Be aware of your vulnerabilities
Knowing your own weaknesses is going to be one of your greater strengths in life. Growth starts with acknowledging where we lack emotionally, mentally, and physically. If we want to minimize our chances of falling victim to narcissists, we must start by doing some inner work.
Question yourself and try to understand what your core needs are. For example, everyone loves attention; some more than others. If you’ve been neglected as a child and one of your weaknesses is an excessive need for attention, a narcissist will quickly pick up on that and use it against you. This childhood wound will continuously be reopened and that need will never be fulfilled by a narcissist. Narcissists have a deeper understanding of our weaknesses in ways that we were probably never aware off.
According to Jamie Cannon, in the article “How Narcissists Feed on Your Vulnerabilities,” narcissists are set out to groom their victims and “From the first few moments, they are working overtime to gain an understanding of where you are most vulnerable. They will instantly distinguish your loneliness, your lack of financial resources, your low self-esteem, and your anxiety. They’ll insert themselves into this area of your life to become indispensable. Once they have gained your trust, the expectation of payback starts to be made clear.”
In the beginning, they will give you what you need, and all will seem too good to be true. They are skilled at this because they also have needs, wants, hopes, and dreams that weren’t fulfilled. When it comes to understanding and relating to somebody, they can do that very well; the problem with a narcissist is that they just don’t have the empathy or skills to see further than their own needs and wants. Instead of supporting and comforting, they exploit whatever they see that you have or need. This helps them feel superior and better about themselves for whatever it is they’re lacking or missing. A narcissist feels everything we feel, but instead of turning inwards, they turn to the world and expect others to solve their problems and fulfill their needs. They have a sense of entitlement that the world owes them something and when they don’t get that, they feel emptier and more bitter.
The reason why it’s so important to be aware and understand our own weaknesses is so we can then fulfill our own needs and not wait on somebody else to fulfill them. When you are codependent, you will be easily accessible to a narcissist. When we depend on someone else to fulfill our need, we give them control over ourselves. A narcissist knows that, and they will exploit that while they watch you squirm with anxiety.
A narcissist knows that you need attention to feel loved, so in the beginning they will seem to attend to that need and give you a lot of it. This is called love bombing; a manipulation tactic used to groom the victim. They will seem loving, attentive, but then suddenly, when they’re tired of masking and faking it, they will start to switch. They will start to withdraw, go cold, devalue leaving us confused and lost.
Remember, whatever feelings they show comes from an empty place. They don’t really have anything original to give so everything that they are giving is most likely a reflection of you or something that they have been taught in the past.
So, understanding your vulnerabilities decreases the chances of being manipulated by a narcissist. For example, if you start noticing that somebody gives you a little bit of attention or starts to mirror you, you won’t be desperately flocking to that person. You’ll be stable and more cautious about who you let in. Apply this awareness to any need of yours; whether it be money, a need to be understood, affection, etc. Narcissists see through your bullshit and the only way to protect yourself is to heal and fulfill yourself.