I know what you might be thinking…
“I don’t hate myself at all, it’s just the usual parts that anyone would complain about.”
No, it’s not. It’s not natural to hate yourself.
If you think that, you’ve been programmed to believe the most destructive concept ever designed by people intent on making your life miserable.
I disagree, and I want you to see how slow and vengeful it is.
No one deserves to hate themselves, but here are 11 ways narcissists slowly convince you to do it.
SlyConditioning
Conditioning is the process of training someone to react or act in a certain way. You may have seen it researched in Pearl Psychology, where dogs were conditioned to hear a bell and know that they would get food.
Now, it’s a way for narcissists to make you hate yourself.
It’s definitely slow. Over time, it’s like it’s not even happening. Then one day, you wake up, and you don’t know who you are anymore.
Related : The Hard Truth: Why You Stay in an Abusive Relationship
You can’t remember a time when you thought you were good at something, or attractive, or confident.
It’s cunning, but that’s the middle name of a narcissist. The only thing they do fast is do magic, and that’s just because fast action equals fast hooks.
Okay, now let’s get to those 11 ways!
1 Isolate Yourself
When you’re isolated, there’s no one to turn to when you need it. When you cry out for support only to find that no one is there to support you – well, that’s a lonely place to be.
I don’t know about you, but I think a lot if I spend too much time alone.
I don’t know how to stop it, but I know how it makes me feel. I worry. My mind goes back to the past where I could have done something differently, or to the future, wondering what it will look like.
It’s easy to get out of my head when I have people around me and a good routine in place that takes care of my well-being.
That’s called balance.
There’s no balance when you’re isolated and cut off from the people you love.
In fact – there is only one person you can count on and that is the narcissist.
Related : The Things Narcissists Can’t Do For You
I will never trust a narcissist as much as I could, so I will never need or want to rely on them.
Yet people do, and here you can buy into all the ways you are failing as a person, and believe these reasons.
2 Not Giving You Love
It is not uncommon to get zero love from a narcissist.
Oh, they are good at telling you, but showing affection is strictly off-limits.
If anything, they will only show you their love through financial acts.
Flowers.
Meals out.
A new car.
Love itself?
It doesn’t exist.
If a person doesn’t feel loved, they don’t feel loved.
3 Neglecting Basic Needs
Remember the little things you used to do for yourself that made you feel good?
Taking a nice bubble bath.
Doing laundry and ironing.
Drinking lots of water.
Where did all this go?
You do these things only when you really need them, and only in a basic way.
You are too busy worrying or trying to please the narcissist.
You would rather cook them a steak salad, than go eat plain toast.
Why?
Because their happiness means more to you than your own.
This is what you’ve been programmed to believe, and this is what makes you hate yourself.
4 Never Put Yourself First
No one is above a narcissist.
No one is more important than them—and I’m really sorry to break it to you, but that will never change (I promise).
Related : 16 Lines Straight out of the Narcissist Playbook
You can hold out hope, but eventually, you’ll be disappointed when you realize the whole time you’re with them, that’s the case.
Loving relationships are about feeling like you matter to them. You have to matter to them, right? That’s the whole reason they’re with you?
That might be the case under normal circumstances, but not this one.
If you’re never put first, you might start to despise yourself.
5 Manipulating You
I’ve heard it before, and I keep warning you that manipulation is evil and conniving. Narcissists know this, but their job is to amuse themselves by extracting the truth from you.
When you don’t know what’s wrong anymore, self-doubt will convince you that you’re a terrible person.
6 Criticism
If you’ve been told too many times that you’re fat, skinny, lazy, useless, bad at cooking, funny when you try to exercise – every criticism acts as another chip on your self-esteem.
Soon, there won’t be much left.
7 Refusing sex
Sometimes, people just aren’t in the mood, right? Long day, overcoming illness, tiredness – the reasons are there – and that’s fair enough.
Related : 10 Things Narcissism is, and What it’s Not!
Refusing sex is another reason – because it’s deliberately withholding an act of intimacy; a way of expressing love.
If you keep refusing, you’ll soon come to believe that the problem is you.
8 Convincing you that you’re unlovable
They can do this by telling you so outright.
I don’t know what attracted me to you. You’re absolutely unlovable.
I spent all my time with them trying to convince them – of course you’d believe it too!
9 Telling You to Quit Your Job
You know, I think this job is out of your league, which is why you don’t enjoy it.
Narcissists will think of reasons why you should quit your job. Stop socializing, stop having a purpose in getting out of bed every morning, cut you off from financial independence…
…so you end up having more time to unnecessarily dismantle yourself.
Be careful here.
10 Coaching You to Forget Your Needs
The demanding side of a narcissist is powerful and toxic enough to make you forget who you are.
You don’t matter. What makes you happy? It doesn’t matter. What should you do to take care of yourself? It doesn’t matter.
Related : 12 Phrases To Shut Down Gaslighting
Eventually, your needs are flushed down the toilet, and as you watch them swirl around, you feel like you never deserved them in the first place.
11 Hobbies? What hobbies?
You wouldn’t know. They’ve been ripped out of your hands and thrown in the trash.
What you once loved is now a distant memory. What brought you joy is gone. So where’s the joy? There is none.
Beware of narcissists who tell you to stop your hobby because it is “stupid” or “unimportant.” The subliminal message they are giving you is that you are stupid or unimportant.
This subliminal shaming leads to extreme levels of self-loathing.
