A narcissist is unable to experience positive and negative emotions at the same time, so they must split the two to ensure they are kept separate. A person or situation is viewed as either good or bad, and not both. For a narcissist, a person is either placed on a pedestal, or is viewed as unimportant.
Narcissistic Abuse Isolates You From the Outside World
Seeking continuously (as in every hour of every day) to convince others, and perhaps even more themselves, that their false mask of superiority is real, narcissists isolate those close to them to control what “their loved ones” reflect and reveal about them.
Narcissistic splitting is a coping mechanism used by people with narcissistic personality disorder to maintain their inflated sense of self-worth. It creates a dualistic world where everything is either black or white, good or bad.
At the end of a relationship, a narcissist will often spiral down a long-winded gauntlet of manipulation tactics. They may blame you for causing the relationship to fail, work hard to keep you to stay with them, make lofty promises to change their behavior, or badmouth you to everyone around them.
People who are already in relationships may be deemed more desirable, attracting grandiose narcissists. It is also possible that grandiose narcissists simply ignore others' relationship statuses and pursue the person they find to be desirable and potentially available to them.
It is never a good feeling when a narcissist walks out of a relationship. They can break up so abruptly that you may be left behind wondering why things had moved to the point of no return. Rather than drowning yourself in self-pity, you need to take proper action.
Unfortunately for a narcissist, she says, the next person will always end up being boring because time breeds familiarity, requiring the narcissist to look for something new. "They are always waiting for the next new thing," she adds. "You are not boring, narcissists are just bored with everything."
Narcissistic relationships can last anywhere from a few days or weeks to many years. There are anecdotal observations suggesting that the average length of a narcissistic relationship is around six months, but no empirical evidence supports this claim.
Discard/Rejection: When the narcissist gets bored or decides the person is no longer useful enough to them, they'll often end the relationship and 'discard' the person. Sometimes, this ending is final. Other times, a narcissist will use hoovering to lure the person back into the relationship and repeat the cycle.
Narcissists can feel emotional pain, but not usually in the same way as others. The emotional pain they may feel is usually related to underlying selfish needs. Underneath the displays of superiority and sense of entitlement, they often feel empty, powerless, and shameful, which they perceive as weakness.
This is exactly what the narcissist does to people in their life when they no longer feel that person adds value to them. The narcissist sees people as objects they use to meet their needs, and to discard when the person no longer serves a purpose for them.
While a grandiose narcissist may feel the need to put others down in relation to themselves or consider themselves more deserving, a vulnerable narcissist may use comparisons to feel victimized, jealous, or desperate to have what someone else possesses.
A person experiencing a narcissistic collapse may engage in impulsive, risky behaviors such as excessive drinking or substance abuse, unprotected sex, rage outbursts, or self-harm. Narcissists are already prone to impulsive behavior.
The narcissistic abandonment cycle is as follows: Feels shame. It begins with the narcissist feeling shame. It could be shame about childhood abuse, the socioeconomic state of their family, an embarrassing moment, or being exposed as a failure, incompetent, unintelligent, or a fraud.
One of the first things a narcissist does it isolate you from family and friends. They want you to be completely dependent on them and eliminate any support system you have in place.
Narcissists can develop positive feelings toward their partner, although many have trouble sustaining a relationship more than six months to a few years. Those that marry lack the motivation to maintain a façade. As soon as the romance ends, fault-finding begins.
It is common for people with a narcissistic personality disorder to regret discarding or losing someone, but it does not mean what you might think. If they feel regret, it is not because they hurt you. It is for losing something that they value. You are a possession, not a real person.
Therefore the narcissist seems to move on so fast because their emotions are not as deep as ours but also, they don't form memories in the same way the rest of us do. For most of us it's the memories which keep us attached to someone and unable to move on.
They are likely to give you the fight of your life because they're not done with you yet. Narcissists hate losing their supply of attention, so they won't let you go easily. Prepare for them to promise "to change." They might suddenly start doing things for you that you'd been complaining about.
It's a phenomenon called the narcissistic abuse cycle. This cycle is broken down into three important phases: idealization, devaluation, and rejection. By understanding these key points, people who are struggling with narcissism or those who are in a relationship with a narcissist can get the help they need.
Over time, narcissists usually push their responsibilities onto their significant others. Narcissists don't care for the boring routines of life. Such as house work, paying bills, looking after children etc. And over time, ALL these things become you're responsibility.
The narcissist will never be happy.
“They simply don't feel good about themselves.” Despite incalculable self-importance, the narcissist doesn't have high self-esteem. They coat themselves in praise and approval from others to hide their biggest fear.
The narcissist will only enter into a friendship if it will benefit them in some way. Most people will see they are being used by the narcissist and will end the friendship. The narcissist may make friends easily, but they lack lifelong friends.