In addition to exposing their lack of control and personal power, when you ignore a narcissist entirely, you’re likely to also trigger all of their fear, shame, insecurity, and feelings of inadequacy. No matter how good they are at hiding those feelings, I promise you they’re there. Especially with a more covert and vulnerable narcissist, you’ll also trigger their abandonment issues. They can reject, hurt, ignore, ghost, stonewall, abandon, criticize, diminish, and demean you all day long, and you’re supposed to just suck it up and take it. But when the tables turn and they’re the ones being ignored, it doesn’t tend to go over well. You may suddenly find yourself dealing with a fully activated emotional toddler throwing a tantrum. When this happens, it’s important that you stay safe. Be smart and do whatever you need to do to take care of and protect yourself and anyone else who may be vulnerable.
The bottom line is this: rejecting a narcissist in any way is a huge blow to their overinflated and incredibly fragile ego. Even the covert narcissist has an enormous ego; they’re just better at hiding it initially. The reality is that both the covert and the overt narcissist are split off from their true self and authentic core, so the mere hint of criticism, rejection, or abandonment will be very difficult for them to bear. More than anything, when you choose to ignore the narcissist, you are cutting off their source of narcissistic supply—meaning your attention and your emotional reactivity to their hurtful attitudes and behaviors. When you ignore a narcissist and deny them that emotional and energetic supply, they may very well become enraged and even try harder for your attention, possibly in ways that can be terribly abusive.
Although they’ll definitely try to hide it, deep down they’ll feel humiliated and lash out against you in one way or another in an attempt to protect their false persona—the one they’ve worked so hard to convince everyone is the truth of who they are. The real truth, however, is that despite outward appearances, underneath the mask and false persona, narcissistic people are actually incredibly vulnerable and hypersensitive to even the slightest threat of perceived rejection, not to mention actual abandonment. Narcissistic people have deep rejection sensitivity and can be highly reactive in response to even the most subtle hint of perceived criticism or, like I said, abandonment. Once they realize they are no longer the ones in control, they will lash out.
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