Covert narcissists (crave admiration and importance, and lack empathy, but are less “obvious,” and harder to spot as a narcissist) get their supply mainly from being rescued or emotionally care-taken, and in the case of narcissistic mothers, by their children. Taking care of a covert narcissist’s needs will be number one on their priority list. If you question them, they’ll assume you’re challenging them, and will become defensive, maybe violent. Narcissists don’t respect your boundaries or your privacy. For example, a narcissist would be totally at ease going into your personal space, looking in your purse, reading your journal, listening to your phone conversations, reading private mail and documents, and sharing your personal and private information with others. (Because of this, you’d feel a sense of shame in multiple areas, but you won’t realize that these behaviors are it’s source.)

A narcissist likes knowing we are hurt when they use the “silent treatment” to actively ignore us, as a form of power and control. Our pain demonstrates that they are so powerful they can devastate us whenever they choose. Our pain is their narcissistic supply.

Remember, narcissists don’t view people as unique individuals with their own needs, feelings, goals, or lives. To narcissists, people are simply props who play a supporting role in their lives. A narcissist’s only concern is what they can get from others or what others can do for them. They have difficulty emotionally bonding with others because their relationships are all about power, control, and the benefits that they can obtain from them.

A narcissist cannot survive as a narcissist without narcissistic supply. It’s their emotional food; any form of attention, affirmation, approval, or admiration they get will suffice. They feel a sense of power and importance from any emotional reaction. Any emotion—fear, sadness, anger, shame, whatever—will do, because it feeds their “false self” (everything the narcissist would like to be, but is not) and makes it stronger.

Why do they need supply?

Securing narcissistic supply keeps a narcissist’s false self working in an automatic cycle: project the false self, receive the supply, empower and strengthen the false self, repeat.

The cycle repeats itself because it provides feelings of power, control, and importance. Narcissists thrive on these, feeling formidable, even omnipotent after getting supply. This leads to a “narcissistic high,” which potentially makes them more dangerous. You won’t be permitted to share your thoughts or feelings when your narcissist is on a high. They won’t take any challenge lightly and will go for your jugular to prove their supremacy. They’re not interested in what you have to say or how you feel. It’s all about them.

After going through this cycle with a narcissist a few times, we get it. We understand that they’re more powerful than we are—that it’s always about “winning,” and they’ll be delighted to win at our expense. In their mind, they’re always right, and there’s no use trying to have a conversation or share an opinion because they’ll become combative. Eventually, we’ll likely end up feeling defeated, unloved, and insignificant. We’ll learn to walk on eggshells and to appease, please, and pacify. We’ll anticipate their needs and moods and act accordingly. Do you remember what that’s called? Yep! Codependency.

A narcissist usually reveals their true self during a time of crisis, conflict, or high stress. When they’re pressured, and it’s hard for them to control their emotions, their lack of empathy is exposed. When they feel threatened, they go for the “win” at any cost, even if it threatens important relationships. What’s said or done won’t matter. Winning matters. High-pressure situations show how shallow their emotional connections are. Our shame, humiliation, and embarrassment are their narcissistic supply.

How to deny them any supply

A tool that I use when it comes to denying a narcissist their supply, alongside (loving) detachment, is responding calmly then shutting up.

“Not responding”(aka “shutting up,” or “not taking the bait”) works because it removes the possibility of giving emotional feedback and responses. Emotionally responding is a form of “narcissistic supply.” Giving a narcissist any amount of emotional response validates and affirms their perspective and behavior. They thrive on any and all interaction and attention, especially when you become emotionally unhinged during the interaction. Narcissistic supply makes a narcissist a stronger narcissist.

If my narcissistic mother (or anyone) pushes my buttons in an attempt to trigger an emotional response from me, I do not take the bait, I do not pick up the proffered tug-of-war rope, and my mouth remains shut. I deny them any narcissistic supply. I do this consistently and repeatedly because it indicates that I’m OK with whatever they think or do. I will not react. (This takes PRACTICE! Take advantage of any opportunity they give you to practice this. It helps YOU!) The reaction is what they’re looking for, hoping for, waiting for. The reaction is their narcissistic supply.

As I said earlier, not engaging, not defending, not arguing back, requires mindfulness and practice, and it’s worth the time and effort to learn how to do this. Knowing how to control your responses, also known as “regulating your emotions” is also part of the process for learning how to “lovingly detach” and also to maintain your boundaries.

As you may know, having a conversation with a narcissist feels like a game of emotional tug-of-war. When you drop your end of the rope, the game stops. It can’t continue unless you pick up your end and start pulling again. So, stop playing the game! You don’t have to explain that you’re no longer playing or why. Your actions speak loud and clear: when you drop the rope, you’re demonstrating that they have no more control over you. Dropping the rope is an aspect of loving detachment, enforcing a boundary, and demonstrating self-empowerment and self-love. If you haven’t tried it, I can tell you from experience that it’s very empowering.

Detaching with love (versus “angry” or “middle-finger” detaching) and not giving emotional supply to a narcissist means that I simply listen. I don’t rush in to fix problems or rescue them from the consequences of their choices or actions. If we disagree, I don’t argue or try to change their mind; I state my opinion, and I accept that they are entitled to have their own opinion. We don’t have to agree. I don’t steal their personal power, and I leave them the dignity to deal with their own problems and consequences. If they instigate, I don’t pick up the tug-of-war rope; instead, I might end our conversation. All of this means that I emotionally disconnect when they’re baiting or instigating and trying to get a reaction from me.

Be a rock… a gray rock

“Gray Rock” is a term coined in 2012 by Skylar, a blogger who wrote the article, “The Gray Rock Method of Dealing with Psychopaths” (2018).

 If you’ve never tried the “Gray Rock” method, you’re missing out on a really effective tool.

Gray Rock is a technique that causes emotionally unbalanced people to lose interest in you. The method completely removes any emotional charge or drama from your interaction with them. When you use Gray Rock, it removes all narcissistic supply.

To use the Gray Rock method:

• Appear calm, even if you’re not.
• Maintain eye contact. Do not look down or away.
• Use the following responses when applicable:
  • I’m sorry you feel that way.
  • I welcome your opinion, but I feel good about my choice.
  • I have no right to try to control how you see me.
  • I accept how you see me.
  • I accept how you feel.
  • You’re entitled to your reality.
  • Your anger is not my responsibility.
  • It’s possible. I guess it could be true.
  • I’d like to continue this discussion, but it seems that we don’t share the same perspective. Maybe when you’re calm, we can resume this conversation in a mutually respectful way. (This is an example of enforcing a boundary as well.)

In a nutshell

These three approaches focus on letting the narcissist run their own life and solve their own problems while you take care of yours, your life and yourself. Learn to let go of the desire to control the narcissist and the outcomes of your interactions with them. Focus on the next best thing for you.

Start taking these steps today to deny your narcissist their emotional food. When they realize that you are no longer a satisfying source of supply, they’ll look for it elsewhere.

Try using your new tools as soon as possible:  

1. loving detachment
2. not responding, not engaging, not picking up your end of the tug-of-war rope
3. the Gray Rock technique

You’ll begin to experience a new type of freedom that’s hard to describe!

More tools for healing:

Conscious awareness:  Be aware and make conscious choices before acting. Self-awareness releases us from making impulsive and potentially damaging decisions. Practice mindfulness.

Learn about setting boundaries 

Learn about dysfunctional family roles

Understand Trauma Bonds

Learn about codependency and maladaptive coping skills

Understand the Narcissistic Abuse Cycle

Learn about expectations

Lemon Moms: Resources to guide you in healing from childhood trauma, abuse or neglect. Available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. (Kindle, Audiobook and paperback format.)

Like these posts? Want more? Sign up to receive new posts every other Friday!

About the author

As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf has developed strong coping skills and healing strategies. She happily shares those insights with others who want to learn and recover. 

Her books and articles are the results of her education, knowledge, and personal insight regarding her own abusive experiences and subsequent recovery work. She is no longer a practicing Social Worker, Counselor, Program Manager or Advocate, nor is she or has she ever been a licensed psychologist.

Diane is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer on the topics of domestic violence, abuse, and family dysfunction. Currently, she writes about toxic relationships and recovery tools. Diane holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and has worked in numerous fields, including domestic violence and abuse. She also holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology.

Currently, Diane runs her own website design company, Image and Aspect, and writes articles and tutorials for Tips and Snips, her inspirational blog for creative people. She continues to learn and write about emotional healing and has authored three books in the “Lemon Moms” series. Visit her author’s website here.

This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.

Personally, I wasn’t able to lovingly detach until I learned about the role that setting healthy boundaries plays in codependent behavior. Even then, exercising loving detachment was anxiety-provoking. When I detached with love, I was outside of my comfort zone, so I decided that I needed to get comfortable with it. So, I took any appropriate opportunity to lovingly detach when one presented itself. Eventually, I became comfortable using loving detachment as a way of respecting other’s boundaries, and as a form of my own self-care as well.

Types of detachment styles

There are several theories about the different kinds of detachment-styles. The kinds of detachment I’ve outlined here are taken directly from research, conversations I’ve had and personal experience. This is not an exhaustive list. 

To better explain the differences in detachment styles, here are descriptions of each:

1. Numbing detachment
2. Angry detachment
3. Apathetic detachment
4. Loving detachment

Numbing detachment-

When we numb ourselves to avoid feeling pain, we usually do it by using something to assist us in “shutting down” emotionally. “Numbing” includes “escapism” and using avoidance-behaviors. Numbing ourselves involves distracting with activities like cleaning, reading, social media, binge-watching TV, or immersing ourselves in church, school, eating, drinking, shopping, or community service.

None of these activities are wrong or hurtful, yet they can be used maladaptively. When we use numbing behaviors, we’re not intentionally trying to be mean or hurtful, but it can happen. Numbing is all about protecting ourselves, but if we’re not careful, it could hurt others.

Pretty much any activity can be used to distract, escape, avoid, and numb. When we want to immerse ourselves in an activity, let’s remember to take a look at our motives and see if we’re actually avoiding or numbing. Is the activity a way for us to evade a person, a painful circumstance, or memory?

Angry detachment-

It’s important to understand that anger is a secondary emotion. There’s always a primary emotion felt before the anger is felt, and that first emotion triggers the anger. It’s so fleeting that frequently we don’t even notice that first emotion. For example, if I suddenly become angry at someone because I feel they’ve disrespected me, more than likely, my anger was triggered by a primary feeling of unimportance. The feeling of unimportance is the emotional “trigger.”

So angry detachment is a reaction to a trigger. When we detach in anger, we often feel like saying something nasty or hurtful, or we feel like doing something destructive or vengeful. Sometimes we actually take those actions rather than just letting ourselves feel them.

Angry detaching is an attempt to control. It feels like it’s the “last straw,” when we realize that our former attempts at controlling or manipulating aren’t working.

Angry detaching has a punishing vibe to it. “We’ll show THEM!” Outwardly we give the appearance of being emotionally detached because we make ourselves unavailable; we physically or emotionally “walk away”; we don’t take their calls or respond to texts. We may even actively ignore the person when they’re nearby.

But inwardly, we continue worrying, thinking, and obsessing about them or their behavior. We know what’s going on in their lives because we talk to others who know them, or we see it on social media. We haven’t really detached. Instead, we’re punishing and manipulating them with our anger and silence, but because we’re not interacting with them, it feels like detachment.

Apathetic detachment-

Apathy (or indifference) involves suppressing all feelings of interest or concern, and it takes the idea of detachment to the extreme. When we’ve detached with apathy, we no longer acknowledge the person. It’s as if they don’t exist! We couldn’t care less about them, and we don’t want to hear about or have anything to do with them.

A therapist friend once asked me, “what is the opposite of love?” and I responded, “hate.” He replied, “most people would agree with you, but no. The opposite of love is indifference.” Mic drop. Boom.

Using apathy or indifference as a way of detaching is maladaptive. It can cause irreparable damage to a relationship. Research shows that the degree to which indifference exists in a marriage can accurately predict the probability of divorce!

Loving detachment-

When we emotionally distance ourselves from a situation and it’s consequences, with the understanding that the person is entitled to make their own choices and deal with the consequences, we’re lovingly detaching. With loving detachment, we take the focus off them and put it on ourselves. We feel compassion for the person, but we focus on ourselves, and we feel at peace about whatever happens next.

Loving detachment is judgment-free, and it allows us to intellectually, emotionally, and compassionately separate the person from their behavior. It means that we understand that the person and the behavior are two separate things. We can choose to love the person and feel compassion for them while simultaneously despising their behavior. We emotionally or physically distance ourselves from their behavior not to punish or control them but as a demonstration of love for them and self-care for ourselves.

As with boundary-setting, there is no need to discuss your intent to detach or to get permission. Sharing your intent to detach may remove punitive overtones, and it might feel like a respectful thing to do, but it’s not necessary. Whether you inform or not is up to you. But if you choose to inform, remember that it’s just that: information. It’s not a threat or an ultimatum issued as an attempt to gain control. Remember to check your motives when informing your person about your intent to detach.

Lovingly detaching means choosing to distance yourself emotionally from a situation and its’ consequences. We take the focus off of the other person and put it squarely on ourselves. We understand that the other person is entitled to make their own choices, including the choice to hurt us. They’re also entitled to deal with the results of those choices. So while we feel compassion for them, we focus on ourselves, and we feel at peace about whatever happens next.

Why Me? 

You may be asking, “But why do I need to be the one to do all this work? Why can’t THEY just change, or shape-up, or get-their-act-together?” Well, that would be great if it happened, wouldn’t it? If they would simply change their behavior and do what we want or expect, our lives would be so much happier, right?

But, as you’ve probably figured out, that’s not the way it works.

We can’t control other people. The way their behavior affects us isn’t about THEM; it’s about ourselves. Pause to think about that for a minute. This is about us. It’s about controlling our choices.

When I feel the need to detach, I find it helpful to accept and validate myself first, including validating my thoughts and my feelings about detaching. I commit to maintaining my focus and productivity by concentrating on myself and my life. These actions put me in the right frame of mind to lovingly detach. There’s no anger, no fear, no need to go numb, or to become indifferent. It’s like what my teacher-friends say to their students: “Keep your eyes on your own paper.” I commit to keeping my eyes on my own needs, my own life, and focusing on my own work. Easy-peasy. I can do this. You can too.

When we view loving detachment from this perspective, it’s clear that it’s not “running away.” Loving detachment is more like “running towards.” When we lovingly detach, we are running towards ourselves.

Lovingly detaching reminds us that we’re separate people in our own right, with our own likes, needs, feelings, desires, and goals and that we have choices and consequences of our own. It reminds us that we’re not responsible for fixing another person’s feelings or problems.

In each of the above detachment scenarios, the end result is always the same: we emotionally or physically “walk away”; we remove ourselves from the situation. The difference between these scenarios is how we feel after we walk away. Of the four methods, loving detachment is the only one that leaves us at peace, no matter what the other person is feeling, doing, or what happens next.

When we lovingly detach from our mothers, we stop focusing on her, and we don’t take responsibility for her actions, or the consequences of those actions, any longer. Detaching this way allows us to drop our need to control the outcome. Shifting the attention to our own lives allows us to focus on our needs, wants, feelings, and goals while providing that same opportunity to her. We begin to heal.

Practicing loving detachment requires knowing how to set boundaries and having a decent measure of self-esteem and self-worth. When you’re ready, begin to apply loving detachment and start setting boundaries.​

Do the work.

Tools

• Learn how to set boundaries
• Pause to think.
• Respond rather than react. (Homework: look up the difference and try responding instead of reacting the next time you have the opportunity. See how it feels)
• Practice “Live and let live” and “Not my circus not my clowns.” We can allow others the dignity of making their own (good or bad) decisions and then let them experience the consequences of their choices. When we mind our own business, we are free from the responsibility of rescuing other people.
• How important is this really? A shift in our perspective can help us determine what’s most valuable to us so we don’t get upset over things that aren’t as important.
• Identify your codependent thoughts and behaviors
• Don’t play the game. Drop your end of the tug-of-war rope. There’s no tug-of-war if there isn’t someone pulling on each end.
• Use your voice. Say what you mean and mean what you say. 
• Know when something is your responsibility & when it’s not. Say it nicely, say it with firmness. “No, I’m sorry I can’t do that” or “No, that’s actually something you should be doing for yourself”
• Remind yourself that you’re worthy of being fair to yourself. 
• Remember- “I’m in control of me”. We can choose to focus on and be responsible for ourselves, our thoughts, actions, and behavior. We can change ourselves with patience, persistence, and practice. We can take responsibility for getting our needs met, instead of waiting for someone to change or to meet our needs for us. We are in control of ourselves and no one is responsible for us but us.
• Remember: “We don’t have to attend every argument to which we’re invited.”

Like these posts? Want more? Sign up to receive new posts every other Friday!

More resources for healing from childhood trauma, abuse or neglect:

Books by Diane Metcalf-Lemon Moms: A Guide to Understand and Survive Maternal Narcissism, the Lemon Moms Companion Workbook, and Lemon Moms: Life Altering Affirmations, Change Your Self-talk, Change YourSELF. Available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. (Kindle, paperback, audiobook.)

About the author

Diane Metcalf earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology in 1982 and a Master of Science in Information Technology in 2013.

She has held Social Worker, Counselor and Managerial Positions in the fields of Domestic Violence and Abuse, Geriatric Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities, and Reproductive Health. She is an experienced Advocate and Speaker on the topics of Domestic Violence and Abuse and has been a guest on Lockport Community Television (LCTV), sharing her knowledge and experience regarding Domestic Abuse with the local community. In addition, she experienced Maternal Narcissistic Abuse and has been involved in other toxic relationships. She purposefully learned (and continues to learn) appropriate coping skills and strategies to live happily. She shares those insights here.

Her books and articles are the results of her education, knowledge, and personal insight regarding her own abusive experiences and subsequent recovery work. She is no longer a practicing Social Worker, Counselor, Program Manager or Advocate, nor is she or has she ever been a licensed psychologist.

Currently, Diane runs her own website design company, Image and Aspect, and writes articles and tutorials for Tips and Snips, her inspirational blog for creative people. She continues to learn and write about Emotional Healing.

This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.