A narcissist doesn’t see you as an equal, so forget about them treating you as one – they simply won’t.
Nor will they consider your needs or honour your feelings because, to them, you are not on the same playing field and don’t deserve to be considered.
They are superior, and you are inferior; that’s how they view the world, and that’s how they relate to you in a relationship.
I’m sure that no matter what point you’re at in your relationship with a narcissist, you’ve perceived a superiority-inferiority push-and-pull happening that makes you feel frustrated, vulnerable and miserable.
In my latest Thriver TV video, I go deep into this dynamic. I detail what is behind the narcissist’s superiority and the truth behind your role in this. You want to understand this deeper to step back into your own reality, values and autonomy. Please watch how to stop playing their game and move on to your Thriving instead.
Video Transcript
Today, I want to talk to you about narcissism and superiority. I will tie this in with you and what you can do to empower yourself if you suffer from a sense of inferiority. We will examine the difference between superiority and inferiority, what a healthy person is, what is needed for a healthy relationship regarding self-identity and how to know the difference.
Let’s start off by discussing the narcissist’s superiority.
Narcissistic Superiority
A narcissist doesn’t see you as an equal at all. A narcissist doesn’t see you as a flesh, blood, and bone human or autonomous being. You’re an extension of the narcissist. You’re a prop, a tool to be used for their betterment.
Therefore, automatically, the narcissist believes that they are superior to you. As unthinkable as all of this is, it’s not personal; it’s just what it is.
The narcissist will never see you or treat you as an equal and doesn’t want a harmonious, cooperative relationship with you where your needs, feelings, and yourself are honoured or even considered. Because this would make the narcissist like everybody else, it would put them on the same level on the playing field, which means they would be unable to control you and keep the upper hand.
Now that you can understand this part, I want to talk about how we get caught up in this as being susceptible to a narcissist and handing power away. Firstly, we will start by looking at the parts of ourselves that may be operating in inferiority.
It’s when somebody says to you, “Do you understand?” So, inferiority is when we’re standing under people, whereas when we’re in “inner stand”, we’re standing up to people.
Our Inferiority
Many lovely people have inferiority complexes. Meaning they’ve been taught authority needs to be obeyed. That we need to go along to get along. That other people know more about life than we do. That they command more respect than we do. If we want to be loved and cared for, we better agree with other people’s version of things, including their decisions about what we should think, say, and do and the crucial decisions in our lives.
Let’s go back to what I said about the narcissist’s superiority. They don’t see you as a person in your own right, and that’s why your person is not even considered and considered. The narcissist’s treatment of you is about them getting the benefit, not you, which means the relationship is exploitation at your expense.
Now, you can’t change a narcissist. That’s their in-built character, but you can deeply examine and develop yourself.
So, therefore, the real question here is – do you see yourself as a real flesh, blood, and bone autonomous being? Or do you hand your power away by agreeing with others even when your Soul is screaming at you that you’re being abused? Are you staying because you fear not having love, approval, security, and survival at the hands of this person hurting you?
These are all very real questions I had to ask and confront. Back then, in narcissistic abuse, the truth was I wasn’t an autonomous person. My actions were those of inferiority, and it looked like I was fighting back because I was unhappy and arguing and thought I was standing up for myself, yet matters didn’t improve. I was getting more abused, and I kept losing pieces of myself.
Why was this happening?
For these reasons – deeply ingrained beliefs that going against other people’s demands would be dangerous, damaging and devastating … so best to agree. As well as the terror of not being loved and looked after if I didn’t agree, and the fears of losing everything, including the dream life I thought I could have with this person if I didn’t agree, or if I didn’t stay and try to fix the matters that I didn’t agree with.
By being stuck in these inferior beliefs, I couldn’t stand in my autonomous deservedness, health, boundaries, and truths to create equal relationships with people who respected me and had the resources to be life partners.
This was because inside of myself, I was still carrying the traumas – a fear of authority and the fear and guilt of being true to myself. Subconsciously, I was attracted to authority figures who were controlling, like a critical parent who would take over my life because I was too fearful of steering my own life.
In the years that I’ve helped people recover from narcissistic abuse, I’ve seen countless people be unconsciously stuck in an inferior submissive role trying to survive narcissistic abuse, trying to acquiesce their way to getting better treatment and feeling safer yet getting emptied all the way out to their demise.
You can’t agree and acquiesce your way out of exploitation and tyranny because if you give an inch to keep the peace, the narcissists will take a mile. They are never filled, never satisfied. They never feel whole. They keep mining, exploiting, and taking until there is nothing more to get. It doesn’t stop until you take back your autonomy.
Now, let’s look at the possibility that you may have even entered a superiority stance.
Our Superiority
Our superiority, which is inferiority putting on a defence, often happens after we’ve been abused.
You could take the stance, “Never again. I’m not going to trust so readily. I’ll never put up with this again. I can pick it out easily now.” Of course, it is entirely understandable that you want to feel strong and empowered in this way, and this is really healthy if coupled with inner work and belief system reprogramming. However, with the inner work, it could be a healthy defence.
Many people wanting to get into relationships again, especially if they haven’t yet done the deep inner childhood Quantum recovery work, can find it difficult to let somebody into their heart or be able to trust and generate a healthy relationship that works. Of course, that’s understandable.
Here is the truth about superiority. When it’s a defence mechanism, it’s an attempt to protect ourselves from feelings of inferiority. A narcissist’s true inner core is shattered, deeply defective, and insecure. Hence, why there is such a pathological superiority, which is the mask they’re trying to have as a buffer overriding their deep inner insecurities.
Suppose we haven’t done the inner self-recovery work. In that case, we may tell ourselves, “I’m over what happened to me,” arm ourselves logically, and now have a ton of defences blocking the ability to have true, meaningful, intimate, healthy relationships.
It’s exciting how the supposed defences that you may have regarding not getting narcissistically abused again can fail, and we see that all the time, mainly because when a narcissist comes into your life, they don’t wear a T-shirt saying, “Beware of me, I’m a narcissist.” Rather, they appear with a consummate performance pretending that they’re everything you want them to be, and you may hold yourself back, yet you still go along.
Then, when issues start to arise, and the cracks start to appear, rather than trust your gut and address this directly, honestly, and openly with what you need, what your values are, and what your boundaries are … rather than do that, which is the most powerful defence against narcissists being inauthentic – and it blows the lid off their cover really easily when you’re anchored in that place – if you haven’t done the inner work, you are more likely to be in your defences.
You don’t speak up. You go quiet. You pull away. Without knowing it, you’re playing games rather than just being real, mature, and direct, facing reality, setting your boundaries and wanting answers.
Or, you may react badly. You overreact or come off in a way that isn’t solid, calm, and empowered, and you don’t realise narcissists love drama. They love it. It’s where they thrive. They love games. They love angst because they can manipulate the drama and your emotional derailment. They can confuse. They can disappear. They can reappear. They can control you emotionally.
So, what is the way out of all of this?
Our Healthy Autonomy
It’s about not being in inferiority or superiority defences. It’s about being in your healthy autonomy. That’s what it’s about. If you see yourself in either of these examples or even both. I hope you are wondering how to be a person who can generate a healthy relationship.
First, please know that a healthy relationship depends on you. Only you have control of that. There are people out there who will never have the resources for you to have a healthy relationship with. But you need to, first of all, be the person who can choose healthy people, which means you know your values and your truth and can generate it. Then you can honestly ascertain other people who can or can’t join you in a healthy relationship, and you can choose to stay or leave.
As a mature adult evolving and growing toward healthy relationships, you know healthy relations are not up to the other person; it’s about your choices, what you will and won’t accept, and who you are being. Your life is up to you, not them, and this power comes through healing your role patterns and fears deep inside you with the inner work that can address those things so that you can know what healthy values are.
You can show up being honest, direct, and even fearlessly honest in a healthy direct way. You can lay boundaries and be completely and utterly prepared to leave people and not have them in your life if they’re narcissistic. That way, you can create real relationships with people with the resources, and you can grow with these people. They’re not going to be perfect, but they have good characters and want to grow and evolve and be in a teamwork situation with you.
Narcissists never want that. They are just being superior and exploiting you. It can’t work. I promise you, have faith; there are better than bad people on this planet. I really do believe that.
However, until you take on the healing necessary, it’s really easy to continue to be taken in by evil people and exploited by them until you become the person you need to be to seek and connect with real partners based on courage, honesty and authenticity. That will get you out of power struggles and toxic games. I will discuss this more in my next Thriver TV, so look out for that.
In Conclusion
If this spoke to you and if you want to know more about the direct and powerful inner work to clean up the traumas of abuse and be able to get into your true authentic values and power, then I can’t recommend looking at NARP enough, the Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program.
Also, if you know that your connection to authority and the unhealed child programs within you have caused you to dim down and be inferior and hand your power away, even if you have worked with NARP and you know you need more to heal this, then I can’t recommend enough my mini healing program, the Transforming Family of Origins Wounds, because it does have a laser-like focus in shifting out and reprogramming those traumas so that you can be a healthy adult in your body, generating successful, authentic relationships. It makes a huge difference.
My greatest mission is to deliver home to your power with information and programs to give you authenticity, sovereignty, self-love, power and respect because they are the true foundations of a Thriver life.
I hope this has made sense to you about the difference between inferiority, superiority, and what’s happening, and I look forward to your comments and questions below.
The horrible truth about the Narc I thought loved me was revealed when, describing our work ethic, I offhandedly said, “We are the same people” and he, so shocked, asked me what I meant and couldnt believe I would dare to compare us as equals. Funny, he is a ex felon, street parked used car salesman living for free in a bizarre 3 way household uneducated jerk but somehow, has maligned my respectable way of life a inferior. My advice is to be so sucessful and secure in yourself that these vampires cant affect you. I dress my best, stand my ground against tresspasses and continue to educate and improve myself. Repeat over and over, Narcs are losers,
I am a winner, or in what quote you find inspiration. These people have no inspiration or soul. Forget them.
So true, so resonant, so helpful. Thank you Melanie.
It’s my pleasure Joseph!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
So helpful, Melanie, thank you! I’m really getting a lot out of the Transforming Family of Origin Wounds because as you point out, it’s showing me how I was primed from an early age for the narcissistic abuse I experienced as an adult. I strongly believe that as adults we experience this kind of abuse as a horrible revisiting of a childhood dilemma we’re called to sort out. I thank the universe for sending me this narcissistic Pennywise clown as the catalyst to get me to find the way heal and thrive— that way has been through your amazing work!
Hi Richard,
I entirely concur. As a child, patterns of relating to others are printed onto our circuit board. We keep repeating them over and over again, no matter how dysfunctional they are. Until – thank God – we run into the ultimate narcissist who throws it all back at us and in doing so, offers us a way out to begin writing our own story. I takes a painful while to see it though.
That’s so great Richard that TFFOW is helping so much.
Please know how welcome you are.
It is such a powerful little course that I do forget to recommend to people.
Much Love
Mel 🙏💞🦋
A relationship – of whatever nature – only ends when there is real (not feigned) indifference. As long as there is a feeling of any kind – even if that is anger or pain or simple expectation, anxiety, whatever – the relationship isn’t over, the hold this person has over you still is there.
I think when deep down you experience indifference – not feigned, but real indifference – towards the narc who terrorized you – or toward any narc for that matter – you have come home and you have become free.
It took me many years to get to that point – years that at their worst felt like being shackled in a cage, with not an inch of space in which I could be myself. It was worse than your worst nightmare. An existential pain of not being able to simply be, of not being recognised as an individual, of feeling abused and confined into non-existence.
My recovery began when I changed my approach. Each time the narc hurt me, instead of trying to explain and make the narc understand (which is a futile effort) and try to resolve things, or instead of trying to understand where the narc was coming from, or instead of just taking the abuse and walk on eggs in an attempt to avoid further harm, I gave up on all that and instead, I asked myself: WHY does this hurt me so much?
It required a journey deep into myself (it probably is advisable to get professional help for this because the journey, while eventually cathartic, can be very painful) to find all these deep scars of old wounds and heal them . And as I progressed on this journey of healing, I found that these things no longer hurt me. Until one day when the narc did something utterly abusive, I just shrugged my shoulders with indifference.
This made the narc go so utterly ballistic that for the first time the whole community saw who this person really was, and turned against this person.
I haven’t looked back since. Remarkably, prior to to this, over the course of many years, alongside the “leading narc” in my life, every now and then additional new narcs would show up in my life – as if I had a label on my forehead attracting narcs. Over the years I learned to recognise them and keep my distance in time before they could do real damage, but new narcs still kept showing up – random people I instantly recognised as narcs.
Since I reached indifference to narcs (in the sense described above – feeling at ease and at peace with myself with no old wounds to trigger me), there hasn’t been a single narc in my life, as if they see from afar there are no buttons to press to get me hooked and therefor are not interested.
I wish each and every one of you all the best on your journey – whichever path you choose to walk on in order to heal. There are many stages, from anger, and disbelief, to arming yourself with a battle cry and mantra, to in a strange kind of way almost mirroring what narcs do by building a wall around your self for fear of getting hurt, to trying to get the better of the narc and trying to “win” the game, to utter despair and deep pain, to eventually dropping all barriers of defence you have raised against yourself and your own wounds and feeling utterly miserable because of it, in order to heal each and every one of these wounds.
To you, Melanie, I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude: your articles have been an inspiration to help me find my way, to come home. Thank you.
Hi Anonymous,
you have absolutely nailed it.
The journey within and releasing “why this hurts” is the total key to purging ourselves free of ANY connection to these people.
That’s what I love about NARP http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp is that from day one of using the Quanta Freedom Healings in NARP that process is well underway. This fast-tracks healing exponentially.
Big kudos to you for finding this healing path yourself. That is so conscious!
Please know how welcome you are, and much love to you.
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Being taught and enlightened here by all of this information on the narcissist has been such an important step. All of the time that I tried to get the N to see my point of view by trying to explain how his behavior hurt and affected me. Trying to relate to him like one normal human being would relate to another. All the times you tell someone how you are being hurt and then it simply becomes a weapon in their arsenal to use against you. How he took my strengths and made them weaknesses and how he took my weaknesses and made them weapons. How I came to feel like I was in a 2’ x 2’ box and if I tried to move forward in any direction there was nothing but wall and all I could do was turn in circles while suffocating. Every time I told him I was not going to live being zeroed out by someone and how I stayed loyal and faithful before being cruelly discarded and replaced (after 10 years) by someone that only lasted 6 months. Thinking enough love and compassion and patience could change him. Knowing what I was experiencing was not right. I am grateful for finding this information here because I didn’t know this was so pervasive and the behaviors so predictable as to give me validation for all I have experienced and that I am not going crazy. Just now I am seeing that to live under the shadow of a narcissist is to live in their fantasy world with them and they will protect their delusions of grandeur at all cost. Thank you Melanie for showing me that this is giving away power while I was being patient and loyal. Thank you for showing me these are normal, compassionate, mature human traits that are being wasted on a fantasy. I am sad mostly because the N behaves as though he is reasonable and I am sad that I’ve become a person who wants see him fall. Thank you for this platform where heartbreak can be shared with people who understand.
Hi Lynn,
you have described the crazy-making and futility of trying to relate so accurately!
I’m thrilled for you that you can see “these are normal, compassionate, mature human traits that are being wasted on a fantasy”, and know that this is not your fault.
After acceptance, you are totally ready to heal.
Wishing for, and sending you healing and love
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Oh
My
Gosh!!
Lynn, you so eloquently described the experience of living with such a disordered individual. I don’t say person or human, because I can no longer see them as such. They have no soul that I can see. Thank Source, God, Universe…whoever, whatever…that there is this NARP program available!! It saved my life!!
I spent 34 years in that quagmire of what you described and thanks to the NARP… the first day I used it in 2015 the disordered person was completely flummoxed and off balance. It was miraculous. Of course things escalated on his end as I got healthier and more balanced discarding and healing trauma after trauma. I got rolled financially in the divorce, but it never mattered because I got out alive, was free and continued to heal thanks to NARP.
This is such an outstanding program and I encourage anyone who is on the fence about using it to take the leap. You will be astounded at your positive development.
To this day, I still revisit Module #1 when there’s anything that’s upsetting the total joy and abundance I have in my life. ..which is rare, but things do bubble up.
All the best to each and every one of you… those on the fence, new and all of us oldies.
I would have never thought that I could reinvent myself at the age of 60, but here I am..5 years out and wouldn’t change a thing!
Lisa
Thank you so much Melanie, I needed to hear this.
Thank you for your wisdom, diligence and understanding.Melanie.
I’ve come to understand at the age of 50 and a completely painful life it has been even to the point of suicide attempts, my dad was a narsassist,
And the subconscious pattern I have learned is that “I try to get this person to love me”
I’ve have played this out in two narsassistic relationships, that have brought me to the brink of suicide!!
Where I am stuck, is that I’ve meet someone who is loving with beautiful qualities, and value’s, but I push them away. My ego starts to say, this feels suffocating, and I don’t think she looks attractive enough. And yet, I’m no oil painting , but my ego says that I’m far better looking than her. ( This superior power play thing is happening)
How do I overcome this? I don’t want to be alone for the rest of my life!
Hi Ray,
you have brought up such a powerful point.
We are attracted to the Love Code – the people who don’t represent this (healthy people) do not shine for us.
Until the inner work is done to change the inner Love Code back to health.
That is exactly what NARP does http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp
It is my highest (and only) suggestion for you, regarding what I know really works.
Please know there are many wonderful men in our NARP community – you will have seen some of them posting here.
Please know you can and will turn this around!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Very true to your comments. I am steadily gaining myself from the hell of narc. abuse
I will continue thanking MTE for educating me.
Thanks a lot and a lot.
Patience
I’m on my recovery journey right now Melanie for the last year and a half you have been so very helpful. Your videos and your passion. I was in shock for a long time, and you helped me come back to me, I needed that, and I am forever grateful. Sending virtual hugs and love to Australia! Thank you.
Hi Beck,
thank you for the hug! I’m thrilled you are doing well!
Much love to you too!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Great article Melanie – as always very timely.
The ‘why this hurts me’ question is so tricky. It is like you can’t quite put your finger on why you know things are not really well. It hurts because they are so off the mark.
I found an answer is in what Catholics call “sins of omission”. It is what they DON’T do for us that hurts so much. You see, while we do not have a right to expect or even demand of a perfect stranger in the street to go out of their way to come help us with something, in some sense, we do internally understand that in a love relationship, we have every right to expect that the people who say they ‘love’ us, should do so in DEED. Even if that means going out of their way to help us.
When they withhold praise, acknowledgement, approval, promotion, help, and honor etc, this is where the breach is. If they can only say perfunctory ‘nice job’ – it is NOT ENOUGH. LOVE must be heartfelt and behave that way. And we can sense when it is anything less than LOVE. This hurts.
It is not rocket science, but our societies have degraded love to such a degree that we feel we are imposing demands on a relationship when we keep our expectations high. But, respect, dedication, help, honor, consideration, etc should never go out of style. Flaunting a new relationship for example, is dis considerate. AND WRONG. LOVE SAYS IT IS WRONG. No confusion necessary. It hurts because it is WRONG. It is WRONG because it violates laws of the Soul.
We ought to treat the loved one, and be treated by the beloved, as though we were – since we really are- DIVINE Beings. We OWE one another that recognition. The Divine is not be treated lightly.
Where there has been a breach, the rift begins, and it is very painful because genuine LOVE is NOURISHMENT for the Soul. Soul can not breathe without it. The Soul needs to breathe. Its atmosphere is Love. Breaking a law of Soul, is like choking someone.
We ought to be so familiar with what Love looks like, feels like, acts like, speaks like and DOES, that we can spot a counterfeit immediately and not buy or buy into the fake.
If they do not meet the Love test, they fail. And we must pass. We must pass because we too are called to HONOR ourselves. We neither can be in breach of love to ourselves.
Love violations only hurt if we do not know the rules and are expecting to find figs from an oak tree. We are not disappointed when we know our own self worth and understand that Narcs are just incapable of seeing our Divinity and loving accordingly. God too is invisible to so many. We are invisible to Narcs.
It is not indifference. That would imply that they assessed our merits and had no reaction. I think they never assessed. They have no idea of the worth of Human Beings in general. It is not that they weighed the worth and chose one to be superior. It is that their scale is broken or non-existent. They invented the baseless “superiority” with which they parade around.
But WE have to see their worth if we are seeing the whole picture. Each one is as they are supposed to be. Some can see, some can not. How sad for those who are callous and bind this lifetime.
Real love is known by the respect and honor that it confers on the relationship. When we feel proper reverence , we know it. But if it absent , we pass knowing that oak trees do not give figs.
Thank you for this Iris. I am struggling with constant, intrusive, obsessive thoughts over my experience with the N. I know I can’t heal properly in this state and have been asking God to take these away. I agree with all of your insight and the insight I find here, yet I’m struggling to let go. The how, the why. It just doesn’t seem fair after giving everything for years that the N can go bouncing off, seemingly unaffected and I am a mess. He is the one that can present a picture of perfection as if nothing is wrong. Happiness, energy, humor and attention. I move in slow motion most days because I am so devastated. Thank you for sharing your wisdom, I am not the same person I was before the N and I would so like to regain some strength, or at least some peace of mind I had before this relationship. Thank you for reminding me what we all really deserve. It breaks my heart that people can be so callous and screwed up.
Dear Lynn,
I totally understand and felt this as you describe. The exact same way state of cosmic pain, and limbo where nothing seemed to help. But God did send help – in many forms.
I had the exact wonderful friends I needed at that time. Each one had spiritual insights and practices to help me pray and regain my mind. But honestly, Melanie’s NARP program and meetings came at the precise moment when I needed to be whole again.
NARP works. It reaches areas in the recovery process that other methodologies do not touch. I used everything I had at my disposal and very obediently followed the rules. Melanie was the only one that actually healed – instantaneously. The healing in NARP comes in layers. We are led to inner layers we did not know we had. We emerge higher than we have every been before.
NARP is not just for recovery from Narc abuse. It actually beings us to a new dimension of seeing that we end up thanking the Narc for the devastation that brought us to a breaking point.
NARP – Melanie’s program is the one thing you can do immediately. It really heals.
All the very best, Lynn. I look forward to hearing about your healing progress.
May God bless you in this path.
Hi Iris,
I love all that you have written.
EXACTLY – oak trees do not give figs.
It all comes back to love for self, Divine and divinity. Then Love is expressed and flows, and “knows” what to do.
There are times in relationships where it is appropriate to ask for what we need, people are not always going to be “love expressed”.They may have stuff that momentarily has cut them off from “being Love”. Narcissists are “love void” … there is no connection to Self, Divinity or Others – therefore there is nil true love capacity.
You can’t grant what you are not Being.
Love you!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Thank you so much for letting me know about how these people try and con troll people with superiority. They do this because they feel inferior. Thank you for helping me to thrive.
It’s my pleasure Peggy!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Heh-heh, Peggyb, I see what you did there: “con troll” might not have been deliberate spelling on your part (or maybe it was!), but I’ll sure confirm here and now that my “troll” of a narc certainly did both “con” me and “control” me.
But, no more. That’s in the past!
Thank you so much for your support man from Cali. Melanie’s programs are so inspiring,
Thank you as always Melanie for the great level of insight as usual but ,equally I was so impressed particularly by the deeply thoughtful replies on this blog .The level of intelligent insight was exceptional .I learned a lot from the replies themselves.Sending love to all.
I agree with you Shelly (and Man from California)…
we have so much love, wisdom and empowerment shared here!
How blessed are we all?
I am humbled by how our community is so very different (in the best possible ways) from standard abuse forums!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Yes, Melanie’s content is outstanding. She is exemplary in how she shares her past anguish and path to recovery and thriver-hood, this sets the stage for us to also do so here. As we discover this safe place to do exactly that, I agree with you ShellyD that “the deeply thoughtful replies” aren’t simply icing on this cake, they are a hearty meal of deep nutrition, giving the readers / consumers of this blog deep sustenance as we see how much the cookie-cutter sameness of narc behavior resonates so similarly over and over again. This validation is refreshing and healing and I thank all contributors here for sharing their experiences.