Narcissist’s Eye Contact…

Maybe you have asked yourself…. Could this be ADHD? Why are they never paying attention? Maybe they have some sort of affect disorder because their emotional responses seem to be off…. Why don’t their emotional responses go with the situation? Why do their gaze seem to be so empty? If you are pondering the answers to one or more of these questions and you are dealing with a toxic or difficult individual, you could have a narcissist in your life.

I remember crying when I learned about my ex narcissist’s infidelities and what did he do? He laughed, uncontrollably, just could not stop laughing. Now that does not seem like an appropriate empathetic response, does it? I have heard stories from many of my clients about these sort of miss-matched emotional responses. When you get good news about a raise at work or are happy about a fun outing with friends, the narcissist becomes angry or sad. Hmm that is confusing… Another example I have experienced and heard of is that their displays of happiness seem to not feel right, they feel fake, superficial, almost like something you would see on a cheesy television show. It seems like with a narcissist, the emotional response is contradictory, too much or too little, odd, fake or just off.

I personally attribute this to them having a short circuit in their emotional hard wiring. We already know that they lack empathy and struggle to establish intimacy and real human connection with others and I believe that these strange emotional displays are directly related to that. One of the reasons therapists are…