After spending all this time on the receiving end of the narcissist's mind, where it's hard to predict one mood, one moment, to the other, it's time to enter their minds.
These are dark, toxic places, but for you, I'm going to let you in on everything they think, and all they act on to make your life the hell it has been.
If you're ready, I want to make sense of narcissistic personalities, and the minds that conjure up those evil, twisted games.
Grab a coffee, sit down, and brace yourself. What you're about to read might explain years of moments you couldn't quite make sense of at the time.
1 Enough? Nothing ever is
Think about the last time you ate that big meal during the Holiday season. You finished everything on your plate, and you were stuffed for the rest of the day.
If we're comparing that meal to attention, or admiration, or even needing to be validated, a narcissist will never be full. They'd be loading up plate after plate after plate, and you'll sit there wide eyed thinking, "Where the heck are you putting this all?"
It's because as soon as a narcissist receives any of those things, it fuels them for a short time, before they need more and more of it to keep surviving.
The next hit becomes a constant journey for them, and with each corner they turn, they want another little bit of praise, or another compliment.
It's exhausting to think this is how someone lives their life, with everything good that comes their way evaporating before it has a chance to make a meaningful impression.
Imagine having a bucket with a hole in the bottom. You keep pouring water in, and it just keeps draining out. That's what praise does inside their head.
This is why you can be around a narcissist and feel totally drained after just a few minutes in their company. Not that they'd notice that, of course.
2 Threats from every direction
Entering the narcissist's mind is an eye-opening experience, and I want you to do that with me in the following examples of thoughts they have every single day. Why is she talking to him? You're trying to make me look bad. I can't stand you.
I can see her flirting with him. It's driving me crazy. She's so confident and yet I can't chip away at her. My God, her boundaries are strong. What you get is the outcome of those thoughts. You get the yelling and the silent treatment.
You get the accusations and punishments. What you don't hear is the insecurity behind each and every one, and those are the driving factors behind every which way a narcissist behaves.
The narcissist's nervous system is incredibly stuck on high alert, and it's genuinely because they believe they're in a world that is out to get them. They constantly think they're about to be exposed. They think there is someone around every corner ready to embarrass them, or worse, leave.
The interactions a narcissist has will all be filtered through these beliefs, as they look out for people who are a threat to them.
That's why you see them react so badly whenever someone makes a joke that's aimed at them, or if someone else has good news to the point where it feels like a direct insult to the narcissist.
It shatters their bravado that they try so hard to keep a hold of day and night almost instantly. These are people completely convinced the world is out to destroy them at the click of a finger.
See also 5 Creepy Things Every Narcissist Hides Somewhere in Their HouseFrom every direction, there is a threat that the narcissist feels will ruin not just their day, but their entire life.
Imagine living like that. Every laugh in the room is about them. Every glance is a plot. Exhausting, isn't it? And they've built the whole prison themselves.
3 No narcissist likes themselves
Here goes something that will really get you feeling a little twisted up:
Narcissists don't like themselves. I know. I used to find it hard to believe, too. They seem so confident and full of themselves, and they are, but this is a way of overcompensating for traits they actually lack. They just learn to hide it well.
You get this version that seems so superior to everyone else; a version that seems untouchable. Sure, they wear that armor convincingly, but what's going on underneath it? They don't even want to give it the time of day. Even thinking about that person under it all makes them shudder.
So they don't. They don't look at all. They won't sit with that, though. They will use their discomfort as the catalyst to create a fictional version of themselves, one who they prefer, and who others will like, too. And the sky is the limit here, folks.
All stories and characters are bespoke. They will defend that person they created, and make sure everyone believes this is the real version of themselves that truly exists.
You threaten that, and it will make them wild with rage, and it feels like their entire world is about to come crashing down around them.
I had a client whose ex flipped a table because she said, "You're not who you pretend to be." One sentence. That's all it took.
4 Every narcissist knows that all relationships are run on transactions
In a narcissist's mind, they really do know this. They know they aren't having the same kinds of relationships as the healthy people out there. They know they aren't connecting with you in a way your best friend is connecting with their spouse.
They sit and watch couples laugh together like it's the most alien thing in the world to witness. It leaves this hollow state of confusion that they're unable to run from, and it eats them up from the inside.
This isn't helped by you when you start realizing what's happening, and stop showing the narcissist that they're a fabulous, loving partner. This is their worst nightmare, and will start to make them think that they're going crazy.
As they see this, they see you becoming more and more useless to them as you're not giving them what they actually need. You didn't do anything wrong here. You just stopped being the kind of transaction they were hoping you'd be forever.
It sounds harsh, but this is how all narcissists behave. You enter the relationship believing you've found something, someone, amazing. They enter it knowing you're going to provide them with the exact supply they need.
One client told me her ex actually said, "You used to make me feel like a king." Used to. Past tense. Like she was a broken vending machine.
5 Narcissists? Empty…?
Yes. That's what all of this is about. This is the root of the issue:
Every single narcissist is empty. They run a performance that ticks the boxes of people who seem to like the initial show. After a while, they realize that they're sitting down to watch something they really don't recall getting a ticket for.
The narcissist then goes home, and has nothing but themselves for company, and that's when they come to understand how much they really hate themselves. In their mind, they've got nothing, and no distraction from the pain that causes.
No single amount of supply or admiration will heal them, and that's why it's such a constant battle for you to please them every day you are together. They're hollow, and inside is a void that will never be full.
To be that person must be exhausting in itself, but make sure you don't catch yourself feeling sorry for them. Every way they act, they cause the pain themselves. It is a choice. That's why they're kind to your mailman and yell at you.
The mailman gets thirty seconds of charm. You get the leftovers, the real face, the sighing, the snapping, the cold shoulder when you dare to ask what's wrong.
The life of a narcissist is lonely. That's why they want to drag you down with them, too.
6 Time? They can't sit with it
Silence is the enemy. A quiet afternoon, an empty evening, a car ride with no podcast, no phone, no one to text. That's where a narcissist starts to unravel.
Sitting still means sitting with themselves, and themselves is the last person they want company with. So they fill the time. Constant scrolling, constant plans, constant noise. If nobody is around, they'll pick a fight just to feel something move.
I've had people describe it to me as watching someone allergic to their own thoughts. The second things go still, they're messaging an ex, calling a family member they haven't spoken to in months, starting drama in a group chat over nothing.
Why? Because stillness would force them to feel the emptiness we talked about a moment ago. And they can't face it. Not for five minutes. Not for one.
So they run. Into people, into problems, into anything that keeps the clock from being too loud. It looks like a busy, full life from the outside. Inside, it's just avoidance in motion.
7 The comparison game never stops
Every person the narcissist walks past is being measured. Silently, constantly. Who earns more, who looks better, who got the promotion, whose kids are doing well at school. It never switches off.
See also 8 Creepy Bedtime Habits That Only a Narcissist Would HaveAnd it's exhausting for them, though they'd never admit it. Imagine walking through life with a scoreboard in your head that updates every three seconds. That's what's happening in there.
If they come out on top, they get a little hit of something that feels like superiority. If they don't? Watch out. Because now they've got to bring you down somehow. A snide comment about the promoted colleague. A dig at the friend whose relationship is thriving.
"She's changed since she got that job, you know."
I hear this from clients a lot. They'll say, "I don't understand why my ex hated my best friend so much." Nine times out of ten, that friend was doing well. That was the whole crime.
There's no rest in a mind like that. Every win someone else has feels like a personal loss to them.
