5 Mind Games Narcissist Play With Empaths' Emotions

So today we're going to be talking about five surprising things someone with high narcissistic traits will do when an empath decides to leave them.

So I want to do a session around five surprising things that someone with high narcissistic traits will do when someone with high empathy decides to leave them.

And so what is very typical of someone who has high empathy,

When they meet someone who has low empathy,

Is the empath can pick up on the wounds,

The pain,

And the suffering of someone who is highly narcissistic.

And an empath will want to fix and heal and nurture this wounded lion back to health.

And an empath will absolutely throw all of themselves into this relationship.

They will lose themselves in this relationship.

They will spend all day,

Every day,

And I am not exaggerating.

Like their entire focus will be,

What does he need?

What does she need?

What's going on in their heart?

How do they feel?

What was their childhood like?

Someone with high empathy will absolutely do everything they can to rescue this person whose feelings they can feel.

And they're not even aware that they're having all of this tremendous,

This oozing of resonance with the narcissist or someone who is highly narcissistic.

They don't realize that they are literally feeling what this person feels,

Which is making it difficult for them,

If not impossible for them,

To focus on how they feel.

The boundary line is gone.

Everything is about fixing this person.

Now what happens with someone who is highly narcissistic over time is the narcissist will project their feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness and shame onto someone who has high empathy.

This is when you are the one who has high empathy and you meet someone who is narcissistic,

Who is especially if they're charismatic,

And they are mirroring back to you your wonderful traits.

They mirror back to you the fact that you love animals.

They mirror back to you the fact that you have high empathy,

That you love children,

That you're a hard worker,

And that you take care of your elderly parents.

So you're getting praised for all of these amazing empathic traits.

So you as the empath feel seen.

As time goes on,

However,

Someone who is highly narcissistic,

Who has not resolved their own issues,

They don't want to go there.

They don't want to touch their pain.

Empaths will touch their pain eventually once they get the narcissist out of their life.

They'll actually touch their own pain.

They feel broken.

They'll say,

I feel broken.

But a narcissist won't do that.

A narcissist must maintain this false self.

The narcissist must believe that they are at the top of the food chain,

That they're smarter than you,

That they're more worthy than you.

So they have to project all of their feelings of inadequacy onto someone who has high empathy.

And unfortunately,

In many of the cases,

Someone who is highly empathic takes on these attributes.

And when the narcissist starts to turn and starts to devalue the empath to gain control over them,

Especially if the empath has an issue with tries to call a narcissist out for lying,

For cheating,

Whatever,

The tables turn a little bit.

And so now the narcissist is no longer glorifying the empath.

So now the narcissist is projecting their inadequacies onto the person who is highly empathic.

And that's where things get really,

Really wobbly for the person who has high empathy,

Especially with low boundaries.

Because originally,

The empath feels the feelings of the narcissist and wants to fix them.

He wants to heal them and pours all their love into this person,

All of their time,

All of their resources.

If the narcissist keeps losing a job,

The empath finds them a job.

If the narcissist loses the job again,

The empath will give them money.

This is all an attempt to try to rescue,

At least on the surface,

To help teach the narcissist that they are worthy of love.

And the fantasy for the empath is,

Of course,

I can show this person what it's like to be loved.

They had a rough childhood.

They were abused.

And all they need is to be loved enough.

And then they will return love back to me.

And this is the fantasy of the empath,

That I'm going to be able to love this person enough,

That they are going to see value in me.

I think that's really dangerous,

Because I myself,

As well as many of my clients and those who have participated in my 12-week class,

Who share their stories,

This is where things get very dark.

Because what ends up happening in this space is that first,

I want to save and I want to rescue.

And what I don't realize as someone who is highly empathic is very oftentimes,

I am empathic and I've come from a dysfunctional home.

I am so super sensitive to criticism that I never want to offer that type of criticism to another human being,

Because I know what it feels like.

I have felt and struggled with abandonment.

I struggle with shame.

And I don't want anyone else to feel that shame.

So an empath under the spell of a narcissistic relationship will absolutely lose themselves and will not be able to identify when they are being verbally taken advantage of or psychologically manipulated or financially abused.

They won't,

Because what they're not recognizing is in the saving of someone who is highly narcissistic,

The hope is that once I'm able to love this person enough,

That this person will now love me and take care of me.

And what happens with all of my wounds is an empath.

They dissolve,

They go away.

At least that's the fantasy.

You see,

If I'm wounded and I take care of you and I love you enough and you're healed,

See you go from being this really ornery lion in the jungle that everyone's afraid of and I'm able to come into your life and love you and nurse you back to health,

Then you're my lion,

Right?

And you're taking care of me now in a way that I've never felt before.

And I,

On some level,

Will feel rescued myself.

So in me rescuing a narcissist and thinking the fantasy is I love them enough and I'll take care of them enough and then this person will love me back and then all of these childhood wounds that are really the source of tremendous empathy in the first place will disappear.

Those of you who have been in empathic and narcissistic relationships or you're an empath with a narcissist,

You are either in the process of figuring out that this relationship is a fantasy and it doesn't work or you have been through the wringer with a narcissist or someone with high narcissistic traits and you're now trying to figure it out.

You're trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together and I say bravo and how courageous it is of you to hit the pause button and spend some time trying to figure out what really happened.

And so that's like ground level.

You have to understand if you're someone who has high empathy,

What drew you to someone who is so broken?

What draws an empath to a narcissist is this idea that the empath can see the brokenness in the narcissist and they can feel the emotions of the narcissist.

And an empath wants to rescue and fix and nurture the narcissist back to health.

The fantasy is that this narcissist will then in turn love me back,

Be healed and love me back and that will allow me to escape my own abandonment.

I will feel healed.

It is really the plight of a wounded inner child who has suffered tremendous abandonment as a child,

Tremendous emotional neglect as a child who has grown up feeling invisible and literally treated with indifference in lots of the cases by parents and their caretakers whose job and responsibility and obligation it was to make the child feel seen.

When you are a child that grows up in a relationship with parents who treat you with indifference,

You don't grow up feeling visible.

You feel invisible.

You feel not good enough.

When you are made fun of,

When you are shamed,

When you are treated unfairly,

When things are unjust in your family,

When there is gaslighting by parents and siblings and triangulation and the family unit is sick,

You know what it feels like to feel the sting of the coldness of growing up in a dysfunctional family that is void of love and a sense of safety and goodwill.

And if you are an empathic child,

Then you don't want to do that to other people.

This idea that other people are hurting this way hurts you.

So someone else's pain is a mirror to your own pain.

But empaths often and often we channel that pain in taking care of other people.

So we'll stick up for other people.

We'll get into fights in the street to protect someone who's getting bullied,

Right?

But we struggle with being able to protect ourselves from a narcissistic bully.

It's very,

Very interesting.

But once you identify as someone who has high empathy,

Who is drawn to these wounded lions,

Who has also suffered emotional neglect in their own childhood,

And you start to see it for what it is,

It becomes easier for you to see through the fog.

Once you know why you were attracted to this person in the first place,

It offers you the ability to be objective.

And now that you know what you're dealing with,

You're more aware of it in the future.

So before I go on to boundaries,

Which is really what an empath needs,

And an empath absolutely needs to identify their space,

Their feelings separate from other people's feelings,

And we have to recognize when we absolutely are being drained by another person.

We have to recognize verbal abuse.

We have to recognize blame shifting.

We have to recognize when we are trying to fix someone,

Which is unhealthy,

So we can be more aware and observing about manifesting a relationship with someone who may have more empathy than the last person that we dated or married.

So let's talk about the five things or surprising things that happen when you're dating or dealing with even a narcissistic friend who has figured out that you know what they are,

And you just want to start distancing yourself from this person.

By the time someone who has high empathy has figured this out,

They are drained.

There is nothing left.

One of the things that I used to say to my ex was,

When I stop talking,

You know I'm done.

So as long as I'm begging and I'm pleading to have yet another conversation to resolve the issue that never gets resolved,

When I stop trying,

I will be done.

Empaths have a tremendous pain threshold,

An emotional pain threshold.

We do not give up easily.

We are extremely loyal.

We hang on until the very end.

We believe in people,

Even the worst of the worst.

People that have very few redeeming qualities,

We will absolutely believe that there is a redemptive quality in this person that we should not turn away from.

There's something good.

Just hold on.

We see something in narcissistic people,

Criminals even,

That have proven that they have no empathy.

They're psychopathic in some cases and sociopaths,

But no,

An empath will absolutely see the best in this person and be unaware as to the dynamic and the background,

The psychological subconscious background that is really at the core of what is fueling this dynamic.

So one of the things that you want to be aware of is that when someone who is highly narcissistic begins to understand that you know and you want to back out of that relationship,

You want to be prepared that they will absolutely lie to you to get you back.

It sounds kind of cliche like of course,

Narcissists lie,

But it's really important to understand that when a narcissist knows that you know and when you are trying to end a narcissistic relationship with a narcissist who recognizes that,

Uh-oh,

This empath was a real source of narcissistic supply for me,

Or maybe they won't realize that consciously,

But they'll feel like I can't lose this.

I can't lose what?

I can't lose this energy.

I can't lose this outlet that I need to plug into that has been a source of supply for me.

This is the person that told me that I was awesome.

This was the person that you know I was able to blame shift.

This is the person that you know I occupied my time with.

This is the person that I played mind games with.

You know they're not going to want to lose that.

And so when an empath tries to end a relationship with someone who is highly narcissistic,

They will lie.

They will try to say anything to get you back.

And their mask starts to slip and you start to have little tolerance for them.

And after you've been through the wringer and you're drained,

Because that's usually what happens,

You are left like,

You know,

I heard one story where a woman just said to her husband,

I'm going to go out for bread,

And she never returned.

That's how bad,

Like she got on a plane and left him.

She left him her house.

That's what a terrifying person he was.

And she was never heard from again.

And so there are people that exist that will absolutely drain you.

They will lure you in and make your life miserable.

And when you say,

That's it,

No bueno,

And they know that,

You can expect a narcissist to first not get angry,

Right?

At first they might lie to you and say,

You know,

Like,

I would do anything to get you back.

I am so sorry.

I was wrong about that.

You were right about that.

I knew you were right about that.

I have every intention of fixing this relationship.

Right?

So they will lie,

Right?

Because they don't want to lose you.

Another thing that will happen is they will begin to become what you want them to be.

So they're listening.

They know what you want,

But they deliberately don't give it to you.

It is a way for them to exercise dominance and control over you.

And rather than meet you halfway,

And this is what healthy people do in healthy relationships,

And these are not relationships that started off fast and furious.

I always say this,

Those relationships burn down.

A relationship that starts off fast and furious,

That has high,

High,

Highs,

You have to understand is going to have low,

Low,

Lows.

And in a healthy relationship,

It's balanced.

It's consistent.

You're not wondering,

You know,

What's going on with this person.

You're not walking around on eggshells.

That's really,

Really important.

I digress.

That was a caveat,

But please,

Dear one,

Understand that if the relationship starts off fast and furious,

As much as that intensity might be exciting and all that,

You have to know it's a red flag.

So please be cautious about that.

So when the second thing that will happen is,

And it might surprise you,

Right?

Because it doesn't fit.

Narcissists are supposed to come out really being aggressive,

Like when you want to leave them.

That's not always the case.

If a narcissist knows they're dealing with a very,

Very tender person,

Then they will turn on the charm,

And they will begin to become who they think you always wanted them to be.

Of course,

It's short-lived,

But you don't know that.

Of course,

It's not going to last,

But you don't know that.

You don't know because you're someone who wants to see the best in other people.

You give people second chances.

You believe in forgiveness.

You believe in humanity.

You believe that if this person says they're sorry,

They mean that they're sorry.

You believe that if this person says it,

They must mean what they're saying.

And that's just not the truth.

You are projecting your empathic traits onto a narcissist,

And they're taking advantage of that.

It's very sad,

But it is what it is.

So that's why I think it's important to have conversations like this,

Where if you're identifying someone who has high empathy,

And you tend to get drained by narcissistic relationships,

You need to know these things so that you can arm yourself moving forward.

So don't be surprised if when you decide to break up with your girlfriend that you think is highly narcissistic,

She suddenly stops flirting with your friends.

Or you break up with your boyfriend,

And he's suddenly home when he used to be out with his friends all the time doing God knows what,

Flirting,

Cheating,

Whatever.

Suddenly he's home.

Or suddenly your girlfriend is no longer making fun of you and nitpicking you and criticizing you in front of your children or whatever.

But you're going to notice a change in behavior.

And the change in behavior is meant to confuse you and to manipulate your empathy.

So a third thing that will happen,

Believe it or not,

Is you might see them cry.

Suddenly this person cries.

And they're begging for you not to leave them.

They're telling you that they know that they're defective,

That they've always had this problem.

You're not the first person to tell them that they have this problem.

You'll go into their whole sob story from childhood.

And you won't realize that what's really happening is the narcissist is using empathic traits to manipulate you.

The crying,

The changing of behavior,

Acting like they really hear you.

You won't realize it.

And so this is another thing that a narcissist will do to try to convince you that they're going to change.

So the crying is used as a tool of manipulation to try to get you to drop your guard,

Try to get you to worry more about them than you worry about yourself,

Which is really the problem.

And for those of us who are born highly empathic or develop high empathy and have come from dysfunctional homes and are also struggling with co-dependency across the board,

Like with our children,

With our parents,

With our boyfriends,

Girlfriends,

Spouses,

With our friends.

I mean,

Coming through codependent recovery,

It was a huge wake up call for me because I was codependent with everyone.

I believe that I needed the approval of everyone.

I felt not good all the time.

I felt ashamed all the time.

I needed to believe that,

Well,

I did believe that it was my job to please you.

I did not have a sense of self.

I walked around thinking that it was my job to take care of everybody.

And I also grew up in a religion where I was taught that I was supposed to put people before myself.

And then if I didn't,

I was selfish.

So I had these thought patterns and programs,

Verbal programs in my head,

Belief systems,

Neurological programming,

Patterns that taught me that if I took care of myself,

That I was selfish.

I wasn't allowed to buy myself anything.

If I had an extra $10 in my wallet,

Then the goal was to buy something for you or buy something for the family.

I wasn't allowed to spend money on myself because I was unworthy.

I was here as a doormat to take care of everyone else.

So when you're an empath and you're struggling with codependency,

This gets really,

Really monotonous.

This gets really topsy turvy because you are suffering with the fear of abandonment.

And you also don't want to disapprove.

You don't want people to disapprove of you.

You're afraid of people's anger.

So you add all of this to this empathic narcissistic relationship,

And you've got a blender full of volcanic tumultuous emotions that make for terribly toxic relationships,

Terribly toxic relationships.

So don't be surprised if as you're coming through this,

You will find someone who you're in a relationship with who you think now is highly narcissistic,

And they start crying.

You never saw them cry before,

But suddenly when they know that they're losing the empath,

They start to cry.

They're abusing this empathic trait for the sake of keeping you in the relationship.

The fourth thing that might happen,

The surprising thing that might happen,

Is that you will notice that the narcissist seems to now have empathy for you.

So you will suddenly start to feel seen.

If you're dealing with a very clever narcissist,

In this situation when you're trying to leave them,

They will use your empathy.

They will mirror your empathy.

So they will say things like,

I was wrong,

And I know how that must have made you feel.

They'll actually use your language and make you feel like they get it.

When I said this to you,

They'll actually call it out,

When I said this about you to your friends,

I know that must have broken your heart.

When I didn't come home last weekend and I told you that I was at a work event and I was at a strip club,

You probably were up waiting for me,

Crying into your pillow.

I'm so sorry that I hurt you that way.

So they're going right in.

They're using your language.

They're making you feel seen,

Which is really,

Really messed up because that tells you that someone knows that they hurt you and they did it anyway,

And they had a lack of empathy for you.

So in this situation,

When a narcissist knows they're losing someone who has high empathy,

They will exploit characteristics of empathy to keep that person secure.

The next thing that a narcissist will do is they will take on all the blame.

It's important that we also realize this is all temporary.

This is all smoke and mirrors.

These are just some of the things that a narcissist will do to not lose a source of narcissistic supply,

Not lose an empath,

Not lose someone who really sees the best in them even when they're doing really crappy things.

Who would want to lose that?

What narcissist wants to lose that?

Someone who is always with them no matter how many jobs they lose,

No matter how many fights they have,

No matter how verbally abusive they can be.

Who wants to lose that?

Who doesn't want to lose that?

A narcissist,

When they know the empath is starting to move away,

They will turn around and they will take on all the blame.

They may even say,

I know I was being narcissistic.

I know that you were right in that situation and I was wrong.

So they will take on the blame and do the exact exactly opposite of what you think a narcissist would do,

Which is blame shift,

Which is blame you.

So these are really five surprising things that a narcissist will do when they're aware that they're losing someone who has high empathy.

So what's the goal?

The goal is really to pull you back under the bed.

I always use that phrase because to me it's when I think about a narcissist,

I think about someone who needs someone to drain blood out of,

And narcissists are notorious for manipulating people who have high empathy.

And the traits of the empath also make the relationship dynamic click.

So if you're someone who has high empathy,

You see the best in people,

You want to fix people who are wounded,

Then a narcissist is going to exploit that just by nature.

And so the reason a narcissist will do that will absolutely take on the traits of the empath during the end of the relationship,

At least temporarily,

Is because they want to secure the source of narcissistic supply.

So what do we do?

So these are the surprising things that will happen,

The exploitation of empathic traits in order to secure an empath.

But it's also important to realize that if these things don't work,

If the manipulation of empathic qualities don't work,

Then the narcissist can resort to the traditional discard,

Devaluing you,

Blame shifting,

Triangulating you,

And the smear campaign.

That will happen in lots of the cases.

If you're lucky,

The narcissist will discard you,

And you will never hear from them again.

Narcissist does not want to be humiliated.

So the idea of being humiliated is terrifying for them.

So in some cases,

A narcissist will leave you alone,

And that's the best thing that can happen to you.

So what do we have to do?

If you are someone who is highly empathic,

Then you have to know that.

It's no different than,

And I use this analogy as well often because I think it fits.

In nature,

You know that you're a rabbit,

And you know that you're vulnerable.

So when there's a hawk flying above,

You freeze.

You don't want to make any sudden moments and any sudden movements,

And you don't want to bring attention to yourself,

So you freeze,

Which is a survival skill.

It makes sense.

So what we have to recognize is that it is important for each of us to take personal responsibility for our traits.

Because narcissists exist,

And it is very common for people who are below the veil of consciousness,

Who are not working on personal development work,

All of us have ego defense mechanisms.

And so all of us can be triggered.

And so it's important that we recognize that givers generally match up with takers.

And so if we're a giver,

We need to balance our energy,

And we need to make sure that we have boundaries,

Personal boundaries,

And external boundaries,

So that we are no longer taken advantage of by people who are highly narcissistic.

And so I think one of the most important things that we can do in life is to recognize our own characteristics.

So if you are highly empathic,

You have to know that people at work are going to mooch off you.

People at work who are down on funds are going to ask you to buy their lunch.

People who have crashed up their car,

They're going to ask to use your car.

People who needs a place to live,

They'll knock on your door at 2 AM.

People who want to go on vacation and know that you have room to watch their dog and are going to ask you to watch their dog.

People who are highly narcissistic are going to want to hang out with someone who doesn't hold them accountable,

Who sees the best in them.

You are the best person to hold up this mirror that says,

Oh,

The narcissist isn't as bad as everyone thinks he is or thinks she is.

They need people who have high empathy.

So if you're one of those people,

Then you have to work on you,

Because there is nothing that you can do.

You can't love a narcissist enough to fix them.

You just can't.

This is an internal job.

So a narcissist would have to identify that they were narcissistic and then do a lot of soul searching and then find ways to heal what needed to be healed so they can stop taking advantage of other people.

But no amount of love is going to be able to make you turn a narcissist into someone who is not a narcissist.

So it's important that you realize that.

So they will promise to change.

They're not going to change.

They will lie to you,

But the truth will come out eventually.

They will cry,

But they're crocodile tears.

They will seem to have empathy for you and even use your language to try to get you back,

And they will assume the blame.

All of this is temporary to secure you so the cycle can start again.

So if you are highly empathic,

What you need to do is you have to start asking yourself,

What do I think?

What do I feel?

What do I need?

It's so important.

Self care is huge,

Right?

Unless you know how you feel,

Then you're not able to set a boundary.

Figure out what you will and will not tolerate moving forward.

Make a list of the type of relationships that you've been in.

How do they start off?

Look for the patterns in these relationships because you're going to find your character traits in them.

If you really want to change,

Then you will put forth action to make these changes.

So if you're somebody who,

As soon as you meet someone,

You're very obliging.

You decide you pay for lunch or you pay for dinner all the time,

Or you're always saying,

No,

No,

It's okay.

It's okay.

No problem.

You cancel dinner.

You change plans.

Okay,

No problem.

No problem.

If the narcissist has a bad day and is accusatory and you forgive them,

You don't hold them accountable,

And it keeps going on and on and on,

You catch the narcissist in a lie and you don't confront them because you'd be embarrassed if someone confronted you.

You're transferring your empathy onto this person.

You're worrying about how this person might feel if someone called them out in a lie,

So you don't.

You spare them.

All of these traits are really digging the hole deeper for you.

So what you want to do is you want to look for patterns,

Your patterns.

Look for the relationship patterns and then look for the patterns in yourself.

How did you show up in these relationships?

When people lied to you,

What did you do?

How did you feel?

When your spirit,

Yourself,

Your gut instinct told you was something wrong,

What did you do with that energy?

Did you deny it?

Did you shove it away?

Did you confront people?

How comfortable are you with setting a boundary with someone?

Do you feel like it's wrong to put yourself first?

Do you feel selfish if you put yourself first?

Do you tend to look to other people to figure things out for you?

In saving other people,

Are you hoping that doing so gives you a sense of worth?

And if this big lion is someone you're able to tame,

Are you going to feel better about yourself if they love you in return?

These are the things that you really have to get to the root core of.

We want to make sure that we know what our feelings are and what someone else's feelings are.

And that's why it's so important to stay in the eye.

What do I think?

What do I feel?

Because empaths are really confused.

They don't know what they feel.

They're inundated by what they think other people feel,

The emotions of other people.

And it can become a very crowded place in our heads,

In our hearts.

And so make sure moving forward,

And this is advice for everyone out there,

We need to know what we think.

We need to know what we feel.

We need to know how we feel about the way someone's treating us.

We need to learn how to stay in our own lane.

We need to learn that we are autonomous 3D human beings and we live in our own backyard.

So our partner lives over here and we live over here,

So we have our own emotional space.

And we are responsible for the energy in our space.

And so if we're dealing with,

If we keep giving our energy over to the narcissist and we're drained,

We have to understand that we're doing something wrong because you shouldn't be drained by someone.

Being drained by someone in a relationship is absolutely a red flag.

But when you're talking about someone that you're giving your energy to,

Understand that within you is the power to set a boundary.

And the minute you set that boundary,

That valve begins to shut off.

Now,

When you start to shut that valve off and you start to starve a narcissist of attention and affirmation and praise,

Forgiveness,

Whatever it is that they're getting from you,

Financial supply,

A place to live,

Whatever it is,

When you start to say no more,

No more money for this,

For drugs,

No more money to bail you out of jail,

No more whatever,

The narcissist is going to turn it up.

A narcissist that knows that you're highly empathic will use empathic qualities to try to manipulate you.

If that doesn't work,

They'll turn on you.

It absolutely is.

But you have to stay the course.

Going no contact is huge.

When I say go no contact,

I mean go no contact.

In some cases,

This is not always,

You can't always do this.

There are children involved.

You have to deal with them on some level.

But even in those situations,

You can get a third party involved to help you deal with the children.

So it's not always,

It's not a black and white issue.

It's not always easy.

Sometimes you're working with these people and it's really easy to tell someone to just get another job,

But it's not such an easy thing to do.

So limiting your contact,

At least limit your contact.

Give this narcissist nothing.

Send them the message that the store is closed.

There's a new sheriff in town and you are going to reserve your energy for you.

Start to speak in terms in your own head.

How do I feel?

What do I think?

What do I need?

That person just said this.

How do I feel about what that person said?

An empath will go right into trying to understand why the person said it.

They'll try to understand the emotions behind the poor behavior and that's what will continue to get empaths in trouble until they say no more.