It’s important not to accept all the blame (through gaslighting by the more narcissistic person, for example), but to question one’s part in a healthy, balanced way.
If one was raised by one or two narcissistic people, it makes sense that one adopts some of their traits, which is terrible, but only logical. Some coaches on YouTube call this “narcissistic impairment”. Whatever you call it, it makes sense that you embody some of the traits of the caregivers and environment you grew up with.
A good piece of advice would be: always do your best not to act or react like the people whose behavior you dislike.
When it comes to highly exploitative or otherwise toxic people, the only way to “win” is not to play.
The thing may be: for the people involved, it’s usually not a “game”, but all they know.
Also, PTSD, narcissism, borderline, hyper-sensitivity… a lot of these “frames of mind” overlap, having symptoms in common. That’s just how it is.
I personally have noticed that hyper-sensitive people can be extremely toxic and demanding even when they’re usually not highly narcissistic. This has made me more aware of how important it is to clearly and effectively communicate one’s needs but also not to expect too much from other people – the latter could basically be a high level of entitlement, which is narcissistic.
Other people don’t exist in order to make us happy or fulfill our needs. There has to be a mutual give and take, which is not transactional, but natural and organic.
Narcissistic/codependent relationships, however, are one-sided with one person providing the supply and getting whatever they can get (some sort of connection, ANYTHING AT ALL) – while the other, more narcissistic person exploits, idealizes, devalues, discards the victim/host.
If you’re the one who’s suffering more and you’re also the one who’s willing to change, go to therapy, questioning themselves – I think it’s a safe bet to say you’re probably less narcissistic than your “partner”. However, this doesn’t solve the problem.
A healthy person would leave as soon as their boundaries are walked all over or they’re being disrespected in any other significant way. A healthy person with a good level of self-esteem simply doesn’t have time for this nonsense. A healthy person realizes: This isn’t love and removes themselves from the situation.
So, you see, “not being a narcissist” doesn’t really help you, does it?
Both the highly narcissistic person AND the less narcissistic person have serious issues and need to work on their relational patterns. (Now guess who is more likely to be working on themselves.)
If you stick around still wondering what the problem is, and you’ve already been mistreated several times – what are you waiting for?
The thing is, yeah, the other person may be to blame – but if you stick around waiting for change, you’re also doing this to yourself (and maybe your pets and children). Maybe there are other people who care about you who are also suffering from seeing you suffer.
Being involved with a narcissist makes it incredibly difficult to create new, healthy relationships.
The feeling of “being stuck” may also make us WANT to believe that we’re actually the narcissist, the problem is actually US, so we can fix it. It’s an illusion of power, while we may actually know: we’re addicted to this person and this pattern.
We usually don’t love a person who mistreats us. If we “can’t leave”, we’re in some way attached to them, probably trauma-bonded. A healthy person doesn’t feel that being exploited or traumatized and being loved can somehow coexist.
You also might want to think, if we already know that a person is highly narcissistic, why do we expect anything else from them? This toxic hope is illogical. With all things considered, we might agree that narcissism is highly parasitical and narcissistic abuse or being brought up by one or two narcissistic caregivers usually turns a person into … something else.
Something like a vampire thrall. Not a vampire themselves, usually, but at least a thrall. The host of a parasite / a parasitical program / a dysfunctional patern for relationships in which you might be the everlasting losing party.
Narcissistic/codependent relationships are a form of emotional slavery/enslavement, not love.
It’s important to get rid of our dysfunctional patterns, whatever they may be, so we can start having healthy relationships.
The way things are for many survivors of narcissistic abuse, is that most survivors are highly functional in toxic relationships, but not necessarily in healthy ones. This means they want to get along with and bond with abusive and exploitative people, they are “naturally” (or rather un-naturally) drawn to them – due to their childhood programming.
Usually, the attraction isn’t just one-sided, as in a handsome, charming narcissist comes along and swipes them off their feet. That and the idealization phase are only one half of the equation. The other half is: the more codependent or less narcissistic “partner” (victim) is drawn to these types of people, for whatever the reason.
Healthy relationships might feel boring and empty, because a person who grew up with narcissists may have learned to identify trauma as love. It takes time and dedication to unlearn this pattern.
One dysfunctional pattern may be that someone (the victim) is used to getting “love” or some form of validation from an exploitative person in a one-sided “relationship” / fakelationshit (my term).
The first step to unlearn these patterns is to go no contact with all the highly narcissistic people in your life. Depending on how many narcissists versus healthy people you have in your life, this may be the hardest thing you’ve ever done.
Some people may end up with absolutely no one, because all of their connections are based on the same old patterns from their dysfunctional childhood.
The period of time in which we learn new patterns may be isolating and lonely – and therefore, actually more painful than wondering “wait, maybe I am the narcissist”.
The sad news is, a narcissist probably suffers much less than a person who constantly questions themselves. Because a narcissist will be perfectly fine with blaming the other person and moving on. The victim, however, loses either way.
You can either provide the perfect supply for the narcissist while getting nothing of real, emotional value in return, or you can start standing up for yourself or even just waking up a little and, as a result, be dismissed and discarded by the narcissist.
The only way to win yourself back is to lose the narcissist.
If you often want to peacefully talk about the problems in your relationship and the other person constantly dismisses you, which then makes you frustrated, angry and sad – this doesn’t mean that “you’re the narcissist”. It probably means that the other person is dismissive and doesn’t take you seriously. It’s also not a sign of appreciation. A person who appreciates you is going to care about finding a common ground with you. They’re going to care about your feelings and finding a way that is good for the both of you, with you.
A dismissive person, whether they’re narcissistic or not, is simply not relationship material and you should leave them be and move along.
Having a relationship means relating to one another.
A dismissive person doesn’t want to relate to you. – They might want to TAKE what you have to offer, but they still won’t be relating to you, which is, by definition, exploitative and narcissistic.