How to Get an Apology from a Narcissist
Contrary to popular belief, they do apologize, but be aware of what comes next...
I’m a borderline raised by narcissists and dated them almost exclusively until it nearly killed me.
I’ve had narcissists begging on their knees apologizing to me, crying like babies, suddenly drowning me in a tsunami of emotion that I’ve never seen from them before.
There’s only one way to get a narcissist to apologize:
COLLAPSE THEM.
There are two ways to collapse a narcissist:
- LEAVE THEM
When you leave a narcissist, you trigger their deep seated abandonment issues that stem from their narcissist parent. You will see their mask fall off and they’ll turn into a toddler right in front of your eyes. They will even sound like a child: they’ll whine like a child, and they’ll stomp their feet in a tantrum.
And they will say they are so so very sorry.
In this state, they’ll actually say anything you want just to get you to stay so they can get revenge and be the one doing the discarding.
2. BRING THEM THE SHAME MONSTER 👹
The shame monster is the narcissist’s deepest shames that they are denying/avoiding. If you tap hard into the toxic sludge you feel when you’re with a narcissist, you’ll find their shame.
I’ve gotten so good at this it feels like I’m psychic, but the truth is that abuse is an energy exchange of shame.
Two examples:
I dated a man who was overt and grandiose. Man, did he think he was something. He constantly talked about his sex appeal, and he was heavily invested in clothes and fashion. I won’t give away his social media name, but let’s say it was along the lines of “Mr. Sexy.”
When we dated, he criticized my body. I have large breasts, and he told me he was an ass man and my ass was flat.
I began to feel very insecure about my body.
So I knew: He thinks he’s fat and ugly.
Next time he got on his bullshit, I called him out on his insecurities that he projected onto me.
Collapse.
He said he was really really really sorry.
And then he raged...
Much more extreme example: TRIGGER WARNING
I’ve been entangled with malignant narcissists since I was a kid. ASPD runs in my family. My first love was a covert malignant narcissist that sexually assaulted our male friend (his supply) and killed himself after being discarded by him. (Our friend later killed himself as well).
I went through much grief my whole life about that — so much so that I stayed close to his brother, an overt malignant narcissist that went to prison as a teenager for beating someone with a crow bar until they were handicapped. I always supported him, gave him money and unconditional love.
After my narcissist awakening, I realized who he was and how he was devaluing me. Whenever I’d been upset with him, he’d bring up his brother, how much he loved him and missed him. He’d go to his grave and send me pictures. I thought this was because he knew his brother was a vulnerability for me.
I had a dream in which his brother came and told me: He never loved him. He wanted him to die.
(Listen to your dreams/intuition when being abused).
At some point, his devaluing me for no reason just set me off. I wanted him to leave me alone.
I brought out THE SHAME MONSTER: “Before your brother died, was he crying? Did he seem totally broken? Did you tell him you wanted him to die?”
He didn’t apologize (malignants rarely apologize), but he collapsed, got terrified that I knew, and has left me alone ever since.
Being left alone is as closest to apology as you get with a malignant, because it means they fear you, and they no longer feel the power to make YOU afraid of them through any sort of violence or psychological trauma.
(Note: don’t do this to a malignant in person or who lives nearby you--they have no conscience and no empathy, and therefore they have no limits).
THE SHAME MONSTER is the tool their narcissist parent used to abuse them as toddlers. It’s what caused their empathy to shut off and their emotional development to stop. They feel a terror from it that’s like nothing those of us with empathy can understand. It’s why they abuse — to offload their shame and make you feel it instead.
However, this is what will NOT happen when the narcissist apologizes:
- They will not mean it
- They will not change
Here is what will happen:
- They will seek revenge
Maybe not right away. Narcissists can drag their supply along for years of torture. But you’ll pay.
Also:
Both these methods are dangerous and nearly got me killed more than once.
So: I RECOMMEND LEAVING AND NO CONTACT.
It’s not even worth it to see them suffer. For one, it’s like torturing a child, and unless you’re a sadist narcissist too, that won’t feel good.
Second, they bounce back so fast you can’t even feel victorious. Often, the narcissist collapse will only last a day or two.
Just leave. The person you loved doesn’t exist.
The mask they wore was your face.
So, apologize to yourself and your inner child for letting someone without the capacity to love siphon off all that’s wonderful about you. And promise your inner child that you’ll protect it from now on.
And become a narc detector. Learn all that you can. They’re everywhere--even people you likely respect, love, and trust very much. 🚨
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Anne M. Champion is the author of This is a Story About Ghosts: A Memoir of Borderline Personality Disorder (KDP, 2024), 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, a Douglas Preston Travel Grant recipient, and a Barbara Deming Memorial Grant recipient. She has degrees in Behavioral Psychology and Creative Writing.