The
covert narcissists are shame based individuals. Their greatest trigger
that causes them the narcissistic emotional injury is the the
pathological shame. As they have been shamed in the childhood a lot by
their narcissistic parents or caregivers, they developed a very fragile
sense of self. Their coping mechanism to process the shame is to hide
the insecurities, shame and their inner demons behind the "false self
mask" (alter ego or avatar or placebo) that they developed and created
in their childhood. They dissociated from their true self in the
childhood and they suffer from dissociative
identity disorder. The covert narcissists have "fragmented personality"
and they are in a great inner conflict between what is real and their
"idealized grandiose self".
All they care about is the image they present to the public and they
anxiously and constantly worry what other people think about them. They
control and manipulate what others think about them by wearing their
"false self" mask to feel better about their fragile sense of self and
low self worth. As the covert narcissists are not capable to validate
themselves, they rely solely on a validation from the external sources.
As they have been programmed by their narcissistic parents or caregivers
to hate themselves and not love themselves (and it was very painful and
unacceptable emotions for the covert narcissists), they chose to not
have any self at all (dissociation). Instead of being the "true self",
the covert narcissists developed a copying mechanism of wearing the
"false self" mask. As the covert narcissists are full of
shame, hate, rage and envy and they are not capable to release these emotions, they cope with their dysfuctionality by splitting and projections onto others following by self-punishment, self-devaluation and self-sabotage. They project onto others their own wrong doings by accusing the victims with the exact same wrong doings they have done to the victims. They are re-playing their trauma again and again by projecting what was done to them onto the victims, they do to the victims the same traumatic acts that have been done to them. If they have been neglected, they neglect the victims, if they have been physically abused, they physically abuse the victims, if they received a lot of silent treatment in their childhood, they give a lot of silent treatment to their victims, etc. What was done to them, they are doing to their victims. It is a cursed never ending cycle of people being abused and then abusing other people. Every time the victims trigger their shame, the covert narcissists will project it back onto the victims as it is unbearable for them to deal with such an intense emotions. The covert narcissists are the mirrors who project the false positive emotions onto others so others reflect those positive emotions back to them to make them feel better about themselves (emotional self-masturbation or quick fix by gaining positive narcissistic supply).
shame, hate, rage and envy and they are not capable to release these emotions, they cope with their dysfuctionality by splitting and projections onto others following by self-punishment, self-devaluation and self-sabotage. They project onto others their own wrong doings by accusing the victims with the exact same wrong doings they have done to the victims. They are re-playing their trauma again and again by projecting what was done to them onto the victims, they do to the victims the same traumatic acts that have been done to them. If they have been neglected, they neglect the victims, if they have been physically abused, they physically abuse the victims, if they received a lot of silent treatment in their childhood, they give a lot of silent treatment to their victims, etc. What was done to them, they are doing to their victims. It is a cursed never ending cycle of people being abused and then abusing other people. Every time the victims trigger their shame, the covert narcissists will project it back onto the victims as it is unbearable for them to deal with such an intense emotions. The covert narcissists are the mirrors who project the false positive emotions onto others so others reflect those positive emotions back to them to make them feel better about themselves (emotional self-masturbation or quick fix by gaining positive narcissistic supply).
They
will do everything in order to avoid the feeling of shame - they will
kick, bite, hide, screw other people in the process over or even kill.
They will at all costs protect their "false self mask" to always appear
as good ("good boy" or "good girl"). When they are being caught being
bad, they will do everything to deny it and appear good (even they are
bad) as they have zero tolerance for the emotional pain that is coming
from their childhood trauma. The narcissists are the most dangerous when
the victims are above to remove their fake mask.
The
covert narcissists created the "false self mask" in order to
manufacture the reality in which they appear always as good. As they
suffer from the wound "I am not lovable" and the wound "I am not good
enough" and the wound "I do not feel worthy", they created their own
twisted reality in which they always appear as someone else than they
truly are. They fake the perfect image at all costs to protect their
fragile sense of self. The covert narcissists can´t bear the exposure of
their true self to others as it creates a vulnerability of exposing
their deepest wounds of their true self that was rejected by their
narcissistic parents or caregivers in their childhood.
When
the covert narcissists hurt their victims or damage their life in some
way, the victims always see the covert narcissists cowardly run away
from them, hide from them, avoiding them, blame shift the bad things
they have done onto them, project their darkness onto them. The victims
might think that the narcissists are running from them but in fact, the
narcissists are running from themselves to avoid the pathological shame
they would feel if they take the responsibility for those bad doings.
The more horrific bad doing or crime they have done, the more
intensively and aggressively they will deny that they have done
something wrong. The greater is the wrong doing of the narcissists, the
more aggressive will be the smear campaign against the victims too as
the narcissists have to protect their false image at all costs by either
justifying the wrong doing, blaming it onto the victims or make the
real victims look like the villains so they can appear as good. The more
vicious is the wrong doing, the deeper is the shame. The deeper is the
shame, the greatest is the denial. They have very poor regulation of the
emotions thus they are not capable to cope with the shame and they are
hypersensitive to any slightest criticism.
This
is the reason why they never take any responsibility for their actions
or why they never apology as it would trigger a great amount of the
shame inside of them. Their biggest phobia and fear is to be discovered
and their "false self mask" being removed. The removal of their fake
masks would be very painful for them and would cause them the ultimate
narcissistic emotional injury.
If
the narcissists ever apology, it is obviously fake and they apologize
only because they need something from the source of supply and they can´t afford to lose their victims. When they
apologize, it is always in a very nonsense way and in a covert way it
sounds more like a blame of the victims or covert insults rather than the apologize. If
they apologize, the covert narcissists actually do not apologize, they
only expect the victims to take them back without any further
discussions, questions expecting the victims act as nothing happened. The
narcissists are entitled and they never genuinely feel sorry for their
victims. If they feel sorry, its always for themselves. For example,
they might feel sorry when they lose a good sources of supply. They are
not sorry for causing a pain and a damage to the victims, they are only
sorry for losing a good sources of supply who were satisfying their
wants and needs. When they got caught red-handed doing something bad,
they do not feel sorry for doing the wrong thing, they are only sorry
for being caught.
The difference between the shame and guilt:
The
covert narcissists are not capable to feel guilt. They feel only the
shame. The shame is not the same as a guilt. There is a big difference
between these two.
Example situation for a guilt:
Peter
was rushing through the busy streets of the New York. He was already
late to work. He completely forgot about today´s meeting in the morning. He turned behind the corner and bumped into a lady. He
is a very tall guy who spends most of his free time in a gym. The lady,
on the other hand, is a very tiny, short and she seems almost fragile.
As they bumped into each other, the lady felt on the ground and hurt
herself. Peter was very quick to help her, he made sure the lady is
OK and well before he walked away. Peter felt guilty for what he has
done. The whole day he was thinking about the lady and if she is really
OK. "It must really hurt, she felt on the ground pretty harshly..." - he
things for him selves. He felt bad about it for the rest of the day. He
was a bit angry to himself that he was not more careful while he was
rushing. He felt bad and guilty for the accident and for the lady. He
wishes he asked her for her telephone number so he would be able to call her in the evening
to see how she feels and if he can help her in any way to feel better.
As
you can see, Peter felt guilty for harming other person. He was not
thinking about himself during and after the accident, he was thinking
about the well-being of the lady. He felt bad about what he did and he
took a personal responsibility and wanted to make amends. He felt
tension and remorse. As the empath, he could feel the other person´s
pain.
Example situation for a shame:
John was rushing through the busy streets of the New York. He was
already late to work. He completely forgot about today´s meeting in the
morning. He turned behind the corner and bumped into a
lady. He is a very tall guy who spends most of his free time in a gym.
The lady, on the other hand, is a very tiny, short and she seems almost
fragile. As they bumped into each other, the lady felt on the ground
and hurt herself. The first thing John did was he looked around if
someone saw him to knock down the lady. He noticed that two pedestrians
across the street saw him to knock her down. He immediately felt that
his face turned red. "Damn, why those people needed to look this way
just when I have knocked down this cow?" - he talked to himself in his
head. As the pedestrians are already gone and away from sight, he just
angrily and quickly mumbled something under his mustache towards the
lady and quickly walked away without helping her. The lady was in a shock trying to pick
herself up by herself. John felt bad about himself for the rest of the
day. He was angry to the pedestrians that they saw him to knock down the
lady. He feels shame, he feels like an idiot. He is also angry to the
lady for making him feel this way. "Now everybody must think I am bad.
The damn fiddly cow!" - he said for him selves.
As
you can see, John felt shame for appearing bad to others because he knocked down the lady. He was thinking solely about himself during and
after the accident. He was not concerned about the lady´s well-being at
all. He was ashamed that he was caught by the pedestrians to knock down
the lady. He did not feel bad about what he did to the lady, he only
felt bad about his image. He did not take any personal responsibility
and he did not show any empathy towards the lady. He escaped from the
accident and blamed the accident on the lady.
As the covert narcissists are emotionally very crippled, immature and broken, they put their own psychological and emotional baggage onto the shoulders of other people so the victims carry their baggage instead of them.
The covert narcissists are insane people who wear a mask of the sanity and once they are tired of pretending or they got bored or they extracted what they wanted from their victims and see no further use for the victims or the pretending exhausted them enough, the mask start to slip off and the victims start to see the real face of the covert narcissists. Once the mask slip off completely in front of the victims, the covert narcissists treat their victims as their enemy and threat as the victims now know their true self and the covert narcissists are afraid that the victims will expose their true self to others.
As the covert narcissists are emotionally very crippled, immature and broken, they put their own psychological and emotional baggage onto the shoulders of other people so the victims carry their baggage instead of them.
The covert narcissists are insane people who wear a mask of the sanity and once they are tired of pretending or they got bored or they extracted what they wanted from their victims and see no further use for the victims or the pretending exhausted them enough, the mask start to slip off and the victims start to see the real face of the covert narcissists. Once the mask slip off completely in front of the victims, the covert narcissists treat their victims as their enemy and threat as the victims now know their true self and the covert narcissists are afraid that the victims will expose their true self to others.
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