What Kind of People Do Narcissists Prey on?

Perhaps you've found your way to this article because you're recovering from narcissistic abuse, or you currently find yourself entangled with someone displaying narcissistic traits and are struggling to make sense of your situation.

Healing from narcissistic abuse involves not only processing significant emotional pain but also confronting difficult questions about yourself and the relationship. You may wonder if you were specifically targeted or if something about you contributed to the dynamic.

In this blog post, I'll explore the patterns behind how narcissists select their targets and the potential long-term impacts of narcissistic abuse on survivors.

If you're finding it difficult to recover from this form of psychological and emotional trauma, please don't hesitate to contact me for support. If you remain in a relationship with a narcissist—especially if you're still trying to help, improve, or heal them, or worse, if you've been convinced that you're the problem—please heed this crucial advice: Leave now, while you still can.

What Is The Narcissist Seeking?

At an existential and spiritual level, the narcissist is seeking a reintegration with their soul, where they have long abandoned themselves over many lifetimes and in many ways. The narcissist is severely dissociated and experiences soul fragmentation. They will also be holding core wounds from childhood as well as ancestral trauma.

The core wound of the narcissist is shame. This results in an unconscious disconnection from authentic sense of self, self loathing and constant masking behaviours and false identities. They are often not aware that they are living behind a mask, because this is all they have ever known since childhood.

At a psychological level the narcissist is seeking control and has a deep core need not to connect, but to maintain their mask and not be found out. Being found out would result in a deep collapse into a hollow pit of shame and they will avoid this at all costs.

The false mask is an illusion of who they are that has subconsciously been created over the course of their entire life to feel worthy enough of existing. Infact, the entire life of the narcissist is like a double bolted steel door because it revolves entirely around keeping up a fake persona that they do not even know themselves, is fake.

At an emotional level the narcissist doesn't function as you do.

They are unable to feel the level of empathy that most normal people do and they do not process emotions in the same way. Their only emotional drive is to continue to create chaos in order to avoid their own shame and reinforce the false self that they have created in order to function in the world.

The main emotion they can feel is self hatred which is primarily expressed through deep currents of suppressed rage, self sabotage or violence towards others.

Socially the narcissist seeks to do whatever needs to be done in order to reinforce the false self and create the perception of belonging and success. These are the two things that are elusive to the narcissist because one can never belong truly, until they have reunited with their soul level awareness and secondly success can never be realised until there is an integration of the spirit. Therefore the narcissist fuels the perception of belonging and success, but doesn't actually realise it.

Ask any narcissist to deconstruct and explain how they feel when they belong or when they are successful and they will usually draw a blank. They might say 'powerful.' The narcissist seeks any situation or person that can make them feel powerful, and the power that they seek is quite simply the power to remain exactly as they are - unaccountable for their behaviour and holding onto the soul wound of shame and self hatred.

Who Does the Narcissist Target?

You might be surprised to know that narcissists pick their targets carefully. They gravitate towards empaths who are

open, vulnerable, compassionate and seeking connection. They are drawn to those with status, who have resources. These resources could be a network of people, financial resources, power or even beauty. The narcissist will not target someone who operates like them and who has no resources. The narcissist looks at people as sources of validation and looks at their resources as something they can extract from to benefit their own life and goals. They will try to align with people who have big networks and connections because this could be of value to them. Anyone who is admired, accomplished and with a strong moral compass internally is very tempting to a narc.

The narcissist typically targets individuals who exhibit the following traits:

• Empathetic and compassionate nature, with excellent listening skills

• Strong nurturing instincts and a willingness to help others

• Tendency to prioritize others' needs over their own (people-pleasing)

• Deep-seated desire to please and accommodate others

• Generous with their time, energy, and resources

• Financial stability or access to valuable assets (savings, property, career)

• Attractive qualities such as physical appearance, social status, or influence

• Self-sufficiency and independence

• Advanced spiritual awareness and an open-hearted approach to life

• Well-regarded and admired within their social or professional circles

The Core Wound of the Victim- Abandonment and Disorganised Attachment

Individuals who become entangled with narcissists often carry deep-seated wounds related to abandonment, typically originating in childhood. These early experiences create powerful unconscious patterns where the inconsistent presence of caregivers—alternating between emotional availability and withdrawal—establishes a foundation for accepting unpredictable love later in life. This abandonment wound manifests as a profound fear that authentic self-expression will result in rejection, creating a person who subconsciously believes they must earn love through accommodation, caretaking, and suppressing their own needs.

This early wounding frequently leads to disorganised attachment—a complex psychological state characterized by simultaneous craving for and fear of close relationships. People with disorganised attachment patterns experience an excruciating paradox: they deeply desire connection while simultaneously expecting betrayal or rejection. In relationships with narcissists, this attachment style creates a perfect storm where the narcissist's intermittent reinforcement (alternating between idealization and devaluation) mirrors the inconsistent caregiving experienced in childhood. The resulting dynamic feels inexplicably familiar, even "right," despite its harmful nature.

The combination of abandonment wounds and disorganised attachment makes victims particularly vulnerable to the narcissist's cycle of love-bombing followed by withdrawal. When the narcissist showers attention and affection during the idealization phase, it temporarily soothes the abandonment wound, creating powerful neurochemical rewards. When the inevitable devaluation follows, it triggers the primal abandonment fear, activating desperate attempts to regain approval and connection. This creates a trauma bond where the victim becomes addicted to the rare moments of validation and connection, willing to endure increasing levels of emotional abuse for those fleeting instances when the abandonment wound is temporarily soothed.

Narcissistic Mirroring: The Narc's Secret Weapon

Narcissists have a secret weapon that they effortlessly and unconsciously use almost constantly to create their mask. Their weapon is mirroring. This behavior occurs when the narcissist carefully observes and then reflects back your own qualities, preferences, values, dreams, and needs—creating an illusion of profound connection and understanding. What makes mirroring particularly effective is that it operates largely below the conscious awareness of both the narcissist and their target. For the narcissist, it's often an intuitive strategy rather than a calculated plan. For the recipient, it creates a powerful sense of being truly seen and understood—perhaps for the first time.

This occurs psychologically and energetically and is why narcissistic abuse can leave such deep damage in the psyche and energy field.

The Narc doesn't study you - they try to become you.

In the early stages your connection to them feels uncanny and otherworldly, wow you have so much in common! It feels almost like fate or destiny. You might believe you've met your soul mate, after all you're both so similar you must be two parts of the same soul. Or maybe they're your twin flame! Either way, you believe you're in love and that this is what love feels like.

The truth is, the mirror is their weapon. This false reflection serves multiple purposes: it rapidly establishes trust, creates an intense emotional bond, and lays the groundwork for future manipulation. When someone appears to understand you so completely, you lower your defenses and become more vulnerable to manipulation and control.

It makes you open up, allow yourself to connect, to show more of yourself, to be more vulnerable and drop your defences. It creates enough light to make you open up and share more information which they then absorb and use to further solidify their mask.

It makes you feel a connection that you have only ever felt to one person - yourself. Now that you feel this with them, it must be real love, right? They must be real because after all - they seem so much like you, and you're a real person so.... The painful reality is that this apparent soul connection is artificial. Once the narcissist has secured your emotional investment, the mirroring typically fades, leaving you desperately trying to reconnect with the person you thought you knew—a person who never actually existed.

Common Symptoms of Narcissistic Abuse

In intimate relationships, it's estimated that up to 60% of people have experienced at least one form of narcissistic abuse. A survey conducted by the National Domestic Violence Hotline found that 43% of callers reported experiencing gaslighting, a common tactic used by narcissists.

Children raised by narcissistic parents are at a higher risk of developing mental health issues, with one study showing that 81% of adult children of narcissistic parents experienced depression.

In the workplace, narcissistic abuse is also prevalent, with an estimated 1 in 5 CEOs displaying clinically significant levels of narcissistic traits.

• Flashbacks, nightmares, or being easily startled

• Overwhelming sense of guilt, regret, or shame

• Reliving the trauma from the narcissistic abuse

• Feeling like you are the narcissist and internalizing the abuse

• Feeling overwhelmed with confusion about why you were treated that way

• Shutting down and refusing to trust yourself or anyone else again

• Closing your heart because it feels safer than opening it and being abused again

• Questioning and doubting your own essential self-care boundaries

• Being on-alert 24/7, easily startled by loud or unexpected noises

• Experiencing hallucinations

• Feeling detached from your emotions or body, not feeling like yourself

• Exhibiting avoidance behaviour or avoiding situations that remind you of the abuse

• Avoiding relationships or being unable to trust others

• Being preoccupied with the abusive relationship/person, or continuously thinking of revenge

• Losing sight of what's happening as you defend yourself and try to understand the narcissist's behaviour

• Spending hours researching 'narcissistic abuse' online

• Questioning reality and what 'normal' is due to the narcissist's attempts to convince you of their version of normal

• Feeling you will never get over the damage they've done, even though you will, once you let them go

• Questioning your own gut feeling and intuition

• Developing insomnia and restlessness at night

• Developing gut issues or IBS

• Feeling overburdened by regret and unanswered questions

• Blaming yourself for being open, trusting, and wanting to see the best in someone

• No longer trusting your own body or intuition

• Beating yourself up for trusting them, even though they used your trust against you

• Being baffled and emotionally exhausted, unable to reconcile the violation of your trust.
  

Healing the Core Wound & Ending the Cycle of Narcissistic Abuse

Healing your unconscious abandonment wound and disorganized attachment pattern is essential for breaking the cycle of narcissistic abuse once and for all.

These underlying psychological structures form the very foundation of your unconscious and they are fed by toxic relationships.

Until these core wounds are addressed, survivors often find themselves unconsciously gravitating toward familiar dynamics that replicate their earliest experiences of conditional love.

No amount of intellectual understanding about narcissism can override these powerful subconscious patterns; meaningful change requires deep emotional healing at the level where the wounds first occurred- early childhood. By recognizing and processing these foundational injuries, survivors can finally begin responding to relationship dynamics from a place of present-day awareness rather than reacting from old childhood programming.

Inner child work becomes a critical pathway to recovery because the abandonment wound was formed when the authentic self was still developing. Through compassionate reconnection with this wounded younger self, survivors can provide the unconditional acceptance, protection, and validation that was missing in their formative years. This healing process involves acknowledging the pain of the child who learned to abandon their own needs to secure love, recognizing the adaptive nature of these survival mechanisms, and gradually teaching this inner child that it is now safe to express needs, set boundaries, and expect consistency in relationships. As this inner dialogue strengthens, the desperate search for external validation begins to subside, weakening the powerful hold that narcissistic partners have through their intermittent reinforcement.

Reclaiming one's authentic power represents the culmination of this healing journey, as survivors shift from deriving their sense of worth from others' approval to recognizing their inherent value. This transformation fundamentally alters the dynamics that make narcissistic relationships possible, as the survivor no longer needs to tolerate mistreatment to feel whole. The compulsive people-pleasing, excessive empathy, and boundary dissolution that once made them ideal targets for exploitation are replaced by healthy self-regard, appropriate empathic boundaries, and the ability to recognize and respond to manipulation. With this reclaimed power comes the profound realization that the intense highs and lows of narcissistic relationships were never actually love, but rather trauma bonds that can be released in favor of authentic connections based on mutual respect, consistency, and genuine care.