Is Your Friend A Narcissist? 5 Ways To Know
Do you have a friend who leaves you feeling drained, uncared for and even EXPLOITED?
Is the relationship one-sided, with you holding the SHORT end of the stick?
Maybe this person is just selfish and needs a talking to – where you are honest about what is going on for you, and what you really need to have a healthy and happy friendship with them.
Maybe you are too scared to do this or you don’t know how to start the conversation (or even want to have it).
Maybe you know deep inside that talking with them will never work, and would only make matters worse – because this friend is a NARCISSIST.
How can you know? In today’s Thriver TV episode, I’ll help you know and HOW to deal with them.
Video Transcript
Over the years many of you have asked me, ‘Do you think my friend is a narcissist?’
Or maybe you wonder if some of your peers, or even your bestie, might be just a tad (or a lot) narcissistic.
I haven’t done this Thriver TV episode before, but I really think that it is now time to deeply investigate how to know whether or not your friend is a narcissist and what to do if he or she is.
Okay, before we get started, thank you everyone who has subscribed to my channel for supporting the Thriver Mission. And if you haven’t yet subscribed, I want to remind you to please do. And if you like this video, please make sure you hit the like button.
Okay, let’s dive in.
#1 Puts Other People Down
One of the sure-fire ways to know that your friend is a narcissist is when he or she trashes other people behind their backs.
We all know that talking about people, especially for us women, is usual. But there is a big difference between discussing people with empathy and awareness and simply being derogatory, accusatory and nasty.
Does your friend seldom have nice things to say about people? Are they lovely to people’s faces and really happy to get what they can from them, but then pull apart their character, relationships, work-life, or anything else they can dig their teeth into, as soon as these people are not there?
If you are really honest with yourself, do you sometimes think, ‘I wonder what you say about ME when my back is turned’?
Be aware that this person might gush all over people at times, but this is during the idolising stage – the period when the narcissist’s ‘subject’ is granting them copious amounts of narcissistic supply and is the next best thing since sliced bread. It only lasts for a short length of time.
And, yes, this could be you if the friendship is new. But give it time, sooner or later you will become the person who is no longer ‘wonderful’ and is, therefore ‘terrible’.
#2 Is Entitled and Exploitative
Narcissists push boundaries – period. They feel they are entitled and they like to take. This can be very confusing with a narcissistic friend, who makes out that they are super-generous.
It could be with their replies on Facebook, their offers of support and their supposed generosity, love and care for others. Yet, if this person is narcissistic, they will expect renumeration for their efforts. At the very least attention and recognition.
Yet usually there is more…
If the narcissistic friend is parasitical, then in return for their efforts they may wish favours for free. Your time and resources or lunches, coffee and drinks, at your expense.
How do we know when a narcissistic friend is playing this game? They sit back. They let you pay. They don’t initiate picking up a bill themselves. In their head, they believe they are entitled to whatever they can get because they have earned it from you.
They don’t thank you – they just expect. And they don’t discuss reciprocating.
I have found that high-character friends not only speak up, but usually will also fight you in their offering to grab a bill! They also insist on delivering what is gracious and fair in the future. They don’t EXPECT!
A narcissistic friend’s entitlement could extend to many aspects of your life, whereby they will help themselves without the filter of checking in and seeing if it is okay or not.
Asking permission, or returning favours, especially when there is no audience or narcissistic supply to achieve, is not a narcissistic friend’s deal.
Also, they generally want to make plans with you on their time and will not put themselves out when it’s not convenient for you. Yet they expect you to drop everything for them.
But where is this person when you really need their assistance?
#3 Drains the Hell Out of You
At first, when this friend came into your life, there was their ‘I’m so nice’-bombing or some sort of exciting mutual shenanigans (narcissists love drama!), as a reciprocation of energy.
But now things have settled in beyond that initial period, you have possibly discovered that spending time with this person exhausts you. You may even feel ‘slimed’ after being with or listening to them.
Meaning that they dump a whole heap of toxic energy on you and suck your good energy dry.
Does this person, every time you get together, tell you another story about their victimisation?
Is this a person who has no respect for, and may not even ask about what is going on in your life, making everything absolutely about them?
Every time you try to talk, do they interrupt, take over and leave you feeling like you have to fight for air-time?
Narcissism is an energetic physic phenomenon. Truly, these people are soul vampires. If you are hanging out with someone like this, then it is unhealthy for you.
#4 Doesn’t Want Your Advice
Naturally, when someone you care about is always having dramas, issues and battles with people and life, you want to help them. And just as much as you don’t want to see them going through this stuff, which is soooo self-imposed, you also don’t want to have to keep listening to the same ‘crapola’ over and over!
Therefore, it would be normal for you to intercept with some good, old-fashion solutions to the issues at hand.
Maybe, if you have already Gone Quantum, and you know that life works from the inside out, you are trying to get this person to go within and heal the part of themselves that keeps playing out the same painful beliefs and victimisations, again and again.
But your words go through one ear and out the other.
This person doesn’t listen, butts in, doesn’t get it, or simply tells you what you need to hear so you think they may do something about it – to shut you up, so that they can keep banging on about themselves.
Yet each time you talk with them, nothing has changed. It’s the same drama; you are being dumped on all over again; and this person has not given one ounce of credence to your advice, let alone their own personal development and growth.
So repeatedly you get the same stories, complete with the same toxic, in-repeat, energy sliming you.
#5 Gets Nasty When You Have Had Enough
This last bit is how you TRULY know if this friend in your life is a narcissist or not.
What do narcissists do when they are presented with a boundary?
They do EVERYTHING they can to get under it, around it or to blow it up, and if they can’t they attack the person laying it.
The following is how to set a REAL boundary with a narcissistic friend:
‘(Friends name), I now love me enough to desire healthy relationships. I haven’t been honest with you about some things in our friendship that haven’t been working for me. It affects me when you do (what they do), and I know that for our friendship to continue I need to receive (what it is that you need) from you. Are you willing to look at this and work in with me, so that we can have a healthier friendship together? Because I know I can’t continue unless we can.’
I promise you if this person is decent, cares about you and has the resources to be conscious – they will own it, be apologetic and work in with you. They will want to change.
They may even thank you for helping them see something that they didn’t realise they were doing.
If this person is a narcissist, however, stand back and watch the three-ring-circus come to town.
Excuses. Justifications. Denial. Accusations. Even ATTACKS on your character and person. This is all about trying to get you to take the boundary down, eat it and choke on it, apologise and spin back to being a compliant, workable energy supply again.
And when you refuse to…
He or she may just be so ‘called out’ that they will do the famous ‘Poof, I’m gone’ narcissistic dump-and-run act. Which means, ‘I’ll block you on social media before you get to do it to me, and I’ll start smearing the heck out of you to anyone who will listen!’
Which is all to do with saving their precious ego.
Or maybe for a while you will be hoovered with attempted guilting, threats, appealing to your compassion – whatever it is that the narcissist thinks could get you re-hooked.
NONE of it will be about taking 100 percent responsibility and lifting his or her game.
I nearly cried laughing with an ex-narcissist friend, who a year after the showdown messaged me with ‘I have decided to forgive you!’
Typical (and hilarious!) non-existent narcissistic ownership!
Up-Levelling Friendships
We truly are WHO we connect with.
And what and who we tolerate is the level that our life will run at.
I know for many of you it is really painful to have to say goodbye to a person, or maybe even lots of people because you know they are narcissistic.
Try setting the boundary, and really mean it when you do.
You will have to be prepared to lose it all to get it all – there is no other way.
And, whenever you do this, you will have to be healed enough inside to truly move beyond victimisation to know that you ARE creating your life by setting the values and the limits that you desire as your life.
Then, I promise you, for every door that closes, ten more beautiful ones will open – when you truly get and actualise this.
To finish, I want to do a big shout out to this Community that it is soooo NOT true that my Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program (NARP) is just for people healing from Intimate Partner relationships.
The healing in NARP is for any and every narcissistic person in our life, because it is all about us healing within us, and becoming what we need to be as the Creators of a clean, empowered and truly interpersonal healthy life.
Many NARP members are working the Program to heal ALL SORTS of narcissistic abuse. In fact any type of narcissist or toxic or difficult individual. They do not have to be diagnosed as narcissistic.
If you are ready to get your happy, healthy, loving life, then I’d love you to check out my Introductory Healing Offer which you can do by clicking this link.
And if you want to see more of my videos, please subscribe so that you will be notified as soon as each new one is released. And if you liked this – click like. Also, please share with your communities so that we can help people awaken to these truths.
As always, I am greatly looking forward to answering your comments and questions below.