Narcissists Don’t Want You To Be Happy

You heard me.

Some of you may be surprised, and others you’ll have difficulty agreeing. It depends on how well you have figured out the narcissist, you know.

But I’m here to break it to you…

…There isn’t a narcissist alive who wants you to smile.

They like it when you cry.

They love it when you beg.

They are at their best when you are suffering.

It’s warped, and it’s weird – but I want to break it down for you.

“It Doesn’t Make Any Sense!”

I don’t want to be blunt, but nothing about narcissists makes sense. The catch of falling for somebody so toxic is that you will never understand why they do the things they do and why they’re so insistent on hurting everybody around them.

Even Mom or Dad…

Narcissistic parents can be some of the worst kinds of people who don’t want you to be happy.

Imagine having a child, and not wanting the best for them because it might involve you having to make sacrifices, or seeing them eventually become more successful than you.

Think about what it might feel like for a child never to get that unconditional love from a parent because they would rather invoke an unhealthy level of anxiety in you.

What does that do? It then causes you to miss out on the very opportunities they want you to take.

It doesn’t make sense, does it? But most of all – it’s the worst kind of upbringing to have. Children grow into teens, who grow into adults, who never know what it’s like to be encouraged, supported, loved or valued…

… All because their narcissistic parent doesn’t want them to be happy. 

You Think They Care…

I think this is the part that hurts the most. The part where you get a fragment of affection or attention from the narcissist. 

Parent, spouse or friend – they ask you how you are. They listen to your achievements. They give you the impression that what you did, matters. 

Then there’s the moral part of you that assumes they care (why wouldn’t you think that?!).

Anybody who is a close part of your life should want you to do well, right?! Anything else seems incomprehensible. 

“So, The Person I Love is Lying?”

Yes and no. 

They aren’t lying about their feelings so much they’re just unable to feel what they tell you they feel.

Happiness, love, pride – it just doesn’t exist in the heart or mind of a narcissist. So when you get an opportunity to be happy, they don’t know how to feel it. 

Sure, they can tell you. But the problem is that emotions get in the way of that being real.

Jealousy.

The attention is on you, not them. They want what you have without working for it. They see you as able, and them as unable in the moment you are happy. They don’t like your happiness because it means you are enjoying something. 

“I Cannot Control This…”

The main reason they secretly cannot stand to see you happy is their inability to control what you’re happy about. They can’t take that away from you if you just passed an exam.

If you win a competition – they can’t change the winner. If you get a new job, they know somebody decided to label you ‘the best.’

They want to be the best. They want whatever it is that’s made you so full of joy. Not being able to have a hand in control of that makes it incredibly painful to watch you continue to be happy in their presence.

Your Happiness To Them Is…

…how they plot their revenge.

I hate to say it, but I really do. I’ve lost count of the number of times somebody has told me that the moment they expressed any form of happiness to the narcissist in their life, it was immediately quashed.

They hate it. How dare you be happy when they have such a tough life? How dare you share positive news when they’ve been at work all day just trying to pay the bills?

As it stands – narcissists will see your happiness and right away begin thinking of ways in which it can just stop.

What That Does To You 

Like most victims of narcissistic abuse, you will learn to simply not be happy. You will either refrain from sharing news worthy of a hug or celebratory meal out, or you will see positivity as something to worry about or avoid altogether. 

It’s quite common for victims to do the following when it comes to their own happiness:

Learning to Dread

Self Sabotage

It seems crazy, doesn’t it? A person will actively and consciously destroy anything good that tries to enter their life under the assumption that, “Well, it’ll eventually go wrong anyway, so what’s the point?” 

Either that or:

“I don’t deserve it, so I may as well show it the door now.”

It can get really bad if you start to think:

“I don’t even know how to be happy any more.”

How many of you have thought in that kind of frame?

It’s soul-destroying to hear from the people in my line of work who have all come to me with that look of complete disconnection on their faces.

“Alex, I just don’t know how to respond to positivity anymore. I literally feel nothing when I receive good news because I have learned to numb that part of my brain.”

Is that what you want? Of course not! But it’s just what happens over time when narcissists behave the way they do.

Teaching you that your happiness doesn’t matter, or shouldn’t exist, is how you get taught you don’t matter.

It’s How You Lose Yourself

Before you know it, you’re lost and unable to know what happened to you. 

And all for what? 

All for the narcissist to feel better about themselves, knowing you can never truly be happy.

They get to control your emotions and leave you stuck in this sea of uncertainty and confusion. Worse than that, you continue to see people around you happy and full of smiles, and you wonder when the last time you felt like that was. 

In truth – it’s probably been a while – and there’s only one person you can blame for that.

The narcissist who doesn’t want you to be happy so they can control the narrative of your entire emotional system. 

What happens from that?

You feel like you’d be lost without them and are far less likely to leave as a result.