The Avoidant NarcissistThe Avoidant Narcissist
Narcissism Recovery Podcast
Yitz Epstein explains how avoidant attachment can evolve into narcissistic abuse, breaking down key attachment styles and their impact on relationships. He outlines practical ways to heal these patterns, build secure attachment and step away from toxic dynamics.
18:31•21 Oct 2026
The Avoidant Narcissist and Attachment Styles: Why the Chase Hurts
Episode Overview
- Study your attachment style and recognise whether your patterns are anxious, avoidant or secure.
- Accept that attachment patterns can change and work consciously to develop more secure attachment.
- Be gentle and compassionate with yourself, seeing harmful patterns as learned survival strategies rather than personal defects.
- Learn to spot avoidant narcissists who project, blame and justify abuse, and understand their behaviour is about avoiding themselves.
- Allow uncomfortable change if healing your attachment style exposes or ends toxic relationships that were never truly healthy.
“Your attachment style is not written in stone, it fluctuates and vacillates.”
This episode dives deep into the challenges and pain of relating to an avoidant narcissist, with narcissistic abuse and relationship coach Yitz Epstein guiding the conversation. Drawing on the book *Attached* by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller, he breaks down three main attachment styles — secure, anxious, and avoidant — and then shows how avoidant attachment can slide into narcissistic abuse.
You’ll hear how anxious and avoidant partners often lock into a "toxic and dysfunctional dance" where one chases and the other pulls away, leaving both stuck in patterns learned in childhood. Yitz explains how protest behaviours, driven by fear of abandonment, can damage relationships, and how an avoidant narcissist turns this dynamic into exploitation and control.
What may look like confidence and emotional calm is, as he puts it, "actually completely disconnection from any emotional tolerance and bandwidth." A key message is that "your attachment style is not written in stone, it fluctuates and vacillates." Yitz stresses that even extreme anxious or avoidant patterns can change through awareness, responsibility and healing work.
He highlights the danger of avoidant narcissists who refuse to face themselves, live in "complete delusion," and punish anyone who triggers their abandonment wounds, often using gaslighting, coercive control and blame. For those recovering from trauma and abuse, Yitz emphasises being gentle with yourself, recognising these patterns as survival strategies from childhood, and learning secure attachment in safe relationships with friends, therapists, or guides.
He also speaks about building secure attachment with a higher power, so independence feels peaceful and you’re not shattered if a partner leaves. The episode closes by reminding you that as you heal your attachment style, some relationships may fall apart — and that this discomfort can be exactly what’s needed to move towards safer, healthier connections. So, how might your attachment style be shaping the relationships you’re in right now?
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