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Narcissistic Personality Disorder is one of the most challenging Cluster B disorders to diagnose and treat. Built on several factors — including trauma, genetics, neurobiology, and environment — true narcissists are chameleons who learn to adapt and to shift with their environments. Their manipulations are subtle, and their emotional responses are swift. When a narcissist is intent on getting you, they can turn on irresistible charm.

It’s this charm that traps so many in toxic relationships with abusive narcissists. Swindled by early and intense love, they turn around to find themselves stuck next to someone who doesn’t value them. Waking up to realize you’re living with a narcissist is heartbreaking. In that heartbreak, many think they can “talk things out” to turn it around. They want so badly for their narcissists to change that they forget the reality of their situation altogether.

The best ways to talk to a narcissist about their behavior.

Are you someone who has recently realized that there’s a narcissist in your life? Rational humans want to talk things out. We want to reason with the people who hurt us and show them how to love us better. We do this because we want to hold on. We value our partners, our parents, our friends. But narcissists work differently. Ready to talk to your narcissist? Here’s how to do it.

Don’t do it

Don’t do it. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that anything you say has the power to change the narcissist in your life; that you’ll prove something to them. A truly narcissistic person is highly unlikely to face up to behavior, even when faced with irrefutable truth. It’s one of the underpinnings of the disorder and comes back to their empathy, deficit, and lack of self-awareness.

You could talk to them until you’re blue in the face. You could point out every bad thing they’ve ever done and try to break their hearts with the painful stories of how their behavior hurt you.

None of it will matter. If you’re truly dealing with a narcissistic person, then they will always bring the blame back to you. Talking to them will change nothing, but it will come back to haunt you. You’re likely to get a reaction from the narcissist that is both punishing and long-lasting.

Don’t do it (even harder)

Once you figure out how to stop talking to a narcissist about their narcissism, double down. Do it even harder. How could you possibly do that? It’s simple. You take that silence one step further and apply it to every other pointless encounter, conflict, or conversation you have with this suspected narcissist.

Test your hypothesis. If they’re truly a narcissist, then you are best protected when you starve them of what they desire from you: emotional soothing, accountability, and chaos.

Don’t fight with them when they corner you. Don’t lash out or snap back when they bully you. Pull back in every encounter and watch the narcissist in your life. Where are their motivations coming from? Why are they trying to get a reaction from you? What do they value most in their relationship with you?

Don’t even talk to other people about it

Once you have your “this is a narcissist” epiphany, you want to tell everyone. It doesn’t work that easily, though. Don’t go around telling everyone you know that you have a narcissist on your hands. Don’t write about it all over the internet. Sit on it. Mull it around inside your head. See how it feels, how it tastes. Do you still think they’re a narcissist after a couple of weeks? How about a couple of years?

Because that’s the reality, narcissistic people display consistent misbehavior across years and multiple relationships. It’s not something you can get the full picture of in just a few weeks or even a few months. It takes time to really see what the intentions of someone like that are.

You need time not only to spot the patterns but also to react to them. Realizing someone you love is a narcissist is painful. It requires not only a certain amount of time to accept. You have to have time to grieve these realizations, too.

So, unless you have a really, really clued-up girlfriend you love sharing this kind of stuff with — it’s better to just keep it to yourself. Hold on to the idea. Don’t gaslight yourself. Instead, look inward, study the patterns, and learn everything you can about narcissism, narcissistic abuse, and the cycles of their survivors.

Keep it to yourself

Seriously. The narcissist realization is one that is better kept to yourself. That’s doubly true in today’s society, where every Iggy the Influencer wants to declare their immature boyfriend a narcissist. What's more, people are willing to gaslight you and deny your experience now that narcissism has been absorbed into the pop-psychology Zeitgeist.

The waters have been muddied (potentially beyond repair). So, if you are really dealing with a narcissist or even someone diagnosed with NPD, then your best bet is keeping it to yourself while you make a plan to get out.

There are several other reasons this is important.

1. You don’t know who is going to take any realizations you share back to the narcissist in your life.
2. You can’t get the help you need if other people are confusing you with half-baked or uninformed emotional opinions on your situation.
3. You may still try to collect factual information on your situation and/or make plans to address it on your own terms.

Keeping your suspicions to yourself, at least for a little while, helps to protect you from these pitfalls and a million others you won’t see coming. That extra time and peace becomes invaluable as you navigate the rocky road of freeing yourself from potential narcissistic abuse.

Focus on your own way out

Some of you might look at the above information and think, “Isn’t that avoidance?” Understandable. In a world that tells you to beat your chest and confront your troubles head-on, shutting down and avoiding confrontation can sound like avoidance. With narcissists, though, this is actually clever management and self-preservation.

When you refuse to entertain any more manipulated conversations, you take away power from the narcissist. The more power you take from the narcissist…the more power you have for yourself.

You need that power to get out. You need confidence, strength, courage, and every other imaginable outfit of the warrior to get yourself away from the abusive or corrosive elements in your life. More than anything else, more than anyone else, you need you. You are the only one who can escape the clutches of the narcissistic people in your life.

How to protect yourself through the chaos.

Realizing that there is a narcissist in your life is no simple thing. It’s heartbreaking to realize that the person you love may be toxic. It can be even more heartbreaking to realize it may be a part of a bigger pattern. All the same, you must face it with courage or risk losing yourself in the pain. You can’t afford to do that. That’s what your narcissist wants out of you.

What can we do to handle such a toxic realization? How can we deal with someone we believe to be a narcissist?

• Learn more on NPD
• Talk to an expert
• Find a support system
• Make positive plans

Educate yourself on Narcissistic Personality Disorder and the entire narcissistic spectrum. These traits can lurk in various manifestations. Know what you’re dealing with so you can navigate your relationship appropriately. Talk to an expert. Open up to your therapist, or listen to the advice of experts across the web.

You need to give yourself a support system, too. Once you’re certain about your situation, open up to others who understand your experience. Various online groups and even loved ones can support you through the emotional trials.

Most importantly, start making positive plans for yourself. The pain of the narcissistic abuse cycle doesn’t have to be your reality forever. Start visualizing the future you want, how you want to feel, and how you want to be treated. You still deserve the best things in life, no matter how badly you feel at this moment.

Lean into yourself. Love yourself, and know that tomorrow will look better than today did. Keep holding on.