Do you attract narcissists?

Are you someone that seems to attract narcissists? Do you feel like you are the giver in your relationships and friend groups? Do you find that there are certain significant relationships in your life in which you habitually overgive without reciprocity meaning you receive nothing in return? You may be experiencing the empath/narcissist dynamic.

Understanding the Empath/Narcissist Dynamic can help you manage those relationships and to recognize sooner when you are in one, and what to do with the narcissists you can’t cut form your life, such as a family member. Before I get into the details of the dynamic, I’ll explain what I mean by an Empath, and describe what I mean by a narcissist.

Empaths are highly sensitive people who can attune to the feelings of others at a profound and often physical level.

While most humans share empathy and compassion, empaths are highly cognizant of their own emotional experience and the emotions of others.  Empaths navigate and process their surroundings with all the five senses. We use our senses to learn about other people and the world, then process that information to build emotional intelligence. Our relationship with our heightened senses becomes our main method of interpreting our surroundings and the behaviors of others.

You might not be empath-identified, so maybe the language of being “highly sensitive”, or a “giver” works better for you. In the book Give and Take, author Adam Grant discusses the dynamics of givers, takers, and matchers, which is another great frame for understanding reciprocity, and how to navigate the dynamic in everyday social environments like work, and in your friend and family social groups. That book with really help you understand the dynamics of giving and taking on a mainstream, workable level. It has really valuable information about how to protect yourself if you are an over-giver, but also why giving is actually a win, especially in non-toxic environments.

I’ll be discussing a more extreme, malignant form of the dynamic, one that involves narcissists.
I’d like to explain the difference between a narcissist and an energy vampire because I think it will be helpful for understanding and evaluating any of the toxic relationships in your life that need addressing.
 An energy vampire is someone who has not yet learned that it is their responsibility to take charge of their own emotions, therefore they look to others to regulate them. Who better to do this with than someone who can attune to them deeply and reflect their emotions back to them. We empaths are the low hanging fruit for someone who is struggling with this.

Everyone has the capacity to be someone else’s energy vampire, even an empath. Highlighting our needs and taking care to maintain boundaries is the solution for highly sensitive people, introverts, and empaths alike.
Though different types of energy vampires can be found everywhere in our daily life, a narcissist is a different animal. Narcissism is a personality disorder in which a narcissist can only engage with someone if the encounter is framed by how it relates to and affects them, and fuels their narcissistic supply. Their need for attention an amplified sense of importance creates behaviors such as grandiosity and lack of empathy in which the unconscious intent is to mask their deep feelings of fear and inadequacy. When a narcissist meets an empath the vampire nature of the narcissist has found its perfect food source; the compassionate, soulful empath who can see the potential in everyone. While energy vampires can be managed, a narcissist can not.

There are different degrees of narcissism ranging from the unpleasant to be around but survivable, to completely harmful and toxic aka malignant narcissist.

“While your garden variety narcissist is usually difficult, a malignant narcissist is dangerous to you emotionally, physically, financially, mentally and spiritually.”

So why do highly sensitive people, givers, and empaths and narcissists find each other? Usually, givers hold space for people naturally. We genuinely care what someone has to say and often identify with our qualities of giving and kindness as a way to engage socially. Caretakers, nurturers, and empaths treat everyone to our giving nature. This type of attention is a dream for a narcissist, and they react by turning on the charm and even thoughtfully engaging.

The dynamic actually seems harmonious at first, and for all intents and purposes, it is. But it quickly sours when the giver feels unappreciated, or taken advantage of and wants something in return. This dynamic is known as co-dependence.
When you give your time, energy and resources in a way that is depleting for you, and you expect someone else to match it. It’s not unreasonable to want balanced responsibility for the emotional and physical labor of a relationship, nor it is unreasonable to negotiate the labor after the roles have already been unconsciously established. What is unreasonable, is to expect a taker to understand your position when you have already established your willingness to over giving without anything in return. It feels like changing the rules. This sounds unfair, and it is, but deeming it so doesn’t matter, because fairness isn’t a part of an empath/narcissist dynamic. The dynamic is about control. So, even though it’s painful, you have to first ask yourself, what is my part in maintaining this dynamic?

The overgiving fuels the dynamic. Overgiving is also a bid for control. At some level it seems like you are depositing credits in a bank, to establish a secret stash of redeemable tickets. You assume that when you want to make a withdrawal, ie ask for a favor, need support with something, that your reserve will be there. Because you invested, they now owe you and you are shocked when you ask for something and find that your reserve is empty. The taker has taken it because you gave it and it never occurs to a taker that you need or wants something in return. Ever. And in a way, it’s not their fault. I’m not saying I like this dynamic, but I am saying that we are all responsible for our choices, even ones we didn’t know were bad until the result happened. 

We assume that most people, in general, operate on a similar unspoken, lexicon of fairness and reciprocity. Culturally we have an idea of what that is. We take a dish or flowers to a host who has invited us over for a meal, we open the door for an elderly person, we are generally kind to people, and we generally treat strangers with kindness and respect. Except in traffic.

The first thing you need to do to disrupt this dynamic is to recognize your part. If you are overgiving, with an expectation, understand that this is co-dependency. If you are giving, without expectation, then no problem. If you have been giving with latent expectation, such as when the giving in the moment feels like right and good, but then after you overgive for some time, you being to awaken to the pattern of giving and taking, and realize then, that you want reciprocation, the recognizing your part is still the next step. You have to acknowledge the areas in which you feel like you are over giving. If you’re not sure, then look for feelings of resentment. If you are resentful over money or time, then you know that you’ve been over giving in these areas.

The next thing you can do to change this dynamic is to get clear on what you want and need. Lack of clarity about your needs and expectations leads to soft, malleable boundaries. In some relationships, vacillating boundaries can work, but it takes one in which there is a lot of respect to begin with. This is not a luxury an empath, highly sensitive person or giver can afford. 

Next, ask yourself, how does this person’s previous behavior fit within my boundaries? If you can organize your life to limit exposure to the narcissist, then do it. But if it’s a parent, boss or sibling, it’s hard. You can limit exposure, but knowing and defending your boundaries will keep you more grounded, and awake during situations of conflict, and you can plan in advance, what to say and do when your boundaries are transgressed.

Finally, learn to give yourself what you need, and don’t rely on others to fulfill your needs. I know that sounds a little harsh, but for someone who is a chronic over-giver, it’s necessary to develop a relationship to meeting your own needs. The reason is that you usually give to make someone feel good, but also, so they think you are good too. We get a stroke when we feel appreciated by others. It can fuel our own sense of being a good person. When you take time to meet your needs, it actually makes your giving self less likely to give with the intention to get in return.

Please understand I am not advocating that we stop giving to and supporting each other. I am advocating that we take responsibility for why we give, and to who, so we develop a relationship with ourselves around healthy giving and how we feel about reciprocity. It’s an essential part of emotional development and wellness especially for highly sensitive, empathic people.

Let me know in the comments if you have been in an empath/narcissist relationship, and what you did to survive.