If You Think You’re a Narcissist, Read This

If you’re genuinely willing to explore the possibility of you being a narcissist, you’re not a narcissist.

Because your willingness to get to the bottom of this requires empathy, accountability, and self-reflection.

• You care about how your actions affect others.
• You’re willing to take responsibility instead of blaming everyone else.
• And you pause to understand why you do what you do.

A narcissist can fake a lot of things, but they don’t fake those three qualities.

They can’t.

Their deepest, most protected secret is that underneath it all, they feel:

• unlovable
• unwanted
• inadequate
• worthless
• weak

But they never developed the emotional intelligence needed to address those feelings.

So they’re left with two choices:

A) Live the rest of their lives feeling that way.

Or

B) Create a false self that feels lovable, desirable, capable, worthy, and strong.

They choose option B. 

And they build it by surrounding themselves with people who give them narcissistic supply — people who validate, admire, and reassure this false sense of self.

So they can’t genuinely be empathic, hold themselves accountable, or engage in self-reflection — because doing so would force them to realize their sense of self is a lie.

And that realization would flood them with all the painful feelings they’ve spent their whole lives running from – so they do everything they can to keep them suppressed.

But here’s the catch…

Those painful feelings don’t go anywhere.

They’re still there, and they’re constantly poking holes in the narcissist’s “perfect” self-image.

So again, they’re left with two choices:

A) Let the painful feelings destroy their self-image.

Or

B) Find a way to patch the holes they’re constantly creating.

They choose option B — and they do it by running around 24/7 collecting as much narcissistic supply as possible and by projecting the painful feelings they have onto others.

Projection is when you unconsciously put the thoughts, feelings, or traits you have but find unacceptable or undesirable onto someone else.

So when you look in the mirror and feel unlovable, unwanted, inadequate, worthless, or weak — and question if you’re a narcissist — it’s not because you are those things.

It’s because you’ve experienced narcissistic abuse and through that abuse, the narcissist in your life projected their own thoughts, feelings, and traits onto you.

And due to a combination of you not being perfect, meaning sometimes you might say or do things that aren’t in line with who you want to be, and them being such convincing manipulators, you absorbed their projections.

So again, if you’re genuinely willing to explore the possibility of you being a narcissist, you’re not a narcissist. 

Final Thoughts

Thank you for reading today’s episode of the Unfilteredd: Narcissistic Abuse podcast.

If this was helpful and you’d like to read the next one, please subscribe to our newsletter — we’ll let you know as soon as the next episode is released.

My name is Juliana Akin — your guide to overcoming the effects of narcissistic abuse — and I can’t wait to connect with you in a future episode.

Latest Posts

About the Author