Understanding Self-Centeredness in People

If you have found yourself here reading this because you know someone who is totally self-centered and you don't know how to deal with them or you haven't made the realisation yet that they are self-centered, then I hope to help you navigate working it out.

If you are someone who has come to the conclusion that you yourself are very self-centered but you have realised that you want to change, I applaud you for your awareness and your desire to be a better person.

Self-centered people were more than likely bullied in the past and have a low self-esteem and may have never felt heard when growing up, they have had to create a life which revolves purely around themselves to keep the attention on themselves, because if for a moment they step out of their protective little circle, they fear they will disappear into the crowd and no one will ever notice them again.

Self-centered people will make absolutely every topic about them. If you are having a discussion about your own relationship about a sibling, instead of paying attention to what you are explaining, they will hear what you are saying but in their mind they will be referring to the topic as to how it affects them. If you were saying that you were having trouble with your sister borrowing your clothes, the self-centered person will immediately make it about them and ask "so I shouldn't let people borrow my clothes?". They hear what you are saying but can't help but make the reference about themselves.

If someone was upset with the service they received in a shop and as they walked out of a shop with a disgusted look on their face and they happened to walk past a self-centered person. The self-centered person would immediately say "did you see the way they looked at me?" when in actual fact the look had nothing to do with them.

Let's say someone owed some money to a self-centered person but they were having some trouble with their finances and were unable to pay them back. Instead of the self-centered person feeling empathy for the situation and giving them some time to pay back the money, they will instead make it all about them and how hard done by they are that they were so kind as to loan some money and not have it paid back. They will tell everyone how bad the other person is and explain how good they are. You will only hear the story from their side and even if the other person explained that the money would be returned, you won't hear that from the self-centered person, you will only hear how difficult this has been for them.

The self-centered person will always post social media posts about how some friends were helping them, to make a point to their other friends that only some people are thoughtful enough to pay them attention, this is a guilt trip created to make you feel bad that you have not been paying them attention. Their posts will always be about what they are doing or what they have achieved, they won't be posting about the success of others. When a self-centered person has you on their side they will continually remind you that you are one in a million and they can't live without you because that will keep you there They compliment you to feed their own needs, they don't like losing people out of their life, that scares them.

Self-centered people will always tell everyone that they are continually giving but never receiving, but you will always fail to see where they are giving. It is only something they have created in their own heads.

A self-centered person will also expect that you tell them everything about yourself and they have some sort of right to know everything, if you suddenly told them that you had been studying for the last 8 months and they were unaware of this, they will feel highly offended that you didn't share this information with them. They have a belief that they have a right to know everything about you.

So how do you deal with someone who is totally self-centered? Telling them outright that they are like this, won't work, they won't believe you, they have a perception of themselves that they are kind and giving and they can't see that they are selfish. If you can remove yourself from their space you are far better off, if you can't then each time they start to talk about themselves, cut them off by changing the subject. Or you could try and pull them up and make them accountable and say to them "why are you making this about you when it has nothing to do with you?" but the answer will probably be "I'm not" because they are never accountable for their behaviour. The longer that someone has been allowed to act in this manner the harder it is to get them to realise how self-absorbed they are. You must realise that they see the world as each person has to fight for their position in life and it comes from the need to learn to stand up for themselves, but they lost the balance and took it too far.

We all need to be selfish at times, we need our space, we need to distance ourselves from people and we need to look after ourselves but when you are operating from a place of making absolutely everything about YOU, then you have crossed the line. Self-centered people usually end up alone and their greatest fear is loneliness, they created a life to get attention and they end up creating the exact opposite of what they wanted, people deserting them