What are some of the red flags and warning signs a person you know is a Covert Narcissist or a Covert Narcopath?
Here is a tip — they truly are not playing poker games with a full deck of cards. It’s more like they are filthy rats or mice who keep stealing or moving other people’s metaphoric cheese.
Someone sitting at the dinner table having a conversation about a toxic friend or family member back in the 1950s might have called someone who had mild #NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) a “passive-aggressive person”.
Those same people would have paid attention to American news and would have agreed readily that a character like Scrooge McDuck was a Megalomaniac.
In academic circles, most mental health professionals living and working in the 21st century might say that he shows signs of having an extremely narcissistic personality.
While suspecting key elements of radical Malignant Narcissism is likely to be lurking just behind the surface of every nasty insult he hurls, most thoughtful people understand by nature without needing to have it explained to them that his hate speech reflects toxic thinking and poor manners.
Role modeling hate-speech promoting behaviors globally to children and poorly educated adults is likely to spike a rise in terror, hate crimes, and every other character downfall the American populous in general elects to publicly and privately display.
It’s a sign that the person starting the trend is Malignant — but that the people who jump on the bandwagon to actively and willingly engage in acts like mobbing and self-promotion at other people’s expense equates to Scrooge McDuck driving a bus of Covert narcy constituents to a cross burning prayer vigil for white supremacy before heading off guilt-free to self-aggrandize while telling glorious war stories about the event at church on Sunday after singing hymns.
The telltale signs to help you recognize a “Covert Narcissist” in your midst start from within. If you feel something is not quite right about a person or notice them using manipulative keywords and phrases, trust your gut.
Info Self Development lists traits of Covert Narcissists as follows. Please note many of these same traits are also common to Narcopaths:
* Emptiness, seems to have something missing that you can’t quite put your finger on
* Stubborn, rarely apologizing unless they want something from you (see narcissistic supply)
* Ability to make you feel guilty, even when something is not your fault [look for invalidating, minimizing, blameshifting, and divisive attempts at triangulation]
* Entirely self-centered; they are the center of their own universe [the world revolves around their needs with little to no respect for others]
* Expert liars; charming, hypnotic, a master of manipulation [pathologically lie without remorse because they are manipulating or simply manufacturing chaos for other people because they are bored]
* Projecting their insecurities and defects onto you [Just as Empaths will do a reverse projection of good qualities onto bad people while trying to say something nice about people, Covert Narcissists have something nasty or negative to say about every person they meet and in each and every social setting, practical event, or situation]
* Very sensitive to constructive criticism [refuses to strive to improve behavior or situations; agrees to compromise then undermines]
* Inability to form intimate relationships [refuses to share the truth, avoids discussing personal or family history except in simplistic terms or by making glowing historical revisionist statements]
* Inability to feel genuine remorse [guilt free by nature, they tend to spend little to no time ever introspecting or methodically analyzing anything]
* Blaming others for their problems [compulsive blame-shifting, victim shaming, and denying responsibility]
* Low emotional intelligence [low to no EQ, capping off somewhere by or before the age of 12 with the average EQ age being no older than 6]
* Highly materialistic [with material needs varying from person to person and based on what the Covert Narcissist esteems based on their own upbringing and relative culture]
* Extreme lack of empathy [shows empathy simulation only to manipulate a target into continuing to share more in-depth details about their pain so they can take pleasure in misleading them and abusing them during any crisis situation, “gets off on” watching people in pain emotionally or physically; loves manufacturing chaos, gossip and smear campaigning]
* Superficially charming [deliberately pretends to be whatever character by nature that a targeted victim is likely to respect, take an interest in, or is likely to admire in an effort to con, control, and manipulate them]
* A victim mentality [falsified to undermine true victims and steal away time and sympathy kind people may have paid to the victimized rather than them]
Understand this list is in no way comprehensive. It does, however, provide a handy dandy list of poker tells that the person who you suspect is not what they pretend to be.
Your grandmother probably called them “passive-aggressive people” while complaining about sneaky, dishonest, or manipulative things they do by habit. They are simply unpleasant people with a sinister undertone of greed and malevolence.
They are actually the most common form of Flying Monkeys — and the weakest form of Narcissists. As people who love to stir the pot, their sexy little thrill is manufacturing harm and causing dismay emotionally for other people and then to absolutely deny personal responsibility while smear campaigning the victim.
They are best known for sabotaging scapegoat self-esteem, serenity, and confidence. If they are successful in hurting someone or really causing active harm, their favorite act is to start apologizing all over themselves while consciously lying, gaslighting, and pretending to be unaware they did or said anything with the specific or thoughtless intent to behave in any way that is malevolent.
Just remember when and if you meet one that they are highly competitive and likely to be fully engaged in a variety of social war agendas only their scapegoats and targets realize. Narcissists are bad; narcissistic Sociopaths (a.k.a. Narcopaths) are worse.
They are, at best, a Flying Monkey not playing their own game with a full deck of cards — but it’s important to note that Covert Narcissists almost always will defer to a stronger Narcissist, Sociopath, Psychopath, Histrionic Personality, or person with a Borderline Personality Disorder out of pure respect for a more aggressive predator when and if one of them decides to grace their presence by hanging around.
At worst, they are such experts at hiding their own efforts to situationally abuse and keep their illicit proclivities to do so camouflaged that they exist without their true nature being revealed among friends, family, and peer groups.
If they are as clever as the BTK Killer or Ted Bundy, chances are even their sadistic streak can go for years undetected by those closest to them physically and emotionally in their lives.
Truly, the most toxic outcome is when a person with a Covert Narcissistic streak never actually gets found out.
