In an earlier article, I described the red flags that I had ignored during the pedestal phase of a relationship with a covert narcissist. The pedestal phase is the time when it all feels sooo good. The best relationship ever. The guy is the soul mate. He is so compassionate and understanding of you on all levels. He gets you in a way no one has done before – until he suddenly changes. You have entered the devaluation phase.
Most likely you are trying to figure out how the person that loved you adored you and worshipped you just a few weeks ago so suddenly lost all interest in you. Most likely you blame yourself.
The devaluation phase is a confusing time. The narcissist is on and off with his interest in you. Your insecurities are being triggered big time but you cling to the memory of the pedestal phase. You are in denial and think that it all will come back. A love like this will withstand it all – you just need to give him a little bit of time and space, you need to work on yourself, fix your anxieties, fix your insecurities, be less clingy, be more supportive…. That’s what you think and you are very wrong.
It’s natural to think like this because you sincerely believe that the person’s feelings were real. You have no clue that you have been taken and infected by a narcissist. You have no clue about the narcissistic relationship cycle and the fact that narcs can’t bond and therefore once past the infatuation phase, they lose all interest in the relationship.
So how can you figure out you are being devalued (and heading towards the ultimate discard)? Many narcs are very subtle in their manipulations and psychological abuse. You don’t see clearly that they are playing you. You don’t understand that him being able to get away with his behaviour is giving him a massive ego boost. It’s more difficult to cut yourself away from these types. The memory of the good times is strong.
Here is my honest recollection of the devaluation period. I don’t posses all the answers but I want to contribute my bit to the growing body of online resources about narcissists so we all can stop being their prey.
Sudden onset
Hitting the devaluation phase with a narcissist is very different from a normal relationship crisis. It frequently comes when you think that everything is going swimmingly, you are expecting a proposal, resting on your cloud nine and absolutely in a million years don’t expect that you are actually heading towards a discard.
There are no arguments. It’s all rosy. Perhaps you notice that the guy is a bit withdrawn lately. You ask him what’s going on – and bang! The narc announces that he is not so sure whether he wants to be with you. Quite a shocker – just a month ago he was telling you that you two were a ‘brangelina’, a super couple, better than any other couple.
Some people say that narcs wait for the moment when they truly secure you. When you make that inner commitment. The moment that you tell yourself in your mind: this is real, this is serious, my future is with this man. This is when they strike.
I have to say that my experience does confirm this presumption. For me, the commitment was a decision to properly learn his language so that I could properly communicate with his family (my future in-laws, I thought, ehm…). So I paid for classes, spent all my weekends revising Greek vocabulary… and two months down the line – it happened – he was not so sure he wanted to be with me…
He wants to break-up almost immediately
That was really confusing for me. It wasn’t just – I am confused, I am not sure whether this is going to last. He was kind of immediately – yeah, let’s break up. The man who just a month ago had been professing his undying love for me was suddenly very eager for me to move out of our shared flat. There was really zero interest in working on the relationship and he really wasn’t at all emotional about the situation.
The narcissist’s idea of working on a relationship is gauging how much supply there is in you to squeeze out and comparing you with other sources of supply (other women that are now in his sphere of interest). As long as he thinks that there is supply to squeeze out of you, he keeps you around but will degrade you from a serious partner to someone in consideration with no right to expect anything from him.
For the rest of the devaluation phase, you will be the one allowing the narc to breach one boundary after the other, showing him how little you value yourself. You are still subconsciously hooked to the persona from the pedestal phase and clinging to the hope that this awesome guy will come back
But if you pull yourself together and withdraw… he changes his mind
This is the funny thing. Once I finally decided to move out of our shared house (he essentially manipulated me to do it. He knew how to behave so that I myself offered to move out), I sort of magically managed to pull myself together. Somehow, for a limited period of time, I was able to control (or perhaps supress) my emotions. I managed to be composed. That in the eyes of the narc increased my value so when I was moving out, he asked me to treat the break up as a break – he would sort himself out, he claimed, and we would be back together.
In fact, after my first night in the new place, he would call me to reassure me about his intentions because “he doesn’t like sleeping alone.” Notice the choice of words. He does not miss me. He doesn’t like sleeping alone. It’s all about him but obviously I interpret it that he is serious about sorting out the relationship.
This sort of behaviour is a narcissistic trap. He doesn’t want you to move on and out of his sphere of influence so he starts playing this little nasty game with you. Throwing you crumbs of hope for you to cling to. But that’s all it is – crumbs. It’s called intermittent reinforcement and it’s the most dangerous technique of psychological manipulation. These crumbs are in line with what you believed the person was in the pedestal phase, so you choose to cling to those crumbs, instead of looking at the person’s behaviour as a whole and judge his character based on his actions rather than his words.
Because the reality is this – the narc doesn’t want to commit to the relationship. He is already grooming new sources of supply but he doesn’t want you to break it off on your terms. To extract maximum supply, he needs to break it off (understand discard you) on his terms. He wants to do it when you are at your lowest, most desperate point.
After I moved out of the home I shared with the narc, he would be constantly on and off. Every time I tried to assert myself and said that the relationship was either over or we should commit to it, he would start persuading me to just give him time. I even joked that I was offering him a Grexit, so why doesn’t he take it?
I learned later. Eventually, my rejection and abandonment fears would take over. I would become truly clingy and needy and that’s when he kicked me in the ass mercilessly.
Random acquaintances are more important than you
During the devaluation phase, you will notice that you are suddenly the last person on the narc’s list of priorities (you used to be the perfect little goddess on a pedestal and now you are essentially a worthless piece of garbage). Everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone, is more significant. Not just his friends and family. Also all the random acquaintances he sees once in a year are getting a better treatment. The reason for that is that he is shifting towards other sources of supply, since your supply is not good enough anymore. You are destined for a discard and not worth any energy.
I remember when the devaluation was switching towards the discards (I had no clue he was a narc at that time), I asked him to meet me for lunch so that we could talk about what’s going on. He was only willing to meet me for a quick coffee, because he was lately having too many friends over and spent too much money on eating out with them.
(Here is the devaluation phase described from a position of a diagnosed narcissist.)
The two faces
During the devaluation phase, you will start suffering from cognitive disonance because the narc’s two faces – the false self, which the narc created to lure you in – and the stunted emotionally unevolved true self – become apparent.
The false self is the one you were in love with but you don’t see it anymore, except for those little glimpses he uses for intermittent reinforcement. You may, however, notice, that he is showing this false – kind, loving, considerate – self, to everyone else. For other people (the secondary, tertiary and other sources), he is still that kind, awesome loving guy. To you he is an indifferent, cold and even psychologically cruel jerk.
How long it takes you to realise that the neglectful mean immature person is the real thing will determine how long you stay stuck. It did take me a very long time.
Refuses to talk about the relationship
Since the onset of the devaluation phase (at that time I used to call it a relationship crisis), the narc would dodge any conversation about what was going on in the relationship.
In hindsight, I feel like it was a sort of his strategy. He was refusing to talk about it when I was still living with him. When I moved out, when he asked me to consider it a break rather than a break-up, he would avoid talking about it during our occasional meetings. The way he would go about it was by talking about all sorts of things that interested him – his family, his friends, his dog, his work, his colleagues. (And when he would run out of topics, he would propose we played some game such as who can name more cities starting with the letter R – you can imagine the frustration, a relationship falling apart and you are asked to name the most cities starting with the letter R).
Generally, he expected me to pretend that nothing is going on and just be giving him whatever positive supply I may have left in me while he was considering whether to keep me or not (or rather when to discard me).
Eventually, the narc exited a four-year relationship without as much as a word for explanation by gradually cutting all contact with me.
You feel like you are in a casting for a girlfriend
Not so long ago, you were a perfect little goddess, now the narc aloud ponders whether to keep you or not. You may hear some weird remarks coming out of his month, such as “If I didn’t respect you so much I would have kept this going because you are so beautiful and that makes me look good in front of my friends.” Or “where am I going to find another beautiful girl like you?” This is the narc considering your positive attributes – your looks, which in his eyes enhance his social status. He is measuring those positive attributes against your drawbacks.
During the devaluation phase you have most likely stopped the constant praising of the narc. Obviously, the perfect boyfriend mask is slipping, you are noticing weird behaviours and being vocal about it. That means you are providing less supply. You are now the ‘nagging bitch’ girlfriend and the narc doesn’t like that.
The narc obviously puts this ‘nagging’ on the other side of the scale than your positive attributes (your looks for example). “Will you ever be able not to complain when I watch TV?” That’s an example of a remark that speaks about your negative points. The narc I was with was a serious TV addict. He was watching about a tonne of TV series. He would put something on as soon as he came home without even saying hi and wouldn’t turn it off until he went to bed at 5 am. Obviously, I was concerned since there was no room for me in the relationship. The narc didn’t like me criticising his TV addiction. I was too much work. I didn’t want to stay quiet on a shelf like a proper accessory. So eventually, I had to be discarded.
He is condescending
The narc I was with sort of pretended that he ‘doesn’t want to hurt me’ and that was his excuse for not talking to me. Despite me asking him the exact opposite. He gave the impression that he knows better what is right for me. I didn’t understand. Only much later did I realise that he was condescending because he was enjoying my confusion and all the stories and excuses I was coming up with to make sense out of his behaviour.
He was condescending because he was playing and manipulating me and was having fun because I obviously fell for it and was blaming myself for the failure of the once seemingly perfect relationship.
I dare to say that what I was seeing in his eyes those days was a good example of the duper’s delight.
He says one thing but does another
The narc may be full of promises of what the two of you are going to do about ‘the relationship crisis’, what are you going to do together, what is he going to do about himself but then he does neither. It’s part of the game of future faking, which is designed to confuse you and keep your expectations up. As an honest person, you believe that the narc means what he says because that’s how you go about in life. You are not getting that he is just having fun playing with your emotions and expectations. The more he raises your expectations, the more you will suffer when he eventually pulls the rug from under you.
Criticises your emotionality
So the man who once loved you, adored you and worshipped you like no other is kind of indifferent to you and chances are you are quite emotional. You thought this relationship was your future and now it’s collapsing like a house of cards. But guess what? The narc has no time for your emotions and he feels utterly annoyed by your crying. He will let you know that.
Once, I met the narc to talk and I started crying even before he arrived. He was like “I can’t believe you are already crying, this is obviously not good for you to be meeting me, because you cry and that’s why it’s better if I don’t talk to you and don’t meet you.”
As simple as that.
Not listening to you but claiming he listens
I noticed this in the narc that I was with even before the full onset of the devaluation phase. I would try to share something with him and he would have this absent blank expression on his face (read more about the narcissist’s empty stare here). “You are not listening to me,” I would say. “Of course I am listening to you,” he would retort.
He is trying to confuse you. Trust your gut. We as humans can sense when someone is not giving us attention when we are trying to share something.
One of my strongest recollections is the narc falling asleep when I was trying to share with him a major professional success that happened on that day. He fell asleep. I felt alone. He would wake up five minutes later to watch one of his billion favourite TV shows.
Ignoring you
You go out with the narc but he spends all the time on his phone. There is no meaningful conversation.
The narc comes from work and goes directly to his computer, barely says hi to you and spends the rest of the evening talking to his friends on Skype or watching TV. He still expects you to listen to him and be excited about his stuff but he does not reciprocate.
You ask something from the narc, he doesn’t do it and then blames you for being unreasonable when you express disappointment about his behaviour.
He keeps you waiting and waiting and waiting every time you are supposed to meet somewhere out. When you turn up late, then you ‘stood him up’ and he is pissed.
On one occasion, I would spend an evening with the narc and his Greek friends. They would just talk in Greek, probably making some rude jokes or whatever and laughing. I was just sitting there for a few hours staring into the wall. On our way home, the narc would in all seriousness ask me if I had fun and whether I enjoyed myself…
Needs to be the centre of attention
At some point you may realise that all your conversations with the narc are about him. He only talks about himself, his friends (other sources of supply), his family. He is absolutely not interested in you. I realised at some point that after a four-year relationship, the narc wouldn’t be able to answer some basic questions about me. What he learned very well though, were my triggers. He also very well memorised everything I had said that he could use against me in the future (which he obviously did).
Some of the explanations the narc gives you as to what went wrong in the relationship
I don’t know – vagueness is king when it comes to narcs. They really want you to put all the effort and energy into trying to figure out what happened.
I changed – the translation of this is “I don’t feel the highs anymore and since I am not capable of bonding and am generally a flat two dimensional person, I have no interest whatsoever in maintaining this relationship since you no longer appear to be the perfect little goddess I once used to think you were.” The truth is that the narc hasn’t really changed. Now you see him for what he is. The awesome kind loving exciting person you fell for was a fraud.
I am suffering from a depression – depression in the narc’s world means lack of narcissistic supply and boredom. The narc is no longer satisfied with the fuel that you provide and whilst he is looking to secure new sources, he might seriously feel depressed. The difference between a normal person’s depression and the narc’s depression is that the narc’s depression miraculously disappears once he secures new supply (being it through a new intimate object or some secondary sources).
I remember the narc I was involved with telling me a story how he felt terribly depressed in his early twenties and was even contemplating suicide. Then he met a new girl and the depression went away. Real depression doesn’t disappear this way.
You will also have this feeling that the narc is sort of enjoying this ‘playing a victim of the depression.’ He loves to feel existential. He thinks he is deep while he is in fact utterly shallow.
Accusing you of things you have not done, indicating you have done something wrong
This one was especially confusing for me. Something would happen in the house or elsewhere and the narc’s reaction would be “what did you do?” Once I remember he called me while on his way to the airport just to tell me off for misplacing some of his documents, which I haven’t even touched. This is the narc trying to make you feel guilty and question yourself.
I want to clearly state that this is by no means a comprehensive account. It’s just my little contribution to the growing amount of online resources about narcissism and how it manifests in relationships. It is my wish in life that people learn how to detect these toxic individuals early so that no one needs to get hurt and we can all move on towards healthy relationships as fast as possible. Narcs are not worth wasting a minute of our lives on. Once we spot them, we need to put all our focus on our psychological healing to completely disconnect from them. In the next post, I will focus on the discard.
Tereza's Health Blog 
What a thorough,honest, chilling yet beautifully crafted appraisal of a narc and this turbulent kind of relationship. I can’t say I’ve not been warned and will be on high alert for the signs!
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Thank you Amelia 🙂
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Great post! Wish I had seen this narcissistic “play by play” years earlier. It would have saved me a lot of time and heartache. Your account is my account and is pretty much everyone’s account. They are so extremely predictable in their behavior. Everyone needs to know about their easily predictable behavior so as to avoid being sucked into their toxic making world.
Thanks so much for this. I just posted the URL to this on Quora for some poor man who had been suddenly and for no reason dumped by a woman who initially had professed to love him forever. He was totally shocked by it and I felt your post would help him understand.
So sorry you had to go through it too. That magic honeymoon phase is just not worth all the later torture that comes with it.
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Also a note: Persons with this disorder have a dopamine deficiency for whatever reason (too much stress or genetic mutations that cause deficiencies in the nutrients needed to synthesized dopamine like magnesium and B complex vitamins), so these people constantly need new stimulation (new things, new people) new “things/people” stimulate extra release of dopamine, and for someone who is dopamine deprived, this will be a big draw.
One you are not “new” to them anymore, your presence in their life has no purpose because your “non new” presence no longer stimulates excess dopamine release and its all about getting that dopamine that their brain is deficient in.
Anyone who has this dopamine deficiency problem will act like this. And they will be nice to their friends unless they spend enough time at one go with a friend for that friend to lose the “newness” factor (aka the extra dopamine stimulation factor). Once that time “newness” factor has been exceeded, the narcissist will get irritated with their friend too.
These people act most mean to people they are familiar with because those people no longer have that “newness” extra dopamine release stimulation factor.
So part of fixing this for them is to find out the root cause of their dopamine deficiency (like an MTHFR mutation or CBS 699 mutation or many other different common mutations that cause dopamine deficiency) and then treat for the mutation by starting to supplement with magnesium citrate or magnesium malate and a well absorbed B complex vitamin.
If you choose to stick around someone like this, these narc types can be persuaded to do this supplementation because they usually also have physical problems that also happen with magnesium and B complex deficiency like insomnia or lack of energy or erectile dysfunction etc. (you cannot mention mental problems with a narc, because of course they don’t have any ;), but it is not lying to tell them that supplementing with magnesium citrate or malate and a well absorbed B complex vitamin will make them feel better physically, because they will and if you are going to hang around someone like this, you do what you have to do.
On this note: I would suggest that everyone educate themselves about common genetic mutations like MTHFR and CBS 699 and SUOX mutations etc by going to MTHFRsupport dot net, Dr. Jocker’s webpage for diet for CBS 699, Genetic Genie dot org, and 23andme dot com.
Having mutations that cause magnesium and B complex deficiencies can cause lots of physical and mental problems, but most can be treated through proper diet and nutrition for the individual based on their own particular nutritive needs.
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Hello and thank you for your lovely comment. I am really happy you find my post useful. I agree – everyone needs to be educated about this. That’s why I am sharing what I have learned. I have not foreseen the ‘love of my life’ to be a psycho that would end up treating me like a piece of garbage but eventually I discovered that all those red flags were there. They are really all identical. You are also right with the boredom thing. That guy was always bored. He even had this dead empty look when he was bored. He was aware of it and was even joking that he looks like a criminal and that he was stopped by police a couple of times because of that. Well, he doesn’t only look like a criminal, he has a mind of a criminal. Interesting stuff with the magnedium, B complex. But until doctors find ways how to fix this and especially teach them empathy, respect and some ethical and moral values, which they don’t have, we need to learn how to spot them and treat them as what they are – poisonous snakes. Good luck on your journey!
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As far as the cure for narcissism, it is more like a treatment right now. Nutrients and right diet to address neurotransmitter imbalance issues that trigger the behavior, along with therapy for cognitive awareness.
The next treatment, I am looking at for myself is from a bio identical company to make the enzymes that my body cannot make due to my mutations.
My ex also had the same CBS mutations and SUOX mutations as myself, but I was reading on Dr. Jocker’s site, that they affect men a lot worse. I think this is because women can “bleed” out the toxins. I know my condition did not get real bad until after I had a hysterectomy. It was only minor before then. And then when I could not “bleed” out the toxins, my fibro pain and brain fog went through the roof as well as my anxiety and insomnia.
At any rate, it would be great if a bio identical company could make the correct version of the CBS (Cystathionine Beta Synthase) and the SUOX (SUlfur OXidase) enzymes that my body (and my ex’s body does not make). Then maybe we could inject or ingest it before eating. This mutation would surely explain the mood swings, as I myself started having them after I got my hysterectomy.
My ex paid for our genes to be mapped because he thought I was lying about it, and so I found out we both have the CBS mutation and the SUOX mutations (sulfur intolerance genes)
So right now, there is diet and supplementation.
Hopefully in the near future, there could be a way to just put the needed enzyme into our bodies in the same way a diabetic does (either by injections or pills)
and then the most fabulous of all, would be to have gene therapy and to get those badly mutated genes fixed for good. I don’t know if you follow it, but they have already fixed a male teenager with Sickle Cell with gene therapy and now they have developed a gene therapy to cure genetically inherited blindness, but it costs around $800 k.
So for now I am setting my sights on bio identical medication to replace the faulty enzymes my body produces with working ones. I have written Coherus Biosciences in Redwood Shores, CA to inquire about this. Of course it would be years before this would be available but one has to start somewhere.
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Hi Theresa, thanks for your response. Your ex and mine sound the same. Totally dead and bored, and play with people to try to gain some amusement.
I almost had a nervous breakdown from the whole thing, and had to go on tranquilizers for a short while. You call them snakes, well right after the break off, I even had a dream that I was in a market place (like a middle eastern type one) with lots of people and my guy and his best friend were there too, but they were little baby crocodiles about 3 feet long and they were lying in wait under a table with their mouths open.
And I was walking around this marketplace barefoot (aka psychically unprotected) and I wasn’t watching and stepped my bare foot right into his sharp teethed mouth and he chomped down on my foot and his teeth punctured into my foot and the pain in my dream felt as if it wasn’t a dream.
And I was able to get my foot loose and I noticed no one else was angry at the two baby crocodiles, because they were not being bothered by them, because they were aware of them, and kept their distance, and walked around them; and also everyone else had on shoes.
So to the other people at the place, they were not a danger, just something to be avoided. The baby crocodiles did not chase anyone, they just lay in wait with their big sharp teethed mouths open for those who were unsuspecting and unprotected like myself.
So in a way, they are poisonous dangerous snakes, but also avoidable snakes. Just as long as we watch out for ourselves, and set boundaries that we keep. (aka keep a watch out and keep our shoes (boundaries) on)
At the bottom of it, they are just severely ill people. People severely bereft of nutrients to make both the stimulating and calming neurotransmitters they need. They don’t get the neurotransmitters for calming or being excited, so they try to drain those emotions off of others.
They are much like drowning people. And drowning people have to be approached with caution and only by very strong lifeguards who know what they are doing, because drowning people are very selfish (due to the high stress hormone release) and it is not uncommon that they drown people trying to save them.
This is how you should view persons like this. Your poor ex, did not have enough dopamine (that’s why he got bored) and he did not have enough serotonin and GABA (so that would cause anxiety). He probably did not have these due to genetically caused nutrient deficiencies. And those nutrient deficiencies cause widespread neurotransmitter deficiencies and that causes mood problems which causes thinking problems, which causes behavioral problems.
This is a physiological illness which manifests in bad behavior initially, but other things will come up as the individual gets older. They are not “snakes”, they are just severely deficient in the chemicals the brain needs to run normally. It is no different than being a diabetic who is severely deficient in the hormone insulin. The people are ill.
This does not mean to put yourself in their destructive path, as you would not try to save a drowning person, unless you had the strength and skill to not let them drown you. It just means to of course steto have compassion for their condition and try to educate others on this concept as I do, because then more people will accept these elementary and simple ideas as obvious and start treating this issue as a medical issue rather than a criminal one or viewing people as “snakes”. These moral judgements are part of the problem of criminalizing these genetically inherited problems.
Just as you would not criminalize a diabetic for shooting up the insulin their body does not make, no one should criminalize a person for self medicating to try to balance out the genetically mediated imbalance in their brain.
People don’t criminalize people with brain tumors who suddenly start acting bad, so this is the same thing and society needs to turn their thinking in this direction. It most definitely is a genetically mediated neurotransmitter imbalance issue.
By the way, about a year after this happened, I ran into my ex again and that same time, coincidentally or not, right after seeing him, I was at a bus stop and saw a Fernet Branca ad with a woman with a small alligator on a leash.
And then the next time I saw the ad again was again right after I had run into him about 6 months later. The universe was trying to tell me something. Trying to remind me. I finally got the message.
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Interesting!
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Hi, Tereza, yes it is the best thing to do to stay away from the narcs. I was just replying to H’s comment about one. It is best to take magnesium first, before starting in on any B complex and this is applies to everyone, as magnesium helps the b’s be absorbed.
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OK, I didn’t get it. Thanks. Interesting!
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The narc I know takes B vit because of his alcoholism – but not regularly. If i though this could cure it. Wowee.
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Haha, the person that invents cure for narcissism shall be given a Nobel Peace Prize for sure…
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Hi H, the best thing for that person to do is to get a gene mapping. People who are deficient in B complex vitamins in developed countries where food is plentiful, are usually deficient because of a genetic malabsorption issues, and sometimes taking a regular amount of a B complex vitamin can be too much for them and even cause more problems.
Over 40% of my genes are mutated, with 10% being homozygous mutations (mutation from both parents) and this causes big issues with trying to properly absorb B complex vitamins. I am really deficient, but I cannot even take the RDA of some of the B’s (I have to take a much smaller amount) because my body just cannot absorb them well.
And I have friends with similar mutations, and they also have B complex malabsorption issues. Due to my CBS 699 mutation, I am severely B6 deficient, but I get ill if I take more than a small amount of B6. The same with folate/ methyl folate. Because of my MTHFR 1298 mutation, I can only take about 1/10th of the RDA per day, otherwise it is like I have taken speed. My friend with an MTHFR mutation has the opposite problem. She gets seriously fatigued if she takes too much.
At any rate, gene mapping (see 23andme dot com and genetic genie dot org for more info) is the first thing to do to find out in which gene or genes the chemical imbalance lies. It might be in multiple issues like myself. And he might have a CBS 699 mutation or SUOX (Sulfur Oxidase) mutations which all cause sulfur and phosphorus levels in the body to get way too high. (Even on my low sulfur, low phosphorus diet, my urine levels are 4 times higher than normal (Quantofix urine sulfate strips) Max should not get over 400mg/ L (milligrams per liter) and my levels are at 1600 even on my restricted diet 😦
So some people, without their knowledge might also have excess sulfur and phosphorus in their bodies and it can cause bad anxiety and anger issues and some people might self medicate with alcohol.
And guess what???? Alcohol actually depletes phosphorus in the body, so it might actually be self medicating to someone who has an undiagnosed CBS 699 mutation, as it would deplete some of that excess phosphorus (even though it is damaging the body itself by also depleting magnesium and B complex vitamins which would then make the phosphorus problem worse and thus fuel the need for more self medicating of the substance (alcohol ) that fixes temporarily, but worsens the problem in the long run.
Again, see Dr. Jocker’s website for CBS 699 diet. I know about this since I have the CBS 699 and my phosphorus levels got so high that it cause me severe fibromyalgia pain and so I googled things that deplete phosphorus (that I wouldn’t need a prescription for) and the two things that came up were: Advil / Ibuprofen and alcohol.
So that made me suspect that maybe some alcoholics are actually dealing with this darn CBS 699 mutation. At any rate, gene mapping would be the first place to start.
Also if he is going to take a supplement, I would say to just start with Magnesium citrate supplementation first. As Dr. Robert Thompson said in his book, “The Calcium Lie: What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know Could Kill You”, if a person is deficient in magnesium (as most people are, and especially alcoholics are) then they won’t be able to properly absorb and metabolize B vitamins and then the B vitamins wouldn’t work for them and might even make them feel nauseous or anxious.
So get the gene mapping, and start supplementing with magnesium citrate. Solgar is the best absorbed that I have tried and it is economical ($13.50 for a 2 month supply) and easiest to take.
He should start out with 1 tablet per day (1 tablet is 200mg aka 1/2 the USRDA of 400mg) and take 1 tablet per day for 1 week and then go up to 2 tablets per day, 1 in AM and 1 in PM in perpetuity.
Too high of stress hormone release as happens when the body and brain is toxified due to mutations that impede the methylation system/ aka toxin removal system, will cause a person to act in a very selfish manner and think just only of themselves and their own needs.
Ever notice how darn selfish drowning people are?? “Help Me!”, “Get ME out of the water!”, “Save ME”.. … Me Me Me, that’s all those drowning people can talk about and they won’t even listen to how your day went, they just want someone to save them.. And they are so hell bent on not drowning that they will step all over you to get to where they want to go. Some of them will even push you down and drown you in order to not drown themselves.
And you know what??? Its all due to really high levels of fight or flight stress hormones circulating in their body from the environmental stress of drowning. So when you get a human being that has that same high level release of stress hormones, but due to genetic mutation problems, they will act selfish and ruthless, much like a drowning person who has high stress hormone release due to their drowning situation.
So if the person who has this physiologically high stress hormone release wants to get better and will do anything to get better, then help them on this journey of genetic mapping and magnesium supplementation, because if you can lower the amount of stress hormones being released, then that will lower the amount of selfish behavior and also help them have less of a push to self medicate.
But if this person does not want help or is not willing to try to better themselves, then you must get away from them, because they will only drag you down and life is too short to be dragged down by someone who insists on being a sinking ship.
This nutritional approach is by no means a “fix”/cure. It is a treatment, just as a diabetic treats daily with injections and diet, a person with genetically mediated toxin removal issues, must treat their system daily with appropriate supplements and diet for their specific problem; and some of the diets can be pretty strict, (especially for those of us, like myself, who cannot break down sulfur or phosphorus, as most foods are high in sulfur or phosphorus.)
At any rate, I do believe that fortifying a system so it is less toxic and has more raw materials to construct calming brain hormones, will help anyone who has anger issues or selfishness issues and also might be self medicating for the lack of calming neuro hormones with alcohol and/or drugs.
And if the person is going to supplement, they will have to be diligent about not missing a day on their supplementation because that really screws with the upgrading and down grading of receptors in the body. So it is very important to take the same amount of magnesium every day and not miss a day. This is very important as persons struggling with alcoholism are very deficient in magnesium. (Please read “The Magnesium Miracle” by Dr. Carolyn Dean or watch her talks about magnesium on youtube.
But once again, if a person does not want to help themselves, you will not be able to help them, and the best thing to do in that case is just to leave them and save yourself.
Listen to the song “Save Yourself” by Stabbing Westward. Its a really good anthem for this.
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The narc that you know needs to start taking magnesium citrate or magnesium malate first.
As I was reading in the book “The Calcium Lie” by Dr. Robert Thompson, that if a person is deficient in magnesium (as all alcoholics are, as alcohol severely depletes magnesium), that magnesium deficient person will not be able to absorb their b complex vitamins properly.
A person needs to have enough magnesium in their bodies to be able to absorb and metabolize B complex vitamins properly.
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Well, I let all the narcs do what they wish to do, as long as they are narcs there is no room for them in my life. If they want to seek treatment, it’s their responsibility…
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Well, looks like I’m in the devaluation stage and if he would just stay away I’d be ok because I’ve been through it before with good ole hoover-I’ve been able to recognize all the symptoms and quite frankly just tired of dealing with the hope it would get better versus being able to look at him without the mask and know it won’t–I kicked him out behind him lying to me and cheating -he used the “cold sleeping by myself” and let him in. I’ve waited for him to leave-but I also find myself in the old pattern-making things comfortable and safe-so I know he’ll pursue the new chick but keep me for supply-she lives with a man has two kids-after reading so much Iam so thankful to be able to define -I forgive him as its the disease not him-I gray rock-its hard to not love this person and to be dumped so easily-he went through some serious health issues, prison time-I stood steadfast-I’m older than this man and I can see and understand why I may not be as sexually appealing to him as the new 20 yr old-I merely asked for respect and for him to not live with me-I must have been a hell of a supplier!! I know the eventual leaving will grieve me-my heart will ache, I’ll feel like I’ve been eviserated-I’ll tell him that, not expecting reply-then I’ll go no contact-oh how I’ll miss him and yet what a feeling of release!!
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Martha, you deserve so much more than this… It really saddens me… You deserve someone who will not exchange you for a 20-year old. If it hurts, it’s not love. It sounds like you are trauma bonded, there must be something in there why you feel that ‘its hard to not love this person’. It will take some time healing, I suspect there might be some childhood issues that prepped you for this anyway. I am sending a big hug and I hope you will come out of this stronger than ever, more confident in yourself, happier…
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Ah yes… so true, they wait until that commitment phase and all of a sudden they forget about you. I mentioned “our future house” and he was over the moon, but then not even a week later he was clearly into the discard phase. Jekyll & Hyde, really 😦
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Yeah, it comes kind of out of the blue, when you least expect it and start planning your all bright future together. To be honest, from where I am now, the relationship was in fact always unhealthy, I just accepted it because I was quite damaged from my childhood. I remember my first thought when I first saw that guy was ‘high school bully’ and it turned out that my first instinct was very right. Anyway, I hope you are doing well and that your recovery as smooth as possible.
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Thanks 🙂 All well for now. No contact has worked wonders. No high school bully in my case, more like a covert narcissist that suddenly turns on you when the least you expect it. But on the bright side, I think I learned a lot about myself. So eventually in my head I also thanked him. He made me stronger.
Your website is really useful, I think. So many insights and also so many experiences. It can be hard to talk about certain events in our lives, so thanks for facilitating the sharing. I’m sure it’s helping many people out there, even just reading your articles and realising they are not crazy and they are not alone. Thanks! 🙂
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Thank you for the comment. It’s encouraging to hear that my writing helps others. And I agree, we do learn a lot about ourselves through this experience.
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Wow..we were in a relationship with the same guy😒 Except mine was not Greek… What you are discribing is the textbook example of someone with a covert npd. It is incredible how they act exactly the same those covert narcs. I know for sure mine had npd, when we started dating he told me than as a teenager he once got depressed and the psych treating him told him he was suspicious of him having a narcissistic adaption, which offcourse, my ex narc denied then and while telling me it . I remember thinking than, ‘could he be a narcissist?’ But he was so sweet and shy and humble in the beginning, and soooo into me, that it just never crossed my mind till the devaluation and discard phase.. When I started looking for covert npd signes, I was stunted. As I was saying..your story is like reading my own, exactly the same storyline..😔 He was depressed when he discarded me..and quess what? 3 weeks later he found a new ‘soulmate’ and his depression was gone with the wind! The thing that made me doubt the whole npd thing the most was that extreme soulmate feeling we shared during the ‘love bombing’ fase.. it took me a year to really accept that he was nót my soulmate. It did actually felt that way the first 6 months though.. I think it’s a good thing you are sharing this, especialy covert narcissism is much harder to detect than overt narcissism, and makes you doubt yourself even more. Thanks and good luck!
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Thank you for your comment, Anna. The soulmate feeling is the reason why so many people struggle to let go of them. The way I see it now is this: when you watch a romantic film, you get those intense feelings – it’s all fake, there are actors enacting a script, it’s not real and yet you get those feelings. It’s exactly the same with narcs, they enact a script, they steel they lines from TV, they play the soulmate game – so you are in a fake movie but you don’t know that. If you look back, you would see the red flags there but the cognitive dissonance is really powerful. He is enacting the exact same script with some modifications with the next target. It’s laughable (if it weren’t so psychologically damaging). Writing this blog was first therapy for me. Now I see it as education. All the best to you…
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I too was in a relationship with a narcissist who also appeared to be a sex addict. I kicked him out of my home and life last year. He cheated on everyone he had a relationship with from the time he was 20 years old. He’s now 49 and always has a harem of women. Of course it’s secret as none of the women know that he’s out sleeping with others but I told as many women as I could when we were together. They all dumped him and he’s been busy rebuilding, even attempted many times to get me back. He’s the perfect definition of a person with narcissistic personality disorder. He holds 4 degrees (one of them in psychology), owns 3 small businesses, and teaches from time to time at a local university. He has a voracious appetite for supply and needs for everyone he meets to have complete adoration for him. Those that don’t are quickly discarded.
I appreciate your blog about this topic, it is refreshing to hear yet again that I am not crazy. I have educated myself as much as possible about this and am currently reading a book titled “Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare”.
Thank you!
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That sounds like a cool book to read 🙂 I am glad if my blog helped and I hope you are recovering smoothly 🙂
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The problem is if you are living with a Narc… Most likely you are a codependent. This is the nasty thing about relationships; two Narc’s cannot live together harmoniously and neither can two codependents. In most relationships one will be a narc and the other a codependent at some level and as long as you maintain boundaries and your partner is not completely overt or covert then you can maintain a healthy relationship.
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Thank you for your comment although I don’t agree with what you say. I was in other codependet relationships before and trust me it was a very different experience than the narc. I still respect and cherish memories of those relationships, although I understand why those relationships were unhealthy and had to end. I don’t subscribe to your definition of a healthy relationship. There are truly healthy relationships where people have done the necessary work and are no longer codependent. The codependent person has a chance to heal and have a healthy balanced relationship, the narc does not due to the lack of self-awareness and the pathological need to project their flaws onto other people (the crazy bitch ex) and the inability to own their shit and the lack of empathy and emotional bonding. A codependent person lacks boundaries. Once they develop those boundaries and their sense of self-worth, they are no longer codependent. We are all work in progress of course and will always keep discovering blind spots and hidden issues. As long as there is a genuine healthy communication and real connection in the relationship, it could be called a healthy relationship. That does not happen with a narc who is a liar and manipulator. There are of course many relationships between toxic personalities that go on for very long times. Usually these people both get something from the other what they need or want – status, money, fame, whatever – I don’t qualify those as heatlhy relationships because it’s not about you as a human being, it is about what you represent to the narc, or what you give (luxurious lifestyle, maintaining the household and not asking for too much, money). Once your situation changes (you are no longer the hottest chick around, it is very likely the narc will be gone if he has the opportunity. At some stage the narc gets too old to get a hotter chick and than the relationship with a weak partner might last but it will be emotionally dead. By the way, enforcing boundaries and demanding to be treated with respect is a sure fire way to determine whether you are or are not with a narc. They flee really quickly if do that. I also don’t understand what you mean by completely covert or completely overt, do you mean that that person has some narcissistic traits but is not a complete NPD? If that’s what you mean, then I would say that the relationship can work as long as the person with narc traits has self-awareness and is willing and committed to working on their issues. Generally, the person needs to be able to own their shit rather then project it back onto the partner, which is what narcs do. Are there more toxic relationships in the world than there are healthy ones? Quite likely. But just the fact that a toxic and emotionally dead relationship goes on for a very long time doesn’s make it healthy.
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