Dominates the conversation: Covert narcissists may become aggressive and start to provoke or intimidate you in order to be proven right or have you back down. Lying and denial: Since they will try to win the argument at any cost, they may lie about what happened and deny facts to confuse you, similar to gaslighting.
Arguing with a narcissist can be extremely difficult — people with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) feel very little empathy for others and are often manipulative. They may use tactics like turning the blame on you, gaslighting you, and resorting to disrespectful behavor.
Inflated sense of self-importance: A covert narcissist may use more subliminal ways of exerting superiority over others with subtle indications. For example, they may roll their eyes during conversation rather than directly confront someone.
Unlike typical narcissists, covert narcissists have extreme fight or flight reflexes, and when they choose flight, they run hard and fast. Though typical narcissists do not discard people because they crave attention, covert narcissists may go to extreme measures to permanently discard you.
Covert narcissists tend to “rage” by talking more calmly yet incessantly for hours and hours until you say you are sorry for things that you were not responsible for. They want you to bow down to them to control you. They express rage overtly when alone with the victim.
Childhood trauma or abuse: Traumatic experiences in childhood are a common cause of covert narcissism. Physical, sexual, and mental abuse or neglect could lead to overwhelming shame, loss, or deprivation that causes psychological damage to a child, leading to covert narcissistic personalities as an adult.
Grooming a person, manipulating her into doubting her feelings, generating shame regarding her best qualities, and manipulatively creating dependency are four ways a narcissist destroys a person from the inside out.
People with narcissism tend not to like seeing other people happy. When they see you happy, the best thing you can do is to stay firm on your boundaries, focus on the present and what makes you happy, and avoid getting into arguments. They might try to hurt you to disrupt your peace and justify their actions.
People with covert narcissism are likely to experience depression, anxiety, and symptoms of other personality disorders, such as borderline personality disorder.
Once challenged, or worse, exposed for the fraud they might be, a narcissist can really fly off the handle. They regard challenging or exposure as the ultimate insult for them. It's embarrassing for others to see the truth. This sparks their rage.
In narcissists' efforts to avoid blame, they often combine several fake apologies at once, such as, “I am sorry if I said anything to offend you, but I have strong opinions. Maybe you're too sensitive,” or, “I guess I should tell you I am sorry. But you know I would never deliberately hurt you.
A monumental weakness in the narcissist is the failure to look internally and flesh out what needs to be worked on. Then, of course, the next step is to spend time improving. The narcissist sabotages any possibility of looking deep within.
Examples of narcissistic rage range from intense outbursts and sudden fits of anger, to passive-aggressive acts such as simmering resentment, icy silence, deliberate neglect, or cutting sarcasm.
Narcissists generally dislike spending too much time alone. They crave attention from others because it provides them with validation. But they can also be introverted and enjoy their own solitude. Whether they want to be alone at a given moment varies based on their mood, desires, and current connections to others.
Narcissists are motivated by feeling superior and expanding their power, and so the only things that matter when helping others are receiving adulation, fame, influence, opportunities, notoriety, and other resources. They dont actually care about others because to them other people are just things to use.
Covert narcissists may not be aware of their toxic behaviors or they may not know their behavior is stemming from a personality disorder. This isn't an excuse for acting in hurtful ways, but it is something to keep in mind when dealing with a narcissist.
Covert narcissists may be more likely to engage in aggressive behaviors because of their tendency to interiorize their pain and resentment. This could lead them to act out suddenly and unexpectedly in some situations.
They ignore you because they want to control you. One of the main reasons why a narcissist ignores you is that they want to control you. More likely, they want to regain control of you. A narcissist uses ignoring people as a way to punish them.
Although narcissists act superior, entitled and boastful, underneath their larger-than-life facade lies their greatest fear: That they are ordinary. For narcissists, attention is like oxygen. Narcissists believe only special people get attention.
What is the narcissistic abuse cycle? It is a pattern of behavior that is often seen in relationships where one person has a narcissistic personality disorder. It typically consists of four phases: idealization, devaluation, discarding, and hoovering.
Wives of covert narcissist husbands often end up feeling "done to" before these same wives gradually withdraw sexually. He'll then resent you for your lack of sexual interest, despite his showing no genuine interest. Your "disinterest" in "pleasing him sexually" is a constant insult he must endure.