Concept: The people who stay in a narcissist’s life can’t or won’t escape their abuse. Some haven’t figured them out yet, and some have blocks to escape, such as financial dependence or shared children who may face danger without the protection of their functional parent. Narcissists carefully groom their victims for a life of serving their needs and providing narcissistic supply. Abandonment is when someone they groomed leaves them and never goes back.

How this increases a narcissist’s insecurities: When someone is cut off by another, the lack of communication hurts. With abandonment, the former victims held so little value for the narcissists that they accepted cutting all ties as the solution. People who experience so much inner shame but try to ignore it have a neon sign flashing in their faces when abandoned, confirming their wretchedness. Abandonment is bound to hit a narcissist hard.

Examples:

1. Theo puts his mother in a retirement home. He learned after only two weeks of living with her that he couldn’t do it after her constant verbal abuse.
2. A wife leaves her abusive husband in the middle of the night after changing her cell phone number to protect herself from him finding her.
3. A man refuses to bail a friend out of jail for the fourth time.

Advice: Abandonment will always sting, but to a narcissist, it’s tantamount to torture. Yet, there is no other solution. You can’t do anything to change narcissists because the idea of changing themselves triggers shame at their lack of perfection, and they will shut down the idea immediately. Realize that it’s better to take the hit that comes with abandoning the relationship than to suffer through it. If you’re empathetic about what abandonment will do to the narcissist, rest assured that narcissists always find new sources to fill their narcissistic supply. You’ll feel bad for the latest victim but consider letting that go too. If it isn’t that person, it’ll be another that you’d try to save, thus putting yourself at constant risk of the narcissist’s revenge.

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