Why Narcissists Give Gifts But Refuse Real Help

I am just going to signify one thing.

To acquire you a little trinket that wasn’t really that essential to you, a narcissist would go out of their way, suffer themselves a great deal of trouble, spend $500, and spend an entire day shopping, all for the sole purpose of gratifying their need to do so.

And then, the following day, when you need the narcissist to simply raise a finger and spend five minutes helping you out with something that definitely requires two people, else your project would be wrecked, they not only won’t move that finger, but they also won’t give you the five minutes because they didn’t want to.

When you express dissatisfaction regarding their expenditure of $500 on a trivial item, while emphasizing your necessity for their assistance on a crucial project that required merely a moment of their time, they accuse you of ingratitude, failing to comprehend that those few minutes and minimal effort hold greater significance for you than the costly trinket.

And when you look at your project, you see that it is still wrecked since you had to do it by yourself (for only that five minutes), and as a result, it tipped over and fell over. When you turn around, you see the $500 trinket that you have never really wanted (and now you desire it even less than you did before). You are perplexed as to why life is so difficult (you get the sensation of being confined).

You will know that you are dealing with a narcissist when you reach that point.

During the time that the narcissist was still a part of your life, the only thing you experienced was irritation (since they continued to provoke you).

Later on, after everything was finished, and you look back, all you feel is loss and grief (since everything was wasted, and you and everyone else only had that much time to spend on anything).

In terms of happiness, narcissists are not beneficial in any way; nevertheless, I have no doubt that they are beneficial in other aspects of life.

There are others who believe that narcissism is nothing more than straightforward selfishness. And that it is not difficult to understand.

I do not agree. The grounds for narcissistic gaslighting are able to easily pass through traditional concepts of selfishness (look, I bought you that $500 beautiful, life-saving diamond).

This alternate definition of narcissism is the one that I find most appealing: it is a will that is antagonistic to all other wills.

This is what I refer to as “withholding care and concern,” which is a sort of crazymaking.

As long as it does not include care and concern for your welfare and emotions, the narcissist will walk a thousand miles “for you.” However, as soon as your welfare and feelings are involved, their default behavior, which is to “compulsively withhold care, concern, and civility to degrade and micro-abuse you,” suddenly kicks in.

Consequently, the narcissist will lavish you with time, money, and effort, so long as you do not genuinely profit from it.