There is something about the dark for us all that reveals so many truths. If it's still and quiet, there's room for honesty to rise up and show us all the things we're dealing with, which is why some nights can be troublesome.
I had a client say to me, "Alexander, he runs himself ragged all day so he doesn't have to lie still at night." That right there tells you everything.
For a narcissist, there's no play time at night. That's when their fears (and trust me, they have them) come out, and they mean business. Alone and in the dark, a narcissist's fears will be strong, but I want to talk today about what they fear.
1 That voice coming through: Who am I?
Narcissists are great at accusing, but they aren't so good with being accused. Being alone at night reveals their acute awareness that in fact, they are actually both the accuser and accused as one. You know what you did, blends in well with.
Why are you always trying to make me feel bad?
I had a client describe it perfectly. She said her ex told her, 'I can't sleep when it's quiet, I hate it.' Now you know exactly why, don't you?
At night, there is just one, singular voice that the narcissist can hear, and it's all of their thoughts mixed with all of the ways other people have approached them as someone who is in the wrong.
As confusing as it might be for them, it's the narcissist's reality right there on a plate. They can't escape it, and therefore fear the kinds of nights where they're stuck ruminating over this harsh fact.
It's the kind of voice the narcissist will argue against, but the one they will never win with. I think that's what scares them the most, and why it is such a strong fear especially when they are alone in the middle of the night.
2 Your face when you aren't crying
If you were ever in any doubt at just how weird a narcissist can get, I am about to walk you into one of the strangest things they fear. Hopefully this will give you some indication of the type of person you're truly dealing with.
During the daylight hours, the narcissist is able to picture you crying. Maybe they even see it frequently, and for them, this is truly comforting. I know. I did say it was weird…
While a narcissist will never admit to finding your face of pain a delight, for them it's a sign that they still matter enough to you for you to get so upset by them. If they didn't matter, you wouldn't even be giving them a second thought.
I had a client tell me once that the moment she stopped crying, he started panicking. "Why are you so cold?" he'd ask. She just shrugged. That shrug ended him.
As the night rolls around, the narcissist struggles to hold that image, as it turns ever efficiently and predictably into your calm face. It was the day you packed your bags to go, or the day you stopped responding to their drama and accusations.
It was the day you had no expression on your face at all, and I want to be clear here; it really builds to a big fear for them. They want to see you crying and begging.
They want to see how much their toxicity affects you, and how their mind games win the battle of emotions for them, while you end up losing big time. If you're blank by expression, you've won the entire war.
That is enough to unlock a ridiculous amount of fear for the narcissist.
3 The potential of them being ordinary
A fear that cuts deep, and one every single narcissist struggles to contain. At night, it spills out over all the others, and that is the fear of being seen as ordinary to everybody else. These are the people they fight for the attention of.
The people who they try day in and day out to impress, but effortlessly so (because no narcissist wants to be seen as desperate). To be seen as ordinary means they are viewed as being just like everybody else.
See also The Creepy Things Narcissists Do When They Are AloneI had a client describe it perfectly. She said, "He'd rather be hated than forgotten." And that's it, isn't it? Ordinary is the one thing they cannot survive being.
There's nothing special about them, and nothing that stands out. Imagine having the world's biggest, yet most sensitive ego, and having to work with the fact that you're normal, just like the rest of us.
It is the wound that reveals itself more and more, and the narcissist tries to hide it each and every time. Being alone at night, when the world is asleep and the sky is dark and restful, that's when it hits the narcissist.
That's when they feel their most scared of one day waking up to no audience, and no interest.
4 Their mother
Narcissists are not exempt from their own 'mother wounds', even if their mother was a nice, caring person. Let me show you what I mean by that.
Night time is the right time for a mother's voice to come through, and why that's the case is it's a very vulnerable time for everyone, and what memory invokes vulnerability more than your own mother? All the times she, if not nice, was cold and neglectful.
The times the narcissist tried and tried to prove themselves to her, only to be rejected.
I had a client tell me her narcissistic ex would call his mom at 2am, drunk, just to argue with her. He never remembered it the next day. Telling, isn't it?
The voice of disapproval. Then there's the image of the caring mother, who may have tried hard to correct the narcissism within the narcissist, to no avail.
The one who wanted to help them see the error of their ways but who only ended up being the initial person who exposed the narcissist's toxic behavior.
All those reminders for the narcissist to pick up and carry through the rest of the night are going to be tough, but this is a fear; the fear that the thoughts will surface at all. If they do, they're mighty hard to switch off, that's for sure.
5 The image replaying of their own death
As hard as it may be to believe, a narcissist is terrified of their own mortality. To die for them is their worst nightmare, and the fact that someday it'll happen strikes them even more deeply.
They think about their funeral, and who would show up and have something wonderful to say about them.
They also fear those who will attend and have the worst, real stories to tell people, who may well end up walking away from the service with a very surprised, and different opinion of them than they had before.
And I mean really turn to it. Sudden church attendance, posting bible verses, telling everybody they've found peace. It's not peace. It's panic dressed up in Sunday clothes.
By night, the list of people they think would show up is very small, and that injects this worry into the narcissist that they're unable to shake.
To top it all off, there's a deep down and very visceral fear that there is some kind of maker on the other side waiting to greet them. That's why many narcissists in older age may turn to religion in order to try to redeem themselves.
I wish I was kidding.
6 Their own breathing: the ultimate sound of dread
I'll keep it simple here:
A narcissist hates the sound of their own breath. It's the only rhythm in a room where they are alone, and without another to contract or silence theirs, that's all they're left with.
Even if you were there and crying, or if the narcissist wasn't talking to you, you were still that other person.
One client described it to me as, "It's like the room is listening back." That's the thing about silence. It hands the narcissist a mirror they can't smash.
Alone? Their own breath is the biggest sign of that. That's why they hate it so much, but underneath that hate is a thick foundation of fear nothing can shake.
7 The silence they can't switch off
You know that ringing? That weird, almost humming quiet that fills a room when there's nobody else in it and nothing on?
Most of us have made peace with it. Some of us even like it.
The narcissist? They can't stand it.
Because silence isn't really silent for them. It's loud. It's every conversation they had during the day playing back. It's the comment somebody made at work that didn't quite land the way they wanted. It's the friend who didn't text back.
It's the way their partner looked at them, just for a second, like they were figuring something out.
They can turn the TV on. They can scroll. They can put music on in the background. But the noise underneath the noise, the one inside their own head, that one doesn't have an off switch.
And isn't that wild? The person who spent all day talking over you, cutting you off, filling every room they entered, can't bear a quiet bedroom for ten minutes.
They need the chatter. Because without it, they have to listen to themselves.
8 That one person they never quite fooled
There's always one, isn't there? One person who saw straight through them. Maybe it was an old friend who quietly stopped returning calls. Maybe a sibling who said, "I don't trust them, and I never will." Maybe it was you.
See also 5 Creepy Things Every Narcissist Hides Somewhere in Their HouseAnd at night, that person creeps into their head uninvited.
Because here's the thing. Narcissists can shake off a hundred admirers, but the one who wasn't fooled? That one sticks. That one rattles around in the dark like a loose screw.
They replay the conversation. They wonder what gave them away. Was it something they said? A look they didn't manage to hide quickly enough? It eats at them, because if one person saw it, who else might?
It's not guilt. Don't get that twisted. It's exposure. The fear that the mask isn't as airtight as they need it to be.
And the worst part for them? They can't go back and fix it. That person already knows. And no amount of charm is pulling that one back.
