It's a step-by-step exit strategy, a lever's guide, a survivor's guide.
So say, for example, we have somebody in a narcissistic relationship, maybe you're working for somebody that's a tyrant, a tyrannical narcissist, or maybe you're in a relationship with a partner who is exhibiting narcissistic tendencies.
What is the step-by-step exit strategy? What's the lever's guide?
What does that look like?
If you have reached the incontrovertible conclusion that the person is a narcissist, then do not attempt to reform the person, reasoned with a person, negotiate with a person, compromise with that person, somehow reach a modus vivendi or modus operandi. None of it will work. There's no learning process in narcissism. And it's likely to trigger aggression.
So do not attempt with a narcissist anything that you would normally do with, you know, a healthy person.
Number one.
Number two, be paranoid. Be extremely paranoid. Everything you do keep secret. Make sure that there's no access to your devices or to your no way of finding out what it is that you're planning to do.
Wait to the very last second, act and vanish.
You will be accused of betrayal. There's no bigger betrayal than narcissism. You've been betrayed all the time. So don't worry about it. You're evening the scores in the worst case.
Keep it secret to the last second. When you act, act decisively. Don't hesitate. Don't leave hostages behind. Don't compromise. Don't spread it out. Don't create scared.
Act.
Act totally. Act totally. So that all the bridges are burned. There's no way back and no way to you when you burn the bridge you can go back to the narcissists but even much more importantly the narcissist cannot get to you.
And so this is the third advice.
The fourth type of piece of advice is that if you have to communicate with the narcissists, and very often you don't actually, people tell me, but she's my mother, so what? But that's my son, so what?
So if you choose to communicate with the narcissist, do it through intermediaries like accountants, like lawyers. Why? Because they keep a trail, a trail of evidence. This is a benefit of deterrence. It deters the narcissists on the one hand and it's useful in court, if necessary.
So act through the intermediaries. If you have children with the narcissist, you're co-parenting or something, do it through intermediaries. Even this, do through intermediaries.
Get an app. There are apps nowadays for co-parenting and so on. Do everything through the app. That's also a kind of intermediary.
Avoid direct communication and direct contact. Anything you say will be, I'm not saying can be used, but will be used against you in due time in some setting with someone totally unexpectedly. This is warfare and the narcissist is not a fair trade warrior.
These I would say are the four pillars of how to extricate yourself from a relationship with the narcissist.
The fifth pillar and the last one is work on yourself because you're going to grieve, you're going to miss the narcissists.
There are cognitive biases where we remember only the good things and we forget the bad things.
You have to work on yourself. You have to get rid of the narcissist's voice in your head, the introject. You have to rediscover who you are because the narcissist took your identity away. You have to grow up because under the narcissist's wings and in his presence you were a child. You were infantilized. You have to grow up because under the narcissist's wings and in his presence you were a child, you were infantilized.
You have to grow up again and youhave to separate from the narcissist, in your mind at least, and become an individual.
There's a lot of work to be done in the wake of a relationship with the narcissists. A lot and it amounts to the reconstruction of you, reconstruction of yourself, because you have been demolished and so, you know, you have to rebuild a lot. There's a lot of rebuilding.
What do narcissists look for in partners?
There is a myth that narcissists seek partners that aggrandize them or self-enhance. The clinical term is self-enhance.
So they seek partners that help them to self-enhance. So they would seek trophy wives and super-gorgeous, super drop-dead gorgeous women or men or whatever.
That's a myth. That's myth number one.
Myth number two, that narcissists seek kind and pathetic, nice people.
These are myths. Let's start with myth number one.
Some narcissists are looking for trophy spouses or trophy girlfriends or whatever. The trophy could be looks, the trophy could be intelligence, trophy could be accomplishments, trophy could be wealth and possessions, any kind of trophy.
Some narcissists do, but it's not because of the partner, not because of the qualities and traits and possessions of the partner.
It's because it's a form of narcissistic supply. They display the partner. They display the partner. They exhibit the partner. And they harvest the admiration and adulation of other people. It's like garnering narcissistic supply by proxy, vicariously.
But the vast majority of narcissists actually couldn't care less how the partner looks, or whether she's intelligent, or what are her traits or accomplishments. They couldn't care less. They care even less whether the partner is nice or kind or empathetic.
The narcissist wouldn't recognize empathy if it fell on his head. He couldn't care less about these issues.
Narcissists care about four things, basically. And I call them the four Ss, like the letter S.
So you have sex, supply, narcissistic or sadistic. You have safety or stability, and you have services.
Now if you provide the narcissist with any two of the four, you're in. And he's unlikely to let go of you or devalue you or discard you.
So if you provide the narcissist with sex and services, great, that's the best combination. But if you provide him with services and stability, that's also enough.
Even if you're completely not into sex with him and refuse to have sex with him, but you're there for him, you're present, you're servile, you're submissive, you are subservient and your service needs, cater to his needs, that's enough.
If you are stable and providing with sex, so any combination of two is enough to keep the narcissists in your life.
And when we come to narcissistic supply and sadistic supply, it could be active, so adulating the narcissist, admiring him, telling him how great he is, supporting his fantasies, and telling him that he is realistic and so on.
But it could be passive. So this is where the trophy wife comes in. If you are drop dead gorgeous, that is passive supply.
But these are the core demands of the expectations of the narcissists.
So if you are plump and short and hairy and stupid, but you provide him with sex, supply, services, and or you're there for him all the time regardless of what he does to you. So he pushes the envelope, he abuses you, he tortures you, and you're still there for him, proving to him that you love him unconditionally. Well, that's enough.
Who you are does not matter. This is a lie. This is self-deception by the victims.
They want to believe that they are special. They want to believe they've been chosen.
The victims of narcissists are interchangeable. They're utterly disposable. The narcissist regards his intimate partner as a service provider.
Why would you care about your service provider? If the internet is down, if the downtime is high, you move on to another service provider. So simple as that.
And they're interchangeable.
Can you recall your service provider 20 years ago?
I can't. They're interchangeable.
And victims can't countenance this. They cannot accept this. That they are nothing but commodities. They're off-the-shelf commoditized units. They can't wrap their heads around this.
So they keep inventing all kinds of stories which render them special and unique.
It's a narcissistic defense. They are self-aggrandizing.
This is the whole empath-mpath movement. Empath, super-empath. There are gradations, a hierarchy of empaths. Sigma empaths can destroy narcissists. This empath, that empath, all kinds of nonsense that defies even superstitious belief, idiocy, reified.
But it serves the purpose of making these people believe that they are special, unique, superior somehow. And this is narcissism.
Narcissism is contagious. Live long enough with the narcissist, and you will discover that you have become one.
You know.