The Moment You Knew He is a Narcissist
The moment you know you are married to a narcissist. Retrospectively, it is easy to see red flags. Sometimes, it is also easy to see it in those around you.
Before I forget what it was like the moment I knew I was with a narcissist, I want to share the texts from someone dear in my life. Let’s see what it was like for her the moment she knew.
The First Signs of Danger
Here is the first sign of danger that I see:
So, she is upset and, more importantly, exhausted. The narcissist sucks you dry and makes you feel incompetent. It is exhausting. You don’t sleep well, and psychosomatic illnesses are common. I had significant IBS such that GI suggested a CT to r/o IBD after a normal colonoscopy.
You stop expressing emotions and wear a mask publicly. You “walk on pins and needles,” just like the famous book with that title (Amazon Link) about living with someone with borderline personality disorder (also a Cluster B).
“I don’t feel like I can be myself or even relax around him. And yet I’m reliant on him financially to take care of the kids.” It amazes me; someone being gaslit has never spoken truer words. Can you feel that her intuition knows what is happening, but her mind hasn’t figured it out yet? Your intuition knows well in advance of the moment you know.
The gaslighting above results in an inability to be yourself. You become who they want you to be, and you forget what you like (forget about what you love). Who you are. And you can never relax. You must always be on call to their whims and, when they are bored, their emotional abuse.
And yet, I’m reliant on him financially and in other ways. This is how they lock you in. They have you thinking that you cannot live without them, that you cannot leave. You must be somehow reliant on them because they cannot live without your supply—manipulation in action.
The Next Rusty Knife in the Back
They like to bring up stuff you fought about and resolved in the past. They do it repeatedly, and it feels like a rusty knife in the back. But come on, man. We already talked about this four times, and I’ve admitted that it is my fault. You were right, even though that’s not true.
The narcissist makes you believe that you are at fault, especially when they beat you down with issues you believed to be resolved.
You never feel good enough or doing enough in their eyes. You are always somehow deficient.
Then, she recognized that many of the dynamics between her and her narcissist were abusive because she heard the stories of other women. Yet she stopped going to the group because he found out about it.
This is turning red flags yellow.
Turning Red Flags Yellow
It is common before the moment you know you are with a narcissist to turn red flags yellow.
What this means is that you make excuses for them. Since they haven’t physically hit me yet, it can’t be that bad.
I guess it’s okay that he won’t let me go to this meeting because… I’m not sure why. You get confused when they tell you to stop doing certain things. They gaslight you into thinking that it is not good for you. It is not good for you to learn the truth about how confused you are about them.
Read the above and see how narcissists make you turn red flags yellow. She says:” I constantly second guess myself and tend to blame myself before ever blaming another. It must be me who has the problem.”
My Reply: He is a narcissist. You have to leave him. It will get worse.
It Will Get Worse
The moment you know is when you figure out it will get worse.
He is gaslighting you and saying you are the crazy one. It is right out of a narcissist’s playbook. When you start reading the playbook (they all sound remarkably the same but act very different since there are so many different types of narcissists), then you know it will get worse, and you have to get out. You have to get out for yourself and the kids. Someone has to be the not-unhealthy parent.
My advice: fundamentally, you have to buy into the fact that he is a narcissist, and you have no choice but to leave.
You Have No Choice But to Leave
I told her she had to leave, but not everyone can. No contact is the best, but it takes preparation. You have to be good and ready to leave the narcissist, but the moment you know you have no choice but to leave is when you know they are a narcissist.
You have watched videos about it or read books. There are different ways to get there, but it is always a revelation that they are narcissists. Some of them are so good at charming your pants off that it takes forever to figure out that they were mirroring and love-bombing you. People will say to you that they have not changed, but they did not see how the narcissist was initially. The way the narcissist acts, in the beginning, is only something you start to see when you decide to leave them the moment you know it was all an act.
They mess with your mind so much that you cannot think straight.
Hearing other people’s stories can give you some perspective. YouTube is a good source of information, but you need to watch the main two or three people there; there is a lot of misinformation.
“There is no doubt he is toxic, and things will escalate. Don’t wait until he starts hitting you before you leave.” And chances are he is cheating on you, too. They all do.
I didn’t know how to tell her that she had to leave, so I begged her to get help from someone. Anyone. Start learning about your options and planning your escape. Take any help that is acceptable to you at the moment. Keep asking. Keep asking for help.
Discover Shame
It is probably Shame that makes you susceptible to narcissists.
It seems like it is shame in men (they think they are “bad”), and sometimes it is fear of abandonment in women, but shame is also common, along with a host of other comorbid features in both sexes.
But I think this speaks of shame. Read on:
She says she does not deserve a loving, healthy relationship. Why not? Because she is bad. Because she does not love herself.
Self-Love Deficiency
Self-Love deficiency is at the root of why we attract narcissists.
I am not blaming you for attracting them, but on the other hand, I don’t feel like a victim either. You have to understand your part in this to get healthy, and your part is that you likely don’t love yourself. It’s ok, it’s fine; plenty of people hate themselves or worse. But it is ok to love yourself. It is not selfish or self-centered; it is the natural way for people to love themselves. So don’t worry about being vain; worry about being healthy.
Remember that you will let people treat you as poorly as you treat yourself, so why would anyone else if you don’t love yourself?
“Narcissist” and “Gaslighting” as Buzzwords
It is good that narcissism and gaslighting are buzzwords. This will help people.
One guy I spoke to said most lawyers are narcissists, and they all know how to deal with them. However, I doubt that is the case. That they know how to deal with them, that is.
After her black-and-white thinking on the top of the page, she starts intellectualizing as a defense mechanism to stop her from concluding he is a narcissist. It is amazing how many protective mechanisms you utilize to prevent yourself from realizing you are with a narcissist. The moment you know comes after self-gaslighting. You cannot yet admit that everything is a lie, so you gaslight yourself.
Self-Gaslighting
Self-gaslighting is common the moment you know you are with a narcissist. Again, it is a protective measure, just like the initial wound in the narcissist and us. We are as good at gaslighting as they are; we don’t know it or have decades of experience with it. They have been practicing gaslighting since they were 8 or 10, so they are good at it now.
You are not so good at it. You will see through your self-gaslighting before you see theirs. You have to discover that they are a narcissist. You will think you are one, but that means you are not. They will accuse you of being one, but that’s just a projection.
Eventually, you will be able to trust your mind again. Until then, trust your gut. Does it tell you that you are not seen and that they don’t love you? Believe your gut.
I was Devastated. Betrayed
She then asked if I remembered the moment/circumstance that flipped the switch for me and made me understand that I had to walk away.
I remember it like it was yesterday. I was devastated. I felt betrayed (and I talked about how I got over post-betrayal trauma on this blog).
It was horrific and painful. I cried a lot because I discovered I had wasted so much time and energy with this person; it was all a lie. You have to leave to find yourself again and heal. It was rock bottom for me. Yes, true rock bottom. I had a revelation afterward.
And I was so angry at myself that I did horrible things to the narcissist in my life. You learn from them just how mean and awful you can be, and you start feeling guilty that you allowed yourself to throw the mud right back in your face. The need for revenge and even vengeance leads to anger. The resentment builds up and explodes into truly horrible things you cannot believe you would do to another person. It is common to try and get even.
But if you are strong enough, don’t try to get even. It doesn’t help. It hurts you because the narcissist won’t learn any lessons, and you wind up suffering an unnecessary surge of cortisol. Remember that they are like poison, yet anything you try to do poisons you.
They will never believe that they are a narcissist if they have NPD. Trying to get even hurts you and wastes time when you should be healing yourself. Don’t forget to forgive yourself if you were mean to the narcissist in your life. After decades of emotional abuse, it is hard to let that all go. Forgive yourself for being angry that you missed it all that time, too.
The Moment You Knew You Were With a Narcissist
And here is what it feels like the moment you know you are with a Narcissist:
The moment you know you are with a narcissist is when you discover that the problem is your problem. Until you do the work to love yourself and practice self-love, you will keep attracting the same people into your life who will hurt you.
People only treat you as well as you treat yourself. When you hate and abuse yourself, so will everyone else.
It is a blessing in disguise! You know you are the problem. You learn that the moment you know.
You can be truly happy for the first time in your life! Instead of feeling like you don’t fit in, instead of that constant buzzing in the back of your mind, keeping you uneasy and uncomfortable all the time, not truly able to inhabit your skin, you can heal.
But Most Importantly, When You Know
But the most important thing to remember is that this is intergenerational trauma. If we don’t suffer, our children will. We have to do the work, so they don’t have to.
Leave so your kids might have a better life. If you are being emotionally abused in a relationship, you need to start to plan your exit now. The moment you know you can do better, believe in your old self and figure out a way to leave.
