Typical Narcissist Quotes

Narcissists have poor self-esteem, but they are typically very successful. They feel entitled; they’re self-important; they crave admiration and lack empathy. They are also exploitative and envious. The malignant types never forget a slight. They may kill you ten years later for cutting them off in traffic. But they act perfectly normal while plotting their revenge.

Psychopaths provide shallow praise and flattery only in order to gain trust. When you actually need emotional support, they will typically offer an empty response—or they will completely ignore you. With time, this conditions you not to bother them with your feelings, even when you need a partner the most, especially during times of tragedy or illness. You will begin to notice that you are never allowed to express anything but positive praise for them.

Getting angry when something about their behaviour is challenged in the nicest way, is a typical reaction of a narcissistic parent.

A naively formulated goal transmutes, with time, into the sinister form of the life-lie. One forty-something client told me his vision, formulated by his younger self: “I see myself retired, sitting on a tropical beach, drinking margaritas in the sunshine.” That’s not a plan. That’s a travel poster. After eight margaritas, you’re fit only to await the hangover. After three weeks of margarita-filled days, if you have any sense, you’re bored stiff and self-disgusted. In a year, or less, you’re pathetic. It’s just not a sustainable approach to later life. This kind of oversimplification and falsification is particularly typical of ideologues. They adopt a single axiom: government is bad, immigration is bad, capitalism is bad, patriarchy is bad. Then they filter and screen their experiences and insist ever more narrowly that everything can be explained by that axiom. They believe, narcissistically, underneath all that bad theory, that the world could be put right, if only they held the controls.

The emptiness of the narcissist often means that they are only focused on whatever is useful or interesting to them at the moment. If at that moment it is interesting for them to tell you they love you, they do. It’s not really a long game to them, and when the next interesting issue comes up, they attend to that. The objectification of others—viewing other people as objects useful to his needs—can also play a role. When you are the only thing in the room, or the most interesting thing in the room, then the narcissist’s charisma and charm can leave you convinced that you are his everything. The problem is that this is typically superficial regard, and that superficiality results in inconsistency, and emotions for the narcissistic person range from intense to detached on a regular basis. This vacillation between intensity and detachment can be observed in the narcissist’s relationships with people (acquaintances, friends, family, and partners), work, and experiences. A healthy relationship should feel like a safe harbor in your life. Life throws us enough curve balls in the shape of money problems, work issues, medical issues, household issues, and even the weather. Sadly, a relationship with a narcissist can be one more source of chaos in your life, rather than a place of comfort and consistency.

Typically, the daughter of a narcissistic mother will choose a spouse who cannot meet her emotional needs. Even though our intuition will tell us in some way when something is not right for us, we tend to block it out if it isn’t saying what we want to hear. When the hope for love blossoms, we override the intuitive inner voice or gut feeling. Years of treating and interviewing daughters with maternal deprivation have shown me that we have a deep sense of intelligent intuition, but it seems to be accompanied by a special brand of “deafness.” In the desperate search for love that did not exist in her childhood, the daughter chooses not to pay attention to the red flags that may be waving. We do know. We just don’t listen. In

If Emrys was acting normally, like the typical self-gratifying narcissist he was, then it would have been easier to keep him in that special category of potential enemy.

Narcissists do not tolerate anything that feels like abandonment. The reaction to narcissistic injury is typically narcissistic rage and revenge. Many people who endure a narcissistic breakup will say that they had to start anew— and learned who their real friends were. Because they engage in projection (taking what they are feeling and projecting it onto someone else), and because they do not take responsibility for anything or anyone, they blame. Meet his behavior with dignified silence.

Boys seem to have a different kind of relationship with Mother. Just about every daughter of a narcissistic mother has reported to me that her brother or brothers were better liked and more favored than she or her sisters were. Daughters consistently report how hurtful this has been. Typically, the mother appears not to notice the imbalance, or if confronted, denies it, but it does make some sense. Her sons are not threatening to her in relation to the father as another girl or woman is, because the boys are not as much an extension of her as is a daughter.

Narcissists typically make judgments with greater confidence than other people… and, because their judgments are rendered with such conviction, other people tend to believe them and the narcissists become disproportionately more influential in group situations. Finally, because of their self-confidence and strong need for recognition, narcissists tend to “self-nominate”; consequently, when a leadership gap appears in a group or organization, the narcissists rush to fill it.

Highly sensitive children can come from mothers and fathers with the same traits. In addition, parenting plays a role. Childhood neglect or abuse can also affect sensitivity levels for adults. A portion of empaths I’ve treated have experienced early trauma, such as emotional or physical abuse, or were raised by alcoholic, depressed, or narcissistic parents. This could potentially wear down the usual healthy defenses that a child with nurturing parents develops. As a result of their upbringing, these children typically don’t feel “seen” by their families, and they also feel invisible in the greater world that doesn’t value sensitivity.

Behaviors may shift temporarily, but the core issues will remain. The feelings will also shift and change every day. After your time served, and years spent trying to make it work, it can be quite galling to have your partner pick up and leave. Many times, the narcissist does decide to head out for greener pastures— typically a new partner—and even though getting rid of him is ultimately healthier and better for you, it still stings. The sting of being rejected. The sting of not feeling good enough. The sting that no matter how hard you tried, it was never enough. While that has nothing to do with you, it is a difficult pill to swallow when they decide to pack it in and leave.

A narcissistic mother typically lives in a world that she creates in her mind. She is lost in a fantasy,

Discovering that your life was built on falsehoods and that a narcissist exploited you is a profoundly painful experience. It transcends a typical breakup, as narcissists employ vicious deceptions to shatter their victims emotionally.

What Millon was saying is basically that narcissism arises from a spoiled child or a neglected or even abused child, and any of us who have talked with or interacted with narcissists have observed that they are typically either one or the other.

Let me give some morons out there a lesson on jealousy : people who get jealous are the ones who’ll typically harbor an attachment and fixation in the absence of which, there can never be any jealous reaction if you’re looking for one. So, good luck with the unsavory mind games and mixed signals.

Typical relationship books, they are about communicating more clearly, being more loving, and making time for your relationship. All of this is lovely advice, only if the other person is noticing or listening! Kierkegaard noted that “Love is the expression of the one who loves, not of the one who is loved.” The challenge is that when this expression is not met with any reciprocity, and in fact the opposite, it can be exhausting and demoralising. If you love more, then you will get more back. It’s not that linear, and while that may apply in a factory— work harder, make more widgets—it does not work in relationships, least of all with a narcissist. Personality patterns tend to be pretty entrenched—and the rules of rescue do not apply.

And while he may have a longer fuse, beware. When he’s forced to face the frustration of a challenging task or finds himself the butt of one too many jousts in verbal repartee, his sensitivity to feeling foolish and defective may either launch him into the tyrannical state of meanness typical of narcissists or cause him to disappear within his stonewalled, silent abyss.

You fear that any fight could be your last. Normal couples argue to resolve issues, but psychopaths make it clear that negative conversations will jeopardize the relationship, especially ones regarding their behavior. Any of your attempts to improve communication will typically result in the silent treatment. You apologize and forgive quickly, otherwise you know they’ll lose interest in you.

The DEEP technique gives you a quick way to remember what not to do if you want to protect yourself and avoid falling into the typical mess of being gaslighted, baited, and invalidated. It is a tool to avoid getting into frustrating conversations and blaming yourself, and also results in you cutting off their supply and retaining your bandwidth. You practice not going DEEP you do not: Defend Engage Explain Personalize

One modern academic lists Rousseau’s shortcomings as follows: he was a ‘masochist, exhibitionist, neurasthenic, hypochondriac, onanist, latent homosexual afflicted by the typical urge for repeated displacements, incapable of normal or parental affection, incipient paranoiac, narcissistic introvert rendered unsocial by his illness, filled with guilt feelings, pathologically timid, a kleptomaniac, infantilist, irritable and miserly’.

Hey Pete. So why the leave from social media? You are an activist, right? It seems like this decision is counterproductive to your message and work." A: The short answer is I’m tired of the endless narcissism inherent to the medium. In the commercial society we have, coupled with the consequential sense of insecurity people feel, as they impulsively “package themselves” for public consumption, the expression most dominant in all of this - is vanity. And I find that disheartening, annoying and dangerous. It is a form of cultural violence in many respects. However, please note the difference - that I work to promote just that – a message/idea – not myself… and I honestly loath people who today just promote themselves for the sake of themselves. A sea of humans who have been conditioned into viewing who they are – as how they are seen online. Think about that for a moment. Social identity theory run amok. People have been conditioned to think “they are” how “others see them”. We live in an increasing fictional reality where people are now not only people – they are digital symbols. And those symbols become more important as a matter of “marketing” than people’s true personality. Now, one could argue that social perception has always had a communicative symbolism, even before the computer age. But nooooooothing like today. Social media has become a social prison and a strong means of social control, in fact. Beyond that, as most know, social media is literally designed like a drug. And it acts like it as people get more and more addicted to being seen and addicted to molding the way they want the world to view them – no matter how false the image (If there is any word that defines peoples’ behavior here – it is pretention). Dopamine fires upon recognition and, coupled with cell phone culture, we now have a sea of people in zombie like trances looking at their phones (literally) thousands of times a day, merging their direct, true interpersonal social reality with a virtual “social media” one. No one can read anymore... they just swipe a stream of 200 character headlines/posts/tweets. understanding the world as an aggregate of those fragmented sentences. Massive loss of comprehension happening, replaced by usually agreeable, "in-bubble" views - hence an actual loss of variety. So again, this isn’t to say non-commercial focused social media doesn’t have positive purposes, such as with activism at times. But, on the whole, it merely amplifies a general value system disorder of a “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT HOW GREAT I AM!” – rooted in systemic insecurity. People lying to themselves, drawing meaningless satisfaction from superficial responses from a sea of avatars. And it’s no surprise. Market economics demands people self promote shamelessly, coupled with the arbitrary constructs of beauty and success that have also resulted. People see status in certain things and, directly or pathologically, use those things for their own narcissistic advantage. Think of those endless status pics of people rock climbing, or hanging out on a stunning beach or showing off their new trophy girl-friend, etc. It goes on and on and worse the general public generally likes it, seeking to imitate those images/symbols to amplify their own false status. Hence the endless feedback loop of superficiality. And people wonder why youth suicides have risen… a young woman looking at a model of perfection set by her peers, without proper knowledge of the medium, can be made to feel inferior far more dramatically than the typical body image problems associated to traditional advertising. That is just one example of the cultural violence inherent. The entire industry of social media is BASED on narcissistic status promotion and narrow self-interest. That is the emotion/intent that creates the billions and billions in revenue these platforms experience, as they in turn sell off people’s personal data to advertisers and governments. You are the product, of course.

The silent treatment is a form of emotional abuse typically employed by people with narcissistic tendencies. It is designed to (1) place the abuser in a position of control; (2) silence the target’s attempts at assertion; (3) avoid conflict resolution/personal responsibility/compromise; or (4) punish the target for a perceived ego slight. (..) The target, who may possess high emotional intelligence, empathy, conflict-resolution skills, and the ability to compromise, may work diligently to respond to the deafening silence. He or she may frequently reach out to the narcissistic person via email, phone, or text to resolve greatly inflated misunderstandings, and is typically met with continued disdain, contempt, and silence. Essentially, the narcissistic person’s message is one of extreme disapproval (..) The silent treatment is a form of emotional abuse that no one deserves nor should tolerate. If an individual experiences this absence of communication, it is a sure sign that he or she needs to move on and heal. The healing process can feel like mourning the loss of a relationship that did not really exist and was one-way in favor of the ego-massaging person with narcissism.

When trying to understand why people acted in a certain way, you might use a short checklist to guide your probing: their knowledge, beliefs and experience, motivation and competing priorities, and their constraints. •​Knowledge. Did the person know something, some fact, that others didn’t? Or was the person missing some knowledge you would take for granted? Devorah was puzzled by the elderly gentleman’s resistance until she discovered that he didn’t know how many books could be stored on an e-book reader. Mitchell knew that his client wasn’t attuned to narcissistic personality disorders and was therefore at a loss to explain her cousin’s actions. Walter Reed’s colleagues relied on the information that mosquitoes needed a two- to three-week incubation period before they could infect people with yellow fever. •​Beliefs and experience. Can you explain the behavior in terms of the person’s beliefs or perceptual skills or the patterns the person used, or judgments of typicality? These are kinds of tacit knowledge—knowledge that hasn’t been reduced to instructions or facts. Mike Riley relied on the patterns he’d seen and his sense of the typical first appearance of a radar blip, so he noticed the anomalous blip that first appeared far off the coastline. Harry Markopolos looked at the trends of Bernie Madoff’s trades and knew they were highly atypical. •​Motivation and competing priorities. Cheryl Cain used our greed for chocolate kisses to get us to fill in our time cards. Dennis wanted the page job more than he needed to prove he was right. My Procter & Gamble sponsors weren’t aware of the way the homemakers juggled the needs for saving money with their concern for keeping their clothes clean and their families happy. •​Constraints. Daniel Boone knew how to ambush the kidnappers because he knew where they would have to cross the river. He knew the constraints they were operating under. Ginger expected the compliance officer to release her from the noncompete clause she’d signed because his company would never release a client list to an outsider.

Hope is good, but sometimes hope gets in the way of wisdom. That’s what happened with Katelyn. She hoped Cory would change. She had two small children and a marriage to which she was committed. She hoped she could save it. It took her three times of going back into crazy land before she quit hoping he would change.” Willow shook her head. “With a narcissist, hope is all you’re going to get.” There was that word again. Unconsciously Angela rubbed her forehead. Narcissist. It was apparently more common than she had imagined. She’d been told more than once that Brice was one. She hadn’t examined that idea. Maybe she should. “Is that what we used to call egotism?” “It’s like that,” Willow pondered. “I’d call it egotism on steroids. With the main difference being lack of empathy. Something in them is missing. They are typically charming, but also controlling, selfish, and dishonest when it suits their needs. There are also different degrees. At the low end of the spectrum—as long as you understand what’s going on and guard yourself—you can live with them and just accept that they’re obnoxious and unlikely to change. At the other end of the spectrum—well, they can be sociopaths.

Character disorders: to name just a few of those most familiar, borderline personality disorders; narcissistic, sociopathic, psychopathic, obsessive-compulsive personality. Whether one is a trained clinical therapist, pastoral counselor or practitioner of deliverance and emotional healing, character disordered personalities present one of the greatest challenges. They are typically very intelligent, highly manipulative and pathologically deceptive. To be blunt, they often elude diagnosis, evade and avoid taking responsibility for their issues, and tend to exhaust and aggravate those who try to help them. •

All covert narcissist mothers, in some way, commit acts of emotional incest. It occurs when a parent depends on their child for the emotional support and love typically provided by an adult partner

This kind of oversimplification and falsification is particularly typical of ideologues. They adopt a single axiom: government is bad, immigration is bad, capitalism is bad, patriarchy is bad. Then they filter and screen their experiences and insist ever more narrowly that everything can be explained by that axiom. They believe, narcissistically, underneath all that bad theory, that the world could be put right, if only they held the controls.

Narcissists may sometimes feel guilt when they behave badly, but, by and large, they feel sheepish and ashamed at getting caught, and they feel the inconvenience of getting caught. They are more likely to feel shame, which then propels them into more bad behavior. Sociopaths and psychopaths don’t even experience guilt or remorse, so forgiveness for them is pointless; they don’t care either way. Unfortunately, since narcissists rarely are self-reflective, forgiveness does not often result in behavioral change—they typically just do what they want and clean up the messes later. Your forgiveness just becomes part of their cleaning up their mess.

There are several telltale signs of flawed gender theories. First, we should beware of any gender theory that makes the assumption that there is any one "right" or "natural" way to be gendered or to be sexual. Such theories are typically narcissistic in nature, as they merely reveal their designers' desire to cast themselves on top of the gender hierarchy. Further, if one presumes there is only one "right" or "natural" way to be gendered, then the only way to explain why some people display typical gender and sexual traits while others display exceptional ones is by surmising that one of those two groups is being intentionally led astray somehow. Indeed, this is exactly what the religious right argues when they invent stories about homosexuals who recruit young children via the "gay agenda". Those who claim that we are all born with bisexual, androgynous, or gender-neutral tendencies (only to be molded into heterosexual, masculine men and feminine women via socialization and gender norms) use a similar strategy.

This phenomenon of secondary narcissism manifests as a person who becomes isolated from society and the people within it. In his description, these narcissistic individuals will have low self-esteem because they cannot successfully love other people or be loved. He also clearly delineated dynamics of guilt and shame typically observed in narcissists, as well as their reliance on defenses such as projection.

If a narcissist has money, he or she can typically find enough “pay to play” friends and family members, especially if the narcissist is willing to pick up the check or pay for the plane tickets or concert tickets. Many wealthy narcissists are able to ensure that they are never alone by “buying” the people who spend time with them or having lots of “employees” around them who run their errands but whom they also expect to stick around for dinner.

1.          They were perfect… initially. We’ve discussed this one, but it’s worth mentioning again. A narcissist wants you to believe they’re totally into you and put you on a pedestal. Once they have you, though, they stop trying as hard and you end up being the one working to keep them. 2.          Others don’t see the narcissist the way you do. It’s hard enough to see it yourself, but when those around you, especially their friends and family, make excuses for them, you start doubting yourself even more. Stick to what you see. 3.          They’re making you look bad. In order to maintain their facade of perfection, they make you look like a bad person. Usually this involves spreading rumors, criticizing you behind your back, or creating lies you supposedly told. The worst part is that when you try rectifying the situation, or laying the blame where it should belong, the narcissist uses your defense to back their own lies. It’s frustrating because the generous, wonderful person they displayed initially is what those around you still see, even if you see them for who they really are. 4.          You feel symptoms of anxiety and/or depression. The toxic person may have caused you to worry about not acting the way you’re expected to, or that you haven’t done something right or good enough. In making this person your entire world, you may lose sleep, have no interest in things you used to or have developed a, “What’s the point?” attitude. You essentially absorb all of the negative talk and treatment so deeply, you believe it all. This is a dangerous mindset to be in so if you feel you’re going any steps down this path, seek outside help as soon as possible. 5.          You have unexplained physical ailments. It’s not surprising that when you internalize a great deal of negativity, you begin to feel unwell. Some common symptoms that aren’t related to any ongoing condition might be: changes in appetite, stomach issues, body aches, insomnia, and fatigue. These are typical bodily responses to stress, but if they intensify or become chronic, see a physician as soon as you can. 6.          You feel alone. Also a common symptom of abuse. If things are really wrong, the narcissist may have isolated you from friends or family either by things they’ve done themselves or by making you believe no one is there for you. 7.          You freeze. When you emotionally remove yourself from the abuse, you’re freezing. It’s a coping mechanism to reduce the intensity of the way you’re being treated by numbing out the pain. 8.          You don’t trust yourself even with simple decisions. When your self-esteem has been crushed through devaluing and criticism, it’s no wonder you can’t make decisions. If you’re also being gaslighted, it adds another layer of self-doubt. 9.          You can’t make boundaries. The narcissist doesn’t have any, nor do they respect them, which is why it’s difficult to keep them away even after you’ve managed to get away. Setting boundaries will be discussed in greater detail in an upcoming chapter. 10.    You lost touch with the real you. The person you become when with a narcissistic abuser is very different from the person you were before you got involved with them. They’ve turned you into who they want you to be, making you feel lost and insecure with no sense of true purpose. 11.    You never feel like you do anything right. We touched on this briefly above, but this is one of the main signs of narcissistic abuse. Looking at the big picture, you may be constantly blamed when things go wrong even when it isn’t your fault. You may do something exactly the way they tell you to, but they still find fault with the results. It’s similar to how a Private feels never knowing when the Drill Sergeant will find fault in their efforts. 12.    You walk on eggshells. This happens when you try avoiding any sort of conflict, maltreatment or backlash by going above and beyond to make the abuser happy.

When the ego is well connected to the self, a person stands in relationship with a transcendent center and is precisely not narcissistically invested in nearsighted goals and short-term gains. In such persons there is an ego-free quality, as though they were consulting a deeper and wider reality than merely the practical, rational, and personal considerations typical of ego consciousness.

In The Triumph of the Therapeutic, Philip Rieff famously argued that the typical American has come to think of himself less as a citizen than as a kind of patient, whose life purpose is to develop, sustain, and fine-tune his psychological well-being. For Rieff, this therapeutic turn is a logical consequence of civic and spiritual decline. Somehow our sense of the purpose of living has slipped out of joint from the social conditions that once sustained it. We are no longer at home with ourselves, never quite comfortable with our place in the world. Instead, we are like castaways on a strange island, unfamiliar with local conditions, unable to rely on the old ways of going on. Perhaps something about the way we live now produces this distance from one another, or perhaps we distance ourselves from one another and live the way we do as a result. Either way, we have become more narcissistic, but narcissistic in a way that is peculiarly dependent on things outside ourselves: that is to say, what other people are saying and thinking about us. Rieff puts it this way, “When so little can be taken for granted, when the meaningfulness of social existence no longer grants an inner life at peace with itself, every man must become something of a genius about himself.”33

To me, egotists seem bloated, flatulent. They watch out for number one, peer down their noses at you, and tend to be jealous or envious. (Still, egotists usually have varying capacities for empathy and love compared to narcissists, who’re typically more incapacitated in these areas.)

While the feelings and symptoms of depression and anxiety experienced may be due to the helplessness engendered by the relationship, these feelings can also be generated by the ongoing lack of emotional reciprocity and mirroring in the relationship. Depression is a complex disorder, but the hallmark symptoms of depression—sad mood, lack of pleasure in activities that are typically pleasurable, feelings of worthlessness and guilt, social withdrawal, poor concentration, changes in sleep and appetite.

Superstars love expensive toys. They have to have the best, because it shows that they are the best. An unrelenting drive to achieve and acquire is the center of their personality. There is no point in asking Narcissistic Superstars why they need to have so much and do so much. They don’t know, any more than a flower knows why it turns toward the sun. Don’t waste your time trying to figure it out. Use it. For all their talent, intelligence, and temporal power, vampire Superstars are pathetically easy to manipulate. Here’s how. First, Kiss Up. There is no way around it. If you want to maintain any sort of relationship with Narcissistic Superstars, you have to admire them, their achievements, and their toys incessantly. Typically, it won’t take much effort on your part to kiss up to Superstars. They’ll be more than happy to come up with reasons to congratulate themselves. All you have to do is listen and look interested. Know Your Needs. It’s important to know what you want for yourself as clearly as Superstars know what they want for themselves. Superstars always know what they want, and they’re always trying to figure out how to get it. If your own needs are unclear to you, or you wait for these vampires to give you what you deserve, you’ll never get anything. Tie Your Needs In with Theirs. Superstars are going to get what they want whether you’re a part of it or not. Make yourself a part of it. To get even slightly reasonable treatment from vampire Superstars, you’ll have to play all the angles, just as they do.

Why did I stay? My self-esteem was ruined for a very long time. I was socially isolated from my family and friends. I kept everything that was going on in my marriage a secret. I feared for my safety if I left him. I was financially dependent on my spouse. I am an educated woman who was working towards a master’s degree when I met him. He persuaded me to stop school after the birth of our first son. Eventually, he trapped me in his web of lies. I believe I suffered from Stockholm syndrome for many years. It isn’t easy to leave. Unless you have lived in an abusive relationship, a typical person wouldn’t understand. It seems perfectly logical to an outsider that it would be easy to leave an abusive relationship. It truly isn’t and walking away is terrifying for a victim. No one deserves to live his or her life as a prisoner. Love shouldn’t hurt and abuse is not love. —Mary Laumbach-Perez

Rapport repair is probably the most transformative, intimacy-building process that a therapist can model. I guide this process from a perspective that recognizes that there is usually a mutual contribution to any misattunement or conflict. Therefore, a mutually respectful dialogical process is typically needed to repair rapport. Exceptions to this include scapegoating and upsets that are instigated by a bullying narcissist. In those situations, they are solely at fault. I have often been saddened by codependent clients who apologize to their bullying parents as if they made their parents abuse them.

Typical narcissist. No matter what happens, it’s always the other person’s fault.

I looked for years, but I couldn’t find Buffalo Bill. Instead, I kept encountering defendants who were pretty much exactly the same as the serial rapists I had been prosecuting in Sexual Assault for the previous four years. Instead of sad, lonely outcasts, serial rapists tend to be arrogant, narcissistic, cruel, and entitled. They typically have jobs, steady relationships with consenting sexual partners, no shortage of academic ability, and social success. In my experience, most of them have no misconceptions regarding their moral compass. They know their actions are wrong—they just don’t care.