Covert Narcissists Need a Supply and a Scapegoat

Let’s play a little game of who am I

“I want people to worship the ground I walk on. Clearly I deserve it. Everyone is thinking about me all the time. They think about what I’m doing. They think about what I want. They think about how much they want to be like me. They think about how awesome I am.”

Who am I? Would you say a narcissist?

“I want to blame everything on others. Everything is their fault. Coworkers, family, neighbors. They screwed up everything. They didn’t do anything right. They really should be thinking about how not to upset me. I can’t believe how clueless and horrible they are.”

Who am I? Again, another narcissist

“I want this one person to worship me. This one person must think about me all the time. He/She must validate me at all times, support everything I do, agree with everything I say, and think I am amazing.”

Who am I? A covert narcissist

“You are doing everything wrong. You can’t ever get anything right. You should really be glad that I am here to help you because you mess everything up all the time. Things aren’t partly your fault. They are completely your fault. You are 100% to blame for anything and everything.”

Once again, a covert narcissist

Narcissistic people need two dominant things: supply and scapegoats. They need someone who cares for their every need and want. This supply feeds their ego, boosting them up, laughing at all of their jokes, hanging on every word they say, and giving them all of their attention. In addition, they need scapegoats. Nothing is ever their fault, so they need somewhere for their blame to go, all the time. Everything that has ever gone wrong in their life is to be blamed on someone or something else.

Covert narcissistic individuals zero in on one person. They become laser focused on YOU. What you are thinking, what you are doing, who you are with, and what you are saying. They have picked you out as the target of their attention and thus your whole world must now center around them. They don’t want the attention of everyone in the room, but they certainly want ALL of your attention.

In the same way, covert narcissists don’t need to blame the whole world for their problems. They have you. You become their sole scapegoat. Everything, and I mean everything, is 100% your fault. Not partly your fault, but rather completely your fault. As you naturally pull back from this painful situation, it is only a matter of time before you are no longer their supply, but you are firmly their scapegoat.

If you are out together, you must make sure you are sitting right beside them. You must be sure to hold their hand, smile at them, laugh at all their jokes, cling to every word that comes out of their mouth. They have chosen you and thus you now give up your own identity to become an extension of them.

They don’t want the attention of everyone in the room. That is the overt narcissist’s style. They don’t want/need everyone to worship them. They believe they deserve it, but they also believe that no one else realizes this. So they are a constant victim of everyone’s ignorance. So instead they just focus on one person’s attention…yours.

Overt narcissists are focused on more people and winning the attention of more people.

Covert narcissists are focused on one person and winning that one person’s full attention.

What is narcissistic supply?

I remember the first time I heard this phrase. I thought it sounded kind of harsh. I’m not a supply to him.  He doesn’t see me as supply. That doesn’t make sense. Supply is something to be consumed. This is a relationship, not an economic transaction. There is no supply and demand here. At least, I didn’t think there was. Yet, the more I watched, the more I paid attention to his interactions with me, the more I realized that perhaps he did.

Maybe this was a supply and demand relationship. The transaction was an emotional transaction. I had all the supply and he had all the demand. I had the emotional care, empathy, attention, and genuineness. I had all the goods, and he brought all the demand. He brought a deficit of emotional care, empathy, attention and genuineness. He even told me once that I wasn’t allowed to pull away from him because he gets all his emotional validation from me. This was a relationship built on the concept of supply and demand. No wonder everything felt transactional. It was.

Narcissistic people need supply. Covert narcissists want one supplier, and they want all of that one supplier’s stuff. In farming terms, the consumer, the narcissist, doesn’t want to get their corn from multiple farms. They want just one supplier. But they want to then control that one supplier. I am taking all of your product, thus you will do this my way. You will run your machines the way I tell think you should. You will trim your crops the way I think you should. And you can’t give your corn to any other buyer. I am the only one for you.

So you can’t give your emotional energy to anyone else. You can’t offer your attention and care to others without it being a problem. This includes your friends, your family, even your own children. Remember, the covert narcissist doesn’t want to share you with others.

What is Narcissistic Scapegoat?

Now I said they need supply and they need a scapegoat. So let’s describe what a scapegoat is. A scapegoat is someone to blame. The definition is really that simple. Do you know where the term scapegoat comes from? This term comes from Christian literature. It comes from the Bible, the book of Leviticus. In Leviticus, the sins of the people are symbolically placed upon a goat. That goat is then released into the wilderness. It symbolically carried the weight of everyone’s sins, freeing them from the responsibility and the consequences. 

The word was first used by Protestant scholar William Tyndale in the 1500s. This scholar was translating the Hebrew Bible into English. He coined the phrase scapegoat based on this ancient religious practice.

That’s a great deal for the people. You can sin all you want. When the time comes, we will lay all the sins on the goat and release the goat into the wilderness. Scapegoating has continues as a phrase today to mean laying the responsibility for your crimes, sins, bad behavior onto someone else. I blame that other person and they have to deal with the consequences. Not me. This is a great deal for the perpetrator.

How does this play out for the covert narcissist? They do the bad behavior - yell at you, rage at the kids, slam the door and lock themselves in the room, give you the silent treatment for weeks. All of this antagonistic and manipulative behavior. When they are called out on it, they blame it on you. 

“If you had not spilled the milk, I wouldn’t have gotten mad and yelled at you.”

“If you hadn’t bought the wrong kind of milk, I wouldn’t have slammed the door.”

“If you hadn’t fussed at me about not picking my stuff up, I wouldn’t have raged at the kids.”

You know, everyone gets mad at times. Everyone has those moments. But not everyone yells and calls people names. Not everyone slams doors and rages at the kids. People get mad, but people have a checkpoint on their behavior. I might be mad, but if I yell at people, then they will feel bad. I don’t want them to feel bad, so I keep my behavior in check. I am concerned about the feelings of others and want to protect them. This is empathy. 

Narcissistic people do not have empathy. So they do not have a checkpoint to stop their impulsive behavior. They don’t have a way to see how their behavior will affect others. We all have impulsive thoughts. That moment where you just want to scream at the person in front of you. I can’t believe you don’t understand what I am saying! How could you not get this! But not all of us act on our impulsive desires and put others down. We recognize that this will hurt that person. It will upset them and cause them to feel bad, and we don't want that. So we keep our reactions in check. This is empathy.

I want to give you an example here

Let’s say that your partner comes over to go out with you. You comment that you don’t think their shirt is fancy enough for the restaurant you are headed to. They become extremely defensive and reactive to your words. They jump in their car and aggressively drive to their apartment to change. On the way, their aggressive and erratic driving causes them to get in an accident. Now they are super mad at you. “Because you didn’t like my shirt, I got into an accident.” Wrong! You are allowed to voice your opinion about the shirt. You did not make them drive anywhere and certainly did not choose their mindset behind the wheel. Laying the blame on you is scapegoating.

This is how you fall from the pedestal in a narcissistic relationship. You are their supply. As such, you are practically worshiped. You are protected, cared for, and important. As you go through life with the CN, you pull away from the role of supplier. Maybe you realize this and maybe you don’t, but you no longer supply the covert narcissist. Well, now you become the scapegoat. Everything is your fault. It absolutely cannot be the covert narcissist’s fault. 

It is time to refuse to be their goat. No more! They are responsible for their actions and behaviors, period! Not you.

I wish you so much peace on your journey of healing.