How the Hell Did I End Up with a Narcissist? Strategies to Help Deal with a Narcissist

How the hell did I get here? Why did I end up with a Narcissist? How do I deal with a narcissist?

First and foremost, unpack any shame, guilt, anger about yourself ending up with a Narcissist. Shift the blame off yourself. It is a win for the Narcissist to watch you keep blaming yourself, that is their MO.

I am going to let you in on a little story, I have been a clinical social worker and trauma-based therapist for the past ten years. Two years ago, I met a man that I thought was wonderful, worldly, exciting and I finally had a chance to engage in a deep relationship.

This was not a long relationship perhaps eight months thank goodness, but I ended up with a covert Narcissist. And the damage that it did to me emotionally, spiritually, and physically was significant, but it just goes to show you that we are ALL human, you can be a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, a therapist, and you can still end up with a Narcissist. So, unpack that shame, guilt or thoughts that I wasn’t savvy enough to spot it!

The second the thing is that while I was in my own therapy, (yes therapist go to therapy) there were a couple of things that were coming up for me and this is how I apply my work now with people that have left a Narcissistic Abusive relationship, it is really important to look at patterns and what was coming up for you, there will be a shift and you will start to attract people that are going to be more adaptive in new relationships.

Attachment Styles. We have to start looking at these and how they play out in our life.

One of the things that we must start looking at, and people may not want to do this is looking at our history of attachments in our childhood. Attachments, this begins with our primary caregivers’ parents, grandparents whomever was providing you care in your childhood. It is important to look at these attachment styles because this is how it will show up in the relationship you had with the Narcissist. This could be multiple people as well, anyone that raising you from birth to your teen years. There are a lot of theories about attachment and as a clinical therapist this is one of theoretical foundations, we do study, and it is important. If you are interested in additional reading, I would suggest Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and how it can help you find and keep love. By. Amir Levin, Rachel FS Heller, they did a wonderful job of highlighting attachment styles and learning to gently dismantle some of those challenging attachment styles to begin to obtain more securely attached relationships. There are four different attachment styles we have learned as children; please keep in mind you will find yourself intertwine in and out of these four different attachment styles so you do not fall into one attachment style only but as you gain insight you will see what your role is in your previous choices of attachment styles.

There was a famous psychological experiment done with babies and their mothers or caregivers in the 1950’s where John Bowlby would observe babies in a room with their mother and record their emotional and physical states when the mother would leave and re-enter the room. From that he formulated four main attachment styles we can have.

The first attachment style is Secure:

You have a secure attachment with your parents, you will be able to tolerate and receive love without feeling frightened, your parent(s) were consistent in your needs physically, emotionally, and spiritually. You felt that your needs were always being met by your caregiver when we were hungry, wet or tired. These caregivers were physically aware of their space in connection to you. When you began to walk, they were able to allow you to explore this physical milestone, but they were able to be in the peripheral area to be there if you had a sudden fall. They did not coddle you either. If you had a secure attachment, you are probably confident in the partners you chose, you can tap into your inner resiliency.

Secure Attachment:

• Self-worth, confidence

• Secure and trusting in your intimate relationships.

• Ok with intimacy and vulnerability

• Interdependent, meaning you can depend on loved ones and they can depend on you.

The second attachment style is Anxious-Resistant.

This is where when we were children, we were anxious or freaking out if one of our caregivers left us to go to the other room for something, when they come back, we may have more feelings of being more “needy” or make our bodies and physical proximity to someone closer. A lot of people that talk about this attachment style talk about feeling like they could not self-soothe themselves or tolerate the person leaving the room. They may have a lot of challenges with insecurities or feeling empowered in their self-worth. Sometimes we fantasize about a relationship happening that will rescue us from our own inner pain.
Anxious Attachment:

• Negative perception of yourself

• Anxiety of losing relationships

• A lot of emotional highs and lows

• Sometimes too dependent on others.

The third attachment style is Avoidant.

This is when we were kids and we did not show any stress or fear when our caregivers left us, and when they returned, we did not show any emotion. A lot of people do not understand the disconnect of why they did not have any emotions to their caregiver leaving. We grew up in a house that received a lot of mixed signals. There can be a lot of distrust of her caregivers because we did not know how reliable they would be for us. This is an attachment that can look like there being a lot of ambivalence from our partners, there is a lot of internal conflict, and a lot of unpredictability.

Avoidant Attachment:

• You have a positive view of yourself

• Negative views of other

• Independent do not need a lot of support

• Hard to read emotionally

• Puts up walls

Disorganized Attachment or Fearful attachment

This attachment is difficult because there may be periods of extreme fear, anger, or sadness, to then not experiencing any feelings of distress at all when it comes to relating to our primary caregivers. This has a high correlation to people that have suffered a lot of trauma or had to absorb the trauma of their caregivers. People talk about having experienced a lot of isolation; we find our relationships with partners who are emotionally unavailable.

Fearful Attachment:

• Negative view of yourself and others

• Wants intimacy but also avoids it all costs

• Terrified of making connections

• Possible exposure to some form of abuse.

This is a basic overview and a snapshot of attachment styles. Again, when I work with clients, we do a lot of assessing of these and remember these attachment styles also could have changed over time for you when you were growing up. A good way to start to gain insight is to think about your connection to your parents or caregiver(s). Did you feel like they were a lot of anxiety, unpredictability, rollercoaster of emotions? I also recommended to my clients just to take a white piece of paper and in the middle write down the primary caregivers in your life and from that just do a free association of what words may come up to you when describing the relationship.

But I cannot stress it enough if you are in this process of recovery from leaving a Narcissist we have to do the work of understanding your primary attachments. Look at your other attachments to other people in your life. What types of attachments are those? Do you have friends that you may have secure attachments with or anxious or avoidant? This is the beauty you can start to look through this lens and it will help you inform you of how you connect to people and how you want to connect to people in the future.

Another thing to unpack about this work is that the NARCISSIST has severe attachment challenges as well, and most of the time people tell me that their idea of what constitutes a safe deeply connected relationship never aligned with the Narcissist. I will do a whole blog on their attachment styles later. Because education is key. We are looking at someone that probably is avoidant in addressing vulnerable feelings, a relationship where you were the one showing and displaying all the emotions. Let us face it, we have bawled our eyes out in front of a Narcissist, and they are completely emotionless. This is not about you having anything wrong with the attachment styles you learned but also give back this guilt and shame that the Narcissist pretty much has a disorganized attachment style. Not really going to win points with them on that. But none of that has anything to do with you. When you can look at your attachment styles you are going to have that “LIGHT SWITCH MOMENT” of why we were Narcissists magnets. But at the end of the day the Narcissist made a choice to be abusive in their connections with others. You may have gone through similar attachment styles as the Narcissist, but you did not choose to be abusive to people. Abuse is a choice.

Another thing to be aware of when you are in recovery from a Narcissistic Abusive relationship is where were you mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually in your life? It’s good to take inventory of that. We may have been in a place of vulnerability at the time we met the Narcissist such as emotionally, physically, economically, we may have been coming out of a divorce, a caregiver to an elderly parent, working in a stressful job, whatever it was ask yourself what space were you in? Were we experiencing loss or grief? Were we in toxic relationships with other people such as family, colleagues, a toxic work environment? It is good to look at this and see what space we are in the future and to be gentle with ourselves, taking a new relationship more slowly.

Project Heal Activity:

I want you to grab a piece of paper and just draw a brainstorm bubble in the middle and that represents you. Then I want you to identify the primary people or caregivers in your life and just do a free association exercise of what words come to mind when you think of your attachment or relationship to them. It can be positive or negative. Just do some free flow associations with it. This is a good way to start identifying our attachment styles.

Let us start with that. This is a lot to unpack but we need to do this. You have carried a backpack of heavy things for too long. So, remember this is a process, it’s not an exact science but once you understand your attachment styles and what was happening for you, this will help you navigate a healthier relationship.

Take Phoenix! Rise and Thrive!!