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Although narcissists would never admit it, they are by nature dependent on other people for their emotional survival. If they were loners, many lives would be spared immeasurable misery. But the narcissist actively, persistently pursues others to obtain “narcissistic supply,” or the attention, status, and reassurance s/he needs for emotional survival. The narcissist as human parasite takes a heavy emotional and physiological toll on her/his supplier “hosts.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines a parasite as follows:
“A parasite is an organism that lives on or in a host and gets its food from or at the expense of its host. Parasites can cause disease in humans.”
Parasitism isn’t just about “feeding,” however. Scientists have uncovered many parasite-host relationships in which the parasite actually alters the brain and behavior of its host to make it assist in fulfilling vital parts of the parasite’s life cycle. A certain type of tiny wasp, for example, injects its egg along with chemicals into a ladybug. The egg hatches and consumes the nutrients that the ladybug ingests when it eats, essentially devouring the ladybug from the inside out. When the wasp larva is big enough, it squirms out of the ladybug and wraps itself in a cocoon beneath it. Immobilized and half dead, the ladybug is still programmed in essence to protect the larva by thrashing its body around if threatening insects approach. Once the larva-turned-wasp hatches from its cocoon and flies away, the ladybug typically dies.
The Narcissist as Human Parasite
Understanding narcissism through the lens of parasitism explains the narcissist’s reliance on others as a means of supply. Individuals with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) suffer from a destabilized identity and sense of inferiority rooted in childhood attachment disruptions. Narcissists attempt to adapt by projecting a superior persona. But they are always seeking the validation they did not receive at crucial developmental stages. Their incomplete sense of being compels them to seek identity and self-worth externally, either by aligning with high-status people/things or by devaluing and dissociating from those who either threaten their false persona or who somehow in their eyes lower their status.
Like most parasites, narcissists rarely kill their hosts (although malignant ones may subject them to extreme violence). But like the mind-altering variety of parasite, the narcissist works to control the “brains” of her/his suppliers through a wide range of manipulations, from bullying to projecting, denying to gaslighting, guilt-tripping to silent-treatment. The narcissist continuously orchestrates the “reality” around her/him by enlisting others in supporting her/his delusions of grandeur and punishing and/or rejecting them if they do not comply. To the narcissist, her/his spouse questioning an opinion s/he has declared as patented truth or her/his child not making the soccer team are potential humiliations, to which s/he may react with scorn or rage. In the parasitic narcissist’s eyes, both situations weaken the desirability of sources of supply, and thereby threaten her/his sense of well-being.
Are You a Narcissist’s Host?
Narcissists have an instinct for finding and attaching themselves to potential hosts. Such people in some way offer narcissists status while also enabling their harshly self-serving world-view and behavior.
A host may confer status to the narcissist in many ways, including by being well-liked, good looking, wealthy, famous, or professionally accomplished. The host also enables the narcissist by directly or indirectly being complicit in the narcissist’s distorted reality and abusive behavior to protect her/his false face. In this sense, the enabling host is like the mind-altered ladybug, serving the needs of the narcissist, often at its own expense.
Are you functioning as a kind of host for a narcissist? Here are some ways to tell if you’re in a relationship with one:
- They demand inordinate attention and admiration.
- They react with retaliatory rage or sulking punishment if you disagree or argue with them.
- They don’t apologize or take responsibility for their behavior, no matter how inappropriate or hurtful.
- They lack interest in or compassion for your feelings and needs and project their bad behavior onto you.
- They display an inflated sense of entitlement and cause a scene or react bitterly if they feel snubbed or victimized.
- You feel like you’re constantly vulnerable to attack and/or criticism.
- You find yourself regularly placating and avoiding confrontation.
- You feel it is unsafe to freely express your feelings or opinions around them.
- You are emotionally and physically hypervigilant to potential conflict.
- You feel isolated by the relationship.
Julie L. Hall is the author of The Narcissist in Your Life: Recognizing the Patterns and Learning to Break Free from Hachette Books. She is working on a memoir about life, and a few near deaths, in a narcissistic family (read excerpt).
Need support? Julie provides specialized narcissistic abuse recovery coaching to clients around the world.
Related Articles by Julie L. Hall
- The Narcissistic Family: Cast of Characters and Glossary of Terms
- Healing a Sense of Foreshortened Future in Adult Children of Narcissists
- The Narcissist’s Caretakers: Caught Hook, Line, and Sinker
- What the Narcissist Fears Most
- Narcissist Parents Are Hurt Machines to Their Children
- Identifying the Covert Narcissist in Your Life: A Checklist
- Understanding Narcissistic Rage and Why It’s Not Your Fault
- Setting Boundaries with Narcissist Parents
- The Dos and Don’ts of CoParenting with a Narcissist Ex
- How to Protect Your Children from Your Narcissist Spouse
- Why Narcissists Will Never Love You and It’s Dangerous to Love Them
- Horrid and Shocking Things Narcissists Say and Do
- The Overt Versus Covert Narcissist: Both Suck
- Seven Things Narcissists Will Never Do
- The Hidden Trauma of Neglect in the Narcissistic Family
- Enabling the Narcissist: How and Why It Happens
- How Narcissists Torture Others and Believe They’re Right to Do It
- Seven Sure-Fire Ways to Spot a Narcissist
- Maddening and Bizarre Things Narcissists Do Explained
- Behind the Narcissist Mask: The Bully, Coward, Liar and Fraud
- Why You Should Not Feel Sorry for the Narcissist
- Adult Children of Narcissists Face Trauma-Induced Health Risks
- Raised by a Narcissist? 11 Healing Things to Do for Yourself Right Now
- What Raging Narcissists Break: A Real-Life Damage List
- The Dilemma of the Golden Child in the Narcissistic Family
- Narcissism 101: A Glossary of Terms for Understanding the Madness
- The Narcissism Disease Cluster in Families and How to End the Cycle
- A Daughter’s Story of One Hell of a Narcissistic Mother
- The Narcissist Parent’s Psychological Warfare: Parentifying, Idealizing, and Scapegoating
- Raised by Narcissists? Why You Can’t Afford the Wrong Therapist
- 4 Insidious Ways That Narcissistic Abuse Isolates the Victim
- It’s You and Me Baby: Narcissistic Head Games
- How and Why Narcissists Are Highly Skilled Abusers
- The Strength of the Scapegoat in the Narcissistic Family
- Life in the Fun House: Narcissistic Mirroring and Projection
- The Paradox of the Narcissist’s Unrequited Self-Love
- A Golden Child Story of Guilt in the Narcissistic Family
- 9 Best of the Worst Narcissist Mothers on Screen
- Understanding the Narcissist’s Disrespect, Envy, and Contempt
Images courtesy of Gilles San Martin, Creative Commons, and BeatWalker, Wikimedia Commons. Share on Facebook Tweet Follow us
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9 Comments
AlisonMarch 25, 2017 at 7:50 pmI was falling down in public with low blood sugar. The EMTs who came to help me told him I needed food. He refused to help me get any food and told me I had “humiliated” him. He drove me to his house, dumped me at the curb and then I went to get something to eat.Reply
Julia HallMarch 25, 2017 at 7:58 pmAren’t they swell? I felt a little guilty about using the leech image, but not guilty enough to refrain. Narcissistic trauma is the gift that just keeps giving.Reply
paulApril 12, 2017 at 8:49 pmGreat stuff Julia, but I didn’t see anything about the dehumanizing aspect of “stealing” our earned title of victim for themselves, fabricating and/or projecting their abusive behavior onto their victims.Reply
SteveJune 14, 2019 at 5:27 pmYou are right that innumerable people would be spared, as well as the knock-on effects for society, if these parasites were never born. They tend to lack the happiness and creativity of people with warmth and energy, so survive by leeching off them. I once met a narcissist / psychopath called Sayalay Anuttara who exhibited all these traits. Manipulative and spiritually dead, but trying to use religion as a way to control others, and further her own name. These people are sickening.Reply
PeelingMyClementineJuly 23, 2019 at 8:56 amDamn. This is so descriptive of my personal situation. And I do refer to her as a parasite. She takes and takes, never gives unless it’s to bring herself some recognition. Everything I earn becomes hers, and she expects it, demands it, and is never grateful for it. She is now in the process of destroying everything I have worked for, my reputation, my life. Evil people.Reply
SGAugust 22, 2019 at 10:19 amHow long ago was that Steve?Reply
KellyOctober 7, 2019 at 6:25 amGeez pAuL u ever made an error in judgement like what really happensReply
KellyOctober 7, 2019 at 6:27 amWhat about what u or your family peeled off her or put her thriugh.Reply
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