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Do you think the narcissists in your life have been happy people? It’s not a trick question for those who have lived behind closed doors with a narcissistic person (especially someone diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder). Their behaviors speak louder than the explosion of a nuclear bomb. Narcissists are unhappy people, and they have no one else to blame but themselves.

It all boils down to the patterns of self-inflicted misery they create. Far from the picture painted by reckless pop psychology, narcissistic people don’t only target others with their pain. They hurt themselves with their inability to align with purposeful, meaningful lives and relationships with others.

What truly makes a person narcissistic?

When someone is narcissistic, it means that they are high in traits that would (clinically speaking) bring them to the threshold of Narcissistic Personality Disorder diagnosis. It’s acknowledging a very specific pattern of behavior and manipulation that is rooted in a lack of empathy. Someone narcissistic isn’t simply “selfish.” They are inherently cold and cruel when it comes to their desires and perceptions of others.

A truly narcissistic person isn’t simply someone who walks around the world acting like the most important person in the room. Their manipulative and self-aggrandizing behavior can manifest in different ways:

• Vulnerable narcissism: Also known as a “covert” narcissist, this type of narcissist uses crisis and victimhood to emotionally abuse, control, and manipulate their victims and everyone else around them.
• Communal narcissist: Needs a big supply of attention and grandiose opinions, so they often position themselves in places of altruistic power to get a greater crowd to manipulate. Think church elder, politician, or community leader.
• Spiritual narcissist: Like the communal narcissist, the spiritual narcissist needs a big supply. However, they achieve their supply primarily through the spiritual subjugation of others (even if that subjugation is only in their family and not in the public pulpit of the church).
• Malignant narcissist: One of the most dangerous types of narcissist, this is a highly manipulative person who takes pleasure in the destruction of others. Their primary motivating emotion is jealousy. Feeling slighted by a world that didn’t reinforce their delusions, they go out of their way to strike down anyone perceived to be “better” than them (even their own children).

The narcissistic behaviors we have all come to abhor manifest in so many different ways that it’s important for survivors to keep themselves educated. Abusive narcissistic types are masters of disguise and will take on any new form they have to in order to gain psychological control over others.

People diagnosed with NPD are inherently manipulative, and they spend a great deal of their lives lying to everyone…especially themselves. That’s what makes it impossible for the narcissist to be happy without extensive therapy and psychological treatment. Misery is a part of who they are, and they choose it down every avenue in their lives.

Is it possible for a narcissist to be happy?

One question that is not discussed enough is the narcissistic capability to achieve “happiness” or at the very least contentment. From the outside, it can look as though that is their only pursuit. Because so much of what they do is self-beneficial and harmful to others, it’s easy to be deceived by the idea that a narcissist is self-possessed and in the pursuit of things that truly matter to them.

Nothing, however, could be further from the truth.

In reality, narcissists have an incredibly unstable self-image. They don’t know who they truly are or what they truly want because they spend their lives in the pursuit of an outward standard of perfection (or mask). Those things aren’t aligned with what they truly desire.

The narcissist with the soul of an artist will choose the path of a politician because it gives them a greater supply, and completes the illusion more effectively. Desperate for a life lived in travel and nomadism, a narcissistic woman will choose the path of a Stepford mother if it means completing the image she believes will give her the greatest safety and acclaim.

This is what it is to be a truly narcissistic person. Inherently crippled by their insecurities and fears, they create impossible masks meant to keep the world from seeing their truth. What happens is these masks keep the narcissist away from their core truths — namely, lives that are purposefully aligned and full of fulfillment and good.

A narcissistic person can’t help but create chaos everywhere they go, no matter what type of narcissist they are. They are the storm that never ends, a hunger that cannot truly ever be satiated. That’s the point at which so many of them become the abusive monsters that lurk under the bed of our memories.

Running from their self-inflicted unhappiness, they inflict misery on everyone else. With no desire or willingness to resolve their own hurts, they look to the world to take on their pain and cleave a path of heartbreak and devastation in their wake.

How narcissists create a life of self-inflicted misery.

The misery of a narcissistic lifestyle becomes abundantly clear when one peels back the lid and allows a radical vision of the truth to appear. Narcissists create chaos wherever they are, in their relationships and their careers. They cannot help but make the wrong decisions and alienate themselves socially, reinforcing the misery they try so hard to dissociate from.

Turbulent relationships

So many narcissistic people use relationships as a key part of their worldly projections. Not only does a partner (or even a close friend) provide a lot of supply and soothing, but they can also be worn like a badge of honor on the narcissist’s chest. That’s why so many narcissistic people align themselves with people who look beneficial on paper. The better their relationships look on the outside, the better they look.

There is no such thing as a narcissist with a stable relationship. It doesn’t matter what you’re shown on the outside. Even the narcissistic person who has been married for 20 years will be keeping the lid tied tightly over evenings where there is cheating, extreme anger, betrayal, and worse.

Narcissistic people, because they are so obsessed with projecting their delusional narratives, create relationships that are chaotic and highly controlled. They want their partners, their children, their friends, and their family to play along with their delusions and supply them with whatever emotional labor or material support they demand.

In the end, most of their relationships result in serious conflict, emotional distance, and outright harm. This misery affects victims and narcissists alike. Those who refuse to play along with a narcissistic person’s relationship demands will find themselves discarded and even (potentially) destroyed in the eyes of others through gaslighting.

Unrewarding careers

When we see narcissistic people in places of power at work, it’s frustrating. How can someone so fundamentally deceptive reach such heights? How can people not see the truth? It’s easy to imagine that narcissistic people are thriving, climbing ladders that other people never even get shown. That’s not really the reality of what’s going on beneath the surface, however.

Because so many narcissistic people are anchored in that unstable self-image, they chase what other people want. So it becomes common for narcissistic people to put them on career paths that leave them unfulfilled and empty (even if they are materially successful).

One may see a narcissistic person going all the way into a career like medicine, only to be miserable on the other side. Climbing the corporate ladder may be easy for another, but the family at home — who get the screaming, the yelling, and the emotional dumping — will tell you how miserable that narcissist is sitting on top of all the other employees.

Narcissists choose careers that look the most likely to affirm their grandiosity while shielding their deepest fears and insecurities from the world. Neither of those motivations equates to true happiness in the long run.

Endless stress and pressure

Some narcissistic people are complacent dolts who are happy to sit back on their laurels while the demands of their desires crush everyone else around them. They don’t want to lift a figure, literally or figuratively, so they saddle their loved ones with the burden of doing the heavy lifting in their lives. Not every narcissist is happy with this complacency. Some choose a path of “perfection” that destroys them entirely.

Take the narcissistic person, for example, who gets their supply from work (like the one above). They want a big, fancy job title that gives them power over a lot of people. The problem, though, is that those jobs come with a lot of responsibility.

What begins as the simple desire to lord some power over people soon becomes a massive machine. The narcissistic person can find themselves involved in social organizations, work cliques, and the additional stress of responsibilities like hiring, firing, and payroll.

A narcissistic person will take on important positions. They will load their plates with the tasks that everyone asks of them, burn themselves out in work and relationships, trying to perform as the perfect powerhouse of a person. In the end, it’s all an illusion meant to cover up their insecurities and keep them on the run from truly facing themselves (and emotional resolution).

Devastated families

One wouldn’t think a narcissistic person would be fast to build a family, but many are. In fact, families are one of the fastest and easiest ways for narcissists to create an endless supply for themselves. Even better, narcissistic people can abuse their families freely and receive little questioning or punishment for it. This, of course, leaves their partners and their children in those families devastated.

As much power as a narcissist gets from their family, it creates a pattern of torment for them too. The stress of a family environment can be just as crushing to the narcissistic person who sees it as a source of power and control.

They, too, still have to confront the realities of children and family obligations, and it can burn away their already short fuse. No matter how miserable they are in a family unit, a narcissist traps themselves in one if it means putting on the mask to the public. They will objectify children and partners alike, making them a part of the glimmering face they show to the world as the “perfect” mother or father with “perfect” children.

Behind closed doors, though, it’s a constant power struggle. Screaming matches, triangulation, and all-out emotional war are common features in the narcissistic household, and the narcissist suffers in the middle, right beside everyone else they subjugate and sabotage.

Social alienation

Wait long enough, and you will witness every narcissistic person going through a period of extreme loneliness and social alienation. Why? Eventually, everyone wakes up to the way they feel around a narcissist, if nothing else. Humans are creatures of self-preservation. Make them miserable enough, and they will eventually wander away toward softer climes where they aren’t made to feel so devastatingly guilty or bad about themselves.

It happens to the narcissistic person over and over again. They push people around too much, jump over too many boundaries, and the relationship shifts or ends altogether.

One way or the other, everyone around a narcissist goes into “retirement,” and the narcissist is left alone. Narcissistic people socially alienate themselves. In the early years, it was easy. They readjust, find new friends and partners, and move on. Narcissistic people age and break down like anyone else, though (sometimes more). That leaves them at a crossroads with a choice.

They can either continue the rancid game of readjusting and finding new friend groups, or they can wallow. Eventually, the game of attaching to new people becomes wearing for them, and one can see them resigning themselves to tightly controlled environments of sheer misery. This is why it’s not uncommon to find narcissistic people alone in nursing homes, with no contact with adult children, with few to no close friends, etc.

Standing back to watch abusers burn.

This next part is for the victims of narcissistic people, specifically those who are still in the throes of healing. It’s an impossible place to dwell. On one hand, compassion is desired. On the other hand, though, there is a deep-seated rage and a desire to see the narcissistic person served by justice.

That is rarely the path for survivors of narcissistic abuse, however. Justice, when dealing with a narcissist, is rarely dealt with swiftly or as we desire. It can leave one with unresolved feelings of hurt. Many can feel as though there is no closure when their abusers still walk the earth freely, climbing toward outward displays of love and success.

For this reason, it’s important for survivors to acknowledge the truth: that the narcissist is miserable. That they are creating lives that are not truly aligned with things that will sew happiness and contentment in the future.

Survivors of narcissistic abusers can take solace in this reality and empower themselves to let go. Rather than waiting for the swift hammer of justice to fall, they can set themselves up on a slower (but no less rewarding) path of waiting. Survivors can choose the long game.

The long game is the one of watching the narcissists destroy themselves. Leaving them in the rearview mirror, you can take a safe seat to the destruction without becoming a part of it. Keeping your hands entirely clean and your conscience clear, this knowledge allows you to watch the narcissistic abuser in your life destroy themselves slowly with drop-by-drop of their own poison.

***

In the end, the narcissist is always their own greatest enemy. Desperate to hide their perceived “true self” from the world, they end up in prisons of their own making. They pick partners just like them, opportunities that don’t fill them up, and a host of other miseries that achieve one simple goal: self-destruction.

Narcissists will inflict just as much damage on themselves as anyone else. Survivors don’t have to plot out revenge; they simply have to find a safe victim to stand back and watch the wreckage burn. That’s a hard spot to get to, but it's achievable when you take a hard look at reality and strengthen the self in the process.

In every case, the abusive narcissist and the malignant narcissist wind up where all narcissists do. Alone. They are the loneliest monsters, racking up a life of self-inflicted suffering that could be so different if they got out of their way. But the narcissist doesn’t want to do that. A true narcissist wants to be in that misery, in that wallow. Leave them to it and focus on building a self-affirming future away from their manipulation and abuses.

Julia Brailovskaia, Hans-Werner Bierhoff, Elke Rohmann. Loneliness and depression symptoms: The moderating role of narcissism. Journal of Affective Disorders Reports. Volume 6. 2021. 100264. ISSN 2666-9153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadr.2021.100264. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666915321001906)