Empaths and narcissists… an irresistible love story… doomed from the start.
A failure? Yes, certainly it would or will be a failure from the empath’s perspective, let alone the damage a relationship of this kind might cause.
On the other hand, the narcissist would just benefit from someone genuinely caring. In any case, this type of relationship, especially because of the intrinsic dynamics that develop, is not a balanced and healthy one for several reasons.
First of all, I shall explain briefly what is an empath and what is a narcissist.
An empath is a highly sensitive individual able to pick on other people’s emotions, physical symptoms, and feelings as if they were their own through energy and energetic interactions. Empaths are very attuned to feel what others feel as their mirror neurons are extremely developed. They are rare, though. Only 20% of the worldwide population has empathic specific high sensitivity and a set of abilities that could be thought of as powerful gifts when developed that are proper to this group of special and unconventional individuals.
An empath is genuinely a caring individual, many times they care too much.
Whether it is a colleague, a friend, a sibling, or anyone else in their range and environment, empaths support, uplift, nurture others in many ways, and they provide unconditional love, deep understanding which is that special ability called empathy of course, and true compassion. Many times, they are also instrumental in solving other people’s problems.
A narcissist is an individual suffering from a narcissistic personality disorder, a mental condition in which the person has an inflated sense of self-importance, a deep need to be admired, they live and experience conflicting relationships to the point to become very troubled and toxic for the other person or the other people involved, and a lack of empathy. The narcissist may seem or actually is charming and truly interesting, nonetheless, after a short while, they will start showing a different personality, and empaths who have a radar for recognising manipulators and toxic people in general, will unmask them exposing their flaws. This might happen in different contexts, depending on the situation, but what is important is that empaths should always protect themselves and their energy from this type of individual.
Why is it so important for an empath to create an energetic shield?
I am not speaking just about romantic relationships. This is not a blog post about romance. It’s rather about how to deal with abusive and toxic people in an empath’s life and how to set healthy boundaries to live in a happy and fulfilling way.
In order to know if you have among your family members, friends, colleagues, or acquaintances one or more narcissists, I shall first enumerate some of the typical and recognisable signs and symptoms of NPD. People who suffer from this mental condition:
- Have an exaggerated sense of self-importance
- Have a sense of entitlement and require constant, excessive admiration
- Expect to be recognised as superior even without achievements that ensure or prove it
- Monopolise conversations and belittle or look down on people they perceive as inferior
- Are envious of others and believe others envy them as well
- Think consistently and get the illusion of success, brilliance, power, attractiveness, or ideally daydream of the perfect mate while in their mind it is real
- Take advantage of others to get what they want
- Believe they are superior and can only associate with equally special people
- Behave in an arrogant or haughty manner, coming across as conceited, boastful and pretentious
- Expect special favours and unquestioning compliance with their expectations
- Have an inability or are unwilling to recognise the needs and feelings of others: the lack of empathy lets narcissists fall from the opposite side of the spectrum where empaths are energetically positioned.
If, for instance, an empath falls in love with a narcissist – which is very likely to happen as empaths often attract narcissists and other energy vampires – and they are ready to love their mate unconditionally, not only the empath will be constantly manipulated and feel loaded with toxicity, but the narcissist will play hot and cold for their empath mate to be always there for them thinking that if their narcissist mate is not happy, they can change their behaviour accordingly. A big mistake. It’s the cat and the mouse game, and it’s an insidious psychological trap.
Although it’s not known what causes narcissistic personality disorder yet, some causes could be associated to several factors, including:
– Environment: A conflicting and or incongruous behaviour, a lack of involvement with the child caused by one or both parents might develop into NPD while the child becomes a teenager or a young adult. Excessive adoration or excessive criticism may also influence the appearance of this disorder later on.
– Neurobiology: The connection between the brain, the behavior and thinking.
– Genetics: Inherited characteristics and personality traits.
These factors can play a major role in determining in the narcissist their disorder but the narcissist does not perceive their disorder or mental condition as such.
In other words, the narcissist might not be aware of their disorder and mental condition while some other ones are, and dismiss it and they are unlikely to take responsibility for their actions.
As an evolved, empowered empath, I learned how to recognize these signs and keep myself and my energy protected and shielded as much as possible.
Being emotionally unavailable is one of the best strategies to use and practice with narcissists. It’s easy to say, but what about real life and challenges? What about hurtful unfair conversations or psychological abuses? Well, there are smart insightful ways to deal with a narcissist even though it’s a tough struggle. Once you understand these three key points, you will be able to set healthy boundaries and protect yourself and your energy from them and their toxic energy.
- Learn to respond, not to react. Self-love is key. Instead of getting into their trap and react to an hurtful statement, a lie, an abusive behaviour or a verbal abuse, learn to respond to them and, at a given moment, disengage yourself from the conversation. Acknowledge that the person is in pain and their are just putting out on you. What the say or do is a reflection of their own pain, their words to you are what they feel about themselves, and this cannot and should not affect you. Learn your triggers, learn also what is true about yourself so you will not react again and be on their same level. When you learn to love yourself and accept yourself unconditionally, they might hurt you in the moment, but you know who you are, you know your self-worth, you don’t lack the confidence in yourself and so, instead of reacting, your response will be an emotional distance from the person, the event, the place or the conversation you are having or had with the person a moment ago.
- Understand that the abusive behaviour is a reflection of the person, and it doesn’t have anything to do with you. When you realise it, you take an emotional distance from them as you stop taking everything they say/yell at you on a personal level. They can speak, you just end the conversation as a decent human being and walk away: this allows you to care about yourself and prioritize your own health and psychological, mental, physical and emotional well-being.
- In case of gaslighting or deception, be assertive and don’t doubt yourself. You can prove that what you heard, saw, felt is legitimate. Give evidence by confronting the narcissist about facts. Factual reality versus the illusions or deceptions they want you to believe. Oftentimes, they lie because they need to rewrite the narrative of them being weak, unfair or simply untrue to you but letting you believe that you are the one who is not true to them or the weak one. You know that your self-confidence will lead you to a fairer and more acceptable exchange with them despite the toxicity that the dynamics implies.