Being replaced by a narcissist is one of the most horrific things to have to endure. It doesn’t matter if the narcissist discarded you, or if you were the one to have extracted yourself from their grip, the effects are the same.
However, it can be quite a shock if you believe that the narcissist’s new supply is a downgrade, and I mean this in the most respectful way possible. It’s also important to note that ‘value’ and ‘beauty’ are completely subjective.
Let’s be honest, the new supply doesn’t actually realise yet that ‘supply’ is all that they are to the narcissist. They’re probably the type of person who’s kind, caring and believes everyone is generally good at heart. These are exactly the qualities narcissists seek out in the hopes of that person being easy to manipulate and quick to forgive of their abusive ways.
So, if narcissists are so focused on being with people who make them look good in terms of appearances, success, status etc., why would the narcissist’s new supply be a downgrade?
Well, the thing is, narcissists don’t think the way we do. Their brains are wired completely differently and they are motivated by very abstract reasons that would make zero sense to a healthy, logical person.
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Why Does a Narcissist Need Supply?
Narcissists are fractured souls who have severed their connection to the divine oneness (however you view that). They are no longer connected to the light.
Due to trauma when they were younger they were left feeling utterly worthless, broken, rejected and filled with shame. They absolutely despised the part of themselves that made them feel those things, so they discarded it.
With that, they ultimately cut off their own access to life force energy, which was via their true self. Without having any access to their true self, they no longer have the resources to experience empathy, compassion, kindness, love and authenticity.
They are a soul without a conscience.
Now all that the narcissist is left with is their ego running the show. The ego is a cruel master, which operates through greed, manipulation, scheming and coercion to feed its insatiable need to feel alive and important.
So, how does supply come into this? Well, in the place that used to house the narcissist’s true self, now sits a big gaping void, much like a black hole.
For the narcissist to avoid sinking down deep into that black hole, they must continuously feed their ego in order to survive and alleviate their inner torment.
The ego’s fodder is attention in all of its forms, which validates that it is truly as special and superior as it believes it is.
Attention for feeding the ego comes through:
- DRAMA – arguments, gossip, upheaval
- ADMIRATION – compliments, appearing successful
- FAME – status, being well-known
- CONTROL – having power over others
- SEX – power, acclaim for performing well
But of course, narcissists aren’t just going to get this much-needed attention all by themselves. They need others to supply it to them and for them.
Narcissistic supply, which is the attention given to a narcissist, is how the narc siphons life force energy from other souls. Life force is a drug for a narcissist and they simply cannot function in life without it.
When a narcissist is low on their drug, you will see the resentment and anger start to ooze out of their pores, as they scramble to find someone to extract it from.
| READ: Narcissistic Supply Explained → |
Why Would the Narcissist’s New Supply be a Downgrade?
‘People’ are to a narcissist what a ‘phone’ or ‘wallet’ is to us. They are a means to getting the resources they need and that’s it.
Once the phone or wallet is broken, you toss it out and get a new one.
Sometimes, we like to keep those things on a shelf in the cupboard, just in case the new one doesn’t work as well as we’d hoped. That way we can resort back to using the old one if need be. But ultimately, we are always looking to replace the old, used item with a new and exciting one.
As hard as it is to fathom, narcissists do not view people as autonomous beings with their own important hopes, dreams and desires. People are merely tools for them to feed their egos.
While the narcissist’s new supply downgrade may have you feeling even worse as you think, “They left me for them?!”
Maybe you feel that they’re not as attractive or intelligent as you, or perhaps they’re not as successful in their career or it doesn’t look like they’ve got much to offer.
The thing is, there’s got to be something in it of value for the narcissist, or they wouldn’t bother putting in so much energy towards love bombing the new supply. What that value is just isn’t evident to you because the narcissist is forever changing the goalposts on what they deem as valuable.
Even if the narcissist’s new supply is a downgrade, their motivations may not be what you thought they were.
They Need the Thrill of a New Chase
Narcissist’s get a huge amount of supply by feeling powerful. This includes being able to successfully control and bend others to their will.
If you resist the narcissist and they can manipulate you into going along with them, they’ve won and their ego gets fed. If they can manipulate you into crossing your own boundaries for them, again they gain supply from being able to control you.
The thrill of the chase and catching their prey makes a narcissist feel extremely important and powerful. The love bombing is exciting and while the new supply is all loved-up, they’re handing copious amounts of attention (supply) over to the narcissist.
The ego not only loves to win, but it must win in order to validate its own superiority. Hunting down new supply and coercing them into the palm of the narcissist’s hand is a power unto its own.
The narcissist’s new supply downgrade may just be a product of their seeking to ‘collect’ another source of supply for their shelf of trophies.
They Are Never Satisfied
Narcissists are forever changing what they want. The ego is never satisfied, therefore whenever the narc pursues something and gets it, they’ll immediately be looking for something different or better.
As long as the narcissist is gaining precious energy from the new supply, they couldn’t care less who they are as a person. They want (and expect) to be the centre of the new supply’s world. They want to be revered like a god and have the new supply 100% focussed on them and only them.
But eventually, the new supply is going to disappoint the narcissist, just like you did. Something will be said or done, which will cause a narcissistic injury and the narcissist will begin to devalue the new supply.
And once again, they will not be satisfied. They’ll take their new supply through their abuse cycle and probably discard them in place of another new supply and on it goes.
The narcissist’s new supply downgrade isn’t because they were seeking a better person than you, they were merely seeking a fresher source of their drug.
| READ: The Narcissistic Abuse Cycle → |
They Need Someone Fully Topped-Up
It’s all about supply and the fact is, as the narcissist devalues you and destroys your sense of self over time, you will become more and more depleted.
As the narcissist continues to make you feel like you’re not enough, you’ll be working harder and harder at trying to stack up to their forever-changing expectations. The more you give to the narcissist, the more they expect until there’s basically nothing left. You’re a mere shell of who you were before the narcissist came along and sucked you dry.
The narcissist has no empathy, nor do they see you as the beautiful soul that you are. All they care about is plugging into you and siphoning out your energy.
When your whole world is focused on the narc, you’re nervous system is fried as you walk on eggshells, trying not to set them off. You’ve completely lost touch with your own authentic self and struggle to be your own source of energy.
By this point, the narcissist is ready to discard you like yesterday’s trash and may already have another source of supply already waiting in the wings. They can sense when you’re weakening and need to be replaced.
The narcissist’s new supply downgrade may seem as such to you, however, that’s not how the narcissist views things. To them, the new supply is a fully topped-up source of energy who has the ability to adore the narcissist and give them Grade A narcissistic supply.
It’s nothing personal. They don’t like the new supply any more than you. Narcissists don’t particularly like anyone because people are merely pawns in their game.
| READ: Does the Narcissist Miss You? → |
They Need Someone More Submissive
Although many narcissists can come across as confident, self-assured people, the truth is, deep inside they are scared and insecure. The only way they know how to feel okay is to have complete and utter control of their outer world.
If you start to wise up to the narcissist or show too much independence within your own character, the narcissist will begin to fear that they cannot control you. Therefore, you must be discarded before you get the chance to reject or abandon them. That way they remain in control of the discard and the storyline that goes with it.
In this case, the narcissist’s new supply downgrade is actually someone who’s meeker than you. The narcissist needs someone who they can easily manipulate and degrade without too much opposition.
They Need Someone More Focussed On Them
The motto of a narcissist is, “me, me, me.” They do not want partners who are too preoccupied with their own lives to not be giving their full attention to them (the narcissist).
Narcissists need to be ADORED.
They don’t care who from, as long as they’re getting ATTENTION.
If you are too busy with your own hobbies, work, kids, pets, friends… anything other than the narcissist, they will manipulate you into handing more of yourself over to them.
This could be in the form of arguments, to get you so wrapped up in what they’ve said and done that you can’t focus on anything else. Or, they may create illnesses and dramas to monopolise your time.
However, if it becomes evident that you’re too focused on other things and not granting them your full attention at all times, they’ll replace you with someone else who will give them what they’re demanding.
| READ: Signs of a Narcissist Discard → |
They Don’t Want to be Outshone
I can remember that as a stay-at-home mum, as my kids began to get a bit older, I started my own business because I was driven to be doing something other than house duties. I also despised that my narc husband always held it over me that he earned the money, not me.
However, when I started pouring my everything into building a career and making my own money, he constantly devalued me. He’d bounce from, “You’re working too hard on your business,” to “When are you going to actually start making some money?”
Nothing I did was ever good enough and I was just running faster and faster on the treadmill to still be fully present at home as well as build a business (he never helped with the kids or housework).
Ultimately, he hated that I was growing stronger and more independent, meaning that he was at risk of being outshone and outranked (in his competitive view). He needed to be able to hold financials over me so that I was always ‘less’ than him. He also needed to constantly make me feel like I needed him, rather than the truth being the absolute opposite.
Many narcissists hate having partners who are successful in their careers because it means that the narcissist will not appear to be the best. They risk being outshone by their partner, which they cannot stand. In the narcissist’s world, they are the only one who deserves to be at the top of the pecking order.
So, the new supply downgrade will be because they want someone who’s actually less driven and, therefore, less likely to outshine them.
They Can’t Afford to be Picky
If you were the one to discard the narcissist, especially if it was unexpected, they may not have another supply ready to go. Get ready for the narcissist to rage at you, hoover you, threaten you and guilt you into staying (or coming back) to their abuse cycle.
Please don’t mistake all of their attention and ‘effort’ as love or thinking that they miss you. The narcissist just cannot risk having no supply on hand, so they will want you back while they’re busy seeking out someone else.
If you do go back, they will cruelly discard you as punishment for daring to leave them. Then they’ll smear your name to everyone you know and do whatever they can to ruin you.
However, if you’ve completely cut the narcissist off and caught them unprepared, they will be under pressure to find a new victim pronto! This is when the narcissist’s new supply may be a complete downgrade, but as long as they get their drug, they really don’t care. They’ll take what they can get.
| READ: What to Expect After No Contact → |
The Trauma of Witnessing New Supply
The day the narcissist’s new supply enters your awareness is the day you finally have to admit to yourself that they never truly cared about you at all. That is one of the hardest things to acknowledge, let alone accept.
No matter how a relationship ending goes down, people need time to heal and take stock. If they were able to move on and replace you, while you’re still trying to catch a breath, how could they possibly have cared as deeply about you as they’d claimed? It’s just not possible.
It’s not conceivable for a person who had a true emotional connection with their partner, to be flaunting new supply all over the place mere days or weeks after a breakup. Anyone with an ounce of conscience would not set out to intentionally hurt someone else so horrifically or publicly.
Maybe you were still in a relationship with them when they discarded you for somebody else. You may have even found out that they’d been cheating on you with the new supply for some time. It’s very common for narcissists to overlap their relationships because they like to make sure the new supply is secure before discarding the last.
This is where the narcissist totally reveals who they truly are, with their acts of intentional cruelty that go directly against the words they spin to try and paint a picture of perfection.
Whether you were the one to leave the narcissist or they were the one to have discarded you, having to see them with new supply is absolutely heart-wrenching.
A Piece of My Story
I left my abusive narcissist ex after being together for twenty years and sharing a few kids. As you can imagine, he totally lost control because he did not have any other supply lined up.
So he hoovered, threatened and manipulated hard to try and get me back into his abusive cycle. Even after his family left, he still felt like the ‘right’ and superior one and that it was all on me. One day he said to me, “Don’t think you just get to walk back in, it doesn’t work like that. You’ll have work to do to fix things.”
| READ: What is Narcissist Hoovering? → |
He flew into rages, played the victim, threatened that he wouldn’t be able to ‘show up for the kids’ if I did have sex with him, and told me that he’d never love anyone else because of me. You name it, he tried it.
Then one day, it all stopped.
Why? Because he’d found a new supply, so he didn’t need me anymore. Thank the supply Gods! I was over the moon that he’d have someone else to focus on and would (hopefully) leave me alone.
Well, that was all well and good until the second time my kids met the woman and she was already sleeping in the bed their Mum had been in just two months prior. My daughter came home crying one day because, as with any child whose parents separate, she was hoping we’d get back together. To disrespect me is one thing, but to disrespect his 10-year-old daughter who’s still trying to cope with her parent’s separation infuriated me.
Not knowing if I was going to have to see the new supply when I dropped the kids off and knowing that she’d be with my ex every time he picked them up was highly triggering for me. Then seeing the photos go up on social media of him, his new supply and my own kids out ‘living their best life’ was enough to push me over the edge.
It’s not that I wanted to be back with him. No way. In fact, I wouldn’t get back with him if he was the last man on Earth and the continuation of the entire human race depended on it.
However, seeing how quickly he replaced me after professing his undying love to me just weeks prior was the proof my brain needed to finally accept that he’s a pathological liar. It had me rerunning the past two decades in my head, trying to figure out what else he’d lied about along the way.
I remember one day when he was collecting the kids, he turned back and looked at me with pity, then grinned and walked off. It was as though he was saying, “See, I was always the amazing and desirable one. You could have had all of this, but you chose to leave.”
I wanted to vomit. Then I wanted to shake my fist at the sky and scream, “How is this fair, universe!?” How does he get to abuse me for two decades and then walk off with the car, the house and a new partner, while all I’m left with is debilitating trauma?
Healing the Trauma
About a year later my ex’s new supply had already left him. He no doubt had other ones along the way, but obviously hasn’t been able to hook them in permanently. The kids offer up snippets of information here and there, but I don’t enquire. Being a covert narc, he lacks the confidence and charm of a grandiose narcissist, so no doubt securing supply will only get harder for him as he gets older.
But by this point, my own trauma surrounding the relationship in its entirety was peaking. I realised that I had C-PTSD and my symptoms were getting worse as time went on, not better.
| READ: PTSD Symptoms from Narcissism → |
I was ready to try anything to help heal myself and take the pain away. So, I started working regularly with a spiritual medium, who was able to tap into the root causes behind everything. It was all about locating each trauma in my body and then shifting them out for good.
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Actually removing my deep inner wounds has been the only way I’ve found to fully heal from a lifetime of narcissistic abuse (yep, I was raised by a narcissist as well). You can talk about it all you want, but until you actually remove the trauma from your body and consciousness, you’ll remain stuck in that old paradigm forever.
The universe doesn’t reward self-sacrifice.
The idea that, “I’ve been a good person, surely I deserve some good karma now,” just isn’t how the universal laws work.
Quantum law says, “as within, so without.”
Basically, what this means is that whatever is going on within you, regarding your deep programmed beliefs and patterns, is what will show up in your outer world.
So, if you’re sitting there thinking, “People always hurt me,” then that’s exactly what will energetically continue to come your way.
However, it’s not enough to just change what you’re thinking. You have to change what your inner core truly believes. And that’s not going to happen until you’ve shifted out the old beliefs that do not serve your highest good.
Once you turn inward and pour all of your energy and focus into healing yourself, you’ll stop caring about whether the narcissist’s new supply is a downgrade or anything else that they are doing. It will simply become irrelevant to you because they are not a part of your reality any more.
The narcissist’s new supply will not even trigger you any more because you can fully accept the journey for what it is. You’ll know that the new supply is going to go through the same cycles of abuse that you went through. They will not get treated any better by the narcissist, in fact, they’ll probably get an even more cunning version of them.
Memory Journal
Release the painful memories of the narcissist once and for all!
- Journal recurring thoughts
- Sort through what’s yours vs. theirs
- Identify your inner wounds to heal
- Pass the narcissist’s disowned wounding back to them
- Step-by-step guidance
Posts About the Narcissist’s Supply
- The Narcissist’s New Supply
- Do Narcissists Treat Their New Supply Better?
- How Do Narcissists Treat Old Supply?
- Is the Narcissist’s New Supply a Downgrade?
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