Friendships

Have you ever stumbled upon a friend who acts in a way that hurts you and your mental health? If yes, you are probably having a friend who is a narcissist. Let’s find out more about how narcissists treat their friends and ruin their lives.   A good friendship is one that is supportive, respects one’s boundaries, and has a good understanding. If we are about to take the wrong path, a friend must care for our lives and advise us not to take that path. Good friends will always strive to grow with their friends in order to develop integrity and an appropriate environment. Contrarily, narcissistic friends would treat their friends in a way that is toxic, abusive, and mentally exhaustive.   Adding friendships in your life should be a confidence booster, stress reliever, help at tough times, and make a healthy lifestyle. However, if your friend has a narcissistic personality disorder or narcissistic traits, the friendship will not be as healthy as you hoped. A narcissistic friend will use various abusive patterns to devalue, control, and gain superiority. How do Narcissists treat their Friends?   Narcissists appear to be adept at friendships, yet they tend to reflect their malevolent conduct onto their friends. The friend will eventually see that the narcissist is becoming more jealous, denigrating, abusive, and gossiping. Narcissists would treat their friends in such a way that they damage their positive qualities and devastate their mental health. Jealousy   Narcissists are often envious of their friends’ abilities, personalities, assets, relationships, and accomplishments. They want to be the center of attention in any event, even if their friends are the ones who deserve it. This is why narcissists want to always be superior to their friends.   To be superior, the narcissist either strives to acquire more than what their friends have or tries to exploit the friends to make less than them. In this manner, narcissistic friendship will always stay competitive. The narcissists fantasize that the potential of their friends suppresses their self-loathing mentality and work hard to be more successful to retain their self-esteem.   Devalues   Narcissists are experts at devaluing their victims but, will the narcissist devalue their friends? Without a doubt, narcissists will try to devalue every person they are close with to not let down their self-esteem behavior. Narcissists are ungrateful and empathyless beings who can intentionally devalue their comrades just to fill up their grandiose sense of entitlement.   A friend who is a narcissist doesn’t care about your success and achievement. Instead, he/she chooses to devalue you to lower your self-worth and pride. “It’s your right to be proud of your hard work and achievement” even though the narcissists don’t like it.   Your narcissist friend may say things like these to devalue you, “I’m so happy for your success, what a luck” “My friend is the luckiest one to achieve this” “If it wasn’t my help that day, you probably wouldn’t have won this” Blame shifts   We know that narcissists don’t take responsibility for their actions and blame shifts on others to hide them. The same happens in a narcissistic friendship. The narcissist will consciously tease or blatantly expose the insecurities and flaws of their friends in the name of sarcasm. If the friend reacts to it, the narcissist will effortlessly gaslight you by shifting the blame saying “you can’t even take a joke” or “you have no sense of humor”.   You can never confront a narcissist for their malicious behavior as they are capable of easily guilt tripping or blame shifting you.   Must Read: Getting discarded vs Going No Contact, which is better? Be Abusive   A narcissistic friendship can be as abusive as any narcissistic relationship. Yes, just being a friend of yours, the narcissists are capable of abusing you. A narcissistic friend can hurt you in a variety of ways, including cutting off your Friend Circle, destroying your Relationship, using you as a flying monkey, creating intimacy in a friendship, and trapping you in friends with benefits.   It’s difficult to get away from a narcissist even if they are just a friend of yours. Threaten or Blackmail   Ever your narcissistic friend blackmailed you to not expose them? A narcissist will always gather information discreetly and take note of all their friends’ vulnerabilities or insecurities. In such a way, they can use them as a threatening weapon to restrict or control your actions.   For example, if you are about to reveal your narcissistic friend’s cheating activities to his or her spouse, who is also a friend, the narcissist will use your vulnerabilities as a trump card to blackmail you and prevent you from protecting the victim. They may say,   “If you say about this to my spouse, I’ll open about your parents’ miserable lives to the public” or “If you want to snitch about me, I’ll leak your wardrobe malfunction pics of you that I took on that day”   Have you ever experienced narcissistic abuse or currently experiencing one? Are you struggling to vent about that to anyone? Remember that venting to somebody who listens to you is the first step to healing. So, register here and vent to a listener who understands you. Faked Remorse   Narcissists never feel guilty or remorse for their actions. Their self-pride will never let them acknowledge the mistake and genuinely ask for an apology. Even if they apologize, they give an apology that is self-centric and gaslighting. For example, “I’m sorry that you feel that way”, “I never meant to hurt you”, etc.   A narcissist’s apology is entirely contrived and will simply be utilized as a hoovering tactic. After apologizing, the narcissist expects the friend to forget the narcissist’s error and accept them immediately. They expect the friend to swiftly break the boundary and accept the narcissist, regardless of how bad the mistake is.   If you refuse to accept your narcissistic friend’s apologies, he or she will depict you as heartless, mean, and rude…

How does it feel like to be in a narcissistic friendship? Having a friendship with a narcissist can also be conniving, abusive, toxic, hurtful as any narcissistic relationship. When the bond gets stronger, one might experience similar abusive patterns as in other narcissistic relationships.   Narcissists are self-centric with high self-esteem and an elevated sense of entitlement. To feel entitled, they seek immense validation and attention from people around them. To get a non-stop validation supply, they develop relationships with people around them and choose to play with their emotions. They follow harmful tactics from the narcissistic abusive patterns to feel the power to control others.   Yes, narcissists don’t see anyone as a friend, acquaintance, partner, or family, but as a mere source of supply to fill their needs. So, if you think you are having a good friendship with a narcissist, you’re not.   How can a narcissist have so many friends?   Narcissists can develop friendships with many people in a short time as they have the ability to exhibit themselves as having good social skills, being attractive, and possessing similar interests with others. Although these aspects may be falsely showcased by narcissists, people find them charming and engaging at the first sight.   Narcissists look more social with others, but they share personal info only if it meets their agenda. However, these friendships cannot stay longer once the narcissists’ traits come to the public’s eyes.    What is a narcissistic friend?   A narcissistic friend is one who possesses the narcissistic trait or is diagnosed to have a narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). He/she has malicious tactics like gaslighting, manipulating, abusive, etc., and often end up ruining the friendship. It is advised to not have a stronger friendship bond with the narcissists.   How to indicate a narcissistic friend?   Narcissistic friendship will be more vicious when the bond gets stronger. So, it is better to figure them out earlier. So, look out for the following traits to confirm your friend is a narcissist.   They always seek attention and validation Will insult you in a group but doesn’t like to be insulted Always gossips about others’ personal life Wants to be a primary/only friend with you Won’t give up an argument until they win Doesn’t appreciate or give credit for your success Flirts with you even if they are in a relationship Always justify their action Reminds you of what they have done for you are the things you should note if you doubt that your friend is a narcissist.   Who can have a friendship with narcissists?   Researchers say narcissists find people with similar toxic personalities interesting to have friendships with. They are attracted to the people who are similar to them in their main personality domains. With such people, narcissists can have a friendship that goes for a long period although it is toxic enough. This case is applicable when the narcissistic friendship is moderate.   When the narcissistic friendship becomes closer, it is more likely to end soon unless the victim is submissive, pleasing, and has other weak personalities.   Give a Read: Types of people who stay longer with the narcissists   How are narcissists hurtful in friendships?   Narcissists are always jealous of others even though they have plenty of resources to be happy. They envy our credibility, ability to have a healthy relationship, and social skills with others. A narcissistic friend wants you to give all your good abilities to them with nothing in return. This is why you always feel exhausted with a narcissistic friend.   As we stated before, narcissistic friendships turn hurtful when the bond becomes closer. Similar to any narcissistic relationship, a friend will also possibly undergo the abusive pattern with a narcissist. The common malicious acts a narcissist will do to you are   Cuts your Friend Circle Ruin your Relationship Use you as a flying monkey tool Develop intimacy in a friendship Trap you in friends with benefits   Cuts friend circle   Narcissists are always conscious of not being exposed. So, they want their victims to avoid venting to others about what they are going through. When the toxic traits of the narcissist get exposed to the public, the fantasy of living entitled forever comes to an end. This is an absolute nightmare to the narcissists which leads to narcissistic rage and being more abusive towards the victim.   So, narcissists always want the friends of victims out of the narcissistic bond. To do that, firstly, they compare the victim with his/her friends to make the victim feel insecure. As a result, the victim starts diminishing the friend circle and is finally cut off.   Ruining relationships   As stated before, narcissists envy others’ belongings. It can be an extrinsic resource, skills, personality, relationship, and whatnot. They fantasize that they are the ones who deserve to have those, else, not the victim. So, they seek to exploit the relationship by bombarding with hate comments, criticizing the relationship, spreading rumors, and even going to an extent to make the friend’s partners theirs. Narcissists are great risk-takers and that is why they go to any extent to acquire what they want.   Give a Read: Risk-taking Narcissists are more successful in careers.   Use as a flying monkey   The right question is, how do narcissists use their friends? Narcissists are very fond of gossip and conducting smear campaigns over others. So, they use friendships as a tool to spread gossip or conduct smear campaigns to ruin the credibility of the victim. Additionally, they also use friends as a flying monkey to hoover back or gaslight the victim.    As a friend, you might be not aware of being a flying monkey to the narcissist, instead, thinking that you are actually helping them. Apart from that, there are chances that the narcissist’s friend also has a toxic personality (or maybe a narcissist too). In such cases, the flying monkeys intentionally hurt or gaslight…