Many of us have heard about narcissists, from Greek literature to our time; however, you have wondered how you should treat a narcissist. Remember that he is a person with a mental disorder; he does not have that attitude just to annoy you.
The famous Greek Narcissus arises from the myth of that beautiful young man who had the luxury of rejecting maidens in love with his charms. This young man falls in love with himself, which ultimately was the reason for his divine punishment of him. Narcissus falls in love with his own reflection of him manifested on the surface of the water of a fountain. Then, falling prey to his crush on her, she was unable to stop looking at the reflection of him throwing himself into the water and drowning. It then transforms into a beautiful flower known by her own name.
As we well know, the stories exposed in ancient myths are a reflection of popular wisdom. This metaphorical and artistic way of expressing ideas is what marks the oldest identification of a clinical mental disorder. The Greeks tried to somehow explain a real illness in human beings, only from a more literary than scientific level.
Popular wisdom indicated through this myth that excessive love for oneself leads to the path of loneliness and death. Identifying a mental illness very well diagnosed as dysfunctional behavior in the personality of men. What really would not be “love”, but rather “selfishness”?
A selfish person is not the same as a narcissist, although they have a lot in common. If you are really interested in knowing the details and how a narcissist can be treated, in this post we will explain it to you in a simple way later.
Instructions for treating a narcissist
- If you believe that you are really indispensable in your society or family group in a disproportionate way, it is because there really is a narcissistic tendency. Yes, the narcissist believes he is the most important and most desired thing in the world around him.
- Do you present an obsessive behavior with your past successes? You probably have a tendency to narcissism without knowing it. When a person recurrently repeats her successes in front of others and continually praises him, it is clear evidence of her narcissistic tendency.
- The narcissist by nature is exclusive with people. Believing himself the best in the world, he discriminates against and excludes the people he considers inferior to him(which is almost everyone); for which he selects his social circle from him very well and shares only with people he considers to be almost at his level from him. But he will never acknowledge that they are on the same level as him because he is “unique”; however, he goes out and bonds only with people who resemble him as much as possible. For this reason narcissists tend to be racist and elite.
- The narcissistic person usually demands that others admire and fawn over them all the time. For this reason, if you always want to be the center of attraction and for people to shower you with compliments all the time, you should consider yourself somewhat narcissistic, because that behavior, by exceeding normal limits, becomes quite distorted and annoying for others. They will see you as a conceited and pretentious person.
- Finally, the key to determining whether or not you have a narcissistic tendency is to identify your level of empathy with people to know if you are truly in love. If you find it difficult to put yourself in the shoes of others; you do not recognize emotions or know how to discern the feelings of others, it is likely that you are a narcissist. Narcissists cannot have empathy, there is no otherness for them; his feelings, emotions and ideas are the only ones that exist in his world, the rest are just complements or adornments of his charms.
What do you need to treat a narcissist?
To know how to treat a narcissist, the first thing you need is to understand that it is a behavioral disorder that they will not recognize. It is not that the narcissist is like this to annoy others or because he wants to; they present this egocentric behavior because of their psychological condition.
Understanding this, you will be able to be more understanding when analyzing their discriminatory and selfish attitudes. However, many narcissists are good at sharing things, doing charity, or helping those in need; this makes them exalt themselves even more before society and before themselves.
Their obsession with “what will they say” makes them dependent on other people; in this way, you will need a lot of patience and tact so as not to fall for their manipulative influences. You have to be cunning, intelligent and analytical of all the real intentions that a person with a narcissistic tendency has with you; well, if you are not careful, you can fall prey to his manipulations and become a true slave of his desires.
Tips for dealing with a narcissist
- Remember that narcissists often have very low self-esteem. Try not to enhance your dependence on the opinion of third parties. When you talk to a narcissist show naturalness and acceptance.
- Your approval is decisive for any narcissist to live in peace. So don’t make him suffer, if you have approved something about him, let him know, tell him clearly so that he feels safer.
- We do not recommend that you have a narcissistic person as a partner because it will become a very toxic relationship. These people lack the necessary empathy to feel real love… Even if they try, they will not be able to value you more than themselves and that will cause problems in the future.
- Remember that the egocentric, the selfish, is unable to see the other as a focus of attention for something. Others will always be pieces in his chess to win his mental game, while the narcissist does understand that others also have a life and that they are capable of deciding, they simply do not care about their feelings or intentions since they consider themselves a higher class to these. In other words, the egocentric does not even see that others exist as people, the narcissist does see them, but he simply considers himself a superior class to them.
- Maintaining a love relationship or some intimate bond with a person who maintains a pattern of narcissistic behavior is exhausting, because they have a strong sense of demand, they think they have the right to meet their expectations without margin of error. This involves you in unreasonable attitudes and reactions, reaching the limits of envy and competitiveness in the relationship.
- Finally, you must be careful not to bond emotionally with a narcissist as they can be cruel and unscrupulous. In addition, some due to their airs of superiority can mistreat your self- esteem and manipulate you to become emotionally dependent on them.