7 Ways a Narcissist Will Keep You in a Toxic Cycle

Remind yourself of these things if you are trying to break free

Photo by Andrea Dibitonto on Unsplash

I don’t often work with narcissists.

That’s because not many willingly sign up for therapy. When their relationships are struggling they are more likely to think their partner is the problem. Not them. Never them.

But I hear a lot of narcissist stories from their partners, their staff, their children, their parents — people they have hurt.

In intimate relationships, these people generally fall into two categories.

• People who are out of their relationships with narcissists and want to keep it that way. Often aware of their vulnerability where that person is concerned, they want to shore up their ability to keep the gate firmly shut. Or they may just want help to recover from the toxic legacy.
• People who know they are in an unhealthy relationship but have not yet found a way out. Perhaps logistics, their circumstances, their emotional struggles are preventing it. They want to better understand the abusive cycle and coping strategies to help them manage and eventually free themselves from it.

It’s not possible to diagnose a narcissist by proxy — from someone else’s report. That would be wrong, as well as…