1. Love Bombing.
This is where we enter the danger zone with narcissists right out of the gate. While overt narcissists present as ever-so-charming and can be incredibly magnetic, covert narcissists present as sweet, demure, shy, harmless even. When in fact nothing could be further from the truth; they are the true wolf in sheep’s clothing. And if you want to understand more about the covert narcissist, you can check out this article here.
But regardless, whether we’re dealing with an overt or covert narcissist, the issue is, if our habit is to take people at face value and assume the best before we even know much about them, or if we’re particularly susceptible to flattery and manipulation, which let’s face it, some of us are, we can be led down the garden path quite easily by these master manipulators and find ourselves in a whole world of pain, drama, and trauma before we even know what hit us.
And this is especially true if you are an untreated adult child. In other words, you were raised in a highly dysfunctional family of origin where your needs for safety, security, love, validation, acceptance, and approval were not met in a consistent, reliable, and predictable way. And the untreated piece means you have yet to do your inner child healing and recovery work.
Read More: What Is The Ultimate Punishment Narcissists Give And Why?
For those of you who identify as such, being love-bombed by a highly manipulative, ever-so-charming, empathy impaired narcissist can be like taking love heroin, especially when there’s an emotional and energetic resonance to the original family of origin wounding and trauma. Meaning, whether we’re consciously aware of it or not, the narcissist is a vibrational match to the people who harmed us, to begin with.
When this dynamic is at play and we’re being showered with so-called love, attention, validation, admiration, and praise, this is fully where love addiction is ignited. Not love, love addiction; big difference. And love addiction is absolutely as debilitating an addiction as any other addictive process. Your brain’s biochemistry is being used against you and you don’t even know it.
So, be aware of the love bomber who comes on strong early on in the game and works overtime to charm and flatter you; healthy people don’t come on super strong right out of the gate without knowing you in any relationship dynamic; romantic, friendship, or otherwise. So, do not ignore this red flag, it’s a sick game and it doesn’t tend to end well for the empath.
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