What is a perverse narcissist?

The perverse narcissists (NP) are egomaniacal people, who only think about themselves and they lack empathy. Their conscious objective is to devastate, suffocate and annul the other to feel above, with more self-esteem and more power.

Although it is a personality profile that occurs mostly in men, it also occurs in some women. In this article we will talk about the characteristics of this.

• Related article: "The main theories of personality"

Characteristics of perverse narcissists

If you want to know if you have been or are with a narcissistic perverse, read on. Below I summarize the main characteristics of these people (be careful, you do not have to comply with all of them ...).

1. Great social skills

They like to like each other and therefore tend to have the gift of words. They deceive and dazzle with details: flowers, letters, looks of affection... Therefore, they come in a pack with the gift of emotional manipulation. They are, in short, admired and on the other hand feared, since they can expose any vulnerability that we have told them to do us harm.

• You may be interested in: "The 6 types of social skills, and what they are for"

2. Tremendously susceptible to criticism

They never do anything wrong or wrong, it is the other one who is crazy and the one who has problems. They react from anger making you feel afraid so that you do not question them.

3. As the name suggests, they are wicked

If you try to defend yourself against them, they will defend against you from the attack. They will look for your vulnerable point, "your weak point" to try to make you feel bad and thus manipulate you more easily.

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4. They try to shine constantly, above you

If you tell them about your achievements and successes, they devalue them. Yours are always more important.

5. They tend to punish a lot

Within its wide range of manipulation strategies, they use punishment a lot. They stop talking to you for a few days, giving you sex or affection... or... they just disappear, the famous ghosting.

6. They do gaslighting

If you try to expose your needs or what bothers you, you are always the one who is crazy, the one with the problem, the one who must go to the psychologist, the bad mother, the bad wife, and a long etcetera.

• You may be interested in: "Gaslighting: the subtlest emotional abuse"

7. They try to exaggerate your difficulties and make fun of them

Thus they try to feel superior to you, and so sadly, they feel better about themselves. In other words, they overcompensate for their low self-esteem.

8. They look for easy-to-manipulate profiles

The profile of the couple that the PN is looking for are the “good people” who give it their all, with high empathy and sensitivity for others. They trick these women and men into making them shine like the star they think they are. These types of people who fall into the networks of a PN have a tendency to emotional dependence, with a certain wound of abandonment and fear of loneliness.

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9. They are unclear people speaking

The key feature of NPs is that they are ambiguous. That is to say, they alternate words or messages of affection that have nothing to do with what they do.

An example of them is when they say... "you are the love of my life, I can't live without you" but then they prevent you from dressing as you wish or talking to other men whenever you want. Or when they don't listen to you, they don't validate your needs ...

• You may be interested in: "The 28 types of communication and their characteristics"

Is a PN born or made?

From the theory of epigenetics we understand that all disorders have a part of genetics or personality and another of environment. So we can say that a PN originates from both.

Regarding the environment, they tend to have parents very similar to them, with a narcissistic style, who treat their mothers badly and play with them. In turn, these parents also mistreat their children. Children grow up with a very large narcissistic wound, feeling that they are not important to either parent.. And from there, they try to overcompensate for their injury with their partners, friends, and successes.

In NP, you can also see a mother who overprotects the child, gives him messages of omnipotence and perfection, externalizes the blame to others, etc. In this way, the child grows up convinced that he is a kind of "king" and that others have to live in subjection as if they were slaves.

Can a NP be healed?

The answer is very clear: NO. In consultation we have many women who suffer from emotional dependence and are still chained to this type of PN profiles. The first thing we communicate to them from the first sessions is that they have to break with all hope of improvement, as painful as it may be.

They are people who do intentional harm, and they will never acknowledge their vulnerabilities or emotional wounds. Fighting against its change is like trying to break a concrete wall with only our hands.

How do I get out of a relationship with a PN?

I explain some main guidelines that you can follow, but it is essential that you start a psychotherapeutic process. Not only to get out of the relationship, but to regain the self-esteem that the PN has stolen from you.

1. Realize that you are next to a PN

Analyze their verbal and non-verbal language, their facts... and compare it with the characteristics that we gave you on a PN.

2. Ask for help

Friends, family… Tell them about this and let them help you distance yourself and end this relationship.

3. Focus on yourself and on recovering the reins of your life and your self-esteem

Go out, have fun, get busy with the job you love, do hobbies... When a NP enters our life, it falls apart, it is easy for us to fall into a spiral of doing nothing, letting ourselves go, feeling apathetic and hopeless.

4. A psychotherapeutic process begins

What we normally see in consultation is that we become attached to PN (a person who does not know how to love) because we have childhood deficiencies: parents who could not love us as we needed, abusive parents, absent parents, school problems, problems with the group of friends ...

There will be a list of traumas and injuries that we will have to reprocess before leaving the relationship because they are preventing you from letting go. We will have to talk to the girl you were to give her encouragement, love, self-esteem... and thus recover your essence.

We get hooked on people who don't love us because we don't know how to love ourselves... and that happens because our parents couldn't love us everything we needed. They did it their way, as best they could, but it wasn't enough. Only from the reconciliation with the injured girl that you were will you be able to let go of a relationship that does not do you good.