Are you dealing with a narcissist and in fear for your life? By the end of this article, you’ll know what the most dangerous form of narcissist is, what the traits are and how to protect yourself.
There is an even darker side of narcissism than you might realize. Like narcissism isn’t dark enough already, but the darker underbelly, those really seriously ugly side of narcissism, the malignant narcissist. That’s the scariest form of narcissist, and we’re going to dive in to finding out what a malignant narcissist looks like and how to protect yourself. A malignant narcissist isn’t just a narcissist. A regular narcissist has a very fragile sense of self, they have no sense of internal value. They try to grab all of their feeling of value from the external. They might devalue, debase others. They might beef up their own accomplishments. A malignant narcissist isn’t just like your regular narcissist. A regular narcissist has no inner sense of value, they have no inner sense of self. They’re very fragile, they have very fragile egos, and they’re entirely driven by everything external. They need an endless amount of supply.
Supply can be anything in the form of compliments, money, tangibles, big job, big car, the right friends, living in the right neighborhood, anything that makes them look good on the outside. But supply can also be in the form of the abusive behavior, which is devaluing people, debasing people, judging people, putting people down, all that sort of thing. All narcissists have very little sense of inner self or none. I’ve often said in my other videos that they’re like the chocolate hollow Easter bunny, they might kind of look good on the outside, but there’s absolutely nothing inside. That’s what’s going on with a narcissist. All narcissists have that. Whether you’re a grandiose narcissist or a covert narcissist, you’re going to have these traits. If you want to know more about covert narcissists, then you’re going to want to check out my video on the covert passive aggressive narcissist.
How a malignant narcissist differs, however, is that this is where antisocial dangerous behavior mixes with your regular garden variety narcissists. You’ve got your fragile ego and you’ve got your no sense of internal value, and you’ve got this person who’s very much trying to make themselves look as good as possible, but it’s also overlaid with an antisocial personality, a person who is extremely suspicious, who is potentially aggressive and potentially dangerous. This is the person that will stop at nothing to destroy. Like seriously destroy families, destroy careers, destroy homes, destroy work environments and potentially even countries or nations, depending on what kind of a position of power they’re in. They literally have that need, it’s such a need for control and such a deep seated rage and hatred inside of themselves that they’re not just trying to fill themselves with endless amounts of narcissistic supply, which is what most narcissists do. They’re also, they have this antisocial personality disorder overlay. And so, they literally have the power to destroy people.
What you’ll see with a malignant narcissist is they get themselves into a position of power, whether it’s within the family dynamic or within a work environment or a company environment or anything like that. And then everybody around them is constantly walking on eggshells to not upset this person. And so, they have the ability to be triggered so easily. You’ve heard the term hair trigger. These people have a very, very, very sensitive hair trigger, and any little thing can trigger them to blow up, go crazy and completely try to obliterate somebody for the smallest little infraction. They can just go nuts on someone because they didn’t staple something the right way, or they didn’t hang the towel the way they were supposed to. They’ll absolutely lose it. These people can come across as impulsive, destructive, aggressive, unstable. What really sets them off more than anything is any slightest little thing that looks to them to be a besmirch to them in any way.
For example, if you gave an opinion that differed from theirs, then you are going to pay the price for that. You’re going to have to look bad. They think that they are demonstrating confidence and making sure that everybody knows who’s the powerful one by basically obliterating somebody for the smallest little infraction. This is a person that when other people are around them, people feel anxious, they feel intimidated by this person. They are extremely fearful of this person, extremely fearful of what they’re going to do. And so, when you combine this feeling of fear and intimidation, and then they have absolutely no empathy because no narcissist have empathy for others. That’s what makes them narcissists. Their suspiciousness and their aggression will cause a lot of destruction to people and can cause a lot of pain to people.
How a person might describe a malignant narcissist if they don’t know that they’re a malignant narcissist, they might say that they’re jealous, they might say that they’re petty. They might say that they’re thin skinned, they might say that they’re punitive. They might say that they’re angry or that they’re shallow, or that they can be impulsive, they have a tendency to lash out very quickly over very small things. They also can tend to be very cunning, very sly, very good at coming up with ways to hurt people and in very sneaky ways. A malignant narcissist also tends to see the world in a very black and white way. They’re either smart or they’re dumb, they’re either rich or they’re poor. They’re either in or they’re out, they’re a loser or they’re a winner. They see things in very, very black and white ways.
They also hold feelings of grandiose superiority. They think that they can say things that completely aren’t true at all, have no basis in fact whatsoever, and believe that the world around them will believe everything that they have to say and, well, nobody will question it but it’s true because they said that it’s true. According to Campbell Psychiatric Dictionary, malignant narcissism combines the characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder or NPD, antisocial personality disorder, or APD, aggression and sadism either toward others, self or both, and paranoia. If you think that you are dealing with a malignant narcissist, then I highly suggest that you figure out a way to get out of this relationship. This is the person who might have a tendency to engage in things like violence, stalking, threats of violence. They really will stop at nothing to destroy you. There’s certain types of narcissists that are pretty heinous as well, but they’re not going to go after you to the point of destroying you because they don’t want themselves to also look bad.
This is the type of narcissist that they’ll just stop at nothing because they think that they’ll be able to get away with it. They live in such a distorted world that they think that they’ll be able to get away with it. So you really need to figure out a plan to get away from this person. If you’re in a marriage with this person, start figuring out what you need to do to get out of the relationship with this person. If you’re not thinking of divorcing the narcissist, then you need to figure out a way that you can create some serious boundaries so that this person can not continue to hurt you. Part of creating boundaries is going to be having ways that they can only communicate with you in one way, one way in, one way out, something like that. Or shutting off communication with them altogether would be the ideal way to go. But you definitely need to start creating a plan for how you’re going to get out of this relationship with this person, because these people cannot be rehabilitated. They will not get better. Don’t make excuses for them. That’s another way that you can start protecting yourself is stop making excuses for them. Just understand that they’re very sick individuals, they’re mentally ill, and you can’t help them. You can’t help them, so you need to figure out a plan to get out of this relationship with this person.
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