They cannot recognise the importance or quality of your accomplishments. They cannot accept or admit the existence or truth of something that you have achieved successfully or an activity that you can do well. They are jealous. They feel anger or annoyance provoked by what is perceived as unfair treatment. They feel resentment towards you and your achievements, possessions or perceived advantages. They feel as though you are taking the spotlight away from them. They are also envious. They feel discontentment, aroused from your possessions, qualities or luck. They have a restless desire or craving for a possession, quality or other desirable thing belonging to you. This feeling of envy can often provoke them to want to sabotage your progress or success, or take something away from you.
They cannot acknowledge your success, especially when you are established in something significant or meaningful. Because they don't have any success of their own and they know that they do not have the capabilities or potential to produce anything significant or meaningful. They have to live through other people, they have to experience life in their imagination from the actions of another person who may be successful. They experience a vicarious pleasure by watching, listening to or reading about other people doing something, rather than by doing it themselves. That's the closest they will ever get to ever experiencing success, because they know they're not capable of establishing anything on their own.
Their happiness and contentment comes from other people. They will often try to triangulate them with you and try to make you feel inferior to this person. When all they're really doing is projecting their own feelings of envy and jealousy onto you. Because they are the ones that are envious and jealous of you and they have no success of their own. They're triangulating you with another person, because they don't make any progress of their own. They live vicariously through other people.
The narcissist will give you put downs or backhanded compliments. They will try to make you feel as though you're not as great as you are. But you need to recognise that it really has nothing to do with you. They are trying to project their negative emotions onto you. If you look at your life and then look at theirs, you will realise that you have so much more going on than they do. And yet they are putting you down and trying to make you feel inferior to them. If you look at your life and then look at theirs, you will realise why they do this and you will realise why they spend so much of their time looking at your life rather than their own. Because there isn't much to look at, there isn't much going on in their lives. They do everything they can to avoid looking at that because it's depressing. But they like to observe your life and they try to pick things apart and make you feel as though you're not as great as you are, because that's really how they feel.
They feel as though they could never be as great as you are. They're envious and jealous, that is why they have to try to bring in other people's achievements to project their feelings of envy and jealousy onto you. Because they're not doing anything in their lives, they have nothing else to do other than putting down someone who is trying to do something productive with their life. They are envious and jealous, because they're not about anything and they don't have anything going on in their own lives. They live through other people's success, they can't live through their own success because they don't have any. When they try to put you or give you backhanded compliments, it reveals just how envious they are and how bored and dissatisfied they are with their own lives.
They put all of their energy into hating you and hating on your success, instead of putting that into their own lives and trying to achieve something themselves. They choose to criticise other people, because they are not happy with their own lives. People who are happy with their own lives will acknowledge your success and they will compliment you. The narcissist might give you a fake compliment in the beginning, only to take it back and put you down later. Narcissists are very sad, pathetic people. They're always unhappy, they feel inadequate, so they have to go around trying to gain acceptance from other people to make themselves feel greater than what they actually are. Because on their own they feel like they're nothing, they have nothing of their own. Which is why they have to combine forces with other people in an attempt to defeat you. They join other groups of haters, they want to gain acceptance into these groups and it gives them a sense of belonging. But even that is fake, even that is something they are just doing for their own benefit. It gives them a social or professional position, but they cannot operate it on their own or from within.
The narcissist might put you down or give you backhanded compliments, but you need to recognise that you have achievements, qualities or possessions to be proud of. You have something that you have put time and effort into, you have accomplishments. You have things that you have achieved successfully and that is something that they most likely do not have, if they are hanging on to you, if they are envious and jealous of you. Most of these people are in dead-end jobs doing the same thing every day, every week, every month, every year and yet they still don't figure it out or understand. They never learn or grow from anything. Instead they boil up their frustration and resentment, which is a result of their own insufficiency and their own inability to deal with a situation or with life. And then they take it out on people who are successful, people who have achieved something, people that they are envious and jealous of.
The narcissist will worship people that they can use against you, people that they can use to make you feel inferior or insignificant. Usually these are people that they don't really know or people that they aren't around as often. You will find that what they are saying about them to you is very different from how they talk to them. But as long as they can paint the picture to you that someone else is superior or someone else has achieved more than you, it relieves their pain. They project their envy and jealousy onto you and usually the people who they are using against you aren't even as great or as accomplished as they say they are. It's all about painting the picture and making you believe something, it doesn't have to be true. Remember narcissists live in a fantasy world, they don't even respect reality. As long as they can get you to believe something, that's all that really matters, because then it makes it more believable for them.
When the narcissist has been around you and then you leave and create something greater, they have to try to bring you back down to their level. They are really envious, especially when you want nothing to do with them. If they had any real awareness or understanding, they would not react in that way. What they are doing is not right and they know that it is not right, but they can't stand to see you becoming something greater than them.
Don't let them tear you down, don't pay any attention or consideration to anything that they say. It's all based on their envy and jealousy, it says more about them than it does about you. Believe in yourself, validate yourself and don't let them affect you. They aren't about anything and they have nothing going on in their own lives. They are bored and dissatisfied with their own lives. They live vicariously through other people and watch other people's lives, because they are bored of their own.