How to Deal With Narcissists: 14 Traits and 6 Strategies

Based on my own traumatic experience with a Narcissist, and upon reading a lot of articles on Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, it can be concluded that a Narcissist has the following characteristics:

1. Dominant and competitive.
2. Never really mean to care for anybody.
3. See people as tools to help them achieve their own goals, or as energy supply for them.
4. Always have the last word.
5. Have no empathy or compassion; and pretend to have one in public.
6. Cannot stand to have any one else except themselves in their own world.
7. Believe they are better and more important than everyone else and basically just look down on everyone, even their boss. 
8. Would not hesitate to dump those who are of no use to them.
9. Broadcast both implicitly and explicitly to everyone that everything about them is the best: their taste, their friends, their toys, their experience etc. And do this repeatedly until they get the admiration and compliments to feed and sustain their inflated ego.
10. If they cannot get the ego boost they crave, they feel threatened and would do anything to get their ego fed, for instance, by punishing those people who do not give them the admiration response. 
11. How do they get energy from those who do not praise them:
• Make that person feel internally inferior to them.
• Whenever something's wrong, they put the blame on that person.
• Even if it's actually their fault, not that person's.
• Grasp any opportunity to devalue that person.
12. They think that person is a disgrace to them and would try to not only show a distinction and separation between themselves and that person in front of the others, but also isolate that person from everyone else.
13. Good at portraying a fake, positive image of their own to the public.
14. Victimize themselves and try to make that person the abuser instead in front of the others.

Below is video which I also find useful in identifying a narcissist, though the tips provided within are a bit vague and require further explanation and instructions.

Now you know how toxic a narcissist is, how should you deal with them when you unfortunately encounter one?

1. If possible, just run! As far as you can! Never even deal with them.
2. Please bear in mind: the longer you're under their influence, the more it'll scar you mentally, and the longer it'll take you to recover.
3. If you must face them, try to give them the ego feed they need by complimenting them or their toys. Hopefully they will think they have you in their hands and won't harm you... yet.
4. Don't confront them. Remember they have no empathy and don't feel your pain. They just want to diminish you completely. No matter what, they will always have the last word. And they are illogical and unreasonable to argue with, you will always end up losing.
5. The major problem is - they're hard to be spotted. Sometimes you won't even know if you're in one of these relationships until it's probably too late. What we should do is to learn more about their straits, their behaviors and their tactics, so that we will identify it once they used it on us.
6. Most importantly, don't ever let other people undermine you. Try to build up a strong foundation for your source of confidence (not upon matters that would deteriorate like physical attractiveness, but on things like intelligence), believe in yourself and don't let others' words get deep inside us.

Hope you find this article helpful and stay narc-free! :)

Let Go of Resentment

“Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” ― Nelson Mandela

When you're mad at someone, it doesn't do any harms to them, but to yourself instead.

We need to have empathy, i.e. the ability to step into their shoes and understand that they're hurting you because they have problems in themselves.

Although it's very hard, we need to learn to forgive and live our lives.

Dead Relationships

You know the relationship has died when you don't even bother to block or avoid some people, cos whatever they do, it can no longer affect you anymore. There just isn't any curiosity or emotional link in between. Even when they do something wrong, you just don't bother reminding them. It seems that there's no chance you and them can get along well.

Overall, it's just plain dead.

People who Constantly Put You Down

Do you have a friend who always judge you? Whether it's your look, the way you talk, or your personality, they just pick on you in the most ways possible.

Why? 

There may be something in themselves that they find inferior than you, and they feel intimidated by it. It can be your appearance, academic performance or career prospect etc. 

What they're trying to achieve by giving you negative comments all the time is to pull you down to their level and elevate themself. So that they can raise their self-esteem and gain some confidence from you.

How should you respond to the attacks? 

DOS

- 1 - 

Act like you think they're crazy or talking shit by giving them immediate facial signs, e.g. a crazy, questioning stare; or

- 2 - 

Change the topic abruptly.

DON'T

Don't get defensive or start judging yourself like them cos that's what they really want - to make you less competent.

The above opinions and advices are generated from the excellent life coach Marie Dubuque. You may find her via her Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVHOBoWW_iZPexhtMX-uv8Q

Cut Toxic Ties

Cut ties with your toxic friends, cos it's more healthy for you emotionally. However, sometimes it's hard to identify a toxic friend, esp. the manipulative ones. 

For instance, those who constantly put you down and then apologize or use excuses like "come on! It's just a joke!". When they say something insulting or disrespectful like personal attacks, and make you feel small, mad or humiliated, they know it. They know it ALL too well. Yet, they don't wanna admit it that they made a mistake or the fact that they're assholes. And what do they do? Blame on you. 

"Come on!", "Seriously?" and "Really?" etc are phrases open to manipulation. It allows them to throw the bomb they're holding right back at you, and you start wondering "oh. Maybe I was thinking too much.", or "maybe I'm just being too serious. I should be more open-minded.", or I should be this, or I should do that. All of a sudden you start questioning YOURSELF and evaluating what's wrong with you. There you fell into the trap perfectly. All the faults have just been magically shifted from that asshole to you, the victim.

You may say that I'm exaggerating. But I ain't talking about some insults that happen once in a while when you hang out with that "friend" of yours. I'm talking about the situation in which that "friend" applied all kinds of manipulation skills on you and make you feel bad and negative around them.

Take my "ex-friend" as an example. I never thought that I'd dislike or even hate someone so much that I just gotta end the friendship with. Well, I met one. He didn't respect me at all and would disagree or judge literally EVERY SINGLE THING I said. Reasonable critics are good and can help us improve, but he was just unreasonable. It was very obvious that he was wrong, but he would either use the manipulation tools or defend himself with illogical arguments. I just got sick and gave up. There weren't any logic in the conversation, other than the dominating message: everything he said was right; all I said was bullshit. (Sorry for my language, but it's the most vivid and suitable adjective.) Anyway, it eventually reached the boiling point when I couldn't put up with his insulting "jokes" anymore. Before that, I wasn't quite awake enough to notice that I wasn't really "close-minded" and he was really being extremely mean and disguised them as jokes.

Finally I got rid of him. It was not that I haven't told him the problem, but I actually did and we got into unnecessary arguments where he just, again, made up illogical explanations for his ill manners.

Moral of the story: Identify and cut the toxic ties before it hurts you bad.

Anyway, it's such a lengthy post. If you made it till the end, don't forget to leave a comment. Thank you :P Wish you can spot those friends and cut the ties asap.