The Narcissist’s Need For Recognition
“Do you know who I am?”
A sentence often issued by the floundering Z-list celebrity who is trying to cross the velvet rope and be admitted to a special event or the VIP area of a club or restaurant. The demand to be recognised so that special treatment is afforded and it is expected as of right. This is a sentence which may as well be playing on a loop through our minds, each day and every day, because no matter what situation we are in, who we are with and where we find ourselves we expect to be recognised. It is not the recognition of our name, putting the name to the face and understanding who we are in that sense. It is the appreciation of our standing as special and important individual. A person who is better than you, better than him or her or them. This desire to always be recognised for how remarkable we are, that our treatment should always be preferential to that of anyone else is something that is always with us.
When we rise in the morning and we open our eyes, our gaze falling on your besides us, do you know who we are? Why are you not doing something which accords with my status? You ought to be awake. You should be attending to me, providing me with fuel as soon as my eyes open. Why are you not doing this? Do you not understand how important I am? Make me feel important? A slight push on your shoulder and you mumble. Another gentle push and your eyes open and as your vision comes into focus you see us looking at you and generous soul that you are you smile, your eyes brighten and you place a hand on our arm. The first fuelled flames of the day begin to rise as you have recognised how important we are.
Over breakfast we demand that you know who we are? Our favourite food ought to be ready. Oh good, you have done so. It is clear how much you think of us to ensure that our desired cereal or fried breakfast is ready and waiting for us. You have recognised our need and through this gesture you have reinforced our importance. Of course there will be no thanks given to you automatically. Why should we do so? After all, this is what is expected of you. Through word, gesture and deed you are expected to recognise our brilliance throughout the day. This is crucial to our existence. In our minds a fanfare plays as we walk down the stairs. The children line up to pay homage to the kind as he sweeps into the kitchen. Even the dog should sit obediently and recognise that a prince amongst men has entered the room. We feel magnanimous, already fuelled by your first gesture and the receipt of several praising messages on our secreted phone which we checked as we busied ourselves in the bathroom. We pat the children on the head and give you a kiss on the cheek. See how generous we are? How fortunate are you to be the recipients of such spending golden glory. Do you know how many people want to look upon us, to reach out and touch us, their trembling fingers brushing against our clothing and skin. Do you know who we are?
As we exit the house and see a neighbour we expect recognition but there is none forthcoming. Rather than regard this as an oversight, the neighbour was looking at his roses rather than at us, we are irritated by this failure to recognise us and there is the slightest of wounds caused by this criticism. The first knot of fury unloosens and we are about to call out across the street to gain his attention and ensure that due homage is paid to us when our mobile ‘phone rings and we see it is a friend, a member of the inner circle who is calling. Our expectation of further recognition rises with this telephone call and it does not disappoint.
In our world we are the monarch striding through his kingdom, making his Grand Progress. We process and expect all around to bow, to curtsey, to doff caps and tug forelocks in a demonstration of fealty and worship. The lesser of our kind are not aware of this need like we greaters. The lesser cannot bear to suffer being ignored, not made to feel special or noticed. They do not know this is what they cannot bear, they just know the restlessness, the irritation and then the fury as the criticism mounts. They see nothing wrong in banging their cutlery on the table to gain attention. Should you ever challenge that behaviour and point out that they are attention-seeking, they lose sight of the issue being pointed our because your challenge in itself is a failure to recognise the lesser’s elevated status and all talk of attention-seeking will be lost as he or she lashes out at you in order to achieve fuel from you. The mid-range of our kind and especially the greater know that we want to be recognised, we know that the irritation and then the fury comes from the failure to pay heed to how special we are. It need not be anybody telling us as such, it need only be an appreciate nod of recognition or a warm-natured “hello” but to us that equates to recognition of our elevated status. Of course, should our achievements and accomplishments be lauded as they ought to, then this is even better.
In our world homage must be paid by all those we come into contact with and repeatedly by those who are closest to us. A failure to do so, however slight, will result in the issuing of a criticism against us. The outcome is the ignition of our fury with us lashing out, doling out a silent treatment or withdrawing. This is why you can be sat in a beautiful field on a sunny day, having enjoyed a walk by the river and now a picnic and all of a sudden a barbed comment comes out of nowhere. You do not understand where it has come from but it is likely to have been the fact that you offered the butter to somebody before us and in turn failed to recognise us. I know you regard such behaviour as petty, but that is all it takes for the irritation to manifest. It can easily be assuaged by the prompt application of fuel rather than annoying us further by asking where on earth did that come from and challenging us further. I know you will regard such a state of affairs as ridiculous, I have heard it many times, but that is the way we have been created and of course, even though we never tell you what it is, we expect you to recognise it.
34 thoughts on “The Narcissist’s Need For Recognition”
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Omg The LGN i’ve known online would always say that to me ! When I was done with his lies he would say Do YOU Know who I ‘am !!! 🤭🤣. I think he didn’t even know that ! . He thinks he is from a Royal family bloodline . I’m still happy I’ve never met a greater in real life they are just too good in manipulation and so calm before the storm .
Hi HG,
I read that your blog made the list of the top fifty blogs on narcissism. Congratulations!
https://blog.feedspot.com/narcissist_blogs/
Indeed, third placed at present. Should be first of course, but fairly pleasing.
IHEARThg,
#3?!!!
Nooooooo!!!
I can’t tolerate this!
Hg’s frequency (posts per wk is wayyyy higher than no 1 and no 2. He is more dedicated than any of them. Why can’t pple see this? And answers can only be obtained frm a narc himself!! This is abominable!
But still, congrats!!
Before HG, I was sifting around many of those sites, many which are contradictory. Some are better than others. There was a time I was so confused because I could not figure why some narcs were couch surfing losers and others famous CEOs. HG clarified it all for me with his organized schools and cadres.
One mid range cerebral I had a brief entanglement with like a decade ago…the way we met is, he picked me up hitchhiking (everyone hitches in our small community) and then a few weeks later, he stopped again for me and he remembered my name and he was SO PISSED I barely recognized him. I’ll never forget that. He went into immediate cold fury.
I only hung out with him a short time, but I had to google his weird behaviour which led me to first hearing about narcissists. The info I’ve found here wasn’t available then
To this day, every couple of years, he tries to approach me, even though I have a file open on him with the cops for stalking.
I just yell at him to keep walking and he does,
I’ll just never forget how offended he was when I didn’t recognize him after only briefly meeting one time.
Why it is that whenever we want to stop ourselves to do something, the urge to do the same gets bigger and bigger and in the end we do what we were not supposed to do, for eks contact ex-narc out of addiction or answer his or her mail, while in non contact modus. This is weakness on our part.
Do Narcs feel the same and do they break the resolve of no contact if they have initiated it themselves?
I wanted to know who is mentally stronger – Narcs or empaths, in holding no contact regime?
Speaking of breakfast time. Mine demanded that I serve him breakfast each morning. I did it out of love in the beginning but it got to be completely ridiculous in the end. I served him his tea, his boiled egg, his cereal and I even buttered his toast for him running around serving him and never having time for my own breakfast so my coffee was cold when I finally got to it. There he was like a baby; with a buttered toast absentmindedly in his hand, which I literally placed there; and replaced when the first one was finished; staring at his computer growling if I tried to have a conversation with him because he wasn’t a morning person. The next step would’ve been to spoon feed him; how he would’ve loved that! In the end I just stopped serving him at all and made breakfast only for myself and the “poor, poor” man was left hungry staring angrily into space and at me intermittently. He had to leave for the office hungry. What an awful girlfriend he had ha ha..
Hi catherine…its amazing what we do for these narcissists lol im glad you got to your own breakfast. I had to laugh bc it reminded me of my mornings after making my kids their breakfast 😄
I was thinking the same thing, narc affair!
Hi narc affair.. ha ha.. I’m laughing at it too. He used to point out early on in our relationship that he’d always been the one to take care of others and he’d never met a woman that took care of him; cooked for him and showed him how much she cared through such chores. So he somehow conditioned me to want to prove my love this way, I cooked and I served, it’s ridiculous because later on I found out that he’d grown up like that. His mother served the family selflessly and his father was what I guess would be the narc. I never met him, but from the descriptions I heard he certainly has some sort of disorder.
And luckily I stopped serving him. For awhile I used to make these beautiful trays for us so we could have our breakfast in bed (I’m horrible with that; I love breakfast in bed) and even when he had the food right in front of him he expected to be served. I remember watching him intently once to see if he would butter his own toast, but he didn’t. He ate a slice of watermelon I think and nothing else. What a baby!
Good grief, Catherine! 😳 What an arsehole!
Yes, a complete arsehole blackunicorn123. I’m actually realising now when I’m through the worst grief that I’m feeling so much better without him.
Yes, it’s a great feeling isn’t it?! It is such a relief!
My narc is like this. It always has to be about him. If a waiter asks me first if I’d like black pepper and forgets to ask my narc we never go to that restaurant again and the waiter doesn’t get tipped/is subjected to evil looks all night. If we’re shopping together I must give him my undivided atttention and go into every shop he wants. If I want to pop into one shop for something he won’t come inside and instead will go to the nearest store with a pretty assistant to wind me up. If I challenge his behaviour he says it’s his ptsd. I believed him until I found this site. Thank you HG. Every bit of information I get from your blog makes me stronger. I feel sad for him because he will have to be like this for the rest of his life. I wish there was a cure.
Gross. I can’t stand that look… designer suit and expensive shades, fake smile.. walking out the bank like a cookie cutter 30 thousand dollar millionaire.
Hey Hg! Great article! I have an unrelated question.. would you write an article on 50 shades of Gray? I think the main character is definetely a narcissist and this movie just shows the dynamics of an abusive relationship. What do you think?
Thank you Valeria.
**** We apologise for this interruption to your narc education but HG Tudor has exploded. Normal service will resume. Possibly. This might take some time to curb his frenzy. ****
HG,
What happened?!
Oh i remember now! You hate ’50 shades of gray’! How could i forget?!
May i ask why you dislike it? I never watched it nor read the book. After all, it was not written by hg tudor, so why would i? But why do you dislike it? Do they portray narcissists incorrectly? Overacting maybe? Obsession with one girl is never the case w narcs? Do you not like the actors? I saw the trailer.
I am not wasting any time addressing it.
Oooh that means you really hate it!! I gotcha! I will never mention it again!🤐
wow, even james corden got the courtesy of an explanation for his ‘thumbs down’.
50 shades must be really bad!
Brian,
At least hg said “I am not wasting any time addressing it.”
Imagine in his personal life, the ipps or ipss would be following him around asking ‘what’s wrong? what happened? Did i do something? Pls tell me?’ and he would give her the present silent treatment!!
This is a good example of hg not behaving narc like on the blog, for anyone who thinks he does (not you brian).
Great job Hg! Hurt God!
Are you offended by that? That a measly person such as myself is telling you ‘great job’? Just curious… lol!
Ha ha ha, I have been wondering what Greater narc fury would be like. It would be an excellent opportunity to compare and contrast all the schools.
50 shades is lame ughhh they glamorize a narcissist. I could only stomach 2 chapters of the first book.
If you think that 50 shades is about narcissism/sex/money/emotional crap, you’re entirely mistaken. It’s the mental orgasm of the author’s inner fat housewife to the fantasy of a guy who commands her to eat AND gets her a personal trainer. “Feed me! Exercise me! Then feed me some more!!”
I don’t. It is utter utter bollocks. No more reference to it henceforth.
Valeria,
I am afraid that certain names are at the top list of detonators (of minor scale : asking about the “text” of memes)…
I am afraid that name caused a major explosion…
You are not to blame, you didn’t know that perhaps but now you know..
Valeria,
Forget that 50 shades of excrement!
Try “Red Flag: 50 Warning Signs Of Narcissistic Seduction” and “Black Flag: 50 Warning Signs Of Abuse”
I’m currently reading “Danger: 50 Things You Should Not Do With A Narcissist” It’s spot on!
If it’s sex you crave, try “Sex And The Narcissist” , “Narcissist: Seduction” and “Narcissist: Ensnared” The last two are part of a (seems fictional) series, part 3 has not been released.
They’ll open your eyes, and strike chords of recognition.
(How handy is it that my Amazon page opens to HG’s books?)
Perse
Perse,
“Red Flag: 50 Warning Signs Of Narcissistic Seduction”
“Black Flag: 50 Warning Signs Of Abuse”
“Danger: 50 Things You Should Not Do With A Narcissist”
Awesome!! Yesss!!
Any other “50… ” titles are garbage you’re right!
Jenna,
Yes HG has the best “50”s.
But I really like the sex books.
I would enjoy them more sans Narcs.
I wonder if he’d like to write a series of them under another pseudonym?
(nudge,nudge)
There is work occurring in this regard.