You’ve heard of narcissists and sociopaths, but what if someone had to have traits of both disorders? That’s when you have a narcopath on your hands. Trust me, if you end up dating someone with these qualities, you’ll want to get out of the relationship ASAP before it destroys you. Here’s what a narcopath is and how to tell if your partner is one. The more you know, the better equipped you’ll be to protect yourself.
- A narcopath has serious issues. I’ve already mentioned that a narcopath has characteristics of both narcissists and sociopaths. While that’s already troubling in itself, it gets worse – they not only know how to hurt the people in their lives (their “victims”) but also how to prevent them from walking away.
- A narcopath is a confusing blend. On the one hand, a narcopath will be cold and withdrawn but, on the other, desperate for others’ admiration. While they seem to want love, they will hate people and try to exploit them for personal gain. They can’t help themselves.
- A narcopath is after control. It’s all about gaining power for the narcopath. He or she will want to have power over others and won’t think anything of using love and others’ praise to control and manipulate people. There’s nothing worse to someone like this than not being in total control of a situation or not having the upper hand.
- A narcopath love bombs you. You’ve probably heard of love bombing, the dating trend of coming on too strong with someone and showing them with attention. When you’re on the receiving end of this, you might think that the person’s really smitten with you, but there could be (and usually is) a big catch.
- A narcopath withdraws out of the blue. After giving you tons of attention and praise, a narcopath will then suddenly withdraw, leaving you to wonder what’s going on. This is all part of their game to try to control you and get the upper hand.
- A narcopath loves to punish people. A narcopath’s silence or emotional withdrawal can stem from how they love to punish you with the silent treatment. You’ll be left wondering what you did to them, meanwhile, you’ve done nothing. It’s crazy. It’s not only manipulative and abusive, it’s incredibly immature too.
- A narcopath makes you the bad guy. If you’re dating a narcopath, you’ll regularly feel like you’ve done something wrong or hurt them in some way. They never take responsibility for anything. For example, if you confront them about how nasty they were to you, they’ll try to turn the situation around so that you feel guilty for something you’ve done. Yikes.
- A narcopath gives you backhanded compliments. If you’re getting negged by a narcopath or you regularly receive jabs during conversation that hack at your self-esteem, get used to it because a narcopath will love doing this to undermine you and gain control. It’s so sick, but they actually feel good about themselves when they rattle or insult others.
- A narcopath is obsessed with themselves. A narcopath is selfish and self-centered and always obsesses over their appearance. They’ll also want to receive tons of attention and praise for how they look. It’s like dating an insecure man-child. But even worse is how they want that attention so badly only to then use it to control others and bring them down.
- A narcopath is the king/queen of gaslighting. Making you doubt what you’ve seen, heard, or what you feel, is classic gaslighting, but it can also show up in subtler ways. For example, a narcopath will avoid answering your direct questions. If you ask them where they were on Saturday night, they’ll tell you that they miss you and then ask why you’re being paranoid. See, they love to turn things onto you because they want you to feel you’re the problem. It’s enough to make you go crazy.
- A narcopath loves to be fought over. A narcopath loves being the center of attention, but he or she will take this one step further by making people fight each other so that they can control people and situations. A classic example of this is setting up fake love triangles to make their partners jealous and make others fight harder for them. They’re so messed up and they’re not worth it. If you suspect your partner could be a narcopath, run – don’t walk – away before you get tangled up in their web.
