As a Pisces, not to mention a coward, I tend to avoid confrontation at all costs. I'd rather take up ultra-marathon running than tell someone how their actions made me feel. But one day, I felt I had to confront Lily – and, foolishly, I didn't think it would be a big deal.
I'd recently been dumped by my long-term partner – someone I'd introduced to Lily. I felt morose about the breakup, which was severely exacerbated by Lily actively engaging with him on social media. She liked his posts, messaged him, responded to his stories etc., all the while reporting back as if she were doing me a great service. While I had purged him from all my social media accounts, I still had to deal with Lily's incessant updates about their interactions, which, soon enough, started to sound like flirtation.
“Remorse is simply not something that narcissists experience in the same way other people do.”
It all boiled over during a film night at mine. Lily was constantly checking her phone, laughing, and then making a show of trying not to laugh. “Is it really weird that your ex won't stop texting me?” she asked, giggling. “To be honest,” I replied, swallowing my rage, “it really bothers me that you're even replying to him.”
Within seconds, I found myself on the receiving end of a “narcissistic rage” – a term I only got to grips with after relaying the episode to my therapist.
Dr Sarah Davies, counselling psychologist and author of How to Leave a Narcissist... For Good, describes a narcissist as “somebody who is inherently incredibly selfish and self-seeking.” They carry a “deep sense of shame”, which they'll do anything to avoid confronting. When you confront someone with high levels of narcissism, Dr Davies explains, you're essentially “running the risk of them momentarily getting too close to the sense of shame that they are desperately trying to keep away from at all times.”
“Usually, if you confront somebody about something they’ve done or said, they may feel bad about their actions and feel regretful and then, therefore, perhaps hold their hands up and accept they were wrong,” Dr Davies tells GLAMOUR. “To be able to do that takes being able to experience remorse.”
Funnily enough, “Remorse is simply not something that narcissists experience in the same way other people do.”
“Instead of feeling bad and taking responsibility for their actions, they will more likely retaliate and use any number of narcissistic defences in order to try to shame and blame you (or anybody else). These defences include things like; point blank denial, shaming and blaming others and gaslighting.”
Naturally, my perception of confronting Lily is entirely subjective and shaped by my own retrospective biases. I don't know for sure that she has narcissistic tendencies, but I do remember how she behaved and how it made me feel. Who knows, perhaps I'm the narcissist? You'll have to decide for yourselves…
Here are the five things that happened when I confronted someone with (seemingly) high levels of narcissism:
1. They raged at me
When I voiced my discomfort about Lily's behaviour, she responded with white-hot rage – the kind that I'd only seen on films and TV shows. “Bitch!” she spat at me, before unleashing a tirade of insults at the top of her voice.
