Are you a narcissist magnet? By the end of this article, you’ll know who narcissists are attracted to and vice versa, and how to protect yourself from becoming a target of this heinous personality.
Now, are you a narcissist magnet? This is a question I’ve actually had to ask my own self as I have been the target victim/survivor/thriver of two covert narcissists. Yep. Not just one, but two. Not husbands, but people that were close to me in my life, close enough to wreak havoc, spend time renting space in my head, and causing drama and trauma and chaos. So I know how awful it is.
It made me question because here I am, an accomplished attorney. I’ve gotten lots and lots of awards for being an attorney. I think that I’m a pretty confident person. However, it happened to me. So how did that happen? What kind of personality do narcissists look for to target? What are they magnetized to? And vice versa. There’s a personality type that is also attracted to narcissists. Believe it or not. And that personality type is often called an empath. An empath is a person who deeply cares, who deeply feels other people’s emotions, who deeply wants to help people, has this really internal need to save or help people. Empaths are often also very successful and confident and magnetic, and they have a personality that everybody wants to be around.
Narcissists want that, too. So one of the things that you’ll see is sensitivity. People who are extremely sensitive, or sensitive to other people’s feelings, they sense what’s going on in the narcissist. They have this true need to feel comfort and to provide a listening ear and be there for them as well as building up their ego, telling them how wonderful they are. Narcissists have this deep need for supply, so the sensitive person, the empath, is just willing to give that to them. “You’re so wonderful. You can do it. Oh, don’t be so down on yourself.” That’s just something that we, as empaths, do naturally. We want people to feel better. We feel like we can love the whole world back to health, and that we have enough love to go around. So we give the sensitivity to the narcissist and the narcissist just sucks it up, sucks it up, sucks it up.
The other thing about really sensitive people is that we tend to be more introspective. We tend to try to look at, “Oh, why is this person acting this way? Oh, it’s probably because they had deep wounds in their childhood, or this happened to them as a kid. Or maybe they’re down on their luck because they lost their job.” Thus for the first several years of being with the narcissist, the empath might find themselves in a place of explaining a way or defending the narcissist behavior because they’re wounded in some way. Somehow, that makes it okay. But you just tend to look away from the fact at how they may be treating you because they have these wounds inside of them. That’s one thing that sensitive people will do.
The next quality that narcissists look for is security. This is a person who tends to be secure in who they are, and you would think it would be the opposite of what you would think, right? But narcissists want what other people want. And so they want to feel secure. So they feel like if they can get in that person’s space, that they’ll also feel more secure. The really crazy part about that is then they come to resent the fact that you feel secure, and they resent the fact that you might be confident and they try to bring you down. They try to tear you down. They try to make you feel worse. Because somehow, if they can bring down the person that’s confident or secure, then that must make them better in some way.
The next quality of a narcissist magnet is kindness. Empaths tend to be very kind to people and are wonderful people to be around. They just also tend to be narcissist magnets. What happens with narcissists sometimes is that they mistake kindness for weakness. They think that that’s going to be a good target for them and somebody that they can easily control and manipulate as well.
The next quality of a narcissist magnet is anyone who is successful, has lots of people who like them, who’s popular, who’s impressive, who has lots of talents, lots of great friendships, they’re in the right circles. Because narcissists want to attach themselves to people who can do something for them. So if they think that it’ll help them in their business or make them look good in some way to be attached to you, then they will jump on that train and try to suck as much value out of being associated with you as possible. The problem with that is that they don’t care about you at all. Once they have attached themselves to you, then they start this whole thing of trying to devalue you and bring you down. The crazy thing is, about narcissists, is they act that way, especially covert narcissists, which is what I had to deal with.
Narcissists are survivors. They have no inner sense of value. All of their value comes from the external. They’re like the hollow chocolate Easter bunnies. They might look good on the outside, but there’s nothing inside. Thus they suck all that supply that they can off the people. They’re like parasites or leeches. Sometimes called energy vampires. But that’s what they do. And so there is this really unfortunate symbiotic relationship between narcissism and empaths because we, as empaths, think that we can help them, save them, love them, give them what they want. And they, as narcissists, are happy to just take, take, take, take, take, until you realize that all you’re doing is giving into this black hole. It’s not helping them. They certainly don’t appreciate it. It’s not like all this stuff you’re doing for them, they’re going to recognize. That’s the price of just being in their space. And you just are left feeling like all the life has been drained out of you.
So if this is you, if you are the empath and you realize that you are a narcissist magnet, the first thing I’m going to tell you to do right now, somebody who’s taken my own advice, is get these people the hell out of your life, create super strong boundaries as fast as you possibly can. You may not be able to get them completely out of your life, but you can definitely create super strong boundaries to try to get them out of your life as fast as you can. I know that I’ve had to go zero contact with one of them, and minimal contact with another. And that’s only because that person is a member of an extended part of my family.
So otherwise, I would be on zero contact completely. So get them out of your life as fast as you possibly can. So that’s the first thing that you have to do. The second thing that you can do is pivot. Use whatever tactics you can to pivot so that when they are in your head and occupying your thoughts, just start to think about, “What else can I be doing?” Because remember, every minute you’re thinking about them is a moment that they are stealing joy from you. They’re stealing creativity, they’re stealing time where you can be loving people and caring about people who are actually worth it, who can accept your love. I mean, the thing about narcissists is they’re like a stone. You could put something on it and it’s not going in there.
I mean, they can’t accept it. They don’t have the capacity to love you back. It’s just a waste of time and energy. And don’t let them rent space in your head for free. Okay. So if you are an empath, I send you joy, I send you light, I send you strength, I send you peace.
If you are dealing with a narcissist and you want to know more about how to communicate with them, come join me at my FREE Webinar, the 3 MUST HAVE Secrets for Communicating with a Narcissist. You can sign up for that RIGHT HERE.