Narcissists always see themselves as victims no matter how horribly they've treated someone else.

They will lie to your face, betray your trust, cross boundaries, and gaslight you into questioning your own sanity—but the moment you push back, walk away, or even begin to recognize their pattern, suddenly they’re the one who’s been “wronged.” In their mind, the issue isn’t their toxic behavior—it’s that you finally woke up to it.

To them, the problem isn't their lying, cheating, manipulating, stealing, or abuse. The problem is you noticed. You stopped tolerating the disrespect. You began asking hard questions, connecting the red flags, and realizing the version of them you fell for was never real to begin with. You stopped excusing their actions, stopped accepting their empty apologies, and refused to keep playing a game that was rigged from the start.

And that’s when the real manipulation begins. Narcissists can't handle exposure, so they flip the script. They’ll twist the story to make it look like they were the one who suffered. Suddenly, they’ll cry to friends and family about how "cold" or "cruel" you became, leaving out the months or years of emotional warfare they waged on you. They will leave out the nights you cried yourself to sleep, the confusion they caused, the mental toll their presence took on you. Why? Because taking responsibility would destroy the false image they carefully curated—the one where they are always the hero or the victim, but never the villain.

They use selective memory and revisionist history to protect their ego. In their eyes, they were “trying their best,” while you were “never satisfied.” They “made a mistake,” but you “blew everything out of proportion.” And when you finally left, they didn’t see it as a natural consequence of their actions—they saw it as betrayal.

What narcissists truly despise is the loss of control. Your awareness threatens their illusion. Your healing is an insult to the pain they caused. Your peace exposes the chaos they brought. They can’t stand the idea that you’re finally seeing them without the mask, and they will do everything in their power to discredit, shame, or silence you for it.

But here’s the truth: it takes incredible strength to walk away from someone who constantly rewrites the story to make you the villain and them the victim. It takes courage to see clearly what you once made excuses for. You were not crazy. You were not too sensitive. You were not the problem. You simply outgrew the lies and chose to honor the truth.

And the truth is, narcissists don’t want love—they want control, admiration, and obedience. When you take those things away, you become their enemy, not because you wronged them, but because you stopped letting them wrong you.