You may suddenly find yourself dealing with a fully activated emotional toddler having a hissy fit. And when this happens, it’s important that you stay safe. Be smart and do whatever you need to do to take care of and protect yourself and anyone else who may be vulnerable.
The bottom line is this: rejecting a narcissist in any way is a huge blow to their overinflated and incredibly fragile ego. Even the covert narcissist has an enormous ego. They’re just better at hiding it initially. The reality is that both the covert and the overt narcissist are split off from their true self and authentic core. So the mere hint of criticism, rejection, or abandonment will be very difficult for them to bear.
But why is that? Well, more than anything, when you choose to ignore the narcissist, you are cutting off their source of narcissistic supply—meaning your attention and your emotional reactivity to their hurtful attitudes and behavior. And when you ignore a narcissist and deny them that emotional and energetic supply, they may very well become enraged and try even harder for your attention—possibly in ways that can be terribly abusive.
Although they’ll definitely try to hide it, deep down they’ll feel humiliated and lash out against you one way or another in an attempt to protect their false persona—the one they’ve worked so hard to convince everyone is the truth of who they are.
The real truth, however, is that despite outward appearances underneath the mask and false persona, narcissistic people are actually incredibly vulnerable and hyper-sensitive to even the slightest threat of perceived rejection—never mind actual abandonment. Narcissistic people have deep rejection sensitivity and can be highly reactive in response to even the most subtle hint of perceived criticism, or like I said, abandonment.
And once they realize they are no longer the one in control, they will lash out. You can expect angry texts, voicemails, and rageful tirades. It will become all about the personal attack as they hurl insults at you—usually projecting their own character defects and relationship crimes onto you, which is why so much of what they spew as they rage will make absolutely no sense to you. You know full well that they’re not actually talking about you—who you really are.
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