We talked last week about JADEing, and how to avoid justifying, arguing, defending, or explaining when you're communicating with someone with narcissistic traits. One of the most common reasons people engage in JADEing is unrealistic expectations about people with narcissistic traits, often without even being aware of their unrealistic expectations.
Outside of narcissism recovery, therapists often focus on the role of unreasonable expectations when working with clients. Expectations are important, because they help people feel less uncertainty. People usually find uncertainty uncomfortable, because there’s a sense of powerlessness that accompanies uncertainty.
That said, it’s also important to have reasonable expectations of oneself, others, and the world. Without reasonable expectations, people tend to apply their own self-expectations to others and the world. If you don’t have unhealthy narcissistic traits, and you apply your self-expectations to a person with narcissistic traits, you’ll be unpleasantly surprised and disappointed, over and over again.
In my work in narcissism recovery, I’ve observed that people often share predictable unhelpful expectations of a person with narcissistic traits. Fortunately, it's not hard to identify the expectations of a person with narcissistic traits. Those expectations align with what we see in narcissistic personality disorder.
Since I work in narcissism recovery, I don't need to diagnose narcissism. So, I don't explain narcissistic behavior the same way therapists do when they diagnose.
Instead, I use a simplified explanation of narcissistic behavior, based on diagnostic criteria. My explaination includes the following: self-centeredness; a lack of empathy; an unhealthy need for power and control; an unhealthy need to be seen as good, right, or perfect; entitlement; and an unhealthy reliance on ego defenses.
It’s important to note that narcissistic behavior runs on a spectrum. On one end of the spectrum is the person with too-little narcissism, who fails to care enough about themselves. In the middle is healthy narcissism, where you are able to care about yourself and about others, and find a healthy balance between them.
Moving down the spectrum is unhealthy narcissism, in which the person with narcissistic traits uses some narcissistic behaviors, but is also capable of engaging in healthy narcissistic behaviors. At the far end is pathological narcissism, where the person with narcissistic traits generally uses narcissistic behaviors to engage with others.
Because it’s a spectrum, it’s also possible for a person to "have one foot in each camp," so to speak, and sometimes engage in healthy narcissism, while other times engaging in unhealthy narcissism. People may straddle the line between unhealthy narcissism and pathological narcissism.
This means the degree to which you need to have realistic expectations will vary. The person you know may have some ability to care about others, or they may have almost no ability to care about others. When they’re in emotional balance, they may be able to manage healthy narcissism, but fall into unhealthy narcissism when they’re not.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the common unrealistic expectations, and what you can do to change your expectations so they’re more reasonable:
“They Won’t Be Self-Centered”: The person with narcissistic traits thinks about themselves, without regard for others. They do what they want, when they want, because it’s what they want to do. They will not take your thoughts, feelings, wants, or needs into consideration. Instead, they put you in the role of the Good Parent, while they are in the role of Child. You will be expected to be good and care about them, while they aren’t expected to be good or care about you.
“The Empathy Expectation”: We all experience fluctuations in empathy, depending on situations, mood, etc. People with narcissistic traits are less empathetic to begin with, so situations, mood, or other factors can reduce empathy from less to none. There is brain research demonstrating that the person with narcissistic traits has less to no activity in the part of the brain that manages emotional empathy. Expecting a person with narcissistic traits to be empathetic is an exercise in frustration. It’s like expecting a 4-year-old to empathize with you. It’s not within their emotional grasp.
"They’ll Share Power and Control”: People with narcissistic traits have an unhealthy need for power and control. Assuming they will share power and control the way you would is naïve. Instead, you can expect them to feel fearful if they don’t feel in control, and just as you’d see with a 4-year-old, you can expect tantrum-like behavior.
"They Can Accept Not Always Being Good, Right, or Perfect”: We all like to be right, and we all want others to see us in a positive light. Emotionally healthy adults can accept when they’ve made a mistake, and they can make amends to make it right or repair relationships. Emotionally healthy people love themselves, so they're able to accept it when other people don't like them. People with narcissistic traits are not emotionally healthy adults. They don't love themselves unconditionally. Instead, they have an obsessive need to be seen as good, right, or perfect by other people, so they will feel lovable and powerful. It’s important to note that they need to be seen as good, right, or perfect. They are not concerned with being good, right, or perfect. When they fear they aren’t perceived as good, right, or perfect, you can expect some kind of compensatory behavior, ranging from love bombing to gaslighting to tantrums. You can also expect they won’t take accountability for their behavior, or apologize for it. If you do get an apology, that’s all you’ll get. You are highly unlikely to see changed behavior.
“They Won’t Expect Entitlement”: In an ideal world, children learn how to deal with the feelings that arise when they don't get what they want, when they want it, because they want it. Adults with narcissistic traits haven't learned this, and they believe they're entitled to what they want. Because they have the intellect of an adult, this plays out differently in adults than it does in children. One way this unfolds is that people with narcissistic traits believe they are entitled to certain rights and privileges because they have a certain title. For example, they believe that because they have the title of mother or father, they are entitled to certain rights and privileges, like being loved, being respected, being obeyed, etc. They also believe they are entitled to ignore the responsibilities and tasks that go with the role of mother or father, like caring about how their child thinks and feels. At the more extreme end, people with narcissistic traits are unable to care about their child’s basic emotional and physical needs. They use their children to meet their own wants and immature emotional needs. But they still expect to be celebrated on Mother’s or Father’s Day, and are confused when their teenager or adult child goes no contact.
“They’ll Think Logically”: People with narcissistic traits are emotionally stunted, so their emotional life is more like that of a child than an adult. Ego defenses like denial, projection, and displacement begin in early childhood, so you can expect a person with narcissistic traits to use these ego defenses when they are emotionally dysregulated.
So, what can you do to develop reasonable expectations? If you have younger siblings, and especially if you’ve raised young children, you can see that people with narcissistic traits think and act like 4-year-olds. I refer to this as being an emotional 4-year-old. People with narcissistic traits have the mental and physical abilities of an adult, but are significantly handicapped by their emotional immaturity.
If you expect your person with narcissistic traits to act like an emotional adult, you’ll be chronically unprepared and unhappy. There are two simple tools I share with clients to help the manage their expectations. The first is so simple clients sometimes think it won’t help, but clients who try it report it works surprisingly well.
If you have access to a picture of your person with narcissistic traits as a young child, use that picture to remind you of their emotional abilities. Many of my clients change their computer’s or phone’s profile picture of their person with narcissistic traits to this picture. If you don’t have a picture, you can consider changing their profile name to “Emotional 4-year-old” or “4-year-old [their name here]" to remind yourself. When you interact face-to-face, remind yourself often you’re engaging with an emotional 4-year-old. Expect 4-year-old behavior, and you’ll avoid being unprepared or disappointed.
You can also create a reward system based on reasonable expectations. My clients often dread dealing with their person with narcissistic traits. That's unfortunate, because humans are surprisingly good at picking up on the emotions of another person, especially people we know well. Going into an interaction feeling fearful makes you an easy target for the person with narcissistic traits.
Instead, go into interactions prepared. First, make a list of the things you expect them to do. Decide ahead of time, based on previous interactions, how many times you think they’ll do the things they typically do.
Then, set up a reward system. Let's say your person with narcissistic traits gaslights you in almost every interaction. If they try to gaslight you, plan to earn a little reward, like a single long-stemmed flower of your choice. If they try gaslighting 3 or more times, you earn bigger reward -- maybe an entire bouquet of flowers. (A quick note here: As your friendly neighborhood registered dietitian, I encourage you to avoid using food as a reward.)
Finally, when you interact with your person with narcissistic traits, keep track of what and how often they do what you expected. If they engage in the narcissistic behaviors you expect, not only are you more prepared, but you'll be more likely to look forward to what you can expect -- after all, it's getting you closer and closer to your reward!
A reward system works because it prepares you in advance for the kinds of things you can reasonably expect. It also works because it significantly diminishes the effectiveness of displacement, which is one of the immature ego defenses you’ll see often in the person with narcissistic traits. (Displacement is when someone feels bad, and so they try to make someone else feel bad.) When you’re prepared, rather than fearful, your confidence is unsettling to the person with narcissistic traits and makes you far less of a target for displacement.
Of course, these tools aren’t an entire toolbox. Better understanding the behavior of the person with narcissistic traits is just a part of narcissism recovery. If you’re in a relationship with someone with narcissistic traits, I encourage you to consider reaching out to a therapist who specializes in narcissism recovery.
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