Thieves don’t always break your window and steal your wedding ring and watch in the middle of the night.
Sometimes, thieves act as your best friend, your mother, your father, your spouse. And what they can steal is worth far more than a piece of gold.
Without you even noticing, narcissists can and will steal these 8 things without you even noticing. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
When stealing isn’t what you think
When I speak to victims of narcissistic abuse, they nearly always find it difficult to think that the narcissist they know stole a part of them.
When we break down together what stealing really means, of course, it all makes sense.
Stealing something is the act of taking what’s not yours, that belongs to somebody else, without them realizing that you’ve taken it.
And so we go to burglars, we go to people who walk into shops and take goods, we go to pickpockets.
But who are the people who pickpocket your personality, and run away with it?
Who are the people who steal your joy right before your eyes?
Narcissists!
“Thief! You stole my…”
As you’re blissfully unaware of their true intentions, a narcissist will love being able to get away with taking what’s not theirs to begin with.
These are the parts of you that make you who you are; the parts you love and feel good about.
When they no longer exist in your world, they are replaced with the darkness the narcissist leaves with you.
And I get it, I’ve seen it in people I’ve worked with.
They’re angry and sad and surprised it got as far as it did. They hate the idea that they no longer feel complete.
So what kind of things are narcissists so good at stealing?
#1 Pride
This really goes for anything you try to do that you feel good or proud about. Those moments you think, “Yeah, I did that, and I am pleased I did it.”
Where do they go when you wind up with a narcissist? They disappear, that’s for sure, and this is usually down to the narcissist cutting every part of you capable of feeling pride away from you.
When you don’t feel pride in the things you do, you end up no longer doing what you love because, what’s the point?
You lose the ability to give yourself that pat on the back, and to sit in your purpose for a little while and celebrate.
#2 Confidence
Where does your confidence go when you are with a narcissist? It may as well go straight in the bin, because that’s where it feels like the narcissist puts it.
You start off entering the relationship feeling good, and hopeful that you’ve met somebody who seems loving and kind, but that’s far from the reality.
The veil of love is often actually a veil of disguise, and when that falls down over your relationship, the narcissist will do what they can to erode your confidence so that you end up relying on them.
They don’t want you to be sure of yourself, because then you will be easier to manipulate.
Soon enough, you won’t want to wear that nice dress. You won’t want to go out with your friends.
You won’t like the way you cook that chilli because you’ve been told it’s too this, or not enough of that.
As your confidence tanks, you become everything they want you to be.
#3 Joy
Joy is fundamental to us expressing and experiencing good moments in life. It’s where we create our best memories and share them with others.
It is part of a narcissist’s gameplan to steal whatever joy you have, and replace it with fear and sadness.
Getting to know them won’t initially make that obvious, but the more you do, the more you will see how responsible they are for converting your joy into pain.
It’s theft of the soul, and it takes away any opportunity for you to have good days, or even see the good in the good days.
Without you noticing, over time you become somebody who has a huge part of yourself missing.
The only way you can start to get any of it back is by claiming your right to be happy, and getting rid of the narcissist.
#4 Identity
Who are you?
It doesn’t matter, according to the narcissist. Whoever you are, you’re going to be changed anyway.
They see you as the person you are, and they do everything in their power to erode all the good parts.
Your identity makes up all of you. It makes up the parts that you love, the parts you hate, and gives you permission to feel it all.
The injustice of this theft is that you have to work double-hard to find yourself, when it seems to come so easy to everybody else.
#5 Independence
Once upon a time, you’d not hesitate to get in your car, go see friends, drive to work, spend time exploring the world, and enjoy doing it all on your own terms without needing anybody.
If we’re going a little deeper than that, once upon a time it was nice to even have your own thoughts, believe them, and not be swayed by the manipulation of others.
Now you seem to have neither. You rely on the narcissist for almost everything, and that list seems to be growing by the day.
That’s what they wanted to do, so that you never stop needing them.
#6 Decision-making skills
Shall I do this, or shall I go there?
What would be best for me right now?
What do I need to do next?
Which way should I turn?
How am I going to manage doing this?
Should I see my friends tonight?
Any kind of decision that you would have once easily made has become more difficult ever since you’ve known the narcissist.
They’ve stolen your ability to form and trust what you decide and stick to it, and that’s all through months or years of gaslighting.
For them, their plan has worked.
#7 Reality
Reality cannot change, but narcissists disagree. They think so highly of themselves that they can shift your views and perspectives of the world and everything you experience in it.
Without even noticing it, over the years you will have been told that you’re too sensitive, that you’re exaggerating, that what you’re saying never actually happened, and all the while they’re feeding you versions they want you to believe.
It’s dangerous, to say the least.
#8 Self-worth
Self-worth is one of the biggest ones, and it is so subtle over such a long period of time that you don’t even realize it’s happening.
When you are put in situations where the narcissist can bring you down and make you feel worthless, your self-worth is naturally going to erode.
It’s the one thing you can rely on to live a life where you embrace opportunity, but you can’t do that if you don’t feel worthy enough of the consequences.
This is absolutely destroying to the self, but is common where all narcissists are concerned.
