11 Ways to recognize a covert narcissist:

The abuse is subtle and that makes it difficult to detect.

They have a grandiose sense of self and entitlement, but the covert narcissist can actually be
outwardly insecure.

1. Really intense soulmate connection. This is the “love-bombing phase”. They go hard and
fast because they feel that intensity and connection with you, they believe you’re perfect
and they idealize you. The problem is that it always will turn to abuse over time.

- Saying “I love you” really fast  red flag.

2. Something was a little bit off. It might be a look in their eyes or maybe they react to
certain things in a way that’s different from anything you’ve seen before, like you would
never expect them to react in a certain way that they do.

3. Cognitive dissonance. This explains what happens within you when someone’s actions and
words are not aligned.

- Trust yourself, your actions or your intuition VS. the words and the STORY that the person
is feeding you.

4. Intense need to win. This person would never ever admit that they’re wrong, but if they
do, if they do apologize for hurting your feelings, they are most definitely going to do it
again and again because they’re not really sorry.

- Silly little arguments.

- You have evidence that they are wrong, but they twist it around to make them look right.

5. Expert at justifying their bad behavior.

6. Insecure feelings (is what one feel with a narcissist). Idealization VS. being human.

7. Disproportionate rage or anger. They are very insecure people, but they still need to hold
up the façade; they to believe that they’re special and they need you to reflect that back
to them.

- If you touch on something that is especially sensitive to them, something that’s part of
their made-up identity, and one start poking a hole in it, it can set them off  narcissistic
rage. It’s because what you said challenged this person’s belief of themselves, and
because we know that belief is false, challenging it can make that person see that it’s false.
8. Gaslighting. It often happens around cheating. If you confront them with whatever it is,
your gut feeling; your evidence; the narcissist who is cheating is likely to blow up and turn
the tables on you.

9. Apparent lack of emotional empathy. Narcissist don’t have the ability to feel other
people’s emotions, instead they have cognitive empathy, which means they understand “if
I do this, you’ll feel this way”, but they don’t feel it.

10. Lack of whole object relations: a very black-and-white perception of themselves and of
others. You might feel like this person is pulling out all the punches, they’re saying things
that you wouldn’t say to somebody you really care about. They almost seem to despise
you in the moment, and it’s confusing. They can’t separate the bad feelings from the good
feelings.

11. Lack of object constancy.