How I Recognized and Removed a Narcissist From My Life

I cut a narcissist out of my life I don’t know, three, four years ago now? Time flies when you don’t have manipulative energy vampires weighing you down.

This person had been my “friend” for over a decade. I met them when they were dating a relative of someone in my husband’s circle of friends.

But if they ever introduced me to a group of new people, they would say something like “oh this is __, we met because she knew some friends of mine” (they were not their friends, they were mine). I know it sounds small, but they always found a way to place themselves above me in any new scenario, even though they had pursued my friendship from the start.

I was recently reminded of my experience watching the Anna Delvey story on Netflix. A lot of Anna’s personality traits were classic narcissism; taken to an extreme level, but still.

I recognized the entitlement, the grandiosity, the selfishness, the assumption that if she acted one way the world would reward her.

All narcissists are grifters when it boils down to it, pretending to be whatever it is that furthers their agenda, creating human collateral damage along the way that they rarely if ever feel remorse over.

The first few times we met I thought this person had a boastful air. I had heard stories of times they had made strange demands from people I was friends with. ALWAYS trust your first instincts with people (just not if you are me, apparently!). I can’t explain why I didn’t put more of a guard up other than I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Narcissists can be charming when they want to, and for some reason, this person decided they wanted to be my friend. They invited me for coffee after getting my number from a friend, which did strike me as slightly odd as we hadn’t really spoken much.

I had recently finished cancer treatment and was likely in a more vulnerable headspace than usual. I was missing old friends; getting sick less than two years after I had moved to a new country meant that I hadn't established the close kinds of bonds that see you through things like cancer.

At first, the friendship felt like any other new friendship. We had things in common and enjoyed hanging out together.

A narcissist does not always present as a vain or self-absorbed person (in fact I have known plenty of self-obsessed people who aren’t true narcissists, this personality disorder is more complex than the name implies). They can act like normal, thoughtful people when it suits them. But I did notice little things about them that seemed abnormal before long.

They are inflexible:

They didn’t like to compromise when making plans, to the point where if I couldn’t make a specific plan they wanted, they would “ghost” me. They would stop texting back by blanking me, without the usual “Ok another time” or “That’s cool, we can reschedule”.

But before long I would get a text out of the blue as if nothing had happened. It was a tactic known as gaslighting, and I had never experienced it before. I thought it was weird/rude at first, but over time it can make a person feel like they have done something wrong, even though rationally they know they haven’t. It is all about the upper hand with them.

They are stingy with money:

This is a classic narcissist red flag. I never expect anyone to pay for anything for me, but this person was cheap in the extreme. They were also not shy about trying to mooch whatever they could off of people, sometimes strangers or acquaintances.

In a group, they would make sure everyone knew they could only afford an appetizer or one drink, sometimes saying exactly how much money they had allotted for the evening. So everyone else felt bad enjoying their meal.

While it is necessary to let people know you don’t wish to split a check, it was also awkward one-on-one. “I will buy this round but you have to buy the next one and then I am not buying any more” kind of a thing. It's hard to explain but they made friendship feel transactional when it came to money. The following quote resonated with my experience:

Narcissists develop a wide range of tricks to extract money from others. They might disappear when it’s their round at the bar. Claim they’ve forgotten their wallet. Cry poverty, you name it.

Narcissists develop a whole host of tricks to take as much as they can, whilst giving away as little as possible.

…This often gets them off the hook paying for things. Or gets them loans or gifts of money.

Narcissists like to lay it on thick. And make their problems your responsibility.*

They expect the world:

They would often ask for fairly big favors as if expecting the universe to deliver. My lack of a car (I live in a city) meant I was bottom of their ferrying them around list.

They were both expectant of and ingrateful for generosity from other people. They complained a lot about a very expensive trip they didn’t pay for, they demanded the best accommodation on a different group holiday (I was not present for this but heard about it) which again, I doubt they paid much if anything for.

They would openly trash talk gifts they didn’t like. Their birthday or life event was something they always staged/set people up to feel obliged to give them gifts. Whereas they themselves were stingy to non-existent with gifts, always claiming frugality or poverty, when really they just don’t like to buy gifts for anyone other than themselves.

They collect people faster than most:

They made new friends constantly, but also seemed to lose them at a quick rate. I realized that I was being shuffled and repositioned a few times in their friend hierarchy. After a while, I noticed a few rifts, but if I ever asked about a person they had ousted, some who I had met a few times who seemed nice, they would become angry and dismissive. It didn’t seem like the usual way a person might have disagreements with friends.

“They’re CRAZY!” they would say of whoever it was. It was weird in one case in particular because I knew this person to have been especially generous with them. It was then that my spidey senses started to kick in that maybe something was seriously off about them, that it was not just me.

They need the limelight:

They don’t like to feel outshone and will throw you under the bus if they aren’t getting the attention they crave. This had shown itself in un-subtle ways in different scenarios throughout our friendship, but I took the attitude of “If they need attention that badly let them have it”.

But towards the end, they turned pretty nasty a few times, saying things that seemed designed to insult/make me look bad in a group of people I didn’t know.

A constant redirection to one's self when they are not the center of attention. This can also include excluding, alienating and ostracizing the victim by bullying them in social circles….

In the context of larger social groups, a successful target will often be humiliated by the perpetrator who can ‘recruit’ allies to join in on the bullying.**

It’s weird for me to read this in black and white because every time this happened I would think “Am I being oversensitive?”. I couldn’t believe that someone I considered a friend would be so callous with me I guess.

Eventually, they crossed a line that finally shone a light for me: they were happy to do me harm if it meant making themselves look good.

They never apologized for behavior that most people would realize is rude and hurtful. Normal friends do tease each other, but there was always something ugly behind their jibes.

Lies are important:

They lie. Little lies, big lies, the longer you know them the more you notice it. Often it’s small things that are designed to make them look better/taking credit for something someone else did.

When they tell a story their version always casts them in the most flattering light, often contrary to the facts of what actually happened. I witnessed them lie outright about certain situations which I knew to be false because it entailed personal gain for them.

This is when it got particularly weird for me, because they knew I would see them doing it. They really were brazen, and that is the kind of thing that starts to make anyone in their orbit feel “crazy”.

They present themselves as more discerning, more refined, better than whatever they deem “basic” as Anna “Delvey” Sorokin said. Their image is carefully crafted and often doesn’t reflect reality. They are great at putting on different faces:

They lie about their skills, their abilities, and their accomplishments. Their goal is to receive flattery, praise, attention and adoration from other people to prop up their self-esteem (this is known as “narcissistic supply”)***

“I really don’t care, do you?”

They really don’t care about you, at all. I admit this whole experience made me see I had undealt with co-dependent traits as the child of an alcoholic along with serious boundary issues. I think this is why it took me so long to see the light with this situation.

If I went out of my way to be there for events that their other friends didn’t show up for, it was met with zero gratitude. They would complain about how so and so wasn’t there.

One year I was the only person who showed up for their birthday. I thought we had a fun night but the next year they had a bunch of people at their birthday and remembered it to the group as “the worst birthday ever, only (me) showed up” (“Gee thanks for valuing my friendship so much!”, I wanted to say).

Friendship is mostly a one-way street in their direction

I realized after a while that the narc in my life would never do anything for anyone if there wasn’t something in it for them.

The main thing for anyone who feels like this might be happening to them to ask is: Does this person act like a friend and make you feel valued and safe, or the opposite of that?

Are you sure you are not fooling yourself their bad behavior is ok? It’s easy to lose touch with our true feelings when we want something to be real but it isn’t.

I have questioned myself how I allowed this to happen many times. I think for a long time I told myself this person was just a casual friend, so it didn’t matter.

Regardless of the relationship, there should be a basic level of decency and respect with how you let people treat you, because if you let someone get away with mistreating you for too long it does affect your self-worth.

The narcissist displayed a complete lack of empathy or care about me in many ways over time. It was sometimes balanced with vaguely normal friend behavior, but the spaces between them lashing out at me or ignoring me or whatever else did grow shorter.

I believe that most narc friendships have a shelf life, they are good at juggling a lot of people and only show their true face as the person loses value for them.

I was at the bottom of the totem pole of the “narcissist supply” by the end, and while I told myself it didn’t matter deeply to me, in truth it wore me down to put up with this person’s mind games for so long.

Moving On: Boundaries are your friend

As an empath, I feel I was more of a vulnerable target to the manipulative tactics of a narcissist. I think they are easier to avoid for people with different personality types.

I spend more time setting boundaries, and protecting my energy now, something it never occurred to me to consciously do before this experience.

I wasted my time, thoughts, care, and generosity as a friend on this bottomless void of a person, for years.

I take responsibility for my failings here, for not valuing and protecting myself better. I invited this into my life, somehow, and I own that.

No Contact:

Our friendship had trickled to almost nothing by the time I finally went “no contact” (which is seen as the preferable way to eliminate this situation from your life) but we would still occasionally see each other socially and it caused me increasing anxiety.

I didn’t understand why it was still stressful, why I couldn’t just pretend this person didn’t exist.

I didn’t want a confrontation, also I knew from how they had treated other former friends that it was pointless. I felt uneasy and anxious when I finally cut them out completely. It took a while to feel like I was “safe”.

I am pretty sure much of this is related to how I handle trauma. I shut down and disassociate, (hi! to my unrecognized for years PTSD). For a long time, I told myself things with this person were ok that were not ok, and in some sense, I was reliving patterns from my childhood that triggered old wounds.

I underestimated how draining even the hint of their presence in my life felt, and was surprised at how much relief came just from the small mental shift of “no more”. I wasn’t the first person to do it and I doubt I will be the last. The jig was up for me, but there is always a new grift on the horizon for a narcissist.

If even one person reads this and it clicks that something isn’t right with someone but they have maybe been second-guessing themselves, as I did for so long, I hope that they listen to that voice.

I had never heard of the word “narcissist” as a personality disorder before I met this person (I know this is hard to believe, but it really wasn’t very well known or talked about until fairly recently).

Most narcissist experiences I have read about involve romantic relationships, so I wanted to share my experience in case it resonates with anyone. There are some great resources online and also here on Medium for anyone struggling with this.

There is no “fixing” a narcissist, they take and take until someone says “Enough”, and then they may try to inflict damage in any way they can. The only way to get rid of them is to cut them out of your life entirely.

Maintaining zero contact is essential for you to be able to heal and cognitively and emotionally process the mental hurricane that hit. Some clients have likened the experience to like coming off a drug; it is so painful to go through the traumatic grief work in being abandoned that these feelings are akin to withdrawals. However, as you heal, you can be empowered, stronger, wiser, and more discerning and reclaiming of your own self-worth.****

These people seem to largely glide through life taking what they want and sucking up to people who can advance them or feed their ego in some way until they are no longer useful. Your worth to them is finite, and easily discarded when it no longer serves them.

No one deserves to have anyone like that in their life, no friendship or relationship is worth it.

I am grateful that I learned this lesson because I value myself differently now. I try to stay mindful that I don’t keep shoveling my energy into people if I feel like I am depleting myself. I try to set stronger boundaries and I admit that can still feel unnatural sometimes.

Real friendship is about give and take and it doesn’t deplete or demean you. You don’t owe anyone your time or friendship if they don’t treat you with respect and truly value your presence in their life.

If anyone reading this fears or questions if they have experienced narcissistic abuse please look into it and get help if you are able.

*source Narcissists and Money— narcissisms.com

** source 5 Ways Pathologically Envious Narcissists Undermine Your Success — psychcentral.com

*** source the narcissisticlife.com: Why Do Narcissists Lie So Much?

****source Good therapy blog

T his article was originally published by the author on Medium.