Key Points

To feel safe, narcissists must control other people and their environment, including their beliefs, feelings, and actions.

Because of projective identification, your feelings can reveal how abusers feel and, in many cases, how they were treated as children.

Narcissists hide their secrets behind their abuse, threats, boasting, and arrogance.

You won’t guess the abusers’ dirty little secret. There is one thing narcissists and abusers don’t want you to know. They find it so shameful that most of them won’t even admit it to themselves. They hide it behind their abuse, threats, boasting, and arrogance.

People are fooled by the narcissist’s bold persona. They are confused by their words and afraid and ashamed of their aggression. They don’t realize that the abuser’s persona is a mask and that his or her behavior is a smoke and mirrors game. They are manufactured as a defense system to hide a fearful and insecure child inside – a child who feels as insignificant as the abuser pretends to be.

Their secret lies in their insecurity and neediness. That is why they must, at all costs, feel powerful and in control. Once you realize this, it explains their entire personality and the abuse they endure. They act as if they are unnecessary and judge their partners based on their needs and feelings. Some abusers and narcissists appear to be completely self-sufficient outside of an intimate relationship.

However, they get attention from their work, colleagues, and casual lovers. In a romantic relationship, they are players in the game. Later, they insist on meeting their constant demands, including sometimes leaving you alone. To protect yourself, it is crucial to understand the mind of a narcissist.

Control

Narcissists must control other people and their environment, including their beliefs, feelings, and actions to feel safe. They demand, belittle, or manipulate you to lift themselves or bring you down. You end up feeling insecure, which is what they feel inside. This is a defense called projective identification. Your feelings show you how they feel and in many cases how they were treated as children.

Grandiosity

Note that narcissists are compelled to brag, exaggerate, and fantasize about their greatness. They act special, entitled, and arrogant, and want to be associated with the best products and people, the most expensive or famous. All of these behaviors are ways to elevate themselves to feel insecure and ashamed of feeling weak and inadequate. If they are the best, even by association or by purchasing symbols of luxury, they should not feel small and insignificant.

Vanity and Envy

This behavior also means that they must believe that they are better than you and everyone else. If one person excels or is better at something, they must be superior to them. If they are not at the top, in their minds, they are incompetent or a failure. This also explains their envy and hatred of people who compete with them, even if only in their minds. Some vengeful and perfectionistic narcissists will actively work to bring down their competitors and seek revenge for real or imagined wrongs.

Hypersensitivity

Their insecurity also explains why they are hypersensitive to any slight or imagined criticism. If you disagree, you must be wrong, because they must be right. They will call you oversensitive, but in reality, they are the ones who are wonderfully affected by feedback. When they don’t receive praise, they infer criticism. Additionally, they need constant affirmation, praise, loyalty, and approval to validate that they are the greatest. They constantly need their narcissistic supply because they are so insecure. Because their self-doubt is so great, any praise and attention provide temporary relief but don’t stick or mean anything in the long run because they feel shame inside.

The consequence of their shame is that narcissists cannot take any responsibility for their words or actions. Because they are afraid of being judged, they cannot admit any mistake or slip-up or even take ownership of their own words for fear of being asked to explain themselves. In their world, things are either good or bad, black or white, success or failure. Any mistake makes them feel bad, a failure, and unlovable because they already feel shame and insecurity.

Defenses

Like a child with a problem, their first defense is denial, which may include deliberate lying. Their next defense is to blame you, their boss, the system, or other groups—anyone other than themselves. The facts are irrelevant and you’re wasting your time arguing with them. They may even say that you made them do something. Ironically, by blaming you, they’re giving up their power. They’re saying that you control them. If you point this out, they’ll be shocked.

After denial, projection becomes their favorite defense. Instead of feeling weak, inferior, unimportant, or some other negative trait, they accuse you and others of being weak, overly sensitive, inferior, unimportant, or something else they don’t want to feel about themselves. By projecting, they are trying to get rid of their dirty little secret and make you and others the needy ones with all the problems.