Knowing something is a whole different thing…

Caring is a whole different thing.

Narcissists hurt people they come across — left, right, and center. Enjoying their inner turmoil matched by your emotional pain threshold feeds their ego.

They’re small, intricate, and misguided ways, sure, but they hurt them all the same.

Being a painful victim of a narcissist means you’ve experienced a way in which they’ve put you through something painful. Make no mistake — they have a variety of ways — depending on who you are.

Related : Why do narcissists give you compliments?

But do they know, and do they care?

HealthyHarm

I don’t want you to mistake “healthy harm” for the healthy version of inflicting pain. That’s not what we’re talking about.

Healthy harm is when you unintentionally cause someone else pain. Maybe you forgot an important event, an anniversary, or a date. Maybe you had a bad day and weren’t there for them when they needed you.

Ultimately, we all make mistakes. If you were in your right mind, you’d apologize a lot. You will want to make amends to this person and take responsibility for your actions.

Harming someone hurts you in a way, too, because you know you care about them. And you don’t like the idea of ​​them being in pain.

Natural, right?

NarcissisticAbuse

NarcissisticAbuse is a whole different ball game. There is much less conscience with a narcissist who causes pain.

It is a recurring emotion that people who encounter narcissists have because of the narcissist’s need to constantly bring up negative feelings.

If you think about the people in your life who are narcissists, how many of them do you feel comfortable around? How many of them do you look forward to seeing because they make you feel positive?

How many of them do you dread seeing?

…I’ve thought about that a lot.

Cycle

The narcissistic cycle of abuse is something that once you become aware of it – you can spot it happening with different narcissists in your life. It is a cycle that involves pain, and I will talk more about it after describing each stage.

Idealism – everything is rosy. The narcissist is kind and loving. He showers you with gifts, time, and praise. You are his everything.

Devaluation – The narcissist now begins to diminish you. What he has built is now being torn down very slowly, bit by bit. Criticism, manipulation, the silent treatment, ridicule. You start to feel hurt, and it only grows and grows.

Dismissal – The narcissist rejects you completely. You wonder what you did wrong and feel deeply hurt at the thought of this ending. You start to panic and try everything you can to make it better.

Vacuuming – The narcissist returns ready to vacuum you again. He flirts and flutters, as you start to feel happy and relieved that he still cares about you. This part of the cycle usually returns to the idealization stage. Again, everything is rosy.

How the Cycle Affects Both the Narcissist and You

Of course, no one likes to be hurt. This cycle goes back and forth, and there are conflicting feelings associated with each stage.

In the idealization stage, it’s like euphoria. You finally feel like you’ve met someone who loves and appreciates you. They promise to take care of you, and they’ll never leave you.

The moments you share can be anything from pure romance to pure passion. If it’s a friendship, you do everything together. Selfies and social media tags of the two of you are constantly popping up. Narcissists want the world to know that they’ve met someone special.

What’s not captivating?

So, it’s a big surprise when the dynamics change.

Related : How to prevent dating yet another narcissist?

Once a narcissist has earned your trust, they’ll start to annoy you. Most people in this situation don’t leave—because that connection has already been formed. You’ve become almost dependent on their company and affection.

You want to do everything you can to make things right. The more they annoy you, the more you try to please people to get out of your “flaws”.

Getting rid of them means destruction. And before you give in, they come back to you and bring you back in.

What a relief!

The Narcissist

Narcissists don’t consciously know the stages of narcissistic abuse (they don’t even know they’re narcissists…), but they know what they’re doing.

Narcissists are used to applying this cycle and its accompanying patterns because it matches what they need at the time. While they worship you in the first stage, they know that you’re under their influence. And yet the compliments come in return, and the feeling of being safe with them.

What a responsibility to give to someone so selfish!

Do narcissists know they’ve hurt you?

The big question…

In short, yes, they do. They know that the way they treat you has consequences that visually confirm the pain or distress you’re feeling. They see it and they understand it.

What they don’t know is that they’re necessarily doing something wrong.

The way a narcissist treats you is based solely on what he knows. That’s all he knows, really. When someone is in the picture, it’s impossible to see the picture.

The problem is that the narcissist refuses to step outside and look because he doesn’t see himself as anything other than perfect.

And because of that, he won’t change. No matter how much pain you put him through, it will never wake him up to reality.

His reality is all that matters. He lives and breathes it and expects everyone to meet him there.

That’s why it can be so painful for others – their reality is erased.

…Do They Care?

The last part of this thread has two parts. You might think they don’t care that they’re hurting you, and you’d be partially right.

The narcissist doesn’t care because they have no morals. No integrity. No conscience. The way they’ve been acting has been fine for them for so long, so why should they change? They’re fine knowing they’re hurting others, as long as they’re not the ones in pain.

Now for the second part…

…Yes. They do care. Now – it rarely happens, but if you’re hurting and you start telling people how bad the narcissist is, you’ll get their attention.

A narcissist will only care if it looks bad to them. They won’t care about your feelings, they will only care about how your feelings affect them in the eyes of others.

So, the next time you think you can make a narcissist care about your pain – I don’t advise you to waste your time.