Mental Health: How To Deal With The Narcissist In Your Life

Photo by Thought Catalog at Burst

I know someone with whom I rarely disagree... but not because our views always concur. In fact, I find a great deal of what she says abhorrent, but if I express this, even in the mildest terms, she will most likely fly into a rage or label me with some awful personality trait that explains why I don't agree. Matters to disagree on come thick and fast, as she is a prolific ranter, airing her extreme views and intolerances, along with pompous declarations of 'how things should be', which are often utterly incompatible with accepted social norms and expectations.

This person firmly believes she is above most people – an important person and entitled to special treatment. If she doesn't get this, she becomes angry and resentful, and the ranting starts over. She is always right; alternative views are scorned without a second's consideration.

A fine example in this person's canon of rants is the public breastfeeding one. According to her, it is beyond disgusting, the mother is showing off, it's on the same level of indecency as urinating in a public place or having oral sex in a restaurant, and it absolutely should be banned. Yes – she actually said that, to me, then a mother of two young children who I had breastfed, sometimes in difficult and embarrassing situations and sometimes in great pain (and she knew that). I sat there, inwardly fuming at this vile, hurtful and anti-people remark, but not daring to call her out for it, as I knew that her opinion was unshakable and she would have become enraged if I had.

So, for most of the time I spend with her, I murmur noises of agreement – which only serve to strengthen her convictions that she is always right – whilst inside, my blood is boiling. 

She constantly seeks to exert her superiority over people and I suspect ramps it up for people who threaten her sense of importance. She does this in several ways:

She bigs herself up: she seeks out and associates with hi-status people (in her eyes) and uses the fact that this person is her 'friend' and therefore holds her in high regard, to elevate her own importance and validate her world view. This places her on a higher platform, from which she can lecture and patronise everyone else. She believes, for example, that her GP knows her better than all the other patients and has something of a soft spot for her. She also believes that most people waste their doctor's time with trivial complaints; she only visits when there is really something wrong – which is probably why the doctor likes her so much. 

She puts others down to achieve superiority: gaslighting, blaming, nasty remarks or labelling with a negative personality trait. Her favourite tactic is to claim that someone's sanity is in question. I guess, in her mind, since she is always right, people must be mad if they don't agree with her.

She also ensures that everyone sees and acknowledges that she is at least one cut above most normal (stupid) people. She has accomplished a number of impressive things but elicits constant worship by being excessively modest and under-celebrating her achievements. This has the double effect of making people feel inferior and (perhaps to redress this) that they need to show or remind her how amazing she is. The more they do this, the more self-deprecating she becomes to keep the praise coming in. This inverse bragging is boosted further by her outward contempt for anyone who dares to revel in their own achievements, with a thinly veiled 'they haven't done half as much as me, and look at them boasting!'

She puts herself at the centre: everything orbits around her, and, like a child, behaves as if all things, whether good or bad, happen because of her or for her. Her emails are dense with self-referencing - I, I, I. She reacts to the most unconnected things as if she was the intended recipient, because she's so special. And if she thinks someone has forgotten that she’s special and important, she’ll lose the plot, like responding with fury if invited to a party that clashes with something she already had planned: how can that person be so inconsiderate?

And no matter how nice I am, how much interest I show, how sympathetic to her problems I am, how much support I offer, I never get anything back. This is because she thinks she is entitled to the way I treat her and I'm not. I don't think she has ever asked me, in a truly authentic, non self-serving way, how I am or wished me luck or asked for an update on a problem I might have had last time we spoke. She expects praise and gets angry with people who don't give her enough but never authentically offers any herself. If I offer her a drink, the response is simply, 'Yes,' or 'No,' – no please or thank you. I find the mum in me constantly wanting to jump out and correct her, as my children would never get away with that level of rudeness. But I wouldn't dare.

I'm not known for reining in my views or holding back from challenging someone else's, so why do I do it with her?

For years, I puzzled over how to deal with this person. Why am I so submissive with her? Why do I allow her to say and do these things? Why do I let her make me feel so bad?

And then, one day, after a particularly unpleasant time with her, I Googled 'how to deal with a difficult person', and the trusty internet provided the answer: narcissism

As I read through the description, all the puzzle pieces slotted into place. Initially, it seemed some of the 'red flags' didn't apply to her, but as I thought about it, I realised they all did. For example, I never realised how much she lies - she is always so convincing and forthright and compels you to believe her, with her army of people or 'evidence' to back her up - but, oh, my goodness, she does! She achieves this by gaslighting (twisting facts/blame-shifting) and exaggerating to the point that her accounts are simply not true. Electronic communications have revealed some absolute howlers which confirm that my long-held gut feelings have always been accurate: she bullshits.

Following my discovery, I then eagerly looked to find what I'd really been searching for – how do I deal with this person, how do I come away from being with her without that knotted-up, frustrated, I've-gone-and-let-her-do-it-again feeling?

And the answer – you don't. In a nutshell, that's pretty much it. As I trawled through the tips for dealing with a narcissist, the most recurring advice was to try not to argue with someone with it because you will never win. Great. There was even advice, in light of the damaging effects of being with a narcissist, to consider ending the relationship or at least keeping them at a distance (known as 'grey rock'). Not easy if it's a close family member, spouse or work colleague. There was a great deal about working on your own self-esteem and making sure you knew in your own mind who you were and what your strengths were so that Mr/Ms Narcissist could not put a different version of 'you' in its place. Again, doable, but the effects of narcissism are so toxic, you would need a cast-iron sense of self to remain unaffected.

Unlike most personality disorders, narcissism is rarely diagnosed and even if it is, it's very hard to treat. This is because the very traits of narcissism prevent sufferers from accepting a diagnosis or subsequent treatment – they're not the ones in the wrong, everyone else is!

And so, I am left feeling both empowered and disempowered: I now have this knowledge – I know what to call this thing and have the information to try and understand it and, to an extent, why it makes me feel the way I do. But in some ways, I feel more at a loss as there seems to be little I can actually do to turn things around and make this a happier relationship.

So, what can I do? I have come up with some tactics based on responding rather than reacting, making my boundaries clear, all the while maintaining my dignity and preserving my true sense of self.

For starters, I am going to try to convey to her, in as many ways as I can, that I do not single her out for special treatment. I want her to understand that I ask everyone how they are, that I will compliment anyone on their looks or achievements, that I sympathise with everyone's problems and offer help equally to all my friends and family and that I don't give extra thanks and praise to her for birthday/Christmas presents, in essence, I don't give her special treatment. This may irritate the hell out of her, and it will do nothing for her belief that she is exempt from having to do such things herself, but at least it will assert the notion that I treat everyone the same, and I do not consider her life circumstances to warrant her special status.

I am also going to try really hard to stop making noises of agreement, which validate the outrageous things she says, and attempt to do so without offering an opposing view that could lead to an argument - in other words, not chase her down those rabbit holes. This is not going to be easy as I will be faced with a choice of awkward silence versus stating that I don't agree. Very hard to move on from either.

Then the nasty, hurtful and humiliating put-downs. I might try simply labelling the behaviour: 'Hm, a bit harsh', or try to deflect it: 'That's not what most people say about me', or the lovely one I heard recently: 'you are entitled to your faulty perception of me'.

I will try – and this is hard for a 'normal' person, who naturally wants to celebrate others' achievements – not to give her much praise or, at least, ensure I always counter it with positive comments about other peoples' successes.

I will capitalise on 21st-century technology by communicating as much as I can through texts and emails, You can garner your thoughts so much better when not being beared down upon by an intimidating, unreasonable person and make your point clear without being interrupted (as she always does).

In essence, I am going to set clear boundaries - if she pushes them, I will assert them, not by fighting her fire with my own and getting dragged down with her illogical 'word salad', but with healthy communication that states how I expect to be treated and (if necessary) that she has fallen short of that. And then ensure that she doesn't make me responsible for her ensuing anger - the mushroom clouds are hers to own.

Finally, I will try to bolster my own self-esteem and non-belief in the image of me that she tries to purport.

Narcissism is awful. It poisons relationships and damages people. If you are living with a narcissist, you have my every sympathy, and I urge you, for your sake, to learn more about it, seek advice and take mitigating steps. There's no changing a narcissist, and you may never win the argument, but you might just be able to make their victory less sweet.