The Toxic Relationship Between an Empath and a Narcissist

The Empath

An empath is a spiritual being that was born to fulfil the life purpose of helping others. Human beings can sense emotions, thoughts and physical sensations belonging to other individuals however, an empath not only senses these stimuli, but they are also absorbed and embodied entirely by the empath (Luna & Sol, 2017). Empaths are deeply warm, sensitive, highly intuitive, skilled listeners, counsellors, attentive, insightful people and comprise only 2% of societies population (Luna & Sol, 2017).

Empaths are at the very low end of the spectrum of narcissism with the narcissist being at the high end of the spectrum on the degree of narcissistic traits possessed. Empaths believe that they can heal people with their love, which is why they fall prey to narcissistic individuals. Usually, empaths had a very traumatic childhood. They have high levels of empathy and believe that they can heal the wounded narcissist and have their feelings validated and returned.

“Having a soft heart in a cruel world is courage, not a weakness.”

- Katherine Henson

The Narcissist

The beginning of the term narcissist originally comes from the tragic Greek tale of narcissus, a hunter from Thespiae in Boeotia who was known for his beauty. He rejected all romantic advances, eventually falling in love with his own reflection in a pool of water, staring at it for the remainder of his life.

According to Sigmund Freud, Narcissism reflects an over-estimation of the power of their wishes and mental acts, "the omnipotence of thoughts", a belief in the thaumaturgic force of words, and a technique for dealing with the external world- "magic"- which appears to be the logical application of their grandiose premises (Freud, 1914). He then gives a psychoanalytic conceptualization of narcissism by suggesting that narcissism reflects : The libido that has been withdrawn from the external world and directed to the ego thus giving rise to an attitude which may be called narcissism...Narcissism is looked upon the drawing in of object cathexis as a secondary one, super imposed upon a primary narcissism that was obscured by a number of influences (Freud, 1914).

Another influential perspective on narcissism is that of Kohut and Kernberg. they both agreed that the outward grandiosity of the narcissist conceals underlying feelings of inferiority and a low self-esteem that stems from early experiences of inadequate and insensitive parenting (Campbell & Miller, 2011). This grandiosity serves as a façade to disguise their deep-seated negative feelings about themselves sometimes referred to as the psychodynamic mask model (Campbell & Miller, 2011).

According to (MacKenzie, 2015), here are some of the signs of a narcissistic individual:

• Gaslighting and crazy-making

• Lack of ability to put themselves in your shoes

• Pathological lying and excuses

• Focuses on your mistakes and ignores their own

• Selfishness and a crippling thirst for attention

• Invalidates your feelings even though they provoked them

• Undermines your self-esteem

• Slowly erodes your boundaries

• Unusual number of craze people from their past

• Cracks in their mask

• Covert abuse

• Entitlement

• Arrogance, and

• the mean and sweet cycle

The Toxic Relationship between an Empath and a Narcissist

Wounded empaths are notorious for finding themselves in toxic relationships. Some empaths may even believe that they are narcissist magnets as they bounce from one toxic relationship to the other (Louise, 2020). Majority of empaths can read a persons character early on in the relationship. Usually, they can detect the insecure and wounded child that lives within the narcissist. This makes the empath feel sorry for the narcissist and believe that they can help the narcissist (Louise, 2020).

The narcissist is never looking for a happily ever after in any relationship they enter (Louise, 2020). They are on the lookout for one thing, narcissistic supply. The narcissist is drawn to the empath as they represent an individual that will cater to their every need without asking for anything in return. The empath is giving, and a narcissist is exploitative. The empath is warm and compassionate with a wish to heal people with their love and compassion. The narcissist has no regard for people’s feelings/empathy and abuses people for to gain narcissistic supply which is a form of fuel for their fragile ego. The empath is the perfect recipe to fulfil the narcist’s void and insatiable need for narcissistic supply. An empaths instinct is to pursue love and the narcissists’ love bombing might be mistaken for such love.

At the beginning of the relationship, the narcissist may engage in love bombing characterized by prolonged hours of attention, phone calls, texts, lavish gifts, elaborate displays of love and affection. This may be mistaken by the empath and perceived as finally finding their knight and shinning armor (Louise, 2020).

The empath might find themselves within the devaluation stage which consists of smear campaigns, abuse and projections of the narcissist's characteristics onto the empath. The empath takes responsibility for these projections and believes it is them that is causing all the problems within the relationship due to their supposed "erratic behaviour". This "erratic behaviour" is their intense response to emotional abuse which is labelled as a character flaw instead of a reaction to abuse by the narcissist.

Realistically, empaths find themselves in therapy settings seeking to improve themselves because they have a "problem". This is far from the truth, it is the narcissist that is responsible for all the destruction taking place of which they will not seek any professional help for as they do not believe they can do anything wrong. The mask of the narcissist is clearly off during this stage.

There comes a discard stage when the narcissist has fulfilled their goal or they have abused the empath enough for them to be perceived as ‘craze’. This stage takes place through silent treatment/ghosting. However, this is not the end of this cycle of abuse. The narcissist never moves on, they will try to hoover the empath as soon as they feel the energy shift. The narcissist can feel it when the empath is about to move on/has healed. They are always waiting for the perfect time to draw the empath back into the cycle of abuse.

It is the empaths responsibility to identify parts of themselves that contributed to this dynamic, heal past trauma and get themselves away from the energy vampire permanently. This can be done via enacting no contact immediately after establishing knowledge about the type of individual they were dealing with. At times, cognitive dissonance prevents an empath from enacting no contact and protecting themselves from the narcissist. They may be questioning their intuition which may have been destabilized through constant gaslighting from the narcissist. They might have also developed Stockholm syndrome and became addicted to trauma bonding. The emotional highs from the intermittent abuse and positive reinforcement is addictive.

Establishing a support system is paramount in these circumstances as the empath needs emotionally stable individuals to gain an accurate perception of reality. Support systems are usually eroded by the time the empath wakes up to the insidious abuse that was taking place. This is because the narcissist tries their outmost best to isolate their victim from avenues that will assist them in getting out of this situation. The narcissist may turn friends, family members and work colleagues against the empath through their smear campaigns and sob stories also used to groom new victims.

Once the empath has truly disconnected their spirit from the psychopath/narcissist will they be able to realize that they were behaving in a way that is not a true reflection of their true character. They will also identify some of the factors that led them to get entangled with the narcissist. In many cases, childhood trauma as well as a troubled relationship with a primary care giver caused the core wound. In order for the empath to be less susceptible to narcissistic abuse, this wound needs to be healed.

Educating oneself about Narcissistic abuse is one of the best ways to protect oneself from this encounter. There are also avenues to hold perpetrators of abuse accountable for their behavior.

‘Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength’

- Sigmund Freud

Ms. Nosipho Myeni Educational Psychologist HPCSA

[Bachelor of Art (Psychology and Anthropology), BSocSci Honours (Psychology), Masters Ed. (Educational Psychology and Special Education)]

References

Campbell, K. W., & Miller, J. M. (2011). The handbook of Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Theoretical Approaches, Empirical Findings, and Treatments. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Freud, S. (1914). On Narcissism. An introduction. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Louise, R. (2020). The dysfunctional dance of the empath and the narcissist: Create healthy relationships by healing childhood trauma. Dallas, Tx USA: Library of Congress Control.

Luna, A., & Sol, M. (2017). Awakened Empath: the ultimate guide to emotional psychological and spiritual healing. Luna & Sol Pty Ltd, 2017.

MacKenzie, J. (2015). Psychopath Free: recovering from emotionally abusive relationships with narcissists, sociopaths, and other toxic people. New York: Berkley Paperback.