My name is Sam Vaknin, and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited.

The narcissist keeps discarded devalued sources of supply in reserve in kind of a mental warehouse.

The narcissist seeks out his old sources of narcissistic supply when he has absolutely no other narcissistic supply source at his disposal.

Narcissists frantically try to recycle their erstwhile and wasted sources in such a situation.

But the narcissist would not do even that had he not felt that he could still successfully extract a modicum of narcissistic supply from the old source.

He must realize that even negative supply is narcissistic supply, even to attack the narcissist is to recognize the narcissist’s existence and to attend to him.

So, contacting a devalued and discarded source of supply requires its re-idealization.

When he dumped and abandoned the old source, the narcissist devalued it. He convinced himself that the defunct source was low-quality, inferior, deficient, defective, hostile or otherwise not such a big loss.

But now what to do? He has to be in touch with such a source again.

So now the narcissist has to rekindle his appraisal and re-idealize the source without admitting to having been mistaken in the first place.

To preserve his grandiosity and sense of omniscience, the narcissist comes up with a narrative that accommodates both the devaluing content and the re-idealized image of the source.

Examples. In the devaluation phase, the narcissist may say, I am leaving her because she is abusive. In the re-idealization phase, the same narcissist says about the same devalued and discarded source of supply. She may have abused me, but she meant well. Whichever way she acted, it was with the best intentions in mind.

In the devaluation phase, the narcissist would say, I am highly intelligent and cannot maintain a relationship with a stupid person such as this woman. In the re-idealization phase, the narcissist would say, she may be naive and callable, but this renders her original and authentic.

A re-idealization of the devalued source.

So if you are an old source of narcissistic supply, first get over the excitement of seeing him again. It may be flattering. Perhaps sexually arousing.

Try to overcome these feelings.

Then, simply ignore the narcissist. Don’t bother to respond in any way to his offer to get together. If he talks to you, keep quiet, don’t answer. If he calls you, listen politely and then say goodbye and hang up. Return his gifts unopened.

Indifference is what the narcissist cannot stand. It indicates a lack of attention and interest that constitutes the kernel of a negative narcissistic supply which is to be avoided.

One should be careful not to romanticize the narcissist. His remorse and good behavior are always linked to fears of losing his sources.

Narcissists have no enemies. They only have sources of narcissistic supply. An enemy means attention. Attention means supply. So even an enemy can be a source of supply. One won’t sway over one’s enemy.

If the narcissist has the power to provoke emotions in you, then you are still a source of supply to him, even if these emotions are negative, like hatred or fear.

Regardless of which emotions the narcissist provokes, you are his supply source forever.