4 Subtle Ways Covert Narcissists Steal Your Happiness

In this article, I want to highlight the emotions and feelings of sadness of victims of covert narcissistic abuse in an understandable way.

The first thing they do.

They do this energetically, which is why it’s so covert. We usually think of somebody stealing your joy as insulting you or that it is outwardly complex.

In this case, the narcissist uses their energy to steal or switch with you. So, for example, you come home, had a fantastic day at work, and felt so happy. You’re shining joyfully, feeling proud of yourself, and in this positive energy.

The narcissist will be in the opposite energy as you rather than being happy. So they will have this mood, this heavyweight, and by being around them, you can feel how heavy it feels just by being in their presence.

They’re not insulting you. They’re not telling you you can’t be happy. But, instead, they’re putting out this negative energy.

Most people with narcissism are either susceptible people or empaths, and they sense people’s energy. They probably had to from childhood. If they had so much danger in childhood, they learned how to be sensitive, watch, and be hyper-vigilant about other people’s feelings, so they notice this energy. They might ask the toxic person you know what’s wrong.

The toxic person will deny there’s anything wrong. So we’ll continue with this heavy energy loaded on us. Most empaths want others to be happy around them, and they feel uncomfortable when others are unhappy.

The victim in this relationship may try to help the other person to be happy. But everything they do is met with more negativity until 1 of 2 things happens: You either get exasperated or snap back at the person.

“They’re snapping at all your efforts to be kind. They’re constantly doing everything to get in the way of that, and so now you snap.”

Then they will flip it around like, “What’s wrong with you? I’m just trying to be me, and you’re being so problematic. Before you know it, if you’re following the conversation with the narcissist, you might start trying to defend yourself.

Trying to explain and do things that take you away from the energy you are in, you get sucked into the drama and battle. It’s like somebody took a needle in your balloon, and all of the happy energy you were in has evaporated.

You know why you are in such a bad mood and are now confused. You’re like, wait for a second, I’m in a bad mood, and if you try to explain, over-explain, you get deeper and deeper into that black hole.

The second thing they do is ignore your triumphs and your successes.

Let’s say you accomplish something, and you’re proud of yourself. Blatant abuse would be somebody insulting.

With covered abuse, there are no insults. A covert narcissist does crimes of omission.

It’s not so much what they do. It’s what they don’t do that can leave marks on you. If you are a child going to school, and you accomplish something, your parents treat it like it is entirely indifferent.

Let’s say you get the highest mark in the class. Your golden child sibling gets a D instead of an F. Everything will be about how unique that child is that night, and you will be ignored entirely.

There’s no offensive abuse, no insults, or no words. Instead, there’s simply indifference, a lack of personal interests, love, and concern.

This is damaging because what it’s doing, especially in childhood, is creating or strengthening a belief that you don’t matter.

When our narcissistic parents can create that belief in a child that their child doesn’t matter and that nothing they do is ever enough, in the beginning, it’s the narcissist not allowing the child to succeed.

Still, once that belief is strong in that child, it will then be the child, the grown adult, who now has the subconscious idea intertwined in their psyche.

This will stop them from success and moving forward because they will live in harmony with the beliefs planted and watered inside them.

The third way covert narcissists try to steal your happiness is in public situations.

For example, you’re out with friends or family. The covert narcissist will be so charming. The covert narcissist will be catering to everyone. They will claim they will straighten and ensure everyone is happy and comfortable. This is because they will be so active in putting everything together and cleaning it off.

Doing things,s people can’t see, and everyone will think, Woww, you have this amazing person in your life.”.

You are left confused because everyone’s admiring this person. You’re respecting this person, too, but the sad part is that you realize this person only exists when there’s an audience.

And when nobody is around, there’s no cleaning, no catering, no making sure people feel comfortable, and no personal interest in anyone behind closed doors.

But, still, if you were to try to say that to somebody there present, they would look at you as if you’re a problem. They see a different side of the covert narcissist than you see.

Trying to convince somebody else that this person is not who they are or showing themselves to be is impossible because narcissists are covert manipulators, and you are a regular person.

I am an average person going up against aid, an expert manipulator, and trying to prove my truth. But, unfortunately, it always sets you up to fall into the traps they set behind.

Before the event, the covert narcissist will make sure they ignore you and treat you as if you don’t matter and make you feel awful about yourself.

This could be in covert ways of ignoring you, giving you the silent treatment, and so suddenly you’re in a social situation, and everything you want them to do with you, you’re seeing them do with other people.

You’re human, and guess what? When you see that happening, it hurts; it makes you feel uncomfortable and starts causing you to think, “What’s wrong with me?” You could be brewing with unresolved and invalidated pain, and this causes you to show up around people not as your best self.

This plays precisely to what the narcissist wants. Everyone sees you like that, and the narcissist is so happy. So they start thinking that you are the problem.

I honestly feel like narcissists cannot be their best selves around others without having somebody carrying their uncomfortable feelings. Therefore, the things they feel inside they don’t want to touch are projected onto you.

They cause you to feel them, and then they can show up as their best self, so they’re setting you up covertly around people to be harmful, depressed, anxious, and confused.

Not only will this suppress your happiness, but it can also create social anxiety because the same negative feelings and emotional patterns happen repeatedly in social situations.

As a result, your brain starts making associations; being around people is terrible and unsafe.

The fourth way of stealing your happiness.

This is the danger of covert abuse because they’re flipping the negative emotional states while you’re with them or while they’re with you even if you are no longer with narcissists in your life.

In that case, those parent’s associations in your nervous system do not seal up and leave with the narcissist. Instead, they stay stuck in your body until you work through them.

Instead, you prepare yourself and escape the habits they created inside you.

It gets ingeniously covered because it’s all done under the disguise that they care and want what is best for you.

What can you do?

They’re trying to control your emotional state. You are the only one that should manage your emotional state.

For those affected by other people’s energy, let’s say you’re happy and somebody in your family is so negative every time you’re delighted. It’s so hard to be around them.

Start practicing separating and acknowledging their energy from yours. For example, people who empathize with people who corrupt us, including enmeshed families, tend to have everyone’s energy interconnected.

You’ve been conditioned and trained that you’re not allowed to stay in your energy unless you get approval from someone else.

In childhood, you did need their approval, including your emotional state.

If you were with a narcissist, you weren’t allowed to be happy unless they let you, and you were too young to know how to deal with these things.

But shifting is about recognizing that you can permit yourself. However, it starts with the beginning of living life as an educated empath.

I’m not saying you can’t be an empath anymore, but we must reach that place where we are educated empaths.

This means we can feel your energy, and uneducated empaths need clarification with who’s energy is who’s.

Educated empaths know your energy and their energy.

“I respect yours. I’m not going to try making you feel anything else. You’re allowed to if you want to be nasty and have that negative energy. But, I’m also allowed to feel like I had a fantastic day and still be proud of myself.”

It’s like a muscle. It would be best to practice strengthening it when it comes to individuals who ignore your accomplishments.

What that is is training you to chase them for validation. In childhood, you need, deserve, and should have had external validation from your caregivers.

They should have given you that validation when you’re called to something because that would have taught you how to validate yourself.

Their external dialog becomes your inner dialog. Still, if we don’t get that, we keep seeking validation, even as adults, if we are not taught how to validate from within.

We will keep chasing validation from other people, which is very disempowering. It means you can’t allow yourself to feel good, empowered, and positive unless somebody else permits you.

To break that, asking yourself to reflect on your life when you need validation is helpful. You didn’t get it, and ask yourself what someone could have said to you that would have helped you to feel better.

Once you know what you need to hear, you often look for opportunities to say that. Now, in similar moments that come up, you are strengthening your ability to self-validate.

Initially, having someone else validate you feels wrong.

For example, if you try to validate yourself in childhood and the toxic parent criticizes you, your brain learns that doing this for yourself is wrong.

There’s going to be resistance here. But, sometimes, we want to see immediate results when we do positive things.

Think about it like you’re planting a garden.

You plant the seeds or the bulbs of the flowers that you want.

But then, you have to water it and ensure no weeds.

If any weeds come up, you have to weed that garden, and then you have to give it time to get roots and grow well.

We have to start running how to do that with ourselves. We can not expect to have it mastered the next day.

When it comes to validation, start recognizing what you need to hear.

For example, if you seek validation from someone else, ask yourself,” What do I wish they would have said to me?”

Once you get that, you can validate yourself by saying it to yourself.

Then, if it feels uncomfortable, you can view yourself in pieces.

“The piece that wants to hear is your child’s mind feeling that she needs something emotionally.”

The piece that’s going to say it is your adult mind. So you imagine yourself saying it from your adult mind to your childhood mind. This is the beginning of strengthening your ability to validate yourself.

Our subconscious mind learns through repetition and emotions.

It doesn’t learn from one time.

Try to look for ways to practice this in your life consistently.

Thank you for reading until the end 🧡.

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