3 Reasons You Shouldn’t Warn the Narcissist’s New Supply

A common question that many people who have experienced narcissistic abuse have is, “Should I tell the narcissist’s new supply that the narcissist is, well, a narcissist?”

It would be best if you didn’t warn the narcissist’s new supply because there is a good chance they won’t believe you; warning them could drag you back into the narcissistic abuse cycle and send the narcissist into a rage, jeopardizing your safety.

I understand your desire to warn the new supply comes from a place of empathy and concern, so in this article, I will guide you through the three reasons you shouldn’t alert them to help you make a conscious and well-informed decision about what to do next.

1.) They Might Not Believe You

First, you shouldn’t warn the narcissist’s new supply because they might not believe you.

You see, the most important thing in a narcissist’s life is narcissistic supply.

This supply is the validation, admiration, reassurance, power, and control narcissists receive from their external environment.

Narcissists use narcissistic supply to suppress their painful thoughts, feelings, and emotions so they can maintain a positive self-perception.

Because of its importance, narcissists have a ton of different tactics that they use to ensure they get enough narcissistic supply. 

One of these tactics is creating smear campaigns about their old supply.

A smear campaign, also called a smear tactic, is an effort to damage or call into question someone’s reputation by spreading lies and gossip about them.

Narcissists will create a smear campaign about their old supply to discredit and prevent them from telling others how abusive and manipulative they are.

Suggested Reading: What Do Narcissists Say About Their Exes?

So it would be best if you didn’t warn the new supply because the narcissist has likely dragged your name through the mud during their conversations with their new supply.

If you were to try to approach the new supply to warn them, they probably wouldn’t believe you because of all the lies the narcissist has told them about you.

Not being believed when you are trying to save someone from going through the pain you went through can feel deeply invalidating and leave you questioning your reality. 

So, as hard as it might be, more often than not, you are better off just staying out of it and focusing on your healing journey.

2.) Warning Them Could Drag You Back Into the Narcissistic Abuse Cycle

The second reason you shouldn’t warn the narcissist’s new supply is that warning them could drag you back into the narcissistic abuse cycle. 

Suggested Reading: What Is the Narcissistic Abuse Cycle?

You see, one of the key steps toward recovery that anyone trying to heal from narcissistic abuse must take is setting and maintaining healthy boundaries. 

Suggested Reading: How to Set Boundaries with a Narcissist (6 Steps)

If you were to reach out to warn the narcissist’s new supply, you could potentially cross those boundaries and entangle yourself further in the narcissist’s life.

Here’s an example of how this could happen:

Imagine that you have just discovered that the narcissist in your life has started a relationship with someone new. 

You still bear the scars of the past and, out of empathy and concern, decide to warn this new person about the abuse and manipulation they’re about to face.

You reach out to this person, hoping they’ll understand your motives, but they don’t believe you and decide to go to the narcissist and reveal everything you’ve shared.

This angers the narcissist in your life, so they decide to contact you directly. 

They accuse you of trying to sabotage their new relationship and go to great lengths to label you as jealous and vindictive. 

This leads to a heated argument, and just like that, you find yourself caught up in the chaos of the narcissist’s lies and manipulation again.

As days pass, you see the narcissist using every trick in their book: charm, guilt, gaslighting, all aimed to make you question your sanity and intentions. 

Because of how triggering this is for you, you are becoming more involved with their life again, albeit in a way you hadn’t expected.

Meanwhile, fueled by the narcissist’s twisted narrative, the narcissist’s new supply labels you as the “crazy ex” to anyone and everyone who will listen.

And before you know it, you find yourself caught up in defending your character to strangers, which takes up a significant amount of your emotional energy and time.

But instead of backing off, you become more invested in trying to prove the reality of the narcissist’s manipulative behavior. 

You start collecting evidence, recounting past incidents, and sharing more of your experience with the narcissist to their new supply in the hopes that they’ll understand.

Despite your efforts, the narcissist uses your actions to further paint you as unstable, obsessive, and unable to move on. 

The cycle of accusations, confrontations, and manipulations continues, dragging you back into the abusive and manipulative environment you just escaped.

With every passing day, you realize you’re becoming increasingly entangled in the narcissist’s world again. 

What began as a well-intended warning has spiraled into a trap, pulling you back into the narcissistic abuse cycle and preventing you from healing.

So, to wrap this section of the article up, you shouldn’t warn the narcissist’s new supply because doing so could drag you back into the narcissistic abuse cycle. 

3.) Warning Them Could Trigger Narcissistic Rage and Jeopardize Your Safety 

The third reason you shouldn’t warn the narcissist’s new supply is that warning them could trigger narcissistic rage and jeopardize your safety. 

In the first section of this article, I mentioned that narcissists have many painful thoughts, feelings, and emotions suppressed within themselves. 

Let’s talk more about this so you can better understand this section.

You see, despite their grandiose public persona, narcissists feel unlovable, unwanted, inadequate, worthless, and weak deep down. 

This can be hard to believe, but it is true. 

As I mentioned, they use narcissistic supply to suppress their painful thoughts, feelings, and emotions to maintain a positive self-perception. 

Now, when their positive self-perception gets contradicted, they are reminded of their painful thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

To protect themselves from this pain, they will often try to project their painful thoughts, feelings, and emotions onto someone else.

Projection is the process by which one attributes one’s individual positive or negative characteristics to another person or group.

Suggested Reading: 7 Reasons Narcissists Use Projection

More often than not, this projection comes in the form of narcissistic rage.

The term “narcissistic rage” refers to an aggressive and destructive response that manifests as physical, psychological, and sometimes even sexual abuse.

Suggested Reading: 15 Examples of Narcissistic Rage!

As you can imagine, some of the most horrific and violent forms of abuse come when a narcissist goes into a narcissistic rage. 

So, to tie this back to why you shouldn’t warn the new supply, you would contradict the narcissist’s positive self-perception if you warned the new supply. 

While there is nothing morally wrong with doing this, you would be putting yourself in harm’s way because exposing the narcissist like this would cause narcissistic rage.

For this reason, you shouldn’t warn the narcissist’s new supply.

What Should You Take Away from This Article?

So there you have it. Three reasons you shouldn’t warn the narcissist’s new supply. I hope you use this information to make conscious and well-informed decisions moving forward. Thank you for reading this article, have a great rest of your day!