You might also remember that they would draw you in as a confidant and criticize others, not out of concern, but simply because they are critics. And over time, you find out that you’re the next person on the list; you just didn’t know it in the moment. When you look back, you might see that these people are skilled at embellishing their positives and minimizing their negatives. If they do say, “Yeah, I made a mistake,” it’s always someone else’s fault, and it wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t been exposed to bad things. Yet they’ll talk in grandiose ways about all the wonderful things about themselves.
In retrospect, you’ll also notice that they can be erratic in their emotions and behaviors; they are consistently inconsistent. There are times when they just sort of drop off, and you think, “What happened to them?” It may be that they have something they don’t want you to know about. Then, if you discuss problems with them, you’ll notice that if they apologize, it’s often a fake apology—a classic non-apology apology—because they don’t change or adjust their mistakes. It’s like they say what they need to say to get you off their back.
It’s very common that, as you look back on your relationship with that person, they may have idealized you for a while, but over time, they begin to demonize you, just as they do with so many others. It can be really disconcerting when it finally dawns on you: “I’m in the presence of a player. I’m with someone who’s not genuine, who’s not authentic, who’s deceptive and willfully dishonest.” Those are the words that describe phoniness.
You eventually begin to see that they are defined by starting off fast and then ending abruptly. So, a question arises: what is going on inside that narcissist who is so devoted to their fake persona? We call it the false self. How do they get so entrenched in that?
Let me take a quick aside. Every one of us has moments when we think, “I don’t know if I really want to reveal my real self to some people,” only because you don’t know if that person is trustworthy enough or if there’s safety. I’m not suggesting that holding back is always wrong; sometimes you just need to use discernment. But with narcissists, it’s much more than that.
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