If you have had a narcissist in your life, you likely saw the side of them that could be brutal in their words and actions. They seemed to know exactly what buttons to push to make your life miserable and they would actively push those buttons when things didn’t go their way.
When the narcissist in your life is mean to you, you might wonder if they know they are being mean and hurtful. Is that part of the game they play with your emotions? The answer is not simple, and I can’t really say yes, they do know, or no, they do not know. This is in part due to the fact that humans are complex creatures and while some things might seem to be in our control, many things are often out of our control. This can be due to mental illness, or even learned behaviors that have become so automatic that is just how we respond.
It is important to remember that narcissists exist with constant feelings of shame. They survive by finding ways to protect themselves from experiencing this shame and keeping others from seeing this shame in them. While it can feel like a personal attack when the narcissist is mean to you, it is actually not an attack on you, but a defense against feeling shame within themselves. They are not attacking, but actually defending.
Shame is a painful emotion to experience and to avoid feeling this emotion, the narcissist will project onto someone else to get that feeling away from themselves. This is when the narcissist blames others for their actions because it is too difficult for them to experience blame in themselves.
As the narcissist blame shifts and projects, they can do this with ease because they lack empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of someone else. Empathy allows for connection with people because it provides you the ability to relate to someone else’s experiences and not be focused on only your own thoughts and feelings. Narcissists lack empathy and they cannot view others as equals and worthy of compassion.
While the narcissist may not know that are being mean because this would require them to be able to understand how someone else feels, they do know that their actions will likely lead to you changing your behavior, which is usually by backing down in one way or the other. They know they “got their way” but in the sense of they no longer feel attacked and targeted. Remember, the narcissist is defending themselves from narcissistic injury and not specifically attacking you.
They target their hurtful words onto another person and they don’t have the ability to look inwards. They can read people and situations to know what type of behavior will benefit them the most, but this doesn’t mean they can truly know and understand how much they hurt someone.
When the narcissist is mean, they can turn this behavior on and off depending on their audience, which suggests there is a component of it being voluntary. However, them acting in a nice way one day and a mean way the next is not because they care about how it affects you, but on what they can get in return. What they need today from a situation or person is always changing, thus, so is their behavior.
At the end of the day, you need to ask yourself if knowledge of whether they know they are being mean really matters. Regardless of their intent in their hurtful words and actions, they abuse the people around them as a way to get their own needs met. Relationships with narcissists are one-sided and they will always be looking out for themselves above anyone else.
At Mindset Therapy we provide mental health services in Texas and Washington from trained professionals, via telepsychology, which allows you to attend the appointment from the location most convenient for you. Visit Mindset Therapy at https://www.mindsettherapyonline.com/ to learn more about the services offered and make an appointment. Also visit our YouTube page, Mindset Therapy, PLLC, for the Mental Health Minute series that provides quick pieces of information for common mental health issues.