6 Things A Narcissistic Family Member Will Do On Thanksgiving, According To A Diagnosed Narcissist
Narcissists have to make everything about them, including the holidays.
Pressmaster | Canva Pro Everyone has that one family member they dread seeing around the holidays. Perhaps they always bring up controversial topics around the dinner table. Maybe they constantly make you and your life decisions feel inadequate. Or, perhaps that family member is actually a narcissist.
According to the Mayo Clinic, “Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them.”
Lee Hammock understands this all too well. The mental health advocate is a diagnosed narcissist himself and seeks to “[unlearn] toxicity with therapy and humor.” As Thanksgiving quickly approaches, Hammock offers some insight into narcissism by sharing six things that an undiagnosed family member is likely to do on the holiday.
Here are 6 things a narcissistic family member will do on Thanksgiving:
1. Wake up on the couch
“First thing you wanna do is wake up on the couch because you started a stupid argument the night before,” Hammock declared. “It’s not your fault. It’s their fault.”
Unsurprisingly, it’s not uncommon for narcissists to start a fight. “Everyone who spends time in the company of narcissists quickly learns how easily they can become offended,” therapist Elinor Greenberg wrote for Psychology Today.
By waking up on the couch after a fight the previous night, Hammock said everyone gets off on the wrong foot. It means that the day will already be off to a bad start before anyone has really even had the chance to do anything.
2. Pretend to work all day
The next step in Hammock’s how-to spot a narcissist on Thanksgiving scenario was to “put your phone on ‘do not disturb’ and pretend to have to work all day just so you don’t have to help out with anything around the house.”
SeventyFour | Canva Pro
PsychCentral pointed out that it’s possible a narcissistic family member may leave you feeling “unsupported, neglected, or emotionally abandoned.” If a family member ignores you and insists they have to work all day when they really don’t, you could certainly be left feeling that way.
While lending a hand with making the mashed potatoes may not be the biggest deal in the world, narcissists refusing to help can be indicative of a pattern of abandonment and a lack of support.
3. Fill up on junk food and snacks before Thanksgiving dinner
Hammock said a narcissist will eat a bunch of snacks and junk food before dinner, “so you have an excuse not to eat the Thanksgiving food. This way, you can pretend to have a tummy ache later on, too.”
If you spent hours in the kitchen laboring over a large Thanksgiving meal, it would be difficult to have that easily dismissed by someone you care about. But for narcissists, it’s all about control.
“Narcissists need control, which is often the reason why they ignore people,” Pareen Sehat, MC, RCC, of Well Beings Counseling said. By ignoring your contributions, narcissists are maintaining their sense of control.
4. Sabotage the meal and feign ignorance
“If you hate cooking and really don’t wanna help, if they ask you to help, don’t start the oven on time,” Hammock said. “This way, next year, they won’t ask you to help.”
Image Professionals | Canva Pro
This is a form of sabotage, something narcissists are no strangers to. In fact, narcissistic people love to ruin what should be exciting, joyful events. After all, it has to all be about them.
“Pairing events that are meant to be filled with joy and recognition of your hard work (like graduations or parties celebrating a success) or even your existence (like birthdays) with hatefulness, vitriol, pathological envy, and belittling condescension is another sadistic way malignant narcissists diminish your sense of self,” according to Shahida Arabi, MA, graduate of Columbia University and author of Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare and Power.
5. Get lost on the way to the store
Hammock’s next point was, “If they ask you to help, and they forgot something, and you have to go to the store, take your time. Get lost a little bit. Turn your phone off. Have fun with it. It’s their fault they forgot. They know they can’t depend on you.”
Hammock’s assertion that it’s really the non-narcissistic family’s fault for trusting a narcissist to do something is interesting because narcissists notoriously do not want to take the blame for anything.
In another article for Psychology Today, Greenberg said, “People who have narcissistic personality disorder cannot tolerate the idea that they might be to blame, so they accuse someone else instead.”
6. Hide in an empty room
“When everybody’s over having a fun time, make sure to go find a nice quiet room to hide out,” Hammock said. “And make sure your absence is noticed. This way, all the attention is on you, and everybody’s Thanksgiving is ruined.”
In a study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, researchers found that those with narcissistic personality disorder were more likely to do things to grab attention when interacting with others online. This surely translates to in-person interactions as well.
Narcissists have to make everything all about them, so it’s only natural that they would want to steal all the attention and make everyone else uncomfortable.
While Hammock’s video was humorous, he has a point.
Hammock was funny about the content of his video, but he still made a good point.
While he may have been trying to joke around, all of the things he described truly are hallmarks of narcissistic personality disorder and are a way to spot narcissists among your family members.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.