If you ever had a covert narcissist in your life, you already know why they are called "covert". They operate in a such a covert way that it is hard to put a finger on it and clearly describe what you experience with them and what exactly happens to you. They are being called the wolves in a sheep coats as their evil tactics are well hidden behind the false mask of niceness. You probably always wondered what exactly is that one element causing the difference between overt and covert type of a narcissist. That one element is passive-aggressiveness. While overt narcissist openly abuses people, the covert narcissist is a coward who operates with a tactic of pretending to be the nicest girl or nicest guy that you ever met in your life and their covert abuse often flies under the radar not being recognized for months, years and even decades by the victim. Until one day the victim wakes up in a middle of the greatest horror and damage they ever experienced in their life. The covert narcissism strongly co-morbid with passive aggressive personality disorder and its exactly the passive aggressive behavior these disordered individuals can be recognized by. The covert narcissist is the most dangerous personalities known of all personality disorders. The damage they can cause a victim is beyond the words. Although, not everybody who shows passive aggressiveness time to time is automatically a covert narcissist as even healthy people showcase this behavior to some degree, especially when they are too scared or too disgusted to deal with a certain situation. However, the occasional passive aggressiveness of a healthy individual do not cause harm to other people. To "self diagnose" someone with a covert narcissism, the individual needs to posses a collection of a traits on a constant basis with a harmful results to his or her environment.
The root of a passive aggressive personality disorder is deeply rooted in childhood.
From studies is clear that the parenting style and family dynamics contributed highly in forming passive aggressiveness in children and this unhealthy pattern of behavior was often taken into their adulthood too. The profile of a typical parent who raised a covert narcissist with a passive aggressive behavior would start with a description of someone who is narcissistic himself or herself, having strong narcissistic traits and very low to no emotional intelligence. The unhealthy covert behavior seems to be a direct result of oppressing, strict and overbearing parenting style of dominant caregivers who have been very demanding, bossy, dominant, controlling, emotionally neglecting, choleric, overtly or covertly abusive (sexually, physically, but also emotionally, psychologically, financially, materially, spiritually, etc) towards the child, also very impulsive, eruptive or at least easily irritable having overly restraining tendencies of child´s freedom. The profiling of the parent would continue also with traits of the parenting style where the parent uses a lot of shaming and guilt tripping, an emotional blackmailing and gas lighting. The dysfunctional parent sees his child as an extension of himself or herself instead of seeing the child as an individual with the right for self-expression. The parent raising the child in a depersonalized style considering the child as an object instead of seeing the child as a human being. The feelings, needs and wants of a child are not validated, noticed and all negative emotions are being suppressed without appropriate respond. While the healthy parenting is based on an unconditional love, the love provided by the narcissistic parent is very conditional - the child is considered lovable only when he or she fully complies to the wishes, needs and wants of the parent, otherwise he or she is being considered not lovable at all and is emotionally and psychologically neglected. This black and white thinking (black or white without any grey area or shades within) of a parent creates an ultimate wound in a child - "I am not lovable". The child develops an anxiety, hypersensitivity and OCD since early childhood due to frequent criticism from the parent´s side. The child is being criticized even when he or she does something right and the child is never praised where it is required to praise a child in order to help him or her to develop a healthy self esteem. Any accomplishments of a child are never acknowledged. On the other hand, when the child does something bad, it is harshly punished. Over the time the child develops a state of "learned helplessness" where no matter what he or she would try, the child would always fail in the eyes of the parent. This creates another ultimate wounds in the soul of the child - the wound "I do not feel worthy" and also the wound "I am not good enough". Every slight attempt of a child to show his or her own personality, needs and wants are being invalidated and the demanding parent is raising the child with unreasonable expectations and almost army like commands with no space for discussion or communication. Any anger, frustration or a disagreement of the child is being harshly punished by the dysfunctional parent. The seed of dysfunctionality are being planted in the family dynamics in an early years of a child where any kind of honest emotion and expression, positive or negative, was forbidden. This tend to teach the child not to develop an empathy and it teach him or her to repress and deny own feelings. As the unprocessed emotions, especially anger, do not go away and needs to always find a way to surface, the child is being trained since childhood to express their anger in an unhealthy, indirect and covert way. As the freedom of a child is restricted, the child fights the parents and rebel against their control in a covert way by learning how to cheat and lie from early childhood. As the anger and frustration is forbidden to be expressed in an open way, the child learns from early childhood to express the negative emotions through passive aggressiveness. The child is being trained to behave overly nice, pretend the niceness even he or she is in reality angry and frustrated. The child has to act in an opposition of his or her true feelings. The pseudo politeness and pretended over niceness is a result of a surviving mode in order to survive own parent, to avoid punishment, abuse, neglect, conflict or to irritate the parent. The child is hiding the real feelings to get along with his or her abusive parent and is being overly nice to please the parent to receive at least a bread crumbs of validation, love, appreciation, acceptance.
A great misconception is that the child needs to be visibly and physically abused in order to society consider it as an abuse. The excessive spoiling is also a form of the abuse and it is very harmful to a development of a child´s emotional intelligence and sense of self. The overly praised child develops false and distorted sense of self and develop an entitling personality. The parent frequently ignores a child but substitutes the real love and attention for money and materialistic things. The parent uses a child only as a trophy to show to the audience and in front of the camera to keep the parent looking good so the parent can obtain a positive narcissistic supply from the surrounding. The childhood of a rich child seems perfect on a family portrait posted on a social media while in reality the child is being abused by a narcissistic parent behind the door.
The poor parenting skills of an insensible parent with unhealthy attachment to a child without any true deep meaningful connection cause a person to develop passive aggressive personality disorder.
The reason why the victims of a narcissistic abuse by covert narcissists feel such an agony and deep pain after being abused is that the narcissists use the same tactics on the victims as it was once used on them in their childhood. They know where to "hit" you to cause you the greatest pain. They know how agonizing is to feel not lovable, not worthy and not good enough.
A great misconception is that the child needs to be visibly and physically abused in order to society consider it as an abuse. The excessive spoiling is also a form of the abuse and it is very harmful to a development of a child´s emotional intelligence and sense of self. The overly praised child develops false and distorted sense of self and develop an entitling personality. The parent frequently ignores a child but substitutes the real love and attention for money and materialistic things. The parent uses a child only as a trophy to show to the audience and in front of the camera to keep the parent looking good so the parent can obtain a positive narcissistic supply from the surrounding. The childhood of a rich child seems perfect on a family portrait posted on a social media while in reality the child is being abused by a narcissistic parent behind the door.
The poor parenting skills of an insensible parent with unhealthy attachment to a child without any true deep meaningful connection cause a person to develop passive aggressive personality disorder.
The reason why the victims of a narcissistic abuse by covert narcissists feel such an agony and deep pain after being abused is that the narcissists use the same tactics on the victims as it was once used on them in their childhood. They know where to "hit" you to cause you the greatest pain. They know how agonizing is to feel not lovable, not worthy and not good enough.
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