How Do Narcissists Treat Old Supply? (7+ Common Things They Do)

by Ella Carrillo · January 24, 2023

How do Narcissists treat old Supply? If you know about narcissism, have come across a narcissist, or have a narcissistic partner or a family member you might have come across the word “Supply“. A narcissistic supply is a dose of everything that can make a narcissist satisfied, happy, and fulfilled like control, praise, money, power, attention, and much more.

Narcissists would actually not miss your presence but they would miss their source of supply with whom they used to boost their thirst for an unquenchable ego. Narcissists would try to come back into your life that is into their ex’s life or anyone from whom they might often obtain their supply from time until they find a new one. Supply is everything that makes them important like control, praise, worth, ego boost, and everything that makes them feel superior.

So until they find a new supply, a narcissist would miss you, try to come back into your life, and would also reconcile. As you can see a narcissist would do anything to obtain their supply, you can just stop their supply by not giving them attention. This would definitely grab their attention thus they would miss you.

What is Narcissistic supply?

A narcissistic supply is everything that makes a narcissistic life fulfilled. It is that one thing that a narcissist always craves even if it is in its negative forms, that is attention. One can even say that a narcissist is only able to fulfill their life purposes on the basis of supply itself. They feel handicapped without their sources of admiration, attention, validation, importance, and everything that makes them feel special. Narcissists seek supply more than anything, and they could do everything to obtain their dose of supply.

Narcissists are supply junkies. They are so much dependent on the source of supply for validation that they are ready to compromise their self-opinionated self. As we might have seen drug addicts go crazy in movies, in the same way, narcissists just like addicts, behave insanely weirdly and differently when they are unable to secure their narcissistic supply.

Narcissistic supply is one of the prime reasons for them to date commit to a relationship. They do not have love as the first priority, their first priority is obtaining their supply, once they drain you completely out of supply they would leave you or might still have you as their backup source of supply. and Narcissists also have their own stock of narcissistic supply.

They have a tendency to keep a stock of supply, from potential suppliers like their exes, old friends, or even family members. It is an addiction, that can not be cured completely even with the help of therapy. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a psychological mental health condition where an individual is subject to facing such urges of obtaining admiration, validation, importance, or anything that makes them feel superior to others.

Narcissists would not substantiate the fact that they survive and fit into the world with the help of supply, as they feel nothing could weaken their existence, but without supply, they would not be able to function smoothly and effortlessly. They are unable to process the thought of not having a source of supply so they always have their sources of supply lined up. As chefs stock up their refrigerators, in the same way, narcissists stock up their life with variable sources of supply in the form of friends, exes, life partners, family members, or even their romantic partners.

Narcissists have a sense of entitlement which they fulfill with the help of the supply. They do not view a human as a human with needs, emotional attachment, or any source of emotional connection. They first view them as their source of supply, weigh their positives and negatives, and then proceed with them and visualize them as humans with substantial needs. Everybody craves attention, but in the case of narcissists, they crave constant and undivided attention.

Narcissists seek constant attention or create situations where they would easily obtain attention, to hide their true selves. They hide their true selves behind the false lustrous selves that they have created to impress others and seek praise, validation, and attention. They cannot see themselves degrading in any matter in life so they just keep trying hard to maintain their false shiny image rather than actually being that self. So they always seek praise and attention from others all the time.

Why do Narcissists seek supply?

We live in a society that is always expecting something more and better every day from us, expects to be on our best behavior all the time, fulfill everyone’s wishes and be true to what others expect from us. So this constant pressure and lack of freedom in society force out negative traits of humans or be less positive day by day. Thus we are only making people this way. So unless society is more liberal in terms of thoughts and freedom, people with such psychological disorders would emerge in larger amounts making it a more complicated world for living and revival.

Children learn from their parents. Narcissistic individuals often gain their traits from their parents along with their psychological issues. Narcissistic parents pass down the legacy of narcissistic traits along with many other hardships to their child and thus a narcissist is born that day. Narcissistic parents play a vital role in making a narcissist for society and shaping them this way.

Narcissistic parents would only be passing on narcissistic traits to their children in the form of childhood trauma as an inherent quality knowingly or unknowingly, willingly or unwillingly, by choice or without choice. Unless the Narcissists are guided toward what is right, instead of toxic behavior, there is no way a child will not learn all those narcissistic traits possessed by their Narcissistic parents.

Often it is observed by mental health experts, that the children raised by narcissists have childhood trauma, which affects their upbringing and also makes the same or even more narcissistic than their parents. Narcissistic parents are almost emotionally unavailable, self-centered, and egoistic, lash out in anger more frequently, have a very low rate of understanding, and blame the child, rather than looking at their fault or understanding their child. Thus when the children of such narcissistic parents become adults in such a negative atmosphere, they are unable to unlearn all those toxic traits as they have never seen the other side of humanity.

Narcissistic parents are never emotionally available for a child and they always want their children to seek their validation so the children thus while adulting seek all these in the form of supply. Children of NPD(Narcissistic Personality Disorder) parents often tend to bottle up emotions, withdraw from emotional bonding with anyone else, or are emotionally damaged and lack to understand others. Narcissists are incapable of understanding and exchanging feelings with others.

They are self-obsessed and self-absorbed and they can not think from anyone else’s viewpoint, thus they consider their partners, friends, or anyone closely associated with them as a form of supply who would provide them attention, praise, validation, and everything that boosts their ego. All of this attention, praise, validation, and everything that boosts their ego is always wanted by narcissistic parents from their children, so children of narcissistic parents always seek these from others as they have always faced and observed this while growing up.

Narcissistic children struggle to place themselves in the world due to their childhood trauma where they always had to face emotional unavailability, scapegoating, trust issues, love-bombing, flattery, giving in control, toxicity, and much more. Thus they use the supply that they obtain from other human beings as a defense mechanism, shield, or protective layer to survive in society by losing or hiding their real selves behind their masks. Narcissists have either been in such a toxic atmosphere and so they do not change and opt for the same cruelty, or they consider the toxic behavior as normal as they have never experienced anything better.

Ultimately all human beings are good at the core, nobody is born that way, but it is the ways or pursuits of life which are fitted in your life and are forced to pursue that you forget the line between the good and bad. So these are the ways you need to unlearn and establish your own ways of living life. This is completely related to a narcissist, they are a good person, but they just have come to become this way, as they have come across similar personalities so they were not given a chance to improve probably.

Types of Narcissistic Supply

There are basically two types of narcissistic supply,

Primary Narcissistic Supply
Secondary Narcissistic Supply

1. Primary Narcissistic Supply

This form of narcissistic supply is completely centered on obtaining attention and solely attention, whether it is positive or negative, private form or public form, good or bad. Closest people that are intimately related to a narcissist like dating partners, life partners, family members, friends, kids, or acquaintances all of these people make it to the list of the primary source of gaining a narcissistic supply.

A few examples include,

Being a part of the drama may help in gaining supply, or creating unwanted drama to gain supply
Flattery and false validation
Being awarded publically or privately
Being the one that everyone fears in the family
Beingoverpeoweing with resources like money, fame, or personality
Being viewed as one of the most overriding members of the community, even though there is no such accomplishment
Never listening to others, always putting up personal points of view to overpower the situation

2. Secondary Narcissistic Supply

This form of narcissistic supply is all about coming out as or looking nearly perfect, that fits in the world more appealingly. This supply is all bout the character, the image, and the idolization that a narcissist has to build to look all lustrous and high profile. In the narcissistic view of normalcy, a perfect image that looks all eye catchy from the outward view in the name of a successful human and an all glamorous appeal which makes them the best falls under secondary narcissistic supply.

A few examples include,

Having a perfect life that seems all planned.
Having a perfect house and a desired car
A job that pays well or at least looks worthy and makes them look all brainy and smart
Being a part of a community that is socially upwards
Having a perfect relationship that seems spotless and is eyed by many
Having adequate luxuries to make everyone envious

How do Narcissists treat their Supply?

When the supply is new,

Narcissists are not your regular dating partners, they are much more than that. They come with many questionable demands, and also their unforgettable charm. A narcissist seems charming and all appealing in the beginning, so you are into them and chase them as they would be dropping many hints that they are also as much attracted to you as you are to them, and so you decide to chase them until they succeed in their plan of luring you in as their form of supply.

Narcissists carefully choose their victims, lure them with their undeniable charm and candy eyes, and then gain everything they want in the form of supply; money, admiration, physical intimacy, and much more. They would be love bombing their victims. Narcissists would often present their image as desired by you, they would mention all those traits that are liked by you, and they would make their image so spotless and desirable that you would be deceived by their charming fake personalities. They would often lie to you about their real selves. They would always wear a fake mirrored mask to keep you interested in them.

Narcissists are always in search of a fresh supply and people tend to fall victim to their many charms. One of them is mirroring. They would be impressing you with words you like, their likes and dislikes would match yours, and they would be pretending to understand you in a way that nobody else could making a comfortable atmosphere for you to be impressed by their mirroring techniques.

They would become your go-to person, or someone you can easily rely on and are familiar with. They would be acting all familiar like you them for ages, while in reality, you have just met them.

Narcissists are allergic to any form of intimacy, so they would keep that in mind that they do not form an intimacy with you and flatter you only that much so that they can gain your trust. Narcissistic mirroring is usually unhealthy and toxic because the relationship they form with you in a short time is just based on lies and fakes, and when the relationship reaches a stage this mirroring takes an ugly shape revealing all the red flags which you do not want in your relationships.

When the supply is old,

Falseness, lack of trust, breach of commitments, and disloyalty are some of the narcissistic traits that are an integral part of their character and personality. They even have control issues and so they can’t control their nasty desires, materialistic needs, and physical intimacy needs.

They may leave you when they find someone better than you or for fulfilling their magnified needs for lovemaking. To fulfill their empty and shallow life, narcissists gain attention, praise, and whatever they need to present their grandiosity of life. So if they are getting all of these needs fulfilled by someone else in a better manner they might leave you for their new source of supply.

When a narcissist leaves or discards you, for a new source of supply, and when they find that the new source is no longer providing them what they want or they have run out of resources (here, narcissistic supply elements) then they come to their old source of supply.

Why would a Narcissist come back to their old supply even after leaving them?

There are various reasons for a narcissist to come crawling back to you, which are mentioned here, so even though a narcissist breaks up with you they would want to keep you as a backup as their supply source.

A narcissist never wants to lose control over you – When a Narcissist loses control over you, they feel empty. A Narcissist is an individual who is excessively obsessed to have control over all situations in their life including the core ones like Money control, and control over all individuals, and when they lose control over you they feel something is missing. So they would definitely want to continue the friendship even as exes to gain back their control over you.
They always want to keep you as a backup option – A narcissist is always in search of supply, so a Narcissist would always want you to continue as friends even after breaking the relationship as romantic partners, so this depends upon you whether to be their victim again by accepting their offer.
They would want to keep a door open for physical intimacy – A Narcissist craves physical intimacy, and when you are the most vulnerable (that is after your break up) they would insist that upon you. They would not tell you this upfront but would try to lure you for physical intimacy as soon as you try to recover from a breakup. They will play all sorts of love tactics to manipulate you and your thoughts just to keep you as an option for intimacy. It also can be like a “Friends with benefits” situation. But once they get what they want to achieve, again they would show their true colors.
Lack of closure – Narcissists would just be MIA(Missing in Action) keeping you completely uninformed and they would return as if nothing ever happened and the relationship continues the same way before. They would lure you into believing that you never broke up, which would make you question who dumped whom, or “Is this really happening?”. So make sure you provide them a complete closure or they would be coming back for sure.

When you leave a narcissist or discard them, they would not be able to bear the consequences as rejection is totally a no-no. They would try to win their old supply over when they have no fresh or new source of supply.

Narcissists linger around you for a while even after leaving you for someone else to check how you are doing. They never completely cut ties with their exes, until they have completely benefitted from you. They do not feel guilty or repent after breaking up but their only fear is the lack of supply. They do tend to keep contact with their exes or even try to be together again after breaking up or giving the silent treatment, to satisfy their ego. They want to know how miserable you are after they have left you!

A narcissist never wants to lose control over you.
They always want to keep you as a backup option.
They would want to keep a door open for physical intimacy.
They might come back when they want some monetary gains from you.
Narcissists can be the most difficult people, so they may come around to gain emotional support from you.
They would come back to obtain their dose of narcissistic supply.

How Do Narcissists Treat Old Supply? – Some Common things Narcissists would do while dealing with their old supply

When they want to get back to you they would,

So when you decide to move on or discard the narcissist; they would be harsh, feel agitated, and feel insulted as they always expected to have control over you. So now when you cut the ties with them, they would do everything in their power to lure you like for the sake of their old narcissistic supply and also when they have no one else to obtain their supply from like,

They would constantly remind you that you have made a huge mistake by breaking up with them
They would try to reach out to you and meet you, by taking the same routes, and the same mode of transportation, and would wait outside your workplace or your residence just to mention their mere presence and convince you to get them back.
They would send you presents like flowers, chocolates, or anything dear to you to remind you that they still care for you; indeed this is not the case.
They would even stalk you on all social media platforms by all means.
They can even visit your favorite places or the places that they can hope to see you and would be appearing in front of you from time to time to just remind you of them.
They would text you, call you with all emotional drama, would exaggerate how sad they are after you left so that they can make you gullible and lure you back.
They would try to contact you through any possible means so that they can seek your attention from time to time.
They would try to surprise you on special occasions like your birthday, festivals, or any important dates.

When they want to get back with you but when you deny it, they would,

But when you as their old supply source decide not to be a part of their toxic game again, a narcissist would,

They would spread rumors about you
They would suck all the positivity from you
Expect an abrupt break to the friendship as they only serve the purpose until their benefit
They would always test your patience and probably trigger you until you freak out
They might blackmail you
They will be blaming all their fault on you
Humiliating you through verbal assault

Inference

Narcissists have a tendency to use people for their needs and desires. They just seek attention and control. They believe the world revolves around them and they are entitled to have whatever they desire. Hypocrisy is their go-to trait. Selfishness is in their true nature, and they would do anything to seek benefit from you.

Author
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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.

How Do Narcissists Treat Old Supply? (7+ Common Things They Do)

What is Narcissistic supply?

Why do Narcissists seek supply?