When a Narcissist Sees You as Being Too Strong, This Is What They’ll do
To continue: remember that narcissists thrive when they have power and influence over others—as long as their wants and needs are addressed. But be on the watch if and when that changes. When you’re not giving in to their demands, when it’s evident that they’re not in charge, when you refuse to do what they want, or—heaven forbid—you manage to outshine them or otherwise embarrass them, what happens is this: whether you recognize it or not, something that has nothing to do with you begins to hit them anyway. It’s an ego injury. And sometimes it’s a significant one.
This is not your “thing.” It’s theirs.
If they’re unable to manipulate and dominate you—for example, by gaslighting you into submission, humility, or feelings of inferiority—they’ll have to resort to indirect methods of attacking you. Those methods may be more subtle and less obvious than their original aggressive approach, but they can be just as damaging. You can’t “fix” this by trying to control what other people think about you. A narcissist will feel frightened by you if they can’t exert power over you—and when you make them feel threatened, they will react in the only manner they know how to protect their “fun self” from you. That usually entails efforts to manage other people’s impressions and emotions about you preemptively. They will try to discredit, degrade, and demean you in every way they can.
However, this may have already begun well before you became aware of any issue. They’re pretenders. They tell lies—both white and black falsehoods—with remarkable ease and without any sense of remorse or regret. They have no difficulty acting like everything is fine while secretly spreading rumors about you behind your back. This is a common tactic used by narcissistic siblings and other narcissistic family members, acquaintances, co-workers, exes, and partners—typically to hide their abusive connections with those people.
Ultimately, narcissists need to feel like they’re in a position of power over others. But anyone on the destructive narcissism spectrum would find your strength and personal power to be highly troublesome—especially when you seem “hard to manage,” “hard to handle,” and not easy to deceive or control.
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