A narcissist isn't very self-sufficient, and cannot grow certain traits within them like you or I can. It's not that they've never had the chance, it's that they don't have the ability. Building any characteristic that is honorable is impossible for them, so what do they do instead?
They steal these 7 things from you. They will drain the life out of you if you let them, and it's only those who really let them close who are affected the most. Once you know what they are, you can do all you can to stop it.
And believe me, once you spot the pattern, you can't unspot it. You start seeing exactly where they reach in and take, and that's when everything shifts.
It's hardly a surprise that the narcissist is that empty
Initially meeting a narcissist feels like two worlds have collided. There stands this confident person who is charming, and commanding of your attention. They have walked into your life wanting to be a big part of it, but let me tell you this:
This is a very strong pull that underneath is nothing but hollow on the inside. There seems to be this current of performance the narcissist has, and it's as if they've borrowed the energy to do so. That's because nothing of good energy belongs to them, nothing at all.
If they're confident, it's because they're pretending. If they're warm, it's because they've watched other people be warm and they're copying them. They cycle through people and learn from each one, and that's how the narcissist hides their emptiness.
You'll catch them saying something you swore you said last week, in your voice, in your rhythm. They're not original. They're a collage of everyone they've been near.
Inside, there is nothing.
1 Genuine empathy for anyone or anything
Hardly a surprise, but certainly a big one to think about. Where dynamics are concerned, the narcissist loves empaths because they give them what is needed in order to feel powerful and in control (that is, until the empath fights back).
Narcissists learn how to fake empathy from empaths by watching them and studying their behavior. That doesn't mean the empathy the narcissist serves is real; it's anything but. Sure, at the beginning of your relationship you'll hear:
That must have been so hard for you. I totally get how you feel. I'm here for you. I'm listening. I care. When your pain, and everything that you're giving the narcissist becomes anywhere near inconvenient; that's where you'll notice a sizable shift.
You're annoying, but the narcissist won't say that. They will just literally itch with impatience around you because you aren't giving them what they need at that moment. That itch? It proves the empathy was never real, and was only borrowed from you.
They cannot truly be the type of person who cares and stops everything in someone else's hour of need. Instead, it evaporates because your time is up, or you're asking for too much, or you're simply eating into their own time now.
One client told me her ex actually sighed and said, "Are we still on this?" while she was crying about her dad's cancer. That was the mask slipping.
The narcissist becomes uncomfortable sitting in your discomfort because it is too triggering for them. When there's nothing in it for these people, they will want to get up and leave quickly. Trust me; that empathy was never real.
2 Any kind of accountability
If you want it, you can forget it. Accountability is not in any narcissist's vocabulary, and that's down to the fact that their ego can't take any kind of blame.
They work hard to ensure they come across as perfect, and the image that kind of confidence involves has to be perfect.
See also 5 Creepy Things Every Narcissist Hides Somewhere in Their HouseA narcissist isn't going to give up that perfection for anyone, not even you, so if you're looking for a way to get them to own up, you'll be waiting a lifetime. If you hadn't… Why do you always… You made me…
You, you, you. You have to own the narcissist's mistakes as your own; that's why you're always painted as the problem. Stealing your accountability means the narcissist is watching you and seeing how you apologize. They watch you take responsibility and how you hold yourself in chaos.
Using you as their cover helps them look good, so that's what they do. That's all it's for, and one of the things they think you're good for.
I had someone tell me recently, "Every time I brought up something he did, he'd sigh and say, 'Wow, so I'm the bad guy again?'" That's the whole script.
3 Regulating Emotions
If you live with a narcissist, you'll know that all their moods run the entire house. If they're happy, everyone else is allowed to be. If they're stressed, the house feels prickly and cold, and you try to make yourself small so as not to draw attention to yourself.
You know this; you know what it's like to read the temperature in each room. You have perfected the art of reading the narcissist as soon as they walk into the room.
It's a hypervigilance that nobody can teach you, and that you cannot make people who don't go through this understand. In doing all of this work to keep the narcissist calm and stable, you were doing all their work for them.
They don't know how to regulate themselves, and so you took the job on and did it. That's not fair, but it was never up to you to do this.
If you know how to regulate, you know how to sit in the discomfort of some emotions. You know how to feel disappointed without your entire personality blowing up and raging to the world. A narcissist cannot do this.
Your calm keeps their world stable, but in doing this, who is keeping you stable?
Nobody, right? You've been the emotional thermostat for the whole house, and meanwhile your own nervous system is fried. And they get to call themselves the calm one.
4 Being content
Nothing is ever enough for a narcissist. You'd think that the promotion they got would satisfy them. You'd think that vacation soothed an itch to travel. You'd think their house was good enough. Nothing. Ever. Is.
They want more and more, and they never sit in contentment because they always have to be reaching for something else time and time again. For a little while, people will be okay until they aren't enough, too.
If you look at your life and are happy with it, it's much easier to get to a healthy level of contentment. Instead of feeling it or looking for it, narcissists attach themselves to people who are naturals at feeling it. You are steady.
You find joy in the little things, and you feel at peace regularly. You are their supply. They love that they can reach into your life and steal what's good in order to feel good.
I had a client tell me her ex would actually get irritated when she seemed peaceful. "What are you so happy about?" like contentment itself was a personal insult.
Wanting to feel what you feel is exactly how they take what's yours and run with it. Isn't it sad that this is the case?
5 Genuine connections
Where you or I might have good friends, close connections, and relatives we love to love and be around, the narcissist will have none of this. Sure, they will try. They have a friend who suddenly becomes an enemy before someone else exciting comes along for all of five minutes.
Narcissists can't go very deep with people, and so their lives are made up of shallow connections that won't delve into the more vulnerable side of life.
They still love to be around people who have the ability to share their lives deeply with others, so it makes them look by default as if they're doing it, too. In reality, they're just lost sheep in a room filled with authenticity.
One woman told me her narcissistic partner would sit at family dinners nodding along, then whisper on the way home, "Why do they talk about their feelings so much?"
6 A Real Sense of Self
Ask a narcissist who they actually are, and watch them scramble. Not the job title, not the car, not the list of people who owe them favours. Who are they, really? Silence. Or a stolen answer borrowed from somebody they admire that week.
They don't have a self. That's the honest truth of it. What they have is a costume rack, and they pick whichever version suits the room they're walking into.
So when they meet you and you actually know yourself, your values, your taste, your quiet little opinions on things, they want a piece of that. They study you. They start using your phrases. Suddenly they love the music you love. It's flattering at first, isn't it?
Then it gets weird.
I had someone tell me recently, "It's like he became a copy of me, and then punished me for it." Yes. Because deep down they resent needing you to give them a personality.
You built a self. They wore one. That's a very different thing.
7 The Ability to Be Alone
Sitting alone in a quiet room? For most narcissists, that's a form of torture. They can't do it. Ten minutes in their own head and the walls start closing in, because there's nothing in there they actually want to be alone with.
You, though. You can sit with yourself. You can read a book, take yourself out for coffee, spend a Sunday doing absolutely nothing and feel fine about it. That ability is something they envy more than you realise.
So they attach themselves to you. They fill their silence with your presence. When you're not around, they're texting, calling, finding reasons to pull you back into their orbit. And when you finally learn to say, "I need some space this weekend," watch the tantrum unfold.
I had a client tell me her ex would start a fight every single time she planned a solo trip. Every time. Because him being alone with himself for three days? Unthinkable.
They want your peace with solitude because their own solitude sounds like a scream they can't quiet down.
