Do you often feel lonely in the presence of the narcissist, even though they are right there with you? Does the narcissist make you feel like you don’t exist? Why does the narcissist act like you don’t exist and goes out of their way to make you feel like you don’t matter? When it comes to the narcissist and how they treat you, there are so many questions that you ask yourself. The narcissist wants to keep you in a place of uncertainty about the relationship, and even uncertainty about yourself. The more uncertain you feel, the easier you are to control. When the narcissist makes you feel like you don’t exist, this is one of the many ways in which they control and manipulate. When the narcissist makes you feel like less of a person, this is a way for the narcissist to preserve what is left of their ever-waning narcissistic supply, while also inflating their supply. Today, I will discuss more on the topic of the narcissist not acknowledging you and making you feel like you don’t exist and don’t matter.
As I discuss this topic, I am considering the narcissist who is actively in your life and not a narcissist who is an ex. The underlying reason why a narcissist makes you feel like you don’t exist is the same regardless of whether they are in your life or not. However, for today, I will be discussing the narcissist who is in your life.
As always, as we discuss this, you must think like a narcissist to understand the narcissist. For the narcissist, everything in their life is about control. They always feel out of control of their lives, so they need to control everything around them to feel in control. This includes you. The narcissist controls people in their lives for two main reasons. The first is to feel in control, and the other is to re-inflate their narcissistic supply. If the narcissist feels like they are losing control of a situation, or their supply is running low, they will start to make a tighter grasp on their control. And yes, these two things are inter-connected.
A favorite tactic of the narcissist is to put you down so that they feel better about themselves. The narcissist feels their happiest when they see others hurting. Your pain is their fuel. And the lower they are on their fuel, also known as supply, the more pain they want to enact on you. This is when the narcissist is their cruelest in their actions and words, and when they become more controlling.
The narcissist knows what you want, even if they pretend like they don’t. They know that you are a caring person who wants the relationship to work out. And because they know this, they will act in a way to ensure you don’t get it when they are low on supply. The narcissist will start to ignore you, and this is when you start to think about how the narcissist doesn’t even acknowledge you.
The narcissist will never give more to someone else than they believe they are getting in return. And, of course this assessment is flawed because it is based solely on the narcissist’s own wants and needs. Because they have an unstable sense of self, this is always fluctuating, and the narcissist can flip in their own needs with seemingly no warning. You will never get your needs met as long as the narcissist believes you are wronging them in some way.
And so, if the narcissist needs to control you and bring you into the place of unhappiness they perpetually live in, they will make you feel like you don’t exist. They can’t watch you experience an emotion that they themselves are unable to experience. They need to control that moment and one effective way to control it is to isolate you and make you feel like you aren’t important in their life. This is also a perfect time for them to use the silent treatment. They need you to feel less of a person and not be heard, so they shut you down completely. They take away your voice to further make you feel like you don’t exist.
The narcissist is calculated in their words and actions, and everything is carefully thought out in a way that benefits them the most. If you feel like the narcissist is making you feel like less of a person and that you don’t matter, step back and remind yourself this is about the narcissist and not a reflection of you as a person. It is easy to be drawn into the narcissist crazy-making, but don’t take the bait and be drawn in.