Check this out… it’s a special event or important holiday season coming up and your favorite Narcissist with Sociopathic tendencies is at it again, ramping up to spoil yet another annual gathering of family and friends. Why do they do it? Because Narcopaths have massive impulse control issues, know the difference between right and wrong, and love causing kind and loving people cry (by and large for the most part). So how do you handle holidays when and if a person in your family or peer group has a Narcopathic personality type and hates anything that reminds them of their own biological limitations with regard to processing or handling complex emotions? The answer is simple. Learn how to go Gray Rock about their propensity to abuse without feeling the need to overlook their bad behavior or reward them by acting like emotional vampire food. The only right way to handle a Narcopath on holidays is not to invite them to your special celebration or parties. But here’s a few things one can reasonably expect to happen if and when a party host decides an ill-mannered and non-appreciative person is someone they would like to include.
Yep — they are at it again, the Grinch who Stole Christmas (and every other happy holiday memory) from their beloved relatives and closest personal “single with no place else to go” friends.
The holiday saboteur, be it a birthday, Christmas, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Easter, or some other celebratory mile marker event and the Narcopath simply cannot resist hurting people who have holiday spirit or strive annually to bring both themselves and other people a bit of cheer.
Ruining holiday celebrations for other people is one of the biggest “red flag” symptoms of Narcopathy, commonly reported on the victim’s top 10 C-PTSD causing offenses list.
The Narcopath is a narcissistic Sociopath, meaning that each one will — in their own personal uniqueness — never fail to do the wrong thing at the “right time”. What this means is if there is clearly a right place and time to make a loving, thoughtful, or polite decision, the narcy pack animal will note the difference.
Once they figure out how they should act for the highest and greatest good of all concerned (themselves included), they will consistently figure out the most creative yet predictable of ways to cause familial mayhem and absolute hurt.
Narcopaths have a massive superiority complex that comes off as something less than that. For years, most had psychologists and psychiatrists duped into believing that at the root of their personality disorder was deep-seated self-loathing that manifested as low self-esteem. This was thought to have been why they would seem to engage in self-sabotaging behaviors.
But new brain scan technology is starting to back up what the intuitive parents of children who were born Cluster B have suspected or stated outright all along. “That ain’t it!” they say.
Brains with a natural thinning in the area of the brain where complex emotions like empathy are perceived, originate, and are neurologically experienced simply do not work like average or more normal brains.
Parents of “Bio Bs” or snakey people know that their children get off on doing things to hyper stimulate themselves and other people emotionally. You see, most Narcopaths are simply emotional flatlines unless they are manipulating (meaning running some active con) or they are raging. There’s no emotional biochemical activity between the extremes.
Either they are hooked into someone’s aura or psychology and playing a mind game, positioning themselves in the all-powerful psychiatric and physical lead or they are ranting and raving (or irrationally stonewalling. Impossible to satisfy or please emotionally speaking, the Narcopath is the ultimate energy vampire who essentially sucks the life out of random people when and if they feel uneasy.
Preferred targets and reactive scapegoats are the favorite psychological food for narcopathic people. Exhibiting traits of both Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Anti-Social Personality Disorder simultaneously, they could care less about whether or not their decisions in life set them back a few steps.
Narcopathic people, especially those who are Bio Bs, tend to have 100% confidence in themselves and their ability to succeed. Sadly, this is rooted in the very real fact that on a moral and social level they don’t care one bit if this proclivity is rooted in their core nature to bottom-feed.
Working for a happy lifestyle takes effort. Narcopaths despise happy people. Combine the two realities, and it’s easy to see why the person who is sentimental or nostalgic and strives to create a home life or holiday celebration infused with opportunities to enjoy making special memories together makes that person a big, fat target for the Machiavellian menace to aim at with glee.
As the years go by, People Pleasers tend to try harder and harder each year to erase bad memories from the past and replace them with new ones. Having every holiday event sabotaged by a Narcopath or toxic family unit truly crushes the life and spirit of the person who is emotionally sensitive.
This destruction of another human being is the exact goal of a Narcopath, and the more they tend to exhibit traits of Malignant Narcissism along with Sociopathy on a day to day basis the more likely they are to head into any holiday day or season with their metaphoric guns a’ blazing. Infiltrating the event — meaning making sure their name is on the guest list is the easiest way for them to ruin events. Those who are estranged or hate monger from a distance will do passive-aggressive, spiteful things to their targets such as cyber troll photos of those who they perceive to be easy marks to upset or narcissistic rivals in the true Cluster B sense.
[Narcissistic rivalry is typically a competition for attention and power manufactured and played out wholly in the mind of the Cluster B predator. Their rival or target need not know the cause of the “narcissistic injury” that got them targeted in the first place and need not do anything other than breathe to continue to vex the ill-tempered, irrationally egocentric, and socially malevolent Malignant Narcissist.]
While a Sociopath may or may not wreck a holiday gathering or someone else’s birthday (depending on their mood that day), a true Narcopath won’t be able to control the impulse to insult, demean, or otherwise ridicule and provoke.
The more Malignant the person, the meaner their attacks. The more Sociopathic they are, the more likely they are to simply mess with other people’s heads and emotions for no other reason than to claim they were just joking in an effort to net gain only themselves and others like them a hearty laugh.
The Malignant Narcissist with Sociopathic Tendencies likes making other people feel small. They enjoy the feeling of being able to humiliate other people socially and to crush their self-esteem emotionally.
Rather than striving to help other people or to create a loving, supportive home environment for children to grow up in and parents to live in as romantic partners, everything to them is about fostering social competition. If someone else is happy, that person’s mood must be destroyed. If someone else is sad? That is like chum to a shark, noting that a true Narcopath cannot resist the urge to kick another human being when and if they are down.
The only seeming exception to the “kick me” sign rule each emotional person pins on their own back when and if their emotional sensitivity gets the best of them is when a covert predator can use a down emotional time to psychologically step in and grossly manipulate or gaslight that person.
Crying to your husband about your Narcopath mom making digs at you as the host of a party when no one is listening then feigning innocent when you cannot hide the upset emotion? If he’s got Narcopath tendencies, too, because you married a person whose interior mindset seemed much like your own family (meaning familiar) and man, do you ever have a problem.
Expect the brain fawk of the century to be laid on you about it’s your own fault for wanting to celebrate something like Christmas or a birthday. After all, “as any fool can plainly see” the holidays are for people who are nothing more than hippie-dippy tree huggers, emotionally annoying, waste of physical space, freeloading personality types who are truly nothing but sheep and meat for the commercially driven consumer beast.
[Just an aside… they aren’t. Many true Cluster B people do not have the hard wiring in their brain to allow them to comprehend empathy so holidays (to them) are nothing more than days on a calendar they are forced to endure — not anything sentimental in nature or rewarding to participate in with a sense of spirit or camaraderie.]
If it’s their birthday or a holiday like Halloween, there is a chance that they will be all smiles and partying. Why? Because both are days they can live out their fantasy desires and have those around them typically treat them like royalty.
Expect a Narcopath to enjoy dressing up in outlandish costumes for Halloween and to seriously enjoy going to nightclubs with risque parties. Expect that same Narcopath to expect to be given expensive, over the top gifts for their own birthday celebrations. Not tons of presents, per se. They will complain and complain when and if you take the time to create a festive environment complete with ribbon, bows, gift wrap, and other birthday party trimmings.
No — the Narcopath wants gifts. They want stuff. They want what they want when they want it regardless of whether or not the family budget can afford it.
That means the Narcopath will buy themselves their own birthday gifts annually before even having the courtesy to allow a love interest, child, or another family member to shop for a sentimental item to give them. Make out a Christmas list and two days before the big day and the egocentric person will go buy himself or herself absolutely everything they already asked the family for, leaving gift-givers feeling stupid having wasted money double buying and without a present to give that could possibly be satisfying.
The Narcopath will let everyone know their birthday gift wish list, too, in no uncertain terms. That cologne they like? Yep — “while they were out” they already bought themselves a new bottle… but thanks a lot is their claim as they toss the duplicate bottle aside and gaze at you, waiting to see the hurt in your eyes.
You see, it is making sure any person who tries to buy or make them something special as a gift has that pleasure denied that gives them the real emotional gift they are seeking. Whether hurting a parent, spouse, or child — or embarrassing a well-meaning friend — it’s their dismissal of other human being’s effort to please them that is far more hurtful than them dissing the proverbial Cracker Jack in the Box prize.
It’s not truly about the gifts they request, the “satisfy me” game they play. They have no qualms about buying themselves exactly what they want for a present at the holidays or for a birthday.
What the Narcopath really lusts after is to see their target try as hard as they can to please them — specifically so the pleasure of succeeding in pleasing them can be denied. If they ask for a specific thing and someone goes out of their way to hunt the treasured item down, the harder the item is to find the more likely the Narcopath is to claim the person either bought them the wrong thing, to say they did not need it, or to tell the person to their face that not only did they not want it or need it but to really grind home that the person who tried to please them absolutely wasted their time.
The person who has everything already is famous for doing this — letting people who care enough to put thought into gifts that they don’t need or want anything. But look out if you show up empty-handed! My Gawd, the Narcopaths will seethe with rage at the thought someone failed to waste their own time.
Buying big-ticket items on a whim is another clear sign of Narcopathy. People who fleece creditors on a regular basis are famous for doing this, as are people who use other people’s gift money for purposes never intended by the giver.
[Only “loan” money you never expect to see again to any person for any reason. Expect repayment, but never rely on it — and if a borrower fails to return the cash and disappears, consider it the best investment of funds you could have possibly made, getting that person out of your circle of trust and being able to turn away from them socially and emotionally without any guilt, shame, further obligation, or fear.]
Those who get off on the endorphin rush of making big purchases or on spending large lump sums of cash are an odd deviation of the gambling addict. In their minds, they may logically know that the payments on something like a new car, boat, house, jet ski, fancy stereo, expensive piece of jewelry, retail money designer luxury products, or lavish but poorly timed vacations are likely to put the family under financially, but they don’t care.
Narcopaths are famous for wanting what they want when they want it, rationality be damned. They are also famous for telling other people in no uncertain terms what they don’t want, don’t like, don’t value, refuse to esteem, or truly despise and loathe seeing be important to other people.
It’s like listening to the Grinch Jim Carrey rant about all the reasons why he hates Christmas. The gift-giving spirit and ethos simply is not something with which they emotionally connect.
Xenophobic about emotional sentiment, if a Narcopath sees other humans emoting, beware. That’s when they tend to feel profoundly superior to other human beings — holding themselves above in status to lowly sheeple who are not smart enough in their not-so-humble opinion to use, abuse, dominate or strive to control one another’s emotions.
If they see a person tear up because another person said something nice in a greeting card or gave them and lovely, sentimentally inspired, or thoughtful trinket? Time to start hurling the insults, typically masked as jokes at first but always referred back to and coupled with a derogatory comment chain coupled with a contemptuous look and sneer.
Know a person is greatly looking forward to spending time with a relative or person they have not seen in a while? Only have a few hours or a few days to spend together? The attention hogging Narcissist with a sociopathic or even psychopathic bent will do things like demand you drop everything and handle some manufactured crisis of theirs — something that typically can always be handled later and is rooted psychologically in the absolutely pretend.
- Calling incessantly to disturb holiday or special event “short time limit” visits…
- Picking fights…
- Copping a major attitude, exhibiting road rage while simply pacing the floor or pathway between bedroom, kitchen, and living room…
- Stonewalling, refusing to speak, grumbling, making nasty critiques…
- Refusing to participate or show any interest in party gathering style activities…
- Constant, irrepressible complaining…
- Insisting on absolute control of everything and everybody if and when they are assigned a task and forced to participate…
- Snapping nasty comments at the person hosting, treating them horribly, and demeaning them in front of friends and family…
- Getting drunk and arguing with guests who are attending a party…
- Provoking fights and starting obnoxious discussions about things like race, religion, politics, and berating groups by stereotype relentlessly — especially if there is a member of that particular group in the room or whom they are addressing directly…
- Passing out in the middle of the living room or main party area and snoring loudly (rather than excusing themselves politely and heading off to more private or socially appropriate sleeping quarters…
- Inciting rough house play with children at inappropriate times and in menacing ways…
- Getting angry and throwing a punch at a party guest or family member…
- Cussing out a person who fails to share their opinion or to do a task in such a way that is up to their impossible-to-please standard…
- Deliberately not completing tasks assigned to them with regard to party preparation such as finishing household chores on time or picking up something as simple as ice for the party…
By no means is the aforementioned bulleted list exhaustive. When it comes to creatively finding ways to inconvenience a host, cause other people to feel stressed or embarrassed, or to ensure no one enjoys a family gathering, Narcopaths are king and queen role model figures for truly and incessantly manufacturing interpersonal issue-based, social themed, intellectually mind-boggling calamities.
There’s no way to include a Narcopath at a family gathering that everyone in attendance does not suffer either being persecuted directly or affected indirectly. Those forced to witness a Narcopath attacking a scapegoat or preferred target are traumatized by the sheer act of witnessing. What’s more, if the person forced to witness the wrongdoing fails to jump in to help the victim, they themselves are guilty of the moral crime of overlooking while passively enabling.
Those who DO stand up to a bully and defend targets risk creating a major scene, opening themselves up to be targeted or exiled from all future gatherings. Not being invited to have to sit through listening to the toxic ravings of moral lunatics can be quite the blessing, noting that when and if a Narcopath decided to give you the silent treatment as punishment that it actually creates the opportunity to avoid inclusion in their circus gatherings.
But standing up to a family bully has it’s drawbacks, too — as the Narcopath is likely to smear campaign against their perceived foe and strive to manufacture as many triangulations as possible between targets (meaning friends and family). Expect to hear word of rumors they started or promoted to filter back to you for years to come, as people who were formerly warm and loving to you suddenly and for no explicable reason start to withdraw.
That’s when the Narcopath wins — by ruining every holiday memory for an otherwise kind and loving person, then letting the effects of their Machiavellian plots to socially and emotionally destroy other people bleed through to estrange that person from what they believed to be their emotional support network 365 days a year.
If a Narcopath can cause a fight between themselves and a target, they love doing so. But truly, if they can cause a fight between a target and another person the target loves? That’s the most emotionally rewarding gift a Narcissist truly ever gives themselves.
As such, be very wary when speaking to one. Everything you say can and will be used against you in the future in some twisted, bizarre, and/or “taken entirely out of context” way.
Remember last Christmas when you said XYZ to ABC about you know what with whom with why? Regardless of context and intent, magically the Narcopath — while rumor mongering — will write revisionist history. It might be you said you loved Great Aunt Mabel’s dress and told her you thought it looked slimming. Guess what? The Narcopath will plant nasty little remarks in your beloved auntie’s ear that what you really said and meant by your kind remark was it that she’s fat and a poor dresser, typically.
Can that sort of emotional, verbal, and psychological abuse be quantified? Nope. There’s not a single way to defend yourself when and if the Narcopath tries to tank Aunt Mabel’s self-esteem and sabotage her good relationship with you by making undermining, gaslighting statements to her that make her feel bad about herself while simultaneously tying the image of you as a person in her mind with something that causes a feeling of pain, shame, and mistrust in the mind of the manipulated target exponentially.
That’s the way a Narcopath thinks they “win” — by pitting other people against one another socially and emotionally while they themselves engage in mental masturbation self-aggrandizing. You see, the Narcopath is above the fray they create. As the manufacturing god of war and chaos, they self-stimulate their own endorphins by manipulating.
Sadism runs high in Narcopathic personality types as well, and having it be a holiday or special occasion seems to make their thirst for blood metaphorically hype at such times beyond bounds and measures. Since other people are typically more vulnerable in general emotional availability at such times of the year, letting their guard down in order to take in positive communications, barbs and jabs thrown verbally by the Narcopath tend to wound deep like the sharpest of spears.
Can anyone hurt a Narcopath by responding in kind, hurling insults back? No! To sink to their level and pay any attention to them socially or emotionally whatsoever — especially on holidays — is like them scoring triple rewards on double coupon value day at their local grocery store.
That’s the key to Narcissistic Abuse recovery when it comes to reclaiming your right to celebrate or enjoy a holiday or special day. Number one — suggest you celebrate the event with them on a different day. Number two — be sure you are busy or have plans for the actual calendar date that are NOWHERE NEAR THEM.
It’s not ducking and covering, the advice we’re giving. On the contrary — the suggestion is to address the problem head-on.
If Grandma or Grandpa hates holidays, send them a little something in the mail ahead of time and make a plan to come to visit after the holiday traffic stops.
If mom or dad has Cluster B and ruins holiday events compulsively? Suggest they do their thing while you do yours. If they are wandering around the house and griping while you are making merry, realizing that they are exhibiting “symptoms of their psychiatric condition”, noting that their behavior is something that while having a fit is out of their control might not excuse their behavior, but it certainly helps a person switch from the type likely to engage with them while striving to alleviate their pain.
Observe their behavior. Witness it without taking it personally. Avoid interactions with them. Call Narcissistic Abuse what it is without minimizing. And let it go.
To let go does not mean to forgive and forget. It truthfully, in a healthy mind, means you recognize bad behavior for what it is — a social and prospectively physically toxic danger to be around — and you treat any person acting out with kid gloves. You do not stick your hand in a rattlesnake cage to pick one up. If you have to interact with one, you do it from a distance while wearing thick-skinned gloves, heavy boots and clothing, most likely a face mask, and you use a grab-me-gotcha stick.
You also do not let it loose in the living room or at dinner time with a house full of party guests.
Remember that the next time you feel compelled to include an ill-tempered Narcopath on your holiday party guest list.
