What I Wish I Had Known Before I Met The Narcissist

By Melanie Tonia Evans

This is article about so much more than recognising red flags.

It is also about more than intuition and choices.

My greatest hope, in regard to this article, is that you no longer feel like you can or will be taken in by a narcissist for this reason: because a narcissist can dupe anyone.

I hope that by reading this article you will be so much clearer on how that is just NOT true.

This article is not about blaming or shaming you, if you have been taken in by a narcissist, and it is not about questioning your intelligence. Rather, it is about empowering you with the truth.

I want to start off by explaining something very important, because we can learn a lot from examining the natural order of how life works.

In the wild there are predators …

A lioness does not go for the biggest strongest buck. Instead she picks off the injured deer at the edge of the pack.

Predators don’t target strong capable animals. They single out prey with weaknesses, with vulnerabilities. They choose an animal that will convert into a meal without too much of a fight.

I promise you there are huge correlations here with the ways narcissists choose victims. The lioness needs to feed herself and her cubs, she can’t afford to exert energy without getting a result. Similarly narcissists desperately need narcissistic supply to emotionally exist. They can’t afford to exert too much energy without claiming the prize.

There may be people reading this right now who feel indignant about what I have just said. This is really understandable, because you may have chosen to subscribe to the huge consensus in abuse forums that narcissists targeted you because you were so “whole” “strong” and “had the best to offer”.

Once upon a time I righteously took on that belief too.

The terrible problem with me taking on that belief, which I later discovered was miles away from the truth – was that belief wasn’t helping me get well.

Instead it made me feel like a powerless victim unsafe in the world to be “me”; to live life as “myself”. I was so terrified after being narcissistically abused of being pounced on and exploited, abused and damaged by evil people that I could not walk outside my front door without having panic attacks and melt downs.

In fact my Complicated Traumatic Stress Disorder and agoraphobia was so acute that I was told I would never recover from these anxiety disorders and would need three anti-psychotics in order to even function.

Thank GOD I chose not to subscribe to that, and I didn’t go along with the contemporary beliefs, or continue to believe that I was a powerless victim targeted by a narcissist with no choice or any power in the situation.

Thank GOD I realised the truth and did the essential work on myself so that never again would I carry the crippling belief “life is unsafe”.

Today, in stark contrast, I am far from being an injured deer about to become someone’s meal. Instead I am playing, running, dancing and singing; shining a light so big that I know it dissolves darkness.

Absolutely I still work on myself, and have areas of my life that I am up-levelling, expanding and growing into (that will never stop) – but the following is the truth for me now, and has been for some time …

I DON’T have ANY fear of life and other people anymore.

I have never felt so free and empowered in my whole life, even way before I was narcissistically abused.

This level of wellness is what I am so passionate about bringing to people. And I know it never happens when we hang on to untruths about being “powerless victims”.

I know the only reason I was targeted was because I used to be susceptible, and now I’m not. This is why I am no longer living within the emotional chemicals of trauma, fear and pain.

The truth sets us free; it puts us back into our own bodies, our own awareness, and our own development. It not only helps us get well, it also inoculates us from being lame and at the edge of the pack– ripe to be picked off in the future.

From The Lion’s Mouth

Some time ago I tried to heal narcissists who came forward admitting to be narcissists, with Quanta Freedom Healing. (Yes narcissists can admit they are narcissists when in narcissistic injury.)

These healing sessions never lasted long, because as soon as the narcissist came out of the narcissistic injury (in which their ego had temporarily crumbled leaving access to the “real” person inside) the ego would reinstate and it would be back to unconscious pathological business as usual.

However, during this time of narcissistic injury I was fascinated, because I could ask questions and get answers to what made the narcissist tick, what they were aware of, and why they operate the way they do.

I knew that the big deal, the drug, the absolute necessity for narcissists and what drives them is the need for narcissistic supply. Each one of them I questioned about how they target people for narcissistic supply told me they knew who to target.

People who were giving, yet had trouble asserting themselves and standing up for themselves. Also people who would hand over energy as a result of “being told what they wanted to hear”.  People who were too “nice” to lay boundaries. People who were too trusting too quickly, and people who have trouble saying “No”.

The narcissists all said that right from the start they would test those boundaries to see if they could “get in”. They would give boundaries a little push, and and then a little more to see who they were dealing with, and how far they could go.

They also told me there were people who would reject them, and not go along with them – many – and the narcissist would bag them out behind their back and seethe inside (hate them), and even lash out, but would then leave them alone.

From the other side of the fence I know this to be true … I receive emails from people who repel narcissists, who find out what they are and have emailed me about them. Even people who have had no exposure to narcissists before.

People who stated that after the first day or two of receiving too many texts realised that this person felt “wrong” and “unhealthy” to be with.

People who after a little while got a weird vibe from the person when they didn’t fulfil a narcissistic unrealistic demand, and when they spoke up for their rights saw the narcissist unravel before their eyes – with projection, narcissistic rage or “tit for tat” childish, ridiculous behaviour … or comments and actions that just felt really, really unsavoury.

People who suspected evidence of the narcissist’s lies early, confronted the narcissist, then received evasion, defences, attacks or more lies, realised it and ended the relationship promptly.

Many narcissistic abuse forums would argue these people weren’t hooked yet – yet the truth is we all put up with behaviour that was “not right” before we were hooked.

Or maybe because we so desperately wanted to believe that this person was the “person of our dreams” we had actually hooked ourselves right from the start.

In all of the thousands of cases I have worked with, I have never met one person who when being honest couldn’t tell me the numerous red flags and warning signs they saw that they chose to dismiss.

This we need to get clear about … narcissists are not that clever – they have gaps, they are loose. They are a pathological self that has to try to “act” acceptable and normal.

And all acts have cracks.

Authenticity as the True Defence

I promise you this … when you start becoming your True Self and are no longer self-abandoning, and start showing up authentically, you will easily flush a narcissist to the surface.

Narcissists rely on people not doing this.

Narcissists need people to be living in the shadows themselves for the narcissistic shadows to operate “undetected”. The problem is: we were all not anchored in our True Self, because most of us (unless we were very, very fortunate) didn’t have parents who modelled authentic communication.

We were not taught to listen to and trust our gut, question, honour ourselves, speak up and risk being truthful.

Rather our role models showed us how to hide facts, bottle up, keep the peace, not make waves and say what people wanted to hear. Or, conversely to make enquiry, statements or create conflict in unhealthy ways that hands our power over.

When we start living honestly, openly and transparently whilst feeling whole and clean inside (not needing anyone else to grant us “ourself”) we see who is in the shadows, who can’t be with us at this level and who comes undone at the seams as soon as we shine a huge big torch of calm, solid truth and directness on an “issue”.

And we are whole enough to know “this is not my deal or my responsibility” and then detach and leave it alone. Then we merrily go on creating and generating wholesomeness, truth and honesty without need or expectation – simply because that is the model we are being in life.

And if a person doesn’t match up (narcissistic or not) that person didn’t owe us anything – they just weren’t a match for us!

How many people obsesses about “He / she was this or that – how terrible that is?!?”

I used to do that!

“So what?” I say about people like that now … It doesn’t matter! Because that’s their gig, and in no shape or form does a “whole” person need to obsess about it and make it their issue! There’s too many other wonderful people and situations in the world to get involved with!

Personally, my entire life completely changed after narcissistic abuse … and it needed to.

Because if I hadn’t changed myself to change my life I would not be alive, or if I was I would be medicated like a zombie and certainly not living.

What changed is: I understood WHY I had been targeted and the devastating cost I had suffered because of my programming that was not allowing me to show up in life authentically.

And I knew that I had to make it my greatest mission to heal that if I wanted to have a healthy, productive, happy life.

Bringing The Power Home To Ourselves

This is not about blaming victims for what happened to us, it is about creating awareness, empowerment and healing so that narcissists can’t take people in.

There are some very empowering and honest questions we can ask ourselves if we became enmeshed with narcissists, that will start to provide healing and relief.

Such as:

Did I love myself enough?
Did I trust my own intuition and gut?
Did I talk myself out of the warning signs because I was needy?
Did I project onto this person the image of them I wanted them to be, and dismiss all other evidence that presented?
Did I try to force this person to be the source of my life rather than being prepared to be that for myself?

Why are questions like these so important?

Because until we become the generative source of our own experience by growing through experiences that we have had and suffered, we have NO power. The power is always handed over to someone or something else.

THAT is what causes powerlessness and pain, so much more than WHAT happened to us.

I really would like to repeat that statement – so that you can fully absorb it …

The power you are handing over to someone or something else is what causes powerlessness and pain, so much more than WHAT happened to you.

The people who were narcissistically abused and picked off by a predator were like I was … scared to speak up. We were not in tune with trusting and backing our own feelings.

Until my recovery journey I hadn’t realised just how disconnected I was from listening to my own inner truth. The truth was: I had no idea how to self-partner.

I would err to “logical facts”, other people’s opinions, or simply be so confused about whether or not my own feelings had any merit at all and I certainly did not have a voice. Inevitably I went along with what others wanted instead – believing they had more authority and clues about my life than I did.

I also had the terrible fear that if I DID show up and have a voice that I would be rejected, abandoned, criticised or abused. So I was too scared to do this.

I remember meeting the first narcissist for the first time and being totally turned off by his dark vibe the moment I laid eyes on him.

That was my intuition screaming out “Danger, yuk, oh no!!!”

But yet later in the night when he started charming me, I dismissed the original feelings.

With narc number two, when I received an email from him from the dating site, I thought “This guy has got issues”. Then when I spoke to him on the phone the tone of his voice had some sort of edge in it that made me feel uneasy.

Yet on paper he “added up”; this is why I continued. He seemed to have all the values I wanted, so I dismissed what my instincts were telling me. Then huge warning signs turned up only a week into it, and again I justified them away.

Narc number one – I was like a lamb sitting on the plate ready to be skewered with NO fight. Even though he was loose, aggressive, drunk, rebellious, crazy and naughty (that just goes to show the level of my own development at the time) I concluded he was the “man of my dreams” because he was “attractive”, “spiritual”, “intelligent”, and “adored me”.

Narc number two, I was totally in my head buying the “nice guy story”, even though my body was recoiling with comments he made such as: “You can ask every women I have been with how I constantly told them they were not good enough for me.”

What was I thinking?

Of course I was going to end up being that next woman!

What I was thinking was … “Hopefully, finally, this is the man who can take away my pain and be everything I need to have a great life.”

If you take one thing out of this article today I want it to be this: Getting taken in by a narcissist actually has NOTHING to do with the narcissist.

It has to do with these questions …

Were we capable of tuning into and listening to and trusting and backing ourselves?

And …

Were we capable of showing up in life from a position of empowerment and authenticity rather than neediness, “hiding” and self-deception?

Because if we were not anchored into and expressing our authentic selves, we WERE a lame deer at the edge of the pack ripe to be picked off by a predator.

Recovery is ALL about correcting that – NOT learning all there is to know about narcissists. I promise you that!

No amount of focusing on and blaming narcissists is going to develop you into your empowerment and authenticity. All it does, is what it did for me for such a  long time –  cement your powerlessness, anxiety disorders and sickness even more.

If you want to believe this article is all about “victim bashing and blaming” you are just not ready to hear the truth yet.

And that’s okay, because hopefully one day you may be ready – like I eventually was. Generally that is when you have had enough of the pain that comes through feeling powerless as a victim, and when we realise that focusing on and finger pointing at everything outside of ourselves doesn’t work, and doesn’t help us heal.

When nothing is left on the “outside” to cling to as relief or hope is often when we have the personal catharsis of coming “inside” to the truth and to ourselves.

Showing Up Authentically

When we start living life from the inside out as the generative source of our own experience we reflect and can clearly see the results every time we had that strong gut feeling and ignored it.

We paid a huge price.

We all have inner radars, yet we have been taught to detach from them, dismiss them and ignore them. This is what has created the holocaust of abuse – our own disconnection from ourselves.

This is what has led us to experiences with other people who are also horrendously disconnected from themselves – people who are terminally unconscious. (Narcissists are the clear winners in this department.)

After narcissistic abuse I realised there was NO way I could afford to keep living life like that. The other disasters had not been big enough to get my attention – and it still took two narcissists to really bring this lesson home – being unconscious is not an option anymore.

Hence my own relationship and connection to myself became paramount – so that I could heal and develop enough to show up honouring my feelings, and so that I could eventually speak up and assert boundaries calmly, solidly and healthily – without the fears of rejection, abandonment, criticism or being abused.

I knew it was vital to become my own generative source rather than needily trying to force other people to provide it for me.

This is the deal … I did meet narcissists moving forward into my development and I learned to flush them out, detach and move on.

What was really wonderful is, I didn’t lose any sleep about it, and I felt excited and empowered every time I graduated.

Then after that I just didn’t fear narcissists anymore.

Then after that they just didn’t show up in my life anymore.

And then after that narcissists just weren’t “a reality” in my life anymore.

Mind you I am not a “perfect force” in any shape or form … I do not have life perfectly sorted! And what I mean by this is: I don’t always know if my intuition is 100% correct.

But what I DO KNOW is that I am 100% committed with fierce self-dedication to self-partner – to investigate whether this is “mine”, and honestly confront and be real when I am triggered into “not right” feelings. I am totally prepared to have the “difficult” (transparent / authentic) conversations in order to clarify.

This then grants more information, which then allows me to make choices that build my life forward without the regret or fear that I have made the wrong choice.

In my life, since narcissistic abuse, I have ended previous relationships not based on authenticity … absolutely and without regret.

Did I have to work very hard to get myself to this level of self-partnering and emotional development? Ohhhh YES … I had a lot of false beliefs, fear, pain and emotional inner damage to clean up.

My life now and the level of how I live in life is universes apart from how I lived before narcissistic abuse. I have gone from being drastically unconscious about my self-generated results to wanting to become as conscious as possible in order to generate healthy results.

Previously I was asleep, I wasn’t able to show up authentically. I was far too scared to.

I learned the fundamental VITAL truth – NO-ONE else is responsible for my healthy boundaries or for generating MY wellbeing.

As an adult human being, who is no longer a helpless child, the absolute truth is: I AM.

As victims, we mistakenly hold other people responsible, and this DRASTICALLY hands our power away.

Our development is all about becoming our authentic selves, partnering, backing and being in life truthfully with ourselves and others.

Then I promise you, you will not attract narcissists after a few necessary graduations to know you can deal with them – which is flushing them out, moving on, and not giving them a backward glance.

Have you ever heard the expression “When you no longer fear walking under ladders there will be none in your path?” That is a powerful metaphor and completely accurate.

When you no longer fear narcissists and you show up as your powerful authenticity – Life / The Universe will say “I don’t need to give you those anymore. You’ve passed the test, you graduated!”

However, as long as you remain powerless and a victim and don’t take on your own development toward your authentic self – your very vibe of fear, pain and “I am terrified of narcissists” is EXACTLY the vibe that keeps them coming into your world.

When you become an authentic self, you are inoculated against them, because where there is pure light (authenticity) there can be NO darkness (false selves).

Period …

It is a natural fact, and a quantum fact.

Narcissists are repelled by your authentic presence as powerfully as the myth of vampires recoiling in daylight.

“Light dissolves all darkness” …

Therefore our mission is to heal and become safe in life. Our mission is NOT to learn all we can to protect ourselves against darkness – which means we contract, defend and recoil. It doesn’t work, because we only pollute ourselves and attract and participate in and generate more “darkness” (fear and pain).

Rather, what DOES work is to clean and empower ourselves up enough to become a HUGE bright light.

Doesn’t that feel incredibly powerful?

It should … because it IS.

I really hope this article has cleared up victimised myths, and has helped you feel deeply inside you the truth, the way forward and what your ultimate goal is …

WHO you need to become.