Why the Narcissist’s Mask Slips: Answering Your Fan Mail

Is my daughter-in-law a malignant narcissist? How did she hide her worst qualities for so long?

Today, Dr. Kerry answers 2 listeners’ questions. 

The first is from New York, New York about narcissists’ public and private personas. Many narcissistic individuals create a false mask to hide their worst qualities. 

The second comes from Southern Pines, North Carolina, who wants to know more about love-bombing. 

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More About Dr. Kerry

Kerry Kerr McAvoy, Ph.D, a retired psychologist and author, is an expert on cultivating healthy relationships and deconstructing narcissism. Her blogs have been featured in Mamami, YourTango, Scary Mommy, and The Good Men Project. In Love You More, Dr. McAvoy gives an uncensored glimpse into her survival of narcissistic abuse, and her workbook, First Steps to Leaving a Narcissist, helps victims break free from the confusion common in abusive relationships. She hosts the Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse podcast and offers trauma-related advice on social media.

Transcript

Kerry: How is it possible for a covert malignant narcissist to hide herself for seven years? Now she's the complete opposite. She is a monster to my son and our entire family. We can't understand how we were all fooled. Could love bombing be in the form of being really supportive and welcoming and then as soon as you say no to something, they ignore you and we live in the same house.

They don't speak to you. They act like you're not even in the same room.

Welcome to fan mail, a space where I answer your real questions about toxic relationships, narcissistic abuse, and the long road to healing. So this is a place that if you have a question about something that's making you feel stuck or you just need someone to name what's really going on for you, this is the place. Because, each week, I'm gonna take a listener's question and break it down with the same mix of professional insight and raw honesty that you've come to expect from me. So if you'd like to have me answer your top question, I'd love to hear from you. There's three ways to do that. First, you can leave a comment under one of the fan mail videos on YouTube, or you can email me at hello@kerrymcavoyphd.com.

Or if you're listening to an audio podcast episode, click on the send us a text link in each of that podcast show notes because the bottom line is your feelings and what's happening to you really matters. And chances are if it's happening to you, it's happening to someone else. And this is something we all need to be talking about.

I recently had this fan mail text from New York, New York who writes,

How is it possible for a covert malignant narcissist to hide herself for seven years? My soon to be ex daughter-in-law was the best daughter-in-law anyone could ever ask for. Now she's the complete opposite. She is a monster to my son and our entire family. We can't understand how we were all fooled. Please explain. 

So there are different types of narcissistic presentations, and one of them is the malignant narcissist. How the malignant narcissist differs from the other is they have a very limited to no remorse, very limited empathy. They actually delight in the suffering of other people.

They're sort of a paranoid or conspiratorial sense to them, like they're very suspicious and hypervigilant. To possible sense of threat. There's an aggressiveness and cruelty, and since she's a woman, I imagine that gets manifest by more of a passive aggressiveness versus an overaggressive tone. And they're highly manipulative.

Highly manipulative. You know what's amazing about the malignant narcissist and how they fool us is because they're very strategic at being chameleons. Often in the beginning, they present a very charming and generous. Extremely moral, upright, and maybe even the pillar of the community or in some sort of, activism or leadership, but that hides their private abuse.

What happens when they get into a situation, when they start to feel safer, when they can control the narrative, you're more likely to see the real self, which is the more dangerous, cruel, unremorseful, sadistic personality, but they, exploit the societal bias in that they count on you being disbelief because they have such a wonderful presentation to the of their forward facing face.

Other people see them as a, you know, charismatic and accomplished, they end up looking good and that makes your story not seem credible because they're hiding behind respectability and they are very good at using covert tactics. So it's fascinating that she was able to go seven years and fool all of you.

It does make me wonder what event happened. Was there some sort of a, like a big change or maybe you, your son and her went, maybe they had a baby or maybe they bought a house. It makes me wonder what created enough safety for her to feel that she can become more realistic, more authentic in her presentation.

My suspicion is if something happened that made her feel like she was beyond being called out, beyond danger that it made it safer for her to expose her real self. But I hear your shock that you're flabbergasted that somebody could go for so long and hide such a dark side of themselves. And I think regardless of the amount of time, that's how a lot of victims feel is that once we see the mask drop, we're like completely horrified and almost in a state of denial about how could we have been in a relationship with somebody who's hiding such a, very malevolent side to themselves. So my heart goes out to you. Thank you so much, New York, New York, for writing in this response. I know this is a extremely painful situation that you're in.

I got this question from Southern Pines, North Carolina last month that I really wanna circle back and address because it's powerful and important. The listener writes. 

Hello, could love bombing be in the form of being really supportive and welcoming. And then as soon as you say no to something, they ignore you? And we live in the same house. They don't speak to you. They act like you're not even in the same room.

This is a really fascinating question that does include in both situations, intermittent reinforcement. Now, is it love bombing? That's her first question. This is my suspicion as, by the way, as a woman, maybe it's not, could be a man who's asking this question, but let's assume that the listener is a woman.

Love bombing is what happens in the initial phase of a development of a trauma bond, and that's when you get overwhelmed by the new person's affection, support, and attention. They're trying to build a rapid connection with you so that you feel emotionally dependent. It feels incredible. Like you have never been seen or loved the way that this person sees and loves you, it is so over the top.

But part of what happens in the love bombing stage is intermittent reinforcement where they show up in over the top ways and then suddenly disappear. It might be that you have a flurry of fantastic texts, maybe an amazing phone call, and then they disappear for the next. 8, 10, 12 hours maybe for the next day or two, and act completely unreachable, only to be flooded with another flurry of texts.

It may be that you have a fantastic weekend with them that's so romantic, and then you head into the week and separate and you don't hear from them at all as if there was no great weekend. That's what I would call intermittent reinforcement or hot and cold behavior.

But after the idealization phase, which is the love bombing phase is over, often we move into the next stage where there's devaluation that starts to happen, where the relationship starts to come under the control and the power of the dominant person, of the toxic individual, and they start to let you know that your behavior is crossing their boundaries. Not normal boundaries, but what they consider their boundaries by using all sorts of means. It could be they gaslight you by claiming that you didn't remember it correctly, or that you're wanting too much, or you're, asking for is unreasonable. It might be that they stonewall you where they just frankly disappear. Stop talking and use the silent treatment as a way to punish or control you. And it could be that they just do less, they show up less, they're less invested, and they use criticism as a way to make you feel less than. I think that based on what little you said, and I know you just said you shared very little of what's happening in the relationship, but it sounds like to me that you are trying to set a normal limit in this relationship, you're just trying to set a normal boundary, and then this person uses the silent treatment as a form of emotional manipulation. It's really their way of saying no to you by stonewalling you, by giving you the silent treatment and the purpose of this, it's a couple fold. One is it starts to shape your behavior.

You're gonna be more likely to do some things and less likely to do others. It's gonna make you, for example, less likely to set a limit, but it also starts to keep you uncertain and anxious, which is to keep you under their control. You're gonna start to now monitor the relationship and their emotional state to know whether or not you should bring up a topic or when a topic subject is over.

In other words, they're using their involvement with you, the hot and cold behavior is a way to reward and punish you. So I want you to know that you're not imagining this. I don't consider what you're experiencing, a form of love bombing, but rather really a form of coercive control. You're being ignored by somebody that you live with, which is really cruel, and you deserve to be in a relationship where your know is respected, not punished, and where you're allowed to have a voice.

So thank you so much for sending this in and asking this powerful question today, Southern Pines, North Carolina. I deeply appreciate our listeners support and I really appreciate when you guys send me in issues that I can address. Thank you for listening and even more for trusting me with your questions.

You are not alone on this journey.