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You probably didn’t know that the narcissist in your life was a time traveler, did you? It’s true. Back and forth, they flick through the past, entangling themselves with the biggest events in their storyline with an ease that would make The Doctor blush.

This time traveling is one of the narcissist’s most dangerous skills, and yet it remains relatively unaddressed. Why is that? Why does no one talk about the time traveler in the room? The obvious truth is that most people don’t realize that their narcissist has traveled through time until it’s too late. They’re stuck on a web they didn’t know they had walked into.

Confused? You won’t be in a minute. Narcissists aren’t literally time travelers. Not in a Gallifreyan sense. But you wouldn’t know it by interacting with a truly narcissistic person. To them, they have the power to do anything they desire, including a complete rewrite of their own history and yours (if that’s what it takes).

Sometimes, that’s exactly what it takes.

Narcissistic people rewrite history all the time to trap their victims, confuse them, and create delusional storylines for themselves. A narcissist would rather lie about the past, invent details, or forge entirely new identities built on delusional past fantasies of themselves.

Are you being sucked into the timewarp of a narcissist? The best way to defend yourself is by arming yourself with knowledge. See the pattern for what it is, and perhaps you can untangle the distorted truths of the narcissistic time traveler in your life.

Why do narcissists like to rewrite history?

The narcissist’s timewarp trap is done by rewriting their history, their history with others, and the decisions that they made. By allowing enough time to pass they are able to tell different stories that make them look better, kinder, and more empathetic than they really are. That can be a powerful tool for fooling themselves and manipulating others.

It seems ridiculous. Who would go so far as intentionally rewriting their history or lying about who they used to be? Seeing the narcissist for who they really are, insecure and emotionally unstable, brings the entire pattern into clearer view.

1. Protecting the ego: Narcissists have fragile egos. It’s the core of what makes them so toxic. Their worst behaviors come from protecting their glass-like egos. Here is where the historical rewrites begin. By making themselves look better than they were the narcissist can protect their ego.
2. Shielding insecurities: Despite popular belief, true narcissists are inherently insecure. They put others down and destroy them so they can sit atop an imaginary hierarchy. Rewriting history is something that can help them to achieve this. Changing the story can make them feel better about themselves and better than others.
3. Creating a pedestal: Real narcissists like to sit on top of the pyramid. By controlling everyone and everything around them, they can feel secure and powerful. When they rewrite history, they create stories that elevate them onto moral pedestals. It’s easier to take advantage of people from that lifted vantage point.
4. Feeding the delusion: Delusional is an inherent part of who the narcissist is. They create delusions that allow them to think of themselves in grandiose terms (with no evidence to support those ideas). Rewriting history helps the narcissist to feed this delusion and write bigger fantasies.
5. Building a supply: Narcissists live off of the supply they get from others. This supply differs from person to person. For some, that supply needs to be the praise of a church congregation, for others its the obedience of a family. When a narcissist rewrites events that happened in the past, they can make it easier to get whatever supply they want.

Behind any grandiose front that a narcissist creates is an incredibly fragile ego. Narcissist people hate themselves deep down. So convinced are they of being worthless that they spend their lives overcompensating in the worst possible ways. It’s what makes them so toxic and so dangerous. Everything a narcissist does is in service of protecting their ego and their insecurities.

That’s why history must be rewritten in the eyes of the narcissist. Being human, they are subject to all the same flaws and shortcomings as everyone else around them. They make the same mistakes, some worse, and (in their eyes) this makes them less valuable than the people around them. That won’t do…

Only one choice is (comfortably) left to the narcissist. Rewrite the story. Change your role. Make yourself look good so that people will put you back on the pedestal so you can justify subjugating everyone else around you and carrying on without accountability or regret.

How does a narcissistic person rewrite history?

You’re an intelligent person. You get the picture that’s being painted for you thus far. But how is it done? Narcissists can be subtle or sneaky. Much like the velociraptors testing the fences in Jurassic Park, they are predators who know how to change directions when they’re not getting the supply they want from their victims.

For you to protect yourself from the time-traveling” abilities of the narcissist, you need clear-cut examples of how they rewrite history to suit their delusional narratives and their desires.

Changing the details

The easiest (and most obvious) way a narcissistic person tries to rewrite history happens in the changing of big and small details. When retelling stories from their past to the people around them, narcissists will alter or leave out small details so as to frame themselves in a more positive or compassionate light.

A great example took place recently when (potential) narcissist Kim Kardashian gave an interview. In it, she addressed her ex-husband’s controversial outbursts over the previous year. Rather than reflecting on the cause of the outbursts or the damage they inflicted, Kim used the opportunity to rewrite herself in a more favorable light.

Kim gave an interview that was filled with contradictions.Photo byTwitter

Kim told the journal that she had used Kanye’s antisemitic statements to show her support for the Jewish community, which is categorically untrue. While her ex-husband was giving inflammatory interviews that put the lives of millions of Jewish people in harm’s way, Kim Kardashian was sitting at lunch with Ivanka Trump and failing the bar exam multiple times in her efforts to launch a new reality program.

If Kim Kardashian were a narcissist, this would be a real-time example of how narcissistic people rewrite history by changing small details and re-angling the narrative.

They may alter where they were, what they said, how they acted, or they may even talk about it as though they were a different person entirely. Whatever gets them on the good side of the people they’re talking to. Not unlike cult leaders, narcissistic people will use the recreation of historical events to alter their masks and mirror people into false comfort.

Denying the reality

Narcissistic people are the masters of denial. It’s one of the primary tactics they use against their victims. This denial also happens to be the backbone of their gaslighting tactics. If someone tries to hold them accountable for something they’ve done wrong, they’ll deny it ever happened, even if they have to make the other person look crazy to do it.

Denying history can be just as core to rewriting it as any other tactic.

Because they refuse to take accountability for their behavior (it would damage their egos and trigger their insecurities), narcissists like to deny their mistakes happened. In the historical context, this looks like denying they were somewhere they weren’t supposed to be, with people they weren’t supposed to be with, or doing things they knew they weren’t supposed to be doing.

The more the narcissist denies reality, the stronger their story becomes. Stick to the denials long enough, and they can convince their victims that the issues never happened at all.

Making up stories

Changing details is easy, and denial can be empowering for the narcissist who enjoys stonewalling. That’s not the only way to rewrite history for a narcissistic person, however. If they really want to look their best, even when they are at their worst, they are best served when they make up stories altogether.

Many narcissistic people adjust the historical record by telling grandiose stories about themselves in a historical context that makes them look better than they are in the present. These events have never occurred. They might be made up entirely or co-opted from people the narcissist has encountered in their lifetime.

In the head of the narcissist, these stories can become true or they can become justified. If the narcissists don’t believe the lie, they tell themselves it’s okay to tell the lie because that’s how they want to be seen. The problem is that it’s always done not with the intention of building themselves up but altering the way others perceive them.

Crafting a new self

Pop psychology cliches have convinced a lot of people that narcissists are cocky, self-assured people. While grandiose narcissists can certainly project that persona, the truth is that narcissists have a very unstable sense of self. That’s why they need so much (constant) validation from other people. Rewriting history? Well, it can help them to craft a new self in the present moment that is dangerous and covert.

We see this in the narcissists who, after realizing their history is problematic, change themselves (only outwardly) into a new person who is the total opposite of their old mistakes. It sounds good, right? Who cares why they do what they do as long as the narcissist starts acting like a good person?

Wrong. When the narcissistic person does this 180° turn, it is done without any true remorse. It’s the changing of a mask. There is no desire to change, no empathy, and no accountability. Consider the case of murderer Clara Rector as a potential example of this historical rewrite.

Clara — a former drug addict who cut her lover’s throat in a fit of inebriated rage — crafted a new church-going, sober personality after the murders. She even went so far as trying to come between a pastor and his wife so that she could become a “leader of the flock” with him.

She poised herself as the ultimate altruist, spending all her time in church or helping other drug addicts to get clean. All the while, her victim’s family was heartbroken and searching for answers. Rector didn’t want to be accountable or to provide the man’s family with answers.

Narcissists employ this tactic to rewrite their histories often. Why? Most of them believe their new self erases the old, so they don’t have to be accountable. Another smaller, portion knows that it’s all about crafting a new more palatable mask that allows them to manipulate more people.

How can someone protect themselves from the time-warp trap?

If the historical rewrites are the problem, what are the victims of narcissists supposed to do? You can’t change the narcissist or make them tell the truth. Certainly not. Confronting them too may not be an option. So what can be done? The main focus has to be keeping yourself rooted in reality and creating exit strategies when the rewrites become dangerous or coercive to you.

• Keep a record: It’s not silly to keep a written record of things when you’re dealing with a person prone to gaslighting and false rewrites. When something big happens (or is told to you) write it down. Make this diary an anchor to reality.
• Deny gaslighting: With your anchor to reality fastened, don’t allow yourself to tolerate any gaslighting. Whether you deny the narcissist to their face or not doesn’t matter. In your head, keep the stories straight and get out of any environment where history is being rewritten.
• Become a realist: You have to be a realist to deal with a narcissist. Get clear on what’s possible and what’s not possible. At the same time, get clear on the history and learn from it. Don’t let it be retold to you in any way or form.

By keeping a record, you keep your perception of reality in focus. That can be powerful in countering the narcissist, but all of this is mostly done to empower you. The more realistic you can be, the easier it becomes for you to distance yourself from the narcissist and avoid any emotional manipulation they may throw your way.

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Enough is enough. Stop letting the narcissists in your life, your community, and your world rewrite history. The only place you can effectively defend yourself against their attacks is in reality. Stay there. Root yourself in what really happened so that you can take real action when the narcissist gaslights you through historical rewrites.

Changing the past doesn’t change the future. That’s delusional. There is no changing the past. There is only right here, right now. When we find the courage to be accountable in the present moment and change our behaviors and reactions in the present moment, that’s where the future gets changed.

You’re a smart, compassionate, capable person who has the ability to build strong relationships without a need to rewrite historical narratives. Embrace that and hold everyone in your life to the same standard…narcissists included.

Alexander Starlinger, Martin Voracek, Ulrich S. Tran. Vulnerable narcissism and the dark factor of personality: Insights from a cross-validated item-level and scale-level factor-analytic approach. Personality and Individual Differences. Volume 185. 2022. 111283. ISSN 0191-8869. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111283.