Signs of Narcissism
As I reflect on my experience with narcissistic people and add in the stories I hear from my clients, I see so many consistent signs that should be taken as red flags when entering into or staying in a relationship. Here’s what I’ve observed.
They believe they’re smarter than everyone else.
Narcissists are “know it alls”. They believe they are smarter than doctors, lawyers, police officers, and they will let you know it. My ex husband told everyone that he was smarter than one of his best friends who was a doctor, and that he would have been a much better doctor if he had chosen that path. He didn’t have any evidence that this would be true; he relied on his puffed up ego and was driven by his jealousy of his doctor friend. I’m not suggesting that everyone who does this should be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, but I can say that this behavior is toxic and very narcissistic.
They live in subjective rather than objective reality.
They are deniers of everyone else’s truth, and this is why we use the term “gaslighting”. The term gaslighting can be applied in several ways, but the core of the definition is to deny someone’s truth and reality. Even if all of the evidence points to a specific truth, they will feel confident in denying it, and they will feel entitled to share that with everyone around them. We’ve seen a lot of this in our political candidates and their ability to indoctrinate and create a following of people that denounce the evidence of a truth and believe the narcissist’s subjective truth and manufactured stories.
They feel entitled, and believe it’s their right, to cross every boundary.
Even very obvious ones. For instance, as a part of the financial abuse I went through in my marriage, my ex husband would forge my name on checks so he could move money into new accounts. He opened these accounts in my name, and without my knowledge, and he would feel perfectly comfortable forging my name for his benefit. I discovered this towards the end of my marriage when he called me and said he had to “sign my name” on a check so he could move some money into a different account. Only in this case, the bank couldn’t verify the signature and wanted to speak with me. When I pressed him on why he had to forge my name, he stated I wasn’t around to sign the check. I reminded him that I lived with him and that it was never okay to forge my name. This obvious boundary was broken several times after that incident. He had no respect for my own personhood and autonomy.
They are always the victim.
Because of the narcissist’s inability to take feedback or accountability, they take on the role of the victim. They frame negative situations around disrespect and unfairness. Covert narcissists are especially good at this because outsiders only see their charm and quickly believe their claims of harm because they appear to be such an upstanding person. The narcissist’s enablers run to their side to protect them because they have been dutifully trained to be loyal. Some believe the narcissist, others just don’t want to get on their bad side because of their wrath so they’re willing to support the narcissist in their victim role.
When I called out my husband on illegally forging my name on a check, he went right to my lack of respect for him. You can also call this behavior blame-shifting, but it’s done in a way to support their claim of being a victim because of disrespect. His toxic thinking was ‘how could I disrespect him’ when he was making money to support our family?
They generalize people groups.
Narcissists have a very fixed mindset. They believe intelligence and talent are static; they tend to avoid challenges in order to avoid failure; they ignore feedback from others; they feel threatened by the success of others; and they hide flaws so as not to be judged by others. They see things in black or white - right or wrong - good or bad. If, for instance, they’ve had one negative experience with a police officer, then all police officers are bad. Their belief in this becomes unchangeable. Usually this happens because someone in the designated group has called them out or is trying to hold them accountable. A fixed mindset leads to bias, stereotype and prejudice. Having one viewpoint of a race, ethnicity, gender, occupation, religion or any other category is toxic, judgmental and dangerous.
Reach out if you are observing one or more of these signs in a relationship and want to better understand how to stay out of the spin cycle of narcissistic behaviors and patterns.
