Research related to psychosocial development identifies trust as the foundational ingredient that impacts all other aspects of socialization.  With trust intact, individuals feel psychologically safe.  They are freed to connect at a heart level.  They feel wanted, as well as feeling significant.

This insight about trust is crucial in developing an understanding of narcissistic people.  Built into their psyche is an inability to trust.   Very early in life they concluded that openness and vulnerability pay poor dividends, so they learned to keep people at bay.  And because narcissism is typified by poor self-reflection skills, blame was prioritized over introspection.  When problems arise, therefore, you must be the cause.  

Their lack of trust is at the foundation of each of the primary indicators of narcissism.  For instance:

  • Their raw selfishness is fed by the belief that you cannot be counted upon to tend to their needs.
  • Their high control is driven by the assumption that allowing you to be distinct will result in you making them miserable.
  • Their need for superiority is tied to the assumption that you will think poorly of them, so they must gain an advantage by establishing dominance.
  • Hiding behind the false self, they illustrate that, in their minds, nothing good that can arise by letting you see their raw humanity.
  • Their lack of empathy indicates that they have lost hope in your ability to understand them, so there is no reason to try to know you.
  • Their willingness to exploit and manipulate illustrates the need to make you defer to them so you cannot succeed in manipulating them first.

The further individuals travel down the spectrum of narcissism, that distrust morphs into full blown paranoia.  They fear rejection and betrayal so much that they become delusional, unable to reason or to created coordinated bonds.

The longer you know a narcissist, signs emerge illustrating the fullness of their paranoia:

  • They are unable to confide in others due to the fear of losing their position of power.
  • They read negative intentions into others’ normal behaviors.
  • Expecting rejection, they are thin-skinned, easily offended.
  • They have to be right.  Conceding the possibility of you being right is the same as admitting their own inadequacy.
  • They carry a chronic undertow of anger, tension, irritability, annoyance, and impatience.
  • They conclude that the lack of dominance over you is the same as being irrelevant.
  • They are envious when others affirm you.
  • Being unable to listen, they expend much energy forcing you to bend toward them.
  • They develop little sense of mutuality since that could result in you taking advantage of them.

Making matters worse, if you attempt to discuss their pervasive paranoia, you will get no traction.  None.  Lacking trust, narcissists have become prisoners inside a cage of defensive fear.

This leaves you with a major question:  What are the wisest ways to respond to a narcissist’s paranoia?  Let’s consider a few thoughts:

  1. See the narcissist’s paranoia for what it is.  All their lives, narcissists have been burdened by unresolved fear, shame, judgment, and rejection.  Your wishful thinking for anything different will result in futility.
  2. Prepare for narcissists to project their problems onto you.  As part of their psychological defense system, narcissists predictably will see in you what they cannot manage within themselves.
  3. Don’t bother trying to set the record straight.  By definition, non-trusting people will receive little to no input from the outside.  Cease your attempts to plead, coax, or convince.  It will backfire virtually every time.
  4. Don’t argue.  Paranoid narcissists are masters of deflection, so when you enter into arguments, they will turn the tables onto you, blaming and accusing you of all sorts of wrong motives.
  5. Remove yourself from their noise.  Narcissists won’t let go of their need to denigrate you, so it becomes your task to practice self-care, even as the narcissist degrades you for stepping aside.

As a therapist, I learned that paranoia makes it virtually impossible to form healing alliances.  No matter how strongly you believe in your ability to harmonize, when faced with one who cannot trust, harmony will be precarious at best.  Keep that in mind as you inwardly determine the relationship boundaries that will be necessary.

Learn how to set boundaries.

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