The day at home has been peaceful, with a thin layer of anxiety coating it.
The peace comes from the narcissist being out, but there’s no mistaking that layer of anxiety is building up to their return.
What to expect when they do get home? A total atmosphere change.
These 10 disturbing things narcissists do the moment they get home are typical behaviors, and they are enough to make you sick to your stomach.
#1 They always return home in a bad mood
Do you notice the air change when the narcissist gets home? That will be down to the fact that they always return home in a bad mood.
You could have had the best day, but it becomes shrouded in darkness the moment they step in the door and leave a stagnant scent in the air.
What could be so bad about their day, every day? If that were me coming home from work, or anywhere else for that matter, I’d be questioning my life choices and asking myself what needs to change.
I don’t think you can honestly expect a narcissist to be happy when they come home, regardless of what their day consisted of.
The energy they bring home with them is intended only to make you feel your usual anxious self around them, and to feel guilty for them being in a bad mood.
It’s not your problem.
#2 They slam the door shut
The slamming of the door bugs a lot of people, and I’m hardly surprised. I mean, what is the point in coming home and making such a noise most or every evening?
Well, I can let you in on a little secret here. The slamming of the door is the narcissist’s way of saying:
I am home and I want to make everything about me – including what moose you are in.
It’s quite nauseating, isn’t it? To think they’re doing it to reassume their power is typical of them, but it’s also painstaking for you, the victim.
#3 They ignore your greeting
When the narcissist gets home and you greet them, they have this awful, tiresome habit of rejecting you by ignoring you.
This means the house continues to be ruled by fear, not love. What else could the narcissist possibly be achieving by not coming home and entering a nice, warm, peaceful environment?
Everybody anticipates the moment the narcissist gets home, and all for the worst reasons imaginable.
Rinse, repeat, day after day.
#4 They complain immediately
Work was terrible.
People are idiots.
The traffic was awful.
The day was long.
I’m too tired for this.
Narcissists want your sympathy and are so good at playing victim to get it, and that starts the moment they enter the house.
Everything you were doing before has to stop, and the good vibes you might have been feeling have shriveled to nothing.
They don’t care how your day was, or how bad it may have been. The focus of attention must be on them, and their terrible experiences.
This comes as no surprise, as the narcissist not only brings themselves home, they also bring their attitude with them.
And that is never positive.
#5 Once they’ve settled, they demand your attention
So, the show is over. The narcissist is home. The silence has been executed. The shouting commenced and ended.
Just as you’re reeling from their chaotic entrance to being home again – like always – they want your attention.
And where are you? My God. You’re probably still so dysregulated from their actions and moods that you don’t even know which way is up and which way is down.
You’re an anxious ball, you’re feeling heavy and weighed down by their mere presence. And the narcissist?
They are acting like nothing happened.
They’re over their little display, and now they want you to get their dinner. They want you to listen to them as they talk about whatever they want.
They create any situation where you have to pay them the utmost attention.
How can a switch work so instantly?
#6 They criticize everything you do
What have you been doing all day?
Do you call this a tidy house?
Didn’t you have anything worth doing today?
Why did you make chilli on a Thursday?
You look annoyed, what’s your problem?
Why did you slam the plate down like that?
Whatever you do, it will be criticized. I’ll tell you why.
If the narcissist can pretend that you’ve got a problem, it will cover theirs. You’re the scapegoat, here.
#7 The TV goes on…loudly
A shared space becomes the narcissist’s private kingdom where they can cut connections and communication with everybody else within it.
The TV goes on loudly so that nobody can talk about their day, or make small talk with each other.
If the TV is on loud, it commands the attention of everybody. It is the focal point.
Narcissists love it as a way of channeling one thing only, and that thing has nothing to do with relationships or family, so you just have to sit there and put up with the noise.
And if you have a problem with that? Then you are the problem.
#8 They search the fridge with aggression
Everything is done with such clout and anger when it comes to narcissists.
They can’t even go into the fridge without banging around, looking for something that I can guarantee won’t be there because, “You didn’t buy it!”
Even not having the right type of cheese becomes your fault, and you naturally think, “Gosh if I knew, I’d have gone out today to get some.”
You could have done that, but then the narcissist won’t want it. They will want ham instead, or anything else that isn’t the thing you went to buy.
#9 No eye contact – at all
You can tell a lot about what a person thinks of you and how they’re feeling, based on how they look at you.
You can tell a lot about their day just by looking in their eyes and seeing how fired up they are, or happy, or tired, or stressed, or fed up.
No eye contact at all makes it incredibly hard to gauge and gather what’s going on, and instead you’re left to assume.
When victims assume, it nearly always leads to negative thought biases, or panic that there’s a bad mood lurking within their abuser that they may receive the brunt of.
Why not just be nice? Why not just be normal? Is it so hard?
#10 They retreat without a word: like nothing happened
Rather alarmingly, narcissists never seem to care about how they present to you, and how it may make you feel.
I don’t want to say that they aren’t aware, because if you can control when you’re being shitty, and when you’re being a nice person, then you are purposely being those things at certain times for your greater good, and not that of the people you’re surrounded by.
Retreating as if nothing happened is like leaving the scene of the crime you committed without even looking back or wondering how the people you left are.
It’s just not cool, and it’s incredibly disturbing that a narcissist is able to do this with ease.
