How do I survive living with a narcissist (and how should I deal with their exhausting criticism and sense of superiority/domination)?
You can definitely institute some survival strategies as an attempt to hold on to your mental and emotional health and financial stability while living with a narcissist.
- Study them.
- Call it (the narcissism) out.
- Understand the abuse cycle.
- Discern abuse tactics.
- Play a game.
- Be wary of surprise gifts.
- Feed the ego.
- Reset expectations.
- Protect the insecurities.
- Establish boundaries.
- Avoid embarassment.
- Find the good.
It is important to have someone outside the relationship that is supportive when things get rocky. Whether it is a counselor, friend, or family member, their encouragement can rebuild strength in times of weakness.
However …
Since you live with a narcissist, you already know they’ll do everything in their power to sabotage, ruin, and destroy any plans or procedures for maintaining your autonomy, self-respect, and satisfaction. They’ll correctly deduce your plans as antithetical to their attempts at domination and control over you. Since narcissists suffer deep and persistent insecurity and a fraudulent sense of self, they’ll do almost anything to keep themselves from having to examine their missing empathy and self-worth. Count on plenty of discard, triangulation, and hoovering (like the vacuum cleaner, not a helicopter) once they figure out you’re no longer a good source of narcissistic supply.
Wouldn’t you rather devote your precious time and energy to giving yourself the best, most fulfilling, most complete life possible? It won’t be possible with your narcissist in the picture. Your narcissist survival strategies will just allow you to get by with a modicum of health and satisfaction, not the surfeit and bounty of love, health, and respect you truly want.
Go true no contact, get psychological help for your empathic addiction to the narcissist, and start prospering for real.
All the best.
AAAtheist 