Have you ever noticed how, when you start to succeed at, feel happy about, or get excited about…well, almost anything, the narcissist in your life starts to hate you for it? And if other people notice your success and comment on it, the narcissist becomes enraged, offended – generally slighted. They minimize you, they tear you down – they focus on what you’re NOT doing in order to achieve that success.
Why do narcissists in toxic relationships seem to refuse to allow you to be happy or to have a good day? No matter what you do, it’s never quite enough, is it? Narcissists never seem to like it when you feel happy or get attention or in any way take the spotlight off of them. That’s why narcissists are nearly always “good mood killers.”
How the Narcissist Kills Your Good Mood
Do narcissists just hate happy people? Let’s talk about why they hate to see you succeed – and why they REALLY hate it when you get attention (and steal “their” spotlight!). Hint? Narcissists hate themselves too. In other words, narcissists really do hate your happiness. But why?
Picture this: You’re actually in a good mood – a rare gift for someone going through narcissistic abuse in a toxic relationship. But as usual, the narcissist can’t stand to see you happy.
The narcissist attempts repeatedly to argue with you, but you foil them again and again, using the gray rock method you learned recently. After a while, you are drained. So you finally give up and retreat into blessed dissociation, the only sanctuary you have from this toxic abuse.
Before long, the narcissist begins popping in and out of the room, desperately trying to pick a fight. They’re pretending to be light and breezy. They might even be trying to be charming, even – but just under the surface bubbles up the bile they’re about to spew upon you. You can feel his energy practically burning you as the narcissist enters the room – it’s so intense you can almost feel them buzzing with vindictive venom, prepared to strike out for any infraction, real or perceived.
Before long, they grow tired of being ignored or of being “bored” by your gray-rock-like responses. The narcissist really needs to be the center of attention. But since you’ve slipped into dissociation. it looks like you’re finally managing to win – you’re pretty much gray rocking them into submission.
Awhile later, from somewhere deep inside your head, you notice they’re yelling at you – again. The narcissist is, as always, shamelessly placing all of the blame for everything that’s wrong in your lives squarely on your shoulders. All of the usual insults start.
They talk about how you’re just like (insert insulting comparison here). They actively use gaslighting and any other sort of manipulation tactic they can muster up to confuse and control you.
They say or imply that you’re lazy, stupid, crazy … not good enough. Over and over, the narcissist pulls trigger after trigger – literally trying everything they can to get your attention so they can unleash their pent up narcissistic rage all over you and finally relieve themselves of their own emotional garbage collected throughout the day as they pretended to be the person everyone thinks they are. They use you as an emotional dumpster.
The narcissist uses you like a drug, to soothe their guilty and self-hating soul. As they spew their bile, you are melted away, bit by bit. Your soul feels empty. Your head feels like it’s under water. You tell yourself you can’t keep living like this.
Now you make a choice. Keep doing this. Or not. What do you want to do?
Why Narcissists Hate It When You’re Happy
Narcissists use brainwashing, gaslighting, and invalidation to get what they want – and what they want is for you to stick inside that little box that they’ve created for you. Yes, NPD and trauma bonding are an ugly combination.
Remember: Narcissists Aren’t Known for Their Flexibility
How do you deal with the narcissist’s behavior? Is it even possible to have a good day when you’re involved with a narcissist? You can’t generally expect a narcissist to change. So in most cases, you end up changing yourself.
This only leads to your becoming dissociated and miserable. It leads to you losing bits of yourself, if not feeling like you’ve lost your whole self. The best thing you can do is, if possible, go no contact – or at the very least, remove yourself from the narcissist’s life by ending the relationship. Even if you have children with this person, you can significantly reduce contact and remove the emotional element.
You need to, in any case, start your narcissistic abuse recovery journey.
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You might also find these videos helpful:
- Going No Contact with a Narcissist (What NO ONE Tells YOU) -**NEW**
- The Narcissist Underestimates You
- When You See the Narcissist After No Contact
- Narcissists Make You Feel Lonely (THIS is WHY and HOW)
- The #1 Thing a Narcissist Will NEVER Give You (No Matter What)
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Angela Atkinson is a certified trauma counselor and the author of more than 20 books on narcissism, narcissistic abuse recovery, and related topics. A recognized expert on narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder who has studied and written extensively on narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic abuse in toxic relationships since 2006, she has a popular narcissistic abuse recovery YouTube channel. Atkinson was inspired to begin her work as a result of having survived toxic relationships of her own.
Atkinson offers trauma-informed narcissistic abuse recovery coaching and has certifications in trauma counseling, life coaching, level 2 therapeutic model, CBT coaching, integrative wellness coaching, and NLP. She is a certified trauma support coach and certified family trauma professional. She also has a professional PTSD counseling certification. Her mission is to help those who have experienced the emotional and mental devastation that comes with narcissistic abuse in these incredibly toxic relationships to (re)discover their true selves, stop the gaslighting and manipulation, and move forward into their genuine desires – into a life that is exactly what they choose for themselves.
Along with her solution-focused life coaching experience, Atkinson’s previous career in journalism and research helps her to offer both accurate and understandable information for survivors of abuse in a simple-to-understand way that helps to increase awareness in the narcissistic abuse recovery community. Atkinson founded QueenBeeing.com Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Support, the SPANily Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Support Groups and the Life Makeover Academy.
She offers individual and group coaching for victims and survivors of narcissistic abuse here at QueenBeeing.com and at NarcissisticAbuseRecovery.Online.
