Starving A Narcissist Of Supply At An Elite Level

Starving a narcissist of narcissistic supply can be exceptionally simple, yet only in the way a professional athlete makes their sport look effortless. That is, with the right ‘training’, you can be part of a small percentile of ‘elite’ psychological athletes able to masterfully withstand a narcissist under any pressure.

Think of Neo in ‘The Matrix’, who spends the entire film running from the Agents. Agents are much like narcissists. They are haughty and arrogant, dressed in their suits of ‘authority’ while looking to dominate the Matrix realm. Neo is made to believe by his peers that nobody is at the level of the Agents. Fighting them is suicide. And yet, after much training and soul searching, a point comes when Neo is ready. He realises that he is ‘The One’, and not only believes he can defeat the Agents, he knows it.

In the final scene, the Agents fire a volley of bullets at Neo. Yet rather than try to dodge the bullets like before, he simply raises his hand and stops them in mid-flight. Nonchalantly lowering his arm, Neo watches the bullets fall to the floor. Finally, he sprints towards the leader of the group, Agent Smith, and dives into his body. Agent Smith grows visibly distressed, before Neo explodes out of him, taking Agent Smith’s place, and sending what remains of Agent Smith into oblivion.

This is a wonderful symbolism of what ‘defeating’ a narcissist looks like. Much like Agents use bullets to attack, narcissists use their words to destabilise you mentally and emotionally. Much like Agents use their arrogant body language and facial expressions to intimidate, narcissists dominate you with their presence by staring into your soul with their ‘all-seeing’ eye.

When you are ready, the narcissist’s words will have no impact on you. You will be able to flick them away like Neo did the bullets. And rather than the narcissist intimidating you with their stare and their presence, you will look directly back at them, penetrating their eyes with your unflinching stare, leaving them destabilised and then blown away into oblivion.

The following is an outline of what is required to rise to such an elite level of enlightenment:

Find Your Centre

Narcissists probe your triggers, and maintain a constant assault on your mind and emotions. Like being caught in an ocean during a wild storm, you lose track of which way is north. Over the weeks and months, as your shame, self-doubt and confusion grow, and as the narcissist reprograms your beliefs, you begin to forget who you are. Over the months and years, you no longer remember who you were before the abuse.

Within this chaos lies great opportunity.

Most targets of narcissistic abuse fall into the clutches of a narcissist because they derive their identity externally. They only know who they are as others see them. Narcissistic abuse is so maddening, so utterly corrosive to the mind, that it drives you to desperately seek a way out. Whether by conscious effort or by accident, a time comes when you must let go completely. Meanwhile, the psychological storm continues to pound you, before the ocean of your soul swallows you whole. What remains?

Death, of course.

But not that kind. The best kind.

The ego is a wonderful analytical tool to help us find solutions to our problems. But you cannot ‘think’ your way out of narcissistic abuse. It has penetrated you beyond the mind. The only solution then is to go beyond the mind. To forego the ‘security’ of your ego and allow yourself to fall. When the ego is surrendered, even temporarily, what remains?

You, of course.

You notice a singular presence watching over you. And with the right shift in perspective, you come to realise that this presence is you. You are at the centre. You are ‘The One’.

This centre then becomes your North Star as you navigate through the treacherous seas of narcissistic abuse, helping you find your way to land. No matter what goes on out there, no matter what your mind is telling you, no matter how much things are collapsing all around, you remain — in here.

Find Your Psychopath

This subheading might seem extreme, but bear with me.

When I think of a psychopath, I imagine an unfeeling ‘watcher’ who looks out dispassionately at the world, unaffected by what they see. If a child is crying, for example, the psychopath only sees a child crying. There is no sadness in the psychopath, no urge to go help the child. Water is pouring out of a young human’s eyes. That’s it.

What a way to live a life.

And yet, this frame of view can be useful for limited purposes. Imagine if a narcissist is telling you about how wonderful their ex was, and how you will never measure up to them. Imagine a narcissist questioning whether they want to stay in the relationship, while telling you how selfish and stupid you are. Imagine a narcissist dismissing your achievements. In all of these cases, you might feel inferior, terrified or guilty. These are perfectly normal reactions.

Now imagine the narcissist doing those same things to a psychopath.

The psychopath might mentally note what the narcissist is trying to do and feel nothing. They might simply shrug and walk away. Or they could step forward, stare deeply into the narcissist’s eyes with their widened black pupils, and challenge them directly.

As long as you remain with your humanity, this will be nearly impossible to do. But what if you reframe things to match reality? The narcissist is human, but they are acting inhumanely. They are avoiding feeling their own humanity while trying to manipulate you into a position of inferiority. And what happens when someone is not playing by the rules? You end the game.

We emotionally disengage all the time. If watching a live game, our hearts are pumping and our veins are throbbing with excitement. Yet when it comes to the replay, where we already know the score? Not so much. New fashion excites us and draws us in. Hyper-coloured baggy jeans from the 90s? No thanks.

See the narcissist as a caricature of a human, and cut off your emotions from them. They are ‘replaying’ the same script over and over, and trying to keep you from evolving and growing. When you come to see them in this light, feeling nothing for them becomes much easier.

Expose Your Shadow

The shadow is what sabotages us the most when dealing with narcissists.

In our unconscious shadow lie all of our disowned parts; the rejected aspects of our authentic Self. All the things that make us ‘bad’.

‘Bad’ in this context means the aspects of ourselves which our family and community rejected in us first. Our curiosity. Our sexuality. Our agency. Our power. All of this and more can be repressed, buried deep in our unconscious shadow, where it remains.

Yet these aspects don’t simply shut off — they remain active, finding other outlets outside of our awareness. For example, agency and power is a need which narcissists are more than happy to fill. Their confidence draws us in, resonating with our need for assertiveness. That is, we express confidence vicariously through the narcissist.

If you disowned your sexuality and deemed it ‘sinful’, a narcissist finds a way to validate it and weaponise it to make you more attached to them. Because you have minimal control over your sexuality, the narcissist is more likely to succeed.

When the narcissist misbehaves and mistreats you, this resonates with all of your shadow self, as it secretly reinforces the idea that you are ‘bad’. The worse the narcissist treats you, the more your shadow craves them. As long as you remain unaware of all of this, you remain vulnerable.

Shadow work is crucial to becoming immune to narcissistic abuse. Make a consistent practice of meditating on your negative emotions. Probe yourself by asking: What makes me ‘bad’? Jot down your critical, self-judging thoughts. Contemplate the aspects of yourself which you might be holding back. Investigate why you seem repulsed or attracted to certain people or things. Both give you a clue as to what lies in your shadow.

Find your centre and deepen your relationship with it. Become comfortable using your psychopath in a limited context by disengaging your emotions from those who do not play fair. Explore, love and accept your shadow. Integrate and unleash your disowned parts. Find ‘goodness’ by embracing your ‘badness’.

If you develop these three aspects of yourself, you will become anchored, formidable and integrated. You will find it simple to challenge the narcissist’s intimidating stare, and you will be able to starve them into oblivion by dismissing their words with a flick of the finger.

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Browse more of my articles:

Narcissistic Relationships | Knowing The Narcissist | Abuse Recovery | The Narcissistic Family| Exploring Narcissism | Borderline & Histrionic

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