Another sign that covert narcissism is present, which is not super obvious, is that you’re always tired, but there’s no obvious reason. Maybe nothing huge has happened. You haven’t had some explosive fight, and they haven’t said anything outright cruel, but you’re tired and can’t quite explain why. Not tired like you need a nap—tired like your brain doesn’t stop scanning for what mood they’re in. Tired like you’re constantly trying to say the right things in the right way so it doesn’t set something off, even though half the time you don’t even know what that something is.
Maybe people around you wouldn’t get it because everything looks fine. You’re still functioning, the relationship looks normal, but you don’t feel normal. You feel off, on edge, kind of like you’re walking around with a low battery all the time, and you don’t even remember when it started draining. Here’s the thing: there’s no big collapse, no breaking point, no emergency, per se. But that doesn’t mean there’s no damage because now you’re constantly maintaining things that shouldn’t need maintaining. You’re keeping the peace, filling in emotional gaps, explaining things to yourself that don’t actually make sense just so you can stay upright in a space that never really lets you rest.
It’s like the house is still standing, but only because you’re running around with duct tape and drywall mud trying to keep the place livable. You don’t even know when that became your job; you just know you’re tired. The worst part is you’ve started to think that’s just what love is supposed to feel like.
Another sign of covert narcissism that is not obviously narcissistic on the surface is that they tell you what you want to hear, but they never follow through. Maybe they say exactly what you’ve been wanting to hear—that they’re going to change, that they finally understand how much this has affected you, or that things will be different. In the moment, it feels real, like you can finally exhale. But then time passes, and nothing happens, or the story changes. Maybe they act like you misunderstood what they meant. When you bring it up, they twist it, saying again, “I never said that,” or “That’s not how I remember it.”
Now you’re stuck between what they said and what they’re doing, between what you felt and what they’re pretending never happened. This is future faking. It’s giving you just enough hope to keep you emotionally invested, but never enough follow-through to actually build anything real. To bring it back to the house analogy, it’s like they sketch out this beautiful renovation and promise the upgrades and lighting in this space, but when it’s time to show up and start the work, they disappear, leaving you in the same old house holding blueprints that were never meant to be followed.
Maybe it didn’t look toxic at first; maybe there were no screaming matches or obvious threats. Perhaps there were just quiet shifts, confusing moments, and little betrayals. It didn’t feel like betrayals at the time. That’s exactly why covert narcissism is so hard to see, because the damage doesn’t hit all at once. It builds slowly underneath the surface until one day you realize you’re exhausted, doubting yourself, and living in something that doesn’t feel safe anymore.
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