Here’s the great deal. Looking for signs that a narcissist is preparing to get rid of you is the biggest sign that this is what is happening. It certainly pays to know that the red flags are coming thick and fast, and you are feeling more confused and anxious than ever.
The war of cognitive dissonance is raging. But your gut and gut know the deal. trust yourself.
Don’t let the narcissist win this battle. Overcome your denial. Prepare your sweet self. Don’t wait for them to get rid of you! Take back your strength and do what you need to do to take care of you.
Understanding your job for the narcissist
Those with narcissistic personality disorder (and antisocial personality disorder) do not see others as human beings worthy of appreciation, respect, and love for their own sake. For what defines their uniqueness, their strengths and flaws, their joys and sorrows… for what makes them alive and wonderful human beings.
Instead, people are viewed as objects in that they have a function to fulfill in relation to themselves and their needs. This role is to provide exposure.
This consists of delivering both positive and negative emotional reactions when triggered, which confirms the narc’s fragile belief system about who they are: superior, powerful, titled beings (for more on positive and negative display, read How a Narcissist Attracts You: Hovering and Catching).
“Show” is the narcissist’s drug of choice. They need it to survive. Your goal, as they see it, is to deliver it on demand.
When your utilities run out, ignore visits
The pathological narcissist frequently plays out a completely predictable abusive pattern within his or her “relationships.” It consists of three stages.
perfection
During idealization, you are set up as a source of supply through the process of love bombing. This period creates the illusion of a “soul mate” effect that attracts you to itself.
It also serves the purpose of building your confidence and programming you to deliver supply on demand by gradually removing your boundaries. By doing this, your risk of losing a source of supply when you experience a devaluation is reduced.
You have been hit with a stun gun for the ‘soul mate’ effect to reduce resistance to abuse and any inappropriate and inconvenient discovery of what lies behind the mask which may prompt you to dump them (for more on this, read ‘The Narcissist’s Soul Mate Effect: How and Why They Do It’) .
Devaluation of the currency
After idealization, you are transported to the hell of devaluation where you endure constant abuse interspersed with erratic love bombing and obsession to keep you hooked.
Precipitating the 180 degree turn in the way they treat you is the double realization of:
You are a human being with strengths and weaknesses, and therefore imperfect (like we all are) which is something a pathological narcissist cannot cognitively tolerate because of the split; And
You also begin to notice that the narc is less than the perfect “soulmate” they want to believe.
(For more on the dichotomy, read From “Soulmate” to “Worthless”: What’s Behind the Narcissist’s 180? And remember to check the glossary for a refresher on terminology.)
It goes without saying that the latter is of greater importance to the narcissist than your flaws (although they might have you believe otherwise).
The thesis that the narcissist’s survival depends on maintaining belief in his constructed reality and false self is evident here.
While the show feeds the narc’s beliefs, any suggestion they see them beyond their false selves poses a serious threat to maintaining their fragile system of denial.
Devaluation is your punishment for this. For not adequately reflecting their false selves with a positive presentation.
Enter negative projection, abuse designed to incite emotional reactions that reinforce their power and control over you.
As long as you continue to deliver supplies, your usefulness to the narc will remain.
However, neither idealization nor devaluation can be achieved sustainably.
Idealism is not so for the reasons detailed. What about currency devaluation?
The pathological narcissist’s goal of keeping you under control and obediently delivering the supply when requested is untenable.
What the narcissist is again unable to understand intellectually due to the disorder, is that you should not be “kept under control” for the purpose of serving the needs of others.
you are a human. You have free will. You have your own mind. You have your own needs.
These are facts. You know it (somewhere inside you, you know this wonderful thing).
And although they don’t know it in terms of their appreciation for your individuality, they discover how it happens…they are unable to keep you under their control.
Not 100% of the time.
The result is a process of escalation. When manipulation and abusive tactics fail to control you, their efforts intensify.
In the end, one of two things happens:
You have been emptied. Beyond exhaustion. There’s nothing left. There are no emotions or reactions left to deliver to the show; or
As their abuse increases, so does your understanding of who they are and who they really are, and you learn to stop presenting the narc and free yourself.
In either case, your usefulness to the narc has ended.
When you don’t do your assigned job, you will be eliminated.
AKA: Expulsion. Tossed aside. distribute. forsaken. Abandoned. She gave up. It has been terminated. Deleted.
There is no emotionally healthy communication. Not a sad parting, but a respectful one. No closing. nothing.
This is the measure of a pathological narcissist. This is what really lies behind the mask.
Signs that the narcissist is preparing to get rid of you
Since the narcissist cannot live without supply, when they decide that your usefulness is over and dusted off, they make a conscious decision to get rid of you.
But first they must secure alternative supplies.
While this is frowned upon, there is an upside (sort of… in terms of silver linings in a toxic mess!). By doing this, the narcissist betrays his intent through signals that he is preparing to get rid of you.
This gives you the opportunity to take back your power and make some decisions of your own.
Let’s check them out.
Proof that they are being hunted
To find alternative supplies, the narcissist begins searching.
You’re probably already aware of this on some level, hence that gut feeling telling you something is up.
The clues being looked for range from those that you can more or less ignore with a little self-invalidation due to this raging cognitive dissonance; To those who are unambiguous to the objective mind (for more on self-invalidation from narcissistic abuse, read Invalidation and Narcissism: Why They Slowly Erase You and Narcissistic Invalidation: How to Stop Them From Erasing You).
At one end of the spectrum, we’re talking about being suddenly preoccupied with calls and texts at all hours from a “friend” or “business associate” (often announced with a smirk…), combined with their newfound secrecy regarding their phones. Emails and social media accounts.
Changes in routine, delays, frequent cancellations, and unexplained unavailability also appear.
Then you get into the act of disappearing for days on end without contact or explanation; Or, conversely, the verbal vomiting of extravagant and over-the-top storytelling. Of course, if this doesn’t work, a little lighting will be used to get you back to where you are.
You might find puzzling (or perhaps worrying) things in the house or car that don’t belong to them… well, not yours or hers, but clearly belong to someone…
Other physical evidence can be found on the narcissists themselves. Their appearance may change. new clothes. New verb. Fresh scent. This kind of thing. After all, it has to look good to potential prey!
Not only that, but because the new display setting involves narcissistic mirroring, they may strangely begin to display new behaviors, speech patterns, phrases, and interests (to learn more about narcissistic mirroring, read The Narcissistic “Soulmate” Effect: How and Why They Do It).
The most difficult things to deduct, on top of all of the above, are unaccountable “expenses” that are reciprocated through deflection tactics.
And triangulation. Oh the Trinity! This adorable little beauty, black and white. There is no denying the truth in this.
Here, the narcissist openly pits you against the alternative offer with unfavorable comparisons, perhaps even directly threatening you to comply with his demands, or else you will be replaced.
The mask falls off completely
When they decide to get rid of you, the need to continue taking love potions on an irregular basis stops. They clearly no longer intend to keep you.
Likewise, because they have access to alternative supplies while hunting, alleviation of deprivation of their drug of choice is now redundant.
For these reasons, the necessity of keeping up the charade with you is no longer necessary. The mask falls off completely.
Great one. The person you are looking at at this point. This is the truth of who they are.
Attempts are made to emulate empathy. They are cold and cruel. Sadism often comes to the fore.
Deliberately exploiting your weaknesses and hitting your trigger points is now their primary form of interaction with you.
Not only is the malice exacerbated, but no effort is made in continuing to pretend that they are dealing with you in any way.
So what does this look like?
Clear and obvious boredom:
Looking straight through you, completely unresponsive. For example, not acknowledging your presence, or that you have addressed them; Or texting/calling others/watching TV while talking to them.
Not answering calls or responding to text messages without at least a significant delay. If after all.
Procrastination and withholding information, emotions, and/or physical resources.
All this is done blatantly. With arrogance. If you’re not sure this is fair… maybe it wasn’t really intentional, you think… go back and re-read this article from scratch.
Do any of them resonate with your experience?
In any possible way, any of these actions could be carried out in any way other than calculated and deliberate concentration.
No matter how wonderful, terrifying, and painful it may be, you have to know that this is a narc exercising his free will. Follow their minds. their own needs.
As I said. This is the measure of a pathological narcissist.
what do you feel
The disinterest factor is reflected in the neglect of concealment efforts when elimination approaches. Therefore, you pick up contradictions, and it becomes difficult to fall for lies.
Your intuition is on high alert.
And these are not the only lies. Surely the sun will rise tomorrow, and the narc will have a smear campaign underway. It’s par for the course in preparing to be ignored.
They do this because even though the mask falls off with you, it is not the case to replace it.
The smear campaign is a pre-emptive strike to protect their false persona by portraying themselves as the victim and you as the aggressor. Just in case you dare try to unmask them.
When defamation creeps into your networks, you’re bound to pick up inconsistencies here as well. People you trust may change their behavior, or strange random comments may come your way. Some good friends may even share facts with you (hold on to those precious souls, these are your people!).
I notice. Resist the urge to dismiss or minimize any of these red flags (to learn more about smear campaigns, read Narcissists and Smear Campaigns: Why They Do It and What to Do About a Narcissist’s Smear Campaign).
Your intuition is on the money. The fight-or-flight response is activated for a good reason.
I get a great one. Even though you already know all the signs and what they are telling you, you desperately don’t want it to be true.
Because just as they were addicted to the show, you, my dear heart, are addicted to the narcissist. Well, as for the influence of the “soulmate” you have come to believe is the narcissist deep down (deep, deep, deep inside!).
It’s getting more difficult, isn’t it? To keep convincing yourself that none of this is happening. This is the essence of cognitive dissonance.
And honey, that makes you sick, doesn’t it?
How many of these do you tick off?
Anxiety, depression, self-medication, self-harm, possibly entertaining thoughts of suicide*, not sleeping/sleeping too much, not eating/eating too much, isolating yourself, panic attacks, intrusive thoughts, compulsive behaviour, rumination, nausea, Skin rashes, stomach problems, confusion, paralyzing fear, rage, insomnia…the list goes on.
how do you feel? Click on this. You already know what’s going on.
What’s more, your truest self screams, “This is not acceptable!” Ignore or not. None of this is okay.
Pay attention to this sound. Because until you do, this cycle of abuse will never end.
But when you do, you finally reach that point where there is no more supply for the narcissist. There’s no more re-entering a cycle of abuse that piles up more and more damage every time you roll.
Because by hearing your truth and taking action, you have reclaimed your power. You saved yourself. And free yourself.
