What happens when you figure out they’re a narcissist
And how you can handle the crashing fallout that comes next.
by: E.B. Johnson
We talk a lot about narcissists. Are they a narcissist? Are they not a narcissist? What are the signs of narcissism? We don’t spend as much time talking about the major reality-shift (and heartbreak) that comes with realizing you’ve invested all your time and energy into someone who will never truly appreciate it. Have you come to terms with the fact that you’re living with someone who can only love themselves? Are you recently escaping a narcissistic family tie? It’s a process — not unlike grief — that we have to give ourselves time (and understanding) to get through.
What happens when you realize they’re a narcissist.
Realizing that someone you love is a narcissist is a big first step all on its own. And it’s one that not everyone takes. Waking up hurts. It affects your self-esteem, it can destroy a number of relationships, and it forces us to change ourselves in several ways. It’s not simply a matter of waking up and moving on. You must understand the complex and nuanced emotions you’re experiencing.
Self-esteem takes a blow
Our self-esteem takes a tremendous hit when we realize just how much we’ve been pouring into someone who doesn’t appreciate it. If you realize you’re in a relationship (or even a friendship with a narcissist) then you can end up questioning yourself, your ability to build relationships, and even your worth as a person and a partner. Don’t play it down. Your self-esteem may take a hit, but you’re not at fault for what happened.
Relationship detonation
Understandably, realizing that our friend or loved one is a narcissist creates relationship detonation. Your social groups may be affected by it, and your direct relationship certainly will be. It’s up to you to navigate that with compassion and understanding. The narcissists will explode if they are confronted about their behavior. Likewise, not everyone around you will see your situation with the same understanding that you may desire.
Plans go pear-shaped
Plans go pear-shaped when we realize someone we’ve been investing in is a narcissist. It changes everything. Realizing that your loved one is a narcissist necessarily comes with a major change of plans. Maybe it scuppers your marriage plans. Maybe it entirely ruptures the family life you were building. There’s a necessary shift that comes with waking up to who someone really is.
Major reality shifts
There’s a toxic reality shift that comes to building a life with a narcissist. Many of them will manipulate and gaslight us in a way that leave us totally alienated from our truth. Waking up to that manipulation, the rug is pulled out from beneath our feet. We find ourselves standing in a strange new reality and looking at someone we don’t even recognize. This, of course, creates rifts in our sense of self and unimaginable rifts in our relationships.
Change becomes a must
Change is a must in the narcissistic relationship. If you’re the victim of narcissistic abuse, you eventually get pushed to a point where you realize everything has to chance. Maybe you realize that one more toxic blow up will spell the end of your life. Perhaps you know that something is wrong and that you’re being kept from getting where you need to be. Pushed to the brink, we are forced to face the reality of where we are.
Learning self-preservation
Have you become an artist of self-preservation? Resourcefulness is often a result of a life lived on the edge of narcissistic abuse. Denied the attention, affection, and support that you need, you can become self-reliant almost to a fault. While self-preservation can be powerful, it can be toxic too. We can become so self-reliant that we refuse to let anyone else in. And we suffer in silence on our own.
What you have to do next.
Be kind to yourself. You will not be able to go from upset to okay overnight. There are steps you can take to navigate the difficulties of realizing your loved one is a narcissist, though. Learn everything that you can, set stronger boundaries for yourself, and invest in higher quality social circles. Create new patterns for yourself and do what needs to be done to protect your happiness and wellbeing.
1. Learn everything that you can
Knowledge is everything when you’re dealing with a narcissistic rift. You’re going to feel like a raft lost at sea. Their behavior is going to both confuse and beguile you. There’s going to be confrontation and there’s going to be upset. In order for you to navigate all of this safely to the other side, you need to learn everything you can about narcissists, and the fallout that comes with realizing someone you love is a narcissist.
Learn everything you can about narcissism. But more than that, make sure you learn all that you can about their victims. Not all of us respond the same way to narcissistic abuse. Not all narcissists are made the same. Your path is going to be unique, but learning about the path of others can be encouraging.
It’s helpful to enlist the help of a professional in confronting this process. Coaches, counselors, and therapists can provide us with the insight needed to fully realize our own plans and our own path. Get your hands on the best books. Get workbooks. Ask questions in forums and reach out to friends and family members who have had similar experiences with your loved one. The more you know about your experience and the experience of others, the easier the next steps become.
2. Create iron-clad boundaries
There’s no dealing with a narcissist without iron-clad boundaries. These are the expectations we have around their behavior, but it’s also the limits we put around ourselves and our wellbeing. We all deserve to have boundaries, and no one gets the right to violate those boundaries. They don’t get to determine them either. You have to get clear on what matters to you and how you want to feel around the people who are in your life. Want to be supported? Want to be respected? That’s what boundaries help clarify.
Create iron-clad boundaries and stick to them. Draw a line around your wellbeing — no matter where your narcissist exists in your life — and stand by them. Remember, these are the things that protect your happiness and your sense of security. You have a right to both things, and you have the right to entirely define them for yourself.
Decide how you want to be treated. Consider how you want to be spoken to; think about how you want the narcissist to exist in your life. These things can help us create better boundaries for ourselves, but the hard part comes next…when we communicate them. Clear on your boundaries, communicate them to the narcissists in your life. Make them crystal clear. While this doesn’t mean the narcissist will respect them, it means they know what’s expected of them. Moving forward, the lines are drawn, and it becomes up to them to prove whether or not they can respect you enough to stay in your life.
3. Establish new patterns for self
There’s no moving beyond the narcissist in your life without establishing new patterns for yourself. Until you acknowledge how you were led down the path to narcissistic manipulation, you’ll continue to be a victim. Even if you escape this relationship, you’ll go to another one with the same toxic dynamics. You’ve got to make a conscious choice to do things differently, and then you have to do things differently if you want to rescue yourself from future narcissists.
Establish new patterns for yourself. Create new habits, choices, and beliefs that help you move away from your tendency to settle for toxic partners. These patterns take time to establish, and they start by making small choices each day.
Start by saying “no” to the narcissist in your life. Don’t go above and beyond to help them when you aren’t giving that same energy to yourself. This is how you shift the pattern of self-sacrifice into the name of their needs. Next, focus on the people you invest in. When someone new comes into your life, look out for the red flags and react to them appropriately when you do. These bit-by-bit changes are how we create entirely new lives for ourselves. It’s a build-up, and it has to begin with the conscious changes that we make each day.
4. Invest in high quality social circles
Our support systems are invaluable in dealing with the newly recognized narcissists in our lives. We need to be surrounded by high-quality people who can remind us just where the lines of reality (and self-confidence) lie. These are people who boost us, who lift us up. You should be able to open up to them and share your experiences with them, and in that sharing, you should be able to find a better way to relate.
Stop settling for narcissists — covert and overt. Invest in higher quality social circles and relationships that you don’t have to change for or grovel in. Actual love is not a fight, whether it’s platonic or romantic. You shouldn’t have to suffer or prove yourself over-and-over again. Skip the drama and opt for the calmer path instead.
Pursue friendships, relationships, and connections with people that don’t make you work for it. That’s not to say that you don’t show up for one another and respect one another. It simply means that you should seek out people who have an inherent sense of integrity and who they are. They should also want the best for you, just as bad as they want it for themselves. Instead of seeking to take advantage of you, seek those who want to build you up and enjoy their lives with you.
5. Do what needs to be done
A lot of people come to me wanting solutions when they’re dealing with the narcissists in their lives. They want to know how they can live comfortably next to the person. Or they want to know what they can do to change their circumstances. The answers are hard, though, and not one they usually want to accept. Like it or not, though, we are the stewards of our own happiness. If you spend all your time and energy on someone who can be nothing but toxic — that’s what you’re inviting more of into your life.
At the end of the day, you have to do what needs to be done in order to build the life you want. With narcissists, that often means severing them from your lives. You will never be able to change them and you can never talk them into changing who they are. That’s not how true narcissists work.
The true narcissist has no empathy. Which means they can never see your experience equally to your own. If you are tired of the conflict — if you can’t tolerate always being an afterthought — then you have to do what needs to be done to make room in your life for the right people. That may mean ending a relationship. It may mean starting over in really major ways. Weigh your happiness against your current unhappiness. If they can’t resolve their behavior, focus on improving your circumstances without them.
Putting it all together…
We talk a lot about narcissistic partners and what it takes to deal with them, but we don’t spend as much time focusing on the victims and the complicated fallout they face. When we realize that someone we love is a narcissist, it totally changes the way we see ourselves and the world. It can fracture our self-esteem and even detonate our other relationships. It’s not a simple process to go through, but it’s one we have to confront if we want to live a happy life.
Learn everything you can about narcissism, but more importantly, learn everything you can about how narcissism affects its victims. Your personality can change. Your world outlook can change. Know what may happen so you can protect yourself. Create iron-clad boundaries and stick to them. No one has a right to disrespect you, and this includes the narcissist in your life. Protect your wellbeing. Establish new patterns for yourself and rework the old patterns so that you don’t attract more narcissists into your life in the future. Invest in higher quality social circles and build a support system that allows you to hold strong to your values and boundaries. At the end of the day, you’re responsible for making sure your life is a peaceful and stable one. If the narcissists can’t respect that — do what needs to be done and resolve yourself of fault.
