It’s All Your Fault! – Why People with Narcissistic Traits Blame You, and What You Can Do

If you’re in a relationship with a person with narcissistic traits, you’ve probably been on the wrong end of being blamed. Sometimes this looks like projection, where your person with narcissistic traits blames you for the things they’re actually doing.

Fortunately, once you’re familiar with it, projection is easy to recognize. And once you realize it’s happening, as we discussed here, it’s easy to avoid getting caught up in it emotionally.

However, people with narcissistic traits will also blame you in ways that aren’t projection-based. Frustratingly, they’ll try to hold you accountable for things that are far outside your circle of control.

For example, when you tell your parent, partner, or friend that you’re feeling unwell, their response is often something like, “Oh, so somehow you got sick?”

If you’re not narcissistic, the typical response to this is one of disorientation. After all, this person is supposed to care about you when you’re not feeling well. Instead of caring, they make it clear it’s your own fault you’re not feeling well!

What I teach my clients to do is to think about the reasons people with narcissistic traits blame you for things outside your circle of control, and then decide which of those four reasons is motivating their behavior. When we discuss this, sometimes clients ask me, Why should I try to figure out why my person with narcissistic traits is making this my fault? It sounds like a lot of work, and I’ll never really know what’s actually motivating them, anyhow!

While it’s true you’ll never truly know what’s motivating your person with narcissistic traits, the answer is simple: Assigning a motivation for behavior gets you back into your thinking brain. When you pause to ask yourself, Which of these reasons do I think is motivating my person with narcissistic traits? you are forced to think about what’s happening, rather than feel about what’s happening.

And when you’re in your thinking brain, it’s easier to stay separate, and it’s easier to stay calm and do what you think you should do, rather than feel upset—and say or do something you may regret.

Even if you aren't able to think it through before you respond, considering the motivations for blaming you for things outside your circle of control will help you recognize that what's happening is happening to you, not because of you. So, let’s take a look at the reasons people with narcissistic traits blame you for things far outside your circle of control:

Lack of empathy

It's well-known that people with narcissistic traits aren’t good at empathy—that is, caring about how the other person thinks and feels. People with narcissistic traits are moving against personality types in their primary orientation, and have experienced childhoods that were abusive and neglectful. They didn’t have opportunity to learn the skill of empathy, and they go through adulthood struggling with empathy.

This means that when you’re feeling sick or you’re injured, they have difficulty connecting with how it is for you. They're too focused on their own thoughts and feelings to connect with yours. This brings us to our next motivation, self-centeredness.

Self-centered

Along with lack of empathy, one of the hallmarks of narcissistic thinking is self-centeredness. The world of a 4-year-old is small, and largely revolves around the child. The person with narcissistic traits is an emotional 4-year-old, and in the same way, their emotional life is small and revolves around them.

When you have needs, instead of being concerned about you, the person with narcissistic traits is concerned about how it is for them. Will they have to take the kids to school because you’re sick? Do the housecleaning because you’re injured?

These activities don’t feel like the kinds of sacrifices we make for the people we love to them, because they’re concerned about getting what they want, when they want it, because it’s what they want. Instead, these activities feel like inconveniences that wouldn’t be happening to them if you weren’t sick or injured.

Useful object

One of the more challenging aspects of narcissism for many people to understand is useful object. Infants and toddlers do not see themselves as separate from their caregivers. Although parents often find the toddler years challenging, the individuation process – marked by toddlers shouting “No!” and insisting that they do things on their own – is critical, because this is the stage in which toddlers learn to see themselves as separate from their caregivers.

If children aren’t able to fully individuate, which is what we see in narcissism, they grow up seeing others as useful objects, rather than separate individuals. If you’re in a relationship with someone with significant narcissistic traits, it’s likely their early childhood experiences were traumatic. Instead of going through the normal individuation process, and learning to see others as separate people, they see people as useful objects.

If you're a useful object to your person with narcissistic traits, and your sickness or injury renders you no longer useful, it's upsetting to them. They'll have to find someone else to take care of what you usually do, or they'll have to do it themselves. Their self-centeredness makes it hard for them to think about anything else except how it will be for them when their useful object isn't being useful!

Scarcity

One intellectual trait we see in preschool-aged children is their newfound ability to engage in abstract thinking, which leads to an ability to begin to understand scarcity. Abstract thinking is defined as the ability to understand intangible ideas. Time is an excellent example of an abstract concept. Time isn’t a tangible thing you can hold in your hands. It’s an idea that we, as a collective whole, agree upon. (Or not, given that some states in the US don’t observe Daylight Savings Time!)

Scarcity is an abstraction—that is, it’s the idea that there isn’t enough of something to go around. Because preschoolers are just beginning to understand abstraction, their ability to understand scarcity is limited. This means preschoolers are aware that things can run out, but they aren’t able to abstract well enough to imagine things being filled back up!

When you’re feeling sick or unwell, in the mind of the person with narcissistic traits, the self-care required for healing creates absence--you're no longer where you'd usually be, doing the things you'd usually be doing. This absence creates a sense of scarcity, because there’s less adult presence and ability in the system.

For some people with narcissistic traits, the feeling of scarcity alone can be triggering, because it reminds them of their childhood experiences. For others, scarcity is uncomfortable because they realize they’ll be expected to do more than they usually do, and their self-centeredness leads them to feel resentful. And, of course, your person with narcissistic traits may be both emotionally triggered, and upset they'll be expected to pick up the slack!

What You Can Do

As mentioned, when your person with narcissistic traits blames you for something outside your circle of control, you’ll want to assign at least one motivation to their behavior. If the circumstance warrants it, and you’d like to do a little extra credit, you can assign more than one motivation, but usually, identifying one is enough to give you the boost you need to get back into your circle of control.

From your circle of control, you can then decide what your options are. You may need to pull up your drawbridge, be assertive in making requests, or talk to someone else about your thoughts and feelings, with the understanding that your person with narcissistic traits is an emotional 4-year-old.

Importantly, if your person with narcissistic traits isn't able to take accountability for their behavior, and learn to be more empathetic and respectful, I encourage you to consider permanently keeping your drawbridge up higher in your relationship with them. If you expect your person with narcissistic traits to act like the emotional 4-year-old they are, you'll be far more prepared to respond effectively in the future.

If you need more support to address your own thoughts and feelings, or the behaviors and additudes of your person with narcissistic traits, I encourage you to seek out a therapist who specializes in narcissism recovery. You deserve a lifetime of health and happiness!

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