Narcissists are attracted to certain people like bees to honey, and it can feel so difficult to push them away when they keep coming back to you.
But why do they bother you so much? It’s because of one thing you do that keeps them coming back for more.
When you stop it, they will walk away.
Let’s look at what that thing is. Your world is about to change!
Narcissists need you
You may not realize just how badly a narcissist needs you until you have one in your life.
They will pretend they don’t but that’s where you must look and read between the lines, because narcissists are so good at pretending they don’t need anybody, when in fact, they cannot survive alone.
When you’re needed by a narcissist, it’s usually because you’re giving them something that they want in return.
Whether it’s reacting to their commands, willingly playing into their games, or unknowingly allowing yourself to be manipulated by them.
When you’re needed, the narcissist is happy, and it’s almost always the victim who feels totally exhausted.
Attention is like air (They can’t survive without it)
This is what narcissists get when you put them before anything and anybody else. Your attention for them is literally the air they breathe, and without it, they cannot cope for longer than a few seconds.
Attention can look like:
- Doing what they ask
- Paying them compliments just to make them happy
- Appeasing them by offering them what they want to hear
- Reacting emotionally to how they treat you (all attention is good attention)
- Being at their beck and call
Any attention will make them feel important, and now would be a good time to remind you that narcissists don’t feel important, even though they try to act so.
They are insecure people who need all attention to ensure they are deemed some kind of loved, valued person.
When you stop, this happens
So, the attention, for whatever reason, stops. You stop offering your words, your actions, your gestures. You stop dropping everything to put them first.
You stop calling them when they ask you to. You stop asking them what’s wrong when they purposely give you the silent treatment.
It’s a shock to the system for narcissists, who are so used to them being in control, and you being the one they’re controlling.
It’s a system they settle into, and those dynamics are what keep them floating above water, while you’re metaphorically drowning.
When it stops, the narcissist will be shocked to the core. They won’t know what to do first, but they will know there has been a seismic shift in those dynamics that have always worked up until now.
There’s no other way to say it – the narcissist will not thrive when your attention goes elsewhere.
The moment you stop feeding their ego with your exhaustive gestures and emotions, they will wonder what on earth they’re hanging around for.
Suddenly, you aren’t good for everything you previously were good for. You don’t give them what they want, and they can’t trigger you into providing that attention once more.
This is huge, guys. This is a time that you get to totally turn the abuse you’ve tolerated on its head and not just one narcissist, but all narcissists will learn to walk away from you and never come back.
Why would they? What good are you to them if you’re pretending they don’t exist?
When a narcissist walks away…
It proves one thing: that they were narcissists all along. Healthy people don’t need attention all the time.
They can give affection and adoration to others without feeling like they have somehow become depleted of the very thing they’re giving out.
Healthy people love to love, and be compassionate. The listening ear of a person who always has time for you is worth its weight in gold.
Narcissists do not fit this category.
And so if you starve them of attention, forget they’re as important as they’ve made themselves out to be, stop celebrating them in the hope that they will love you back (because they never will), you will find yourself without them in your life.
Your refusal to shower them means this:
- They feel wronged by you.
- You’ve changed and are no longer the kind of person who feeds supply to the narcissist.
- They can’t survive without a lack of supply, so hanging around to see if you change is out of the question.
- Narcissists will walk away because you no longer fit their criteria.
- They know it’s game over. The control has slipped, and you can no longer be manipulated like before.
…it’s a sign you won
I think these are all great signs, even though it symbolizes nothing but a huge shift in dynamics that may initially make you feel pretty uncomfortable.
It’s hard to step out of the role you’ve been forced to play for a long time, especially when the pressure is still on you to want to please people.
You feel guilty for finally standing up for yourself, yet you know the right thing to do is to enable the narcissist to lose interest in you and walk away.
But…you have won.
This is a good thing. It’s a cause for celebration that you need to acknowledge, even for your own sake.
When they keep coming back for more
I’m afraid to say that sometimes initially, this may happen. What you’ve got on your hands is a person who has been so used to your patterns of behavior for years that they’re wondering how they can manipulate you all over again.
The lobe-bombing is usually a good place to start, so if they notice your attention on them dwindling, you’ll find they try to hook you back.
Remember, this is a game to the narcissist. You’re a part of that game, therefore they will never really be in a place where they take you seriously until enough time has passed where they realize, “Oh snap, you really mean it.”
It’s a tough part of stopping your attention on them. You see the way they’re trying to lure you in, and part of you enjoys it because you like attention to. You love to be told that you’re loved (who doesn’t?), but by the narcissist.
They don’t mean it. And they don’t mean it when they try to hook you back. This is all for them, all for supply.
Play no part in it
If you truly want a narcissist to walk away, you have to stick to your original idea that your attention will eventually starve them into leaving.
As you turn your back on them, they will need to start looking for a new source of supply, and pretty quickly because they can’t survive without it.
If you’re not signed up any more, stopping your attention is a sure fire way of letting them know that, and letting them know that no matter how hard they try, you’re never going to give yourself up and go back to them.
And if they walk away, I think that’s a good time to remind yourself how strong you really are.
