Why Narcissists Are So Cruel To You And Kind To Everybody Else
Narcissists can be so lovely, charming, friendly and downright accommodating with everyone else but SO moody, dark, nasty and even cruel to you.
Why is getting the narcissist to do ANYTHING for you near impossible, or when assistance is forthcoming, uses this as a bargaining chip or guilt tool against you?
How can the narcissist in your life treat you like DIRT and other people like GOLD?
If this describes your relationship, then this is a must-read article for you.
You will learn exactly WHY this happens as well as how to escape from the horror of it – forever.
So many people shake their head at this.
Why are narcissists so cruel to you and so kind to everyone else?
It really is like living with a Street Angel/Home Devil.
How can this be possible?
And, it may not just be you they are cruel to – it may be the people you care about – such as your children or the family. You may discover that the narcissist doesn’t give two hoots about them, yet will bend over backwards and grant the world, even to total strangers.
What is this about?
I promise you there are absolute reasons for this – and by reading this article you will know 100% why narcissists are so cruel to you and kind to everyone else!
You will also know, exactly how to heal from the trauma of this and have people flood into your life who do get it, validate you, and know the truth.
In today’s article, I want to start with validating EXACTLY how this feels and how damaging this has been for you.
The Trauma of No-One Understanding What Is Really Happening!
I can’t tell you how often, I have heard stories like the one that Caroline shared with me.
This is what she said … Joseph her father was a gloomy, angry tyrant at home, yet all of the neighbourhood loved this apparently jovial, funny and larger than life man.
The following is why she was so upset ….
He was forever helping people out with odd jobs, advice and even going as far as giving the elderly rides to their doctor’s appointments.
Everyone loved him, yet Diana, Caroline’s mother, did not dare ask Joseph for anything from him, because he would argue, bluster, call her terrible names and storm out on her.
Caroline had learnt from a very early age, not to ask her father for anything. It was easier and more peaceful to stay out of his way and hope that he wouldn’t be home. If he ever he did say he would do something for her, it was on his own time (usually far too late) and would never be finished anyway.
Caroline’s school friends told her how wonderful her father was, and how their parents loved having him around. Joseph was regularly invited places and hung out with people. He would much rather do this than spend time with his family – even though of course he told other people about all the supposed things he did for and with them.
Then there was Paul married to June.
June was controlling, angry, jealous and insecure. She demanded Paul’s full allegiance to her and told him repeatedly how their friend’s husbands were granting and caring for their wives much better than he did.
Yet, when Paul and June entertained, she was a gracious, friendly, generous and attentive hostess. She did not argue with Paul or belittle him in public. People used to tell Paul what a beautiful and lovely wife he had, without having any idea what June was like as soon as the last car left their driveway.
She would dissect the evening, criticising, judging and being jealous about what Paul did or didn’t do that evening.
When Paul came forward in this community, completely bewildered, his burning question was: ‘Why is she so cruel to me and so kind to everyone else?’
Of course, it’s terrible when people have no idea who you are really dealing with and may even label you as complaining and out of line when you try to explain facts to them. You may even be pinned as ‘the abusive one’, and told that you should be incredibly grateful for this ‘wonderful’ person in your life.
Maybe you are questioning your own sanity, or wondering whether you must make this person like this!
This is so common in narcissistic abuse, and I know that it’s incredibly likely that you went through this too.
You may have even suffered the terrible confusion of being connected to the Altruistic Narcissist – wondering whether everyone else did have it right and you were the sick one imagining things! After all the Altruistic Narcissist can also be LOVELY as well as incredible CRUEL, at times, to you too!
Okay … I REALLY want to help you with all this horrible confusion (that I lived through too), so let’s look at the REAL reasons why narcissists are so cruel to you and kind to everyone else.
Reasons that are NOT your fault.
Reason # 1 – Requiring Constant Narcissistic Supply
It’s all about Narcissistic Supply – the number 1 driver of any narcissist.
A narcissist is a False Self, a consummate actor – being whoever they need to be to get narcissistic supply effectively and efficiently – which means the attention, accolades and acclaim that feeds the empty black hole that is their Inner Being.
Without narcissistic supply, as a drip feed continuously, a narcissist no longer has a buffer to numb out (self-medicate away) the inner screaming wounds of defectiveness, emptiness and feelings of not being worthy of existing.
Which in other words are the by-products of a severely stunted and fractured self-identity, and the resulting dire insecurity of this.
To get their drug (narcissistic supply) on a regular basis, means people providing them attention. To secure ‘prey’ (the food source) means getting people to like and trust them.
It’s so important to understand winning people’s confidence has nothing to do with genuine ‘giving’. The niceties, charitable acts and putting themselves out for people is purely agenda based. The narcissist receives no pleasure from making a difference to people’s lives, he or she is getting a hit of narcissistic supply by getting their ego stroked every time they are told how wonderful they are.
Reason # 2 – Familiars Don’t Provide Constant A-Grade Narcissistic Supply
Now you may ask – okay if the narcissist is after narcissistic supply – why are narcissists so cruel to me and kind to everybody else?
Why doesn’t he or she do lovely things for me or my family or my children, to gain narcissistic supply from me?
The answer to this is simple.
You are not going to fawn over the narcissist every time they do something ‘nice’. Mature family or love relationship members know that they are a part of a kind, caring team who naturally does things for each other.
It’s usual that a husband, wife, or other family members will be responsible, decent and giving without jumping up and down and needing their own personal agenda fulfilled, or having a red carpet rolled out complete with a fanfare every time they do something for someone.
Yes, children and teenagers go through their selfish stages of not wanting to contribute – but this is all a part of learning about responsibility, caring for others and growing up.
Narcissists have never grown up, it is all about them, and it’s not just about selfishness. Narcissists take it a step further, by needing the constant attention and accolades to emotionally survive.
People outside of familiars offer a fertile hunting ground for this.
Narcissists know that to retain these many sources of supply, they can’t be nasty to them. Things are different with familiars who the narcissist has hooked to them – family members, love partners or the like – he or she knows they can treat them abysmally and they will still hang around.
With an outside source of supply, if the narcissist is not getting enough of a hit of narcissistic supply, rather than rip shreds off these people, they will just slink away and chase up the next target for it.
And because these sources may dry up, then the narcissist is on the hunt, always, for more.
Now let’s further investigate why narcissists are so cruel to you and kind to everybody else.
Especially the cruel part …
Reason # 3 – Punishing You For Not Providing A-Grade Narcissistic Supply
You may be horrified by how demanding, childish and entitled a narcissist behaves when they actually do something for you and require your recognition afterwards.
Of course, this behaviour was not taking place in the early days (in the case of a love relationship) and is not the case when the narcissist is hoovering you – love-bombing you to try to stop you leaving.
Things are pretty black and white with a narcissist – they are either ‘lovely’ or downright sullen and even nasty. All the giving that a narcissist performs is agenda based, the deal is brokered in their favour no matter what it looks like, and if there is not any foreseeable payoff of narcissistic supply, he or she will be resistant, angry, argumentative, and want retribution.
Such as: using guilt trips held against you regarding ‘what I do for you and you don’t do for me.’ (Regardless of course of what you have done or do.) Or, doing the task in a terrible way that has not helped you at all; starting it and refusing to finish it off; refusing to start it and then accusing you of being controlling and uncaring if expecting them to do it now.
Or telling you that it will be done, dangling it like a carrot and enjoying the fact that you are left hanging indefinitely.
And even, extremely painfully, creating an argument or a separation with you so that he or she can get out into the world and suck A-grade narcissistic supply from someone else.
The narcissist needs to punish you for even thinking you could minimalise them by trying to force them to act normal – like everyone else is supposed to.
The narcissist, when hurting you in these ways, is not going for ‘positive’ narcissistic supply such as of accolades anymore. For them it is now about gaining ‘negative’ narcissistic supply: ‘I am significant because I can affect you this intensely’.
Now you ARE supplying additional A-grade narcissistic supply to the narcissist, via your dismay and devastation. It makes the narcissist feel omnipotent.
You may think that you can be gracious and grateful and train a narcissist to stay around and be nice by providing enough narcissistic supply. Yet it doesn’t work … here’s why …
Every narcissist has a seething inner self of self-damnation and self-loathing that has to be spewed onto someone.
Close intimates are the narcissists preferred and really only constant dumpmasters, because these people have been groomed and trauma bonded enough to stick around and fulfil this role. So even if you try to be the loving, dutiful, congratulatory person, if you stay with a narcissist, you will not love and congratulate your way out of abuse.
Many people have tried it.
You may have, I did too – but so much of our awakening is knowing that people will treat us how we allow them to, and if we stay around for the inevitable abuse, that the narcissist bit by bit tested to see what we would remain for – it will just worsen, no matter how much you try to please, love and be kind to this person.
I also know of people who let narcissists not help or contribute in any way, yet then the narcissist accuses them of not including them in their lives and attacks them mercilessly about that! (I tried that one too!)
You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t by the time someone is narcissistically cruel to you and you stay connected to them. That is enabling them to continue doing so.
Okay, so I really hope these three reasons have helped you understand, in DEEP detail, why narcissists are so cruel to you and kind to everybody else.
Now let’s bring this back to YOU, so that you can escape and heal from this terrible agony, and start getting validation, care and genuine love into your life.
Bringing the Power Back to You
Many people in this community already know the powerful secret to coming home to yourself and taking your power back.
It’s this: Detach from the source of the pain, turn inwards, go to ‘what hurts’ inside, stop holding other people responsible for it and HEAL it within.
That formula is the ONE thing that will always heal and turn your life around beyond description.
Let me explain in this instance, what I mean, by sharing my journey with narcissist number 1.
The number of unfinished pieces and incomplete aspects of anything he had to do for us in the marriage was mind-boggling. In fact, my life was a constant drama of mopping up all the loose ends, practically, legally and financially, whilst being battered and accused of causing all these problems, whilst everyone believed he was incredibly talented, attentive and dutiful.
So much so, my mother was still doing his ironing for him, even after I had fled from my own home because of the abuse. At that time my son believed he was the good guy and I had been having affairs. My best friend deserted me and started up a business with him. My accountant took his side and went into business with him too. Most of my colleagues and students thought I was nuts and he was wonderful.
No-one believed me!
Man – can you even imagine how devastating that was for me? When I look back, I have no idea how I even survived those abandonments and betrayals. I really thought I was going to die.
Thank god I found the way to heal this utter trauma and change EVERYTHING in order to FINALLY be validated by life and people beyond measure.
To achieve this, I had to let go of NEEDING and even WANTING other people to get who he was and what he was doing to me.
I had to realise that this wasn’t even about him – it was all about me supporting, validating, and getting myself.
You see, before narcissistic abuse (without knowing it because it had always been my normal) I had been living life from the outside in. I had always been seeking recognition, approval and love from people outside of myself in order to try to feel whole on the inside.
How ironic that he came into my life, mirroring this back to me – as a narcissist always on the hunt for narcissistic supply because of his own lack of inner wholeness!
This didn’t mean that I was a conscienceless, cruel, narcissistic person also. What it did mean was that I was empty within and precariously needy on how other people saw me and felt about me.
In my Thriver Recovery I went inside to ‘what hurt’ and I found the wounds of not knowing and believing who I really was, and not having my own established Inner Identity. I realised that the narcissist in my life was the other side of the same coin, of me not being healed.
After leaving the narcissist and finally embarking on my true Quantum Inside Out Healing Journey, I went inwards to these particular fractured beliefs creating these feelings of ’what hurts’, loaded them up and released and replaced them with my Superconscious Self (The Quanta Freedom Healing NARP process) and emerged from these healings without my triggers and trauma.
That was when I discovered, I couldn’t care less anymore about him pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes and them not believing me. Suddenly, I felt the most whole and content I ever had about my self-identity, without needing anyone to validate it.
Then an astounding thing happened VERY quickly (all of the following took a few short months).
My mother and son caught out his lies and came back to me.
The business with my best friend went horribly wrong with the narcissist and again I was validated.
My accountant reported in, saying the horrible things that had happened with his dealings with him.
Countless other people ‘got’ me, and the truth about him (including authorities and police who he had previously manipulated constantly.)
I was fully vindicated.
But my vindication had already happened INSIDE of me – I had no need for it.
As of today, I have seen the same happen for thousands of other people worldwide – regardless of their circumstances.
I have seen all sorts of people, family, friends, even alienated children, judges, and police ‘get’ the truth.
That’s how powerful our Beingness is – so within so without.
This following is the TRUE gift … even if life didn’t shift in your favour in this way, if you free yourself from your inner trauma, then you are able to live and create your new life regardless.
The ‘state’ is what you are chasing – then ALL else can follow.
I really want you to understand something that I am SO grateful for today…
Thank goodness people didn’t ‘get’ the truth and turn back to me BEFORE I went through this process. If that HAD happened, I would have missed my own healing back to wholeness and my evolution that has changed my life so beautifully and magnificently ever since.