I have lived through many years of being around a Covert Narcissist.
What Manipulation is like
For an outside looking in appreciation of the anxiety trying to live with/in a dominance hierarchy of a covert narcissist, watch the movie Ex Machina. “Ava” has most hallmarks – manipulative, intelligent, beautiful, powerful, mirroring, uncanny valley/not human. For 95% of the film she’s the victim (literally imprisoned) but the last 5min you discover her core is evil. She’s not only been using you the whole time , but leaves you for dead with effortless cruelty.
You’re exhausted after watching this film, it’s non-stop paranoia and anxiety. Like a true covert narcissist, she never directly agress’ the victim in the film.
For years i could not understand what was really strange social structure and environment – toxic culture essentially. it was constantly dysfunctional and ultimately I put up an emotional wall.. just to survive in the environment.
The maliciousness is incredibly intelligent, masterfully calculated. I’m in awe of its insidious operation.. It’s cold, teflon coated biologically wired genius, like watching a mimic octopus. But good is more powerful because I’m sitting here watching them whilst they’re unaware I know (Hence I post anonymously). Behind both are the incredibly powerful human brain.
When I put up the wall, that’s when the pieces came together.. If they can’t read you, they can’t control you and its a void they can’t stand having around. My best strategy was ‘acting with honest intent’ because it allowed me to operate under subconscious ‘heavy fire’ from their henchmen, and by god didn’t that get them sizzling and spitting with an onslaught of covert attacks.
A covert narcissist can’t have strong characters around them, thats why they reset the social structure by ‘buying new friends’ and weak ones they can nourish. Anyone thats been around them for more than 3 years is somewhat sociopathic themselves or of course incredibly weak and typically a person that doesn’t look after their physical and mental health.
How Covert Narcissists evolve
The ‘Covert Narcissist parent’ must have been an mental terrorist, abusing then simultaneously saving them.. mental torture – like holding someones head under water..to effect utter obedience, sick security. Dooming them emotionally before they had a chance, like foetal alcohol syndrome.
I understand its childhood abuse mental torture – like holding someones head under water.. to effect obedience, sick security. A ‘false self’ is built shielding a fragile, cowering ‘true self’ core. Decades this early split diverges a highly functional, immaculately crafted public shell which is rewarded by much of what is broken in society. A commensurately tormented ‘suffering soul’ festers at the core.
I know it’s evil at the core in the method of predation. They need to constantly read you so as to identify how best to hurt you. They are highly emotionally intelligent individuals. So called ‘cold empathy’ is effected under the pretense of innocuous/public conversation. Their brain is scanning for vulnerabilities..thinking “I know how I can generally hurt you, but what really hurts you? What are your real buttons i can press, so I can exact that pain passive aggressively so that I’m never exposed, you’ll never have any proof and my world can never be turned against me.
The psychopath is banished to scour the barren plains of the psyche for the entirety of their existence, their soul like a snarling wolf, addicted to perpetually predating on the weak. Feeding insatiably on the vulnerability and emotional destruction of the innocent lives they can manage to trap around them (Because emotional AB-use literally means it’s them that cant function at the rest of us normal humans need to)
They abuse their power to ‘twist the fabric of reality’, suppress/never deal with hard problems. They can afford to live an avoidance of hard truths and so damn themselves, subconsciously to live and act out their delusion to perpetuity.
The only answer is not to go near them and don’t agress them. They are like Chernobyl. Forever Toxic, damaging anyone who goes near them, spewing their insidiously harmful radiation that’s entirely invisible – no direct attacks, no evidence, no recourse
Honest and Truth the exit
You don’t need intelligence and years of stress. You can progress to happiness if you have the courage to face the Truth. Be honest. first with others and if it doesn’t work, with yourself.. ‘There’s something very wrong here, the truth is suppressed, there’s an undertone of aggression here’
Honest intent is the only true way forward, because in the end a Covert Narcissist will sabotage their own ultimate aim, they fall into their own snares and traps, paint themselves into a corner, you beat them fair and square but dysfunction prevails.Because they’re in power, they’ll flat out lie, deny. Again it’s why its so exhausting to be around them- years of effort you finally get that chance to kick the goal and they move the goal posts.
Honesty is truly your shield. And whilst for survival, you of course can’t be so honest as to call them out, you can carry yourself with honest intent, in your words and actions to others in a toxic environment. Its incredibly difficult/impossible to be honest about structural problems in these toxic dominance hierarchies.
Its super difficult because you callus up and you can’t exist in two states of being – ‘be your best self’ / bare your emotional vulnerability (necessary for a healthy relationship) whist simultaneously hunkered in a defensive pose in constant state of predatory alert. Employ this strategy ‘until you get to the next turn-off’.
I don’t feel victim sympathy for those remaining voluntarily nourished and brainwashed. Not only am i prohibited from attempting to explain to them as flying monkeys, but I don’t see their cognition capable of complexity of the structure. Without that their only hope is relying on the moral compass of honestly. They have not done this for many many years, I mentioned in earlier posts this is one reason they are firmly brainwashed.
Steps to a new life
Take responsibility to look after yourself which is foremost being kind to yourself.
Get Clean – first of them (no/lowest contact) then of your addictions. Most of your addictions stem from them – a coping mechanism for stress in their dysfunctional environment.
Get yourself a new stable safe space, you only need 3-6 months of existing in a state of ‘living clean’ to re-gain your mental strength!
Manage your addictions out. You’ll be amazed at the speed of progress, de-power some of the below within a month if you hold yourself hard to truth.
Don’t drink to relieve stress – this is feeding addiction ‘situational craving’! Replace Friday beers with alcohol free ones, or swap it out for lesser evils – sugar/caffinated drinks instead. Drink only on ‘the day of rest’.
Get organized enough each morning to make a healthy wrap(s) to avoid a fast food lunch. Remove the facebook app from your phone and carry around a book again. Remove processed sugars from the pantry and replace desert with brazil nuts and dates. Replace News/Media websites with your own private blog/diary, where all the content is good, relevant & documents your progress.
If you relapse on addictions, you are either not being honest with yourself or you are still associated with the wrong people. Traps of Predation exists in abundance for souls that are not wanting to earn their own healthy life.
Most powerful will be the life sustaining satisfaction you get when you genuinely re-connect in functional emotional relationships with the right people. More secure than property ownership or job security, your strength of character can never be taken away from you. It’s the whole hearted dedication to life, and the positive emotion from your work that sustains it, that keeps the window of optimism open psychologically.