Why Is A Narcissist A Narcissist? How Did They Get This Way? 

Energy Vampires

'Dementor' is another name

Perfect description! I call them energy vampires!

Yes my twin had the life sucked out of her, totally controlled.

I understanding completely.

I refuse to bow to the narc(dad), one of his brothers, or accomodate their nonsense!

Now that I know it's a real thing, I TRY to not take it personal as I always did. They can't love you anymore than a cat can fly. Now that I understand it some and it actually does make sense, I see it as a natural way to be in feminism.

The sarcastic smirk. Well said.

Daniel, You are 100% Correct. I will never forget that Devil Smirk on her Face. I Walked Away from her and Dumped her. Get away stay away. The Reap what they Sow. KARMA gets to delivered to them like a FEDEX PACKAGE.

Penelope Lambson Do you think that the idea of vampires was created from narcissistic relationships? They suck the life out of their victims.

That's why you keep away from them. Far, far away if possible.! We have to understand them the same way we understand any other indiviual who would cause us and those we love harm. To protect ourselves. Narcissists usually don't stick around once they know you are onto them.

My husband always referred to his mother as the energy vampire. Hanging around her you feel your life energy being drained immediately. They DO steal your energy, it’s a fact! They will cause damage to your body so stay away!

All one sided, and it's us who have to take measures on fixing ourselves, but they don't have to do that? I understand that self-reflecting and looking within is a means to better one's self and quality of life as well as relationships with others, but these people only deal with their own material and flesh-related desires and have no sense to realize that in all fairness, they need to look at themselves and work on themselves, but they won't. They're so convinced by their own lies.

Oh yes. Everyone in my family has constantly had to say '' oh you know what she is like let's just go with what she wants" and numerous similar sayings. Let's all spend our lives tiptoeing around the mood swings or perceived wrongs we have all done. It's always everyone else that has caused the issues.

Absolutely bang on. Sadly for me it's my mother and underneath it all is extreme insecurity but the fallout of that is huge for so many people. It's caused damage that can never be repaired.

@Don X Don't kid yourself, Don, this type of deep seated insecurity isn't cured by money, fame, or success. If they are trying to fool you into believing they are happy now... it's just an attempt to overcompensate to try and fool you... and themselves. I guarantee they cry themselves to sleep just like before.

Right on!

@Don X Totally agree with you. It's the ones who aren't narcissistic who have been left the hard work.

Agreed!

Thanks.

And set in Stone

My mom often used 'by hookb or by crook'.

Was married to a narc for 25 yrs. I expressed poor anger management and passive aggressive anger too as a result of being in the toxic relationship. It has affected my daughters. How do we heal ?

Funny you said that because everytime my narc boyfriend abused me while i was already hurt, the next day hed get hurt in a similar way. For example in an argument he started, i had a broken toe, and he of course made it 10x harder than it needed to be, threw a lighter at my face at one point, the next day he got a bad cyst on his shoulder and was in bed for a few days. If he had his toe broken, my lord hed expect me to drop anything and everything even if mine was broken as well to help him. If i treated him how he treated me if the roles were reversed, my god hed see me as the most evil person alive, how DARE I. But once i bring myself up where hes not a victim in, im a selfish, needy b word lol

@@lunabinofsin - I hope that your out of that relationship.

I can’t wait for this day. He abuses me daily, lies “habitual liar”, he cheats and all in all is a horrific person. I can’t wait for him to get his.

@@MariaArriaga - And he will ! God bless you.

Facts ! Notice how old friends avoid them, family eventually despises them. I have seen several die, miserable and alone. I have zero sympathy for them. The only good one is a dead one.

I tend to agree ...

Being an empath is a great virtue! Please don’t change who you are! Empaths are great leaders!

@@davidoaikhena4380 I would assert that empathy should be a prerequisite for any leader, anywhere. Narcs should be universally shunned out of all leadership roles. The crux of the problem is that they run this world according to their beliefs.

💛🍀

Lets not throw out the word superior. Kinda playing a similar game of the narcissist just with a different trait

Me too Maureen. 19 years and I just figured it out three months ago. Slow detachment, like the popping of octopus tentacles is working for me. I hope that helps. Blessings💖

I’m right there with you ladies :( going on 17 years, have two little ones and pregnant with my third. I was so blind, and thought he would/could change, so many empty promises.. he’s never changed and it’s a vicious cycle, and he almost broke me. I’m also looking for a way out, and trying my beat to not let my fear of the unknown keep me stuck in this toxic relationship.

Im free now for 9 years but its been a hard road to recovery, I have CPSTD so its alot to cope with .........but nothing like my old life, suffered for over 20 years......... life is just so peaceful now, You will all know when the time is right to get out all the best to you sending (((((( hugs))))))) happiness is waiting on the other side of the rainbow👏

All you commenting here, another great resource is a good fb group called "Healing from hidden abuse - Narcissistic and toxic relationships." Besides being confirmed about what you're going through, some posts (comments) explain how to save money secretly so that you can get out, and others are posts from people explaining how they got out and how their life is now. So it's full of a variety of ways you can process all of this.

Ladies... have you guys found a way out? I'm trying... trying to get out of mines. It's a serious mental pain.... I am mentally drained it's not even funny anymore.

Thank you Dr.Carter.Your teachings gave me back my life.l am 80 yrs old. and have a new perspective on life . Thank you Martha

So true. They didn't care if I worked if I did they desired my money for alcohol and cigarettes and shit.

Zane Yenny So true. Walking on eggshells. I used to savor the good, peaceful times, as I never knew when the next bomb would explode.

Well put

Never ever accept you are crazy 😂🤷‍♂️ That’s their aim to discredit you! They are the crazy ones 😜 Be bold and confident and enjoy you life!

Sooo true. Overall it's a waste of time pinpointing their faults and exposing it to them because all they will do is deny it or play the word toss games and try to confuse you and make you believe their mode of reasoning. Just leave them alone.

Laura J this just happened to me yesterday. I was trying to talk then she all of a sudden was “stealing” my words that I use but she don’t. I looked at her completely confused and laughed and said “wtf u don’t talk like that trying to steal my words and wisdom “. She stomped off as usual

OMG this is so True! Being honest or authentic with people that have NPD is putting bullets into the gun that’ll be used to shoot you in the face. NEVER, ever give them an honest thought or feeling. That shared vulnerability will be turned against you every time. It may not be for quite some time but they’ve got the ability to store that information away and use it against you. It’s ok to talk about the weather or do a lot of “hmmmm” but authenticity, NEVER!!!!!

@@itm4173 Isn't is amazing how they Never remember saying "this or that" but they always remember what you say and use it against you.

@@drewowings2515 Oh Yes, the "stomping off" game! Catch them in a lie or one of their games, and off they go. I can not count how many times I've said "I just said that." Simply talking to these people can make you feel "bonkers."

This sounds like my boyfriend who Ive been with for a year and a half. His mother abused him. I find it very hard being with him, but I think there’s a part of me that pities him….he can be so nasty to me, and yet I love him 😮 I would like to leave, but I’m afraid I’ll miss him…😢 Talk about being mixed up in my head!

You describe my father, exactly! I am not in contact with him for my well-being. I don't have to put up with his bull....anymore(nor did I)!

I completely agree. I feel the same way.

They go for people who are in needy circumstances

Nobody can handle narcissists to be honest. Besides other narcissists, but that would just be destruction from both sides

@@fran791 Not all narcissists are malignant. It's a psychological disorder of the personality. It isn't any more an indicator of being evil or vile than it would be for the average person. We need to get away from this idea that all narcissists are evil malfeasants. It's just not how it works.

@@CorinneIsIn I didn't mean to say that they're evil, I meant to say that they can't really have healthy relationships that aren't one sided. That's what I meant by "they can't be handled". They rarely can last in a normal relationship. And putting 2 narcissists together wouldn't really help because it would just be 2 egocentric immature people together and that's not a situation that would allow true love to thrive

I appreciate the nice nice compliment, Mario. Dr. C

I had a wonderful father! Men respected him and he treated my mother like a queen! But, I still married 2 narcissists! What a nightmare!

Mario, You can choose who you want to be! Do not allow yourself to make mistakes your own father may have! Examine yourself and be a better man! Slow to speak and quick to listen!

I agree. I wish I knew him years ago might have saved me from the psychopath I was married to and can't get him to sign divorce papers.

I wish this too!😊

We need to constantly work on our inner self - be aware of the bad and the good and try to correct what we can

Oh and isn't it the struggle of everday? Thank you. People used to say it's being "stubborn " I'm not talking about loading a dishwasher lol. I mean the road. Staying on the road that's both fulfilling and ethical.

Thank you for saying this.

That's exactly how it feels. Like you've sacrificed yourself. Sacrificed your happiness for theirs.

@@IndohNintendo if you look up the word enmeshment meaning on the internet you will find out it looks the same as well.

Yes! Dr. C

Sometimes Gus IS my pillow.

That's what I'm doing..the more I know the more I ignore and dismiss

The fact that you worry about being that way, shows that you are NOT that way.

Wow, I needed to hear that today. I worried about that too. I know of assimilation, and don’t feel like it is discussed often enough.

@@belindamydogsteppedonabee2445 but we work that way unconsciously even we worry about it

I'm hugging you right now, virtually. I went through the same as you have, so sorry 😢

Yep! Dr. C

Yes! A perfect, calm, amiable person at the office and a controlling, mental abuser at home.

Yes, I personally witnessed the Dr. Heckle/Mr. Hyde affect during a three-month relationship with my narcissist. They know out in public people watch them and they turn on the charm. It’s disturbingly fascinating though to witness this.

Most helpful comment ever! Thank you

i was looking for a comment like this, everyone is talking about their experience with a narcissist and i feel bad because ive started to notice more and more of narc traits on myself but im also very empathic which is the only thing that stands out from these i hope we both heal and not cause anyone else trauma

😅😅😅😂👍

Susan Bird,You look stunning,hope you are not with a narcissist.....

Thanks, Barb, and Gus thanks you. Dr. C

Keep learning, Andrea, and best wishes moving forward! Dr. C

@@SurvivingNarcissism thank you for your kind response. I will do my best and be my best. All the best to you, Sincerely, Andrea

colleencpc1 I’m starting to think my son is.....It’s heartbreaking......💔

Is heartbreaking

Omg that’s horrifying…. it’s obvious you are strong, smart, and a very effective communicator…. Glad you got though this ❤‍🔥🌠

Man that guy was a master manipulator

Thank you so much. Sadly when I left the narcissist he told my oldest son now 28 that his biological father who died from leukemia was not his real dad. He told him I stole his college savings and other horrible lies about me. My son stopped speaking to me in 2020. I thought I was healed but instead live in grief everyday over the loss of a loving relationship with my son. This man is pure evil. He most recently married a wealthy and orthodox doctor. She is clueless and he is a much better and more evolved master manipulator. I know he didn’t marry for love. We have a biological daughter together and recently she told me how she feels her father is so fake and phony as he now acts like he is this orthodox religious guy.

I wonder if the traits are correlated with other things, like eye colour...in my family, my mom and brother have blue eyes and seem to have the same ability to empathize. Mine are green and I think my dad's are too. Im not sure what he is, other than brainwashed by my mom (and an alcoholic) but he and I are more similar in in a few ways than I am to my mom or brother. Things that make you go hmmmm...

I don't conclude this, but with my brother, he was tramatized by things that we could not have known. I think back about the time that our older brother and I were scaring him about shadows in the dark bedroom we shared. He believed "there is a wife in the closet!" I think he meant witch. I would suggest that the movie we watched every year, "The Wizard of Oz", ws the source of this fear. He got in trouble much more than his older brothers, and apparently he was seeking attention in doing so. Recently he told me that I was an "awesome" brother. In the end, he is much like our father was---- a genius with high EQ--- that was a threat to the rule-makers. Both my dad was, and my brother is, a good man in a sick culture.

​@@carefulcarpenter how exactly was he a threat?

@@sheilajac His high EQ, and his genius in general. Men are very threatened by these qualities. My mother was a career RN. She told me that my dad was the smartest man she knew. I understood what she was telling me. Dr Fauci. He is the top medical expert in our nation?

@@carefulcarpenter I'm Canadian. Maybe its just me, but "Dr Fauci" sounds like a perfect name for a villain, lol

I hope you heal, you are self-aware and admitting to it, that's more than almost every other narcissist and I wish you a better life, for yourself, and for others. You sound as if you _want_ to change and that's the first step most never take. Keep on trying,

Thanks for these good comments, Katherine. Dr. C

Yeah, the distancing I needed from my mother was necessary and a hard thing to do, the whole family shunned me, but it was worth it. They all tried to play guilt trips on me. I was the typical overachiever, self-sacrificing one.

My mother is this way, and I managed to produce a daughter who is very similar, even though the two rarely had contact. My daughter likes to tell everyone I was abusive, but she has also told blatant lies about me to everyone, so how much of it was my fault? Her father and his mother are narcs as well, so maybe the deck was stacked against her from the beginning. For whatever I may have done to contribute to it, I’m sorry, but what can I do about it now? She has cut off her entire family, except for when she needs something. I refuse to enable her.

As for the empathy part, I was born an empath and I can see that some people just don’t have that in them. My sisters for example were cold hearted and didn’t care about others from the get go. They wouldn’t stand up against any injustice being done to others like I naturally would. I have noticed that zodiac signs has something to do with it sort of. They were air signs, Gemini and Aquarius, and these people are low on empathy naturally. There’s a pattern, a tendency for them to be stuck in their heads only and not having a heart. That’s what I think.

@@christar9527 I'm empath to a fault, and Gemini sun sign. I think you're observation is overly simplistic.

April, all my mother's friends. as well as my mother were all cold narcissistic mothers. they were all so sharp mouthed and uncaring, finger pointing, blaming cold, cold women. how men could love them I do not know. but in my father's case I think it was simple, he fell in love with my mother's looks, and he lived in the bed he had made for himself

We talk shop a lot! Dr. C

Thanks Elizabeth. Love received, with gratitude. Dr. C

M McCormick Tomlinson,You deserve better

I wouldn't trust myself with a rock in my pocket.

What is that They are vampires .. peolle around them specially family get hurt physically and mentally

I have a gray pebble

Speak my mind. We all need something. I keep a black twisty tie wrapped around my index finger. I rub it or look at it to remind myself that I'm better than that

Speak My Mind, thank you for sharing how you get through word salad times; with the narc, I'm going to try that.

You are not crazy 🤣😂🤣 Don’t let them put it in you! That’s their mantra to discredit you to family and friends! They are the ones that are CRAZY, I say to their faces eyeball to eyeball 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

Keep up the good effort! Dr. C

@@SurvivingNarcissism Thank you!

My son was like that, pushed me away when I tried to hold him in a gentle cuddle always... like he couldn't take the affection!? He began lying about everything and nothing from about age 4. I noted a couple of other comments that specified the age of 4 when things became noticed. I think it's mostly in the DNA, and maybe some events in childhood add to it or hard-wire it. I noticed how he was all his life, very difficult to deal with, no empathy, not honest at all. Now he's middle aged and it just hit me that he's a covert narcissist. Painful to see the truth

@@LuvBritTV My sister lied a lot at an early age. She would borrow money from my Mom's friend and buy herself things and she was 6 years old. She would lie and say my Mom asked her to borrow money. She always got what she wanted. Continuously plotting. The saddest part is walking away from them when you don't believe it's there fault for being this way.

@@funnyhunny3407 So sad Sonia, it's hard for you I'm sure. My son stole money out of my wallet and I was a single mom getting zero support! He was buying candy for his little friends at school, and a teacher called me to tell me, I had no idea! I just was just thinking I must've spent it on something and forgot. Then when he was a teen he took the last 20 dollar bill I had in my wallet and THAT I noticed! Plus he got an allowance, and had a part time job! He was an awful teen, I can't begin to tell you, I thought he'd changed as he got older but he had gone covert. I kept living in hope things were getting better with every small thing he did that was 'helpful or kind', took years for me to figure out the truth. Now I see it was intermittent reinforcement to keep me on side in case I might come in handy! Sick! I'm devastated now, but thank you God for showing me the truth. Some of it was because I was a single mother, and had to work, and there was no family support. But I can't blame myself too much, I had no choice. I'm sure it's DNA related, my mother was a narc/alcoholic, and his father was likely a narc now I look back. Now I'm a senior, alone, and just so sad as we're not talking. I am trusting in the Universe to guide me out of this heartache. Peace to you Sonia, hope your life is good. ♥ p.s. editing this to add that I wish Dr. C would do a video on parents that have overt or covert narc kids like me, and how to deal with it. We are not all bad people that raised these kids to be this way! Have some pity and do a video to help us deal with it when we can't just 'walk away' from the problem.

@@LuvBritTV Be strong. You have to support yourself in retirement and you can't allow his energy to come back and exhaust you. Hoping you find happiness in healthy friendships and hobbies. I'm able to distance myself from her and that helps. I wish my Sister well. I hope your son is okay. We have to take care of ourselves!

@@funnyhunny3407 Amen! Thank you, God Bless Sonia. ♥

...even then they brush it of as "u must have done some thing...." ...I've seen that most narcs r not aware of their narc behavior, to them it seems normal & that some thing is wrong with the empath..

Bully. Exactly. As a visual explanation, " He pushes me face down in a mud puddle, takes all my stuff, then walks across my back to avoid the puddle".

I agree. Most people think it's just about an inflated ego or selfishness. They don't know anything about the bullying.

So sad. Dr. C

Rhonna Brown,You are beautiful,I think you deserve better

What narcissistic behaviours did you have?

I don't think you're a level 100 narcissist. Level 100 narcissist will NEVER go to therapy. They refuse it, and deny they ever need it. They paint the other person to be the crazy psycho one and forces that person to seek therapy. If you can make those changes... you are still human. The narcissist that I know has absolutely no sympathy for anyone except himself. The only time he does something for someone is to gain something in return such as making him look innocent. I can write a whole book about this perso. It's very sad and unfortunate... all I want to do is be free from this thing.

Very good that you have chosen to learn to become a better human being. Yes, there's a cure and it's called taking accountability. Others have to relearn hard things as adults too and it can take years in therapy etc to become somewhat healthy balanceed individual. We non- narcissists take our responsibility and seek help and the narcissists need to do the same.

Shelly Reed,You are beautiful,hope you are not with a narcissist.....

HaHa! He’s showing us the best way to handle the jerks.

my ex-husband ran up $10,000 when we were young and I was stupid and got a home equity line to pay it off, wished I had made him work 2 jobs. We divorced 30 years ago and he left his wife that he left me for penniless, oh my that could have been me, so glad he left. He said I probably missed him like a bad toothache and he was right!

I wonder if there's a correlation between narcissism and playing candy crush?! My mom plays that stupid game all the time. It's her only hobby. She has a $2000 macbook and that's really all she uses it for.

Sheila Ja. Ha! Funny I know someone else who played it like 8 years solid, (has it existed that long) refusing to help out in the house instead barking orders

She McGee Narcissism and addiction are a 2-for-1 special.

Get back on board here!! Dr. C