When you’ve been in a relationship with someone who really made your life a living hell or someone who’s hurt you, it’s very easy and even normal to see that person as the worst kind of devil. Currently, we tend to go along and try to learn or understand if they’re a narcissist or have some personality disorder, and we even try to determine which part of the spectrum they fall into.

The Rabbit Hole of Narcissism

As you move through this rabbit hole, you may find yourself seeing any slight selfish behaviour in someone, or someone who displays slight anger or who cheated on you, as a narcissist. You start to realize that you’re surrounded by narcissists, or that everyone around you is heavily narcissistic.

Becoming an Expert on Narcissism

You even join forums just to share more about narcissism, and you become an expert after reading so much and even considering a degree in psychology to understand it further. As you keep studying and learning, you may find yourself in debates with people who claim that not everyone is a narcissist, and you defend your claims. Alternatively, you might find yourself in endless research to learn about narcissism.

The Real Issue Avoidance

While it may seem important in your journey to learn all this psychological jargon and use it when someone becomes self-centred, we often miss the point. Even your quest to learn more about disorders misses the point of the journey. It’s still avoidance.

You see, focusing on whether someone is a narcissist or not may make you feel like you understand, but you’re diverting your attention from the real “narcissist,” which is the wounded part of you that becomes extremely defensive when things don’t go your way. It’s the wounded part of you that doesn’t want to see the emotional baggage deep inside and bitterness you have towards yourself.

Facing the Real Problem

This is the part of you that runs around learning and studying without really seeing what’s happening in your closet. This is the part of you that will do what it takes to label everyone else as a narcissist and see yourself as the saint. This is not to downplay the abuse you went through; the abuse is real.

But what’s even more real is that anything you do aside from looking at yourself in the mirror is avoidance of the real problems. That’s why they say you should really look at the real problem in the face or rather look at ‘evil’ in the face. The real problem is the pain that is already visible in your face, the anger or feeling of self-pity when you are provoked by an article that doesn’t support your current perception of reality.

The Futility of Overanalysing

You see, overanalysing or constantly trying to prove whether your partner is a narcissist is as fruitless as filling air in a punctured tire; it will offer some temporary relief, but as you keep going, it will eventually wear you down and cause more problems.

The same thing happens when you don’t focus on the negativity inside you. You end up piling up more and more negativity deep inside, and without working on offloading some of it, you may even experience physical symptoms like bruxism, fibromyalgia, or autoimmune diseases stemming from those unprocessed emotions.

Now, who’s hurting you? Is it your ex or your parents who you claim are the narcissists, or is it you who is running around seeking answers instead of seeing the damage inside and taking steps to heal the pain?

Shifting Your Perception

There’s something we’ve got to understand about your current perception of reality. You’d rather blame, pathologize a situation, and engage in senseless online debates about this or that, or claim that your trauma is different, or that something isn’t gaslighting. You might even read peer-reviewed psychological articles and have a PhD in psychology, but the key item will always be there: the only way is going inwards.

To go inwards, your identity or ego will craft every possible and seemingly logical reason to keep you from doing so. You will not truly take responsibility for the part you’ve played in keeping yourself stuck in this situation or the part you’re still playing now by looking for a relationship even though you clearly understand there’s work to be done.

We don’t really look at that because it’s so emotionally challenging, and when it’s challenging, we’d rather avoid it altogether and look for a fancy path of least resistance. After all, we’ve lived most of our lives on a near boundaryless-state, or that’s what we’ve learned, and we’ll gravitate or move along that path because to the mind it’s so familiar and easy.

Anything along that path, ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ will always keep you oscillating between feeling sad and sparks of joy, but mostly sad because that’s the underlying structure of your life.

Embracing Self-Focus

But now, if you could stop all those things you’re doing and really see what you’re avoiding, the pain you’re running away from, you’d be going to the right sources where your liberation awaits.

All the bones in your body will be like, “What are you doing?” “Don’t open that Pandora’s box.” “Everyone is a narcissist — learn more about the different spectrum.” Or “No one will understand me.” But at the end of the day, the reality is in that pain, not in discussing narcissism with others. You can do that later as something you just enjoy or as a choice rather than avoidance.

Taking Responsibility

So, it doesn’t really matter if you feel the term is overused or not. What matters is whether you are taking responsibility now so that you won’t consciously or unconsciously find yourself in those situations again.

As for me, yes, I do use the term narcissist sometimes, but it’s more for grabbing attention. The content is geared to ‘provoke’ your identity, distract you from focusing on others, and lead you back to yourself, the one who matters the most.

When I work with clients, they often say they’re a narcissist and even try to educate me. But after that, I just ask them simple-focused questions like, “Are you taking care of yourself? How are you feeling now? How are your boundaries? Are you getting enough sleep?” or simply remind them, “Hey, let’s focus on you.”

Building a Good Life for Yourself

That’s what you also need to do on this journey. Be selfishly obsessed with focusing on yourself and how you can build a good life for yourself, even before you look at other fancy stuff like ‘changing the world.’

Change yourself or make peace with the pain, let go of the anger and resentment that is no longer serving you, and release the bitterness you have towards yourself and all those people. Clear that smirk off your face and return that smile again. Then, maybe later on, you can engage in debates if you want.

Note from the Author

If you’re ready and you’d like my help with healing, finding peace in life and breaking free from these toxic patterns, then you can book a FREE BREAKTHROUGH CALL with me HERE. Happy healing 💙💙. Feel free to share and comment! Use this information with caution, it comes from my own thoughts & bias, experiences and research😊.

References

1. https://www.ft.com/content/af99b2ae-e09d-4931-88f5-42c44891adfe

2. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/invisible-bruises/202203/why-is-everyones-ex-suddenly-narcissist

3. https://www.mindsettherapyonline.com/blog/is-everyone-a-narcissist-now