Let me start by saying that toxic people, such as narcissists, don’t show their true characters to people around them readily. They blend easily into society and act as if they are truly a friendly neighbor, a devoted friend, a caring family member, or the worst of all in my personal experience, a loving spouse.

The truth is, narcissists don’t go around with the word Narc branded on their forehead (I wish!). Most people, unless they’re negatively affected by the narcissists’ wrongdoings, will not realize who they are in contact with. The people who have the closest relationships with the narcissists and spend the most time with them suffer the most abuse. The abuse also frequently happens covertly, behind closed doors under the cover of normalcy.

The majority of people around the narcissists will most likely only see the beautiful façade erected by the narcissists. I think because they suffer from perpetual boredom, narcissists actually can be pretty entertaining and adventurous, which pulls people in like magnet. The narcissists also painstakingly curate the image and status that are perceived by society. They exclusively live on other people’s attention, admiration, and adulation. They inflict sympathy and pity from others to make excuses for their bad behaviors, gain more attention for themselves, and exert more control over their victims, all at the same time.

Behind the façade, however, they suck the life out of their spouses, significant others, or whoever gets in the way of achieving what they want. Narcissists build themselves up by tearing down and destroying the people who care about them the most. I personally know first hand how horrendous narcissistic abuse can be because unwittingly I am married to a narcissist.

In very simple terms, they’re experts at studying us and showing us the things we want to see to get us to give them what they want. Extremely skillful at the game of deceits, they can be anyone around you and me. Because they are like empty shells with no substance, they can change their behaviors and sometimes appearance depending on whom they are with.

The best way for me to describe these toxic people is to compare them to performers on stage. They perform with their masks on almost at all time.

This show that they perform for us can go on and on for a long time, even for years, with a suited audience, victims. They keep us in the show by using flowery words, fake promises and grandiose gestures to make us love them and obscure our realities. When we love them, and feel like we are loved by them, it makes it easier for them to exploit us. As this process is calculated and orchestrated from the get go, we do not realize that we are dealing with a performer. We might think we’re actually knowing the person very well, but all we see is a mask, an illusion.

When they’re done, the way they end the “show”, by discarding of the victims, would be abrupt, cruel and heartless, simply because they have no regards whatsoever for anyone. They simply can walk away from their significant others after years spent together without blinking an eye. “Love” for them is what they can take from us until we are totally depleted or until we are able to make a bid for escape.

Almost always, when they discard us, they already have another willing “audience” in another theater waiting for them. Meanwhile, if we were the audience that was left behind, we would be sitting in the dark and wonder why the music turned into a deafening silence, why we were here all alone and scared. Where have the excitement and fun have dissipated into? Why does this person whom we love so much treat us worse than garbage on the street?

Narcissists have no empathy. They create an illusion for us and for themselves. However, we have the power to destroy the illusion by recognizing it.