If you find yourself trying to make sense out of the senseless you might be closer than you think
By Sinead Kelly
The word ‘narcissist’ is so frequently bandied about nowadays to describe exes or romantic partners that every second person is a “narc”. But this isn’t helpful to those experiencing real ‘narcissistic abuse’.
Imagining a narcissist, we might think of Donald Trump, vain, grandiose, bullying. ‘Overt narcissists’ are usually easy to spot and avoid.
Like most personality disorders, narcissism is a spectrum. In the extreme, someone might be diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).
This can manifest in physical abuse but more often, overt narcissists are psychological abusers, the more obvious kind.
What about emotional abuse? Something is ‘off’ but you can’t put your finger on it. You’re mentally exhausted trying to make sense of things. There’s a yawning chasm between words and actions that can’t be logically squared away.
You suspect lies, half-truths, guilt-tripping and gaslighting but can’t prove it. There’s always a sliver of plausible deniability so you’re loathe to make unfounded accusations. The other party is never wrong, never makes a mistake and never apologises.
They avoid emotional connection except at the start. It’s as if the shine suddenly wears off. In private there’s silent treatment, hypersensitivity to criticism, lack of accountability, impaired self-awareness, withholding of physical affection and a victim mentality.
Amid all this, you’re stressed, robbed of energy, self-esteem, confidence and trust in your own judgement. You’re the one apologising for every ‘misunderstanding’.
To others, this person is kind and empathetic, self-effacing and helpful but behind closed doors, the meanness is so insidiously targeted, only you ‘get it’. Friends might well think that something hurtful he did or said was not really a big deal or it must have been a joke. You’re confused. It didn’t feel that way.
If you’ve experienced anything like this, you might be involved with a ‘covert’ narcissist.
It’s obviously not right to diagnose others with a clinically-defined personality disorder but it is an alternative explanation for a type of abuse that flies so far under the radar it’s barely believable even to those experiencing it first-hand.
Emotional abuse can affect mental and physical wellbeing and even lead to suicide in the longer term so it’s helpful to know there could be something else at play.
‘Disordered thinking’ can be a result of childhood trauma or neglect where the only way to secure survival was to lie, manipulate and hide emotions. Someone can be afforded a certain degree of empathy for this.
However, this diminished capacity to self-regulate, almost as if they don’t have a conscience, leaves behind a trail of broken and confused partners.
Put simply, covert narcissists are the stars of their own rom-coms and are A-list actors. They make you believe you’re their A-list co-star but really, you’re just an extra, always at their beck and call. They’re also the producer, director and scriptwriter and the masters of PR so it can take months or even years to see through the hype.
This glittery exterior hides a dark pit of insecurity that can only be kept at bay through external validation. Deprived of the normal process in which a child develops a sense of self and individuality, their self-worth comes from how others see and react to them. To secure this ‘supply’ they will literally do or say anything.
They will ‘love-bomb’ at the start – you’re the soul mate, the love of their life, they can’t live without you. You’re their saviour and they truly believe this. Their feelings are regulated by your behaviour towards them. It’s mirroring at its finest. To keep the energy flowing their way, and terrified of abandonment, they will try to exert control using lies and manipulation. The end always justifies the means.
It’s a losing game for both parties. When you let them down, and you inevitably will, you will have shattered the shared fantasy that you mistook for reality.
When reality does come knocking, they’ll begin to devalue you in their minds rather than talking things through – the death of a romance by a thousand cuts. Ultimately, you’ll be fired from the movie or manoeuvred into quitting.
NPD individuals engage in ‘repetition compulsion’, something we all do to some extent. However, most disordered individuals would have difficulty recognising or changing the pattern. A covert will rinse and repeat with each new relationship.
They may also recycle an existing relationship, or an ex, by ‘re-idealising’ and repeating the love-bombing, followed inevitably by a new round of devaluation and discard. Each cycle is really an unconscious attempt to secure what they didn’t get as toddlers – unconditional maternal love. No partner can reasonably meet this expectation.
Having experienced the gamut of these behaviours over the past year, and, yes, not qualified to diagnose, this is merely a cautionary tale. If it quacks like a duck… well, it might be worth a look.
Last year I reconnected with an ex whose 30-year marriage “to a narcissist” (his words) had ended. We lived together briefly in the early 1980s. I saw many of the same things but was also pretty immature back then. Reluctant to get married – gut feeling – I left for Cyprus on sabbatical but never went back. Occasional friendly contact resumed over the years.
In 2023 we began a long-distance relationship. It worked well enough because you give each other the benefit of the doubt, and short heady visits are not very revealing.
That’s not to say there were no red flags. I ignored them. This was someone I knew for four decades as a harmless, well-meaning sometimes inconsiderate partner who could wriggle out of trouble with a boyish charm – frustrating but endearing. What could possibly go wrong that couldn’t be sorted at our age?
An extended period in the same country this summer quickly became a different ball game. When I raised concerns, this intelligent, funny, charming, self-deprecating individual became the inverse – cunning, snide and passive aggressive.
If I didn’t provide admiration or sympathy, getting a rise out of me would do. Any reaction was attention. On the real issues, however, the response was: “What you see is what you get. Take it or leave it”.
The last straw was an outright lie followed by an ass-covering manipulation so obvious and trust-killing it struck me: “What else is a lie? Maybe his ex-wife is not actually a narcissist and he’s not a victim?”
It was a jigsaw full of misshapen pieces. Nothing fit.
Attempting to square away the discrepancies, I came across ‘covert narcissism’. It was way too close to home. Professor Sam Vaknin, an expert on NPD, calls it: “Trying to make sense of the senseless”.
Either way, I’d had enough mind games.
His last text read: “I must have some flaw that I can’t see in myself”, ironically preceded by a song with the lyrics: “You think you’ll never get burned… well I’ve found me a brand new box of matches…”, with thumbs-up emoji. No doubt it was “just a joke”.
