Why do empaths get sucked in by narcissists?

It’s the question every empath asks when it’s happened to them again; “How is it that this has happened again?”  “Why don’t these selfish, insecure tyrants leave me alone?”

Or, perhaps it’s like it is for most of us.  We get used to being taken for granted.  We make allowances and we’re prepared to make those accommodations provided our lives are not made a complete hell — and yet even then, it takes quite some time before we’re done.

We live in an age where there are more narcissists than ever.  Or, at least we can say if they didn’t quite qualify for Narcissistic Personality Disorder that they’d be well on their way toward it.  They may not be overt self-aggrandising narcissists, but they sure have zero empathy and as a consequence, they exploit everything and everyone for their own gain, always.  They feel absolutely entitled to whatever or whoever they wish.

And then there’s the narcissist who’s a little harder to pick, or the situational narcissist.  These bear certain features, and we might only know by being close to them for long enough, but then again, you guessed it, close to them for long enough also means we’re stuck in their web.

The reason we’re caught and can’t get out is the reason we get entrapped in the first place.  We give everyone grace.  We extend pardons for their excuses.  We grant them entry to our private sanctuary, and they leave the furniture of our hearts scattered every which way.  We somehow expect them to treat us the way we treat them and others, but they have no interest in following our play book.

We make allowances because in enforcing boundaries, we feel as if we’d be hurt if someone had to institute a boundary for us.  People don’t put boundaries on us, because we place boundaries on ourselves.  We’d be mortified if someone felt we were being selfish, self-interested, self-focused, and inconsiderate.  But the narcissist has no such concern.

Empaths get sucked in because there is something in us that believes in the skerrick of goodness that might reside in the narcissist.  We never want to believe that they are who they present as.  We may even believe we can help reform them.  And that’s dangerous; so few people can be changed by others, and of those, none would be narcissists.

This is not all-encompassing, obviously, but when we see the overtness of narcissism come out, and it always eventually does, we can no longer deny the issue.  It is time to back out of a relational rabbit warren that will only serve the narcissist.

Photo by Taylor Deas-Melesh on Unsplash