Sign number four: they are hyper-jealous of other people and envious in a bitter way. Now, I do have a little short on envy, and sometimes envy can be not the worst thing in the world if we feel a little bit of envy and it’s motivational for us to strive for something. Fine. But if we are envious in a way where it’s bitter and it’s like, ‘I should have that; they shouldn’t,’ and jealousy is similar—it’s like, ‘I want it, and I don’t want them to have it. I don’t want them to have everything.’ So, that kind of jealousy and bitter envy, the covert narcissist is filled with it. And again, the covert narcissist knows not to share this in public, not to share this at larger gatherings or social events where they want to impress somebody. They’re not going to share this, but they might share it, probably with you in your closer relationship. They can’t contain it. They’re always aware of rank, where they rank versus somebody else. And for covert narcissists who are female, there does tend to be a high emphasis on appearance, so how does that person look versus me, how fit are they, how in shape, and if somebody else has achieved more than them, they will put the other person down, again in private, by stating the reasons that they were lucky, or they had a disadvantage or that advantage, or somebody helped them, and comparing it to themselves where they had it much harder. They didn’t achieve that because of the difficulties in their life. The ‘oh, poor me’ and ‘I’m going to mention this again later,’ but this kind of martyr slash victim stance, ‘I do everything for everybody else,’ is one of the biggest signs of the covert narcissist. And I also want to point out that one reason it’s so hard to be in a close relationship with somebody who is bitter and envious of everybody else is that, particularly if you grow up with this, you begin to think that everybody thinks that way, so you begin to not trust other people because this person who you’re so close to truly isn’t trustworthy because they probably do this to other people, and then you see them being fake to that person, but hear what they say behind closed doors, and then you think, ‘Oh, everybody does that.’ But not everybody does that, and then they also might do it to you or in public, they praise you or talk about how great you are, but behind closed doors, they criticize you and belittle you. So, again, it just totally undermines your trust, not just in that person, but almost kind of in humanity, which is really unfortunate.
Sign number five: they tend to sabotage people in their relationships or work. I mean, they will sabotage somebody else’s relationship or somebody else’s work environment. So, I mean, there’s just so many examples of this, right? But if you have a coworker who’s a covert narcissist, like, just watch your back because, again, to your face, the narcissist might be totally sweet, charming, nice in that kind of weird way you’re not really sure of, but behind your back, they might go to extremes. They might lie to your boss about you or lie about some of your work habits or say they did something that you actually did, like, they’ll take credit for it, but it will be done purposefully to sabotage you and make other people not think you are doing a good job, it will make other people not trust you. I’ve worked with people where a covert narcissist has gone behind their back to talk to somebody that they’re dating and tell them complete lies to this new partner, and the new partner thinks this person’s sweet and nice and looking out for them. So then, the partner goes back to you and says, ‘I heard XYZ, and you did this stuff,’ and you’re like, ‘No, I never did that.’ Well, who are they going to believe? Because, of course, you’re not going to admit that because nobody would admit it because it’s really bad behavior. So, going behind your back and saying things to sabotage you, and if you observe somebody doing that to somebody else and they’re not yet doing it to you, red flag, watch out, it could happen to you, probably will if you stay in the relationship long enough.
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