In my experience, there is a single indicator I consistently see to identify a covert narcissist. Other warning signs will identify narcissists, namely the overt or malignant kind. However, there exists a single aspect that is both so nuanced that allows coverts to evade detection, and concurrently constitutes the defining characteristic of a covert narcissist. This singular characteristic distinguishes coverts from all other varieties of narcissists. It constitutes their signature. This is a key trait of covert narcissistic personality disorder.
It is powering down. Coverts deactivate. They engage in weaponized disengagement. This is a core covert narcissist tactic. They engage in evasion, disengagement, withholding, neglect, silence, feigning inattention, feigning inability to hear, and feigning confusion. These are all examples of covert narcissist manipulation.
They feign a deficiency when discussing matters that are significant and personal to you (e.g., it portrays you as resentful and unable of moving on when you provide perspectives on narcissism, etc.). This insidiously undermines you by distorting your viewpoint; this becomes a sort of disengagement as they decline to elevate themselves to empathize with your position for comprehension, hence ceasing to listen and comprehend. This is a classic example of covert narcissist invalidation.
Feigned superiority (e.g., I have forgiven my narcissist, thus I am superior to you; you would not discuss your narcissist so frequently if you were to forgive them; you ought to forgive for your own benefit; never allow the narcissist to alter your essence; I opt for love, I opt for forgiveness, I opt against hatred; no individual is inherently evil; all deserve compassion; we are fundamentally alike; humanity exists within everyone, etc.) -> boasting; this is a sort of disengagement as they decline to diminish themselves to sympathize with your viewpoint, resulting in a cessation of listening and comprehension.
Acting stupid to create situations (e.g., to persistently cause miscommunication and misunderstanding, to ignore you and create opportunities to withhold, to get away with having done harmful things, to deliberately frustrate and antagonize you by doing the opposite of what they are supposed to do, deliberately act bored or switched off while you are giving instructions and then doing the opposite of something simple you asked for e.g., don’t buy eggs -> buys two cartons of eggs and then proudly boasts that you asked for them). You take a walk with them, you stop by to admire a flower (or you fell down and sprained something), they pretend not to notice and keep walking on without you, and you either look up from the flower to find yourself all alone, or you lie there watching their back recede into the horizon. They cut in line right in front of you just as you open your mouth to give your order, preventing it, pretend to be oblivious, and happily make their order instead. You stare at their side profile (what the hell! can you believe this girl?). These are all instances of covert narcissist passive aggression.
Individuals engage in actions they are aware are inappropriate (e.g., littering, trespassing, jaywalking, pilfering your food or seat, conversing loudly on the phone in a cinema, obstructing traffic by leaving their vehicle in the roadway, or walking in the center of a designated roadway for vehicles) and subsequently feign helplessness, ignorance, or unawareness when confronted about their behavior.
Not picking up the phone. They pick up your phone call, they are told to pass a message to you, they take the message and never pass it on to you. You are napping, the phone rings, the covert narcissist is right next to the phone, they let the phone keep ringing, it wakes you up, you run across the house to groggily pick up the phone while the covert narcissist was right next to it all along (at other times the phone manages to ring out) (this happens consistently). The receptionist who cuts everyone off mid-sentence to transfer them, and keeps doing it the whole day, every day. They never reply your email (even though they are not busy). They never return your call (phone message). You greet them, they look down but make sure they never acknowledge you (they don’t stare at you because that’s malignant, but they make sure they do not reply) (some will look down and give a Mona Lisa smile, like they are slightly embarrassed at their own rude behavior). You sit across from them at the party, they look away from you in disgust, avoiding eye contact and refusing to talk to you. A guest approaches, and the covert narcissist abruptly flashes a smile, inquiring, ‘Do you recall that occasion when … ?’ As the guest continues past, the covert narcissist abruptly ceases mid-sentence and resumes ignoring you until the next guest arrives. They may even continue conversing as if you are still present after you have exited the room, maintaining the dialogue without your participation. These are all examples of covert narcissist silent treatment and covert narcissist ignoring.
Covert narcissists excel at promoting harmony, advocating for forgiveness, and espousing a non-hostile attitude, while simultaneously undermining you via silence and emotional withholding over little matters, reflecting their peculiar interpretations of interpersonal relations. This highlights the covert narcissist’s lack of empathy.
Mysterious sour emotions represent a disengagement from love or pleasure; these moods, without tangible origins, signify a type of withholding that adversely impacts vulnerable empaths in proximity. This is a form of covert narcissist emotional neglect. Expedient unavailability or inaccessibility; they vanish and flee from conflicts they instigated via their hidden antagonisms and microaggressions.
Conversationalists are adept at asserting their desire to avoid conflict only after they have provoked you to your breaking point and compelled you to address issues with them.
To snub is to disregard or dismiss, often characterized by an absence of response to your statements, thereby subtly undermining your confidence and diminishing your worth. This behavior conveys an implicit message that your contributions are unworthy of acknowledgment, as if they perceive your remarks as foolish and unworthy of engagement. Alternatively, they may respond with tepid or subtly disparaging remarks that belittle your joyful, exhilarating, or inspiring experiences.
Failure to exhibit civility when it is suitable and anticipated, while displaying excessive politeness at other times as if performing for an audience; courtesy is used as a tool in the most unsuitable contexts. This is a demonstration of the covert narcissist manikin routine.
Consistently serving as an inaccessible source of solace just during your life’s crises (inaccessibility occurs exclusively when you need support; this is not a fair-weather friend, but rather a kind of weaponized withholding). Following the disclosure of your lamentable narrative, they ensure to refrain from offering any words of consolation (e.g., okay, farewell!). Upon your call, the covert narcissist answers the phone. You request that they relay a message to another individual. As you begin to convey your message, the covert narcissist feigns completion, interjecting with ‘ok bye!’ and initiates the disconnection, compelling you to shout for them to pause and refrain from terminating the call.
Issuing promises only to exploit via non-fulfillment (duper’s joy, e.g., ‘you are naive to accept my promises or to place your confidence in me’). This is a form of covert narcissist gaslighting. Ensuring they do not notify you of their lengthy trips, resulting in your phone calls to arrange a lunch appointment, only to find no one there to answer. Should you contact the authorities to report them as missing persons?
Ensuring they cancel arrangements at the last moment, but preventing you from discovering this beforehand, to induce maximum last-minute disruption (this is particularly egregious when airfare is at stake). This highlights the covert narcissist’s malicious intent. Inexplicably fails to provide any reaction or acknowledgment when it is warranted by the circumstance — The manikin routine is always intentional; it only presents as an accident each time to provide maximum plausible deniability.
The unappeasable parent, spouse, kid, employer, sibling, or friend employs covert tactics of manipulative disengagement. They resemble a demonstration prototype that consistently fails to function at conventions before investors, or the cartoon frog that only vocalizes when unobserved, reverting to ‘ribbit’ in the presence of an audience. A manikin that animates in darkness, engages in dancing and festivities, then reverts to its original stance when illuminated, like Toy Story. This is a distinctive manifestation of passive-aggressive manipulation characteristic of covert narcissists.
Acquiring the ability to identify weaponized disengagement will enable you to detect covert narcissists promptly. This is crucial for healing from covert narcissistic abuse.
The majority of individuals are conditioned to disregard and ignore weaponized disengagement because to its very plausible deniability, and also, because they fail to recognize the characteristics of covert narcissists. This leads people to attribute more kindness to the hidden narcissist than is really there.
Experiencing weaponized disengagement will evoke an unsettling sensation in your intuition. Your intuition perceives that the hidden narcissist is lacking in social signs. This omission of signals is intentional. The covert narcissist inevitably overlooks social cues due to their inherent antagonism and animosity, as their refusal to acknowledge the nuanced signals of interaction serves as a manifestation of their intrinsic disdain. It is crucial not to conflate this behavior with individuals on the Asperger spectrum, those experiencing depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, Alzheimer’s, dementia, or sleep deprivation. It is important to differentiate covert narcissist vs. Asperger’s and covert narcissist vs. depression.
The absence of emotional empathy is the reason for missing signals. A complete absence of affective empathy leads the covert individual to sometimes overcompensate by love bombing, while at other times resorting to a strategic emotional disengagement. The absence of affective empathy results in their emotional responses being incorrect, distorted, and misaligned. Consequently, their emotional reactions to all situations are consistently unsuitable. This may be readily identified if you are aware of what to observe. Insincerity; all disingenuous individuals are covert.
It is difficult to articulate and simple to disregard. However, you will experience varying degrees of erasure in their presence. This highlights the psychological trauma of covert narcissism.
The act of disengagement serves to reject the recognition of your individuality, depriving you of the dignity you deserve via fundamental gestures such as attentive listening or sincere responses — both of which are manifestations of affection. They are not deactivating to save battery life. They are disengaging to subtly irritate you. It is clandestine manipulation of buttons. This is how they manipulate your emotional well-being. It is intended to evoke feelings of guilt, embarrassment, frustration, rage, and insecurity inside you. They enjoy destabilizing you emotionally. This is their method of self-soothing, at your detriment. As your familiarity with them increases, they will transition from minor antagonisms to progressively larger ones, often manifesting via withholding, denial, and avoidance. This is a pattern of covert narcissist gaslighting. It’s important to recognize these covert narcissist manipulation tactics.
Malevolent suppression. What they ultimately deactivated was their humanity. The objective of the game is to undermine one’s humanity by extinguishing the humanity of others. A compassionate individual does not pursue personal satisfaction at the expense of others’ emotions. Cruelty is devoid of humanity. Covert narcissists possess inherent emotional malice. It closely resembles the discussions around Auschwitz. This speaks to the covert narcissist and cruelty.
Interestingly, hidden narcissists detest it when you disengage from them. Simply try it and observe; neglect to respond or recognize them, feign inattention, and provide no reply, then assess their reaction.
My hypothesis is that people respond adversely to their own actions because they recognize that such reactions are intentional and hostile, stemming from their awareness of their own destructive intentions when they engaged in similar behavior. Request bread from a covert narcissist, and you will get a stone. Request a fish from a concealed narcissist, and you will get a snake. Ask an egg from a covert narcissist, and you will get a scorpion. These constitute kinds of weaponization, namely weaponization against your expectations, and weaponized disengagement against ethical conduct. These are all examples of covert narcissist weaponized disengagement. Understanding these tactics is crucial for healing from covert narcissistic abuse.
11 If a son asks for [a]bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish?
12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
Bible Gateway passage: Luke 11:11–13 — New King James Version