Avoid Getting Entangled with Covert Narcissists – You Can Waste Your Time, Effort, Money or Giving that Exhausting Emotional Support and It Won’t Make A Difference to the Recipient

Avoid Getting Entangled with Covert Narcissists – You Can Waste Your Time, Effort, Money or Giving that Exhausting Emotional Support and It Won’t Make A Difference to the Recipient

Time permitting, as I go forward, I’d like to do a series of posts warning anyone out there, especially if they are still a “rescuer,” an empath, or codependent, and/or a woman raised in churches teaching traditional gender roles under “gender complementarianism,” of not over-doing things for other people.

I did start a page about this issue which is under construction – I think I’d like to update that page later, or rework it. I haven’t decided. (The page is (Link): Offering Unconditional, Indefinite Emotional Support to Anyone and Everyone, or to the Same Person for Years, in Whatever Situations – It’s a Trap!)

Regardless of the messages you got from your family of origin, or the messages you get from secular culture, or messages you got from your gender complementarian church or preachers as you were growing up:

You have to be very careful and choosy about whom you give your emotional support, time, and attention to, and even among those whom you think are in legitimate need, you have to limit how much you do for the person, and for how long or how often.

There are people out there who have deep emotional or psychological issues, some have incurable personality disorders (such as NPD and watered down narcissistic traits) whom you will NOT be able to save, rescue, or fix…
No matter how hard you try, no matter how much you pray for the person, and no matter how long you spend doing things for them or trying to cheer them up or make their life better.

Never make your choices on whether to help another person, including whether or not to give them emotional support, strictly out of pity or compassion, or you can and will be taken advantage of as you go through life, or end up wasting your time and being left drained.

You will end up exhausted and/or with a depleted bank account, if any part of your rescuing includes financing any part of this person’s needs or dreams in life. Beware.

The following is from the page….

(Link): Covert narcissist: 5 things they do and how to handle them by L. Brown

Are You a Target for Covert Narcissists?
Covert narcissists tend to target a certain personality type. These are people who possess characteristics that make them most susceptible to covert narcissist behavior, people that covert narcissists can manipulate, exploit, and control over an extended period of time.

These characteristics include:

• • • Nurturer, home-maker (they pity the vulnerable side of the narcissist)
    • Caretaker
    • Extremely sensitive
    • Quiet
    • Doesn’t have a big social network (they must rely on the narcissist)
    • Self-doubting
    • Overly kind
    • Self-reflective (they have a desire to become better which the narcissist can exploit)
    • Self-sacrificing (even if they do recognize the exploitation, they stay to help)
      —– end excerpts from article by Brown —–

I am a recovered codependent who was brought up under gender complementarianism, so yes, while I was in that state (from childhood into my mid-40s or so), I kept attracting damaged people, emotionally needy people, depressed people, social misfits, shy people, selfish people, people with personality disorders – all of these people wanted my time, attention, non-judgmental emotional support, validation, affection, and in some cases, money.

After having spent years and years ignoring my own needs to meet the needs of all these people over the course of my life,  I ended up exhausted and feeling taken advantage of.

The vast majority of those whom I helped seldom met my needs in return, and not one that I can recall, ever thanked me for listening to them, supporting them, or helping them in whatever way.

After my mother died, knowing how draining it can be to give emotional support (since I had done it for others for three plus decades!), on those few occasions a small number of people listened to me discuss my problems, I made sure to thank those few individuals. I expressed gratitude.

I never had all the previous needy people in my life thank me even once, not in all my 35+ years of listening to them discuss, cry, or rant about their problems.

Most emotionally needy, narcissistic, depressed, or pessimistic people are oblivious at how tiring it is to listen to them weep or complain for hours and/or over months, especially if they complain about the same problem or two repeatedly and they do nothing to solve the problem(s) they complain about.

During the years I bought into complementarianism and remained codependent, I felt I was obligated to help anyone and everyone who came to me presenting as an injured, hurting, sad, needy person.  I felt guilty if I didn’t help these people.

And I felt guilty about putting boundaries or time limits in place (and I was taught NOT to do so by secular, social conditioning, my family, and complementarian Christians), so I didn’t enforce boundaries with these very needy people.

What I just said goes against all the messages women get from secular culture, their church, or their families, which leads them to think it’s their duty (a woman’s responsibility or God’s design, for women) to be nurturing, to grant chance after chance (limitless forgiveness, don’t have boundaries), to “fix” relationships, to grant un-ending emotional labor to other people, to put other people’s needs first at all times, no matter what the circumstances are.

One group of people you have to be on guard against are Covert Narcissists.

Emma Responds – My Comments

Emma Responds – My Comments

-post updated below, June / August 2022… post has been edited after publication to add more links and commentary –

The individual I wrote about previously, who decided, a week or so ago, she no longer wanted to be friends with me (after having first contacted me years ago online), contacted me again this evening via a private chat app.

I referred to her as “Emma” in (Link): the last blog post or two, but “Emma” is not her real name.

I have no idea how “Emma” was able to message me again on this other app, as I unfriended her on there, but a message popped up in my in box there.

I will again be keeping “Emma” anonymous and changing any identifying details.

I may be sharing some of her comments to me so I can respond.

Emma wrote to me:

“You’re free to reply, but I will not be responding”
— end —

Okay, so I will be replying here.

Why Women Are Tired: The Price of Unpaid Emotional Labor by C. Hutchison

Why Women Are Tired: The Price of Unpaid Emotional Labor by C. Hutchison 

(Link): Why Women Are Tired: The Price of Unpaid Emotional Labor by C. Hutchison

My comments about this subject, before copying some excerpts from the link above:

Another form of Male Entitlement: expecting the women around you to cheer you up, listen empathetically as you tell them about your problems. (Though other women can also be guilty of this at times, as I wrote of (Link): here).

In a (Link): much older post I wrote, where I linked to and excerpted an article from elsewhere, some guy in the article admitted that when he went to a local bar after a day at work, he enjoyed the female bartender more than the male ones, because any time he tried to talk about his problems (and receive empathy for his problems) from the males, the male bartenders would tell him to shut up and get over it.

However, when the lady bartender was on duty, she would listen to him and offer sympathy, he said. He relied on and appreciated her willingness to listen and respond with empathy.

My ex-fiance talked non-stop (as I wrote of (Link): here). He always wanted me to listen to him talk about his life, he never cared about mine, and he never asked about my views on anything. My ex expected me to stroke his ego and cheer him up in his ups and downs in life – but he was unwilling to do this for me.

My ex college friend made my mother’s death (Link): all about himself when I sent him notice of my mother’s passing. He talked about himself in his reply to me, instead of just doing what he should have and said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”. This ex friend making everything about himself was a pattern for him.

Even before my mother died, my ex college friend would e-mail me and talk about himself – he would ask me a question or two about me, but when I would write back commenting on HIS life – as well as responding to his questions about my life – he would never comment on my replies ABOUT ME.

I got the feeling he was asking about me only out of a sense of politeness. I don’t think he really cared about me or what I was up to or what I was thinking.

While some women can be very self absorbed and can be emotional vampires (I’ve been friends with a few and am related to one), I think at least most women are aware that they’re doing this to another woman (and women tend to be aware of how it can be draining to be someone’s emotional support), but men seem to have a blind spot in this area.

Emotional Labor and Female- On- Female Emotional Exploitation

Emotional Labor and Female- On- Female Emotional Exploitation

I was thinking about possibly writing a post or two more about the concept of Emotional Labor in the future.

First, here is a primer from another site explaining a little bit about what this issue is about, with a few comments by me farther (way farther) below it:

(Link):  50 Ways People Expect Constant Emotional Labor from Women and Femmes

Excerpt:

Emotional labor is the exertion of energy for the purpose of addressing people’s feelings, making people comfortable, or living up to social expectations. It’s called “emotional labor” because it ends up using – and often draining – our emotional resources.

Now, don’t get me wrong: Asking friends for advice, reaching out to people in your line of work, and other actions I’m about to mention can be part of a healthy relationship. The issue arises when it’s not reciprocal.

Many marginalized people can tell you that people frequently make demands of them that cross the line from participation in a mutual relationship to work – and unpaid work, at that.

Because we’re assumed to be naturally emotionally intelligent and nurturing, people don’t always understand that this is work for us. And because we’re expected to put others before ourselves, a lot of people don’t even care.

Here are just a few of the many ways that women and femmes, in particular, are expected to perform emotional labor without compensation or acknowledgement throughout their lives:

2. Friends offload their problems – sometimes serious problems that we’re not equipped to handle – onto us before we have agreed to talk about them, often expecting an immediate response.

3. Casual acquaintances and sometimes complete strangers do the same, often over the Internet and often sharing triggering details

6. When we have relatives or friends with physical or mental illnesses, they and their loved ones are more likely to reach out to us than men to take care of them.