Can A Narcissist Use Death For Attention? (If Yes! Upto Which Level?)

Can A Narcissist Use Death For Attention? Narcissistic individuals are way difficult to handle, as with every new situation in their life, their unending drama may surprise or even scare you. You may wonder to yourself how a person could use any circumstance to their benefit, be it tangible or intangible benefit. Narcissists are such individuals who can draw whatever they desire out of situations.

And one situation is using situations to draw attention; and those situations may include illness, death, self-harm, or any such kind of situation. Now you might be wondering how would narcissists use such situations to draw attention. Sometimes the situations might be for real, but many a time it might happen that a narcissist might create such fake situations and fabricate lies, just to draw attention. This is ethically improper, but who can stop a narcissist?

Narcissists are often characterized by their boosted sense of self-importance, self-pride, and self-needs. With a narcissist, everything is just about them. Narcissists thrive upon the attention, adoration, and validation that they receive from others, and what makes them distinguished from others is the way they think and the way they behave, which is totally selfish and mean.

Narcissistic personalities demand constant attention, and they would do anything to get that. They seek attention from friends, family members, colleagues, acquaintances, and anyone that they feel may be able to fulfill their desire for gaining attention. They like attention to establish their control and power over many situations. As narcissists lack sympathy, they might not understand how others might feel about their behavior, how their behavior might affect others, and also how troublesome it can be.

Narcissists may exert power and control over others, even against their will, by manipulating them through many toxic behavioral tactics. They thrive upon attention and power, and thus they might do anything to gain that.

Are Narcissists Deceptive?

Narcissists are deceptive and their behavior might surprise you many times. Their behavior is also disappointing but it cannot be helped. They often manipulate others by distorting the reality of the situation. They may do this by revealing half-truths, fabricated lies, or even no truth at all. They can lie effortlessly and thus they can deceive others easily to get their work done or grab attention or seek favors.

Their behavior may be deceptive even at the cost of hurting others. They lack empathy and so their thoughts constantly revolve around what they want, how they feel, or what may be their own benefit; but it never revolves around what others may feel, how they may perceive the fabricated lies, and how their emotional responses would be.

Their behavior is deceptive because they are constantly manipulating others to see the reality of the situation through the narcissist’s eyes. There are a few reasons why a narcissist is deceptive or has deceptive behavior, which is mentioned below,

To exert their power and control – Narcissists are deceptive as they often feel the need to control others, and other situations and establish their power. They may not disclose the entire truth, or fabricate the sentences in order to deceive people.

Lack of Empathy – As known by all narcissists are cold-hearted and lack empathy for others. A lack of empathy means failing to understand other people’s emotions and emotional needs. Thus they would manipulate people without blinking once, effortlessly, and without any hesitation. Thus other people may perceive them as deceptive as they can manipulate easily.

Utmost desire to gain control – Deceptive behavior is the only way that a narcissist would choose to mislead or distort the reality of the situation. They crave attention and adoration and thus they choose illusive behavior to deceive others.

To conceal their insecurities – Narcissists usually project confidence, conviction, and power in their projections, but deep inside they are filled with insecurities regarding how people would judge them, thud they hide their insecurities with the help of deceptive behavioral tactics.

To protect their Deceptive image – Narcissists use their deceptive behavior to hide the false or fake image that they have created using all types of lies, hidden truths, and unrevealed conundrums of their personalities.

Thus this proves that narcissists are deceptive, and they can fake create scenarios like faking health issues, illnesses, and even death for that matter to gain attention. This is how they exert control and like to “Scare the Bejesus” people.

Can A Narcissist Use Death For Attention? (If Yes! Upto Which Level?)

Whatever the consequences may be, a narcissist is determined to get all the attention as much as they can. Narcissists know no limits when it comes to gaining attention or being the center of attraction. They want all eyes on them regardless of the situation and the consequences. They are headstrong when it comes to being the elephant in the room, and thus they would do anything without reading the nature of the situation. They can go to any extent for gaining what they need, and especially attention.

Thus they have deceptive behavior that helps them to manipulate, lie and deceive others just to maintain their high-end worthy image. So now the question arises, “Can a narcissist use Death for Attention?”.

The answer to this question is an unfortunate Yes. You might be wondering how could someone use situations that include demise for their own benefit. But yes it is a bitter truth or a harsh reality in the case of narcissists, where they do not even spare such serious situations.

But it is also important to note that not all narcissists would do so, as there are exceptions. This totally depends upon individuals, and how they want to act in what situations. Some narcissists are able to read the mood of the room or the solemnity of the situations like deaths, and hence they do not act out to make their presence stand out.

The dissimilarity between narcissists and the variations in their behavior can totally be calculated by the degree of narcissism. Not all narcissists behave in the same manner, it all depends on how they have been raised, what kind of atmosphere they had while growing up, what sort of company they keep, and personal ideologies, philosophies, and ethics also matter a lot.

Every person receives their distinguished personality from the ways they have been raised, the type of parents, and the sort of parenting style. If the narcissist has been raised by narcissistic parents then the chance of behaving in such a manner is absolutely possible. But if they have been raised by non-narcissistic parents who have been caring, supportive and helpful, then there are very few chances of them behaving in such s manner.

Extreme degrees of narcissism may lead a narcissist to exert attention in situations with death in the picture. Thus in some cases, a narcissist might use the death of a loved one, or the demise of someone dear to them to gain attention.

So how would they behave in such a situation to gain attention?

There are two ways in which a narcissist might grab attention, first, they might exaggerate some small illness to an intense disease that may lead to death and second, acting all extra in a situation when they lost someone dear to them. There are these ways in which a narcissist may use death to justify their attention-grabbing behavior.

So let us know the first way in which a narcissist would exaggerate a minor health hazard to something horrendous near to death situation just to gain attention, sympathy, and empathy from others.

Narcissists would some illness to gain attention in situations where they want an escape window. They would use this as an excuse and justification for their manipulative behavior and also use it as an excuse to escape certain situations. They might even get all aggravated when someone takes their illness lightly or does not believe them.

For instance, they would exaggerate a minor operation as an important surgery, or a tumor as cancer, and gain sympathy from others. Thus they would convert an illness into a health scare in no time and also keep on mentioning death just to get attention from others. They would do this just to get what they want or their terms and ways.

Now let us know the second way in which a narcissist would use the death of a loved one to gain attention by behaving in certain ways.

They would become extremely difficult to handle, they would mourn excessively, cry out buckets, make loud gestures like shouting to gain sympathy to compensate for their loss, organize extravagant funerals, or express heat-wrenching sadness. All of these are their ways of gaining attention. Some narcissists do it knowingly or on purpose while it comes naturally to some narcissists without making many efforts. They may not be even aware that they are grabbing attention, but they do it out of their true nature.

They may also post pictures of them mourning, crying, and expressing their loss on social media platforms. When someone tries to comfort they might ignore them and behave like they are some “Know it All” who knows how to grieve and express their loss. They do all this just to grab the attention of everyone.

Narcissists have their own ways to deal with situations and it is almost impossible and difficult to predict how a narcissist may react in certain situations. Narcissists might experience grief as we all do, some experience it in a greater than others and thus they genuinely express it by loud gestures, but some narcissists might have deeper levels of narcissism engraved within that they might fail to understand the intensity of a situation and behave anxiously and surprisingly weird.

The extent of exaggerated behavior of a narcissist or the extreme ways to seek attention in serious situations may totally depend on an individual and their level of narcissism, the atmosphere they have been exposed to, the company they have been keeping, and such other factors that might have made them the way they have been.

Conclusion

Narcissists lack empathy, hence they might not be able to understand the seriousness of situations like deaths in the intensity which is needed. They might see it as an opportunity to gain attention.

But it is also important to note that not all narcissists would do so, as there are exceptions. This totally depends upon individuals, and how they want to act in what situations. Some narcissists are able to read the mood of the room or the solemnity of the situations like deaths, and hence they do not act out to make their presence stand out.

The dissimilarity between narcissists and the variations in their behavior can totally be calculated by the degree of narcissism. Not all narcissists behave in the same manner, it all depends on how they have been raised, what kind of atmosphere they had while growing up, what sort of company they keep, and personal ideologies, philosophies, and ethics also matter a lot.

Ella Carrillo

Ella Carrillo

Hey Reader, I am Ella, an Online and Offline Therapist holding an experience of 6 years in this field. From Relationship, Depression, and Personality Disorder to Narcissistic problems, I have helped a lot of people find their solutions. Upon gathering a number of common problems that people face, I decided to put the information on this blog so that anyone can get their answers easily.

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