- A grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
- Preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
- Believes he or she is ‘special’ and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with other special or high-status people (or institutions)
- Requires excessive admiration
- A very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
- Is exploitative of others, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
- Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
- Is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her
- Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
I started researching Narcissism and realized right away that I was in fact dealing with a narcissist.
The Narcissism cycles go through the following phases:
1. Idealization or ‘Honeymoon’ stage.
This is the phase where love-bombing occurs. You meet whom you believe to be Mr. Right because you can relate to him on a deep level. He spends most of his free time messaging you, calling you, asking you what you are doing, sending you selfies, or asking to see you. You feel so valued and important to the narcissist! One thing you must realize is that they chose you because they saw something within you that they could use for their own needs such as your health, wealth, younger age, social status, etc. Narcissists want a piece of what you have.
2. Devalue stage.
After a period of a few weeks or months, the narcissist will grow bored. He or she will begin to devalue you by a number of tactics. Victims of abuse are often unaware this stage has begun; their intuition is niggling them that something has changed and it’s often hard to put a finger on it. Narcissists play a public game and a private game which makes it harder to understand. Expressing your concerns suddenly turns you into the ‘jealous one’ and they make you doubt yourself. They become cold and uncaring almost overnight. This is when the ‘mask falls,’ and you see the real person. They make excuses, and if we don’t accept these excuses, then we are the ‘crazy’ one. They are managing down your expectations from constant contact to crickets. This verbal and emotional abuse hurts.
3. Discard stage.
Many victims often say the ‘discard’ came out of the blue and that everything was fine, then they get a phone call, text, or Facebook message dismissing them in a cold and hurtful way. In the devalue stage the narcissist went hot and cold. The narcissist discards you when your usefulness has run out. There is only one reason you were ever in the narcissist’s life – which was to provide ‘attention.’ The energy allows the narcissist to self-regulate his or her fragile and precarious False Self. And if the ‘attention’ you are providing is not good enough quality for the narcissist anymore, or if you have threatened the False Self in such a way that undermines the narcissist’s fabricated image, he or she may cease all investment in you and begin the quest to secure another source of better grade narcissistic supply, aka looking for another person to date.
