Narcissistic Personality Disorder

12 Signs That Narcissists Know They're Guilty

They're allergic to accountability and truth, but there are signs that they know what the truth is....

Do narcissists truly feel they’ve done nothing wrong, despite flagrantly immoral or abusive behavior that goes against the values they say they purport?

Yes they feel they’ve done nothing wrong…

And yes they’re secretly aware of their guilt…

Like everything narcissist, they’re a contradiction.

They’re as confused themselves as much as they confuse all around them.

Narcissists, in many ways, feel they’ve done nothing wrong.

The first manner in which they begin to feel this way is because they experience no guilt.

They’ve never in their life known the FEELING of guilt or remorse.

They also have never experienced empathy as a feeling, and both the words guilt and empathy confuse them lifelong.

These can even become trigger words for them, because they’ve so frequently been expected to access and understand these feelings, but they don’t. It’s all PERFORMANCE.

Not only that, from a young age, the acts of harming others provided them with relief from pain, as if it were a drug high.

At the same time, from a young age, they’ve been experiencing anniversary PTSD of traumatic, sometimes repressed, events (like a childhood rape) like a WEREWOLF SHIFT.

They can’t even control it, and in instances of violence or PTSD, they can blackout. As children, they blackout some of their worst PTSD episodes of rage.

And so there’s nothing to feel bad ABOUT.

They do recognize they blackout and even that they blur fantasy and reality: those events really scare and confuse them.

On top of that, narcissists engage in continual cognitive distortion.

For every behavior in which they harm someone, they justify to themselves that the person must deserve it or that it doesn’t have that bad of consequences on them or that it is something everyone does.

…

But they KNOW.

THEY KNOW WHAT THEY HAVE DONE.

They know they are different.

For many, it terrifies them.

It eats at them.

Some of them embrace being “dark” or “evil.”

Still, they fear that someday, the whole thing is going to explode in their faces.

For some, it already has a few times.

There are a few ways I know they know their guilts, and that their guilt plagues them. They may not FEEL guilt, but the guilt is a fat buddha sitting on their chest IN THE FORM OF SHAME.

1. They know enough to know how to hide it.

Rapists, child molestors, child abusers, murderers, liars, cheaters, thieves, frauds…they often PLOT and CONCEAL. A person can only do that when they know what their guilt is.

2. They admit it in a collapse

I’ve witnessed a few collapses in which narcissists told me THEIR WORST shames. Rape. Shooting a friend. Telling their brother to kill himself before he killed himself.

These were huge challenges to my empathy and love for them. Except THE ONLY WAY MY LOVE PERSISTED was because of the pain of the DEPTHS OF THEIR DESPAIR AND SELF HATE.

I’d never, ever felt anything as bad. It was so bad that I can fully understand how their brains will need to continually repress that it’s even happened.

When I asked my dead first love’s brother if he feared his vitriol was the reason he died, he said, “Don’t think I don’t think about that every day of my life, Anne.”

He DID?! For decades he told me he thought it was an accident, not a suicide, when it was an obvious suicide.

That told me: deep down he always knew the truth.

Every day, he had to deny it to survive.

When I read the famous line in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that said, “If I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers too,” I knew that was TRUTH.

3. They accuse others of it

Narcissists operate like guilty children: they find someone else to pin their crimes on. They point the finger elsewhere. They think this will make no one suspect them.

It’s not that bad of a plan: many fall for it.

People have been executed for narcissists who were guilty choosing a scapegoat. And that behavior is also indicative of their empathy impairment and their desperate self preservation.

If they’re engaging in SMEAR CAMPAIGNS, then THEY KNOW EXACTLY THEIR CRIME and they’re articulating it LOUDLY and CLEARLY.

They articulate clearly how wrong and revolting it is, even.

They’ll tell you EVERYTHING about themselves…by accusing it of others.

4. I’ve seen guilt make them flinch

I’ve had experiences since childhood in which confronting the truth made narcissists VISIBLY flinch in fear.

Often, I will unwittingly say something that will make narcissists flinch.

I got the flinch very often from my stalker who sexually assaulted me.

He first flinched when I said, “Our parents sure do a good job of fucking us up.”

A mention of mental illness.

Then, “Working in restaurants was like one big incestuous family.”

A mention of incest.

Then, “I slept with one of my gay friends once, and then he speculated if he was bisexual.”

A mention of bisexuality.

He also flinched when I called his marriage TOXIC.

I saw this in my father too. Once we binge watched some TV show about the Russian Revolution. It’s his favorite period of history.

While talking about the show and fascism, my father genuinely asked me, “Why does the definition of fascism say it’s right wing: fascism is left wing?”

I replied, “Fascism can occur in any political party; it just boils down to a government using violence as a means of control.”

There was a true DEER IN HEADLIGHTS look of TERROR.

His fear was so deep, so terrifying, that I wanted to be able to shield him and let his denial return. I could feel that he was questioning if HE was the fascist. If HE was a Nazi. If HE was evil.

He didn’t want to be evil. He wanted to be the good guy.

From where I sat, it was a revelation and CONFUSING: I’d thought he’d known all along he was a fascist. The man was an open white supremacist and joined the military. You don’t get more fascist? I thought, “Oh shit, so he genuinely doesn’t know…and it scares him.”

5. They commit, attempt, or think about suicide

My first love committed suicide. He also told me that the summer previous to his death, he’d raped a girl and stole her music. I’d said I didn’t believe him capable and thought it was a joke. He said, “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.” He sounded sad and it was confusing.

Now I understand that was true. I also understand that the way he came to my window or told me about watching me was stalking, not romance.

I had an FP who attempted suicide. We discussed it frankly.

My stalker posted about killing himself.

My father attempted suicide.

Jeffrey Epstein hung from a jail cell.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ends in suicide.

It’s GUILT.

It sits beneath a mountain of rage and self hate.

6. Self aware narcissists admit it

It’s ALSO a curse from childhood.

I’ve read two memoirs by self aware sociopaths, and they both said that they recognized that they were “evil” by society’s standards at a young age. But they didn’t understand why. They both intellectualized it differently. One said they felt that the devil must have tricked them very young, and that wasn’t fair, so God couldn’t judge them. (Confessions of a Sociopath: M.E. Thomas)

Another just perpetually wondered why it compelled her or felt so GOOD. She focused a lot on it being a drug high and her release, the time she FELT most strongly and felt most alive. She needed more and more. She also kept justifying it and engaging in cognitive distortions: “it’s not hurting anyone,” “I can’t help it,” “I’m not like them because I’m better than them,” “they deserve it,” and finally, “I’m not like other sociopaths; I’m a good, moral, smart sociopath, and I wouldn’t change a thing even if I could.” (Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gange)

I used to be penpals with people on death row because I hate the death penalty and abandoning people. My favorite penpal was incredibly well read, articulate, and intelligent. His letters were fascinating in his philosophy. The best justification I heard from a sociopath about why they were what they were is that because God created good so God also had to create bad for us to judge goodness by or for goodness to be tempted or challenged by. Light and dark don’t exist without each other. The universe needs contrast and balance. We can’t appreciate heaven until we’ve known Hell.

7. They get PISSED about it

If you unmask their worst shame with evidence, they’re going to react in RAGE.

You’ll likely get violence from them.

It’s really themselves they hate.

You’ve made them look in a mirror at their TRUE SELF and they HATE that person.

In class, if I had us read texts about rape or racism — which I regularly did because I wanted people to sit with the empathy of those abuses — my rapists or my racists would be CLENCHING THEIR FISTS, looking at me in pure HATE.

Their instinct is DARVO — deny and reverse blame.

But they’re pissed and denying because they’re GUILT STRICKEN.

You also see their anger in it in that they tend to talk about people guilty of their own crimes with contempt. For example, my stalker talked about how no one in the world was worse than a pedophile, and he hung his head in shame. I knew then that he was raped as a child, and he raped children.

He also hung his head in shame and self disgust when I once told him he could do way better than me, because he was so handsome. He usually beamed at compliments, but at this he just looked at the floor and looked tragically sad, as if he knew he couldn’t do better than me. I repeated myself because I thought he must not have heard me. And he just looked sadder.

He knew he couldn’t have me because he knew I was too good for him. I was still alive and he the living dead, like a human and a vampire.

No one can love his monstrous self.

While he seemed gleeful and smug about some of his crimes, I saw real self disgust in those moments.

8. Guilt is all over their popular culture

They love horror or stories of heroic sociopaths like Batman, or Dexter, or Breaking Bad. (They’re writing those stories). They root for bad characters. They enjoy stories with chaos. They don’t flinch at violence. They glorify war.

My stalker loved Lestat, the vampire who is RUTHLESS in his blood sport, who doesn’t have a clue about God or why he’s cursed, but enjoys his power and predatory prowl.

He’s like the most narcissistic character ever written.

I would soon learn that he saw himself fully in that character. And I understood why: I half loved him too, but he was more tragic to me.

I wouldn’t wish to have his fate.

He wouldn’t wish to have my guilt.

They know what they are.

They know what they’ve done.

They know it revolts us.

They still don’t care and think they’re the SHIT.

Or do they??…

Lestat’s last words in Rice’s last novel featuring him were on his knees, screaming to God, “I wish I was a saint!”

The empathetic people they mirror (and feed off of and abuse) are also who they want to be.

They’re a contradiction.

9. The worst insult you can call them is: “You’re just like your parent(s)!”

Nothing wounds them worse.

10. In a collapse, you’ll sometimes get an apology

They still often struggle to say what they’ve done directly. Once, my mother said she was “sorry if her anger hurt me,” and it was as if I just experienced an EARTHQUAKE just to hear the word sorry. At the same time, I wanted her to be more specific to what she did and how bad it was.

My first love apologized before he killed himself.

My father apologized to my sister crying before he attempted to kill himself.

In this state, they’re facing their true self and sitting with their shame, and it’s unbearable.

11. They read about this topic all the time

They’re all over my posts, and narcissist abuse healing spaces as well as therapist offices are shark infested spaces.

12. During rape, many rapists struggle to maintain an erection and/or cry during the event

I read a study that reported half of rape victims reported this.

I’ve experienced both.

It’s a manifestation of guilt and trauma. One of my rapists I describe in my journal as looking “traumatized.”

BUT….

Despite ALL THIS SUFFERING which is a part of their truth, it’s also true that they often feel none of this at all.

They just live in their FANTASY SELF — the narcissist.

DELUSION.

PERFECTION.

ENTITLEMENT.

BEST IN THE WORLD.

A good person, a good person, a good person.

They find loving, empathetic people, mirror them, drain them, and hypnotize themselves with their mimicry of them — admiring the razzle dazzle of their performance, the myth of narcissus gazing lovingly and obsessively at his own reflection.

They never feel guilt and doing harm to others feels like a hit of morphine to them.

But if you turn out the lights…

…say Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary…

…then something wicked this way comes.

The demon who possessed the child in The Exorcist when asked its name, answered,

“I am no one.

I AM NO ONE.”

That’s what REALLY plagues a narcissist…

It’s the same horror, disorientation, and guilt we carry in loving them, even after unmasking them and realizing that we have no idea who they even are...

Neither do they…

Vampires can’t look in mirrors.

My memoir, This is a Story About Ghosts: A Memoir of Borderline Personality Disorder, is available on Amazon.

For individual coaching to recover from narcissistic abuse, BPD, or sexual assault, visit https://am-champion.com

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Anne M. Champion is the author of Hunted Carrion: Sonnets to a Stalker (KDP, 2024), She Saints & Holy Profanities (Quarterly West, 2019), The Good Girl is Always a Ghost (Black Lawrence Press, 2018), Book of Levitations (Trembling Pillow Press, 2019), Reluctant Mistress (Gold Wake Press, 2013), and The Dark Length Home (Noctuary Press, 2017). Her work appears in Verse Daily, diode, Tupelo Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, Salamander, New South, Redivider, PANK Magazine, and elsewhere. She was a 2009 Academy of American Poets Prize recipient, a 2016 Best of the Net winner, and a Barbara Deming Memorial Grant recipient. She has degrees in Behavioral Psychology and Creative Writing.