entitled to get loyalty out of citizens they barely know, and who they are invading! - in other words they are extremely unenlightened and delusional about human behavior).
School shooters can also have a combinaton of these three disorders, with narcissistic collapse.
What I'm saying is that you may want to watch out for narcissists who seem unusually paranoid, and are playing the victim. This is especially important if they are attributing cookoo kinds of attriubutes to you that are far from any kind of reality, and the narcisist is abusive and schemes/plans attacks. If they also expect you to be loyal and expect you to give their delusions credence, watch out: danger!
However, even without the extra personality disorders, narcissists are still likely to project who they are on to others. Once you know that they project, you can also tell what their motivations are a little more clearly. The paranoid types of narcissists will always assume that you are hostile or "not to be trusted" and are more likely to use the "dangerous" label.
WITH THEIR LACK OF APPRECIATION AND GRATITUDE
(comes with some personal stories)
Narcissists are antagonistically inclined.
They also like to create drama and chaos.
They tend rage if they detect any criticism or difference of opinion than theirs.
They like triangulating, even if it doesn't serve them in the long run.
They have destructive arguing styles and love to argue (most people do not like arguments). Furthermore they like to blame shift in their arguments as a way to avoid accountability for damaging srgument styles. They also like arguments that have no resolution and turn into personal attacks on your character and devolve into giving you the silent treatment if the argument isn't going their way (a sign that the argument is either "winning a debate", getting their own way, trying to shame you into responses that only they find acceptable, or discarding you permanently because they feel they can't control you or argue with you ina way that will make them victorious).
They don't like reconciliations without it benefiting them more than it benefits you.
They tend to be cruel.
They tend to be exploitative.
They tend to be selfish and self centered to the point where you might feel invisible.
They tend to be prejudiced.
They tend to have extra-marital affairs.
They tend to be disloyal in general.
Narcissists tend to treat others with cruelty and contempt, but expect more respectful behavior from others.
They tend to be highly hypocritical.
They tend to be two-faced.
They tend to be highly manipulative and controlling.
They tend to feel threatened by the success of others.
They tend to feel more jealousy and envy than other people.
They tend to feel more superior than other people.
They tend to live in a fantasy world where they make up stories and alternate the truth.
They tend to turn against people who disagree with them.
They tend to be intolerant of others except sycophants.
They tend to silence others or talk over them to control the narrative.
They tend to express more ingratitude than satisfaction.
They gaslight.
They enjoy making a laughing stock out of others.
They put their children into roles which includes a child in a scapegoat role, the child that is highly likely to be abused.
They tend to have no morals (although it is sometimes used for expediency for reputation purposes)
They tend to have no convictions (except, again, when it is expedient)
They tend to take up causes to boost their reputation rather than out of firm convictions.
They tend to lie to serve their reputation. They have no real commitment to the truth.
Narcissists like to get away with evil deeds, especially if they are malignant narcissists.
Narcissists can become highly retaliatory and vengeful.
Narcissists can sometimes (or often) use Trojan Horse tactics.
Some narcissists turn to crime to punish their victims.
Narcissists practice love bomb, devalue, discard - the cycle of abuse.
These are not admirable traits. And while narcissists may do some "good deeds" to off-set all of their negative traits, they tend to do them, again, for "reputation purposes", to look better to others if their reputations ever come into question.
However, even with good deeds, they always default to the traits above, especially in close personal relationships they have been in for awhile (like children, siblings, a spouse, people they are pretty sure they can dominate, control and punish without much consequence).
So, it would be fair to say that most of the population would not have much gratitude or admiration for these prominent narcissistic characteristics. But again, the bigger reason they are not admired or appreciated is because of what these traits do to others in their midst.
It can be said that narcissists insist on being admired and shown gratitude regardless of their traits, and to overlook the traits and focus on "the good deeds" instead. They do pressure people to forget all of these negative traits, especially if they feel they are being exposed or branded as an "extra-marital cheater" or "child abuser".
The reason that it's not possible is that most people tend to look at the whole picture. Most of us do not erase bad memories so that only good memories exist in our brains, especially if the memories are traumatic. This is because traumatic memories live in a different part of the brain than pleasant and sad memories do, and "overlooking" feels like invalidating what happened, which, in the long run can add to more trauma.
In addition, the traumatic memories become activated and vivid when there are similar situations or people around us, or if we feel we are in danger of running into the person who traumatized us.
The reason we do this is also because predators, which include human beings, have a great propensity for violence, for planning violent and self-serving acts and attacks, for manipulating others, for enslaving others, and for criminal attacks. Our brains can have the propensity to save us from these acts. So the practice of erasing traumatic memories is never a good idea, even if people who hurt us may decide that it is the only way they will tolerate us, or the only way they will be kind to us again, or the only way they will let up on constantly causing us pain, or take us back again.
Our brains are wired to warn us of the dangers of traumatic acts: we experience anxiety when we see violence or unethical behavior. We tend to feel disgust or fear, or both, when we see evil or unethical behavior. We tend to check and double-check for dangers to our homes, our possessions, our children, and our spouses. Most of us know about Trojan Horses too: gifts or signs of love given to us to bypass our suspicions and defenses, only for an attack we did not expect to come afterwards.
And narcissists are very much known to indulge in Trojan Horse tactics themselves, so we are not likely to be fooled or trust them.
When we see and know about narcissistic and/or psychopathic traits, we are on guard when we see or hear these traits being expressed, and to some extent the flight trauma response kicks in. I would bet that the activation of "danger" signals about predatory humans have been evolving since our very ancient ancestors, perhaps as far back as when our ancestors lived primarily in trees. And they will evolve more and more, probably not less, so the "erase your bad memories of me, and I'll treat you better" or what ever their agenda is for getting a certain kind of narcissistic supply from us if we agree to forgive and forget, is naive. Maybe a three year old would fall for it.
I would say the brain is very good at giving us "danger signs", anxiety being the first to emerge, and other symptoms closely following.
The people that we don't have symptoms from make us feel seen and heard (not just intermittently), and make us feel consistently important to them (not just intermittently), and make us feel calm (and not just intermittently or in certain situations). Narcissists are either not capable of this, or they don't want to do it.
In a past blog post, I described a person who I thought was a much "closer friend" (for lack of a better term - I certainly don't look at her as anything remotely like a friend now). Anyway, I thought we were closer than we actually were because there were frequent calls between us; she was concerned about me when I was traveling and arriving at destinations "safe"; she had contributed a type of care during a really rough patch in my life. But ... what I wasn't paying attention to were the uneasy feelings I had in her prsence when describing intimate details of my life to her (something in the back of my mind kept nagging me: "Don't tell her that","Get off of that subject", "Stop sharing those details", "Stop explaining").
And when I asked for details about her life, there were quick one sentence responses like: "We're fine. By the way, why do you think you were feeling ...?" - turning the answer back on me as a question to get more information.
And since then, my brain trained me never to trust those kinds of responses again from anyone. Malignant narcissists and covert narcisstists ask very personal questions without revealing information about themselves - these two links I hope explain why it is a bad idea to share much personal information or intimate details about your life with people who do not share intimate personal details themselves. And the reason they don't share information? Weaponizing is one of the reason, other reasons are in the links if you want to explore them.
To get back to my personal story ... I think the essence of our relationship was that she enjoyed the fact that I put my trust in her (she probably never experienced that before, at least to that extent, I would suspect). She did it without letting me know she was untrustworthy. Meanwhile, I was being "secretly gutted" behind my back the whole time I was sharing intimate details about my life, and did not know she was doing that until after we broke up. She used what I told her to twist the information I gave her into an incredible amount false narratives, so many smear campaigns, and had no propriety when it came to "respect of privacy". She made up stories about me "out of whole cloth", in fact. Apparently her imagination ran wild to take what I told her and turn it into something entirely different. It was a deep betrayal and sabotage, but I'm glad I finally knew that about her.
It helped with the gnawing questions as to her intentions towards me,and sealed the final straw.
However, it was also due to my not paying attention to my symptoms during the times I was sharing so much: "Oh, I'm just the anxious type," I told myself - no, I wasn't. Headaches: "Probably just a sinus headache" until I realized it went away after several hours after being in her presence too many times (and I still didn't pay attention to it! - probably because I didn't want to believe it was about her). Stomach symptoms: stomach ache, or indigestion, or queasiness, or "unsettled", or "stomach in knots" - discounted as "Oh, I'm just not used to her food", or if the meal was prepared at our home: "I must not have cooked that right." Even in restaurants, I was running into the bathroom a lot, trying to calm down, figuring out why I was having "an attack of nerves" with an additional "stomach attack".
Granted, I had some of these symptoms when with others too, but since then, I have figured out they came from her milieu, for the most part. When eating alone with my husband, and with the good people from our neck of the woods, I don't get these symptoms ... "Interesting", I thought, and took note.
Anyway, I was in a restaurant with friends six years after the break up, and the woman I am talking about who gave me the "hee·bie-jee·bies" seemed to be heading right towards the restaurant door. I went into a full sweat and panic, my heart started racing and pounding, and that sense of "stomach panic" that I used to have around her and in restaurant settings returned, and I stood up and thought, "I have to get out of here!" and then I realized it was a false alarm: the woman just looked like her and the pounding heart slowed, my stomach started feeling okay again, everything went calm.
Anyway, don't do what I did. Pay attention to symptoms from the beginning and why they might be occurring. "Trust your gut" as the saying goes.
I'd also like to say that I had other experiences that put me in touch with "something being off" that I did not ignore.
One time I had slipped into the woods at a beach, and I was looking up at the canopy of trees the whole time. And this big rush of anxiety and fear hit me in a powerful way. I started circling around automatically in a defensive position, like one would if they were being hunted. Then I circled around again, this time looking down. There was a dead deer near my feet.
Another time I was walking up a street on a hill, and I had trepidation about cresting it. It was an "anxiety attack" again, which I paid attention to by that point in my life. Again, something felt off, but I couldn't tell what and I looked around for proof. Nothing. Still, I suggested to a companion that we take it slowly going up. Before we crested the hill, a motorcycle came right in front of our eyes, landing on the sidewalk we were walking to, crashing into several people, and then into the side of a building. If we hadn't been slow on reaching the top, that motorcycle would have crashed into us first. Apparently he was in a chase with the police.
When I was teaching, a child told me with tears in his eyes that his parents were destroying his brain. I didn't just say, "Oh, no. Your parents can't destroy your brain. That's a silly notion." It deserved to be looked into. In fact, he was found to be abused by them. And the reason I looked into it? Warning signs and intuition - it is what led to my not minimizing what he told me.
So we all have it in us to experience these kinds of warning signs, probably largely generated by our brains, genetics, or who knows ...
As far as narcissists go, I would especially like more warning signs, not less of them.
But what about erasure of memories at the direction of narcissists who want to be forgiven and for you to forget about their abuse? For me to look at them in the positive innocent way they demand is not in the cards for me, and shouldn't be for anyone else either (as far as my thinking goes, anyway - you can do what you want).
Besides the fact that narcissists don't change, and that they practice the cycle of abuse, and that they require abused scapegoats for their self esteem regulation, and are known for controlling tactics, and are self involved always, it should also not be overlooked because they never overlook anything themselves and are super-focused on the negatives of others, including us. The fact that they can't let go of the past and have constant negative retaliatory thoughts of others is potentially quite dangerous.
Or maybe they are projecting again, internally thinking that their grudges and obsessions with being cruel are your obsessions. It's possible, because, as I write this, I remember a video by Dr. Ramani, a psychologist whose main expertise is in narcissism that one of the reasons why vulnerable narissists are so "sensitive" to criticisms and complaints, and lash out so vehemently is because they think that you are as nasty and cruel when you criticize as they are - in other words they can't stand their own actions flipped back on to them.
At any rate, whether they are projecting or negative on others because it is an ingrained habit and attitude of how they look at other people, none of this adds up to peace with a narcissist.
As for narcissists "breaking the peace" intentinally to start drama, you can look at the list of traits I wrote above and I think you'd agree and see that any one of those traits could break the peace. But most narcissists have all of those traits, and so it can feel like a bomb went off instead of one trait or two effecting us.
Anyway, constant anxiety symptoms, possibly other symptoms as well, when in the presence of narcissistic traits, is how narcissists break the peace. They break the peace between you, and often the environment they are in (e.g. children looking on), and also inside of you.
And I'd bet most of us crave peace after spending any significant amount of time dealing with narcissists and the traits they have. We deserve peace after all that we've put up with.
If the narcissist is your parent, or was a long-term spouse, achieving peace, even after separation, can be a life-long struggle, even when you incrementally may be experiencing more and more peace as you withdraw or they withdraw, or hopefully both as stalking is another traumatic experience most of us don't want to go through. If you haven't had much peace in your life because a narcissist or narcissists primarily inhabited it, it may take as much time to achieve peace as it did to destroy it.
Achieving peace for a lot of people is helped by a number of experiences: getting out in nature, living with people who make you feel calm, seen, heard and where you are genuinely cared about, lots of time alone in plesant environments to get out of hypervigilant or anxious states, turning off upsetting news or violent movies, doing arts and crafts projects, music, dance, home remodeling or decorating, and finding ways to get to "solutions" in succinct ways when you happen to be in an argument you don't want. As for me, I avoid, avoid, avoid arguers who are into character assasinations.
Sometimes religious and/or spiritual experiences also help with bringing both peace and enlightenment into some people's lives.
THAT NARCISSISTIC TRAITS ARE ABOUT THE PERSONALITY DISORDER
But then I started to wonder myself. I looked at the fact that most narcissists have the same characteristics from one narcissist to the next. They're so similar and that similarity cannot be entirely be attributed to them, as people, even though they have the ability to make decisions, including whether to act on the impulses and compulsions that would bring tshame to them.
The traits are attributed to the personality disorder.
They might have different traits if they didn't have the personality disorder.
Narcissists have admitted they feel empty inside to therapists, and like empty shells. A lot of this feeling is being attributed to a traumatic childhood where the budding personality is severed, not allowed to exist, and where they develop a mask-like "false self" (usually to please a parent). Most narcissists brag about attributes they have (that they feel can be believed or worshipped). They do it to move about in social spheres as a chameleon, turning themselves into what ever people will approve of. We talk about how narcissists "objectify" us, turning us into utilties, but they also see themselves as objects too, ones that can be thrown away too if they don't mask up and hide the narcissistic traits.
So of course they want us to ignore their narcissistic traits and just focus on the masked ones. It is what they do themselves.
Perhaps most of us have also heard the term, "When the mask slipped" when describing narcissists who changed and became negative instantly. This typically comes after they have been caught at something shameful: cheating, stealing, lying, abusing, unethical types of actions.
At the instance they change, the person who caught them "instantly changing" may go on to describe something horrif : "they became a demon!", or "they became a wreck of shame and abuse!", or they became "a cold piece of ice" ...
When "the mask slipped" is of course, a time when they show some or all of their narcissistic traits. And then of course, when the police show up at the door, they put the mask on again and try their best to appear calm, innocent and reasonable while their victim is going off the rails, screaming and crying: "Oh, she's always like that. She probably just needs her psyche meds," they might say. And the narcissist looks like the nicest, friendliest, calmest, most unabusive human being in that moment. However, most police know about and trained to see beyond "the masks" perpetrators attempt to use, so they will talk to the victim in private. Some people have not figured out what police know.
So since they are "masked" so much of the time, which is probably exhausting for them since they tend to be negative thinkers: "She thinks she's so beautiful. Look at her! She has big pores that no makeup is ever going to hide!", "He thinks he's so smart! I bet I could put a carberator on in half the time he did!" - and all of this negative thinking tends to be pointed at other people they envy, or feel competetive with, or feel annoyed with, or who got the job they wanted ... narcissists are generally people who don't like other people and want to be hierarchically higher, and you know it if you've ever gotten close to one: they are insufferable criticizers, complainers and haters, constantly comparing themselves to others by boasting about themselves and denigrating others.
They don't really distinguish between hating their most loyal empathetic sycophants who wouldn't hurt a flea, and hating a store clerk they don't know except for the fact that the store clerk sent them down the wrong aisle to find the bandaids they were looking for.
So since they don't really like anyone (except as utility), and since they make up so much about who other people are, there really is no you in their diatribes. Does it hurt? Sure it does, but I bet it hurts a lot less when you realize that you, as you are, is not what is being criticized, seen, heard, or discussed by them with other people. It's a bunch of made up attributes they ascribe to you, or a bunch of lies, or a bunch of pressured gas being released, or a bunch of suspicious sounding sentences they've strung together in a panic to avoid accountability, or most likely their own traits, take your pick.
Plus, they believe others wear masks too. In other words, they think you are them.
Can projection of their own traits on to you really hurt your feelings? Can lies and fantasies told about you really hurt your feelings since narcissistic traits are in charge of all of this? At the very least, it lessens the hurt, right?
And then eventually most people, after a period of feeling hurt, feel disgust. But maybe even disgust is the brain's way of protecting us and saying, "Blech! I don't want to deal with that person again!"
But maybe the whole experience doesn't deserve any of our feelings if we have control of our feelings at all.
It's a personality disorder, after all, a robot-like state they've adapted just like all of the other narcissists. You criticize them a little, and the predictable rage comes out (the predictable robot response of NPD, that is). You don't believe they are the most popular person on the block and again, the predictable rage comes out (the robot is still there), you flatter them and then they smile and give you a prize and want you to be their next sycophant (robot response again!). You hang out with them a lot and they finally look comfortable and night after night they criticize yet another person to death in secret so that no one hears them except you (the robot NPD diatribes are at it again!).
I do believe, at this juncture anyway, that the essence NPD is a "person without a personality", just a series of masks, hidden hates and resentments of other human beings, and a series of impulsive and compulsive aggressive actions. There's no one home except that. And "that" all seems more predictable and machine-like every day to me.
* Is it possible to reconcile with a narcissist? Not really. They typically do not show lasting change. Their abiility to self reflect is compromised. There is too much of a power imbalance. If there is abuse there is a significant chance it will be unsafe, and will not lead to a positive outcome. It's in the link.
* Does a narcissist mean it when he or she says they will change? No, "it is rarely genuine" - the quote is from a Google AI article (other articles on this subject are available through the link). Narcissists generally don't desire self improvement. Their old patterns and behaviors revert quickly.
* Is a narcissist's attitude of "never enough" mean they can be dangerous? Yes. "This potential for danger stems from their fragile ego and their extreme reactions when their needs are not met." -quotation from a Google AI article.
* When discarded scapegoats are successful, do narcissists try to get back in their lives to sabotage them? Yes. Partial answer/article from Google AI: "Yes, narcissists often try to return to the lives of successful, discarded scapegoats with the express purpose of regaining control and sabotaging their success. A successful and independent former victim is a threat to the narcissist's fragile ego and a reminder that they were wrong about the victim's worthlessness."
* Can a narcissist ever be happy in a relationship? Not really. Love bombing another person is a fleeting state full of fantasy, and they are incapable of the deeper forms of love and connection. They think they will be happiest when they have power and can subjugate others. Subjugation does not equal happiness or continued successes at it and can increase paranoia and a fear of retaliation.
* Trust dies when a narcissist tries to subjugate you. Subjugation by narcissists is typically referred to as "narcissistic abuse". The victim experiences a betrayal of trust when they see narcissists trying to subjugate them. When narcisists try to punish victims for refusing to be subjugated, the result is a further erosion of trust.
* No one wins when one party tries to subjugate another party.
* If a narcissist can't subjugate another person, does it lead to "never enough" attitudes in the narcissist? Yes, it is directly linked.
* Is narcissistic subjugation a form of exploitation of others? Yes. It is described as an antagonistic attachment syle - with not only subjugation, but also competition, comparisons between others, parasitism, predatory behaviors, intimidation, oppression, violation of others' experiences, dominance, dismissal, wrecking others' self esteem, triangulation, and hurting and punishing others.
* Do narcissists ever stop desiring the subjugation of others they are in close personal relationships with? No. Reasons cited: It's a core component of their personality disorder. They are extremely resistant to change which would require challenges to their core beliefs (which they don't ant to give up). They enjoy dominating others even when there are many, many negatives for doing so.
* Why do narcissists go back to people they claimed to find useless?
Reasons cited include:
- Trying to reassert power and control (they panic when they are losing the power and control they used to have and escalate new aggressive tactics)
- To punish or get revenge (Trojan Horse tactics)
- Intolerant of separations (because it is a bruise to their ego)
- Because they still need something from you, or there is a challenge to their reputation for discarding you
- Because a new relationship failed,and they are feeling empty of narcissistic supply
- To see if hoovering will work for them (hoovering becoming a game and challenge, to see if they can hoodwink, seduce, challenge, get what they want, brainwash, and also to see if it will reinstate their ego to its former glory and get them "off the hook" in terms of accountability for the wrongs they committed towards you).
- Some have fantasies that their "never-enough" depression-oriented mindset will disappear completely by hoovering successfully and being forgiven. It generally does not work because they can't imagine a life of not trying to subjugate others in the end.
* Narcissists do not trust others. This is especially true for covert vulnerable narcissists. Some of the reasons cited are: projection of their own behavior (especially fear of others subjugating and exploiting them) and childhood issues where they witnessed abuse, neglect, and betrayal from primary caregivers. They may have also grown up with seeing a lot of subjugation and exploitation of others and normalized it.
Many narcissists also see trusting others as relinquishing power and control, something that they refuse to let go of as most narcissists want more of it, not less of it.
So why do narcissists have trouble with feeling grateful for others? As in so many of my recent posts, I went to Google Search and Google AI for some answers. Here is the Google AI answer on the Google Search page and copied here in dark red:
Narcissists have trouble feeling grateful because their narcissistic traits — such as entitlement, a lack of empathy, and a need for superiority — are incompatible with gratitude. Expressing thanks acknowledges another's actions or generosity, but for a narcissist, this can feel like a sign of vulnerability or debt, placing them in a position of inferiority rather than superiority. Instead of appreciating others, they often see kindness as deserved, fail to recognize others' efforts, or even belittle the giver to make themselves feel more powerful.
Key Reasons for Lack of Gratitude:
Entitlement:
* Narcissists often believe they are inherently superior and are entitled to special treatment and kindness, viewing acts of generosity as their due rather than a gift.
Lack of Empathy:
* They struggle to recognize or appreciate the efforts, needs, and feelings of others, making it difficult to understand the value of what someone has done for them.
Need for Superiority:
* To maintain their inflated sense of self-importance, they cannot appear indebted or vulnerable to another person. Acknowledging a kindness would put them in a position of weakness.
Focus on Self:
* Narcissists are typically more focused on their own needs, desires, and achievements, which makes them less likely to notice or appreciate the contributions of others.
Devaluing Others:
* Instead of showing gratitude, a narcissist might belittle the giver to assert their own dominance and power, which reinforces their perceived superiority.
How Gratitude is Manipulated:
Strategic Gratitude:
If a narcissist expresses thanks, it's often a manipulative tactic to further their own agenda or to gain admiration and favors from others.
A Tool for Supply:
Any expression of gratitude serves their self-interest, providing "narcissistic supply" rather than being a genuine reflection of appreciation for the other person.
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